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 THE LIBRARY 
 
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 Store, Inc.
 
 THE BUFFOON 
 
 \
 
 MR. KNOPF'S NEW BOOKS 
 
 GREEN MANSIONS 
 
 By rV. H. Hudson 
 
 Foreword by John Galstuorthy 
 GREAT RUSSIA 
 
 By Charles Sarolea 
 BIRDS AND MAN 
 
 By W. H. Hudson 
 THE OLD HOUSE 
 
 By Feodor Sologub 
 THE LITTLE DEMON 
 
 By Feodor Sologub 
 IN THE RUSSIAN RANKS 
 
 By John Morse 
 A HERO OF OUR TIME 
 
 By M. Y. Lermontov 
 FOUR-DIMENSIONAL VISTAS 
 
 By Claude Bragdon 
 SELF-GOVERNMENT IN RUSSIA 
 
 By Paul Vinogradoff 
 THE MEMOIRS OF A PHYSICIAN 
 
 By Vikenty Veressayev 
 OTHERS: An Anthology of the Neiu Verse
 
 THE BUFFOON 
 
 By 
 
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 U 
 
 Wilkinson 
 
 NEW YORK- ALFRED A KNOPF • M CM XVI
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY 
 ALFRED A. KNOPF 
 
 Published April, 1916 
 
 PRINTED IN AMERICA
 
 To 
 FRANCES GREGG 
 
 in recognition 
 
 513600 
 
 LIBRARt
 
 THE BUFFOON
 
 rHE BUFFOON 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 IT seemed inevitable that all contacts with Ed- 
 ward Raynes should shake his cap and bells. 
 He had in his brain a teasing imp of farce, 
 an imp sometimes vaguely irritating to him. He 
 approached the dim consciousness, as he took time 
 and grew, that this " control " was something sepa- 
 rate from himself, particularly from the self that 
 lay low and sometimes made as though it might 
 emerge. His pantaloon impulses and grotesque 
 ribald stirs jerked him about on their strings, mak- 
 ing him feel uncomfortably a mannlkin now and then. 
 The strings were fastened inside and wound round; 
 they were ligaments disconcertingly animal and or- 
 ganic. 
 
 But Edward did not embarrass himself by 
 dwelling on his really intimate concerns; he did not 
 enter upon painful self-analysis. His existence was 
 agreeable and superficial; he clipped and rolled the 
 smooth soft grass of his superficies with a care that 
 grew yearly more exquisite and more absorbing. He 
 had an easy licence for such occupation, in the way of 
 which stood no mocking hindrance. His belittling 
 
 9
 
 10 The Buffoon 
 
 farceur Imp could not belittle what was small enough 
 already, could not comically depreciate what laid a 
 claim at once so moderate and so beyond possibility 
 of challenge for what It was. Edward could com- 
 port his outward existence as sedulously as he chose 
 without any apprehension from that burlesque leer. 
 
 He was, In fact, subject to the mastery In chief of 
 certain eighteenth century minds, that mastery of 
 fear of the personal Indignities which Invade us al- 
 ways along with the Intense sensations that come of 
 going far, whether In thought or In emotion. These 
 mastered ones cling to a surface made as secure and 
 as habitable as possible, while they make fools when 
 they can of others In order to cover their own terror 
 of the motley. Again, they will Inoculate them- 
 selves with a prophylactic mild dilution of recognised 
 absurdity, will cultivate certain whims and foibles 
 to draw off ridicule that would elsewhere strike too 
 deep. By an irony almost tragic these men end in 
 being the most completely tricked by whatever cosmic 
 spirit there Is; themselves the buffoons who have 
 lost most. 
 
 The smothered discomforts of Edward's soul 
 came from the Intermittent expression of Its desire 
 for salvation. As he grew older he developed wider 
 reaches and more various appreciations, but he re- 
 sisted unpeaceable readjustments and evaded recon- 
 structions. He came to new experiences and took 
 them in, but they had to be on terms with what was 
 there already; they were not allowed to bring about
 
 The Buffoon 11 
 
 any searching or sifting change. The distant, oc- 
 casional suggestion that they should, gave Edward 
 what almost amounted to pain, what certainly dis- 
 turbed his equanimity. At such times he would go 
 out and buy a new tie, with especial care and judg- 
 ment. 
 
 He was by nature active, both of mind and body, 
 and he occupied himself thoroughly enough, though 
 always within bounds, never rashly forgetful of the 
 safe middle path. He read, he travelled, he looked 
 at pictures, he heard music, he had to do with girls. 
 He was often taken up with arrangements for his 
 cottage in Sussex and his London rooms. He liked 
 choosing wallpaper and carpets, chairs, sideboards, 
 furniture of every kind: such exercise of taste ran 
 most smoothly along his lines; he picked up a good 
 many " nice things " in France, in Italy, in Belgium, 
 and at certain English shops, specially discovered, 
 in London and elsewhere. He spent, too, some 
 energy in the cultivation of his palate, in the ac- 
 quisition of a jia'ir for the virtues of wines and chefs. 
 Nor did he neglect his wardrobe; he took up time 
 with his clothes and was successful with them. 
 
 Edward's balanced variety of well-toned Interests 
 conspired to prevent him from going Intellectually or 
 emotionally far, and so kept him safe. This was, 
 in fact, what his interests were for, to bring the bear- 
 ing-rein to play, to hold him off from any rush or 
 plunge into self-committal. Every preoccupation, 
 with him, became pleasant and mild, was reduced to
 
 12 The Buffoon 
 
 the level of an agreeable joke. He was so much in 
 bond to his sense of humour that he felt lost when 
 within reach of anything that he could not dig in 
 the ribs. From this angle or that, on one excuse or 
 the other, he would have his anticipated prod. 
 
 It was with this habitual air of humorous detach- 
 ment that he approached art and letters. He en- 
 joyed occasional reading and occasional pictures, but 
 his enjoyment was always well within range of his 
 habitual self. So much as he permitted to reach him 
 of Watteau, Velasquez, and the very early Italian 
 painters, gave him pleasure. Watteau especially 
 he found attractive: the costumes of Watteau's peo- 
 ple delighted him, and their attitudes. He went to 
 Berlin and Dresden solely on account of Watteau; 
 he cocked his eyebrow at intervals during the jour- 
 ney, he tempered his enthusiasm with railler}'' so as 
 to be able to support it without wincing. As he re- 
 garded the Fete Galante an unusual thing happened. 
 A notion of parody struck him, and he rebelled 
 against his appointed role. " Damn it," he mur- 
 mured, " this spoils my pleasure." 
 
 As a rule he saw nothing the burlesque of which 
 he could resent: the idea of his burlesque went hand 
 in hand with what he saw and was even pleasur- 
 ably affiliated with it. He appreciated aesthetically, 
 within the bounds determined by this " humour " of 
 his: he was like a man cherishing dependently an 
 optical disease that clips the range of vision, and 
 modifies so much vision as remains. He had this
 
 The Buffoon 13 
 
 same docked and smeared view of \'elasquez and 
 Botticelli, and no less of literar}- artists. 
 
 When Edward read he stood more notably aloof 
 from any serious self-committal than ever. He 
 looked through a telescope at his author, with the 
 other eye signihcantly closed. In his way, he was a 
 shrewd enough critic: he was not easily imposed upon 
 by shallow talent, and although he kept genius at 
 a distance he had a very keen relish for so much 
 as he could safely accept of what genius gave him. 
 Henr)' James suited him extremely well, especially 
 in style. He gave Edward's brain the kind of move- 
 ment that he found most acceptable, and indulged his 
 amiable jocosit}- in exactly the right way. For Ed- 
 ward could be amiable and jocose at a little distance 
 from this author, on very good terms with him all 
 the while. 
 
 Edward amused himself more lazily with racy 
 novels, sensation novels, and novels of adventure. 
 Never with any of his authors did he become per- 
 sonally involved, not even with passionate poets like 
 Shelley and Swinburne; he ignored on a bland in- 
 stinct everything in them that could personally in- 
 volve him : they inevitably had to let him off. 
 
 Modern propagandist writing Edward soon came 
 to accept with the utmost sang-froid. It pleased 
 him to think of the social system as a laughing-stock, 
 he was quite content that it should be, but equally 
 content that there seemed some prospect of these re- 
 formers having their fling. This gave him promise
 
 14 The Buffoon 
 
 of a new kind of entertainment. Meanwhile he 
 " ragged " his Club acquaintances with Socialistic 
 quips and sallies; but so happily and sportively that 
 he kept his popularity along with an extension of 
 his jester's licence. 
 
 He was interested in people. He had no friends, 
 but he knew a good many men, and with all of them 
 he played his game, trotting them to and fro in the 
 light of his opera-boiiffe stage, where they suffered 
 their appropriate conversions to his kind of figures 
 of fun. His taste for more obvious clowning mel- 
 lowed after he left Cambridge: he was less for ac- 
 tion, and more for talk; but he still especially 
 enjoyed outrageous shocks, preposterous juxtaposi- 
 tions, incredible claps and jangles, — all possible 
 occasions for full-blown unpardonable laughter. 
 Anything in the nature of a shameless projection, 
 towards whatever quarter, made him well con- 
 tent. 
 
 Edward travelled in France ; he was often in Paris. 
 He went sometimes to Italy and to Spain. His im- 
 pressions had to fall in and keep their place: it was 
 necessary for him to feel safe with them, to make 
 them yield his familiar enjoyment that did not 
 go too far. Sometimes he travelled alone, but on 
 the whole he preferred a companion, even at the cost 
 of a play less free in the neat disposal of his hours. 
 There were two men of his acquaintance, George 
 Forrest and Theocrite Molesworth, ("Theocrite" 
 struck Edward as delectable) whom he particularly
 
 The Buffoon 15 
 
 sought for his amusement. With women he was not 
 occupied except in the way of the more elementary 
 satisfactions and entertainments, of which he now 
 and again very freely partook. Not that his amours 
 were gross and bald; he discriminated and appre- 
 ciated at leisure, he took in many nice little points, 
 quite as usual. He held pretty balances between his 
 blood and his perceptions. He had never been at 
 all in love. 
 
 He always spent Christmas with his mother, a 
 clergyman's widow, who Hved at Westbeach. Some- 
 times he went to see her about Easter and Whitsun- 
 tide, or she to see him. These festivals of the 
 Church seemed to be naturally reserved for exercises 
 of filial piety. Westbeach depressed Edward, and 
 his mother depressed him more than Westbeach. 
 She was " devoted " to him, her only child, in the 
 conventional maternal way: that is, she was not 
 really self-sacrificing at all; simply animal and un- 
 controlled. In Edward's younger days, when there 
 had not been much money, his mother had lived 
 parsimoniously, with high sentimental satisfaction in 
 doing so " for Edward's sake." Later, when Ed- 
 ward's godmother had left him a large sum, and 
 family legacies came in, Mrs. Raynes continued her 
 sparing ways: parsimony had become a habit; it gave 
 her an occupation and a vice. In the spirit of drug- 
 ging or tippling she would invest little sums at fre- 
 quent intervals for her boy's advantage. Edward 
 sometimes resented her use of him as a vehicle for
 
 16 The Buffoon 
 
 self-indulgence. He also resented her parsimony, 
 because he was, in a different way, parsimonious him- 
 self. 
 
 In spite of, indeed because of his improved for- 
 tunes, Edward never threw money about. Like all 
 well-to-do men he soon came to enjoy little econo- 
 mies. At Cambridge, and just afterwards, in Lon- 
 don, when he was reading for the Bar, he had not 
 economised at all; he was always in debt. He had 
 too little money then to make economy interesting. 
 Now that he was by comparison rich he prided him- 
 self on never spending without adequate return. 
 Here was one of his permitted foibles. He suffered 
 real chagrin when he thought he had been over- 
 charged, in however trifling a degree. He gave 
 reverent attention to unnecessary expenditures: he 
 exercised scrupulosities about them. He liked ex- 
 actness, and roundings-off. When he wanted to post 
 a letter abroad and happened by some unusual over- 
 sight to have only penny stamps, he would go out 
 of his way to a Post Office for a half-penny stamp, 
 sooner than use three penny ones, or he would post 
 the next day. In the same spirit he finished off the 
 remains of his pieces of soap and kept watch over 
 unused half sheets of notepaper. He never wrote 
 letters when postcards would do. But none of his 
 expensive pursuits gave him a pang; he never thought 
 of money when he was about his pleasures. As he 
 put it himself, he had no taste for petty extrava- 
 gances.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 EDWARD was standing, one bright July 
 morning of his thirty-sixth year, before the 
 looking-glass of his bedroom in Sussex, com- 
 pleting his toilet. It was about half-past nine. 
 
 Getting up in the morning was delightful to Ed- 
 ward. He took a cold bath, a luxury particularly 
 well-suited to people who are both sanguine and 
 sensuous. After his bath he dressed rapidly till his 
 trousers were on, and then very slowly. In his shirt- 
 sleeves he looked his best, and he enjoyed his looks. 
 At this point he rolled his first cigarette of the day, 
 from pure mild Virginian tobacco. No prepared 
 Virginian cigarettes of the same freshness and fla- 
 vour can be bought, as Edward had found out long 
 ago. This maiden cigarette he rolled with exquisite 
 nicety, and was pleased by every whiff of it. It oc- 
 cupied him almost exclusively. When it was lit he 
 sat down opposite his looking-glass, to smoke and to 
 survey himself. 
 
 He was still quite a young man in appearance. 
 There is nothing like a regard for pleasure and a 
 strictly humorous view of life, well supported by in- 
 come, for keeping a man young. Edward had 
 avoided all possible ageing complications of exist- 
 ence: far-reaching emotions, probing thought, mar- 
 
 17
 
 18 rhe Buffoon 
 
 riage, any experiences that might stir, he had 
 avoided them all. He had taken resolute care 
 of himself. His complexion was as fresh as ever 
 — ruddy but not coarsened in the least. He had 
 a ,rather small, neatly turned head, soft straight 
 hair between brown and auburn, and a care- 
 fully kept moustache of a lighter tint. His lips were 
 too thick and not firmly closed, so he was wise in 
 wearing a moustache. His gay clear blue eyes were 
 a distinct asset, especially in gallantries. His ears 
 were small and nicely made; his chin, though not 
 quite square, showed decision and had a masculine 
 tone. He was a little over middle height, trim and 
 well built. Taken altogether, he pleasantly caught 
 the eye. 
 
 After smoking, Edward shaved, and when he had 
 shaved he tended his moustache. On this particular 
 morning he was blandly regarding the proximity of 
 these operations. He had just thrown away the 
 end of his cigarette and got up from his chair, when 
 a knock sounded on his bedroom door. Edward's 
 complacency was a shade ruffled. He moved to the 
 door and gently turned the key. " Well? " he said 
 suavely. 
 
 "Confound you!" exclaimed a voice outside. 
 *' Don't lock me out." 
 
 " What do you want, George? " 
 
 " I want to talk to you." 
 
 " Can't be done just now, dear boy." 
 
 " But hang it all," George Forrest's voice showed
 
 The Buffoon 19 
 
 irritation, " I've something particularly important 
 to say." 
 
 " Yes, but I can't dress comfortably with any- 
 body looking on." 
 
 " Rot." 
 
 There was a pause, then George observed rather 
 plaintively: " You might as well let me in." 
 
 Edward was silent. George went away for a 
 moment : coming back with a chair, he sat down out- 
 side the door. 
 
 " Why do you get up so beastly late? " he began. 
 " You're wasting your life, that's what you're doing. 
 Every man ought to be of some use in the world. 
 You'd be far happier if you had an aim in life. 
 Why don't you take up politics or municipal affairs 
 or healthy sport? Think of the time you waste. 
 It's perfectly awful. Think of the opportunities you 
 have. Many men would give their eyes to have 
 your opportunities. Think of the good you might 
 do. And everything going to waste. It's criminal. 
 While you're still a young man. It's really ex- 
 asperating. Have you no ambitions? Are you 
 always going to fool away your existence? Where 
 is your conscience? 'Life is real, life is earnest.' 
 Is any human being the better for your existence? 
 Tell me that. Edward Raynes, I must rouse you if 
 I can. I feel it my duty to do so. I must make 
 the attempt. You have intelligence. Surely your 
 intelligence wasn't given you to waste? You must 
 see that. Think what a chance you had at the Bar.
 
 20 The Buffoon 
 
 You might have been a K.C. by now. Many a less 
 able man has been a K.C. at your age. At this mo- 
 ment you might have been speaking In the Courts — 
 making a forensic triumph. Your name In all the 
 newspapers! Think of that. And what are you 
 doing?" (He could hear Edward stropping his 
 razor.) "Shaving. Shaving!" (His tone con- 
 veyed Infinite disgust.) " Shaving at ten o'clock In 
 the morning, and not yet had breakfast. You take 
 half an hour or more to shave. / shave in five min- 
 utes. No man worth his salt should take longer 
 than ten minutes to shave, especially when he has a 
 moustache. I shave at seven thirty, sharp, every 
 morning. That's the way to begin the day's work. 
 Read Rudyard Kipling. Read Colonel Roosevelt's 
 speeches. ' The strenuous life.' Splendid man, 
 the Bishop of London. Prove your manhood. 
 That's what we all have to do." 
 
 Edward, within, continued to shave. George 
 left his chair, and walked the passage for awhile to 
 cool his indignation. He was a lean dark wiry man, 
 nearly ten years younger than Edward. He had 
 approached as a neighbour soon after Edward had 
 taken this Sussex cottage. George had never been 
 happy about his friend, and recently had become con- 
 vinced that it was his mission to wean him from a life 
 of shameful case; but It was the first time that he 
 had made so direct an appeal. At last, he thought, 
 the hour had come for a plain frank talk. 
 
 George was one of those people who, with limited
 
 The Buffoon 21 
 
 intellectual and aesthetic resources, have a mania for 
 activity. It was the object of his life to satisfy this 
 mania, and to infect other people with it. He ran 
 any number of organizations in his neighbour- 
 hood, — the Boy Scouts, the Church Lads' Brigade, 
 the Debating Society, the Society for Discoun- 
 tenancing Drinking except at Mealtimes, two pohti- 
 cal Associations, and a Chess Club. He was always 
 speaking at meetings. He prided himself above 
 everything else on being an organiser, and secondly 
 on being a good all-round useful man. Marriage 
 would have taken the wind out of his numerous sails, 
 and that was largely why he showed no disposition 
 to marry. 
 
 Edward foresaw diverting vistas from the mo- 
 ment George fastened upon him. From the first he 
 treated him scandalously, pushing him beyond every 
 limit of usual endurance, teasing him shamelessly 
 about his " good works," pelting his upright simple 
 schoolboy soul with little pellets aimed just where 
 they might most intimately smart and sting; provok- 
 ing thus the absurdest starts, the jumps and jerks 
 most worth a smile. He used George in this way 
 for his entertainment, and refused to pay any fee 
 for the show. When George began to be tedious 
 or to get on his nerves, he got rid of him at once. 
 Sometimes he slipped into the nearest Bar, calling 
 out to the Secretary of the Society for Discoun- 
 tenancing Drinking except at Mealtimes : " Come 
 along! My turn to treat" — or he would pick up
 
 22 The Buffoon 
 
 some gay girl, with: " Ah, George, you introduced 
 us, didn't you?" — op drive him away by a lewd 
 gibe. 
 
 He had listened to the remarks made by George 
 outside his bedroom door without allowing the 
 rounded harmony of his existence to be in any way 
 disturbed. George renewed the attack, he renewed 
 it several times, taking intervals to think of fresh 
 things to say, and of how to say them most effec- 
 tively. 
 
 Edward proceeded with the completion of his toi- 
 let: he waxed his moustache, he washed his hands 
 with the hot water left over from shaving, moder- 
 ated by the tepid water from his hot bottle. It 
 pleased Edward to put things to two purposes; it 
 seemed to add a spice to life when he poured the 
 water out of his bottle into his basin. He always 
 used a hot bottle however warm the weather might 
 be, and he never washed his hands when he took 
 his cold bath: that would have distracted him. 
 Finally everything was done and had fitted In de- 
 lightfully. Edward loved things to fit in. When 
 he could look back on his toilet as on a perfected and 
 highly developed organism, planned and realised to 
 admiration, then he opened the door. George was 
 in the midst of a peroration. 
 
 ". . . that Indolence which is the deadliest of 
 all corrosives, saps all that is worth calling manhood, 
 and In the end destroys one, physically, mentally and 
 morally."
 
 The Buffoon 23 
 
 " Good morning," said Edward, affably patting 
 him as he rose hurriedly from the chair. George 
 scowled. " Come along, dear one," Edward con- 
 tinued, " I want breakfast." 
 
 " Tell me," — George spoke slowly and solemnly 
 as they walked downstairs, — " you will at least think 
 over what I have said, will you not? " 
 
 " I tell you what, George, if you go looking at lit- 
 tle Norah in that wicked way as you pass my garden 
 gate, they'll clap you into prison, that's what they'll 
 do to you." 
 
 " Little Norah " was a girl of the village, a 
 farmer's daughter. On Edward's mention of her 
 she was at once embarrassingly present to George's 
 mind. Her prettiness was of the rich Italian type : 
 when she had just washed her dark hair, — she man- 
 aged to wash it very often — it was really lustrous. 
 She was a vivid sun-steeped thing, and promised a 
 full bloom more vivid still. A Frenchman would 
 have described her with his graphic " fausse-malgre." 
 For she was slender and plump at the same time : her 
 slimness was feminine, not boyish. She was not 
 " fruit vert," yet she could give a tempting sugges- 
 tion of immaturity while still more temptingly be- 
 lying it a moment later. She had a provocative 
 way of being both this and that in contrast: generous 
 and lithe, developed and undeveloped, innocent and 
 equivocal, dangerous and harmless, she piqued men, 
 she made them uneasy and unsure of themselves. 
 Most of the village boys fought shy of her: those
 
 24 The Buffoon 
 
 that did not she, with a light touch here and there, 
 made unhappy. Edward had observed her in a de- 
 tached way : she was disturbing to George, though he 
 firmly believed she was nothing of the sort. 
 
 George had been staring at Edward in amazed 
 horror. "How dare you, Raynes? This is a — 
 a most scandalous and unwarrantable imputation. I 
 never even saw Norah Weekes." 
 
 "Weekes? — Weekes? Is her name Weekes? 
 But of course you must be right. Sportive little 
 filly, George, what?" Edward walked into his din- 
 ing-room. 
 
 " This is outrageous of you, Raynes. The girl is 
 a mere child." 
 
 " Coming on sixteen, I believe. But gay and 
 sprightly. Very apt, George, very apt." 
 
 " I am going. I refuse to be a party to such con- 
 versation. And the girl is eighteen — just eight- 
 
 een." 
 
 " Ah, you know, George, you know. You notice 
 these things. But why call her a mere child, then? 
 Disingenuous, most disingenuous. Ah me, how time 
 goes ! " 
 
 Edward's servant Merrion came in with kidneys 
 and bacon, and Edward seated himself at the table. 
 
 "Fruit, George?" Edward hospitably invited. 
 " I sometimes begin breakfast with fruit. Have a 
 banana? " 
 
 " I do not eat bananas at half past ten in the morn- 
 ing."
 
 The Buffoon 25 
 
 " Why not? And it's only a quarter past." Ed- 
 ward peeled his banana thoughtfully, with the same 
 careful precision that he gave to the rolling of his 
 cigarettes. 
 
 " It's men like you," George jerked the words at 
 him, " who keep the world back. If all people of 
 independent means led your kind of life, we should 
 never get anywhere." 
 
 " You are interesting this morning " — Edward 
 surveyed his peeled banana, — " but I never join in 
 intelligent conversation till I've quite finished break- 
 fast. Will you please ring the bell? " 
 
 George rang it under protest, and the man came 
 back. Edward told him to take the kidneys out and 
 keep them hot till he had finished his banana. 
 " Canary bananas," he added, speaking to George. 
 " All the other kinds are, oh such a mistake." 
 
 " Now if I were you," he went on, after Merrion 
 had gone, " I'd try one of those kidneys when they 
 come back. With a glass of ale. Delicious. Just 
 the thing for the middle of your morning." 
 
 " You know I never drink between meals." 
 
 " But I'm offering you a meal, George. A beauti- 
 ful meal." 
 
 " It's not a regular meal." 
 
 Edward went on with his banana, and as he was 
 consuming the last mouthful the servant reappeared 
 with the kidneys. He had learnt to time all his mas- 
 ter's movements with a lovely exactness. The silver 
 cover slid over from the dish, and Edward helped
 
 26 The Buffoon 
 
 himself with all the concentration* of the artist. 
 George watched him with pained attention. When 
 Edward began to eat, the other shuffled his feet un- 
 easily, took a deep breath, and sat down, withdraw- 
 ing his chair from the table in a marked and 
 conscientious way. Edward looked up at him 
 quizzically. He was happy. The kidneys were 
 perfect. 
 
 George was not happy. He was the subject of 
 what Gibbon refers to as an " intestine dissension." 
 " His state of man, like to a little kingdom, suffered 
 then the nature of an insurrection." He wanted a 
 kidney. The cover of the dish had been rolled back 
 again, so that the remaining kidneys might not cool 
 too much in case Edward decided upon a second 
 helping, but the fragrance from Edward's plate was 
 alluring, provocative almost beyond bounds. Ed- 
 ward held up his laden fork, and the little cloud of 
 steam that puffed away from it seemed to be im- 
 mediately caught and wafted towards George by 
 some mocking sprite, set upon maddening his tor- 
 tured nostrils. And all the while Edward was en- 
 joying those kidneys, — appreciating every subtlety 
 of them in silence, with the studied jia'ir of the gour- 
 met who understands the restraint and eclecticism 
 proper to his profession. George had breakfasted 
 early and had walked some miles. This was too 
 much. He capitulated suddenly. 
 
 " After all," he said; then he paused. He cleared 
 his throat so as to arrest the flow of his shame.
 
 The Buffoon 27 
 
 "After all — er — I think I will perhaps take a 
 little kidney." 
 
 " Capital. Would you ring the bell again? " 
 
 George, after ringing, sat down and stared at the 
 tablecloth. Humiliation was upon him. He was 
 finding it impossible to keep up his righteous indig- 
 nation against Edward. This gave him a sense of 
 moral collapse. He was uncomfortable. And, to 
 make it worse, Edward had not argued with him. 
 What George had looked for was a defence from Ed- 
 ward; a defence that he would with some labour, but 
 in the end triumphantly, break down. He had imag- 
 ined that towards the end of the morning he would 
 return as a runner from his course, his spiritual 
 muscles strained, but strained to some purpose. As 
 It was, he had never felt less like a moral athlete in 
 his life. It was distressing. 
 
 " A hot plate and ale in a jug." Edward gave the 
 order. 
 
 The words seemed to George a symbol of his fall. 
 " A hot plate and ale in a jug." He saw the shame- 
 ful climax of his visit. " No, no, not ale," he stam- 
 mered feebly, but he knew that it was all inevitable 
 now. " A hot plate and ale In a jug." The words 
 beat gently, insistently, against the half-opened doors 
 of his will, and had their way. Every fibre in him 
 grew lax and more lax. He realised obscurely, as 
 he looked furtively up now and again to Edward, 
 that Edward might, in his way, be called a success. 
 
 George was baffled. He could not consent to what
 
 28 The Buffoon 
 
 he felt. His code protested, his moral formulae 
 bridled, those formulae that jerked his world on the 
 stilts of " ought " and " must." None the less a 
 moment's unphrased suspicion came that life might be 
 less simple than he thought: his vague impression of 
 a certain completeness and distinction in Edward 
 made his enjoyment of the kidneys and ale a less 
 immoral thing. 
 
 " Eat first, George. Postpone the ale. You will 
 find that better In the end. Yes." 
 
 The last word, sibilant, gentle, decisive, gave a 
 cachet to Edward's exhortation. When he said 
 " Yes " in that way at the end, after a slight pause, 
 it was like the placing of a soft velvet paw on the 
 wrist. 
 
 Edward lingered, buttering bits of dry toast till 
 George's ale was finished. He did not like to eat 
 honey when some one else was drinking ale. That 
 would have jarred. When George had done, Ed- 
 ward had the glass and jug removed. Then he took 
 honey, with brown bread. George felt embarrassed, 
 but defiant. He fumbled at his cigarette case, but 
 Edward would not let him smoke. 
 
 " Wait a few minutes, George," he said. " I must 
 eat honey first. You will enjoy your cigarette all 
 the more later on. Sit In an armchair and read 
 something." 
 
 George obeyed, Edward left the room as soon 
 as his breakfast was over; he left so quietly and
 
 rhe Buffoon 29 
 
 rapidly that the other was hardly aware of his de- 
 parture. 
 
 "Well, I'm hanged!" George ejaculated, as the 
 door shut. This was so entirely unlike anything 
 that he himself would have done.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THAT afternoon Edward drove to the station 
 in his little pony-cart to meet a man who was 
 coming down from London to pay him a 
 visit. This Reggie Tryers was a young architect, 
 whom Edward had met through Molesworth. He 
 was a restless person, and, like George, a talker. 
 Such men seemed naturally drawn to Edward; they 
 circled about him like flies. Tryers was, however, 
 only superficially like George Forrest. George 
 buzzed a great deal, but never stung: Tryers was 
 an insect with a poisonous tail. George spun busily 
 round and round without real intent: Tryers made 
 swift direct flights from point to point, his little brain 
 urgently motive all the whole. Tryers' intensity 
 was narrow, morbid, dangerous; he had a hectic 
 spirit. George's energy was expansive and physical 
 and harmless; his spiritual temperature was inevi- 
 tably normal. With George you knew exactly 
 where you' were ; he was always simply George : 
 " dear George," as Edward liked to call him. 
 Tryers was never " dear Reggie." 
 
 Edward found Tryers the more interesting of the 
 two. He had asked him down now for a few days 
 because the architect had written that he was in *' a 
 state of great mental turmoil," and required Ed- 
 
 30
 
 The Buffoon 31 
 
 ward's advice. Edward was not sure if it was his 
 advice or a little holiday that Tryers wanted, but he 
 reflected that if the mental turmoil existed it might 
 be amusing, and that if it didn't there would be no 
 harm in giving Tryers a week-end in the country. So 
 Tryers arrived that afternoon, very spotless, very 
 neat, very agile, preternaturally alert. He advanced 
 at a brisk pace along the platform, carrying a small 
 shiny brown bag as though it were a weapon of at- 
 tack. 
 
 "Well, Raynes? Got the pony-cart? Or shall 
 I have this bag sent up? Lovely day for a walk. 
 By Jove, I envy you here. If you knew how I've 
 been dying to get out of London. Simply dying." 
 (There was something barbed about Tryers' ' i ' 
 sounds.) " Oh, you have the cart. All right. 
 This is my brother-in-law, Jack Welsh. He lectures, 
 you know. You've met him, haven't you? " 
 
 Tryers indicated in his rear a turgid-faced man of 
 about thirty. Welsh gave a sprawled effect. He 
 was dressed in what looked like cast-off clothing. 
 His coat and waistcoat, dark blue, were stained and 
 spotted; some buttons were undone, others were 
 missing. His trousers, equally negligent, were of a 
 light grey, and quite filthy. He carried a bag in 
 one hand, and a suitcase in the other. 
 
 " My friend! " cried Jack Welsh, as Tryers was 
 introducing him, " my friend, I've left my coat in the 
 train! " 
 
 He dropped his luggage, and dashed for the com-
 
 32 The Buffoon 
 
 partment, reappearing with a heavy overcoat which 
 he at once put on, buttoning it tightly. The sun was 
 hot, but Edward approved. That enveloping gar- 
 ment would save trouble with the police. Welsh 
 ejaculated " Ah — ah — " as he shook hands. 
 
 " I thought you and Welsh ought to meet," ex- 
 plained Tryers. " He is quite one of our circle. 
 You can put him up, can't you ? He eats nothing but 
 eggs and bread-and-milk. We can sleep together," 
 he added nonchalantly. 
 
 Edward turned to Welsh. 
 
 " I'm delighted," he said gravely. " I think our 
 friend here" — he indicated Tryers — "will be 
 fairly well looked after at the Inn." 
 
 Welsh was enchanted. " Master of the situa- 
 tion!" he shouted. "Master of the situation! 
 Reggie, you're foiled for once." He rubbed his 
 hands violently. A girl broke into hysterical laugh- 
 ter. She was a particularly ugly girl, and she brayed 
 like a donkey. 
 
 The three men left the platform, Welsh raising 
 his hat with grave courtesy to the girl who had 
 brayed at him. He accepted her demonstration as 
 a tribute. His salute convulsed her. The hat was 
 by force of contrast the most striking point in Welsh's 
 attire. It was a quite new straw hat, some sizes 
 too small for him. 
 
 Tryers was seriously put out. Edward guessed 
 that he had planned this encounter for the discom- 
 fiture of Welsh, that he had meant Welsh to be a
 
 The Buffoon 33 
 
 laughingstock. Tryers' antagonism to his brother- 
 in-law was easily detected. It was an antagonism 
 to which Welsh's complete indifference and self- 
 absorption gave a special venom. " Venomous " 
 really was the word for certain rapid glances that 
 Edward intercepted. He decided that he would be 
 further entertained. 
 
 " I say, Tryers," he remarked, as he paid the boy 
 who was looking after his pony, " you might go over 
 to the bookstall and get me the ' Pink 'Un,' will 
 you?" 
 
 As Tryers went, Edward got into the driver's seat. 
 " Mount, Mr. Welsh," he said. " Mount at once." 
 
 Unfortunately it was impossible for Welsh to 
 mount, or indeed to do anything demanding com- 
 mon skill, at once. He regarded the pony-cart with 
 a timidity approaching terror. 
 
 " Quick, quick," urged Edward, with a touch of 
 impatience. 
 
 Welsh grimaced, shooting out his lips and contort- 
 ing his features. He waved his arms and spread 
 his hands, holding them with a pecuhar stiffness, as 
 though they were made without joints. With mani- 
 fest effort he placed one foot on the step, tried to 
 balance himself, and then with a wilder wave of his 
 arms collapsed on the road. He rose with difficulty, 
 not attempting to brush the dust, and again ap- 
 proached the step. This time he entangled his over- 
 coat in the wheel; he was seized by panic, and broke 
 away with violent jerks.
 
 34 The Buffoon 
 
 " No ! " he gasped. " No. It is too much for 
 me. I can't." 
 
 Edward was fully occupied with keeping the pony 
 in hand. " You really must get in," he gently com- 
 manded. 
 
 Welsh, with the expression of one conveyed to 
 torture, put his foot on a spoke of the wheel, jerked 
 his body towards Edward, and fell on him with feet 
 in air. As Edward grasped him round the waist he 
 wriggled distractedly into his seat. Tryers ap- 
 peared with the pink paper, and Edward let the pony 
 go. 
 
 "You'll follow after, Tryers, won't you?" he 
 called. 
 
 Tryers dropped the paper and ran, but he could 
 not overtake them. Neither Edward nor Welsh 
 looked back. Edward knew that his companion's 
 heaving hunched shoulders would be visible to Try- 
 ers till the turn of the road. He could imagine Try- 
 ers' abounding hatred of that derisive back. 
 
 "Capital!" Welsh hugged himself. "Nothing 
 could please me better. What a situation ! A mas- 
 ter! You are indeed! You are a master! You 
 understood me at once. I have an inordinate ap- 
 petite for situations of any kind, humorous or melo- 
 dramatic or sentimental. Oh, did Reggie tell you? 
 We have just come from an elopement — an elope- 
 ment ! " Welsh gave the word a peculiarly succulent 
 flavour; Edward was queerly reminded of ' cante- 
 loupe,' so sweet and fruity was the intonation. " My
 
 The Buffoon 35 
 
 brother Bertie. The bride's parents — dead against 
 it. What could be more exciting? He and the 
 girl — a frail exquisite creature, slender as a peeled 
 willow wand, — they were married in Kensington, 
 and then wher'e do you think we all went? Where? 
 Where? To a tavern by the river — at Wapping 
 Old Stairs! Wapping Old Stairs! Think of it! 
 Wapping Old Stairs ! " 
 
 " Please be careful to keep your seat," Edward 
 interposed. " My pony is a bit restive." 
 
 He had to repeat the injunction. Welsh swayed 
 and rocked from side to side, backwards and for- 
 wards, rubbing his hands and beating with his feet, 
 completely disregarding the objective facts of his 
 position. 
 
 Edward decided that it was not a question of af- 
 fectation. Welsh was not one of those people who 
 pose as naifs: they never went so far as to risk physi- 
 cal danger. No, Welsh was an egoist who acted as 
 was natural to him, and had a curious obliquity pre- 
 venting him from noticing the effect he produced on 
 others, or from copying usual conduct. There was 
 evidently little co-ordination between his body and 
 his mind. He could not manage his body; probably 
 it had never occurred to him to manage it. Edward 
 tabulated these speculations against further observa- 
 tion. He was rapidly getting reconciled to the idea 
 of Welsh, he felt even attracted to him. 
 
 " What a party we had ! " Edward caught up with 
 the train of Welsh's narrative. "What a party!
 
 36 The Buffoon 
 
 Willie O'Flaherty — the rarest spirit of the age — 
 an amazing blend of Panurge and Charles Lamb — 
 oh, you must meet Willie O'Flaherty, really you must 
 
 — Tom Fielding, the most irreconcilable, the most 
 imperturbable, of all individualists — my friend the 
 Catholic, the subtlest and corruptest of theologians 
 
 — my cousin Theodore who is a hermit and wise 
 with the wisdom of all the mystics of all the ages — 
 my little brother Lulu — a darling boy with bright 
 curly hair and amorous lips — the Catholic liked 
 him — his friend the Archangel, a wicked youth who 
 was expelled from Oxford for celebrating the Black 
 Mass — a beautiful youth and utterly unscrupulous 
 
 — an old Polish poet, a Jew, in filthy rags — a colos- 
 sal genius — and, of course, Reggie." 
 
 Look out. We're going round a rather sharp 
 
 
 corner 
 
 I tried to persuade Eunice Dinwiddle to come 
 too. A wonderful girl — an American; the most 
 beautiful and distinguished creature. I wish I could 
 have got her. Oh, Eunice is really surprising, 
 she — " 
 
 *' Eunice," said Edward medltatlv^ely. " Eu- 
 nice?" He was impressed by the name. It seemed 
 significant. 
 
 " Oh, and one of our wedding guests was a pros- 
 titute, — a real prostitute. Think of that! ' Pros- 
 titute ' is such a beautiful word; I'm always bringing 
 it into my lectures. I arranged everything, of
 
 The Buffoon ?>7 
 
 course. I even ordered the champagne. Sweet 
 champagne." 
 
 " What I " cried Edward, turning with a look of 
 horror. 
 
 " Very sweet. I like It very sweet." 
 
 " Creaming SUlery," murmured Edward with a 
 groan. 
 
 " SUlery ! How lovely and loose and blurred that 
 sounds! I hope It was SUlery. I forget. How- 
 ever, they were all drunk. We drank to Spain — 
 the first time Spain has been toasted In England since 
 the reign of Bloody Mary! The Catholic was very 
 sick. He leaned over the parapet and was sick Into 
 the river, while the Archangel discoursed to him 
 about the vices of priests. What a scene ! He was 
 quite 111 afterwards. He had to go to bed." 
 
 " I don't wonder." 
 
 *' But Ethelle — the prostitute — I wish you could 
 have seen Ethelle. I'd bought her a coloured silk 
 dress and a big hat with feathers and cherries. She 
 was enchanted! I transformed her, I really did. 
 Oh, you must meet Ethelle. I discovered her, I 
 found her In a tavern, — the lowest of all taverns. 
 Off the Vauxhall Bridge Road. She was battered and 
 dirty : soiled — she was soiled. Reduced to the very 
 last stage; consumptive, too. I am always drawn 
 to the consumptive type. There she was, jeering and 
 gibing among the riff-raff, — a derelict, a debris, a 
 litter! I didn't speak to her then. I went away:
 
 38 The Buffoon 
 
 I lost her. But I came back, and — Isn't it B.m?LZ- 
 ing? — I found her — yes, I found her! And I 
 changed her from a sordid pathetic drab to a glit- 
 tering courtesan ! But fancy finding a girl in Lon- 
 don. It was Fate; no doubt of it, it was Fate." 
 
 " Where did you find her? " 
 
 " Oh, quite near the same tavern. In the street. 
 She was just walking up and down. Up and down." 
 
 " Her beat, evidently. What have you done with 
 her now? " 
 
 " I sent her down to Liverpool. I knew old Tom 
 would look after her. He lives there, you know, — 
 Tom Fielding. I must go and see how she's getting 
 on. Come with me. We'll go together. What an 
 adventure! Ethelle is really beautiful, too. Yes," 
 he went on thoughtfully, " quite a different type of 
 beauty from Gertrude's. I am with Ethelle: then 
 I go back, I go back to Gertrude. I pass from 
 Ethelle's beauty to Gertrude's beauty." 
 
 " Who is Gertrude ? " 
 
 " My wife." 
 
 Edward jumped. Welsh was incredible. No 
 other man could have said that without being a cad, 
 but Welsh was not a cad. He was in fact immune 
 from caddishness. It was strange. 
 
 " How well you can deal with things, Mr. 
 Raynes ! " Welsh had abruptly broken off his aesthe- 
 tic reminiscences. " Upon my word I admire you. 
 I admire you ! " 
 
 His tone was almost servile. Edward suspected
 
 The Buffoon 39 
 
 in him a mania for placating people. Was it that 
 Welsh felt unable to " deal with " them in any other 
 way? Edward looked at him sharply and wished 
 he would not keep his mouth open so very wide. 
 
 "What is your cult?" Welsh demanded after a 
 pause. 
 
 Edward recognised the language of what Tryers 
 had referred to as " the circle." " I am quite nor- 
 mal," he replied. 
 
 " Ah — " Welsh opened his mouth more widely 
 still. " Ah, that scoundrel Reggie ! From a few 
 httle hints he let fall, I — well, you must meet Tom 
 Fielding. Yes, it would be excellent for you two to 
 encounter. We must arrange it." 
 
 " I am often in Liverpool." 
 
 *' We are all of us often in Liverpool. Of course. 
 I should have known. Good, — very good." 
 Welsh pronounced these last words as though he 
 were making advances to a dog who might snap if it 
 weren't humoured. 
 
 They drove on in silence until Welsh began to ex- 
 patiate on the beauties of the Sussex downs and 
 woods. 
 
 " This country pleases me," he concluded. " And 
 when there is sun ! I should like to be always in the 
 sun. I can be perfectly happy then. At other times 
 I have inhibitions — you understand me, Mr. 
 Raynes ? — taboos — of the very strangest kinds. I 
 am not allowed to do this or that; I am held back. 
 A whimsical tyranny. The sun frees me. The sun
 
 40 The Buffoon 
 
 or desire. Yes, I am at the perpetual mercy of a 
 Demogorgon. But really you know at bottom I am 
 astonishingly, incredibly proud." 
 
 " Your nerves are probably a bit wrong. You 
 mustn't eat nothing but bread-and-milk and eggs 
 when you're with me. I'll give you underdone steak 
 and Burgundy." 
 
 " But wine gives me appalling dyspepsia, and I 
 can't eat meat. The idea of butchering animals in 
 those slaughter-houses is horrible to me. If I could 
 kill them myself I might eat them. I can sometimes 
 eat a chicken if I can imagine that I have killed it." 
 
 " I'll have a chicken brought in alive, and you 
 shall wring its neck." 
 
 " Good God ! " Welsh gave a leap. " I couldn't 
 do that." 
 
 " All right. You can imagine you have wrung 
 its neck then. And perhaps you'd better take claret. 
 I believe I've got a claret that won't give you dyspep- 
 sia." 
 
 " Oh, you keep good wine. I'm rather sorry. I 
 never get on with connoisseurs or clubmen or people 
 of that sort. None of my friends know anything 
 about wine." 
 
 " That's probably why wine always gives you 
 dyspepsia." 
 
 They had reached Edward's cottage. Welsh 
 broke out into ecstasies over the garden. " Gera- 
 niums 1 " he exclaimed. " My favourite of all flow- 
 ers 1 Geraniums. How beautiful they are ! Gera-
 
 rhe Buffoon 41 
 
 niums! And those hollyhocks and pansies! Mr. 
 Raynes, I envy you. You know how to live, indeed 
 you do." 
 
 Edward was too much taken up with the prospect 
 of getting Welsh safely out of the pony-cart to pay 
 much heed to these eulogistic cries. " Yes, a pleas- 
 ant little garden," he said, and before he had time 
 to stop him, Welsh was scrambling forth as though 
 he were climbing down a cliff. Edward kept a tight 
 hand on the reins while his guest completed the de- 
 scent by ahghting heavily on both feet at once.
 
 I 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 ''T WONDER when Reggie will be here," said 
 Welsh, as Edward took him upstairs. 
 "Poor Reggie! oh, poor Reggie!" He 
 laughed silently. 
 
 " Tell me what you think of Tryers." 
 
 " He tries to interfere with my comfort," Welsh 
 replied. " He tries as hard as he can. Whenever 
 we meet he begins talking about my vices. Well, I 
 don't object to that. We none of us object to that. 
 He snaps down at me like a steel spring — he is 2l 
 steel spring. My dear Mr. Raynes, what a beauti- 
 ful room! " Welsh pronounced the adjective with 
 inordinate stress on the first syllable. " BeatitiivX ! 
 And I can see all your garden. This is really excit- 
 ing. And Reggie at the Inn! You are a master, 
 you are indeed. Well! " 
 
 He sat down on the floor by the window. Ed- 
 ward took a chair opposite him. 
 
 " Ah yes — Reggie — " Welsh continued, " I let 
 him talk — I listen to these interesting disquisitions 
 on my character. But then he gets angry because I 
 don't get angry, his voice gets shriller and shriller. 
 I seem to have a peculiarly irritating effect upon him. 
 He is always asking me why I do this and that. As 
 
 42
 
 rhe Buffoon 43 
 
 If I knew. He Is always telling me that I am ex- 
 travagantly selfish. Once after he had been staying 
 with us, we were walking to the station from my 
 house — it's about three miles — and he scolded me 
 the whole time about my being selfish. He gave 
 me his bag to carry, so that he might be freer to em- 
 phasise his points by gesture. I carried his bag for 
 two and a half miles, and he was talking about the 
 beauty of altruism all the time." 
 
 " He amuses you then? " 
 
 " Oh, he amuses me, but he doesn't like amusing 
 me at all. As a matter of fact," Welsh added 
 gravely and confidentially, " he hates me. His 
 spleen against me is terrific. That's why I really 
 think there is some distinction about Reggie; he can 
 feel so ferociously. I've seen him literally consumed 
 with hatred: he seemed to shrivel. What inten- 
 sity!" 
 
 " What kind of things does he say to you? " 
 
 " He says that my existence makes him believe in 
 the reality of a Spirit of Evil. Sometimes he says 
 that It convinces him that there Is no God — or that 
 there must be a God. I forget which. He Is al- 
 ways saying things like that. Yes, he certainly hates 
 me. I have treated his sister badly, I know, but he 
 always encouraged me — said she wouldn't mind. It 
 was what she expected, and that domestic virtues 
 were absurd, and that women had no souls, — that 
 kind of thing. I'm married to his sister, you know," 
 he added.
 
 44 The Buffoon 
 
 " Do you always do what Tryers encourages you 
 to do?" 
 
 " Nearly always. I'm like that. I can't stand 
 holding out. That kind of active discomfort is in- 
 tolerable." 
 
 " I should have thought that you gave yourself — 
 if I may say so ■ — an extremely uncomfortable kind 
 of hfe." 
 
 " Good Lord ! I'm devoted to my comfort. I'm 
 quite shameless about it." 
 
 " Well done. I only meant — if I may be so free 
 — but isn't it uncomfortable not to know how to get 
 in and out of a pony-cart? " 
 
 Welsh opened his eyes. " Oh, I can't ever do 
 things of that sort. It's a perpetual miracle to me 
 that other people can. Existence at every turn 
 seems to demand extraordinary skill on the part of 
 human beings — skill in putting on clothes, skill in 
 taking them off, skill in going on a journey, in eat- 
 ing one's food, even. It amazes me, the skill of my 
 fellow-creatures." 
 
 " It is their lack of skill that amazes me," Ed- 
 ward rejoined feelingly. " Most people do every- 
 thing amateurishly. They manage all these things 
 you speak of in a raw, imperfect way — eating, dress- 
 ing, and going about. No art, no feeling — none of 
 the right kind of pleasure in what they do. I think 
 on the whole I prefer your way to theirs. They do 
 what is just necessary, in their gross usual way. You 
 give it up altogether."
 
 The Buffoon 45 
 
 Welsh prised his body from the floor. 
 
 "That's it!" he cried. "That's it! Quite 
 right ! quite right! You are an artist. I knew it — 
 I was sure of it! I'm not an artist — I never could 
 be. Poetry, romance, rhetoric — yes — but art is 
 beyond me. I sit at your feet." 
 
 He went to his bag and opened it. It flew asun- 
 der, and as Welsh held it sideways, the contents shot 
 out on the floor. A collar-stud rolled swiftly to a 
 corner under the bed. There were half a dozen 
 books, two or three crumpled-up woollen shirts, very 
 thick, several pairs of terrific worsted socks, and a 
 dilapidated pair of white flannel trousers, with a 
 large tear through which protruded a toothbrush. 
 A pocket-comb was stuck between the leaves of one 
 book, a shaving-brush between the leaves of another. 
 Edward's view was tormented by one perfectly hor- 
 rible boot, dirty, with a hideous broad toe, and brass 
 hooks which stood out straight from the " uppers." 
 
 Welsh returned to his seat on the floor, abandon- 
 ing the mess Vomited by his bag. He looked dis- 
 mayed by the prospect of coping with it. 
 
 " You see," he went on, " Reggie brought me 
 down here so that I might be humiliated. He 
 thought to himself: 'Now I'll show you what a 
 grotesque creature you really are — now I'll have 
 my revenge. You shall see the kind of figure you 
 cut before a man of the world.' He's always telling 
 me that any really civilised person would find mc 
 Impossible — any civilised man, he says. Women,
 
 46 The Buffoon 
 
 of course, don't count. You represent for Reggie 
 the very highest point of the cultivated life. Your 
 manners are the finest, your taste the most exquisite, 
 your breeding the most perfect." 
 
 " I'm afraid he doesn't think so now." 
 
 " Oh yes, he does. I'm sure he does. He'd for- 
 give you anything. All his rancour will be for me. 
 He would never hate you. You can deal with the 
 world, you have money, you have position." 
 
 " I didn't know I had any position." 
 
 " Reggie thinks so. It's what we call a position. 
 Anyhow, Reggie is tremendously proud of you. He 
 is always saying that you would put me to shame. 
 I am a boor, he says, and only fit for the company of 
 boors. He expected to have some of the happiest 
 days of his life down here, with you and me. Poor 
 Reggie! But he'll never forgive me. If only he 
 could whip me and stand me in the corner! He 
 might recover then." * 
 
 " Let's go down and have some tea," said Edward.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 TRYERS returned as they were finishing their 
 second cups. He had evidently been walk- 
 ing at a tremendous rate. His face was 
 shining and his collar was limp. Edward offered 
 him tea. 
 
 Tryers struck a match vigorously. " No tea for 
 me," he said as he lit his cigarette. " I am not in 
 the mood for tea. And what are you thinking of? " 
 He turned fiercely to Welsh, who was regarding him 
 with interest. 
 
 " Your nose," replied Welsh, simply. 
 
 Tryers was speechless. His nose was long and 
 pointed. It looked particularly protrusive when he 
 was hot. 
 
 "Well — I — " he stammered. "You are sim- 
 ply disgusting, Jack." 
 
 " Come, come," Edward intercepted, " you asked 
 him. If you won't take tea, we might all go for a 
 walk. My friend George Forrest will join us. He 
 said he'd be round at a quarter past five. An ad- 
 mirable man. To know him is to love him. He 
 reminds me of you in some ways, Tryers." Tryers 
 looked suspicious. " He has wonderful energy and 
 a great deal of conscience." 
 
 47
 
 48 The Buffoon 
 
 " Yes, Reggie," Welsh put in, '* I always said you 
 had conscience. The Cardinal Newman element in 
 your face will triumph, my friend." 
 
 " You'll probably meet George again at breakfast 
 to-morrow. An aunt of his is down here staying at 
 the Inn, and to-morrow he's breakfasting with her. 
 Do remember to tell the aunt to order kidneys. 
 George is extremely fond of kidneys. Grilled, of 
 course. Tryers, you'll really like George. He is an 
 important person here. He is just like the Bishop 
 of London. He has a wonderful way with young 
 people. You remember that pretty little girl you ad- 
 mired last time you were here — Norah Weekes? 
 He knows her quite well. He'll introduce you." 
 
 Tryers' eyes glistened, and Welsh began to listen 
 attentively. 
 
 " You might do worse, you know, than breakfast 
 with George. Yes, he has great influence here, great 
 influence. His cousin — I think it was his cousin — 
 married a man whose uncle by marriage is — or was 
 — a lord. A useful man, George. But shall we 
 go?" 
 
 They met George Forrest just outside the garden 
 gate. He was punctual to the moment, as Edward 
 had calculated. Tryers showed a disposition to at- 
 tach himself exclusively to Edward, and they soon 
 fell behind the other two. 
 
 " Really, Tryers," Edward meditatively regarded 
 Welsh's back — " you ought to do something for 
 your brother-in-law. You ought to take him in
 
 The Buffoon 49 
 
 hand. Don't you think he lets himself in for a quite 
 unnecessary amount of agitation and discomfort?" 
 
 " He likes it," Tryers retorted. " I'm convinced 
 that he likes being a fool. It's simply a pose — " 
 
 " I doubt it. It's a queer kind of laziness, that's 
 what it is." 
 
 " Yes, of course it's laziness — sheer laziness." 
 Tryers spoke rapidly. " It's exasperating, how lazy 
 he is. He could easily write — he could make a 
 name for himself, if he only tried. But he won't. 
 He has ideas, of a sort — a kind of imagination. 
 But it's too much trouble to put pen to paper. Oh, 
 you wouldn't have much patience with him, I can tell 
 you, if you saw as much of him as I do." 
 
 " Has he written anything at all? " 
 
 " Nothing but stray poems and a few chapters of a 
 disgraceful novel." 
 
 " Oh, I must encourage him to finish that." 
 
 " If he ever gets it published, it will break his 
 mother's heart — yes, that I know." Tryers' sylla- 
 bles reminded Edward of the teeth of a saw. " But 
 he won't finish it. His laziness is incurable." 
 
 " You really must cultivate George Forrest. You 
 would agree with him entirely. He hates laziness 
 just as much as you do. Personally I don't see why 
 Welsh shouldn't be lazy if he likes, but I'm sorry he 
 gets so little out of it." 
 
 " He's happy," said Tryers aggressively. 
 
 " Evidently that doesn't please you." 
 
 " No, it does not please me." Tryers was lashed
 
 50 The Buffoon 
 
 to passion. " I tell you, Raynes, his kind of happi- 
 ness is a curse — it's a curse to him and a curse to 
 every one who meets him. He's a living blight ! If 
 you knew what I've suffered from that man! If 
 there's a soul alive who can bring up all that's evil in 
 me, it's Jack Welsh. He kills — yes, kills — at 
 once and without mercy — everything that's good 
 and fine. He's corrosive. — When I'm with him 
 my soul is simply eaten away — eaten away! " 
 
 " Why be with him, then? " Edward spoke lightly, 
 but he was really rather attracted by Tryers' savage 
 intensity. After all, the man was more distinguished 
 than George. 
 
 Tryers slashed vehemently at a flower with his 
 stick. 
 
 " I must think of my sister," he replied. " I can't 
 leave her alone to Welsh. His cruelty is appalling 
 — you can't conceive it — not ordinary cruelty. He 
 tortures the soul. Everything with him is in the 
 brain. Nothing you can take hold of. That's why 
 he maddens me. He suggests to me the most 
 abominable vices — he doesn't act them himself, he 
 can only enjoy them by getting other people to act 
 them. That's his pleasure — the devil ! " 
 
 " Very interesting. Do you think he would sug- 
 gest them to me? " 
 
 Tryers halted suddenly. He fronted his com- 
 panion. 
 
 " Don't be frivolous about this, Raynes, I implore 
 you. There are times when the Oxford manner — "
 
 The Buffoon 51 
 
 " I was at Cambridge." 
 
 *' I'm in earnest, I can tell you — deadly earnest 
 — about Welsh. He has no soul, and his mission is 
 to rob other people of theirs." 
 
 " Like the fox without a tail? " 
 
 Tryers turned impatiently, and started off at a 
 rapid pace to catch up with the others. Edward 
 clutched at his coat-tails. 
 
 " My dear fellow," he remonstrated, " you won't 
 save your soul by walking ten miles an hour. Go 
 on talking to me. What you say interests me." 
 
 Tryers slowed down, but was silent. Edward had 
 often regretted his lack of humour. The comic pa- 
 pers gave Tr>^ers his ideas of what was funny. In 
 his lighter moods he was simply intolerable; his con- 
 versation suggested a facetious scrap-book. 
 
 " You said something in your letter about mental 
 turmoil," Edward remarked after awhile. " I 
 rather want to hear about that." 
 
 " You wish to ridicule me, Raynes." 
 
 " Nothing of the kind. I was wondering if you 
 had brought your brother-in-law as a sort of object- 
 lesson." 
 
 " Not altogether. I wanted to know how you 
 would take him, I wanted you to advise me in deal- 
 ing with him." 
 
 " I shouldn't have thought Welsh was the kind of 
 man to influence you much." 
 
 " I thought that at first. That's just why he's 
 so dangerous, because he seems such a fool. But he
 
 52 The Buffoon 
 
 can talk, he can work in your mind. I think he 
 has a kind of hypnotic power — hidden away. I tell 
 you I feel that I have him in my blood sometimes — 
 I tell you how it is," Tryers went on excitedly. 
 " His own body won't answer to his horrible brain — 
 you've seen for yourself that he has no command of 
 his body — and his body is diseased. Do you 
 know," Tryers spoke indignantly, " he has practi- 
 cally no stomach at all? " 
 
 '* Good Lord, how uncomfortable ! I can forgive 
 Welsh anything now. No soul and hardly any stom- 
 ach ! " 
 
 Tryers was too much wrought to take any notice. 
 
 *' You see, Raynes, how it is. It's a ghastly busi- 
 ness, all this. He gets me — gets me slowly — in 
 his way — and then he shoots his poison. I'm the 
 soobject." 
 
 Edward knew that Tryers was thoroughly roused, 
 because he had begun to talk with a North-country 
 accent. That emphatic broadening of the vowels 
 reinforced his speech. Tryers came of good Nor- 
 man yeoman stock; he showed his origin in the hard 
 narrow quality of his tenacity, in that energ>' of his 
 that drove straight furrows; and in the vigour of 
 his frame. 
 
 " I'm the soobject," he repeated. " He's got the 
 physical force in me that he laacks, and the will for 
 aaction. He can't go further than imaagine evil — 
 he's what they call a Cerebralist. My God! " he 
 broke out, " I think he does little but imaagine evil
 
 The Buffoon 53 
 
 all day long ! And he's given me a diseased mind in 
 a healthy body, thaat's what he's done. Thaat's 
 what he's always wanted to do, and meant to do, 
 daamm him! " 
 
 " At any rate," said Edward gently, " I hope you 
 get some enjoyment out of your wickedness." 
 
 " I don't. No, not real enjoyment, I'm horribly 
 disturbed, I'm in a fever, when I give myself to 
 evil. Of course I know, Raynes, that you'll say 
 good and evil have no real existence, that our lines 
 between them are artificial and foolish. Nietzsche 
 and all that." Tryers was calmer now. " But I 
 tell you that I am sure of the reality of evil — this 
 last year has made me sure of it. Not believe in 
 evil ! Man, I tell you that Alexander might as well 
 have not believed in the existence of the Persians! 
 If you fight a thing, you know it's real. And when 
 I lose in the fight I'm miserable, and when I win I'm 
 restless and discontented — the prey of desire. All 
 his lust in my veins — and then he comes in with his 
 covert taunts : ' Oh, my friend, well done ! I ad- 
 mire your persistence, I really do.' And I see it's 
 all a farce to him. I'm in it for his amusement." 
 Tryers gritted his teeth. 
 
 " Rather like Jekyll and Hyde. You quite thrill 
 me. 
 
 *' It's not like Jekyll and Hyde. It's much worse. 
 I wouldn't mind if this evil were part of my own na- 
 ture. It isn't — it's not in me at all. But I'm going 
 to get out of it. I've made up my mind."
 
 54 The Buffoon 
 
 " Good. By the bye, I'm not so sure that you 
 should have met George Forrest, after all. He 
 might Introduce you to Norah Weekes. I couldn't 
 be responsible for handing over that poor child to 
 this demon of Welsh's, could I now?" 
 
 Tryers' face changed. " Don't, Raynes — don't, 
 I entreat you. I shouldn't have brought Welsh 
 here if I'd remembered that girl. He mustn't be 
 allowed to see her — to see her, mind. He won't 
 touch her, he won't even talk to her — but he'll 
 think, he'll look and think. I know it sounds ab- 
 surd, but that's how he does harm. It isn't absurd 
 really. I was talking to an Indian the other day, and 
 he quite understood it. Said that infinite harm 
 might be done by looks and thoughts. But you 
 torment me when you talk of Norah. I don't think 
 I ought to have come myself, with her here. She 
 stirs up all those awful temptations — " 
 
 Edward laughed. 
 
 " My dear man, why be so serious about it ? For- 
 give me if I seem Oxonian, but it really is a mis- 
 take sometimes, this serious point of view." 
 
 " Lust is always serious." 
 
 " Perhaps, but there should be a laugh somewhere, 
 and it's up to us to see that the laugh is on our side. 
 Norah is simply a commonplace, pretty young 
 creature, very conscious of her sex attraction, ready 
 enough for flirtations, but sensible enough to keep 
 herself in hand. That's all there is in it, and all 
 there ever will be. If you want to amuse yourself
 
 The Buffoon 55 
 
 with the girl, go ahead. She won't be troubled by 
 any mental turmoil. But I shall ask you to be a 
 little discreet. I'm here a good deal, you know, and 
 gossip is sometimes a nuisance. It's a small place. 
 We're not in Liverpool." 
 
 " Ah, Raynes, that's like you." Tryers' face had 
 grown tense while Edward was speaking. " Lust 
 isn't really a vice of yours, I've always said that. 
 A man who isn't a drunkard can enjoy his glass and 
 be none the worse. But I'm not like that. Even 
 if I didn't harm Norah, she would harm me. But 
 the evil in me would touch her, I know it would," he 
 concluded fiercely. 
 
 " Don't flatter yourself. I bet you a sovereign 
 to half a crown that nothing you could do would 
 hurt Norah in the least. Go on and try." 
 
 Tryers did not answer at once. Then very de- 
 cisively he said: " I won't." 
 
 " No, I won't. This is the time to begin the 
 struggle. I should have begun — really begun — 
 before. I've been weak — it's that man has made 
 me weak. When I look back, I see how he started 
 — how he worked it all out — " 
 
 " I can't believe that Welsh would ever work any- 
 thing out." 
 
 " Oh yes, he did. He undermined my Faith — 
 that was his first step. He didn't do it himself. 
 That would have been too much trouble, and he 
 knows he can't argue. He introduced me to an 
 Oxford man — "
 
 56 The Buffoon 
 
 "Oh, these Oxford men!" 
 
 " — the most devastating materialist I've ever 
 met." Tryers shuddered. " Then he would talk 
 himself about the free happy Pagan life — ' freed 
 from all Christian hopes and fears ' ; as his friend 
 O'Flaherty put it. He knew my passions were 
 strong. He knew that it was only my religion — 
 my belief In immortality — that saved me from them. 
 He knew that the one sure way to ruin me was to 
 take away my Faith and let my passions have full 
 swing." 
 
 " He took a flattering Interest in you, at any rate." 
 
 "Flattering! It was the kind of game that 
 amused him. — And then when I yielded, when I 
 went his way, ' Are you so sure,' he'd say, ' that this 
 free Pagan life is the best after all? Won't you be 
 sorry in the end? Aren't you a little sorry even 
 now? Don't you sometimes look back with a certain 
 regret?' Curse him! He wouldn't let me enjoy 
 even that life, though it was he who had seduced 
 me!" 
 
 " Yes — that was unkind. But tell me what are 
 you going to do about it? " 
 
 " That's where I want your help. I felt I must 
 tell you, I must get you on my side. I've got to go 
 through an awful ordeal, Raynes, and the hardest 
 thing will be the taunts and laughter of my friends." 
 A couple of flies, amorously interlocked, fell on 
 Tryers' nose, as though they too intended to join 
 the ranks of the mockers. " That's my weak point. 
 
 5>
 
 rhe Buffoon 57 
 
 Tryers flicked angrily. " I'm sensitive to ridicule. 
 I beg of you, Raynes, don't make it any harder for 
 me to win back my Faith. I have the will to be- 
 lieve, to beheve again. I mean to ! Don't you 
 stand in my way." 
 
 Edward looked at him. He appeared to be per- 
 fectly sincere. He had spoken with concentrated de- 
 termination, quietly, and with a certain dignity. Ed- 
 ward reserv^ed judgment. 
 
 *' Of course I won't stand in your way," he re- 
 plied. " You know what I think. So far as I can 
 make out, what a man happens to believe doesn't 
 change him in the least. You'll be just the same, 
 with faith or without. When I came here first 
 George Forrest was a staunch Tory. Now he's a 
 vigorous Radical. But he's precisely the same 
 George Forrest." 
 
 " Oh — politics ! That's quite another thing. 
 Religious belief will make all the difference to me." 
 
 " I hope it will take well. But let us catch them 
 up. Let us approach this seducer of* human souls."
 
 N 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 '^"^ "^OW then," said Welsh, after a pause, 
 twisting and screwing his absurd straw 
 hat on his head, " now then, Mr. 
 Raynes," he said hopefully, " let us talk, about some- 
 thing interesting." 
 
 This remark made Tryers restive. " We ought 
 to turn now, oughtn't we? " he suggested, with evi- 
 dent ill-humour. 
 
 " Certainly," Edward replied, " we will turn a 
 little later on. And we will talk, — if possible about 
 something interesting, to please Mr. Welsh." 
 
 Tryers brightened. This sounded like sarcasm. 
 But then Jack was such an egotist, he never would un- 
 derstand it! 
 
 Edward was silent for some time, thinking about 
 Welsh. Tryers, shaking off his bad temper, began 
 to make friends with George. He chatted with him 
 in a clubable, gentlemanly way about cricket, the 
 Boy Scouts, and Municipal administration. Mean- 
 while Edward looked at Welsh, who walked with 
 hunched shoulders by his side, silent and absorbed. 
 There was really something fine about the man's 
 face, Edward thought, though there was scarcely a 
 feature that would bear criticism. The nose was 
 thickened at the bridge and slightly flattened at the 
 
 58
 
 rhe Buffoon 59 
 
 point. It had a curiously unformed animal look. 
 His chin at first gave the impression of being strong 
 and broad and well moulded, but in profile it showed 
 as underhung and receding. His green eyes had a 
 shght cast, his lips were thin and very loose. His 
 forehead was like a girl's, low and broad, but not 
 massive: his short hair, with its tight black curls, 
 grew close over it, in level line. To the casual ob- 
 server the man would be either remarkably handsome 
 or grotesquely ugly. Yes, every one would get a 
 different impression from his face. A clever photog- 
 rapher could have made of him either a lord of men 
 or a despicable ass. Edward was baffled and in- 
 terested. The head itself did give an effect of mas- 
 siveness, but even so it was an effect that one felt 
 could not be trusted. " A mock face, a sham coun- 
 tenance," mused Edward, in some bewilderment. 
 He recalled Welsh's ridiculous timidity, the abject 
 mien he could wear. How entirely like an imbecile, 
 and again how almost nobly, he could look! 
 
 Certainly there was nothing mediocre about him. 
 He was not a charlatan, not true to that type. Ed- 
 ward kept watching him. At one moment he gave 
 an effect of unusual harmony, at the next of some- 
 thing singularly incomplete and formless. 
 
 " Yes," Tryers was saying, " it won't do to let this 
 Municipal Socialism go too far. In fact, I feel that 
 it has reached its limits already. You remember 
 what Chamberlain said on the subject — " 
 
 "A renegade!" George broke in decisively.
 
 60 The Buffoon 
 
 *' The man was a renegade. He split the Party. 
 Put the clock back. A most reactionary influence, I 
 consider. And that Tariff Reform! " 
 
 Tryers had forgotten that his companion was a 
 Radical. "Yes, yes," he replied hurriedly, "but 
 when Chamberlain said that about Municipal Social- 
 ism he was still perfectly sound." 
 
 " I don't believe he ever was sound." 
 
 Edward decided to change the subject. " Let's 
 talk about something that really matters," he said. 
 
 " That really matters ! " George echoed indig- 
 nantly. "Doesn't Free Trade matter? Doesn't 
 the Food of the People matter? " 
 
 " Ah, George, what incorrigible humorists you 
 Liberals are. If we're to live comfortably without 
 doing any work, the people must go a bit short on 
 food. Free Trade or Protection won't alter that." 
 
