The 
 Tender Conscience 
 
 by 
 
 Bohun Lynch
 
 LlBR/if?y 
 
 ' ir.oo 
 
 ftl/En; 
 
 .'FORNfA 
 
 >iUt
 
 THE TENDER CONSCIENCE
 
 BY THE samp: AUTHOR 
 GLAMOUR 
 CAKE 
 
 UNOFFICIAL 
 THE COMPLETE GENTLEMAN
 
 THE TENDER 
 CONSCIENCE 
 
 BY.BOHUN LYNCH 
 
 ^0 VW- ..yt /W^t-^C-'U, 
 
 LONDON: MARTIN SEGKER 
 
 XVII BUCKINGHAM STREET ADELPHI
 
 
 LONDON: MARTIN SECKER (LTn) 1919
 
 TO RUPERT ARBUTHNOT-LESLIE 
 
 1898—
 
 Out in the orchard at Kimberdown there were 
 only the happy sounds of the early morning ; the 
 birds, the harmony of little insects near at hand ; 
 and in the distance, from the stable, the clean 
 jangle of pails. Down the slight hill beyond the 
 older apple trees, stunted and overgrown with 
 lichen and ivy, there stood three tall Scotch firs 
 rising from a thicket of brambles. Here the low 
 grass was full of violets and little flowers of a 
 harder blue. Campions and primroses and ferns 
 grew on a bank beneath the firs. 
 
 It was not until eight o'clock that the sunshine 
 reached this place, for in that corner the orchard 
 was bounded by a thick wall of trees. Then the 
 gossamer was seen to hang the shadows with 
 jewelled skeins, and amongst the grass the dew- 
 drops sparkled for a while before they transpired 
 in the fair heat of the May morning. 
 
 In the bank amongst the hartstongues there 
 was a well, little used and covered by a slanting 
 door ; and Jirajny Guise came to it each sunny 
 morning in his pyjamas with a big bucket. He 
 
 7
 
 stripped and kicked off the old tennis shoes he 
 wore and stretched himself delightedly. The very 
 dew about his feet, the warmth upon his naked 
 body was healing. Then he knelt and splashed 
 the icy water over his head, pausing from time to 
 time to feel the sun again. He rose and emptied 
 the bucket over his whole body. It required a 
 certain knack to tilt the bucket so that the water 
 ran all over him ; and he would roll in the wet 
 grass and flick away the little twigs and leaves 
 which clung to his skin and draw another bucket- 
 ful and splash again. Then there was the lingering 
 return to the house, keeping in the sunshine all 
 the way, through the garden with its richer scented, 
 more sophisticated flowers. 
 
 This bathing was one of the keenest joys that 
 Jimmy had ever known. There was a sense of 
 almost glory in treading violets with his naked 
 foot. 
 
 Next the quick, easy dressing in old flannels- 
 things that had been flung comfortably on the 
 backs of chairs, not to be wrung with craft and 
 labour from presses or from drawers. 
 
 And breakfast— leisurely and large, the mild 
 excitement of a chaffinch tempted through the 
 open window and having to be driven gently out, 
 a letter or two of no importance, a perfunctory 
 glance at the paper, and then away into the sun- 
 
 8
 
 shine with something better worth reading, and 
 the risk of dainty interruption from the children. 
 
 Jimmy had never appreciated his sister or his 
 sister's house before. He had been idle in the 
 past, and Honor had disapproved of him : the 
 situation had not been mended by his marriage, 
 for Honor had disapproved of that too. She was 
 a woman devoted to activity and work and the 
 settled order of things. She had tried, years ago, 
 to mother Jimmy and resented his having cut, 
 and not untied, the apron strings. 
 
 Now he had done something, she felt ; nothing 
 very highly coloured or distinguished — but his 
 best. With all her heart she set about giving him 
 a happy time ; brought all her self-restraint and 
 tact to an arduous toleration of her sister-in-law. 
 
 There had been war ; the bursting shell which 
 blew him away like a piece of paper, shock, the 
 months in hospital, headaches that nearly made 
 him scream, nightmares when every scene from 
 Hell was re-enacted, many furtive weepings when 
 the sister wasn't looking, discharge and now — 
 rest. He didn't remember a great deal about it, 
 but he vividly recalled the moment when the 
 counterpane on his bed had become interesting 
 and strange — at first little square depressions with 
 ridges in between, and then a bold pattern of wliich 
 the little squares were groundwork. 
 
 9
 
 Jimmy revelled in the virtue of a well-earned 
 holiday. He was well again, though his nerves 
 were wrong, he had to be careful, but he could 
 enjoy simple and quiet things — good food and 
 sunshine and cold water. And the children — he 
 was happily amazed to find how he loved them 
 and enjoyed playing with them and answering 
 the ever-rippling stream of questions. 
 
 For their part the children found their uncle 
 a surprisingly right companion. They had seen 
 little or nothing of him before, and their ideas of 
 uncles suffered from the rather frigid and grown- 
 up Arthur Dunqueray — Daddie's younger brother 
 — who was terribly serious in a way they couldn't 
 understand. He disliked demonstrative affection, 
 and would play no games — only teaching them to 
 ride. Jimmy, however, was not a proper uncle, 
 but just Jimmy, a companion of their own age 
 only big, with light curly hair and freckles and a 
 broken tooth which showed when he grinned, as 
 he pretty often did. 
 
 It might not last — this sun -inspired mood, but 
 that did not concern Jimmy. The moment was 
 of joyous ease. 
 
 After breakfast there would generally be an 
 expedition with Anthony and Tom. The baby 
 spent most of its time in the pram. Besides, It 
 was a girl. |The River Congo was crossed, pig-a- 
 
 10
 
 back, when hunting elephants ; the Orinoco for 
 buried treasure. The higher branches of certain 
 beech trees might, or again might not, be the 
 hiding-places of slithy toves, Cherokee Indians, 
 monkeys, or the Great Auk — according to mood. 
 Sometimes in a fit of excessive virtue they even 
 made collections of wild plants carried in a small 
 basket, and if these were not all lost on the home- 
 ward journey they would be identified in a book 
 and their names learned and remembered. 
 
 But the rivers were never the Somme or the 
 Ancrc, nor the banks listening posts, nor ditches 
 trenches. Honor had made that quite clear from 
 the beginning, so that the toy bomb-throwers 
 which Jimmy had brought were just catapults — 
 things for annoying the peacocks or making Nanny 
 jump. There was no reason, their mother said, 
 why the children should not escape the general 
 contamination. 
 
 One or two patriotic neighbours had not seen 
 eye to eye with her. '" But, my dear Mrs. Dun- 
 queray, what about the poor little Belgian children 
 and the French — to say nothing of all the others ? 
 They have to know what the war means." 
 
 It was, of course, quite useless to try and 
 explain. She told such people that she was grate- 
 ful to God that her children were not Belgian, 
 that it was ungrateful not to make the very best 
 
 11
 
 of their exemption from the evil thing. Honor 
 could not make them understand that she more 
 truly than they sympathised with the sufferings 
 of others by the very fact of making the most of 
 their own good fortune. In the same way she was 
 profoundly and unfeignedly thankful that Everard, 
 never strong and not very young, was authorita- 
 tively reckoned to be more useful at the War Office 
 than in the fighting line. Some of her acquaint- 
 ances were darkly afraid that she had pacifist 
 leanings. They even showed it from time to time 
 — so had the war stiffened the politer measures of 
 society — by nervous chaff. Thank God, she did, 
 early and late, that so far the war had left her 
 almost scatheless. Her opponents told her that 
 she did not realise what it meant. She thanked 
 God then for that too. 
 
 Kimberdown was, of course, blissfully remote — 
 unshadowed by the foetid wings — in a district far 
 less visibly touched by the war than many a 
 country not strictly involved. Boys had gone 
 away, returned, and gone again. Some were dead. 
 Some had gone on from Gallipoli to Egypt, to 
 Palestine — from home a long, long time. Walter, 
 the carpenter, who had lovingly restored the old 
 oak staircase, was losing caste and cunning build- 
 ing aerodromes. The hind, the ploughman ahke 
 with their masters knew very little of what it all 
 
 12
 
 meant, and Honor no less than her crities tried 
 to teach them. She saw no reason why grown 
 people should be spared. But children 
 
 The ideal, even here, of keeping all talk or 
 knowledge of the war from them was naturally 
 impossible — the frantic, futile experiment of the 
 crank. But in no way should it be insisted on, 
 nor played with. Hence the innocent and really 
 rather clever catapult. And in any case young 
 children such as hers could never realise the horror 
 of it all, unless, as happened sometimes in less 
 fortunately placed countries, it was forced upon 
 them. 
 
 Besides, why should they forfeit the splendour 
 of the old romantic games. Treasure Island with 
 Anthony as Long John Silver, his foot tied to his 
 belt, a crutched walking-stick and a big, fat, bell- 
 mouthed, brass-barrelled, flint-lock pistol in his 
 hand ; shipwrecks in the old wicker cradle, the 
 exploration of unknown Ecuador ? 
 
 In the afternoon the children usually rested for 
 a time, and then, unless Jimmy was energetic, 
 they would go out with their nurse. Then Jimmy 
 took the first bound volume of the Strand and would 
 lie in a deck-chair in a sunny corner of the terrace 
 below the house and smoke and read the stories 
 he used to read as a little boy, pleased with the 
 well-remembered pictures and the curious things 
 
 13
 
 that interested people twenty years ago and more. 
 From time to time he would put the book down 
 and lie quiet —with the scent of early roses all 
 about him hanging lightly in the air and watch 
 little birds coquetting in the branches above him, 
 or, turning his eyes, regard the tiny activities of 
 the lesser life amongst the grass and flowers. 
 Then from close behind him out of the stillness 
 would come a giggle and small brown hands be 
 clasped about his eyes ; and he would have to 
 guess who it was. 
 
 Despite strict orders that Uncle Jimmy was not 
 to be disturbed, Anthony sometimes escaped from 
 orthodox society ; the reason being that he was 
 bored or that sudden inspiration had made a sug- 
 gestion. 
 
 " Jimmy, now I'm going to ask a riddle " 
 — he had just reached the phase of riddles — 
 about millers and white hats and Moses in the 
 dark. 
 
 " Anthony, I'm going to ask you one now. Why 
 does a hi-cockle-orum " 
 
 " What's hi-cockle-orum ? " 
 
 " A sort of fisherman who has a stepmother 
 with a red face." 
 
 That got round a nasty corner, because Jimmy 
 hadn't the least idea what it was that the hi- 
 cockle-orum did, let alone why, and Anthony was 
 
 14
 
 far too pleased with the explanation to go further. 
 " Jimmy." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " You promised you'd let me help you cut down 
 that fir tree." 
 
 " I did, I know I did. Very well, I want four 
 things." 
 
 " What are they ? " 
 
 " Axe ; saw ; bill-hook ; energy." 
 
 " What's energy ? " 
 
 " What I haven't got." 
 
 " Have I got it ? " 
 
 " Heaps." 
 
 " What is it ? Is it in the workshop ? " 
 
 " Come on, we'll go and get 'em. Pull me up." 
 
 The cutting down of fir trees was delightful, 
 only you had to obey at once. The bill-hook came 
 first into requisition. Jimmy cut down a branch 
 or two, clearing a way for himself, and then pro- 
 ceeded to climb the tree, cutting as he went. 
 Anthony stood below, pulling away the fallen 
 branches and making a neat stack of them on a 
 pathway near by. 
 
 Several amusing things happened. For instance, 
 Jimmy cut away so many branches beneath him 
 that it must be impossible for him ever to get 
 down again and he would have to spend the rest 
 of his life up the tree, living on cones and turpen- 
 
 15
 
 tine, unless Anthony was very kind and went and 
 fetched grub. Also when it came to cutting off 
 the top he wanted the saw and came down as 
 far as the last remaining branch and dropped a 
 foot low enough for Anthony to tie a loose end of 
 boot lace about the handle. Then Jimmy would 
 draw it up. Finally there was the exciting descent 
 to watch, the lopping of the last branch of all, 
 and the serious business of felling the tree, when 
 Anthony — his hands mottled with stains of resin 
 —would be banished to the path for safety and 
 watch unskilful axe work from a bed of fragrant 
 boughs. 
 
 Then tea by the beech tree on the lawn and ten 
 minutes of portentous conversation with grown- 
 up persons, followed by an adventurous walk, and, 
 to wind up the day, another bathing in the orchard. 
 
 So there had been no war at Kimbeidown. 
 
 16
 
 II 
 
 All this fragrant child's play was inexpressibly- 
 irksome to Jimmy's wife. Never for more than a 
 week-end at a time had she been able to endure 
 the placid obscurities of the country-side. She 
 despised wild violets because they had no 
 scent. 
 
 " I don't complain," she said to Jimmy one 
 morning when they had been a month at Kimber- 
 down. They were walking round the garden 
 together. " And of course it's done my Jimmy 
 a lot of good ; but I should rather like to know 
 when this butter-milk and stable-smell existence 
 is going to end." 
 
 " I have been a selfish pig," said Jimmy. " Poor 
 girl, I keep forgetting what a bore it must be to 
 you. I did rather want to keep out of London 
 as long as possible. You go back and let me 
 come on later." 
 
 " No. I want my Jimmy with me." 
 
 " Only a few days now, darling. I must do 
 something. I rather wish they hadn't fired me 
 out. I could have done light duty. As it is I 
 B 17
 
 suppose it means an office. I haven't many 
 accomplishments, have I ? " 
 
 " Oh — how lovely it will be ! " and Blanche 
 leaned back against the garden wall with her 
 hands behind her head just where a little knot 
 of Banksia roses touched her hair. How wonder- 
 ful were the shades of it, Jimmy thought, and in 
 the sun the tawny lights seemed iridescent. What 
 a little woman it was — with her pale clear skin 
 and big brown eyes — a plump little partridge : 
 older than he by a year or two, but such a dear, 
 delicious baby. Not very strong, so soon tired, 
 and then so swiftly bored : but so trippingly eager 
 to enjoy. 
 
 " Do you know, Jimmy, I haven't had a choco- 
 late — not one — since I finished that box you 
 brought down." 
 
 " Poor darling — but soon " 
 
 " And I know there are some in the house. 
 Anthony had a distinct moustache yesterday and 
 he smelt of it. I know Honor keeps them some- 
 where for those blessed children." 
 
 Jimmy knew it too. A contused something had 
 been kept for him in a small breeches pocket, and 
 by him eaten with love and misgiving under oath 
 of secrecy in a green trysting-place. 
 
 " Let me count the things I'm going to have " 
 
 and Blanche spread her little fingers. " London — 
 
 18
 
 chocolates — and some cushions : we must have 
 some of those nice long-shaped ones that every- 
 one's got now — and papers first thing in the 
 morning and air raids I expect. Oh, of course, 
 you've missed them — rather thrilling, Jimmy." 
 
 " I can't say I particularly wish to be thrilled." 
 
 " No, you're getting too bucolic for words. 
 Seriously though, it's beastly while it's going on. 
 But — oh, can't you understand ? Nothing ever 
 happens now, and — oh — damn this war." 
 
 Jimmy was not paying her half his attention. 
 He was watching a red cow rubbing itself against 
 a gatepost in the field before them. 
 
 " God bless the Duke of Argyll," he said with- 
 out explaining, " I must say I don't much want 
 anything to happen. I can't help thinking how 
 lucky I am. Think of poor old Loftie who's 
 copped it twice, and Frank, Frank's got a boy to 
 think of." 
 
 "As if half the Army hadn't boys to think of." 
 
 " Well, there it is and he's in it still, and I'm 
 out of it without being hopelessly smashed." 
 
 " You only said the other day that you'd like 
 to go back." 
 
 " In a manner of speaking. But none the less, 
 I'm lucky." 
 
 " Anyhow, you'll be there now and it's deadly 
 in the flat all alone." 
 
 19
 
 (C 
 
 Is it worse here ? I believe you've rather 
 enjoyed it really, and you like the children." 
 
 " The first week — yes. Oh ! the children are 
 nice enough for a bit. But I wonder they don't 
 get on your nerves." 
 
 Everything was nice enough — for a bit. But 
 Jimmy would never admit this self-revelation. 
 He was always ready with excuses for her. Blanche 
 had been accustomed to such a vivid life. Before 
 the war they had moved about from place to place 
 abroad — Nice, Florence, Ragusa, Seville, dodging 
 the winter, making a multitude of hotel friend- 
 ships, gambling a little, collecting a little, seeing 
 fresh things every day. And now there was only 
 London — not what it used to be, but London still, 
 the middle of everything. Poor Blanche — she 
 couldn't be expected to delight in the artlessness 
 and candour of meadow life. " Clover is the last 
 thing that I should care to live in," she would 
 say. 
 
 It was only, he imagined, because he had been 
 in the wars and was not yet fit that he so revelled 
 in it all. The quiet — oh ! the quiet was such 
 bliss. 
 
 " Poor little Amy ! I wonder how she's getting 
 on," said Jimmy. " This place did her a lot of 
 good just as it has me." 
 
 " Oh ! Don't remind me of that child," Blanche 
 
 20
 
 complained with a shudder. " It was ghastly to 
 hear her. That first night we were here, I thought 
 she'd never stop screaming," 
 
 " She told Honor she could hear the engines. 
 That's the kind of thing that makes me angry." 
 
 Amy Binfield was a little girl of six or seven, 
 about whom there seemed to be some small 
 mystery. She was, Jimmy knew, the daughter of 
 a rather notorious young blackguard who was 
 unable or unwilling to provide for her. Some time 
 before she had been with her mother in the out- 
 skirts of London during a Zeppelin raid. A bomb 
 had fallen near by and the child had turned in a 
 night from laughing health to twitching and pallid 
 collapse. After much consideration Honor had 
 decided that no harm would be done to her own 
 children by having Amy there, and before Jimmy's 
 arrival she had been some months in the house. 
 But even there from time to time if she happened 
 to sleep alone, she would dream and hear the 
 loathsome buzzing of the engines and wake in 
 terror and not believe in her awakened security. 
 
 " Honor's a good old soul," said Jimmy. " She 
 leaves one alone. She understands ; " she has to — 
 Everard's a tiresome fellow what I've seen of 
 him." 
 
 Everard Dunqueray was an author of a solid^ 
 scholarly plodding kind, who had neither achieved 
 
 21
 
 the popularity that is blatant nor yet renown. 
 He wrote historical novels, and books about 
 gardening and Roman emperors. His position 
 was one of dignity which fell short of eminence. 
 He had now exchanged his old deerstalker for a 
 cap with a red band, but his scabbard was still 
 occupied by its fountain pe|i. 
 
 In spite of Jimmy's observation, Honor did not 
 find Everard tiresome. She was happily sure that 
 he was the foremost authority on Roman emperors 
 and tulips, that if Everard had lived in his day, 
 the day of Mr. G. P. R. James — poor man — could 
 never have dawned ; that he was the best of 
 husbands — an aspect of the case which could bear 
 the brunt of all extravagance. She was, in fact, 
 the best of wives. 
 
 Blanche hated the man, as Jimmy knew very 
 well when he said what he did. She despised his 
 mediocrity, his smiling satisfaction with his wife, 
 his children, his garden and his work. All this 
 Jimmy understood in some degree, but the plain 
 fact that Blanche did not trouble to dissemble her 
 dislike to Honor escaped him. In the same way, 
 he did not perceive the simplicity of the antagonism 
 between his wife and all that Kimberdown stood 
 for, nor its immemorial nature : not merely intoler- 
 ance against broad-mindedness, or savoir-faire 
 versus rusticity, or nature and art, but a deeper, 
 
 22
 
 stubborner hostility, so trite, so commonplace, so 
 elementary as best to be described as the struggle 
 between good and bad. 
 
 But plain for all to see were sufficient grounds 
 for difficulty and trouble between the two women 
 and, on Honor's part, the need for effort in making 
 things smooth. All her inheritance of prejudice, 
 against which she had never exactly fought, all 
 that she was used to and believed in made Blanche 
 for her an embarrassing guest. She was flippant 
 about things which for Honor were sacred and 
 precious. In her conversation she did not appre- 
 ciate the border-line, even in an easy household, 
 between impropriety and indecency. Her attitude 
 towards the war alternated between indifference 
 and despair. And the worst of it was that Blanche 
 was almost completely natural and self-confident, 
 whilst Honor was for ever on the verge of hesita- 
 tion — the disease of a good brain which yet found 
 the bulk of its opinions ready-made. And, greatest 
 difficulty of all, Blanche had no relations. She 
 could not so much as point out a single curate or 
 stock-jobber, tinker, tailor, soldier or sailor as 
 second cousin. She was an only child, her people 
 were dead. " I'm the last of a bad bunch and a 
 good job too," she had said. Most of her friends 
 had been made since her marriage, most of them, 
 in turn, had been picked up — like herself by Jimmy 
 
 23
 
 — abroad. She had in her face and manner a 
 bewildering air of breeding ; one knew who her 
 people had been, but there were, it seemed, none 
 of them left. 
 
 She had no merit but her own to stand upon — 
 a prodigious lack in the eyes of one who, like Honor, 
 had been used to judge everyone and especially 
 relatives in marriage by their derivations. There 
 was more than this : her brother's finding of his 
 wife was veiled in obscurity. There had been a 
 brute of a husband who had run away. . . . Jimmy 
 had been too vaguely frank to satisfy her. 
 
 It was altogether most irregular and uncom- 
 fortable. 
 
 " Isn't it amazing — the minds of people who 
 live in places hke this ? " Blanche said. " Dear 
 old Honor." 
 
 There was in her tone something which Jimmy 
 instantly recognised, but had not yet learned to 
 suspect. 
 
 " I'm not a schoolgirl, am I ? " she went on. 
 " But sometimes she makes me feel that she's 
 just on the point of — oh, sending me to bed or 
 something. One day when I saw her up in London 
 — it was while you were in hospital — she went for 
 me for lunching with a man. I really forgot who 
 it was now — oh. Jack Barlow, I think. She'd been 
 a few tables away and had seen me. Now if it 
 
 24
 
 had been one's maiden-great-aunt ..." she 
 laughed. 
 
 " What an idiot ! You don't mean she really 
 took you to task ? " 
 
 " Same thing — wanted to know who he was and 
 was he a friend of yours and — so suspicious all the 
 time. I wanted to tell her that he was an old 
 lover with whom I was filling up time while you 
 were ill. But I refrained. Rather nice of me, I 
 thmk." 
 
 Laughing still she watched for the effect of this 
 on Jimmy and saw, what she had expected, that 
 while he was slightly irritated at his sister's con- 
 duct, the story really left him indifferent and 
 uninterested. So that was all right. Honor had 
 evidently held her tongue, and if she ever said 
 anything in the future — well, the ground was laid 
 and the acid would fail to bite. And, to be 
 exact, she had seen Jack Barlow that same day, 
 coming out of a boot shop, so it could have been 
 him. 
 
 There was nothing like cheek. 
 
 Blanche was perfectly incapable of understand- 
 ing Jimmy's poignant joy in this holiday. She was 
 a woman of great capacity for surface apprecia- 
 tion and she now recognised, though she could not 
 understand, something that went far beneath the 
 surface. She was extremely glad that Jimmy was 

 
 better in health, was glad that he was able to 
 enjoy again. For there had been a time not long 
 ago when she had regarded him with wide-eyed 
 horror and a fear lest he should always be a wreck 
 of himself, attending to his health, starting and 
 jumping at imaginary sounds. That had all passed 
 and she was almost grateful to Honor for the part 
 that she had played. But this simpleton who 
 talked by the hour to the gardener, who climbed 
 trees with the children and invented absurd stories 
 for them — this was a new Jimmy — an eccentric 
 who was harmless but yet vaguely annoying. 
 
 The morning bath especially irritated her. 
 
 " What on earth possesses you to do it ? " she 
 asked him when he came in,- buoyant and flushed, 
 to breakfast. " It must be frightfully cold, I 
 should have thought, and all the nasty beasts and 
 snails and things. Why can't you wash yourself 
 in the bathroom like a civilised being ? " 
 
 " Are not Abana and Pharpar Besides I'm 
 
 a temporary savage, and I love it, and I believe 
 some old saint must have blessed that well." 
 
 " Everard's father had it dug out thirty years 
 ago," Honor put in, " but it is lovely water, and 
 perhaps Canon Steveley did bless it. I know when 
 I was a little girl and he used to come over here, 
 he'd take a cup and drink there. I don't think 
 he was a saint, by the way." 
 
 26
 
 " And," said Blanche, ignoring her, " I have 
 no doubt that all the village girls come and line 
 the hedge to watch you. It's so insane. People 
 don't do these sort of things. It's so second 
 rate." 
 
 Jimmy laughed, as he always did when Blanche 
 used that argument. He was not a man who 
 paraded unconventionality, but the set phrase 
 generally amused him. 
 
 " You know what the King of Spain said, don't 
 you ? " he asked. " When he was a little boy his 
 governess reproved him for gnawing a chicken 
 bone and said, ' Kings don't eat with their fingers.' 
 He replied ' This king does.' Same here, Blanche. 
 Besides, I like it." 
 
 Anthony, the eldest of the three children, here 
 broke in and relieved the occasion of its heaviness. 
 He had a happy faculty of appearing to be engrossed 
 in bread and butter, whilst all the time the con- 
 versation of inferior elders was sinking in. He 
 looked up, grinning with an eggy mouth his 
 appreciation of the King of Spain — a sensible 
 person obviously, who saw life straight as it 
 was. 
 
 " And they didn't line the hedge, Jimmy," he 
 said, " I know they didn't — not this morning. I 
 guarded you." 
 
 27
 
 " Oh, you did, did you ? Then why didn't you 
 come and have a bath too ? " 
 
 " I had my bath before. I was on the bank 
 where you made the caterpillar crawl up the stick. 
 You didn't see me, Jimmy." 
 
 |So rancour died. 
 
 28
 
 Ill 
 
 Just as soldiering, Jimmy reflected, had restricted 
 and impoverished his vocabulary — he remembered 
 his old colonel saying that in war-time he used 
 but two hundred words, a hundred and fifty of 
 which were compounds of " damn " and " bloody '* 
 — so also had the war confined his observation 
 and narrowed his outlook on life. Newspapers 
 and people who talked from newspapers declared 
 that life was stripped of all but essentials, that in 
 the purification of the fire and the general process 
 of wholesale ennoblement the entire population 
 of the country had got down to bed-rock. Looking 
 back afterwards, Jimmy knew that for him at 
 any rate this was more preposterous even than the 
 generality of popular opinion. As a matter of 
 fact it was to many of the uttermost essentials of 
 his own life that his eyes were dimmed. 
 
 Concentrated as it was upon his own part in 
 the war and subsequently on the horrible question 
 of its own health, his mind — never of an exact or 
 impartial bent — had refused to recognise certain 
 
 29
 
 essential truths which would have been obvious 
 to one with leisure for a plainer introspection. 
 
 [Jimmy never thought of Blanche without find- 
 ing excuses for her : he never recognised any special 
 significance in the fact that excuses had to be 
 found. 
 
 Yet in a way he had been bitterly hurt by her 
 neglect of him during his long recovery. Just at 
 first he was unable to appreciate the fact that 
 she was seldom near him. Later he knew that 
 she was claimed by spasmodic efforts at what 
 was known as war work. He never despised this 
 in any way, never traced her occasional activities 
 to their true source of fresh social amusement, 
 but he did have the feeling that she might more 
 usefully have paid a little attention to himself. 
 
 The greatest fault that his friends found with 
 Jimmy was that he was a sentimentalist, whilst 
 sentimental friends found in him fresh virtue for 
 what they called his idealism. At any rate their 
 intention well suited his attitude to his wife. 
 From the beginning he had made up his mind that 
 he was in love with her. Thereafter she could do 
 no wrong. Certainly, in a lucid moment about 
 the time of his early convalescence he began in a 
 way to set in its true proportion her abhorrence 
 of illness, and the strangeness of him and the 
 atmosphere of trouble and anxiety inseparable 
 
 30
 
 from the hospital. He knew that she must ever 
 avoid any stony or uneven road, that she was 
 at her best when all was best for her. But such 
 realisation, soon forgotten, never troubled him. 
 All would be well when he was well again. And 
 it happened that his vision of her coincided with 
 his emerging from the darkness of the wood. It 
 was about that time that he intended to get better, 
 and he did so. 
 
 What would Blanche have said if she had seen 
 him the week before, have thought if she could 
 have followed what seemed such easy logic to him ? 
 
 ... It was not worth while going on — much 
 too much trouble. One could get to find out — 
 one did — where certain tabloids were kept. One 
 would help oneself — generously. There were other, 
 nastier ways, but just as certain. Really the only 
 interesting thing in life was speculation on what 
 happened afterwards. That idea passed suddenly 
 and without obvious cause . . . and a sick man 
 was no good to a high-spirited wife accustomed 
 to a good time. And why shouldn't she have a 
 good time ? She should, so soon as one was fit 
 again. One must hurry up and see about it. 
 
 And Kimberdown had put on the finishing 
 touches. 
 
 But the return to health had brought with it 
 no clarity of vision. Rather he was the more 
 
 31
 
 determined that everything must be beautiful. 
 After the long agony his mind grasped eagerly 
 at all happiness, all lovely things ... and every- 
 thing was indeed beautiful. There was no room 
 in the heart of Jimmy for suspicion or dread or 
 captious criticism in any realm that mattered to 
 him. There were to be periods of discontent and 
 cynicism and vehement dislikes, and they were 
 to come quick upon the heels of exaltation : but 
 for a long time there was to be no disturbance of 
 ideals, no clouding of convictions dear to him. 
 
 On their return from the country Jimmy found 
 that practical matters clamoured for his scrutiny. 
 Before he went to France he had found things 
 simple enough. Both Blanche and he had money 
 of their own, and all he had to do was to make 
 his will, and in an off-hand way warn Blanche 
 to be careful. Now, however, he discovered that 
 there had been need for the warning. Despite a 
 certain shrewdness in bargaining Blanche could 
 not look after her own affairs, or rather she would 
 not. It was too much trouble to be business- 
 like. It was so much better to have a full, fat 
 time while you could and then, if the bank turned 
 nasty, go and stay with friends — rich ones if 
 possible — and complain of outrageous taxation. 
 If she had played the spoilt child in this way, 
 Jimmy had been at least lackadaisical. About 
 
 32
 
 this time his attention was drawn, quite poHtely, 
 to a rather serious overdraft. Blanche had 
 never been bound by an account of her own, for 
 since he had gone into the army Jimmy had let 
 her draw on his for any sum she required. Now 
 there must be some slight and temporary incon- 
 venience. 
 
 " You have been chucking it about," was all 
 he said, genuinely glad that she should have 
 enjoyed herself during his absence. He knew that 
 Blanche's enjoyment was spelt like that and was 
 under the impression that his was too. It never 
 occurred to him to blame her for going the pace 
 whilst he was in the trenches, or to wonder whether 
 a woman who did that was really fond of a man. 
 
 One day he found a small instance of an extra- 
 vagance for which hitherto there had been little 
 to show. He was looking in a cupboard in Blanche's 
 room for a small cardboard box in which to send 
 away a watch to be mended. He had an idea that 
 he had seen one there. He failed to find exactly 
 what he wanted, but there was another which 
 with copious padding might serve the purpose. 
 It was buried beneath a heap of odd bits of em- 
 broidery and discarded lace collars. He took it 
 from the shelf and opened it. There was a deep 
 bed of cotton wool and something heavy in tissue 
 paper — a gold cigarette-case, a gorgeous alTair, 
 c 33
 
 but without initials or crest or other distinguishing 
 mark. Inside there was a thin flap and beneath 
 it a photograph of Blanche — a new one, a very 
 excellent one. Jim stared for a moment or two 
 not understanding. Then he remembered that his 
 birthday was due in a week or two. Of course, 
 he mustn't say a word. It was to be a surprise 
 for him, but he wished she wouldn't do that sort 
 of thing — in a more sincere sense than that phrase 
 is usually made on such occasions. He hated golden 
 extravagant things for his personal use. His was 
 that rather modern taste which fights shy of the 
 simplest signet ring and prefers a leather strap for 
 a watch. He thought Blanche knew. Never mind, 
 though, it really was a beauty. And after all gold 
 was a nice metal to be touching always and a 
 fitting case for her photograph. He put the thing 
 away again as he had found it and felt rather a 
 beast for — however unintentionally — prying. 
 
 It was at this time — in the brief interval between 
 leaving Kimberdown and beginning government 
 work as a civilian — that Jimmy first became con- 
 scious of a peculiar sense of loneliness, which, save 
 for the strange period of his sickness on his return 
 from France, he had never previously known ; a 
 loneliness which was to come upon him in increas- 
 ingly frequent moods. 
 
 In the first instance it was easy enough to under- 
 
 34
 
 stand. Manv of his old friends were dead, some 
 were in Mesopotamia or Palestine. Most of them 
 were the friends, really, of a romantic memory — 
 men with whom he could have little or nothing 
 in common now, men whom he had not seen or 
 in many cases heard from since his marriage and 
 prolonged travels. 
 
 There was Loftie Hutton whom he had en- 
 countered in London just when war broke out. 
 They had joined the army at the same time, but 
 different regiments. Jimmy was rather glad of 
 this : for though he had known Hutton as long 
 as anyone he had for the last few years felt shy 
 of him. The reason for this he had preferred 
 not to trace to its source. There had been good 
 companionship in Jimmy's short career as a 
 soldier, but unlike the case of so many others no 
 enduring intimacy. In London now he felt the 
 need of men. 
 
 Hutton it was, as a matter of fact, whom of all 
 old acquaintances he first met at this point. Blanche 
 had mentioned only the day before that she had 
 heard he was at home on leave. 
 
 He was walking across the park one windy and 
 uncertain afternoon when few folk were about, 
 on his way towards Kensington. There were 
 some jolly children with a little governess who 
 tried conscientiously but without wisdom to enter 
 
 35
 
 into their joyous intentions. Jimmy grinned at 
 them. He would have liked to stop and play : 
 he thought of Kimberdown. He thought also of 
 the clear conscience of the governess, of her obvious 
 correctitude, of the dreadfulness of people who 
 speak to other people — even children — to whom 
 they have not been properly introduced. The 
 governess was not looking his way, and there was 
 a little devil of a girl with long legs and grubby 
 hands who for tuppence and without the willing 
 backing of her brother would have seized on Jimmy 
 and mauled him. They widely answered his grin. 
 
 And then there was Blanche coming towards 
 him on one side, and almost before he could say 
 " Hullo," he had recognised on the other the figure 
 of Loftie Hutton sitting on a chair leaning forward 
 on his stick, very tall and hard, in the rather loud 1 
 checks that he had loved to wear in days gone by, 
 looking a little gloomy. Hutton always wore 
 clothes about twenty years behind the times. 
 
 " Here's a merry meeting," said Blanche loudly, 
 as from some yards' distance she and Jimmy con- 
 verged upon the chair, and " Hul-lo ! " said Jimmy 
 again. Hutton looked from one to the other as 
 though a little bewildered. They arranged that 
 they should take a taxi and go and have tea 
 somewhere together. Jimmy supposed later that 
 he was a party to this, but he was really still 
 
 36
 
 thinking about the children : Long-legs — grubby 
 hands — and her small brother were looking after 
 him rather annoyed with Fate. Surreptitiously 
 Jimmy waved his hand. 
 
 ;That was an uncomfortable afternoon, Jimmy 
 reflected afterwards. He had been complaining 
 that all his old friends were either dead or at the 
 wars, he had been wanting men to talk to. And 
 yet Hutton failed him somehow. He was casual 
 — but he had always been that. There was some- 
 thing peculiar about him, something unlike him- 
 self. In days to come Jimmy thought that he 
 was less bitter than he commonly affected to be. 
 He could never have been called a genial man, 
 but that day his manner came nearer to geniality 
 than ever before in Jimmy's experience. 
 
 " Are you fit again ? " he asked, who never 
 asked personal questions. 
 
 " Going to sit in a government office ? Pretty 
 ghastly. Why do it ? Remember Jack Hanna ? " 
 
 Hutton was disobeying all the rules of his life. 
 He had never been known to ask anyone to 
 remember somebody else. 
 
