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diff --git a/79009-0.txt b/79009-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..778e1c8 --- /dev/null +++ b/79009-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9423 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79009 *** + + + [Cover Illustration] + +[Illustration: _In the Tower Room._] + + + + + A + SERVANT OF REALITY + + + BY + PHYLLIS BOTTOME + Author of “The Dark Tower,” “The Second + Fiddle,” “Helen of Troy and Rose,” etc. + + ILLUSTRATED BY + NORMAN PRICE + + + + + NEW YORK + THE CENTURY CO. + 1919 + + + + + Copyright, 1919, by + THE CENTURY CO. + + + _Published, October, 1919_ + + + + + TO + BETTY AND MAIDA + + + + + LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + 1. In the Tower Room + + 2. Daphne pushed him back into his chair and knelt beside + him + + 3. He did not know what was left of him or what was Kitty + + 4. There was no curtain left between Anthony and his pain + + 5. Like one of the June butterflies that haunt the down + country + + + CHAPTER I + +Anthony Arden closed his eyes; he was trying to let the unutterable +misery of two years slip from him. It was over; it was all over, as over +as an extracted tooth, but he could not yet feel relief or exultation. +These feelings must come later, when he saw England. When he closed his +eyes he escaped seeing the very fat, red neck, passing without gradation +into the round-shaped head of his German guard. + +In two hours he would be over the frontier into Holland and have no +guard. He kept saying to himself, “Free! free! free!” The word sounded +perfectly meaningless. Fears assailed him; he was quite used to fears, +ordinary fears about food, vermin, a bullying sergeant, or the collapse +of a fellow-prisoner. These were reasonable fears; the new kind were +not. They were too much like hopes; they were really terrible. + +He had never been one of the men who collapsed; but he knew all about +collapses. He had fought them as St. Paul fought with the beasts at +Ephesus. + +He knew their beginnings, the ominous vacillations of the will, when a +man could wait for a quarter of an hour before deciding which foot to +put his boot on. This would be the prelude to a fearful lethargy. +Anthony had watched the restlessness of the driven body before the mind +suddenly ceased to drive it; the rush and flutter of the helpless +thoughts till the interludes came; the blank spaces when the thoughts +subsided, and the thinker, exhausted, overwrought, and trembling, would +appeal to him for drugs. Bromide was useful if there was any tiding over +to be done, but too often it edged stupor with despair, and one could +seldom tide over the illimitable seas of prolonged imprisonment. + +Anthony was a wonderful hand at keeping people up. Even the Germans +appreciated his power, and as they had by that time learned to prefer +sane prisoners to mad ones, they gave him all the drugs he asked for and +freedom to apply what other methods occurred to him. + +Anthony had entered the war as one of the fighting forces; but in +another life, a strange, safe, horizonless, dignified world, where men +thought and acted without compulsion and knew next to nothing of fear, +he had been a rising young surgeon with an unshakable nerve. He was the +type of man who always rises; he could absorb himself in his aims and +control his desires and yet escape the tyranny of self. + +The universe was his center; he was not the center of the universe. He +had no use for emotions and was not easily put out. He loved his home +and went there very seldom. He disagreed with his father whenever they +met, and wrote to his mother regularly once a week, on half-sheets of +paper, without telling her anything. + +Daphne, his favorite sister, infuriated and delighted him; he +disapproved of everything she did, and generally found himself helping +her to do it. His eldest brother Tom, he never wrote to, seldom saw, and +loved ineradicably. Anthony would not have called it “love,” neither +would Tom; but neither would have hesitated an instant to die for the +other. Tom had been killed. There was a third brother, Henry, cleverer +than Tom, who fortunately had varicose veins. Owing to this he knew +nothing about the war except what he was told and what he had gathered +from the newspapers. He had a flat in London. Anthony was going there +now. + +London! He didn’t really believe in it; that was why he shut his eyes to +see it better. While he was a prisoner he had never dared to make +pictures he could see; that was one of the ways in which men collapsed. +They got to seeing things; quite sensible things at first, things that +were there. Then they started seeing things that were not. It was always +better to keep one’s eyes fixed on little, every-day facts. + +Anthony knew that London was safe. Zeppelins had done their best, +aëroplanes had touched London as a boy’s catapult drops pebbles into a +field. You had to hunt to find the pebbles; the field remained placidly +unshaken. + +Daphne always slipped into her letters, “Funny old London is just the +same.” It was one of the faults he used to find with Daphne that she +overlooked the essential, but he had not known how realistic it made +letters. All his people had been wonderful about writing; they had +arranged it among themselves so that somebody, even if it was only an +aunt, wrote to him every day in the week. And they had thought of +everything in the way of parcels. + +There had been six months’ hell first. Hell is a place where you are +forgotten by all you love and remembered by all you hate. Fortunately, +this was at the beginning, when Anthony had his self-control intact, +except for the first forty-eight hours. Anthony hadn’t been +self-controlled then, but he had not expected to have his broken leg +kicked. It had startled him very much. He had resented it, and they had +hurt him. They had hurt him so that when he remembered it he began to +tremble all over and to feel like ice. It wasn’t the actual physical +pain alone; it was the cruelty and the surprise. It was such a strange +feeling, to be quite powerless and hated, especially when one had lived +a particularly normal and kindly life and never known anything about +hate. + +Hate is such a funny, medieval little word, like devil or hell; it means +nothing till one has tried it. When Anthony was a young man and knew +everything, and had learned nothing, he had laughed at these little +medieval words. He had called them, rather proudly, to his mother, +“theological nursery toys,” and she had said, “I wonder.” But he +wouldn’t have believed then that men could cry like children, or stop +crying and go to pieces—utterly to little pieces before other men’s +eyes. He hadn’t supposed, either, that other men could laugh at them or +have such cruel eyes. + +It had shot through him once or twice, during those first six months, +that he had believed, actually believed, that people always behaved like +human beings. He might just as well have swallowed the old story of +Jonah and the whale. It was much better afterward. He himself had helped +to make it better; he hadn’t realized his own struggles. It just seemed +very gradually to have got bearable; and when it was bearable, he had +discovered that he was old. + +All the top of his short, tight curls were gray, he could walk straight +with a very slight limp, and hold his head up; but his keen, gray eyes +were not as steady as they used to be, and if any one spoke loudly, he +jumped, or if they moved near him quickly, he flinched like a beaten +dog. Yes, he knew all about hate, and when the letters and the parcels +broke through, and he found the other world still existed and he was +remembered, passionately remembered and loved, just as if he were alive, +he learned something about love. + +His mother ceased to be a not very clear-thinking, extremely +old-fashioned, middle-aged lady who had lived in the country all her +life, and who would keep asking him to go to church; she became instead +a steady hand to hold on to in a darkened room. + +And as for Daphne, incapable, inconsequent, and most flirtatious Daphne, +who forgot everything and never answered any one, and was always doing +what she had much better not, and suggesting you should bear the +consequences of it because you were so sensible, he couldn’t have told +any one what Daphne meant to him. She never forgot a post, and knew +mysteriously the very moods in which he would meet her letters, and she +would go on being just what she always was, only regularly. Her very +voice reached him, like a lark singing under his window at dawn. It was +her letter he got first about Tom; he always saw it in her words, but as +if she had first put her own heart between him and the blow. + +It was incredible to him that he could once have thought it a bore to go +down to Pannell for week-ends. The whole of his body and all his being +ached for home. Every night for a few minutes before he slept, if sleep +were possible, he had allowed himself to think of Pannell. First, the +railway station “Boscott,” with its blue lobelias picked out with white +chalk stones by Tuppins, the station-master. Then Daphne with her hair +half down her back, because she’d driven the pony in by herself and it +“hadn’t exactly” bolted; then, beyond Daphne’s hair and eyes, the line +of the downs, sometimes swathed in milky mists, and sometimes very firm +and velvety under a fleet of flying clouds. Boscott was a small village +with yellow barns dropped in a hollow. + +Pannell Manor was in Pannell woods. There was an open space for it, and +the downs rose up in front of it. The church had been built at its gate, +on a lawn with flitting shadows of deer. The deer slipped delicately in +and out of patches of bracken. A wall separated them from the smooth +green terrace in front of the house, but you could always look over it +toward the downs, and watch the deer steal between the trees. + +Pannell was an Elizabethan house, and the front of it was a mass of +tall, thin windows shining out of old gray and yellow stone. It had +suited Tom to perfection. It made Anthony sick to remember how it had +suited Tom. It would be Anthony’s now, and he wasn’t a landowning type; +he would simply have to do what he could with it in the intervals of his +profession. Unfortunately, Pannell wasn’t a place with which to do +things at intervals. It wanted the steady landlore of a practical, +unimaginative Sussex man. It wanted Tom. It had always belonged to +people like Tom; slow, patient, good-natured people who knew how to +leave things alone and never hurried anything except a fox. The land +would have to miss them for a generation now, because most of them were +dead. + + * * * * * + +They were at the frontier at last. Anthony got out on to the platform +with several other men. They all looked dazed and a little +uncomfortable, and tried to pretend that they knew how to move about on +platforms and get freely, without shouted directions, into trains. +Fortunately, the Dutch guards helped them. + +They had very little to say to one another. They lit cigarettes with +shaking hands and grinned nervously when they met one another’s eyes. Of +course they were enjoying themselves awfully and weren’t afraid of an +accident on the train or the boat going down or suddenly finding they +were dying of some acute disease, and couldn’t get home first. It was +absurd to suppose that they could have such fears, for they were all +quite ordinary young Englishmen who had been in German prisons only a +few years. They were perfectly all right, really; they had made a point +of saying this in all their letters home. + +Anthony knew exactly how they felt. He advised them to get a drink, but +they were all too afraid of missing their connection, which couldn’t +start for half an hour. Anthony forced himself to go into the +waiting-room and order a drink. He was very proud of still being able to +make himself do things, and a little self-conscious about it. He had +forgotten the time when he wasn’t self-conscious and never had to make +himself do perfectly obvious things. + +They took the journey through Holland by moonlight. The country +stretched out in a sheet of silver; water and land melted together into +a delicate mist. The windmills moved across it like the black wings of +strange, inanimate birds. There were no walls and no barbed wire; just +wide-open spaces, with a low, broad sky above them. + +They got on to the boat at midnight, and some one said it was England +already, for boats were always England. There were a few wives who had +not been able to wait for their husbands to reach England. They met them +shyly and without words; and afterward, Anthony noticed, even though +they were together, they still had a look of stubborn longing in their +eyes. + +Anthony was not going to be met at all; he had arranged everything with +Henry. He would go to Henry’s rooms for a night and just hear how +everything was and be told about Tom; that would make things easier for +his mother. He would go down to Pannell next day; he had particularly +said he didn’t want Daphne to come up. He wanted to get into things +gradually. + +There could be no possible danger of the boat sinking; he told several +fellows who asked him that all the accursed mines were swept away, the +seas were free. They were English and they were free. Of course he +didn’t say this, nor did the other men; they merely felt it moving +stubbornly in their hearts without words. + +Anthony fully intended to go to sleep. He had wired for a berth, and the +other men were quiet as mice; but he was under the impression that none +of them slept; they were all quite ready to run up on deck if by any +chance one of the mines had been overlooked. His idea had been to get up +very early and watch the cliffs creep close across the sea. He +remembered a poem of Macaulay’s which he had learned as a boy—it was +called “The Jacobite’s Epitaph” and was a short reticent poem, with a +line in it which had always haunted him,— + + By those white cliffs I never more may see— + +Well, he wanted to see them; but when the boat arrived, England was lost +in a blur of rain. He saw nothing but a solid wall of grayness rising up +in front of him. The other men were on deck very early, too; apparently +the same idea had occurred to them, but none of them said anything about +Macaulay’s poetry. + +It took an eternity to get alongside the wharf, and lots of accidents +might have happened. Nobody spoke except the youngest of them, who had +been in prison only a few months, and he remembered that it would be +jolly to get a good hot cup of tea, and wondered if they still made dear +old moldy buns. + +There was no cheering to greet them, because they were not the first +boat-load of prisoners to reach England, and it was particularly early +in the morning. But there were two trains waiting, small, comfortable +English trains that ran on velvet lines through an endless expanse of +wet, green fields. + +Two hours later the London Terminus closed on them like a large black +shell. Nobody took any notice of them; they weren’t, of course, any +different from anybody else, except that they weren’t quite so smart at +picking up a taxi as people who haven’t been in German prisons. They let +opportunities slip. + +Anthony was one of the first to get one. He shook hands with several of +the fellows who hadn’t been specially met, and gave a lift to a +particularly bewildered looking boy who had forgotten where he lived for +the moment, but thought they’d remember it for him at the Oxford and +Cambridge Club. He was very proud because, although he had forgotten his +address, he could remember his own name perfectly. + +Anthony wanted to explain to the boy that they had got back into a world +where people were in the habit of remembering their own names, and that +they must try to appear as much like ordinary people as possible. But +when Anthony began to explain, he was brought up short, because he +realized that he himself couldn’t quite remember how ordinary people +behaved. + +Just as the quick, organized traffic in the streets was a dangerous blur +to his unaccustomed eyes, so were those old unconscious ways of normal +people a strange, a perilous blur to his insecure and unaccustomed +senses. + +Fortunately, some one at the club did remember the boy’s address, but +there was no one who could fill in the curious unexpected gaps in +Anthony’s hidden mind. + + + CHAPTER II + +Civilization had gone to pieces, but outwardly London looked just the +same. The winding loops of traffic weaved their perpetual chain, checked +by imperturbable, blue policemen; picture palaces and public houses, +congested tubes and swinging ’buses, the long, blue shadows of the dusk +and the arched lights of the street corners, had no new secrets to +reveal. The husks of everything Anthony saw were mercilessly indifferent +to change. + +But surely the people would be different? People cannot pass through +hell and keep their values of life the same; they cannot lose security +and not gain a certain spiritual significance. + +It was startling to Anthony to find that Henry had not altered at all; +he did not even look older. He lived in the same charming rooms, full of +old French china. Henry could not afford good pictures, so he had very +wisely limited himself to excellent prints. His books neither frightened +the unreading public nor shocked the cultivated. Henry had kept an +expensive cook, and during the war by her help had evaded food +difficulties while keeping patriotically within his rations. There was +no track once beaten that Henry did not follow; nor had he ever found it +difficult to believe what he knew to be generally accepted. He shook +hands with Anthony with some emotion, and asked twice how he was. + +“This is really tremendous,” Henry exclaimed, “quite tremendous.” The +situation promptly dwindled under his qualifying adjectives. “By Jove! +what a lot we shall have to talk over! How does it feel to be back?” + +“I can’t tell you yet,” said Anthony, sinking into a luxurious arm-chair +before the fire. “Physically it’s comfortable. I’ve often thought of +this arm-chair.” + +Henry said, “My dear fellow!” deprecatingly. He hoped he wasn’t going to +hear too much about hardship; he always skipped what he referred to as +“literary horrors” in the accounts of war correspondents. “Things,” as +he often used to say without specifying what things, “were quite bad +enough without unduly harrowing one’s feelings.” + +“We’ll have dinner in a minute,” Henry continued cheerfully, “and then +we’ll make history. Of course I know everybody has written regularly to +you, but it’s quite extraordinary how facts drop out one way or another +in correspondence—quite important little facts.” + +“I haven’t written everything back,” observed Anthony in a queer, tired +voice, which sounded thick. “You see, I couldn’t—lots of things. I +couldn’t; but I dare say they don’t matter now.” + +“I knew you’d take a sensible view,” Henry agreed eagerly. “It’s no use +raking over old troubles, is it? I assure you we’ve all had hardships to +bear as well; air raids, for instance, _most_ unpleasant and so noisy. +The servants felt it a great deal. The one thing that has kept me up +during the last few years has been the spirit of cheeriness. I’ve +insisted upon taking a bright view of things, and I’ve found it paid; +over and over again I’ve found it paid.” + +“You would find it pay,” Anthony agreed after a short pause, looking +round the room with curious, inattentive eyes. “And none of the china +has been broken, has it? It seems to me I remember all the pieces.” + +“No,” Henry replied; “Mary is very careful, you know. I shouldn’t let +her touch them if she wasn’t. Some of this is priceless.” + +“Quite right,” agreed Anthony. “Only being careful doesn’t always +prevent things from being broken, does it? There’s an awful lot of luck +in what breaks and what doesn’t. D’you mind, before we have dinner, +telling me what’s known about Tom?” + +Anthony moved as he spoke, and crouched forward a little over the fire +as if he were cold. Henry couldn’t see his face; he was privately +shocked at the thin, rather weak, and shaky look of his restored +brother. + +Anthony had not kept his spirit up; he had lost smartness in a manner +that, if it was pitiable, was also annoying to a relative who had been +prepared to be proud of him. And it showed a certain lack of tact upon +Anthony’s part to ask Henry about Tom before dinner. + +“I expect,” Henry said in a grave, constrained voice, which indicated +deep feeling without transgressing good taste, “you know practically all +there is to know already. Tom was acting as Forward observing officer in +one of the woods on the Somme. It is a little confusing, as no one +actually saw what took place, but they suppose a shell caught him and +his telephonist. The messages stopped, and when they advanced they found +the bodies. The major wrote, of course, and several of his +brother-officers. Mother will show you all the letters. Dear old Tom, he +did his duty like—” + +Henry stopped abruptly. He was going to say a Briton or a hero; a burst +of most appalling profanity checked him. + +He stared blankly at the crouched and blasphemous figure in front of the +fire. Anthony cursed steadily and monotonously for several seconds. He +seemed beyond his own control; then he pulled himself together. + +“I beg your pardon, old man,” he stammered. “I—I—my nerves, you know; +that was why I wanted to have my home-coming over gradually. Don’t pay +any attention to me. I’ll be all right in a minute. What I want to know +is, How long was it between the time they got Tom’s last message and +found the body? That’s all I want to know.” + +“Have a whisky and soda,” Henry murmured sympathetically. “Of course +it’s quite natural you should be upset; it would have been better to go +into all this after dinner. As far as I can make out—the major was a +little vague—there were three days before they actually found the body; +but of course Tom was killed instantly. All of them said so in their +letters. It was a great comfort to us to feel that there could have been +no actual suffering—my God! Anthony! don’t laugh like that! It doesn’t +sound human; it really doesn’t. Here, take this whisky and soda!” + +Henry had to force the glass between Anthony’s stiffened lips. He was +bowed and contracted with his unearthly laughter. His hands shook as if +he were in an ague; his whole body shook. Henry had never been in such a +situation in his life, and all of it was perfectly unnecessary. Tom had +been dead two years. Then Anthony gasped out: + +“Thanks. Yes, that’s what I wanted to know—three days.” The whisky and +soda had quieted him. He stopped trembling. + +Mary came in and announced dinner. + +Henry asked Anthony considerately if he would like to wait five minutes, +but Anthony, without any consideration whatever, replied that he was as +hungry as a wolf. He really did seem very hungry, and ate like a wolf, +but he drank nothing. Henry heard him say in a whisper that was +perfectly audible: + +“If I drink anything, I shall go to pieces. If I drink anything, I shall +go to pieces.” + +Henry looked anxiously at Mary, but her eyes were intent upon a green +vegetable, over which she noiselessly readjusted one of Henry’s solid +silver spoons. Anthony did not notice Mary at all, but in helping +himself he dropped the spoon. + +When they were back again in Henry’s drawing-room, Anthony moved +restlessly about and tried to pull the curtains to look out of the +window. + +Henry said: + +“Sit down, my dear old chap,” and Anthony sat down with a jerk, as if +some one had pulled him. + +“I don’t know if you would like me to run over the terms of Tom’s will,” +Henry suggested. “I suppose we must dip into business some time or +other, but perhaps—” + +“Run over anything you like now,” said Anthony. He leaned back in his +arm-chair and closed his eyes, but he wasn’t asleep. He followed Henry’s +excellent account of business affairs with his old clear-cut attention. +Henry was greatly relieved at the questions Anthony shot out at him. He +went on to speak of Pannell. + +“It wouldn’t be a bad thing if you were home for a time to look after +things,” Henry suggested. “Father has lost grip. You’ll notice a +difference in him, and in mother, too. The strain upon those who +remained at home has been greater perhaps than you fellows quite +realize.” Henry sighed a little reproachfully. He wanted Anthony to +understand that he had not been the only one to suffer; he felt that +self-pity would be very bad for a man of Anthony’s type. “I mustn’t +weaken him by my sympathy,” Henry reminded himself. + +“Yes,” said Anthony, without opening his eyes. “If people realized it, +it must have been—I was going to say worse for them; but mercifully +we’re so built that what we don’t see reaches only the most imaginative. +Knowledge and realization seldom meet. I see that now. I used to +believe, as a doctor, that I knew something about pain; but of course I +didn’t. I knew as much about it as people know of an earthquake shock +from reading about it in a newspaper. My nerves were untouched.” + +“I have always thought doctors must be rather insensitive,” said Henry, +complacently. “Frankly, I have never been able to stand the sight of +suffering. I suppose things were pretty rotten over there for you?” As +Anthony did not answer, Henry added tactfully, “You must tell me all +about it some time when you feel more up to the mark, and things get +easier to talk about.” + +Anthony’s eyelids flickered; the lines between his lips and his mouth +were deep as furrows. + +It was obvious that with his usual good sense he agreed with Henry that +it was better to postpone the history of his captivity. + +Still, Henry did not want to postpone it entirely. He was curious to be +told something about it—how many meals one got a day, and what amount +of exercises one was allowed to take. He wanted to hear the kind of +things one could afterwards talk over comfortably at the club with the +other fellows. + +But Anthony had lost the faculty of realizing what was expected of him +in conversation. He didn’t follow the line of Henry’s thoughts. He began +abruptly: + +“Those were awfully good cigarettes you kept sending me. Wonderful what +a civilizing thing a cigarette is! Did some fellows good, you know, just +to look at them; kept them up to the mark. ’Pon my word, I shouldn’t +wonder if it helped ’em to be straight more than their prayers. What one +wants, you know, out there is some point to hold on to, some point +outside oneself. Religions that push you inside yourself make a shocking +mess of it, and all religions do it too much. What you want is to get +out, no matter how small the point you’re aiming at; then you’re safe—I +mean that’s your chance of keeping sane. Of course it’s only a chance.” + +Henry cleared his throat nervously. + +“The Young Men’s Christian Association,” he said, “has really done +wonders in this war. It is one of the charities I made a point of +backing up. I quite agree with you that the social element in religion +is extremely important. The church has overlooked it shockingly. I put +down its comparative failure to its inability to deal with its +congregations socially.” + +Anthony opened his eyes and stared at Henry. He looked as if he did not +know what his brother was talking about. Apparently he had not been +referring to the church. + +The door burst open. + +“I can’t help it, Mary. No matter what Mr. Henry said, I will +see—Tony!” + +She was in his arms; when he heard her voice he had got up and felt for +her as if he were blind. + +It was Daphne; of course she had done exactly what they had arranged for +her not to do. Her eyes blazed at him, fierce with tenderness; he could +hardly meet them. He felt her arms tighten round him. + +“Ah, they’ve hurt you! they’ve hurt you!” she gasped. + +Anthony tried hard to hold himself together. He kept telling himself +that he mustn’t make an ass of himself before Henry. Daphne pushed him +back into his chair and knelt beside him, gazing at him with the +piercing eyes of mercy and love. There was no use trying to hoodwink +Daphne. She saw what war had done to Anthony; she saw nothing else. + +Henry hovered ineffectually in the rear of the situation; he tried hard +to stop its being a situation, but Daphne overpowered him. She took no +notice of the halves of inconspicuous sentences which escaped from his +lips except to say, after a moment or two, casually over her shoulder, +as if he weren’t a member of his family and her host, “You’d better go, +Henry.” + +If Anthony had lifted his little finger to keep him, Henry would have +stayed—but Anthony did not look in his direction either. His lips had +started trembling; he held his elbow on his knee and his hand over his +eyes. Henry tiptoed out of the room as if he had inadvertently strayed +into a prayer-meeting. + +Daphne took Anthony in her arms again. + +“Oh, what have they done to you!” she murmured. “They have eaten half +your life.” + +Then she began to cry terribly, and it gave back Anthony all his +self-control to see her cry. He laughed at her, and patted the back of +her obstinately untidy curls. They were just like his own, only made out +of spun gold. His had turned gray. + +“Don’t be a goose,” he protested. “It’s all right now. Nothing’s the +matter really. I’m perfectly fit. Are you crying about me or is it Tom?” + +“Oh, you!” she sobbed. “Tom’s only dead.” + +“Well, I’ll be all right soon,” Anthony reassured her. “I’ll be just as +usual in a little while. All the fellows feel rather queer at first, you +know. You ought to be at Pannell. I kept thinking you’d meet me there +to-morrow. I suppose they’re all right, aren’t they? Henry would have +told me if they weren’t.” + +[Illustration: _Daphne pushed him back into his chair and knelt beside +him._] + +“Yes, yes, yes,” said Daphne, quickly; “everything’s quite all right.” +Her sobs had subsided now, and she searched through his pockets to find +the handkerchief she ought to have had the sense to bring with her. + +“Something’s changed?” said Anthony, sharply. “What is it, Daphne? +You’re hiding something from me.” + +“No, no, not changed,” whispered Daphne. “I’m not changed, Tony; only I +didn’t mean to tell you to-night. Don’t you see how old I am, how +monstrously, awfully old?” + +Anthony studied her beautiful, radiant face with keen, questioning eyes. + +“You’ve turned into some kind of grownup woman at last, haven’t you?” he +asked slowly. “Hullo! what’s that on your finger?” + +“Yes,” she said, “it is really. Isn’t it funny? I can’t get used to it. +I didn’t want to be happy a bit by myself without you, but he was in the +Flying Corps, and I was so anxious! We were married last June. I made +them all swear not to tell you. I censored their letters for months for +fear of its dropping out. You see, I knew, if you were with me, you’d be +glad. O Tony, doesn’t it seem wonderful! It’s over, and he’s all right. +I keep saying that instead of my prayers all day. It’s over, and he’s +all right.” + +Anthony nodded. + +“Yes,” he said; “yes, I suppose so. It’s over, and it’s all right, +either way you look at it, perhaps.” + +They were silent for a moment, then she said quickly: “Oh, Tony darling, +Tom was killed at once. Jim found out for me; I can prove it to you. +Tell me you believe me? You know I wouldn’t rest till I found out. Jim +went over and saw the Major. You know I wouldn’t lie to you. You do +believe me, Tony?” + +Anthony was not looking at her; he was looking straight into the heart +of the fire. + +“Yes,” he said in a perfectly level voice; “yes, I believe you. I say—I +say, Daphne, d’you think Henry’d mind if I kept a light in my room all +night?” + + + CHAPTER III + +Anthony would not have admitted that he had a creed, because he thought +creeds unscientific; but if you habitually act up to certain unspoken +principles, they become dogmas. Anthony’s creed ran as follows: + +“Play your best whether you are likely to win or not. Never let any one +down for the sake of your own convenience; never lie; face disaster +readily, even if you could by exercising a little ingenuity evade your +share of it. Back whatever you believe in except your own mistakes; own +up to a blunder instantly without the emphasis of egoism. Do not involve +other people in your actions, and do not be involved by them, and let +the end of your work have the same quality as its beginning.” + +It was an excellent creed, full of self-respect and armed at all points +against the inroads of reality; the kind of creed that gives a man peace +at the last, unless he has had too bad a time in the interval. It had no +mercy in it either for himself or for others. Prison shook it to its +foundation. Anthony had not allowed for a life that was a hideous +nightmare beneath the plane of self-control, or for a moral chaos +without rules. There was nothing he could act upon; he simply suffered +as those under the harrow of acute physical pain suffer, without +horizon. + +Incidents in Anthony’s hospital career flashed into his mind with a new +meaning. He remembered a woman dying in child-birth who had told her +agonized husband with unfaltering mendacity that it wasn’t nearly so bad +as she had expected. Anthony had admired her then, but he had not +thought her superhuman; he had believed that people could always bear +pain properly. + +The last words of a boy of nineteen crushed in a street accident came +back to him: “I don’t want to live; it’s too cruel to care about.” At +the time Anthony had believed this remark to be a proof of the lack of +discipline in the lower classes. + +He knew now that there are moments in which it is a miracle to behave +properly, when life becomes simply too cruel to care about. He felt that +there was a power which sometimes saved people at these moments, but +that it was not a virtue inherent in themselves; and he lost a little of +his self-respect. + +The other prisoners taught Anthony that kindness was more necessary than +skill. It wasn’t enough to do things for them; many of them were beyond +the more direct aids of science, and even if they had not been, Anthony +had not the proper means for assisting them. + +What was necessary, if he was to be of any use to his fellow-prisoners, +was for him to involve himself in their sufferings. It was precisely +what Anthony had made a point of avoiding throughout his career. He had +to put aside his personal fastidiousnesses and to overcome his love of +independence. + +At first the other men were afraid of Anthony’s self-control, and they +had left him alone in consequence, and Anthony had to destroy this +salutary fear to which he owed his privacy. Nothing but the fact that he +hated being useless gave him the courage to persevere. He wanted to +work. He did not love his fellow-prisoners; they maddened him. They had +had codes, too, once, but either they had not taken their codes so +seriously as Anthony had taken his, or their power of control was +slighter. They grumbled without ceasing, quarreled readily, and were +often disgusting. + +Only one or two of them were really complaining, quarrelsome, or +disgusting men; these were the things that happened to them from +outside, through the gigantic pressure of adverse circumstance playing +upon their unnourished bodies. They could not help themselves. + +In time Anthony realized the power of adversity, and it made it much +easier to get on with his fellow-prisoners; he saw that their temper was +no more to blame than their indigestion. Even their vices, or their +endless references to vice, were merely like the outbreak of a tedious +delusion. The difference between them and Anthony was that Anthony +_could_ help himself. It ceased to be their self-control that mattered; +his became vital. If that went, he could be of no use to anybody. +Anthony guarded his self-control as if it were the elixir of life. He +measured it out by inches; when he felt it menaced, he retired into +absolute silence. It was the only thing he could retire into; there was +no space for solitude except in his own soul. + +It was a long and difficult task, and Anthony never got to the end of +it; but long before he realized that he was succeeding, every one in the +camp came to him with their troubles. They saw that he had a margin of +strength to deal with the affairs of other people, and most of them had +become men without margins. + +There were plenty of damaged bodies for Anthony to treat, and added to +these were the more complicated cases, broken hearts, bad habits, and +the deadly collapse of the will. These attacked Anthony’s inner citadel, +and found him at a loss for supplies. He tried hard to evolve comfort +for his patient from his scanty spiritual stores, because he had +discovered that very unhappy men cannot live without spiritual comfort +even when they are being half-starved. Men were going to pieces because +they missed religion just as much as because they missed bread. It was +even more disintegrating. The religion that they missed had no definite +form; it was that of human ties, traditions, and the obligations of +love. The prison rules did not take the place of these obligations, nor +did quinine act as a substitute for love. + +There was no give and take between their former existence and their +present one. They could not send anything home except their hopes, and +after a time these were broken by the endless monotony of expectation. +Anthony fought against despair as if it were the German Empire. It +became part of his profession. He had always fought death as if it were +despair, and now he fought despair as if it were death. But his methods +had to be more empirical. + +“You’ll have a hell of a time if you don’t keep straight,” he reminded +his menaced patients, “a much worse hell than if you do.” But he soon +found that this was not a successful argument. Self-preservation has to +be an instantaneous need before it can resist despair. + +Tradition was a better specific. + +“After all, we’re Englishmen,” Anthony urged. “We don’t want them to +think they’ve reduced us to behaving like pigs or sinking into idiots. +We’ve got to keep our end up.” + +But this stimulant wore out in time. There was nothing fundamental in +it; there is a greater need of letting go under great pressure than in +preserving appearances. Men ceased to care what anybody thought of them; +they even ceased to care what they thought of themselves. + +Anthony was more successful when he appealed to their feeling for their +people at home. + +“We mustn’t go back spoiled,” he pleaded; “we must pull ourselves +together so that there will be something to take back worth taking. One +couldn’t let one’s people down.” + +Anthony often laughed at himself over his own methods, they were so +rough and ready, and reminded him so often of the attempts at religious +reformations, which he had always despised. + +“It takes more,” he said to himself, grimly, “to make a good Salvation +Army lass than I should have thought possible.” + +And, after all, nothing answered for long, nothing that Anthony could +find to say. He had no idea that what kept the tone of the camp +considerably higher than it would otherwise have been was the quiet +persistency of his own example. Anthony planned his advice, and it was +good as far as it went; but his example was spontaneous, and it went +very much further. + +For two years Anthony fought in the dark the battle of the soul in which +he did not believe, and now he told himself the battle could stop. There +was nothing else to fight against except a few strained nerves. He could +go back to his proper work, the study of how to heal the human body, a +much more reasonable and satisfactory adventure than how to keep alive +the human soul. He was still nervous, and he did not feel happy yet; but +that was because he had the meeting with his people before him, and the +memory of Tom’s death standing like a shadow across his return to +Pannell. The first few minutes would be difficult, especially with his +father. + +Pannell meant Tom to Mr. Arden; the rest of his family was only a +pleasant and expensive annex. He had built all his future, and the +future of his race, upon his eldest son. Mr. Arden had never understood +Anthony; he did not see why any son of his should wish to be a doctor. +There was the army, the navy, the civil service, the church, and the +bar, ample professions for any one with brains to find a career in. +Ardens _had_ doctors; they didn’t expect to _be_ them. + +Mr. Arden told Anthony plainly that a surgeon’s was not a gentleman’s +profession. Quite good fellows went into it sometimes when they couldn’t +afford better, but the squire was prepared to do something better than +that even for his second son. + +But Anthony had been obstinate about this low taste for science. He had +clung to it as if it had been a barmaid, and there were moments when the +squire would have preferred a barmaid; for it is easier to get rid of a +woman than of an idea. Anthony knew that he had a painful struggle to +face with his father, for he had no intention of giving up his +profession for the sake of Pannell, and if science was a blunder in a +younger son, it would be considered a crime in the eldest. + +He thought perhaps it was because of this impending struggle that he +could not enjoy the approach to Pannell. The velvety green fields did +not move him, nor the wide expanse of the barebacked downs. He was +nervously aware of the passing stations, as if he wished to retain them +between himself and Boscott. Daphne wouldn’t be there now; he had left +her with her husband. His first meeting with this new brother-in-law had +hurt him intensely. Anthony had immediately liked Jim Wynne, but he +hadn’t got over the fact of the marriage; it made him feel absurdly +lonely, and as if his return to his profession wouldn’t be the final +satisfaction he had expected. Of course going to Pannell would make it +all right if he could overcome being afraid of rows. He’d always rather +liked rows before. His father used to get hot over them, and Anthony +used to get cold. They said outrageous things to each other, and neither +of them ever came within range of the other one’s arguments; but there +had been no fear on either side, and no favor. Anthony was aware of fear +now. He did not want to hurt his father. + +Boscott came, after all, with a rush. Anthony saw his father’s face as +the train drew up at the tiny station before he recognized the two tall +young sisters who had shot up into women during his absence. He +reflected that his sisters had grown, but they had not changed. His +father had changed. + +The squire shook Anthony’s hand with welcoming vigor, and looked him +between the eyes. + +“I’m glad to have you back, my boy,” he said heartily; then he looked +away suddenly, as if he were seeing some one else. + +The squire had determined to be cordial. He had prepared the words all +the way down to the station, but he had not known what it would cost him +to meet the wrong son. And then Anthony refused to drive Vixen. + +“Please yourself, of course,” said Mr. Arden, gruffly. “She’s a fine +little mare, goes like silk. You won’t have seen such a horse anywhere +where you’ve been.” The squire did not wish to say the word “Germany.” +He considered the bare existence of such a country indecent. + +Anthony kissed his sisters’ cool, firm cheeks. They were pink with +excitement and extremely shy. They wondered if Anthony noticed how grown +up they were, and why he was so terribly thin despite all their parcels. + +“We didn’t bring the dogs,” Ursula explained—“we thought they would be +too excited—but Max is quite well.” + +Max was Anthony’s own dog, a brusque, unamiable, and fanatically loyal +Aberdeen. + +“He simply hated your being away, you know. He sleeps in your room +regularly, because he won’t sleep anywhere else, and he bit Mary for +cleaning it last week—not badly—on the ankle.” + +“A quarrelsome, bad-tempered, crotchety cur,” Mr. Arden asserted, with +restored good-humor; “but your mother thinks the world of him because he +refused to eat for three days after you left. The girls tempted him with +raw meat, and in the end he gave way to ’em. But he’s borne a grudge +against ’em ever since.” + +“That was awfully nice of you,” Anthony said gratefully to his sisters. +He would have been ashamed to say how often he had thought of Max during +his captivity, and that he hadn’t liked to ask how he was for fear of +hearing he was dead. + +“Your mother didn’t come to meet you,” Mr. Arden explained as they +seated themselves in the dog-cart, and Vixen, after a slight premonitory +shy at the gate-post, darted off down the long, white road like a +swallow. “I persuaded her not to. She’s not up to much excitement +nowadays, and of course we’re not giving any celebration in the village +for your return. You’ll understand all that.” + +Anthony nodded. + +It was too early for the trees to be out, but there was a misty look +over the budding boughs, and the tilled fields and woodlands had already +slipped from the hand of winter and lay open for the visiting spring. +The white road stretched between the Pannell woods and the Pannell +farms, and straight before them, as the road wound up toward the low, +soft skies, were the sloping shoulders of the downs. Pannell stood under +them, gray and weather-beaten, facing the shifting shadows with its +unchanging stone. + +As they passed into the drive, Vixen, moving as if she ran on velvet +springs, the gray walls of Pannell rose up in front of them. First the +clock-tower in the massive stone stables, a stretch of open park, and +then the long, uneven lines of the roof. Anthony’s heart struck suddenly +against his side. He had not realized before what it would be to own +Pannell. The knowledge flooded him with a kind of awe. The ancient +trees, the mossy lawns were his, and his the evanescent spirit of the +changeless place. + +Mr. Arden glanced sharply at him. Neither of them said anything, but +Anthony knew that his father divined his feeling and bitterly resented +it. Anthony flushed painfully. He wanted to explain how gladly he would +have given up that strange thrill of possession for the sight of Tom, +broad-shouldered and casual, strolling out of the stable door, a gun +over his shoulder and a dog at his heels. If his father could only have +guessed that deeper feeling, that stubborn sense of loss which had +become part of Anthony’s very being since Tom’s death, he would not have +been hurt at the momentary pride of place which had swept over him +without replacing or touching the deeper sense of his grief. But it was +Mr. Arden’s misfortune that he could not read deeply into the mind of +his younger son. + +The last moments of the drive were intolerably long; even his sisters, +who had been pointing out all the changes of three years to Anthony, +ceased chattering. + +It was four o’clock in the afternoon, and the February light lay level +across the lawn, fugitive and without weight. + +Vixen consented to draw up on the familiar gravel after a slight +pretense that she had never been there before and couldn’t be expected +to remain an instant in so strange a situation. A groom ran to her head +and out of a French window poured a torrent of dogs, a fox-terrier, two +white West Highlanders, and more gingerly, as a matter of form, came +Max. + +For a moment he stood stock-still, his whole being centered in an +anxious, questioning sniff, and then three years, a third of his brief +lifetime, ceased to exist. He hurled the two white West Highlanders to +right and left of him, he passed straight over the back of Demon, the +ecstatic fox-terrier, he leaped at the thin, gray figure of Anthony +fiercely and without a sound. Three times he flung himself upward +silently at his master’s chest, weaving like a shuttle the pattern of +his desperate joy; then Anthony found a voice to say his name huskily, +and Max, the sober, the undemonstrative, that foe to emotion in +fox-terriers, sat down on the top of a flight of steps and proceeded to +have a fit of violent hysterics. + +Anthony had to push him aside in order to hurry through the open French +windows to his mother’s arms. + +As he caught her against his heart, he heard her whisper over and over +under her breath: + +“Are you sure you’re not hungry, Tony? Are you sure you’re not hungry?” + +She knew he had been in Holland and overnight in London, but she wanted +to hear him say he was not hungry. She had thought of nothing else for +two years. + +Anthony felt quite happy at coming back to his mother, because he knew +she would not want him to be Tom. + +Tom was not the race to Mrs. Arden as he had been to his father. He was +Tom, and the son she held in her frail arms was Anthony. + +“You must have tea at once,” she whispered tremulously. “It’s quite +ready, and I hope you won’t mind eating a new-laid egg with it, it’s +more solid. Oh, you’re so thin, my darling!” + +“I’m not nearly so thin as you are, Mother,” said Anthony, trying to see +her face through misty eyes. “By Jove! you’re like a little leaf!” His +mother shook her head smilingly at him. + +“I’m not thin, Anthony,” she murmured; “I’m only old.” + +And then Anthony saw that was what had happened while he was away; his +mother had grown old. + + + CHAPTER IV + +The house was extraordinarily quiet. Anthony kept listening for the +heavy tread of a sentry, the raucous cry of a German voice, or the sound +of a restless fellow-prisoner turning on his bed. Instead, he felt like +a tangible substance the guarded silence of the old, thick walls. He was +glad he had the electric light fully on. It showed him that it was, +after all, an ordinary, empty room, a place you could get in and out of +easily. + +It had been his own, and everything in it recalled the memories of his +boyhood. He could count the roses on the worn carpet, and see the hole +he had burned in it under the window by a drop of acid. The old oak +wardrobe was roughened and eaten into by time. It had made a splendid +shy hole for treasures, mixed up with superfluous underclothes. + +The book-case in the corner held all Anthony’s school prizes, a fine, +solid row of young achievements. It had always hurt Anthony’s feelings +that the squire never cared to look at them, and it had hurt the +squire’s feelings that Anthony had cared to win them when Tom was +content with cups and bats. + +Everything in the room came back to Tom. Tom was in old school +photograph groups on the walls. It had seemed incredibly important to +Anthony at the time to buy them, though, as a form of decoration, they +resembled a paper of pins, and now he could hardly remember the fellows’ +names. They were healthy, well-made boys, with short futures. Most of +them were dead. Tom was usually sitting in the center with a cup or a +presentation bat behind him. Anthony tried to hurry away from that +well-known direct gaze, looking straight out of the photograph at him; +but however fast he hurried, Tom’s eyes followed him. Anthony tried to +fix his mind instead upon the prints of Watts and Burne-Jones which he +had bought with a sense of thrilled compulsion in his early twenties, +and hadn’t had time to get rid of afterward. + +He remembered that he had once encouraged the tenderest fancies for the +half-starved, anemic creatures with long necks and heavy hair; but he +could not rouse in himself the faintest interest in these weary ladies +now. Anthony had not wanted real women in his youth. He had been afraid +of them, and later on he had despised women. It is always simpler for +young men to despise what they are afraid of: it makes them feel less +afraid; but it sometimes gives them in later life more reason for fear. + +Anthony despised women because he thought that they interfered with a +man’s work. Bad women interfered with it intermittently, and good women +interfered with it all the time. They did not understand the abstract, +and Anthony, perhaps fortunately for himself, had not time to stop and +explain it to them. Anthony remembered a curious, wistful saying of +Tom’s: “It must make a fellow feel rather like the Almighty to keep as +straight as you do.” It _had_ made Anthony feel rather like the +Almighty, but his virtue had isolated him. In order to exercise it he +had become rigid, and rigidity is seldom popular with women. + +Anthony had never been a success with them. Either they wanted to +attract Anthony, and found they couldn’t, or they did not want to +attract him, and suspected him of thinking they did. In either case +women misled Anthony, and avoided him when they couldn’t mislead him. +But for the sake of Pannell he would have to marry now. + +Anthony’s mind slipped indolently over his sister’s friends; he had none +of his own under forty. “Women become interesting,” he thought, “when +they cease to be attractive.” + +Ursula’s and Gladys’s friends were far too young to suit him. They +considered themselves grown up, of course. They had round, firm cheeks +like pink tennis-balls, and the eyes of intelligent puppies. Physically +they were everything a woman should be, but they never opened a book, +and would look frightened and drop things if Anthony spoke to them. + +Daphne’s friends were of the right age, but she was apt to like clever +women who had been misunderstood by their families. Anthony disliked +women who were misunderstood, and he suspected all cleverness in women. +If it was genuine, and not a mere ruse of the unattractive, he +considered that it led to grave nervous disorders. + +Anthony wanted a wife without a nerve, with great practical common +sense, like the best type of elderly trained nurse. She must not be more +than twenty-five years old, with plenty of knowledge of actual life and +its processes and no abstract intelligence. + +Abstract intelligence played the devil with women. They carried their +emotions into it, and thought with their blood. They poured personality +into the universe as a man pours water into a jug, and the universe was +not made to hold personality. Women were never impersonal, and they were +most dangerous when they were being clever about hiding it. They could +not deal straight with fact. They did not have even a temptation without +a serpent to support it, and they were capable of melting down the +multiplication table into a channel for personal drama. Anthony’s +thoughts became a little vague at this point. He did not exactly want to +marry a woman without charm; but he had got his mind away from Tom, at +all events, or thought he had. + +An owl shrieked under his window. He knew it was an owl, but the shriek +curiously haunted and disturbed him. He got out of bed and began to walk +up and down the room; it did not help him very much, because he had +already got all the help there is to be got from this form of exercise +while he was a prisoner. Still, it was curiously better to think about +prison than to think about Tom. + +To-morrow he had promised to tell his people his experiences; his mother +had helped him to put it off a day. It would be wiser, perhaps, to +prepare beforehand what he meant to tell them. It wouldn’t do if he ran +off the rails anywhere and told them the truth. + +It was not that the truth was so bad, but that you could not tell it. It +was so misleading. It would be like giving a coherent explanation of +Christian Science to a hard-headed business man with a toothache. + +It would have been easier to tell them perhaps—everything would have +been easier—if they had not all been so silent about Tom. That was what +made the house so infernally full of his presence. There was nothing +secret about Tom; he was the most open person alive: but now he was +being hushed up until everything became aware of him. + +The moment Anthony had entered the hall he had felt conscious of the +weight of this silence. It was in the servants’ faces, and had taken +possession of inanimate things. The very walking-sticks in the hall +seemed under the weight of it, and silence brooded over the staircase +and in all the empty spaces of the rooms. Everything was waiting for Tom +to come and use it; everything had belonged to Tom and was still his. + +All the evening the house waited. They hadn’t put off dinner, because +that was a meal which was never put off for anybody; but when the clock +struck eight all their eyes had gone to the door expectantly. + +The squire gave an impatient sigh. He had always been impatient with Tom +for being late, but he had never really minded. Nobody said anything; +they had just gone in to dinner, and the squire had opened a bottle of +old wine and been vexed with Anthony for not drinking more of it. Of +course he was really vexed with Anthony for being Anthony, but he put it +down to the wine. + +Anthony made up his mind to speak of Tom to his father directly they +were alone after dinner; but the words stuck in his throat. He was +afraid of breaking into something that mustn’t be broken into. He had a +feeling that the beauty of his home was unsubstantial. He was intensely +aware of it: the spotless, delicate linen; the shining, unobtrusive +silver; the quiet comfort and security of all its simplest processes. It +seemed to Anthony that the bared voice of pain might break it all to +pieces. It would be like touching porcelain with a hammer. + +He longed for his father to speak of Tom, but Mr. Arden said nothing. He +was heroically accepting the return of the wrong son, and his heroism +cost Anthony his father’s confidence. Mr. Arden was kind to Anthony and +even mildly cheerful, but he held his son away from his grief. The +squire had not shared his sorrow even with his wife. He had spared her. +“I think we won’t talk of Tom, my dear, at present,” was what he had +said to her after the first few desolate hours, and Mrs. Arden had +appeared spared. She had kissed him silently and left the room. Tom +unspoken of had settled down upon the house; no one spoke of him, and no +one remembered him as Tom, and no one forgot him as a grief. It made +Anthony feel in some strange way as if he was to blame for not being +killed as well. He had gone to bed as soon as he could, and even here he +couldn’t get away from his false impression of Tom. + +He opened the door of his room and listened. The house was perfectly +still; he could hear the old clock down-stairs creak each time its heavy +pendulum swung to and fro. + +It used to creak like that when he and Tom were in the night nursery +up-stairs, and they came out of it to hang over the banisters to listen. +If it was very dark and late, they sometimes thought it wasn’t the +clock, but a bad old man creeping up-stairs to catch them; but they +never went back into the night nursery until they had stopped being +afraid, because they knew they mustn’t be cowards. They knew that as +soon as they knew anything. + +Tom’s room was at the end of the passage nearest the stables, because +Tom loved to hear the grooms hiss over the horses early in the morning. +Anthony felt that he must go to Tom’s room and find him. It wasn’t any +use waiting any longer; only Tom could drive away the weight of this +delusive ghost. + +Everything was in order, and except that the order was a little too +perfect it looked just as it used to look when Tom was in it. There were +his boating cups and sport trophies on the mantelpiece; a cricket-bat +stood in the corner, and Tom’s school cap with colors hung over his +fishing-rod. + +There was a row of pipes over the writing-table by the window, and a +series of sporting prints decorated the walls. + +Nothing had been changed; the familiar smell of good leather, a great +deal used, lingered over all the furniture. Anthony went to the +writing-table and picked up a small, shabby red book. It was called “My +Friends’ Opinions,” and had been given to Tom by Daphne on his sixteenth +birthday. + +It contained a series of printed questions on one page, with blank +spaces for answers upon the opposite side, and would probably, as far as +Tom was concerned, have remained blank if he had not been overtaken by +influenza and a rainy day. + +This unfortunate combination had produced Tom’s opinions, written in a +round school-boy hand, and as he had not changed them since his +sixteenth birthday, they remained the sole expression of his +unexpressive personality. + +Anthony picked up the book and read it slowly, as if he were listening +to Tom’s voice. + +“What is your favorite flower?” the inquisition began. + +Tom had written, “A rose,” because he felt that he was safe with roses. +You could not catch him out there; most people preferred roses. + +“What is your favorite Christian name?” + +Tom had felt this to be a snare, and had confused the issue. He had put +“Bluebell” and “Eleanore.” Bluebell was Tom’s sole excursion into prose +fancy. He had never met a “Bluebell,” and the name corresponded to +Anthony’s Burne-Jones ladies. Eleanore was supported by fact; she was +Tom’s favorite mare. + +“What character do you admire most in fiction?” + +“_Hereward the Wake._” + +_Hereward_ wasn’t really a character at all, but all that fighting had +made him sound like one to Tom, and his battle-cry was worth many +austere virtues. + +“In history?” + +“Richard Cœur de Lion.” Richard, too, had escaped the strictest moral +elevation, but his title and the Holy Land preserved him. + +“In real life?” + +“My father.” There was nothing to be said to this statement except that +in the day of calamity the squire had come across it and been enabled to +hold up his head. + +“Your favorite book?” + +“‘Black Beauty’ and ‘Tom Brown’s School Days.’ Besides, these are the +only ones I have read through by myself except when I had to.” + +Hunting was, of course, Tom’s chief pastime. + +The questions did not go very deeply into religious matters. Tom had got +out of them neatly by mentioning “the Church of England” and “the +Bible.” + +The inquiry ended romantically with, “What is your favorite quotation?” + +This surprised Anthony, for Tom had written “Those friends thou hast and +their adoption tried, grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel.” Of +course this was what Tom would do, but Anthony had not known that he +read Shakspere, and Tom had added another line, though he was obviously +unaware that it did not belong to the quotation above it: “For truth is +truth to the end of the reckoning.” + +Anthony put the book down. He felt as if Tom couldn’t haunt him any +more. Tom had got to the end of the reckoning first; that was all there +was to it. + +The night before Tom’s regiment had left England, Anthony had asked Tom +what he thought about death. He had not put it like that of course, +because Tom would not have known how to deal with an abstraction. He had +said, “What do you feel about things, old chap? D’you mind awfully the +idea of going out?” And Tom had answered after a pause, as if the +question was not wholly new to him: “Oh, I don’t know. It seems simple +enough. Look at rabbits—you know what I mean: you’re awfully alive one +moment, and then just a little bit of limp fur the next. I’ve often +thought it funny, but never particularly terrible. What do you feel +about it yourself?” + +“You mustn’t judge by my feelings,” Anthony had answered. “You see, it’s +my profession to fight death. Frankly, I hate it. I’ve tried to get the +better of it for years, but beyond a certain point you can’t. Nobody +ever has. It downs you. I dare say I shan’t mind extinction for myself. +The act of death is generally unconscious, and if it isn’t, it is so +disagreeable that no sane man would wish to prolong it. I never have +believed there was the ghost of a life afterward.” + +This had shocked Tom considerably. He had said: + +“Oh, well, you know, I believe in the church and all that up to a +certain point, of course; and then there’s the Bible. I’m not a clever +chap like you, but I honestly feel as if it must be all right somehow, +if one does the best one can, you know, and all that. There must be +something in it.” + +Anthony smiled at this remembrance; then he shivered as he turned to go +back to his own room. + +He was wondering again if death had come to Tom quickly, like the shot +rabbit, one moment all alive and next a little bit of limp flesh and +blood, funny, but not terrible? + +He dared not let himself think of the alternative, and either way, what +_had_ come afterward? Nothing, as he believed, or whatever it was that +Tom was groping after, when he asserted that: “It must be all right +somehow. There must be something in it.” + +“For truth is truth to the end of the reckoning.” That was the only +enigmatical statement that Anthony had ever known Tom endorse; for it +was enigmatic to any one else but Tom. + +It was all very well for Tom to talk as if truth was the next door +neighbor’s pig, but how was Anthony to find it so ascertainable? And how +could he bear not to find it, when it included, as it included now, the +possibility of Tom’s own immortality? + +There was a tentative scratch at the door. Max had awakened to find +Anthony gone and tracked him methodically down the passage. Truth was +not enigmatical to Max. He had only to follow his instincts, which led +him unerringly in the direction of his master. + + + CHAPTER V + +Anthony’s breakfast was sent up to his room on a tray. He felt an absurd +inclination to cry at the sight of the delicate linen, the golden +creaminess of the butter, the liquid sunshine of a honeycomb, and the +thin egg-shell china, white with a green sprig, which had been one of +his mother’s wedding presents. + +He wished he could get used to the physical beauty of inanimate things. +Beauty struck raw against his strained and awakened senses, like the +piercing music of a violin. + +After breakfast Anthony found his mother in the morning-room. She was +always to be found there at the same time, interviewing servants, going +over household accounts, or writing her family letters. Her even, +blameless existence was full of little cares and arrangements for her +family’s comfort. + +Nothing had ever broken into Mrs. Arden’s habits. She was always willing +to assist poor people if they had anything usual the matter with them; +and if what they had the matter with them was unusual, she referred it +to the squire. + +The room looked south on to the terrace, fronting the downs. It was full +of sunshine. On the table by the window stood a bowl of early daffodils. +Mrs. Arden turned as Anthony came in. + +“I hoped you’d come here, dear,” she said as he kissed her. “I rather +wanted you all to myself this morning. The girls are in the garden, and +your father had to go out. While we are alone together, I want to show +you all the wonderful letters about dear Tom. You would hardly believe +people could be so kind; every one wrote to us.” + +Anthony sat down on the window-seat, and Mrs. Arden took out the +letters. + +They were kept in a long, open box on her writing-table, and labeled in +her exquisite, neat hand-writing: “From Tom’s friends.” “From his +relations.” “From the people on the estate.” “From his regiment.” “From +the clergy.” “From public people.” + +“I think I like his friends’ letters best,” Mrs. Arden explained +quietly. “They sound more like him, and some of the villagers wrote +about when he was a child. It is such a comfort to know how well he was +understood and loved. What I like best is to think of him being +remembered. I don’t know how to put it quite, but when people live a +very long time, they are connected with so many things and events, +aren’t they? Even if they’re quite dull people, they don’t drop out so +easily; but short lives like Tom’s might disappear and be lost,—I mean +humanly speaking,—mightn’t they, if people weren’t specially kind about +remembering? Dear Mr. Medal is so good to me! He preached a wonderful +sermon on purpose to reassure me about the remembrances of God. I think +that was what he called it. But of course one believes that God +remembers; only sometimes (perhaps you’ll understand what I mean better +than Mr. Medal did), one wants to think the _earth_ remembered Tom as +well. He did so much for it, didn’t he, here at Pannell?” + +Anthony nodded. He knew exactly what his mother meant. He, too, had the +same feeling. He wanted the earth to remember Tom—the earth which he +had tended with such care and had slipped out of at the last so +unobtrusively. + +Anthony read the letters out loud to his mother. She sat beside him, +with her hand on his arm, and every now and then she cried a little, +because it was such a comfort having Anthony read the letters out loud +to her. + +Anthony read packet after packet, holding on to himself and keeping his +voice even. When he had finished them all, Mrs. Arden said: + +“Now, then, if you wouldn’t mind telling me all about Germany before +your father comes in, then I should really understand what you have been +through.” + +Mrs. Arden could say “Germany” better than Mr. Arden could, but she +couldn’t for the life of her say “prison.” + +“I tried to read all that the newspapers said about it, you know, +Anthony,” she explained, “and all the books that came out on the +subject. I am sure they were wonderfully written, and no doubt their +authors knew all about their subjects, only, you see, they never said +any of the things I particularly wanted to know. I dare say it was my +fault. I am so stupid at understanding descriptions in books; I always +wish people would just tell you what happened.” + +Anthony cleared his throat and looked at the daffodils. + +“Perhaps,” he said, “you had better ask me exactly what you do want to +know.” Anthony expected to get off rather cheaply with his mother. She +was, as a rule, very easy to get off cheaply from. She never saw points +very clearly, her own or any one else’s. He had not counted on her +asking questions, which, if he hadn’t been very careful, would have told +her far too much. He did not know how the most ignorant fears, if they +come direct from the heart, hit at truth. + +Of course he was intensely careful. He got round all her questions, he +evaded the sharp issues of her fears, and he told her the strictest +minimum of painful things. The Ardens never frightened women except by +reassuring them. + +Mrs. Arden listened anxiously to Anthony’s answers. She did not press +her points. She saw after a few moments that Anthony was sparing her, +and that it made it easier for him to spare her. + +Once she sighed a little, and at the end she said: + +“People’s hair isn’t usually so gray at twenty-eight, Anthony.” + +Anthony got out of that very cleverly. He said it was the climate. Quite +young Germans had gray hair or else they were bald. She couldn’t say his +hair wasn’t thick. + +“And they were really nice to you,” Mrs. Arden murmured, “after the +first?” + +Anthony had admitted to her that at first they weren’t very nice to him. + +“They were all right,” he said a little restlessly—“what they had to +be, you know, Mother. Guards aren’t supposed to be friendly, and the +commandant was quite a good fellow, really. He had to be a bit stiff, +you know; that was what he was there for. I generally took him the +complaints; he was always quite decent to me.” + +“And what complaints did you take him, dear?” Mrs. Arden softly +questioned. + +Anthony did not meet her eyes. + +“Oh, ordinary prisoners’ complaints, you know,” he explained carelessly. +“Sometimes we wanted more exercise, or the heating went wrong, or what +we had in the way of food wasn’t quite up to the mark. You know the kind +of thing.” + +Mrs. Arden was silent for a moment. She was not quite sure that she did +know the kind of thing, but she saw that Anthony wanted her to know it. +Then she said: + +“Your father has asked Mr. Medal to dine with us to-night. He wants so +much to see you again and to hear your experiences, and so does your +father, of course. I thought perhaps you would tell them after dinner, +when the girls and I had gone, you know.” + +Anthony stiffened. He did not want to see the vicar or to tell him his +experiences; he saw that his mother thought he would talk more freely to +the two men. + +He did not guess that she thought it would be good for him to talk more +freely, and still less that if he had told her everything, she would not +have known more surely than she did what he had suffered. + +“I suppose I shall have to see Medal sooner or later,” he agreed after a +pause, “only I don’t want to see people just yet or to be asked +questions. I don’t mean yours, Mother, of course. It isn’t that one’s +had such a hard time, you know. Most fellows have had a far worse one; +only one wants to get used to things gradually.” + +“Yes, dear, I understand,” said Mrs. Arden, gently. “Only, of course, +you’ll want to tell your father, and I thought Mr. Medal might be a +help. After all, he’s almost like one of ourselves.” + +“He isn’t much like one of me,” said Anthony, with a rueful grin. “You +forget he hasn’t got over my shocking opinions. He told me that I was +the most poisoned skeptic he ever prepared for confirmation.” + +Mrs. Arden smiled. + +“Well, dear,” she said, “haven’t _you_ got over your shocking opinions +yet? I think one does, as one gets older, cease to shock.” + +But Anthony had not got as old as that yet. + +“I’m not the least more religious, if that’s what you mean, Mother,” he +confessed a little uncomfortably. + +Mrs. Arden sighed gently, but she waived the question. She did not think +that with a really good man like Anthony it mattered very much what he +thought he believed. Mrs. Arden never interfered with men’s opinions or +children’s toys; it was her experience that they both preferred what you +would least have chosen for them. But that as long as they were kept +amused, it did not greatly matter what object their choice fell upon. + +“Max is longing to take you round the garden,” she said. “You’ll find +the girls out there waiting for you; they want to show you their +improvements. They’ve been really wonderful since the war, you know, +helping your father on the estate; and Ursula is quite pretty, but not, +of course, as pretty as Daphne. Go out and be nice to them; and don’t, +if you can help it, be too clever, Anthony.” + +Anthony couldn’t really help it. He always had been too clever for the +rest of his family. His mother and Daphne overlooked it, but it stuck in +the throats of the others; they found it as difficult to swallow as a +fishbone. + +Ursula and Gladys did what they could with him. They strolled round the +park together, and showed him where they had planted potatoes when the +Government had made all that fuss about potatoes, and how much ground +they had persuaded father to have cut up into allotments for the +villagers. Ursula knew all about the land. It had been her war work, and +she was rather disappointed to find that Anthony knew something about +it, too. He was apologetic over his knowledge, but he had to admit that +he had picked up a thing or two in Germany, and had ideas of his own. + +Gladys had been a V.A.D. and of course she expected Anthony to talk to +her about the extraordinary cases they had had in their cottage +hospital. All their cases had been extraordinary, and what was the use +of having a doctor in the family if you couldn’t talk things over with +him, and tell the other V.A.D.’s afterward where they were wrong? But +Anthony said it was no use theorizing about a case you hadn’t seen; you +might as well try to paint a picture from a description of your +great-grandmother. + +When they asked him about his experiences in Germany he told them how he +and the other officers had got up charades and mock parliamentary +debates. They had had really tremendous fun over woman’s suffrage, and +Anthony had argued on both sides so persuasively that nobody had been +able to guess what his real opinions were. + +“But you do believe in suffrage now, don’t you?” both his sisters cried +breathlessly. “Almost everybody does since the war. It’s not a bit like +what it was when the Suffragettes were so silly, and father got so angry +about it. Besides, we’ve got the vote!” + +“It seems to me exactly what it was,” said Anthony, aggravatingly, “and +I always agreed with it. That is to say, I always agreed women had as +much right as they had ability; until they have the right, of course we +cannot judge of their ability. My theory has always been, if you want +people to hang themselves, give them the longest rope.” + +“But do you want them to hang themselves?” Ursula asked uncertainly. +“That’s not being on their side, is it?” + +Anthony looked from one flushed young face to the other. He felt he was, +after all, tremendously on the side of women. But he was not considering +them at all as they wished him to consider them: an intense tenderness +pervaded his judgment. + +His sisters were eighteen and twenty years old, bewilderingly young and +untried. Nothing had finished for them, nor had they ever seen the +betrayal of illusion. + +The war had been a great call on their young and unawakened energies; +they had met it dauntlessly, protected from all its horrors and free +from its indelible stains. The tragic early deaths of their +contemporaries had saddened and ennobled their lives. They had been +tried by sorrow, but they had not been brutalized by pain. They had made +the sacrifice of the pleasures of their class and race with a willing +heart. All that had come to them and all that they had given up had +developed and enriched them. + +They had found out what was in themselves, and had acted capably and +conscientiously on the material that lay to their hands. Beauty had +never left them; love and companionship remained the unconscious support +of their lives. They had never been terrified or beaten down or come to +the end of their tether. Anthony, looking at their smooth young faces +and fearless eyes, hoped passionately that they would continue to escape +all such realities. If he had believed in prayer, he would have prayed +that they might never know anything more terrible than their protected +duty. He looked away from them so that they should not see his haunted +eyes. + +“I am on your side” he said after a long pause, “more, perhaps, than you +know. As to believing in you as individuals, I believe in you very +strongly. It’s quite a part of my creed to believe in my sisters.” + +Neither Ursula nor Gladys was satisfied with this answer. They didn’t +wish to be believed in as sisters, and they couldn’t explain what they +did wish, so they showed Anthony the stables instead. + +There was no doubt that Mr. Medal helped at dinner. He had a great deal +of natural tact, and a good many openings arose for the use of it. The +squire was irritable. He did not like Anthony’s ideas about land, he +suspected him of socialism; and though, of course, a certain amount of +socialism had to be let in to save worse, if Anthony was socialistic, it +wouldn’t be in the kind of way that the “Times” suggested canny +landlords should adopt. + +Mrs. Arden was nervous because she thought it would be unfortunate if +politics or religion turned up; but when there are one or two large +subjects which it would be unfortunate to mention, the conversation has +a strange way of turning slap in their direction, especially if you are +nervous about it. + +The girls were a little nervous, too, because they felt they had the +position of women to uphold before Anthony, and were not quite sure that +their father and Mr. Medal would remember to show Anthony that they were +quite grown up. + +Mr. Medal did, however; he remembered it beautifully. He recounted all +the girls had done for the cottage hospital, drew out the squire’s +well-known theories on agricultural prospects, and touched lightly on +the histories of village families (not related to the footmen) in a way +that did credit to his cloth. + +Mrs. Arden kept thinking: + +“How wonderful clergymen are! I am sure they must be specially helped.” + +And Mr. Arden gradually thawed over the food. It was very good food, but +if the conversation had gone wrong, he would have thought it wasn’t. +They did not talk about anything painful till the women had left the +room; then the squire said: + +“Now, Anthony, my boy, we should like to hear how those scoundrels +treated you. Let’s have the whole thing from the start, without any +gloves on. I understand you were all taken in a lump, the men on your +flanks having retreated without your knowing it. They killed some of you +after you had surrendered, didn’t they?” + +Anthony looked down at the white tablecloth and began to play nervously +with his empty glass. It had been a very long day. Of course he wasn’t +going to break down and see things, and only housemaids scream. He would +get through quite easily if he just steered clear of a few awkward +corners. + +“Three hundred of us were taken together,” he began in a low, even +voice, “but they killed about fifty or sixty before they were stopped by +a fat man with glasses. I think he was a Bavarian. He said, ‘My God! +these are men, not chickens.’ My leg was broken, so I was on the +ground.” This was an awkward corner. Anthony couldn’t tell them anything +about that. He went on hurriedly: + +“It was awfully cold, you know, in December, and we had five days on the +train. For two days we hadn’t any water,—I think it was two days,—and +I don’t remember much about the food on the journey. The guards were +rather rough. I was in a hospital for three months. It was quite well +managed, on the whole, a little dirty, according to our ideas; probably +on account of the nursing. Some of the nurses behaved well, and others +didn’t. There were one or two who took the patients’ food, and nobody +had any too much food. + +“For the first six months we had rather a bad time; that was before we +got the letters and parcels regularly. We were shunted about a good deal +in cold, badly arranged camps; the bedding was very insufficient. + +“We must remember that the Germans were not organized for a long war. +They expected a short war and great victories, but not large quantities +of prisoners to keep indefinitely without any prospect of final victory; +and then there was the blockade.” + +“Ah, yes; we had them there,” said the squire, cheerfully. “What +happened when you made complaints about the food?” + +“We didn’t make complaints then,” said Anthony, slowly. He looked up +across the shaded electric lights, covered with yellow silk in the shape +of tulips, at Mr. Medal’s face. Mr. Medal was following Anthony with +kindly intentness and peeling a walnut. He had a benevolent, comfortable +face, with fixed ideas behind it. It was quite funny to think what his +face would look like if a shrieking woman had spat into it and called +him a cursed pig-dog. + +When Mr. Medal was preparing Anthony for confirmation he had warned him +against certain temptations which he might be called upon to face in his +future life. A scene in the prison camp flashed before Anthony’s eyes; +it was another of his awkward corners. There was a temptation in it, but +not in the least like anything the vicar had mentioned. + +“When I could walk all right,” he went on after a short pause, “I was +put in the Westphalian camp I told you about, Father. It was in a bad +sanitary condition; there was a great deal of dysentery and light +typhoid, with some graver cases. I made complaints then, regularly, till +they altered the conditions. I wasn’t very popular with the authorities. +You have no idea how difficult it is to face a well-fed, angry man and +state your rights as a human being. When you are rather down in the +mouth, you do not feel as if you have any rights, and they don’t either, +of course.” + +“They’re not human beings at all!” shouted the squire, banging his fist +on the table. “Damned bullying blackguards!” + +Anthony jumped as if his father had struck him. + +“It’s funny your saying that, sir,” he said after a pause. “They struck +me as very human always, and very like some of our own people. It +occurred to me that we might be treating Germans just the same if we +thought of them what they thought of us. I often used to wonder if we +weren’t. War makes people untruthful.” + +“My dear boy,” said Mr. Medal, softly, before the squire could +interfere, “it is your rundown condition which makes you feel like this. +An underfed brain is hardly master of itself.” + +“That’s quite true,” agreed Anthony, “and yet you have no idea how +clearly one sees things when one is underfed. One sees everything as +clear as glass. And not only the usual things, but what people are +thinking as well, and why they think it. It is curiously disturbing to +see so many things so plainly, and not be able to help them.” + +He pulled himself up; this wasn’t what he had meant to say at all. + +“We cleaned the camp,” he went on, “and the condition of the men +improved greatly, and the rest of the time we just—well, you +know—waited. I got a certain amount of exercise allowed me, and I +taught the men Swedish drill to make them fit. They let me act as camp +doctor, with a German medico to refer to if I needed outside help. + +“I used to need outside help, you see, when any one went mad.” + +Mr. Medal stopped peeling walnuts. + +“Mad!” spluttered the squire. “What d’you mean, my boy? What did any one +go mad for?” + +And then what Anthony was afraid might be going to happen to him +happened. He began to see things. He caught hold of the table to steady +himself, and his glass rolled on to the floor and smashed to pieces. He +tried to get up and go outside the circle of the light. Light infuriated +as well as terrified him. + +He saw the vicar’s face in a kind of blur jumping between him and the +pictures, his large, round, contented face as frightened as a startled +rabbit. + +Anthony’s teeth began to chatter, and he felt he was going to scream. He +caught hold of his lips and bit them till the blood came. That helped +him to get to the window and open it without screaming. The cool, clean +air from the downs caught and soothed him like the touch of a friendly +hand. + +He stood there breathing deeply, while the merciful, soft darkness +covered up all he could not forget. The things themselves had never been +so terrible as the pictures. Anthony had been able to deal with what had +happened, but he could not deal with the memories of what had happened. +They ripped his self-control as if it was calico. + +He felt his father’s hand on his shoulder. + +“Are you all right, my boy?” the squire asked unsteadily. + +“Quite all right, sir,” said Anthony. + +For a moment they stood there together, and it seemed to Anthony as if +some ineradicable stubbornness of blood connected him with his father +and his father with him. It was an instinct stronger than any +misunderstanding. + +The squire said nothing, and in a minute they were all three sitting +around the table as if nothing had happened. + +Mr. Medal looked the most disturbed of the three. + +Anthony finished his experiences quite comfortably without any awkward +corners. + +“D’you know, Mary,” said the squire when he joined his wife in their +room, “those German pirates have upset that boy of ours; I don’t think I +quite took it in at first. His nerve’s shaken. What do you think we’d +better do about it? Medal suggests sea-bathing. Did you notice the boy +was at all upset?” + +Mrs. Arden looked at the back of the squire’s head with tender +exasperation. + +“Yes, dear,” she said. “When I gave him his tea—when he first came in, +you know—his hands shook. Anthony always has such perfectly steady +hands. I don’t think sea-bathing would help him at all. I want him to go +and stay with Daphne. So many young people run in and out there in such +a simple, free-and-easy way, I think it might be good for him. I have +written to Daphne about it. It seems to me that some really nice girl, +whose people we knew all about, would quiet Anthony’s nerves down better +than anything.” + +“Marry him?” said the squire, reflectively. “That’s what you’re up to, +is it? Well, of course he’s Pannell to think of now; but falling in love +mightn’t have such a quieting effect as you seem to fancy, Mary. I can +remember that it had rather a stimulating effect on me.” + +“It depends,” said his wife, slipping his pocket-handkerchief under his +pillow, “on whom you fall in love with. I specially said to Daphne—a +nice, quiet girl.” + + + CHAPTER VI + +Ruth Mellicot had perhaps rather too classic a brow; it rose above her +clear gray eyes, white and firm and a little high. She would have made a +perfect model for Minerva. + +She had been to Girton, and besides a very quiet manner and an ability +to follow the points of an argument, however abstruse, she spoke in a +low, pleasant voice very agreeable to listen to. There was no reason why +it should make people feel as if they had gone back to the school-room. + +Both Daphne and Jim liked her extremely. She was a woman to be relied +upon in every emergency and she was never in the way. She was modern in +her ideas, without coming into conflict with respectability. She had +grasped the convenient truth that it is well to think a century ahead, +and to act a century behind the present. She was very open-minded about +the other world and extremely clear-headed about this one. + +Anthony could talk to her upon any subject he liked. He had always +thought it was absurd that women should have to be talked to as if the +facts of life did not exist for them in the presence of the opposite +sex. If you wanted to know what a woman thought about life, she should +be capable of telling you without shirking facts or showing +embarrassment. + +Ruth was perfectly capable of telling Anthony what she thought upon any +subject; she shirked nothing, and it was Anthony who felt embarrassed. +She regarded him with her grave, candid eyes as if they were +fellow-students at a lecture, discussing one of the subjects in their +course. She said that men and women must work together on the +dissecting-tables of life, and doctors do not like illustrations about +dissecting-tables. Daphne argued afterward with Jim that they oughtn’t +to have been left so much alone together. + +It was wonderful weather for April, the kind of weather that seemed +designed for long country rambles, teas at wayside inns, and late +returns in time to dress for dinner. Anthony had explained to Daphne +that if she wanted him really to make friends with Ruth Mellicot, they +must be a great deal alone together. He made friends slowly, and he did +not think women ever showed their real selves before a third person. + +When Daphne said, “Do they before a second?” Anthony smiled the smile of +a man who has reason to believe in his own power of discrimination, and +replied that they probably did it unconsciously. + +Ruth looked very well in coats and skirts, and walking suited her. In +the evening she did not show to such advantage. Good walkers seldom do. +She was not exactly clumsy, but her figure appeared rather pointless. +When she moved she seemed to be shouldering her way through obstacles. +There was very little slope to her shoulders, and her elbows and wrists +were more prominent than they should have been. + +Her conversation was extremely interesting. She read the newspapers +carefully, and Anthony never heard her jump ahead of her facts. Ruth did +not always share Anthony’s opinions, but she was prepared to listen to +his arguments, and he could see that on the whole she wanted to agree +with him. + +Ruth was twenty-five, and in a sensible, unferocious way she wished to +get married. She hoped to find a man of her class with steady +principles, a moderate income, and more or less the same ideals. A man +who would wish to have a happy, hygienic home, two or three healthy +children, and who had a genuine desire to improve the world up to a +certain point. Ruth did not wish a crank; cranks wish to improve the +world unreasonably and involve their personal futures in their efforts. +Ruth did not think this a very necessary or desirable attitude. People’s +individual futures should run on one line, and their efforts to reform +the world should run on another, and these two lines should be parallel +and never meet. When she said she feared fanatics and disliked cranks +this was what she meant. It is what people usually do mean. Anthony +agreed with her, only he meant something a little different. Before he +had been two years in prison he would have meant something exactly the +same. + +Ruth studied Anthony much as he was studying her. She had the same +prospect in view; if she liked him, she meant to marry him. + +It did not annoy Anthony to guess this fact. On the contrary, it rather +amused him. He liked her quiet, appraising eyes and her distinct and +unevasive questions. Sometimes he found them a little too difficult to +answer, but he appreciated her asking them. She was not at all eager to +attract him, which would have frightened him, nor did she appear to be +greatly attracted by him. + +Their cards were all out on the table, and they played them in turn +without any effort at concealment. It sent Daphne and Jim into fits of +laughter. + +Daphne and Jim weren’t superior about their happiness. It was a child of +so much danger and uncertainty that even now when life appeared open +before it, they walked delicately, like an Agag, and hid the sharpness +of their joy. But they could not hide their happiness itself. They +existed in a charmed circle of love, and though they looked over the +edge of it from time to time, their inner life was complete, and +uninterrupted by the actions of others. + +“Of course,” Anthony observed to Daphne when Ruth had left them to +change her shoes, most sensibly, without a suggestion from Anthony, +after they had been caught in a shower, “it’s an immense comfort to hear +exactly what a woman thinks about things. I appreciate it awfully and +all that, you know. Miss Mellicot’s just been telling me what she +expects of a husband. Daphne, if you laugh into your tea like that +you’ll choke. Only it occurred to me to wonder if you’d ever put it +quite like that to Jim.” + +“My dear,” said Daphne, chuckling, “as if I should have dared! And if I +had dared, it wouldn’t have mattered. You see, I never thought about him +in the least like that. I don’t now. He was just Jim.” + +“Still,” Anthony protested, “you must have said to yourself some time or +other before you fell in love with him: ‘What kind of fellow is this, +good or bad? Would he make a good father for my children? That kind of +thing—what?’” + +Daphne’s eyes brimmed with laughter. She shook her head violently. + +“I never said anything of the kind,” she answered him. “I always thought +of him as Jim, _not_ as a man, and I was terrified he’d fall out of his +aëroplane and be killed before I knew if he really loved me, and I +didn’t think about anybody’s children for millions of years afterward. +Of course I dare say goodness was a part of his being Jim, but not +nearly _all_ of it. Badness wouldn’t have mattered if it hadn’t altered +him. Of course I suppose some kinds of badness _do_ really alter people. +That must be awful, like losing your way in a fog—your way _home_—when +you _know_ it so frightfully well really; but it wouldn’t stop being +your home, would it?” + +Daphne became quite serious, looking at Anthony over her bread and +butter. It was funny to think of Ruth and Anthony, but it wasn’t funny +to think how badness might alter love. + +“Of course,” said Anthony, “neither Miss Mellicot nor I sentimentalize +nature. If you act on sane principles, sufficient emotion will follow +later; only—” his face slightly clouded as he regarded his sister’s +shining eyes—“I must confess, Daphne, just between you and me, you +know, that it’s rather like going to a dentist without a toothache.” + +“Doesn’t it ache the least little bit?” Daphne asked with anxiety as +Ruth came into the room. + +Anthony shook his head, and looked consideringly at the tall, tidy young +woman in front of the tea-table. Ruth did her hair very well. It was +bright, smooth, brown hair, and very thick. + +“Not in the least, thanks,” said Anthony a little dryly. “I haven’t felt +even a preliminary twinge. Won’t you have one of these little pink +things, Miss Mellicot?” + +“I’ll have bread and butter first, please,” said Ruth. “It’s the good +old nursery rule, isn’t it?” + +And then the door opened, and Kitty came in. + +She did not wait to be announced as “Miss Costrelle.” She simply threw a +long, blue chiffon scarf on a chair, followed by a gold handbag and a +perfectly insufficient umbrella with a jeweled handle; then she embraced +Daphne. + +“I know I oughtn’t to have come,” she said apologetically, for the only +welcome Daphne gave her was to say reproachfully, “O Kitty! Kitty!” + +“It was only tea. I literally was dying for some on the doorstep, and +the next house was miles off and full of women who hate me like poison, +and won’t say so except when they think I’m looking the other way. And I +thought you wouldn’t like Jimmy to find me just _dead_ on the mat. It +would make him think you such a bad housekeeper. + +“This is your brother, isn’t it? I’ve met Miss Mellicot before, I +believe. I’m awfully afraid of her. You are the one who went to Girton, +aren’t you? I can’t think why Daphne has such awfully clever friends; +she isn’t a bit clever herself, really, is she, Captain Arden? Of course +I know _you_ are, but men don’t matter. One isn’t afraid of _their_ +cleverness.” + +“Give her her tea,” said Daphne, resignedly. She seemed to be +simultaneously annoyed and amused at the appearance of her unexpected +visitor. “She’s not really afraid of anybody’s cleverness.” + +Kitty laughed over her tea-cup at Anthony. Her eyes, which were almost +black and a little narrow at the corners, laughed, too; her long emerald +ear-rings laughed at him. Everything about her glittered and sparkled, +and seemed in some strange way directed straight at Anthony. + +She took what color there was out of Miss Mellicot as sunshine takes the +light out of a fire. + +“Of course I’ve heard all about you,” she said, making room for Anthony +on the sofa beside her. “Daphne’s really awfully fond of me, though you +mightn’t think it. I’m one of her secret sins. She keeps me for dull, +rainy days, as you keep chocolates and tell people you have a headache, +and then shut yourself up with a box of them and a good detective story. +Don’t you ever do that? Don’t you, Miss Mellicot?” + +“I never eat chocolates,” said Ruth, coldly. + +Daphne groaned inwardly. It was not the moment for Ruth to repudiate +chocolates. + +Kitty opened her eyes wider than ever. She had black lashes which curled +upward, and when she laughed her eyelashes swept together and made her +look as if her eyes were shut. + +“Wouldn’t Miss Mellicot make a good food-controller?” Kitty murmured. +“Perhaps you were one during the war, Miss Mellicot? I often wondered +who the Government really got hold of. I don’t believe men did that kind +of thing themselves, poor dears. There must have been some really clever +people behind the scenes who knew just how much food there really was, +and what was absolutely necessary for babies. Somebody very competent +who didn’t mind people not having what they wanted.” + +“Do you suppose that women are the only sex who wish to deprive others +of what they want?” asked Miss Mellicot, disdainfully. “You don’t appear +to have a high opinion of your sisters.” + +“They’re the only people who really seem to mind my having what I want,” +said Kitty, plaintively. “Still, of course, it wouldn’t be any fun +getting it if nobody minded your having it, would it? Do you play +billiards, Captain Arden? Yes?” Anthony nodded. + +“They have a really good table here,” Kitty said, directing a glance at +Daphne’s increasing gravity. “I’ve finished my tea now, and it’s begun +to rain again, so I can’t possibly go home. It would be such a pity to +spoil this hat, wouldn’t it, Miss Mellicot? But perhaps you don’t wear +hats?” + +“Not such perishable ones—in the country,” agreed Miss Mellicot, +smoothly. + +“It would die in a good cause,” said Anthony with appreciation, studying +the golden wing that rested on Kitty’s dark, wavy hair. + +Miss Mellicot’s lips tightened. It was the first time Anthony had seen +her with tight lips. They accentuated her likeness to Minerva. + +Kitty smiled at Anthony. Then she turned coaxingly to Daphne. + +“We may just as well have a game now, mayn’t we, Daphne?” she urged. “Or +is it bad for Captain Arden to play billiards?” + +“It’s remarkably good for him,” said Anthony, quickly. + +He had an intense desire to get Kitty away from Miss Mellicot. Of course +it was Kitty who was behaving badly, but, curiously enough, it was not +Miss Mellicot whom Anthony wished to take away from Kitty. + +Miss Mellicot behaved extremely well. It is quite compatible with +behaving well to look like one of the Muses in the Vatican. There is a +didactic Muse fronting the stairs, who keeps a thin little finger very +levelly lifted. She seems to warn the approaching onlooker not to be +carried away by his feelings. + +Miss Mellicot did not lift her finger. She merely turned her eyes a +little fixedly on Anthony. Anthony avoided her glance. Perhaps some day +it would be his domestic duty to meet fixed glances and reply to them, +but at present he slipped into fluidity. He hurried out of the room +behind Kitty. + +When they were in the hall, with the door shut, Kitty turned and laughed +at him. + +“Now,” she said, “I know you are _really_ brave, Captain Arden. Do you +know how I should describe Miss Mellicot?” + +“No,” said Anthony; “but I have no doubt your description would be +picturesque and a little unfair.” + +“No, it wouldn’t,” said Kitty, petulantly, throwing open the +billiard-room door. “I shouldn’t be a bit unfair to her. I should +describe her as a perfect wife and mother.” + +Anthony found himself saying in a tone which he had never dreamed of +using with Ruth Mellicot: + +“_You_ deserve to have your ears boxed.” But it was a perfectly suitable +tone to use with Kitty. She merely made a face at him over her shoulder. + +He watched her with delight swing down her cue and chalk it. She had +fine little hands and delicate wrists; her short skirts revealed the +neatest feet and ankles Anthony had ever seen. Every line of her small, +graceful figure told. She was beautifully dressed, with that unnecessary +expensive luxury which Ruth and Anthony had mutually deplored in modern +women. + +Anthony could hear the rustle of her silk petticoats as she swung round, +and see through her transparent chiffon blouse the lace and ribbons +under it. Kitty’s lips were artificially reddened, and her small, +tip-tilted nose was powdered. She had taken no pains to disguise the +fact. She was a minx, a flirt, and a perfectly obvious danger-signal to +any sane man. + +And yet almost all sane men would have done precisely what Anthony did. +He followed her into the billiard-room to see what she was up to. + +She heaved a little sigh of relief when the door closed. + +“I don’t really like women, you know,” she told him, “except Daphne, and +not Daphne when she’s cross with me, and she’s awfully cross with me +to-day. Still she’s generally kind to me; other women aren’t.” + +“I should hardly suppose that you gave them much reason to be,” said +Anthony, with his eyes on the poise of her figure bending over the +table. + +“Still,” said Kitty, looking up at him with dancing eyes, “I don’t know +that I give men much _reason_, and yet men are always kind to me, even +awfully clever ones like you. And even when I behave—and I do sometimes +behave, you know—like a perfect fiend.” + +“I can well believe it,” said Anthony. “Do you like to start, or shall +I?” + +Anthony did not believe that Kitty could really play billiards. He +thought billiards was one of her ways of escape from other women. But he +was mistaken. Kitty played a most excellent game of billiards, and was +really fond of it; only she could play more than one game at a time. + +“I’m being a fiend now,” said Kitty in a low voice, like a subdued +child’s. “Perhaps you didn’t know it, but I am—a fiend to Daphne. I +promised not to come all the while you were here. Wasn’t it awful to +break it, when Daphne’s been so tremendously good to me, and Jim, too, +only Jim doesn’t count. And it wasn’t true about the tea—it was just +curiosity.” + +“Well,” said Anthony, “I hope your curiosity is satisfied agreeably. May +I ask why you promised not to come here during my visit?” + +Kitty measured her shot carefully, took it successfully, and looked up +at him. + +“Daphne thought I should be bad for you,” she said. “You see, I am +usually supposed to be rather bad for men.” + +Anthony aimed, and missed. It was an easy stroke and Anthony couldn’t +think how he had come to miss it. + +“Do you try to be?” he asked her. + +Kitty hung her head. + +“Sometimes I try to be,” said Kitty. + +“Are you trying now?” Anthony asked her. “Because I rather fancy you’re +putting me off my game.” + +“I don’t want to do that,” said Kitty, quickly; “not a bit. Do you +_like_ Miss Mellicot? Is she a great comfort to you, I mean? If you were +unhappy, you couldn’t put your head against her as if she were a +cushion, could you? It would be rather like leaning against one of those +marble block tombstones, the ones that lie flat on the ground, and you +feel no one could resurrect under them. Of course she has quite a good +figure, really; only I’m _sure_ her bones are hard.” + +“I have not attempted to take that particular form of comfort from Miss +Mellicot, if that is what you are asking me,” said Anthony, trying hard +to keep his gravity. “It’s your turn, I think. I’ve missed again; there +must be something wrong about my confounded cue.” + +“Use mine for a change,” said Kitty, sweetly. “I hope you don’t mind +what I said about Miss Mellicot’s bones?” + +Anthony did not mean to touch Kitty’s hand; the thing simply happened. +He felt it slim and warm under his fingers. Kitty’s long eyelashes fell +over her eyes and hid them. He could not tell if what had happened had +happened purposely; he only knew that it was difficult to take away his +hand. + +“You haven’t said if you really like her,” declared Kitty after a pause. + +“I really like her very much,” said Anthony, dryly. + +“Now it’s your turn again,” said Kitty, gaily. “You ought to be more +careful this time, Captain Arden. I don’t believe you took aim properly +before. I’m rather glad you like her as little as that.” + +It occurred to Anthony that probably when other men were alone with +Kitty, and she said this kind of thing, they kissed her. The thought of +it stung him intolerably. + +“Look here,” he said fiercely, “why do you talk to me as if you cared a +hang what I think of anybody? You know you don’t. I suppose it’s your +usual way of talking to men you’ve met half an hour ago, but I tell you +plainly I don’t care for it. You’ve no right to behave as if it mattered +to you what I think when it doesn’t, or as if it mattered to me what +_you_ think when—when—” + +“When it doesn’t?” asked Kitty, softly. “It’s rather horrid of you to +say that, even if it’s true.” + +“Well, you haven’t any right—” said Anthony, sulkily. He wouldn’t look +at her, but he knew perfectly well what she looked like. She had caught +her upper lip with one of her teeth and was trying to prevent herself +smiling. + +“As if having rights mattered,” said Kitty. “You are silly, Captain +Arden.” + +Anthony put down his cue deliberately and faced her. + +“I don’t know this game,” he said quietly. “Am I supposed to kiss you? +Because in about twenty seconds that is what is going to happen whether +I am supposed to or not.” + +Kitty tossed her head defiantly, then said unexpectedly: + +“Oh, I am a mean little cur to break my promise to Daphne,” and without +a word of explanation she flung herself into one of Jim’s neat leather +arm-chairs, buried her head in her arms, and shook pitifully with sobs. + +Anthony found himself on his knees beside her, with one arm across her +shoulders. + +“Don’t; don’t, my dear child, my dear baby!” he whispered. “If I was a +brute and rough, I’m awfully sorry. I won’t touch you. You can say +whatever naughty, silly thing you like. Is that what you’re crying for?” + +Kitty shook her head. She was crying without tears, as boys do who have +been beaten in a race. + +Anthony drew her into his arms and held her close against him. She made +no effort to release herself, nor did she seem aware of him. She fought +silently to control her sobs. Anthony felt as if he had a bird’s heart +throbbing under his hand. She was such an exquisite, delicate creature! +Perfume and softness breathed from her small crushed figure. At last +Kitty raised her head and pushed away his encircling arms. + +“I’ll tell you,” she said. “I know it wasn’t fair even to cry; but I +couldn’t help that. Just for a moment you looked, when you were angry, +so like Dick—that was why I came to see you; I have such a funny +feeling, as if I must see the men who do come back. You see, Dick and I +were engaged. But he went off so quickly, before we could be married. He +was in the regular army—Mons—and then he was missing. I couldn’t stop +hoping. I hoped quite awfully and steadily for two years, then I knew it +was no good. I didn’t care what happened then. I don’t care now, and I +never shall in the least care what happens. I just amuse myself.” + +Anthony put his hands on her shoulders and met her defiant eyes; beneath +the defiance he saw her frightened, broken heart. + +He saw her as Daphne had seen her, not as the easier men who flirted +with her saw her, or as the angry women whose jealousy she roused saw +her. The pity and the waste of it went through him like a knife. + +“You poor little thing!” he said gently. “You poor, dear little thing!” + +She sprang away from him quickly. + +“No, no,” she said; “I’m _not_ like that. I’m not poor. You needn’t be +sorry for me. I do just as I like, and I enjoy myself awfully. I dare +say I shall enjoy myself awfully with you. I’m sorry I made such a fuss. +I haven’t cried like that for ages. It was just—that you reminded me; +besides, I could see you’ve had a pretty bad time yourself. If you’d +really liked that woman, I’d have left you alone. You do believe that, +don’t you?” + +“I propose to believe everything you ever tell me,” said Anthony, +steadily. “But aren’t you going to leave me alone?” + +She turned and faced him. + +“Do you want me to?” Kitty asked. Her eyes widened again, the corners of +her mouth quivered, all of her became as it had been before—a +glittering, dancing, creature, as bright and strong as a steel magnet. + +Anthony made a few steps toward her. + +“No,” he said reluctantly; “I suppose I don’t want you to leave me +alone.” + + + CHAPTER VII + +Miss Mellicot behaved extremely well. She did not go away at once, and +she never in Anthony’s presence referred to Kitty. What she said to +Daphne on the subject of Kitty, in the privacy of her bedroom, might +have been taken from the most outspoken of the classics. She had not +been to Girton for nothing. + +Miss Mellicot was direct, and in her quiet and ladylike voice she +stripped the career of Kitty Costrelle of all the pity and tenderness +with which Daphne had attempted to cover it. + +“It does not do to sentimentalize about facts, Daphne,” Ruth told her. +“This is the kind of girl you have chosen for a friend, and your +brother, whose judgment is much less sound than I thought, has had to +take the consequences.” + +“As if,” Daphne said afterward indignantly to Jim, “you could arrange +human beings in pockets, like cocoa—so much hot water to so much +sugar—and know exactly what kind of cup you were going to get at the +end of it.” + +But at the time Daphne could think of no evasive comparisons. She was +crushed under the weight of fact. She had gone to Ruth’s bedroom because +she was afraid that Ruth would be unhappy, but Ruth was not unhappy. She +was very seldom unhappy, and she was almost invariably right. + +Jimmy drove Miss Mellicot to the station at the end of the week, when +her visit came to a not too noticeable close. + +Anthony had meant to fulfil this office, but he came in so late for +lunch that he had to be left in the dining-room with some reproachfully +cold mince. + +Anthony assured himself that he was under no obligation to Miss +Mellicot, and that she was far too sensible a woman to suppose that he +was; but as he stood by the French window in the dining-room watching +her drive off with Jim, he felt a little uncomfortable. + +Miss Mellicot looked very well in a high dog-cart. Her veils and pins +never betrayed her, and she kept her hat on without visible effort. +These traits are indicative of character, the kind of character which +Anthony particularly liked; and yet when the dog-cart had disappeared +from view behind the laurel-bushes, Anthony returned to his cold mince +with a sigh of unmistakable relief. + +He had kept his own counsel for forty-eight hours while he considered +that he was thinking things over. Anthony told himself that he was not +going to act precipitately about Kitty. He was going to ask Daphne a few +straight questions first. + +When he had finished his lunch he went out into the garden to ask them. +Merry Gardens was not an old place, like Pannell; it was a comfortable, +two-storied house, which rambled conveniently enough between a +cedar-tree on a small, sloping lawn to the edge of the fields, which +swallowed it up on three sides. + +Daphne lay in a hammock under the cedar-tree planning new beds for the +following spring. It was an absorbing occupation, and peculiarly +difficult to carry on in a hammock, owing to the size of garden-books, +the fluttering quality of catalogues, and the hopelessness (in a +hammock) of once letting go of a pencil. + +She did not hear Anthony approach, and he sat for some time gazing +straight in front of him before he broached the question of Kitty. His +eyes absorbed the pleasant, easy landscape of Rochett. + +Essex is supposed to be an ugly county by those who do not live in it, +but it contrives, once you get away from the endless ramifications of +Liverpool Street Station, to have a very pretty little air of its own. +It is like one of those women who, without being showily attractive, +know how to carry their heads. + +As a county it frequently ignores its reputation for flatness, and +breaks away into the roundness of small, covered hills, and no one has +ever accused Essex of not being green. + +From the cedar-tree on the lawn the fields sloped softly away into +innumerable folds of wooded copse and distant orchards. The rich +pasture-lands glowed in the mild April sunshine with a light that was +all their own. It had none of the emphatic clarity of the South, or the +delicate, fine shades of northern Europe; it was a soft and lovely +coloring that caused in Anthony an unexpected tightening of the heart. + +When he had been given six weeks’ solitary confinement in a whitewashed +cell for making too many complaints about the condition of his camp, he +had been haunted by just such a landscape. He slipped his hand out to +touch the rough bark of the cedar, to make sure of himself. He did not +want to wake up suddenly and find the picture fade. + +He wanted to keep the green blur of fields, the small group of cottages +looking as if they were a thatched and mossy plant native to the soil +itself, and the spire of the thick-set church across the village green +safe in his eyes forever. Something in the tension of his figure caught +his sister’s attention. She looked up quickly. + +“Oh, Anthony,” she said, “how quietly you came out and how still you +are! You look as if you were holding everything still with you, except, +of course, my catalogues of Dutch bulbs. The attempts they make to get +over the side of the hammock nobody could control. Poor Ruth! Did you +see her drive away? She’s so nice, really. I half hoped, and half didn’t +hope, you’d like her.” + +“That,” said Anthony, feeling suddenly freed from the fixity of his +attention, “was exactly how I liked her. Would you mind telling me why +you asked Miss Costrelle not to come here during my visit? She made me +feel rather a fool when she told me it was your arrangement to keep her +out of the house while I was here. Did you suppose I couldn’t keep my +head with a pretty girl, or had you anything in particular against her? +Forgive me for asking you, but I want to make up my mind about going to +see her. I haven’t been yet, you know. I felt I couldn’t; but I’d rather +like to now, unless there is some very definite reason against it.” + +“I wasn’t thinking of your head being turned,” said Daphne, slowly. She +knew this question would come, and she had tried to prepare herself to +meet it; but she wished that Jimmy were with her to give her the +security of his admiration. She felt her tact might be a little fallible +before Anthony’s keen, gray eyes. “I was thinking most, I suppose, of +poor little Kitty. But of course I thought of you, too, Anthony; I +didn’t want you to be disturbed. You’ve got so many new things to get +used to, and Kitty would be rather a tremendous new one if you really +got intimate with her. She wouldn’t be like Ruth, an experience you can +take or leave in cold blood.” + +“I don’t wish to take life like a nursing home,” interrupted Anthony a +little unfairly, for Ruth was not like a nursing home. “But why ‘poor +Kitty’? You might tell me, I think, a little more about Miss Costrelle.” + +“Oh, I’ll tell you anything,” agreed Daphne, rapidly, “anything I can, +of course, and I know what you mean about life; only there’s rather a +difference between taking it like a nursing home and taking it like the +Niagara Rapids. + +“Jimmy knew Kitty first, before he knew me, you know, and one day he +told me about her, after her lover was killed. Jimmy was sure he was +killed in 1914. Kitty was awfully plucky. She drove a motor-ambulance in +France for two years without a break. She was considered one of their +very best drivers. She never seemed to mind what she did or where she +went, or what she saw; she seemed made of iron and fire. And then, of +course, she broke down. No one could have stood her unrelenting work, +and no one could stop her. When she stopped she just gave up +everything—hope and her old habits and her work. She came back here, an +unprotected little flame, burning whatever she came across. Nothing +could persuade her to settle down or take up any fresh interests. + +“Her father is a perfect old rip who used to own most of the land about +here. He has succeeded in getting rid of all of it except an old +farm-house he fortunately settled on Kitty as a present when she came of +age. She lives there now, on and off, with an old nurse, and a French +cook she picked up on her travels, and I believe her father turns up +occasionally for week-ends. The greater part of his life is spent in +London with a queer collection of blackguards and anonymous ladies. + +“Jimmy and I have tried awfully hard to get Kitty received in the +neighborhood. She used to be, of course, but now people are inclined +to cold-shoulder her. She won’t go to church or do any of the usual +things, and of course, as you see for yourself, she flirts with +every man she comes across. I knew, if she saw you, she’d at least +attempt it with you, and I don’t believe you know how to flirt—do you, +Anthony?