 " Fm of your opinion, Mr. Raynes ! " Welsh 
 declared very loudly and emphatically. " The Peo- 
 ple — these great masses of our fellow-creatures — 
 they are abominably ill-used! And they are the 
 noblest of us all ! Think of all the vices we are cursed 
 with, think of all our false ideas and false con- 
 ventions ! If you want truth and simplicity and 
 candour and real humanity, you must go to the 
 poor." 
 
 " Charming," Edward replied. " Moral pre- 
 eminence of the greatest number. What a gener- 
 ous tribute to our social system I What more can
 
 The Buffoon 61 
 
 you want ! All the same, Mr. Welsh, the poor lead 
 disgusting lives, and they are, generally speaking, 
 disgusting people." 
 
 The other three men clamoured In protest. 
 
 " What blasphemy! " cried Welsh. 
 
 " A gross libel on the British working classes," 
 said George. 
 
 " I think you are most unfair," Tryers chimed in. 
 " The poor are pretty well as good as we are, at any 
 rate." 
 
 Socialist (for Welsh called himself a Socialist), 
 Radical, and Conservative (Tryers was really a 
 Conservative) were unanimous against him. 
 
 " Tell me, George," Edward went on, " are you 
 in search of nobility and virtue ? Of course you are. 
 So are you, Tryers; don't say you're not. Follow 
 Mr. Welsh's advice, then. Go to the poor. Then 
 come back and tell me all about it." 
 
 " Ah, you're a cynic," exclaimed Welsh. " A 
 Gibbonian ironist!" 
 
 George was still Indignant. 
 
 " But I do see a great deal of the poor," he said. 
 " The movements that I'm interested in are always 
 bringing me Into contact with them. And I find 
 them a good, Industrious, conscientious, clean-living 
 lot on the whole." 
 
 " Yes, but you see them through the coloured 
 glasses of these Movements of yours. They're not 
 themselves with you, George. You're a gentleman
 
 62 The Buffoon 
 
 to them. Of course they know all the time that 
 you're running them as a hobby, and they make what 
 they can out of it." 
 
 *' I don't believe it. Our motto is comradeship 
 — comradeship on equal terms." 
 
 *' You don't fool them there." 
 
 "Fool them!" 
 
 " When you get born again, George, be born a 
 proletarian." 
 
 " I will be," cried Welsh excitedly, " upon my 
 soul, I will be ! " 
 
 " Just imagine yourself," Edward continued to 
 address George, " as a real proletarian, with any 
 number of criminal tendencies." 
 
 " Nonsense ! " George took him up eagerly. 
 " Most of the poor are perfectly decent and well- 
 conducted and law-abiding." 
 
 " Then they ought to be ashamed of themselves. 
 If a poor man hasn't criminal tendencies he can't 
 have guts. Why should he have all our restraints 
 and none of our advantages? What use is the law 
 to him? Why should he abide by it? The law is 
 for us. We've made it to protect ourselves and 
 to keep the poor where they are." 
 
 " Anarchy ! Anarchy ! Magnificent, Mr. Raynes ! 
 I commend you! " Welsh was delighted. 
 
 " You are certainly right there," George gloomily 
 observed. " It is anarchy." 
 
 " We can only hope that Raynes won't go and tell
 
 The Buffoon 63 
 
 the poor all about it," said Tryers rather feebly. 
 He was piqued by losing his place as the chief 
 speaker. 
 
 " Anyhow," George continued, " the law protects 
 the poor nowadays. We've got far beyond 
 medicEval injustice and tyranny and all that. 
 Abolish law, and the poor would be the first to suf- 
 fer." 
 
 "I don't know," cried Welsh. "Riots — 
 revolutions — the barricades! The Sans-culottcs 
 and the Terror! There's some colour about that. 
 Oh, you queer son of chaos," — he turned to Edward 
 — " with your meteoric bolts ! " 
 
 " One moment," Edward said. " I see a little 
 white skirt fluttering along the path over there. 
 Isn't that your friend, George, isn't that Norah? " 
 
 George was embarrassed. " Oh, that child? " he 
 said in an off-hand way. Both Welsh and Tryers 
 preserved an expectant silence. 
 
 " And now," Edward broke the pause, " why not 
 consider Mr. Welsh and talk of something interest- 
 ing? Why not debate on Mr. Welsh himself? Or 
 shall I give you a little exposition of Mr. George 
 Forrest's true character? " 
 
 " I hope you'll spare us that at least, Raynes." 
 George stiffened at once. 
 
 Tryers began picking flowers as they walked. 
 
 " There you are." Edward was plaintive. " I 
 knew George would be up in arms. He thinks we
 
 64 The Buffoon 
 
 mustn't be personal, we mustn't be too intimate." 
 
 " Come on," exclaimed Welsh, who had listened 
 with evident approval, " come on, let's do it. Let's 
 all discuss each other. It's a splendid idea! I'll 
 begin. I'll tell you all about Reggie Tryers." 
 
 Tryers flushed. " I'm sorry to hamper your in- 
 teresting conversation, Jack, but I'm not particularly 
 anxious to be blackguarded in public." He went 
 on picking flowers with accelerated energy. 
 
 " Well, then," Edward turned to George, " can't 
 you do something? Tell them about me, style and 
 substance as this morning, you remember?" He 
 laid his hand on George's arm. 
 
 George stammered protestingly. " This is — 
 really, Raynes, this is most unfair." 
 
 " Welsh says I'm a son of chaos, with an armoury 
 of meteoric bolts, and you say I'm a son of luxury, 
 idly revolving under the shadow of a wasted life. 
 What do you say I am, Tryers?" 
 
 " I say you play with ideas like toys, and don't care 
 a brass farthing about anything." Tryers spoke 
 brightly and defiantly. 
 
 " You're certainly a very wicked man, I've no 
 doubt of that," Welsh remarked with enthusiasm. 
 " How fortunate ! It's a hobby of mine, the dis- 
 covery of really wicked men." 
 
 " But ' wicked ' means nothing at all — " 
 
 " You prove yourself by that," Welsh exulted. 
 " Oh, you wicked Mr. Raynes 1 You've shown us 
 hoofs and tail."
 
 The Buffoon 65 
 
 " We all have them, I believe. They never were 
 distinctive." 
 
 " About the poor," George unexpectedly declared. 
 His thoughts had been wandering, he spoke now 
 from a sense of duty. " About the poor. You've 
 no idea how much better things are." 
 
 " Surely," Tryers followed on, " the modern 
 tendency is all towards equality of opportunity." 
 He had quite a handful of flowers by this time. 
 
 " Ah — " Edward shaded his eyes, " we are just 
 in time to intercept our little Norah. — Do you see? 
 She will cross our path." 
 
 Welsh and Tryers had both kept an eye on Norah 
 since Edward's indication of her. They now in- 
 stinctively quickened their steps. George cast a dis- 
 approving glance on Edward, and carefully fell a 
 little behind. They all got over the stile into the 
 high road before him. 
 
 " A pretty creature," Edward remarked in an un- 
 dertone, as the girl came towards them. She had 
 seen them, and carried herself with a conscious 
 aplomb. " For complexion she couldn't do better, 
 and that caught-in underllp is really provoking. 
 Don't you think so, Tryers? And I'm glad she 
 hasn't put her hair up yet. Hair should be either 
 quite dark or blond or auburn: the between shades 
 are always tiresome. Norah's hair is black enough 
 to give the idea of depth, and there's so much of it. 
 Nice long hair." 
 
 " And quite straight," Welsh put in.
 
 66 The Buffoon 
 
 " Don't stare at her like that," hissed Tryers, 
 "You'll frighten her!" 
 
 " I like straight hair," Welsh went on. 
 
 Norah was only a few yards from them now. She 
 turned her head slightly in their direction, smiled 
 very rapidly, and walked a little faster. 
 
 "Norah!" Edward called. "Don't run away 
 from us. Mr. Forrest will be heart-broken if you 
 run away." 
 
 The girl wavered and moved a little away from 
 them, drawing back to the opposite side of the road. 
 Quite the right thing for her to do, Edward noted. 
 She instinctively avoided behaving like either a minx 
 or a prude. 
 
 " But I'm going to the Farm," she replied. " And 
 I must get back home soon with the milk — and the 
 butter — and the eggs." 
 
 Her voice was pitched low, and kept almost to the 
 same level, without that rise and fall that is usual 
 with country girls. The hesitation between every 
 few of her words was delicious — so many unspoken 
 things seemed to fill those interspaces ! — and she 
 laughed when she had finished speaking, with veiled 
 challenge. 
 
 The four men gravitated slowly and spontaneously 
 towards her. It was Welsh who fell back now, 
 standing just behind George, observing first Norah 
 and then Tryers with a concentrated intensity of 
 gaze. If any admirer of his could have seen him
 
 The Buffoon 67 
 
 then, she would have been sure that this was the su- 
 preme moment of his poetic inspiration. 
 
 " My friends here," Edward continued conversa- 
 tionally, " have just come down from London. 
 This gentleman," he indicated Tryers, " is an artist. 
 He paints beautiful pictures." 
 
 Norah looked suspiciously at Tryers, who was 
 smiling down at her. She turned away. 
 
 " He told me," Edward went on, " that he wanted 
 to paint the prettiest girl in the village. He wants 
 to paint you." 
 
 Norah laughed. George cleared his throat and 
 tapped his foot on the ground. Welsh gazed 
 without moving a muscle. " You do like teasing, 
 Mr. Raynes," said the girl, still laughing. 
 
 Edward appealed to Tryers. " Do back me up," 
 he said. " This young lady thinks I can't tell the 
 truth." 
 
 " Of course, of course." Tryers' tone was brisk 
 and business-like. He advanced with his flowers 
 and handed them to the girl. " I picked these for 
 you," he said, lowering his voice. 
 
 Norah took them and put them in her basket. 
 " Oh, thank you, I'm sure," she said discouragingly. 
 
 However, Edward thought he might as well " fin- 
 is-h the work he was in." " Perhaps to-morrow 
 morning? " he said. " You're generally out in the 
 morning, aren't you, Norah? " 
 
 Norah looked doubtfully up at him. She rather
 
 68 The Buffoon 
 
 liked Edward, but always suspected him of making 
 fun of her. She was on her guard. " Yes, maybe," 
 she replied. She gave a glance in the direction of 
 Welsh, who was ferociously absorbing the situation. 
 His aspect scared the girl, and she looked away, as 
 though for protection, to George. George was on 
 the stile, embarrassed, making funny little move- 
 ments with his stick. 
 
 " Well, good-bye," Edward continued. " You'll 
 see, you'll have a beautiful portrait." 
 
 " Good-bye," said Tryers reluctantly. " Good- 
 bye for the present." George raised his hand, and 
 at him the girl smiled. 
 
 The four men went on. Edward sharply real- 
 ised a furtive and ashamed change in himself, in 
 Tryers and in George. They seemed all three to 
 have become obtrusively and awkwardly sexed, to 
 be labouring under the effort of veiling the discom- 
 fiture of their male weakness, of forcing an aspect 
 of immunity, of ' getting away with it.' Dignity, 
 to all three, came in an almost farcical way, unin- 
 vited, as an absurd matter of course, inevitably in- 
 cidental to their masculinity. They became gro- 
 tesquely smeared over with the likeness of animals 
 that go in herds. Edward felt resentful. He did 
 not like having to feel furtive and ashamed at the 
 command of his ancestors: he did not like losing 
 himself in line with Tryers and George. And why 
 was Welsh out of the line? He was jealous of 
 Welsh's distinction. The lecturer remained ab-
 
 The Buffoon 69 
 
 sorbed, ruminant, quite satisfied, while Edward and 
 the other two were mulcted, teased and flicked, 
 stupidly driven to a pretence that they weren't. 
 
 As they turned the corner Edward glanced back 
 and saw Norah shaking Tryers' flowers out of her 
 basket. Her gesture was beautifully light and 
 debonair. How easily she dealt with it all! But 
 certainly with no abatement of the so indomitable, 
 the so superior, tenacity of her sex.
 
 CHAPTER VH 
 
 THEY walked in silence for some minutes: 
 then Tryers said suddenly: "What time 
 in the morning is she usually out? " 
 
 " Oh, early — fairly early. Before your break- 
 fast or mine," Edward informed bim. 
 
 " She'd be just round about here, I suppose? " 
 
 " Oh, yes. Through the village — up to the 
 Farm and back again to where she lives, doing er- 
 rands and that kind of thing. I see her from my 
 window pretty well every morning." 
 
 " Oh ! " Tryers turned to George. " I hope you 
 don't object," he said. " Of course, if you — " 
 
 George ruffled. " It is no business whatever of 
 mine." 
 
 " No harm meant, you know." Tryers was eager 
 to make it all right. George said nothing more, and 
 a few minutes later when they reached a turning 
 which he could take to his house he left the others 
 rather abruptly. 
 
 Welsh laid a hand on Edward's shoulder. 
 
 "Well, Pandarus," he said, "well, wicked one! 
 
 Oh, corrupt, corrupt! What unscrupulousness, 
 
 what mastery of the art! These diversions of a 
 
 philosopher ! " He leered at him. 
 
 " I see," Edward replied, " these excitements are 
 
 70
 
 The Buffoon 71 
 
 too much for you. Emulate your brother-in-law's 
 remarkable self-command." 
 
 "And Reggie!" Welsh opened his mouth and 
 grinned at Tryers. " Reggie led into temptation ! 
 Ah, how you'll suffer for this later on, in agony and 
 sweat! " 
 
 " I do what I choose." Tryers turned on him. 
 " You will find that out, too, later on, that I do what 
 I choose." 
 
 " Mr. Raynes," — Welsh clasped Edward's arm 
 — " my brother-in-law is always most interesting in 
 this kind of mood. Pray observe him. He has 
 fallen. You know he thinks he ought to lead a 
 monastic life, and he's quite right: he has the 
 medisEval religious nature. He's like Saint Au- 
 gustine before conversion. He has reached the 
 stage now of sinning against the light. The most in- 
 teresting of all stages; I am wondering how long it 
 will last. This is one of his relapses that you've 
 just brought about. Reggie alternates just now be- 
 tween the divine and the devilish spirit." 
 
 Tryers, who had been attempting interruptions, 
 could now hardly speak for rage. It was easy to 
 read his humiliation by this presentment of him- 
 self as a spectacle turned to account for the interest 
 of the moment. " Damn you. Jack," he gulped, " I 
 won't have this. You are a cad." 
 
 " I'm always telling him," Welsh continued, " that 
 he'd really be happier if he overcame the devilish 
 mood altogether. His energies, you see, would then
 
 72 The Buffoon 
 
 be released. He would be more tranquil, more at 
 ease — and he would produce. He might plan 
 some great Cathedral, for example, to-morrow morn- 
 ing instead of pretending to sketch little Norah." 
 
 " What a tease you are ! " Edward laughed. 
 " For all you know, he may plan his Cathedral after 
 lunch." 
 
 " No, he won't. He'll be either suffering the tor- 
 ments of repentance or the torments of desire." 
 Welsh's eyes glistened. 
 
 Tryers looked at him with savage persistency of 
 hatred. " Well," he said, as with his back to the 
 wall, " at any rate, Raynes, this shows you the truth 
 of what I was telling you." 
 
 Edward steered out of danger. " And you, Mr. 
 Welsh," he observed politely, " you, I suppose, are 
 remote from the usual temptations. You stand 
 apart, a spectator, regarding with philosophic calm 
 the frailties of men, and putting them all in their 
 place." 
 
 "Well — " the other hesitated, " I admit that I 
 find it a little fatiguing — a trifle tiresome, to deal 
 with — er — objective matter. It's not in my line. 
 I find it so much more easy, more satisfactory, simply 
 to imagine. ' Whosoever looketh on a woman — ' 
 — you remember? " 
 
 " That text must be very consoling to you." 
 
 " Ah, it is! it is! " Welsh was radiant. " Some- 
 how — I don't know why — but the circumstances of 
 the quest — the apparatuses — the things you have
 
 The Buffoon 73 
 
 to do, the ways you have to go about it — they are all 
 so very troublesome, so very commonplace, so very 
 vulgar. I really cannot. — And my material is so 
 simple. I am content with almost anything. The 
 beach at Littlehampton in the summer, for example. 
 It is quite enough for me to sit there. I can sit on 
 that beach for hours together." 
 
 " Holding a silent orgy? " inquired Edward. " I 
 should have thought that was rather exhausting." 
 
 " So it is," Tryers exclaimed indignantly. 
 " That's why Welsh has this frightful nervous 
 dyspepsia. It's all through that cursed Cerebralism 
 of his." 
 
 "It's worth it!" cried Welsh. 
 
 Tryers shuddered, — all over his body, as he often 
 did, suggesting a snake. " It's horrible," he said 
 with conviction. 
 
 " Just think," Welsh branched off, " what a priest 
 you would make, Reggie. You are cut out for a 
 priest. Think of the confessions ! You would un- 
 derstand everything so well — oh, I can just hear 
 you, counselling your penitents. How exciting! 
 In a church you had planned yourself, with infinite 
 care ! — And the next morning, when they came up 
 to the Altar Rails — repentant — these passionate 
 eager boys and tremulous yielding girls — human — 
 all — too — human ! Ah, how much you could 
 make of that ! You would know it all, remember, — 
 they would glance up at you, they would know that 
 you knew it all. How shyly they would glance, with
 
 74 The Buffoon 
 
 what exquisite shame ! And you would be their 
 priest. They must tell you. Can't you imagine 
 their sweet reluctance, their pain — and with their 
 pain a certain dangerous pleasure? Oh, what sen- 
 sations! " 
 
 Tryers coloured deeply: he was moved. "You 
 are a devil," he said, swishing with his stick. " I 
 wish I had never met you." 
 
 " My dear Reggie," Welsh spoke with a con- 
 temptuous reminiscence that surprised Edward, 
 " you were nothing when I met you first. It is I 
 who have educated you." He seemed to expand as 
 he spoke, to be somehow blown out. 
 
 "You damnable egotist! You've done nothing 
 for me, except to bring up and exaggerate my worst 
 qualities. That's what I was telling Raynes." 
 
 " I think you hate yourself too when you hate me," 
 Welsh blandly remarked, " don't you, Reggie, just 
 a little?" 
 
 Tryers did not answer. His face was set. It 
 seemed to contain an extraordinary number of sharp 
 angles. Edward, looking at him, wondered how he 
 managed to shave without cutting himself. His 
 nose gave the impression of being part of a geometri- 
 cal figure. 
 
 " I mean to get out of it all," he said after the 
 pause. " You shall see. I will not be tormented by 
 you, or through you, any longer." His cheeks kept 
 their flush. 
 
 There was another silence between the three men.
 
 The Buffoon 75 
 
 Edward broke it. " Have you ever," he asked 
 Tryers in his equable way, " have you ever thought 
 of marriage as a possible escape? " 
 
 "Marriage!" Tryers started as though a bee 
 were on him. " Certainly not. Never. It is 
 servitude: it is degradation. It is cutting one's life 
 out; it is mutilation." He shivered. 
 
 Edward smiled, recalling the singular adroitness 
 that Tryers had displayed in marrying off his three 
 sisters, all of them to " old College pals." 
 
 " Besides," Tryers continued, " you know what I 
 feel about women. Apart from a very transient sex- 
 attraction — they lose it for me nearly always as 
 soon as they leave oft being girls — I find them in- 
 tolerable. I avoid places where there are likely to 
 be many of them, I get as far away from them as 
 possible in restaurants. I avoid them as I would 
 dogs, and dogs I detest." 
 
 " There is something in what he says," Welsh 
 commented thoughtfully. "If you ever happen to 
 overhear women talking among themselves, it really 
 is most unpleasant. They are like some sort of dis- 
 turbing insect." 
 
 " I have to deal with them professionally some- 
 times," Tryers went heatedly on. " That's one of 
 my worst trials. They seem to have even worse 
 taste in architecture than they have in everything 
 else. Upon my word ! " 
 
 " I'm with you, Reggie." Welsh spoke without 
 the other's enthusiasm in hostility. He did not seem
 
 76 The Buff 0071 
 
 to be much interested. " Here at least," he con- 
 tinued, " we join hands. There is certainly some- 
 thing ineradicably gross and unfastidious about the 
 feminine temperament. Their feelings are blunter, 
 their emotional range is far less wide." 
 
 " Of course," Tryers broke in eagerly. " If a 
 little girl cuts her finger, it's nothing to her : a little 
 boy suffers real pain. No man could survive child- 
 bearing." 
 
 " Perhaps not," said Edward, " if they wore 
 corsets. But they wouldn't." 
 
 " Don't talk of corsets," Tryers interjected, " you 
 make me feel ill. They are almost as unpleasant to 
 think of as hair-pins." 
 
 " Yes," Welsh agreed, " do let us choose a more 
 pleasing subject." 
 
 " Where women are unpleasant," said Edward, 
 " it's simply because they've been stupidly treated. 
 Same with the proletariat. You have them as you've 
 bred them, that's always the way." 
 
 " Well, they've had their revenge," Welsh spoke 
 decidedly. " They've had their revenge, and they're 
 having it all the time. In England they have it 
 more completely than anywhere else." 
 
 "How about America?" Edward asked. 
 " You've been in America a good deal for lecturing, 
 haven't you ? Haven't women revenged themselves 
 over there? " 
 
 " Well, no, they haven't — not really. The 
 American women are dominant, of course, in their
 
 rhe Buffoon 11 
 
 way. The men fetch and carry for them and give 
 them all the money they want. But the two sexes 
 there are in separate spheres, women aren't forever 
 dragging the men over the line into their ground, 
 and mixing them up with their little snobberies and 
 spites and imbecilities. The American man is really 
 wonderfully independent. You'd think he was be- 
 ing tyrannised over, to see him with his women, but 
 he isn't. It is we Englishmen who are the slaves, 
 really: it is our individuality that is always being in- 
 vaded. Yes, I'm sure these things are better man- 
 aged in America." 
 
 " Sounds quite probable." Edward was inter- 
 ested. " In England the women are restive, they're 
 always trying to get even. In America there's no 
 need for them to get even at all. Much more satis- 
 factory arrangement all round." 
 
 " The American man," Welsh resumed, " is ab- 
 solute master in his own sphere. He has his busi- 
 ness, his politics, his sport, most of his other amuse- 
 ments, all to himself. There are even theatres 
 where only men go. The women have their homes : 
 they manage what they call ' that end of it,' and 
 quite right. I hate the way husbands have in Eng- 
 land of fussing about their houses — you know that 
 insufferable kind of discussion — improvements in 
 the bathroom or the garden or the drainage. One 
 hears nothing else in some families. I tell you, I 
 have blushed for my sex ! " 
 
 " All the same," said Tryers combatively, " Amer-
 
 78 The Buffoon 
 
 ican women are intolerable too. All that I've ever 
 met talked the most frightful nonsense about art 
 and literature and morality and social questions. 
 They seem to learn up a number of catch-phrases, 
 and they repeat them in a string without thinking. 
 They are appallingly ignorant, really. One finds 
 that out in a few minutes. — At any rate English- 
 women have the sense to talk less." 
 
 " Why shouldn't women talk? " said Welsh lazily. 
 " You needn't listen. Englishwomen expect you to 
 talk to them; that is much worse. I'd far rather 
 have to do with the Americans. You simply sit and 
 say monosyllables now and then, and think of some- 
 thing else. It is far less trouble. That's another 
 way in which the American men score." 
 
 " You have catch-phrases everywhere," Edward 
 put in, " only I suppose American women have 
 greater command of them, because of their greater 
 energy. And you notice them as catch-phrases sim- 
 ply because they're not the phrases you're used 
 to." 
 
 " Besides," Welsh remarked, " I rather like that 
 intense preoccupation with meaningless speech. Any- 
 thing is better than that cursed vanity of the Eng- 
 lishwoman who is always afraid of giving herself 
 away. How inelastic she is, how supine I And, 
 really, believe me, much more banal than the Ameri- 
 can. If we must have banalities let them at least be 
 unrestricted. — And then our English snobbishness, 
 invented by women, kept up religiously by women,
 
 rhe Buffoon 79 
 
 never to be escaped from anywhere ! Ah, yes, they 
 have their revenge." 
 
 " But our men support them well," said Edward, 
 *' so far as snobbishness goes." 
 
 " I suppose they do. Good Lord ! " Welsh swept 
 on, rapidly, eagerly. " The English are an unpar- 
 donable race! It's only by being on an island that 
 they aren't shamed and swamped out of the world! 
 Look at the great middle class, the representative 
 class. What are they doing? What are they 
 after? What do they want?" He was uncon- 
 sciously taking on his lecturing manner; he made 
 frequent gestures. Edward was surprised by their 
 grace and force. " The whole and single-hearted 
 devotion of every family — above the actual poor 
 
 — within five miles of where I live, is to score off 
 every other family by advancing — oh, by the width 
 of your finger-nail — on the social staircase. I 
 should like to establish by force, say, three classes 
 
 — each with its proper uniform — divide the whole 
 lot, arbitrarily and once for all. It's worst of all in 
 the country if you're not a complete stranger stop- 
 ping at an inn. This awful business of every one 
 knowing every one else — it resolves itself into an 
 orgy of servility and spite, and it makes you afraid 
 of putting your foot outside your door. By 
 heaven! " 
 
 Edward, impressed, looked at the speaker. A 
 spirit of force, of life, seemed suddenly to have 
 snatched Welsh : he was literally transfigured. His
 
 80 The Buffoon 
 
 face had gained strength astonishingly, it had lost its 
 incompleteness and its lack of harmony. 
 
 " The thing strikes me," he went on, " as per- 
 fectly amazing. America! There is nothing in 
 America to compare with it. And they do it so 
 badly and so blunderingly, these people. They 
 can't even manage their own little games. Really 
 and truly, our class — this upper middle class of 
 England, this class of pseudo ladies and gentlemen, 
 is the most dilapidated and wretched social phe- 
 nomenon ever produced in the world! They give 
 you a sense of shame — of shame — so poignant 
 that it positively sickens ! Any revolution — any — 
 any — which would dash out and scatter forever 
 these detestable little circles — it would be like a 
 second Incarnation. I tell you, I grow sick for 
 America sometimes — for any other country. I 
 want some one to talk to — a coloured Pullman por- 
 ter, a Bowery ' crook,' a Western ' drummer,' a New 
 York ' gun-man,' a Chicago ' vaudeville ' artiste, a 
 Pennsylvania miner, an Italian immigrant, a French 
 procuress, a Russian spy! I long to exchange ideas 
 with some sort of a natural animal. These English 
 — ' they are neither beast nor human, man nor 
 woman ' — they are not even eidola or lemures — 
 they are simply Our Class — at Home." 
 
 Edward restrained a desire to applaud. Tryers 
 was moody and irritable from his brother-in-law's 
 eloquence. 
 
 " He always exaggerates absurdly," he com-
 
 rhe Buffoon 81 
 
 merited. " Don't you think that's a mistake, 
 Raynes? One can't carry an argument that way." 
 
 " Lord love you," Edward replied. " Mr. Welsh 
 doesn't want to carry an argument. He wants to 
 set up an impression. And one can't exaggerate 
 about English snobbery. Only it isn't peculiar to 
 our class. You only think that because you know 
 your own class better than any other. Snobbishness 
 in other classes takes a different form and you don't 
 recognise it." 
 
 " But surely the poor aren't snobs," Welsh re- 
 monstrated. 
 
 " The poor again ! I must introduce you to my 
 housekeeper. She's not of the peasant class her- 
 self, but her mother was. Her father was a trades- 
 man who married beneath him. She knows a great 
 deal about the peasantry, at first hand, and she is not 
 tolerant of them. No more tolerant than you are 
 of your class, give you my word." 
 
 " But," — Welsh was still remonstrant — " it can't 
 be the same, surely. Their lives must be more nat- 
 ural." 
 
 " Of course it's not the same. Or rather It's the 
 same with a difference — an accidental difference. 
 Every peasant family is bent on showing that it's 
 superior to every other. Only they don't use mid- 
 dle-class methods. They throw out perfectly good 
 food on the refuse heap when their children are go- 
 ing hungry, to show that they're better off than their 
 neighbours. For a change that method's no doubt
 
 82 The Buffoon 
 
 less aggravating than the ones we're used to. But 
 it's quite equally aggravating when you're familiar 
 with it, especially when the hungry children are your 
 nephews and nieces. My sympathies are with my 
 housekeeper." 
 
 " Good Lord ! I'd no idea they did things like 
 that." Welsh was a little baffled. " Still, it isn't 
 really so bad. And I don't object to waste. The 
 spilt wine, the crushed flower. There's a certain 
 picturesqueness, a certain courage — " 
 
 " Not at all. There is nothing but mean vanity 
 and petty pretentiousness. Your middle-class snob 
 is equally courageous. He gives up heaps of things 
 which he misses as much as the poor miss food, in or- 
 der to make a show." 
 
 " But look at their faces," cried Welsh, " the faces 
 of the workers and the faces of our lot. You must 
 see that the masses are the more human — " 
 
 " Oh, get along with you," Edward laughed, " you 
 and your idealism. Been surveying the rustic types 
 in the Royal Academy? " 
 
 " And then," Welsh went on with renewal ot 
 spirit, " the peasants have something to do. The 
 men till the soil, the women have all their time filled 
 with their house-work and their babies. They 
 haven't the same leisure for snobbery." 
 
 " Both the men and the women arc drugged with 
 work till they're stupid. But they're just as much 
 snobs as if they were idle, and they're harder to 
 
 cure."
 
 The Buffoon 83 
 
 Welsh's energy seemed to forsake him. He was 
 evidently soon bored by argument. " But I can't 
 believe it," he murmured. " I simply can't believe 
 it." 
 
 " Then the aristocrats," Edward resumed, 
 " they're just as snobbish in their way as we 
 are." 
 
 Tryers' attention quickened at the mention of 
 the aristocracy. The devotion of generations to 
 the landed gentry ran in his blood, and he had 
 very definite ideas about " a gentleman's hall- 
 marks." 
 
 " Oh, I don't agree with you there, Raynes," he 
 said. " Whenever I've had to deal with a genuine 
 aristocrat, I've found him quite different. That's 
 the mark of a really well-born man, that he isn't con- 
 scious of his birth. Why, he's no need to think of 
 the social ladder and all that. He's on the top, and 
 every one knows it. That's the secret of the good 
 manners of the aristocracy; they're never afraid of 
 being in a false position." 
 
 " Yes, that's what people think," replied Edward. 
 *' But aristocratic snobbishness is simply a different 
 variety. They aren't always pretending to belong 
 to the class above them, simply because there isn't a 
 class above them. But they are conscious of their 
 birth, inordinately conscious. They don't show that 
 they are, they're trained not to, because bragging 
 about one's family became a middle-class fashion, 
 and the aristocracy always drops middle-class fash-
 
 84 The Buffoon 
 
 ions. There is really, when you come to think of it, 
 a subtle snobbishness in not bragging about one's 
 birth." 
 
 " Oh, I say, Raynes," Tryers exclaimed, just like 
 George, " that's mere sophistry! " 
 
 " They used to brag in the eighteenth century, and 
 they brag now, inside. They brag among them- 
 selves under the secure shadows of the family por- 
 traits. The young of their kind haven't always 
 learnt discretion, they sometimes brag openly. I 
 was disillusioned about the aristocracy at my public 
 school. There were several of them there, and they 
 were ingrained snobs, nearly all of them; snobs on 
 fixed principle. The only aristocrat I ever knew 
 well later on was the younger son of a marquess, and 
 after awhile he fairly launched out on the subject of 
 his family tree. Being well-born is a very impor- 
 tant thing to them, Tryers, I assure you, and they 
 like the world to know all about it. As you say, if 
 they're actually titled or if for some other reason 
 they're saved the trouble of advertising, they needn't 
 and they don't advertise. But when advertisement 
 happens to be necessary, they'll manage it some- 
 how, you can bet your boots." 
 
 *' But that's all quite different," Tryers rejoined 
 impatiently, " that isn't the kind of snobbishness we 
 were talking about." 
 
 " What's the difference between wanting people 
 to know that you're in a direct male line from the 
 Conquest and wanting them to know that your
 
 The Buffoon 85 
 
 mother's aunt married an ' Honourable ' ? What's 
 the difference between wanting to get into the Court 
 Set and wanting to be asked to dinner by the Lord 
 of the Manor ? The essence of snobbishness is waste 
 of energy over social distinction. Energy that 
 might be used in a nicer way than for feeding several 
 kinds of mean vices, starving the pleasant virtues, 
 making some people pitiably unhappy and discon- 
 tented and others pitiably satisfied and smug. No, 
 one can't let off the aristocracy." 
 
 "Admirable!" Welsh was relieved to find him- 
 self again in agreement. " I'm delighted to hear 
 it." 
 
 " No doubt," continued Edward, " the aristocrats 
 ' manage their little games ' better than the middle- 
 classes. They ought to. They've had longer and 
 more careful training; it's definitely marked out as 
 their line of business. They are professionals, our 
 people are amateurs." 
 
 " Well, that's something," said Tryers resolutely. 
 " If it has to be done, let it be well done. At any 
 rate, the aristocrats have art." 
 
 " Yes, but they're losing it, especially in Eng- 
 land — " 
 
 " They are, they are ! " Welsh broke in. " O, for 
 the air of a French marquis — the port of a Spanish 
 don — the grace of an Italian contessa! How they 
 would put all our ridiculous duchesses to shame ! 
 England is preposterous ! " He made a gesture, ex- 
 pelling his country from himself.
 
 86 The Buffoon 
 
 " Other countries have real class barriers," said 
 Edward. " That makes a difference. I don't know 
 how it works — whether on the whole things are 
 more tolerable. I expect, though, you'd find a lot 
 that wouldn't please you, Welsh, if you were a 
 Frenchman or an Italian. One can't ever tell." 
 
 " You bring us all to silence." Welsh evaded by 
 flattery. " You carry the bearing-rein, and no mis- 
 take. You are a master." 
 
 " I will tell you," replied Edward, " what you arc. 
 You are a flatterer. That makes the seventh or 
 eighth time that you have called me a master to-day. 
 And the psychology of your flattery would be rather 
 interesting, if one could get at it. You don't do it 
 out of irony. That wouldn't be like you." 
 
 " He flatters because he is an ingrained craven," 
 said Tryers with emphasis. 
 
 " I don't flatter." Welsh was bewildered. " I 
 really do think that you are a master." 
 
 " Why of course you do," Edward chuckled. 
 " That's your way. You heighten the character — 
 abilities and vices — of every one you meet, because 
 that makes it more interesting and sensational for 
 you. So you're always moving among remarkable 
 men : the plan plays magnificently into the hands of 
 your egoism. It works all round." 
 
 "Well, but — " Welsh was still puzzled *' — we 
 are remarkable people, aren't we? How fright- 
 fully dull it would be if we weren't! " 
 
 Edward chuckled again. " Upon my word," he
 
 The Buffoon 87 
 
 declared, " there's something to be said for your 
 method, especially if you've really succeeded in con- 
 vincing yourself. But don't you make all your 
 friends fearfully vain?" 
 
 " I don't mind my friends being vain," replied the 
 other, as though that settled the question. 
 
 " You're the most beautiful and complete egoist 
 I've ever met." Edward was more and more de- 
 lighted. " And I'm beginning to agree entirely with 
 our friend that your influence is dangerous. But not 
 in the way you think, Tryers. What Welsh does — 
 so I imagine — is to take the people he meets and fix 
 their types at once — making them much more types 
 than they really are, and heightened, as I've said, in- 
 conceivably at all points. At the same time he gives 
 them a huge conceit in being what he makes them out 
 to be, and there they are, there they rest. What- 
 ever they do or say, Welsh will make it fit in with 
 his idea of them and clap them on the back. He'll 
 infect them, if he can, with his paralytic microbes — 
 and all because it pleases him, because it's what he 
 wants. He hates effort, so he surrounds himself 
 with atrophied friends. Oh, his influence is per- 
 fectly poisonous ! " 
 
 Welsh was immensely pleased, and responded by 
 curious inarticulate sounds of excitement and grati- 
 fication. 
 
 " Yes," cried Tryers, dexterously running in on 
 Edward's lead, " Raynes is quite right. You're in- 
 capable of judging people — you know nothing about
 
 88 The Buffoon 
 
 character. You twist everything to suit your mor- 
 bid ideas. Then you think you've had an influence. 
 You're a fool! A buffoon!" Tryers energetically 
 proclaimed. " He's a buffoon! " 
 
 " Oh, no," said Edward, " he isn't. That's where 
 you make a mistake." He was arrested by a dis- 
 quieting thought which he immediately banished. 
 They were now at the gate of his little drive. Ed- 
 ward began to prepare his mind for dinner.
 
 CHAPTER Fill 
 
 TRYERS was not quite sure whether Edward 
 was really going to make him sleep at the 
 Inn. He hoped not, but it was, to use a 
 phrase which was often in Welsh's mouth, a phrase 
 pronounced with all the young vigour of a thing in 
 early flush, a " hope against hope." These urbane 
 decisions of Edward's, as Tryers knew, were pecul- 
 iarly stable, and as the evening wore on it became 
 more and more apparent to the disconsolate archi- 
 tect that he might just as well have reconciled him- 
 self and ordered his room at once at the Wolcote 
 Arms. Yet perhaps — if only Raynes would drink 
 a little more Port, if only he would drift in his imper- 
 ceptible way towards an indulgent mood — but 
 nothing came of these expectations. Edward had 
 no taste for taking too much to drink : mornings were 
 as much to him as evenings. 
 
 So they sat together after dinner, and Tryers 
 talked angrily about his soul, as one might talk about 
 an ill-trained puppy who is always giving no end of 
 trouble: Welsh talked of the Catholic Modernist 
 Movement, for which he was just then fervent. 
 Protestantism, he said, was so harsh and so stub- 
 born, striking everywhere discordantly, disagree- 
 
 89
 
 90 The Buffoon 
 
 able to oneself and to all one's friends. It must be 
 weakened, and if you strengthened Catholicism by 
 reinforcing it as the Modernists wished, Catholicism 
 would pulverise all these irritating little individualist 
 sects in no time. Then, Welsh explained, we shall 
 all of us be able to live freely, for the Catholics al- 
 ways let you live as you like, provided you're on their 
 side. Only the few — the inner circle of Cath- 
 olics — must be allowed latitude of belief, they must 
 keep it to themselves, of course, they must cultivate 
 an " ironical submission" to all dogmas; they must 
 frequent all rites with exquisite scrupulousness, out- 
 wardly they must support unity with never a lapse, 
 they must accept everything, and, " well, between 
 ourselves, my friends," Welsh had concluded, " they 
 really needn't believe anything. The Catholic idea, 
 that is first and last and all." 
 
 Edward attended to all this, for he was interested 
 in any further revelation of Welsh's fantastic mind. 
 The man was more remote from the facts of life 
 than any one he had met: and he was almost equally 
 remote from ideas. Every idea had, it seemed, to 
 be reduced to a kind of embryo of itself in his brain, 
 and then it shot up and round and about into alto- 
 gether incalculable and capricious shapes. Edward 
 wondered what the Abbe Loisy or Father Tyrrell 
 would have made of this Modernism that Welsh ex- 
 pounded. And how guileless and naive was this way 
 he had, of launching his ideas into free air to wing 
 their course, all obstacles of the common earth re-
 
 rhe Buffoon 91 
 
 moved! Once or twice Edward reminded him of 
 other factors that would come in, factors that might 
 affect this Catholic regeneration, this annihilation of 
 the Protestant. Welsh looked rather troubled for 
 a moment, said " Ah, yes, there is that," and then 
 forgot all about it. He resumed his eloquence. 
 Certainly he spoke well. He had command, he had 
 vividness and richness of imagery, a striking faculty 
 for rhetorical invective and rhetorical panegyric. 
 At the same time phrases of the " hoping against 
 hope " sort were continually with him, and he gave 
 them the same luxurious garnish as others that es- 
 caped triteness. All that he said was tremendously 
 helped on, given double and treble value, by expres- 
 sion of face and pitch of voice. He could carry 
 off flagrant banalities, lunatic assertions, inept specu- 
 lations. Edward reflected that he was born for the 
 stage. 
 
 Meanwhile Tryers did all he could to divert every 
 subject to his own spiritual state: he was always 
 wanting to strike topics off to his soul, just as some 
 batsmen always want to strike the balls off to leg. 
 
 " But that wouldn't help me," he said when Welsh 
 talked of his Catholic Idea: and again, when Ed- 
 ward had led Welsh on to say more about America, 
 " Ah, yes," Tryers had broken in, " I think, some- 
 how, that in a new country there would be fewer 
 temptations." 
 
 No word was spoken of little Norah; but towards 
 eleven o'clock Tryers, who had grown more and
 
 92 The Buffoon 
 
 more silent, got up and said he would go to the Inn. 
 He was tired and would like to be in bed early. 
 "And to get up early?" lightly rejoined Edward. 
 Tryers winced. " Of course you are my guest at 
 the Inn," Edward added as he showed him out. 
 This made the architect a little happier. 
 
 When Edward returned to the room he found that 
 Welsh had fallen into a profound sleep during what 
 must have been rather less than a minute. The 
 achievement was impressive in itself, but Edward was 
 not altogether pleased with the result. The sleeper 
 looked his very worst. His jaw had dropped like a 
 dead man's : it struck Edward that a phrase used that 
 evening by Welsh — one of his better phrases — 
 "the cunning of a corpse" — was applicable now. 
 Edward stood and looked at him, and as he looked 
 he liked that dropped jaw less and less. Welsh's 
 teeth were bad; two or three of them, like his 
 trouser-buttons, were missing, and one had been 
 capped prominently with gold, obviously by an 
 American dentist. Gold that showed in the mouth 
 was abhorrent to Edward. He must, he felt, change 
 the appearance of the face: he could not have it 
 there like that. He went out into the dining-room 
 and collected several apples of different sizes; then 
 he came back and stood with the apples in his hands, 
 surveying Welsh and gauging the distance between 
 the chest and the place where the chin would come if 
 the mouth were shut. Welsh's head was bent down 
 a httle as he sat. It might be necessary to bend it
 
 rhe Buffoon 93 
 
 down a little more. Edward took the largest apple 
 and went over to the sleeper. He raised the chin, 
 placed the apple underneath it, and with his other 
 hand gently and slowly pushed the head further 
 down, so that the apple was secured between chin and 
 chest, and Welsh's mouth kept shut. It was all done 
 remarkably adroitly and delicately. The apple 
 stayed in position, and Welsh did not move nor make 
 any sound. He might have been drugged. 
 
 Edward, satisfied, turned from him and sat down 
 in an armchair by his bureau to write two or three 
 letters that had been crowded out by the occupations 
 of the day. He always wrote in an armchair, with 
 his paper on a light wooden board that rested almost 
 perpendicularly against one raised knee. Of course 
 he used a fountain-pen, that, being his, was always 
 in perfect order and had not needed any repair since 
 it was bought ten years before. No man in the 
 United Kingdom managed the act of tracing ink into 
 words on paper with greater ease than Edward. He 
 never bent his head uncomfortably, and his paper 
 rested nearly level with his eyes. 
 
 As he prepared for his letter, Edward wondered 
 why most people were content to write at desks and 
 tables, sitting on horrid little chairs, with vision 
 stooped to paper on a flat surface below them. He 
 concluded that habit and want of reflection must ac- 
 count for it. People were always making themselves 
 uncomfortable from habit. This perpetuation all 
 round of inconvenient ways, how astonishingly stupid
 
 94 The Buffoon 
 
 It was ! Putting eggs in boiling water that goes on 
 boiling and hardens the white, — using pencils that 
 have to be sharpened — it was that kind of stupidity 
 that Edward thought so peculiarly unnecessary and 
 absurd. These little discomforts, so easily avoided, 
 what could induce any one to put up with them at 
 this time of day? And the dull obstinacy people 
 had in clinging to them! They would babble 
 about reform and Acts of Parliament, but what Act 
 of Parliament ever laid a finger on the individual life 
 with any real intimacy of touch? It would make no 
 personal difference whatever, for instance, to George, 
 if Ireland had Home Rule or if the Welsh Church 
 were disestabhshed; it would not really make any dif- 
 ference worth considering if he had to pay an extra 
 penny or two Income Tax, but it certainly would 
 make a difference to him, a daily difference, if he left 
 off eating eggs that had been relentlessly boiled, or if 
 he took to using a pencil with a stick of lead that 
 screwed out. Edward drew a breath and took his 
 fountain-pen from his waistcoat pocket. He began 
 his letter. Welsh continued to sleep as though he 
 were in bed. 
 
 Edward was writing to the landlady of the fur- 
 nished rooms that he always took in Liverpool. 
 They were near the Central Station, very convenient: 
 the landlady was a widow in the thirties, an Austrian, 
 with whom Edward had no fault to find except that 
 she expected him to make love to her and was disap- 
 pointed because he didn't. How should he begin the
 
 The Buffoon 95 
 
 letter? "Dear Madam" or even "Dear Mrs. 
 Weiss" wouldn't do; it was important to keep on 
 the right side of this very emotional creature, he was 
 sure no other lodgings in Liverpool would suit him 
 so well as hers. But he really couldn't call her by 
 her Christian name, he couldn't bring himself to that ; 
 it seemed somehow to compromise his personality; 
 besides he couldn't remember her Christian name. 
 " Dear Lady " he thought of, but that sounded an- 
 noyingly hke the form of address prevalent in third- 
 rate plays. It suggested the middle-aged man-of- 
 the-world " philosopher " parleying with the. woman 
 who seems dangerously on the point of running 
 away from her husband, but of course in the end, 
 after the interview with the middle-aged adviser, 
 never does. " My friend " was too much like Jack 
 Welsh: he couldn't write "My friend" after that 
 afternoon. And he knew that Mrs. Wciss's sensi- 
 tive feelings would be seriously hurt if he were to be- 
 gin the letter without preliminary, saying straight 
 away: " I shall be in Liverpool on the 27th, and 
 hope you will be able to arrange, etc." It was a 
 problem. 
 
 Edward looked round the room. There was 
 Welsh, sitting just as he had left him, the apple still 
 in place. His mouth had come a little open, but 
 it wasn't nearly so badly open as before. His nos- 
 trils closed and expanded with his regular breathing; 
 his abdomen, too, heaved with regularity, with en- 
 gaging regularity. Edward looked from him to the
 
 96 The Buffoon 
 
 inanimate objects of the room. There they were, 
 all of them, with that peculiar patience of theirs, a 
 patience inseparable from inanimate and familiar 
 objects, particularly at night, when the lamp is lit, 
 and the house still. They all looked as though they 
 would wait for any one forever. A strange thrill 
 of the sense of eternity passed through Edward. " I 
 ought to be looking at stars, or the sea, or moun- 
 tains," he thought, " to feel like this." And he was 
 only looking at chairs, and a table, and a writing-desk 
 at which he never wrote. 
 
 " I will hft up mine eyes unto the everlasting writ- 
 ing-desk," he murmured. But, strangely for him, 
 he did not smile. At that moment he was serious: 
 and after all if a writing-desk does suggest eternity, 
 why be afraid of coupling the two, and why be 
 amused when you have done it? 
 
 " I write to you, kindest of ladies, to say that — " 
 Yes, that would do. Rather a silly sort of thing to 
 say, of course, but then one can't have everything, 
 Mrs. Weiss would like that, and it wouldn't " let 
 him in." He wrote the words, and had finished the 
 letter in two or three minutes. 
 
 " Ironical gallantry " — he felt sure that Welsh 
 would employ that one of his phrases if he were to 
 see the letter. It was a phrase that he had used 
 more than once that day: all his phrases were subject 
 to repetition. " Well," mused Edward, " I suppose 
 because he is lazy . . ." But " Ironical gallantry " 
 certainly did give an idea of Edward's relations to
 
 rhe Buffoon 97 
 
 Mrs. Weiss. He always tried to make her think 
 that he didn't make love to her only because he didn't 
 quite dare, because he respected her, because he was 
 afraid to trust himself, or any other damn nonsense 
 that these women would swallow. " Kindest of 
 ladies." Edward made a face. 
 
 He wrote two more letters, with equal rapidity, but 
 without premeditation. One to his bankers, point- 
 ing out that they had not allowed him interest on his 
 Deposit Account, another to a Railway Company 
 claiming a refund for the unused portion of a return- 
 ticket. When the letters were finished Edward 
 moistened their envelopes with water that he always 
 had put in a little china receptacle on his desk. He 
 used Post Office envelopes, the kind that is ready- 
 stamped. 
 
 Having put the letters in their right place, ready 
 for posting the next morning, Edward walked over 
 to his bookshelf, softly, so as not to wake Welsh. 
 He would rather read than talk just then, he thought. 
 He shot a dubious glance at the apple, but the apple 
 admirably remained. What book should he take? 
 He had had a surfeit of twentieth century writers 
 lately, he wanted to read some one who wasn't per- 
 petually conscious either of his period or of himself 
 or of the public taste. Consciousness in one or other 
 of these directions he had found it difficult to escape 
 from with authors of the present day. Some of 
 them seemed forever trying to impress him that they 
 were up-to-date, that they spoke with the latest pos-
 
 98 The Buffoon 
 
 sible speech, others seemed to write because they 
 found themselves so interesting that they simply 
 could not keep a good thing dark any longer, others 
 — the greater number — wrote evidently to pull a 
 good thing off for their pockets. He felt that they 
 gauged the public after the manner of an advertising 
 agent, that they compiled auxiliary note-books, al- 
 ways carried about with them, full of simple rules, 
 easily remembered and helping no end for sales. 
 But Edward was inclined to prefer this sort of writer 
 to those others who tip-toed eternally after style, re- 
 minding him of clever boys who want to win scholar- 
 ships. It was better, after all, to want to be a best 
 seller — a more honest and a more wholesome am- 
 bition. Edward felt he would rather have a repu- 
 tation in the Circulating Library than a reputation 
 in the literary coteries. The best sellers, too, irri- 
 tated him less than the people who went in for the 
 contemporary social forces " stunt." That kind of 
 preoccupation seemed peculiarly fatal to their sense 
 of proportion, peculiarly fatal to Edward's pleasure. 
 No, he did not want to read modern writers to-night: 
 he did not want to be annoyed by feminist problems, 
 by catch-penny tricks of plot and situation, or by af- 
 fectations of speech such as " lacklove " and " per- 
 durable " and " emprise," " her whom he thus hap- 
 pened on," and other such forced darling flowers so 
 profusely scattered in certain darling little novels. 
 Edward remembered a word of four letters, current
 
 The Buffoon 99 
 
 chiefly in boys' schools, exactly descriptive of people 
 who wrote like this. 
 
 There was Dostoevsky — he might read him to- 
 night. " The Idiot " — he had never finished that. 
 No doubt that Dostoevsky was remarkable ; but why 
 did he always write such very long books, and why 
 were there always so very many people in them? 
 Edward felt that he really could not tackle those teas- 
 ing names to-night. When he thought of Dostoev- 
 sky he found himself longing for a novel in which 
 there were no names : sometimes in reading Dostoev- 
 sky he had longed for a world in which there were no 
 names. No, it was too exhausting, this coping with 
 so egregious a multiplicity of incidents and personali- 
 ties. Tiresome that it should be so, for Edward 
 knew that Dostoevsky was a genius. Still, Turgenev 
 was the man for him and always would be. 
 Turgenev condensed: he had that "economy of 
 material " so pleasing to Edward in whatever form. 
 He would read Turgenev to-night, or perhaps de 
 Maupassant. 
 
 As he was reaching for a possible volume his eyes 
 fell on a very recent work, by a writer very much 
 of the present day. Edward paused. This new 
 author was a curious and rather notable freak: he 
 had a mania for what he called great, simple, and ele- 
 mental things; they were the eternal heritage of hu- 
 manity, and he thought that this eternal heritage was 
 now in danger of being lost, and that it was " up to "
 
 100 The Buffoon 
 
 him to advertise it thoroughly, so that the world 
 should know what it was losing. Advertise it he cer- 
 tainly did, and thoroughly : he bawled simple and ele- 
 mental things in a Fleet-street voice, and he bawled 
 loudest when he was showing off such eternal in- 
 stinctive human tendencies as the tendency to get 
 drunk or the tendency to go to church. He called 
 himself a democrat, on the ground, presumably, that 
 the masses were superstitious and liked beer, and he 
 approved of their being superstitious and liking beer. 
 He preached a happiness of very visible signs, a hap- 
 piness displaying itself in adipose jollities, bulbous 
 laughters, Christmas appetites, hearths and homes so 
 redolent of family affections that the sensitiv'e nose 
 may track them out from miles away, and a Chris- 
 tianity relieving the sometimes too monotonous gross- 
 ness of these delights by a comfortable pretence at 
 mysticism and an introduction of a vague idea of the 
 " eternal verities " at appropriate seasons. He was 
 inordinately respectable at bottom, this writer, with 
 an inborn awe of the decencies of the average jury- 
 man: only he was more decent than the average jury- 
 man. Edward felt as he read him that he could 
 stand these mild buttery or lardy indulgences, these 
 smug meaty comforts, these shallow obstinate religi- 
 osities, these little villa-bred virtues, as they really 
 were, or as the honest Dickens set them forth: it was 
 only when they took the form of a proclaimed cult 
 that they became offensive. To have them shouted 
 at you and distorted — really quite morbidly — by
 
 rhe Buffoon 101 
 
 laborious methods of advertisement, it was this that 
 was intolerable. This new seer had all sorts of 
 tricks, chiefly acrobatic, to attract attention. He 
 was regarded by some as a master of brilliant para- 
 dox. " A spittoon," he would write, " is just as 
 much In the heart af the Universe as the Milky 
 Way ; " thus, you see, expounding the divinity of com- 
 mon things. He would take two words conveying 
 two incongruous ideas — " angels " and " pint-pots," 
 for example — and clap them together like a Salva- 
 tion Army instrument. In this way he had gained an 
 enormous reputation for originahty; young men and 
 women in the literary circles read him and talked 
 about him perpetually, he was quite a lion with them. 
 Anglicans and reactionaries counted him as a force 
 on their side; they bought him and drew his name 
 into general conversation. The average juryman 
 did not read his books at all, and If he happened to 
 dip into one unawares he thought it utter nonsense. 
 The worst of it was that no one could help dipping 
 into this author now and again. He wrote perpet- 
 ually, for his tricks were easily repeated, and he 
 wrote everywhere — in daily papers, in weeklies, In 
 quarterlies: he published two or three novels or vol- 
 umes of Essays every year, the bookstalls were 
 strewn with him. There was no escape. One ad- 
 mitted that he knew how to get on. 
 
 Edward turned the pages of the book, he too took 
 one of those Inevitable " dips." He could under- 
 stand the man's Influence, only It was such an unpleas-
 
 102 7he Buffoon 
 
 ant influence. A minute ago, and for many minutes 
 before that, there had been a hush in the air, hang- 
 ing like some living breath, like some diffused soul 
 or emana'tion of a soul not individual. Edward's 
 thoughts had seemed to come to him from a distance, 
 automatically: tiny unimportant things they had 
 seemed, as tiny and unimportant as birds hopping 
 here and there over buttresses silent and immense. 
 Now the hush lifted, the hanging breath melted, 
 caught back suddenly, one might think, to some 
 region beyond and profound: all the magic of the 
 hour was gone, a single phrase of this book had dis- 
 sipated it. It was as though a pantaloon in complete 
 habit had dropped through the ceiling; dropped, 
 jumped, kicked, somersaulted, grimaced, reeled off 
 his patter, string upon string. " Here we are 
 again!" Edward was resentful: it is always an- 
 noying when writers whom one dislikes show talent 
 enough to produce an impression. " And this is the 
 modern apostle of mysticism and religion, the 
 champion of the fairies ! " he thought, as he put the 
 book back on the shelves. 
 
 His eyes rested on a favourite print of his, a print 
 of one of Benozzo Gozzoli's angels, from the fres- 
 coes of the Palazzo Riccardi. What a delicious 
 ragamuffin angel it was! A darling little female 
 street-urchin in wings ! How one would love to take 
 her up and touse her and mouse her, pull her hair 
 and her ears and rubble her cheeks and roll her over 
 and over! How ravishing to tumble her like that
 
 rhe Buffoon 103 
 
 again and again till there was hardly a breath left in 
 her body! Notions of this kind gave Edward the 
 greatest pleasure. He thought of the Itahan word 
 for a young girl — " ragazza " — " ragazzina " — 
 *' ragazzetta " — words that gave him pleasure of 
 the same sort. They suggested an amorous rough- 
 and-tumble just as Gozzoli's angel did. A raga- 
 muffin angel! Was that at all like those incongru- 
 ous combinations that he had been deploring? Of 
 course not: the conjunction of words had occurred 
 naturally, it had come in a flash, it was right, alto- 
 gether right, perfectly and charmingly right. That 
 ragamuffin charm was heightened most captivatingly 
 by the wings: there was the painter's secret, prompt- 
 ing Edward's phrase, and it was a secret the painter 
 had won from Life, he hadn't been training as one 
 trains for tricks. The deliciousness of this angel 
 was both familiar and strange : it had the same kind 
 of breathless startling attraction as comes from a girl 
 who is like a boy or dressed as a boy, from a young 
 witch, from a woman's voice low-pitched, from ro- 
 bust beauty shaken and weakened by passion, from 
 loveliness delicate and fastidious but by some chance 
 dishevelled — yes, it was like all these alluring com- 
 binations of opposed impressions. 
 
 Edward remained standing by the bookcase, and 
 the room grew still again; again the hush gathered 
 and hung. A vague impulse came on him, an im- 
 pulse to express, to collect and preserve somehow the 
 essence of what he really was. Some sure and per-
 
 104 riie Buffoon 
 
 manent means for the conveyance of his sense of life, 
 that was what he wanted and couldn't get. He was 
 sure he never could get it. If he sat down to write, 
 some elf would hght at once on the edge of his brain, 
 some cursed gnome or other, derisive, mischievous, 
 a little devil that would sit there on the edge and 
 paddle with his legs, stirring up in the pool of mem- 
 ories a hundred recollections of the kinds of expres- 
 sions that belonged to other men. Edward's own 
 expression, his proper heritage, would remain an un- 
 discovered embryo, a ridiculous egg far down in ob- 
 scure weedy depths, while the surface of the water 
 was crowded with splashing changelings, intercepting 
 always, evoked without fail on the instant by this 
 malevolent gnome. No, Edward made up his mind 
 that he would not humiliate himself again by trying 
 to write; he would produce no dimmed reflections of 
 Henry James, would wake no forlorn echoes of 
 Meredith in prose or Swinburne in verse. He would 
 be damned if he was going to trail along at the heels 
 of Turgenev or de Maupassant. He came near to 
 resentment against these favourite authors of his 
 when he realised how inevitably set and glued to the 
 mould of one or the other of them he became when- 
 ever he tried to write. They had robbed him of his 
 own, that was what they had done. If only he could 
 have written something that resembled them all, that 
 wouldn't be so bad, that would be new and might be 
 Interesting, but it was always one or the other, de- 
 tached, that caught him up and gripped him like a
 
 The Buffoon 105 
 
 puppy, in mid air, with his own feet, — the feet that 
 after all belonged to him, — clear off the ground. 
 Well: after all, he could live, he could put himself 
 into his life. It was odd, Edward reflected, that 
 people thought him lazy. He wasn't lazy at all, no 
 one could manage his life as he did, so thoroughly 
 and so harmoniously, without definite energy. He 
 was conscious of abounding energy, energy quite as 
 " vital," to use a favourite word of George's, as 
 George's own : only Edward could not bring himself 
 to waste it, as George did, on exhausting trivialities 
 that led nowhere, or silly treadmill exercises. Ed- 
 ward spent all his vigour, so he felt, on the cultiva- 
 tion of his existence as an organism: and this re- 
 minded him that it was quite contrary to his code to 
 allow himself to be vexed in this childish way because 
 he couldn't write, because he couldn't get hold of 
 that confounded egg and hatch it. And after all, he 
 might, some day. Perhaps what he needed was an 
 influence; perhaps — it might conceivably be — if 
 he married — 
 
 The dislodgment and fall of the apple from under 
 Welsh's chin broke in on Edward's meditations. 
 Welsh had wakened: he was one of those w^ho are 
 immediately wide awake after sleep. 
 
 " What was that? " he said. He saw the apple, 
 which had rolled to the fender, and associated it with 
 his waking. "An apple?" he questioned vaguely. 
 *^ Had I an apple? I don't think I will eat it now." 
 
 " You have had a beautiful sleep," remarked Ed-
 
 106 The Buffoon 
 
 ward. " You have been sleeping for nearly two 
 hours. It is close on one o'clock." 
 
 " Yes, I can sleep anywhere — anywhere." 
 Welsh spoke with a touch of pride. He got up and 
 went over to Edward. " Let me look at your books. 
 Have you the works of the Marquis de Sade? I see 
 you read Nietzsche. Tom Fielding is his greatest 
 disciple. You must meet Tom Fielding in Liver- 
 pool. I will bring you together. He is like Julius 
 Caesar. He is the Julius Caesar of the Cotton 
 Markets of Liverpool. He is master of an amazing 
 harem. A Casanova, he is a Casanova. He has 
 an extraordinary control over women : they are help- 
 less in his hands. They have no secrets from him. 
 He is unequalled. A lord of individualists." 
 
 "You tell him all this, I suppose?" Edward 
 smiled. 
 
 " I tell my friends everything, of course. But it 
 is really important that you two should encounter. 
 You are like Fielding in some ways, with your com- 
 mand of situations, your clear and cold intelligence, 
 your power over the destinies of others. You are 
 both statesmen: there is the same noble aloofness, 
 the same unscrupulousness, the same relentlessness 
 and massiveness of purpose. That magnificent 
 breadth and weight of forehead that you have, for 
 example — yes, you must meet. You must feast to- 
 gether in the same chamber of generous pleasure — 
 you must — What is that little book ? Raoul Root's 
 poems ? Do you cultivate that ingenuous American ?
 
 The Buffoon 107 
 
 I meet him sometimes, but his circle Is very tiresome. 
 You would put them all to shame. They don't man- 
 age their poses properly, these Americans — they 
 are too serious. One has always the sense of la- 
 borious and painful guarding against lapses. This 
 Renaissance Revival — these CanzonettI and Ris- 
 poste — no, It's not to my taste. But there are some 
 beautiful girls In the circle, they wear Futurist 
 dresses, they meet together In subterranean caves In 
 the byways of London and dance astonishing Tan- 
 goes." 
 
 " Evidently there is something to be said for the 
 Renaissance cult." 
 
 " I'll Introduce you." Welsh's face lit up. 
 " Come back to London with me, and you shall meet 
 the Prophet. And you shall meet the Divinity — 
 you shall * see the Goddess go.' When she walks 
 she doesn't tread the ground. Oh, no — never, 
 never! " 
 
 "What Is her name?" 
 
 " Eunice Dinwiddle. But most of her American 
 friends call her ' Eunus.' It is a great grief to her 
 when it happens. And really It is an Intolerable 
 thing to happen, when you think of it. You'll real- 
 ise that when you see her. She Is breaking them in, 
 gradually, to pronouncing her name In three sylla- 
 bles. But it takes time." 
 
 " Is she good-looking? " 
 
 " Yes. Too tall for my taste, but I have no fault 
 to find with her figure. She droops in a rather
 
 108 The Buffoon 
 
 marked manner. She has admirable brown hair and 
 brown eyes — not much complexion, but you don't 
 expect that from an American. Her voice is care- 
 fully low and soft and modulated. She has taken 
 infinite pains with it, and she really can make it 
 tremble in exactly the right way at exactly the right 
 moment." 
 
 " I should like to meet her." Edward rolled his 
 last cigarette of the day. " I will certainly come up 
 with you to London." 
 
 "You will, you will!" Welsh was capable of 
 just as much excitement — no more and no less — in 
 the small hours as at any other time. " I shall escort 
 you. Reggie will be furious. And I prophesy — 
 I prophesy, my friend, that you will make a conquest. 
 You will conquer Raoul Root's circle. You will con- 
 quer the Divinity. You are born to set your heel 
 wherever you will. You are wise, you are wicked, 
 you are gay! I detect in you both Machiavel and 
 Aristophanes : you derive from Socrates and from 
 Puck! Yes, yes, come with me, my friend. I will 
 guide your Caesarean progress ! " 
 
 Welsh had not called Edward " my friend " be- 
 fore, but Edward had known that it would come, and 
 he was quite prepared for its coming, when it did 
 come, twice. The man's way of talking was absurd, 
 Edward reflected, his flattery too gross and grotesque 
 to deceive a peacock: but undeniably he could carry 
 it off, make it go. Yes, he could drag in a round 
 dozen of famous names in a sentence, if he chose,
 
 riie Buffoon 109 
 
 and the thing would pass. Well, of course, Welsh 
 was an orator. He was an orator completely and 
 perfectly; and it is rare enough to get hold of any 
 one who is completely and perfectly anything. Ed- 
 ward had got hold of Welsh, and he did not mean 
 to let hmi go. Nothing so unusual should be hghtly 
 dropped. And Edward was beginning to recognise 
 that this gross flattery did after all affect him pleas- 
 antly. He lil<:ed being told, in Welsh's way, that he 
 was this and that. But he would never make him- 
 self ridiculous by believing Welsh; there he vowed 
 he would be firm. 
 
 " I am at your service," he said, " either for con- 
 quest or defeat. But now it's late and I want to go 
 to bed. You stay of course as long as you like." 
 
 Welsh took his arm. " No," he repHed, " I shall 
 go to bed too. ' Allons, enf ants de la patrie ! ' It 
 will be a campaign," he shouted, " a campaign! "
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 WHEN Edward came down the next morn- 
 ing he found that Welsh had been up 
 for two or three hours. He chided 
 him amicably for not having ordered and eaten 
 breakfast, but his guest assured him that he was ca- 
 pable of going without food indefinitely at any time, 
 and that a lonely meal was misery to him. So the 
 two men sat down together at about ten o'clock. 
 Edward was soon absorbed in a fried sole, peeling 
 delicately the brown dry skin from the white flesh. 
 "What do you think of vers libres, Welsh?" he 
 asked suddenly. 
 
 " Oh, you'll hear all about vers libres at Raoul 
 Root's soirees. Not now: don't let's talk of them 
 now." 
 
 They were silent again. Edward had expected 
 Welsh to talk a great deal, he wondered why he 
 didn't. Perhaps it was a sign of instinct, perhaps 
 Welsh felt that his host had not the humour for talk- 
 ing at breakfast. After replying to Edward's ques- 
 tion the lecturer went on with his bread-and-milk and 
 said no more. It occurred to Edward that he would 
 really like to live with Welsh, that in fact Welsh was 
 the only person he had ever met that he would like to 
 
 live with. 
 
 no
 
 The Buffoon 111 
 
 Tryers had not appeared. Edward was a little 
 curious about him, but said nothing till breakfast was 
 over. Then he asked Welsh what he thought had 
 become of his brother-in-law. 
 
 ** He may be at church," Welsh replied gravely. 
 " Do you have weekday services at your church? '* 
 
 " Why should he be at church? " 
 
 " Well, he succeeded in meeting your little Norah 
 this morning. I saw them together walking along 
 that path that goes through the field — near that red 
 farm. So he has probably been let in for a strong 
 sentimental reaction, and that would have driven 
 him ^raight to the nearest church — yes, propelled 
 him like a bullet through the door. I can see him 
 kneeling in the pew of repentance — flapping his 
 wings in the ecclesiastical bird cage." 
 
 " I'm sure there are no weekday services here," 
 said Edward. " In fact I doubt if the church would 
 be even open. The Vicar is ' Low ' : he would think 
 it popish to worship on any day but Sunday." 
 
 " Ah, yes," Welsh branched off. " Think of the 
 difference in the Catholic ideal. A church should 
 be a familiar popular place ; there should be no pews ; 
 the common people should use it as a daily thorough- 
 fare. Churches should always be full of people in 
 rags, very dirty people, very poor people. They 
 should always be passing to and fro, kneeling for a 
 little, resting for a little, making love for a little, 
 sporting everywhere as much as they like. The 
 only really religious countries are the countries where
 
 112 The Buffoon 
 
 peasants light their cigarettes at the altar-candles. 
 Ah, they know what religion is in Spain ! " 
 
 " Yes ; but where do you think Tryers is, as he 
 can't be in church? " 
 
 " I can't tell. No, my friend, upon my word, I 
 can't tell." Welsh uttered these simple words with 
 great emphasis and solemnity, as though they were 
 charged with inordinate significance. It was a trick 
 he had acquired unconsciously, Edward guessed, 
 from speaking in public. So he used it whenever his 
 thoughts wandered. 
 
