The Philanderers written by A.E.W. Mason

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'There is,' replied Drake. 'I want to clear off arrears, because I am not
sure that I oughtn't to go out again to Matanga. You see I can do it
quite easily. Parliament meets in a fortnight to vote supplies. It will
adjourn, it's thought, three weeks later. I could leave England in
September, and get back easily in time for the regular sessions.'

'But why should you go at all?' asked Fielding. 'You haven't been back a
year as it is.'

'I know,' said Drake slowly. 'But it seems to me that it would inspire
confidence, and that sort of thing, if one of us were out there as much
as possible. You see, thanks to you and Burl, I can leave everything
here quite safely,' and he returned to his desk as though the discussion
was ended.

A week later he received an invitation to dinner from Mr. Le Mesurier,
and the invitation was so worded that he could find no becoming excuse to
decline it. The dinner was given, the note stated, in order to celebrate
his victory at Bentbridge. Fielding and he went together, and when they
arrived, they found Mallinson taking off his coat in the hall.

'Where have you been all this time?' asked Fielding. 'I haven't seen
you about.'

'At Clapham,' replied Mallinson.

'I don't know it.'

'It's a suburb to the south-west.'

'That's why.'

'My mother lives there.'

'I am very sorry.'

The words might have been intended to convey either an apology, or an
expression of sympathy with his mother. Mallinson preferred to take them
in the former sense. 'I took my wife down there,' he continued. 'She
wanted more quiet than one can get in London.'

Fielding noticed, however, that Clapham quiet had not materially
benefited Mrs. Mallinson. He commented on her worn appearance to Mrs.
Willoughby, when they were seated at the dinner-table.

'She has been staying, she tells me, with her husband's people,' replied
Mrs. Willoughby. 'I fancy she finds them trying.'

Clarice was placed next to Drake, upon the opposite side to Mrs.
Willoughby, and out of ear-shot, and was endeavouring to talk to him
indifferently. 'You never take a holiday, I suppose. Where are you going
this year?' she asked.

'To Matanga,' said Drake.

'Matanga! Oh no.' The words slipped from her lips before she was able to
check them.

'I think that my place is there,' returned Drake, 'at all events for the
moment. I shall go as soon as the House rises.'

'I thought you didn't mean to leave London again.'

'One gets over ideas of that kind. After all, my interests lie in
Matanga, and one gets a kind of affection for the place which makes
your fortune.'

The recantation was uttered with sufficient awkwardness. But Clarice was
too engrossed in her own thoughts to notice his embarrassment. 'Do you
remember when I first met you?' she asked. 'It was at a performance of
_Frou-Frou_.'

'I remember quite well,' said he. 'I was rather struck with the play.'

'I have been reading it lately.'

Drake started at the significant tone in which the words were spoken.
'Really?' he said, with an uneasy laugh. 'What impressed me was that
scene at Venice, where Gilberte and De Valreas read over the list of
plays in the Paris newspapers, and realise what they have thrown away,
and for how little. It seemed to me the saddest scene I had ever
witnessed.'

'Yes,' interposed Clarice quickly. 'But because Paris and its theatres
meant so much to them. I remember what you said, that everything in the
play seemed so true just to those characters, Gilberte and De Valreas.'

She glanced at him as she uttered the last name. Drake understood that
she was drawing a distinction between him and the fashionable lounger
of the play.

'Besides,' she went on, dropping her voice, 'Gilberte left a child behind
her. Her unhappiness turned on that.'

'In a way, no doubt, but the loss of friends, station, home, counts
for something--for enough to destroy her liking for De Valreas at
all events.'

'For De Valreas!' insisted Clarice. 'He was not worth the sacrifice.' She
paused for a moment, and then continued diffidently. 'There's something
else; I hardly like to tell you it. You wouldn't notice it from seeing
the play. I didn't; but it came to me when I read the book. I think the
play's absolutely untrue, yes, even to those characters, in one respect.'

'And what's that?' asked Drake.

Clarice glanced round. Her neighbours, she perceived, were talking.
Mrs. Willoughby was too far off to hear. She dropped her voice to a yet
lower key and said, 'They make the husband kill the lover in the duel.
It's always the end in books and plays; but really the opposite of that
would happen.'

Drake leant back in his chair and stared at her. 'What do you mean?'

'Hush!' she said warningly, and turning away she spoke for a little
to the man on the other side of her. Then she turned back. 'I mean,'
she said, 'if two people really care for one another, their love
would triumph over everything--everything. De Valreas would have
killed the husband.' She spoke with an intense conviction of the
truth of what she said.

