THE REEF 
 
THE REEF 
 
 A NOVEL 
 
 BY 
 
 EDITH WHARTON 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 THE HOUSE OF MIRTH," "ETHAN 
 
 ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 1912 
 
If 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 
BOOK I 
 
 250651 
 
THE REEF 
 
 T TNEXPECTED obstacle. Please don t come till 
 |_j thirtieth. Anna." 
 
 All the way from Charing Cross to Dover the train 
 had hammered the words of the telegram into George 
 Darrow s ears, ringing every change of irony on its 
 commonplace syllables: rattling them out like a dis 
 charge of musketry, letting them, one by one, drip slowly 
 and coldly into his brain, or shaking, tossing, transpos 
 ing them like the dice in some game of the gods of 
 malice ; and now, as he emerged from his compartment at 
 the pier, and stood facing the wind-swept platform and 
 the angry sea beyond, they leapt out at him as if from 
 the crest of the waves, stung and blinded him with a 
 fresh fury of derision. 
 
 "Unexpected obstacle. Please don t come till thirtieth. 
 Anna." 
 
 She had put him off at the very last moment, and for 
 the second time: put him off with all her sweet reason 
 ableness, and for one of her usual "good" reasons he 
 
\/. : :-*:THE REEF 
 
 in" that thi^* reason, like the other, (the visit of 
 her husband s uncle s widow) would be "good" ! But it 
 was that very certainty which chilled him. The fact of 
 her dealing so reasonably with their case shed an ironic 
 light on the idea that there had been any exceptional 
 warmth in the greeting she had given him after their 
 twelve years apart. 
 
 They had found each other again, in London, some 
 three months previously, at a dinner at the American 
 Embassy, and when she had caught sight of him her 
 smile had been like a red rose pinned on her widow s 
 mourning. He still felt the throb of surprise with which, 
 among the stereotyped faces of the season s diners, he 
 had come upon her unexpected face, with the dark hair 
 banded above grave eyes; eyes in which he had recog 
 nized every little curve and shadow as he would have 
 recognized, after half a life-time, the details of a room 
 he had played in as a child. And as, in the plumed 
 starred crowd, she had stood out for him, slender, se 
 cluded and different, so he had felt, the instant their 
 glances met, that he as sharply detached himself for her. 
 All that and more her smile had said; had said not 
 merely "I remember," but "I remember just what you re 
 member"; almost, indeed, as though her memory had 
 aided his, her glance flung back on their recaptured mo 
 ment its morning brightness. Certainly, when their dis 
 tracted Ambassadress with the cry: "Oh, you know 
 Mrs. Leath? That s perfect, for General Farnham has 
 failed me" had waved them together for the march to 
 the dining-room, Darrow had felt a slight pressure of the 
 arm on his, a pressure faintly but unmistakably empha- 
 
 [2] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 sizing the exclamation : "Isn t it wonderful ? In London 
 in the season in a mob ?" 
 
 Little enough, on the part of most women ; but it was 
 a sign of Mrs. Leath s quality that every movement, every 
 syllable, told with her. Even in the old days, as an intent 
 grave-eyed girl, she had seldom misplaced her light 
 strokes; and Darrow, on meeting her again, had im 
 mediately felt how much finer and surer an instrument 
 of expression she had become. 
 
 Their evening together had been a long confirmation 
 of this feeling. She had talked to him, shyly yet frankly, 
 of what had happened to her during the years when they 
 had so strangely failed to meet. She had told him of her 
 marriage to Eraser Leath, and of her subsequent life in 
 France, where her husband s mother, left a widow in his 
 youth, had been re-married to the Marquis de Chantelle, 
 and where, partly in consequence of this second union, 
 the son had permanently settled himself. She had spoken 
 also, with an intense eagerness of affection, of her lit 
 tle girl Effie, who was now nine years old, and, in a strain 
 hardly less tender, of Owen Leath, the charming clever 
 young step-son whom her husband s death had left to her 
 care ... 
 
 A porter, stumbling against Darrow s bags, roused him 
 to the fact that he still obstructed the platform, inert and 
 encumbering as his luggage. 
 
 "Crossing, sir?" 
 
 Was he crossing ? He really didn t know ; but for lack 
 of any more compelling impulse he followed the porter 
 to the luggage van, singled out his property, and turned 
 
 [3] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 to march behind it down the gang-way. As the fierce 
 wind shouldered him, building up a crystal wall against 
 his efforts, he felt anew the derision of his case. 
 
 "Nasty weather to cross, sir," the porter threw back 
 at him as they beat their way down the narrow walk 
 to the pier. Nasty weather, indeed ; but luckily, as it had 
 turned out, there was no earthly reason why Darrow 
 should cross. 
 
 While he pushed on in the wake of his luggage his 
 thoughts slipped back into the old groove. He had once 
 or twice run across the man whom Anna Summers had 
 preferred to him, and since he had met her again he had 
 been exercising his imagination on the picture of what 
 her married life must have been. Her husband had 
 struck him as a characteristic specimen of the kind of 
 American as to whom one is not quite clear whether he 
 lives in Europe in order to cultivate an art, or cultivates 
 an art as a pretext for living in Europe. Mr. Leath s 
 art was water-colour painting, but he practised it fur 
 tively, almost clandestinely, with the disdain of a man 
 of the world for anything bordering on the professional, 
 while he devoted himself more openly, and with religious 
 seriousness, to the collection of enamelled snuff-boxes. 
 He was blond and well-dressed, with the physical distinc 
 tion that comes from having a straight figure, a thin nose, 
 and the habit of looking slightly disgusted as who 
 should not, in a world where authentic snuff-boxes were 
 growing daily harder to find, and the market was flooded 
 with flagrant forgeries? 
 
 Darrow had often wondered what possibilities of com 
 munion there could have been between Mr. Leath and 
 
 [4] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 his wife. Now he concluded that there had probably 
 been none. Mrs. Leath s words gave no hint of her hus 
 band s having failed to justify her choice; but her very 
 reticence betrayed her. She spoke of him with a kind 
 of impersonal seriousness, as if he had been a character 
 in a novel or a figure in history; and what she said 
 sounded as though it had been learned by heart and 
 slightly dulled by repetition. This fact immensely in 
 creased Darrow s impression that his meeting with her 
 had annihilated the intervening years. She, who was 
 always so elusive and inaccessible, had grown suddenly 
 communicative and kind: had opened the doors of her 
 past, and tacitly left him to draw his own conclusions. 
 As a result, he had taken leave of her with the sense that 
 he was a being singled out and privileged, to whom she 
 had entrusted something precious to keep. It was her 
 happiness in their meeting that she had given him, had 
 frankly left him to do with as he willed; and the frank 
 ness of the gesture doubled the beauty of the gift. 
 
 Their next meeting had prolonged and deepened the 
 impression. They had found each other again, a few 
 days later, in an old country house full of books and pic 
 tures, in the soft landscape of southern England. The 
 presence of a large party, with all its aimless and agi 
 tated displacements, had served only to isolate the pair 
 and give them (at least to the young man s fancy) a 
 deeper feeling of communion, and their days there had 
 been like some musical prelude, where the instruments, 
 breathing low, seem to hold back the waves of sound that 
 press against them. 
 
 Mrs. Leath, on this occasion, was no less kind than be- 
 
 [5] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 fore; but she contrived to make him understand that 
 what was so inevitably coming was not to come too soon. 
 It was not that she showed any hesitation as to the issue, 
 but rather that she seemed to wish not to miss any stage 
 in the gradual reflowering of their intimacy. 
 
 Darrow, for his part, was content to wait if she wished 
 it. He remembered that once, in America, when she 
 was a girl, and he had gone to stay with her family in 
 the country, she had been out when he arrived, and her 
 mother had told him to look for her in the garden. She 
 was not in the garden, but beyond it he had seen her 
 approaching down a long shady path. Without hasten 
 ing her step she had smiled -atldsigned to him to wait; 
 and charmed by the lights and shacft^js^iStt: played upon 
 her as she moved, and by the pleasure^! watching, her^ 
 slow advance toward him, he had obeye^fc| and stooa 
 still. And so she seemed now to be wajking- to him 
 down the years, the light and shade of old memories and 
 new hopes playing variously on her, and each step giv 
 ing him the vision of a different grace. She did not 
 waver or turn aside; he knew she would come straight 
 to where he stood; but something in her eyes said 
 "Wait", and again he obeyed and waited. 
 
 On the fourth day an unexpected event threw out his 
 calculations. Summoned to town by the arrival in Eng 
 land of her husband s mother, she left without giving 
 Darrow the chance he had counted on, and he cursed 
 himself for a dilatory blunderer. Still, his disappoint 
 ment was tempered by the certainty of being with her 
 again before she left for France; and they did in fact 
 see each other in London. There, however, the at- 
 
 [6] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 mosphere had changed with the conditions. He could 
 not say that she avoided him, or even that she was a 
 shade less glad to see him ; but she was beset by family 
 duties and, as he thought, a little too readily resigned to 
 them. 
 
 The Marquise de Chantelle, as Dar,row soon perceived, 
 had the same mild formidableness as the late Mr. Leath : 
 a sort of insistent self-effacement before which every 
 one about her gave way. It was perhaps the shadow 
 of this lady s presence pervasive even during her actual 
 brief eclipses that subdued and silenced Mrs. Leath. 
 The latter was, moreover, preoccupied about her step 
 son, who, soon after receiving his degree at Harvard, had 
 been rescued from a stormy love-affair, and finally, after 
 some months of troubled drifting, had yielded to his step 
 mother s counsel and gone up to Oxford for a year of 
 supplementary study. Thither Mrs. Leath went once or 
 twice to visit him, and her remaining days were packed 
 -vith family obligations : getting, as she phrased it, 
 frocks and governesses" for her little girl, who had been 
 left in France, and having to devote the remaining hours 
 to long shopping expeditions with her mother-in-law. 
 Nevertheless, during her brief escapes from duty, Dar- 
 row had had time to feel her safe in the custody of his 
 devotion, set apart for some inevitable hour; and the 
 last evening, at the theatre, between the overshadowing 
 Marquise and the unsuspicious Owen, they had had an 
 almost decisive exchange of words. 
 
 Now, in the rattle of the wind about his ears, Darrow 
 continued to hear the mocking echo of her message: 
 "Unexpected obstacle." In such an existence as Mrs. 
 
 [7] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 Leath s, at once so ordered and so exposed, he knew how 
 small a complication might assume the magnitude of an 
 "obstacle ;" yet, even allowing as impartially as his 
 state of mind permitted for the fact that, with her 
 mother-in-law always, and her stepson intermittently, 
 under her roof, her lot involved a hundred small accom 
 modations generally foreign to the freedom of widow 
 hood even so, he could net but think that the very 
 ingenuity bred of such conditions might have helped her 
 to find a way out of them. No, her "reason", what 
 ever it was, could, in this case, be nothing but a pretext ; 
 unless he leaned to the less flattering alternative that 
 any reason seemed good enough for postponing him ! 
 Certainly, if her welcome had meant what he imagined, 
 she could not, for the second time within a few weeks, 
 have submitted so tamely to the disarrangement of their 
 plans; a disarrangement which his official duties con 
 sidered might, for all she knew, result in his not being 
 able to go to her for months. 
 
 "Please don t come till thirtieth." The thirtieth and 
 it was now the fifteenth! She flung back the fortnight 
 on his hands as if he had been an idler indifferent to 
 dates, instead of an active young diplomatist who, to 
 respond to her call, had had to hew his way through a 
 very jungle of engagements! "Please don t come till 
 thirtieth." That was all. Not the shadow of an excuse 
 or a regret; not even the perfunctory "have written" 
 with which it is usual to soften such blows. She didn t 
 want him, and had taken the shortest way to tell him so. 
 Even in his first moment of exasperation it struck him 
 as characteristic that she should not have padded her 
 
 [8] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 postponement with a fib. Certainly her moral angles 
 were not draped! 
 
 "If 1 asked her to marry me, she d have refused in 
 the same language. But thank heaven I haven t!" he 
 reflected. 
 
 These considerations, which had been with him every 
 yard of the way from London, reached a climax of irony 
 as he was drawn into the crowd on the pier. It did not 
 soften his feelings to remember that, but for her lack 
 of forethought, he might, at this harsh end of the stormy 
 May day, have been sitting before his club fire in Lon 
 don instead of shivering in the damp human herd on the 
 pier. Admitting the sex s traditional right to change, 
 she might at least have advised him of hers by tele 
 graphing directly to his rooms. But in spite of their 
 exchange of letters she had apparently failed to note 
 his address, and a breathless emissary had rushed from 
 the Embassy to pitch her telegram into his compartment 
 as the train was moving from the station. 
 
 Yes, he had given her chance enough to learn where 
 he lived; and this minor proof of her indifference be 
 came, as he jammed his way through the crowd, the 
 rriain point of his grievance against her and of his de 
 rision of himself. Half way down the pier the prod of 
 an umbrella increased his exasperation by rousing him 
 to the fact that it was raining. Instantly the narrow 
 ledge became a battle-ground of thrusting, slanting, par 
 rying domes. The wind rose with the rain, and the 
 harried wretches exposed to this double assault wreaked 
 on their neighbours the vengeance they could not take 
 on the elements. 
 
 [9] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 Darrow, whose healthy enjoyment of life made him in 
 general a good traveller, tolerant of agglutinated human 
 ity, felt himself obscurely outraged by these promiscuous 
 contacts. It was as though all the people about him had 
 taken his measure and known his plight; as though they 
 were contemptuously bumping and shoving him like the 
 inconsiderable thing he had become. "She doesn t want 
 you, doesn t want you, doesn t want you," their umbrel 
 las and their elbows seemed to say. 
 
 He had rashly vowed, when the telegram was flung 
 into his window : "At any rate I won t turn back" as 
 though it might cause the sender a malicious joy to have 
 him retrace his steps rather than keep on to Paris ! Now 
 he perceived the absurdity of the vow, and thanked his 
 stars that he need not plunge, to no purpose, into the 
 fury of waves outside the harbour. 
 
 With this thought in his mind he turned back to look 
 for his porter; but the contiguity of dripping umbrellas 
 made signalling impossible and, perceiving that he had 
 lost sight of the man, he scrambled up again to the plat 
 form. As he reached it, a descending umbrella caught 
 him in the collar-bone; and the next moment, bent side 
 ways by the wind, it turned inside out and soared up, 
 kite-wise, at the end of a helpless female arm. 
 
 Darrow caught the umbrella, lowered its inverted ribs, 
 and looked up at the face it exposed to him. 
 
 "Wait a minute," he said ; "you can t stay here." 
 
 As he spoke, a surge of the crowd drove the owner of 
 the umbrella abruptly down on him. Darrow steadied 
 her with extended arms, and regaining her footing she 
 cried out : "Oh, dear, oh, dear ! It s in ribbons !" 
 
 [10] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 Her lifted face, fresh and flushed in the driving rain, 
 woke in him a memory of having seen it at a distant time 
 and in a vaguely unsympathetic setting; but it was no 
 moment to follow up such clues, and the face was ob 
 viously one to make its way on its own merits. 
 
 Its possessor had dropped her bag and bundles to 
 clutch at the tattered umbrella. "I bought it only yes 
 terday at the Stores; and yes it s utterly done for!" 
 she lamented. 
 
 Darrow smiled at the intensity of her distress. It was 
 food for the moralist that, side by side with such catas 
 trophes as his, human nature was still agitating itself 
 over its microscopic woes ! 
 
 "Here s mine if you want it!" he shouted back at her 
 through the shouting of the gale. 
 
 The offer caused the young lady to look at him more 
 intently. "Why, it s Mr. Darrow!" she exclaimed; and 
 then, all radiant recognition : "Oh, thank you ! We ll 
 share it, if you will." 
 
 She knew him, then; and he knew her; but how and 
 where had they met? He put aside the problem for 
 subsequent solution, and drawing her into a more shel 
 tered corner, bade her wait till he could find his porter. 
 
 When, a few minutes later, he came back with his re 
 covered property, and the news that the boat would not 
 leave till the tide had turned, she showed no concern. 
 
 "Not for two hours? How lucky then I can find my 
 trunk!" 
 
 Ordinarily Darrow would have felt little disposed to 
 involve himself in the adventure of a young female who 
 had lost her trunk; but at the moment he was glad 
 2 [II] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 of any pretext for activity. Even should he decide to 
 take the next up train from Dover he still had a yawning 
 hour to fill ; and the obvious remedy was to devote it to 
 the loveliness in distress under his umbrella. 
 
 "You ve lost a trunk? Let me see if I can find it." 
 It pleased him that she did not return the conventional 
 "Oh, would you?" Instead, she corrected him with a 
 laugh "Not a trunk, but my trunk ; I ve no other " and 
 then added briskly: "You d better first see to getting 
 your own things on the boat." 
 
 This made him answer, as if to give substance to his 
 plans by discussing them: "I don t actually know that 
 I m going over." 
 "Not going over?" 
 
 "Well . . . perhaps not by this boat." Again he felt 
 a stealing indecision. "I may probably have to go back 
 to London. I m I m waiting . . . expecting a letter 
 (She ll think me a defaulter," he reflected.) 
 "But meanwhile there s plenty of time to find your 
 trunk." 
 
 He picked up his companion s bundles, and offered 
 her an arm which enabled her to press her slight per 
 son more closely under his umbrella ; and as, thus linked, 
 they beat their way back to the platform, pulled together 
 and apart like marionettes on the wires of the wind, he 
 continued to wonder where he could have seen her. He 
 had immediately classed her as a compatriot; her small 
 nose, her clear tints, a kind of sketchy delicacy in her 
 face, as though she had been brightly but lightly washed 
 in with water-colour, all confirmed the evidence of her 
 high sweet voice and of her quick incessant gestures. 
 
 [12] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 She was clearly an American, but with the loose native 
 quality strained through a closer woof of manners : the 
 composite product of an enquiring and adaptable race. 
 All this, however, did not help him to fit a name to her, 
 for just such instances were perpetually pouring through 
 the London Embassy, and the etched and angular Ameri 
 can was becoming rarer than the fluid type. 
 
 More puzzling than the fact of his being unable to 
 identify her was the persistent sense connecting her with 
 something uncomfortable and distasteful. So pleasant a 
 vision as that gleaming up at him between wet brown hair 
 and wet brown boa should have evoked only associa 
 tions as pleasing; but each effort to fit her image into 
 his past resulted in the same memories of boredom and 
 a vague discomfort . . . 
 
 II 
 
 DON T you remember me now at Mrs. Mur- 
 rett s?" 
 
 She threw the question at Darrow across a table of 
 the quiet coffee-room to which, after a vainly prolonged 
 quest for her trunk, he had suggested taking her for a 
 cup of tea. 
 
 In this musty retreat she had removed her dripping 
 hat, hung it on the fender to dry, and stretched herself 
 on tiptoe in front of the round eagle-crowned mirror, 
 above the mantel vases of dyed immortelles, while she 
 ran her fingers comb-wise through her hair. The ges 
 ture had acted on Darrow s numb feelings as the glow 
 
THE REEF 
 
 of the fire acted on his circulation; and when he had 
 asked : "Aren t your feet wet, too ?" and, after frank in 
 spection of a stout-shod sole, she had answered cheer 
 fully : "No luckily I had on my new boots," he began to 
 feel that human intercourse would still be tolerable if it 
 were always as free from formality. 
 
 The removal of his companion s hat, besides provoking 
 this reflection, gave him his first full sight of her face; 
 and this was so favourable that the name she now pro 
 nounced fell on him with a quite disproportionate shock 
 of dismay. 
 
 "Oh, Mrs. Murrett s was it there?" 
 
 He remembered her now, of course: remembered her 
 as one of the shadowy sidling presences in the back 
 ground of that awful house in Chelsea, one of the dumb 
 appendages of the shrieking unescapable Mrs. Murrett, 
 into whose talons he had fallen in the course of his head 
 long pursuit of Lady Ulrica Crispin. Oh, the taste of 
 stale follies ! How insipid it was, yet how it clung ! 
 
 "I used to pass you on the stairs," she reminded him. 
 
 Yes: he had seen her slip by he recalled it now as 
 he dashed up to the drawing-room in quest of Lady Ul 
 rica. The thought made him steal a longer look. How 
 could such a face have been merged in the Murrett mob? 
 Its fugitive slanting lines, that lent themselves to all man 
 ner of tender tilts and foreshortenings, had the freakish 
 grace of some young head of the Italian comedy. The 
 hair stood up from her forehead in a boyish elf-lock, and 
 its colour matched her auburn eyes flecked with black, 
 and the little brown spot on her cheek, between the ear 
 that was meant to have a rose behind it and the chin that 
 
 r 
 
THE REEF 
 
 should have rested on a ruff. When she smiled, the left 
 corner of her mouth went up a little higher than the 
 right; and her smile began in her eyes and ran down to 
 her lips in two lines of light. He had dashed past that to 
 reach Lady Ulrica Crispin! 
 
 "But of course you wouldn t remember me," she was 
 saying. "My name is Viner Sophy Viner." 
 
 Not remember her? But of course he did! He was 
 genuinely sure of it now. "You re Mrs. Murrett s niece/ 
 he declared. 
 
 She shook her head. "No ; not even that. Only her 
 reader." 
 
 "Her reader ? Do you mean to say she ever reads ?" 
 
 Miss Viner enjoyed his wonder. "Dear, no! But I 
 wrote notes, and made up the visiting-book, and walked 
 the dogs, and saw bores for her." 
 
 Darrow groaned. "That must have been rather bad !" 
 
 "Yes ; but nothing like as bad as being her niece." 
 
 "That I can well believe. I m glad to hear," he added, 
 "that you put it all in the past tense." 
 
 She seemed to droop a little at the allusion; then she 
 lifted her chin with a jerk of defiance. "Yes. All is at 
 an end between us. We ve just parted in tears but not 
 in silence !" 
 
 "Just parted? Do you mean to say you ve been there 
 all this time ?" 
 
 "Ever since you used to come there to see Lady Ul 
 rica? Does it seem to you so awfully long ago?" 
 
 The unexpectedness of the thrust as well as its doubt 
 ful taste chilled his growing enjoyment of her chatter. 
 He had really been getting to like her had recovered, 
 
 [15] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 under the candid approval of her eye, his usual sense of 
 being a personable young man, with all the privileges per 
 taining to the state, instead of the anonymous rag of 
 humanity he had felt himself in the crowd on the pier. 
 It annoyed him, at that particular moment, to be reminded 
 that naturalness is not always consonant with taste. 
 
 She seemed to guess his thought. "You don t like my 
 saying that you came for Lady Ulrica ?" she asked, lean 
 ing over the table to pour herself a second cup of tea. 
 
 He liked her quickness, at any rate. "It s better," he 
 laughed, "than your thinking I came for Mrs. Murrett !" 
 
 "Oh, we never thought anybody came for Mrs. Mur 
 rett ! It was always for something else : the music, or the 
 cook when there was a good one or the other people ; 
 generally one of the other people." 
 
 "I see." 
 
 She was amusing, and that, in his present mood, was 
 more to his purpose than the exact shade of her taste. 
 It was odd, too, to discover suddenly that the blurred 
 tapestry of Mrs. Murrett s background had all the while 
 been alive and full of eyes. Now, with a pair of them 
 looking into his, he was conscious of a queer reversal 
 of perspective. 
 
 "Who were the we ? Were you a cloud of witnesses ?" 
 
 "There were a good many of us." She smiled. "Let me 
 see who was there in your time? Mrs. Bolt and 
 Mademoiselle and Professor Didymus and the Polish 
 Countess. Don t you remember the Polish Countess? 
 She crystal-gazed, and played accompaniments, and Mrs. 
 Murrett chucked her because Mrs. Didymus accused her 
 of hypnotizing the Professor. But of course you don t 
 
 [16] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 remember. We were all invisible to you; but we could 
 see. And we all used to wonder about you " 
 
 Again Darrow felt a redness in the temples. "What 
 about me?" 
 
 "Well whether it was you or she who . . . " 
 
 He winced, but hid his disapproval. It made the time 
 pass to listen to her. 
 
 "And what, if one may ask, was your conclusion?" 
 
 "Well, Mrs. Bolt and Mademoiselle and the Countess 
 naturally thought it was she; but Professor Didymus and 
 Jimmy Brance especially Jimmy " 
 
 "Just a moment : who on earth is Jimmy Brance ?" 
 
 She exclaimed in wonder : "You were absorbed not to 
 remember Jimmy Brance! He must have been right 
 about you, after all." She let her amused scrutiny dwell 
 on him. "But how could you ? She was false from head 
 to foot !" 
 
 "False ?" In spite of time and satiety, the male 
 
 instinct of ownership rose up and repudiated the charge. 
 
 Miss Viner caught his look and laughed. "Oh, I only 
 meant externally ! You see, she often used to come to my 
 room after tennis, or to touch up in the evenings, when 
 they were going on ; and I assure you she took apart like 
 a puzzle. In fact I used to say to Jimmy just to make 
 him wild : Til bet you anything you like there s noth 
 ing wrong, because I know she d never dare un " 
 She broke the word in two, and her quick blush made 
 her face like a shallow-petalled rose shading to the 
 deeper pink of the centre. 
 
 The situation was c aved, for Darrow, by an abrupt 
 rush of memories, and he gave way to a mirth which 
 
 [17] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 she as frankly echoed. "Of course," she gasped through 
 her laughter, "I only said it to tease Jimmy " 
 
 Her amusement obscurely annoyed him. "Oh, you re 
 all alike!" he exclaimed, moved by an unaccountable 
 sense of disappointment. 
 
 She caught him up in a flash she didn t miss things ! 
 "You say that because you think I m spiteful and envious ? 
 Yes I was envious of Lady Ulrica . . . Oh, not on 
 account of you or Jimmy Brance! Simply because she 
 had almost all the things I ve always wanted : clothes and 
 fun and motors, and admiration and yachting and Paris 
 why, Paris alone would be enough ! And how do you 
 suppose a girl can see that sort of thing about her day 
 after day, and never wonder why some women, who 
 don t seem to have any more right to it, have it all tum 
 bled into their laps, while others are writing dinner invi 
 tations, and straightening out accounts, and copying 
 visiting lists, and finishing golf-stockings, and matching 
 ribbons, and seeing that the dogs get their sulphur ? One 
 looks in one s glass, after all !" 
 
 She launched the closing words at him on a cry that 
 lifted them above the petulance of vanity; but his sense 
 of her words was lost in the surprise of her face. Under 
 the flying clouds of her excitement it was no longer a 
 shallow flower-cup but a darkening gleaming mirror that 
 might give back strange depths of feeling. The girl had 
 stuff in her he saw it; and she seemed to catch the 
 perception in his eyes. 
 
 "That s the kind of education I got at Mrs. Murrett s 
 and I never had any other," she said with a shrug. 
 
 "Good Lord were you there so long?" 
 [18] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 "Five years. I stuck it out longer than any of the 
 others." She spoke as though it were something to 
 be proud of. 
 
 "Well, thank God you re out of it now !" 
 
 Again a just perceptible shadow crossed her face. 
 "Yes I m out of it now fast enough." 
 
 "And what if I may ask are you doing next?" 
 
 She brooded a moment behind drooped lids ; then, with 
 a touch of hauteur : "I m going to Paris : to study for the 
 stage." 
 
 "The stage?" Darrow stared at her, dismayed. All 
 his confused contradictory impressions assumed a new 
 aspect at this announcement; and to hide his surprise 
 he added lightly: "Ah then you will have Paris, after 
 all !" 
 
 "Hardly Lady Ulrica s Paris. It s not likely to be 
 roses, roses all the way." 
 
 "It s not, indeed." Real compassion prompted him to 
 continue: "Have you any any influence you can count 
 on?" 
 
 She gave a somewhat flippant little laugh. "None but 
 my own. I ve never had any other to count on." 
 
 He passed over the obvious reply. "But have you any 
 idea how the profession is over-crowded? I know I m 
 trite " 
 
 "I ve a very clear idea. But I couldn t go on as I 
 was." 
 
 "Of course not. But since, as you say, you d stuck k 
 out longer than any of the others, couldn t you at least 
 have held on till you were sure of some kind of an 
 
 opening?" 
 
 [19] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 She made no reply for a moment; then she turned a 
 listless glance to the rain-beaten window. "Oughtn t 
 we be starting?" she asked, with a lofty assumption of 
 indifference that might have been Lady Ulrica s. 
 
 Darrow, surprised by the change, but accepting her 
 rebuff as a phase of what he guessed to be a confused 
 and tormented mood, rose from his seat and lifted her 
 jacket from the chair-back on which she had hung it to 
 dry. As he held it toward her she looked up at him 
 quickly. 
 
 "The truth is, we quarrelled," she broke out, "and I 
 left last night without my dinner and without my 
 salary." 
 
 "Ah " he groaned, with a sharp perception of all the 
 sordid dangers that might attend such a break with Mrs. 
 Murrett. 
 
 "And without a character !" she added, as she slipped 
 her arms into the jacket. "And without a trunk, as it 
 appears but didn t you say that, before going, there d 
 be time for another look at the station ?" 
 
 There was time for another look at the station ; but the 
 look again resulted in disappointment, since her trunk was 
 nowhere to be found in the huge heap disgorged by the 
 newly-arrived London express. The fact caused Miss 
 Viner a moment s perturbation; but she promptly ad 
 justed herself to the necessity of proceeding on her jour 
 ney, and her decision confirmed Darrow s vague resolve 
 to go to Paris instead of retracing his way to London. 
 
 Miss Viner seemed cheered at the prospect of his com 
 pany, and sustained by his offer to telegraph to Charing 
 Cross for the missing trunk; and he left her to wait in 
 
 F20l 
 
THE REEF 
 
 the fly while he hastened back to the telegraph office. 
 The enquiry despatched, he was turning away from the 
 desk when another thought struck him and he went back 
 and indited a message to his servant in London: "If 
 any letters with French post-mark received since depar 
 ture forward immediately to Terminus Hotel Gare du 
 Nord Paris." 
 
 Then he rejoined Miss Viner, and they drove off 
 through the rain to the pier. 
 
 Ill 
 
 ALMOST as soon as the train left Calais her head 
 had dropped back into the corner, and she had 
 fallen asleep. 
 
 Sitting opposite, in the compartment from which he 
 had contrived to have other travellers excluded, Darrow 
 looked at her curiously. He had never seen a face that 
 changed so quickly. A moment since it had danced like a 
 field of daisies in a summer breeze ; now, under the pallid 
 oscillating light of the lamp overhead, it wore the hard 
 stamp of experience, as of a soft thing chilled into shape 
 before its curves had rounded : and it moved him to see 
 that care already stole upon her when she slept. 
 
 The story she had imparted to him in the wheez 
 ing shaking cabin, and at the Calais buffet where he had 
 insisted on offering her the dinner she had missed at Mrs. 
 Murrett s had given a distincter outline to her figure. 
 From the moment of entering the New York boarding- 
 school to which a preoccupied guardian had hastily con- 
 
THE REEF 
 
 signed her after the death of her parents, she had found 
 herself alone in a busy and indifferent world. Her 
 youthful history might, in fact, have been summed up in 
 the statement that everybody had been too busy to look 
 after her. Her guardian, a drudge in a big banking 
 house, was absorbed by "the office" ; the guardian s wife, 
 by her health and her religion ; and an elder sister, Laura, 
 married, unmarried, remarried, and pursuing, through all 
 these alternating phases, some vaguely "artistic" ideal on 
 which the guardian and his wife looked askance, had (as 
 Darrow conjectured) taken their disapproval as a pretext 
 for not troubling herself about poor Sophy, to whom 
 perhaps for this reason she had remained the incarna 
 tion of remote romantic possibilities. 
 
 In the course of time a sudden "stroke" of the guar 
 dian s had thrown his personal affairs into a state of con 
 fusion from which after his widely lamented death it 
 became evident that it would not be possible to extricate 
 his ward s inheritance. No one deplored this more sin 
 cerely than his widow, who saw in it one more proof of 
 her husband s life having been sacrificed to the innumer 
 able duties imposed on him, and who could hardly but 
 for the counsels of religion have brought herself to 
 pardon the young girl for her indirect share in hastening 
 his end. Sophy did not resent this point of view. She 
 was really much sorrier for her guardian s death than for 
 the loss of her insignificant fortune. The latter had rep 
 resented only the means of holding her in bondage, and 
 its disappearance was the occasion of her immediate 
 plunge into the wide bright sea of life surrounding the 
 island of her captivity. She had first landed thanks to 
 
 [22] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 the intervention of the ladies who had directed her edu 
 cation in a Fifth Avenue school- room where, for a few 
 months, she acted as a buffer between three autocratic 
 infants and their bodyguard of nurses and teachers. The 
 too-pressing attentions of their father s valet had caused 
 her to fly this sheltered spot, against the express advice of 
 her educational superiors, who implied that, in their own 
 case, refinement and self-respect had always sufficed to 
 keep the most ungovernable passions at bay. The ex 
 perience of the guardian s widow having been precisely 
 similar, and the deplorable precedent of Laura s career 
 being present to all their minds, none of these ladies felt 
 any obligation to intervene farther in Sophy s affairs ; and 
 she was accordingly left to her own resources. 
 
 A schoolmate from the Rocky Mountains, who was 
 taking her father and mother to Europe, had suggested 
 Sophy s accompanying them, and "going round" with her 
 while her progenitors, in the care of the courier, nursed 
 their ailments at a fashionable bath. Darrow gathered 
 that the "going round" with Mamie Hoke was a varied 
 and diverting process; but this relatively brilliant phase 
 of Sophy s career was cut short by the elopement 
 of the inconsiderate Mamie with a "matinee idol" who 
 had followed her from New York, and by the precipitate 
 return of her parents to negotiate for the repurchase of 
 their child. 
 
 It was then after an interval of repose with compas 
 sionate but impecunious American friends in Paris that 
 Miss Viner had been drawn into the turbid current of 
 Mrs. Murrett s career. The impecunious compatriots 
 had found Mrs. Murrett for her, and it was partly on 
 
 [23] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 their account (because they were such dears, and so 
 unconscious, poor confiding things, of what they were 
 letting her in for) that Sophy had stuck it out so long 
 in the dreadful house in Chelsea. The Farlows, she 
 explained to Darrow, were the best friends she had ever 
 had (and the only ones who had ever "been decent" about 
 Laura, whom they had seen once, and intensely admired) ; 
 but even after twenty years of Paris they were the most 
 incorrigibly inexperienced angels, and quite persuaded 
 that Mrs. Murrett was a woman of great intellectual emi 
 nence, and the house at Chelsea "the last of the salons" 
 Darrow knew what she meant ? And she hadn t liked to 
 undeceive them, knowing that to do so would be vir 
 tually to throw herself back on their hands, and feeling, 
 moreover, after her previous experiences, the urgent need 
 of gaining, at any cost, a name for stability; besides 
 which she threw it off with a slight laugh no other 
 chance, in all these years, had happened to come to her. 
 She had brushed in this outline of her career with 
 light rapid strokes, and in a tone of fatalism oddly un- 
 tinged by bitterness. Darrow perceived that she classi 
 fied people according to their greater or less "luck" in 
 life, but she appeared to harbour no resentment against 
 the undefined power which dispensed the gift in such un 
 equal measure. Things came one s way or they didn t; 
 and meanwhile one could only look on, and make the most 
 of small compensations, such as watching "the show" at 
 Mrs. Murrett s, and talking over the Lady Ulricas and 
 other footlight figures. And at any moment, of course, 
 a turn of the kaleidoscope might suddenly toss a bright 
 spangle into the grey pattern of one s days. 
 
 [24] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 This light-hearted philosophy was not without charm 
 to a young man accustomed to more traditional views. 
 George Darrow had had a fairly varied experience of 
 feminine types, but the women he had frequented had 
 either been pronouncedly "ladies" or they had not. 
 Grateful to both for ministering to the more complex 
 masculine nature, and disposed to assume that they had 
 been evolved, if not designed, to that end, he had instinct 
 ively kept the two groups apart in his mind, avoiding 
 that intermediate society which attempts to conciliate 
 both theories of life. "Bohemianism" seemed to him a 
 cheaper convention than the other two, and he liked, 
 above all, people who went as far as they could in their 
 own line liked his "ladies" and their rivals to be equally 
 unashamed of showing for exactly what they were. He 
 had not indeed the fact of Lady Ulrica was there to re 
 mind him been without his experience of a third type; 
 but that experience had left him with a contemptuous 
 distaste for the woman who uses the privileges of one 
 class to shelter the customs of another. 
 
 As to young girls, he had never thought much about 
 them since his early love for the girl who had become 
 Mrs. Leath. That episode seemed, as he looked back on 
 it, to bear no more relation to reality than a pale decora 
 tive design to the confused richness of a summer land 
 scape. He no longer understood the violent impulses 
 and dreamy pauses of his own young heart, or the in 
 scrutable abandonments and reluctances of hers. He had 
 known a moment of anguish at losing her the mad 
 plunge of youthful instincts against the barrier of fate; 
 but the first wave of stronger sensation had swept away 
 
 [25] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 all but the outline of their story, and the memory of Anna 
 Summers had made the image of the young girl sacred, 
 but the class uninteresting. 
 
 Such generalisations belonged, however, to an earlier 
 stage of his experience. The more he saw of life the 
 more incalculable he found it; and he had learned to 
 yield to his impressions without feeling the youthful need 
 of relating them to others. It was the girl in the op 
 posite seat who had roused in him the dormant habit of 
 comparison. She was distinguished from the daughters 
 of wealth by her avowed acquaintance with the real busi 
 ness of living, a familiarity as different as possible from 
 their theoretical proficiency; yet it seemed to Darrow 
 that her experience had made her free without hardness 
 and self-assured without assertiveness. 
 
 The rush into Amiens, and the flash of the station 
 lights into their compartment, broke Miss Viner s sleep, 
 and without changing her position she lifted her lids and 
 looked at Darrow. There was neither surprise nor be 
 wilderment in the look. She seemed instantly conscious, 
 not so much of where she was, as of the fact that she 
 was with him; and that fact seemed enough to reassure 
 her. She did not even turn her head to look out; her 
 eyes continued to rest on him with a vague smile which 
 appeared to light her face from within, while her lips 
 kept their sleepy droop. 
 
 Shouts and the hurried tread of travellers came to them 
 through the confusing cross-lights of the platform. A 
 head appeared at the window, and Darrow threw him 
 self forward to defend their solitude; but the intruder 
 
THE REEF 
 
 was only a train hand going his round of inspection. He 
 passed on, and the lights and cries of the station dropped 
 away, merged in a wider haze and a hollower resonance, 
 as the train gathered itself up with a long shake and 
 rolled out again into the darkness. 
 
 Miss Viner s head sank back against the cushion, push 
 ing out a dusky wave of hair above her forehead. The 
 swaying of the train loosened a lock over her ear, and she 
 shook it back with a movement like a boy s, while her 
 gaze still rested on her companion. 
 
 "You re not too tired ?" 
 
 She shook her head with a smile. 
 
 "We shall be in before midnight. We re very nearly 
 on time/ He verified the statement by holding up his 
 watch to the lamp. 
 
 She nodded dreamily. "It s all right. I telegraphed 
 Mrs. Farlow that they mustn t think of coming to the 
 station; but they ll have told the concierge to look out 
 for me." 
 
 "You ll let me drive you there ?" 
 
 She nodded again, and her eyes closed. It was very 
 pleasant to Darrow that she made no effort to talk or 
 to dissemble her sleepiness. He sat watching her till the 
 upper lashes met and mingled with the lower, and their 
 blent shadow lay on her cheek; then he stood up and 
 drew the curtain over the lamp, drowning the compart 
 ment in a bluish twilight. 
 
 As he sank back into his seat he thought how differ 
 ently Anna Summers or even Anna Leath would have 
 behaved. She would not have talked too much; she 
 would not have been either restless or embarrassed; but 
 3 [27] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 her adaptability, her appropriateness, would not have 
 been nature but "tact." The oddness of the situation 
 would have made sleep impossible, or, if weariness had 
 overcome her for a moment, she would haVe waked with 
 a start, wondering where she was, and how she had 
 come there, and if her hair were tidy ; and nothing short 
 of hairpins and a glass would have restored her self- 
 possession . . . 
 
 The reflection set him wondering whether the "shel 
 tered" girl s bringing-up might not unfit her for all sub 
 sequent contact with life. How much nearer to it 
 had Mrs. Leath been brought by marriage and mother 
 hood, and the passage of fourteen years ? What were all 
 her reticences and evasions but the result of the deaden 
 ing process of forming a "lady" ? The freshness he had 
 marvelled at was like the unnatural whiteness of flowers 
 forced in the dark. 
 
 As he looked back at their few days together he saw 
 that their intercourse had been marked, on her part, by 
 the same hesitations and reserves which had chilled their 
 earlier intimacy. Once more they had had their hour to 
 gether and she had wasted it. As in her girlhood, her 
 eyes had made promises which her lips were afraid to 
 keep. She was still afraid of life, of its ruthlessness, its 
 danger and mystery. She was still the petted little girl 
 who cannot be left alone in the dark . . . His memory 
 flew back to their youthful story, and long-forgotten de 
 tails took shape before him. How frail and faint the 
 picture was ! They seemed, he and she, like the ghostly 
 lovers of the Grecian Urn, forever pursuing without ever 
 clasping each other. To this day he did not quite know 
 
 [28] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 what had parted them : the break had been as fortuitous 
 as the fluttering apart of two seed-vessels on a wave of 
 summer air ... 
 
 The very slightness, vagueness, of the memory gave it 
 an added poignancy. He felt the mystic pang of the par 
 ent for a child which has just breathed and died. Why 
 had it happened thus, when the least shifting of influences 
 might have made it all so different? If she had been 
 given to him then he would have put warmth in her veins 
 and light in her eyes : would have made her a woman 
 through and through. Musing thus, he had the sense of 
 waste that is the bitterest harvest of experience. A love 
 like his might have given her the divine gift of self-re 
 newal ; and now he saw her fated to wane into old age 
 repeating the same gestures, echoing the words she had 
 always heard, and perhaps never guessing that, just out 
 side her glazed and curtained consciousness, life rolled 
 away, a vast blackness starred with lights, like the night 
 landscape beyond the windows of the train. 
 
 The engine lowered its speed for the passage through 
 a sleeping station. In the light of the platform lamp 
 Darrow looked across at his companion. Her head had 
 dropped toward one shoulder, and her lips were just far 
 enough apart for. the reflection of the upper one to 
 deepen the colour of the other. The jolting of the train 
 had again shaken loose the lock above her ear. It 
 danced on her cheek like the flit of a brown wing over 
 flowers, and Darrow felt an intense desire to lean for 
 ward and put it back behind her ear. 
 
 [29] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 IV 
 
 AS their motor-cab, on the way from the Gare du 
 Nord, turned into the central glitter of the Boule 
 vard, Darrow had bent over to point out an incan 
 descent threshold. 
 
 "There!" 
 
 Above the doorway, an arch of flame flashed out the 
 name of a great actress, whose closing performances in a 
 play of unusual originality had been the theme of long 
 articles in the Paris papers which Darrow had tossed into 
 their compartment at Calais. 
 
 "That s what you must see before you re twenty-four 
 hours older!" 
 
 The girl followed his gesture eagerly. She was all 
 awake and alive now, as if the heady rumours of the 
 streets, with their long effervescences of light, had passed 
 into her veins like wine. 
 
 "Cerdine ? Is that where she acts ?" She put her head 
 out of the window, straining back for a glimpse of the 
 sacred threshold. As they flew past it she sank into her 
 seat with a satisfied sigh. 
 
 "It s delicious enough just to know she s there! I ve 
 never seen her, you know. When I was here with Mamie 
 Hoke we never went anywhere but to the music halls, be 
 cause she couldn t understand any French; and when I 
 came back afterward to the Farlows I was dead broke, 
 and couldn t afford the play, and neither could they; so 
 the only chance we had was when friends of theirs invited 
 
 [30] 
 
 I 
 
THE REEF 
 
 us and once it was to see a tragedy by a Roumanian 
 lady, and the other time it was for L Ami Fritz at the 
 Frangais." 
 
 Darrow laughed. "You must do better than that now. 
 Le Vertige is a fine thing, and Cerdine gets some won 
 derful effects out of it. You must come with me tomor 
 row evening to see it with your friends, of course. 
 That is," he added, "if there s any sort of chance of get 
 ting seats." 
 
 The flash of a street lamp lit up her radiant face. 
 "Oh, will you really take us? What fun to think that it s 
 tomorrow already!" 
 
 It was wonderfully pleasant to be able to give such 
 pleasure. Darrow was not rich, but it was almost im 
 possible for him to picture the state of persons with tastes 
 and perceptions like his own, to whom an evening at the 
 theatre was an unattainable indulgence. There floated 
 through his mind an answer of Mrs. Leath s to his en 
 quiry whether she had seen the play in question. "No. I 
 meant to, of course, but one is so overwhelmed with 
 things in Paris. And then I m rather sick of Cerdine 
 one is always being dragged to see her." 
 
 That, among the people he frequented, was the usual 
 attitude toward such opportunities. There were too 
 many, they were a nuisance, one had to defend one s self ! 
 He even remembered wondering, at the moment, whether 
 to a really fine taste the exceptional thing could ever be 
 come indifferent through habit; whether the appetite for 
 beauty was so soon dulled that it could be kept alive only 
 by privation. Here, at any rate, was a fine chance to 
 experiment with such a hunger: he almost wished he 
 
THE REEF 
 
 might stay on in Paris long enough to take the measure 
 of Miss Viner s receptivity. 
 
 She was still dwelling on his promise. "It s too beau 
 tiful of you ! Oh, don t you think you ll be able to get 
 seats?" And then, after a pause of brimming apprecia 
 tion: "I wonder if you ll think me horrid? but it may 
 be my only chance; and if you can t get places for us 
 all, wouldn t you perhaps just take me? After all, the 
 Farlows may have seen it !" 
 
 He had not, of course, thought her horrid, but only 
 the more engaging, for being so natural, and so un 
 ashamed of showing the frank greed of her famished 
 youth. "Oh, you shall go somehow !" he had gaily prom 
 ised her ; and she had dropped back with a sigh of pleas 
 ure as their cab passed into the dimly-lit streets of the 
 Farlows quarter beyond the Seine . . . 
 
 This little passage came back to him the next morning, 
 as he opened his hotel window on the early roar of the 
 Northern Terminus. 
 
 The girl was there, in the room next to him. That had 
 been the first point in his waking consciousness. The 
 second was a sense of relief at the obligation imposed on 
 him by this unexpected turn of events. To wake to the 
 necessity of action, to postpone perforce the fruitless con 
 templation of his private grievance, was cause enough for 
 gratitude, even if the small adventure in which he found 
 himself involved had not, on its own merits, roused an 
 instinctive curiosity to see it through. 
 
 When he and his companion, the night before, had 
 reached the Farlows door in the rue de la Chaise, it was 
 
 [32] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 only to find, after repeated assaults on its panels, that 
 the Farlows were no longer there. They had moved 
 away the week before, not only from their apartment but 
 from Paris ; and Miss Viner s breach with Mrs. Murrett 
 had been too sudden to permit her letter and telegram 
 to overtake them. Both communications, no doubt, still 
 reposed in a pigeon-hole of the loge; but its custodian, 
 when drawn from his lair, sulkily declined to let Miss 
 Viner verify the fact, and only flung out, in return for 
 Barrow s bribe, the statement that the Americans had 
 gone to Joigny. 
 
 To pursue them there at that hour was manifestly im 
 possible, and Miss Viner, disturbed but not disconcerted 
 by this new obstacle, had quite simply acceded to Dar- 
 row s suggestion that she should return for what re 
 mained of the night to the hotel where he had sent his 
 luggage. 
 
 The drive back through the, dark hush before dawn, 
 with the nocturnal blaze of the Boulevard fading around 
 them like the false lights of a magician s palace, had so 
 played on her impressionability that she seemed to give 
 no farther thought to her own predicament. Darrow 
 noticed that she did not feel the beauty and mystery of 
 the spectacle as much as its pressure of human signifi 
 cance, all its hidden implications of emotion and adven 
 ture. As they passed the shadowy colonnade of the Fran- 
 c.ais, remote and temple-like in the paling lights, he felt 
 a clutch on his arm, and heard the cry : "There are things 
 there that I want so desperately to see !" and all the way 
 back to the hotel she continued to question him, with 
 shrewd precision and an artless thirst for detail, about 
 
 [33] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 the theatrical life of Paris. He was struck afresh, as he 
 listened, by the way in which her naturalness eased the 
 situation of constraint, leaving to it only a pleasant savour 
 of good fellowship. It was the kind of episode that one 
 might, in advance, have characterized as "awkward", yet 
 that was proving, in the event, as much outside such defi 
 nitions as a sunrise stroll with a dryad in a dew-drenched 
 forest; and Darrow reflected that mankind would never 
 have needed to invent tact if it had not first invented 
 social complications. 
 
 It had been understood, with his good-night to Miss 
 Viner, that the next morning he was to look up the Joigny 
 trains, and see her safely to the station; but, while he 
 breakfasted and waited for a time-table, he recalled again 
 her cry of joy at the prospect of seeing Cerdine. It was 
 certainly a pity, since that most elusive and incalculable 
 of artists was leaving the next week for South America, 
 to miss what might be a last sight of her in her greatest 
 part ; and Darrow, having dressed and made the requisite 
 excerpts from the time-table, decided to carry the result 
 of his deliberations to his neighbour s door. 
 
 It instantly opened at his knock, and she came forth 
 looking as if she had been plunged into some sparkling 
 element which had curled up all her drooping tendrils and 
 wrapped her in a shimmer of fresh leaves. 
 
 "Well, what do you think of me ?" she cried ; and with 
 a hand at her waist she spun about as if to show off some 
 miracle of Parisian dress-making. 
 
 "I think the missing trunk has come and that it was 
 worth waiting for!" 
 
 "You do like my dress?" 
 
 [34] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 "I adore it! I always adore new dresses why, you 
 don t mean to say it s not a new one?" 
 
 She laughed out her triumph. 
 
 "No, no, no ! My trunk hasn t come, and this is only 
 my old rag of yesterday but I never knew the trick to 
 fail !" And, as he stared : "You see," she joyously ex 
 plained, "I ve always had to dress in all kinds of dreary 
 left-overs, and sometimes, when everybody else was smart 
 and new, it used to make me awfully miserable. So one 
 day, when Mrs. Murrett dragged me down unexpectedly 
 to fill a place at dinner, I suddenly thought I d try spin 
 ning around like that, and say to every one: Well, what 
 do you think of me? And, do you know, they were all 
 taken in, including Mrs. Murrett, who didn t recognize 
 my old turned and dyed rags, and told me afterward it 
 was awfully bad form to dress as if I were somebody 
 that people would expect to know ! And ever since, 
 whenever I ve particularly wanted to look nice, I ve just 
 asked people what they thought of my new frock; and 
 they re always, always taken in!" 
 
 She dramatized her explanation so vividly that Dar- 
 row felt as if his point were gained. 
 
 "Ah, but this confirms your vocation of course," he 
 cried, "you must see Cerdine !" and, seeing her face fall 
 at this reminder of the change in her prospects, he has 
 tened to set forth his plan. As he did so, he saw how easy 
 it was to explain things to her. She would either accept 
 his suggestion, or she would not : but at least she would 
 waste no time in protestations and objections, or any 
 vain sacrifice to the idols of conformity. The convic 
 tion that one could, on any given point, almost predicate 
 
 [351 
 
THE REEF 
 
 this of her, gave him the sense of having advanced far 
 enough in her intimacy to urge his arguments against 
 a hasty pursuit of her friends. 
 
 Yes, it would certainly be foolish she at once agreed 
 in the case of such dear indefinite angels as the Farlows, 
 to dash off after them without more positive proof that 
 they were established at Joigny, and so established that 
 they could take her in. She owned it was but too prob 
 able that they had gone there to "cut down", and might 
 be doing so in quarters too contracted to receive her ; and 
 it would be unfair, on that chance, to impose herself on 
 them unannounced. The simplest way of getting farther 
 light on the question would be to go back to the rue de la 
 Chaise, where, at that more conversable hour, the con 
 cierge might be less chary of detail; and she could de 
 cide on her next step in the light of such facts as he im 
 parted. 
 
 Point by point, she fell in with the suggestion, recog 
 nizing, in the light of their unexplained flight, that the 
 Farlows might indeed be in a situation on which one 
 could not too rashly intrude. Her concern for her friends 
 seemed to have effaced all thought of herself, and this 
 little indication of character gave Darrow a quite 
 disproportionate pleasure. She agreed that it would 
 be well to go at once to the rue de la Chaise, but met 
 his proposal that they should drive by the declaration 
 that it was a "waste" not to walk in Paris ; so they 
 set off on foot through the cheerful tumult of the 
 streets. 
 
 The walk was long enough for him to learn many 
 things about her. The storm of the previous night had 
 
 [36] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 cleared the air, and Paris shone in morning beauty under 
 a sky that was all broad wet washes of white and blue; 
 but Darrow again noticed that her visual sensitiveness 
 was less keen than her feeling for what he was sure the 
 good Farlows whom he already seemed to know 
 would have called "the human interest." She seemed 
 hardly conscious of sensations of form and colour, or of 
 any imaginative suggestion, and the spectacle before them 
 always, in its scenic splendour, so moving to her com 
 panion broke up, under her scrutiny, into a thousand 
 minor points : the things in the shops, the types of charac 
 ter and manner of occupation shown in the passing faces, 
 the street signs, the names of the hotels they passed, the 
 motley brightness of the flower-carts, the identity of the 
 churches and public buildings that caught her eye. But 
 what she liked best, he divined, was the mere fact of be 
 ing free to walk abroad in the bright air, her tongue rat 
 tling on as it pleased, while her feet kept time to the 
 mighty orchestration of the city s sounds. Her delight in 
 the fresh air, in the freedom, light and sparkle of the 
 morning, gave him a sudden insight into her stifled past ; 
 nor was it indifferent to him to perceive how much his 
 presence evidently added to her enjoyment. If only as a 
 sympathetic ear, he guessed what he must be worth to 
 her. The girl had been dying for some one to talk to, 
 some one before whom she could unfold and shake out to 
 the light her poor little shut-away emotions. Years of 
 repression were revealed in her sudden burst of confi 
 dence ; and the pity she inspired made Darrow long to fill 
 her few free hours to the brim. 
 
 She had the gift of rapid definition, and his questions 
 
 [37] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 as to the life she had led with the Farlows, during the 
 interregnum between the Hoke and Murrett eras, called 
 up before him a queer little corner of Parisian existence. 
 The Farlows themselves he a painter, she a "magazine 
 writer" rose before him in all their incorruptible sim 
 plicity: an elderly New England couple, with vague 
 yearnings for enfranchisement, who lived in Paris as if 
 it were a Massachusetts suburb, and dwelt hopefully on 
 the "higher side" of the Gallic nature. With equal vivid 
 ness she set before him the component figures of the cir 
 cle from which Mrs. Farlow drew the "Inner Glimpses of 
 French Life" appearing over her name in a leading New 
 England journal : the Roumanian lady who had sent them 
 tickets for her tragedy, an elderly French gentleman who, 
 on the strength of a week s stay at Folkestone, translated 
 English fiction for the provincial press, a lady from Wich 
 ita, Kansas, who advocated free love and the abolition of 
 the corset, a clergyman s widow from Torquay who had 
 written an "English Ladies Guide to Foreign Galleries" 
 and a Russian sculptor who lived on nuts and was "almost 
 certainly" an anarchist. It was this nucleus, and its outer 
 ring of musical, architectural and other American stu 
 dents, which posed successively to Mrs. Farlow s versatile 
 fancy as a centre of "University Life", a "Salon of the 
 Faubourg St. Germain", a group of Parisian "Intellec 
 tuals" or a "Cross-section of Montmartre" ; but even her 
 faculty for extracting from it the most varied literary 
 effects had not sufficed to create a permanent demand for 
 the "Inner Glimpses", and there were days when Mr. 
 Farlow s landscapes being equally unmarketable a tem 
 porary withdrawal to the country (subsequently utilized 
 
 [38] 
 
% THE REEF 
 
 as "Peeps into Chateau Life") became necessary to the 
 courageous couple. 
 
 Five years of Mrs. Murrett s world, while increasing 
 Sophy s tenderness for the Farlows, had left her with few 
 illusions as to their power of advancing her fortunes; 
 and she did not conceal from Darrow that her theatrical 
 projects were of the vaguest. They hung mainly on the 
 problematical good-will of an ancient comedienne, with 
 whom Mrs. Farlow had a slight acquaintance (exten 
 sively utilized in Stars of the French Footlights" and 
 "Behind the Scenes at the Frangais"), and who had once, 
 with signs of approval, heard Miss Viner recite the Nuit 
 de Mai. 
 
 "But of course I know how much that s worth," the 
 girl broke off, with one of her flashes of shrewdness. 
 "And besides, it isn t likely that a poor old fossil like 
 Mme. Dolle could get anybody to listen to her now, even 
 if she really thought I had talent. But she might intro 
 duce me to people ; or at least give me a few tips. If I 
 could manage to earn enough to pay for lessons 
 I d go straight to some of the big people and work with 
 them. I m rather hoping the Farlows may find me a 
 chance of that kind an engagement with some American 
 family in Paris who would want to be gone round with 
 like the Hokes, and who d leave me time enough to 
 study." 
 
 In the rue de la Chaise they learned little except ,the 
 exact address of the Farlows, and the fact that they had 
 sub-let their flat before leaving. This information ob 
 tained, Darrow proposed to Miss Viner that they should 
 stroll along the quays to a little restaurant looking out 
 
 [391 
 
THE REEF 
 
 on the Seine, and there, over the plat du four, consider 
 the next step to be taken. The long walk had given 
 her cheeks a glow indicative of wholesome hunger, and 
 she made no difficulty about satisfying it in Darrow s com 
 pany. Regaining the river they walked on in the direc 
 tion of Notre Dame, delayed now and again by the young 
 man s irresistible tendency to linger over the book-stalls, 
 and by his ever-fresh response to the shifting beauties of 
 the scene. For two years his eyes had been subdued to 
 the atmospheric effects of London, to the mysterious 
 fusion of darkly-piled city and low-lying bituminous sky ; 
 and the transparency of the French air, which left the 
 green gardens and silvery stones so classically clear yet 
 so softly harmonized, struck him x as having a kind of con 
 scious intelligence. Every line of the architecture, every 
 arch of the bridges, the very sweep of the strong bright 
 river between them, while contributing to this effect, sent 
 forth each a separate appeal to some sensitive memory; 
 so that, for Darrow, a walk through the Paris streets 
 was always like the unrolling of a vast tapestry from 
 which countless stored fragrances were shaken out. 
 
 It was a proof of the richness and multiplicity of the 
 spectacle that it served, without incongruity, for so dif 
 ferent a purpose as the background of Miss Viner s en 
 joyment. As a mere drop-scene for her personal adven 
 ture it was just as much in its place as in the evocation of 
 great perspectives of feeling. For her, as he again per 
 ceived when they were seated at their table in a low 
 window above the Seine, Paris was "Paris" by virtue of 
 all its entertaining details, its endless ingenuities of pleas 
 antness. Where else, for instance, could one find the dear 
 
 [40] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 little dishes of hors d oeuvre, the symmetrically-laid an 
 chovies and radishes, the thin golden shells of butter, or 
 the wood strawberries and brown jars of cream that gave 
 to their repast the last refinement of rusticity? Hadn t 
 he noticed, she asked, that cooking always expressed the 
 national character, and that French food was clever and 
 amusing just because the people were? And in private 
 houses, everywhere, how the dishes always resembled the 
 talk how the very same platitudes seemed to go into 
 people s mouths and come out of them ? Couldn t he see 
 just what kind of menu it would make, if a fairy waved a 
 wand and suddenly turned the conversation at a London 
 dinner into joints and puddings ? She always thought it 
 a good sign when people liked Irish stew ; it meant that 
 they enjoyed changes and surprises, and taking life as it 
 came; and such a beautiful Parisian version of the dish 
 as the navarin that was just being set before them was 
 like the very best kind of talk the kind when one could 
 never tell before-hand just what was going to be said ! 
 
 Darrow, as he watched her enjoyment of their innocent 
 feast, wondered if her vividness and vivacity were signs 
 of her calling. She was the kind of girl in whom certain 
 people would instantly have recognized the histrionic gift. 
 But experience had led him to think that, except at the 
 creative moment, the divine flame burns low in its pos 
 sessors. The one or two really intelligent actresses he 
 had known had struck him, in conversation, as either 
 bovine or primitively "jolly". He had a notion that, save 
 in the mind of genius, the creative process absorbs too 
 much of the whole stuff of being to leave much surplus 
 for personal expression; and the girl before him, with 
 
 [41] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 her changing face and flexible fancies, seemed destined to 
 work in life itself rather than in any of its counterfeits. 
 
 The coffee and liqueurs were already on the table 
 when her mind suddenly sprang back to the Farlows. 
 She jumped up with one of her subversive move 
 ments and declared that she must telegraph at once. Dar- 
 row called for writing materials, and room was made at 
 her elbow for the parched ink-bottle and saturated blotter 
 of the Parisian restaurant; but the mere sight of these 
 jaded implements seemed to paralyze Miss Viner s facul 
 ties. She hung over the telegraph-form with anxiously- 
 drawn brow, the tip of the pen-handle pressed against her 
 lip; and at length she raised her troubled eyes to Dar- 
 row s. 
 
 "I simply can t think how to say it." 
 
 "What that you re staying over to see Cerdine ?" 
 
 "But am I am I, really?" The joy of it flamed over 
 her face. 
 
 Darrow looked at his watch. "You could hardly get 
 an answer to your telegram in time to take a train to 
 Joigny this afternoon, even if you found your friends 
 could have you." 
 
 She mused for a moment, tapping her lip with the pen. 
 "But I must let them know I m here. I must find out as 
 soon as possible if they can have me." She laid the pen 
 down despairingly. "I never could write a telegram!" 
 she sighed. 
 
 "Try a letter, then, and tell them you ll arrive to 
 morrow." 
 
 This suggestion produced immediate relief, and she 
 gave an energetic dab at the ink-bottle; but after an- 
 
 [42] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 other interval of uncertain scratching she paused again. 
 
 "Oh, it s fearful ! I dor/t know what on earth to say. 
 I wouldn t for the world have them know how beastly 
 Mrs. Murrett s been." 
 
 Darrow did not think it necessary to answer. It was 
 no business of his, after all. He lit a cigar and leaned 
 back in his seat, letting his eyes take their fill of indolent 
 pleasure. In the throes of invention she had pushed back 
 her hat, loosening the stray lock which had invited his 
 touch the night before. After looking at it for a while he 
 stood up and wandered to the window. 
 
 Behind him he heard her pen scrape on. 
 
 "I don t want to worry them I m so certain they ve 
 got bothers of their own." The faltering scratches ceased 
 again. "I wish I weren t such an idiot about writing: 
 all the words get frightened and scurry away when I try 
 to catch them." 
 
 He glanced back at her with a smile as she bent above 
 her task like a school-girl struggling with a "composi 
 tion." Her flushed cheek and frowning brow showed that 
 her difficulty was genuine and not an artless device to 
 draw him to her side. She was really powerless to put 
 her thoughts in writing, and the inability seemed charac 
 teristic of her quick impressionable mind, and of the in 
 cessant come-and-go of her sensations. He thought of 
 Anna Leath s letters, or rather of the few he had received, 
 years ago, from the girl who had been Anna Summers. 
 He saw the slender firm strokes of the pen, recalled the 
 clear structure of the phrases, and, by an abrupt associa 
 tion of ideas, remembered that, at that very hour, just 
 such a document might be awaiting him at the hotel. 
 
 * [43] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 What if it were there, indeed, and had brought him a 
 complete explanation of her telegram? The revulsion of 
 feeling produced by this thought made him look at the 
 girl with sudden impatience. She struck him as posi 
 tively stupid, and he wondered how he could have wasted 
 half his day with her, when all the while Mrs. Leath s 
 letter might be lying on his table. At that moment, if 
 he could have chosen, he would have left his companion 
 on the spot; but he had her on his hands, and must ac 
 cept the consequences. 
 
 Some odd intuition seemed to make her conscious of 
 his change of mood, for she sprang from her seat, crump 
 ling the letter in her hand. 
 
