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diff --git a/37584-8.txt b/37584-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b24a70d --- /dev/null +++ b/37584-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9748 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Crooked Mile, by Oliver Onions + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Crooked Mile + +Author: Oliver Onions + +Release Date: October 1, 2011 [EBook #37584] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CROOKED MILE *** + + + + +Produced by Judith Wirawan, Suzanne Shell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + + + + + + + + + + A CROOKED MILE + + + BY THE SAME AUTHOR + THE EXCEPTION + GOOD BOY SELDOM + THE TWO KISSES + + + + + A CROOKED MILE + + BY + + OLIVER ONIONS + AUTHOR OF "THE TWO KISSES" + + + METHUEN & CO. LTD. + 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. + LONDON + + _First Published in 1914_ + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PART I + + CHAP. PAGE + + I THE WITAN 1 + + II THE POND-ROOM 17 + + III THE "NOVUM" 33 + + IV THE STONE WALL 51 + + V THREE SHIPS 76 + + VI POLICY 98 + + + PART II + + I THE PIGEON PAIR 119 + + II THE 'VERT 132 + + III THE IMPERIALISTS 148 + + IV THE OUTSIDERS 171 + + V "HOUSE FULL" 189 + + VI THE SOUL STORM 210 + + + PART III + + I LITMUS 239 + + II BY THE WAY 254 + + III _DE TROP_ 274 + + IV GREY YOUTH 285 + + TAILPIECE 307 + + + + +A CROOKED MILE + + + + +I + +THE WITAN + + +Lady Tasker had missed her way in the Tube. She had been on, or rather +under known ground on the Piccadilly Railway as far as Leicester Square, +but after that she had not heard, or else had forgotten, that in order +to get to Hampstead by the train into which she had stepped she must +change at Camden Town. Or perhaps she had merely wondered what Camden +Town supposed itself to be that she should put herself to the trouble of +changing there. With the newspaper held at arm's length, and a little +figure-8-shaped gold glass moving slightly between her puckered old eyes +and the page, she was reading the "_By the Way_" column of the +"Globe."--"All change," called the man at Highgate; and, still +unconscious of her mistake, Lady Tasker left the train. She was the last +to enter the lift. But for an unhurried raising of the little +locket-shaped glass as the attendant fidgeted at the half-closed gate +she might have been the first to enter the next lift. + +Only from the policeman outside Highgate Station did she learn that she +must either take the Tube back again to Camden Town or else walk across +the Heath. + +Now Lady Tasker was seventy, and, with the exception of the Zoo, a place +she visited from time to time with troops of turbulent great-nephews, +the whole of North London was a sort of Camden Town to her, that is to +say, she had no objection to its existence so long as it wasn't +troublesome. It was half-past three when she said as much to the +Highgate policeman, who up to that time had been an ordinary easy-going +Conservative; by five-and-twenty minutes to four she had made of him a +fuming Radical. He was saying something about South Square and Merton +Lane. Lady Tasker addressed the bracing Highgate air in one of those +expressionless and semi-ventriloquial asides that, especially in a mixed +company, always made her ladyship very well worth sitting next to. + +"Merton Lane! Does the man suppose that conveys anything to me?.... I +want to know how to get to Hampstead, not the names of the objects of +interest on the way!" + +The newly-made Radical told her that there might be a taxi on the rank, +and turned away to cuff the ears of an urchin who was tampering with an +automatic machine. It was a wonder that Lady Tasker's glare, focussed +through the gold-rimmed glass on a point between his shoulder-blades, +did not burn a hole in his tunic. + +Taxis at eightpence a mile, indeed, with the house at Ludlow already +full of those children of Churchill's, and three of Tony's little girls +eating their way through the larder in Cromwell Gardens, and young +Tommy, Emily's boy, who had just "pulled" his captaincy, arriving at +Southampton in the "Seringapatam" on Saturday with another batch for her +to take under her wing! Did people suppose she was made of money?... + +The policeman's tunic was just beginning to scorch when Lady Tasker, +dropping the glass, turned away and set out for Hampstead on foot. + +She might very well have been excused had she omitted to return Mrs. +Cosimo Pratt's call. Indeed she had vowed that very morning that nothing +should drag her up to Hampstead that day. But for twenty times that Lady +Tasker said "I will not," nineteen she repented and went, taking out the +small change of her magnanimity when she got there. And after all, she +would be killing two birds with one stone, for her niece Dorothy also +lived somewhere in this northern Great Karroo, and unless she got these +things over before the "Seringapatam" dropped anchor on Saturday there +was no knowing when next she would have an hour to call her own. As she +turned (after a brush with a second policeman, who summed her up quite +wrongly on the strength of her antiquated pelisse and trailing old +Victorian hat) down Merton Lane to the ponds, she told herself again +that she was a foolish old woman to have come at all. + +For the Cosimo Pratts were not bosom friends of hers. True, they had +been, until six months ago, her neighbours at Ludlow, and for that +matter she had known young Cosimo's people for the greater part of her +life: but she had not forgotten the hearty blackguarding the young +couple had got, any time this last two years, from the rest of the +country-side. Small wonder. What else did they expect, after the way in +which they had made farm-labour too big for its jacket and beaters +hardly to be had for love or money? Not that Lady Tasker herself had +seen very much of their antics. Great-nieces and nephews had kept her +too busy for that, and she was moreover wise enough not to believe all +she heard. And even were it true, that, she now told herself, had been +in the country. They would have to behave differently now that they had +let the Shropshire house and had come to live in town. They could hardly +dance barefoot round a maypole in Hampstead, or stage-manage the yearly +Hiring-Fair for the sake of the "Daily Speculum" photographer (as they +had done in Ludlow), or group themselves picturesquely about the feet of +the oldest inhabitant while that shocking old reprobate with the +splendid head recited (at five shillings an hour) the stories of old, +unhappy, far-off things he had learned by heart from the booklets they +had printed at the Village Press. No: in London they would almost +certainly have to do as other people did, and Shropshire, after its +three years of social and artistic awakening, would no doubt forget all +about the ćsthetic revival and would sink back into a well-earned rest. + +It was a Thursday afternoon in September, warm for the time of the year, +and a half-day closing for the shops. Had Lady Tasker remembered the +half-holiday she certainly would not have come. She hated crowds, and, +if you would believe her, had no illusions whatever about the sanctity +of our common nature and the brotherhood of man. She would tell you +roundly that there was far too much aimless good-nature in the world, +and that every sob wasted over a sinner was something taken away from +the man who, if he was a sinner too, had at least the decency to keep up +appearances. And so much for brotherhood. Great-nephewship, of course, +was another matter. Somebody had to look after all those youngsters, and +if her sister Eliza, the one at Spurrs, went into a tantrum about every +bud that was picked in the gardens and every chair-leg that was an inch +out of its place in the house, so much the worse for Lady Tasker, who +must walk because she had something else to do with her money than to +waste it on taxis. + +She had been told by her niece Dorothy to look out for a clump of tall +willows and an ivied chimney; that was where the Pratts lived; but +Dorothy had spoken of the approach from the Hampstead side, not from +Highgate way. Lady Tasker got lost. She was almost dropping for want of +a cup of tea, and the Heath seemed all willows, and all the wrong ones. +No policeman, Radical or Conservative, was to be seen. Walking across an +apparently empty space, well away (as she thought) from a horde of +shouting boys, the old lady suddenly found herself enveloped in a game +of football. This completed her exhaustion. Near by, one of Messrs. +Libertys' carts was ascending a steep road at a slow walk; somehow or +other Lady Tasker managed to get her hand on the tail of it; and the car +gave her a tow. She was seventy after all. + +As it happened, that was her first piece of luck in a luckless +afternoon. The cart drew on to the left; Lady Tasker trailed after it; +and suddenly it stopped before a high privet hedge with a closed green +door in the middle of it. Lady Tasker did not look for the ivied +chimney. On the door was painted in white letters "The Witan." She was +where she wanted to be. + +Ordinarily Lady Tasker would have approved of the height of the privet +hedge, which was seven or eight feet; that was a nice, reassuring, +anti-social height for a hedge; but as it was she could not even put up +her hand to the bell. The carter rang it for the pair of them. Over the +hedge came the low murmur of voices and the clink of cups and saucers, +and then the door was opened. It was opened by the mistress of the +house. No doubt Mrs. Pratt had expected the cart, had heard its drawing +up, and had not waited for a maid to come. Her eyes sought the carman, +who had stepped aside. She spoke with some asperity. + +"It's Libertys', isn't it?" she said. "Well, I've a very good mind to +make you take it back. It was promised for yesterday." + +"Can't say, I'm sure, m'm." + +"It's always the same. Every time I----" + +Then she saw her visitor, and gave a little start. + +"Why, it's Lady Tasker! How delightful! Do come in! And do just excuse +me--I shan't be a minute.... Why didn't this come yesterday? It was +promised faithfully----" + +She stepped outside to scold the carman, leaving Lady Tasker standing +just within the green door. + +The altercation was plainly audible: + +"Very sorry, m'm. You see----" + +"I will see, if it occurs again----" + +"The orders is taken as they come, m'm----" + +"They said the first delivery----" + +"We wasn't loaded till one o'clock----" + +"That's none of my business----" + +"Very sorry, m'm----" + +"Well, the next time it occurs----" + +And so forth. + +Now in reading what happened the next moment you must remember that Lady +Tasker was very, very tired. Had she been less tired she might have +wondered why one of the two maids she saw crossing to the tea-table +under the copper beech had not been allowed to take in Mrs. Cosimo +Pratt's parcel. And she would certainly have thought it extraordinary +that she should be left standing alone while Mrs. Cosimo Pratt scolded +the carrier, and wanted to know why the parcel had not been brought +yesterday. But, tired as she was, her eyes had already rested on +something that had momentarily galvanized even the weariness out of her. +It was this:-- + +Seven or eight people sat in basket-chairs or stood talking; and, under +the copper beech, as if Mrs. Pratt had just slid out of it, a hammock +of coloured string still moved, slung from the beech to a sycamore +beyond. Lady Tasker saw these things at once; she did not at once see +what it was that stood just beyond the hammock. + +Then it moved, and Lady Tasker raised her glass. + +No doubt you have seen the cover of Mr. Wells's "Invisible Man." It will +be remembered that all that can be seen of that afflicted person is his +clothes; and all that Lady Tasker at first saw of the Invisible Man by +the copper beech was his clothes. These were of light yellow tussore, +with a white double collar and a small red tie, sharp-edged white cuffs +and highly polished brown boots. At collar and cuffs the man ended. + +And yet he did not end, for the lenses of a pair of spectacles made +lurking lights in the shadow of the beech, a few inches above the white +collar. + +The phantom wore no hat. + +Then Lady Tasker, suddenly pale, dropped her glass. Between the collar +and the spectacles a white gash of teeth had appeared. The Invisible Man +had smiled, and at the same moment there had shown round the bole of the +beech a second smoky shape, this one without teeth, but with white and +mobile eyes instead. + +Lady Tasker was in the presence of two Hindoos. + + * * * * * + +Now all her life, and long before her life for that matter, Lady Tasker +had been accustomed ... but no: that is not the way to put it. The +following table will save many words:-- + + +PORTION OF TREE OF THE LENNARDS AND TASKERS +(COMMENTS BY LADY TASKER) + +Tasker, Sir Richard, 3rd Bart.; Lennard, "Old John," "Spurrs," + "The Brear," Ludlow Montgomery + +("Good old family? I don't know ("Can't say I like the striking family + about the 'good,' but they're resemblances you meet up and down the + certainly old.") valley; when you ask at a cottage-door + | for a glass of milk and see that nose----") + | | + | | + +---------+-----------+ +------+-----+-----+-----+--------+--------+ + | | | | | | | | | +Lucy Arthur Noel, == GRACE Susan Dick; Emily; Trixie; Eliza; + | | 4th Bart.; (Lady | m. Ada m. Tony | _unmarried_ + | ("Don't ask me d. 1900 Tasker) | Polperro: Woodgate, | ("Black + | how he got into _No issue_ | Woods and P.F.F. | pugs.") + | the India Office!") | Forests, | | + | | | 1873; | m. Sid Dealtry +("The Brear was | | d. 1886 | ("The groom, my +always open to | | | | dear, and far too +her, but of course | | | | good for her.") +if she _preferred_ | | | | | +to stay away----") | | | Hard-up young | + +====+==================+ | captains and ("Those children + | | subalterns of Trixie's: + Stanhope =====+============ Dorothy | colonies, assisted + | | passages: I rather + 1. Noel Crowds of like the chauffeur + ("They called him Anglo-Indian one: hope he + that to please me: babies, Lady marries well.") + innocents!") Tasker's charges | + 2. Jack | + 3. (See page 133) ("Can't keep + count. I + remember all the + birthdays, I can, + but----") + +You see how it was, and had to be. Not only was Lady Tasker insular, +arrogant, and of opinion that Saint Paul made the mistake of his life +when he set out to preach the Gospel to all nations, but she made a +virtue of her narrowness and defect. Show her a finger-nail with a +purple half-moon, and you no longer saw a charming if acid-tongued old +English lady, who cut timber in order to pay for governesses for those +grandchildren of Emily's and sent, under guise of birthday gifts, useful +little cheques to the descendants of her brother-in-law the groom. Babu +or Brahmin, all were the same to her. No defence is offered of an +attitude so indefensible. Such people do still exist. Let us sigh for +their narrowness of mind, and pass on. + +The smile of the first Hindoo was for Mrs. Pratt, who had got her row +with the carman over and had reappeared behind Lady Tasker and closed +the door of The Witan again. Her face, pretty and finished as a +miniature, and the great chestnut-red helm of her hair, showed over the +slant of the box in her arms. "Do excuse me, just _one_ moment!" she +said, smiling at Lady Tasker as she passed; and she ran off into the +house, her mistletoe-berry white robe with its stencilling of grey-green +whipping about her heels as she did so. And fortunately, as she ran in +at the door, Cosimo Pratt came out of the French window, saw Lady +Tasker, and strode to her. He broke into rapid and hearty speech. + +"You here! How delightful!--Amory!--I didn't hear you come! So kind of +you!--Amory, where are you?--How are you? Do let me get you some +tea!--Amory!----" + +Lady Tasker spoke faintly.--"I should like," she said, "to go into the +house." + +"Rather! Hang on to my arm.--Amory! Where is that girl?--Sure you won't +have tea outside? I can find you a nice shady place under the beech----" + +Lady Tasker closed her eyes.--"Please take me in." + +"Tube headache? I hate the beastly thing. I thought you were in Ludlow. +Charming of you----" + +And he led Lady Tasker into the house. + +This was a low building of stucco, with slatted window-shuts which, like +the sashes of the slightly bowed French window and of the two windows +beyond, were newly painted green. This painting seemed rather to +emphasize than to mitigate a certain dogseared look the place had, not +amounting to dilapidation, but enough to make it probable that Cosimo +Pratt had taken it on a repairing lease. The copper beech, the high +privet hedge and the willows beyond it, shut out both light and air. The +fan-lighted door had two electric bell buttons, with little brass +plates. The upper plate read, "Mr. Cosimo Pratt"; the lower one "Miss +Amory Towers (Studio)." + +But Lady Tasker noticed none of these things. In the hall she sank into +the first chair she came to. "Tea, please," she said faintly; and Cosimo +dashed out to get it. He returned, and began to murmur something +sympathetic, but Lady Tasker made a little movement with her hand. She +didn't want him to "send Amory." She only wanted to rest her tired legs +and to collect her dispersed thoughts. + +An eight-foot hedge, not to shut the populace out, but to shut Indians +in! And she, Lady Tasker, had been kept standing while some parcel or +other had been taken into the house--standing, and watching a +still-moving hammock with a smiling Invisible Man bending over it! Was +this England, or a Durbar?... And even yet her hostess didn't come to +ask her if she felt better!... Not that Lady Tasker was greatly +surprised at that. She knew that Mrs. Pratt was quite capable of +reasoning that the greatest respect is shown to a tired old lady when no +fuss is made about her tiredness. The Pratts were like that--full of +delicacies so subtle that plain folk never noticed them, but jumped +instead to the conclusion that they were bad-mannered. And it would not +in the least surprise Lady Tasker if, presently, Mrs. Pratt allowed her +to leave without a word about her indisposition. Of course: Lady Tasker +had a little forgotten the Pratts at Ludlow. That would be it: +"Good-bye--and do come again!" She could see Mrs. Pratt's pretty +brook-brown eyes did anybody (say a Japanese or an Ethiopian) point out +this so-called omission to her. She could see the surprise in them. She +could hear her earnest voice: "_Say_ these things!... Why, does she +suppose I was _glad_ then?"... + +Yes, Lady Tasker had a little forgotten her Pratts. + +It was an odd little hall in which she sat. It appeared to be an +approach to the studio of which the electric bell gave notice, for it +was continued by a narrower passage that led to a garden at the back; +and either the studio "properties" were gradually thrusting the hatstand +and hall table out of the fan-lighted front door, or else these latter +ordinary and necessary objects were fighting as it were for admission. +Thus, the chair on which Lady Tasker sat was of oak, but it had a +Faust-like look; beyond it stood a glass-fronted cupboard of +bric-ŕ-brac, with a trophy of Abyssinian armour hanging over it; and the +whole of the wall facing Lady Tasker was hung with a tapestry which, if +it had been the only one of its kind in existence, would no doubt have +been very valuable. And two other objects not commonly to be seen in +ordinary halls were there. One of these stood on the narrow gilt console +table next to Lady Tasker's cup of tea. It was a plaster cast, taken +from the life, of a female foot. The other hung on the wall above it. +This also was a plaster cast, of the whole of a female arm and shoulder, +ending with a portion of the side of the neck and the entire breast--of +its kind an exquisite specimen. Many artists make or buy such things, +but Brucciani has nothing half so beautiful. + +It was as Lady Tasker finished her tea that her gaze fell on the two +casts. Half negligently she raised her glass and inspected, first the +foot, and then the other piece. It is probable that her first remark, +uttered in a casual undertone to the air about her, was prompted by mere +association of ideas; it was "Hm! I wonder if Mrs. Pratt nursed those +twins herself!" Any other reflection that might have followed it was cut +short by a sudden darkening of the doorway by which she had entered. +Mrs. Pratt stood there. Lady Tasker had been wrong. She _had_ come to +ask if she felt better. She did ask her, gathering up long swathes of +some newly unpacked white material she carried over her arm as she did +so. + +"Sorry you were done up," she remarked. "Won't you have some more tea?" + +Already Lady Tasker was rising.--"No more, thank you.--I was just +looking at these. What are they?" She indicated the casts. + +The gesture that Mrs. Pratt gave she could probably no more have helped +giving than an eye can help winking when it is threatened with a blow. +Within one mistletoe-white sleeve an arm moved ever so slightly; very +likely a foot also moved within a curiously-toed Saxon-looking white +slipper; and she gave a confused and conscious and apologetic little +laugh. + +"Oh, those silly things!" she said deprecatingly. "I really must move +them. But the studio is so full.... Do you know, it's a most horrid +feeling having them done--first the cold plaster poured on, and then, +when they take it off again--the mould--you know----" + +Lady Tasker plainly did not understand. Perhaps she did not yet even +apprehend.--"But--but--," she said, "they're from a statue, aren't +they?" + +Again Mrs. Pratt gave the pleased bashful little laugh. It was almost as +if she said it was very good of Lady Tasker to say so. + +"No, they're from life," she said. "As a matter of fact they're me, but +I really must move them; they aren't so remarkable as all that.... Oh, +you're not going, are you?----" + +For Lady Tasker had given a jump, and a movement as sudden and sprightly +as if she had only that moment got freshly out of her bed. Nervously she +put out her hand, while her hostess looked politely disappointed. + +"Oh, and I was hoping you'd come and join us in the garden! We've Brimby +there, the novelist, you know--and Wilkinson, the young Member--and Mr. +Strong, of the 'Novum'--and I should so much like to introduce Mr. +Suwarree Prang to you----" + +"Oh, thank you so much--," sprang as effusively from Lady Tasker's lips +as if she had been a schoolgirl allowed for the first time to come down +to dinner, "--it's so good of you, but really I half hoped you'd be out +when I called--I only meant to leave cards--I'm going on to see my +niece, and really haven't a moment----" + +"Oh, I'm sure Dorothy'd excuse you for once!----," Mrs. Pratt pressed +her. + +"Oh, she wouldn't--I'm quite sure she wouldn't--she'd never forgive me +if she knew I'd been so near and hadn't called," said Lady Tasker +feverishly.... "How do I get to Dorothy's from here?" + +"Oh, Mr. Wilkinson will take you, or Mr. Prang; but are you sure you +won't stay?" + +Lady Tasker was so far from staying that she was already out of the hall +and walking quickly towards the green door in the eight-foot hedge. +"Thank you, thank you so much," she was murmuring hurriedly. "I don't +see your husband anywhere about--never mind--so good of +you--good-bye----" + +"Come again soon, won't you?" + +"Yes, yes--oh, yes!... No, no, please don't!" (Mrs. Pratt had made a +half-turn towards the hammock and the copper beech). "Straight across +the Heath you said, didn't you? I shall find it quite easily! Don't come +any further--good-bye----" + +And, touching Mrs. Cosimo Pratt's extended fingers as timorously as she +might have touched those of the cast itself, she fairly broke into a +run. The door of The Witan closed behind her. + + + + +II + +THE POND-ROOM + + +The truth was not very far to seek: Lady Tasker was too old for these +things. Nobody could have expressed this more effectively than Mrs. +Cosimo Pratt herself, had it entered the mind of Mrs. Pratt to conceive +that any human soul could be so benighted as the soul of Lady Tasker +was. "Those casts!" Mrs. Pratt might have cried in amazement--or rather +Miss Amory Towers might have cried, for there is nothing in the Wedding +Service about making over to your husband, along with your love and +obedience, the valuable goodwill of a professional name. "Those poor +casts!... Of course they may not be _very_ beautiful--," here the +original of the casts might have modestly dropped her eyes, "--but such +as they are--goodness me! How _can_ people be so prurient, Cosimo? Don't +they see that what they really prove has nothing at all to do with the +casts, but--ahem!--a good deal to do with their own imaginations? I +don't want to use the word 'morbid,' but really!... Well, thank goodness +Corin and Bonniebell won't grow up like that! Afraid of the beautiful, +innocent human form!... Now that's what I've always claimed, +Cosimo--that that's the type of mind that's made all the mischief we've +got to set right to-day." + +But for all that Lady Tasker was too old. Invisible Men in the garden +(or, if not actually invisible, at any rate as hard to be seen against +the leaves of the copper beech as a new penny would have been)--and in +the hall those extraordinary replicas! In the hall--the very forefront +of the house! It was to be presumed that Mrs. Pratt's foreign friends, +who were permitted to lean over her hammock, would not be denied The +Witan itself, and, for all Lady Tasker knew, the rest of Mrs. Pratt +might be reduplicated in plaster in the dining-room, the drawing-room, +and elsewhere.... + +Had she not said it herself, Lady Tasker would never have believed +it.... + +What a--what a--what an extraordinary thing!---- + +Lady Tasker had fled from The Witan still under the influence of that +access of effusive schoolgirlishness in which she had told Mrs. Pratt +that she really must go; nor did she grow up again all at once. But +little by little, as she walked, she began to resume the burden of her +years. She became eighteen, twenty-five, thirty again. By the time she +reached the lower pond Arthur had just got that billet in the India +Office, and her brother Dick, of the Department of Woods and Forests, +had married Ada Polperro, daughter of old Polperro of Delhi fame, and +her sister Emily had got engaged to Tony Woodgate, of the Piffers. (But +those casts!)... Then as she took the path between the ponds she +remembered the children at Ludlow, the three little girls at Cromwell +Gardens, and the arrival on Saturday of the "Seringapatam." (But those +natives!)... The thought of the children settled it. Her curious lapse +into juvenescence was over. By the time she rang Dorothy's bell she was +the same Lady Tasker who changed the political opinions of policemen and +deprecated the wanderings of Saint Paul. + +Dorothy's flat was as different as it could well be from that other +house which (Lady Tasker had already decided) had something odd and +furtive about it--stagnant yet busy, segregated yet too wide open. The +flat had one really brilliant room. This room did not merely overlook +the pond in front of it; it seemed actually to have asked the pond to +come inside. A large triple window occupied the whole of one end of it; +this window faced west; and not only did the September sun shine +brightly in, but the inverted sun in the water shone in also, doubling +(yet also halving) all shadows, illumining the ceiling, and setting the +cream walls a-ripple with the dancing of the wavelets outside. Sprightly +chintzes looked as if they also might begin to dance at any moment; the +china in Dorothy's cupboards surprised the eye that had not expected +this altered light; and presently, to complete the complexity, the +shadow of the sycamore in the little garden below would move round, so +that you would hardly be able to tell whether the ceaseless creeping on +the cream walls was glitter of ripples, pattern of leaves, or both. + +Dorothy sat in her accordion-pleats by the window, surrounded by +letters. And pray do not think it mere coincidence in this story that +her letters were Indian letters. Some interests that the home-amateur +takes up as he might take up poker-work or the diversion of jig-saw hold +a large part of the hearts and lives of others, and so Dorothy, as she +did more or less every week, had been reading her cousin Churchill's +letter, and that of her little niece and namesake Dot, up in Murree, and +Eva Woodgate's, who had sent her a parcel from Kohat, and others. She +rose slowly as her aunt was announced, and put her finger on the bell as +she passed. + +"How are you, auntie?" she said, kissing Lady Tasker on both cheeks. +"Give me your things. Somehow I thought you might come to-day, but I'd +almost given you up. Do look what Eva's sent me! Really, with her own to +look after, I don't know how she finds the time! Aren't they sweet!----" + +And she held them up. + +Now Lady Tasker knew perfectly well the meaning of her niece's +accordion-pleating; but she was seventy and worldly-wise again now. +Therefore as she looked at the things she remarked off-handedly, "But +they're far too small." + +"Too small!" Dorothy exclaimed. "Of course they aren't. Why, Noel was +only nine, and that's pretty big, and Jackie only just over +eight-and-a-half, though he put on weight while you watched him. They're +just right." + +Lady Tasker reached for a chair. "But they _are_ for Jackie, aren't +they?" + +Dorothy's blue eyes were as big as the plates in her +cupboards.--"Jackie! Good gracious, auntie!----" + +"Eh?" said Lady Tasker, sitting down. "Not Jackie? Dear me. How stupid +of me. Of course, I did hear, but I've so many other things to think of, +and nobody'd suppose, to look at you----" + +Dorothy ran to her aunt and gave her a kiss and a hug, a loud kiss and a +hug like two. + +"You dear old thing!--Really, I'd begun to _hate_ all the horrid kind +people who asked me how I felt to-day and whether I shouldn't be glad +when it was over! What business is it of theirs? I nearly made Stan sack +Ruth last week, she looked so, and I positively refuse to have a young +girl anywhere near me!... But wasn't it sweet of Eva? I'll give you some +tea and then read you her letter. Indian or China?" + +"China," Lady Tasker remarked. + +"China, Ruth, and I'll have some more too. I don't know whether His +Impudence is coming in or not; he's gadding off somewhere, I expect.... +But you weren't only _pretending_ just now, were you, auntie?----" + +She put the plug of the spirit-kettle into the wall. + +"Well, how are the Bits?" Lady Tasker asked.... + +(Perhaps "His Impudence" and "The Bits" require explanation. Both +expressions Dorothy had from her "maid," Ruth Mossop. "Maid" is thus +written because Ruth was a young widow, who, after a series of +disciplinary knockings-about by the late Mr. Mossop, was not +over-troubled with maternal anxiety for the four children he had left +her with. When asked by Dorothy whether she would prefer to be called +Mrs. Mossop or Ruth, Mrs. Mossop had chosen the latter name, giving as +her reason that it had been like Mr. Mossop's impudence to ask her to +accept the other name at all; and very many other memories also, brooded +on and gloomily loved, including the four children, had been bits of Mr. +Mossop's impudence. Stan had adopted the phrase, finding in it chuckles +of his own; and so His Impudence he had become, and Noel and Jackie the +fruits thereof.) + +Dorothy put her fair head on one side, as if she considered the absent +Bits critically and dispassionately, and really thought that on the +whole she might venture to approve of them. + +"Ra-ther little dears; but oh, Heaven, how _are_ we going to manage with +a third!" + +Her aunt dissociated herself from the problem with a shrug.--"Well--if +Stan will persist in thinking that his dressing-room is merely a room +for him to dress in----" + +"So I tell him," Dorothy murmured, with great meekness. "But--but flats +aren't made for children. We did manage to seize the estate agent's +little office for a nursery when all the flats were let, but when Stan +brings a man home we have to sleep him in the dressing-room as it +is--," (Lady Tasker shook her head, but the words "Wrong man" were +hardly audible), "--and a house will mean stair-carpets, and hall +furniture, and I don't know what else. Besides, Stan hasn't time to look +for one----" + +"No?" said Lady Tasker drily. + +"He really hasn't, poor boy," Dorothy protested. "And he's after +something really good this time--Fortune and Brooks, the +what-d'-you-call-'ems, in Pall Mall----" + +"What about them?" + +"Well, Stan's been told that they pay awfully good commissions, for +introductions, new accounts, you know; Stan dines out, say, and makes +himself nice to somebody with whole stacks of money, and mentions +Fortune & Brooks's chutney and pickled peaches and things, and--and----" + +"I know," remarked Lady Tasker, with not much more expression than if +she had been a talking doll and somebody had pulled the string that +worked the speaking apparatus. She did know these dazzling schemes of +her smart and helpless nephew's--his club secretaryships, his projects +for journals that should combine the various desirable features of the +"Field" and "Country Life" and the "Sporting Times" and "Punch," his +pony deals, and his other innumerable attempts to make of his saunters +down Bond Street to St. James's and back _viâ_ the Junior Carlton and +Regent Street a source of income. Perhaps she knew, too, that Dorothy +knew of her knowledge, for she went on, "Well, well--let's hope there's +more in it than there was in the fishing-flies--now tell me what Eva's +got fresh." + +"Oh, yes!" cried Dorothy, plunging her hand into her letters. "Eva sent +the things, but here's Dot's first--look at the darling's writing!----" + +And from a sheet of paper with a regimental heading Dorothy began to +read: + + "DEAREST AUNT DOROTHY,-- + + "were in murree and we got a servant that wigles his toes when we + speak to him and he loves baba and makes noises like him and + there are squiboos in the tres--" + +--(she means squirrels)-- + + "--and ive got a parrot uncle tony bought me and uncle tony says + the monsoon will praps fale and the peple wont have anything to + eat but weve lots and i like this better than kohat the shops are + lovely but there are lots of flees and they bite baba and he + cries this is a long letter how are Jackie and noel i got the + photograf--" + +--(that's the new one on the mantelpiece)-- + + "--were going to tifin at major hirsts little girls one is called + marjorie and were great friends----" + +"Where's the other page got to? It was here----" + +She found the other page, and continued the reading of the child's +letter. + +Suddenly Lady Tasker interrupted her. + +"Had Jack to borrow money to send them up there?" + +"To Murree? I really don't know. Perhaps he had. But as adjutant of the +Railway Volunteers he'd have his saloon." + +"H'm!... Anyway, the child oughtn't to be there at all. India's no place +for children." + +"I know, auntie; but what can one do? They do come." + +"H'm!... They didn't to me. Thank goodness I've done with love and +babies." (Dorothy laughed, perhaps at a mental vision of the houses in +Ludlow and Cromwell Gardens.) "Anyway, now they are here somebody's got +to look after them. They may as well be healthy...." + +She mused, and Dorothy reached for other letters. + +Lady Tasker's additions to her responsibilities usually began in this +way. Dorothy had very little doubt that presently little Dot also would +be handed like a parcel to some man or other coming home on leave, and +Lady Tasker would send to the makers for yet another cot.... Therefore, +pushing aside her last letter, she exclaimed almost crossly, "I _do_ +think it's selfish of Aunt Eliza! There she is, with Spurrs all to +herself, and she never once thinks that Jack might like to send Dot to +England!" + +"Neither would I if I had my time over again," said Lady Tasker +resolutely. "You needn't look like that--I wouldn't. Cromwell Gardens is +past praying for, and in another year there won't be a stick at the +Brear that's fit to be seen. The next batch I certainly intend to charge +for. I'm on the brink of the poorhouse as it is." + +This time it was Dorothy who mused. She was a calculating young woman; +the wife of His Impudence had to be; and she was far too shrewd to +suppose for a moment that her aunt could ever escape her destiny, which +was to be imposed upon by her own flesh and blood while hardening her +heart against the rest of the world. Dorothy, and not Stan, had had to +keep that flat going, and the flat before it; unless Fortune & Brooks +turned up trumps--a rather remote contingency--she would have to +continue to do so; and she was quite casuistical enough to argue that, +while Aunt Eliza might keep her old Spurrs, Aunt Grace might properly be +victimized because Dorothy loved Aunt Grace. Therefore there were +musings in Dorothy's wide-angle blue eyes ... musings that only the +sound of a key in the outer lock interrupted. + +"Hallo, that's His Impudence," Dorothy exclaimed. "I do hope he hasn't +brought anybody. I shall simply rush out if he has." + +Stan hadn't. He came in at the door drawing off a pair of lemon-yellow +gloves, said "Hallo, Aunt Grace," and rang the bell. He next said, +"Hallo, Dot! Been out? Beastly smelly in town. No, I've not had tea. +Look here, you've eaten all the hot cakes; never mind; bread and +butter'll do, if you've got some jam--no, honey. Got an invitation for +you, Dot, to lunch, with Ferrers on Monday; can't you buck up and manage +it?... Well, Aunt Grace, what brings you up here? Bit off your beat, +isn't it? Awfully rude of me, I know, but it is a long way. Glad I came +in." + +"I've been to see the Cosimo Pratts," said Lady Tasker. + +Dorothy looked suddenly up. + +"Oh, auntie, you didn't tell me that!" she exclaimed. + +A grin lighted up Stan's good-looking face. + +"Oh? How many annas to the rupee are they to-day? By Jove, they are a +rum lot up there! Any new prime cuts?" + +"Stan, you mustn't!" said Dorothy, peremptorily. "Please don't! Don't +listen to him, auntie; he's outrageous." + +But His Impudence went on, with his mouth full of bread and butter. + +"I've only seen the fore-quarter and the trotter, but you see I haven't +been over the house. Did they show you the Bluebeard's Chamber? What is +there there? By Jove, it's like Jezebel and the dogs.... But I don't +suppose they'll have me up again. There was some chap there, and I got +him by himself and told him he didn't know what he was talking about; +rotten of me, I know, but you should have heard him! Anarchist--Votes +for Women--all the lot; whew!... More tea, Ruth, please----" + +Lady Tasker felt the years beginning to ebb away from her again. She +had remembered the hammock and the Invisible Men. + +"I hope he was--English?" she murmured. + +"Who?" + +"The man you say you were rude to." + +"English? Yes. Why? English? Rather! No end of gas about the Empire. +Said it was on a wrong basis or something. Why do you ask?" + +"I only wondered." + +But Stan was perspicacious; he could see anything that was as closely +thrust under his nose as is the comparative rarity of the Englishman in +Hampstead. He laughed. + +"Oh, that! We're used to that. We've all sorts up here.... By Jove, I +believe Aunt Grace has been thrown into the arms of a Jap or a nigger or +something! Well, if that doesn't put the lid on!... So of course you +wondered what I meant by the fore-quarter and Jezebel and the dogs. +Those are just some things they used to have.... Well, I'll tell you +what you can do about it next time, auntie. You talk to 'em about +Ludlow. That shuts 'em up. Sore spot, Ludlow; they're trying to forget +about Ye Olde Englysshe Maypole, and that row with old Wynn-Jenkins, and +old Griffin letting his hair grow and reciting those poems. They look at +you as if it never happened. But they didn't shut _me_ up." + +"You seem to have been thoroughly rude," Lady Tasker remarked. + +"Well, dash it all, they ask for it. She used to be some sort of a pal +of Dorothy's----" + +"She's very clever, and she was always very kind to me," Dorothy +interpolated over her sewing. + +"When, I should like to know? But never mind. I was going to say, Aunt +Grace, that I've had to put my foot down. I won't have the Bits meeting +those kids of Pratt's. It's perfectly awful; why, those children know as +much as I do--and I know a bit! They'll be wanting latchkeys presently. +That day I was up there I heard one of 'em say that little boys weren't +the same as little girls. I forget how she put it, but she knew all +right; think of that, at about four! I wish I could remember the words, +but it was a bit thick for four!----" + +A restrained smile, perhaps at the thought of Stan putting his foot +down, had crossed Lady Tasker's face; no doubt it was part of the smile +that she presently said, toying with the little gold-rimmed glass, +"Quite right, Stan.... Anything fresh about Fortune & Brooks? Dorothy +told me." + +Stan's feelings on any subject were never so strong but that at a word +he was quite ready to talk about something else. "Eh? Rather!" he said +heartily, and went straightway off at score.--New? Yes. He'd seen old +Brooks the day before; not a bad chap at all really; and they quite +understood one another, he and old Brooks. He'd told Stan things, old +Brooks had, (which Stan wasn't at liberty to disclose) about the +commissions they paid for really first-class introductions, things that +would astonish Lady Tasker!---- + +"You see," he explained, "as Brooks himself said, they can't afford to +advertise in the ordinary way; _infra dig_. They'd actually lose custom +if they put an ad. in the 'Daily Spec.' I don't mean that they don't put +a thing now and then into the right kind of paper, but just being +mentioned in general conversation, at dinners and tamashas and so on, +that's _their_ kind of advertisement! For instance--but just a minute, +and I'll show you----" + +He jumped up and dashed out of the room. Lady Tasker took advantage of +his absence to give a discreet glance at Dorothy, but Dorothy's head +remained bent demurely over her work. Stan returned, carrying a small +parcel. + +"Here we are," he said, unfastening the package: and then suddenly his +voice and manner changed remarkably. He took a small pot from the parcel +and set it on the palm of his left hand; he pointed at it with the +index-finger of his right hand; and a bright and poster-like smile +overspread his face. He spoke slightly loudly, and very, very +persuasively. + +"Now I have here, Aunt Grace, one of our newest lines--Pickled Banyan. +Now I'm not going to ask you to take my word for it; I want you to try +it for yourself. It isn't what this man says or what that man says; +tasting's believing. Give me your teaspoon." + +"My _dear_ Stan!" the astonished Lady Tasker gasped. + +"We're selling a great many of this particular article, and are +prepared to stake our reputation on it," Stan went on. "Established +1780; more than One Hundred Gold Medals. Those are our credentials. +Those are what we lose.--Pass your spoon." + +Lady Tasker was rigid. Perhaps Stan would have been better advised to +cast his spell over those who were going up in the world, and not on +those who, like themselves, were coming down or barely holding their +own. Again he went on, pointing engagingly at the small pot. + +"But just try it," he urged, pushing the pot under his aunt's nose. "It +isn't what this man says or--I mean, it doesn't cost you anything to try +it. A free trial invited. Here's the recipe, look, on the +bottle--carefully selected Banyans, best cane sugar, lemon-juice refined +by a patent process, and a touch of tabasco. The makers' guarantee on +every label--none genuine without it--have a go!" + +With a "Really, Stan!" Lady Tasker had turned away in her chair, +revolted. "And do you expect to go to a house again after an exhibition +like that?" she asked over her shoulder. + +"Eh?" said Stan, a little discomfited. "Too much salesman about it, +d'you think? Brooks warned me about that. Fact is, he had a chap in as a +sort of object-lesson. This chap came in--I didn't know they had schools +and classes for this kind of thing, did you?--this chap came in, and I +was supposed to be somebody who didn't want the stuff at any price, and +he'd got to sell it to me whether I wanted it or not, and old Brooks +said to me, 'Now ask him how much the beastly muck is,' and a lot of +facers like that, and so we'd a set-to.... Then, when the fellow had +gone, he said he'd had him in just to show me how _not_ to do it.... But +he was an ingenious sort of beast, and I can't get his talk out of my +head. I'd thought of having a shot at it to-night, but perhaps I'd +better practise a bit more first. Thanks awfully for the criticism, Aunt +Grace. If you don't mind I'll practise on you as we go along. I'm dining +with a man to-night, but I'd better be sure of my ground.--Now what +about having the Bits in, Dot?" + +"I think I hear them coming," said Dorothy, whose demureness had not +given as much as a flicker. Perhaps she was wondering whether she could +spare the sovereign His Impudence would presently ask her for. + +The door opened, and Noel and Jackie stood there with a nurse behind +them. Noel walked stoutly in. Jackie, not yet very firm on his pins, +bumbled after him like an overladen bee. + + + + +III + +THE "NOVUM" + + +Stan was quite right in supposing that the Cosimo Pratts wished to +forget all about the Ludlow experiment that had disturbed the Shropshire +country-side a year or more before, but he was wrong in the reason he +assigned them. They were not in the least ashamed of it. As a stage in +their intellectual development, the experiment had been entirely in its +place. Especially in Mrs. Pratt's career--as an old student of the +McGrath School of Art, a familiar (for a time) with Poverty in cheap +studios, the painter of the famous Feminist picture "Barrage," and so +forward--had this been true. Cosimo, in "The Life and Work of Miss Amory +Towers," a labour to which he devoted himself intermittently, pointed +out the naturalness and inevitability of the sequence with real +eloquence. Step had led to step, and the omission of any one step would +have ruined the whole. + +But nobody with work still in them lingers long over the past. They had +dropped the task of regenerating rural England, or rather had handed it +over to others, only when it had been pointed out to them that capacity +so rare as theirs ought to be directed to larger ends. One evening +there had put in an appearance at one of the Ludlow meetings--a meeting +of the Hurdy-gurdy Octette, which afterwards gave instrumental +performances with such success at Letchworth, Bushey and Golder's +Green--Mr. Strong, the original founder and present editor of the "Novum +Organum," or, as it was usually called, the "Novum." Mr. Strong, as it +happened, was the man whom the scatter-brained Stan had met at The +Witan, and of whom he had expected that impossibility of any man +whomsoever--an admission that he did not know what he was talking about. +At that time Mr. Strong had been perambulating the country with a Van, +holding meetings and distributing literature; and whatever Mr. Strong's +other failings might have been, nobody had ever said of him that he did +not recognize a good thing when he saw it. The Cause itself had served +as an introduction between him and Cosimo; it had also been a sufficient +reason for his inviting himself to Cosimo's house for a couple of days +and remaining there for three weeks; and then he had got rid of the Van +and had come again. He was a rapturous talker, when there was an end to +be gained, and he had expressed himself as strongly of the opinion that, +magnificent a field for the sowing of the good seed as the country-side +was, there was simply stupendous propaganda to be done in London. He +knew (he had gone on) that Mrs. Pratt would forgive him (he had a +searching blue eye and an actor's smile) if he appeared for a moment to +speak disparagingly of what he might call the mere graces of the +Movement, (alluring as these were in Mrs. Pratt's capable and very +pretty hands); it was not disparagement really; he only meant that these +garlands would burgeon a hundred-fold if the stern and thankless work +was got out of the way first. Mr. Strong had a valuable trick of +suddenly making those searching blue eyes of his more searching, and of +switching off the actor's smile altogether; both of these things had +happened as he had gone on to point out that what the Cause was really +languishing for was a serious and responsible organ; and then, and only +then, when they had got (so to speak) the diapason, there would be time +enough for the trills and appoggiaturas of the Hurdy-gurdy Band. + +Before the end of Mr. Strong's second visit Cosimo had put up the +greater part of the money for the "Novum." + +So you see just where the feather-pated Stan was wrong. The Cosimo +Pratts were not outfaced from anything; they had merely seen a new and +heralding light. They did not so much recede from the Rural Experiment, +and discussions of the Suffrage, and eating buns on the floor at +assemblies of the Poets' Club, and a hundred and twenty other such +things, as become as it were translated. They still shed over these +activities the benignity of their approval, but from on high now. Amory +could no longer be expected actually to "run" the Suffrage Shop +herself--Dickie Lemesurier did that; nor the "Eden" (the new offshoot +off the Lettuce Grill)--that she left to Katie Deedes; nor the +"Lectures on Love" Agency--that was quite safe in the hands of her +friends, Walter Wyron and Laura Beamish. Amory merely shed approval +down. She was _hors concours_. She ... but you really must read Cosimo's +book. You will find it all there (or at any rate a good deal of it). + +For Amory Pratt, in so far as Cosimo was the proprietor of the "Novum," +was the proprietor of the proprietor of a high-class weekly review that +was presently going to put the two older parties out of business +entirely. She had more than a Programme now; she had a Policy. She had +crossed the line into the _haute politique_. Her At Homes were already +taking on the character of the political salon, and between herself and +the wives of ministers and ambassadors were differences, in degree +perhaps, but not in kind. And that even these differences should become +diminished she had taken on, ever since her settling-down at The Witan, +slight, but significant, new attitudes and condescensions. She was +kinder and more gracious to her sometime equals than before. She gave +them encouraging looks, as much as to say that they need not be afraid +of her. But it was quite definitely understood that when she took Mr. +Strong apart under the copper beech or retired with him into the studio +at the back of the house, she must on no account be disturbed.--Mr. +Strong, by the way, always dressed in the same Norfolk jacket, red tie +and soft felt hat, and his first caution to Cosimo and Amory had been +that Brimby, the novelist, was an excellent chap, but not always to be +taken very seriously. + +Amory did not often put in an appearance at the "Novum's" offices. This +was not that she thought it more befitting that Mr. Strong should wait +on her, for she went about a good deal with Mr. Strong, and did not +always trouble him to come up to The Witan to fetch her. It was, rather, +if the truth must be told, that she found the offices rather dingy. Her +senses loved the newly-machined smell of each new issue of the paper, +but not the mingled odour of dust and stale gum and Virginia cigarettes +of the place whence it came. Moreover, the premises were rather +difficult to find. They lay at the back of Charing Cross Road. You +dodged into an alley between a second-hand bookseller's and a shop where +electric-light fittings were sold, entered a narrow yard, and, turning +to the right into a gas-lighted cavern where were stacked hundreds and +hundreds of sandwich-boards, some back-and-fronts, some with the iron +forks for the bearer's shoulders, you ascended by means of a dark +staircase to the second floor. There, at the end of a passage which some +poster-artist had half papered with the specimens of his art, you came +upon the three rooms. The first of these was the general office; the +second was Mr. Strong's private office; and the third was a room which, +the "Novum" having no need of it, Mr. Strong had thought he might as +well use as a rent-free bedroom as not. The door of this room Mr. Strong +always kept locked. It was more prudent. He was supposed to live +somewhere in South Kentish Town, and gave this address to certain of +his correspondents. The letters of these reached him sooner or later, +through the agency of a barber, in whose window was a placard, "Letters +may be addressed here." + +Perhaps, too, the extraordinary people who visited Mr. Strong in the way +of business helped to keep Amory away. For an endless succession of the +queerest people came--contributors, and would-be contributors, and +friends of the Cause who "were just passing and thought they'd look in," +and artists seeking a paper with the courage to print really stinging +caricatures, and article-writers who were out of a job only because they +dared to tell the truth about things, and Russian political exiles, and +Armenians who wanted passages to America, and Eurasians who wanted +rifles, and tramps, and poets, and the boy from the milkshop who brought +in the bread and butter and eggs for Mr. Strong's breakfast. And out of +these strange elements had grown up the paper's literary style. This was +unique in London journalism: philosophical, yet homely; horizon-wide of +outlook, yet never without hope that the shining thing in the gutter +might prove to be a jewel; and, despite its habitual omissions of the +prefix "Mr." from the names of statesmen, and its playful allusions to +this personage's nose or the waist-measurement of the other, with more +than a little of the Revelation of Saint John the Divine about it. +"Damn" and "Hell" were words the "Novum" commonly used. Once Amory had +demurred at the use of a word stronger still. But Mr. Strong had merely +replied, "If I can say it to you I think I can say it to them." He was +no truckler to his proprietors, and anyhow, the man whom the word had +encarnadined was only a colliery-owner. + +The "Novum" had hardly been six weeks old when a certain desire on +Amory's part to make experiment of her power had, putatively at any +rate, lost it money. The little collision of wills had come about over +the question of whether the "Novum" should admit advertisements to its +columns or not. Now as most people know, that is a question that seldom +arises in journalism. A question far more likely to arise is whether the +advertisements can be got. But when a journal sets out to do something +that hitherto has not only not been done, but has not even been +attempted, you will admit that the case is special. The experience of +other papers is useless; their economics do not apply. What did apply +was the fact that Mrs. Pratt had been an artist, looked on sheets of +paper from another angle than that of the mere journalist and literary +man, and loved symmetry and could not endure unsightliness. Besides, "No +Compromise" was the "Novum's" motto, and what was the good of having a +motto like that if you compromised in the very form of your +expression?... A "shoulder-piece," "_The Little Mary Emollient_," had +brought out all Mrs. Pratt's finer artistic instincts. Here was a +journal consecrated to a great and revolutionary cause, and the very +first thing to catch a reader's eye was, not only an advertisement, but +a facetious advertisement at that--a Pill, without a Pill's robust +familiarity--a commercial cackle issuing from the "Novum's" august and +oracular mouth.... For the first time in her life Mrs. Pratt had wielded +the blue pencil, tearing the rubbishy proof-paper in the energy with +which she did so. Mr. Strong's blue eyes, bluer for the contrast with +his red knot of a tie, had watched her face, but he had said nothing. He +was willing to humour her.... + +But when all was said and done he was an editor, and no sooner was +Amory's back turned than he had restored the announcement. The paper had +appeared, and there had been a row.... + +"Then I appeal to Pratt," Mr. Strong had said, with all the good-nature +in the world. "I take it the 'Novum's' a serious enterprise, and not +just a hobby?" + +Cosimo had glanced a little timidly at his wife. Then he had replied +thoughtfully. + +"I don't know. I'm not so sure. That is, I'm not so sure it oughtn't to +be a serious enterprise _and_ a hobby. The world's best work is always +done for love--that's another way of calling it a hobby--you see what I +mean--Nietzsche has something about it somewhere or other--or if he +hasn't Ruskin has----" + +Any number of effective replies had been open to Mr. Strong, but he had +used none of them. Instead his eyes had given as it were a flick to +Amory's face. The proprietor's proprietor had continued indignantly. + +"It ruins the whole effect! It's _unspeakably_ vulgar! After that +glowing, that impassioned Foreword--_this_! Hardly a month ago that +lovely apostrophe to Truth Naked--that beautiful image of her stark and +innocent on our banners but with a forest of bright bayonets bristling +about her--and now _this_! It's revolting!" + +But Mr. Strong had himself written that impassioned Foreword, and knew +all about it. Again he had given his proprietor's wife that quietly +humouring look. + +"Do you mean that the 'Novum's' going to refuse advertisements?" + +"I mean that I blue-pencilled that one myself." + +"And what about the others--the 'Eden' and the Suffrage Shop and Wyron's +Lectures?" + +"They're different. They _are_ the Cause. You said yourself that the +'Novum' was going to be a sort of generalissimo, and these the brigades +or whatever they're called. They are, at any rate, doing the Work. Is +_that_ doing any Work, I should like to know?" + +Mr. Strong had refrained from flippancy.