Felix had grown used to his role of waiting, to his sense of everyyone being active except himself. There had been, in this attitude, he realized, a certain consoling fatalism. Events would proceed without his assistance upon their due course, and either he would quietly and inevitably get Ann — or he would not, in which case at least he would have nothing to reproach himself with. He would have much preferred whatever happened to happen under its own laws, far away from him, and for him to be able to stroll in when all had been completed. He had been all along, he realized, alarmed and repelled by the idea of anything approaching a public show-down between himself and Randall. He had been at every moment, afraid of not being secretive enough, fearful of somehow entangling himself to a point where something public would be unavoidable; and he could not help caring how he would look.
He wished heartily that Mildred had not consulted him. She had now given him, against his will, a glimpse of the machinery, and the pattern which was emerging, with what she wished him to think of as necessity, was the more alarming since it was also so attractive. It was an involvement indeed, but an involvement which precluded any confrontation of himself and Randall. With a Randall spectacularly, scandalously and definitively withdrawn, a Randall sought, branded and gone, he might at last approach Ann in a straightforward fashion. By the extraordinary device, invented after all by Randall himself, of which his sister had told him, it could be quickly and cleanly done, what might otherwise drag out hideously, what was in any case truely in the end inevitable. It was just that he would have preferred not to know; and in a way that was almost superstitious he felt that by thus forcing the pace he might lose what by a slower course of nature might more securely have been his.
Mildred was watching him, leaning back in the other comer of the window. She said slowly, 'Look, Felix. I might have let you off this. I might have advised Hugh as I pleased without telling you. But why should I let you off? Why shouldn't you take your share in this like the rest of us? Randall wants it. Hugh wants it. The result of it will be good. Neither you nor Ann are getting any younger. As for its having a nasty look, anything to do with Randall will have a nasty look. As far as I can see, all you object to is having to put even your little finger into the pie that you propose to eat.
Felix frowned at her and got off the window-seat. He found a cigarette, crumpling Marie-Laure's letter in the process. His consolation of honour, which Mildred saw as cowardice, seemed indeed a little tarnished. To be involved or not to be involved now seemed equally unsound, and he had a disconcerting vision of new shades of shabbiness in his behaviour. Lighting the cigarette, he lifted his head ond saw outside upon the gravel the very dark blue Mercedes, waiting.
He wondered if it was only an effect of Mildred's cleverness that it now seemed to him all one to be involved or not to be involved. For if it was indeed all one then he might as well do what he wanted; and with this thought there came suddenly a vision of himself as active, as able at last to do something Without secrecy, without indirectness, without dishonour. Then, dissolving all else, came the image of Ann: Ann, near, Ann attainable, Ann his. Darling, darling, darling Ann.
He threw his cigarette into the fireplace and said to Mildred 'All right.
'What does «all right» mean?
'It means advise Hugh as you think fit and count me in.
Mildred let out a sigh and got up. 'Thank you, Felix. She swept the debris of white flowers into the waste-paper basket.
Something in her now strangely dejected acceptance of his surrender reminded him of its significance for her. He had, for a moment, rather lost sight of their conflict of interests. He said, 'I'm being selfish, of course.
'Ah yes, she murmured, 'be selfish, be selfish, dear boy. It's your privilege after all, being younger and a man. It's still in front of you, the whole goddam business.
He said, 'God knows what is for the best.
'Doubtless. But now at least something will happen. Her head, thrown back to look up at her tall brother, she stroked her fluffy hair and caressed the soft skin beneath her eyes. She seemed now after the excitement of the argument, tired and flat, a frail old person cherishing herself.
He felt sorry for her. But he was already breathing a larger air.
Tonight he would say farewell to Marie-Laure. He said as dryly as he could so as not to offend her, 'Sorry, Mildred.
'I shall take my chance. Who knows?
'Quite, he said, as he drew her to sit down again and sat himself close beside her. With his new resolution, Mildred seemed suddenly eclipsed and the leadership of the conversation passed naturally to him. 'To begin with, Hugh may not take your advice.
'He will.
'And even if Hugh does take your advice, he may get nowhere with Emma.
'He'll have an open field. And Hugh tries»
'Randall may not clear off. And even if Randall does clear off, Ann may still not want to marry me.
'Here we go again!
'And even if Ann does want to marry me, she may feel she oughtn't to, on religious grounds, for instance.
'And even if-?
'And even if she doesn't feel she oughtn't to on religious grounds, she may feel she oughtn't to because of — Miranda.
'To the devil with Miranda, said Mildred. 'You're getting neurotic about that child. You must take the brat in your stride.
'She alarms me, said Felix. 'Who knows what is locked up inside a child, especially a child like that? She could oppose it passionately. She could refuse to let her father go.
Mildred looked at him wearily. She said, 'If you want Ann enough, you'll get her. You will have justice, Felix, you will have justice. And don't then complain of your lot. I think this is my last piece of advice to you before you go over the top. And now I must go and deal with Humphrey.
She went out into the darkening garden; and a little later Felix saw them Ann in Ann upon the lawn walking slowly up and down, an elderly pair of married people. As he smoked in the unlighted room cigarette after cigarette he heard the distant murmur of their voices. The sound went on without interruption through the long twilight and into the darkness.
Chapter Twenty-One
RANDALL pushed the cheque across the counter. The cashier, who was well trained, betrayed no interest or surprise. After all, most of their clients were men of substance. Randall, less well trained, could not control his face, which burst intermittently into nervous beaming as at the jerk of a string.
The Tintoretto, sent promptly to Sotheby's, had been purchased by the National Gallery, who outbid several American dealers, to the satisfaction of the cultivated public. It had reached a suitably high figure. Randall received Hugh's cheque on the following day.
Out in the street now, Randall walked along in a daze, fingering the paying-in slip in his pocket. He had a sense of liberation so total that he almost staggered. It was as if he had grown to some enormous size and at the same time everything solid, every resistance, had been removed. He floated in the air like a huge undirected balloon. He wanted nothing.
He did not even want to see Lindsay. He had a luxurious, positively. Oriental, sense of having Lindsay stored away; but he did not want to see her. She had in any case, with a sort of pudeur, arranged to be out of London at the moment of the crime, like a great lady who delicately and fastidiously absents herself from a scene of violence which she has ordered. Violence it was, and Randall loved every moment of it.