 "I m too stupid; but I won t keep you any longer. I ll 
 go back to the hotel and write there." 
 
 Her colour deepened, and for the first time, as their 
 eyes met, he noticed a faint embarrassment in hers. Could 
 it be that his nearness was, after all, the cause of her con 
 fusion? The thought turned his vague impatience with 
 her into a definite resentment toward himself. There was 
 really no excuse for his having blundered into such an 
 adventure. Why had he not shipped the girl off to Joigny 
 by the evening train, instead of urging her to delay, and 
 using Cerdine as a pretext ? Paris was full of people he 
 knew, and his annoyance was increased by the thought 
 that some friend of Mrs. Leath s might see him at the 
 play, and report his presence there with a suspiciously 
 good-looking companion. The idea was distinctly dis 
 agreeable: he did not want the woman he adored to 
 think he could forget her for a moment. And by this 
 time he Kd fully persuaded himself that a letter from her 
 
 [44] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 was awaiting him, and had even gone so far as to imagine 
 that its contents might annul the writer s telegraphed in 
 junction, and call him to her side at once . . . 
 
 AT the porter s desk a brief "Pas de lettres" fell de 
 structively on the fabric of these hopes. 
 
 Mrs. Leath had not written she had not taken the 
 trouble to explain her telegram. Darrow turned away 
 with a sharp pang of humiliation. Her frugal silence 
 mocked his prodigality of hopes and fears. He had put 
 his question to the porter once before, on returning to the 
 hotel after luncheon; and now, coming back again in 
 the late afternoon, he was met by the same denial. The 
 second post was in, and had brought him nothing. 
 
 A glance at his watch showed that he had barely time 
 to dress before taking Miss Viner out to dine ; but as he 
 turned to the lift a new thought struck him, and hurry 
 ing back into the hall he dashed off another telegram to 
 his servant : "Have you forwarded any letter with French 
 postmark today ? Telegraph answer Terminus." 
 
 Some kind of reply would be certain to reach him on 
 his return from the theatre, and he would then know 
 definitely whether Mrs. Leath meant to write or not. 
 He hastened up to his room and dressed with a lighter 
 heart. 
 
 * 
 
 Miss Viner s vagrant trunk had finally found its way 
 to its owner; and, clad in such modest splendour as it 
 furnished, she shone at Darrow across their restaurant 
 
 [45] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 table. In the reaction of his wounded vanity he found 
 her prettier and more interesting than before. Her 
 dress, sloping away from the throat, showed the graceful 
 set of her head on its slender neck, and the wide brim 
 of her hat arched above her hair like a dusky halo. 
 Pleasure danced in her eyes and on her lips, and as she 
 shone on him between the candle-shades Darrow felt 
 that he should not be at all sorry to be seen with her in 
 public. He even sent a careless glance about him in the 
 vague hope that it might fall on an acquaintance. 
 
 At the theatre her vivacity sank into a breathless hush, 
 and she sat intent in her corner of their baignoire, with 
 the gaze of a neophyte about to be initiated into the 
 sacred mysteries. Darrow 7 placed himself behind her, 
 that he might catch her profile between himself and the 
 stage. He was touched by the youthful seriousness of her 
 expression. In spite of the experiences she must have 
 had, and of the twenty-four years to which she owned, 
 she struck him as intrinsically young; and he wondered 
 how so evanescent a quality could have been preserved in 
 the desiccating Murrett air. As the play progressed he 
 noticed that her immobility was traversed by swift flashes 
 of perception. She was not missing anything, and her in 
 tensity of attention when Cerdine was on the stage drew 
 an anxious line between her brows. 
 
 After the first act she remained for a few minutes rapt 
 and motionless; then she turned to her companion with 
 a quick patter of questions. He gathered from them that 
 she had been less interested in following the general drift 
 of the play than in observing the details of its interpre 
 tation. Every gesture and inflection of the great actress s 
 
 [46] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 had been marked and analyzed ; and Darrow felt a secret 
 gratification in being appealed to as an authority on the 
 histrionic art. His interest in it had hitherto been merely 
 that of the cultivated young man curious of all forms of 
 artistic expression ; but in reply to her questions he found 
 things to say about it which evidently struck his listener 
 as impressive and original, and with which he himself 
 was not, on the whole, dissatisfied. Miss Viner was 
 much more concerned to hear his views than to express 
 her own, and the deference with which she received his 
 comments called from him more ideas about the theatre 
 than he had ever supposed himself to possess. 
 
 With the second act she began to give more attention 
 to the development of the play, though her interest was 
 excited rather by what she called "the story" than by the 
 conflict of character producing it. Oddly combined 
 with her sharp apprehension of things theatrical, her 
 knowledge of technical "dodges" and green-room prece 
 dents, her glibness about "lines" and "curtains", was 
 the primitive simplicity of her attitude toward the tale 
 itself, as toward something that was "really happening" 
 and at which one assisted as at a street-accident or a 
 quarrel overheard in the next room. She wanted to know 
 if Darrow thought the lovers "really would" be involved 
 in the catastrophe that threatened them, and when he 
 reminded her that his predictions were disqualified by 
 his having already seen the play, she exclaimed: "Oh, 
 then, please don t tell me what s going to happen !" and 
 the next moment was questioning him about Cerdine s 
 theatrical situation and her private history. On the latter 
 point some of her enquiries were of a kind that it is not 
 
 [47] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 in the habit of young girls to make, or even to know how 
 to make; but her apparent unconsciousness of the fact 
 seemed rather to reflect on her past associates than on 
 herself. 
 
 When the second act was over, Darrow suggested 
 their taking a turn in the foyer; and seated on one of its 
 cramped red velvet sofas they watched the crowd surge 
 up and down in a glare of lights and gilding. Then, as 
 she complained of the heat, he led her through the press 
 to the congested cafe at the foot of the stairs, where 
 orangeades were thrust at them between the shoulders of 
 packed consommateurs, and Darrow, lighting a cigarette 
 while she sucked her straw, knew the primitive compla 
 cency of the man at whose companion other men stare. 
 
 On a corner of their table lay a smeared copy of a 
 theatrical journal. It caught Sophy s eye and after 
 poring over the page she looked up with an excited ex 
 clamation. 
 
 "They re giving Oedipe tomorrow afternoon at the 
 Frangais! I suppose you ve seen it heaps and heaps of 
 times ?" 
 
 He smiled back at her. "You must see it too. We ll 
 go tomorrow." 
 
 She sighed at his suggestion, but without discarding 
 it. "How can I? The last train for Joigny leaves at 
 four." 
 
 "But you don t know yet that your friends will want 
 you." 
 
 "I shall know tomorrow early. I asked Mrs. Farlow 
 to telegraph as soon as she got my letter." 
 
 A twinge of compunction shot through Darrow. Her 
 
 [48] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 words recalled to him that on their return to the hotel 
 after luncheon she had given him her letter to post, and 
 that he had never thought of it again. No doubt it 
 was still in the pocket of the coat he had taken off when 
 he dressed for dinner. In his perturbation he pushed 
 back his chair, and the movement made her look up at 
 him. 
 
 "What s the matter ?" 
 
 "Nothing. Only you know I don t fancy that letter 
 can have caught this afternoon s post." 
 
 "Not caught it? Why not?" 
 
 "Why, I m afraid it will have been too late." He 
 bent his head to light another cigarette. 
 
 She struck her hands together with a gesture which, to 
 his amusement, he noticed she had caught from Cerdine. 
 
 "Oh, dear, I hadn t thought of that! But surely it 
 will reach them in the morning?" 
 
 "Some time in the morning, I suppose. You know the 
 French provincial post is never in a hurry. I don t be 
 lieve your letter would have been delivered this evening 
 in any case." As this idea occurred to him he felt him 
 self almost absolved. 
 
 "Perhaps, then, I ought to have telegraphed ?" 
 
 "I ll telegraph for you in the morning if you say so." 
 
 The bell announcing the close of the entr -acte shrilled 
 through the cafe, and she sprang to her feet. 
 
 "Oh, come, come ! We mustn t miss it !" 
 
 Instantly forgetful of the Farlows, she slipped her arm 
 through his and turned to push her way back to the 
 theatre. 
 
 As soon as the curtain went up she as promptly forgot 
 
 [49] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 her companion. Watching her from the corner to which 
 he had returned, Darrow saw that great waves of sen 
 sation were beating deliriously against her brain. It was 
 as though every starved sensibility were throwing out 
 feelers to the mounting tide; as though everything she 
 was seeing, hearing, imagining, rushed in to fill the void 
 of all she had always been denied. 
 
 Darrow, as he observed her, again felt a detached en 
 joyment in her pleasure. She was an extraordinary 
 conductor of sensation : she seemed to transmit it phys 
 ically, in emanations that set the blood dancing in his 
 veins. He had not often had the opportunity of studying 
 the effects of a perfectly fresh impression on so respon 
 sive a temperament, and he felt a fleeting desire to make 
 its chords vibrate for his own amusement. 
 
 At the end of the next act she discovered with 
 dismay that in their transit to the cafe she had lost the 
 beautiful pictured programme he had bought for her. 
 She wanted to go back and hunt for it, but Darrow as 
 sured her that he would have no trouble in getting her 
 another. When he went out in quest of it she followed 
 him protestingly to the door of the box, and he saw that 
 she was distressed at the thought of his having to spend 
 an additional franc for her. This frugality smote Dar 
 row by its contrast to her natural bright profusion ; and 
 again he felt the desire to right so clumsy an injustice. 
 
 When he returned to the box she was still standing 
 in the doorway, and he noticed that his were not the only 
 eyes attracted to her. Then another impression sharply 
 diverted his attention. Above the fagged faces of the 
 Parisian crowd he had caught the fresh fair counte- 
 
 [50] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 nance of Owen Leath signalling a joyful recognition. 
 
 The young man, slim and eager, had detached himself 
 from two companions of his own type, and was seeking 
 to push through the press to his step-mother s friend. 
 The encounter, to Darrow, could hardly have been more 
 inopportune; it woke in him a confusion of feelings of 
 which only the uppermost was allayed by seeing Sophy 
 Viner, as if instinctively warned, melt back into the 
 shadow of their box. 
 
 A minute later Owen Leath was at his side. "I was 
 sure it was you! Such luck to run across you! Won t 
 you come off with us to supper after it s over? Mont- 
 martre, or wherever else you please. Those two chaps 
 over there are friends of mine, at the Beaux Arts ; both 
 of them rather good fellows and we d be so glad " 
 
 For half a second Darrow read in his hospitable eye 
 the termination "if you d bring the lady too"; then it 
 deflected into : "We d all be so glad if you d come." 
 
 Darrow, excusing himself with thanks, lingered on for 
 a few minutes chat, in which every word, and every tone 
 of his companion s voice, was like a sharp light flashed 
 into aching eyes. He was glad when the bell called the 
 audience to their seats, and young Leath left him with 
 the friendly question: "We ll see you at Givre later 
 on?" 
 
 When he rejoined Miss Viner, Darrow s first care was 
 to find out, by a rapid inspection of the house, whether 
 Owen Leath s seat had given him a view of their box. 
 But the young man was not visible from it, and Darrow 
 concluded that he had been recognized in the corridor 
 and not at his companion s side. He scarcely knew why 
 
THE REEF 
 
 it seemed to him so important that this point should be 
 settled; certainly his sense of reassurance was less due 
 to regard for Miss Viner than to the persistent vision of 
 grave offended eyes . . . 
 
 During the drive back to the hotel this vision was per 
 sistently kept before him by the thought that the evening 
 post might have brought a letter from Mrs. Leath. Even 
 if no letter had yet come, his servant might have tele 
 graphed to say that one was on its way; and at the 
 thought his interest in the girl at his side again cooled to 
 the fraternal, the almost fatherly. She was no more to 
 him, after all, than an appealing young creature to whom 
 it was mildly agreeable to have offered an evening s di 
 version; and when, as they rolled into the illuminated 
 court of the hotel, she turned with a quick movement 
 which brought her happy face close to his, he leaned 
 away, affecting to be absorbed in opening the door of 
 the cab. 
 
 At the desk the night porter, after a vain search 
 through the pigeon-holes, was disposed to think that a 
 letter or telegram had in fact been sent up for the gentle 
 man; and Darrow, at the announcement, could hardly 
 wait to ascend to his room. Upstairs, he and his com 
 panion had the long dimly-lit corridor to themselves, and 
 Sophy paused on her threshold, gathering up in one hand 
 the pale folds of her cloak, while she held the other out 
 to Darrow. 
 
 "If the telegram comes early I shall be off by the first 
 train ; so I suppose this is good-bye," she said, her eyes 
 dimmed by a little shadow of regret. 
 
 Darrow, with a renewed start of contrition, perceived 
 
 [52] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 that he had again forgotten her letter ; and as their hands 
 met he vowed to himself that the moment she had left 
 him he would dash down stairs to post it. 
 
 "Oh, I ll see you in the morning, of course !" 
 
 A tremor of pleasure crossed her face as he stood be 
 fore her, smiling a little uncertainly. 
 
 "At any rate," she said, "I want to thank you now for 
 my good day/ 
 
 He felt in her hand the same tremor he had seen in 
 her face. "But it s you, on the contrary " he began, lift 
 ing the hand to his lips. 
 
 As he dropped it, and their eyes met, something passed 
 through hers that was like a light carried rapidly behind 
 a curtained window. 
 
 "Good night ; you must be awfully tired," he said with 
 a friendly abruptness, turning away without even waiting 
 to see her pass into her room. He unlocked his door, and 
 stumbling over the threshold groped in the darkness for 
 the electric button. The light showed him a telegram 
 on the table, and he forgot everything else as he caught 
 it up. 
 
 "No letter from France," the message read. 
 
 It fell from Barrow s hand to the floor, and he dropped 
 into a chair by the table and sat gazing at the dingy drab 
 and olive pattern of the carpet. She had not written, 
 then ; she had not written, and it was manifest now that 
 she did not mean to write. If she had had any intention 
 of explaining her telegram she would certainly, within 
 twenty-four hours, have followed it up by a letter. But 
 she evidently did not intend to explain it, and her silence 
 could mean only that she had no explanation to give, or 
 
 [53] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 else that she was too indifferent to be aware that one was 
 needed. 
 
 Darrow, face to face with these alternatives, felt a 
 recrudescence of boyish misery. It was no longer his 
 hurt vanity that cried out. He told himself that he could 
 have borne an equal amount of pain, if only it had left 
 Mrs. Leath s image untouched ; but he could not bear to 
 think of her as trivial or insincere. The thought was so 
 intolerable that he felt a blind desire to punish some one 
 else for the pain it caused him. 
 
 As he sat moodily staring at the carpet its silly intrica 
 cies melted into a blur from which the eyes of Mrs. Leath 
 again looked out at him. He saw the fine sweep of her 
 brows, and the deep look beneath them as she had turned 
 from him on their last evening in London. "This will be 
 good-bye, then," she had said; and it occurred to him 
 that her parting phrase had been the same as Sophy 
 Viner s. 
 
 At the thought he jumped to his feet and took down 
 from its hook the coat in which he had left Miss Viner s 
 letter. The clock marked the third quarter after mid 
 night, and he knew it would make no difference if he 
 went down to the post-box now or early the next morn 
 ing; but he wanted to clear his conscience, and having 
 found the letter he went to the door. 
 
 A sound in the next room made him pause. He had 
 become conscious again that, a few feet off, on the 
 other side of a thin partition, a small keen flame of life 
 was quivering and agitating the air. Sophy s face came 
 back to him insistently. It was as vivid now as Mrs. 
 Leath s had been a moment earlier. He recalled with a 
 
 [54] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 faint smile of retrospective pleasure the girl s enjoyment 
 of her evening, and the innumerable fine feelers of sensa 
 tion she had thrown out to its impressions. 
 
 It gave him a curiously close sense of her presence to 
 think that at that moment she was living over her en 
 joyment as intensely as he was living over his unhappi- 
 ness. His own case was irremediable, but it was easy 
 enough to give her a few more hours of pleasure. And 
 did she not perhaps secretly expect it of him ? After all, 
 if she had been very anxious to join her friends she would 
 have telegraphed them on reaching Paris, instead of 
 writing. He wondered now that he had not been struck 
 at the moment by so artless a device to gain more time. 
 The fact of her having practised it did not make him 
 think less well of her ; it merely strengthened the impulse 
 to use his opportunity. She was starving, poor child, for 
 a little amusement, a little personal life why not give 
 her the chance of another day in Paris? If he did so, 
 should he not be merely falling in with her own hopes? 
 
 At the thought his sympathy for her revived. She be 
 came of absorbing interest to him as an escape from him 
 self and an object about which his thwarted activities 
 could cluster. He felt less drearily alone because of 
 her being there, on the other side of the door, and in his 
 gratitude to her for giving him this relief he began, with 
 indolent amusement, to plan new ways of detaining her. 
 He dropped back into his chair, lit a cigar, and smiled a 
 little at the image of her smiling face. He tried to 
 imagine what incident of the day she was likely to be re 
 calling at that particular moment, and what part he 
 probably played in it. That it was not a small part he 
 
 [55] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 was certain, and the knowledge was undeniably pleasant. 
 
 Now and then a sound from her room brought before 
 him more vividly the reality of the situation and the 
 strangeness of the vast swarming solitude in which he 
 and she were momentarily isolated, amid long lines of 
 rooms each holding its separate secret. The nearness 
 of all these other mysteries enclosing theirs gave Dar- 
 row a more intimate sense of the girl s presence, and 
 through the fumes of his cigar his imagination continued 
 to follow her to and fro, traced the curve of her slim 
 young arms as she raised them to undo her hair, pictured 
 the sliding down of her dress to the waist and then to 
 the knees, and the whiteness of her feet as she slipped 
 across the floor to bed . . . 
 
 He stood up and shook himself with a yawn, throwing 
 away the end of his cigar. His glance, in following it, 
 lit on the telegram which had dropped to the floor. The 
 sounds in the next room had ceased, and once more 
 he felt alone and unhappy. 
 
 Opening the window, he folded his arms on the sill 
 and looked out on the vast light-spangled mass of the 
 city, and then up at the dark sky, in which the morning 
 planet stood. 
 
 VI 
 
 AT the Theatre Frangais, the next afternoon, Darrow 
 yawned and fidgeted in his seat. 
 
 The day was warm, the theatre crowded and airless, 
 and the performance, it seemed to him, intolerably bad. 
 He stole a glance at his companion, wondering if she 
 
 [56] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 shared his feelings. Her rapt profile betrayed no unrest, 
 but politeness might have caused her to feign an interest 
 that she did not feel. He leaned back impatiently, stifling 
 another yawn, and trying to fix his attention on the stage. 
 Great things were going forward there, and he was not 
 insensible to the stern beauties of the ancient drama. But 
 the interpretation of the play seemed to him as airless 
 and lifeless as the atmosphere of the theatre. The 
 players were the same whom he had often applauded in 
 those very parts, and perhaps that fact added to the im 
 pression of staleness and conventionality produced by 
 their performance. Surely it was time to infuse new 
 blood into the veins of the moribund art. He had the 
 impression that the ghosts of actors were giving a spec 
 tral performance on the shores of Styx. 
 
 Certainly it was not the most profitable way for a 
 young man with a pretty companion to pass the golden 
 hours of a spring afternoon. The freshness of the face 
 at his side, reflecting the freshness of the season, sug 
 gested dapplings of sunlight through new leaves, the 
 sound of a brook in the grass, the ripple of tree-shadows 
 over breezy meadows . . . 
 
 When at length the fateful march of the cothurns was 
 stayed by the single pause in the play, and Darrow had 
 led Miss Viner out on the balcony overhanging the 
 square before the theatre, he turned to see if she shared 
 his feelings. But the rapturous look she gave him 
 checked the depreciation on his lips. 
 
 "Oh, why did you bring me out here? One ought to 
 creep away and sit in the dark till it begins again !" 
 
 "Is that the way they made you feel?" 
 
 [57] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 "Didn t they you? ... As if the gods were there 
 all the while, just behind them, pulling the strings?" Her 
 hands were pressed against the railing, her face shining 
 and darkening under the wing-beats of successive im 
 pressions. 
 
 Darrow smiled in enjoyment of her pleasure. After 
 all, he had felt all that, long ago ; perhaps it was his own 
 fault, rather than that of the actors, that the poetry of 
 the play seemed to have evaporated . . . But no, he 
 had been right in judging the performance to be dull and 
 stale : it was simply his companion s inexperience, her 
 lack of occasions to compare and estimate, that made her 
 think it brilliant. 
 
 "I was afraid you were bored and wanted to come 
 away." 
 
 "Bored?" She made a little aggrieved grimace. "You 
 mean you thought me too ignorant and stupid to ap 
 preciate it ?" 
 
 "No; not that." The hand nearest him still lay on 
 the railing of the balcony, and he covered it for a mo 
 ment with his. As he did so he saw the colour rise and 
 tremble in her cheek. 
 
 "Tell me just what you think," he said, bending his 
 head a little, and only half-aware of his words. 
 
 She did not turn her face to his, but began to talk rap 
 idly, trying to convey something of what she felt. But 
 she was evidently unused to analyzing her aesthetic emo 
 tions, and the tumultuous rush of the drama seemed to 
 have left her in a state of panting wonder, as though it 
 had been a storm or some other natural cataclysm. She 
 had no literary or historic associations to which to at- 
 
 [58] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 tach her impressions : her education had evidently not 
 comprised a course in Greek literature. But she felt what 
 would probably have been unperceived by many a young 
 lady who had taken a first in classics : the ineluctable fa 
 tality of the tale, the dread sway in it of the same mys 
 terious "luck" which pulled the threads of her own small 
 destiny. "It was not literature to her, it was fact: as 
 actual, as near by, as what was happening to her at the 
 moment and what the next hour held in store. Seen in 
 this light, the play regained for Darrow its supreme and 
 poignant reality. He pierced to the heart of its signifi 
 cance through all the artificial accretions with which his 
 theories of art and the conventions of the stage had 
 clothed it, and saw it as he had never seen it : as life. 
 
 After this there could be no question of flight, and he 
 took her back to the theatre, content to receive his own 
 sensations through the medium of hers. But with the 
 continuation of the play, and the oppression of the heavy 
 air, his attention again began to wander, straying back 
 over the incidents of the morning. 
 
 He had been with Sophy Viner all day, and he was sur 
 prised to find- how quickly the time he A . gone. She had 
 hardly attempted, as the hours passed, to conceal her 
 satisfaction on finding that no telegram came from the 
 Farlows. "They ll have written," she had simply said; 
 and her mind had at once flown on to the golden pros 
 pect of. an afternoon at the theatre. The intervening 
 hours had been disposed of in a stroll through the 
 lively streets, and a repast, luxuriously lingered over, 
 under the chestnut-boughs of a restaurant in the Champs 
 Elysees. Everything entertained and interested her, and 
 
 5 [59] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 Darrow remarked, with an amused detachment, that she 
 was not insensible to the impression her charms produced. 
 Yet there was no hard edge of vanity in her sense of her 
 prettiness : she seemed simply to be aware of it as a note 
 in the general harmony, and to enjoy sounding the note 
 as a singer enjoys singing. 
 
 After luncheon, as they sat over their coffee, she had 
 again asked an immense number of questions and de 
 livered herself of a remarkable variety of opinions. Her 
 questions testified to a wholesome and comprehensive 
 human curiosity, and her comments showed, like her face 
 and her whole attitude, an odd mingling of precocious 
 wisdom and disarming ignorance. When she talked to 
 him about "life" the word was often on her lips she 
 seemed to him like a child playing with a tiger s cub; 
 and he said to himself that some day the child would 
 grow up and so would the tiger. Meanwhile, such ex- 
 pertness qualified by such candour made it impossible to 
 guess the extent of her personal experience, or to esti 
 mate its effect on her character. She might be any one 
 of a dozen definable types, or she might more discon 
 certingly to her i^mpanion and more perilously to her 
 self be a shifting and uncrystallized mixture of them all. 
 
 Her talk, as usual, had promptly reverted to the stage. 
 She was eager to learn about every form of dramatic 
 expression which the metropolis of things theatrical had 
 to offer, and her curiosity ranged from the official tem 
 ples of the art to its less hallowed haunts. Her search 
 ing enquiries about a play whose production, on one of 
 the latter scenes, had provoked a considerable amount of 
 scandal, led Darrow to throw out laughingly: "To see 
 
 [60] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 that you ll have to wait till you re married!" and his 
 answer had sent her off at a tangent. 
 
 "Oh, I never mean to marry," she had rejoined in a 
 tone of youthful finality. 
 
 "I seem to have heard that before !" 
 
 "Yes; from girls who ve only got to choose!" Her 
 eyes had grown suddenly almost old. "I d like you to see 
 the only men who ve ever wanted to marry me ! One was 
 the doctor on the steamer, when I came abroad with the 
 Hokes : he d been cashiered from the navy for drunken 
 ness. The other was a deaf widower with three grown 
 up daughters, who kept a clock-shop in Bayswater ! Be 
 sides," she rambled on, "I m not so sure that I believe 
 in marriage. You ree I m all for self -development and 
 the chance to live one s life. I m awfully modern, you 
 know." 
 
 It was just when she proclaimed herself most awfully 
 modern that she struck him as most helplessly backward ; 
 yet the moment after, without any bravado, or apparent 
 desire to assume an attitude, she would propound some 
 social axiom which could have been gathered only in the 
 bitter soil of experience. 
 
 All these things came back to him as he sat beside her 
 in the theatre and watched her ingenuous absorption. It 
 was on "the story" that her mind was fixed, and in life 
 also, he suspected, it would always be "the story", rather 
 than its remoter imaginative issues, that would hold her. 
 He did not believe there were ever any echoes in 
 her soul . . . 
 
 There was no question, however, that what she felt was 
 felt with intensity: to the actual, the immediate, she 
 
 [61] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 spread vibrating strings. When the play was over, and 
 they came out once more into the sunlight, Darrow 
 looked down at her with a smile. 
 
 "Well?" he asked. 
 
 She made no answer. Her dark gaze seemed to rest on 
 him without seeing him. Her cheeks and lips were pale, 
 and the loose hair under her hat-brim clung to her fore 
 head in damp rings. She looked like a young priestess 
 still dazed by the fumes of the cavern. 
 
 "You poor child it s been almost too much for you !" 
 
 She shook her head with a vague smile. 
 
 "Come," he went on, putting his hand on her arm, "let s 
 jump into a taxi and get some air and sunshine. Look, 
 there are hours of daylight left ; and see what a night it s 
 going to be !" 
 
 He pointed over their heads, to where a white moon 
 hung in the misty blue above the roofs of the rue de 
 Rivoli. 
 
 She made no answer, and he signed to a motor-cab, 
 calling out to the driver : "To the Bois !" 
 
 As the carriage turned toward the Tuileries she roused 
 herself. "I must go first to the hotel. There may be a 
 message at any rate I must decide on something." 
 
 Darrow saw that the reality of the situation had sud 
 denly forced itself upon her. "I must decide on some 
 thing," she repeated. 
 
 He would have liked to postpone the return, to per 
 suade her to drive directly to the Bois for din 
 ner. It would have been easy enough to remind her that 
 she could not start for Joigny that evening, and that 
 therefore it was of no moment whether she received the 
 
 [62] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 Farlows answer then or a few hours later ; but for some 
 reason he hesitated to use this argument, which had 
 come so naturally to him the day before. After all, he 
 knew she would find nothing at the hotel so what did 
 it matter if they went there ? 
 
 The porter, interrogated, was not sure. He himself 
 had received nothing for the lady, but in his absence his 
 subordinate might have sent a letter upstairs. 
 
 Darrow and Sophy mounted together in the lift, and 
 the young man, while she went into her room, unlocked 
 his own door and glanced at the empty table. For him 
 at least no message had come; and on her threshold, a 
 moment later, she met him with the expected: "No 
 there s nothing!" 
 
 He feigned an unregretful surprise. "So much the bet 
 ter ! And now, shall we drive out somewhere ? Or would 
 you rather take a boat to Bellevue? Have you ever 
 dined there, on the terrace, by moonlight? It s not 
 at all bad. And there s no earthly use in sitting here 
 waiting." 
 
 She stood before him in perplexity. 
 
 "But when I wrote yesterday I asked them to telegraph. 
 I suppose they re horribly hard up, the poor dears, and 
 they thought a letter would do as well as a telegram." 
 The colour had risen to her face. "That s why 7 wrote 
 instead of telegraphing; I haven t a penny to spare 
 myself !" 
 
 Nothing she could have said could have filled her lis 
 tener with a deeper contrition. He felt the red in his 
 own face as he recalled the motive with which he had 
 credited her in his midnight musings. But that motive, 
 
THE REEF 
 
 after all, had simply been trumped up to justify his own 
 disloyalty : he had never really believed in it. The reflec 
 tion deepened his confusion, and he would have liked to 
 take her hand in his and confess the injustice he had 
 done her. 
 
 She may have interpreted his change of colour as an 
 involuntary protest at being initiated into such shabby de 
 tails, for she went on with a laugh: "I suppose you can 
 hardly understand what it means to have to stop and 
 think whether one can afford a telegram? But I ve al 
 ways had to consider such things. And I mustn t stay 
 here any longer now I must try to get a night train for 
 Joigny. Even if the Farlows can t take me in, I can go 
 to the hotel: it will cost less than staying here." She 
 paused again and then exclaimed: "I ought to have 
 thought of that sooner ; I ought to have telegraphed yes 
 terday ! But I was sure I should hear from them today ; 
 and I wanted oh, I did so awfully want to stay !" She 
 threw a troubled look at Darrow. "Do you happen to re 
 member/ she askea, "what time it was when you posted 
 my letter?" 
 
 VII 
 
 DARROW was still standing on her threshold. As 
 she put the question he entered the room and 
 closed the door behind him. 
 
 His heart was beating a little faster than usual and he 
 had no clear idea of what he was about to do or say, be 
 yond the definite conviction that, whatever passing im- 
 
 [64] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 pulse of expiation moved him, he would not be fool 
 enough to tell her that he had not sent her letter. He 
 knew that most wrongdoing works, on the whole, 
 less mischief than its useless confession; and this was 
 clearly a case where a passing folly might be turned, by 
 avowal, into a serious offense. 
 
 Tm so sorry so sorry; but you must let me help 
 you . . . You will let me help you ?" he said. 
 
 He took her hands and pressed them together between 
 his, counting on a friendly touch to help out the insuffi 
 ciency of words. He felt her yield slightly to his clasp, 
 and hurried on without giving her time to answer. 
 
 "Isn t it a pity to spoil our good time together by re 
 gretting anything you might have done to prevent our 
 having it ?" 
 
 She drew back, freeing her hands. Her face, losing its 
 look of appealing confidence, was suddenly sharpened by 
 distrust. 
 
 "You didn t forget to post my letter?" 
 
 Darrow stood before her, constrained and ashamed, and 
 ever more keenly aware that the betrayal of his distress 
 must be a greater offense than its concealment. 
 
 "What an insinuation!" he cried, throwing out his 
 hands with a laugh. 
 
 Her face instantly melted to laughter. "Well, then 
 I won t be sorry; I won t regret anything except that 
 our good time is over!" 
 
 The words were so unexpected that they routed all his 
 resolves. If she had gone on doubting him he could prob 
 ably have gone on deceiving her ; but her unhesitating ac 
 ceptance of his word made him hate the part he was play- 
 
THE REEF 
 
 ing. At the same moment a doubt shot up its serpent 
 head in his own bosom. Was it not he rather than she 
 who was childishly trustful? Was she not almost too 
 ready to take his word, and dismiss once for all the tire 
 some question of the letter? Considering what her ex 
 periences must have been, such trustfulness seemed open 
 to suspicion. But the moment his eyes fell on her he 
 was ashamed of the thought, and knew it for what it 
 really was : another pretext to lessen his own delinquency. 
 
 "Why should our good time be over?" he asked. 
 "Why shouldn t it last a little longer?" 
 
 She looked up, her lips parted in surprise; but before 
 she could speak he went on: "I want you to stay with 
 me I want you, just for a few days, to have all the 
 things you ve never had. It s not always May and Paris 
 why not make the most of them now ? You know me 
 we re not strangers why shouldn t you treat me like a 
 friend?" 
 
 While he spoke she had drawn away a little, but her 
 hand still lay in his. She was pale, and her eyes were 
 fixed on him in a gaze in which there was neither dis 
 trust or resentment, but only an ingenuous wonder. He 
 was extraordinarily touched by her expression. 
 
 "Oh, do! You must. Listen: to prove that I m sin 
 cere I ll tell you . . . I ll tell you I didn t post your 
 letter ... I didn t post it because I wanted so much to 
 give you a few good hours . . . and because I couldn t 
 bear to have you go." 
 
 He had the feeling that the words were being uttered 
 in spite of him by some malicious witness of the scene, 
 and yet that he was not sorry to have them spoken. 
 
 [66] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 The girl had listened to him in silence. She remained 
 motionless for a moment after he had ceased to speak; 
 then she snatched away her hand. 
 
 "You didn t post my letter ? You kept it back on pur 
 pose? And you tell me so now, to prove to me that 
 I d better put myself under your protection ?" She burst 
 into a laugh that had in it all the piercing echoes of her 
 Murrett past, and her face, at the same moment, under 
 went the same change, shrinking into a small malevolent 
 white mask in which the eyes burned black. "Thank 
 you thank you most awfully for telling me ! And for 
 all your other kind intentions! The plan s delightful 
 really quite delightful, and I m extremely flattered and 
 obliged." 
 
 She dropped into a seat beside her dressing-table, rest 
 ing her chin on her lifted hands, and laughing out at 
 him under the elf-lock which had shaken itself down over 
 her eyes. 
 
 Her outburst did not offend the young man; its im 
 mediate effect was that of allaying his agitation. The 
 theatrical touch in her manner made his offense seem 
 more venial than he had thought it a moment before. 
 
 He drew up a chair and sat down beside her. "After 
 all," he said, in a tone of good-humoured protest, "I 
 needn t have told you I d kept back your letter ; and my 
 telling you seems rather strong proof that I hadn t any 
 very nefarious designs on you." 
 
 She met this with a shrug, but he did not give 
 her time to answer. "My designs," he continued with a 
 smile, "were not nefarious. I saw you d been through a 
 bad time with Mrs. Murrett, and that there didn t seem 
 
 [67] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 to be much fun ahead for you ; and I didn t see and I 
 don t yet see the harm of trying to give you a few hours 
 of amusement between a depressing past and a not partic 
 ularly cheerful future." He paused again, and then went 
 on, in the same tone of friendly reasonableness: The 
 mistake I made was not to tell you this at once not to 
 ask you straight out to give me a day or two, and let me 
 try to make you forget all the things that are troubling 
 you. I was a fool not to see that if I d put it to you in 
 that way you d have accepted or refused, as you chose; 
 but that at least you wouldn t have mistaken my inten 
 tions. Intentions!" He stood up, walked the length of 
 the room, and turned back to where she still sat motion 
 less, her elbows propped on the dressing-table, her chin 
 on her hands. "What rubbish we talk about intentions ! 
 The truth is I hadn t any: I just liked being with you. 
 Perhaps you don t know how extraordinarily one can 
 like being with you ... I was depressed and adrift 
 myself ; and you made me forget my bothers ; and when 
 I found you were going and going back to dreariness, 
 as I was I didn t see why we shouldn t have a few 
 hours together first; so I left your letter in my pocket." 
 
 He saw her face melt as she listened, and suddenly she 
 unclasped her hands and leaned to him. 
 
 "But are you unhappy too? Oh, I never understood 
 I never dreamed it! I thought you d always had every 
 thing in the world you wanted!" 
 
 Darrow broke into a laugh at this ingenuous picture 
 of his state. He was ashamed of trying to better his case 
 by an appeal to her pity, and annoyed with himself for 
 alluding to a subject he would rather have kept out of 
 
 [68] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 his thoughts. But her look of sympathy had disarmed 
 him; his heart was bitter and distracted; she was near 
 him, her eyes were shining with compassion he bent 
 over her and kissed her hand. 
 
 "Forgive me do forgive me," he said. 
 
 She stood up with a smiling head-shake. "Oh, it s not 
 so often that people try to give me any pleasure much 
 less two whole days of it! I sha n t forget how kind 
 you ve been. I shall have plenty of time to remember. 
 But this is good-bye, you know. I must telegraph at 
 once to say I m coming." 
 
 "To say you re coming? Then I m not forgiven?" 
 
 "Oh, you re forgiven if that s any comfort." 
 
 "It s not, the very least, if your way of proving it is to 
 go away!" 
 
 She hung her head in meditation. "But I can t stay. 
 How can I stay ?" she broke out, as if arguing with some 
 unseen monitor. 
 
 "Why can t you? No one knows you re here . . . 
 No one need ever know." 
 
 She looked up, and their eyes exchanged meanings for 
 a rapid minute. Her gaze was as clear as a boy s. "Oh, 
 it s not that" she exclaimed, almost impatiently ; "it s not 
 people I m afraid of ! They ve never put themselves out 
 for me why on earth should I care about them?" 
 
 He liked her directness as he had never liked it before. 
 "Well, then, what is it ? Not me, I hope ?" 
 
 "No, not you : I like you. It s the money ! With me 
 that s always the root of the matter. I could never yet 
 afford a treat in my life !" 
 
 "Is that all ?" He laughed, relieved by her naturalness. 
 [69] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 "Look here; since we re talking as man to man can t 
 you trust me about that too?" 
 
 "Trust you? How do you mean? You d better not 
 trust me!" she laughed back sharply. "I might never be 
 able to pay up !" 
 
 His gesture brushed aside the allusion. "Money may 
 be the root of the matter ; it can t be the whole of it, be 
 tween friends. Don t you think one friend may accept 
 a small service from another without looking too far 
 ahead or weighing too many chances? The question 
 turns entirely on what you think of me. If you like me 
 well enough to be willing to take a few days holiday 
 with me, just for the pleasure of the thing, and the 
 pleasure you ll be giving me, let s shake hands on it. If 
 you don t like me well enough we ll shake hands too; 
 only I shall be sorry," he ended. 
 
 "Oh, but I shall be sorry too!" Her face, as she 
 lifted it to his, looked so small and young that Darrow 
 felt a fugitive twinge of compunction, instantly effaced 
 by the excitement of pursuit. 
 
 "Well, then?" He stood looking down on her, his eyes 
 persuading her. He was now intensely aware that his 
 nearness was having an effect which made it less and less 
 necessary for him to choose his words, and he went on, 
 more mindful of the inflections of his voice than of what 
 he was actually saying: "Why on earth should we say 
 good-bye if we re both sorry to? Won t you tell me your 
 reason? It s not a bit like you to let anything stand in 
 the way of your saying just what you feel. You mustn t 
 mind offending me, you know !" 
 
 She hung before him like a leaf on the meeting of 
 
 [70] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 cross-currents, that the next ripple may sweep forward or 
 whirl back. Then she flung up her head with the odd 
 boyish movement habitual to her in moments of excite 
 ment. "What I feel ? Do you want to know what I feel ? 
 That you re giving me the only chance I ve ever had !" 
 
 She turned about on her heel and, dropping into the 
 nearest chair, sank forward, her face hidden against the 
 dressing-table. 
 
 Under the folds of her thin summer dress the modelling 
 of her back and of her lifted arms, and the slight hollow 
 between her shoulder-blades, recalled the faint curves of 
 a terra-cotta statuette, some young image of grace hardly 
 more than sketched in the clay. Darrow, as he stood 
 looking at her, reflected that her character, for all its 
 seeming firmness, its flashing edges of "opinion", was 
 probably no less immature. He had not expected her to 
 yield so suddenly to his suggestion, or to confess her 
 yielding in that way. At first he was slightly discon 
 certed; then he saw how her attitude simplified his 
 own. Her behaviour had all the indecision and awkward 
 ness of inexperience. It showed that she was a child 
 after all; and all he could do all he had ever meant to 
 do was to give her a child s holiday to look back to. 
 
 For a moment he fancied she was crying ; but the next 
 she was on her feet and had swept round on him a face 
 she must have turned away only to hide the first rush of 
 her pleasure. 
 
 For a while they shone on each other without speaking ; 
 then she sprang to him and held out both hands. 
 
 "Is it true? Is it really true? Is it really going to 
 happen to me?" 
 
 [71] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 He felt like answering: "You re the very creature to 
 whom it was bound to happen"; but the words had a 
 double sense that made him wince, and instead he caught 
 her proffered hands and stood looking at her across the 
 length of her arms, without attempting to bend them or 
 to draw her closer. He wanted her to know how her 
 words had moved him ; but his thoughts were blurred by 
 the rush of the same emotion that possessed her, and his 
 own words came with an effort. 
 
 He ended by giving her back a laugh as frank as her 
 own, and declaring, as he dropped her hands: "All that 
 and more too you ll see !" 
 
 VIII 
 
 ALL day, since the late reluctant dawn, the rain had 
 come down in torrents. It streamed against Dar- 
 row s high-perched windows, reduced their vast prospect 
 of roofs and chimneys to a black oily huddle, and filled 
 the room with the drab twilight of an underground 
 aquarium. 
 
 The streams descended with the regularity of a third 
 day s rain, when trimming and shuffling are over, and the 
 weather has settled down to do its worst. There were 
 no variations of rhythm, no lyrical ups and downs: the 
 grey lines streaking the panes were as dense and uniform 
 as a page of unparagraphed narrative. 
 
 George Darrow had drawn his armchair to the fire. 
 The time-table he had been studying lay on the floor, and 
 he sat staring with dull acquiescence into the boundless 
 
 [72] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 blur of rain, which affected him like a vast projection of 
 his own state of mind. Then his eyes travelled slowly 
 about the room. 
 
 It was exactly ten days since his hurried unpacking had 
 strewn it with the contents of his portmanteaux. His 
 brushes and razors were spread out on the blotched 
 marble of the chest of drawers. A stack of newspapers 
 had accumulated on the centre table under the "electro 
 lier ", and half a dozen paper novels lay on the mantel 
 piece among cigar-cases and toilet bottles ; but these traces 
 of his passage had made no mark on the featureless dul- 
 ness of the room, its look of being the makeshift setting 
 of innumerable transient collocations. There was some 
 thing sardonic, almost sinister, in its appearance of hav 
 ing deliberately "made up" for its anonymous part, all in 
 noncommittal drabs and browns, with a carpet and paper 
 that nobody would remember, and chairs and tables as 
 impersonal as railway porters. 
 
 Darrow picked up the time-table and tossed it on to the 
 table. Then he rose to his feet, lit a cigar and went to 
 the window. Through the rain he could just discover 
 the face of a clock in a tall building beyond the railway 
 roofs. He pulled out his watch, compared the two time 
 pieces, and started the hands of his with such a rush that 
 they flew past the hour and he had to make them repeat 
 the circuit more deliberately. He felt a quite dispropor 
 tionate irritation at the trifling blunder. When he had 
 corrected it he went back to his chair and threw himself 
 down, leaning back his head against his hands. Pres 
 ently his cigar went out, and he got up, hunted for 
 the matches, lit it again and returned to his seat. 
 
 [73] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 The room was getting on his nerves. During the first 
 few days, while the skies were clear, he had not noticed 
 it, or had felt for it only the contemptuous indifference 
 of the traveller toward a provisional shelter. But now 
 that he was leaving it, was looking at it for the last 
 time, it seemed to have taken complete possession of his 
 mind, to be soaking itself into him like an ugly indelible 
 blot. Every detail pressed itself on his notice with the 
 familiarity of an accidental confidant : whichever way he 
 turned, he felt the nudge of a transient intimacy . . . 
 
 The one fixed point in his immediate future was that 
 his leave was over and that he must be back at his post 
 in London the next morning. Within twenty- four hours 
 he would again be in a daylight world of recognized 
 activities, himself a busy, responsible, relatively necessary 
 factor in the big whirring social and official machine. 
 That fixed obligation was the fact he could think of with 
 the least discomfort, yet for some unaccountable reason 
 it was the one on which he found it most difficult to fix 
 his thoughts. Whenever he did so, the room jerked 
 him back into the circle of its insistent associations. It 
 was extraordinary with what a microscopic minuteness 
 of loathing he hated it all : the grimy carpet and wall 
 paper, the black marble mantel-piece, the clock with a 
 gilt allegory under a dusty bell, the high-bolstered brown- 
 counterpaned bed, the framed card of printed rules under 
 the electric light switch, and the door of communication 
 with the next room. He hated the door most of all ... 
 
 At the outset, he had felt no special sense of responsi 
 bility. He,was satisfied that he had struck the right note, 
 and convinced of his power of sustaining it. The whole 
 
 [74] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 incident had somehow seemed, in spite of its vulgar set 
 ting and its inevitable prosaic propinquities, to be enacting 
 itself in some unmapped region outside the pale of the 
 usual. It was not like anything that had ever happened 
 to him before, or in which he had ever pictured himself 
 as likely to be involved; but that, at first, had seemed 
 no argument against his fitness to deal with it. 
 
 Perhaps but for the three days rain he might have 
 got away without a doubt as to his adequacy. The rain 
 had made all the difference. It had thrown the whole 
 picture out of perspective, blotted out the mystery of the 
 remoter planes and the enchantment of the middle, dis 
 tance, and thrust into prominence every commonplace 
 fact of the foreground. It was the kind- of situation that 
 was not helped by being thought over; and by the per 
 versity of circumstance he had been forced into the un 
 willing contemplation of its every aspect . . . 
 
 His cigar had gone out again, and he threw it into the 
 fire and vaguely meditated getting up to find another. 
 But the mere act of leaving his chair seemed to call for 
 a greater exertion of the will than he was capable of, and 
 he leaned his head back with closed eyes and listened to 
 the drumming of the rain. 
 
 A different noise aroused him. It was the opening and 
 closing of the door leading from the corridor into the ad 
 joining room. He sat motionless, without opening his 
 eyes ; but now another sight forced itself under his low 
 ered lids. It was the precise photographic picture of that 
 other room. Everything in it rose before him and pressed 
 itself upon his vision with the same acuity of distinctness 
 as the objects surrounding him. A step sounded on the 
 6 [75] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 floor, and he knew which way the step was directed, what 
 pieces of furniture it had to skirt, where it would prob 
 ably pause, and what was likely to arrest it. He heard 
 another sound, and recognized it as that of a wet um 
 brella placed in the black marble jamb of the chimney- 
 piece, against the hearth. He caught the creak of a hinge, 
 and instantly differentiated it as that of the ward 
 robe against the opposite wall. Then he heard the 
 mouse-like squeal of a reluctant drawer, and knew it 
 was the upper one in the chest of drawers beside 
 the bed: the clatter which followed was caused by 
 the mahogany toilet-glass jumping on its loosened 
 pivots . . . 
 
 The step crossed the floor again. It was strange how 
 much better he knew it than the person to whom it be 
 longed ! Now it was drawing near the door of communi 
 cation between the two rooms. He opened his eyes and 
 looked. The step had ceased and for a moment there 
 was silence. Then he heard a low knock. He made no 
 response, and after an interval he saw that the door 
 handle was being tentatively turned. He closed his eyes 
 once more . . . 
 
 The door opened, and the step was in the room, com 
 ing cautiously toward him. He kept his eyes shut, re 
 laxing his body to feign sleep. There was another pause, 
 then a wavering soft advance, the rustle of a dress behind 
 his chair, the warmth of two hands pressed for a moment 
 on his lids. The palms of the hands had the lingering 
 scent of some stuff that he had bought on the Boule 
 vard . . . He looked up and saw a letter falling over his 
 shoulder to his knee . . . 
 
 [76] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 "Did I disturb you ? I m so sorry ! They gave me this 
 just now when I came in." 
 
 The letter, before he could catch it, had slipped be 
 tween his knees to the floor. It lay there, address up 
 ward, at his feet, and while he sat staring down at the 
 strong slender characters on the blue-gray envelope an 
 arm reached out from behind to pick it up. 
 
 "Oh, don t don t!" broke from him, and he bent over 
 and caught the arm. The face above it was close to his. 
 
 "Don t what?" 
 
 "take the trouble," he stammered. 
 
 He dropped the arm and stooped down. His grasp 
 closed over the letter, he fingered its thickness and weight 
 and calculated the number of sheets it must contain. 
 
 Suddenly he felt the pressure of the hand on his shoul 
 der, and became aware that the face was still leaning over 
 him, and that in a moment he would have to look up 
 and kiss it ... 
 
 He bent forward first and threw the unopened letter 
 into the middle of the fire. 
 
BOOK II 
 
BOOK II 
 
 IX 
 
 THE light of the October afternoon lay on an old 
 high-roofed house which enclosed in its long ex 
 panse of brick and yellowish stone the breadth of a 
 grassy court filled with the shadow and sound of limes. 
 
 From the escutcheoned piers at the entrance of the 
 court a level drive, also shaded by limes, extended to a 
 white-barred gate beyond which an equally level avenue 
 of grass, cut through a wood, dwindled to a blue-green 
 blur against a sky banked with still white slopes of cloud. 
 
 In the court, half-way between house and drive, a lady 
 stood. She held a parasol above her head, and looked 
 now at the house-front, with its double flight of steps 
 meeting before a glazed door under sculptured trophies, 
 now down the drive toward the grassy cutting through 
 the wood. Her air was less of expectancy than of contem 
 plation : she seemed not so much to be watching for any 
 one, or listening for an approaching sound, as letting the 
 whole aspect of the place sink into her while she held 
 herself open to its influence. Yet it was no less apparent 
 that the scene was not new to her. There was no eager 
 ness of investigation in her survey: she seemed rather 
 to be looking about her with eyes to which, for some in- 
 
 (81] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 timate inward reason, details long since familiar had sud 
 denly acquired an unwonted freshness. 
 
 This was in fact the exact sensation of which Mrs. 
 Leath was conscious as she came forth from the house 
 and descended into the sunlit court. She had come to 
 meet her step-son, who was likely to be returning at that 
 hour from an afternoon s shooting in one of the more 
 distant plantations, and she carried in her hand the let 
 ter which had sent her in search of him; but with her 
 first step out of the house all thought of him had been 
 effaced by another series of impressions. 
 
 The scene about her was known to satiety. She had 
 seen Givre at all seasons of the year, and for the greater 
 part of every year, since the far-off day of her marriage ; 
 the day when, ostensibly driving through its gates at her 
 husband s side, she had actually been carried there on a 
 cloud of iris-winged visions. 
 
 The possibilities which the place had then represented 
 were still vividly present to her. The mere phrase "a 
 French chateau" had called up to her youthful fancy a 
 throng of romantic associations, poetic, pictorial and emo 
 tional ; and the serene face of the old house seated in its 
 park among the poplar-bordered meadows of middle 
 France, had seemed, on her first sight of it, to hold out 
 to her a fate as noble and dignified as its own mien. 
 
 Though she could still call up that phase of feeling it 
 had long since passed, and the house had for a time 
 become to her the very symbol of narrowness and mo 
 notony. Then, with the passing of years, it had 
 gradually acquired a less inimical character, had become, 
 not again a castle of dreams, evoker of fair images and 
 
 [82] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 romantic legend, but the shell of a life slowly ad 
 justed to its dwelling: the place one came back to, the 
 place where one had one s duties, one s habits and one s 
 books, the place one would naturally live in till one died : 
 a dull house, an inconvenient house, of which one knew 
 all the defects, the shabbinesses, the discomforts, but to 
 which one was so used that one could hardly, after so 
 long a time, think one s self away from it without suf 
 fering a certain loss of identity. 
 
 Now, as it lay before her in the autumn mildness, its 
 mistress was surprised at her own insensibility. She had 
 been trying to see the house through the eyes of an old 
 friend who, the next morning, would be driving up to it 
 for the first time ; and in so doing she seemed to be open 
 ing her own eyes upon it after a long interval of blind 
 ness. 
 
 The court was very still, yet full of a latent life: the 
 wheeling and rustling of pigeons about the rectangular 
 yews and across the sunny gravel; the sweep of rooks 
 above the lustrous greyish-purple slates of the roof, and 
 the stir of the tree-tops as they met the breeze which 
 every day, at that hour, came punctually up from the 
 river. 
 
 Just such a latent animation glowed in Anna Leath. 
 In every nerve and vein she was conscious of that equi 
 poise of bliss which the fearful human heart scarce dares 
 acknowledge. She was not used to strong or full 
 emotions ; but she had always known that she should not 
 be afraid of them. She was not afraid now ; but she felt 
 a deep inward stillness. 
 
 The immediate effect of the feeling had been to send 
 [83] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 her forth in quest of her step-son. She wanted to stroll 
 back with him and have a quiet talk before they re-en 
 tered the house. It was always easy to talk to him, and 
 at this moment he was the one person to whom she could 
 have spoken without fear of disturbing her inner still 
 ness. She was glad, for all sorts of reasons, that Ma 
 dame de Chantelle and Effie were still at Ouchy with the 
 governess, and that she and Owen had the house to 
 themselves. And she was glad that even he was not yet 
 in sight. She wanted to be alone a little longer; not to 
 think, but to let the long slow waves of joy break over her 
 one by one. 
 
 She walked out of the court and sat down on one of 
 the benches that bordered the drive. From her seat she 
 had a diagonal view of the long house-front and of the 
 domed chapel terminating one of the wings. Beyond a 
 gate in the court-yard wall the flower-garden drew its 
 dark-green squares and raised its statues against the yel 
 lowing background of the park. In the borders only a 
 few late pinks and crimsons smouldered, but a peacock 
 strutting in the sun seemed to have gathered into his out 
 spread fan all the summer glories of the place. 
 
 In Mrs. Leath s hand was the letter which had opened 
 her eyes to these things, and a smile rose to her lips at 
 the mere feeling of the paper between her fingers. The 
 thrill it sent through her gave a keener edge to every 
 sense. She felt, saw, breathed the shining world as 
 though a thin impenetrable veil had suddenly been re 
 moved from it. 
 
 Just such a veil, she now perceived, had always hung 
 between herself and life. It had been like the stage gauze 
 
 [84] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 which gives an illusive air of reality to the painted scene 
 behind it, yet proves it, after all, to be no more than a 
 painted scene. 
 
 She had been hardly aware, in her girlhood, of differ 
 ing from others in this respect. In the well-regulated 
 well-fed Summers world the unusual was regarded as 1 
 either immoral or ill-bred, and people with emotions were 
 not visited. Sometimes, with a sense of groping in a 
 topsy-turvy universe, Anna had wondered why everybody 
 about her seemed to ignore all the passions and sensa 
 tions which formed the stuff of great poetry and mem 
 orable action. In a community composed entirely of 
 people like her parents and her parents friends she did 
 not see how the magnificent things one read about could 
 ever have happened. She was sure that if anything of 
 the kind had occurred in her immediate circle her mother 
 would have consulted the family clergyman, and her 
 father perhaps even have rung up the police; and her 
 sense of humour compelled her to own that, in the given 
 conditions, these precautions might not have been unjusti 
 fied. 
 
 Little by little the conditions conquered her, and she 
 learned to regard the substance of life as a mere canvas 
 for the embroideries of poet and painter, and its little 
 swept and fenced and tended surface as its actual sub 
 stance. It was in the visioned region of action and emo 
 tion that her fullest hours were spent; but it hardly 
 occurred to her that they might be translated into experi 
 ence, or connected with anything likely to happen to a 
 young lady living in West Fifty-fifth Street. 
 
 She perceived, indeed, that other girls, leading out- 
 
 [85] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 wardly the same life as herself, and seemingly unaware 
 of her world of hidden beauty, were yet possessed of 
 some vital secret which escaped her. There seemed to 
 be a kind of freemasonry between them ; they were wider 
 awake than she, more alert, and surer of their wants if 
 not of their opinions. She supposed they were "cleverer", 
 and accepted her inferiority good-humouredly, half aware, 
 within herself, of a reserve of unused power which the 
 others gave no sign of possessing. 
 
 This partly consoled her for missing so much of what 
 made their "good time" ; but the resulting sense of exclu 
 sion, of being somehow laughingly but firmly debarred 
 from a share of their privileges, threw her back on her 
 self and deepened the reserve which made envious 
 mothers cite her as a model of ladylike repression. 
 
 Love, she told herself, would one day release her from 
 this spell of unreality. She was persuaded that the sub 
 lime passion was the key to the enigma ; but it was diffi 
 cult to relate her conception of love to the forms it wore 
 in her experience. Two or three of the girls she had 
 envied for their superior acquaintance with the arts of 
 life had contracted, in the course of time, what were 
 variously described as "romantic" or "foolish" marriages ; 
 one even made a runaway match, and languished for a 
 while under a cloud of social reprobation. Here, then, 
 was passion in action, romance converted to reality; yet 
 the heroines of these exploits returned from them un- 
 transfigured, and their husbands were as dull as ever 
 when one had to sit next to them at dinner. 
 
 Her own case, of course, would be different. Some day 
 she would find the magic bridge between West Fifty- 
 
 [86] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 fifth Street and life ; once or twice she had even fancied 
 that the clue was in her hand. The first time was when 
 she had met young Darrow. She recalled even now the 
 stir of the encounter. But his passion swept over her like 
 a wind that shakes the roof of the forest without reaching 
 its still glades or rippling its hidden pools. He was ex 
 traordinarily intelligent and agreeable, and her heart 
 beat faster when he was with her. He had a tall fair easy 
 presence and a mind in which the lights of irony played 
 pleasantly through the shades of feeling. She liked to 
 hear his voice almost as much as to listen to what he was 
 saying, and to listen to what he was saying almost as 
 much as to feel that he was looking at her ; but he wanted 
 to kiss her, and she wanted to talk to him about books 
 and pictures, and have him insinuate the eternal theme of 
 their love into every subject they discussed. 
 
 Whenever they were apart a reaction set in. She 
 wondered how she could have been so cold, called her 
 self a prude and an idiot, questioned if any man could 
 really care for her, and got up in the dead of night to 
 try new ways of doing her hair. But as soon as he re 
 appeared her head straightened itself on her slim neck 
 and she sped her little shafts of irony, or flew her little 
 kites of erudition, while hot and cold waves swept over 
 her, and the things she really wanted to say choked in 
 her throat and burned the palms of her hands. 
 
 Often she told herself that any silly girl who had 
 waltzed through a season would know better than she 
 how to attract a man and hold him ; but when she said "a 
 man" she did not really mean George Darrow. 
 
 Then one day, at a dinner, she saw him sitting next 
 
 [87] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 to one of the silly girls in question: the heroine of the 
 elopement which had shaken West Fifty-fifth Street to 
 its base. The young lady had come back from her ad 
 venture no less silly than when she went; and across 
 the table the partner of her flight, a fat young man with 
 eye-glasses, sat stolidly eating terrapin and talking about 
 polo and investments. 
 
 The young woman was undoubtedly as silly as ever ; 
 yet after watching her for a few minutes Miss Summers 
 perceived that she had somehow grown luminous, peril 
 ous, obscurely menacing to nice girls and the young men 
 they intended eventually to accept. Suddenly, at the 
 sight, a rage of possessorship awoke in her. She must 
 save Darrow, assert her right to him at any price. Pride 
 .and reticence went down in a hurricane of jealousy. She 
 heard him laugh, and there was something new in his 
 laugh ... She watched him talking, talking ... He 
 sat^ slightly sideways, a faint smile beneath his lids, 
 lowering his voice as he lowered it when he talked to 
 her. She caught the same inflections, but his eyes were 
 different. It would have offended her once if he had 
 looked at her like that. Now her one thought was that 
 none but she had a right to be so looked at. And that 
 girl of all others ! What illusions could he have about 
 a girl who, hardly a year ago, had made a fool of her 
 self over the fat young man stolidly eating terrapin 
 across the table? If that was where romance and pas 
 sion ended, it was better to take to district visiting or 
 
 algebra ! 
 
 All night she lay awake and wondered : "What was she 
 saying to him? How shall I learn to say such things?" 
 
 [88] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 and she decided that her heart would tell her that the 
 next time they were alone together the irresistible word 
 would spring to her lips. He came the next day, and 
 they were alone, and all she found was : "I didn t know 
 that you and Kitty Mayne were such friends." 
 
 He answered with indifference that he didn t know it 
 either, and in the reaction of relief she declared: "She s 
 certainly ever so much prettier than she was ..." 
 
 "She s rather good fun," he admitted, as though 
 he had not noticed her other advantages ; and suddenly 
 Anna saw in his eyes the look she had seen there the 
 previous evening. 
 
 She felt as if he were leagues and leagues away from 
 her. All her hopes dissolved, and she was conscious of 
 sitting rigidly, with high head and straight lips, while 
 the irresistible word fled with a last wing-beat into the 
 golden mist of her illusions . . . 
 
 She was still quivering with the pain and bewilderment 
 of this adventure when Fraser Leath appeared. She met 
 him first in Italy, where she was travelling with her 
 parents ; and the following winter he came to New York. 
 In Italy he had seemed interesting : in New York he be 
 came remarkable. He seldom spoke of his life in Europe, 
 and let drop but the most incidental allusions to the 
 friends, the tastes, the pursuits which filled his cosmopoli 
 tan days; but in the atmosphere of West Fifty-fifth 
 Street he seemed the embodiment of a storied past. He 
 presented Miss Summers with a prettily-bound an 
 thology of the old French poets and, when she showed a 
 discriminating pleasure in the gift, observed with his 
 
 [89] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 grave smile : "I didn t suppose I should find any one here 
 who would feel about these things as I do." On another 
 occasion he asked her acceptance of a half-effaced eigh 
 teenth century pastel which he had surprisingly picked up 
 in a New York auction-room. "I know no one but y i 
 who would really appreciate it," he explained. 
 
 He permitted himself no other comments, but these 
 conveyed with sufficient directness that he thought her 
 worthy of a different setting. That she should be so re 
 garded by a man living in an atmosphere of art anc 1 - u- 
 ty, and esteeming them the vital elements of life, made 
 her feel for the first time that she was understood. Here 
 was some one whose scale of values was the same as hers, 
 and who thought her opinion worth hearing on the very 
 matters which they both considered of supremt impor 
 tance. The discovery restored her self-confidence, and 
 she revealed herself to Mr. Leath as she had never known 
 how to reveal herself to Darrow. 
 
 As the courtship progressed, and they grew more con 
 fidential, her suitor surprised and delighted her by little 
 explosions of revolutionary sentiment. He said: "Shall 
 you mind, I wonder, if I tell you that you live in a dread 
 fully conventional atmosphere?" and, seeing that she 
 manifestly did not mind: "Of course I shall say things 
 now and then that will horrify your dear delightful 
 parents I shall shock them awfully, I warn you." 
 
 In confirmation of this warning he permitted himself 
 an occasional playful fling at the regular church-going of 
 Mr. and Mrs. Summers, at the innocuous character of the 
 literature in their library, and at their guileless apprecia 
 tions in art. He even ventured to banter Mrs. Summers 
 
 [90] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 on her refusal to receive the irrepressible Kitty Mayne, 
 who, after a rapid passage with George Darrow, was 
 now involved in another and more flagrant adventure. 
 
 "In Europe, you know, the husband is regarded as the 
 only judge in such matters. As long as he accepts the 
 situation " Mr. Leath explained to Anna, who took his 
 view the more emphatically in order to convince herself 
 that, personally, she had none but the most tolerant senti 
 ments toward the lady. 
 
 ^e subversiveness of Mr. Leath s opinions was en 
 hanced by the distinction of his appearance and the re 
 serve of his manners. He was like the anarchist with a 
 gardenia in his buttonhole who figures in the higher 
 melodrama. Every word, every allusion, every note of 
 his ag ^eably-modulated voice, gave Anna a glimpse of 
 a society at once freer and finer, which observed the tra 
 ditional forms but had discarded the underlying preju 
 dices; whereas the world she knew had discarded many 
 of the forms and kept almost all the prejudices. 
 
 In such an atmosphere as his an eager young woman, 
 curious as to all the manifestations of life, yet instinc 
 tively desiring that they should come to her in terms of 
 beauty and fine feeling, must surely find the largest 
 scope for self-expression. Study, travel, the contact of 
 the world, the comradeship of a polished and enlightened 
 mind, would combine to enrich her days and form her 
 character; and it was only in the rare moments when 
 Mr. Leath s symmetrical blond mask bent over hers, and 
 his kiss dropped on her like a cold smooth pebble, that 
 she questioned the completeness of the joys he offered. 
 