--"I see what you mean," he had +replied equably. "At the same time, if you're going to refuse +advertisements the thing's going to cost a good deal more money." + +"Well?" Amory had replied, as who might say, "Has money been refused you +yet?" + +Strong had given a compliant shrug--"All right. That means I censor the +advertisements, I suppose. New industry. Very well. The 'Eden' and +Wyron's Lectures and Week-end Cottages and the Plato Press only, then. +I'll strike out that '_Platinum: False Teeth Bought_.' But I warn you it +will cost more." + +"Never mind that." + +And so the incident had ended. + +But perhaps Mrs. Pratt's sensitiveness of eye was not the only cause of +the rejection of that offending advertisement. Another reason might have +lain in her present relation with her sometime fellow-student of the +McGrath School of Art, Dorothy Tasker. For that relation had suffered a +change since the days when the two girls had shared a shabby day-studio +in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. At that time, now five years ago, Amory Towers +had been thrust by circumstances into a position of ignoble envy of her +friend. She had been poor, and Dorothy's people (or so she had supposed) +very, very wealthy. True, poor Dorothy, without as much as a single +spark of talent, had nevertheless buckled to, and, in various devious +ways, had contrived to suck a parasitic living out of the wholesome body +of real art; none the less, Amory had conceived her friend to be of the +number of those who play at hardship and independence with a fully +spread table at home for them to return to when they are tired of the +game. But the case was entirely changed now. Amory frankly admitted that +she had been mistaken in one thing, namely, that if those people of +Dorothy's had more money, they had also more claims upon it, and so were +relatively poor. Amory herself was now very comfortably off indeed. By +that virtue and good management which the envious call luck, she had +now money, Cosimo's money, to devote to the regeneration of the world. +Dorothy, married to the good-tempered and shiftless Stan, sometimes did +not know which way to turn for the overdue quarter's rent. + +Now among her other ways of making ends meet Dorothy had for some years +done rather well out of precisely that kind of work which Amory refused +to allow the "Novum" to touch--advertisements. She had wormed herself +into the services of this firm and that as an advertisement-adviser. But +her contracts had begun in course of time to lapse, one or two fluky +successes had not been followed up, and two children had further +tightened things. Nor had Stan been of very much help. Amory despised +Stan. She thought him, not a man, but a mere mouth to be fed. Real men, +like Cosimo, always had money, and Amory was quite sure that, even if +Cosimo had not inherited a fortune from his uncle, he would still have +contrived to make himself the possessor of money in some other way. + +Therefore Amory was even kinder to Dorothy than she was to Dickie +Lemesurier of the Suffrage Shop, to Katie Deedes of the "Eden," and to +Laura Beamish and Walter Wyron, who ran the "Lectures on Love." But +somehow--it was a little difficult to say exactly how, but there it +undoubtedly was--Dorothy did not accept her kindnesses in quite the +proper spirit. One or two she had even rejected--gently, Amory was bound +to admit, but still a rejection. For example, there had been that little +rebuff (to call it by its worst name for a moment) about the governess. +Amory had, in Miss Britomart Belchamber, the most highly-qualified +governess for Corin and Bonniebell that money and careful search had +been able to obtain; Dorothy lived less than a quarter of an hour's walk +away; it would have been just as easy for Britomart to teach four +children as to teach two; but Dorothy had twisted and turned and had +finally said that she had decided that she couldn't put Amory to the +trouble. And again, when the twins had had their party, Amory would +positively have _liked_ Noel and Jackie to come and dance "Twickenham +Ferry" in those spare costumes and to join in those songs from the Book +of Caroline Ditties; but again an excuse had been made. And half a dozen +similar things had driven Amory to the conclusion, sadly against her +will, that the Taskers were taking up that ridiculous, if not actually +hostile attitude, of the poor who hug their pride. It was not nice +between old friends. Amory could say with a clear conscience that she +had not refused Dorothy's help in the days when the boot had been on the +other leg. She was not resentful, but really it did look very much like +putting on airs. + +But of course that stupid Stanhope Tasker was at the bottom of it all. +Amory did not so much mind his not having liked her from the first; she +would have been sorry to let a trifle like that ruffle her equanimity; +but it was evident that he did not in the least realize his position. +She was quite sure, in the first place, that he couldn't afford (or +rather Dorothy couldn't afford) to pay eighty pounds for that flat, +plus another twenty for the little office they had annexed and used as a +nursery. And in the next place he dressed absurdly above his position. +Cosimo dressed for hygiene and comfort, in cellular things and things +made of non-irritant vegetable fibre; but those absurdly modish jackets +and morning-coats of Stan's had, unless Amory was very much mistaken, to +be bought at the expense of real necessaries. And so with their +hospitality. In that too, they tried to cut a dash and came very near to +making themselves ridiculous. Amory didn't want to interfere; she +couldn't plan and be wise for everybody; she had her own affairs to +attend to; but she was quite sure that the Taskers would have done +better to regulate their hospitality as hospitality was regulated at The +Witan--that was, to make no special preparation, but to have the door +always open to their friends. But no; the Taskers must make a splash. +They must needs "invite" people and be a little stand-offish about +people coming uninvited. They were "At home" and "Not at home" for all +the world as if they had been important people. But Amory would have +thought herself very stupid to be taken in by all this ceremony. For +example, the last time she and Cosimo had been asked to the flat to +dinner she knew that they had been "worked off" only because the Taskers +had had the pheasants given by somebody, and very likely the fish too. +And it would have been just like Stan Tasker's insolence had he asked +them because he _knew_ that the Pratts did not eat poor beasties that +should have been allowed to live because of their lovely plumes, nor +the pretty speckled creatures that had done no harm to the destroyer who +had taken them with a hook out of their pretty stream. + +But, kind to her old friend as Amory was always ready to be, she did not +feel herself called upon to go out of her way to be very nice to her +friend's husband. He had no right to expect it after his rudeness to +Edgar Strong about the "Novum." For it had been about the "Novum" that +Stan had given Strong that talking-to. Much right (Amory thought hotly) +he had to talk! Just because he consorted with men who counted their +money in rupees and thought nothing of shouldering their darker-skinned +brothers off the pavement, he thought he was entitled to put an editor +into his place! But the truth, of course, was, that that very +familiarity prevented him from really knowing anything about these +questions at all. Because an order was established, he had not +imagination enough to see how it could have been anything different. His +mind (to give it that name) was of the hidebound, official type, and too +many limited intelligences of that kind stopped the cause of Imperial +progress to-day. Or rather, they tried to stop it, and perhaps thought +they were stopping it; but really, little as they suspected it, they +were helping more than they knew. A pig-headed administration does +unconsciously help when, out of its own excesses, a divine discontent is +bred. Mr. Suwarree Prang had been eloquent on that very subject one +afternoon not very long ago. A charming man! Amory had listened from +her hammock, rapt. Mr. Prang did the "Indian Review" for the "Novum," in +flowery but earnest prose; and as he actually was Indian, and did not +merely hobnob with a few captains and subalterns home on leave, it was +to be supposed that he would know rather more of the subject than Mr. +Stanhope Tasker!---- + +And Mr. Stanhope Tasker had had the cheek to tell Mr. Strong that he +didn't know what he was talking about! + +Amory felt that she could never be sufficiently thankful for the chance +that had thrown Mr. Strong in her way. She had always secretly felt that +her gifts were being wasted on such minor (but still useful) tasks as +the "Eden" Restaurant and the "Love Lectures" Agency. But her personal +exaltation over Katie Deedes and the others had caused her no joy. What +had given her joy had been the immensely enlarged sphere of her +usefulness; that was it, not the odious vanity of leadership, but the +calm and responsible envisaging of a task for which not one in ten +thousand had the vision and courage and strength. And Edgar Strong had +shown her these things. Of course, if he had put them in these words she +might have suspected him of trying to flatter her; but as a matter of +fact he had not said a single word about it. He had merely allowed her +to see for herself. That was his way: to all-but-prove a thing--to take +it up to the very threshold of demonstration--and then apparently +suddenly to lose interest in it. And that in a way was his weakness as +an editor. Amory, whom three or four wieldings of the blue pencil had +sufficed to convince that there was nothing in journalism that an +ordinary intelligence could not master in a month, realized this. She +herself, it went without saying, always saw at once exactly what Mr. +Strong meant; she personally liked those abrupt and smiling stops that +left Mr. Strong's meaning as it were hung up in the air; but it was a +mistake to suppose that everybody was as clever as she and Mr. Strong. +"I's" had to be dotted and "t's" crossed for the multitude. But it was +at that point that Mr. Strong always became almost languid. + +It was inevitable that the man who had thus revealed to her, after a +single glance at her, such splendid and unsuspected capacities within +herself, should exercise a powerful fascination over Amory. If he had +seen all this in her straight away (as he assured her he had), then he +was a man not lightly to be let go. He might be the man to show her even +greater things yet. He puzzled her; but he appeared to understand her; +and as both of them understood everybody else, she was aware of a +challenge in his society that none other of her set afforded her. He +could even contradict her and go unsacked. Prudent people, when they +sack, want to know what they are sacking, and Amory did not know. +Therefore Mr. Strong was quite sure of his job until she should find +out. + +Another thing that gave Mr. Strong this apparently off-hand hold over +her was the confidential manner in which he had warned her not to take +Mr. Brimby, the novelist, too seriously. For without the warning Amory, +like a good many other people, might have committed precisely that +error.... But when Mr. Brimby, taking Amory apart one day, had expressed +in her ear a gentle doubt whether Mr. Strong was quite "sound" on +certain important questions, Amory had suddenly seen. Mr. Strong had +"cut" one of Mr. Brimby's poignantly sorrowful sketches of the East +End--seen through Balliol eyes--and Mr. Brimby was resentful. She did +not conceal from herself that he might even be a little envious of Mr. +Strong's position. He might have been wiser to keep his envy to himself, +for, while mere details of routine could hardly expect to get Amory's +personal attention, there was one point on which Mr. Strong was quite +"sound" enough for Amory--his sense of her own worth and of how that +worth had hitherto been wasted. And Mr. Strong had not been ill-natured +about Mr. Brimby either. He had merely twinkled and put Amory on her +guard. And because he appeared to have been right in this instance, +Amory was all the more disposed to believe in his rightness when he gave +her a second warning. This was about Wilkinson, the Labour Member. He +was awfully fond of dear old Wilkie, he said; he didn't know a man more +capable in some things than Wilkie was; but it would be foolish to deny +that he had his limitations. He wasn't fluid enough; wanted things too +much cut-and-dried; was a little inclined to mistake violence for +strength; and of course the whole point about the "Novum" was that it +was fluid.... + +"In fact," Mr. Strong concluded, his wary blue eyes ceasing suddenly to +hold Amory's brook-brown ones and taking a reflective flight past her +head instead, "for a paper like ours--I'm hazarding this, you +understand, and keep my right to reconsider it--I'm not sure that a +certain amount of fluidity isn't a Law...." + +Amory nodded. She thought it excellently put. + + + + +IV + +THE STONE WALL + + +Amory sometimes thought, when she took her bird's-eye-view of the +numerous activities that found each its voice in its proper place in the +columns of the "Novum," that she would have allowed almost any of them +to perish for lack of support rather than the Wyron's "Lectures on +Love." She admitted this to be a weakness in herself, a sneaking +fondness, no more; but there it was--just that one blind spot that mars +even the clearest and most piercing vision. And she always smiled when +Mr. Strong tried to show this weakness of hers in the light of a merit. + +"No, no," she always said, "I don't defend it. Twenty things are more +important really, but I can't help it. I suppose it's because we know +all about Laura and Walter themselves." + +"Perhaps so," Mr. Strong would musingly concede. + +Anybody who was anybody knew all about Laura Beamish and Walter Wyron +and a certain noble defeat in their lives that was to be accounted as +more than a hundred ordinary victories. That almost historic episode had +just shown everybody who was anybody what the world's standards were +really worth. Hitherto the Wyrons have been spoken of both as a married +couple and as "Walter Wyron" and "Laura Beamish" separately; let the +slight ambiguity now be cleared up. + +Mrs. Cosimo Pratt became on occasion Miss Amory Towers for reasons that +began and ended in her profession as a painter; and everybody who was +anybody was as well aware that Miss Amory Towers, the painter of the +famous feminist picture "Barrage," was in reality Mrs. Cosimo Pratt, as +the great mass of people who were nobody knew that Miss Elizabeth +Thompson, the painter of "The Roll Call," was actually Lady Butler. But +not so with the Wyrons. Reasons, not of business, nor yet of fame, but +of a burning and inextinguishable faith, had led to their noble +equivocation. Deeply seated in the hearts both of Walter and of Laura +had lain a passionate non-acceptance of the merely parroted formula of +the Wedding Service. So searching and fundamental had this been that by +the time their various objections had been disposed of little had +remained that had seemed worth bothering about; and in one sense they +had not bothered about it. True, in another sense they had bothered, and +that was precisely where the defeat came in; but that did not dim the +splendour of the attempt. To come without further delay to the point, +the Wyrons had married, under strong protest, in the ordinary everyday +way, Laura submitting to the momentary indignity of a ring; but +thereafter they had magnificently vindicated the New Movement (in that +one aspect of it) by not saying a word about the ceremony of their +marriage to anybody--no, not even to the people who were somebody. Then +they had flown off to the Latin Quarter. + +It had not been in the Latin Quarter, however, that the true character +of their revolt had first shown. Perhaps--nobody knows--their relation +had not been singular enough there. Perhaps--there were people base +enough to whisper this--they had feared the singularity of "letting on." +It is easy to do in the Boul' Mich' as the Boul' Mich' does. The real +difficulties begin when you try to do in London what London permits only +as long as you do it covertly. + +And if there had been a certain covertness about their behaviour when, +after a month, they had returned, what a venial and pardonable +subterfuge, to what a tremendous end! Amory herself, up to then, had not +had a larger conception. For while the Wyrons had secretly married +simply and solely in order that their offspring should not lie under a +stigma, their overt lives had been one impassioned and beautiful protest +against any assumption whatever on the part of the world of a right to +make rules for the generation that was to follow. No less a gospel than +this formed the substance of those Lectures of Walter's; great as the +number of the born was, his mission was the protection of a greater +number still. The best aspects both of legitimacy and of illegitimacy +were to be stereoscoped in the perfect birth. And he now had, in quite +the strict sense of the word, a following. The same devoted faces +followed him from the Lecture at the Putney Baths on the Monday to that +at the Caxton Hall on the Thursday, from his ascending the platform at +the Hampstead Town Hall on the Tuesday to his addressing of a +garden-party from under the copper-beech at The Witan on the Sunday +afternoon. And in course of time the faithfulness of the followers was +rewarded. They graduated, so to speak, from the seats in the body of the +building to the platform itself. There they supported Laura, and gave +her a countenance that she no longer needed (for she had earned her +right to wear her wedding-ring openly now), and flocked about the +lecturer afterwards, not as about a mere man, but rather as seeing in +him the physician, the psychologist, the expert, the helper, and the +setter of crooked things straight that he was. + +As a lecturer--may we say as a prophet?--Walter had a manner original +and taking in the extreme. Anybody less sustained by his vision and less +upheld by his faith might have been a little tempted to put on "side," +but not so Walter. Perhaps his familiarity with the stage--everybody +knew his father, Herman Wyron, of the New Greek Theatre--had taught him +the value of the large and simple statement of large and simple things; +anyhow, he did not so much lecture to his audiences as accompany them, +chattily and companionably, through the various windings of his subject. +With his hands thrust unaffectedly into the pockets of his knickers, +and a sort of sublimated "Well, here we are again" expression on his +face, he allayed his hearers' natural timidity before the magnitude of +his mission, and gave them a direct and human confab. on a subject that +returned as it were from its cycle of vastness to simple personal +experience again. His every sentence seemed to say, "Don't be afraid; +it's nothing really; soon you'll be as much at your ease in dealing with +these things as I am; just let me tell you an anecdote." No wonder Laura +held her long and muscular neck very straight above her hand-embroidered +yoke. Everybody understood that unless she adopted some sort of an +attitude her proper pride in such a married lover must show, which would +have been rather rubbing it in to the rest of her sex. So she booked +dates for new lectures almost nonchalantly, and, when the platform was +invaded at the end of the Lecture, or Walter stepped down to the level +of those below, she was there in person as the final demonstration of +how well these things actually would work as soon as Society had decided +upon some concerted action. + +Corin and Bonniebell, Amory's twins, did not attend Walter's Lectures. +It was not deemed advisable to keep them out of bed so late at night. +But Miss Britomart Belchamber, the governess, could have passed--had in +fact passed--an examination in them. It had been Amory who, so to speak, +had set the paper. For it had been at one of the Lectures--the one on +"_The Future Race: Are We Making Manacles?_"--that Miss Belchamber had +first impressed Amory favourably. Amory had singled her out, first +because she wore the guarantee of Prince Eadmond's Collegiate +Institution--the leather-belted brown sleeveless djibbah with the +garment of fine buff fabric showing beneath it as the fruit of a roasted +chestnut shows when the rind splits--and secondly because of her +admirable physique. She was splendidly fair, straight as an athlete, and +could shut up her long and massive limbs in a wicker chair like a +clasp-knife; and for her movements alone it was almost a sin that +Walter's father could not secure her for the New Greek Society's revival +of "Europa" at the Choragus Theatre. And she was not too quick mentally. +That is not to say that she was a fool. What made Amory sure that she +was not a fool was that she herself was not instinctively attracted by +fools, and it was better that Miss Belchamber should be ductile under +the influence of Walter's ideas than that she should have just wit +enough to ask those stupid and conventional and so-called "practical" +questions that Walter always answered at the close of the evening as +patiently as if he had never heard them before. And Miss Belchamber told +the twins stories, and danced "Rufty Tufty," with them, and "Catching of +Quails," and was really cheap at her rather stiff salary. Cosimo loved +to watch her at "Catching of Quails." If the children did not grow up +with a love of beauty after that, he said, he gave it up. (The twins, by +the way, unconsciously served Amory as another example of Dorothy +Tasker's unreasonableness. As the mother of Noel and Jackie, Dorothy +seemed rather to fancy herself as an experienced woman. But Amory could +afford to smile at this pretension. There was a difference in age of a +year and more between Noel and Jackie. No doubt Dorothy knew a little, +but she, Amory, could have told her a thing or two). + +On a Wednesday afternoon about a fortnight after Lady Tasker's visit to +The Witan, Amory walked the garden thoughtfully. The weather was growing +chilly, the hammock had been taken in, and her feet in the fallen leaves +made a melancholy sound. Cosimo had left her half an hour before; +certain points had struck him in the course of conversation which he +thought ought to be incorporated in the "_Life and Work_"; and it was a +rule at The Witan that nothing must ever be allowed to interfere with +the impulse of artistic creation. For the matter of that, Amory herself +was creating now, or at any rate was at the last preparatory stage that +immediately precedes creation. Presently she would have taken the plunge +and would be deep in the new number of the "Novum." For the moment she +was thinking of Mr. Strong. + +As she tried to clear up exactly what place Mr. Strong had in her +thoughts she was struck by the dreadful tendency words and names and +definitions have to attach themselves to vulgar and ready-made +meanings--a tendency so strong that she had even caught herself more +than once jumping to a common conclusion. To take an example, though a +rather preposterous one. Had Dorothy, with one of her ridiculous +advertisements waiting to be done, confessed to her that instead of +setting about it she was thinking of a male person with a pair of alert +blue eyes and a curiously mobile and clean-cut mouth (not that it was +likely that Dorothy would have had the candour to make such a +confession)--well, Amory might have smiled just like anybody else. She +was not trying to make herself out any better than others. She was +candid about it, however, which they were often not. + +Still, the trouble about her feeling for Mr. Strong was to find a word +for it that had not been vulgarized. She was, of course, exceedingly +interested in him, but that was not saying very much. She "liked" him, +too, but that again might mean anything. Her difficulty was that she +herself was so special; and so on second thoughts she might have been +right in giving an interpretation to Dorothy's actions, and Dorothy +quite wrong in giving the same interpretation to hers merely because the +data were the same. + +Nor had Mr. Strong himself been able to help her very much when, a +couple of days before, she had put the question to him, earnestly and +without hateful false shame. + +"What _is_ this relation of ours?" she had asked him, point-blank and +fearlessly. + +"Eh?" Mr. Strong had replied, a little startled. + +"There _must_ be a relation of some sort between every two people who +come into contact. I'm just wondering exactly what ours _is_." + +Then Mr. Strong had knitted his brows and had said, presently, "I +see.... Have you read '_The Tragic Comedians_?'"--Amory had not, and the +copy of the book which she had immediately ordered had not come yet. And +then she too had knitted her brows. She had caught the trick from him. + +"I suppose that what it really comes to is knowing _yourself_," she had +mused; and at that Mr. Strong had given her a quick approving look, +almost as if he said that if she put in her thumb in the same place +again she might pull out a plum very well worth having. + +"And not," Amory had continued, curiously heartened, "anything about the +other person at all." + +"Good, good," Mr. Strong had applauded under his breath; "have you +Edward Carpenter's book in the house, by the way?... Never mind: I'll +send you my copy." + +He had sent it. It was in Amory's hand now. She had discovered that it +had a catching and not easily identifiable smell of its own, of Virginia +cigarettes and damp and she knew not what else, all mingled; and somehow +the smell seemed quite as much an answer to the question she had asked +as anything in the book itself. + +Nor, despite Walter's special knowledge of these indications, could she +go to the Wyrons for diagnosis and advice. For one thing, there was her +own position of high patronage to be considered; for another, splendidly +daring as the Wyrons' original protest had been, the Lectures had lately +begun to have a little the air of a shop, over the counter of which +admittedly valuable specifics were handed, but with a kind of "_And_ the +next article, please?" suspicion about it. Besides, the Wyrons, having +no children, had of necessity to "chic" a little in cases where children +formed a complicating element. Besides ... but anyway, Amory wasn't +going either to Laura Beamish or to Walter Wyron. + +She made a charming picture as she walked slowly the length of the +privet hedge and then turned towards the copper beech again. Mr. Strong +had said that he liked her in that dress--an aluminium-grey one, very +simple and very expensive, worn with a handsome Indian shawl, a gift of +Mr. Prang's, the mellow colour of which "led up" to the glowing casque +of her hair; and she had smiled when Mr. Strong had added that Britomart +Belchamber's rough tabards and the half-gym costume in which she danced +"Rufty Tufty" would not have suited her, Amory, at all. Probably they +wouldn't--not as a regular thing. Cosimo liked those, especially when +the wearer was largish; indeed, it was one of Cosimo's humours to pose +as Britomart's admirer. But Amory was small, and never shut her limbs up +like a multiple-lever in a basket chair, but drew her skirt down a foot +or so below her toes instead whenever she sat down. She fancied, though +Mr. Strong had never used the word, that the "Novum's" editor found Miss +Belchamber just a little hoydenish. + +Amory wished that something would bring Mr. Strong up that afternoon. It +was one of the days on which the editing of the "Novum" could take care +of itself, and besides, they would actually be editing it together. For +the next number but one--the forthcoming one was already passed--was to +be their most important utterance yet. It was to indicate clearly, +firmly and once for all, their Indian policy. The threatened failure of +the monsoon made the occasion urgent, and Mr. Suwarree Prang himself had +explained to Amory only the night before precisely what the monsoon was, +and how its failure would provide, from the point of view of those who +held that the present wicked regime of administration by the strong hand +was at last tottering to its fall, a providential opportunity. It had +struck Amory as wondrously romantic and strange that a meteorological +condition half-way round the world, in a place she had never seen, +should thus change the course of her quiet life in Hampstead; but, +properly considered, no one thing in this wonderful world was more +wonderful than another. It was Life, and Life, as she remembered to have +read somewhere or other, is for the Masters of it. And she was beginning +to find that after all these things only required a little confidence. +It was as easy to swim in six miles deep of water, like that place in +Cosimo's atlas of which the name escaped her for the moment, as it was +in six feet. And Mr. Prang had talked to her so long and so vividly +about India that she sometimes found it quite difficult to realize that +she had never been there. + +Still wishing that Mr. Strong would come, she slowly left the garden +and entered the house. In the hall she paused for a moment, and a tender +little smile softened her face. She had stopped before the exquisite +casts of the foot and the arm. Pensively she took the foot up from the +console table, and then, coming to a resolution, she took the arm down +from its hook on the wall. After all, beautiful as she had to admit them +to be, the studio, and not the hall, was the proper place for them. + +With the foot and Edward Carpenter in her left hand, and the plaster arm +hugged to her right breast, she walked along the passage and sought the +studio. + +It was called the studio, and there certainly were canvases and easels +and other artists' paraphernalia there, but it was less used for +painting than as a room for sitting and smoking and tea and discussion. +It was a comfortable apartment. Rugs made islands on the thick cork +floor-covering, and among the rugs were saddlebag chairs, a long +adjustable chair, and a wide couch covered with faded tapestry. The room +was an annex of corrugated iron lined with matchboarding, but +electric-light fittings depended from the iron ties overhead, and in +place of an ordinary hearth was a sort of stage one, with an imitation +log of asbestos, which, when you put a match to it, broke into a licking +of blue and yellow gas-jets. The north window occupied the whole of the +garden end, and, facing it, was the large cartoon for Amory's unfinished +allegorical picture, "_The Triumph of Humane Government_." High up and +just within the door was the bell that answered to the button outside. + +Amory was putting down the casts on a Benares tray when the ringing of +this bell startled her. But as it rang in the kitchen also, she did not +move to answer it. She stood listening, the fingers of one hand to her +lips, those of the other still resting on the plaster shoulder. Then she +heard a voice, and a moment later there came a tap at the door. + +It was Mr. Strong. + +He advanced, and did a thing he had not done before--lifted the hand she +extended to his lips and then let it drop again. But Amory was not +surprised. It was merely a new and natural expression of the homage he +had never concealed, and even had Amory been vain enough to suppose that +it meant anything more, the briskness of the "Good afternoon" that +followed it would have disabused her. "Glad I found you," Mr. Strong +said. "I wanted to see you. Cosimo in?" + +Her husband was always Cosimo to him, but in speaking to herself he used +no name at all. It was as if he hesitated to call her Amory, and refused +to call her Mrs. Pratt. Even "Miss Towers" he had only used once, and +that was some time ago. + +Amory's fingers left the cast, and Mr. Strong walked towards the +asbestos log.--"May I?" he said, drawing forth a packet of Virginia +cigarettes; and afterwards he put the match with which he lighted one of +the cigarettes to the log. Amory drew up a small square footstool, and +put her elbows on her knees and her interwoven fingers beneath her +chin. Mr. Strong examined the end of his cigarette, and thrust his chin +down into his red tie and his hands deep into his trousers pockets. Then +he seemed to plunge into thought. + +Suddenly he shot a glance at Amory, and said abruptly, "I suppose you've +talked over the Indian policy with Cosimo?" + +It was nice and punctilious of him, the way he always dragged Cosimo in, +and Amory liked it. She felt sure that the editor of the "Times," +calling on the Prime Minister's wife, would not ignore the Prime +Minister. But to-day she was a little abstracted--dull--she didn't know +exactly what; and so she replied, without moving, "Would you like him +here? He's busy with the '_Life_'." + +"Oh no, don't trouble him then." + +There was a pause. Then, "I did talk to him about it. And to Mr. Prang," +Amory said. + +"Oh. Hm. Quite so," said Mr. Strong, looking at the toes of his brogues. + +"Yes. Mr. Prang was here last night," Amory continued, looking at the +points of her own slippers. + +"Yes." + +Again Mr. Strong's chin was sunk into his red tie. He was rising and +falling slowly on his toes. His eyes moved ruminatively sideways to the +rug at Amory's feet. + +"Yes. Yes. I've been wondering----" he said thoughtfully. + +"Well?" + +"Oh, nothing really. I dare say I'm quite wrong. You see, Prang----" + +"What?" Amory asked as he paused again. + +There was a twinkle in the eyes that rose to Amory's. Mr. Strong gave a +slight shrug.--"Well--Prang!----" he said with humorous deprecation. + +Amory was quick.--"Oh!--You don't mean that Mr. Prang isn't sound?" + +"Sound? Perfectly, perfectly. And a most capable fellow. Only I've +wondered once or twice whether he isn't--you know--just a little _too_ +capable.... You see, we want to use Prang--not to have Prang using +_us_." + +Amory could not forbear to smile. If that was all that was troubling Mr. +Strong she thought she could reassure him. + +"I don't think you'd have been afraid of that if you'd been here last +night," she replied quietly. "We were talking over England's diabolical +misrule, and I never knew Mr. Prang so luminous. It was +pathetic--really. Cosimo was talking about that Rawal Pindi case--you +know, of that ruffianly young subaltern drawing down the blinds and then +beating the native.--'But how do they take it?' I asked Mr. Prang, +rather scornfully, you know; and really I was sorry for the poor fellow, +having to apologize for his country.--'That's it,' he said sadly--it was +really sad.--And he told me, frankly, that sometimes the poor natives +pretended they were killed, and sometimes they announce that they're +going to die on a certain day, and they really _do_ die--they're so +mystic and sensitive--it was _most_ interesting.... But what I mean is, +that a gentle and submissive people like that--Mr. Prang admits that's +their weakness--I mean they _couldn't_ use _us_! It's our degradation +that we aren't gentle and sensitive too. You see what I mean?" + +"Oh, quite," Mr. Strong jerked out. "Quite." + +"And that's why I call Mr. Prang an idealist. There must be something +_in_ the East. At any rate it was splendid moral courage on Prang's part +to say, quite openly, that they couldn't do anything without the little +handful of us here, but must simply go on suffering and dying." + +There fell one of the silences that usually came when Mr. Strong lost +interest in a subject. Merely adding, "Oh, I've not a word to say +against Prang, but----," he began to rise and fall on his toes again. +Then he stepped to the Benares table where the casts were. But he made +no criticism of them. He picked the foot up, and put it down again. "I +like it," he said, and returned once more to the asbestos hearth. The +silence fell again. + +Amory, sitting on the footstool with her knees supporting her elbows and +her wrists supporting her chin, would have liked to offer Mr. Strong a +penny for his thoughts. She had had an odd, warm little sensation when +he had picked up that cast of the perfect foot. She supposed he must +know that it was her foot, but so widely had his thoughts been ranging +that he had merely put it down again with an abstracted "I like it." +Amory was not sure that any other woman than herself would not have been +piqued. Any other woman would have expected him either not to look at +the thing, or else to say that it was small, or to ask whether the real +one was as white, or something foolish like that. But Amory was superior +to such things. She lived on higher levels. On these levels such an +affront to the pure intellect as a flirtation could not exist. Free Love +as a logical and defensible system--yes, perhaps; or a combination so +happy of marriage and cohabitation as that of the Wyrons'--yes again; +but anything lower she left to the stupid people who swallowed the +conventions whole, including the convention of not being found out.--So +she merely wondered about their relation again. Obviously, there must be +a relation. And yet his own explanation had been quite insufficient; it +had been no explanation at all to ask her whether she had read "_The +Tragic Comedians_" or whether she had Edward Carpenter in the house. No +doubt it was flattering to her intelligence to suppose that she could +"flash" at his meaning without further words on his part, but it was +also a little irritating when the flash didn't come. And, now that she +came to think of it, except that he allowed it to be inferred that he +found Britomart Belchamber a bit lumpish, she didn't know what he +thought, not merely of herself, but of women at all. + +And yet there was a passed-through-the-furnace look about him that might +have piqued any woman. It was not conceivable that his eyes had softened +only over inspired passages in proof, or that the tenderest speeches his +lips had shaped had been the "Novum's" rallying-cries to the devoted +band of the New Imperialists. Amory was sure that his memory must be a +maze of things, less spacious perhaps, but far more interesting than +these. He looked widely now, but must have looked close and intense too. +He pronounced upon the Empire, but, for all he was not married, must +have probed deep into the palpitating human heart as well. + +Amory was just thinking what a gage of intimacy an unembarrassed silence +can be when Mr. Strong broke it. He lighted another cigarette at the end +of the last, turned, threw the end on the asbestos log, and stood +looking at the purring blue and yellow jets. No doubt he was full of the +Indian policy again. + +But as it happened it was not the Indian policy--"Oh," Mr. Strong said, +"I meant to ask you--Who was that fellow who came up here one day?" + +This was so vague that when Amory said "What fellow?" Mr. Strong himself +saw the vagueness, and laughed. + +"Of course: 'How big is a piece of wood?'--I mean the fellow who came to +The Witan in a morning-coat?" + +This was description enough. Amory's back straightened a little. + +"Oh, Stanhope Tasker! Oh, just the husband of a friend of mine. I don't +think you've met her. Why?" + +Surely, she thought, Mr. Strong was not going to tell her that "Stanhope +Tasker was an excellent fellow in his way, but----," as he had said of +Mr. Brimby, Mr. Wilkinson and Mr. Prang!---- + +"Oh, nothing much. Only that I saw him to-day," Strong replied +offhandedly. + +"He's often about. He isn't a very busy man, I should say," Amory +remarked. + +"Saw him in Charing Cross Road as I was coming out of the office," Mr. +Strong continued. "I don't think he saw me though." + +"After his abominable manners to you that day I should think he'd be +ashamed to look you in the face." + +For a moment Mr. Strong looked puzzled; then he remembered, and laughed +again. + +"Oh, I didn't mind that in the least! Rather refreshing in fact. Far +more likely he didn't notice me because he had his wife with him. I +think you said he was married?" + +Amory was just about to say that Mr. Strong gave Stan far more +magnanimity than he deserved when a thought arrested her. Dorothy in +Charing Cross Road! As far as she was aware Dorothy had not been out of +Hampstead for weeks, and even then kept to the less frequented parts of +the Heath. It wasn't likely.... + +Her eyes became thoughtful. + +"Oh? That's funny," she said. + +"What, that he shouldn't see me? Oh no. They seemed far more interested +in electric-light fittings." + +Amory's eyes grew more thoughtful still--"Oh!" she said; and added, "Did +you think her pretty?" + +"Hm--in a way. Very well dressed certainly; they both were. But I don't +think these black Spanish types amuse me much," Mr. Strong replied. + +Dorothy a black Spanish type! + +"Oh, do tell me what she had on!" said Amory brightly. + +She rather thought she knew most of Dorothy's dresses by this time. + +A black Spanish type! + +The task of description was too much for Mr. Strong, but he did his best +with it. Amory was keenly interested. But she pocketed her interest for +the present, and said quite banteringly and with an almost arch look, +"Oh, I should have thought Mrs. Tasker exactly your type!" + +Again the quick motion of Mr. Strong's blue eyes suggested an audible +click--"Oh? Why?" he asked. + +"Oh, there's no 'why' about it, of course. It's the impression of you I +had, that's all. You see, you don't particularly admire Miss +Belchamber----" + +"Oh, come! I think Miss Belchamber's an exceedingly nice girl, only----" + +"Well, Laura Beamish, then. But I forgot; you don't go to Walter's +Lectures. But I wonder whether you'd admire Laura?" + +"If she's black and Spanish you think I should?" He paused. "Is she?" + +"No. Brown and stringy rather, and with eyes that open and shut very +quickly.... But I'm very absurd. There's no Law about these things +really. Only, you see, I've no idea of the kind of woman you _do_ +admire?" + +She said it smilingly, but that did not mean that she was not perfectly +candid and natural about it too. Why not be natural about these things? +Amory knew people who were natural enough about their preferred foods +and clothing and houses; was a woman less than an entrée, or a bungalow, +or a summer overcoat? Besides, it was so very much more intrinsically +interesting. Walter Wyron had made a whole Lecture on it--Lecture No. +II, "_Types and Tact_," and Walter had barely touched the fringe of the +subject. Amory wanted to go a little deeper than that. But she also +wanted to get away from those vulgarized words and ready-made +conclusions, and to have each case considered on its merits. Surely it +ought to be possible to say that the presence of a person affected you +pleasantly, or unpleasantly, without sniggering inferences of a +_liaison_ in the one case or of a rupture in the other! + +Therefore it was once more just a little irritating that Mr. Strong, +instead of telling her what type he did admire, should merely laugh and +say, "Well--not Mrs. Tasker." If Amory had a criticism at all to make of +Mr. Strong it was this habit of his of negatives, that sometimes almost +justified the nickname Mr. Brimby had given him, of "Stone Wall Strong." +So she dropped one hand from her chin, allowing it to hang loose over +her knee while the other forearm still kept its swan's-neck curve, and +said abruptly, "Well--about the Indian Number. Let's get on." + +"Ah, yes," said Mr. Strong. "Let's get on." + +"What had we decided?" + +"Only Prang's article so far." + +"But you say you have your doubts about it?" + +Mr. Strong hesitated. "Only about its selling-power," he said with a +little shrug. "We must sell the paper, you see. It's not paying its way +yet." + +"Well, I'm sure that's not Mr. Prang's fault," Amory retorted. "He's +practically made the export circulation." + +"You mean the Bombay circulation? Yes, I suppose he has. I don't deny +it." + +"You can't deny it. Since Prang began to write for us we've done awfully +well in Bombay." + +To that too, Mr. Strong assented. Then Amory, after a moment's pause, +spoke quietly. She did not like to think of her editor as jealous of his +own contributors. + +"I know you don't like Mr. Prang," she said, looking fixedly at the +asbestos log. + +"I!" began Stone Wall Strong. "Why, you know I think he's a first rate +fellow, if only----" + +This time, however, Amory really did intend to get it out of him. For +once she would have one of those hung-up sentences completed. + +"If only what?" she said, looking up at him. + +"Oh, I don't know--as you said a moment ago, there's no 'why' about +these things----" + +"But I did give you my impression. You don't give me yours." + +"You did, I admit. Yes, I admit you did.... What is it you want to know, +then?" + +"Only why you seem so doubtful about Mr. Prang." + +"Ah!" said Mr. Strong.... + +Those who knew Edgar Strong the best said that he was a man who, other +things being equal, would rather go straight than not. Even when the +other things were not quite equal, he still had a mild preference for +straightness. But if other people positively insisted that he should +deviate from straightness, very well; that was their look-out. He had +been a good many things in his time--solicitor's clerk, free-lance +journalist, book-pedlar, election-agent's minion, Vanner, poetic +vagabond, and always an unerring "spotter" of the literary son of the +farming squire the moment he appeared in sight; and the "Novum" was the +softest job he had found yet. If the price of his keeping it was that he +should look its owner's wife long and earnestly in the eyes, as if in +his own there lay immeasurable things, not for him to give but for her +to take if she list, so be it; he would sleep none the less well in his +rent-free bedroom behind the "Novum's" offices afterwards. His +experience of far less comfortable sleeping-quarters had persuaded him +that in this imperfect world a man is entitled to exactly what he can +get. + +His eyes, nevertheless, did not seek Amory's. Instead, roving round the +room to see if nothing less would serve (leaving him still with the +fathomless look in reserve for emergencies), they fell on the Benares +tray and the casts. And as they remained there he suddenly frowned. +Amory's own eyes followed his; and suddenly she felt again that little +creeping thrill. A faint colour and warmth, new and pleasurable, came +into her cheeks. + +Then with a little rush, her discovery came upon her.... + +She _had_ got something from Mr. Strong at last! + +Her head drooped a little away from him, and the hand that had hung +laxly over her knee dropped gently to the rug. It was a delicious +moment. So all these weeks and weeks Mr. Strong _had_ cared that that +foot, that arm, had been exposed to the gaze of anybody who might have +entered the house! He had not said so; he did not say so now; but that +was it! More, he had cared so much that it had quite distorted his +judgment of Mr. Prang. And all at once Amory remembered something +else--a glance Edgar Strong had given her, neither more nor less +eloquent than the look he was bending on the casts now, one afternoon +when she had lain in the hammock in the garden and Mr. Prang, bending +over her, had ventured to examine a locket about her throat.... + +So _that_ was at the bottom of his reserve! _That_ was the meaning of +his "buts"!... + +Amory did not move. She wished it might last for hours. Mr. Strong had +taken a step towards the casts, but, changing his mind, had turned away +again; and she was astonished to find how full of meaning dozens of his +past gestures became now that she had the key to them. And she knew that +the casts _were_ beautiful. Brucciani would have bought them like a +shot. And she seemed to see Mr. Strong's look, piteous and frowning both +at once, if she should sell them to Brucciani, and Brucciani should +publish them to hang in a hundred studios.... + +The silence between them continued. + +But speak she must, and it would be better to do so before he did; and +by and bye she lifted her head again. But she did not look directly at +him. + +"It was very foolish," she murmured with beautiful directness and +simplicity. + +Mr. Strong said nothing. + +"But for weeks I've been intending to move them." + +Mr. Strong shrugged his shoulders. It was as if he said, "Well better +late than never ... but you see, _now_." + +"Yes," breathed Amory, softly, but aloud. + +The next moment Mr. Strong was himself again. He returned to his station +by the asbestos log. + +"Well, there's Prang's article," he said in his business voice. "Am I to +have it set up?" + +"Perhaps we'd better see what Cosimo says first," Amory replied. + +She did not know which was the greater delicacy in Mr. Strong--the +exquisite tact of the glance he had given at the casts, or the quiet +strength with which he took up the burden of editing the "Novum" again. + + + + +V + +THREE SHIPS + + +A white October mist lay over the Heath, and the smell of burning leaves +came in at the pond-room window of Dorothy Tasker's flat. But the smell +was lost on Dorothy. All her intelligence was for the moment +concentrated in one faculty, the faculty of hearing. She was sure Jackie +had swallowed a safety-pin, and she was anxiously listening for the +click with which it might come unstuck. + +"Shall I send for the doctor, m'm?" said Ruth, who stood holding the +doorknob in her aproned hand. She had been called away from her +"brights," and there was a mournful relish of Jackie's plight on her +face. + +"No," said Dorothy.... "Oh, I _know_ there were twelve of them, and now +there are only eleven!... _Have_ you put one of these things into your +mouth, Jackie?" + +"He put it up his nose, mumsie, like he did some boot-buttons once," +said Noel cheerfully. + +"But he couldn't do that.... _Have_ you swallowed it, Jackie?" + +"Mmm," said Jackie resolutely, as who should say that that which his +hand (or in this case his mouth) found to do he did with all his might. + +"Oh dear!" sighed Dorothy, leaning back in her chair.... + +She supposed it was the still white weather that weighed on her spirits; +she hoped so, for if it was not that it was something worse. Even dreary +weather was better than bankruptcy. She had sent her pass-book to the +bank to be balanced; until it should come back she refused to look at +the pile of tradesmen's books that stood on her writing-desk; and +borrowing from her aunt was not borrowing at all, but simply begging, +since Aunt Grace regarded the return of such loans as the last of +affronts. + +And (she sighed again) she had been _so_ well-off at the time of her +marriage! Why, she had had well over a thousand a year from Hallowell +and Smith's alone!... But Stan had had a few debts which had had to be +settled, and Stan's knowledge of the style in which things ought to be +done had been rather a drawback on that trip they had taken to the +Riviera, for his ideas of hotels had been a little splendacious, and of +dinners to "a few friends" rather daring; and, with one thing and +another, the problem of how to satisfy champagne tastes on a beer income +had never been really satisfactorily solved by Stan, poor old boy. And +he never, never grumbled at home, not even when the cold beef came on +three evenings together, which was harder on him than it was on most +people. He did what he could to earn, too. It wasn't his fault that the +standard of efficiency in the Army was so impracticably high, nor that +he had been packed off to try his luck in Canada with the disadvantage +of being a remittance-man, nor that, at the age of twenty-seven, when +his father had died, he had had to turn to and compete for this job or +that with a horde of capable youngsters years his juniors and with fewer +hampering decencies. It was his father's fault and Aunt Susan's really, +for having sent him to Marlborough and Sandhurst without being able to +set him properly on his feet afterwards. Such victims of circumstances, +on a rather different level, made husbands who stopped at home and +cleaned the knives and took the babies out in the perambulator. In +Stan's case the natural result had been to make a young man fit only to +join as a ranker or to stand with his back to a mirror in a suspect +card-room. + +"Shall I take him away, m'm?" Mrs. Mossop asked--("And prepare his +winding-sheet," her tone seemed to add). + +"Yes, do," Dorothy replied, with a glance at Ruth's blackened hands. +"And please make yourself fit to be seen, Ruth. You know you oughtn't to +be doing all that on the very day I let Norah out." + +She knew that her rebuke had set Ruth up in the melancholy enjoyment of +resentment for half a week, but she was past caring. Ruth rose an inch +in height at being chidden for the faithful performance of her most +disagreeable duties; she turned; and as she bore the Bits away the +mighty roar into which Jackie broke diminished in volume down the +passage. + +Dorothy sighed, that all her troubles should thus crowd on her at once. +Her eyes fell again on the tradesmen's books. It hardly seemed worth +while to pay them, since they would only come in again next week, as +clamourous and urgent as ever. They were thrust through the letterbox +like letters; Dorothy knew very well the thud with which they fell on +the floor; but she could never help running out into the hall when they +came. She had tried the plan of dispensing with books altogether and +paying for everything in cash as she got it, but that had merely meant, +not one large worry a week, but harassing little ones all the week +through. + +Oh, why had she squandered, or allowed Stan to squander, those good +round sovereigns of Hallowell and Smith's!---- + +Still--there is measure in everything--she had not sent her pass-book to +the bank in order to learn whether she had a balance. That would have +been too awful. It was the amount of her margin that she wanted, and +feared, to know. For presently there would be the doctor to pay, and so +many guineas a week at the Nursing Home, and the flat going on just the +same, and poor old Stan pathetically hoping that a casual dinner-table +puff in a Marlborough voice would result in fat new ledger-accounts for +Fortune and Brooks' and magnificent commissions for himself. If only she +could get just a little ahead of her points! But the money went out +just slightly quicker than it came in. Stan carved it as it were in +twopences off the cold beef, the Bits swallowed it in pennorths with +their breadcrumbs and gravy, and directly the strain eased for a little, +down swooped the rent and set everything back again exactly where it had +been three months before. + +And the Income Tax people had actually sent Stan a paper, wanting to +know all about his income from lands, hereditaments, etc., and warning +him that his wife's income must be accounted as part of his own! + +But it must not be supposed that Dorothy had allowed things to come to +this pass without having had an idea. She had an idea, and one that she +thought a very good one. Nevertheless, an idea is one thing, and the +execution thereof at the proper time quite another. For example, the +proper moment for the execution of this idea of Dorothy's was certainly +now, or at any rate at the Christmas Quarter (supposing she herself was +up and about again by that time and had found a satisfactory sub-tenant +for the flat). But the person against whom her idea was designed--who, +by the way, happened to be her unsuspecting and much-loved aunt, Lady +Tasker--was a very present difficulty. Dorothy knew for a fact that what +would be admirably convenient for herself at Christmas could not +possibly be convenient to her aunt until, at the very earliest, next +summer. That was the crab--the intervening period of nine months. She +knew of no mandragora that would put herself, Stan and her Bits of +Impudence gently to sleep, to wake up again to easier times. + +Oh, why had she spent those beautiful thick sovereigns of Hallowell and +Smiths' so recklessly!