'But, my dear child!' replied Drake. 'You--oh, you don't really
believe that.'

'I do,' she answered. 'You see, there are so few people who really care
for one another. If you find two who do, I am sure they would conquer,
whatever stood in the way.'

The conversation was interrupted, to Drake's relief, by Captain Le
Mesurier. He rose from the corner of the table to propose the health of
the guest of the evening. He said that he was proud to be represented in
Parliament by a man of Stephen Drake's calibre. If there was anything of
which he was prouder, it was the way in which the election had been
fought at Bentbridge. That election was the triumph not merely of a man
or a cause, but of a method; and that method was honesty and fair-play.
'We never indulged in personalities,' he continued, with shameless
sincerity. 'I have always myself been very strong on that point. Fight of
course for all you're worth, but never indulge in personalities. It's a
good rule. It's a rule that helped Stephen Drake to win his seat. We
followed it. We left the lies for the opponent to tell, and he told them.
But we never did and never will indulge in contemptible personalities.'

The Captain subsided to a gentle rapping of forks and spoons upon the
table, while Fielding said pointedly, 'Yes, Captain, you deserve your
holidays,' and he emphasised the word. The Captain caught the allusion
and laughed heartily. It was evident that he saw no inconsistency between
the epigram and his professed method of contesting an election.

Drake replied shortly, and the ladies retired. Mallinson moved round the
table, and seated himself in the chair which Clarice had left.

'Do you think of speaking at all during this session?' he asked.

'I am not quite sure,' replied Drake; 'but I rather think I shall on the
colonial vote. You see there's first-class wheat-growing land in Africa,
quite near to the west coast. We import practically all that we use in
England. Well, why shouldn't we import it from our own dominions?
Besides, the route would be so much safer in times of war, unless, of
course, we were at war with France. Ships could slip up the coast of
Africa, across the bay and into Plymouth with much less risk than if they
have to sail from the Argentines or some place like that. I believe, if
the Colonial Office could be induced to move in the matter, the idea
might be carried out. What do you think?'

Mallinson carelessly assented and returned to his seat.

For the remainder of the evening Drake avoided Clarice. As he was taking
his leave, however, she came up to him. He shook her by the hand and she
whispered one word to him, 'Matanga.' Drake could not mistake the note of
longing in her voice, and as he drove to his chambers the temptation with
which he had wrestled at the gates of Garples assailed him again, and
with double force. He had but to speak, he knew, and she would come. The
loneliness of his rooms made the struggle yet harder, yet more doubtful.
He pictured to himself what he had never had, a home, and he located that
home in Matanga. The arid plain blossomed in his imagination, for he saw
the weariness die out of Clarice's face.

He tossed restlessly through the night, until one thought emerged from
the turmoil of his ideas, fashioned itself into a fact, and stood framed
there before his eyes. He held the future of Clarice in the hollow of his
hand. Her fate rested upon his decision, and he must decide.

Drake rose and walked out on to the balcony, as the dawn was breaking
over London. A white mist was crawling above the Thames; he could see
a glimpse of the water here and there as the mist shredded. He turned
to the west and looked towards Westminster, recollecting how his name
and purposes had centred there as though drawn by a magnet. But in
that clear morning light they seemed unreal and purposeless. One
immediate responsibility invaded him, and, contrasted with that, his
ambitions dwindled into vanities. He filled no place, he realised,
which would be vacant unless he occupied it. He had to decide for
Clarice and solely for her.

Drake took up his hat and walked out of London to Elm Tree Hill. There,
gazing down upon its spires asparkle in the early sunlight, while the
city gradually awoke and the hum of its stirring began to swell through
the air, he came to his decision. Clarice belonged to London; he did not.
In Matanga she would be content--for how long? The roughness, the absence
of her kind and class, the makeshift air of transition, would soon
destroy its charm of novelty. Every instinct would draw her back to
London, and the way would be barred, whilst for him Matanga was a
province in which every capacity he possessed could find employment and
exercise. He would leave England for Matanga when this short session was
over; he would resign his seat and settle there for good. For if he
stayed in London, every step which he took, every advance which he made,
would only add to Clarice's miseries.

Thus he decided, and walked back with his mind at rest, without regret
for the loss of his ambitions, without, indeed, any real consciousness of
the sacrifice which he had it in his thoughts to make.

Thus he decided, but as he left his office on the afternoon of the day
whereon he was to make his speech in the House of Commons, Fielding
rushed up to him with a copy of the _Meteor_.

