His matter-of-fact manner put her at her ease, and she went on as though feeling the need of confiding in someone. "It wasn't as though--I mean, well, it was like this. Mr. Eastney and I have been friends for a long time--ever since I came to London. He's taken no end of trouble about my voice, and got me some very good introductions, and he's been more kind to me than I can say. He's absolutely music mad. It was very good of him to take me tonight. I'm sure he can't really afford it. And then Mr. Burns came up and spoke to us--quite nicely, I'm sure, and Phil, Mr. Eastney, got sulky about it. I don't know why he should. It's a free country, I'm sure. And Mr. Burns is always pleasant, and good-tempered. Then just as we were walking to the Tube, he came up and joined us, and he hadn't so much as said two words before Philip flew out at him like a madman. And--Oh! I don't like it."
"Don't you?" asked Mr. Satterthwaite very softly.
She blushed, but very little. There was none of the conscious siren about her. A certain measure of pleasurable excitement in being fought for there must be--that was only nature--but Mr. Satterthwaite decided that a worried perplexity lay uppermost, and he had the clue to it in another moment when she observed inconsequently, "I do hope he hasn't hurt him."
_Now which is "him"?_ thought Mr. Satterthwaite, smiling to himself in the darkness.
He backed his own judgment and said, "You hope Mr.--er--Eastney hasn't hurt Mr. Burns?"
She nodded. "Yes, that's what I said. It seems so dreadful. I wish I knew."
The car was drawing up.
"Are you on the telephone?" he asked.
"Yes."
"If you like, I will find out exactly what has happened, and then telephone to you."
The girl's face brightened. "Oh! that would be very kind of you. Are you sure it's not too much bother?"
"Not in the least."
She thanked him again and gave him her telephone number, adding with a touch of shyness, "My name is Gillian West."
As he was driven through the night, bound on his errand, a curious smile came to Mr. Satterthwaite's lips. He thought, _So that is all it is--"The shape of a face, the curve of a jaw!"_
But he fulfilled his promise.
* * * * *
The following Sunday afternoon, Mr. Satterthwaite went to Kew Gardens to admire the rhododendrons. Very long ago (incredibly long ago, it seemed to Mr. Satterthwaite) he had driven down to Kew Gardens with a certain young lady to see the bluebells. Mr. Satterthwaite had arranged very carefully beforehand in his own mind exactly what he was going to say, and the precise words he would use in asking the young lady for her hand in marriage. He was just conning them over in his mind, and responding to her raptures about the bluebells a little absent-mindedly, when the shock came. The young lady stopped exclaiming at the bluebells and suddenly confided in Mr. Satterthwaite (as a true friend) her love for another. Mr. Satterthwaite put away the little set speech he had prepared, and hastily rummaged for sympathy and friendship in the bottom drawer of his mind.
Such was Mr. Satterthwaite's romance--a rather tepid early Victorian one, but it had left him with a romantic attachment to Kew Gardens, and he would often go there to see the bluebells, or, if he had been abroad later than usual, the rhododendrons, and would sigh to himself, and feel rather sentimental, and really enjoy himself very much indeed in an old-fashioned, romantic way.
This particular afternoon he was strolling back past the tea houses when he recognized a couple sitting at one of the small tables on the grass. They were Gillian West and the fair young man, and at that same moment they recognized him. He saw the girl flush and speak eagerly to her companion. In another minute he was shaking hands with them both in his correct, rather prim fashion, and had accepted the shy invitation proffered him to have tea with them.
"I can't tell you, sir," said Mr. Burns, "how grateful I am to you for looking after Gillian the other night. She told me all about it."
"Yes, indeed," said the girl. "It was ever so kind of you."
Mr. Satterthwaite felt pleased and interested in the pair. Their naïveté and sincerity touched him. Also, it was to him a peep into a world with which he was not well acquainted. These people were of a class unknown to him.
In his little dried-up way, Mr. Satterthwaite could be very sympathetic. Very soon he was hearing all about his new friends. He noted that Mr. Burns had become Charlie, and he was not unprepared for the statement that the two were engaged.
"As a matter of fact," said Mr. Burns with refreshing candor, "it just happened this afternoon, didn't it, Gil?"
Burns was a clerk in a shipping firm. He was making a fair salary, had a little money of his own, and the two proposed to be married quite soon.