 " Hanna was at Somerset House, Mrs. Jimmy, 
 or somewhere where they rob you like that, we 
 used to be rather pals. I don't know why. Last 
 time I saw him was at Goodwood. Whcn'll there 
 be Goodwood again ? " 
 
 37
 
 Very unlike him to sentimentalise about days 
 past, even by implication. In old days Hutton 
 used to be amusing in a second-hand way, for 
 even Jimmy could but recognise his friend's omis- 
 sion of conversational quotation marks. Hutton 
 was always unstringing the pearls of other people's 
 wisdom, and setting them in his own personality. 
 Moreover, he was not, as is said, a man of moods. 
 You generally knew where to have him. The war, 
 something — nothing in particular — had upset him. 
 
 Blanche was very vivacious and jolly. She 
 asked Hutton to dine with them that night. 
 
 " Oh, and Jimmy's dining out somewhere on 
 his own and it wouldn't be quite nice, would it — 
 to say nothing of devilish dull." 
 
 " No, thanks, I can't. I've got a sister. I'm 
 staying with her." 
 
 After that there were one or two half-hearted 
 attempts on either side to arrange another meet- 
 ing. But — rather inevitably it seemed — they led 
 nowhere. Hutton was returning to France in a 
 couple of days. 
 
 Jimmy was glad when Ithey got up to go their 
 ways. 
 
 38
 
 IV 
 
 The building, like the department to whose pur- 
 poses it was dedicated, was quite new — hastily 
 reared up in the third year of the war. With no 
 silver trowel had exalted dame laid the foundation- 
 stone. People going by one day would see an 
 economical groundwork of yellow brick, chequered 
 against the background with blank spaces — here 
 a brick and there a brick, but none in between, 
 only one underneath to catch the edges of those 
 left and right above it. At intervals brick pillars 
 rose ; and on the next day when people passed, 
 the spaces between these pillars were filled with 
 concrete blocks. These would be plastered within 
 and rough cast without. Beams of unseasoned 
 timber, skirting which would never touch a floor, 
 were scarcely bolted, nailed — respectively — before 
 vans of linoleum and office furniture were backing 
 to the main entrance. 
 
 It was all very cold and flimsy, ugly and 
 practical ; and yet long before the anniversary 
 of its opening day each room within had developed 
 its almost definable atmosphere. Yet each room 
 
 39
 
 was furnished exactly like those on either side 
 of it — a big plain cupboard or two, desks, wooden 
 arm-chairs, chairs without arms, a screen by the 
 door. But even with so little range for expression 
 there were opportunities, seized all unconsciously 
 by the men and women there. It was the direct 
 sophisticated effort towards what was pleasing to 
 the eye which failed. In some rooms there was an 
 evidence of taste which contradicted itself — an 
 etching or two, a reproduction of a Dutch interior, 
 a head of Dante from the Medici Society — these 
 things jarred, the strain was evident. The frankly 
 dreadful framed advertisement, the little galaxy 
 of cigarette pictures, the splash of popular colour 
 torn from the telephone book and pasted on the 
 wall, were better fun. Room 14 was scrupulously 
 neat, coldly and methodically devoted to its uses. 
 6a had a shelf or two of reference books and their 
 brightly coloured bindings gave warmth and gaiety 
 to the place — a little spoilt by a depressing water- 
 bottle with a tumbler inverted on its neck. 
 
 In 37, which was untidy with a dusty accumula- 
 tion of papers, there was no designed embellish- 
 ment of any kind. Here it was that Jimmy Guise 
 spent his days and here from time to time through- 
 out the day he would lean back in his chair with 
 his hands behind his head, and allow the object 
 upon which his eyes rested gradually to disturb 
 
 40
 
 his thought and insist on recognition. The little 
 room faced north, and the window opened upon a 
 may tree which just now was freshly green and 
 hid the houses across the way. Sunshine streamed 
 through a slanting skylight ; red sealing-wax was 
 thrillingly reflected in the deep blue of the ink- 
 pot. On the top of the cupboard there were some 
 bundles of obsolete forms, and from the corner 
 of one, a torn piece of brown paper hung out, 
 throwing a purple shadow. The unpapered walls, 
 roughly distempered, had become blotched, and 
 here and there a bluish tinge harmonised with 
 the pale green of the painted woodwork. On one 
 chair there was a light blue cushion, a pale red 
 one on another. 
 
 Very soon after his return from Kimberdown 
 Jimmy had drifted into the New Department — 
 he never quite knew how. He had known some- 
 body who knew somebody else and the thing had 
 been arranged. There were a good many dis- 
 charged men in the place, but they all had better 
 reasons for being there than he : city clerks who 
 soon came to understand the work and, under 
 protest, followed Civil Service methods at as great 
 a distance as they were allowed — the humblest 
 of them were of greater use than Jimmy, and 
 well he knew it. He had never been accustomed 
 to a pen and a desk ; he had never, for that matter, 
 
 41
 
 been called upon to earn a living. In his heart 
 of hearts he had wanted to work on a farm, to 
 stay on in the neighbourhood of his sister's house. 
 Then he could have played with the children on 
 Sundays. He wanted to rise early and recapture 
 some of the enthusiasms of his boyhood. He 
 understood animals and he was a good horseman. 
 There had been a day when he was determined to 
 farm some land that belonged to his people, but 
 it had been supposed that he would only throw 
 away money and waste his time. So it had been 
 sold. Given the opportunity, he felt that he could 
 have managed to be a useful farmer, and in the 
 first instance he would have been under the orders 
 of an " ignorant " son of the clav. He would, in 
 a way, like that. He liked real people. Here 
 he was at the beck of middhngs. But one must 
 be in London, in the heart of things just now, 
 for Blanche's sake. Most things were for Blanche's 
 sake : and rightly so, thought Jimmy. 
 
 In his innermost heart of hearts Jimmy wanted 
 to be quit of it all — aU effort connected with the 
 war. He wanted to get away again and remain 
 at rest. He knew now there were places still in 
 England where the war was but echoed — faintly. 
 But the effort must be prolonged. Till the end he 
 must keep on doing something. Even the work 
 that he did in the New Department had to be done 
 
 42
 
 by someone, if not by him, by some young woman, 
 some boy. And why not by him ? ... It was 
 just a part of the great readjustment of values 
 which was a consequence of the war. Putting the 
 services out of the question there were many jobs 
 to be done, and if you were spi^' enough you did 
 the interesting responsible jobs, if you were not 
 there were many envelopes to hck. 
 
 Jimmy was one of the small class of mankind 
 who, besides doing nothing for its daily bread or 
 for the direct purposes of other people, had never 
 approached any business, nor had looked to see 
 how the work of the world at large was carried 
 on. There had never been anv reason whv he 
 should. Men that he had known were, for instance, 
 '' in business " : that is to say, they spent about 
 three hundred days in every year in an office. 
 What they did there he never remotelj^ imagined. 
 If you were fortunate or ver\' clever (he sup- 
 posed) you were an employer, and besides going 
 to an office, played games and did other things 
 that he himself did : if you were not, you were 
 a clerk, wliich probably meant that you wore 
 collars much too high and did what you were told 
 and a variety of other undesirable things. And 
 the Jimmy division of mankind had almost always 
 been the employers, the owners, the top dogs. In 
 his ovm particular instance, all his own folk — for 
 
 43
 
 ever so long — had been like that. Their lives had 
 been spent in telling other people to do things, 
 and — more — how to do them — all save Jimmy, 
 who hadn't the slightest idea how things or what 
 things should be done. 
 
 Soldiering had been different, instinct had helped 
 him. He had not been brilliant, but he had done 
 very fairly, and in any case the test had not been 
 a long one. 
 
 At first he had been very amused with what he 
 called licking envelopes. His air was exactly that 
 of the fine lady who goes into her own kitchen to 
 learn how to make pastry. He giggled in a self- 
 depreciatory way. With the best intentions and 
 with much humility, he was always unbending. 
 He mentioned aloud once or twice what a duffer 
 he was at these things. 
 
 And he drifted on and on, unthinking, at length 
 waking to the dismal fact that he was a duffer 
 and would never be anything else, and that in- 
 stead of having {vide supra) just popped into the 
 kitchen to get a tip or two from cook, he was 
 become, so to speak, a genuine and professional 
 kitchen maid. 
 
 In fact Jimmy was acutely conscious of being 
 an incompetent clerk in a government office and 
 the fact of his having been an officer (in these 
 days) 'and what was known as a gentleman (in the 
 
 44
 
 days before) really was quite irrelevant. It was 
 rather sad. He felt declasse. He gave Mr. Barker, 
 under whom he worked, luncheon at a very small 
 and very choice restaurant in an effort to restore 
 his self-esteem. He was partly rewarded by Mr. 
 Barker's unblushing admission that he had never 
 previously heard of the place. 
 
 Sometimes for weeks on end he would just drift 
 on, quite without ambition or effort, fairly con- 
 scientious. He would get through the day and then 
 go home to his wife, and they might dine out or 
 go to a theatre or sit and read novels. It was 
 quite a passable existence. His work never worried 
 him in his absence from it. Men that he knew 
 would dream of it or be kept awake by it. Mr. 
 Barker was delicate and quite hollow-eyed on some 
 days. He and almost all the others identified 
 themselves with the Department, whereas for 
 Jimmy Guise life began at six o'clock in the even- 
 ing. He would walk the first half-mile of the way 
 home, peering into shop windows. He had lately 
 developed a sort of ritual, always gazing last, in 
 each window, at the thing which pleased him best. 
 It might be a smooth black necktie, or a bowl of 
 famille rose, or an early print of some coaching 
 scene. He generally went by the same streets 
 and for many days on end the same things, par. 
 ticularly in the shops of antiquarians, would keep 
 
 45
 
 their places. If he was in a hurry he would know 
 what to look for and where to find it, but he came 
 to believe it almost an ill omen if by chance his 
 eye rested last, as he went by, upon something 
 ugly or unpleasing. 
 
 This little ceremony, consciously or otherwise, 
 became a sort of cleansing from the sordid busi- 
 ness of the day. The New Department was, for 
 Jimmy, n9thing more than a big shop. The work 
 was all bu\-ing and selling, and exploiting and 
 getting value for money. To him there was 
 nothing in the least interesting about it. It was 
 only the direct business of the war which had 
 really chained his attention : this was but a side 
 issue. 
 
 By the time he reached the little flat, he would 
 begin to feel a man again. It was a nice fiat and 
 the old porter would touch his cap and Jimmy 
 would feel virtuous in the knowledge that his 
 salary almost paid the rent. Sometimes he wished 
 that his fellow-workers could see the place, par- 
 ticularly the porter and the lift. They'd be a bit 
 impressed at" the topsy-turveydom of it all. Mr. 
 Barker who rattled in a nasty train to and from 
 a mean and distant suburb ; Mr. Crouch and Mr. 
 Calliver, who did such genuinely brilliant work 
 and controlled the destinies of so manv Uke him- 
 self — they hved in impossible places far, far beyond 
 
 46
 
 the pale. They'd be considerably startled if they 
 could see Jimmy, the licker of envelopes, here ; 
 see the dignified old family servant who was so 
 much the hardest of his masters, see the freakish 
 draAving-room with its grey paper and its blue 
 ceiling, see how^ good and shining and right even'- 
 thing was, the newest books, the current papers 
 flung about : and, as the jewel of it all, the mistress 
 of the domain, Blanche — Blanche with her lively 
 helplessness, her charming ennui, her delicious 
 clothes, her exquisite refinement, her loveliness. 
 , . . Then he would catch himself up and re- 
 member and laugh. Reallv he was rather a child 
 sometimes, he felt. How small it was to desire 
 the confusion of Mr. Barker and Mr. Crouch and 
 Mr. Calliver — much better men than he — and 
 probably first cousins of the porter. 
 
 These were the happier days — the drifting, 
 ambitionless, complacent times. Life was slow — 
 particularly for Blanche : they had lived so much 
 abroad before the war, in sunny places which 
 seemed to draw the gaiety from them spontane- 
 ously. But there were a few of their newer 
 friends left — people who had so far escaped direct 
 contact with the war and others like himself, to 
 whom the contact had come with shattering force, 
 yet leaving them with some renmants of the old 
 spirit. 
 
 47
 
 Then his mood would change for a time. Out- 
 wardly, at home, Jimmy's life would be the same 
 as before. But he would have fits of shame at 
 his incompetence, he would suddenly realise the 
 obligations of his position. He would be proud 
 again. In his complacent periods, he could com- 
 fort himself by saying that he was a square peg 
 in a round hole, that good clerks were not made 
 but born — in Balham, that if it wasn't such trouble 
 he could find some congenial billet and do useful 
 work — real work, work that flattered his self- 
 appreciation. In any case, if Blanche could only 
 stand it, he was certain he could prove himself 
 in the country. And there was always shell-shock 
 to fall back on. 
 
 When he woke up, however, he never made 
 excuses. He would run headlong to the opposite 
 extreme, work himself to an admiring friendship 
 with Mr. Barker and writhe with humility. At 
 these times he would drudge with an energy from 
 which his health really suffered. The superiority 
 would give place to an intensely human feeling of 
 pity. Good God ! — what for did these fellows 
 want to spend their cramped and scraping little 
 lives — the rich and poor of them alike — slaves of 
 money and cheap respectability. . . . He would 
 have them all ploughboys with the chance of see- 
 ing the distance and from high hills to gaze across 
 
 48
 
 to higher hills. A terror would rise in Jimmy at 
 the very word — office, for himself, for the others. 
 He would have liked a simple world reconstituted 
 without the curse and complication of business. 
 They said the country was fighting for freedom — 
 freedom 
 
 Coincident with this chastened mood in the 
 matter of the office would grow a certain deeper 
 discontent, an indefinable desire, the kindling of 
 some small pale flame of an origin too remote for 
 recognition. At all times he was lonely in the 
 office, but at these times the loneliness spread into 
 his whole life. At first he was only conscious of 
 it in regard to the lack of male companionship. 
 He would say to himself that he was depressed 
 and leave it at that, doing one of the dozen silly, 
 tangible things which were said to dispel the 
 blues. And when the climax of the mood was 
 reached, he could only return to cynical superiority 
 for comfort. After all it was definitely nice to 
 know that he pronounced " shibboleth " rightly, 
 and not find it necessary, like Mr. Harper-Free- 
 man in the next room, to grow long pointed nails 
 to hide the plebeian stubbiness of his fingers. It 
 was dreadfully small, but — oh ! — it mattered. 
 
 He was hardly ever fortunate enough to regard 
 himself and his activities from the broader, saner, 
 more commonplace standpoint of so many other 
 D 49
 
 men. These — men in the office and outside it 
 too — were content to lean on the gate, satisfied 
 that they had done their best and thankful to be 
 out of it all with skins grown whole again. They 
 did some kind of work connected with the war, 
 either to earn a living or to kill time : some had 
 even returned to old occupations of a frankly 
 un warlike sort. But Jimmy was incapable of this. 
 There was too, somewhere deep in him, a hateful 
 feeling that he had drifted into clerkdom for good, 
 that his patrimony might be taxed to extinction. 
 He saw himself becoming brother in all but blood 
 to his companions, interested in " value of money," 
 in his mind rendering everything he saw and touched 
 into pence. 
 
 Though his relations with the other men were 
 studiously friendly, his solitariness in the New 
 Department was un helped by genuine sympathy. 
 He found the effort to identify himself with their 
 interests hopeless. Mr. Barker certainly had a 
 sense of the ludicrous, but he and the rest were 
 far too prone to discuss their digestions for Jimmy's 
 taste. That topic which, out of the consulting 
 room, was quite new to him, seemed almost worse 
 than certain dreadful rhymes and stories with 
 which the younger members of the staff some- 
 times regaled him. 
 
 In his idle moments which were rather rare 
 
 50
 
 Mr, Barker would discourse upon the price of 
 things. It was of a really serious interest to him 
 to reckon up the cost of the office furniture and 
 then to change the motif of the discussion by- 
 explaining to what handsome and withal com- 
 fortable pieces he had been accustomed in his 
 
 own room at the office, from which he had 
 
 been lent to the New Department. 
 
 Then there was the question of food. 
 
 Jimmy would sometimes go out with Mr. Crouch 
 or Mr. Calliver at lunch time. 
 
 " There's a new place off the Strand which I'd 
 like your opinion of, Mr. Guise. Potatoes are 
 threepence, but you get value. A very nice cut 
 off the joint ; I might say quite as good as Mark- 
 ham's and more of it. And with breakfast at 
 seven as I have it — well, I don't mind saying I'm 
 a bit peckish by twelve-thirty." 
 
 " There was a nice onion at Markham's on 
 Friday," and Mr. Calliver made an expressive 
 gesture. " You didn't go that day, Crouch ; a 
 nice braised onion and a bit of stewed and some 
 apple tart and 'alf — half of bitter — you don't need 
 much else, old man." 
 
 " No onions for me," Mr. Crouch replied, " they 
 upset me. Usen't to I remember. But a month 
 or so ago we were having some spring onions at 
 supper — the wife saw some clieap at Frobbish's — ■ 
 
 51
 
 you don't know the place ? He's the big man 
 our way— and she had a fancy for them and I 
 had a couple too. " You'll pay for that," she said, 
 and she was right. " Oh, yes ! you wouldn't 
 believe what . . . however, no onions for me." 
 
 I" Well, of course they do recur," delicately 
 added Mr. Calliver. "It's not so much lasting 
 through lunch ; I can put up with that, but till 
 six or seven o'clock — it's really too much. Don't 
 you agree with me, Mr. Guise ? " 
 
 52
 
 On a peg by the door hung Jimmy's old grey billy- 
 cock, beside the latest thing in soft felt belonging 
 to Mr. Barker, and then Miss Carruthers' big black 
 hat with the ribbon of vivid green. Beneath 
 there were three walking-sticks, an ash plant, a 
 bad malacca painted towards the end, another 
 ash. Jimmy Guise wondered why he had been 
 pleased because Miss Carruthers carried a stick. 
 He had never said anything about it. Mr. Barker, 
 on the other hand, had been naively surprised 
 when Miss Carruthers had made her unusual ap- 
 pearance the previous month. There was to him 
 something even a little improper about a girl who 
 carried a stick in London, to the office. 
 
 Later on Miss Carruthers would talk about Mr. 
 Barker to Jimmy. From the very beginning Mr. 
 Barker tried but failed to discuss Miss Carruthers. 
 
 One morning a grey pigeon came into the may 
 tree outside Room 37 and began to eat buds, 
 cocking an eye now and again upon the interior. 
 Jimmy watched him for some minutes and then 
 
 53
 
 addressed him, quite unaware that from time to 
 time he was speaking aloud. 
 
 . " Yes, you fat beast — you're very comfortable, 
 and you're very safe, and I don't respect you one 
 little bit for all the colours in your fat neck. You're 
 an admirable civil servant — that's what you are. 
 But, you damn fool, you fancy yourself a free bird 
 and you're not. You're more caged than the 
 parrot of my maiden aunt. You are imprisoned 
 in comfort and loaded with the chains of safety. 
 You know how far you'll go and you don't mind 
 not going an inch farther. You'll always have 
 enough to eat and you'll bring up your family to 
 do as you've done, and I hope they'll rebel and 
 become sporting scavengers. Anyhow, you'll 
 never be shot, and people will always feed you 
 out of their silly hands. Soush ! Clear out. I'm 
 sick of you." 
 
 With the " soush ! " Jimmy awoke to a realisa- 
 tion of what he was doing and drew towards him 
 the draft of a letter which he had found difficult 
 of concoction. 
 
 " I wish I could have said all that," and Miss 
 Carruthers looked round at him and grinned. " It's 
 so maddening, always to hear people saying things 
 with which I so heartily agree that I almost feel 
 I was on the point of saying them myself. The 
 sermon to a pigeon — quite admirable." 
 
 54
 
 " Oh, yes," said Jimmy indifferently, and went 
 on with his work. He was rather ashamed of him- 
 self and annoved that she should have taken ad- 
 vantage of him. The more he saw of Miss 
 Carruthers the less he liked her. It didn't matter 
 at all. He didn't live in or for the office. But 
 there was no reason why everything in the difficult 
 business of existence should not be as pleasant as 
 possible. And in a vague w^ay there had from 
 the first moment of her arrival always been for 
 him some almost painful sensation in connection 
 with this girl. 
 
 Jessie Carruthers looked at him for a moment 
 and then bent to her own appointed task. She 
 felt a little disappointed. She had hopes of Guise 
 — the only person in the building who possessed 
 any point of contact with her, who spoke her 
 language. She too felt that it was just as well 
 to make the business of war work as pleasant as 
 possible ; though she too lived her real life outside 
 it and was certain that Guise was the only man 
 in the place with whom she had this in common. 
 All the others were office bred, and nowadays they 
 seemed to have no real life away from work. She 
 was not of the sort that can allow itself to be 
 merged in a temporary environment and instinc- 
 tively she was aware that Guise could not either. 
 
 Jimmy was a man who from his childhood had 
 
 55
 
 always saved his energy for one thing at a time, 
 or one person. Anything which really engaged 
 his attention became an obsession. That was, in 
 part, the reason for his loneliness. He had no life 
 outside his home, because he gave himself entirely 
 to Blanche, had always done so since his marriage. 
 No other woman existed for him ; there were, 
 that is to say, other people of the opposite sex 
 whom he talked to from time to time, to whom 
 he was invariably courteous. It took him a very 
 long time to make friends with them. 
 
 In the New Department there were many women, 
 of all classes and all ages, good to look at and ill. 
 But Jimmy had been many months in the place 
 before he would admit that any of them interested 
 him. The majority were no doubt young girls, 
 quite unformed, whose intelligence or the lack of 
 it was chiefly apparent in their work. Miss Car- 
 ruthers was an exception. Sometimes, he thought, 
 she took a little too much of him for granted. Her 
 manner rather blatantly suggested that they ought 
 to be friends, being — save for each other — alone 
 in the Department. Jimmy had never become 
 quite accustomed to the emancipation of women, 
 though in theory he applauded it. 
 
 At an idle hour one day Mr. Crouch had started 
 an enthralling discussion on the use of tobacco by 
 women. Some girl had been seen furtively smok- 
 
 56
 
 ing a cigarette under shelter of a large graph which 
 she was copying. This stimulating piece of 
 scandal had spread over the building. Several 
 people had congregated in Mr. Barker's room and 
 there was a great taking of sides. 
 
 " For my part," said Mr. Crouch, " I don't mind 
 a woman smoking in private — if she likes it. But, 
 of course, it's not the thing one would have the 
 wife do." 
 
 " Ah ! there's the catch," and some man nodded 
 a wise head. 
 
 " 'Like to see my wife smoking," said another. 
 
 " It's only show off — if you ask me. They none 
 of them enjoy it. They think it makes them equal 
 to men. Show off — that's all. What do you say, 
 Mr. Guise ? " 
 
 " I say nothing at all," said Jimmy, without 
 looking up. 
 
 Over his head certain meaning glances were 
 exchanged. 
 
 " Some like it — really," a boy put in, " my 
 sisters get through all my cigs. in no time." 
 
 " Now," said Mr. Barker, " we haven't given 
 the ladies a fair hearing. Come on, Miss Car- 
 ruthers, speak up for the fair sex." 
 
 " I rather thought it was all settled. If you 
 wish to know, I do smoke. But I really don't sec 
 that the subject 'needs any discussion." 
 
 57
 
 Miss Carruthers had rather a dangerous manner 
 on an occasion of this sort, and the subject was 
 left. Later she turned to Jimmy. 
 
 " How people like that freeze one — don't they 
 you ? I can hardly be decently civil. If you 
 want to know it's doubly humiliating because I 
 had the same sort of irrelevant argument with 
 an aunt only the other day. When I'm in her 
 house I have to take my cigarettes and hide them 
 by fifties in a box. It's a bit thick to put one's 
 own relations on the same level with this crowd." 
 
 " I shouldn't let it trouble you," said Jimmy 
 coldly. He quite recognised his kinship with her, 
 but refused to allow himself the pleasure of it. 
 
 " The backbone of this country takes a deal 
 of bending," she went on, " women smoking is 
 like conceit. Les bourgeois are always talking of 
 people being conceited. I've noticed it here 
 particularly. It's a word without any meaning 
 for me. Poor backbone ! But I don't in the 
 least wish to make it wriggle. I used to when I 
 was younger, and as a matter of fact, you know, 
 I much prefer a pipe." 
 
 In her work she was almost as big a duffer as 
 Jimmy. She plodded on with only half her mind 
 in it, but without the frequently expressed dis- 
 content of some of the others. She discussed this 
 point one day in Jimmy's hearing. A girl had 
 
 58
 
 come into their room for some official information 
 and had seated herself casually on the edge of a 
 table. 
 
 " Any news ? When's the war going to stop ? 
 I'm sick to death of this damned hole ! " 
 
 " Clear out of it then," said Jessie Carruthcrs, 
 " nothing to stop you." 
 
 " Oh ! I don't know— can't do that." 
 
 " Why not ? Anyhow if you don't, it's no good 
 grumbling about it." 
 
 " A fat lot of good to a pore girl you are. What- 
 ever made you come into it ? Much better stick 
 to your fiddle." 
 
 Jimmy's ears pricked. When the younger girl 
 had gone he asked : 
 
 " Do you play ? Ought I to have known ? " 
 There was an impalpable air about her which 
 suggested that she was no amateur. 
 
 " It's not very gratifying to find that you don't. 
 Yes, I play the fiddle." 
 
 " Then what in the name of all that's mad 
 induced you to come to this place ? " And Jimmy 
 was immediately angry with himself for having 
 let go and shown interest. 
 
 " Oh ! the war has smashed everyone else and 
 spoilt all their games and I didn't think it fair 
 somehow. Besides I can put in a good bit. I 
 go early, you know." 
 
 59
 
 " Yes," said Jimmy, " but I know what that 
 means to a vioUnist." In a way he would have 
 liked to go on and to point out the waste of it. 
 Musicians were not to be picked out of the hedge- 
 rows. He thought of a pianist he had known 
 and of how a year's handhng of straps and buckles 
 had ruined his hands. Silently he cursed, but he 
 said no more to Miss Carruthers. 
 
 So that was the story of this rather ugly-faced 
 woman with her lanky body. A fine recruit to 
 the army of " business girls " — a fine and pro- 
 mising recruit. God ! 
 
 60
 
 VI 
 
 It was not until Offord's name actually appeared 
 in the casualty list that Jimmy Guise realised 
 what it meant to him. Some time before it had 
 been thought that he was wounded — it had been 
 unofficially mentioned in the paper — and Jimmy 
 had heard about it from friends. Now there was 
 no question at all. A brother officer, himself 
 badly hit and only now coherent, had sent home 
 a message to Offord's wife. This man had been 
 with him when he died. 
 
 So that was an end of Frank Offord. Jimmy 
 had been sorry when the first vague news came. 
 He hoped he wasn't much damaged. Frank had 
 only been married for a year and a boy had been 
 born just before his last leave at home. Mrs. 
 Frank was living with her own folk in Cumber- 
 land. Jimmy had only seen her once : a rather 
 stolid girl. . . . 
 
 Poor old Frank ; one of his greatest friends 
 years ago. He had seen very little of him lately 
 — hardly at all since the war began, and then 
 only at his club or, may be, casually, in the street. 
 
 61
 
 It had been a thousand pities, but Frank had been 
 a friend whom he had been forced to rehnquish 
 from his ordinary life. No one would ever have 
 remarked upon the fact, least of all Frank him- 
 self, thought Jimmy. Or would he ? Did Frank 
 ever wonder why Jimmy had never asked him 
 to the flat ? Before the war Jimmy and his wife 
 had seldom been in England. No, on the whole, 
 he thought that Frank must have put it down, 
 in the common way, to the fact of his marriage. 
 When you were married you dropped old friends : 
 it was almost expected of you : your wife didn't 
 like them. And even in the case of a great and 
 particular friend this excuse would serve. Doubt- 
 less it had served. Doubtless Frank had never 
 remembered to add two and two together — and 
 the occasional dinner at the club, the infrequent 
 talk of old times — always times well before Jimmy's 
 marriage — had passed muster. 
 
 And now there never need be any more of this, 
 Jimmy thought. It was horrible to know how 
 relieved he was. It was only now that he realised 
 what a strain the consideration of Frank Offord 
 had been. He had for so long now been there — 
 at the back of Jimmy's mind, something vaguely 
 disturbing. He appreciated this now. Dear old 
 Frank — a straighter man, a better friend had never 
 lived. He could always trust him. He would 
 
 62
 
 always be loyal — always discreet, and it was that 
 last word when it flashed upon him that made 
 Jimmy understand. . . . He was glad that Frank 
 Offord had gone out. Frank in his dual capacity 
 stood out clearly now — ^the good old friend . . . 
 the menace. 
 
 Oh ! It is true there was nothing really to be 
 feared from him, but now — well, nothing could 
 be feared. He was dead, and dead men . . . 
 
 How it all came back. The worry, the anxiety 
 had never been far beneath the surface, but they 
 had grown vaguer with the lapse of time. It was 
 his own shame, his bitter remorse that had 
 mattered most and had lingered during recent 
 years. The old original story had sunk almost to 
 oblivion — the details of it, the actual order of 
 events. The news about Frank had brought it 
 all back, black-outlined in his memory. Had he 
 ever thought before of Frank and the war in this 
 connection ? Had it ever occurred to him that 
 Frank might be killed ? No, he decided. It had 
 all gone out of his mind in the hurry and hard 
 work and later in the considerable wondering 
 whether he would not be killed himself. He re- 
 membered the time when such an idea was by no 
 means fraught with dread. He was ready to take 
 his chance. He had never sought death, as some 
 men had ; but he had been fairly indifferent. And 
 
 68
 
 it had happened otherwise. He had come out, 
 damaged a httle, but safely and permanently out. 
 And now, for this, in his happier moods he was 
 unfeignedly glad. 
 
 But Frank — and then leapt from the outposts 
 of his mind those others — other friends who knew 
 too much. 
 
 Jimmy Guise determined to be honest with 
 himself and face the thing. It was a kind of tor- 
 ture, but he would take deliberate and physical 
 steps to reconstruct the old scene. 
 
 He was reminded in this way that there was an 
 old trunk originally packed five years ago, just 
 before his marriage, into the top of which he had 
 thrown various papers, books and other oddments 
 before he went out to France. When he had made 
 this addition he had not explored the lower strata, 
 though he had a general recollection of what had 
 been put there. The box with others and some 
 furniture had lain in a garret of his sister's house 
 up to the time he had joined the army, and Blanche 
 and he had taken the flat. Now it was deposited 
 in a kind of glory-hole presided over by the porter. 
 He would have it up after dinner that night. 
 Blanche was away. It would be something to do. 
 
 There was, Jimmy found, a pleasure not wholly 
 sentimental in exploring a boxful of possessions 
 long thrust aside. There was always the chance 
 
 64
 
 that he Avould discover something of value or 
 interest whose existence he had forgotten — some 
 book, an old woolly waistcoat, an old favourite 
 chisel. There would be every kind of debris in 
 this trunk. But on this occasion he did not linger 
 unduly as he turned the things out until he found 
 what he was actually looking for. This was a 
 cardboard filing box, having something of the 
 appearance of a large book with a paper label 
 on the back marked " Letters." There was a 
 spring inside to hold the contents down. Jimmy 
 released it and turned everything out on to the 
 floor. 
 
 It was a cascade of old memories — good, evil, 
 amusing, dull. A bundle of letters from a man 
 who wanted him to accept a job in Nigeria — he 
 often wished he had done so ; some photographs 
 in a cardboard roll — certain little ones fell out 
 as he picked the thing up ; he remembered the 
 red ink stain on one of them — like an old acquaint- 
 ance, pleasant to see, but having no particular 
 story to tell ; and then — this was what he wanted 
 — a collection of theatre programmes and menu 
 cards. He began sorting them out. Some of them 
 were eight or nine years old ; gorgeous things 
 tied with ribbon and emblazoned with college arms. 
 Here was the bill of fare for Frank Offord's twenty- 
 first birthday dinner at the Randolph — hors 
 £ 65
 
 d'oeuvres, Creme d'Orsay, and so on, with a sorbet 
 au marasquin before the bird. That had been a 
 great affair. And everyone had scrawled his name 
 on the back. They had passed the cards round 
 and round the table and Frank had written his 
 own name three times. Here was von Stuppen- 
 dorf's signature in German. He recalled the little 
 mild-eyed Prussian, quite a good fellow in those 
 days. Jimmy laughed as he said to himself the 
 word " quite." How many people that he knew 
 would be deeply offended if he admitted the good- 
 ness of that old fellowship. Someone had tried 
 to make von Stuppendorf drunk. He had toasted 
 him again and again. On each occasion the 
 German had drained his glass — no heelers — and 
 his mild-eyed solemnity had remained perfectly 
 immovable. It was the voice of the seducer that 
 had become potulent. 
 
 . . . Here it was, the most recent of them all, 
 the simple, single card, signifying a staider meal. 
 Even then his wife's amusing preference for the 
 right place had been pronounced and they had 
 gone to one of the snug and quiet little restaurants 
 in Jermyn Street. The party had not been 
 arranged. It was Boat Race night or some occa- 
 sion of that sort, and Blanche had been curious 
 to see the tumult of it all ; a man she knew had 
 once described the scene and bragged of his own 
 
 66
 
 part in it. Jimmy had by then grown out of 
 such child's play by a year or so, but he had 
 humoured her. 
 
 Looking back, Jimmy thought that of all the 
 pleasures of the past which had ceased with the 
 war, this sort of thing could be the most happily 
 dispensed with. He would always, when reason- 
 ing thus, forget his youth which was the essence 
 of such enjoyment. He viewed his salad days 
 with no kind of favour and diligently stigmatised 
 his own immaturity as shallow and fatuous. He 
 seemed to have forgotten that excitement and 
 boon companionship formed the rock upon which 
 many a house unworthy of its foundations had 
 stood. He was eight-and-twenty — grown up. And 
 he had suffered, his nerves were all to pieces. The 
 war had spoilt everything for him, he thought. 
 The wonder and ecstasy of life had gone, save for 
 such blindly recaptured moments as he had known 
 in the country. In fact, he had not yet learned 
 to distinguish occasion from inspiration in his 
 reckoning of life. 
 
 . . . There had been much ruffling and racket in 
 Leicester Square. A wide row of white shirts and 
 white faces would gleam in some deep shadow, 
 move forth into the light, and be resolved into a 
 row of shouting men, in ordered disarray, keeping 
 their line, arms hnked, in full and perilous posses- 
 
 67
 
 sion of the roadway. Some prodigy of sovereign 
 vigour was coming down the steps of the Empire 
 with a commissionaire struggling in his arms. And 
 the following day the halfpenny papers would 
 refer to them all as students, and they would 
 writhe from insult added to heartburn. 
 
 Blanche thoroughly enjoyed it all. She saw the 
 prodigy trying to give the commissionaire in 
 charge, himself arrested. She saw a very promis- 
 ing fight frustrated and wished to admonish the 
 police. It was not very long after their return 
 from Greece. Everything in London was full of 
 the surprises of charmed familiarity. The short 
 absence had been so full. 
 
 On the outskirts of the crowd in Piccadilly 
 Circus they had found Frank Offord and two 
 others, arm in arm, wishing that participation in 
 the revel would come with less effort. They were 
 noisily and affectionately delighted to see Jimmy 
 and to find that his companion with her white 
 clear skin and big jolly eyes was a good sports- 
 woman. Indeed she talked about the damned 
 noise in the first two minutes and they all went off 
 to supper very happy and young and excited. 
 
 Jimmy remembered every detail of that meal. 
 It was rather hurried, for it was nearly closing 
 time. They all had toast and butter and grilled 
 kidneys and Heidsieck. Not very long before they 
 
 68
 
 had all dined well, and the froth of the good wine 
 bubbled in idiotic talk. They revived the old 
 custom and put their names on the cards whose 
 list of delicacies referred to dinner. There they 
 were now — quite clear for all the softness of the 
 pencil with which they were written, one beneath 
 the other : 
 
 Blanche 
 
 A. F. Keyne 
 
 Frank Offord 
 
 Adrian Close 
 
 Jimmy G. 
 