'Look!' he said, and pointed to an article. Drake took the paper and read
the article through. His face darkened as he read. The article had a
headline which puzzled Drake for a moment. It was entitled _The Drabious
Duke_, and it proceeded to set out the episode of Gorley's court-martial
and execution. The facts, Drake recognised, were not exaggerated, but the
sting lay in the suggestion with which it concluded.

'We have no doubt,' the leader-writer stated, 'that both the
court-martial and execution were in accordance with the letter of the
law, but, since Mr. Stephen Drake is now one of the legislators of this
country, we feel it our duty to submit two facts for the consideration of
our readers. In the first place we would call attention to the secrecy in
which the incident has been carefully shrouded. In the second, Gorley
undoubtedly secured a considerable quantity of gold-dust. Now, it is
perfectly well known that the Government of Matanga pays a commission on
all gold-dust brought down to the coast. We have gone into the matter
carefully, and we positively assert that no commission whatever was paid
in any such plunder during the two months which followed Mr. Drake's
return from Boruwimi. What, then, became of it? We ask our readers to
weigh these two facts dispassionately, and we feel justified in adding
that Mr. Drake would have been quite within his rights in showing
clemency to Gorley, or in bringing him back to undergo a regular trial.
However, he preferred to execute him on the spot.'

'He makes me out a thief and a murderer,' said Drake. 'I wonder where he
got the story from?'

Fielding answered slowly, 'I am afraid that I can throw some light on
that. I told Mallinson some time ago, before he was married.'

'Mallinson!' exclaimed Drake, stopping in the street. 'Oh, you think the
article comes from him?' Then he turned to Fielding. 'And how did you
know of it?'

'Well,' said Fielding with some hesitation, 'Mrs. Willoughby told me.'

'Why?'

'We neither of us, of course, knew you very well then. Mrs. Willoughby
had only just met you, and she didn't feel quite certain that Clarice
ought to be kept in ignorance of the matter, so she asked my advice.'

'Quite so,' answered Drake. 'I understand. You thought Clarice ought to
be informed, and you were right. I told her of the matter myself.'

'No,' exclaimed Fielding; 'I'll tell you the whole truth while I am about
it. I advised Mrs. Willoughby to say nothing, but I behaved like a damned
cad, and told Mallinson myself afterwards. I had quite another reason for
telling him.'

'Oh, never mind!' broke in Drake. 'The question is, what's to be
done now?'

'You must sue the paper!'

'Of course. I was thinking whether I couldn't mention the matter to-night
in the House of Commons. You see it has got into the papers that I mean
to speak, and perhaps I ought to make use of the opportunity.'

Fielding jumped at the idea. 'By Jove, yes,' he said. 'I should think, in
fact, the directors of the Company will rather expect it.'

They walked together until they reached the corner of Parliament Street;
there they stopped.

'I am awfully sorry, Drake,' said Fielding. 'I behaved like a
blackguard.'

Drake again cut him short. 'Oh, I don't see that. The thing looked fishy,
I don't doubt, and you weren't bound to me in any way. Good-bye,' and he
held out his hand with a cordial smile.

'Good-bye,' said Fielding, and they separated.

On reaching his flat Drake was informed that a lady was waiting to see
him. He crossed the passage and opened the door of his sitting-room. Mrs.
Mallinson was standing by the window.

CHAPTER XVI

She turned quickly as the door closed and took a step towards the centre
of the room. Drake perceived that she had a copy of the _Meteor_ in her
hand. 'You have seen this?' she asked.

'Yes.' He remained by the door with his hand on the knob.

'And you guessed who wrote it?'

'I have been told.' He answered her coldly and quietly.

'I know what you think,' she replied. 'But it's not true. I never told
him the story. He knew it long ago--before you went back to
Matanga--before I married him.' Her voice took a pleading tone. 'You will
believe that, won't you?'

'It never occurred to me that you had told him. I know, in fact, who did.
But even if you had--well, you had the right to tell him.' Clarice gave a
stamp of impatience. 'He is your husband.'

'My husband!' she interrupted, and she tore the newspaper across and
dropped it on to the floor. 'My husband! Ah, I wouldn't have believed
that even he could have done a thing so mean. And, to add to the meanness
of it, he went away yesterday, for a week. I know why, now; he dared not
face me.' Then of a sudden her voice softened. 'But it's my fault too, in
a way,' she went on. 'He knew the story a long time ago, and never used
it. I don't suppose he would have used it now, if I hadn't--since your
election--let him see--' She broke off the sentence, and took a step
nearer to Drake. 'Stephen, I meant to let him see.'