-- + +The mist lay flat over the pond outside, making in one corner of it a +horrible scum, from which the swans, seeking their food, lifted +blackened necks. There was never a ripple on the pond-room walls to-day. +Slowly Dorothy rose. Moping was useless; she must do something. She +crossed to her writing-desk and took from one of its drawers a fat file, +concertina-ed like her own accordion-pleated skirts; and she sat down +and opened it fan-wise on her knee. It was full of newspaper-cuttings, +draft "ideas" for advertisements, and similar dreary things. She sighed +again as her listless fingers began to draw them out. She had not +thought at one time that she would ever come to this. By a remarkable +piece of luck and light-heartedness and ingenuity she had started at +Hallowell and Smith's at the top of the tree; the brains of underlings +had been good enough to cudgel for such scrap-stuff as filled her +concertina-file; but that was all changed now. Light come, light go; and +since the lapse of her contracts she had been glad not only to devise +these ignoble lures for the public, but to draw them also. They formed +the pennies-three-farthings that came in while Stan carved the twopences +from the joint. She had thought the good times were going to last for +ever. They hadn't. She now looked enviously up to those who had been her +own subordinates. + +With no heart in her task at all, Dorothy set about the drafting of an +advertisement. + +She was just beginning to forget about swallowed safety-pins, and poor +luckless Stan, and guineas for her Nursing Home, and the prospect of +presently having seven mouths, big and little, to feed--she was even +beginning to cease to hear the clamour of the Bits in the room along the +passage--when there came a ring at the bell. Her fair head did not move, +but her blue eyes stole abstractedly sideways as Ruth passed the +pond-room door. Then a man's voice sounded, and Dorothy dropped her +pen.... + +"Mrs. Tasker," she had heard, with the "a" cut very short and two "s's" +in her name.... + +The next moment Ruth had opened the pond-room door, and, in tones that +plainly said "You needn't think that I've forgotten about just now, +because I haven't," announced: "Mr. Miller." + +Now it was curious that Dorothy had just been thinking about Mr. Miller. +Mr. Miller was Hallowells' Publicity Manager, and the time had been when +Dorothy had had Mr. Miller completely in her pocket. She had obtained +that comfortable contract of hers from Mr. Miller, and if during the +latter part of its continuance she had taken her duties somewhat lightly +and her pleasures with enormous gusto, she was not sure that Mr. Miller +had not done something of the same kind. But the firm, which could +excuse itself from a renewal of her own contract, for some reason or +other could not get rid of Mr. Miller; and now here was Mr. Miller +unexpectedly in Dorothy's flat--seeking her, which is far better for +you than when you have to do the seeking. He stood there with his grey +Trilby in his hand and his tailor-made deltoids almost filling the +aperture of the doorway. + +"There, now, if I wasn't right!" said Mr. Miller with great +satisfaction, advancing with one hand outstretched. "I fixed it all up +with myself coming along that you'd be around the house. I've had no +luck all the week, and I said to myself as I got out of the el'vator at +Belsize Park, 'It's doo to change.' And here I find you, right on the +spot. I hope this is not an introosion. How are you? And how's Mr. +Stan?" + +He shook hands heartily with Dorothy, and looked round for a place in +which to put his hat and stick. + +"Why, now, this is comfortable," he went on, drawing up the chair to +which Dorothy pointed. "I like your English fires. They may not have all +the advantages of steam-heat, but they got a look about 'em--the +Home-Idee. And you're looking just about right in health, Mrs. Tasker, +if I may say so. You English women have our N'York ladies whipped when +it comes to complexion, you have for sure. And how's the family----?" + +But here Mr. Miller suddenly stopped and looked at Dorothy again. If the +look that came into his eyes had come into those of a young unmarried +woman, Dorothy would have fled there and then. He dropped his head for a +moment as people do who enter a church; then he raised it again. + +"If you'll pardon an old married man and the father of three little +goils," Mr. Miller said, his eyes reverently lifted and his voice +suddenly altered, "--but am I right in supposing that ... another little +gift from the storks, as my dear old Mamie--that was my dear old negro +nurse--used to say?" Then, without waiting for the unrequired answer, he +straightened his back and squared his deltoids in a way that would have +made any of Holbein's portraits of Henry the Eighth look like that of a +slender young man. His voice dropped three whole tones, and again he +showed Dorothy the little bald spot on the crown of his head. + +"I'm glad. I say I'm glad. I'm vurry glad. I rejoice. And I should like +to shake Mr. Stan by the hand. I should like to shake you by the hand +too, Mrs. Tasker." Then, when he had done so: "It's the Mother-Idee. The +same, old-fashioned Idee, like our own mothers. It makes one feel good. +Reverent. I got no use for a young man but what he shows lats of +reverence for his mother. The old Anglo-Saxon-Idee--reverence for +motherhood.... And when, if an old married man may ask the +question----?" + +Dorothy laughed and blushed and told him. Mr. Miller, dropping his voice +yet another tone, told her in return that he knew of no holier place on +oith than the chamber in which the Anglo-Saxon-Idee of veneration for +motherhood was renewed and sustained. And then, after he had said once +more that he rejoiced, there fell a silence. + +Dorothy liked Mr. Miller. Once you got over his remarkable aptitude for +sincerities he had an excellent heart. Nevertheless she could not +imagine why he had come. She shuddered as he seemed for a moment to be +once more on the point of removing his shoes at the door of the Mosque +of Motherhood, but apparently he thought better of it. Squaring his +shoulders again, and no doubt greatly fortified by his late exercise, he +said, "Well, I always feel more of a man after I felt the throb of a +fellow-creature's heart. That's so. And now you'll be wondering what's +brought me up here? Well, the fact is, Mrs. Tasker, I'm wurried. I got +wurries. You can see the wurry-map on my face. Hallowells' is wurrying +me. I ain't going to tell you Hallowells' ain't what it was in its pammy +days; it may be, or it may not; mebbe you've heard the talk that's going +around?" + +"No," said Dorothy. + +"Is that so? Well, there is talk going around. There's a whole push of +people, knocking us all the time. They ain't of much account themselves, +but they knock us. It's a power the inferior mind has. And I say I'm +wurried about it." + +Dorothy, in spite of her "No," had heard of the "knocking" of Hallowell +and Smiths', and her heart gave an excited little jump at the thought +that flashed across her mind. Did Hallowells' want her back? The firm +had been launched upon London with every resource of publicity; Dorothy +herself had been the author of its crowning device; and whereas the +motto of older firms had been "Courtesy Costs Nothing," Hallowells' had +vastly improved upon this. Courtesy had, as a matter of fact, cost them +a good deal; but the rewards of the investment had been magnificent. Mr. +Miller had known that if you say to people often enough "See how +courteous I am," you are to all intents and purposes courteous. But what +Mr. Miller had not known had been the precise point at which it is +necessary to begin to build up a strained reputation again. +Commercial credit too, like those joints Stan carved, comes in in +two-pence-halfpennies but goes out in threepences.... And so the +"knocking" had begun. Rumours had got about that Hallowells' was a shop +where you were asked, after a few unsuitable articles had been shown to +you, whether you didn't intend to buy anything, and where you might wait +for ten minutes at a counter while two assistants settled a private +difference behind it. Did Mr. Miller want her help in restoring the +firm's fair name? Did he intend to offer her another contract? Were +there to be more of Hallowells' plump, ringing sovereigns--that she +would know better how to take care of this time? It was with difficulty +that she kept her composure as Mr. Miller continued: + +"There's no denying but what inferior minds have that power," he went +sorrowfully on. "They can't build up an enterprise, but they can knock, +and they been good and busy. You haven't heard of it? Well, that's good +as far as it goes, but they been at it for all that. Now I don't want to +knock back at your country, Mrs. Tasker, but it seems to me that's the +English character. You're hostile to the noo. The noo gives you cold +feet. You got a terrific capacity for stopping put. Your King Richard +Core de Lion did things in a certain way, and it ain't struck you yet +that he's been stiff and straight quite a while. And so when you see +something with snap and life to it you start knocking." Mr. Miller spoke +almost bitterly. "But I ain't holding you personally responsible, Mrs. +Tasker. I reckon you're a wonderful woman. Yours is a reel old family, +and if anybody's the right to knock it's you; but _you_ appreciate the +noo. _You_ look at it in the light of history. _You_ got the sense of +world-progress. _You're_ a sort of Lady Core de Lion to-day. I haven't +forgotten the Big Idee you started us off with. And so I come to you, +and tell you, straight and fair, we want you." + +Dorothy was tingling with excitement; but she took up a piece of +sewing--the same piece on which she had bent her modest gaze when she +had machinated against her aunt on the afternoon on which Lady Tasker +had come on, weary and thirsty, from The Witan. It was a piece she kept +for such occasions as these. She stitched demurely, and Mr. Miller went +on again:-- + +"We want you. We want those bright feminine brains of yours, Mrs. +Tasker. And your ladies' intooition. We're stuck. We want another Idee +like the last. And so we come to the department where we got +satisfaction before." + +Dorothy spoke slowly. She was glad the pond-room was beautifully +furnished--glad, too, that the hours Ruth spent over her "brights" were +not spent in vain. The porcelain gleamed in her cabinets and the silver +twinkled on her tables. At any rate she did not look poor. + +"This is rather a surprise," she said. "I hardly know what to say. I +hadn't thought of taking on another contract." + +But here Mr. Miller was prompt enough. + +"Well, I don't know that we were thinking of a noo contract exactly. +You're a lady with a good many responsibilities now, and ain't got too +much time for contracts, I guess. No, it ain't a contract. It's an Idee +we want." + +Far more quickly than Dorothy's hopes had risen they dropped again at +this. "An Idee:" naturally!... Everybody wanted that. She had not had to +hawk an idea like the last--so simple, so shapely, so beauty-bright. And +she had learned that it is not the ideas, but what follows them, that +pays--the flat and uninspired routine that forms the everyday work of a +lucrative contract. It is the irony of this gipsy life of living by your +wits. You do a stately thing and starve; you follow it up--or somebody +else does--with faint and empty echoes of that thing, and you are +overfed. An Idea--but not a contract; a picking of her brains, but no +permanent help against that tide of tradesman's books that flowed in at +the front door.... And Dorothy knew already that for another reason Mr. +Miller had sought her out in vain. Ideas are _not_ repeated. They visit +us, but we cannot fetch them. And as for echoes of that former +inspiration of hers, no doubt Mr. Miller had thought of all those for +himself and had rejected them. + +"I see," she said slowly.... + +"Well," said Mr. Miller, his worry-map really piteous, "I wish you could +tell me where we've gone wrong. It must be something in the British +character we ain't appreciated, but what, well, that gets me. We been +Imperialistic. There ain't been one of our Monthly House Dinners but +what we've had all the Loyal Toasts, one after the other. There ain't +been a Royal Wedding but what we've had a special window-display, and +christenings the same, and what else you like. We ain't got gay with the +Union Jack nor Rotten Row nor the House of Lords. We've reminded folk it +was your own King George who said 'Wake up, England----!'" + +But at this point Mr. Miller's doleful recital was cut short by a second +ring at the bell. Again Ruth's step was heard in the passage outside, +and again Ruth, loftily sulky but omitting no point of her duty, stood +with the door-knob in her hand. + +"Mrs. Pratt," she announced; and Amory entered. + +Seeing Mr. Miller, however, she backed again. Mr. Miller had risen and +bowed as if he was giving some invisible person a "back" for leapfrog. + +"Oh, I do so beg your pardon!" said Amory hurriedly. "I didn't know +you'd anybody here. But--if I could speak to you for just a moment, +Dorothy--it won't take a minute----" + +"Please excuse me," said Dorothy to Mr. Miller; and she went out. + +She was back again in less than three minutes. Her face had an unusual +pinkness, but her voice was calm. She did not sit down again. Neither +did she extend her hand to Mr. Miller in a too abrupt good-bye. +Nevertheless, that worried man bowed again, and looked round for his hat +and stick. + +"I shall have to think over what you've been saying," Dorothy said. +"I've no proposal to make off-hand, you see--and I'm rather afraid that +just at present I shan't be able to come and see you----" + +There were signs in Mr. Miller's bearing of another access of reverence. + +"So I'll write. Or better still, if it's not too much trouble for you to +come and see me again----? Perhaps I'd better write first.--But you'll +have tea, won't you?" + +Mr. Miller put up a refusing hand.--"No, I thank you.--So you'll do your +possible, Mrs. Tasker? That's vurry good of you. I'm wurried, and I rely +on your sharp feminine brains. As for the honorarium, we shan't quarrel +about that. I wish I could have shaken hands with Mr. Stan. There ain't +a happier and prouder moment in a man's life than----" + +"Good-bye." + +And the father of three little goils of his own took his leave. + +No sooner had he gone than Dorothy's brows contracted. She took three +strides across the room and rang for Ruth. Never before had she +realized the inferiority, as a means of expressing temper, of an +electric bell to a hand-rung one or to one of which a yard or two of +wire can be ripped from the wall. Only by mere continuance of pressure +till Ruth came did she obtain even a little relief. To the high resolve +on Ruth's face she paid no attention whatever. + +"A parcel will be coming from Mrs. Pratt," she said. "Please see that it +goes back at once." + +Ruth's head was heroically high. The late Mr. Mossop had had his faults, +but he had not kept his finger on electric-bell buttons till she came. + +"No doubt there's them as would give better satisfaction, m'm," she said +warningly. + +But Dorothy rushed on her fate.--"There seems very little satisfaction +anywhere to-day," she answered. + +"Then I should wish to give the usual notice," said Ruth. + +"Very well," said the reckless mistress.... "Ruth!" (Ruth returned). +"You forgot what I said about always shutting the door quietly." + +This time the door close so quietly behind Ruth that Dorothy heard her +outburst into tears on the other side of it. + +Second-hand woollies for her Bits!... Of course Amory Pratt had made the +proposal with almost effusive considerateness. No doubt the twins, Corin +and Bonniebell, _had_ outgrown them. Dorothy did not suppose for a +moment that they were _not_ the best of their kind that money could +buy; the Pratts seemed to roll in money. And beyond all dispute the +winter _might_ come any morning now, and the garments _would_ just fit +Jackie. But--her own Bits!... She had had her back to the bedroom window +when the offer had been made; she knew that her sudden flush had not +showed; and her voice had not changed as she had deliberately told her +lie--that she had bought the children's winter outfits only the day +before.... + +"I'm sure you won't have any difficulty in giving them away," she had +concluded as she had passed to the bedroom door. + +"Far less difficulty than you'll find here," she might have added, but +had forborne.... + +Other children's woollies for her little Jackie!---- + +What gave sting to the cut was that Jackie sorely needed them; but then +it was not like Amory Pratt, Dorothy thought bitterly, to make a +graceful gift of an unrequired thing. She must blunder into people's +necessities. A gift of a useless Teddy Bear or of a toy that would be +broken in a week Dorothy might not have refused; but mere need!--"Oh!" +Dorothy exclaimed, twisting in her chair with anger.... + +What a day! What a life! And what a little thing thus to epitomize the +whole hopeless standstill of their circumstances! + +And because it was a little thing, it had a power over Dorothy that +twenty greater things would not have had. She was about to call the +precious and disparaged Jackie when she thought better of it. Instead, +she dropped her face into her hands and melted utterly. What Ruth did in +the kitchen she did in the pond-room; and Jackie, who caught the +contagion, filled the passage between with an inconsolable howling. + +It was into this house of lamentation that Stan entered at half-past +four. + +"Steady, there!" he called to his younger son; and Jackie's bellow +ceased instantaneously. + +"Ruth's c'ying, so I c'ied too," he confided solemnly to his father; and +the two entered the pond-room together, there to find Dorothy also in +tears. + +"Hallo, what's this?" said Stan. "Jackie, run and tell Ruth to hurry up +with tea.... Head up, Dot--let's have a look at you----" + +Perhaps he meant that Dot should have a look at him, for his face shone +with an--alas!--not unwonted excitement. Dorothy had seen that shining +before. It usually meant that he had been let in on the ground floor of +the International Syndicate for the manufacture of pig-spears, or had +secured an option on the world's supply of wooden pips for blackberry +jam, or an agency for a synthesized champagne. And she never dashed the +perennial hopefulness of it. The poor old boy would have been +heartbroken had he been allowed to suppose that he was not, in intent at +any rate, supporting his wife and children. + +"What is it, old girl?" he said. "Just feeling low, eh? Never mind. I've +some news for you." + +Dorothy summoned what interest she could,-- + +"Not an agency or anything?" she asked, wiping her eyes. + +"Better than that." + +"Well, some agencies are very good." + +"Not as good as this!" + +"Put your arm round me. I've been feeling _so_ wretched!" + +"Come and sit here. There. Wretched, eh? Well, would three hundred a +year cheer you up any?" + +It would have, very considerably; but Stan's schemes were seldom +estimated to produce a sum less than that. + +"Eh?" Stan continued. "Paid weekly or monthly, whichever I like, and a +month's screw to be going on with?" + +Suddenly Dorothy straightened herself in his arms. She knew that Stan +was trying to rouse her, but he needn't use a joke with quite so sharp a +barb. She sank back again. + +"Don't, dear," she begged. "I know it's stupid of me, but I'm so dull +to-day. You go out somewhere this evening, and I'll go to bed early and +sleep it off. I shall be all right again in the morning." + +But from the pocket into which she herself had put four half-crowns that +very morning--all she could spare--Stan drew out a large handful of +silver, with numerous pieces of gold sticking up among it. A glance told +her that Stan was not likely to have backed a winner at any such price +as that. Other people did, but not Stan. She had turned a little pale. + +"Tell me, quick, Stan!" she gasped. + +"You laughed rather at the Fortune & Brooks idea, didn't you?" + +"Oh, don't joke, darling!----" + +"Eh?... I say, you're upset. Anything been happening to-day? Look here, +let me get you a drink or something!" + +"Do you mean--you've got a job, Stan?" + +"Rather!--I say, do let me get you a drink----" + +"I shall faint if you don't tell me----" + +She probably would.... + +Stan had got a job. What was it, this job that had enabled Stan to come +home, before he had lifted a finger to earn it, with masses of silver in +his pocket, and the clean quids sticking up out of the lump like almonds +out of a trifle? + +--He would have to lift more than a finger before that money was earned. +He would have to hang on wires by his toes, and to swim streams, and to +be knocked down by runaway horses, and to dash into burning houses, and +to fling himself on desperate men, and to ascend into the air in +water-planes and to descend in submarines into the deep. Hydrants would +be turned on him, and sacks of flour poured on him, and hogsheads of +whitewash and bags of soot. Not for his brains, but for his good looks +and steady nerves and his hard physical condition had he been the chosen +one among many. For Stan had joined a Film Producing Company, less as an +actor than as an acrobat. Go and see him this evening. He is as well +worth your hour as many a knighted actor. And the scene from "Quentin +Durward," in which Bonthron is strung up with the rope round his neck, +is not fake. They actually did string Stan up, in the studio near Barnet +that had been a Drill Hall, and came precious near to hanging him into +the bargain. + +But he passed lightly over these and other perils as he poured it all +out to Dorothy at tea. Pounds, not perils, were the theme of his song. + +"I didn't say anything about it for fear it didn't come off," he said, +"but I've been expecting it for weeks." He swallowed tea and cake at a +rate that must have put his internal economy to as severe a strain as +"Mazeppa" (Historical Film Series, No. XII) afterwards did his bones and +muscles. "I start on Monday, so breakfast at eight, sharp, Dot. 'Lola +Montez.' They've got a ripping little girl as Lola; took her out to tea +and shopping the other day; I'll bring her round." ("No you don't--not +with me sitting here like a Jumping Bean," quoth Dorothy). "Oh, that's +all right--she's getting married herself next month--furnishing her flat +now--I helped her to choose her electric-light fittings--you'd like +her.... _Ain't_ it stunning, Dot!----" + +It was stunning. Part of the stunningness of it was that Dorothy, with +an abrupt "Excuse me a moment," was enabled to cross to her desk and to +dash off a note to Harrods. Second-hand woollies for her Bits! Oh no, +not if she knew it!... "Yes, go on, dear," she resumed, returning to the +tea-table again. "No, I don't wish it was something else. If we're poor +we're poor, and the Services are out of the question, and it's just as +good as lots of other jobs.--And oh, that reminds me: I had Mr. Miller +in this afternoon!"... + +"And oh!" said Stan ten minutes later; "I forgot, too! I met a chap, +too--forgotten all about it. That fellow I gave a dressing-down about +India to up at the Pratts' there. He stopped me in the street, and what +do you think? It was all I could do not to laugh. He asked me whether I +could put him on to a job! Me, who haven't started myself yet!... I said +I could put him on to a drink if that would do--I had to stand somebody +a drink, just to wet my luck, and I didn't see another soul--and I +fetched it all out of my pocket in a pub in St. Martin's Lane--," he +fetched it all out of his pocket again now, "--fetched it out as if it +was nothing--you should have seen him look at it!--Strong his name +is--didn't catch it that day he was burbling such stuff----" + +Dorothy's eyes shone. Dear old Stan! That too pleased her. No doubt the +Pratts would be told that Stan was going about so heavily laden with +money that he had to divide the weight in order not to walk lopsided---- + +Worn woollies for His Impudence's Bits!---- + +Rather not! There would be a parcel round from Harrods' to-morrow! + + + + +VI + +POLICY + + +Amory would have been far less observant than she was had it not +occurred to her, as she left Dorothy's flat that day, that she had been +hustled out almost unceremoniously. She hoped--she sincerely hoped--that +she did not see the reason. To herself, as to any other person not +absolutely case-hardened by prejudice, the thing that presented itself +to her mind would not have been a reason at all; but these conventional +people were so extraordinary, and in nothing more extraordinary than in +their regulations for receiving callers of the opposite sex. That was +what she meant by the vulgarizing of words and the leaping to ready-made +conclusions. A conventional person coming upon herself and Mr. Strong +closeted together would have his stereotyped explanation; but that was +no reason why anybody clearer-eyed and more open-minded and +generous-hearted should fall into the same degrading supposition. It +would be ridiculous to suppose that there was "anything" between Dorothy +and Mr. Miller. Amory knew that in the past Dorothy had had genuine +business with Mr. Miller. And so now had she herself with Mr. Strong. +And as for Stan's going about in open daylight with a "dark Spanish +type"--a type traditionally wickeder than any other--Amory thought +nothing of that either. Stan had as much right to go about with his +Spanish female as Cosimo had to take Britomart Belchamber to a New Greek +Society matinée or to one of Walter's Lectures. Amory would never have +dreamed of putting a false interpretation on these things. + +Nevertheless, her visit _had_ been cut singularly short, and Dorothy +plainly _had_ wanted to be rid of her. Because hearts are kind eyes need +not necessarily be blind. Amory could not conceal from herself that in +magnanimously passing these things over as nothing, she was, after all, +making Dorothy a present of a higher standard than she had any right to. +Judged by her own standards (which was all the judgment she could +strictly have claimed), there was--Amory would not say a fishiness about +the thing--in fact she would not say anything about it at all. The less +said the better. Pushed to its logically absurd conclusion, Dorothy's +standard meant that whenever people of both sexes met they should not be +fewer than three in number. In Amory's saner view, on the other hand, +two, or else a crowd, was far more interesting. Nobody except +misanthropists talked about the repulsion of sex. Very well: if it was +an attraction, it _was_ an attraction. And if it was an attraction to +Amory, it was an attraction to Dorothy also; if to Cosimo, then to Stan +as well. The only difference was that she and Cosimo openly admitted it +and acted upon it, while Stan and Dorothy did not admit it, but probably +acted furtively on it just the same. + +It was very well worth the trouble of the call to have her ideas on the +subject so satisfactorily cleared up. + +At the end of the path between the ponds she hesitated for a moment, +uncertain whether to keep to the road or to strike across the sodden +Heath. She decided for the Heath. Mr. Strong had said that he might +possibly come in that afternoon to discuss the Indian policy, and she +did not want to keep him waiting. + +Then once more she remembered her unceremonious dismissal, and reflected +that after all that had left her with time on her hands. She would take +a turn. It would only bore her to wait in The Witan alone, or, which was +almost the same thing, with Cosimo. The Witan was rather jolly when +there were crowds and crowds of people there; otherwise it was dull. + +She turned away to the right, passed the cricket-pitch, found the cycle +track, and wandered down towards the Highgate ponds. + +She had reached the model-yacht pond, and was wondering whether she +should extend her walk still further, when she saw ahead of her, sitting +on a bench beneath an ivied stump, two figures deep in conversation. She +recognized them at a glance. They were the figures of Cosimo and +Britomart Belchamber. Britomart was looking absently away over the +pond; Cosimo was whispering in her ear. Another second or two and Amory +would have walked past them within a yard. + +Now Amory and Cosimo had married on certain express understandings, of +which a wise and far-sighted anticipation of the various courses that +might be taken in the event of their not getting on very well together +had formed the base. Therefore the little warm flurry she felt suddenly +at her heart could not possibly have been a feeling of liberation. How +could it, when there was nothing to be liberated from? Just as much +liberty as either might wish had been involved in the contract itself, +and a formal announcement of intention on either part was to be +considered a valid release. + +And so, in spite of that curious warm tingle, Amory was not one atom +more free, nor one atom less free, to develop (did she wish it) a +relationship with anybody else--Edgar Strong or anybody--than she had +been before. She saw this perfectly clearly. She had talked it all over +with Cosimo scores of times. Why, then, did she tingle? Was it that they +had not talked it over enough? + +No. It was because of a certain furtiveness on Cosimo's part. Evidently +he wished to "take action" (if she might use the expression without +being guilty of a vulgarized meaning) _without_ having made his formal +announcement. That she had come upon them so far from The Witan was +evidence of this. They had deliberately chosen a part of the Heath they +had thought it unlikely Amory would visit. They could have +done--whatever they were doing--under her eyes had they wished, but +they had stolen off together instead. It was a breach of the +understanding. + +Before they had seen her, she left the path, struck across the grass +behind them, and turned her face homewards. She was far, far too proud +to look back. Certainly it was his duty to have let her know. Never +mind. Since he hadn't.... + +Yet the tingling persisted, coming and going in quite pleasurable little +shocks. Then all at once she found herself wondering how far Cosimo and +Britomart had gone, or would go. Not that it was any business of hers. +She was not her husband's keeper. It would be futile to try to keep +somebody who evidently didn't want to be kept. It would also take away +the curious subtle pleasure of that thrill. + +She was not conscious that she quickened the steps that took her to the +studio, where by this time Edgar Strong probably awaited her. + +Most decidedly Cosimo ought to have given her warning---- + +As for Britomart Belchamber--sly creature--no doubt she had persuaded +him to slink away like that---- + +Well, there would be time enough to deal with her by and bye---- + +Amory reached The Witan again. + +As she entered the hall a maid was coming out of the dining-room. Amory +called her. + +"Has Mr. Strong been in?" + +"He's in the studio, m'm," the maid replied. + +"Are the children with Miss Belchamber?" + +"No, m'm. They're with nurse, m'm." + +"Is Miss Belchamber in her room?" + +"No, m'm. She's gone out." + +"How long ago?" + +"About an hour, m'm." + +"Is Mr. Pratt in?" + +"I think so, m'm. I'll go and inquire." + +"Never mind. I'm going upstairs." + +Ah! Then they had gone out separately, by pre-arrangement! More slyness! +And this was Cosimo's "pretence" at being Miss Belchamber's devoted +admirer! Of course, if there had been any pretence at all about it, it +would have had to be that he was not her admirer. Very well; they would +see about that, too, later!---- + +She went quickly to her own room, changed her blouse for a tea-gown, and +then, with that tingling at her heart suddenly warm and crisp again, +descended to the studio. + +It was high time (she told herself) that the "Novum's" Indian policy was +definitely settled. Mr. Strong also said so, the moment he had shaken +hands with her and said "Good afternoon." But Mr. Strong spoke +bustlingly, as if the more haste he made the more quickly the job would +be over. + +"Now these are the lines we have to choose from," he said.... + +And he enumerated a variety of articles they had in hand, including Mr. +Prang's. + +"Then there's this," he said.... + +He told Amory about a crisis in the Bombay cotton trade, and of a scare +in the papers that very morning about heavy withdrawals of native +capital from the North Western Banks.... + +"But I think the best thing of all would be for me to write an article +myself," he said, "and to back it up with a number of Notes. What I +really want cleared up is our precise objective. I want to know what +that's to be." + +"We'll have tea in first, and then we shall be undisturbed," said Amory. + +"Better wait for Cosimo, hadn't we?" + +"He's out," said Amory, passing to the bell. + +She sat down on the corner of the sofa, and watched the maid bring in +tea. Mr. Strong, who had placed himself on the footstool and was making +soughing noises by expelling the air from his locked hands, appeared to +be brooding over his forthcoming number. But that quick little tingle of +half an hour before had had a curious after-affect on Amory. How it had +come about she did not know, but the fact remained that she was not, +now, so very sure that even the "Novum" was quite as great a thing as +she had supposed it to be. Or rather, if the "Novum" itself was no less +great, she had, quite newly, if dimly, foreseen herself in a more +majestic rôle than that of a mere technical _directrice_. + +Politics? Yes, it undoubtedly was the Great Game. Strong men fancied +themselves somewhat at it, and conceited themselves, after the fashion +of men, that it was they who wrought this marvel or that. But was it? +Had there not been women so much stronger than they that, doing +apparently nothing, their nothings had been more potent than all the +rest? She began to give her fancy play. For example, there was that +about a face launching a thousand ships. That was an old story, of +course; if a face could launch a thousand ships so many centuries ago, +there was practically no limit to its powers with the British Navy at +its present magnificent pitch of numerical efficiency. But that by the +way. It was the idea that had seized Amory. Say a face--Helen's, she +thought it was--had launched a thousand, or even five hundred ships; +where was the point? Why, surely that that old Greek Lord High Admiral, +whoever he was--(Amory must look him up; chapter and verse would be so +very silencing if she ever had occasion to put all this into +words)--surely he had thought, as all men thought, that he was obeying +no behest but his own. The chances were that he had hardly wasted a +thought on Helen's face as a factor in the launching.... + +Yet Helen's face had been the real launching force, or rather the brain +behind Helen's face ... but Amory admitted that she was not quite sure +of her ground there. Perhaps she was mixing Helen up with somebody else. +At any rate, if she was wrong about Helen she was not wrong about +Catherine of Russia. Nor about Cleopatra. Nor about the Pompadour. These +had all had brains, far superior to the brains of their men, which they +had used through the medium of their beauty. She knew this because she +had been reading about them quite recently, and could put her finger on +the very page; she had a wonderful memory for the places in books in +which passages occurred.... So there were Catherine the Second, and +Cleopatra, and the Pompadour, even if she had been wrong about Helen. +That was a curious omission of Homer's, by the way--or was it +Virgil?--the omission of all reference to the brain behind. Perhaps it +had seemed so obvious that he took it for granted. But barring that, the +notion of a face launching the ships was very fine. It was the Romantic +Point of View. Hitherto Amory had passed over the Romantic Point of View +rather lightly, but now she rather thought there was a good deal in it. +At any rate that about the face of a woman being the real +launching-force of a whole lot of ships--well, it was an exaggeration, +of course, and in a sense only a poetic way of putting it--but it was +quite a ripping idea. + +So if a ship could be launched, apparently, not by a mere material +knocking away of the thingummy, but by the timeless beauty of a face, an +Indian policy ought not to present more difficulties. At all events it +was worth trying. Perhaps "trying" was not exactly the word. These +things happened or they didn't happen. But anybody not entirely stupid +would know what Amory meant. + +The maid lighted the little lamp under the water-vessel that kept the +muffins hot and then withdrew. Amory turned languidly to Mr. Strong. + +"Would you mind pouring out the tea? I'm so lazy," she said. + +She had put her feet up on the sofa, and her hands were clasped behind +her head. The attitude allowed the wide-sleeved tea-gown into which she +had changed to fall away from her upper arm, showing her satiny triceps. +The studio was warm; it might be well to open the window a little; and +Amory, from her sofa, gave the order. It seemed to her that she had not +given orders enough from sofas. She had been doing too much of the work +herself instead of lying at her ease and stilly willing it to be done. +She knew better now. It was much better to take a leaf out of the book +of _les grandes maitresses_. She recognized that she ought to have done +that long ago. + +So Mr. Strong brought her tea, and then returned to his footstool again, +where he ate enormous mouthfuls of muffin, spreading anchovy-paste over +them, and drank great gulps of tea. He fairly made a meal of it. But +Amory ate little, and allowed her tea to get cold. The cast which Stan +had coarsely called "the fore-quarter" had been hung up on the wall at +the sofa's end, and her eyes were musingly upon it. The trotter lay out +of sight behind her. + +"Well, about that thing of Prang's," said Mr. Strong when he could eat +no more. "Hadn't we better be settling about it?" + +"Don't shout across the room," said Amory languidly, and perhaps a +little pettishly. She was wondering what was the matter with her hand +that Mr. Strong had not kissed it when he had said good afternoon. He +had kissed it on a former occasion. + +"Head bad?" said Mr. Strong. + +"No, my head's all right, but there's no reason we should edit the +'Novum' from the housetops." + +"Was I raising my voice? Sorry." + +Mr. Strong rose from his footstool and took up a station between the +tea-table and the asbestos log. + +Amory was getting rather tired of hearing about that thing of Prang's. +She did not see why Mr. Strong should shuffle about it in the way he +did. The article had been twice "modified," that was to say more or less +altered, and Amory could hardly be expected to go on reading it in its +various forms for ever. What did Mr. Strong want? If he whittled much +more at Mr. Prang's clear statement of a point of view of which the +single virtue was its admitted extremeness, he would be reducing the +"Novum" to the level of mere Liberalism, and they had long ago decided +that, of the Conservative who opposed and the Liberal who killed by +insidious kindnesses, the former was to be preferred as a foe. Besides, +there was an alluring glow about Mr. Prang's way of writing. No doubt +that was part and parcel of the glamour of the East. The Eastern style, +like the Eastern blood, had more sun in it. Keats had put that awfully +well, in the passage about "parched Abyssinia" and "old Tartary the +Fierce," and so had that modern man, who had spoken of Asia as lying +stretched out "in indolent magnificence of bloom." Yes, there was a +funny witchery about Asia. In all sorts of ways they "went it" in Asia. +Bacchus had had a spree there, and it was there--or was that +Egypt?--that Cleopatra or the Queen of Sheba or somebody had smuggled +her satiny self into a roll of carpets and had had herself carried as a +present to King Solomon or Mark Antony or whoever it was. It seemed to +be in the Asian atmosphere, and Mr. Prang's prose style had a smack of +it too. Mr. Strong--his literary style, of course, she meant--might have +been all the better for a touch of that blood-warmth and thrill.... + +And there were ripping bits of reckless passion in Herodotus too. + +But Mr. Strong continued to stand between the tea-table and the asbestos +log, and to let fall irresolute sentences from time to time. Prang, he +said, really was a bit stiff, and he, Mr. Strong, wasn't sure that he +altogether liked certain responsibilities. Not that he had changed his +mind in the least degree. He only doubted whether in the long run it +would pay the "Novum" itself to acquire a reputation for exploiting what +everybody else knew as well as they did, but left severely alone. In +fact, he had assumed, when he had taken the job on, that the work for +which he received only an ordinary working-salary would be conditioned +by what other editors did and received for doing it.... At that Amory +looked up. + +"Oh? But I thought that the truth, regardless of consequences, was our +motto?" + +"Of course--without fear or favour in a sense--but where there are extra +risks----" + +What did this slow-coach of a man mean?----"What risks?" Amory asked +abruptly. + +"Well, say risks to Cosimo as proprietor." + +"You mean he might lose his money?" she said, with a glance round the +satiny triceps and the apple-bud of an elbow. + +"Well--does he _want_ to lose his money?--What I mean is, that we aren't +paying our way--we've scarcely any advertisements, you see----" + +"I think that what you mean is that we ought to become Liberals?" There +was a little ring in Amory's voice. + +Mr. Strong made no reply. + +"Or Fabians, perhaps?" + +Still Mr. Strong did not answer. + +"Because if you _do_ mean that, I can only say I'm--disappointed in +you!" + +Now those who knew Edgar Strong the best knew how exceedingly sensitive +he was to those very words--"I'm disappointed in you." In his large and +varied experience they were invariably the prelude to the sack. And he +very distinctly did not want the sack--not, at any rate, until he had +got something better. Perhaps he reasoned within himself that, of +himself and Prang, he would be the more discreet editor, and so lifted +the question a whole plane morally higher. Perhaps, if it came to the +next worst, he was prepared to accept the foisting of Prang upon him and +to take his chance. Anyway, his face grew very serious, and he reached +for the footstool, drew it close up to Amory's couch, and sat down on +it. + +"I wonder," he said slowly, looking earnestly at his folded hands, +"whether you'll put the worst interpretation on what I'm going to say." + +Amory waited. She dropped the satiny-white upper arm. Mr. Strong +resumed, more slowly still-- + +"It's this. We're risking things. Cosimo's risking his money, but he may +be risking more than that. And if he risks it, so do I." + +Into Amory's pretty face had come the look of the woman who prefers men +to take risks rather than to talk about them.--"What do you risk?" she +asked in tones that once more chilled Mr. Strong. + +"Well, for one thing, a prosecution. Prang's rather a whole-hogger. It's +what I said before--we want to use him, not have him use us." + +"Oh?" said Amory with a faint smile. "And can't you manage Mr. Prang?" + +There was no doubt at all in Mr. Strong's mind what that meant. "Because +if you can't," it plainly meant, "I dare say we can find somebody who +can." Without any qualification whatever, she really was beginning to be +a little disappointed in him. She wondered how Cleopatra or the Queen of +Sheba would have felt (had such a thing been conceivable) if, when that +carpet had been carried by the Nubians into her lover's presence and +unrolled, Antony or whatever his name was had blushed and turned away, +too faint-hearted to take the gift the gods offered him? Risks! +Weren't--Indian policies--worth a little risk?... + +Besides, no doubt Cosimo was still with Britomart Belchamber.... + +She put her hands behind her head again and gave a little laugh. + +Well, (as Edgar Strong himself might have put it in the days when his +conversation had been slangier than it was now), it was up to him to +make good pretty quickly or else to say good-bye to the editorship of a +rag that at least did one bit of good in the world--paid Edgar Strong +six pounds a week. And if it must be done it must, that was all. Damn +it!... + +Perhaps the satiny upper arm decided his next action. Once before he had +made its plaster facsimile serve his turn, and on the whole he would +have preferred to be able to do so again; but even had that object not +been out of reach on the wall and its original not eighteen inches away +at the sofa's end, three hundred pounds a year in jeopardy must be made +surer than that. He would have given a month's screw could Cosimo have +come in at that moment. He actually did give a quick glance in the +direction of the door.... + +But no help came. + +Damn it----! + +The next moment he had kissed that satiny surface, and then, gloomily, +and as one who shoulders the consequences of an inevitable act, stalked +away and stood in the favourite attitude of Mr. Brimby's heroes under +great stress of emotion--with his head deeply bowed and his back to +Amory. There fell between them a silence so profound that either became +conscious at the same moment of the soft falling of rain on the studio +roof. + +Then, after a full minute and a half, Mr. Strong, still without turning, +walked to the table on which his hat lay. Always without looking at +Amory, he moved towards the door. + +"Good-bye," he said over his shoulder. + +There was the note of a knell in his tone. He meant good-bye for ever. +All in a moment Amory knew that on the morrow Cosimo would receive Edgar +Strong's formal resignation from the "Novum's" editorial chair, and +that, though Edgar might retain his hold on the paper until his +successor had been found, he would never come to The Witan any more. He +had called Mr. Prang a whole-hogger, but in Love he himself appeared to +be rather a whole-hogger. He had all but told her that to see her again +would mean ... she trembled. The alternative was not to see her again. +His whole action had said, more plainly than any words could say, "After +that--all or nothing." + +She had not moved. She hardly knew the voice for her own in which she +said, still without turning her head, "Wait--a minute----" + +Mr. Strong waited. The minute for which she asked passed. + +"One moment----," murmured Amory again. + +At last Mr. Strong lifted his head.--"There's nothing to say," he said. + +"I'm thinking," Amory replied in a low voice. + +"Really nothing." + +"Give me just a minute----" + +For she was thinking that it was her face, nothing else, that had +launched him thus to the door. For a moment she felt compunction for +its tyranny. Poor fellow, what else had he been able to do?... Yet what, +between letting him go and bidding him stay, was she herself to do? At +his touch her heart had swelled--been constricted--either--both; even +had she not known that she was a pretty woman, now at any rate she had +put it to the proof; and the chances seemed real enough that if he +turned and looked at her now, he must give a cry, stride across the +studio floor, and take her in his arms. Dared she provoke him?... + +The moment she asked herself whether she dared she did dare. Not to have +dared would to have been to be inferior to those great and splendid and +reckless ones who had turned their eyes on their lovers and had +whispered, "Antony--Louis--I am here!" If she courted less danger than +she knew, her daring remained the same. And the room itself backed her +up. So many doctrines were enunciated in that studio, the burden of one +and all of which was "Why not?" The atmosphere was charged with +permissions ... perhaps for him too. He was at the door now. It was only +the turning of a key.... + +Amory's low-thrilled voice called his name across the studio. + +"Edgar----" + +But he had thought no less quickly than she. He had turned. Shrewdly he +guessed that she meant nothing; so much the better--damn it! There was +something female about Edgar Strong; he knew more about some things than +a young man ought to know; and in an instant he had found the "line" he +meant to take. It was the "line" of honour rooted in dishonour--the +"line" of Cosimo his friend--the "line" of black treachery to the hand +that fed him with muffins and anchovy paste--or, failing these, the +all-or-nothing "line."... But on the whole he would a little rather go +straight than not.... + +Nor did he hesitate. Amory had turned on the sofa. "Edgar!" she had +called softly again. He swung round. The savagery of his reply--there +seemed to Amory to be no other word to describe it--almost frightened +her. + +"Do you know what you're doing?" he broke out. "Haven't you done enough +already? What do you suppose I'm made of?" + +The moment he had said it he saw that he had made no mistake. It would +not be necessary to go the length of turning the key. He glared at her +for a moment; then he spoke again, less savagely, but no less curtly. + +"You called me back to say something," he said. "What is it?" + +Instinctively Amory had covered her face with her hands. It was +fearfully sweet and dangerous. Flattery could hardly have gone further +than that tortured cry, "What do you think I'm made of?" Her heart was +thumping--thump, thump, thump, thump. A lesser woman would have taken +refuge in evasions, but not she--not she, with Cosimo carrying on with +Britomart, and Dorothy Tasker no doubt whispering to her Otis or Wilbur +or whatever her American's name might be, and Stan perhaps deep in an +intrigue with his Spanish female at that very moment. No, she had +provoked him, and he had now every right to cry, not "Have you read +'_The Tragic Comedians_'?" but "Do you know what you're doing?"... And +he was speaking again now. + +"Because," he was saying quietly, "if _that's_ it ... I must know. I +must have a little time. There will be things to settle. I don't quite +know how it happened; I suddenly saw you--and did it. Anyway, it's +done--or begun.... But I won't stab Cosimo in the back.... It will have +to be the Continent, I suppose. Paris. There's a little hotel I know in +the Boulevard Montparnasse. It's not very luxurious, but it's cheap and +fairly clean. Seven francs a day, but it would come rather less for the +two of us. And you wouldn't have to spend much on dress in the Quartier. +Or there's Montmartre. Or some of those out-of-the-way seaside places. I +should like to take you to the sea first, and then to a town----" + +He stopped, and began to walk up and down the studio. + +Amory was suddenly pale. She had not thought of this. She had thought +that perhaps Mr. Strong might give a cry, rush across the studio, and +take her in his arms; but of this cold and almost passionless prevision +of details she had not dreamed. And yet that was magnificent too. Edgar +wasted no time in dalliance when there was planning to be done. There +would be time enough for softer delights when the whole of the Latin +Quarter lay spread out before them in indolent magnificence of bloom. He +was terrifying and superb. Such a man not manage Mr. Prang! Why, here he +was, ready to bear her off that very night at a word! + +Paris--Montmartre--the Quartier! + +It was Romance with a vengeance! + +Then at a thought she grew paler still. The children! What about Corin +and Bonniebell? It didn't matter so much about Cosimo; it would serve +him right; but what about the twins? Were they also to be included in +the seven francs a day? And wouldn't it matter how they dressed either +in the Quarter? Or did Edgar propose that they should be left behind in +Cosimo's keeping, with Britomart Belchamber for a stepmother? + +Edgar had reached the door again now. He was not hurrying her, but there +was a look on his face that seemed to say that all she needed was a hat +and a rug for the steamer. + +Such a very different thing from a carpet to roll round her---- + +She had risen unsteadily from the sofa. She crossed the floor and stood +before Edgar, looking earnestly up into his blue eyes. She moistened her +lips. + +"What's happened----" she began in a whisper.... + +He interrupted her only to make the slightest of forbidding gestures +with his hand; her own hands had moved, as if she would have put them on +his shoulders. And she saw that he was quite right. At the touch of her +his control would certainly have broken down. She went on, appealingly +and almost voicelessly. + +"What's happened--had to happen, hadn't it?" she whispered. "_You_ felt +it sweeping us away too--didn't you?... But need we say any more about +it to-night?... I want to think, Edgar. We must both think. +There's--there's a lot to think about--and talk over. We mustn't be too +rash. It _would_ be rash, wouldn't it? Look at me, Edgar----" + +"Oh--I must go----," he said with an impatience that he had not to +assume. + +"But look at me," she begged. "I shan't sleep a wink to-night. I shall +think about it all night. It will be lovely--but torturing--dear!--But +you'll sleep, I expect...." She pouted this last. + +"I'm going away," he announced abruptly. + +"Oh!" she cried, startled.... "But you'll come in to-morrow?" + +"I shall go away for a few days. Perhaps longer." + +"But--but--we haven't settled about the paper!----" + +He was grim.--"You don't suppose I can think about the paper _now_, do +you?" + +"No, no--of course not--but it _must_ be done to-day, Edgar! Or +to-morrow at the very latest!... Can't we _try_ to put this on one side, +just for an hour?" + +He shook his head before the impossibility.... + +And that was how it came about that the Indian policy of the "Novum" was +left in the hands of Mr. Suwarree Prang. + + + + +Part II + + + + +I + +THE PIGEON PAIR + + +Amory had been at a great deal of trouble to gather all the opinions she +could get about the education of her twins, Corin and Bonniebell; but it +was not true, as an unkind visitor who had been once only to The Witan +had said, that they were everybody's children. Just because Amory had +taken Katie Deedes' advice and had had their hair chopped off short at +the nape like a Boutet de Monvel drawing--and had not disdained to +accept the spelling-books which Dickie Lemesurier had given them (books +in which the difficult abstraction of the letter "A" was visualized for +their young eyes as "Little Brown Brother," "B" as "Tabby Cat," and so +on)--and had listened to Mr. Brimby when he had said what a good thing +it would be to devote an hour on Friday afternoons to the study of +Altruism and Camaraderie--and, in a word, had not been too proud and +egotistical to make use of a good suggestion wherever she found +it--because she had done these things, it did not at all follow that she +had shirked her duties. If she did not influence them directly, having +other things to do, she influenced those who did influence them, which +came to the same thing. She influenced the Wyrons, for example, and +nobody could say that the Wyrons had not made a particularly careful +study of children. They had, and Walter had founded at least two +Lectures directly on the twins and their education. + +But the Wyrons, who had submitted to the indignity of marriage for the +sake of the race, laboured and lectured under an obvious disadvantage; +they had no children of their own. And so Amory had to fill up the gaps +in their experience for herself. Still, it was wonderful how frequently +the Wyrons' excogitations and the things Amory had found out for herself +coincided. They were in absolute accord, for example, about the promise +of the immediate future and the hope that lay in the generation to come. +The Past was dead and damned; the Present at best was an ignoble +compromise; but the Morrow was to be bright and shining. + +"Walter and I," Laura sometimes said sadly, "aren't anything to brag +about. There is much of the base in us. Our lives aren't what they +should be. We're in the grip of inherited instincts too. We strive for +the best, but the worst's sometimes too much for us. It's like Moses +seeing the Promised Land from afar. We're just in the position of Moses. +But these young Aarons----" + +Amory thought that very modest and dignified of poor old Laura. She +frequently thought of her as 'poor old Laura,' but of course she didn't +mean her actual age, which was only two years more than Amory's own. And +that was very good, if a little sad, about Moses. The Wyrons did look +forth over a Canaan they weren't very likely ever to tread. + +Lately--that is to say since that secret and tremendous moment between +herself and Edgar Strong in the studio--Amory had fallen into the habit +of musing long over the sight of the twins at lessons, at play, or at +that more enlightened combination that makes lessons play and play +lessons. Sometimes Mr. Brimby, the novelist, had come up to her as she +had mused and had asked her what she was thinking about. + +"Your little Pigeon Pair, eh?" he had said. "Ah, the sweetness; ah, +lucky mother! Grey books have to be the children of some of us; ah, me; +yours is a pleasanter path!" + +Then he would fondle the little round topiary trees of their heads. +Amory was almost as sorry for Mr. Brimby as she was for Laura. His books +sold only moderately well, and she had more than once thought she would +like the "Novum" to serialize one of them--the one with the little boy +rather like Corin and the little girl rather like Bonniebell in it--if +Mr. Brimby didn't want too much money for it. + +Edgar Strong, on the other hand, never fondled the children, and Amory's +heart told her why. How could he be expected to do anything but hate +those poor innocents who had come between him and his desire? He must +have realized that only the twins had frustrated that flight to Paris. +Of course he was polite about it; he said that he was not very fond of +children at all; but Amory was not deceived. She was, in a way, +flattered that he did not fondle them. It was such an eloquent +abstention. But it would have been more eloquent still had he come to +The Witan and not-fondled them oftener. + +Therefore it was that Amory looked on Corin and Bonniebell as the +precious repositories of her own relinquished joys, and heirs to a +happier life than she herself had known. She dreamed over them and their +future. Laura Wyron was quite right: by the time they had grown up the +fogs of cowardice and prejudice and self-seeking would have disappeared +for ever. Perhaps even by that time, as in Heaven, there would be no +more marrying nor giving in marriage. Things would have adjusted +themselves out of the rarer and sweeter and more liberal atmosphere. +Corin, grown to be twenty, would one day meet with some mite who was +still in her cradle or not yet born, and the two would look at one +another with amazement and delight, and the Ideal Love would be born in +their eyes, and Corin would recite a few of those brave and pure and +unashamed things out of "Leaves of Grass" to her, and--well, and there +they would be.... And Bonniebell, too, would do the same, on a Spring +morning very likely, simply clad, cool and without immodest +blushes--yes, she too would see somebody, and she would say, gladly and +simply, "I am here" (for there would be no reason, then, why she should +wait for the youth to speak first), and--well, and there they would be +too. And it would be Exogamy, or whatever the word was that Walter used. +Either would go forth from the family on the appointed day--or perhaps +only Corin would go, and Bonniebell remain behind--but anyway, one, if +not both of them would go forth, and rove the morning-flushed hills, +alone and free and singing and on the look-out for somebody, and they +would look just like pictures of young Greeks, and nobody would laugh, +as they did at the poor lady who walked in Greek robes down the +Strand.... + +And Amory herself? Alas! She would be left with the tribe. She would be +old then--say fifty-something on the eleventh of October. And Edgar +would be old too. They would have to recognize that _their_ youth had +been spent in the night-time of ignorance and suspicion. _They_ would +only be able to think of those spirited young things quoting "Leaves of +Grass" to one another and wondering what had happened to them.... + +No wonder Amory was sometimes pensive.... + +Mr. Wilkinson, the Labour Member, had been to all intents and purposes +asked not to fondle the twins. He was a tall spare man with a great bush +of pepper-and-salt hair, a Yorkshire accent, and an eye that hardly +rested on any single object long enough to get more than a fleeting +visual impression of it. He wrote on the first and third weeks of the +month the "Novum's" column of "Military Notes," and on the alternate +weeks filled the same column with officially inspired "Trade Union +Echoes." Between these two activities of Mr. Wilkinson's there was a +connexion. He, in common with everybody else at The Witan, was loud in +decrying the jobberies and vested interests of Departments, with the War +Office placed foremost in the shock of his wrath. But the Trade Unions +were another matter, and never a billet-creating measure came before +Parliament but he strove vehemently to have its wheels cogged in with +those of the existing Trade Union machine. That is to say, that while in +theory he was for democratic competitive examination, in practice he +found something to be said for jobbery, could the fitting Trade Unionist +but be found. He was, moreover, a firebrand by temperament, and this is +where the connexion between the "Military Matters" and the "Echoes" +appears. Trade Unionists he declared, ought to learn to shoot. The other +side, with their cant about "Law and Order," never hesitated to call out +the regular troops; therefore, until the Army itself should have been +won over by means of the leaflets that were disseminated for the +purpose, they ought in the event of a strike to be prepared to throw up +barricades, to shoot from cellar-windows, and to throw down +chimney-stacks from the housetops. Capitalist-employed troops would not +destroy more property than they need; in a crooked-streeted town the +advantage of long-range fire would be gone; and Mr. Wilkinson was +prepared to demonstrate that a town defended on his lines could hold +out, in the event of Industrial War pushed to an extreme, until it was +starved into surrender.