 Loftus Hutton 
 
 No one had paid any attention to Blanche's in- 
 complete signature. Evidently she was to be just 
 — Blanche. Very jolly and friendly and bohemian. 
 Hutton had been the last arrival. He had nothing 
 to do with the chance meeting in the crowd. They 
 were already seated, talking sixty to the dozen, 
 when Keyne called out " Loftie." 
 
 " Never ! " said Jimmy and rose. There, by 
 the door, stood a tall, light-eyed man with an 
 aggressive nose, a high colour and just the least 
 little growth of pointed whisker — in the days when 
 whiskers were still proscribed. He was not in 
 evening clothes and had merely come in to order 
 a meal for the following day. He looked across 
 
 69
 
 the room quickly and without smiling. He had 
 a keen sense of the impropriety, in that place, of 
 being almost shouted for. Then he saw Keyne 
 with solemn enjoyment all over his round face 
 and Frank and Jimmy. 
 
 Jimmy recalled the scene now exactly as it 
 happened. Keyne and he were sitting facing the 
 door. Opposite with their backs to it were Blanche 
 and Close, whilst Frank Offord sat on Blanche's 
 right, trying to spin a fork on the top of a roll. 
 Blanche had a single gold-rimmed eyeglass in those 
 days ; there was a hint of colour in her cheeks. 
 She was leaning forward towards Keyne who had 
 been half-way through a good story when the 
 interruption occurred. 
 
 After a second or two's pause, Hutton grinned 
 and came over to them. Then the rather hilarious 
 introductions to Blanche, who declared that she 
 had met Hutton before. It was with a good. deal 
 of good-humoured difficulty that he was prevailed 
 on to stay. They devoured their meal and divided 
 another bottle between them, all getting rather 
 noisy ; so much so that anything a little unusual 
 or uncomfortable eluded notice. Perfectly staid 
 people would have seen that something was wrong. 
 Looking back, Jimmy was never quite sure about 
 it ; though, thinking of it, he was aware that the 
 slight awkwardness of that occasion could be 
 
 70
 
 paired with some recent counterpart . . . exactly 
 the same sensation . . . something hanging heavy 
 in the air. When they met Hutton the other day 
 in the park, was it ? Yes : that was it. Hutton 
 — Hutton. Add them together and — but it never 
 occurred to Jimmy to add them together. So 
 much to his certain knowledge and recollection 
 went definitely wrong at some point a little later 
 in that supper party that the lesser question 
 remained negligible. He never spoke of it again 
 to the others. 
 
 It was Keyne who said — referring to Blanche — 
 that they had never been properly introduced. 
 Her manner of signing the menu card may have 
 put that into his head, though he must have spoken 
 some little while after the card had gone its round. 
 Jimmy was sure of this because, though Adrian 
 Close had written his name, he certainly was not 
 present when Keyne spoke. Close had some 
 excuse, forgotten now, which made him leave in 
 the middle of the meal. 
 
 " I should feel much more comfortable," Keyne 
 said to Offord. 
 
 " Here am I in my element," the latter replied, 
 and turning to Blanche rattled off : " May I 
 present Captain Keyne — Mrs. Guise ; Mr. Hutton 
 —Mrs. Guise ; Mr. Guise— Mrs. " 
 
 ." Not quite yet," said Jimmy, " though we're 
 
 71
 
 both much flattered. In the meantime — Madame 
 StamouHs." 
 
 At any rate he had said something like that. 
 Blanche had always preferred to be vague about 
 her name unless, as now, she was definitely cornered. 
 It was impossible to remember exactly how the 
 offence occurred. Throughout the time they were 
 in the restaurant Blanche had behaved badly. 
 Jimmy never thought of that now ; it is doubtful 
 if it ever occurred to him. Himself he blamed 
 entirely, not her. He may have forgotten, he may 
 never have noticed, but Blanche had been noisy 
 and loud and, in an oblique meaning of the word, 
 vulgar. She had not been common, but she had 
 worn a rather dissolute mien. 
 
 In the minds of the men there, the most innocent 
 accessories must have been transformed into the 
 badges ,of vice — the eyeglass, the cigarette, the 
 touch of rouge upon her lips : these and, of far 
 greater significance, her undefinable manner that 
 night. There were people still who would have 
 said that she was " fast," immodest. 
 
 And of all these contributory signs Jimmy 
 availed himself not at all. If he now remembered 
 her conduct of that night, it would only be in 
 extenuation of the manner of the others. Even 
 that was hardly probable ; his self-execration was 
 too profound for him to lay any of the blame 
 
 72
 
 upon his friends. For, quite apart from what 
 happened afterwards, he was conscious of having 
 allowed his demeanour to overcome his discretion 
 — to put it upon that ground alone. He had been 
 rather drunk, but that was always an impossible 
 plea to urge. 
 
 " Not quite yet," said in half-a-dozen ways — ' 
 jocular, facetious, regretful, plain and flatly literal, 
 there was nothing in the words. But there was a 
 giggling self-consciousness in the way Jimmy said 
 them which was in exact correspondence with the 
 mood of his hearers. They had come half-way to 
 meet him, no doubt, and their ready minds leapt 
 to his intention. It is possible, even extremely 
 likely, that they had guessed the truth from the 
 beginning. Such an exonerating fancy would never 
 have occurred to Jimmy. No : he had always 
 felt guilty of betrayal. In his own view he might 
 as well have told his friends directly that Blanche 
 was his mistress. 
 
 So far it might have been the mere lack of 
 adroitness in conversation for which he had to 
 curse himself : but it was more than that. Jimmy 
 recalled with a very passion of disgust that he had 
 been proud and pleased for his friends to know. 
 It wasn't every man who could sport a mistress 
 like that — and an obvious lady too. He would 
 always writhe, loathing himself when he remem- 
 bered that. 
 
 73
 
 Blanche had never noticed ; that was something. 
 In those days she had let herself go ; and the 
 correctness of her choice of restaurant was no 
 token of her behaviour there. Once her enjoy- 
 ment had begun she held out both arms and danced 
 with it. 
 
 Again there was the getting into a cab ; and 
 again Blanche never noticed. Offord and Keyne 
 with Hutton rather in the background — he had 
 been the least noisy that night — had leaned over 
 the step, saying good night. 
 
 "Tell him to drive to Trinity Gate— forty- 
 three," Jimmy had said. 
 
 It was his own address, and Frank Offord, if 
 not Keyne, must have known it. 
 
 " Oh, yes," Frank had said, in his tone accept- 
 ing the situation just as Jimmy had accepted it 
 from him ten minutes before. That time it was 
 pure forgetfulness. But Jimmy did not see his 
 mistake until later. 
 
 In the morning Blanche had a vague idea that 
 the wrong tone had prevailed at the supper party ; 
 that she had said too much, but that also it really 
 didn't matter. In those rather desperate days 
 nothing did matter so long as she had a good time. 
 
 There had been much talk of another fore- 
 gathering since the first had been so merry, and a 
 few days later they had dined with Keyne. That, 
 
 74
 
 however, was not a success. It was a partie carree, 
 and Keyne had brought someone whom he intro- 
 duced as his cousin — someone, however, who 
 wouldn't do at all. Blanche had been furiously- 
 angry. It was one of the first occasions on which 
 Jimmy found his bearings, for up till then he had 
 thought of himself as in love ; it was charming 
 and exciting and he was very proud of it. In 
 fact, he was no end of a fellow. Now he suddenly 
 woke up to the fact that he was genuinely fond of 
 Blanche, fond with passion and devotion too, and 
 he saw the difference. 
 
 Keyne had taken a good deal for granted. 
 
 75
 
 VII 
 
 Back farther still, to the beginning of it all. 
 
 Jimmy was in Greece. He had joined a curious 
 band of people affiliated by respectability of means 
 and person, and with perhaps more than a nodding 
 acquaintance with an author whose nodding is 
 proverbial. The aim of this expedition was to 
 " do " Greece just as a party from Sheffield " does " 
 London. Jimmy found it surprisingly trying. He 
 may not have known it, but he had in him the 
 heart of an explorer. This comfortable perambula- 
 tion with a guide was very well for the elderly and 
 sedate, but a youth of spirit would have been 
 served as well by a hydro at Buxton. 
 
 One day when the comptroller — guide was too 
 coarse a word — was lecturing upon the Acropolis 
 at Athens, Jimmy gave them the slip. He had on 
 the first day of their arrival earned severe regards 
 for being caught drinking mastika with a private 
 soldier, a jolly young Cretan ; and he felt that 
 having come so far he must see this place leisurely 
 and at his own discretion. It was like running 
 
 76
 
 away from school. He left the party standing 
 fortuitously no doubt, but divertingly, in a precise 
 row whilst teacher pointed morals in the columns 
 of the Parthenon. Jimmy retreated backwards 
 for a little way, with some idea in his mind that he 
 might be summoned to return, and then reaching 
 the steps which leave the little temple of Wingless 
 Victory upon the left, broke into a run. The 
 expedition would finish Athens the following morn- 
 ing, and until then he chose alley ways unfrequented 
 by trippers, having in the first instance transferred 
 his baggage from the Hotel Grand Bretagne to a 
 somewhat humbler caravanserai recommended by 
 the Cretan soldier. Thenceforward he had a very 
 happy time. 
 
 In the first place he made the acquaintance of 
 an extremely agreeable fellow-countryman who was 
 was far more delighted than he said to meet some- 
 one willing to give him dinner, vin compris, in 
 exchange for local experience. This man Johnson 
 was an agent, for what or of whom it never 
 appeared. But he knew Greece and told Jimmy 
 much that was valuable. As a guide he was much 
 more expensive than the cultured gentleman with 
 his class on the Acropolis, but he knew a deal more 
 of life and love and death — with some very toler- 
 able archaeology thrown in. 
 
 It was Johnson who explained the strange con- 
 
 77
 
 duct of Madame Stamoulis. This was a little lady 
 with dark red hair who sat every night in the 
 lounge of the hotel, too tired to read the copy of 
 Je sais Tout upon her knee, yawning, dozing, fold- 
 ing and unfolding her arms, until one or two 
 o'clock in the morning. At a table near by Colonel 
 Stamoulis would play some amiable game of chance 
 with an elderly friend. Jimmy, whose hours were 
 regular but belated, asked Johnson what it meant. 
 
 " Why does that poor little soul sit up night 
 after night doing nothing ? " he asked. " She 
 always looks dog-tired — lovely all the same, the 
 most beautiful woman I've seen in Athens." 
 
 Johnson drank lingeringly of the beer that 
 Jimmy had ordered. 
 
 " She mustn't go to bed without her husband — 
 it's not proper in this country. She must always 
 wait for him to finish his game. It's the custom 
 here." 
 
 " What a damned shame. What delicious minds 
 they've got." 
 
 " No doubt it comes harder to her as she's 
 English." 
 
 This surprised Jimmy for a moment. 
 
 " Funny — that never occurred to me. Of 
 course, she looks it too. I've only heard her speak 
 French." 
 
 " Nice little filly, if you ask me ; they've only 
 
 78
 
 been married five or six months — though I never 
 
 much cared for these pale girls. No; give me " 
 
 and Johnson described so exactly what he would 
 like given to him that Jimmy decided that he had 
 served his turn. He had often found that Mr. 
 Jolinson galled his fastidiousness. 
 
 He had heard before what those kinds of 
 marriages can mean. And as he sat that night 
 watching the play and the passage of dirty notes 
 from one side of the table to the other, turning 
 his eyes every now and again to the sleepy girl 
 in the corner, he learned a good deal more. To- 
 night the gallant colonel was losing. The expres- 
 sion of his face, on which the blue-black stubble 
 had grown very conspicuous, was venomously 
 sulky. He said little and laughed shortly, like an 
 old Adclphi villain. His wrists showed creases of 
 pale fat as he shuffled cards. He lost again and 
 then with undisguised ill-temper went towards the 
 lift with a half glance behind him to see that his 
 wife was following. A man of five-and-thirty, 
 Johnson had said, good looking but obese. The 
 pair of them made Jimmy's gorge rise. 
 
 " Yes," said Mr. Johnson, after unmentionable 
 digressions, " I saw that little thing once before 
 in London, having a gay old time." 
 
 " What were they doing there ? " asked Jimmy 
 lazily. 
 
 79
 
 " Oh, she hadn't married Stamoulis then. She 
 met him in Cairo last winter. No, this was at 
 Co vent Garden. I danced with her too, though I 
 daresay she wouldn't own to it now. She'd a very 
 fine mash — oh ! — no end of a feller. Pots of money 
 and a place in the country. Wonder she didn't 
 marry him — but it takes two to play that 
 game. " And he nodded with leering wisdom. " I 
 knew the boy a bit — son of an old friend. Fact, 
 I dropped a hint and perhaps he took it. Ah, 
 well ! she won't recognise me now. Down on 
 my luck." 
 
 " Perhaps she's really forgotten you. Have you 
 spoken to her ? " 
 
 Mr. Johnson smiled and shook his head. " Don't 
 blame her," he said by way of answer, " wise 
 people don't stir up mud for the pleasure of fishing 
 out H. K. Johnson. Ah, well ! — too good, though, 
 for a dirty dago." 
 
 Late the next morning Jimmy introduced him- 
 self. There was a shop near by where you could 
 procure the humble but familiar Osborn biscuit, 
 with its associations of English childhood, by the 
 oke or the half oke, out of its Enghsh tin. Madame 
 Stamoulis was getting some — not the least because 
 she liked them, she told Jimmy later, but because 
 she knew them. The purveyor had a few words 
 of Enghsh ; Jimmy spoke to him in that tongue 
 
 80
 
 and turning to the girl said quietly, " You're 
 English too." 
 
 It was difficult at first, because people talked so, 
 and Athens was in regard to its women so very 
 Oriental. But it appeared that there was a woman, 
 a friend of this girl, who lived at the suburb of 
 Patissia — a Liverpool Greek who had been to a 
 high school and had played hockey. She under- 
 stood but did not admire Colonel StamouUs and 
 she was sympathetic. She had not been in England 
 for some years, but her points of view were strangely 
 diversified. She loved long walks and personal 
 cleanliness ; she was also cynically indulgent and 
 unbigoted. She was, in fact, frankly ready to help 
 Blanche in any game she chose to play. The 
 colonel was occupied in his duties during the 
 greater part of the day. 
 
 Jimmy soon got to know the Patissia Road. 
 
 It was Mr. Johnson, when Jimmy was on the 
 eve of his departure from Greece and the last 
 opportunity- of borrowing a fiver had been ruth- 
 lessly proved barren — it was no less a moralist 
 than Mr. Johnson, with the sting of his young 
 friend's refusal aching in him, who pointed out 
 that much indeed might be said for the habitual 
 suspicion with which the ways of quixotic youth 
 were regarded in the minds of narrowly puritanical 
 elders. 
 
 F 81
 
 " It's not," said Mr. Johnson with a soured leer, 
 " that I have any objection to make. Take what 
 you can get and when you can get it — that's my 
 motto." The chief trouble with him being that 
 he could not always get it. " But when I see 
 someone trying to get something and pretending 
 it's something else he's after, then I call him a 
 hypocrite — no less ; sometimes a dirty hypocrite. 
 
 Now, mind, I'm not being personal " for 
 
 Jimmy's expression was puzzled, the day was hot 
 and they had met near Zacharetes', where a rightly 
 constituted companion would in the course of 
 nature obtain drinks. Mr. Johnson's soul was 
 torn by conflicting desires for (a) lager beer and 
 (6) saying something which combined truth and 
 spleen. He was so thirsty that he compromised. 
 
 " No : I don't mean this personally. But you 
 see what I do mean. A young knight-errant goes 
 out into the world and finds a beauteous female 
 in distress — and very nice too. He rescues her, 
 and the purity of his motives — er — does it remain ? 
 does it hold good ? — er — yes — well — I don't mind 
 if I do — well — perhaps it does. Yes, in some 
 instances it distinctly may. Your good health, 
 someone else's good health, if there's no offence ; 
 and confusion worse confounded to the Greek 
 Army." 
 
 And Mr. Jolinson wiped a grey moustache and 
 
 82
 
 accepted a cigarette with a certain courtliness. 
 Madame Stamoulis had chosen to forget one ; 
 Jimmy had at last refused to lend one money ; 
 but one had somehow to get one's tobacco. 
 
 Which is all to say that Jimmy's heart was 
 touched by the piteous figure cut by Madame 
 Stamoulis in the hotel lounge, that his imagina- 
 tion did not shrink from contemplating the horrors 
 of so mixed a marriage, that he was sincerely and 
 quite desperately anxious to help an English gentle- 
 woman who appeared to him pathetically unable 
 to fend for herself, and finally that the field was 
 fair, the prospects golden. 
 
 Jimmy speedily learned the history of Blanche 
 Stamoulis. Her people were dead. She had gone 
 out to Egypt for the winter with two old ladies, 
 vigorous and kindly sightseers. In Cairo she had 
 met Stamoulis. The Greek made himself very 
 fascinating. The old ladies were charmed. He 
 was, so they discovered, amazingly rich. Such a 
 very handsome fellow too. All Greeks were noble, 
 and this one's name was Alcibiades, which was most 
 romantic — although extremely common. It was 
 only right that they should tell him that Blanche 
 was not quite penniless. So it was all settled and 
 after the wedding they returned to England feeling 
 that their work had been well done. Poor Blanche 
 — she was quite alone in the world. It might be a 
 
 83
 
 little strange for her at first, they said, but it would 
 soon be all right. There was, they understood, 
 some very delightful English society in Athens. 
 
 [That had been one of the first of Blanche's 
 troubles, for the British colony had no special 
 employ nnent for Stamoulis. It would have opened 
 its arms to Blanche, but not for her sake would 
 they tolerate her husband. So she soon found 
 herself more lonely than ever. Then she found 
 that her old friends had been misinformed as to 
 Stamoulis' wealth, also that he was urgently agape 
 for her half-yearly income. Fortunately the 
 capital was tied up. She made a number of other 
 discoveries in quick succession. But she knew it 
 was her own fault and never from herself tried to 
 disguise the fact. Equally it was not going to be 
 her own fault if her discoveries troubled her for 
 long. The arrival of Jimmy, a clean fellow- 
 countryman, with a good heart and not too ex- 
 cessively guileless, was opportune. But for him 
 she would have been driven to some despairing 
 folly. She told him so within a very short time 
 of their acquaintance. Save for keeping up appear- 
 ances at the hotel in the customary way, Stamoulis 
 troubled her very little — and also, so soon, he had 
 begun another love story, the mercenary side of 
 which was not his. 
 
 'It was the Liverpool girl who first pointed -out 
 
 84
 
 to them that although Athens was good enough 
 fun in its way, the true Greece, the Greece of 
 undying romance, lay elsewhere. So Blanche and 
 Jimmy went for expeditions into the country, 
 and near Menethi they found the ideal tavern. 
 It was a little cottage by the side of a dusty 
 by-way, with grey rocks about it and a little clump 
 of olives at the side. Sitting in the purple shade 
 of the vine-clad arbour, they saw the mountains 
 of silvery grey and amethyst harden in outline, 
 deepen in tone to intensest violet as the sun went 
 down ; whilst near at hand a white-walled, red- 
 roofed villa and its outbuilding were divided by 
 prim sentinels of Cyprus trees — the richest indigo. 
 
 At this little tavern where nothing was normally 
 to be expected but the common drink of the 
 country — resinato, there was by some odd chance 
 a barrel of fair Cretan wine, whose very colour, 
 as the sun took it in the thick short tumblers, 
 was an ideal and a joyous refreshment. They sat 
 and drank the good wine and watched a little 
 brown-skinned, ragged boy driving in his herd of 
 goats, their bells a-tinkle down the dry water- 
 course below them, where scant trees dappled the 
 rocks with shadow. 
 
 This was the heart of all romance. Here these 
 two decided on their course. 
 
 85
 
 The dissolution of the vile entanglement had been 
 a long business, although the utmost goodwill 
 had been brought to it from both sides. Jimmy, 
 supposing that Stamoulis would require that 
 unprofitable technicality known as satisfaction, 
 offered it. Stamoulis, who had known from the 
 beginning what had happened and would happen, 
 forthwith exalted his reputation for good manners- 
 
 " Why," said he, " should I risk injuring a 
 benefactor ? " 
 
 So long as Jimmy was prepared to finance the 
 undertaking he would make no difficulty. He did 
 not wish to be out of pocket ; that was all. Blanche 
 had been a disappointment to him ; but he was 
 no sentimentalist and Jimmy had saved him a lot 
 of trouble. 
 
 They engaged a lawyer whose work was mostly 
 derived from the British Colony, and so laid the 
 foundation-stone of release. They kiiew they 
 would have to wait and did not mean to waste 
 time. Blanche passionately desu-ed to forget the 
 horror and start fresh at once. For her, periods 
 of meditation were quite fruitless. Joyfully she 
 faced the risks. 
 
 They left Greece together. 
 
 They spent some weeks in Provence, later 
 making Paris their headquarters, whence from 
 time to time they could come to England — Blanche 
 
 86
 
 to stay with an unsatisfying school friend who 
 was fond of her and of whom she made what use 
 she could ; Jimmy to put in a week-end from 
 time to time with his sister and to foster amongst 
 liis friends the impression that he was studying 
 languages, and, rather late, preparing himself for 
 vigorous work. 
 
 And at last, quietly and without a, word said, 
 they were able to get married. 
 
 They both forgot all about Mr. Johnson. 
 
 87
 
 VIII 
 
 ... So Keyne and Hutton yet remained. They 
 were both in France. 
 
 Keyne was an old soldier — South Africa and a 
 show on the North-West Frontier. A man of sober 
 enthusiasm and astuteness in his profession ; a 
 sportsman too, but only secondarily so. He had 
 been very lucky — through it all from the beginning, 
 all the worst of it, and had never been touched. 
 Once he had been home for a time with an 
 accidentally broken leg. But he had gone out 
 again now. 
 
 Loftie Hutton had been twice wounded — once 
 quite slightly. He and Jimmy had joined at the 
 same time. Before the war Hutton had rented 
 chambers in the Temple, and had been extremely 
 busy a mile or so west of that address. He had 
 been called to the Bar, but it would have been 
 misleading to refer to him as a barrister. 
 
 They remained, these two. It came to Jimmy 
 with a shock, as he painfully delved into the old 
 story, that he should think of old friends like that. 
 
 88
 
 They were still alive ; they kiiew. He recognised 
 them too well really to fear what they could say, 
 and it had been the same, only with double cer- 
 tainty, in the case of Frank Offord. Really there 
 was nothing they could say. It was only the 
 people who had been there at the supper party 
 and who saw with their o^vn eyes what happened 
 that mattered. Adrian Close had gone before the 
 crucial moment. 
 
 Jimmy sat forward in his arm-chair, restlessly 
 flicking the edge of the old menu card. That 
 might have been such a jolly, sentimental relic. 
 . . . He tore it into little pieces and flung them 
 away. 
 
 . . . No, it wasn't that they might talk ; 
 it was just what they knew — and what they didn't 
 know. It would, without the whole story, be so 
 commonplace to them. He would just be " poor 
 old Jimmy who made such a mess of things." 
 
 " I am going to get married," Jimmy had told 
 Hutton one day, suddenly meeting him in London 
 a little before the legal ceremony had taken place. 
 He was excited and happy quite as though things 
 had been normal and even. 
 
 " Good for you, my boy." Then he stopped and 
 said in an undecided way — "Not that girl you had 
 with you that night at Plisson's — with Keyne and 
 Frank ? " 
 
 89
 
 " Oh, no," Jimmy replied with all his mind 
 concentrated on the moment. Hutton had come 
 half-way to meet the lie. Evidently he wanted 
 it not to be the girl of the supper party, and Jimmy 
 failed for an instant to see whither the lie would 
 lead him. 
 
 " Oh, dear no," he added, as uncomfortable 
 realisation dawned. 
 
 Hutton asked no more questions, and Jimmj' 
 answered none in anticipation. He went on to 
 talk of what they were going to do and where 
 they would live, and as soon as his sense of art 
 would allow twisted the conversation to the doings 
 of his friend. After all, he thought then, the 
 supper was a long time ago. Hutton had but 
 met Blanche on that occasion, and Jimmy must 
 take care that they did not see him again for 
 some time. He would be sure to forget. Certainly 
 on the various occasions of their meeting after 
 the marriage, Hutton had shown no sign of recol- 
 lection. And yet he must know : of course, he 
 must know. 
 
 An explicit scandal ; divorce proceedings fully 
 published in England would have been far better. 
 But Blanche had wished to let the past die. She 
 did not see that it was fitter to drag it into the 
 open and kill it there. 
 
 He had done his best to make up for it to 
 
 90
 
 Blanche, or rather to make up to his own self- 
 esteem for what he had done. He was never 
 satisfied with trying to make her happier. As a 
 small instance ; indirectly as much for her sake 
 as his own he had stayed long at Klmberdown, so 
 that he might get his nerves into better order, be 
 less irritable. He guessed that he must be unbear- 
 able in his worser moods. 
 
 For her part and — for her — Blanche had shown 
 wonderful patience with Honor. As a looker-on 
 Jimmy had greatly admired the two of them, 
 seeing how hopelessly inimical their natures were. 
 Naturally the balance of his approval sank to 
 Blanche's side. In any case he had made the 
 discovery that a periodical visit to Kimberdown 
 was not impossible. He had once thought that it 
 would be. 
 
 The strangest thing was Blanche's eagerness, 
 in the first place, for this visit which she might 
 reasonably have been expected to dread. But as 
 the years went on, she had shown the most emphatic 
 predilection for respectability of a certain kind. 
 She attached great importance to staying in a 
 country house which had been in the occupation 
 of the same family for at least three generations. 
 In the same way she must be dressed, not only 
 very well, but very fashionably. She must have 
 a flat in a thoroughly sound neighbourhood. She 
 
 91
 
 must only know the Right people who did the 
 Right things. The right thing always cost money 
 — it might also involve good taste and a nice 
 discretion, but the fact of money was never absent 
 from it ; of all ingredients it was the least dis- 
 pensable. It was a frame of mind which Honor 
 would have called thoroughly middle class. Yet 
 Jimmy and Honor herself had been brought up 
 rather on these lines, or rather they had been 
 born at the goal towards which by striving Blanche 
 was making her way. There was a time coming 
 when Jimmy would ask himself whether Blanche 
 was careful because she was self-conscious of the 
 doings of her middle youth, or whether Honor's 
 diagnosis, also relative to mediety, was the proper 
 one. At the moment he could not help but notice 
 Blanche's cult of What-was-done, comparing it 
 with the ways of the old, rowdy, devil-may-care 
 Blanche of early days and the desperate Blanche 
 of the earliest days of all. 
 
 Blanche now ignored the past. She had been so 
 whole-hearted, ready to take risks, eager for the 
 moment. Nowadays she gave the impression of 
 one who loathed adventure and had never dis- 
 regarded the sure guidance of the vicar. 
 
 This came home to Jimmy rather bitterly one 
 morning shortly after their return from the country. 
 As he was leaving the flat, Blanche, who had fits 
 
 92
 
 of coaxing affection, put her arm through his and 
 held the door so that he could not go. 
 
 " What shall we do to-night ? " she asked. 
 
 " Anything you like — anything you specially 
 want ? " 
 
 " You're a nice man — it's our wedding-day." 
 
 " I mean what you mean," and Jimmy smiled, 
 " but I never regard it like that. June the third 
 is our wedding-day — but let's keep them both." 
 
 Blanche dropped her hand and stared at him 
 M'ith round and angry eyes. 
 
 " Really — oh ! how can you ! You — you throw 
 it in my teeth. I don't understand you at all." 
 
 " Sorry, dear. I never thought you — took it 
 like that. I only throw in your face the fact that 
 you were a plucky little girl." 
 
 Jimmy failed to observe that hers was a 
 character which could now and again summon 
 strength for a decisive break from the accustomed 
 groove and then lapse. It welcomed the high- 
 sheltering banks on either side of the new pathway, 
 making its comfortable way between them, thank- 
 ful to have found another groove. Jimmy had not 
 yet learned that the greater happiness was de- 
 pendent on an attitude of mind sustained in 
 difficulties — a mind which makes a leap and leaps 
 again and on, that Blanche, in short, had not the 
 courage of her ovm convictions. At the moment 
 
 93
 
 it was easier, since she had the chance, to accept 
 sanctuary. Jimmy had often heard that there 
 was no one so appalUngly decorous as a woman 
 who had gone wrong. But mentally he did not 
 apply the axiom to Blanche, who from perversity 
 or cunning occasionally made superficial excep- 
 tions to her rule, as in the teUing of stories which 
 shocked Honor Dunqueray. Perhaps, Jimmy 
 reflected later on, this was also a part of the Right 
 thing. 
 
 The morality of her conduct and of his seemed 
 irrelevant to this desire of hers for good repute. 
 
 Again, in a way, Jimmy was rather flattered 
 by her inclination towards accepted custom. He 
 liked to feel that, seeing all that had gone before, 
 he had a wife whom no one could challenge. The 
 fact that she had been divorced was not an irre- 
 parable hurt, so long as in the world's eye every- 
 thing was shipshape now. 
 
 And when that thought came, once more the 
 two friends cast their shadows across his mind. 
 . . . Keyne and Hutton could call her in question. 
 They knew that Blanche had lived with him before 
 their marriage. They remembered — they could 
 not fail to remember that Jimmy had given her 
 away on that accursed evening. It was that which 
 poisoned all his memories of those men. They were 
 familiar with his shame. They had seen him play 
 
 94
 
 the cad and the fact that they had played up to 
 him helped Jimmy not at all. These two — Keyne 
 and Hutton — had rather avoided him. He was 
 sure of this, sure that self-consciousness had not 
 made a point from accident. They had never 
 been to him quite what Frank Offord had been. 
 He had seen very little of Frank too, but with 
 him there had been no chilling hint of re^ierve. 
 Frank had always been demonstratively glad to 
 see him. He had remained a great deal of a boy. 
 Keyne and Hutton had grown responsible and 
 respectable. Keyne especially had the strictest 
 ideas — not on conduct but on the publicity 
 of conduct. In his view there had to be 
 sepulchres and they should be well whited ; and 
 when they were the sepulchres of other people, 
 ignored. 
 
 With other men that Jimmy knew — and women 
 too, the plain fact of the case, so far as it concerned 
 Blanche, would have mattered little. It was the 
 twentieth century. So many people had matri- 
 monial troubles, a year or two's quiet living out of 
 legal wedlock — well, for that part of the world 
 at large which Blanche wished to propitiate, it 
 had to be quiet : it mustn't be known, anyhow, 
 not for certain. The bulk of the patrician popula- 
 tion was still strait-laced, theologically correct, 
 maritally orthodox. If you were to enjoy peace 
 
 95
 
 in the usual English routine life, you had to con- 
 form in such matters. The view was narrow but 
 the road was long. 
 
 Yes ; there were people — enough of them to 
 live amongst and not feel desolate — who would 
 not mind. On the contrary. But these were the 
 folk with whom neither of them, though for 
 diverse reasons, wished to be exclusively identified. 
 Blanche required a haven safely within the pale : 
 Jimmy, though he was scarcely aware of it as yet, 
 was definitely normal. In the heart of him he was 
 healthy. He looked back with loathing on all 
 that had happened in Greece — had necessarily 
 happened, he put it to himself. He was not a 
 puritan ; he still saw no harm in sowing wild oats. 
 But he hated having to see his wife in that respect. 
 Why couldn't he have met Blanche before the 
 hound Stamoulis came on the scene ? Why 
 couldn't they have met and fallen in love in the 
 nice, ordinary way — the two of them, without the 
 intrusion of trouble and a third person ? Jimmy 
 had come to that part of a man's life when early 
 amusements begin to fall into true perspective, 
 neither entirely negligible nor disguised with undue 
 importance. He even envied men who had alto- 
 gether dispensed with wild oats. He always 
 looked towards an ideal, cheating himself in the 
 belief that Blanche answered to it. From the 
 
 96
 
 beginning he had surrendered himself completely 
 to his wife, shutting his eyes to the fact that true 
 surrender implies strength upon the other side, 
 that in marriage happiness depended not upon 
 submission, but upon the general consonance of 
 two identities. This yielding on Jimmy's part 
 was a deeper thing than can be accounted for by 
 mere weakness or laziness. It was no mere giving 
 in on small material affairs, but a deliberate 
 attitude of mind born in the first instance of 
 chivalry, nurtured and perpetuated, no doubt, 
 by obstinacy. But Jimmy had never lost his 
 identity. 
 
 In this plight of mind he had lived in content- 
 ment up to the time of his discharge from the army. 
 Previous to that he had developed very slowly. 
 Up to the outbreak of the war, he had been a boy 
 with ideals and opinions, which as yet lacked the 
 confirmation of experience. There had been the 
 affair in Greece, the long waiting, the marriage, 
 exciting and amusing travel — no settled family life 
 or the opportunity for thought about it. Then the 
 war. From time to time, during his training and 
 afterwards, Jimmy came home to the flat in a 
 state of absolute contentment. Again there was no 
 time for thinking. He enjoyed the moment and 
 that was enough. Now, for some months, for the 
 first time after years with Blanche, he had ex- 
 G 97
 
 perienced a quiet, and usual domestic life. And he 
 had time to think about the meaning of things 
 and of their relative value. He suddenly found 
 that he had grown up. But for the implication 
 of Blanche he would readily have admitted youth 
 as the explanation in one word of all that had 
 gone before. But unlike his wife, he had no wish 
 to ignore it. Up to the time of the supper party 
 there was nothing of which he was personally 
 ashamed. He only wished that it could have 
 happened differently. He hated the thought of 
 matrimonial troubles. His ideal was a consummate 
 blending of love with friendship, trust with in- 
 dividuality ; there must be sympathy without 
 sentiment, intimacy which never blunted the fine 
 edge of surprise. And there must be children. 
 Blanche had no children — they were too much 
 trouble. 
 
 So now he was beginning to understand the 
 meaning of his loneliness, his fits of incurable 
 depression. Could he put it all down to shell- 
 shock ? Was not the truth of things and honesty 
 to himself invariably the better way ? 
 
 Nay — this would never do. Such a line of 
 thought plumbed depths too terrible for realisa- 
 tion. To-night he was literally alone. Blanche 
 had gone away for a few days to help a friend with 
 
 98
 
 some business of charity. She had a certain gift 
 for talking in pubHc. 
 
 Jimmy felt that he must do something, be with 
 people, enter into discussions, for a little while 
 forget. 
 
 99
 
 IX 
 
 Jimmy had a little pang of conscience as he went 
 on his way that night. There was a sensation of 
 faithlessness to Blanche. He was going to see 
 Adrian Close, a man whom Blanche had always 
 disliked, and he would meet there with him people 
 whom she disliked still more — rather ragamuffin 
 folk who worked very hard for very small pay, 
 lunched furtively at the ABC round the corner, 
 and to whom Tuesday nights at Adrian's came 
 round as a pale but happy imitation of a happier 
 past. He would own up to it afterwards — he 
 would always own to everything he did — and she 
 would sneer. She would point out how second rate 
 it all was. 
 
 Close had lately taken a studio as the best 
 means of getting a large room unenvironed by 
 other large rooms which he did not require. It 
 was in a little cobbled side-track in a part where 
 the niceties of Kensington are beginning to decUne, 
 and to come there in wet weather it meant an 
 unsheltered walk of fifty yards or so. 
 
 100
 
 There was always an atmosphere of kindhness and 
 freedom about any gathering under Adrian's roof, 
 and Jimmy who had not seen him for some weeks 
 already felt a glow as he left his cab and began to 
 stumble along the dark uneven path. He had a 
 queer sensation of being much liked and approved 
 of by Adrian and his friends. And yet the guilti- 
 ness remained to vex him ; a dim beginning of an 
 idea that he was taking a new and difficult road 
 which led away from all customary things. 
 