Drake drew himself up against the door. It would be no longer of any
service to her, he thought, if he left England and returned to Matanga.
Something more trenchant was needed.

He reflected again that he filled no place which another could not fill,
and the reflection took a wider meaning than it had done before. 'Yes,'
he said; 'it's very awkward that it should all come out just now.'

Clarice stared at him in perplexity. 'Awkward that it should all come
out,' she repeated vaguely; and then, with an accent of relief, 'You mean
that it will injure the Company?'

'Not so much that. The Company can run without me--quite well now--I am
certain of it.' He spoke as though he was endeavouring to assure himself
of what he said.

'But it won't hurt you, really,' she exclaimed. 'You can disprove the
charges, and of course you must, I know you hesitate--for my sake--to
bring an action and expose the writer. But you must, and I don't think,'
she lowered her eyes to the ground, 'you would hurt me by doing that.'
For a moment she was silent. Drake made no answer, and she raised her
eyes again to his face. 'You can disprove it--oh, of course,' she said,
with a little anxious laugh.

'That depends,' he answered slowly, 'upon how much the _Meteor_ knows.'

Clarice drew back and caught at the table to steady herself. Once or
twice she pressed her hand across her forehead. 'Oh, don't stand like
that,' she burst out, 'as if it was all true.'

'But they can't prove it's true,' exclaimed Drake, with a trace of
cunning in his voice. 'No; they can't prove it's true.'

'But is it?' Clarice stood in front of him, her hands clenched. Drake
dropped his eyes from her face, raised them again, and again lowered
them. 'Is it?' she repeated, and her voice rose to the tone of a demand.

'Yes,' and he answered her in a whisper.

Clarice recoiled from him with a cry of disgust. She noticed that he drew
a long breath--of relief, it seemed--like the criminal when his crime is
at last brought home to him. 'Then all that story,' she began, 'you told
me at Beaufort Gardens about--about Boruwimi was just meant to deceive
me. You talked about duty! Duty compelled you! You would have hanged
Gorley just the same had you known that he had been engaged to me.' She
began to laugh hysterically. 'It was all duty,--duty from beginning to
end, and I believed you. Heaven help me, I came to honour you for it. And
in reality it was a lie!' She lashed the words at him, but he stood
patiently, and made no rejoinder. 'I always wondered why you told me the
story,' she continued. 'You felt that I had a right to know, I remember.
And you felt bound to tell me. It's clear enough now why you felt bound.
You had found out, I suppose, that my husband knew--' She stopped
suddenly, as though some new thought had flashed into her mind. 'And I
came here to give up everything--just for your sake. Oh, suppose that I
hadn't found you out!'

She stooped and picked up from the floor the torn pages of the _Meteor_.
She folded them carefully and then moved towards the door. Drake opened
it and stood aside.

Clarice went out, called a hansom and drove home. When she arrived there
she ordered tea to be brought to the drawing-room and sat down and again
read the article in the _Meteor_. When the tea was brought, she ordered
it to be taken into Sidney's study. She walked restlessly about that
room, as though she was trying to habituate herself to it. A green shade
lay upon the writing-table, which her husband was accustomed to wear over
his eyes. She took it up, looked at it for a little, and then threw it
down again with an air of weariness and distaste. A few minutes later
Percy Conway called and was admitted.

CHAPTER XVII

Fielding opened his newspaper the next morning with unusual eagerness,
and, turning to the Parliamentary reports, glanced down column after
column in search of Drake's speech. The absence of it threw him into some
consternation. He tossed the newspaper on to the breakfast-table and rose
from his seat. As he moved, however, he caught sight of Drake's name at
the beginning of a leader, and he read the leader through. It dealt with
the accusation of the _Meteor_, and expressed considerable surprise that
Drake had not seized the opportunity of denying it in the House of
Commons. It was mentioned that Drake had not been seen there at any time
during the course of the evening.

Fielding jumped to the conclusion that he had met with an accident,
and set out for his chambers on the instant. He found Drake quietly
eating his breakfast. Only half the table, however, was laid for the
meal; the other half was littered with papers and correspondence,
while a pile of stamped letters stood on one corner. 'I was expecting
you,' said Drake quietly.

'Why, what on earth has happened?' asked Fielding. 'Why didn't you speak
last night?'

'I thought it would be the wisest plan to leave the matter alone.'