—properly.” + +“I’m not at all sure I couldn’t learn,” said Anthony, consideringly, +lighting a cigarette. “Of course it was quite sensible of you and Jim to +try to get her out of my way; but now that she’s come and seen and +conquered what do you propose to do about it?” + +“What do you want me to do about it?” asked Daphne. “I wasn’t going to +do anything.” + +“That’s what I want you to do,” said Anthony, throwing away his +match—“leave us alone. I won’t do Miss Costrelle any particular harm if +I can help it, but I don’t propose to cut her acquaintance merely +because she has had an unfortunate bringing-up and indulges in a risqué +manner. It will be an interesting experience for me to know a flirt.” + +Daphne said nothing. If this was the result of forty-eight hours’ solid +reflection on the part of Anthony, she doubted if anything she could say +would add to the weight of it. + +Anthony felt sure from his knowledge of women that if Daphne had +anything to urge against Kitty, she would very properly have urged it. +She would not have invented adverse facts, but she would have stated +picturesquely what adverse facts there were. He argued from her silence +that there was none. He was relieved by Daphne’s account of Kitty, and +he did not realize that he had intended to be relieved by whatever +account of Kitty he received. + +He met Kitty on his way to the farm. She was driving a two-seated, +rakish car round a precipitous corner. She pulled up when she saw him. + +“Your brother-in-law is a splendid whip,” she observed. “I came right on +to him suddenly at the end of Clatter’s Lane. I didn’t do it on purpose, +but there’s an awfully sharp turn, and I wasn’t expecting anything. I +got by without touching the cart, but Polly bolted. Miss Mellicot didn’t +scream. She just held her hat on most sensibly. She wears rather hard +hats, doesn’t she? Jim swore.” + +“Did you happen to see the result of Polly’s bolting?” Anthony asked +with what gravity he could muster. + +Kitty had on a purple slouch hat drawn nearly over her eyes, and tied by +a long, purple scarf. She wore amethyst ear-rings, and a big bunch of +Neapolitan violets was pinned to her breast. These facts served to +reduce the anxiety with which Anthony waited to hear the fate of the +dog-cart. + +“Oh, Jimmy must have got her in hand all right,” said Kitty, easily. +“They’d be back by now in pieces if he hadn’t. You ought to have driven +Miss Mellicot to the station yourself, you know, Captain Arden. I do +think it was rather shabby of you not to. Do you want to have a spin in +my car? I’ll take you if Daphne knows you were coming to see me. You +were coming to see me, weren’t you?” + +Anthony nodded, and got into the car. Kitty turned it toward the distant +hills without waiting for a further answer. + +“Daphne knows perfectly,” said Anthony at length, “what my plans are, +and she’s been telling me all about you.” + +Kitty kept her eyes on the road without speaking. They flew along in +silence for a few minutes. Then she said in a curious, flat little +voice: + +“Whatever she said was true, you know, Captain Arden.” + +“She might have told me,” said Anthony as they shot through the village +and tore breathlessly to left and right down country lanes and +palpitating commons, “that you habitually exceeded the speed limit.” + +“I wonder she didn’t tell you that,” said Kitty, with a sudden dimple. +“But perhaps she thought that, as you were so very clever, you would +have guessed it. D’you mind how fast we go?” + +Anthony shook his head. He wasn’t going to explain to Kitty what it felt +like, after sitting for two years in a small compound watching a man +with a gun on the other side of a barbed-wire fence, with a wall beyond +it, to be melting through space with the rapidity of a flying cloud. + +He was not sure that he was afraid, but the sense of habitual unreality +which possessed him was sharper than ever before. He felt as if some +fine cord connecting him with the universe had been severed, and that he +might at any moment find himself carried off into bottomless space. He +lost the sense of his own body, and held on to his racing mind with all +the strength that was left in him. + +It was difficult to talk while Kitty was driving. She shaved disaster +habitually by the turn of a hair; her small, steady hand barely touched +the steering-wheel; her eyes ate up the oncoming road with a searching +eagerness. + +There were moments when it seemed to Anthony that she was not aware of +what she was doing: she drove in a trance of speed. The wind caught her +hair and blew it flat against her face, then lifted it suddenly, +revealing her long-lashed, sparkling eyes, shining as water shines when +trees are blown backward from a hidden pool. Her lips were parted with a +fierce enjoyment. The purple scarf furled and unfurled itself against +Anthony’s cheek. + +Once or twice she turned her head toward him and laughed a little. + +“Your nerve seems to be all right,” she assured him when they had +escaped a donkey-cart by a miracle and hustled a perilous pathway +through a herd of cows. “I wonder what it feels like to be afraid of +being hurt,” she added speculatively. “I don’t mean disliking it. I +dislike it myself intensely, but I can’t imagine not doing anything I +wanted because I was afraid of anything, can you?” + +“Yes, I can,” said Anthony, looking away from her. “I can imagine being +afraid of all sorts of things—noises—angry voices, people’s eyes, not +getting food when your whole body aches for it, thinking that perhaps +you are going to be left without water, or seeing things that haven’t +happened, but which you know _may_ happen. Look here, don’t let’s talk +about fear, Miss Costrelle. It’s something that’s inside you, and +fierce, like a wild beast in a cage; it’s all right if you keep the bars +shut. I can manage all my wild beasts quite comfortably then, but I +don’t want to feel as if any one’s hand was on the lock, fingering at +the bars. Understand fear? I can understand any mortal thing about fear +except people’s being able to overcome it. That I haven’t been able to +understand. Do you despise me for being a coward, or think I shall get +quite right with plenty of good hard exercise and a quart of milk a +day?” + +“Miss Mellicot said that, didn’t she?” asked Kitty. + +She put on speed for a long stretch of flat road, and then looked at +Anthony. + +“Of course I don’t think you’re a coward,” she said. “I didn’t mean that +kind of being afraid, though perhaps it helps you to understand the +_personal-skin_ fear, which was what I did mean.” + +“I have that, too,” said Anthony, quietly. + +“Well,” said Kitty, gently, “if you have, you’ll just set your teeth and +hold on. The people I mean don’t. They let their teeth and everything +else go. They expect to be held on _to_. I know you aren’t like them; +that’s why I want to be friends. It’s rather fine when you know how, +isn’t it? I don’t mean being friends, but just setting your teeth and +holding on. Would you prefer being a dormouse and sleeping through all +your winters?” + +“Ah, you’re not given the blessed chance,” said Anthony. “I’d close with +the dormouse to-morrow, Miss Costrelle, if I had the choice; but it’s +winters during which my imagination is particularly lively. Why do you +drive with your gloves off? You’ll get your hands cold.” + +“You can warm them if you like,” said Kitty, calmly, “turn and turn +about. I can drive just as easily with my left hand. I like to see my +rings when I’m driving.” + +“It’s very nice of you,” said Anthony, “to make me such an offer; but I +don’t propose to have any of your friends, or even enemies, +witness—what shall I call them?—your gloveless vagaries.” + +“You’re too particular,” said Kitty. “Other men aren’t so particular, +Captain Arden.” + +Anthony shot a vexed glance at her. Why was she like a charming, +confidential child one moment, and an Eve with the hard knowledge of the +ages in her the next? + +“I don’t intend to treat you as you imply other men treat you,” he said +coldly. “I have my own methods.” + +“They treat me,” said Kitty, defiantly, “exactly as I intend to have +them treat me. I believe you think that I’m a poor little persecuted +angel half the time and a maddening little fool the other half. I’m +nothing of the kind. I’m twenty-three, and I know my way about +considerably better than you do. Shall I drop you here? We’ve come +another way round. My house is up this lane and then to the right. Be +rather careful how you turn, for I’m apt to come suddenly round the +corner, and I always forget to sound my horn till afterward. I’m +expecting my one and only parent just now, so I sha’n’t ask you in. He’s +a very entertaining person. I can’t say you’re very entertaining +yourself, Captain Arden, but I dare say I shall get used to you in +time.” + +“I’m glad to hear that,” said Anthony, “because it sounds as if you mean +to give me time.” + +Kitty pulled up to let him out. There was no one in the lane, and +Anthony put his hand over hers and held it there. + +She looked at him moodily with eyes which had suddenly turned dark and +lifeless. + +Anthony had never seen a face which depended so for its beauty upon its +expression. When Kitty wished, her face became like a house with all its +blinds down. She shut out everything, even her prettiness. + +For a moment she looked like that now, speculative and sulky, as if she +questioned Anthony’s possible worth to her, and was annoyed with him for +not possessing it more obviously. Then she shrugged her shoulders and +withdrew her hand. + +“Oh, yes,” she said petulantly, “I suppose I do. You’re rather +strong-minded and odd, and I dare say you’ll amuse me for a time. Only, +for goodness’ sake, don’t try to take care of me or show me what I’m +_not_ like and ought to be! I really couldn’t stand that. I’m just what +I _am_, you know, and you’re just what you are, and that’s quite +different.” + +“And if you’ve done with some of those Neapolitan violets,” said +Anthony, unexpectedly to himself, “you can hand them over to me.” + +Kitty laughed, and unfastened the bunch. + +“You can have them all,” she said. “Father will only ask who I put them +on for!” + +“I don’t want all,” explained Anthony, carefully; “I want exactly half.” + +He took them from her as he spoke, and repinned the rest with a steady +hand. + +“You do pin flowers on nicely,” Kitty remarked. “I will say that for +you. Most men expect pins to stick into space, and let the flowers +dribble all over you. I suppose it’s because you’re a doctor. You have a +wonderfully steady hand, Captain Arden, even for a doctor.” + +“It’s just as well,” explained Anthony, laughing at her. “You should +know that you are not as intoxicating as you appear to imagine. I’m very +pleased to have the violets, but they don’t excite me.” + +“That sounds rather like a challenge,” said Kitty, while the laughter +shot back into her eyes again. “A dangerous kind of challenge for you to +make, coming on the top of the violets.” + +“Ah, but I got my half safely first,” said Anthony. “I ran no risk over +it.” + +“You got half of what I didn’t want,” agreed Kitty, still laughing. +“Good-by, Captain Arden. Don’t be too sure about that risk.” + +She shot away from him through the leafy lane. The boughs met over her +head and hid her from his eyes. The lane seemed curiously still and +empty after she had gone; almost as if the spring had followed her out +of it. + + + CHAPTER VIII + +Anthony knew that Daphne and Jim disapproved of his intimacy with Kitty. +They never interfered with him and they never let their disapproval out +in words, but it was as solid as a mahogany table. They used the silent +pressure of sensible and kindly people who expect common sense to +triumph in the end if nothing is done to rouse bad blood by argument. +They didn’t invite Kitty to the house, and they never asked Anthony +where he had been. + +On one occasion Jim, at Daphne’s instigation, went a shade further: he +made a statement about Kitty that was not in her favor. + +“It’s no use my saying anything,” Daphne privately urged him. “You see, +men like Anthony believe what other men tell them about women, when they +won’t believe what other women tell them. If I say anything about Kitty, +Anthony’ll think it’s because I’m fond of him or vexed with Kitty or +recently married; but he’ll think you _know_. Put it in your own words, +of course; it’ll be worse if he thinks I’m behind you.” + +Jim cleared his throat. He had not even told Daphne what he thought +about Kitty in his own words. Men’s thoughts about Kitty eluded words. +They did not think about her; they felt her. But Jim realized quite as +strongly as Daphne that it would be a good thing to pull Anthony up. + +“The trouble is,” he explained a little uncertainly, “that you never +know about a girl—whether you’re pulling a man up or setting him on by +letting fly at her.” + +“Oh, don’t let fly at her!” cried Daphne, suddenly remorseful. “Poor +little Kitty! Just say what she _is_, you know.” + +Jim grunted. As if he could say what Kitty was without letting fly at +her! He was not yet accustomed to the way in which Daphne slipped +between the meshes of fact. + +Jim chose the occasion when he was walking to the post with Anthony and +Kitty whirled by them in a cloud of dust. He stopped to choke, and +turned to look after her. + +“There,” he remarked, with unmistakable emphasis, “goes a piece of +pretty hot stuff.” + +He couldn’t have put it more plainly. Anthony’s face set hard; he made +no answer. + +His mind set hard, too. He wasn’t going to accept any one else’s +estimate of Kitty. He had got into the habit of living against current +opinion when he was a prisoner, and he knew its value. You just said to +your mind, “It is a lie,” and forced your will to accept it. + +You said it in the face of newspapers, guards, commandants, and the +swift inroads of rumor, and it enabled you to live equably and +indifferently among the broken pieces of your fears. + +Anthony was in love for the first time in his life, and every one wished +him to believe that the object of his love was worthless. Daphne and +Jim, with their serene and prosperous happiness, wished him to believe +it; a peculiarly stupid and suburban neighborhood offered him their cold +shoulders as a proof; and Kitty herself made intermittent efforts to +convince him of the same fact. + +Anthony was convinced of nothing beyond the sense of Kitty’s presence. +She was everywhere, whether she was worthless or not. When he wasn’t +with her, he saw her, and heard through whatever else he was listening +to, the sound of Kitty’s voice. + +He had no terms for what he felt for Kitty. She was part of the spring. +The little dawn wind spoke of her; when he looked out of his window into +the apple-blossoms, it was to see her face. He heard her hurrying voice +in the thrushes’ songs; a group of silver birches at the garden’s edge +were counterparts of Kitty. + +Kitty wasn’t very tall, and though she was slender, her figure had not +the dignity of a silver birch. Her small, provocative face was +artificially whitened and not the least like the apple-blossom; her +voice was never for long as innocent of innuendo as a thrush’s; and for +all these divergencies from his dreams Anthony had for Kitty a fiercer +tenderness. She was no longer a single “experience,” however +interesting. She had become for Anthony the medium of the spirit of +life. + +Anthony had never been in love before, and he was unaware that love +concentrates the forces of the soul into one channel, and then, +transcending concentration, breaks its expression over all the world. He +only knew that there were a dozen different Kittys and that he loved +them all. + +He loved the wicked Kitty, who played on him as if he were an +instrument; the gay, nonchalant, flirtatious Kitty, who never let him +feel unaware of a secret relationship between them, which might mean +anything forever, and the next moment be as finished as a blown candle. +He loved the child Kitty, who asked him what the Elizabethans were, with +a secret hope that they might turn out to be negro minstrels. She loved +people with banjos. + +Perhaps Anthony cared for this ignorant child Kitty most of all; he felt +he could hardly bear to have her out of his sight. And he loved his +dear, confiding comrade Kitty, who told him what he ought to do when he +couldn’t sleep, and poured out to him the nuisance money was when you +hadn’t got enough. Father always supposed they had more till they found, +of course, it was ever so much less. Anthony gathered that father was a +great dear, if only people weren’t such sharks. The world, according to +Kitty, was divided into sharks and prudes: the sharks (horrid +tradespeople who would send in bills when you hadn’t paid them for years +and couldn’t be expected to) used up your money, and the prudes +prevented you from enjoying what was left. + +And there was the cruel Kitty. Anthony put her last in his mind because +it hurt him to think of Kitty as cruel. This Kitty was an Ishmaelitish +woman whose hand was against every woman, and every woman’s hand against +her. Kitty could be very cruel to other women. She left no man alone who +belonged to them, she wounded the pride of happy women new to love, and +she struck at their trust in their lovers. + +She did it deliberately, with hard eyes and malicious laughter. She knew +that she could set men alight, and she used her power indiscriminately. +She made herself cheap in order to attract attention; but making herself +cheap paid. Kitty always secured short successes. Sometimes they were +short because Kitty didn’t want to go on with them, but often because, +after their first response to her, the men collected themselves and made +a successful resistance. But whether they succeeded in resisting her or +she succeeded in attracting them, Kitty always laughed. She laughed at +the men for being such fools as to yield to her; she laughed at the +other women for minding, because, as she pointed out to Anthony, she +really wouldn’t have done it if the other women hadn’t minded; and she +laughed at herself for not always being able to pull it off. + +It was as if she did not care for her own discredit, and this was what +hurt Anthony sharpest. One cannot protect people who do not mind +discrediting themselves. + +“She doesn’t know what she’s doing,” Anthony argued defensively to +himself. “She’s only twenty-three. Girls are blind to passion; they’re +brought up blind and explosive. It’s a wicked combination, and they’re +the first victims of the explosion when it takes place, though they are +not the only victims, of course! We’re wretchedly uncivilized, and our +worst sign of it is our fear of revealing nature to the young. They’ve +got to handle it, and not to warn them is like putting a gun into a +child’s hands and not telling him what happens when you pull the +trigger.” + +Anthony assured himself that Kitty did not know what happened when one +pulled the trigger. He let life slip between him and his wits, he forgot +Pannell, and he even put aside the preoccupation of his profession. He +had some excuse for this, for a surgeon must have steady hands, and his +hands were not quite steady yet. + +Rochett was doing what it could for Anthony, and spring had set itself +into his heart, but his raw nerves were not wholly covered yet. He could +not count on his serenity. + +Every morning he woke at dawn to listen to the country sounds. The earth +stirred at three o’clock in a faint, gray light—a light which was like +the mere absence of darkness. All the birds moved in their nests at its +approach, and shook out a sleepy protest before they sank into their +last short sleep. A wind sprang up suddenly and passed across the fields +with a faint shuddering of shaken leaves; sometimes a brief shower fell, +a hurrying small shower, leaving behind it the sweetness of the visited +earth. + +Anthony would lean out of his open window, watching the light come +across the sloping fields. The big row of elms at the foot of the +apple-orchard moved first; they drove their heavy, grave heads out of +the dark, and between them the gray, clear fields tentatively took +color. + +The apple-orchard beyond the kitchen-garden became for a brief moment an +unearthly splendor; the white and pink of its blossoms shone like an +alabaster screen. The light deepened and kindled under a colorless sky; +pink clouds floated up into it with golden edges; the sunshine came +softly without fire. There was no direct moment of transformation before +Anthony found the flowers in the garden had their natural colors, the +fields their dew-washed green, and all the quiet land its daily covering +of tranquil light. + +Anthony drank in the sounds of life, the little regular country sounds, +with a quickened sense of reassurance and returning energy. The mildness +of England sank into his being, not all at once, and not with the +blinding ecstasy he had expected, but at last it came. He felt he was at +home and free. He slept quietly at night, and when he woke he knew +before he remembered that nothing terrible was going to happen. He found +himself not able to say which was stronger in him, love of Kitty or love +of England. Both consumed and restored him, and at first Kitty helped +England to quiet Anthony. + +It pleased her to see him happy, to make his restless, haunted eyes turn +to laughter, to watch his strained senses relax under her confident +gentleness. + +He didn’t make love to her. This was odd, of course, but Kitty rather +liked it. His eyes showed her that he felt for her the hungry, obedient +worship of a good dog. He looked at her with all the gentleness of a +first passion before it turns to fire. + +Anthony was not a weak person, but when he looked at Kitty his eyes were +often as appealing as a child’s. + +He tremendously wanted her to be kind to him; and sometimes Kitty was +cold and hard and shut him out of her eyes. She wanted him to entertain +her, and took the life out of him by showing him that he didn’t. Or she +tried to hurt him by saying reckless things. Kitty didn’t have to try +very hard in this direction; she knew she could always hurt Anthony by +depreciating herself. + +It was the way she punished him for his occasional attempts to hold her +in. Anthony always wanted to take care of Kitty. In order to take care +of her, it was necessary to see as much of her as possible. The really +awkward part of this task was the little that is possible in censorious +small places like Rochett, when sooner or later people have to be in for +meals, and neighbors do not acknowledge the lengthening out of spring +evenings as a definite alteration to the clock. + +Of course Anthony met Kitty every day, but this wasn’t nearly enough for +him. There was all the part of the day when he wasn’t with her, when she +might get her feet wet, or break without the immunity of his protection +into some danger zone of mischief. + +Kitty couldn’t be expected to know the perils of life when Anthony +wasn’t there. She hadn’t known them before he came, and she only laughed +when he tried to point them out to her and to lay down laws and +arrangements for the rest of her time. She either laughed or she grew a +little restive; and when she grew restive, Anthony, who knew that +nothing in the world could hold her, least of all his heart, quickly +withdrew his claims. + +He told her that of course he wouldn’t bother her; she must do exactly +as she liked, only for his sake to be a little careful. And Kitty +laughed still more. It was so absurd of Anthony to suppose for a single +moment that she wouldn’t do exactly what she liked whether he told her +to or not. But it was nice of him to want her to be careful; it was not +what men usually wanted of Kitty. + + + CHAPTER IX + +Kitty had never had many advantages, but there had been a time when to +be Kitty was in itself an advantage. Her mother died at her birth, and +her father, though she was the only human being he really loved, was +very little with her; he preferred his caprices to his affections. But +Kitty did not miss either of her natural protectors very deeply. She had +Peckham, and though Peckham was only an old nurse, she was a selfless +fount of love; from a bump to a dead bird she was all attention, +consolation, and reward. + +Nothing that Kitty cared for escaped Peckham, and she stood solid and +aggressive between Kitty and her occasional fears. Peckham was unable +always to provide Kitty with what she wanted—the brass eagle off the +lectern and the housekeeper’s blue beads were a case in point—but she +strained every nerve to procure substitutes. In all her happy childhood +Kitty never knew what it was to be deliberately thwarted. + +And then there was Dick. One said one’s prayers to God, but everything +else one said to Dick. Dick was the eldest son of the retired rector, an +enchanting personage who did not preach sermons and who always went +about with sweets in his pocket. He was the only pillar of the church +who ever attracted Kitty. + +Dick’s people lived across the river, at the foot of the garden. There +was an island in the river, and Dick made a bridge from his garden to +the island, and from the island to Kitty’s garden. Long before the +bridge was built, when they were only babies, they were taken solemnly +by the road to tea, to play with each other. + +Whenever Kitty fell down, Dick, who was a year older, picked her up; and +whatever Dick was given, he gave half of it to Kitty. Even his catapult +he lent her. It was one of those strange affections which transcend +relationship and never alter except to deepen as the years pass. + +They took their first plunge into life together, hand in hand, and it +never occurred to either of them to have a separate thought. They played +together every day until Dick went to school, and they broke their +hearts over the agonizing separations, between the golden flashes of the +holidays. The gloom was slightly lifted for Kitty by Dick’s rabbits +(they were carefully transferred to her across the bridge, hutch by +hutch) and to Dick by her scrawled bulletins as to their increasing and +pervasive families. + +When he came back they still played together. Other boys had entered +into Dick’s life to war with feminine influences, but they did not touch +his feelings for Kitty. + +Kitty had none of the distinctive markings of a girl; she might just as +well have been another boy. Dick’s favorite pursuits were hers. There +was no tree she feared to climb, she ran like a deer, and her high jumps +cleared her own height. She was more unexpected than boys usually are, +but she was just as truthful, just as loyal, just as plucky. + +She did not stop being a comrade until Dick was eighteen, and then she +became everything else. The comrade was still there, but submerged in +something so tremendous and inspiring, so exciting and yet so intensely +secure, that Dick found no words to explain even to Kitty what he felt +for her. + +But Kitty didn’t need Dick’s words. What happened first to Dick happened +as a matter of course afterward to Kitty. When Peckham, unable to bear +the responsibility of the situation, reported upon it to Mr. Costrelle, +he listened to her with amused attention. Then he said: + +“Have they been allowed to see as much as they liked of each other till +now, no opposition at all, eh?” + +Peckham in a flutter answered that they had. + +“You see, sir,” she explained, “Miss Kitty being such a tomboy, and +Master Dick’s mother an invalid and never out of the house, I was hard +put to it to think of a reason why they shouldn’t be together.” + +“Well, continue not to think of a reason,” replied Mr. Costrelle, +calmly. “Allow them to be together as much as ever they choose. They’ll +soon get over it. When young people are permitted to do exactly as they +like, they seldom continue to like it for any length of time.” + +Not long after this conversation Mr. Costrelle decided to take Kitty +abroad. He was in the habit of frequent and prolonged visits to Paris +and Monte Carlo. Kitty, accompanied by intermittent governesses, +wouldn’t be a bother, and Mr. Costrelle wanted her to be taught to speak +French and how to put her clothes on properly. He did not think these +two subjects easily mastered in his own country. + +“The only thing a girl need bother her head about,” Mr. Costrelle +explained to Kitty, “is how to amuse a man and how to get a bit of her +own back. Lots of old women will cram you up with nonsense; they’ll say +a woman needs education, freedom, equal rights, and what not. Don’t you +believe ’em. Men are what matter to women, and women are what matter to +men. + +“A clever girl hasn’t got equal rights; she’s got ’em _all_, and a girl +isn’t clever if she’s read half the London Library and can’t make a man +who looked at her once want to look at her again. Make ’em want and keep +’em wanting. You can’t begin too early, but don’t lose your head over +it. That’s where women make such awful fools of themselves. They start +caring about some fellow and running him down as if they were a Paris +cabby after a foot-passenger. No man’ll stand it. Don’t you ever budge, +however much you care for a fellow. Get him keen and then hold him. Good +artificial fly, invisible line, firm hand at the end of it, feet well +against the bank, and you’ll have your fish landed. D’you see my point?” + +Kitty saw her parent’s point; she listened gravely out of the depths of +her seventeen-year-old wisdom and innocence. She was never quite so old +again. + +“You won’t mind, will you,” she said consideringly, “if I marry Dick +instead, and don’t play any particular kind of game? You see, I’d rather +marry Dick.” + +“Marry whom you like,” said her father, promptly, “provided he can +support you. I can’t, as you know, and what your mother wanted to leave +you three hundred a year for God only knows. You can’t even dress on it. +She always was penny wise and pound foolish. But take my advice. If you +want to keep your husband, learn to play your game. Any fool can get a +husband; look at the sights who do. ’Pon my word, I saw a woman the +other day with a cast in her eye and a harelip, with a wedding-ring on. +Of course you’d think there was money back of it, but there wasn’t. +Sheer will power. She’d been after him like a boa constrictor gets a +rabbit. But that’s not enough to keep a man faithful for a fortnight. +You must learn the ropes.” + +“But Dick,” Kitty said reflectively—“couldn’t I keep Dick without +playing a game? You see, there never have been any particular ropes with +Dick.” + +“I never met a man yet,” said Mr. Costrelle, emphatically, “who didn’t +like a woman better because other men were after her. Besides, you’ve +got yourself to think of. Life’s chancy. You want to have something to +fall back on. + +“I dare say a lot of people—all your mother’s relations and that stuffy +set at Rochett—would say I ought to have had you educated to some +profession. Well, what I’m teaching you will pay you better than _any_ +profession. You never need be at a loss. If you’re happy with Dick, or +whoever you pick out to be happy with, you can _stay_ happy; and if +you’re not, by Jove! you can make ’em pay for it.” + +“But I’m going to be happy, of course,” said Kitty, calmly. “I settled +all that long ago, and I sha’n’t want anybody to pay for it.” + +“Well, make damned sure you can _make_ them pay for it if you ever do +want it,” urged Mr. Costrelle. “No use thinking you’ll have a shy at it +later on, when your looks are going. You might as well race a horse +that’s never learned to start. You take my word for it, girls and horses +need training while they’re young.” + +“All right,” said Kitty, thoughtfully; “I’ll train.” + +It amused Mr. Costrelle extremely to watch Kitty training, and it didn’t +do Kitty any particular harm then. + +Her heart was safe, and she learned point by point, sometimes from a +lightly dropped reflection of her father’s, and more often from the +varied experiences that presented themselves, the mastery of her +subject. + +Mr. Costrelle knew men of all sorts and of all ages, and they all became +sooner or later the declared admirers of Kitty. Peckham, perturbed and +powerless, watched the strange procession. She could not interfere with +Kitty’s freedom, but she never left her alone. She sat and knitted on +benches at Monte Carlo, she reluctantly attended the most risqué of +French plays, she was seasick on board yachts, and giddy in +racing-motors; but Peckham was always there. Perhaps, owing to this +adamant protection, Kitty flirted serenely on without disaster. She +learned the ways of men, and little by little she learned the powers of +women. Dick didn’t like it, but he fell deeper in love. + +They argued and quarreled about Kitty’s adventures, but neither of them +ever doubted the other. Their future was plain before them, and in the +depths of their hearts they knew that there were no other men or any +other women. + +When Kitty was eighteen Mr. Costrelle insisted on her spending six weeks +in London with an aunt. Kitty didn’t want to go. She didn’t like her +aunt, with whom she had occasionally lunched in an awe-inspiring, dark +London dining-room where she had been stared at reflectively and without +kindness by three girl cousins. + +The Mallards were a dull family; still, they had a large house and a +wide acquaintance. They were modern enough to know what to go and see, +though none of it adhered to them. No member of the family had ever said +anything worth remembering or had done anything it was necessary to +forget. London spoke of them as “the dull Mallards,” but it did speak of +them. + +Mr. Costrelle, who hardly ever urged any course of action upon Kitty, +virtually insisted upon the Mallards. + +“Yes, of course you’ll be bored,” he agreed; “but, my dear child, at +your age what else can you expect? Young people must learn to be bored, +and the sooner the better. I’ve been bored for fifty years, but I’ve +learned how. I quite admit that your aunt’s a dowd and your cousins +three young and very undistinguished frumps, but that’s precisely why +they’re so valuable. If you have one good frump at your side, you have a +margin; with three or four, any future is virtually open to you. + +“You know all the men you need to know now, and none of the women you’ve +met with me can be of the slightest use to you. It’s high time you +should square a few frumps. Otherwise the men’ll do you harm. You’ll be +considered fast.” + +“But aren’t I fast?” Kitty inquired. “I thought knowing a lot of men was +always fast.” + +“So it is,” said her father, with a chuckle, “damned fast and damned +convenient, but you’ll have to slow up over it. Sprinkle a few of these +Mallard women across your track, and then you can do what you like. +See?” + +Kitty didn’t see, but she did what she liked. + +It was, after all, quite an amusing time. Many of the men she knew +turned up, and invitations were showered upon her, backed by flowers and +chocolates. Her cousins didn’t like her even though she religiously +shared all the chocolates and flowers with them, and her aunt stared +rather hard at some of Kitty’s callers. + +Kitty’s French clothes were a great success, but her French manners had +to be toned down. Dick hated them, and the other men were sometimes a +little tiresome. Kitty had long ago learned to deal with men who were +tiresome. She did it with laughter and good humor and a little touch of +decision, and she very seldom needed any other weapon. + +A good many of the men she had met in Monte Carlo and met again in +London were tiresome; and in the middle of the six weeks Dick wanted to +marry her. He said quite suddenly he _must_ marry her. The Mallards sent +Kitty back to her father with expedition and without cordiality. + +Mr. Costrelle shrugged his shoulders and said it was a pity. + +“You’ve had a very short run for your money,” he observed to Kitty, “but +do as you like. Dick’s a good fellow. I suppose you can pig it on nine +hundred a year, which, I understand, you’ll scrape up between you, and +Dick’ll have money some day. I dare say domesticity is best taken young. +You can make a fresh start later on if you want to, now you’ve got the +swing of it.” + +They were to be married in a month, and two weeks later Dick was +crossing the channel with the First Expeditionary Force. + +He hadn’t expected to be called up so soon. A telegram to Kitty +miscarried, and in the end they hadn’t time for marriage, only for a +strange half-hour, in which they said nothing at all except queer, +fragmentary things out of the tops of their minds; but of course they +expected the war to be over in three months. + +There was no time for anything but jokes, little clumsy jokes about +Berlin and the kaiser; and then there seemed nothing left but +interminable terror. + +A few weeks later the rector came to Alington Farm to tell Kitty that +Dick was missing. Kitty was spraying the second crop of roses against +blight. They were Gloire de Dijon roses, growing low over the porch, +full of heavy scent. + +The rector said to her: “My dear, will you come and see my wife? She’s +almost your mother now, you know.” + +He wished that Kitty had had a real mother. She faced him for a moment +speechlessly; her eyes slipped past his words to his fears. He answered +them quickly. + +“I do not know that he is dead,” he said, showing her the telegram. + +Kitty was afraid the rector was going to say something about God, but he +didn’t. He looked all about him vaguely, down to the garden’s edge, and +across the rickety bridge. + +“We don’t know what it means,” he said dully; he kept his eyes turned +away from Kitty. + +She stood quite still, holding the telegram, as if she could not make up +her mind to give it back to him. It did not seem to Kitty that Dick +belonged to either his father or his mother. They were old; they had had +him. He had been their child. They were lucky people whose relationship +was complete; no one could stop Dick having been their son. They could +afford to know that he was dead. + +“No,” she said at last, “I won’t go and see his mother.” + +She turned and went into the house. The rector did nothing to retain +her, and he never told any one what Kitty had said. + +Kitty went to her room and locked the door. She lay on the bed, face +downward, till the dark came. + +Her body felt dry and as if it were broken. She shed no tears. Peckham +came to her door crying, but Kitty told her to go away. + +“Please,” she said quietly, “go right away, Peckham.” + +The next day her father came down from London. Kitty unlocked the door +for him. She knew he wouldn’t say anything to bother her. He brought her +a cup of tea, and when she had drunk it, he said to her: + +“’Member my telling you life was chancy? Well! it is, you see, damned +chancy. If I were you, I should just sit tight and make the best of it.” + +“So I would if I were sure he was dead,” explained Kitty. “You see, if +he’s there,—anywhere at all, I mean,—I want to be what he wants—that +kind of woman; and if he isn’t, well, then, I don’t care what I am.” + +“Well, give the thing time,” urged her father. “Wait a bit; you’re very +young. You can only be innocent once, you know; you can always be the +other thing.” + +“Oh, I’m not thinking of all that,” said Kitty, impatiently. “Men don’t +matter. I’m wondering what to be—myself, you see, if things don’t come +right.” + +“No, of course you’re not now,” agreed her father. “But you will, you +know, my dear. Dreams are what we all start out with, and it’s pretty +tough when they get broken. But it’s facts we end up on, and when we +want the facts, we want them worse than we wanted the dreams.” + +“You talk as if Dick hadn’t been a fact,” said Kitty, bitterly; and then +she began to cry, because she herself had spoken as if Dick were no +longer a fact. + +Mr. Costrelle helped her to go to France. He couldn’t go himself because +three relentless doctors refused to pass him for active service. + +“If I were you,” he said to Kitty as he saw her off, “I should wait two +years. The war won’t end any sooner. People say it will, but it won’t. +You’ll have a hell of a time, but you can afford it at eighteen. So +shall I, of course, and at my age it’s more serious. I shall simply be +bored stiff with people all around me doing things for their country, +the kind of people, I mean, who will take this war as if it were a new +sort of lap-dog. + +“I sha’n’t turn a hair myself. If my country doesn’t want me to fight, +it can leave me alone. I’m not going to turn myself into a Red Cross +pin-cushion to please anybody. + +“When you want to come back, you’ll find me just as you left me—except +for what they get out of me in the way of taxes.” + +“I wonder what you’ll find me,” said Kitty. + + + CHAPTER X + +Peckham had none of the rights of love; she had only its services and +its long suspenses. It was very gratifying, in the face of the entire +dissolving household, to be put in charge of Alington Farm, to have an +assured income, a kitchen maid, and a silk umbrella with her initials on +the handle, presented to her by Miss Kitty as a parting present. But +Peckham saw through these gratifications to the fact of her lamb’s +unprotected disappearance. No umbrella could soften the fact of Miss +Kitty’s going into the country in Europe of which Peckham least +approved. + +Peckham disliked all countries that were not her own, but she had a +special horror of France. She thought it an indecent place, abandoned to +a parcel of fly-by-nights and the sinister ministrations of the Roman +Catholic Church. Peckham did not know which she disapproved of most +thoroughly, the grands boulevards or the pope. Now there were the +Germans, and by what she read in the newspapers, they were as bad or +worse. + +The French couldn’t get them out of the country, and we had to help +them, that is to say, Miss Kitty had to help them. The European War +became for Peckham an act of reckless charity on the part of Kitty. + +And after two years the war stopped. It went on in the newspapers and as +far as the soldiers were concerned, and strange things took place or +ceased to take place in the larder; but Miss Kitty returned. + +Alington Hall had been sold. There was only Alington Farm left. It was +the last piece of the old Alington estate. Mr. Costrelle had settled it +upon Kitty as a twenty-first birthday present. It was older than the +hall itself, and stood in an overgrown garden, with an ancient +four-square tower rising out of it, flanked by an old stone chapel that +had for years been the undisputed abode of a family of Berkshire pigs. +Mr. Costrelle hardly ever came near it. He stayed in London, and +sometimes in the summer he came down for a night or two, looked moodily +over the little place, tipped Peckham, and told her that Miss Kitty was +well, there was no occasion for her to starve herself, and the war would +probably go on forever. + +“Should you say Miss Kitty was really better, sir—happier, as you might +say?” Peckham would venture as the last moments of Mr. Costrelle’s +occasional visit drew to a close, and Mr. Costrelle always shook hands +with her at the gate, most handsomely (the postman had remarked upon it +with awe; for Mr. Costrelle was not one to demean himself with +inferiors), and replied in the same words: + +“There isn’t any news of Master Dick, you know, nurse. I should say Miss +Kitty was about the same.” + +And at the end of the two years Miss Kitty came back, but she wasn’t at +all the same. + +She was taller and thinner and a very great deal older. But her age was +not a visible portent. She looked as pretty as a peach and as young as a +June day. It was in her mind and in the presentment of her personality +that Kitty had grown old. She had been like a flower in her youth, and +now she was like a piece of very bright, well-polished enamel. + +Kitty was very kind to Peckham, but there was something as hard as steel +under her kindness. She was very gay, but there was something +unapproachably bitter under her gaiety. She was a woman of the world, +and she very soon became the talk of Rochett. + +England was denuded of men, but Alington Farm was never long without +one. Generals, colonels, lieutenants, engineers, commanders of +men-of-war, each appeared and reappeared on leave, or stationed within +motoring distance, and Kitty entertained them all. There were only a +French cook, Peckham, and the kitchen maid, but there always seemed +money enough for what Kitty wanted. Her room was always full of new +French clothes and of strange French perfumes. There was a litter of +men’s photographs in presentation silver frames that Kitty rarely looked +at, and of endless letters that she barely read, and there was a good +deal of valuable jewelry that she frequently wore. It was perhaps not +surprising that Rochett should talk and that Peckham should suffer. + +Peckham knew that Kitty had three hundred a year; so did Rochett. +Rochett drew its own conclusions, and Peckham refused to draw hers. + +Mr. Costrelle came down a good deal oftener. He got on remarkably well +with whichever of Kitty’s friends happened to be there—they stayed at +the inn and spent their entire days at Alington—and Mr. Costrelle +seemed not in the least concerned by the regularity of their appearances +or the lateness of their departures. + +“Well, you’ve got Miss Kitty back,” he said on the first of these +occasions to Peckham. + +Peckham met his eyes in a way that was unusual with her. + +“Yes, in a sense I have, sir,” she assented. + +“Just the same as ever?” Mr. Costrelle remarked, smiling a little at the +fixity of Peckham’s regard. + +“I don’t find Miss Kitty the same, sir,” Peckham ventured breathlessly. + +“Ah, well,” Mr. Costrelle said, turning away to end the conversation, +“you must put up with what you have, Peckham. It’s a changing universe, +and wise people change with it. I don’t say they improve—that’s a +matter of opinion—but they change.” + +Peckham did not expostulate directly with Kitty. She did not dare. The +vicar’s wife expostulated, and she left the drawing-room with flaming +cheeks and an air of having got the worst of it. + +“Don’t let that woman in again if she calls,” Kitty remarked afterward +to Peckham. “She’s been impertinent. I don’t like impertinent women.” +But the vicar’s wife didn’t call again. + +Gradually every one in the neighborhood—the women, that is to +say—ceased to call, every one except Daphne Wynne. Daphne came often, +and Peckham learned to love the sound of laughter which ensued—the old +easy laughter that reminded her of the times before Miss Kitty went away +and when she did not have that little cold ring in her voice, which made +her laughter now have a formidable and dangerous sound. + +Kitty never laughed like that with Daphne Wynne; and now even Daphne +Wynne had stopped coming. + +Peckham went slowly up-stairs to brush Miss Kitty’s hair. She was a +splendid brusher, and it was the hour of the day she liked most. When +Miss Kitty sat still in front of her long Italian mirror, with her +thick, black hair sweeping to her knees, she looked like a little child +again, and sometimes, when she was in the mood for it, she talked like a +little child to Peckham. But this afternoon Peckham was afraid. She knew +she must say something at last, she must risk the rebuff which would +cost her more than it cost the vicar’s wife. She could not go on any +longer saying nothing to Miss Kitty, when all the rest of the world had +turned against her and was saying everything it could. + +While Mrs. Wynne continued to call, Peckham had said to herself that +Rochett was old-fashioned and stupid and didn’t know what went on in +good society among young people without any harm in it. But Mrs. Wynne +knew. Mrs. Wynne, with her kind, laughing eyes, would never stop seeing +her friends for any but reasons which Peckham would have to consider +grave. + +Captain Arden was a grave reason. Miss Kitty wasn’t being fair with +Captain Arden. If she liked him, why didn’t she marry him? And if she +didn’t marry him, why didn’t she let him alone? + +“Is that you, Peckham?” Kitty called out a little impatiently. “I’m +going out this afternoon, so you must be quick. I sha’n’t be in till +late.” + +“Yes, Miss Kitty,” said Peckham. She took out the large ivory brush and +began with her steady hand a rhythmic movement of the brush over Kitty’s +thick, glossy hair. + +Kitty’s hair shone as a well-bred horse’s coat shines under the hand of +the most careful of grooms; she smiled at Peckham in the glass. + +“You’re grave to-day, Peckham,” she said. “You look rather like Lot’s +wife going to seed when she looked back on Sodom. I suppose I’m Sodom, +aren’t I? What have I been doing now? Anything worth your turning into +salt for? Do you think I’m a very wicked woman, Nannie?” + +“Well, Miss, I’m sure I never think of you as a woman at all,” said +Peckham, evasively, “having brought you up, as it were, from a baby. Nor +would any one, the length you wear your skirts, and all that stocking +showing! I do wish you’d let me let down a tuck or two. The way people +can’t take their eyes off your legs is more than I can bear, Miss +Kitty.” + +“But I like to have everybody’s eyes on my legs,” said Kitty, calmly. +“If you had as pretty ones as I have, Nannie, you’d wear your skirts up +to your knees, and thank God for them.” + +“You let your tongue run away with you, Miss Kitty,” said Peckham, +severely. “Respectable people in my class of life don’t think anything +about their legs, and if I’d been given pink silk stockings by a young +man when I was a girl, and he not even a blood relation, I should have +died of shame.” + +Kitty laughed. + +“I made Captain Arden buy me those silk stockings, Nannie,” she +explained. “He’s very like you. He wanted to die of shame, but people +don’t die of shame as easily as you think. Papa says shame was invented +to keep modest people from boring amusing ones; only it hasn’t +succeeded.” + +“Don’t you go quoting your papa to me, Miss Kitty,” said Peckham, +stiffly. “You know I never could bear to hear the things he said, before +an innocent child, too. I wonder Captain Arden’s sister don’t come in +with him sometimes like she used to. There isn’t a nicer lady anywhere +than Mrs. Wynne. Have you done anything to vex her, Miss?” + +The small, white face between its two dark showers of falling hair +winced suddenly; a sullen expression came into Kitty’s eyes. + +“I shall do as I like,” she said shortly, “and behave as I please. It’s +nothing to you, Nannie, if I choose to quarrel with Mrs. Wynne.” + +Peckham went on brushing just as smoothly, just as steadily, but her +heart was out of it; it was everything in the world to her what Kitty +did, and Kitty knew it. + +Kitty blinked her eyelids rapidly together and repented. + +“Sorry, Nannie,” she said. “It was horrid of me to say that. Of course +you care, and I do, too, really. I am very fond of Daphne Wynne. I +expect she thinks I’m not playing the game with Captain Arden, you know, +and that’s put her back up.” + +“If you was to marry Captain Arden, now,” said Peckham, persuasively, +“she wouldn’t go for to object to that, would she, Miss Kitty?” + +Kitty laughed again, with that note of bitterness in it, as hard as a +stone under clear water. + +“She’d have every right to, Nannie,” she said; “but I’m not, as a matter +of fact, thinking of marrying Captain Arden. I don’t happen to be a +marrying woman. I prefer a—single life.” + +“If you’ll excuse my saying so, Miss Kitty,” said Peckham, severely, +“that’s a mistake on your part. A man behind you is a man behind you, as +it were. Ladies can be a great deal freer, with a gentleman to look +after them, than they can living alone; and Captain Arden’s such a nice +gentleman, too.” + +“I don’t want to be looked after,” said Kitty, impatiently, “and why +should I marry Captain Arden any more than any of my other friends? I’ve +far grander matches under my hand if I wanted them, Nannie.” + +“Yes, I know, my dear,” said Peckham, gently; “but you don’t treat them +as you treat Captain Arden. You have a way with him that seems more +comfortable like, more as if you were at home with him; and that’s what +I like to see in any one coming to the house so often.” + +“Have I?” said Kitty, consideringly. “Have I a different way with him? I +must stop it if I have, you know, Nannie. That’s what I should call +being unfair. I suppose it’s because he’s had such a bad time; still, +that’s hardly a reason for giving him a worse.” + +“If you feel like that about him Miss Kitty,” Peckham urged, “why not do +a little more for him? He’s longing for a home and to settle down with +you and all. I can see it in his eyes. Couldn’t you look at it like +something you could do for him, and he having had such a bad time, as +you say?” + +“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Kitty, coldly. +“Besides, he’s come out of his bad time. It’s over for him; he’s come +out all right. I’m not terribly sorry for him.” + +She closed her eyes for a moment on the vision of those who had not come +out all right. Peckham went on brushing her hair quietly and holding her +breath for fear of checking what Miss Kitty might say next, but all +Kitty said, after a minute’s pause, was: + +“Where’s my scarlet tam-o’-shanter? I think it’s going to rain. And my +Burberry. I’ll put on my chiffon dress to-night; the one you say heathen +savages wouldn’t be seen in. As a matter of fact, Peckham, heathen +savages wouldn’t dream of wearing anything like so much. A feather +behind one ear and a necklace is quite sufficient for a heathen savage, +and if you go on looking as solemn as the last trump at a race meeting, +that’s the way I’ll come down to dinner to-night.” + +Peckham whitened visibly under this dire threat. + +“Some day, Miss Kitty,” she observed, “there’ll be a judgment upon you, +there will surely.” + +“Well, I don’t mind if there is,” said Kitty, defiantly, snatching up +the scarlet cap and cramming it low over her eyes. “I’ve got a grievance +against the judge, if it comes to that, worth any two of his against me. +But don’t you worry, Nannie! It’s Captain Arden I’m going out with this +afternoon; that ought to please you. He’s as quiet as a suet pudding, +and as safe as a cathedral.” + +“It don’t matter how particular gentlemen are if you aren’t, Miss +Kitty,” said Peckham, quietly. “What they begin as has nothing to do +with it. A hair turns them.” + +“Well, I’m just going to try,” said Kitty, with a mischievous gleam in +her eyes as she left the room, “if a hair _will_ turn Captain Arden.” + + + CHAPTER XI + +Anthony had no inner egoism; he did not make pictures in his mind of +himself, nor did he try to make them to his advantage in the minds of +other people. He was without that key to character that the desire to +please others involves. Nobody had ever called him sympathetic or +confided to him picturesque and inaccurate accounts of their lives. His +desire to serve was evident; but it was roused only by those who were +courageous sufferers, at the mercy of a stronger force. He took no +interest in the aggrieved, and he always asked why a dog was lame before +attempting to help it over a stile. + +But he had made no such researches into the causes of Kitty’s ostracism. +He swept into the back of his mind all adverse facts against her. Kitty +was not to blame; everybody else was to blame: her father, for her +upbringing, which was admittedly careless; the neighborhood, for its +blind-eyed strictness; and, above all, other women. The women of Rochett +became Anthony’s inveterate enemies. They were unappeasably at war with +Kitty; but it was difficult for Anthony to fight them, because they did +things which Anthony could not fight. + +When they passed Mrs. Bucket, the clergyman’s wife, in the car, she +deliberately turned her back and gazed through the hedge. + +One cannot get out of a motor-car and fight with a lady for looking at a +hedge; and yet Mrs. Bucket’s action was obviously hostile. There was +nothing in the hedge, or through it, to look at except the silhouette of +a preoccupied pig, and there was no dust in the road; there was only +Kitty. + +“A woman of that type,” Anthony exclaimed angrily, “disgusts me. Their +religion is supposed to be love, and their practice is hate. They +wouldn’t have been seen in the New Testament except behind the portliest +of the Pharisees. None of them envisages a generous action, and they +haven’t enough courage to face one of their own ugly thoughts. If she +has anything against you, why doesn’t she stand up and say so? She +belongs to a race of jackals that eat other people’s kill.” + +“Rubbish!” said Kitty, lightly. “Poor old thing, she isn’t a bit like a +jackal. She doesn’t like me, and I don’t like her; why should she bow to +me?” + +“_You_ wouldn’t have cut her,” said Anthony, a little crestfallen at +this reception of his championship. “I saw you meant to bow to her.” + +“It’s not in my interest to cut respectable women,” replied Kitty, +coolly. “I don’t often get the chance; they turn their backs before I +have time to do more than cock my tam-o’-shanter at them.” + +“Even Daphne’s unfair to you,” went on Anthony, bitterly. “At least, I +suppose she is. If she wasn’t unfair, you’d surely come to Merry +Gardens.” + +“Have you asked her why I don’t come?” replied Kitty, evasively, putting +on speed with a jerk. + +“Oh, she only says, ‘She can come if she likes, Tony; I sha’n’t stop +her.’ But if she asked you, you’d come, wouldn’t you, Kitty? Not asking +you is stopping you.” + +“She won’t ask me,” said Kitty, dryly. “I should leave it alone if I +were you, Anthony. I don’t believe Ishmael was a man. I believe he was a +lady of certain attractions, living in a suspicious country neighborhood +where nobody knew how to put on their clothes. But Daphne’s all right. I +told you why she’s down on me before, but I didn’t tell you what she’d +tried to do for me first. + +“She came here to an awfully stiff and old-fashioned neighborhood, where +the people were all friends of Jim’s, and had wanted him to marry one of +their daughters, with her own way to make, and she tried to make mine +instead. She saw me left out at a silly, frumpish, old school treat +where they’d had to ask me to get a subscription; and from that moment +she fought my battles in season and out of season, and it was mostly out +of season with my battles. And what have I ever done for her? Nothing +except try to turn her husband’s head.” + +“Kitty!” exclaimed Anthony, aghast. “Old Jim?” + +“Oh, well,” said Kitty, indifferently, “I did; and no thanks to _his_ +superior morals that I didn’t succeed. I got fed up with his explaining +potato crops to me, so I dropped him. Jim’s a nice fellow and he hates +me like poison now. He thinks it’s virtue, but it isn’t: it’s pure funk. +But Daphne was never afraid of me. She was nice to me, not pitying or +superior or ‘you-poor-thing-ish,’ just nice. She thought I’d had no +luck.” + +“Perhaps she didn’t know about Jim,” suggested Anthony, who refused to +see his favorite sister justified at Kitty’s expense. + +“Oh, she knew,” said Kitty, calmly, “as quickly as she would have known +if her first baby had cut a new tooth. Daphne’s no fool about men. She +knew she could really hold Jim, and she wasn’t afraid of me; but she +wasn’t going to be nasty either. She isn’t really nasty now; she’s +merely holding off because I’m not playing the game. She’d be nice again +to-morrow if I’d behave properly to you.” + +“What do you call behaving properly to me?” asked Anthony, with +amusement. “I’ve not complained so far.” + +“Never seeing you again would be behaving properly to you,” said Kitty, +with a curious gravity. “I see that now, but it’s too late.” + +“You couldn’t, I fancy, even the two of you, dispose of me quite so +easily,” observed Anthony. + +Kitty made no answer to this statement. She said after a pause: + +“Women are all right. Look at Peckham. Peckham would be cut into little +bits to prevent my having a chilblain. I don’t quite know a man who +would be, not even you, Tony. Oh, actual bits, perhaps. But you wouldn’t +always want to take a back seat so as to give me a front one, would you? +That’s what old Peckham wants: she’d be willing to be jolted off on to +the road to see me safe and sound on the front seat.” + +Anthony said something about the maternal instinct. + +“You can call it what you like,” said Kitty, indifferently. “All I’m +saying is, women do more for you than men sometimes, and don’t get +anything out of it. There was a woman once who did a thing for me—an +angel from heaven would have turned its nose up at—and she made no more +fuss about it than if she had lent me a pocket-handkerchief. I +appreciate that you’re paying me a left-handed compliment by having a +shy at women; but you can take my word for it, there’s nothing in it.” + +“You dislike them yourself,” urged Anthony, hotly; “you told me so.” + +“Of course I do,” said Kitty. “Why not? I dislike them because they’re +not anxious for me to amuse myself at their expense, and that’s the only +form of amusement that happens to appeal to me. I dare say you like +burglars—I don’t blame you for it—but it’s a peculiar taste that the +police don’t share. As far as other women are concerned, I’m a burglar +and, they’re the police. It’s not much use your trying to reconcile us, +is it?” + +Anthony ignored this metaphor. He did not believe that Kitty broke laws. +She merely ignored conventionalities. + +“What happened to the woman you say helped you?” he asked, instead, a +little resentfully. “If she was really a good sort, why didn’t you keep +hold of her and have a friend to fall back on?” + +“We couldn’t meet again,” said Kitty, briefly. “That’s the hill over +there beyond the windmill, with the row of beeches on the top. We get +out there.” + +Anthony frowned at the windmill. He hated mysteries, and above all he +hated coming on a mystery in Kitty’s life. He suspected that there were +things he would dislike to know in Kitty’s career, but he disliked even +more not knowing them. + +“I haven’t the right to ask you any questions, of course,” he said +stiffly. + +“No,” agreed Kitty, “you haven’t; but don’t let that worry you. I +wouldn’t answer you even if you had. I don’t believe in rights about +questions. Live and let live, that’s my motto. We dump the car here and +climb up. Rather a nice hill, isn’t it?” + +Anthony stood looking up at the soft, green incline above them. There +were thickets of young hazel-bushes on the slopes, hollows full of +may-blossom, and the sharpened green of very young leaves. + +“‘The new-born leaves,’” Kitty quoted softly, touching them with her +bared fingers. “That’s Dante, isn’t it? The woman I told you about said +that to me once. Of course I never read myself except when it’s wet, and +I shouldn’t read Dante in a blizzard. I prefer D’Annunzio.” + +“I don’t believe you’ve read a word of D’Annunzio in your life,” said +Anthony, crossly. “You just say that to tease me, because you know I +hate decadent stuff, full of moonshine and mud. Why do you always try to +make yourself out what you know I don’t like, Kitty?” + +“Well, it does tease you, doesn’t it?” laughed Kitty. “Poor old Tony! +You’re awfully easily teased. Never mind; that’s because you like me. I +like you to like me, you know.” + +“I wish you did,” said Anthony under his breath. He held a bramble back +to let her pass. Kitty saw his arm tremble as she touched it. + +“Oh, not like that,” she said lightly; “that’s a stupid, solemn way. +Like me as if liking were a joke, not as if it were a state funeral and +I were the corpse.” + +Anthony stopped suddenly. He felt as if something had literally moved in +his heart. + +“For God’s sake! don’t talk like that!” he exclaimed harshly. “You’re +not ill, are you?” + +Kitty turned her head and opened wide eyes at him in which astonishment +mixed with a curious look of resentment. + +“Ill?” she said. “Why should I be ill? How just like a doctor! Of all +the nonsense, Anthony!” + +It wasn’t in the least like a doctor; it was the kind of statement that +any doctor would have laughed at, and of course it was nonsense, only +some stubborn instinct in Anthony remained unrelieved. He had felt one +of those moments of panic that the heart never forgets. + +Kitty’s lithe young figure stepped steadily on in front of him. She was +beyond the copse of young trees and out on the open hillside. Anthony +called to her to stop and watch the beauty of the expanding world at +their feet, the line of may-blossoms like the crest of a breaking wave, +beyond it the orchards, and a common covered with a burnished shield of +gorse, flame upon golden flame. + +But Kitty refused to do more than glance at it over her shoulder. + +“It’s the same old view I’ve seen for years,” she said impatiently. + +Anthony shut his lips. The view meant nothing to him if she would not +share it. Kitty’s impatience stripped the woods of bloom and disallowed +the beauty of the day. He wondered if he had been stupid to talk against +women; perhaps Kitty had not realized that it was because she was +different from all other women that all the other women must be in the +wrong. Anthony couldn’t explain this to Kitty; he couldn’t really +explain anything. For moment by moment he felt more aware of her and +less aware of everything else. + +He did not dream that Kitty was intentionally blinding him to everything +but herself. She did not speak again until she had reached the group of +beeches at the top of the hill. They stood silent and massive above her, +as if their big brown trunks were the columns of a cathedral aisle. + +“There’ll be thunder soon,” said Kitty under her breath. “I love +storms.” + +Anthony stood beside her as motionless as one of the tree trunks. He +thought she did not realize what he was feeling. Perhaps she was +thinking of the coming rain, while he stood tense with his struggle not +to take her in his arms. + +She turned and looked at him with eyes in which laughter brimmed over, +seized him by the shoulders, and swiftly drawing his head down to hers, +kissed him full on the lips. + +Her action took Anthony completely by surprise. He caught her so close +to him that she could not speak, and covered her face and eyes and hair +with kisses. It was as if they ceased to be human beings, and became two +wild creatures in the woods, full of magic and madness. Anthony slipped +beyond her control and beyond his own. + +All the years of his intense restraint fell from him; his whole being +seemed to alter in her arms. He did not know what was left of him or +what was Kitty. + +Kitty said his name at last, over and over, very softly and steadily. + +“Anthony! Anthony!” It seemed to him as if he were being called back out +of another world. He let her go at last, forcing his will to answer +hers. + +She leaned, with her back against a tree, breathless and white, but +laughing a little. + +[Illustration: _He did not know what was left of him or what was +Kitty._] + +“I won’t scold you, Tony,” she said. “It was all my fault. I took you by +surprise, and that was a little the way you took me. I didn’t know, you +see, you would be that kind of lover.” + +“I didn’t frighten you, did I?” he asked anxiously. “I’ll take the +greatest care of you always, Kitty; I’ll never let anything hurt or +frighten you again. I never dreamed you could, I never thought I +might—” + +“Don’t put too much weight on anything I do,” Kitty interrupted him +quickly. “The woods are full of mischief. Poor old Anthony! You do look +done. That’s because you think I am, isn’t it? Well, I’ll race you to +the bottom of the hill to show you I’m not.” + +She was off like a flash between the trunks of the trees, and Anthony +after her. It was a breathless, absurd, confusing race. + +Anthony felt as if he had got into a nightmare. He did not know the +path, and Kitty was mercilessly aware of it. She took short cuts and +avoided rough places, leaving him to stumble into pitfalls and be caught +by unexpected brambles. He broke free at last, and before they reached +the car he had caught her and seized her by the shoulders. + +“Kitty, you’re a little devil,” he said breathlessly. “Are you all +right?” + +Kitty ignored his question. + +“That’s better,” she said, with approving eyes. “I’m a little devil, and +you’re no better than you should be—now. You can come home and dine +with me—no, I won’t be kissed on the roadside; but just bear those two +facts in mind, won’t you?” + +She sprang away from him into the car. Anthony swung himself up beside +her, taking the steering-wheel out of her hands. + +“No, you don’t,” he said fiercely. “I’ve had enough of your initiative +for one afternoon. I’m going to do the driving from now on.” + +Kitty yielded lightly, with smiling eyes. She watched Anthony’s face as +he steered the car out of the narrow lane and road by the windmill. His +eyes had a queer, odd light in them—a light of intense, controlled +excitement, and his rather heavy jaws were set firmly. She would not be +able to take him by surprise so easily again. The clouds had darkened +rapidly, and just as they turned into the open road the rain began. +Thunder rolled down on them from the low hills, and all the may-trees +and the golden gorse were blotted out in storm. + +Kitty leaned back in the car and shut her eyes; a little smile still +lingered round her lips. Anthony glanced at her from time to time to see +that she was properly wrapped up and did not look as if she was too +exhausted by her race. + +He swore to himself that he would never again leave her to her own +discretion or let her do things for which she had to pay. + +He would pay for whatever she did himself, and guide those small, wilful +hands of hers, and put his heart under her feet. He could not tell if he +was happy or sad, but he was settled; he knew what he had to do. + +She was his life now; there was no other uncertainty. Nothing that +people said of her could alter his judgment. Daphne and Jim, his people +at Pannell, must accept her or be blotted out. + +There was nothing left but Kitty. Kitty, too, was silent. She sat +muffled up in her Burberry, with the rain lashing against her face. She +was quite comfortable and content, but she made no resolutions. Only, as +they flashed past the wet fields and round the familiar corners, she +remembered Peckham’s phrase, “A hair will turn him.” A hair had turned +Anthony. That was why Kitty was smiling. + + + CHAPTER XII + +The tower room was unlike anything else in the shabby old farm-house. It +was hundreds of years old, but Kitty had overrun it with modernity. + +A staircase separated it from the rest of the house, the four narrow, +deep-set windows looked out over the unkempt garden. Twilight was +falling, and the scent of brier-roses invaded the still air, and filled +the room with fragrance. It was the first time Anthony had been in the +tower. Kitty took him to the foot of the little staircase and told him +to go up and wait there while she dressed for dinner. + +“It may amuse you,” she said, “poking about among my things.” + +The rain had stopped falling. A gray mist surrounded the tower, out of +which the dark shapes of the trees leaned like thick shadows. Roses +climbed up above the window-sills, and swallows darted to and fro +beneath them. Their nests were all about the tower. + +Anthony leaned out of the window and heard the stirring of wings and the +subdued movement of the leaves that parted to receive them. He thought +that Kitty was like a swallow, swift and fugitive, a restless, reckless +daughter of the air; and his heart moved in him with delight to think +that he might make a nest to hold her, a place of security and peace for +her to rest in between her circling flights. + +The inside of the tower room was curiously unlike its setting; it was +full of odd colors and extravagant luxury. + +It contained beautiful things, but it did not express beauty; it +expressed excitement and love of physical comfort. There was a long, +very soft divan covered with cushions; the colors of the cushions +clashed against one another, orange and green and gold, with here and +there a bizarre note of black. + +Between two of the windows hung a vivid piece of Sicilian embroidery +with a design of grapes and pomegranates. By the door there was a +Chinese screen of very dim gold, on which a flight of storks crossed a +scarlet sunset, fading into gray. + +The room was too small for the treasures it held; old French porcelain, +lacquer boxes, and Italian bronzes jostled one another. Nothing seemed +to connect with anything else or with any idea behind itself. + +A low book-case ran along the wall beneath the Sicilian altar-cloth. +Anthony read the titles of the books carefully in the fading light. They +were chiefly French novels of an unmistakable type. Kitty had been a +great deal in France with her father; perhaps the books belonged to him. +They were more like the books a man would have chosen, a man who had no +moral sense, and particularly liked to have the lack of it stimulated. + +Anthony did not know much about French novels, but a glance or two at +them was enough to show him that they belonged to that light, evasive +expression of evil that is hard to define, very expensive, and extremely +disintegrating. + +Anthony left the book-case and began to walk up and down. He had a +curious, restless feeling, which he had not had for many weeks. It was +as if he could not get out when he knew he could. It was a feeling that +made him try doors and get as near as he could to windows, and it always +ended in his walking to and fro as if his life depended on performing a +series of vain movements. + +It is a trick that prisoners learn in long confinements, and perhaps of +all their habits it is the hardest to shake off. + +Anthony walked up and down the little crowded room till Kitty came. By +the time he heard her step he had almost forgotten where he was. + +The room was nearly dark, and as Kitty opened the door she turned on the +light and stood under it. + +She was dressed in yellow gauze. One of the cleverest French dressmakers +had designed the costume for her. It did not look as if it were a dress, +but as if Kitty were a flower, an extraordinary, graceful, human flower +from which the foliage had receded. + +Her neck and shoulders rose bare out of the golden chiffon; the folds of +it were fastened together with an amber ornament at her waist; the +clinging, narrow skirt was slit up at the sides to show her slender feet +and ankles; a green scarf escaped and hung behind her. A long chain of +amber and green jade hung round her neck, catching and holding all the +light in the room. + +Kitty paused for a moment, and then moved quickly, like the passage of a +sunbeam, into Anthony’s arms. + +Anthony no longer felt imprisoned. It seemed to him as if he had +conquered space, and held all that he wanted of it forever. + +But as quickly as he embraced her, Kitty gently released herself. Her +eyes ran swiftly over him, alive with laughter. + +“We must have dinner first,” she said. “How do you like my room and my +dress and me? You’ll have to tell me after dinner. Poor old Anthony!” +Her voice had a curious quality of control in it, as if Anthony had +ceased to be himself and had become merely an instrument of her will. He +was dimly aware of the fact, but he did not resent it. He only wanted to +express Kitty’s will. + +Anthony could not talk much at dinner. He ate and drank without seeing +or tasting what was set before him. He was only aware of Kitty opposite +him, Kitty laughing, Kitty recounting little tales of her life abroad, +incidents in hotels, on railway stations. Wherever Kitty had been, +incidents had followed. + +Kitty always talked easily without the consciousness of any effect but +her own amusement. She had little vivid turns of speech that stuck in +Anthony’s mind, but her talking went by favor. At times she was stonily +silent, and withdrew herself from any approach to expression. + +To-night Anthony could not respond to her; he could not take his eyes +away from her face or follow a word of what she said. + +He knew her voice was music, and by the sound of it he knew that she was +pleased. He was shut off from any other form of consciousness. + +Peckham waited upon them silently, but her every gesture was a reproach. +She put the plates down with severity, she poured out their wine as if +she wished to mingle it with gall, she carried things in and out of the +room with unveiled hostility; every movement of her starched apron was a +remonstrance. + +She wept in the pantry and she prayed in the hall; she even glanced +imploringly straight at the impassive loveliness of Kitty. + +But Peckham’s efforts and her pains counted for nothing. Anthony did not +know that she was there, and Kitty, perceiving all she felt, took her +own way. + +After dinner they went back to the tower room. Anthony drew Kitty to him +with a long sigh of relief. + +“I thought you were never coming,” he said; “I thought I should never +see you really like this again.” + +“Poor old Tony!” Kitty murmured softly. “You do care for me awfully, +don’t you?” + +“Hopelessly,” said Anthony, smiling at her, “hopelessly. I can never +show you. Kitty, you won’t keep me waiting, will you? I’ve waited all my +life for you, and I don’t feel as if I could stand much more of it.” + +Kitty’s eyes opened to receive him without barriers. She gave him a +long, full look. + +“No, of course not,” she said gently. “I shouldn’t be such a beast. +You’ve had a terrible time; I’d like to make you awfully happy, Tony.” + +“When?” he whispered. “Kitty darling, when will you marry me?” + +Kitty jerked herself suddenly out of his arms. + +“Marry you?” she said angrily. “I’m never going to marry you. What are +you talking about, Tony?” + +He stared at her in blank surprise. + +“You silly old boy!” she said more gently, “you don’t seem to be very +clever at taking things in. Sit down and be sensible; don’t stand +looking at me like that. I haven’t done you any harm.” + +Anthony sat down obediently. His eyes were still perplexed, but he put +his mind on all that he remembered Kitty had told him about Dick. That +was presumably the obstacle. Well, he would get over Dick. He was not +going to have Kitty held back from life by a ghost. + +Kitty slipped on to a footstool in front of the small wood fire. She +looked thoughtfully at the amber beads at the point of her small satin +slippers. They were where they should be; at first Peckham had put them +too far forward. + +She hoped Anthony wasn’t going to be foolish. He had a heavy line of +jaw, and it was set exactly as it had been in the motor when he said he +was going to drive; but Kitty had had no objection to his driving, so +that it had not mattered. It was quite useless his talking about +marriage. She did object to marriage. + +“Kitty,” Anthony said slowly, “I think I understand what you feel. It’s +about Dick, isn’t it?” + +Kitty looked startled, but in a moment she had recovered herself. + +“I told you,” she said a little uncertainly, “that I was never going to +marry any one else but Dick.” + +“I know,” said Anthony; “but that was before I cared for you. I think +that must have made a difference, Kitty, for, after all, you’ve let me +care.” + +Kitty said nothing. + +“You felt as if Dick were a part of your actual life, didn’t you?” +Anthony persisted. + +Kitty answered without raising her eyes. + +“Not part of it,” she said; “all of it. And not only my life: he was +part of me; he is still. That’s one reason why I can’t. But it isn’t any +use talking about it, Anthony. Why don’t you stop talking?” + +“We must talk about it first,” said Anthony. “We’ve got to get the whole +thing straight. You are quite sure he is dead?” + +Kitty flushed, but she answered without faltering. + +“Yes; I waited to be sure. John Adams, from our old lodge, was his +servant. They were posted missing at the same time; so there was always +the chance. + +“One day John turned up. He’d been maimed, so they sent him back. Dick +died in one of their hospitals with a wound through his head. He kept +calling my name till he died. He never said anything else. When John +told me, I felt as if some one were laughing at me. We’d never been +married. We might have been quite easily. That would have been something +to hold on to; but there wasn’t anything.” + +“No,” said Anthony; “sometimes there doesn’t seem anything to hold on +to.” + +Kitty looked up at him. His eyes were fixed on her with an intense +watchful tenderness; he did not look lost as he had looked at dinner. +All his faculties were alive for her; and because he was using them for +her, he was in possession of himself. For a moment it occurred to Kitty +that she might not be able to shake this possession. + +“It is no use your turning into a doctor or anything,” she said shortly. +“I can’t be doctored. I’m what you call a hopeless case.” + +“There isn’t, strictly speaking, any such case,” said Anthony, smiling, +“and you’ve got to listen to me a few minutes. + +“You’re twenty-three, you’re a woman, and you’re not only Kitty. You’re +not only Dick’s; you belong to life. Dick didn’t only belong to you. If +he had, he wouldn’t have gone straight out to die; he would have waited +till he had to go. But he didn’t; he went at once; he belonged to the +service of life. You ought to give yourself honestly to the work of the +world. You ought to be a wife and you ought to have a home and children. +If you were one of the women who didn’t take hold of men, it would be +different. You’d be a worker then—some women are—or you’d be a mother, +perhaps, just a natural mother with or without children, doing what she +can for helpless lives. But you’re not a mother woman or a worker, and +you must not go on being nothing but a wasteful, mischievous +will-o’-the-wisp. If you are, you’ll be the part of Dick that +contradicted him and refuses to serve life.” + +“He got a good deal out of serving life, didn’t he?” said Kitty, +bitterly. “And you think I’m going to be fooled, too? I’m just what you +call me—pure mischievous waste. I won’t be a wife; I don’t want any +poor, beastly, miserable little children born to get their hearts broken +like the rest of us. I’ll be what I am. You can’t say I didn’t warn you. +I may be a will-o’-the-wisp, but I play fair, Anthony. That’s more than +whoever made me did with me.” + +“Do you—do you play quite fair, Kitty?” Anthony asked gently. “Is it +fair to make a man feel for you as I do, so that he can’t see or think +or feel anything but a blind need of you—the need of having you in his +eyes, in his home, so that he can serve and worship you all the days of +his life? Is it quite fair to turn round and say, ‘Yes, I warned you’? I +don’t think you did warn me of that, Kitty. You can play a light game +with a light man; but you didn’t think I was a light man, did you?” + +Kitty was silent for a moment; she turned her eyes away from him. + +“No,” she said at last; “I didn’t. I liked you. I didn’t mean to like +you. I didn’t mean to care really at all; I never have before. If I +hadn’t, you wouldn’t perhaps. You’d just have despised me and had a good +time; that was all I ought to have let you do. And I did think you +would—” + +“Would what?” asked Anthony, perplexed. + +“Would despise me,” said Kitty under her breath. + +“Well, I don’t,” said Anthony. “I think you’re reckless and haven’t been +taken care of properly; but I propose to change all that. The only thing +that matters is that you care. If you care, that makes it all right. You +mightn’t care enough to marry me yet; then I’ll have to be patient till +you do. But I’ll make you care for me, Kitty; you’ve only got to trust +me a little.” + +“Oh, don’t, Tony! Don’t!” said Kitty, shivering. “This is getting +horrible. Why won’t you understand? It isn’t only Dick; I’m not _fit_ to +marry! I’m not fit to marry any man!” + +She moved swiftly away from him to the other side of the room. + +Anthony sat perfectly still where she had left him. He did not take in +what she had said. The words got into his mind, but they refused to +correspond with anything that was there. They stood separately like +blocks of wood; there was no cohesion in them and no form. + +She was not fit to marry any man. Kitty had made this plain statement, +but it did not seem plain to Anthony. + +She was Kitty, and he loved her, and she loved him. This confused the +other statement. + +Anthony did what he had so often practised when he felt his self-control +leaving him in prison: he retired into absolute silence. + +His mind moved against his will. He had got to think of Kitty; that was +why he kept still. When his will was rested enough, it would attack his +mind; till then he saw only pictures: pictures of Kitty in the red +tam-o’-shanter laughing at the rain which blew against her face; Kitty +in one of her moments of slow, childlike gravity; Kitty standing without +help or guidance against an unjust, enigmatic world. + +It was a long time before the pictures changed, and his mind struck upon +the facility of Kitty—the deadly facility with which she handled men. + +She was not defenseless then; it was Anthony who had been defenseless in +her hands. He had been so careful to protect her and spare her even from +his ardent thoughts, and he had never had a base or cruel thought of +her. He had only wanted to wait till she was sure of herself so that he +should not startle her by the strength of his love. Well, she was sure +of herself and she was sure of him. + +But was this Kitty, the Kitty he had meant to win? What had she to do +with this facile, scheming, easily triumphant Kitty? This Kitty was not +helpless; there was no need to shield her from anything. She had not +tried to save herself. She had gone not blindly or weakly or from the +sharp constraint of passion, but with deliberate steps, with perfect +mastery, into the world of women who are not fit to marry. + +Anthony had no longings for any such world. He had accepted long ago an +ordered universe. He hated concealments and he despised light loves. He +was not prepared to readjust his relationship with Kitty. His mind +pointed out to him relentlessly what Kitty had always meant. + +He understood the tower room, with its expensive luxuries, the violent +colors; the enervating comfort. They troubled the senses; everything +Kitty did troubled the senses. She had not wanted to go deeper than +this. She would not have gone deeper if the senses were the measure of +the soul; but something larger had broken through and shaken them both. + +Anthony put the thought of this larger thing aside. It concerned him, +perhaps; but he could not see that it concerned Kitty. + +He was not going to stand any more from Kitty; he was going to get out. + +He became suddenly pitiless with pain. The door of the round tower was +in front of him. He need not look back. He could escape and get clean +away. He could leave without compunction this creature who had set a +snare for him, to trip him up out of the freedom of his new life, this +creature, Kitty! + +All this while she had not made a sound. He did not know how long he had +been silent. Perhaps she had slipped out of the room without his +noticing, but he did not think so; he felt she was in the room. + +Perhaps she sat in some beautiful, seductive attitude, waiting to catch +and hold his unwary eyes; but his eyes were not unwary now. + +He turned his head and looked at Kitty. + +She was crouched up in a small chair by her desk. + +She had not even moved her dress to sit down. She looked like a +school-boy who has told a lie and does not know how to confess it. She +did not look at all seductive. + +When Anthony turned to her she met his eyes with her miserable eyes +without flinching; but her misery was not for herself. She spoke +quickly. + +“Poor old Tony! Hadn’t you better go? I’m frightfully sorry to have let +you down like this. I didn’t dream you thought—such an impossible thing +of me. You see, every one knows. I haven’t hidden anything; even +Peckham, I think, knows. But I did hide a little from Peckham; it would +have made her feel so—so awfully upset. So I just hoped she wouldn’t +guess. I really didn’t think I need tell Peckham. D’you know, Tony, if I +were you, I’d go? I would honestly. And don’t bother to think about me, +because, you see, what you thought me—wasn’t there at all; it was just +a girl who didn’t exist. But lots of frightfully nice girls do. I wish +it hadn’t happened.” She paused and drew a long, difficult breath. “I +wish it hadn’t happened,” she repeated dully. + +Anthony stirred uneasily in his chair. She looked so different from the +brilliant Kitty who had turned on the light and stood before him like a +golden flame. She looked tired and without any charm. She did not even +hold up her head. She was perfectly right, of course; he had loved some +one who didn’t exist, a reckless, but innocent, girl whom he could have +made a home for and protected from all the evil of the world. + +He could get over a woman who didn’t exist. He could not protect this +Kitty; she was herself part of the world’s evil. Still, this Kitty had +said she cared for him and she looked upset. He told himself sharply +that it served her right to care; and of course she was upset, because +he had escaped her; he wasn’t one of her many captives. + +Anthony took human justice into his heart and felt it very cold. + +He had known what pain was, and the complete knowledge of pain unfits +the heart for executing justice. + +He got up and went over to where Kitty sat hunched up on the Sheraton +chair. + +“I wouldn’t be such a beast as to leave you,” he said, kneeling down +beside her. “I’m sorry I made that mistake. Let me stay on somehow, +Kitty.” + +Kitty began to speak; then she moved nervously away from him to the +window. + +“Oh, you’d much better go!” she said between her teeth. + +Anthony followed her. + +“Do you want me to go?” he asked, fixing her with his eyes. + +“How can I want you to go?” she said impatiently. “It’s all too—stupid. +I’ve been such a fool. I wish I hadn’t, Tony, and now it’s too late. If +you’ve been a fool too often, you can’t stop. I’ve got into the way of +it; I can’t get out. But what’s the use—of your getting into the way of +it, too?” + +“Perhaps I sha’n’t,” said Anthony. “Perhaps together we can manage +something? We might even manage to get out.” + +He was aware that he was suggesting something he did not know the +strength of; but Kitty knew the strength of it. She looked at him with +weary, doubtful eyes. + +There was not a sound anywhere in the house. The rain dripped slowly +from the eaves; the air hung in a thick mist about the old gray tower; +the night shut them in upon themselves. + +“Well,” said Kitty at last, “I suppose I’ll try and be your friend; I do +rather want one. I’ll talk to you to-morrow. You’d better go now. It’s +not exactly what I’d planned as an end to our evening; still, it ought +to please Peckham. Good-by, Tony. Be careful of the stairs as you go +down.” + +He looked at her for a moment. She stood smiling at him with a queer, +crooked little smile. It made him wonder why, after all, he was leaving +her. He hadn’t any sense that he was doing right; he had only a queer +instinct that he wanted to think things over and not to let her down. +She had been let down so often. She had let herself down so often. + +He turned and left her without looking back. + +Kitty waited till she heard the door of the tower close at the foot of +the stairs. Then she lay down on the divan and closed her eyes. Her face +was white and drawn as if with very sharp physical pain. She kept quite +still and made no sound; but after an hour had passed she got up and +began walking to and fro, as Anthony had done while he was waiting for +her; but no one came to bring any light to Kitty. + +Once she went to the open window and looked out into the night. + +“I can’t bear it,” she whispered between her teeth; and then, “I shall +have to bear it.” + +Toward morning she went slowly to her own room and undressed. The pain +had gone now. She turned her face toward the dawn and slept. + + + CHAPTER XIII + +Anthony found himself wondering the next morning if he hadn’t put his +foot into it. The breakfast-table is a place where the emotions of last +night are apt to bring this metaphor home to one’s mind. Heroism looks +less heroic before ham and eggs, and the desire to save the world +flickers in front of bread and marmalade. + +The breakfast-table at Merry Gardens was a particularly normal and +easy-going institution. There were things left hot on the side-board, +and you could be as late as you liked. Very often there was no other +company provided for you but sunbeams and the morning newspaper. + +Anthony’s adventure of the night before did not precisely sink in its +significance, but he imperceptibly changed his attitude toward it. +Hadn’t he, after all, been rather a fool? He was a practical man, and he +had allowed himself to get into a situation which was, to say the least +of it, unpractical. Kitty had refused his offer, and he had refused +hers. What, then, was their alternative? + +Anthony knew too much about his feelings to suppose that the momentary +shock given to them would do more than hold them back for a time. He was +the same, and so was Kitty. She was a different person from the Kitty he +had believed her to be, but she had the same powers of attraction. If +they drifted, they would drift in one direction—the direction he +intended to avoid. It was only if they parted that they could escape +both the horns of their dilemma. The reasonable thing, then, was to +part, as Kitty herself had pointed out to him. + +Some strange, obscure, but very obstinate feeling in Anthony the night +before had refused to endorse his reason. He could not leave her looking +like a beaten child. + +Daphne came in and poured out his tea. She explained that Jim had been +up hours trying to persuade a calf that its best interests lay in the +direction of the butcher. Jim was better than the cow-man at these +moments of persuasion, because he always knew which way an unwilling +animal is liable to turn. The cow-man went the other way with force, but +Jim went the same way with strategy, and calves, like the rest of +humanity, yield readily only to those who appear to be agreeing with +them. + +“That brings us back to the old question,” said Anthony, tapping a +new-laid egg, “of which we are wisest to follow, reason or instinct?” + +“It doesn’t bring Jim back to it,” Daphne replied, with a dimple; +“because he hasn’t any reason. He just feels things are so, and they are +so. I never knew a person who had fewer processes and more arrivals.” + +“Then you think instincts are wiser than reasons, even when they +contradict common sense?” asked Anthony, curiously. + +“Oh, common sense!” said Daphne, with contempt. “Who minds contradicting +common sense? I’m sure I don’t; it’s so crude! It sounds all right, and +then you poke it, and over it goes like a house of cards. Besides, when +you come down to it, it’s generally a way of saving one’s own corns. +When people say, ‘But do let us take a common-sense view of things,’ +don’t they always mean, ‘Don’t, for heaven’s sake! let me in for +anything’?” + +Anthony laughed. + +“My profession is founded on common sense,” he explained. “Half of good +doctoring is looking at facts straight and acting on them sensibly. +People who get ill can’t do this, and doctors drag them back into it and +hold them there till nature reinforces them. I can’t dismiss common +sense so lightly. Besides, you let in other people as well as yourself +if you act against reason. What becomes of bad instincts?” + +“Oh, I don’t call them instincts,” said Daphne. “Those are desires, they +come out of the top of your mind, you know, and pretend to be instincts, +because they’re strong, and you want to do them. When I say an instinct, +I mean the whole of you, back of your mind, that set feeling like a good +chocolate shape. You feel, ‘I’ve _got_ to do it,’ not, ‘I _want_ to do +it.’ Something bigger than you is getting at you or coming out through +you, I don’t know which.” + +“I don’t believe in things bigger than myself interfering with my will,” +said Anthony. “I have not experienced it.” Then he stopped suddenly. +After all, he _had_ experienced it, had been himself subject in dreadful +hours to strange reinforcements. He had known and done things that he +could not account for; they had not come from himself. Perhaps they came +from his unconscious self; but he disliked this phrase, which he thought +fanciful. + +“That’s a duck’s egg,” observed Daphne, swiftly. “They taste a little +stronger, but they’re just as nice. If it’s _there_, the something I +mean, it doesn’t matter whether you believe in it or not. I mean _it_ +won’t mind. It’s too large to mind; it just acts.” + +“You seem to know a good deal about _it_” said Anthony, accepting the +duck’s egg. “Newly married people make extraordinary discoveries. First +they discover themselves. This, I believe, takes the honeymoon, and is +not interesting to observers; then they discover the universe; after +that they settle down and proceed to take both to pieces at their +leisure. You seem to be in the middle phase, the most illuminating to +the uninitiated. May I ask if you know how your glorified instinct is +liable to act, and what it feels like?” + +“If it’s your instinct,” said Daphne, with unshaken confidence, +“_you’ll_ know that. I don’t know anything about your instinct, you see; +I only know my own. It’s just telling me I haven’t ordered the dinner, +and the butcher may come any minute, so I must be quick about it. You’ll +be in to-night, won’t you?” + +Anthony hesitated. + +“I don’t know,” he said. “Better not count on me.” + +Daphne, too, paused for a moment. Then she said tentatively: + +“Mother comes next week, Tony.” + +Anthony met her eyes steadily. + +“Yes, Daphne,” he answered. + +“It’ll be rather awkward,” Daphne began a little uncomfortably, “about +Kitty, won’t it? Mother’s sure to guess there’s somebody, and wonder why +we don’t have her here. Do you really _want_ me to have Kitty here, +Tony?” + +Anthony got up, and opened the door for her. + +“No,” he said quietly, “I don’t.” + +Daphne drew a quick breath as if something had hurt her. She knew that +yesterday Anthony had wanted Kitty to come to the house. + +Their eyes held each other for a long moment, but neither of them said +anything. The Ardens were a frank, but uncommunicative, family. They +expressed what they thought, but they kept their private affairs to +themselves. When they most wanted to show sympathy they got out of one +another’s way. + +Daphne left him alone now. She went to deal with the cook, and Anthony +resettled to his breakfast. + +He had decided what to do. His conversation with Daphne had not altered +him,—conversations with women never did,—it had merely helped to +crystallize his intention. He would go and tell Kitty their scheme +wouldn’t work: + +It wouldn’t be particularly easy to tell her after having persuaded her +the night before to try it, but it would be less easy still for Kitty if +they tried it and it failed. If they had got to part, they could at +least part decently and as friends. + +This was where Anthony made his first mistake: lovers do not part as +friends. If they meet in order to part, they very seldom succeed in +parting at all, and when they do succeed, it is with bitterness and +without the sanity of reasonable forms. + +When Anthony arrived at the farm he found Mr. Costrelle in possession. +He had motored over from a friend’s house in the course of the morning. + +“I always arrive an hour before dinner and leave an hour after +breakfast,” Mr. Costrelle informed Anthony. “I consider it one of the +chief rules of civilization. Nobody wants to see you trailing about his +house all day with a train in your eye. I am sure you agree with me. I +arrived here at this unearthly hour only because Kitty has persuaded me +to look on this as a home; otherwise I would have motored to and fro +from duck pond to duck pond till seven o’clock in the evening, poisoning +myself with bad sherry and cold beef rolled in sawdust, which is what +English inns provide you with in the place of food. The country is a +beastly place for putting in time. ‘The kindly fruits of the earth’ are +very much overrated. I never enjoy them, and there are no rational +amusements. I don’t know how you can stand it.” + +Kitty laughed. + +“Tony hasn’t found any difficulty so far,” she remarked, “but of course +he doesn’t happen to be my father. You’ve just come in time,” she added +to Anthony. “Papa has brought me an invitation from an aunt to stay two +or three weeks with her in London—an invitation that’s been about five +years en route, and I’m going to show him what rags I have to wear. You +can help him decide if they’ll do.” + +“You’d better go to Paris,” observed Mr. Costrelle, “and buy new ones. +It won’t take any time and will save a lot of worry.” + +“I can’t afford it,” said Kitty, briefly. + +Mr. Costrelle looked from Kitty to Anthony and from Anthony to Kitty. He +drew out a long and extraordinarily good cigar. It was as fragrant as +very good tea. + +“Well,” he said in his slow, cool voice, in which suggestion always told +with the directness of a carefully chosen chemical, “I should have +thought you could have afforded it—somehow or other.” + +If Mr. Costrelle had said, “Isn’t this man here to foot your bills?” he +could not have made his meaning clearer. + +Kitty flushed suddenly to the roots of her hair; the tears showed for an +instant in her eyes. It was the only time in her life that she appeared +obviously disconcerted. She spoke quickly. + +“Oh, one can always raise money, of course—” she agreed, with a little +shaken laugh. “I’m not totally at the end of my resources, Papa. Still, +I think what I have will do. You two sit up here in the tower as a +council of war, and I’ll try them before you one by one. It’ll be a +mannikin show without music.” + +Mr. Costrelle nodded and prepared to make himself comfortable. + +He had spent between fifty and sixty years in the pursuit of comfort, +and he could always effect the process better for himself than the most +careful attendant could accomplish for him. + +He shut the tower windows because he disliked drafts, then he chose the +easiest position on the divan with consideration, placed himself with +his back to the light—he disliked glare—drew a footstool in front of +him, and proceeded to enjoy his cigar. + +He did not ask Anthony if he smoked; he did not care if Anthony smoked +or not. He considered his cigars far too good for young men. + +Anthony watched him with an antagonism that was queerly blended with +amusement. It was impossible not to be amused by a person whose +absorption in himself was so unruffled. Mr. Costrelle was tall, lean, +and pale. He had a long, well-finished face with remarkably blue eyes; +they shone out of the hollows of his white cheeks like forget-me-nots by +the side of a pool. + +His hair was gray, thick, and very well brushed. He went to the best +tailor in London and had an excellent set of the shoulders. He carried +the marks of his perpetual dissipation lightly. They were plain to +Anthony’s trained and scrutinizing eyes, but they would have escaped the +ordinary observer. + +Mr. Costrelle had done several generous actions in his life; he had not +yet become incapable of doing them, but he had never continuously put +himself out for any one. He did not care what people thought of him, and +he said whatever came into his head. When he wanted to do a thing he did +it, whatever consequences might follow. He considered it extremely +bourgeois to be checked by consequences; and though he had a very shrewd +idea of the feelings of others, as people who live for sensation usually +have, he never for a moment stopped to consider them. He asked no +quarter and he gave none. He did not believe in any one else’s motives. +If they were different from his own, he thought them morbid or +sentimental. + +Mr. Costrelle believed that some people were foolish about getting what +they wanted and other people were intelligent, but he did not think +there was any other difference worth mentioning. He said to Kitty: + +“I shall take trouble to show you the ropes, but I sha’n’t take any +further trouble about you. A person who knows the ropes and doesn’t +follow them properly is a fool, and a fool’s a person that every one +else had better avoid.” + +Mr. Costrelle observed Anthony without looking at him. Anthony was a +good-looking man of his own class who had had a rough time of it and had +succeeded in holding himself together. Mr. Costrelle had already decided +that it was high time Kitty settled down and married. He came down on +purpose to tell her so, and he decided that Anthony would do as well as +any one else. + +Anthony did not look a particularly easy man to fool, but his having had +a bad time would probably make him easier, and Mr. Costrelle did justice +to his daughter; he considered that Kitty, if she kept her head, could +fool any man. + +This decision did not make Mr. Costrelle politer to Anthony; it merely +made him observant. + +“You interested in women’s clothes?” he remarked after a pause. + +“No,” said Anthony. “I suppose I have a general idea of whether they +suit them or not.” + +“It’s a great waste of time having general ideas about clothes,” said +Mr. Costrelle, dispassionately. “It’s a thing men ought to study +carefully in order to help the women. Women have very little sense about +what they wear; they put themselves into the hands of dressmakers, +ignorant and interested people, most of ’em, and get ruined. Of course +my girl’s different. I taught Kitty myself. She consults the one or two +real designers there are in Paris, but she has her own ideas. She is the +only perfectly dressed woman I know. You never see her in a motor +looking as if she were going to a Sunday-school treat, or off to church +as if she were leading a ballet. She considers the occasion, what hat’ll +carry in a high wind, what in general suits her at different times of +the day, and she gets the right shade and the right materials and puts +’em on properly. + +“Cut is the main point. A woman should know her own figure as a captain +knows his ship. If she goes wrong about line, give her up as a bad job; +take her to the nearest department shop and let her run amuck among +ready-made clothes. Nothing’ll save her. The French haven’t anything +like our natural amount of beauty, but you hardly ever see a plain woman +in France. Women have too much sense to be plain over there. They know +how to avoid it; besides, their men help them. Look at a German _Frau_! +By Jove! she is the indictment of the whole race. It’s a satisfaction to +me to think that the Germans have the women they deserve. + +“Ah, here’s Kitty, black and white, with a touch of scarlet. Those +stripes are too broad for your height, Kitty; they make you look like a +young zebra. You want to have the stripes halved. Get it copied with a +smaller stripe, and, I should say, a quarter of an inch shorter. You can +stand it, and the scarlet’ll tell more; otherwise it’ll do very nicely.” + +The dresses followed one another in a bewildering flood; they seemed to +Anthony interminable and extravagant, and yet he found himself enchanted +by them. In each he was confronted by a new Kitty. It was like seeing a +succession of Lady Hamilton’s portraits: you could not fix your mind on +which was loveliest. + +Kitty was not so beautiful as the immortal Emma, but she had more +spirit. She had the quality which makes a man sit up. No man in Kitty’s +presence ever forgot to make the best of himself; it seemed worth while. + +Mr. Costrelle smoked on steadily, with watchful eyes. Nothing escaped +his criticism. He examined the smallest detail, and he and Kitty +discussed the points of difference inexhaustibly. They listened +indulgently to Anthony when he spoke, but they plainly regarded him as +one of the uninitiated. + +Their relationship surprised Anthony, who had been brought up in a +family where the feeling of kinship was strong, it was at once so +cordial and so casual. Kitty and her father might have been congenial +strangers meeting for the first time in a railway-carriage. They +obviously got on well together, but there seemed no particular reason +why they should ever meet again. + +Kitty reappeared for the last time in the yellow chiffon dress she had +worn the night before. It was intolerable to Anthony that she should +wear it now. Kitty took it as a matter of course; she even sat in the +small Sheraton chair, with her head thrown back, and glanced across the +room with unmoved eyes at her father. + +“Do you think I’m all right in this particular primrose shade?” she +asked anxiously. “I meant it to have less color in it, but they always +coarsen their shades over here.” + +“It’ll be better at night,” agreed her father. “If you want to tone it +down a bit, have the scarf the same color as the jade ornament.” + +“Are you sitting straight?” asked Anthony, suddenly. + +Kitty stared at him. + +“What a funny question!” she said a little irritably. “Yes, I suppose I +am.” + +“That left shoulder doesn’t look the same as the right,” said Anthony; +“that’s all.” + +Mr. Costrelle looked amazed. + +“She never had a curvature,” he said. “I hope you haven’t done anything +so stupid, my dear girl, as to develop one at your age.” + +“Of course I haven’t,” said Kitty, impatiently. “Tony’s a doctor; he’s +fussy. All doctors are fussy. They like to make discoveries; and as the +only discovery they can make is something wrong with you, they’re very +pessimistic company. What a pity you can’t discover I’m all right, Tony! +It would be much nicer for papa, and have the added merit, for the +scientific mind, of being accurate.” + +Anthony did not answer her; he was looking intently at her shoulder. +There was something wrong about it. Kitty got up with a little impatient +swing of her skirts and left the room. + +“I didn’t know you were a doctor,” observed Mr. Costrelle, thoughtfully. +“I had an idea your people owned Pannell, that jolly old place in +Sussex, under the downs.” + +“They do,” said Anthony, shortly. + +“You’re the oldest son living, aren’t you?” pursued Mr. Costrelle, +ignoring Anthony’s annoyance. + +“Yes,” said Anthony. + +“It’s a strange fad,” said Mr. Costrelle, contemplatively. “Personally I +think medical science is frightfully overrated. Things that don’t get +right of themselves, stay wrong; that’s my experience. Besides, what you +want of a doctor is not to stop your doing things, which is, I take it, +what you prescribe half the time, but to show you how you can go on +doing them with impunity. But you don’t. Nobody gives impunity—there’s +no such thing—and when you come to think of it, it’s the only thing you +want. Who cares to be well if they can’t do as they like, and who cares +to do what they like if they can’t be well?” + +Anthony ignored this conundrum. He was still thinking hard. + +“I ought to have noticed that before,” he said under his breath, +“unless, of course, she has her clothes bunched up there. That would +account for it.” + +“Her _clothes_ bunched up!” said Mr. Costrelle with scorn. “My dear +young man, is that the kind of dress which has clothes bunched up under +it, and is Kitty, poor innocent child—innocent I mean of being +idiotic—the kind of person not to put on her clothes properly?” + +Kitty came back, and the subject dropped. + +“I don’t see how you ever succeeded in getting Aunt Mallard to invite me +to the house again,” said Kitty, “considering my fearful reputation. Do +you, Tony? You must have been awfully clever, Papa.” + +“No,” said Mr. Costrelle, complacently, “I was not, in this instance, +clever; I was merely good. Very few women who have passed their first +youth are obdurate to a repentant sinner of the opposite sex. Your aunt +was no exception. I sacrificed myself for you. I simply said: ‘My dear +Augusta, can you wonder that the child has tales told about her when you +consider my career? I regret it deeply, but it has been I hesitate to +tell you how shocking. I dare say if I had done as you advised earlier, +and had a thoroughly good companion for her, people might have held +their tongues; but you know what country tongues are, unsophisticated +and anxious to believe the worst. And I admit I disliked the idea of a +respectable middle-aged lady in my house—I mean in Kitty’s house. They +never have been in mine as far as I can remember. Either I should have +shocked them, and they would have gone; or else I wouldn’t have shocked +them, and then they wouldn’t have been of much use if they had stayed. +You see my point?’ + +“Your aunt said she did, and that it was deplorable; she added: ‘As all +my girls are married, I don’t mind taking Kitty for a fortnight. But +mind, no fast married men are to come to the house.’ + +“Your aunt is so intelligent and, for a deeply religious woman, so on +the spot. + +“I took the liberty of answering for you, Kitty; but I said I supposed +it didn’t matter how fast the unmarried men were. And your aunt most +tactfully remarked that it didn’t do to be too old-fashioned.” + +“I dare say I shall have some fun,” said Kitty, thoughtfully. “I hope +you said I must have a latch-key.” + +Mr. Costrelle shook his head. + +“I did my best,” he explained. “I said you were always very considerate +about the servants not having late hours, and that if you happened to be +out with me—to a theater or a lecture, you know—it might be as well +for her to lend you an extra key. She said lectures were never late. It +was the best I could do. I dare say you’ll manage it better.” + +“Dear old thing!” said Kitty, appreciatively, “how well you get on with +Aunt Augusta! It seems almost a pity you don’t see more of her.” + +“It’s not at all a pity,” said Mr. Costrelle, firmly. “She takes away my +appetite for lunch, to which she always invites me. Women with drab +complexions should never wear fawn color; but they always do.” + +“I’ll be one of the unmarried ones,” said Anthony, suddenly. “I suppose +I can call even if I am not fast?” + +“Will you?” said Kitty, carelessly. + +She took it as a matter of course, and yet an hour ago it had not been a +matter of course. + +Anthony looked away from Kitty. He was aware that he had never cared so +little for her as he did at the moment of his decision. + +She and her father struck him as intolerably light. He could not +understand their rapacity for pleasure. Neither of them had any fixed +goal beyond their fugitive desires. + +All their wits, all their ingenuities, were bent in attaining temporary +gratifications. Neither of them had any roots or appeared to have any +compunction. + +Last night Kitty had seemed to be really sorry; she had spoken with what +sounded like conviction. Where was the conviction now? She had wanted +Anthony as a stand-by, if as nothing else. To-day she was apparently +indifferent whether he was there or not. + +It would be easy to leave her now, and yet Anthony knew that what held +him to her was the very fact of her incorrigible lightness. It had +flashed into his mind that she was threatened—threatened as a butterfly +is threatened by the brutal onslaught of a sudden storm. He could feel +the pitiless cold of it against her colored wings. There was no shelter +for her in Mr. Costrelle, and Kitty had herself broken down all other +shelters. + +Anthony could have left Kitty if he had been certain of the sunshine for +her. There might, after all, be nothing wrong; but Anthony was not +certain of the sunshine. + + + CHAPTER XIV + +After lunch they went on the river. Mr. Costrelle excused himself. He +explained that only the very young or the exasperatingly dutiful ever +did things between the hours of two and four o’clock in the afternoon. +This was a time that should be dedicated to a reticent idleness. As he +was neither young nor dutiful, he intended to conceal himself until +tea-time. + +Kitty reappeared in a dress that was the color of a Malmaison carnation. +She had a felt hat of the same shade, with a narrow black-velvet ribbon +round it, and she carried a rose-colored parasol. + +“The ways of women,” observed Mr. Costrelle, regarding Kitty +thoughtfully through a single eyeglass, “are strange. They are not past +finding out, as we are told those of Providence are, but they have at +times the same deceptive sidewise movement, like a crab’s. Explain to +us, my dear child, why you refrained from showing us that very excellent +garment this morning. The pink topaz set in brilliants, which you wear +round your neck, is new to me and a good note.” + +“Oh, this dress?” said Kitty, serenely. “I forgot I had it.” + +A flicker of amusement passed over Mr. Costrelle’s heavy eyelids. He +knew now what he had wanted to find out. Kitty liked this new young man; +she liked him enough to reserve surprises for him, and then lie about +them. He let his eyeglass fall and retired into the house. + +It was one of those early summer days which England occasionally drops +upon her appreciative, but unexpectant, inhabitants. May was at its +loveliest, the trees were all in blossom, the blackbird gave his deepest +under-water note, the thrush flung out his reiterated challenge of sheer +joy, and the young world was full of the surprises of its multitudinous +green shades. On the river the reeds and rushes lived a life of their +own; loose-strife and forget-me-nots grew out from the green banks; +yellow water lilies and lifted buds of coral set their small thick-set +flowers afloat upon the stream. Dragon-flies darted to and fro, shooting +blue and green flames between the fastnesses of the dark bulrushes, +small shocks of speed and color. + +Kitty leaned back against the apple-green cushions of the punt, +supremely comfortable and at peace. + +She was always capable of complete surrender to a sunny hour; her +conscience never interfered with either her own or other people’s +comfort. She had the disposition of ephemeral things to love the light +and play in it, however short it was. + +Kitty crossed her slim ankles, and, opening a jeweled case, drew out a +cigarette and lit it. She narrowed her eyes and fixed them upon Anthony +with satisfaction. + +Anthony’s head was bare and his shirt open at the throat; his figure +showed to better advantage in motion than at rest. Motion relieved and +freed him from his own watchfulness. He punted with long, sure strokes +and a steady eye. + +Kitty had no need to think of her hat or fear the magnetism of +low-growing bushes. The motion of the boat was imperceptible and +noiseless; it seemed a part of the slow-moving stream. She yielded +herself completely to the serene compulsion of the sunny hour. She +smiled a little, but she had no thoughts; her mind melted into +sensation. + +But Anthony could not let himself go. He, too, wanted to enjoy himself; +but he had an ulterior motive, and no one with an ulterior motive has +ever yet succeeded in sharing the joy of others. + +He leaned forward suddenly, with his eyes intent upon Kitty’s face. + +“What is the matter with that shoulder of yours?” he asked quickly. + +Kitty turned her lazy eyes back to the stream. They rested on the quick +spurt of a dragon-fly between the hawthorn bushes. + +“Oh,” she said carelessly, “didn’t I tell you? You were right, after +all. I’d caught up some ribbons I wear on a bodice underneath; they did +make an awful lump. Don’t tell papa. He’d think it so careless of me not +to have taken it off.” + +“It was the only low-necked dress you tried on,” observed Anthony, with +the same intentness. + +“Was it?” replied Kitty, indifferently. “I don’t think I have any other +decent ones. I must get some when I go to town. I hardly ever go out in +the evenings here.” + +Kitty’s carelessness would have deceived the very elect, but she did not +quite succeed in deceiving Anthony. Added to the keenness of his +professional training was the instinctive watchfulness of love. Anthony +noticed that when Kitty had answered him she unconsciously straightened +herself a little, nor did she return to the same complete relaxation +again. She in her turn watched him. + +“Oh, that’s all right, then,” he answered in a tone of obvious relief, +which was more successful in blinding Kitty than she had been in +deceiving him. “I am going to stay here till you turn me out this +afternoon,” he added. “To-morrow I sha’n’t be able to see you. My +mother’s coming to Merry Gardens.” + +“What’s she like?” asked Kitty, curiously. + +Few men are capable of giving a comprehensive description of their +mothers offhand, and Anthony was no exception. + +“Oh, well,” he said a little awkwardly, “I suppose she’s like other +people’s mothers.” + +Kitty brushed aside this evasion. + +“You must tell me about her,” she asserted. “I never met her, you know. +She came to see Daphne after Daphne first came here, but I was away. I +should like to see your mother, Tony.” + +This was merely the expression of a pious hope on Kitty’s part. She was +not really desirous of meeting the mothers of her men friends, with whom +her one point of contact would have led to direct antagonism, and she +would have let the matter slide if Anthony had shown a little tact. + +Tact with women is the knowledge of when to leave a subject alone, and +Anthony had not grasped this saving truth. + +“Oh, no,” he remarked hurriedly, “you wouldn’t care about her in the +least. She’s not your sort, she wouldn’t entertain you.” + +Kitty’s narrowed eyes grew slowly larger. + +“You mean,” she said in a voice of deceptive gentleness, “that she +wouldn’t like me and would disapprove of me?” + +This was, of course, what Anthony had meant, but the way was still open +to him to save the situation by a direct denial. The path of +transgressors is hard, but it is softness itself compared with the path +of a man who tells an adverse truth to a woman who loves him. + +Kitty could stand criticism, but she could not stand Anthony’s +criticism. + +“In a sense I do mean that,” agreed Anthony. “I mean both. It wouldn’t +be at all suitable.” + +“I assure you,” said Kitty, with dangerous sweetness, “I have sometimes +had a ‘_succés fou_’ with old ladies.” + +Anthony winced. He did not like hearing his mother called an old lady, +nor did he like to think of Kitty setting herself to win a delusive +popularity from his mother. + +“It wouldn’t do at all,” he said decisively. “I told Daphne so this +morning.” + +Kitty sat up perfectly straight. She threw her cigarette into the water; +her eyes literally blazed at Anthony. + +“You did what?” she asked incredulously. “You told Daphne that I was +unsuitable to meet your mother?” + +“Practically,” Anthony admitted. + +“Then Daphne knows,” said Kitty in a cold, level voice, “that _you_ know +what I am.” + +Anthony drew the punt into the nearest bank, shipped his pole, and sat +down opposite Kitty. He saw now that he was in for trouble, and he +prepared to face it. + +“She only knows I didn’t think it suitable,” he replied doggedly. “I +can’t help it, Kitty, I don’t!” + +“Suitable!” exclaimed Kitty, her voice lashing at the word. “No, I +suppose I’m _not_ suitable; that’s what you all are in your nice, safe, +tidy, unspeakably selfish world! Your mother’s _safe_, Daphne’s safe, +you’re safe—and, if you like, you can play with me outside it, and take +anything I care to give you, and _you’re_ all right! My father could +meet your mother,—you know his life, don’t you?—but that doesn’t +matter. He’s quite suitable. Only girls who have had bad times and been +broken by them aren’t suitable. They’re dangerous; they must be kept +down! They’d do elderly respectable married women harm! We’d shock them, +I suppose, by showing them what happens when things don’t go right in +this awfully easy, decent, bread-and-butter world! + +“You refused to let Daphne invite me. Yesterday you fought my battles +and were keen to get me asked, but yesterday of course you thought I was +innocent—a little rapid—but innocent. To-day I’m not. I’m just a +graceless little pariah you can take out in a punt! You offered me your +friendship last night, and I was fool enough to think you meant +something rather fine by it. You didn’t; you meant just this—that I was +good enough to amuse you, but I mustn’t touch your precious family with +a forty-foot pole. + +“Take me back, Tony. I wish I’d left you to Miss Mellicot. But you’re +worse than her, for she’d have had the sense to leave me alone.” + +“You’re hopelessly unfair,” said Anthony, steadying himself against his +rising anger. “You want both to eat your cake and have it. You went off +the track of your own free will, then why don’t you stay off it? I +didn’t make the damned rules that keep people on it; but I know they’re +there, and if you break them—and you have a perfect right to break them +if you want to—you ought to be prepared to pay for it and not hold me +accountable. If people take the trouble to keep a few plain rules in +order to make a good, clean place for bringing up their children, why +should they let in those who haven’t controlled themselves to spoil it?” + +“You’ve said enough,” said Kitty, white to the lips. “Take me home.” + +“No, I haven’t said enough,” said Anthony, firmly, “and I want you to +listen to me, because I want to stand by you through anything except +unfairness. But it’s no use expecting me to agree to a lot of +sentimental cant about the kindness and unkindness of a perfectly +obvious fact. It isn’t a question of my mother only. Of course it +wouldn’t hurt her to meet you, and of course if you wanted to charm her, +you’d charm her, then she’d ask you to Pannell.” + +“That,” interrupted Kitty, viciously, “_would_ bring the world to an +end, wouldn’t it? How I should contaminate Pannell! You’d have to have +the whole place disinfected afterward!” + +“That’s not the point,” replied Anthony, pitilessly. “The point is that +you would be there on false pretenses, because my people wouldn’t let +you come, of course, if they knew what I know about you. Do you like +going about on false pretenses? But of course you do. I’m a fool to +suppose you have any honor; you’re going to London now on false +pretenses.” + +“Ah,” interrupted Kitty, with a cruel little laugh, “I see. You object +to my going to London. That’s your real trouble, isn’t it? I might meet +a man there who wouldn’t be as selfish as a dog in the manger and as +moral as a curate. I might meet a _real_ man.” + +Anthony’s impulse was to spring out of the punt on to the bank and leave +Kitty. + +She sat there looking at him with a little derisive smile on her lips. +There was no light in her small, white face; it was fixed and implacable +and as set against him as an iron door. + +Anthony felt every passion he thought he had conquered rise up in him, +and they were all ugly, greedy, cruel passions without intermixture or +relief. The green trees met over their heads; the high, pale clouds +sailed by on idle wings; the whole lovely summer world about them was as +unreal as a painted screen. Only their anger was real; their unsparing +desire to hurt each other was real; their foolish, ineffectual combat, +which took for both of them the light out of the day. + +Kitty held herself as still as a trapped bird. Her heart beat painfully +in her throat, but she met Anthony’s angry eyes with her level, light +gaze, and kept her smiling lips unshaken. + +“D’you mean that, Kitty?” Anthony asked slowly. “D’you mean I don’t seem +like a real man to you because I want to make love to you and haven’t? +By God! I’ll make love to you now if you do.” + +“If you dare to touch me,” said Kitty, quietly, “I’ll upset the boat. Of +course I shall never speak to you again in any case.” + +“Oh, all right,” said Anthony, “only in the future when you feel +inclined to cry down the justice of good people you might remember with +what kind of fairness you’ve treated me. I’m off. You can punt back by +yourself, can’t you?” + +“No, I can’t,” said Kitty. + +There was something in the way in which she said these three little +words that shook Anthony. + +He could not have said what it was that shook him, but there was a +controlled helplessness in Kitty’s voice which prevented him from +leaving her. + +“I’ll take you back, then,” he said stiffly. + +It occurred to him afterward that he might have punted back and let +Kitty walk home, but it did not occur to him then, and it never crossed +his mind that it had occurred to Kitty already, but that she knew she +could not walk. + +He took up the pole suddenly and rose to his feet. + +Kitty watched him for a few moments in silence, then she said in a small +contrite voice: + +“Tony, I was angry; I didn’t mean that—not the horrid thing I said +about your not being a man. It’s just because you are I mind so awfully. +Of course it’s silly. One really likes one’s own world best and one +shouldn’t poach. I expect you did mean all you said, didn’t you?” + +Anthony considered. He could not honestly say that he had not meant what +he said, but he wished very much he had not said it. There are probably +few regrets more keen than those we feel when we have been righteous +over much. + +“I dare say,” he admitted, “that what made me so nasty _was_ partly your +going to London. We were having—at least I thought we were—rather a +good time here, and all of a sudden you seemed to forget all about it +and only to think of clothes and nothing else, like a gnat in the air +turning people’s heads and all that London rubbish, and I felt I’d been +a fool to care so much when you evidently couldn’t have cared at all.” + +“I see,” said Kitty. + +She leaned back against the cushions with the lightness of a fallen +leaf. She turned her head away so that the brim of her hat shaded her +from Anthony’s persistent eyes. + +“I do want to go to London, Tony,” she said slowly, “only I liked this, +too. You make a mistake if you thought I didn’t care. I do care for all +this. What you said about false pretenses, you know, I’ve always thought +of differently. I never really believed I owed it to the world not to +score off it when I could. I felt I had been downed. If Aunt Augusta had +cared a button for me, I’d have told her the truth and taken the +consequences; but she is getting something by having me up or she +wouldn’t ask me. I don’t know how to explain quite. I’ve cared for +awfully few people and I’ve never tried to explain unless I’ve cared, +and I haven’t felt as if I owed anybody anything; but though I honestly +chose my own line, and ought to face it, I would have kept my—my +self-control, as you call it, and made the effort, if I’d been even a +little happy or had had any one who cared a pin whether I kept straight +or not. Of course there was Peckham, but she wasn’t with me then. I was +awfully lonely, and then I knew how. Lots of other girls are quite as +lonely, but a good many of them keep out of my little bothers because, +you see, they don’t know how. Not all, of course; they’re real good ones +too, only it’s not as different as you think. Awfully few people are +_really_ different; things that push them about are different.” + +Anthony acknowledged this possibility. He didn’t want to hurt Kitty now; +he wanted to spare her, but he was uncertain of the best way of sparing +her. Facts had not spared her, and Anthony still believed in the wisdom +of facts. + +“Still,” he explained, “if people have met hard times by keeping +straight, it doesn’t seem quite fair for those who have chosen what is, +I suppose, after all, the easier way, to come down on the straight ones +for not wanting to share their privileges with them. There is something, +isn’t there, in paying for your fun?” + +Kitty smiled her little twisted smile. + +“Oh, yes, Tony,” she said; “I know, and it’s more sensible to be good, +and you get an awful lot of things thrown in—coals and blankets, you +know. The fun doesn’t keep you half as warm as the coals and blankets, +but I expect it’s quite fair really.” + +“Sometimes it’s the other way round,” objected Anthony. “I don’t think +being good or bad is advantageous in itself; it depends on what you’re +out for. If you’re out for an easy time, I think the chances are that +you get what you want more easily by being lawless. Only if you have to +pay for it afterward, as I’m bound to admit in a carefully policed world +the lawless usually do, you mustn’t squeal, must you? That’s my idea.” + +“No, I won’t squeal,” said Kitty in a low voice. “I think I see what you +mean, Tony. We’ll go home now.” + +“Must we?” pleaded Anthony. “I’ve been such a brute and I’ve given you +such a loathsome time, and I think I wanted to be particularly nice. I +don’t know how it happened.” + +“I do,” said Kitty, laughing; “I know exactly how it happened. It was +all my fault. I wanted to be wicked, but now I want to go in. I’m not +really feeling quite good yet. I’ve climbed down, and that’s made me +awfully anxious for my tea. I’ve never climbed down for any one in my +life before, Tony; so when I’m particularly tiresome you’ll remember +that,—won’t you?—and in return I’ll try to forgive you for being in +the right.” + +“I don’t know that I was in the right,” said Anthony, uncertainly making +for the landing-stage. + +“That’ll make it all the easier to forgive you,” said Kitty, lightly. +“You’ll put the cushions away, won’t you, while I go up to the house?” + +She slipped out of the punt and up the narrow wooden steps before +Anthony could help her, but she did not go straight back to the house. + +It was some time before she rejoined Anthony, and her father, on the +lawn. + +“If I were you,” said Mr. Costrelle as she approached the tea-table, “I +should send for some more of that face cream from Paris. You’ve sat out +too long in the sun.” + + + CHAPTER XV + +Kitty was unaccustomed to the processes of thought; she considered +reason to be of the same general quality as coal-mining, a useful +industry safely left in the hands of experts. She did not foresee +trouble. She came against the corners of adverse facts as those who walk +unwarily in the dark bruise themselves against unexpected obstacles. + +When she went to bed the night after her quarrel with Anthony she found +herself exposed to one of these unexpected spiritual bruises. She could +not sleep. It was a soundless, mild June night. The garden lay gray and +still under her window. There was no darkness; only a long suspension of +light. Nothing was alive but Kitty. She drew on a scarlet dressing-gown +and leaned out of the window. + +It must be rather funny, she thought, being dead. If it was only +stillness, like the gray shadow of the lawn, one wouldn’t mind very +much, and there would be no pain and no bother. You wouldn’t have to +decide anything. + +She was not in severe pain to-night. Those singular paroxysms which +seized her chest and her right arm, and made her feel like a creature +caught in a trap, were mercifully holding off. + +It was clever of Anthony to guess that there was something the matter +with her, perhaps it was that odd little lump under her arm which had +made one shoulder look higher than the other. She had examined her neck +very carefully before she went to bed and noticed nothing herself. + +Kitty had never taken the least precaution about her health. She knew +nothing about illness except that it was very bad for people’s looks. +She did not think a lump under her arm could be an illness. If the pain +got too bad, she would not stand it, but she wouldn’t be bothered with +doctors and operations. All the wild things she loved and knew lived +freely, and when their time came, went into bushes and died. Of course +it wouldn’t be as simple as that for her, but you could make it fairly +simple. + +A bat flickered by, heavily drooping like a sagging leaf. Kitty moved a +little and watched the darker shadow of the shrubbery swallowing its +tiny form. + +She liked the thin vague darkness melting away into the sky; there +seemed nothing that could hurt you in it. After all, she’d had a good +time, and a long life was merely the fading down of good times. + +“I don’t find anything new in it,” her father had assured her. “Nor do I +think the facts I already know worth the attention one has more or less +to give them. I survive from habit, and so, I believe, do most people.” + +Kitty did not think habit worth survival. She wished to live a hundred +lives, each of them different, and she had tried only one, and it was +very much the same. The worst of it was, if you went into one kind of +life thoroughly, it seemed to dish you for all the others. Hers for +instance—she hadn’t quite realized before how it had dished her for +people like Anthony’s mother. + +Kitty’s practice had always been to eat her cake and have it. She had +eaten and forgotten; and when she wanted fresh cake, it was always +there. It was true that there had been occasional breakdowns in this +system; but on the whole she had lived the life she had chosen, with +very few rebuffs and no remorse. It was rather absurd at this time of +day to begin to want a different kind of life. + +Perhaps it had been a mistake to take up Anthony. She hadn’t seen at the +beginning why they shouldn’t just have fun—her kind of fun. + +But Anthony had his own kind of fun. He thought about right and wrong, +though he wasn’t a bit religious. Kitty never thought about right and +wrong if she could help it. She didn’t see what it had got to do with +her and Anthony. Why couldn’t it be left to people who went to church +and liked it? When Anthony had told her about his work as if it was a +sacred obligation, she supposed it was because he had not had any +opportunity of going to musical comedies for a long time, and had +nothing else to talk about. She thought he was mad when he explained to +her that if in the future it came to a choice between having to give up +his profession or Pannell, he would give up Pannell. She hoped that he +would get over it as soon as his overstrung nerves had become more +normal. + +But Anthony had got steadily more normal, and he had not got over it. He +really wanted to do his work more than he wanted a good time. It was, +oddly enough, his idea of a good time. He kept coming back to it when he +ought to have been amusing Kitty. He actually appeared to think he was +amusing her. It was part of Anthony’s idea of fun. The rest of his fun +was loving her—loving her in a way that disturbed everything else. + +Anthony was more anxious to protect her than to please her, and he was +apparently more anxious still that she should do right. He never had +accepted the convenience of her recklessness. If he had, he might have +been with her now in this emphatic night stillness, and then she would +have told him everything. There would have been no barriers. But Anthony +did not know this. It was hidden from him by his implacable innocence! +He did not know what he might have had, or, if he continued indefinitely +the part he had chosen, what would happen to him. + +But Kitty knew. She knew that she would drag him under, and involve his +life, so that the work he loved would be hindered, and his life caught +away from the people and customs which belonged to him. He would become +a part of the circle of her lawlessness. + +He could think what he liked, that was the worst of thought it had so +much margin, but that narrow path experience was against Anthony. + +Kitty knew that out of certain situations certain facts arise, they do +not happen as you like, they happen as they must; thought does not save +any man’s steps from the abyss unless he turns away from it. + +It seemed to Kitty, as she sat huddled up on the window-sill, that the +gray light over the fields had changed a little. The shadows were darker +in it, and there was a sense of movement in the air, as if the earth was +coming back to life. A long way off she heard the call of a bird. + +There was only one way to save Anthony: she could disenchant him, she +could do what he would think despicable. He had fine, stern principles, +but Kitty hadn’t. Her only principle had been to amuse herself; so that +it would be much easier for her to give up hers than for Anthony to give +up his. Kitty did not say, “I must not do wrong even to save Anthony.” +She knew she must do wrong if it _could_ save him. She was thinking only +of him. + +The worst of it was that she would have to be really horrible. She +couldn’t put Anthony off with anything less than the complete +disfigurement of herself. He had accepted too much already not to be +willing to accept more, unless it was of such a nature as to shake his +whole faith in Kitty’s character. She must do something which would +violate his taste and make him feel that she was contemptible. + +He had forgiven badness, partly because he hadn’t seen it, and partly +because there were excuses which he could put between her and her acts. +He would not forgive her if she could make him despise her. + +Kitty hunted in her relentless, clear little mind for an essential +ugliness. There were things she had done which she hadn’t minded at the +time, but which she now realized would hurt her to tell Anthony; she had +not let herself think about these incidents before. + +She could remember the time when she had hastened over their +accomplishment because they had jarred some instinct in her, which had +first rebelled and then sunk into acquiescence. They jarred her mind now +to think about, but she faced each incident steadily in turn, to see if +it was ugly enough to disenchant Anthony. + +It must be something she had really done which he couldn’t get over, +something that would lash his memory and scar it with a cruel image, and +she must attach this image to herself, so that afterward, when he went +away, he would not crave for her, but be able to say, “Well, thank God, +I saw through her in time!” + +Kitty put her head down on the scarlet dressing-gown and shook a little +with dry, reluctant sobs. She did not cry very long or very hard, +because she was afraid of bringing on the pain; but she felt as if her +spirit was buried in a place of tears. She didn’t want Anthony to see +through her, she did not want to see through herself. Why was it that +after she had forgotten all about love, and stamped out the pure and +perfect promise of her early years, love should return and haunt her +with promises as strong as ever, and its attainment impossible? Could +those fugitive, unconnected acts into which she had flung herself from +excitement, and a desire to use her unexplored, untempered powers, close +against her forever any fuller life? + +Must she always be a “vagrant,” shut outside those magic walls which +hold mothers and their children, homes, and the rich security of love? + +Kitty lifted her head and looked out once more into the mysterious life +of the night. She could hear the distant droning of the frogs in the +water meadows, and watch the mists blown by the strong dawn wind, +flitting in strange shapes across the lawn. + +Nature went on her own silent way, clothing in darkness the deepest +processes of life. + +Kitty could not expect the assistance of a revelation either from nature +or from man. She had chosen the predatory life of loneliness in which +there is neither sympathy nor companionship, and where the outcast is +pitted against the solidarity of a hostile world. + +She could do what she liked and let Anthony take the consequences, or +she could take the consequences and do what she didn’t like. There did +not seem to be any other alternative. Her mind fixed suddenly on a +sufficient incident. There was something she could tell Anthony which +would be certain to send him away. She hadn’t immediately thought of it +because it had seemed trivial at the time, but it wasn’t trivial if she +looked at it in connection with Anthony, and she could make it worse +than it was. + +She shrank from proclaiming it because it unfortunately involved +somebody else, though he wasn’t very deeply involved. Kitty could manage +to make him appear almost innocent in comparison with herself, and, +fortunately, it never mattered that a man should be wholly innocent. + +Kitty gave a wicked chuckle as she saw in a sudden flash how it would +annoy the person involved. It would be the only amusing point in the +whole affair; and she was perhaps entitled to that much amusement; for +if he was annoyed, she would be ruined in Anthony’s eyes. + +Still, it really wouldn’t do just to mess Anthony’s life up for nothing. +It would be awfully dull and horrible sending him away, but it would be +more horrible to smash him up when he’d been awfully good to her. She +wasn’t going to like doing it, of course; she hadn’t liked quarreling +with him on the river. She hadn’t been prepared for that particular +quarrel, or she could have finished the whole thing then. Anthony had +taken her by surprise, and she had been so hurt that her wits had broken +down. She had stopped quarreling when she ought to have gone on. That +was what happened when you got accidentally hurt—it did not happen when +you meant to hurt yourself. You could keep your head then. + +As the light broadened out over the fields and ran like silver down the +little river, the pain in Kitty’s arm came on her like a toothache. It +was an extraordinary pain, dull at first and then as fierce as a blow, +and it seemed to hold Kitty so that she was like some thing shaken in an +iron vise. She could not move, and her breathing came uncomfortably, as +if it were being forced through a narrow space. + +The attack lasted longer than she had ever known it to last. The sun +came out and drank up all the shadows, and the little shapes of mist +that leaned over the water slipped into the willows; but the land was no +longer real to Kitty. It looked like some foreign country. She was being +held back by a dreadful iron grip, so that she could take no part in it. + +The pain dulled down at last, and broken and white-lipped, she struggled +to bed. She said to herself that she must do something about the pain +soon if it didn’t get any better. + +Then she fixed her mind on what she had better do to disenchant Anthony. +It was easier to Kitty to put off the thought of death than to put off +the thought of Anthony. + + + CHAPTER XVI + +Mrs. Arden was enjoying herself very much. She was sitting under a large +pink May-tree on the lawn, watching her children. + +Daphne was in a lounge-chair half asleep; Anthony, with Max at his feet, +was reading out loud emphatic modern poetry, which his mother could not +understand; Jim was mending a fishing-rod; and nobody seemed to be in +anybody else’s way. + +The two men were going to play tennis after tea despite its being +Sunday; but this did not really matter, as Mr. Arden was not there to +object. + +After thirty-five years of married life the moral law had sunk for Mrs. +Arden into the consideration of what would or what would not upset Mr. +Arden. It was an extremely happy marriage. Her husband was faithful, +tyrannical, and kind, and she gave way to him on every point except when +he interfered, as he sometimes did from the highest motives, with the +happiness of his children. Mrs. Arden always asserted that her husband +was the best judge of his children’s happiness, and spent her entire +life in altering his judgments to suit the children. She had no +intellectual ability, but she knew when children would rebel. + +“When you are older you will understand your dear father better,” she +often told them; but it had never occurred to her to think that when Mr. +Arden was older he would understand his children better. She knew he +never would. Mrs. Arden’s happiest hours were when she knew Mr. Arden +was safe doing something he liked and the children were nowhere near +him. She had never faced any problem that was not domestic, nor had she +ever met a human being of her own class who was not respectable. + +There had been a nervous flurry once over Tom and a musical-comedy star, +but it had all ended most satisfactorily. The musical-comedy star had +married a lord, and Tom had gone to India and killed a tiger. + +Mrs. Arden looked reflectively at Anthony. He was getting over his +imprisonment wonderfully well. His eyes no longer had that bright +flickering look of an animal endangered, and he had ceased to keep +himself in hand, as if what he was carrying would break if he forgot to +hold it carefully. + +Her tranquil eyes turned from their satisfaction in him to rest upon +Daphne. + +It was the hour of Daphne’s life when she was of most importance to the +universe. Her husband’s every thought and hope centered in her, and +nature had laid upon Daphne her greatest task and her supreme reward. + +Mrs. Arden knew what Daphne felt like. She remembered her own sensations +before the birth of Tom, her incredible deep content in the face of all +physical inconvenience, and Mr. Arden’s frightened tenderness. + +He had waited upon her hand and foot, as Jim waited upon Daphne now; his +thoughts had hung on her wishes. Mr. Arden’s thought hung on his own +wishes now, and he no longer waited upon his wife. She waited upon him +instead, without, however, making him at all conspicuous by it. Mr. +Arden liked to be thought a young man and to be treated with the +deference due to an old one. + +But Mrs. Arden did not look at the relinquished gifts of life with any +self-pity. She realized that as you grow older, you have less and suffer +more; but on the other hand you know how to suffer better, and you can +enjoy with a delightful escape from responsibility the experiences of +others. + +Mrs. Arden approved the arrangement of Providence by which you had the +prizes while you had the battles, and ceased to have the battles at the +moment when the prizes became unobtainable. + +It was a soft and peaceful afternoon. Anthony went on reading out loud, +with obvious enjoyment. The startling paradoxes of modern poets rang +harmlessly through the slumbering, flower-scented air. It was as if +nothing very dreadful had ever happened. + +Mrs. Arden sighed softly, because she never for an instant forgot Tom. +When she repeated in the creed that she believed in the resurrection of +the dead, she saw Tom in white flannels with his hat pulled forward over +his eyes, precisely as she saw Anthony now, except that Tom’s shoulders +were broader, and he was usually doing something useful with his hands. + +The garden gate clicked, and an extraordinary vision appeared upon the +lawn. It was Kitty, accompanied by Mr. Costrelle. Kitty wore the pink +Malmaison dress, with pale-pink stockings and remarkably smart black +suède shoes. She balanced a rose-pink parasol to perfection. + +Mr. Costrelle trailed indolently beside her, long, lean, white-faced, +without expression except for his pale eyes, which had a sharpened, +appraising look, as if he were on the look-out for a new possession, but +had no intention of being taken in by it. They approached the group +under the pink May-tree with friendliness, but they belonged to a +hostile tribe. + +Kitty moved swiftly across the lawn, kissed Daphne, who was half asleep +and taken unawares, perfunctorily; noticed Jim and Anthony with a little +lift of an eyebrow more perfunctory still, and turned her undivided +attention upon Mrs. Arden. + +“I’m Kitty Costrelle,” she announced, “and I know you’re Daphne’s +mother. I’ve wanted to meet you for ages.” She sank into a chair by Mrs. +Arden’s side and turned her shoulder upon the rest of the group. + +Mrs. Arden had a flurried sense that both her son-in-law and Anthony +wanted, for some unknown reason, to intervene, but they didn’t know how; +and Daphne, who did know how, found herself fully occupied by the fixed +attention of Mr. Costrelle. + +Mrs. Arden was not accustomed to the forward notice of very +smart-looking girls without shyness, who ignore the polite and cautious +responses of the provincial well bred. + +Jim and Anthony still made baffled efforts to enter into their +conversation, but Kitty relentlessly forced them out. Her vivid eyes, +her expressive gestures, were only for Mrs. Arden. + +Mrs. Arden was confused by these advances, but beneath her confusion she +was oddly aware of a feeling of compassion. She was shy and +inconspicuous and old, and quite incapable of facile friendliness; but +she felt as if this brilliant, effective girl was somehow at a +disadvantage. + +Kitty wasn’t as sure of herself as she pretended to be; she wasn’t as +sure of any one or anything as Mrs. Arden had all her life taken for +granted that people naturally were. Mrs. Arden had an ineffaceable +background, and Kitty had no background at all. + +Kitty, with all her air of easy conquests and perfect assurance, +fluttered there before them all, like a bird in a high wind, perched +upon a swinging bough. + +She talked very sensibly to Mrs. Arden about the country and the growth +of flowers; she referred sympathetically to Daphne, and asked Mrs. Arden +if she didn’t find her son wonderfully better. She seemed to have very +accurate information about the Ardens, and Pannell slipped in and out of +her sentences as if it had been a part of her own career; but Mrs. Arden +in return could not remember that Daphne had told her anything at all +about Kitty Costrelle. + +It was reassuring, however, to discover, since Anthony must have seen a +good deal of her, that Kitty wasn’t an actress. Mrs. Arden knew +Anthony’s temperament well, and she was aware that you could not have +put an actress out of his head by the insertion of a tiger. + +Kitty was still talking to her with the same flattering intimacy when +Anthony returned from an abortive set of tennis with Jim. + +“If you are interested in roses,” Mrs. Arden said to Kitty as Anthony +joined them, “you must come and see my little rose garden at Pannell. +Mustn’t she, dear?” + +Anthony’s and Kitty’s eyes met like flint. + +“I don’t think we’ve got very much to show her,” said Anthony, quietly. + +“I’ll come with all the pleasure in the world,” said Kitty, rising to +her feet. She looked past Anthony; the brightness of her eyes deepened +suddenly. She had done what she could with Mrs. Arden more or less +successfully, but all the power she had was in her eyes as she looked +past Anthony toward Jim Wynne. + +“Jim,” she said softly. + +Daphne looked up from her fencing with Mr. Costrelle. Her eyes darkened +suddenly; her words stumbled and broke off as if a wind had dispersed +them. Kitty’s slow smile deepened. + +“Jim,” she repeated, “I want one of those nectarines of yours, the jolly +warm ones you grow in your houses. D’you remember you used to call them +the apples of the Hesperides?” + +“Did I?” mumbled Jim. “The deuce of a silly name for them!” + +“I thought it a very pretty name,” said Kitty. “Of course I didn’t know +what it meant, but it sounded such an awfully nice place to get apples +from.” + +She slipped her hand familiarly on Jim’s arm, and without a word he +turned and followed her. + +Daphne gathered up her sentence again, but the peace of the summer +afternoon was gone. Only Mrs. Arden did not know what had happened. It +seemed to her much safer to see Kitty walk off with Jim than if she had +carried away Anthony. + +“That’s a very attractive girl, dear,” she said to her son, “but what a +curious thing none of you has ever happened to mention her to me before! +I think, if I were you, I should go into the house and get a little +shawl for Daphne. She shivered just now as if she had caught cold.” + + + CHAPTER XVII + +Jimmy was a good host, and he waited patiently while Kitty examined the +nectarines. There was not much to choose between the solid pink and +yellow globes hanging on the south wall of the greenhouse. The sun had +burned its own color into them; the air was warm and full of the heavy +scent of flowers and ferns producing artificially their precocious, +unseasonable life. + +Kitty took a long time choosing her nectarine. She was not quite sure +what line to take with Jimmy. He had the peculiar shutdown look of a man +whose nerves are being subjected to strain, and who has made up his mind +to keep all possible approaches to them closed. He was not thinking of +his greenhouse, and he wanted to get back to his wife. + +Kitty chose her fruit at last, and strolled in silence out into the +kitchen garden. There was a seat opposite a bed of pansies, on which she +sat down. The bright upturned faces of the pansies stared at the sun; +bees pushed their slow way above them to a cloud of feathery larkspur. +In the elms beyond the paddock the rooks were cawing their wrangling +pathway home to bed. + +Kitty took out a cigarette and looked up thoughtfully at Jimmy. + +“It’s rather nice for men,” she observed, “being able to be rude +comfortably. We can’t, you know; we have to put ourselves out and make +conversation and hold on to the appearance of things. I don’t know why, +but we do. If you were in my garden now, I should have to look pleasant +and find you a match. This dress has no pockets.” + +Jimmy handed her his box, reluctantly. + +“I don’t know,” he said, looking over her head. “I think I’m quite +polite enough; I brought you here.” + +“Of course I’m awfully grateful for that,” agreed Kitty, “though I’m not +at all sure whether you could help it. Your mother-in-law would have +been so surprised if you’d said: ‘Hanged if I give you a nectarine! Go +home, and be damned to you!’ By the by, are you afraid I’m going to make +love to you, Jimmy? You look rather like one of those old Johnnies who +thought they ought to resist visions and started to put the visions off +by making themselves look as disagreeable as possible. I never thought +it was a good plan, really; it must have put the visions on their +mettle.” + +“I don’t care whether you try or not,” said Jimmy, untruthfully. “It +doesn’t make the least odds to me what you think you’re doing.” + +Kitty laughed a little under her breath. + +“You’d sound safer if you weren’t so sure,” she murmured. “However, if +it’s any comfort to you, I’m _not_ going to make love to you. It would +take such a long time and be such an effort, and might not be worth it +even if I succeeded. I’m going to make you furious instead. You are +cross already, so it won’t be so much trouble. What do you say to my +marrying Tony? I’ve got a fancy for Pannell.” + +Jimmy tried to look as if he didn’t believe her; but his eyes ceased to +measure the new asparagus bed, and came back hurriedly to Kitty’s +upturned face. + +She looked as blandly innocent as the pansies at her feet. + +“Yes,” she said consideringly, “that would make me a kind of roundabout +sister-in-law to you, wouldn’t it? How would you like that?” + +“I shouldn’t like it at all,” said Jimmy, coldly; “but I’m not sure even +_that_ would be sufficient inducement to you to do it. Why do you want +Pannell, which you wouldn’t get in any case for many years? You aren’t +usually so mercenary.” + +“Nobody’s mercenary when they have enough money,” said Kitty, “but all +really careful people lay up a pear for their thirst. Pannell’s a nice +fat pear, and at present I’m intolerably short and by and by I shall +probably be thirsty.” + +“I’d rather give you two or three hundred,” said Jimmy after a pause. + +“Thanks,” said Kitty, puffing at her cigarette and watching his face +with obvious enjoyment. “But I don’t want a tip. I’d like something +solid in the funds, and I wouldn’t even mind a husband. This kind of +thing you know—” she waved her cigarette in the direction of the +low-browed house and the distant lawn—“rather brings up the subject of +family life in an attractive light. All husbands aren’t cross, and it +isn’t always Sunday.” + +“You can’t marry Anthony,” said Jimmy, doggedly. “If he knew what I know +about you, he wouldn’t do it, you see.” + +“But he doesn’t, you see,” mocked Kitty, with a malicious little laugh. + +“If you were to insist on marrying him,” said Jimmy, quietly, “I should +have to tell him.” + +Kitty blinked and screwed her wicked eyelashes together. + +“You’re a brave man, Jimmy,” she said, “but I shouldn’t advise it. If +you dot Tony’s i’s for him, I shall dot Daphne’s, and it isn’t the +moment I’d choose for Daphne’s.” + +Jimmy had been expecting this thrust. He took it outwardly coolly, but +inwardly he had only one conscious feeling—a desire to kill Kitty at +once and with his hands. He kept quite still; the murmuring low voices +of the bees and the far-off, distracted cawings of the rooks were the +only sounds in the world. + +Kitty read murder in his eyes and enjoyed the sensation. If there was a +moment in Kitty’s life that she really prized above all others it was +the instant when, sailing close up to the wind, she ran a perceptible +chance of being capsized by it. + +She had this moment now, it passed as suddenly as she faced it. Jim drew +a long breath, and put his hands in his pockets. + +“You could do that, of course,” he said carefully, “if you were cad +enough.” + +“Any one who tells is a cad,” said Kitty, calmly, “and we should both of +us have beautiful motives. At least yours would be beautiful, and mine +would be reasonable; it is always reasonable to pay back a hit if one +can. Still, I grant it would be better not to begin. You see, they both +know a certain amount already, and it wouldn’t be particularly +reassuring to know more.” + +“Rather than let Tony marry you, I’d tell them both—everything,” said +Jimmy, sternly. + +Kitty laughed out suddenly. + +“Here is Tony,” she said, rising to her feet. “I only wanted you to wait +here with me till he came after us. I don’t intend to marry him. As you +wouldn’t flirt, I had to think of something to amuse you to fill up the +time. + +“Hullo, Tony. Jimmy and I have been having such an awfully funny +talk—what they call in the newspapers ‘a grave moral issue.’ You’ll be +glad to hear Jimmy chose the truth—the whole truth and nothing but the +truth, in spite of the most fearful penalties attached to it. Only, as I +was pulling his leg all the time, there won’t be any penalties. You can +get off scot-free with your virtue, Jimmy.” + +Jimmy said something under his breath and turned to escape, but Kitty +checked him. + +“No, you don’t,” she said. “I’m going to make you feel perfectly +comfortable first by way of reward. Tony, he’s afraid you’ll marry me, +but you won’t, will you, when you know he’s been one of my lovers? I +told you once I tried to turn his head, but I didn’t tell you I _had_ +turned it.” + +Jimmy’s self-control left him. He swore savagely at Kitty, and at the +name he called her by Anthony sprang forward and struck him. + +Jimmy struck back, and for a minute or two Kitty watched them with +interested approval. She had seen men fight for her before and she had +never interfered. Then she saw that Anthony was getting the worst of it. +Jimmy was stronger and heavier, and he was, if anything, the angrier; +the weight of the anger he felt for Kitty got behind his mounting rage +with Anthony. He might have forgiven Anthony’s blow if it had been the +only one. + +Kitty deliberately shut down the rose-pink parasol and drove it between +the combatants. They started back for an instant, and in that instant +she had slipped between them, the broken sunshade in her hands. + +“Go to Daphne, Jim,” she said over her shoulder. “She may come along +here at any moment and see you. You don’t want to upset her; leave Tony +to me.” + +Jimmy obeyed her without looking at her. + +“You’d better sit down,” Kitty said to Anthony. Her eyes softened for a +moment as they rested on him. “You shouldn’t fight when you’re so out of +condition,” she added. + +Anthony shook his head vehemently. + +“Is what you said true?” he demanded. + +“Yes,” said Kitty, “it was true. That’s what annoys Jim so. Men are so +silly! What’s the use of being annoyed over ancient history? Besides, +he’s perfectly safe now; Daphne’ll look after him. Why don’t you sit +down?” + +“I’m afraid I’m silly, too,” said Anthony stiffly. “If what you said is +true, I can’t stand it either, Kitty.” + +Kitty nodded; she had not meant Anthony to stand it. + +“All right,” she said; “I told you before that it was better you should +go away. Thank you for trying to knock Jimmy down.” + +Anthony hesitated a moment. + +“Why did you tell me?” he asked her at last. “You needn’t have told me; +I would never have guessed it.” + +“I don’t know,” said Kitty; “I suppose I got bored and wanted to stir +things up. Everybody looks so comfortable here, all primed with tea and +the ten commandments. I just wanted to show that they aren’t as solid as +they look. Besides, Jim is really rather trying just now; he thinks +being happy is a virtue which he’s hit on for himself. I can’t stand +people who are righteous about their luck.” + +“I haven’t got that virtue,” said Anthony in a low, unsteady voice, “and +it’s me you’ve really hit, Kitty. Jimmy won’t care.” + +She shrugged her shoulders. + +“Oh, you’re just as bad,” she said without looking at him; “you belong +to the same lot, you’re one of the solid people. Nothing can really get +hold of you and break you up.” Her voice caught for a moment. “I wish +you’d go away. I hate the lot of you.” + +Anthony took a step toward her. For a moment he thought of her and not +of the pain she was causing him. It seemed to him as if Kitty was, +absurdly enough, the victim and not the destroyer; but there was no +yielding in Kitty to respond to his instinct. Her chin was up, and her +eyes, as hard as pebbles, met his unflinchingly. + +“Don’t you _see_,” she said fiercely, “that I’m simply _bored_ by you?” + +And Anthony, struck to the heart, believed that she was simply bored, +and left her. + + + CHAPTER XVIII + +Anthony’s hardly won control snapped like a broken twig; he turned from +Kitty, and walked quickly out into the road. His mind was held in the +suspension of shock. He neither knew where he was going nor considered +what he meant to do. He stumbled as he walked with his head bowed and +pushed forward as if he were tied to something he could not get rid of. + +There was a desperate urgency in his broken mind, like the urgency of +high fever; he knew there was something he mustn’t think about, some +dreadful image just beyond his conscious will which was prepared to leap +into his mind. Fear ran at his heels. It had neither face nor name, but +it pursued him like a shadow along the hot, white road. + +Motors overtook and passed him, people watched him from their garden +gates, and wondered at his crouched, absorbed figure hurrying past them. +He never turned his head through the small, chattering villages or on +the open road. Max followed him, foot-sore and perplexed, but +one-indeaed as Ruth. He knew that there was something strangely wrong +with his master, and he was determined that whatever was wrong or +strange, he would share it. + +Anthony had lost his self-consciousness; he ceased to be aware of his +own significance. Self-control and the governance of his mind dropped +away from him like unheeded, unessential things. He was a human being +hounded by an obscure emotion that he dared not face. Anthony ran from +it, but he was conscious as he ran that he could not escape it. There +would be a moment when exhaustion would catch him and force him to give +battle, and there was nothing left in him to fight with. His heart was +as empty as his mind. + +They were passing the entrance to a small orchard that lay fronting an +old farm-house when Max felt that they had gone far enough. He whined +suddenly and ran in front of Anthony, lifting a dusty paw, and fixing +his burning topaz eyes on Anthony’s face. He would go on if Anthony went +on, but he had made his protest. Anthony paused uncertainly, looking +about him at the unfamiliar road, the distant red-brick farm, and the +space of white blooms vivid against the evening light. He turned +stumblingly, and sank on the bank under the apple-blossoms. Max crept +beside him, pushing his head against his master’s chest. + +Dogs have only one way of showing sympathy with human beings; they offer +themselves up upon the altar of their master’s pain. Max pushed himself +relentlessly into Anthony’s suffering; he would not stay outside and be +safe. He would be a part of Anthony’s pain till the pain stopped. +Anthony felt the warmth reach his heart and was a little comforted. + +A late lark was still singing above the orchard trees, very high and +shrill in the clear evening air; the sun lay like a sea of fire across +the fields; every separate grass in the hedge stood up alive in it. + +[Illustration: _There was no curtain left between Anthony and his +pain._] + +There was no curtain left between Anthony and his pain. He saw its face +and eyes, and they were the face and eyes of Kitty. She had done an +incredible thing incredibly, like some fifth-rate girl in a café. It was +not only cruel; it was vulgar. She had said words that drew blood. They +disfigured Anthony’s love for her. + +He might have stood the fact, but not Kitty’s throwing it between the +two men to force on a fight; and for what other reason had she thrown +it? She was bored and light, and, like a bad little tune, her words ran +on in his mind and tortured him. They did not set him free—spiritually +Kitty was dead to him; but Kitty dead was Kitty accessible—the image of +her pulled him back like a strong cable. + +If this was what she was, why could he not take advantage of it, satisfy +the hard hunger that possessed him, and grant himself at least the +release of his strained senses? + +He told himself this was what love was worth. It was the master miracle +and cheat of life. Anthony had been let out of prison and confronted +with ecstasy, and ecstasy was a trap. He buried his face in his hands +and shut out the lark’s song and the intolerable world. + +If he went back, he had nothing to lose. Kitty had destroyed the +spiritual part of love. The man who did not take the actual and make the +best of it was a fool. + +It was better to be like an ordinary man, and pigeon-hole women: one +kind—Miss Mellicot, for instance—you marry and respect, and the other +you go wild over and spiritually ignore. Anthony had never believed this +method fair to women. He had not liked to think that any human being +should be treated without respect to his humanity; but perhaps the +judgment of the normal world was sound, and there were people—people +like Kitty—too light to touch even the honor in others. One did not let +them down by treating them at their own valuation because they were too +low to be let down. + +But one ought to be very sure of this condition. A memory stirred in +Anthony of how he had thought the same once of his fellow prisoners: he +had condemned them root and branch as fellows who had thrown away their +codes and were therefore worthless. + +Afterwards his condemnation had worn thin, he had found so many excuses, +the black clouds of their follies and their failures had been stripped +away like mists, and he had seen through the mists the havoc and +struggle of their souls, for even below their code something had +struggled in them. + +Anthony was not sure of Kitty. He thought of her skimming life like a +summer gnat above a pool, a light thing in the light air of her life, +without balance or stability; but he could not be certain that she, too, +had had no