 As he drew near he heard the playing of a 
 violin. An old man in his shirt sleeves and a girl 
 were standing at the entrance to the next studio 
 listening. It was very dark but Jimmy could just 
 make out their faces and was conscious of their 
 high enjoyment. The whole atmosphere of the 
 evening was thrilling and suggestive. It was not 
 London in the way that he knew it. It was almost 
 fairyland. 
 
 Jimmy found Adrian's door ajar and someone 
 seized his arm as he pushed his way in. There 
 was a whisper from the dark and Jimmy under- 
 stood that he was to be silent. He found himself 
 hidden from the main part of the room by a 
 curtain, but before him a little throng of men sat 
 or leaned about the narrow stairway. Pale faces 
 glimmered from the shadow, with here and there 
 a wan touch of linen or a hand beneath a chin. 
 
 101
 
 A big man stood leaning against the banisters, 
 his high-beaked nose seeming, in that light, to make 
 an unbroken curve from tousled hair to chest, the 
 latter hidden by his folded arms. All were quite 
 still. Jimmy could see nothing else. Then he too 
 leaned against the door and listened. 
 ; He had heard no music for a long time, and he 
 was one of those who cannot enjoy a concert ; 
 the effort of going to a stated place at a fixed time 
 and perhaps sitting in a row of polite chatter- 
 boxes killed his appreciation. He wanted music 
 peradventure, at home, at ease. Though no such 
 idea had entered his head that night, this was an 
 occasion when he was peculiarly in need of some 
 emotional stimulant, exquisitely susceptible. He 
 hadn't the slightest idea of what the violinist was 
 playing ; he didn't in the least wish to know. 
 But presently he found himself trembling and 
 intensely quickened. He was glad that he was 
 in a dark corner. He had never felt anything like 
 this. All the joys that he had ever known were 
 concentrated in the moment. Every loveliness 
 seen or imagined met together in an ecstasy of 
 happiness, a supreme crisis of delight. It was a 
 passionate healing of all ills, if it would only go 
 on — on. He was capable of anything, the universe 
 was within the span of his arms . . . and oh ! 
 the ringing and rapture of hearing ; and the 
 
 102
 
 certainty, the fiery resolution, the sweeping 
 strength of the playing. . . . 
 
 There was no defined image in Jimmy's mind 
 as he stood there. Simply he was caught up by 
 overwhelming sensation. It was a moment of 
 pure fervour, of inspiration without specific drift. 
 He had no knowledge of music, no critical jargon 
 to distract him. He knew only that, rarely, he 
 was borne away by it on unimaginable wings, that 
 the exaltation quickly passed. 
 
 The end came and Jimmy stumbled into the 
 dim-lit studio. They were all people there who 
 felt deeply and, if they could, said what they 
 felt. 
 
 Adrian's face was working as he took Jimmy's 
 arm and led him in. The big man who had leant 
 against the banisters muttered deeply to himself. 
 He didn't move, only his eyes looked burningly 
 across the room. Jimmy followed his gaze. 
 
 A cluster of shaded lights were turned on over 
 the keyboard of the piano at the far end. A heavy 
 court-cupboard loomed near at hand, whilst the 
 half-light in between found deep blue shadows on 
 pewter plates and flagons. 
 
 And there near the piano, putting away her 
 fiddle in its case, was a tall, thin, rather awkward 
 girl looking pale now, her wide mouth drooping, 
 tired. People began to talk to her and thank her, 
 
 100
 
 and when she looked up and smiled she seemed 
 extraordinarily happy. There was quite a vague 
 familiarity to Jimmy about her, and when Adrian 
 made them known, he felt that he ought to have 
 perceived it from the first, even in his dark corner 
 from which he could see nothing. Jessie Car- 
 ruthers : and so surprisingly the same as usual. 
 
 Then people talked all at once and began scram- 
 bling for hats and sticks which were piled on a 
 table in the little kitchen. There were several 
 there that Jimmy knew slightly — men who had 
 been invalided out of the army ; one or two on 
 leave and persons who, like Adrian himself, were 
 working temporarily in government offices. 
 
 Most of them left when it was made sure that 
 Miss Carruthers would not play again, and the rest 
 presently clustered about a table on which were 
 things to eat and drink. Presently Jimmy was 
 giving Jessie Carruthers a Ught for her cigarette. 
 
 " Not the pipe to-night," he said, with his 
 broken-toothed grin. 
 
 " I keep that for reading. I've only been here 
 once before. It's rather hard luck on you, sitting 
 in a room with me all day and then again at night. 
 I'm dog tired. I shall be late to-morrow — oh ! " 
 
 Her sighing exclamation was due to a fragment 
 of high-pitched comment distinctly heard by both 
 of them above other talk. 
 
 104
 
 " Such execution 1 and such soul ! " 
 
 The admirer was a cousin of Adrian, a Mrs. 
 Hazard, who having heard that he sometimes had 
 " musical evenings " had insisted upon an invita- 
 tion. 
 
 " I only care for good music, you know — 
 classical," she had said earlier in the evening, and 
 a young man who had come on from the Queen's 
 Hall had promptly given her his own interpreta- 
 tion of some ragtime, afterwards discoursing to her 
 of the Ught-heartedness of Brahms. She wanted 
 the name of it to write down. She had heard it, 
 of course, before — many years ago, as a girl, but 
 she could never remember the names of things. 
 
 Jessie giggled and told Jimmy this story. 
 
 " And she meant me just now, I know. Aren't 
 I dreadfullv conceited ? Give me a drink of water 
 and then I'll go." 
 
 " Is it far ? Can I see you on your way ? " 
 
 " No, thanks, Bill Syson'll see me home. He 
 lives near." 
 
 Bill Syson was the big man — Jimmy had known 
 him slightly for some years, and his casual regard 
 for him was turned. He lived near her, he was 
 going to see her home. Somebody had said that he 
 was painting her portrait. It would be seen next 
 year at the Grosvenor. . . . Jimmy quite forgot 
 his dislike of Jessie Carruthers, just as, for a 
 
 105
 
 moment, he had forgotten himself. It was a night 
 of magic. 
 
 " Before you turned up," Adrian broke in, " we 
 were discussing our masters." 
 
 " What masters — the Government ? " Jimmy 
 asked. 
 
 '' In a manner of speaking. I meant our private 
 and individual masters ; the people to whom we 
 say, ' Please, Sir, can I go out for half an hour 
 this afternoon and have a tooth pulled ? ' — our 
 immediate bosses. We've heard about yours from 
 Miss Carruthers. It's a very pathetic case, Jimmy. 
 It's a good job I'm not in your Department or 
 I'd make you type my letters." 
 
 " My master used to shave me before the war," 
 said a monkish-looking man in a black stock, " at 
 least he would have if I'd gone there. Clever 
 devil. He rather thinks it's his chance in life, 
 though of course they'll send him back to his strop 
 as soon as the war's over. He asked me the name 
 of my tailor to-day. I tell you, Close, I'm a proud 
 fellow now." 
 
 " We are sinking in society. I think. Maxwell, 
 I can't have you coming here. Now I'm a deputy 
 sub-assistant private secretary to a director of 
 sorts. Someone lent him a copy of my London 
 book, the one with Roan's illustrations, the other 
 day. I suppose they thought it was doing me a 
 
 106
 
 good turn. The good man congratulated me very 
 handsome indeed. I said the usual fatuous things 
 and he said, ' No seriously — no rot. I like it.' 
 Rather dear of him, wasn't it ? And then Max- 
 well talks of being proud ! " 
 
 Maxwell laughed. "Very good for your soul," 
 he said. 
 
 " Well, thank God I'm too old for all this foolish- 
 ness," said the big man. " Come on, Jessie, get 
 your hat. 'Night, you scriveners." 
 
 Jiinmy looked down the big room with its in- 
 numerable books in their white shelves, and began 
 talking aimlessly to Mrs. Hazard, who alone had 
 remained. Presently Adrian returned from seeing 
 the others off. 
 
 " Well — what about her ? " he said. " Sit down, 
 Ada, and have a sandwich or something — I'm glad 
 you didn't miss that, Jimmy." 
 
 " I can't thank you enough. I wanted — just 
 that." 
 
 " Quite wonderful execution," said Mrs. Hazard, 
 " and she puts soul into her playing. A pretty 
 thing it was, though I should imagine much more 
 difficult than it sounded. Wouldn't you say so, 
 Mr. Guise ? " 
 
 " Much more difficult." said Jimmy with a polite 
 face. 
 
 " AL the same time — well, of course, 1 know it's 
 
 107
 
 no use talking to you, Adrian, and you're quite 
 the Bohemian and there's no actual harm in it — 
 but — when I was a girl and I went to an evening 
 party with Mamma, and some young woman — 
 however talented — had arrived with a man and 
 left with him, too, and not even a relation — still, 
 one must make allowances for the age, I suppose : 
 and you do know such extraordinary people, 
 Adrian." 
 
 "It's a habit of mine. I hke them extra- 
 ordinary." 
 
 He might easily have left it at that and steered 
 to safer waters, but Ada Hazard always excited 
 in him the spirit of wilfulness. 
 
 " Miss Carruthers is wonderful," he went on, 
 " entirely charming, nowhere near a fool. I like 
 the look of her, too ; she refreshes me. You're 
 lucky, Jimmy." 
 
 " I know I am now." 
 
 " You ought always to have known it from the 
 moment she first came to your office." 
 
 " There's not much to look at, I must say," 
 Mrs. Hazard put in. "I've no doubt she 
 plays very nicely — many quite common people 
 do." 
 
 " Now, Ada, don't let's quarrel," said Adrian 
 in a quarrelsome tone. 
 
 " There's no question of quarrelling. But 
 
 108
 
 you're surely not going to tell me that Miss Car- 
 ruthers is exactly a lady ? " 
 
 " Good Lord, no ! that's her attraction. Look 
 how alive she is ! Her manner lacks all repose — 
 that's what makes it so interesting. She's so full 
 of fire." 
 
 " I suppose you'll be asking me to the wedding." 
 
 " Yes, out of a sense of duty." 
 
 " And," Mrs. Hazard went on imperviously, 
 " she hasn't even looks to recommend her ; I 
 never saw a plainer girl." 
 
 " Uglier, you mean." 
 
 " Well, that's unkind." 
 
 " Not so unkind as plain. By the usual standard 
 she's definitely ugly — a far better thing. But 
 she's got such a jolly face that it never strikes me 
 like that. It may interest you to know that Loftie 
 Hutton was madly in love with her." 
 
 " Indeed. One of the Longridge Huttons, isn't 
 he ? They were always running away with their 
 cooks or their footmen. What happened ? " 
 
 " I'd no idea that Loftie had been home," 
 Jimmy interrupted. 
 
 " Oh, yes," replied Adrian off-hand. " I fancy 
 she yelled with laughter at him. Anyhow he went 
 off with his tail between his legs. This was just 
 before the war." 
 
 " You seriously believe that that little tuppenny 
 
 109
 
 ha'penny nobody refused Mr. Hutton ? Perhaps 
 the proposal was not quite what she'd have you 
 think ; and even then I should have thought " 
 
 " You're implying that she told me. Of course 
 she did nothing of the kind. She has never referred 
 to the thing in any way. And now, Ada, unless 
 you must have the last word let's talk of Syson." 
 
 When Adrian changed the subject frankly like 
 that there was no return and Jimmy, who had 
 suffered mysterious agony during the encounter, 
 moved in his chair again and helped himself to a 
 biscuit. For the life of him he couldn't have said 
 why, but the talk had hurt him. He felt that 
 Adrian was in the main right, but the whole dis- 
 cussion, even Adrian's part in it, seemed to him 
 so glaringly unnecessary. His sister, Honor, was 
 bad enough, but even she had more sense of the 
 fitness of things than to speak of musicians in the 
 terms of the new parson's daughter. 
 
 110
 
 X 
 
 " Syson's the lucky man," Adrian was saying, 
 " he just goes on painting as he has always done." 
 
 " I don't agree that he's luckv," said Mrs. 
 Hazard, " think of what he's missed ! It is the 
 greatest privilege to be young and able in these 
 days. And I will say that for Mr. Syson, I'm sure 
 he doesn't think himself lucky whatever he may 
 say." 
 
 " Well, no doubt you know best. But it's got 
 past that stage now — hasn't it, Jimmy ? There 
 was a time when I ate fire as hot as yours and 
 longed to be in it all and felt miserable because 
 I wasn't. But I don't now. The war's gone on 
 too long ; and we don't yet see the end. All we 
 do see is havoc and wretchedness and the needless - 
 ness of the whole concern." 
 
 Mrs. Hazard turned to him with a determined 
 and hostile air. Jimmy was frightened of her 
 already ; her grey hair was so terribly neat and 
 smooth, her nostrils so wide. 
 
 " This war." she said, " has done incalculable 
 
 111
 
 good ; we couldn't have gone on much longer 
 without it. Don't you think so, Mr. Guise ? " 
 
 " No, I don't quite think that," said Jimmy. 
 
 " I certainly don't," Adrian interrupted, " but 
 of course, Ada, it may be my ignorance or stupidity 
 or something. Tell me." 
 
 " Well, look how generous it has made people — 
 look at the ease with which they can raise millions 
 and millions for the Red Cross or for anything 
 else." 
 
 " Generous people continue to be generous — to 
 scale." 
 
 " Ah ! but look at what they've parted with 
 now ; they wouldn't have before — people who 
 used to be mean, too. If in old days they'd been 
 told they could have spent so much on other people 
 — quite apart from taxation — they'd have said 
 they'd be ruined." 
 
 " And held up pious hands. Just so. They 
 patriotically invest large sums in loans which pay 
 excellent interest, but in old days they could com- 
 fortably bear to see or, at least, to hear about 
 thousands bitterly struggling for sheer bread. 
 Oh 1 think of the people who stump up now in 
 a way which they would have regarded impossible 
 if it had only been to make unhappy people joyous. 
 But their payment now is for destruction and for 
 misery." 
 
 112
 
 " It isn't all War Loan, you know, Adrian," 
 rather profoundly. 
 
 It struck Jimmy as Adrian sidled conversation- 
 ally out of his mistake how unfair and unwise is 
 nearly all argument amongst ordinary people. He 
 knew that Mrs. Hazard was talking arrant non- 
 sense, and yet Adrian — with whom he cordially 
 agreed — could not state his own. case accu- 
 rately. 
 
 " I don't see that it has made any difference," 
 he went on. " Generous people are generous, 
 mean people mean. The war hasn't altered them 
 — not in bulk or anything like it, anyway." 
 
 " Ah ! then it isn't only that. Think of the 
 ne'er-do-weels — the rotters if you like that better " 
 — which Adrian did not — " who have become 
 heroes." 
 
 That was a word which always raised Adrian's 
 hackles and Jimmy's too. 
 
 " Well it just shows that the previous estimate 
 was a mistaken one. When the occasion arrived 
 they did very well indeed, or I should say, the 
 fact that what you call rotters turn out to be good 
 soldiers is not to the point. For us soldiering is 
 an abnormal condition and we want 'em good in 
 normal times. Very fine thing they could be 
 good soldiers, I know. People talk of the re- 
 generation of this country merely in support of 
 H 1 Vi
 
 their old theory that it was degenerate. It wasn't 
 degenerate — at least not in their sense." 
 
 " Or in any. But, Adrian, really — look at the 
 men it has made.'' 
 
 " And maimed." 
 
 " Ah ! they especially. Look at the noble work 
 they have done. Think of the little narrow- 
 chested clerk who has been turned into a fine 
 strapping soldier. Those of them that survive 
 are men now — men for life." 
 
 " And yet those who survive are quite amazingly 
 eager to return to narrow-chested clerkdom on 
 any terms. I come across a good many of them 
 nowadays. If any of them do gain anything from 
 the war they relinquish it immediately from the 
 sheer horror of association. Their one idea is to 
 return to the old days or as good an imitation of 
 them as possible — however cramping and niggling 
 and pettifogging it may be. They remain the 
 same, unless the war has taken them very young 
 indeed." 
 
 " I tliink it wicked to say things like that — 
 they're so untrue. Now — here's an instance if 
 you Uke — what about Mr. Binfield ? " 
 
 Adrian chuckled contentedly. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " tell me about Binfield— I 
 suppose you mean Harry Binfield who acted a bit 
 and wrote verse ? " 
 
 114 
 
 I
 
 " Yes, I do. You used to know him. Isn't 
 that a case in point ? Come, you must allow me 
 my httle triumph. You know what he was before 
 the war." 
 
 " Quite enough." 
 
 " I think everyone knows. And he deserted his 
 wife and child too. Then sometime in 1915 he 
 astonished everyone by enlisting. And he went 
 back to his wife just before he went out and he 
 did splendidly — splendidly. And then he was 
 wounded and he got some decoration too and 
 now " 
 
 " And now ? " asked Adrian. 
 
 " Well — he's home again, a different man." 
 
 " I'm sorry, but it isn't so. He's the same old 
 Binfield. I really can't go into details ; you must 
 take it from me on trust." 
 
 Mrs. Hazard glared at him and rose. 
 
 " I think you're most cruel and unjust. I'm 
 ashamed of you. You didn't like him and nothing 
 he can do is right. I tell you that he was splendid. 
 Oh ! I think he's noble. He failed to pass the 
 medical twice or three times, but he kept on 
 trying." 
 
 Jimmy enjoyed the look of contempt upon the 
 good lady's face. Adrian always tried to hide 
 his lameness and the last shot had been quite 
 obviously meant for him. 
 
 115
 
 " There's one thing," she added, as she went 
 towards the door, " one other good thing the war 
 has done. It has cured a lot of wretched cynicism 
 in this country — it has killed that sort of affected 
 superiority which I loathe so — most of it at all 
 events " — and there was another pregnant glare 
 for Adrian. " England is not so grossly material 
 as it used to be either. That degenerate love of 
 luxury is virtually dead." 
 
 " The luxuries are becoming scarce, the love 
 remains. My dear Ada, on the day when the news 
 came of the battle of Jutland, Twilight Sleep was 
 administered to a Pekinese bitch." 
 
 Mrs. Hazard laughed. 
 
 " I don't believe it. Of course these highly 
 bred dogs do suffer terribly." 
 
 " All highly bred things suffer more in every 
 kind of way. But we're talking of materialism 
 and luxury. That happened." 
 
 " You take one instance and make a rule of it." 
 
 " Not at all. I take several and let them point." 
 
 When Mrs. Hazard had gone, Adrian settled 
 down in her chair, gave Jimmy a fresh cigarette 
 and lit his own pipe. 
 
 " Now let's be comfortable," he said. " Gad, 
 Jimmy, it's a long time since you and I made a 
 night of it. Got everything you want ? Wasn't 
 she delicious — particularly Binfield ? " 
 
 116
 
 " I never knew the man, only heard you speak 
 of him. Hadn't George Roan something " 
 
 '• Yes. He made himself responsible for Nancy 
 — Binfield's wife and the small girl too. Then he 
 went soldiering." 
 
 '' The aforesaid girl," Jimmy interrupted, " was 
 at Kimberdown in May. I suppose that was some 
 of the backwash of Master Binfield's behaviour, 
 though Honor never mentioned it. The child had 
 been badly frightened by raids up here and Honor 
 got to hear about it and had her down to stay. 
 She was getting better then and subsequently 
 went to a relation somewhere else out of harm's 
 way." 
 
 " Poor little blighter — what a wicked thing it 
 is. Well, Roan's one of the official artists now — 
 just the job for him. Nancy was a beautiful idiot. 
 Oh ! — lovely and oh ! an idiot. She had hardly 
 got over Roan's departure when Binfield turns 
 up a hero, that is to say, in uniform. He could 
 be very charming and I've no doubt it was a most 
 touching reunion — lots of forgiveness and tears. 
 For the rest I refer you to Ada — only, don't you 
 see, Master Binfield has returned to all his old 
 games with renewed zest. I assure you they're 
 very nasty old games too, and 1 suppose the poor 
 little Nancy has a dreadful time. But things 
 happen like that." 
 
 117
 
 " Of course they do," Jimmy said, " only your 
 cousin prefers the icing on the cake." 
 
 " She does ; my cousin indeed — I've a rather 
 more inclusive name. But Lord ! how they hate 
 truth. Everything must be ideal and nice and 
 admirable. There's no judgment ; there's only 
 prejudice." 
 
 " Wherein," Jimmy replied, " lies the strength 
 of the race. So long as you have strict, uncom- 
 promising-cast iron narrow-mindedness in the bulk, 
 you have tremendous vigour. It's unconquer- 
 able." 
 
 " Cast iron cracks under a sharp blow, my friend. 
 Surely the greatest ideal and the most lasting 
 strength come from an appreciation of the naked 
 truth." 
 
 " Perhaps ; but I repeat the question of Pontius 
 Pilate. A nation requires a great weight of bigotry 
 — a vast mass of people who cannot see more than 
 one side to any question, who have inflexible and 
 bitter opinions on religion and morals and duty. 
 They are often wrong in detail, but the general 
 trend of their ideas is right. They concentrate 
 on the simple points that they understand and 
 allow no side-issues. That's what we mean when 
 we talk of the backbone of the country. And, 
 as I say, if their objects are in the main good it's 
 not for us to complain." 
 
 118
 
 " But I do complain, Jimmy, and because I do 
 see more than one side to a question, that's not 
 to say I can't choose definitely between them. I 
 see more than one side to the question of this war, 
 but I feel perfectly sure that we are right and the 
 Germans horribly wrong. I utterly disagree, how- 
 ever, when you uphold the appalling self-com- 
 placency of those whom, for the sake of chatter, 
 we are collecting under the name of Ada Hazard. 
 Ultimately no one ever suffers from the truth, 
 although I admit your difficulties in the way of 
 definition." 
 
 Jimmy got up and began to pace restlessly 
 about the room, now gazing at the plum-coloured 
 curtains drawn across the big window, now turning 
 over the portfolio of etchings which lay on the 
 little oak desk. 
 
 " You'll find truth there," said Adrian, looking 
 over his shoulder. " These are Roan's. You 
 never caught him sentimentalising except with his 
 tongue in his cheek, and then anyone with half 
 an eye could see the lump — like that — before they 
 took in the sentimentality." 
 
 " I prefer the downright sort that believes in 
 itself," said Jimmy. 
 
 " I thought you would, only this was pot- 
 boiling on behalf of someone else. But these 
 etchings are little masterpieces." 
 
 119
 
 " I like them all right, but an excess of realism 
 does not spell reality, you know." 
 
 "I dare say not. By the way that's not yours, 
 Jimmy. I am sure someone else said it. There's 
 no special attempt at realism in Roan's work, 
 though. He simply doesn't gloss over facts with 
 untruthful prettiness. At the same time he never 
 insists on what is ugly ; which makes a golden 
 rule for art and life as well. In literature too there 
 are a few people — very few — who have spoken the 
 truth, but, naturally, almost fewer listen to them. 
 And when I think of the patriotic glucose which 
 
 bespatters the whole face of the land Take 
 
 another point of Ada's. She says that materialism 
 is dead in England, or something like that. The 
 very fact of her saying that shows it isn't. She 
 is the gross materiahst who must balance cause 
 and effect, justice and injustice, right and wrong 
 on a commercial basis. That seems to me inherent 
 materialism." 
 
 " Yes, but people do pay a great deal more 
 heed to what I call the mystery of things — I don't 
 want to say religion, because it doesn't quite convey 
 what I want." 
 
 " I know ; it's chiefly life after death that you 
 are thinking of which, come to bedrock, is the 
 only religious question that has any interest, and 
 is virtually the origin of all religion. But it's only 
 
 120
 
 a question of size ; a great volume of emotion and 
 hard thinking, too, and searching after things has 
 been loosed at once, where before it was only 
 occasional and sporadic and generally far less 
 poignant. An atmosphere has been created, we 
 live in it ; and our vision tends to be obscured by 
 new prophets preaching new gods to serve the 
 occasion. Fear finds them listeners. You say the 
 whole country has become devotional. Really, 
 Jimmy, it's not so. Only the war has taken — 
 and all at once — thousands and thousands of young 
 valuable lives — taken them artificially. Before the 
 war Death swooped in the nature of things, and 
 then only from time to time. But each occasion 
 gave rise to the same searching in men's minds. 
 People who mourn have not altered ; there are 
 far more of them." 
 
 " That is why, if you're to have any humanity 
 at all, you must tolerate some romance. Things 
 as they really are may be good enough for you 
 either because you're callous or because you're 
 educated to endure them ; but they're of no use 
 to the schoolboy's mother nor the bank clerk's 
 wife. You were saying just now that a certain 
 amount of truth about the war had found its way 
 into print or on to canvas. Some of it has been 
 admirable — far more than merely clever or con- 
 tradictory to the general trend. But I couldn't 
 
 121
 
 bear it if it came home at all close to me. I 
 utterly despise the mawkish news-pap sweetened 
 to popular taste that is lapped up on every side, 
 just as I abhor the humour, the comic side of 
 war " 
 
 " The comic side ! " 
 
 " But it helps people along. It really comforts 
 them. The other thing, particularly if they believed 
 it, would drive them mad. For God's sake don't 
 try and deny help to people who want it. If a 
 sentimental lie can dull the ache, lie like hell. 
 Never insist on the filthy truths of war — they break 
 through only too often. Can you wonder that the 
 majority hate the truth ? " 
 
 Adrian was silent for a moment. 
 
 " Poor little Nancy B infield swallowed all the 
 fairy stories and quite thought Binfield had been 
 apotheosised. But I bet she's not so easily be- 
 guiled now. The stark truth has hit her in the 
 face. And, from the popular view, the irritating 
 thing is that Binfield really did remarkably well. 
 Nancy believed that all would be right because 
 the story-books said that men went through the 
 fire and came out cleansed. An incinerator wouldn't 
 cleanse Binfield." 
 
 " Nevertheless, Adrian, I believe the profounder 
 truth lies in the idealism and romance whose super- 
 ficial aspects we both despise. I am not trying 
 
 122
 
 to be paradoxical. You see the same thing in 
 literature. A realistic story may give people pre- 
 cisely as they are ; they are quite alive and say 
 and do things just as men and women that we know 
 do. That's one kind of truth ; but there's a deeper 
 sort, a more lasting sort, in some frankly impossible 
 romances. In any case love is always better than 
 hate ; and beauty even if imagined is beauty all 
 the same and prevails over ugliness." 
 
 " Ah — does it ? And if the Germans win the 
 war ? " 
 
 123
 
 XI 
 
 In the cold light of day, Jimmy thought of the 
 previous evening first with a kind of amused dis- 
 taste and then with horror. 
 
 There was a certain piquancy in discovering 
 that a girl who, apart from distinction in clothes 
 and manner, was chiefly associated in his mind 
 for muddling the card index should turn out to 
 be, in her spare time, a genius. Moreover, it 
 appeared that the friend of his youth had wanted 
 to marry her. This was interesting — a strange 
 coincidence — but of second importance to Jimmy. 
 The funny thing was that he had rather disliked 
 her ; or at least she had made him uncomfortable 
 in some obscure way ; her presence had always 
 seemed to emphasise his loneliness and discontent. 
 Now he would have Adrian and his friends in 
 common with her and, particularly in relation 
 with Blanche, this would make him feel guiltier 
 than ever. It seemed as though, quite against 
 his will, the Fates had conspired to give him a 
 little niche of ease and amusement quite outside 
 his own married life. He had always resisted any- 
 
 124
 
 thing of the kind, needlessly depriving himself 
 of much pleasure. Apart from Blanche he was 
 lonely and preferred to be so. Blanche herself 
 was rather a solitary person, too, though it had 
 never occurred to Jimmy to wonder how far she 
 failed to find harmless amusement without him. 
 
 And then he recalled another incident of the 
 night before. They had talked of the man Binfield 
 and his marriage and the difficulties and troubles 
 arising from it. He had listened to what Adrian 
 had said quite casually ; and that immediately 
 after the deliberate raking over of his own past 
 life. Certainly there had been magic in the even- 
 ing. He could not have been his normal self. 
 He began to wonder if he had ever been quite 
 normal since his discharge. The evening at 
 Adrian's studio had focussed his discontent ; 
 something was wrong. He dreaded seeing Jessie 
 Carruthers, sitting in the same room with her, 
 having common experience with her outside the 
 office. More — he dreaded Blanche's return that 
 afternoon. He had promised to get away early 
 and meet her at the station. He felt thoroughly 
 wretched. Another thing. Just before he had left, 
 Adrian had told him that Fred Keyne was due 
 home on leave that week : there was some talk 
 of his getting married. Jimmy must certainly 
 come and see him there. 
 
 125
 
 Now all the earlier part of that very evening 
 he had been thinking of Keyne — in conjunction 
 with Offord and Hutton ; and yet, at the moment, 
 when Adrian spoke, and later, on his way home, 
 Jimmy had forgotten to put his resuscitated 
 memories and Adrian's news together in relation. 
 It was only now that he remembered what he had 
 been thinking of Keyne, now when he was actually 
 looking forward to seeing him. 
 
 The whole trend of the night's talk worried him 
 in retrospect. Mrs. Hazard had spoken objection- 
 ally about Jessie Carruthers and he had compared 
 her in his mind with Honor. Genuinely it was not 
 his sister, but his wife of whom he should have 
 thought in that connection. Honor would not 
 have sneered at Jessie ; Blanche would. In her 
 — Blanche's — view, music was just an accomplish- 
 ment, entertaining, useful, sometimes even of con- 
 siderable price ; but you did not want to meet 
 it on terms of social equality for its merits. 
 
 Again, he began to discern Blanche's attitude 
 towards the war in the light of his discussion with 
 Adrian. He had never thought of his own view 
 before, because he hardly ever thrashed out 
 opinions with Blanche. Now he saw that she would 
 have taken Adrian's side, but without his kind- 
 hearted and sometimes trivial casuistry. She liked 
 facts when they were not too near neighbours ; 
 
 126
 
 she was mentally courageous on behalf of others. 
 Sentimentalitv about heroes and the war nauseated 
 her without revealing in itself, as it had to Jimmy, 
 any of the seeds of nobility. 
 
 All these reasons and comparisons fell far short 
 of clear perception in Jimmy's mind. For far too 
 long had he nurtured self-deception in his own 
 turn for his brain to grasp the exact significance 
 of everjT^thing presented for its inspection. It was 
 all too vague and cloudy to promote in him con- 
 scious disparagement of Blanche. He merely felt 
 that his complacency with regard to her was dis- 
 turbed. 
 
 On his arrival the situation — so far as the least 
 of his troubles was concerned — was by no means 
 eased by Jessie Carruthers' rather studious avoid- 
 ance of all unofficial conversation. He had some- 
 how expected her to refer to the previous evening, 
 to music, to Adrian, before Mr. Barker. She said 
 " Good morning " in her usual off-hand way, 
 hardly turning her head, and presently brought 
 over to him a pile of dockets which required his 
 scrutiny. When Mr. Barker left the room she 
 promptly turned and smiled at him. 
 
 " Jolly, wasn't it ? How did you get on with 
 Mrs. Hazard ? — war-horse of a woman." 
 
 Before he had time to say anything, Mr. Barker 
 had returned. So she was going to make a private 
 
 127
 
 thing of this. Confound the girl ! He would resist 
 the slight temptation to refer to Hutton. Ordinarily 
 speaking, he would like to know what she thought 
 of the man, but it was undesirable that further 
 common ground should be opened up. In point 
 of fact he was unreasonably surprised to find that 
 the girl made no mention of her distinguished 
 admirer. That fact alone cut her out of an enor- 
 mous class in which, at one time, despite a 
 contrary instinct, he had been inclined to place 
 her. 
 
 A little later on there was another and better 
 opportunity, as Mr. Barker had to attend a con- 
 ference. 
 
 " How some of the worthy folk here would hate 
 Mr. Close," she said, " many serious people do." 
 
 " Of course," Jimmy replied, " why should they 
 not ? " 
 
 " I was thinking of Crouch and people like that 
 who have worked fearfully hard for a bare living 
 ever since they left school." 
 
 " Then you'd better include the whole crowd 
 and cut out the word bare." 
 
 " But Crouch has a very serious and bitter mind. 
 He can't endure seeing people living on unearned 
 income. You know, folk like that are delighted 
 with the war for having spoilt Mr. Close's fun. 
 He's never done anything much — has he ? " 
 
 128
 
 " A good many things ; only they've been — 
 let us say — honorary." 
 
 " That's what I mean. He's written a bit and 
 drawn a bit and played a bit, and given a very 
 nice time to other people who did those things 
 as a profession. He's always been perfectly happy, 
 I gather, so why shouldn't he do as he hkes ? He's 
 not public-spirited, but how many people really 
 are ? " 
 
 " A few." 
 
 " But only a few. Think how much of the 
 romance and glamour of life would be lost if there 
 were not a few idlers and dilettanti who don't 
 have to waste valuable time slaving in offices and 
 other galleys." 
 
 " Well, there's a war on, and there it is. I'm 
 very sorry, but I can't help it. Even Adrian Close 
 will have to take life seriously sooner or later." 
 
 " But why ? " and Jessie Carruthers turned 
 vehemently round, stabbing the arm of her chair 
 with a pencil. " Most people have to make up 
 their minds to face things and be serious and 
 business-like : an odious civilisation makes that 
 necessary in the case of the majority : but why 
 should we not equally face the fact that half the 
 seriousness of the world is caused by slavery ? 
 Why can't we admire a man who, once in a while, 
 breaks the chains or rather simply refuses to grant 
 I 129
 
 their existence. He's a child in many ways. Why 
 can't everyone reaHse the truth and reaUty of 
 childish ideas ? " 
 
 " And good fairies." 
 
 " Fairies." 
 
 " Wish I could," said Jimmy. " By the way, 
 you don't practise what you preach." 
 
 " I have very little time for practising nowadays," 
 and she gave him a crooked smile. 
 
 The work was doubly irksome that day. It 
 fell to Jimmy's lot to collect certain statistics 
 required by Mr. Barker : these in turn would 
 be compared with other figures derived from else- 
 where ; then Mr. Barker would draw up a state- 
 ment and pass it on to Mr. Harper-Freeman who 
 was clamouring for it very urgently, but who 
 when he got it would leave it on his desk until 
 in a day or two he found time to look at it. This 
 sort of thing was always happening and Jimmy, 
 unlike the majority of the under-dogs, did not 
 resent the process at all. There was certain 
 pleasing humanity about it, a remoteness from all 
 practical purposes of the war, which appealed to 
 the frivolous in him. 
 
 The actual process of getting the necessary 
 figures from various parts of the building was, 
 however, extremely dull. 
 
 In the course of his journeyings round the New 
 
 130
 
 Department, now writing down scraps of informa- 
 tion on a piece of paper, now forgetting to do so 
 and having to return, he came to 23, a large 
 and rather crowded room, presided over by a 
 genial deity called Sperce. 
 
 Sperce had been roped in when first the Govern- 
 ment decided to call the New Department into 
 being, whereby his provincial obscurity was 
 flattered, though his provincial prosperity was by 
 no means enhanced. He was a cousin of a Friend 
 of Someone or Other who had been told to pick 
 useful men. Mr. Sperce was decidedly useful. He 
 had been hurled into commercial life at the age of 
 sixteen, which meant that he had never been 
 allowed to waste time (which is money) in acquir- 
 ing ornamental but unmarketable information, 
 and for twenty years he had worked cheerfully, 
 early and late, when there was work to do. Wlien 
 there was not, he played. Unlike many of the 
 men amongst whom he found himself, he did not 
 believe in collecting straw when the tally of bricks 
 was complete. He allowed himself a little agree- 
 able persiflage for the benefit of the women work- 
 ing under him ; a married man with a large family 
 at, perhaps, Wolverhampton : knew his own 
 value, and quite a wag. 
 
 To-day it was evident that facetiousness must be 
 combinetl with iiard work. lie was bending over 
 
 131
 
 his desk, telephone to ear, writing quick but fault- 
 less copper-plate upon a pad. Nevertheless he 
 found time somehow to wink at Jimmy and to 
 point out a chair without ceasing to write. Pre- 
 sently the message came to an end and simul- 
 taneously one hand hung up the receiver and the 
 other drew a line on the paper. 
 
 " That's that. Morning, Guise. What's the 
 troub ? Damn the thing. Here, Miss Maltby, 
 you take it." 
 
