The Drunkard

"Oh, how perfectly sweet! Take me to the Empire."

As they stood upon the steps of the restaurant and the commissionaire whistled up a cab, Gilbert spoke to Rita in a low, husky voice.

"We ought to get there in time for the ballet," he said, "because it is the most perfect thing to be seen in Europe, outside Milan or St. Petersburg. But we've ten minutes yet, at least. Shall I tell him to drive round?"

"Yes, Gilbert."

The taxi-meter glided away through the garish lights of the Strand, and then, unexpectedly, swerved into Craven Street towards the Embankment.

Almost immediately the interior of the cab grew dark.

Gilbert put his arm round Rita's waist and caught her hand with his. He drew her closer to him.

"Oh, my love!" he said with a sob in his voice. "My dear little Love; at last, at last!"

She did not resist. He caught her closer and closer and kissed her upon the cheeks, the eyes, the low-falling masses of nut-brown, fragrant hair.

"Turn your face to me, darling."

His lips met hers for one long moment.

.. He hardly heard her faint-voiced, "Gilbert, you mustn't." He sank back upon the cushions with a strange blankness and emptiness in his mind.

He had kissed her, her lovely lips had been pressed to his.

And, behold, it was nothing after all. It was just a little girl kissing him.

"Kiss met Kiss me again!" he said savagely. "You must, you must! Rita, my darling, my darling!"

She pressed her cool lips to his once more – how cool they were! – almost dutifully, with no revolt from his embrace, but as she might have kissed some girl friend at parting after a day together.

All evil, dominant passions of his nature, hidden and sleeping within him for so long, were awake at last.

He had held Rita in his arms. Yet, whatever she might say or do in her reckless school-girl fashion, she was really absolutely innocent and virgin, untouched by passion, incredibly ignorant of the red flame which burned within him now and which he would fain communicate to her.

"Are you unhappy, dearest?" he asked suddenly.

"Unhappy, Gilbert? With you? How could I be?"

And so daring innocence and wicked desire drove on through the streets of London – innocence a little tarnished, ignorance no longer, but pulsing with youth and the sense of adventure; absolutely unaware that it was playing with a man's soul.

The girl had read widely, but ever with the hunger for beauty, colour, music, the sterile, delicate emotions of others. One of the huge facts of life, the central, underlying fact of all the Romance, all the Poetry on which she was fed, had come to her at last and she did not recognise it.

Gilbert had held her in his arms and had kissed her. It was pleasant to be kissed and adored. It wasn't right – that she knew very well. Ethel would be horrified, if she knew. All sorts of proper, steady, ordinary people would be horrified, if they knew. But they didn't and never would! And Gilbert wanted to kiss her so badly. She had known it all the time. Why shouldn't he, poor boy, if it made him happy? He was so kind and so charming. He was a magician with the key of fairyland.

He made love beautifully! This was the Dance of the Hours!

The cab stopped in front of the Empire. Led by a little page-boy who sprung up from somewhere, they passed through the slowly-moving tide of men and women in the promenade to their box.

For a little space Rita said nothing.

She settled herself in her chair and leaned upon the cushioned ledge of the box, gazing at the huge crowded theatre and at the shifting maze of colour upon the stage. She had removed the long glove from her right hand and her chin was supported by one white rounded arm. A very fair young Sybil she seemed, lost in the vague, empty spaces of maiden thought.

Gilbert began to tell her about the dancers and to explain the ballet. She had never seen anything like it before, and he pointed out its beauty, what a marvellous poem it really was; music, movement, and colour built up by almost incredible labour into one stupendous whole. A dozen minor geniuses, each one a poet in his or her way, had been at work upon this triumphant shifting beauty, evanescent and lovely as a dream painted upon the sable curtains of sleep.

She listened and seemed to understand but made little comment.

Once she flashed a curious speculative look at him.

And, on his part, though he saw her lovelier than ever, he was chilled nevertheless. Grey veils seemed to be falling between him and the glow of his desire, falling one by one.

"Surgit amari aliquid?" – was it that? – but he could not let the moment escape him. It must and should be captured.

He made an excuse about cigarettes, and chocolates for her, and left the box, hurrying to the little bar in the promenade, drinking there almost furiously, tasting nothing, waiting, a strange silent figure with a white face, until he felt the old glow re-commencing.

It came. The drugged mind answered to the call, and he went back to the box with light footsteps, full of riotous, evil thoughts.

Rita had withdrawn her chair into the box a little.

She looked up with a smile of welcome as he entered and sat down by her side. She began to eat the chocolates he had brought, and he watched her with greedy eyes.

Suddenly – maid of moods as she was – she pushed the satin-covered box away.

He felt a little white arm pushed through his.

"Gilbert, let's pretend we're married, just for this evening," she said, looking at him with dancing eyes.

"What do you mean, Rita?" he said in a hoarse whisper.

The girl half-smiled, flushed a little, and then patted the black sleeve of his coat.

"It's so nice to be together," she whispered. "I am so happy with you. London is so wonderful with you to show it to me. I only wish it could go on always."

He caught her wrist with his hot hand. "It can, always, if you wish," he said.

She started at the fierce note in his voice. "Hush," she said. "You mustn't talk like that." Her face became severe and reproving. She turned it towards the stage.

The remainder of the evening alternated between wild fits of gaiety and rather moody silences. There was absolutely nothing of the crisp, delightful friendship of the drive to Brighton. A new relation was established between them, and yet it was not, as yet, capable of any definition at all.

She was baffling, utterly perplexing. At one moment he thought her his, really in love with him, prepared for all that might mean, at another she was a shy and rather dissatisfied school girl. The nervous strain within him, as the fires of his passion burned and crackled, was intense. He fed the flame with alcohol whenever he had an opportunity.

All the old reverence and chivalry of that ideal friendship of which he had sung so sweetly vanished utterly.

A faint, but growing brutality of thought came to him as he considered her. Her innocence did not seem so insistent as before. He could not place her yet. All he knew was that she was certainly not the Rita of his dreams.

Yet with all this, his longing, his subjection to her every whim and mood, grew and grew each moment. He was absolutely pervaded by her. Honour, prudence, his keen insight were all thrust away in the gathering storm of desire.

They had supper at a glittering palace in the Haymarket. In her simple girlish frock, without much adornment of any sort, she was the prettiest girl in the room. She enjoyed everything with wild avidity, and not the least of the exhilarations of the night was the knowledge – ripe and unmistakable now – of her complete power over him.