 There had been a time when the walls on which her 
 
THE REEF 
 
 gaze now rested had shed a glare of irony on these early 
 dreams. In the first years of her marriage the sober 
 symmetry of Givre had suggested only her husband s 
 neatly-balanced mind. It was a mind, she soon learned, 
 contentedly absorbed in formulating the conventions of 
 the unconventional. West Fifty-fifth Street was no more 
 conscientiously concerned than Givre with the momen 
 tous question of "what people did" ; it was only the type 
 of deed investigated that was different. Mr. Leath col 
 lected his social instances with the same seriousness and 
 patience as his snuff-boxes. He exacted a rigid conform 
 ity to his rules of non-conformity and his scepticism 
 had the absolute accent of a dogma. He even cher 
 ished certain exceptions to his rules as the book-collector 
 prizes a "defective" first edition. The Protestant church- 
 going of Anna s parents had provoked his gentle sar 
 casm; but he prided himself on his mother s devoutness, 
 because Madame de Chantelle, in embracing her second 
 husband s creed, had become part of a society which still 
 observes the outward rites of piety. 
 
 Anna, in fact, had discovered in her amiable and ele- 
 nt mother-in-law an unexpected embodiment of the 
 West Fifty-fifth Street ideal. Mrs. Summers and 
 Madame de Chantelle, however strongly they would have 
 disagreed as to the authorized source of Christian dogma, 
 would have found themselves completely in accord on 
 all the momentous minutiae of drawing-room conduct ; 
 yet Mr. Leath treated his mother s foibles with a respect 
 which Anna s experience of him forbade her to attribute 
 wholly to filial affection. 
 In the early days, when she was still questioning the* 
 
 [92] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 Sphinx instead of trying to find an answer to it, she ven 
 tured to tax her husband with his inconsistency. 
 
 "You say your mother won t like it if I call on that 
 amusing little woman who came here the other day, 
 and was let in by mistake; but Madame de Chantelle 
 tells me she lives with her husband, and when mother 
 refused to visit Kitty Mayne you said " 
 
 Mr. Leath s smile arrested her. "My dear child, I 
 don t pretend to apply the principles of logic to my poor 
 mother s prejudices." 
 
 "But if you admit that they are prejudices ?" 
 
 "There are prejudices and prejudices. My mother, of 
 course, got hers from Monsieur de Chantelle, and 
 they seem to me as much in their place in this house 
 as the pot-pourri in your hawthorn jar. They preserve a 
 social tradition of which I should be sorry to lose the least 
 perfume. Of course I don t expect you, just at first, 
 to feel the difference, to see the nuance. In the case 
 of little Madame de Vireville, for instance : you point 
 out that she s still under her husband s roof. Very true ; 
 and if she were merely a Paris acquaintance especially 
 if you had met her, as one still might, in the right kind 
 of house in Paris I should be the last to object to your 
 visiting her. But in the country it s different. Even 
 the best provincial society is what you would call 
 narrow : I don t deny it ; and if some of our friends . 
 met Madame de Vireville at Givre well, it would pro 
 duce a bad impression. You re inclined to ridicule such 
 considerations, but gradually you ll come to see their im 
 portance; and meanwhile, do trust me when I ask 
 you to be guided by my mother. It is always well 
 
 [93] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 for a stranger in an old society to err a little on the side of 
 what you call its prejudices but I should rather describe 
 as its traditions." 
 
 After that she no longer tried to laugh or argue her 
 husband out of his convictions. They were convictions, 
 and therefore unassailable. Nor was any insincerity im 
 plied in the fact that they sometimes seemed to coincide 
 with hers. There were occasions when he really did 
 look at things as she did ; but for reasons so different as 
 to make the distance between them all the greater. Life, 
 to Mr. Leath, was like a walk through a carefully classi 
 fied museum, where, in moments of doubt, one had only 
 to look at the number and refer to one s catalogue ; to his 
 wife it was like groping about in a huge dark lumber- 
 room where the exploring ray of curiosity lit up now 
 some shape of breathing beauty and now a mummy s 
 grin. 
 
 In the first bewilderment of her new state these dis 
 coveries had had the effect of dropping another layer of 
 gauze between herself and reality. She seemed farther 
 than ever removed from the strong joys and pangs for 
 which she felt herself made. She did not adopt her hus 
 band s views, but insensibly she began to live his life. She 
 tried to throw a compensating ardour into the secret ex 
 cursions of her spirit, and thus the old vicious distinction 
 between romance and reality was re-established for her, 
 and she resigned herself again to the belief that "real 
 life" was neither real nor alive. 
 
 The birth of her little girl swept away this delusion. 
 At last she felt herself in contact with the actual business 
 of living: but even this impression was not enduring. 
 
 [94] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 Everything but the irreducible crude fact of child-bear 
 ing assumed, in the Leath household, the same ghostly 
 tinge of unreality. Her husband, at the time, was all that 
 his own ideal of a husband required. He was attentive, 
 and even suitably moved; but as he sat by her bedside, 
 and thoughtfully proffered to her the list of people who 
 had "called to enquire", she looked first at him, and then 
 at the child between them, and wondered at the blunder 
 ing alchemy of Nature . . . 
 
 With the exception of the little girl herself, everything 
 connected with that time had grown curiously remote 
 and unimportant. The days that had moved so slowly 
 as they passed seemed now to have plunged down head 
 long steeps of time; and as she sat in the autumn sun, 
 with Darrow s letter in her hand, the history of Anna 
 Leath appeared to its heroine like some grey shadowy tale 
 that she might have read in an old book, one night as she 
 was falling asleep . . . 
 
 X 
 
 TWO brown blurs emerging from the farther end 
 of the wood-vista gradually defined themselves as 
 her step-son and an attendant game-keeper. They grew 
 slowly upon the bluish background, with occasional delays 
 and re-effacements, and she sat still, waiting till they 
 should reach the gate at the end of the drive, where the 
 keeper would turn off to his cottage and Owen continue 
 on to the house. 
 
 She watched his approach with a smile. From the first 
 
 [95] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 days of her marriage she had been drawn to the boy, 
 but it was not until after Effie s birth that she had really 
 begun to know him. The eager observation of her own 
 child had shown her how much she had still to learn 
 about the slight fair boy whom the holidays periodically 
 restored to Givre. Owen, even then, both physically and 
 morally, furnished her with the oddest of commentaries 
 on his father s mien and mind. He would never, the 
 family sighingly recognized, be nearly as handsome as 
 Mr. Leath; but his rather charmingly unbalanced face, 
 with its brooding forehead and petulant boyish smile, 
 suggested to Anna what his father s countenance might 
 have been could one have pictured its neat features dis 
 ordered by a rattling breeze. She even pushed the anal 
 ogy farther, and descried in her step-son s mind a quaint 
 ly-twisted reflection of her husband s. With his bursts 
 of door-slamming activity, his fits of bookish indolence, 
 his crude revolutionary dogmatizing and his flashes of 
 precocious irony, the boy was not unlike a boisterous 
 embodiment of his father s theories. It was as though 
 Fraser Leath s ideas, accustomed to hang like marionettes 
 on their pegs, should suddenly come down and walk. 
 There were moments, indeed, when Owen s humours 
 must have suggested to his progenitor the gambols of an 
 infant Frankenstein ; but to Anna they were the voice of 
 her secret rebellions, and her tenderness to her step-son 
 was partly based on her severity toward herself. As he 
 had the courage she had lacked, so she meant him to 
 have the chances she had missed ; and every effort she 
 made for him helped to keep her own hopes alive. 
 
 Her interest in Owen led her to think more often of his 
 
 [96] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 mother, and sometimes she would slip away and stand 
 alone before her predecessor s portrait. Since her arrival 
 at Givre the picture a "full-length" by a once fash 
 ionable artist had undergone the successive displace 
 ments of an exiled consort removed farther and farther 
 from the throne; and Anna could not help noting that 
 these stages coincided with the gradual decline of 
 the artist s fame. She had a fancy that if his credit had 
 been in the ascendant the first Mrs. Leath might have 
 continued to throne over the drawing-room mantel-piece, 
 even to the exclusion of her successor s effigy. Instead 
 of this, her peregrinations had finally landed her in the 
 shrouded solitude of the billiard-room, an apartment 
 which no one ever entered, but where it was understood 
 that "the light was better," or might have been if the 
 shutters had not been always closed. 
 
 Here the poor lady, elegantly dressed, and seated in 
 the middle of a large lonely canvas, in the blank contem 
 plation of a gilt console, had always seemed to Anna to be 
 waiting for visitors who never came. 
 
 "Of course they never came, you poor thing! I won 
 der how long it took you to find out that they never 
 would?" Anna had more than once apostrophized her, 
 with a derision addressed rather to herself than to the 
 dead ; but it was only after Effie s birth that it occurred 
 to her to study more closely the face in the picture, and 
 speculate on the kind of visitors that Owen s mother 
 might have hoped for. 
 
 "She certainly doesn t look as if they would have been 
 the same kind as mine : but there s no telling, from a por 
 trait that was so obviously done to please the family , 
 
 [97] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 and that leaves Owen so unaccounted for. Well, they 
 never came, the visitors ; they never came ; and she died 
 of it. She died of it long before they buried her: I m 
 certain of that. Those are stone-dead eyes in the pic 
 ture . . . The loneliness must have been awful, if even 
 Owen couldn t keep her from dying of it. And to feel it 
 so she must have had feelings real live ones, the kind 
 that twitch and tug. And all she had to look at all her 
 life was a gilt console yes, that s it, a gilt console 
 screwed to the wall ! That s exactly and absolutely what 
 he is!" 
 
 She did not mean, if she could help it, that either Effie 
 or Owen should know that loneliness, or let her know it 
 again. They were three, now, to keep each other warm, 
 and she embraced both children in the same passion of 
 motherhood, as though one were not enough to shield her 
 from her predecessor s fate. 
 
 Sometimes she fancied that Owen Leath s response 
 was warmer than that of her own child. But then Effie 
 was still hardly more than a baby, and Owen, from the 
 first, had been almost "old enough to understand" : cer 
 tainly did understand now, in a tacit way that yet per 
 petually spoke to her. This sense of his understanding 
 was the deepest element in their feeling for each other. 
 There were so many things between them that were 
 never spoken of, or even indirectly alluded to, yet that, 
 even in their occasional discussions and differences, 
 formed the unadduced arguments making for final agree 
 ment . . . 
 
 Musing on this, she continued to watch his approach ; 
 and her heart began to beat a little faster at the thought 
 
 [98] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 of what she had to say to him. But when he reached 
 the gate she saw him pause, and after a moment he 
 turned aside as if to gain a cross-road through the 
 park. 
 
 She started up and waved her sunshade, but he did not 
 see her. No doubt he meant to go back with the game 
 keeper, perhaps to the kennels, to see a retriever who had 
 hurt his leg. Suddenly she was seized by the whim to 
 overtake him. She threw down the parasol, thrust her 
 letter into her bodice, and catching up her skirts began 
 to run. 
 
 She was slight and light, with a natural ease and quick 
 ness of gait, but she could not recall having run a yard 
 since she had romped with Owen in his school-days ; nor 
 did she know what impulse moved her now. She only 
 knew that run she must, that no other motion, short of 
 flight, would have been buoyant enough for her humour. 
 She seemed to be keeping pace with some inward rhythm, 
 seeking to give bodily expression to the lyric rush of her 
 thoughts. The earth always felt elastic under her, and 
 she had a conscious joy in treading it ; but never had it 
 been as soft and springy as today. It seemed actually 
 to rise and meet her as she went, so that she had the feel 
 ing, which sometimes came to her in dreams, of skimming 
 miraculously over short bright waves. The air, too, 
 seemed to break in waves against her, sweeping by on 
 its current all the slanted lights and moist sharp per 
 fumes of the failing day. She panted to herself : "This 
 is nonsense !" her blood hummed back : "But it s glori 
 ous !" and she sped on till she saw that Owen had caught 
 sight of her and was striding back in her direction. 
 
 [99] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 Then she stopped and waited, flushed and laughing, her 
 hands clasped against the letter in her breast. 
 
 "No, I m not mad," she called out ; "but there s some 
 thing in the air today don t you feel it ? And I wanted 
 to have a little talk with you," she added as he came up to 
 her, smiling at him and linking her arm in his. 
 
 He smiled back, but above the smile she saw the shade 
 of anxiety which, for the last two months, had kept its 
 fixed line between his handsome eyes. 
 
 "Owen, don t look like that! I don t want you to!" 
 she said imperiously. 
 
 He laughed. "You said that exactly like Effie. What 
 do you want me to do ? To race with you as I do Effie ? 
 But I shouldn t have a show !" he protested, still with 
 the little frown between his eyes. 
 
 "Where are you going?" she asked. 
 
 "To the kennels. But there s not the least need. The 
 vet has seen Garry and he s all right. If there s any 
 thing you wanted to tell me " 
 
 "Did I say there was? I just came out to meet you I 
 wanted to know if you d had good sport." 
 
 The shadow dropped on him again. "None at all. 
 The fact is I didn t try. Jean and I have just been 
 knocking about in the woods. I wasn t in a sanguinary 
 mood." 
 
 They walked on with the same light gait, so nearly 
 of a height that keeping step came as naturally to them 
 as breathing. Anna stole another look at the young face 
 on a level with her own. 
 
 "You did say there was something you wanted to tell 
 me," her step-son began after a pause. 
 
 [100] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 "Well, there is." She slackened her pace involuntarily, 
 and they came to a pause and stood facing each other un 
 der the limes. 
 
 "Is Darrow coming?" he asked. 
 
 She seldom blushed, but at the question a sudden heat 
 suffused her. She held her head high. 
 
 "Yes : he s coming. I ve just heard. He arrives to 
 morrow. But that s not " She saw her blunder and 
 
 tried to rectify it. "Or rather, yes, in a way it is my rea 
 son for wanting to speak to you " 
 
 "Because he s coming?" 
 
 "Because he s not yet here." 
 
 "It s about him, then?" 
 
 He looked at her kindly, half-humourously, an almost 
 fraternal wisdom in his smile. 
 
 "About ? No, no : I meant that I wanted to speak 
 
 today because it s our last day alone together." 
 
 "Oh, I see." He had slipped his hands into the pock 
 ets of his tweed shooting jacket and lounged along at her 
 side, his eyes bent on the moist ruts of the drive, as 
 though the matter had lost all interest for him. 
 
 "Owen " 
 
 He stopped again and faced her. "Look here, my dear, 
 it s no sort of use." 
 
 "What s no use?" 
 
 "Anything on earth you can any of you say." 
 
 She challenged him : "Am / one of any of you ?" 
 
 He did not yield. "Well, then anything on earth that 
 even you can say." 
 
 "You don t in the least know what I can say or what 
 I mean to." 
 
 [101] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 "Don t I, generally? 5 
 
 She gave him this point, but only to make another. 
 "Yes ; but this is particularly. I want to say . . . Owen, 
 you ve been admirable all through." 
 
 He broke into a laugh in which the odd elder-brotherly 
 note was once more perceptible. 
 
 "Admirable," she emphasized. "And so has she" 
 
 "Oh, and so have you to her!" His voice broke down 
 to boyishness. "I ve never lost sight of that for a minute. 
 It s been altogether easier for her, though," he threw off 
 presently. 
 
 "On the whole, I suppose it has. Well " she 
 
 summed up with a laugh, "aren t you all the bet 
 ter pleased to be told you ve behaved as well as 
 she?" 
 
 "Oh, you know, I ve not done it for you," he tossed 
 back at her, without the least note of hostility in the 
 affected lightness of his tone. 
 
 "Haven t you, though, perhaps the least bit? Be 
 cause, after all, you knew I understood?" 
 
 "You ve been awfully kind about pretending to." 
 
 She laughed. "You don t believe me? You must re 
 member I had your grandmother to consider." 
 
 "Yes: and my father and Effie, I suppose and the 
 outraged shades of Givre !" He paused, as if to lay more 
 stress on the boyish sneer: "Do you likewise include 
 the late Monsieur de Chantelle ?" 
 
 His step-mother did not appear to resent the thrust. 
 She went on, in the same tone of affectionate persuasion : 
 "Yes : I must have seemed to you too subject to Givre. 
 Perhaps I have been. But you know that was not my 
 
 [ 102] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 real object in asking you to wait, to say nothing to your 
 grandmother before her return." 
 
 He considered. "Your real object, of course, was to 
 gain time." 
 
 "Yes but for whom? Why not for you?" 
 
 "For me?" He flushed up quickly. "You don t 
 mean ?" 
 
 She laid her hand on his arm and looked gravely into 
 his handsome eyes. 
 
 "I mean that when your grandmother gets back from 
 Ouchy I shall speak to her " 
 
 "You ll speak to her ... ?" 
 
 "Yes ; if only you ll promise to give me time " 
 
 "Time for her to send for Adelaide Painter ?" 
 
 "Oh, she ll undoubtedly send for Adelaide Painter!" 
 
 The allusion touched a spring of mirth in both their 
 minds, and they exchanged a laughing look. 
 
 "Only you must promise not to rush things. You must 
 give me time to prepare Adelaide too," Mrs. Leath went 
 on. 
 
 "Prepare her too ?" He drew away for a better look at 
 her. "Prepare her for what?" 
 
 "Why, to prepare your grandmother! For your mar 
 riage. Yes, that s what I mean. I m going to see you 
 through, you know " 
 
 His feint of indifference broke down and he caught 
 
 her hand. "Oh, you dear divine thing! I didn t dream 
 > 
 
 "I know you didn t" She dropped her gaze and began 
 to walk on slowly. "I can t say you ve convinced me of 
 the wisdom of the step. Only I seem to see that other 
 
THE REEF 
 
 things matter more and that not missing things matters 
 most. Perhaps I ve changed or your not changing has 
 convinced me. I m certain now that you won t budge. 
 And that was really all I ever cared about." 
 
 "Oh, as to not budging I told you so months ago : you 
 might have been sure of that ! And how can you be any 
 surer today than yesterday ?" 
 
 "I don t know. I suppose one learns something every 
 day " 
 
 "Not at Givre !" he laughed, and shot a half-ironic look 
 at her. "But you haven t really been at Givre lately 
 not for months ! Don t you suppose I ve noticed that, my 
 dear?" 
 
 She echoed his laugh to merge it in an undenying sigh. 
 "Poor Givre . . ." 
 
 "Poor empty Givre ! With so many rooms full and yet 
 not a soul in it except of course my grandmother, who 
 is its soul !" 
 
 They had reached the gateway of the court and stood 
 looking with a common accord at the long soft-hued 
 fagade on which the autumn light was dying. "It looks 
 so made to be happy in " she murmured. 
 
 "Yes today, today!" He pressed her arm a little. 
 "Oh, you darling to have given it that look for me!" 
 He paused, and then went on in a lower voice: "Don t 
 you feel we owe it to the poor old place to do what we 
 can to give it that look ? You, too, I mean ? Come, let s 
 make it grin from wing to wing! I ve such a mad 
 desire to say outrageous things to it haven t you ? After 
 all, in old times there must have been living people 
 here !" 
 
 [104] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 Loosening her arm from his she continued to gaze 
 up at the house-front, which seemed, in the plaintive 
 decline of light, to send her back the mute appeal of 
 something doomed. 
 
 "It is beautiful," she said. 
 
 "A beautiful memory ! Quite perfect to take out and 
 turn over when I m grinding at the law in New York, 
 
 and you re " He broke off and looked at her with a 
 
 questioning smile. "Come ! Tell me. You and I don t 
 have to say things to talk to each other. When you turn 
 suddenly absent-minded and mysterious I always feel like 
 saying: Come back. All is discovered ." 
 
 She returned his smile. "You know as much as I 
 know. I promise you that." 
 
 He wavered, as if for the first time uncertain how far 
 he might go. "I don t know Darrow as much as you 
 know him," he presently risked. 
 
 She frowned a little. "You said just now we didn t 
 need to say things " 
 
 "Was / speaking? I thought it was your eyes " 
 
 He caught her by both elbows and spun her halfway 
 round, so that the late sun shed a betraying gleam on her 
 face. "They re such awfully conversational eyes ! Don t 
 you suppose they told me long ago why it s just today 
 you ve made up your mind that people have got to live 
 their own lives even at Givre ?" 
 
THE REEF 
 
 XI 
 
 THIS is the south terrace," Anna said. "Should you 
 like to walk down to the river ?" 
 
 She seemed to listen to herself speaking from a far- 
 off airy height, and yet to be wholly gathered into the 
 circle of consciousness which drew its glowing ring about 
 herself and Darrow. To the aerial listener her words 
 sounded flat and colourless, but to the self within the 
 ring each one beat with a separate heart. 
 
 It was the day after Darrow s arrival, and he had come 
 down early, drawn by the sweetness of the light on the 
 lawns and gardens below his window. Anna had heard 
 the echo of his step on the stairs, his pau^e in the stone- 
 flagged hall, his voice as he asked a servant where to find 
 her. She was at the end of the house, in the brown- 
 panelled sitting-room which she frequented at that sea 
 son because it caught the sunlight first and kept it longest. 
 She stood near the window, in the pale band of brightness, 
 arranging some salmon-pink geraniums in a shallow 
 porcelain bowl. Every sensation of touch-and sight was 
 thrice-alive in her. The grey-green fur of the geranium 
 leaves caressed her fingers and the sunlight wavering 
 across the irregular surface of the old parquet floor made 
 it seem as bright and shifting as the brown bed of a 
 stream. 
 
 Darrow stood framed in the door-way of the farthest 
 drawing-room, a light-grey figure against the black and 
 white flagging of the hall; then he began to move to- 
 
 [106] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 ward her down the empty pale-panelled vista, crossing 
 one after another the long reflections which a projecting 
 cabinet or screen cast here and there upon the shining 
 floors. 
 
 As he drew nearer, his figure was suddenly displaced 
 by that of her husband, whom, from the same point, she 
 had so often seen advancing down the same perspective. 
 Straight, spare, erect, looking to right and left with quick 
 precise turns of the head, and stopping now and then to 
 straighten a chair or alter the position of a vase, Fraser 
 Leath used to march toward her through the double file 
 of furniture like a general reviewing a regiment drawn up 
 for his inspection. At a certain point, midway across the 
 second room, he always stopped before the mantel-piece 
 of pinkish-yellow marble and looked at himself in the 
 tall garlanded glass that surmounted it. She could not 
 remember that he had ever found anything to straighten 
 or alter in his own studied attire, but she had never 
 known him to omit the inspection when he passed that 
 particular mirror. 
 
 When it was over he continued more briskly on his 
 way, and the resulting expression of satisfaction was still 
 on his face when he entered the oak sitting-room to greet 
 his wife . . . 
 
 The spectral projection of this little daily scene hung 
 but for a moment before Anna, but in that moment she 
 had time to fling a wondering glance across the distance 
 between her past and present. Then the footsteps of the 
 present came close, and she had to drop the geraniums to 
 give her hand to Darrow . . . 
 
 "Yes, let us walk down to the river." 
 8 [107] 
 
The; 
 to eacl 
 
 THE REEF 
 
 They had neither of them, as yet, found much to say 
 to each other. Darrow had arrived late on the previous 
 afternoon, and during the evening they had had between 
 them Owen Leath and their own thoughts. Now they 
 were alone for the first time and the fact was enough in 
 itself. Yet Anna was intensely aware that as soon as 
 they began to talk more intimately they would feel that 
 they knew each other less well. 
 
 They passed out onto the terrace and down the steps 
 to the gravel walk below. The delicate frosting of dew 
 gave the grass a bluish shimmer, and the sunlight, slid 
 ing in emerald streaks along the tree-boles, gathered 
 itself into great luminous blurs at the end of the wood- 
 walks, and hung above the fields a watery glory like 
 the ring about an autumn moon. 
 
 "It s good to be here," Darrow said. 
 
 They took a turn to the left and stopped for a moment 
 to look back at the long pink house-front, plainer, 
 friendlier, less adorned than on the side toward the court. 
 So prolonged yet delicate had been the friction of time 
 upon its bricks that certain expanses had the bloom and 
 texture of old red velvet, and the patches of gold lichen 
 spreading over them looked like the last traces of a dim 
 embroidery. The dome of the chapel, with its gilded 
 cross, rose above one wing, and the other ended in a 
 conical pigeon-house, above which the birds were flying, 
 lustrous and slatey, their breasts merged in the blue of 
 the roof when they dropped down on it. 
 
 "And this is where you ve been all these years." 
 
 They turned away and began to walk down a long 
 tunnel of yellowing trees. Benches with mossy feet stood 
 
 [108] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 against the mossy edges of the path, and at its farther 
 end it widened into a circle about a basin rimmed with 
 stone, in which the opaque water strewn with leaves 
 looked like a slab of gold-flecked agate. The path, grow 
 ing narrower, wound on circuitously through the woods, 
 between slender serried trunks twined with ivy. Patches 
 of blue appeared above them through the dwindling 
 leaves, and presently the trees drew back and showed the 
 open fields along the river. 
 
 They walked on across the fields to the tow-path. In 
 a curve of the wall some steps led up to a crumbling pa 
 vilion with openings choked with ivy. Anna and Darrow 
 seated themselves on the bench projecting from the inner 
 wall of the pavilion and looked across the river at the 
 slopes divided into blocks of green and fawn-colour, and 
 at the chalk-tinted village lifting its squat church-tower 
 and grey roofs against the precisely drawn lines of the 
 landscape. Anna sat silent, so intensely aware of Dar- 
 row s nearness that there was no surprise in the touch 
 he laid on her hand. They looked at each other, and he 
 smiled and said: "There are to be no more obstacles 
 now." 
 
 "Obstacles?" The word startled her. "What ob 
 stacles?" 
 
 "Don t you remember the wording of the telegram 
 that turned me back last May? Unforeseen obstacle : 
 that was it. What was the earth-shaking problem, by the 
 way? Finding a governess for Effie, wasn t it?" 
 
 "But I gave you my reason : the reason why it was an 
 obstacle. I wrote you fully about it." 
 
 "Yes, I know you did." He lifted her hand and kissed 
 [109] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 it. "How far off it all seems, and how little it all mat 
 ters today !" 
 
 She looked at him quickly. "Do you feel that ? I sup 
 pose I m different. I want to draw all those wasted 
 months into today to make them a part of it." 
 
 "But they are, to me. You reach back and take every 
 thing back to the first days of all." 
 
 She frowned a little, as if struggling with an inarticu 
 late perplexity. "It s curious how, in those first days, too, 
 something that I didn t understand came between us." 
 "Oh, in those days we neither of us understood, 
 did we? It s part of what s called the bliss of being 
 young." 
 
 "Yes, I thought that, too : thought it, I mean, in look 
 ing back. But it couldn t, even then, have been as true 
 of you as of me ; and now " 
 
 "Now," he said, "the only thing that matters is that 
 we re sitting here together." 
 
 He dismissed the rest with a lightness that might have 
 seemed conclusive evidence of her power over him. But 
 she took no pride in such triumphs. It seemed to her 
 that she wanted his allegiance and his adoration not so 
 much for herself as for their mutual love, and that in 
 treating lightly any past phase of their relation he took 
 something from its present beauty. The colour rose to 
 her face. 
 
 "Between you and me everything matters." 
 
 "Of course!" She felt the unperceiving sweetness of 
 his smile. "That s why," he went on, " everything, for 
 me, is here and now: on this bench, between you and 
 me." 
 
 [no] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 She caught at the phrase. "That s what I meant : it s 
 here and now ; we can t get away from it." 
 
 "Get away from it? Do you want to? Again?" 
 
 Her heart was beating unsteadily. Something in her, 
 fitfully and with reluctance, struggled to free itself, but 
 the warmth of his nearness penetrated every sense as the 
 sunlight steeped the landscape. Then, suddenly, she felt 
 that she wanted no less than the whole of her happiness. 
 
 " Again ? But wasn t it you, the last time ?" 
 
 She paused, the tremor in her of Psyche holding up 
 the lamp. But in the interrogative light of her pause her 
 companion s features underwent no change. 
 
 "The last time? Last spring? But it was you who 
 for the best of reasons, as you ve told me turned me 
 back from your very door last spring!" 
 
 She saw that he was good-humouredly ready to 
 "thresh out," for her sentimental satisfaction, a question 
 which, for his own, Time had so conclusively dealt with ; 
 and the sense of his readiness reassured her. 
 
 "I wrote as soon as I could," she rejoined. "I ex 
 plained the delay and asked you to come. And you never 
 even answered my letter." 
 
 "It was impossible to come then. I had to go back to 
 my post." 
 
 "And impossible to write and tell me so?" 
 
 "Your letter was a long time coming. I had waited 
 a week ten days. I had some excuse for thinking, when 
 it came, that you were in no great hurry for an an 
 swer." 
 
 "You thought that really after reading it ?" 
 
 "I thought it." 
 
 [in] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 Her heart leaped up to her throat. "Then why are you 
 here today ?" 
 
 He turned on her with a quick look of wonder. "God 
 knows if you can ask me that !" 
 
 "You see I was right to say I didn t understand." 
 
 He stood up abruptly and stood facing her, blocking 
 the view over the river and the checkered slopes. "Per 
 haps I might say so too." 
 
 "No, no : we must neither of us have any reason for 
 saying it again." She looked at him gravely. "Surely 
 you and I needn t arrange the lights before we show 
 ourselves to each other. I want you to see me just as I 
 am, with all my irrational doubts and scruples; the old 
 ones and the new ones too." 
 
 He came back to his seat beside her. "Never mind the 
 old ones. They were justified I m willing to admit it. 
 With the governess having suddenly to be packed off, 
 and Effie on your hands, and your mother-in-law ill, I 
 see the impossibility of your letting me come. I even see 
 that, at the moment, it was difficult to write and explain. 
 But what does all that matter now? The new scruples 
 are the ones I want to tackle." 
 
 Again her heart trembled. She felt her happiness so 
 near, so sure, that to strain it closer might be like a 
 child s crushing a pet bird in its caress. But her very 
 security urged her on. For so long her doubts had 
 been knife-edged : now they had turned into bright 
 harmless toys that she could toss and catch without 
 peril ! 
 
 "You didn t come, and you didn t answer my letter; 
 and after waiting four months I wrote another." 
 
 [112] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 "And I answered that one ; and I m here." 
 
 "Yes." She held his eyes. "But in my last letter I 
 repeated exactly what I d said in the first the one I 
 wrote you last June. I told you then that I was ready to 
 give you the answer to what you d asked me in London ; 
 and in telling you that, I told you what the answer 
 was." 
 
 "My dearest ! My dearest !" Darrow murmured. 
 
 "You ignored that letter. All summer you made no 
 sign. And all I ask now is that you should frankly tell 
 me why." 
 
 "I can only repeat what I ve just said. I was hurt and 
 unhappy and I doubted you. I suppose if I d cared less 
 I should have been more confident. I cared so much that 
 I couldn t risk another failure. For you d made me feel 
 that I d miserably failed. So I shut my eyes and set my 
 teeth and turned my back. There s the whole pusillani 
 mous truth of it !" 
 
 "Oh, if it s the whole truth !" She let him clasp 
 
 her. "There s my torment, you see. I thought that was 
 what your silence meant till I made you break it. Now 
 I want to be sure that I was right." 
 
 "What can I tell you to make you sure ?" 
 
 "You can let me tell you everything first." She drew 
 away, but without taking her hands from him. "Owen 
 saw you in Paris," she began. 
 
 She looked at him and he faced her steadily. The 
 light was full on his pleasantly-browned face, his grey 
 eyes, his frank white forehead. She noticed for the first 
 time a seal-ring in a setting of twisted silver on the hand 
 he had kept on hers. 
 
: 
 
 THE REEF 
 
 "In Paris? Oh, yes ... So he did." 
 
 "He came back and told me. I think you talked to him 
 a moment in a theatre. I asked if you d spoken of my 
 having put you off or if you d sent me any message. 
 He didn t remember that you had." 
 
 "In a crush in a Paris foyer? My dear !" 
 
 "It was absurd of me ! But Owen and I have always 
 been on odd kind of brother-and-sister terms. I think 
 he guessed about us when he saw you with me in Lon 
 don. So he teased me a little and tried to make me 
 curious about you; and when he saw he d succeeded he 
 told me he hadn t had time to say much to you because 
 you were in such a hurry to get back to the lady you were 
 with." 
 
 He still held her hands, but she felt no tremor in his, 
 and the blood did not stir in his brown cheek. He 
 seemed to be honestly turning over his memories. 
 
 "Yes : and what else did he tell you ?" 
 
 "Oh, not much, except that she was awfully pretty. 
 When I asked him to describe her he said you had her 
 tucked away in a baignoire and he hadn t actually seen 
 her ; but he saw the tail of her cloak, and somehow knew 
 from that that she was pretty. One does, you know . . . 
 I think he said the cloak was pink." 
 
 Darrow broke into a laugh. "Of course it was they 
 always are! So that was at the bottom of your 
 doubts?" 
 
 "Not at first. I only laughed. But afterward, when 
 
 I wrote you and you didn t answer Oh, you do see?" 
 
 she appealed to him. 
 
 He was looking at her gently. "Yes : I see." 
 [H4] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 "It s not as if this were a light thing between 
 us. I want you to know me as I am. If I thought that 
 at that moment . . . when you were on your way here, 
 almost " 
 
 He dropped her hand and stood up. "Yes, yes I 
 understand." 
 
 "But do you?" Her look followed him. "I m not a 
 goose of a girl. I know ... of course I know . . . 
 but there are things a woman feels . . . when what she 
 knows doesn t make any difference. It s not that I 
 want you to explain I mean about that particular even 
 ing. It s only that I want you to have the whole of my 
 feeling. I didn t know what it was till I saw you again. 
 I never dreamed I should say such things to you !" 
 
 "I never dreamed I should be here to hear you say 
 them!" He turned back and lifting a floating end of 
 her scarf put his lips to it. "But now that you have, 
 / know / know," he smiled down at her. 
 
 "You know ?" 
 
 "That this is no light thing between us. Now you may 
 ask me anything you please ! That was all I wanted to 
 ask you! 
 
 For a long moment they looked at each other without 
 speaking. She saw the dancing spirit in his eyes turn 
 grave and darken to a passionate sternness. He stooped 
 and kissed her, and she sat as if folded in wings. 
 
THE REEF 
 
 XII 
 
 IT was in the natural order of things that, on the way 
 back to the house, their talk should have turned to 
 the future. 
 
 Anna was not eager to define it. She had an extraordi 
 nary sensitiveness to the impalpable elements of happi 
 ness, and as she walked at Darrow s side her imagination 
 flew back and forth, spinning luminous webs of feeling 
 between herself and the scene about her. Every height 
 ening of emotion produced for her a new effusion of 
 beauty in visible things, and with it the sense that such 
 moments should be lingered over and absorbed like some 
 unrenewable miracle. She understood Darrow s im 
 patience to see their plans take shape. She knew it must 
 be so, she would not have had it otherwise ; but to reach 
 a point where she could fix her mind on his appeal for 
 dates and decisions was like trying to break her way 
 through the silver tangle of an April wood. 
 
 Darrow wished to use his diplomatic opportunities as 
 a means of studying certain economic and social problems 
 with which he presently hoped to deal in print ; and with 
 this in view he had asked for, and obtained, a South 
 American appointment. Anna was ready to follow 
 where he led, and not reluctant to put new sights as well 
 as new thoughts between herself and her past. She had, 
 in a direct way, only Effie and Effie s education to con 
 sider; and there seemed, after due reflection, no reason 
 why the most anxious regard for these should not be 
 
 [116] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 conciliated with the demands of Darrow s career. Effie, 
 it was evident, could be left to Madame de Chantelle s 
 care till the couple should have organized their life ; and 
 she might even, as long as her future step-father s work 
 retained him in distant posts, continue to divide her year 
 between Givre and the antipodes. 
 
 As for Owen, who had reached his legal majority two 
 years before, and was soon to attain the age fixed for the 
 taking over of his paternal inheritance, the arrival of this 
 date would reduce his step-mother s responsibility to a 
 friendly concern for his welfare. This made for the 
 prompt realization of Darrow s wishes, and there seemed 
 no reason why the marriage should not take place within 
 the six weeks that remained of his leave. 
 
 They passed out of the wood-walk into the open bright 
 ness of the garden. The noon sunlight sheeted with gold 
 the bronze flanks of the polygonal yews. Chrysanthe 
 mums, russet, saffron and orange, glowed like the ef 
 florescence of an enchanted forest; belts of red begonia 
 purpling to wine-colour ran like smouldering flame 
 among the borders ; and above this outspread tapestry the 
 house extended its harmonious length, the soberness of 
 its lines softened to grace in the luminous misty air. 
 
 Darrow stood still, and Anna felt that his glance was 
 travelling from her to the scene about them and then 
 back to her face. 
 
 "You re sure you re prepared to give up Givre? You 
 look so made for each other !" 
 
 "Oh, Givre " She broke off suddenly, feeling as if 
 
 her too careless tone had delivered all her past into his 
 hands ; and with one of her instinctive movements of re- 
 
THE REEF 
 
 coil she added : "When Owen marries I shall have to give 
 it up." 
 
 "When Owen marries? That s looking some distance 
 ahead ! I want to be told that meanwhile you ll have no 
 regrets." 
 
 She hesitated. Why did he press her to uncover to him 
 her poor starved past? A vague feeling of loyalty, a 
 desire to spare what could no longer harm her, made her 
 answer evasively: "There will probably be no mean 
 while. Owen may marry before long." 
 
 She had not meant to touch on the subject, for her step 
 son had sworn her to provisional secrecy; but since the 
 shortness of Darrow s leave necessitated a prompt ad 
 justment of their own plans, it was, after all, inevitable 
 that she should give him at least a hint of Owen s. 
 
 "Owen marry? Why, he always seems like a faun in 
 flannels ! I hope he s found a dryad. There might easily 
 be one left in these blue-and-gold woods." 
 
 "I can t tell you yet where he found his dryad, but 
 she is one, I believe: at any rate she ll become the 
 Givre woods better than I do. Only there may be dif 
 ficulties " 
 
 "Well ! At that age they re not always to be wished 
 away." 
 
 She hesitated. "Owen, at any rate, has made up his 
 mind to overcome them; and I ve promised to see him 
 through." 
 
 She went on, after a moment s consideration, to ex 
 plain that her step-son s choice was, for various reasons, 
 not likely to commend itself to his grandmother. "She 
 must be prepared for it, and I ve promised to do the pre- 
 
 [118] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 paring. You know I always have seen him through 
 things, and he rather counts on me now." 
 
 She fancied that Darrow s exclamation had in it a faint 
 note of annoyance, and wondered if he again suspected 
 her of seeking a pretext for postponement. 
 
 "But once Owen s future is settled, you won t, surely, 
 for the sake of what you call seeing him through, ask 
 that I should go away again without you?" He drew 
 her closer as they walked. "Owen will understand, 
 if you don t. Since he s in the same case himself I ll 
 throw myself on his mercy. He ll see that I have the 
 first claim on you; he won t even want you not to see 
 it." 
 
 "Owen sees everything: I m not afraid of that. But 
 his future isn t settled. He s very young to marry too 
 young, his grandmother is sure to think and the mar 
 riage he wants to make is not likely to convince her to the 
 contrary." 
 
 "You don t mean that it s like his first choice?" 
 
 "Oh, no ! But it s not what Madame de Chantelle 
 would call a good match ; it s not even what I call a wise 
 one." 
 
 "Yet you re backing him up ?" 
 
 "Yet I m backing him up." She paused. "I wonder if 
 you ll understand ? What I ve most wanted for him, and 
 shall want for Effie, is that they shall always feel free to 
 make their own mistakes, and never, if possible, be per 
 suaded to make other people s. Even if Owen s marriage 
 is a mistake, and has to be paid for, I believe he ll learn 
 and grow in the paying. Of course I can t make Madame 
 de Chantelle see this; but I can remind her that, with 
 
THE REEF 
 
 his character his big rushes of impulse, his odd in 
 tervals of ebb and apathy she may drive him into some 
 worse blunder if she thwarts him now." 
 
 "And you mean to break the news to her as soon as 
 she comes back from Ouchy ?" 
 
 "As soon as I see my way to it. She knows the girl 
 and likes her: that s our hope. And yet it may, in 
 the end, prove our danger, make it harder for us all, 
 when she learns the truth, than if Owen had chosen 
 a stranger. I can t tell you more till I ve told her: 
 I ve promised Owen not to tell any one. All I ask you is 
 to give me time, to give me a few days at any rate. She s 
 been wonderfully nice, as she would call it, about you, 
 and about the fact of my having soon to leave Givre ; but 
 that, again, may make it harder for Owen. At any rate, 
 you can see, can t you, how it makes me want to stand 
 by him ? You see, I couldn t bear it if the least fraction 
 of my happiness seemed to be stolen from his as if it 
 were a little scrap of happiness that had to be pieced 
 out with other people s!" She clasped her hands on 
 Darrow s arm. "I want our life to be like a house with 
 all the windows lit: I d like to string lanterns from the 
 roof and chimneys !" 
 
 She ended with an inward tremor. All through her 
 exposition and her appeal she had told herself that the 
 moment could hardly have been less well chosen. In 
 Darrow s place she would have felt, as he doubtless did, 
 that her carefully developed argument was only the dis 
 guise of an habitual indecision. It was the hour of all 
 others when she would have liked to affirm herself by 
 brushing aside every obstacle to his wishes; yet it was 
 
 [120] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 only by opposing them that she could show the strength 
 of character she wanted him to feel in her. 
 
 But as she talked she began to see that Darrow s face 
 gave back no reflection of her words, that he continued 
 to wear the abstracted look of a man who is not listening 
 to what is said to him. It caused her a slight pang to 
 discover that his thoughts could wander at such a mo 
 ment ; then, with a flush of joy she perceived the reason. 
 
 In some undefinable way she had become aware, with 
 out turning her head, that he was steeped in the sense of 
 her nearness, absorbed in contemplating the details of her 
 face and dress ; and the discovery made the words throng 
 to her lips. She felt herself speak with ease, authority, 
 conviction. She said to herself : "He doesn t care what I 
 say it s enough that I say it even if it s stupid he ll 
 like me better for it . . . " She knew that every in 
 flexion of her voice, every gesture, every characteristic of 
 her person its very defects, the fact that her forehead 
 was too high, that her eyes were not large enough, that 
 her hands, though slender, were not small, and that the 
 fingers did not taper she knew that these deficiencies 
 were so many channels through which her influence 
 streamed to him ; that she pleased him in spite of them, 
 perhaps because of them ; that he wanted her as she was, 
 and not as she would have liked to be; and for the first 
 time she felt in her veins the security and lightness of 
 happy love. 
 
 They reached the court and walked under the limes 
 toward the house. The hall door stood wide, and 
 through the windows opening on the terrace the sun 
 slanted across the black and white floor, the faded tap- 
 
 [121] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 estry chairs, and Darrow s travelling coat and cap, which 
 lay among the cloaks and rugs piled on a bench against 
 the wall. 
 
 The sight of these garments, lying among her own 
 wraps, gave her a sense of homely intimacy. It was as 
 if her happiness came down from the skies and took on 
 the plain dress of daily things. At last she seemed to 
 hold it in her hand. 
 
 As they entered the hall her eye lit on an unstamped 
 note conspicuously placed on the table. 
 
 "From Owen! He must have rushed off somewhere 
 in the motor." 
 
 She felt a secret stir of pleasure at the immediate in 
 ference that she and Darrow would probably lunch alone. 
 Then she opened the note and stared at it in wonder. 
 
 "Dear," Owen wrote, "after what you said yesterday I 
 can t wait another hour, and I m of! to Francheuil, to 
 catch the Dijon express and travel back with them. Don t 
 be frightened; I won t speak unless it s safe to. Trust 
 me for that but I had to go." 
 
 She looked up slowly. 
 
 "He s gone to Dijon to meet his grandmother. Oh, I 
 hope I haven t made a mistake !" 
 
 "You? Why, what have you to do with his going to 
 Dijon?" 
 
 She hesitated. "The day before yesterday I told him, 
 for the first time, that I meant to see him through, no 
 matter what happened. And I m afraid he s lost his 
 head, and will be imprudent and spoil things. You see, 
 I hadn t meant to say a word to him till I d had time to 
 prepare Madame de Chantelle." 
 
 [122] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 She felt that Darrow was looking at her and reading 
 her thoughts, and the colour flew to her face. "Yes: it 
 was when I heard you were coming that I told him. I 
 wanted him to feel as I felt ... it seemed too unkind 
 to make him wait !" 
 
 Her hand was in his, and his arm rested for a moment 
 on her shoulder. 
 
 "It would have been too unkind to make him wait." 
 
 They moved side by side toward the stairs. Through 
 the haze of bliss enveloping her, Owen s affairs seemed 
 curiously unimportant and remote. Nothing really 
 mattered but this torrent of light in her veins. She put 
 her foot on the lowest step, saying : "It s nearly luncheon 
 time I must take off my hat ..." and as she started 
 up the stairs Darrow stood below in the hall and watched 
 her. But the distance between them did not make him 
 seem less near : it was as if his thoughts moved with 
 her and touched her like endearing hands. 
 
 In her bedroom she shut the door and stood still, look 
 ing about her in a fit of dreamy wonder. Her feelings 
 were unlike any she had ever known : richer, deeper, more 
 complete. For the first time everything in her, from head 
 to foot, seemed to be feeding the same full current of 
 sensation. 
 
 She took off her hat and went to the dressing-table to 
 smooth her hair. The pressure of the hat had flattened 
 the dark strands on her forehead ; her face was paler than 
 usual, with shadows about the eyes. She felt a pang of 
 regret for the wasted years. "If I look like this today," 
 she said to herself, "what will he think of me when I m 
 ill or worried?" She began to run her fingers through 
 9 [ I2 3 ] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 her hair, rejoicing in its thickness; then she desisted 
 and sat still, resting her chin on her hands. 
 "I want him to see me as I am," she thought. 
 Deeper than the deepest fibre of her vanity was the tri 
 umphant sense that as she was, with her flattened hair, 
 her tired pallor, her thin sleeves a little tumbled by the 
 weight of her jacket, he would like her even better, feel 
 her nearer, dearer, more desirable, than in all the splen 
 dours she might put on for him. In the light of this dis 
 covery she studied her face with a new intentness, seeing 
 its defects as she had never seen them, yet seeing them 
 through a kind of radiance, as though love were a lumi 
 nous medium into which she had been bodily plunged. 
 
 She was glad now that she had confessed her doubts 
 and her jealousy. She divined that a man in love may 
 be flattered by such involuntary betrayals, that there are 
 moments when respect for his liberty appeals to him less 
 than the inability to respect it: moments so propitious 
 that a woman s very mistakes and indiscretions may help 
 to establish her dominion. The sense of power she had 
 been aware of in talking to Darrow came back with ten 
 fold force. She felt like testing him by the most fantas 
 tic exactions, and at the same moment she longed to 
 humble herself before him, to make herself the shadow 
 and echo of his mood. She wanted to linger with him in 
 a world of fancy and yet to walk at his side in the world 
 of fact. She wanted him to feel her power and yet to 
 love her for her ignorance and humility. She felt like a 
 slave, and a goddess, and a girl in her teens . . . 
 
THE REEF 
 
 XIII 
 
 D ARROW, late that evening, threw himself into an 
 armchair before his fire and mused. 
 
 The room was propitious to meditation. The red-veiled 
 lamp, the corners of shadow, the splashes of firelight on \jf 
 the curves of old full-bodied wardrobes and cabinets, ^ 
 gave it an air of intimacy increased by its faded hang 
 ings, its slightly frayed and threadbare rugs. Every 
 thing in it was harmoniously shabby, with a subtle 
 sought-for shabbiness in which Darrow fancied he dis 
 cerned the touch of Fraser Leath. But Fraser Leath had 
 grown so unimportant a factor in the scheme of things 
 that these marks of his presence caused the young man 
 no emotion beyond that of a faint retrospective amuse 
 ment. 
 
 The afternoon and evening had been perfect. 
 
 After a moment -of concern over her step-son s de 
 parture, Anna had surrendered herself to her happiness 
 with an impetuosity that Darrow had never suspected 
 in her. Early in the afternoon they had gone out in 
 the motor, traversing miles of sober-tinted landscape 
 in which, here and there, a scarlet vineyard flamed, clat 
 tering through the streets of stony villages, coming out 
 on low slopes above the river, or winding through the 
 pale gold of narrow wood-roads with the blue of clear- 
 cut hills at their end. Over everything lay a faint 
 sunshine that seemed dissolved in the still air, and 
 the smell of wet roots and decaying leaves was merged 
 
. 
 
 THE REEF 
 
 in the pungent scent of burning underbrush. Once, at 
 the turn of a wall, they stopped the motor before a 
 ruined gateway and, stumbling along a road full of ruts, 
 stood before a little old deserted house, fantastically 
 carved and chimneyed, which lay in a moat under the 
 shade of ancient trees. They paced the paths between the 
 trees, found a mouldy Temple of Love on an islet among 
 reeds and plantains, and, sitting on a bench in the stable- 
 yard, watched the pigeons circling against the sunset 
 over their cot of patterned brick. Then the motor flew 
 on into the dusk . . . 
 
 When they came in they sat beside the fire in the oak 
 drawing-room, and Darrow noticed how delicately her 
 head stood out against the sombre panelling, and mused 
 on the enjoyment there would always be in the mere fact 
 of watching her hands as they moved about among the 
 tea-things . . . 
 
 They dined late, and facing her across the table, with 
 its low lights and flowers, he felt an extraordinary 
 pleasure in seeing her again in evening dress, and in 
 letting his eyes dwell on the proud shy set of her head, 
 the way her dark hair clasped it, and the girlish thinness 
 of her neck above the slight swell of the breast. His 
 imagination was struck by the quality of reticence in her 
 beauty. She suggested a fine portrait kept down to a few 
 tones, or a Greek vase on which the play of light is the 
 only pattern. 
 
 After dinner they went out on the terrace for a look 
 at the moon-misted park. Through the crepuscular 
 whiteness the trees hung in blotted masses. Below the 
 terrace, the garden drew its dark diagrams between stat- 
 
THE REEF 
 
 ues that stood like muffled conspirators on the edge of the 
 shadow. Farther off, the meadows unrolled a silver-shot 
 tissue to the mantling of mist above the river; and the 
 autumn stars trembled overhead like their own reflec 
 tions seen in dim water. 
 
 He lit his cigar, and they walked slowly up and down 
 the flags in the languid air, till he put an arm about her, 
 saying: "You mustn t stay till you re chilled"; then they 
 went back into the room and drew up their chairs to the 
 fire. 
 
 It seemed only a moment later that she said : "It must 
 be after eleven," and stood up and looked down on him, 
 smiling faintly. He sat still, absorbing the look, and 
 thinking: "There ll be evenings and evenings" till she 
 came nearer, bent over him, and with a hand on his 
 shoulder said : "Good night." 
 
 He got to his feet and put his arms about her. 
 
 "Good night," he answered, and held her fast ; and they 
 gave each other a long kiss of promise and commun 
 ion. 
 
 The memory of it glowed in him still as he sat over 
 his crumbling fire; but beneath his physical exultation 
 he felt a certain gravity of mood. His happiness was 
 in some sort the rallying-point of many scattered pur 
 poses. He summed it up vaguely by saying to himself 
 that to be loved by a woman like that made "all the dif 
 ference" ... He was a little tired of experimenting on 
 life; he wanted to "take a line", to follow things up, 
 to centralize and concentrate, and produce results. 
 Two or three more years of diplomacy with her be 
 side him! and then their real life would begin: study, 
 
 [127] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 travel and book-making for him, and for her well, the 
 joy, at any rate, of getting out of an atmosphere of bric- 
 a-brac and card-leaving into the open air of competing 
 activities. 
 
 The desire for change had for some time been latent 
 in him, and his meeting with Mrs. Leath the previous 
 spring had given it a definite direction. With such a 
 comrade to focus and stimulate his energies he felt 
 modestly but agreeably sure of "doing something". And 
 under this assurance was the lurking sense that he was 
 somehow worthy of his opportunity. His life, on the 
 whole, had been a creditable affair. Out of modest 
 chances and middling talents he had built himself a 
 fairly marked personality, known some exceptional peo 
 ple, done a number of interesting and a few rather diffi 
 cult things, and found himself, at thirty-seven, possessed 
 of an intellectual ambition sufficient to occupy the passage 
 to a robust and energetic old age. As for the private 
 and personal side of his life, it had come up to the cur 
 rent standards, and if it had dropped, now and then, be 
 low a more ideal measure, even these declines had been 
 brief, parenthetic, incidental. In the recognized es 
 sentials he had always remained strictly within the limit 
 of his scruples. 
 
 From this reassuring survey of his case he came back 
 to the contemplation of its crowning felicity. His mind 
 turned again to his first meeting with Anna Summers 
 and took up one by one the threads of their faintly 
 sketched romance. He dwelt with pardonable pride on 
 the fact that fate had so early marked him for the high 
 privilege of possessing her : it seemed to mean that they 
 
 t 
 
THE REEF 
 
 had really, in the truest sense of the ill-used phrase, been 
 made for each other. 
 
 Deeper still than all these satisfactions was the mere ele 
 mental sense of well-being in her presence. That, after 
 all, was what proved her to be the woman for him : the 
 pleasure he took in the set of hJr head, the way her hair 
 grew on her forehead and at the nape, her steady gaze 
 when he spoke, the grave freedom of her gait and ges 
 tures. He recalled every detail of her face, the fine vein- 
 ings of the temples, the bluish-brown shadows in her 
 upper lids, and the way the reflections of two stars seemed 
 to form and break up in her eyes when he held her close 
 to him . . . 
 
 If he had had any doubt as to the nature of her feeling 
 for him those dissolving stars would have allayed it. She 
 was reserved, she was shy even, was what the shallow 
 and effusive would call "cold". She was like a picture so 
 hung that it can be seen only at a certain angle : an angle 
 known to no one but its possessor. The thought flat 
 tered his sense of possessorship . . . He felt that the 
 smile on his lips would have been fatuous had it had a 
 witness. He was thinking of her look when she had 
 questioned him about his meeting with Owen at the the 
 atre : less of her words than of her look, and of the effort 
 the question cost her: the reddening of her cheek, the 
 deepening of the strained line between her brows, the 
 way her eyes sought shelter and then turned and drew on 
 him. Pride and passion were in the conflict magnificent 
 qualities in a wife ! The sight almost made up for his 
 momentary embarrassment at the rousing of a memory 
 which had no place in his present picture of himself. 
 
 [129] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 Yes ! It was worth a good deal to watch that fight be 
 tween her instinct and her intelligence, and know one s 
 self the object of the struggle . . . 
 
 Mingled with these sensations were considerations of 
 another order. He reflected with satisfaction that she 
 was the kind of woman with whom one would like 
 to be seen in public. It would be distinctly agreeable 
 to follow her into drawing-rooms, to walk after her down 
 the aisle of a theatre, to get in and out of trains with 
 her, to say "my wife" of her to all sorts of people. He 
 draped these details in the handsome phrase "She s a 
 woman to be proud of", and felt that this fact somehow 
 justified and ennobled his instinctive boyish satisfaction 
 in loving her. 
 
 He stood up, rambled across the room and leaned out 
 for a while into the starry night. Then he dropped again 
 into his armchair with a sigh of deep content. 
 
 "Oh, hang it," he suddenly exclaimed, "it s the best 
 thing that s ever happened to me, anyhow !" 
 
 The next day was even better. He felt, and knew she 
 felt, that they had reached a clearer understanding of each 
 other. It was as if, after a swim through bright oppos 
 ing waves, with a dazzle of sun in their eyes, they had 
 gained an inlet in the shades of a cliff, where they could 
 float on the still surface and gaze far down into the 
 depths. 
 
 Now and then, as they walked and talked, he felt a 
 thrill of youthful wonder at the coincidence of their views 
 and their experiences, at the way their minds leapt to the 
 same point in the same instant. 
 
 [130] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 "The old delusion, I suppose," he smiled to himself. 
 "Will Nature never tire of the trick ?" 
 
 But he knew it was more than that. There were mo 
 ments in their talk when he felt, distinctly and unmis 
 takably, the solid ground of friendship underneath the 
 whirling dance of his sensations. "How I should like her 
 if I didn t love her !" he summed it up, wondering at the 
 miracle of such a union. 
 
 In the course of the morning a telegram had come 
 from Owen Leath, announcing that he, his grandmother 
 and Effie would arrive from Dijon that afternoon at four. 
 The station of the main line was eight or ten miles from 
 Givre, and Anna, soon after three, left in the motor to 
 meet the travellers. 
 
 When she had gone Darrow started for a walk, plan 
 ning to get back late, in order that the reunited family 
 might have the end of the afternoon to themselves. He 
 roamed the country-side till long after dark, and the 
 stable-clock of Givre was striking seven as he walked up 
 the avenue to the court. 
 
 In the hall, coming down the stairs, he encountered 
 Anna. Her face was serene, and his first glance showed 
 him that Owen had kept his word and that none of her 
 forebodings had been fulfilled. 
 
 She had just come down from the school-room, where 
 Effie and the governess were having supper ; the little girl, 
 she told him, looked immensely better for her Swiss holi 
 day, but was dropping with sleep after the journey, and 
 too tired to make her habitual appearance in the draw 
 ing-room before being put to bed. Madame de Chan- 
 telle was resting, but would be down for dinner ; and as 
 
THE REEF 
 
 for Owen, Anna supposed he was off somewhere in the 
 park he had a passion for prowling about the park at 
 nightfall . . . 
 
 Darrow followed her into the brown room, where the 
 tea-table had been left for him. He declined her offer of 
 tea, but she lingered a moment to tell him that Owen 
 had in fact kept his word, and that Madame de Chan- 
 telle had come back in the best of humours, and unsus 
 picious of the blow about to fall. 
 
 "She has enjoyed her month at Ouchy, and it has given 
 her a lot to talk about her symptoms, and the rival doc 
 tors, and the people at the hotel. It seems she met your 
 Ambassadress there, and Lady Wantley, and some other 
 London friends of yours, and she s heard what she calls 
 delightful things about you : she told me to tell you so. 
 She attaches great importance to the fact that your grand 
 mother was an Everard of Albany. She s prepared to 
 open her arms to you. I don t know whether it won t 
 make it harder for poor Owen . . . the contrast, I 
 mean . . . There are no Ambassadresses or Everards to 
 vouch for his choice! But you ll help me, won t you? 
 You ll help me to help him ? To-morrow I ll tell you the 
 rest. Now I must rush up and tuck in Effie . . . " 
 
 "Oh, you ll see, we ll pull it off for him!" he assured 
 her ; "together, we can t fail to pull it off." 
 
 He stood and watched her with a smile as she fled 
 down the half-lit vista to the hall. 
 
THE REEF 
 
 XIV 
 
 IF Darrow, on entering the drawing-room before din 
 ner, examined its new occupant with unusual inter 
 est, it was more on Owen Leath s account than his own. 
 
 Anna s hints had roused his interest in the lad s love 
 affair, and he wondered what manner of girl the heroine 
 of the coming conflict might be. He had guessed that 
 Owen s rebellion symbolized for his step-mother her own 
 long struggle against the Leath conventions, and he 
 understood that if Anna so passionately abetted him it 
 was partly because, as she owned, she wanted his libera 
 tion to coincide with hers. 
 
 The lady who was to represent, in the impending 
 struggle, the forces of order and tradition was seated 
 by the fire when Darrow entered. Among the flowers and 
 old furniture of the large pale-panelled room, Madame 
 de Chantelle had the inanimate elegance of a figure in 
 troduced into a "still-life" to give the scale. And this, 
 Darrow reflected, was exactly what she doubtless re 
 garded as her chief obligation : he was sure she thought 
 a great deal of "measure", and approved of most things 
 only up to a certain point. 
 
 She was a woman of sixty, with a figure at once young 
 and old-fashioned. Her fair faded tints, her quaint cor 
 seting, the passementerie on her tight-waisted dress, the 
 velvet band on her tapering arm, made her resemble a 
 "carte de visite" photograph of the middle sixties. One 
 saw her, younger but no less invincibly lady-like, lean- 
 
 [133] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 ing on a chair with a fringed back, a curl in her neck, a 
 locket on her tuckered bosom, toward the end of an em 
 bossed morocco album beginning with The Beauties of 
 the Second Empire. 
 
 She received her daughter-in-law s suitor with an affa 
 bility which implied her knowledge and approval of his 
 suit. Darrow had already guessed her to be a person who 
 would instinctively oppose any suggested changes, and 
 then, after one had exhausted one s main arguments, un 
 expectedly yield to some small incidental reason, and 
 adhere doggedly to her new position. She boasted of 
 her old-fashioned prejudices, talked a good deal of be 
 ing a grandmother, and made a show of reaching up to 
 tap Owen s shoulder, though his height was little more 
 than hers. 
 
 She was full of a small pale prattle about the peo 
 ple she had seen at Ouchy, as to whom she had the mi 
 nute statistical information of a gazetteer, without any 
 apparent sense of personal differences. She said to Dar 
 row : "They tell me things are very much changed in 
 America ... Of course in my youth there was a So 
 ciety" . . . She had no desire to return there : she was 
 sure the standards must be so different. "There are 
 charming people everywhere . . . and one must always 
 look on the best side . . . but when one has lived among 
 Traditions it s difficult to adapt one s self to the new 
 ideas . . . These dreadful views of marriage . . . it s 
 so hard to explain them to my French relations . . . I m 
 thankful to say I don t pretend to understand them my 
 self ! But you re an Everard I told Anna last spring in 
 London that one sees that instantly" . . . 
 
 [134] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 She wandered off to the cooking and the service of the 
 hotel at Ouchy. She attached great importance to gas 
 tronomic details and to the manners of hotel servants. 
 There, too, there was a falling off, she said. "I don t 
 know, of course ; but people say it s owing to the Ameri 
 cans. Certainly my waiter had a way of slapping down 
 the dishes . . . they tell me that many of them are 
 Anarchists . . . belong to Unions, you know." She ap 
 pealed to Darrow s reported knowledge of economic con 
 ditions to confirm this ominous rumour. 
 
 After dinner Owen Leath wandered into the next room, 
 where the piano stood, and began to play among the 
 shadows. His step-mother presently joined him, and 
 Darrow sat alone with Madame de Chantelle. 
 
 She took up the thread of her mild chat and carried 
 it on at the same pace as her knitting. Her conversation 
 resembled the large loose-stranded web between her fin 
 gers : now and then she dropped a stitch, and went on re 
 gardless of the gap in the pattern. 
 
 Darrow listened with a lazy sense of well-being. In 
 the mental lull of the after-dinner hour, with harmonious 
 memories murmuring through his mind, and the soft tints 
 and shadowy spaces of the fine old room charming his 
 eyes to indolence, Madame de Chantelle s discourse 
 seemed not out of place. He could understand that, in the 
 long run, the atmosphere of Givre might be suffocating ; 
 but in his present mood its very limitations had a grace. 
 
 Presently he found the chance to say a word in his 
 own behalf ; and thereupon measured the advantage, never 
 before particularly apparent to him, of being related to 
 the Everards of Albany. Madame de Chantelle s concep- 
 
 [135] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 tion of her native country to which she had not returned 
 since her twentieth year reminded him of an ancient 
 geographer s map of the Hyperborean regions. It was 
 all a foggy blank, from which only one or two fixed out 
 lines emerged ; and one of these belonged to the Everards 
 of Albany. 
 
 The fact that they offered such firm footing formed, 
 so to speak, a friendly territory on which the opposing 
 powers could meet and treat helped him through the 
 task of explaining and justifying himself as the succes 
 sor of Fraser Leath. Madame" de Chantelle could not re 
 sist such incontestable claims. She seemed to feel her 
 son s hovering and discriminating presence, and she gave 
 Darrow the sense that he was being tested and approved 
 as a last addition to the Leath Collection. 
 
 She also made him aware of the immense advantage 
 he possessed in belonging to the diplomatic profession. 
 She spoke of this humdrum calling as a Career, arid gave 
 Darrow to understand that she supposed him to have 
 been seducing Duchesses when he was not negotiating 
 Treaties. He heard again quaint phrases which romantic 
 old ladies had used in his youth: "Brilliant diplomatic 
 society . . . social advantages . . . the entree every 
 where . . . nothing else forms a young man in the same 
 way . . . " and she sighingly added that she could have 
 wished her grandson had chosen the same path to glory. 
 