--These arguments, by the way, had impressed Mr. +Prang profoundly. + +Now (to come back to the twins) on Corin's fourth birthday Mr. +Wilkinson, moved by these considerations, had given him a wooden gun, +and in doing so had committed a double error in Amory's eyes. His first +mistake had been to suppose that even if, under the present lamentable +(but nevertheless existing) conditions of militarism, Corin should ever +become a soldier at all, he would be the uncommissioned bearer of a gun +and not the commissioned bearer of a sword. And his second mistake had +been like unto it, namely, to think that, in the case of a proletariat +uprising say in Cardiff or York, Corin would not similarly have held +some post of weight and responsibility on the other side. Corin shoot up +through the street-trap of a coal-hole or pot somebody from behind a +chimney-stack!... But Amory admitted that it must be difficult for Mr. +Wilkinson to shake off the effects of his upbringing. That upbringing +had been very different from, say, Mr. Brimby's. Mr. Brimby had been at +Oxford, and in nobly stooping to help the oppressed brought as it were a +fragrant whiff of graciousness and culture with him. Mr. Wilkinson was a +nobody. He came from the stratum of need, and, when it came to fondling +the twins, must not think himself a Brimby.... Therefore, Amory had had +to ask him to take the gun back (a deprivation which had provoked a +mighty outcry from Corin), and to give him, if he must give him +something, a Nature book instead. + +Katie Deedes and Dickie Lemesurier were both permitted to fondle the +twins, though in somewhat different measure. This difference of measure +did not mean that either Katie or Dickie suffered from a chronic cold +that the twins might have contracted. Here again the case was almost as +complicated as the case of Mr. Wilkinson. Cases had a way of being +complicated at The Witan. It was this:-- + +Both of these ladies, as Amory had assured Mr. Brimby, were "quite all +right." She meant socially. No such difference was to be found between +them in this respect as that which yawned between Mr. Brimby and Mr. +Wilkinson. Indeed as far as Dickie was concerned, Amory had given a +little apologetic laugh at the idea of her having to place and appraise +a Lemesurier of Bath at all. The two girls had equally to work for their +living, and--but perhaps it was here that the difference came in. There +are jobs and jobs. It was a question of tone. Dickie, running the +Suffrage Book Shop, enjoyed something of the glamour of Letters; but +Katie, as manageress of the Eden Restaurant, was, after all, only a +caterer. It was not Amory's fault that Romance had pronounced +arbitrarily and a little harshly on the relative dignity of these +occupations. She could not help it that books are books and superior, +while baked beans are only baked beans, necessary, but not to be talked +about. If Dickie had, by her calling, a shade more consideration than +was strictly her due, while Katie, by hers, was slightly shorn of +something to which she would otherwise have been entitled, well, it was +not Amory who had arranged it so. + +But between books and baked beans the twins did not hesitate for an +instant. They saw from no point of view but their unromantic own. + +Dickie, overhauling the remainder stock at the Suffrage Shop, was able +to bring them a book from time to time; but Katie, whose days were spent +in a really interesting place full of things to eat, brought them +sweetened Proteids, and cold roasted chestnuts, and sugared Filbertine, +and sometimes a pot of the Eden Non-Neuritic Honey for tea. And because +the flesh was stronger in them than Amory thought it ought to be (at any +rate until the day should come when they must leave the tribe with a +copy of "Leaves of Grass" in their hands), they adored Katie and thought +very much less of Dickie. + +Now this belly-guided preference was a thing to be checked in them; and +one day Amory had asked Katie (quite nicely and gently) whether she +would mind _not_ bringing the children things that spoiled their +appetites, not to speak of their tempers when they clamoured for these +comestibles at times when they were not to be had. Then, one afternoon +in the nursery, Amory actually had to repeat her request. Half an hour +later, when the children had been brought down into the studio for their +after-tea hour, she learned that Katie had left the house. It was Corin +himself who informed her of this. + +"Auntie Katie was crying," he said. "About the vertisements," he added. + +"_Ad_-vertisements, dear," Amory corrected him. "Say _ad_-vertisements, +not vertisements." + +"_Ad_-vertisements," said Corin sulkily. "But--" and he cheered up +again, "--she _was_, mother." + +"Nonsense," said Amory. "And you're not to say 'Auntie' to Katie. It +isn't true. Your Auntie is your father's or your mother's sister, and we +haven't any.... And now you've played enough. Say good-night, both of +you, and take Auntie Dickie's book, and ask Miss Belchamber to read you +the story of the Robin and her Darling Eggs, and then you must have your +baths and go to bed." + +"I want the tale about Robin Hood, that Mr. Strong once told me," Corin +demurred. + +"No, you must have the one about the dear Dickie Bird, who had a wing +shot off by a cruel man one day, and had to hide her head under the +other one, so that when her Darling Eggs were hatched out the poor +little birds were all born with crooked necks--you remember what I told +you about the fortress in a horrible War, when the poor mothers were all +so frightened that all the little boys and girls were born lame--it's +the same thing--" + +"Were there guns, that went bang?" Corin demanded. He had forgotten that +the story contained this really interesting detail. + +"Yes." + +"Great big ones?" Corin's eyes were wide open. + +"Very big. It was very cruel and anti-social." + +But Corin's momentary interest waned again.--"I want Robin Hood," he +said sullenly. + +"Now you're being naughty, and I shall have to send you to bed without +any nice reading at all." + +"I want Robin Hood." The tone was ominous.... + +"And I want some chestnuts," Bonniebell chimed in, her face also +puckering.... + +And so Amory, who had threatened to send them bookless to bed, must keep +her word. It is very wrong to tell falsehoods to children. She dismissed +them, and they went draggingly out, their Boutet de Monvel hair and +fringed _éponge_ costumes giving them the appearance of two luckless +pawns that had been pushed off the board in some game of chess they did +not understand. + +Amory thought it very foolish of Katie to take on in this way. She might +have known that her advertisements had not been refused without good +reason. Amory had fully intended to explain all about it to Katie, but +she really had had so many things to do. Nor ought it to have needed +explaining. Surely Katie could have seen for herself that Dickie's +Bookshop List, with its names of Finot and Forel and Mill and the rest, +was a distinction and an embellishment to the paper, while her own +Filbertines and Protolaxatives were a positive disfigurement. The proper +place for these was, not in the columns of the "Novum," but in the +"Please take One" box at the Eden's door.... But if Katie intended to +sulk and cry about it, well, so much the worse.... (To jump forward a +little: Katie did elect to sulk. Or rather, she did worse. She was so +ill-advised as to go behind Amory's back and to speak to Cosimo himself +about the advertisements. With that Katie's goose--or perhaps one should +say her Anserine--was cooked. Amory did not allow that kind of thing. +She certainly did not intend to explain anything after that. It was +plain as a pikestaff that Katie was jealous of Dickie. Amory was +bitterly disappointed in Katie. Of course she would not forbid her the +house; she was still free to come to The Witan whenever she liked; +but--somehow Katie only came once more. She found herself treated so +very, very kindly.... So she gulped down a sob, fondled the twins once +more, and left). + +Miss Britomart Belchamber saw enough of the twins not to wish to fondle +them very much. Amory was not yet absolutely sure that she fondled +Cosimo instead, but she was welcome to do so if she could find any +satisfaction in it. Cosimo fondled the twins to a foolish extreme. Mr. +Prang could never get near enough to them to fondle them. Both Corin and +Bonniebell displayed a most powerful interest in Mr. Prang, and would +have stood stock-still gazing at him for an hour had they been +permitted; but the moment he approached them they fled bellowing. + +And in addition to these various fondlings there were casual fondlings +from time to time whenever the more favoured of the "Novum's" +contributors were asked to tea. + +But the Wyrons remained, so to speak, the _ex-officio_ fondlers, and +perhaps childless Laura felt a real need to fondle at her heart. It was +she who first asked Amory whether she hadn't noticed that, while Mr. +Brimby and Dickie frequently fondled the twins separately, more +frequently still they did so together. + +"No!" Amory exclaimed. "I hadn't noticed!" + +"Walter thinks they would be a perfect pair," Laura mused.... + + + + +II + +THE 'VERT + + +Stan saw very little in the scheme that Dorothy darkly meditated against +her aunt. He seldom saw much in Dorothy's schemes. Perhaps she did not +make quite enough fuss about them, but went on so quietly maturing them +that her income seemed to be merely something that happened in some not +fully explained but quite natural order of events. Stan thought it +rather a lucky chance that the money usually had come in when it was +wanted, that was all. + +But of his own job he had quite a different conception. _That_ took +thought. This appeared plainly now that he was able to dismiss his own +past failures with a light and almost derisive laugh. + +"I don't know whatever made me think there was anything in them," he +said complacently one night within about ten days of Christmas. He had +put on his slippers and his pipe, and was drowsily stretching himself +after a particularly hard "comic film" day, in the course of which he +had been required to fall through a number of ceilings, bringing the +furniture with him in his downward flight. He had come home, had had a +shampoo and a hot bath, and the last traces of the bags of flour and +the sacks of soot had disappeared. "I don't think now they'd ever have +come to very much." + +"Hush a moment," said Dorothy, listening, her needle arrested half-way +through the heel of one of his socks.... "All right. I thought I heard +him--Yes?" + +She could face young girls now. The third Bit had turned out to be yet +another boy. + +"I mean," Stan burbled comfortably, "there wouldn't have been the money +in them I thought there would. Now take those salmon-flies, Dot. Of +course I can tie 'em in a way. But what I mean is, it's a limited +market. Not like the boot-trade, I mean, or soap, or films. Everybody +wears boots and sees films. There's more scope, more demand. But +everybody doesn't carry a salmon-rod. Comparatively few people do. And +the same with big-game shooting. Or deerstalking. Everybody can't afford +'em." + +"No, dear," said Dorothy, her eyes downcast. + +"Then there was Fortune and Brooks," Stan continued with a great air of +discovery. "_I_ see their game now. You see it too, don't you?--They +just wanted orders. New accounts. That's what they wanted. If I could +have put 'em on to a chap who'd have spent say five hundred a year on +Chutney and things--well, what I mean is, where would they be without +customers like that?" + +"Nowhere, dear," said the dutiful Dorothy. + +"Exactly. Nowhere. That's what I was leading up to. They wouldn't be +anywhere. They just wanted to be put on to these things. And it's just +struck me how _I_ should have looked, going out to dinner somewhere, +strange house very likely, and I'd said to somebody I'd perhaps met for +the first time, 'Don't think much of these salted almonds; our hostess +ought to try the F. and B. Brand, a Hundred Gold Medals, and see that +the blessed coupon isn't broken.'--Eh? See what I mean?" + +"I was never very keen on the idea," Dorothy admitted gravely. + +"No, and I'm blessed if I see why I was, now," Stan conceded +cheerfully.... + +She loved this change in him which a real job with real money had +brought about. Poor old darling, she thought, it must have been pretty +rotten for him before, borrowing half-crowns from her in the morning, +which he would spend with an affected indifference on drinks and cab +fares in the evening. And he _should_ speak with a new authority if he +wished. Not for worlds would she have smiled at His Impudence's new air +of being master in his own house. He _should_ be a Sultan if he +liked--provided he didn't want more than one wife. + +Moreover, his bringing in of money had been a relief so great that even +yet she had hardly got out of the habit of reckoning on her own earnings +only. It had taken her weeks to realize that now the twopences came in +just a little more quickly than they went out, and that she could +actually afford herself the luxury of keeping Mr. Miller waiting for his +Idea, or even of not giving it to him at all. She really had no Idea to +give him. She was entirely wrapped up now in her plot against Lady +Tasker. + +That plot, summarized from several conversations with Stan, was as +follows:-- + +"You see, there's the Brear, with all that land, Aunt Grace's very own. +The Cromwell Gardens lease is up in June, and it's all very well for +auntie to say she doesn't hate London, but she does. She spends half a +rent, with one and another of them, in travelling backwards and +forwards, and she's getting old, too.--Then there's us. We can't go on +living here, and the Tonys will be home just as Tim's leave's up, and +they're sure to leave their Bits behind. Very well. Now the Tims and the +Tonys can't afford to pay much, but they can afford something, and I +think they ought to pay. They're sure to want those boys to go into the +Army, and they'd _have_ to pay for that anyway.--So there ought to be a +properly-managed Hostel sort of place, paying its way, and a fund +accumulating, and Aunt Gracie at the head of it, poor old dear, but +somebody to do the work for her.--I don't see why we shouldn't clear out +that old billiard-table that nobody ever uses, and throw that and the +gun-room into one, and make that the schoolroom, and have a proper +person down--a sort of private preparatory school for Sandhurst and +Woolwich, and the money put by to help with the fees afterwards. It +would be much easier if we all clubbed together. And I should jolly well +make Aunt Eliza give us at least a thousand pounds--selfish old thing." + +"Frightful rows there'd be," Stan usually commented, thinking less of +Dorothy's plan than of his own last trick-tumble. "Like putting brothers +into the same regiment; always a mistake. And we're all rather good at +rows you know." + +"Well, they're our _own_ rows anyway. We keep 'em to ourselves. And we +_do_ all mean pretty much the same thing when all's said. I'm going to +work it all out anyway, and then tackle Aunt Grace.... _I_ shall manage +it, of course." + +She did not add that her Lennards and Taskers and Woodgates would sink +their private squabbles precisely in proportion as the outside attacks +on their common belief rendered a closing-up of the ranks necessary. But +she _had_ been to The Witan and had kept her eyes open there, and knew +that there were plenty of other Witans about. If stupid Parliament, with +its votes and what not, couldn't think of anything to do about it, that +was no reason why she should not do something, and make stingy old Aunt +Eliza pay for the training of her Bits into the bargain. + +She had not seen Amory since that day when the episode of the winter +woollies had made her angry, for, though Amory had called once at the +Nursing Home soon after the birth of the third Bit, Dorothy had really +not felt equal to the hair-raising tale of the twins all over again, and +had sent a message down to her by the nurse. There was this difference +between this tragic recital of Amory's and the fervour with which Ruth +Mossop always hugged to her breast the thought of the worst that could +happen--that Ruth _had_ known brutality, and so might be forgiven for +getting "a little of her own back"; but Amory had known one hardish +twelvemonths perhaps, a good many years ago and when she had been quite +able to bear it, and had since magnified that period of discomfort by a +good many diameters. Amory, Dorothy considered, didn't really know she +was born. She was unfeignedly sorry for that. Whatever measure of +contempt was in her she kept for Cosimo. + +For she considered that Cosimo was at the bottom of all the trouble. If +Stan, at his most impecunious and happy-go-lucky, could still stalk +about the house saying "Dot, I won't have this," or "Look here, Dorothy, +that has got to stop," it seemed to her that Cosimo, with never a care +on his mind that was not his own manufacture, might several times have +prevented Amory from making rather a fool of herself. But it seemed to +Dorothy that kind of man was springing up all over the place nowadays. +Mr. Brimby was another of them. Dorothy had read one of Mr. Brimby's +books--"_The Source_," and hadn't liked it. She had thought it terribly +dismal. In it a pretty and rich young widow, who might almost have been +Amory herself, went slumming, and spent a lot of money in starting a +sort of Model Pawn Shop, and by and by there came a mysterious +falling-off in her income, and she went to see her lawyer about it, and +learned, of course, that her source of income was that very slum in +which she had stooped to labour so angelically.... Dorothy didn't know +very much about pawnshops, but then she didn't believe that Mr. Brimby +did either; and if her interest in them ever should become really keen, +she didn't think she should go to Oxford for information about them. And +Mr. Brimby himself seemed to feel this "crab," as Stan would have called +it, for after "_The Source_" he had written a Preface for a book by a +real and genuine tramp.... And it had been Amory who had recommended +"_The Source_" to Dorothy. She had said that it just showed, that with +vision and thought and heart and no previous experience ("no prejudice" +had been her exact words), there need be none of these dreadful grimy +establishments, with their horrible underbred assistants who refused a +poor woman half a crown on her mattress and made a joke about it, but +airy and hygienic rooms instead, with rounded corners so that the dust +could be swept away in two minutes (leaving a balance of at least +twenty-eight minutes in which the sweeper might improve himself), and +really courtly-mannered attendants, full of half crowns and pity and +Oxford voice, who would give everybody twice as much as they asked for +and a tear into the bargain. + +And Amory knew just as much about real pawnshops as did Dorothy and Mr. +Brimby. + +For the life of her Dorothy could not make out what all these people +were up to. + +And--though this was better now that Stan was earning--the thought of +the money that was being squandered at The Witan had sometimes made her +ready to cry. For at the Nursing Home she had had one other visitor, and +this visitor had opened her eyes to the appalling rate at which Cosimo's +inheritance must be going. This visitor had been Katie Deedes. Katie +too, was an old fellow-student of Dorothy's; it had not taken Dorothy +long to see that Katie was full of a grievance; and then it had all come +out. There had been some sort of a row. It had been simply and solely +because Katie ran a Food Shop. Amory thought that _infra dig_. And just +because Katie had given the children a few chestnuts Amory had +practically said so. + +"_I_ shan't go there again," Katie had said, trying on Dorothy's account +to keep down her tears. "_I_ didn't marry a man with lots of money, and +turn him round my finger, and make him write my _Life and Works_, and +then snub my old friends! And none of the people who go there are really +what she thinks they are. _She_ thinks they go to see _her_, but Mr. +Brimby only goes because Dickie does, and because he wants to sell the +'Novum' something or other, and Mr. Strong of course has to go, and Mr. +Wilkinson goes because he wants Cosimo to stop the 'Novum' and start +something else with him as editor, and Laura goes because they get +things printed about Walter's Lectures, and I don't know what those +Indians are doing there at all, and anyway _I've_ been for the last +time! I'm just as good as she is, and I should like to come and see you +instead, Dorothy, and of course I won't bring your babies chestnuts if +you don't want.... But I'm frightfully selfish; I'm tiring you out.... +May an A B C girl come to see you?" + +And Katie had since been. There is no social reason why the manager of a +Vegetarian Restaurant may not visit the house of a film acrobat. + +As it happened, Katie came in that very night when the weary breadwinner +was painstakingly explaining to his thoughtful spouse his reasons for +doubting whether he would ever have got very rich had he remained one of +Fortune and Brooks' well-dressed drummers. Katie had a round face and +puzzled but affectionate eyes, and Stan was just beginning to school his +own eyes not to rest with too open an interest on her Greenaway frocks +and pancake hats. Katie for her part was intensely self-conscious in +Stan's presence. She felt that when he wasn't looking at her clothes he +was, expressly, _not_-looking at them, and that was worse.... But she +couldn't have worn a hobble skirt and an aigrette at the "Eden."... Stan +had told Dorothy that when he knew Katie better he intended to get out +of her the remaining gruesome and Blue-Beard's-Chamber details which the +hoof and the forequarter seemed to him to promise. + +"Poor little darlings!" Dorothy exclaimed compassionately by and +by--Katie had been relating some anecdote in which Corin and Bonniebell +had played a part. "I _do_ think it's wrong to dress children +ridiculously! The other day _I_ saw a little girl--she must have been +quite six or seven--and _she'd_ knickers like a little boy, and long +golden hair all down her back! What _is_ the good of pretending that +girls are boys?" + +"Awful rot," Stan remarked with a mighty stretch. "I say, I'm off to +bed; I shall be yawning in Miss Deedes' face if I don't. Is there any +arnica in the house, Dot?... Good night----" + +"Good night," said Katie; and as the door closed behind the master of +the house she settled more comfortably in her chair. "Now that he's +stopped not-looking at me we can have a good talk," her gesture seemed +to say; "how _does_ he expect I can get any other clothes till I've +saved the money?"... + +They did talk. They talked of the old days at the McGrath, and who'd +married who, and who hadn't married who after all, and, in this +connection, of Laura Beamish and Walter Wyron, whom they had both +known.... And it just showed how little glory and fame were really worth +in the world. For Dorothy, who had been living in London all this time, +had not heard as much as a whisper of that memorable revolt of the +Wyrons against the Marriage Service, and, though she did know vaguely +that Walter lectured, had not the ghost of an idea of what his lectures +were about. She had been too busy minding her own petty and private and +selfish affairs. Katie couldn't believe it. She thought Dorothy was +joking. + +"You've never heard of Walter's Lecture on '_Heads or Tails in the +Trying Time_,' nor his '_Address on the Chromosome_'?" she gasped.... + +"No; do tell me. What is a Chromosome?" + +"A Chromosome? Why, it's a--it's a--well, you know when you've a +cell--or a nucleus--or a gland or something--but it isn't a gland--it's +the--but you _do_ astonish me, Dorothy!" + +"But surely you're joking about Walter and Laura?" Dorothy exclaimed in +her turn. + +"Indeed I'm not! Why, I thought _every_body knew!..." + +"(It's all right--he won't come in again). But _why_ did they pretend +not to be married?" Dorothy asked in amazement. + +"I don't know--I mean I forget for the moment--it seemed perfectly clear +the way Walter explained it--you ought to go and hear him----" + +"But what difference could being married--I mean not being +married--make?" + +"Ah!" said Katie, with satisfaction at having found her bearings again. +"Walter's got a whole Lecture on that. It always thrills everybody. +Amory thinks it's almost his best--after the '_Synthetic Protoplasm_' +one, of course--that's admitted by everybody to be quite _the_ best!"[1] + +"Proto ... but I thought those were a kind of oats!" said poor Dorothy, +utterly bewildered. + +"Oats!" cried Katie in a sort of whispered shriek. "Why, it's--it's--but +I don't know even how to _begin_ to explain it! Do you mean to say you +haven't read about these things?" + +"No," murmured Dorothy, abashed. + +"Not Monod, nor Ellen Key, nor Sebastien Faure, nor Malom!----" + +"N-o." Dorothy felt horribly ashamed of herself. + +"But--but--those _lovely_ little boys of yours!----" + +She gazed wide-eyed at the disconcerted Dorothy.... + + * * * * * + +It was the humiliating truth: Dorothy had never heard of the existence +of a single one of these writers and leaders of thought. She had borne +Noel in black ignorance of what they had had to say about the Torch of +the Race, and Jackie and the third Bit for all the world as if they had +never set pen to paper. Monod had not held her hand, nor Faure been +asked for his imprimatur; Key had hymned Love superfluously, and the +Synthesists, equally superfluously, its supersession. For a moment she +anxiously hoped that it was all right, and then, as Katie went on, the +marvel of it all overwhelmed her again. + +The dictum that desirable children could be born only _out_ of wedlock! +That stupendous suggestion of Walter's to millionaires who did not know +what to do with their money, that, for the improvement of the Race, they +should endow with a thousand pounds every poor little come-by-chance +that weighed eleven pounds at birth! That other proposal, that twenty +years could straightway be added to woman's life and beauty by a mere +influencing of her thoughts about the Chromosome--whatever it was!... +Poor uncultured Dorothy did not know whether she was on her head or her +heels. She had never dreamed, until Katie told her, that before marrying +Stan she ought to have gone to the insect-world, or to the world of +molluscs and crustacć, to learn how _they_ maintained the integrity of +their own highest type--whether by pulling their wings off after the +flight, or devouring their husbands, or--or--or what! She had heard of +the moral lessons that can be learned of the ant, but it had not struck +her that she and Stan might, by means of a little more study and care, +have lifted up the economy of their little flat to the level of the +marvellously-organized domesticity you see when you kick over a stone. + +But Katie's hesitations and great gaps of confessed ignorance gave her +a little more courage. Katie was at pains to explain that all that she +herself knew about it all was that these things were what they _said_, +and Dorothy must go to Walter and the books for the rest. + +"They're all very expensive books, and I may not really have understood +them," she said wistfully. "They must be awfully deep and so on if +they're so dear--twelve and fifteen and twenty shillings! But I did try +so hard, and sometimes it seemed quite reasonable and plain, especially +when the print was nice and big.... Close print always seems so +frightfully learned.... And I know I've explained it badly; I haven't +Walter's gift of putting things. Amory has, of course. When she and +Walter have a really good set-to it makes one feel positively _abject_ +about one's ignorance. I doubt if Cosimo can always _quite_ follow them, +and I'm quite sure Mr. Strong can't--I know he's only hedging when he +says, 'Ah, yes, have you read Fabre on the Ant or Maeterlinck on the +Bee?'--and I believe he just glances at the review books that come to +the 'Novum' instead of really studying them, as Walter and Amory do. And +it's very funny about Mr. Strong," she rattled artlessly on. "Sometimes +I've thought that it isn't just that Amory doesn't know what they all go +to The Witan for, but that everybody else _does_ know. They all seem to +want it to themselves. Of course if Mr. Wilkinson wants Cosimo to stop +the 'Novum,' and to start something else for him, it's only natural that +he and Mr. Strong should be a little jealous of one another; but Dickie +and Mr. Brimby are jealous of the Wyrons, and I suppose I was jealous of +Dickie too--and everybody seems jealous of everybody, and Amory of +Cosimo, and Amory's always interfering between Britomart Belchamber and +the twins' lessons, and that _can't_ be a very good thing for +discipline, but Britomart's like me in being rather stupid, and I wish +I'd her screw--she gets nearly twice as much as I do. The only people +who don't seem jealous of anybody are those Indians. They're _always_ +affable. I suppose it's rather nice for them, so far from their own +country, having a house to go to...." + +But here Dorothy's humility and self-distrust ended. The moment it came +to India, she shared her aunt's deplorable narrow-mindedness and +propensity to make a virtue of her intolerance. It seemed to her that it +was one thing for the Tims and Tonys, in India, to have to employ a +native interpreter (and to be pretty severely rooked by him) when they +had their Urdu Higher Proficiency to pass, but quite another for these +same natives to come over here, and to learn our law and language, and +our excellent national professions, and our somewhat mitigated ways of +living up to them. No, she was not one whit better than her hide-bound +old aunt, and she did not intend to have too practical a brotherly love +taught at that meditated foundation at the Brear.... + +She became silent as she thought of that foundation again, and presently +Katie rose. + +"I suppose I couldn't see him in his cot?" she said wistfully. + +Dorothy smiled. Katie meant the youngest Bit. + +"Well ... I'm afraid he's in _our_ room, you see ...," she said. + +Katie had been thinking of The Witan. She coloured a little. + +"Sorry," she murmured; and then she broke out emphatically. + +"I _like_ coming to see you, Dorothy. I don't feel so--such a _fool_ +when I'm with you.... And do tell me where you got that frock, and how +much it was; I _must_ have another one as soon as I can raise the money! +I do wish I could make what Britomart Belchamber makes! Two-twenty a +year! Think of that!... But of course Prince Eadmond teachers do come +expensive----" + +More and more it was coming to seem to Dorothy that the whole thing was +terrifically expensive. + +FOOTNOTE: + +[1] I have been charged with the invention of these facetić. Here is the +Synthetic Protoplasm idea:-- + +"The dream of creating offspring without the concurrence of woman has +always haunted the imagination of the human race. The miraculous +advances which the chemical synthesis has accomplished in these latter +days seem to justify the boldest hopes, but we are still far from the +creation of living protoplasm. The experiences of Loeb or of Delage are +undoubtedly very confounding. But in order to produce life these +scientists were obliged, nevertheless; to have recourse to beings +already organized. Thousands of centuries undoubtedly separate us from +any possibility of realizing the most magnificent and most disconcerting +dream ever engendered in the human brain. In the meantime, as the Torch +of Life must be transmitted to the succeeding generations, woman will +continue gloriously to fulfil her character of mother."--"Problems of +the Sexes," Jean Finot; 12_s._ 6_d._ net; p. 352. + +Lightly worked up and chattily treated, this theme, as Katie said, drew +quiet smiles of appreciation from every cultured audience which Walter +addressed. + + + + +III + +THE IMPERIALISTS + + +They were great believers in the Empire, they on the "Novum." Indeed, +they were the only true Imperialists, since they recognized that ideas, +and not actions, were by far and away the most potent instruments in the +betterment of mankind. Everybody who was anybody knew that, a mere +sporadic outbreak here and there (such as the one in Manchuria) +notwithstanding, war had been virtually impossible ever since the +publication of M. Bloch's book declaring it to be so. What, they asked, +was war, more than an unfortunate miscalculation on the part of the lamb +that happened to lie down with the lion? And what made the +miscalculation so unfortunate? Why, surely the possession by the lion of +teeth and claws. Draw his teeth and cut his claws, and the two would +slumber peacefully together. So with the British lion. He only fought +because he had things ready to fight with. Philosophically, his +aggressions were not much more than a kind of sportive manifestation of +the joy of life, that happened, rather inconsequentially, to take the +form of the joy of death. Take away the ships and guns, then, and +everything would be all right. + +These views on the Real Empire were in no way incompatible with Mr. +Wilkinson's desire to see all Trade Unionists armed. For a war at home, +about shorter hours and higher wages, would at any rate be a war between +equals in race. It was wars between unequals that had made of the Old +Empire so hideous a thing. Amory herself had more than once stated this +rather well. + +"I call it cowardice," she had said. "Every fine instinct in us tells us +to stick up for the weaker side. It makes my blood boil! Think of those +gentle and dusky millions, all being, to put it in a word, bullied--just +bullied! We all know the kind of man who goes abroad--the conventional +'adventurer' (I like 'adventurer!') He's just a common bully. He drinks +disgustingly, and swears, and kicks people who don't get out of his +way--but he's always careful to have a revolver in his pocket for fear +they should hit him back!... And he makes a tremendous fuss about his +white women, but when it comes to their black or brown ones ... well, +anyway, _I_ think he's a brute, and we want a better class of man than +_that_ for our readers!" + +And that was briefly why, at the "Novum," they tried to reduce armaments +at home, and gave at least moral encouragement to the other side +whenever there was a dust-up abroad. + +But it had been some time ago that Amory had said all this, and her +attitude since then had undergone certain changes. One of these changes +had been her acquisition of the Romantic Point of View; another had been +that suspended state of affairs between herself and Mr. Strong. The +first of these curtailed a good deal of the philosophy in which Mr. +Strong always seemed anxious to enwrap the subject (in order, as far as +Amory could see, to avoid action). It also made a little more of the +position of women, white, black or brown, and especially when rolled up +in carpets, in Imperial affairs. And the second, that hung-up relation +between Edgar Strong and herself, had left her constantly wondering what +would have happened had she taken Mr. Strong at his word and fled to +Paris with him, and exactly where they stood since she had not done so. + +For naturally, things could hardly have been expected to be the same +after that. Since Edgar had ceased to come quite so frequently to The +Witan, Amory had thought the whole situation carefully over and had come +to her conclusion. Perhaps the histories of _les grandes maitresses_ and +the writings of Key had helped her; or, more likely, Key in Sweden (or +wherever it was) and herself in England had arrived at the same +conclusion by independent paths. That conclusion, stated in three words, +was the Genius of Love. + +It was perfectly simple. Why had Amory Towers, the painter of that +picture ("Barrage") so enthusiastically acclaimed by the whole of +Feminist England, now for so long ceased to paint? What had become of +the Genius that had brought that picture into being? It is certain that +Genius cannot be stifled. Deny it one opportunity and it will break out +somewhere else--in another art, in politics, in leadership in one form +or another, or it may be even in crime. + +Even so, Amory was conscious, her own Genius had refused to be +suppressed. It had found another outlet in politics, directed in a +recumbent attitude from a sofa. + +Yet that had landed her straightway in a dilemma--the dilemma of Edgar +and the twins, of Paris on seven francs a day and the comforts Cosimo +allowed her, of a deed that was to have put even that of the Wyrons into +the shade and a mere settling down to the prospect of seeing Edgar when +it pleased him to put in an appearance. + +She had not seen this protean property of Genius just at first. That +could only have been because she had not examined herself sufficiently. +She had been introspective, but not introspective enough. + +And lest she should be mistaken in the mighty changes that were going on +within herself, at first she had tried the painting again. Her tubes +were dry and her brushes hard, but she had got new ones, and one after +another she had taken up her old half-finished canvases again. A single +glance at them had filled her with astonishment at the leagues of +progress, mental and emotional, that she had made since then. She had +laughed almost insultingly at those former attempts. That large canvas +on the "_Triumph of Humane Government_" was positively frigid! And Edgar +had liked it!... Well, that only showed what a power she now had over +Edgar if she only cared to use it. If he had liked that chilly piece of +classicism, he would stand dumb before the canvas that every faculty in +her was now straining to paint. She began to think that canvas out.... + +It must be Eastern, of course; nay, it must be The East--tremendously +voluptuous and so on. She would paint it over the "_Triumph_." It should +be bathed in a sunrise, rabidly yellow (they had no time for decaying +mellowness in those vast and kindling lands to which Amory's inner eye +was turned)--and of course there ought to be a many-breasted +what-was-her-name in it, the goddess (rather rank, perhaps, but that was +the idea, a smack at effete occidental politeness). And there ought to +be a two-breasted figure as well, perhaps with a cord or something in +her hand, hauling up the curtain of night, or at any rate showing in +some way or other that her superb beauty was actually responsible for +the yellow sunrise.... + +And above all, she must get _herself_ into it--the whole of herself--all +that tremendous continent that Cosimo had not had, that her children had +not had, that her former painting had left unexpressed, that politics +had not brought out of her.... + +The result of that experiment was remarkable. Two days later she had +thrown the painting aside again. It was a ghastly failure. But only for +a moment did that depress her; the next moment she had seen further. She +was a Genius; she knew it--felt it; she was so sure about it that she +would never have dreamed of arguing about it; she had such thoughts +sometimes.... And Genius could never be suppressed. Very well; the +Eastern canvas was a total failure; she admitted it. Ergo, her Genius +was for something else than painting. + +That was all she had wanted to know. + +For what, then? No doubt Edgar Strong, who had enlightened her about +herself before, would be able to enlighten her again now. And if he +would not come to see her, she must go and see him. But already she saw +the answer shining brightly ahead. She must pant, not paint; live, not +limn. Her Genius was, after all, for Love. + +True, at the thought of those offices in Charing Cross Road she had an +instinctive shrinking. Their shabbiness rather took the shine out of the +voluptuousnesses she had tried, and failed, to get upon her canvas. But +perhaps there was a fitness in that too. Genius, whether in Art or in +Love, is usually poor. If she could be splendid there she could be so +anywhere. No doubt heaps and heaps of grand passions had transfigured +grimy garrets, and had made of them perfectly ripping backgrounds.... + +So on an afternoon in mid-January Amory put on her new velvet costume of +glaucous sea-holly blue and her new mushroom-white hat, and went down to +the "Novum's" offices in a taxi. It seemed to her that she got there +horribly quickly. Her heart was beating rapidly, and already she had +partly persuaded herself that if Edgar wasn't in it might perhaps be +just as well, as she had half-promised the twins to have tea with them +in the nursery soon, and anyway she could come again next week. Or she +might leave Edgar a note to come up to The Witan. There were familiar +and supporting influences at The Witan. But here she felt dreadfully +defenceless.... She reached her destination. Slowly she passed through +the basement-room with the sandwich-boards, ascended the dark stairs, +and walked along the upper corridor that was hung with the specimens of +poster-art. + +Edgar was in. He was sitting at his roll-top desk, with his feet thrust +into the unimaginable litter of papers that covered it. He appeared to +be dozing over the "Times," and had not drunk the cup of tea that stood +at his elbow with a sodden biscuit and a couple of lumps of sugar awash +in the saucer.--Without turning his head he said "Hallo," almost as if +he expected somebody else. "Did you bring me some cigarettes in?" he +added, still not turning. And this was a relief to Amory's thumping +heart. She could begin with a little joke. + +"No," she said. "I didn't know you wanted any." + +There was no counterfeit about the start Mr. Strong gave. So swiftly did +he pluck his feet away from the desk that twenty sheets of paper planed +down to the floor, bringing the cup of tea with them in their fall. + +But Mr. Strong paid no attention to the breakage and mess. He was on his +feet, looking at Amory. He looked, but he had never a word to say. And +she stood looking at him--charming in her glaucous blue, the glint of +rich red that peeped from under the new white hat, and her slightly +frightened smile. + +"Haven't you any?" she said archly. + +At that Mr. Strong found his tongue. + +"Excuse me just a moment," he muttered, striding past her and picking up +something from his desk as he went. "Sit down, won't you?" Then he +opened the door by which Amory had entered, did something behind it, and +returned, closing the door again. "Only so that we shan't be disturbed," +he said. "They go into the other office when they see the notice.--I +wasn't expecting you." + +Nor did he, Amory thought, show any great joy at her appearance. On the +contrary, he had fixed a look very like a glare on her. Then he walked +to the hearth. A big fire burned there behind a wire guard, and within +the iron kerb stood the kettle he had boiled to make tea. He put his +elbows on the mantelpiece and turned his back to her. Again it was Mr. +Brimby's sorrowing Oxford attitude. Amory had moved towards his swivel +chair and had sat down. Her heart beat a little agitatedly. He +remembered!... + +He spoke without any beating about the bush.--"Ought you to have done +this?" he said over his shoulder. + +She fiddled with her gloves.--"To have done what?" she asked nervously. + +"To have come here," came in muffled tones back. It was evident that he +was having to hold himself in. + +Then suddenly he wheeled round. This time there was no doubt about +it--it was a glare, and a resolute one. + +But he had not been able to think of any new line. It was the one he had +used before. He made it a little more menacing, that was all. + +"I'm only flesh and blood--," he said quickly, his hands ever so +slightly clenching and unclenching and his throat apparently swallowing +something. + +Her heart was beating quickly enough now.--"But--but--," she +stammered,--"if you only mean my coming here--I've been here lots of +times before----" + +He wasted few words on that. + +"Not since----," he rapped out. He was surveying her sternly now. + +"But--but--," she faltered again, "--it's only me, Edgar--I _am_ +connected with the paper, you know--that is to say my husband is----" + +"That's true," he groaned. + +"And--and--I should have come before--I've been intending to come--but +I've been so busy----" + +But that also he brushed aside for the little it was worth. "_Must_ you +compromise yourself like this?" he demanded. "Don't you see? I'm not +made of wood, and I suppose your eyes are open too. Prang may be here at +any moment. He'll see that notice on the door, and wait ... and then +he'll see you go out. You oughtn't to have come," he continued gloomily. +"Why did you, Amory?" + +Once more she quailed before the blue mica of his eye. Her words came +now a bit at a time. The victory was his. + +"Only to--to see--how the paper was going on--and to--to talk things +over--," she said. + +"Oh!" He nodded. "Very well." + +He strode forward from the mantelpiece and approached the desk at which +she sat. + +"I suppose Cosimo wants to know; very well. As a matter of fact I'm +rather glad you've come. Look here----" + +He grabbed a newspaper from the desk and thrust it almost roughly into +her hands. + +"Read that," he said, stabbing the paper with his finger. + +The part in which he stabbed it was so unbrokenly set that it must have +struck Katie Deedes as overwhelmingly learned.--"There you are--read +that!" he ordered her. + +Then, striding back to the mantelpiece, he stood watching her as if he +had paid for a seat in a playhouse and had found standing-room only. + +Amory supposed that it must be something in that close and grey-looking +oblong that was at the bottom of his imperious curtness. She was sure of +this when, before she had read half a dozen lines, he cut in with a +sharp "Well? I suppose you see what it means to us?" + +"Just a moment," she said bewilderedly; "you always did read quicker +than I can----" + +"Quicker!--" he said. "Just run your eye down it. That ought to tell +you." + +She did so, and a few capitals caught her eye. + +"Do you mean this about the North-West Banks?" she asked diffidently. + +"Do I mean----! Well, yes. Rather." + +"I do wish you'd explain it to me. It seems rather hard." + +But he did not approach and point out particular passages. Instead he +seemed to know that leaden oblong by heart. He gave a short laugh. + +"Hard? It's hard enough on the depositors out there!... They've been +withdrawing again, and of course the Banks have had to realize." + +"Yes, I saw that bit," said Amory. + +"A forced realization," Mr. Strong continued. "Depreciation in values, +of course. And it's spreading." + +It sounded to Amory rather like smallpox, but, "I suppose that's the +Monsoon?" she hazarded. + +"Partly, of course. Not altogether. There's the rupee too, of course. At +present that's at about one and twopence, but then there are these +bi-metallists.... So until we know what's going to happen, it seems to +me we're bound hand and foot." + +Amory was awed.--"What--what do you think will happen?" she asked. + +Edgar gave a shrug.--"Well--when a Bank begins paying out in pennies +it's as well to prepare for the worst, you know." + +"Are--are they doing that?" Amory asked in a whisper. "Really? And is +that the bi-metallists' doing--or is it the Home Government? Do explain +it to me so that I can visualize it. You know I always understand things +better when I can visualize them. That's because I'm an artist.--Does it +mean that there are long strings of natives, with baskets and things on +their heads to put the pennies in, all waiting at the Banks, like people +in the theatre-queues?" + +"I dare say. I suppose they have to carry the pennies somehow. But I'm +afraid I can't tell you more than's in the papers." + +Amory's face assumed an expression of contempt. On the papers she was +quite pat. + +"The papers! And how much of the truth can we get from the capitalist +press, I should like to know! Why, it's a commonplace among us--one is +almost ashamed to say it again--that the 'Times' is always wrong! We +have _no_ Imperialist papers really; only Jingo ones. Is there _no_ way +of finding out what this--crisis--is really about?" + +This was quite an easy one for Mr. Strong. Many times in the past, when +pressed thus by his proprietor's wife for small, but exact, details, he +had wished that he had known even as much about them as seemed to be +known by that smart young man who had once come to The Witan in a +morning coat and had told Edgar Strong that he didn't know what he was +talking about. But he had long since found a way out of these trifling +difficulties. Lift the issue high enough, and it is true of most things +that one man's opinion is as good as another's; and they lifted issues +quite toweringly high on the "Novum." Therefore in self-defence Mr. +Strong flapped (so to speak) his wings, gave a struggle, cleared the +earth, and was away in the empyrean of the New Imperialism. + +"The 'Times' always wrong. Yes. We've got to stick firmly to that," he +said. "But don't you see, that very fact makes it in its way quite a +useful guide. It's the next best thing to being always right, like us; +we can depend on its being wrong. We've only got to contradict it, and +then ask ourselves why we do so. There's usually a reason.... So there +is in this--er--crisis. Of course you know their argument--that a lot of +these young native doctors and lawyers come over here, and stop long +enough to pick up the latest wrinkles in swindling--the civilized +improvements so to speak--and then go back and start these wildcat +schemes, Banks and so on, and there's a smash. I think that's a fair +statement of their case.--But what's ours? Why, simply that what they're +really doing is to give the Home Government a perfectly beautiful +opportunity of living up to its own humane professions.... But we know +what that means," he added sadly. + +"You mean that it just shows," said Amory eagerly, "that we aren't +humane at all really? In fact, that England's a humbug?" + +Mr. Strong smiled. He too, in a sense, was paying out in pennies, and so +far quite satisfactorily. + +"Well ... take this very crisis," he returned. "Oughtn't there to be a +grant, without a moment's loss of time, from the Imperial Exchequer? I'm +speaking from quite the lowest point of view--the mere point of view of +expediency if you like. Very well. Suppose one or two natives _are_ +scoundrels: what about it? Are matters any better because we know that? +Don't the poverty and distress exist just the same? And isn't that +precisely our opportunity, if only we had a statesman capable of seeing +it?... Look here: We've only got to go to them and say, 'We are full of +pity and help; here are a lot of--er--lakhs; lakhs of rupees; rupee one +and twopence: you may have been foolish, but it isn't for us to cast the +first stone; it's the conditions that are wrong; go and get something to +eat, and don't forget your real friends by and by.'--Isn't that just the +way to bind them to us? By their gratitude, eh? Isn't getting their +gratitude better than blowing them from the muzzles of guns, eh? And +isn't that the real Empire, of which we all dream? Eh?..." + +He warmed up to it, while keeping one ear open for anybody who might +come along the passage; and when he found himself running down he +grabbed the newspaper again. He doubled it back, refolded it, and again +thrust it under Amory's nose.... There! That put it all in a nutshell, +he said! The figures spoke for themselves. The Home Government, he said, +knew all about it all the time, but of course they came from that +hopeless slough of ineptitude that humorists were pleased to call the +"governing classes," and that was why they dragged such red herrings +across the path of true progress as--well, as the Suffrage, say.... +What! Hadn't Amory heard that all this agitation for the Suffrage was +secretly fomented by the Government itself? Oh, come, she must know +that! Why, of course it was! The Government knew dashed well what they +were doing, too! It was a moral certainty that there was somebody behind +the scenes actually planning half these outrages! Why? Why, simply +because it got 'em popular sympathy when a Minister had his windows +smashed or a paper of pepper thrown in his face. They were only too glad +to have pepper thrown in their faces, because everybody said what a +shame it was, and forgot all about what fools they'd been making of +themselves, and when a real--er--crisis came, like this one, people +scarcely noticed it.... But potty little intellects like Brimby's and +Wilkinson's didn't see as deep as that. It was only Edgar Strong and +Amory who saw as deep as that. That was why they, Edgar and Amory, were +where they were--leaders of thought, not subordinates.... + +"Just look rather carefully at those figures," he concluded.... + +Nevertheless, lofty as these flights were, they had a little lost their +thrill for Amory. She had heard them so very, very often. She had +trembled in the taxi in vain if _this_ was all that her stealthy coming +to the "Novum's" offices meant. Nor had she put on her new sea-holly +velvet to be told, however eloquently, that Wilkinson and Brimby were +minor lights when compared with Edgar and herself, and that the "Times" +was always wrong. Perhaps the figures that Edgar had thrust under her +nose as if he had been clapping a muzzle on her meant something to the +right person, but they meant nothing to Amory, and she didn't pretend +they did. They were man's business; woman's was "visualizing." The two +businesses, when you came to think of it, _were_ separate and distinct. +Whoever heard of a man wrapping himself up in a carpet and being +carried by Nubians into his mistress's presence? Whoever heard of a +man's face launching as much as an up-river punt, let alone fleets and +fleets of full-sized ships? And whoever heard of the compelling beauty +of a man's eyes, as he lay on a sofa with one satiny upper-arm upraised, +simply making--making--a woman come and kiss him?... It was ridiculous. +Amory saw now. Even Joan of Arc must have put on her armour, not so much +because of all the chopping and banging of maces and things (which must +have been very noisy), but more with the idea of _inspiring_.... Yes, +inspiring: that was it. There _was_ a difference. Why, even physically +women and men were not the same, and mentally they were just as +different. For example, Amory herself wouldn't have liked to blow +anybody from the mouth of a gun, but she wasn't sure sometimes that +Edgar wouldn't positively enjoy it. He had that hard eye, and square +head, and capacity for figures.... + +She wasn't sure that her heart didn't go out to him all the more because +of that puzzle of noughts and dots and rupees he had thrust into her +hands.... + +And so, as he continued (so to speak) to gain time by paying in pennies, +and to keep an ear disengaged for the passage, it came about that Edgar +Strong actually overshot himself. The more technical and masculine he +became, the more Amory felt that it was fitting and feminine in her not +to bother with these things at all, but just to go on inspiring. She +still kept her eyes bent over the column of figures, but she was +visualizing again. She was visualizing the Channel steamer, and the +Latin Quarter, and satiny upper-arms. And the taxi-tremor had +returned.... + +Suddenly she looked softly yet daringly up. She felt that she must be +Indian--yet not too Indian. + +"And then there's suttee," she said in a low voice. + +"Eh?" said Strong. He seemed to scent danger. "Abolished," he said +shortly. + +But here Amory was actually able to tell Edgar Strong something. She +happened to have been reading about suttee in a feminist paper only a +day or two before. No doubt Edgar read nothing but figures and grey +oblongs. + +"Oh, no," she said softly but with a knowledge of her ground. "That is, +I know it's prohibited, but there was a case only a little while ago. I +read it in the 'Vaward.' And it was awful, but splendid, too. She was a +young widow, and I'm sure she had a lovely face, because she'd such a +noble soul.