 " I thought of weekday services," Welsh went on 
 after a pause, " because Reggie likes weekday serv- 
 ices. He says they are more religious than the serv- 
 ices on Sundays, and I think he is right. Only no 
 services in the Church of England are religious. 
 Anglicanism is the most irreligious sect that ever 
 existed. Go to a Baptist Chapel, a Salvation Army 
 meeting, there's fire for you, there's abandonment — 
 real frenzy of belief. They know what religious 
 experience is, bless their hearts! But Anglicanism 
 is the creed of careful people who like what's prob- 
 able." Welsh sighed heavily. " Reggie will come 
 back to lunch, at any rate. I never knew him not 
 to come back to anybody else's lunch. He is like a 
 character out of Juvenal. Juvenal is the only author 
 who could really have described Reggie. Perhaps 
 Petronius Arbiter — " 
 
 Edward laughed. " Do you ever," he asked, 
 " dislike him as much as he dislikes you? "
 
 The Buffoon 113 
 
 " I don't know." Welsh got up from his chair as 
 he spoke. " I can't tell." He began walking about 
 the room. " I find it very difficult to analyse my 
 feelings towards Reggie. I think what I really want 
 is to fool him, to exercise my irony upon him. I 
 mean that I want him to do things, to be placed in 
 situations, that shall excite and gratify my sense of 
 irony. I want to be passive all the while, you under- 
 stand. Yes — that is really the use I have for Reg- 
 gie. I want him to suffer, of course, in a certain 
 way; but I don't want to bring his suffering about, 
 directly and obviously. No, that would never do. 
 Of course he could never understand what I want. 
 He is extraordinarily crude; with his particular kind 
 of energy he could hardly be anything else, but his 
 very crudeness plays into my hands. I should be 
 too lazy to deal with him if he wasn't crude. Of 
 course he knows that I use him, he regards me as a 
 kind of Torquemada of the spirit, but he fits it all 
 into the mould of his mind, and he gets it all wrong. 
 I'm not sure that I get it right myself. It's too 
 much trouble. However — " 
 
 He broke off with a gesture that deprecated the 
 idea of any one taking too- much trouble about any- 
 thing, Edward wondered how many conceptions 
 this man caught at daily like gilded butterflies, and 
 idly let escape forever on the moment. It was a 
 curious case of energy that was always starting off 
 and never going on. Welsh reminded him of a 
 motor engine perpetually ejaculating explosively as
 
 114 The Buffoon 
 
 for progress, responsive that far, and that far only, 
 to turns of the crank. 
 
 "Good Lord!" the subject of this simile ex- 
 claimed suddenly, " I forgot to put on any tie this 
 morning." He had caught sight of himself in a mir- 
 ror. "Will your servant mind?" he inquired ap- 
 prehensively. 
 
 " Merrion is wonderfully tolerant. Nothing of 
 that sort could agitate him. But I see George For- 
 rest coming through the garden, and I know that he 
 would be upset by your having no tie." 
 
 " ril go to my room at once." Welsh lurched 
 hurriedly to the door. " The man of influence ! 
 Good Lord!" 
 
 He was gone, and a minute or so later George ap- 
 peared, looking extremely grave. 
 
 "What's the matter?" Edward asked him. 
 " Was England invaded this morning before break- 
 fast?" 
 
 George sat down. He did so earnestly and delib- 
 erately, as though he had planned the action before- 
 hand with every due regard. 
 
 " This Mr. Tryers," he said, " has behaved in 
 the most unpardonable, the most ungentlemanly 
 way." 
 
 " You interest me, George." Edward raised him- 
 self a little in his chair. " It has always interested 
 me, this question of what is gentlemanly and un- 
 gentlemanly." 
 
 " I am sure you will agree with me," George went
 
 The Buffoon 115 
 
 on, " that Mr. Tryers has not behaved like a gentle- 
 man." 
 
 " Well, well, let's hear all about it." 
 
 " He's been playing the cad with Norah 
 Weekes!" 
 
 " Making love to her, do you mean? " 
 
 " Making love ! Making love to a child like 
 that! You can call it making love, if you like. I 
 call it disgusting caddishness. I should have sup- 
 posed that any man would call it that." 
 
 " Sorry you're so upset; but Tryers had my per- 
 mission, you know." 
 
 " Your permission ! " George raised his voice in- 
 dignantly. 
 
 " Yes. I told him there would be no harm in his 
 amusing himself with her, if he liked." 
 
 "Amusing himself!" George had a tedious 
 habit of echoing his interlocutor when he was en- 
 gaged on a moral protest. 
 
 " Within limits, of course. I assure you, George, 
 I didn't give him leave to seduce the girl." 
 
 George gave an ethical snort. 
 
 " Of course I didn't mean that^^ Edward went 
 on. " But he hasn't, has he? Surely not so early in 
 the morning? " 
 
 " You are indecent." George spoke violently. 
 " I'd better go, I think. Especially as it was you 
 who put the man up to it." 
 
 " Up to what, George ? Don't go. Stay and ex- 
 plain yourself."
 
 116 The Buffoon 
 
 George was walking round the room. 
 
 " That man," he at length observed, " is unfit for 
 the society of decent people. You can't defend him, 
 Raynes. You know you'd never do a thing of that 
 sort yourself. You may say all kinds of horrible 
 things, but you don't do them. Your bark — " 
 
 " Yes, yes, I know. But tell me what it is that I 
 can't defend Tryers for doing and that I should 
 never do myself." 
 
 " You know. Messing about with Norah — an 
 innocent country girl. It's the most outrageous — " 
 
 " My dear fellow, your idealism is incurable. 
 Have you ever remarked Norah's eyes? She's a 
 match for Tryers any day of the week." 
 
 " Anyhow that's not the point. His caddishness 
 is the point. He got up early this morning with a 
 sketch-book — a sketch-book." George repeated 
 the word with emphasised disgust. " He went out 
 after her, pretended he wanted to make a sketch of 
 her for a painting — " 
 
 " My idea, George, I'm afraid that was my idea." 
 
 " He tried to get her into a field — round into 
 some corner or other where he couldn't be seen. 
 He tried to put his arm round her and get her on his 
 knee and kiss her, — and all that kind of thing." 
 
 "But really — I confess — if she were willing? 
 Upon my word, I don't see — Cakes and ale, 
 George, cakes and ale." 
 
 " No, but you don't understand. It was the kind 
 of way he did it. He did it in a beastly kind of way.
 
 rhe Buffoon 117 
 
 He was leading up — innuendoes, you know. What 
 right has he," George exploded, " to come down 
 here and try to pollute a young girl's mind? " 
 
 " How did you come to hear all about it?" 
 
 " Norah told me. I could see at once she was tell- 
 ing the truth. She couldn't have invented the things 
 she told me that Tryers said. They were just the 
 kind of things a blackguard like that would say." 
 
 " Tell me, is this really all pure zeal for morality 
 on your part? I shall begin to believe, you know, 
 that you're not indifferent to Norah." 
 
 *' Nonsense." George reddened. " I have the 
 same interest in her that I have in all the boys and 
 girls of the neighbourhood. I feel that I have a 
 certain responsibility. My position — " 
 
 He broke off, embarrassed. Edward fixed a con- 
 templative eye on him, and said nothing. 
 
 " I very soon saw what kind of a person Tryers 
 was," George went on. " He was extremely agree- 
 able to me during breakfast, agreeable in his nasty 
 sleek sort of way — " 
 
 "'Sleek!' Moral indignation's no excuse for 
 conventional epithets. Tryers couldn't be sleek." 
 
 " Can't think why you always trifle, Raynes. — 
 Well, my aunt had a headache. She couldn't come 
 down, so we breakfasted alone. You know how it 
 is with men of Tryers' stamp. They think every 
 other man must be as big a scoundrel as they are 
 themselves. After a bit the fellow began talking to 
 me in a way I didn't at all like."
 
 118 The Buffoon 
 
 " I wish I had been there ! " 
 
 " It didn't take me long to realise that he was a 
 cad. He must have seen that I disapproved, but he 
 went on just the same. I gave him no encourage- 
 ment, but he went on. He actually had the audacity 
 to tell me of his meeting with Norah." 
 
 "Yes. How did he put it ? " Edward's interest 
 was quickened. 
 
 " Said that he had a fancy to sketch her, that she 
 was a wonderfully pretty girl. A temptation to him 
 — I think that was his phrase." 
 
 " Oh, yes — a temptation. Capital! " 
 
 " He said he nearly kissed her, but then he 
 thought it wouldn't be fair. Damned hypocrite ! " 
 
 *' Why did he think it wouldn't be fair? Do tell 
 
 me. 
 
 " Because, if you please," George's tone was bit- 
 terly contemptuous, " she was so fresh and un- 
 touched, and had never known real passion — " 
 
 "Capital! Capital! As if she could learn it 
 from him at once. Tryers' vanity is always so 
 amusing." 
 
 " Yes, that was practically what he said : that he 
 wouldn't be the first to teach her. He had expe- 
 rienced so much, and she so little." 
 
 " I know that Don Juan pose of his." 
 
 "And he had the impertinence — just imagine it, 
 Raynes — the gross impertinence to say that he gave 
 her up for me — for met " 
 
 Edward leant back in his chair and laughed un-
 
 riie Buff 0071 119 
 
 restrainedly. " That is splendid," he exclaimed. 
 " I thoroughly appreciate that." 
 
 " I must confess I don't find it amusing," George 
 observed coldly. " The more I think of it, the more 
 it disgusts me. To make out that he had had the 
 girl in his power, as it were, and had given her up, 
 because he felt that it wouldn't be fair to me, that 
 I was always here, that I ought to be the first. The 
 liar ! And the real truth was that he had done all 
 he could to — to — er — excite her feelings in his re- 
 pulsive way." 
 
 " Yes, I know." Edward was still laughing, si- 
 lently now. " But don't you see, dear old George, 
 how extremely entertaining it all is? Surely you 
 must — " 
 
 " I don't." George was very decisive. " I have 
 never been accused of lacking a sense of humour, 
 but really I cannot say that I find anything to laugh 
 at in such revolting meanness and hypocrisy and hum- 
 bug. I do not consider that a liar and a blackguard 
 is amusing. When I think of the things he said! 
 Fob ! That he was here to-day and gone to-morrow, 
 and how selfish it would have been of him to have 
 taken his pleasure, to have plucked the flower and — 
 er — what did the blackguard say? — plucked the 
 flower and left it fading. It makes me sick." 
 
 " Then you saw Norah later and she told you 
 what had really happened? " 
 
 " Yes. I got rid of Tryers as soon as I could, you 
 may be sure."
 
 120 The Buffoon 
 
 "Where did he go?" 
 
 " I don't know. He said something about going 
 to bathe. I didn't care where he went," George 
 added savagely. 
 
 " Well, what did Norah say ? " 
 
 " Oh, she said — I happened to meet her just by 
 her house — she said : ' You wouldn't be up to any 
 of those games of Mr. Tryers', would you? ' " 
 
 " What had you done to make her say that? " Ed- 
 ward questioned severely. 
 
 "Oh, I — What do you mean? Naturally 
 enough, I — I just put my hand on her shoulder or 
 patted her cheek, or something of that kind. I 
 really don't remember. It was the natural thing to 
 do. I felt sorry for her." 
 
 " Of course. It was an occasion for sympathy." 
 
 " I've seen her about since she was practically 
 a baby, you know. She's still quite a child to 
 
 me. 
 
 " Exactly. Then she told you all about it? " 
 " Yes. I'm sure she was telling the truth. The 
 man had frightened her. No doubt about that. 
 The real truth of the matter was that she was re- 
 pelled by him, violently repelled, — and no wonder ! 
 She would have nothing to do with him. Now do 
 you see what a cad he has been? Talking to me as 
 he did, telling such a pack of lies. Abominable 
 meanness and crookedness, that's what I call it! " 
 " I saw yesterday that she didn't like him much." 
 " She knew instinctively the kind of — "
 
 The Buffoon 121 
 
 " Rot ! He didn't happen to please her, that was 
 all." 
 
 George sniffed. " That's like you, Raynes," he 
 said. " You reduce everything to the lowest level. 
 You don't believe in purity or innocence. You ex- 
 plain them away. Thank God, I don't feel like 
 that." 
 
 Edward smiled. " I believe that a girl objects 
 to a man's attentions if she's not attracted to him, 
 and doesn't object if she is. That's all. Quite ii 
 simple proposition. Not cynical in the least." 
 
 " Norah was repelled because Tryers is a brute. 
 Why, she didn't even let him touch her hand." 
 
 " Much to her credit. Have it your own way. 
 Call him ' the man Tryers.' That will relieve you. 
 And tell me more." 
 
 " There's nothing more to tell." 
 
 "You comforted poor Norah a little, I hope? 
 Told her that all men weren't like that — made her 
 fully realise you were quite different? It was a 
 splendid opportunity." 
 
 " Oh, well, I — I tried to make her feel easier in 
 her mind, of course. I could hardly do anything 
 else." 
 
 " The girl is fond of you, George. Of course you 
 know that? " 
 
 " I hope she is." George seemed a little nettled. 
 " I am fond of her. No harm in that, is there? " 
 
 " None whatever. Quite as it should be." 
 
 " I wish the child well. She is a good girl. I
 
 122 The Buffoon 
 
 hope to see her a happy wife and mother one of 
 these days." 
 
 Edward groaned. 
 
 " I certainly do," George continued with some 
 warmth. " I do not want to see her spoilt by the at- 
 tentions of blackguards. Do you?" He chal- 
 lenged Edward. 
 
 " Tell me," Edward asked, " did she really give 
 you details about Tryers' wicked conduct? That 
 must have been exciting. Did she say, for example : 
 ' He tried to kiss me. He tried to take me on his 
 knee ' ? I should like to have heard her say that. I 
 can just imagine how engagingly she would have said 
 it. As Welsh would observe, ' what an occasion ' ! 
 Was she very shy? " 
 
 " Of course she was shy. Any nice girl would 
 have been shy." 
 
 " Not so shy as she seemed, I'll be bound. That 
 makes it all the more attractive : just the right ele- 
 ment of artificiality, of intrigue. Oh, my dear 
 George, you miss so much ! " 
 
 " I must go now." George rose. " I have a 
 great deal to get through this morning. I came to 
 you simply because I wanted to make it perfectly 
 clear — perfectly clear — that I cannot, under any 
 circumstances, meet this man again. I thought it 
 best that you should understand my position, and 
 the reasons for my position." 
 
 " That's all right, George. Don't mention it." 
 Edward nodded pleasantly as George went.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 AS soon as the front door had closed, Welsh 
 emerged from his retirement above stairs. 
 Entering the room, he ejaculated " Ha! " 
 just as if he were on the stage, and at once went to 
 the bookcase. Edward had taken up his newspaper, 
 and proceeded to read it. There was silence undis- 
 turbed for about half an hour. Then Edward's 
 man appeared with a telegram, which he handed to 
 Welsh. 
 
 "Yes, — ah — my friend," Welsh addressed the 
 servant, " there is an answer." He turned to Ed- 
 ward. " A Socialist Society in London wants me to 
 lecture for them to-night on ' Art and Democracy.' 
 Shall I accept? Would you come too? " 
 
 " Yes," said Edward without hesitation. " We'll 
 go by the four train. That suit you? " 
 
 Welsh wrote out the reply telegram, and handed 
 it to the servant. " Is that all right? " he asked him 
 appealingly. " Anything to pay ? " He took out a 
 handful of gold, silver and copper. 
 
 " Nothing, sir," replied Merrion. " This is a 
 prepaid form." 
 
 "Ah — " Welsh gave a sigh, and put the money 
 back. " You have no conception, my friend," he 
 added to Edward, " how I am worried by absurd 
 
 123
 
 124 The Buffoon 
 
 transactions of this kind. They prick me all over 
 like little pins, every day. I suppose we shall have 
 to take Reggie with us? Where is he? " 
 
 " He's in disgrace." 
 
 " Why? How? " Welsh raised his voice. 
 
 *' He'll tell us all about it when he comes back. 
 It will be more amusing for you to have it at first 
 hand. It seems he is bathing just at present. Tell 
 me more about this circle of Raoul Root's. We 
 may meet some of them to-night, perhaps? " 
 
 " Oh, no ! " Welsh was emphatic. *' Oh, dear no. 
 Not at a Sociahst lecture. They take no interest in 
 politics of any kind. They represent a reaction 
 from Shaw and Wells and Chesterton, and all that 
 lot. Social movements are quite out of their sphere. 
 They hate the propagandist school." 
 
 "What? Back to the 'nineties — the aloofness 
 of art — all that kind of thing? " 
 
 " Oh, they despise the 'nineties. The 'nineties 
 haven't any chance at all. That is an obsolete pe- 
 riod. All the nineteenth century is obsolete. It 
 produced nothing but prettiness and bombast. I've 
 heard them say that again and again. They are 
 modern, my friend. They are the last word in mo- 
 dernity. They are les ]eunes!* Welsh's French ac- 
 cent was terrible. 
 
 " Les seuls jeunes authentiques? " 
 
 " What's that? " Welsh looked puzzled. 
 
 " Well," said Edward, " how do they make their 
 art fit what's modern? "
 
 The Buffoon 125 
 
 Welsh hesitated. " They write poetry that reads 
 like advertisements. Root says that everything 
 should come in: bathroom fixtures should come in, 
 motorbusses, Tube Stations, telephone wires, — 
 everything. No rhymes, of course. No ' metro- 
 nome rhythm.' " 
 
 "Futurists? " 
 
 " They criticise them. But I tell you there are 
 precious few artists that Root's set think it worth 
 while to criticise." 
 
 *' I've read some of Root's verse. It gave me 
 pleasure. Vigour, certainly. He annoyed me 
 rather, though, by using a lot of absurd words." 
 
 *' Oh, Root's verse ! " Welsh's intonation was 
 equivocal. " Yes, it's too much work. I believe 
 he spent years of toil in the British Museum, study- 
 ing the lesser Renaissance Italians. That gave him 
 his start. Now it's the lavatory fixture, motor-bus, 
 tea-shop vein. I don't read him. I don't like them 
 in print, but it's amusing to hear them talk. They're 
 all very casual, very off-hand, — damned rude, in 
 fact, at times. I tell you what it is, my friend. 
 They have a pedantic and hide-bound convention of 
 naturalness, hes jeunes must be natural. And les 
 jeunes must be clever and bright. Seriousness is 
 nineteenth century: les jeunes are to inaugurate a new 
 era of wit. Oh, how they keep the ball rolling! 
 But I assure you they have no humour. It is all very 
 naive. They are deliciously simple. That is why I 
 almost like them. Their vanity and credulity are re-
 
 126 The Buffoon 
 
 freshing. They will believe anything — anything 
 — of one another." 
 
 " When will you take me? " 
 
 ** Sunday. I'll telephone. You shall see the Di- 
 vinity. Eunice Dinwiddie." 
 
 "Yes; a beautiful girl is a beautiful girl, what- 
 ever ' circle ' she may belong to." Edward found 
 this reflection agreeable. 
 
 " How I shall enjoy your discriminations when 
 the affair is over! " Welsh lapped up his words in 
 a cat-like way. " You won't be annoyed by their ab- 
 surd arrogance, will you ? They cultivate arrogance 
 with German thoroughness and Transatlantic energy. 
 They are tremendously naive. They are much more 
 agreeable and interesting than their work. You 
 should see their official organ. Crash. The prose 
 might be written by cheeky school boys, and the verse 
 by homicidal maniacs. The verse! They throw 
 words at you like misshapen bricks. They bang you 
 with a phrase here and a phrase there. Nothing 
 connected." 
 
 " But surely there was some woman. Five years 
 ago or more — and five years ago must be the dead 
 past for Root's set. Some woman in Paris who tried 
 all this elliptical business on. I was under the im- 
 pression that people very soon found out how easy 
 a trick it was, and how little there was in it." 
 
 "You're right! You're right! " Welsh was in 
 high glee. " Root takes up various ' stunts ' and 
 makes them go. He's an American. That's the
 
 The Buffoon 127 
 
 real clue to him. He'd be nowhere without his 
 American training. You've hit it! You've hit it! " 
 
 Edward didn't feel that it was quite this that he 
 had hit, but he did not interrupt Welsh. 
 
 " That's what Root does," the lecturer continued. 
 " He follows in the tail of these little new move- 
 ments. He's like a puppy dog on the end of a 
 string! " 
 
 Edward was wondering how far Welsh had col- 
 oured the complexion and distorted the features of 
 this newest of new circles of les jeunes. It was his 
 way, of course, to colour and distort. 
 
 " What are you thinking? " Welsh asked abruptly, 
 and Edward veraciously replied: 
 
 " I was wondering if you were giving me true im- 
 pressions. You don't always, you know. But I'm 
 inclined to believe that your judgment is singularly 
 clear about people outside your own set, that you 
 have the keenest eye for all their little foibles. You 
 convince yourself all the more, you see, that way; 
 convince yourself, I mean, that yours is the circle, 
 that you and your friends are of the blood royal, and 
 the others pretenders. Isn't that it? " 
 
 " Why of course mine is the circle ! " Welsh 
 opened his eyes. " Who could compare this Raoul 
 Root with Tom Fielding or Willie O'Flaherty? 
 You must meet O'Flaherty ; he has real genius. The 
 most delicate, the most imaginative, the most fastid- 
 ious, the most distinguished spirit! I tell you, my 
 friend, it is the most distinguished circle."
 
 128 The Buffoon 
 
 " And you," Edward twitted him, " the pivot of 
 it all! The most distinguished of all positions in 
 the most distinguished of all circles! I am envious, 
 I tell you, my friend, I am envious. And here's 
 Tryers," he added, looking out of the window. 
 
 "Ah!" Welsh collapsed. 
 
 " Tryers has an air of disparagement about him 
 this morning," Edward went on. 
 
 "Ah," said Welsh again. "I wonder,"— he 
 spoke curiously flatly — " I wonder what he'll tell us 
 about his morning's adventure? "
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 TRYERS had met the little girl, oh, yes — but 
 the mood which had made him want to 
 meet her had passed very quickly. He 
 was more and more sure that that kind of mood was 
 an enemy to him, and besides, its power was weak- 
 ening, no doubt of that. He spoke, with calm and 
 severe decision, of a great change impending. 
 
 " There is a change," Edward got a word in at 
 last, " a change of a slighter sort impending this 
 afternoon. Welsh is to lecture to-night for some 
 Socialists in London, and I am going with him." 
 
 Tryers coloured. " I thought you had asked me 
 to stay for the week-end," he said huffily. 
 
 " So I did. But Welsh, you see, has taken your 
 place as my guest, and Welsh wants to go." 
 
 " I shall stay on at the Inn," Tryers remarked 
 after a pause. " I am very comfortable there, and 
 your bathing is excellent. And I feel that I need 
 the country air." He spoke with a marked attempt 
 at dignity. 
 
 " All right," said Edward. " Use my boat, of 
 course." 
 
 It was an exasperating morning for Tryers. 
 
 Welsh and Edward started a discussion about Rus- 
 
 129
 
 130 The Buffoon 
 
 sian authors, a discussion deliberately provoked, so 
 Tryers thought, in order to ignore him. For a time 
 he made petulant interruptions, and at last, finding 
 it impossible to ruffle the equanimity of the critics, 
 he abruptly took his leave. 
 
 Edward and Welsh looked at each other as the 
 door shut. 
 
 " Gone just before lunch! " cried Welsh. " He 
 must be very much annoyed." 
 
 " Of course one must remember," Edward spoke 
 as though he were alluding to a very remote event, 
 " that he was rebuffed this morning." 
 
 " Yes," Welsh agreed. " Norah. Evidently a 
 serious rebuff. There were all the usual signs." 
 
 They fell again to talking of Tchekoff.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 EDWARD had begun to be affected by an un- 
 usual sense of anticipation. Something, 
 he felt, was going to happen, something ex- 
 citing and unprecedented. He laughed at himself, 
 but he did not laugh himself out of his impression. 
 
 It was the case that is general with premonitions 
 of the kind. For some time Edward, in unconscious 
 rebellion against his derisive " control," had been 
 growing towards a change, and the incidents of the 
 last few hours had forced the growth. This was 
 why he so readily felt that new experiences were 
 hanging for him in mysterious air, this was why he 
 purringly prepared himself to co-operate with 
 destiny. But though he purred, he was roused. 
 Welsh's influence played its part: his perpetual inti- 
 mation of "something exciting! you will see, my 
 friend ! ", his stimulating exclamation marks, had 
 their effect in happy time. Edward let himself go, 
 much more emotionally than was " in character " for 
 him, towards the future. No one can ever be " in 
 character " all the time : human nature is not adapted 
 for a strain like that. 
 
 Anticipations beguiled Edward's journey in the 
 train, they engaged him in the taxi-cab to the hotel, 
 they interpolated themselves with unflagging liveli- 
 
 131
 
 132 The Buffoon 
 
 ness during his dinner with Welsh. They had to 
 dine early as the lecture was for eight-fifteen, and 
 Edward as a rule much disliked dining early. But 
 he found that these anticipations of his reconciled 
 him to a great deal of inconvenience; very fortu- 
 nately reconciled him, for any one going about with 
 Welsh had to put up with inconveniences at all turns. 
 On this particular occasion Welsh had begun by pack- 
 ing his bag before Edward's man could get at it, and 
 he had left all his collars behind in a drawer of his 
 room. He had discovered the collars to be missing 
 some ten minutes after the train had started, and the 
 oversight had distressed him acutely. " I cannot 
 possibly lecture in a flannel shirt," he repeated 
 mournfully again and again, and Edward vainly as- 
 sured him that a flannel shirt would be just what the 
 Sociahsts would like. Then Edward offered some 
 of his own collars, if they would fit: he asked Welsh 
 what size he took, and Welsh hadn't, of course, the 
 remotest idea. He fell to a lively discussion of the 
 shape of Edward's neck and the various qualities 
 thereby indicated: he compared the neck with those 
 of various statues of Roman Emperors; Nero, of 
 course, was prominent among them and occasioned 
 several picturesque historical debouches: further 
 comparisons followed in swift succession, Antinous 
 and Apollo were invoked, and there was much talk 
 of Hadrian. It was not till the train stopped at 
 Three Bridges that Welsh was persuaded to apply 
 himself to the practical test of putting on the collar
 
 The Buffoon 133 
 
 which Edward had taken out of his bag while one 
 of the orations was in progress. The stiffness of the 
 linen appalled the lecturer. " How can you wear 
 them? " he cried. " What can be done with these 
 button-holes? " Edward efficiently prised them open 
 with a tiny blade of his knife, and Welsh received 
 the collar from his hands with a look of helplessness 
 complete and irremediable. He surveyed the collar 
 as Sisyphus might have surveyed his stone. He let 
 it drop on the floor. His companion picked it up 
 and put it round his neck, Welsh grimacing horribly 
 the while. 
 
 " No good," said Edward. " The collar is ob- 
 viously at least two sizes too small. You would be 
 strangled in it." 
 
 "Strangled!" Welsh repeated. "Strangled! 
 What can be done ? " He was alarmed. 
 
 At Victoria nothing could dissuade him from mak- 
 ing fevered inquiries for collars at the Bookstalls and 
 the Tobacco Stand: he asked advice, most deferen- 
 tially, of a porter who was helpful to the extent of in- 
 dicating a shop in Wilton Street. " Wilton Street ! " 
 Welsh echoed, as though that locality were a dis- 
 covered refuge and protection forever. He went 
 off post-haste, leaving Edward on the platform with 
 the luggage. Edward, who felt like a subordinate 
 character in a knockabout farce, walked up and 
 down, smoking cigarettes and preserving his equa- 
 nimity. It was something that Welsh, when he re- 
 turned, actually had a parcel of collars. He was tri-
 
 134 The Buffoon 
 
 umphant, he felt sure he had something to fit, be- 
 cause he had bought several different sizes. This 
 he explained carefully, as though anxious to convince 
 his companion of his foresight and prudence. 
 
 Welsh was inconvenient, too, when they reached 
 the hotel. Edward had asked him if he approved 
 of their staying at " The Regent," and Welsh had 
 enthusiastically agreed, saying that he liked the name, 
 it reminded him of Bath and Beau Brummel, he was 
 sure all the servants would wear powdered wigs and 
 have an eighteenth-century manner. But when they 
 arrived, panic seized him. The place, he said, was 
 " too formidable," he would be " terrified of the 
 oflicials," he was " sure they would suspect him of 
 something." Couldn't they go to some little inn in 
 Gower Street, or perhaps turn back to the Vauxhall 
 Bridge Road, where he had once taken a bedroom, 
 and though he had forgotten the number, he thought 
 he knew more or less where it was. However Ed- 
 ward was firm, he reminded Welsh of that pregnant 
 line of Swinburne, 
 
 " Bugs hath she brought from London beds," 
 and clinched the matter by getting out of the cab and 
 signalling to the hotel porter to take the luggage. 
 Welsh followed piteously, more than usually bowed, 
 quite crumpled, in fact. " Do not abuse me, I beg," 
 his aspect implied, " you see I'm humbled to the 
 dust." Edward took him into consideration later on 
 by securing a table in the most obscure and secluded 
 corner of the dining-room.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THEY arrived at the lecture hall about fifteen 
 minutes late. People were there in full 
 muster, giving a partial attention to the 
 chairman who was trying to beguile their impatience 
 by announcements and preliminary remarks. 
 
 " Comrade Wimpole," he was saying in defiant 
 tones, as Edward and Welsh came in, " Comrade 
 Arthur Wimpole, who has been doing such mag- 
 nificent work in Leicester — magnificent work — 
 I'm sure you are all aware — " 
 
 At that moment the audience saw Welsh, and cut 
 the chairman's remarks short by a burst of cheering, 
 which increased in volume as the lecturer walked 
 down the side of the hall. Edward slipped into a 
 corner seat, and Welsh pursued his course swiftly to- 
 wards the platform. Male members of the audience 
 began to shout and stamp their feet, while the women 
 clapped their hands energetically. 
 
 The chairman raised his arm. "Friends!" he 
 shouted, " Fellow Workers ! Here is Comrade 
 Welsh among us again." 
 
 Opportunely Welsh appeared on the platform, still 
 in his overcoat, which hung about him, unbuttoned, 
 like a black mantle, giving him a Mephlstophelian 
 
 135
 
 136 The Buffoon 
 
 appearance. The applause, which had subsided for 
 a moment, redoubled. The chairman stood waiting, 
 with a thin forced smile on his countenance. His 
 eyes remained grave. He was a little man called 
 Routh, very spare, very pale, very wiry; clean 
 shaven, with short grey stubbly hair. He had a 
 withered look as though he had been long since 
 drained dry of natural sap. All joy of life, it would 
 seem, had deserted him in his infancy. His expres- 
 sion indicated, more than anything else, determined 
 hostility, and each line of his face gave the impres- 
 sion of not having come there by nature, but of hav- 
 ing been drawn by his own obstinate will. " A sav- 
 age little white man who wants to bite something," 
 was Edward's comment. Soon he began to shout 
 again. 
 
 " You don't expect formalities from met " he 
 cried. (As much as to say: " If you do, damn you, 
 I'll have you all shot.") "This is no bread-and- 
 butter drawing-room meeting. It Is a meeting of 
 men and women — men and women." His em- 
 phasis was ferocious: Edward saw the sexes stark 
 and bleak. " And we," the speaker continued, 
 " have adopted the only sane, the only just creed 
 that men and women of to-day are able to adopt. 
 We are Socialists." He stopped, evidently expect- 
 ing applause at this point, but the audience failed him. 
 
 One man cried " Agreed ! " in a terse discouraging 
 tone. Edward looked up : the man was in the front 
 row of the gallery to the side : he was leaning heavily
 
 The Buffoon 137 
 
 over the railing with lank arms dropped and hands 
 clasped tightly together. He was middle-aged and 
 consumptive-looking, with a ragged brownish beard; 
 altogether, Edward thought, one of the most de- 
 pressing people he had ever seen, the kind of person 
 to chill any enthusiasm at any moment. His next 
 door neighbour was a girl, and when Edward's 
 glance had shifted to her, it did not shift again for 
 some time. She was certainly most incongruously 
 juxtaposed, and evidently she was bent, in self-de- 
 fence, on emphasising the Incongruity. How did she 
 manage it, Edward wondered, how did she contrive 
 that physical atmosphere of aloofness, how was It 
 that she proclaimed so unmistakably yet with so aptly 
 moderated, so finely judged a tone of demeanour, 
 that she was not of these others, that she was there 
 from motives far beyond any grasp of theirs? 
 " Some one will understand," she seemed to say, 
 " some one will understand." 
 
 The chairman went on talking, and Edward caught 
 words here and there: 
 
 " — the great regeneration — the promised land 
 — the principles on which we rest secure — confi- 
 dent of ultimate victory — advancing by leaps and 
 bounds — " 
 
 The audience was growing impatient. Welsh sat 
 on a chair at the back of the platform, his head in 
 his hands; he remained motionless, and Edward won- 
 dered If he had fallen asleep. How delicately that 
 girl Inclined her body forward ! It was really a no-
 
 138 The Buffoon 
 
 table curve, a tense and considered droop, one might 
 say. . . . 
 
 "Comrade Welsh!" the chairman turned upon 
 the lecturer, who started and held up a hand as 
 though to ward off an unexpected blow. " Comrade 
 Welsh! We welcome you. You come to-night to 
 speak to us in the name of Democracy, on ' Art and 
 Democracy '." 
 
 He sat down suddenly, and Welsh moved to the 
 front of the platform, talking as he moved. 
 
 " Ladies and gentlemen, if you will pardon me 
 the expression — " 
 
 The audience had expected a moment's interval 
 for applause. Welsh had taken them by surprise, 
 but they were not to be cheated out of their demon- 
 stration. 
 
 " I am glad," he went on, when the shouting and 
 clapping were nearly over, " I am glad that you do 
 pardon me. I can assure you, my friends, my 
 brothers and sisters, my comrades, if I may use that 
 characteristically humorous and whimsical phrase 
 of our chairman — " 
 
 Comrade Routh's back stiffened. He glanced 
 suspiciously at Welsh. There was some laughter, 
 and one angry female voice cried shrilly: " Shame I 
 shame ! " 
 
 " I can assure you," Welsh continued, " that in 
 all my goings about, — in England, in Germany, in 
 America, — I can assure you that I have seen no 
 ladies, but these sitting here before me to-night with
 
 The Buffoon 139 
 
 their tawdry trinkets and their shabby clothes." 
 
 Was he mad? thought Edward. To begin with 
 the implication that they were really the scum of 
 the earth, but he preferred them to ladies ! Edward 
 looked at the women's faces: some seemed to hint 
 at resentment, but all were interested. 
 
 " As for ' shame,' " Welsh uttered the word with 
 infinite contempt, " we all heard just now, in flute- 
 like female accents, that syllable pronounced." 
 ("The woman will kill him," thought Edward.) 
 " But I have no shame. I — and you, my friends, — 
 and you, — are without shame. We stand up 
 shameless before our Gods. Why cry ' Shame, 
 shame! ' where there is no shame? It is a wonder- 
 ful thought, an inspiring thought, a thought that will 
 carry us far, a thought that is, as the Americans say, 
 ' worth while,' — that here, in this remarkable hall, 
 in this district of Bayswater, there are gathered to- 
 gether more than five hundred people, all of whom 
 are totally destitute of shame." 
 
 Edward looked up again at the girl in the galllery. 
 Her lips were slightly parted, her expression more 
 enigmatical than ever. As he looked, her lips moved 
 hardly perceptibly, like petals just stirred by the 
 ghost of a breeze on a day almost windless, in the 
 most secluded corner of the most secluded of gar- 
 dens. " I know: " she seemed to intimate. " This 
 is a cipher that I can read. I and I only was born 
 to read it." 
 
 *' If we have shame," Welsh went on, with a
 
 140 The Buffoon 
 
 dominant sweeping gesture that banished shame for- 
 ever to the barbarians, " if we have shame, we can 
 neither be artists nor democrats. There are some, I 
 know, who call themselves artists, who will talk to 
 you of ' proper shame,' who will enunciate rever- 
 entially the word ' aidos,' by which they mean the 
 morbid and craven fear that barred the approach of 
 the artist to Life, in unregenerate days. Here, my 
 friends," — his speech quickened, he began to talk 
 more violently and with more conviction — " here I 
 would indicate to you the nature of the great revolu- 
 tion which democracy is making for art. The artist 
 of the future — and, of course the future is the Peo- 
 ple's, the whole People's, and nothing but the Peo- 
 ple's — " 
 
 Comrade Routh's pale eyes glistened. He half 
 rose, and began clapping his hands viciously to- 
 gether. The audience followed his lead at once: 
 one earnest young man sitting near Edward, dressed 
 in shiny black, looking as though he belonged to the 
 Salvation Army, — pasty-faced, pimpled, blonde- 
 moustach'd, — shouted: "Down with the para- 
 sites ! " and for a time everything was in an uproar. 
 Edward was annoyed. Why had Welsh brought 
 this about? He must have known. — There was 
 the girl in the gallery, drooping a little more under 
 such vulgar pressure of noise, giving her pained re- 
 buff to these gross activities in progress. A rude 
 wind had unpardonably found its way to her gar- 
 den, she — Edward pulled up his reflections short.
 
 The Buffoon 141 
 
 " Good Lord ! " he said to himself, " I must really 
 be careful." — But why on earth had Welsh in- 
 voked that brutal demonstration? Edward did not 
 realise the pressure that an audience brings to bear 
 upon a speaker, he did not know that an orator, par- 
 ticularly an orator like Welsh, cannot keep himself 
 from saying the kind of things that his people want 
 him to say. 
 
 " Your democratic artist," Welsh was able to con- 
 tinue at last, " your democratic artist spits out all the 
 old shibboleths — spits them out, if need be, into the 
 very faces of their High Priests." Comrade Routh 
 looked as though he were about to spit himself, for 
 illustration. " We of the new heaven and the new 
 earth will speak how we will, and of what we will. 
 Art, with the new inspiration of Democracy, will 
 tamper with every forbidden thing. The need of 
 the People is revelation! Every corner must be 
 revealed by the artist, the avenger of the mob, the 
 artist who shall be Lucifer bringer of light, Lucifer 
 son of the morning! " 
 
 He threw his head back with a .fine gesture of 
 pride and defiance. The audience kept quiet, too 
 much subdued by him now to applaud. 
 
 " It is the artist, the artist, who shall make the 
 great exposure. There is nothing that shall not be 
 spoken. These well-protected ones, they have their 
 secrets, they live on their secrets, but we will tear 
 their secrets out of their very bowels. The world 
 shall know what shelters them, what feeds them and
 
 142 The Buffoon 
 
 what gives them drink. The world shall hear of it ! 
 Hear of what? — Of men and women starved and 
 worked to death, of children ravished. Yes, we 
 shall know the lies of religion and morality, we shall 
 know the sanctified indecencies of marriage, the con- 
 secrated cruelties of that property-lust by which 
 marriage was begotten! And some will cry 
 ' Shame ! Shame ! ' But we shall not be brought 
 to silence." 
 
 As Welsh spoke, Edward observed the faces in 
 the audience. Nearly all were emotionally stirred, 
 and the experience seemed to bear some down be- 
 low their usual level, to raise others above it. The 
 former class wore a look of dull sensuality, a look of 
 limp and flaccid lust unredeemed by ecstasy; it 
 seemed that they were wallowing and gorging. The 
 latter, young men and girls for the most part, were 
 genuinely kindled, keyed to a more clearly-toned, 
 more vibrant emotional pitch. Their faces showed 
 heightened expression. Certain others, of middle 
 and past middle age, underwent a pseudo-excitement : 
 they enjoyed their elderly little thrills, but they could 
 not surrender to them. They shook their heads and 
 pursed their lips and smiled in a deprecating way, 
 they threw their soft shapeless sops to the proprie- 
 ties. Meanwhile the girl in the gallery preserved 
 her demeanour, peculiarly Individual, untainted by 
 any example. Her droop varied a little, her lips 
 opened a little more or a little less, but her air of 
 sovereign withdrawal was not diminished. She kept
 
 The Buffoon 143 
 
 that closed look, that veiled Intimation of a higher 
 appreciation of what Welsh was saying; she was still 
 of that spiritual order which divides Itself from those 
 of the lesser disciples. Who could she be? Ed- 
 ward's Interest In her positively caused him an uneasy 
 blush. Even the eloquence of Welsh and the varied 
 reactions of that eloquence upon the audience could 
 not keep his mind from this girl. The orator's voice 
 kept beating against the outer doors of his conscious- 
 ness. But none the less he found himself, at in- 
 tervals, gauging Welsh's character as a speaker, 
 gauging, too, without any marked abatement of the 
 satisfaction that criticism usually gave him. 
 
 He noticed that Welsh was subject to extraor- 
 dinary lapses, lapses that became more and more 
 flagrant and frequent as he established his hold over 
 his people. First he hypnotised them by incanta- 
 tions of some genuine power; then he would reel off 
 clap-trap, launch joyously Into bombast, strike out 
 shamelessly for naked melodrama. Suddenly all 
 this would bore him, and he would say something 
 that really interested him; phrasing It with such 
 audacity, giving It such an edge that his hearers 
 started as though the edge had cut their flesh. His 
 wit helped him too. He was speaking of St. Paul 
 — " the aristocrat of aristocrats, but no philoso- 
 pher." 
 
 " Sir! " an Intent young mechanic jumped to his 
 feet, flourishing his note-book, " you told us before 
 that Paul was a philosopher! "
 
 144 The Buffoon 
 
 Welsh regarded the interrupter with deprecating 
 sweetness. He replied, delicately remonstrant: 
 "Oh, sir! We call him a philosopher in Bays- 
 water." 
 
 He spoke of the peculiar academic snobbishness 
 of literary gentlemen, of how they buried themselves 
 under the fallen leaves of this tradition or that, 
 ashamed to show their own actual contours more 
 than was conventionally decent, so in the end losing 
 the sense of themselves entirely. Then he attacked 
 the too conscious reactions against tradition; he in- 
 dicated Raoul Root and his following. Socialism, 
 he said, would change all this to the great benefit of 
 art. Through Socialism we would reach to the best 
 Individualism. Welsh summarised, rapidly and 
 with great vigour, Oscar Wilde's Essay on " The 
 Soul of Man under Socialism." " But this is all 
 right," thought Edward. " I don't suppose any of 
 them have read it." 
 
 Welsh spoke admirably, too, when he put art into 
 its place for Socialists. " The artist refines our per- 
 ceptions, and even Socialists need some refinement." 
 He dashed out, genuinely stirred again now, to an 
 ardent offensive that made Comrade Routh wriggle 
 in his chair. He attacked " the hide-bound conven- 
 tions of the Progressive," — ■ in particular the con- 
 vention of community of feeling, the convention that 
 *' we must all fall in comradeship on one another's 
 necks." " I have a right to choose," he declared, 
 " the people on whose necks I am to fall. I see
 
 The Buffoon 145 
 
 some here before me to-night whom I would will- 
 ingly embrace: I see others whom I would not of 
 my free choice even touch — no, not even the tips of 
 their fingers with the tips of mine ! " 
 
 This announcement caused a great sensation and 
 some embarrassment: many of the women looked 
 conscious. The girl in the gallery, by a fugitive 
 glance round her, and a slight modification of her 
 curve, implied that she felt eminently with Welsh, 
 but that the quality of her feeling was more fastidi- 
 ous. She would embrace, it seemed, but one to 
 Welsh's three — no more. 
 
 " No," Welsh continued, " we must have reserve, 
 we must have taste — selection by taste. Deny 
 taste, you deny freedom." 
 
 The attack persisted. That partial and special- 
 ised apprehension of so many of our " Comrades," 
 their InablHty to co-ordinate all the phases of life, — 
 there was actual tyranny in that, and promise of a 
 tyranny more oppressive. Welsh went on to speak 
 of the limitations of the proletariat, and Edward lis- 
 tened to a paraphrase, at length, of his own words on 
 that subject, with recognition of him as " the most in- 
 transigeant living individualist." Then the orator 
 undertook a definition of what humanity and hu- 
 manism really meant; suddenly, to Edward's amaze- 
 ment, he swept irresistibly down to the lower level 
 of his hearers, he fell torrentially in a tropical 
 shower of balderdash. " Beat not the bones of the 
 buried : while he lived, he was a man." It was this
 
 146 The Buffoon 
 
 quotation that started Welsh off. " He may have 
 been the veriest scoundrel, he may have been a blink- 
 ing idiot, an owl, a zany, a doddipoU; a liar, a thief, 
 a ravisher, a murderer, an abomination of desola- 
 tion, bathed in the mire of the bottomless pit, stink- 
 ing from hell to heaven, — what matter? Let us 
 recognise the essential honourableness of flesh and 
 blood as flesh and blood. Let us approach him not 
 only with tolerance, not only with affection, but with 
 reverence, — yes, my friends, I say with reverence, 
 for he is human. ' Beat not the bones of the buried : 
 while he lived, he was a man.' " 
 
 Edward's gaze was fixed on the girl in the gallery. 
 She betrayed nothing. Her hints of herself were 
 growing more and more obscure. She was enig- 
 matical, all over. " Absurd ! " Edward murmured. 
 " I don't believe there is any enigma about it. She's 
 a woman, very much a woman, and that is her way." 
 But he could not dismiss her. 
 
 Welsh went on in this vein, with eulogistic tirades 
 about publicans and harlots, " the outcast and de- 
 spised, who are the chosen of Christ, and of all the 
 Christs of the world." The limitations of the pro- 
 letariat were quite forgotten. Edward observed 
 that a look of bewilderment descended upon the 
 more intelligent faces, while the unintelligent stressed 
 their heavy sensual aspect. Biit at least the man was 
 varied: if the lecture were more even, if there were 
 no lapses, would it, Edward wondered, be so re- 
 markable? Welsh certainly was born an orator:
 
 The Buffoon 147 
 
 he had, it seemed by nature, all the devices of the art. 
 Impossible to believe that he had ever studied them. 
 No speech that Edward had ever heard had been so 
 authentically stamped impromptu. What fascina- 
 tion there was in that! in knowing that anything 
 might come next, that everything depended on 
 chance, on the look of a face in the audience, the re- 
 flection of the gas on a certain spot, the floating recol- 
 lections of Welsh's mind, the digestion of Welsh's 
 bread-and-milk ! Yes, the man was amazing. 
 What if he could make him drunk? He would very 
 much like to hear a drunken Jack Welsh talk. 
 That was an idea. But how much more he would 
 like to listen to that girl up there! How still she 
 was ! For the last ten minutes she had sat without 
 the change of a curve, without the movement of a 
 feature. 
 
 Welsh was evidently winding up. He did not do 
 it so well as Edward expected ; he took too long, he 
 got himself into twisted paths and could not find the 
 right turning. Evidently he was rather exhausted. 
 Edward reflected that perorations were not likely to 
 come by nature. A pity, perhaps, that Welsh did 
 not make a rough draft of what was to come right 
 at the end. But he never would do that. At last, in 
 a desperation for which he drew renewed energy, 
 the lecturer plunged to his goal. He broke off 
 abruptly, sprang straight into his thickets and 
 through them. 
 
 " My friends ! I have finished. My friends !
 
 148 The Buffoon 
 
 we have done with words. I leave you to thought, 
 I leave you to action. And when I say action I 
 mean rebellion, I mean revolution ! " Interruption 
 by perfunctory applause. " Remember! Beyond 
 the old governments, beyond Oligarchy and Mon- 
 archy and Plutocracy, beyond these is the govern- 
 ment of the People, the government called Democ- 
 racy, never yet tried ; yes, I say we have not tried it 
 yet. With Democracy comes Socialism : but beyond 
 Socialism is Anarchy, and beyond Anarchy is An- 
 archy again, and yet again Anarchy ! Anarchy, my 
 brothers, this is my last word to you — Anarchy ! 
 Anarchy! " 
 
 Edward put on his hat, took his stick, and looked 
 for the hundredth time to that especial corner of the 
 gallery. She was gone ! He dashed for the near- 
 est door. As he made his way through the crowd 
 he was conscious of a flutter as of a bird imprisoned 
 in his stomach. It was an unfamiliar sensation. 
 The flutter ceased, and he experienced a shamed in- 
 ward feeling, like a blushing of the bowels. Stand- 
 ing just outside the main entrance of the Hall, he 
 looked eagerly about: face after face passed, but 
 never the girl's. Yet the gallery people went this 
 way: he had noticed the lank consumptive, looking 
 sourer than ever, and she had been his neighbour. 
 Perhaps she had found another way. That would 
 be like her, to find another way; that was, no doubt, 
 what she was always doing. Edward shot a last 
 searching glance over the crowd, then hurried off
 
 rhe Buffoon 149 
 
 to discover another exit. He walked round the 
 building: there were two other doors, but both of 
 them shut. Perhaps they had opened for her, just 
 for a moment! He found himself back at the main 
 entrance. The crowd was passing more slowly now : 
 evidently not many were left. No; he could see 
 them all, and there at the end was Welsh, waving 
 his hat.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 TIME began to pass slowly for Edward. He 
 said nothing to Welsh of the gallery girl, 
 but he questioned him on his opinions about 
 the passion of love. Welsh replied that he had 
 never been in love, that he did not think he ever 
 could be. " I am without love," he said, " as I am 
 without tears. I cannot weep : I cannot adore. I 
 am incapable of true sorrow, and of true religion/' 
 He warmed at this point, comparing himself 
 with Turgenev's Dmitri Rudin. " A man without 
 heart!" he exclaimed. "Can you conceive it? 
 That is my destiny. But you, my friend, you are a 
 lover. It is your fate to love. What a lover you 
 would make! You would surrender, how slowly! 
 but you would surrender altogether. Your devotion 
 would be extraordinary. Yes, I have never met any 
 one so capable of the grand passion as you. I wish 
 I could see you in love." 
 
 " We're quits," said Edward. " I was wishing 
 last night that I could see you drunk." But Welsh's 
 words had their influence, at that time. 
 
 Early in the morning had come a telegram from 
 Tryers, asking Welsh to send certain architectural 
 instruments from his office to an address in Paris. 
 Tryers was evidently on his way over, the telegram 
 had been handed In the night before at Newhaven. 
 
 150
 
 The Buffoon 151 
 
 *' We cannot escape from him," said Welsh wearily, 
 dropping the yellow envelope on the floor. He was 
 struck suddenly by the formidable nature of the task 
 imposed. "I can't do it!" he cried. "I simply 
 can't do it! How can I ever make up a parcel and 
 send it to Paris? It is most annoying of Reggie. 
 He knows quite well how agitating this kind of thing 
 is to me — always. It always is. He did it all on 
 purpose, I'm sure he did," 
 
 *' Perhaps," suggested Edward, " he simply 
 wanted us to know that he was quite happily off for 
 Paris." 
 
 " If only," Welsh went on, " I could ignore that 
 telegram. But I can't. He knows I can't. I am 
 incapable of that kind of unscrupulousness. It is 
 what I envy most of all in other people. Now you, 
 I suppose, could throw that telegram away and never 
 think of it again. How I wish I could do that! 
 But I should be worried over those instruments all 
 day. They would torment me ! " 
 
 Edward rose. " Come with me to the office," he 
 said. " A walk to Kensington won't be disagree- 
 able. I undertake to get the parcel off." 
 
 Welsh was overcome with his usual gratitude. 
 Again Edward stood forth a master. But the lec- 
 turer, during the full length of their walk to the office, 
 was far from being really reassured. Nothing could 
 take his mind off those instruments and the appall- 
 ing difficulties surrounding them. Suppose they 
 could not be found? Suppose the woman who had
 
 152 The Buffoon 
 
 the office key should be out? What if they could not 
 turn the lock with the key? " I find it extremely 
 difficult sometimes to turn keys in locks," Welsh com- 
 plained. Then should they register the parcel? 
 Should they insure it? And if so, for how much? 
 Should they send it by special delivery? There was 
 a special delivery system in America, but Welsh was 
 not sure if one existed in England. It was all most 
 baffling, most difficult. Impossible, he thought, to 
 carry through everything successfully, when there 
 was so much of it. Again he reverted to his convic- 
 tion that this was one of Tryers' malevolent tricks. 
 What could Reggie want with his instruments in 
 Paris? In Paris! It was pleasure and nothing else 
 that took him there. Absurd to suppose that he 
 wanted to take measurements in the Louvre or the 
 Madeleine ! Was Edward sure he could make up 
 that parcel safely, really safely? 
 
 Edward meant to take the instruments round to 
 one of the smaller shops, and have them put into a 
 parcel there, but he refrained from telling Welsh of 
 his intention. There would certainly have been an 
 assault of fresh fears. And after all they found on 
 arrival that the woman who kept Tryers' key had 
 a more recent telegram, sent from Dieppe. In it 
 Tryers had told her to say that the instruments were 
 not required. " Just as I thought," cried Welsh, 
 " he did it on purpose ! It was all a trick." But he 
 hugged his relief visibly. 
 
 " I was right, I think," Edward remarked.
 
 The Buffoon 153 
 
 " Tryers wanted to show us that he was in for a gay 
 time. We might go to London. No matter. He 
 would cavoort to Paris, and do us in the eye." 
 
 " Oh, really. You don't say so. How extraor- 
 dinary. That is most interesting." Edward con- 
 jectured that Welsh always replied in this way when 
 he was paying no attention. He had perhaps ac- 
 quired the habit in self-defence, from years of ex- 
 perience of voluble ladies who " went for " him 
 when he was tired from lecturing. " How extraor- 
 dinary," he repeated. 
 
 They walked back slowly and in silence down Ken- 
 sington High Street. Welsh had suddenly become 
 preoccupied. He grimaced as he walked ; passers-by 
 stared at him. The sun shone encouragingly and re- 
 minded Edward that a bottle of ale was pleasant. 
 In the middle of a walk on a sunny morning what 
 could be more to the point than a bottle of ale ? He 
 would bring Welsh's mind to the idea. 
 
 " I was once at the Rose and Crown," he broke 
 the silence. " At Wimbledon. Swinburne came in, 
 and they brought him a bottle of ale. He poured 
 it out very slowly and carefully and held it up to catch 
 the sunlight. The colour was beautiful. He sat 
 admiring the colour and moving the glass here and 
 there to catch different effects of light. He gave 
 little grunts of pleasure all the while. The sun is 
 shining now, and I want to drink ale." 
 
 " Drink ale?" Welsh waved his hand vaguely. 
 " Can you do that here? "
 
 154 The Buffoon 
 
 (( 
 
 Certainly. Therp is a place on the other side 
 of the street. A very proper place to drink ale. 
 Come along." 
 
 Welsh followed, rather bewildered. " Did you 
 really see Swinburne? What did he talk about? 
 Did you get him to recite any of his poems? 
 
 " ' O daughters of dreams and of stones, 
 That life is not wearied of yet, 
 Faustine, Fragoletta, Dolores — ' " 
 
 Edward could have wished that Welsh had dis- 
 carded his silent abstraction rather more discreetly. 
 The lecturer recited the lines in a loud voice, with 
 gestures, pronouncing the names with a relish that 
 lingered on every syllable ; and they were in the very 
 middle of the crowded street. 
 
 "Look out!" cried Edward. "I see a police- 
 man." Welsh was silent at once. 
 
 " As a matter of fact," Edward went on, " the 
 only remark that Swinburne addressed to me was 
 ' Much obliged.' He had difficulty in getting on his 
 overcoat, and I helped him." 
 
 Edward delighted in his ale, but Welsh was pre- 
 vented by his unfortunate stomach from touching a 
 drop. The sight of a telephone reminded Edward 
 of their project for the following evening. 
 
 " Have you telephoned to Raoul Root? " he asked 
 Idly. 
 
 Welsh scrambled to his feet. " No. Of course 
 I must telephone. I learnt how to telephone in
 
 The Buffoon 155 
 
 America," he added with pride. " And Root is al- 
 ways in in the morning. This is quite the right 
 time." He made his way to the instrument. 
 
 Edward half regretted that he had raised the sub- 
 ject. Since last night he had lost interest in the idea 
 of Raoul Root and les jetines. Why should he go 
 and mix up with a crew of poseurs? He knew be- 
 forehand just the kind of pseudo-originality that 
 they made a cult of. This Eunice Dinwiddie, too, 
 she was probably very dull. One out of the hun- 
 dreds and thousands of good-looking American girls 
 who take up with art for the hackneyed ends of sex. 
 And then Raoul Root, the smart Yankee who ran 
 the show! It was really waste of time. Why 
 hadn't he let It drop? Welsh would probably have 
 forgotten all about it. One great advantage about 
 Welsh — 
 
 Meanwhile the lecturer's voice at the telephone 
 could be heard in the furthest alcove of the bar-room. 
 It was as though he talked across an abyss. 
 
 " I want — to speak — to Mr. Raoul Root ! 
 Yes I Mr. Root! — To-morrow night! — Nine 
 o'clock? Yes! — I am bringing a friend! — A 
 friend! — Mr. Edward Raynes! — Oh? Yes, I 
 know where it is ! — Down Street ! Oh yes ! " 
 
 He came back radiant. " See what I can do ! " 
 he conveyed. " Splendid ! " he actually said. 
 " They'll all be there, because the meeting's at Mrs. 
 van Spless's. She has the best house, the best food, 
 and the best drink. Raoul Root is sure to take any
 
 156 The Buffoon 
 
 number of liqueurs. When he's drunk, he's ever so 
 much more amusing. Oh, he'll be at his very best ! 
 Then the Divinity — she will certainly be there. 
 She is Mrs. van Spless's intimate friend. Oh, do 
 you know, the Divinity actually came to my lecture 
 last night. I never told you. I was amazed, sim- 
 ply amazed. Yes, she was there in a corner of the 
 gallery." 
 
 Edward thrilled and grew cold; then he felt his 
 blood. 
 
 " Oh, indeed," he replied, keeping guard. " I 
 thought you said she was quite sure not to be 
 there." 
 
 " But she was ! " Welsh spoke triumphantly. 
 " She amazingly was! " 
 
 " Don't talk like Henry James," Edward diverted 
 the issue. " Let's hold all that in reserve for to- 
 morrow night." 
 
 " Oh, they patronise Henry James." Welsh was 
 easily drawn off. " You wait and see how they talk 
 of him." 
 
 Edward was silent. He finished his ale with what 
 was for him precipitancy. His restlessness, checked 
 for a time, was now almost intolerably aggravated. 
 How could he wait till to-morrow evening? Cer- 
 tainly he couldn't drift about till then with Welsh. 
 He would much rather be alone. Or he might hunt 
 up some of the men at his club and gamble with them. 
 But he wanted to be fresh for to-morrow. A long 
 walk, perhaps. Yes, that would be better. He
 
 rhe Buffoon 157 
 
 would take a train into the country, and then he 
 would walk. 
 
 Welsh played into his hands. *' I think," he said, 
 " I will go and see WiUie O'Flaherty. I haven't 
 heard from him for weeks. He may be annoyed 
 with me. I should like to go and propitiate him. 
 He lives in Chiswick, and you can get a 'bus straight 
 from here. Will you come ? " 
 
 " Not to-day. The fact is, I have a propitiation 
 to accomplish on my own account. I must take the 
 train to Richmond." 
 
 "To Richmond? Why not to Twickenham? 
 Our greatest living poet is in Twickenham. He is 
 a Polish Jew, eighty-three years old. The most 
 magnificent head I've ever seen. I'll go with you. 
 How I should like to see you two together ! What 
 a sensation! — Some other time? — Well, yes, I 
 suppose some other time would serve. Under the 
 conditions — things being as they are — yes. But 
 you must meet the old man. We call him ' the old 
 man.' The Rhadamanthus of the circle! — Rich- 
 mond! So you go to Richmond! What associa- 
 tions does one have with Richmond? Georgian? 
 Yes, a certain Georgian air. Perhaps a certain rem- 
 iniscence of Wattcau? Streams, trees, delicate fig- 
 ures, elegance, lace, muslins, indolence, fetes gal- 
 antes, fetes champetres! I hope Richmond will 
 please you. — This is my 'bus. Do I change at 
 Hammersmith? I wonder. I wish I knew. How- 
 ever — "
 
 158 The Buffoon 
 
 He stepped In with flamboyant courage, waving 
 perilously to Edward, unaware of the conductor's 
 remonstrances. Edward turned, and started to 
 walk quickly off in the opposite direction.
 
 CHAPTER XK 
 
 NO doubt of it, Edward was upset. It was an 
 unprecedented day for him. He smoked 
 about twice as many cigarettes as usual, and 
 he often lacked patience to roll them himself. His 
 luncheon hour passed unnoticed; it was after three 
 o'clock when he found himself opposite one of the 
 Richmond hotels. There they gave him some 
 warmed up soup, which he ate without tasting. 
 Then he lit a cigarette, although he had not smoked 
 between courses since Cambridge days. The meat 
 that followed he played with for awhile. He lit 
 another cigarette, called hastily for his bill, paid it 
 and went out. Once in the street he was assailed 
 by violent thirst. He made for another hotel : noth- 
 ing could have persuaded him to return to the first; 
 the idea of the place filled him with extreme repug- 
 nance. At the new hotel he drank ale and porter 
 mixed — a full bottle of each — and he fell asleep 
 over an old Sunday paper of which he had read per- 
 haps three lines. He woke with a touch of indiges- 
 tion ; he swore he would walk at least five miles and 
 do that five miles in an hour. He took the road back 
 to London. As he walked, one thought after an- 
 other sprang up at him out of ambush, as worrying 
 
 159
 
 160 The Buffoon 
 
 as sportive puppies that want to try their teeth. 
 
 Why did he behave like this? Was It a break- 
 down of his whole scheme? What did he suppose 
 would come of It? Why could he not formulate to 
 himself what it was that he wanted? How stupid 
 to let himself strike out in this futile way In the dark! 
 If you really do want to go and get married, you 
 fool, why not say so and set about It? But remem- 
 ber that you have wanted definitely enough not to 
 be married for at least ten years : set that against this 
 vague Impulse that dates from yesterday evening. — 
 But what If I'm tired of being a bachelor? — Con- 
 sider that it won't take very long for you to be much 
 more tired of being married. You are thirty-five, 
 you won't like changing your habits, you won't like 
 having to do this and that because you're a mar- 
 ried man. Haven't you been comfortable and at 
 ease as you were, haven't you got a great deal out of 
 life, haven't you been, as things go, happy? Then 
 why, why . . .? 
 
 Then again: But this is something new, don't 
 you understand, something perfectly new? Think 
 of Intimacy with that girl, the intimacy of marriage I 
 Think of what I could say to her, of what she might 
 say to me. What new lights, what revelations ! — 
 Now you arc talking like Jack Welsh, that shows 
 you're off your balance. — It Is true all the same. 
 You wouldn't surely have me miss this; why, it 
 would be worth any sacrifice. And my former life 
 hasn't the same hold over me; the fact Is I'm begin-
 
 rhe Buff 0071 161 
 
 ning to cease to react to It. You forget that I'm 
 flexible, rm not a slave of habit. Hang it all, Fm 
 not middle-aged yet. A man's young till he's forty. 
 Granted that I've done the right thing in staying 
 single till now, that doesn't mean I oughtn't ever to 
 marry. Look at the kind of people who are bache- 
 lors late in life. — But you wouldn't be like them. — 
 Perhaps not, but it would be dull, I'm sure it would 
 be dull. One stops reacting to the old experiences, 
 that's why things get dull. 
 
 He kept repeating this to himself. The idea as- 
 saulted his brain like an engine of siege. After a 
 time he walked on without reflecting at all. Images 
 of the girl in the gallery came to him at intervals: 
 he saw vividly the arrangement of her brown hair 
 over her forehead, her peculiar pout, her underlip 
 drawn in, the poise of her head, her veiled glance, 
 the droop of her body that seemed so well to express 
 her spirit — but how much was unexpressed! 
 What infinite exploration for a lover ! He could not 
 be deceived there. Former reflections began again, 
 and took their course, much as before. 
 
 He walked for more than an hour. At about 
 seven o'clock he happened on a taxi-cab which he 
 took, telling the man to drive to his hotel. When 
 he sat down he was tired, and soon he was hungry 
 as well. — Scarcely any lunch, and no tea : a com- 
 bination of abstinences not experienced since school 
 days. — He began to enjoy the drive. Yes, this 
 rapid motion was what he wanted. He lit a ciga-
 
 162 The Buffoon 
 
 rette. How delicious Virginian cigarettes were 
 when you had had nothing to eat for some time! 
 Certainly he felt more like himself now. He deter- 
 mined to dine carefully at the Cafe Boule. He 
 would get the man to drive there first, he would 
 order his dinner, then he would go on to the hotel, 
 have a wash, dress perhaps, — was he too hungry 
 to wait for dressing? Well, he could settle that later 
 — and then walk or drive back to the Cafe. By that 
 time his dinner would be beautifully ready. They 
 knew him at the Cafe Boule; yes, they could be 
 trusted there. There would be great comfort in that 
 dinner. " How about your dinners when you are 
 married? " He did not pursue the reflection. 
 
 Edward planned his meal. Simple material; 
 soup, sole, steak, asparagus, peas, potatoes, fruit: 
 but their treatment, that was the point of study. 
 The genius of Russia should be invoked, he decided, 
 for the soup, that of France for the sole, and the 
 steak should be worthy of Boston or New York. 
 Edward had never taken kindly to the general idea 
 of the United States, but it seemed that they under- 
 stood steak over there. For the arrangement of 
 the vegetables and the fruit he would return to 
 Paris: Paris would not fail him, nor would Bor- 
 deaux. Yes, he would take his especial Chateau; no 
 vintage could be more delicate, more true, — h'len 
 eloigne de toiites les f antes. It lacked nothing, that 
 wine, it had everything, but no single quality in ex- 
 cess. The bouquet alone should convince any one.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE dinner was ordered with the smoothest 
 expedition: they understood perfectly, and 
 Edward, with a sense of being refreshed al- 
 ready, arrived at the hotel. He went straight to his 
 bedroom. As he turned the key he heard through 
 the next door Welsh's voice raised in familiar inef- 
 fectual protest. " But really, my dear Reggie ! " 
 
 So Tryers had come back. But that was no rea- 
 son why Edward should not wash himself and change 
 his clothes. He would dress, he decided. His 
 dressing would give just the right interval for the 
 preparation of his dinner. It would be annoying to 
 be kept waiting. He was ready in less than half an 
 hour; his appetite lent him more despatch than usual. 
 Surprising, how calm and normal he was now! 
 
 Should he go to the Cafe at once without troubling 
 about Tryers and Welsh? They were still talking. 
 It was Tryers' voice that was raised now. Excited, 
 evidently. Well, he might as well go in. But only 
 for five minutes. The soup must be kept in mind. 
 
 He found Welsh sprawling in a chair, and Tryers 
 stepping hither and thither nimbly about the room. 
 Welsh was looking on as though at the antics of an 
 organ-grinder's monkey. 
 
 163
 
 164 The Buffoon 
 
 (( 
 
 You simply can't understand ! " cried Tryers 
 with virulent impatience. " Of course you never 
 will understand ! " He turned to Edward. " Ah," 
 he said gravely, " I'm glad you have come." 
 
 " Only for five minutes. I have to go and dine 
 almost at once." 
 
 " I'll come with you ! " Tryers was eager. " I 
 want dinner." 
 
 *' Sorry. I'm Invited to dinner." 
 
 Edward lied with the aplomb usual to him when 
 his comfort was in hazard. Tryers' face fell. 
 Welsh was still watching as though his brother-in- 
 law were a performer. 
 
 " Tell me quickly," Edward went on. " What 
 have you been up to ? Why this trip over to Dieppe 
 and then back again In the twinkling of an eye? " 
 
 Tryers looked a little disconcerted: Welsh's 
 eyes twinkled. There was a pause. Tryers circled 
 to the door, and then turned abruptly. 
 
 " I don't care." He drew his lips tightly to- 
 gether. " I am quite prepared for ridicule. What 
 has happened," he continued fiercely, " is that I am 
 changed. My whole life will follow another plan, 
 
 now." 
 
 *' He's going over to Australia to build churches 
 — fancy that! " Welsh was delighted. " He was 
 off to Paris on pleasure, and then he was converted 
 on the night-boat, on his way across ! Isn't that ex- 
 citing, Mr. Raynes? What do you think? " 
 
 Edward's face did not change. " My dear fel-
 
 rhe Buffoon 165 
 
 low," he addressed Tryers, " if you go and get con- 
 verted between Newhaven and Dieppe, what "dcill 
 happen to you on the way to Australia ? It's an aw- 
 ful risk." 
 
 Tryers tapped with his foot. " Very well." He 
 spoke with forced calm. " Very well. I did not ex- 
 pect sympathy. I did expect ridicule. I am not dis- 
 appointed. But events will prove that I am in ear- 
 nest." 
 
 " He never got to Paris, you see," Welsh broke 
 in. " So that does seem to show that — " 
 
 " Curse you ! " Tryers exclaimed furiously. 
 
 " Come, come," said Edward. " You surprise 
 me. 
 
 " I can't help it." Tryers' tone now indicated 
 distress. " You know how he always stirs up all 
 that Is worst in me. And at this time ! — Well, I 
 am going. I shall go to the office, and sleep there. 
 I'm tired out. Practically no sleep last night." 
 
 "When do you start for Australia?" Edward 
 asked. 
 
 " Impossible to say yet." Tryers became sud- 
 denly quiet and businesslike. " I must see my 
 Australian friend first and talk It over. He's in 
 London now. The vicar of a parish In Sydney. 
 They want a larger church." 
 