 Darrow prudently suppressed his own view of the pro 
 fession, as well as the fact that he had adopted it pro 
 visionally, and for reasons less social than sociological; 
 and the talk presently passed on to the subject of his 
 future plans. 
 
THE REEF 
 
 Here again, Madame de Chantelle s awe of the Career 
 made her admit the necessity of Anna s consenting to an 
 early marriage. The fact that Darrow was "ordered" to 
 South America seemed to put him in the romantic light 
 of a young soldier charged to lead a forlorn hope: she 
 sighed and said: "At such moments a wife s duty is at 
 her husband s side." 
 
 The problem of Effie s future might have disturbed her, 
 she added ; but since Anna, for a time, consented to leave 
 the little girl with her, that problem was at any rate de 
 ferred. She spoke plaintively of the responsibility of 
 looking after her granddaughter, but Darrow divined that 
 she enjoyed the flavour of the word more than she feit 
 the weight of the fact. 
 
 "Effie s a perfect child. She s more like my son, per 
 haps, than dear Owen. She ll never intentionally give me 
 the least trouble. But of course the responsibility will be 
 great . . . I m not sure I should dare to undertake it if 
 it were not for her having such a treasure of a governess. 
 Has Anna told you about our little governess ? After all 
 the worry we had last year, with one impossible creature 
 after another, it seems providential, just now, to have 
 found her. At first we were afraid she was too young; 
 but now we ve the greatest confidence in her. So clever 
 and amusing and such a lady! I don t say her educa 
 tion s all it might be ... no drawing or singing . . . but 
 one can t have everything ; and she speaks Italian ..." 
 
 Madame de Chantelle s fond insistence on the likeness 
 between Effie Leath and her father, if not particularly 
 gratifying to Darrow, had at least increased his desire to 
 see the little girl. It gave him an odd feeling of dis- 
 
 [137] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 comfort to think that she should have any of the char 
 acteristics of the late Fraser Leath: he had, somehow, 
 fantastically pictured her as the mystical offspring of 
 the early tenderness between himself and Anna Summers. 
 
 His encounter with Effie took place the next morning, 
 on the lawn below the terrace, where he found her, in the 
 early sunshine, knocking about golf balls with her brother. 
 Almost at once, and with infinite relief, he saw that the 
 resemblance of which Madame de Chantelle boasted was 
 mainly external. Even that discovery was slightly dis 
 tasteful, though Darrow was forced to own that Fraser 
 Leath s straight-featured fairness had lent itself to the 
 production of a peculiarly finished image of childish pur 
 ity. But it was evident that other elements had also gone 
 to the making of Effie, and that another spirit sat in her 
 eyes. Her serious handshake, her "pretty" greeting, were 
 worthy of the Leath tradition, and he guessed her to be 
 more malleable than Owen, more subject to the influences 
 of Givre ; but the shout with which she returned to her 
 romp had in it the note of her mother s emancipation. 
 
 He had begged a holiday for her, and when Mrs. Leath 
 appeared he and she and the little girl went off for a 
 ramble. Anna wished her daughter to have time to 
 make friends with Darrow before learning in what re 
 lation he was to stand to her ; and the three roamed the 
 woods and fields till the distant chime of the stable- 
 clock made them turn back for luncheon. 
 
 Effie, who was attended by a shaggy terrier, had picked 
 up two or three subordinate dogs at the stable; and as 
 she trotted on ahead with her yapping escort, Anna hung 
 back to throw a look at Darrow. 
 
THE KEEP 
 
 "Yes," he answered it, "she s exquisite . . . Oh, I see 
 what I m asking of you ! But she ll be quite happy here, 
 won t she? And you must remember it won t be for 
 long ..." 
 
 Anna sighed her acquiescence. "Oh, she ll be happy 
 here. It s her nature to be happy. She ll apply herself to 
 it, conscientiously, as she does to her lessons, and to what 
 she calls being good ... In a way, you see, that s just 
 what worries me. Her idea of being good is to please 
 the person she s with she puts her whole dear little 
 mind on it ! And so, if ever she s with the wrong per 
 son " 
 
 "But surely there s no danger of that just now? Ma 
 dame de Chantelle tells me that you ve at last put your 
 hand on a perfect governess " 
 
 Anna, without answering, glanced away from him to 
 ward her daughter. 
 
 "It s lucky, at any rate," Darrow continued, "that 
 Madame de Chantelle thinks her so." 
 
 "Oh, I think very highly of her too." 
 
 "Highly enough to feel quite satisfied to leave her with 
 Effie?" 
 
 "Yes. She s just the person for Effie. Only, of course, 
 one never knows . . . She s young, and she might take 
 it into her head to leave us ..." After a pause she 
 added: "I m naturally anxious to know what you think 
 of her." 
 
 When they entered the house the hands of the hall clock 
 
 stood within a few minutes of the luncheon hour. Anna 
 
 led Effie off to have her hair smoothed and Darrow 
 
 wandered into the oak sitting-room, which he found un- 
 
 10 [ 139 ] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 tenanted. The sun lay pleasantly on its brown walls, 
 on the scattered books and the flowers in old porcelain 
 vases. In his eyes lingered the vision of the dark-haired 
 mother mounting the stairs with her little fair daughter. 
 The contrast between them seemed a last touch of grace 
 in the complex harmony of things. He stood in the 
 window, looking out at the park, and brooding inwardly 
 upon his happiness . . . 
 
 He was roused by Effie s voice and the scamper of her 
 feet down the long floors behind him. 
 
 "Here he is! Here he is!" she cried, flying over the 
 threshold. 
 
 He turned and stooped to her with a smile, and as she 
 caught his hand he perceived that she was trying to draw 
 him toward some one who had paused behind her in the 
 doorway, and whom he supposed to be her mother. 
 
 "Here he is !" Effie repeated, with her sweet impa 
 tience. 
 
 The figure in the doorway came forward and Darrow, 
 looking up, found himself face to face with Sophy Viner. 
 They stood still, a yard or two apart, and looked at each 
 other without speaking. 
 
 As they paused there, a shadow fell across one of the 
 terrace windows, and Owen Leath stepped whistling into 
 the room. In his rough shooting clothes, with the glow 
 of exercise under his fair skin, he looked extraordinarily 
 light-hearted and happy. Darrow, with a quick side- 
 glance, noticed this, and perceived also that the glow on 
 the youth s cheek had deepened suddenly to red. He too 
 stopped short, and the three stood there motionless for a 
 barely perceptible beat of time. During its lapse, Dar- 
 
 [140] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 row s eyes had turned back from Owen s face to that of 
 the girl between them. He had the sense that, whatever 
 was done, it was he who must do it, and that it must be 
 done immediately. He went forward and held out his 
 hand. 
 
 "How do you do, Miss Viner ?" 
 
 She answered: "How do you do?" in a voice that 
 sounded clear and natural; and the next moment he 
 again became aware of steps behind him, and knew that 
 Mrs. Leath was in the room. 
 
 To his strained senses there seemed to be another just 
 measurable pause before Anna said, looking gaily about 
 the little group : "Has Owen introduced you ? This is 
 Effie s friend, Miss Viner." 
 
 Effie, still hanging on her governess s arm, pressed her 
 self closer with a little gesture of appropriation; and 
 Miss Viner laid her hand on her pupil s hair. 
 
 Darrow felt that Anna s eyes had turned to him. 
 
 "I think Miss Viner and I have met already several 
 years ago in London." 
 
 "I remember," said Sophy Viner, in the same clear 
 voice. 
 
 "How charming ! Then we re all friends. But lunch 
 eon must be ready," said Mrs. Leath. 
 
 She turned back to the door, and the little procession 
 moved down the two long drawing-rooms, with Effie 
 waltzing on ahead. 
 
THE REEF 
 
 XV 
 
 MADAME DE CHANTELLE and Anna had 
 planned, for the afternoon, a visit to a remotely 
 situated acquaintance whom the introduction of the mo 
 tor had transformed into a neighbour. Effie was to pay 
 for her morning s holiday by an hour or two in the 
 school-room, and Owen suggested that he and Darrow 
 should betake themselves to a distant covert in the desul 
 tory quest for pheasants. 
 
 Darrow was not an ardent sportsman, but any pretext 
 for physical activity would have been acceptable at the 
 moment; and he was glad both to get away from the 
 house and not to be left to himself. 
 
 When he came downstairs the motor was at the door, 
 and Anna stood before the hall mirror, swathing her 
 hat in veils. She turned at the sound of his step and 
 smiled at him for a long full moment. 
 
 "I d no idea you knew Miss Viner," she said, as he 
 helped her into her long coat. 
 
 "It came back to me, luckily, that Yd seen her two or 
 three times in London, several years ago. She was secre 
 tary, or something of the sort, in the background of a 
 house where I used to dine." 
 
 He loathed the slighting indifference of the phrase, but 
 he had uttered it deliberately, had been secretly practis 
 ing it all through the interminable hour at the luncheon- 
 table. Now that it was spoken, he shivered at its note of 
 condescension. In such cases one was almost sure to 
 
 [142] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 overdo . . . But Anna seemed to notice nothing un 
 usual. 
 
 "Was she really? You must tell me all about it tell 
 me exactly how she struck you. I m so glad it turns 
 out that you know her." 
 
 " Know is rather exaggerated: we used to pass each 
 other on the stairs." 
 
 Madame de Chantelle and Owen appeared together as 
 he spoke, and Anna, gathering up her wraps, said: 
 "You ll tell me about that, then. Try and remember 
 everything you can." 
 
 As he tramped through the woods at his young host s 
 side, Darrow felt the partial relief from thought pro 
 duced by exercise and the obligation to talk. Little as 
 he cared for shooting, he had the habit of concentration 
 which makes it natural for a man to throw himself 
 wholly into whatever business he has in hand, and there 
 were moments of the afternoon when a sudden whirr in 
 the undergrowth, a vivider gleam against the hazy 
 browns and greys of the woods, was enough to fill the 
 foreground of his attention. But all the while, behind 
 these voluntarily emphasized sensations, his secret con 
 sciousness continued to revolve on a loud wheel of 
 thought. For a time it seemed to be sweeping him 
 through deep gulfs of darkness. His sensations were too 
 swift and swarming to be disentangled. He had an 
 almost physical sense of struggling for air, of battling 
 helplessly with material obstructions, as though the russet 
 covert through which he trudged were the heart of a 
 maleficent jungle . . . 
 
 Snatches of his companion s talk drifted to him inter- 
 
 [143] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 mittently through the confusion of his thoughts. He 
 caught eager self-revealing phrases, and understood that 
 Owen was saying things about himself, perhaps hinting 
 indirectly at the hopes for which Darrow had been pre 
 pared by Anna s confidences. He had already become 
 aware that the lad liked him, and had meant to take the 
 first opportunity of showing that he reciprocated the 
 feeling. But the effort of fixing his attention on Owen s 
 words was so great that it left no power for more than 
 the briefest and most inexpressive replies. 
 
 Young Leath, it appeared, felt that he had reached a 
 turning-point in his career, a height from which he could 
 impartially survey his past progress and projected en 
 deavour. At one time he had had musical and literary 
 yearnings, visions of desultory artistic indulgence; but 
 these had of late been superseded by the resolute de 
 termination to plunge into practical life. 
 
 "I don t want, you see," Darrow heard him explain 
 ing, "to drift into what my grandmother, poor dear, is 
 trying to make of me: an adjunct of Givre. I don t 
 want hang it all ! to slip into collecting sensations as 
 my father collected snuff-boxes. I want Erfie to have 
 Givre it s my grandmother s, you know, to do as she 
 likes with ; and I ve understood lately that if it belonged 
 to me it would gradually gobble me up. I want to get 
 out of it, into a life that s big and ugly and struggling. 
 If I can extract beauty out of that, so much the better : 
 that ll prove my vocation. But I want to make beauty, 
 not be drowned in the ready-made, like a bee in a pot of 
 honey." 
 
 Darrow knew that he was being appealed to for cor- 
 
 [144] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 roboration of these views and for encouragement in the 
 course to which they pointed. To his own ears his an 
 swers sounded now curt, now irrelevant : at one moment 
 he seemed chillingly indifferent, at another he heard him 
 self launching out on a flood of hazy discursiveness. He 
 dared not look at Owen, for fear of detecting the lad s 
 surprise at these senseless transitions. And through the 
 confusion of his inward struggles and outward loquacity 
 he heard the ceaseless trip-hammer beat of the question : 
 "What in God s name shall I do?" ... 
 
 To get back to the house before Anna s return seemed 
 his most pressing necessity. He did not clearly know 
 why : he simply felt that he ought to be there. At one 
 moment it occurred to him that Miss Viner might want 
 to speak to him alone and again, in the same flash, that 
 it would probably be the last thing she would want . . . 
 At any rate, he felt he ought to try to speak to her; 
 or at least be prepared to do so, if the chance should oc 
 cur . . . 
 
 Finally, toward four, he told his companion that he 
 had some letters on his mind and must get back to the 
 house and despatch them before the ladies returned. He 
 left Owen with the beater and walked on to the edge of 
 the covert. At the park gates he struck obliquely through 
 the trees, following a grass avenue at the end of which he 
 had caught a glimpse of the roof of the chapel. A grey 
 haze had blotted out the sun and the still air clung about 
 him tepidly. At length the house-front raised before 
 him its expanse of damp-silvered brick, and he was struck 
 afresh by the high decorum of its calm lines and soberly 
 massed surfaces. It made him feel, in the turbid coil of 
 
 [1451 
 
THE REEF 
 
 his fears and passions, like a muddy tramp forcing his 
 way into some pure sequestered shrine . . . 
 
 By and bye, he knew, he should have to think the com 
 plex horror out, slowly, systematically, bit by bit ; but for 
 the moment it was whirling him about so fast that he 
 could just clutch at its sharp spikes and be tossed off 
 again. Only one definite immediate fact stuck in his 
 quivering grasp. He must give the girl every chance 
 must hold himself passive till she had taken them . . . 
 
 In the court Effie ran up to him with her leaping 
 terrier. 
 
 "I was coming out to meet you you and Owen. Miss 
 Viner was coming, too, and then she couldn t because 
 she s got such a headache. I m afraid I gave it to her 
 because I did my division so disgracefully. It s too bad, 
 isn t it? But won t you walk back with me? Nurse 
 won t mind the least bit; she d so much rather go in to 
 tea." 
 
 Darrow excused himself laughingly, on the plea that 
 he had letters to write, which was much worse than hav 
 ing a headache, and not infrequently resulted in one. 
 
 "Oh, then you can go and write them in Owen s study. 
 That s where gentlemen always write their letters." 
 
 She flew on with her dog and Darrow pursued his way 
 to the house. Effie s suggestion struck him as useful. He 
 had pictured himself as vaguely drifting about the draw 
 ing-rooms, and had perceived the difficulty of Miss 
 Viner s having to seek him there ; but the study, a small 
 room on the right of the hall, was in easy sight from the 
 staircase, and so situated that there would be nothing 
 marked in his being found there in talk with her. 
 
 [146] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 He went in, leaving the door open, and sat down at 
 the writing-table. The room was a friendly heteroge 
 neous place, the one repository, in the well-ordered and 
 amply-servanted house, of all its unclassified odds and 
 ends: Effie s croquet-box and fishing rods, Owen s guns 
 and golf-sticks and racquets, his step-mother s flower- 
 baskets and gardening implements, even Madame de 
 Chantelle s embroidery frame, and the back numbers of 
 the Catholic Weekly. The early twilight had begun to 
 fall, and presently a slanting ray across the desk showed 
 Darrow that a servant was coming across the hall with a 
 lamp. He pulled out a sheet of note-paper and began 
 to write at random, while the man, entering, put the 
 lamp at his elbow and vaguely "straightened" the heap 
 of newspapers tossed on the divan. Then his steps 
 died away and Darrow sat leaning his head on his locked 
 hands. 
 
 Presently another step sounded on the stairs, wavered 
 a moment and then moved past the threshold of the 
 study. Darrow got up and walked into the hall, which 
 was still unlighted. In the dimness he saw Sophy Viner 
 standing by the hall door in her hat and jacket. She 
 stopped at sight of him, her hand on the door-bolt, and 
 they stood for a second without speaking. 
 
 "Have you seen Effie ?" she suddenly asked. "She went 
 out to meet you." 
 
 "She did meet me, just now, in the court. She s gone 
 on to join her brother." 
 
 Darrow spoke as naturally as he could, but his voice 
 sounded to his own ears like an amateur actor s in a 
 "light" part. 
 
 [147] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 Miss Viner, without answering, drew back the bolt. 
 He watched her in silence as the door swung open ; then 
 he said: "She has her nurse with her. She won t be 
 long." 
 
 She stood irresolute, and he added : "I was writing in 
 there won t you come and have a little talk? Every 
 one s out." 
 
 The last words struck him as not well-chosen, but there 
 was no time to choose. She paused a second longer and 
 then crossed the threshold of the study. At luncheon 
 she had sat with her back to the window, and beyond 
 noting that she had grown a little thinner, and had less 
 colour and vivacity, he had seen no change in her; but 
 now, as the lamplight fell on her face, its whiteness 
 startled him. 
 
 "Poor thing . . . poor thing . . . what in heaven s 
 name can she suppose ?" he wondered. 
 
 "Do sit down I want to talk to you," he said and 
 pushed a chair toward her. 
 
 She did not seem to see it, or, if she did, she deliber 
 ately chose another seat. He came back to his own chair 
 and leaned his elbows on the blotter. She faced him from 
 the farther side of the table. 
 
 "You promised to let me hear from you now and then," 
 he began awkwardly, and with a sharp sense of his 
 awkwardness. 
 
 A faint smile made her face more tragic. "Did I? 
 There was nothing to tell. I ve had no history like the 
 happy countries ..." 
 
 He waited a moment before asking: "You are happy 
 here?" 
 
 [148] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 "I was," she said with a faint emphasis. 
 
 "Why do you say was ? You re surely not thinking 
 of going? There can t be kinder people anywhere." Dar- 
 row hardly knew what he was saying; but her answer 
 came to him with deadly definiteness. 
 
 "I suppose it depends on you whether I go or stay." 
 
 "On me?" He stared at her across Owen s scattered 
 papers. "Good God ! What can you think of me, to say 
 that?" 
 
 The mockery of the question flashed back at him from 
 her wretched face. She stood up, wandered away, and 
 leaned an instant in the darkening window-frame. From 
 there she turned to fling back at him: "Don t imagine 
 I m the least bit sorry for anything!" 
 
 He steadied his elbows on the table and hid his face 
 in his hands. It was harder, oh, damnably harder, than 
 he had expected ! Arguments, expedients, palliations, 
 evasions, all seemed to be slipping away from him: he 
 was left face to face with the mere graceless fact of his 
 inferiority. He lifted his head to ask at random : "You ve 
 been here, then, ever since ?" 
 
 "Since June ; yes. It turned out that the Farlows were 
 hunting for me all the while for this" 
 
 She stood facing him, her back to the window, evi 
 dently impatient to be gone, yet with something still to 
 say, or that she expected to hear him say. The sense of 
 her expectancy benumbed him. W T hat in heaven s name 
 could he say to her that was not an offense or a mockery ? 
 
 "Your idea of the theatre you gave that up at once, 
 then ?" 
 
 "Oh, the theatre !" She gave a little laugh. "I couldn t 
 
THE REEF 
 
 wait for the theatre. I had to take the first thing that 
 offered; I took this." 
 
 He pushed on haltingly : "I m glad extremely glad 
 you re happy here . . . I d counted on your letting me 
 know if there was anything I could do ... The theatre, 
 now if you still regret it if you re not contented 
 here ... I know people in that line in London I m 
 certain I can manage it for you when I get back " 
 
 She moved up to the table and leaned over it to ask, 
 in a voice that was hardly above a whisper : "Then you 
 do want me to leave ? Is that it ?" 
 
 He dropped his arms with a groan. "Good heavens ! 
 How can you think such things ? At the time, you know, 
 I begged you to let me do what I could, but you wouldn t 
 hear of it ... and ever since I ve been wanting to be of 
 use to do something, anything, to help you ..." 
 
 She heard him through, motionless, without a quiver 
 of the clasped hands she rested on the edge of the 
 table. 
 
 "If you want to help me, then you can help me to 
 stay here," she brought out with low-toned intensity. 
 
 Through the stillness of the pause which followed, the 
 bray of a motor-horn sounded far down the drive. In 
 stantly she turned, with a last white look at him, and 
 fled from the room and up the stairs. He stood motion 
 less, benumbed by the shock of her last words. She was 
 afraid, then afraid of him sick with fear of him ! The 
 discovery beat him down to a lower depth . . . 
 
 The motor-horn sounded again, close at hand, and he 
 turned and went up to his room. His letter-writing was 
 a sufficient pretext for not immediately joining the party 
 
THE REEF 
 
 about the tea-table, and he wanted to be alone and try to 
 put a little order into his tumultuous thinking. 
 
 Upstairs, the room held out the intimate welcome of 
 its lamp and fire. Everything in it exhaled the same 
 sense of peace and stability which, two evenings before, 
 had lulled him to complacent meditation. His armchair 
 again invited him from the hearth, but he was too agitated 
 to sit still, and with sunk head and hands clasped behind 
 his back he began to wander up and down the room. 
 
 His five minutes with Sophy Viner had flashed strange 
 lights into the shadowy corners of his consciousness. 
 The girl s absolute candour, her hard ardent honesty, was 
 for the moment the vividest point in his thoughts. He 
 wondered anew, as he had wondered before, at the way 
 in which the harsh discipline of life had stripped her of 
 false sentiment without laying the least touch on her 
 pride. When they had parted, five months before, she 
 had quietly but decidedly rejected all his offers of help, 
 even to the suggestion of his trying to further her the 
 atrical aims : she had made it clear that she wished their 
 brief alliance to leave no trace on their lives save that 
 of its own smiling memory. But now that they were 
 unexpectedly confronted in a situation which seemed, to 
 her terrified fancy, to put her at his mercy, her first im 
 pulse was to defend her right to the place she had won, 
 and to learn as quickly as possible if he meant to dispute 
 it. While he had pictured her as shrinking away from him 
 in a tremor of self-effacement she had watched his move 
 ments, made sure of her opportunity, and come straight 
 down to "have it out" with him. He was so struck by 
 the frankness and energy of the proceeding that for a 
 
THE REEF 
 
 moment he lost sight of the view of his own character 
 implied in it. 
 
 "Poor thing . . . poor thing!" he could only go on 
 saying; and with the repetition of the words the pic 
 ture of himself as she must see him pitiably took shape 
 again. 
 
 He understood then, for the first time, how vague, in 
 comparison with hers, had been his own vision of the 
 part he had played in the brief episode of their relation. 
 The incident had left* in him a sense of exasperation and 
 self-contempt, but that, as he now perceived, was chiefly, 
 if not altogether, as it bore on his preconceived ideal of 
 his attitude toward another woman. He had fallen be 
 low his own standard of sentimental loyalty, and if he 
 thought of Sophy Viner it was mainly as the chance in 
 strument of his lapse. These considerations were not 
 agreeable to his pride, but they were forced on him by 
 the example of her valiant common-sense. If he had 
 cut a sorry figure in the business, he owed it to her not 
 to close his eyes to the fact any longer . . . 
 
 But when he opened them, what did he see ? The situ 
 ation, detestable at best, would yet have been relatively 
 simple if protecting Sophy Viner had been the only duty 
 involved in it. The fact that that duty was paramount 
 did not do away with the contingent obligations. It was 
 Darrow s instinct, in difficult moments, to go straight to 
 the bottom of the difficulty ; but he had never before had 
 to take so dark a dive as this, and for the minute he 
 shivered on the brink . . . Well, his first duty, at any 
 rate, was to the girl : he must let her see that he meant 
 to fulfill it to the last jot, and then try to find out how 
 
THE REEF 
 
 to square the fulfillment with the other problems already 
 in his path . . . 
 
 XVI 
 
 IN the oak room he found Mrs. Leath, her mother- 
 in-law and Effie. The group, as he came toward it 
 down the long drawing-rooms, composed itself prettily 
 about the tea-table. The lamps and the fire crossed their 
 gleams on silver and porcelain, on the bright haze of 
 Effie s hair and on the whiteness of Anna s forehead, as 
 she leaned back in her chair behind the tea-urn. 
 
 She did not move at Darrow s approach, but lifted to 
 him a deep gaze of peace and confidence. The look 
 seemed to throw about him the spell of a divine security : 
 he felt the joy of a convalescent suddenly waking to find 
 the sunlight on his face. 
 
 Madame de Chantelle, across her knitting, discoursed 
 of their afternoon s excursion, with occasional pauses in 
 duced by the hypnotic effect of the fresh air; and Effie, 
 kneeling on the hearth, softly but insistently sought to 
 implant in her terrier s mind some notion of the rela 
 tion between a vertical attitude and sugar. 
 
 Darrow took a chair behind the little girl, so that he 
 might look across at her mother. It was almost a neces 
 sity for him, at the moment, to let his eyes rest on Anna s 
 face, and to meet, now and then, the proud shyness of 
 her gaze. 
 
 Madame de Chantelle presently enquired what had be 
 come of Owen, and a moment later the window behind 
 
 [153] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 her opened, and her grandson, gun in hand, came in from 
 the terrace. As he stood there in the lamp-light, with 
 dead leaves and bits of bramble clinging to his mud-spat 
 tered clothes, the scent of the night about him and its 
 chill on his pale bright face, he really had the look of 
 a young faun strayed in from the forest. 
 
 Effie abandoned the terrier to fly to him. "Oh, Owen, 
 where in the world have you been? I walked miles and 
 miles with Nurse and couldn t find you, and we met Jean 
 and he said he didn t know where you d gone." 
 
 "Nobody knows where I go, or what I see when I get 
 there that s the beauty of it!" he laughed back at her. 
 "But if you re good," he added, "I ll tell you about it 
 one of these days." 
 
 "Oh, now, Owen, now ! I don t really believe I ll ever 
 be much better than I am now." 
 
 "Let Owen have his tea first," her mother suggested; 
 but the young man, declining the offer, propped his gun 
 against the wall, and, lighting a cigarette, began to pace 
 up and down the room in a way that reminded Darrow 
 of his own caged wanderings. Effie pursued him with 
 her blandishments, and for a while he poured out to her 
 a low-voiced stream of nonsense; then he sat down be 
 side his step-mother and leaned over to help himself to 
 tea. 
 
 "Where s Miss Viner?" he asked, as Effie climbed up 
 on him. "Why isn t she here to chain up this ungov 
 ernable infant ?" 
 
 "Poor Miss Viner has a headache. Effie says she went 
 to her room as soon as lessons were over, and sent word 
 that she wouldn t be down for tea." 
 
 [154] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 "Ah," said Owen, abruptly setting down his cup. He 
 stood up, lit another cigarette, and wandered away to the 
 piano in the room beyond. 
 
 From the twilight where he sat a lonely music, borne 
 on fantastic chords, floated to the group about the tea- 
 table. Under its influence Madame de Chantelle s medi 
 tative pauses increased in length and frequency, and Effie 
 stretched herself on the hearth, her drowsy head against 
 the dog. Presently her nurse appeared, and Anna rose 
 at the same time. "Stop a minute in my sitting-room on 
 your way up," she paused to say to Darrow as she went. 
 
 A few hours earlier, her request would have brought 
 him instantly to his feet. She had given him, on the day 
 of his arrival, an inviting glimpse of the spacious book- 
 lined room above stairs in which she had gathered to 
 gether all the tokens of her personal tastes : the retreat in 
 which, as one might fancy, Anna Leath had hidden the 
 restless ghost of Anna Summers ; and the thought of a 
 talk with her there had been in his mind ever since. But 
 now he sat motionless, as if spell-bound by the play of 
 Madame de Chantelle s needles and the pulsations of 
 Owen s fitful music. 
 
 "She will want to ask me about the girl," he repeated 
 to himself, with a fresh sense of the insidious taint that 
 embittered all his thoughts; the hand of the slender- 
 columned clock on the mantel-piece had spanned a half- 
 hour before shame at his own indecision finally drew him 
 to his feet. 
 
 From her writing-table, where she sat over a pile of 
 letters, Anna lifted her happy smile. The impulse to 
 press his lips to it made him come close and draw her 
 
 11 [ 155 1 
 
THE REEF 
 
 upward. She threw her head back, as if surprised at the 
 abruptness of the gesture; then her face leaned to his 
 with the slow droop of a flower. He felt again the sweep 
 of the secret tides, and all his fears went down in them. 
 
 She sat down in the sofa-corner by the fire and he drew 
 an armchair close to her. His gaze roamed peacefully 
 about the quiet room. 
 
 "It s just like you it is you/ he said, as his eyes came 
 back to her. 
 
 "It s a good place to be alone in I don t think I ve 
 ever before cared to talk with any one here." 
 
 "Let s be quiet, then: it s the best way of talking." 
 
 "Yes; but we must save it up till later. There are 
 things I want to say to you now." 
 
 He leaned back in his chair. "Say them, then, and I ll 
 listen." 
 
 "Oh, no. I want you to tell me about Miss Viner." 
 
 "About Miss Viner?" He summoned up a look of 
 faint interrogation. 
 
 He thought she seemed surprised at his surprise. "It s 
 important, naturally/ she explained, "that I should find 
 out all I can about her before I leave." 
 
 "Important on Effie s account?" 
 
 "On Effie s account of course." 
 
 "Of course . . . But you ve every reason to be satis 
 fied, haven t you ?" 
 
 "Every apparent reason. We all like her. Effie s 
 very fond of her, and she seems to have a delightful in 
 fluence on the child. But we know so little, after all 
 about her antecedents, I mean, and her past history. 
 That s why I want you to try and recall everything you 
 
 [156] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 heard about her when you used to see her in London." 
 
 "Oh, on that score I m afraid I sha n t be of much use. 
 As I told you, she was a mere shadow in the background 
 of the house I saw her in and that was four or five years 
 ago ... " 
 
 "When she was with a Mrs. Mtfrrett?" 
 
 "Yes ; an appalling woman who runs a roaring dinner- 
 factory that used now and then to catch me in its wheels. 
 I escaped from them long ago ; but in my time there used 
 to be half a dozen fagged hands to tend the machine, and 
 Miss Viner was one of them. I m glad she s out of it, 
 poor girl !" 
 
 "Then you never really saw anything of her there ?" 
 
 "I never had the chance. Mrs. Murrett discouraged 
 any competition on the part of her subordinates." 
 
 "Especially such pretty ones, I suppose?" Darrow 
 made no comment, and she continued : "And Mrs. Mur- 
 rett s own opinion if she d offered you one probably 
 wouldn t have been of much value ?" 
 
 "Only in so far as her disapproval would, on general 
 principles, have been a good mark for Miss Viner. But 
 surely," he went on after a pause, "you could have found 
 out about her from the people through whom you first 
 heard of her?" 
 
 Anna smiled. "Oh, we heard of her through Adelaide 
 Painter ;" and in reply to his glance of interrogation 
 she explained that the lady in question was a spinster of 
 South Braintree, Massachusetts, who, having come to 
 Paris some thirty years earlier, to nurse a brother through 
 an illness, had ever since protestingly and provisionally 
 camped there in a state of contemptuous protestation 
 
 [157] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 oddly manifested by her never taking the slip-covers off 
 her drawing-room chairs. Her long residence on Gallic 
 soil had not mitigated her hostility toward the creed and 
 customs of the race, but though she always referred to 
 the Catholic Church as the Scarlet Woman and took the 
 darkest views of French private life, Madame de Chan- 
 telle placed great reliance on her judgment and experi 
 ence, and in every domestic crisis the irreducible Ade 
 laide was immediately summoned to Givre. 
 
 "It s all the odder because my mother-in-law, since her 
 second marriage, has lived so much in the country that 
 she s practically lost sight of all her other American 
 friends. Besides which, you can see how completely she 
 has identified herself with Monsieur de Chantelle s na 
 tionality and adopted French habits and prejudices. Yet 
 when anything goes wrong she always sends for Ade 
 laide Painter, who s more American than the Stars and 
 Stripes, and might have left South Braintree yesterday, 
 if she hadn t, rather, brought it over with her in her 
 trunk." 
 
 Darrow laughed. "Well, then, if South Braintree 
 vouches for Miss Viner " 
 
 "Oh, but only indirectly. When we had that odious 
 adventure with Mademoiselle Grumeau, who d been so 
 highly recommended by Monsieur de Chantelle s aunt, 
 the Chanoinesse, Adelaide was of course sent for, and 
 she said at once: Tm not the least bit surprised. I ve 
 always told you that what you wanted for Effie was a 
 sweet American girl, and not one of these nasty for 
 eigners/ Unluckily she couldn t, at the moment, put 
 her hand on a sweet American ; but she presently heard 
 
 [158] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 of Miss Viner through the Farlows, an excellent couple 
 who live in the Quartier Latin and write about French 
 life for the American papers. I was only too thankful to 
 find anyone who was vouched for by decent people ; and 
 so far I ve had no cause to regret my choice. But I 
 know, after all, very little about Miss Viner; and there 
 are all kinds of reasons why I want, as soon as possible, 
 to find out more to find out all I can." 
 
 "Since you ve got to leave Effie I understand your 
 feeling in that way. But is there, in such a case, any 
 recommendation worth half as much as your own direct 
 experience ?" 
 
 "No; and it s been so favourable that I was ready to 
 accept it as conclusive. Only, naturally, when I found 
 you d known her in London I was in hopes you d give me 
 some more specific reasons for liking her as much as 
 I do." 
 
 "I m afraid I can give you nothing more specific than 
 my general vague impression that she seems very plucky 
 and extremely nice." 
 
 "You don t, at any rate, know anything specific to the 
 contrary ?" 
 
 "To the contrary ? How should I ? I m not conscious 
 of ever having heard any one say two words about her. I 
 only infer that she must have pluck and character to have 
 stuck it out so long at Mrs. Murrett s." 
 
 "Yes, poor thing! She has pluck, certainly; and 
 pride, too; which must have made it all the harder." 
 Anna rose to her feet. "You don t know how glad I am 
 that your impression s on the whole so good. I particu 
 larly wanted you to like her." 
 
 [159] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 He drew her to him with a smile. "On that condition 
 I m prepared to love even Adelaide Painter. * 
 
 "I almost hope you won t have the chance to poor 
 Adelaide ! Her appearance here always coincides with a 
 catastrophe." 
 
 "Oh, then I must manage to meet her elsewhere." 
 He held Anna closer, saying to himself, as he smoothed 
 back the hair from her forehead : "What does anything 
 matter but just this? Must I go now?" he added aloud. 
 
 She answered absently : "It must be time to dress" ; 
 then she drew back a little and laid her hands on his 
 shoulders. "My love oh, my dear love!" she said. 
 
 It came to him that they were the first words of en 
 dearment he had heard her speak, and their rareness 
 gave them a magic quality of reassurance, as though no 
 danger could strike through such a shield. 
 
 A knock on the door made them draw apart. Anna 
 lifted her hand to her hair and Darrow stooped to ex 
 amine a photograph of Effie on the writing-table. 
 
 "Come in!" Anna said. 
 
 The door opened and Sophy Viner entered. Seeing 
 Darrow, she drew back. 
 
 "Do come in, Miss Viner," Anna repeated, looking at 
 her kindly. 
 
 The girl, a quick red in her cheeks, still hesitated on 
 the threshold. 
 
 "I m so sorry; but Effie has mislaid her Latin gram 
 mar, and I thought she might have left it here. I need 
 it to prepare for tomorrow s lesson." 
 
 "Is this it?" Darrow asked, picking up a book from 
 the table. 
 
 [160] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 "Oh, thank you !" 
 
 He held it out to her and she took it and moved to 
 the door. 
 
 "Wait a minute, please, Miss Viner," Anna said; and 
 as the girl turned back, she went on with her quiet smile : 
 "Effie told us you d gone to your room with a headache. 
 You mustn t sit up over tomorrow s lessons if you don t 
 feel well." 
 
 Sophy s blush deepened. "But you see I have to. 
 Latin s one of my weak points, and there s generally only 
 one page of this book between me and Effie." She threw 
 the words off with a half-ironic smile. "Do excuse my 
 disturbing you," she added. 
 
 "You didn t disturb me," Anna answered. Darrow 
 perceived that she was looking intently at the girl, as 
 though struck by something tense and tremulous in her 
 face, her voice, her whole mien and attitude. "You do 
 look tired. You d much better go straight to bed. Effie 
 won t be sorry to skip her Latin." 
 
 "Thank you but I m really all right," murmured 
 Sophy Viner. Her glance, making a swift circuit of the 
 room, dwelt for an appreciable instant on the intimate 
 propinquity of arm-chair and sofa-corner ; then she turned 
 back to the door. 
 
BOOK m 
 
BOOK HI 
 
 XVII 
 
 AT dinner that evening Madame de Chantelle s slen 
 der monologue was thrown out over gulfs of 
 silence. Owen was still in the same state of moody ab 
 straction as when Darrow had left him at the piano ; and 
 even Anna s face, to her friend s vigilant eye, revealed 
 not, perhaps, a personal preoccupation, but a vague sense 
 of impending disturbance. 
 
 She smiled, she bore a part in the talk, her eyes dwelt 
 on Darrow s with their usual deep reliance ; but beneath 
 the surface of her serenity his tense perceptions detected 
 a hidden stir. 
 
 He was sufficiently self-possessed to tell himself that 
 it was doubtless due to causes with which he was not 
 directly concerned. He knew the question of Owen s 
 marriage was soon to be raised, and the abrupt alteration 
 in the young man s mood made it seem probable that he 
 was himself the centre of the atmospheric disturbance. 
 For a moment it occurred to Darrow that Anna might 
 have employed her afternoon in preparing Madame de 
 Chantelle for her grandson s impending announcement; 
 but a glance at the elder lady s unclouded brow showed 
 that he must seek elsewhere the clue to Owen s taciturnity 
 
THE REEF 
 
 and his step-mother s concern. Possibly Anna had found 
 reason to change her own attitude in the matter, and had 
 made the change known to Owen. But this, again, was 
 negatived by the fact that, during the afternoon s shoot 
 ing, young Leath had been in a mood of almost extrava 
 gant expansiveness, and that, from the moment of his late 
 return to the house till just before dinner, there had been, 
 to Barrow s certain knowledge, no possibility of a private 
 talk between himself and his step-mother. 
 
 This obscured, if it narrowed, the field of conjecture; 
 and Darrow s gropings threw him back on the conclusion 
 that he was probably reading too much significance into 
 the moods of a lad he hardly knew, and who had been 
 described to him as subject to sudden changes of humour. 
 As to Anna s fancied perturbation, it might simply be 
 due to the fact that she had decided to plead Owen s 
 cause the next day, and had perhaps already had a 
 glimpse of the difficulties awaiting her. But Darrow 
 knew that he was too deep in his own perplexities to 
 judge the mental state of those about him. It might be, 
 after all, that the variations he felt in the currents of com 
 munication were caused by his own inward tremor. 
 
 Such, at any rate, was the conclusion he had reached 
 when, shortly after the two ladies left the drawing-room, 
 he bade Owen good-night and went up to his room. 
 Ever since the rapid self-colloquy which had followed on 
 his first sight of Sophy Viner, he had known there were 
 other questions to be faced behind the one immediately 
 confronting him. On the score of that one, at least, his 
 mind, if not easy, was relieved. He had done what was 
 possible to reassure the girl, and she had apparently 
 
 [166] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 recognized the sincerity of his intention. He had patched 
 up as decent a conclusion as he could to an incident that 
 should obviously have had no sequel ; but he had known 
 all along that with the securing of Miss Viner s peace 
 of mind only a part of his obligation was discharged, and 
 that with that part his remaining duty was in conflict. It 
 had been his first business to convince the girl that their 
 secret was safe with him; but it was far from easy to 
 square this with the equally urgent obligation of safe 
 guarding Anna s responsibility toward her child. Dar- 
 row was not much afraid of accidental disclosures. Both 
 he and Sophy Viner had too much at stake not to be 
 on their guard. The fear that beset him was of an 
 other kind, and had a profounder source. He wanted 
 to do all he could for the girl, but the fact of having had 
 to urge Anna to confide Effie to her was peculiarly re 
 pugnant to him. His own ideas about Sophy Viner were 
 too mixed and indeterminate for him not to feel the risk 
 of such an experiment; yet he found himself in the in 
 tolerable position of appearing to press it on the woman 
 he desired above all others to protect . . . 
 
 Till late in the night his thoughts revolved in a tur 
 moil of indecision. His pride was humbled by the dis 
 crepancy between what Sophy Viner had been to him 
 and what he had thought of her. This discrepancy, 
 which at the time had seemed to simplify the incident, 
 now turned out to be its most galling complication. The 
 bare truth, indeed, was that he had hardly thought of her 
 at all, either at the time or since, and that he was ashamed 
 to base his judgment of her on his meagre memory of 
 their adventure. 
 
THE REEF 
 
 The essential cheapness of the whole affair as far as 
 his share in it was concerned came home to him with 
 humiliating distinctness. He would have liked to be able 
 to feel that, at the time at least, he had staked something 
 more on it, and had somehow, in the sequel, had a more 
 palpable loss to show. But the plain fact was that he 
 hadn t spent a penny on it ; which was no doubt the rea 
 son of the prodigious score it had since been rolling up. 
 At any rate, beat about the case as he would, it was clear 
 that he owed it to Anna and incidentally to his own 
 peace of mind to find some way of securing Sophy 
 Viner s future without leaving her installed at Givre when 
 he and his wife should depart for their new post. 
 
 The night brought no aid to the solving of this prob 
 lem; but it gave him, at any rate, the clear conviction 
 that no time was to be lost. His first step must be to ob 
 tain from Miss Viner the chance of another and calmer 
 talk; and he resolved to seek it at the earliest hour. 
 
 He had gathered that Effie s lessons were preceded by 
 an early scamper in the park, and conjecturing that her 
 governess might be with her he betook himself the next 
 morning to the terrace, whence he wandered on to the 
 gardens and the walks beyond. 
 
 The atmosphere was still and pale. The muffled sun 
 light gleamed like gold tissue through grey gauze, and the 
 beech alleys tapered away to a blue haze blent of sky and 
 forest. It was one of those elusive days when the fa 
 miliar forms of things seem about to dissolve in a pris 
 matic shimmer. 
 
 The stillness was presently broken by joyful barks, and 
 Darrow, tracking the sound, overtook Efne flying down 
 
 F i681 
 
THE REEF 
 
 one of the long alleys at the head of her pack. Beyond 
 her he saw Miss Viner seated near the stone-rimmed 
 basin beside which he and Anna had paused on their first 
 walk to the river. 
 
 The girl, coming forward at his approach, returned his 
 greeting almost gaily. His first glance showed him that 
 she had regained her composure, and the change in her 
 appearance gave him the measure of her fears. For the 
 first time he saw in her again the sidelong grace that had 
 charmed his eyes in Paris; but he saw it now as in a 
 painted picture. 
 
 "Shall we sit down a minute ?" he asked, as Effie trot 
 ted off. 
 
 The girl looked away from him. "I m afraid there s 
 not much time; we must be back at lessons at half-past 
 nine." 
 
 "But it s barely ten minutes past. Let s at least walk 
 a little way toward the river." 
 
 She glanced down the long walk ahead of them and 
 then back in the direction of the house. "If you like," she 
 said in a low voice, with one of her quick fluctuations of 
 colour; but instead of taking the way he proposed she 
 turned toward a narrow path which branched off ob 
 liquely through the trees. 
 
 Darrow was struck, and vaguely troubled, by the 
 change in her look and tone. There was in them an un- 
 definable appeal, whether for help or forbearance he could 
 not tell. Then it occurred to him that there might have 
 been something misleading in his so pointedly seeking 
 her, and he felt a momentary constraint. To ease it he 
 made an abrupt dash at the truth. 
 
 [169] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 "I came out to look for you because our talk of yes 
 terday was so unsatisfactory. I want to hear more about 
 you about your plans and prospects. I ve been won 
 dering ever since why you ve so completely given up the 
 theatre." 
 
 Her face instantly sharpened to distrust. "I had to 
 live," she said in an off-hand tone. 
 
 "I understand perfectly that you should like it here 
 for a time." His glance strayed down the gold-roofed 
 windings ahead of them. "It s delightful : you couldn t 
 be better placed. Only I wonder a little at your having 
 so completely given up any idea of a different future." 
 
 She waited for a moment before answering : "I suppose 
 I m less restless than I used to be." 
 
 "It s certainly natural that you should be less restless 
 here than at Mrs. Murrett s; yet somehow I don t seem 
 to see you permanently given up to forming the young." 
 
 "What exactly do you seem to see me permanently 
 given up to? You know you warned me rather em 
 phatically against the theatre." She threw off the state 
 ment without impatience, as though they were discussing 
 together the fate of a third person in whom both were 
 benevolently interested. 
 
 Darrow considered his reply. "If I did, it was because 
 you so emphatically refused to let me help you to a start." 
 
 She stopped short and faced him. "And you think I 
 may let you now?" 
 
 Darrow felt the blood in his cheek. He could not 
 understand her attitude if indeed she had consciously 
 taken one, and her changes of tone did not merely reflect 
 the involuntary alternations of her mood. It humbled 
 
 [170] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 him to perceive once more how little he had to guide him 
 in his judgment of her. He said to himself: "If I d 
 ever cared a straw for her I should know how to avoid 
 hurting her now" and his insensibility struck him as no 
 better than a vulgar obtuseness. But he had a fixed 
 purpose ahead and could only push on to it. 
 
 "I hope, at any rate, you ll listen to my reasons. 
 There s been time, on both sides, to think them over 
 
 since " He caught himself back and hung helpless on 
 
 the "since" : whatever words he chose, he seemed to 
 stumble among reminders of their past. 
 
 She walked on beside him, her eyes on the ground. 
 "Then I m to understand definitely that you do renew 
 your offer?" she asked. 
 
 "With all my heart ! If you ll only let me " 
 
 She raised a hand, as though to check him. "It s ex 
 tremely friendly of you I do believe you mean it as a 
 friend but I don t quite understand why, finding me, as 
 you say, so well placed here, you should show more 
 anxiety about my future than at a time when I was 
 actually, and rather desperately, adrift." 
 
 "Oh, no, not more !" 
 
 "If you show any at all, it must, at any rate, be for 
 different reasons. In fact, it can only be," she went on, 
 with one of her disconcerting flashes of astuteness, "for 
 one of two reasons ; either because you feel you ought to 
 help me, or because, for some reason, you think you owe 
 it to Mrs. Leath to let her know what you know of me." 
 
 Darrow stood still in the path. Behind him he heard 
 Effie s call, and at the child s voice he saw Sophy turn 
 her head with the alertness of one who is obscurely on 
 12 II 
 
THE REEF 
 
 the watch. The look was so fugitive that he could not 
 have said wherein it differed from her normal profes 
 sional air of having her pupil on her mind. 
 
 Effie sprang past them, and Darrow took up the girl s 
 challenge. 
 
 "What you suggest about Mrs. Leath is hardly worth 
 answering. As to my reasons for wanting to help you, a 
 good deal depends on the words one uses to define rather 
 indefinite things. It s true enough that I want to help 
 you ; but the wish isn t due to ... to any past kindness 
 on your part, but simply to my own interest in you. 
 Why not put it that our friendship gives me the right to 
 intervene for what I believe to be your benefit ?" 
 
 She took a few hesitating steps and then paused again. 
 Darrow noticed that she had grown pale and that there 
 were rings of shade about her eyes. 
 
 "You ve known Mrs. Leath a long time?" she asked 
 him suddenly. 
 
 He paused with a sense of approaching peril. "A long 
 time yes." 
 
 "She told me you were friends great friends." 
 
 "Yes," he admitted, "we re great friends." 
 
 "Then you might naturally feel yourself justified in 
 telling her that you don t think I m the right person for 
 Effie." He uttered a sound of protest, but she disre 
 garded it. "I don t say you d like to do it. You wouldn t : 
 you d hate it. And the natural alternative would be to 
 try to persuade me that I d be better off somewhere else 
 than here. But supposing that failed, and you saw I 
 was determined to stay? Then you might think it your 
 duty to tell Mrs. Leath." 
 
 [172] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 She laid the case before him with a cold lucidity. "I 
 should, in your place, I believe," she ended with a little 
 laugh. 
 
 "I shouldn t feel justified in telling her, behind your 
 back, if I thought you unsuited for the place ; but I should 
 certainly feel justified/ he rejoined after a pause, "in 
 telling you if I thought the place unsuited to you." 
 "And that s what you re trying to tell me now ?" 
 "Yes; but not for the reasons you imagine." 
 "What, then, are your reasons, if you please ?" 
 "I ve already implied them in advising you not to give 
 up all idea of the theatre. You re too various, too gifted, 
 too personal, to tie yourself down, at your age, to the 
 dismal drudgery of teaching." 
 "And is that what you ve told Mrs. Leath ?" 
 She rushed the question out at him as if she expected 
 to trip him up over it. He was moved by the simplicity 
 of the stratagem. 
 
 "I ve told her exactly nothing," he replied. 
 "And what exactly do you mean by nothing ? You 
 and she were talking about me when I came into her sit 
 ting-room yesterday." 
 
 Darrow felt his blood rise at the thrust. 
 "I ve told her, simply, that I d seen you once or twice 
 at Mrs. Murrett s." 
 
 "And not that you ve ever seen me since ?" 
 "And not that I ve ever seen you since ..." 
 "And she believes you she completely believes you?" 
 He uttered a protesting exclamation, and his flush re 
 flected itself in the girl s cheek. 
 
 "Oh, I beg your pardon! I didn t mean to ask you 
 
 [173] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 that." She halted, and again cast a rapid glance behind 
 and ahead of her. Then she held out her hand. "Well, 
 then, thank you and let me relieve your fears. I sha n t 
 be Effie s governess much longer." 
 
 At the announcement, Darrow tried to merge his look 
 of relief into the expression of friendly interest with 
 which he grasped her hand. "You really do agree with 
 me, then? And you ll give me a chance to talk things 
 over with you?" 
 
 She shook her head with a faint smile. "I m not think 
 ing of the stage. I ve had another offer : that s all." 
 
 The relief was hardly less great. After all, his per 
 sonal responsibility ceased with her departure from 
 Givre. 
 
 "You ll tell me about that, then won t you ?" 
 
 Her smile flickered up. "Oh, you ll hear about it 
 soon ... I must catch Effie now and drag her back 
 to the blackboard." 
 
 She walked on for a few yards, and then paused again 
 and confronted him. "I ve been odious to you and not 
 quite honest," she broke out suddenly. 
 
 "Not quite honest?" he repeated, caught in a fresh 
 w r ave of wonder. 
 
 "I mean, in seeming not to trust you. It s come over 
 me again as we talked that, at heart, I ve always known 
 I could ..." 
 
 Her colour rose in a bright wave, and her eyes clung 
 to his for a swift instant of reminder and appeal. For 
 the same space of time the past surged up in him con 
 fusedly; then a veil dropped between them. 
 
 "Here s Effie now !" she exclaimed. 
 
 [174] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 He turned and saw the little girl trotting back to them, 
 her hand in Owen Leath s. 
 
 Even through the stir of his subsiding excitement Dar- 
 row was at once aware of the change effected by the 
 young man s approach. For a moment Sophy Viner s 
 cheeks burned redder ; then they faded to the paleness of 
 white petals. She lost, however, nothing of the bright 
 bravery which it was her way to turn on the unex 
 pected. Perhaps no one less familiar with her face 
 than Darrow would have discerned the tension of the 
 smile she transferred from himself to Owen Leath, or 
 have remarked that her eyes had hardened from misty 
 grey to a shining darkness. But her observer was less 
 struck by this than by the corresponding change in Owen 
 Leath. The latter, when he came in sight, had been 
 laughing and talking unconcernedly with Effie; but as 
 his eye fell on Miss Viner his expression altered as sud 
 denly as hers. 
 
 The change, for Darrow, was less definable; but, per 
 haps for that reason, it struck him as more sharply sig 
 nificant. Only just what did it signify? Owen, like 
 Sophy Viner, had the kind of face which seems less the 
 stage on which emotions move than the very stuff they 
 work in. In moments of excitement his odd irregular 
 features seemed to grow fluid, to unmake and remake 
 themselves like the shadows of clouds on a stream. Dar 
 row, through the rapid flight of the shadows, could not 
 seize on any specific indication of feeling : he merely per 
 ceived that the young man was unaccountably surprised 
 at finding him with Miss Viner, and that the extent of 
 his surprise might cover all manner of implications. 
 
 [175] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 Darrow s first idea was that Owen, if he suspected that 
 the conversation was not the result of an accidental en 
 counter, might wonder at his step-mother s suitor being 
 engaged, at such an hour, in private talk with her little 
 girl s governess. The thought was so disturbing that, as 
 the three turned back to the house, he was on the point 
 of saying to Owen: "I came out to look for your 
 mother." But, in the contingency he feared, even so 
 simple a phrase might seem like an awkward attempt at 
 explanation ; and he walked on in silence at Miss Viner s 
 side. Presently he was struck by the fact that Owen 
 Leath and the girl were silent also; and this gave a new 
 turn to his thoughts. Silence may be as variously shaded 
 as speech ; and that which enfolded Darrow and his two 
 companions seemed to his watchful perceptions to be 
 quivering with cross-threads of communication. At first 
 he~was aware only of those that centred in his own 
 troubled consciousness; then it occurred to him that an 
 equal activity of intercourse was going on outside of it. 
 Something was in fact passing mutely and rapidly be 
 tween young Leath and Sophy Viner; but what it was, 
 and whither it tended, Darrow, when they reached the 
 house, was but just beginning to divine . . . 
 
 XVIII 
 
 ANNA LEATH, from the terrace, watched the re 
 turn of the little group. 
 
 She looked down on them, as they advanced across the 
 garden, from the serene height of her unassailable happi- 
 
THE REEF 
 
 ness. There they were, coming toward her in the mild 
 morning light, her child, her step-son, her promised hus 
 band: the three beings who filled her life. She 
 smiled a little at the happy picture they presented, Effie s 
 gambols encircling it in a moving frame within which the 
 two men came slowly forward in the silence of friendly 
 understanding. It seemed part of the deep intimacy of 
 the scene that they should not be talking to each other, 
 and it did not till afterward strike her as odd that neither 
 of them apparently felt it necessary to address a word to 
 Sophy Viner. 
 
 Anna herself, at the moment, was floating in the mid- 
 current of felicity, on a tide so bright and buoyant that 
 she seemed to be one with its warm waves. The first 
 rush of bliss had stunned and dazzled her ; but now that, 
 each morning, she woke to the calm certainty of its re 
 currence, she was growing used to the sense of security 
 it gave. 
 
 "I feel as if I could trust my happiness to carry me; 
 as if it had grown out of me like wings." So she phrased 
 it to Darrow, as, later in the morning, they paced the 
 garden-paths together. His answering look gave her the 
 same assurance of safety. The evening before he had 
 seemed preoccupied, and the shadow of his mood had 
 faintly encroached on the great golden orb of their 
 blessedness; but now it was uneclipsed again, and hung 
 above them high and bright as the sun at noon. 
 
 Upstairs in her sitting-room, that afternoon, she was 
 thinking of these things. The morning mists had turned 
 to rain, compelling the postponement of an excursion in 
 which the whole party were to have joined. Efne, with 
 
 1 177 1 
 
THE REEF 
 
 her governess, had been despatched in the motor to do 
 some shopping at Francheuil; and Anna had promised 
 Darrow to join him, later in the afternoon, for a quick 
 walk in the rain. 
 
 He had gone to his room after luncheon to get some 
 belated letters off his conscience; and when he had left 
 her she had continued to sit in the same place, her hands 
 crossed on her knees, her head slightly bent, in an atti 
 tude of brooding retrospection. As she looked back at her 
 past life, it seemed to her to have consisted of one cease 
 less effort to pack into each hour enough to fill out its 
 slack folds ; but now each moment was like a miser s bag 
 stretched to bursting with pure gold. 
 
 She was roused by the sound of Owen s step in the 
 gallery outside her room. It paused at her door and in 
 answer to his knock she called out "Come in !" 
 
 As the door closed behind him she was struck by his 
 look of pale excitement, and an impulse of compunction 
 made her say: "You ve come to ask me why I haven t 
 spoken to your grandmother !" 
 
 He sent about him a glance vaguely reminding her of 
 the strange look with which Sophy Viner had swept the 
 room the night before ; then his brilliant eyes came back 
 to her. 
 
 "I ve spoken to her myself," he said. 
 
 Anna started up, incredulous. 
 
 "You ve spoken to her? When?" 
 
 "Just now. I left her to come here." 
 
 Anna s first feeling was one of annoyance. There 
 was really something comically incongruous in this boy 
 ish surrender to impulse on the part of a young man so 
 
THE REEF 
 
 eager to assume the responsibilities of life. She looked 
 at him with a faintly veiled amusement. 
 
 "You asked me to help you and I promised you I would. 
 It was hardly worth while to work out such an elaborate 
 plan of action if you intended to take the matter out of 
 my hands without telling me." 
 
 "Oh, don t take that tone with me !" he broke out, al 
 most angrily. 
 
 "That tone ? What tone ?" She stared at his quivering 
 face. "I might," she pursued, still half-laughing, "more 
 properly make that request of you !" 
 
 Owen reddened and his vehemence suddenly sub 
 sided. 
 
 "I meant that I had to speak that s all. You don t 
 give me a chance to explain ..." 
 
 She looked at him gently, wondering a little at her 
 own impatience. 
 
 "Owen ! Don t I always want to give you every 
 chance? It s because I do that I wanted to talk to your 
 grandmother first that I was waiting and watching for 
 the right moment ..." 
 
 "The right moment? So was I. That s why I ve 
 spoken." His voice rose again and took the sharp edge 
 it had in moments of high pressure. 
 
 His step-mother turned away and seated herself in her 
 sofa-corner. "Oh, my dear, it s not a privilege to quarrel 
 over ! You ve taken a load off my shoulders. Sit down 
 and tell me all about it." 
 
 He stood before her, irresolute. "I can t sit down," 
 he said. 
 
 "Walk about, then. Only tell me : I m impatient." 
 
 [179] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 His immediate response was to throw himself into the 
 armchair at her side, where he lounged for a moment 
 without speaking, his legs stretched out, his arms locked 
 behind his thrown-back head. Anna, her eyes on his 
 face, waited quietly for him to speak. 
 
 "Well of course it was just what one expected." 
 
 "She takes it so badly, you mean ?" 
 
 "All the heavy batteries were brought up: my father, 
 Givre, Monsieur de Chantelle, the throne and the altar. 
 Even my poor mother was dragged out of oblivion and 
 armed with imaginary protests." 
 
 Anna sighed out her sympathy. "Well you were pre 
 pared for all that?" 
 
 "I thought I was, till I began to hear her say it. Then 
 it sounded so incredibly silly that I told her so." 
 
 "Oh, Owen Owen !" 
 
 "Yes : I know. I was a fool ; but I couldn t help it." 
 
 "And you ve mortally offended her, I suppose ? That s 
 exactly what I wanted to prevent." She laid a hand on 
 his shoulder. "You tiresome boy, not to wait and let 
 me speak for you!" 
 
 He moved slightly away, so that her hand slipped from 
 its place. "You don t understand," he said, frowning. 
 
 "I don t see how I can, till you explain. If you thought 
 the time had come to tell your grandmother, why not 
 have asked me to do it? I had my reasons for waiting; 
 but if you d told me to speak I should have done so, 
 naturally." 
 
 He evaded her appeal by a sudden turn. "What were 
 your reasons for waiting?" 
 
 Anna did not immediately answer. Her step-son s eyes 
 [180] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 were on her face, and under his gaze she felt a faint 
 disquietude. 
 
 "I was feeling my way ... I wanted to be absolutely 
 sure..." 
 
 "Absolutely sure of what?" 
 
 She delayed again for a just perceptible instant. 
 "Why, simply of our side of the case." 
 
 "But you told me you were, the other day, when we 
 talked it over before they came back from Ouchy." 
 
 "Oh, my dear if you think that, in such a complicated 
 matter, every day, every hour, doesn t more or less 
 modify one s surest sureness !" 
 
 "That s just what I m driving at. I want to know 
 what has modified yours." 
 
 She made a slight gesture of impatience. "What does 
 it matter, now the thing s done? I don t know that I 
 could give any clear reason ..." 
 
 He got to his feet and stood looking down on her with 
 a tormented brow. "But it s absolutely necessary that you 
 should." 
 
 At his tone her impatience flared up. "It s not neces 
 sary that I should give you any explanation whatever, 
 since you ve taken the matter out of my hands. All I can 
 say is that I was trying to help you : that no other 
 thought ever entered my mind." She paused a moment 
 and then added : "If you doubted it, you were right to do 
 what you ve done." 
 
 "Oh, I never doubted you!" he retorted, with a fugitive 
 stress on the pronoun. His face had cleared to its old 
 look of trust. "Don t be offended if I ve seemed to," he 
 went on. "I can t quite explain myself, either . . . it s 
 
 [181] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 all a kind of tangle, isn t it? That s why I thought 
 I d better speak at once ; or rather why I didn t think at 
 all, but just suddenly blurted the thing out " 
 
 Anna gave him back his look of conciliation. "Well, 
 the how and why don t much matter now. The point is 
 how to deal with your grandmother. You ve not told me 
 what she means to do." 
 
 "Oh, she means to send for Adelaide Painter." 
 
 The name drew a faint note of mirth from him and 
 relaxed both their faces to a smile. 
 
 "Perhaps," Anna added, "it s really the best thing for 
 us all." 
 
 Owen shrugged his shoulders. "It s too preposterous 
 and humiliating. Dragging that woman into our se 
 crets !" 
 
 "This could hardly be a secret much longer." 
 
 He had moved to the hearth, where he stood pushing 
 about the small ornaments on the mantel-shelf; but at 
 her answer he turned back to her. 
 
 "You haven t, of course, spoken of it to any one ?" 
 
 "No; but I intend to now." 
 
 She paused for his reply, and as it did not come she 
 continued: "If Adelaide Painter s to be told there s no 
 possible reason why I shouldn t tell Mr. Darrow." 
 
 Owen abruptly set down the little statuette between his 
 fingers. "None whatever : I want every one to know." 
 
 She smiled a little at his over-emphasis, and was about 
 to meet it with a word of banter when he continued, fac 
 ing her : "You haven t, as yet, said a word to him ?" 
 
 "I ve told him nothing, except what the discussion of 
 our own plans his and mine obliged me to : that you 
 
THE REEF 
 
 were thinking of marrying, and that I wasn t willing to 
 leave France till I d done what I could to see you 
 through." 
 
 At her first words the colour had rushed to his fore 
 head ; but as she continued she saw his face compose itself 
 and his blood subside. 
 
 "You re a brick, my dear !" he exclaimed. 
 
 "You had my word, you know." 
 
 "Yes; yes I know." His face had clouded again. 
 "And that s all positively all you ve ever said to him ?" 
 
 "Positively all. But why do you ask?" 
 
 He had a moment s embarrassed hesitation. "It was un 
 derstood, wasn t it, that my grandmother was to be the 
 first to know?" 
 
 "Well and so she has been, hasn t she, since you ve 
 told her?" 
 
 He turned back to his restless shifting of the knick- 
 knacks. 
 
 "And you re sure that nothing you ve said to Darrow 
 could possibly have given him a hint ?" 
 
 "Nothing I ve said to him certainly." 
 
 He swung about on her. "Why do you put it in that 
 way?" 
 
 "In what way?" 
 
 "Why as if you thought some one else might have 
 spoken ..." 
 
 "Some one else? Who else?" She rose to her feet. 
 "What on earth, my dear boy, can you be driving at ?" 
 
 "I m trying to find put whether you think he knows 
 anything definite." 
 
 "Why should I think so? Do your 
 [183] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 "I don t know. I want to find out." 
 
 She laughed at his obstinate insistence. "To test my 
 veracity, I suppose?" At the sound of a step in the 
 gallery she added : "Here he is you can ask him your 
 self." 
 