--Don't you think they often go together?" + +But Edgar did not reply. He had walked to a little shelf full of +reference books and books for review, and was turning over pages. + +"And the whole village was there," Amory continued, "and she walked to +the pyre herself, and said good-bye to all her relatives, and then----" + +Edgar shut his book with a slap.--"Abolished in 1829," he said. "It's a +criminal offence under the Code." + +Amory smiled tenderly. Abolished!... Dear, fellow, to think that in such +matters he should imagine that his offences and Codes could make any +difference! Of course the "Vaward" had made a mere Suffrage argument out +of the thing, but to Amory it had just showed how cruel and magnificent +and voluptuous and grim the East could be when it really tried.... And +then all at once Amory thought, not of any particular poem she had ever +read, but what a ripping thing it would be to be able to write poetry, +and to say all those things that would have been rather silly in prose, +and to put heaps of gorgeous images in, like the many-breasted +what-was-her-name, and Thingummy--what-did-they-call-him--the god with +all those arms. And there would be carpets and things too, and limbs, +not plaster ones, but flesh and blood ones, as Edgar said his own were, +and--and--and oh, stacks of material! The rhymes might be a bit hard, of +course, and perhaps after all it might be better to leave poetry to +somebody else, and to concentrate all her energies on inspiring, as +Beatrice inspired Dante, and Laura Petrarch, and that other woman +Camoens, and Jenny Rossetti, and Vittoria Colonna Michael Angelo. She +might even inspire Edgar to write poetry. And she would be careful to +keep the verses out of Cosimo's way.... + +"Abolished!" she smiled in gay yet mournful mockery, and also with a +touch both of reproach and of disdain in her look.... "Oh well, I +suppose men think so...." + +But at this he rounded just as suddenly on her as he had done when he +had told her that she ought not to have come to the office. Perhaps he +felt that he was losing ground again. You may be sure that Edgar Strong, +actor, had never had to work as hard for his money as he had to work +that afternoon. + +"Amory!" he called imperiously. "I tell you it won't do--not at this +juncture! I'd just begun to find a kind of drug in my work; I've locked +myself up here; and now you come and undo it all again with a look! I +see we must have this out. Let me think." + +He began to pace the floor. + +When he did speak again, his phrases came in detached jerks. He kept +looking sharply up and then digging his chin into his red tie again. + +"It was different before," he said. "It might have been all right +before. We were free then--in a way. It was different in every way.... +(Mind your dress in that tea).... But we can't do anything now. Not at +present. There's this crisis. That's suddenly sprung upon us. There's +got to be somebody at the wheel--the 'Novum's' wheel, I mean. I hate +talking about my duty, but you've read the 'Times' there. The 'Times' is +always wrong, and if we desert our posts the whole game's up--U.P. +Prang's no good here. Prang can't be trusted at a pinch. And Wilkinson's +no better. Neither of 'em any good in an emergency. Weak man at bottom, +Wilkinson--the weakness of violence--effeminate, like these strong-word +poets. We can't rely on Wilkinson and Prang. And who is there left? Eh?" + +But he did not wait for an answer. + +"Starving thousands, and no Imperial Grant." His voice grew passionate. +"Imperial Grant must be pressed for without delay. What's to happen to +the Real Empire if you and I put our private joys first? Eh? Answer +me.... There they are, paying in pennies--and us dallying here.... No. +Dash it all, no. May be good enough for some of these tame males, but +it's a bit below a man. I won't--not now. Not at present. It would be +selfish. They've trusted me, and----," a shrug. "No. That's flat. I see +_my_ nights being spent over figures and telegrams and all that sort of +thing for some time to come.... Don't think I've forgotten. I understand +perfectly. I suppose that sooner or later it _will_ have to be the +Continent and so on--but not until this job's settled. Not till then. +Everything else--everything--has got to stand down. You do see, don't +you, Amory? I hope you do." + +As he had talked there had come over Amory a sense of what his love must +be if nothing but his relentless sense of duty could frustrate it even +for a day. And that was more thrilling than all the rest put together. +It lifted their whole relation exactly where she had tried to put it +without knowing how to put it there--into the regions of the heroic. Not +that Edgar put on any frills about it. On the contrary. He was simple +and plain and straight. And how perfectly right he was! Naturally, since +the "Times" and its servile following of the capitalist Press would not +help, Edgar had to all intents and purposes the whole of India to carry +on his shoulders. It was exactly like that jolly thing of Lovelace's, +about somebody not loving somebody so much if he didn't love Honour +more. He did love her so much, and he had as much as said that there +would be plenty of time to talk about the Continent later. Besides, his +dear, rough, unaffected way of calling this heroic work his "job!" It +was just as if one of those knights of old had called slaying dragons +and delivering the oppressed his "job!" + +Amory was exalted as she had never been exalted. She turned to him where +he stood on the hearth, and laved him with a fond and exultant look. + +"I see," she said bravely. "I was wretchedly selfish. But remember, +won't you, when you're fighting this great battle against all those +odds, and saying all those lovely things to the Indians, and getting +their confidence, and just showing all those other people how stupid +they are, that _I_ didn't stop you, dear! I know it would be beastly of +me to stop you! I shouldn't be worthy of you.... But I think you ought +to appoint a Committee or something, and have the meetings reported in +the 'Novum,' and I'm sure Cosimo wouldn't grudge the money. Oh, how I +wish I could help!----" + +But he did not say, as she had half hoped he would say, that she did +help, by inspiring. Instead, he held out his hand. As she took it in +both of hers she wondered what she ought to do with it. If it had been +his foot, and he had been the old-fashioned sort of knight, she could +have fastened a spur on it. Or she might have belted a sword about his +waist. But to have filled his fountain-pen, which was his real weapon, +would have been rather stupid.... He was leading her, ever so +sympathetically, to the door. He opened it, took from it the notice that +had kept Mr. Prang away, and stood with her on the landing. + +"Good-bye," she said. + +He glanced over his shoulder, and then almost hurt her hands, he gripped +them so hard. + +"Good-bye," he said, his eyes looking into hers. "You _do_ understand, +don't you, Amory?" + +"Yes, Edgar." + +Even then he seemed loth to part from her. He accompanied her to the top +of the stairs.--"You'll let me know when you're coming again, won't +you?" he asked. + +"Yes. Good-bye." + +And she tore herself away. + +At the first turning of the stairs Amory stood aside to allow a rather +untidy young woman to pass. This young woman had a long bare neck that +reminded Amory of an artist's model, and her hands were thrust into the +fore-pockets of a brown knitted coat. She was whistling, but she stopped +when she saw Amory. + +"Do you know whether Mr. Dickinson, the poster artist, is up here?" she +asked. + +"The next floor, I think," Amory replied. + +"Thanks," said the girl, and passed up. + + + + +IV + +THE OUTSIDERS + + +"No, not this week," Dorothy said. "Dot wrote a fortnight ago. This +one's from Mollie. (You remember Mollie, Katie? She came to that funny +little place we had on Cheyne Walk once, but of course she was only +about twelve then. She's nearly nineteen now, and _so_ tall! They've +just gone to Kohat).--Shall I read it, auntie?" + +And she read:-- + + "'I'm afraid I wrote you a hatefully skimpy letter last time--,'" + h'm, we can skip that; here's where they started: "'It was the + beastliest journey that I ever made. To begin with, we were the + eighteenth tonga that day, so we got tired and wretched ponies; + we had one pair for fifteen miles and couldn't get another pair + for love or money. We left Murree at two o'clock and got to Pindi + at nine. The dust was ghastly. Mercifully Baba slept like a lump + in our arms from five till nine, so he was all right. We had from + nine till one to wait in Pindi Station, and had dinner, and Baba + had a wash and clean-up and a bottle, and we got on board the + train and off. Baba's cot, etc.; and we settled down for the + night. Nurse and Baba and Mary and I were in one carriage and + Jim next door. I slept beautifully till one o'clock, and then I + woke and stayed awake. The bumping was terrific, and it made me + so angry to look down on the others and see them fast asleep! I + had an upper berth. Baba slept from eleven-thirty till + six-thirty! So we had no trouble at all with him----' + +"Well, and so they got to Kohat. (I hope this isn't boring you, Katie.)" + + "'It was most beautifully cool and fresh, and we had the mess + tonga and drove to the bungalow. The flowering shrubs here would + delight Auntie Grace. I've fallen in love with a bush of hibiscus + in the compound, but find it won't live in water, but droops + directly one picks it. The trees are mostly the palmy kind, and + so green, and the ranges of hills behind are exactly like the Red + Sea ranges. The outside of our bungalow is covered with purple + convolvulus, and the verandah goes practically all round it. + Jim's room is just like him--heads he's shot, study, + dressing-room, and workshop, all in one, and it's quite the + fullest room in the house. Beyond that there's my room, looking + out over the Sinai Range----' + +"Then there are the drawing and dining-rooms----" + + "'The curtains are a pale terra-cotta pink over the door and dark + green in the bay-windows, with white net in front. The + drawing-room is all green. The durrie (that's the carpet) is + green, with a darker border, and the sofa and chairs and + mantelpiece-cover and the screen behind the sofa all green. + There's another bay-window, with far curtains of green and the + near ones chintz, an awfully pretty cream spotted net with a + green hem let in. That makes three lots, two in the window itself + and a third on a pole where the arch comes into the room. Then + over the three doors there are chintz curtains, cream, with a big + pattern of pink and green and blue, just like Harrods' + catalogue----' + +"Can't you _see_ it all!--H'm, h'm!... Then on the Sunday morning they +got the mess tonga and went out to Dhoda, with butterfly-nets, and Jim +went fishing--h'm, h'm--and she says-- + + "'It's just like the Old Testament; I shouldn't have been in the + least surprised to meet Abraham and Jacob. It's the flatness of + it, and the flocks and herds. There are women with pitchers on + their heads, and a man was making scores of bricks with mud and + straw--exactly like the pictures of the Children of Israel in + "_Line upon Line_." And about a hundred horses and mules and + donkeys and carts all stopped at midday, because it was so hot, + and it was just what I'd always imagined Jacob doing. But inside + cantonments it isn't a bit Biblical, but rather too civilized, + etc.' + +("Isn't Katie patient, listening to all this, auntie!") + + "'But you can't go far afield at Kohat. At Murree you could + always get a three or four mile walk round Pindi Point, but here + it's just to the Club and back. We go to the Central Godown and + the Fancy Godown to shop. The Central is groceries, and the Fancy + tooth-powder, Scrubb's Ammonia, etc. On Saturday they were afraid + Captain Horrocks had smallpox, and so we all got vaccinated, but + now that we've all taken beautifully it seems it isn't smallpox + after all, and we've all got swelled arms, but Captain Horrocks + is off the sick-list to-morrow. Colonel Wade is smaller than + ever. Mrs. Wade is coming out by the "Rewa." Mrs. Beecher came to + tea on Sunday----' + +("Is that _our_ Mrs. Beecher, when Uncle Dick was at Chatham, +auntie?")-- + + "'--and I forgot to say that Dot's parrots stood the journey + awfully well, but they've got at the loquat trees and destroyed + all the young shoots. Jim saw us safely in and is now off on his + Indus trip. The 56th are going in March, and the 53rd come + instead. I'm sure the new baby's a little darling; what are you + going to call him?----' + +"And so on. I _do_ think she writes such good letters. Now let's have +yours, Aunt Grace (and that really _will_ be the end, Katie)." + +And Lady Tasker's letters also were "put in." + + * * * * * + +It was a Sunday afternoon, at Cromwell Gardens. Stan was away with his +film company for the week-end, and Dorothy had got Katie to stay with +her during his absence and had proposed a call on Lady Tasker. They had +brought the third Bit with them, and he now slept in one of the cots +upstairs. Lady Tasker sat with her crochet at the great first-floor +window that looked over its balcony out along the Brompton Road. On the +left stretched the long and grey and red and niched and statued façade +of the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the failing of the western flush +was leaving the sky chill and sharp as steel and the wide +traffic-polished road almost of the same colour. Inside the lofty room +was the still glow of a perfect "toasting fire," and Lady Tasker had +just asked Katie to be so good as to put more coal on before it sank too +low. + +Katie Deedes had made no scruple whatever about changing her coat in +more senses of the words than one. She had bought a navy-blue costume +and a new toque (with a wing in it), and since then had got into the way +of expressing her doubts whether Britomart Belchamber's hockey legs and +Dawn of Freedom eye were in the truest sense feminine. Nay, that is +altogether to understate the change in Katie. She had now no doubt about +these things whatever. As Saul became Paul, so Katie now not only +reviled that which she had cast off, but was even prepared, like the +Apostle at Antioch, to withstand the older Peters of Imperialism to +their faces, did she detect the least sign of temporizing in them. And +this treason had involved the final giving-way of every one of her old +associates. She was all for guns and grim measures; and while she looked +fondly on Boy Scouts in the streets, and talked about "the thin end of +the wedge of Conscription," she scowled on the dusky-skinned sojourners +within London's gates, and advocated wholesale deportations. + +And in all this Katie Deedes was only returning to her own fold, though +her people were not soldiers, but lawyers. For the matter of that, her +father's cousin was a very august personage indeed, for whose comfort, +when he travelled, highly-placed railway officials made themselves +personally responsible, and whose solemn progress to Assize was +snapshotted for the illustrated papers and thrown on five hundred cinema +screens. In the past Katie had been privileged to call this kingpost of +the Law "Uncle Joe."... + +And then Mr. Strong had got hold of her.... + +And after Mr. Strong, Mr. Wilkinson.... + +And according to Mr. Wilkinson, the most ferocious of the hanging-judges +had been a beaming humanitarian by comparison with Sir Joseph. Mr. +Wilkinson had the whole of Sir Joseph's career at his fingers' ends: the +So-and-So judgment--this or that flagrant summing up--the other +deliberate and wicked misdirection to the jury. Sir Joseph's heart was +black, his law bunkum, and he had only got where he was by +self-advertisement and picking the brains of men a hundred times fitter +for heaven than himself.... + +Therefore Katie, hearing this horrible tale, had quailed, and had +straightway given away this devil who was the sinister glory of her +house. She had agreed that he was a man whom anybody might righteously +have shot on sight, and had gathered her Greenaway garments about her +whenever she had passed within a mile of Sir Joseph's door.... + +But now he was "Uncle Joe" again, and--well, it must have been rather +funny. For Katie's impressionable conscience had given her no rest day +or night until she had sought Uncle Joe out and had made a clean breast +of it all before him. Katie had fancied she had seen something like a +twinkle in those sinful old eyes, but (this was when she mentioned the +name of the "Novum") the twinkle had vanished again. Oh, yes, Sir Joseph +had heard of the "Novum." Didn't a Mr. Prang write for it?... + +And thereupon Katie had given Mr. Prang away too.... + +But in the end Sir Joseph had forgiven her, and had told her that she +had better not be either a revolutionary, nor yet the kind of +Conservative that is only a revolutionary turned inside-out, but just a +good little girl, and had asked her how she was getting on, and why she +hadn't been to see her Aunt Anne, and whether she would like some +tickets for a Needlework Exhibition; and now she was just beginning to +forget that he had ever been anything but "Uncle Joe," who had given her +toys at Christmas, and Sunday tickets for the Zoo whenever she had +wanted to go there on that particularly crowded day. + +Dorothy had had something of this in her mind when she had brought Katie +to Cromwell Gardens that Sunday afternoon. From Katie's new attitude to +her own Ludlow project was not so far as it seemed. If she could lead +the zealous 'vert to such promising general topics as Boy Scouts, +Compulsory Service, and the preparation of boys for the Army (topics +that Katie constantly brought forward by denunciation of their +opposites), her scheme would certainly not suffer, and might even be +advanced. + +And, as it happened, no sooner had Dorothy tucked her last letter back +into its envelope than Katie broke out--earnestly, proselytizingly, and +very prettily on the stump. + +"There you are!" she exclaimed. "That's all _exactly_ what I mean! Why, +any one of those letters ought to be enough to convince anybody! Here +are all these stupid people at home, ready to believe everything a +native tells them, going on as they do, and hardly one of them's ever +set foot out of England in his life! Of course the Indians know exactly +what _they_ want, but don't you see, Dorothy--," very patiently she +explained it for fear Dorothy should not see, "--don't you see that it's +all so much a matter of course to Mollie and those that they can +actually write whole letters about window-curtains! I _love_ that about +the window-curtains! It's all such an old story to _them_! They _know_, +you see, and haven't got to be talking about it all the time in order to +persuade themselves! There it _is_!--But these other people don't know +anything at all. They don't even see what a perfect answer +window-curtains are to them! They go on and on and on--you _do_ see what +I mean, Dorothy?----" + +"Yes, dear," said Dorothy, mildly thinking of the great number of people +there were in the world who would take no end of trouble to explain +things to her. "Go on." + +And Katie continued to urge upon her friend the argument that those know +most about a country who know most about it. + +Katie had got to the stage of being almost sure that she remembered +Mollie's coming into the studio in Cheyne Walk one day, when Lady +Tasker, who had not spoken, suddenly looked up from her crochet and +said, "Look, Dorothy--that's the girl I was speaking about--coming along +past the Museum there." + +Dorothy rose and walked to the window.--"Where?" she said. + +"Passing the policeman now." + +Dorothy gave a sudden exclamation.--"Why," she exclaimed, "--come here, +Katie, quick--it's Amory Towers!--It is Amory, isn't it?" + +Katie had run to the window, too. The two women stood watching the +figure in the mushroom-white hat and the glaucous blue velvet that idled +forlornly along the pavement. + +"Do you mean Mrs. Pratt?" said Lady Tasker, putting up her glass again. +"Are you quite sure?" + + * * * * * + +Once before in her life, in the days before her marriage, Amory Towers +had done the same thing that she was doing now. Then, seeking something, +perhaps a refuge from herself, she had walked the streets until she was +ready to drop with fatigue, watching faces passing, passing, for ever +passing, and slowly gathering from them a hypnotic stupor. Sometimes, +for hour after hour, she had seen nothing but eyes--eyes various in +shape and colour as the pebbles on a beach, sometimes looking into hers, +sometimes looking past her, sometimes tipped with arrow-heads of white +as they turned, sometimes only to be seen under their lids as a +finger-nail is seen within the finger of a glove. And at other times, +weary of her fellow-beings and ceasing to look any more at them, she had +seen nothing but doors and windows, or fan-lights, or the numbers of +houses, or window-boxes, or the patterns of railings, or the serried +shapes of chimneys against the sky. She had been looking, and yet not +looking, for Cosimo Pratt then; she was looking, and yet not looking, +for Edgar Strong now. Had she met him she had nothing new to say to him; +she only knew that he had taken weak possession of her mind. She was +looking for him in South Kensington because he had once told her, when +asked suddenly, that he lived in Sydney Street, S.W., and frequently +walked to the Indian section of the Imperial Institute in order to +penetrate into the real soul of a people through its art; and she was +not looking for him, because one day she had remembered that he had said +before that he lived in South Kentish Town--which was rather like South +Kensington, but not the same--and something deep down within her told +her that the other was a lie. + +But yet her feet dragged her to the quarter, as to other quarters, and +she talked to herself as she walked. She told herself that her husband +did not understand her, and that it would be romantic and silencing did +she take a lover to her arms; and she could have wept that, of all the +flagrant splendours of which she dreamed, London's grey should remain +her only share. And she knew that the attendants at the Imperial +Institute had begun to look at her. Once she had spoken to one of them, +but when she had thought of asking him whether he knew a Mr. Strong who +came there to study Indian Art, her heart had suddenly failed her, and +the question had stayed unspoken. Nevertheless she had feared that the +man had guessed her thought, and must be taking stock of her face +against some contingency (to visualize which passed the heavy time on) +that had a Divorce Court in it, and hotel porters and chambermaids who +gave evidence, and the Channel boat, and two forsaken children, and +grimy raptures in the Latin Quarter, and its hectic cafés at night.... + +And so she walked, feeling herself special and strange and frightened +and half-resolved; and thrice in as many weeks Lady Tasker, sitting with +her crochet at her window, had seen her pass, but had not been able to +believe that this was the woman, with a husband and children, on whom +she had once called at that house with the secretive privet hedge away +in Hampstead. + + * * * * * + +"It _is_ Amory!" Dorothy exclaimed. "Is she coming here?" + +Lady Tasker spoke reflectively.--"I don't know. I don't think so. +But--will you fetch her in? I should like to see her." + +"If you like, auntie," said Dorothy, though a little reluctantly. + +But Lady Tasker seemed to change her mind. She laid down her crochet and +rose. + +"No, never mind," she said. "I'll fetch her myself." + +And the old lady of seventy passed slowly out of the room, and Katie and +Dorothy moved away from the window. + +Lady Tasker was back again in five minutes, but no Amory came with her. +She walked back to her chair, moved it, and took up her work +again.--"Switch the table light on," she said. + +"Was it Amory?" Dorothy ventured to ask after a silence. + +"Yes," Lady Tasker replied. + +"And wouldn't she come in?" + +"She said she was hurrying back home." + +That raised a question so plain that Dorothy thought it tactful to make +rather a fuss about finding some album or other that should convince +Katie that she really had met the Mollie who had written the letter +about the window-curtains. Lady Tasker's needle was dancing rather more +quickly than usual. Dorothy found her album, switched on another light, +and told Katie to make room for her on her chair. + +Amory, dawdling like that, and then, when spoken to, to have the face to +say that she was hurrying back home!---- + +It was some minutes later that Lady Tasker said off-handedly, "Has she +any children besides those twins?" + +"Amory?" Dorothy replied, looking up from the album. "No." + +"How old is she?" Lady Tasker asked. + +"Thirty-two, isn't she, Katie?" + +"About that." + +"Is she very--athletic?" Lady Tasker next wanted to know. + +"Not at all, I should say." + +"I mean she doesn't go in for marathon races or Channel swimming or +anything of that kind?" + +"Amory? No," said Dorothy, puzzled. + +"And you're sure of her age?" the old lady persisted. + +"Well--she may only be thirty-one." + +"I don't mean is she younger. Is she _older_ than that?" + +"No--I know by my own age." + +"H'm!" said Lady Tasker; and again her needle danced.... + +Dorothy was explaining to Katie that Mollie was fair, about her own +colour, but of course the hair never came out right in a photograph, +when Lady Tasker suddenly began a further series of questions. + +"Dorothy----" + +"Yes?" + +"Did she--develop--early?" + +"Who--Amory? I don't know. Did she, Katie? Of course she was quite the +cleverest girl at the McGrath." + +"Ah!... What did she do at the McGrath?" + +"Why, painted. You're awfully mysterious, auntie! It was soon after she +left the McGrath that she painted 'Barrage'--you've heard of her +feminist picture that made such a stir!" + +"Ah, yes. Yes. I didn't see it, but I did hear about it. I don't know +anything about art.--Had she any affair before she married young Pratt?" + +"No. I'm sure of that. I knew her so well." Dorothy was quite confident +on that point, and Katie agreed. Lady Tasker's questions continued. + +And then, suddenly, into this apparently aimless catechism the word +"doctor" came. Dorothy gave a start. + +"Aunt Grace!... Do you mean Amory's ill?" she cried. + +Lady Tasker did not look up from her crochet.--"Ill?" she said. "I've no +reason to suppose so. I didn't say she was ill. There's no illness about +it.... By the way, I don't think I've asked how Stan is." + +But for the curiously persistent questions, Dorothy might have seized +the opportunity to hint that Stan was made for something more nationally +useful than getting himself black and blue by stopping runaway horses +for the film or running the risk of double pneumonia by being fished out +of the sea on a January day--which was the form his bread-winning was +taking on that particular week-end. But the Ludlow design was for the +moment forgotten. She would have liked to ask her aunt straight out what +she really meant, but feared to be rude. So she turned to the album +again, and again Katie, turning from turban to staff-cap and from +staff-cap to pith helmet, urged that _those_ were the people who really +knew what they were talking about--surely Dorothy saw _that_!---- + +Then, in the middle of Dorothy's bewilderment, once more the +questions.... About that painting of her friend's, Lady Tasker wanted to +know: did Mrs. Pratt get any real satisfaction out of it?--Any emotional +satisfaction?--Was she entirely wrapped up in it?--Or was it just a sort +of hitting at the air?--Did it exhaust her to no purpose, or was it +really worth something when it was done?---- + +"If Dorothy doesn't know, surely you do, Katie." + +Katie coloured a little.--"I liked 'Barrage' awfully at the time," she +confessed, "but--," and she cheered up again, "--I _hate_ it now." + +"But did her work--what's the expression?--fill her life?" + +Here Dorothy answered for Katie.--"I think she rather liked the fame +part of it," she said slowly. + +"Does she paint now?" + +"Very little, I think, Lady Tasker." + +"Has her children to look after, I suppose?" + +"Well--she has both a nurse and a governess----" + +"They're quite well off, aren't they? I seem to remember that Pratt came +into quite a lot." + +"They seem to spend a great deal." + +"But that's only a small house of theirs?" + +"Oh, yes, they're rather proud of that. They don't spend their money +selfishly. It goes to the Cause, you see." + +"What Cause?" Lady Tasker asked abruptly. + +This was Katie's cue.... + +She ceased, and Lady Tasker muttered something. It sounded rather like +"H'm! Too much money and not enough to do!" but neither of her +companions was near enough to be quite sure. + +And thereupon the questions stopped. + +But a surmise of their drift had begun to dawn glimmeringly upon +Dorothy. She ceased to hear the exposition of Imperialism's real needs +into which Katie presently launched, and fell into a meditation. And of +that meditation this was about the length and breadth:-- + +Until the law should allow a man to have more wives than one (if then), +of course only one woman in the world could be perfectly happy--the +woman who had Stan. That conviction came first, and last, and ran +throughout her meditation. And of what Dorothy might compassionately +have called secondary happinesses she had hitherto not thought very +much. She had merely thanked her stars that she had not married a man +like Cosimo, had once or twice rather resented Amory's well-meant but +left-handed kindnesses, and that had been the extent of her concern +about the Pratt household. But first Katie, and now her aunt, had set +her wondering hard enough about that household now. + +What, she asked herself, had the Pratts married on? What discoveries had +they made in one another, what resources found within themselves? Apart +from their talks and books and meetings and "interests" and that full +pack of their theories, what was their marriage? Thrown alone together +for an hour, did they fret? Did their yawning cease when the bell rang +and a caller was admitted? Did even the same succession of callers +become stale and a bore, so that strangers had to be sought to provide a +stimulus? And did they call these and half a hundred other forms of +mutual boredom by the rather resounding names that blabbing Katie had +repeated to her--"wider interests," "the broad outlook," "the breaking +down of personal insularity," and the rest? + +And for once Dorothy dropped her excusatory attitude towards her friend. +She dropped it so completely that by and by she found herself wondering +whether Amory would have married Cosimo had he been a poor man. She was +aware that, stated in that way, it sounded hideous; nor did she quite +mean that perhaps Amory had married Cosimo simply and solely because he +had _not_ been poor; no doubt Amory had assumed other things to be equal +that as a matter of fact had unfortunately proved to be not equal at +all; but she _did_ doubt now whether Amory had not missed that +something, that something made of so many things, that caused her own +heart suddenly to gush out to the absent Stan. The thought frightened +her a little. Had Amory married and had babies--all, as it were, beside +the mark?... + +Dorothy did not know. + +But an obscurer hint still had seemed to lie behind her aunt's +persistent questions. "Was Amory ill?" she herself had asked in alarm +when that unexpected word "doctor" had been quietly dropped; and "Ill? I +didn't say she was ill; there's no illness about it," Lady Tasker had +replied. No illness about what? Apparently about something Lady Tasker +saw, or thought she saw, in Amory.... An old lady whose years had +earned her the right to sit comfortably in her chair had gone so far as +to descend the stairs and go out into the street to have a closer look +at a young one: why? Why ask "Is she a Channel swimmer?" and "Is her +painting a mere hitting of the air?" Why this insistence on some +satisfaction for labour, as if without that satisfaction the labour +wreaked on the labourer some sort of revenge? What sort of a revenge? +And why on Amory? + +Yes, Dorothy would have liked to ask her aunt a good many questions.... + +She did not know that Lady Tasker could not have answered them. She did +not know that the whole world is waiting for precisely those replies. +She did not know that the data of a great experiment have not yet begun +to be gathered together. She did not know that, while she and Stan would +never see the results of that experiment, little Noel and the other +Bits, and Corin and Bonniebell might. She only knew that her aunt was a +wise and experienced woman, with an appetite for life and all belonging +to it that only grew the stronger as her remaining years drew in, and +that apparently Lady Tasker found something to question, if not to fear. + +"Is she a Channel swimmer? Does she get any emotional satisfaction out +of what she does?" + +They were oddly precise questions.... + +Much less odd was that homely summing-up of Lady Tasker's: "Too much +money, and not enough to do."... + +Dorothy had often thought that herself. + + + + +V + +"HOUSE FULL" + + +The gate in the privet hedge of The Witan had had little rest all the +afternoon. It was a Sunday, the one following that on which Lady Tasker +had issued bareheaded from her door, had crossed the road, and had +caused Amory to start half out of her skin by suddenly speaking to her. +The Wyrons had come in the morning; they had been expressly asked to +lunch; but it was known that Dickie Lemesurier was coming in afterwards +to discuss an advertisement, and if Dickie came the chances were that +Mr. Brimby would not be very long after her. As a matter of fact Dickie +and Mr. Brimby had encountered one another outside and had arrived +together at a little after three, bringing three young men, friends of +Mr. Brimby's still at Oxford, with them. These young men wore Norfolk +jackets, gold-pinned polo-collars, black brogues and turned-up trousers; +and apparently they had hesitated to take Cosimo at his word about +"spreading themselves about anywhere," for they stood shoulder to +shoulder in the studio, and when one turned to look at a picture or +other object on the wall, all did so. Then, not many minutes later, Mr. +Wilkinson had entered, in his double-breasted blue reefer, bringing with +him a stunted, bowlegged man who did not carry, but looked as if he +ought to have carried, a miner's lamp; and by half-past four, of The +Witan's habitués, only Mr. Prang and Edgar Strong were lacking. But +Edgar was coming. It had been found impossible, or at any rate Amory had +decided that it was impossible, to discuss the question of Dickie's +advertisement without him. But he was very late. + +When Britomart Belchamber came in simultaneously with the tea and the +twins at a little before five, the studio was full. The asbestos log +purred softly, and Mr. Brimby's three Oxford friends, glad perhaps of +something to do, walked here and there, each of them with a plate of +bread and butter in either hand, not realizing that at The Witan the +beautiful Chinese rule of politeness was always observed--"When the +stranger is in your melon-patch, be a little inattentive." Had Dickie +Lemesurier and Laura Wyron eaten half the white and brown that was +presented to them, they must have been seriously unwell. It was Cosimo, +grey-collared and with a claret-coloured velvet waistcoat showing under +his slackly-buttoned tweed jacket, who gave the young men the friendly +hint, "Everybody helps themselves here, my dear fellows." Then the +Norfolk jackets came together again, and presently their owners turned +with one accord to examine the hock and the top-side that hung on the +wall over the sofa. + +Not so much a blending of voices as an incessant racket of emphatic and +independent pronouncements filled the studio. Walter Wyron had fastened +upon the man who looked as if he ought to have carried a miner's lamp, +and his forefinger was wagging like a gauge-needle as he explained that +one of his Lectures had been misrepresented, and that he had _never_ +taken up the position that a kind of Saturnalia should be definitely +state-established. He admitted, nevertheless, that the question of such +an establishment ought to be considered, like any other question, on its +merits, and that after that the argument should be followed +whithersoever it led.--Dickie Lemesurier, excessively animated, and with +the whites showing dancingly all round her pupils, was talking Césanne +and Van Gogh to Laura, and declaring that something was "quite the" +something or other.--Mr. Brimby's hand was fondling Bonniebell's head +while he deprecated the high degree of precision of the modern rifle to +Mr. Wilkinson. "If only it wasn't so ruthlessly logical!" he was +sighing. "If only it was subject to the slight organic accident, to +those beautiful adaptations of give-and-take that make judgment harsh, +and teach us that we ought never to condemn!"--Corin, drawn by the word +"gun," was demanding to be told whether that was the gun that had been +taken away from him.--And Britomart Belchamber, indifferent alike to the +glances of the Oxford men and their trepidation in her presence, stood +like a caryatid under a wall-bracket with an ivy-green replica of +Bastianini's Dante upon it. + +"No, no, not for a moment, my dear sir!" Walter shouted to the man who +looked like (and was) a miner. "That is to ignore the context. I admit I +used the less-known Pompeian friezes as a rough illustration of what I +meant--but I did _not_ suggest that Waring & Gillow's should put them on +the market! What I did say was that we moderns must work out our +damnation on the same lines that the ancients did. Read your Nietzsche, +my good fellow, and see what _he_ says about the practical +serviceability of Excess! I contend that a kind of general _oubliance_, +say for three weeks in the year, to which everybody without exception +would have to conform (so that we shouldn't have the superior person +bringing things up against us afterwards)----" + +"Ah doan't see how ye could mak' fowk----," the miner began, in an +accent that for a moment seemed to blast a hole clean through the +racket. But the hole closed up again. + +"Ah, at present you don't," Walter cried. "The spade-work isn't done +yet. We need more education. But every new and great idea----" + +But here an outburst from Mr. Wilkinson to Mr. Brimby drowned Walter's +voice. Mr. Wilkinson raised his clenched fist, but only for emphasis, +and not in order to strike Mr. Brimby. + +"Stuff and nonsense! There you go, Brimby, trimming again! We've heard +all that: 'A great deal to be said on both sides,'"--(Mr. Wilkinson all +but mimicked Mr. Brimby). "There isn't--not if you're going to do +anything! There's only one side. You've got to shoot or be shot. I'm a +shooter. Give me five hundred real men and plenty of barricade +stuff----" + +"Oh, oh, oh, my dear friend!" Mr. Brimby protested. "Why, if your +principles were universally applied----" + +"Who said anything about applying 'em universally? Hang your universal +applications! I'm talking about the Industrial Revolution. I'll tell you +what's the matter with you, Brimby: you don't like the sight of blood. +I'm not blaming you. Some men are like that. But it's in every page of +your writing. You've got a bloodless style. I don't mind admitting that +I liked some of your earlier work, while there still seemed a chance of +your making up your mind some day----" + +But here Mr. Wilkinson in his turn was drowned, this time by an +incredulous laugh from Cosimo, who had joined Dickie and Laura. + +"Van Gogh says _that_?" his voice mounted high. "Really? You're sure he +wasn't joking? Ha ha ha ha!... But it's rather pathetic really. One +would think Amory'd never painted 'Barrage,' nor the 'White Slave,' nor +that--," he pointed to the unfinished canvas of "The Triumph of Humane +Government" on the wall. "By Jove, I must make an Appendix of that!... +Here--Walter!--Have you told him, Dickie?--Walter!----" + +But Walter was now at deadly grips with the man who had forgotten his +miner's lamp. + +"I tell you I never used Saturnalia in that sense at all!----" + +But the miner stood his ground. + +"Happen ye didn't, but I'll ask ye one question: Have ye ever been to +Blackpool of a August Bank Holiday?----" + +"My good man, you talk as if I proposed to do something with the stroke +of a pen, to-morrow, before the world's ready for it----" + +"Have ye ever been to Blackpool of a Bank Holiday?" + +"What on earth has Blackpool to do with it?----" + +"Well, we'll say Owdham Wakes week at t' Isle o' Man--Douglas----" + +"Pooh! You've got hold of the wrong idea altogether! Do you know what +Saturnalia _means_?----" + +"I know there's a man on Douglas Head, at twelve o'clock i' t' day, wi' +t' sun shining, going round wi' a stick an' prodding 'em up an' telling +'em to break away----" + +"I shouldn't have thought anybody could have been so _incredibly_ slow +to grasp an idea--!" cried Walter, his hands aloft. + +"Have--you--ever--been--to--Blackpool--when--t' Wakes--is on?" + +Then Cosimo called again-- + +"Walter! I say! Come here!... Dickie's just told me something that makes +the '_Life and Work_' _rather_ necessary, I think!----" + +And Walter turned his back on the miner and joined his wife and Dickie +and Cosimo. + +Anybody who wasn't anybody might have supposed the noise to be a series +of wrangles, but of course it wasn't so at all really. Issues far too +weighty hung in the balance. It is all very well for people whose +mental range is limited by _matinées_ and Brooklands and the newest car +to talk in pleasant and unimpassioned voices, but what was going to +happen to Art unless Cosimo hurled himself and the '_Life and Work_' +against this heretic Van Gogh, and what was to become of England if +Walter allowed a pig-headed man who could say nothing but "Blackpool +Pier, Blackpool Pier," to shout him down, and what would happen to +Civilization if Mr. Wilkinson did not, figuratively speaking, take hold +of the dilettante Brimby and shake him as a terrier shakes a rat? No: +there would be time enough for empty politenesses when the battle was +won. + +In the meantime, a mere nobody might have thought they were merely +excessively rude to one another. + +Then began fresh combinations and permutations of the talk. Mr. +Wilkinson, whose square-cut pilot jacket somehow added to the truculence +of his appearance, planted himself firmly for conversation before Dickie +Lemesurier; the miner, whose head at a little distance appeared bald, +but on a closer view was seen to be covered with football-cropped and +plush-like bristles, nudged Cosimo's hip, to attract his attention: and +Walter Wyron sprang forward with a welcoming "Hallo, Raffinger!" as the +door opened and two young McGrath students were added to the crowd. For +a minute no one voice preponderated in the racket; it was-- + +"Hallo, Raff! Thought you weren't coming!" + +"I want a gun!" (This from Corin.) + +"My dear Corin" (this from Bonniebell), "Miss Belchamber's told you over +and over again guns are anti-social----" + +"Anybody smoking? Well, I know they don't mind----" + +"But, Miss Lemesurier, where a speaker reaches only a hundred or two, +the written word----" + +"Ah, but the personal, magnetic thrill----" (This was in Dickie's rather +deep voice.) + +Then Walter, to somebody else, not the miner-- + +"I should have thought _anybody_ would have known that when I said +Saturnalia I meant----" + +"Where's Amory?" + +"Sweet, in those little tunics!----" + +"A subsidy from the State, of course----" + +Then the miner, but not to Walter-- + +"I' t' daylight, proddin' 'em up wi' a stick--to say nowt o' Port +Skillian bathin'-place of a fine Sunda'----" + +"That hoary old lie, that Socialism means sharing----" + +"Oh, at any artists' colourman's----" + +"No; it will probably be published privately----" + +"Van Gogh----" + +"Oh, you're _entirely_ wrong!----" + +And then, in the middle of a sudden and mysterious lull, the man who had +come without his safety-lamp was heard addressing Cosimo again:-- + +"Well, what about t' new paaper? Owt settled yet?... Nay, ye needn't +look; Wilkinson telled me; it's all right; nowt 'at's said 'll go beyond +these fower walls. Wilkinson's gotten a rare list together, names an' +right, I can tell ye! But t' way I look at it is this----" + +Cosimo looked blank. + +"But, my dear--I'm afraid I didn't catch your name----," he said. + +"Crabtree--Eli Crabtree. This is t' point I want to mak', mister. Ye +see, I can't put things grammar; but there's lots about 'at can; so I +thowt we'd get a sec'etary, an' I'd sit an' smoke whol' my thowts come, +and then I'd tell him t' tale. Ye see, ye want to go slap into t' middle +o' t' lives o' t' people. Now comin' up o' t' tram-top I bethowt me of a +champion series: '_Back to Back Houses I've Known_.' I'll bet a crahn +that wi' somb'dy to put it grammar for me----" + +"My dear Crabtree, I'm afraid, don't you know, that there's been some +mistake----" + +And at this point, everybody becoming conscious at the same moment that +they were listening, a fresh wave of sound flowed over the assembly; and +presently Mr. Wilkinson was seen to take Cosimo aside and to be making +the gestures of a man who is explaining some ridiculous mistake. + +Then once more:-- + +"I beg your pardon--I thought you were Mrs. Pratt----" + +"Put grammar--straight to fowk's hearts--sinks and slopstones an' all t' +lot----" + +"No, Balliol----" + +"But listen, Pratt, the way the mistake arose----" + +"Ellen Key, of course----" + +"The 'Times!'--As if the 'Times' wasn't _always_ wrong!----" + +"There's a raucousness about her paint----" + +"The Caxton Hall, at eight--do come!----" + +"But we authors are so afraid of sentiment nowadays!----" + +"Bombay, I think--or else Hyderabad----" + +"Oh, he talks like a fool!----" + +"Raff! Come here and recite '_The King is Duller_'----" + +"But Love _is_ Law!----" + +"Suspend our judgments until we've heard the other side----" + +"Only water--but they couldn't break her spirit--she was out again in +three days----" + +And again there came an unexpected lull. + +This time it was broken by, perhaps not the loudest, but certainly the +most travelling voice yet--the voice of the caryatid beneath the bracket +with the bust upon it. Miss Belchamber was dressed in a sleeveless +surcoat chess-boarded with large black and white squares; the skirt +beneath it was of dark blue linen; and there were beards of leather on +her large brown brogues. One of the young Oxford men, greatly daring, +had approached her and asked her a question. She turned slowly; she gave +the young man the equal-soul-to-equal-soul look; and then the apparatus +of perfect voice-production was set in motion. Easily and powerfully the +air came from her magnificent chest, up the splendid six-inch main of +her throat, rang upon the hard anterior portion of her palate, and was +cut, as it were, to its proper length and shaped into perfect +enunciation by her red tongue and beautiful white teeth. + +"What?" she said. + +The undergraduate fell a little back. + +"Only--I only asked if you'd been to many theatres lately." + +"Not any." + +"Oh!... I--I suppose you know everybody here?" + +"Yes." + +"Do point them out to me!" + +"That's Walter Wyron. That's Mrs. Wyron. That's Miss Lemesurier. I don't +know who the little man is. That's Mr. Wilkinson. My name's Belchamber." + +"Oh--I say--I mean, thanks awfully. We've heard of them all, of course," +the unhappy young man faltered. + +"What?" + +"All distinguished names, I mean." + +"Of course." + +"Rather!----" + +And again everybody listened, became conscious of the fact, and broke +out anew. + +But where all this time was Amory? + +Demonstrably, exactly where she ought to have been--in her bedroom. She +was too dispirited to be accessible to the rational talk of others; she +did not feel that she had energy enough to be a source of illumination +herself; surely, then, merely because a lot of people, invited and +uninvited, chose to come to The Witan, she need not put herself out to +go and look after them. They might call themselves her "guests" if they +liked; Amory didn't care what form of words they employed; the +underlying reality remained--that she was intensely bored, and too +fundamentally polite to bore others by going down. Perhaps she would go +down when Edgar came. She had left word that she was to be informed of +his arrival. But he was very late. + +Nevertheless, she knew that he would come. Lately she had grown a little +more perspicacious about that. It had dawned on her that, everything +else apart, she had some sort of hold on him through the "Novum," and +there had been a trace of command in her summons that he was pretty sure +not to disregard. No doubt he would try to get away again almost +directly, but she had arranged about that. She intended to keep him to +supper. Also the Wyrons. And Britomart Belchamber too would be there. +And of course Cosimo. + +She moved restlessly between her narrow bed and the window, now +polishing her nails, now glancing at her hair in the glass. From the +window she could see over the privet hedge and down the road, but there +was no sign of Edgar yet. She looked at herself again in the glass, +without favour, and then sat down on the edge of her bed again. + +Her meeting with Lady Tasker the week before had greatly unsettled her. +Very stupidly, she had quite forgotten that Lady Tasker lived in +Cromwell Gardens. She would have thought nothing at all of the meeting +had Lady Tasker had a hat on her head and gloves on her hands; she would +have set that down as an ordinary street-encounter; but Dorothy's aunt +had evidently seen her from some window, perhaps not for the first time, +and, if not for the first, very likely for the third or fourth or fifth. +In a word, Amory felt that she had been caught. + +And, as she had been thinking of Edgar Strong at the moment when the old +lady's voice had startled her so, it was not beyond the bounds of +possibility that her start had seemed remarkable. Lady Tasker was so +very sharp. + +At all events, even Edgar was not going to have everything all his own +way. + +For she was sure now that she had the hold of the "Novum" on him, and +that that hold was not altogether the single-minded devotion to his duty +he had made it out to be on that day when she had last gone to the +office. Not that she thought too unkindly of him on that account. The +labourer, even in the field of Imperial Politics, is still worthy of his +hire, and poor Edgar, like the rest of the world, had to make the best +compromise he could between what he would have liked to do and what +circumstances actually permitted him to do. Of course he would be +anxious to keep his job. If he didn't keep it a worse man would get it, +and India would be no better off, but probably worse. She sighed that +all work should be subject to compromises of this kind. Edgar, in a +word, was no longer a hero to her, but, by his very weakness, something +a little nearer and dearer still. + +But for all that she had not hesitated to use her "pull" in order to get +him to The Witan that day. + +She saw him as she advanced to the glass again. He was nearly a quarter +of a mile down the road. She found a little secret delight in watching +his approach when he was unconscious of her watching. His figure was +still very small, and she indulged herself with a fancy, closing her +eyes for a moment in order to do so. Suppose he had been, not +approaching, but going away--then when she opened her eyes again he +would look smaller still.... She opened them, and experienced a little +thrill at seeing him nearer and plainer. She could distinguish the red +spot of his tie. Now he turned his head to look at some people who +passed. Now he stepped off the pavement to make room for somebody. Now +he was on the pavement again--now hidden by a tree--now once more +disclosed, and quite near---- + +She straightened herself, gave a last look into the glass, and +descended. + +She met him in the hall. They shook hands, but did not speak. There was +no need for him to ask whether anybody had come; the babble of noise +could be plainly heard through the closed studio door. They walked along +the passage, descended the two steps into the garden, and reached the +studio. + +Strong opened the door, and-- + +"_Ha, ha, ha!_ I shall tell them that at the Nursery!----" + +"No--just living together----" + +"Corin!--Corin!----" + +"The eighteenth, at the Little Theatre----" + +Then the voice of Mr. Crabtree vociferating to his friend Mr. +Wilkinson. + +"I thowt ye telled me 'at Pratt knew all about it----" + +"One day in the High, just opposite Queens----" + +"Not know the '_Internationale_'!--Debout, les damnés de la terre----!" + +Next, sonorously, Miss Belchamber. + +"Yes, I dance 'Rufty Tufty' and 'Catching of Quails'----" + +"But my good chap, don't you see that the Referendum----" + +"Oh, throw it down anywhere--on the hearth----" + +"Really, the bosh he talks----" + +"The Minority Report----" + +"Corin!----" + +"Plato----" + +"Prang----" + +Then, before anybody had had time to notice the entry of Amory and Edgar +Strong, an extraordinary, not to say a regrettable thing occurred. + +Mr. Eli Crabtree had spent the last twenty minutes in going deliberately +from one person to another, often thrusting himself unceremoniously +between two people already engaged in conversation, and in subjecting +them to questionings that had become less and less reticent the further +he had passed round the room. And it appeared that this collier who had +forgotten his Davy had yet another lamp with him--the lamp of his own +narrow intelligence and inalienable, if worthless, experience. By the +help of that darkness within him that he mistook for light, he +had added inference to inference and conclusion to conclusion. +Cosimo--Wilkinson--Walter Wyron--Brimby--the Balliol men--the young +students of the McGrath--he had missed not one of them; but none knew +the portent of his tour of the studio until he had reached the hearth +again. Then he was seen to be standing with his hands behind him, as if +calmly summing them up. + +"By--Gow!" he said half to himself, his football-cropped head moving +this way and that and his eyes blinking rapidly as he sought somebody to +address. + +Then, all in a moment, he ceased his attempt to single out one more than +another, and was addressing them in the lump, for all the world as if he +had been allowed the entrée of the house, not as a high and memorable +privilege and in order that he might learn something he had never +suspected before, but as if, finding himself there, _he_ might as well +tell _them_ a thing or two while he was about it. And though his +astonishment at what he had seen might well have rendered him dumb, his +good temper did not for an instant forsake him. + +"By--Gow!" he said again. "But this _is_ a menagerie, an' reight!" + +The instantaneous dead silence and turn of every head might have +disconcerted a prophet, but they made not the slightest impression on +Mr. Crabtree. + +"It _is_ a menagerie!" he continued superbly. "Ding, if onnybody'd told +me I wadn't ha' believed 'em!--Let's see how monny of ye there is----" + +And calmly he began to count them. + +"Fowerteen--fifteen--sixteen countin' them two 'at's just come in an' +leavin' out t' barns. Sixteen of ye, grown men an' women, an' not a +single one of ye knows ye're born! Nay, it's cappin'!--Him wi' his +Salmagundys or whativver he calls 'em, an' niver been on Douglas +Head!--T' maister here, 'at doesn't know what a back-to-back is, I'se +warrant!--An' yon chap--," Mr. Crabtree's forefinger was straight as a +pistol between Mr. Brimby's eyes, "--'at says there's a deeal to be said +o' both sides an'll be having his pocket'ankercher out in a minute!--An' +these young men thro' t' Collidge!--Nay, if it doesn't beat all! I ne'er +thowt to live to see t' day!