struggle. She had worked and suffered. For two years she had +helped to stem the tide of suffering in France when France was the +cockpit of the world, and she had shirked nothing. + +She did not shirk anything now, Anthony did not deny her pluck, and once +he had seen her cry. The memory of Kitty’s tears was a strange comfort +to Anthony. + +Love rose slowly in his heart and shook him; it would not let him be +driven back cheaply to a worthless Kitty, it would not let Kitty be +worthless. Love held him to her courage and her tears; it even involved +him in her disasters and suggested that if he had been wiser, kinder, +less full of the sense of what was due to the rules of his life—he +might have served her. + +Love did not seem to wish for a freed Anthony. + +His mind caught against a new point. Whatever Kitty was like, he needn’t +make her worse, he needn’t add humiliation to her. And it would be a new +humiliation if he went back to take her on her own terms; for she would +know that in doing so he despised her. She would let him despise her +because she would think it was only fair, but she would not like it, and +because she would not like it, he must not do it. He must let her at +least feel that the man who had respected her still respected her enough +to leave her alone. He tried to hold himself to this decision, but it +took the taste out of his life. + +He did not know now what to do. He realized that his body was exhausted +and wanted food, but he had no wish to fight this exhaustion. He would +have liked to crawl farther into the hedge and become invisible and part +of the earth. Max stirring in his arms roused him to his feet. He pushed +on heavily, with his face towards London. + +The apple-blossoms were spectral in the evening light; the sun fell +behind a group of flaming elms; for a long time the sky held a delicate +mauve color, fading into darkness. + +The endless houses of the suburbs began; they streamed past him with +long gaps of ugly, empty fields and half-built roads. He noticed nothing +but a sense of closing in and the merciful quieting of night. He did not +hurry any more. + +Pain had got up to him now and was no longer pursuing him, and pain had +a familiar face, there was no surprise in it. + +Beauty and joy had been the surprise and fear was the race to escape +losing them. Anthony had been overtaken and the race had gone against +him; but there was still pain and the mastery of pain. + +Anthony had been near enough to happiness to divine that there is no +such personal success as the success of joy. + +He realized that joy is the chief principle of life, and that without it +the Kingdom of Heaven must be entered maimed. Anthony ignored the +Kingdom of Heaven because he could not see it; but he could see, in +flashes, that he was maimed; and unconsciously he felt that the Kingdom +of Heaven was anything that lay beyond the fact of his maiming. + +Anthony tried to think about his work, but his mind beat relentlessly +against the thought of Kitty. + +His life had no value to himself without joy, but he could still serve +the community. If the world was hard, it was the more important for +those who had tasted the quality of hardness to set themselves towards +discovering possible alleviations for others. + +The success of the personal life was not the boundary of the human +spirit. + +Happiness serves life unconsciously and has chosen the better part, but +pain is the Martha who must busy herself about many things. Anthony was +like a drowning man clinging to a straw. He did not know that he was +drowning, but the thought of helping the world against pain was the +straw to which he clung. + +As the persistent streets closed in upon Anthony a strange feeling of +exhilaration stole across his senses. He had a lift of the mind, and was +possessed by that false sense of strength which comes on the verge of +complete exhaustion. + +He told himself that, after all, happiness was the only risk, and that +he had survived it. + + + CHAPTER XIX + +It was long past midnight, and London was as still as a mountain pass. +The lights rose up hard and straight out of the empty streets; the vast, +dim spaces of the squares retreated from them as if they were the points +of weapons. Every now and then a furtive loiterer passed Anthony, a +creature as shadowy and unsubstantial as a dream. Sleepy and stolid +policemen stood phlegmatically under occasional lamp posts, with their +backs turned away from the mysterious secrecy of the dark. The tall +houses were overpoweringly still, blank citadels of ease and security +which forced a sense of outlawry upon the passer-by. + +Anthony felt the sharp stir in him of a grudge against prosperity. It +suddenly seemed to him as if law and order held too many cards. All +humanity is at the mercy of certain casual blows, but how vast is the +difference between the people who can afford to place in front of +themselves the comfortable buffers of prosperity and those bleak +wanderers whom the blast strikes full without any protection! + +Anthony had learned as few men in his position had learned the grim +habit of privation; he knew the difference between those who command +conveniences and those who are commanded by inconvenience. He had been +without comfort, he had forfeited privacy, and become inured to rest +without ease. He knew that privations undermine you and unfit you for +higher pleasures, and that the little jar and spite of painful living +prevent in you the release of thought. He knew also that behind +privation stands tyranny, the blind possessor who strikes against +courage and freedom. + +Anthony held no theories about rich and poor, but his prison experience +had taught him that those without choice are captives. + +If you cannot change a job, or correct a misfit, or gain a right without +the risk of an appeal which may push you into an abyss, you are a +captive. + +Only men with margins can afford the courage of their convictions, and +unfortunately margins, while they produce courage, change convictions. +He remembered only by chance, because for the moment he had no money and +could not get a meal for Max, what it had been like to be without a +margin. + +He remembered good Germans who were kind to prisoners. Their kindnesses +were not worse than their brutalities, because nothing is worse than +brutality; but they were harder to bear. + +Anthony felt again the fierce shudder with which he used to meet their +victorious, satisfied eyes. He had found it harder than the others to +bear benevolence. Their captors had looked at the prisoners and pointed +out what was good for them; sometimes it was good for them, but the +prisoners had no choice. There is often a great deal to be said for the +safety of walls, but the weak go to them not because they like them, but +because the strong push them there. + +The big, fine houses of the West End looked down on Anthony +contemplatively; they seemed to be pointing out to him the rights of +their solidity. Anthony changed Max from one arm to the other; he was +near Henry’s flat. It was a pity to disturb Henry, but Max was plainly +exhausted. He lay like a springless log in Anthony’s arms, and now and +then whimpered to express his sense of the unseemliness of perpetual +tramping through the night. + +Anthony knew that he could find Henry’s flat—his mind had a bewildered +sense of the loss of other alternatives. He could not think of anywhere +else to go. But Henry’s flat stood out with a vivid, startling clearness +because he had come back to it out of prison—he knew that he could find +it in the dark. + +Anthony was not conscious of his own fatigue. He had walked twenty-five +miles between five o’clock in the afternoon and two o’clock in the +morning, but his mind was fresh and his thoughts ran through it as fast +as a stream runs with the leap of a waterfall behind it. + +Some of his thought ran backwards as the eddies of a stream run +backwards on to themselves. + +Henry’s flat was behind Buckingham Gate. He could see a microscopic view +of the Green Park from it and the open drilling space of the Guards. + +These were shadowed spaces now full of a held darkness. Henry had come +in late from an evening’s successful bridge, and he was preparing +himself for sleep by reading a pleasant, well-written story. He liked to +subside gradually from excitement to repose. + +The maids always went to bed regularly at eleven. Henry listened with +incredulity to the sharp tang of the bell. He opened the door and gazed +with polite annoyance at the dusty figure of his brother. + +“Really, Anthony,” he exclaimed, “what an extraordinary hour to call—in +flannels, too! And what have you in your arms? That Aberdeen?” Henry +invariably thought of dogs according to their species. “You know I +_never_ like dogs in my flat.” + +“He has got to have a light meal and a drink,” explained Anthony. “I’ve +walked him unmercifully—in fact, I’ve walked him from Rochett.” + +Henry said no more. He prided himself upon the way in which his mind +rose to face an emergency, especially by the manner in which, if +possible, he evaded finding out what the emergency was until it was +forced upon him. + +He led Anthony into the dining-room, and said in a hushed voice: + +“Above everything, we must not disturb the maids—that is the first +thing to be considered. I hardly know what there is to eat in the +house.” + +“Well, look in the larder,” said Anthony, a trifle bluntly. “I suppose +you know where your larder is? I do. I had a flat like this once. It +ought to be on the north side of the kitchen. I don’t want anything to +eat myself; I want only scraps for the dog, and something to drink. +Don’t give him too much at once.” + +“It is not easy to disinter food in the middle of the night,” objected +Henry, “even if I can find the larder. However, I’ll do what I can. Why +did you walk so far—in flannels? Has anything happened to any one?” +Henry meant, “Is any one dead?” but he never spoke of the dead except +collectively. + +Anthony said that every one was perfectly all right, and Henry left him. + +Anthony sank into a big arm-chair, and Max fell asleep instantly at his +feet on a soft lambswool rug. The room was full of light. It was just +what all the other big, inaccessible houses were like, so cruel outside, +so full of comfort and hospitality within. Anthony wondered what it +would look like smashed? Even this room, if you got up and broke +everything in it, might look uncomfortable. Anthony’s eyes took in all +the breakable things. He wasn’t going to touch anything, of course; but +he had an odd, excited desire in his mind to see the room in fragments, +broken down, and utterly in pieces, like some men’s lives, so that, no +matter what you did, you could not put them together again. It did not +seem quite fair to Anthony that outside things should remain safe and +whole. + +Henry came back on tiptoe with a plate of scraps for Max and a tin dish +full of water. Max woke instantly, thanked Anthony for the food with a +wag of his short, bushy tail, and ungratefully ignored Henry. + +Henry was a little surprised and annoyed with Anthony for drinking only +milk. He objected to his brother’s abstemiousness because, as he knew, +it did not come from principle. Henry felt that the only reason for +being moral was morality, and Anthony had no grasp whatever of morality. + +Henry had received disquieting accounts recently of Anthony’s behavior +from a friend who lived at Rochett. He had written discreetly to Daphne, +asking for details; but Daphne, although she was a married woman and +could have replied with sufficient directness quite nicely, had not +replied at all. + +Henry took a chair opposite Anthony and regarded him with tactful +vigilance. + +“I rather wonder,” he said guardedly, “what made you walk twenty-five +miles on Sunday night when you could have got up by the eight-thirty +this morning.” + +“I might have asked for a lift,” Anthony said consideringly, “earlier in +the night, perhaps, if I’d had any money; but I forgot to put change in +my pockets when I put on my tennis things, and then I started to walk. +Have you ever been without money, Henry?” + +“I’ve sometimes run it very fine,” Henry observed thoughtfully, “after a +race meeting, and of course during the war I was perpetually short.” + +“Short of everything?” Anthony strangely persisted. + +“Hardly, my dear fellow,” said Henry, with an indulgent smile, “or I +shouldn’t be here now, should I? Everything is a tall order.” + +“That’s what I keep wondering,” said Anthony in a low, uncertain voice. +“If one is short of everything, even hopes, what does one do? These +circumstances occur, you know, Henry. Have you ever thought what you +would do if everything failed, and there was no ground left to fight +on?” + +Henry shook his head reassuringly. + +“Those circumstances aren’t likely to come,” he answered. “Of course I +know what you mean. Men have bad times. I had an extremely unpleasant +one myself when you fellows went to France; it was no fun being kept out +of it, and people discussing why one didn’t go. I had hours of extreme +depression, but I pulled myself together and got over it. Depend upon +it, my dear fellow, making the best of things is a question of grit.” + +“Yes, yes,” said Anthony, impatiently; “but you must have the things to +make the best of. What I mean is, what happens when you reach the point +where nothing is savable? + +“I’ve been thinking as I came along about the down-and-outers, men who +are moneyless, without health, or without control, I don’t much mind +which—the people who have gone under. Death is so simple! You just go +out; but what happens when life goes on and everything else stops?” + +“Do you mean when you have no income?” inquired Henry, anxiously. “Has +anything happened to Pannell?” + +“Oh, nothing,” said Anthony, “nothing at all, has happened to anything. +I wasn’t thinking of us.” + +He leaned forward, and Henry noticed with uneasiness that Anthony’s eyes +moved and shone unceasingly. + +“Henry, I wish you’d tell me honestly—what do you believe?” + +Henry turned his eyes instantly on the carpet. He saw in a flash what +had happened. Poor old Anthony had religious mania. That was why he +drank milk instead of whisky, walked twenty-five miles on Sunday night, +and wouldn’t carry money about with him. This was what came of never +going to church: the pendulum—or was it the boomerang?—swung back, and +Anthony had been hit by it. Henry’s mind acted with promptitude and +decision. He would soothe Anthony and, as soon as he could, make an +excuse to leave the room, and telephone for a doctor. Fortunately, +Hilton Laurence, one of Anthony’s best friends, lived quite near. He had +a disagreeable, curt manner, but he could probably give Anthony a +sleeping-draft and not mention it to any one else. Henry cleared his +throat. + +“I am sure, my dear fellow,” he said with feeling, “that there is behind +the world a creative and guiding power making for righteousness.” + +There was no sound in the room except Max’s snoring. Anthony kept so +still that he might have been made of stone. He seemed to be holding +himself down in his chair with both his hands. Henry gathered confidence +from Anthony’s fixed quiet. + +“I don’t,” he continued gravely, “often probe into these questions—it +seems to me wiser for us to take things on trust—but I am confident +from my own experience—and I am sure, if you think it over, you will be +from yours—that we are guided and provided for all our lives.” + +“Was Belgium guided and provided for,” asked Anthony, suddenly, “or +children maimed in air raids, or outraged women? If you’d seen some of +the people I’ve seen in hospital, my dear fellow, you’d back down on a +kindly Providence. We’ve got to look at things differently, and not rake +up old mufflers out of the easier ages. What I want to know is, have you +ever thought about it? Do comfortable people think?” + +Anthony did not really care what Henry thought; he knew that Henry took +his ideas ready-made from leading articles out of conservative papers, +the opinions of other well-to-do people, and his momentary personal +convenience. Anthony doubted if Henry had ever had a naked thought +except once when he was nearly choked by a quinsy; but he wanted to +rouse Henry and also to talk himself. Thoughts ran through his brain as +fresh and fast as the swirl of water; he wanted to see them take form +and come out into the quiet room; he wanted to convince Henry of +tragedy. + +“What about other people?” he repeated. “You know the Serbians have had +all their manhood rotted by typhoid and blotted out by guns? You know +that men have been frightened out of their wits, and it takes an awful +lot to frighten men out of their wits, and all the broken-hearted old +people with nothing left to love till death takes them. Do you believe +they were created for their good, robbed for their good by +righteousness? And yet if there is no righteousness, one wonders why one +minds. Why do we think about it at all, but not go on our own greedy way +snatching at anything we like regardless of the sufferings of others? +Horses don’t care about other horses. They would face any shelled place, +the trained ones—wonderful beggars!—without turning a hair—they’d see +other horses struck in front of them, done in before their eyes, and +never budge: but let a piece of shell scratch their flanks, and you +couldn’t get them near the lines again, no good at all after a personal +hit. Men aren’t like that. We mind other people’s hits; some of us try +to stop them at a risk to ourselves. That’s what I can’t make out, this +something in us. Is hitting what we need to put us on to it? Are we +meant to keep down the guns as well as to suffer by them? And is God +just the same only on a larger scale, more hit, more determined to stop +what’s hitting us? The story of Calvary, for instance. Is it a kind of +queer, double-edged truth to show us that we and God with us are caught +in a trap of pain, and must voluntarily stick it out, even when we could +escape, to help the rest from going under?” + +“There is the love of God, of course,” said Henry, with one eye on the +door. “I quite appreciate that point.” + +“Yes, we’ve got to care,” Anthony agreed slowly; “that’s what I never +used to see. If you don’t care, you can’t help. You’re not a safe person +even, except, of course, to yourself. We’ve got to care enough to be +broken to pieces; because that’s what it comes to; you can’t help people +unless you’re being broken with them, you’re too far away.” + +“Self-control—” said Henry, going toward the fireplace and looking down +into it as if he had lost something. “A religion without self-control, +you know, wouldn’t _do_. That is the value of form in Christianity.” + +“We’ve tried that,” replied Anthony, impatiently. “Christianity which +distinctly said ‘the letter killeth’ is too hard for us; so we set up +churches and got out of it. We put the gold into the fire because it was +so difficult to obey a spiritual God, and there came out a calf, an +awfully clever golden calf, very convenient to worship, made up of all +the ornaments of the people. But what ought to have gone into the fire +was _us_! God went into it.” + +Henry shuddered. He disliked blasphemy. + +“If you’ll excuse me a minute,” he said, “I’ll just see if the spare +room is ready. You must want to go to bed. I’ll be back directly.” + +Henry came back humming cheerfully in the manner of those visitors to +the sick who wish to encourage the sufferer by the sight of their own +immunity. + +Henry had remembered everything; he had told Hilton Laurence, who +sounded extremely snappy at the other end of the telephone, to bring a +sleeping-draft. + +Anthony was sitting with his eyes shut. He did not speak until the +electric bell sounded; then he opened them with curious celerity and +remarked: + +“That’s probably the doctor you sent for just now. It’s too early for +the milk.” + +Henry jumped. He remembered the extreme cunning of madmen, and hurried +to the door. + +It was Hilton Laurence, and he said: + +“Well, where is he?” as if he didn’t want to hear Henry’s explanations. +However, he had to hear them while he was taking off his coat. Henry +explained in a hushed voice Anthony’s condition and his own inspired +tact. The last time he had left the room he had taken away the poker. + +Hilton Laurence showed no tact at all; he walked into the dining-room +noisily, shook hands with Anthony, and said: + +“Hullo, old chap! What’s the matter with you?” + +Anthony began to laugh. He laughed so hard that both the other men +standing one on each side of him appeared preternaturally grave, and the +graver they became the more wildly Anthony laughed. + +Hilton Laurence looked at Anthony from under heavy questioning eyebrows +and then looked away again, but he did nothing to stop him laughing. + +After awhile Anthony stopped himself with a jerk. + +“I’ve just discovered Henry thinks I’m mad,” he explained to Hilton +Laurence. “The funny part of it is, I’m not sure whether I am or not.” + +Hilton Laurence sat down on Henry’s chair and said: + +“You’d better go to bed, Mr. Arden, and leave your brother to me. He’ll +be all right. Let him sleep on in the morning.” + +“The door on the left is his room,” Henry explained carefully; “mine is +on the right, if you should want me.” + +Hilton Laurence nodded. When the two men were alone neither of them +spoke for a few moments, then Laurence said: + +“What’s up with you, old chap?” + +And Anthony, meeting his eyes, said quietly: + +“I have been riding for a fall, and I’ve got it.” + +“Some woman?” asked Laurence. + +Anthony nodded. + +Laurence said softly: + +“Damn women!” + +Anthony shook his head quickly. + +“No,” he said, “that hasn’t answered. It’s been tried already, you +know.” + +Hilton Laurence took out a small bottle. + +“Here’s a sleeping-draft,” he explained. “It’ll put her out of your head +for twenty-four hours; then you’d better come and see me. I’ve got a +good hospital under my care—brain and spine cases, result of +wounds—and I want another man to help me. How rusty have you got?” + +“The Germans let me look after our men and study some of their own +methods in hospital,” Anthony explained. “I’ve helped at some good +operations and I read a lot. I don’t think I did much less work than if +I’d been here; I’ll have to get used to the conditions, that’s all.” + +“Good,” said Hilton Laurence. “I dare say you can give me some tips. I +have some very obscure cases.” He got up and glanced at Anthony again. +“Well,” he observed, “that’s all there is for you, you know—work.” + +“I know,” Anthony agreed; “thanks awfully. I dare say I can work under +you. I couldn’t think how I should manage to get back into things. I had +what the Quakers call ‘a stop in my mind,’ quite literally a stop, +Hilton, and when you arrive at a stop you find a quantity of strange +impulses ready to get hold of you—vultures of the mind hovering about +on the off chance of a carcass, and there doesn’t seem anything handy to +keep them off. I was quite near going mad.” + +Hilton Laurence nodded. + +“Take a good long rest in bed,” he said, “and you’ll find your mind’s +all right. But you must keep away from the sore spot. That’s what work’s +for; work and—well, for some of us, you know, other women.” + +Anthony shook his head. “I know,” he said. “I’ve thought of that, too, +but it won’t do. There are no other women for me. I’ve never cared about +women like that.” + +“Ah, you’re romantic,” said Hilton Laurence, going to the door. “I can’t +cure romance.” + + + CHAPTER XX + +Nothing could have been less like Rochett than Number 27 Palace Court. +It was one of thirty large, red, solid houses overlooking one another. +It was sufficiently far from a main thoroughfare not to be noisy, and +sufficiently near never to taste, except in the small hours of the +morning, undiluted silence. It was a broad cul-de-sac of a street, +neither green nor untidy, upon which the sun struck without the +tenderness of shadows. In the summer it was full of hard, clear light, +and in the winter it seemed particularly open to gloom. + +The house looked as if every thought it had was born in London and had +never gone outside it except for the week-end. All the other houses were +the same; they employed the usual number of well-trained servants, and +enjoyed the same number of good meals and carefully kept habits. The +only difference between Number 27 and the others was that it had been +taken over by the Government as a receptacle for human pain and +helplessness. It was an officers’ hospital for cases which needed +recurrent surgical skill. + +Behind its solid face spun the slow, cruel hours of the fight between +life and death, the sometimes stagnant, but ever progressing, fight +between the courage of the mind, reinforced by skill, and the +helplessness of the broken body. + +It was a grim, persistent fight, shrouded in mystery. Sometimes skill +got the better of the mystery, and men who came there expecting never to +walk again went away cured and rejoicing; and more often mystery got the +better of skill, and hopes and efforts were alike baffled. + +The hospital was only one of Hilton Laurence’s many activities. He was +an eminent surgeon, with his hands full, and glad to leave the +unremunerative and more stationary work to Anthony. + +Anthony didn’t want money; he wanted work. He had no tastes; two ugly +rooms in a quiet street, with an occasional ill-cooked meal when he and +his landlady remembered it simultaneously, were all he asked for. He had +no expensive pursuits and no desire for expensive objects. He had a +nervous horror of society, and refused every invitation he received. + +Books contented him, and the only form of exercise he took was to walk +out of London down the North Road with Max at his heels after his work +on summer evenings. He walked straight out, sat in a hedge to smoke a +pipe, and returned. When the weather became too cold, he went into a +cottage for a cup of tea instead; but he never sought any companionship +beyond Max’s, and he disliked all attempts at conversation. + +Anthony did not realize that he was trying as far as possible to +reproduce his prison conditions; but it was, nevertheless, what his mind +fumbled toward. He wanted to feel about him the safety of inflexible +habit, set work, and an increasing inhibition. He wanted to close all +the avenues to his senses down which might come the haunting images +which racked his heart. He wanted not to remember, not to feel, not to +see. He felt that if he could only completely cut himself off from his +old conditions, he might be as marooned in London as on a desert island. + +It was easy to get rid of his family by the hedge of his work and the +reassurance of an occasional letter. He seldom saw Henry, who had been +severely discomposed by his own lack of judgment. He was, of course, +glad Anthony had not gone out of his mind, but at the same time he +disliked to think that he had been provided with all the materials for +thinking so without the event taking place. + +Hilton Laurence persisted from time to time in trying to draw Anthony +out of his packed solitude; but Anthony disliked his excellent, +well-chosen dinners, where men aired their theories of reconstruction, +and carefully avoided the subject upon which their lives were spent. All +talk which did not deal with the immediate became for Anthony a mere +cheating of the intelligence, a bite on empty air. He wanted to see +speech used only for the purpose of action. + +Thought was different. You must, he knew, accumulate thought in order to +provide the safe material for activity, but no after-dinner conversation +went very deeply into thought. London traveled more easily upon the +oiled surface of its hourly topics; and Anthony, who had got into the +habit of thinking a thing out till he hit against his last idea, was +often disconcertingly aware that people thought he ought to stop, and +that politeness forced you to leave your social foxes at some distance +from their holes. + +“You ought to be a Trappist,” Hilton Laurence said to him once; “you +have made a religion of silence.” + +The only exception Anthony made was that he talked to his patients; for +them he waived all his rules and inhibitions, he encouraged them to +speak off the point, because they did not know what the point was, and, +if confined to its preconceived direction, might miss it altogether. + +Anthony was peculiarly gentle and patient with his cases. He would +listen intently to the irrelevant, and no complaint ever escaped him. + +“It is just as important for a mind that manufactures complaints to get +rid of them by airing them,” he explained to Hilton Laurence, who +suggested shorter methods, “as for a real complaint to be looked into +and tackled; only the remedy in the first case is chiefly in the airing +of it. It is always worth while to listen to what people say if they +have anything wrong with them at all. Of course if their only ground is +to present themselves picturesquely, one might try a different method. +All introspection is selfish beyond a certain point, and all selfishness +increases the difficulty of breaking a habit. It is a curious point that +unselfishness is invariably bad for other people, and selfishness bad +for the person himself. One would like to know the moral, if any, a +bishop would draw from it.” + +“You may be sure he wouldn’t accept it if he couldn’t draw a moral from +it,” said Hilton Laurence. “But what method would you try with a case of +sheer nerves?” + +“I’ll tell you when I’ve found one,” replied Anthony. “At present I +don’t believe in sheer anything. I used to before I went to prison, and +when I was first there—the first six months—I believed then in sheer +misery; but other factors came in. There were curious, unexpected +let-ups.” + +“You must have had some odd experiences,” Hilton Laurence ventured +tentatively. Anthony had never talked to him of his imprisonment. + +“The most ordinary ones in the world,” Anthony answered dryly. “I learnt +how to bear what I couldn’t, and I got this out of it—that now I know I +can. The limit of human endurance is the limit of consciousness. When +you get to a certain point you turn or break; or, what is perhaps more +common, part of you breaks, and part of you turns. Life means you to +have this process gradually. That’s why, in general, old people are +weaker and wiser than the young; they don’t get their experiences all at +once. But in this war some of us got it quick, and we have to pay for it +slow.” + +Number 27 Palace Court absorbed Anthony. He had cases outside it, +private cases which came to him from his old practice or from the wide +circle of the Arden family, and others came from his singular successes; +but his life was the life of Number 27 Palace Court. He felt it move in +him like the double consciousness of domesticity. He never took any +obvious notice of the nurses, but nothing about them escaped him. If one +of them needed a holiday, Anthony saw that she got it; and if another +scamped her work, Anthony found out why, and if he couldn’t remove the +cause—and he often could remove the cause—he removed the nurse. He +rather disliked the capable and unattractive matron, who seemed to rely +more than the unattractive should upon the exhibition of her capacities; +but he saw that her rule was in the main just, good for the patients, +and bringing out, with occasional flares, the best qualities of the +nurses, and he knew that justice, even a rough-tongued justice, is too +valuable a quality to pass over. When Hilton Laurence said: “I can’t +stand that matron; let’s get rid of her. Women were meant to please, and +she wouldn’t please an iron door-scraper,” Anthony bluntly refused. + +“I don’t think so,” he said. “I don’t see that women were any more meant +to please than men. When they do, they often do it to get out of other +things. Matron knows her job; we’ve never had a scandal here, or lost a +case through carelessness. You don’t want a woman you can fall in love +with for a matron; you want a woman you can’t.” + +Hilton Laurence looked rueful, but he agreed. + +“I’m not at all sure _you_ can’t fall in love with her,” he said rather +crossly. “You’re both made of cast-iron. The sisters are quite pretty, +and I don’t believe you’ve looked at them!” + +But Anthony had looked at them. He knew every detail of their work, and +he had watched their absorbed complete self-consciousness, to which +their daily life was a mere subsidiary fact. They were women long before +they were nurses. + +Anthony studied the Irish Roman Catholic sister, whose gay and joking +exterior hid a determined unselfishness; he knew she would appear +careless of details and be safe to leave patients with; he couldn’t +trust her memory, but he felt certain of her punctual heart. She was one +of the race of mother-women to whom all objects of care are more +precious than their lives. + +On the other hand, he deeply disliked a smart and neat-handed young +woman whose interest centered in her own attractions, and who would +sacrifice a patient’s comfort for a moment’s self-indulgence. + +A flirtatious night sister once made an emergency call an opportunity +for a determined attempt upon Anthony’s affections, but she did not do +it again. He stared at her out of strange, gray eyes with ironic +curiosity. + +“I wonder why you are doing this kind of thing,” he said on the landing +in his low, clear voice; “you do it very badly. I should strongly advise +you to return to your duties.” + +It was the first time that Anthony had realized that the nurses were of +the same species as Kitty. It came over him as he looked at the confused +and irate night sister how differently Kitty would have taken his +question, and how in the end she would have triumphed over him. He could +never have said that Kitty played the game of sex badly; she played it +so well that half the time Anthony had never been aware that she played +it at all. + +Now he was aware. Every sense he had ached for her and demanded her +perpetual stimulus. He was like a man athirst in a desert of sand; he +could drug his brain with work, but at night his body and his heart beat +out their revenge upon him; and this silly woman, with her unready +eagerness for his attention, forced back his torture straight upon him. + +He wondered, as he left her, if he had blamed her too sharply. Perhaps +her desire to win his admiration had been aroused by the obstinate +longing for another woman in himself. The invisible traffic between mind +and mind is full of misleading messages. The night nurse hated him from +that moment, but all the nurses preferred Hilton Laurence; he was less +polite, much less considerate, and far more approachable. + +It was the patients who wanted Anthony. There was something in his +spare, tall figure, a little bent, in his grizzled hair and young gray +eyes, which filled them with confidence and hope. He was young enough to +inspire them, and old enough to reassure them by his steadiness, and +they knew he cared. + +They felt he was there for them, not for success or experience or money, +not merely as a doctor, but as a personality. He would never let +anything interfere between their cure and his efforts, nor would he give +up helping them when help seemed useless. + +The purpose of his being was to relieve pain, and in the depths of his +quiet eyes was the full knowledge of it. He had that understanding of +suffering, complete and without shrinking, which few doctors possess. He +did not want, as Hilton Laurence did, to rush in with his health, his +skill, and his brisk cheerfulness, and then get out again as soon as +possible, forgetting. + +Laurence’s “cut and come again” attitude frightened the weak and gave no +encouragement to men who had been slowly undermined by recurrent pain. +They could not believe in quick or cheap escapes. + +Anthony offered them none; he never deluded them or hurried from them. +If there was nothing he could do, he listened carefully to what they had +to bear; the most he ever said was, “I think this trouble will improve +in time,” or, “I hope this may help you a little,” and when he said +this, improvement and help always followed, and renewed the smoking flax +of hope. + +He succeeded in persuading men to make efforts who had given up the +attempt in despair, because they saw that he had personal dealings with +despair. + +“You see,” Anthony explained, “it is always worth while trying, because +no one knows the exact place where courage takes over from failure, and +it is a pity to stop at failure if one can help it. Miracles are merely +getting the hang of a thing suddenly that you’ve tried at deliberately +till you’re sick of it; you’ve got to help yourself just as far as you +can before anything else helps you, and few of us know how far we can +till we try.” + +“It’s much easier,” he explained to another man suffering from general +debility after a severe wound, “to get over a bad time than to get over +having had one. That’s your trouble now. The bad time is finished, but +it took half of you to get through it; you’ve got to win that half back. +It will be quicker if you keep reminding yourself that you really _are_ +on the right side of things, though of course it won’t be easy. You must +go on calling the other half of you back.” + +But if his patience was endless with the weak, he was sharp with those +who did forbidden things from bravado. Anthony had always despised the +false courage which wants to be admired; it cloaked too clearly an +invisible cowardice. + +“Don’t think you are showing courage,” he would assert to a man who had +disobeyed a restriction. “Courage is the patient handling of danger; it +is not the foolish manufacturing of it for purposes of showing off. No +one in a busy hospital is going to admire a fool. We should deeply +regret it if we threw away your case by our carelessness, but no one is +going to mind your throwing it away by your own.” + +Anthony took endless trouble to divert his patients’ minds; he never +rested till he found some taste or hobby which he could encourage. +Nothing in the hospital was allowed to prevent a man’s carving out a +healthy interest. + +Hilton Laurence was often surprised, and the matron frequently irate, at +Anthony’s waiving of the rules to suit the oddest occupations. + +“In a short case,” he explained to Hilton Laurence, “you can concentrate +on the disease, and one needs only to know enough of a man’s mind to +keep his nerves quiet and his common sense uppermost; but in a long case +you _must_ know your man, and get him an object—virtually _any_ object +outside of himself—to hook on to. Any invalid’s attention gets +concentrated on discomfort and sensation, and the longer the case is, +the more water-logged and self-centered the mind gets. You’ve got to +fill it, if it’s only for half an hour a day, and never mind on +what—comic songs, theosophy, tall stories, well-cooked food, the study +of the Welsh language, or a music-hall star. Look at that jockey you +handed over to me a month ago. I couldn’t think what to do with him, he +seemed such a stuck case; all that septic business, going on so long, +had just rotted him to pieces. Actually, the mischief had stopped, but I +couldn’t start him up. He’d been ill too long. I wrote to my father to +unearth some old racing papers I knew my brother Tom had kept for years, +and the man lighted up immediately. Sister got him an album, and I found +him sitting up in bed, a thing he assured me he would never do again, +pasting in different records of horses as fast as he could go. Then we +started getting a sporting editor to visit him and keep him up in what +was going on now, and it’s astonishing to see the change in him. He’s +sleeping and eating and getting quite a healthy color back, and all +because he’s succeeded in finding something that interests him more than +his own inside. + +“All these long cases need humoring; they are beyond drugs and knives. +We doctors have got to learn how to give them desires.” + +“Desires,” murmured Hilton Laurence. “Well, I dare say you’re right. +I’ve often acted on that theory without analyzing it.” He hesitated for +a moment, then he risked, “Come to think of it, I did it in your own. +You know, my dear fellow, six months ago, when I blew in to Henry’s +flat, you were as near going bang off your head as any fellow I ever +saw. I wondered how I dared trust you in an operating theater with the +instruments.” + +“I’d have been much more dangerous without them,” agreed Anthony. +“Things you are accustomed to handle give you sanity straighter than +ideas. I once knew a pianist who was so drunk before his performance he +couldn’t walk across the stage. The manager asked him how on earth he +was going to play? And he said, ‘Just get me to the piano somehow; it’ll +take care of me.’ They put him on the music-stool before the curtain +rose, and he played divinely. No one guessed why he didn’t get up to bow +afterward.” + +“Do you think your piano has cured you?” asked Laurence, curiously. + +Anthony looked at him steadily for a moment, then he turned away. + +“The man was still drunk,” he observed, “after he’d finished playing.” + + + CHAPTER XXI + +Cheerfulness was the predominant note of the two long wards in No. 27 +Palace Court. They were first floor rooms, formerly stately London +drawing-rooms, leading into each other. One room had long, bulging +windows looking over the short, broad street toward the high, red houses +opposite, and the other large, straight windows which overlooked a +small, open plot, a brown tank, and a tree. The room itself was divided +by its small beds and enlarged by its shining, carpetless floor. A glass +case by the door held beautifully polished sterilizing instruments. It +was the only sign of the office of the place. A large center table was +covered with well-arranged flowers. By each man’s bedside was a +convenient locker with room for more flowers. There were no curtains, no +pictures, nothing but the friendly monotony of whitewashed walls. + +Charming printed-cotton counterpanes covered the small beds, and in the +beds were the broken men. The nurses moved in and out, young, starched, +and brimming over with their helpful activity. They were always there +when they were wanted, and their stereotyped smiles and jokes were as +unfailing as the cleanliness of the polished instruments; but the men +were, nevertheless, alone, under the mask of their cheerfulness. + +Visitors came in from outside; they brought the breath of the big, +bustling world with them, and sometimes they brought its fatigue. They +seldom knew how to talk to the patients. Either the sight of pain and +helplessness reminded them of street accidents and doleful emergencies, +which they promptly related, or they felt they must rouse their old +friends to what was going on in their own full lives; so they poured out +the wash of their easy cheerfulness across a sea of pain. + +The tired and weakened minds of the patients gathered themselves +together for the effort of attention. Very few visitors realized that in +the presence of weakness personal strength should be used only to +reinforce it along the lines of least resistance; and that those who are +suffering pain are more vulnerable to accounts of pain than they can +very well bear. + +Anthony knew these points from memory. He knew how to slip a pillow +under a tired head so as to give it the precise angle of fresh +restfulness and in just the same way he had learned how to slip the +subject a man wanted under his drifting mind. It was part of his +treatment to spend hours in the hospital. It upset the nurses and +curtailed their jokes, but after a time they got used to him. He was +very silent, and came in and out like a shadow drawn by some instinct +toward the men who needed him most. + +Of the three types of cases in the little hospital, one was of those who +were nearing the point where they would have to be pronounced hopeless. +When this was reached, they would be moved to a big hospital for +incurables, or, if they preferred it, they could be returned to their +own homes. + +The mind of science—all that it already knew, and all that its patient +skill was fumbling toward—would be switched off them; there would be +nothing more to be done. Whenever they saw a doctor in the wards their +eyes grew into the question: “Has the time come? Are we finished?” + +The doctor or the matron always told them as if a pleasant change lay +before them, and the men wanted to be ready to take the joke in the +right spirit. They knew that when that change came there would be no +more changes. + +Hilton Laurence never dealt with the hopeless cases. He left them to +Anthony. They were not operatable, and he frankly confessed that he +didn’t know what to say to them. + +He could, he explained, tell a man he was going to die as well as any +one, but he hadn’t the nerve to tell him he was going on dying. He left +that to Anthony. Anthony accepted his patients in a different spirit; he +sat with them every day, and when he was not with them, his mind was +seldom off them. He was determined they should have a future. His mind +twisted this way and that against the teeth of their cages. + +Whatever was left of them Anthony found a use for. He never let one +physically hopeless case leave No. 27 without something he could do +before him. Each patient cost him sleepless nights and endless +watchfulness; his own life became sucked up in their problems, but he +grudged nothing that he gave. He knew that death was far less terrible +and far less an enemy than despair. + +The second set of cases were those for which there was some hope, but in +which the symptoms had continued so long as to obscure it. The patients +might win through to approximate recovery if the men themselves could +grasp it or were not too tired to wish to grasp it. + +These cases were the most difficult of all, because unless the will was +arrested and brought into action, they would probably sink into the same +class as the incurable. They had to be made to believe that they were +getting better and at the same time stimulated to want it. + +Their symptoms had already obtained a fascination for them; they longed +to be left in the little effortless circle of their pain and weakness. +Suffering was their world; it was no longer acute, and their strength +had sunk below the line of any desire to escape it. They only wanted +their condition to be acknowledged and to be left alone with it. + +Anthony was endlessly patient with them. He found out what their old +tastes had been before their symptoms blotted out their significance, +and he worked down to them as a careful excavator works down to a buried +marble. He was never in a hurry and he never struck too hard. + +The third class of cases were the happy ones. An acute observer would +have known them as he entered the wards. Their eyes were alive, and the +look in their faces was resolute. They knew they were getting better and +that they were contributing towards their own recovery. They often had +to suffer intense pain, but beyond it was an horizon; they had not sunk +below the level of personal fight. + +Anthony found them a great help, because he set them in his mind as the +models for the others. He learned from watching them what could be +expected of the coöperative spirit, once you had found and roused it. + +“Science can do a great deal,” Anthony observed to Hilton Laurence, “but +if we get faith on top of it, it can do almost anything. The trouble is +that scientific men aren’t taught to handle faith, and generally the +faith-healing people are set against science; so we do our job about as +well as a team of pulling horses.” + +“The invisible isn’t our job,” said Hilton Laurence, impatiently, “and +most people’s faith is nonsense.” + +Anthony shook his head. + +“I don’t think it is,” he said reflectively. “I think most people’s +faith is courage; only we haven’t enough of it.” + +Hilton Laurence looked suspiciously at his partner. He was sometimes +afraid that Anthony was becoming a crank. Laurence was enough of a +scientist to know that you must keep your eyes open for a new theory, +but he wished to see a new theory produced on an old line. Cranks are +people who want new lines. However, perhaps all Anthony needed was a +holiday. + +Hilton Laurence met Henry the next day by chance at a street corner. + +“Your brother,” he said, “ought to go out more. Why don’t you take him +to a music hall? Try ‘Yellow Slippers.’” + +Henry had not seen Anthony for months. He had made several suggestions, +but Anthony had always got out of them or asked Henry to meet him at +hours and places that Henry thought unsuitable. + +Henry urged “Yellow Slippers” over the telephone. Anthony replied that +he would certainly dine with Henry, but he hated music halls. + +Henry, however, convinced him that he must tolerate the revue because +Anthony had, after all, tolerated nothing convivial for ages, and it was +Henry’s idea of being with him. It didn’t occur to Henry as possible +simply to dine with one’s brother and have the rest of the evening +suspended in front of one. + +“It’s not as if you played bridge,” he reminded Anthony, reproachfully. + +They went to “Yellow Slippers,” and it was exactly what Anthony had +thought it would be—one good song, several pretty dresses, boredom, +noise, and very unanimating coarseness. Between the acts they walked up +and down the promenade, and saw the over-dressed, over-painted, +under-vitalized habitués. Henry knew who they all were, if they were at +all well-known, but he was very careful not to do more than point them +out to Anthony. + +“We don’t want to get mixed up with any of them,” he explained. “At the +same time, one can’t go about with one’s eyes shut.” + +It reminded Anthony of a circus, but he didn’t say so—heat and dust and +glare, and creatures held to be tame that ought to have been free to be +wild. The wildness that he saw occasionally flicker up through the slow +evening was not enough to tear down one of the bars. + +The promenade was not, as it would once have been to Anthony, a boring +or a disgusting sight. It shook him with pity. He knew now what these +men and women wanted: they were seeking for the chief stimulant of life. +The younger people had in their eager search the quality of freshness; +they sought for this vivid stimulant with more uncertainty. Sex still +had for them the survival of the unexpected. They looked for it in the +wrong place, because out of this glare and noise, with its promiscuous +expanse of professional charm, they could get only the least from their +desires. They were throwing away quality for the sake of experience. + +But for the older people there was a deeper pity, with a sharper +penalty. They knew precisely what they wanted; there was no mystery to +uplift and disguise desire for them, and no escape into the unexpected. +What they had had many times and with zest they wanted to have again +with a flickering satiety. They wanted it less, and yet they wanted it +with a sharper edge of eagerness than the young. They knew that they had +only a short time, and there was nothing else that they wanted to do +with it. Anthony watched them without condemnation; he, too, shared +their sense of frustration. Experience which had shut them in had shut +him out; he saw no reason for any superiority. There was something in +them which they had wasted until it had lost its significance, and there +was something in himself which for lack of use had no longer any +significance at all. + +“There,” said Henry, with a note of explanatory patronage, “is quite a +different type—a woman with style. I am very much mistaken if she is +not a woman of the world. One notices these differences at once if one +has the observer’s eye. I dare say she has no more virtue than a +professional cocotte, but she knows how to carry her head. She’d pass +anywhere for any one.” + +Anthony turned his head to follow Henry’s eyes. + +“All these types are alike to me,” he began; then he stopped abruptly, +for the words were no longer true. The girl leaning over the balustrade +was Kitty. + +Whatever Kitty was there for, even if she didn’t particularly want it, +was already in her hands. She had an air of complete detachment and +immunity. As she turned her gaze slowly back to the promenade her eyes +met Anthony’s. She still smiled indolently, but in her eyes there +flashed a sudden signal of appeal. + +She looked at Anthony for a moment as his worst patients looked at him +when he came into the ward and their eyes searched him to read their +hopeless fate. + +Then as he hurried quickly toward her, she gave her old careless laugh. + +“Hello, Tony,” she said. “You’re as unexpected as an archbishop. I +should never have thought ‘Yellow Slippers’ was your kind of form. You +must be going down in the world just as I’m climbing up!” + +She made no introduction to the man beside her; there was of course a +man beside her, a tall, weedy youth with a single eyeglass. Kitty turned +her shoulder toward him, and said over it, “Go and get me a box of +chocolates; you know the kind I like.” Then she waited till he had +disappeared. Anthony noticed with a sharp pang of dismay that Kitty had +changed. Her face and wrists were curiously thin, and there were hollows +under her unquiet eyes; but her smile was the same, and she looked him +up and down in a whimsical, unhurried friendliness. + +“It’s awfully nice to see you,” she said, “once in a way, you know, +after six months. Is that your brother Henry? He’s like you, only he’s +much tidier—tidier in his nature, I mean, as well as in his lovely +white waistcoat. He’ll burst with curiosity, trying to pretend he +doesn’t want to hear what we’re saying. Why don’t you bring him over and +introduce him to me? I couldn’t do him any harm, you know; I’m sure he +takes far too much care of himself to run any risk. I suppose I’m a +risk, aren’t I? I can’t say _you_ look particularly nice, Tony. Your +eyes are cross, and your hair’s too long, and your dress-suit is +shocking. It looks as if you wear it only once a year to dine with the +lord mayor. I expect you keep it the rest of the time under a pile of +medical dictionaries, don’t you? I do like a man to be smart.” + +“I’m not going to waste time introducing you to Henry,” said Anthony, +quickly, “but I’ve got to see you properly myself. Where are you +staying? Here’s your confounded ass with the chocolates.” + +“He has fifteen thousand pounds a year, so he tells me,” said Kitty; “so +he can afford to be silly. You can’t, you know, Tony. I shouldn’t bother +about my address if I were you.” + +“You’ve got to tell me,” said Anthony, stubbornly. Kitty’s eyebrows went +up. “I mean,” he entreated, “you might let me know, Kitty. This isn’t +seeing you, if you were honest when you said you were glad.” + +The young man reached them and looked haughtily at Anthony. + +Kitty held out her hand for the chocolates. + +“Yes,” she said reflectively, “these are the kind I eat, only I don’t +feel like them now.” + +She raised her eyes to Anthony. + +“I’ve taken a flat with Peckham,” she said, “a horrid little hole; but +I’ve let the farm. You can come and see me to-morrow if you like, at +four o’clock—6 Trevor Road, Kensington. Fancy Kensington! It sounds +like mothers’ meetings and socks for the poor, doesn’t it? But you won’t +meet any mothers at Trevor Road. Good-by, Tony.” + +Anthony turned reluctantly away from her. He was aware of Henry’s tact +in the distance, strained almost to breaking-point by his curiosity, but +Anthony brushed it ruthlessly aside. Henry’s tact meant nothing to him; +he must get away now, get away at once before his self-control broke +like glass. Anthony felt as breakable as glass, and as transparent, +before Henry’s searching eyes. He realized suddenly that he had, after +all, been thinking about Kitty for six months. He had never left a +moment unemployed, but behind the employment, behind the fixity of his +outer mind, had lain inexorably, almost unconsciously, the central +thought of Kitty; and now that he had seen her face to face, his +thinking was no longer unconscious. It pervaded the visible universe. + +“I’ve got to get out,” he said brusquely to Henry. + +“Oh, all right, all right,” said Henry, soothingly. “But for Heaven’s +sake, old fellow, don’t _look_ as if you’d got to! The building is not +on fire.” + +“Isn’t it?” murmured Anthony, dryly, as he turned away. “I have a kind +of impression that it is.” + + + CHAPTER XXII + +The very fact that Anthony had fought with the image of Kitty for months +undermined his resistance to her; the sight of her set him ablaze, and +there was nothing left in him which could put out the fire. He turned +his eyes from her only because she possessed the universe. As long as he +was sure of her presence, he could go on behaving as if she were not +there; but from the moment the big door swung behind him and his sight +was robbed of her, he lost all other consciousness. + +It was a cold, raw evening in December, unhappy flakes of snow fell +without direction or intent, and changed instantly to moisture on the +pavement. Henry acquired a taxi with precision. He said something about +skidding and something about the evening having been a pleasant one, and +he was prepared to share the comfort of the taxi with Anthony; but +Anthony shook his head. He stood there ambiguously without offering to +give the taxi driver Henry’s address. Henry gave it himself, finally, +and dissolved like the uneasy snow, leaving Anthony to the wet streets +and his persistent phantom. + +Everything held Kitty, each darkened window, each hard bright light, +each flying taxi. Anthony saw over and over again her thin wrists and +hands, the hollows under her eyes, the mocking spirit of her laughter. +What did it cover? What dreadful thing was Kitty hiding? What had +attacked and eaten away her youth? + +The physical aspect of her dimmed all other questions; he did not ask +himself who the man was she had with her, or why she was in London. +Sickeningly and with increasing pressure fear and