Mr. Satterthwaite listened, and nodded, and congratulated.
_An ordinary young man_, he thought, _a very ordinary young man. Nice, straightforward young chap, plenty to say for himself, good opinion of himself without being conceited, nice-looking without being unduly handsome. Nothing remarkable about him and will never set the Thames on fire. And the girl loves him._
Aloud he said, "And Mr. Eastney--"
He purposely broke off, but he had said enough to produce an effect for which he was not unprepared. Charlie Burns's face darkened, and Gillian looked troubled. More than troubled, he thought. She looked afraid.
"I don't like it," she said in a low voice. Her words were addressed to Mr. Satterthwaite, as though she knew by instinct that he would understand a feeling incomprehensible to her lover. "You see--he's done a lot for me. He's encouraged me to take up singing, and--and helped me with it. But I've known all the time that my voice wasn't really good--not first-class. Of course, I've had engagements--"
She stopped.
"You've had a bit of trouble too," said Burns. "A girl wants someone to look after her. Gillian's had a lot of unpleasantness, Mr. Satterthwaite. Altogether she's had a lot of unpleasantness. She's a good-looker, as you can see, and--well, that often leads to trouble for a girl."
Between them, Mr. Satterthwaite became enlightened as to various happenings which were vaguely classed by Burns under the heading of "unpleasantness." The young man who had shot himself, the extraordinary conduct of the bank manager (who was a married man!), the violent stranger (who must have been balmy!), the wild behavior of the elderly artist. A trail of violence and tragedy that Gillian West had left in her wake, recited in the commonplace tones of Charles Burns. "And it's my opinion," he ended, "that this fellow Eastney is a bit cracked. Gillian would have had trouble with him if I hadn't turned up to look after her."
His laugh sounded a little fatuous to Mr. Satterthwaite, and no responsive smile came to the girl's face. She was looking earnestly at Mr. Satterthwaite.
"Phil's all right," she said slowly. "He cares for me, I know, and I care for him like a friend--but--but not anything more. I don't know how he'll take the news about Charlie, I'm sure. He--I'm so afraid he'll be--"
She stopped, inarticulate in face of the dangers she vaguely sensed.
"If I can help you in any way," said Mr. Satterthwaite warmly, "pray command me."
He fancied Charlie Burns looked vaguely resentful, but Gillian said at once, "Thank you."
Mr. Satterthwaite left his new friends after having promised to take tea with Gillian on the following Thursday.
When Thursday came, Mr. Satterthwaite felt a little thrill of pleasurable anticipation. He thought, _I'm an old man--but not too old to be thrilled by a face. A face_--Then he shook his head with a sense of foreboding.
Gillian was alone. Charlie Burns was to come in later. She looked much happier, Mr. Satterthwaite thought, as though a load had been lifted from her mind. Indeed, she frankly admitted as much.
"I dreaded telling Phil about Charlie. It was silly of me. I ought to have known Phil better. He was upset, of course, but no one could have been sweeter. Really sweet he was. Look what he sent me this morning--a wedding present. Isn't it magnificent?"
It was indeed rather magnificent for a young man in Philip Eastney's circumstances. A wireless set of the latest type.
"We both love music so much, you see," explained the girl. "Phil said that when I was listening to a concert on this, I should always think of him a little. And I'm sure I shall. Because we have been such friends."
"You must be proud of your friend," said Mr. Satterthwaite gently. "He seems to have taken the blow like a true sportsman."
Gillian nodded. He saw the quick tears come into her eyes.
"He asked me to do one thing for him. Tonight is the anniversary of the day we first met. He asked me if I would stay at home quietly this evening and listen to the wireless program--not go out with Charlie anywhere. I said of course I would, and that I was very touched, and that I would think of him with a lot of gratitude and affection."
Mr. Satterthwaite nodded, but he was puzzled. He was seldom at fault in his delineation of character, and he would have judged Philip Eastney quite incapable of such a sentimental request. The young man must be of a more banal order than he supposed. Gillian evidently thought the idea quite in keeping with her rejected lover's character. Mr. Satterthwaite was a little--just a little--disappointed. He was sentimental himself, and knew it, but he expected better things of the rest of the world. Besides, sentiment belonged to his age. It had no part to play in the modern world.