 She met Darrow s knock with an invitation to enter, 
 and he came into the room and paused between herself 
 and Owen. She was struck, as he stood there, by the 
 contrast between his happy careless good-looks and her 
 step-son s frowning agitation. 
 
 Darrow met her eyes with a smile. "Am I too soon? 
 Or is our walk given up ?" 
 
 "No; I was just going to get ready." She continued 
 to linger between the two, looking slowly from one to the 
 other. "But there s something we want to tell you first : 
 Owen is engaged to Miss Viner." 
 
 The sense of an indefinable interrogation in Owen s 
 mind made her, as she spoke, fix her eyes steadily on 
 Darrow. 
 
 He had paused just opposite the window, so that, even 
 in the rainy afternoon light, his face was clearly open to 
 her scrutiny. For a second, immense surprise was alone 
 visible on it: so visible that she half turned to her step 
 son, with a faint smile for his refuted suspicions. Why, 
 she wondered, should Owen have thought that Darrow 
 had already guessed his secret, and what, after all, could 
 be so disturbing to him in this not improbable contin 
 gency? At any rate, his doubt must have been dis 
 pelled : there was nothing feigned about Darrow s aston 
 ishment. When her eyes turned back to him he was 
 already crossing to Owen with outstretched hand, and 
 
 [184] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 she had, through an unaccountable faint flutter of mis 
 giving, a mere confused sense of their exchanging the 
 customary phrases. Her next perception was of Owen s 
 tranquillized look, and of his smiling return of Darrow s 
 congratulatory grasp. She had the eerie feeling of hav 
 ing been overswept by a shadow which there had been no 
 cloud to cast . . . 
 
 A moment later Owen had left the room and she and 
 Darrow were alone. He had turned away to the window 
 and stood staring out into the down-pour. 
 
 "You re surprised at Owen s news?" she asked. 
 
 "Yes : I am surprised/ he answered. 
 
 "You hadn t thought of its being Miss Viner?" 
 
 "Why should I have thought of Miss Viner?" 
 
 "You see now why I wanted so much to find out what 
 you knew about her." He made no comment, and she 
 pursued : "Now that you do know it s she, if there s any 
 thing " 
 
 He moved back into the room and went up to her. 
 His face was serious, with a slight shade of annoyance. 
 "What on earth should there be? As I told you, I ve 
 never in my life heard any one say two words about Miss 
 Viner." 
 
 Anna made no answer and they continued to face each 
 other without moving. For the moment she had ceased to 
 think about Sophy Viner and Owen : the only thought in 
 her mind was that Darrow was alone with her, close to 
 her, and that, for the first time, their hands and lips had 
 not met. 
 
 He glanced back doubtfully at the window. "It s 
 pouring. Perhaps you d rather not go out ?" 
 
 [185] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 She hesitated, as if waiting for him to urge her. "I 
 suppose I d better not. I ought to go at once to my 
 mother-in-law Owen s just been telling her," she said. 
 
 "Ah." Darrow hazarded a smile. "That accounts for 
 my having, on my way up, heard some one telephoning 
 for Miss Painter !" 
 
 At the allusion they laughed together, vaguely, and 
 Anna moved toward the door. He held it open for her 
 and followed her out. 
 
 XIX 
 
 HE left her at the door of Madame de Chantelle s 
 sitting-room, and plunged out alone into the rain. 
 
 The wind flung about the stripped tree-tops of the 
 avenue and dashed the stinging streams into his face. He 
 walked to the gate and then turned into the high-road 
 and strode along in the open, buffeted by slanting gusts. 
 The evenly ridged fields were a blurred waste of mud, 
 and the russet coverts which he and Owen had shot 
 through the day before shivered desolately against a driv 
 ing sky. 
 
 Darrow walked on and on, indifferent to the direction 
 he was taking. His thoughts were tossing like the tree- 
 tops. Anna s announcement had not come to him as a 
 complete surprise: that morning, as he strolled back to 
 the house with Owen Leath and Miss Viner, he had had 
 a momentary intuition of the truth. But it had been no 
 more than an intuition, the merest faint cloud-puff of sur 
 mise; and now it was an attested fact, darkening over 
 the whole sky. 
 
 [186] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 In respect of his own attitude, he saw at once that the 
 discovery made no appreciable change. If he had been 
 bound to silence before, he was no less bound to it now ; 
 the only difference lay in the fact that what he had just 
 learned had rendered his bondage more intolerable. 
 Hitherto he had felt for Sophy Viner s defenseless state 
 a sympathy profoundly tinged with compunction. But 
 now he was half-conscious of an obscure indignation 
 against her. Superior as he had fancied himself to ready- 
 made judgments, he was aware of cherishing the common 
 doubt as to the disinterestedness of the woman who tries 
 to rise above her past. No wonder she had been sick 
 with fear on meeting him ! It was in his power to do her 
 more harm than he had dreamed . . . 
 
 Assuredly he did not want to harm her; but he did 
 desperately want to prevent her marrying Owen Leath. 
 He tried to get away from the feeling, to isolate and ex 
 teriorize it sufficiently to see what motives it was made 
 of ; but it remained a mere blind motion of his blood, the 
 instinctive recoil from the thing that no amount of argu 
 ing can make "straight." His tramp, prolonged as it 
 was, carried him no nearer to enlightenment; and after 
 trudging through two or three sallow mud-stained vil 
 lages he turned about and wearily made his way back 
 to Givre. As he walked up the black avenue, making 
 for the lights that twinkled through its pitching branches, 
 he had a sudden realisation of his utter helplessness. He 
 might think and combine as he would; but there was 
 nothing, absolutely nothing, that he could do ... 
 
 He dropped his wet coat in the vestibule and began 
 to mount the stairs to his room. But on the landing he 
 18 [ 187 ] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 was overtaken by a sober-faced maid who, in tones 
 discreetly lowered, begged him to be so kind as to 
 step, for a moment, into the Marquise s sitting-room. 
 Somewhat disconcerted by the summons, he followed 
 its bearer to the door at which, a couple of hours 
 earlier, he had taken leave of Mrs. Leath. It opened to 
 admit him to a large lamp-lit room which he immediately 
 perceived to be empty ; and the fact gave him time to note, 
 even through his disturbance of mind, the interesting de 
 gree to which Madame de Chantelle s apartment "dated" 
 and completed her. Its looped and corded curtains, its 
 purple satin upholstery, the Sevres jardinieres, the rose 
 wood fire-screen, the little velvet tables edged with lace 
 and crowded with silver knick-knacks and simpering 
 miniatures, reconstituted an almost perfect setting for 
 the blonde beauty of the sixties. Darrow wondered that 
 Fraser Leath s filial respect should have prevailed over 
 his aesthetic scruples to the extent of permitting such an 
 anachronism among the eighteenth century graces of 
 Givre; but a moment s reflection made it clear that, to 
 its late owner, the attitude would have seemed exactly 
 in the traditions of the place. 
 
 Madame de Chantelle s emergence from an inner room 
 snatched Darrow from these irrelevant musings. She 
 was already beaded and bugled for the evening, and, save 
 for a slight pinkness of the eye-lids, her elaborate appear 
 ance revealed no mark of agitation; but Darrow noticed 
 that, in recognition of the solemnity of the occasion, she 
 pinched a lace handkerchief between her thumb and fore 
 finger. 
 
 She plunged at once into the centre of the diffi- 
 [ i881 
 
THE REEF 
 
 culty, appealing to him, in the name of all the Everards, 
 to descend there with her to the rescue of her darling. 
 She wasn t, she was sure, addressing herself in vain to 
 one whose person, whose "tone," whose traditions so bril 
 liantly declared his indebtedness to the principles she 
 besought him to defend. Her own reception of Darrow, 
 the confidence she had at once accorded him, must have 
 shown him that she had instinctively felt their unanimity 
 of sentiment on these fundamental questions. She had 
 in fact recognized in him the one person whom, without 
 pain to her maternal piety, she could welcome as her 
 son s successor; and it was almost as to Owen s father 
 that she now appealed to Darrow to aid in rescuing the 
 wretched boy. 
 
 "Don t think, please, that I m casting the least reflec 
 tion on Anna, or showing any want of sympathy for 
 her, when I say that I consider her partly responsible 
 for what s happened. Anna is modern I believe 
 that s what it s called when you read unsettling books 
 and admire hideous pictures. Indeed," Madame de 
 Chantelle continued, leaning confidentially forward, "I 
 myself have always more or less lived in that atmosphere : 
 my son, you know, was very revolutionary. Only he 
 didn t, of course, apply his ideas : they were purely intel 
 lectual. That s what dear Anna has always failed to un 
 derstand. And I m afraid she s created the same kind of 
 confusion in Owen s mind led him to mix up things 
 you read about with things you do ... You know, of 
 course, that she sides with him in this wretched busi 
 ness?" 
 
 Developing at length upon this theme, she finally nar- 
 
THE REEF 
 
 rowed down to the point of Darrow s intervention. "My 
 grandson, Mr. Darrow, calls me illogical and uncharitable 
 because my feelings toward Miss Viner have changed 
 since I ve heard this news. Well ! You ve known her, it 
 appears, for some years : Anna tells me you used to see 
 her when she was a companion, or secretary or something, 
 to a dreadfully vulgar Mrs. Murrett. And I ask you as a 
 friend, I ask you as one of us f to tell me if you think a 
 girl who has had to knock about the world in that kind 
 of position, and at the orders of all kinds of people, is 
 fitted to be Owen s wife . . . I m not implying anything 
 against her! I liked the girl, Mr. Darrow . . . But 
 what s that got to do with it ? I don t want her to marry 
 my grandson. If I d been looking for a wife for Owen, 
 I shouldn t have applied to the Farlows to find me one. 
 That s what Anna won t understand ; and what you must 
 help me to make her see." 
 
 Darrow, to this appeal, could oppose only the repeated 
 assurance of his inability to interfere. He tried to make 
 Madame de Chantelle see that the very position he hoped 
 to take in the household made his intervention the more 
 hazardous. He brought up the usual arguments, and 
 sounded the expected note of sympathy ; but Madame de 
 Chantelle s alarm had dispelled her habitual imprecision, 
 and, though she had not many reasons to advance, her 
 argument clung to its point like a frightened sharp- 
 clawed animal. 
 
 "Well, then," she summed up, in response to his re 
 peated assertions that he saw no way of helping her, 
 "you can, at least, even if you won t say a word to the 
 others, tell me frankly and fairly and quite between 
 
 [190] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 ourselves your personal opinion of Miss Viner, since 
 you ve known her so much longer than we have." 
 
 He protested that, if he had known her longer, he had 
 known her much less well, and that he had already, 
 on this point, convinced Anna of his inability to pro 
 nounce an opinion. 
 
 Madame de Chantelle drew a deep sigh of intelligence. 
 "Your opinion of Mrs. Murrett is enough ! I don t sup 
 pose you pretend to conceal that? And heaven knows 
 what other unspeakable people she s been mixed up with. 
 The only friends she can produce are called Hoke . . . 
 Don t try to reason with me, Mr. Darrow. There are 
 feelings that go deeper than facts . . . And I know she 
 thought of studying for the stage ..." Madame de 
 Chantelle raised the corner of her lace handkerchief to 
 her eyes. "I m old-fashioned like my furniture," she 
 murmured. "And I thought I could count on you, Mr. 
 Darrow ..." 
 
 When Darrow, that night, regained his room, he re 
 flected with a flash of irony that each time he entered it 
 he brought a fresh troop of perplexities to trouble its 
 serene seclusion. Since the day after his arrival, only 
 forty-eight hours before, when he had set his window 
 open to the night, and his hopes had seemed as many as 
 its stars, each evening had brought its new problem and 
 its renewed distress. But nothing, as yet, had approached 
 the blank misery of mind with which he now set him 
 self to face the fresh questions confronting him. 
 
 Sophy Viner had not shown herself at dinner, so that 
 he had had no glimpse of her in her new character, and 
 
THE REEF 
 
 no means of divining the real nature of the tie between 
 herself and Owen Leath. One thing, however, was clear : 
 whatever her real feelings were, and however much or 
 little she had at stake, if she had made up her mind to 
 marry Owen she had more than enough skill and tenacity 
 to defeat any arts that poor Madame de Chant elle could 
 oppose to her. 
 
 Darrow himself was in fact the only person who might 
 possibly turn her from her purpose: Madame de Chan- 
 telle, at haphazard, had hit on the surest means of saving 
 Owen if to prevent his marriage were to save him! 
 Darrow, on this point, did not pretend to any fixed opin 
 ion ; one feeling alone was clear and insistent in him : he 
 did not mean, if he could help it, to let the marriage take 
 place. 
 
 How he was to prevent it he did not know : to his tor 
 mented imagination every issue seemed closed. For a 
 fantastic instant he was moved to follow Madame de 
 Chantelle s suggestion and urge Anna to withdraw her 
 approval. If his reticence, his efforts to avoid the sub 
 ject, had not escaped her, she had doubtless set them 
 down to the fact of his knowing more, and thinking 
 less, of Sophy Viner than he had been willing to admit; 
 and he might take advantage of this to turn her mind 
 gradually from the project. Yet how do so without be 
 traying his insincerity? If he had had nothing to 
 hide he could easily have said: "It s one thing to know 
 nothing against the girl, it s another to pretend that I 
 think her a good match for Owen." But could he say 
 even so much without betraying more ? It was not Anna s 
 questions, or his answers to them, that he feared, but 
 
THE REEF 
 
 what might cry aloud in the intervals between them. He 
 understood now that ever since Sophy Viner s arrival at 
 Givre he had felt in Anna the lurking sense of something 
 unexpressed, and perhaps inexpressible, between the girl 
 and himself . . . When at last he fell asleep he had 
 fatalistically committed his next step to the chances of 
 the morrow. 
 
 The first that offered itself was an encounter with Mrs. 
 Leath as he descended the stairs the next morning. She 
 had come down already hatted and shod for a dash to the 
 park lodge, where one of the gatekeeper s children had 
 had an accident. In her compact dark dress she looked 
 more than usually straight and slim, and her face wore 
 the pale glow it took on at any call on her energy : a kind 
 of warrior brightness that made her small head, with its 
 strong chin and close-bound hair, like that of an amazon 
 in a frieze. 
 
 It was their first moment alone since she had left him, 
 the afternoon before, at her mother-in-law s door; and 
 after a few words about the injured child their talk in 
 evitably reverted to Owen. 
 
 Anna spoke with a smile of her "scene" with Madame 
 de Chantelje, who belonged, poor dear, to a generation 
 when "scenes" (in the ladylike and lachrymal sense of the 
 term) were the tribute which sensibility was expected to 
 pay to the unusual. Their conversation had been, in every 
 detail, so exactly what Anna had foreseen thaf it had 
 clearly not made much impression on her; but she was 
 eager to know the result of Darrow s encounter with 
 her mother-in-law. 
 
 "She told me she d sent for you: she always sends 
 
 [193] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 for people in emergencies. That again, I suppose, is 
 de I epoque. And failing Adelaide Painter, who can t 
 get here till this afternoon, there was no one but poor 
 you to turn to." 
 
 She put it all lightly, with a lightness that seemed to 
 his tight-strung nerves slightly, undefinably over-done. 
 But he was so aware of his own tension that he won 
 dered, the next moment, whether anything would ever 
 again seem to him quite usual and insignificant and in 
 the common order of things. 
 
 As they hastened on through the drizzle in which 
 the storm of the night was weeping itself out, Anna drew 
 close under his umbrella, and at the pressure of her arm 
 against his he recalled his walk up the Dover pier with 
 Sophy Viner. The memory gave him a startled vision 
 of the inevitable occasions of contact, confidence, fa 
 miliarity, which his future relationship to the girl would 
 entail, and the countless chances of betrayal that every 
 one of them involved. 
 
 "Do tell me just what you said," he heard Anna plead 
 ing ; and with sudden resolution he affirmed : "I quite un 
 derstand your mother-in-law s feeling as she does." 
 
 The words, when uttered, seemed a good deal less sig 
 nificant than they had sounded to his inner ear; and 
 Anna replied without surprise : "Of course. It s inevita 
 ble that she should. But we shall bring her round in 
 time." Under the dripping dome she raised her face to 
 his. "Don t you remember what you said the day before 
 yesterday ? Together we can t fail to pull it off for him ! 
 I ve told Owen that, so you re pledged and there s no go 
 ing back." 
 
 [194] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 The day before yesterday ! Was it possible that, no 
 longer ago, life had seemed a sufficiently simple business 
 for a sane man to hazard such assurances ? 
 
 "Anna," he questioned her abruptly, "why are you so 
 anxious for this marriage ?" 
 
 She stopped short to face him. "Why? But surely 
 I ve explained to you or rather I ve hardly had to, you 
 seemed so in sympathy with my reasons !" 
 
 "I didn t know, then, who it was that Owen wanted to 
 marry." 
 
 The words were out with a spring and he felt a clearer 
 air in his brain. But her logic hemmed him in. 
 
 "You knew yesterday; and you assured me then that 
 you hadn t a word to say " 
 
 "Against Miss Viner?" The name, once uttered, 
 sounded on and on in his ears. "Of course not. But that 
 doesn t necessarily imply that I think her a good match 
 for Owen." 
 
 Anna made no immediate answer. When she spoke it 
 was to question : "Why don t you think her a good match 
 for Owen ?" 
 
 "Well Madame de Chantelle s reasons seem to me 
 not quite as negligible as you think." 
 
 "You mean the fact that she s been Mrs. Murrett s 
 secretary, and that the people who employed her before 
 were called Hoke ? For, as far as Owen and I can make 
 out, these are the gravest charges against her." 
 
 "Still, one can understand that the match is not what 
 Madame de Chantelle had dreamed of." 
 
 "Oh, perfectly if that s all you mean." 
 
 The lodge was in sight, and she hastened her step. He 
 [ 195 ] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 strode on beside her in silence, but at the gate she checked 
 him with the question : "Is it really all you mean?" 
 
 "Of course," he heard himself declare. 
 
 "Oh, then I think I shall convince you even if I can t, 
 like Madame de Chantelle, summon all the Everards to 
 my aid!" She lifted to him the look of happy laughter 
 that sometimes brushed her with a gleam of spring. 
 
 Darrow watched her hasten along the path be 
 tween the dripping chrysanthemums and enter the lodge. 
 After she had gone in he paced up and down outside in 
 the drizzle, waiting to learn if she had any message to 
 send back to the house; and after the lapse of a few 
 minutes she came out again. 
 
 The child, she said, was badly, though not dangerously, 
 hurt, and the village doctor, who was already on hand, 
 had asked that the surgeon, already summoned from 
 Francheuil, should be told to bring with him certain 
 needful appliances. Owen had started by motor to fetch 
 the surgeon, but there was still time to communicate with 
 the latter by telephone. The doctor furthermore begged 
 for an immediate provision of such bandages and disin 
 fectants as Givre itself could furnish, and Anna bade 
 Darrow address himself to Miss Viner, who would know 
 where to find the necessary things, and would direct one 
 of the servants to bicycle with them to the lodge. 
 
 Darrow, as he hurried off on this errand, had at once 
 perceived the opportunity it offered of a word with Sophy 
 Viner. What that word was to be he did not know ; but 
 now, if ever, was the moment to make it urgent and con 
 clusive. It was unlikely that he would again have such 
 a chance of unobserved talk with her. 
 
THE REEF 
 
 He had supposed he should find her with her pupil in 
 the school-room ; but he learned from a servant that Effie 
 had gone to Francheuil with her step-brother, and that 
 Miss Viner was still in her room. Darrow sent her word 
 that he was the bearer of a message from the lodge, and a 
 moment later he heard her coming down the stairs. 
 
 XX 
 
 FR a second, as she approached him, the quick 
 tremor of her glance showed her all intent on the 
 same thought as himself. He transmitted his instructions 
 with mechanical precision, and she answered in the same 
 tone, repeating his words with the intensity of attention 
 of a child not quite sure of understanding. Then she dis 
 appeared up the stairs. 
 
 Darrow lingered on in the hall, not knowing if she 
 meant to return, yet inwardly sure she would. At length 
 he saw her coming down in her hat and jacket. The 
 rain still streaked the window panes, and, in order to 
 say something, he said: "You re not going to the lodge 
 yourself?" 
 
 "I ve sent one of the men ahead with the things ; but I 
 thought Mrs. Leath might need me." 
 
 "She didn t ask for you," he returned, wondering how 
 he could detain her; but she answered decidedly: "I d 
 better go." 
 
 He held open the door, picked up his umbrella and fol 
 lowed her out. As they went down the steps she glanced 
 back at him. "You ve forgotten your mackintosh." 
 
 1 197 ] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 "I sha n t need it." 
 
 She had no umbrella, and he opened his and held it 
 out to her. She rejected it with a murmur of thanks 
 and walked on through the thin drizzle, and he kept 
 the umbrella over his own head, without offering to shel 
 ter her. 
 
 Rapidly and in silence they crossed the court and be 
 gan to walk down the avenue. They had traversed a 
 third of its length before Darrow said abruptly : 
 "Wouldn t it have been fairer, when we talked together 
 yesterday, to tell me what I ve just heard from Mrs. 
 Leath?" 
 
 "Fairer ?" She stopped short with a startled look. 
 
 "If I d known that your future was already settled I 
 should have spared you my gratuitous suggestions." 
 
 She walked on, more slowly, for a yard or two. "I 
 couldn t speak yesterday. I meant to have told you to 
 day." 
 
 "Oh, I m not reproaching you for your lack of confi 
 dence. Only, if you had told me, I should have been more 
 sure of your really meaning what you said to me yester 
 day." 
 
 She did not ask him to what he referred, and he saw 
 that her parting words to him lived as vividly in her 
 memory as in his. 
 
 "Is it so important that you should be sure?" she 
 finally questioned. 
 
 "Not to you, naturally," he returned with involun 
 tary asperity. It was incredible, yet it was a fact, 
 that for the moment his immediate purpose in seeking 
 to speak to her was lost under a rush of resentment 
 
THE REEF 
 
 at counting for so little in her fate. Of what stuff, then, 
 was his feeling for her made? A few hours earlier she 
 had touched his thoughts as little as his senses ; but now 
 he felt old sleeping instincts stir in him . . . 
 
 A rush of rain dashed against his face, and, catching 
 Sophy s hat, strained it back from her loosened hair. 
 She put her hands to her head with a familiar gesture . . . 
 He came closer and held his umbrella over her . . 
 
 At the lodge he waited while she went in. The 
 rain continued to stream down on him and he shivered 
 in the dampness and stamped his feet on the flags. It 
 seemed to him that a long time elapsed before the door 
 opened and she reappeared. He glanced into the house 
 for a glimpse of Anna, but obtained none; yet the mere 
 sense of her nearness had completely altered his mood. 
 
 The child, Sophy told him, was doing well; but Mrs. 
 Leath had decided to wait till the surgeon came. Dar- 
 row, as they turned away, looked through the gates, 
 and saw the doctor s old-fashioned carriage by the road 
 side. 
 
 "Let me tell the doctor s boy to drive you back," he 
 suggested; but Sophy answered: "No; I ll walk," and 
 he moved on toward the house at her side. She ex 
 pressed no surprise at his not remaining at the lodge, 
 and again they walked on in silence through the rain. 
 She had accepted the shelter of his umbrella, but she kept 
 herself at such a carefully measured distance that even 
 the slight swaying movements produced by their quick 
 pace did not once bring her arm in touch with his; and, 
 noticing this, he perceived that every drop of her blood 
 must be alive to his nearness. 
 
 [199] 
 
 
 
THE REEF 
 
 "What I meant just now,", he began, "was that you 
 ought to have been sure of my good wishes." 
 
 She seemed to weigh the words. "Sure enough for 
 what?" 
 
 "To trust me a little farther than you did." 
 
 "I ve told you that yesterday I wasn t free to speak." 
 
 "Well, since you are now, may I say a word to you ?" 
 
 She paused perceptibly, arid when she spoke it was 
 in so low a tone that he had to bend his head to catch 
 her answer. "I can t think what you can have to 
 say." 
 
 "It s not easy to say here, at any rate. And indoors I 
 sha n t know where to say it." He glanced about him in 
 the rain. "Let s walk over to the spring-house for a 
 minute." 
 
 To the right of the drive, under a clump of trees, a little 
 stucco pavilion crowned by a balustrade rose on arches of 
 mouldering brick over a flight of steps that led down to a 
 spring. Other steps curved up to a door above. Darrow 
 mounted these, and opening the door entered a small cir 
 cular room hung with loosened strips of painted paper 
 whereon spectrally faded Mandarins executed elongated 
 gestures. Some black and gold chairs with straw seats 
 and an unsteady table of cracked lacquer stood on the 
 floor of red-glazed tile. 
 
 Sophy had followed him without comment. He closed 
 the door after her, and she stood motionless, as though 
 waiting for him to speak. 
 
 "Now we can talk quietly," he said, looking at her with 
 a smile into which he tried to put an intention of the 
 frankest friendliness. 
 
 F 200 1 
 
THE REEF 
 
 She merely repeated : "I can t think what you can have 
 to say." 
 
 Her voice had lost the note of half-wistful confidence 
 on which their talk of the previous day had closed, and 
 she looked at him with a kind of pale hostility. Her tone 
 made it evident that his task would be difficult, but it did 
 not shake his resolve to go on. He sat down, and me 
 chanically she followed his example. The table was be 
 tween them and she rested her arms on its cracked edge 
 and her chin on her interlocked hands. He looked at 
 her and she gave him back his look. 
 
 "Have you nothing to say to me?" he asked at length. 
 
 A faint smile lifted, in the remembered way, the left 
 corner of her narrowed lips. 
 
 "About my marriage ?" 
 
 "About your marriage." 
 
 She continued to consider him between half-drawn lids. 
 "What can I say that Mrs. Leath has not already told 
 you?" 
 
 "Mrs. Leath has told me nothing whatever but the fact 
 and her pleasure in it." 
 
 "Well ; aren t those the two essential points ?" 
 
 "The essential points to you? I should have thought 
 jt 
 
 "Oh, to you, I meant," she put in keenly. 
 
 He flushed at the retort, but steadied himself and re 
 joined: "The essential point to me is, of course, that you 
 should be doing what s really best for you." 
 
 She sat silent, with lowered lashes. At length she 
 stretched out her arm and took up from the table a little 
 threadbare Chinese hand-screen. She turned its ebony 
 
 [201] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 stem once or twice between her fingers, and as she did so 
 Darrow was whimsically struck by the way in which 
 their evanescent slight romance was symbolized by the 
 fading lines on the frail silk. 
 
 "Do you think my engagement to Mr. Leath not really 
 best for me ?" she asked at length. 
 
 Darrow, before answering, waited long enough to get 
 his words into the tersest shape not without a sense, 
 as he did so, of his likeness to the surgeon deliberately 
 poising his lancet for a clean incision. "I m not sure," 
 he replied, "of its being the best thing for either of 
 you." 
 
 She took the stroke steadily, but a faint red swept 
 her face like the reflection of a blush. She continued 
 to keep her lowered eyes on the screen. 
 
 "From whose point of view do you speak?" 
 
 "Naturally, that of the persons most concerned." 
 
 "From Owen s, then, of course? You don t think 
 me a good match for him ?" 
 
 "From yours, first of all. I don t think him a good 
 match for you." 
 
 He brought the answer out abruptly, his eyes on her 
 face. It had grown extremely pale, but as the meaning 
 of his words shaped itself in her mind he saw a curious 
 inner light dawn through her set look. She lifted her lids 
 just far enough for a veiled glance at him, and a smile 
 slipped through them to her trembling lips. For a mo 
 ment the change merely bewildered him; then it pulled 
 him up with a sharp jerk of apprehension. 
 
 "I don t think him a good match for you," he stam 
 mered, groping for the lost thread of his words. 
 
 [202] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 She threw a vague look about the chilly rain-dimmed 
 room. "And you ve brought me here to tell me why?" 
 
 The question roused him to the sense that their minutes 
 were numbered, and that if he did not immediately get to 
 his point there might be no other chance of making it. 
 
 "My chief reason is that I believe he s too young 
 and inexperienced to give you the kind of support you 
 need." 
 
 At his words her face changed again, freezing to a 
 tragic coldness. She stared straight ahead of her, per 
 ceptibly struggling with the tremor of her muscles ; and 
 when she had controlled it she flung out a pale-lipped 
 pleasantry. "But you see I ve always had to support my 
 self!" 
 
 "He s a boy/ Darrow pushed on, "a charming, wonder 
 ful boy ; but with no more notion than a boy how to deal 
 with the inevitable daily problems . . . the trivial stupid 
 unimportant things that life is chiefly made up of." 
 
 "I ll deal with them for him," she rejoined. 
 
 "They ll be more than ordinarily difficult." 
 
 She shot a challenging glance at him. "You must have 
 some special reason for saying so." 
 
 "Only my clear perception of the facts." 
 
 "What facts do you mean ?" 
 
 Darrow hesitated. "You must know better than I," he 
 returned at length, "that the way won t be made easy to 
 you." 
 
 "Airs. Leath, at any rate, has made it so." 
 
 "Madame de Chantelle will not." 
 
 "How do you know that ?" she flung back. 
 
 He paused again, not sure how far it was prudent to> 
 14 [ 20 3 ] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 reveal himself in the confidence of the household. Then, 
 to avoid involving Anna, he answered: "Madame de 
 Chantelle sent for me yesterday." 
 
 "Sent for you to talk to you about me ?" The colour 
 rose to her forehead and her eyes burned black under 
 lowered brows. "By what right, I should like to know ? 
 What have you to do with me, or with anything in the 
 world that concerns me ?" 
 
 Darrow instantly perceived what dread suspicion again 
 possessed her, and the sense that it was not wholly un 
 justified caused him a passing pang of shame. But it 
 did not turn him from his purpose. 
 
 "I m an old friend of Mrs. Leath s. It s not unnatural 
 that Madame de Chantelle should talk to me." 
 
 She dropped the screen on the table and stood up, 
 turning on him the same small mask of wrath and 
 scorn which had glared at him, in Paris, when he had 
 confessed to his suppression of her letter. She walked 
 away a step or two and then came back. 
 
 "May I ask what Madame de Chantelle said to you ?" 
 
 "She made it clear that she should not encourage the 
 marriage." 
 
 "And what was her object in making that clear to 
 you.?" 
 
 Darrow hesitated. "I suppose she thought " 
 
 "That she could persuade y#u to turn Mrs. Leath 
 against me?" 
 
 He was silent, and she pressed him : "Was that it ?" 
 
 "That was it." 
 
 "But if you don t-r-if you keep your promise " 
 
 "My promise?" 
 
 [204] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 "To say nothing . . . nothing whatever . . ." Her 
 strained look threw a haggard light along the pause. 
 
 As she spoke, the whole odiousness of the scene 
 rushed over him. "Of course I shall say nothing . . . 
 you know that ..." He leaned to her and laid his 
 hand on hers. "You know I wouldn t for the world . . ." 
 
 She drew back and hid her face with a sob. Then she 
 sank again into her seat, stretched her arms across the 
 table and laid her face upon them. He sat still, over 
 whelmed with compunction. After a long interval, in 
 which he had painfully measured the seconds by her hard- 
 drawn breathing, she looked up at him with a face washed 
 clear of bitterness. 
 
 "Don t suppose I don t know what you must have 
 thought of me !" 
 
 The cry struck him down to a lower depth of self- 
 abasement. "My poor child," he felt like answering, "the 
 shame of it is that I ve never thought of you at all !" But 
 he could only uselessly repeat : "I ll do anything I can to 
 help you." 
 
 She sat silent, drumming the table with her hand. 
 He saw that her doubt of him was allayed, and the per 
 ception made him more ashamed, as if her trust had first 
 revealed to him how near he had come to not deserving it. 
 Suddenly she began to speak. 
 
 "You think, then, I ve no right to marry him?" ? 
 
 "No right? God forbid! I only meant " 
 
 "That you d rather I didn t marry any friend of 
 yours." She brought it out deliberately, not as a ques 
 tion, but as a mere dispassionate statement of fact. 
 
 Darrow in turn stood up and wandered away helplessly 
 [205] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 to the window. He stood staring out through its small 
 discoloured panes at the dim brown distances; then he 
 moved back to the table. 
 
 "I ll tell you exactly what I meant. You ll be wretched 
 if you marry a man you re not in love with." 
 
 He knew the risk of misapprehension that he ran, but 
 he estimated his chances of success as precisely in pro 
 portion to his peril. If certain signs meant what he 
 thought they did, he might yet at what cost he would 
 not stop to think make his past pay for his future. 
 
 The girl, at his words, had lifted her head with a move 
 ment of surprise. Her eyes slowly reached his face and 
 rested there in a gaze of deep interrogation. He held the 
 look for a moment; then his own eyes dropped and he 
 waited. 
 
 At length she began to speak. "You re mistaken 
 you re quite mistaken." 
 
 He waited a moment longer. "Mistaken ?" 
 
 "In thinking what you think. I m as happy as if I de 
 served it!" she suddenly proclaimed with a laugh. 
 
 She stood up and moved toward the door. "Now are 
 you satisfied?" she asked, turning her vividest face to 
 him from the threshold. 
 
 XXI 
 
 DOWN the avenue there came to them, with the 
 opening of the door, the voice of Owen s motor. 
 It was the signal which had interrupted their first talk, 
 and again, instinctively, they drew apart at the sound. 
 
 [206] 
 

 THE REEF 
 
 Without a word Darrow turned back into the room, 
 while Sophy Viner went down the steps and walked back 
 alone toward the court. 
 
 At luncheon the presence of the surgeon, and the non- 
 appearance of Madame de Chantelle who had excused 
 herself on the plea of a headache combined to shift the 
 conversational centre of gravity; and Darrow, under 
 shelter of the necessarily impersonal talk, had time to ad 
 just his disguise and to perceive that the others were en 
 gaged in the same re-arrangement. It was the first time 
 that he had seen young Leath and Sophy Viner together 
 since he had learned of their engagement ; but neither re 
 vealed more emotion than befitted the occasion. It was 
 evident that Owen was deeply under the girl s charm, and 
 that at the least sign from her his bliss would have 
 broken bounds; but her reticence was justified by the 
 tacitly recognized fact of Madame de Chantelle s disap 
 proval. This also visibly weighed on Anna s mind, mak 
 ing her manner to Sophy, if no less kind, yet a trifle 
 more constrained than if the moment of final under 
 standing had been reached. So Darrow interpreted the 
 tension perceptible under the fluent exchange of com 
 monplaces in which he was diligently sharing. But he 
 was more and more aware of his inability to test the 
 moral atmosphere about him : he was like a man in fever 
 testing another s temperature by the touch. 
 
 After luncheon Anna, who was to motor the surgeon 
 home, suggested to Darrow that he should accompany 
 them. Efiie was also of the party; and Darrow inferred 
 that Anna wished to give her step-son a chance to be 
 alone with his betrothed. On the way back, after the 
 
 [207] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 surgeon had been left at his door, the little girl sat be 
 tween her mother and Darrow, and her presence kept 
 their talk from taking a personal turn. Darrow knew 
 that Mrs. Leath had not yet told Effie of the relation in 
 which he was to stand to her. The premature divulging 
 of Owen s plans had thrown their own into the back 
 ground, and by common consent they continued, in the 
 little girl s presence, on terms of an informal friendliness. 
 
 The sky had cleared after luncheon, and to prolong 
 their excursion they returned by way of the ivy-mantled 
 ruin which was to have been the scene of the projected 
 picnic. This circuit brought them back to the park gates 
 not long before sunset, and as Anna wished to stop at the 
 lodge for news of the injured child Darrow left her therq 
 with Effie and walked on alone to the house. He had 
 the impression that she was slightly surprised at his not 
 waiting for her; but his inner restlessness vented itself, 
 in an intense desire for bodily movement. He would 
 have liked to walk himself into a state of torpor; to 
 tramp on for hours through the moist winds and the 
 healing darkness and come back staggering with fatigue 
 and sleep. But he had no pretext for such a flight, and 
 he feared that, at such a moment, his prolonged ab 
 sence might seem singular to Anna. 
 
 As he approached the house, the thought of her near 
 ness produced a swift reaction of mood. It was as if 
 an intenser vision of her had scattered his perplexi 
 ties like morning mists. At this moment, wherever she 
 was, he knew he was safely shut away in her thoughts, 
 and the knowledge made every other fact dwindle away 
 to a shadow. He and she loved each other, and their love 
 
 [208] 
 

 THE REEF 
 
 arched over them open and ample as the day: in all its 
 sunlit spaces there was no cranny for a fear to lurk. In a 
 few minutes he would be in her presence and would read 
 his reassurance in her eyes. And presently, before dinner, 
 she would contrive that they should have an hour by 
 themselves in her sitting-room, and he would sit by the 
 hearth and watch her quiet movements, and the way the 
 bluish lustre on her hair purpled a little as she bent above 
 the fire. 
 
 A carriage drove out of the court as he entered it, and 
 in the hall his vision was dispelled by the exceedingly sub 
 stantial presence of a lady in a waterproof and a tweed 
 hat, who stood firmly planted in the centre of a pile of 
 luggage, as to which she was giving involved but lucid 
 directions to the footman who had just admitted her. 
 She went on with these directions regardless of Dar- 
 row s entrance, merely fixing her small pale eyes on 
 him while she proceeded, in a deep contralto voice, and a 
 fluent French pronounced with the purest Boston accent, 
 to specify the destination of her bags ; and this enabled 
 Da r row to give her back a gaze protracted enough to 
 take in all the details of her plain thick-set person, from 
 the square sallow face beneath bands of grey hair to 
 the blunt boot-toes protruding under her wide walking 
 skirt. 
 
 She submitted to this scrutiny with no more evidence of 
 surprise than a monument examined by a tourist; but 
 when the fate of her luggage had been settled she turned 
 suddenly to Darrow and, dropping her eyes from his face 
 to his feet, asked in trenchant accents: "What sort of 
 boots have you got on?" 
 
 [209] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 Before he could summon his wits to the consideration 
 of this question she continued in a tone of suppressed in 
 dignation : "Until Americans get used to the fact that 
 France is under water for half the year they re perpetu 
 ally risking their lives by not being properly protected. 
 I suppose you ve been tramping through all this nasty 
 clammy mud as if you d been taking a stroll on Boston 
 Common." 
 
 Darrow, with a laugh, affirmed his previous experience 
 of French dampness, and the degree to which he was on 
 his guard against it; but the lady, with a contemptuous 
 
 snort, rejoined : "You young men are all alike " ; to 
 
 which she appended, after another hard look at him : "I 
 suppose you re George Darrow? I used to know one of 
 your mother s cousins, who married a Tunstall of Mount 
 Vernon Street. My name is Adelaide Painter. Have 
 you been in Boston lately? No? I m sorry for that. I 
 hear there have been several new houses built at the lower 
 end of Commonwealth Avenue and I hoped you could 
 tell me about them. I haven t been there for thirty years 
 myself." 
 
 Miss Painter s arrival at Givre produced the same ef 
 fect as the wind s hauling around to the north after days 
 of languid weather. When Darrow joined the group 
 about the tea-table she had already given a tingle to the 
 air. Madame de Chantelle still remained invisible above 
 stairs ; but Darrow had the impression that even through 
 her drawn curtains and bolted doors a stimulating whiff 
 must have entered. 
 
 Anna was in her usual seat behind the tea-tray, and 
 Sophy Viner presently led in her pupil. Owen was also 
 
 [210] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 there, seated, as usual, a little apart from the others, and 
 following Miss Painter s massive movements and equally 
 substantial utterances with a smile of secret intelligence 
 which gave Darrow the idea of his having been in clan 
 destine parley with the enemy. Darrow further took note 
 that the girl and her suitor perceptibly avoided each 
 other; but this might be a natural result of the tension 
 Miss Painter had been summoned to relieve. 
 
 Sophy Viner would evidently permit no recognition of 
 the situation save that which it lay with Madame de 
 Chantelle to accord ; but meanwhile Miss Painter had pro 
 claimed her tacit sense of it by summoning the girl to a 
 seat at her side. 
 
 Darrow, as he continued to observe the new-comer, 
 who was perched on her arm-chair like a granite image 
 on the edge of a cliff, was aware that, in a more 
 detached frame of mind, he would have found an ex 
 treme interest in studying and classifying Miss Painter. 
 It was not that she said anything remarkable, or betrayed 
 any of those unspoken perceptions which give significance 
 to the most commonplace utterances. She talked of the 
 lateness of her train, of an impending crisis in interna 
 tional politics, of the difficulty of buying English tea in 
 Paris and of the enormities of which French servants 
 were capable; and her views on these subjects were enun 
 ciated with a uniformity of emphasis implying complete 
 unconsciousness of any difference in their interest and 
 importance. She always applied to the French race the 
 distant epithet of "those people", but she betrayed an inti 
 mate acquaintance with many of its members, and an en 
 cyclopaedic knowledge of the domestic habits, financial 
 
 [211] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 difficulties and private complications of various persons 
 of social importance. Yet, as she evidently felt no in 
 congruity in her attitude, so she revealed no desire to 
 parade her familiarity with the fashionable, or indeed 
 any sense of it as a fact to be paraded. It was evident 
 that the titled ladies whom she spoke of as Mimi or 
 Simone or Odette were as much "those people" to her as 
 the bonne who tampered with her tea and steamed the 
 stamps off her letters ("when, by a miracle, I don t put 
 them in the box myself/ ) Her whole attitude was of 
 a vast grim tolerance of things-as-they-came, as though 
 she had been some wonderful automatic machine which 
 recorded facts but had not yet been perfected to the point 
 of sorting or labelling them. 
 
 All this, as Darrow was aware, still fell short of ac 
 counting for the influence she obviously exerted on the 
 persons in contact with her. It brought a slight relief 
 to his state of tension to go on wondering, while he 
 watched and listened, just where the mystery lurked. 
 Perhaps, after all, it was in the fact of her blank in 
 sensibility, an insensibility so devoid of egotism that it 
 had no hardness and no grimaces, but rather the fresh 
 ness of a simpler mental state. After living, as he had, 
 as they all had, for the last few days, in an atmosphere 
 perpetually tremulous with echoes and implications, it was 
 restful and fortifying merely to walk into the big blank 
 area of Miss Painter s mind, so vacuous for all its ac 
 cumulated items, so echoless for all its vacuity. 
 
 His hope of a word with Anna before dinner was dis 
 pelled by her rising to take Miss Painter up to Madame 
 de Chantelle; and he wandered away to his own room, 
 
 [212] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 leaving Owen and Miss Viner engaged in working out a 
 picture-puzzle for Effie. 
 
 Madame de Chantelle possibly as the result of her 
 friend s ministrations was able to appear at the dinner- 
 table, rather pale and pink-nosed, and casting tenderly 
 reproachful glances at her grandson, who faced them 
 with impervious serenity; and the situation was relieved 
 by the fact that Miss Viner, as usual, had remained in 
 the school-room with hej- pupil. 
 
 Darrow conjectured that the real clash of arms would 
 not take place till the morrow; and wishing to leave the 
 field open to the contestants he set out early on a soli 
 tary walk. It was nearly luncheon-time when he re 
 turned from it and came upon Anna just emerging from 
 the house. She had on her hat and jacket and was ap 
 parently coming forth to seek him, for she said at once : 
 "Madame de Chantelle wants you to go up to her." 
 
 "To go up to her ? Now ?" 
 
 "That s the message she sent. She appears to rely on 
 you to do something." She added with a smile : "What 
 ever it is, let s have it over !" 
 
 Darrow, through his rising sense of apprehension, 
 wondered why, instead of merely going for a walk, he 
 had not jumped into the first train and got out of the 
 way till Owen s affairs were finally settled. 
 
 "But what in the name of goodness can I do ?" he pro 
 tested, following Anna back into the hall. 
 
 "I don t know. But Owen seems so to rely on you, 
 too " 
 
 "Owen! Is he to be there?" 
 
 "No. But you know I told him he could count on you." 
 [213] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 "But I ve said to your mother-in-law all I could." 
 
 "Well, then you can only repeat it." 
 
 This did not seem to Darrow to simplify his case as 
 much as she appeared to think; and once more he had 
 a movement of recoil. "There s no possible reason for 
 my being mixed up in this affair!" 
 
 Anna gave him a reproachful glance. "Not the fact 
 that / am ?" she reminded him ; but even this only stiffened 
 his resistance. 
 
 "Why should you be, either to this extent ?" 
 
 The question made her pause. She glanced about the 
 hall, as if to be sure they had it to themselves ; and then, 
 in a lowered voice: "I don t know," she suddenly con 
 fessed; "but, somehow, if they re not happy I feel as if 
 we shouldn t be." 
 
 "Oh, well " Darrow acquiesced, in the tone of the 
 man who perforce yields to so lovely an unreasonableness. 
 Escape was, after all, impossible, and he could only 
 resign himself to being led to Madame de Chantelle s 
 door. 
 
 Within, among the bric-a-brac and furbelows, he found 
 Miss Painter seated in a redundant purple armchair with 
 the incongruous air of a horseman bestriding a heavy 
 mount. Madame de Chantelle sat opposite, still a little 
 wan and disordered under her elaborate hair, and clasp 
 ing the handkerchief whose visibility symbolized her dis 
 tress. On the young man s entrance she sighed out a 
 plaintive welcome, to which she immediately appended: 
 "Mr. Darrow, I can t help feeling that at heart you re 
 with me !" 
 
 The directness of the challenge made it easier for Dar- 
 
THE REEF 
 
 row to protest, and he reiterated his inability to give an 
 opinion on either side. 
 
 "But Anna declares you have on hers !" 
 
 He could not restrain a smile at this faint flaw in an 
 impartiality so scrupulous. Every evidence of feminine 
 inconsequence in Anna seemed to attest her deeper sub 
 jection to the most inconsequent of passions. He had 
 certainly promised her his help but before he knew 
 what he was promising. 
 
 He met Madame de Chantelle s appeal by replying: 
 "If there were anything I could possibly say I should 
 want it to be in Miss Viner s favour." 
 
 "You d want it to be yes ! But could you make it so ?" 
 
 "As far as facts go, I don t see how I can make it 
 either for or against her. I ve already said that I know 
 nothing of her except that she s charming." 
 
 "As if that weren t enough weren t all there ought 
 to be!" Miss Painter put in impatiently. She seemed 
 to address herself to Darrow, though her small eyes were 
 fixed on her friend. 
 
 "Madame de Chantelle seems to imagine," she pur 
 sued, "that a young American girl ought to have a dos 
 sier a police-record, or whatever you call it : what those 
 awful women in the streets have here. In our country 
 it s enough to know that a young girl s pure and lovely : 
 people don t immediately ask her to show her bank-ac 
 count and her visiting-list." 
 
 Madame de Chantelle looked plaintively at her sturdy 
 monitress. "You don t expect me not to ask if she s got a 
 family?" 
 
 "No ; nor to think the worse of her if she hasn t. The 
 [215] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 fact that she s an orphan ought, with your ideas, to be a 
 merit. You won t have to invite her father and mother 
 to Givre !" 
 
 "Adelaide Adelaide !" the mistress of Givre lamented. 
 
 "Lucretia Mary," the other returned and Darrow 
 spared an instant s amusement to the quaint incongruity 
 of the name "you know you sent for Mr. Darrow to 
 refute me ; and how can he, till he knows what I think ?" 
 
 "You think it s perfectly simple to let Owen marry a 
 girl we know nothing about ?" 
 
 "No; but I don t think it s perfectly simple to prevent 
 him." 
 
 The shrewdness of the answer increased Darrow s in 
 terest in Miss Painter. She had not hitherto struck him 
 as being a person of much penetration, but he now felt 
 sure that her gimlet gaze might bore to the heart of any; 
 practical problem. 
 
 Madame de Chantelle sighed out her recognition of the 
 difficulty. 
 
 "I haven t a word to say against Miss Viner ; but she s 
 knocked about so, as it s called, that she must have been 
 mixed up with some rather dreadful people. If only 
 Owen could be made to see that if one could get at a 
 few facts, I mean. She says, for instance, that she has a 
 sister ; but it seems she doesn t even know her address !" 
 
 "If she does, she may not want to give it to you. I 
 daresay the sister s one of the dreadful people. I ve no 
 doubt that with a little time you could rake up dozens of 
 them : have her traced , as they call it in detective stories. 
 I don t think you d frighten Owen, but you might: it s 
 natural enough he should have been corrupted by those 
 
 [216] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 foreign ideas. You might even manage to part him from 
 the girl; but you couldn t keep him from being in love 
 with her. I saw that when I looked them over last 
 evening. I said to myself: It s a real old-fashioned 
 American case, as sweet and sound as home-made bread. 
 Well, if you take his loaf away from him, what are you 
 going to feed him with instead? Which of your nasty 
 Paris poisons do you think he ll turn to ? Supposing you 
 succeed in keeping him out of a really bad mess and, 
 knowing the young man as I do, I rather think that, at 
 this crisis, the only way to do it would be to marry him 
 slap off to somebody else well, then, who, may I ask, 
 would you pick out? One of your sweet French 
 ingenues, I suppose? With as much mind as a minnow 
 and as much snap as a soft-boiled egg. You might 
 hustle him into that kind of marriage; I daresay you 
 could but if I know Owen, the natural thing would 
 happen before the first baby was weaned." 
 
 "I don t know why you insinuate such odious things 
 against Owen!" 
 
 "Do you think it would be odious of him to return to 
 his real love when he d been forcibly parted from her? 
 At any rate, it s what your French friends do, every one 
 of them! Only they don t generally have the grace to 
 go back to an old love; and I believe, upon my word, 
 Owen would!" 
 
 Madame de Chantelle looked at her with a mixture 
 of awe and exultation. "Of course you realize, -Adelaide, 
 that in suggesting this you re insinuating the most shock 
 ing things against Miss Viner?" 
 
 "When I say that if you part two young things who 
 [217] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 are dying to be happy in the lawful way it s ten to one 
 they ll come together in an unlawful one? I m insinuat 
 ing shocking things against you, Lucretia Mary, in sug 
 gesting for a moment that you ll care to assume such a 
 responsibility before your Maker. And you wouldn t, 
 if you talked things straight out with him, instead of 
 merely sending him messages through a miserable sinner 
 like yourself !" 
 
 Darrow expected this assault on her adopted creed to 
 provoke in Madame de Chantelle an explosion of pious 
 indignation; but to his surprise she merely murmured: 
 "I don t know what Mr. Darrow ll think of you !" 
 
 "Mr. Darrow probably knows his Bible as well as I 
 do/ Miss Painter calmly rejoined; adding a moment 
 later, without the least perceptible change of voice or ex 
 pression : "I suppose you ve heard that Gisele de Folem- 
 bray s husband accuses her of being mixed up with the 
 Due d Arcachon in that business of trying to sell a lot of 
 imitation pearls to Mrs. Homer Pond, the Chicago woman 
 the Duke s engaged to? It seems the jeweller says Gisele 
 brought Mrs. Pond there, and got twenty-five per cent 
 which of course she passed on to d Arcachon. The poor 
 old Duchess is in a fearful state so afraid her son ll 
 lose Mrs. Pond ! When I think that Gisele is old Brad 
 ford Wagstaff s grand-daughter, I m thankful he s safe 
 in Mount Auburn !" 
 
THE REEF 
 
 XXII 
 
 IT was not until late that afternoon that Darrow could 
 claim his postponed hour with Anna. When at last 
 he found her alone in her sitting-room it was with a 
 sense of liberation so great that he sought no logical 
 justification of it. He simply felt that all their destinies 
 were in Miss Painter s grasp, and that, resistance being 
 useless, he could only enjoy the sweets of surrender. 
 
 Anna herself seemed as happy, and for more explicable 
 reasons. She had assisted, after luncheon, at another 
 debate between Madame de Chantelle and her confidant, 
 and had surmised, when she withdrew from it, that vic 
 tory was permanently perched on Miss Painter s banners. 
 
 "I don t know how she does it, unless it s by the dead 
 weight of her convictions. She detests the French so that 
 she d back up Owen even if she knew nothing or knew 
 too much of Miss Viner. She somehow regards the 1 
 match as a protest against the corruption of European 
 morals. I told Owen that was his great chance, and he s 
 made the most of it." 
 
 "What a tactician you are ! You make me feel that I 
 hardly know the rudiments of diplomacy," Darrow smiled 
 at her, abandoning himself to a perilous sense of well- 
 being. 
 
 She gave him back his smile. "I m afraid I think noth 
 ing short of my own happiness is worth wasting any di 
 plomacy on !" 
 
 15 [ 219 ] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 "That s why I mean to resign from the service of my 
 country," he rejoined with a laugh of deep content. 
 
 The feeling that both resistance and apprehension were 
 vain was working like wine in his veins. He had done 
 what he could to deflect the course of events: now he 
 could only stand aside and take his chance of safety. 
 Underneath this fatalistic feeling was the deep sense of 
 relief that he had, after all, said and done nothing that 
 could in the least degree affect the welfare of Sophy 
 Viner. That fact took a millstone off his neck. 
 
 Meanwhile he gave himself up once more to the joy 
 of Anna s presence. They had not been alone together 
 for two long days, and he had the lover s sense that he 
 had forgotten, or at least underestimated, the strength 
 of the spell she cast. Once more her eyes and her smile 
 seemed to bound his world. He felt that their light 
 would always move with him as the sunset moves before 
 a ship at sea. 
 
 The next day his sense of security was increased by a 
 decisive incident. It became known to the expectant 
 household that Madame de Chantelle had yielded to the 
 tremendous impact of Miss Painter s determination and 
 that Sophy Viner had been "sent for" to the purple satin 
 sitting-room. 
 
 At luncheon, Owen s radiant countenance proclaimed 
 the happy sequel, and Darrow, when the party had moved 
 back to the oak-room for coffee, deemed it discreet to 
 wander out alone to the terrace with his cigar. The con 
 clusion of Owen s romance brought his own plans once 
 more to the front. Anna had promised that she would 
 
 [ 220] 
 
 
THE REEF 
 
 consider dates and settle details as soon as Madame de 
 Chantelle and her grandson had been reconciled, and 
 Darrow was eager to go into the question at once, since 
 it was necessary that the preparations for his marriage 
 should go forward as rapidly as possible. Anna, he knew, 
 would not seek any farther pretext for delay; and he 
 strolled up and down contentedly in the sunshine, certain 
 that she would come out and reassure him as soon as 
 the reunited family had claimed its due share of her at 
 tention. 
 
 But when she finally joined him her first word was for 
 the younger lovers. 
 
 "I want to thank you for what you ve done for Owen," 
 she began, with her happiest smile. 
 
 "Who I ?" he laughed. "Are you confusing me with 
 Miss Painter?" 
 
 "Perhaps I ought to say for me," she corrected herself. 
 "You ve been even more of a help to us than Adelaide." 
 
 "My dear child! What on earth have I done?" 
 
 "You ve managed to hide from Madame de Chantelle 
 that you don t really like poor Sophy." 
 
 Darrow felt the pallour in his cheek. "Not like her? 
 What put such an idea into your head ?" 
 
 "Oh, it s more than an idea it s a feeling. But what 
 difference does it make, after all? You saw her in such 
 a different setting that it s natural you should be a little 
 doubtful. But when you know her better I m sure you ll 
 feel about her as I do." 
 
 "It s going to be hard for me not to feel about every 
 thing as you do." 
 
 "Well, then please begin with my daughter-in-law !" 
 [221] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 He gave her back in the same tone of banter : "Agreed : 
 if you ll agree to feel as I do about the pressing necessity 
 of our getting married." 
 
 "I want to talk to you about that too. You don t 
 know what a weight is off my mind ! With Sophy here 
 for good, I shall feel so differently about leaving Effie. 
 I ve seen much more accomplished governesses to my 
 cost ! but I ve never seen a young thing more gay and 
 kind and human. You must have noticed, though you ve 
 seen them so little together, how Effie expands when she s 
 with her. And that, you know, is what I want. Madame 
 de Chantelle will provide the necessary restraint." She 
 clasped her hands on his arm. "Yes, I m ready to go 
 with you now. But first of all this very moment ! you 
 must come with me to Effie. She knows, of course, 
 nothing of what s been happening ; and I want her to be 
 told first about you." 
 
 Effie, sought throughout the house, was presently 
 traced to the school-room, and thither Darrow mounted 
 with Anna. He had never seen her so alight with hap 
 piness, and he had caught her buoyancy of mood. He 
 kept repeating to himself: "It s over it s over," as if 
 some monstrous midnight hallucination had been routed 
 by the return of day. 
 
 As they approached the school-room door the terrier s 
 barks came to them through laughing remonstrances. 
 
 "She s giving him his dinner," Anna whispered, her 
 hand in Darrow s. 
 
 "Don t forget the gold-fish !" they heard another voice 
 call out. 
 
 Darrow halted on the threshold. "Oh not now !" 
 
 [222] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 "Not now?" 
 
 "I mean she d rather have you tell her first. I ll wait 
 for you both downstairs." 
 
 He was aware that she glanced at him intently. "As 
 you please. I ll bring her down at once." 
 
 She opened the door, and as she went in he heard her 
 say : "No, Sophy, don t go ! I want you both." 
 
 The rest of Darrow s day was a succession of empty 
 and agitating scenes. On his way down to Givre, before 
 he had seen Effie Leath, he had pictured somewhat sen 
 timentally the joy of the moment when he should take 
 her in his arms and receive her first filial kiss. Every 
 thing in him that egotistically craved for rest, stability, a 
 comfortably organized middle-age, all the home-building 
 instincts of the man who has sufficiently wooed and wan 
 dered, combined to throw a charm about the figure of 
 the child who might who should have been his. Effie 
 came to him trailing the cloud of glory of his first ro 
 mance, giving him back the magic hour he had missed 
 and mourned. And how different the realization of 
 his dream had been! The child s radiant welcome, her 
 unquestioning acceptance of this new figure in the 
 family group, had been all that he had hoped and 
 fancied. If Mother was so awfully happy about it, and 
 Owen and Granny, too, how nice and cosy and comfort 
 able it was going to be for all of them, her beaming look 
 seemed to say ; and then, suddenly, the small pink fingers 
 he had been kissing were laid on the one flaw in the 
 circle, on the one point which must be settled before 
 Effie could, with complete unqualified assurance, admit 
 
 [223] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 the new-comer to full equality with the other gods 
 of her Olympus. 
 
 "And is Sophy awfully happy about it too?" she had 
 asked, loosening her hold on Barrow s neck to tilt back 
 her head and include her mother in her questioning look. 
 
 "Why, dearest, didn t you see she was?" Anna had 
 exclaimed, leaning to the group with radiant eyes. 
 
 "I think I should like to ask her," the child rejoined, 
 after a minute s shy consideration; and as Darrow set 
 her down her mother laughed: "Do, darling, do! Run 
 off at once, and tell her we expect her to be awfully 
 happy too." 
 
 The scene had been succeeded by others less poignant 
 but almost as trying. Darrow cursed his luck in having, 
 at such a moment, to run the gauntlet of a houseful of in 
 terested observers. The state of being "engaged", in it 
 self an absurd enough predicament, even to a man only 
 intermittently exposed, became intolerable under the con 
 tinuous scrutiny of a small circle quivering with par 
 ticipation. Darrow was furthermore aware that, though 
 the case of the other couple ought to have made his own 
 less conspicuous, it was rather they who found a refuge 
 in the shadow of his prominence. Madame de Chantelle, 
 though she had consented to Owen s engagement .and 
 formally welcomed his betrothed, was nevertheless not 
 sorry to show, by her reception of Darrow, of what 
 finely-shaded degrees of cordiality she was capable. Miss 
 Painter, having won the day for Owen, was also free to 
 turn her attention to the newer candidate for her sym 
 pathy; and Darrow and Anna found themselves im 
 mersed in a warm bath of sentimental curiosity. 
 
 [224] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 It was a relief to Darrow that he was under a positive 
 obligation to end his visit within the next forty-eight 
 hours. When he left London, his Ambassador had ac 
 corded him a ten days leave. His fate being definitely 
 settled and openly published he had no reason for asking 
 to have the time prolonged, and when it was over he 
 was to return to his post till the time fixed for taking up 
 his new duties. Anna and he had therefore decided to be 
 married, in Paris, a day or two before the departure of 
 the steamer which was to take them to South America ; 
 and Anna, shortly after his return to England, was to go 
 up to Paris and begin her own preparations. 
 
 In honour of the double betrothal Effie and Miss 
 Viner were to appear that evening at dinner; and Dar 
 row, on leaving his room, met the little girl springing 
 down the stairs, her white ruffles and coral-coloured 
 bows making her look like a daisy with her yellow hair 
 for its centre. Sophy Viner was behind her pupil, and 
 as she came into the light Darrow noticed a change in 
 her appearance and wondered vaguely why she looked 
 suddenly younger, more vivid, more like the little 
 luminous ghost of his Paris memories. Then it occurred 
 to him that it was the first time she had appeared at 
 dinner since his arrival at Givre, and the first time, con 
 sequently, that he had seen her in evening dress. She 
 was still at the age when the least adornment embellishes ; 
 and no doubt the mere uncovering of her young throat 
 and neck had given her back her former brightness. 
 But a second glance showed a more precise reason for his 
 impression. Vaguely though he retained such details, he 
 felt sure she was wearing the dress he had seen her in 
 
 [225] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 every evening in Paris. It was a simple enough dress, 
 black, and transparent on the arms and shoulders, and he 
 would probably not have recognized it if she had not 
 called his attention to it in Paris by confessing that 
 she hadn t any other. "The same dress? That proves 
 that she s forgotten!" was his first half-ironic thought; 
 but the next moment, with a pang of compunction, he 
 said to himself that she had probably put it on for the 
 same reason as before: simply because she hadn t any 
 other. 
 
 He looked at her in silence, and for an instant, above 
 Effie s bobbing head, she gave him back his look in a 
 full bright gaze. 
 
 "Oh, there s Owen!" Effie cried, and whirled away 
 down the gallery to the door from which her step-brother 
 was emerging. As Owen bent to catch her, Sophy Viner 
 turned abruptly back to Darrow. 
 
 "You, too?" she said with a quick laugh. "I didn t 
 
 know " And as Owen came up to them she added, in 
 
 a tone that might have been meant to reach his ear: "I 
 wish you all the luck that we can spare !" 
 
 About the dinner-table, which Eftie, with Miss Viner s 
 aid, had lavishly garlanded, the little party had an air 
 of somewhat self-conscious festivity. In spite of flowers, 
 champagne and a unanimous attempt at ease, there were 
 frequent lapses in the talk, and moments of nervous 
 groping for new subjects. Miss Painter alone seemed 
 not only unaffected by the general perturbation but as 
 tightly sealed up in her unconsciousness of it as a diver 
 in his bell. To Darrow s strained attention even Owen s 
 gusts of gaiety seemed to betray an inward sense of in- 
 
 226 
 
THE REEF 
 
 security. After dinner, however, at the piano, he 
 broke into a mood of extravagant hilarity and 
 flooded the room with the splash and ripple of his 
 music. 
 
 Darrow, sunk in a sofa corner in the lee of Miss Paint 
 er s granite bulk, smoked and listened in silence, his eyes 
 moving from one figure to another. Madame de Chan- 
 telle, in her armchair near the fire, clasped her lit 
 tle granddaughter to her with the gesture of a drawing- 
 room Niobe, and Anna, seated near them, had fallen into 
 one of the attitudes of vivid calm which seemed to Dar 
 row to express her inmost quality. Sophy Viner, after 
 moving uncertainly about the room, had placed her 
 self beyond Mrs. Leath, in a chair near the piano, 
 where she sat with head thrown back and eyes attached 
 to the musician, in the same rapt fixity of attention with 
 which she had followed the players at the Frangais. The 
 accident of her having fallen into the same attitude, and 
 of her wearing the same dress, gave Darrow, as he 
 watched her, a strange sense of double consciousness. 
 To escape from it, his glance turned back to Anna ; but 
 from the point at which he was placed his eyes could 
 not take in the one face without the other, and that re 
 newed the disturbing duality of the impression. Sud 
 denly Owen broke off with a crash of chords and jumped 
 to his feet. 
 
 "What s the use of this, with such a moon to say it for 
 us?" 
 
 Behind the uncurtained window a low golden orb hung 
 like a ripe fruit against the glass. 
 
