A trifling incident, soon after her return, gave her the opportunity to test her own reactions. She went down to Ascot, in company with a witty young woman writer and her barrister husband-partly for fun and partly because she wanted to get local color for a short story, in which an unhappy victim was due to fall suddenly dead in the Royal Enclosure, just at the exciting moment when all eyes were glued upon the finish of a race. Scanning those sacred precincts, therefore, from without the pale, Harriet became aware that the local colour included a pair of slim shoulders tailored to swooning-point and carrying a well-known parrot profile, thrown into prominence by the acute backward slant of a pale-grey topper. A froth of summer hats billowed about this apparition, so that it resembled a slightly grotesque but expensive orchid in a bouquet of roses. From the expressions of the parties, Harriet gathered that the summer hats were picking long-priced and impossible outsiders, and that the topper was receiving their instructions with an amusement amounting to hilarity. At any rate, his attention was well occupied.
“Excellent,” thought Harriet; “nothing to trouble about there.” She came home rejoicing in the exceptional tranquility of her own spirits. Three days later, while reading in the morning paper that among the guests at a literary luncheon-party had been seen “Miss Harriet Vane, the well-known detective authoress”, she was interrupted by the telephone. A familiar voice said, with a curious huskiness and uncertainty:
“Miss Harriet Vane?… Is that you, Harriet? I saw you were back. Will you dine with me one evening?”
There were several possible answers; among them, the repressive and disconcerting “Who is that speaking, please?” Being unprepared and naturally honest, Harriet feebly replied:
“Oh, thank you, Peter. But I don’t know whether…”
“What?” said the voice, with a hint of mockery. “Every night booked from now till the coming of the Coqcigrues?”
“Of course not,” said Harriet, not at all willing to pose as the swollen-headed and much-run-after celebrity.
“Then say when.”
“I’m free tonight,” said Harriet, thinking that the shortness of the notice might force him to plead a previous engagement.
“Admirable,” said he. “So am I. We will taste the sweets of freedom. By the way, you have changed your telephone number.”
“Yes-I’ve got a new flat.”
“Shall I call for you? Or will you meet me at Ferrara ’s at 7 o’clock?”
“At Ferrara ’s?”
“Yes. Seven o’clock, if that’s not too early. Then we can go on to a show, if you care about it. Till this evening, then. Thank you.”
He hung up the receiver before she had time to protest. Ferrara ’s was not the place she would have chosen. It was both fashionable and conspicuous. Everybody who could get there, went there; but its charges were so high that, for the present at least, it could afford not to be crowded. That meant that if you went there you were seen. If one intended to break off a connection with anyone, it was perhaps not the best opening move to afficher one’s self with him at Ferrara ’s.
Oddly enough, this would be the first time she had dined in the West End with Peter Wimsey. During the first year or so after her trial, she had not wanted to appear anywhere, even had she then been able to afford the frocks to appear in. In those days, he had taken her to the quieter and better restaurants in Soho, or, more often, carried her off, sulky and rebellious, in the car to such roadside inns as kept reliable cooks. She had been too listless to refuse these outings, which had probably done something to keep her from brooding, even though her host’s imperturbable cheerfulness had often been repaid only with bitter or distressful words. Looking back, she was as much amazed by his patience as fretted by his persistence.
He received her at Ferrara ’s with the old, quick, sidelong smile and ready speech, but with a more formal courtesy than she remembered in him. He listened with interest, and indeed with eagerness, to the tale of her journeyings abroad; and she found (as was to be expected) that the map of Europe was familiar ground to him. He contributed a few amusing incidents from his own experience, and added some well-informed comments on the conditions of life in modern Germany. She was surprised to find him so closely acquainted with the ins-and-outs of international politics, for she had not credited him with any great interest in public affairs. She found herself arguing passionately with him about the prospects of the Ottawa Conference, of which he appeared to entertain no very great hopes; and by the time they got to the coffee she was so eager to disabuse his mind of some perverse opinions about Disarmament that she had quite forgotten with what intentions (if any) she had come to meet him. In the theatre she contrived to remind herself from time to time that something decisive ought to be said; but the conversational atmosphere remained so cool that it was difficult to introduce the new subject.
The play being over, he put her into a taxi, asked what address he should give the driver, requested formal permission to see her home and took his seat beside her. This, to be sure, was the moment; but he was babbling pleasantly about the Georgian architecture of London. It was only as they were running along Guilford Street that he forestalled her by saying (after a pause, during which she had been making up her mind to take the plunge):
“I take it, Harriet, that you have no new answer to give me?”
“No, Peter. I’m sorry, but I can’t say anything else.”
“All right. Don’t worry. I’ll try not to be a nuisance. But if you could put up with me occasionally, as you have done tonight, I should be very grateful to you.”
“I don’t think that would be at all fair to you.”
“If that’s the only reason, I am the best judge of that.” Then, with a return of his habitual self-mockery: “Old habits die hard. I will not promise to reform altogether. I shall, with your permission, continue to propose to you at decently regulated intervals-as a birthday treat, and on Guy Fawkes Day, and on the Anniversary of the King’s Accession. But consider it, if you will, a pure formality. You need not pay the smallest attention to it.”
“Peter, it’s foolish to go on like this.”
“And, of course, on the Feast of All Fools.”
“It would be better to forget all about it-I hoped you had.”
“I have the most ill-regulated memory. It does those things which it ought not to do and leaves undone the things it ought to have done. But it has not yet gone on strike altogether.”
The taxi drew up, and the driver peered round inquiringly. Wimsey handed her out and waited gravely while she disentangled her latchkey. Then he took it from her, opened the door for her, said good-night and was gone.
Mounting the stone staircase, she knew that, as far as this situation was concerned, her flight had been useless. She was back in the old net of indecision and distress. In him, it appeared to have worked some kind of change; but it had certainly not made him any easier to deal with.
He had kept his promise, and troubled her very little. He had been out of Town a good deal, hard at work upon cases, some of which trickled through into newspaper columns, while others appeared to settle themselves in discreet obscurity. For six months he had himself been out of the country, offering no explanation except “business.” One summer, he had been involved in an odd affair, which had led him to take a post in an Advertising Agency. He had found office life entertaining; but the thing had come to a strange and painful conclusion. There had been an evening when he had turned up to keep a previously-made dinner appointment, but had obviously been unfit either to eat or talk. Eventually he had confessed to a splitting headache and a temperature and suffered himself to be personally conducted home. She had been sufficiently alarmed not to leave him till he was safely in his own flat and in the capable hands of Bunter. The latter had been reassuring: the trouble was nothing but reaction-of frequent occurrence at the end of a trying case, but soon over. A day or two later, the patient had rung up, apologized, and made a fresh appointment, at which he had displayed a quite remarkable effervescence of spirits.