 And again his hands performed a wonderful 
 coincidence, one pushing the telephone towards 
 the girl stretching for it, the other tapping with a 
 pencil on the corner of the desk by Jimmy. 
 
 The errand was explained and a young woman 
 was detailed to delve for the required information. 
 Next moment, the telephone permitting a respite, 
 Jimmy found himself smoking a cigarette he didn't 
 want and listening to Mr. Sperce's views on Trade 
 Conditions after the War. Mr. Sperce was a sort 
 of affable tornado. After a while something that 
 he partially understood gave Jimmy an oppor- 
 tunity of speaking. 
 
 " But you talk as though we shall trade with 
 the Germans just as we did before. I thought 
 the idea was to boycott them." 
 
 " My dear chap ! You take it from me." Mr. 
 Sperce smiled from the culminating heights of 
 
 132
 
 Business experience. " Have I got to earn my 
 living ? Have I ? " 
 
 Jimmy got so far as " Je n'en vois pas " 
 
 and then thought better of it. 
 
 " I suppose so," he said, not grudgingly. 
 
 " And educate the kiddies aiid give 'em a good 
 time and all the rest ? Very well ; then I'll trade 
 with the Germans. We've got no quarrel with 
 the Germans as Germans, but with the Military 
 
 Caste. Once they're beat " and he allowed 
 
 himself a gesture. " Of course we'll trade with 
 them. It pays." 
 
 Courageously, without any knowledge to give 
 substance to his opinions, Jimmy attacked this 
 position. 
 
 " And after all," he finished, " it isn't the pay- 
 ing that matters. So many things pay that aren't 
 worth it." 
 
 " Do they ? You can spend your time finding 
 them then. Perhaps you can afford it." 
 
 The young woman who had been seeking facts 
 and figures for Jimmy now returned and proceeded 
 to wrangle with Mr. Sperce, pointing morals indis. 
 criminately — economical and ethical. She seemed 
 a capable person bent on making use of her high 
 education, and Jimmy sneaked away. 
 
 Potatoes were threepence, but you got value. 
 
 Trade witli tlic Germans. It paid. 
 
 133
 
 It was all the same. There was no escape from 
 it. Certainly, judging from newspapers and the 
 generality of expressed views, he supposed that 
 Mr. Sperce's anticipations concerning British 
 Commerce after the war were exceptional, par- 
 ticularly in the Department, but Mr. Sperce was 
 not the man to air an opinion that was singular. 
 
 As Jimmy went back to his own room he won- 
 dered why the commercial point of view should 
 irritate him specially to-day, and the answer came 
 as he asked himself. Blanche. With her the 
 source was of no moment so long as the stream 
 bore grist to the mill. She dearly liked her four- 
 penn'orth of potatoes. 
 
 He had only just discovered then that he 
 detested the money outlook large or small ; only 
 to-day he realised that Blanche's vision was so 
 confined. 
 
 Only a few minutes later on this luckless morn- 
 ing the New Department gave another twinge to 
 his memory and afforded a further distasteful 
 analogy. 
 
 It was Varsett, a young subaltern, whose trouble 
 was much the same as Jimmy's, but who was 
 employed in the New Department for better 
 reasons than he, who presently burst into the 
 room ; a fairly capable youth whose ferocity of 
 demeanour ill befitted his chubby face, but whose 
 
 134
 
 beaming smile was at the moment struggling free 
 of his dignity. 
 
 " They say in the City there's an air raid. I've 
 just been talking to Marland and Instowe on 
 the 'phone — my old firm — they've got a message 
 through from somewhere. What a rag ! Just 
 like old times. I've never been in a London raid, 
 you know. My hat^ — it'll be rather fun." 
 
 Jimmy looked at him for a moment, feeling 
 almost sick with anger. 
 
 " You damned young fool," he said. " You 
 haven't had the pleasure of hearing little children 
 scream at night for dreaming of raids." 
 
 He immediately regretted having let go, having 
 allowed himself to be real in that place. 
 
 The young man tried to smile unconcernedly 
 and looked towards Mr. Barker for comfort. The 
 latter heartily sympathised with Jimmy, but pre- 
 ferred to take no part ; so his work held his 
 attention. 
 
 " All right," said Varsett. " You needn't get 
 your back up. Really your temper's something 
 chronic. Everybody knows without your saying 
 that it's hard on the kids. I was only saying how 
 it struck me. It would be good fim, for so long as 
 you didn't happen to be too close." 
 
 Jimmy did not reply and muttering foolishly 
 Varsett went out. There was silence for some 
 
 135
 
 little time, during which Jimmy remembered 
 Blanche's saying once at Kimberdown that raids 
 were rather thrilling. Then, quite suddenly, with- 
 out turning her head, Jessie Carruthers exclaimed 
 loudly, " Filthy little tout," and was silent. 
 
 Mr. Barker looked up for a moment, dreadfully 
 astonished, and then quickly away again, and at the 
 sight of him, against his wiU, Jimmy began to laugh. 
 
 Certainly, during the weeks that followed, 
 Jimmy reconciled himself to his daily contact 
 with Jessie Carruthers. She was always, he 
 thought, on the point of leaving the New Depart- 
 ment, though she never said so, certainly never 
 putting herself on the far side of that point. It 
 occurred to Jimmy after a time that her reason 
 for stopping on was the sheer need of the few 
 shillings paid to her every week. He learnt from 
 Adrian that hers was one of the uncountable 
 careers nipped in the bud by the war. By the 
 summer of 1914 she was just beginning to make a 
 precarious footing secure. She was not known, 
 but she had been noticed. . . . And she ought 
 to be practising all day long, instead of stealing 
 a tired hour or two at each day's end. But 
 Jimmy's habit of mind, as well as inclination, 
 allowed little time for the consideration of poor 
 violinists. 
 
 136
 
 XII 
 
 There followed for Jimmy a long period of mental 
 indolence when discontent flagged and endurance 
 yet came short of apathy. He had learnt to take 
 the New Department for granted ; hfe was quite 
 regular and smooth. Day after day he did the 
 same work, listened to the same talk, and indeed, 
 himself, began to say the same things as each 
 diurnal occasion for them arose. 
 
 There was a period of his boyhood when in the 
 holidays he was growing too fond of blood and 
 thunder in the magazines, every day for a stated 
 time (by the clock) he was made to read a good 
 book, an improving book. He had been dread- 
 fully bored, but had grown used to it : he had 
 felt that though valuable time was being wasted, 
 nevertheless it passed and he was free again. It 
 was like that now. Eight hours or so had to be 
 got through (occasionally, to be sure, an improv- 
 ing book was now an acceptable help) and must be 
 written off each living day. The parallel was even 
 more thorough : from time to time he got a certain 
 
 137
 
 pleasure from the companionship of his fellows, 
 just as a boy he had chosen the Bible as his book 
 and had picked out bits of unsavoury legislation 
 from Leviticus and Deuteronomy. 
 
 At home the same quiescence prevailed, fostered 
 by physical comfort and the exercise of almost 
 forgotten hobbies. He had a mishandled ingenuity 
 in making things ; and just now he spent many 
 evenings in his own room putting together elaborate 
 wooden toys in view of certain birthdays or perhaps 
 Christmas at Kimberdown. These he would paint 
 in vivid and many colours. 
 
 Then it often happened that Blanche's mood 
 and his would be in complete agreement. They 
 were both trying to ignore half-appreciated reali- 
 ties ; both were contented for the time to seek 
 forgetfulness in the same way. 
 
 Jimmy always remembered one evening especi- 
 ally, when on the way home from the theatre 
 Blanche had shown a kind of just perception which 
 pleased him. In the past they had been too little 
 in London to be expert play-goers ; so they now 
 found companionship in their mutual inability to 
 cope with the initiated talk they heard on all 
 sides. They still felt rather boorish in the face 
 of so much cultivated appreciation. People they 
 met were always comparing, approving, condemn- 
 ing — with chapter and verse. They were ashamed 
 
 138
 
 and tongue-tied if any attempt was made to seek 
 their judgment in discussion. Jimmy gladly 
 admitted this, caring not at all that he was behind 
 the times. Blanche would adroitly slip aside or 
 throw down her glove weighted with a bare-faced 
 generalisation. Together they just said how the 
 thing — the picture, the play, the book struck them. 
 
 " Why is it," she asked to-night, '' that a thing 
 like that is a huge success on the stage, while if 
 it were just read in a book it would be nothing 
 on earth ? " 
 
 " So many plays are like that, most are really, 
 leaving Shakespeare alone, of course. I rather 
 enjoyed the show to-night — heaps of go about it, 
 didn't drag, and jolly well acted." 
 
 " Yes, all that if you swallow it whole. But if 
 you pick the thing to bits it's simply absurd. 
 People don't behave like that — not those sort of 
 people. But I see why it goes down so well. The 
 author gets together a crowd of ordinary men and 
 women that he knows — pretty common ones too 
 — and makes them say what they do say in real 
 life rather exaggerated. There must be lots of 
 light and shade very clear and distinct. Then 
 he calls an obvious old tea merchant an ambassador 
 and all the rest to scale. What happens ? The 
 old tea merchant and the rest come to the theatre 
 and see their very creditable likenesses perfectly 
 
 139
 
 at home and happy in the ancestral halls with 
 ancestral titles. They're immensely flattered. 
 Voild ! " 
 
 " Jove ! That's rather cunning of the blighter. 
 I see. He calls the fellow Lord Halgernon and 
 makes him behave like " 
 
 " No, he doesn't, stupid. He flatters himself 
 as well. He takes his own mother and aunts, so 
 to speak, and says to himself — ' Human nature is 
 really just the same all the way through ' and calls 
 them fancy names ; with the consequence, human 
 nature not being exactly the same in that sense, 
 that they behave as we saw them to-night." 
 ': " Oh, after what you said at first, I quite thought 
 the fellow had been devilish smart. Not sure he 
 wasn't either." 
 
 " Don't you believe it. All the very worst of 
 everything successful is the very best the per- 
 petrator can do. Take all the ghastly popular 
 pictures which are given away with things at 
 Christmas — it's the same with stories — you think 
 they're done deliberately ; that painters are paint- 
 ing and playwrights writing down to the popular 
 level with the express intention of being popular. 
 I don't believe it for a moment. They're perfectly 
 sincere — ^that's why I suppose they're so success- 
 ful. It cements your faith in the human race, 
 doesn't it ? " 
 
 140
 
 Jimmy was going to say something, then 
 checked and stared at her. By this time they had 
 reached the flat. Jimmy was sprawling on the 
 sofa whilst Blanche moved slowly about the room, 
 a glass of whiskey and soda in one hand and a 
 small sandwich in the other. 
 
 '' Well, I'm damned," he said at last with a 
 laugh, " that's the most extraordinary thing." 
 
 " What is ? " Blanche stood still just behind 
 him wiping her fingers on her handkerchief. 
 
 " Why, it's only just come to me. Someone at 
 the New Department said precisely the same thing, 
 talking of books and pictures only the other day — 
 the same words." 
 
 " Great minds jump." But for an instant she 
 looked crestfallen. 
 
 Later, alone, Jimmy thought over the coin- 
 cidence. When he had said that the same words 
 had been used he had been quite literal. They 
 were, word for word, the same. He happened to 
 remember them. He could hear them being said. 
 Of course the same kind of thing might have been 
 said, must have been said dozens of times by 
 separate people. But surely not in just the 
 same way ? He recalled the turn of phrases 
 " very worst — very best " — " playwrights writ- 
 ing " — " it cements your faith." . . . 
 
 It was amazing, impossible. 
 
 141
 
 And any plagiarism on Blanche's part was out 
 of the question. The previous critic had been 
 Jessie Carruthers. 
 
 As the summer went on, Jimmy learned that he 
 was entitled to a holiday. More than once before 
 this he had urged Blanche to leave London. 
 
 " Nonsense," she said, "I'm going to stick to 
 my Jimmy. Better be bombed than be kissed by 
 sticky children and bitten by gnats." 
 
 " I thought we might put in a week or two at 
 Kimberdown. You could go to the sea first and 
 join me there." 
 
 " No, thank you. I don't want to be nasty, 
 but really Kimberdown once a year is enough. 
 Everard would be there most likely and would 
 read his last book aloud after dinner. You go if 
 you want to, and I could go to Bessie Paige-Morgan . 
 She hasn't got a husband or children. I don't 
 want to but I can." 
 
 Mrs. Paige-Morgan was a recent friend of Blanche 
 whom Jimmy detested — a thin uncomfortable 
 woman, with greedy hands and, with her friends, 
 a convincing faculty for excusing her reputation. 
 She had a small house, it appeared, within thirty 
 or forty miles of London. Poor dear, she was very 
 lonely : her husband had been a brute — he was 
 divorced or dead — Jimmy could never quite make 
 
 142
 
 out which, and little cared. She filled him with 
 horrid speculation about her old age. What a 
 hag she would be — with a drop of something 
 always handy behind the books in the drawing- 
 room. 
 
 " Keyne's going to be at Adrian's to-night with 
 his young woman — you remember Fred Keyne ? 
 We'd better ask them to come and feed one night." 
 
 '' Likely ! Do I remember Keyne ! Short 
 memory you have. It was he who asked us to 
 dinner ages ago — but I'm not going to forget it — 
 and brought a tart. Perhaps this one's another. 
 You go and see if you want to, only don't bring 
 'em here." 
 
 " Lord — noAV you say it — so he did. Damned 
 impudence." 
 
 Was he going off his head that he should have 
 so much as mentioned Keyne's name ? For weeks 
 past if he liad thought of Keyne at all it was as 
 his friend. And now it all came back. He was 
 one of the three. This was the second occasion 
 on which Jimmy had referred to him — casually. 
 Keyne was at home now, love-making — or rather 
 employing his leave with what corresponded to 
 that diversion in the case of a marriage of ex- 
 pedience. Much was expected of Keyne : only 
 one faltering life tottered between him and heavily 
 titled responsibility. He must marry someone who, 
 
 143
 
 judged by strict and early standards, exactly suited 
 the situation. He would allow his personal feelings 
 in this respect such room as duty left them. Pre- 
 sently he would be going back to France, and 
 perhaps after all the earldom and the acres would 
 go elsewhere. And then there'd only be Hutton. 
 Loftie Hutton had been at home now for some 
 time, but Jimmy had heard of it only from third 
 persons. Once he had seen him going by in a 
 cab. Then there had been the incident of Miss 
 Carruthers. Jimmy wondered why he had never 
 heard of this before. It seemed almost incredible 
 that they should not have met. He must have 
 been in Adrian's neighbourhood or more or less 
 in Adrian's set for some time. True, Jimmy didn't 
 go there often ; but Adrian had scamped ex- 
 planation. It was obvious that Hutton didn't 
 want to see him. Well, he was bound to go back 
 sooner or later. 
 
 Three little nigger boys . . . then there was 
 one. Some small devil of indecency suggested the 
 absurdity. Jimmy laughed in pain. 
 
 " What's the joke ? " Blanche asked. 
 
 " Oh ! only I remember meeting this girl Keyne's 
 going to marry as a child at a party, and she cried 
 because she couldn't have more cake or some- 
 thing." 
 
 " I didn't know you knew her. Who is she ? " 
 
 144
 
 " I don't. It's Maud Icklesham. I haven't 
 seen her since I was about twelve. But I remember 
 how she yeJled." And Jimmy contrived to laugh 
 again. 
 
 " Lord Icklesham was a friend of father's," said 
 Blanche. " He used to come and shoot when I was 
 a little girl." 
 
 She frowned very slightly from sheer annoyance. 
 She hated to make a mistake like this ; she should 
 have found out whom Keyne was to marry before 
 remembering the old slight. But still more she 
 hated the idea of giving herself away to Jimmy. 
 She had lost touch with all her people's old friends, 
 and not until the last year or two had she felt 
 the need of them. At one time in her life they 
 had just been dull, old-fashioned and to be avoided 
 on that score. Now she began to appreciate their 
 qualities, taken in conjunction with a notoriously 
 settled and respectable position, as extreme social 
 assets. Lord Icklesham was dead, but it would 
 have been convenient in meeting the daughter to 
 have known the father. 
 
 " Who else is going to be at Mr. Close's to-night ? 
 I don't think I see Keyne mixing with that crowd, 
 or his young woman." 
 
 Arts were worse than insolence. 
 
 " It'll be what he calls one of his respectable 
 evenings." 
 
 K 145
 
 " Wliat does that mean ? " 
 
 " Oh, just that respectable folk will be there, 
 and he knows so few — ^the Dunquerays, old Mrs. 
 Luffingham — people like that." 
 
 This was just after dinner, and Jimmy lay back 
 in his chair by the open window, now gazing over 
 the tops of the opposite houses which hid the 
 setting sun, but gave a darkening silhouette of 
 angled roofs and chimney stacks against the 
 faintest pink of high clouds driven in the wind ; 
 now turning to the sedate and comfortable room, 
 with its decorous litter of a well-laid meal. A 
 little patch of sky crossed by the window-frames 
 was mirrored in the curving side of an old acorn 
 sugar castor : the remaining light touched the 
 high relief of round brass handles on a sideboard 
 of rich brown mahogany, whilst above some 
 aquatints of Indian forts were hidden behind their 
 lambent glass. 
 
 How pleased Adrian had been with these stiff 
 old pictures with their trees like thunder clouds 
 and meticulous reflections of temple walls in still 
 lagoons. Jimmy liked them because they had 
 hung in his old home, there despised and relegated 
 to a spare bedroom. He never thought of them 
 as pictures. Blanche thought them dull but en- 
 dured them. Adrian had invented stories about 
 each, of tigers who came slinking through the 
 
 146
 
 moonlight, of veiled princesses who languished — 
 commonly enough — at high casements, of a cynical 
 rajah toying \vith the severed head of his enemy 
 at his sword-point, whilst he sniffed the fragrance 
 of a blood-red rose. . . . 
 
 Jimmy's gaze returned to Blanche, in rustling 
 dark green silk, her bare arm lying along the edge 
 of the table, her wrist bent up — one finger raised 
 to tap her cigarette ash into a finger-bowl. 
 
 " What are you going to do, Jimmy ? " she 
 said at last. " I must finish that fatuous book — 
 such tripe you never ! Nowadays the books I get 
 are either those which no mother would allow her 
 daughter to read, or those she would. This is 
 one of the latter : and I shall go to sleep and then 
 shan't be able to sleep when I go to bed. I think 
 I shall slip on a cloak and go for a walk and I shall 
 probably get off with a nice young man." 
 
 " Look here," said Jimmy, not imagining at all 
 that the suggestion would find acceptance ; " why 
 not for once in a way come round to Adrian's ? 
 Oh ! of course, though — I " 
 
 "I don't know," Blanche said quietly, "can't 
 be worse than this book." 
 
 " Well, but you may see Fred Keyne. I forgot 
 when I first " 
 
 " Oh ! it's no good being so mighty particular 
 in these days — so long as I don't meet hairy people 
 who smell of beer." 
 
 147
 
 " Righto, then. Be ready in half an hour or 
 
 so." 
 
 It was really very nice of Blanche, he thought, 
 to consent. He hoped very much that there would 
 be right people to whom she could talk on common 
 ground : old Mrs. Luffingham, perhaps, who would 
 certainly yield to Blanche's delicately appealing 
 air. 
 
 Blanche, on the other hand, was almost amazed 
 at the ease with which she had forced the card of 
 her own suggestion upon Jimmy. It was rather 
 a bore to live with a man who required in the 
 handling so little craft. 
 
 148
 
 XIII 
 
 Apropos, no doubt, of Keyne in the first instance, 
 old Mrs. Luffingham and Adrian were talking of 
 marriage when Blanche and Jimmy arrived at the 
 studio. Everard's brother, Arthur Dunqueray, 
 had recently announced his intentions in that 
 important regard and the old lady was now busy 
 dissecting the young one's pedigree. Having com- 
 paratively few coal scuttles to find in her escutcheon 
 she did not stop at Jimmy's entrance, merely 
 pausing to ask him whether Arthur's prospective 
 wife buttoned up her gloves. 
 
 " I haven't seen her yet," said Jimmy, " but 
 knowing Arthur I am sure she does." 
 
 " It doesn't follow," said Mrs. Luffingham, who 
 then proceeded to give terrible instances of some 
 of the nicest men she had known. " The greatest 
 fault I have to find with them is that they marry 
 not wisely but too much." And then to Blanche, 
 " If you don't mind being bored by an old woman 
 come and sit here," laying a small deeply tanned 
 hand upon the sofa beside her. " You remind me 
 amazingly of old James Radlcy — his eyebrows." 
 
 149
 
 " My grandfather, you know," said Blanche, 
 rather pleased. 
 
 Jimmy was at the far end of the studio looking 
 at some engravings which Adrian had recently 
 bought at a second-hand book shop. Blanche had 
 met Mrs. Luffingham before, but only in the safe 
 environment of a tea-party. She knew nothing of 
 the old lady's amazing faculty for family history, 
 but having a vague idea that Mrs. Luffingham 
 was " somebody " she was a little flattered to 
 find that her own existence was recognised. 
 
 " You're not Blanche Radley ? " said Mrs. 
 Luffingham. 
 
 " I was," and she tilted her chin a little. The 
 old woman's tone had almost suggested a reason 
 for shocked denial of the charge. 
 
 " Oh, I see," and then, thinking that perhaps a 
 little curt, added " Beardmore Radley's daughter." 
 
 To have one's family known was one thing, 
 but she did not expect the old busybody's know- 
 ledge to come so nearly up to date. For once in 
 her life Mrs. Luffingham of her own accord led the 
 talk away from genealogy, and Blanche stretching 
 out her hand for an ash-tray wondered if her 
 fingers were steady. It would have been better, 
 she thought, had she lied, owning only to a distant 
 and perhaps Australian connection with the family. 
 Blanche was perfectly aware that she had been 
 
 150
 
 " talked about " as a girl, and old Mrs. Luffingham 
 — well, it was uncomfortable and made one feel 
 slightly foolish, but the chances were that it didn't 
 matter. Still if only there had been more people 
 there, friendly strangers or people one knew to 
 whom one could talk of clothes, or the weather 
 or the war — it would have been much easier. 
 Adrian Close was very preoccupied that evening, 
 speaking hurriedly and without point, and once 
 again Jimmy recognised a vague uneasy atmo- 
 sphere. It was as though he were waiting for 
 something to happen, and really, at the back of 
 his consciousness, Jimmy must have known this, 
 known too what he was waiting for. For though 
 it had been easy enough to persuade himself that 
 Blanche and he were welcome wherever they 
 chose, plurally, to go, it was much harder to 
 brazen it out to himself in action. With the very 
 fibres of his thought rotted by self-deception he 
 kept urging for the acceptance of his own credulity 
 the proposition that Blanche and he were an 
 ordinary couple. How often had Adrian said to 
 him — " Do bring your wife the next time you 
 come — any Tuesday." But always Tuesday, never 
 a " respectable " night. That part of him which 
 recognised this distinction would be almost roused 
 to a self-conscious ' feeling of being slighted, but 
 before that had time to formulate he would have 
 
 151
 
 already rejected the intentional distinction in 
 Adrian's invitation. Besides, Adrian had no cause 
 to be, socially, afraid of Blanche : and surely he 
 was not the man to be afraid of anyone in that 
 sense. He might have the bad taste to dislike 
 her : perhaps that was it, a simple and innocuous 
 explanation, and, once again, there was no precise 
 definition of all this in Jimmy's mind — merely 
 the roots of such conceptions weaved for him a veil 
 of uneasiness and depression. 
 
 Not five minutes had gone since their arrival 
 when the entrance of other people, strangers to 
 Mrs. Luffingham and the Guises, brought relief. 
 The old woman was able to talk amusingly of great- 
 uncles unrelated in fact or scandal to the present 
 company : Blanche could enlarge upon the ex- 
 tortions of her dressmaker. Only Adrian remained 
 distrait, a nervous host, unlike himself ; but now 
 that he was lost in the small crowd no one observed 
 him. 
 
 Then Keyne came in with Miss Icklesham. He 
 was delighted to see Jimmy, who was near the 
 door ; but almost immediately he saw Blanche 
 and shook hands with her, smiling very slightly 
 and not quite looking at her. Adrian and Jimmy 
 too saw Keyne' s smile which knowing the man 
 was extraordinarily eloquent of slight amusement 
 making the best of shocked propriety. For a 
 
 152
 
 silent instant the air was charged again with 
 dehcate perplexity. Then Adrian began to make 
 a rather unnecessary fuss over Miss Icklesham, 
 a dark-eyed young woman of great and obvious 
 common sense, of well-cut tweeds, of unornamental 
 and downright conversation : and Mrs. Luffingham 
 took Keyne in hand. 
 
 For a little Jimmy, politely pretending to listen 
 to one of the strangers, was able to observe the 
 scene with growing anger and mortification. There 
 was no mistake about it now. He had known 
 Keyne so very well in the past and he had not 
 changed. He was one of those people whose bed- 
 rock views of life are formed at the age of seven- 
 teen or so and thenceforward are steadfastly main- 
 tained. Alone he would have been, as indeed he 
 had been, extremely affable and friendly to Blanche. 
 With her he would find — in the past, again, he had 
 found — common ground. He would not have 
 treated her — and this Jimmy did not perceive in 
 spite of the instance that Blanche had so angrily 
 recalled — he would not have treated her as he 
 would have treated Jimmy's sister. But with, 
 on his arm, the girl he was going to marry the 
 position was quite altered. He knew things, 
 Keyne did. He was one of the three at the supper 
 party. It was an outrage on Adrian's part to allow 
 the possibility of Miss Icklesham and Blanche 
 ^ 153
 
 meeting. Didn't Adrian know this ? Keyne had 
 always taken Adrian for a man of the world. He 
 had never thought that of Jimmy, but then 
 Jimmy on this occasion was hardly to blame. 
 The fault, Keyne reckoned, was Adrian's. He 
 might not know as much as he — Keyne — did, but 
 he ought to have guessed. Certainly he had never 
 dreamed that Blanche would come that night : 
 Keyne was distinctly if subtly unpleasant to his 
 host accordingly : to Jimmy he was studiously 
 jovial in a cold, detached, impersonal way, that 
 seemed to shout — " Poor old chap, you have made 
 a mess of it — a mess of it — a mess of it. I'm very 
 sorry, but I really cannot let the woman I marry 
 know your wife. It wouldn't do at all. Still for 
 the sake of old times — have one of these cigarettes : 
 they're supposed to be rather good." Jimmy, 
 overwrought, abnormal, ill, could easily have wept. 
 He admired Fred Keyne so much, in the old 
 days he had been so fond of him, even now his 
 taste in things and people and conduct was so 
 nearly allied with his friend's. He tried to say to 
 himself that Keyne had deteriorated, had become 
 a snob, that he was narrow, behind the times, 
 puritanical, bourgeois — he couldn't. Only look at 
 him, sitting there, talking to the old lady, ugly 
 and at ease. He had apologised for wearing 
 uniform ; but he had a late appointment at the 
 
 154
 
 War Office, had not time to change. He had aged 
 a great deal ; there were becoming streaks of grey 
 in his fair hair. He had grown a rather long 
 moustache superficially to differentiate himself 
 from the younger generation, though the difference 
 was far from superficial. 
 
 Keyne was thoroughly straight and fine, an 
 enthusiastic soldier, a sound and sensible man, 
 with a keener edge of perception than is supposed 
 to be usual in his type, and an absolute reliance 
 in a sense of duty which put himself in the second 
 place whenever the faculty of choice could be 
 exercised : the sort of man that the younger 
 intellectuals — the half-generation in front of 
 Adrian, for example — abhorred : a man who had 
 no objection to being thought stupid if the occasion 
 called for that sacrifice, a man who did the things 
 he meant to do. 
 
 . . . The stranger, an old soldier for whose 
 deafness Jimmy was deeply obliged, was still 
 chattering ; Adrian still being gallant, the old lady 
 still fluttering her little hands as she talked eagerly 
 to Keyne. Only a few moments had gone by, but 
 things were better. Blanche and another stranger 
 were sitting inconspicuously near the piano, 
 oljviously with plenty to say, safely occupied for 
 a while. Jimmy could now listen and say " Yes " 
 and " No " and " really " with more point, raise 
 
 155
 
 his eyebrows more appropriately : presently he 
 would be, if necessary, contributing to the con- 
 versation. 
 
 " I was brigaded with his old father at Tel-el- 
 Kebir, so I know," the old man was saying. 
 " Young Fred was born the year before, I fancy, 
 and there was a fellow called Willason — ^not 
 Williamson — Willason — and we called him the 
 Fox. Y'know, he had red hair. Ah, yes ! but 
 about Fred here — second in command and drawing 
 captain's pay, I suppose. Damn it, there's no 
 excuse for that, eh ? What's that ? " 
 
 " No excuse at all, sir — knows his job through 
 and through." 
 
 " That's what I say, and this war has sounded 
 the death knell of all privilege that isn't bought 
 or cringed for." 
 
 " Or bullied for," said Miss Icklesham, " what 
 a pity it is the war couldn't be fought on its own 
 merits instead of being used for politics." 
 
 "It's fly-blown with extraneous propaganda," 
 someone added. 
 
 Mrs. Luffingham's bright eyes glowed. 
 
 " The time is not far off, I trust," she said, 
 " when politics in a pedigree will be on the same 
 footing as grocery — er — used to be : something 
 one's real friends don't refer to." 
 
 " It seems to me," said Adrian, " that all this 
 
 156
 
 war will have accomplished in the end will be to 
 teach Demos to stretch bandy legs under a table- 
 cloth and eat foie gras with his fingers. He already 
 hiccoughs loudly in anticipation." 
 
 " Maud's quite right," Keyne's clear unhurried 
 utterance was of a telling quality which carried 
 an assurance of its own value — the sort of voice 
 which raises red passion in the hearts of inferiors. 
 " Maud's right — if one believed the papers, we'd 
 be fighting in a bad cause. Fortunately for my 
 peace of mind I know something of the Germans 
 and I'm fighting them, my lad. Good Lord ! " he 
 added with a crooked smile, " fancy me fighting 
 for democracy. Edifying spectacle, ain't it ? The 
 fact is the country has no further use for gentry. 
 We're all played out : we've served our turn." 
 
 " Yes " — said Mrs. Luffingham, " bled and died 
 in order that the land may be taken from those 
 who mostly do their duty by it and given — as in 
 the end it will be — to those who will run it on a 
 paying basis. Well, I wish 'em joy of their new 
 masters." 
 
 " The colonies will be the only possible place to 
 live in." 
 
 " They're democratic enough in all conscience." 
 
 " Aye, but some of 'em are getting old enough 
 to know better." 
 
 " If I can't live in England," began Keyne, " I 
 
 don't see much point " 
 
 157
 
 Miss Icklesham interrupted him. 
 
 '' Oh, don't be such an old grouser, Fred. There's 
 an awful lot of talk just now, but do remember 
 that the newspapers and the Government have to 
 keep harping on that string in order to grease the 
 wheels. Things will be better afterwards." 
 
 " We shall see," said one of the strangers, " for 
 my part, after the war, I think I'll be a naturalised 
 Tibetan." 
 
 " But for the moment," Jimmy put in, " there's 
 an intense feeling of hatred and wretchedness in 
 the air. You only have to be decently dressed 
 and speak the King's English to be treated with 
 incivility, at the very least, by anyone who — 
 isn't." 
 
 " Ignorance, of course," said Mrs. Luffingham, 
 " that's their idea of showing their independence. 
 I believe they're deliberately taught in their 
 schools to be insolent to their betters — kept to 
 themselves, they're often uncouth — but that's all." 
 
 " I believe you're right, ma'am," said Keyne. 
 " I'll back the manners of a really uncontaminated 
 — I mean untaught — Englishman against the 
 world, and at bottom he's the best fellow in the 
 world, if they'd only leave him alone and not 
 badger him into voting for what he doesn't want." 
 
 That had been loud enough for the old soldier 
 to hear. k 
 
 158
 
 " English country man — yes," he said, " but 
 not the factory folk and the rest." 
 
 " No, and why not ? " said Miss Ickleshani? 
 " look at their masters. On the one hand you 
 get men who love the same things they do and 
 understand the same things : on the other you 
 get men who use workers like you use a bicycle — 
 to get there. Money— money. That's all. The 
 bicycle — resents it. I don't blame him much." 
 
 " Right every time," said Keyne admiringly, 
 " but we'd be in a nice hole without the — what 
 you call — bicycles — eh, Jimmy ? " 
 
 " I hold ten thousand candles to the devil," 
 Jimmy answered, " but I admit he is the devil. 
 Yet some of these labour leaders are really good 
 chaps and not merely battening on the pockets 
 of the mob. But they can't see. I was talking 
 to one the other day. He simply won't believe 
 that monied extravagance is not a sign of 
 gentility. Their one idea of the upper class is 
 display — something that comes under the idea of 
 — toff : something with a jewelled thermometer, 
 you know, to take the temperature of the 
 
 wine." 
 
 " Borrowing my ideas again," said Blanche from 
 across the room, " and a very good idea it is." 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said Jimmy, " and I 
 bow my acknowledgments." 
 
 159
 
 Fortunately he didn't see Keyne's face : it was 
 at that moment particularly wooden. 
 
 " But you see what I mean." 
 
 "I do, Mr. Guise," said Maud Icklesham. 
 " How many responsible labour people are there 
 who have the remotest conception of the steady, 
 grinding hard work, the sense of duty and of 
 noblesse oblige which lies hidden away behind 
 crumbling park walls and in dilapidated country 
 houses all up and down the length and breadth 
 of the country ? " 
 
 " Yes, my dear," said Mrs. Lufifingham, with 
 much private and intimate knowledge behind her, 
 " up and down the length and breadth of it." 
 
 " All they see," and Keyne took up the threads 
 from his betrothed, " all they see is some damned 
 young ass feeding a greedy woman in a flash 
 restaurant ' ' 
 
 " And they've heard," said Adrian, " that some 
 night clubs are not conducted on strict Band of 
 Hope lines." 
 
 " So they shove the sausage merchant and the 
 millowner all in the same bag with the poor old 
 rector and the squireen who wears out his father's 
 overcoat and say — ^let them be anathema — to the 
 lot." 
 
 " Nevertheless the Ungilt are not without blame 
 sometimes," said Mrs. Luffingham. " Bledlow — 
 
 160
 
 the one who succeeded his uncle, my dear, and had 
 to pay such frightful death duties — he was always 
 said to get an extra hundred or so a year for the 
 place by letting his tenants call him Pat. I think 
 that's much worse than trotting round girls — with 
 money — and taking them about in society." 
 
 " Well, in the end," said Adrian, " there'll be 
 nothing left but one's personal private life. They 
 can't socialise good taste — ^not all at once anyhow 
 — nor tax inherited inclinations. No — nothing 
 much left — unless, of course, one chooses to swim 
 with the tide." 
 
 " Never, by God ! " said the old soldier rather 
 melodramatically. 
 
 L61
 
 XIV 
 
 That was something accounted for. Jimmy 
 knew now, partly at all events, why so black a 
 pall of depression had lain upon him. He was 
 one of what the papers called the idle rich, how- 
 ever small his unearned means happened to be. 
 He was one of the people who did nothing in 
 particular, and — here the papers were right — no 
 further use could be found for him. He and Adrian 
 and their like were no longer required. And that 
 though personally deplorable could be understood : 
 but the trouble was that the people who were 
 not idle, or had not been, like Keyne and the old 
 colonel respectively, were to be abolished too. 
 They too were " rich." 
 
 It was a pity that the caprice of the bursting 
 shell had not been differently directed. . . . One 
 man whom he had known in France had tried by 
 every lawful means . . . but it was always the 
 next man or the man behind who got it. In the 
 end he had resorted to his own revolver. But 
 that was out in France; there were the more 
 
 162
 
 obvious contributory reasons. The man was off 
 his head. Still, Jimmy had known him and had 
 guessed a good deal. 
 