 "Yes let s go out and listen," Anna answered. Owen 
 
 [227] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 threw open the window, and with his gesture a fold of 
 the heavy star-sprinkled sky seemed to droop into the 
 room like a drawn-in curtain. The air that entered with 
 it had a frosty edge, and Anna bade Effie run to the hall 
 for wraps. 
 
 Darrow said: "You must have one too," and started 
 toward the door; but Sophy, following her pupil, cried 
 back : "We ll bring things for everybody." 
 
 Owen had followed her, and in a moment the three 
 reappeared, and the party went out on the terrace. The 
 deep blue purity of the night was unveiled by mist, and 
 the moonlight rimmed the edges of the trees with a silver 
 blur and blanched to unnatural whiteness the statues 
 against their walls of shade. 
 
 Darrow and Anna, with Effie between them, strolled 
 to the farther corner of the terrace. Below them, be 
 tween the fringes of the park, the lawn sloped dimly to 
 the fields above the river. For a few minutes they stood 
 silently side by side, touched to peace beneath the trem 
 bling beauty of the sky. When they turned back, Dar 
 row saw that Owen and Sophy Viner, who had gone 
 down the steps to the garden, were also walking in the 
 direction of the house. As they advanced, Sophy paused 
 in a patch of moonlight, between the sharp shadows of the 
 yews, and Darrow noticed that she had thrown over her 
 shoulders a long cloak of some light colour, which sud 
 denly evoked her image as she had entered the restaurant 
 at his side on the night of their first dinner in Paris. 
 A moment later they were all together again on the 
 terrace, and when they re-entered the drawing-room the 
 older ladies were on their way to bed. 
 
THE REEF 
 
 Effie, emboldened by the privileges of the evening-, was 
 for coaxing Owen to round it off with a game of forfeits 
 or some such reckless climax; but Sophy, resuming her 
 professional role, sounded the summons to bed. In her 
 pupil s wake she made her round of good-nights; but 
 when she proffered her hand to Anna, the latter ignoring 
 the gesture held out both arms. 
 
 "Good-night, dear child/ she said impulsively, and 
 drew the girl to her kiss. 
 
BOOK IV 
 
BOO^K IV 
 
 XXIII 
 
 THE next day was Barrow s last at Givre and, fore 
 seeing that the afternoon and evening would have 
 to be given to the family, he had asked Anna to devote an 
 early hour to the final consideration of their plans. He 
 was to meet her in the brown sitting-room at ten, and they 
 were to walk down to the river and talk over their future 
 in the little pavilion abutting on the wall of the park. 
 
 It was just a week since his arrival at Givre, and Anna 
 wished, before he left, to return to the place where they 
 had sat on their first afternoon together. Her sensitive 
 ness to the appeal of inanimate things, to the colour and 
 texture of whatever wove itself into the substance of her 
 emotion, made her want to hear Darrow s voice, and to 
 feel his eyes on her, in the spot where bliss had first 
 flowed into her heart. 
 
 That bliss, in the interval, had wound itself into every 
 fold of her being. Passing, in the first days, from a 
 high shy tenderness to the rush of a secret surrender, 
 it had gradually widened and deepened, to flow on in re 
 doubled beauty. She thought she now knew exactly how 
 and why she loved Darrow, and she could see her whole 
 sky reflected in the deep and tranquil current of her love. 
 
 [233] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 Early the next day, in her sitting-room, she was gianc- 
 ing through the letters which it was Effie s morning 
 privilege to carry up to her. Effie meanwhile circled in 
 quisitively about the room, where there was always 
 something new to engage her infant fancy; and Anna, 
 looking up, saw her suddenly arrested before a photo 
 graph of Darrow which, the day before, had taken its 
 place on the writing-table. 
 
 Anna held out her arms with a faint blush. "You do 
 like him, don t you, dear?" 
 
 "Oh, most awfully, dearest," Effie, against her breast, 
 leaned back to assure her with a limpid look. "And so 
 do Granny and Owen and I do think Sophy does too," 
 she added, after a moment s earnest pondering. 
 
 "I hope so," Anna laughed. She checked the impulse 
 to continue : "Has she talked to you about him, that you re 
 so sure ?" She did not know what had made the question 
 spring to her lips, but she was glad she had closed them 
 before pronouncing it. Nothing could have been more 
 distasteful to her than to clear up such obscurities by 
 turning on them the tiny flame of her daughter s observa 
 tion. And what, after all, now that Owen s happiness was 
 secured, did it matter if there were certain reserves in 
 Darrow s approval of his marriage? 
 
 A knock on the door made Anna glance at the clock. 
 "There s Nurse to carry you off." 
 
 "It s Sophy s knock/ the little girl answered, jumping 
 down to open the door; and Miss Viner in fact stood 
 on the threshold. 
 
 "Come in," Anna said with a smile, instantly remark 
 ing how pale she looked. 
 
 [234] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 "May Effie go out for a turn with Nurse?" the girl 
 asked. "I should like to speak to you a moment/ 
 
 "Of course. This ought to be your holiday, as yes 
 terday was Effie s. Run off, dear," she added, stooping 
 to kiss the little girl. 
 
 When the door had closed she turned back to Sophy 
 Viner with a look that sought her confidence. "I m so 
 glad you came, my dear. We ve got so many things 
 to talk about, just you and I together." 
 
 The confused intercourse of the last days had, in fact, 
 left little time for any speech with Sophy but such as re-, 
 lated to her marriage and the means of overcoming Ma 
 dame de Chantelle s opposition to it. Anna had exacted 
 of Owen that no one, not even Sophy Viner, should be 
 given a hint of her own projects till all contingent ques 
 tions had been disposed of. She had felt, from the out 
 set, a secret reluctance to intrude her securer happiness 
 on the doubts and fears of the young pair. 
 
 From the sofa-corner to which she had dropped back 
 she pointed to Darrow s chair. "Come and sit by me, 
 dear. I wanted to see you alone. There s so much to 
 say that I hardly know where to begin." 
 
 She leaned forward, her hands clasped on the arms of 
 the sofa, her eyes bent smilingly on Sophy s. As she did 
 so, she noticed that the girl s unusual pallour was partly 
 due to the slight veil of powder on her face. The discov 
 ery was distinctly disagreeable. Anna had never before 
 noticed, on Sophy s part, any recourse to cosmetics, and, 
 much as she wished to think herself exempt from old- 
 fashioned prejudices, she suddenly became aware that 
 she did not like her daughter s governess to have a pow- 
 
 16 [235] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 dered face. Then she reflected that the girl who sat op 
 posite her was no longer Effie s governess, but her own 
 future daughter-in-law ; and she wondered whether Miss 
 Viner had chosen this odd way of celebrating her inde 
 pendence, and whether, as Mrs. Owen Leath, she would 
 present to the world a bedizened countenance. This idea 
 was scarcely less distasteful than the other, and for a 
 moment Anna continued to consider her without speak 
 ing. Then, in a flash, the truth came to her : Miss Viner 
 had powdered her face because Miss Viner had been 
 crying. 
 
 Anna leaned forward impulsively. "My dear child, 
 what s the matter?" She saw the girl s blood rush up 
 under the white mask, and hastened on : "Please don t be 
 afraid to tell me. I do so want you to feel that you can 
 trust me as Owen does. And you know you mustn t 
 mind if, just at first, Madame de Chantelle occasionally 
 relapses." 
 
 She spoke eagerly, persuasively, almost on a note of 
 pleading. She had, in truth, so many reasons for want 
 ing Sophy to like her : her love for Owen, her solicitude 
 for Effie, and her own sense of the girl s fine mettle. She 
 had always felt a romantic and almost humble admira 
 tion for those members of her sex who, from force of 
 will, or the constraint of circumstances, had plunged into 
 the conflict from which fate had so persistently excluded 
 her. There were even moments when she fancied her 
 self vaguely to blame for her immunity, and felt that she 
 ought somehow to have affronted the perils and hard 
 ships which refused to come to her. And now, as 
 she sat looking at Sophy Viner, so small, so slight, so 
 
 [236] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 visibly defenceless and undone, she still felt, through 
 all the superiority of her worldly advantages and her 
 seeming maturity, the same odd sense of ignorance and 
 inexperience. She could not have said what there 
 was in the girl s manner and expression to give her 
 this feeling, but she was reminded, as she looked at 
 Sophy Viner, of the other girls she had known in her 
 youth, the girls who seemed possessed of a secret she had 
 missed. Yes, Sophy Viner had their look almost the 
 obscurely menacing look of Kitty Mayne . . . Anna, with 
 an inward smile, brushed aside the image of this forgot 
 ten rival. But she had felt, deep down, a twinge of the 
 old pain, and she was sorry that, even for the flash of 
 a thought, Owen s betrothed should have reminded her 
 of so different a woman . . . 
 
 She laid her hand on the girl s. "When his grand 
 mother sees how happy Owen is she ll be quite happy her 
 self. If it s only that, don t be distressed. Just trust to 
 Owen and the future." 
 
 Sophy Viner, with an almost imperceptible recoil of her 
 whole slight person, had drawn her hand from under 
 the palm enclosing it. 
 
 "That s what I wanted to talk to you about the fu 
 ture." 
 
 "Of course! We ve all so many plans to make and 
 to fit into each other s. Please let s begin with yours." 
 
 The girl paused a moment, her hands clasped on the 
 arms of her chair, her lids dropped under Anna s gaze; 
 then she said : "I should like to make no plans at all ... 
 just yet ..." 
 
 "No plans?" 
 
 [237] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 "N o I should like to go away . . . my friends the 
 Farlows would let me go to them ..." Her voice grew 
 firmer and she lifted her eyes to add: "I should like to 
 leave today, if you don t mind." 
 
 Anna listened with a rising wonder. 
 
 "You want to leave Givre at once ?" She gave the idea 
 a moment s swift consideration. "You prefer to be with 
 your friends till your marriage ? I understand that but 
 surely you needn t rush off today? There are so many 
 details to discuss; and before long, you know, I shall 
 be going away too." 
 
 "Yes, I know." The girl was evidently trying to steady 
 her voice. "But I should like to wait a few days to 
 have a little more time to myself." 
 
 Anna continued to consider her kindly. It was evident 
 that she did not care to say why she wished to leave 
 Givre so suddenly, but her disturbed face and shaken 
 voice betrayed a more pressing motive than the natural 
 desire to spend the weeks before her marriage under her 
 old friends roof. Since she had made no response to the 
 allusion to Madame de Chantelle, Anna could but con 
 jecture that she had had a passing disagreement with 
 Owen; and if this were so, random interference might 
 do more harm than good. 
 
 "My dear child, if you really want to go at once I 
 sha n t, of course, urge you to stay. I suppose you 
 have spoken to Owen?" 
 
 "No. Not yet ... " 
 
 Anna threw an astonished glance at her. "You mean 
 to say you haven t told him ?" 
 
 "I wanted to tell you first. I thought I ought to, on 
 [238] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 account of Effie." Her look cleared as she put forth this 
 reason. 
 
 "Oh, Effie ! " Anna s smile brushed away the scruple. 
 "Owen has a right to ask that you should consider him 
 before you think of his sister ... Of course you shall 
 do just as you wish," she went on, after another thought 
 ful interval. 
 
 "Oh, thank you," Sophy Viner murmured and rose to 
 her feet. 
 
 Anna rose also, vaguely seeking for some word that 
 should break down the girl s resistance. "You ll tell 
 Owen at once?" she finally asked. 
 
 Miss Viner, instead of replying, stood before her in 
 manifest uncertainty, and as she did so there was a 
 light tap on the door, and Owen Leath walked into the 
 room. 
 
 Anna s first glance told her that his face was un 
 clouded. He met her greeting with his happiest smile 
 and turned to lift Sophy s hand to his lips. The percep 
 tion that he was utterly unconscious of any cause for Miss 
 Viner s agitation came to his step-mother with a sharp 
 thrill of surprise. 
 
 "Barrow s looking for you," he said to her. "He asked 
 me to remind you that you d promised to go for a walk 
 with him." 
 
 Anna glanced at the clock. "I ll go down presently." 
 She waited and looked again at Sophy Viner, whose 
 troubled eyes seemed to commit their message to her. 
 "You d better tell Owen, my dear." 
 
 Owen s look also turned on the girl. "Tell me what? 
 Why, what s happened?" 
 
 [239] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 Anna summoned a laugh to ease the vague tension of 
 the moment. "Don t look so startled! Nothing, except 
 that Sophy proposes to desert us for a while for the Far- 
 lows." 
 
 Owen s brow cleared. "I was afraid she d run off be 
 fore long." He glanced at Anna. "Do please keep her 
 here as long as you can !" 
 
 Sophy intervened: "Mrs. Leath s already given me 
 leave to go." 
 
 "Already? To go when?" 
 
 "Today," said Sophy in a low tone, her eyes on Anna s. 
 
 "Today ? Why on earth should you go today ?" Owen 
 dropped back a step or two, flushing and paling under his 
 bewildered frown. His eyes seemed to search the girl 
 more closely. "Something s happened." He too looked 
 at his step-mother. "I suppose she must have told you 
 what it is?" 
 
 Anna was struck by the suddenness and vehemence of 
 his appeal. It was as though some smouldering appre 
 hension had lain close under the surface of his security. 
 
 "She s told me nothing except that she wishes to be 
 with her friends. It s quite natural that she should want 
 to go to them." 
 
 Owen visibly controlled himself. "Of course quite 
 natural." He spoke to Sophy. "But why didn t you tell 
 me so? Why did you come first to my step-mother?" 
 
 Anna intervened with her calm smile. "That seems to 
 me quite natural, too. Sophy was considerate enough to 
 tell me first because of Effie." 
 
 He weighed it. "Very well, then : that s quite natural, 
 as you say. And of course she must do exactly as she 
 
 [240] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 pleases." He still kept his eyes on the girl. "To 
 morrow," he abruptly announced, "I shall go up to Paris 
 to see you." 
 
 "Oh, no no !" she protested. 
 
 Owen turned back to Anna. "Now do you say that 
 nothing s happened?" 
 
 Under the influence of his agitation Anna felt a 
 vague tightening of the heart. She seemed to herself 
 like some one in a dark room about whom unseen pres 
 ences are groping. 
 
 "If it s anything that Sophy wishes to tell you, no doubt 
 she ll do so. I m going down now, and I ll leave you here 
 to talk it over by yourselves." 
 
 As she moved to the door the girl caught up with her. 
 "But there s nothing to tell : why should there be ? I ve 
 explained that I simply want to be quiet." Her look 
 seemed to detain Mrs. Leath. 
 
 Owen broke in : "Is that why I mayn t go up tomor 
 row ?" 
 
 "Not tomorrow !" 
 
 "Then when may I?" 
 
 "Later ... in a little while ... a few days . . . 
 
 "In how many days?" 
 
 "Owen !" his step-mother interposed ; but he seemed 
 no longer aware of her. "If you go away today, the 
 day that our engagement s made known, it s only fair," 
 he persisted, "that you should tell me when I am to 
 see you." 
 
 Sophy s eyes wavered between the two and dropped 
 down wearily. "It s you who are not fair when I ve said 
 I wanted to be quiet." 
 
THE REEF 
 
 "But why should my coming disturb you? I m not 
 asking now to come tomorrow. I only ask you not to 
 leave without telling me when I m to see you." 
 
 "Owen, I don t understand you!" his step-mother ex 
 claimed. 
 
 "You don t understand my asking for some explana 
 tion, some assurance, when I m left in this way, without 
 a word, without a sign ? All I ask her to tell me is when 
 she ll see me." 
 
 Anna turned back to Sophy Viner, who stood straight 
 and tremulous between the two. 
 
 "After all, my dear, he s not unreasonable!" 
 
 "I ll write I ll write," the girl repeated. 
 
 "What will you write?" he pressed her vehemently. 
 
 "Owen," Anna exclaimed, "you are unreasonable !" 
 
 He turned from Sophy to his step-mother. "I only 
 want her to say what she means: that she s going to 
 write to break off our engagement. Isn t that what 
 you re going away for ?" 
 
 Anna felt the contagion of his excitement. She looked 
 at Sophy, who stood motionless, her lips set, her whole 
 face drawn to a silent fixity of resistance. 
 
 "You ought to speak, my dear you ought to answer 
 him." 
 
 "I only ask him to wait " 
 
 "Yes," Owen, broke in, "and you won t say how 
 long!" 
 
 Both instinctively addressed themselves to Anna, who 
 stood, nearly as shaken as themselves, between the double 
 shock of their struggle. She looked again from Sophy s 
 inscrutable eyes to Owen s stormy features; then she 
 
THE REEF 
 
 said: "What can I do, when there s clearly something 
 between you that I don t know about?" 
 
 "Oh, if it were between us ! Can t you see it s outside 
 of us outside of her, dragging at her, dragging her away 
 from me?" Owen wheeled round again upon his step 
 mother. 
 
 Anna turned from him to the girl. "Is it true that you 
 want to break your engagement? If you do, you ought 
 to tell him now." 
 
 Owen burst into a laugh. "She doesn t dare to 
 she s afraid I ll guess the reason !" 
 
 A faint sound escaped from Sophy s lips, but she kept 
 them close on whatever answer she had ready. 
 
 "If she doesn t wish to marry you, why should she be 
 afraid to have you know the reason ?" 
 
 "She s afraid to have you know it not me!" 
 
 "To have me know it ?" 
 
 He laughed again, and Anna, at his laugh, felt a sud 
 den rush of indignation. 
 
 "Owen, you must explain what you mean !" 
 
 He looked at her hard before answering ; then : "Ask 
 Darrow !" he said. 
 
 "Owen Owen !" Sophy Viner murmured. 
 
 
 XXIV 
 
 ANNA stood looking from one to the other. It had 
 become apparent to her in a flash that Owen s 
 retort, though it startled Sophy, did not take her by sur- 
 
 [243] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 prise; and the discovery shot its light along dark dis 
 tances of fear. 
 
 The immediate inference was that Owen had guessed 
 the reason of Barrow s disapproval of his marriage, or 
 that, at least, he suspected Sophy Viner of knowing and 
 dreading it. This confirmation of her own obscure 
 doubt sent a tremor of alarm through Anna. For a mo 
 ment she felt like exclaiming : "All this is really no busi 
 ness of mine, and I refuse to have you mix me up in 
 it " but her secret fear held her fast. 
 
 Sophy Viner was the first to speak. 
 
 "I should like to go now," she said in a low voice, 
 taking a few steps toward the door. 
 
 Her tone woke Anna to the sense of her own share in 
 the situation. "I quite agree with you, my dear, that it s 
 useless to carry on this discussion. But since Mr. Dar- 
 row s name has been brought into it, for reasons which 
 I fail to guess, I want to tell you that you re both mis 
 taken if you think he s not in sympathy with your mar 
 riage. If that s what Owen means to imply, the idea s 
 a complete delusion." 
 
 She spoke the words deliberately and incisively, as if 
 hoping that the sound of their utterance would stifle the 
 whisper in her bosom. 
 
 Sophy s only answer was a vague murmur, and a move 
 ment that brought her nearer to the door; but before 
 she could reach it Owen had placed himself in her way. 
 
 "I don t mean to imply what you think," he said, ad 
 dressing his step-mother but keeping his eyes on the girl. 
 "I don t say Darrow doesn t like our marriage ; I say it s 
 Sophy who s hated it since Darrow s been here !" 
 
 [244] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 He brought out the charge in a tone of forced com 
 posure, but his lips were white and he grasped the door 
 knob to hide the tremor of his hand. 
 
 Anna s anger surged up with her fears. "You re ab 
 surd, Owen! I don t know why I listen to you. Why 
 should Sophy dislike Mr. Darrow, and if she does, why 
 should that have anything to do with her wishing to 
 break her engagement?" 
 
 "I don t say she dislikes him! I don t say she likes 
 him ; I don t know what it is they say to each other when 
 they re shut up together alone." 
 
 "Shut up together alone ?" Anna stared. Owen seemed 
 like a man in delirium; such an exhibition was degrad 
 ing to them all. But he pushed on without seeing her 
 look. 
 
 "Yes the first evening she came, in the study ; the next 
 morning, early, in the park; yesterday, again, in thei 
 spring-house, when you were at the lodge with the doc 
 tor ... I don t know what they say to each other, but 
 they ve taken every chance they could to say it ... and 
 to say it when they thought that no one saw them." 
 
 Anna longed to silence him, but no words came to 
 her. It was as though all her confused apprehensions 
 had suddenly taken definite shape. There was "some 
 thing" yes, there was "something" . . . Darrow s reti 
 cences and evasions had been more than a figment of 
 her doubts. 
 
 The next instant brought a recoil of pride. She turned 
 indignantly on her step-son. 
 
 "I don t half understand what you ve been saying ; but 
 what you seem to hint is so preposterous, and so insulting 
 
 [ 245 1 
 
THE REEF 
 
 both to Sophy and to me, that I see no reason why we 
 should listen to you any longer." 
 
 Though her tone steadied Owen, she perceived at once 
 that it would not deflect him from his purpose. He spoke 
 less vehemently, but with all the more precision. 
 
 "How can it be preposterous, since it s true? Or in 
 sulting, since I don t know, any more than you, the mean 
 ing of what I ve been seeing? If you ll be patient with 
 me I ll try to put it quietly. What I mean is that Sophy 
 has completely changed since she met Darrow here, and 
 that, having noticed the change, I m hardly to blame for 
 having tried to find out its cause." 
 
 Anna made an effort to answer him with the same 
 composure. "You re to blame, at any rate, for so reck 
 lessly assuming that you have found it out. You seem to 
 forget that, till they met here, Sophy and Mr. Darrow 
 hardly knew each other." 
 
 "If so, it s all the stranger that they ve been so often 
 closeted together !" 
 
 "Owen, Owen " the girl sighed out. 
 
 He turned his haggard face to her. "Can I help it, if 
 I ve seen and known what I wasn t meant to ? For God s 
 sake give me a reason any reason I can decently mak^ 
 out with ! Is it my fault if, the day after you arrived, 
 when I came back late through the garden, the curtains 
 of the study hadn t been drawn, and I saw you there 
 alone with Darrow ?" 
 
 Anna laughed impatiently. "Really, Owen, if you 
 make it a grievance that two people who are staying in 
 the same house should be seen talking together !" 
 
 "They were not talking. That s the point " 
 
 [246] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 "Not talking? How do you know? You could hardly 
 hear them from the garden !" 
 
 "No ; but I could see. He was sitting at my desk, with 
 his face in his hands. She was standing in the window, 
 looking away from him . . . " 
 
 He waited, as if for Sophy Viner s answer; but still 
 she neither stirred nor spoke. 
 
 "That was the first time," he went on ; "and the second 
 was the next morning in the park. It was natural 
 enough, their meeting there. Sophy had gone out with 
 Effie, and Effie ran back to look for me. She told me 
 she d left Sophy and Darrow in the path that leads to 
 the river, and presently we saw them ahead of us. They 
 didn t see us at first, because they were standing looking 
 at each other; and this time they were not speaking 
 either. We came up close before they heard us, and all 
 that time they never spoke, or stopped looking at each 
 other. After that I began to wonder; and so I watched 
 them." 
 
 "Oh, Owen!" 
 
 "Oh, I only had to wait. Yesterday, when I motored 
 you and the doctor back from the lodge, I saw Sophy 
 coming out of the spring-house. I supposed she d taken 
 shelter from the rain, and when you got out of the 
 motor I strolled back down the avenue to meet her. But 
 she d disappeared she must have taken a short cut 
 and come into the house by the side door. I don t know 
 why I went on to the spring-house; I suppose it was 
 what you d call spying. I went up the steps and found 
 the room empty; but two chairs had been moved out 
 from the wall and were standing near the table ; and one 
 
 [247] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 of the Chinese screens that lie on it had dropped to the 
 floor." 
 
 Anna sounded a faint note of irony. "Really ? Sophy d 
 gone there for shelter, and she dropped a screen and 
 moved a chair?" 
 
 "I said two chairs " 
 
 "Two? What damning evidence of I don t know 
 what !" 
 
 "Simply of the fact that Darrow d been there with her. 
 As I looked out of the window I saw him close by, walk 
 ing away. He must have turned the corner of the spring- 
 house just as I got to the door." 
 
 There was another silence, during which Anna paused, 
 not only to collect her own words but to wait for Sophy 
 Viner s ; then, as the girl made no sign, she turned to her. 
 
 "I ve absolutely nothing to say to all this; but per 
 haps you d like me to wait and hear your answer?" 
 
 Sophy raised her head with a quick flash of colour. 
 "I ve no answer either except that Owen must be mad." 
 
 In the interval since she had last spoken she seemed 
 to have regained her self-control, and her voice rang 
 clear, with a cold edge of anger. 
 
 Anna looked at her step-son. He had grown ex 
 tremely pale, and his hand fell from the door with a dis 
 couraged gesture. "That s all then? You won t give 
 me any reason?" 
 
 "I didn t suppose it was necessary to give you or any 
 one else a reason for talking with a friend of Mrs. Leath s 
 under Mrs. Leath s own roof." 
 
 Owen hardly seemed to feel the retort: he kept his 
 dogged stare on her face. 
 
 [248] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 "I won t ask for one, then. I ll only ask you to give 
 me your assurance that your talks with Darrow have 
 had nothing to do with your suddenly deciding to leave 
 Givre." 
 
 She hesitated, not so much with the air of weighing 
 her answer as of questioning his right to exact any. "I 
 give you my assurance; and now I should like to go," 
 she said. 
 
 As she turned away, Anna intervened. "My dear, I 
 think you ought to speak." 
 
 The girl drew herself up with a faint laugh. "To him 
 or to you?" 
 
 "To him." 
 
 She stiffened. "I ve said all there is to say." 
 
 Anna drew back, her eyes on her step-son. He had 
 left the threshold and was advancing toward Sophy Viner 
 with a motion of desperate appeal ; but as he did so there 
 was a knock on the door. A moment s silence fell on the 
 three ; then Anna said : "Come in !" 
 
 Darrow came into the room. Seeing the three together, 
 he looked rapidly from one to the other; then he turned 
 to Anna with a smile. 
 
 "I came up to see if you were ready; 6ut please send 
 me off if I m not wanted." 
 
 His look, his voice, the simple sense of his presence, 
 restored Anna s shaken balance. By Owen s side he 
 looked so strong, so urbane, so experienced, that the 
 lad s passionate charges dwindled to mere boyish vapour- 
 ings. A moment ago she had dreaded Barrow s coming; 
 now she was glad that he was there. 
 
 She turned to him with sudden decision. "Come in, 
 
 [249] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 please; I want you to hear what Owen has been 
 saying." 
 
 She caught a murmur from Sophy Viner, but disre 
 garded it. An illuminating impulse urged her on. She, 
 habitually so aware of her own lack of penetration, her 
 small skill in reading hidden motives and detecting secret 
 signals, now felt herself mysteriously inspired. She ad 
 dressed herself to Sophy Viner. "It s much better for 
 you both that this absurd question should be cleared up 
 now." Then, turning to Darrow, she continued: "For 
 some reason that I don t pretend to guess, Owen has 
 taken it into his head that you ve influenced Miss Viner 
 to break her engagement." 
 
 She spoke slowly and deliberately, because she wished 
 to give time and to gain it; time for Darrow and Sophy 
 to receive the full impact of what she was saying, and 
 time to observe its full effect on them. She had said to 
 herself: "If there s nothing between them, they ll look 
 at each other ; if there is something, they won t ;" and as 
 she ceased to speak she felt as if all her life were in her 
 eyes. 
 
 Sophy, after a start of protest, remained motionless, 
 her gaze on the ground. Darrow, his face grown grave, 
 glanced slowly from Owen Leath to Anna. With his 
 eyes on the latter he asked : "Has Miss Viner broken her 
 engagement ?" 
 
 A moment s silence followed his question ; then the girl 
 looked up and said : "Yes !" 
 
 Owen, as she spoke, uttered a smothered exclamation 
 and walked out of the room. She continued to stand 
 in the same place, without appearing to notice his de- 
 
 [250] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 parture, and without vouchsafing an additional word of 
 explanation; then, before Anna could find a cry to de 
 tain her, she too turned and went out. 
 
 "For God s sake, what s happened?" Darrow asked; 
 but Anna, with a drop of the heart, was saying to her 
 self that he and Sophy Viner had not looked at each 
 other. 
 
 XXV 
 
 ANNA stood in the middle of the room, her 
 eyes on the door. Darrow s questioning gaze 
 was still on her, and she said to herself with 
 a quick-drawn breath: "If only he doesn t come near 
 me!" 
 
 It seemed to her that she had been suddenly endowed 
 with the fatal gift of reading the secret sense of every 
 seemingly spontaneous look and movement, and that in 
 his least gesture of affection she would detect a cold de 
 sign. 
 
 For a moment longer he continued to look at her 
 enquiringly ; then he turned away and took up his habitual 
 stand by the mantel-piece. She drew a deep breath of 
 relief. 
 
 "Won t you please explain?" he said. 
 
 "I can t explain : I don t know. I didn t even know 
 till she told you that she really meant to break her 
 engagement. All I know is that she came to me just 
 now and said she wished to leave Givre today ; and that 
 Owen, when he heard of it for she hadn t told him 
 
 17 21 
 
THE REEF 
 
 at once accused her of going away with the secret in 
 tention of throwing him over." 
 
 "And you think it s a definite break ?" She perceived, 
 as she spoke, that his brow had cleared. 
 
 "How should I know? Perhaps you can tell me." 
 
 "I?" She fancied his face clouded again, but he did 
 not move from his tranquil attitude. 
 
 "As I told you," she went on, "Owen has worked him 
 self up to imagining that for some mysterious reason 
 you ve influenced Sophy against him." 
 
 Darrow still visibly wondered. "It must indeed be a 
 mysterious reason ! He knows how slightly I know Miss 
 Viner. Why should he imagine anything so wildly im 
 probable?" 
 
 "I don t know that either." 
 
 "But he must have hinted at some reason." 
 
 "No: he admits he doesn t know your reason. He 
 simply says that Sophy s manner to him has changed 
 since she came back to Givre and that he s seen you to 
 gether several times in the park, the spring-house, I 
 don t know where talking alone in a way that seemed 
 confidential almost secret; and he draws the prepos 
 terous conclusion that you ve used your influence to turn 
 her against him." 
 
 "My influence? What kind of influence?" 
 
 "He doesn t say." 
 
 Darrow again seemed to turn over the facts she gave 
 him. His face remained grave, but without the least 
 trace of discomposure. "And what does Miss ,Viner 
 say?" 
 
 "She says it s perfectly natural that she should occa- 
 [252] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 sionally talk to my friends when she s under my roof 
 and refuses to give him any other explanation." 
 
 "That at least is perfectly natural !" 
 
 Anna felt her cheeks flush as she answered: "Yes 
 but there is something " 
 
 "Something ?" 
 
 "Some reason for her sudden decision to break her 
 engagement. I can understand Owen s feeling, sorry 
 as I am for his way of showing it. The girl owes 
 him some sort of explanation, and as long as she refuses 
 to give it his imagination is sure to run wild." 
 
 "She would have given it, no doubt, if he d asked it in 
 a different tone." 
 
 "I don t defend Owen s tone but she knew what it 
 was before she accepted him. She knows he s excitable 
 and undisciplined." 
 
 "Well, she s been disciplining him a little probably 
 the best thing that could happen. Why not let the matter 
 rest there?" 
 
 "Leave Owen with the idea that you have been the 
 cause of the break?" 
 
 He met the question with his easy smile. "Oh, as to 
 that leave him with any idea of me he chooses ! But 
 leave him, at any rate, free." 
 
 "Free?" she echoed in surprise. 
 
 "Simply let things be. You ve surely done all you 
 could for him and Miss Viner. If they don t hit it off 
 it s their own affair. What possible motive can you have 
 for trying to interfere now?" 
 
 Her gaze widened to a deeper wonder. "Why nat 
 urally, what he says of you !" 
 
 [253] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 "I don t care a straw what he says of me! In such 
 a situation a boy in love will snatch at the most far 
 fetched reason rather than face the mortifying fact that 
 the lady may simply be tired of him." 
 
 "You don t quite understand Owen. Things go deep 
 with him, and last long. It took him a long time to re 
 cover from his other unlucky love affair. He s ro 
 mantic and extravagant : he can t live on the interest of 
 his feelings. He worships Sophy and she seemed to be 
 fond of him. If she s changed it s been very sudden. 
 And if they part like this, angrily and inarticulately, it 
 will hurt him horribly hurt his very soul. But that, as 
 you say, is between the two. What concerns me is his 
 associating you with their quarrel. Owen s like my own 
 son if you d seen him when I first came here you d know 
 why. We were like two prisoners who talk to each other 
 by tapping on the wall. He s never forgotten it, nor I. 
 Whether he breaks with Sophy, or whether they make 
 it up, I can t let him think you had anything to do 
 with it. 5 
 
 She raised her eyes entreatingly to Darrow s, and read 
 in them the forbearance of the man resigned to the dis 
 cussion of non-existent problems. 
 
 "I ll do whatever you want me to," he said; "but I 
 don t yet know what it is." 
 
 His smile seemed to charge her with inconsequence, 
 and the prick to her pride made her continue: After 
 all, it s not so unnatural that Owen, knowing you and 
 Sophy to be almost strangers, should wonder what you 
 were saying to each other when he saw you talking 
 together." 
 
 [254] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 She felt a warning tremor as she spoke, as though some 
 instinct deeper than reason surged up in defense of its 
 treasure. But Darrow s face was unstirred save by the 
 flit of his half-amused smile. 
 
 "Well, my dear and couldn t you have told him?" 
 
 "I ?" she faltered out through her blush. 
 
 "You seem to forget, one and all of you, the position 
 you put me in when I came down here : your appeal to me 
 to see Owen through, your assurance to him that I would, 
 Madame de Chantelle s attempt to win me over ; and most 
 of all, my own sense of the fact you ve just recalled 
 to me : the importance, for both of us, that Owen should 
 like me. It seemed to me that the first thing to do was 
 to get as much light as I could on the whole situation; 
 and the obvious way of doing it was to try to know Miss 
 Viner better. Of course I ve talked with her alone 
 I ve talked with her as often as I could. I ve tried my 
 best to find out if you were right in encouraging Owen 
 to marry her." 
 
 She listened with a growing sense of reassurance, 
 struggling to separate the abstract sense of his words 
 from the persuasion in which his eyes and voice en 
 veloped them. 
 
 "I see I do see," she murmured. 
 
 "You must see, also, that I could hardly say this to 
 Owen without offending him still more, and perhaps 
 increasing the breach between Miss Viner and himself. 
 What sort of figure should I cut if I told him I d been 
 trying to find out if he d made a proper choice? In 
 any case, it s none of my business to offer an explana 
 tion of what she justly says doesn t need one. If she de- 
 
 [255] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 clines to speak, it s obviously on the ground that Owen s 
 
 insinuations are absurd; and that surely pledges me to 
 
 silence." 
 
 "Yes, yes! I see," Anna repeated. "But I don t want 
 
 you to explain anything to Owen." 
 
 "You haven t yet told me what you do want." 
 
 She hesitated, conscious of the difficulty of justifying 
 
 her request ; then : "I want you to speak to Sophy," she 
 
 said. 
 
 Darrow broke into an incredulous laugh. "Consid 
 ering what my previous attempts have resulted in !" 
 
 She raised her eyes quickly. "They haven t, at least, 
 
 resulted in your liking her less, in your thinking less 
 
 well of her than you ve told me?" 
 
 She fancied he frowned a little. "I wonder why you 
 
 go back to that ?" 
 
 "I want to be sure I owe it to Owen. Won t you tell 
 
 me the exact impression she s produced on you ?" 
 "I have told you I like Miss Viner." 
 "Do you still believe she s in love with Owen?" 
 "There was nothing in our short talks to throw any 
 
 particular light on that." 
 
 "You still believe, though, that there s no reason why 
 
 he shouldn t marry her ?" 
 
 Again he betrayed a restrained impatience. "How can 
 
 I answer that without knowing her reasons for breaking 
 
 with him?" 
 
 "That s just what I want you to find out from her." 
 "And why in the world should she tell me?" 
 "Because, whatever grievance she has against Owen, 
 
 she can certainly have none against me. She can t want 
 
 [256] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 to have Owen connect me in his mind with this wretched 
 quarrel; and she must see that he will until he s con 
 vinced you ve had no share in it." 
 
 Darrow s elbow dropped from the mantel-piece and he 
 took a restless step or two across the room. Then he 
 halted before her. 
 
 "Why can t you tell her this yourself?" 
 
 "Don t you see?" 
 
 He eyed her intently, and she pressed on: "You must 
 have guessed that Owen s jealous of you." 
 
 "Jealous of me ?" The blood flew up under his brown 
 skin. 
 
 "Blind with it what else would drive him to this 
 folly? And I can t have her think me jealous too! I ve 
 said all I could, short of making her think so ; and she s 
 refused a word more to either of us. Our only chance 
 now is that she should listen to you that you should 
 make her see the harm her silence may do." 
 
 Darrow uttered a protesting exclamation. "It s all too 
 preposterous what you suggest! I can t, at any rate, 
 appeal to her on such a ground as that !" 
 
 Anna laid her hand on his arm. "Appeal to her on the 
 ground that I m almost Owen s mother, and that any 
 estrangement between you and him would kill me. She 
 knows what he is she ll understand. Tell her to say 
 anything, do anything, she wishes; but not to go away 
 without speaking, not to leave that between us when she 
 goes !" 
 
 She drew back a step and lifted her face to his, trying 
 to look into his eyes more deeply than she had ever 
 looked ; but before she could discern what they expressed 
 
 1 257 ] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 he had taken hold of her hands and bent his head to kiss 
 them. 
 
 "You ll see her ? You ll see her ?" she entreated ; and 
 he answered: "I ll do anything in the world you want 
 me to." 
 
 XXVI 
 
 D ARROW waited alone in the sitting-room. 
 No place could have been more distasteful as the 
 scene of the talk that lay before him ; but he had acceded 
 to Anna s suggestion that it would seem more natural for 
 her to summon Sophy Viner than for him to go in search 
 of her. As his troubled pacings carried him back and 
 forth a relentless hand seemed to be tearing away all the 
 tender fibres of association that bound him to the peace 
 ful room. Here, in this very place, he had drunk his 
 deepest draughts of happiness, had had his lips at the 
 fountain-head of its overflowing rivers; but now that 
 source was poisoned and he would taste no more of an 
 untainted cup. 
 
 For a moment he felt an actual physical anguish ; then 
 his nerves hardened for the coming struggle. He had 
 no notion of what awaited him; but after the first in 
 stinctive recoil he had seen in a flash the urgent need of 
 another word with Sophy Viner. He had been insincere 
 in letting Anna think that he had consented to speak 
 because she asked it. In reality he had been feverishly 
 casting about for the pretext she had given him; and 
 for some reason this trivial hypocrisy weighed on him 
 more than all his heavy burden of deceit. 
 
 [258] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 At length he heard a step behind him and Sophy Viner 
 entered. When she saw him she paused on the threshold 
 and half drew back. 
 
 "I was told that Mrs. Leath had sent for me." 
 
 "Mrs. Leath did send for you. She ll be here pres 
 ently; but I asked her to let me see you first." 
 
 He spoke very gently, and there was no insincerity in 
 his gentleness. He was profoundly moved by the change 
 in the girl s appearance. At sight of him she had forced 
 a smile; but it lit up her wretchedness like a candle- 
 flame held to a dead face. 
 
 She made no reply, and Darrow went on : "You must 
 understand my wanting to speak to you, after what I 
 was told just now." 
 
 She interposed, with a gesture of protest: I m not 
 responsible for Owen s ravings !" 
 
 "Of course ". He broke off and they stood facing 
 
 each other. She lifted a hand and pushed back her loose 
 lock with the gesture that was burnt into his memory; 
 then she looked about her and dropped into the nearest 
 chair. 
 
 "Well, you ve got what you wanted," she said. 
 
 "What do you mean by what I wanted?" 
 
 "My engagement s broken you heard me say so." 
 
 "Why do you say that s what I wanted ? All I wished, 
 from the beginning, was to advise you, to help you as 
 best I could " 
 
 "That s what youVe done," she rejoined. "You ve 
 convinced me that it s best I shouldn t marry him." 
 
 Darrow broke into a despairing laugh. "At the very 
 moment when you d convinced me to the contrary !" 
 
 [259] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 "Had I?" Her smile flickered up. "Well, I really be 
 lieved it till you showed me ... warned rne . . . " 
 
 "Warned you?" 
 
 "That I d be miserable if I married a man I didn t 
 love." 
 
 "Don t you love him?" 
 
 She made no answer, and Darrow started up and 
 walked away to the other end of the room. He stopped 
 before the writing-table, where his photograph, well- 
 dressed, handsome, self-sufficient the portrait of a man 
 of the world, confident of his ability to deal adequately 
 with the most delicate situations offered its huge fatuity 
 to his gaze. He turned back to her. "It s rather hard 
 on Owen, isn t it, that you should have waited until 
 now to tell him ?" 
 
 She reflected a moment before answering. "I told him 
 as soon as I knew." 
 
 "Knew that you couldn t marry him?" 
 
 "Knew that I could never live here with him." She 
 looked about the room, as though the very walls must 
 speak for her. 
 
 For a moment Darrow continued to search her face 
 perplexedly; then their eyes met in a long disastrous 
 gaze. 
 
 "Yes " she said, and stood up. 
 
 Below the window they heard Effie whistling for her 
 dogs, and then, from the terrace, her mother calling her. 
 
 "There that for instance," Sophy Viner said. 
 
 Darrow broke out : "It s I who ought to go !" 
 
 She kept her small pale smile. "What good would 
 that do any of us now?" 
 
 [260] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 He covered his face with his hands. "Good God !" he 
 groaned. "How could I tell?" 
 
 "You couldn t tell. We neither of us could." She 
 seemed to turn the problem over critically. "After all, 
 it might have been you instead of me !" 
 
 He took another distracted turn about the room 
 and coming back to her sat down in a chair at her 
 side. A mocking hand seemed to dash the words 
 from his lips. There was nothing on earth that he 
 could say to her that wasn t foolish or cruel or con 
 temptible . . . 
 
 "My dear," he began at last, "oughtn t you, at any 
 rate, to try?" 
 
 Her gaze grew grave. "Try to forget you ?" 
 
 He flushed to the forehead. "I meant, try to give 
 Owen more time; to give him a chance. He s madly in 
 love with you ; all the good that s in him is in your hands. 
 His step-mother felt that from the first. And she 
 thought she believed " 
 
 "She thought I could make him happy. Would she 
 think so now?" 
 
 "Now . . . ? I don t say now. But later? Time 
 modifies . . . rubs out . . . more quickly than you 
 think ... Go away, but let him hope . . . I m going 
 too -we re going " he stumbled on the plural "in a 
 very few weeks : going for a long time, probably. What 
 you re thinking of now may never happen. We may not 
 all be here together again for years." 
 
 She heard him out in silence, her hands clasped on her 
 knee, her eyes bent on them. "For me," she said, "you ll 
 always be here." 
 
THE REEF 
 
 "Don t say that oh, don t ! Things change . . . peo 
 ple change . . . You ll see!" 
 
 "You don t understand. I don t want anything to 
 change. I don t want to forget to rub out. At first 
 I imagined I did; but that was a foolish mistake. As 
 soon as I saw you again I knew it ... It s not being 
 here with you that I m afraid of in the sense you think. 
 It s being here, or anywhere, with Owen." She stood up 
 and bent her tragic smile on him. "I want to keep you 
 all to myself." 
 
 The only words that came to him were futile denuncia 
 tions of his folly; but the sense of their futility checked 
 them on his lips. "Poor child you poor child!" he 
 heard himself vainly repeating. 
 
 Suddenly he felt the strong reaction of reality and its 
 impetus brought him to his feet. "Whatever happens, I 
 intend to go to go for good," he exclaimed. "I want 
 you to understand that. Oh, don t be afraid I ll find a 
 reason. But it s perfectly clear that I must go." 
 
 She uttered a protesting cry. "Go away ? You ? Don t 
 you see that that would tell everything drag everybody 
 into the horror?" 
 
 He found no answer, and her voice dropped back to 
 its calmer note. "What good would your going do? 
 Do you suppose it would change anything for me ?" She 
 looked at him with a musing wistfulness. "I wonder 
 what your feeling for me was? It seems queer that 
 I ve never really known -I suppose we don t know much 
 about that kind of feeling. Is it like taking a drink when 
 you re thirsty? ... I used to feel as if all of me was 
 in the palm of your hand . . . " 
 
 [262 ] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 He bowed his humbled head, but she went on almost 
 exultantly: "Don t for a minute think I m sorry! It 
 was worth every penny it cost. My mistake was in 
 being ashamed, just at first, of its having cost such a lot, 
 I tried to carry it off as a joke to talk of it to myself 
 as an adventure . I d always wanted adventures, and 
 you d given me one, and I tried to take your attitude 
 about it, to play the game and convince myself that I 
 hadn t risked any more on it than you. Then, when I 
 met you again, I suddenly saw that I had risked more, 
 but that I d won more, too such worlds ! I d been try 
 ing all the while to put everything I could between us; 
 now I want to sweep everything away. I d been trying 
 to forget how you looked ; now I want to remember you 
 always. I d been trying not to hear your voice; now I 
 never want to hear any other. I ve made my choice 
 that s all : I ve had you and I mean to keep you." Her 
 face was shining like her eyes. "To keep you hidden 
 away here," she ended, and put her hand upon her 
 breast. 
 
 After she had left him, Darrow continued to sit mo 
 tionless, staring back into their past. Hitherto it had 
 lingered on the edge of his mind in a vague pink blur, 
 like one of the little rose-leaf clouds that a setting sun 
 drops from its disk. Now it was a huge looming dark 
 ness, through which his eyes vainly strained. The whole 
 episode was still obscure to him, save where here and 
 there, as they talked, some phrase or gesture or intona 
 tion of the girl s had lit up a little spot in the night. 
 
 She had said: "I wonder what your feeling for me 
 [263] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 was?" and he found himself wondering too . . . He re 
 membered distinctly enough that he had not meant the 
 perilous passion even in its most transient form to 
 play a part in their relation. In that respect his attitude 
 had been above reproach. She was an unusually original 
 and attractive creature, to whom he had wanted to give a 
 few days of harmless pleasuring, and who was alert and 
 expert enough to understand his intention and spare him 
 the boredom of hesitations and misinterpretations. That 
 had been his first impression, and her subsequent de 
 meanour had justified it. She had been, from the out 
 set, just the frank and easy comrade he had expected to 
 find her. Was it he, then, who, in the sequel, had 
 grown impatient of the bounds he had set himself ? Was 
 it his wounded vanity that, seeking balm for its hurt, 
 yearned to dip deeper into the healing pool of her com 
 passion? In his confused memory of the situation he 
 seemed not to have been guiltless of such yearnings . . . 
 Yet for the first few days the experiment had been per 
 fectly successful. Her enjoyment had been unclouded 
 and his pleasure in it undisturbed. It was very gradually 
 he seemed to see that a shade of lassitude had crept 
 over their intercourse. Perhaps it was because, when her 
 light chatter about people failed, he found she had no 
 other fund to draw on, or perhaps simply because of 
 the sweetness of her laugh, or of the charm of the ges 
 ture with which, one day in the woods of Marly, she had 
 tossed off her hat and tilted back her head at the call of a 
 cuckoo ; or because, whenever he looked at her unexpect 
 edly, he found that she was looking at him and did not 
 want him to know it ; or perhaps, in varying degrees, be- 
 
THE REEF 
 
 cause of all these things, that there had come a moment 
 when no word seemed to fly high enough or dive deep 
 enough to utter the sense of well-being each gave to the 
 other, and the natural substitute for speech had been a 
 kiss. 
 
 The kiss, at all events, had come at the precise mo 
 ment to save their venture from disaster. They had 
 reached the point when her amazing reminiscences 
 had begun to flag, when her future had been exhaus 
 tively discussed, her theatrical prospects minutely studied, 
 her quarrel with Mrs. Murrett retold with the last 
 amplification of detail, and when, perhaps conscious of 
 her exhausted resources and his dwindling interest, she 
 had committed the fatal error of saying that she could 
 see he was unhappy, and entreating him to tell her 
 why . . . 
 
 From the brink of estranging confidences, and from the 
 risk of unfavourable comparisons, his gesture had 
 snatched her back to safety ; and as soon as he had kissed 
 her he felt that she would never bore him again. She 
 was one of the elemental creatures whose emotion is all 
 in their pulses, and who become inexpressive or senti 
 mental when they try to turn sensation into speech. His 
 caress had restored her to her natural place in the scheme 
 of things, and Darrow felt as if he had clasped a tree 
 and a nymph had bloomed from it ... 
 
 The mere fact of not having to listen to her any longer 
 added immensely to her charm. She continued, of 
 course, to talk to him, but it didn t matter, because he no 
 longer made any effort to follow her words, but let her 
 voice run on as a musical undercurrent to his thoughts. 
 
 [265] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 She hadn t a drop of poetry in her, but she had some of 
 the qualities that create it in others; and in moments of 
 heat the imagination does not always feel the differ 
 ence . . . 
 
 Lying beside her in the shade, Darrow felt her pres 
 ence as a part of the charmed stillness of the summer 
 woods, as the element of vague well-being that suffused 
 his senses and lulled to sleep the ache of wounded pride. 
 All he asked of her, as yet, was a touch on the hand or 
 on the lips and that she should let him go on lying 
 there through the long warm hours, while a black-bird s 
 song throbbed like a fountain, and the summer wind 
 stirred in the trees, and close by, between the nearest 
 branches and the brim of his tilted hat, a slight white 
 figure gathered up all the floating threads of joy . . . 
 
 He recalled, too, having noticed, as he lay staring at 
 a break in the tree-tops, a stream of mares -tails coming 
 up the sky. He had said to himself: "It will rain to 
 morrow," and the thought had made the air seem 
 warmer and the sun more vivid on her hair . . . Per 
 haps if the mares -tails had not come up the sky their 
 adventure might have had no sequel. But the cloud 
 brought rain, and next morning he looked out of his 
 window into a cold grey b 1 ur. They had planned an 
 all-day excursion down the Seine, to the two Andelys 
 and Rouen, and now, with the long hours on their 
 hands, they were both a little at a loss . . . There was 
 the Louvre, of course, and the Luxembourg; but he had 
 tried looking at pictures with her, she had first so per 
 sistently admired the worst things, and then so frankly 
 lapsed into indifference, that he had no wish to repeat 
 
 [266] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 the experiment. So they went out, aimlessly, and took a 
 cold wet walk, turning at length into the deserted arcades 
 of the Palais Royal, and finally drifting into one of its 
 equally deserted restaurants, where they lunched alone 
 and somewhat dolefully, served by a wan old waiter with 
 the look of a castaway who has given up watching for a 
 sail . . . It was odd how the waiter s face came back 
 to him . . . 
 
 Perhaps but for the rain it might never have hap- 
 pened; but what was the use of thinking of that now? 
 He tried to turn his thoughts to more urgent issues ; but, 
 by a strange perversity of association, every detail of the 
 day was forcing itself on his mind with an insistence 
 from which there was no escape. Reluctantly he re 
 lived the long wet walk back to the hotel, after a tedious 
 hour at a cinematograph show on the Boulevard. It was 
 still raining when they withdrew from this stale spec 
 tacle, but she had obstinately refused to take a cab, had 
 even, on the way, insisted on loitering under the dripping 
 awnings of shop-windows and poking into draughty pas 
 sages, and finally, when they had nearly reached their 
 destination, had gone so far as to suggest that they 
 should turn back to hunt up some show she had heard 
 of in a theatre at the Batignolles. But at that he had 
 somewhat irritably protested : he remembered that, for 
 the first time, they were both rather irritable, and vaguely 
 disposed to resist one another s suggestions. His feet 
 were wet, and he was tired of walking, and sick of the 
 smell of stuffy unaired theatres, and he had said he must 
 really get back to write some letters and so they had 
 kept on to the hotel . . . 
 
 18 [ 267 ] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 XXVII 
 
 D ARROW had no idea how long he had sat there 
 when he heard Anna s hand on the door. The 
 effort of rising, and of composing his face to meet her, 
 gave him a factitious sense of self-control. He said to 
 
 himself: "I must decide on something " and that 
 
 lifted him a hair s breadth above the whirling waters. 
 
 She came in with a lighter step, and he instantly per 
 ceived that something unforeseen and reassuring had 
 happened. 
 
 "She s been with me. She came and found me on the 
 terrace. We ve had a long talk and she s explained 
 everything. I feel as if I d never known her before !" 
 
 Her voice was so moved and tender that it checked his 
 start of apprehension. 
 
 "She s explained ?" 
 
 "It s natural, isn t it, that she should have felt a little 
 sore at the kind of inspection she s been subjected to? 
 Oh, not from you I don t mean that ! But Madame de 
 Chantelle s opposition and her sending for Adelaide 
 Painter ! She told me frankly she didn t care to owe her 
 husband to Adelaide Painter . . . She thinks now that 
 her annoyance at feeling herself so talked over and scru 
 tinized may have shown itself in her manner to Owen, 
 and set him imagining the insane things he did ... I 
 understand all she must have felt, and I agree with her 
 that it s best she should go away for a while. She s 
 
 [268! 
 
THE REEF 
 
 made me," Anna summed up, "feel as if I d been dread 
 fully thick-skinned and obtuse!" 
 
 "Yes. As if I d treated her like the bric-a-brac that 
 used to be sent down here on approval/ to see if it 
 would look well with the other pieces." She added, with 
 a sudden flush of enthusiasm : "I m glad she s got it in 
 her to make one feel like that !" 
 
 She seemed to wait for Darrow to agree with her, or to 
 put some other question, and he finally found voice 
 to ask : "Then you think it s not a final break ?" * 
 
 "I hope not I ve never hoped it more ! I had a word 
 with Owen, too, after I left her, and I think he under 
 stands that he must let her go without insisting on any 
 positive promise. She s excited ... he must let her 
 calm down . . . " 
 
 Again she waited, and Darrow said: "Surely you 
 can make him see that." 
 
 "She ll help me to she s to see him, of course, before 
 she goes. She starts immediately, by the way, with Ade 
 laide Painter, who is motoring over to Francheuil to 
 catch the one o clock express and who, of course, 
 knows nothing of all this, and is simply to be told that 
 Sophy has been sent for by the Farlows." 
 
 Darrow mutely signed his comprehension, and she went 
 on : "Owen is particularly anxious that neither Adelaide 
 nor his grandmother should have the least inkling of 
 what s happened. The need of shielding Sophy will help 
 him to control himself. He s coming to his senses, poor 
 boy ; he s ashamed of his wild talk already. He asked me 
 to tell you so ; no doubt he ll tell you so himself." 
 
 [269] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 Darrow made a movement of protest. "Oh, as to that 
 the thing s not worth another word." 
 
 "Or another thought, either?" She brightened. 
 "Promise me you won t even think of it promise me 
 you won t be hard on him !" 
 
 He was finding it easier to smile back at her. "Why 
 should you think it necessary to ask my indulgence for 
 Owen?" 
 
 She hesitated a moment, her eyes wandering from 
 him. Then they came back with a smile. "Perhaps be 
 cause I need it for myself." 
 
 "For yourself?" 
 
 "I mean, because I understand better how one can tor 
 ture one s self over unrealities." 
 
 As Darrow listened, the tension of his nerves began to 
 relax. Her gaze, so grave and yet so sweet, was like a 
 deep pool into which he could plunge and hide himself 
 from the hard glare of his misery. As this ecstatic sense 
 enveloped him he found it more and more difficult to fol 
 low her words and to frame an answer; but what did 
 anything matter, except that her voice should go on, 
 and the syllables fall like soft touches on his tortured 
 brain ? 
 
 "Don t you know," she continued, "the bliss of waking 
 from a bad dream in one s own quiet room, and going 
 slowly over all the horror without being afraid of it any 
 more? That s what I m doing now. And that s why I 
 understand Owen ..." She broke off, and he felt her 
 touch on his arm. "Because I d dreamed the horror 
 too!" 
 
 He understood her then, and stammered : "You ?" 
 [270] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 "Forgive me ! And let me tell you ! . . . It will help 
 you to understand Owen . . . There were little things 
 . . . little signs . . . once I had begun to watch for 
 them: your reluctance to speak about her . . . her re 
 serve with you ... a sort of constraint we d never seen 
 in her before ..." /* 
 
 She laughed up at him, and with her hands in his he 
 contrived to say: "Now you understand why ?" 
 
 "Oh, I understand; of course I understand; and I want 
 you to laugh at me with me ! Because there were other 
 things too . . . crazier things still . . . There was 
 even last night on the terrace her pink cloak ..." 
 
 "Her pink cloak?" Now he honestly wondered, and 
 as she saw it she blushed. 
 
 "You ve forgotten about the cloak? The pink cloak 
 that Owen saw you with at the play in Paris? Yes 
 . . . yes ... I was mad enough for that! ... It does 
 me good to laugh about it now ! But you ought to know 
 that I m going to be a jealous woman ... a ridiculously 
 jealous woman . . . you ought to be warned of it in 
 time ..." 
 
 He had dropped her hands, and she leaned close and 
 lifted her arms to his neck with one of her rare gestures 
 of surrender. 
 
 "I don t know why it is; but it makes me happier 
 now to have been so foolish !" 
 
 Her lips were parted in a noiseless laugh and the 
 tremor of her lashes made their shadow move on her 
 cheek. He looked at her through a mist of pain and saw 
 all her offered beauty held up like a cup to his lips ; but 
 as he stooped to it a darkness seemed to fall between 
 
 [ 2 7 r ] 
 
 \ 
 
THE REEF 
 
 them, her arms slipped from his shoulders and she drew 
 away from him abruptly. 
 
 "But she was with you, then ?" she exclaimed ; and 
 then, as he stared at her: "Oh, don t say no! Only go 
 and look at your eyes !" 
 
 He stood speechless, and she pressed on : "Don t deny 
 it oh, don t deny it! What will be left for me to 
 imagine if you do? Don t you see how every single 
 thing cries it out? Owen sees it he saw it again just 
 now ! When I told him she d relented, and would see 
 him, he said : Is that Darrow s doing too ? " 
 
 Darrow took the onslaught in silence. He might have 
 spoken, have summoned up the usual phrases of banter 
 and denial ; he was not even certain that they might not, 
 for the moment, have served their purpose if he could 
 have uttered them without being seen. But he was as 
 conscious of what had happened to his face as if he had 
 obeyed Anna s bidding and looked at himself in the glass. 
 He knew he could no more hide from her what was writ 
 ten there than he could efface from his soul the fiery 
 record of what he had just lived through. There before, 
 him, staring him in the eyes, and reflecting itself in all 
 his lineaments, was the overwhelming fact of Sophy 
 Viner s passion and of the act by which she had attested 
 it. 
 
 Anna was talking again, hurriedly, feverishly, and his 
 soul was wrung by the anguish in her voice. "Do speak 
 at last you must speak! I don t want to ask you to 
 harm the girl; but you must see that your silence is do 
 ing her more harm than your answering my questions 
 could. You re leaving me only the worst things to think 
 
 [272] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 of her . . . she d see that herself if she were here. 
 What worse injury can you do her than to make me hate 
 her to make me feel she s plotted with you to de 
 ceive us?" 
 
 "Oh, not that!" Darrow heard his own voice before 
 he was aware that he meant to speak. "Yes ; I did see her 
 in Paris," he went on after a pause ; "but I was bound to 
 respect her reason for not wanting it known." 
 Anna paled. "It was she at the theatre that night ?" 
 "I was with her at the theatre one night." 
 "Why should she have asked you not to say so ?" 
 "She didn t wish it known that I d met her." 
 "Why shouldn t she have wished it known ?" 
 "She had quarrelled with Mrs. Murrett and come over 
 suddenly to Paris, and she didn t want the Farlows to 
 hear of it. I came across her by accident, and she asked 
 me not to speak of having seen her." 
 
 "Because of her quarrel ? Because she was ashamed of 
 her part in it?" 
 
 "Oh, no. There was nothing for her to be ashamed 
 of. But the Farlows had found the place for her, and 
 she didn t want them to know how suddenly she d had 
 to leave, and how badly Mrs. Murrett had behaved. 
 She was in a terrible plight the woman had even kept 
 back her month s salary. She knew the Farlows would 
 be awfully upset, and she wanted more time to prepare 
 them." 
 
 Darrow heard himself speak as though the words had 
 proceeded from other lips. His explanation sounded 
 plausible enough, and he half-fancied Anna s look grew 
 lighter. She waited a moment, as though to be sure 
 
 [273] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 he had no more to add ; then she said : "But the Farlows 
 did know; they told me all about it when they sent her 
 to me." 
 
 He flushed as if she had laid a deliberate trap for him. 
 "They may know nozv; they didn t then " 
 
 "That s no reason for her continuing now to make a 
 mystery of having met you." 
 
 "It s the only reason I can give you." 
 
 "Then I ll go and ask her for one myself." She turned 
 and took a few steps toward the door. 
 
 "Anna!" He started to follow her, and then checked 
 himself. "Don t do that !" 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "It s not like you . . . not generous . . . " 
 
 She stood before him straight and pale, but under her 
 rigid face he saw the tumult of her doubt and misery. 
 
 "I don t want to be ungenerous; I don t want to pry 
 into her secrets. But things can t be left like this. 
 Wouldn t it be better for me to go to her ? Surely she ll 
 understand she ll explain ... It may be some mere 
 trifle she s concealing: something that would horrify the 
 Farlows, but that I shouldn t see any harm in ..." 
 She paused, her eyes searching his face. "A love affair, 
 I suppose . . . that s it ? You met her with some man at 
 the theatre and she was frightened and begged you to 
 fib about it? Those poor young things that have to go 
 about among us like machines oh, if you knew how I 
 pity them!" 
 
 "If you pity her, why not let her go?" 
 
 She stared. "Let her go go for good, you mean ? Is 
 that the best you can say for her ?" 
 
 [274] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 "Let things take their course. After all, it s between 
 herself and Owen." 
 
 "And you and me and Effie, if Owen marries her, 
 and I leave my child with them ! Don t you see the im 
 possibility of what you re asking? We re all bound to 
 gether in this coil." 
 
 Darrow turned away with a groan. "Oh, let her go 
 let her go." 
 
 "Then there is something something really bad ? She 
 was with some one when you met her? Some one with 
 
 whom she was " She broke off, and he saw her 
 
 struggling with new thoughts. "If it s that, of course 
 . . . Oh, don t you see," she desperately appealed to him, 
 "that I must find out, and that it s too late now for you 
 not to speak? Don t be afraid that I ll betray you . . . 
 I ll never, never let a soul suspect. But I must know the 
 truth, and surely it s best for her that I should find it 
 out from you." 
 
 Darrow waited a moment ; then he said slowly : "What 
 you imagine s mere madness. She was at the theatre 
 with me." 
 
 "With you ?" He saw a tremor pass through her, but 
 she controlled it instantly and faced him straight and mo 
 tionless as a wounded creature in the moment before it 
 feels its wound. "Why should you both have made a 
 mystery of that?" 
 
 "I ve told you the idea was not mine." He cast about. 
 "She may have been afraid that Owen " 
 
 "But that was not a reason for her asking you to tell 
 me that you hardly knew her that you hadn t even seen 
 her for years." She broke off and the blood rose to 
 
 [275] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 her face and forehead. "Even if she had other reasons, 
 there could be only one reason for your obeying 
 her " 
 
 Silence fell between them, a silence in which the room 
 seemed to become suddenly resonant with voices. Dar- 
 row s gaze wandered to the window and he noticed that 
 the gale of two days before had nearly stripped the tops 
 of the lime-trees in the court. Anna had moved away 
 and was resting her elbows against the mantel-piece, her 
 head in her hands. As she stood there he took in with 
 a new intensity of vision little details of her appearance 
 that his eyes had often cherished : the branching blue 
 veins in the backs of her hands, the warm shadow that 
 her hair cast on her ear, and the colour of the hair itself, 
 dull black with a tawny under-surface, like the wings of 
 certain birds. He felt it to be useless to speak. 
 
 After a while she lifted her head and said : "I shall not 
 see her again before she goes." 
 
 He made no answer, and turning to him she added: 
 "That is why she s going, I suppose? Because she loves 
 you and won t give you up?" 
 