----" + +And he made a T-t-t-ing with his tongue on his palate, while his sharp +little eyes looked on them all with amusement and pity. + +Out of the silence of consternation that had fallen on the studio Walter +Wyron was the first to come. He nudged Cosimo, as if to warn him not to +spoil everything, and then, with his hands deep in the pockets of his +knickers and an anticipatory relish on his face, said "I say, old +chap--make us a speech, won't you?" + +But if Walter thought to take a rise out of Mr. Crabtree he was quite, +quite mistaken. With good-natured truculence the collier turned on him +also. + +"A speech?" he said. "Well, I wasn't at t' back o' t' door when t' +speechifyin'-powers was given out; it wadn't be t' first time I'd made a +speech, nut by a mugfull. Mony's t' time they've put Eeali Crabtree o' +t' table i' t' 'Arabian Horse' at Aberford an' called on him for a +speech. I'd sooner mak' a speech nor have a quart o' ale teamed down my +collar, an' that's all t' choice there is when t' lads begins to get +lively!... I don't suppose onny o' ye's ever been i' t' 'Arabian Horse'? +Ye owt to come, of a oppenin'-time of a Sunda' morning. Ye'd see a bit +o' life. Happen ye might ha' to get at t' back o' t' door--if they +started slinging pints about, that is--but it's all love, and ye've got +to do summat wi' it when ye can't sup onny more. I should like to have +him 'at talks about t' Paraphernalia there; it 'ld oppen his eyes a bit! +An' him 'at wor reciting about t' King an' all--t' little bastard i' t' +corner there----" + +At this word, used in so familiar and cheerful a sense, Laura Wyron +stiffened and turned her back; but Walter still hoped for his "rise." + +"Go on," he said; "give us some more, old chap." + +The child of nature needed no urging. + +"Ay, as much as ivver ye like," he said accommodatingly. "But I wish I'd +browt my voice jewjewbes. Ay, I willn't be t' only one 'at isn't +talking! T' rest on ye talks--ding, it's like a lamb's tail, waggin' all +day and nowt done at neet--so we mud as weel all be friendly-like! Talk! +Ay, let's have a talk! Here ye all are, all wi' your fine voices an' +fine clothes, an' ivvery one o' ye wi' t' conveeanience i' t' house, I +don't doubt, an' I'll bet a gallon there isn't one o' ye's ivver done a +hands-turn i' your lives! Nay, ye're waur nor my Aunt Kate! Come down to +Aberford an' I'll show ye summat! Come--it's a invitaation--I'll see it +doesn't cost ye nowt! T' lads is all working, all but t' youngest, an' +we're nooan wi'out! No, we're nooan wi'out at our house! I'll interdewce +ye to t' missis, an' ye can help her to peel t' potates, an' ye can go +down i' t' cage if ye like! Come, an' I'll kill a pig, just for love. +Come of a Sunda' dinner-time, when t' beef's hot. Wilkinson knows what I +mean; he knows t' life; he reckons not to when he's wi' his fine +friends, but Wilkie's had to lie i' bed while his shirt was being mended +afore to-day!... Nay, the hengments!" He broke into a jovial laugh. "Ye +know nowt about it, an' ye nivver will! These 'ere young pistills fro' +t' Collidge--what are they maalakin' at? It doesn't tak' five thousand +pound a year to learn a lad not to write a mucky word on a wall!" (Here +Dickie Lemesurier turned her back on the speaker).... "They want to get +back to their Collidges. T' gap's ower wide. They'll get lost o' t' +road. Same as him 'at wrote t' book about t' pop-shop----," again Mr. +Crabtree's forefinger was levelled between Mr. Brimby's eyes. "Brimbyin' +about, an' they don't know a black puddin' from a Penny Duck! Has he +ivver had to creep up again t' chimley-wall to keep himself warm i' bed, +or to pull t' kitchen blinds down while he washed himself of a Saturda' +afternooin? But ye can all come an' see if ye like. We've had to tew for +it, but we're nooan wi'out now. An' I'll show ye a bit o' sport too. We +all have we'r whippets, an' we can clock t' pigeons in, an' +see what sort of a bat these young maisters can mak' at +knurr-an'-spell--eighteen-and-a-half score my youngest lad does! Ay, we +enjoy we'rsens! An' there's quoits an' all. Eighteen yards is my +distance if onnybody wants to laake for a beast's-heart supper! +Come--ding it, t' lot o' ye come! We can sleep fower o' ye, wed 'uns, +heads to tails, if ye don't mind all being i' t' little cham'er----" + +But by this time Mr. Crabtree was having to struggle to keep his +audience. Mr. Brimby too had turned away, and Mr. Wilkinson, and even +Miss Belchamber had spoken several words of her own accord to the young +Balliol boy. The tide of sound began to rise again, so that once more +Mr. Crabtree's voice was only one among many. Then Walter started +forward with an "Ah, Amory!" and "Hallo, Strong!" Mr. Raffinger of the +McGrath exclaimed.... + +"Perseverance Row, fower doors from t' 'Arabian Horse'----," Mr. +Crabtree bawled hospitably through the hubbub.... + +"Oh, you _must_ see it--the New Greek Society, on the seventeenth----" + +"But I say--what _is_ 'Catching of Quails,' Miss Belchamber----?" + +"Mr. Wilkinson brought him, I think----" + +"Fellow of All Souls, wasn't he?----" + +Then that genial Aberford man again: + +"I tell ye t' gap's ower wide, young man--ye'll get lost o' t' road----" + +"No, the children take her name----" + +"Got a match, old fellow?----" + +"Rot, my dear chap!----" + +"But what _is_ condonation if that isn't?----" + +"Oh, the ordinary brainless Army type----" + +"I read it in the German----" + +"They gained time by paying in pennies----" + +"In Pčre Lachaise----" + +"Well, we can talk about it at suppertime----" + +"But with cheaper Divorce----" + +"One an' all--whenivver ye like--Eeali Crabtree, Perseverance Row, +Aberford, fower doors from t' 'Arabian Horse'----" + +"Nietzsche----" + +"Finot----" + +"Weininger----" + +"Wadham----" + +"Aberford----" + +"Rufty Tufty----" + + + + +VI + +THE SOUL STORM + + +"I--say!----" + +"_Wasn't_ he priceless!----" + +"You got his address, Cosimo? I _must_ cultivate him!----" + +"Pure delight!----" + +"You had come in, hadn't you, Amory?----" + +"He _shot_ Brimby!----" + +"To all intents and purposes--with his finger----" + +"Can you do his accent, Walter?----" + +"I will in a week, or perish----" + +"His bath in the kitchen!----" + +"T' wed 'uns can sleep i' t' little chamber----" + +"No--he didn't sound the 'b' in 'chamber,' and there were at least three +'a's' in it----" + +"'T' little chaaam'er'----" + +"No, you haven't quite got it----" + +"Give me a little time----" + +The party had dwindled to six--Cosimo and Amory, the Wyrons, and +Britomart Belchamber and Mr. Strong. They were still in the studio, but +they were only waiting for the supper-gong to ring. Cigarette ends were +thickly strewn about the asbestos log. The bandying of short ecstatic +phrases had been between Walter and his wife, with Cosimo a little less +rapturously intervening; the subject of them was, of course, Mr. +Crabtree. To his general harangue Mr. Crabtree had added, before +leaving, more particular words of advice, making a second tour of the +studio for the purpose; and he had distinguished Walter above all the +rest by inviting him, not merely to the house four doors from the +"Arabian Horse," but to spend a warm afternoon with him on Douglas Head +also. + +But the Wyrons had these raptures pretty much to themselves. Perhaps +Cosimo was thinking of Mr. Wilkinson, of some new paper of which he had +never heard, and of the assumption that he, apparently, was to find the +money for it. Miss Belchamber was rarely rapturous, so that her silence +was nothing out of the way. Edgar Strong could be rapturous when he +chose, but he evidently didn't choose now. And Amory had far too much on +her mind. + +Her original idea in asking the Wyrons to stay to supper had been that +they, as acknowledged experts in the subject that perplexed her, would +be the proper people to keep the ring while the four persons immediately +concerned talked the whole situation quietly and reasonably and +thoroughly out. But she was rather inclined now to think again before +submitting her case to them. It would be so much better, if the case +must be submitted to anybody, that Cosimo should do it. Then she herself +would be able to shape her course in the light of anything that might +turn up. Nothing, she had to admit, had turned up yet, and Amory was not +sure that in that very fact there did not lie a sufficient cause for +resentment. Had Cosimo pleaded a passion for Britomart Belchamber he +would have had Passion's excuse. Lacking Passion, it could only be +concluded that he was bored with Amory herself. + +And that amounted to an insult.... + +The booming of the gong, however, cut short her brooding. They passed to +the dining-room. Britomart and Walter sat with their backs to the tall +black dresser with the willow pattern stretching up almost to the +ceiling; Laura and Edgar took the German chairs that had their backs to +the copper-hooded fireplace; and Cosimo and Amory occupied either end of +the highly-polished clothless table. This absence of cloth, by the way, +gave a church-like appearance to the flames of the candles in the +spidery brass sticks that had each of them a ring at the top to lift it +up by; the preponderance of black oak and dull black frames on the walls +further added to the effect of gloom; and the putting down of the little +green pipkins of soup and the moving of the green-handled knives and +round-bowled spoons made little knockings from time to time. + +Again Walter and Laura, with not too much help from Cosimo, sustained +the weight of the conversation; and it was not until Amory asked a +question in a tone from which rapture was markedly absent that they +sponged, as it were, the priceless memory of Mr. Crabtree from their +minds. Amory's question had been about Walter's new Lecture, still in +course of preparation, on "_Post-Dated Passion_"; and Walter cursorily +ran over its heads for the general benefit. + +"I admit I got the idea from Balzac," he said between mouthfuls +(whenever they came to The Witan the Wyrons supped almost as heartily as +did Edgar Strong himself). "'Comment l'amour revient aux vieillards,' +you know. But of course that hasn't any earthly interest for anybody. +'Aux vieilles' it ought to be. Then--well, then you've simply got 'em." + +"Why not 'vieillards?'" Amory asked, not very genially. + +"I say, Cosimo, I'll have another cutlet if I may.--Why not +'vieillards?' Quite obvious. Men aren't the interest. I've tried men, +and you can ask Laura how the bookings went.--But 'vieilles' and I've +got 'em. Really, Amory, you're getting quite dull if you don't see that! +I'll explain. You see, I've already got the younger ones, like Brit +here--shove the claret along, Brit--but the others, of forty or fifty +say, well, they've all had their affairs--or if they haven't better +still--and it's merely a question of touching the right chord. Regrets, +time they've lost, fatal words 'Too late' and so on--it's simply _made_ +for me! Touch the chord and they do the rest for themselves. They +probably won't hear half of it for sobbing.--Of course I shall probably +have to modify my style a bit--not quite so--what shall I say----" + +"Jaunty," his wife suggested, "--in the best sense, I mean----" + +"Hm--that's not quite the word--but never mind. It's a great field. +Certainly women, not men, are the draw." + +Amory made a rather petulant objection, and the argument lasted some +minutes. In the end Walter triumphantly gained his first point, that +women and not men were the "draw" in the box-office sense, and also his +second one, namely, that not the Britomarts, but the older women, who +would put their hearts into his hands and pay him for exploiting their +helplessness and ache and tenderness and regret, and never suspect that +they were being practised upon, were "simply made for him...." + +"What do you think of my title?" he asked. + +And the title was discussed. + +Amory was beginning to find Walter just a little grasping. She wished +that after all she had not asked the Wyrons to stay to supper. Formerly +she had thought that marriage-escapade of theirs big and heroic (that +too, by the way, had been in the Latin Quarter, and probably on seven +francs a day); but now she was less sure about that. Quite apart from +the inapplicability of the Wyrons' experience to her own case, she now +wondered whether theirs had in fact been experience at all. Now that she +came to think of it, they had taken no risks. They _had_ been married, +and in the last event could always turn round on their critics and +silence them with that fact.... + +Nor was she quite so ready now to lay even the souls of Britomart and +Cosimo on the dissecting-table for the sake of seeing Walter exercise +his professional skill upon them. This was not so much that she wanted +to spare Cosimo and Britomart as that she did not want to give Walter a +gratification. She was inclined to think that if Walter couldn't be a +little more careful about contradicting her he might find his +advertisement omitted from the "Novum" one week, as Katie Deedes' had +been omitted, and where would he be then? The way in which he had just +said that she was "getting quite dull" had been next door to a +rudeness.... + +But she had to admit that she felt dull. Edgar, who sat next to her, did +not speak, and Cosimo, who faced her, was apparently still brooding on +people who planned the spending of his money without thinking it +necessary to consult him first. She was tired of the whole of the +circumstances of her life. Paris on seven francs a day could hardly be +much worse. Nor, if she could but shake off her lethargy, need that sum +be fixed as low as seven francs. For she had lately remembered an +arrangement made between herself and Cosimo before she had ever +consented to become engaged to him. It was a long time since either of +them had spoken of this arrangement--so long that Cosimo would have been +almost within his rights had he maintained that the circumstances had so +altered as to make it no longer binding; but there it was, or had been, +and it had never been expressly revoked. It was the arrangement by which +they had set apart a fund to insure themselves, either or both of them, +against any evils that might arise from incompatibility. Amory had no +idea how the matter now stood. She didn't suppose for a moment that +Cosimo had actually set a sum by each week or month; but, hard and fast +or loose and fluid, he must have made, or be still ready to make, some +provision. It was an inherent part of the contract that a solemn +affirmation, with reason shown (spiritual, not mere legal reason) by +either one or the other, should constitute a sufficient claim on this +fund. + +Therefore Paris need not necessarily be the worst penury. + +But, for all her new inclination to leave the Wyrons out of it, she +still thought it a prudent idea to carry the fight (not that there would +be any fight--that was only a low way of expressing the high +reasonableness that always prevailed at The Witan) to Cosimo and +Britomart, rather than to have it centre about Edgar and herself. +Walter's eyes were mainly on the box-office nowadays. The original +virtue of that fine protest of theirs was--there was no use in denying +it--gone. He spread his Lectures frankly now as a net. Well, that was +only one net more among the many nets of which she was becoming +conscious. Edgar too, poor boy, was compelled to regard even the "Novum" +as in some manner a net. Mr. Brimby, Amory more than guessed, had nets +to spread. Mr. Wilkinson, in his own way, was out for a catch; and +Dickie fished at the Suffrage Shop; and Katie had fished at the Eden; +and the only one who didn't fish was Mr. Prang, who wrote his articles +about India for nothing, just to be practising his English. + +And all these nets were spread for somebody's money--a good deal of it +Cosimo's. It had been the same, though perhaps not quite so bad, at +Ludlow. That experiment on the country-side had been alarmingly costly. +And all this did not include the dozens and dozens of nets of narrower +mesh. The "Novum" might gulp down money by the hundred, but the lesser +things were hardly less formidable in the sum of them--subscriptions, +contributions, gifts, loans, investments, shares in the Eden and the +Book Shop, mortgages, second mortgages, subsidies, sums to "tide over," +backings, guarantees, losses cut, more good money sent to bring back the +bad, fresh means of spending devised by somebody or other almost every +day. It had begun to weary even Amory. The people who came to The Witan +became rather curiously better-dressed the longer their visiting +continued; but the things they professed to hold dear appeared very +little further advanced. All that first brightness and promise had gone. +Amory's interest had gone. She wanted to escape from it all, and to go +away with Edgar appeared once more to be the readiest way out. + +But, though she might now wish to keep Walter Wyron out of it all, that +did not necessarily mean that Walter would be kept out. This +_ex-officio_ specialist on the (preferably female) heart, this +professional rectifier of unfortunate marriages, had not done a number +of years' platform-work without having discovered the peculiar beauties +of the _argumentum ad hominem_, and it was one of his practices to +enforce his arguments with "Take the case of Brit here"--or "Let's get +down to the concrete: suppose Amory--" And these descents to the +particular had always a curiously accusatory effect. Walter, +interrupting Amory's meditation, broke into one of them now. + +"But my dear chap,"--this was to Cosimo,"--I can't imagine what's come +over all of you to-night! First Amory, now you! You're usually quicker +than this! Let's take a case.--Brit here----" + +One sterno-mastoid majestically turned the caryatid's head. Again Miss +Belchamber's grand thorax worked as if somebody had put a penny into the +slot. + +"What?" she said. + +"Quiet, Brit; I'm only using you as an illustration.--Suppose Brit here +was to develop a passion for somebody--Cosimo, say; yes, Cosimo'll do +capitally; awfully good instance of the cant that's commonly talked +about 'treachery' and 'under his own roof' and all the rest of it--as if +a roof wasn't a roof and it hadn't got to be under somebody's--unless +they went out on the Heath!--Well, suppose it was to happen to Cosimo +and Brit; what then? We're civilized, I hope. We're a little above the +animals, I venture to think. Amory wouldn't fly at Brit's eyes, and +Brit's father wouldn't come round with a razor to cut Cosimo's throat. +In fact----" + +"My fa-ther al-ways uses a safety-razor," said Miss Belchamber with a +reminiscent air. + +"Don't interrupt, Brit.--I was going to say that the world's got past +all that. Nor Brit wouldn't fly at Amory, nor Cosimo kick the old josser +out of the house--though we should be much more ready to condone that +part of it if they did--if it was only to get quits with the past a +bit----" + +"My fa-ther's forty-five," Miss Belchamber announced, as the interesting +result of an interesting mental process of computation. "Next June," she +added. + +"More interruptions from the back of the hall.--In fact, I'm not sure +that _wouldn't_ be entirely defensible--Brit going for Amory and Cosimo +kicking the old dodderer out, I mean. That's the justification of the +_crime passionel_. It's the Will to Live. And by Live I mean Love. It's +the old saying, that kissing lips have no conscience. Or Jove laughs at +lovers' oaths. Quite right. It's the New Greek Spirit. But for all that +we're modern and rational about these things. If Strong here wanted to +take Laura from me I should simply say, 'All you've got to do, my dear +chap, is to table your reasons, and if they're stronger than mine you +take her.' See?" + +At that Edgar Strong, like Britomart, looked up. He spoke for the first +time.--"What's that you're saying?" he asked. + +"I don't suppose you'd want her, but suppose you did...." + +Mr. Strong dropped his eyes to his plate again.--"Ah, yes," he said. +"Ellen Key's got something about that." And he relapsed into silence +again. + +It sounded to Amory idiotic. Walter was so evidently "trying" it on them +in order to see how it would go down with an audience afterwards. She +wouldn't have scratched Britomart's eyes out for Cosimo,--but she +coloured a little, and bit her lip, at the thought that somebody might +want to come between herself and Edgar.... But perhaps that was what +Walter meant--real affinities, as distinct from the ordinary vapid +assumptions about marriages being made in Heaven. If so, she agreed with +him--not that she was much fonder of him on that account. She wished he +would keep his personalities for Cosimo and Britomart, and leave herself +and Edgar alone.--Walter went on. + +"And then, when you've got your New Greek Certificate, so to speak, it's +plainly the duty of everybody else, not to put obstacles in your way and +to threaten you with razors and cutting off supplies, but to sink their +personal feelings and to do everything they can to help you. And without +snivelling either. I shouldn't snivel, I hope, if anybody took Laura, +and she wouldn't if anybody took me----" + +Here Laura interposed softly.--"I don't want any one to take you, dear," +she said. + +Walter turned sharply. + +"Eh?... Now you've put me off my argument.... What was I saying?... +Haven't I told you you must _never_ do that, Laura?... No, it's quite +gone.... You see ..." + +Laura murmured that she was very sorry.... + +"No, it's gone," said Walter, almost cheerfully, as if not sorry that +for once the worth of what he had been about to say should be measured +by the sense of loss. "So since Laura wishes it I'll shut up." + +He passed up his plate for a second helping of trifle. + +By this time Amory was perhaps rather glad that she had had the Wyrons +after all. That about people not putting obstacles in the way was quite +neat. "A plain duty," he had said. She hoped Cosimo'd heard that, and +would remember it when she raised the subject of the fund. And so far +was she herself from putting obstacles in _his_ way that, although she +could have sent Britomart Belchamber packing with her wages at any +moment, she had not done so. That, as Walter had said, would only have +been another way of flying at her eyes.... Besides, Amory had been far +too deeply occupied to formulate definitely her charges against Cosimo +and Britomart. For all she knew it might have gone much, much further +than she had thought. Sometimes, when Amory took breakfast in her own +room, she did not see Cosimo until the evening, and Britomart too had +heaps of time on her hands when she had finished with Corin and +Bonniebell. Cosimo must not tell her that the "_Life and Work_" occupied +him during every minute of his time.... + +Then, presently, she was sorry again that the Wyrons had been asked, for +Walter had suddenly remembered the thread of his discourse, and, in +continuing it, had been almost rude to Laura. She wondered whether he +would have turned with a half angry "Why, what's the matter?" had Laura +cried. Perhaps it was really a good thing the Wyrons hadn't any +children, for this kind of thing would certainly have been a bad example +for them. She herself was never rude to Cosimo before Corin and +Bonniebell. She was always markedly polite. There were excuses to be +made for Passion, but none for rudeness. + +By this time Edgar Strong had finished his last piece of cheese and was +wiping his lips with his napkin. Then he looked at his watch, and for +the second time during the course of the meal spoke. + +"Look here, Cosimo, I've got to be off presently, and we haven't +settled about those advertisements yet. And there's something else I +want to say to you too. Could we hurry coffee up? Where do we have it? +In the studio, I suppose? Or do the others go into the studio and you +and Walter and I have ours here?" + +"We might as well all go into the studio," said Cosimo, rising; and they +left the sombre room and sought the studio, all except Miss Belchamber, +who went upstairs. + +The sight of the innumerable cigarette-ends about the asbestos log +reminded Walter of Mr. Crabtree again; and for a minute or two--that is +to say during the time that Walter, taking her aside, told her of the +quiet but penetrating side-light Mr. Crabtree had innocently shed on Mr. +Wilkinson's scheme for some new paper or other that Cosimo was to +finance--Amory was once more glad that the Wyrons had come. But the next +moment, as Walter loitered away and Laura came and sat softly down +beside her, she was sorry again. Laura was gently crying. That struck +Amory as stupid. As if she hadn't enough great troubles of her own, +without burdening herself with the Wyrons' trivial ones! + +So, as she had nothing really helpful to say to Laura, she left her, and +sat down on the footstool she had occupied on the day when Edgar Strong +had said that he liked the casts and had asked her whether she had read +something or other--she forgot what. + +Edgar was talking in low tones to Cosimo, and Amory thought she heard +the name of Mr. Prang. Then Cosimo, who always thought more Imperially +with a map before him, got out the large atlas, and the two of them bent +over it together. Walter joined them, and, after an interlude that +appeared to be about the Lectures' advertisement, Walter strolled away +again and joined Laura. Amory heard an "Eh?" and a moment later the word +"touchy," and Walter went off to the window with his hands in the +pockets of his knickers, whistling. Edgar took not the least notice of +Amory's eyes intently fixed upon him. He continued to talk to Cosimo. +Walter, who was examining a Japanese print, called over his shoulder, +"This a new one, Amory? What is it--Utamaro?" Then he walked up to where +Laura sat again. He was speaking in an undertone to her: "Rubbish ... +take on like that ... better clear off then"; and a moment later, seeing +Edgar Strong buttoning up his coat, he called out, "Wait a minute, +Strong--we're going down too--get your hat, Laura----" + +Five minutes later Cosimo Pratt and his wife were alone. + +It was the first time they had been so for nearly a fortnight. Indeed, +for weeks the departure of the last visitor had been the signal for +their own good-night, Cosimo going his way, she hers. There had never +been anything even remotely approaching a "scene" to account for this. +It had merely happened so. + +Therefore, finding himself alone with his wife in the studio again, +Cosimo yawned and stretched his arms above his head. + +"Ah-h-h!... You going to bed?" + +As he would hardly be likely to take himself off before she had answered +his question, Amory did not reply at once. She sat down on the footstool +and stretched her hands out to the asbestos log. Then, after a minute, +and without looking up, she broke one of their tacitly accepted rules by +asking a direct question. + +"What were you and Edgar Strong discussing?" she asked. + +He yawned again.--"Oh, the Bookshop advertisement--and advertisements +generally. It begins to look as if we should have to be less exclusive +about these things. Strong tells me that it's unheard-of for a paper to +refuse any advertisement it can get." + +"I mean when you got out the atlas." + +"Oh--India, of course. The Indian policy. Strong isn't altogether +satisfied about Prang. He seems to think he might get us into trouble." + +"How? Why?" Amory said, her eyes reflectively on the purring gas-jets. + +"Can't make out. Some fancy of his. The policy hasn't changed, and Prang +hasn't changed. I wonder whether Wilkinson's right when he says Strong's +put his hand to the plough but is now ... _ah!_ That reminds +me!--Were you here when that preposterous fellow--what's his +name--Crabtree--rather let the cat out of the bag about Wilkinson?" + +"You mean about another paper? No. But Walter said something about it." + +"Yes, by Jove! He seems to have it all cut-and-dried! Crabtree seems to +think I knew all about it. Of course I did know that Wilkinson had a +scheme, but I'd no idea he was jumping ahead at that rate. I don't want +two papers. One's getting rather serious." + +Still without looking at her husband, Amory said, "How, serious?" + +"Why, the expense. I'm not sure that we didn't take the wrong line about +the advertisements. Anyway, something will have to be done. Thirty +pounds a week is getting too stiff. I'm seriously thinking of selling +out from the Eden and the Bookshop. Do you know that with one thing and +another we're down more than three thousand pounds this year?" + +Amory was surprised; but she realized instinctively that that was not +the moment to show her surprise. Were she to show it, the moment would +not be opportune for the raising of the subject of the fund, and she +wanted to raise that subject. And she wanted to raise it in connexion +with Cosimo and Britomart Belchamber. She continued to gaze at the log. +The servants, she thought, might have taken the opportunity of dinner to +sweep up the litter of cigarette-ends that surrounded it; and then she +had a momentary fancy. It was, that the domestic relations that existed +between herself and Cosimo were a thing that, like that mechanical +substitute for a more generous fire, could be turned off and on as it +were by the mere touching of a tap. She wondered what made her think of +that.... + +Cosimo had taken out his penknife and was scraping his nails, moodily +running over items of disbursement as he scraped; and then the silence +fell between them again. + +It was Amory who broke it, and in doing so she turned her head for the +first time. She gave her husband a look that meant that, though he might +talk about expenses, she also had a subject. + +"Walter was excessively stupid to-night," she said abruptly. + +He said "Oh?" and went on scraping. + +"At the best he's never a model of tact, but I thought he rather +overstepped the mark at dinner." + +Again he said "Oh?" and added, "What about?" + +"His manners. His ideas are all right, I suppose, but I'm getting rather +tired of his platform-tricks." + +"His habit of illustration and so on?" + +"And his want of tact generally. In fact I'm not sure it isn't more than +that. In a strange house it would have been simply a _faux pas_, but he +knows us well enough, and the arrangement between us. He might at any +rate wait till he's called in." + +Cosimo started on another nail.--"What arrangement?" he said. + +Again Amory gave him that look that might have told him that, though he +might think that only a lot of money had gone, she knew that something +far more vital had gone with it. + +"Do you mean that you didn't hear what he was saying about you and +Britomart Belchamber?" + +"Yes, I heard that, of course. Of course I heard it." + +"Well?" + +"Well!" + +And this time their eyes met in a long look.... + +Cosimo had only himself to thank for what happened to him then. After +all, you cannot watch a superb piece of female mechanism playing +"Catching of Quails," and openly admire the way in which it can shut up +like a clasp-knife and fold itself upon itself like a multiple lever, +and pretend to be half in love with it lest sharp eyes should see that +you are actually half in love with it, and take it for walks, and +discuss Walter's Lectures with it, and tell it frequently how different +things might have been had you been ten years younger, and warn it to be +a good girl because of dangerous young men, and stroke its hair, and +tell it what beautiful eyes it has, and kiss its hand from time to time, +and walk with your arm protectingly about its waist, and so on and so +forth, day after day--you cannot, after all, do these things and be +entirely unflurried when your ever-so-slightly tiresome wife reminds you +that, be it only by way of illustration, a young expert in such matters +has coupled your name with that of the passive object of your +philanderings. Nor can you reasonably be surprised when that wife gives +you a long look, that doesn't reproach you for anything except for your +stupidity or hypocrisy if you pretend not to understand, and then +resumes her meditative gazing into a patent asbestos fire. Appearances +_are_ for the moment against you. You can_not_ help for one moment +seeing it as it must have appeared all the time to somebody else. Of +course you know that you are in the right really, and the other person +entirely wrong, and that with a little reasonableness on that other +person's part you could make this perfectly clear; but you _are_ rather +trapped, you know it, and the state of mind in which you find yourself +is called by people who aren't anybody in particular "flurry." + +Which is perhaps rather a long way of saying that Cosimo was suddenly +and entirely disconcerted. + +And his flurry included a certain crossness and impatience with Amory. +She was--could be--only pretending. She knew perfectly well that there +was nothing really. The least exercise of her imagination must have told +her that to press Britomart Belchamber's hand, for example, was the most +innocent of creature-comforts. Why, he had pressed it with Amory herself +there; he had said, jokingly, and Amory had heard him, that it was a +desirable hand to press, and he had pressed it. And so with Britomart's +dancing of "Rufty Tufty." Amory, who, like Cosimo, had had an artist's +training, ought to be the last person to deny that any eye so trained +did not see a hundred beauties where eyes uneducated saw one only. And +that of course meant chaste beauties. Such admiration was an exercise in +analysis, not in amorousness.... No, it was far more likely that Amory +was getting at him. She was smiling, a melancholy and indifferent little +smile, at the asbestos log. She had no right to smile like that. It made +him feel beastly. It made him so that he didn't know what to say.... + +But she continued to smile, and when Cosimo did at last speak he hated +himself for stammering. + +"But--but--but--oh, come, Amory, this _is_ absurd! You're--you're tired! +Me and Britomart! Oh, c-c-come!----" + +And then it occurred to him that this was a ridiculous answer, and that +the proper answer to have made would have been simply to laugh. He did +laugh. + +"Ha, ha, ha! By Jove, for the moment you almost took me in! You really +did get a rise out of me that time! Congratulations.--And I admit it is +rather cool of Walter to pounce on the first name that occurs to him and +make use of it in that way. Deuced cool when you come to think of it. It +seems to me----" + +But again that quite calm and unreproaching look silenced him. There was +a loftiness and serenity about it that reminded him of the Amory of four +or five years before. And she spoke almost with a note of wonder at him +in her tone. + +"My dear Cosimo," she said very patiently, "what is the matter? You look +at me as if I had accused you of something. Nothing was further from my +thoughts. I suppose, when you examine it, it's a matter for +congratulation, not accusation at all. As Walter said, I don't want to +fly at anybody's eyes. We foresaw this, and provided for it, you know." + +At this cool taking for granted of a preposterous thing Cosimo's stammer +became a splutter.--"But--but--but--," he broke out: but Amory held up +her hand. + +"I raise no objection. I've no right to. What earthly right have I, when +I concurred before ever we were married?" + +"Concurred!... My dear girl, concurred in what? Really this is the most +ridiculous situation I was ever in!" + +Amory raised her brows.--"Oh?... I don't see anything ridiculous about +it. It received my sanction when Britomart stopped in the house, and I +haven't changed my mind. As I say, we foresaw it, and provided for it." + +"'It!'" Cosimo could only pipe--one little note, high and thin as that +of a piccolo. Amory continued. + +"I'm not asking a single question about it. I'm not even curious. I +didn't become your property when we married, and you're not mine. Our +souls are our own, both of us. I think we were very wise to foresee it +quite at the beginning.--And don't think I'm jealous. Perfectly truly, I +wish you every happiness. Britomart's a very pretty girl, and nobody can +say she's always making a display of her cleverness, like some of them. +I respect your privacy, and want you to do the best you can with your +life." + +The piccolo note changed to that of a bassoon.--"Amory--listen to me." + +"No. I'd _very_ much rather not hear anything about it. As Walter said, +Life _is_ Love, and I only mentioned this at all to-night because there +is one quite small practical detail that doesn't seem to me entirely +satisfactory." + +She understood Cosimo to ask what that was. + +"This: You ought to be fair to her. I know you'll forgive my mentioning +anything so vulgar, but it is--about money. She can't be expected to +think of such things herself just now,"--there were whole honeymoons in +the reasonable little nod Amory gave,"--and so _I_ mention it. It's my +place to do so. For us all just to dip our hands into a common purse +doesn't seem to me very satisfactory. She's rights too that I shouldn't +dream of disputing. And don't think I'm assuming more than there +actually is. I only mean that I don't see why, in certain events, you +shouldn't, et cetera; that's all I mean. You see?... But I admit that +for everybody's sake I should like things put on a proper footing +without loss of time." + +Cosimo had begun to wander up and down among the saddlebag chairs. His +slender fingers rested aimlessly on the backs of them from time to time. +Amory thought that he was about to try the remaining notes within the +compass of his voice, but instead he suddenly straightened himself. He +appeared to have come to a resolution. He strode towards the door. + +"Where are you going?" Amory asked. + +"I'm going to fetch Britomart," he replied shortly. "This is +preposterous." + +But again he hesitated, as perhaps Amory surmised he might. His offer, +if it meant anything, ought to have meant that his conscience was so +clear that Amory might catechize Britomart to her heart's content; but +there _had_ been those hair-strokings and hand-pattings, and--and--and +Britomart, as Amory had said, was "not always making a display of her +cleverness." She might, indeed, let fall something even more +disconcerting than the rest-- + +Cosimo was trying a bluff-- + +In a word, between fetching Britomart and not fetching her, Amory had +her husband by the short hairs. + +She mused.--"Just a moment," she said. + +And then she rose from the footstool, put one hand on the edge of the +mantelpiece, and with the other drew up her skirt an inch or two and +stretched out her slipper to the log. + +"It really isn't necessary to fetch Britomart," she said after a moment, +looking up. "Fetch her if you prefer it, of course, but first I want to +say something else--something quite different." + +That it was something quite different seemed to be a deep relief to +Cosimo. He returned from the door again. + +"What's that?" he said. + +"It's different," Amory said slowly, "but related. Let me think a moment +how to put it.... You were speaking a few minutes ago of selling out +from the Eden and the Suffrage Shop. If I understand you, things aren't +going altogether well." + +"They aren't," said Cosimo, almost grimly. + +"And then," Amory continued, "there's Mr. Prang. Neither you nor Strong +seem very satisfied about him." + +"It's Strong who isn't satisfied. I've no complaints to make about +Prang." + +"Well, I've been thinking about that too, and I've had an idea. I'm not +sure that after all Strong mayn't be right. I admit Prang states a case +as well as it could be stated; the question is whether it's quite the +case we _want_ stated. His case is ours to a large extent, but perhaps +not altogether. And as matters stand we're in his hands about India, +simply because he knows more about it than we do. You see what I mean?" + +"Not quite," said Cosimo. + +"No? Well, let me tell you what I've been thinking...." + +Those people who are nobodys, and have not had the enormous advantage of +being taken by the hand by the somebodys, are under a misconception +about daring and original ideas. The ideas seem original and daring to +them because the processes behind them are hidden. The inferior mind +does not realize of itself that every sudden and miraculous blooming is +already an old story to somebody. + +But Cosimo occupied a sort of intermediary position between the sources +of inspiration and the flat levels of popular understanding. Remember, +he was in certain ways one of the public; but at the same time he was +the author of the "_Life and Work_." He took his Amory, so to speak, +nascent. Therefore, when she gave utterance to a splendour, he credited +himself with just that measure of participation in it that causes us +humbler ones, when we see the airman's spiral, to fancy our own hands +upon the controls, or, when we read a great book, to sun ourselves in +the flattering delusion that we do not merely read, but, in some +mysterious sense, participate in the writing of it also. + +And so the words which Amory spoke now--words which would have caused +you or me to give a gasp of admiration--affected him less +extraordinarily. + +"Why don't you go to India and see for yourself?" she said. + +Nevertheless, Cosimo was not altogether unaffected. Even to his +accustomed ear it was rather stupendous, and, if he hadn't been again +uneasily wondering whether he dared risk having Britomart down when +Amory should return to the former subject again, might have been more +stupendous still. He resumed his walk along the saddlebag chairs, and, +when at last he did speak, did not mar a high occasion with too much +vulgar demonstrativeness. + +"That's an idea," he said simply. + +"You see, Mr. Chamberlain went to South Africa," Amory replied, as +simply. + +"Yes," said Cosimo thoughtfully.... "It's certainly an idea." + +"And you know how people have been getting at the 'Novum' lately, and +even suggesting that Prang was merely a pen-name for Wilkinson himself." + +"Yes, yes." + +"Well, if you went, for six months, say, or even three, nobody'd be able +to say after that that you didn't know all about it." + +"No," Cosimo replied. + +"The stupid people go. Why not the people with eyes and minds?" + +"Exactly," said Cosimo, resuming his walk. + +Then, as if he had been a mere you or a simple me, the beauty of the +idea did begin to work a little in him. He walked for a space longer, +and then, turning, said almost with joy, "I say, Amory--would you +_like_ to go?" + +But Amory did not look up from the slippered foot she had again begun to +warm.--"Oh, I shouldn't go," she said absently. + +"You mean me to go by myself?" said Cosimo, the joy vanishing again. + +Then it was that Amory returned to the temporarily relinquished subject +again. + +"Well ...," she said, with a return of the quiet and wan but brave +smile, "... I've nothing to do with that. I shouldn't set detectives to +watch you. I was speaking for the moment purely from the point of view +of the 'Novum's' policy.--But I see what you mean." + +But Cosimo didn't mean that at all. He interposed eagerly, anxiously. + +"You _do_ jump to conclusions!"--he began. + +"My _dear_ Cosimo," she put up her hand, "I'm doing nothing of the kind. +As I said, the other isn't my affair. Oh, I do wish you'd believe that I +was perfectly calm about it! As Emerson said, soul ought to speak to +soul from the top of Olympus or something, and, except that I want you +to be happy, it's a matter of indifference to me who you go with. Do try +to see that, Cosimo. Let's try to behave like civilized beings. We +agreed long ago that sex was only a matter of accident. Don't let's make +it so hatefully pivotal. After all, what practical difference would it +make?" + +But this was too much for Cosimo. He must have Britomart down and take +his chance, that was all. At the worst, he did not see how Amory could +be so unreasonable that a hand-pat or a hair-stroke or two could not be +put before her in the proper light. + +Unfortunately, the trouble was, not that she made a fuss, but that she +made so little fuss.... + +Again he moved towards the door. + +But Miss Belchamber herself, as it happened, saved him the trouble of +fetching her. Their hands were at the door at the same moment, his +inside, hers outside. She entered. She was wrapped in the large +black-and-gold Chinese dressing-gown Cosimo had given her for a +Christmas present, and there were pantofles on her bare feet, and her +hair hung down her back in two enormous yellow plaits. She was eating a +large piece of cake. + +"I've left the hot water tap running," she announced. "I hadn't gone to +bed. Does anybody else want a bath? I like lots of hot baths. I came +down for a piece of cake." + +She crossed to the sofa, crammed the last piece of cake into her mouth, +dusted the crumbs from her fingers, tucked the dressing-gown close under +her, and with her fingers began softly to perform the motions of +_pétrissage_ upon herself in the region of the _erectors spinae_. As she +did so she again spoke, placidly and syllabically. + +"I made a mistake," she said. "Father's forty-six. Next June. And I +shall go to Walter's new Lecture. He's in the guard's van. I mean the +van-guard. And Prince Ead-mond's is in the van-guard too. Especially +Miss Miles. She says the Saturn-alia is a time of great +li-cen-tiousness and dancing. Are they going to start it soon?" + +Cosimo was nervous again. He cleared his throat.--"Britomart--," he +began; but Miss Belchamber went on. + +"I hope they are. Walter says it would be a very good thing. I shall +dance 'Rufty Tufty.' And 'The Black Nag.' I love 'The Black Nag.' That's +why I'm having a hot bath. Hot baths open the pores, or sweat-ducts. +Then you close them again with a cold sponge. I always close them again +with a cold sponge." + +Cosimo cleared his throat again and had another try.--"Listen, +Britomart--we were talking about you----" + +Miss Belchamber looked complacently at her crossed Parian-marble ankles. +Then she raised one of them, and her fingers explored the common tendon +of the soleus and gastrocnemius. + +"The soleus," she said, "acts when the knee-joint is flexed. In 'Rufty +Tufty' it acts. Both of them, of course. And the manage-ment of the +breath is very im-portant. It would be a very good thing if every-body +opened their windows and took a hun-dred deep breaths before the +Saturn-alia begins. I shall, and I shall make Corin and Bonniebell. Or +won't they be able to go if it's very late? If it's after their bedtime +I could bring them away early and then go back. I am so looking forward +to it." + +Cosimo made a third attempt.--"Britomart--", he said gravely. + +"What?" said Miss Belchamber. + +"I want to tell you about a rather important discussion we've been +having----" + +"Then shall I go and turn the tap off? The water will run cold. Then the +sweat-ducts would have to be closed before they are opened, and that's +wrong." + +But this time Amory had moved towards the door. Cosimo, and not she, had +wanted Miss Belchamber down, and now that he had got her he might amuse +her. She thought he looked extremely foolish, but that was his look-out; +she was going to bed. It seemed an entirely satisfactory moment in which +to do so. She had managed better than she had hoped. The question of the +fund had been satisfactorily raised, and it was obvious that the "Novum" +would gain by having somebody on the spot, somebody perhaps less biassed +than Mr. Prang, to advise upon its Indian policy. At the door she turned +her nasturtium-coloured head. + +"You might think over what I've been saying," she said. "We can talk of +it again in a day or two. Especially my second suggestion, that about +the 'Novum.' That seems to me very well worth considering. Good night." + +And she passed out, leaving Cosimo plucking his lip irresolutely, and +Miss Britomart Belchamber deeply interested in the common tendon of the +other soleus and gastrocnemius. + + + + +Part III + + + + +I + +LITMUS + + +It was on an afternoon in May, and the window of Dorothy's flat +overlooking the pond was wide open. Ruffles of wind chased one another +from moment to moment across the water, and the swans, guarding their +cygnets, policed the farther bank, where dogs ran barking. The two elder +Bits played in the narrow strip of garden below; again the frieze of the +room was a soft net of rippling light; and the brightness of the sun--or +so Ruth Mossop declared--had put the fire out. + +Ruth was alone in the flat. As she passed between the pond-room and the +kitchen, re-lighting the fire, "sweeping in," and preparing tea, she +sang cheerfully to herself "_A few more years shall roll, a few more +sorrows come_." Ruth considered that the sorrows would probably come by +means of the youngest Bit. He ought (she said) to have been a little +girl. Then, in after years, he might have been a bit of comfort to his +mother. Boys, in Ruth's experience, were rarely that. + +As she put the cakes for tea into the oven of the stove there came a +milk-call from below. Ruth leaned out of the lift-window, and there +ensued a conversation with the white-jacketed milk-boy. + +"Saw your guv'nor last night," the boy grinned. + +"Where's that cream I ordered, and that quart of nursery milk? You can't +mind your business for thinking of picture palaces." + +"Keep your 'air on; coming up now.--I say, they put 'is 'ead under a +steam-'ammer. I said it was a dummy, but Gwen said it wasn't. _Was_ it +'im?" + +"You mind your own interference, young man, and leave others to mind +theirs; you ought to have something better to do with your threepences +than collecting cigarette cards and taking girls to the pictures." + +"It was in '_Bullseye Bill: A Drarmer of Love an' 'Ate_'--'Scoundrel, +'ow dare you speak those words to a pure wife an' mother on the very +threshold of the 'Ouse of----'" + +"That's enough, young man--we don't want language Taken in Vain +here--and you can tell 'em at your place we're leaving soon." + +"But _was_ that 'im in the long whiskers at the end, when the powder +magazine blew up?" + +But Ruth, taking her cans, shut down the window and returned to the +kitchen. + +"'Then O, my Lord, prepare----'" she crooned as she gave a peep into the +oven and then clanged the door to again, "'My soul for that blest +day----'" + +They were leaving soon. Already the sub-letting of the flat was in an +agent's hands, and soon Stan would be braving the perils of his career +no longer. Dorothy had unfolded her idea to her aunt, and Lady Tasker +had raised no objection, provided Dorothy could raise the money by +bringing Aunt Eliza into line. + +"It's as good as Maypoles and Village Players anyway," she had said, +"and I'm getting too old to run about as I have done.--By the way, is it +true that Cosimo Pratt's gone to India?" + +Dorothy had replied that it was true. + +"Hm! What for? To dance round another Maypole?" + +"I don't know, auntie. I've seen very little of them." + +"Has she gone?" + +"No." + +"No more babies yet, I suppose?" + +"No." + +"Well ... you'd better see your Aunt Eliza. She's got all the money +that's left.--But I don't see how you're going to get any very much out +of Tony and Tim." + +"Oh, I'll see they don't impose on me as they've been imposing on +you!... So I may move that billiard-table, and alter the gun-room?" + +"Yes, if you pay for it." + +"Thanks--you are a dear!..." + +By what arts Dorothy had contrived to lay Aunt Eliza under contribution +doesn't matter very much here. Among themselves the Lennards and Taskers +might quarrel, but they presented an unbroken front to the world--and +Dorothy, for Aunt Eliza's special benefit, managed to make the world in +some degree a party to her project. That is to say, that a paragraph +had appeared in certain newspapers, announcing that an experiment of +considerable interest, etc., the expenses of which were already +guaranteed, and so forth, was about to be tried in the County of +Shropshire, where "The Brear," the residence of the late Sir Noel +Tasker, was already in course of alteration. And so on, in Dorothy's +opinion, neither too much nor too little for her design.... It had been +a public committance of the family, and it had worked the oracle with +Aunt Eliza. Rather than have a public squabble about it, she had come in +with her thousand, the work was now well advanced, and the venerable +sinner who had recited the poems printed by Cosimo Pratt's Village Press +was in charge of the job. Dorothy, hurriedly weaning the youngest Bit, +had run down to Ludlow for the express purpose of announcing to him that +it was a job, and not an aesthetic jollification. + +Moreover, at that time she had half a hundred other matters to attend +to; for Stan, escaping from powder-magazines as the last inch of fuse +sputtered, and fervently hoping that the man had made no mistake about +the length of stroke of the Nasmyth hammer under which he put his +devoted head, could give her little help. Besides her own approaching +_déménagement_, she had much of the care of that of her aunt. As Stan's +earnings were barely sufficient for the current expenses of the +household, she still had to turn to odds and ends of her old +advertisement work. She had--Quis custodiet?--the nurse to look after, +and the tradesmen, and letters, and callers, and Ruth. In short, a +simple inversion of her aunt's dictum about the Pratts--"Too much money +and not enough to do"--would have fitted Dorothy's case to a nicety. + +Therefore, as another burden more or less would make little difference +to one already so burdened, Dorothy had added still further to her +cares. Ever since that day when Lady Tasker had come bareheaded out of +her house and had spoken to Amory Pratt outside the Victoria and Albert +Museum, Dorothy had had her sometime friend constantly on her mind. She +had spoken of her to her aunt, who had again shown herself deplorably +illiberal and incisive. + +"I don't pretend to understand the modern young woman," she had remarked +carelessly. "Half of 'em seem to upset their bodies with too much study, +and the other half to play hockey till they're little better than fools. +I suppose it's all right, and that somebody knows what they're about.... +I often wonder what they'd have done, though, if it hadn't been for +Sappho and Madame Curie.... By the way," she had gone irrelevantly on +without a break, "does she _want_ any more children besides those +twins?"... + +Nevertheless, Dorothy had had Amory so much on her mind that twice since +Cosimo's departure for India she had been up to The Witan in search of +her. After all, if anybody was to blame for anything it was Cosimo. But +on neither occasion had Amory been at home. Dorothy had left messages, +to which she had received no reply; and so she had gone a third +time--had gone, as it happened, on that very afternoon when Ruth sang +"A few more years shall roll" as she made the hot cakes for tea. This +time she had persuaded Katie Deedes to come with her--for Katie had left +the Eden, was out of a job, and for the time being had afternoon hours +to spare. + +But again they had failed to find Amory, and Dorothy and Katie took a +turn round the Heath before returning to the flat for tea. As they +walked along the hawthorn hedge that runs towards Parliament Hill and +South Hill Park they talked. Kites were flying on the Hill; the Highgate +Woods and the white spire showed like a pale pastel in the Spring +sunshine; and from the prows of a score of prams growing babies leaned +out like the figureheads of ships. + +"That's where Billie was born," said Dorothy, nodding towards the backs +of the houses that make the loop of South Hill Park. + +Katie only said "Oh?" She too had caught the uneasiness about Amory. And +what Katie thought was very soon communicated. + +"You see, Dot," she broke suddenly out, "you've no idea of what a--what +a funny lot they are really.... No, I haven't told you--I haven't told +you _half_! It's everything they do. Why, the nurse practised for months +and months at a school where they washed a celluloid baby--I'm not +joking--she did--a life-sized one--they did it in class, and dressed it, +and put it to sleep--as if _that_ would be any good at all with a real +one!... And really--I'm not prudish, as you know, Dot--but the way they +used to sit about, in a dressing-gown or a nightgown or anything--I +don't mean when there was a _big_ crowd there, of course, but just a few +of them--Walter, and Mr. Brimby, and Edgar Strong--and all of them going +quite red in the face with puremindedness! At any rate, I never did +think _that_ was quite the thing!" + +She spoke with great satisfaction of the point of the New Law she had +not broken. It seemed to make up for those she had. + +"And those casts and paintings and things about--it's all right being an +artist, of course, but if I ever got married, _I_ shouldn't like casts +and paintings of me about for everybody to see like that!----" + +"Oh, just look at that hawthorn!" Dorothy interrupted. + +"Yes, lovely.--And Walter talking about Dionysus, and what Lycurgus +thought would be a very good way of preventing jealousy, and a lot more +about Greeks and Romans and Patagonians and Esquimaux! Do you know, Dot, +I don't believe they know anything at all about it--not _really_ know, I +mean! I don't see how they can! One man might know a little bit about a +part of it, and another man a little bit about another part--and that +would be rather a lot, seeing how long ago it all is--but Walter knows +it _all_! At any rate nobody can contradict him. But what does it matter +to us to-day, Dorothy? What _does_ it matter?... Of course I don't mean +they're wicked. But--but--in some ways I can't help thinking it would be +better to _be_ wicked as long as you didn't say anything about it----!" + +"Oh, I don't think they're wicked," said Dorothy placidly. But the 'vert +went eagerly on. + +"That's just it!" she expounded. "Walter says 'wicked's' only a relative +term. If you face the truth boldly, all the time, lots of things +wouldn't be wicked at all, he says. And I believe he's really awfully +devoted to Laura--in his way--though he does talk about these things +with Britomart Belchamber sitting there in her nightgown. But it's +always the _same bit_ of truth they face boldly. They never think of +going in for astronomy--or crystal-what-is-it--crystallography--or +something chilly--and face that boldly----" + +Dorothy laughed.--"You absurd girl!" + +"--but no. It's always whether people wear clothes because they're +modest or whether they're modest because they wear clothes, or something +like that.