 He could understand now — was it all worth the 
 candle ? One did one's best and then those who 
 were unable or unwilling to know better jeered 
 and then snarled and said one Avas not wanted. 
 And yet, and yet, how often had he declared that 
 romance was eternal and that beauty went on 
 and on. The other was a petty view, yet it was 
 hard. Things used to be so nice — ^people were a 
 bit smug and complacent and too comfortable 
 perhaps. But then they went and got killed as 
 much as possible to make up for it. . . . It was 
 the way one was brought up — foolish, no doubt; 
 but would one relinquish that way ? Never — • 
 never, as the old man had said. 
 
 It was all quite different for Fred Keyne. At 
 home, on leave, he might grumble a little in a 
 half-humorous manner which partially hid a very 
 sincere discontent, but he was still taking part 
 in the main issue. England might be intolerable 
 for himself after the war, but it was still his active 
 business to see that there was an England to work 
 out her own salvation or damnation in her own 
 way independent of German desires. 
 
 While Jimmy had to sit and swing his legs. 
 
 If only he could be doing something, real work 
 
 163
 
 which killed thought. If only he hadn't to be in 
 London. If only, if only . . . 
 
 They were very silent on the way back to the 
 flat. Jimmy knew that trouble was coming, but 
 was determined not to lead off with the first word 
 of it. How much should he have noticed of that 
 night's discomfort ? Was it not better to be guile- 
 less as he always had been ? It would be a shock 
 to Blanche to find that he had woken up to things : 
 and yet might she not reasonably be chagrined at 
 his lack of observation ? 
 
 " Duty — duty — oh, my Lord ! " said she, when 
 they were home again. "I'm sick to death of 
 the word ; and the man Keyne, even if he didn't 
 use it, exuded it the whole time. And — here, 
 listen to me," and she seized Jimmy's arm and 
 shook it, " listen to me. Do you know what that 
 damned old cat said ? Not that she said it — she 
 looked it. It's all the same. And the man Keyne 
 when he came into the room and that girl of his." 
 Her words were coming almost in sobs, she was 
 breathing hard and her nostrils opened as though 
 in fear. " Don't you see — don't you see ? " 
 
 She burst into an agony of tears. 
 
 " My God, they — wouldn't have me. They — 
 didn't you see ? Adrian Close — I thought he was 
 — and that old devil of a woman." She could not 
 go on. 
 
 164
 
 ;^ Jimmy put his arm^upon her shoulder and she 
 shrank away. " And are you worth it ? " she 
 shrieked at him. " You — my God, you are a 
 fool." 
 
 She looked at him for a moment, as though 
 crazy with terror. He dare not speak, but only 
 looked at her, himself in fear, wondering. He had 
 expected anger, he could have understood tears, 
 but this — she was raving. She sat there, sobbing 
 on her arm, and then stopped to stare at him 
 again. She had completely let go. She got up 
 and tore off her cloak, wrenching the fastening 
 apart. And then almost choking she left the room. 
 
 There was something dreadful, fiendish about 
 it. She was a raging fury and something more, 
 not to be defined. Jimmy couldn't move for a 
 minute or more. He had never seen Blanche like 
 tliis. It was awful — she seemed to him horrible — 
 loathsome. The suddenness of it all paralysed 
 him. How could he think her — that ? . . . 
 
 Time went by and the sound of her died away. 
 Jimmy followed his usual domestic routine with- 
 out consciousness — door secured, lights out, slowly 
 and painfully to bed in his own room. There was 
 something more in this. She was ill — very ill ; 
 but — for the moment — better left alone. It was 
 absurd going to bed at all ; there would be no 
 chance of sleep. What was happening ? What 
 
 165
 
 had the old lady said ? Nothing much, probably. 
 What was he thinking ? 
 
 " What am I thinking ? " he said to himself. 
 It had all come suddenly and for no particular 
 reason. Merely the scarce perceptible conduct of 
 outside people — was that it ? A guilty conscience 
 working upon itself ? He had started out that 
 evening quite happy in a way, quite contented 
 with Blanche ? It seemed so. There had never 
 been any question of discontent. Why should 
 there be — why should there be ? He had always 
 loved Blanche, hadn't he ? — so how could there 
 be any foolish question to answer ? Rather a 
 child she had been, rather a spoiled child ; never 
 exactly a wife in the common meaning, at least 
 not lately, not since his smash. Before that, from 
 the early days in Greece up to the beginning^of 
 the war, they had been just good companions. 
 Jimmy had set such store by that word, and how 
 many married couples were to each other the best 
 of friends ? That had been one of Jimmy's ideals, 
 but had it been his ideal or Blanche's ? And — 
 how far could he honestly say that even the friend- 
 ship was a true one ? Honestly — honestly say — 
 what could have happened that he should allow 
 the word room applied to his own thoughts about 
 himself ? 
 
 Yes — had he quite wanted that sort of marriage ? 
 
 166
 
 He recalled something that Honor had once said, 
 before the war, when he was spending a week-end 
 at Kimberdown. She was talking to her husband, 
 not knowing as a matter of fact that Jimmy was 
 near by. 
 
 " What he wanted," she said, " what he really 
 needed was a good strong sensible girl and some 
 jolly babies. As it is " then she saw Jimmy. ^ 
 
 " Poor old Tom," Everard had said without the 
 flicker of an eyelid, but looking at no one in 
 particular. 
 
 And it had gone at that. Poor old Tom was 
 evidently some friend, and Jimmy, quite incurious, 
 had never thought of it again. Now he wondered. 
 He recalled the scene exactly though there seemed 
 to be no reason why he should be able to do so. 
 Honor had her back to him. Everard was standing 
 by her with a cup in his hand. Jimmy had been 
 out with the cliildren and was late for tea. Honor 
 had given a little half-glance behind her and 
 Everard had promptly said " Poor old Tom," and 
 had become rather effusive immediately after- 
 wards. Everard' s manner had been very like 
 Adrian's to Miss Icklesham that evening, and yet 
 there was notlung in either case unless you had the 
 key to the circumstances. 
 
 Now looking back Jimmy was certain that 
 " Tom " was an hivention. The whole attitude 
 
 1G7
 
 of his brother-in-law was that of ponderous em- 
 barrassment reheved by sudden inspiration. He 
 could imagine now how pleased Everard must have 
 been with himself. 
 
 Obviously then they had been discussing him. 
 It was he who wanted, needed a good, strong, 
 sensible girl — how he had hated " sensible " girls 
 in those days — girls with no nonsense about them. 
 He still did. 
 
 Honor had always disapproved of his marriage. 
 That plain fact in vague outline he never ought to 
 disguise from himself. All in-laws invariably dis- 
 approved of marriages, didn't they ? — unless, of 
 course, they had arranged the matter themselves, 
 and then when it turned out a failure one of the 
 people principally concerned was to blame — the 
 person most arranged for, as a rule, who proved 
 to be ungrateful. There was nothing very dis- 
 turbing about Honor's attitude, which was certain 
 to improve in the course of time when she came 
 to understand Blanche and appreciate her. Had 
 things not been better at Kimberdown in May ? 
 And Everard had always liked Blanche — at all 
 events he had been clumsily gallant and genial. 
 And now — well, had he ? Had he not, rather, 
 made better than Honor of a bad job ? Had he 
 not simply, with the same outlook as his wife, 
 expressed his sex ? Knowing Everard, would not 
 
 168
 
 his gallantry, his geniality have been of another 
 shade, had he liked Blanche for a sister-in-law ? 
 But once again what did it matter ? It would 
 in a way have been more generally comfortable if 
 everyone near to him had been pleased, but it 
 was not by any means essential. 
 
 Still — at any rate — jolly babies. What a fool 
 he had been always to evade that fact in regard 
 to Blanche : she really disliked children, had 
 always done so, he thought. In the early days of 
 his marriage he hadn't troubled about it one way 
 or the other. He had never thought of children 
 for himself. Their marriage was not to be an 
 ordinary marriage, but a perfect companionship. 
 Sex had entered into it in a light-hearted fashion 
 without responsibility. Only latterly he had 
 thought of children wistfully for himself : or so 
 it seemed to him now. Kimberdown in May was 
 chiefly responsible — and yet that was only a con- 
 valescent holiday, not real life. . . . 
 
 Jimmy got up and went to the window. Roofs 
 gleamed white before him and far below black 
 trees and shadows one with them chequered the 
 moonlit gardens. There was firing somewhere in 
 the distance. Air raids upset Jimmy as a rule. 
 With Blanche or others he had succeeded in 
 hiding the fact, but the fact was horribly clear to 
 him. To-night he had hardly been aware of it 
 
 169
 
 untiLa break camejn his reflections. Blanche on 
 these occasions was studiously indifferent. It was 
 nothing much apparently — on a still night like 
 this the sound would carry a long way — it came 
 from the coast probably. He got back into bed. 
 He must sleep if he could. The next day, work, 
 everything would be hopeless if he didn't. 
 
 But this sudden realisation — realisation of what ? 
 He was frightened of something — for his own 
 happiness ? Why ? And Blanche — she had com- 
 pletely lost control over herself that night. He 
 had known her passionately angry, bored, a little 
 spiteful — but that was only to be expected from 
 time to time. Women were hke that. Their 
 reasons and a man's had no correspondence or 
 relation to speak of. That sort of thing was said 
 and he had accepted it and with it every apparent 
 unreasonableness. But this was quite different, 
 and she had raged against liim. It was sheer 
 hatred that had looked out at him from her staring, 
 swollen eyes. Nothing permanent — he didn't 
 think that. She was wrought up and her mood 
 was an abnormal one. But his own feelings, his 
 own unhappiness, though he could not quite define 
 it, these would not pass off by the light of day. 
 There was horrible certainty about the intuition. 
 
 He knew now that he had been deceiving him- 
 self, that while he had made up his mind that every- 
 
 170
 
 thing ill his inner hfe with Blanche must be 
 beautiful and ideal, Fate had just stepped in and 
 said abruptly that it was not so, must have said 
 so long ago. Only now Fate's voice was unmis- 
 takable. 
 
 Had then Adrian been right ? In the end no 
 one suffered from the naked truth, he had said. 
 And Jimmy had argued against him. He had 
 answered that any lie that helped unhappy people 
 was justified. And he had said that meaning it, 
 for he had felt that in nearly all such lies which 
 upheld the lovelier side of things there was the 
 tissue of truth eternal. It was not mere foolish 
 optimism, what Adrian had called the sentimental 
 lie, but the expression of a verity more profound 
 than could be understood by cheap or other cynics. 
 Jimmy had never tried to examine this proposition 
 scientifically, but it was the inspiration of his life, 
 the faith he lived by. It was, in fact, his inter- 
 pretation of religion. Materialists, with the 
 human sense of scientific exactitude, might prove 
 and disprove and define : but even so they could 
 not shatter the ultimate, inherent truth of allegory. 
 That to Jimmy was the meaning of Faith. He did 
 not seek to explain or to reason. It never occurred 
 to him for a moment that, for example, the events 
 of the New Testament were humanly, literally 
 true, that they happened as the everyday events 
 
 171
 
 of life happened. He seldom talked of his theology, 
 but if pinned down would have said that he was 
 agnostic. How could one pretend to know ? Why 
 should one ? But he had long despaired of finding 
 a definition of truth and yet he had felt that it 
 bore a meaning infinitely beyond the range of logic. 
 y^And so again as to the common events of the 
 life he lived. Had he misapplied aU that he 
 believed ? Were his ideals all wrong ? Had it 
 been simply a Fool's Paradise ? And did not 
 people without such ideals, people who despised 
 the innermost and preferred the humanly literal 
 truth, find Beauty more sure ? He thought of his 
 sister and Everard, of their marriage, their children, 
 their ideal happiness. And all these years he had 
 been persuading himself that he was more fortunate 
 than they. Reckoned on the lowest plane, could 
 anyone have been a bigger fool than he ? After all 
 what was there in his own marriage to sing about ? 
 
 It was all coming clear to him now at once with 
 sudden agony. Were Adrian and people of his 
 kidney always right — was life after all one long 
 danmed disillusionment ? In one's childhood was 
 one taught illusion to be tortured ? Or was it 
 there, planted in the childish breast so that the 
 gods might laugh ? 
 
 What a child he had been, and in actual years 
 he was over tliirty, about the same age as Keyne 
 
 172
 
 who had done so much and lived so full a life, 
 working and playing, every moment filled with 
 action. Every time his birthday came round he 
 thought for a little that he must begin to do 
 something — it was never too late, . . . His birth- 
 day — the very word had not occurred to him 
 lately. He remembered now. His birthday was 
 not long ago. Honor had written him a line as 
 she always did, and Anthony had drawn a cow 
 and a milk pail on a postcard. It was on the 
 shelf above the fire-place now : and Blanche had 
 forgotten all about it. That had not troubled 
 him at all. On the whole birthdays at his age 
 were better ignored. One's sister remembered 
 them for the sake of old times when birthdays 
 were great occasions ; that was all. But he had 
 been surprised at Blanche because of the gold 
 cigarette-case he had found. It was so obviously 
 for his birthday. Certainly it was a long time 
 since she had given him anything on that scale, 
 but she had evidently felt a wave of affection 
 and generosity. She always had been a generous 
 woman in material ways. So he had put the 
 cigarette-case from his mind. It could hardly be 
 for Christmas, though it might be : she could 
 hardly have forgotten it herself, though she might. 
 There had been a good deal else to think about 
 at the moment ; and if there had seemed to him 
 
 178
 
 anything strange or unlikely about the incident, 
 he had not worried about it. As a fact, he had 
 at that time been passing through one of his happier 
 moods : they had been seeing a lot of people and 
 amusing themselves a good deal. Now the cigarette- 
 case was flung at him out of the darkness to make 
 what he could of. . . . 
 
 The sound of the firing was suddenly much 
 nearer, all about them it seemed. On other like 
 occasions when they had been at home they had 
 always sat tight where they were. But there 
 wasn't a sound from the next room. Jimmy 
 wondered ... he couldn't leave her alone. The 
 din was becoming infernal. He went into the 
 passage, waited a moment and then opened 
 Blanche's door and turned on the light. She was 
 fast asleep, looking singularly beautiful. There 
 was nothing to suggest the storm of two short 
 hours ago. Neither air raids nor violent emotion 
 would keep Blanche from her sleep : or perhaps 
 it was that she was worn out. Even in her sleep 
 there was not a tremor of uneasiness. Jimmy 
 put out the light and sat down in an arm-chair 
 at the foot of the bed. If in some freakish whim 
 Fate had marked either of them, she should have 
 them both. 
 
 But Fate had no whim so freakish as that in 
 
 view to-night. 
 
 174
 
 XV 
 
 Mr. Manners and Mr. Manners-Missing stood on 
 Jimmy's table in Room 37 of the New Depart- 
 ment with their names neatly painted upon the 
 square slabs from which their feet were fashioned. 
 Mr. Manners, wTought up to the highest pitch of 
 what his name implied with the aid of a handle 
 and an arrangement of strong trout line, took off a 
 brilliant topper and, as necessary (you turned the 
 handle the other way), put it on again. He was 
 beautifully dressed in a dark green coat, scarlet 
 waistcoat, white stock and check riding breeches 
 — good shiny enamel on American whitewood. 
 Mr. Manners-Missing's hat, on the other hand, was 
 one with his head — literally. His clothes were 
 nondescript and his figure unwieldy — it had to 
 be in order to get the rather crude works inside. 
 You waggled his coat tail and he put out his 
 tongue. 
 
 Jimmy had brought them with him that morning, 
 carefully packed in a wooden box, with holes in it 
 to breathe through, with a view to posting them 
 
 175
 
 on his way. But on the steps of the post office 
 his heart misgave him about a screw which attached 
 Mr. Manners' hat to his hand. And he wanted 
 to have one more look at them. He wondered if 
 Anthony and Tom would get one quarter of the 
 pleasure from these absurdities that he had. 
 
 So he waited for lunch time, for the departure 
 of Jessie Carruthers and Mr. Barker, respectively 
 and severally, and then undid his parcel, gave 
 the little screw another delicate half-turn with 
 the back of a knife blade and set the two creatures 
 before him on his blotter to admire. Then he heard 
 footsteps in the passage pause by the door, and 
 looking round hurriedly he saw, firstly that it 
 was half open, and then that a figure in a reddish 
 brown coat and skirt was hurrying away. That 
 was Jessie Carruthers. She had been talking to 
 someone in the passage and gave a moment's 
 glance to him over her shoulder as she went on. 
 Jimmy shut the door and hastily rolled up Mr. 
 Manners-Missing in his paper and settled him again 
 in his half of the box. The door opened once more 
 before he could cover his own confusion and Mr. 
 Manners' red waistcoat. He had been doublv 
 frustrated, Mr. Barker had returned for his 
 umbrella. -j S 
 
 " I say — who's Mr. Manners ? " he asked. ^ 
 
 " Oh — toy for a small nephew." 
 
 176
 
 " What things they make now — you wouldn't 
 beheve. Boy or girl ? " 
 
 " Boy," said Jimmy, looking up and trying not 
 to be annoyed. 
 
 Mr. Barker nodded and getting his umbrella 
 left the room again with a smile at Jimmy. 
 
 There was nothing more than that, but it 
 seemed that Mr. Barker had a fellow-feeling. 
 The smile had been a very tender one. He some- 
 times talked of his own child — not too much. 
 Jimmy felt more drawn to Mr. Barker than he 
 had ever been. He even felt a slight temptation 
 to let him know that he made toys, that spite of 
 inefficient Hcking of envelopes, he could do some- 
 thing of a sort of a kind. But that temptation 
 he remembered to resist in time. 
 
 The incident of Mr. Manners and his companion 
 provided Jimmy with another pleasant reflection. 
 Jessie Carruthers had seen them. Later on in 
 the day as he was returning to the room from some 
 errand, he heard her say in reply to something : 
 
 " Very clever and I'm sure I'm right. The 
 colours were so good. Oh, much too good to have 
 been bought." 
 
 " You surprise me ! " Mr. Barker had rejoined. 
 "He's fond of kiddies." 
 
 But to Jimmy she never said a word, just as 
 she had never asked him what it felt like to be 
 M 177
 
 blown up, or why he never wore the silver badge 
 that he was entitled to. She had too much imagina- 
 tion to give utterance to such inanities. Jirmny 
 noticed and remembered those sort of things. 
 
 Since the night of understanding Jimmy had 
 occupied himself a great deal with toys and, egged 
 on by Adrian Close, had begun to teach himself 
 wood engraving with the idea, not all humorously 
 fixed in his mind, of learning a trade. It was at 
 Adrian's on one occasion that he had picked up 
 a catalogue of the necessary tools, and he had 
 been immediately delighted with their names. To 
 work with a scorper and learn to manipulate the 
 infinitely sharp and subtle spitsticker seemed to 
 him like embarking on some strange and happy 
 adventure. Adrian made him a series of drawings, 
 graduated in their complexity, which would be 
 suitable for cutting on boxwood, took him one 
 midday and introduced him to the genius mas- 
 querading as a tradesman who cut the blocks — 
 with their perfect angles, their agate-like surfaces 
 and their sizes to any absurd fraction of an inch 
 that was wanted. Jimmy soon found that a scorper 
 would go a long way into his thumb and that he 
 would know nothing about it until the palm of 
 that hand became wet and sticky. 
 
 Mechanical wooden toys for the Kimberdown 
 
 178
 
 children together with engraving upon wood were 
 excellent means of killing time of an evening, 
 because they demanded undivided attention. 
 There were also a few bottles of old claret and of 
 other and less delectable beverages capable of 
 producing brief forgetfulness and Jimmy neglected 
 no precautions. 
 
 He had fought shy of Adrian at first. Innocently 
 enough he was so much the cause of things, he 
 was so intimately bound up with bitter self- 
 examinings, and yet at the first opportunity Adrian 
 had shown himself just the man Jimmy wanted. 
 He avoided all abstractions and talked of arts 
 and crafts. One day he got Jimmy to come and 
 play the fool when some young cousins were having 
 tea with him at the studio. It was hard work at 
 first, but Adrian noticed with keen pleasure how 
 soon the children got upon the right side of 
 Jimmy. 
 
 Adrian was one of the few people he knew who 
 understood the value of silent companionship. He 
 was a great talker, but even when he had some- 
 thing to say worth saying, that needed saying, 
 he could hold his tongue if Jimmy's mood seemed 
 to require it. 
 
 On the morning after what Jinimy tried to 
 belittle to himself by calling the row, Blanche 
 had partly recovered herself. She did not behave 
 
 179
 
 quite as usual, that would have been too absurd, 
 but she was no more than quiet and preoccupied. 
 She had not, however, the hardihood to refer to 
 the past evening. Jimmy found himself watching 
 her, while he almost frantically talked common- 
 place. He began to wonder whether things were 
 not going to shake down into the old way again : 
 even beginning to doubt the miserable question- 
 ings of the night-time. Certainly nothing on a 
 bright morning — even after a sleepless night— was 
 quite so desperate as that night had made it. 
 But it was not so. From that day he noticed 
 that Blanche, in a deliberate fashion, was making 
 her own plans. Without bitterness or heat she 
 would say that she was dining out, or spending 
 a prolonged week-end with Mrs. Paige-Morgan. 
 
 Mrs. Paige-Morgan evidently took the place 
 which with him had been temporarily and in- 
 securely filled with wood engraving and certain 
 bottles. The woman was always there. More 
 than once he came home to hear her high cackle 
 of laughter from the drawing-room. Jimmy in- 
 creasingly loathed her and would go straight to 
 his own room. Once he met her in the street 
 near the New Department and she openly laughed 
 before making him a frigid acknowledgment. 
 Waves of antagonism seemed to pass between 
 them. This woman was everything that Jimmy 
 
 180
 
 detested — artificial, shallow, quick in tongue, hard 
 — hard as iron, greedy — like one of her own small 
 obscene lap dogs, and for the reason that he was 
 beginning at last to observe the same qualities 
 in Blanche, detested the more. Mrs. Paige-Morgan 
 also invariably conveyed to Jimmy the idea of 
 some private knowledge which, at his expense, 
 amused her. Jimmy remembered certain women 
 he had known when he was about eighteen whose 
 practice was to snub hobbledehoys on all occasions. 
 Mrs. Paige-Morgan revived his recollection of such 
 people. He really might have been a visitor in 
 his own flat on the occasions that he met her 
 there— unwelcome at that. 
 
 The one object in Jimmy's life about this time 
 seemed to be to forget himself. During the day 
 he licked his envelopes with the greatest possible 
 diligence. On his way home he spent longer than 
 before looking vaguely into shop Avindows, or 
 hunting for obscure books. As time went, too, 
 he spent more and more of his evenings with 
 Adrian Close. 
 
 He was ashamed to dine night after night at 
 home alone. The old housekeeper would think 
 things and put two and two together. And she 
 would be sorry for him or for Blanche — it mattered 
 little which. That could not be tolerated. When 
 Blanche went out he must too. He did not sup- 
 
 181
 
 pose that Mrs. Webber would talk, but she mustn't 
 have the reason for doing so. 
 
 It was not until much later that he realised 
 how very suddenly the change had come. He had 
 dined with Blanche as usual one evening and they 
 had gone out together the best of friends, as it 
 seemed they always had been. And that was the 
 last of it. Thenceforward they were strangers. 
 At the time, somehow it seemed so inevitable as 
 almost to have happened step by step. 
 
 As for Blanche, she seemed to spend her entire 
 time in theatres and restaurants. Mrs. Paige- 
 Morgan, it appeared, was most kind and generous. 
 Blanche had always liked her pleasures bought. 
 Rich food, theatres, clothes, deep silk cushions — 
 the correct kind of expensiveness — it had always 
 been so. For Jimmy Kimberdown had spoilt all 
 that sort of thing. In its time and place he had 
 always and still liked luxury — food, wine, enter- 
 tainment — as well as another, but he now had no 
 illusions about it. He shuddered when he remem- 
 bered what Keyne had said that night — greedy 
 women at flash restaurants. 
 
 And the thought of Keyne would always bring 
 him back to his old thoughts of Keyne and Offord 
 and Hutton, with a feeling mixed of chivalry and 
 despair. 
 
 Keyne was back in France again ; of Hutton 
 
 182
 
 he had heard nothing for some time. Jimmy had 
 a vague idea that he had been employed at home. 
 He asked Adrian about him one night. 
 
 " I don't know, old fellow, really," he said, 
 " Loftie Button's a funny chap." 
 
 Adrian said that in a tone of disapproval. 
 
 " I've known Loftie a good time — so have you," 
 he added. " I've found him just a little prone to 
 make use of one, don't you know, and then take 
 no further notice until you can be useful again. 
 I suppose we all do it at times ? " 
 
 " I suppose so," said Jimmy. " Yes, I think 
 he's rather like that." 
 
 " Rather obviously and cold-bloodedly like it. 
 No. I've an idea he's in England too, but I see 
 no one who knows him now. I had a line from 
 Fred Keyne though the other day — all about 
 nothing." 
 
 But that was said in the tone of approval. 
 
 He had sworn to himself to be good to Blanche 
 for the wrong he had done her. And on these 
 occasions he would master his disinclination, and 
 once again in farcical imitation of times not yet 
 grown old they would go out together, dining 
 expensively, desperately giggling at some revue, 
 when sudden thought would cut away their 
 laughter and leave them staring silent and in 
 misery. Then Adrian would be forgotten for a 
 
 183
 
 while, and unfinished jobs would be scattered upon 
 the table. 
 
 So long as he was in an atmosphere of sym- 
 pathetic depression and discontent which im- 
 plicated people of the same sort, Jimmy found 
 his own troubles bearable. But daily they seemed 
 aggravated by the complacent " brightness " 
 which for the most part he found at the New 
 Department. Many people there grumbled, but 
 not in the manner nor from motives with which 
 he had any fellow-feeling. 
 
 Jessie Carruthers was an exception as she had 
 always been. But a reluctance, for which the 
 lack of reason was too new for him to benefit by 
 it, still held him from showing her any peculiar 
 compassion. It was clear that she was working 
 early and late ; each morning she arrived looking 
 more and more jaded. She seldom, as she had 
 in the past, said anything surprising, anything 
 which made Mr. Barker drop his eyes with a sudden 
 sense of propriety to his blotting-pad. She could 
 not, as Jimmy had guessed before, afford to leave 
 the place. She could not completely sacrifice her art. 
 
 " I shall never do now," she said to him one 
 day, " what I might have done. If I'm not very 
 careful I shall be the earnest amateur who is in 
 great request at the Rectory. So you see, I needn't 
 leave go|altogether." 
 
 184
 
 Naturally she became more muddle-headed than 
 ever, trying Mr. Barker's conscientious long- 
 suffering to its limit. Finally she had to give in 
 and accept a doctor's certificate for a period of 
 sick leave. And yet Jimmy could not but be 
 aware that there was for Jessie a great deal of 
 quiet happiness left in life. Adrian talked about 
 her sometimes and more than once Jimmy had 
 met her on Tuesday evenings at the studio. She 
 lived alone in two rooms furnished with her own 
 possessions. She seemed to have no one belonging 
 to her that she much cared about, though she had 
 a few good friends who would have cared very 
 practically for her had she allowed them to do 
 so. 
 
 One evening just before her breakdown Jimmy 
 had occasion to travel with her for a short distance 
 on the underground railway. He had said good 
 night to her in the building and not long after- 
 wards had encountered her again on the plat- 
 form. Opposite them in the train sat a girl who 
 bore some sUght resemblance to another they 
 both knew in the office — enough at all events to 
 make them look twice. 
 
 " I know what you're thinking of," said Jessie 
 in an ujidertone, *' but it isn't really." 
 
 Presently this girl took from her bag some 
 proofs of a photograph. They could both see that 
 
 185
 
 it was of a small fat baby. The girl opposite 
 looked at the proofs a little hurriedly and put 
 them away again, laughing to herself as she did 
 so. Jimmy thought he had never seen anyone 
 look so happy. The baby was her own, he felt 
 certain. She did not dote sentimentally upon the 
 picture, but just laughed with an open and almost 
 triumphant chuckle. The photograph amused her. 
 He or she was so fat and merry and looked so 
 absurd. Jimmy knew the sort of thing. At 
 Kimberdown there was a picture of Anthony 
 when he was three which always made him laugh. 
 He looked at the girl again — a big, generous, well- 
 dressed, handsome creature — and her first baby 
 no doubt. She looked up for a moment at no 
 one in particular, and he could see her eyes still 
 shining with the fun of it, the joy. Then the visor 
 of correctitude was closed again and she read the 
 advertisements between the windows with her 
 hands folded. So she behaved for several minutes, 
 and then just before she got up to leave the train 
 almost audibly chuckled once more. That babe, 
 thought Jimmy, must be a specially round and 
 rather ugly one and the mother of him could hardly 
 keep her delighted amusement to herself. Jimmy 
 had never seen anyone who, in a moment, had 
 expressed such amazing joy. Spite of the war, 
 spite of everything, what luck other people had, 
 
 186
 
 what eagerness for going on, what splendours to 
 make a use for living. . . . 
 
 The train was slowing down. The big girl 
 opposite gave her bag an unconscious pat of 
 affection for what it held, with a big, well-gloved 
 hand. Jimmy looked at Jessie Carruthers who 
 all the time had never said a word. For a moment 
 she had closed her eyes, looking paler and more 
 worn out than ever. Then she met Jimmy's glance 
 and she looked at him with something like fear. 
 It was a moment of exaltation, such as he had 
 known from time to time at Kimberdown and 
 again when he stood at the door of Adrian's studio 
 and heard the violin — a moment when intuition 
 triumphs. 
 
 Wondering greatly, Jimmy understood. 
 
 Meantime it is certain that Mrs. Webber must 
 have observed the rapid dwindling in the wine 
 cupboard. But that, only involving himself, 
 troubled Jimmy not at all. At breakfast or the 
 rare occasions on which they dined together Blanche 
 and he grew more and more silent. The most 
 trivial things became harder to speak of, and words 
 never ran high. If anything was said by either, 
 verging on intimacy or contention, the other was 
 silent, or without trying to be adroit changed the 
 subject. 
 
 187
 
 Day by day when he opened the paper Jimmy 
 looked first at the casualty lists — " unofficially 
 announced." Most of the men he had known in 
 the past had in one part or another appeared 
 there in the earliest days : and he had generally 
 heard news of them before any printed list ap- 
 peared. Now Adrian was the only person he saw 
 often who was likely to have early news. 
 
 One dull morning as he came into the dining- 
 room Blanche was reading the paper by the 
 window. Without a word she put it down when 
 she saw him and with a slight smile began to open 
 her letters. 
 
 Then Jimmy saw a longish paragraph giving 
 shortly the life, adventures, and death from 
 wounds of Frederick Keyne. 
 
 . . . Two little nigger boys — then there was one. 
 It seemed inevitable. There was no shock to him. 
 It was — wasn't it ? — what he wanted. He looked 
 up and met Blanche's eye. She was still smiling, 
 but now she laughed outright. 
 
 And then Jimmy went out quickly and into his 
 
 own^^room. 
 
 188
 
 XVI 
 
 Thinking of Keyne brought Jimmy's mind back 
 inevitably to Frank Offord. Good men, both of 
 them ; though now, as always, Jimmy thought 
 of the latter with more regret, with bitter and 
 consuming pain. He began to detest himself for 
 his ghoulish wondering when these men would die. 
 Dead men, he had said to himself, could tell no 
 tales, but equally — if subjectively — they could not 
 tell them living. He was perfectly certain in his 
 own mind that Keyne had never breathed a word 
 concerning the supper party — not even to Miss 
 Icklesham : things she had said to Jinuny, ques- 
 tions she had asked had almost proved that. 
 
 And now, months after his death, came a letter 
 from Frank's widow. She had so much wanted 
 to see Jimmy again and to meet his wife. Cir- 
 cumstances had been against her, she had been 
 unable to get away from the north country ; she 
 had Frank's little place to look after, but she 
 hoped to be in London before very long, and then 
 she lioped she might see them both. . . . 
 
 189
 
 He had never expected this — anything like it. 
 He had thought that part of his Hfe concerned 
 with Frank Offord finished. Jimmy could hardly 
 bear to read it. 
 
 In the meantime she wanted Jimmy to see part 
 of a letter which Frank had left in the event of his 
 being killed. She knew that he would like to see 
 it. She hoped so much that Jimmy would like 
 her boy. He would appreciate how proud Frank 
 would have been. And then came that part of 
 his last letter, copied — for obvious reasons and 
 because she could not bear to part with the original 
 — by Mrs. Frank herself. 
 
 "... I was awfully fond of my own people, 
 but I couldn't somehow be friends with them. 
 They always lived in the past. They stopped 
 going ahead almost before I was put in breeches, 
 while they were still comparatively young. After 
 that nothing that happened was to be tolerated. 
 They simply refused to belong to the new era. 
 The opinions they formed at thirty-five or so they 
 stuck to. Supposing doctors, just to take one 
 case, did that. Some do, of course. But you 
 know what I mean. I can understand that wor- 
 ship of everything that's played out and done 
 with. I often feel inclined that way myself and I 
 know you do still more. But it's foolish ; and, 
 when you've a child to consider, I tliink wrong. 
 
 190
 
 Poor little blighter — he's got his own life all in 
 front of him, and it's jolly hard on a boy not to 
 have real sympathy. It isn't enough to try and 
 put back the clock and think of yourself at his 
 age. You've got to try and see things as he sees 
 them now, which is quite a different propo- 
 sition. 
 
 " Do try and watch him and see what you think 
 he's good for. Some boys show it very young, 
 I believe, but they don't always. I've been talk- 
 ing a lot lately to old Dickinson, who's got several 
 boys and understands the business. Of course 
 I wanted to be an engine-driver and our lad will 
 want to fly — I don't mean that kind of ' wanting 
 to be.' It's frightfully important that he should 
 do what he wants, but I do hope you'll head him 
 off anything to do with the law or anything which 
 is just talking. I'd sooner he carpentered, a good 
 clean trade, that. 
 
 " But the Navy's the thing, if it's a bit Uke what 
 it is now, but then it mayn't be. Anyhow what 
 one wants is a real job of work (which is more 
 than I ever had till I came out here) — something 
 which teaches him to do things with his hands 
 as well as his head. Best antidote to snobbery 
 in the world and makes a fellow at home with all 
 sorts and conditions. But whatever happens — 
 any way at all — whether he's broad or narrow, 
 
 191
 
 long or short, rich or poor — bring him up to be 
 a courteous EngHsh gentleman, the sort of man 
 in that way like your own father or mine — and 
 there I am as bad as both of them — laudator 
 temporis acti, which being translated means ' Damn 
 these Radicals.' Only when I say ' English,' 
 though I mean it, let him learn to realise that 
 there are other races and that they have their 
 points — a thing our old people could never do." 
 And then later on — " Talk to Jimmy Guise about 
 it and keep an eye on him. I have known him 
 for a long, long time and he's one of the very best. 
 I'm infernally sorry not to have seen more of him 
 the last few years. But he was abroad a lot and 
 one thing and another cropped up and prevented 
 it. But give him my love and tell him I often 
 think of old times with him." 
 
 Jimmy thought of the other memento of Frank 
 Offord — the old menu card that he had torn up. 
 He went through all that he had thought of Frank 
 during these later months, the man whom he 
 knew would never talk, but who knew what he 
 had done. He had wished him dead : and this 
 dead man sent him messages — through his wife, 
 a subtle and beautiful tribute which Jimmy re- 
 cognised as such at once. 
 
 . . . He had slept badly, he had been lying 
 
 192
 
 in bed to read the letter. Now he put it down 
 and covered his face %vith his hands. 
 
 In a sort of way he felt that it was his 
 own evil wish which had brought destruction 
 upon his two friends. Now there was only 
 Loftie Hutton. . . . Desperately he hoped that 
 Hutton would come through safely. He had 
 been in command of a battalion before he was 
 hit a second time — to the great amusement, 
 genuine and without venom, of Fred Keyne. 
 Jimmy wondered whether Keyne really had been 
 badly treated, whether Hutton had turned out 
 to have a natural talent for soldiering. Men 
 more or less connected, as Hutton had always 
 been, with the Law, having friends and relations 
 who were politicians — well, surely the coincidence 
 of merit and good fortune was not impossible, 
 such chances did not always fall awry. And 
 Hutton had money which could never precisely 
 hinder him. . . . Well, so had Keyne, though less 
 of it and less available. But it was silly to 
 speculate on those lines. After all, Hutton had 
 been an exceedingly useful man. He had been 
 badly hit that last time — ^liis arm was smashed — 
 nothing very much to look at, Adrian had said, 
 but tiresome. They had begun to wonder whether 
 he would ever get the use of it again. But he was 
 virtually cured when Jimmy had last heard. Still 
 N 193
 
 they had given him jobs at home. And he was there 
 yet — he had heard from Adrian only the day before 
 — somewhere between Aldershot and SaUsbury. 
 However, sooner or later he would be sent out 
 again. 
 