 " Well." Edward straightened his tie In the mir- 
 ror. " I wish you luck. You'll enjoy the voyage, 
 I should Imagine. And If you manage to leave at 
 the right time you'll get two summers running. De-
 
 166 The Buffoon 
 
 llghtful. I shall think of you on board ship. So- 
 ciable people like you are in their element there. I 
 can see you getting up everything — the sports, 
 shuffle-board tournaments, pocket-golf, concerts and 
 theatricals. The dances are the only things that 
 won't be in your line. The part of you that is like 
 George Forrest will be more in evidence with every 
 day of the voyage. Couldn't you take George with 
 you? " he added rather maliciously. " He's exactly 
 the kind of man they want in the colonies." 
 
 Tryers looked uncomfortable. " I am not going 
 to Australia for the sake of the voyage," he said 
 with his foreshortened assumption of dignity. 
 
 " You can't get there without a voyage," Edward 
 rejoined lightly. " You may as well make the most 
 of it. But I must go to my dinner. I leave you 
 both in excellent company. Good-bye." 
 
 " Oh, but — my dear friend." Welsh rose in his 
 chair, his tone was remonstrant. " You've missed 
 everything. You must hear how it all happened. 
 The star-lit night, the throbbing of the engines, 
 the quiet deck — Reggie all alone there under the 
 stars, with the dark waters round him! The so- 
 lemnity of that ! Then he went down to his cabin — 
 no, to the saloon, wasn't it, Reggie? — and then — " 
 
 " Shut up! Will you shut up? " Tryers showed 
 contorted features. 
 
 " Quite right." Edward stopped with his hand 
 on the door. " This is too bad of you, Welsh. Un- 
 dressing souls in pubhc. Perfectly shameless. Do
 
 The Buffoon 167 
 
 give Tryers something to eat, and try and behave 
 properly. Remember he never got as far as Paris. 
 Had to waste his ticket, most likely. — No, not a 
 moment longer. My friend will be impatient. 
 Good night."
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 EDWARD learnt from Welsh the next morn- 
 ing that Tryers had stayed on for hours, 
 and might be expected again that afternoon. 
 They were safe from him now; he would of course be 
 attending an Anglican Mass, but after lunch there 
 was no doubt that he would turn up. Edward ex- 
 pressed nonchalant surprise. 
 
 " Why," he asked, " does he always turn up? It 
 seems you give him pain, not pleasure." 
 
 " Well." The other hesitated, and struck a 
 match which at once went out. It was the third he 
 had failed to light. " Well, I think it really is that 
 he's afraid I shall get too much pleasure if he keeps 
 away. He would torture himself all the time won- 
 dering what I was doing, what kind of enjoyment I 
 was in for. So if he's anywhere near me, there's 
 no shaking him off." 
 
 " I always thought him feminine." 
 
 " Yes, he is. I tell him so. Nothing annoys him 
 more." 
 
 " He won't come with us to-night, will he? " Ed- 
 ward succeeded in speaking indifferently. 
 
 " Oh, no. He can't endure them. He says they 
 
 are effeminate and affected. He classes them with 
 
 the aesthetes of the 'nineties. They are all the same 
 
 168
 
 The Buffoon 169 
 
 to him. He certainly won't come. He has only 
 met Root once, and then he was very indignant. 
 Said the man was an impertinent schoolboy, and 
 that he'd never been so rudely treated in his life. 
 Oh yes, he recurred to Root last night. I told him 
 we were going. He said — you know that way he 
 has of saying things, shooting out his sharp thin chin 
 as if it were the tongue of a snake — well, he said: 
 ' Oh, Raoul Root. A very evil man. I would 
 never trust a man of his type.' He asked me why I 
 wanted to drag you into that kind of set." 
 " I hope you succeeded in propitiating him." 
 *' Oh yes, I think I did," Welsh replied seriously. 
 " I said that it wasn't, of course, Raoul Root that I 
 wanted you to meet. I laid great stress on Eunice 
 Dinwiddie, reminded him that she was the only 
 woman he had ever admired." 
 
 " He admired her! " Edward was involuntarily 
 indignant. 
 
 " Oh yes. Spoke with unusual warmth of her, 
 quite unusual for Reggie. He said she really had 
 some artistic feeling, and that her beauty was most 
 uncommon. I think he called her a Madonna ; very 
 inappropriate, but the kind of thing he would say." 
 " Well. What did he say to my meeting her? " 
 " He was ungracious. Yes, I must say he was 
 rather ungracious. Altogether, he was not in his 
 best mood after you left. I took him out to have 
 something to eat, too. But that didn't improve his 
 temper. He was irritable and querulous. Ah yes,
 
 170 The Buffoon 
 
 about you and the Divinity, I said, you know, that I 
 quite expected you to capture her." 
 
 " Hardly the way to make him less irritable." 
 " I thought it would interest him. I thought it 
 rather an exciting thing to say. But it made him 
 angry. He said you'd never get her, that it was 
 one of my mad ideas. He was annoyed, too, because 
 the meeting is to be at Mrs. van Spless's. My going 
 to wealthy houses always annoys him. He thinks I 
 should be admitted only to the very humblest homes. 
 And he was galled already, you see, because of my 
 having the power to bring any one into contact with 
 a person so beautiful, so distinguished, and so rich as 
 Eunice Dinwiddie. It worries him horribly that you 
 should owe this to me. That I should be associated 
 in your mind with the Divinity and Mrs. van Spless's 
 house, it is really torture to Reggie ! But all this 
 makes it the more certain that he won't come. It 
 would humiliate him intolerably to trail in to Mrs. 
 van Spless's as my friend." 
 
 " I wish," said Edward, " that people could man- 
 age to get converted in some way that would make 
 a difference for the better to their friends and ac- 
 quaintances. It seems that Tryers will be converted 
 into nothing but an unpleasant and virtuous old maid. 
 No one will be the happier for his continence and his 
 going to Mass. The fact is, his vices used to excuse 
 him for a great deal that was disagreeable; they 
 gave him scope, he worked off his energy by yielding 
 and by reaction. He was to some extent interesting
 
 The Buffoon 171 
 
 — he had life. His unscrupulousness, too, there 
 was colour in that, and in his being a hermaphrodite 
 type. He was unlike other people, and that's val- 
 uable enough in England. Of course he'll continue 
 to be unlike other people, but he'll find such extremely 
 unpleasant outlets for his energy that there'll be no 
 bearing with him. If his conversion holds, I really 
 cannot keep him up any longer. It won't be worth 
 it." 
 
 Welsh sprang to his feet. 
 
 " My friend, how I admire your courage ! Your 
 determination! Aren't you afraid of his vindictive- 
 ness? Reggie will never forgive you. He'll dam- 
 age you if he possibly can. I should never have the 
 courage to — no, I couldn't! " 
 
 " I must be on my guard against this vendetta." 
 Edward smiled. " My word, but I'll look behind 
 me on dark nights after this. The gleam of a stiletto 
 will never escape me." 
 
 " Ah, you don't know." Welsh gesticulated dra- 
 matically. " You don't know what he is capable of. 
 But you have courage. I was always sure of that. 
 You can carry anything off. I believe you will win 
 the Divinity. I back you for that against Reggie! 
 But, good heavens, we must wear evening clothes 
 to-night, and I have none with me. I must go out 
 and hire some. I know where to go. Tottenham 
 Court Road. You ring the back door bell on Sun- 
 days." He picked his hat from the floor, clutched 
 it, and was gone in a moment.
 
 CHAPTER XV III 
 
 THEY reached Mrs. van Spless's house by nine 
 o'clock. Welsh was extraordinary in his 
 hired evening dress, but Edward noted that 
 although the fit was execrable he looked extremely 
 well. Aristocratic, even. He might have been a 
 Russian nobleman, certainly anything but an English 
 travelling lecturer. Why he looked Russian, Ed- 
 ward could not explain to himself at once. There 
 was something Mongolian, no doubt, in his high 
 cheek-bones, his small eyes, that sometimes looked 
 so weary, his blunt and ineffectual features. But 
 there was more in it than that. Welsh's expression 
 was Russian, and particularly Russian at that mo- 
 ment. It was the degenerate look of an old and 
 earth-sodden race : it signalle'd emotional vigour both 
 turbulent and morbid, a vigour beyond the direction 
 of the brain: and then, again, there was the impres- 
 sion of a spirit prepared for abandonment, for a self- 
 exposure seen as tragical in face of an ultimate in- 
 evitable reserve of all that lay low down, all that 
 was really essential, really significant. This man 
 would flourish his emotions recklessly in pathetic pa- 
 rade, would be forever bringing all that he could to 
 the surface : but though thus getting rid of what he 
 
 172
 
 rhe Buffoon 173 
 
 could, he was unable, and knew invariably, in the 
 end, that he would be always unable, to get rid of 
 what oppressed him. That secret understanding of 
 life in profound disillusion — it was this that would 
 come back to his eyes, and come back again for all 
 his efforts. 
 
 Was Welsh so Russian to-night simply because he 
 had been agitated over hiring his dress clothes ? No 
 doubt that had something to do with it; here was 
 the proximate cause, but Edward knew well enough, 
 really, how shallow cynics are misled by proximate 
 causes. He continued to be occupied with his re- 
 flections on Welsh's soul: he walked mechanically 
 into Mrs. van Spless's hall, he stood there absently 
 while one of her men took his hat and cape from 
 him. Then he suddenly realised that he was about 
 to meet Eunice Dinwiddie, and wondered at himself 
 for thinking of her so little. 
 
 Mrs. van Spless, a woman in the forties, with a 
 neat finished figure, received them with that elaborate 
 and artificial calm so laboriously acquired by Ameri- 
 can ladies of the selected circles. The nervous ex- 
 citement natural to her race was betrayed only by 
 her eyes. They seemed to Edward preternaturally 
 bright and alert, their glances were restlessly ubiqui- 
 tous, darting hither and thither as mice do over dan- 
 gerous ground. She seemed to be seeing everything 
 at once, and she gave the impression of being strictly 
 withheld from anything but the merest surface view 
 of what she saw. She held herself erect in a well-
 
 174 The Buffoon 
 
 lessoned way. Her dress, of course, was proof 
 against any criticism, designed expressly for being 
 proof against It. Her lace and her jewels, too, they 
 could be no less, they could be no more : it was all so 
 exactly right, — it was like Henry James. Edward 
 understood for the first time how entirely American 
 Henry James was. 
 
 The lady extended an object that showed itself 
 primarily as a triumph for the manicurist's art, and 
 secondarily as a hand. Edward bowed low, after 
 Welsh's example. In certain American social cir- 
 cles, he remembered, they cultivated eighteenth cen- 
 tury manners. " I am happy, madam," he mur- 
 mured, " I am most happy." 
 
 Mrs. van Spless's greeting disappointed him. He 
 was prepared that evening for strange tones, unusual 
 colours in everything. It all must, he felt, at least 
 lend Itself to an exciting interpretation. Was he 
 being influenced, then, by Welsh? 
 
 Of the lecturer Mrs. van Spless evidently had 
 some opinion. She was treating him, Edward could 
 see, as a guest of distinction. For half a minute she 
 had held his hand. Probably he was lionised in 
 America, where lecturers, like actors in England, 
 grow into celebrities. " This Is good luck for us," 
 she was saying. " We all thought you were In the 
 country, at your summer home." How she lingered 
 on the word " home." She seemed to charge It with 
 full measure of domesticity. Edward remembered 
 that other Americans he had met did that, with the
 
 The Buffoon 175 
 
 same peculiar broadening and emphasising of the 
 " o." They always said " home " when they could, 
 instead of " house." 
 
 " You described it all so beautifully in one of your 
 lectures," Mrs. van Spless went on. " Such an at- 
 mosphere of English rural peace you gave us; the 
 garden, the lobelias, the dahlias, and the geraniums. 
 Oh, Mr. Welsh, I shall never forget how beautifully 
 you spoke of the geraniums! We could see them, 
 we could even smell them. And Mrs. Welsh, how 
 is she? And the little boy? Has he still his toy 
 gun? You remember you were so afraid he would 
 have an accident. And the little dog? Who would 
 worry you to take him out for walks when you 
 wanted to write, but you hadn't the heart to refuse 
 him. You see, Mr. Welsh, what a good pupil I am. 
 I remember everything." 
 
 She went on. Welsh gravely appeared to listen, 
 till the arrival of other guests released him. Ed- 
 ward in the meantime had caught sight of an ac- 
 quaintance of his in the crowded room, a man whom 
 he had never cultivated, but whom he was always 
 running up against, in theatres, in restaurants, in 
 clubs, in the street; in fact, anywhere. It had al- 
 ways been said of Foxy Fenton that there was no 
 getting out of his way. Edward had met him first 
 at Cambridge, where he had earned his nickname of 
 " Foxy." The man was a born intriguer; he had 
 started intriguing at his private school and had never 
 stopped since. He was also an inordinate talker,
 
 176 The Buffoon 
 
 would gossip for hours, spoke with unqualified posi- 
 tlveness on every subject, and could tell more lies in 
 half an hour than most men in a life-time. Edward 
 had a certain regard for him, because he was the 
 most thorough adventurer he knew. On this occa- 
 sion the first thought that passed through his mind 
 on seeing Foxy was that he really would not lend 
 him, this time, more than a sovereign. 
 
 " Dear fellow," Fenton began — he always began 
 *' Dear fellow " — " and who would have thought it? 
 You here ! And who is your friend? " Welsh had 
 been left behind, captured by three ladles. " Dis- 
 tinguished looking man, but how amazingly he ties 
 his tie — upon my word ! Amusing show this, isn't 
 it?" He rattled on in his intimate way. "Too 
 many old women, though. These American places 
 are always packed with old women. You know that 
 man Root? Why doesn't he turn up? Queer lot of 
 people here. Odd fish, between ourselves, eh? 
 But great fun. Oh, great fun. Ella van Spless has 
 managed to knock up some decent connections. Her 
 elder daughter — expect you've heard — just mar- 
 ried my old friend Martlesham. Happisburgh's 
 eldest son, you know. Good stroke of business. 
 She really got in through her cousins, the Honks. 
 Extraordinary names, these Americans have." He 
 chuckled perfunctorily — a professional chuckle. 
 '* Homer K. Honk, money in steel rails. Could buy 
 the van Splesses up, lock, stock and barrel. Oh yes, 
 and still have millions. Most of his daughters have
 
 The Buffoon Yll 
 
 got their money's worth. Helen P. got the old 
 duke, old Flintshire; second girl's going to marry 
 Lord Arthur, you remember Arthur Brayle — what,' 
 don't you know him? thought you did, he's quite in 
 the running for the marquisate, you know, brother 
 most unhkely to have any children. Then Honk's 
 youngest daughter, — Oenone, she is: imagine it, 
 dear fellow — Oenone Honk! She's the beauty of 
 the family, and the old man's worried to death for 
 fear she'll run off with one of the chauffeurs! She 
 won't come in line at all. I tell young Mandeville 
 he really ought to have a shot for her — good-look- 
 ing fellow, Mandeville, the best-looking peer about 
 town — not worth a red cent, though, everything 
 mortgaged, must marry money. — Great fun, great 
 fun." He chuckled again. " Such a relief seeing 
 you here, Raynes. These women are too awful. 
 They talk your head off. No one here of any ac- 
 count." Fenton swept the room with a contemptu- 
 ous glance. " The new art, and all that. Outsid- 
 ers, all of them. Suppose it amuses Ella van Spless. 
 But where is Root? And that girl — Eileen Dim- 
 miny — " 
 
 " Eunice Dinwiddie." 
 
 " Oh yes, of course, of course. Extraordinary 
 names. Never can remember them. Good-looking 
 girl, got some money, too. Quite In a small way, of 
 course. Between ourselves, I'm not disinclined to 
 cultivate Eunice Dinwiddie. I can't fly as high as 
 the Honks."
 
 178 The Buffoon 
 
 " Damn your impudence," thought Edward. 
 
 " I'm here on business, of course." Fenton knew 
 no intermission. " They're starting a new paper, 
 and I want to make something out of it. They've 
 got people to pay, you see. Shifty lot, these Ameri- 
 cans, though. Shouldn't wonder if I never saw so 
 much as a single fiver. I'm fearfully hard up, of 
 course, always am." Edward recognised the open- 
 ing. " Between ourselves, I'm at my wits' end. 
 It's awful, this business of money. Lucky dog you 
 are, Raynes, wish I could get some legacies. No 
 one ever leaves me a penny. But I'm writing, of 
 course; article every week for the Gazette. Bad 
 pay, though, very bad. But they're giving me a leg 
 up this autumn. One of their best men is leaving 
 them, and I'm taking on his job. I've had a novel 
 accepted by Rogers, too — coming out at Christmas. 
 Quite good royalties. Buy a copy, won't you ? By 
 Jove, old man, I tell you what, I'll dedicate it to you ! 
 Splendid idea ! ' Little Fishes ' is the title. Quite 
 light, of course, quite light, but the sort of stuff that 
 ought to sell. Oh yes, I shall be doing famously 
 very soon. But just now times are bad, very bad. 
 At my wits' end. I hate to worry you, dear fellow, 
 but if you could, just for a couple of weeks, do me the 
 favour of a tenner? " 
 
 '' No one can refuse you, Fenton," said Edward 
 sweetly. " A tenner, I take it, is one of your figures 
 of speech. I am good for a sovereign." 
 
 " Thanks awfully ! " Fenton replied, without
 
 rhe Buffoon 179 
 
 change of tone or expression. " So good of you. 
 I'll send you a cheque in a fortnight. Let's come 
 and take some Portish wine." Edward remembered 
 this as a facetious turn of Cambridge days.. " I in- 
 sisted on the Portish. We'll drift over to that table. 
 Drinks here not half bad. Ella van Spless gets me 
 to choose them ; as she would put it she * has me 
 choose them.' Queer phrases they have, these 
 Americans, eh?" The professional chuckle was 
 again brought into play. 
 
 They made their way to the refreshment table, 
 Fenton nodding and smiling to this quarter and that. 
 He went on talking, growing neither more nor less 
 familiar, always on the same level of amicable and 
 lively chat. " Perfectly dreadful people," he re- 
 marked indifferently, with a look round. 
 
 " Tell me," Edward took his chance for a word. 
 " About this girl who is coming here to-night. Is 
 she much run after? " 
 
 *' Who? Eunice? Oh yes, she is the Dinwiddie. 
 Quite the Dinwiddie. Queens it in this set — undis- 
 puted. That's why she's bound to come in very late. 
 They all attend on her. I shall pay court, of course. 
 I must be in with her, if I'm to get what I want here. 
 I manage her pretty well, I think. It's fairly easy. 
 When once you've got the hang of their kind of 
 talk." 
 
 " That's just what I want," said Edward, " to get 
 the hang. Let's listen." He slipped a sovereign 
 deftly into Fenton's palm. " These two ladies," he
 
 180 The Buffoon 
 
 lowered his voice, " do you think they have the hang? 
 Anyhow, I'm afraid that so long as we are here, 
 drinking the Portish, we shall be able to listen to no- 
 body else." 
 
 The ladies in question seemed certainly bent on 
 making themselves heard above the hubbub. They 
 were both sufficiently American without opening 
 their mouths: their nationality, when they talked, 
 was underscored to a rude excess. 
 
 "But isn't he just too charming?" The elder 
 voice was scraping at highest pitch. " And think, 
 my dear, when he was only five years old, with his 
 pretty golden curls all around his shoulders, he said: 
 * Momma, I'm going to be the greatest po-ut that 
 ever lived ! ' " 
 
 '^ My, how sweet ! " The younger woman 
 showed two teeth of shining gold. " His hair is 
 surely wonderful. I say his crowning glow-ry is 
 his hair." 
 
 " But did you know, my dear, did you know that 
 at fifteen years of age he simply created his face? " 
 
 "Created his — ?" the other gasped. "Cre- 
 ated his face ! You don't say ! " 
 
 " Yes. By massage. They say his nose was 
 rather turnippy then, and his cheeks real fat, but he 
 changed it all, by night and morning massage. Just 
 fig-yoor that lovely wonder-child rubbing away night 
 and day, with an Ovid or a Virgil propped up in 
 front of him, perhaps ! " 
 
 "Why, he's here!" The younger lady gave a
 
 rhe Buffoon 181 
 
 Zoo Bird House scream. Both moved hurriedly off, 
 overcome for the moment into silence. 
 
 " They haven't the hang," murmured Edward, 
 " I'm afraid they have hardly the hang." 
 
 Fenton finished his Port. " So Root's turned 
 up," he said. " I must get hold of him. Fearful 
 job, getting hold of Root here. — Yes, there he is, 
 with Ella van Spless."
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 EDWARD became aware of a hush of voices 
 and a surging to and fro in the room. A 
 space by the door of entrance was being 
 cleared. The two American ladies who had pressed 
 forward in the excitement of the moment were ar- 
 rested by a tall pale young man with fair hair and 
 gold-rimmed pince-nez. He persuasively piloted 
 them towards the wall. There was a general draw- 
 ing back by the entrance, a general massing up in 
 other parts of the room. From a room beyond 
 came a murmur and a stir that gave the impression 
 of some excitement and anticipation. " Rah-rah's 
 turned up." Edward heard a clipped voice behind 
 him. " Good old buffer. Nice old thing." 
 
 Edward observed Raoul Root's beautiful entrance 
 in the mirror at his end of the room. The prophet 
 had dismissed Mrs. van Spless with a gracious wave 
 of his hand, and she was watching him in still ad- 
 miration as he stood poised by the door, waiting the 
 moment for most effective advance. " Certainly," 
 Edward thought, " he understands showing off. 
 That calculated Insolence of his Is very well done." 
 "What a circus!" Fenton gurgled at Edward's 
 
 elbow. " Did you ever see such a circus? Look at 
 
 182
 
 The Buffoon 183 
 
 his frilled shirt, and his velvet jacket and his little 
 Vandyck beard. And his hair ! How does he man- 
 age to get it to stand up stiff like that? " 
 
 The moment arrived. Raoul Root entered, cast- 
 ing glances under quizzically twisted eyebrows, 
 glances partly humorous, partly tender, partly dis- 
 paraging, for his intimates and disciples. For ene- 
 mies and strangers he had looks of bored vacuity. 
 Edward was impressed by these rapid alternations. 
 The Prophet's " crowning glory " stood up from his 
 white forehead very crisp and shining; his fair skin 
 looked unusually soft, really milky. Edward found 
 a distinct charm in his slender erectness, " but he's 
 cocky," he thought, " spiritually cocky, to the last 
 imaginable degree." 
 
 Welsh, deserted by his ladles since Root's appear- 
 ance, and now engaged in conversation with an ema- 
 ciated and decrepit old gentleman, very unobtrusive, 
 from Boston by his appearance, was the first person 
 honoured by the Prophet's speech. Root stopped in 
 front of the lecturer and raised two fingers. 
 
 " Qu'est-ce que c'est que I'art? " he asked. Welsh 
 frowned in great perplexity. " The O'Malley reads 
 us a paper to-night. You'll talk about it after- 
 wards." 
 
 "About what, about what?" Welsh put his 
 hand to his forehead. 
 
 " About art. When she's finished." 
 
 Root readjusted his fingers, smiled benevolently 
 on Welsh and passed on into the arms of Fenton, who
 
 184 The Buffoon 
 
 with great agility had made his way to intercept him, 
 Fenton patted the Prophet's shoulder. 
 
 " Dear fellow," Edward was within easy range 
 of the words, " a word with you. You must favour 
 me to-night, you really must for a moment." Root's 
 stare did not in the least disconcert him. " We've 
 all come specially for you, and I'm the most uncon- 
 scionably selfish creature here, so I must see you first, 
 eh?" He chuckled, just as usual. "Come with 
 me and drink a liqueur. I've made a corner for you, 
 such a beautiful corner. Tell me first about this 
 Rogers man — he's publishing me in the autumn. 
 Give me your advice, dear fellow, do." 
 
 " Oh, Rogers." Raoul Root was won — the 
 capture recognized by all spectators, who began, with 
 relieved tension, to chatter and laugh and move 
 about as before. " Oh, Rogers. Good old guy, 
 Rogers. One of my greatest admirers. You tell 
 him you're a friend of mine. He'll do anything for 
 you." 
 
 Edward moved away as the two men approached. 
 He felt more inclined to look at Root than to listen 
 to him. He didn't, somehow, want his pose and his 
 talk together. Besides, Fenton was beginning to 
 wear on him. Fenton always did; Fenton, it seemed, 
 wound himself up every morning for an unvaried 
 automatic run. 
 
 " I'll dedicate it to you ! And now, dear fellow, 
 about this little venture of ours — the new paper.
 
 The Buffoon 185 
 
 You know, I fancy our good Sir John will — " Ed- 
 ward heard as he passed out of earshot into the next 
 
 room. 
 
 He kept Root in sight. The Prophet was taking 
 his hqueur with ^ fine grace; his white thin fingers 
 showed exquisitely as he conducted the glass to his 
 lips, and Edward noticed a curious ring of, it seemed, 
 Venetian make, with a topaz that flashed when Root 
 turned his hand. The man had taken pains with his 
 part, he was thorough, as a good man of business 
 should be : all this was to be commended. 
 
 This other room was not so crowded. The peo- 
 ple there had divided themselves into several little 
 groups of threes and fours: there were more men 
 than women, and the men did most of the talking. 
 Edward decided that he would join in one of the con- 
 versations, he would have another shot at " getting 
 the hang." The attack must be made. He selected 
 three very young men who were standing talking 
 near a window. They might be, he reflected, as 
 well as any others, authentically les jeunes. Their 
 pseudo-debonair gestures, their pseudo-light laugh- 
 ter, their air of knowing all about it, of being em- 
 phatically, entirely, there, — these things gave prom- 
 ise. One of them was distinctly good-looking, with 
 black smooth hair and large remarkable eyes. Ed- 
 ward liked good-looking young people. He made 
 his way. 
 
 " I wish to join you," he said.
 
 186 The Buffoon 
 
 There was a slight flutter. One of the three 
 raised his eyebrows slightly and turned for his cue 
 to the young man with the large eyes. 
 
 " There is so much, you see," Edward went on, 
 " that I want to know. I am quite — quite, you un- 
 derstand, uninitiated. Tell me now, to begin with, 
 what do you think of Mr. Raoul Root? " 
 
 The handsome young man laughed. " A gentle 
 modest creature," he replied. " One of the most 
 bashful kind creatures who ever walked this earth. 
 All that famous arrogance and petulance and fierce- 
 ness — simply a pose. A wearisome pose. Rah- 
 rah is modest and moral. As the uncleanness of his 
 language increases his moral sentiment becomes more 
 and more marked. You should read my article on 
 him in last month's Crash. Good stuff, some of 
 it." 
 
 " I'll read it," said Edward excitedly. " Honest, 
 I'll read it. So you write articles. But why not 
 poetry? I was hoping so much you would write 
 poetry. You look," he went on desperately, " as 
 though you saw many beautiful things." 
 
 " Poetry? Of course. I'm an Imagist. Read 
 Rah-rah's article on me. Crash of the month be- 
 fore last. He's the only person bright enough to ap- 
 preciate us, and we're the only people bright enough 
 to appreciate him. He's written the greatest poem 
 of the century. Life hit him, and he registered the 
 punch. Now that he's a Vorticist, he doesn't do 
 such great work."
 
 The Buffoon 187 
 
 " Forgive me, but what is a Vorticist? " 
 
 " Vorticism," the young man rejoined gravely, " is 
 the death of necrology in art: kills imitation of dead 
 writers." 
 
 "Good Lord!" cried Edward, "I'm a literary 
 necrophiliast ! What would Krafft-Ebing make of 
 me?" Delighted by his indubitable discovery of 
 les jetines, he turned to one of the other youths. 
 " You paint amazing pictures," he declared. " Ideas 
 of no other century. I know. Or you write novels, 
 Imagist novels. Or Vorticist Tragedies. Tell me 
 your dreams," he continued with eager impatience, 
 " each one of you in turn, tell me his dreams." 
 
 The young man addressed faced Edward some- 
 what defiantly. He wore a small Vandyck, very like 
 Root's; he had bright small grey eyes, a well cut de- 
 termined chin, but a negligible nose. His figure was 
 turned with an almost French elegance. One was 
 evidently meant to associate him with the newest 
 phases of the Latin Quarter. 
 
 "Novels?" Edward recognised the clipped 
 voice, which took on now a tone of surprised resent- 
 ment, as though novels had become extinct ages ago. 
 " It's a bore to read a novel. And we only want 
 tragedy if it can clench its side-muscles like hands 
 on its belly, and bring to the surface a laugh like a 
 bomb. Not I run Crash. We've just given Rah- 
 rah the chuck. For prose, at any rate. His prose 
 is — Ma foil " He flicked his fingers. " C'est a 
 vomir! We shall take verse of his now and again,
 
 188 The Buffoon 
 
 though. But Rah-rah's prime is over. He's going 
 off horridly, can't find himself any more." 
 
 " Mr. Cramer! " Edward heard a female voice, 
 agitated and beseeching, behind him. " If you 
 would only talk to me, Mr. Cramer! " 
 
 The handsome young man turned, and Edward 
 withdrew, giving place to a spare, rather angular 
 girl, with straight sandy hair and an anaemic com- 
 plexion. " I'm in such trouble! " she communicated 
 in low stricken tones. " I misquoted some of his 
 lines in a review yesterday — some of his beautiful 
 lines. If he should speak harshly to me here I 
 know I should break down. Oh, I shouldn't have 
 come — but I felt that I must see him. I must, I — " 
 Her pale green eyes, the eyes of a fanatic, were elo- 
 quent of distress; she clasped her thin hands to- 
 gether. 
 
 Edward, drawing back decently out of hearing, 
 discovered himself in the arms of Welsh, who looked 
 most harassed. "What am I to do?" he cried. 
 " Root commands me to speak after this paper. I 
 simply cannot talk in drawing-rooms, and to people 
 of this kind. And the paper's to be in French — in 
 French! I shan't understand a word of it. But 
 there's no getting at Raoul Root. That man is still 
 talking to him about their new magazine, and he's 
 drinking endless liqueurs. And he's surrounded. 
 Look at him! The most preposterous thing. He 
 stands and flourishes his glass : the man goes on talk- 
 ing — you see, on that side. Then on the other side
 
 The Buffoon 189 
 
 he holds court. They pass in a long line, and he 
 throws off a nod or an eyebeam or a word to each. 
 Yes, he holds court. These Americans are extraor- 
 dinary. They have an Hebraic lack of humour." 
 
 " A good many English here, too, aren't there? " 
 Edward turned and watched the scene, finding it 
 very much as Welsh described. 
 
 "English? Yes, but the Americans run the 
 show. I suppose Root is a master in the line of run- 
 ning shows." 
 
 "Who is that?" Edward lowered his voice. 
 " The girl talking to those three boys by that win- 
 dow?" 
 
 " Oh ! — Ah, Miss Grieves. She's on a woman's 
 paper. A most unfortunate individual. She has a 
 violent infatuation for Root. A devastating infatu- 
 ation. It strips her of dignity and humour. An 
 idealistic affair, of course. — Ah there is little Mas- 
 sington; he's Raoul Root's satellite-in-chief. If I 
 can't get Root I must get him. I'll bring him to 
 you. A cross between a faun and a walrus. Root 
 calls him. But remember to behave as though you 
 thought that Root were the satellite and Massington 
 the planet. That is most important." 
 
 Welsh was gone, and during his absence Edward 
 attended to the conversation round about. He re- 
 membered what Welsh had told him of the studied 
 smartness of this set, of their way of keeping, at all 
 costs, the ball in motion. Yes, they were certainly 
 doing that, they caught adroitly, passed on, and
 
 190 The Buffoon 
 
 caught again. " Sprightly," that was what they 
 were, and a great deal too sprightly to be comfort- 
 able. Edward, as he listened, grew more and more 
 convinced that in the background of all this free and 
 easy chatter was the haunting fear of making a false 
 step, of being found out. And the effect was, on the 
 whole, stilted, an effect of something learnt and prac- 
 tised. Welsh was right, Welsh was a good judge 
 outside of his own circle. No doubt of it, these peo- 
 ple were stilted, they lacked humour. 
 
 Welsh soon reappeared. " Mr. Wilfrid Mas- 
 sington," he introduced. " The most important per- 
 son of all for you to meet." 
 
 Edward was confronted by a young man of small 
 stature and of that extreme and conscious self-pos- 
 session which little men frequently show. Massing- 
 ton nodded, on the introduction, with a peculiar de- 
 liberate impertinence. 
 
 " It seems that this gentleman is worried." He 
 spoke in a high-pitched eclectic tone, waving his hand 
 decoratively towards Welsh. Edward noticed that 
 he, too, wore a Venetian ring set with a topaz. 
 " Positively worried ! And all because Rah-rah 
 asked him to speak. Rah-rah isn't Gawd. And 
 he's drunk already. He always gets drunk here. 
 He won't notice, bless him, who speaks and who 
 doesn't. Why don't you say something," he at- 
 tacked Edward, " in the room of this distracted 
 gentleman? "
 
 The Buffoon 191 
 
 " I will," Edward rejoined instantly. " I cer- 
 tainly will." 
 
 " Of course," the little man went on, " I might 
 talk myself. I have to write up the damn paper any- 
 way. But — " 
 
 " Oh, no." Edward was decided. " I will cer- 
 tainly speak." 
 
 " What courage ! " declared Welsh. " I always 
 said you had courage." 
 
 Edward was observing with some interest that 
 Massington's nose was even smaller than the rest of 
 him warranted. — So many young men with small 
 noses! Was it, he wondered, the effect of the at- 
 mosphere? He grew a shade anxious, and was 
 tempted to feel his own. 
 
 " Mr. Massington," Edward asked, " tell me, 
 how did you succeed in making Raoul Root what he 
 is? What were your methods? " 
 
 Even Massington was a little taken aback by this. 
 He stared and hesitated, while Welsh gave signs of 
 delight. 
 
 " Oh, Raoul Root." The young man replied with 
 a laugh that was just perceptibly uneasy. " The 
 making of Raoul Root! My ideas about Rah-rah 
 are strictly for the public." 
 
 *' Miss Grieves seems to be in some trouble," 
 Welsh observed. " Do you know, Mr. Massington, 
 what is the matter? " 
 
 " Oh yes," Massington was relieved by the
 
 192 The Buffoon 
 
 change of subject. " ^a ne fut qu'une bagatelle. 
 She misquoted Rah-rah. Well, he can bear misquo- 
 tation. But I made it all right with the poor girl. 
 I said that I'd spoken to Raoul. I told her that he 
 had just laughed and said she wouldn't mind, that 
 she'd rather be beaten by him than praised by an- 
 other. Thought I'd better tell her that, so that she 
 wouldn't worry over it." 
 
 Edward observed that Root had at last left the 
 refreshment table. He was now standing in the 
 middle of the room, clustered round and about with 
 eager young men and women, all of them flattered 
 by the contact with his regally impressed personality. 
 The Prophet's voice and laughter were clearly to be 
 distinguished from his humming environment. Evi- 
 dently all was well. Root had been drinking, but he 
 knew how to drink: " and that, too," Edward con- 
 sidered, " is something. The man has his points." 
 Mrs. van Spless, with two youths in attendance, was 
 hovering on the outskirts of the throng surrounding 
 the guest of honour. She seemed expectant, but con- 
 tent. 
 
 " Raoul," remarked Massington, giving his chin a 
 little tilt, " Raoul va tres bien. He is a baby, mais, 
 que voulez-vous? C'est un bebe charmant. What 
 would we do, without him to amuse us? " 
 
 " When are they going to read the paper? " asked 
 Welsh. Edward's offer to speak had not entirely 
 quelled his anxiety. 
 
 " When Eunice turns up," replied Massington.
 
 The Buffoon 193 
 
 " She'll be here soon. She told me she wouldn't be 
 later than usual." He tilted his chin again, and in 
 doing so caught Root's eye, which invited him to join 
 the central cluster. " I leave you now," he con- 
 cluded, and went. 
 
 Edward and Welsh interchanged glances. 
 
 " You see," said Welsh, " how it goes. You 
 wouldn't think, would you, that young Massington 
 runs at Root's heels, that he fetches and carries for 
 him, and waits day and night on his pleasure? " 
 
 " I don't know. I'm inclined to believe that that 
 is precisely what I should think." 
 
 "You would? But that is because you are so 
 wise. That is because your forehead is so massive." 
 
 " Exactly. But now I want you to take me to the 
 next room, to some point of vantage near the door, 
 and to introduce me at the earliest possible moment 
 to Miss Eunice Dinwiddie, before she is irretriev- 
 ably surrounded." 
 
 " Excellent. I will." Welsh rubbed his hands. 
 " But, — " he hesitated, again he looked troubled. 
 " Can I? I don't know. These little matters are 
 sometimes so very difficult." 
 
 " Nonsense. Perfectly easy. I won't make your 
 speech for you, if you don't." 
 
 " You have me, my friend, you have me. I sub- 
 mit. I yield to your sweet tyranny. Your com- 
 mand shall be obeyed. Your will be done ! " 
 
 As they went, Edward's thoughts turned once 
 more to the girl of the gallery. He tried to analyse
 
 194 The Buffoon 
 
 his will, this will that was to be done, he tried to 
 trace back to its emotional origin. How far had 
 Welsh influenced him? He had started him on this 
 road, of course, but Edward had followed the point- 
 ing finger freely and willingly, he had made the road 
 his own. He was not really being carried away : he 
 knew what he was about. Perhaps he was being car- 
 ried away by the idea of being carried away. Was it 
 the sense of a masquerade that appealed to him? 
 Yes, he felt like a masquerader. . . . But certainly 
 he had somehow or other acquired a surface of un- 
 usual sensitiveness, quite distinct from his normal 
 field of consciousness, a surface that was played 
 upon with peculiar effect whenever this girl came 
 within range. When he had heard of Tryers' re- 
 mark: " He'll never win her," when Fenton in his 
 insolent man-of-the-world way had indicated Eunice 
 as a possible mark of his own, because he couldn't 
 " fly as high as the Honks," Edward had been moved 
 genuinely, and strangely. What did all this mean? 
 Could he call himself free? Were his eyes really 
 open? Then there was that absurd lunch yesterday, 
 and that long walk : he had to admit that he had been 
 rufiled, disturbed. He had reacted, he had enjoyed 
 an admirable dinner, but still — what was he after? 
 He wished he knew. How much more difl[icult it 
 was to account for oneself than to account for other 
 people ! Well, he would play his game, he would 
 keep his head, he would observe himself.
 
 The Buffoon 195 
 
 " She's here ! " cried Welsh. Edward followed 
 his companion's glance towards the door. Yes, she 
 was there. The girl of the gallery was certainly 
 there.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 EDWARD was determined to lose nothing of 
 his judgment : he clenched it with an effort. 
 But she was admirable, none the less. For 
 this occasion, it appeared, she had decided not to be 
 enigmatic, but ingenuous. The effect had been, he 
 could see, just as delicately calculated as the effect of 
 the night before last. Her pose was perfect. 
 What could be more fascinating than that studied 
 artlessness — studied, yes, evidently, but still so un- 
 assailably managing not to give itself away? Raoul 
 Root's exhibition was crude in comparison, an under- 
 lined thing, grossly managed. Root had tried to do 
 something that only a woman could do perfectly. A 
 man could no more express his personality by the 
 way he entered a drawing-room than a woman could 
 express hers by the way she spoke in a public hall. 
 One should regard the inhibitions of one's sex. 
 Root lapsed, he became inglorious. 
 
 But why had Edward dreamt of insoluble enigmas, 
 hidden deeps and all that? Confound it, it was 
 Welsh's fault! When he was about, one always did 
 the easiest thing. Welsh was demoralising. Eu- 
 nice's genius lay, of course, in the consistency and the 
 logic of her acting. 
 
 196
 
 rhe Buffoon 197 
 
 " What is thy substance, whereof art thou made, 
 That millions of strange shadows on thee tend?*' 
 
 Edward, as the lines came to him, experienced an 
 unwitting exaltation, the kind of exaltation that a 
 sudden breaking out of music, whether good or bad, 
 often stirred in him. Everything was strangely 
 heightened, — the value of the present scene, the 
 value of those lines, the value of his own personality, 
 the value of the girl. How had she brought all this 
 about? this " exaltation in fervour! " 
 
 The mood held, but at the same time annoyance 
 broke into a corner of Edward's brain. Why was 
 he so much at the mercy of other men's phrases? 
 Why was he constrained to quote Shakespeare and 
 Meredith to himself at a moment like this? These 
 twentieth century young men, literary Futurists or 
 Cubists or whatever one might call them, were they 
 right after all? Was his own consciousness hamp- 
 ered and stunted by literary tradition? Perhaps he 
 had been really more himself in his light-blue days, 
 when he hardly read anything. No, but then, too, 
 he was under tradition of another sort. He had 
 never been himself; some people might think he had 
 character, really he had no character at all. And 
 now he was being fooled: he was ridiculously " ex- 
 alted in fervour" still. What nonsense it was! 
 She was simply a good-looking girl, and she knew 
 how to act. But at any rate she made him reflect. 
 He continued to look at her. 
 
 She attracted him more strongly than before. She
 
 198 The Buffoon 
 
 was just sufficiently over-tall for her epicene figure, 
 draped in flowing grey, to give a charming effect of 
 blown mist. Her head, with its little smooth crown 
 and childishly ruffled inexpert roll of hair, was made 
 to be held tenderly and savagely between a lover's 
 hands. Her features were Greek, they suggested a 
 hamadryad; only one flaw, her nose was insufficient. 
 So many insufficient noses! Edward wished he 
 knew why. 
 
 No one greeted the Divinity. Her whim to be the 
 first to speak was always respected. The result was 
 an effective hush into which her rich low beautifully 
 modulated voice might break like a note from an or- 
 gan. Edward watched her greet one and another 
 with a sweet and sudden childlike caprice. Only 
 once was the illusion broken: once she glanced round, 
 and her eyes were hard, cold, calculating, as for the 
 fraction of a second she gauged the rapt faces. Ed- 
 ward, though repelled, sympathised with her: he 
 could appreciate the feminine cynicism with which 
 she played her game. 
 
 He turned. He had looked long enough. He 
 wanted to hold himself back, to parley with his 
 judgment. — Welsh had disappeared,— no, there 
 he was in a corner, again with the old gentleman 
 from Boston. Fenton had apparently gone: 
 Raoul Root was in the other room: the moment was 
 favourable. Edward was glad that Welsh's courage 
 had failed for the introduction. Better to meet Eu- 
 nice some other way, or better perhaps not to meet
 
 rhe Buffoon 199 
 
 her at all. So much that he might have to enter in 
 upon, if he met her 1 
 
 He was startled by a light touch on his arm. The 
 girl herself was by him. She bent towards him, and 
 seemed to be quivering almost away. Marvellous. 
 " Your eyes are sad," she said. " What are you 
 seeking? " 
 
 Edward was unprepared. He paused. Then 
 in a long-drawn sibilant tone he replied: " I was 
 waiting for you." It sufficed. They stood gazing, 
 as though each bathed in the personality of the other. 
 Her eyes were still, fathomless, seductive. " Ma- 
 terial entertainment here," Edward reflected grossly. 
 He had his hand well on the reins. 
 
 He was beginning to feel that he could not stand 
 this prolonged gaze, when suddenly she lowed at 
 him: "What beautiful thing have you been do- 
 ing?" Welsh had warned him that he would be 
 asked this, and he had amused himself by preparing 
 poetically veiled eroticisms for his reply. They 
 would not do now. This girl was not innocent, but 
 she was initiated in a way that Edward had not fore- 
 seen. He felt that much might rest upon his power 
 to invent. 
 
 " Ah," he whispered, " before I came the will was 
 upon me to create. Yet I was withheld. A pres- 
 ence, — invisible to those who have but the usual 
 eye — " he fixed a sightless stare upon the company, 
 " impalpable, imponderable, yet clinging and cleav- 
 ing sans ruth — " Was this all right? He re-
 
 200 The Buffoon 
 
 sumed rapidly, with determination. " It came be- 
 tween me and the paper. It shrouded the pen I 
 would have grasped. I cried aloud. One an- 
 swered. And In my little chamber there was the 
 glint of iridescent feathers. That which withheld 
 me was no more, and I created." 
 
 Edward stopped, In the midst of a solemn hush. 
 He was, of course, overheard, as he had meant to 
 be. After a second he turned his gaze full upon the 
 girl. " You understand me," he palpitated. 
 
 " Yes," she replied, " yes, I do," giving the last 
 word almost three syllables. " Later, come to me 
 where I sit. You shall tell me your beautiful 
 dreams." 
 
 The Divinity glided away. She had shown the 
 mark of her highest favour. People stirred. Ed- 
 ward brought his blank stare again Into play; after 
 Root's manner he looked at this face and that as 
 though to assure himself that it was not there. He 
 raised his hand and ruffled his hair a trifle: then 
 strode towards the refreshment table. 
 
 " I say, old man." Fenton had sprung up at his 
 elbow. " You are going it a bit, eh? " He spoke 
 with a touch of envy. 
 
 " Don't speak to me," Edward hissed. " Can't 
 you see my game Is neither to hear nor to speak nor 
 to see till she's ready for me again? " 
 
 He could see Eunice talking to Mrs. van Spless, 
 and realising that he was in her view, he poured out 
 a liqueur, inventing his gestures as he went on. He
 
 The Buffoon 201 
 
 was careful not to copy Raoul Root; he aimed at 
 a demeanour that should be reverential and yet in- 
 fused by inalienable dignity. A recurring sweep of 
 his hands upwards went for an indication of prayer. 
 His idea was to be absorbed and devotional, a sup- 
 pliant, but at the same time the highest of high 
 priests. Luckily he only very nearly, not quite, 
 broke his liqueur-glass. 
 
 He moved a few steps from the table to a place 
 of comparative isolation by a mantelpiece, against 
 which he leaned, throwing his body into a sugges- 
 tive mould. 
 
 The voice of Raoul Root, talking apparently to 
 several people at once, broke in upon him. 
 
 " I've reached a point of consciousness at which I 
 can enter a salon unclothed. . . . Imagism abhors 
 Imagery. We've nothing to do with Image-making. 
 Imagery is one of the worn-out decorations that we 
 have scrapped. . . . Must speak to that man 
 Welsh. Lucky devil, do you know he makes five 
 thousand dollars a month lecturing in America? 
 Of course Welsh belongs to a better and nobler age. 
 He thinks of himself in terms of Lucifer son of the 
 morning. . . . Yes, a beautiful night. And the 
 flower of the English aristocracy." The voice was 
 lowered impressively. " The very flower." 
 
 Edward was surprised. Welsh's income so much 
 larger than his own — how remarkable to earn a 
 thousand pounds a month, and yet to give so strong 
 an impression of a hand-to-mouth existence ! Some
 
 202 The Buffoo?i 
 
 genius in that, perhaps, — if it were true. And 
 then " the flower of the English aristocracy." Was 
 Root after all really an incorrigible naif? or just a 
 bluffer? If that was bluff, it was very well done. 
 
 Edward leaned his head against the carved post of 
 the mantelpiece. He looked at Eunice. She and 
 Mrs. van Spless had been joined by another woman, 
 whose back was turned to him. She was short and 
 plump and seemed to be excited. Eunice was draw- 
 ing back from her in shrinking remonstrance, with 
 lips parted for tremulous speech. Mrs. van Spless 
 laid one hand on the Divinity's shoulder, and seemed 
 to be saying something reassuring. Then she ad- 
 vanced and addressed the company. 
 
 " Mrs. O'Malley," she said in a clear penetrating 
 tone. She waited for the chatter to die down. 
 " Mrs. O'Malley," she repeated, and then, after a 
 second pause, " will read us her paper." 
 
 " Damn ! " said Root, under his breath. He was 
 at Welsh's elbow. 
 
 Mrs. O'Malley stepped forward to the piano, un- 
 folded her manuscript, and spread it out deliberately 
 before her. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes very 
 bright. She struck Edward as a vigorous, amiable 
 little woman. 
 
 " Lard," she enunciated with emphasis in a pleas- 
 ant brogue, " que'est-ce que c'est que lard? " 
 
 Eunice's face did not change, but Edward caught 
 a flicker of laughter in her eyes. His heart jumped. 
 She might be reclaimed, then? If she could be
 
 The Buffoon 203 
 
 taken out of this atmosphere, away from all this ad- 
 vertised conceit, if her sex could be satisfied, if 
 her personality could be given the right kind of 
 scope. . . . Make her act, make her write, per- 
 haps. How would she be with a child, a child of 
 her own? Edward longed to extricate her from 
 sentimentalities and waste, as he looked. She 
 leaned forward in her chair, her chin poised upon 
 one attenuated hand: there was a charming disarray 
 of the skirt over one silken extended foot, and her 
 gown lapsed with a sweet half-consciousness from 
 her throat. " Pose 21," Edward reflected, " from 
 ' Learn from the Swan.' " He looked admiringly 
 all the same, and meeting his gaze the girl coloured. 
 He had not thought she would do that. 
 
 Mrs. O'Malley's Irish-French sounded in and over 
 his thoughts like a fine wind. Looking round the 
 room he met with an unexpected revulsion. What 
 were they about, these people? Advertising them- 
 selves like a patent remedy. Jealous of one another 
 all the time. Lying and scheming and conniving 
 against one another, no doubt. Mauling one an- 
 other's lives, mixing themselves nauseously up and 
 writhing about like a pack of gluey worms. Yet 
 there was good stuff, there ought to be good stuff, 
 among them. Root, for instance, if only . . . 
 
 Towards the end of the paper the girl glanced 
 meaningly at Edward, and he stole towards her. 
 As he stood by her side, he heard her catch her breath 
 and sigh gently. She produced a curious reed-like
 
 204 The Buffoon 
 
 rustle. As soon as Mrs. O'Malley had finished, 
 Eunice leaned languidly to him, her lips a little apart. 
 He was startled by a clear light tone. " Quickly ! 
 Beat Raoul. Speak, I want you to." 
 
 Her face was impassive, her lips had not moved. 
 It was a school-girl's trick, and how well done ! Ed- 
 ward felt a rush of delight; he leaped to the piano. 
 
 " Madame," he gasped. " Madame." He 
 bowed low to the little woman, then turned to the 
 company with a royal sweep of the hand. " This 
 wonderful hour," he exclaimed in a tone of sup- 
 pressed emotion. There was a sensation, people be- 
 gan to rustle less. — All very well, but how was he 
 to go on? It was an hour or so ago that he had un- 
 dertaken to speak, he should have prepared some- 
 thing, but that girl had put everything out of his 
 head. She was looking at him now: those eyes of 
 artificial innocence were upon him. If a woman can 
 make a fool of a man her vanity is gratified. No 
 matter! He pulled himself together; he would be 
 a match for her. The room was quiet now. His 
 pause had been of exactly the right length. 
 
 " This hour," — Edward's tone was low, vibrant 
 and restrained — " this hour marks an epoch in the 
 development of literature. You, chere madame," 
 he inclined his head towards the delighted lady, 
 " you have the flame, the inner fire. It irradiates 
 your words, — you in whose admired person," — 
 Mrs. O'Malley clutched Mrs. van Spless's hand — 
 " I have to-night witnessed the indissoluble union of
 
 The Buffoon 205 
 
 the Celt and the Gaul, — the Celt mistress of poetry, 
 the Gaul mistress of style. Madame, Ireland has 
 need to be proud of you: we, your American and 
 English disciples, we have need to be proud of you. 
 More, we are grateful; we shall be grateful al- 
 ways." 
 
 He paused. That seemed to have gone down all 
 right, the women were evidently impressed, and the 
 intellectual faint smiles of the chosen ones among 
 the men seemed to indicate a regard for him as an 
 ironist. And Eunice? Good Lord, he had for- 
 gotten Eunice. What kind of a lover was he? He 
 was a rotten lover, that was what he was. The 
 girl wore a drowsy smile, once more she was enig- 
 matical: well, he might have expected that. Mean- 
 while they were all waiting for more, and he had 
 no more to give them. He knew he would spoil the 
 effect if he went on. — An escape ! He would say 
 it all over again in French. Few of them would be 
 any the wiser, and those few would suppose him to 
 be crowning his irony. His French was quite un- 
 trustworthy, but still — 
 
 " Comme je vous ai dit, mesdames, messieurs — " 
 He determined to work hard what accent he had, he 
 would be amazingly nasal, the r's would rattle in his 
 throat, the u's would be sharp and pointed like 
 needles. *' Comme je vous I'ai dit, cette heure, c*est 
 une heure qui marque une vraie epoque dans le 
 developpement de la litterature du monde. — 
 C'est cette dame qui vient de nous adresser qui
 
 206 The Buffoon 
 
 possede sans doute, — ah, mesdames, messieurs, il 
 n'y en a pas qui peut jamais s'en douter — " (Yes, 
 he must pad a bit, no matter what happened to his 
 French; he couldn't sit down just yet.) "II n'y 
 en a pas, je I'affirme, qui pourra renier que Madame 
 O'Malley, ame forte, ame genereuse, ame ecstatique, 
 cherie toujours dans son coeur la flamme sacree. . . . 
 Qu'est-ce que c'est que je peux vous dire ? Apres une 
 telle eloquence, je ne peux trouver des mots qui 
 peuvent exprimer ce que je sens, ce que nous sentons 
 tous. Voila une chose, une chose seule, que j'ose 
 dire, c'est que madame a uni le beau style fran- 
 cais. . . ." All over again in French he said it. 
 
 Edward bowed to the applause very gravely. He 
 turned to take up once more his station by the mantel- 
 piece, but Mrs. O'Malley seized his hand, and drew 
 him sturdily to her. 
 
 " Young man," she said, " that's foine speaking. 
 The Gaul and the Celt. That's what I loike to hear. 
 And now you must write. Yes, you must just sit 
 down and write. Miss Dinwiddle, I want this good 
 lad to write an article in our first number, all about 
 the Celt and the Gaul and my paper. He is a pote, 
 he understands — and I know he'll do ut." 
 
 Eunice glanced at Edward : she was evidently sat- 
 isfied. It occurred to Edward that after all it was 
 she who had been sold, and not Raoul Root, for 
 Root had never intended to speak at all. Suppose 
 that were to come out, suppose little Massington 
 were to give it away that he, Edward, had offered
 
 The Buffoon 207 
 
 to speak earlier in the evening? What a jar that 
 would be ! It mustn't happen. Meanwhile it was 
 pleasant to know that Eunice was deceived. He 
 would often deceive her, he made up his mind to 
 that. She was made to cozen and to be cozened. 
 
 " Of course, of course," he murmured to Mrs. 
 O'Malley. " But your photograph must be on the 
 same page with my article. In the middle of the 
 same page." 
 
 Mrs. O'Malley's enchantment heightened, visibly 
 and audibly. She sought Edward's hand again. 
 This was, he decided, precisely the right moment for 
 him to clear out. " Good-bye," he said. *' I must 
 write at once. I cannot wait. Good-bye, Miss 
 Dinwiddie." 
 
 Eunice drooped. She slipped a lingering tenuous 
 hand into his, she shrank away from him, as though 
 his brusque adieu had been a blow. " How analyse 
 that?" Edward thought. "Real sensitiveness in 
 the beginning, perhaps: then it had become a 
 bad habit and then a pretence. Could she be 
 cured?" 
 
 "I say," he said aloud, "do you play tennis? 
 Fm free at half past three to-morrow. You know 
 Mitchell's Courts?" 
 
 Eunice straightened herself. " All right," she 
 said. " I'll be there." 
 
 She spoke directly, boyishly, like an American. 
 No " Divinity " slush here. A sudden change, per- 
 haps, of one pose for another? Well, she was
 
 208 The Buffoon 
 
 clever. She had Instantly scented his antagonism 
 and its cause. 
 
 As Edward smiled at her, she drooped again. 
 " You must come back with me," she said, " and tell 
 me your beautiful dreams." 
 
 But now Edward caught again that flicker of 
 laughter in her eyes. " You bet! " he replied gaily, 
 and left her.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 IT was curious, ran Edward's retrospect, that 
 what had really interested him most during 
 the evening was his reflection on Welsh's Rus- 
 sian appearance. That kind of consideration, after 
 all, was what appealed to him. Other things were 
 diverting, they fell into their places, they were noth- 
 ing much. Mrs. van Spless's middle-aged American 
 mind, — " mentality," the Americans themselves 
 would call it — Fenton's very English chatter. 
 Root's posing, and the posings of those others, — 
 all that was unimportant. And it was badly ad- 
 justed, clumsily put together. These gatherings were 
 intolerable, " litery gents " shouldn't be collected 
 like that, they ought to leave that kind of thing to 
 usual people. Edward grew more and more irri- 
 tated; he felt tired, his thoughts repeated themselves, 
 he seemed to have lost poise. He decided not to al- 
 low himself to think of the girl, because he knew that 
 it was impossible to be frank with himself about her, 
 and he would not admit that he knew it. This irri- 
 tated him further. 
 
 " Well, I shan't go to that kind of entertainment 
 again," he said to Welsh, when they had nearly 
 
 reached their hotel. 
 
 209
 
 210 The Buffoon 
 
 '* But you were splendid! you were entirely mag- 
 nificent! I said you would triumph, and you did 
 triumph. Your French ! I was extraordinarily im- 
 pressed." 
 
 Welsh was remarkable, thought Edward, he could 
 be exclamatory no matter when. The panegyric 
 continued spasmodically till they were inside the 
 hotel doors. Edward ordered a siphon to be sent 
 to his room. He always travelled with a flask of 
 the whiskey he liked best. 
 
 *' I'm not going to bed for half-an-hour or so." 
 He turned to Welsh, " Will you come to my 
 room i 
 
 Welsh at once began to talk of Eunice. " Of 
 course," he said, " you want me to talk of her ? Tell 
 me, will you marry her? Will you marry her, 
 Mr. Raynes?" 
 
 " No." Edward took up the vein of this direct 
 attack. 
 
 " Are you quite sure ? " Welsh was disappointed. 
 " But every time you see her you will find not being 
 married to her harder to bear. There will be no 
 peace for your sun-warmed flesh. Consider, my 
 friend! To have her entirely to yourself, under 
 your absolute control, — to be able to play with her 
 as you liked, to torment her or to caress her, to 
 treat her with all the sweet unreason in the world! 
 Think of it! " His eyes danced impishly. " Why, 
 how can you hesitate ? If I were free — " 
 
 " My dear Welsh, if you were free, you'd marry
 
 rhe Buffoon 211 
 
 again in a month. You were born with a wedding 
 ring on your finger. It's the plunge of marriage 
 that appeals to you, the sensation of doing something 
 irrevocable. No power on earth could keep you 
 from the altar. . . . And yet no one, I admit, could 
 be less married by marriage than you." 
 
 " Upon my soul — " Welsh hesitated. "Well, 
 yes, you are right. You are always right, Rhada- 
 manthus. Most dainty of Solons ! I'm attracted 
 to marriage because it's the beginning of a story. 
 There's something so dramatic about marriage, and 
 you never know whether the stor\^ is going to be 
 comedy or tragedy or burlesque. Yes, I have really 
 the same attitude towards marriage as the authors 
 of those stories in back numbers of The Family Her- 
 ald. You've found me out. I have no sympathy 
 at all with these modern people who want to abolish 
 marriage. On the contrary, I should like to abolish 
 divorce, and so make marriage even more of an event 
 than it is. These free unions, leasehold contracts 
 and the rest, I can't stand them. They are fright- 
 fully dull. They are as dull as Ethical Societies. 
 The kind of people who propose them would turn 
 our churches into lecture halls and entertainment 
 rooms for ' good citizens.' No, we must have re- 
 ligion, we must have marriage, if only to keep these 
 dull moral ones in check. I support marriage be- 
 cause it is entirely immoral, and I support religion 
 for the same reason." 
 
 " You have an extremely lazy mind." Edward
 
 212 The Buffoon 
 
 was horizontal In the depths of his chair. " Very 
 little activity of imagination. The abolition of 
 marriage would make certain picturesque little, 
 touches impossible, of course, but there you stop. 
 Can't you imagine other picturesque elements that 
 would come in, to counterbalance and more than 
 counterbalance? Besides, change is in itself pic- 
 turesque. But you can't bear to think of people 
 not being ' landed ' just as they are now, or not being 
 unfaithful just as they are now. . . . You are, in 
 fact, inflexible in the genuine conservative way. 
 You only get beyond the usual conservative in 
 speaking frankly of your prejudices, and you speak 
 frankly because the sensation pleases you." Ed- 
 ward sipped his whiskey. 
 
 " Curse you ! I can't stand these sledge-hammer 
 blows. Where is some sweet Aumerle to dellv^er 
 me from ruthless Bollngbroke ? I can't answer you, 
 Harry of Hereford. — But will you aim, then, at 
 a free union with this exquisite water-nymph? Will 
 you sport in the reeds together under the blessing 
 of Pan, and not of Holy Church? " 
 
 " I can't say. As yet I have only got as far as 
 asking her to play tennis to-morrow." 
 
 " Tennis ! I don't like that for a beginning," 
 
 " I haven't seen her by daylight yet. That 
 seemed the easiest way of seeing her by daylight." 
 
 " But she is so wonderfully artificial. She should 
 never be seen except between sundown and sunrise." 
 
 " Nights are sometimes dark, and a water-nymph
 
 The Buffoon 213 
 
 can't disport herself under the electric light. She 
 must be allowed out occasionally by day. ... Be 
 reasonable." 
 
 Welsh was silent. Then: "Well, anyhow," he 
 said, "you are, it seems, taking her up?" 
 
 " I'm not sure. I don't altogether want to take 
 her up. I confess I feel myself threatened. She 
 would, of course, try to make me let go of a great 
 deal that I like to have, of a great deal that's im- 
 portant to me, part of me, in fact. Women always 
 do. She would say: ' Ah, but you shan't be your- 
 self.' They are always fraying and worrying the 
 edges of one's personality, — like bitch-terriers." 
 
 Welsh opened his eyes. " They don't fray and 
 worry mine." 
 
 " Because your personality is wonderfully en- 
 cased. Your subjectivity is proof against anything. 
 You take temporary colour from everything, and 
 permanent colour from nothing. You have a sub- 
 stratum that nothing can touch, and a layer of the 
 most porous possible substance above it. My ego- 
 ism has to be more on guard than yours. I have to 
 look to my outer lines of defence." 
 
 " And I needn't, because my fort is impregnable I 
 Impregnable ! I never thought of that before. . . . 
 Quite true. And you are the subtlest of analysts. 
 . . . Reggie would agree with you about women," 
 
 Edward winced. " Tryers' feelings about women 
 all resolve themselves into simple spleen. He 
 doesn't know them, he's not attracted by them. He
 
 214 The Buffoon 
 
 throws anything at them that he can pick up. He 
 attacks them in a feminine way. I defend myself 
 against them as a male. I am attracted by them 
 and I know the danger of that. It's a danger that 
 only the harem can dispose of, but the worst of the 
 harem is that it disposes not only of danger but of 
 interest. The harem in the long run is deadly dull. 
 It suits meditative Orientals, but it wouldn't suit 
 us." 
 
 " If you don't marry Eunice, will you marry any 
 one, do you think? " Welsh plunged back to the par- 
 ticular. 
 
 " I wish I knew. . . ." Edward made as if to 
 continue, and then stopped. 
 
 " Oh, do let's discuss it! The most interesting of 
 all subjects, and one never talked of frankly. Why 
 does one marry, why does one not marry?" 
 Welsh's mouth opened widely. " Tell me, what 
 are your thoughts when you feel inclined to take a 
 wife?" 
 
 " Oh, it's quite simple, that." Edward laughed. 
 " Quite simple. As a bachelor I have to choose be- 
 tween various ways of dealing with sex, all more or 
 less uncomfortable. I must either be continent, in 
 which case I am continually teased. . . . And I tell 
 myself: ' This is against your nature, it's a damned 
 waste; you're missing something that you won't be 
 able to get when you're older.' " 
 
 " My dear Mr. Raynes ! I had no idea you were 
 so normal as all that. Continence is just what ap-
 
 The Buffoon 215 
 
 peals to me. I ask for nothing else. I should have 
 been a wicked priest." 
 
 " Well, no doubt that makes your life less com- 
 pHcated. You are to be envied. As things are ar- 
 ranged, it's much easier for you to live according to 
 your abnormal nature than for me to live according 
 to my normal one. Well ... I can be continent, 
 or I can be promiscuous. I can take a girl here, a 
 girl there, all of them shared with other men, of 
 course, however much they may swear not. Distinct 
 danger in that, from the point of view of health, and 
 not very satisfying, either. Involves a great deal 
 of trouble and fatigue, as much trouble and fatigue 
 as marriage. Then I can be even more promiscuous 
 and patronise the streets. More dangerous, more 
 unsatisfactory, but less troublesome, less waste of 
 time. Then I can be a Don Juan, I can practise 
 seduction. Not much danger to health, that, except 
 to the girl's — " 
 
 " Oh, I don't know." Welsh spoke apprehen- 
 sively. " Suppose her father or brother got hold of 
 you. I've had some awful experiences. Quite un- 
 deserved, of course." 
 
 " You don't mean to say they went for 
 you ... I* 
 
 "Yes; once. I had to run." 
 
 Edward paused to contemplate and enjoy the pic- 
 ture. Welsh remained grave. 
 
 " You give me another disadvantage, then," Ed- 
 ward resumed, " to the Don Juan line of action.
 
 216 The Buffoon 
 
 Though some Don Juans might be more skilful, as 
 well as more thorough than you. But I wasn't cut 
 out for a seducer, either. Don't happen to be un- 
 scrupulous in that way. . . . Then, in the fifth 
 place, we have, of course, adultery; with the Law 
 Courts in the background. I'm not French enough 
 to be particularly drawn to the cult of married 
 women; but I admit there's a good deal to be said 
 for it, in comparison, especially if the husband is 
 complaisant." 
 
 " A wittold ! " Welsh broke in. " That means a 
 complacent cuckold. A word I have always liked. 
 The wittold! Charming. What a subject for a 
 painter of portraits ! — But how about keeping a 
 mistress? You haven't considered that." 
 
 " I was coming to it. Sixthly, the mistress. An 
 old fellow I knew said to me once : ' Don't do it. 
 All the disadvantages of matrimony, none of the 
 advantages.' He wasn't quite right. You don't 
 have all the disadvantages; you're generally cut off 
 from the woman's family, and it's easier to chuck 
 the affair than it is to get a divorce. But it is true 
 that you're just as much bound to a mistress while 
 you have her as you are to a wife. Have to watch 
 her more carefully, too. She has to think of her fu- 
 ture as a wife hasn't." 
 
 " But would you mind her intriguing with other 
 men?" 
 
 " Yes, unless they presented me with a doctor's 
 certificate, frequently renewed."
 
 rhe Buffoon 2YI 
 
 " You are like Panurge, my friend. That was 
 one of his considerations. You remember. ' To 
 marry or not to marry.' What a passage ! " 
 
 " It's a consideration with every man who isn't 
 a fool. Fear of disease accounts for a high per- 
 centage of marriages, I'm convinced of it. The 
 answer to the old question which bank clerks and 
 counter-jumpers think it so witty to put: 'Why 
 keep a cow when you can get milk?' is obvious. 
 ' Because you know the milk is pure.' " 
 
 " Oh, my dear friend! My dear Mr. Raynes! " 
 Welsh shivered and grimaced. " Don't say such 
 dreadful things, I Implore you I These anecdotes, 
 — they are terrible ! They give me real pain. — 
 And I've always disliked Brieux. The subject is dis- 
 tasteful to me." 
 
 " Well, I'd rather think about syphilis than get 
 it. — Have we finished this category? After all, 
 it doesn't interest you personally. You look, you 
 think, you create, you are divine in your independ- 
 ence. You are as the Olympians, calling into being 
 the good and the evil. . . ." 
 
 " You describe me admirably." Welsh rubbed 
 his hands. 
 
 " You are free, I am bound." 
 
 They were silent: then Edward said suddenly and 
 rather shyly: "You must stay with me again. 
 The fact is, I like you, and that's something new for 
 me, for somehow or other I have no friends. So 
 come whenever you like."
 
 218 The Buffoon 
 
 " Of course." Welsh looked at Edward, evi- 
 dently touched. " Of course. Do you really like 
 me? I have a mania for being liked. — Yes, I 
 think we should be happy together." 
 
 " If I could find a girl who attracted me, and 
 whom I liked as well as I like you, I would ask her 
 to marry me at once. But that's the difficulty. I 
 never like women. They remind me of Reggie 
 Tryers." 
 
 " I'll find you a girl to marry! " Welsh got up, 
 much excited. *' I'll find you a girl utterly different 
 from Reggie ! From now on, this is my mission, I 
 swear it. I am consecrated to it, my friend! — 
 And you are really sure that Eunice won't do? " 
 
 " If I'd met her five years ago, perhaps. ... I 
 don't think I could make anything of her now." 
 
 "How disappointing! how very disappointing! 
 But I'll find you a girl, you'll see. What a pity 
 that I can't become a girl for your sake. . . . How 
 exciting! If I could only change myself to a beau- 
 tiful slender exquisite female thing ... if I could 
 transform my meagre hairy thighs, my elderly legs. 
 . . . You should see how I would make love! 
 With what sweet reluctance ! I have always 
 thought that I could make love better as a girl." 
 