--And Walter begins it--and then Laura chimes in, and then +Cosimo, and then Amory, and then Dickie--and when they've said it all on +Monday they say it again on Tuesday, and Wednesday, and every day--and I +don't know what they've decided even yet----" + +"Well, here we are," Dorothy said as she reached her own door. "Let's +have some tea.... Mr. Miller hasn't been in yet, has he, Ruth?" + +"No, m'm." + +"Well, we'll have tea now, and you can make some fresh when he comes. +And keep some cakes hot." + +Mr. Miller's visit that afternoon had to do with a care so trifling that +Dorothy merely took it in her stride. She had not found--she knew that +she would never find--the "Idee" that Mr. Miller wanted; but if no +Idees except real ones were ever called Idees we should be in a very bad +way in this world. She knew that there is always a middling chance that +if you state a pseudo-Idee solemnly enough, and trick it out with +circumstance enough, and set people talking enough about it, it will +prove just as serviceable as the genuine article; and she was equally +familiar, as we have seen, with that beautiful and compensating Law by +which quick and original minds are refused money when they are producing +of their best but overwhelmed with it when their brains have become as +dry as baked sponges. She had given Mr. Miller quite good Idees in the +past; she had no objection to being paid over again for them now; and if +they really had been new ones they would have been of no use to Mr. +Miller for at least ten years to come. That is why the art of +advertisement is so comparatively advanced. Any other art would have +taken twenty years. + +Therefore, as she remembered the exceeding flimsiness of the one poor +Idee she had, she had resolved that Mr. Miller's eyes should be diverted +as much as possible from the central lack, and kept to the bright +irrelevancies with which she would adorn it. The Idee was that of the +Litmus Layette ... but here we may as well skip a few of Katie's artless +betrayals of her former friends, and come to the moment when Mr. Miller, +with his Edward the Sixth shoulders, appeared, bowed, was introduced to +Katie, bowed again, sat down, and was regaled with hot cakes and +conversation. He had risen and bowed again, by the way, when Dorothy, +for certain reasons of policy, had mentioned Katie's relationship to the +great Sir Joseph Deedes, and Katie had told of a stand-up fight she had +had with her uncle's Marshal about admittance to his lordship's private +room. + +"Well, now, that's something I've learned to-day," Mr. Miller +magnanimously admitted, sitting down again. "So your English Judges have +Marshals! I was under the impression that that was a military title, +like Marshal Macmann and Field-Marshal Sir Evelyn Wood. Well now.... And +how might Judge Deedes' Marshal be dressed, Miss Deedes?" + +"Not 'Judge' Deedes," said Katie smiling. "That's a County Court Judge." +And she explained. Mr. Miller opened his eyes wide. + +"Is that so-o-o? Well now, if that isn't interesting! That's noos. He's +a Honourable with a 'u' in it, and a Sir, and you call him his Lordship, +and he's Mister Justice Deedes! Ain't that English!... Now let me see if +I'm on the track of it. 'Your Worship'--that's a Magistrate. 'Your +Honour'--that's the other sort of Judge. And 'My Lord'--that's Miss +Deedes' uncle. And an English Judge has a Marshal.... Do you recollect +our Marshals, Mrs. Stan?----" + +Building (as it now appeared) even better than he knew, Mr. Miller had, +in the past, granted the rank of Marshal to Messrs. Hallowell and +Smiths' shopwalkers. + +Dorothy's reason for thus flagrantly introducing Sir Joseph's name was +this:-- + +Katie had left the Eden, and she herself was presently off to Ludlow. +Thus there was the possible reversion of a job of sorts going a-begging. +Katie might as well have it as anybody else. Dorothy had strictly +enjoined upon her impulsive friend that on no account was she to +contradict or disclaim anything she, Dorothy, might choose to say on her +behalf to Mr. Miller; and she intended that the credit, such as it was, +of the last Idee she even intended to propose to Mr. Miller--the Litmus +Layette--should be Katie's start. Once started she would have to look +after herself. + +So when Mr. Miller passed from the subject of Hallowell and Smiths' +Marshals to that of his long-hoped-for Idee, Dorothy was ready for him. +Avoiding the weak spot, she enlarged on the tradition--very different +from a mere superstition--that, in Layettes, blue stood always for a boy +and pink for a girl. + +"You see," she said, "this is England when all's said, and we're +_fright_fully conservative. Don't condemn it just because it wouldn't go +in New York.... You've heard of the Willyhams, of course?" she broke off +suddenly to ask. + +"I cann't say I have, Mrs. Stan. But I'm sitting here. Tell me. They're +a Fam'ly, I presoom?" + +"Yes. Upshire's their title. Now that title's descended in the female +line ever since Charles the First. Ever since then the Willyham Layettes +have been pink as a matter of course. And now, not a month ago, there +was a boy, and they had to rush off and get blue at the very last +moment.... Let me see, your children are little girls, aren't they?" she +again interrupted herself to say. + +"Three little goils, Mrs. Stan, with black-and-white check frocks and +large black bows in their hair." + +"Well, and mine are boys. Blue for me and pink for you. But we'll come +to that in a moment.--The thing that really strikes me as extraordinary +is that in all these ages, with all the countless babies that have been +born, we don't know _yet_ which it's going to be!... And I don't think +we ever shall. Now just think what that means--not just to a Royal +House, with a whole succession depending on it, and crowns and dynasties +and things--but to _every_ woman! You see the _tremendous_ interest they +take in it at once!--But I don't know whether a man can ever understand +that----" + +She paused. + +"Go on, Mrs. Stan--I want the feminine point of voo," said Mr. +Miller.--"The man ain't broken Post Toasties yet that has more reverence +for motherhood than what I have----" + +"I know," said Dorothy bashfully. "But it isn't the same--being a +father. It's--it's different. It's not the same. I doubt whether _any_ +man knows what it means to us as we wait and wonder--and wait and +wonder--day after day--day after day----" + +Here she dropped her eyes. Here also Mr. Miller dropped his head. + +"It isn't the same--being a father--it's different," Dorothy was heard +to murmur. + +Mr. Miller breathed something about the holiest spot on oith. + +"So you see," Dorothy resumed presently, hoping that Mr. Miller did not +see. "It's the nearest subject of all to us. The very first question we +ask one another is, 'Do you hope it's a little boy or a little girl?' +And as it's impossible to tell, it's impossible for us to make our +preparations. Lady Upshire doesn't know one bit more about it than the +poorest woman in the streets. And this in an age that boasts of its +Science!" + +"Well," said Mr. Miller, giving it consideration, "that's ver-ry true. I +ain't a knocker; I don't want to get knocking our men of science; but +it's a fact they cann't tell. I recollect Mrs. Miller saying to me----" + +"Yes--look at it from Mrs. Miller's point of view----" + +"I remember Mrs. Miller using the ver-ry woids you've just used, Mrs. +Stan. (I hope this don't jolt Miss Deedes too much; it's ver-ry +interessting). And that's one sure thing, that it ain't a cinch for Mrs. +Bradley Martin any more than what it is for any poor lady stenographer +at so many dallars per. But--if you'll pardon me putting the question in +that form--where's the _point_, Mrs. Stan? What's the reel prapasition?" + +This being precisely what Dorothy was rather carefully avoiding, again +she smiled bashfully and dropped her head, as if once more calling on +those profound reserves of Mr. Miller's veneration for motherhood. These +even profounder reserves, of Mr. Miller's veneration for dallars, were +too much to the point altogether. + +"I was afraid you wouldn't understand," she sighed. + +"But," said Mr. Miller earnestly, "give me something to get a hold of, +Mrs. Stan. I ain't calling the psychological prapasition down any; a +business man has to be psychologist all the time; but he wants it +straight. Straight psychology. The feminine point of voo, but practical. +It ain't for Harvard. It's for Hallowell and Smith's." + +"Well," said Dorothy, "it's Miss Deedes' idea really--and it would never +have occurred to her if it hadn't been for Lady Upshire--would it +Katie?" + +"No," said Katie. + +"Very well. Suppose Lady Upshire had had the Litmus Layette. All she +would have had to do would have been to take the ribbons out--the work +of a moment--the pink ribbons--dip them in the preparation--and there +they'd have been, ready for immediate use. And blue ones would be dipped +in the other solution and of course they'd have turned pink.... You see, +you can't alter the baby, but you can alter the ribbons. And it isn't +only ribbons. A woolly jacket--or a pram-rug--or socks--or anything--I +think it's an exceedingly clever Idea of Miss Deedes!----" + +Mr. Miller gave it attention. Then he looked up. + +"Would it woik?" he asked. + +"Well," said Dorothy ... "it works in chemistry. But that's not the +principal thing. It's its value as an advertisement that's the real +thing. Think of the window-dressing!--Blue and pink, changing before +people's very eyes!--Just think how--I mean, it interests _every_ woman! +They'd stand in front of the window, and think--but you're a man. Mrs. +Miller would understand.... Anyhow, you would get crowds of +people, and that's what you want--crowds of people--that's its +advertisement-value.--And then when you got them inside it would be like +having the hooks at one end of the shop and the eyes at the other--a +hook's no good without an eye, so they have to walk past half a mile of +counters, and you sell them all sort of things on the way. _I_ think +there's a great deal in it!" + +"It's a Stunt," Mr. Miller conceded, as if in spite of himself he must +admit thus much. "It's soitainly a Stunt. But I'm not sure it's a reel +Idee." + +"That," said Dorothy with conviction, "would depend entirely in your own +belief in it. If you did it as thoroughly as you've done lots of other +things----" + +"It's soitainly a Stunt, Miss Deedes," Mr. Miller mused.... + +He was frowningly meditating on the mystic differences between a Stunt +and an Idee, and was perhaps wondering how the former would demean +itself if he took the risk of promoting it to the dignity of the latter, +when the bell was heard to ring. A moment later Ruth opened the door. + +"Lady Tasker," she said. + +Lady Tasker entered a little agitatedly, with an early edition of the +"Globe" crumpled in her hand. + + + + +II + +BY THE WAY + + +Lady Tasker never missed the "Globe's" _By the Way_ column, and there +was a curious, mocking, unpleasant By-the-Way-ishness about the +announcement she made as she entered. There is a special psychological +effect, in the Harvard and not in the Hallowell and Smith's sense, when +you come unexpectedly in print upon news that affects yourself. The +multiplicity of newspapers notwithstanding, revelation still hits the +ear less harshly than it does the eye; telling is still private and +intimate, type a trumpeting to all the world at once. Dorothy looked at +the pink page Lady Tasker had thrust into her hand as if it also, like +the Litmus Layette, had turned blue before her eyes. + +"_Not_ Sir Benjamin who used to come and see father!" she said, dazed. + +Lady Tasker had had time, on her way to the flat, to recover a little. + +"There's only one Sir Benjamin Collins that I know of," she answered +curtly. + +"But--but--it _can't_ be!----" + +Of course there was no reason in the world why it couldn't. Quite on the +contrary, there was that best of all reasons why it could--it had +happened. Three bullet-wounds are three undeniable reasons. It was the +third, the brief account said, that had proved fatal. + +"They say the finest view in Asia's Bombay from the stern of a steamer," +said Lady Tasker, with no expression whatever. "I think your friend Mr. +Cosimo Pratt will be seeing it before very long." + +But Dorothy was white. _Their_ Sir Benjamin!... Why, as a little girl +she had called him "Uncle Ben!" He had not been an uncle really, of +course, but she had called him that. She could remember the smell of his +cigars, and the long silences as he had played chess with her father, +and his hands with the coppery hair on them, and his laugh, and the way +the markhor at the Zoo had sniffed at his old patoo-coat, just as cats +now sniffed at her own set of civet furs. And she had married him one +day in the nursery, when she had been about ten, and he had taken her to +the Pantomime that afternoon for a Honeymoon--and then, when she had +really married Stan, he had given her the very rugs that were on her +bedroom floor at this moment. + +And, if this pink paper was to be believed, an Invisible Man had shot at +him three times, and at the third shot had killed him. + +She had not heard her aunt's words about Cosimo. She had been standing +with her hand in Mr. Miller's, having put it there when he had risen to +take himself off and forgotten to withdraw it again. Then Mr. Miller had +gone, and Dorothy had stood looking stupidly at her aunt. + +"What did you say?" she said. "You said something about Cosimo Pratt." + +"Don't you go, Katie; I want to talk to you presently.--Sit down, +Dot.--Get her a drink of water." + +Dorothy sat heavily down and put out one hand for the paper +again.--"What did you say?" she asked once more. + +"Never mind just now. Put your head back and close your eyes for a +minute."... + + * * * * * + +That was the rather unpleasant, By-the-Way part of it. For of course it +was altogether By-the-Way when you looked at the matter broadly. Amory +could have explained this with pellucid clearness. The murder of a +Governor?... Of course, if you happened to have known that Governor, and +to have married him in a child's game when you were ten and he forty, +and to have gone on writing letters to him telling him all the news +about your babies, and to have had letters back from him signed "Uncle +Ben"--well, nobody would think it unnatural of you to be a little +shocked at the news of his assassination; but Amory could easily have +shown that that shock, when you grew a little calmer and came to think +clearly about it, would be only a sort of extension of your own egotism. +Governors didn't really matter one bit more because you were fond of +them. Everybody had somebody fond of them. Why, then, make a +disproportionate fuss about a single (and probably corrupt) official, +when thousands suffered gigantic wrongs? The desirable thing was to look +at these things broad-mindedly, and not selfishly. It was selfish, +selfish and egotistical, to expect the whole March of Progress to stop +because you happened to be fond of somebody (who probably hadn't been +one bit better than he ought to have been). These pompous people of the +official classes were always bragging about their readiness to lay down +their lives for their country; very well; they had no right to grumble +when they were taken at their word. Ruskin had expressed much the same +thought rather finely when he had said that a soldier wasn't paid for +killing, but for being killed. Some people seemed to want it both +ways--to go on drawing their money while they were alive, and then to +have an outcry raised when they got shot. In strict justice they ought +to have been, not merely shot, but blown from the mouths of guns; but of +course neither Amory nor anybody else wanted to go quite so far as +that.... Nevertheless, perspective was needed--perspective, and vision +of such scope that you had a clear mental picture, not of misguided +individuals, who must die some time or other and might as well do so in +the discharge of what it pleased them to call their "duty," but of +millions of our gentle and dark-skinned brothers, waiting in rows with +baskets on their heads (and making simply ripping friezes) while the +Banks paid in pennies, and then holding lots of righteous and +picturesque Meetings, all about Tyrant England and throwing off the +Yoke. Amory would have conceded that she had never had an Uncle Ben; but +if she had had fifty Uncle Bens she would still have hoped to keep some +small sense of proportion about these things. + +But that again only showed anybody who was anybody how hopelessly behind +the noble movements of her time Dorothy was. The sense of proportion +never entered her head. She gave a little shiver, even though the day +was warm, and then that insufferable old aunt of hers, who might be a +"Lady" but had no more tact than to interfere with people's liberty in +the street, praised her gently when she came round a bit, and said she +was taking it very bravely, when the truth was that she really ought to +have condemned her for her absurd weakness and lack of the sense of +relative values. No, there would have been no doubt at all about it in +Amory's mind: that it was these people, who talked so egregiously about +"firm rule," who were the real sentimentalists, and the others of the +New Imperialism, with their real grasp of the true and humane principles +of government, who were the downright practical folk.... + +All this fuss about a single Governor, of whom Mr. Prang himself had +said (and there was no gentler soul living than Mr. Prang) that his +extortions had been a byword and his obstinacy proof positive of his +innate weakness!---- + +But Amory was not in the pond-room that day, and so Dorothy's sickly +display of emotion went unchecked. The nurse herded the Bits together, +but they were not admitted for their usual tea-time romp. Indeed, +Dorothy said presently, "Do you mind if I leave you for a few minutes +with Katie, auntie?" She went into her bedroom and did not return. Of +all his "nieces" she had been his favourite; her foot caught in one of +his Kabuli mats as she entered the bedroom. She lay down on her bed. She +longed for Stan to come and put his arms about her. + +He came in before Lady Tasker had finished her prolonged questioning of +Katie. Aunt Grace told him where Dorothy was. Then she and Katie left +together. + +The newspapers showed an excellent sense of proportion about the +incident. In the earlier evening editions the death of Sir Benjamin was +nicely balanced by the 4.30 winners; and then a popular actor's amusing +replies in the witness-box naturally overshadowed everything else. And, +to anticipate a little, on the following day the "Times" showed itself +to be, as usual, hopelessly in the wrong. Indeed there were those who +considered that this journal made a deplorable exhibition of itself. For +it had no more modesty nor restraint than to use the harsh word +"murder," without any "alleged" about it, which was, of course, a +flagrant pre-judging of the case. Nobody denied that at a first glance +appearances _were_ a little against the gentle and dusky brother, who +had been seized with the revolver still in his hand; but that was no +reason why a bloated capitalist rag should thus undermine the principles +of elementary justice. It ought to have made it all the more +circumspect.... But anybody who was anybody knew exactly what was at the +bottom of it all. The "Times" was seeking a weapon against the +Government. The staff was no doubt secretly glad that it had happened, +and was gloating, and already calculating its effect on an impending +by-election.... Besides, there was the whole ethical question of capital +punishment. It would not bring Sir Benjamin back to life to try this +man, find him guilty, and do him barbarously to death in the name of the +Law. That would only be two dead instead of one. The proper way would be +to hold an inquiry, with the dusky instrument of justice (whose faith in +his mission must have been very great since he had taken such risks for +it) not presiding, perhaps, but certainly called as an important witness +to testify to the Wrongness of the Conditions.... Besides, an +assassination is a sort of half-negligible outbreak, regrettable +certainly, for which excuse can sometimes be found: but this other would +be deliberate, calculated, measured, and in flat violation of the most +cardinal of all the principles on which a great Empire should be +based--the principle of Mercy stiffened with exactly the right modicum +of Justice.... + +And besides.... + +And besides.... + +And besides.... + +And when all is said, India is a long way off. + +The publication of the news produced a curious sort of atmosphere at The +Witan that afternoon. Everybody seemed desirous of showing everybody +else that they were unconcerned, and yet an observer might have fancied +that they overdid it ever such a little. At about the time when Lady +Tasker left Dorothy with Stan, Mr. Wilkinson drove up in a cab to the +green door in the privet hedge and asked for Amory. He was told that she +had given word that she did not want to see anybody. But in the studio +he found Mr. Brimby and Dickie Lemesurier, and the three were presently +joined by Laura and Walter Wyron. A quorum of five callers never +hesitated to make themselves at home at The Witan. They lighted the +asbestos log, Walter found Cosimo's cigarettes, and Dickie said she was +sure Amory wouldn't mind if she rang for tea. When they had made +themselves quite comfortable, they began to chat about a number of +things, not the murder. + +"Seen Strong?" Mr. Brimby asked Mr. Wilkinson. + +Mr. Wilkinson was at his most morose and truculent. + +"No," he said. "I called at the office, but he was out. Doesn't put in +very much time there, it seems to me. Perhaps he's at the Party's +Meeting." + +"How is it you aren't there, by the way?" + +Mr. Wilkinson made a little sound of contempt. + +"Bah! All talk. Day in and day out, talk, talk, talk. I want action. The +leadership's all wrong. Want a man. I keep my seat because if I cleared +out they'd be no better than a lot of tame Liberal cats, but I've no use +for 'em----" + +It was whispered that the members of the Party had no use for Mr. +Wilkinson, and very little for one another; but it doesn't do to give +ear to everything that is whispered. + +Then Mr. Brimby appeared suddenly to recollect something. + +"Ah yes!... Action. Speaking of action, I suppose you've seen this +Indian affair in to-night's papers?" + +Mr. Wilkinson was still fuming. + +"That Governor? Yes, I saw it.... But it's too far away. Thousands of +miles too far away. We want something nearer home. A paper that calls a +spade a spade for one thing.... Anybody heard from Pratt this week?" + +They discussed Cosimo's latest letter, and then Mr. Brimby said, "By the +way--how will this affect him?" + +"How will what affect him?" + +"This news, to-night. Collins." + +"Oh!... Why should it affect him at all? Don't see why it should. The +'Pall Mall' has a filthy article on it to-night. That paper's getting as +bad as the 'Times.'" + +Here Walter Wyron intervened.--"By the way, who _is_ this man Collins? +Just pass me 'Who's Who,' Laura." + +They looked Sir Benjamin up in "Who's Who," and then somebody suggested +that their party wasn't complete without Edgar Strong. "I'll telephone +him," said Walter; "perhaps he'll be back by this."--The telephone was +in the hall, and Walter went out. Dickie told Laura how well Walter was +looking. Laura replied, Yes, he was very well indeed; except for a +slight cold, which anybody was lucky to escape in May, he had never been +better; which was wonderful, considering the work he got through.--Then +Walter returned. Strong had not yet come in, but his typist had said +he'd be back soon.--"Didn't know it ran to a typist," Walter remarked, +helping himself to more tea. + +"It doesn't," Mr. Wilkinson grunted. + +"Girl's voice, anyway.... I say, I wonder how old Prang's getting on!" + +"I wonder!" + +"He's gone back, hasn't he?" Dickie asked. + +"Oh, a couple of months ago. Didn't Strong give him the push, Wilkie?" + +"Don't suppose Strong ever did anything so vigorous," Mr. Wilkinson +growled. "The only strong thing about Strong's his name. He's simply +ruined that paper." + +"I agree that it was at its best when Prang was doing the Indian notes." + +"Oh, Prang knew what he wanted. Prang's all right in his way. But I tell +you India's too far away. We want something at our own doors, and +somebody made an example of that somebody knows. Now if Pratt had only +been guided by me----" + +"Hallo, here's Britomart Belchamber.--Why doesn't Amory come down, Brit? +She's in, isn't she?" + +"What?" said Miss Belchamber. + +"Isn't Amory coming down?" + +"She's gone out," said Miss Belchamber, adjusting her hair. "A min-ute +ago," she added. + +Walter Wyron said something about "Cool--with guests----," but Amory's +going out was no reason why they should not finish tea in comfort. No +doubt Amory would be back presently. Laura confided to Britomart that +she hoped so, for the truth was that her kitchen range had gone wrong, +and a man had said he was coming to look at it, but he hadn't turned +up--these people never turned up when they said they would--and so she +had thought it would be nice if they came and kept Amory company at +supper.... + +"We've got some new cheese-bis-cuits," said Miss Belchamber +ruminatively. "I like them. They make bone. I like to have bone made. +The muscles can't act unless you have bone. That's why these bis-cuits +are so good. Good-bye." + +And Miss Belchamber, with a friendly general smile, went off to open her +sweat-ducts by means of a hot bath and to close them again afterwards +with a cold sponge. + + * * * * * + +Amory had not gone out this time to press amidst strange people and to +look into strange and frightening eyes, various in colour as the pebbles +of a beach, and tipped with arrow-heads of white as they turned. Almost +for the first time in her life she wanted to be alone--quite alone, with +her eyes on nobody and nobody's eyes on her. She did not reflect on +this. She did not reflect on anything. She only knew that The Witan +seemed to stifle her, and that when she had seen Mr. Wilkinson alight +from his cab--and Mr. Brimby and Dickie come--and the Wyrons--with all +the others no doubt following presently--it had come sharply upon her +that these wearisomely familiar people used up all the air. The Witan +without them was bad enough; The Witan with them had become +insupportable. + +It was not the assassination of Sir Benjamin that had disturbed her. +Since Cosimo's departure she had glanced at Indian news only a shade +less perfunctorily than before, and she had turned from this particular +announcement to the account of New Greek Society's production with +hardly a change of boredom. No: it was everything in her +life--everything. She felt used up. She thought that if anybody had +spoken to her just then she could only have given the incoherent and +petulant "Don't!" of a child who is interrupted at a game that none but +he understands. She hated herself, yet hated more to be dragged out of +herself; and as she made for the loneliest part of the Heath she wished +that night would fall. + +She had to all intents and purposes packed Cosimo off to India in order +to have him out of the way. His presence had become as wearisome as that +of the Wyrons and the rest of them. And that was as much as she had +hitherto told herself. She had taken no resolution about Edgar Strong. +But drifting is accelerated when an obstacle is removed, and her heart +had frequently beaten rapidly at the thought that, merely by removing +Cosimo, she had started a process that would presently bring her up +against Edgar Strong. She had pleased and teased and frightened herself +with the thought of what was to happen then. So many courses would be +open to her. She might actually take the mad plunge from which she had +hitherto shrunk. She might do the very opposite--stare at him, should +he propose it, and inform him that, some thousands of miles +notwithstanding, she was still Cosimo's wife. She might pathetically +urge on him that, now more than ever, she needed a friend and not a +lover--or else that, now more than ever, she needed a lover and not a +friend. She might say that nothing could be done until Cosimo came +back--or that when Cosimo came back would be too late to do anything. Or +she might.... + +Or she might.... + +Or she might.... + +Yet when all was said, Edgar and the "Novum's" offices were perilously +near.... + +For it was not what she might do, but what he might do, that set her +heart beating most rapidly of all. Her dangerous dreaming always ended +in that. Here was no question of that trumpery subterfuge of the Wyrons. +It struck her with extraordinary force and newness that she was what was +called "a married woman." It was a familiar phrase; it was as familiar +as those other phrases, "No, just living together," "Well, as long as +there are no children," "Love _is_ Law"--familiar as the air. Left to +herself, the phrases might have remained both her dissipation and her +safeguard.... But he? Would phrases content him? After she had tempted +him as she knew she had tempted him? After that stern repression of +himself in favour of his duty? Or would he ask her again what she +thought he was made off?... It was always the man who was expected to +take the decisive step. The woman simply--offered--and, if she was +clever, did it in such a way that she could always deny it after the +fact. If Edgar should _not_ stretch out his hand--well, in that case +there would be no more to be said. But if he should?... + +A little sound came from her closed lips. + +Cosimo had been away for nearly three months, and had not yet said +anything about returning; and Amory had smiled when, after many eager +protestings that there was no reason (Love being Law) why he should go +alone, he had after all funked taking his splendid turnip of a Britomart +with him. Of course: when it had come to the point, he had lacked the +courage. Amory could not help thinking that that lack was just a shade +more contemptible than his philanderings. Courage!... Images of +Cleopatra and the carpet rose in her mind again.... But the images were +faint now. She had evoked them too often. Her available mental material +had become stale. She needed a fresh impulse--a new experience---- + +But--she always got back to the same point--suppose Edgar should take +her, not at her word, nor against her word, but with words, for once, +left suddenly and entirely out of the question?... + +Again the thumping heart---- + +It was almost worth the misery and loneliness for the sake of that +painful and delicious thrill. + +She was sitting on a bench under the palings of Ken Wood, watching a +saffron sunset. A Prince Eadmond's girl in a little green Florentine cap +passed. She reminded Amory of Britomart Belchamber, and Amory rose and +took the root-grown path to the Spaniards Road and the West Heath. She +intended to take a walk as far as Golders Green Park; but, as it +happened, she did not get so far. A newsboy, without any sense of +proportion whatever, was crying cheerfully, "Murder of a +Guv'nor--Special!" This struck Amory. She thought she had read it once +before that afternoon, but she bought another paper and turned to the +paragraph. Yes, it was the same--and yet it was somehow different. It +seemed--she could not tell why--a shade more important than it had done. +Perhaps the newsboy's voice had made it sound more important: things did +seem to come more personally home when they were spoken than when they +were merely read. She hoped it was not very important; it might be well +to make sure. She was not very far from home; her Timon-guests would +still be there; somebody would be able to tell her all about it.... + +She walked back to The Witan again, and, still hatted and dressed, +pushed at the studio door. + +Nobody had left. Indeed, two more had come--young Mr. Raffinger of the +McGrath, and a friend of his, a young woman from the Lambeth School of +Art, who had Russianized her painting-blouse by putting a leather belt +round it, and who told Amory she had wanted to meet her for such a long +time, because she had done some designs for Suffrage Christmas Cards, +and hoped Amory wouldn't mind her fearful cheek, but hoped she would +look at them, and say exactly what she thought about them, and perhaps +give her a tip or two, and, if it wasn't asking too much, introduce her +to the Manumission League, or to anybody else who might buy them.... +Young Raffinger interrupted the flow of gush and apologetics. + +"Oh, don't bother her just yet, Eileen. Let her read her cable first." + +Amory turned quickly.--"What do you say? What cable?" she asked. + +"There's a cable for you." + +It lay on the uncleared tea-table, and everybody seemed to know all +about the outside of it at all events. As it was not in the usual place +for letters, perhaps it had been passed from hand to hand. Quite +unaffectedly, they stood round in a ring while Amory opened it, with all +their eyes on her. They most frightfully wanted to know what was in it, +but of course it would have been rude to ask outright. So they merely +watched, expectantly. + +Then, as Amory stood looking at the piece of paper, Walter was almost +rude. But in the circumstances everybody forgave him. + +"Well?" he said; and then with ready tact he retrieved the solecism. +"Hope it's good news, Amory?" + +For all that there was just that touch of _schadenfreude_ in his tone +that promised that he for one would do his best to bear up if it wasn't. + +Amory was a little pale. It was the best of news, and yet she was a +little pale. Perhaps she was faint because she had not had any tea. + +"Cosimo's coming home," she said. + +There was a moment's silence, and then the congratulations broke out. + +"Oh, good!" + +"Shall be glad to see the old boy!" + +"Finished his work, I suppose?" + +"Or perhaps it's something to do with this Collins business?" + +It was Mr. Brimby who had made this last remark. Amory turned to him +slowly. + +"What is this Collins business?" she asked. + +Mr. Brimby dropped his sorrowing head. + +"Ah, poor fellow," he murmured. "I'm afraid he went to work on the wrong +principles. A _little_ more conciliation ... but it's difficult to blame +anybody in these cases. The System's at fault. Let us not be harsh. I +quite agree with Wilkinson that the 'Pall Mall' to-night is very harsh." + +"Cowardly," said Mr. Wilkinson grimly. "Rubbing it in because they have +some sort of a show of a case. They're always mum enough on the other +side." + +Amory lifted her head. + +"But you say this might have something to do with Cosimo's coming back. +Tell me at once what's happened.--And put that telegram down, Walter. +It's mine." + +They had never heard Amory speak like this before. It was rather cool of +her, in her own house, and quite contrary to the beautiful Chinese rule +of politeness. And somehow her tone seemed, all at once, to dissipate a +certain number of pretences that for the last hour or more they had been +laboriously seeking to keep up. That, at any rate, was a relief. For a +minute nobody seemed to want to answer Amory; then Mr. Wilkinson took +it upon himself to do so--characteristically. + +"Nothing's happened," he said, "--nothing that we haven't all been +talking about for a year and more. What the devil--let's be plain for +once. To look at you, anybody'd think you hadn't meant it! By God, if +_I'd_ had that paper of yours!... I told you at the beginning what +Strong was--neither wanted to do things nor let 'em alone; but _I'd_ +have shown you! I'd have had a dozen Prangs! But he didn't want one--and +he didn't want to sack him--afraid all the time something 'ld happen, +but daren't stop--doing too well out of it for that ... and now that +it's happened, what's all the to-do about? You're always calling it War, +aren't you? And it _is_ War, isn't it? Or only Brimby's sort of +War--like everything else about Brimby?----" + +Here somebody tried to interpose, but Mr. Wilkinson raised his voice +almost to a shout. + +"Isn't it? Isn't it?... Lookee here! A little fellow came here one +Sunday, a little collier, and he said 'Wilkie knows!' And by Jimminy, +Wilkie does know! I tell you it's everybody for himself in this world, +and I'm out for anything that's going! (Yes, let's have a bit o' +straight talk for a change!) War? Of course it's War! What do we all +mean about street barricades and rifles if it isn't War? It's War when +they fetch the soldiers out, isn't it? Or is that a bit more Brimby? And +you can't have War without killing somebody, can you? I tell you we want +it at home, not in India! I've stood at the dock gates waiting to be +taken on, and I know--no fear! To hell with your shillyshallying! If +Collins gets in the way, Collins must get out o' the way. We can't stop +for Collins. I wish it had been here! I can just see myself jumping off +a bridge with a director in my arms--the fat hogs! If I'd had that +paper! There'd have been police round this house long ago, and then the +fun would have started!... Me and Prang's the only two of all the bunch +that _does_ know what we want! And Prang's got his all right--my turn +next--and I shan't ask Brimby to help me----" + +Through a sort of singing in her ears Amory heard the rising cries of +dissent that interrupted Mr. Wilkinson--"Oh no--hang it--Wilkinson's +going too far!" But the noise conveyed little to her. Stupidly she was +staring at the blue and yellow jets of the asbestos log, and weakly +thinking what a silly imitation the thing was. She couldn't imagine +however Cosimo had come to buy it. And then she heard Mr. Wilkinson +repeating some phrase he had used before: "There'd have been police +round this house and then the fun would have begun!" Police round The +Witan, she thought? Why? It seemed very absurd to talk like that. Mr. +Brimby was telling Mr. Wilkinson how absurd it was. But Mr. Brimby +himself was rather absurd when you came to think of it.... + +Then there came another shouted outburst.--"Another Mutiny? Well, what +about it? It _is_ War, isn't it? Or is it only Brimby's sort of +War?----" + +Then Amory felt herself grow suddenly cold and resolved. Cosimo was +coming back. Whether he had made India too hot to hold him, as now +appeared just possible, she no longer cared, for at last she knew what +she intended to do. Her guests were wrangling once more; let them +wrangle; she was going to leave this house that Mr. Wilkinson apparently +wanted to surround with police as a preliminary to the "fun." Edgar +might still be at the office; if he was not, she would sleep at some +hotel and find him in the morning. Then she would take her leap. She had +hesitated far too long. She would not go and look at the twins for fear +lest she should hesitate again.... + +Just such a sense of rest came over her as a swimmer feels who, having +long struggled against a choppy stream, suddenly abandons himself to it +and lets it bear him whither it will. + +Unnoticed in the heat of the dispute, she crossed to the studio door. +She thought she heard Laura call, "Can I come and help, Amory?" No doubt +Laura thought she was going to see about supper. But she no longer +intended to stay even for supper in this house of wrangles and envy and +crowds and whispering and crookedness. + +Her cheque-book and some gold were in her dressing-table drawer +upstairs. She got them. Then she descended again, opened the front door, +closed it softly behind her again, passed through the door in the privet +hedge, and walked out on to the dark Heath. + + + + +III + +_DE TROP_ + + +Those who knew Edgar Strong the best knew that the problem of how to +make the best of both worlds pressed with a peculiar hardship on him. +The smaller rebel must have the whole of infinity for his soul to range +in--and, for all the practical concern that man has with it, infinity +may be defined as the condition in which the word of the weakest is as +good as that of the wisest. Give him scope enough and Mr. Brimby cannot +be challenged. There is no knowledge of which he says that it is too +wonderful for him, that it is high and he cannot attain unto it. + +But Edgar Strong knew a little more than Mr. Brimby. He bore his share +of just such a common responsibility as is not too great for you or for +me to understand. Between himself and Mr. Prang had been a long and slow +and grim struggle, without a word about it having been said on either +side; and it had not been altogether Edgar Strong's fault that in the +end Mr. Prang had been one too many for him. + +For, consistently with his keeping his three hundred a year (more than +two-thirds of which by one means and another he had contrived to save), +he did not see that he could have done much more than he had done. +Things would have been far worse had he allowed Mr. Wilkinson to oust +him. And now he knew that this was the "Novum's" finish. Whispers had +reached him that behind important walls important questions were being +asked, and a ponderous and slow-moving Department had approached another +Body about certain finportations (Sir Joseph Deedes, Katie's uncle, knew +all about these things). And this and that and the other were going on +behind the scenes; and these deep mutterings meant, if they meant +anything at all, that it was time Edgar Strong was packing up. + +Fruit-farming was the line he fancied; oranges in Florida; and it would +not take long to book passages--passages for two---- + +He had heard the news in the early afternoon, and had straightway sent +off an express messenger to the person for whom the second passage was +destined. Within an hour this person had run up the stairs, without +having met anybody on a landing whom it had been necessary to ask +whether Mr. So-and-So, the poster artist, had a studio in the building. +Edgar Strong's occupation as she had entered had made words superfluous. +He had been carrying armfuls of papers into the little room behind the +office and thrusting them without examination on the fire. The girl had +exchanged a few rapid sentences with him, had bolted out again, hailed a +taxi, sought a Bank, done some business there on the stroke of four, and +had driven thence to a shipping office. Edgar Strong, in Charing Cross +Road, had continued to feed his fire. The whole place smelt of burning +paper. A mountain of ashes choked the grate and spread out as far as the +bed and the iron washstand in the corner. + +The girl returned. From under the bed she pulled out a couple of bags. +Into these she began to thrust her companion's clothes. Into a third and +smaller bag she crammed her own dressing-gown and slippers, a comb and a +couple of whalebone brushes, and other things. She had brought word that +the boat sailed the day after to-morrow.... + +"There's the telephone--just answer it, will you?" Strong said, casting +another bundle on the fire.... + +"Wyron," said the girl, returning. + +"Never mind those boots; they're done; and you might get me a +safety-razor; shall want it on the ship.... By the way--I think we'd +better get married." + +The girl laughed.--"All right," she said as she crammed a +nightdress-case into the little bag.... + + * * * * * + +Amory walked quickly down the East Heath. As she walked she could not +help wondering what there had been to make such a fuss about. Indeed she +had been making quite a bugbear of the thing she was now doing quite +easily. What, after all, would it matter? Would a single one of the +people she passed so hurriedly think her case in the least degree +special? Had they not, each one of them, their own private and probably +very similar affairs? Was there one of them of whom it could be said +with certainty that he or she was not, at that very moment, bound on the +same errand? She looked at the women. There was nothing to betray them, +but it was quite as likely as not. Nor could they tell by looking at +her. For that matter, the most resolute would hide it the most. And a +person's life was his own. Nobody would give him another one when he had +starved and denied the one he had. There might not be another one. Some +people said that there was, and some that there wasn't. Meetings were +held about that too, but so far they hadn't seemed to advance matters +very much.... + +Nor was it the urge of passion that was now driving her forward at such +a rate. She could not help thinking that she had been rather silly in +her dreams about carpets and Nubians and those things. If Edgar was +passionate, very well--she would deny him nothing; but in that case she +would feel ever so slightly superior to Edgar. She rather wished that +that was not so; she hoped that after all it might not be so; on the +whole she would have preferred to be a little his inferior. She had not +been inferior to Cosimo. They, she and Cosimo, had talked a good deal +about equality, of course, but, after all, equality was a balance too +nice for the present stressful stage of the struggle between man and +woman; a theoretical equality if you liked, but in practice the thing +became a slight temporary feminine preponderance, which would, no doubt, +settle down in time. Virtually she had been Cosimo's master. She did not +want to be Edgar's. Rather than be that he might--her tired +sensibilities gave a brief flutter--he might even be a little cruel to +her if he wished.... + +A Tottenham Court Road bus was just starting from the bottom of Pond +Street. She ran to catch it. It moved forward again, with Amory sitting +inside it, between a man in a white muffler and opera-hat and a +flower-woman returning home with her empty baskets. + +Many, many times Amory Pratt, abusing her fancy, had rehearsed the scene +to which she was now so smoothly and rapidly approaching; but she +rehearsed nothing now. It would suffice for her just to appear before +Edgar; no words would be necessary; he would instantly understand. Of +course (she reflected) he might have left the office when she got there; +it was even reasonably probable that he would have left; it was not a +press-night; twenty to one he would have left. But her thoughts went +forward again exactly as if she had not just told herself this.... He +would be there. She would go up to him and stand before him. As likely +as not not a word would pass between them. She felt that she had used +too many words in her life. She and her set had discussed subjects +simply out of existence. Often, by the time they had finished talking, +not one of them had known what they had been talking about. It had been +sheer dissipation. Men, she had heard, took drinks like that, and by and +by were unable to stand, and then made hideous exhibitions of +themselves. Nobody could say exactly at what point they, the men, +became incapable, nor the point at which the others, Amory and her set, +became word-sodden; in the one case the police (she had heard) made them +walk a chalk-line; but there was no chalk-line for the others. Their +paths were crooked as scribble.... + +But she was going straight at last--as straight as a pair of tram-lines +could take her--and so far was she from wishing that the tram would go +more slowly, that she would have hastened it had she been able. + +The "Mother Shipton"--the Cobden Statue--Hampstead Road--the "Adam and +Eve." At this last stopping-place she descended, crossed the road, and +boarded a bus. She remembered that once before, when she had visited the +office in a taxi, the cab had seemed to go at a terrifying speed; now +the bus seemed to crawl. A fear took her that every stop might cause her +to miss him by just a minute. She tapped with her foot. She looked +almost angrily at those who got in or out. That flower-woman: why +couldn't she have got out at the proper stopping-place, instead of +upsetting everything with her baskets hardly a hundred yards further +on?... Off again; she hoped to goodness that was the last delay. She had +been stupid not to take a taxi after all. + +She descended opposite the "Horse Shoe," not three minutes' walk from +the "Novum's" offices. Then again she called herself stupid for not +having sat where she was, since the bus would go straight past the door. +But she could be there as soon as the bus if she walked quickly.---- + +The bus overtook her and beat her by twenty yards. + +The bookseller's shutters were down, and in the window of the +electric-fittings shop could be dimly seen a ventilating fan, a +desk-lamp, and a switchboard or two. Amory turned in under the arch that +led to the yard behind. Her eyes had gone up to the third floor almost +before she had issued from the narrow alley---- + +Ah!... So she was not too late. There was a light. + +Through the ground-floor cavern in which the sandwich-boards were +stacked she had for the first time to slacken her pace; the floor was +uneven, and the place was crowded with dim shadows. A man smoking a pipe +over an evening paper turned as she entered, but, seeing her make +straight for the stairs, he did not ask her her business. The winding +wooden staircase was black as a flue. On the first landing she paused +for a moment; the man with the pipe had, after all, challenged her, "Who +is it you want, Miss?" he called from below.... But he did not follow +her. A vague light from the landing window showed her the second flight +of wedge-shaped wooden steps. She mounted them, and gained the corridor +hung with the specimens of the poster-artist's work. Ahead along the +passage a narrow shaft of light crossed the floor. She gave one more +look behind, for fear the man below had, after all, followed her; she +was determined, but that did not mean that she necessarily wished to be +seen.... + +Her life was her own, to do what she liked with. Nobody would give her +another one.... + +And Edgar might be cruel if he wished.... + +For one instant longer she hesitated. Then she pushed softly at the door +from which the beam of light came. + +The quietness of her approach was wasted after all. There was nobody in +the office. The floor was untidy with scattered leaves of paper, and +Edgar had carelessly left every drawer of his desk open; but that only +meant that he could not be very far away. Probably he was in the +waiting-room. She approached the door of it. + +But, as she did so, some slight unfamiliarity about the place struck +her. The first room of the three, or waiting-room, she knew, from having +once or twice pushed at the first door of the passage and having had to +pass through that ante-room. Of the third room she knew nothing save +that it was used as a sort of general lumber-room. But the rooms seemed +somehow to have got changed about. It was from this third room, and not +from the waiting-room, that a bright light came, and the smell of +charred paper. The door was partly open. Amory advanced to it. + +As she did so somebody spoke. + +For so slight a cause, the start that Amory gave was rather +heartrending. She stopped dead. Her face had turned so chalky a white +that the freckles upon it, which ordinarily scarcely showed, looked +almost unwholesome. + +In her mind she had given Edgar Strong leave to be cruel to her, but +not with this cruelty. The cruelty we choose is always another cruelty. +Once a man, who miraculously survived a flogging, said that by +comparison with the anguish of the second stroke that of the first was +almost a sweetness; and after the third, and fourth, men, they say, have +laughed. It happened so to Amory. The voices she heard were not loud; so +much the worse, when a few ordinary, grunted, half expressions could so +pierce her. + +"----months ago, but I wasn't ready. I stayed on here for nobody's +convenience but my own, I can tell you." It was Edgar who said this. + +Then a woman's voice-- + +"I don't think this waistcoat's worth taking; I've patched and patched +it----" + +"Oh, chuck it under the bed. And I say--we've had nothing to eat. Make +the cocoa, will you?" + +"Just a minute till I finish this bag.--What'll Pratt say when he comes +back?" + +"As I shan't be here to hear him, it's hardly worth while guessing." + +"Will Wilkinson take it over?" + +"The 'Novum'?... I don't think there'll be any more 'Novum.' I suppose +these London Indians will be holding a meeting. I don't like 'em, but +let's be fair to them: most of 'em are all right. They've got to +dissociate themselves from this Collins business somehow. But I expect +some lunatic will go and move an amendment.... Well, it won't matter to +us. We shall be well down the Channel by that time." + +Then the girl gave a low laugh.--"I _do_ think you might buy me a +trousseau, Ned--the way it's turned out----" + +The man's voice grunted. + +"I thought that would be the next. Give you something and you all want +something else immediately.... Can't afford it, my dear. I've only +pulled between three and four hundred out of this show, living here, +paying myself space-rates and all the lot; and we shall want all that." + +Again the low voice--very soft and low. + +"But you'll be a little sorry to leave here, won't you--m'mmm?----" +(This was the second stroke, by comparison with which the first had been +sweet.) + +Strong spoke brusquely.--"Look here, old girl--we've heaps of things to +do to-night--lots of time before us--don't let's have any nonsense----" + +"No-o-o?"---- + +Amory, besides hearing, might have seen; but she did not. Something had +brought into her head her own words to Walter Wyron of an hour or two +before, when Walter had picked up the cable announcing Cosimo's return: +"Put that down, Walter; it's mine." This other, that was taking place in +that inner room, was theirs. It would have been perfectly easy to strike +them dumb by appearing, just for one moment, in the doorway of +this--lumber-room; but she preferred not to do it. If she had, she felt +that it would have been the remains of a woman they would have seen. +There is not much catch in striking anybody dumb when the process +involves their seeing--that. Much better to steal out quietly.... + +Noiselessly she turned her back to the half-open door. She tiptoed out +into the corridor again. For a dozen yards she continued to tiptoe--in +order to spare them; and then she found herself at the head of the steep +stairs. She descended. She had not made a single sound. Down below the +man was still reading the paper, and again he looked round. At another +time Amory might have questioned him; but again she did not. There was +nothing to learn. She knew. + +It was the first thing she had ever really known. + +Bowed with the strangeness of knowledge, she walked slowly out into +Charing Cross Road. + + + + +IV + +GREY YOUTH + + +She continued to walk slowly; the slowness was as remarkable as her +haste had been. She had intended, had she missed Edgar, to go to an +hotel; but home was hotel enough, hotel home. Home--home to a house +without privacy--home to children of whom she was not much more than +technically the mother--home to an asbestos log and to the absence of a +husband that was at least as desirable as his presence: nothing else +remained. + +For her lack seemed total--so total as hardly to be a lack. She desired +no one thing, and a desire for everything is an abuse of the term +"desire." So she walked slowly, stopping now and then to look at a +flagstone as if it had been a remarkable object. And as she walked she +wondered how she had come to be as she was. + +She could not see where her life had gone wrong. She did not remember +any one point at which she had taken a false and crucial step. For +example, she did not think this grey and harmonious totality of +despondency had come of her marrying Cosimo. They were neither +outstandingly suited nor unsuited to one another, and a thousand +marriages precisely similar were made every day and turned out well +enough. No; it could not be that she had expected too much of marriage. +She had not courted disappointment that way.... (But stay: had the +trouble come of her not expecting largely enough? Of her not having +assumed enough? Of her not having said to Life, "Such and such I intend +to have, and you shall provide it?" Would she have fared better +then?)