 He had always cared for Hutton least of the 
 three. He had been the most selfish and the most 
 — -what was it — formal ? Frank had been affec- 
 tionate and jolly, the teller of good stories, the 
 inventor of mad pranks, devil-may-care, clever 
 and wasteful of his cleverness. Keyne had been 
 joUy too, but noisier, with an underlying stratum 
 of respectability and solid worth, not so generous 
 as Frank but more reliable. They had been the 
 same as boys. If Keyne owed another some trifle 
 — ^whether of money or revenge — he would pay 
 it punctually. Frank Offord would at first forget 
 both with complete impartiality, and would after- 
 wards remember the money. Hutton was a much 
 colder man, of humour but no spontaneous gaiety, 
 of laughter but no sympathy, of imposing correct- 
 ness : a solenm manner and a telling voice. It 
 was curious that they should have been such 
 friends, these four, and yet — had they been real 
 friends ? Was it not rather that they had been 
 thrown together more or less artificially in their 
 extreme youth and, for the sake of old times, 
 had forborne to break the chain ? Even of Hutton 
 
 194
 
 it could hardly be said that the call of old times 
 was quite unheeded. 
 
 Hutton had wanted to marry Jessie Carruthers 
 . . . well, unlike Keyne, he was a man of surprises. 
 To Jimmy he had never seemed the sort who 
 would marry at all, or perhaps only quite late in 
 life. But Jessie Carruthers — for a moment lie 
 recalled the astonishing things said by Adrian's 
 cousin, Mrs. Hazard. Jessie — without a ha penny 
 in the world, without good looks — with brains 
 only to recommend her, brains and music — and 
 Loftie Hutton. Then Mrs. Hazard and her point 
 of view were turned aside. A singularly charmmg 
 and delightful girl was Jessie Carruthers, a rare 
 girl, not made at all according to pattern, full of 
 life — when she was well — an individual, every- 
 thing that Adrian had said of her — and more. 
 She made him — Jimmy — a little uncomfortable, 
 or had done so when he first came to the New 
 Department, but that was because she was so 
 unusual, and Jimmy while liking that quality in 
 the abstract, yet had to become accustomed to 
 it. Still that was one thing. But where was the 
 attraction for Loftie Hutton ? Evidently he had 
 something to learn of Hutton yet — oh, a great 
 deal. He was not a man to let himself be seen 
 all at once : and over the years that Jimmy had 
 kiKjwn him he had managed to hold back u lot of 
 
 195
 
 himself. With a man like that one never knew 
 when one had come to the end of discovery, prob- 
 ably it would be impossible to do so. 
 
 And Jessie Carruthers — oh, miles too good for 
 him — miles. There might be a lot in Loftie 
 Hutton, but not enough or of the right sort for 
 so good a girl as that. Anyhow, nothing had 
 happened save her laughter. She must have dis- 
 liked him to be so amused. Adrian had since 
 thrown in some more details gleaned from the 
 discomforted suitor. She was not the sort of girl 
 who laughed for nothing. 
 
 And he was the last of them. Of all of them 
 Jimmy could least bear that Hutton should know 
 what, since the supper party, he must always have 
 known. And now it didn't matter, it could never 
 have mattered. He hoped very fervently that he 
 would be safe. It was all his fault — his, Jimmy's. 
 Why should he not stand up to it like a man ? He 
 had tried to make it up to Blanche — he had tried 
 to make it up. 
 
 196
 
 XVII 
 
 There was in the higher councils of the New 
 Department a group of people, hard-headed, 
 bdnausoi, mercantile, with whom Jimmy, the 
 licker of envelopes, came now and again into 
 fleeting and unaspiring contact — a species of 
 society, he discovered, variously differentiated and 
 having a curious habit of bandying the names of 
 women. And a name mentioned by them in his 
 hearing more than once was Paige-Morgan. This 
 did not startle him into any new wonder at the 
 smallness of the world we live in, but drew forth 
 the acid though unspoken comment that these 
 were exactly the sort of people she would know. 
 At the same time he learned that the lady was in 
 her way notorious, which again caused him no 
 painful surprise. He had, of course, never con- 
 tributed to any conversation of the kind, but it 
 focussed his attention upon the matter which he 
 felt he had rather helplessly neglected, a matter 
 which, unsought by him, had been — to use the 
 language of the Service to which he temporarily 
 
 197
 
 though reluctantly belonged — referred for remarks 
 and necessary action. 
 
 Jimmy had come now to the stage when any 
 movement on Blanche's part was almost without 
 interest for him. More than once, particularly 
 after they had spent an evening together, he had 
 again, from old habit, tried to hoodwink himself 
 into believing impossible things, but such occa- 
 sions were growing extremely rare. This, how- 
 ever, was an entirely different matter. Blanche 
 was constantly in the company of Mrs. Paige- 
 Morgan and Mrs. Paige-Morgan was talked about. 
 The mere fact that a few Napoleons of commerce 
 sniggered over her name was Uttle compared to 
 Jimmy's intuition concerning her. And these men 
 — ^they might be ill-bred, but they were not the 
 sort to speak of what — in that connection — they 
 did not know. 
 
 A perfectly poisonous woman, Jimmy kept 
 saying to himself. It was not fair on him, to say 
 notliing of Blanche, that his wife should be with 
 her — at that he bit his lip. That was the attitude 
 he felt certain that Keyne had taken up. Blanche 
 was not a fit person for his wife or prospective 
 wife to know. At that time, as he said to himself 
 afterwards, he was always making faux pas for 
 his own confusion. 
 
 But something must be done — something diplo- 
 
 198
 
 matic and careful. It must not appear as though 
 he had been Kstening to vulgar scandal. Nor in 
 that sense had he, the tittle-tattle having served 
 him really only as a reminder. He did not suppose 
 for a moment that Blanche would listen to him 
 if she cared at all for the woman ; but he rather 
 thought that the explanation lay in Mrs. Paige - 
 Morgan's pocket. She provided luncheons and 
 knew people who gave away theatre tickets. And 
 Blanche was lonely. ... If only her attention 
 could be diverted ; if only she would take up 
 some definite work — ^just to pass the time. It 
 might amuse her. 
 
 .limmy was thinking over the problem when he 
 arrived at the entrance to the flats. The lift was 
 at one of the higher floors, and he waited for a 
 minute before ringing the bell in a hall which 
 seemed draughtier than it used to, less scrupulously 
 kept. Up above somewhere a door banged with 
 a rattle of the letter-box, and voices came down 
 the well of the stairs — Mrs. Paige-Morgan's and a 
 man's. The former Jimmy recognised immediately. 
 The lift gate clanged home, and Jimmy started 
 to run up the stairs. In this way he could avoid 
 speaking to the woman. Presently the slow lift 
 passed him as he reached the first landing, and for 
 a moment he could see the occupants — ^the old 
 porter, Mrs. Paige-Morgan with a Pekinese spaniel 
 
 199
 
 — in what Jimmy instantly dubbed a vulgarer 
 get-up than usual — a man with a grey beard. 
 Something familiar about him, Jimmy thought. He 
 had met him somewhere — lately was it ? Adrian's ? 
 — where ? Or was it just someone he had seen in 
 a bus or a train whose features he had scrutinised 
 and without thinking of them remembered. No 
 — more familiar than that, much more. . . . He 
 gave it up and let himself in at his own door still 
 wondering what he could say. 
 
 " I shall be out pretty late to-night," Blanche 
 began at once when Jimmy came in, " on the 
 loose." She had not given up that form of humour 
 that used to amuse Jimmy. 
 
 " Are you going with Mrs. Paige-Morgan ? " 
 
 " Yes — if it interests you. I didn't think you 
 required to know " 
 
 " You spend your entire time with that woman." 
 
 " I haven't seen that woman, as you call her, 
 for a week. After all she's the only friend I've 
 got." 
 
 " Not seen her for a week ? I just saw her 
 coming down not two minutes ago." 
 
 " I was going to say — until this evening, only 
 you snap out at me. You're so anxious to catch 
 me out. Good lord ! do you think I'd trouble 
 to lie about it ? " 
 
 " No trouble to you. I object to that woman — 
 
 200
 
 as I call her — very strongly— thorough wrong 
 'un." 
 
 " What a perfect little gentleman it is ! And 
 what about me ? She's been divorced, so have I. 
 You're the last person to " 
 
 " That is not the point. The fact of being 
 divorced doesn't make a woman — a — well, like 
 Mrs. Morgan." 
 
 " It seems to me that it does, if you choose it 
 to. You happen to dislike her because she scored 
 off you rather well once or twice. She has a quick 
 tongue. But it's not the slightest use talking 
 about it. I'm not asking you to take her to your 
 bosom, am I ? " 
 
 " The curious thing is — that invitation hasn't 
 come from her." 
 
 " I wish you'd try not to be vulgar. As I say 
 she's my friend, not yours. There's no special call 
 for you to like her. I probably shouldn't like your 
 little typist person," and Blanche laughed. She 
 knew that this was an indiscretion, yet she could 
 not resist it. She would have to carry it off as 
 best she could. 
 
 Jimmy's first instinct was to assume innocence 
 of her intention and to ask her what she meant. 
 He was filled suddenly with furious and very 
 righteous anger and with sheer amazement. But 
 he would not defend himself. 
 
 201
 
 " Oh ! I know," Blanche went on, " such nice 
 girls do it nowadays." 
 
 " No," Jimmy said, determined to take a line 
 of his own. " I don't think you would like my — 
 little typist person." That ought to take the wind 
 out of her sails. " Who was the man ? " he added 
 quietly. 
 
 " What man ? " Blanche was puzzled now and 
 really disconcerted. 
 
 " The respectable old gentleman with Mrs. 
 Paige-Morgan." 
 
 " Oh — him, oh ! I don't know — some friend of 
 Bessie's. She did say his name, but I didn't catch 
 it. She only looked in for a moment. Anything 
 else ? — I want to get dressed." 
 
 There was no good in pressing the point — it 
 would only mean violence and further lies. He 
 held his tongue. 
 
 But how — how could she have known anything 
 about Jessie Carruthers ? It was she who was 
 meant, obviously. There had been a beautifully 
 rendered contempt in Blanche's — " typist person." 
 She would never, of course, admit the violin. As 
 a matter of irrelevant fact Jessie never touched 
 a typewriter, but no doubt all women who worked 
 in offices were to Blanche — typist persons. That 
 was Blanche all over. Yet how could she possibly 
 know of the girl's existence ? — he had never spoken 
 
 202
 
 of her. There was no reason why he should — ^just 
 a girl who happened to work in the same room 
 with him, to whom he had never spoken outside 
 the office. Oh ! but he had, now that he thought 
 of it. It was as casual as all that. Yes, some 
 time ago now he had lunched in Soho one day 
 and had found Jessie and another girl in the little 
 restaurant. There was an unoccupied chair at 
 their table and he had asked if he might sit there. 
 It had as a fact been a jolly meal. 
 
 And on another day they had repeated it, with 
 the same girl and another man — a new arrival at 
 the New Department, rather a good sort. Yes ; 
 and lately since the weather had been so wet — 
 really he had hardly thought of it — he had taken 
 to coming home by the District Railway ; and 
 Jessie Carruthers, who got out at the station beyond 
 him, generally left the office at about the same 
 time. Occasionally they walked to the station 
 together and together travelled. Oh ! and again 
 perhaps — yes — there had been so much as a third 
 luncheon in her company. And why not ? Why 
 not, indeed ! He had never thought of it before, 
 but now that he did the sum total seemed to have 
 crept up to dimensions quite considerable and 
 guilty. How absurd ! And someone — possibly 
 Blanche herself, had seen him : or more likely 
 the Paige-Morgan woman, who would be delighted 
 
 203
 
 to make mischief. Filthy tongue the woman had, 
 he knew. And so it had pleased Blanche to imply 
 a vulgar accusation. And yet was it not a trifle 
 less vulgar for being so obviously impersonal and 
 detached ? Or more ? She didn't care a snap of 
 her little fat fingers and didn't pretend to. For 
 how long had Blanche not cared ? Only since the 
 — row ? Oh hardly — hardly could he so far flatter 
 himself. 
 
 It was an unholy trick of Fate that, no more 
 than three days later, he should be returning to 
 the New Department from Soho in the company 
 of Jessie Carruthers and with her alone, when 
 they almost ran into Mrs. Paige-Morgan and the 
 man with the grey beard. Fate made the trick 
 not only unholy but a trifle sordid by ordaining 
 that Jessie should be wearing her least becoming 
 clothes and a hat which could only be described 
 as dowdy, while Mrs. Paige-Morgan's whole appear- 
 ance reeked of extravagance informed for once by 
 positive good taste. Of the thousand things that 
 money can buy, good clothes for women appealed 
 very deeply to Jimmy. 
 
 It was a curious meeting. Without smiling 
 Jimmy took off his hat. Mrs. Paige-Morgan nodded 
 with her usual unpleasant grin. But the man by 
 her side bowed obviously and with deference — to 
 Jessie Carruthers. For an instant he checked in 
 
 204
 
 his stride as though he would stop and speak and 
 then thought better of it. 
 
 " Who's the woman ? " asked Jessie. 
 
 Jimmy told her. 
 
 " And who's the man ? " he asked. " Wait a 
 second, though, I have it ! I have it at last — 
 Johnson." 
 
 It was the beard that had bothered him. 
 
 " Yes, that's his name. Oh — you'd have known 
 him in Athens." 
 
 " How on earth " Jimmy began. 
 
 " Well, you were out there some years ago — 
 you told me." 
 
 Yes, as he came to think of it, he had once 
 talked of beautiful things that he had seen — now 
 a tarnished recollection. 
 
 " And," Jessie added, " Mr. Johnson lived there 
 for some time." 
 
 " I know. Did he say he'd met me ? " 
 
 " No. Quite an amusing old thing in his way. 
 Bit of a villain, I should say, though he doesn't 
 look it." 
 
 " Quite a bit and — yes — quite amusing too, 
 sometimes unconsciously. By the way, may I 
 ask where you met him ? " 
 
 " With a friend of yours, as a matter of fact. 
 Hutton." 
 
 Jimmy noticed that she remained quite composed. 
 
 205
 
 " Oh ! I see." 
 
 " Yes," Jessie went on calmly, " I suppose — 
 no, I don't. Anyhow I met Mr. Johnson two or 
 three times with him at the Sysons' — you know — 
 places like that." 
 
 The fact of her talking about Hutton was so 
 much more important that it was some moments 
 before he realised that here was a surprising and 
 wonderful thing. 
 
 " Friend of Hutton ! Has he known him long ? 
 Funny that I should never have known. Oh — 
 well, of course. I haven't seen Johnson since I 
 was in Greece and that's years ago now." 
 
 " An old friend. As a matter of fact I think 
 Mr. Johnson was his father's agent — land-agent ' 
 something of that sort, and then fell on evil times, 
 and then, owing to the war — I don't know how — 
 picked up again." 
 
 " Funny how things come round in circles," 
 said Jimmy, " and he appears to be a friend of 
 that — Mrs. Morgan. Perhaps Hutton knows her ? " 
 
 " I've never heard of her before." 
 
 " Then pat yourself loudly on the back. Miss 
 Carruthers." 
 
 " I thought it was a very pretty little dog." 
 
 "■ Dog ? — that goggle-eyed vermin. DonH pat 
 yourself on the back this time, please. Johnson, 
 though — devilish funny." 
 
 206
 
 But it was not so funny later on that afternoon, 
 when he remembered everything that Johnson had 
 said in Athens. It was he who had first told Jimmy 
 who Blanche was, and had said that he had known 
 her before — Blanche, who had no recollection of 
 the man at all. Yet he had been at the flat only 
 a few days before with that woman and Blanche 
 — had not known who he was, didn't catch his 
 name. . . . 
 
 In the hotel that night when Stamoulis was 
 playing cards — Johnson had said that he had 
 danced with her at Covent Garden . . . just a 
 bragging he, of course . . . and there was a boy 
 in the story — who had money and wanted to marry 
 her or didn't want to — something like that. And 
 Johnson had put a spoke in his wheel. ... It 
 couldn't mean anything, could it ? It was all just 
 absurd coincidence and lies — Hes on all sides. And 
 what was the meaning — something grotesque — 
 some enormous jest — it was all blurred and dark 
 — a mad revne — ^Blanche, Johnson, Mrs. Paige- 
 Morgan, Hutton — Jessie Carruthers as showman 
 — and that Uttle goggle-eyed abortion getting 
 bigger and bigger and about to eat them all 
 up. 
 
 Ah ! Kimberdown was the place : those things 
 didn't happen at Kimberdown. 
 
 How could one keep sane in such a niglitmare — 
 
 207
 
 and was one sane ? Had one ever been sane since 
 that blasted shell ? . . . 
 
 He was to dine with Adrian that night, and they 
 would have lots and lots of Pernod first. Adrian 
 had found some bottles that he had forgotten — 
 stowed away. Absinthe was depressing afterwards 
 — but while it lasted — glorious — glorious ! 
 
 Oh ! but Adrian had said he shouldn't have it. 
 Adrian had said in so many words that he was 
 drinking too much. What utter rubbish — enough 
 to make a cat laugh — yes, and laugh and laugh 
 again. . . . 
 
 He was home before Blanche that night, and 
 he sat up waiting for her. Something was happen- 
 ing, the impossible nightmare was being realised : 
 only it had no meaning — no meaning yet. All 
 about him were lies and evasions and crooked 
 things. And he was the biggest liar of all. For 
 how long had everything depended upon his with- 
 holding of the truth ? He had deeply wronged 
 Blanche in the years gone by. She had no sus- 
 picion of him, of what he had been capable. He 
 had been an unspeakable cad and only a day 
 or two ago she had laughed at him for being 
 " such a little gentleman," and it wasn't fair on 
 her — little gentleman ! He would put his cards 
 onthe table, hiding nothing, and then she should 
 
 208
 
 judge. It would be a relief. He suddenly realised 
 that he had always known he must tell her, and 
 the waiting had been intolerable. Good for the 
 soul ? Good lord ! Was it the pleasure of causing 
 emotional surprise, the pleasure in violent self- 
 abasement, and in a left-handed fashion of causing 
 hurt? 
 
 He was in the hall directly he heard her key 
 in the door. 
 
 " I want to speak to you," he said as she came 
 in, " come in here." 
 
 " Won't it do in the morning ? I am dog tired." 
 
 There was no pity in him. He must carry out 
 what was in his mind. 
 
 " I've got to tell you something. It's right you 
 should know. I ought to have told you ages ago." 
 
 " What — not the little typist ? " and she stood 
 there with her hands on the back of a high chair, 
 tired and pale, but laughing, intensely amused. 
 
 " No," and she laughed because he snarled the 
 word. 
 
 '' That supper years ago before we were married, 
 when Frank and Keyne and Hutton " 
 
 " Yes, you needn't trouble to say what we ate 
 — go on." 
 
 "■ They knew — those three — that we were not 
 married." 
 
 • Did they really ? How exciting for them." 
 O 209
 
 " And that we were living together " 
 
 Blanche yawned. " How exciting for us — any 
 more ? " 
 
 " I let them see it. I didn't actually say so in 
 so many words, but — but, well, there it is. I let 
 them see it. I can never forgive " 
 
 It was impossible to say any more. Even 
 remorse was cut away. She was still smihng, and 
 when she spoke it was with her pecuUarly rich, 
 alluring intonation — soft, rippling, chuckling, deep. 
 
 " How terrible ! " she said. " How truly shock- 
 ing ! And shall I tell you something ? — not a word 
 to a soul ! It's the greatest secret : but — so did 
 I!" 
 
 " Did what ? " 
 
 " Let them see. So you see your beautiful con- 
 fession is somewhat wasted. My God ! you do 
 amuse me." 
 
 She threw up her head, so that her laughter 
 seemed to fall like a cascade, warm in the summer 
 sun. 
 
 210
 
 XVIII 
 
 It was all wasted — all that agony of self-reproach, 
 all that miserable knowledge of what these others 
 knew. She had known all the time, had she ? — 
 arid she hadn't cared a button. What was the 
 use in deploring an act the vileness of which lay 
 in giving away a woman who gave herself away 
 with both hands ? And Frank and Fred Keyne 
 must have known that too. Whichever of them 
 she had allowed to see the state of affairs— if it 
 had been only one — would be certain to have dis- 
 cussed it with the others afterwards — and then 
 indeed, '" Poor old Jimmy, what a mess of things 
 he did make — what a mess ! " 
 
 And they were dead : and he could never tell 
 them — oh, what could he have told them : that 
 he was sorry he had wished them out of it ? So 
 they had known him for a cad, and her for a brazen 
 fool — what a fool — how resoundingly brazen. 
 
 Of course everything in the world was wrong 
 and evil and upside down, but just for the moment 
 wrong in a vague and even comlbrtable way that 
 
 211
 
 was like a bad dream realised within itself. Half 
 an hour ago — he couldn't remember how it felt 
 half an hour ago. But it was different now. 
 ^^ Jimmy was quite alone. It was Saturday night. 
 Blanche had gone away for the week-end, Mrs. 
 Webber was out for the evening and would let 
 herself in very quietly with her latchkey — so it 
 didn't really matter when. She had put his food 
 on the table before she went. And no one would 
 be expected to come and see him and so he 
 could put the pictures straight. All the aquatints 
 of India round the dining-room had been dusted 
 by the charwoman and one knew what that meant. 
 They were all crooked and annoying. '* And if," 
 Jimmy said to himself aloud, " I were drunk they'd 
 be crookeder still — most filthy crooked." 
 
 So he got up from the table to put them straight. 
 The first picture was of some small half-ruined 
 palace — he had forgotten what story Adrian had 
 invented to fit it — with a sheet of still water before 
 it. And the reflection in the water — yes — it 
 seemed to be plainer than the palace wall itself, 
 clearer than the trees. 
 
 " Now that," said Jimmy, "is me all over. 
 Shadow's better than the substance and all the 
 way through. Reflection's clearer than the 
 wotcher-caU'em. That comes of being a senti- 
 mentalist. And this thing's damn crooked." 
 
 212
 
 He moved it and found that it was askew again. 
 Then there was a glass upon the table which 
 required emptying, and presently the feeling of 
 warmth and comfort grew. He sat down by the 
 fire. The pictures could wait. They'd probably 
 be crooked again in the morning anyhow. But it 
 was an interesting point — that about the reflec- 
 tions. Sort of thing Adrian would have said, 
 probably had said it. And someone — there was 
 a swollen feeling about his hands which was not 
 unpleasant : he opened and shut one of them 
 and it looked much the same as usual : he 
 wondered why — well, someone had probably said 
 it before Adrian and so on. Seldom did anyone 
 say anything fresh of their own. Blanche had 
 once said something that pleased him about a 
 play, and she'd got it from — no, but she couldn't 
 have — it was Jessie Carruthers — someone else in 
 between them, and you might have traced it back, 
 only you couldn't, to — oh, anybody — but a long 
 way back. But not beyond Jessie Carruthers. 
 There was nothing secondhand about Jessie 
 Carruthers : she had her own way of saying things, 
 her own things to say. But this question of the 
 clear reflection — how hard it was to keep one's 
 brain to the point : and one nmst or nothing 
 would ever be thought out at all. 
 
 A ring at the bell. Wasn't that rather a good 
 
 213
 
 thing ? He couldn't make up his mind. Wliy 
 didn't Mrs. Webber open the door ? — the old lady- 
 was getting deaf. Another ring — oh, of course, 
 she was out : stupid of him not to have remem- 
 bered. He must go to the door himself, probably 
 it would be something very dull after all. 
 
 There was some little difficulty about opening 
 the door : his fingers slipped on the handle of 
 the catch and when he did get it unfastened it 
 banged to again at once. Oh ! he'd got his foot 
 against it — that was it. Open at last and — Mr. 
 Johnson there. 
 
 Jimmy had been thinking of Johnson and here 
 he was, so there was nothing very remarkable in 
 that. 
 
 " Come in, I'm glad to see you. You know, 
 you must have thought me horribly rude the 
 other day. I didn't recognise you — on my word 
 I didn't. It's the beard. I'm sitting in the dining- 
 room — nice fire. You have dined ? We'll make 
 some coffee anyhow. That's a comfortable chair 
 — and Miss Carruthers told me about you." 
 
 " Nice quarters you've got here. It is a very 
 comfortable chair. You'll excuse my coming to 
 look you up at this hour ? " 
 
 l<^: " Oh, very glad to see you." He hadn't meant 
 to be so cordial as this in the event of meeting 
 Johnson, but kind words seemed so easily to slip 
 
 214
 
 off his tongue. Johnson wasn't such a bad 
 chap, and he hadn't seen him for a number of 
 years. 
 
 Mr. .Johnson, despite the comfort of the chair, 
 the cigarette and the glass by his side, was not so 
 well at ease. He had come to see Jimmy partly 
 out of curiosity, partly from a feeling of kindliness. 
 Things had been going rather well with him. He 
 was no longer the hanger-on of the smaller foreign 
 hotels. He had never really enjoyed the adven- 
 turous life. And now he was on his feet again. 
 He had seized a golden opportunity : in a small 
 way — quite a small and justifiable way — he chuckled 
 when he spoke of it — he was a war profiteer. But 
 he did not feel very comfortable to-night. His 
 position, he felt, was a delicate one. And his host 
 was just a little — ^yes, distinctly — just a little. 
 
 " And so you know Loftie Hutton ? " The 
 sense of comfort was dying out of Jimmy too. 
 He was conscious of the effort he had to make 
 not to giggle foolishly and to speak in an ordinary 
 fashion. Really, he had an absurdly weak head. 
 He was very nearly drunk — a thing that had not 
 happened for many, many years. 
 
 " Yes, indeed, and he's an old friend of yours. 
 Very strange that we shouldn't have known, but 
 then I've been abroad so much. Yes. I knew 
 him when he was quite a lad." 
 
 215
 
 " Where is he now ? " Jimmy asked. 
 
 " Still at home," and Mr. Johnson gave the 
 name of the camp. " But I suppose will be off 
 again before long. The news isn't much good just 
 now, is it ? " 
 
 " No ; it isn't. My wife's away for the week- 
 end with Mrs. Paige-Morgan." 
 
 " I'm sorry not to have had the pleasure of 
 meeting her — a pleasure deferred only, I hope." 
 
 " Oh, I thought you had." 
 
 What an opportunity this coming of Johnson 
 might have been, handled with tact ; what a 
 hopeless mess he was in fact making of it with 
 straight, sincere and unconsidered questions. He 
 was well aware of this, but could not mend it. 
 
 " No," Johnson answered, with the round eyes 
 of untruth, 
 
 " I thought I saw you coming down in the lift 
 one night with Mrs. Morgan." 
 
 " Ah, yes, so I did. Yes : we did come here, 
 but it was only to leave a note at the door. Yes : 
 I didn't realise till you spoke that this was the 
 place. I remember now." And then his voice 
 changed and something of the old Johnson peeped 
 out, nullifying the grey beard. " Mrs. Paige- 
 Morgan now — what shall we say ? — sprightly ? " 
 He leered dreadfully. 
 
 " Very sprightly I should think," Jimmy was 
 
 216
 
 rapidly sobering. '' But I haven't the — ^pleasure 
 of knowing her very well." 
 
 " Nor I," said INIr. Johnson, '' but she has an 
 interest in the business, you know. And we have 
 to discuss ways and means — ways and means," 
 he repeated with a rather elaborate wave of the 
 hand. " Really a most surprising woman," he 
 went on, " of course, I've been out of the swim 
 so long that it comes with a bit of a shock to me. 
 I suppose there are women like that ? But — well 
 — plainer speaking I've never heard. Anything 
 she wants to say — she says it. Oh, naughty — 
 naughty ! And why not ? Good luck to her." 
 
 " By all means," said Jimmy indifferently. 
 
 " And I have heard — mark you, I won't vouch 
 for this, but there's never smoke without a 
 fire " 
 
 " There seems to be here, though," and Jimmy 
 went on his knees before the grate and held a 
 newspaper before it. " Tell me what you did 
 after you left Greece," he said pointedly. 
 
 Mr. Johnson understood that and proceeded to 
 discuss impersonal matters. A little later he got 
 up to go. 
 
 " I shall be seeing our friend Hutton in a day 
 or two," he said. '' Any — er — message ? " 
 
 " Tell him I'll be very glad to see him when 
 he's in London," said Jimmy. His mind was 
 
 217
 
 perfectly clear now, even if his head ached. There 
 was something queer about Mr. Johnson. It was 
 indefinable, but on the whole he preterred Mr. 
 Johnson the down-at-heels rascal of Athens days. 
 He was prosperous now, but he was furtive still. 
 And he had a sort of idea that there was some 
 information he ought to have got out of his visitor : 
 and he had not done so. It was very provoking, 
 but now at the end of the evening, when he plainly 
 saw the need for diplomacy and careful dealing, 
 he found himself quite unable to be adroit even 
 after the most promising opening. 
 
 But then again, he asked himself after Johnson 
 had gone, why should he trouble ? Why should 
 he bother to find out things ? Was anything worth 
 it? 
 
 218
 
 XIX 
 
 It was on the Tuesday morning after the visit of 
 Mr. Johnson that Jimmy began to feel really ill. 
 Blanche was to have returned from her week-end 
 on the previous afternoon : something had even 
 been said about dining out together on the Monday 
 evening. It had not been actually settled, and 
 Jimmy did not remember whether she or he had 
 suggested it. Of course, it didn't matter at all : 
 Blanche frequently changed her mind at the last 
 moment : so that when Jimmy returned from the 
 office on Monday evening and Mrs. Webber said, 
 " Mistress isn't back yet," he was not perturbed. 
 He was accustomed to having plans upset like 
 that. 
 
 But he wanted Blanche now — not for himself, 
 but because he must lie up for a bit, and he hated 
 having to give all orders himself. He hated Mrs. 
 Webber to think, as he knew she would, that he 
 was neglected, and somehow he had rather expected 
 Blanche not to return the previous evening. But 
 he had not slept at aU, he felt acutely miserable 
 
 219
 
 and lonely. Blanche had laughed at him the 
 other night, she would laugh now if she could 
 see him. Everybody would laugh ; he could not 
 bear the thought of seeing anyone ; and yet there 
 was this intolerable weight of loneliness. He had 
 got up for breakfast, but had eaten nothing. He 
 looked at the paper and the paper meant nothing. 
 There were some letters to read and it was too 
 much trouble to think what they meant. 
 
 Mrs. Webber came in. 
 
 " About dinner to-night, sir ; will the mistress 
 be in ? " 
 
 He had known, of course, that she would ask 
 the question and he had determined to be first 
 with the information. But somehow she had fore- 
 stalled him after all. 
 
 " No," he said from behind the paper, " we'll 
 neither of us be home for dinner to-night." 
 
 " Will the mistress be returning to-night ? " 
 
 The woman was bent on having an answer, 
 and yet really it was quite natural. Did she know 
 the sort of wife that Blanche was ? What did 
 she think of Mrs. Paige-Morgan ? How much had 
 she guessed ? 
 
 " No — oh, no." Jimmy answered as though it 
 were a matter of course. " No, she von't be back 
 for a day or two." 
 
 What nonsense was he talking ? Blanche was 
 
 220
 
 certain to return to-day, this evening at the latest. 
 Why had he said that to Mrs. Webber ? He 
 couldn't help himself for some reason. He was just 
 saying things — silly things. 
 
 " You've not eaten your breakfast, sir," Mrs. 
 Webber said in the old prim tone Jimmy could 
 remember from his boj'-hood. " You're not well." 
 
 " No, I'm not and that's a fact. I'm rotten. 
 Didn't sleep a \N'ink." 
 
 " You'd better let me ring up the doctor, sir, 
 and go back to bed." 
 
 " No, I won't have the doctor. It's only the 
 remains of the old trouble. I'll just sit by the 
 fire a little and see." 
 
 Then there was the New Department. That 
 didn't matter at all. There was nothing he did 
 there that someone else couldn't do. Jessie Car- 
 ruthers could lick his envelopes for him : some- 
 one would. He rather hoped it would be Jessie, 
 the thought of being under an obligation to her 
 didn't trouble him at all. He would wait a little 
 and then telephone to her or to Mr. Barker and 
 say he wouldn't come to-day. Better still, he 
 would tell Mrs. Webber to do so. He hated 
 telling people that he was ill. His voice would 
 sound just as usual and they would think he was 
 lying for the sake of a day oil". It sounded so 
 coid-blooded for a sick man to speak himseli" and 
 
 221
 
 say that he was sick. But what the blazes did it 
 matter what they thought ? 
 
 Mrs. Webber was still clearing away the break- 
 fast things. Why not tell her now ? No, it would 
 be better later on. He did not want to draw Mrs. 
 Webber into talk again. He went into his own 
 room and shut the door. He was safe from inter- 
 rogation there. The old woman would think he'd 
 gone to bed again. 
 
 The sun was shining in, though it was a bitter 
 day. There were various sounds that came to 
 him, familiar yet distracting : the clang of the 
 tradesman's lift as it came to rest by the kitchen 
 window, someone churning out melody on a 
 piano-player — at nine o'clock on a Tuesday morn- 
 ing — wasn't it marvellous ? And there was a 
 sudden gust of conversation as someone opened 
 a window, cut off abruptly when the next instant 
 it was closed again. 
 
 On the whole it would be better to go out and 
 get some fresh air. He would ride on the top 
 of a bus to some part of London that he did 
 not know where he would meet no one who knew 
 him. 
 
 Yet it was not until the afternoon that he finally 
 made up his mind to go out. There had been a 
 little trouble with Mrs. Webber about fetching 
 the doctor and he had snarled at her in reply. 
 
 222
 
 Why could not infernal people leave one alone ? 
 And then about lunch time Blanche returned, and 
 he heard them talking in the passage. Presently 
 she came in. 
 
 " What idiocy is this — your forbidding Mrs. 
 Webber to send for Mawson ? You go to bed. 
 You're not fit to be up. I'm going to ring him 
 up at once." 
 
 " Do," said Jimmy with elaborate sweetness. 
 " You'U find he's out." 
 
 " We met some rather cheery folk yesterday 
 and they asked us to dinner, and I thought I 
 might as well stop." 
 
 Blanche was still standing at the door, half 
 frightened as she always was in the presence of 
 illness. 
 
 " All right," said Jimmy, "I'm not up to talk- 
 ing about dinner parties just now. Close the door 
 after you, please." 
 " Oh, very weU." 
 
 She said that sulkily and for a moment Jimmy 
 felt an impulse to go after her and say he was 
 sorry : but really it was too much trouble. Then 
 a little later he heard her at the telephone, and 
 that decided him at last. He got up and slipped 
 quietly from the room, took his hat and coat 
 from the cupboard in the hall and then, like a 
 child escaping from an angry governess, took no 
 
 223
 
 further trouble to be silent, but fled banging the 
 door after him. 
 
 Late in the evening he found himself walking 
 in a poor district of the north-west, a part dis- 
 tinguished by many trees and little gardens behind 
 houses which seemed to be held from sordidness 
 by a persisting self-respect. He hardly knew how 
 he had got there. He had got into a bus and 
 then after a little way had left it again and tried 
 another. He seemed to have no purpose, no 
 decision. At one stage of the journey he had 
 gone into a tea-shop and sitting at a slimy marble 
 table he suddenly wondered why he was there. 
 If he wanted tea why could he not go home and 
 have it daintUy ? He rose and then remembered 
 that it would be absurdly late for tea by the time 
 he could get home. So then he thought he would 
 do without it. Then a waitress asked him what 
 he wanted and he complained that he had been 
 there ten minutes and had been able to attract 
 no attention. 
 
