Acting on Impulse Read online

  There was no doubt about it—Maurice was attracted. During the days that followed he looked on her with mingled awe and admiration; and sometimes Helen thought that she could see a puzzled gleam in his eyes. He treated her as though she were made of sugar, which irked her exceedingly. They went for sedate little walks on tarred roads, and if a spot of rain fell, Maurice, absurdly anxious, hurried Helen homewards. He seemed always to expect her to be tired, and several times she almost let her mask fall, because she wanted so much to tell him not to be a fool. He drove her out in her car sometimes, and that was not all joy for Helen. She yearned to say: “Look here, old thing, I love you, you’re the dearest person in the world, but you don’t know a thing about cars.” But it was quite impossible to say anything of the sort, especially as she was not at all sure that Maurice still loved her. Her love for him choked her; for once, in her independent life, she hungered to feel his arms about her, and his kisses on her mouth. It did not happen. Maurice was tender, and solicitous, and admiring, but he seemed to hold himself aloof, watching her. Once he said:

  “I don’t expect the sort of house I’m after would be much in your line. You’re a town bird, aren’t you?”

  She wasn’t. She only lived in London because of her loneliness. She wanted “his sort of house,” with dogs, and horses, and a garden to tend.

  He went to look at Airedale pups, and took her with him. He was not familiar with the breed and Helen, in impotent wrath, watched him select a hopeless specimen and listen guilelessly to the breeder’s eulogies. Helen held herself in check, but her impulse was to say a few illuminating words. Instead, she murmured:

  “It seems rather a lot to give. Perhaps you’ll find one less expensive.”

  She couldn’t bear to see Maurice be swindled. Luckily he decided to think the matter over before purchasing the pup.

  She had been with the Derings for three weeks when Maurice heard of a house for sale. It seemed to be just what he desired, and as it was possible to motor there and back in a day, they arranged to go over to look at it, lunching on the way, and arriving home in time for dinner. Everything was planned when Anne, worried over the slow progress of the matchmaking, developed an intangible ailment, and declared that she did not feel “up to it.” Don, blindly obeying orders, refused to go without her, and it seemed as though the expedition must fall through. But Anne insisted that Maurice and Helen should go, and after a great deal of argument Helen agreed.

  MAURICE took Helen in her own car, wrapped her in many rugs, although the day was very mild. They lunched at a little inn on the way, and arrived at the house about four in the afternoon. It was all that was most beautiful, a long, low Tudor building set in big grounds, with a rose garden, a pleasaunce, a small farm, and tennis courts. They wandered all over it, enchanted, and could hardly bear to tear themselves away. But it was growing late and they had had no tea. They reluctantly went in search of a confectioner, and wasted fully an hour there discussing the house. Then Maurice saw that it was already six o'clock, and sprang up.

  “Oh, Helen, this is too bad of me! I’m afraid we shan’t get back till nine, and Anne said eight o’clock dinner. I’m so sorry!”

  “It doesn’t matter a bit,” she replied. “I’ve so enjoyed it. We’d better be going now, though.”

  “I’m afraid you’ll be very tired,” he said worriedly. “Do you mind having dinner on the way?”

  “Not a bit; I should love it,” she said truthfully.

  They drove back through the fast gathering dusk, and presently the darkness came, and Maurice, looking at the clock before him, under its little light, said:

  “It’s nearly eight. I think we’ll stop at the first decent inn we see. Are you quite warm?”

  The words were hardly out of his mouth when there were sundry strange sounds from the car’s interior, and they stopped in the middle of the deserted road. After a moment Maurice got out.

  “Something’s rather wrong,” he said “I didn’t think she was running very well this morning. I say, I am sorry, Helen!”

  “What is it?” she asked. A note of anxiety had crept into her voice, for this car was the pride of her heart.

  “I don’t know,” said Maurice, and groped in the engine. “Can’t see. Have you a torch?”

  “Left hand—er—I expect there is one in one of the pockets,” Helen said, clinging to her role of helpless female. Maurice came and looked for it, and drew it forth triumphantly.

  “Good! Now we shall see!”

  He clicked the switch of the torch, and it was evident that they were not going to see at all. A frown was gathering in Helen’s eyes.

  “Of all the rotten luck!” said Maurice disgustedly. “The battery has run down.”

  And then something seemed to snap in Helen. She forgot all about her pose, and cast the rugs from her, and stepped out into the road.

  “That,” she said crisply, “is what comes of letting that fool of a chauffeur mess about with the car. I might have known it.”

  Maurice stood transfixed with amazement, staring at this suddenly transformed woman. Helen did not see his surprise. She flung off her coat and hat and demanded a match.

  “Just come and hold it for me,” she said. “In all the years I’ve driven a car never once have I come out without a spare battery. Hold the match there, will you?”

  Meekly he obeyed. He hid his astonishment, for fear of chasing this old, dear Helen away. A wild elation filled him; he wanted to hug her as he had never wanted to hug the immaculate woman who had taken her place.

  She dived into the car, and her capable hands groped here and there. Out she came, and strode to the switchboard. Then she came back again, and once more disappeared into the bonnet. When she again emerged her hair was awry, and a large smudge of grease adorned one cheek.

  “No good, I can’t see!” she said curtly. “Give me a cigarette!”

  MAURICE began to shake with inward merriment; he handed Helen his cigarette-case, and watched her sit down on the step of the car. Helen smoked rather violently for a minute.

  “This is the most putrid luck,” she presently announced. “Any ideas?”

  “One only. Push the car to the side of the road.”

  “Righto!” said Helen, and got up.

  They pushed the car as he suggested, and all the time Maurice thought: “Helen has come back!”

  “Now,” he said, “I think you'd better tuck yourself up inside while I go to the nearest village and get some sort of a convenience.”

  Helen stared at him in the light of the car lamps.

  “What did you say I’d better do?”

  “Get inside, and keep warm. You’ll be quite—”

  “Now, I ask you, Maurice, does that elegant little scheme sound like me?” she demanded.

  Maurice spoke deliberately.

  “It sounds remarkably like the you I’ve known for the past three weeks," he said.

  There was a sudden, frozen silence. Helen gulped, reddened, and turned away, horribly uncomfortable.

  “Explanations, please,” said Maurice sternly, but she saw his eyes were dancing.

  “I shall not explain anything,” she said with dignity.

  “Oh, won’t you? Shove on your coat and come along!”

  “I believe I’ll wait for you as — as you suggested,” she said.

  “I don’t. Do buck up!”

  Helen put on her coat, jammed the luckless hat on her head, and set out beside Maurice. They strode down the road for some way in silence.

  “What I want to know first,” said Maurice, “is this: what was the meaning of Rupert Arden?”

  A low chuckle came from beside him.

  “Oh, he hasn’t much meaning,” Helen answered.

  “Why did you get engaged to him?”

  “Well he had his points. Not at all a bad sort of creature. Only I got bored with him. Didn’t know one end of a dog from the other. Which reminds me. That Airedale pup. No good at all. Bad quarters, no bone, t