memory rushed over +Anthony. He saw the apple-orchards in June, he remembered how the +buttercup-fields sailed toward him on their sea of gold, but fear was in +every image of that returning spring. His heart beat uneasily under the +vision of beauty. + +All these things were Kitty. She had the mastery of the green hills and +open skies. She was the breath of meadow sweet and the songs of birds; +he saw again the innocent, reckless Kitty of his dreams. But why was she +so changed and thin—what haunted her gay eyes and shadowed her soft +lines and delicate curves? She was like a spring on which a blight has +fallen. + +When Anthony reached his empty rooms he walked to and fro till the late +winter morning sent its unlovely, muffled light into the room; then he +lay down on his bed without undressing. Sleep caught him and flung him +like an enemy. + +When he awoke it was late, and he could hurry through the early details +of his day and let the hurry blind him. Anthony was only aware of an +intense uneasiness awaiting him. He had to take a minor bone operation +at the hospital for Hilton Laurence. It was a tedious, ticklish small +operation on which Anthony could force his mind; he did not let himself +think of anything beyond it. The usual instruments, the heavy net of the +ether fumes filling the theater, came down like a shelter between him +and his stalking fear. + +After the operation he went the round of his wards, but here the sense +of emergency died out and refused to support him. + +The patients felt the quality of Anthony’s attention was different; +there was no strength in it. He looked at them, listened and commented +on what they told him, but the force he used on them and for them was no +longer there. It was reserving itself for an unknown ordeal; they could +not touch it. + +Anthony stopped to look at his bone case, slowly coming back to +consciousness from the world into which the ether had mercifully plunged +him. The white, inexpressive face on the pillow, with drugged, blank +eyes, roused in him a sense of envy. This man could get through his +worst moments buried in unconsciousness. Anthony was alive and aware as +a man tied to a stake and facing flame is aware. + +He prolonged his work till the late afternoon, and then hurried with a +desperate sense of frustration toward Trevor Road. It was an unexpected +small road lying between two main thoroughfares, a small, unmeaning +little byway of low, fawn-colored houses. + +The street was respectable, but dingy; it seemed planted there without +intention, and it was difficult to imagine Kitty in any place so +unobtrusive and so without the forms of life. + +Peckham opened the door to Anthony, and Peckham, too, was changed. Her +face was older and smaller than Anthony remembered it. She had faded, +and become uncertain of herself. Her standards of life had fought with +her love for Kitty. Love had, in the end, triumphed, but at the expense +of Peckham’s solidity; she could go on serving Kitty without believing +in her, but there was less of Peckham left to serve. + +She was glad to see Anthony, but her eyes told him that though she would +rather see him than any one else, he had come too late to save her +ruined standards. + +She said a little dryly: + +“It’s a long time, sir, since we’ve seen you. You’ll find Miss Kitty +up-stairs; she has the front room on the right.” + +Kitty had the most expensive spot in the inexpensive house. There were +more windows and heavier curtains in her room than in any of the others, +and it was filled with larger pieces of insignificant furniture. +Massive, curious-headed chrysanthemums bloomed oddly in hideous vases, +and a box of chocolates lay unopen on the table. + +There was a fog outside, and some of it had crept into the overloaded +little room and given it an air of mystery. Kitty was sitting over the +fire, crouched on a large blue-velvet footstool. + +Her small, white face had a look of stubborn suffering. She glanced +unsmilingly at Anthony over her shoulder. + +“You’ve come, then,” she said; “you’d have been more sensible not to. +It’s such a boring day! I don’t say I wouldn’t be pleased to see the +Angel Gabriel walk in with his last trump. It would be some kind of +sensation, anyhow. I’ve always thought the day after the judgment would +be rather fun. It’ll be such a joke rubbing it into the other goats that +they’re in the same box as you. There are sure to be some pious ones who +thought they’d get off cheap and leave you to the burning. + +“What do you think of my new quarters? Third-class lodgings rather +remind one of hell, don’t they?” She waved her hand in the direction of +the spotty, leaden oil paintings on the walls. “It’s not very amusing, +is it?” + +“You’ll have to tell me why you’re here before I can say whether it’s +amusing or not,” said Anthony, carefully. “People’s idea of amusement +differ. I didn’t find ‘Yellow Slippers’ entertaining last night, for +instance.” + +“It was better than the alternative, anyhow,” said Kitty, defensively. +“Fancy being shut up with these spiky book-cases and blue roses all the +evening! Personally, I consider my present surroundings a certificate of +my respectability. Poor old Peckham! You might tell her it strikes you +like that; it would please her. I shouldn’t stay in a place like this if +I were going in for gilded rapture, should I? + +“The truth is, I’m stony broke. I’ve forgotten all about the two ends +somebody or other tries to make meet. I haven’t even got one; and if I +had, I’d sell it for twopence.” + +Anthony’s eyes rested on Kitty’s jeweled fingers and on her barbaric +dress of wallflower and old gold. + +“Well,” he said, “you ought to see your way to twopence.” + +“That’s clever of you,” she said approvingly. “Any one else would have +offered me fifty pounds, and I should have no use whatever for fifty +pounds. What I want is five thousand a year and no questions asked.” + +“Even that,” said Anthony, “you might get if you put your mind to it.” + +“Not without questions,” said Kitty, quickly. “If people do anything for +you at all, they want to know what you do with it, and all about you. +Then they try to make you do something else. Curiosity is so tiresome! I +never want to know anything I don’t know already; the kind of things you +can be told aren’t the least interesting.” + +“I’m afraid they have a distinct interest for me,” said Anthony, slowly. +“I came here to find out one of them to-day.” + +Kitty looked at him appealingly. + +“Didn’t you just come to see me?” she murmured. “Don’t ask silly +questions, and after I’ve warned you so nicely, too, and I wasn’t +feeling nice when you first came in. I might quite easily stop being +nice now if you bother me about anything.” + +“Kitty,” interrupted Anthony, “I’m sorry, but I don’t care a damn +whether you’re nice or not. I’ve got to find out now what is the matter +with your shoulder.” + +Kitty stammered in a gust of frightened anger. She flung her head back, +and her face grew pinched and changed, as a flower withers and alters +under a touch of frost. + +“What do you mean?” she said sharply. “There _is_ nothing the matter +with my shoulder. You’re stupid and interfering. I wish you hadn’t +come.” + +“Still, I have come,” said Anthony, “and I’ve got to find out.” + +He got up and took her very gently by both arms. She twisted under his +hands, and struggled madly against him like a wild thing. + +“Let me go!” she muttered between clenched teeth. “I hate you! I’ve +always hated you! Let me go, Anthony!” + +But he did not let her go. He held her with a gentle force against which +all her struggles failed her. She sank passively against him; the wild +throbbing of her whole being stilled itself. She neither fainted nor +cried. + +Her eyelids covered her eyes. There was no color in her face except the +delicate touches of rouge that stained its deadly whiteness. Anthony +carried her over to a small, hard sofa by the window and laid her down +on it. She was no heavier than a child. + +Kitty opened her eyes and smiled at him. Her anger was gone as suddenly +as it had come. + +“Do what you like,” she said, shutting her eyes again. “After all, it +doesn’t really matter what anybody knows.” + +Anthony fixed his face so that, if she looked at him later, she would +not see his expression change. He was aware of what he had to meet, and +he knew that he must show nothing. The strength of her resistance to him +had been the strength of her fear. He became aware of every sound in the +small room: the muffled noises of the foggy street; a stir below him in +the dining-room, where some visitors were pushing back their chairs; the +plunge and vent of the small flames in the fireplace; and Kitty’s light, +swift breathing under his hands. + +He made his examination methodically and quickly. It was what he had +feared, but it was worse, because not even Anthony had dreamed that +Kitty could bear in silence such a burden of hidden pain. The lump on +her shoulder and beneath her arm extended in a long line down her side; +the growth had probably been very rapid for the last six months. It was +already close to the wall of her lungs, if the poison had not already +invaded it. He guessed from the unstable lightness of her breathing that +the invasion had already taken place. + +He finished his examination without comment, drawing the shimmering +dress lightly over her deadly secret. He knew that Kitty’s eyes were on +him now, and he turned his own to meet them. They showed her nothing but +his steadiness. + +“I hate lying down,” said Kitty, impatiently. She pulled herself up by a +hand on his shoulder, shivered a little, and moved back to the +fireplace. For a while neither of them spoke; then Anthony broke the +haunted silence. + +“It may be one of two things,” he said quietly. “I must get a second +opinion before I decide which it is. Hilton Laurence had better see you +with me to-morrow; but if you don’t mind, I must ask you a few questions +first. I think we can do something about it, you know.” + +“Oh, but I don’t want anything done,” said Kitty, quickly; “that’s just +why I haven’t told any one. I arranged it all in my mind—you see, I +hate fuss and doctors and nurses. I was afraid from the first it might +be rather bad, and I simply won’t be an invalid. Directly I’ve had as +much as I can stand, I shall send Peckham off for a holiday and then I +shall go away by myself, to some nice, undisturbed place, and take +veronal. It’s just been a kind of race between the fun and the pain. I +didn’t mean to stop until I’d had enough fun, and I meant to stop if I +had too much pain; but after I’d decided—it was—it was enough—” +Anthony lowered his eyes. The room was foggier than before. Kitty leaned +forward a little. The words that came from her seemed forced against her +will; they crept out into the dim air like frightened things. “I’ve had +enough pain now,” she whispered. + +Their hands groped for each other. Anthony knelt down beside her and put +his arms round her waist. He held her to him as if he could hold off the +onslaught of all enemies; but it was Anthony who broke down. + +Kitty drew his head into her lap and stroked his hair. + +“It doesn’t matter,” she said under her breath. “It’s not as bad as you +think. It’ll be all right, Tony. I won’t go on too long. I’m glad you +know after all. I didn’t want you to, because I hate the—the ugliness; +but you mustn’t mind so much. You see, my life isn’t really anything +very important. I’m just waste—like a bit of dust that dances in the +sunlight. It looks pretty jumping up and down, but when the light’s +gone, it’s only dust.” + +“Don’t, Kitty! don’t!” said Anthony. “I can’t stand it. I’m so horribly +strong myself, and I can’t use my strength for you. I can’t get any of +it out.” + +“But there isn’t anything for you to worry about,” Kitty urged. “I’ve +had all the things I wanted—I mean all the things I could have if I’d +lived to be a hundred—and it would bore me awfully to grow old and fat, +perhaps, with wrinkles. Now I shall just slip out, nicely and young, +without any fuss.” + +Anthony pulled himself together. + +“Not yet,” he said, “Kitty darling. You haven’t begun to have the things +you want yet, because I hadn’t got them to give you before; now I have. +Only give me a chance. Let me fight your pain! For God’s sake, Kitty, +let me fight it!” + +She looked curiously down at him. + +“How funny of you to care still,” she said, “when I thought I’d killed +it! Dear old Tony, I didn’t mean you to have this wretched time. What is +it that you want me to do?” + +“Be patient,” he urged her; “do what I tell you. I’ll have to see Hilton +Laurence first before I’m sure, but there are things that can be done +for you. I admit it’s a fight, but you’ll have the whole of us on your +side. Everything I am and everything I can do will go into this fight, +Kitty.” + +Her eyes looked gravely at him. She seemed to be weighing for him and +for him alone the cost of what he asked her. She shut herself out of it +as completely as if she had already ceased to exist. Then she said +gently: + +“All right, old boy. I promise you I won’t back out of it.” + + + CHAPTER XXIII + +The two men discussed the case for an hour before Kitty came. They were +busy men, and an hour was an unusually long time in which to go through +the claims of even the strangest case. Kitty’s case, though there was an +element of doubt about it, was not strange; but it was, in a doctor’s +phrase, a “nearly perfect case.” Hilton Laurence, poring over the +diagram Anthony had drawn for him, had never seen one so far advanced. + +“And she can come here,” he said incredulously, “in a taxi? She must be +a strong young woman; most women, or men, for the matter of that, at her +stage of the proceedings, would be lying drugged in bed with a couple of +nurses in attendance.” + +“She isn’t like the ordinary run of women,” said Anthony. “She has the +thoroughbred’s nerve; that’s what seems to give her a chance, a fighting +chance.” + +Hilton Laurence glanced quickly at Anthony. + +“Do you know her very well,” he demanded,—“as a friend, I mean, as well +as a patient?” + +Anthony hesitated a moment, then he faced his friend’s eyes. + +“I know her about as well,” he said gravely, “as a man knows a woman +when he can think of nothing else.” + +Hilton Laurence shook his head. + +“Ah,” he said, “that’s a pity. I’d better do the operating myself, then. +You can help me if you like, of course, but you’ll be asking a good deal +of yourself, Arden. If I were you, I’d leave the case entirely in +another man’s hands.” + +“I can’t do that,” said Anthony, quickly, “but I’ll be glad if you’ll do +the actual operating. I’ll see her through the rest; I am asking more of +her than I am of myself. But you have to ask a good deal of people in +order to be of any use to them.” + +A discreet parlor-maid came in with a card. + +“Show her in,” said Hilton Laurence without looking at Anthony. + +Kitty came into the room as if she were arriving at a party—a party +where she expected to be very successfully entertained. She looked +triumphantly well and perfectly mistress of herself. She wore a set of +Russian sables, a little gold-brown fur cap came down low over her dark +curls, her emerald ear-rings danced beneath it, as Anthony remembered +they had danced and flashed the first time he saw her. + +She threw back her furs with a little gesture of relief; they were lined +with green brocade and showed a honey-colored chiffon blouse. + +Kitty moved like the light _Princess_ in George McDonald’s fairy-tale, +the _Princess_ who could not weep because she had no gravity. + +At Anthony’s introduction she gave Hilton Laurence an intimate, +disarming smile. Kitty’s smile was at once an invitation to good +fellowship, and a promise that no tiresome exactions would follow. It +was a smile that said, “Here I am, and I’m sure you’re going to be +awfully nice to me; but you won’t find me a bit of a bother afterward.” + +The two men were aware that they had ceased for the moment to be +doctors: Kitty had transformed them into alert and friendly hosts. +Hilton Laurence held a chair for her, and Anthony was sent to find a +biscuit for her Pekinese. + +“I hope you don’t mind dogs,” Kitty explained. “As a matter of fact, +Algy isn’t a dog; he’s a Chinese dragon. You can’t keep a real dog in +London, can you? But I must have something that wags. Besides, Algy is +supposed to match my fur. He loves it so much he eats it. I suppose you +haven’t got chocolate biscuits; those are the kind he likes the best. +Your rooms are rather nice, not like a doctor’s a bit. Those old prints +are so jolly, and I suppose you have flower-boxes in the spring—like an +actress. But what a frightful lot of books! Do you make Tony read them? +Poor old Tony! Do tell me about him. I suppose he’s awfully clever, +isn’t he, like the strong, silent men in the detective-stories who find +out everything in the end, if they don’t turn out to be the murderer +themselves? I shouldn’t think you were a silent man, are you, Mr. +Laurence? Though I’m sure you’re a strong one. Tony says I’m to call you +‘Mister,’ because surgeons are smarter than doctors, and the smarter you +are the less there is to show for it. Is that the idea?” + +Hilton agreed that it was, only, if you got smarter still, he explained, +they made you a knight, which rather landed you. + +The Pekinese being satisfied with sweet biscuits, took the rug in front +of the fire. + +The sun came out and played upon the gilt bindings of the medical books +and made patches of gold upon the thick, soft carpet. Kitty eyed it +appreciatively. She loved the sun and thick, soft carpets and all the +ease and brightness of the world. She leaned back in her chair and +surveyed the two men before her with confidence. She knew that she could +handle the occasion with the ease which was natural to her in all +situations which contained men. + +Men can put up with disagreeable occasions, but they do not like to feel +that any woman they admire finds an occasion disagreeable, and Kitty +invariably let them off this realization. + +“You do yourselves awfully well,” she said appreciatively, “don’t you? I +think it’s so sensible. Now here’s a place where I suppose a certain +amount of tiresome things go on—and yet it’s quite cosy and nice to +look at—and I expect, Mr. Laurence, you have a first-rate cook? Anthony +didn’t say if I was to stay to lunch or not—I’ve never been to a +doctor’s before—so I don’t in the least know what happens, but I +suppose you ring a bell and turn me out when you have had enough of me? +Perhaps Tony gets up on the hearth rug and says ‘Well—?’ I’ve tried +that and it generally succeeds—when it doesn’t I turn on a gramophone +with a record of Tosti’s ‘Good-by.’ You might find that useful, Mr. +Laurence—of course it’s rather affectionate.” + +“Kitty,” said Anthony, quietly, “I think you’d better come over here and +let us have a look at you. You’ll have to take your things off, and lie +down on this little sofa.” + +The two men turned to each other while Kitty strolled across the room. +She stood in the patch of sunlight, and slipped off the security of her +sable furs. + +She was silent now, but there was a tranquillity in her silence compared +with which the perfunctory conversation of the two surgeons together was +nothing but a nervous flurry. They had to say something, but Kitty +hadn’t. She looked out of the window, lay down on the sofa, and turned +her eyes in the direction of Algy, who yawned. + +“Now we’ll just have a look at you,” said Hilton Laurence, with a +renewed and impersonal cheerfulness. + +Anthony said nothing. He stood on the other side of Kitty with his eyes +fixed intently on his colleague. He was trying to see Kitty not with his +own eyes, but with Hilton Laurence’s eyes. He was determined to know and +feel about her exactly what Hilton Laurence knew and felt, so that he +would not be deceived by the sharpness of his own personal hopes and +fears. He ceased to think of Kitty herself in his anxiety to read the +other man’s mind. + +Hilton Laurence was not thinking of Kitty’s personality either. She had +become a case, an extraordinarily interesting, madly neglected, case. +She was not a human being any longer; she was a little undressed figure +on a sofa, a pitifully broken figure lying there to be, if possible, +mended. + +She was forgotten, but she herself did not forget; her mind wandered +with amused serenity over the men before her. They couldn’t be only +doctors to Kitty; they were men, and it was the first time she had ever +seen men intensely at work. + +All the rest of her life had been connected with men at play. + +Kitty had been their play. Games, dances, and entertainments had filled +in the hours, and she had shared them all with an admirable mastery; but +she knew that she herself was the aim of all the other pleasures. The +men she knew had been intent, but they were intent on pleasing her, and +these two men, who had forgotten her altogether, were just as intent +without there being any question of pleasure. + +She wondered curiously what it would have been like for her if she had +had something to do, something besides men to interest her. Her whole +life might have been different; less amusing, perhaps, but more worth +while. She might have been just as attractive, but with something else +to fall back on—something with more permanence and dignity. But perhaps +she couldn’t have managed both. Being attractive took a great deal of +time. Her father had once told her: “People who rely on their natural +charm wear it out or have to become unselfish. It’s a subject to which +you must devote your whole attention in order to succeed.” And +apparently the interest of work took time, too. After all, you couldn’t +have everything. + +Kitty was glad that she had seen Anthony at work. Work would be good for +him; it would be good for him whatever happened. + +The Pekinese stopped yawning, drew his way slowly through the +lamb’s-wool mat, and sniffed suspiciously at the two doctors’ legs. + +“Silly old thing!” murmured Kitty. “They aren’t doing me any harm. They +think they’re doing me good; that’s their idea, anyhow.” + +Hilton Laurence was recalled by her voice. He spoke with his habitual +reassurance, but without looking at her. + +“Thanks,” he said; “I think we’ve seen enough. If you don’t mind, Miss +Costrelle, there are just one or two points we’d better discuss while +you’re dressing up again. I’m afraid we’ve tired you, rather. Shall I +send you in a glass of wine and a biscuit?” + +Kitty shook her head. She thought it rather funny of the two men to go +away and leave her, but it made it convenient to powder her nose. +Laurence had a sensible looking-glass. + +When they came back they found the same conquering princess as before. +Kitty’s head rested against a black cushion, and the Pekinese was rolled +up in her lap. + +Kitty had a habit of complete muscular control, so that she made very +few useless movements. She could sit perfectly still for hours without +stiffness or restlessness. She sat quite still now, smiling across the +room at the two men as they came back to her. + +Anthony had himself well in hand. His face expressed nothing; he even +gave Kitty a slight answering smile, which did not touch the controlled +gravity of his eyes. But Hilton Laurence came in with a reluctance he +could not quite hide; he hated to pass sentence on this radiant young +life before him. The thought of it made him look tired and old. He could +stand his friend’s iron self-control, but it was harder to meet the +friendly gaiety of Kitty. + +He drew a chair opposite her and said quickly: + +“I’m not going to beat about the bush, Miss Costrelle. That lump of +yours is a nuisance; we’ve got to get rid of it. Arden and I are both of +one mind; we think surgical treatment is needed.” + +“Surgical treatment means an operation, Kitty,” said Anthony, with a +little twisted smile; “it’s our pretty way of putting it.” + +“No, I don’t want to be pretty,” corrected Hilton Laurence, frowning; +“I’m going to be perfectly straight with you. This operation, which is +for bad glands, is a tedious, difficult, and serious business, and +you’re not in the very best condition to have it. But you’re a brave +girl, and I think you’ll stand it.” + +“Is it only glands?” asked Kitty, playing with one of Algy’s long, soft +ears. + +“Aren’t very bad glands enough for you?” asked Hilton Laurence, quickly. +Perhaps he asked his counter-question a shade too quickly. Kitty’s eyes +rested on him thoughtfully, then they turned to Anthony. + +“Is it only glands, Tony?” she repeated. + +“We’re not perfectly sure ourselves,” said Anthony, gently; “but in any +case, we think it’ll help the pain, Kitty.” + +“You’ll undoubtedly be the gainer by it,” interposed Hilton Laurence. +“You don’t stand to lose anything by the operation, Miss Costrelle.” + +“No,” she said quietly; “only, of course, I’ll be ill, sha’n’t I—I mean +it’s just lying in bed and having nurses and being an invalid? It’s +rather sickening, isn’t it?” + +“Life is a sickening business, Miss Costrelle,” said Hilton Laurence, +gravely. + +None of them said anything for a time. The fire crackled busily on the +hearth, the winter sunshine filled the quiet room. There was nothing to +be said against the impalpable and awkward fact that would turn a gay +princess into a stricken, hopeless invalid. The two men facing Kitty +could perhaps ease her downfall, but they could not prevent it. They +knew what lay before her. + +It was impossible to say what Kitty knew. She was grave for a few +moments, then she picked up Algy and shook him. + +“He likes to sleep,” she explained, “in the middle of the morning, +though he’s quite young, really. I think it’s the cream he takes for +breakfast—he will have it—and it goes to his head. It’s in the Bible, +isn’t it, how shocking it is to be drunk at the third hour of the day? I +don’t know if it was meant to include Pekes.” + +She rose with her light, careless grace and glanced over her shoulder at +Anthony. + +“Let’s go to Kew in a taxi and have lunch at Richmond, Tony,” she +suggested. “It’s such a heavenly day.” + +Hilton Laurence gave a sigh of relief. She didn’t understand, then; he +smiled paternally upon her. + +“You couldn’t have a better program,” he exclaimed; “the air will do you +all the good in the world.” + +“All the good in the world?” repeated Kitty, teasingly. “And how much do +you suppose that is?” + +Of course she knew that nothing would do her any good. A dazed look had +come over Anthony’s face; he stood quite still by the door, holding it +open for her. + +Hilton Laurence transferred his swift, clear-cut attention to Anthony. + +“Hand me over your case-notes for to-day, old boy,” he said quietly. +“I’ll take them over for you.” + +Anthony pulled himself together. + +“Thanks,” he said gratefully; “but I must just go and telephone to the +hospital.” + +Kitty passed out into the hall. Hilton Laurence followed her. She laid +her hand on his arm with a little friendly gesture of persuasion. + +“Look here,” she said in a rapid undertone. “When I’m dead, make Tony +stick to his work, make him think he ought to help people. He likes +helping people, you know. It’s funny; I had no idea work mattered so +much to men, but I see it does. Make him stick to it. You see, it would +be such an awful pity for Tony to be smashed, wouldn’t it? Because he +really _does_ help people, and awfully few people ever really help. They +just make a fuss on the top; they don’t go down into it. I’m sure you +know what I mean.” + +“My dear young lady—” stammered Hilton Laurence. Of course he ought to +say she wasn’t going to be dead, but something in Kitty’s eyes checked +him. He didn’t say it. + +They stood for a long, queer moment in the hall holding each other’s +eyes. Then Kitty heard Anthony’s returning footsteps. She smiled at +Hilton Laurence, reassuringly. + +“I dare say I shall get better, and it won’t matter,” she murmured +soothingly. “Another time,” she added in her clear, high little voice, +“perhaps you’ll invite me to lunch. Could he, Tony? Or is it one of your +dreadful rules that doctors can’t eat with patients—like prisoners with +their executioners? I’m fearfully hungry, but I dare say I shall hold +out till I get to Richmond. Tell the man to drive fast.” + +Kitty leaned back in the taxi, and Algy, yapping with tremendous zeal, +poised himself on her knees. He was prepared to feel that he himself was +the engine. Every nerve in his small, erect body responded to the +winding-up of the car. He stood upon Kitty’s lap as an admiral stands +upon his bridge, ready to direct the biddable universe. + +Kitty turned her head and looked back at Hilton Laurence. He did not +usually stand on the steps to say farewell to his patients, but he stood +there now. + +“Promise you’ll keep him up to it?” called Kitty, touching Anthony’s arm +with her hand. + +“I promise,” agreed Hilton Laurence, steadily. + +“What’s that you’ve made him promise?” asked Anthony as they moved +quickly down Wimpole Street, and flashed up the bustling stretch of +traffic stretching away toward the Marble Arch. + +“Oh, it’s just a little thing I wanted him to do for me,” replied Kitty, +lightly. “And now I’m going to enjoy myself.” + + + CHAPTER XXIV + +Anthony had known moments in the years of his captivity when he had let +himself go in a sudden compulsion of happiness. He had shut out by an +effort of the will all sense of his imprisonment, and enjoyed as +separate things the sight and smell of summer fields. He realized that +he and Kitty were doing the same thing now; they had their single sunny +hour, and behind and in front of it were monstrous experiences. It was a +green space, with edelweiss growing between precipices. They had had to +climb up, and they still had the dangers of the descent before them; but +for a little while they stood safe and triumphant among the flowers. + +Kitty managed their precarious footing better than Anthony; her pleasure +was not invaded by thought or by the conscious effort of her own will. +She had the strange humility of those who have not set themselves free +by moral struggles. She could be happy because she expected nothing of +herself and very little of others. She knew no more than that it was a +fine day and she had Anthony. + +Kitty loved her lunch in the old-fashioned, dark dining-room at +Richmond, and when they reached Kew she loved the gardens even more. She +caught sight of a squirrel making a brief excursion between the trees in +an open avenue, and she held out her bare hands and laughed at the +feeling of the warm sunshine touching them. Without a sign of fatigue, +she drew Anthony on and on, across the lawn, where in the spring the +azaleas bloom, and on into the leafless, empty bluebell wood. + +“It’s like a sea,” Kitty told him, “when they’re out; not the big, +clumsy sea, full of water, but a string of clear blue pools left behind +by a tide. You look and look till the blueness closes over your head. I +think the light to-day is a ghost light, for I can almost see the +bluebells. We must come here together one day next spring.” She broke +off suddenly, and said she wanted to see the palace where Henry VIII’s +wives spent the gayer intervals of their precarious existences. + +“It must have been rather nice,” Kitty observed speculatively, “to have +been one of those short queens; only I don’t believe Henry would have +cut my head off. I’d have been short more naturally. The thing with +Henry would have been to get tired first. I could easily have managed +that.” + +“Aren’t you tired now,” Anthony asked anxiously, “without managing it?” + +“Ah, you aren’t Henry VIII,” said Kitty; “I don’t have to take the +precaution of being tired of you.” + +He hadn’t the heart to tell her that there were other precautions which +it would have been wise for her to take. It was as if Kitty had for the +moment evaded the line of fatigue, and was holding by sheer will to the +absence of pain. + +She strolled with him round the wide pond that lay as flat as an +upturned looking-glass within a whispering thicket of yellow water +reeds. + +“Fancy it’s being a fine day,” Kitty exclaimed, slipping her arm into +Anthony’s, “and then seeing a squirrel and having nobody about! I like +winter best, don’t you? There’s nothing to take your attention off what +there is. The trees are so jolly and black and bare; the grass is like a +special treat; the sky is nearer; and when it’s fine, you don’t expect +it. It’s so nice not to be sold by a surprise.” + +Anthony was puzzled by this revelation of Kitty. He had not supposed she +would like anything undecorative or bare. She voiced his very thoughts +for him, and then, with a sudden little shiver of discontent, she said: + +“I hate the water reeds. They all shuffle and chatter so—like a crowd +of underbred women in church. It’s cold, too. After all, I think I like +hothouses best. Do you know the blue lotus? Let’s go there. I like blue +lotuses. They lie in a pool and do nothing but stare at you—awfully +nice, lazy, well-dressed flowers.” + +They walked back to the blue-lotus house. Kitty flung off her furs and +gazed down into the pool. Palms and tropical foliage surrounded them, +and in the distance there was the broad back of a discreet custodian. + +“Funny old thing!” said Kitty, looking down at the blue lotus. “It looks +just the same as the one I saw ages ago. I wonder how long the flower +lives.” Anthony told her, but Kitty did not listen to him. She said +suddenly: “I got into an awful row after you left Rochetts. I suppose +Jim must have said something to Daphne. When I went back to the lawn to +say good-by, they both got up and walked into the house without speaking +to me. It’s funny the way married people act in lumps, isn’t it? Your +poor mother didn’t understand. She was awfully bothered and kind, and +kept saying she was sure Daphne couldn’t be well. Finally I said: + +“‘It’s quite all right, Mrs. Arden, really. Daphne thinks I’m not fit to +speak to—and I’m _not_, you know.’ Your mother put her hand on my arm +and said: + +“‘My dear, I’m _so_ sorry.’ Wasn’t it sweet of her? I think it was the +nicest thing anybody ever said to me. Papa was examining a rose-tree +through his eyeglass. I don’t know what he heard or thought about it; +what he said was: + +“‘We must really get a Mabel Vernon.’ Then we went home. The nicest part +of papa is he never says anything unless you do.” + +Kitty gave a little inconsequent laugh. + +“I think I must have been mad that night,” she added reflectively, “for +I did such an absurd thing! I worked myself up into telling dear old +Peckham all sorts of things she needn’t ever have known. It was so +silly, for I wasn’t even going on with them. I knew I’d come to a stop. +You can’t be ill and gay beyond a certain point, can you? Besides, I +didn’t want to very much. + +“Of course I’m as gay as I can be now, but nothing Peckham need have +minded. I always think confessions are worse than sins. Don’t you? +Usually you only upset yourself by your sins, but you upset other people +by your confessions.” + +Anthony drew Kitty to a seat. + +“Tell me,” he asked her gently, “what made you make that scene there at +Rochetts if you don’t believe in confessions and don’t like upsetting +people?” + +Kitty stared at him. + +“Oh, that,” she said. “Don’t you know? I had to; I didn’t want you to +get dragged into all this. I knew something or other was coming, and I +meant you not to have the bother of it. I thought you wouldn’t go on +caring for me if I was nasty enough and you got clean away. Heaps of +people have got over caring for me beautifully. Of course I see you +haven’t now; so it’s different. I can’t keep you out of things if you +really care. I suppose I shall just have to do what you like.” + +Anthony looked down at her eagerly. + +“Will you really, Kitty?” he asked. “There is something else I want. I +want it awfully, more than I can ever tell you; I’ve been thinking about +it all night, hoping I could ask you, but afraid of being a bother, too. +It makes the whole thing simpler if you can do it. I want you to marry +me at once, in three days, before the operation. I want the right of +taking care of you. If you give it to me, we needn’t have any nursing +homes or nurses. I’ll take a furnished house, and look after you myself +with Peckham. Whatever we have to go through, we can go through solidly +together. It was my being such a fool as not to share everything with +you that left you alone with this—this misery. I can’t let myself think +of it. You won’t mind marrying me now, will you?” + +Kitty laughed. + +“Silly old thing!” she said. “It was I that didn’t want to share +anything. It’s awfully sweet of you to think about marriage, but why +need we be married? If you want so awfully to take care of me, I’ll let +you do it; but marriage seems to me rather off the point.” + +“It isn’t,” said Anthony, passionately; “it matters tremendously to me. +I want the right, the sanction, whatever you like to call it; I want our +lives held together before the world as well as in our hearts. + +“I want every one to know that we’ve hit on something that lasts.” + +Kitty looked at him consideringly. + +“Marriage doesn’t always last,” she said a little dryly, then she +slipped her hand over Anthony’s. “You want nobody to say anything +horrid,” she said gently, “but I don’t care any more what people say.” + +“I care,” Anthony said desperately, “and, O Kitty, I want you for +myself. I don’t want any one else to interfere or speak or think between +us. We’ve had so much of that already. Let’s fall in with the world, if +it’s the only way to keep out the world.” + +Kitty moved a little restlessly. + +“It isn’t the world,” she said; “it’s your mother and Daphne. Those are +the people I don’t want to come across. They’ve been good and dear and +kind, but it hasn’t been possible—and it’s I, not they, who have made +it impossible. Because I’m ill, doesn’t make me good, you know, Tony.” + +Anthony bent his head and kissed her hands passionately, one after the +other; he held them to his lips as if he could not let them go. + +“I can’t stand any more, Kitty,” he said quietly. “I’d like to stop and +think of them if you want me to, but I can’t. I think only of you. I +need you as I never needed you. Don’t shut me out for anything on +earth.” + +Kitty watched him with bright, unshrinking eyes. + +“How long would it be for, Tony?” she asked. + +“Always, always,” he cried brokenly. “I hope so—I believe so, Kitty. I +will have your life. It’ll be all right, if you can stand just for a +time having to be ill—” + +Kitty put her hand up to check the words on his lips. + +“No, no,” she said; “don’t say doctors’ things, Tony. I don’t need to be +reassured. Besides, it wouldn’t have the effect you want. If I thought +marriage would really be for long, you see, I wouldn’t do it. I’d do +anything else you want, but not tie you up—and hurt them. I’d think it +boring; but if it’s for just a little while and you awfully wanted to, +we could explain to them, and then they wouldn’t mind so much. But I +must know the truth; is it only for a little while?” + +Anthony bowed his head. The words that had stood outside his mind like +armed sentries all the day rushed in and took possession: “She may live +a year after the operation if her strength holds out.” + +“Not awfully long,” he said thickly. + +Kitty got up and peered down at the blue lotus. + +“All right,” she said quietly. “Won’t it be fun being married? We’ll ask +papa to give us lunch afterward at the Carlton. Will you see him for me, +Tony, and tell him about it? Dear old thing! He’ll like ordering lunch.” + +The shadows in the lotus-house had changed; the custodian approached +them, jingling his keys significantly. + +“It’ll be nicer in the air,” Kitty said, taking Anthony’s arm. “They’re +rather stuffy things, blue lotuses, after all.” + +Anthony became suddenly aware of how exhausted Kitty had become. Without +a word they turned toward the gates. The garden was deserted, and the +short winter day was drawing to a close. It seemed an eternity before +the long road yielded them a taxi. Anthony lifted Kitty into it and held +her in his arms. + +She gave herself up to pain without resistance, in the same spirit in +which she had given herself up to pleasure, only more quietly. The pain +beat down on her as rain beats on a flower. Anthony was baffled by his +separation from her suffering. His imagination struck and struck against +it, as the sea fumbles and strikes against the walls of iron cliffs, +seeking an entrance. He could not get in to share her pain with her, and +Kitty could not let him in. + +When they reached Trevor Road, the fire was burning brightly, and +Peckham, vigilant and expectant, produced hot-water bottles and tea. + +Moment by moment the gray pallor of Kitty’s face lightened. + +“It’s been such a jolly day, Tony,” she whispered. “I hadn’t any idea +Kew would be such fun. Go and see papa now; don’t forget to tell him +about the lunch.” + +Mr. Costrelle was always to be seen between four and eight o’clock at +his club. + +Bridge was his inflexible habit. He found the element of chance, he +explained, purer in cards than in women, and nothing ever held Mr. +Costrelle permanently, except the element of chance. + +He told Anthony immediately that he could spare him only ten minutes. + +“However,” he added reassuringly, “most things can be said in ten +minutes. Will you have a whisky and soda?” + +Anthony not only consented, but poured himself out a very stiff glass. + +“Rattled!” thought Mr. Costrelle. “Kitty! What a mistake it is not to +diffuse one’s sentiments!” + +“I don’t know if you have any idea,” Anthony began after a short pause, +“that I care for Kitty.” + +“You spent the larger part of six weeks in my daughter’s company last +year,” said Mr. Costrelle. “I never ask questions, but salient facts +rarely escape me.” + +“I want to marry her,” Anthony said, leaning forward, “immediately, +within three days.” + +Mr. Costrelle’s long, white face lifted for a moment; his blue eyes +passed rapidly over Anthony, and then returned to his glass. + +“Thursday,” he said, “I think that brings us to Thursday. People with +superstitions, I believe, avoid Friday. I always respect superstitions; +there seems as much reason to believe in them as to believe in anything +else. I am glad you have avoided Friday.” + +“Unfortunately,” pursued Anthony, “this is not all I have to tell you.” +He hesitated for a moment. Mr. Costrelle screwed his eyeglass into his +eye and waited patiently. He disliked sentences beginning with +“Unfortunately,” especially if they referred to Kitty. “Do you +remember,” Anthony began again, “that I thought last summer there was +something wrong with her shoulder?” + +Mr. Costrelle continued to regard Anthony with defensive passivity. + +“Certainly I do,” he agreed. “Most doctors think there is something +wrong with somebody—a most disconcerting profession.” + +“Well,” said Anthony, impatiently, “in this case I happened to be right; +there was a growth below the shoulder which threw it a little out of +place. It has increased rapidly. I saw Hilton Laurence with her this +morning; we both think we ought to operate immediately.” + +Mr. Costrelle drew out a slim cigar-case, took out a cigar, lit it, and +leaned back in his chair. + +“What is the nature of the growth?” he asked when he completed this +arrangement, “and what will be the effect of the operation if it is +successful?” + +“We are not absolutely certain of its nature,” replied Anthony, “but all +the symptoms point to its being malignant. It is probably a fibroid +cancer. The operation will prolong her life. She could not live six +weeks if we left her as she is, and the pain—” + +Anthony stopped abruptly. The memory of Kitty lying motionless in his +arms choked him. He could not speak to Mr. Costrelle of Kitty’s pain. +Mr. Costrelle finished his sentence for him. + +“Naturally,” he observed, “the pain will be considerable in either case. +Well, it’s a very disagreeable subject, and as I suppose you know all +there is to be known about it, I leave it entirely in your hands.” + +Anthony drew a deep breath. He had not known what to expect from Mr. +Costrelle, but this entire detachment left him with a sense of its not +having been necessary to expect anything. He realized what Kitty had +always had to face, a responsibility from which in every emergency Mr. +Costrelle invariably withdrew. + +Mr. Costrelle wished to be quite friendly and nice about it, and as he +met Anthony’s astonished eyes, it occurred to him that possibly he had +not entirely fulfilled his future son-in-law’s expectations. + +“I’m quite pleased about the marriage,” he added cordially. “The point +of it, under the circumstances, entirely evades me, but I am sure it’s +an admirable thing for Kitty. Marriage always suits women. Did she send +me any message?” + +It hardly seemed a convenient moment to suggest a luncheon party, but +Anthony, remembering that it was Kitty’s wish, made the suggestion a +little tentatively. Mr. Costrelle’s consent was as spontaneous as if the +idea was a relief. + +“Certainly she shall have a luncheon at the Carlton,” he said. “I could +have arranged, perhaps, a more perfect meal elsewhere, but women like +other things besides food. Shall we say lunch at two o’clock? I shall +arrange to bring my own wine. I have a Château Yquêm which is tolerably +well known. Our ten minutes is up, I think.” + +Mr. Costrelle’s self-possession was complete. He shook hands with +Anthony loosely and briefly, and joined his bridge four with his usual +long-limbed, lounging gait. But despite Mr. Costrelle’s impassivity, his +ten minutes had taken the zest from his life. + +Sorrow could not disarrange his habits, but it could devitalize a +failing taste. Mr. Costrelle knew that he would never enjoy his bridge +so much again. Anthony thought his future father-in-law did not know the +meaning of grief. He did not realize that the grief which the mind +evades is a grief which dogs a man’s footsteps to the end of his days. + +Anthony plunged into the short concentrated time which lay before the +operation with a queer sense of relief. He had gained no support from +Mr. Costrelle, but he would have Kitty all the more to himself. + + + CHAPTER XXV + +When Anthony informed Henry of his impending marriage over the +telephone, Henry exclaimed, “Good God!” but he was very useful +afterward. He gave Anthony the address of a house in Duke Lane that +belonged to friends of his who wanted to go abroad immediately and were +willing to let it as it stood; and he volunteered to go down to Pannell +for Anthony to break the news to his parents. + +Henry knew that a great deal of manipulation was necessary if the +marriage was to be accepted by the family, and he thought it had better +be accepted, because, after a talk with Hilton Laurence, he had come to +the conclusion that he couldn’t prove Anthony mad, and that the marriage +wasn’t a permanent disaster. + +“Insane acts are seldom certifiable,” Hilton Laurence explained rather +dryly to Henry, “and in any case you won’t have long to put up with it.” + +Henry felt very strongly that a thing that couldn’t be stopped and +wouldn’t last long had better not be looked into at all. + +It was unfortunate that Anthony insisted his parents should be told the +truth before they decided whether they would receive Kitty or not, but +Henry, in whose hands the truth had been deposited, felt that it was +open to him to deal with it economically. + +Powder in sufficient quantities may destroy an empire, but readjusted, +and with the explosive elements left out, it is said to give a +beneficial appearance to overheated complexions. + +Henry told his father that he probably wouldn’t consider the marriage +suitable. Miss Costrelle came from a good old Essex family, but she was +poor and had lived a long time abroad. She hadn’t any particular home, +and Anthony was marrying her before the operation in order to look after +her himself. + +“Of course it’s quixotic,” Henry continued swiftly before Mr. Arden was +fairly launched upon his first negative. “Poor old Tony has had a bee in +his bonnet ever since he returned to England. It isn’t an ordinary +marriage, and you know I feel with you, sir, that ordinary marriages are +always the best; but I do think he might have done worse. If the girl +recovers, which is, I fear, extremely improbable, she’ll make him more +normal; and if she doesn’t, he’ll have had his head, and be free again, +without much damage done.” + +Mr. Arden listened to Henry with some consideration. He knew that Henry, +with very little help from him, had carved out a successful legal +career. His father appreciated success and respected the law. It was +true the law was not always amenable to force, but on the whole it +usually protected the rights of those who had most of them, and you +could not override it when it went against you. Mr. Arden listened to +Henry, even when he differed from him, with more patience than he +usually found convenient. + +“If she comes from a good family, she must have relatives,” he said +severely; “all good families have relatives. It’s pure nonsense for Tony +to make himself responsible for an invalid bride. I don’t approve of it +at all. You may tell him so from me. I sha’n’t accept it. Why should I? +It’s not the kind of thing an eldest son should do. What’s to become of +the place? Tony is as selfish as if he were a scatter-brained young +fool, and he hasn’t the excuse of being one. Doesn’t he know at his age +he ought to have children?” + +“But Henry says, dear,” interposed Mrs. Arden, gently, “that it’s a +really dangerous operation and that it is not likely that Miss Costrelle +will live long after it, and then dear Anthony could marry again.” + +“That makes it worse,” declared Mr. Arden. “It sounds to me like adding +murder to matrimony. I don’t want to sit and wish for a poor girl to +die, and I don’t like re-marriages. The whole thing is both silly and +shocking. I shall have no hand in it.” + +“You hear what your father says, Henry,” said Mrs. Arden, with an air of +finality, which always soothed her husband. “I shouldn’t say any more +about it until after tea.” + +But when tea-time came Mr. Arden had had a further conversation with his +wife—a conversation in which, after a good deal of heated repetition, +on Mr. Arden’s part, a few suggestions on Mrs. Arden’s, which he had +come to feel were his own, had softly permeated the repetitions. They +ran as follows: Anthony was of age, he could really do what he liked; +therefore opposition was useless, particularly as it had never been +known to answer with Anthony. It was almost certain the girl would die, +and dead girls are not aggressive. They need not say anything very +definite until after the operation. If it was successful, and the girl +got better, she did belong to a good family; if she didn’t get better, +she wouldn’t belong to any family at all. + +Anthony was not asking them for money. He had said nothing about +settlements. The squire hated settlements. You had to tie up your money +and then keep your hands off it. He wouldn’t have to do this in the +circumstances, and he couldn’t have got out of doing it in any other. A +message founded on these facts was produced at tea-time, which could +easily be presented to Anthony in the light of acquiescence. + +“He’s of age,” Mr. Arden said reluctantly, “and I can’t stop him making +a fool of himself. Tell him from me that we sha’n’t come to the +marriage—the whole thing is very disagreeable and odd—but if the girl +gets better, she can come here to convalesce. Pannell’s his home, and I +sha’n’t keep him or his wife out of it.” + +Mrs. Arden hid in the shrubbery and preceded Henry to the steps of the +dog-cart. + +“I remember Miss Costrelle quite well,” she said, with a curious little +flush on her face; “I thought her quite fascinating. Of course I know +she’s not suitable for Tony’s wife, poor dear. It’s a pity she is so—so +French, but I can’t help feeling sorry she is ill. Give them _both_ my +love, Henry.” + +Henry did not give the whole of this message, either; he thought it was +rash. He seldom gave the whole of any message. + +He offered to write to Daphne, but Anthony had done this for himself. He +wrote: + + I know you once understood and loved Kitty. I didn’t when I was + with you; I only saw what the world had done to her and I blamed + her for it. It’s so hard not to blame people for their scars. + Anyway, you’ll forgive her now if she hurt you, for she is under + the harrow. I can’t lift it off; I can stand by her, that is + all. + + I have found a way of doing it which perhaps even you won’t + understand; but if anybody can understand, you will. I daren’t + look ahead at any future, but I suppose instinct, or whatever it + is that pushes us forward to help each other, will keep me up to + the mark. Laurence operates on Friday; I shall assist. + + Don’t bother to come even if you want to; only think of her with + kindness. For your sake she would not have married me if she had + not known that it was only for a little time. Do you remember + how happy you were when I came back from prison? I like to + remember your happiness; only I think it is true that one loves + even more when one is unhappy. + + ANTHONY. + +Henry settled all the details of the marriage. Bishops and chaplains in +his hands were as malleable as butter. There were no impediments. + +Kitty had been so exhausted after her day at Kew that Anthony had +insisted on her remaining in bed until the morning of her marriage. He +had succeeded in keeping her out of pain. + +Kitty enjoyed the rest of lying in bed and looking at her new room. It +was a quiet, pretty room. The windows overlooked the Carmelites’ garden +on the other side of the narrow street. + +It was not a large garden, but there were trees in it, and Kitty took a +great interest in the Carmelites. + +“Monks are the kind of men I don’t know,” she explained to Anthony. “I +do so wish I could have one to talk to! I want to ask them what it feels +like to live all day long under a rule and never to know what God made +the world for. For I suppose He did rather mean it for men and women to +live in, didn’t He? And yet I admire them; it’s rather fine to shut +yourself behind a wall into a stone church because you think it pleases +anybody, even God. + +“I wonder if there’s some kind of trick about prayer. Do you think there +is, and that’s why they can go on for such an awfully long time and not +mind being bored? Peckham prays, too; but she takes off her stays first, +and prays in her dressing-gown. Do you think God hears her and the monks +as well? It must be rather nice for Him, I should think, that some +people don’t pray. Peckham expects to get answers. Do the monks?” + +Anthony said he thought they did, but probably not the same kind of +answers. He told Kitty his own theories about auto-suggestion, but Kitty +only said: + +“I don’t think that makes it any easier. Where does the auto-suggestion +come from? There’s always an outside as well as an inside, isn’t there? +And if God made the outside, He could put the idea into you from it, +couldn’t He? You must start a ball of wool somewhere.” + +Anthony wanted to go on with the subject, for it surprised him to see +that Kitty had lit on a connected form of reasoning. But she broke off +immediately, as if she was afraid of anything deeper than a chance +question. + +“I’m so glad you like Peckham,” she said softly. “I think I’ve got an +awfully nice family now—you and Peckham and Henry. Henry came to ask me +this morning if I wanted a red carpet. He said I couldn’t have a carpet +without a carriage or a carriage without a carpet. I do like Henry’s +mind. I told him we were going to walk down the little alley to the +church, so he said we couldn’t have a carpet; but we might have bells +afterward, if we liked.” + +The walk to St. Mary Abbot’s was a mere stone’s-throw from Duke Lane, +but Kitty’s strength was only in her mind. Her eyes laughed, and she +pretended that when she paused to look into the tiny square or at the +quaint shop-windows of Church Walk she was doing it for fun and not +because her breath had failed her. + +She had wanted to walk, because she said it would seem more like the +country. She lingered as they came to the open doorway of the church +beneath the trees. They could look up the long nave of the church toward +the altar. + +Henry had had it beautifully decorated with lilies and white lilac. +Kitty had not thought of the actual marriage before; she had thought of +her dress, which was the color of autumn leaves, of lunch at the +Carlton, and the fun of the way Henry had dealt with the bishop; but the +grave service under its white shrine of flowers came to her +unexpectedly. She had a wave of sudden fear; her face remained +impassive, and the gravity that settled down upon her seemed merely +appropriate to the hour, but her heart beat against her side like an +imprisoned bird. + +It was the emptiness of the church which disconcerted Kitty. There was +no one there but Peckham and Henry in a seat in front of the altar. A +verger with a duster stood in a distant corner, and an expectant curate +put his head round the door from the vestry to see if they had arrived. + +Peckham was on her knees, and her black bonnet, with its single red +rose, looked as if it were being shaken by concealed emotion. Henry’s +face was a blank. He was prepared for anything, and his entire +consciousness rose to hide the signs of his preparation. Kitty might +faint, Anthony might start some dreadful skeptical fad. They might be +late; they ought not to have walked in together. The situation bristled +with irregularities, and it depended upon Henry’s face to make it look +as regular as possible. + +Anthony was entirely preoccupied with how much Kitty could stand and +whether he couldn’t persuade her afterward to give up lunching at the +Carlton. The service passed over his head without any significance +whatever, except that of length. + +As Kitty turned toward him to make her