 He wandered about aimlessly, desperately tired, 
 but frightened of making the decision to return. 
 Instinct made him zigzag amongst side streets 
 to avoid the never-ending clangour of the trams. 
 
 It was growing dark. There had been rain : 
 it was warmer than in the morning. Just ahead 
 of him there was a little by-way, and the sound 
 
 224
 
 of a piano drew him on. What a wonderful, 
 dazzhng thing this was — all around him — this joy 
 in life, these homes, these voices of people whose 
 day's work was done. Home — what a funny word 
 that was — what a quaint abstraction. People had 
 homes, where ever3i;hing that mattered in their 
 lives happened. Home — a place like Kimberdown, 
 which he had called to himself his second home. 
 But what about his first, his real home ? Ha-ha 
 — that was something of a joke, that was. His 
 home was at the flat, with Blanche and those 
 bloody long luxurious cushions. Oh, dear lord ! 
 there was a home for a man : a place where you 
 were ill and they wanted to telephone for the 
 doctor, and where they dressed before dining out 
 and where from time to time they slept. 
 
 Mr. Crouch and Mr. Calliver might live up this 
 way : and in spite of indigestion they probably 
 had the devil of a full happy life. Jollifications on 
 Saturday nights, a nice fat Sunday dinner followed 
 by a nap, rowdy children to worry and tease and 
 tear at your heart for their urgent wants and fill 
 you with the warm splendour of pride. . . . 
 
 Jimmy found that he had been standing still for 
 some time listening. It wasn't much of a piano, 
 but it was not the sort that he would have ex- 
 pected up this way, neither the sort of playing. 
 Not of the first order, but surprising and comfort - 
 p 225
 
 ing. He came nearer. The street was very dark 
 and he could see the palpitating glow of firelight 
 at the top of the window, above the close-drawn 
 curtains. Someone played on with quiet convic- 
 tion and content. 
 
 How healing it was ... he stood by the railings 
 and let the waves of sound soothe his tired brain. 
 There was a jolly little tree in front of the house 
 and at the side he could just make out the darkened 
 entry to the garden. Black and poor and wretched 
 enough, no doubt ; but a place where things grew, 
 where the sunshine and the shade would, later on, 
 make summer for a poor Londoner. 
 
 There were lovely things after all, joys untarnish- 
 able. You only had to stretch out your hand to 
 take them : but you stretched out both hands 
 and snatched the ugly and the vile as well. 
 
 The music ended and then came that other 
 sound, that almost sacred sound of peace and 
 homeliness — that of cups and saucers. 
 
 Jimmy turned away. 
 
 226
 
 XX 
 
 The subtlest whisper of expectancy sighed in tlie 
 air. There was a quickening in Mother Earth, a 
 stirring of the evergreens with winds of lessening 
 chill, a softness, a warming dampness in the 
 breeze. 
 
 Down the orchard and beside the drive the 
 daffodils were forcing out their blooms from tight, 
 compact sheaves : and already the children had 
 come to remember their serene, cold fragrance — 
 that faintly pungent scent that has no sweetness, 
 but which yet hurries the pulse for the full coming 
 of the spring. 
 
 Kimberdown again, and (juiet. Once more 
 Jimmy was out of contact with the haste and 
 weariness and strife of London and the war. There 
 was rest for him and a great cleanliness, and sounds 
 and smells lovingly recalled, yet provoking sweet 
 surprise ; and fears proved barren and disillusion- 
 ment turned upon itself and eagerness for life, 
 for taking and for doing and for making come 
 again. 
 
 227
 
 It seemed to Jimmy, now that he was here, so 
 inevitable that he should return to the place and 
 to his sister. Yet he had been afraid. He hadn't 
 wanted to be moved. With his tortured sense of 
 things he had dreaded lest Kimberdown should 
 turn out to be a dreadful place, where they would 
 bully him and never leave him to himself. Also 
 in the back of his mind he thought that the moment 
 was a bad one for leaving London. He had an 
 idea that he ought to remain with Blanche. It 
 was all very muddled, but it seemed as though he 
 were wanted at the flat — something to do with 
 Ml. Johnson or Mrs. Paige-Morgan, something 
 which he couldn't think out clearly and which he 
 couldn't talk about. 
 
 But the doctor had said that he must go into 
 the country at once and that Adrian Close must 
 take him. Jimmy was resentfully aware that 
 Adrian had tampered with the doctor. He heard 
 afterwards that Honor had been in London too 
 about that time. There must have been some 
 laying of heads together and fussing and making 
 decisions for him. 
 
 And what had Blanche said to it all ? She had 
 been thoroughly miserable, not because she was 
 anxious about Jimmy, but because she hated sick- 
 ness and the burden of other people expecting 
 anxiety of her. They had been sensible, though. 
 
 228
 
 " You can't be any good here. You run away 
 and play " — or to that effect. 
 
 It was Adrian's idea that he should go to 
 Kimberdown. At the same time, to his sick and 
 crooked vision, it seemed a very dehcate matter 
 about which he could make no mention to Adrian 
 himself. There had been a certain amount of 
 difficulty ; but at last he had given in. He had 
 led poor Adrian a terrible life — he knew that now 
 and smiled. Adrian had triumphantly handed 
 him over to Honor and had shortly gone away 
 again. 
 
 In the happy wilds, after some weeks had 
 passed, he became better. He said very little, 
 but the expectation of a kind of happiness, the 
 possibility of which he had seemed to recognise 
 during his mad wandering through London daily 
 grew. 
 
 At first there was very little that he could do. 
 Everard Dunqueray had a good many books 
 which the doctor, instigated by Adrian, had pro- 
 scribed : books in which one could study mental 
 health and the reverse, learned books which took 
 a deal of thinking over, psychological stuff for 
 which Jimmy had an insistent greed. Such things 
 were kept, therefore, under lock and key, and the 
 old bound volumes of the Strand were left con- 
 spicuously on the hall table. 
 
 22 *>
 
 At this time he would come and talk to Honor 
 in the evening in her own room, a tiny place where 
 she wrote her letters and kept her accounts, and 
 sometimes on winter afternoons read fairy tales 
 to Anthony. It was come at only through her 
 own bedroom and stood lit by one muUioned 
 window over the porch : a safe hiding-place when 
 one was not in the mood for children or for strangers. 
 
 On one such occasion Jimmy found his sister 
 lying on the deep sofa by the small, sweet-smelling 
 wood fire, reading the proofs of Everard's latest 
 novel. He himself was coming home shortly to 
 take up work in his own county. He had served 
 long enough at the War Office ; far too long. 
 Honor thought, had she been separated from him. 
 
 Jimmy came in and sat on a low chair in front 
 of the fire, from which he was presently lighting 
 his pipe. 
 
 " Just let me finish this chapter and I'll attend 
 to you," Honor said, knowing that he had come 
 to talk, but dutifully and, besides, genuinely en- 
 grossed in her husband's story of derring-do. 
 
 " Children in bed ? " she asked presently. 
 
 " Yes : I've just been in to say good night. 
 Go on — don't mind me." 
 
 Jimmy pulled out another glowing stick and put 
 it to his pipe, and then with his hands locked 
 round his knees watched the little blue flames 
 
 280
 
 that flickered and darted amongst the hissmg 
 logs. 
 
 " You're better," said his sister, after a while 
 of looking at him when he had supposed her to be 
 still reading. 
 
 " I am — a lot : and when Everard has found me 
 a job 111 be better still. As it is I'm going to start 
 cutting trees to-morrow. Oh, I'm ever so fit really." 
 
 " Have you heard from Blanche ? " 
 
 Honor spoke with her eyes on the proof sheets 
 she was rearranging. Jimmy wondered what she 
 meant, whether she referred to that day, that week, 
 the whole of his time there ? It only occurred to 
 him now that Honor had scarcely uttered Blanche's 
 name since his arrival. He had not noticed the 
 fact before. That only showed how little Blanche 
 had come into his own thoughts lately. It was 
 rather a shock still to discover in himself yet one 
 further sign of indifference. 
 
 ■ Not for some days," he replied after a pause. 
 " She's all right, I think, but for a cold." 
 
 In her last perfunctory letter Blanche had indeed 
 mentioned the cold, but the only picture called 
 up in Jimmy's mind was that of a plump little 
 woman, huddled, with a bad temper and with 
 streaming eyes, over the fire. Now, however, the 
 reference to Blanche made him uneasy, and he 
 began to talk of the war, and presently of the 
 
 231
 
 New Department and his own uselessness then 
 and before. 
 
 " You know," he said, " looking back I never 
 seem to have done a thing. It's awful to think 
 of the waste — waste of time, waste of energy." 
 
 " And waste of love," added Honor to herself. 
 But to Jimmy she said nothing for a moment or 
 two, contenting herself with the survey of his 
 obvious physical improvement : colour in firm, 
 filled cheeks, clear eyes which gleamed at her with 
 confidence unwavering, steady unhurried speech. 
 
 " Then the thing is not to look back, but forward 
 to a future which won't be wasted : and I feel it 
 won't. I know it won't." 
 
 When Honor was at a loss for something to say 
 she invariably knew or felt that some desirable 
 end would be accomplished. She was not a good 
 hand at saying things, or rather at making up her 
 mind as to what she wanted to say. 
 
 She looked at him for a moment when his head 
 was turned from her towards the fire. Poor Jimmy 
 — he had been knocked about, ill and ill again, 
 and evilly treated. She was sure of this though 
 never a disloyal word of Blanche had he uttered. 
 And he couldn't bear the weight of her disapproval. 
 He seemed sometimes, she thought, to have lost 
 confidence : he wanted to please her. He was by 
 no means sure that he could do so. Honor thought 
 
 232
 
 of Anthony when he had been naughty and, at 
 length, sorry, and trymg to win his way home 
 again to her approval. It was the same thing, 
 the same tone. There was about his way some- 
 thing indescribably wistful, she remembered him 
 like that as a child, when she was a big girl. What- 
 ever he had done in the past which transgressed 
 her code, he had paid for it — she was sure he had 
 paid dearly for it, and always he seemed to her 
 above all things kind and good. 
 
 There had been consultations between her and 
 Adrian in London. She was hurt at first to find 
 how much better Adrian knew him than she, how 
 much more genuinely able his friend than his 
 sister was able to appreciate him. Had he shown 
 Adrian more than he had shown her ? Or was it 
 merely that she was blind — blind with anger 
 because he had so thrown himself away, because 
 of his unbreakable loyalty to Blanche ? She had 
 learned a good deal about Jimmy from Adrian. 
 At first it had been difficult. Adrian would say 
 very little : and then after they had been to the 
 flat together, fear for his very reason had broken 
 the shackles of their reserve. She had thrown her- 
 self on Adrian's mercy. She had said all that was 
 in her heart and Adrian had answered with all 
 that he knew and, for the joy of a distant future, 
 much that he had guessed. At Adrian's she had 
 
 233
 
 even met Jessie Carruthers. Naturally, she had 
 never said anything of this to Jimmy, who was but 
 dimly aware that she had been to London at all. 
 
 " Have you at all raiade up your mind what 
 you'll do ? I don't mean now, but later on, 
 after the war and — you know — I mean person- 
 ally ? " 
 
 Jimmy thought he did know what she meant 
 and wondered at her lack of reticence. But he 
 did not yet feel inclined to put off his reserve. 
 
 " It's not much good making plans yet when 
 we don't in the least know how the war will leave 
 us. I think I'd like to grow something, cabbages 
 here or bananas somewhere else. Fancy being 
 able always to eat as many bananas as you 
 liked." 
 
 " Yes : it is fancy nowadays when they're six- 
 pence apiece. I hope you won't go abroad though : 
 you've been away so much. And, Jimmy, my dear, 
 you're not like just everyone, though I say it. 
 You've got a sort of — I don't know, is it a gift ? 
 a kind of gift for loving people and finding out 
 beautiful nice things wherever you go — in the 
 people, I mean. Oh, how I do wish you had children 
 of your own." 
 
 " Yes, I do too sometimes," he answered steadily. 
 Was it self-consciousness or was Honor really 
 trying to get him to confide ? He had always 
 
 234
 
 thought her too much a woman of the world. 
 He must keep to impersonal talk. 
 
 " Yes," he went on, " only doesn't it seem to 
 you sometimes marvellous how people can dare 
 to face the terror and the beauty of it ? Don't 
 all very lovely things frighten you ? No, I don't 
 suppose they do. I must be a bit of a cur. I 
 don't know how it is, but I remember when 
 Anthony was ill and you told me about it — the 
 time he said, ' Mummy, I can't talk,' and you 
 thought he'd got diphtheria— and children in London 
 lately — these air raids — and the frightful responsi- 
 bility. I often wonder how people dare ..." 
 
 " They don't think about it as a rule." 
 
 " I know they don't, that's just it. But people 
 do think more of children than they used to* 
 They wonder if they can give them a better time 
 then they had themselves. I know that poor 
 Frank did." 
 
 " And with all their wondering do they give 
 them a better time ? " 
 
 " Yes : I should think on the whole they do. 
 I take it that if one knows what to look out for 
 and guard against — still, it'll be time enough to 
 talk when — when the cows come home. It's 
 getting on for dinner-time. I must rush." 
 
 There was a curious change in Jimmy with his 
 return to health. His whole life was centred in 
 
 235
 
 Kimberdown. He hardly thought of what was, 
 officially, his own private life. All the ground 
 of his tender conscience had been cut away. 
 Blanche was playing her own game — let her. 
 From time to time it occurred to him to wonder 
 for how long she would be satisfied in that way. 
 But thoughts of such a kind did not trouble him. 
 Rather when he thought of London it was peculiarly 
 of Adrian or the New Department. Long use had 
 brought him almost a feeling of affection for Mr. 
 Barker. He never wanted to see Mr. Barker 
 again, nor Mr. Crouch, nor Mr. Calliver — they were 
 just names to him still as they had been on the 
 day of his initiation, but they belonged now so 
 definitely to the past that he began to think them 
 the best of fellows. And Jessie Carruthers, he 
 wondered if she were still there, still burning her 
 thin candle at both ends. But thinking of her 
 brought a feeling of discomfort very like his actual 
 experience when he had first known her. 
 
 And on the whole there was too much to think 
 about here for unprofitable retrospect. He could 
 work now, joyously, with his hands. Together 
 with an old henchman he built a new pigstye and 
 returned to his loved labour of last year, felling 
 trees — serious work with Anthony only a devoted 
 onlooker. He was being genuinely useful, and he 
 began to feel the hot returning of his self-respect. 
 
 236
 
 Better work was this than the drafting of " busi- 
 ness " letters, better to point out to Anthony the 
 obvious dangers of the element of fire than, to 
 Barker, the obvious immorality of elementary 
 commerce. He could not but contrast also the 
 good if primitive English used by the old servant 
 with the Latin impurities of clerkdom. It was 
 fine to do things with bare arms and sore hands 
 healing hard : good to sweat again, to sleep long 
 in untainted air, at meal times to be too hungry 
 to talk, of an evening too happily tired to read. 
 
 Everything immediately before his illness was 
 still rather blurred in retrospect, and for the present 
 he had no desire for clearer vision. He wrote to 
 Adrian to say that he was becoming a turnip and 
 liked the process exceedingly well. He began to 
 make fun of Honor : in his old merry way to 
 laugh at her and at Kimberdown for being behind 
 the times and out of the war. He would tell 
 Adrian about it and show the letters to Honor, 
 who would pretend to try and snatch the paper 
 away. He used to say that living at Kimberdown 
 was like being in the middle of a field with the 
 gate open. Five miles of the worst hills in the 
 world separated them from the station : it was a 
 Sabbath day's journey to the sea coast : nearly 
 four years of war had gone by before the first 
 aeroplane was seen at a great height, over the 
 
 237
 
 neighbouring village : and the old henchman, who 
 was bringing in a cow to be milked, dropped the 
 halter and ran for dear life. 
 
 A slow place, in fact, for the artificial product 
 of the town. 
 
 " I am so sorry," Honor had said, " but you'll 
 have to put up with regular war fare. There's 
 very little but bread and butter. We practically 
 live on that and vegetables and pig — can you eat 
 pig ? It makes such a difference when you know 
 exactly how they're fed and you know ours have 
 nothing but the very best. And there's heaps of 
 bottled fruit from last year if you care for it." 
 
 " Of course the war has made a great difference 
 to us down here. You wouldn't believe the price 
 of things. By the way, I know, Jimmy, you like 
 candlelight : so that's all right. We can't get oil 
 for the lamps now. At least they say at the village 
 they'll have a little next week." 
 
 Jimmy remembered these things and wrote 
 them down and then showed them to Honor who 
 swore she had never said anything of the kind. 
 
 The vicar's wife would ask him what he really 
 thought of the war now. Coming from London 
 and a government office he must know almost 
 everything. They seemed to have great faith in 
 London and the Government down here, spite of 
 rural suspicion. 
 
 238
 
 " I must show you a photograph of one of the 
 German generals that came out in the paper the 
 other day. My husband says it's exactly like your 
 Alcibiades, only I call that a gross insult to poor 
 Alcibiades." 
 
 Alcibiades was one of those of whom one knew 
 exactly how they were fed. 
 
 " So you see," Jimmy wrote to Adrian, " they 
 talk about the war down here." 
 
 But he never wrote to Blanche like that. It 
 was the most difficult thing in the world to write 
 to her at all. What could he say that she would 
 care to read ? No doubt, she would have been 
 amused if he had chosen to write as he wrote to 
 Adrian, but that he could not do ; that would 
 have been sheer disloyalty. So Jimmy's infrequent 
 letters to Blanche were as perfunctory and dull as 
 hers to him. 
 
 It was growing warm now. The daffodils liad 
 long since been withered, their greenery bleached 
 to wisps of straw and hidden by a green more 
 vivid. The wild gardens were alive Avith little 
 birds ; on all sides growth was almost visible 5 
 pale bevies of gentle colour began to be seen along 
 the border by which Jimmy used to sit last year ; 
 soon there would be the early roses. 
 
 In the first freshness of the morning there were 
 
 239
 
 noisy splashings in the orchard once again, in 
 which Anthony regularly joined now. Pleased 
 confusion mixed with unobserving propriety would 
 show upon the nurse's face as Jimmy came charg- 
 ing in his pyjamas to pull the boy out of bed. 
 And as the days grew hotter there was a new game. 
 Anthony must run the gauntlet, from one apple 
 tree to another, from hedge to bank, over the 
 short rabbit-eaten turf. Half-way stood Jimmy 
 by the stable bucket with a big sponge, and each 
 time Anthony passed him, yelling derision and 
 delight, Jimmy threw it. Then there was a battle 
 and Anthony was rolled on the grass and soused 
 again with icy water and made to run, the lovely, 
 slim, wet whiteness of him gleaming in the sunshine. 
 There was much noise and disturbance in the 
 nursery about the time when little boys ought to 
 be going to sleep. Absurd parodies of ancient 
 rhymes were invented on the spot and sung in 
 primitive harmony. Altogether in a prim row they 
 stood — Jimmy, Anthony, Tom, and the babe who 
 could only just stand. Then Jimmy said " One — 
 two — three — all together — ^go 
 
 ' Come, butter and bread. 
 Let us stand on our head. 
 And be blovved to the apple-pie ! 
 For every cup 
 Is filled right uj> 
 And the kettle sings merril-y.' " 
 
 240
 
 Many ticklings and beatings and flinging of pillows 
 on the part of Jimmy were countered by proofs of 
 the similarity between ties and telescopes and the 
 rumpling of hair newly brushed for dinner-time. 
 Then again, to see a man, by repute your venerable 
 uncle, five foot eleven or so in height, dressed in a 
 well-remembered skirt belonging to your mother, 
 with her best hat poised dizzily on his head, was 
 not conducive to the demure state demanded by 
 the best nurses at seven o'clock in the evening. 
 
 Later on he would be standing silent and still 
 by the edge of the lawn, waiting in the twilight — 
 the slow succession of veil on filmy veil falling 
 about the trees. And across the turf the pea- 
 fowl came, daintily, on each footfall lingering, 
 towards the big oak where they roosted : one 
 behind the other, faint shadows, slow, proceeding, 
 the iridescence of their glorious colouring lost in 
 the dusk. . . . 
 
 The influence of Kimberdown had come com- 
 pletely to its own again. 
 
 241
 
 XXI 
 
 It was very well to be wise after the event, but 
 Jimmy decided that the next main occurrence in 
 his life, simple as it was and ugly, came hardly 
 uncalculated. Throughout his time at Kimber- 
 down, he had felt that he was waiting, or so it 
 seemed to him now. Someone aimed a blow at 
 one's head and one avoided it : the next time 
 one failed to avoid it and there came the inevitable 
 and surprising shock. Yes : the shock was in- 
 evitable and so was the surprise, and yet at the 
 same time one was only waiting for it. Some- 
 thing of that kind had happened, and when the 
 blow got through one's guard, one ought to be able 
 to stand up and philosophise about it, saying : 
 " Yes, it was bound to come sooner or later, and 
 now here it is and the effect is exactly what I 
 expected. There is a sensation of greatly exag- 
 gerated tingling in my nose, and intermingled with 
 it an extremely violent kind of aching — ^the com- 
 bined effect representing what I understand by 
 the word pain. I knew this was coming, therefore 
 
 242
 
 I am not surprised." Nevertheless one was sur- 
 prised. The blow invariably contained some 
 quality of force and skill unaccounted for in 
 prospect by the imagination. 
 
 Blanche's letter came as Jimmy and Everard 
 were starting out for a day in the market town. 
 They were just about to leave the house after an 
 early breakfast when the post was brought. 
 
 That was the only letter for Jimmy and he 
 opened it indifferently with an unstruck match, 
 waiting thus long to light his pipe. . . . 
 
 He was harder now than he had been for a year 
 or more. He folded the letter again and put it 
 in his pocket and then lit the match that all the 
 while he had been holding. Yet he must have 
 shown some sign, for Everard, rising from the 
 table, stared rather closely. 
 
 " Anything wrong, Jimmy ? " There was some- 
 thing more than ordinarily affectionate in his tone. 
 
 Jimmy pretended for a moment to be occupied 
 with his pipe. 
 
 " I can't come with you this morning. I must 
 think it out. We'll — have a talk — later on." 
 
 " All right," said Everard, with a compassionate 
 glance, and moved away at once. 
 
 Blanche wrote — and her lack of sincerity vied 
 with her lack of originality — that she was sorry to 
 cause him any pain, but she had come to the 
 
 248
 
 conclusion that she could not live with him any 
 longer, that she loved Loftie Hutton and had 
 always done so. She had made the greatest mis- 
 take in supposing that she ever could do without 
 him. She might as well o^vn that she had been 
 intimate with Loftie years ago before ever she 
 went out to Egypt and met Colonel Stamoulis. 
 She would have married him then, but for worldly 
 objections connected with Button's family which 
 at the time seemed to be insuperable. She was well 
 aware that Jimmy and she were hopelessly unsuited 
 to each other, with which view Jimmy must agree 
 when he came to think it over. There was also 
 some small tribute to his patience and forbearance. 
 There was no reference to the supper party. 
 
 So now there were various things to do and these 
 must be thought out quietly, safe from interrup- 
 tion. Nobody must know yet — not till he was 
 ready. Above all Honor must not see him. The 
 letter in his pocket — might she not guess that it 
 was there ? Such a letter as that — could she not 
 see it through the cloth ? He must get out of the 
 dining-room before she came down. There was a 
 large cup of tea by his plate. Had he poured it 
 out ? Must have. Very curious. He drank it. 
 It was very hot so that he could only have poured 
 it out a few moments ago. 
 
 Honor must know sooner or later, but he could 
 
 244
 
 not bear to face her yet. There were wheels on the 
 drive ; the lad was bringing round the dogcart 
 to the door. That accounted for Everard. He 
 himself must hurry away from the house or he 
 would be caught by the children or their mother. 
 Yet it was difficult to make up his mind to go. 
 Then there was the sound of Everard driving away 
 and shouts to him from the nursery window and 
 — where was Jimmy ? Why wasn't Jimmy with 
 him ? 
 
 Then at last he slipped away through the long 
 open window, on to the terrace, through the 
 pergola and so on into the wild, bramble grown 
 copse beneath the orchard. 
 
 He knew that Honor wouldn't say " I told you 
 so," but he believed that it be left only unsaid. 
 He winced at the thought of a better worldly 
 wisdom, thwarted for a long time and then moder- 
 ately, silently and in the best of taste, triumphant. 
 Even yet he did not know his sister. . . . 
 
 He had reached the bank on the far side of the 
 little wood now. Before him a field sloped sharply 
 down towards a stream, now but a thinning trickle 
 in the depths of a narrow gully of dry, yellowish 
 earth. A few yards away under a young ash a 
 brown mare stood, all dappled with shifting light 
 and purple shadow. As he moved he heard the 
 frightened drumming of rabbits in their burrow. 
 
 245
 
 A big carrion crow loudly cawed and flapped 
 heavily from a high Scotch fir overhead. It was 
 already growing hot. . . . 
 
 So she belonged to Hutton, did she ? Had 
 always done so ? Who had known that ? 
 Johnson, for one. 
 
 He had said as much or as good as said it at 
 the very first — in the lounge there, at the hotel 
 in Athens. Jimmy had only been thinking of 
 what he said the other day. Oh, yes — and not 
 Johnson only. There must have been talk at the 
 time and some of it was remembered. Her people 
 were dead — had been years before. But she had 
 no relations and no old friends — that was why* 
 And the supper party— the audacity of it. She 
 had told them that she had met Hutton before, 
 without turning a hair. Ah, Hutton had been 
 uncomfortable. He had not wanted to join the 
 party. And it was he and his self-consciousness 
 that had loomed through the meal as a menace 
 to the others' gaiety, counteracted only by the 
 wine. Jimmy had always thought that some- 
 thing was wrong, apart from what happened 
 towards the end of the meal. But it hadn't troubled 
 Blanche. 
 
 And then there had been the reaction to intense 
 respectability, and Blanche couldn't bear to 
 countenance the fact of any irregularity. And 
 
 246
 
 then — ^then at some point in the game not pre- 
 sently to be decided she had changed round again, 
 and whatever she had done she had, since the 
 night at Adrian's, ceased to pretend. 
 
 About Hutton. He had avoided Jimmy. He 
 had been embarrassed when he met him, not him- 
 self at all. Small wonder. Yes — ^there were the 
 elements of a kind of honesty about that. He had 
 been friends with Jimmy in the past, but he had 
 tried, as far as possible, to annul the old intimacy. 
 
 And so he had got Blanche back again after all 
 — all that had happened in between. And now 
 there were the two of them, Loftus Hutton and 
 himself, Jimmy Guise, out in the open, as it were, 
 with things to be said and done. 
 
 What a hopeless day it was for this kind of 
 thinking. A violent thunderstorm, torrential rains 
 would have helped him ; even a colourless, sodden, 
 miserable day. But the fleckless sky of perfect 
 English summer hung serene over a happy world 
 of early green and gaiety. 
 
 . . . Honour — his personal and private honour. 
 That was the thing people used to talk of on 
 occasions like this — or was it only in books ? His 
 honour was besmirched. Hutton ought to be shot 
 — or he ought. It was a purely personal matter 
 and should be settled personally. He should find 
 
 247
 
 the man and slash him across the face with his 
 stick, force him to fight ; or go for him with his 
 hands, his thumbs embedded in that scraggy throat. 
 
 Then there was the legal remedy— that would 
 appeal to Hutton. He was accustomed to respect 
 it. But was he, James Guise, to accept the law 
 and respect the law and kiss the skirt of the law 
 in order to drag his name ? — No. That sort of 
 talk would hardly do : it was scarcely appropriate, 
 the history of the marriage being what it was. 
 Certainly he had offered Stamoulis the opportunity 
 of revenging himself and the Greek with charac- 
 teristic cynicism (or was it merely cowardice ? 
 Couldn't say) had excused him the ordeal. 
 
 But Hutton — Lord ! What a child he was to 
 be saying this nonsense to himself. Honour, his 
 honour, Stamoulis' honour. Words, silly words, 
 theatrical. The brain was crammed with stock 
 properties in high-sounding verbiage to be re- 
 membered and used at the correct moment. The 
 brain did no work, it just emptied out a shelf. 
 So simple and easy. When somebody died, it 
 flung down the ready exclamation suitable for the 
 kind of person and the sort of death. How shock- 
 ing — so sad, but perhaps it's for the best. And 
 the right felicitations upon marriages and births 
 and a successful gamble in foreign railways. And 
 now when someone ran off with your wife— honour, 
 
 248
 
 platitudes about stains and names. Who was he 
 to talk of names ? 
 
 It was strange, though, how cold he felt about 
 it all. He had always let Blanche do what she 
 liked, had always implicitly trusted her. He had 
 never known the least twinge of jealousy. So 
 many people he had met had shown that form of 
 fear one way or another. He had pitied them. 
 Everard — good old chap that he was — was quite 
 absurd without the slightest cause. No one could 
 be more whole-heartedly and obviously content 
 with her husband and her husband alone than 
 Honor, and while the question of trust in so happy 
 a life had never entered in, Everard was never 
 really at ease when some old flame of his wife's 
 girlhood, or mention — which was the smoke — of 
 an old flame was made. 
 
 People had said that all intense passion was 
 intertwisted with a streak of jealousy : that there 
 was ever the longing for the completest, absolute, 
 most enduring possession and a sort of knowledge 
 hidden deep away in tortured hearts that such 
 possession was impossible, and that the knowledge 
 hid the fear which was known by another name. 
 But he had never thought of great, overwhelming 
 and noble passion in regard to himself. The basis 
 of the affair was good fellowship, he had said. 
 He had never pretended that there was anything 
 
 249
 
 sacred — never for long : he did not suppose him- 
 self capable of it, despite his habit of beautiful 
 make-believe. So he had never been jealous, and 
 — he was not jealous now. The kind of man who 
 tortures himself with the physical jealousy born 
 of imagination could never have done what he 
 had done in the beginning at Athens. 
 
 It was not until this moment that he knew what 
 had happened when, his whole mind aflame, he 
 had told Blanche about the supper party. She 
 had laughed at him for his pains, she was really 
 and heartily amused. He hadn't appreciated that 
 at first — he had felt the shock of it, but he hadn't 
 perceived what it meant. She had thrown his 
 deepest shame and remorse back again in his face. 
 Had she so much as an inkling of what he had 
 suffered in the past ? Was she wholly light or 
 wholly evil ? She had laughed, it had been the 
 best of jokes. The idea of anyone suffering for 
 an action of that sort was irresistibly amusing — 
 oh — immensely funny. She wasn't going to waste 
 her time troubling about her own actions. She 
 would, whenever possible, evade all unpleasant 
 consequences, or in any case for as long as possible 
 put off an evil day. So long as there was plenty 
 of money and good food and costly amusement — 
 and clothes — and cushions — she'd look after her- 
 self, would Blanche. Trust her for that. 
 
 250
 
 Despite his almost bucolic health, his life of 
 hard handiwork, his vision was truer now than it 
 had ever been, his sense of perspective surer. He 
 felt that he ought in a way to be jealous of Hutton, 
 but he was not. And the reason was that, after 
 all his self-hypnotism in that respect and others, 
 he did not any longer pretend that he cared for 
 Blanche. He had admitted, even on that first 
 night after the visit to Adrian, that for one 
 illumined instant she had appeared hateful to him. 
 He had tried to close his eyes since then, but the 
 ugly truth had forced its way again. 
 
 He saw too that the potentiality for disliking 
 Blanche must ever have been latent in him, not 
 because she had run away with him from another 
 and miserable marriage, but because in this way 
 she was associated with all old inherited prejudices 
 and religious condemnations. Jimmy was not a 
 man who could happily strike out a line for him- 
 self and abide by it satisfied. The sheltering 
 groove of old conventions saved so much trouble 
 and anxiety. If only — he had often said — if only 
 his could have been an ordinary, normal, English 
 love affair — love affair ! 
 
 So that was safely arrived at. Blanche had 
 gone away with another man — she had doubt- 
 less been in the habit of meeting him at Mrs. 
 Paige-Morgan's house in the country. She had 
 
 251
 
 gone away and there was none of the agony that 
 he felt ought to be there. The man had been an 
 old friend and for the life of him he could not 
 work up any passionate hatred for him. He had 
 not played the sneak-thief, had not abused his 
 salt. Hutton's conduct was no whit worse, how- 
 ever fondly he may have coloured his own actions, 
 than Jimmy's in Greece. 
 
 And yet there was something about Hutton at 
 the back of his mind . . . something before all 
 this to-day. Not the supper party either, nor 
 his consideration of the man's coldness and 
 formality. There was a word he had been think- 
 ing of just now — jealousy : not long ago he had 
 been — he hadn't known it then — jealous of Hutton 
 in a curious, retrospective, unreasonable fashion. 
 He hardly dared to say it to himself now, but his 
 whole candid heart, once the plunge was made, 
 was seeking for every vestige of the truth. Mrs. 
 Hazard — yes, " One of the Longridge Huttons " 
 she had said and sneered at Adrian. Hutton had 
 wanted to marry Jessie Carruthers. 
 
 Jimmy did not arrive at these conclusions by 
 the process of clear and continuous thinking, but 
 the answers seemed to be forced upon him from 
 without in the midst of a tangle of distraught 
 visions. 
 
 Then at last he began to see things as they were. 
 
 252
 
 So the majesty of the law should be admitted 
 and should take its course. It was a loathsome 
 prospect, and there was Honor to think of. Men's 
 sisters were not usually much considered at such 
 times, but Honor was on a different plane and he 
 had realised that fact overwhelmingly in that far- 
 away happy time last year . . . could there ever 
 be times like that again ? Why should there not 
 be happy times ? Had he not been happy lately 
 — happier than ever ? He wondered at liimself 
 for this sudden and, it seemed, almost grotesque 
 hopefulness. He found liimself thinking again of 
 the work he might do, usefully and enjoyably. 
 Why not ? Why had he gone to the New Depart- 
 ment ? Certainly there was always the feeling 
 that it could not last for ever, but why had he 
 so far wasted time ? Because they must be in 
 London — simply ; because Blanche must be enter- 
 tained and amused and in touch with people that 
 she liked. There was no other reason for it at all. 
 
 Then suddenly, though without shock, came a 
 full realisation of the truth. He must have known 
 from the beginning, from the moment when he 
 read the letter by the breakfast table, but his old 
 habit of mind had asserted itself. Now he could 
 see and go on seeing with vision from moment to 
 moment clearer. Why should he not be happy ? 
 The past was done with — or would be soon — 
 
 253
 
 because it was opened out. And the very agony 
 of that nakedness once it was faced and endured 
 made sure the future. Everyone would know and, 
 granting that handicap, he could start afresh. 
 Now that he saw it like that, he wondered amazedly 
 why he had not foreseen this inevitable ending. 
 
 . . . There would be no more licking of envelopes, 
 no more uneasy luxury mingled with wasted hours. 
 In his innermost heart he knew that, despite the 
 vile and ugly things with which he must be publicly 
 associated, he knew that the supremest happiness 
 was within his grasp. 
 
 He had thrown off the last fetter that bound his 
 soul. What a fool, what a gorgeous fool he was 
 for hesitating and moping and thinking. . . . The 
 very sky was shouting joy at him, the scented 
 warmth below whispered the secrets of forgotten 
 possibilities. He knew now what had happened. 
 He was free — free — free : free to work, and free 
 to play and free to love. . . . 
 
 . . . There, they had found him at last. He 
 heard about it afterwards — ^there had been a Jimmy 
 hunt all the morning. Anthony and Tom had 
 caught a glimpse of him in the distance amongst 
 the leaves and were stalking him, bare-legged, 
 with wooden swords and feet lifted high in elaborate 
 precaution. Should he snub them ? Should he 
 
 254
 
 be serious and overwhelming and say that he was 
 busv and had too much to think about and could 
 not play ? 
 
 Free — free. . . . 
 
 " Surrender or you're a dead man. (Don't hold 
 your sword like that, stupid, or you'll cut your 
 fingers.) Do you surrender ? " 
 
 " No fear ! " said Jimmy, and began to run. 
 
 THE END
 
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