'But you can't,' exclaimed Fielding. 'Read this!' and he handed to him
the newspaper. 'You can't leave it alone.'

'I can, and shall,' replied Drake, and he returned to his breakfast.

'But, my dear fellow, you can't understand what that means! Read the
leader, then.' Drake glanced quickly down it. 'Now, do you understand? It
means utter ruin, utter disgrace, unless you answer this charge, and
answer it at once. You will have created a false enough impression
already.' Drake, however, made no response beyond a shrug of his
shoulders. 'But, good Lord, man,' continued Fielding, 'your name's at
stake. You can't sit quiet as if this was an irresponsible piece of
paragraph-writing. You would have to resign your seat in Parliament, your
connection with the Matanga Company--everything. You couldn't possibly
live in England.'

'Do you think I haven't counted up precisely what inaction is going to
cost me?' interrupted Drake. 'Look here!' and he took a couple of letters
from the pile and handed them to Fielding. One was addressed to the whip
of his party, and the other to the directors of the Matanga Concessions.
'And I leave Charing Cross at ten o'clock this morning.'

Fielding looked at his watch; it was half-past nine. 'Then you mean to
run away?' he gasped. 'But, in Heaven's name, why?'

'For an obvious reason. Yesterday I believed that I could meet the
charge. But something has happened since then, and I know now that I
can't.'

Fielding started back. 'Do you mean to tell me, as man to man, that the
accusation's true.'

'As man to man,' repeated Drake steadily, 'I tell you that it is true.'

Fielding stared at him for a minute. Then he said, 'Drake, you're a
damned liar.'

'We haven't much time,' said Drake, 'and I would like to say something to
you about the future of the Matanga settlement. You will take my place, I
suppose. You can, and ought to'; and he entered at once into details on
administration.

The advice, however, was lost upon Fielding. Once he interrupted Drake.
'How many white men were with you on the Boruwimi expedition?' he asked.

'Four,' answered Drake, and he gave the names. 'They are dead, though.
Two died of fever on the way back; one was killed in a subsequent
expedition, and the fourth was drowned about eighteen months ago off
Walfisch Bay.' A noise of portmanteaux being dragged along the passage
penetrated through the closed door. Drake looked at his watch, and
started to his feet. 'I must be off,' he said; 'I am late as it is. You
might do something for me, and that is to post these letters.'

'But, man, you are not really going?'

Drake for answer put on his hat and took up his stick. 'Good-bye,' he
said.

'But, look here! Do you ask me to believe that you would have been giving
me all this advice, if you had really done what that infernal paper makes
you out to have done?'

'I'll give you a final piece of advice too. Give up philandering and
get married!'

With that he opened the door and went out, and a few seconds later
Fielding heard the sound of his cab-wheels rattle on the pavement.

Drake, on reaching Charing Cross, found that he had more time to spare
than he had reckoned. He was walking slowly along the train in search of
an empty compartment when, from a window a few paces ahead of him, a face
flashed out, and as suddenly withdrew. The face was Conway's, and Drake
felt that the sudden withdrawal meant a distinct desire to avoid
recognition. He set the desire down to the unrepulsed attack of the
_Meteor_, and since he had no inclination to force his company upon
Conway, he turned on his heel and moved towards the other end of the
train. He was just opposite the archway of the booking-office when a
woman, heavily veiled and of a slight figure, came out of it. At the
sight of Drake she came to a dead stop, and so attracted his attention.
Then she quickly turned her back to him, walked to the bookstall, and
slipped round the side of it into the waiting-room. Drake wheeled about
again. Conway's head was stretched out of the window; and he was gazing
towards the bookstall.

Drake was in no doubt as to who the woman was, and he felt his heart turn
to stone. He walked quickly back until he reached Conway's compartment.
It was empty save for him, but there was a reserved label in the window.

'Holloa!' said Conway, awkwardly enough. 'Are you going by this train?
You had better find a seat if you are.'

'But I'm not,' said Drake; 'I thought of going, but I have changed my
mind.' He leaned against the door of the carriage chatting incessantly to
Conway, with an eye upon the waiting-room. Once he saw the woman appear
at the door, but she retired again. Meanwhile Conway's embarrassment
increased. He said 'Good-bye' to Drake at least half-a-dozen times, but
on each occasion Drake had something new to say to him. At last the
whistle sounded and the train began to move. 'I say,' cried Drake,
running along by the carriage. 'My luggage is in the van. You might bring
it back with you from Dover, if you will,' and he stood watching the
train until it disappeared under the shed.

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