 Darrow waited. The paltriness of conventional denial 
 was so apparent to him that even if it could have de 
 layed discovery he could no longer have resorted to it. 
 Under all his other fears was the dread of dishonouring 
 the hour. 
 
 "She has given me up," he said at last. 
 
THE REEF 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 WHEN he had gone out of the room Anna stood 
 where he had left her. I must believe him! I 
 must believe him!" she said. 
 
 / A moment before, at the moment when she had lifted 
 her arms to his neck, she had been wrapped in a sense 
 of complete security. All the spirits of doubt had been 
 exorcised, and her love was once more the clear habita 
 tion in which every thought and feeling could move in 
 blissful freedom. And then, as she raised her face to 
 Darrow s and met his eyes, she had seemed to look into 
 the very ruins of his soul. That was the only way she 
 could express it. It was as though he and she had been 
 looking at two sides of the same thing, and the side she 
 had seen had been all light and life, and his a place of 
 graves . . . 
 
 She didn t now recall who had spoken first, or even, 
 very clearly, what had been said. It seemed to her only 
 a moment later that she had found herself standing at 
 the other end of the room the room which had suddenly 
 grown so small that, even with its length between them, 
 she felt as if he touched her crying out to him "It is 
 because of you she s going !" and reading the avowal in 
 his face. 
 
 That was his secret, then, their secret : he had met the 
 girl in Paris and helped her in her straits lent her 
 money, Anna vaguely conjectured and she had fallen in 
 love with him, and on meeting him again had been sud 
 denly overmastered by her passion. Anna, dropping back 
 
 [277] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 into her sofa-corner, sat staring these facts in the face. 
 
 The girl had been in a desperate plight frightened, 
 penniless, outraged by what had happened, and not know 
 ing (with a woman like Mrs. Murrett) what fresh in 
 jury might impend; and Darrow, meeting her in this 
 distracted hour, had pitied, counselled, been kind to her, 
 with the fatal, the inevitable result. There were the facts 
 as Anna made them out : that, at least, was their external 
 aspect, was as much of them as she had been suffered to 
 see; and into the secret intricacies they might cover she 
 dared not yet project her thoughts. 
 
 "I must believe him ... I must believe him ..." 
 She kept on repeating the words like a talisman. It was 
 natural, after all, that he should have behaved as he 
 had: defended the girl s piteous secret to the last. She 
 too began to feel the contagion of his pity the stir, in 
 her breast, of feelings deeper and more native to her 
 than the pains of jealousy. From the security of her 
 blessedness she longed to lean over with compassionate 
 hands . . . But Owen? What was Owen s part to be? 
 She owed herself first to him she was bound to pro 
 tect him not only from all knowledge of the secret she 
 had surprised, but also and chiefly! from its conse 
 quences. Yes : the girl must go there could be no doubt 
 of it Darrow himself had seen it from the first; and 
 at the thought she had a wild revulsion of relief, as 
 though she had been trying to create in her heart the 
 delusion of a generosity she could not feel . . . 
 
 The one fact on which she could stay her mind was that 
 Sophy was leaving immediately; would be out of the 
 house within an hour. Once she was gone, it would be 
 
 [ 2/8 ] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 easier to bring Owen to the point of understanding that 
 the break was final ; if necessary, to work upon the girl to 
 make him see it. But that, Anna was sure, would not be 
 necessary. It was clear that Sophy Viner was leaving 
 Givre with no thought of ever seeing it again . . . 
 
 Suddenly, as she tried to put some order in her 
 thoughts, she heard Owen s call at the door: "Mother! 
 
 " a name he seldom gave her. There was a new 
 
 note in his voice: the note of a joyous impatience. It 
 made her turn hastily to the glass to see what face she 
 was about to show him; but before she had had time to 
 compose it he was in the room and she was caught fa a 
 school-boy hug. 
 
 "It s all right ! It s all right ! And it s all your doing ! 
 I want to do the worst kind of penance bell and candle 
 and the rest. I ve been through it with her, and now she 
 hands me on to you, and you re to call me any names you 
 please." He freed her with his happy laugh. "I m to 
 be stood in the corner till next week, and then I m to go 
 up to see her. And she says I owe it all to you !" 
 
 "To me?" It was the first phrase she found to clutch 
 at as she tried to steady herself in the eddies of his joy. 
 
 "Yes : you were so patient, and so dear to her ; and you 
 saw at once what a damned ass I d been !" She tried a 
 smile, and it seemed to pass muster with him, for he sent 
 it back in a broad beam. "That s not so difficult to see ? 
 No, I admit it doesn t take a microscope. But you were 
 so wise and wonderful you always are. I ve been mad 
 these last days, simply mad you and she might well have 
 washed your hands of me ! And instead, it s all right 
 all right!" 
 
 [279] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 She drew back a little, trying to keep the smile on her 
 lips and not let him get the least glimpse of what it hid. 
 Now if ever, indeed, it behoved her to be wise and won 
 derful! 
 
 "I m so glad, dear ; so glad. If only you ll always feel 
 like that about me ..." She stopped, hardly knowing 
 what she said, and aghast at the idea that her own hands 
 should have retied the knot she imagined to be broken. 
 But she saw he had something more to say; something 
 hard to get out, but absolutely necessary to express. He 
 caught her hands, pulled her close, and, with his forehead 
 drawn into its whimsical smiling wrinkles, "Look here," 
 he cried, "if Darrow wants to call me a damned ass too 
 you re not to stop him !" 
 
 It brought her back to a sharper sense of her central 
 peril : of the secret to be kept from him at whatever cost 
 to her racked nerves. 
 
 "Oh, you know, he doesn t always wait for orders!" 
 On the whole it sounded better than she d feared. 
 
 "You mean he s called me one already ?" He accepted 
 the fact with his gayest laugh. "Well, that saves a 
 lot of trouble; now we can pass to the order of the 
 
 day " he broke off and glanced at the clock "which 
 
 is, you know, dear, that she s starting in about an hour ; 
 she and Adelaide must already be snatching a hasty sand 
 wich. You ll come down to bid them good-bye?" 
 
 "Yes of course." 
 
 There had, in fact, grown upon her while he spoke the 
 urgency of seeing Sophy Viner again before she left. 
 The thought was deeply distasteful: Anna shrank from 
 encountering the girl till she had cleared a way through 
 
 [280! 
 
THE REEF 
 
 her own perplexities. But it was obvious that since they 
 had separated, barely an hour earlier, the situation had 
 taken a new shape. Sophy Viner had apparently recon 
 sidered her decision to break amicably but definitely with 
 Owen, and stood again in their path, a menace and a mys 
 tery; and confused impulses of resistance stirred in 
 Anna s mind. 
 
 She felt Owen s touch on her arm. "Are you coming ?" 
 
 "Yes . . . yes . . . presently." 
 
 "What s the matter? You look so strange." 
 
 "What do you mean by strange ?" 
 
 "I don t know: startled surprised " She read 
 
 what her look must be by its sudden reflection in his face. 
 
 "Do I ? No wonder ! You ve given us all an exciting 
 morning." 
 
 He held to his point. "You re more excited now that 
 there s no cause for it. What on earth has happened 
 since I saw you ?" 
 
 He looked about the room, as if seeking the clue to 
 her agitation, and in her dread of what he might guess 
 she answered: "What has happened is simply that I m 
 rather tired. Will you ask Sophy to come up and see 
 me here?" 
 
 While she waited she tried to think what she should 
 say when the girl appeared ; but she had never been more 
 conscious of her inability to deal with the oblique and 
 the tortuous. She had lacked the hard teachings of 
 experience, and an instinctive disdain for whatever was 
 less clear and open than her own conscience had kept her 
 from learning anything of the intricacies and contradic- 
 
 [281] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 tions of other hearts. She said to herself: "I must 
 
 find out " yet everything in her recoiled from the 
 
 means by which she felt it must be done . . . 
 
 Sophy Viner appeared almost immediately, dressed for 
 departure, her little bag on her arm. She was still pale 
 to the point of haggardness, but with a light upon her 
 that struck Anna with surprise. Or was it, perhaps, that 
 she was looking at the girl with new eyes: seeing her, 
 for the first time, not as Effie s governess, not as Owen s 
 bride, but as the embodiment of that unknown peril lurk 
 ing in the background of every woman s thoughts about 
 her lover ? Anna, at any rate, with a sudden sense of es 
 trangement, noted in her graces and snares never before 
 perceived. It was only the flash of a primitive instinct, 
 but it lasted long enough to make her ashamed of the 
 darknesses it lit up in her heart . . . 
 
 She signed to Sophy to sit down on the sofa beside 
 her. "I asked you to come up to me because I wanted 
 to say good-bye quietly/ she explained, feeling her lips 
 tremble, but trying to speak in a tone of friendly natural 
 ness. 
 
 The girl s only answer was a faint smile of acquies 
 cence, and Anna, disconcerted by her silence, went on: 
 You ve decided, then, not to break your engagement?" 
 
 Sophy Viner raised her head with a look of surprise. 
 Evidently the question, thus abruptly put, must have 
 sounded strangely on the lips of so ardent a partisan as 
 Mrs. Leath ! "I thought that was what you wished," she 
 said. 
 
 "What I wished ?" Anna s heart shook against her side. 
 "I wish, of course, whatever seems best for Owen . . . 
 
 [282] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 It s natural, you must understand, that that considera 
 tion should come first with me ..." 
 
 Sophy was looking at her steadily. "I supposed it was 
 the only one that counted with you." 
 
 The curtness of retort roused Anna s latent antag 
 onism. "It is," she said, in a hard voice that startled 
 her as she heard it. Had she ever spoken so to any one 
 before? She felt frightened, as though her very nature 
 had changed without her knowing it ... Feeling the 
 girl s astonished gaze still on her, she continued : "The 
 suddenness of the change has naturally surprised me. 
 When I left you it was understood that you were to re^- 
 serve your decision " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And now ?" Anna waited for a reply that did 
 
 not come. She did not understand the girl s attitude, the 
 edge of irony in her short syllables, the plainly premedi 
 tated determination to lay the burden of proof on her 
 interlocutor. Anna felt the sudden need to lift their in 
 tercourse above this mean level of defiance and distrust 
 She looked appealingly at Sophy. 
 
 "Isn t it best that we should speak quite frankly ? It s 
 this change on your part that perplexes me. You can 
 hardly be surprised at that. It s true, I asked you not to 
 break with Owen too abruptly and I asked it, believe 
 me, as much for your sake as for his : I wanted you to 
 take time to think over the difficulty that seems to have 
 arisen between you. The fact that you felt it required 
 thinking over seemed to show you wouldn t take the 
 final step lightly wouldn t, I mean, accept of Owen 
 more than you could give him. But your change of mind 
 19 [ 283 ] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 obliges me to ask the question I thought you would 
 have asked yourself. Is there any reason why you 
 shouldn t marry Owen ?" 
 
 She stopped a little breathlessly, her eyes on Sophy 
 
 Viner s burning face. "Any reason ? What do you 
 
 mean by a reason ?" 
 
 Anna continued to look at her gravely. "Do you love 
 some one else?" she asked. 
 
 Sophy s first look was one of wonder and a faint re 
 lief; then she gave back the other s scrutiny in a glance 
 of indescribable reproach. "Ah, you might have waited !" 
 she exclaimed. 
 
 "Waited ?" 
 
 "Till I d gone : till I was out of the house. You might 
 have known . . . you might have guessed ..." She 
 turned her eyes again on Anna. "I only meant to let 
 him hope a little longer, so that he shouldn t suspect any 
 thing; of course I can t marry him," she said. 
 
 Anna stood motionless, silenced by the shock of the 
 avowal. She too was trembling, less with anger than 
 with a confused compassion. But the feeling was so blent 
 with others, less generous and more obscure, that she 
 found no words to express it, and the two women faced 
 each other without speaking. 
 
 "I d better go," Sophy murmured at length with low 
 ered head. 
 
 The words roused in Anna a latent impulse of com 
 punction. The girl looked so young, so exposed and 
 desolate ! And what thoughts must she be hiding in her 
 heart! It was impossible that they should part in such 
 a spirit. 
 
 [284] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 "I want you to know that no one said anything ... It 
 was I who ..." 
 
 Sophy looked at her. "You mean that Mr. Darrow 
 didn t tell you ? Of course not : do you suppose I thought 
 he did ? You found it out, that s all I knew you would. 
 In your place I should have guessed it sooner." 
 
 The words were spoken simply, without irony or em 
 phasis ; but they went through Anna like a sword. Yes, 
 the girl would have had divinations, promptings that 
 she had not had ! She felt half envious of such a sad pre 
 cocity of wisdom. 
 
 "I m so sorry ... so sorry ..." she murmured. 
 
 "Things happen that way. Now I d better go. I d 
 like to say good-bye to Effie." 
 
 "Oh " it broke in a cry from Effie s mother. "Not 
 
 like this you mustn t! I feel you make me feel too 
 horribly : as if I were driving you away ..." The words 
 had rushed up from the depths of her bewildered pity. 
 
 "No one is driving me away : I had to go," she heard 
 the girl reply. 
 
 There was another silence, during which passionate im 
 pulses of magnanimity warred in Anna with her doubts 
 and dreads. At length, her eyes on Sophy s face : "Yes, 
 you must go now," she began ; "but later on ... after 
 a while, when all this is over ... if there s no reason 
 
 why you shouldn t marry Owen " she paused a 
 
 moment on the words "I shouldn t want you to think 
 I stood between you ..." 
 
 "You?" Sophy flushed again, and then grew pale. 
 She seemed to try to speak, but no words came. 
 
 "Yes ! It was not true when I said just now that I was 
 [285] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 thinking only of Owen. I m sorry oh, so sorry ! for 
 you too. Your life I know how hard it s been; and 
 mine . . . mine s so full . . . Happy women under 
 stand best!" Anna drew near and touched the girl s 
 hand; then she began again, pouring all her soul into 
 the broken phrases: "It s terrible now . . . you see 
 no future; but if, by and bye . . . you know best . . . 
 but you re so young . . . and at your age things do pass. 
 If there s no reason, no real reason, why you shouldn t 
 marry Owen, I want him to hope, I ll help him to hope 
 ... if you say so . . . " 
 
 With the urgency of her pleading her clasp tightened 
 on Sophy s hand, but it warmed to no responsive tremor : 
 the girl seemed numb, and Anna was frightened by the 
 stony silence of her look. "I suppose I m not more 
 than half a woman," she mused, "for I don t want my 
 happiness to hurt her;" and aloud she repeated: "If 
 only you ll tell me there s no reason " 
 
 The girl did not speak ; but suddenly, like a snapped 
 branch, she bent, stooped down to the hand that clasped 
 her, and laid her lips upon it in a stream of weeping. She 
 cried silently, continuously, abundantly, as though Anna s 
 touch had released the waters of some deep spring of 
 pain ; then, as Anna, moved and half afraid, leaned over 
 her with a sound of pity, she stood up and turned 
 away. 
 
 "You re going, then for good like this?" Anna 
 moved toward her and stopped. Sophy stopped too, with 
 eyes that shrank from her. 
 
 "Oh " Anna cried, and hid her face. 
 
 The girl walked across the room and paused again 
 [286] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 in the doorway. From there she flung back : "I wanted 
 it I chose it. He was good to me no one ever was 
 so good !" 
 The door-handle turned, and Anna heard her go. 
 
 H 
 
 XXIX 
 
 ER first thought was : "He s going too in a few 
 hours I needn t see him again before he 
 leaves ..." At that moment the possibility of having 
 to look in Darrow s face and hear him speak seemed to 
 her more unendurable than anything else she could im 
 agine. Then, on the next wave of feeling, came the de 
 sire to confront him at once and wring from him she 
 knew not what : avowal, denial, justification, anything that 
 should open some channel of escape to the flood of her 
 pent-up anguish. 
 
 She had told Owen she was tired, and this seemed 
 a sufficient reason for remaining upstairs when the motor 
 came to the door and Miss Painter and Sophy Viner were 
 borne off in it; sufficient also for sending word to 
 Madame de Chantelle that she would not come down till 
 after luncheon. Having despatched her maid with this 
 message, she lay down on her sofa and stared before her 
 into darkness . . . 
 
 She had been unhappy before, and the vision of old 
 miseries flocked like hungry ghosts about her fresh pain : 
 she recalled her youthful disappointment, the failure of 
 her marriage, the wasted years that followed ; but those 
 were negative sorrows, denials and postponements of 
 
 [287] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 life. She seemed in no way related to their shadowy 
 victim, she who was stretched on this fiery rack of the 
 irreparable. She had suffered before yes, but lucidly, 
 reflectively, elegiacally : now she was suffering as a hurt 
 animal must, blindly, furiously, with the single fierce ani 
 mal longing that the awful pain should stop . . . 
 
 She heard her maid knock, and she hid her face and 
 made no answer. The knocking continued, and the dis 
 cipline of habit at length made her lift, her head, com 
 pose he*r face and hold out her hand to the note the 
 woman brought her. It was a word from Darrow 
 "May I see you?" and she said at once, in a voice that 
 sounded thin and empty : "Ask Mr. Darrow to come up." 
 
 The maid enquired if she wished to have her hair 
 smoothed first, and she answered that it didn t matter; 
 but when the door had closed, the instinct of pride drew 
 her to her feet and she looked at herself in the glass 
 above the mantelpiece and passed her hands over her 
 hair. Her eyes were burning and her face looked tired 
 and thinner; otherwise she could see no change in her 
 appearance, and she wondered that at such a moment her 
 body should seem as unrelated to the self that writhed 
 within her as if it had been a statue or a picture. 
 
 The maid reopened the door to show in Darrow, and 
 he paused a moment on the threshold, as if waiting for 
 Anna to speak. He was extremely pale, but he looked 
 neither ashamed nor uncertain, and she said to herself," 
 with a perverse thrill of appreciation : "He s as proud 
 as I am." 
 
 Aloud she asked : "You wanted to see me ?" 
 
 "Naturally," he replied in a grave voice. 
 
 [288] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 "Don t! It s useless. I know everything. Nothing 
 you can say will help." 
 
 At the direct affirmation he turned even paler, and his 
 eyes, which he kept resolutely fixed on her, confessed 
 his misery. 
 
 "You allow me no voice in deciding that ?" 
 
 "Deciding what ?" 
 
 "That there s nothing more to be said?" He waited 
 for Ler to answer, and then went on : "I don t even know 
 what you mean by everything ." 
 
 "Oh, I don t know what more there is ! I know 
 enough. I implored her to deny it, and she couldn t . . . 
 What can you and I have to say to each other?" Her 
 voice broke into a sob. The animal anguish was upon her 
 again just a blind cry against her pain ! 
 
 Darrow kept his head high and his eyes steady. "It 
 must be as you wish; and yet it s not like you to be 
 afraid." 
 
 "Afraid?" 
 
 "To talk things out to face them." 
 
 "It s for you to face this not me !" 
 
 "All I ask is to face it but with you." Once more he 
 paused. "Won t you tell me what Miss Viner told you ?" 
 
 "Oh, she s generous to the utmost!" The pain 
 caught her like a physical throe. It suddenly came to 
 her how the girl must have loved him to be so generous 
 what memories there must be between them ! 
 
 "Oh, go, please go. It s too horrible! Why should 
 I have to see you?" she stammered, lifting her hands 
 to her eyes. 
 
 With her face hidden she waited to hear him move 
 
 [289] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 away, to hear the door open and close again, as, a few 
 hours earlier, it had opened and closed on Sophy Viner. 
 But Darrow made no sound or movement: he too was 
 waiting. Anna felt a thrill of resentment : his presence 
 was an outrage on her sorrow, a humiliation to her pride. 
 It was strange that he should wait for her to tell him so ! 
 
 "You want me to leave Givre?" he asked at length. 
 She made no answer, and he went on : "Of course I ll 
 do as you wish; but if I go now am I not to see you 
 again ?" 
 
 His voice was firm : his pride was answering her pride ! 
 
 She faltered: "You must see it s useless " 
 
 "I might remind you that you re dismissing me without 
 a hearing " 
 
 "Without a hearing? I ve heard you both !" 
 
 "but I won t/ he continued, "remind you of that, 
 
 or of anything or any one but Owen." 
 
 -Owen ?" 
 
 "Yes ; if we could somehow spare him " 
 
 She had dropped her hands and turned her startled 
 eyes on him. It seemed to her an age since she had 
 thought of Owen ! 
 
 "You see, don t you," Darrow continued, "that if you 
 send me away now " 
 
 She interrupted : "Yes, I see " and there was a 
 
 long silence between them. At length she said, very 
 low : "I don t want any one else to suffer as I m suffer 
 ing ..." 
 
 "Owen knows I meant to leave tomorrow," Darrow 
 went on. "Any sudden change of plan may make him 
 think ..." 
 
 [290] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 Oh, she saw his inevitable logic: the horror of it 
 was on every side of her! It had seemed possible to 
 control her grief and face Darrow calmly while she was 
 upheld by the belief that this was their last hour together, 
 that after he had passed out of the room there would be 
 no fear of seeing him again, no fear that his nearness, his 
 look, his voice, and all the unseen influences that flowed 
 from him, would dissolve her soul to weakness. But her 
 courage failed at the idea of having to conspire with him 
 to shield Owen, of keeping up with him, for Owen s sake, 
 a feint of union and felicity. To live at Darrow s side 
 in seeming intimacy and harmony for another twenty- 
 four hours seemed harder than to live without him for all 
 the rest of her days. Her strength failed her, and she 
 threw herself down and buried her sobs in the cushions 
 where she had so often hidden a face aglow with happi 
 ness. 
 
 "Anna " His voice was close to her. "Let me talk 
 
 to you quietly. It s not worthy of either of us to be 
 afraid." 
 
 Words of endearment would have offended her; but 
 her heart rose at the call to her courage. 
 
 "I ve no defense to make," he went on. "The facts are 
 miserable enough ; but at least I want you to see them as 
 they are. Above all, I want you to know the truth about 
 Miss Viner " 
 
 The name sent the blood to Anna s forehead. She 
 raised her head and faced him. "Why should I know 
 more of her than what she s told me? I never wish to 
 hear her name again !" 
 
 "It s because you feel about her in that way that I ask 
 [291] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 you in the name of common charity to let me give 
 you the facts as they are, and not as you ve probably 
 imagined them." 
 
 "I ve told you I don t think uncharitably of her. I 
 don t want to think of her at all !" 
 
 "That s why I tell you you re afraid." 
 
 "Afraid?" 
 
 "Yes. You ve always said you wanted, above all, to 
 look at life, at the human problem, as it is, without fear 
 and without hypocrisy; and it s not always a pleasant 
 thing to look at." He broke off, and then began again : 
 "Don t think this a plea for myself! I don t want to 
 say a word to lessen my offense. I don t want to talk 
 of myself at all. Even if I did, I probably couldn t make 
 you understand I don t, myself, as I look back. Be just 
 to me it s your right; all I ask you is to be generous 
 to Miss Viner ..." 
 
 She stood up trembling. "You re free to be as gener 
 ous to her as you please !" 
 
 "Yes : you ve made it clear to me that I m free. But 
 there s nothing I can do for her that will help her half 
 as much as your understanding her would." 
 
 Nothing you can do for her? You can marry her!" 
 
 His face hardened. "You certainly couldn t wish her 
 a worse fate f 
 
 "It must have been what she expected . . . relied 
 on ... " He was silent, and she broke out : "Or what is 
 she ? What are you ? It s too horrible ! On your way 
 here . . . to me . . . " She felt the tears in her throat 
 and stopped. 
 
 "That was it," he said bluntly. She stared at him. 
 [292] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 "I was on my way to you after repeated delays and 
 postponements of your own making. At the very last 
 you turned me back with a mere word and without ex 
 planation. I waited for a letter; and none came. I m 
 not saying this to justify myself. I m simply trying to 
 make you understand. I felt hurt and bitter and bewil 
 dered. I thought you meant to give me up. And sud 
 denly, in my way, I found some one to be sorry for, to be 
 of use to. That, I swear to you, was the way it began. 
 The rest was a moment s folly ... a flash of mad 
 ness ... as such things are. We ve never seen each 
 other since ..." 
 
 Anna was looking at him coldly. "You sufficiently 
 describe her in saying that !" 
 
 "Yes, if you measure her by conventional standards 
 which is what you always declare you never do." 
 
 "Conventional standards? A girl who " She was 
 
 checked by a sudden rush of almost physical repugnance. 
 Suddenly she broke out : "I always thought her an ad 
 venturess !" 
 
 "Always?" 
 
 "I don t mean always ... but after you came ..." 
 
 "She s not an adventuress." 
 
 "You mean that she professes to act on the new theo 
 ries? The stuff that awful women rave about on plat 
 forms?" 
 
 "Oh, I don t think she pretended to have a theory " 
 
 "She hadn t even that excuse?" 
 
 "She had the excuse of her loneliness, her unhappiness 
 of miseries and humiliations that a woman like you 
 can t even guess. She had nothing to look back to but 
 
 [293] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 indifference or unkindness nothing to look forward to 
 but anxiety. She saw I was sorry for her and it touched 
 her. She made too much of it she exaggerated it. I 
 ought to have seen the danger, but I didn t. There s no 
 possible excuse for what I did." 
 
 Anna listened to him in speechless misery. Every 
 word he spoke threw back a disintegrating light on their 
 own past. He had come to her with an open face and 
 a clear conscience come to her from this! If his se 
 curity was the security of falsehood it was horrible; if 
 it meant that he had forgotten, it was worse. She would 
 have liked to stop her ears, to close her eyes, to shut out 
 every sight and sound and suggestion of a world in which 
 such things could be; and at the same time she was tor 
 mented by the desire to know more, to understand better, 
 to feel herself less ignorant and inexpert in matters which 
 made so much of the stuff of human experience. What 
 did he mean by "a moment s folly, a flash of madness"? 
 How did people enter on such adventures, how pass out of 
 them without more visible traces of their havoc? Her 
 imagination recoiled from the vision of a sudden debas 
 ing familiarity : it seemed to her that her thoughts would 
 never again be pure . . . 
 
 "I swear to you," she heard Darrow saying, "it was 
 simply that, and nothing more." 
 
 She wondered at his composure, his competence, at his 
 knowing so exactly what to say. No doubt men often had 
 to make such explanations : they had the formulas by 
 heart ... A leaden lassitude descended on her. She 
 passed from flame and torment into a colourless cold 
 world where everything surrounding her seemed equally 
 
 [294] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 indifferent and remote. For a moment she simply ceased 
 to feel. 
 
 She became aware that Darrow was waiting for her 
 to speak, and she made an effort to represent to herself 
 the meaning of what he had just said; but her mind was 
 as blank as a blurred mirror. Finally she brought out: 
 "I don t think I understand what you ve told me." 
 
 "No; you don t understand," he returned with sudden 
 bitterness; and on his lips the charge of incomprehension 
 seemed an offense to her. 
 
 "I don t want to about such things !" 
 
 He answered almost harshly: "Don t be afraid . . . 
 you never will ..." and for an instant they faced each 
 other like enemies. Then the tears swelled in her throat 
 at his reproach. 
 
 "You mean I don t feel things I m too hard ?" 
 
 "No : you re too high . . . too fine . . . such things 
 are too far from you." 
 
 He paused, as if conscious of the futility of going on 
 with whatever he had meant to say, and again, for a 
 short space, they confronted each other, no longer as 
 enemies so it seemed to her but as beings of differ 
 ent language who had forgotten the few words they had 
 learned of each other s speech. 
 
 Darrow broke the silence. "It s best, on all accounts, 
 that I should stay till tomorrow ; but I needn t intrude on 
 you; we needn t meet again alone. I only want to be 
 sure I know your wishes." He spoke the short sen 
 tences in a level voice, as though he were summing up 
 the results of a business conference. 
 
 Anna looked at him vaguely. "My wishes ?" 
 
 [295] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 "As to Owen " 
 
 At that she started. "They must never meet again !" 
 
 "It s not likely they will. What I meant was, that 
 it depends on you to spare him ..." 
 
 She answered steadily: "He shall never know," and 
 after another interval Darrow said: "This is good-bye, 
 then." 
 
 At the word she seemed to understand for the first 
 time whither the flying moments had been leading them. 
 Resentment and indignation died down, and all her 
 consciousness resolved itself into the mere visual sense 
 that he was there before her, near enough for her to lift 
 her hand and touch him, and that in another instant the 
 place where he stood would be empty. 
 
 She felt a mortal weakness, a craven impulse to cry 
 out to him to stay, a longing to throw* herself into his 
 arms, and take refuge there from the unendurable an 
 guish he had caused her. Then the vision called up 
 another thought : "I shall never know what that girl has 
 known ..." and the recoil of pride flung her back on 
 the sharp edges of her anguish. 
 
 "Good-bye," she said, in dread lest he should read 
 her face ; and she stood motionless, her head high, while 
 he walked to the door and went out. 
 
BOOK V 
 
BOOK V 
 
 XXX 
 
 * 
 
 ANNA LEATH, three days later, sat in Miss 
 Painter s drawing-room in the rue de Matignon. 
 
 Coming up precipitately that morning from the coun 
 try, she had reached Paris at one o clock and Miss 
 Painter s landing some ten minutes later. Miss Painter s 
 mouldy little man-servant, dissembling a napkin under 
 his arm, had mildly attempted to oppose her entrance; 
 but Anna, insisting, had gone straight to the dining- 
 room and surprised her friend who ate as furtively as 
 certain animals over a strange meal of cold mutton 
 and lemonade. Ignoring the embarrassment she caused, 
 she had set forth the object of her journey, and Miss 
 Painter, always hatted and booted for action, had im 
 mediately hastened out, leaving her to the solitude of 
 the bare fireless drawing-room with its eternal slip-covers 
 and "bowed" shutters. 
 
 In this inhospitable obscurity Anna had sat alone for 
 close upon two hours. Both obscurity and solitude were 
 acceptable to her, and impatient as she was to hear the 
 result of the errand on which she had despatched her 
 hostess, she desired still more to be alone. During her 
 long meditation in a white-swathed chair before the muf- 
 20 [ 299 ] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 fled hearth she had been able for the first time to clear 
 a way through the darkness and confusion of her 
 thoughts. The way did not go far, and her attempt to 
 trace it was as weak and spasmodic as a convalescent s 
 first efforts to pick up the thread of living. She seemed 
 to herself like some one struggling to rise from a long 
 sickness of which it would have been so much easier 
 to die. At Givre she had fallen into a kind of torpor, 
 a deadness of soul traversed by wild flashes of pain ; 
 but whether she suffered or whether she was numb, she 
 seemed equally remote from her real living and doing self. 
 
 It was only the discovery that very morning oi; 
 Owen s unannounced departure for Paris that had caught 
 her out of her dream and forced her back to action. 
 The dread of what this flight might imply, and of the 
 consequences that might result from it, had roused her to 
 the sense of her responsibility, and from the moment 
 when she had resolved to follow her step-son, and had 
 made her rapid preparations for pursuit, her mind had 
 begun to work again, feverishly, fitfully, but still with 
 something of its normal order. In the train she had been 
 too agitated, too preoccupied with what might next await 
 her, to give her thoughts to anything but the turning over 
 of dread alternatives; but Miss Painter s impervious- 
 ness had steadied her, and while she waited for the sound 
 of the latch-key she resolutely returned upon herself. 
 
 With respect to her outward course she could at least 
 tell herself that she had held to her purpose. She had, 
 as people said, "kept up" during the twenty-four hours 
 preceding George Darrow s departure ; had gone with 
 a calm face about her usual business, and even contrived 
 
 [300] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 not too obviously to avoid him. Then, the next day 
 before dawn, from behind the closed shutters where she 
 had kept for half the night her dry-eyed vigil, she had 
 heard him drive off to the train which brought its pas 
 sengers to Paris in time for the Calais express. 
 
 The fact of his taking that train, of his travelling so 
 straight and far away from her, gave to what had hap 
 pened the implacable outline of reality. He was gone; 
 he would not come back; and her life had ended just as 
 she had dreamed it was beginning. She had no doubt, 
 at first, as to the absolute inevitability of this conclu 
 sion. The man who had driven away from her house 
 in the autumn dawn was not the man she had loved; 
 he was a stranger with whom she had not a single 
 thought in common. It was terrible, indeed, that he wore 
 the face and spoke in the voice of her friend, and that, 
 as long as he was under one roof with her, the mere way 
 in which he moved and looked could bridge at a stroke 
 the gulf between them. That, no doubt, was the fault of 
 her exaggerated sensibility to outward things: she was 
 frightened to see how it enslaved her. A day or two be 
 fore she had supposed the sense of honour was her deep 
 est sentiment: if she had smiled at the conventions of 
 others it was because they were too trivial, not because 
 they were too grave. There were certain dishonours 
 with which she had never dreamed that any pact could 
 be made : she had had an incorruptible passion for good 
 faith and fairness. 
 
 She had supposed that, once Darrow was gone, once 
 she was safe from the danger of seeing and hearing him, 
 this high devotion would sustain her. She had believed 
 
 [301] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 it would be possible to separate the image of the man she 
 had thought him from that of the man he was. She had 
 even foreseen the hour when she might raise a mournful 
 shrine to the memory of the Darrow she had loved, with 
 out fear that his double s shadow would desecrate it. But 
 now she had begun to understand that the two men were 
 really one. The Darrow she worshipped was inseparable 
 from the Darrow she abhorred; and the inevitable con 
 clusion was that both must go, and she be left in the 
 desert of a sorrow without memories . . . 
 
 But if the future was thus void, the present was all too 
 full. Never had blow more complex repercussions ; and 
 to remember Owen was to cease to think of herself. 
 What impulse, what apprehension, had sent him suddenly 
 to Paris ? And why had he thought it needful to conceal 
 his going from her? When Sophy Viner had left, it 
 had been with the understanding that he was to await her 
 summons ; and it seemed improbable that he would break 
 his pledge, and seek her without leave, unless his lover s 
 intuition had warned him of some fresh danger. Anna 
 recalled how quickly he had read the alarm in her face 
 when he had rushed back to her sitting-room with the 
 news that Miss Viner had promised to see him again in 
 Paris. To be so promptly roused, his suspicions must 
 have been but half-asleep ; and since then, no doubt, if she 
 and Darrow had dissembled, so had he. To her proud 
 directness it was degrading to think that they had been 
 living together like enemies who spy upon each other s 
 movements: she felt a desperate longing for the days 
 which had seemed so dull and narrow, but in which she 
 had walked with her head high and her eyes unguarded. 
 
 [302] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 She had come up to Paris hardly knowing what peril 
 she feared, and still less how she could avert it. If Owen 
 meant to see Miss Viner and what other object could he 
 have ? they must already be together, and it was too late 
 to interfere. It had indeed occurred to Anna that 
 Paris might not be his objective point: that his real pur 
 pose in leaving Givre without her knowledge had been to 
 follow Darrow to London and exact the truth of him. 
 But even to her alarmed imagination this seemed improb 
 able. She and Darrow, to the last, had kept up so com 
 plete a feint of harmony that, whatever Owen had sur 
 mised, he could scarcely have risked acting on his sus 
 picions. If he still felt the need of an explanation, it was 
 almost certainly of Sophy Viner that he would ask it ; and 
 it was in quest of Sophy Viner that Anna had despatched 
 Miss Painter. 
 
 She had found a blessed refuge from her perplexities in 
 the stolid Adelaide s unawareness. One could so abso 
 lutely count on Miss Painter s guessing no more than one 
 chose, and yet acting astutely on such hints as one vouch 
 safed her! She was like a well-trained retriever whose 
 interest in his prey ceases when he lays it at his master s 
 feet. Anna, on arriving, had explained that Owen s un 
 announced flight had *nade her fear some fresh misun 
 derstanding between himself and Miss Viner. In the 
 interests of peace she had thought it best to follow him ; 
 but she hastily added that she did not wish to see 
 Sophy, but only, if possible, to learn from her where 
 Owen was. With these brief instructions Miss Painter 
 had started out; but she was a woman of many occupa 
 tions, and had given her visitor to understand that be- 
 
 [303] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 fore returning she should have to call on a friend who 
 had just arrived from Boston, and afterward despatch to 
 another exiled compatriot a supply of cranberries and 
 brandied peaches from the American grocery in the 
 Champs Elysees. 
 
 Gradually, as the moments passed, Anna began to feel 
 the reaction which, in moments of extreme nervous ten 
 sion, follows on any effort of the will. She seemed to 
 have gone as far as her courage would carry her, and she 
 shrank more and more from the thought of Miss 
 Painter s return, since whatever information the latter 
 brought would necessitate some fresh decision. What 
 should she say to Owen if she found him? What could 
 she say that should not betray the one thing she would 
 give her life to hide from him ? "Give her life" how the 
 phrase derided her ! It was a gift she would not have be 
 stowed on her worst enemy. She would not have had 
 Sophy Viner live the hours she was living now . . . 
 
 She tried again to look steadily and calmly at the pic 
 ture that the image of the girl evoked. She had an idea 
 that she ought to accustom herself to its contemplation. 
 If life was like that, why the sooner one got used to 
 it the better . . . But no! Life was not like that. 
 Her adventure was a hideous accident. She dreaded 
 above all the temptation to generalise from her own 
 case, to doubt the high things she had lived by and 
 seek a cheap solace in belittling what fate had refused 
 her. There was such love as she had dreamed, and she 
 hneant to go on believing in it, and cherishing the thought 
 that she was worthy of it. What had happened to her 
 Was grotesque and mean and miserable; but she herself 
 
 [304] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 was none of these things, and never, never would she 
 make of herself the mock that fate had made of her . . . 
 She could not, as yet, bear to think deliberately of Dar- 
 row; but she kept on repeating to herself "By and bye 
 that will come too." Even now she was determined not 
 to let his image be distorted by her suffering. As soon 
 as she could, she would try to single out for remem 
 brance the individual things she had liked in him before 
 she had loved him altogether. No "spiritual exercise" de 
 vised by the discipline of piety could have been more tor 
 turing; but its very cruelty attracted her. She wanted 
 to wear herself out with new pains . . . 
 
 XXXI 
 
 THE sound of Miss Painter s latch-key made her 
 start. She was still a bundle of quivering fears 
 to whom each coming moment seemed a menace. 
 
 There was a slight interval, and a sound of voices in 
 the hall; then Miss Painter s vigorous hand was on the 
 door. 
 
 Anna stood up as she came in. "You ve found him?" 
 
 "I ve found Sophy." 
 
 "And Owen ? has she seen him ? Is he here ?" 
 
 "She s here : in the hall. She wants to speak to you." 
 
 "Here now?" Anna found no voice for more. 
 
 "She drove back with me," Miss Painter continued in 
 the tone of impartial narrative. "The cabman was im 
 pertinent. I ve got his number." She fumbled in a 
 stout black reticule. 
 
 [305] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 "Oh, I can t " broke from Anna; but she collected 
 herself, remembering that to betray her unwillingness 
 to see the girl was to risk revealing much more. 
 
 "She thought you might be too tired to see her: she 
 wouldn t come in till I d found out." 
 
 Anna drew a quick breath. An instant s thought had 
 told her that Sophy Viner would hardly have taken such 
 a step unless something more important had happened. 
 "Ask her to come, please," she said. 
 
 Miss Painter, from the threshold, turned back to an 
 nounce her intention of going immediately to the police 
 station to report the cabman s delinquency; then she 
 passed out, and Sophy Viner entered. 
 
 The look in the girl s face showed that she had indeed 
 come unwillingly; yet she seemed animated by an eager 
 resoluteness that made Anna ashamed of her tremors. 
 For a moment they looked at each other in silence, as 
 if the thoughts between them were packed too thick 
 for speech; then Anna said, in a voice from which she 
 strove to take the edge of hardness : "You know where 
 Owen is, Miss Painter tells me." 
 
 "Yes ; that was my reason for asking you to see me." 
 Sophy spoke simply, without constraint or hesitation. 
 
 "I thought he d promised you " Anna interposed. 
 
 "He did; but he broke his promise. That s what I 
 thought I ought to tell you." 
 
 "Thank you." Anna went on tentatively: "He left 
 Givre this morning without a word. I followed him be 
 cause I was afraid . . . " 
 
 She broke off again and the girl took up her phrase. 
 ""You were afraid he d guessed? He has . . . " 
 
 [306] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 "What do you mean guessed what?" 
 
 "That you know something he doesn t . . . something 
 that made you glad to have me go." 
 
 "Oh " Anna moaned. If she had wanted more pain 
 she had it now. He s told you this?" she faltered. 
 
 "He hasn t told me, because I haven t seen him. I kept 
 him off I made Mrs. Farlow get rid of him. But he s 
 written me what he came to say ; and that was it." 
 
 "Oh, poor Owen!" broke from Anna. Through all 
 the intricacies of her suffering she felt the separate pang 
 of his. 
 
 "And I want to ask you," the girl continued, "to 
 let me see him; for of course," she added in the same 
 strange voice of energy, "I wouldn t unless you con 
 sented." 
 
 "To see him?" Anna tried to gather together her 
 startled thoughts. "What use would it be ? What could 
 you tell him?" 
 
 "I want to tell him the truth," said Sophy Viner. 
 
 The two women looked at each other, and a burning 
 blush rose to Anna s forehead. "I don t understand," 
 she faltered. 
 
 Sophy waited a moment ; then she lowered her voice to 
 say: "I don t want him to think worse of me than he 
 need ..." 
 
 "Worse?" 
 
 "Yes to think such things as you re thinking now 
 ... I want him to know exactly what happened . . . 
 then I want to bid him good-bye." 
 
 Anna tried to clear a way through her own wonder and 
 confusion. She felt herself obscurely moved. 
 
 [307] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 "Wouldn t it be worse for him 
 
 "To hear the truth? It would be better, at any rate, 
 for you and Mr. Darrow." 
 
 At the sound of the name Anna lifted her head quickly. 
 "I ve only my step-son to consider !" 
 
 The girl threw a startled look at her. "You don t 
 mean you re not going to give him up ?" 
 
 Anna felt her lips harden. "I don t think it s of any 
 use to talk of that." 
 
 "Oh, I know ! It s my fault for not knowing how to 
 say what I want you to hear. Your words are differ 
 ent; you know how to choose them. Mine offend you 
 . . . and the dread of it makes me blunder. That s 
 why, the other day, I couldn t say anything . . . couldn t 
 make things clear to you. But now I mast, even if you 
 hate it!" She drew a step nearer, her slender figure 
 swayed forward in a passion of entreaty. "Do listen to 
 me! What you ve said is dreadful. How can you 
 speak of him in that voice? Don t you see that I went 
 away so that he shouldn t have to lose you ?" 
 
 Anna looked at her coldly. "Are you speaking of Mr. 
 Darrow? I don t know why you think your going or 
 staying 1 can in any way affect our relations." 
 
 "You mean that you have given him up because of 
 me ? Oh, how could you ? You can t really love him ! 
 And yet," the girl suddenly added, "you must, or you d 
 be more sorry for me !" 
 
 "I m very sorry for you," Anna said, feeling as if the 
 iron band about her heart pressed on it a little less inex 
 orably. 
 
 "Then why won t you hear me? Why won t you try 
 [308] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 to understand? It s all so different from what you 
 imagine !" 
 
 "I ve never judged you." 
 
 "I m not thinking of myself. He loves you !" 
 
 "I thought you d come to speak of Owen." 
 
 Sophy Viner seemed not to hear her. "He s never 
 loved any one else. Even those few days ... I knew it 
 all the while ... he never cared for me." 
 
 "Please don t say any more !" Anna said. 
 
 "I know it must seem strange to you that I should say 
 so much. I shock you, I offend you : you think me a 
 creature without shame. So I am but not in the sense 
 you think! I m not ashamed of having loved him; no; 
 and I m not ashamed of telling you so. It s that that 
 justifies me and him too . . . Oh, let me tell you 
 how it happened ! He was sorry for me : he saw I cared. 
 I knew that was all he ever felt. I could see he was 
 thinking of some one else. I knew it was only for a 
 week . . . He never said a word to mislead me ... 
 I wanted to be happy just once and I didn t dream of 
 the harm I might be doing him !" 
 
 Anna could not speak. She hardly knew, as yet, what 
 the girl s words conveyed to her, save the sense of their 
 tragic fervour; but she was conscious of being in the 
 presence of an intenser passion than she had ever felt. 
 
 "I am sorry for you." She paused. "But why do you 
 say this to me ?" After another interval she exclaimed : 
 "You d no right to let Owen love you." 
 
 "No ; that was wrong. At least what s happened since 
 has made it so. If things had been different I think I 
 could have made Owen happy. You were all so good 
 
 [309] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 to me I wanted so to stay with you ! I suppose you ll 
 say that makes it worse : my daring to dream I had the 
 right . . . But all that doesn t matter now. I won t see 
 Owen unless you re willing. I should have liked to tell 
 him what I ve tried to tell you ; but you must know bet 
 ter; you feel things in a finer way. Only you ll have 
 to help him if I can t. He cares a great deal . . . it s 
 going to hurt him ..." 
 
 Anna trembled. "Oh, I know ! What can I do ?" 
 
 "You can go straight back to Givre now, at once! 
 So that Owen shall never know you ve followed him." 
 Sophy s clasped hands reached out urgently. "And you 
 can send for Mr. Darrow bring him back. Owen must 
 be convinced that he s mistaken, and nothing else will 
 convince him. Afterward I ll find a pretext oh, I 
 promise you ! But first he must see for himself that noth 
 ing s changed for you." 
 
 Anna stood motionless, subdued and dominated. The 
 girl s ardour swept her like a wind. 
 
 "Oh, can t I move you ? Some day you ll know !" 
 Sophy pleaded, her eyes full of tears. 
 
 Anna saw them, and felt a fullness in her throat. 
 Again the band about her heart seemed loosened. She 
 wanted to find a word, but could not : all within her was 
 too dark and violent. She gave the girl a speechless 
 look. 
 
 "I do believe you," she said suddenly ; then she turned 
 and walked out of the room. 
 
THE REEF 
 
 XXXII 
 
 SHE drove from Miss Painter s to her own apart 
 ment. The maid-servant who had it in charge had 
 been apprised of her coming, and had opened one or two 
 of the rooms, and prepared a fire in her bedroom. Anna 
 shut herself in, refusing the woman s ministrations. She 
 felt cold and faint, and after she had taken off her hat 
 and cloak she knelt down by the fire and stretched her 
 hands to it. 
 
 In one respect, at least, it was clear to her that she 
 would do well to follow Sophy Viner s counsel. It had 
 been an act of folly to follow Owen, and her first busi 
 ness was to get back to Givre before him. But the only 
 train leaving that evening was a slow one, which did 
 not reach Francheuil till midnight, and she knew that her 
 taking it would excite Madame de Chantelle s wonder 
 and lead to interminable talk. She had come up to Paris 
 on the pretext of finding a new governess for Efiie, and 
 the natural thing was to defer her return till the next 
 morning. She knew Owen well enough to be sure that 
 he would make another attempt to see Miss Viner, and 
 failing that, would write again and await her answer: 
 so that there was no likelihood of his reaching Givre till 
 the following evening. 
 
 Her sense of relief at not having to start out at once 
 showed her for the first time how tired she was. The 
 bonne had suggested a cup of tea, but the dread of having 
 any one about her had made Anna refuse, and she had 
 
THE REEF 
 
 eaten nothing since morning but a sandwich bought at 
 a buffet. She was too tired to get up, but stretching out 
 her arm she drew toward her the arm-chair which stood 
 beside the hearth and rested her head against its cushions. 
 Gradually the warmth of the fire stole into her veins and 
 her heaviness of soul was replaced by a dreamy buoyancy. 
 She seemed to be seated on the hearth in her sitting-room 
 at Givre, and Darrow was beside her, in the chair against 
 which she leaned. He put his arms about her shoulders 
 and drawing her head back looked into her eyes. "Of 
 all the ways you do your hair, that s the way I like best/ 
 he said . . . 
 
 A log dropped, and she sat up with a start. There was 
 a warmth in her heart, and she was smiling. Then she 
 looked about her, and saw where she was, and the glory 
 fell. She hid her face and sobbed. 
 
 Presently she perceived that it was growing dark, and 
 getting up stiffly she began to undo the things in her bag 
 and spread them on the dressing-table. She shrank from 
 lighting the lights, and groped her way about, trying to 
 find what she needed. She seemed immeasurably far off 
 from every one, and most of all from herself. It was as 
 if her consciousness had been transmitted to some 
 stranger whose thoughts and gestures were indifferent 
 
 to her . . . 
 
 Suddenly she heard a shrill tinkle, and with a beating 
 heart she stood still in the middle of the room. It was 
 the telephone in her dressing-room a call, no doubt, 
 from Adelaide Painter. Or could Owen have learned 
 she was in town? The thought alarmed her and she 
 opened the door and stumbled across the unlit room to 
 
THE REEF 
 
 the instrument. She held it to her ear, and heard Dar- 
 row s voice pronounce her name. 
 
 "Will you let me see you ? I ve come back I had to 
 come. Miss Painter told me you were here." 
 
 She began to tremble, and feared that he would guess 
 it from her voice. She did not know what she answered : 
 she heard him say : "I can t hear." She called "Yes !" and 
 laid the telephone down, and caught it up again but he 
 was gone. She wondered if her "Yes" had reached him. 
 
 She sat in her chair and listened. Why had she said 
 that she would see him? What did she mean to say to 
 him when he came? Now and then, as she sat there, 
 the sense of his presence enveloped her as in her dream, 
 and she shut her eyes and felt his arms about her. Then 
 she woke to reality and shivered. A long time elapsed, 
 and at length she said to herself : "He isn t coming." 
 
 The door-bell rang as she said it, and she stood up, cold 
 and trembling. She thought: "Can he imagine there s 
 any use in coming?" and moved forward to bid the serv 
 ant say she could not see him. 
 
 The door opened and she saw him standing in the 
 drawing-room. The room was cold and fireless, and a 
 hard glare fell from the wall-lights on the shrouded fur 
 niture and the white slips covering the curtains. He 
 looked pale and stern, with a frown of fatigue between 
 his eyes ; and she remembered that in three days he had 
 travelled from Givre to London and back. It seemed 
 incredible that all that had befallen her should have 
 been compressed within the space of three days ! 
 
 "Thank you," he said as she came in. 
 
 She answered: "It s better, I suppose " 
 
 [313] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 He came toward her and took her in his arms. She 
 struggled a little, afraid of yielding, but he pressed her to 
 him, not bending to her but holding her fast, as though he 
 had found her after a long search : she heard his hur 
 ried breathing. It seemed to come from her own breast, 
 so close he held her; and it was she who, at last, lifted 
 up her face and drew down his. 
 
 She freed herself and went and sat on a sofa at the 
 other end of the room. A mirror between the shrouded 
 window-curtains showed her crumpled travelling dress 
 and the white face under her disordered hair. 
 
 She found her voice, and asked him how he had been 
 able to leave London. He answered that he had man 
 aged he d arranged it; and she saw he hardly heard 
 what she was saying. 
 
 "I had to see you," he went on, and moved nearer, sit 
 ting down at her side. 
 
 "Yes ; we must think of Owen " 
 
 "Oh, Owen!" 
 
 Her mind had flown back to Sophy Viner s plea that 
 she should let Darrow return to Givre in order that Owen 
 might be persuaded of the folly of his suspicions. The 
 suggestion was absurd, of course. She could not ask 
 Darrow to lend himself to such a fraud, even had she 
 had the inhuman courage to play her part in it. She 
 was suddenly overwhelmed by the futility of every at 
 tempt to reconstruct her ruined world. No, it was use 
 less; and since it was useless, every moment with Dar 
 row was pure pain . . . 
 
 "I ve come to talk of myself, not of Owen," she heard 
 him saying. "When you sent me away the other day I 
 
 [314] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 understood that it couldn t be otherwise then. But it s 
 not possible that you and I should part like that. If 
 I m to lose you, it must be for a better reason." 
 
 "A better reason?" 
 
 "Yes : a deeper one. One that means a fundamental 
 disaccord between us. This one doesn t in spite of 
 everything it doesn t. That s what I want you to see, 
 and have the courage to acknowledge." 
 
 "If I saw it I should have the courage !" 
 
 "Yes: courage was the wrong word. You have that. 
 That s why I m here." 
 
 "But I don t see it," she continued sadly. "So it s use 
 less, isn t it? and so cruel ..." He was about to 
 speak, but she went on: "I shall never understand it 
 never!" 
 
 He looked at her. "You will some day : you were made 
 to feel everything " 
 
 "I should have thought this was a case of not feel 
 ing " 
 
 "On my part, you mean?" He faced her resolutely. 
 "Yes, it was : to my shame . . . What I meant was that 
 when you ve lived a little longer you ll see what complex 
 blunderers we all are: how we re struck blind some 
 times, and mad sometimes and then, when our sight 
 and our senses come back, how we have to set to work, 
 and build up, little by little, bit by bit, the precious things 
 we d smashed to atoms without knowing it. Lifers -just 
 a perpetual piecing together of broken bits." 
 
 She looked up quickly. "That s what I feel : that you 
 ought to " 
 
 He stood up, interrupting her with a gesture. "Oh, 
 21 [ 315 ] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 don t don t say what you re going to ! Men don t give 
 their lives away like that. If you won t have mine, it s 
 at least my own, to do the best I can with." 
 
 "The best you can that s what I mean! How can 
 there be a best for you that s made of some one else s 
 worst?" 
 
 He sat down again with a groan. "I don t know! 
 It seemed such a slight thing all on the surface and 
 I ve gone aground on it because it was on the surface. 
 -I see the horror of it just as you do. But I see, a little 
 more clearly, the extent, and the limits, of my wrong. 
 It s not as black as you imagine." 
 
 She lowered her voice to say : "I suppose I shall never 
 understand ; but she seems to love you . . . J: 
 
 "There s my shame ! That I didn t guess it, didn t fly 
 from it. You say you ll never understand: but why 
 shouldn t you? Is it anything to be proud of, to know 
 so little of the strings that pull us ? If you knew a little 
 more, I could tell you how such things happen without 
 offending you; and perhaps you d listen without con 
 demning me." 
 
 "I don t condemn you." She was dizzy with struggling 
 impulses. She longed to cry out : "I do understand ! I ve 
 understood ever since you ve been here!" For she was 
 aware, in her own bosom, of sensations so separate from 
 her romantic thoughts of him that she saw her body and 
 soul divided against themselves. She recalled having 
 read somewhere that in ancient Rome the slaves were not 
 allowed to wear a distinctive dress lest they should recog 
 nize each other and learn their numbers and their power. 
 So, in herself, she discerned for the first time instincts 
 
THE REEF 
 
 and desires, which, mute and unmarked, had gone to and 
 fro in the dim passages of her mind, and now hailed each 
 other with a cry of mutiny. 
 
 "Oh, I don t know what to think!" she broke out. 
 "You say you didn t know she loved you. But you know 
 it now. Doesn t that show you how you can put the 
 broken bits together?" 
 
 "Can you seriously think it would be doing so to marry 
 one woman while I care for another?" 
 
 "Oh, I don t know ... I don t know ..." The 
 sense of her weakness made her try to harden herself 
 against his arguments. 
 
 "You do know ! We ve often talked of such things : 
 of the monstrousness of useless sacrifices. If I m to ex 
 piate, it s not in that way." He added abruptly: "It s 
 in having to say this to you now . . . " 
 
 She found no answer. 
 
 Through the silent apartment they heard the sudden 
 peal of the door-bell, and she rose to her feet. "Owe 
 she instantly exclaimed. 
 
 "Is Owen in Paris?" 
 
 She explained in a rapid undertone what she had 
 learned from Sophy Viner. 
 
 "Shall I leave you ?" Darrow asked. 
 
 "Yes ... no ..." She moved to the dining-room 
 door, with the half-formed purpose of making him pass 
 out, and then turned back. "It may be Adelaide." 
 
 They heard the outer door open, and a moment later 
 Owen walked into the room. He was pale, with excited 
 eyes : as they fell on Darrow, Anna saw his start of won 
 der. He made a slight sign of recognition, and then 
 
 [317] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 went up to his step-mother with an air of exaggerated 
 gaiety. 
 
 "You furtive person ! I ran across the omniscient Ade- 
 : laide and heard from her that you d rushed up suddenly 
 
 and secretly " He stood between Anna and Dar- 
 
 row, strained, questioning, dangerously on edge. 
 
 "I came up to meet Mr. Darrow," Anna answered. 
 "His leave s been prolonged he s going back with me." 
 
 The words seemed to have uttered themselves without 
 her will, yet she felt a great sense of freedom as she 
 spoke them. 
 
 The hard tension of Owen s face changed to incredu 
 lous surprise. He looked at Darrow. 
 
 "The merest luck ... a colleague whose wife was 
 ill ... I came straight back," she heard the latter tran 
 quilly explaining. His self-command helped to steady 
 her, and she smiled at Owen. 
 
 "We ll all go back together tomorrow morning," she 
 said as she slipped her arm through his. 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 OWEN LEATH did .not go back with his step 
 mother to Givre. In reply to her suggestion he 
 announced his intention of staying on a day or two 
 longer in Paris. 
 
 Anna left alone by the first train the next morning. 
 Darrow was to follow in the afternoon. When Owen 
 had left them the evening before, Darrow waited a mo 
 ment for her to speak; then, as she said nothing, he 
 
THE REEF 
 
 asked her if she really wished him to return to Givre. 
 She made a mute sign of assent, and he added : "For you 
 know that, much as Fm ready to do for Owen, I can t 
 do that for him I can t go back to be sent away again." 
 
 "No no!" 
 
 He came nearer, and looked at her, and she went to 
 him. All her fears seemed to fall from her as he held 
 her. It was a different feeling from any she had known 
 before: confused and turbid, as if secret shames and 
 rancours stirred in it, yet richer, deeper, more enslaving. 
 She leaned her head back and shut her eyes beneath his 
 kisses. She knew now that she could never give him up. 
 
 Nevertheless she asked him, the next morning, to let 
 her go back alone to Givre. She wanted time to think. 
 She was convinced that what had happened was inevi 
 table, that she and Darrow belonged to each other, and 
 that he was right in saying no past folly could ever put 
 them asunder. If there was a shade of difference in her 
 feeling for him it was that of an added intensity. She 
 felt restless, insecure out of his sight : she had a sense of 
 incompleteness, of passionate dependence, that was some 
 how at variance with her own conception of her character. 
 
 It was partly the consciousness of this change in her 
 self that made her want to be alone. The solitude of 
 her inner life had given her the habit of these hours of 
 self-examination, and she needed them as she needed her 
 morning plunge into cold water. 
 
 During the journey she tried to review what had 
 happened in the light of her new decision and of her 
 sudden relief from pain. She seemed to herself to have 
 passed through some fiery initiation from which she had 
 
 [319] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 emerged seared and quivering, but clutching to her breast 
 a magic talisman. Sophy Viner had cried out to her: 
 "Some day you ll know !" and Darrow had used the same 
 words. They meant, she supposed, that when she had 
 explored the intricacies and darknesses of her own heart 
 her judgment of others would be less absolute. Well, 
 she knew now knew weaknesses and strengths she had 
 not dreamed of, and the deep discord and still deeper 
 complicities between what thought in her and what 
 blindly wanted . . . 
 
 Her mind turned anxiously to Owen. At least the 
 blow that was to fall on him would not seem to have been 
 inflicted by her hand. He would be left with the impres 
 sion that his breach with Sophy Viner was due to one 
 of the ordinary causes of such disruptions: though he 
 must lose her, his memory of her would not be poisoned. 
 Anna never for a moment permitted herself the delusion 
 that she had renewed her promise to Darrow in order to 
 spare her step-son this last refinement of misery. She 
 knew she had been prompted by the irresistible impulse 
 to hold fast to what was most precious to her, and that 
 Owen s arrival on the scene had been the pretext for her 
 decision, and not its cause; yet she felt herself fortified 
 by the thought of what she had spared him. It was as 
 though a star she had been used to follow had shed its 
 familiar ray on ways unknown to her. 
 
 All through these meditations ran the undercurrent of 
 an absolute trust in Sophy Viner. She thought of the girl 
 with a mingling of antipathy and confidence. It was hu 
 miliating to her pride to recognize kindred impulses in 
 a character which she would have liked to feel completely 
 
 [320] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 alien to her. But what indeed was the girl really like? 
 She seemed to have no scruples and a thousand delica 
 cies. She had given herself to Darrow, and concealed the 
 episode from Owen Leath, with no more apparent sense 
 of debasement than the vulgarest of adventuresses; yet 
 she had instantly obeyed the voice of her heart when it 
 bade her part from the one and serve the other. 
 
 Anna tried to picture what the girl s life must have 
 been : what experiences, what initiations, had formed her. 
 But her own training had been too different : there were 
 veils she could not lift. She looked back at her married 
 life, and its colourless uniformity took on an air of high 
 restraint and order. Was it because she had been so 
 incurious that it had worn that look to her? It struck 
 her with amazement that she had never given a thought 
 to her husband s past, or wondered what he did and 
 where he went when he was away from her. If she had 
 been asked what she supposed he thought about when 
 they were apart, she would instantly have answered : his 
 snuff-boxes. It had never occurred to her that he might 
 have passions, interests, preoccupations of which she was 
 absolutely ignorant. Yet he went up to Paris rather 
 regularly: ostensibly to attend sales and exhibitions, or 
 to confer with dealers and collectors. She tried to pic 
 ture him, straight, trim, beautifully brushed and var 
 nished, walking furtively down a quiet street, and looking 
 about him before he slipped into a doorway. She under 
 stood now that she had been cold to him: what more 
 likely than that he had sought compensations? All men 
 were like that, she supposed no doubt her simplicity had 
 amused him. 
 
THE REEF 
 
 In the act of transposing Fraser Leath into a Don 
 Juan she was pulled up by the ironic perception that she 
 was simply trying to justify Darrow. She wanted to 
 think that all men were "like that" because Darrow was 
 "like that": she wanted to justify her acceptance of the 
 fact by persuading herself that only through such con 
 cessions could women like herself hope to keep what they 
 could not give up. And suddenly she was filled with 
 anger at her blindness, and then at her disastrous at 
 tempt to see. Why had she forced the truth out of Dar 
 row? If only she had held her tongue nothing need 
 ever have been known. Sophy Viner would have broken 
 her engagement, Owen would have been sent around the 
 world, and her own dream would have been unshattered. 
 But she had probed, insisted, cross-examined, not rested 
 till she had dragged the secret to the light. She was one 
 of the luckless women who always have the wrong au 
 dacities, and who always know it ... 
 
 Was it she, Anna Leath, who was picturing herself to 
 herself in that way? She recoiled from her thoughts 
 as if with a sense of demoniac possession, and there 
 flashed through her the longing to return to her old state 
 of fearless ignorance. If at that moment she could have 
 kept Darrow from following her to Givre she would 
 have done so ... 
 
 But he came; and with the sight of him the turmoil 
 fell and she felt herself reassured, rehabilitated. He 
 arrived toward dusk, and she motored to Francheuil to 
 meet him. She wanted to see him as soon as possible, 
 for she had divined, through the new insight that was 
 in her, that only his presence could restore her to a 
 
 [322] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 normal view of things. In the motor, as they left the 
 town and turned into the high-road, he lifted her hand 
 and kissed it, and she leaned against him, and felt the 
 currents flow between them. She was grateful to him 
 for not saying anything, and for not expecting her to 
 speak. She said to herself : "He never makes a mistake 
 he always knows what to do" ; and then she thought with 
 a start that it was doubtless because he had so often 
 been in such situations. The idea that his tact was a 
 kind of professional expertness rilled her with repug 
 nance, and insensibly she drew away from him. He made 
 no motion to bring her nearer, and she instantly thought 
 that that was calculated too. She sat- beside him in frozen 
 misery, wondering whether, henceforth, she would meas 
 ure in this way his every look and gesture. Neither of 
 them spoke again till the motor turned under the dark 
 arch of the avenue, and they saw the lights of Givre 
 twinkling at its end. Then Darrow laid his hand on hers 
 and said: "I know, dear " and the hardness in her 
 melted. "He s suffering as I am," she thought; and for 
 a moment the baleful fact between them seemed to draw 
 them closer instead of walling them up in their separate 
 wretchedness. 
 