 " I should have to wean you from your cerebral- 
 ism. Could I, do you think? " 
 
 "Oh, yes! I'm only a cerebralist as a man, — 
 because to be anything else means action, initiative. 
 I can't be the possessor, but of course I could be the
 
 rhe Buffoon 219 
 
 possessed! Don't talk of it! Too exciting, much 
 too exciting. — But, you know, I have no sympathy 
 whatever with what are known as Hellenic tastes. I 
 am quite different. Those good kind fellows, Krafft- 
 Ebing and Moll, they don't deal with my type at all. 
 . . . How curious, when you think of it, that most 
 people would call us men of pleasure. We are really 
 men over whom sex has a peculiar power for making 
 us extremely uncomfortable." 
 
 Again they were silent, and for a longer time than 
 before. 
 
 " Marriage," said Edward at last, " is a way out 
 of it. I recognise that. In some ways one would 
 be freer in marriage. One would be free in a new 
 way, and captive in a new way. Anything that is 
 new has its appeal. But I shrink from the upheaval 
 — the worry — so much change that would rasp. 
 My egoism shrinks. I can't help thinking that I 
 should be more — well, more sawed into. In the 
 long run, than I am. It's true that I have to put 
 up with a great deal that's inharmonious enough 
 now; my pleasures involve me in having to say and 
 do ridiculous unpardonable things; I have to get 
 horribly mixed up-, it's a game I can't play as men 
 of a certain faculty can play it. But I'm not sur- 
 rounded on every side as I should be by marriage. 
 I can escape ... I do escape. . . ." 
 
 He looked up and saw that Welsh was sound 
 asleep. 
 
 " Well — " Edward said, half aloud. It was cer-
 
 220 The Buffoon 
 
 tainly time to go to bed. He began to prepare, 
 with his usual carefuhiess, for cleaning his teeth; 
 he wondered if Welsh would still be there in the 
 morning. The dropped jaw did not disturb Ed- 
 ward as before. He reflected that it would be the 
 same with the woman one married. Characteristics 
 at first disliked would become tolerable. But, 
 equally, much that was welcomed at first would be 
 as time went on rejected, perhaps abhorred. This 
 eternal balance and counterbalance — he went in too 
 much for that. He was far too prone to weigh; 
 it was wearisome, this addition and subtraction, this 
 reckoning of advantages and disadvantages. Could 
 he not, for once, do something without counting the 
 cost? A great deal to be said, after all, for Welsh's 
 recklessness. . . . Ah, yes, but Welsh's tempera- 
 ment evaded any penalty. — There it was again, 
 this curse of seeing the other side, seeing it in this 
 dull automatic way. Better never to see it, again 
 like Welsh, even though, unlike Welsh, he had later 
 on to foot the bill. " Confound it, let me have some 
 bill to foot for a change! " He had lived at low 
 cost for too long. He was too safe, too well-ad- 
 justed, — why, there was danger in being like that! 
 He had talked of the risk of sawing into his per- 
 sonality, but why should he set such store by his 
 personality? Did he even know what his per- 
 sonality was? Had he ever got at it? Had he 
 ever dared? The reflection recurred, what value 
 had his kind of character, the character that he had
 
 The Buffoon 221 
 
 chosen to recognise as his? But then it was all he 
 had. If the idea of tending his " personality," of 
 playing nursemaid to his pretty little ego, were taken 
 away from him, what would he have left? A wife 
 and family, perhaps : and he doubted if he had force 
 enough to make his domestic life distinguished. . . . 
 
 He kicked off one of his shoes with some violence. 
 Welsh woke suddenly, held up his hands, looked 
 scared, cried " Good night! " and withdrew. 
 
 Impossible to ignore it, Edward was irritated and 
 depressed. He remembered his journey to London 
 two days ago, his childish expectation of something 
 that was going to happen, — something new. . . . 
 He had felt like that simply because he was at the 
 mercy of sex; it was sex that led him on to one ab- 
 surdity after another, sex that had fooled him about 
 the girl in the gallery, sex that had driven him to 
 that walk and made him go without his lunch. — 
 Well, he had had his dinner, he had scored there at 
 any rate. But he had not scored to-night. He had 
 played the fool without being amused. When he 
 came back, he had felt sick, he had vomited, using 
 Welsh as a feather to tickle the back of his throat. 
 But without relief; the taste in his mouth was bitter. 
 The only satisfaction was that he had found out that 
 he liked Welsh.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 NEXT morning, when Edward waked, the 
 sun was shining full into his room. He 
 had slept, as always, soundly, and he was 
 conscious now of a lovely languor, the languor that, 
 after late nights and excitements, varies so deliciously 
 the usual sensations of robust health. How very 
 pleasant it was to feel a little off colour now and 
 again! He lifted his bedclothes. The warm faint 
 carnal savour gave him extreme pleasure: how at- 
 tractive the flesh was ! especially just before bathing. 
 That moment was the moment of perfect ripeness, 
 twenty-four hours from the last bath: for flesh 
 newly-bathed lost some of the properties of flesh, — 
 that smell of soap, — yes, one was too clean. On 
 the other hand, one must bathe once a day, to avoid 
 any offending hint of grossness: if Edward were to 
 go without his bath that morning, he would cherish 
 his fleshliness in vain, his pleasure in his body would 
 have less fine an edge : while if he were to bathe both 
 morning and night, his pleasure would be attenuated. 
 Yes, he had hit, he reflected, on the right mean 
 here. It was just so, by the no more and the no 
 less of the daily bath, that his flesh ripened perfectly 
 for this moment of perfection: how well he ap- 
 preciated the relish of enjoyments depending, in 
 
 233
 
 The Buffoon 223 
 
 this way, on an equipoise that more, or less, would 
 have destroyed! He forgot his reactions of a few 
 hours past. 
 
 Edward lay on, in possession: in possession of the 
 sweets of his person, in possession of the brightness 
 and warmth and cheer of the sunlight, in possession 
 of the pleasant objects of the room, — the green silk 
 dressing-gown hanging over the chair by his bed, the 
 silver-topped whiskey-flask with its case of rich dark- 
 brown leather, the dress shirt with its thin gold cuff- 
 links. How beautifully those links showed against 
 the starched white linen; the crest on them had been 
 very delicately chased. Edward's spirit possessed, 
 with equal tranquillity and satisfaction, the engrav- 
 ings framed on the walls, engravings of the kind that 
 are found in modern hotels, of Coaching Inns, scenes 
 in the Thames valley, old London streets. They 
 did not belong to him, they were new to him, and 
 he liked that. He liked the room being obviously 
 what it was, a room in an hotel of modern standards. 
 How was it, he wondered, that you could tell at a 
 glance that all this new, clean, sufficient furniture had 
 come in as a fractional part of some enormous or- 
 der? His eyes rested with pleasure on the writing 
 table in the corner, with its blotting-pad stamped 
 with the hotel's name and badge, with its wooden re- 
 ceptacle for paper and envelopes and telegraph 
 forms. . . . Telegraph forms ! He must use one 
 of those, he must send a telegram to Eunice Din- 
 widdie. He would not play tennis with her, cer-
 
 224 The Buffoon 
 
 tainly not, why risk it? Suppose he had to wake up 
 on mornings like this, always with a woman by his 
 side? Why, it would spoil everything. She would 
 talk, her observations would be irrelevant, his cur- 
 rents would be deflected, it would never do. He was 
 not going to be joined on, as one cuff-link is joined 
 to another. He was damned if his heart and an- 
 other were ever going to beat as one ! 
 
 He reached for his watch, and saw that it was 
 twelve o'clock. He got out of bed, rolled a ciga- 
 rette and lit it. Those pyjamas were a success; yes, 
 it was exactly the right shade of purple, and the 
 little gold lines were pleasing. A Paris purchase; 
 Edward recalled the remark of the shopman when 
 the pattern was chosen: " Ah, m'sieur, they will be 
 so beautiful that you will have no need of a lady to 
 sleep with you ! " Quite right, he had no need. 
 
 He put on his dressing-gown while deciding that 
 it would be better to telephone to Mrs. van Spless 
 than to telegraph to Eunice in her care. He had 
 no other address. — " Urgent call from London — 
 illness of a near relative — very much regret — 
 most kind of you if you would tell Miss Dinwiddie 
 — my sincere apologies." That was settled, thank 
 Heaven! But very conscientiously, guarding 
 against contingencies, he telephoned to the Tennis 
 Courts as well, and then exultantly called up the 
 Hotel office with an order for coffee and rolls to be 
 sent to his bedroom. He would breakfast lightly, 
 then lunch at about half past two. . . . These lit-
 
 The Buffoon 225 
 
 tie details of arrangement in daily life, how full of 
 interest and charm they were for him! Certainly 
 he was a born bachelor. 
 
 He opened the communicating door and went to 
 his bath. Delightful. His only annoyance was 
 that the phrase of Browning — "Silver shock" — 
 came to his mind as he turned on the douche. Why 
 no phrase of his own? Why had he himself been 
 elbowed thus out of reach? None the less the bath 
 was delightful : and Edward consoled himself by the 
 reflection that he was critical enough to see that 
 " silver shock " was not really a good phrase, that 
 there was something superficial and muddled about 
 it, just as there was about Browning's philosophy. 
 The French genius would never tolerate a phrase of 
 that kind. 
 
 Soon after the coffee and rolls came Reggie 
 Tryers. Welsh followed, evidently harassed, evi- 
 dently looking for a way out. 
 
 "Breakfast!" Tryers cried. "Why, I'm be- 
 ginning to be hungry for lunch." 
 
 " There's a restaurant round the corner." Ed- 
 ward did not raise his eyes. " There is always a 
 restaurant round the corner." He broke a roll. 
 
 Tryers walked about the room, examining the 
 pictures, while Welsh sat down timidly on the edge 
 of the bed, and Edward ate in silence. 
 
 " Welsh has been telling me all about last night." 
 Tryers spoke very quickly and resolutely. " What 
 were your impressions, Raynes? Any impressions
 
 226 The Buffoon 
 
 worth having? — It's really waste of time, isn't 
 it, meeting people of that sort? — I rather like 
 these engravings. — I should like to introduce you 
 to my Sydney friend, Hubert Reeves. He has real 
 force of character. In fact, he's the most influ- 
 ential man of his kind in Sydney. He has done more 
 real work there than any one else. He will be 
 spoken of as ' Reeves of Sydney,' later on, just as 
 one speaks of ' Arnold of Rugby.' A remarkable 
 man. Of course Welsh is too narrow to appreciate 
 him, but you would, Raynes, I'm sure you would. 
 We sail together in two or three weeks' time. . . . 
 I've been awfully busy since I saw you. Not a mo- 
 ment to myself. There's so much to be discussed, so 
 many arrangements to be made — " 
 
 He moved about perpetually as he spoke, fixing 
 first one object and then another with an intense 
 gaze, touching the picture-frames and the mirrors 
 and the backs of the chairs, and talking, talking, all 
 the while. There was something animal about this 
 inordinate, meaningless activity. Edward wanted 
 to let him out, to turn him loose for a run, as you 
 would a dog that had not been exercised. Evidently 
 it was painful to Tryers not to be getting rid of his 
 emotional surplus. Edward found his presence In- 
 creasingly disagreeable; he reminded him of a cow 
 urgently In need of being milked. . . . Humane, 
 perhaps, to attempt the required office. 
 
 " How about that ridiculous religion of yours?" 
 Edward remarked, as he poured his coffee.
 
 The Buffoon 227 
 
 Tryers stood transfixed. Welsh gasped In 
 amazement. 
 
 " Well, well; how about It? Does It console you 
 for your failure with little Norah ? " 
 
 "You — you're a cad!" Tryers' eyes were 
 angry: he clenched his hands. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " To insult a man's religion ! " 
 
 " I can't. Your religion is ridiculous, because It 
 Isn't a religion." 
 
 " Why do you call it a religion, then? " 
 
 " Because I'm eating my breakfast. Let's take 
 time, then, to call it a make-believe religion, or a 
 pseudo-religion." 
 
 " And what right, pray, have you to say that mine 
 is a pseudo-religion, or that it Is ridiculous? How 
 do you know? " 
 
 " Because I know that you are ridiculous." 
 
 " How dare you say that? " 
 
 " Don't make him too angry. Don't go too far, 
 Mr. Raynes. — I beg you ! " Welsh gesticulated en- 
 treaties from the bed. 
 
 " I'm simply stating my opinion. I've a right 
 to do that. Tryers needn't be angry, unless he wants 
 to be." 
 
 " I am angry, naturally, when your opinions are 
 so insulting — so unjust. To say that I become 
 religious — " 
 
 " Pseudo-religious." 
 
 " — because I failed In — In sinning. 
 
 >»
 
 228 The Buffoon 
 
 " Yes, and you always will. You put It very well. 
 The point is, though, that your mistake was to fail, 
 not to sin. But having failed, you said, ' I will sin 
 no more,' instead of ' I will fail no more.' And 
 now that you are what you call religious, you'll fail 
 just the same, and simply because you won't think 
 clearly, because you won't put your finger on the 
 right spot." 
 
 *' Very well," Tryers clenched his teeth, " you will 
 see." 
 
 " I don't think I shall. I know so well the kind 
 of thing that will happen. The fact is, Tryers, that 
 your failures as a sinner interested me a little, but 
 your failures as a saint won't interest me at all. I 
 have no intention of keeping you up now." 
 
 Tryers sat down. He collapsed. 
 
 *' Very well, then," — he was pale — " you don't 
 wish to know me any more. All right." 
 
 " My dear Mr. Raynes," Welsh addressed Ed- 
 ward in a tone of humble intercession, "this is — 
 really it is — rather cruel of you. You don't con- 
 sider the chagrin — the peculiar chagrin to Reggie 
 — of losing one of his circle of acquaintances — " 
 
 " Shut up ! " Tryers interrupted fiercely. " I 
 don't want you coming in. I can look out for my- 
 self, I — " 
 
 " You don't know how he clings to his friends. 
 There is something pathetic about the way he clings. 
 I find it a nuisance myself, sometimes, but I recog- 
 nise a certain virtue — "
 
 rhe Buffoon 229 
 
 " You ! " Tryers trembled with indignation. 
 
 " And besides, he's going to Australia so very 
 soon. Don't you think, just for a week or two, you 
 might possibly — ? " 
 
 " Will you be quiet? " Tryers approached 
 Welsh with a gesture more than hostile enough to 
 make the latter raise his hand. " Have you both 
 insulted me enough, may I ask? " 
 
 " Certainly," Edward assured him. *' I want to 
 write telegrams. Jack, we are going this afternoon 
 to Liverpool." 
 
 "Liverpool! Why are you going to Liver- 
 pool?" Tryers was shrill, he almost screamed. 
 
 Welsh was much excited. " This afternoon ! " he 
 exclaimed. " Well, why not? Why not this after- 
 noon? Tom will be delighted to see us. And 
 Ethelle, we shall meet with Ethelle! What an 
 idea ! — But I thought you were going to play 
 tennis with Eunice Dinwiddie." 
 
 " Oh, no. Not to-day. That's all right." 
 
 " I thought you said this afternoon — ? " 
 
 " It's all right." Edward spoke rather impa- 
 tiently. " Must one always keep all engagements? 
 I have telephoned." 
 
 "What unscrupulousness ! " Welsh was over- 
 joyed. " I never should dare — " 
 
 "Well, you'll come?" 
 
 " Of course. Of course. Reggie, you, I sup- 
 pose, will hardly — ? " 
 
 " I should not think of coming." Tryers, with
 
 230 The Buffoon 
 
 tilted head and flushed cheeks, walked to the door. 
 
 " And now," said Edward, " we'll write the tele- 
 grams. My landlady lives in Bold Street." Tryers 
 had turned; he scrutinised Edward. "You know 
 Bold Street?" Welsh rubbed his hands. "I'm 
 sure she'll have a room for each of us, and a sitting- 
 room. She was expecting me rather later in the 
 month. We will have a little supper party. I'll 
 telegraph to a girl I know, and you'll telegraph to 
 Ethel. Here's a form. Hurry up. The train 
 leaves at two something." 
 
 " I'll telegraph, my friend, I'll telegraph at once. 
 I'll get Ethelle. I wonder how you'll like her ! She 
 is tall and blonde — the North German type, rather. 
 A thin girl, a consumptive, thin flushed cheeks. A 
 long thin body, and oh, such long emaciated legs! " 
 
 " Yes, I remember you're attracted by bony girls." 
 
 "You are shameless!" cried Tryers from the 
 door. " You are shameless and gross! " 
 
 " Oh, I thought you had gone." Edward did not 
 look up. 
 
 " Do you mean to say there's any romance — ? " 
 
 " My dear Tryers, one doesn't always want ro- 
 mance. Why be bound down to romance ? Try to 
 ' see life steadily, and see it whole.' — Well, Jack, 
 what is this Ethel's point of view? " 
 
 " Ethelle. She always calls herself Ethelle. — 
 Oh, she has the most amazing ideas. She will amuse 
 you. She has spirit, she has wit, she has real cour- 
 age. She knows she's dying, and she defies the uni-
 
 The Buffoon 231 
 
 verse. A Dostoevsky type. Oh, you will admire 
 her audacity ! " 
 
 " Well, write your telegram. I'm afraid my girl 
 is quite normal. She certainly won't suit you. 
 She's dark, small, rather like some Goyas, with a 
 plebeian passion for pleasure that I enjoy. But not 
 in Dostoevsky's line at all. The two will be in con- 
 trast. It may be interesting." 
 
 "What does she do?" Welsh evidently hoped 
 for the worst. 
 
 " Oh, Betty's respectable, according to their code. 
 My taste doesn't happen to be for the kind of girl 
 who is, as they say, ' no good.' She works in a 
 milliner's shop. Frightfully long hours, but when 
 she's out, she really lives. I thought of setting her 
 free; but she's happier as she is." 
 
 "Respectable!" Welsh was downcast. "But 
 think of the appeal of the genuine prostitute ! She 
 is by far the most interesting — she is the slave! " 
 He shouted ecstatically. " The manacled, scourged 
 slave ! She has lost everything, — even sex itself. 
 Yes, it is because she is drained of sex that her ap- 
 peal is so irresistible." 
 
 Edward went on writing his telegrams. Tryers 
 still hesitated by the door. 
 
 " You are entirely mistaken in my character," he 
 said emphatically. " You will see." 
 
 " All right Welsh will no doubt keep me in- 
 formed. — You'll tell me. Jack, won't you, if any 
 unexpected developments occur in Tryers' case?"
 
 232 The Buffoon 
 
 Tryers cast a glance of hatred upon Welsh, made 
 as though to speak, and then left them. 
 
 " He'd kill us If he could! " Welsh exclaimed. 
 
 " Twelve words does It exactly," said Edward 
 with satisfaction.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 TOM FIELDING was to meet them at Lime 
 Street Station. "Lime Street!" Welsh 
 ejaculated as the train drew near. " Lime 
 Street! What associations! Lime Street and the 
 Landing Stage ! " He burst into rhyme : 
 
 " At Lime Street and the Landing Stage, 
 
 There age meets youth and youth meets age! 
 
 What lies are told, 
 
 By young and old. 
 
 At the Lime Street Station and the Landing Stage! " 
 
 His excitement had quickened at Edge Hill. He 
 had invoked Edge Hill with the same kind of en- 
 thusiasm. " Think of the scores of mean streets, 
 the hundreds of mean houses and mean shops! 
 There is nothing so attractive to me as a mean shop, 
 — the kind of shop at which little ragged girls buy 
 fried fish. Oh, you won't do away with mean shops, 
 Edward Raynes, will you, in your reconstruction of 
 the universe ? Leave us our mean shops ! " 
 
 By the time the train stopped Welsh's exaltation 
 
 was beyond control. His eyes flamed, his lips parted 
 
 widely, he was trembling. 
 
 " There he is! " he cried, waving his hands in the 
 
 233
 
 234 rhe Buffoon 
 
 air. " There's old Tom ! " He sprang out and 
 dashed along the platform to his friend, whom he 
 encircled with both arms. " God bless you, Tom, 
 God bless your heart!" Fielding's natural em- 
 barrassment escaped him altogether. " This is Mr. 
 Edward Raynes," he gave a wide sweep of the hand, 
 " the wisest philosopher, the most massive mind, in 
 Europe ! — I present you to Mr. Tom Fielding, the 
 Julius Caesar of the cotton markets of Liverpool. 
 So the two most Intransigeant individualists of our 
 age encounter: here on the platform of Lime Street 
 Station!" 
 
 They shook hands. " For God's sake. Jack," 
 said Fielding, " don't make such a song about it. 
 One of the fellows from the Office is meeting this 
 train." 
 
 Fielding was a man of between thirty and forty, 
 about middle height, solidly built in North Country 
 style. His eyes were of an unusually deep fine blue, 
 and gave the impression of being habituated to a 
 survey of great spaces. He was wearing a blue suit 
 and a blue tie, — the tie of a more vivid tint than the 
 suit, well chosen for It. His nose was assuredly 
 Roman. Edward, who was always on the lookout 
 for noses in men, at once admired this feature, espe- 
 cially after his disappointments at Mrs. van Spless's 
 the night before. A man with a nose like that, so 
 straight, so decisive, so clear, must have fibre, he 
 reflected, must have independence and resistance and 
 command. Yes, he would rather live with Fielding
 
 The Buffoon 235 
 
 than with Raoul Root or Massington. Fielding's 
 mouth struck him, too. It was a large mouth, with 
 nervous lips, a mouth that contradicted the nose, and 
 Edward liked such physical contradictions. 
 
 They walked along the platform. Welsh was for 
 the moment subdued by his friend's protest. " For- 
 give me, forgive me," he was saying in a pathetic un- 
 dertone. " I know, Tom, that I am always putting 
 you to shame. Tom Fielding," — he turned to Ed- 
 ward — "believes in outward conformity. You see 
 how beautifully he is dressed, without fleck or stain. — 
 Oh, I have news for you, Tom. What do you think, 
 my friend, what do you think? Reggie Tryers has 
 become an Anglican. He's going to lead a pure life 
 and build a church in Australia. What do you think 
 of that?" 
 
 " I think," replied Fielding, " that it pays the beg- 
 gar." The word that he actually used was pro- 
 nounced with a North Country accent. " Come and 
 have a drink in the Refreshment Room." 
 
 Welsh insisted that there was not time. They 
 must take a tramcar to Bold Street at once, or the 
 girls would be there before them. Edward sug- 
 gested a taxi, but Welsh would not hear of that. 
 " No, no, — a car. We always take the car in Liv- 
 erpool. The Bold Street car." He smacked his 
 lips. " Who is to be your companion, Tom, for our 
 supper party? Rosa or Maggie or little Mabel? 
 — Rosa: ah, I'm glad you have chosen Rosa. 
 What an adventurer you are, with these married
 
 236 The Buffoon 
 
 women ! I suppose her husband is away ' placing 
 orders ' in Leeds or Huddersfield or Bolton. Those 
 places were created solely for husbands to go off to, 
 on the right occasions. But you don't care, bless 
 your heart, where husbands are. Rosa has such a 
 bewitching simplicity of mind; when she is with you, 
 she is like a dear little child enjoying a holiday. — - 
 Yes, Rosa was the right choice — "
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 EDWARD'S landlady was exuberant on her 
 threshold. She pressed and held Fielding's 
 hand with continental fervour. " And all 
 these weeks," she cried, " these long weeks, and you 
 do not come ! It ees not kaind. But I forgive — 
 always, always, I forgive ! " 
 
 " Oh," said Edward, " so you — " 
 
 " Oh, yais! Mr. Tom and I — Oh, yais, 
 yais ! " 
 
 " Madam W. doesn't introduce her friends," 
 Fielding observed. 
 
 " But I know this lady too," exclaimed Welsh. 
 " You remember, Madame, when you lived in Lord 
 Nelson Street — two years ago, I think." 
 
 " Oh, yais, I remember." The woman turned to 
 him, very arch and sly. " Oh, such a wicked gentle- 
 man! Such wicked eyes!" She broke into high- 
 pitched trills of nervous laughter. " I am vary 
 much surprised, Mr. Tom, that such a wicked, wicked 
 gentleman should be a friend of you. I must look 
 to you better. And you, Mr. Edward," — she 
 darted an amorous glance at him — " how did you 
 come by such a vary naughty company? Why, look 
 you at his wicked eyes and his wicked, wicked mouth ! 
 
 237
 
 238 The Buffoon 
 
 Eet Is scho-king, scho-king! I have so much shame 
 for this vary naughty gentleman! " 
 
 Welsh was immensely flattered. He opened his 
 mouth in a wide grin of pleasure, showing all his 
 teeth; he leaned back his head, and emitted an in- 
 articulate satisfaction. "Ha! ha!" he ejaculated. 
 Edward admired the woman's instinct. How cap- 
 itally she had hit on just the way of getting at 
 Welsh's vanity ! He recalled Mrs. van Spless's salu- 
 tation of the night before. No wonder Welsh pre- 
 ferred people who were not respectable, no wonder 
 he turned with relief from drawing-rooms to Ma- 
 dame's disreputable parlour. 
 
 " There will be no old gentleman from Boston 
 here to-night." Edward addressed the lecturer in 
 an undertone. 
 
 "Thank God!" cried Welsh. "No literary 
 ladies, no artists, no poets, no people of any distinc- 
 tion whatever ! Only little girls who love pleasure, 
 — children of nature. Ah, my friend, we come to- 
 night to the Thing Itself. Here are the roots of 
 philosophy. Unaccommodated man and woman ! 
 Here we strip from us all shams and simulacra and 
 chimasrae ! We sophisticated ones are no longer 
 sophisticated. Primitive emotion, the atavistic 
 thrill, the Thing Itself! Unaccommodated man! " 
 
 Fielding put a restraining hand on his shoulder. 
 " Look out," he said. " If there are any other peo- 
 ple here, you may startle them. They'll think there's 
 
 some row on."
 
 The Buffoon 239 
 
 " Ah, he talk so well, he has beautiful talk. I 
 will keess the wicked gentleman for his beautiful 
 talk." Madame flung her arms round Welsh, and 
 their noses collided. She laughed again, at some 
 length. Her laughter had a curious, not very pleas- 
 ing, thick liquid quality : it always reminded Edward 
 of yellow jelly not fully jellified. 
 
 "This is the room, isn't it?" Edward led the 
 way and opened the door. He saw that Madame 
 had done her best. The evening was turning chilly, 
 so she had made them a pleasant little fire. A lux- 
 uriant tongue was at one end of the table, a plump 
 chicken at the other, and in the middle a plate of 
 fruit. 
 
 " Well done ! " Edward commended. Madame's 
 face broke in rapid ripples of pleasure. 
 
 " Ah ! " she panted as she spoke, in a way peculiar 
 to her, indicative, it seemed, of exaggerated eager- 
 ness and childlike spirit. " Ah, how much more I 
 would do for your beautiful hair! But I must not 
 say that: he do not laike compliments, — no, never! 
 I must not say pretty things to him." 
 
 " Never mind," said Fielding. *' Say them to me 
 instead." 
 
 " Ah, you laff at me if I say them to you. You 
 tease me ! " 
 
 " But, my dear lady," Welsh broke in, " what an 
 excellent room! What admirable preparations! 
 That chicken! Can I, do you think I can eat it? " 
 He shut his eyes and made a horrible grimace. Ma-
 
 240 ne Buffoon 
 
 dame shrieked. Edward patted her shoulder with a 
 reserved and distant air. 
 
 " Could you make us," he asked, " a little salad? 
 Your salads are always remarkable. That is be- 
 cause you are not English." 
 
 " Oh, you are so kaindl You — " 
 
 " With plenty of oil; real Olive Oil, not that cot- 
 tonseed mixture. Tomatoes, lettuce very fresh and 
 green, a little celery; but you know all about it." 
 
 Madame looked up joyfully to the large coloured 
 print of King Edward the Seventh which decorated 
 one of the walls. " I will make it at once," she qua- 
 vered. "Ah, I will make it vary well, — you will 
 see ! " 
 
 "What an exquisite tablecloth!" Welsh plied 
 her with fresh praise. " You are magnificent, Ma- 
 dame ; I consider you a genius, a mistress of your art ! 
 I commend you, my friend, I commend you ! I have 
 never seen a table spread with greater delicacy and 
 refinement. Your taste is amazing! " 
 
 " You laff at me, you bad gentleman ! " She 
 shook her finger at him, flushing with delight. 
 " You poke funny — " 
 
 " Let's see our bedrooms," Edward interrupted. 
 " I want a wash, and we haven't much time. Oh, 
 and tell me too, how about drinks? " 
 
 " Ach — but I dared not, dear Mr. Edward, I 
 dared not buy wine for you. I have only a bottle of 
 Vermouth; and there is wheesky."
 
 The Buffoon 241 
 
 " Well. Mr. Fielding, what wine will you 
 drink?" 
 
 '* There is only one wine on these occasions," said 
 Welsh eagerly. " Port. We always drink Port. 
 Isn't that so, Tom?" 
 
 " Well,"— Fielding replied diffidently — " I think 
 the girls enjoy Port." 
 
 "Of course they do. Of course!" Welsh 
 leered with a fantastic curl of his lips. " That is 
 what we all think, that the girls enjoy Port, that we 
 enjoy their enjoying it! Let's all go out and buy 
 what they enjoy for our enjoyment. Come on! 
 Round the corner, to the Bodega ! " 
 
 Edward decided that nothing would persuade him 
 to drink Port through his supper, but he made no ob- 
 jections. The three went out together, dismissing 
 Madame to her salad. They returned, each bearing 
 a bottle wrapped up in brown paper; Edward's, 
 however, was a bottle of Chambertin. Welsh's 
 spirits seemed evaporated; he had become grave, he 
 looked almost care-worn. Fielding said very little, 
 and Edward made no effort to break silences. It 
 struck him, as they walked back, that the spectacle 
 they presented was ironically absurd. Three men, 
 in procession, — for Welsh had stalked on, and 
 Fielding at that moment was lagging behind, — each 
 carrying a bottle, silent, preoccupied, going about 
 their business of pleasure. " For every man hath 
 business or desire, such as it is." Hamlet's melan-
 
 242 The Buffoon 
 
 choly must have been at its profoundest when he 
 said that.- " Such as it is." Well, well. And the 
 bottle of Chambertin, Edward certainly could not be 
 optimistic about that. No date, no indications, a 
 dangerously low price; but all they could give him. 
 " My Chambertin, — such as it is ! My pleasures, 
 such as they are ! And my intellect, such as it is, al- 
 ways trotting off to Shakespeare and others." 
 
 The three men fell into line. Edward looked at 
 Welsh, whose expression now was, like that of 
 Keats's charioteer, " fearfully intent." He was not 
 troubled evidently, by Edward's dissatisfactions.
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 THE children of nature arrived, one by one, be- 
 tween eight and nine. Ethelle came first, 
 in a huge picture-hat and a bright yellow 
 blouse. She was painted and powdered, — distaste- 
 fully meretricious to Fielding, Edward felt. The 
 girl immediately displayed the greatest devotion to 
 Welsh : she sat on a footstool by his chair, and played 
 tenderly with his abnormal worsted socks. Repeat- 
 edly she addressed him as " dear 'eart "; her voice 
 seemed to tremble with genuine emotion. Edward 
 decided that she was enjoying herself immensely, that 
 this was an orgy of sentiment rarely found in her 
 way, and, when found, famishingly sopped up. He 
 listened, fascinated, to her talk, which evoked ex- 
 actly the atmosphere of a serial story of a sen^ants' 
 magazine. 
 
 " Oh, and when your telegram come, you'll never 
 know, dear 'eart, just 'ow it made me feel. Well, I 
 know I'm foolish-like, but the way I come over all 
 queer ! I 'ad to put me 'and to me 'eart this way, 
 and me 'eart was going pit-pat, 'ammer an' tongs, 
 something fierce. Believe me, dear 'eart, an' all be- 
 cause of you, naughty boy, who don't really care a 
 brass farthing about poor little Ethelle. Look at 
 
 243
 
 244 The Buffoon 
 
 'im," she appealed to Edward and Fielding, " you 
 can see 'e don't care, now, can't you? " 
 
 Welsh's aspect, as Edward looked, was difficult 
 to interpret. His eyes were keen and bright and 
 fixed, as though preoccupied with some distant ob- 
 ject, the visualising of which demanded extreme con- 
 centration : his mouth, on the other hand, was lax 
 and dropped, — vacuous, as though all energies had 
 been apathetically dismissed. One. of his hands 
 rested tentatively just above the girl's knee, which 
 he kept pressing gently in a queer mechanical w'ay; 
 the other hand held a thin strand of her yellow hair, 
 twisting and untwisting it with a slow and regular 
 motion of its hard knotted fingers. Edward had 
 not realised before the appearance of age in Welsh's 
 hands. They were so dry, so bony, so withered, that 
 they might have belonged to a man of seventy. 
 
 " He cares," said Edward solemnly, " more than 
 you can ever know." 
 
 " Oh, do you think so? You don' say. An' do 
 you think so reelly, now? You ain't sayin' that just 
 to give me 'ope of 'im, now, are you?" She 
 coughed the thin apologetic aristocratic cough of the 
 consumptive; her cheeks flushed under the paint. 
 " You wouldn't believe it, would you, how proper 
 foolish I am about ^'im. Why, now, other men, I 
 don't give a snap of me finger for 'em; they're dirt. 
 I'd send any of 'em down the spout, God's truth an' 
 I would. But 'e's different, 'e knows I'm 'timan, 
 that's where it is. 'E knows — " she reached with
 
 rhe Buffoon 245 
 
 difficulty after expression, " well, 'e treats me like a 
 lady!" She burst into tears and gave spasmodic 
 hugs to Welsh's waist. 
 
 " If you like a boy you shouldn't tell him so," 
 Fielding remarked. 
 
 " Get on. I can tell 'im. 'E ain't no soft Archie 
 like the rest of 'em. I tell you, 'e's different. 'E's 
 no end clever, — proper clever 'e is," she added with 
 pride. " You should 'ear 'im speak 'is verses. 
 Lovely, they are, — loverly. 'E made me cry last 
 time, straight 'e did. There ain't no one like 
 
 " We're in the way," said Fielding. " Let's go 
 upstairs." He seemed rather nervous. 
 
 When they were outside he communicated his ap- 
 prehensions to Edward. " Always a mistake, bring- 
 ing girls together who don't know one another. 
 You never can tell what will happen. They take dis- 
 likes, and it may be the devil. And this Ethelle, any 
 one can see she isn't straight. She's on the game. 
 My girl isn't a fool. She'll spot that. She's one of 
 the best, Rosa is, takes everything easy, never makes 
 a fuss. Still, I don't like it : it's not fair to her." 
 
 " What can we do about it? " Edward was sym- 
 pathetic. 
 
 " I don't know. We're in for it, now. I must 
 speak to Rosa first. She's a brick, all right. Will 
 your girl mind, do you think? " 
 
 Edward recognised the tact of the inquiry and re- 
 plied that though Betty was respectable, she too was
 
 246 The Buffoon 
 
 easy-going and not likely to stand on her dignity. 
 Fielding was not convinced. 
 
 " You don't know," he said. " Girls aren't often 
 easy-going about things like that. They may pre- 
 tend to be, but they aren't. One has to consider 
 their feelings. Welsh doesn't understand. He's a 
 curious beggar about women. Gets hold of the 
 most awful rotters, seems to like them the best. It 
 beats me. I believe in giving a wide berth to girls 
 who are on the game. Too blooming dangerous." 
 
 " Not for Welsh, though." 
 
 " Yes, I know. He's a funny beggar. He has 
 extraordinary insight about women in some ways; 
 he's up to all sorts of subtleties that most men would 
 never think of, but he doesn't understand the simple 
 things in the least. He was trying to make up a 
 match between one of our chaps at the Office and a 
 girl I know over in New Brighton, — nice girl, quite 
 straight, — and what do you think he said to her? 
 ' You'll get him,' he said; ' he's in a state of mind 
 just now when he's bound to marry.' What do you 
 think of that for a mug? Yet he goes as deep as 
 Ibsen or Strindberg or any of those fellows some- 
 times. Too much of a Feminist for me, though 
 . . . more like Ibsen than Strindberg." 
 
 Edward was interested. He wondered what Rosa 
 would be like, and imagined Fielding greeting her 
 with courtesy and reserve, as though she were a 
 neighbour calling on his wife. She would be a 
 plump cheerful-looking little woman, plump, but not
 
 rhe Buffoon 247 
 
 too plump. She would have figure, yes, she would 
 have curves, she would be soft but not shapeless. 
 Like a sleek, pretty, deceitful cat. One would figure 
 the voluptuous padded paws stretched out in lazy 
 ecstasy. One would see the rosy relishing tongue 
 lapping its forbidden milk. — The typical adul- 
 teress. — Entirely a female creature, just of the 
 sort to appeal to a man whose nose proclaimed him 
 so entirely male. 
 
 The front door bell rang. *' I expect that's 
 Rosa." Fielding's face lightened. " She's gener- 
 ally pretty punctual. Beats other women there, too. 
 Not near so many of their damned conventions — " 
 
 " Yes : Welsh thinks that when you get away from 
 the upper classes you get away from conventions. 
 But you only get to another set of them. I was 
 telling him that the other day." Edward spoke list- 
 lessly, rather sadly. He sjtill felt depressed. 
 
 They went down. Edward kept in the back- 
 ground, while the lovers exchanged a greeting that 
 struck him as peculiarly frank, direct, happy and in- 
 nocent. Fielding kissed Rosa, drawing her to him, 
 and she put her hand in his, laughing boyishly, call- 
 ing " Hulloa, Tom! " as over sand-castles on a salt- 
 breathing shore. She was astonishingly clear and 
 fresh ; she seemed born for the open. Her eyes were 
 friendly, full of mischievous cheer, eyes that it 
 seemed would seek out simple things of harmless en- 
 tertainment, and find them on instinct, without fail. 
 Edward wanted to set her by Eunice, to see which of
 
 248 The Buffoon 
 
 the two would triumph. Rosa caught his glance, 
 she bit her lips in a sudden childlike way. Edward 
 could not associate her with anything but childlike 
 pleasures. How smooth and unsullied her skin was ! 
 He liked her, but she did not stir him at all. Field- 
 ing said something to her in an undertone and she 
 laughed again. She went merrily upstairs with her 
 paramour, who made Edward known to her as they 
 passed. 
 
 Edward could not help feeling rather overcome. 
 Perhaps Welsh wasn't such a fool with his " children 
 of nature," after all. He himself, rather, had been 
 the fool, with those anticipations of Rosa. But how 
 to guess these things? The unfaithful wife of a 
 Liverpool commercial traveller, a woman with sev- 
 eral children, a woman of past thirty, and yet — 
 there she was ! What could you do when people 
 were so preposterously out of tally with their desig- 
 nations? 
 
 He went back to the parlour. Welsh and Ethelle 
 were in exactly the same positions as before, but it 
 was Welsh who was talking now. 
 
 " Do you believe," he was saying, " that you have 
 a soul? I tell you no. No: no: no." He tapped 
 her forehead three times : she looked bewildered, dis- 
 tressed. " You have love, you have fear, you have 
 tears, but you have not hate; and without hate there 
 is no soul. Edward Raynes, my friend, this girl Is 
 the pure Christian type, she has all the Christian vir- 
 tues. Humility, grief, cowardice, altruistic passion,
 
 The Buffoon 249 
 
 devotion; yes, she has them all, all. But when 
 Christianity came the soul died. When Christianity 
 came it was a sign that the soul was dead. No 
 Christian can have a soul ! " he shouted. " The soul 
 has pride and hate and scorn. I see you," — he 
 stared at her in a fierce rapture — " I see you beaten 
 down, crushed, drained dry, cheated of your last 
 breath, — put away, put away! Ha ! " 
 
 He grinned and grimaced: the terrified girl 
 shrieked ; she burst into shaking sobs. Fielding flung 
 open the door. 
 
 "What the deuce — ?" he exclaimed. "Why, 
 what's up, Ethelle? " 
 
 " All right, Tom, it's all right! " Welsh sprang 
 to his feet. " Son of Nietzsche, be not disturbed ! 
 Who was it that said : ' When you go to see a 
 woman, take a whip ' ? Ah, I have you there. I 
 take my whip, and you don't. What, Tom, what? 
 Scourges and scorpions lie under my tongue. Why, 
 Tom, why ! Would you grudge us these dear little 
 diversions with our dear little trulls? " 
 
 " 'E says I'm a coward," Ethelle faltered between 
 her diminishing sobs. " I ain't a coward, Tom; I 
 ain't afraid of nobody. I wouldn't let no one talk 
 at me that way, 'cep.t 'im, 'e knows that." She ex- 
 tended her little, damp, scented, screwed-up handker- 
 chief, and blew her reddening nose. 
 
 " Look here." Fielding drew Welsh aside. 
 " I've made it all right with Rosa ; you know what a 
 good sort she is. Now if it was some other girls I
 
 250 The Buffoon 
 
 know, — but — well, you might be a bit careful." 
 
 " What I " Welsh's voice was high-pitched. 
 " Madam Bovary shrinks from the contact of Sonia I 
 Where is she, Tom, where is she? " 
 
 " Upstairs, doing her hair. Don't be a bally ass. 
 She won't shrink; she's not one to shrink." Edward 
 thought of that other one, who so pre-eminently was. 
 
 " In your bedroom, Tom? " Welsh shouted still. 
 " Your bedroom ! Or in mine ? Or in the bedroom 
 of Mr. Edward Raynes? Or perhaps under the 
 protection of the cheerful and devoted lady of the 
 house? " 
 
 Fielding laughed. " All right. Jack," he said. 
 " Go on. I don't trouble." 
 
 The front door opened, and Edward went to greet 
 Betty. She embraced him heartily, as a schoolgirl 
 embraces a benevolent uncle. Edward, remember- 
 ing that equal embrace just witnessed, was vexa- 
 tiously touched. Still, Betty was much younger than 
 Rosa. He balanced, as usual. 
 
 The girl drew back, catching her breath. " Oh," 
 she said, glancing into the room," you have got com- 
 pany to-night, and no mistake! " 
 
 " Friends of mine," Edward rejoined. " Don't 
 be afraid of them," 
 
 He looked at her with approving pleasure, she was 
 so light and keen, so nicely and prettily got up. She 
 wore a peaked cap, like a gnome's, a cap of blue 
 leather, and a blue straight dress, with a wide white 
 collar. Her hair, very dark and straight, was
 
 The Buffoon 251 
 
 blocked over her ears, reminding Edward of the hair 
 of a mediaeval boy. He was stirred, as he looked, 
 by her queer crooked mouth, her very pointed chin; 
 while the warm, nervous touch of her tiny hands gave 
 him a physical glow. Her hands were stubby, like 
 the hands of an elf thai grubs in the earth; they were 
 the hands of a stunted proletarian girl; they meant 
 youth and toil and snatched pleasure. 
 
 " Come," said Edward, drawing his arm under 
 hers, " they won't be ready for supper for a few 
 minutes." His heart was beating, the words strug- 
 gled in his throat. 
 
 They went upstairs in silence. When they 
 reached the landing he caught her and lifted her off 
 her feet. His eyes darkened, he kissed her again 
 and again, till her lips and his were white. Her eyes 
 shone wet under the lowered gas. 
 
 " That's what I wanted, Betty," he said, draw- 
 ing a deep breath. 
 
 " I think you did." She smiled and clutched at 
 his hand. "That's proper kissing!" Edward's 
 eyes darkened again. He put her hair back from 
 her forehead. " Oh," she said, with a provocative 
 little frown, " don't make me look like bald Jane." 
 She slid away from him. " Which room shall I go 
 to? " she asked. " No, you wait for me here while 
 I put my hair straight." 
 
 She came down in a few minutes without her cap, 
 kissed him casually, and they went down together. 
 In the supper room Rosa chattered buoyantly to
 
 252 The Buffoon 
 
 Fielding, who was enjoying her with quiet zest, and 
 looked years younger; while Ethelle, manifestly on 
 her dignity, extremely erect, was behaving like a lady 
 at the other end of the room with her companion. 
 *' I don't feel 'ungry a bit, y'know," she was saying as 
 Edward and Betty came in, " me appetite 'asn't bin 
 what you might call grand for a long time." Welsh 
 was silent and absorbed, hunched up, with his eyes 
 fixed on the ground, unresponsive to all observations, 
 but the appearance of Edward and his little friend 
 roused him from meditation. He rose and hurried 
 to them. 
 
 " Ha, so this Is Betty. What a dainty little crea- 
 ture ! What a delicate little epicene ! Well done, 
 my friend, well done ! " He opened his mouth and 
 brought his alarming stare upon the girl, who shrank 
 from him, laying her hand on Edward's arm. 
 
 " This friend of mine," Edward reassured her, 
 " is a poet. A great poet," he added, taking a leaf 
 out of Welsh's book. " Don't be afraid of him." 
 
 Edward then presented Betty to Ethelle, with a 
 formality that he knew would flatter the street-girl. 
 Fielding took Betty in approvingly, and warmly 
 grasped her hand. He looked at her with a deliber- 
 ate kindliness, a kindliness that was, you might think, 
 pigeonholed for his friends' girls. His attitude to- 
 wards Betty seemed to spring up at once: there it 
 was, professed, primed and accoutred. Rosa smiled 
 at the girl with the freemasonry of a playmate, and 
 took up her talk again.
 
 The Buffoon 253 
 
 " So she made love to you, Tom, did she? " she 
 was saying. " Poor old Tom, what a way to treat 
 you! " She leaned back, laughing, and pinched his 
 arm. " Couldn't you defend yourself? " 
 
 "Defend myself?" Fielding put on a woful 
 air. '* What was I to do? My pal left me in the 
 lurch, went off with his girl, and there was I alone 
 with Madam W." 
 
 " Trust Auntie dear not to miss a chance like 
 that!" 
 
 "No way out. Defend myself! I wish you'd 
 been there ! She fell on me. And then when that 
 devil Cyril came back, and I told him about it, all 
 he said was : ' I'm very sorry, Tom.' ' Very 
 sorry! ' And after all the misery I'd been through! 
 ' Very sorry! ' So was I, by gum." 
 
 " Never you mind, Tom. I ought to be about to 
 look after you. Who'll be your next girl, eh? 
 Mind you get some one who's a good protector." 
 
 " No next girl for me." Fielding was decisive. 
 " You're my last love, Rosa." 
 
 " I'd rather be your last love than your first." 
 
 Welsh started. " Extraordinary ! " he broke his 
 silence. " Who was it wrote that? Goethe? Du- 
 mas? Some man of immense genius. You see, Ed- 
 ward Raynes, what we find in Liverpool. Imagine 
 any one talking like Goethe at Mrs. van Spless's ! I 
 tell you, this is the real thing, this is what matters, 
 this is the bedrock of Life." 
 
 " I don't fancy 'er kind of talk." Ethelle, quite
 
 254 The Buffoon 
 
 ignorant of Welsh's drift, whispered him. " Silly 
 of me, ain't it? But some'ow it ain't my style. 
 Not nice. She don't talk respectable." 
 
 Welsh did not respond. Betty was rather shyly 
 confiding her amusement to Edward. 
 
 " What! " Rosa had gone on talking to Field- 
 ing. " Didn't you hear about the woolly vest? " 
 
 Ethelle's back straightened in protest. 
 
 "Oh, / didn't!" cried Welsh. "Do tell us. 
 We must hear about the woolly vest." 
 
 Ethelle relapsed, but she still looked pained and 
 hurt. 
 
 " Such a time as we had." Rosa addressed the 
 company. " Our girl Vera — you know Vera, Tom 
 — Vera and her soldier boy ! Got a cigarette, 
 Tom? — I and Olive caught her nicely. Came back 
 home before she expected, you see. And what do 
 you think we heard him saying? 'Where's my 
 woolly vest, Vera ? ' So solemn as he was about it. 
 ' Where's that woolly vest? I can't find my woolly 
 vest, and I've looked everywhere.' My word, the 
 way he swore and carried on! And she said, — 
 quite peevish, she was, — she says, ' / don't know 
 where you put your old woolly vest, Li-o-nel.' " 
 
 Rosa broke off, put her cigarette down, and cov- 
 ered her flushed face with her hands. Her laughter 
 pleased Edward. He thought it quite captivating; 
 sincerely gay. Ethelle regarded her with moral dis- 
 approbation. 
 
 "Go on!" Welsh rubbed his hands. "I en-
 
 The Buffoon 255 
 
 visage this garment as a strange animate creature, a 
 wandering insect, a Gargantuan caterpillar. Well 
 done, my pretty sailor boy ! Go on ! " 
 
 '* The way we teased that poor girl about it after- 
 wards. ' Well, Vera, and has he found his woolly 
 vest?' 'I wouldn't go with boys who lose their 
 woolly vests, soft Jimmies like that! ' You should 
 have seen her colour up ! Good night ! " 
 
 " Come on," Fielding broke a pause, " let's start 
 in and have some grub." Standing at one end of the 
 table, he began to cut up the chicken. " That's 
 right," said Welsh, as though in a dream. " Very 
 good, Tom, very good." Edward took a couple of 
 bottles and unscrewed their corks. The atmosphere 
 became touched with gravity and restraint as they all 
 sat round the table. Even Rosa was a trifle pensive. 
 Ethelle and Betty eyed one another furtively. 
 Fielding went on carving the chicken, Edward poured 
 out the pseudo-Port, and then helped himself to the 
 still more pseudo-Chambertin, which he smelt ab- 
 sently, with a doleful air. There came a knock 
 at the door, and Madame appeared with the 
 salad. 
 
 " Ach ! " she exclaimed at once, with her laugh. 
 " You 'ave all come ? How naice, how vary naice ! 
 And zees sweet leetle gal — " She put the salad on 
 the table and shot out her hand to Betty. " She ees 
 my favourite, oh, yais, she ees, she know that I jus' 
 lofe her to death." She clutched the girl with one 
 hand and caressed her hair with the other. " Oh,
 
 256 The Buffoon 
 
 eef I was a mahn, would I not 'ave 'er for my leetle 
 sweetheart! " 
 
 " Ha ! " cried Welsh, waking up. " This is in- 
 teresting. Ha ! And could you get me, do you 
 think, my dear lady, five eggs, five raw eggs? " 
 
 Madame threw up her hands. " I haf not von aig 
 in ze 'ouse! " 
 
 " Impossible ! " Welsh stared wildly at her. 
 " But I must have them. I beg of you, I entreat you, 
 find me some eggs." 
 
 " These hardships of ours," murmured Edward. 
 
 " Go out and get him his eggs," said Fielding. 
 
 " My word! " exclaimed Ethelle. " Fancy eatin' 
 eggs raw. Makes me come over funny inside to 
 think of it." Betty giggled. 
 
 " My dear lady," Welsh attacked again, " it will 
 be appalling if I have no eggs. I implore you, do 
 your best for me. I shall be in your debt forever." 
 He extended half a crown, which Madame dubiously 
 accepted. 
 
 " It ees so vary late." 
 
 *' What matter? Go to the neighbours, ring back 
 doo-r bells, here, there, everywhere. Thorough 
 bush, thorough briar! At any cost. You hear me, 
 Madame, at any cost! " 
 
 " Well, zen,— I will try, but — " 
 
 " Clear out and get the eggs, and hurry up about 
 it." Fielding had her out of the room in a twin- 
 kling.
 
 The Buffoon 257 
 
 " My dear Tom," Welsh protested, " how ex- 
 tremely abrupt — ! " 
 
 " There's only one way of getting some women 
 to go," Fielding explained, " empty 'em out like a 
 pail of slops." 
 
 "Oh, Tom!" Ethelle's gentility suffered an- 
 other shock. " But then, dear 'eart," she turned to 
 Welsh, " we know 'e don't reelly mean it when 'e 
 talks that way. As if 'e wasn't reelly the kind- 
 est—" 
 
 " I'm not so sure," Rosa interjected with some 
 feeling. " The most of women don't deserve no 
 better. A sneaky interfering tale-bearing set of hus- 
 sies, — eh, Tom?" She changed her expression, 
 smiled at him, looked debonair, 
 
 " I'm sure," retorted Ethelle, with weighted dig- 
 nity: the word " hussies " had stung her, " I'm sure 
 I 'ope you ain't passin' any personal remarks. Miss 
 _ Miss — " 
 
 " Mrs.," corrected Rosa, with an engaging flicker 
 of the eyelid. " Me and my old man." She took 
 Fielding's arm. 
 
 "Dear little girl!" Welsh patted Ethelle's 
 shoulder. " How exquisite you are when you look 
 as if you were going to cry! " She was pacified at 
 once. " There, there." He stroked" her hair. 
 " Eat your chicken : drink your Port : let me help you 
 to some salad." 
 
 "Salad?" Ethelle surveyed Madame's confec-
 
 258 The Buffoon 
 
 tion disdainfully. " Not me idea of salad at all. 
 No, thank you, Jack." 
 
 Nothing would induce her to touch it. She 
 seemed to feel that eating anything to which she was 
 not used would make her ridiculous. Welsh began 
 to take an interest in teasing her. 
 
 "Naughty girl! " he cried. "What perversity! 
 Why, this is Queen Mary's favourite summer dish; 
 nothing else is ever served at the garden-parties of 
 the aristocracy ! Yet you reject it ! It was invented 
 by that master epicure, Emile Zola — " 
 
 " Well, and who's she? " Ethelle queried sharply. 
 
 " She was Napoleon's favourite, she demoralised 
 him completely, I'm afraid she did. In fact It was 
 really because of her that he was so much off colour 
 at the end, — Waterloo and all that. But she was 
 unequalled. What a child of pleasure! And this 
 salad was her masterpiece ! Do try it." 
 
 " Chuck it. Jack," Fielding remonstrated. " Let 
 the girl be." 
 
 " Ah-h." Welsh drew a deep breath. " But 
 when she cries, — when she cries ! O everlasting 
 spirit of the Marquis de Sade ! Don't you want her 
 to be stirred, Tom? Edward Raynes, you do, surely 
 you do, don't you ? If only I had the power to make 
 her really tragic! Surely that would interest you? 
 Rosa, Betty, can't you touch her, can't you give life 
 to her spirit? I hoped Rosa would strike the spark, 
 you know." 
 
 "Have a row?" Rosa leaned happily back.
 
 The Buffoon 259 
 
 " Not me. I'm not one for rows, am I, Tom? Ex- 
 cept at home, of course. You can't get along with- 
 out them there, once in a way." 
 
 " You know," Welsh went on with increasing ani- 
 mation, " I'd been hoping for a manifestation to- 
 night of that particular eternal antagonism, that par- 
 ticular eternal rivalry; you know, you understand, 
 Tom, how Thais must have hated and derided the 
 frailer ladies of Alexandria. It is the hatred of 
 those who give all for those who keep back a part of 
 the price. — I should have found that extraordina- 
 rily interesting." 
 
 " Very likely," said Edward. " But we prefer 
 peace and our supper." 
 
 " That's just it." Fielding drained his glass. 
 " Jack has to substitute his sensations for chicken and 
 tongue. I wish to goodness you could eat, Jack." 
 
 " Yes," Betty put in timidly, " raw eggs aren't 
 much, are they? " 
 
 " True," said Welsh; " true. But," he turned to 
 Ethelle, " you have stopped crying. Go on, dear 
 child, go on." 
 
 Ethelle looked resentfully at him. " Then I 
 won't!" she declared, turning away. " Makin' a 
 bloomin' show of me ! " She hid her face and be- 
 gan to cry bitterly. 
 
 " Ah, I like you to cry! " Welsh was enthusias- 
 tic. " Let me say again that I like you to cry. 
 Your appeal to me is amazing when you cry like that. 
 Let me look at you, my dear child, let me look."
 
 260 The Buffoon 
 
 He seized her hands : she kept her face turned from 
 him. " Ah, you are shy, you are shamed, you don't 
 wish me to look. What delicious chagrin, what ex- 
 quisite humiliation! " 
 
 " 'Oo's cryin'?" said the girl impatiently In a 
 smothered voice.. " Get out. I'm goin' upstairs to 
 wash me face." Welsh fixed his gaze on her as she 
 left the room. 
 
 *' Your cruelty is extraordinary," Edward flatter- 
 ingly observed. Betty, by his side, remained demure 
 and unastonished. Fielding and Rosa were Inter- 
 ested in one another. 
 
 " Ha, and you sucked the sweets of that episode, 
 my friend, I'll be bound. I saw you look ! " Welsh 
 lowered his voice. " Now you see what I mean 
 when I say that girls like Ethelle are drained of sex, 
 that they're not bound by the usual sex conventions. 
 Ethelle feels antagonism, she responds to her emo- 
 tion, she sets it free. The presence of men doesn't 
 matter. No restraint, no inhibition, none of the 
 usual female taboos. My girl would fight tooth and 
 nail In the market place. None of the usual Indirect 
 attacks. And why not? She has nothing to lose, 
 she has no one to keep. The fascination of that! 
 The appeal of those who have nothing to lose! " 
 
 " She didn't like crying, all the same." 
 
 " Ah, no, I'm glad she didn't." Welsh ignored 
 the Implied criticism of his theory. " But where is 
 Madame?" His expression changed. "Where 
 are my eggs? Port? Port? My dear Tom, my
 
 rhe Buffoon 261 
 
 dear friend, would you wish me to take Port? How 
 horribly I should suffer! Even claret is cancerous to 
 me. No, I don't think. I will take chicken. No, I 
 reject chicken to-night. On these occasions I prefer, 
 I really prefer, to be hungry. I worship fasting." 
 
 " By Jove," said Fielding with a chuckle, " I don't. 
 And physiologically I'm sure you're wrong." 
 
 "What's that, Tom?" Rosa inquired. "Some- 
 thing naughty, I'll be bo-und." 
 
 " Venus takes cold without Ceres and Bacchus," 
 Edward was explaining as Madame reappeared with 
 the eggs in a paper bag. 
 
 Welsh leapt to his feet, snatched the bag, and be- 
 gan breaking the eggs into a glass. " Admirable ! " 
 he cried. "I am grateful to you forever!" He 
 gulped an egg down, with large display of his throat, 
 broke another immediately, gulped that, and then, 
 in rapid succession, broke a third. Rosa and Betty 
 watched him, fascinated. So did Madame, speech- 
 less for once. His red, moist, absorbent, palpitat- 
 ing gullet reminded Edward of a tinted jellyfish. 
 Ethelle returned as the fourth egg was slipping down 
 that distended animal cavity. 
 
 " My Lord! " she cried. " Don't do that! It 
 turns me stummlck." 
 
 Welsh gasped. He sat down, with very visible 
 satisfaction. 
 
 " It's all right now," said Edward. " He's fin- 
 ished. The primeval egoist has completed his meal. 
 Most interesting, my dear friend, most interesting.
 
 262 The Buffoon 
 
 Your individualism is remarkable." Drinking his 
 Chambertin unawares, he made a wry face. " And 
 now," he went on, " after this httle aperitif, we can 
 really enjoy our supper."
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 THE Port wine made a difference to the party. 
 Edward abandoned his Chambertin; he 
 found that the other fluid was easier to 
 drink, even pleasant after the first tumbler: but, con- 
 scious that he had Betty, he made the second last 
 some time. Welsh persisted in abstaining, but he 
 had never any need of such stimulus. Fielding 
 showed himself a gradual, steady drinker; he was 
 safe with his glass, on a good understanding with his 
 liquor. Their companions reacted, of course, much 
 more rapidly to the wine. 
 
 " Ah, ha ! " Welsh had cried delightedly, after a 
 remark from Betty, " the edges of that speech are a 
 little blurred! " And so they were. Betty blushed 
 and smiled ; she shyly sipped her Port again. " How 
 I wish," Welsh continued, " that I could see you 
 with your mother! Can't you imagine, Edward, 
 how her mother would arrange her, and manage 
 her hair, and lace her little garments? Could any- 
 thing be more provocative? A mother preparing 
 her child ! What a picture ! " 
 
 Edward applauded. He stroked Betty's hand as 
 it lay on the table. 
 
 " Does one's 'eart good to see young people 'appy 
 
 263
 
 264 The Buffoon 
 
 together, don't it?" Ethelle eyed them sentimen- 
 tally, almost as if she herself had been Betty's 
 mother. The wine had lulled her. " Oh, boys," 
 she had observed, " I'm full of booze and benevo- 
 lence," which was quite true. " And we're all 'appy 
 together, ain't we? " she had gone on. 
 
 After supper they all, unintentionally as It were, 
 without any discussion, went up to Welsh's bedroom. 
 It was large, and had a blazing fire. Welsh, who 
 could never be warm enough, had insisted on that. 
 No one lit the gas. The fire-light threw grotesque 
 shadows about the room; it gave every object a char- 
 acter of ambiguity. The large mid-Victorian four- 
 poster bed, with its heavy canopy, projected a per- 
 sonal influence upon the company, an influence hint- 
 ing something unlooked for and secret. 'The bed 
 seemed to be in waiting, seemed to be prepared for 
 a future that it knew. In its withdrawn vigilance 
 and secure prescience it compelled the absurd fancy 
 of a superiority to human beings. There was some- 
 thing infallible about It, an infallibility that accen- 
 tuated the dubious lives of men and women. It was 
 ambiguous for others, but certain of itself, like Fate. 
 Edward could understand the worship of idols. 
 
 No one could evade the consciousness of the bed, 
 but the instinct to disregard It, to behave as though it 
 were not there, was irresistible. The room, for all 
 of them, so far as conduct went, ended where the bed 
 began. The region of the bed took up Its place in 
 the backs of their minds, well marked off from ma-
 
 The Buffoo7i 265 
 
 terlal recognition. No one admitted the change of 
 mood: they talked and laughed as before, but now 
 they heard themselves talking and laughing. 
 
 Fielding and Rosa had led the drifting procession 
 upstairs, and Fielding at once sat down near the fire. 
 He placed his glass on the coal scuttle, then slowly 
 took a cigarette from a cardboard box. Rosa went 
 with a fling to the dressing-table, and began to give 
 little touches to her hair. Edward, with his hand 
 under Betty's arm, followed, and after them came 
 Welsh and Ethelle. Betty fluttered from Edward, 
 Ethelle also took to hovering about the room, while 
 Edward and Welsh stood by the mantelpiece, watch- 
 ing the three girls and their shadows, flitting and 
 wavering here and there. Betty kept fingering and 
 examining various little objects on the dressing-table 
 and the chest of drawers, with exclamation and 
 query : " Well, what's this old thing for, I won- 
 der?" "Look at gran'pa's shaving paper!" 
 " Here's Aunt Maria's box of pins ! " She laughed, 
 and so did the other two. Ethelle produced her 
 powder-puff and her lip-salve, she gave little dabs to 
 her cheeks and mouth. Rosa endeavoured for a 
 satisfying view of her full length In the mirror; she 
 advanced, withdrew, posed, made a noise with her 
 tongue against her teeth, exclaimed that It was a 
 funny kind of a light. Then they all three laughed 
 again. The men did not speak to them; they were 
 giving them time to settle, treating them as If they 
 were birds about to be fed. Welsh curled himself
 
 266 The Buffoon 
 
 up on the floor, almost in the fender, in a position 
 that looked extremely uncomfortable. Edward 
 stood, wondering when and where Betty would sit 
 down. 
 
 " As for this problem of Poverty," Fielding was 
 saying, " for every one who died of starvation I'd 
 hang a millionaire. And when the millionaires were 
 finished I'd start on the bishops. You wouldn't hear 
 so much about Poverty then." 
 
 " That's right ! " declared Welsh. " To the guil- 
 lotine with the aristocrats ! Splendid ! " 
 
 "Splendid!" Edward echoed listlessly, his eyes 
 still on Betty. 
 
 " The trouble with the Labour Party," Fielding 
 went on, " is simply that they haven't a man amongst 
 them. A set of eunuchs. One silly fad after an- 
 other. Teetotalism, Peace-at-any-price, Feminism." 
 
 Edward was looking carefully at Betty, who had 
 just sat down on a high chest, a kind of sea-chest, 
 opposite him. Her legs did not reach the floor. 
 Rosa took a chair near Fielding, and began to ap- 
 pear to listen to what he was saying. Ethelle moved 
 a dilapidated stool towards Welsh. She sat on it, 
 stroked his hair and whispered him. But they none 
 of them gave the impression of being settled: they 
 had perched, that was all. 
 
 Welsh took Ethelle's hand. " Of course, Tom," 
 he remarked abstractedly, " we know your irrecon- 
 cilable hatred of Socialism." 
 
 " Not at all. I wish them success, far more sue-
 
 The Buffoon 267 
 
 cess than they've had. Individualism needs a strong 
 opposition. These Socialists haven't any guts, worse 
 luck. Why, Shaw himself is only a Nonconformist 
 parson, a sort of R. J. Campbell moral idealist, 
 when you get far enough down in him, and he's the 
 pick of the lot. But the Sidney Webbs, and Ramsay 
 Macdonald! Not a single idea with any sap in it. 
 It makes me thirsty to think of them." 
 
 " The Socialists," Edward put in, " have achieved 
 the least engaging qualities of splnsterhood. Un- 
 conscious imitation of their pets, the Suffragettes." 
 
 " That's the clearest symptom of our degeneracy, 
 this Feminist movement. When men become effem- 
 inate, women want the vote." 
 
 "Suffragettes!" exclaimed Ethelle. "I 'card 
 one of 'em spoutin' away up at Shiel Park the other 
 day, an' I shouted at 'er to 'old 'er bloomin' jaw. 
 Silly owl ! " 
 
 " All she wanted was a boy," remarked Fielding. 
 
 "Ah, Tom!" Welsh reproached him. "These 
 formulae of yours for the female sex! " 
 
 " Wanted a boy ! She got one, quick enough." 
 Ethelle's Port had relaxed her. " Young feller, nice 
 big young feller, what had been takin' 'is bit. 'E 
 come up to 'er, an' 'e says : ' Now then, you git 
 down. You ain't got no modesty,' 'e says, ' goin' on 
 that way in public, 'ussy ! ' — Jus' what I think. — 
 An' 'e takes 'er round the waist, an' they all laughed. 
 A little bony scrap she was, an' not thinkin' of nothin' 
 but yellin' votes. You bet your life I wouldn' lose a
 
 268 The Buffoon 
 
 chance like that with a fine big feller like 'im. So I 
 squeeze meself up to them, and I says: ' You great 
 big fat beggar,' I says, 'you let that lady alone! ' 
 An' 'e says, — of course 'e was a bit boozy — 'e 
 says : ' I ain't pertickler, an' I will say you look a 
 nice little piece o' goods fer a feller to 'andle.' Jus' 
 like that 'e says : ' You do look a nice piece o' 
 goods fer a feller to 'andle.' Oh, 'e was a bit 
 boozy. We 'ad a gran' time together, an' for some 
 time I met 'im reg'lar. An' that woman 'owlin' for 
 votes. What's the good of a bloomin' vote? Dear 
 'eart!" 
 
 She sat down by Welsh on the hearthrug. They 
 were silent. The fire was dying down. The 
 shadows flickered more and more spasmodically, the 
 bed seemed to float like a thing of a dusky dream, 
 in an alien distance, less and less discoverable. Ed- 
 ward began to realise that they were there almost in 
 the dark. The tobacco smoke was thickening, it 
 hung poised in the air, — bluish clouds. Betty, at 
 her timed moment, left the chest and sat down on a 
 small ragged sofa in the middle of the room, at the 
 foot of the four-poster. Edward went to her. 
 They were out of the direct view of the others 
 there; they took many caresses. He put both his 
 hands behind her head and pressed her face to his: 
 he kissed her relaxed mouth and her warm neck. 
 She was basking like a cat, perfectly placid. She 
 was sating herself, he felt; her appetite was obvious,
 
 The Buffoon 269 
 
 animal. Did he like that? He looked at Rosa. 
 Fielding's arm was round her; she too gave the im- 
 pression of feline purring satisfaction. No, he 
 didn't like it; it was too cushiony. Edward began to 
 feel as if he were in a fauteuil of yielding plush, be- 
 fore an empty stage. It was no good, he reflected, 
 getting one thing by itself. " Children of nature ! " 
 Yes, but Nature gave you more than this, if you 
 played properly up to her. What Edward wanted 
 was the physical and something more, — something 
 fused, something transforming, something that would 
 throw physical sensation into fresh moulds. He 
 kissed Betty again. No, it would not do ; he had ex- 
 hausted that. — How curious that Betty's parents 
 should believe in these occasional visits of hers to a 
 girl-friend. Parents were extraordinary, parents 
 were always fools, quite unintelligent about their own 
 children. He knew more about Betty than her 
 father did, he was sure . . . more than her mother? 
 Well, no, perhaps her mother knew a good deal, and 
 kept account. That would be very maternal. He 
 looked at Welsh, Welsh sitting there on the hearth- 
 rug, with one leg ludicrously outstretched, with one 
 hand tentatively stroking Ethelle's neck, as he might 
 have stroked a strange cat whom he wished to keep in 
 humour but of whom he was not quite sure. Welsh's 
 mood had evidently changed. He looked as though 
 he were striving very conscientiously towards his 
 part, as though he were keeping carefully in mind
 
 270 The Buffoon 
 
 Casanova and the Marquis de Sade. " Come, help 
 me, spirits of my wicked mood ! " But after awhile 
 he withdrew his wicked hand in despair. 
 
 " I must introduce you," he said to Ethelle, by way 
 of making amends; "I must introduce you to my 
 brother Lulu. You would like him; he is young, he 
 is handsome. He knows how to treat girls. I 
 can't, you know, but — " 
 
 "Dear 'eart! When I don't want nobody but 
 you." But her tone was unconvincing. " Oh, 'ow 
 I wish you'd say some of your beautiful poetry! " 
 
 Welsh closed his eyes, drew in his underlip, and 
 pressed his teeth upon it. He seized the girl by the 
 shoulders, opened his eyes and fixed them upon her. 
 " ' Now,' " he whispered hoarsely, " ' now — o'er 
 the one half world, Nature lies dead, and wicked 
 dreams abuse The curtain'd sleep.' " He shud- 
 dered, and Ethelle began to enjoy her thrills. 
 " ' Witchcraft celebrates — ' " he went on with the 
 passage. Edward thought he had never heard it 
 more effectively done. Welsh had shown an artist's 
 sense in choosing it for that particular moment in 
 that particular place. Instinctively Edward re- 
 leased Betty's hand. . . , " ' And withered mur- 
 der . . .' " Ethelle gasped, trembled, gave a lit- 
 tle cry. " '. . . whose howl's his watch. . . ,' " 
 When Welsh had finished, the girl clutched him, 
 pressed her face to his shoulder, wept violently, 
 shook from head to foot. 
 
 Welsh derived much satisfaction from this display.
 
 rhe Buffoon 271 
 
 *' You see," he exclaimed triumphantly, " how mor- 
 bid her nerves are ! Ah, I like that. ' Howl, howl, 
 howl, howl ! Oh, you are men of stone ! ' " 
 
 Ethelle dried her eyes. " I wasn't 'owlin'," she 
 said indignantly, and sat up straight. 
 
 " Let's turn the gas on," said Rosa. 
 
 " It's wonderful, Jack," said Fielding. " Mac- 
 beth is the finest of the lot." 
 
 Edward glanced at Betty. She was not affected 
 in the least. He felt angry. This absorption with 
 sex to the exclusion of all other emotions ! How 
 dull Betty would be when she had lost her youth! 
 But really she was dull now. Fielding was wrong 
 about Feminism. The Feminists were out for a 
 right end, at least, for all their stupidities. The old 
 way of treating women had simply decivilised them, 
 made them impossible companions. 
 
 "Ah!" cried Welsh suddenly, "when you cry, 
 my little Sonia, I have unpardonable longings ! " 
 Ethelle was Interested at once; she gazed at him ro- 
 mantically. " That is the provocation that I can 
 never resist! " 
 
 " The kindest 'eart that ever was," she sobbed pa- 
 thetically. 
 
 " But suppose — suppose that when we meet 
 again, you find me changed. Changed! With all 
 the evil wishes of years hung withered like a row of 
 little vicious wind-dried weasels — on the park-pal- 
 ings of my noble mind ! We grow old and good, my 
 Sonia, old and good. — But when your mouth
 
 272 The Buffoon 
 
 trembles like that — oh, the infernal provocation of 
 just that kind of tremor! No, no, I won't think of 
 these things ! I must not think of them ! " He 
 closed his eyes, and his jaw familiarly dropped. 
 
 Edward's spleen was stirred. What a sensation- 
 alist, he thought, what a gross glutton! The man's 
 greed of his sensations, the laboured and inept way in 
 which he got hold of them and mauled them and 
 messed them about! No doubt by his imagination 
 he could make any material serve; he kept free from 
 disillusions and discontents that vexed Edward, but 
 the price he paid was too heavy. Yes, Welsh was 
 really corrupt, though Reggie Tryers could never 
 have analysed his corruption. 
 
 " And," Welsh continued, with a sinister premoni- 
 tory emphasis, fixedly regarding the girl, " I will not 
 allow you to have wicked thoughts either ! We must 
 dream together of large mild moons, oh, so mild and 
 large! Come, take more wine, that you may sleep 
 better. — Sleep and sleep on, my child. I am not 
 my brother Lulu." 
 
 Fielding was talking to Edward, explaining the 
 superiority of girls who were not particularly pretty 
 over girls who were. Pretty girls, he said, were not 
 only spoilt and difficult and uncertain, but they were 
 given to occupation with side-issues. They diffused 
 their energies in harmless flirtations, whereas the 
 others, chosen by few, surrendered themselves with 
 concentrated energy when the time came. Those in- 
 numerable arrieres-pensees of the pretty girl were,
 
 The Buffoon 273 
 
 so Fielding found, extremely irritating and wasteful 
 of one's time. Edward acknowledged the justice of 
 these remarks, and was amused by the complete dis- 
 regard of them shown by Betty and Rosa, who evi- 
 dently supposed this to be one of those abstract dis- 
 cussions that men were in the habit of taking with 
 their tobacco, and with which they themselves had 
 nothing to do. . . . How bound in all women were 
 by the triple brass of their particular codes, how they 
 behaved always according to rule, whether they were 
 adulteresses or whether they were not! — Betty 
 chattered according to code, played her game of sex 
 according to code, fitted herself in, just like any of the 
 rest. If only he could find an independent spirit 
 somewhere, in some girl's body ! Eunice — surely 
 in some one or two or three of those looks of Eunice 
 — surely there might be something there, something 
 of what he wanted. 
 
 The time went on. Welsh talked a great deal, he 
 enjoyed himself, he made a telling impression on 
 Ethelle, whom he attracted and repelled, frightened 
 and charmed, after his will. " Daughter of Baby- 
 lon! Wasted with desire, in whom desire is 
 wasted! " Welsh apostrophised her in this kind of 
 way, and she responded well to all his dramatic hits, 
 trembling, averting her face, raising her hands, giv- 
 ing little cries. Edward was reminded of Eunice. 
 " A similar type," he thought. 
 
 Fielding observed the spectacle from time to time 
 with fluctuating interest. " Well," he said at last to
 
 274 The Buffoon 
 
 Rosa, " it's about time you and Betty went to bed, 
 eh? Let's show them to their room." He turned 
 to Edward. 
 
 "Good night! Good night!" Welsh cried to 
 them as they prepared to go. " Drink more wine, 
 Sonia, more wine ! We are left alone, and you must 
 sleep. Drink that you may sleep ! ' Good night, 
 good sleep, good rest from sorrow, to her that shall 
 not know good morrow! ' " He made another of 
 his alarming grimaces. 
 
 " Oh, Jack! " the girl wailed, " you will be good 
 to me, won't you? " 
 
 She seemed on the point of complete collapse, her 
 face twitched, she closed her eyes, and Edward noted 
 the throbbing of her darkened eyeballs. Yes, Welsh 
 had fairly worked her up; he had drawn off, well 
 enough, those outer skins of her susceptibilities. 
 Well, it was a night she could remember. " You 
 will be good to me ? " Was that pathetic, or senti- 
 mental? Partly the one, no doubt, partly the other. 
 That was the cursed way with everything: everything 
 was partly something and partly something else. 
 Eunice and Ethelle ...
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 WHEN they reached the girls' bedroom 
 Fielding suggested that Rosa should 
 come and have a look at his, to see that 
 he was comfortable. Edward, left alone with Betty, 
 played up to this pretence of propriety. 
 
 " Well," he said, " they seem to be staying a long 
 time, don't they? We can't very well disturb them, 
 though, I suppose, what?" 
 
 " But we ought to, don't you think? " 
 
 " Oh, bu-t we can't. It wouldn't do ; we don't 
 know them well enough." 
 
 A conversation to precisely the same effect was no 
 doubt going on at the same time in the other room. 
 It was a device, quite in accordance with code, to 
 save their faces, more or less, when they met at 
 breakfast next morning. 
 
 " What do you think? " Betty put her hand on 
 Edward's knee. " That Madam Weiss, she's a 
 proper tricky one. What do you think she said to 
 me the other day? " 
 
 " Well? " Edward listened idly. 
 
 " Well, she asked me, last time I was here with 
 you, you know, to look in and have a cup of tea some 
 Wednesday when I had a half day. So I came 
 round once or twice; very nice, she was, gave me a 
 
 275
 
 276 The Buffoon 
 
 little brooch and a hand-bag. I was here to see her 
 last Wednesday, but I'm not having tea with her 
 again, no, thank you ! " She tossed her head and 
 waited for Edward to speak. His thoughts had 
 wandered, he said nothing, but kissed her absently, 
 realising that something was expected of him. *' She 
 got up to her games with me ! Nasty-minded old 
 toad, that's what she is ! Wanted to know if I 
 wouldn't like to meet a nice gentleman-friend of hers, 
 a proper generous gentleman what'd give me lots of 
 presents if I was kind to him — kind to him, the old 
 toad! And not very old, either, she said. Impu- 
 dence ! " 
 
 "My dear Betty! How perfectly scandalous! 
 I'll give it to Madam Weiss for this, you'll see. 
 She shall hear about it. Confound the woman! 
 What the devil does she mean ? " 
 
 Edward was indignant, and amused the next mo- 
 ment by his indignation. After all, if Madame had 
 found him a girl like Betty in that kind of way, — 
 well, he would probably have rejected the offer, be- 
 cause he preferred to find girls for himself; he didn't 
 like them passed on: but it would never have oc- 
 curred to him to be indignant. He might have re- 
 flected that in twenty years' time there would be 
 something to be said for such mediation. But Betty 
 was his girl, so he revolted from the spectacle of 
 senile lust dependent on the procuress. Yet no 
 doubt that was the spectacle which he himself was 
 destined to present, in that interesting future period
 
 rhe Buffoon ni 
 
 when girls like Betty would no longer have anything 
 to do with him, when he would have to fall back on 
 the usual ministers to flaccid appetites. Thirty-five 
 already! Edward was filled with dominating envy 
 of Betty's youth. Eighteen was she now, or nine- 
 teen? Anyhow in ten years' time she would still be 
 under thirty, in ten years she would be of an age that 
 he envied now. What a monstrous Inequality! 
 Edward smiled at his irrational egoism, but his en- 
 vious ruminations could not be checked. He thought 
 of the possibilities of youth; one after another they 
 occurred to his suffering mind. He no longer heard 
 what Betty was saying; It was with an effort that he 
 brought himself to her. Long after she had gone to 
 sleep, he was wakeful. Certain details had repelled 
 him extremely. Why had he contracted this morbid 
 aesthetic infection? 
 
 Edward thought of Tryers, of how Tryers pro- 
 fessed himself tormented by his desires. No doubt 
 Tryers was sincere to a certain extent, no doubt he 
 was driven to religion for self-preservation, just as 
 Edward himself might be driven to marriage. Then 
 there was George. George got out of it by perpet- 
 ual useless activities. It was absurd. Was there no 
 way of leading a happy equable life? Must one 
 either be converted or tread the mill? The fact was, 
 to live happily one had either to be commonplace or 
 a genius, and generally one didn't live happily even 
 then. Of course he had managed his own life fairly 
 well, he had kept clear of vexations, he had enjoyed
 
 278 The Buffoon 
 
 himself, he had been, so he thought, on the winning 
 side, but he was beaten now. He was suffering the 
 fate, a Httle belated, perhaps, of the mid-way man. 
 A mid-way man, disturbingly near middle age ! A 
 man whose mania for thinking himself happy was 
 breaking down. Yet he had been happy, he sup- 
 posed; he had been gay, nonchalant, and enviable, 
 determined to be so forever. The flaw lay, no 
 doubt, in that very determination. 
 
 Now, all interests were fading. . . . Edward 
 was quite certain that he had no genius, and that his 
 youth was over: certain, too, that the usual consola- 
 tions of mediocrity and middle age could not serve 
 him, that he could never be a clubman or a golfer, 
 or keep a small yacht, or go in for politics or the 
 Turf. All this would not matter (his thoughts de- 
 scribed their circle) if only he could live as he had 
 lived before. Five or six years ago he was all right, 
 with his money and his leisure and his amusements 
 and his temperament, and since then he had been as- 
 sailed by doubts and discontents only occasionally, 
 hardly realising the change at first, — but the change 
 had worked Its way. He had to realise it now: the 
 last few days had made the revelation quite clear. 
 Some kind of a reconstruction was necessary, though 
 he had always laughed at reconstructions, and said 
 that they made no difference. 
 
 No matter ... he would strike out somehow, he 
 would not submit to humiliation. Impossible to be
 
 rhe Buffoon 279 
 
 humiliated, if only one took things lightly enough. 
 That was what he would do. He would take the 
 gravest possible steps in the lightest possible 
 spirit. ... At last he soothed himself to sleep.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 EUNICE played tennis well, and Edward, be- 
 ing out of practice, wa sonly just her match. 
 They hardly talked at all, except of the 
 game. When she was actually playing, Edward no- 
 ticed, her body's gestures were normal, but she did 
 not stoop naturally in picking up an occasional ball, 
 and when walking about the court she certainly 
 posed. As soon as her energies were released from 
 the game, she became once more the Divinity of 
 Raoul Root's circle. However, she stood daylight 
 well. She was rather paler than Edward had 
 thought, but her skin was clear, healthy. How old 
 was she? Twenty-five? Twenty-seven? Perhaps 
 only twenty- four? He was not sorry to reflect that 
 she was certainly older than Betty. 
 
 He looked at her, at first, a great deal: he was 
 always looking at her, he lost four games running. 
 The simple grey skirt and white blouse made a 
 stronger appeal to his senses than her studied attire 
 of three nights before. She was too much got up for 
 a goddess, then : and besides, Edward was always at- 
 tracted by simple clothes, he liked a girl to be dressed 
 so that she could strip as easily and as quickly as a 
 
 boy. Eunice, as she was then, could have stripped in 
 
 280
 
 rhe Buffoon 281 
 
 a moment. Edward missed an easy stroke, and 
 vowed he would begin to play tennis. 
 
 With great difficulty but increasing self-command 
 he won three games, each after a deuce score and 
 several Vantages; but Eunice won the fourth, in 
 spite of his efforts. She was flushed now, most be- 
 comingly, but Edward would not look at her. The 
 score was 5-3 against him. They played for nearly 
 an hour longer, deuce and 'vantage, and at last he 
 won. 
 
 " Will you come to tea with me? " she said, pant- 
 ing from her exertion. " I live with my cousins — 
 in Earl's Court." 
 
 " That depends — " Edward began. 
 
 " On what? " She turned to him, still breathing 
 quickly. He felt her breath. 
 
 "Will you marry me?" He should not have 
 spoken excitedly, but he couldn't help it. 
 
 She did not quiver or droop, she was particularly 
 erect, and her regard was one of genuine amazement. 
 
 " But I'm not in the least — prepared . . ." 
 
 Edward's gaze was upon her. Suddenly she 
 turned from him with an affrighted gesture; her 
 whole body became tremulous, on purpose. The 
 Divinity had had time to recover herself. 
 
 Edward knew quite well what he was expected to 
 say. "You timid wild-wood thing! Why did I 
 catch at your wings so roughly?" — something of 
 that kind. But he was silent. 
 
 Eunice continued to tremble. " You frighten
 
 282 The Buffoon 
 
 me," she said at last. Her face was still turned 
 from him. 
 
 " Tell me," Edward insisted, " will you marry me 
 or not?" 
 
 "Oh — no — no,— How could I . . .?" 
 
 " Well, let's walk together and talk it over." 
 Edward was able now to disguise his excitement. 
 
 Eunice went with him, " moving as one in a 
 dream." No doubt this too was taught in " Learn 
 from the Swan." How much he would have to 
 change her ! All the better, all the more interesting, 
 so much the more zest. 
 
 " You are not going to marry Raoul Root, or 
 Massington, are you? " 
 
 "Oh, no — no." Her tones shimmered as 
 though speech might have broken them, they were so 
 fragile. 
 
 " Then you are very wise. Life with them would 
 be the life you know, the life you are tired of. You 
 are tired of it, aren't you? " 
 
 "Tired?" For the first time since her amaze- 
 ment she looked at him, and her eyes were wide. 
 They were wet, too, actually wet. (" Yes," thought 
 Edward, " upon my word, they are positively starry ! 
 What an actress! They were meant to be starry, 
 and starry they are. Amazing! ") "I think," she 
 went on, " that I was born to be ti — to be weary," 
 she corrected herself. But she had hardly avoided 
 the slip. " Born to be tired " suggested " born
 
 The Buffoon 283 
 
 tired," which suggested Weary Willies and the comic 
 papers. 
 
 " And you're not going to marry any one in 
 Root's circle? " 
 
 Her lips shaped " no " : very slightly and subtly 
 she moved her head. 
 
 " Then — or rather in any case — I ask you to 
 marry me. I offer you a different life, it's this differ- 
 ent life that you need. Don't you feel, haven't you 
 often felt, that in your present life you are thwarted, 
 dragged down? That you are marred by clashing 
 influences? I feel this, I know it. Tell me that it 
 is true. . . ." 
 
 (( 
 
 Your eyes are clear. You have vision." She 
 hesitated, looking shy, very caught and shy, *' You 
 have vision, — my lover. Yes, it is true." 
 
 " Are you not as a reed in the stream, a reed 
 dragged down by other reeds that twine and encircle 
 — too much? " Edward could not resist this figure. 
 It was impossible not to say things that would " go 
 down." He understood Welsh's lapses on the plat- 
 form. 
 
 " You know," Eunice rejoined languorously, after 
 a pause. " You know. I see." 
 
 *' I know always. Will you believe that I know 
 always?" He was passionate and masterful; the 
 right touch, he felt sure. 
 
 " I believe." She looked at him again. It was 
 the " gaze as of one hypnotised by power unseen."
 
 284 The Buffoon 
 
 " Then," Edward replied brightly, " you have ac- 
 cepted me. It Is all quite settled." 
 
 She stopped and looked on the ground. An 
 elderly gentleman, in a hurry at their heels, nearly 
 charged her from behind, but luckily held himself up 
 just in time. Edward caught his breath. The in- 
 trusion of open burlesque at that moment might have 
 spoilt everything. 
 
 "Have I?" The girl looked pale. Could she 
 really be pale? "How can I — dare this thing? 
 . . . Oh, do you think — my lover — that this is 
 a beautiful thing for us to do? " 
 
 " Yes," said Edward simply, " very beautiful. 
 But we must be married at once, we must — " he was 
 going to say " get a special licence," but he substi- 
 tuted: "make all speed to the place of the cove- 
 nant." 
 
 He felt suddenly that he wanted tea. Gently he 
 guided Eunice to the nearest tea-shop. He found 
 a secluded table. She was trembling, of course. 
 
 " What will you do-oo with me? What will you 
 do-oo? " 
 
 It was the note of the wood-dove. For a sharp 
 awful moment, Edward felt that he didn't like it. 
 He pulled himself together. Anyhow, he would get 
 what he could out of this: and, after all, didn't this 
 excess of pose in her prove that she was malleable, 
 inordinately responsive to environment? That was 
 what he wanted. It would be his turn next, not 
 Raoul Root's. What satisfaction to be able to
 
 The Buffoon 285 
 
 say, in a year's time, " We have clianged all that " ! 
 
 " Shall I tell you what I would do? . . . I would 
 take you, as the player takes his lovely lute, I would 
 wake from you all manner of strange sounds un- 
 dreamed of; the sounds that are heard in the depths 
 of strange seas, — or in sacred rivers." 
 
 " Ah ! " She rewarded him with a sigh long- 
 drawn. He read an " encore " in her misted eyes, 
 but he could not for the life of him keep this kind 
 of thing up. His constructions, he knew, would get 
 hopelessly mixed soon. No matter! 
 
 " Daughter of the reeds and the waters," he pro- 
 ceeded, " you shall learn from my embraces. I will 
 bring you into the sun, and in the sun you shall grow. 
 The trees that lean their branches to the stream, they 
 have been your lovers till this hour, they have cov- 
 ered you, I beg pardon, they have protected for you 
 the face of the waters, — those cool clear waters 
 where you made your home. But now — now — I 
 come to take you. I break the shadow of your trees, 
 I take you in my arms, I crush, I bruise, I burn, I 
 bless. ... I will show you all the secret ways of 
 love. ..." 
 
 A waiter, with whiskers and a Victorian counte- 
 nance, appeared with the tea. " China, I think you 
 said, miss? " 
 
 " Yes, yes," said Edward impatiently, " and bring 
 some hot water." The waiter withdrew. 
 
 " You will not," — Eunice clasped her hands, and 
 extended her long arms, under cover of the table —
 
 286 The Buffoon 
 
 " you will not be untender with me, my lover? " 
 " My name is Edward. I should have told you 
 that before. ... If I wound, I wound to heal." 
 He assumed an enigmatic air. She, too, looked enig- 
 matic without loss of time. They were enigmatic 
 together. 
 
 A posthumous child of Oscar and Rossetti, Ed- 
 ward reflected as he gazed; left, so it had happened, 
 on Raoul Root's doorstep. She really belonged to 
 the 'eighties . . . no, she belonged to any and 
 every period. These art-circle women were always 
 the same, just as little light o' loves were always the 
 same: they reacted in the same way from the influ- 
 ence of quite different men. Their parasitism did 
 not vary its expression. So, when he took her, there 
 might be no surprises. . . . An idea struck him. 
 
 " You are of the air," he announced, " of the fire. 
 Yes, you are air and fire." He paused : surely that 
 was an expression of Shakespeare's? Yes, of 
 course; so much the better. " The grosser elements 
 — er — " (if only he could remember!) "have no 
 part in you. Air, fire, and water, — but nothing of 
 earth. Can I sully so delicate a spirit by common 
 bonds, can I enfeoff it by the parchment of the law, 
 soil it by — " (What was that passage in Richard 
 II? He couldn't remember.) "Should not our 
 union rather be free? " He looked at her; she gave 
 him no encouragement. " Free as — as air, in 
 fact," he added lamely, then with an effort con- 
 cluded, " free as the air that is your element."
 
 rJie Buffoon 287 
 
 An awkward silence followed. Eunice was star- 
 tled, uncomfortable, on her guard. 
 
 " Oh, no," she said. " I have a mother in 
 America." 
 
 " Oh, indeed. Of course, that — " 
 
 " And besides," the girl went on hurriedly, with 
 no tremor in her voice now, " besides, I don't think, 
 — no, really in any case I could not — " 
 
 " That's all right." Edward waved his hand 
 generously. " I shan't refer to the subject again." 
 
 He felt a little chilled, all the same, a little sub- 
 dued. Eunice sipped her tea. 
 
 " Your name," she broke the silence, " I have 
 pleasure in your name. It is so clear, so simple, so 
 strong. Do not be too strong, Edward, do not make 
 me afraid, — too much." 
 
 She had reverted to her former tone. Edward 
 was disappointed: she was too much on one note. 
 He must cure her of that. 
 
 " You shall be born again," he replied. " And 
 don't you forget It!" he added under his breath. 
 " In birth," he went on by a happy Inspiration, 
 " there must always be fear." 
 
 " The birth of a star," she murmured. 
 
 Edward felt It was time to pay the bill. He could 
 not keep this up. This period of being engaged, he 
 began to foresee, was likely to be trying. He had 
 always disliked the idea of being engaged. An un- 
 dignified equivocal position at the best. He must 
 get it over quickly. That special licence . . .
 
 288 The Buffoon 
 
 Meanwhile she would be busy, he hoped, with the 
 usual arrangements. Once they were married posi- 
 tions would be defined, the way would be clear. 
 
 " You will begin to-morrow," he told her, " to 
 clothe yourself for me in your marriage raiment. 
 The era of preparation — no, not the era," he cor- 
 rected hurriedly, " the month, rather, — the week, — 
 a very short time, anyhow, — one might say figura- 
 tively the day or the hour. — Make your lustra- 
 tions, perform your final rites. The hour is conse- 
 crated. I shall not intrude upon it. This is the 
 silent hour before the dawn, and we must keep 
 silence, — the silence of worship. You under- 
 stand?" 
 
 " Ye-es." Her eyes had narrowed as he spoke, 
 but she recovered herself and made them large with 
 wonder. 
 
 " I will write to you. When I have arranged. 
 In three weeks from now, do you think? " 
 
 Eunice reflected for a moment. " In rather over 
 three weeks," she replied. 
 
 " Very well. Other details can wait. A Regis- 
 try Ofl'ice; you do not object to a Registry Office? 
 . . . That is settled, then. Waiter, the bill." 
 
 The waiter came up, and hard at his heels was 
 Reggie Tryers, who accosted Eunice with suppressed 
 excitement. 
 
 " Miss Dinwiddie! How Interesting to see you 
 again ! I had no idea that you knew my friend 
 Raynes. I thought I recognised you as we came In,
 
 The Buffoon 289 
 
 but your back was turned. Won't you both join us 
 at our table ? You know the man I'm with. Hu- 
 bert Reeves, of Sydney." 
 
 Eunice gave a little gasp. " Oh, Hubert Reeves." 
 She turned to Edward. " He has a beautiful spirit." 
 
 " You must come," Tryers hurriedly urged. " I 
 am to build him a new church, a beautiful new church. 
 He was speaking only just now of that exquisite 
 altar-cloth you embroidered for him a couple of 
 years ago, when you were first in London. You 
 must come." 
 
 Eunice rose slowly. Was it Edward's imagina- 
 tion, or did she really look like a figure in a stained 
 glass window? The way she took colour! But 
 why complain? He valued her as an actress. Still 
 — that altar-cloth. He had had no idea that she 
 could ever have embroidered an altar-cloth. So 
 that was the former phase. . . . He cursed Tryers 
 and his Hubert Reeves. Hubert! A sacerdotal 
 name; and Reeves suggested the Sarum use. Why 
 should they be mixed up in this? Edward followed 
 Eunice; he followed his betrothed. 
 
 " What's that you were saying about a Registry 
 Office? " whispered Tryers. 
 
 " Go to the devil ! "
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 THE priest was a short, heavy, dark man, with 
 a white, plump face, and loose pouches 
 bulging under his conspicuous eyes. They 
 were eyes that affected Edward unpleasantly, the 
 eyes of a successful slave, he thought, of a man who 
 knew how to be servile and dominant, to right and 
 to left, timing his occasions. They were cold eyes, 
 grey-blue, cold and large, very watchful, Indicating 
 a second-rate intelligence, rapidly moving, always on 
 the alert within its little limits. An obvious affinity 
 of Tryers. . . . 
 
 When Reeves rose, extending a slabby hand, Ed- 
 ward was struck by his resemblance to a toad. 
 What could Eunice be making of this mean little 
 obese man? Edward looked at her: she was evi- 
 dently thinking of no one but herself; she was quite 
 unconscious of the repulsiveness of Mr. Reeves. 
 There she stood, with her drooped fingers, and her 
 eyes eloquent of a thousand unspoken thoughts, all 
 of them fakes, probably. Edward began to feel bit- 
 ter. What fools people must be, to make a priest 
 of Mr. Reeves! The man suggested a bun in its 
 mould, before it has been taken out and its edges 
 clipped; a bun badly made, a puffed, soggy, bil- 
 
 2go
 
 The Buffoon 291 
 
 ious bun. . . . An altar-cloth, — well! Of course 
 Reeves alluded to that at once. 
 
 " We cannot forget you in Sydney," he said. 
 " Your offering is with us there. My pride was 
 great in bringing it to our dear church. So many, 
 I know, have been helped." 
 
 He spoke with subdued resonance : it was the tone 
 of the professed public speaker conscious of his 
 profession, conscious of his power of holding in re- 
 serve the force of a voice that could reach thousands. 
 Edward disliked him more and more. His clerical 
 manner of pronouncing the word " helped," how 
 odious that was ! Edward could imagine him using 
 the word again and again, in appeals for Church 
 Work, in private little spiritual talks, in meetings for 
 getting at young people's souls, in sermons for spe- 
 cial occasions, in all kinds of up-to-date ecclesiastical 
 advertisements. How detestable these modern in- 
 fluential clergy were, how they had degenerated from 
 the agreeable and harmless mid-Victorians! 
 
 Eunice stood with bowed head. " I am glad," 
 she repHed; " I am very glad." 
 
 Mr. Reeves waved an ingratiating hand. " Let 
 us sit." He lowered his voice to an intimate pitch. 
 It was just so, Edward reflected, that he might ob- 
 serve " Let us pray " to penitent ladies seeking coun- 
 sel in his study. Tryers regarded his friend with 
 marked satisfaction. 
 
 As soon as they sat down Edward realised sharply 
 that he was engaged to be married to this girl. The
 
 292 The Buffoon 
 
 presence of the others curiously emphasised the fact. 
 Incredible that only an hour ago he should have been 
 unpledged. Certainly it began to seem important, 
 what he had done. . . . 
 
 " I've been telling Miss Dinwiddie of our new 
 church," Tryers was saying. " Could you persuade 
 her, Hubert, to make us a beautiful Whitsun stole? 
 That's something we really need." 
 
 " I do not pretend to be able to persuade Miss 
 Dinwiddie to anything." Mr. Reeves cocked his 
 head, and smiled. ("Humorous rehef," thought 
 Edward, "judiciously introduced: just as necessary 
 for a successful parson as the ' human element.' ") 
 "But," there began a telling emphasis — "but if 
 Miss Dinwiddie did make up her mind to give us a 
 stole, she might be able to persuade me to accept it." 
 
 Edward could have thrown back his head and 
 howled like a dog. Eunice, it seemed, had no such 
 temptations. She was smiling, with an appreciation 
 that was gracious, a sufficient appreciation, though 
 non-committal and unstressed. You could not tell, 
 to look at her, that anything had jarred, Tryers 
 glanced at Reeves admiringly, congratulating him, 
 evidently, just as Reeves was evidently congratulat- 
 ing himself. 
 
 " I don't say, mind," the priest continued, " that 
 you could get me to accept a cope or a chasuble. No, 
 no. We mustn't raise your hopes unduly, my dear 
 young lady, we mustn't raise your hopes." 
 
 The last words gurgled obesely in his throat; he
 
 The Buffoon 293 
 
 finished his sentence with that kind of comfortable 
 chuckle that is intended to put every one at his ease. 
 Then he turned to Edward. Clearly he was afraid 
 that Edward was being left out of it, that some tact- 
 ful interposition was needed to make Edward feel 
 himself one of the party. 
 
 " You have seen some of this wonderful work of 
 Miss Dinwiddle's, I expect, Mr. Raynes? " 
 
 " No, but I don't doubt that I shall." 
 
 " Oh, yes, — yes, of course I will show you," Eu- 
 nice broke musically in. 
 
 Edward could see by her eyes that his tone had 
 made her a little uneasy. She shifted her glance 
 from one to another. Was there a hint of treachery 
 in that shifting glance? Edward wondered, half 
 hearing what Reeves was saying. 
 
 "Oh, you must: indeed you must. I have not 
 seen modern work to match it. Tryers quite agrees 
 with me. In Australia, you know, we are avid for 
 beautiful things. We wish always to make them 
 rather than to buy, — as they did In the Church's 
 earlier days. Yes, yes, — 'm, 'm. But so few have 
 the gift — ah, 'm, 'm." 
 
 " I am delighted to know that Miss Dinwiddle 
 has the gift. We are engaged to be married and I 
 have a passion for embroidered slippers." 
 
 Tryers exclaimed, but Reeves had more self-con- 
 trol and less reason to be surprised. He grasped 
 Eunice's hand, his congratulations were gravely em- 
 presses.
 
 294 The Buffoon 
 
 " My dear Miss Dinwiddle ! " She averted her 
 head, and her lips trembled. Edward found her re- 
 assuringly lovely at that moment. " My dear child! 
 I wish you all happiness. And you, Mr. Raynes, 
 happiness is yours in full measure. It were vain to 
 wish you more. Allow me to congratulate you on 
 your TOow-derful good fortune — " 
 
 Edward bowed. Glancing at Tryers, he was sur- 
 prised by the spasm of malevolence and chagrin 
 which at that moment overcame the architect's fea- 
 tures. But Tryers at once readjusted his expression ; 
 he followed rapidly on the priest's cue. 
 
 " Our friend has always been lucky," he said, os- 
 tentatiously cordial, " but, by Jove, he's luckier than 
 ever now ! I congratulate you both, heartily." He 
 shook Eunice's hand, and then Edward's. " So 
 this," he added with intent, " was the meaning of the 
 Registry Office." 
 
 Eunice flushed and looked vexed. She tapped her 
 foot. Mr. Reeves straightened himself. 
 
 "The Registry Office!" he exclaimed, hurt and 
 grieved. " Are you to be married In a Registry 
 Office?" 
 
 " Certainly," replied Edward. " It is a very 
 simple and easy way to be married." 
 
 " We are just two beautiful Greek children. We 
 wish to be simple." Eunice leaned forward, clasp- 
 ing her hands. 
 
 The priest felt that he was being challenged.
 
 The Buffoon 295 
 
 " Of course," he moved warily, " I have no locus 
 standi in your affairs at all, Mr. Raynes, no locus 
 standi whatever — " He hesitated. 
 
 " I agree with you," said Edward. 
 
 " But as a priest," Reeves was nettled now, " and 
 as a friend, if I may say so, of Miss Dinwiddie's, 
 I feel that I am bound, in duty bound, to — well, I 
 must not say to protest, but to ask you if you could 
 not possibly reconsider your plans in this one partic- 
 ular." 
 
 Edward's spleen was beginning to rise. The stud- 
 ied moderation of this man, the " sorely tried but 
 always tactful " pose, irritated him extremely. 
 
 " You've discharged your duty," he replied 
 shortly. " But a Church marriage is repulsive to 
 
 me. 
 
 " Indeed. May I ask why? " 
 
 " Because I don't like the way Christianity has 
 of trying to salve everything with lies: I don't like 
 that intent to be comforting and healing at all costs. 
 I've suffered myself from another form of the same 
 disease." 
 
 Tryers flushed angrily. Reeves tightened his lips, 
 setting his self-control on an eminence for emulation. 
 He gave a forbearing reserved glance to a distant 
 corner of the room, a glance that " not on my own 
 account, but on yours " deprecated Edward's bad 
 taste. Eunice sat with twined fingers; she had 
 adopted a look of mute and sweet distress: " If I
 
 296 The Buffoon 
 
 could, oh, how much I would! " she seemed to say; 
 what she could not and what she would remaining, 
 of course, in the region of enigma. 
 
 " Eunice," Edward addressed her after the painful 
 pause; " Eunice, we spoke, I think, of going back? " 
 
 She rose with a sigh. " Good-bye," she said, hint- 
 ing a world of possible concentrated meanings. 
 
 The priest bowed deeply, as he held her hand, im- 
 parting to her, perhaps, some portion of his beautiful 
 spirit. Edward left with the briefest possible salute. 
 
 " You are not angry with me? " She swayed her 
 body tentatively towards him, as they walked. 
 
 " You don't mean to say that you are really 
 at all taken in by those humbugs? And surely 
 you've outgrown that kind of Churchiness . . . ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes . . . yes. That was some years ago. 
 I do not worship now within walls. You must not 
 mistake me, — Edward. But what could I do? It 
 was so difficult for me. — What could I do? " she 
 repeated plaintively. 
 
 " Oh, it's all right." He was pacified. " I was 
 annoyed by the idea of your making a stole or a 
 chasuble, or whatever it is, for that unpleasant little 
 fat creature. You won't, of course, will you? — 
 Well, then, it doesn't matter. Shall I get you a taxi ? 
 Oh, and, of course, I must have your address." She 
 opened her bag and gave him a card. Her eyes were 
 like a troubled child's. " Don't think any more of 
 Reeves and Tryers. They are people of no impor- 
 tance. They aren't fit subjects for intelligent peo-
 
 The Buffoon 297 
 
 pie." He was still rather angry, In spite of himself. 
 " Remember, I will write. In a few weeks we shall 
 be married." 
 
 He took her hand, but his pleasure in the warm 
 close clinging of her fingers was spoilt by remem- 
 brance of the priest's clutch a few minutes since. 
 He would not say good-bye, with the echo of her 
 " good-bye " to Reeves still In his ears. 
 
 He opened the door of the taxi. " You go to 
 your cousins?" "Yes." Her eyes promised a 
 hundred revelations that were to come. He liked 
 that. Yes, after all he had been right, she had much 
 to give. He read the address on the card to the 
 driver, drew back on the pavement, raised his hat. 
 She was bending forward, half crouched like some 
 figure on a Greek frieze, her profile showing three 
 quarters through the open window. Edward's last 
 memory was of a look of withdrawn expectation of 
 unimaginable things. His first thought when she 
 had gone was "And I haven't even kissed her!" 
 Well, It was better, no doubt, to hold everything in 
 reserve. He went to his Club, played bridge till 
 eight o'clock, dined, then took five men over to his 
 rooms in Jermyn Street, and played poker with them 
 till two in the morning.
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 SOME eight hours later Edward was waked 
 from deep sleep by the entrance of Welsh. 
 This disturbance was unexpected: on their 
 return from Liverpool the lecturer had talked of go- 
 ing home. 
 
 " But I didn't," he explained now. " I went to 
 see O'Flaherty. He persuaded me to stay. And, 
 my friend, I come this morning to make you a com- 
 munication of grave importance. I come to warn 
 you, — to warn you. I have seen Reggie Tryers." 
 
 " Oh, so you know that I really am going to marry 
 Eunice." 
 
 "What? What! Marriage, — actually mar- 
 riage I How exciting! He never said so, — the 
 scoundrel! I tell you, Edward, he is an incredible 
 scoundrel ! Streaks and streaks of yellow and chemi- 
 cal green ! He is your enemy; implacable, unscrupu- 
 lous, resolute. He will never, never forgive you. 
 What inalienable jealousy, what profound hate 1 I 
 recognised that look of his as soon as I saw him last 
 night. Ah, of course he could not bring himself to 
 tell us that you had actually won her ! How extraor- 
 dinarily exciting that you are to marry Eunice Din- 
 widdle! And when? Tell me when, my friend, 
 
 tell me when! This is news indeed! " 
 
 298
 
 rhe Buffoo7t 299 
 
 " As soon as possible. In three or four weeks. 
 I am going to make inquiries to-day. What is the 
 right thing to do, do you know? " 
 
 " Oh, you get a licence. Then you have banns put 
 up. But that isn't necessary, I believe. You state 
 your place of residence, or something of that sort. 
 I really forget. . . . I'm not good at these munici- 
 pal affairs." 
 
 " No matter. I know a man who is a lawyer. I 
 shall look him up this morning. Now tell me about 
 Tryers. I met him yesterday just after Eunice had 
 accepted me. He knows perfectly well that it is a 
 question of marriage." 
 
 " Ah. — He came round to O'Flaherty's last 
 night, and he talked about you all the time. He 
 seems to be obsessed by you. He referred to Eu- 
 nice as your victim. ' Poor girl,' he said, * poor 
 girl! I mean to save her if I can. He'll be tired 
 of her within the year.' He harped on her inno- 
 cence, her virtue, he called her a Madonna again, 
 he contrasted her beautiful spiritual qualities with 
 your unscrupulousness and immorality. He repre- 
 sented you as a monster of vice, a devourer of vir- 
 gins." 
 
 " And what is he going to do about it? " 
 
 " Well, he didn't give his scheme away, but I am 
 perfectly certain that he and Hubert Reeves are go- 
 ing to interview your girl. They will employ all 
 their arts, they will talk about what is beautiful and 
 clear, they will tell her that you are not beautiful
 
 300 The Buffoon 
 
 and clear. Remember, Reggie knows all about our 
 visit to Liverpool. He will no doubt make the most 
 of that. He will tell her that she's an unspotted 
 mermaid and you an inky cuttlefish." 
 
 "Will that have much effect, do you think?" 
 Edward got out of bed and put on his delightful 
 dressing-gown. 
 
 "Well, — can you explain Liverpool? Can you 
 make Eunice envisage Liverpool in a philosophic 
 way? That is a great point. No doubt it can be 
 done. The important thing is to know just how to 
 make the attack. How would one make the attack, 
 do you think? — My own wife quails at the very 
 name of Liverpool." 
 
 "Just wait while I have my bath, will you? 
 There are the cigarettes." 
 
 When Edward came back, he found Welsh walk- 
 ing about the room, impatient of the interval of 
 suppression. " I've been wondering — you see, the 
 fact is — " 
 
 " Well, come now, advise me." Edward began 
 to put on his clothes. 
 
 " I've been wrestling with my conscience. My 
 responsibility is beginning to weigh upon me." 
 
 " I'm afraid it is. Whenever people begin to be 
 moral and serious they always use hackneyed 
 phrases. They wrestle with conscience. Responsi- 
 bilities weigh. Do you talk like that when you lec- 
 ture on ' Hamlet ' ? Responsibilities ! Conscience I 
 I can't allow you to talk so disagreeably."
 
 The Buffoon 301 
 
 "What an exquisite silk vest! Salmon-pink I 
 Now if our dear little Eunice could only see you now, 
 
 — with your decadent late-Roman body ! What las- 
 situde, what lines, what morbid delicacy! I tell 
 you what, my friend, you are like an El Greco, like 
 the young Christ of El Greco. . . ." 
 
 " Very nice. We must go to Toledo together 
 some time. But how am I to meet this insidious 
 attack of Reggie Tryers? Tell me how." 
 
 " Upon my soul ! I'm inclined to advise you to do 
 nothing at all. Let his poison work, if it can. And 
 
 — I confess it — I rather hope it will. The fact is, 
 I didn't count the cost when I let you in for this. 
 I can't stand the idea of having let you in. Re- 
 morse, remorse is upon me. What was I doing 
 bringing you two together? Marriage is an appall- 
 ing business, Edward, appalling. I know, every 
 one who is married knows, but they won't tell. All 
 married men are conspirators. The best of them 
 simply keep silence, like that shrewd old fellow — 
 who was he? — who said, ' I could say a great deal 
 about marriage, but I am married.' The worst of 
 them egg others on to marriage out of spite. That's 
 my worst vice, this yielding to the temptation of egg- 
 ing others on. If I were a Catholic, that is the only 
 sin I should be really ashamed to confess. It is un- 
 pardonable, this mania for drawing others into one's 
 own net just to see how they look when they're there ! 
 And I'm always doing it. I lead my friends on to 
 marriage, — even my brothers. Then I have a sud-
 
 302 The Buffoon 
 
 den panic, a mad reaction, when it's too late. Well, 
 at least I suffer. You will curse me in a year's time 
 if you go through with this, I am sure of it! But 
 Reggie Tryers may save us yet; let him have his 
 way! " 
 
 " I'll be damned if I do." Edward arranged his 
 tie with dexterous fingers. " I'm not expecting mar- 
 riage to be easy or pleasant, I'm expecting it to be 
 in many ways extremely uncomfortable. What I'm 
 out for is experience and a thorough change. I'm 
 tired of being a bachelor." 
 
 " Yes, — yes." Welsh's eyes shone. 
 
 " If I get tired of being married, it will be differ- 
 ent. That's the whole point. My old lease of life 
 is running out: I want a new one. Then there 
 is the physical reason, with which you can't sympa- 
 thise. Sporadic amours don't satisfy me any 
 longer." 
 
 " Ah, but — of course I'm not an authority, but is 
 Eunice the right girl to choose for physical reasons? 
 I doubt it. A direct sensual appeal will be too 
 ' gross ' for her particular pose. She won't satisfy 
 you with her studied vagueness, her deliberate 
 worked-up sensitiveness; her ideals of ' ethereal pas- 
 sion ' will suffer the rudest shocks, because — and I 
 firmly believe this — she really has grown into what 
 at first she pretended to be. That's why Liverpool 
 will be so hard to explain to her. She will have an 
 artificial revolt from Liverpool, because her pose, 
 now in the grain, demands it. Yes, she will do what
 
 The Buffoon 303 
 
 her pose expects of her. Now the kind of girl you 
 want is a child of nature — " 
 
 "Oh, Lord!" 
 
 *' And I believe I have the very thing for you ! 
 Upon my soul! A young girl, too, younger than 
 Eunice, not more than twenty, I'm sure, — the sim- 
 plest, most innocent, most untouched creature ! A 
 Perdita, if ever there was one ! She lives near my 
 own village, alone with an antiquarian father, who 
 has a passion for keeping bees. He writes books, 
 all about bees. He's almost as Innocent as she is. 
 They know nobody, positively nobody ; they never go 
 anywhere. I walk over and talk to the father, now 
 and again. Oh, wonderfully simple-minded ! " 
 
 " Do you also talk to the daughter? " 
 
 *' Not an equivocal syllable. Not one word that 
 she might not hear from her father. No, I can be 
 amazingly virtuous. Now, there is a girl worth 
 initiating, and she would have passion. It is there 
 far away, remote in the depths of her dark eyes. 
 Ah, yes, when once she is stirred! But she's un- 
 touched now, oh, how untouched! And, my dear, 
 you're not really in love with Eunice, are you? 
 Think of the layers upon layers of pretence you 
 would have to pierce ! " 
 
 " No man of pleasure over thirty can be sure that 
 he is really in love. The perished hours are put 
 down in the bill. And of course I know that with 
 Eunice I shall have to destroy first. But that appeals 
 to me. I need that kind of stimulus, just the stimu-
 
 304 The Buffoon 
 
 lus that I shouldn't get with your beekeeper's daugh- 
 ter. Also, I disagree with you about the persist- 
 ency of Eunice's pose. I look forward to dealing 
 with her pose, very much. Don't you see that it's 
 her sex, it's the physical stress of her nature, that 
 has driven her into the pose, and that when her pas- 
 sion is normally diverted, she will rebound? That's 
 what I wait for, that's what I consider interesting. 
 You don't mean to say that you think her cold, simply 
 because she talks about sea-weed and says she's a 
 sister of the winds and the waters? " 
 
 " No. But all the same she wouldn't like to be 
 conquered in your way, she would shrink, I am con- 
 vinced, from direct gratifications. She would like 
 everything to be occult, unconfessed, undefined. 
 Your sunburnt flesh would know no peace. . . . No, 
 she would like to be corrupted by a Jesuit, that is 
 what she would like ! Zeus and Apollo are not in 
 her line at all." 
 
 " You're very discouraging. No matter. — My 
 own belief is that Eunice is au fond free from all 
 morbid abnormalities, free both from anaesthesia and 
 hyperaesthesia, neither undersexed nor oversexed. — 
 Well, I release you from responsibihty, and I raise 
 the curtain for your entertainment. What more can 
 you want? " 
 
 " Ah. Perhaps you are right. At any rate it 
 would annoy me extraordinarily for Reggie to win. 
 Suppose Reggie actually succeeded in taking her from 
 you, in getting her for himself, in factl "
 
 The Buffoo?t 305 
 
 " That would annoy me even more extraordina- 
 rily than it would you. You don't really think he 
 wants to get her, do you ? " 
 
 " I think that if he could only stop you marrying 
 her by marrying her himself, he would. Yes, he cer- 
 tainly would. She has money, you know, and Reg- 
 gie badly wants money. He's always hard up. 
 And Eunice is the only woman of whom I've ever 
 heard him speak approvingly. He says that she is 
 free from the usual grossness of her sex, and all that 
 kind of thing. Always that ' Madonna ' touch. 
 No doubt he could pretend to himself that he was 
 still almost a celibate if he married her. She would 
 like that. Yes, he would play the Jesuit to suit her. 
 You never would. You couldn't, of course, tolerate 
 the idea. Upon my soul, I don't know what to wish. 
 These dilemmas! On the one hand the chagrin of 
 Reggie's victory, on the other disappointment and 
 disaster for you. I should like the girl to die sud- 
 denly. That's the only way out." 
 
 " I'm going to have breakfast. Come along." 
 They went into the next room, and Edward rang the 
 bell. " After breakfast," he continued, " I am go- 
 ing to see Eunice." 
 
 " For the present," asked Welsh, " what is your 
 method? You move, I suppose, with infinite cau- 
 tion. You reveal nothing. How I should love to 
 see and listen to you two together! " 
 
 " Oh, I play up to her, of course : very much."
 
 A' 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 " j^ H ! " Eunice caught her breath. " You 
 have come. But I knew — I knew that 
 you would." She trembled towards Ed- 
 ward, and for the first time he kissed her. 
 
 Her response amazed him: she had fire, a fire 
 that shrivelled her pose in a moment. Yes, he could 
 swear that all herself clung to him in her lips. So 
 much for Jack Welsh! Edward remained amazed: 
 it was he who was breathless now; but yet not alto- 
 gether — he could not tell why — not altogether re- 
 assured. Some doubt or other lay in ambush, some 
 ambiguous presentiment showed vague outlines. It 
 was unaccountable, — he felt impatience, impatience 
 with himself only, he hoped it must be, not surely 
 with — he broke off his thoughts and kissed her 
 again. She put him gently from her, she stood look- 
 ing at him with eyes that certainly were illumined. 
 Suddenly he was conscious of two thoughts, put 
 clearly into words, printed, so it seemed, by his brain, 
 in very black type, on a sheet of very white paper, 
 thrust out full in view: " I must not lose her." 
 " Can we be free together?" Yes, that was it, he 
 understood himself now. Primary instinct, race- 
 instinct commanded him in that " I must not lose 
 
 306
 
 The Buffoon 307 
 
 her," but secondary instinct, the instinct that inhibits 
 the reduction of everything to the level of race, and 
 counsels regard for individual issues, it was that sec- 
 ondary or acquired instinct that made him ask if he 
 could be free with her and she with him. But could 
 she ever be free? He was to learn that. 
 
 "What are you thinking?" She leaned her 
 head — that sibyllic contour — towards him. 
 
 " What I think," Edward replied, " part of what 
 I think — is : ' Are you a slave ? Shall I be a 
 slave with you, if we are together? ' " He looked 
 at her, and could see that she was chiefly occupied 
 with the effort of not appearing to be baffled. Did 
 she want to understand, or was she taken up only 
 with appearances? He would not judge hastily. 
 He would go on trying to tell the truth and then see 
 what happened. " I shall speak to the point, be- 
 cause the point is so very important for us. But 
 the worst of it is that it is almost impossible to speak 
 clearly of what is important. Let me try and tell 
 you, though, why I sought you out. It was because I 
 wanted liberty." Her lips moved, she raised her 
 head. " Sex, for me, has become an enslavement, 
 an absorption. I have' never been able to deal with 
 it, I have sometimes been secretly dissatisfied by my 
 failure, though I never admitted it. Sex has been the 
 one thing that spoilt the harmony of my existence. 
 To satisfy my desires I took girls who were the vic- 
 tims of the same enslavement as myself, the same ab- 
 sorption!" Eunice betrayed curiosity. "Only
 
 308 The Buffoon 
 
 they lived in prison, they were born there, — of 
 course never to get out. I managed to take a 
 ticket-of -leave now and again ; but it was always, you 
 understand, a ticket-of-leave. ... I want you to 
 see that it was not only a question of my not admit- 
 ting that I was under this kind of bondage, I didn't 
 for a long while realise that I was. Animal spirit 
 and egoism served me well. . . . But not quite that 
 either. . . . You understand? How am I to ex- 
 plain? I mean that it is possible to fool away one's 
 soul." 
 
 She put out a deciduous hand, poised it for a mo- 
 ment, and then let it flutter to his, delicately as a 
 blown leaf. " Our souls," she said slowly, " will 
 grow together." 
 
 "Ah, but," — he started from her — "that isn't 
 what I want." 
 
 She gave him a troubled glance. She was not used 
 to men saying that what she suggested was what they 
 didn't want. 
 
 " This growing together of souls ! " Edward got 
 up from his chair. " Why, — do they ever, do you 
 think, do that?" 
 
 He was silent, thinking: " I must make myself 
 plainer. At this rate we shall never get on." The 
 aspect of the room was somehow a barrier to the 
 frankness at which he so touchingly aimed: every 
 object seemed non-committal. The furniture was 
 so nice and quiet and good, so well-mannered. . . . 
 Not a curve of a chair-leg that could offend or fail.
 
 The Buffoon 309 
 
 Taste ! taste ! how he hated taste ! Those excellent 
 prints of Dutch and Itahan masterpieces, what were 
 they for except to proclaim taste? " You see that 
 we appreciate Leonardo and Raphael and Memm- 
 ling," they seemed to insist. And then, that piano, 
 that music-case, that dainty little slim-legged table 
 with its dainty Uttle China ornaments! How very 
 well everything came within accepted limits. 
 
 " Do you know," Edward broke the pause, " I 
 should like to take everything in this room and break 
 it to pieces and make a bonfire of it. I should Hke 
 to kick and dance and howl and smash! I 
 should—" 
 
 Her laughter stopped him; he felt foolish, as 
 though his hit had missed, although he had not meant 
 it to be a hit. Eunice was laughing spontaneously, 
 because she was amused, — he could see that. As 
 before, that evening after Mrs. O'Malley's paper, 
 she was like a schoolgirl. 
 
 " If only you still wore your hair down your back," 
 he told her, " I would pull it. So this is how you 
 treat the outbursts of my profoundest emotion ! Do 
 you think I meant that to be amusing or sensa- 
 tional?" 
 
 " I don't know what 3^ou meant." Her eyes still 
 had their mocking gleam. " I don't know why you 
 want to kick my things about. Tell me." She de- 
 liciously pursed her lips. 
 
 " Because they won't let me talk to you. If we 
 were in a Pimlico lodging-house or a village inn I
 
 310 The Buffoon 
 
 could tell you what I want to tell you. In this place 
 a lady-like hand with artistically filed fingernails is 
 clapped over my mouth. Who made this room? " 
 
 " I don't believe you really want to tell me any- 
 thing. Shut your eyes." 
 
 " Good Lord ! The Universe doesn't want me 
 to tell you anything. That is the real truth. The 
 eternal prohibition! Of course, I should have 
 known. Men and women are destined to lie to one 
 another forever, so that this cursed world may go 
 on spinning round, and round, and round! Yes, it 
 would stop if they told the truth, it would stop dead. 
 . . . My dear Eunice, my dearest girl, — when first 
 I saw you, — when you were up there in the gallery 
 at our friend Mr. Welsh's lecture, my spirit fled to 
 yours. I knew that we were made for union, — 
 union of mind, of spirit, of body. For years I had 
 wandered, searching, searching, — in vain. I had 
 wasted my life on petty counterfeit loves, on small 
 and vain distractions. Then you came: then at last 
 I knew myself, and I knew that without you myself 
 could never be known. — Will that do? Tell 
 me — " He took her by both wrists and looked her 
 full in the face. Her eyes shifted momentarily, she 
 betrayed a fleeting embarrassment, then met him 
 boldly : 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Well, then, what do you think really happened? 
 — You did stir me unusually when I saw you first, 
 you impressed me emotionally, you piqued my intel-
 
 rhe Buffoon 311 
 
 lectual curiosity. The way you sat, the way you 
 looked, the ways you might be thinking ! You threw 
 a pecuHar glamour over my mind, — you still do." 
 She inclined, as though unconsciously; he felt her 
 breath on his cheek. " No other woman had — has 
 — ever moved me in at all your way. And now you 
 have let me take you. You answer the physical de- 
 sire that I have for you — " She winced, and 
 turned her head away. " Physical desire," he em- 
 phasised the words. " Yes, you are not cold. — 
 Forgive me," — he observed her distress — " but de- 
 sire of that kind is important, isn't it? We contem- 
 plate marriage." 
 
 "Contemplate?" She betrayed uneasiness on 
 the spur of the moment. 
 
 " Oh, well, I mean that we are considering, — that 
 we are looking at — envisaging, as our friend Welsh 
 would say, — yes, envisaging marriage. Not that 
 we are undecided about our own marriage. Of 
 course that is quite settled." 
 
 Edward could not help speaking impatiently. It 
 was maddening, this impossibility of getting her to 
 see what he was driving at. Must women always, 
 he wondered, be occupied with the particular case? 
 
 " I am thinking — " Eunice looked straight before 
 her. " Your life has not been happy, then, — Ed- 
 ward?" 
 
 " Happy? Yes, I made it out to be happy, so it 
 was. It wouldn't seem happy to me, if I had to live 
 it through again as I am now."
 
 312 The Buffoon 
 
 "Ah, but you haven't got to!" Sentiment 
 jumped up Hke a Jack-in-the-box. 
 
 " No, but the question is, now that I know all 
 about my enslavement, or think I do, can I avoid it? 
 Will you — can you — help me ? That is the point. 
 Is it only to be a change of prison? Will our mar- 
 riage give frank liberation to the flesh without ex- 
 acting the penalty, without at the same time depriv- 
 ing us of intellectual freedom, without the usual 
 encroachment upon what really matters in our indi- 
 vidual lives? — You see, you can't free the flesh hy 
 itself. ..." 
 
 'He stopped and looked at her. No, she did not 
 understand. She gave a perfect imitation of under- 
 standing, as she sat there, curved and poised, with 
 her chin on one hand and her eyes earnestly gazing 
 at him, — sympathising eyes, any one would have 
 said, but sympathising with just nothing at all! 
 
 " The flesh," Edward went on hopelessly, and in 
 spite of himself, " the flesh takes revenges if you do, 
 and so does the mind. Neither will — well, will put 
 up with it. Neither is satisfied. They must be put, 
 you see, in harness. I made the mistake of thinking 
 that I could pacify the flesh, by itself, now and again, 
 and then take leave, then turn to the other things 
 of life. A pleasant, easy, simple arrangement, it 
 seemed. Well, it has broken down altogether. I 
 have done with it. I recognise that I have never 
 given sex its place, that I have never fused it, as it 
 must be fused, into the metal of existence. ... I
 
 The Buffoon 313 
 
 recognise that a permanent union is, for me, at any 
 rate, the only possible solution, — a union in. which 
 sex is given its right play, a play that interests other 
 faculties, freeing them — you understand? — by co- 
 operation." 
 
 " I think that is beautiful," she said, more slowly 
 than ever. " Of course I'm only a child, I love as 
 a child, — but — " 
 
 " I detest equally," Edward continued, " sex-nega- 
 tion and sex-absorption. If you knew the kind of re- 
 vulsion I feel for those little, stunted, flesh-besotted, 
 sex-ridden creatures!" Eunice betrayed curiosity 
 again. " Their one idea of ' a good time ' ! And 
 the way in which they settle down and wallow, and 
 then when it's over wait with folded hands till the 
 next ' good time ' comes round ! You can under- 
 stand the horror, the hostility, that a person diseased 
 in part feels for those who are diseased in full, with 
 the same disease as his own? Well, I have felt like 
 that. I felt like that only three nights ago ! " 
 
 " But, — Edward — " she flushed and turned from 
 him, controlling her curiosity, — " this is all over now. 
 It is brave of you to tell me, but let us not remember. 
 I will help you to forget. In the new life — I will 
 be with you." 
 
 " Yes. There it Is. Yes.— Well." Edward 
 rose : he had given it up. " We understand one an- 
 other, I am sure." 
 
 He stood, looking down at her. She lowered her 
 head, and suddenly he stooped, took her head be-
 
 314 The Buffoon 
 
 tween his hands, just as he had taken Betty's. It 
 pleased him to do that. He kissed her; she trem- 
 bled; he kissed her again and again, he put his arms 
 round her and pressed her to him. The natural 
 odour of her hair was about and through his senses; 
 it seemed to come from her flesh through her hair. 
 '' Ah,— this! '' thought Edward. "And the rot 
 I've been talking! " Then at once he was conscious 
 of a devastation, mental and physical. His head 
 throbbed, his eyes burned, he was horribly uncom- 
 fortable, painfully excited. He felt very much as 
 he had felt once in Spain, at a Bull Fight. Yes, his 
 system was responding now in the same way. 
 
 Eunice clung to him, she seemed to be sucking him 
 into her body, but why, he could not say, for to all 
 seeming she was entirely virginal and discreet. So 
 this was the first impression of the caresses of an un- 
 touched maid? Edward did not doubt that Eunice 
 was chaste in the usual sense. " But all the more 
 for that she'll take me," he thought in desperation. 
 " I shall have nothing left, God help me! And to 
 think how I've been talking to her! — You're a 
 fool," he went on thinking; "you don't want her 
 to blow either hot or cold? What do you want? " 
 The worst of it was that he knew perfectly well, now, 
 what he wanted. It was clearer to him every mo- 
 ment. He would make one last attempt, even 
 though the recurrence might ring flat and dead. He 
 moved slightly and she let him go. 
 
 " What I want," he blurted in an uncomfortable
 
 The Buffoon 315 
 
 defiance, " is that you should put sex in the same 
 place as a man does, — as a man wants to. I can't 
 stand the feminised sex-instinct any longer. It's per- 
 verted and diseased. The truth is no decent woman 
 ought to have anything more to do with it, ever. 
 No human being ought to be swamped in that dis- 
 gusting way. ..." 
 
 "Why, of course, — Edward! It's only the — 
 the women of grosser type, who are. The women 
 who are not clear." 
 
 He could see that she was thinking: " Did I, did 
 I go too far just now? " and he began to reply di- 
 rectly to her thought. 
 
 " Oh, no," he said; " I don't, of course, think that 
 you — " Her discomfort and surprise were so evi- 
 dent that he stopped short. " There are different 
 ways of being swamped," he went on. " My ob- 
 jection to all of them is the same. I don't want sex 
 to blur my life, to be forever thrusting irrelevancies 
 at me, at every possible point. Most women make 
 sex do that. Yes," he spoke angrily, " they do. 
 It's the truth. They distract every issue with their 
 personal appeals. Nothing is left clear and clean. 
 No thought allowed free play. Emotional fer- 
 vour — spilt all about by sex, in thick smears or 
 thin — it has at every point to be kept wet, or they 
 are lost. We want the emotions, of course: that 
 part of us has to be fed, but why feed it at the ex- 
 pense of everything else that we value? Why must 
 everything else go hang? Who gains by it? We
 
 316 The Buffoon 
 
 want sex play, we separate ourselves damnably If we 
 don't have it, but surely if sex play were more direct 
 it would be more really subtle in its directness, and 
 more exciting. I want It, this sex play, without its 
 irrelevant details. I don't want either to crush it 
 out or to be crushed out by it." 
 
 "Irrelevant details?" Eunice looked wonder- 
 ingly. " All this is so new and so strange. I don't 
 understand : but I — I am trying to. You must 
 teach me ... I will try to learn. . . ." 
 
 " Irrelevant details. Yes. What I am afraid of 
 is this : that sex will still, and worse than ever, come 
 spying on my life, on my thought, on myself, that if 
 I want to do anything, to think anything, the im- 
 pertinent question will always come up: ' How 
 does this bear upon your relations with her? What 
 will she make of it? Will her hold weaken or 
 strengthen? Will her appeal be less or more?' 
 Women thrust such questions on men. They'd never 
 come of themselves. — Don't you see the monstrous 
 irrelevancy there? Doesn't that show what I mean 
 by saying that I want a girl who can treat sex like a 
 man?" 
 
 To his amazement her eyes filled with tears. She 
 was almost sobbing. " What is it? " he caught her 
 arm. " I didn't mean that you couldn't. I — I 
 think — I am sure you can. Yes," he added with 
 an effort, " that is just what you can do. You, with 
 your wonderful epicene body, you must have, you
 
 rhe Buffoon 317 
 
 cannot but have, just that epicene mind. Eunice, 
 I—" 
 
 " I thought " — she raised moist eyes and trem- 
 bhng lids to him — " I thought you wanted me for 
 myself." 
 
 " Of course: that is just it. Because, being your- 
 self, you meet this need in me. Why, of course — " 
 He hesitated, he felt baffled. " Why, of course," 
 he repeated, " I am drawn to you because you are 
 yourself." 
 
 They were silent. She turned from him and dried 
 her eyes. He tried to understand how it was that 
 he had hurt her pride or her vanity. 
 
 " We are well agreed," he said at last. " I know 
 that we are well agreed. We can take each other 
 without deadening the Universe. We can give sex 
 its play without loss of freedom. You see," — at 
 whatever risk of flatness or inepitude he felt that he 
 must try to sum the matter up — " you see what my 
 dilemma has been, and how I shall solve it — with 
 you. There are two wrong ways. One I have 
 tried, the other I'm afraid of. I have thrown sops 
 to the flesh, and then run away and tried to live, — 
 couldn't, because part of my life was left out, an or- 
 ganic part that I had tried to deal with separately, 
 as if it could be put in a neat little compartment of 
 its own. In that compartment it lost its value, it 
 was a poor thing, it grew thin and weak and queru- 
 lous, cut off in that way from spirit and mind. And,
 
 318 The Buffoon 
 
 as I said, it had its revenges. Spirit and mind 
 weren't content, they were fretted and frayed, they 
 revolted against the arrangement by which they were 
 always out when the flesh was in. Naturally they 
 refused to be in when the flesh was out! Simple 
 enough ! Well, now, I change all that, and as soon 
 as I change it, a new danger appears, a danger that 
 I never realised till I met you." 
 
 "Till you met me? What do you mean?" 
 
 " Why, that till I met you I had never met any 
 woman who revealed to me the possibility of a sexual 
 companionship in which spirit and intellect could 
 take their place." 
 
 "Ah, but that is what love means, is it not?" 
 She gave him a look of ethereal content. 
 
 " And, you see, that revelation brought another 
 with it. Suppose spirit and intellect to be gradually 
 ousted, suppose an invincible — an inherently invin- 
 cible — sex-jealousy of them as intruders. Suppose 
 that this recognition of them as co-operators, the 
 recognition that I want, — that you want, — is not 
 given, or given grudgingly, then, don't you see, — 
 why, it is the worst catastrophe of all! What I 
 want us to do — what we want to do — is to keep 
 intellect, spirit and flesh all free together, — free be- 
 cause they are together, for they can't be free any- 
 how else. But it's difficult, — oh, the Lord knows 
 how difficult it is! " 
 
 " Edward," — very simply and spontaneously she 
 took his hand, — " Edward, we can — we can — to-
 
 rhe Buffoon 319 
 
 gether." She sighed deeply, apparently from relief, 
 perhaps from boredom. Again they were silent. 
 
 " I will go now," he said, breaking the long pause. 
 He looked fixedly at her. 
 
 " What is It? " Eunice shrank. 
 
 " Why did you take me? " 
 
 " Because — because — " Once again she trem- 
 bled; she was exquisite In her shyness, her uncer- 
 tainty. " Love can never tell," she said at last, In 
 her lowest, sweetest tone. 
 
 Edward was filled with admiration. " I must 
 have her," he thought again. " Yes, there Is no 
 help for It." Then he noted, with a suppressed 
 smile, the automatic reaction of his vanity to the 
 girl's last little remark. " Love can never tell ! " 
 Ah, yes, of course ! All the same he wished he knew 
 what the answer to his question really was. 
 
 " Oh, I do — I do want to help you ! " she cried, 
 with sudden eager pressure of her hands to his. 
 
 He left her, more determined than before to 
 marry her, much less confident than before that 
 marrying her was reasonable or right.
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 EDWARD went from Eunice to Chancery- 
 Lane, interviewed his lawyer acquaintance, 
 got the necessary information from him, 
 then took a cab to his Club, where he lunched with 
 remarkable appetite. It was late, there were very 
 few men in the dining-room, and Edward was glad to 
 be undisturbed. Not that he wanted to think; his 
 mind relapsed on complete inactivity, he hardly, in 
 fact, thought of his food. But he wished to enjoy 
 this vacuity of brain alone. It was an annoyance 
 when he ran into Theocrite Molesworth on leaving 
 the dining-room. 
 
 "Well, Raynes, want to rook us again? I've 
 got four dear little deuces lying in wait for you, only 
 give 'em a chance to get in line. What? Come and 
 have a drink on the strength of it. Some of the 
 others are here, — dying for revenge, all of them." 
 Edward surveyed his interlocutor's pink, well-bred, 
 indeterminately handsome face, he noted the blond 
 sleek hair brushed back from the unpretending fore- 
 head; from there downwards to the neat patent 
 leather shoes he took him in. " My dear Moles- 
 worth," he said, " never let cigarette ash fall on 
 your waistcoat without flicking it off. I can't bear 
 you to have a flaw anywhere." 
 
 320
 
 rhe Buffoo?i 321 
 
 "Funny feller!" Molesworth laughed at high 
 pitch. " I've the deuce of a flaw in my pocket after 
 last night, he! he! That's the kind of flaw that 
 troubles me." 
 
 " Quite unimportant, though. Doesn't show. 
 But I can't play with you this afternoon. I've got 
 to go down to the country. Just going to have a 
 look at the A.B.C." 
 
 Molesworth went into the smoking-room with him, 
 and ordered two liqueurs, while Edward employed 
 himself with the Railway Guide. " Westbeach, 
 Westbeach," he murmured. "Ah, yes, 4.13. 
 Must leave here in about ten minutes. H'm, looks 
 like rain. Do you really believe, Molesworth, that 
 this is the original French green Chartreuse? I 
 don't. They used it all up ages ago. Barbarous 
 thing, kicking those poor old monks out like that." 
 
 " Yes. Rotten trick. — Who's the girl at West- 
 beach, Raynes? Gay old dawg you are, hoppin' ofli 
 to Westbeach. Always hoppin' about all over the 
 place. Time you gave 'em a rest. Think of your 
 bally old health, think of your poor dear nerves." 
 
 " Tell me now. What is your opinion of mar- 
 nage .'' 
 