answering troth, her eyes widened +a little, and her lips stiffened. She had forgotten the great words, but +they raised suddenly in her heart a storm of memory. Dick had said them +to her, long ago, by the bridge he had built across their gardens: “For +better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health.” + +Anthony wavered and disappeared before her eyes, and Dick came in his +place—Dick, who was all her early life—and held in his hands her rich, +untouched, and perfect memories. + +Anthony stood only for broken things, for hours of pain and indecision, +for her incomplete and torturing emergencies, and for her blind hours of +shame. She laid her small hand firmly on the rails until the pain shot +up her arm into her shoulder. The pain brought back the figure of +Anthony. He stood looking down at her with reassuring, watchful eyes. + +Death and innocence and Dick took no part in this marriage, but a love +that was stronger than youth and innocence stood by her and would stand +by her to the end. + + + CHAPTER XXVI + +Anthony felt that he knew Kitty in the church; she was there in his +world, a part of the act that bound them. He was not sure of her +thoughts, but he was sure of her attitude. Outside the church she ceased +to belong to him. When he suggested under his breath that they should +give up the Carlton, her amazed eyes met his in a flash of hostility. + +“Give up lunching with papa?” she exclaimed. “But he’s ordered it!” + +Anthony had touched by accident on one of Kitty’s laws. She had so few +that it was not surprising he should have failed to recognize their +existence. But the law of pleasure is at least as strong in its +compulsion to its votaries as any other law. Business appointments never +disturbed Kitty. You kept them if you remembered them and if you had +nothing better to do; but social engagements, which were meant to be an +exchange of pleasure, were inviolate. Inconvenience, suffering, fate +even, bowed before a luncheon party. You couldn’t put off what was meant +to amuse. It might even bore you; but if you’d promised, you’d promised. + +The intention was, after all, there, and the intention was sacred. + +Henry understood this immediately. + +“If you had thought it would be too much for her,” he said a little +reproachfully to Anthony, “you should have telephoned overnight to Mr. +Costrelle.” + +“It won’t be too much for me,” said Kitty, impatiently; “I shall like +it. It will be great fun after that stuffy, old, black church. The +flowers were charming, Henry. I like to be drenched in lilies. I could +get drunk on the scent of them, couldn’t you? They’re the least-innocent +flower in the world, and yet every one gets taken in by them, especially +in church. The curate had adenoids. I dare say he couldn’t help it, but +I hate men with adenoids. This is what the troth, or whatever it was +called, sounded like.” + +Kitty imitated the curate to perfection. Henry laughed, and Anthony +wondered where the Kitty was who at the moment of those uttered words +had looked afraid. She had not been thinking of the curate’s adenoids +then. + +He was absorbed in his thoughts of Kitty’s remaining hours. Did she +realize how few there were, or know the awful curtain which would come +down between the Kitty as she was to-day and the Kitty she was to be +to-morrow? He wanted every moment of her held in the privacy of their +small house, dedicated to their love and understanding, and he felt a +bitter rebellion against the artificial public hours that she had +claimed instead. + +It was a harsh, unlovely day. London had a look of dirty cold, the +houses were pinched into mere shelters, the raw air pursued and baffled +the passers-by, forcing them into an irritated consciousness of their +errands. There was no color anywhere. The gray of the sky was dead and +unluminous, the streets a greasy brown. Their motor skidded and shuffled +through the traffic like a sleep-walker, blind to everything but its own +passage. + +Henry talked cheerfully of possible skating. At present it was too damp, +but the temperature was falling fast; a good hard frost— + +He hoped Kitty and Anthony were not going to fall out on their wedding +day; neither of them made any suitable response to the possibility of +frost. These hasty rushes into marriage usually ended in bad temper. + +Henry congratulated himself inwardly on his escapes from matrimony. They +had never been narrow escapes. He had foreseen the danger a long way +off, but they had been complete. People were likely to turn out +unsatisfactory at close quarters, especially women. Women were romantic, +and when they were married they were incessant, and it took a very +strong digestion to stand incessant romance. That was the worst of +marriage; you couldn’t turn away from it with a good conscience. + +Of course Anthony had made the situation a great deal more difficult +than it need have been. Miss Costrelle was perfectly charming, but none +of her charms were domestic, and all of them were undoubtedly a shade +too obvious. She reminded Henry of a picture in the Wallace Collection. +It was a portrait of Perdita Robinson with a muff. Perdita Robinson +hadn’t been very domestic, either. + +Kitty smiled across at him. + +“I know what you’re thinking,” she said alarmingly. “You’re like the man +in the Bible who thanked God he wasn’t as other men were. You know the +proper kind of wife is a bother, and the kind of wife who wouldn’t be a +bother—that’s me; you know, Tony—isn’t a proper kind of wife at all. +Confess you were thinking something like that, Henry.” + +“Few men can be so fortunate as Anthony,” replied Henry with skilled +irrelevancy; but he was glad when they reached the Carlton. + +If Kitty had been guilty of a gust of bad temper, it left her as she +entered the hotel. The big, smart lounge was like home to her. She drew +in a long breath of the slightly stale, slightly scented air as if it +refreshed her. She knew exactly how to hold herself in public. She was +more conscious than any Englishwoman is by nature, and more trained than +any Englishwoman allows herself to be to hide her consciousness. Her +studied spontaneity gave an impression of perfect ease, which is the +seal of the true artist. + +The Carlton was Kitty’s sphere; in a moment she had seen and mastered +the human material in the lounge. No other woman there held men’s eyes +as Kitty held them. She moved slowly, with little pauses, in exactly the +right space and light. With each brief phrase she threw at Henry or +Anthony she was aware first of its effect upon them, and then in the +widening circles of a disturbed pool she noted the further effect +spreading throughout the room. + +Mr. Costrelle rose slowly from behind a palm and greeted his guests +phlegmatically. His eyes ran over Kitty with a steady critical +appreciation. Anthony saw with a pang of pure surprise that at the +moment it mattered more to Mr. Costrelle that Kitty should be dressed +properly than that she shouldn’t look ill. + +She did not look ill to the ordinary spectator, who failed to take +account of the carefully hidden signs. She was made up with finished and +unerring skill. Her picture-hat, with its thick, shaded plumes of dull +pale pink, softened the outlines of her face. She carried her head as if +she had never known physical fatigue. + +Kitty had what other women missed, the art of personality. Nothing that +she did miscarried, and no movement of her fine, supple body was without +significance. To-day she was more alive than Anthony had ever seen her; +differently alive, for it was not the life of her inner self: it was the +directed energy of a trained workman performing his task. + +Mr. Costrelle led them to the table he had prepared for them. He had +chosen the most public and visible spot in the room. + +Kitty sat down with her back to the light, and smiled at him across a +bowl of mauve and pale-pink carnations. Her smile was like a signal +between two trained performers. + +Mr. Costrelle had done his part. The meal was perfect. He had ordered a +few dishes, each one the best and most delicate of its kind. He had +chosen two sound wines, and crowned them with the Château Yquêm, which +lay in a basket beside him. + +It was now Kitty’s turn to play hers. She must be entertaining enough to +keep everything going, and not so absorbing as to interfere with a due +appreciation of the food. She must make each man feel at his best for +not too long at a time, and without interfering with the attractions of +the other men. She must also make all the other women in the room +jealous and their men envious. + +Anthony, with his heart on the rack, watched her with grim concern. +Everything in the big, spacious room was utterly unreal to him: its +little tables, its flowers, its groups of well-dressed people. Their +idleness, their privileges, their evocation of temporary tastes, +revolted and amazed him. + +For years he had lived hard and thought continuously, he had seen pain +and struggled with it as the man in the Laocoon struggles with the +presence of the coiled serpent; and these people lived dead against the +image of pain, even when, as in Kitty’s case, it hung poised above them +ready to strike; they blinded themselves against the issues of life. +They spent money and time and strength on expensive clothes and foods +and endless reiterations and repetitions of unnecessary, unenlightening +words. + +Sometimes Anthony caught a clever phrase. Mr. Costrelle and Kitty +herself were often inadvertently witty, but they had not set out to be, +and they never let it go very far. They wanted to entertain, but they +hadn’t any notion of sticking to an idea; it did not seem to them very +entertaining to stick to anything for long. + +Kitty sat there discussing a notorious career with clipped expert +phrases—the career of a woman she didn’t know, a mere bagatelle out of +a newspaper—and she was within a few hours of the sharpest of personal +struggles, she was even now menaced by acute and driving pain. + +Anthony saw the shadow of it in her eyes, and heard in the faint +hardness of her laughter, the effort of her self-control. + +They were wasting their few hours, that tiny margin left to them, on a +dish called “_les jeunes demoiselles_,” a careful preparation of +shell-less craw-fish in a cream sauce. Kitty’s eyes rested on Anthony +for a moment, but only with the genial audacity with which they passed +on to Henry. They had no message for him. She acquiesced in the _jeunes +demoiselles_. + +A smart, good-looking man, whose attention had been riveted on their +table for some time, rose, and crossed the room to speak to Kitty. His +eyes had a look in them which was like the sudden assertion of a claim. + +“What luck!” he exclaimed as he reached them. “Who in the world would +have expected you here?” + +“And why not here?” asked Kitty, with a veiled challenge in her laughing +eyes. “It’s very jolly and comfortable and not unknown, I believe, as a +European resort. You know my father, don’t you? This is my +husband—Captain Arden. Sir Frederick Stair.” + +The claim in Sir Frederick’s eyes sharpened into incredulity. He turned +from Kitty to Anthony. Anthony met and returned his hard critical gaze. + +The two men measured each other, and Kitty, leaning back in her chair, +watched them with unconcealed amusement. + +Mr. Costrelle poured out a glass of wine imperturbably. The situation +appealed to him; he liked to watch Kitty handle a difficult moment. + +Henry cleared his throat. He was not sure that everything was quite +comfortable, and he was annoyed that Sir Frederick had apparently +forgotten playing bridge with him some time ago at the club. + +“Oh,” said Sir Frederick at last, with his eyes still on Anthony. “We +haven’t run across each other before, I think?” + +“We have not been particularly likely to,” said Anthony, a little dryly. +“I spent most of the war in a German prison.” + +“I was in Egypt,” said Sir Frederick. “A good deal going on there one +way or another. Where does one find you now, Mrs. Arden? I can’t afford +to have you disappear again. But perhaps you will be more permanent now +that you’re married?” + +“I don’t think I shall ever be awfully permanent,” said Kitty, closing +her long eyelashes together and then opening them suddenly. “We’re just +passing through town.” + +Sir Frederick’s eyebrows shot up. He was being dismissed, and he had not +expected dismissal. Kitty smiled at him. Her smile was reassuring to his +pride. + +Stupid things, her kind eyes said, had intervened. She didn’t like +dismissing him, either; but still she dismissed him. + +“I was fortunate,” he said politely, “to have caught even this glimpse.” + +Kitty gave him her hand. Mr. Costrelle mentioned his club. + +Sir Frederick threw back a very fine pair of shoulders, bowed stiffly to +Anthony, and walked away. + +He had been perfectly polite and he had shown Kitty no sign of +disrespect, perhaps he had been a shade more respectful than a man need +be to a woman for whom no other idea had ever occurred. + +“An odd coincidence,” said Mr. Costrelle, “Stair turning up to-day. I +shall now open the Château Yquêm.” + +He took up a small napkin and the best type of corkscrew in silence, and +with great precaution he first held and then detached the cork, handing +it round to each in turn to catch the perfume which clung to it; then +with unfaltering gravity he poured out the four glasses. The wine was +golden and as soft as honey; the dry fire in it had blended with the +ripening touch of time. + +They drank in silence and without a toast. Anthony raised his eyes to +Kitty, but she was not looking at him. She was smiling, but her lips +were grave. Some memory or perhaps some premonition held her. + +“I don’t think,” said Mr. Costrelle, slowly and gravely, “that you can +beat this wine now in England.” + +“The war has done a dreadful lot of harm,” agreed Henry, +sympathetically. “Priceless wine has been parted with—I believe +rashly—to Americans.” + +“People who can take wine like this across the Atlantic,” said Mr. +Costrelle, “deserve to drink nothing but their own raw grapes.” + +“It’s been simply awfully jolly, Papa dear,” said Kitty, drawing on her +gloves; “but I suppose we must be off. I’ve enjoyed myself immensely.” + +Kitty lingered in the lounge. She liked watching the throngs of people +passing in and out. The veiled admiration of the men, the covert glances +of the women, eased her heart. After all, it was her world. She had +succeeded in it. + +She said good-by laughingly to Henry and her father. Henry’s +appreciation of the lunch had brought Mr. Costrelle to offering him one +of his best cigars. + +“I’ll see you next week, I dare say,” Mr. Costrelle observed to Kitty. +“That dead pink is a good shade, especially with sable.” And to Anthony +he added, “You might perhaps ring me up sometime.” + +Henry shook hands warmly with them both. Anthony had, after all, done +nothing out of the way, and Kitty had been perfect—perfect, that is, as +another man’s wife. For Henry himself she would have had to be a little +toned down. + +When they were alone in the motor, Kitty turned to Anthony with +appealing eyes. + +“You didn’t mind awfully, did you?” she asked quickly. “You see, after +all, Tony, it _is_ the only kind of thing I know how to do.” + + + CHAPTER XXVII + +For the last three days before the operation Anthony had succeeded in +warding off from Kitty any fresh attack of pain. He had studied her with +an absorption as acute as the absorption of personal consciousness in +the presence of mortal danger. All his senses had been alert to forewarn +and protect Kitty, and he had accomplished the temporary miracle. + +After the luncheon party, Anthony noticed with alarm that she showed +that peculiar physical restlessness which is often the forerunner of +severe pain. He made Kitty go to bed, and sat beside her hour after +hour, soothing and quieting her. Peckham had been invaluable; she had +brought out various garments of Kitty’s for correction and comparison. +She had been full of stories of Kitty’s childhood, and questions about +their going abroad. It had been settled that as soon as Kitty recovered +from the operation they were to go to Spain. + +At last Anthony had left her quiet and apparently asleep. He went into +the dressing-room next to hers, leaving the door open so that he could +hear her turn or sigh. He felt that he must be alone for an hour. All +these days his mind had been taking bitter account of the symptoms +ranged against him. + +This was his hour of reckoning. He knew that he had done all that was in +his power; he had given Kitty a respite before the operation, but he +could do no more: the disease was progressive and inexorable. Anthony +saw with a terrific clarity the force of all that was against him. The +symptoms of Kitty’s case came on against his mind like the resistless +impact of waves. If he succeeded in beating the first line of breakers, +the limitless ocean heaved up a further challenge. His puny strength +would spend itself against them in vain; sooner or later the sea would +overwhelm them both. + +It was too late to save Kitty. Anthony did not need Hilton Laurence’s +verdict; something in his own heart suddenly failed him. He saw that he +had done his utmost in the last few days, and that his utmost was worth +nothing. He wondered fearfully, if he had been a younger man, untried +and undaunted by experience, could he by mere audacity and blindness +have snatched Kitty back from disease? Suffering is not a school of +strength; it is a school in which one learns one’s weakness. + +Anthony knew what he could bear, and to that extent knowledge freed his +mind; he was not surprised by the weight of pain. He was too used to it, +but he was incapable in his turn of surprising pain. He had learned not +only his powers, but his limitations. Facts entrapped and hampered him. +He was aware of the frailness of his mind; strung to too high a pitch, +it would not give him any reassurance of its capacity. + +Ever since the early days of Anthony’s captivity darkness had broken in +upon him from time to time and shaken the steadiness of his mind. He +knew the only thing to do was to wait till it passed, to keep before his +eyes the fact that the darkness was from outside and impermanent, and to +hold to the integrity of his unflinching will. + +In the long run, what Anthony had decided to do he could do; he could +not attain the desired result, but he could force himself step by step +to take the right direction toward the result. He held to his will now, +but he was aware that the struggle was harder. He needed more for Kitty +than he had ever needed for himself. + +He steadied his mind to confront the future. He wanted to envisage the +whole course of Kitty’s case. He had to put out of his mind the +insistent pictures of the operating-table, the arrangements he had made +with Hilton Laurence, the minute preparations and precautions for the +actual hour. The details kept rushing at him like delusive lists of +uncompleted purchases. He knew there was no need for him to keep them in +his mind, but they flickered to and fro, taunting him with his +fallibility. + +Suppose he forgot something important, something vital? Kitty depended +on his memory, and his memory was outrageously tired. It played Anthony +tricks to show him how tired he was, and then with a gloomy clearness it +reiterated a string of details none of which he needed or could control. +He did not want to use his memory now. He wanted to get beyond it to +some point of decision. If he could not save Kitty, what should he do? + +If he let things take their course, Anthony saw exactly what would take +place. There would be the operation, a tedious, dangerous business, +which must in the nature of the case be left incomplete. Moment by +moment Kitty’s life would hang by a thread. Hilton Laurence would hold +the threads. Anthony could trust the task to him; he was a masterly +operator with a thorough, placid mind. He had been known in moments of +great tension to hold the ends of a severed artery together and tell a +funny story to relieve the nerves of his audience. Probably Hilton +Laurence would safely disentangle and keep together the threads of +Kitty’s life. She would, what is called, get over the operation. + +Her left arm would be powerless for a long time. She would suffer +again regularly and without strength the onslaughts of atrocious +pain. Kitty would very gradually get better up to a certain point; +then she would stick for perhaps two or three months; then the little +innocuous-seeming, deadly signs of a return would start up. The disease +would be very quick on its returning pathway, and, short of the mercy +of an accident, it would be very dreadful. + +Words from “The Duchess of Malfi” haunted Anthony’s mind: “her death a +hideous storm of terror.” Was that all he could do for Kitty? + +It wasn’t any use fighting for her life. The question was a smaller one +than that—he was only fighting for time. Fighting for life, with every +symptom set plainly against you, was only fighting for a convention, an +idea. But this convention was a sacred one to Anthony. + +It was a professional necessity, a point of honor to prolong menaced +existences. It was not a real necessity; because, unlike real +necessities, he had in his hands the power to evade it. Nor could +Anthony delude himself with the mercy of an accident. He had no talent +for self-delusion, and he had seen too many cases where there were no +accidents. + +If all he wanted was to save Kitty, why couldn’t he still save her by +letting her go? Why force her through a year of misery, with its +shadowed horror at the end? Why not now, on the top of the course of her +momentary security, grant her freedom? + +But had he the right to let her go? She would have let herself go +without a qualm—it was only her confidence in his love, her pity for +him, which held her back. But who was he to judge what was best for +Kitty? He could not see the sky for the stars, nor her body for her +soul. All his being was invaded by his tenderness for Kitty; there was +no desire in her which did not meet in him with a passion of response. +He did not know what she most wanted now; her reticent, shy spirit was +buried under all the haphazard promiscuities of her life. Kitty had +fenced it away not only from Anthony, but from herself. She had snatched +at the trivial to cover the eternal. + +He longed desperately at this moment of her great ordeal to stand by her +spirit, as he stood by her beleaguered body, and help it forth upon the +chartless seas. Was it fair to set this child soul free? Fear of her +anguish and her mortal struggle bit deep into his heart, but he had a +deeper fear, a deeper question, to which he found no answer. + +He sat torn with his indecision; then he heard her voice murmuring, +“Tony! Tony!” and went back into the lighted circle of her room. + +The room was full of flowers and shaded wax candles. Kitty sat up in bed +with long plaits of dark hair down her back. She looked like a child of +ten, a very frightened child. + +“Tony,” she said, “Tony, it’s the pain coming—” + +Her eyes fastened themselves on his with a look of shaken entreaty—then +they left him, to wander restlessly about the room, as if to hold and +keep all the safety of the inanimate things beside which her own +existence was so fugitive and insecure. + +Anthony gave her a slight sedative, and lay down beside her, taking her +hand in his. He felt his old power flow back into him to meet her +emergencies. He fixed his mind steadily upon Kitty’s pain, and held it +as the one point upon which his whole conscious being hung. He meant to +take her pain away, reduce it, and keep it from her. + +He had never yet succeeded in moving pain by his will; he had only +helped by his actual services to relinquish the grip of it. The +experiment he tried now was different. He determined literally to _take_ +Kitty’s pain. He felt as if in the room beside them there was another +strength more formidable than his own fighting for Kitty. + +He did not know what the power was, but he was aware of it to his +finger-tips. It seemed to be tearing at Kitty as desperate hands tear at +a wall between themselves and safety. It was as if the power in the room +wanted to take Kitty’s life to pieces in order that something behind her +life might escape. + +It did not occur to Anthony that this was a benevolent power, for +Anthony did not believe that there was anything behind Kitty’s life; he +was concerned only with what he saw, the inert and pain-stricken body +beside him. Kitty spoke no word; only her eyes moved—moved as the eyes +move of some one who is searching for something which they cannot find. + +It was an unhurried, implacable search. Kitty herself knew nothing of +it. She lay still with her small, stubborn mouth set to bear her pain, +and all her faith centered upon Anthony. + +For an hour the fight went on between Anthony and his unseen opponent, +and then suddenly he felt it relax; the power, whatever it was, had +withdrawn. Anthony knew instinctively that he had not conquered. This +had been a voluntary retreat; but it was Anthony, and not the retreating +power, who was exhausted. + +“I’m better,” Kitty said in a thin, flickering voice; “much better, +Tony. I’ve not been better so quickly for a long time.” + +Anthony did not answer at once. He was too aware of a swift, massive +pain set like a vise upon his arm and shoulder. He was astonished at the +violence of this sensation, but his reason quickly supplied a cause. He +had removed Kitty’s pain by hypnosis, and had weakened himself too much +in the process to be able to defend himself against the hysterical +reaction of his own body. + +He assured himself that he could not really have taken Kitty’s pain, but +he could, of course, really think he had taken it. This was the true +explanation, and not the delusion which suggested itself to Anthony, +that the power he had felt himself struggling against had agreed to +transfer the pain in answer to his own intensity. + +“Lie quite still, Kitty,” he said, “while I make you a cup of tea. You +want something to make you warm and comfortable after that attack.” + +“You’re awfully clever, Tony,” she murmured. “I want to ask you +something rather queer. You won’t mind, will you? What is there ahead of +me to-morrow if—if things don’t go right?” + +“They will go right,” said Anthony, quietly, lighting the spirit-lamp. +“I am quite positive of it, or I shouldn’t have suggested the operation. +What is it you mean exactly by—‘ahead of you’?” + +“Well,” Kitty explained, “you know, when you set out on a railway +journey, how quickly everything changes, and you don’t. What I mean is, +what will happen if nothing else changes, and you _do_? Or shall I just +be dead?” + +Anthony’s mind shot back to Tom. It was curious how he and Kitty claimed +with the same simplicity and without dread a prospect beyond mortality. + +Tom had felt it more solidly than Kitty, but neither of them had had +Anthony’s blank incredulity in the face of the invisible. How could he +believe what nobody could prove or see? And yet, since he had answered +Tom’s question, he had felt his skepticism shaken over and over again. +He was no longer sure that there was nothing else. + +“I used to think,” said Anthony, slowly, watching Kitty’s face as he +chose his words to meet her need, “that there was nothing beyond death, +that all our struggles and our troubles ceased automatically. I am not +so sure now. When I thought like that I hadn’t been in love. There was +nothing in my life that felt it wanted to reach beyond it. I can imagine +now something stronger than death. I don’t say there _is_ something +stronger, but I can imagine it. You see, I don’t know how to put it +quite, but since I’ve known you, I’ve cared, cared all round a lot more +for everybody. Before I only knew things from the outside. My work was +as good as I could make it, but I always stood outside it. Since I cared +for you, lots of me gets inside. It isn’t only liking to make a success; +it’s caring for a person. It’s you, Kitty, who have given me that +feeling.” + +“Have I really?” asked Kitty, incredulously. “How nice of you to tell +me, Tony. I should have thought I’d put you off. I’ve put off most +people. I’m awfully glad you care more because of me. I care, too; +that’s what rather upsets me just now. I’m not afraid a bit, but I do +feel sorry. I see now I must have done such a lot of harm not caring. I +don’t believe my doing all the things I oughtn’t really matters, do you? + +“But not having cared enough about the people I did them with, that’s +all wrong, and having hurt poor women who loved their men, that’s rather +awful, isn’t it? I don’t like to think of hurting people now I know what +being hurt is like. Besides, if there is a God, I suppose we’re all in +the same boat and part of Him; so the worst thing we can do is to hurt +each other, isn’t it?” + +Anthony nodded. He did not attempt to evade Kitty’s scruples. Brushing +aside truth did not seem to him a kindness. + +“We all do it,” he said gently, “some of us from being too strict with +our lives, so that we feel better than other people, and are worse, and +perhaps those who haven’t been strict enough—hurt as well. Because, if +you haven’t counted the cost, other people have to pay as well as you. +Still, you’ve paid a good deal by now, Kitty, and I suppose, if there is +a God, what matters most, is to have learned love and courage. I don’t +see anything else I want to carry on myself into another world, and +you’ve had plenty of those. If you do go out anywhere, you’ll take them +both with you.” + +Kitty drew his hand against her cheek. + +“I’ll take love with me,” she said, “now, Tony.” + +They were silent while Kitty drank her tea, then she said: + +“I’m awfully sleepy, Tony, but it seems such a waste of time to go to +sleep.” + +He bent over her and kissed her. + +“Go to sleep,” he said. “There’s plenty of time really for everything, +and it will make to-morrow better.” + +“To-morrow,” said Kitty after a little pause, “is just a sort of +adventure, isn’t it, Tony? It’ll be awfully funny if you and the monks +and Peckham and I all come out some day in the same place. Can you hear +the bell? They go and pray in the church at two o’clock.” + +Anthony listened from the open window. He heard very faintly the signal +of the monks for their first prayers. + +Kitty turned towards him, smiling, and she was still smiling when +Anthony saw that she was asleep. Anthony’s mind stilled itself, and +turned once more to meet its new ordeal. + +He had determined what to do. Just as he had taken her pain, so he would +take her life; he would take everything that menaced her, and dispose of +it. It did not matter what the consequences were or what the risk; they +would fall upon him and upon him alone. Kitty should go forth upon that +great adventure freed of her pain and of the long year’s waiting. + +Anthony was intensely sure of himself now, and he was aware of nothing +else with which he had to reckon. + + + CHAPTER XXVIII + +Kitty slept placidly till six o’clock. She was not aware of Anthony’s +leaving her or of his whispered conversation with Peckham at her door. +She woke to a bright fire and her morning tea with a sense of unusual +security. Peckham always lit her fire early and brought her tea, but +that was usually after a bad night, and this had been a good one. +Kitty’s arm and shoulder felt numb and stiff from the recent attack, but +mere discomfort was a small thing after acute pain. It was a minute or +two before Kitty remembered that the day held a new experience for her. +Her nerves rose unfalteringly to meet it. + +“Well, Peckham,” she said, “is it a nice day? Am I to have nothing to +eat, just when I’m hungry?” + +“That’s Captain Arden’s orders, Miss Kitty,” said Peckham, firmly, “and +I don’t need to have starched caps and aprons to carry them out. It’s +not many gentlemen would have been wishful to do their nursing +themselves, with me by way of being hands and feet to them, when they +could have had all the certificated sisters, or whatever they call +themselves, and welcome. If I’d been his mother, Captain Arden couldn’t +be more considerate of my feelings, and I can’t say a word to thank him, +Miss Kitty. I should say Ma’am, for fear of not looking like flint, the +way the young ladies do in the hospitals.” + +“Dear old Peckham!” said Kitty. “I’ll tell him you’re pleased. Is the +cook down-stairs giving him a good breakfast?” + +“I dare say he’ll be able to eat it,” said Peckham, dubiously. “I don’t +wish to say anything about other people’s servants at a moment like +this, Miss Kitty; I will only remark that they mean well and leave it at +that. The h’omlette the cook made him last night looked trod on, and the +tweeny maid wears corsets that pinch her to the bone, and scamps her +work according, as well she may. Only one cup of tea, please, Miss +Kitty, Captain Arden says, and then to lie still till he comes up to +you. You’re not to have no hair pins in, and stockings you must. I wish +I could have gone in with you, my dear lamb, but the captain says he’ll +take care of you there himself.” + +“Pooh!” said Kitty, “I sha’n’t need any taking care of. Don’t make faces +at me, Peckham. I know you want to say something religious to me, and I +don’t like religion first thing in the morning. Have you brought in the +lace cap with the butterflies on and my best lawn nightgown? I’ll wear +my blue satin dressing-gown with the old lace collar.” + +“I ironed the butterfly cap last night, Miss Kitty,” said Peckham, +severely, “though I must say I think it out of place, butterflies not +being what you should call upon in a time like the present.” + +“I don’t know about that, Peckham,” said Kitty. “You’re no more likely +to suit eternity plain than pretty; rather less, I should think. +However, I’ll turn up here all right again, don’t you fret. I shall just +buzz off and then buzz back again, and don’t forget I want the paste +buckles on the blue slippers.” + +Peckham produced the blue slippers. + +“You stick to Captain Arden, whatever happens,” Kitty added; “he’ll take +care of you. Papa’s no good, poor old thing! I dare say he’d like to be, +but he’s like me; he has expensive tastes. Is that you, Tony? Come in +and see what I look like. It’s a pity you aren’t going to have more +doctors. I shall be rather wasted on only two of you.” + +Kitty laughed at him from the fireside. She stood there, blue and white, +like one of the June butterflies that haunt the down country. + +“You haven’t seen my post,” she said. “Henry has sent me pink roses, and +your mother a box of her own flowers, the flame-color cyclamen I love +so. It was too sweet of her. And here’s a wire from Daphne. ‘All love +and sympathy. Coming up to-morrow.’ Of course you must stop her; their +baby’s nearly due, isn’t it? But tell her I was awfully glad she wanted +to come; but I’ll tell her that myself, of course, later on. Your people +are most awfully nice, Tony. I’m not surprised—” Kitty broke off +suddenly. She was going to say that she was not surprised he had not +wanted her to know them, but it might hurt him to remember this now; so +she said instead: “I’m not surprised. You’re rather nice yourself.” She +looked up at him with the old provocative light in her eyes. + +Anthony drew her to an arm-chair by the fire. + +“I didn’t mean you to get dressed so soon,” he said gently. “Hilton +Laurence may be a little late.” + +He sat down opposite her, and Kitty drew a cigarette out of a long +silver box, lit it, and put it between his lips. + +“You’ll feel happier smoking,” she said kindly. “Men always feel so +stupid before things happen; they don’t know what to do with their +minds. It must be specially boring if they’re clever like you, Tony, +because then they expect to say such awfully good things, and no one can +say good things at last moments.” + +“I don’t know that I want to say anything good,” said Anthony; “but it’s +true there are things I’d like to say to you.” He spoke as unemotionally +as possible, but the words forced themselves out of him. + +[Illustration: _Like one of the June butterflies that haunt the down +country._] + +He could not let her go without a sign into the dark. She would never +hear or speak to him again, because before she had recovered from the +operation, when they had left Kitty in his care, he intended to inject +sufficient morphia to prevent her coming round. He had the syringe in +his pocket now, and as he looked across at her, his mind was registering +the weight of the moments which lay between her life and his action. + +“You do trust me, Kitty?” he asked her in a low voice—“trust me to do +what I think best for you?” + +Kitty laughed. + +“Oh, yes,” she said gently; “you’ll always do right, poor old thing. +Perhaps I might be afraid of what’s right, but I couldn’t be afraid you +wouldn’t do it.” + +“You needn’t be afraid, Kitty,” said Anthony, holding her eyes. “I +should do what was wrong without hesitation if I thought it could help +you.” + +“That’s nice of you,” said Kitty, appreciatively. “I like people to say +they don’t mind what they do for me; but, still, don’t do wrong. It +would only make you feel uncomfortable. I shall get on all right. D’you +like my buckles?” + +Anthony said he did like her buckles. + +The room seemed full of the clumsiness of great moments. There was so +much that lay unachieved between them, everything, except the slender +thread of their strange tenderness. Anthony found that he could say no +more; his heart was dumb. He took her in his arms and kissed her. He was +intensely aware of her life, of the response in her, the supple +sweetness of her youth and its surrender; and deeper still he was aware +that his own strength, which he held back for the sake of her frailness, +was as incomplete to hold or protect her as if he had been a cripple. + +Her slight, delicate body dragged at the root of his being. Her eyes +smiled into his, sunny, dauntless, challenging eyes, as laughing as an +open stream. + +“There,” she said, “off you go to meet your old wise men. Don’t worry +about me. It’ll amuse me to think of all the funny things that may be +going to happen in another half-hour.” + +Anthony forced himself to leave her, but his whole being resisted his +will. He felt himself one with Kitty; to go from her was like falling +over a cliff. + +He guessed by the slam of the front door that Hilton Laurence had +arrived. He bent his head to meet her lips and left her. It was a cold, +black morning. The little, empty room Anthony had arranged as a theater +was very hot and light, a large fire burned at red heat, and all the +lights were on. + +“You’d better have a pick-me-up,” Hilton Laurence observed to Anthony +after they had made their brief arrangements. + +“I don’t need one,” said Anthony, quietly. “Shall I fetch her?” + +Laurence nodded. + +“It’s a rum job not having a nurse,” said the anesthetist, fretfully. “I +do dislike innovations in an operation case.” + +“Oh, well, as long as your tools are handy, and you have a man with a +head on to stand by you,” said Laurence, cheerfully, “it’s all the same +in the end. Nurses have a nice look and save a good deal of bother, +especially with a nervous patient. But this isn’t a nervous patient. +She’s had a lot to fight through, poor little woman!” + +“For a long job like this, chloroform is the most satisfactory,” said +the anesthetist. “However, we can start with a mixture and see how she +stands it.” + +The amazing vision of Kitty broke off their conversation. She had never +looked prettier in her life. The long, blue gown, the butterfly cap, the +delicately reddened lips, brought out the intensity of her great, dark +eyes, alive with spirit and laughter. She wrinkled up her nose as she +entered. + +“You poor old things! how hot you have made it for yourselves!” she +said. “I shall soon be the only comfortable person in the room.” + +She shook hands with Laurence and the anesthetist, and with a quick +movement sprang sidewise to the table, swinging her feet toward the +floor. + +“You didn’t think I could do that with one arm in a sling, did you?” she +asked gaily. “That’s the advantage of being light.” + +Her breathing came as swiftly and easily as a child’s. Anthony stood on +one side of her, his hand on her wrist, and the anesthetist on the +other. + +Her eyes smiled across the table at Hilton Laurence, and then closed. +She opened them as the anesthetist, satisfied by his examination, began +to give her his last directions in soothing professional tones. Her lips +curved in a faint mocking smile. She looked away from him to Anthony; +behind the laughter in her eyes was a sudden gleam of reassurance. It +was as if her spirit gathered itself up together and called to him not +for help, but to give him help. She had never said in words that she +loved him, but her eyes said it now, definitely, completely, without +wavering. Then they closed finally and did not open again. + +“She’s off like a bird,” said the anesthetist, with satisfaction. + +Hilton Laurence reappeared from behind a screen ready to begin his task. +No one spoke for a time. + +Then Anthony became aware that there was another presence in the room. +It was the same power he had fought the night before. + +It filled the room with a strange, preliminary tension before it began +to act. + +Anthony’s outer attention was fixed upon Laurence’s needs, but his inner +faculties concentrated to encounter this new element. As he did so, he +discovered that the whole force of his centered will was useless. Hilton +Laurence and his unrivaled skill, the anesthetist and his intent +watchfulness, were nothing against this unseen power; they were blown +before it like leaves in a wind. + +In a moment of terrible despair Anthony felt himself flung back and +beaten before the battle had begun. The unseen force had swept them all +aside and broken its way into the life of Kitty. There was a moment of +suspense, and then as quickly as his despair there shot into Anthony’s +brain an amazing and sharp relief. + +He knew in a flash that this power was not an enemy. It was true it tore +to pieces the husk of the beloved life, but mercy was at the root of the +destruction. It was tearing her to pieces because the pieces were in the +way, life itself was in the way of Kitty; and Anthony became aware that +what he thought was his enemy was an immense reinforcement. + +Once more he centered his will in the struggle, but he went with the +stream now and no longer threw his impotence against it. + +He alone was aware of the unseen power, but he saw the others moving at +its bidding. + +Anthony knew what had happened to Kitty before the eyes of the +anesthetist had caught the sudden change. He leaned forward and said +quietly—he heard the words slip out into the room without effort or +excitement—“She’s gone.” + +Hilton Laurence, bending over a severed vein, said: + +“Nonsense! my dear chap, keep your head. She’s as right as rain.” But he +looked up sharply as the anesthetist cried: + +“By Jove! he’s right! She’s gone!” + +Anthony stood by them curiously unconcerned, while Laurence and the +anesthetist tried one after the other their useless remedies. He obeyed +their flung directions automatically, threw open the window, drew out +the oxygen-cylinder, and filled it; but there was no flicker of a +response. + +He had prepared everything. Nothing had been forgotten or overlooked, +and all the time they used their ineffectual, puny efforts over Kitty’s +little broken body, Anthony felt his heart singing within him. They +could not set back the clock. Kitty had escaped them. She was no longer +there. + +Swiftly, simply as the lift of a gull’s wing, she had flown, and not for +anything in all the world would Anthony have recalled her. + +After a time Hilton Laurence turned away from the table. + +“I’m awfully sorry, old boy,” he said defensively. “You see for +yourself, don’t you—it’s no damned good?” + +“I’m sure I don’t understand it,” said the anesthetist more defensively +still. “I took every precaution. I’ve never had a case slip like that +before. It’s most disconcerting. I needn’t say, Arden, I’m most terribly +sorry.” + +They stood looking at Anthony like school-boys detected in crime by the +head-master. Anthony turned away his face so that they could not see the +triumph in his eyes. + +“Of course you did everything,” he said reassuringly, “everything you +could. I am perfectly satisfied that nothing could have saved her. The +lungs were not working properly, and the heart couldn’t carry on. It was +always a risk, but I feel we were justified in trying it.” + +“More than justified,” said Laurence in a relieved tone. “In my opinion +it would have been criminal not to have tried. I am most thankful, my +dear boy, you can see it all so sanely.” + +“I think I’ll carry her back into her room now,” said Anthony, +uncertainly. + +The two men stood aside to let him pass with his light burden. + +Peckham was standing by the bed in Kitty’s room. He laid her down +without speaking, and looked across at Peckham. + +“She’s all right,” he said gently; “more all right now than we could +ever have made her, Peckham.” + +Peckham bowed her head. + +“Yes, sir,” she murmured between her sobs. “I felt she was going to be +took. She do look just as she did, poor lamb, when she was a little +girl, sir. One couldn’t, if I may say so, take her naughtiness to heart, +and I can’t go for to believe the good Lord will be any harder.” + +Then Peckham left him. + +He was alone now with his wife. She was broken like a toy by the hand of +science to which he had entrusted her. All his desires were frustrated +and his endeavors destroyed. He had not even saved Kitty. Something else +had intervened to save her. Anthony was not aware of this power now; the +unresponsiveness of death closed down on him. + +His eyes fixed themselves on Kitty’s little lace cap made in the shape +of butterflies, and this last futility broke his heart. + + + CHAPTER XXIX + +Grief slows all the processes of time. To Anthony it might have been +weeks that he had been alone with silence in Kitty’s empty room, and yet +it was only two hours before Henry, calling to inquire for Kitty, became +aware of what had taken place. + +Henry was aghast to discover that nothing had been done. He had not been +telephoned for. Anthony, though a doctor, had ignored the urgencies of +death. + +Peckham, who had made tea twice, but never even knocked at Kitty’s door, +had received no instructions. Anthony remained for two hours, +“apparently,” as Henry said to himself, “brooding.” + +Henry always considered time spent upon thought as “brooding,” unless it +was accompanied by paper, a writing-table, and ink; then it became +thinking. + +When Anthony came down-stairs, Henry was surprised to observe no outward +change in him. He bore none of the marks of grief, and he was uninclined +to speak in a hushed voice. + +Henry came forward with an outstretched hand. + +“My dear fellow,” he said in a low tone, “I am shocked and distressed +beyond words.” + +Of course Henry was not distressed beyond words. Words did very nicely +for him. He was, as a matter of fact, intensely relieved. + +Providence had acted, as it could only occasionally be relied upon to +act, with considerable tact and promptitude. + +Perhaps the promptitude was a little overdone; six weeks later, +considering the date of the marriage, would have been less startling and +no less convenient. But Henry was prepared to overlook this slight lapse +of taste on the part of the higher powers in view of the fact that they +had carried out his main intention. They had got rid of Kitty. + +Henry was not, however, in the least prepared for Anthony’s saying in an +offhand tone: + +“Yes, I suppose it was the best possible thing, really,” quite as if he +were answering Henry’s thoughts and not his words. Henry was sorry for +Kitty, he had been charmed by her, and he was readily sorry for those +who were capable of charming him; but the fact remained that Kitty was +not respectable and that all Ardens married respectable women. Now that +Kitty was dead, he thought it would have been better taste on Anthony’s +part not to refer to her disabilities. To admit death as a solution was, +Henry felt, a direct slur upon Kitty. + +“Let’s have something to eat,” Anthony unexpectedly suggested. “Peckham, +have you got some tea hot for us?” + +“Yes, sir,” said Peckham, fluttering, but justified. “It’s in the +dining-room now, sir, and an egg, if you could face it.” + +“I’ll eat anything you’ve got,” said Anthony with conviction. He did not +even have to be tempted. + +Henry felt a little bitterly how much more devastating grief would have +been to him. He had had his lunch two hours earlier, and he did not want +tea now; though Kitty had only been his sister-in-law. + +“I thought, perhaps,” he said gravely, “I might be of use to you, my +dear fellow. There are certain things—” + +“Yes, I know,” interrupted Anthony, who was standing to eat his food in +a thoroughly uncomfortable, restless way by the door. “There are heaps +of things—telegrams, undertakers, the registrar. I’d be awfully obliged +if you’d do them for me. Hilton Laurence said he’d look in and help +later. I want to go out for a walk.” + +“People will expect to hear from you direct,” suggested Henry, who did +not think that widowers should go for walks before the funeral. + +“Sign my name, do anything you like,” said Anthony, hastily. “She hadn’t +any wishes. Will you see Costrelle for me? Don’t interrupt his bridge; +he plays between five and seven-thirty.” + +“On an occasion like this—” said Henry, severely. He was going to give +up his own bridge. + +“Yes, yes, I know,” said Anthony, hurriedly; “but Costrelle doesn’t +think in occasions; he won’t like being interrupted. It’s awfully good +of you, my dear old chap, to do these things for me. I think—I think I +must get out.” + +“There will be certain questions which you alone can decide,” said +Henry. “When shall I expect you back?” + +Anthony looked for the first time as if he was a little changed. He +fumbled perceptibly for an answer. + +“I don’t know what time it is now,” he said jerkily, and without waiting +for Henry to tell him he walked out into the hall, shutting the door +after him. + +The day had grown unexpectedly mild and sunny. Anthony walked listlessly +and without any definite direction. He wanted to get to some open space +where people would cease to pour past him like part of a great +procession. He found himself at last by the river. The light lay faint +and thin over its gray waters, gleaming with a pale, transparent silver +upon the distant towers of Westminster. The huddled, low waterside +houses looked full of the stubborn comfort and unconsciousness of +England. Westminster brooded high and bright above a flock of little, +ugly dwelling-places. There was no background to the ancient river but +the smoke from factory chimneys and the low, dim sky. + +Anthony was not aware of his grief, but he was aware of a great desire, +a compulsion of his inner being, to get away from all pity and +arrangements. He wanted to place between himself and Kitty’s death a +host of less immediate objects. + +The towers of Westminster rested him, the rocking motion of the motor +buses, passing like broad-sided ships down the stream of the open +thoroughfares, lulled him. The slow pressure of the river upon its +unhurrying journey to the sea placed a merciful image between his +thoughts and Kitty. + +Time stood still. The hours hung on Anthony heavily with the weight of +years. + +As he leaned over the bridge and watched the long, slow ripples pass his +thoughts unnumbered, he felt eternity. The sun sank into the misty west; +there was a faint deepening of color and light along the Embankment. +Five white swans rose on massive wings high above Battersea Bridge; they +slipped dazzlingly across a path of light into the darkening sky, taking +the day with them. + +Twilight slipped gray and blue in long lanes between the shadowy houses; +the lights at the street corners had misty haloes round them, like a +cloud-encircled, opal moon. + +Anthony became aware of an overwhelming physical fatigue; it was so +intense that, despite the chill of the falling night, he sank with +relief on to one of the benches. It was empty, for it was too early for +the prowlers of the night to seek their rest there, and too late for the +belated children playing their last games. + +Anthony could no longer see the river, but he was aware of it moving +quietly beside him in the dark. It seemed to help his mind to turn +slowly and without pain back to the thought of Kitty. He reflected what +a wonderful and easy chance his life would afford a cynic for laughter. +Only a few years ago his career had been so shapely and definite a fact. +He knew what he meant to do, and he had the means and the ability with +which to do it. He was as sure of his surgical powers and his unshakable +nerve as of the continuity of bread upon his table. He had no bad +habits, no overmastering temptations. His life was a clear and steadfast +plan, and in due time, with substantial success behind him and ripened +ambition for the future, he meant to seek and find a fitting mate. + +He laughed out suddenly into the dark. He was not that sane man now, +with his iron-like securities. He had lost the rapier-like decision of +the unbroken. His mind saw many issues, his will flickered at a choice +of opportunities, a long day’s work unstrung him like a delicate girl. +His memory was uncertain, his clean slate was written across with +undecipherable, lost activities. He was not sure of anything at all. + +And his love, that reserved and whole-hearted quality on which Anthony +meant to found a home, had been called out and wasted on a light woman, +happily dead. Destiny had applauded him for his equipment and then +destroyed it. + +And yet he was aware, sitting there in the dark and cold, with his +weaknesses and his great grief, that he would not for anything in the +world be the old Anthony, secure and hidebound, moving with blind +assurance among infinite things. The old Anthony had been a master of +material facts; he had not been a servant of reality. Broken and twisted +and sore, unsure of his aims, diffident of his remaining powers, Anthony +knew that there was nothing in him that reserved itself for its own +purposes. + +He could meet all that came with his naked new possession. The old +Anthony had given his faculties only to his work; he himself remained +aloof, fastidious, and unused. He had been imprisoned in a fortress of +privilege. + +An unseen hand had plucked him out of it, and plunged him into a +fettered, dreadful intimacy with miserable human beings, so that he +should learn the reality of pain. Pain had taught Anthony his own +insignificance and broken a little of his isolation away from him. +Anthony had given more of himself than he knew to his fellow-prisoners, +but he had not given all. His sympathies were touched and widened, but +his heart remained intact. He could still blame men for their +weaknesses. + +He thought of his return to England, and how its beauty and serenity had +rebuilt him. But he was not the same again; there was more that was +accessible in him, or he would never have known Kitty. + +She would have been to him either what she intended to be, a few weeks’ +amusement, or perhaps merely a fresh peg upon which to hang his measured +morality. It would have been so easy for the old Anthony to have +dispensed with Kitty. But his new responsiveness to pain had saved him +from this ignoble security. Her need had called to him, and his whole +being had rushed out to answer it. + +Kitty had taken from him one by one his old immunities. She had shaken +him with a passion so vivid that he saw his code as a little thing, and +she had roused in him a tenderness that was stronger than any +self-control. She had not done these things of a set purpose; she had no +purposes. She was one of the instruments of life. + +She could not give him the completeness of love because love’s +completeness had been defaced in her, but out of the shattered gifts and +images of their hours together she had left him one changeless memory: +Kitty had never blamed or judged a human soul. + +From her father to the vicar’s wife she absolved them all. All women +were her natural enemies before their faces, but behind their backs she +was their indignant advocate. She could even stand up for the +self-righteous with a whimsical admiration. Anthony remembered with a +pang of shame how easily and quickly she had let him off his own +rigidities. + +He had felt his rigidity was his strength. Even now he was aware of the +loss of it, with a certain sense of formidable exposure; but he was no +longer afraid of the exposure. + +He did not want to get out of anything until he had taken with him the +comradeship of what was in it. + +Kitty’s little, narrow life was like the foam of a wave. It had been +lived for pleasure; and, miscarried by the wind, had broken itself +against the iron rocks of life. + +Anthony’s wider being was like the force and purpose of the waters +beneath; but for a moment the powerless foam had lit it onward and +enlightened its purposes. + +Kitty had not changed the direction of Anthony’s life, but she had +changed the angle of his vision. She had told him that she was only an +atom of dust dancing in a sunbeam, and that when the light went, there +would be nothing left of her but dust. It seemed to Anthony that it was +the dust that had gone, and left him with the memory of light. + +A cold, wet wind rose from the river, cutting against his weariness. He +shivered, rose, and set his face toward home. + + THE END + + + + + TRANSCRIBER NOTES + +Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple +spellings occur, majority use has been employed. + +Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors +occur. + + [The end of _A Servant of Reality_ by Phyllis Bottome] + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79009 *** |