 It was wonderful to be once more re-entering the doors 
 of Givre with him, and as the old house received them 
 into its mellow silence she had again the sense of pass 
 ing out of a dreadful dream into the reassurance of 
 kindly and familiar things. It did not seem possible that 
 these quiet rooms, so full of the slowly-distilled accumu 
 lations of a fastidious taste, should have been the scene 
 of tragic dissensions. The memory of them seemed to 
 
 1 323 ] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 be shut out into the night with the closing and barring 
 of its doors. 
 
 At the tea-table in the oak-room they found Madame 
 de Chantelle and Effie. The little girl, catching sight of 
 Darrow, raced down the drawing-rooms to meet him, 
 and returned in triumph on his shoulder. Anna looked at 
 them with a smile. Effie, for all her graces, was chary 
 of such favours, and her mother knew that in according 
 them to Darrow she had admitted him to the circle 
 where Owen had hitherto ruled. 
 
 Over the tea-table Darrow gave Madame de Chantelle 
 the explanation of his sudden return from England. On 
 reaching London, he told her, he had found that the sec- 
 retarv e was to have replaced was detained there by 
 the illness of his wife. The Ambassador, knowing Dar- 
 row s urgent reasons for wishing to be in France, had 
 immediately proposed his going back, and awaiting at 
 Givre the summons to relieve his colleague ; and he had 
 jumped into the first train, without even waiting to tele 
 graph the news of his release. He spoke naturally, easily, 
 in his usual quiet voice, taking his tea from Effie, helping 
 himself to the toast she handed, and stooping now and 
 then to stroke the dozing terrier. And suddenly, as Anna 
 listened to his explanation, she asked herself if it were 
 true. 
 
 The question, of course, was absurd. There was no 
 possible reason why he should invent a false account of 
 his return, and every probability that the version he gave 
 was the real one. But he had looked and spoken in the 
 same way when he had answered her probing questions 
 about Sophy Viner, and she reflected with a chill of fear 
 
THE REEF 
 
 that she would never again know if he were speaking 
 the truth or not. SHe was sure he loved her, and she did 
 not fear his insincerity as much as her own distrust of 
 him. For a moment it seemed to her that this must cof- 
 rupt the very source of love; then she said to herself: 
 "By and bye, when I am altogether his, we shall be so 
 near each other that there will be no room for any doubts 
 between us." But the doubts were there now, one mo 
 ment lulled to quiescence, the next more torturingly alert. 
 When the nurse appeared to summon Effie, the little 
 girl, after kissing her grandmother, entrenched herself 
 on Darrow s knee with the imperious demand to be car 
 ried up to bed ; and Anna, while she laughingly protested, 
 said to herself with a pang: "Can I give her a father 
 about whom I think such things ?" 
 
 The thought of Effie, and of what she owed to Effie, 
 had been the fundamental reason for her delays and hesi 
 tations when she and Darrow had come together again in 
 England. Her own feeling was so clear that but for 
 that scruple she would have put her hand in his at once. 
 But till she had seen him again she had never consid 
 ered the possibility of re-marriage, and when it sud 
 denly confronted her it seemed, for the .moment, to dis^ 
 organize the life she had planned for herself and her 
 child. She had not spoken of this to Darrow because it 
 appeared to her a subject to be debated within her own 
 conscience. The question, then, was not as to his fitness 
 to become the guide and guardian of her child; nor did 
 she fear that her love for him would deprive Effie of 
 the least fraction of her tenderness, since she did not 
 think of love as something measured and exhaustible but 
 
 [325] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 as a treasure perpetually renewed. What she questioned 
 was her right to introduce into her life any interests and 
 duties which might rob Effie of a part of her time, or 
 lessen the closeness of their daily intercourse. 
 
 She had decided this question as it was inevitable that 
 she should ; but now another was before her. Assuredly, 
 at her age, there was no possible reason why she should 
 cloister herself to bring up her daughter; but there was 
 every reason for not marrying a man in whom her own 
 faith was not complete . . . 
 
 XXXIV 
 
 WHEN she woke the next morning she felt a great 
 lightness of heart. She recalled her last awaken 
 ing at Givre, three days before, when it had seemed as 
 though all her life had gone down in darkness. Now 
 Darrow was once more under the same roof with her, and 
 once more his nearness sufficed to make the looming hor 
 ror drop away. She could almost have smiled at her 
 scruples of the night before : as she looked back on them 
 they seemed to belong to the old ignorant timorous time 
 when she had feared to look life in the face, and had been 
 blind to the mysteries and contradictions of the human 
 heart because her own had not been revealed to her. 
 Darrow had said : "You were made to feel everything" ; 
 and to feel was surely better than to judge. 
 
 When she came downstairs he was already in the oak- 
 room with Effie and Madame de Chantelle, and the sense 
 
 [326] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 of reassurance which his presence gave her was merged 
 in the relief of not being able to speak of what was be 
 tween them. But there it was, inevitably, and whenever 
 they looked at each other they saw it. In her dread of 
 giving it a more tangible shape she tried to devise means 
 of keeping the little girl with her, and, when the latter 
 had been called away by the nurse, found an excuse 
 for following Madame de Chantelle upstairs to the purple 
 sitting-room. But a confidential talk with Madame de 
 Chantelle implied the detailed discussion of plans of 
 which Anna could hardly yet bear to consider the vaguest 
 outline : the date of her marriage, the relative advantages 
 of sailing from London or Lisbon, the possibility of hir 
 ing a habitable house at their new post ; and, when these 
 problems were exhausted, the application of the same 
 method to the subject of Owen s future. 
 
 His grandmother, having no suspicion of the real rea 
 son of Sophy Viner s departure, had thought it "ex 
 tremely suitable" of the young girl to withdraw to the 
 shelter of her old friends roof in the hour of bridal 
 preparation. This maidenly retreat had in fact impressed 
 Madame de Chantelle so favourably that she was dis 
 posed for the first time to talk over Owen s projects ; and 
 as every human event translated itself for her into terms 
 of social and domestic detail, Anna had perforce to 
 travel the same round again. She felt a momentary re 
 lief when Darrow presently joined them ; but his coming 
 served only to draw the conversation back to the ques 
 tion of their own future, and Anna felt a new pang 
 as she heard him calmly and lucidly discussing it. Did 
 such self-possession imply indifference or insincerity ? In 
 
 1 327 ] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 that problem her mind perpetually revolved ; and she 
 dreaded the one answer as much as the other. 
 
 She was resolved to keep on her course as though 
 nothing had happened: to marry Darrow and never let 
 the consciousness of the past intrude itself between them ; 
 but she was beginning to feel that the only way of at 
 taining to this state of detachment from the irreparable 
 was once for all to turn back with him to its contempla 
 tion. As soon as this desire had germinated it became so 
 strong in her that she regretted having promised Erne to 
 take her out for the afternoon. But she could think of 
 no pretext for disappointing the little girl, and soon after 
 luncheon the three set forth in the motor to show Dar 
 row a chateau famous in the annals of the region. Dur 
 ing their excursion Anna found it impossible to guess 
 from his demeanour if Effie s presence between them was 
 as much of a strain to his composure as to hers. He 
 remained imperturbably good-humoured and appreciative 
 while they went the round of the monument, and she 
 remarked only that when he thought himself unnoticed 
 his face grew grave and his answers came less promptly. 
 
 On the way back, two or three miles from Givre, she 
 suddenly proposed that they should walk home through 
 the forest which skirted that side of the park. Darrow 
 acquiesced, and they got out and sent Effie on in the 
 motor. Their way led through a bit of sober French 
 woodland, flat as a faded tapestry, but with gleams of 
 live emerald lingering here and there among its browns 
 and ochres. The luminous grey air gave vividness to its 
 dying colours, and veiled the distant glimpses of the land 
 scape in soft uncertainty. In such a solitude Anna had 
 
 [328] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 fancied it would be easier to speak; but as she walked 
 beside Darrow over the deep soundless flooring of brown 
 moss the words on her lips took flight again. It seemed 
 impossible to break the spell of quiet joy which his 
 presence laid on her, and when he began to talk of 
 the place they had just visited she answered his ques 
 tions and then waited for what he should say next . . . 
 No, decidedly she could not speak; she no longer even 
 knew what she had meant to say . . . 
 
 The same experience repeated itself several times that 
 day and the next. When she and Darrow were apart 
 she exhausted herself in appeal and interrogation, she 
 formulated with a fervent lucidity every point in her 
 imaginary argument. But as soon as she was alone with 
 him something deeper than reason and subtler than shy 
 ness laid its benumbing touch upon her, and the desire to 
 speak became merely a dim disquietude* through which 
 his looks, his words, his touch, reached her as through 
 a mist of bodily pain. Yet this inertia was torn by wild 
 flashes of resistance, and when they were apart she began 
 to prepare again what she meant to. say to him. 
 
 She knew he could not be with her without being 
 aware of this inner turmoil, and she hoped he would 
 break the spell by some releasing word. But she pres 
 ently understood that he recognized the futility of words, 
 and was resolutely bent on holding her to her own pur 
 pose of behaving as if nothing had happened. Once more 
 she inwardly accused him of insensibility, and her imag 
 ination was beset by tormenting visions of his past . . . 
 Had such things happened to him before? If the episode 
 had been an isolated accident "a moment of folly and 
 
 [329] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 madness", as he had called it she could understand, or 
 at least begin to understand (for at a certain point her 
 imagination always turned back) ; but if it were a mere 
 link in a chain of similar experiments, the thought of it 
 dishonoured her whole past . . . 
 
 Effie, in the interregnum between governesses, had 
 been given leave to dine downstairs ; and .Anna, on the 
 evening of Darrow s return, kept the little girl with her 
 till long after the nurse had signalled from the drawing- 
 room door. When at length she had been carried off, 
 Anna proposed a game of cards, and after this diversion 
 had drawn to its languid close she said good-night to 
 Darrow and followed Madame de Chantelle upstairs. 
 But Madame de Chantelle never sat up late, and the sec 
 ond evening, with the amiably implied intention of leav 
 ing Anna and Darrow to themselves, she took an earlier 
 leave of them than usual. 
 
 Anna sat silent, listening to her small stiff steps as they 
 minced down the hall and died out in the distance. 
 Madame de Chantelle had broken her wooden embroidery 
 frame, and Darrow, having offered to repair it, had 
 drawn his chair up to a table that held a lamp. Anna 
 watched him as he sat with bent head and knitted brows, 
 trying to fit together the disjoined pieces. The sight of 
 him, so tranquilly absorbed in this trifling business, 
 seemed to give to the quiet room a perfume of intimacy, 
 to fill it with a sense of sweet familiar habit ; and it came 
 over her again that she knew nothing of the inner 
 thoughts of this man who was sitting by her as a husband 
 might. The lamplight fell on his white forehead, on the 
 healthy brown of his cheek, the backs of his thin sun- 
 
 [330] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 burnt hands. As she watched the hands her sense of 
 them became as vivid as a touch, and she said to herself : 
 "That other woman has sat and watched him as I am 
 doing. She has known him as I have never known 
 him . . . Perhaps he is thinking of that now. Or per 
 haps he has forgotten it all as completely as I have 
 forgotten everything that happened to me before he 
 came ..." 
 
 He looked young, active, stored with strength and en 
 ergy ; not the man for vain repinings or long memories. 
 She wondered what she had to hold or satisfy him. He 
 loved her now ; she had no doubt of that ; but how could 
 she hope to keep him? They were so nearly of an age 
 that already she felt herself his senior. As yet the differ 
 ence was not visible; outwardly at least they were 
 matched; but ill-health or unhappiness would soon do 
 away with this equality. She thought with a pang of 
 bitterness : "He won t grow any older because he doesn t 
 feel things ; and because he doesn t, I shall . . ." 
 
 And when she ceased to please him, what then? Had 
 he the tradition of faith to the spoken vow, or the deeper 
 piety of the unspoken dedication ? What was his theory, 
 what his inner conviction in such matters? But what 
 did she care for his convictions or his theories ? No doubt 
 he loved her now, and believed he would always go on 
 loving her, and was persuaded that, if he ceased to, his 
 loyalty would be proof against the change. What she 
 wanted to know was not what he thought about it in ad 
 vance, but what would impel or restrain him at the crucial 
 hour. She put no faith in her own arts : she was too sure 
 of having none ! And if some beneficent enchanter had 
 23 [ 331 ] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 bestowed them on her, she knew now that she would have 
 rejected the gift. She could hardly conceive of wanting 
 the kind of love that was a state one could be cozened 
 into . . . 
 
 Darrow, putting away the frame, walked across the 
 room and sat down beside her; and she felt he had 
 something special to say. 
 
 "They re sure to send for me in a day or two now," he 
 began. 
 
 She made no answer, and he continued: "You ll tell 
 me before I go what day I m to come back and get you ?" 
 
 It was the first time since his return to Givre that he 
 had made any direct allusion to the date of their mar 
 riage; and instead of answering him she broke out: 
 "There s something I ve been wanting you to know. The 
 other day in Paris I saw Miss Viner." 
 
 She saw him flush with the intensity of his surprise. 
 
 "You sent for her?" 
 
 "No ; she heard from Adelaide that I was in Paris and 
 she came. She came because she wanted to urge me to 
 marry you. I thought you ought to know what she had 
 done." 
 
 Darrow stood up. "I m glad you ve told me." He 
 spoke with a visible effort at composure. Her eyes fol 
 lowed him as he moved away. 
 
 "Is that all?" he asked after an interval. 
 
 "It seems to me a great deal." 
 
 "It s what she d already asked me." His voice showed 
 her how deeply he was moved, and a throb of jealousy 
 shot through her. 
 
 "Oh, it was for your sake, I know!" He made no 
 
 [ 332 ] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 answer, and she added: "She s been exceedingly gen 
 erous . . . Why shouldn t we speak of it?" 
 
 She had lowered her head, but through her dropped 
 lids she seemed to be watching the crowded scene of his 
 face. 
 
 "I ve not shrunk from speaking of it." 
 
 "Speaking of her, then, I mean. It seems to me that 
 if I could talk to you about her I should know better " 
 
 She broke off, confused, and he questioned: "What is 
 it you want to know better?" 
 
 The colour rose to her forehead. How could she tell 
 him what she scarcely dared own to herself ? There was 
 nothing she did not want to know, no fold or cranny 
 of his secret that her awakened imagination did not 
 strain to penetrate ; but she could not expose Sophy Viner 
 to the base fingerings of a retrospective jealousy, nor 
 Darrow to the temptation of belittling her in the effort 
 to better his own case. The girl had been magnificent, 
 and the only worthy return that Anna could make was 
 to take Darrow from her without a question if she took 
 him at all ... 
 
 She lifted her eyes to his face. "I think I only wanted 
 to speak her name. It s not right that we should seem 
 so afraid of it. If I were really afraid of it I should 
 have to give you up," she said. 
 
 He bent over her and caught her to him. "Ah, you 
 can t give me up now !" he exclaimed. 
 
 She suffered him to hold her fast without speaking; 
 but the old dread was between them again, and it was 
 on her lips to cry out : "How can I help it, when I am 
 so afraid?" 
 
 [333] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 XXXV 
 
 next morning the dread was still there, and she 
 JL understood that she must snatch herself out of 
 the torpor of the will into which she had been gradually 
 sinking, and tell Darrow that she could not be his wife. 
 The knowledge came to her in the watches of a sleep 
 less night, when, through the tears of disenchanted pas 
 sion, she stared back upon her past. There it lay be 
 fore her, her sole romance, in all its paltry poverty, the 
 cheapest of cheap adventures, the most pitiful of senti 
 mental blunders. She looked about her room, the room 
 where, for so many years, if her heart had been quiescent 
 her thoughts had been alive, and pictured herself hence 
 forth cowering before a throng of mean suspicions, of un- 
 avowed compromises and concessions. In that moment 
 of self-searching she saw that Sophy Viner had chosen 
 the better part, and that certain renunciations might en 
 rich where possession would have left a desert. 
 
 Passionate reactions of instinct fought against these 
 efforts of her will. Why should past or future coerce her, 
 when the present was so securely hers? Why insanely 
 surrender what the other would after all never have? 
 Her sense of irony whispered that if she sent away Dar 
 row it would not be to Sophy Viner, but to the first 
 woman who crossed his path as, in a similar hour, 
 Sophy Viner herself had crossed it ... But the mere 
 fact that she could think such things of him sent her 
 shuddering back to the opposite pole. She pictured her- 
 
 [334] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 self gradually subdued to such a conception of life and 
 love, she pictured Effie growing up under the influence of 
 the woman she saw herself becoming and she hid her 
 eyes from the humiliation of the picture . . . 
 
 They were at luncheon when the summons that Dar- 
 row expected was brought to him. He handed the tele 
 gram to Anna, and she learned that his Ambassador, on 
 the way to a German cure, was to be in Paris the next 
 evening and wished to confer with him there before he 
 went back to London. The idea that the decisive mo 
 ment was at hand was so agitating to her that when 
 luncheon was over she slipped away to the terrace and 
 thence went down alone to the garden. The day was 
 grey but mild, with the heaviness of decay in the air. 
 She rambled on aimlessly, following under the denuded 
 boughs the path she and Darrow had taken on their first 
 walk to the river. She was sure he would not try to over 
 take her: sure he would guess why she wished to be 
 alone. There were moments when it seemed to double 
 her loneliness to be so certain of his reading her heart 
 while she was so desperately ignorant of his ... 
 
 She wandered on for more than an hour, and when 
 she returned to the house she saw, as she entered the 
 hall, that Darrow was seated at the desk in Owen s 
 study. He heard her step, and looking up turned in his 
 chair without rising. Their eyes met, and she saw that 
 his were clear and smiling. He had a heap of papers at 
 his elbow and was evidently engaged in some official 
 correspondence. She wondered that he could address 
 himself so composedly to his task, and then ironically 
 
 [335] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 reflected that such detachment was a sign of his supe 
 riority. She crossed the threshold and went toward him ; 
 but as she advanced she had a sudden vision of Owen, 
 standing outside in the cold autumn dusk and watching 
 Darrow and Sophy Viner as they faced each other across 
 the lamplit desk . . . The evocation was so vivid that 
 it caught her breath like a blow, and she sank down help 
 lessly on the divan among the piled-up books. Distinctly, 
 at the moment, she understood that the end had come. 
 "When he speaks to me I will tell him !" she thought . . . 
 
 Darrow, laying aside his pen, looked at her for a mo 
 ment in silence; then he stood up and shut the door. 
 
 "I must go to-morrow early," he said, sitting down 
 beside her. His voice was grave, with a slight tinge of 
 sadness. She said to herself: "He knows what I am 
 feeling ..." and now the thought made her feel less 
 alone. The expression of his face was stern a*nd yet 
 tender: for the first time she understood what he had 
 suffered. 
 
 She had no doubt as to the necessity of giving him 
 up, but it was impossible to tell him so then. She stood 
 up and said: Til leave you to your letters." He made 
 no protest, but merely answered: "You ll come down 
 presently for a walk?" and it occurred to her at once 
 that she would walk down to the river with him, and 
 give herself for the last time the tragic luxury of sitting 
 at his side in the little pavilion. "Perhaps," she thought, 
 "it will be easier to tell him there." 
 
 It did not, on the way home from their walk, become 
 any easier to tell him ; but her secret decision to do so be 
 fore he left gave her a kind of factitious calm and laid a 
 
 [336] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 melancholy ecstasy upon the hour. Still skirting the sub 
 ject that fanned their very faces with its flame, they 
 clung persistently to other topics, and it seemed to Anna 
 that their minds had never been nearer together than in 
 this hour when their hearts were so separate. In the 
 glow of interchanged love she had grown less conscious 
 of that other glow of interchanged thought which had 
 once illumined her mind. She had forgotten how 
 Darrow had widened her world and lengthened out 
 all her perspectives, and with a pang of double desti 
 tution she saw herself alone among her shrunken 
 thoughts. 
 
 For the first time, then, she had a clear vision of 
 what her life would be without him. She imagined her 
 self trying to take up the daily round, and all that had 
 lightened and animated it seemed equally lifeless and 
 vain. She tried to think of herself as wholly absorbed in 
 her daughter s development, like other mothers she had 
 seen; but she supposed those mothers must have had 
 stored memories of happiness to nourish them. She had 
 had nothing, and all her starved youth still claimed its 
 due. 
 
 When she went up to dress for dinner she said to her 
 self : "I ll have my last evening with him, and then, be 
 fore we say good night, I ll tell him." 
 
 This postponement did not seem unjustified. Darrow 
 had shown her how he dreaded vain words, how resolved 
 he was to avoid all fruitless discussion. He must have 
 been intensely aware of what had been going on in her 
 mind since his return, yet when she had attempted to 
 reveal it to him he had turned from the revelation. She 
 
 [337] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 was therefore merely following the line he had traced 
 in behaving, till the final moment came, as though there 
 were nothing more to say . . . 
 
 That moment seemed at last to be at hand when, at 
 her usual hour after dinner, Madame de Chantelle rose 
 to go upstairs. She lingered a little to bid good-bye 
 to Darrow, whom she was not likely to see in the morn 
 ing; and her affable allusions to his prompt return 
 sounded in Anna s ear like the note of destiny. 
 
 A cold rain had fallen all day, and for greater warmth 
 and intimacy they had gone after dinner to the oak- 
 room, shutting out the chilly vista of the farther draw 
 ing-rooms. The autumn wind, coming up from the river, 
 cried about the house with a voice of loss and separation ; 
 and Anna and Darrow sat silent, as if they feared to 
 break the hush that shut them in. The solitude, the fire 
 light, the harmony of soft hangings and old dim pic 
 tures, wove about them a spell of security through which 
 Anna felt, far down in her heart, the muffled beat of 
 an inextinguishable bliss. How could she have thought 
 that this last moment would be the moment to speak to 
 him, when it seemed to have gathered up into its flight all 
 the scattered splendours of her dream ? 
 
 XXXVI 
 
 DARROW continued to stand by the door after it 
 had closed. Anna felt that he was looking at her, 
 and sat still, disdaining to seek refuge in any evasive 
 
 [338] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 word or movement. For the last time she wanted to 
 let him take from her the fulness of what the sight of 
 her could give. 
 
 He crossed over and sat down on the sofa. For a 
 moment neither of them spoke ; then he said : "To-night, 
 dearest, I must have my answer." 
 
 She straightened herself under the shock of his seeming 
 to take the very words from her lips. 
 
 "To-night?" was all that she could falter. 
 
 "I must be of? by the early train. There won t be 
 more than a moment in the morning." 
 
 He had taken her hand, and she said to herself that 
 she must free it before she could go on with what she 
 had to say. Then she rejected this concession to a weak 
 ness she was resolved to defy. To the end she would 
 leave her hand in his hand, her eyes in his eyes : she 
 would not, in their final hour together, be afraid of any 
 part of her love for him. 
 
 "You ll tell me to-night, dear," he insisted gently; and 
 his insistence gave her the strength to speak. 
 
 "There s something I must ask you," she broke out, 
 perceiving, as she heard her words, that they were not 
 in the least what she had meant to say. 
 
 He sat still, waiting, and she pressed on: "Do such 
 things happen to men often?" 
 
 The quiet room seemed to resound with the long re 
 verberations of her question. She looked away from 
 him, and he released her and stood up. 
 
 "I don t know what happens to other men. Such a 
 thing never happened to me ..." 
 
 She turned her eyes back to his face. She felt like 
 
 [339] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 a traveller on a giddy path between a cliff and a preci 
 pice : there was nothing for it now but to go on. 
 
 "Had it ... had it begun . . . before you met her in 
 Paris?" 
 
 "No; a thousand times no! I ve told you the facts as 
 they were." 
 
 "All the facts?" 
 
 He turned abruptly. "What do you mean?" 
 
 Her throat was dry and the loud pulses drummed in 
 her temples. 
 
 "I mean about her . . . Perhaps you knew . . . knew 
 things about her . . . beforehand." 
 
 She stopped. The room had grown profoundly still. 
 A log dropped to the hearth and broke there in a hissing 
 shower. 
 
 Darrow spoke in a clear voice. "I knew nothing, abso 
 lutely nothing," he said. 
 
 She had the answer to her inmost doubt to her last 
 shameful unavowed hope. She sat powerless under her 
 woe. 
 
 He walked to the fireplace and pushed back the bro 
 ken log with his foot. A flame shot out of it, and in 
 the upward glare she saw his pale face, stern with 
 misery 
 
 "Is that all?" he asked. 
 
 She made a slight sign with her head and he came 
 slowly back to her. "Then is this to be good-bye ?" 
 
 Again she signed a faint assent, and he made no effort 
 to touch her or draw nearer. "You understand that I 
 sha n t come back ?" 
 
 He was looking at her, and she tried to return his look, 
 [340] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 but her eyes were blind with tears, and in dread of his 
 seeing them she got up and walked away. He did not 
 follow her, and she stood with her back to him, staring 
 at a bowl of carnations on a little table strewn with books. 
 Her tears magnified everything she looked at, and the 
 streaked petals of the carnations, their fringed edges and 
 frail curled stamens, pressed upon her, huge and vivid. 
 She noticed among the books a volume of verse he had 
 sent her from England, and tried to remember whether 
 it was before or after . . . 
 
 She felt that he was waiting for her to speak, and at 
 last she turned to him. "I shall see you to-morrow be 
 fore you go ..." 
 
 He made no answer. 
 
 She moved toward the door and he held it open for her. 
 She saw his hand on the door, and his seal ring in its 
 setting of twisted silver ; and the sense of the end of all 
 things came to her. 
 
 They walked down the drawing-rooms, between the 
 shadowy reflections of screens and cabinets, and mounted 
 the stairs side by side. At the end of the gallery, a lamp 
 brought out turbid gleams in the smoky battle-piece 
 above it. 
 
 On the landing Darrow stopped ; his room was the 
 nearest to the stairs. "Good night," he said, holding out 
 his hand. 
 
 As Anna gave him hers the springs of grief broke 
 loose in her. She struggled with her sobs, and subdued 
 them ; but her breath came unevenly, and to hide her agi 
 tation she leaned on him and pressed her face against 
 his arm. 
 
 [341] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 "Don t don t/ he whispered, soothing her. 
 
 Her troubled breathing sounded loudly in the silence of 
 the sleeping house. She pressed her lips tight, but could 
 not stop the nervous pulsations in her throat, and he put 
 an arm about her and, opening his door, drew her across 
 the threshold of his room. The door shut behind her 
 and she sat down on the lounge at the foot of the bed. 
 The pulsations in her throat had ceased, but she knew they 
 would begin again if she tried to speak. 
 
 Darrow walked away and leaned against the mantel 
 piece. The red-veiled lamp shone on his books and 
 papers, on the arm-chair by the fire, and the scattered 
 objects on his dressing-table. A log glimmered on the 
 hearth, and the room was warm and faintly smoke- 
 scented. It was the first time she had ever been in a 
 room he lived in, among his personal possessions and 
 the Uaces of his daily usage. Every object about her 
 seemed to contain a particle of himself: the whole air 
 breathed of him, steeping her in the sense of his intimate 
 presence. 
 
 Suddenly she thought: This is what Sophy Viner 
 knew" . . . and with a torturing precision she pictured 
 them alone in such a scene . . . Had he taken the girl to 
 an hotel . . . where did people go in such cases? 
 Wherever they were, the silence of night had been 
 around them, and the things he used had been strewn 
 about the room . . . Anna, ashamed of dwelling on the 
 detested vision, stood up with a confused impulse of 
 flight; then a wave of contrary feeling arrested her and 
 she paused with lowered head. 
 
 Darrow had come forward as she rose, and she per- 
 
 [342] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 ceived that he was waiting for her to bid him good 
 night. It was clear that no other possibility had even 
 brushed his mind; and the fact, for some dim reason, 
 humiliated her. "Why not . . . why not?" something 
 whispered in her, as though his forbearance, his tacit 
 recognition of her pride, were a slight on other qualities 
 she wanted him to feel in her. 
 
 "In the morning, then?" she heard him say. 
 
 "Yes, in the morning," she repeated. 
 
 She continued to stand in the same place, looking 
 vaguely about the room. For once before they parted 
 since part they must she longed to be to him all that 
 Sophy Viner had been; but she remained rooted to the 
 floor, unable to find a word or imagine a gesture that 
 should express her meaning. Exasperated by her help 
 lessness, she thought: "Don t I feel things as other 
 women do?" 
 
 Her eye fell on a note-case she had given him. It 
 was worn at the corners with the friction of his pocket 
 and distended with thickly packed papers. She wondered 
 if he carried her letters in it, and she put her hand out 
 and touched it. 
 
 All that he and she had ever felt or seen, their close 
 encounters of word and look, and the closer contact of 
 their silences, trembled through her at the touch. She 
 remembered things he had said that had been like new 
 skies above her head: ways he had that seemed a part 
 of the air she breathed. The faint warmth of her girlish 
 love came back to her, gathering heat as it passed through 
 her thoughts; and her heart rocked like a boat on the 
 surge of its long long memories. "It s because I love 
 
 [343] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 him in too many ways," she thought; and slowly she 
 turned to the door. 
 
 She was aware that Darrow was still silently watching 
 her, but he neither stirred nor spoke till she had reached 
 the threshold. Then he met her there and caught her 
 in his arms. 
 
 "Not to-night don t tell me to-night !" he whispered ; 
 and she leaned away from him, closing her eyes for an 
 instant, and then slowly opening them to the flood of 
 light in his. 
 
 XXXVII 
 
 ANNA and Darrow, the next day, sat alone in a 
 compartment of the Paris train. 
 
 Anna, when they entered it, had put herself in the 
 farthest corner and placed her bag on the adjoining seat. 
 She had decided suddenly to accompany Darrow to Paris, 
 had even persuaded him to wait for a later train in order 
 that they might travel together. She had an intense 
 longing to be with him, an almost morbid terror of losing 
 sight of him for a moment: when he jumped out of the 
 train and ran back along the platform to buy a news 
 paper for her she felt as though she should never see him 
 again, and shivered with the cold misery of her last jour 
 ney to Paris, when she had thought herself parted from 
 him forever. Yet she wanted to keep him at a distance, 
 on the other side of the compartment, and as the train 
 moved out of the station she drew from her bag the let 
 ters she had thrust in it as she left the house, and be- 
 
 [344] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 gan to glance over them so that her lowered lids should 
 hide her eyes from him. 
 
 She was his now, his for life : there could never again 
 be any question of sacrificing herself to Effie s welfare, 
 or to any other abstract conception of duty. Effie of 
 course would not suffer ; Anna would pay for her bliss as 
 a wife by redoubled devotion as a mother. Her scruples 
 were not overcome; but for the time their voices were 
 drowned in the tumultuous rumour of her happiness. 
 
 As she opened her letters she was conscious that Dar- 
 row s gaze was fixed on her, and gradually it drew her 
 eyes upward, and she drank deep of the passionate ten 
 derness in his. Then the blood rose to her face and 
 she felt again the desire to shield herself. She turned 
 back to her letters and her glance lit on an envelope in 
 scribed in Owen s hand. 
 
 Her heart began to beat oppressively: she was in a 
 mood when the simplest things seemed ominous. What 
 could Owen have to say to her? Only the first page was 
 covered, and it contained simply the announcement that, 
 in the company of a young compatriot who was studying 
 at the Beaux Arts, he had planned to leave for Spain the 
 following evening. 
 
 "He hasn t seen her, then!" was Anna s instant 
 thought; and her feeling was a strange compound of 
 humiliation and relief. The girl had kept her word, 
 lived up to the line of conduct she had set herself; and 
 Anna had failed in the same attempt. She did not re 
 proach herself with her failure ; but she would have been 
 happier if there had been less discrepancy between her 
 words to Sophy Viner and the act which had followed 
 
 [345] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 them. It irritated her obscurely that the girl should have 
 been so much surer of her power to carry out her pur 
 pose . . . 
 
 Anna looked up and saw that Barrow s eyes were on 
 the newspaper. He seemed calm and secure, almost indif 
 ferent to her presence. "Will it become a matter of 
 course to him so soon?" she wondered with a twinge of 
 jealousy. She sat motionless, her eyes fixed on him, 
 trying to make him feel the attraction of her gaze as she 
 felt his. It surprised and shamed her to detect a new 
 element in her love for him : a sort of suspicious tyran 
 nical tenderness that seemed to deprive it of all serenity. 
 Finally he looked up, his smile enveloped her, and she 
 felt herself his in every fibre, his so completely and in 
 separably that she saw the vanity of imagining any other 
 fate for herself. 
 
 To give herself a countenance she held out Owen s 
 letter. He took it and glanced down the page, his face 
 grown grave. She waited nervously till he looked up. 
 
 "That s a good plan; the best thing that could hap 
 pen," he said, a just perceptible shade of constraint in 
 his tone. 
 
 "Oh, yes," she hastily assented. She was aware of a 
 faint current of relief silently circulating between them. 
 They were both glad that Owen was going, that for a 
 while he would be out of their way ; and it seemed to her 
 horrible that so much of the stuff of their happiness 
 should be made of such unavowed feelings . . . 
 
 "I shall see him this evening," she said, wishing Dar- 
 row to feel that she was not afraid of meeting her step 
 son. 
 
 [346] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 "Yes, of course ; perhaps he might dine with you." 
 
 The words struck her as strangely obtuse. Darrow 
 was to meet his Ambassador at the station on the latter s 
 arrival, and would in all probability have to spend the 
 evening with him, and Anna knew he had been concerned 
 at the thought of having to leave her alone. But how 
 could he speak in that careless tone of her dining with 
 Owen? She lowered her voice to say: "I m afraid he s 
 desperately unhappy." 
 
 He answered, with a tinge of impatience: "It s much 
 the best thing that he should travel." 
 
 "Yes but don t you feel ..." She broke off. She 
 knew how he disliked these idle returns on the irrevoc 
 able, and her fear of doing or saying what he disliked 
 was tinged by a new instinct of subserviency against 
 which her pride revolted. She thought to herself : "He 
 will see the change, and grow indifferent to me as he 
 did to her ..." and for a moment it seemed to her 
 that she was reliving the experience of Sophy Viner. 
 
 Darrow made no attempt to learn the end of her un 
 finished sentence. He handed back Owen s letter and re 
 turned to his newspaper; and when he looked up from 
 it a few minutes later it was with a clear brow and a 
 smile that irresistibly drew her back to happier thoughts. 
 
 The train was just entering a station, and a moment 
 later their compartment was invaded by a common-place 
 couple preoccupied with the bestowal of bulging pack 
 ages. Anna, at their approach, felt the possessive pride 
 of the woman in love when strangers are between her 
 self and the man she loves. She asked Darrow to open 
 the window, to place her bag in the net, to roll her rug 
 
 23 t 347 ] 
 

 THE REEF 
 
 into a cushion for her feet ; and while he was thus busied 
 with her she was conscious of a new devotion in his tone, 
 in his way of bending over her and meeting her eyes. He 
 went back to his seat, and they looked at each other like 
 lovers smiling at a happy secret. 
 
 Anna, before going back to Givre, had suggested 
 Owen s moving into her apartment, but he had preferred 
 to remain at the hotel to which he had sent his luggage, 
 and on arriving in Paris she decided to drive there at 
 once. She was impatient to have the meeting over, and 
 glad that Darrow was obliged to leave her at the sta 
 tion in order to look up a colleague at the Embassy. 
 She dreaded his seeing Owen again, and yet dared not 
 tell him so; and to ensure his remaining away she men 
 tioned an urgent engagement with her dress-maker and 
 a long list of commissions to be executed for Madame 
 de Chantelle. 
 
 "I shall see you to-morrow morning/ she said; but 
 he replied with a smile that he would certainly find time 
 to come to her for a moment on his way back from meet 
 ing the Ambassador; and when he had put her in a 
 cab he leaned through the window to press his lips to 
 
 hers. 
 
 She blushed like a girl, thinking, half vexed, half 
 happy: "Yesterday he would not have done it . . . " 
 and a dozen scarcely definable differences in his look and 
 manner seemed all at once to be summed up in the boy 
 ish act. "After all, I m engaged to him," she reflected, 
 and then smiled at the absurdity of the word. The next 
 instant, with a pang of self-reproach, she remembered 
 Sophy Viner s cry: "I knew all the while he didn t 
 
 [348] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 care . 
 mured 
 
 " "Poor thing, oh poor thing! * Anna mur- 
 
 At Owen s hotel she waited in a tremor while the 
 porter went in search of him. Word was presently 
 brought back that he was in his room and begged her 
 to come up, and as she crossed the hall she caught sight 
 of his portmanteaux lying on the floor, already labelled 
 for departure. 
 
 Owen sat at a table writing, his back to the door ; and 
 when he stood up the window was behind him, so that, 
 in the rainy afternoon light, his features were barely 
 discernible. 
 
 "Dearest so you re really off?" she said, hesitating 
 a moment on the threshold. 
 
 He pushed a chair forward, and they sat down, each 
 waiting for the other to speak. Finally she put some 
 random question about his travelling-companion, a slow 
 shy meditative youth whom he had once or twice brought 
 down to Givre. She reflected that it was natural he 
 should have given this uncommunicative comrade the 
 preference over his livelier acquaintances, and aloud 
 she said: "I m so glad Fred Rempson can go with 
 you." 
 
 Owen answered in the same tone, and for a few min 
 utes their talk dragged itself on over a dry waste of 
 common-places. Anna noticed that, though ready 
 enough to impart his own plans, Owen studiously ab 
 stained from putting any questions about hers. It was 
 evident from his allusions that he meant to be away for 
 some time, and he presently asked her if she would give 
 
 [349] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 instructions about packing and sending after him some 
 winter clothes he had left at Givre. This gave her the 
 opportunity to say that she expected to go back within 
 a day or two and would attend to the matter as soon as 
 she returned. She added : "I came up this morning with 
 George, who is going on to London to-morrow," in 
 tending, by the use of Darrow s Christian name, to give 
 Owen the chance to speak of her marriage. But he made 
 no comment, and she continued to hear the name sound 
 ing on unfamiliarly between them. 
 
 The room was almost dark, and she finally stood up 
 and glanced about for the light-switch, saying: "I can t 
 see you, dear." 
 
 "Oh, don t I hate the light !" Owen exclaimed, catch 
 ing her by the wrist and pushing her back into her seat. 
 He gave a nervous laugh and added: "I m half-blind 
 with neuralgia. I suppose it s this beastly rain." 
 
 "Yes ; it will do you good to get down to Spain." 
 
 She asked if he had the remedies the doctor had given 
 him for a previous attack, and on his replying that he 
 didn t know what he d done with the stuff, she sprang 
 up, offering to go to the chemist s. It was a relief to 
 have something to do for him, and she knew from his 
 "Oh, thanks would you?" that it was a relief to him 
 to have a pretext for not detaining her. His natural 
 impulse would have been to declare that he didn t want 
 any drugs, and would be all right in no time; and his 
 acquiescence showed her how profoundly he felt the use- 
 lessness of their trying to prolong their talk. His face 
 was now no more than a white blur in the dusk, but she 
 felt its indistinctness as a veil drawn over aching inten- 
 
 [350] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 sities of expression. "He knows ... he knows ..." 
 she said to herself, and wondered whether the truth had 
 been revealed to him by some corroborative fact or by 
 the sheer force of divination. 
 
 He had risen also, and was clearly waiting for her to 
 go, and she turned to the door, saying: "I ll be back 
 in a moment." 
 
 "Oh, don t come up again, please t" He paused, em 
 barrassed. "I mean I may not be here. I ve got to 
 go and pick up Rempson, and see about some final things 
 with him." 
 
 She stopped on the threshold with a sinking heart. He 
 meant this to be their leave-taking, then and he had not 
 even asked her when she was to be married, or spoken of 
 seeing her again before she set out for the other side of 
 the world. 
 
 "Owen !" she cried, and turned back. 
 
 He stood mutely before her in the dimness. 
 
 "You haven t told me how long you re to be gone." 
 
 "How long? Oh, you see ... that s rather vague 
 ... I hate definite dates, you know ..." 
 
 He paused and she saw he did not mean to help her 
 out. She tried to say : "You ll be here for my wedding ?" 
 but could not bring the words to her lips. Instead she 
 murmured : "In six weeks I shall be going too ..." 
 and he rejoined, as if he had expected the announcement 
 and prepared his answer: "Oh, by that time, very 
 likely ..." 
 
 "At any rate, I won t say good-bye," she stammered, 
 feeling the tears beneath her veil. 
 
 "No, no; rather not!" he declared; but he made no 
 
 [35i] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 movement, and she went up and threw her arms about 
 him. "You ll write me, won t you?" 
 
 "Of course, of course " 
 
 Her hands slipped down into his, and for a minute they 
 held each other dumbly in the darkness; then he gave a 
 vague laugh and said : "It s really time to light up." He 
 pressed the electric button with one hand while with the 
 other he opened the door; and she passed out without 
 daring to turn back, lest the light on his face should 
 show her what she feared to see. 
 
 XXXVIII 
 
 ANNA drove to the chemist s for Owen s remedy. 
 On the way she stopped her cab at a book-shop, 
 and emerged from it laden with literature. She knew what 
 would interest Owen, and what he was likely to have 
 read, and she had made her choice among the newest 
 publications with the promptness of a discriminating 
 reader. But on the way back to the hotel she was 
 overcome by the irony of adding this mental panacea to 
 the other. There was something grotesque and almost 
 mocking in the idea of offering a judicious selection of 
 literature to a man setting out on such a journey. "He 
 knows ... he knows ..." she kept on repeating ; and 
 giving the porter the parcel from the chemist s she drove 
 away without leaving the books. 
 
 She went to her apartment, whither her maid had pre 
 ceded her. There was a fire in the drawing-room and 
 the tea-table stood ready by the hearth. The stormy rain 
 
 [352] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 beat against the uncurtained windows, and she thought 
 of Owen, who would soon be driving through it to the 
 station, alone with his bitter thoughts. She had been 
 proud of the fact that he had always sought her help 
 in difficult hours; and now, in the most difficult of all, 
 she was the one being to whom he could not turn. Be 
 tween them, henceforth, there would always be the wall 
 of an insurmountable silence . . . She strained her 
 aching thoughts to guess how the truth had come to 
 him. Had he seen the girl, and had she told him? In 
 stinctively, Anna rejected this conjecture. But what need 
 was there of assuming an explicit statement, when every 
 breath they had drawn for the last weeks had been 
 charged with the immanent secret? As she looked back 
 over the days since Barrow s first arrival at Givre she 
 perceived that at no time had any one deliberately spoken, 
 or anything been accidentally disclosed. The truth had 
 come to light by the force of its irresistible pressure; 
 and the perception gave her a startled sense of hidden 
 powers, of a chaos of attractions and repulsions far be 
 neath the ordered surfaces of intercourse. She looked 
 back with melancholy derision on her old conception of 
 life, as a kind of well-lit and well-policed suburb to dark 
 places one need never know about. Here they were, these 
 dark places, in her own bosom, and henceforth she would i 
 always have to traverse them to reach the beings she 
 loved best! 
 
 She was still sitting beside the untouched tea-table 
 when she heard Darrow s voice in the hall. She started 
 up, saying to herself: "I must tell him that Owen 
 knows ..." but when the door opened and she 
 
 [353] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 saw his face, still lit by the same smile of boyish triumph, 
 she felt anew the uselessness of speaking . . . Had 
 he ever supposed that Owen would not know ? Probably, 
 from the height of his greater experience, he had seen 
 long since that all that happened was inevitable ; and the 
 thought of it, at any rate, was clearly not weighing on 
 him now. 
 
 He was already dressed for the evening, and as he 
 came toward her he said : "The Ambassador s booked for 
 an official dinner and I m free after all. Where shall 
 we dine?" 
 
 Anna had pictured herself sitting alone all the evening 
 with her wretched thoughts, and the fact of having to 
 put them out of her mind for the next few hours gave 
 her an immediate sensation of relief. Already her 
 pulses were dancing to the tune of Darrow s, and as they 
 smiled at each other she thought: "Nothing can ever 
 change the fact that I belong to him." 
 
 "Where shall we dine?" he repeated gaily, and she 
 named a well-known restaurant for which she had once 
 heard him express a preference. But as she did so she 
 fancied she saw a shadow on his face, and instantly she 
 said to herself : "It was there he went with her !" 
 
 "Oh, no, not there, after all !" she interrupted herself ; 
 and now she was sure his colour deepened. 
 
 "Where shall it be, then?" 
 
 She noticed that he did not ask the reason of her 
 change, and this convinced her that she had guessed the 
 truth, and that he knew she had guessed it. "He will 
 always know what I am thinking, and he will never dare 
 to ask me," she thought ; and she saw between them the 
 
 [354] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 same insurmountable wall of silence as between herself 
 and Owen, a wall of glass through which they could 
 watch each other s faintest motions but which no sound 
 could ever traverse . . . 
 
 They drove to a restaurant on the Boulevard, and 
 there, in their intimate corner of the serried scene, the 
 sense of what was unspoken between them gradually 
 ceased to oppress her. He looked so light-hearted and 
 handsome, so ingenuously proud of her, so openly happy 
 at being with her, that no other fact could seem real 
 in his presence. He had learned that the Ambassador 
 was to spend two days in Paris, and he* had reason to 
 hope that in consequence his own departure for London 
 would be deferred. He was exhilarated by the pros 
 pect of being with Anna for a few hours longer, and she 
 did not ask herself if his exhilaration were a sign of 
 insensibility, for she was too conscious of his power of 
 swaying her moods not to be secretly proud of affecting 
 his. 
 
 They lingered for some time over the fruit and coffee, 
 and when they rose to go Darrow suggested that, if she 
 felt disposed for the play, they were not too late for the 
 second part of the programme at one of the smaller 
 theatres. 
 
 His mention of the hour recalled Owen to her thoughts. 
 She saw his train rushing southward through the storm, 
 and, in a corner of the swaying compartment, his face, 
 white and indistinct as it had loomed on her in the rainy 
 twilight. It was horrible to be thus perpetually paying 
 for her happiness ! 
 
 Darrow had called for a theatrical journal, and he 
 
 [355] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 presently looked up from it to say: "I hear the second 
 play at the Athenee is amusing." 
 
 It was on Anna s lips to acquiesce; but as she was 
 about to speak she wondered if it were not at the Athenee 
 that Owen had seen Darrow with Sophy Viner. She 
 was not sure he had even mentioned the theatre, but 
 the mere possibility was enough to darken her sky. It 
 was hateful to her to think of accompanying Darrow 
 to places where the girl had been with him. She 
 tried to reason away this scruple, she even reminded 
 herself with a bitter irony that whenever she was in 
 Darrow s arms she was where the girl had been before 
 her but she could not shake off her superstitious dread 
 of being with him in any of the scenes of the Parisian 
 episode. 
 
 She replied that she was too tired for the play, and 
 they drove back to her apartment. At the foot of the 
 stairs she half-turned to .wish him good night, but he 
 appeared not to notice her gesture and followed her up 
 to her door. 
 
 "This is ever so much better than the theatre," he said 
 as they entered the drawing-room. 
 
 She had crossed the room and was bending over the 
 hearth to light the fire. She knew he was approaching 
 her, and that in a moment he would have drawn the 
 cloak from her shoulders and laid his lips on her neck, 
 just below the gathered-up hair. These privileges were 
 his and, however deferently and tenderly he claimed 
 them, the joyous ease of his manner marked a difference 
 and proclaimed a right. 
 
 "After the theatre they came home like this," she 
 
 [356] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 thought; and at the same instant she felt his hands on 
 her shoulders and shrank back. 
 
 "Don t oh, don t !" she cried, drawing her cloak about 
 her. She saw from his astonished stare that her face 
 must be quivering with pain. 
 
 "Anna! What on earth is the matter?" 
 
 "Owen knows !" she broke out, with a confused desire 
 to justify herself. 
 
 Darrow s countenance .changed. "Did he tell you so? 
 What did he say?" 
 
 "Nothing ! I knew it from the things he didn t say." 
 
 "You had a talk with him this afternoon?" 
 
 "Yes : for a few minutes. I could see he didn t want 
 me to stay." 
 
 She had dropped into a chair, and sat there huddled, 
 still holding her cloak about her shoulders. 
 
 Darrow did not dispute her assumption, and she no 
 ticed that he expressed no surprise. He sat down at a 
 little distance from her, turning about in his ringers the 
 cigar-case he had drawn out as they came in. At length 
 he said: "Had he seen Miss Viner?" 
 
 She shrank from the sound of the name. "No . . . 
 I don t think so ... I m sure he hadn t ..." 
 
 They remained silent, looking away from one another. 
 Finally Darrow stood up and took a few steps across the 
 room. He came back and paused before her, his eyes on 
 her face. 
 
 "I think you ought to tell me what you mean to do." 
 
 She raised her head and gave him back his look. 
 "Nothing I do can help Owen !" 
 
 "No ; but things can t go on like this." He paused, as 
 
 [357] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 if to measure his words. "I fill you with aversion," he 
 exclaimed. 
 
 She started up, half-sobbing. "No oh, no !" 
 
 "Poor child you can t see your face !" 
 
 She lifted her hands as if to hide it, and turning away 
 from him bowed her head upon the mantel-shelf. She 
 felt that he was standing a little way behind her, but 
 he made no attempt to touch her or come nearer. 
 
 "I know you ve felt as I ve felt," he said in a low 
 voice "that we belong to each other and that nothing 
 can alter that. But other thoughts come, and you can t 
 banish them. Whenever you see me you remember . . . 
 you associate me with things you abhor . . . You ve been 
 generous immeasurably. You ve given me all the 
 chances a woman could ; but if it s only made you suffer, 
 what s the use?" 
 
 She turned to him with a tear-stained face. "It hasn t 
 only done that." 
 
 "Oh, no ! I know . . . There ve been moments ..." 
 He took her hand and raised it to his lips. "They ll be 
 with me as long as I live. But I can t see you paying 
 such a price for them. I m not worth what I m costing 
 you." 
 
 She continued to gaze at him through tear-dilated 
 eyes ; and suddenly she flung out the question : "Wasn t 
 it the Athenee you took her to that evening?" 
 
 "Anna Anna !" 
 
 "Yes ; I want to know now : to know everything. Per 
 haps that will make me forget. I ought to have made 
 you tell me before. Wherever we go, I imagine you ve 
 been there with her ... I see you together. I want to 
 
 [358] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 know how it began, where you went, why you left her 
 ... I can t go on in this darkness any longer !" 
 
 She did not know what had prompted her passionate 
 outburst, but already she felt lighter, freer, as if at last 
 the evil spell were broken. "I want to know every 
 thing," she repeated. "It s the only way to make me 
 forget." 
 
 After she had ceased speaking Darrow remained where 
 he was, his arms folded, his eyes lowered, immovable. 
 She waited, her gaze on his face. 
 
 "Aren t you going to tell me?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 The blood rushed to her temples. "You won t ? Why 
 not?" 
 
 "If I did, do you suppose you d forget that?" 
 
 "Oh " she moaned, and turned away from him. 
 
 "You see it s impossible," he went on. "I ve done a 
 thing I loathe, and to atone for it you ask me to do 
 another. What sort of satisfaction would that give you ? 
 It would put something irremediable between us." 
 
 She leaned her elbow against the mantel-shelf and hid 
 her face in her hands. She had the sense that she was 
 vainly throwing away her last hope of happiness, yet 
 she could do nothing, think of nothing, to save it. The 
 conjecture flashed through her: "Should I be at peace if 
 I gave him up?" and she remembered the desolation of 
 the days after she had sent him away, and understood 
 that that hope was vain. The tears welled through her 
 lids and ran slowly down between her fingers. 
 
 "Good-bye," she heard him say, and his footsteps 
 turned to the door. 
 
 [359] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 She tried to raise her head, but the weight of her des 
 pair bowed it down. She said to herself: "This is 
 the end ... he won t try to appeal to me again ..." 
 and she remained in a sort of tranced rigidity, perceiving 
 without feeling the fateful lapse of the seconds. Then 
 the cords that bound her seemed to snap, and she lifted 
 her head and saw him going. 
 
 "Why, he s mine he s mine! He s no one else s!" 
 His face was turned to her and the look in his eyes swept 
 away all her terrors. She no longer understood what 
 had prompted her senseless outcry; and the mortal 
 sweetness of loving him became again the one real fact 
 in the world. 
 
 XXXIX 
 
 ANNA, the next day, woke to a humiliated memory 
 of the previous evening. 
 
 Darrow had been right in saying that their sacrifice 
 would benefit no one; yet she seemed dimly to discern 
 that there were obligations not to be tested by that stand 
 ard. She owed it, at any rate, as much to his pride as to 
 hers to abstain from the repetition of such scenes ; and 
 she had learned that it was beyond her power to do so 
 while they were together. Yet when he had given her 
 the chance to free herself, everything had vanished from 
 her mind but the blind fear of losing him ; and she saw 
 that he and she were as profoundly and inextricably 
 bound together as two trees with interwoven roots. 
 
 For a long time she brooded on her plight, vaguely 
 conscious that the only escape from it must come from 
 
 [360] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 some external chance. And slowly the occasion shaped 
 itself in her mind. It was Sophy Viner only who could 
 save her Sophy Viner only who could give her back her 
 lost serenity. She would seek the girl out and tell her 
 that she had given Darrow up; and that step once 
 taken there would be no retracing it, and she would per 
 force have to go forward alone. 
 
 Any pretext for action was a kind of anodyne, and 
 she despatched her maid to the Farlows with a note 
 asking if Miss Viner would receive her. There was 
 a long delay before the maid returned, and when at last 
 she appeared it was with a slip of paper on which an 
 address was written, and a verbal message to the ef 
 fect that Miss Viner had left some days previously, and 
 was staying with her sister in a hotel near the Place de 
 1 Etoile. The maid added that Mrs. Farlow, on the plea 
 that Miss Viner s plans were uncertain, had at first made 
 some difficulty about giving this information ; and Anna 
 guessed that the girl had left her friends roof, and in 
 structed them to withhold her address, with the object 
 of avoiding Owen. "She s kept faith with herself and 
 I haven t," Anna mused; and the thought was a fresh 
 incentive to action. 
 
 Darrow had announced his intention of coming soon 
 after luncheon, and the morning was already so far ad 
 vanced that Anna, still mistrustful of her strength, de 
 cided to drive immediately to the address Mrs. Farlow 
 had given. On the way there she tried to recall what 
 she had heard of Sophy Viner s sister, but beyond the 
 girl s enthusiastic report of the absent Laura s loveliness 
 she could remember only certain vague allusions of Mrs. 
 
 [361] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 Farlow s to her artistic endowments and matrimonial 
 vicissitudes. Darrow had mentioned her but once, and in 
 the briefest terms, as having apparently very little con 
 cern for Sophy s welfare, and being, at any rate, too 
 geographically remote to give her any practical support; 
 and Anna wondered what chance had brought her to her 
 sister s side at this conjunction. Mrs. Farlow had spoken 
 of her as a celebrity (in what line Anna failed to recall) ; 
 but Mrs. Farlow s celebrities were legion, and the name 
 on the slip of paper Mrs. McTarvie-Birch did not seem 
 to have any definite association with fame. 
 
 While Anna waited in the dingy vestibule of the Hotel 
 Chicago she had so distinct a vision of what she meant 
 to say to Sophy Viner that the girl seemed already to 
 be before her ; and her heart dropped from all the height 
 of its courage when the porter, after a long delay, re 
 turned with the announcement that Miss Viner was no 
 longer in the hotel. Anna, doubtful if she understood, 
 asked if he merely meant that the young lady was out 
 at the moment; but he replied that she had gone away 
 the day before. Beyond this he had no information to 
 impart, and after a moment s hesitation Anna sent him 
 back to enquire if Mrs. McTarvie-Birch would receive 
 her. She reflected that Sophy had probably pledged her 
 sister to the same secrecy as Mrs. Farlow, and that a 
 personal appeal to Mrs. Birch might lead to less nega 
 tive results. 
 
 There was another long interval of suspense before 
 the porter reappeared with an affirmative answer; and 
 a third while an exiguous and hesitating lift bore her 
 up past a succession of shabby landings. 
 
 [362] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 When the last was reached, and her guide had directed 
 her down a winding passage that smelt of sea-going lug 
 gage, she found herself before a door through which a 
 strong odour of tobacco reached her simultaneously with 
 the sounds of a suppressed altercation. Her knock was 
 followed by a silence, and after a minute or two the door 
 was opened by a handsome young man whose ruffled hair 
 and general air of creased disorder led her to conclude 
 that he had just risen from a long-limbed sprawl on a 
 sofa strewn with tumbled cushions. This sofa, and a 
 grand piano bearing a basket of faded roses, a biscuit- 
 tin *and a devastated breakfast tray, almost rilled the 
 narrow sitting-room, in the remaining corner of which 
 another man, short, swarthy and humble, sat examining 
 the lining of his hat. 
 
 Anna paused in doubt ; but on her naming Mrs. Birch 
 the young man politely invited her to enter, at the same 
 time casting an impatient glance at the mute spectator 
 in the background. 
 
 The latter, raising his eyes, which were round and 
 bulging, fixed them, not on the young man .but on Anna, 
 whom, for a moment, he scrutinized as searchingly as the 
 interior of his hat. Under his gaze she had the sense of 
 being minutely catalogued and valued; and the impres 
 sion, when he finally rose and moved toward the door, of 
 having been accepted as a better guarantee than he had 
 had any reason to hope for. On the threshold his glance 
 crossed that of the young man in an exchange of in 
 telligence as full as it was rapid; and this brief scene 
 left Anna so oddly enlightened that she felt no surprise 
 when her companion, pushing an arm-chair forward, 
 
 84 1 363 1 
 
 
THE REEF 
 
 sociably asked her if she wouldn t have a cigarette. Her 
 polite refusal provoked the remark that he would, if she d 
 no objection; and while he groped for matches in his 
 loose pockets, and behind the photographs and letters 
 crowding the narrow mantel-shelf, she ventured another 
 enquiry for Mrs. Birch. 
 
 "Just a minute," he smiled; "I think the masseur s 
 with her." He spoke in a smooth denationalized Eng 
 lish, which, like the look in his long-lashed eyes and the 
 promptness of his charming smile, suggested a long 
 training in all the arts of expediency. Having finally 
 discovered a match-box on the floor beside the sofa, he 
 lit his cigarette and dropped back among the cushions; 
 and on Anna s remarking that she was sorry to disturb 
 Mrs. Birch he replied that that was all right, and that 
 she always kept everybody waiting. 
 
 After this, through the haze of his perpetually renewed 
 cigarettes, they continued to chat for some time of in 
 different topics; but when at last Anna again suggested 
 the possibility of her seeing Mrs. Birch he rose from his 
 corner with a slight shrug, and murmuring : "She s per 
 fectly hopeless," lounged off through an inner door. 
 
 Anna was still wondering when and in what con 
 junction of circumstances the much-married Laura had 
 acquired a partner so conspicuous for his personal 
 charms, when the young man returned to announce: 
 "She says it s all right, if you don t mind seeing her in 
 bed." 
 
 He drew aside to let Anna pass, and she found herself 
 in a dim untidy scented room, with a pink curtain pinned 
 across its single window, and a lady with a great deal of 
 
 [364] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 fair hair and uncovered neck smiling at her from a pink 
 bed on which an immense powder-puff trailed. 
 
 "You don t mind, do you? He costs such a frightful 
 lot that I can t afford to send him off," Mrs. Birch ex 
 plained, extending a thickly-ringed hand to Anna, and 
 leaving her in doubt as to whether the person alluded to 
 were her masseur or her husband. Before a reply was 
 possible there was a convulsive stir beneath the pink 
 expanse, and something that resembled another powder- 
 puff hurled itself at Anna with a volley of sounds like the 
 popping of Lilliputian champagne corks. Mrs. Birch, 
 flinging herself forward, gasped out : "If you d just give 
 him a caramel . . . there, in that box on the dressing- 
 table . . . it s the only earthly thing to stop him ..." 
 and when Anna had proffered this sop to her assailant, 
 and he had withdrawn with it beneath the bedspread, his 
 mistress sank back with a laugh. 
 
 "Isn t he a beauty ? The Prince gave him to me down 
 at Nice the other day but he s perfectly awful," she 
 confessed, beaming intimately on her visitor. In the 
 roseate penumbra of the bed-curtains she presented to 
 Anna s startled gaze an odd chromo-like resemblance to 
 Sophy Viner, or a suggestion, rather, of what Sophy 
 Viner might, with the years and in spite of the powder- 
 puff, become. Larger, blonder, heavier-featured, she yet 
 had glances and movements that disturbingly suggested 
 what was freshest and most engaging in the girl ; and 
 as she stretched her bare plump arm across the bed she 
 seemed to be pulling back the veil from dingy distances 
 of family history. 
 
 "Do sit down, if there s a place to sit on," she cor- 
 
 [365] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 dially advised ; adding, as Anna took the edge of a chair 
 hung with miscellaneous raiment: "My singing takes so 
 much time that I don t get a chance to walk the fat off 
 that s the worst of being an artist." 
 
 Anna murmured an assent. "I hope it hasn t incon 
 venienced you to see me; I told Mr. Birch " 
 
 "Mr. who?" the recumbent beauty asked; and then: 
 "Oh, Jimmy!" she faintly laughed, as if more for her 
 own enlightenment than Anna s. 
 
 The latter continued eagerly: "I understand from 
 Mrs. Farlow that your sister was with you, and I ven 
 tured to come up because I wanted to ask you when I 
 should have a chance of finding her." 
 
 Mrs. McTarvie-Birch threw back her head with a long 
 stare. "Do you mean to say the idiot at the door didn t 
 tell you? Sophy went away last night." 
 
 "Last night?" Anna echoed. A sudden terror had 
 possessed her. Could it be that the girl had tricked them 
 all and gone with Owen? The idea was incredible, yet 
 it took such hold of her that she could hardly steady her 
 lips to say: "The porter did tell me, but I thought per 
 haps he was mistaken. Mrs. Farlow seemed to think that 
 I should find her here." 
 
 "It was all so sudden that I don t suppose she had 
 time to let the Farlows know. She didn t get Mrs. Mur- 
 rett s wire till yesterday, and she just pitched her things 
 into a trunk and rushed " 
 
 "Mrs. Murrett?" 
 
 "Why, yes. Sophy s gone to India with Mrs. Mur 
 rett; they re to meet at Brindisi," Sophy s sister said 
 with a calm smile. 
 
 [366] 
 
THE REEF 
 
 Anna sat motionless, gazing at the disordered room, 
 the pink bed, the trivial face among the pillows. 
 
 Mrs. McTarvie-Birch pursued: "They had a fearful 
 kick-up last spring I daresay you knew about it but I 
 told Sophy she d better lump it, as long as the old woman 
 was willing to ... As an artist, of course, it s perfectly 
 impossible for me to have her with me ... " 
 
 "Of course," Anna mechanically assented. 
 
 Through the confused pain of her thoughts she was 
 hardly aware that Mrs. Birch s explanations were still 
 continuing. "Naturally I didn t altogether approve of 
 her going back to that beast of a woman. I said all I 
 could ... I told her she was a fool to chuck up such a 
 place as yours. But Sophy s restless always was and 
 she s taken it into her head she d rather travel ..." 
 
 Anna rose from her seat, groping for some formula of 
 leave-taking. The pushing back of her chair roused the 
 white dog s smouldering animosity, and he drowned his 
 mistress s further confidences in another outburst of hys 
 terics. Through the tumult Anna signed an inaudible 
 farewell, and Mrs. Birch, having momentarily succeeded 
 in suppressing her pet under a pillow, called out: "Do 
 come again ! I d love to sing to you." 
 
 Anna murmured a word of thanks and turned to the 
 door. As she opened it she heard her hostess crying 
 after her: "Jimmy! Do you hear me? Jimmy Brance!" 
 and then, there being no response from the person sum 
 moned: "Do tell him he must go and call the lift for 
 you!" 
 
 THE END. 
 

I 
 
 
 
14 DAY USE 
 
 RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED 
 LOAN DEPT. 
 
 This book is due on the last date stamped below, or 
 
 on the date to which 
 Renewed books are subject to 
 
 
 T***"* 
 
 NOV 
 
 -S3 
 
 9||gffiff LD 
 
 I5Nov 64BE 
 
 t& 
 
 6ECI 01964 
 
 MAY 5 1969 8 7. 
 
 LOAN DEPT. 
 
 LD 21A-50m-9, 58 
 (6889slO)476B 
 
 General Library 
 
 University of California 
 
 Berkeley 
 
VB 69816 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY