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Lunching with George Oakleigh, he met Deganway who had neither news to impart nor questions to ask; at dinner Mrs. Shelley observed with sublime innocence: "You must have been disappointed not to be able to come the other night. Barbara was there, and it was she who told me you were ill." The next day brought no tidings, and Eric had to exert all his strength to keep from writing.
"I've discussed the nightly takings of a theatre with Ettrick," he whispered, when Manders arrived at half-past eleven as vigorous and high-spirited as if he had just got out of bed; "the Dardanelles expedition with Gaisford, the plays of Synge with George Oakleigh, 'The Bomb-Shell' with Vincent Grayle, memories of Jessie Farborough with Deganway, 'The Bomb-Shell' with Grierson, Ibsen with Harry Greenbank, and 'The Bomb-Shell' with Donald Butler.
And Gerald Deganway, who never missed a first night, simpering falsetto congratulations.
O'Rane and Colonel Grayle; Lady Poynter and Gerry Deganway; Lady Maitland and one of her boys. . . . He started and drew farther back, though he was already concealed by the curtains. Barbara had come in with George Oakleigh. They were standing in the gangway, waiting to be shewn their seats.
Gerald Deganway would be simperingly sympathetic. "Poor you!" There's a body of three-pound-a-week gentlemen in Fleet Street who'd enforce a real blockade, 'leave it to the Navy, don't you know, all that sort of thing.
The music came to an end, and Gerald Deganway gave imitations of the various ministers whom he had served as private secretary. Eric looked across the room and identified Barbara leaning against the piano. She was better, happier; and he had grown to be very fond of her. So long as they met daily without marrying, he shirked deciding whether he wanted to marry her.
At luncheon the Duchess of Ross had complained that no one would give her a chance of meeting young Eric Lane; Gerald Deganway had murmured, "One poor martyr without a lion"; and, as Deganway was incapable of originating anything, Lady Poynter felt that she was not infringing any copyright in recording the jest against that day when Eleanor Ross tried to steal any more of her young men the moment she had put a polish on them and made them known. . . .
As they turned into the gangway, Jack stared slowly round him and raised his eye-brows in faint surprise when he caught sight of Barbara. They exchanged bows, she held out her hand; Colonel Waring was introduced, and Deganway excused himself. A moment later the colonel bowed a second time and withdrew. Barbara pointed to the empty seat by her side, and Jack stepped across her into it.
Jack Waring and O'Rane, Loring and Deganway always seemed to regard him as a harmless eccentric who wrote unacceptable plays for his own amusement. . . . The hair-brushing completed, he put on a dressing-gown and crossed the hall to his smoking-room for the sherry and cigarette.
The pleurisy developed four days after Christmas, and Eric had not seen Barbara since the night of their sick-room dinner. A week after they reached the Riviera, he heard a story, traced without difficulty to Gerald Deganway, that Lord Crawleigh had spirited Barbara away from the danger of a mésalliance.
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