... And if Cosimo had brought her no wonder, neither had her +babes. People were in the habit of saying astonishing things about the +miracle of the babe at the breast, but Amory could only say that she had +never experienced these things. She had wondered that she should not, +when so many others apparently did, but the fact remained, that bearing +had been an anguish and nursing an inconvenience. And so at the twins +she had stopped. + +Would it have been better had she not stopped? Would she have been +happier with many children? Without children at all? Or unmarried? Or +ought her painting to have been husband, home and children to her?... + +It was a little late in the day to ask these questions now---- + +And yet there had been no reason for asking them earlier---- + +It had needed that, her first point of knowledge, to bring it home into +her heart.... + +But do not suppose that she was in any pain. As a spinally-anaesthetized +subject may have a quite poignant interest in the lopping off of one of +his own limbs, and may even wonder that he feels no local pain, so she +assisted at her own dismemberment. Home, husband, babes, her art--one +after another she now seemed to see them go--or rather, seemed to see +that they had long since gone. She saw this going, in retrospect. It was +as if, though only degree by degree had the pleasant things of life +ticked away from her, the escapement was now removed from her memory, +allowing all with a buzz to run down to a dead stop. She could almost +hear that buzz, almost see that soft rim of whizzing teeth.... + +Now all was stillness--stillness without pain. She knew now what Edgar +Strong had been doing. She knew that he had been making use of her, +pocketing Cosimo's money, using the "Novum's" office as his lodging, had +had his bed there, his slippers in the fender, his kettle, his cocoa, +his plates, his cups, his.... And she knew now that Edgar Strong was +only one of those who had clustered like leeches about Cosimo.... She +forgot how much Cosimo had said that from first to last it had all cost. +She thought twenty thousand pounds. Twenty thousand pounds, all vanished +between that first Ludlow experiment and that last piece of amateur +sociology, three revolver shots in a man's back! As a price it was +stiffish. She did not quite know what the provider of the money had had +out of it all. At any rate she herself had this curious stilly state of +painless but rather sickening knowledge. And knowledge, they say, is +above rubies. So perhaps it was cheap after all.... + +But where had she gone wrong? Had she simply been born wrong? Would it +have made any difference whatever she had done? Or had all this been +appointed for her or ever her mother had conceived her? + +She asked herself this as she passed Whitefield's Tabernacle; still +walking slowly, she was well up Hampstead Road and still no answer had +occurred to her. But somewhere near the gold-beater's arm on the +right-hand side of the road a thought did strike her. She thought that +she would not go home after all. This was not because to go home now +would be inglorious; it was no attempt to keep up appearances; it was +merely that she would have preferred anything to this horrible numbness. +Pain would be better. It is at any rate a condition of pain that you +must be alive to feel it, and she did not feel quite alive. This might +be a dream from which she would presently wake, or a waking from which +she would by and by drop off to sleep again. In either case it was more +than she could bear for much longer, and, did she go home, she would +have to bear it throughout the night--for days--until Cosimo came +back--after that---- + +But where else to go, if not to The Witan? To Laura's? To Dickie's? That +would be the same thing as going home: little enough change from spinal +anaesthesia in that! They could not help. Of all her old associates, +there was hardly one but might--that was to say if anything +extraordinary ever happened to them, like suddenly getting to know +something--there was hardly one of them but might experience precisely +this same hopeless perfection of wrongness, and fail to discover any one +point at which it had all begun. It was rather to be hoped (Amory +thought) that they never would get to know anything. They were happier +as they were, in a self-contained and harmonious ignorance. Knowledge +attained too late was rather dreadful; people ought to begin to get it +fairly early or not at all. They ought to begin at about the age of +Corin and Bonniebell.... + +A month ago the last person she would have gone to with a trouble would +have been Dorothy Tasker. They had not a single view in common. +Moreover, it would have been humiliating. But now that actually became, +in a curious, reflex sort of way, a reason for going. She did not know +that she actually wished to be humiliated; she did not think about it; +but she had been looking at herself, and at people exactly like herself, +for a long, long, long time, and, when you have looked at yourself too +much you can sometimes actually find out something new about yourself by +looking for a change at somebody else as little like you as can possibly +be found. Amory had tried a good many things, but she had never tried +this. It might be worth trying. She hesitated for one moment longer. +This was when she feared that Dorothy might offer her, not the change +from numbness to pain, but a sympathy and consolation that, something +deep down within her told her, would not help her.... A little more +quickly, but not much, she walked up Maiden Road. She turned into Fleet +Road, and reached the tram-terminus below Hampstead Heath Station. +Thence to Dorothy's was a bare five minutes. What she should say when +she got to Dorothy's she did not trouble to think. + +And at first it looked as if she would not be allowed to say anything at +all to her, for when she rang the bell of the hall-floor flat Stan +himself opened the door, looked at her with no great favour, and told +her that Dorothy was not to be seen. From that Amory gathered that +Dorothy was at least within. + +Now when your need of a thing is very great, you are not to be put off +by a young man who admits that his wife is at home, but tells you that +she has some trifling affair--is in her dressing-gown perhaps, or has +not made her hair tidy--that makes your call slightly inconvenient. +Therefore Amory, in her need, did what the young man would no doubt have +called "an infernally cheeky thing." She repeated her request once more, +and then, seeing another refusal coming, waited for no further reply, +but pushed past Stan and made direct for Dorothy's bedroom. Why she +should have supposed that Dorothy would be in her bedroom she could not +have told. She might equally well have been in the dining-room, or in +the pond-room. But along the passage to the bedroom Amory walked, while +Stan stared in stupefaction after her. + +Dorothy was there. She had not gone to bed, but, early as it was, +appeared to have been preparing to do so. Amory knew that because, +though in Britomart Belchamber's case a dressing-gown and plaited hair +might merely have meant that she wanted to listen to Walter Wyron's talk +in looseness and comfort, or else that a plaster cast was to be taken, +they certainly did not mean that in Dorothy's. And she supposed that +differences of that kind were more or less what she had come to see. + +Dorothy was gazing into the fire before which the youngest Bit had had +his bath. Close to her own chair was drawn the chair that had evidently +been lately occupied by Stan. The infant Bit's cot was in a corner of +the room. At first Dorothy did not look up from the fire. Probably she +supposed the person who was looking at her from the doorway to be Stan. + +But as that person neither spoke nor advanced, she turned her head. The +next moment a curious little sound had come from her lips. You see, in +the first place, she had expected nobody less, and in the second place, +she wholeheartedly shared many of her worldly old aunt's prejudices, +among which was the monstrous one that established a connexion between +recently-bibbed politicians in this country and revolver shots in +another. And there was no doubt whatever that her presentable but +brainless young husband had fostered this fallacious conviction. He +might even have gone so far as to say that Amory herself was not +altogether unresponsible.... + +And that, too, in a sense, was what Amory had come for. + +The eyes of the two women met, Amory's at the door, Dorothy's startled +ones looking over her shoulder; blue ones and shallow brook-brown ones; +and then Dorothy half rose. + +But whatever the first expression of her face had been, it hardly lasted +for a quarter of an instant. Alarm instantly took its place. She had +begun to get up as a person gets up who would ask another person what he +is doing there. Now it was as if, though she did not yet know what it +was, there was something to be done, something practical and with the +hands, without a moment's delay. + +"What's the matter?" she cried. "Cried" is written, but her exclamation +actually gained in emphasis from the fact that, not to wake the Bit, she +voiced it in a whisper. + +For a moment Amory wondered why she should speak like that. Then it +occurred to her that the face of a person under spinal anaesthesia might +in itself be a reason. She had forgotten her face. + +"May I come in?" she asked. + +She took Dorothy's "Shut the door--and speak low, please--what do you +want?" as an intimation that she might. Amory entered. But she was not +asked to sit down. The man who runs with a fire-call, or fetches a +doctor in the night, is not asked to sit down, and some urgency of that +kind appeared to be Dorothy's conception of Amory's visit. + +"What do you want?" she demanded again. + +Amory herself felt foolish at her own reply. It was so futile, so +piteous, so true. She stood as helpless as a Bit before Dorothy. + +"I--I don't know," she said. + +"What's the matter? What are you looking like that for? Has anything +happened to Cosimo?" + +"No. No. No. He's coming home. No. Nothing's happened." + +"Can I be of use to you?" She was prepared to be that. + +"No--yes--I don't know----" + +Dorothy's eyes had hardened a little.--"_Do_ you want something--and if +you don't--_had_ you to come--to-night?" + +Amory spoke quite quickly and eagerly. + +"Oh yes--to-night--it had to be to-night--I had to come to-night----" + +Dorothy's eyes grew harder still. + +"Then I think I know what you mean.... I don't think we'll talk about +it. There's really nothing to be said.--So----" + +Amory was vaguely puzzled. Of Dorothy's relation to Sir Benjamin she +knew nothing. Dorothy appeared to be waiting for her to go. That would +mean back to The Witan. But she had come here expressly to avoid going +back to The Witan. Again she spoke foolishly. + +"Cosimo's coming back," she said. + +"My aunt thought he might be," said Dorothy in an even voice. + +"And I was going away--but I'm not now----" + +"Oh?" + +"May I sit down?" + +She did so, with her doubled fists thrust between her knees and her head +a little bowed. Then her eyes wandered sideways slowly round the room. +Dorothy's blouse was thrown on the wide bed; from under the bed the +baby Bit's bath peeped; and on the blouse lay Dorothy's hairbrushes. + +Amory was thinking of another bed, a bed she had never seen, with +portmanteaus on it, and a patched old waistcoat cast underneath it, and +a girl busily packing at it, a girl whose voice she had heard pouting +"You might buy me a trousseau--" + +Dorothy also had sat down, but only on the edge of her chair. And she +thought it would be best to speak a little more plainly. + +"If you'll come to-morrow I shall know better what to say to you," she +said. "You see, you've taken me by surprise. I didn't think you'd come, +and I don't know now what you've come for. It isn't a thing to talk +about, certainly not to-day. I should have liked to-day to myself. But +if you feel that you must--will you come in again to-morrow?" + +But Amory hardly seemed to hear. Her eyes were noting the appointments +of the bedroom again. The time had been when she would at once have +denounced the room as overcrowded and unhygienic. A cot, and a bed with +two pillows ... in some respects her own plan was to be preferred. But +this again was the kind of thing she had come to see, and she admitted +that these things were more or less governed by what people could +afford. From the kicked and scratched condition of the front of the +chest of drawers she imagined that Dorothy's children must romp all over +the flat. A parti-coloured ball lay under the cot where the baby slept. +There was a rubber bath-doll near it. The two older boys would be +sleeping in the next room. + +She spoke again.--"I was going away," she said, dully, "with somebody." + +Once more Dorothy merely said "Oh?" + +Then it occurred to Amory that perhaps Dorothy did not quite understand. + +"I mean with--with somebody not my husband." + +She had half expected that Dorothy would be shocked, or at least +surprised; but she seemed to take it quite coolly. Dorothy, as a matter +of fact, was not surprised in the very least. She too guessed at the +futility of looking for a starting-point of things that grow by +inevitable and infinitesimal degrees. It was rather sad, but not at all +astonishing. On Amory's own premises, there was simply no reason why she +shouldn't. So again she merely said "Oh?" and added after a moment, "But +you're not?" + +"No." + +"How's that? Has what we've heard to-day made you change your mind?" + +Again Amory was slightly puzzled; and at Dorothy's question she had, +moreover, a sudden little hesitation. _Was_ it after all necessary that +Dorothy should know everything? Would it not be sufficient, without +going into details, to let Dorothy suppose she had changed her mind? It +came to the same thing in the end.... Besides, Edgar Strong had not +refused her that night. He had not even known of her presence in the +office. Of the rest she would make a clean breast, but it was no good +bothering Dorothy with that other.... She was still plunged into a sort +of stupor, but these reflections stirred ever so slightly under the +surface of it.... + +Then "what we've heard to-day" struck her. She repeated the words. + +"What we've heard to-day?" + +"Oh, if you haven't heard.... I only mean about the murder of my uncle," +said Dorothy coldly. + +This was far more than Amory could take in. She reflected for a moment. +Then, "What do you say, Dorothy?" she asked slowly. + +"At least he wasn't my uncle really. I liked him better than any of my +uncles." + +"Do you mean Sir Benjamin Collins?" + +It was as if Amory had not imagined that Sir Benjamin could by any +possibility have been anybody's uncle. + +"I called him uncle," said Dorothy, in a voice that she tried to keep +steady. "Before I could say the word--I called him----." But she decided +not to risk the baby-word she had used--"Unnoo"---- + +It seemed to Amory a remarkable little coincidence. + +"I--I didn't know," she said stupidly. + +"No." + +"You--you mean you--knew him?----" + +"Oh ... oh yes." + +Amory said again that she hadn't known.... + +"Then why," Dorothy would have liked to cry aloud, "_have_ you come, if +it isn't to make matters worse by talking about it? That wouldn't have +surprised me very much! I should have been quite prepared for you to +apologize! It's the kind of thing you would do. I don't think very much +of you, you see"... But again that worse than frightened look on her +visitor's face struck her sharply, and again a remark of her aunt's +returned to her: "They puzzle their brains till their bodies suffer, and +overwork their bodies till they're little better than fools." Suddenly +she gave her sometime friend more careful attention. + +"Amory--," she said all at once. + +Amory had her fists between her knees again.--"What?" she said without +looking up. + +"You just said something about--going away. I want to ask you something. +You haven't ...?" + +The meaning was quite plain. + +As if she had been galvanized, Amory looked sharply up.--"How dare----", +she began. + +But it was only a flash in the pan. Dorothy was looking into her eyes. + +"You're telling me the truth?" She hated to ask the question. + +"Yes," Amory mumbled, dropping her head again. + +"Has Cosimo been unkind to you?" + +"No." + +"Nor neglected you?" + +"No." + +"Has--has anybody been unkind to you?" She could not speak of "somebody" +by name. + +Here Amory hesitated, and finally lied. It was rather a good sign that +she did so. It meant returning animation.... + +"No," she said. + +"Then what _has_ happened?" + +"Nothing. That's what I asked myself. That's just it. Nothing. Nothing +at all's happened." + +Dorothy spoke in a low voice, as if to herself.--"I know," she +murmured.... + +And, on the chance that she really did know, Amory clutched at the +sleeve of Dorothy's dressing-gown almost excitedly. + +"Yes, that's what I mean ... you do know?" she asked in a quick whisper. + +"Yes--no--I'm not sure----" + +"But you _do_ know that--nothing happening, nothing at all, and +everything happening--everything? That's what I mean--that's what I want +to know--that's why I came----" + +"Don't speak so loudly. Put your hands to the fire; they're like ice. +Wait; I'll get you a shawl; you're shivering.... Now I want you to tell +me some things...." + +And, first wrapping her up and putting Stan's pillow behind her back, +she began to question her. + + * * * * * + +What, again, was the purport of her questions? What of those of her +aunt? What of those of a good many others in an age that is producing, +and for some mysterious reason or other counts it a sign of progress to +produce, innumerable Amorys--so many that, stretch out your hand where +you will, and you will touch one? + +All is guessing: but it will pass on the time if we hold a Meeting about +it now. Everybody is agreed that the way to arrive at the best +conclusions is to hold a Meeting, and this will be only one more +Meeting added to the cloud of Meetings in which the "Novum" went up and +out--the Meeting which, as Edgar Strong had prophesied, the loyal London +Indians held (in the Imperial Institute) in order to dissociate +themselves from the Collins affair (as Edgar Strong had also prophesied, +Mr. Wilkinson moved an amendment, "That this Meeting declines to +dissociate itself, etc. etc.")--the numerous secondary Meetings that +arose out of that Meeting--the Meetings of the "Novum's" creditors (for +Edgar Strong in his haste to be off had omitted to pay all the +bills)--the Meetings at which (Cosimo Pratt having withdrawn his +support) the Eden and the Suffrage Shop had to be reconstructed--the +Meetings convened to talk about this, that and the other--as many of +them as you like. + +Let us too, then, hold a nice, jolly Meeting, in order to find out what +was the matter with Amory--a Meeting with Mr. Brimby in the Chair, to +tell us that there is a great deal to be said on both sides, and that no +party has a monopoly of Truth, and that the words that ought always to +be on our lips as we hurl ourselves into the thickest and hottest of the +fray, whatever it may be, are "To know all is to forgive all." + +But let us keep our Meeting as quiet as we can, for we shall have no end +of a crowd of Meeting-lovers there if we don't. The Wyrons will of +course have to be admitted, and Mr. Wilkinson, and Dickie Lemesurier, +and a few of the older students of the McGrath; but we do not +particularly want the others--those who feel that in a better and +brighter world they would have been students of the McGrath, but, as +matters stand, are merely young clerks who can draw a little, young +salesmen who can write a little, young auctioneers with an instinct for +the best in sculpture, young foremen who yearn to express themselves in +music, young governesses (or a few of them) who have heard of the +enormous sums of money to be made by playwriting, New Imperialists, +amateur regenerators, social prophets after working-hours, and, in a +word, all the people who have just heard that it is not true that Satan +is yet bound up for his promised stretch of a thousand years. A terrible +number of them will get in whether we wish it or not; but let the rest +be our own little party; and you shall sit next to Britomart Belchamber, +and I will stand by to open the windows in case we feel the need of a +little fresh air. + +So Mr. Brimby will open the proceedings. He will say the things +above-mentioned, and presently, with emotion and his sense of the +world's sorrow gaining on him, will come to the case of their dear +friend Amory Pratt. Here, he will say, is a young woman, one of +themselves, who does not know what is the matter with her--who does not +know what has become of her joy--who cannot understand (if Mr. Brimby +may be allowed to express himself a little poetically) why the bloom of +her life has turned to an early rime. And so (Mr. Brimby will continue), +knowing that if two heads are better than one, two hundred heads must be +just one hundred times better still, their friend has submitted her case +to the Meeting. He will beg them to approach that case sympathetically. +Let the extremists of the one part (if there be any) balance the +extremists of the other, leaving as an ideal and beautiful middle +nullity those words he had used before, but did not apologize for using +again--to know all is to forgive all. And with these few remarks (if we +are lucky), Mr. Brimby will say no more, but will call upon their friend +Mr. Walter Wyron to state his view of their friend's case. + +Then Walter will get up, with his hands in the pockets of his knickers, +and it will not be his fault if he does not get off an epigram or two of +the "Love is Law" kind. But you will not fail to notice that Walter is +not his ordinary jaunty self. The withdrawal of Cosimo's support is +going to hit him rather hard, and glances will be exchanged, and one or +two will whisper behind their hands, "Isn't Walter beginning to live a +little on his reputation?" Still, Walter will contribute his quotum. We +shall hear that, in his opinion, the Cause of Synthetic Protoplasm is +making such vast strides to-day that we must revise every one of our +estimates in the light of the most recent knowledge, having done which +we shall probably find that what is really the matter with Amory is +that, by comparison with the mechanical appliances of Loeb and +Delage--appliances which he will take leave to call the Womb of the +Workshop--their friend Amory is over-vitalized. + +Then Mr. Wilkinson will spring to his feet. And Mr. Wilkinson also will +be more than a little sore about Cosimo's cowardly backsliding. He will +say first of all that their Chairman, as usual, is talking out of his +hat, and that anybody with a grain of sense knew that to know all was to +have a contempt for all; and then he will point out that all the trouble +had come of shillyshallying with the wrong policy. Under Strong's +direction of the "Novum," he will say, Amory had been hitting the air to +no purpose; whereas had he, Mr. Wilkinson, been allowed a chance, they +would have had the proletariat armed with rifles by this, and Pratt's +wife would have been a _tricoteuse_, doing a bit of knitting +conspiratoriably and domestically useful at one and the same time--would +have worn a Phrygian cap, and carried a pike, and sung "A la Lanterne," +and put a bit of fire into the men! That's what she ought to have done, +and have had a bit of a run for her money, instead of shillyshallying +about with that idiot Strong---- + +And then a maiden speech will be given us. Mr. Raffinger, of the +McGrath, will get timidly but resolutely up, and we shall all applaud +him when he says that the bad old _régime_ at the McGrath was at the +bottom of all the mischief. The stupid old Professors of the past had +tried to drill instruction into the students instead of allowing each +one to do exactly as he pleased and so to find his own soul. Amory had +been crushed under the cruel old Juggernaut of discipline. But that, +happily, was a thing of the past at the McGrath. Now they went on the +more enlightened principles laid down by Séguin, who cured a child of +destructiveness by giving it a piece of priceless Venetian glass to play +with, and when he broke it gave it another unique piece, and then +another, and another after that, and another, until by degrees the child +learned, _and would never have to unlearn_ (that was the important +thing!) that it was very naughty to break valuable Venetian glass. (A +"Hear hear" from Mr. Brimby, which will probably prove so disconcerting +to young Mr. Raffinger that he will sit down as suddenly as if Mr. +Wilkinson had discharged two bullets at him). + +And then Laura Wyron will speak, saying tremulously that she can't +understand why Amory isn't happy when she has those two lovely babies; +but she is not happy, and never will be again, because she has turned +her back on her art; and Britomart Belchamber (who will be hoisted to +her feet because she has lived in the same house with Amory, and may +have something interesting and intimate to say) will doubt whether Amory +has always quite closed the sweat-ducts with a cold sponge; and then the +crowd will rush in--the governess playwrights will say what they think, +the clerk sculptors what they think, and everybody else what he or she +thinks--and presently they will have strayed a little from the business +in hand, and will be discussing Cubism, or Matriarchy, or Toe-posts, or +the Revival of the Ballad, or Rufty Tufty, quite beyond Mr. Brimby's +power to hale them back to the proper subject. And so the Meeting will +have to be adjourned, and we shall all go again to-morrow night, when +Mr. Wilkinson will be in the Chair, and there ought to be some fun---- + +But Edgar Strong will not be there, because he will be on the water, and +Cosimo will not be there, because he will be anxiously counting what +money remains to him, and Mr. Prang will not be there, because he will +be under arrest in Bombay. But, except for these absences, it will be a +perfectly ripping Meeting---- + + * * * * * + +But none of these things were Dorothy's business. Instead, by the time +she had finished her questioning of Amory, there was no thought at all +in her breast, save only the pitiful desire to help. She saw before her +an old young woman, more drained and disillusioned and with less to look +forward to at thirty-odd than her aunt had at seventy. Her very presence +in Dorothy's house that night was a confession of it. It was the last +house she would willingly have gone to, and yet there she was, begging +Dorothy to tell her what had happened to her. And there was nothing for +Dorothy to say in reply.... + +She knew that Stan, in the dining-room, was waiting to come to bed, but +he must wait; Dorothy had the fire to mend, and Amory's cold hands to +chafe, and to get her something hot to drink, and a dozen other things +to do that had never had a beginning either, yet there they were, mere +helpful habit and nothing more. Presently she set a cup of hot soup to +Amory's lips. + +"Drink this," she said, "and when you're rested my husband will take you +home." + +But that did not happen either. Amory spoke very tiredly. + +"I should like--I don't want to trouble you--anywhere would do--but I +don't want to go home to-night----" + +Dorothy made a swift and doubting mental calculation. Where could she +put her?---- + +"I'm simply done up," muttered Amory closing her eyes. + +"I'm afraid we could only give you a shakedown in the dining-room----" + +"Yes--that would do----" + +Dorothy went out to give Stan his orders. Stan swore. "Rather cool, one +of _that_ crew coming here, to-night of all nights!" But Dorothy was +peremptory. + +"It isn't cool at all. You don't know anything about it. You'll find +blankets in the chest in your dressing-room, and mind you don't wake +Noel. Then get some cushions--I'll air a pillowcase--and then you must +go up there and tell them where she is--they'll be anxious----" + +"Shall I bring those twins of hers back with me while I'm about it?" +Stan asked satirically. "May as well put the lot up." + +When he heard Dorothy's reply he thought that his wife really had gone +mad. + +"I've arranged that," she said. "We shall be putting the twins up for a +time at Ludlow by and by while she and her husband go away somewhere for +a change. It's the least we can do. Don't stand gaping there, Stan----" + +"Hm! May I ask what's up?" + +"You may if you like, but I shan't tell you." + +"Hm!... Well--it's a dog's life--but I suppose it's no good my saying +anything----" + +"Not a bit." + +So Amory was put to bed, most unhygienically, in Dorothy's dining-room; +but in the middle of the night she woke, quite unable to remember where +she was. There was a narrow opening between the drawn curtains; through +it a glimmer of light shone on the Venetian blinds from the street-lamp +outside; and without any other light Amory got out of her improvised +couch. She felt her way along the wall to a switch, and then suddenly +flooded the room with light. + +Blinking, she looked around. She herself wore one of Dorothy's +nightgowns. On Stan's armchair, near his pipe-rack, was her hat, and her +clothing lay in a heap where she had stepped out of it. Dorothy's +slippers lay by the fender, and Dorothy had been too occupied to +remember to remove the photograph of Uncle Ben from the mantelpiece. It +seemed to be watching Amory as she stood, only half awake, in her +borrowed nightgown. + +It was odd, the way things came about---- + +If you had asked Amory at six o'clock the evening before where she +intended to spend the night, she would not have replied "In Dorothy +Tasker's flat----" + +But she felt frightfully listless, and the improvised bed was very +warm---- + +She switched off the light and crept back. + + + + +TAILPIECE + + +Along the terrace of the late Sir Noel Tasker's house--"The Brear," +Ludlow--there rushed a troop of ten or twelve urchins. They were dressed +anyhow, in variously-coloured jerseys, shirts, jackets and blazers, and +the legs of half of them were bare, and brown as sand. Their ages varied +from five to fifteen, and it is hardly necessary to say that as they ran +they shouted. A retriever, two Irish terriers, an Airedale and a +Sealyham tore barking after them. It was a July evening, amber and +windless, and the shouting and barking diminished as the horde turned +the corner of the long low white house and disappeared into the beech +plantation. Their tutor was enjoying a well-earned pipe in the +coach-house. + +From the tall drawing-room window there stepped on to the terrace a +group of older people. The sound of wheels slowly ascending the drive +could be heard. Lady Tasker came out first; she was followed by Cosimo +and Amory and Dorothy and Stan. A little pile of labelled bags stood +under the rose-grown verandah; the larger boxes had already gone on to +the station by cart. + +Stan took a whistle from his pocket and blew two shrill blasts; then he +drew out his watch. The sounds of shouting drew near again. + +"I give 'em thirty seconds," Stan remarked.... "Twenty-five, +twenty-six--leg it, Corin!--ah; twenty-eight!... Company--fall in!" + +The young Tims and the young Tonys, Corin and Bonniebell and the +terriers, stood (dogs and all, save for their tails) stiff as ramrods. +Stan replaced his watch. He had been fishing, and still wore his tweed +peaked cap, with a spare cast or two wound round it. + +"Company--'Shun! Stand a-a-at--ease! 'S you were! Stand a-a-at--ease! +Stand easy.... Tony, fall out and see to the bags. Tim, hold the horse. +Corin--Corin!--What do you keep in the trenches?" + +"Silence," piped up Corin. He had a rag round one brown knee, his head +was half buried in an old field-service cap, and he refused to be +parted, day nor night, from the wooden gun he carried. + +"Not so much noise then.--Who hauls down the flag to-night?" + +"Billie." + +"Billie stand by. The rest of you dismiss, but don't go far--'Evening, +Richards----" + +The trap drew up in front of the house. Tim held the horse's head, Tony +stood among the bags. The leavetaking began. + +Amory and Cosimo were going to Cumberland for the rest of the summer. +They would have liked to go to Norway, but the money would no longer +run to it. They seemed a little shy of one another. They had been at the +Brear a fortnight, and had had the little room over the porch. The twins +were remaining behind for the present. Dorothy had said they would be no +trouble. This was entirely untrue. They were more trouble than all the +rest put together. Corin, near the schoolroom window, was wrangling with +an eight years old Woodgate now. + +"They do, there! On Hampstead Heath! I've seen them, an' they've hats, +an' waterbottles, an' broomsticks!" + +"Pooh, broomsticks! My father has a big elephant-gun!" + +"Well ... mine goes to great big Meetings, an' says 'Hear hear!'" + +"My father's in India!" + +"Well, so was mine!" + +"_I've_ seen them troop the Colour at the Horse Guards' Parade!" + +"So've I!" Corin mendaciously averred. + +The other boy opened his eyes wide and protruded his mouth. It is rarely +that one boy does not know when another boy is lying. + +"Oh, what a big one! _You'd_ catch it if Uncle Stan heard you!" + +"Well," Corin pouted, "--I will--or else I'll cry all night--hard--and +I'll make Bonnie cry too!--" + +"Well, an' so shall I, again, an' then I'll have seen it twice, an' +you'll only have seen it once, an' if I see it every time you do you'll +_never_ have seen it as often as me!" + +Then Stan's voice was heard. + +"Corin, come here." + +It was an atmosphere of insensate militarism, but the Pratts were +content to leave their offspring to breathe it for the present. They had +another matter to attend to--their own marital relations. It had at last +occurred to them that you cannot rule others until you can govern +yourself, and they were going to see what could be done about it. They +had secured a cottage miles away from anywhere, at the head of a +narrow-gauge railway, and it remained to be seen whether quiet and +privacy and the resources they might find within themselves would avail +them better than the opposites of these things had done. There was just +the chance that they might--their only chance. The twins, if all went +well, would join them by and by. In the meantime they must see red, and +learn to do things with once telling. + +So Amory took the struggling Corin into her arms--he wanted to go to the +armoury of wooden guns--and kissed him. Then he ran unconcernedly off. +Dorothy saw the sad little lift of Amory's bosom, guessed the cause, and +laughed. + +"Shocking little ingrates!" she said. "Noel's joy when I go away is +sometimes indecent.--But don't be afraid they'll be any trouble to us +here. You see the rabble we have in any case." + +"It's very good of you," Amory murmured awkwardly. + +"Nothing of the sort. Stan loves to manage them--it keeps his hand in +for managing me, he says.... Now, I don't want to hurry you, but you'd +better be off if you're going to get as far as Liverpool to-night. +Good-bye, dear----" + +"Good-bye, Dorothy----" + +"So long, Pratt--up with those bags, Tim----" + +"Good-bye, Bonnie----" + +"Corin! Corin!--(Hm! See if I don't have you in hand in another week or +two, my boy!)--Come and say good-bye to your father." + +"Good-bye, Lady Tasker----" + +"All right?" + +The wheels crunched; hands were waved; the rabble gave a shockingly +undisciplined cheer; and young Arthur Woodgate, who had run along the +terrace and stood holding the gate at the end open, saluted. Stan took +out his watch again. + +"Four minutes to sunset," he announced. + +But there was no need to tell Billie to stand by to strike the flag that +hung motionless above the gable where the old billiard-room and gun-room +had been thrown together to make the schoolroom. The halyards were +already in his hands. + +"Here, Corin," Stan called, "you shall fire the gun to-night." + +Corin gave a wild yell of joy. Well out of reach, there was an electric +button on one of the rose-grown verandah posts. Stan lifted his newest +recruit to it, who put a finger-tip on it and shut his eyes---- + +"BANG!" went the little brass carronade in the locked enclosure behind +the woodshed---- + +And hand over hand Billie hauled the flag down. + +But it would be run up again in the morning. + + + + +_Printed by_ BUTLER & TANNER, _Frome and London_. + + + + + _SPRING 1914_ +METHUEN'S POPULAR NOVELS + +Crown 8vo, 6s. each + + +IT HAPPENED IN EGYPT + + By C. N. and A. M. WILLIAMSON, Authors of 'The Heather Moon,' + 'The Lightning Conductor,' etc. + +This book tells, in the charming manner of the authors, a story of +entrancing interest for travellers in Egypt and for home-dwellers too. A +young English diplomatist finds himself compelled by an unusual +combination of circumstances to become the temporary conductor of a +party of tourists cruising on the Mediterranean and seeing Egypt. His +strange new duties plunge him into the midst of adventures both comic +and serious. He composes quarrels, intervenes in love affairs, baffles +the agents of a secret society, conducts his charges successfully up the +Nile to Khartoum, and in the end finds love and treasure both for +himself and a faithful friend. + + +CHANCE + + By JOSEPH CONRAD, Author of 'The Nigger of the "Narcissus."' + +In this new romance, which Mr. Conrad unfolds in his fascinating and +curious way, partly by monologue, partly by narrative, we find the +author of _Lord Jim_ again revealing one of those strange cases of human +passion and disaster which he alone, of living writers, can present. The +sea is in the book, but it is not entirely a book of the sea. + + +WHOM GOD HATH JOINED + + By ARNOLD BENNETT, Author of 'Clayhanger.' + +This is a re-issue of one of Mr. Bennett's most famous novels. + + +THE WAY HOME + + By BASIL KING, Author of 'The Wild Olive.' + +This is the story, minutely and understandingly told, of a sinner, his +life and death. He is an ordinary man and no hero, and the final issue +raised concerns the right of one who has persistently disregarded +religion during his strength, in accepting its consolations when his end +is near: a question of interest to every one. The book, however, is not +a tract, but a very real novel. + + +OLD ANDY + + By DOROTHEA CONYERS, Author of 'Sandy Married,' etc. + +No one knows rural Ireland and its humours better than Mrs. Conyers, +whose intensely Hibernian stories are becoming so well known, and throw +such amusing light on that eternal and delightful Ireland which never +gets into the papers or politics. In _Old Andy_ there is a very charming +vein of sentiment as well as much fun and farce. + + +THE GOLDEN BARRIER + + By AGNES and EGERTON CASTLE, Authors of 'If Youth but Knew.' + +The main theme of this romance is the situation created by the +marriage--a marriage of love--of a comparatively poor man, proud, +chivalrous, and tender, to a wealthy heiress: a girl of refined and +generous instincts, but something of a wayward 'spoilt child,' loving to +use the power which her fortune gives her to play the Lady Mćcenas to a +crowd of impecunious flatterers, fortune hunters, and unrecognized +geniuses. On a critical occasion, thwarted in one of her mad schemes of +patronage by her husband, who tries to clear her society of these +sycophants and parasites, she petulantly taunts him with having been a +poor man himself, who happily married money. Outraged in his love and +pride, he offers her the choice of coming to share his poverty or of +living on, alone, amid her luxuries. There begins a conflict of wills +between these two, who remain in love with each other--prolonged +naturally, and embittered, by the efforts of the interested hangers-on +to keep the inconvenient husband out of Lady Mćcenas' house--but ending +in a happy surrender on both sides. + + +THE HAPPY HUNTING GROUND + + By ALICE PERRIN, Author of 'The Anglo-Indians.' + +A lively and entertaining story of Anglo-Indian life dealing with the +matrimonial adventures of a young lady whose forbears have all been +connected with the Indian services, and who is sent out to India to find +a husband in her own class of life, but marries an official of humble +origin ignorant of the circumstances of his birth. Troubles and +disappointments, which come near to real tragedy, end in the triumph of +grit and sincerity over social barriers. + + +THE FLYING INN + + By G. K. CHESTERTON. + +This story is partly a farcical romance of the adventures of the last +English Inn-keeper, when all Western Europe had been conquered by the +Moslem Empire and its dogma of abstinence from wine. It might well be +called 'What Might Have Been,' for it was sketched out before the legend +of the Invincible Turk was broken. It involves a narrative development +which is also something of a challenge in ethics. The lyrics called +'Songs of the Simple Life,' which appeared in _The New Witness_, are +sung between the Inn-keeper and his friend, the Irish Captain, who are +the principal characters in the romance. + + +THE WAY OF THESE WOMEN + + By E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM, Author of 'The Missing Delora.' + +In this story Mr. Phillips Oppenheim, who is never content to remain in +the same rut for long, has boldly deserted the somewhat complicated +mechanism which goes to the making of the modern romance. He has +contented himself with weaving a tensely written story around one Event, +and concentrating the whole love interest of the book upon two people. +The Event in itself is one simple enough, its use in fiction almost +hackneyed, yet the circumstances surrounding it are so tragical and +surprising, its hidden history so unexpected, that it easily serves as +the pivot of an interest arresting from the first, startling in its +latter stages, almost breathless in its last development. + + +A CROOKED MILE + + By OLIVER ONIONS, Author of 'The Two Kisses.' + +This is a story of a very modern marriage following the author's +previous story, _The Two Kisses_, of a very modern courtship. In it two +_ménages_ are contrasted, the one run on new and liberal and enlightened +lines, the other still dominated by the ideas of the benighted past. +What the difference between them comes to in the end depends entirely on +the interpretation put upon the story, but the comedy 'note' speaks for +itself. It may be remembered that _The Two Kisses_ touches on the +foibles of certain artists. _A Crooked Mile_ deals with the vagaries of +a certain airy amateurism in Imperial Politics. + + +THE SEA CAPTAIN + + By H. C. BAILEY, Author of 'The Lonely Queen.' + +One of the great company of Elizabethan seamen is the hero of this +novel. There is, however, no attempt at glorifying him or his comrades. +Mr. Bailey has endeavoured to mingle realism with the romance of the +time. Captain Rymingtowne is presented as no crusader but something of a +merchant, something of an adventurer and a little of a pirate. He has +nothing to do with the familiar tales of the Spanish Main and the +Indies. His voyages were to the Mediterranean when the Moorish corsairs +were at the height of their power, and of them and their great leaders, +Kheyr-éd-din Barbarossa and Dragut Reis, the story has much to tell. +Captain Rymingtowne was concerned in the famous Moorish raid to capture +the most beautiful woman in Europe and in the amazing affair of the +Christian prisoners at Alexandria. + + +FIREMEN HOT + + By C. J. CUTCLIFFE HYNE, Author of 'The Adventures of Captain + Kettle.' + +In _Firemen Hot_, Mr. Cutcliffe Hyne has added three clearly etched +portraits to a gallery which already contains those marine 'musketeers,' +Thompson, McTodd, and Captain Kettle. The marine fireman is probably at +about the bottom of the social scale, but, in Mr. Hyne's pages, he is +very much the human being. In each chapter the redoubtable trio play +before a different background, but whether they are in New Orleans or +Hull, in Vera Cruz or Marseilles, one can tell in a paragraph that the +author is writing of his ground from first-hand knowledge, and his +characters from intimate and joyous study of them. A few Captain Kettle +stories have been added. + + +SIMPSON + + By ELINOR MORDAUNT, Author of 'The Cost of It.' + +Simpson is a retired business man in the prime of life, who, beneath a +rugged exterior, possesses a sympathetic heart. Yet, finding no woman to +fill it, he organizes a bachelor's club of congenial spirits and leases +a fine old English country estate, there to live in _dolce far niente_ +untroubled by feminism in any form. How first one member of the club and +then another drops away for sentimental reasons until only Simpson is +left, and then his final capitulation to the only woman--all this makes +a delightful bit of comedy. The book, however, is more than a comedy. +Running through it is a sound knowledge of human life and character, and +the writing is always brilliant. It is a book out of the ordinary in +every way. + + +TWO WOMEN + + By MAX PEMBERTON, Author of 'The Mystery of the Green Heart.' + + +DAVID AND JONATHAN IN THE RIVIERA + + By L. B. WALFORD, Author of 'Mr. Smith.' + +Two simple, unsophisticated bachelors, respectively minister and elder +of a Scotch country parish, go to the Riviera for health's sake, and the +rich and jovial 'Jonathan,' older by fifteen years than his friend, +means to have a merry time, and to force the reluctant, shy, and +sensitive 'David' into having a merry time too. He 'opines' that David +needs waking up. Jonathan Buckie reminds us of Mrs. Walford's earlier +hero 'Mr. Smith,' but unluckily his heart of gold is not united to the +latter's personal charms, and he continually jars upon his companion, +especially when making new acquaintances. His habit of doing this in and +out of season eventually leads to disaster, and both men pass through a +never-to-be-forgotten experience of the sirens of the South before they +return home. An old Scotch serving-man, who attends Mr. Buckie as valet, +plays no small part in the story, and his sardonic comments, grim +humour, and the way in which he handles his master, whose measure he has +taken to a nicety, make many amusing episodes. + + +THE ORLEY TRADITION + + By RALPH STRAUS. + +The Orleys are an old noble family, once powerful, but now living +quietly in a corner of England (Kent). They do nothing at all, in spite +of people's endeavours to make them reach to the older heights. But they +are happy in their retirement, and the real reason for this is that they +have few brains. John Orley, the hero, has all the family +characteristics, and is preparing himself for a humdrum country life, +when he meets with an accident which prevents him from playing games, +etc. He becomes ambitious, goes out into the world, and--fails at +everything. He recovers his strength, and sees the mistake he has made, +and the book ends as it began, the Orley Tradition holding true. + + +ON THE STAIRCASE + + By FRANK SWINNERTON. + +The scene of Mr. Frank Swinnerton's new novel is set in the heart of +London, in the parish of Holborn. The reproduction of manners, and the +revelation by this means of the spirit underlying those manners, forms +the framework of a story of passion. In the main, therefore, _On the +Staircase_ is a romance with a clearly defined setting of commonplace +happenings, in which the loves of Barbara Gretton and Adrian Velancourt +are shown in conflict with the action of circumstance. The book is in no +sense photographic, but it has value as a social picture, being based +upon genuine observation. + + +MAN AND WOMAN + + By L. G. MOBERLY, Author of 'Joy.' + +This story, which is based on Tennyson's lines--'The woman's cause is +man's, they rise or sink together'--has for its chief character a woman +who takes the feminist view that man is the enemy; a view from which she +is ultimately converted. Another prominent character is one whose love +is given to a weak man, her axiom being that love takes no heed of the +worthiness or unworthiness of its object. The scene is laid partly in +London, partly in a country cottage, and partly in India during the +Durbar of the King-Emperor. + + +MAX CARRADOS + + By ERNEST BRAMAH, Author of 'The Wallet of Kai Lung.' + +Max Carrados is blind, but in his case blindness is more than +counter-balanced by an enormously enhanced perception of the other +senses. How these serve their purpose in the various difficulties and +emergencies that confront the wealthy amateur when, through the +instigation of his friend Louis Carlyle, a private inquiry agent, he +devotes himself to the elucidation of mysteries, is the basis of Mr. +Ernest Bramah's new book. The adventures that ensue range from +sensational tragedy to romantic comedy as the occasions rise. + + +THE MAN UPSTAIRS + + By P. G. WODEHOUSE, Author of 'The Little Nugget.' + +Under this title Mr. Wodehouse has collected nineteen of the short +stories written by him in the past four years. Mr. Wodehouse is one of +the few English short-story writers with an equally large public on both +sides of the Atlantic: but only two of these stories have an American +setting. All except one of this collection are humorous, and some idea +of the variety of incident of the remainder may be gathered from the +fact that their heroes include a barber, a gardener, an artist, a +playwriter, a tramp, a waiter, an hotel clerk, a golfer, a stockbroker, +a butler, a bank clerk, an assistant master at a private school, an +insurance clerk, a peer's son who is also a leading member of a First +League Association football team, and a Knight of King Arthur's Round +Table who is neither brave nor handsome. + + +SQUARE PEGS + + By CHARLES INGE, Author of 'The Unknown Quantity.' + +This novel raises again the absorbing question as to what is failure and +what success. It tells how a big man from South Africa sets out to +conquer London--the London of the Lobby and the Clubs--with a threepenny +weekly paper and sympathy for the unemployed; how he fails, but in +failure wins his woman; how she too suffers in the London of women +workers. There is, on the other side, the little solicitor who +calculates for and succeeds by the other's failure; but in succeeding +loses. The background includes the life drama of an enthusiast for +Labour reform. + + +MESSENGERS + + By MARGARET HOPE, Author of 'Christina Holbrook.' + +A story of the sudden yielding to temptation of a woman of good +position. She suffers for her fault in prison, but her sufferings on +release are ten times greater. She tries her utmost to keep the +knowledge of her guilt from her daughter, a girl just left school, but +in vain. The girl, in a painful scene, demands to be told the truth, and +the mother, unable to bear the sight of her child's misery, flies from +home, hoping still in some way to retrieve the past. But the net of +circumstance is too strongly woven. + + +ENTER AN AMERICAN + + By E. CROSBY-HEATH, Author of 'Henrietta taking Notes.' + +The hero of Miss Crosby-Heath's new novel is a self-made American, who +comes to London and enters a Home for Paying Guests. He is an optimistic +philanthropist, and he contrives to help all the English friends he +makes. His own crudity is modified by his London experiences, and the +dull minds of his middle-class English friends are broadened by contact +with his untrammelled personality. A humorous love interest runs through +the book. + + +THE FRUITS OF THE MORROW + + By AGNES JACOMB, Author of 'The Faith of his Fathers.' + +_The Fruits of the Morrow_ is a novel showing the consequences of a +man's and a woman's conduct in the past and how it affects the lives of +their two sons. The other characters of the story are in different +degrees involved in the results of the old romance, but not +irredeemably. There is no hero in the ordinary sense of the word, the +four male characters being of almost equal importance. The action takes +place mainly in East Anglia and during the months of one summer. + + +A GIRL FROM MEXICO + + By R. B. TOWNSHEND, Author of 'Lone Pine.' + +Adventures are to the adventurous, and a very young Oxford man who +strikes out for himself in the wild and woolly West is apt to come in +for some lively developments. He gets an exciting start by going +partners with a Mormon-eating American desperado, and when the +unsophisticated youth falls in love with a velvet-eyed Mexican senorita, +and then finds himself called upon in honour to play the part of Don +Quixote, things begin to get tangled up. Finally he becomes involved in +a struggle, not only with Mormons but with Mexican self-torturers in a +great scene on the Calvary of the Penitentes which forms the climax of +the story. + + +SARAH MIDGET + + By LINCOLN GREY. + +In the sedate atmosphere of a quiet country town there develop the later +phases of a man's sin, when he has become rich and powerful, and the +woman whom he thrust aside in his early manhood learns, all +unconsciously, to love the son of her successful rival. How Sarah Midget +rises, in the shock of a great tragedy, to supreme heights of +self-sacrifice, is shown in poignant and moving scenes. + + +AN ASTOUNDING GOLF MATCH + + By 'STANCLIFFE,' Author of 'Fun on the Billiard Table' and 'Golf + Do's and Dont's.' + +The narrative of the adventures of two golfers of equal handicaps, but +different styles, who being dissatisfied with the result of two home and +home matches, decide that golf across country from links to links, would +be more scientific and interesting than golf where all the hazards are +known. The troubles that befell them, and how the match came to an +abrupt termination, to the discomfort of one and the joy of the other, +are told in this book. + + +BLACKLAW + + By Sir GEORGE MAKGILL. + +This is a study in temperaments--a contrast between the old and the new +views of the relations between parent and child. Lord Blacklaw throws up +rank and fortune, takes his children to the Colonies to live 'the +Patriarchal Life,' and sacrifices their future to his own impulses. John +Westray, on the other hand, gives up happiness, even life itself, for +what he deems his son's welfare. Each from his own point of view fails, +yet neither life is wholly wasted. The scenes are laid in Scotland, New +Zealand, and in a Cornish Art Colony. + + +POTTER AND CLAY + + By Mrs. STANLEY WRENCH, Author of 'Love's Fool,' 'Pillars of + Smoke,' 'The Court of the Gentiles,' etc. + +In this story the author returns to the peasant folk of the Midlands +whom she knows so well, and of whom she has written with sympathetic +frankness in several books already. Just now, when the land question is +so much discussed, this novel, dealing in the main with tillers of the +soil, should receive careful attention. + + +A ROMAN PICTURE + + By PAUL WAINEMAN, Author of 'A Heroine from Finland.' + +Mr. Paul Waineman, the Finnish novelist who has so far allowed his pen +only to describe his native land Finland, has in his latest work essayed +a new and also very old hunting ground for those in search of romance. +_A Roman Picture_ is a romantic love story, set in the Mother City of +the world, Rome. The author, from personal experience, shows up in a +daring manner the hatred that still exists between the old and the new +Rome. The heavy shadows and many memories within the vast decaying Roman +palace, haunted by the living presence of the young and beautiful Donna +Bianca Savelli, the last representative of an ancient line, form a +pen-picture which will appeal to the many lovers of Rome. + + +THE GIRL ON THE GREEN + + By MARK ALLERTON, Author of 'Such and Such Things.' + +The atmosphere of the links pervades Mark Allerton's new novel. The wind +from the sea blows fresh through its pages. The heroine is a charming, +high-spirited girl who on her way from college to Bury St. Dunstan's, +has an unexpected excursion into Militancy. The author has no views to +present on the Suffrage Movement; nor, indeed, has his heroine, whose +not-to-be-explained week-end in a police cell gives ample scope for a +highly amusing and exciting story. While _The Girl on the Green_ makes a +bid for general popularity, golfers will find it of particular interest. +Mark Allerton is well known as a writer on the game, and his description +of the great golf match between the hero and heroine will be found full +of sly allusions to topics in the knowledge of all golfers, as well as +an uncommonly racy and exciting finish to a breezy story. + + +DICKIE DEVON + + By JOHN OVERTON, Author of 'Lynette.' + +Mr. John Overton's second novel is laid in Worcestershire in the summer +of 1644, and is the story of a young Cavalier, forced by adverse +circumstances to become a spy among the Roundheads. His position is a +difficult and dangerous one, and matters are made worse by the advent of +a spoilt Court beauty, who--mistaking him for another man--imagines +herself to be his wife. Readers of _Lynette_ will welcome the +reappearance of the happy-go-lucky Irishman, Michael Fleming, who plays +a leading part in this romance of love and war. + + +THE STORY OF A CIRCLE + + By M. A. CURTOIS, Author of 'A Summer in Cornwall.' + +A story of an experiment in the Occult, in which some ladies who began +by being idly interested in psychical research, find themselves in +dangerous contact with the material necessities of mediums. Much light +is cast upon that strange population of charlatans who grow fat on the +credulity of the foolish in London. + + +LOTTERIES OF CIRCUMSTANCE + + By R. C. LYNEGROVE. + +This story is laid in Germany, and describes the matrimonial adventures +of two sisters belonging to the impoverished German aristocracy. The +elder, gentle and unselfish, marries into the vulgar domineering family +of Gubbenmeyer. The other, flirtatious and attractive, saves herself and +her family from penury by securing a rich officer, only to jeopardize +everything through her undisciplined and sensuous temperament. + + +-----------------------------------------------------------------+ + | Transcriber's Notes: | + | | + | Words surrounded by _ are italicized. | + | | + | Obvious punctuation errors repaired. | + | | + | Printer's errors repaired, including: | + | - Page 128, "interestng" corrected to be "interesting" (really | + | interesting detail) | + | - Page 129, "advertisments" corrected to be "advertisements" | + | (advertisements had not) | + | - Page 217, "necesarily" corrected to be "necessarily" (did not | + | necessarily) | + | - Page 219, "relasped" corrected to be "relapsed" (relapsed | + | into silence) | + | - Page 227, "if" corrected to be "it" (take it for) | + | - Page 233, "ideals" corrected to be "ideas" (ideas seem | + | original) | + | - Page 295, "premisses" corrected to be "premises" (own | + | premises) | + | - Page 296, "what "what" corrected to be "what" ("what we've | + | heard) | + | - Page 302, "consspiratoriably" corrected to be | + | "conspiratoriably" (knitting conspiratoriably) | + | | + | Other variable spellings within the text retained, including: | + | - The same word with and without apostrophe, for example: | + | "Golder's Green" and "Golders Green" | + | - The same word with and without accent, for example: | + | "régime" and "regime" | + | - The same word with and without hyphen, for example: | + | "off-handedly" and "offhandedly" | + | - Inconsistent spelling, for example: "by and by" and "by and | + | bye" | + | | + +-----------------------------------------------------------------+ + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Crooked Mile, by Oliver Onions + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CROOKED MILE *** + +***** This file should be named 37584-8.txt or 37584-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/7/5/8/37584/ + +Produced by Judith Wirawan, Suzanne Shell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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