 " Lord help us ! " Molesworth stared. " Funny 
 feller! " He sipped his liqueur. 
 
 " It isn't a joke. I really want to know." 
 
 " Oh, you do, do you? What's the good of my 
 havin' an opinion? My income doesn't run to mar- 
 riage, hardly allows for — "
 
 322 The Buffoon 
 
 " Yes, yes. But suppose it did ? Come, you have 
 some imagination, haven't you? " Edward pursued 
 his point. He knew Molesworth for a confirmed 
 sentimentalist, revealed as such when he was really 
 drunk, though he tried to keep up a cynical levity 
 about women when he was sober. " Come now, be 
 serious. I've only ten minutes. Just suppose for 
 the moment that you have five thousand a year." 
 
 Molesworth finished his liqueur and rang for an- 
 other. 
 
 " Well," he spoke with difficulty, after a pause. 
 " You see, it's something like this. I'm a rotten 
 sort of a feller, really, — not good for much, not 
 clever, or anything of that kind. Drink more than 
 I ought, have nights out now and again. — Look 
 here, you aren't gammoning me, are you, — you 
 aren't — ?" 
 
 " Good Lord, no. Go on. I want to hear. 
 Honour bright." 
 
 " Well, of course, some girls are damn rotten, too. 
 The kind of girls I mess about with are damn rotten. 
 Couldn't marry that kind of girl. Great mistake. 
 For God's sake, Raynes, don't do it. When a girl's 
 rotten, she — well, she goes it to the limit, that's all. 
 The trouble is, the other kind of women are a damn 
 sight too good for me. I know that. So what am I 
 to do, even if I had the cash? Shouldn't feel I was 
 worthy, old chap, shouldn't feel I was worthy. . . ." 
 
 Molesworth shook his head solemnly. Edward 
 looked closely at him, and observed an alcoholic
 
 The Buffoon 323 
 
 film over his large light-blue eyes. . . . Evidently 
 well set for the sentimental mood, probably been 
 drinking before they met. 
 
 " But," Edward replied, " you're just as worthy 
 as most. I thinlc you'd make an excellent husband." 
 
 " I'd try. Honest, I'd try. Turn over a new 
 leaf, keep on the straight, play fair, all that sort of 
 thing. Yes — " He raised his eyes; they were elo- 
 quent of alcoholic idealism. " Yes: I'm a rotter, 
 but I'd do my best." His saccharine ecstasy in ac- 
 knowledging himself a rotter was more and more in 
 evidence. Edward had a vision of all the sugar of 
 all Molesworth's drinks filtering to deposit through 
 Molesworth's emotions. " And, mind you, if I had 
 the luck to get the right kind of woman, it'd be worth 
 trying. The kind of woman, I mean, who would 
 give me a leg up. That's what I want, — real good 
 woman to keep me on the straight. Woman, — you 
 understand, — who really is a woman, who — well, 
 hang it, you know what I mean." 
 
 " A real genuine womanly woman." 
 
 *' Yes. That's it. Womanly woman. Clever 
 chap, you are, Raynes. Always knew you were a 
 clever chap. Hit it exactly. Womanly woman. 
 Jus' what I meant." 
 
 " And by a womanly woman you mean one who 
 has a great deal of motherly feeling, don't you? A 
 woman who'd have the gentle guiding hand . . .? " 
 
 " Yes, that's it." Molesworth's ecstasy quick- 
 ened. " Gentle guiding hand. 'Xac'ly. That's
 
 324 The Buffoon 
 
 what I want. 'Xac'ly what I want. Kind of 
 woman v/ho wouldn't preach; keep you straight 
 without your knowin' it, y' know. Jus' because she's 
 so — because she's so — " 
 
 " Good and sweet and pure herself. What? " 
 " That's it. Damn it all, makes one feel a bit of 
 a fool puttin' it into words, bit of a hypocritical ass. 
 But, hang it, even if one is a bit of a bad egg now 
 and again, that's no reason why one shouldn't — 
 er— " 
 
 " Cherish one's ideals. Why not? " 
 
 " Right you are. Right you are. Some good in 
 all of us, eh? We may be rotters, but that doesn't 
 say we don't know what's better, does it? " 
 
 " ' We are all of us in the gutter,' " Edward 
 quoted with high sententious pathos, " ' but some of 
 us are looking at the stars.' " 
 
 " By Jove, that's fine, — splendid. ' All of us 
 lookin' at the stars ' — no, what is it? ' In the gut- 
 ter, but — ' How does it go, eh? " 
 
 Edward repeated the quotation. Molesworth 
 was silent for awhile, absorbing the spiritual beauty 
 of the idea. 
 
 " Good as a sermon," he said at last. " Wonder- 
 ful idea. That's the way I often feel. Never could 
 have put it like that, though. Wonderful, the way 
 some chaps — wonderful — ' In the gutter, lookin' at 
 the stars.' " 
 
 " Looking at one star," Edward gently corrected. 
 " The star of your ideal woman, the woman who
 
 The Buffoon 325 
 
 would want you all to herself, — so much to herself 
 that she'd be jealous of your vices. The woman 
 who'd be ready to forgive your lapses in order to 
 strengthen her hold over you, to establish her posi- 
 tion of superiority. The moral tyrant, the emo- 
 tional egotist, — yes, yes, I know." 
 
 " Strengthen . . . ready to forgive . . ." mur- 
 mured Molesworth, who was now lapping up a 
 brandy-and-soda. " Ready to forgive. — Yes, 
 'swhat we all need, to be forgiven. Forgive us our 
 — hie — treshpasses. That's religion, isn't it? By 
 Jimminy, Raynes," — he spoke excitedly, struck by 
 an unexpected thought, a thought of flaming original- 
 ity, — " why, religion and love have a damn lot in 
 common, haven't they? Don't know how to 'xpresh 
 it, — but a feller likes to feel there's some one who'll 
 forgive him, don't he? Likes to feel that every- 
 thing can be sort of wiped out, eh? " 
 
 *' Human nature, my dear fellow, human nature." 
 " That's it. And, y' know," — Molesworth was 
 rapidly approaching his most communicative stage, — 
 " a chap who knows he's a bad egg, and has the 
 decency to be a bit sick about it, and sort o' wants 
 to blot his book, and be a different sort o' chap, — 
 you understand what I mean, — well, he isn' really 
 such a bad egg after all, is he, — what? It's the 
 feller who's content with bein' a rotter and makes out 
 that it's all right bein' a rotter, he's the real wrong 
 'un. What do you think? Those blackguards who 
 go on about free love, talk against marriage and the
 
 326 The Buffoon 
 
 Church, and all that sort o' thing. They ought to 
 be well flogged, the hounds, the whole lot of 
 em. . . . 
 
 " Of course. We can wink at the natural in- 
 firmities of sinful doers, but sinful talkers put our 
 moral backs up. Perfectly natural. When we want 
 to relapse on the need of forgiveness, it's simply ex- 
 asperating of people to go and argue that we've 
 nothing to be forgiven for. Your point of view is 
 eternally popular, Molesworth. All our parsons 
 and most of our novelists would starve if it weren't. 
 It makes everything so beautifully easy; it saves so 
 much trouble for the mind. Delightful ! " 
 
 " Look here ! " Molesworth was as near feeling 
 uneasy as he could be in that stage of intoxication. 
 " You're not one of those beastly cynical fellers, 
 Raynes, now, are you? No good in anything, and 
 all that sort of tosh, eh? " 
 
 " Well, I'm going to be married. That doesn't 
 look like cynicism, does it? " 
 
 " Goin' to be married! By Jove, though, are 
 you? Congratulate you, old chap, — congratulate 
 you heartily! Good luck! Chin-chin!" He 
 raised his glass. "Goin' to be married! Must 
 have another drink on the strength of it. Well, 
 I'm damned! Never thought you were a marryin' 
 kind of a chap, — don't know why, — but somehow 
 — I say, sorry I rotted you about goin' to Westbeach 
 and girls and all that. Must really 'pologise.
 
 The Buffoon 327 
 
 Didn't know, of course. — B. & S. ? Is yours a 
 B. & S.?" 
 
 Edward nodded. " Never mind," he said. " Of 
 course you couldn't have guessed that I'd taken out 
 a patent of respectability. Going to be married 
 makes a lot of difference, of course. Being ac- 
 tually married makes more. Just look at those fel- 
 lows over in that corner. You could tell at a glance 
 that McBain and Vickers are married, and Moseley 
 and Greene and the other man bachelors, couldn't 
 you? McBain and Vickers have a sort of wary 
 look, haven't they, as though they'd learnt what to 
 do, and what not to do, what to say, and what not 
 to say, — as though they'd formed the habit of put- 
 ting everything that crops up into relation with some- 
 thing that is always there? " 
 
 " See what you mean. — Yes. — Well, here's 
 luck again." They both raised their glasses. 
 " Kind of a married look, — yes, that's true. 
 Damned good thing for most men, though, marriage, 
 — all the same. Wish I could — If only the right 
 girl came along and I wasn't so beastly hard up, — 
 well, can't be helped." 
 
 He drank again, and Edward looked at him, re- 
 garding with quickened interest this conventional 
 debauche, with his sentimental aspirations for moral 
 redemption. Edward had a sudden curiosity to see 
 how Eunice would react to Molesworth's type. 
 What would she make of him, how would her pose
 
 328 The Buffoon 
 
 adjust itself to that so very representative point of 
 view? 
 
 " Ah." Edward looked at his watch. " Missed 
 my train because I couldn't tear myself away from 
 you." He took a telegraph form and began writing 
 a wire to his mother in Westbeach. " Coming back 
 in two or three days. You're in London more or 
 less indefinitely, aren't you? Well, I want to intro- 
 duce you to my fiancee. Don't forget." 
 
 Molesworth made an anticipated remark, and Ed- 
 ward went.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 ON the journey to Westbeach Edward lapsed 
 again to coma. He was exhausted, drained. 
 He found himself regarding his mind as an 
 empty field, a denuded patch of ground, a site laid 
 completely bare. The lavatory door opposite his 
 corner seat was inscribed " Vacant " : Edward 
 looked steadily at the word for some minutes. " ' Va- 
 cant,' " he murmured at last. " ' Vacant.' How 
 happily put. Yes, that is exactly it." He saw him- 
 self in the mirror: yes, he was pale, for him; he was 
 rather drawn; he was physically drained, too, that 
 was evident. Those lines by his mouth were cer- 
 tainly more deeply cut than usual. He felt as though 
 he had had fever, and his temperature were now 
 rather below normal. The roof of his mouth was 
 cold. He had a curious sensation In his legs, as 
 though the bone had been sharpened. 
 
 He leaned back, opened his evening paper, and 
 began to read grotesque irrelevancles about politics. 
 The Irish crisis. . . . Once again he felt an Indif- 
 ferent and jaded wonder that human beings should 
 spend so much of their time and force running round 
 and round about main issues. Everywhere there 
 was energy without insight; that was the key, per- 
 haps, to the stupidities and cruelties of the world. 
 
 329
 
 330 The Buffoon 
 
 The further West you were, the more energy, the 
 less insight; the further East, the more insight, the 
 less energy: and superstitions everywhere, even 
 among the wisest. Most destructive of all were the 
 superstitions about women. . . . 
 
 He dropped the paper, and his brain automati- 
 cally formed an image of Eunice, a clear image, rav- 
 ishing him with its detail. He saw her listening 
 to him, with delicately contracted brows, and eyes 
 troubled under their wavering deep lashes: her 
 mouth was quivering very slightly under some im- 
 pulse of expectation, her cheeks coloured faintly with 
 an exquisite, uncomprehended shame. Edward fol- 
 lowed the virginal lines of her neck till they disap- 
 peared towards her imagined breasts: he followed 
 the swaying curves of her long slim figure, he 
 thought of what her slender flanks and epicene knees 
 must be, — sudden in his sight, how candid, how as- 
 tonishing, and touched by what dreams of ancient 
 ages ! He sighed heavily, he desperately desired 
 embraces. Would he ever enjoy them, such em- 
 braces as those? Embraces given in his own way, 
 without thought of what would come of them, with- 
 out thought of possible reactions in direction of loss 
 or gain, — embraces banished, in fact, from that eter- 
 nal arena of sex conflict, embraces freed from the 
 tyranny of the feminine sex-ego? Impossible, of 
 course. Civilised women could not deal in any pas- 
 sion so clear, so simple, so detached as that. Nor 
 could any woman brought up with the house of bond-
 
 The Buffoon 331 
 
 age in full view. Inheritors of that house they all 
 were, intimate on instinct with every chamber, every 
 passage in it. Well, they had their revenge : stupid 
 males paid a larger share of the account than they 
 did, after all. 
 
 Edward took out his pipe and cleaned it with spills 
 made from his journal. The effort worried him, he 
 laid the pipe on the seat. The further efforts of 
 fining and lighting were really too much. He closed 
 his eyes, Eunice's image presented itself again, he 
 thought of her as she was, as he would have her be. 
 Why could he not, he reflected angrily, be fooled as 
 lovers always were into that usual emotional coinci- 
 dent view of the ideal and the real? " I'm a rotten 
 lover!" Still, — he swore it, — he would go on: 
 wilful and seeing, he would go on.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 IT was about eight o'clock when Edward reached 
 Westbeach. His mother was at the station. 
 Edward was surprised to see her; he had quite 
 forgotten about his mother. Of course, though, she 
 would be at the station ; she would never let slip any 
 opportunity of displaying maternal devotion. Ed- 
 ward noted the look of absorption, thickly spread 
 over her face as she stood waiting, — waiting for 
 him, for her " dear boy," as no doubt she had been 
 saying to herself over and over again for the last 
 twenty minutes. The peculiar grossness of maternal 
 lust struck him suddenly. He had revolted from 
 it before, but it was with an enhanced fastidiousness 
 that he revolted now. 
 
 " Well, Mother," he said aloud, " It was good of 
 you to come to the station." And to himself: 
 " There is nothing really good in anything you do 
 for me; there is nothing but unintelligent, disgusting 
 self-indulgence." 
 
 She clasped his hand, kissed him, gave him a 
 greedy look. " My dear boy ! " she said; and again, 
 " My dear boy! " He had known she would say it. 
 He had known that her eyes would fill with tears. 
 How dreadful it was when people behaved so pre- 
 cisely in accordance with type. 
 
 332
 
 The Buffoon 333 
 
 " Why did you take that bag with you ? " he asked 
 her. " It must have been awkward to carry, espe- 
 cially as you have an umbrella as well." 
 
 "Oh. Yes, I'm afraid — I know it is rather 
 shabby, a poor shabby old thing, but I — " 
 
 " The point isn't whether it's shabby or not. I 
 asked why did you take it." Edward could not help 
 speaking with some asperity. These crooked an- 
 swers always annoyed him. His mother's face took 
 on that patient look he knew so well. 
 
 " I took it," she replied gently, with restrained re- 
 monstrance, " to bring some letters of yours that 
 came to-day. I thought you might like to have them 
 at once." She unfastened the bag and fumbled in it. 
 
 Edward looked away, and raised his stick in sig- 
 nal to a cabman. " Come along, Mother," he said, 
 " there's a cab ov^er there." She held out his letters 
 appealingly : they were tied carefully round with blue 
 ribbon. " I don't want them now," he told her. 
 " Why should I want to read them at the station? " 
 
 His mother put back the little packet, with a sub- 
 dued sigh of disappointment tempered by resignation. 
 Edward was momentarily ashamed of himself. Of 
 course any one would say he had behaved abom- 
 inably, and certainly he had behaved with extreme 
 rudeness, the kind of rudeness that is only possible in 
 family life. He might at least have taken the let- 
 ters and put them in his pocket without saying any- 
 thing, especially as it was the first time he had seen 
 his mother for two or three months. But he
 
 334 The Buffoon 
 
 couldn't have done that, he always had found it im- 
 possible to treat his mother anyhow except brutally 
 on such occasions as these. Brutality seemed in- 
 stinctively adopted for self-preservation. Edward 
 knew so exasperatingly well why his mother had tied 
 up those letters, why she had brought them to the 
 station in that cumbrous black bag: it was all done 
 to give herself the luxury of taking petty pains for 
 him. The unintelligence of it, the crude selfishness 
 of it, struck him with especially unpleasing force as 
 he walked with her to the cab. Surely his mother 
 must have known, at this time of day, that attentions 
 of that kind annoyed him by their pointlessness. 
 Did mothers learn nothing? She hadn't, of course, 
 done it deliberately to annoy; she really did think 
 now that she was abused; she enjoyed being abused, 
 she extracted a wretched satisfaction out of being 
 placed in a pathetic situation. Always the appeal! 
 Women would compass that, at whatever cost. Ed- 
 ward sat in the cab, reflecting moodily by his mother's 
 side. "The devoted mother! The undutiful 
 son! " He saw their reflections in the looking^ 
 glass. 
 
 "Have you had your dinner?" Mrs. Raynes 
 broke the silence. 
 
 It was so characteristic, Edward felt, it meant so 
 much, that putting in of the word " your." '' Your 
 dinner! " She couldn't have said, " Have you had 
 dinner?" as Molesworth, for example, would cer- 
 tainly have put it. No: it had to be his dinner, a
 
 The Buffoon 335 
 
 dinner jealously consecrated to his use, to the maw 
 of her son. Edward felt that he was messed up with 
 his dinner in a revolting way; he felt as though his 
 nose had been rubbed in it. It was a relief that he 
 hadn't dined. Would Eunice be making inquiries 
 about "your" dinner later on . . . ? Impossible! 
 That could never be endured. 
 
 " Is any telegraph-office open now? " he asked, in- 
 stead of answering his mother's question. 
 
 " No," she replied, with nervous promptness, 
 " not after eight o'clock. They are never open after 
 eight o'clock. — At least, not on Sundays." 
 
 " To-day isn't Sunday." 
 
 " And then they open from six to eight. And on 
 Sunday mornings they open up till ten. I mean the 
 main Office does. I think from eight to ten, but I 
 couldn't be quite sure." 
 
 She spoke breathlessly; she grew more nervous. 
 Edward remembered that a direct question, unex- 
 pectedly put, always scared her. Was it that she 
 suspected some alarming secret motive that had noth- 
 ing to do with the question at all? Her tone in re- 
 ply suggested an apprehension of ambuscades. Or 
 was it that she was afraid, somehow obliquely, of 
 giving herself away? Anyhow, she always an- 
 swered like this, again she was true to type : she al- 
 ways answered promptly, more or less unhelpfully, 
 and then trailed off into a mass of irrelevancies and 
 ambiguities. 
 
 " But, Mother, it isn't Sunday," Edward repeated,
 
 336 The Buffoon 
 
 Increasingly enraged with himself for his irritation. 
 
 " Not Sunday. Oh, no, of course it isn't Sunday. 
 I didn't mean, Edward, you know I didn't mean that 
 I thought it was Sunday. A week-day, of course; 
 Thursday. But I was afraid I had mixed up the 
 Sunday hours with the week-day ones. I do make 
 mistakes sometimes. I'm afraid I'm getting old," 
 she added appealingly. 
 
 That perpetual appeal! Everything resolved it- 
 self to that. And wasn't Eunice, Edward reflected, 
 in the same case? Wasn't she always concerned 
 with her appeal to him, never with what he thought 
 or said? Could it be that all women were confined 
 to this one subject of interest, to this thin special 
 egotism? Betty was different, though; Betty was 
 saved by the grossness of her hedonism; if she 
 wanted to appeal it was to get the pleasure that her 
 nature called for. That was quite right. And 
 Betty got what she wanted and was content. Other 
 women would dislike her for that. She had often 
 said that she was unpopular with girls. — Eunice, 
 on the other hand, — but it was useless to criticise 
 Eunice, because he had a powerful desire for her, an 
 increasing desire. With Betty he had reached the 
 end, no further revelation was possible, — there had 
 really never been any revelation except a revelation 
 of type; plenty of other girls could have given that, 
 in almost the same way, with just the same result. 
 Whereas, when he married Eunice, a thousand un- 
 expected things might happen: marriage would di-
 
 rhe Buffoo7i 337 
 
 vert, surely it would, the energy which now went to 
 enforce that cursed inevitable appeal . . . yes, when 
 she reached the goal to which the appeal was di- 
 rected . . . but could he be sure what that goal was? 
 Did it exist? Perhaps by this time it had disap- 
 peared altogether: perhaps the appeal by now had 
 grown to be permanently an end in itself. . . . 
 
 " I hope you aren't vexed about the Post Office, 
 dear," said his mother. 
 
 " Pm not vexed because you don't know when they 
 shut. Why should you have to know? What an- 
 noys me is that you don't say at once that you don't 
 know. Why do you say s«o many other things in- 
 stead? It's a waste of time." 
 
 Mrs. Raynes sighed as before. " Pm afraid 
 something must have happened to upset you," she 
 said, very sweetly. The cab stopped at her house, 
 and they got out. 
 
 "When does the main Telegraph Office close?" 
 Edward asked the cabman as he paid him. 
 
 " Eight o'clock, sir." 
 
 " I am so sorry," remarked Edward's mother as 
 they went in. " What a pity it is that you can't 
 send your telegram to-night," she added as he took 
 his gloves off in the hall; and as they walked upstairs 
 together she said that she did so hope the telegram 
 wasn't important. She rubbed it in; she was 
 really malicious in her quiet maternal way. 
 
 Edward was silent. " Of course," he thought, 
 " my telegram only affects her in relation to her own
 
 338 The Buffoon 
 
 field of play: only as it comes within the sphere of 
 her * maternal interest,' — that vicarious egotism 
 which makes her want every wish of mine to be grati- 
 fied, and gratified, if possible, through her, with 
 pains to her. The telegram was a piece in this game 
 of hers that I refused to play, so now she's using it, 
 still as a piece, in her other game of getting even 
 with me." He mused on the difference of the rela- 
 tions between mothers and sons and mothers and 
 daughters, as he washed his hands. On the whole 
 he thought that he preferred the freemasonry and 
 the antagonisms of the common sex.
 
 CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 THE gong sounded, Edward went down and 
 found his mother expectant of him in the 
 hall. 
 
 "You have something cold for me?" he asked. 
 
 *' Oh, Edward, we haven't had dinner. Of 
 course we put it off till you came." 
 
 " Why should you ? And who are ' we ' ? " 
 
 *' Your Aunt AmeHa is here. Didn't I tell you ? " 
 
 " Oh, perhaps you did." 
 
 *' But I don't suppose you trouble to read all my 
 poor old letters." 
 
 She gave her familiar sigh. It implied stressed 
 and wilful consciousness of an insignificance which 
 must of course be always ignored, was used to the 
 fate, and in patience and control blamed nobody for 
 it. Edward looked sharply at his mother, and re- 
 flected that Christianity did most harm of all to peo- 
 ple of her type. 
 
 " Well, I'd much rather you had dined at your 
 usual time. I hate having things put off for me. 
 And at any rate you shouldn't have made Aunt Amy 
 wait. Nearly half past eight now, and you generally 
 dine at seven." What irritated Edward was the pro- 
 motion, by tone, by look, of this putting off of din- 
 ner to the rank of a sacrificial act. 
 
 339
 
 340 The Buffoon 
 
 Aunt Amelia came downstairs. Edward greeted 
 her with pleasure. He was glad she was there to 
 relieve the tension of an evening with his mother. 
 The aunt was an old maid of nearly sixty, his 
 mother's younger sister, much more robust than she, 
 florid, energetic, heavily built, talkative, cheerful. 
 She -had been an Alpine climber, and cherished ex- 
 uberant sentiments for Switzerland and Tyrol. 
 Two very long engagements had enlivened her 
 maiden years: her first man had disgracefully jilted 
 her in favour of a pretty schoolgirl, — an event 
 which she had accepted with dignity and calm; her 
 second admirer had died of consumption. She was 
 between thirty and forty then, and abandoned with 
 brusque decision all further thoughts of marriage, de- 
 voting herself to the Alps with increasing enthusiasm. 
 She also painted landscapes in water-colour, and ad- 
 hered with vigour and resolution to the tenets of 
 the non-militant Suffragists. Edward could see her 
 character spread out before him like a map, with 
 every bay and promontory clearly marked, unmistak- 
 able, permanent. 
 
 " You're looking pulled down, Teddy," she said 
 quickly. " I always tell you you don't take enough 
 exercise." She was the only person who called him 
 " Teddy," and his mother resented the abbreviation 
 very much. 
 
 " Exercise ! I've been playing tennis and going 
 for terrific walks." 
 
 " Well, you're looking seedy."
 
 The Buffoon 341 
 
 *' I don't think so at all," said Mrs. Raynes In an 
 aggrieved tone. " Do let us come to dinner." 
 
 " I shall take you for a terrific walk to-morrow 
 morning along by the sea," Aunt Amelia declared 
 when they had settled themselves at the table. 
 
 " Perhaps he has some writing to do." 
 
 " Writing ! What kind of writing, Teddy ? Oh, 
 yes, you did try to write a novel or a play or some- 
 thing once, didn't you ? " 
 
 " He will write something worth reading one of 
 these days, you'll see." Mrs. Raynes was annoyed 
 by her sister's casual tone. " I thought perhaps he 
 had come home to be quiet for his work." 
 
 " No, I came home to tell you that I am engaged 
 to be married." 
 
 Mrs. Raynes turned pale, and Aunt Amelia's face 
 was the deepest tone of red. 
 
 "What!" she exclaimed In a loud voice. 
 " What ! How you spring It on us ! Well ! " 
 
 Mrs. Raynes looked at her reprovingly, then fixed 
 a passionate gaze on her son. Her little bright 
 hazel eyes filled with tears and her thin purple lips 
 quivered. "My dear boy!" she faltered. "My 
 dear boy." She laid down her soup-spoon. The 
 maid came back at that moment, and Edward quickly 
 changed the subject. 
 
 " You bring back my childhood to me surprisingly 
 vividly, Aunt Amy. You are exactly the same as 
 you were then. I look down and expect to see my- 
 self in knickerbockers. How very strange," he went
 
 342 The Buffoon 
 
 on, " that I can remember you when you were the 
 age I am now. I don't know that I hke that, — 
 altogether." 
 
 " I'm quite sure / don't like It! " his aunt laughed. 
 " I don't think you're very tactful." 
 
 " My dear Amy," said Mrs. Raynes, " we have 
 to get older." Her tone implied that it was the 
 Lord's will, and that there was something of an am- 
 biguously finer shade than satisfaction to be derived 
 from that. 
 
 " Do you remember," Edward continued his re- 
 trospect, " how I used to do gymnastics with your 
 Alpenstock?" 
 
 His mother grew restive at the approach of remi- 
 niscences that put the aunt in the foreground of Ed- 
 ward's experience. " You're still a young man, Ed- 
 ward. Every one under forty is young." She 
 pointed the observation. 
 
 Her son was amused in noticing how, Immediately 
 after displaying her preoccupations with her sister, 
 she recaptured that emotional faltering look evoked 
 by the announcement of his engagement. Ingrained 
 habit oscillated in sway with convention enforced for 
 the special occasion. Edward was reminded of an 
 uncle of his whom, as a small boy, he had observed 
 taking snuff In quite his usual manner at his wife's 
 funeral. 
 
 " Young! " Edward took a bone from his fish. 
 " Yes, but I want to lie in my bed in the nursery, and 
 watch the shadows from the firelight flickering all
 
 The Buffoon 343 
 
 about the room. Do you remember that enormous 
 fender, with its long thin iron rails ? Their shadows 
 were terrifying, fascinating: I shall never forget 
 them. No one could forget them. — Fhckering 
 shadows from the fire — " His thoughts turned to 
 the Liverpool evening. What would his aunt think 
 of that kind of an escapade? What his mother 
 would think did not interest him. 
 
 Mrs. Raynes looked sentimentally at her son. 
 " I remember it all so well." She lowered her voice. 
 " That little room, — when you were a little, little 
 boy." 
 
 Edward frowned. He could imagine Eunice re- 
 plying in almost exactly the same way. 
 
 " Not such a little room," Aunt Amelia put in. 
 " It was one of the largest rooms in the house." 
 
 " I remember my grandfather coming in on New 
 Year's Eve, and waking me up and giving me a new 
 half-crown. ' Here's good luck for 1887,' he said, 
 and I wondered what 1887 might be. It meant 
 nothing whatever to me, except that it was a sort of 
 mystical abracadabra, and appealed to my imagina- 
 tion. You are very like grandfather." Edward 
 turned to his aunt. " In looks, I mean." 
 
 *' So are you," Aunt Amelia replied. 
 
 Mrs. Raynes bridled. " I don't think so at all," 
 she said, peevish and on her dignity at the same time. 
 " He is like his father." 
 
 " Well, he enjoys life like his grandfather. He 
 has the same sanguine temperament."
 
 344 T^he Buffoon 
 
 " I believe, you know," Edward could not resist 
 saying this, " that most people would take you for 
 my mother, Aunt Amy." 
 
 " Come, tell us about your engagement," his aunt 
 interrupted hurriedly. The maid had left them 
 again. Edward's mother looked up, in wan devo- 
 tion, with an attenuated smile. 
 
 " Her name is Eunice Dinwiddle," Edward in- 
 formed them. " An American, living in London. 
 Age, I think, twenty-six or twenty-seven. She is un- 
 usually tall, unusually slender, hair rather light- 
 brown, grey-green eyes, complexion rather pale, fea- 
 tures that you'd call characteristic, unmistakable, 
 modelling very clear and sharply defined. Tend- 
 ency to the Greek, but the nose a shade undersize 
 for the rest. However the curves of her cheeks 
 are — well, they are remarkable, — subtle and deli- 
 cate, — the curves of her neck, too. Her mouth is 
 beyond criticism, neither too small nor too large; 
 really, speaking soberly, it is perfect. And so is her 
 figure. I have never seen any one so graceful and 
 so tall." 
 
 " I like the way you describe her." Aunt Amelia 
 had been regarding him closely. 
 
 " Oh, I am sure she must be a very sweet girl," 
 his mother said timidly, and Edward's soul blushed. 
 " We must have a long, long talk about her very 
 soon." She looked significantly at him. Again the 
 thrust for Aunt Amy! 
 
 But after all this was nothing. Edward remem-
 
 The Buffoon 345 
 
 bered how his mother behaved with another aunt, a 
 widow, his father's sister. This lady was apt for 
 intrigues of nagging, she pricked incessantly under 
 cover, she sparred with mean covert claws, yet man- 
 aged to " keep her end up " as an amiable sweet crea- 
 ture all the time. Edward was sure that her little 
 ways had killed her husband; he could not imagine 
 any man living on with her. But his mother derived 
 actual satisfaction from those encounters, there was 
 no doubt of it. How clearly he recalled their odi- 
 ousness, and his own disgust! If only elders knew 
 how mercilessly critical children are ! As a boy Ed- 
 ward had attended to these recurrent interchanges 
 of female malice, he had noted the methods of fe- 
 male antagonisms, it had been brought home to him 
 that here were unpleasant animals of a race different 
 from his own. Those endless small disputes, the 
 subjects of which were never either clearly defined 
 or of any importance, defined or not; those perpetual 
 wilful, or if not wilful, incredibly unintelligent mis- 
 understandings; that equally perpetual reduction of 
 any matter to the crudest personal level; that expo- 
 sure of feelings as of boils, that exasperating inability 
 to connect facts or draw conclusions, that damnable 
 reference, at every conceivable point, to some fixed 
 convention. ..." They are not decent," he said 
 to himself, " women are not decent." All the fault 
 of men's selfishness and men's lust, no doubt, but, 
 good Lord ! to think that women would be cured by 
 the vote, by " an unimportant reform in an obsolete
 
 346 The Buffoon 
 
 political system." Could they be cured? Edward 
 glanced at his mother. " Mrs. William Raynes, 
 eternally damned," he thought. 
 
 " You are lost," said Aunt Amelia suddenly. 
 "What are you thinking about?" 
 
 Mrs. Raynes looked vexed by a question that she 
 liked to consider tactless and inconsiderate. " We 
 can guess, my dear," she remarked, " where his 
 thoughts are now." She paused wistfully, and 
 sighed. 
 
 " Of course you can guess. They are with Abra- 
 ham Lincoln." 
 
 "My dear boy!" 
 
 " Abraham Lincoln! " echoed Aunt Amelia. " I 
 haven't thought of him since I was at school." 
 
 " The main concern," said Edward solemnly, " is 
 to turn women into decent creatures. If I could 
 do this by giving them all the vote, I would do it. 
 If I could do this by keeping them all without a vote, 
 I would do it. If I could do this by giving some of 
 them the vote and not others, I would also do that. 
 ' But, good Lord,' I hear my friend Jack Welsh say- 
 ing, ' do you want them to be decent? I don't. A 
 great mistake, my dear friend, a great mistake.' 
 And he may be right, — he may be right." 
 
 " But what has all that got to do with Abraham 
 Lincoln? " asked his aunt. 
 
 " Oh, nothing much. That was only my silly tom- 
 foolery. I am an unaccountable ass sometimes. 
 Aunt Amy, — generally, in fact. It partly comes of
 
 rhe Buffoon 347 
 
 having been to Cambridge. Oxford men have the 
 art of being frivolous and wise at the same time. 
 We never really attain to that." 
 
 Edward's mother was looking at him steadfastly: 
 she seemed rather alarmed. " ' Decent! ' " she ex- 
 claimed. " My dear, I don't know, — I can't think 
 what you mean. I'm sure — well, I mean I hope — 
 You haven't heard about that dreadful girl in your 
 village, Edward, have you?" 
 
 "What?" Edward started. "I didn't know 
 there was any dreadful girl at Chesney. How very 
 unobservant I am." He glanced at Aunt Amelia, 
 who went on eating her chicken. 
 
 " Oh, yes." His mother flushed with excitement, 
 and began to speak with nervous rapidity. " A 
 really terrible affair, it is. Such respectable people, 
 her father and mother. You know them, of course, 
 — the Weekeses." 
 
 "What really! Little Norah — how surpris- 
 Ing." 
 
 " Oh, she has behaved in the most wicked way. 
 I was very much upset, very indignant. At her 
 age — she can't be much more than seventeen, — a 
 mere child. Such dreadful precocity! And when 
 she had such a good home. I did think, when I was 
 with you last year, that her mother didn't look after 
 her quite carefully enough; perhaps she didn't real- 
 ise that she was a grown girl. And her father, of 
 course, — a most unpractical man, who never no- 
 ticed anything. But all that would have put any
 
 348 The Buffoon 
 
 nice girl on her honour, — all the more. — Yes, it's 
 quite true what you say, Edward, some girls are not 
 decent. I don't like to say it, of cour-se, but they 
 really aren't. To think of all the shame and wretch- 
 edness that abominable little creature has brought 
 on her poor parents, and she's their only daughter; 
 as your dear father said, — I remember it so well his 
 saying this, it was when there was a terrible scandal 
 in the parish, just before you were born, — I remem- 
 ber it so well, — ' It's the unpardonable sin,' he 
 said, ' it's the one unpardonable sin.' He wasn't 
 himself for days and days, it affected him so. He 
 was quite grave and sad, and you've often heard me 
 say how bright he always was, and how fond of his 
 jokes. ' Such a bad example for all the girls and 
 boys in the parish,' he said, and I'm sure this is just 
 the same. It was the Vicar's wife who wrote to me 
 about it; naturally she and Mr. Hewson are very 
 much distressed." 
 
 " I wonder Mrs. Hewson should write spreading 
 the scandal abroad, then." 
 
 " Yes, a fearful scandal, of course it is that. The 
 worst of all scandals. I answered Mrs. Hewson's 
 letter at once — " 
 
 "What exactly has Norah done?" Edward in- 
 terrupted impatiently. 
 
 " I sympathised with her very deeply, of course.'* 
 
 "What, with Norah?" 
 
 " Edward ! Of course not. With Mrs. Hew-
 
 The Buffoon 349 
 
 son." Mrs. Raynes looked vexed, and Edward de- 
 tected an improper gleam in his aunt's eye. " Poor 
 Mrs. Hewson ! It is so trying and so embarrassing 
 for her, and for her husband the Vicar." 
 
 " Had he anything to do with it all? " 
 
 " Anything to do with it? I don't know what you 
 mean, Edward. He's the spiritual head of the — " 
 
 " Well, well. — What was Norah's crime, to be 
 precise? " 
 
 " I tried to put everything as tactfully as possible 
 in my letter to Mrs. Hewson. I wished you had 
 been here, Edward, to have helped me. It was only 
 a few days ago that I wrote — " 
 
 " Ah. I was probably in Liverpool." 
 
 " Of course I could understand her feelings ex- 
 actly, as she knew, having been a Vicar's wife my- 
 self, and having met with the same experience, — I 
 mean, having had the same dreadful disturbance in 
 our own parish. It was a country parish, too, very 
 much the same size as Chesney — " 
 
 " Yes, but I'm not interested in Mrs. Hewson and 
 her feelings. I've no doubt she thoroughly enjoyed 
 the excitement and novelty of the affair, but what 
 does that matter? " 
 
 " Edward, I can't think how you can take such a 
 distorted view. Poor Mrs. Hewson ! " 
 
 " But how about poor Norah? " 
 
 " She went off with a man, and nobody knows 
 where she is." Aunt Amelia answered him.
 
 350 The Buffoon 
 
 " Oh. Well, she may be married. Anyhow, 
 whether she's to be pitied or not depends on the man. 
 Who is he? Does anybody know? " 
 
 " Nobody knows," said Mrs. Raynes impressively. 
 " It's so nice-minded of you, Edward," she added, 
 " to think that she may be married, but — " 
 
 The maid came back, and the conversation 
 was resumed at dessert. Edward was the first to 
 speak. 
 
 " Any of the Chesney residents suspiciously miss- 
 ing? " he asked, and " By Jove," he went on, " it's 
 just occurred to me, Vm missing. I wonder if they 
 suspect me. No doubt that was why Mrs. Hewson 
 wrote to you. Had you any uneasy feelings about 
 me. Mother, in that connection? " 
 
 " Don't say such things, Edward. Of course I 
 know you're only joking, but you know I'd rather you 
 didn't, — not about anything like this." 
 
 " But Norah is a very attractive girl. I'm a 
 human creature, after all. I might have had an in- 
 fatuation — " 
 
 " Oh, Edward ! A girl of that class, — and that 
 character, — and in your own village, where we know 
 the Vicar! And you your father's son! No, you 
 could never — you know you couldn't. — I won't 
 think of such a dreadful thing." 
 
 " But if it had only been my running away with 
 her that made her character bad, I shouldn't have 
 been the one to criticise her. That's obvious. And 
 knowing Vicars doesn't stop infatuations."
 
 The Buffoon 351 
 
 "Such a dreadful affair! I told Mrs. Hew- 
 son— " 
 
 "Well, is any one suspected? Is there ground 
 for suspicion of any particular person? " 
 
 " Mrs. Hewson spoke of one of the girl's father's 
 men, who had lately been dismissed." Aunt Amelia 
 was again informative. 
 
 "I don't believe it! I know the fellow she 
 means." 
 
 Mrs. Raynes reverted to expatiations on the 
 Vicarage point of view, the suffering and shame of 
 Norah's parents, the unpardonableness of Norah. 
 " She'll find out soon enough," she said with pious 
 malignity, " what it means to be so wicked. Well, 
 she'll be a warning to others." Edward again in- 
 sisted that Norah's future depended almost entirely 
 on the man who had taken her, but this standpoint 
 was evidently so foreign and perverse to his mother 
 that he abandoned enlargement upon it. " She must 
 end badly, of course she must," Mrs. Raynes re- 
 peated. 
 
 " Well, Mother, let's hope he'll treat her abom- 
 inably, so that you may be satisfied." Edward 
 left it at that, and his mother observed that the man, 
 whoever he was, must be a scoundrel.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI 
 
 THE depressing influence of his mother's 
 menage attended Edward. After dinner he 
 very soon and rather precipitately escaped 
 from the drawing-room on the plea that he was tired 
 and should go to bed early. He felt he could not 
 bear to wait for the moment when Aunt Amelia 
 would tactfully withdraw so as to leave him to his 
 mother. " And now we are alone together," he 
 could hear his mother's subdued, voracious tone; 
 " now we are alone, I know you will tell me all about 
 it." And she would have looked expectantly up, 
 with that " happy in your happiness " expression that 
 he loathed. She might have added: " But I do so 
 wish — I think, Edward dear, you might have told 
 me first, — when we were by ourselves." He could 
 not stomach that kind of thing to-night, so he es- 
 caped, leaving Mrs. Raynes on the verge of tears, 
 so bitterly had he cheated her expectant emotions. 
 They were on tiptoe about his private door, these 
 emotions, with upraised, thin, pathetic hands, suitably 
 tremulous; he could see them, petty eavesdroppers, 
 attenuated by female hypocrisies about themselves 
 and everything else. 
 
 " They are not decent," Edward repeated to him- 
 
 352
 
 The Buffoon 353 
 
 self, as he sat on his bed, " women are not decent. 
 And I'm damned," he went on, " if I take Eunice 
 and expose her to my mother." His mother would 
 be antagonistic to her, of course; was already an- 
 tangonistic, — easy to tell that from her eyes.— 
 That derogatory tendency of all women towards the 
 conquerors of their sons ! And how they redreamed 
 their own animalisms on the occasions that these en- 
 counters with daughters-in-law provided, being drawn 
 all the time in another direction by malicious delight 
 that their male should be gratified at the expense of 
 another woman ! Was it, Edward wondered, be- 
 cause of this intrusion of malice that he resented the 
 animalism? He thought not, he thought that it was 
 because, in the case contemplated, the animalism 
 would be to some extent, to a quite discreet and con- 
 ventional extent, stirred towards him. Yes, the idea 
 of that legitimized and covert and sentimentalized 
 incestuous flair was what really repelled. 
 
 Edward realised, too, that every emotion of his 
 mother's, every look or remark or movement of hers 
 that revealed or failed to reveal, or disguised or 
 failed to disguise her emotion, would be damnably 
 and expectedly in tone with all those little environing 
 things that he found at that moment so specially un- 
 pardonable. Yes, in tone from the first, and continu- 
 ing to be in tone; conditioned, in fact, by every fa- 
 miliar detail of his mother's existence. She would 
 bring, he felt, the whole weight of her menage to 
 bear upon his relation to Eunice, and Eunice's re-
 
 354 The Buffoon 
 
 lation to him. Edward thought of the way his 
 mother treated her servants, of that constant pro- 
 trusion of the conventional kindness of mistress to 
 maid, of that constant undercurrent of femininity in 
 self-assertion on either side, in the determination on 
 either side not to be " put upon." They sparred to- 
 gether, his mother and her girls, they were always 
 sparring; yet always under the shadow of the con- 
 vention of the devoted servant and the considerate 
 lady of the house. His mother established that con- 
 vention at once, she broke each new maid into it: 
 it was extraordinary how readily these female crea- 
 tures all lent themselves to iDeing broken in, that 
 way. 
 
 Then there were the callers, the people who came 
 to tea, the people who sometimes dropped in in the 
 morning. When Edward thought of his mother and 
 her menage he thought of them. They came into it 
 all, they played their part; they exercised the conven- 
 tions; his mother dealt with them, and they dealt 
 with her, exactly according to expectation based on 
 everything else that his mother and they were known 
 to do. They were all flying, at every point in their 
 progress, under the same false colours, with the same 
 ends proper to folly and vanity in view, and the 
 same circuitous accepted methods of getting to them. 
 He recalled an observation of Welsh's. So different 
 a person as a drunken old Colonel of his Cambridge 
 acquaintance had made it, too. " But, my dear boy, 
 have you ever heard them," — the liquorish blue eye
 
 The Buffoon 355 
 
 had rolled, — " have you ever heard them talking — 
 talking together? My Lord ! " 
 
 How tiresome, to say the least, that all this should 
 go on, that it should flow round and about, and that 
 one's feet must be sopped in it! Edward had a hor- 
 rible sense of the inevitable mimicry in life: the con- 
 sciousness that there were all over the world millions 
 upon millions of other menages exactly like his 
 mother's oppressed him, weighted him down. He 
 passionately demanded revolution, at whatever cost. 
 
 But he demanded Eunice with equal passion. She 
 might " let him in for " dozens and scores of things 
 that he recognised with ruthless certitude as detest- 
 able, but still he demanded her. However, he 
 might as well, it seemed, recognise that she was quite 
 as feminine as his mother, that sex made them in- 
 alienably alike. Yes, his mother reminded him of 
 Eunice, she had a great deal that was essential in 
 Eunice's ways, he saw in her Eunice's turns and tricks, 
 all tragically aged and bent and creaking. For Mrs. 
 Raynes had in full measure that curious Inability, 
 partly wilful, partly instinctive, of women to recog- 
 nise their own age; she went on seeing herself as a 
 girl, as a romantic figure, delicate and interesting; 
 she had her anticipated touches of coquetry with 
 never a thought that they were misplaced. And, 
 most of all like Eunice, she went full canter for sex 
 appeal when her inteUigence failed; bluffed with just 
 that same professional address in evocation of touch- 
 ing irrelevancies, when she didn't understand.
 
 356 The Buffoon 
 
 It seemed to Edward that he was positively 
 haunted by Woman : her sex had never presented it- 
 self to him as so opaque a thing. He could have re- 
 bounded to the cloister or the brothel or anywhere 
 else sufficiently remote from the hearth. But yet he 
 knew he could not, he knew that in either cloister or 
 brothel he would be starved and unhappy. He 
 could understand well enough Jack Welsh's point of 
 view of Ethelle and her kind as being drained of sex, 
 converted to animals neither male nor female ; but 
 how was he helped by that when he had no taste for 
 that kind of a creature? There was no bait for him 
 there. No, the only thing he could do was to try to 
 take what was his bait while escaping the closed 
 jaws of the trap.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII 
 
 EDWARD slipped out of the house next morn- 
 ing after breakfast and walked by the beach. 
 The day was sunny and fresh; very soon he 
 began to feel buoyant, reinvigorated. Memories of 
 old buffooneries came to him, memories of Cam- 
 bridge and skylarkings : he was struck by the sense 
 of Cambridge that the word " skylarking " conveyed, 
 a word so emphatically light-blue as that ! If Oliver 
 Cromwell had been at Oxford, he would never have 
 snatched his son-in-law's wig, made as though to 
 throw it in the fire and then sat upon it; or strewed 
 with sticky comfits the seats where the ladies were 
 to sit at his daughter's wedding. Edward was filled 
 with a desire to do something absurd, and at the same 
 time annoyed by the reflection that he would not 
 have thought about it but simply have done it, ten 
 or fifteen years ago. There would have been no 
 reminiscence of Oliver Cromwell then. It occurred 
 to him that he might send fantastic telegrams to 
 Eunice, but what would be the point of that if he 
 realised them as fantastic? And he knew exactly 
 how she would allude to them when they met. She 
 would caress his forehead, gently and timidly, and 
 murmur: "Great boy that you are!" He was 
 
 357
 
 358 The Buffoon 
 
 horribly sure that this was what she would do, and 
 he was glad that he had not been able to telegraph 
 the night before : " We must never keep house," or 
 " Forget everything you have ever read about being 
 maternal." 
 
 Breakfast with his mother and aunt had been quite 
 as trying as he had expected. He had been fretted 
 all the while between Mrs. Raynes's disinclination to 
 permit the starting of any topic of abstract interest, 
 and Aunt Amelia's consciously eager willingness to 
 talk in a thoroughly modern and intelligent way 
 about anything that might come up. When he had 
 asked his mother : " What do you think of mar- 
 riage? " she had fluttered her eyelids and trembled 
 in romantic embarrassment on her " My dear boy, — 
 think — think — of marriage?" the question being 
 obviously as strange and incomprehensible to her as 
 an inquiry concerning her opinion on the shape of the 
 earth: for the orange-shaped earth was there for 
 her, as marriage was, a fact and not a subject for dis- 
 cussion. But Aunt Amelia, when she heard mar- 
 riage mentioned, shot out at once to take up her posi- 
 tion on the little neat mound of her point of view. 
 Marriage, to her, was allied with the Women's Prop- 
 erty Act, with Majority and Minority Reports, with 
 arguments for sex equality and the extension of the 
 grounds of divorce, with American experiments, with 
 problems concerning the children, with the opinions 
 of Mr. Bernard Shaw and Mr. H. G. Wells, with 
 commonsense compromises and the attitude of the
 
 The Buffoon 359 
 
 Non-Militant Women's Franchise League, with mod- 
 ern methods for education of girls. 
 
 *' After all," she had said cheerfully, " it is only 
 the fools that marriage hits hard, as a rule. We 
 must teach our girls. Of course the marriage laws 
 aren't all they should be. I would certainly allow 
 divorce for insanity or serious crime, — but to allow 
 it on mutual consent! We should get into a worse 
 tangle than ever. And some would allow it at the 
 will of one only of the parties! Just imagine what 
 dreadful confusion." 
 
 Edward felt profoundly dissatisfied with Aunt 
 Amelia as he walked by the beach. He began to 
 regard her and his mother as counterirritants. 
 What application for his profit could the one make 
 more than the other? This talk of marriage laws! 
 As if laws made any difference ! Laws couldn't 
 change the personal relations of women to men, how- 
 ever closely or loosely they might bind married 
 couples together. No, his matter was much further 
 down than all that came to, he was concerned with 
 the inherent incompatibility of males and females 
 as such, an incompatibility of extreme importance in 
 face of the imperious need that would keep bringing 
 the sexes together. 
 
 He reflected upon Aunt Amelia's appeal to edu- 
 cation, the appeal of the age, an appeal made al- 
 ways by imperfectly educated people. He, too, had 
 thought of education. Perhaps in the long run it 
 might be possible to educate women out of their
 
 360 The Buffoon 
 
 mania for creating and cultivating the horrors of 
 domestic and social life. But Edward, especially 
 at that moment, lived for his own near future, not 
 for the future of other people far ahead. Nor had 
 he ever inclined towards membership of that labour- 
 ing band, striving, so we are told, with eyes fixed 
 on the front of morn, raised to heights above the 
 hills; eager to shed blood that may beat in the hearts 
 of posterity. Edward had always felt that it was 
 the egoists and individualists who were of most use 
 to future generations, that posterity was as a rule 
 merely inconvenienced by the uncomfortable efforts 
 of its grandfather saviours. He objected to the 
 creation of this atmosphere of self-denial as strongly 
 as he objected to Christianity, and he was sure that 
 the existence of the tradition involved would be 
 found insufferable by any posterity that was not in- 
 sufferable itself. However, Aunt Amelia and her 
 kind, with their professions that sowing for others 
 to reap was the most engaging occupation in the 
 world, were not themselves prone to any form of 
 self-denial: they talked and acted as they did for 
 simple flattery of self-esteem, and because they were 
 at the same time energetic and unemployed. So 
 they were tiresome and insincere, and, confound it, 
 there seemed to be more of them every day, all say- 
 ing the same things and saying them with even the 
 same intonation. 
 
 Edward himself had had casual acquaintance with 
 the itch of his period; he had been lightly impressed
 
 The Buffoon 361 
 
 by the Imbecilities of social arrangements, lightly 
 occupied with ideas of reform. But he had consist- 
 ently used his social Impressions for his amusement. 
 What had he to do with public affairs ? 
 
 So now he dismissed impatiently theories of mar- 
 riage and education, he began to think once more of 
 what he should do under pressure of circumstances 
 seen and felt, of how he could keep Eunice without 
 being stifled by her sex and all Its inevitable appa- 
 nages. He felt absolute confidence in his own power 
 to deal with whatever clumsy obstacles the law might 
 put in his way: the law did not give him a moment's 
 uneasiness; he would have married under strictest 
 Catholic obligation without a qualm. What he did 
 apprehend was the peculiar slave-power of women, 
 the power that worked in the twilight and under 
 cover of ambuscades. 
 
 Edward's attention was drawn to a shouting group 
 of children, a girl of about twelve, a couple of little 
 boys, and an older boy of fifteen or sixteen. The 
 little girl was evidently prov^oklng the youth to take 
 her in his arms. She displayed every symptom of 
 childish coquetry, she jumped and darted about round 
 the boy, laughing and panting and crying out, evad- 
 ing while wishing to be caught. At length she was 
 caught, she was lifted up and clutched, and imme- 
 diately she screamed and kicked. Edward had been 
 sure that she would do that, he had watched her, 
 fascinated by the sense of what must inevitably hap- 
 pen, and when it did happen he was filled with a sick-
 
 362 The Buffoon 
 
 ening disgust. It was exactly how this same child 
 would behave in four or five years' time so far as 
 the essence of the thing went. She would provoke, 
 and when her provocation had succeeded, she would 
 react in this same way. Not because she would be 
 too strongly sexed : no, the salvation of women would 
 lie In the strengthening of sex emotion in them, in a 
 strengthening by concentration that would leave it 
 clear and direct and cleanly cut, and give it the energy 
 to expend itself with a decent and economical des- 
 patch. But education! What would education do 
 for that child? What essential point would educa- 
 tion touch? 
 
 It might be, Edward reflected, as the girl's screams 
 subsided with her release, that most men liked this 
 thin ubiquitous sex smearing of their women, that 
 they had in fact demanded and so created it, as fod- 
 der for their own wispier sentiments, as a cheap 
 facile gratification for their superficial sense of con- 
 trasts. Well, if so, they paid; they had to suffer 
 nuisance after nuisance till the end of the chapter. 
 Edward felt a sudden grateful appreciation of Betty, 
 and then thought that perhaps after all it was simply 
 that Betty knew how to fool him. But he felt sure 
 that she at twelve years old would not have screamed 
 like that. Yes, girls like Betty gave much less trou- 
 ble. When he was with her, sex never, as now, 
 Altered through to mess up his consciousness. How 
 unfortunate, that other reaction of the Liverpool 
 night! It was puzzling and irritating that Betty
 
 rhe Buffoon 363 
 
 should no longer content him, that he should want 
 Eunice so much more. Would Eunice have 
 screamed? Again he felt impelled to telegraph in 
 inquiry, but she would not understand. He was 
 almost sure, too, that though she might not have 
 screamed she would have done something equivalent. 
 He flushed with agitation. " Marriage," he said 
 to himself; " marriage — Eunice." But he did not 
 say it in a questioning tone. The forces driving him 
 to marriage with Eunice became hourly stronger and 
 surer: that union seemed inexplicably inevitable. 
 
 The children had now scrambled into a boat, and 
 the older boy, having taken off his shoes and stock- 
 ings and rolled up his trousers, began pushing the 
 boat out. In a few moments he was standing nearly 
 thigh-deep in the water, he released his hold, keep- 
 ing his fingers on the rowlock. The girl at once 
 screamed again, she leaned forward and grasped the 
 youth convulsively round the neck. "All right!" 
 he cried, " hold on if you like." She wriggled and 
 gasped, then suddenly disengaged herself with a fran- 
 tic push which sent the boat drifting away. She re- 
 peated the scream, notifying her success in having 
 established a romantic situation. " Silly little fool ! " 
 the boy shouted. " I'm not going to get wet, any- 
 how." He calmly turned, walked out of the water, 
 and sat down on the beach to watch them. Edward 
 wanted to give him a shilling. " Good boy," he said 
 to himself, " I hope you'll say just that in a few years' 
 time, and keep on saying it. — If only we could
 
 364 The Buffoon 
 
 destroy chivalry! Perhaps that is the real remedy." 
 
 The boat continued to drift, and the girl, now 
 really alarmed, took an oar. She made an agitated 
 and futile display with it; she splashed herself, she 
 splashed the little boys, who sat sedately, regarding 
 her with wondering eyes; she struck herself sharply 
 across the knuckles, and howled. Then, turning 
 with a tear-stained grimace she shrieked: "Oh, 
 Percy ! do come and help ! " 
 
 Percy called her a fool again. " Put both oars 
 In," he shouted, " and pull them at the same time. 
 You know how to." 
 
 At last, after innumerable repeated directions on 
 his part, innumerable misunderstandings and inepti- 
 tudes on hers, the boat was brought to shore. The 
 girl alighted with much show of dependence upon 
 her Percy's assistance, got both feet wet in sacrifice 
 to pathos, and sat down on the sand, panting, silent, 
 and apparently subdued. The youth sat a few yards 
 from her, whistling as he dried his feet and put on 
 his stockings. The two little boys ran off to a bath- 
 ing-machine without sign that they had at all noted 
 the incident. 
 
 Edward lit a cigarette and walked away. It sur- 
 prised him that the more he thought of questions of 
 sex, of characteristics of sex, however perplexedly 
 and discontentedly and apprehensively, the more 
 strongly he was drawn, with a desire that really was 
 sick, towards Eunice.
 
 CHAPTER XXXV III 
 
 EDWARD left Westbeach that same evening. 
 " Poor boy," his mother had said, " you 
 are a little upset, — restless, — a little 
 strange. It is all so new to you. I hope — I do 
 hope — And when will you bring her? " she had 
 asked him. 
 
 Edward hesitated; then, "Oh, I will write. I 
 must see her first," he replied. It was easier to re- 
 ply in that way, so that no familiar fountains should 
 be unsealed. 
 
 His mother saw him off; she talked a great deal, 
 and she talked hastily, as though any silence might 
 give cover to unseemly thoughts or observations. 
 Edward was preoccupied, he hardly spoke. " My 
 luggage?" he said, looking round as he got into 
 the train. " Ah, yes, I have no luggage." " My 
 wife — I have no wife." The quotation came to 
 him. " Well," he went on, taking his mother's hand 
 and kissing her cheek, " good-bye. You mustn't 
 wait. No, please don't wait. — Oh, yes, I meant 
 to have told you. You were speaking of giving me 
 more of your money on my marriage. You mustn't 
 do that. It isn't at all necessary. Eunice has 
 money of her own. A fair amount, I believe." 
 
 365
 
 366 The Buffoon 
 
 " Oh." Mrs. Raynes was evidently very well 
 pleased. " That Is nice. Of course It makes no 
 real difference, and I know you think nothing about 
 It, but . . . oh, and I do so like your not having 
 told me till now ! That is so like you ! " 
 
 " Why? It was only that I didn't happen to think 
 of It." 
 
 " Yes, yes," she broke in delightedly, " that is 
 just what I mean! You didn't think of it! Of 
 course, dear, you wouldn't — " 
 
 " Yes, but I have thought of It. It was only that 
 I didn't happen to think of it when I was talking to 
 you. Of course it makes some difference, Eunice 
 having money of her own. Money makes a differ- 
 ence in marriage as in everything else. But for me 
 it Isn't the main point." 
 
 " No, — no." Mrs. Raynes dashed at the open- 
 ing. " Of course!^ 
 
 " Simply because I am pretty well off myself. We 
 should have enough if she hadn't a penny. — That's 
 all." 
 
 Edward's mother caressed his hand, and was os- 
 tentatiously silent. Her satisfaction in her son's 
 money had never failed her. She continued to think 
 of his financial credit as a moral credit, and the pros- 
 pect of its enhancement was, more than anything else 
 could be, delightful. Yet no one bristled more 
 freely with delicacies concerning money than she : 
 to talk of money openly, without circumlocution, was 
 to her quite as indecent as to talk In the same way of
 
 The Buffoon 367 
 
 unborn babes. Oblique and cautious allusions, un- 
 derstanding smiles and hints, were permissible in 
 the one case and the other, and nice people knew, of 
 course, just where to draw the line. Mrs. Raynes 
 was Intensely curious about the extent of Eunice's 
 fortune, but she could not possibly put any question 
 to such a point as that, and besides, as she reflected, 
 as Edward could feel her reflecting, her dear un- 
 worldly boy would be sure not to know, not to have 
 Inquired; he would have deprecated, with his native 
 delicacy, any tentative Information. Still, — " a fair 
 amount" — he had said "a fair amount." After 
 a pause she threw out a line. 
 
 " It Is very nice, Edward," she said, " I think it 
 is very nice for a wife to have just enough not to — 
 not, you know, to have to run to her husband for 
 everything." 
 
 " Oh, I don't know," he replied Indifl^erently, tak- 
 ing her remark as though it were of general appli- 
 cation. " She can always have an allowance." 
 
 " Yes, but It's rather better for her not to be quite 
 dependent. . . ." 
 
 " I suppose Aunt Amelia has been talking to you," 
 said Edward. " Well, they're waving the flag. 
 Good-bye. I'll write." 
 
 She pressed his hand with maternal significance, 
 and then drew back, regarding him in a wistful, de- 
 fenceless way. There she stood on the platform 
 till the train turned a corner. Edward stood un- 
 comfortably In his carriage; he leaned against the
 
 368 The Buffoon 
 
 window, after ascertaining that the door was securely 
 closed, and fluttered his fingers feebly at her. He 
 produced a strained smile. When she was out of 
 sight he sank upon the seat, exhausted and relieved. 
 Wondering why relations between mother and son 
 should be so painfully artificial, he took up the se- 
 rious monthly review which Mrs. Raynes had care- 
 fully bought for him, in tribute to his intellectual 
 powers.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX 
 
 WHEN Edward arrived at Jermyn Street 
 he found two letters, one from Welsh 
 and one from Tryers, Welsh began 
 by addressing him as a queer son of Chaos, and 
 told him that he now had need of all his meteoric 
 bolts. " The fat's in the fire ! " he wrote. " Reg- 
 gie has disgorged his poison. I knew it. I know 
 that curved and pointed tongue ! I know how those 
 little snake's teeth close and bite. But you will con- 
 quer: I fear for you no heel of Achilles. May 
 Hermes and Apollo speed you well ! Act — act at 
 once, you who are always triumphant in action. We 
 wait your Caesarean progress." 
 
 There was more. Welsh mentioned Atalanta, 
 Icarus, lago, Angelo, Caiaphas and others. But all 
 that the letter conveyed was that Tryers, with Mr. 
 Reeves's assistance, had told Eunice of Edward's 
 amours, and that Edward must therefore give a 
 dashing and immediate counterblow of conquest. 
 Welsh had written that morning, from O'Flaherty's. 
 
 Tryers' letter was also of that morning. It was 
 short : 
 
 " Dear Raynes: I write to apologise to you for 
 my action in speaking to Miss Dinwiddie about your 
 
 369
 
 370 The Buffoon 
 
 sexual tendencies. I thought It right to speak, but 
 have since come to the conclusion that I was not 
 justified, and therefore I ask you to accept my 
 apology. Yours sincerely, R. H. Tryers." 
 
 " What a cad ! " thought Edward. He crumpled 
 the letter up. How incomparably smug, this " frank 
 acknowledgment!" And how stark in indecency 
 was that phrase from Tryers' pen, " sexual tenden- 
 cies " ! It suggested a middle-aged clergyman, with 
 side-whiskers and heavy white chaps, peering round 
 corners on behalf of a Society. 
 
 Edward wrote in reply: " I have a distaste for 
 indecent people; so don't write to me or see me 
 again. — Edward Raynes." 
 
 There : he had put Tryers out of the way, at any 
 rate. Having dismissed him, he experienced a de- 
 sire to shock and tease and torment Eunice.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 EDWARD woke early the next morning, in 
 immediate exuberant spirits. The sun was 
 bright in his room, an enthusiastic sun, the 
 most enthusiastic, Edward felt, that the world had 
 to show him. He got out of bed at once. He was 
 very much interested, more interested than he had 
 been for months, and his face in the mirror was 
 astonishingly young. It gave him pleasure to re- 
 flect that when he had shaved he would look younger 
 still. Yes, — not a grey hair, no thinning at the 
 temples or on the crown of his head, and nothing 
 worse than unobtrusive wrinkles. Still, ten years, 
 five years ago, he would not have noticed that, would 
 not have looked out. "What matter?" he mur- 
 mured, and went to fill his bath. 
 
 Evidently new emotional experiences were good 
 for him, they renewed the senses of his youth. This 
 impact of Eunice was rejuvenating: he liked her for 
 that. Since he had seen her, he had been interested 
 all the time, interested though uncomfortable. Now 
 the interest remained, the discomfort had worn off. 
 Admirable ! Edward plunged his head under the 
 water, then plunged his body again, emerged with 
 great rapidity, began drying himself vehemently with 
 
 371
 
 372 The Buffoon 
 
 an enveloping rough towel. " I must live," he said 
 aloud. " I must go on living. And she's the fresh 
 earth for me to plant in, she's the sap of my tree ! " 
 He entertained himself by foreseeing in Eunice an 
 endless variety of experience; he predicted the 
 growth of infinite fresh shoots and grafts, foreseen 
 and unforeseen. So Tryers thought he could bar his 
 way. Good God, Tryers ! That twisted white 
 worm. 
 
 In his shirt-sleeves he wrote a telegram to Eunice, 
 asking her to meet him in Kensington Gardens at 
 noon, naming the spot. He did not wish to see her 
 again at that house of her cousins, in that made-up 
 room. The telegram was sent out, Edward break- 
 fasted, and then walked across the Park to the Na- 
 tional Gallery. It was still early, he had plenty of 
 time to look at those thirteenth and fourteenth cen- 
 tury Italian pictures. He would enjoy those Ma- 
 donnas with their fastidious hands and enigmatical 
 almond eyes, their look of emaciated yet not hag- 
 gard corruptness. " Ah," he thought when he got 
 to them, " that was the time. The time before Raph- 
 ael bounced in, with everything just in the right 
 proportion, with his ' curves of perfect beauty,' his 
 * grave full wonderful faces,' his compendium of 
 artistic qualities that it does us all so much good to 
 admire." Edward was having a good morning, he 
 had relished his breakfast, the sun was still bright, 
 and, to his particular mood, to his excellent health 
 gnd excellent spirits, the art of lean religious devo-
 
 rhe Buffoon 373 
 
 tion had a piquant appeal. " Siena would suit me 
 now," he reflected. " Sano di Pietro, — the Loren- 
 zettis. I would go from church to church: how I 
 should enjoy those Crucifixions and Massacres of 
 the Innocents! Of course they should turn those 
 early Italian rooms into churches. Why has nobody 
 thought of that? " 
 
 His attention was attracted by a couple of negroes, 
 a man and a woman. They were wandering about 
 on the other side of the room, looking grotesquely 
 out of place. Both were dressed prosperously. 
 The man carried a brown bowler hat in his hand, and 
 wore a neat, well-brushed, light brown suit; the 
 woman had on a bright yellow gown of light material 
 and a yellow hat with a high green feather. Ed- 
 ward took them in, as dressed up to be amusing. He 
 was pleased with them. Their thick-lipped open 
 mouths, their radiant teeth, their wide barbaric nos- 
 trils, their pose of extreme gravity and self-impor- 
 tance, their woolly, black, cocked-up heads, the gen- 
 eral exaggerated pungency of their appearance, and 
 the protruding incongruity of that appearance in this 
 place, all struck Edward as ludicrous and fantastic in 
 quite a lovely way. Now there was something that 
 those Futurist fellows really might get. Edward 
 interested himself further in reflecting that tempera- 
 mentally he was against all reform, against emanci- 
 pation of the lower races, against emancipation of 
 women, against emancipation of the poor, against 
 the abolition of privilege, against the stamping out
 
 374 The Buffoon 
 
 of the drink evil and all other evils ; against, In fact, 
 democracy and everything that was supposed to go 
 with democracy; while intellectually he was con- 
 verted at all points to the extreme progressive creed. 
 He left the National Gallery in better spirits than 
 ever, in the lightest, most gaily Sadistic mood Imagi- 
 nable, entirely ripe, he felt, for a delicate tormenting 
 of Eunice's fragile spirit. 
 
 After about half an hour in the Gardens he saw 
 her coming towards him, slim as ever, with those 
 same long curves, that same droop of the weighted 
 head. Yes, she had determined to look like a flower, 
 and she had succeeded. She chose her dresses most 
 happily: it was right that she should wear those 
 straight, close frocks, all of a piece, so consciously 
 simple. She was in pale green that morning, with 
 darker green at the neck and round about. Quite 
 right; entirely right. She drew back from him, she 
 moved one hand towards him, very slightly. 
 "Well?" she said, gazing. "Well?" and drew 
 back again. 
 
 Edward touched her arm. " Come with me," he 
 said. " And we will tell each other what we really 
 mean." 
 
 " Ah, but I — I could never do that. Could you 
 — really?" 
 
 " I can tell you what you mean, certainly. You 
 mean to be beautiful, to make the most of youjr 
 beauty, to give it the right setting. You mean to 
 say the things that will go well with it, to do the
 
 The Buffoon 375 
 
 things that will go well. You mean to be harmo- 
 nious as well as lovely. But you are too much 
 occupied with your intentions, and you are afraid of 
 failure. I am going to change that. You shall fail. 
 I shall see that you do fail ; you shan't escape humilia- 
 tion, I promise you." 
 
 " Can a flower fail because the wind breaks its 
 petals?" She flew to cover. Evoking an image 
 of something pathetic and lovely she tried to divert 
 him. 
 
 Edward hesitated a moment, uncertain whether 
 to take up her tone, — for the game was pretty, and 
 easy to play, — or whether to go on with the sport 
 of his own flicking finger. Of course, if he could 
 do what he wanted to, if he could flick her into pain 
 and change . . . but would that be ever possible? 
 She would be thinking that he was about a work of 
 salvation, as indeed he might be, but he hated the 
 idea of any such looming of moral issues. Could 
 she ever respond to his intention, could she ever be 
 in it as he wished her to be in It, could she under- 
 stand the essential importance of what he was to 
 get out of it, understand the close interrelation of 
 the importance to him with the importance to her? 
 He doubted horribly whether she would ever get fur- 
 ther than the very Victorian notion that he laboured 
 lovingly to raise and expand her spirit, with the end 
 in view of beautiful vague gains to both of them, — 
 to her through him, to him through her wrought 
 upon and perfected. He saw her drawing in the
 
 376 The Buffoon 
 
 sweets of the idea of his " building better than he 
 knew," he saw her playing prettily with tissue con- 
 ceptions of what she had come to be to him, and 
 through him, and he to her, through her. All the 
 old satin assonances! Whereas the truth was that 
 he aimed at a sport of souls, a sport that had to 
 be cruel as all sports worth their name are, a sport 
 as little as possible shadowed by motive, but coloured 
 provocatively and ambiguously with intimations of 
 all sorts of chance results. A sport entirely in Na- 
 ture's line. . . . 
 
 " Can you understand?" he said aloud. "With 
 your half-educated sophistications? " 
 
 Edward looked at her sharply as he spoke. He 
 saw, with a thrill of pleasure, that he had really hurt 
 her. Her eyes filled with tears. Yes, but how far 
 would that reaction go? Not far enough, he feared, 
 for him. But that bowed head ! Well, he would 
 wait; In the end, perhaps — For the present it 
 was exciting enough for her, looking as she did, to 
 be his. Her physical attraction would carry him 
 on. 
 
 " If you are saved," — he tried to strike the wound 
 a little deeper — " I can't help that. How dreadful 
 to be ' out for' salvation! I must introduce you," 
 he added reflectively, " to my friend Theocrite 
 Molesworth. You can save him. Then you will be 
 absolved forever from saving yourself. Or rather, 
 saving him you'll save yourself, — and all that. The 
 kind of thing we heard so much of the instant we
 
 The Buffoon 111 
 
 were out of our nurseries. I am sure you are still 
 a disciple of those Higher Ministrations." 
 
 Eunice was silent: she kept her face from him. 
 He touched her hand. 
 
 "Ah!" She looked suddenly up with bright 
 eyes. " That wind ! — The wind is still so cold, — 
 a wind from a grey sea ! " She shivered. 
 
 Edward's hand still touched hers. Again he was 
 irresolute, again he asked himself: "Shall I fol- 
 low the lead? Shall I give her what she expects? " 
 And further: " Can she ever have, in the long run, 
 anything but what she expects? Is she instinctive 
 enough, tragic enough, for the unexpected?" He 
 looked vaguely at her' and beyond ; his eyes wandered 
 about those affable green Gardens, hovered upon 
 playing children, chance solitary figures, men and 
 women in their twos and threes. His thoughts be- 
 gan to move rapidly, circling round his indecision, 
 blowing in fitful gusts against his acutely balanced 
 will that quivered like the index of an undetermined 
 scale, suspended out of their grasp, their secure at- 
 tack. It was Edward's turn to suffer pain. More 
 and more definitely he became afflicted with a sense 
 of the extreme importance of that moment: it was 
 a moment, he felt, that more than any others before 
 or since must decide him in relation to Eunice. This 
 reflection made him extremely uncomfortable : such 
 moments were agitating, they were ridiculous, they 
 were melodramatic, they were altogether insuffer- 
 able. Welsh might enjoy them : he did not. They
 
 378 The Buffoon 
 
 were not In his line, and he resented it strongly that 
 one of their detestable species should be so flagrantly 
 thrust upon him. Yet he could not possibly escape 
 the conclusion that if he spoke to Eunice in her tone, 
 he would never marry her, and that marry her he 
 most surely would, if, then and there, he spoke ac- 
 cording to himself. One of his vague glances sud- 
 denly comprehended the amazing spectacle of little 
 Norah walking in intimate company with George 
 Forrest. Edward stared, transfixed : he trembled, 
 and Eunice trembled in response. 
 
 " The wind kisses the petals that It breaks," Ed- 
 ward said abruptly. His gaze remained intent on 
 those others; he did not hear her soft reluctant 
 answer.
 
 CHAPTER XLI 
 
 NORAH and George came inevitably nearer. 
 Edward was silent. At last George saw 
 him, and crimsoned. Edward waved his 
 hand. Now Norah's eyes met his; she coloured 
 faintly, smiled faintly, was not unpleasantly em- 
 barrassed. Edward raised his hat. 
 
 "Your friends?" Eunice murmured. George 
 was turning aside. 
 
 " Good heavens! " exclaimed Edward, " does he 
 want me to shout? Do you mind — ? " he appealed 
 to Eunice. " I must intercept them, I really must. 
 It is especially Important." 
 
 He moved, and Eunice with him. In the direction 
 of the surprising pair. George's back was agitated, 
 he kept a pace unwillingly slow by Norah's side. 
 Norah was sauntering deliberately, as Edward noted 
 with keen satisfaction. How very much the coun- 
 try girl she was, In that white loose dress with Its 
 red sash! Evidently George had not yet taken her 
 to a London milliner's. She had put up her hair, — 
 but very recently, you could tell that. Such thick 
 long hair! coiled up with an amateur girlish art 
 that was very appealing. Little Norah — well — 
 They were upon them. 
 
 379
 
 380 The Buffoon 
 
 " Now, George," Edward addressed him with a 
 catch of his breath, " my dear George, my dear 
 Norah, — why, we have to run after you ! " 
 
 He shook hands with the girl, who looked brightly 
 at him, without shame, without defiance : they might 
 have met thus on the downs by her father's farm. 
 George's colour was still high : he cleared his throat, 
 and nodded a stiff recognition. 
 
 " Mr. and Mrs. George Forrest," remarked Ed- 
 ward, " — Miss Dinwiddie. Mr. and Mrs. Forrest 
 are very near neighbours of mine in Sussex, — very 
 old friends. Such a pity If you hadn't met, — If we 
 hadn't taken this opportunity, — this charmingly un- 
 expected opportunity. But in London," — he looked 
 at Norah, — " one is always meeting delightful peo- 
 ple in London. And so you're on a little jaunt. 
 Well, well, — an admirable idea." 
 
 " Yes." George had partly recovered himself. 
 "London very nice just now, — very pleasant; 
 charming weather. Yes. As you say, a little jaunt. 
 Er — we — the fact Is — " 
 
 " The fact is that you and Norah are going to 
 lunch with us. At once. Instanter. On the nail. 
 Done. — Another engagement. Nonsense. Cut 
 It. Nothing easier. Of course you will. What do 
 you say to — " 
 
 Edward was as nearly as possible thrown off his 
 balance. Eunice had swayed and fallen, fallen 
 against him; he found himself hopping absurdly on 
 one leg, with one arm clutched about her back. She
 
 rhe Buffoon 381 
 
 was perfectly pale, she seemed unconscious. " Lady 
 Macbeth's swoon," he was saying automatically to 
 himself, " was it feigned or real? " Some examina- 
 tion paper of his boyhood — But why should this 
 have happened? He lowered the girl's body to the 
 grass, and the echo of some half-forgotten ribald 
 Limerick rang in his ears: " But they found in the 
 grass — they found in the grass — " how did it 
 go? 
 
 " Give her air! " George cried excitedly and offi- 
 cially, " give her air! " 
 
 "Air?" repeated Edward, puzzled. "She has 
 all the air there is, surely? " Norah stooped down 
 and began unfastening the neck of Eunice's dress. 
 
 " It's the sun," George went on. " Water — she 
 needs water. I'll fetch some," and he started off in 
 important haste. 
 
 " Water," Edward murmured meditatively, " air, 
 and water, and sun. This is all very elemental." 
 
 Two young men had hurried up for participation in 
 the scene, and several other people were straggling 
 behind them, lounging youths and nurse-maids, a 
 handful of children. Edward checked the tide. 
 " No, thank you," he said. " There Is nothing to 
 be done, really. The important thing is not to have 
 a crowd. Please tell those people to keep away. 
 Oh, and if you would be so kind as to call a taxi — 
 to that near entrance? Thank you so much." To 
 Norah he said quickly : " Where are you staying? " 
 The younger girl, on her knees by Eunice, her eyes
 
 382 The Buffoon 
 
 still intent upon her, gave, shyly, the name of the 
 hotel. 
 
 How was it, thought Edward, that he had never 
 realised Norah? One strand of her black hair had 
 come loose, and was lying against her browned 
 neck. As she stooped thus, he could guess at her 
 bare shoulders, at the lines of her bare back. How 
 young she was, beyond all challenge ! Amazing that 
 she should not have struck him — not really struck 
 him — before. The half-grown, friendly, simple, 
 country Moll she used to be ! Now she was — she 
 was the swing of the Universe, she was the poetic 
 surge of a thousand earth-fires, she was something 
 that transcended individual desires and intents, she 
 forced him into the great Life Mass, she smashed 
 every convolution of his personal brain by that one 
 turn of her wrist, — she was this, she did this, as she 
 knelt there over the tranced Eunice. 
 
 Edward trembled. He saw George returning 
 with a child's pail in his hand. He looked again at 
 Norah, who would not look at him. One of her 
 hands was on Eunice's forehead, another on her 
 wrist. What young arms she had, how vigorous 
 with blood like the sap of a young tree, he knew it! 
 She was a heifer, a young colt; she was like earth 
 freshly turned, just warmed by the sun, so as to be 
 both moist and warm, so as to partake of earth and 
 sun. She was immortality for him, the only im- 
 mortality he could have. And that peculiar laziness 
 that she implied ! The laziness of all natural things.
 
 The Buffoon 383 
 
 things that have vitality without activity, — so much 
 vitality that no room for activity is left, — vitality 
 that is there in all abundance, is there and stops 
 there, and so creates most surely. And her 
 breast — her breast like Eve's . . . earth freshly 
 turned. . . . 
 
 George was nearer. . . . Eunice seemed to stir. 
 Was her colour coming faintly back? Edward 
 thought so. He knelt down by Norah. " I want 
 you," he whispered, in an agony of determination. 
 " You understand. Come to me whenever you can, 
 as soon as you can." He slipped a card into the 
 hand that rested on Eunice's pallid brow. The girl's 
 fingers closed tightly; she did not speak, she did not 
 look up. " Here it is! " George cried, breathless, 
 and Edward, looking at him, was immediately con- 
 vinced of the gross caddishness, in the general view, 
 of his own conduct. The conviction was bowled full 
 and clear at his intelligence, shot automatically, as 
 it were, from the unconscious hand of dear good 
 George. Edward felt that he had never before en- 
 tered into the unexceptionable morality of his friend. 
 The fact of George's having yielded to Norah's im- 
 perious attraction threw his native morality into the 
 highest relief. Edward was sure that morality had 
 never been so omnipresent to George as since his se- 
 duction. George had mobilised his morals; yes, he 
 had called out every possible reserve, and In very 
 happy time, considering what he would have to deal 
 with.
 
 384 The Buffoon 
 
 George put his hand into the pail, bent over, and 
 splashed Eunice's forehead. She turned her head, 
 moaned, opened her eyes, shut them again. Ed- 
 ward turned away and regarded George's trousers. 
 The set of those trousers, the way in which they ar- 
 ticulated the fact of their appropriation, was suf- 
 ficient assurance to any girl that their owner would 
 " do the right thing " by her. No mistrust was pos- 
 sible . . . but she could not really want to go on 
 living with them, with him . . . could she? Ed- 
 ward caught a sudden glance from Norah; the girl 
 blushed, frowned, looked away again. What was 
 she thinking? Eunice moaned again, moved her 
 lips, tried to raise her head, let it fall. She was not 
 so pale, but pale still. A policeman appeared in the 
 distance, walking in their direction, followed by sev- 
 eral small boys. Edward realised that their group 
 was being surreptitiously stared at. 
 
 " Eunice," he said, and bent down to her, putting 
 his hands under her head. " Eunice! " ■ 
 
 "Ah — yes," she murmured, "where Is this? 
 What have they done to me? Do you know — 
 you?" She looked at him, frightened. "Feigned 
 or real? " he said to himself again. 
 
 " You fainted," he explained. " The sun was too 
 hot. If you could stand now — let us see." He 
 lifted her gradually: she rose with no less than her 
 own grace; the curve of her head was beautiful, yes. 
 Edward saw that George admired her. " Now lean 
 on me," he went on; " we will walk very slowly to
 
 The Buffoon 385 
 
 that seat. Then we will take a cab. We mustn't be 
 stared at too much." George and Norah followed 
 them; Edward could hear their undertones. 
 
 "Who is she?" Eunice whispered, as they ap- 
 proached the seat. " Who is she? " 
 
 " My friend George Forrest's wife. — I told 
 you." 
 
 " Oh, yes, — you told me. — Send them away." 
 She spoke hurriedly. " Why should we lunch with 
 them? I am not interested." 
 
 " Quite right. Of course." Edward soothed 
 her. " A mere country girl, of no particular attrac- 
 tion, — no distinction. Why should we? Forgive 
 this mania of mine for bringing people together. I 
 find it, you see, so difficult to control. You are bet- 
 ter now? Really better?" 
 
 They sat down. George, coming with Norah 
 up to them, — he had hung back a little, out of 
 delicacy, — made all the correct inquiries. He was 
 solicitous in a thoroughly gentlemanly way. Was 
 there anything he could do? Did Miss Dinwiddie 
 really feel she could walk to the cab? Yes, it was 
 there, waiting. 
 
 " Let's go then," said Edward. " Miss Din- 
 widdie is entirely recovered." He sprang to his feet 
 with decisive alacrity. " Come along, George. 
 Norah, you mustn't look downcast. I can't have 
 your bridal happiness spoiled, even for an hour." 
 He took Eunice's arm, and drew her with him, plac- 
 ing his other hand paternally on Norah's shoulder.
 
 386 The Buffoon 
 
 George, though disturbed, had to fall into their line. 
 " Why," Edward continued, " should we give way 
 to Impudent Circumstance? A little champagne 
 would do us all good. Courage, my children! Are 
 we downhearted? No! So, come on!" He 
 swept them all forward as to a dancing measure. 
 " Lift up your hearts ! " he cried. " We're alive 
 in warm weather! Champagne should always be 
 drunk at midday with the sun shining. The Cafe 
 Boule, — what do you say to the Cafe Boule? That 
 was where I left off. ' What do you say to — ? ' 
 Well, what is there to say? Say? Why, we'll 
 sing, — we'll sing together. Not like the morning 
 stars, not on your life — " He laughed boisterously. 
 " We'll sing wedding-songs of Catullus, — and 
 dozens of our own Into the bargain! Dozens of 
 'em! I've said It. George, you rogue, — my old 
 crony of years gone by, — Norah, you naughty child 
 that I've known since you were half out of your 
 cradle, — don't dare to disobey me ! Who's to give 
 you a marriage feast. If not I ? Who else ? I won't 
 hear one protestation, I — " 
 
 "My dear fellow!" George interrupted. Ed- 
 ward had got them up to the door of the taxi. 
 
 Norah laughed, said, " Well, I never! ", blushed, 
 put her hand over her mouth, hiding her lovely, 
 strong, white teeth. Edward at once lifted — al- 
 most lifted — her Into the cab. The chauffeur awk- 
 wardly relaxed his studied expression of sympathetic 
 gravity.
 
 The Buffoon 387 
 
 " Now, my dear! " Edward cried to Eunice, who 
 followed Norah in passive amazement, realising that 
 if she did anything else she would commit herself 
 and fall from artistic grace. "Now, my dear!" 
 
 George, still hesitating, whispered to Edward: 
 "I say, — we can't really; this is most extraordin- 
 ary." 
 
 " Don't you see? " Edward's hushed voice came 
 from between his teeth sibilant and imperative. 
 "It's the only way. Miss Dinwiddie — really ill 
 unless she's taken right out of herself — absolute 
 necessity — send her home — be laid up for weeks 
 — nerves — nerves — I have to keep it up — jump 
 in — quick." 
 
 They were all in. "Cafe Boule!" Edward 
 shouted. Eunice looked at him, with hatred, Ed- 
 ward felt sure, in her heart : but he knew she wanted 
 to marry him more than ever. Flattering, but in- 
 convenient.
 
 CHAPTER XLII 
 
 JUST before their lunch Edward found occa- 
 sion for a private word to Eunice. " Of 
 course," he whispered, " I did mean to hurt 
 you, but not in that way; not as you thought. No, 
 no; not that." She answered him by a swift caught- 
 in sigh, and the occasion was cut short. 
 
 It was true, Edward was emphatic to himself, he 
 after all merely wanted his fun, he wanted to put 
 them all together, to play off Eunice's bluff against 
 George's bluff; he wanted to comment on the situa- 
 tion. How could he tell that she would be struck, 
 that way? He couldn't; no, he was not such a cad 
 as that came to. But would George, if he knew, 
 absolve him, would Molesworth ? He could im- 
 agine well enough Tryers' vindictive censure. 
 Tryers? Not a hint had been given of Tryers' 
 revelations. Edward had meant to touch on that 
 point, how curious that he hadn't. Eunice would 
 wait for his lead there, of course. How angrily 
 George would condemn Tryers! Edward's revolv- 
 ing thoughts threw a sudden light on Molesworth as 
 the central figure in unravelling of present entangle- 
 ments. In a trice he dashed off to the telephone and 
 
 summoned him to the rescue. Molesworth was al- 
 
 388
 
 rhe Buffoon 389 
 
 most certain to be at the Club, and he never lunched 
 much before two o'clock. 
 
 Edward returned radiant. " Not that table, 
 waiter!" he cried. "Give us a larger one, that 
 one over there in the sun. We are five, — five we 
 shall be. Don't look so astonished, George. The 
 truth is, I hate even numbers. They are unlucky. 
 On an occasion like this we want all the luck there is 
 going. Bring at once, waiter, a Magnum of Pol 
 Roger, — Pol Roger 1905. The hors d'oeuvres 
 also at once. Absurd to wait." He turned to 
 Eunice. " I never wait. — A cocktail, George. 
 A real American mixes them here, a man of infinite 
 skill. Eunice, you must drink a cocktail. A patri- 
 otic duty — and you, too, Norah, because we don't 
 understand them down at Chesney. Four Martini 
 cocktails, waiter, and if they're out of a bottle I'll 
 never come here again. Never! never! " 
 
 He looked at Eunice. It struck him that she was 
 extraordinarily elegant just then. A deliberate ele- 
 gance ; fostered, no doubt, that Norah might feel It. 
 Eunice was still pale, her eyes were bright, her mouth 
 was a little compressed. On guard, she was on 
 guard: determined to speak hardly at all, he could 
 see that. Norah was much taken up with her milieu : 
 she looked about, made little smothered observations 
 here and there to George : " I like this place, don't 
 you?" "Aren't these lovely glasses, such a nice 
 shape? " " What pretty flowers ! " " Do you like 
 that dress?" "What lots of people! Do they
 
 390 The Buffoon 
 
 come here every day?" Edward's jealousy was 
 acute : if only those smothered observations were for 
 him, if only he could be the confidant of this naive 
 rustic relish of London things ! Could anything be 
 more delicious than treating a country girl to a Lon- 
 don jaunt, manipulating her excitements, ordering the 
 developments of each sensational day? 
 
 George had by now succeeded in regulating his 
 features to an expression of conviviality. He drank 
 his cocktail with an appearance of gusto. " Our 
 host! " he cried, motioning towards Edward. Eu- 
 nice and Norah drank with him, Eunice raising her- 
 self, leaning on the arm of her chair, with a fastidious 
 reluctant grace that extorted Edward's admiration. 
 How she kept it up, through thick and thin ! That 
 fading equivocal movement of her glass towards 
 him. . . . Ah, how she kept it going, with the sub- 
 tlety bluff, the sensibility bluff, the bluff of exquisite 
 comprehension and unworded pathos, and all that! 
 But what good was " all that " to him? The devil 
 take all subtleties that aren't on intimate terms with 
 the first things ! Edward cried out for the sweet bru- 
 tality of what is nothing more than earth and so 
 nothing less, of what has in It, hidden and unchange- 
 able, the secret of all fixed natural relations, the rela- 
 tions of sun and earth, of moon and sea: the secret 
 of the law by which seasons turn and return. His 
 very individualism, in strong reaction, deepened this 
 craving: if he was to sacrifice to sex, as sacrifice he 
 must, let the oblation be made on a palpable altar,
 
 rhe Buffoon 391 
 
 an altar of clear and positive demand, an altar on 
 which burned no mixed or alien flames. No echo in 
 that shrine of mingled voices in equivocal utterance. 
 No, he would not be made mad that way. He would 
 yield himself to the potent general flux, for a time, 
 and then, having paid the tribute exacted, a tribute 
 as inevitable as that to death, he would revert sus- 
 tained and calm to the equal clime of his personality. 
 So he would be saved. He would hover midway be- 
 tween individual consciousness and sex no longer: 
 that was Eunice's way, the way of most women, the 
 way into which women tried to lead men, in order 
 to enslave them. No more of that ! Yes, this other 
 girl was unfeminine, in our modern sense: there was 
 her inalienable appeal. Edward had always needed 
 an unfeminine woman, but had never before known 
 what it was that he needed, nor why he needed it. 
 Now he understood. Betty had done well for a 
 time, because of the approach she made to his satis- 
 faction; but she had been twisted by town life, and 
 — how unfortunate ! — by poverty and toil. She 
 was too badly nourished, too hectic, she had been 
 docked too much. Besides, she had not Norah's 
 eyes or neck or bosom. No, Betty was never a sym- 
 bolic figure. Norah, grown as now, was perfect: 
 how poetic his immediate response to her! Impos- 
 sible that she should not answer. . . . 
 
 Edward was almost afraid to look at Norah, or to 
 speak to her. He must betray nothing, and he could 
 not trust himself as securely as he wished. Per-
 
 392 The Buffoon 
 
 haps he should not have been so direct, even to her 
 alone. That "I want you!" Was that then a 
 false step? — So George had been wiser than he, 
 — or luckier? Yes, of course it was blind good 
 luck, nothing else. George — the discreet, correct, 
 unbending, ethical George ! So he, even he, had 
 surrendered to her, she had made him turn his 
 somersault, well enough, in complete circle! No 
 wonder. . . . Proof enough there that Edward 
 was not under illusion. Proof! Absurd to name 
 it! 
 
 Thinking, Edward talked, talked much and with 
 some effort, the effort of a man swimming under 
 water. He talked of the wine, the fashions of dress, 
 the charm of London, the charm of Paris. George 
 interposed occasionally such remarks as: "Yes, 
 connoisseurs may talk of claret, but after all there's 
 nothing quite like champagne, is there?" "A 
 thoroughly sound wine this, Raynes, eh?" "Not 
 that I objected to the hobble skirt as such, but they 
 overdid it. Don't you think. Miss Dinwiddie, that 
 they overdid it? " " But what I can't stand in Paris 
 is the traffic. Perfectly awful. In the Champs- 
 Elysees it's a regular nightmare. Any number of 
 accidents every day. They really ought to — " 
 
 These interpositions of George became more fre- 
 quent as he began to mellow to the wine : he drank 
 more freely than usual, from embarrassment. Ed- 
 ward, too, drank freely, from excitement. Eunice, 
 on the other hand, drank warily, and rather furtively,
 
 The Buffoon 393 
 
 as well brought up American women generally do. 
 Norah at first approached her wine with caution and 
 some mistrust, as though she feared that it might 
 intoxicate her suddenly, without any warning. Find- 
 ing that this was not so, she grew bolder, she took 
 brave gulps, and exclaimed that, though it tasted 
 funny at first, it really was nicer than cider, — even 
 the best cider. Her young mouth relaxed, her 
 cheeks flushed as from sea-wind. She smiled at 
 George, at Edward, — who dared once to touch 
 glasses with her across the table, saying in a rather 
 tremulous, rather strange and ungauged tone of 
 voice : " We drink to Life ! " Then he bit his lips, 
 and found the silent Eunice regarding him with veiled 
 curiosity and disapproval, as though he had com- 
 mitted a gaucherie. He probably had. 
 
 Norah replied, "All right!" and drained her 
 glass, which she put down with a sense of an en- 
 trancing ambient waviness in her brain, a waviness 
 sparklingly projected upon her field of vision. She 
 was no longer afraid of the silent, strange lady who 
 had fainted: the strange lady seemed to have become 
 friendly to her; she came in, now, amiably enough. 
 "We don't want to die, do we?" said Norah, as 
 Edward refilled her glass. 
 
 " We do not," replied Edward, " and we won't. 
 It's in us not to. And, Norah, you — " 
 
 He stopped; he felt suddenly frozen by Eunice's 
 presence. Turning to her he said: "Well, now, 
 we carry the Universe about with us, I appeal to you,
 
 394 The Buffoon 
 
 don't we ? Aren't we all of us as undying as the grass 
 or the stars? " 
 
 " That is beautiful." Eunice answered in a low, 
 melodious, very thoughtful tone. " Yes, and it is 
 true. Change can never kill, — no." She was 
 propitiated. 
 
 Edward thought that Norah sent him a smile, but 
 he could not be sure. He began to chatter again, 
 and discovered that George was now mellow enough 
 to be very easily amused. 
 
 " What a fellow you are, Raynes ! " George 
 shot an affectionate gleam through the pince-nez 
 which had replaced the spectacles he always used to 
 wear. "What a fellow! Always the same: same 
 old sport! Never knew you down in the mouth yet. 
 One lark or another. Always so — what's the word 
 I want? what is it? — 'mercurial,' that's it. Don't 
 you think, Miss Dinwiddie, that our friend here 
 has what you'd call a very mercurial tempera- 
 ment? " 
 
 He had indeed. 
 
 " Mercury is one of my favourite gods," remarked 
 Edward, as Eunice was responding, according to her 
 use, by an enigmatic look. " You must be right. 
 Yes, I'd rather be Mercury than any of 'em. You 
 flatter me, George. Marriage has taught you how 
 to pay compliments." 
 
 George averted his gaze, coyly, and drank more 
 champagne. Norah looked at Edward, puzzled and 
 extraordinarily sweet. " You wouldn't surely," she
 
 riie Buffoon 395 
 
 seemed to say, " be attacking me, would you? " Ed- 
 ward tingled and melted; he loved her, so he thought, 
 to a desperation infinitely beyond the limits of speech, 
 almost beyond the limits of sensation. " Of course 
 she is mine: but how can I bear It when she comes? 
 I might die then." He was perfectly serious. 
 " Oh, Norah, Norah! " was his refrain that rang. 
 
 At this particular ecstatic point for Edward, 
 Molesworth appeared. Edward, for a moment, 
 wondered why, but he hailed him exuberantly none 
 the less. " We've been waiting for this ! " he cried, 
 as he half rose and took the young man by the shoul- 
 der. Edward made the introductions very vivid, 
 very Intense : he might have been presenting Moles- 
 worth to landmarks in his life; It was no wonder that 
 Molesworth wondered what was up, and took in 
 some bewilderment the chair reserved for him on 
 Eunice's left. The w^aiter immediately gave him 
 something to eat and filled his glass. 
 
 " Before you drink," said Edward, in a tone of 
 unabated enthusiasm; " before you drink, I give you 
 a toast. ' Our Ideal in Womanhood.' The ladies 
 must drink too — " 
 
 " What? " said Norah gaily. " To the kind of 
 man we like best? " 
 
 " No, no, Norah, that's not the same thing. You 
 can't drink to your ideal In manhood; you know, all 
 of you, in your heart of hearts, you haven't got one. 
 You don't worship ideals. — In fact I'm not sure 
 that you should drink this toast at all. We three
 
 396 The Buffoon 
 
 men will drink it. Now. ' Our ideal in Woman- 
 hood.' " 
 
 As he drank, looking straight in front of him, at 
 a point between George and Norah, Edward re- 
 flected that he would have to drink at least another 
 bottle before he could repeat that nauseous phrase 
 without wincing. Still, it had to be done : he must 
 give Molesworth his cue. That engaging sentimen- 
 talist was already set for the mood that nurtured 
 him; he was drinking with his humid blue eyes fixed 
 upon the ceiling; the very tilt of his nose betokened 
 aspirations unattained. George gallantly turned to 
 Norah for the toast, and she looked pleased, as Ed- 
 ward by no means did, when he observed her. Was 
 it possible — did she really — ? But of course girls 
 liked that kind of attention. 
 
 " I'm the most unfortunate feller," said 
 Molesworth sadly, putting down his glass. 
 " Good women, — ideal women, — I — Ah. . . . 
 Don't know how it is. I — " 
 
 " My dear old Molesworth ! " Edward inter- 
 rupted him. " That's why I asked you to lunch to- 
 day!" 
 
 Molesworth stared at him thoughtfully. He be- 
 gan to remember their last conversation. Was this 
 Miss Dinwiddie Raynes's fiancee? he wondered. Eu- 
 nice herself quickened her suspecting alertness; she 
 was more than ever on her guard, Edward knew it. 
 
 " I want us all," Edward continued, " from this^ 
 point on to be entirely ourselves. We are none of
 
 rhe Buffoon 397 
 
 us conventional, now, are we? George Forrest, of 
 course, pretends to be, but in his heart he knows he's 
 not." George started and gave Edward a look, as 
 much as to say " How on earth did you find that 
 out? " " As for you, Molesworth, you're the most 
 unconventional man I know." Molesworth nodded 
 gravely. " And no woman ever treats convention 
 except as a sop to be thrown to stupid men, — or 
 morality, either," he added with a vehemence that 
 made them all a little uncomfortable. 
 
 " Oh, come now, Raynes," Molesworth pro- 
 tested, " I don't follow you there. What would be- 
 come of morality without women, eh? Tell me 
 that." 
 
 "Or immorality? But don't let's talk of Illu- 
 sions, let's talk of realities. Let's talk of ourselves." 
 
 He refilled Molesworth's glass, and Molesworth, 
 after a further draught, turned without hesitation to 
 Eunice, applying himself to her with an intent quite 
 as marked as Edward could have most hopefully ex- 
 pected. To Edward's keen gratification, Moles- 
 worth paid homage ; he was at once the soiled way- 
 farer and she the shrine of comfort and counsel, our 
 Lady of Succours. He was just drunk enough! 
 Soon they were talking in undertones, — actually 
 that ! — they had made a corner, and Edward heard 
 him say: "You can help me. Miss Dinwiddie, I 
 know you can." She replied: "If I can, I will. 
 We all need help — so much." 
 
 Meanwhile Edward was exchanging reminiscences
 
 398 The Buffoon 
 
 with George, whose spirits were now high and 
 hearty. Norah, with Hds luxuriously weighted, was 
 lazy, indifferent, well lapped in her diffused sensuous 
 flow, happy and sleepy, at ease in pleasant response 
 to her food, her wine and the scene. " Fancy us all 
 like this, up here. Oh, dear, it's different to Ches- 
 ney ! " she said, and things like that. 
 
 Edward glowed with satisfaction. Self-con- 
 gratulation flowed about his veins in a warm current; 
 he was really vain. So much, then, he had done, 
 quite in accordance with his will and prevision : and 
 so much more, much more, he would do ! He would 
 use Reggie Tryers. Welsh should be initiated as 
 conspirator, Welsh should lead Tryers on, dazzle 
 Tryers with aspects of Eunice's wealth. Welsh was 
 a born match-maker, and Tryers could be led to pay 
 court, especially if his courtship could be spiced with 
 love of gain and the satisfaction of the revengeful 
 spleen which Edward knew he felt towards him now. 
 Then would come Molesworth's turn. Molesworth 
 extremely disliked Tryers, thought him an outsider, 
 a " real wrong 'un," " a bad man." Edward would 
 confide in Molesworth, excite his indignation by re- 
 vealing Tryers as the basest of sneaks for his caddish 
 interposition. . . . Then, the finale. Molesworth 
 to the rescue, a Molesworth captivated already by 
 Eunice and animated further by indignant detestation 
 of Tryers. Molesworth, then, from a sense of duty 
 and high devotion, would show Tryers up as he de- 
 served to be shown, and win Eunice for himself in
 
 rJie Buffoon 399 
 
 reward! Eunice would be Mrs. Theocrlte Moles- 
 worth. How wonderfully appropriate! Why, 
 what else could they do? As soon as one realised 
 that Christian name one was sure they were born 
 for each other. — But would it all work out? A 
 little difficult to manipulate, this scheme, especially 
 towards the end, but Edward would succeed; he had 
 the highest confidence In his powers, succeed he must. 
 And Norah — Norah was of course to be his : but 
 he did not want to make an enemy of George ; George 
 was so simple, so companionable, so nice, especially 
 just then. George was good fun ; he had always en- 
 joyed amusing himself with George. He must 
 manoeuvre in that direction too. George would be 
 won, no doubt, by the prospect of his complete re- 
 habilitation in respectability. Probably no one 
 knew of his escapade as yet; he would very soon be 
 thankful to get off scot free. He would regret: 
 Edward would talk to him and make him re- 
 gret. ... If necessary Edward was prepared to 
 use his own infidelity with Norah as a lever to press 
 Eunice to Molesworth's arms, but he rather hoped 
 it would not come to that. If it did, it must come 
 towards the end, not earlier, on no account earlier, 
 or the play with Molesworth would go wrong. Ed- 
 ward had to admit, even in those very sanguine 
 vinous moments, that it was not all quite clear-cut 
 in his mind yet. Still he would contrive, he would 
 watch, he would take his chances one by one with in- 
 finite judgment, as they came. All would be well.
 
 400 The Buffoon 
 
 See how Eunice and Molesworth were engaging one 
 another: magnificent! 
 
 " I have felt that always," she was saying. 
 
 "If I could! I do wish that I could. I want to, 
 really honestly I want to. But I seem always to be 
 making — well, you know, making boss-shots at 
 everything that's worth anything." Molesworth's 
 eyes were very wide open, his loose lips quivered. 
 
 " We aim," Eunice murmured, " and if we aim, 
 we grow." 
 
 " You make me feel — well, you make me feel that 
 I can — can grow. You make me feel — er — that 
 I'm looking at the gutter — er — in the stars. 
 No, not that 'xac'ly. Lookin' at the stars, I mean, 
 of course. — Silly ass. — The fact is. Miss Din- 
 widdie, you understand jus' what I mean, — won- 
 derful. It's wonderful, really, because I can't ex- 
 press myself, — never could. No brains, y' know, 
 no brains — " 
 
 " We can never express our real selves, — can we? 
 If we express them, they are no longer real." She 
 leaned her head upon her hand, and her eyes, as they 
 rested upon him, were full of grave unspoken 
 thoughts. Nothing could be better. 
 
 It was Eunice who moved first for departure. She 
 had made her effect upon Molesworth, left that effect 
 at exactly the right point for a first encounter, and 
 it was time to go. She pressed her long white fingers 
 across her brow. " I think I must — but you, you 
 stay. Don't go — for me."
 
 The Buffoon 401 
 
 Molesworth started to his feet at once. Edward 
 stood up, and so did George. Norah sat still, re- 
 garding them all with a soft puckered smile that 
 seemed perfectly to express her contented acceptance 
 of everything for which she was or might be the 
 medium. She had that look of being favoured and 
 pleasured, and yet all the while inevitably aware, a 
 little way back, — that look which one knows in cats 
 by walls on sunned afternoons. 
 
 " Of course," said Edward, " I am going with 
 you. The fresh air — we shall drive in the open. 
 But I am sorry — we are all sorry. No good- 
 byes between us, George. Molesworth, we shall 
 meet to-night or to-morrow. You shall have that re- 
 venge of yours. Norah, you're happy and you al- 
 ways will be. 
 
 ' In truth, it is our Norah's lot, 
 When Fate speaks frowning, she answers not.' 
 
 My own? No, a parody. I was always good at 
 parodies." 
 
 He took Norah's hand. Her smile was lively for 
 a moment as she thanked him and said: " I have 
 enjoyed myself, Mr. Raynes, I have really! " She 
 and Eunice exchanged faint intimations of farewells; 
 George seemed for a moment inclined to reach for 
 his hat, but was checked by a glance from Norah. 
 Norah preferred to wait. 
 
 Molesworth went with Edward and Eunice; he 
 took leave of them at the door of their cab. When
 
 402 The Buffoon 
 
 Edward asked if they could give him a lift, he shook 
 his head and replied earnestly: " No, I'll walk. I 
 want to think. A lot to think about; and I can al- 
 ways think better when I walk." 
 
 " All right ! " Edward sang out. " Don't run into 
 anybody, that's all! " 
 
 During the drive they talked little and said noth- 
 ing. Eunice seemed lost in a blue-grey mist; Ed- 
 ward's mind was distracted by revolutions of alterna- 
 tive devices. When they stood at the gate of her 
 cousins' house, the girl held out her hand. 
 
 " We have made a mistake," she said simply. 
 " I came meaning to tell you, but it was — so — so 
 hard to me. I could not speak — not then, I am 
 going to marry Raoul Root. Good-bye." 
 
 He bowed, astounded, and when his shattered 
 brain was beginning weakly to react towards an ade- 
 quate reply, she had glided from him up the steps. 
 The door opened for her; she was gone. As always 
 she had managed well.
 
 CHAPTER XLIII 
 
 EDWARD drove on at once to his rooms. 
 Vexation and perturbing doubt kept shoot- 
 ing their fangs through the clogging hide of 
 his stupefaction. He wished he had not drunk so 
 much champagne; if only they had stopped with the 
 Magnum he might have been better able to adjust 
 the matter to himself. A full quart — he must have 
 drunk a full quart. Then there was that cocktail; 
 a cocktail first always made some difference, — some 
 difference, yes. — Yes. — That was why he was 
 always getting so far and no further, and then back 
 again to his mental point of departure. His cheeks 
 were burning and his mouth was dry. Overexcite- 
 ment: too much champagne. That was it. And 
 then this shock at the end. Why, his brain had 
 been clear enough before, or he thought it had. 
 Perhaps it hadn't really, after all. — Now it re- 
 fused to move, or when it did move it went in un- 
 comfortable teasing little jerks, like the jerks of a 
 halted motorcar. 
 
 The point was — he returned — had Eunice told 
 the truth? It might easily be that seeing what was 
 coming she wanted to save her pride : no doubt she 
 could be engaged to marry Root any day. Ed- 
 
 403
 
 404 The Buffoon 
 
 ward's vanity hoped that she had saved her pride. 
 Of course, anyhow, she had spared him a great deal 
 of trouble, but it was trouble that he didn't, he real- 
 ised, want to be spared. Those pains he was to 
 take, so beautifully prepared for! No, in any event, 
 he had been let down, he could not get out of that, — 
 disconcertingly bumped, as though a rope had broken 
 somewhere; that was what it was like. — Could 
 Tryers possibly have made any difference? But he 
 thought not. And why had she fainted? Was it 
 from chagrin because of his invitation to Norah and 
 George, did his lack of preoccupation with her at 
 that point threaten to blunt the fine edge of the dis- 
 closure she was to make to him ? Could people faint 
 from chagrin? Or was it merely that she thought 
 the luncheon party would bore her? Or was it, 
 after all, the sun? Who could tell? At any rate, 
 if she had feared that her disclosure would miss fire, 
 fall flat, she was wrong there. He hoped she was 
 not quite sure. 
 
 When Edward got to his rooms he found a letter 
 from his Aunt Amelia, a letter posted early that 
 morning from Westbeach, enclosing a cutting from 
 that day's Morning Post. " A marriage has been 
 arranged. . . . Miss Eunice Dinwiddie. . . . Mr. 
 Raoul Root. . . ." The usual thing, the incon- 
 trovertible, formal, smooth statement ! He glanced 
 at the letter. " Your mother . . . most distressed. 
 We are quite bewildered. I don't know whether to 
 be sorry or glad. Please write. It was really a
 
 The Buffoon 405 
 
 shock ... so very soon. . . . But perhaps only a 
 strange coincidence! " 
 
 Edward dropped the letter and the cutting Into the 
 waste-paper basket, mechanically putting the en- 
 velope into his pocket, because he always used the 
 backs of envelopes for making notes. He collapsed 
 in his largest armchair, and fell sound asleep. He 
 did not wake till past midnight, and his first thought 
 then was that he wanted a cup of tea.
 
 CHAPTER XLIV 
 
 THERE was, after all, Edward surmised as he 
 poured the spirit for his lamp, some satis- 
 faction In being completely, perfectly, un- 
 deniably, a proved buffoon. Now, at any rate, he 
 knew where he was. And hadn't he, at last he ques- 
 tioned, played the buffoon at every step, with com- 
 panionship, with love, with art, with Intellectual toys, 
 with sensual toys, with every kind of conduct and of 
 thought? That grinning mask was Inevitable for 
 him; he could do nothing, think nothing, that did 
 not Instantaneously take It on. Existence thus con- 
 ditioned had seemed, it is true, affable enough. If 
 only the uncomfortable, the really grim conviction 
 wouldn't creep on him now that It was the destiny of 
 buffoons to be broken and thrown on one side. An 
 elderly buffoon ! And George was twenty-six. 
 That was It, Edward was leaving his youth, had left 
 it; and elderly buffoons were paid, it seemed, their 
 wages. This explained, no doubt, that queer crisis, 
 that grotesque upheaval, through which he had lately 
 been passing. How long was it since he had met 
 Welsh ? — Last Thursday week, — only nine days : 
 very appropriate, a nine days' wonder. That would 
 appeal to Welsh. — So It was Welsh who had 
 jerked him out of the eighteenth century ! — That 
 
 406
 
 The Buffoon 407 
 
 desperate instinctive effort to escape from the circus 
 ring before it was too late ! And all that had hap- 
 pened was that he had been more uproariously the 
 clown than ever, a clown with eyes even more closely 
 bandaged than before, playing his Blind Man's Buff 
 among the ladies! He had been so serious a mat- 
 ter to himself, too, these last few days, grave-faced 
 very often on the brink of new discoveries, pinning 
 high hopes on his advancing Ego, his " Ego and its 
 own," — " Myself and my tail," as Welsh had para- 
 phrased that celebrated title. — And all the while 
 he had been, in his holy simplicity, busied with an 
 unconscious reversion, by new circuit, to his type. 
 He had hopped and jumped to leap out of the ring, 
 for evasion of his unfriendly future, but he had cut 
 his capers with an elastic cord round his belly, to 
 pull him back, all the while. So now here he was 
 plump once more on the old, indubitable, familiar, na- 
 tive sanded patch! 
 
 He poured out his tea. Perhaps buffoons were 
 genuinely tragic figures. One might hope so, at any 
 rate. That would be something. He remembered 
 Watteau's Gilles, but then he was not in the least 
 like Gilles. Damn it, was he perfectly a buffoon, 
 after all? No, he was a buffoon without real aban- 
 don, and it was with abandon that a buffoon's tragedy 
 must be involved. Edward blamed that definitely 
 middle-class strain that was infused with his blood. 
 Still, buffoonery, of a sort, had made him, buffoonery 
 might save him. There was no reason why some
 
 408 The Buffoon 
 
 sort of a buffoon should not be some sort of a phi- 
 losopher. 
 
 ** Buffoonery has made, 
 Buffoonery may save, 
 Edward Raynes." 
 
 He would write verses, — real verses with rhyme and 
 rhythm. He would show them to Jack Welsh. 
 Jack was a critic, — a prince of critics. He had told 
 Edward so himself, and if Edward reminded him 
 he would not blush. Yes, Edward wanted to write, 
 he was almost compelled to write, at this hour of 
 revelation. " I am a buffoon," he said aloud, " an 
 indifferent buffoon, but I know my master, and, by 
 the Lord, I work or sport for him with some intelli- 
 gence. I'm paid, but I'll know something about my 
 bill and my wages." 
 
 He drank many cups of tea, smoked many cigar- 
 ettes, and by about three o'clock had written two 
 verses, in fair characters: 
 
 " The wheel goes round, and loves most dear 
 Are mocked by loves that follow after: 
 While sere grows green as green grows sere, 
 Joy, sorrow, turn to monstrous laughter. 
 
 And so, my friend, we tumble and twist, 
 
 And the mills of God take in the grist. 
 
 "Then, Comic Irony debonair! 
 
 Go smiling on, nor yet relent: 
 
 Keep still your unabated flair 
 
 For chance and change of sentiment. 
 What capers cuts our grave Romance 
 One side and t'other of Circumstance ! "
 
 rhe Buffoon 409 
 
 Perhaps the lines would do for Mrs. O'Malley's 
 paper. How unpardonable ! That he had com- 
 pletely forgotten his promise to write an account of 
 " Qm' est-ce que c' est que Vartf Never mind. 
 He would send those verses instead. He would 
 send them to Eunice — splendid idea ! Why really, 
 when you thought of it, they might have been written 
 for Eunice, and of course they were written on her 
 account. Also on Norah's: no matter, let Eunice 
 make what she liked of them. Edward folded the 
 fair copy, took a sheet of notepaper and wrote: 
 "Would this do for Mrs. O'Malley? Send it to 
 her if you think it would." After he had written 
 Eunice's name and address, and sealed the en- 
 velope, he felt suddenly exhausted. " Creative ef- 
 fort," he murmured, tapping his forehead, '* crea- 
 tive effort." Catching sight of a photograph of his 
 father he speculated for a moment upon heredity. 
 He could imagine his father alluding humorously to 
 " creative effort," and tapping his forehead, just 
 after having written a sermon or a paragraph for the 
 Parish Magazine. Yes, but he wasn't all his 
 father's, not by a long chalk, and it was just there 
 that Comic Irony stepped along, " Comic Irony 
 debonair." Those verses, — second-rate verses, 
 third-rate perhaps, but not written with his father's 
 pen. 
 
 He stretched himself in his chair and yawned. — 
 Eunice! He thought of that interview at her 
 cousins'. What an actress! There he had indeed
 
 410 The Buffoon 
 
 been right. Lord have mercy, to think of that 
 schemed toil of his, — Molesworth, Tryers, Welsh 
 the fellow-conspirator, George even, perhaps, 
 dragged in somehow, — why, he had been thrilled by 
 the creative joy of the novelist, — damn! — he, Ed- 
 ward, Edward Raynes, Buffoon, — made game of all 
 the time, thorough and thorough! So Eunice had 
 been " playing " him with an unscrupulousness far 
 more uncompromising and comprehensive than his 
 own; very likely she had used him from the first for 
 her own purposes, — of course she had! — just to 
 lead this Raoul Root on and in; partly, too, no doubt, 
 for the sake of experience. And he had never un- 
 derstood her the whole time through, not understood 
 her in the least. Yet when she said to him, that 
 first evening: "Go on,- — quickly — beat Raoul," 
 he might have guessed. At any rate Try'ers had 
 ludicrously wasted his endeavours. Tryers had 
 played a farcical part too. Some consolation there, 
 but not much. Edward was quite sure now that 
 Tryers had made no difference whatever. The in- 
 terview between those two ! He could well imagine 
 Eunice's part in that, how she would have played up, 
 her response, her distress, her appeal, and her in- 
 ward consciousness of how things really were. 
 What lessons women have to teach men! Lessons 
 indeed ! Edward fell asleep again.
 
 CHAPTER XLV 
 
 SEVERAL days passed, passed with a curious 
 heavy swiftness for Edward, in contrast with 
 those other crowded ones that had been 
 both light for him and slow. He wrote to his 
 mother: "Yes, it is quite true. I have been 
 jilted," and left her to meditate from that romanti- 
 cally upon his broken heart. She would not be ill- 
 pleased. He remembered that she had tried to per- 
 suade him into becoming a chronic invalid at twenty- 
 seven after an attack of jaundice. 
 
 Edward went to the Club, gambled, chatted, drank 
 little : he listened to Moles worth's admirations of 
 Eunice. " Too good for me," Molesworth re- 
 peated, " much too good. When I think of her, I 
 feel sort of like the dirt beneath her feet, y' know. 
 A woman like that — why, I'm not fit to — to — " 
 
 " Tie her garter? " 
 
 " Don't talk like that," Molesworth had replied, 
 shocked by Edward's ribaldry. " She's above me, I 
 tell you, above me ! " 
 
 " She would be," said Edward. 
 
 " She's above the lot of us ! " Molesworth took no 
 notice. Then they played auction bridge. 
 
 There was no word from Norah, but Edward 
 hardly expected that now. That " I want you ! " 
 
 411
 
 412 The Buffoon 
 
 He remembered. What an ass! His self-esteem 
 and self-confidence kept low. Just then, he felt, it 
 was best for him to remain entirely in the back- 
 ground. When luck was against him, he always 
 staked little. 
 
 One morning a week or so after Eunice had done 
 with him he was called on the telephone, and heard 
 a gentle voice, in a rather nervous pitch, inquiring if 
 this were Mr. Edward Raynes. It was Welsh's 
 friend O'Flaherty, who told Edward that Welsh 
 was seriously ill, that he had suffered from frightful 
 dyspepsia for several days, had eaten hardly any- 
 thing, and then finally collapsed on the platform of 
 the station at Nottingham, in which town he had been 
 giving a lecture. He had been taken to a hospital, 
 and then, as he seemed a little better under treat- 
 ment, to London to see a specialist, who had pro- 
 nounced that he had an abscess in his stomach and 
 must be operated on at once. At present he was in a 
 Nursing Home — O'Flaherty gave the address — 
 and he would like to see Mr. Raynes before the 
 operation. Yes, there was danger. Welsh was 
 shockingly nm down, but they could not wait to op- 
 erate. Could Mr. Raynes come at once? That 
 was the best time. 
 
 Edward went, mortality weighing upon him as he 
 drove through the familiar streets. Norah had 
 slipped away, he grew old, Welsh was perhaps dying, 
 and with Welsh he could have lived. Yes, he smelt 
 mould. Who was it who had said : " That was the
 
 The Buffoon 413 
 
 day when I first realised that I must die " ? Charles 
 Lamb? or Fitzgerald? Either of them might have 
 said that. Edward hadn't realised it himself before, 
 his thoughts about death had been very academic, 
 the idea of death had never touched him personally. 
 He remembered that when as a boy he saw his first 
 corpse, the corpse of an aunt, he had cried out: 
 "Take it away! I don't like it! " He could say 
 that then : now there was no use saying it. Now 
 there was a finger pointing: " At thee I aim it! " 
 These people in the street, did they know they had 
 to die? What had happened to some few of last 
 year's passers-by in Regent Street? to some few more 
 of the passers-by of five years back? to more yet at 
 ten years' space? and to more again of the 'nineties, 
 the 'eighties, the 'seventies? and so it went, so it 
 would always go. There was something incredibly 
 horrible in these recent deaths. People who had 
 slept in modern beds, trod modern carpets, worn 
 modern clothes, sat in modern chairs, used modern 
 water-closets — Edward checked himself; these 
 thoughts must stop. And after all, time passed. It 
 was only these newly dead, and these Victorian dead, 
 that one could not stand. There were the great 
 men, too, even the modern great. He could think 
 of them without that sickly horror. — Swinburne 
 and Meredith. — Meredith had been cremated, and 
 if you were cremated it was not so bad, even if you 
 weren't great at all. Edward resolved to direct cre- 
 mation in his Will on the earliest opportunity.
 
 CHAPTER XLVI 
 
 THE Nursing Home had a cleanliness that 
 suggested medical treatment, a cheerful look 
 that spoke of spruce nice nurses by laun- 
 dered sickbeds. Edward thought that if he were 
 ill he would be happier in less hygienic surroundings, 
 not so much designed to brighten people up. He 
 had to wait for a little in the kind of anteroom that 
 could not exist anywhere but in a professed medical 
 establishment, g room in which it seemed that no- 
 body could possibly have ever done anything but 
 wait and turn the pages of magazines, looking at pic- 
 tures of public men and public occasions, thinking 
 all the while of something else, of this or that, think- 
 ing without stir of the brain. Edward was begin- 
 ning to regard with some impatience the reassuring 
 wallpaper and the polite chairs when he was sum- 
 moned. " Not more than ten minutes," the nurse 
 told him. " He is very weak." 
 
 Welsh was lying on his back, with both his arms 
 stretched, it seemed to abnormal length, outside the 
 counterpane. The sleeves of his nightshirt were 
 made of a white woolly material, very woolly, heavy 
 and thick. He turned his head as Edward entered, 
 and his face had an appearance startlingly shrivelled; 
 
 the skin was tightly drawn about his cheekbones. 
 
 414
 
 The Buffoon 415 
 
 He was not pale, he was more red than white, but 
 his colour looked as though it were made up of 
 points densely grouped, points that had been pro- 
 duced by the pricking of the needles of an electric 
 battery. His eyes showed pain, they had that pe- 
 culiar feminine look that one is struck by in the eyes 
 of hurt men and hurt animals; but sometimes, when 
 he was suffering less, they seemed the eyes of an 
 independent observer who had taken his post for a 
 view, in complete dissociation from the neighbouring 
 physiognomy. His lips were drawn together, there 
 was little blood in them, they looked thin and hard- 
 ened and blue as with cold. 
 
 " Ah. I'm very glad." He spoke in quite his 
 normal voice. " You are really kind to me. They 
 should have let you come in before. I don't know 
 why—" 
 
 Welsh stopped arid grimaced, but did not turn his 
 head. Edward took his hand for a moment, and 
 then sat down by the bed-. 
 
 " Remember," he said, " you mustn't talk too 
 much." 
 
 " They say so." Welsh raised his head a little 
 with an awkward motion and a shuffling of his whole 
 body. " So they say. But there's nothing in that. 
 They have their little conventions ; like us all. Still, 
 science is kind. I wasn't sure of that before, but it is 
 true. Science is kind. — I wanted to see you. 
 You asked me to stay with you, and I like being liked, 
 as you know. Oh, yes, and tell me. Reggie — Reg-
 
 416 The Buffoon 
 
 gie's little ways. You know? Curse this pain. 
 My brother Lulu tells me I make the most horrible 
 faces. Do you mind? No, I think it's Oxford men 
 who' mind that sort of thing. My cousin Hugh 
 Powys was here, and I saw him looking at the carpet. 
 He's a scholar and a gentleman, and they are very 
 embarrassing, particularly when they're embarrassed. 
 Yes, Cambridge men are different. But about Reg- 
 gie. No harm done, I hope? " 
 
 " None whatever." Edward was emphatic. 
 " What Tryers said hadn't the smallest effect." 
 
 " Ah, that's good. That's very good. You are 
 wonderful. No one can touch you. Reggie's gone 
 to Australia, thank heaven, — sailed this morning. 
 I didn't see him. I showed extraordinary courage. 
 You must commend me for that. I told them not to 
 let him come. I couldn't really have him about my 
 deathbed; that was too much — " 
 
 " But this isn't your deathbed. My dear Jack, 
 I'm sure of it! You mustn't die. It's an absurd 
 thing to say, but really, you know, I can't get on with- 
 out you. I want you particularly. I — " 
 
 " You feel like that! Do you really? I'm mon- 
 strously pleased. I am indeed." The sick man was 
 radiant. 
 
 " It will be all right," Edward went on. " You'll 
 see." 
 
 There was a pause, and then Welsh said: 
 " Whatever happens, it will be all right." 
 
 " Of course."
 
 The Buffoon ^Yl 
 
 " There is only one philosophy, you know, the 
 philosophy of resignation. — I should like, though, 
 to have seen this great war. I should like to have 
 lived through that. However, there are many 
 enough who won't. I shall die with the dead of the 
 first battlefields. You know that we shall be in it at 
 midnight? At midnight! The ultimatum to Ger- 
 many. And my operation is for ten o'clock to-mor- 
 row morning. How exciting! How tantalising! 
 You see how Fate plays with me. There is some 
 nonsense about my not seeing to-morrow's paper. 
 But my little brother Lulu will knock that on the 
 head. He will tell me the news; he understands. 
 Imagine it, — cheating me of my last thrill ! The 
 cruelty of that! " His eyes gleamed. 
 
 "How public-spirited you are!" Edward was 
 rather surprised. It struck him that Welsh was so 
 arbitrary about his sensations that perhaps he had 
 really ceased to feel anything. " I've hardly 
 thought of the war," Edward went on. " I confess 
 that all that business seems irrelevant. Of course 
 the Chancelleries of Europe ought to be extermi- 
 nated. But — " 
 
 " Ah, that's like you, that's like you ! You in- 
 dividualists — your serene detachments, your unin- 
 vaded preoccupations! Curse this pain. I'm of 
 another mould : I'm swept with the tides — off my 
 feet. I want to be in the surge and swell of any 
 large general movement. Yes, I should like to go 
 to Paris and join some Foreign Legion of extraor-
 
 418 The Buffoon 
 
 dinary adventurers, — Spaniards, Italians, Ameri- 
 cans, — a Foreign Legion that would accept any one, 
 without question, without form. — I don't think I 
 could stand our English officers, but the war may 
 civilise even them. I tell you, it is exciting! A 
 war of ideas! The old great Latin ideals and this 
 new Teutonic notion of an efficient World-State- 
 Machine. Which is to fall? And then of course, 
 there's the movement of the Slavs westward — " 
 
 Edward rose and touched his friend's hand. He 
 wanted to say: "Ah, but surely you don't think 
 that ideas can fight like duellists, to kill or die?" 
 But he said instead: " I must go. I'm not allowed 
 to stay longer." He was indeed blaming himself al- 
 ready; he should have stopped Jack before, he should 
 not have let him waste his strength. " And," he 
 added, " you will live. You will live when the war 
 is dead." 
 
 Welsh surveyed him searchingly. " Good-bye," 
 he said, and took his hand. " Oh, and don't forget, 
 Reggie's boat may be intercepted by a German armed 
 cruiser. Think of that! I expect he's a bit nervous. 
 Would they make him a prisoner of war ? Dear me ! 
 If I could hear of that, I should die laughing, — al- 
 though I never laugh. Isn't that extraordinary? I 
 can never laugh, I can never cry." 
 
 He sank back, exhausted; his features relaxed. 
 To Edward he had a look of nobility then, a look 
 that was grave and fine. He should have been a 
 genius, was a genius, perhaps. What was it, though.
 
 rhe Buffoon 419 
 
 that had failed him? Something — some interfu- 
 sion of substance that he had just missed — another 
 of Nature's tricks? If Edward told him now that 
 he was a genius, he would be flattered, he would be 
 pleased at once and spoilt at once; yes, Edward 
 would see him losing the soul he ought to have. 
 What a pity! Edward figured Welsh kicking out 
 absurdly, like an undisciplined colt. But for all that 
 Welsh was not a buffoon, except to the outer view. 
 Edward was more sure of that than ever. Well, he 
 must go. He wanted to remember Jack Welsh as 
 he was then; he looked at him once more, and then 
 left without further word. He felt very small.
 
 CHAPTER XLVII 
 
 A LETTER from George arrived the next 
 morning, written from somewhere on the 
 Suffolk coast. Edward's eye fell first on 
 the last page : " Norah wishes to be very kindly re- 
 membered to you, and I am, yours as always, George 
 Forrest." So she was still with him, and they had 
 left London, Those grave, tender, savage embraces 
 of hers that Edward had dreamed of, embraces so 
 profoundly charged, they would never come, — 
 neither from her nor from any one else. He de- 
 spaired of them : he had known them once, — but had 
 he? had he had them as he thought of them now? 
 In any case, it was sure that he would not have them 
 again. And Jack Welsh, whose friendship might 
 have reconciled him to middle age, might — would 
 — have coloured fresh vistas for him and kept him 
 going, — Jack Welsh was dying, would be dead in 
 an hour perhaps, or in half an hour. 
 
 Edward read the letter. George was much occu- 
 pied with the war, spoke of the British ultimatum 
 to Germany: " our only possible course in honour." 
 George rose sometimes almost to the level of a lead- 
 ing article or a speech in the House of Commons. 
 He said all the usual things applicable to that par- 
 ticular national crisis, and finally revived Edward's 
 
 420
 
 The Buffoon 421 
 
 listless attention by announcing that he was to be 
 married to Norah as soon as possible. Edward was 
 convinced that this decision was closely connected 
 with the war. In some undefined way George felt 
 that because England was going to war he must no 
 longer lead an immoral life. That was like George. 
 A little later on he would volunteer, join the Officers' 
 Training Corps or something of that sort. There 
 would be great clamour for men. Molesworth 
 would certainly volunteer, by way of " atonement." 
 " I thought, and think, their sins atoned." Many 
 would enlist for Molesworth's reason. Others 
 would join the forces to escape the horrors of do- 
 mestic life, others would join from love of adven- 
 ture and the gambling spirit, others from emulation, 
 others from cowardice, very few primarily from 
 patriotism. 
 
 Edward felt a certain disposition to enlist himself. 
 Would that be for him the final buffoonery? He 
 had always been drawn to the French and the Rus- 
 sians : for the Germans he had always had a marked 
 distaste. This was to him the only possible reason 
 for fighting them. Public reasons did not touch Ed- 
 ward at all; he could not see that they mattered either 
 to him or to most, that they were of moment to any 
 but a handful of political and diplomatic specialists. 
 If the Germans were pleasant people, let them win; 
 but they were not pleasant people. On the whole 
 there seemed a great deal to be said for joining the 
 Army with George; Edward was diverted by the
 
 422 The Buffoon 
 
 idea of George and himself as brothers-in-arms. 
 And death on the field was less repugnant to him than 
 death in a bedroom. He would escape burial in a 
 prepared graveground disgustingly thumbed and 
 fingered by parsons and craped relatives. He would 
 escape his separate mound, his especial funeral. 
 There would be no undertaker, no tombstone, no 
 coffin, no ceremony, no funereal fuss. He would 
 probably be just thrown with others into a generous 
 common ditch, and there he and they would lie un- 
 straitened, in French earth. It would be almost 
 like giving him his place at once among the dead 
 of long past centuries, to fall so and so to be 
 buried. 
 
 He took up his paper and saw that England had 
 indeed been at war with Germany since eleven 
 o'clock of the night before. . . . Edward recalled 
 those fine Watteaus in Paris, in London and in Ber- 
 lin. He hoped that nothing would happen to them. 
 . . . He thought of Welsh hearing the news from 
 his brother Lulu, perhaps reading the same paper, 
 the last paper he would ever read. How much 
 Welsh would make of that: " The last, my friend, 
 the last! I shall never read another ! " He would 
 say that eagerly, greedily, in gross lust for the sensa- 
 tion of it. The date of the paper, he would look at 
 that, he would make much of that too. How much 
 he always made of everything! And he would say: 
 " I die as England declares war! I fall as England 
 rises! " None the less — all the more for all this,
 
 The Buffoon 423 
 
 perhaps, — Edward needed him; yes, all the more 
 for his foibles and follies. 
 
 Edward looked at George's letter again. Did 
 George realise Norah at all? he wondered: could 
 George understand at all what it was that she held, 
 held always, so potently, in reserve ? Could he read 
 her looks, did he know why she was lazy and shy in 
 just that way? If George even had some hint of 
 it all, Edward felt he could forgive him for his for- 
 tune, could even get some satisfaction from the situa- 
 tion. . . . George was twenty-six. Edward could 
 not get any satisfaction from that. Twenty-six! 
 That accounted for a great deal. 
 
 Other quite different and quite unlooked-for reflec- 
 tions came to Edward at this point with startling 
 rapidity. This immortality that he had believed he 
 could snatch at and seize from Norah? Wasn't that 
 idea sheer sophistry rooted in cowardice, after all? 
 What Norah stood for, with singular completeness, 
 was the trapping of human beings for one end, apart 
 from their individual desires or intents. Why 
 should Edward accept that trapping as inevitable, for 
 him? He had thought that if he were to sacrifice to 
 this precious " Whole," as they called it, he would In 
 a way go free, be free to return to himself. Now he 
 suspected that this idea was the merest illusion, an 
 illusion pressed with archaic craft into the service of 
 the treachery of the Universe. " Here is the only 
 immortality you can have ! " was an allure to seduce 
 him from himself, and the bravest answer was:
 
 424 The Buffoon 
 
 "Well, then, I reject it! I reject an Immortality 
 shared with every beast of the field." Really, a 
 sticky adhesion could not be always expected of all 
 creation. Edward vowed himself to perpetual mis- 
 trust of the delusive peace to be won from a woman 
 who was an instrument of the Universe and absorbed 
 by being an instrument. No, peace was elsewhere, 
 the escape from the discomforts and indignities of a 
 buffoonery worn and faded was elsewhere : he would 
 see that. There came suddenly and surprisingly 
 back, to him a memory of a dawn he had once seen 
 after a night journey in France; a dawn misty-blue 
 and occult, a dawn that did not creep, but came up 
 out of the east on slow wings. He saw again those 
 flat French pastures, their straight trees. . . . 
 
 Ten o'clock struck. Edward looked at his clock; 
 it was slow, he knew. They must have begun the 
 operation. Perhaps even now. . . . 
 
 He found his hat, lit a cigarette carefully, and 
 started out for the Nursing Home.
 
 CHAPTER XLVIIl 
 
 AS the front door opened to him, Edward no- 
 ticed that at the end of the hall the door of 
 the waiting-room was open, and that a 
 youngish man with light hair was standing stooped 
 over the table, writing. At that moment a nurse 
 came briskly down the stairs, with a look of pro- 
 fessional preoccupation. Edward stepped forward 
 and made his inquiry of her. She stopped, looked 
 sharply at him, seemed put out, and then glanced 
 over her shoulder. " Doctor Marsh! " she called, 
 in a tentative moderated tone. The blond man 
 turned. Edward went to him, and the nurse fol- 
 lowed. " This gentleman wants to know about Mr. 
 Welsh," she said hurriedly, and went off. 
 
 The doctor surveyed Edward remotely for a mo- 
 ment; he cleared his throat. Edward noticed how 
 well-groomed he was, how non-committal, how self- 
 contained, how immune from lapses or breaches or 
 breaks. His eyes seemed guarded, now and for- 
 ever, and when he spoke Edward felt that his re- 
 served, balanced, considerate voice might have been 
 made up to prescription by a practised hand. 
 
 " I am very sorry to have to tell you that Mr, 
 Welsh died under the operation." Edward bowed. 
 He had been entirely convinced that it was so, from 
 
 425
 
 426 The Buffoon 
 
 the time he reached that front door. " Sir Wilfrid 
 had very little hope from the first. You may be 
 assured that the end was quite inevitable. He could 
 not possibly have been in better hands. You know 
 Sir Wilfrid Horsbrough's reputation for the very 
 highest surgical skill. You may feel that no one 
 could have saved him when Sir Wilfrid failed. The 
 abscess was particularly dangerously placed." 
 
 " Yes,-' said Edward. " Thank you. Thank you 
 very much." 
 
 He left, and walked towards his rooms, through 
 the stirred London streets, past shouting newsboys 
 and preoccupied men and women not quite at ease 
 under the new imposition upon their London calm. 
 So England was at war, and the war was to be the 
 greatest in history. George's words, and probably 
 true enough. Russia, Germany, Austria, France, — 
 and now England. . . . 
 
 " Hulloa, dear fellow! " the voice of Foxy Fen- 
 ton swished Edward with neat aim. " Where are 
 you off to ? What d' you think of the war ? Won't 
 last long, though. Two or three months perhaps. 
 Not beyond Christmas. Had a long talk with old 
 Slaughden — military specialist and all that — in 
 with all the big people at the War Office — he told 
 me it couldn't possibly last. Oh, no, the Germans 
 are done in, simply done in. Of course they know 
 it now. — But I'm hit, — devil of a nuisance. 
 Rogers has backed out, won't publish my ' Little 
 Fishes,' — because of the war, he says. What non-
 
 rhe Buffoon 427 
 
 sense ! No use my telling him ; that wouldn't make 
 any difference. Obstinate old elephant. Agree- 
 ment practically fixed up, but I can't get at him le- 
 gally; he knows that. Deuce of a mess for me! 
 Lose a cool hundred, at least." 
 
 Edward saved time by handing hirn a sovereign. 
 
 "Hello! what? Oh, very nice of you, Raynes, 
 very nice. I'll send you a cheque. Unconscionable 
 ass, that fellow Rogers. Never mind. What a 
 circus, that show the other night! What a circus! 
 Distinguished looking man, though, that friend of 
 yours. You must introduce me some time." 
 
 " H'm — yes — he's dead." Edward's accuracy 
 and buffoonery worked mechanically together for 
 this half-audible response. 
 
 " Well, so long, old chap. I'm off to meet a man 
 at Madame Tussaud's! Madame Tussaud's!" 
 Fenton gave his usual chuckle, waved gaily, and 
 went, looking extremely prosperous. 
 
 "The other night! " Edward tried to believe it. 
 . . . Fenton's existence was inexplicable to him. 
 . . . Still the newsboys shouted, men and women 
 went talking gravely, they hurried, they strode by, 
 looking responsible and important, conscious of their 
 added dignity through the event. But across Ed- 
 ward's brain certain images quite unconnected with 
 that new tremendous clash passed and repassed: 
 while the same words, in the dead man's voice, 
 sounded with beating repetition in his ears: 
 " Whatever happens, it will be all right." " There
 
 428 The Buffoon 
 
 is only one philosophy, the philosophy of resigna- 
 
 tion." 
 
 Edward, as he stepped on, looking through and 
 beyond all that present whirl and stir, was at this 
 especial moment not striving to pierce nor curious to 
 guess what lay before him. Birth does not give 
 clear sight. He saw nothing, not even the poplars 
 of France under a misty dawn. 
 
 The End
 
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