Mr. Satterthwaite was feeling old. That might not have been surprising
since, in the estimation of many people, he _was_ old. Careless
youths said to their partners, "Old Satterthwaite? Oh! he must be a
hundred--or at any rate about eighty." And even the kindest of girls
said indulgently, "Oh! Satterthwaite. Yes, he's quite old. He _must_ be
sixty." Which was almost worse, since he was sixty-nine.
In his own view, however, he was not old. Sixty-nine was an interesting
age--an age of infinite possibilities--an age when at last the
experience of a lifetime was beginning to tell. But to feel old--that
was different--a tired, discouraged state of mind when one was inclined
to ask oneself depressing questions. What was he, after all? A little
dried-up, elderly man, with neither chick nor child, with no human
belongings, only a valuable art collection which seemed at the moment
strangely unsatisfying. No one to care whether he lived or died--
At this point in his meditations Mr. Satterthwaite pulled himself up
short. What he was thinking was morbid and unprofitable. He knew well
enough, who better, that the chances were that a wife would have hated
him or, alternatively, that he would have hated her, that children
would have been a constant source of worry and anxiety and that demand
upon his time and affection would have worried him considerably.
To be safe and comfortable, said Mr. Satterthwaite firmly--that was the
thing.
The last thought reminded him of a letter he had received that
morning. He drew it from his pocket and reread it, savoring its
contents pleasurably. To begin with, it was from a duchess, and Mr.
Satterthwaite liked hearing from duchesses. It is true that the letter
began by demanding a large subscription for charity and but for that
would probably never have been written, but the terms in which it was
couched were so agreeable that Mr. Satterthwaite was able to gloss over
the first fact.
_So you've deserted the Riviera. What is this island of yours like?
Cheap? Cannotti put up his prices shamefully this year, and I
shan't go to the Riviera again. I might try your island next year
if you report favorably, though I should hate five days on a boat.
Still, anywhere you recommend is sure to be pretty comfortable--too
much so. You'll get to be one of those people who do nothing
but coddle themselves and think of their comfort. There's only
one thing that will save you, Satterthwaite, and that is your
inordinate interest in other people's affairs--_
As Mr. Satterthwaite folded the letter, a vision came up vividly
before him of the duchess. Her meannesses, her unexpected and alarming
kindness, her caustic tongue, her indomitable spirit.
Spirit! Everyone needed spirit. He drew out another letter with
a German stamp upon it--written by a young singer in whom he had
interested himself. It was a grateful, affectionate letter.
_How can I thank you, dear Mr. Satterthwaite? It seems too
wonderful to think that in a few days I shall be singing Isolde.--_
A pity that she was to make her debut as Isolde. A charming,
hard-working child, Olga, with a beautiful voice, but no temperament.
He hummed to himself. "_Nay, order him! Pray understand it! I command
it. I, Isolde._" No, the child hadn't got it in her--the spirit--the
indomitable will--all expressed in that final "_Ich, Isolde!_"
Well, at any rate he had done something for somebody. This island
depressed him--why, oh! why had he deserted the Riviera which he
knew so well, and where he was so well known? Nobody here took any
interest in him. Nobody seemed to realize that here was _the_ Mr.
Satterthwaite--the friend of duchesses and countesses and singers and
writers. No one in the island was of any social importance or of any
artistic importance either. Most people had been there seven, fourteen,
or twenty-one years running, and valued themselves and were valued
accordingly.
With a deep sigh Mr. Satterthwaite proceeded down from the hotel to
the small, straggling harbor below. His way lay along an avenue of
bougainvillea--a vivid mass of flaunting scarlet, that made him feel
older and grayer than ever.
"I'm getting old," he murmured. "I'm getting old and tired."
He was glad when he had passed the bougainvillea and was walking down
the white street with the blue sea at the end of it. A disreputable
dog was standing in the middle of the road, yawning and stretching
himself in the sun. Having prolonged his stretch to the utmost limits
of ecstasy, he sat down and treated himself to a really good scratch.
He then rose, shook himself, and looked round for any other good things
that life might have to offer.
There was a dump of rubbish by the side of the road and to this he went
sniffing in pleasurable anticipation. True enough, his nose had not
deceived him! A smell of such rich putrescence that it surpassed even
his anticipations! He sniffed with growing appreciation, then, suddenly
abandoning himself, he lay on his back and rolled frenziedly on the
delicious dump. Clearly the world this morning was a dog paradise!
Tiring at last, he regained his feet and strolled out once more
into the middle of the road. And then, without the least warning, a
ramshackle car careened wildly round the corner, caught him full and
square, and passed on unheeding.
The dog rose to his feet, stood a minute regarding Mr. Satterthwaite,
a vague dumb reproach in its eyes, then fell over. Mr. Satterthwaite
went up to him and bent down. The dog was dead. He went on his way,
wondering at the sadness and cruelty of life. What a queer dumb look
of reproach had been in the dog's eyes. "Oh! world," it seemed to say.
"Oh! Wonderful world in which I have trusted. Why have you done this
to me?"
Mr. Satterthwaite went on, past the palm trees and the straggling white
houses, past the black lava beach where the surf thundered and where
once, long ago, a well-known English swimmer had been carried out to
sea and drowned, past the rock pools where children and elderly ladies
bobbed up and down and called it bathing, along the steep road that
winds upward to the top of the cliff. For there on the edge of the
cliff was a house, appropriately named La Paz. A white house with faded
green shutters tightly closed, a tangled beautiful garden, and a walk
between cypress trees that led to a plateau on the edge of the cliff
where you looked down--down--down--to the deep blue sea below.
It was to this spot that Mr. Satterthwaite was bound. He had developed
a great love for the garden of La Paz. He had never entered the villa.
It seemed always to be empty. Manuel, the Spanish gardener, wished one
good morning with a flourish, and gallantly presented ladies with a
bouquet and gentlemen with a single flower as a buttonhole, his dark
face wreathed in smiles.
Sometimes Mr. Satterthwaite made up stories in his own mind about the
owner of the villa. His favorite was a Spanish dancer, once world-famed
for her beauty, who hid herself here so that the world should never
know that she was no longer beautiful.
He pictured her coming out of the house at dusk and walking through the
garden. Sometimes he was tempted to ask Manuel for the truth, but he
resisted the temptation. He preferred his fancies.
After exchanging a few words with Manuel and graciously accepting an
orange rosebud, Mr. Satterthwaite passed on down the cypress walk
to the sea. It was rather wonderful sitting there--on the edge of
nothing--with that sheer drop below one. It made him think of _Tristan
and Isolde_, of the beginning of the third act with Tristan and
Kurwenal--that lonely waiting, and of Isolde rushing up from the sea
and Tristan dying in her arms. (No, little Olga would never make an
Isolde. Isolde of Cornwall, that royal hater and royal lover--) He
shivered. He felt old, chilly, alone. What had he had out of life?
Nothing--nothing. Not as much as that dog in the street.
It was an unexpected sound that roused him from his reverie. Footsteps
coming along the cypress walk were inaudible; the first he knew of
somebody's presence was the English monosyllable "Damn."
He looked round to find a young man staring at him in obvious surprise
and disappointment. Mr. Satterthwaite recognized him at once as an
arrival of the day before who had more or less intrigued him. Mr.
Satterthwaite called him a young man--because in comparison to most of
the die-hards in the hotel he _was_ a young man, but he would certainly
never see forty again and was probably drawing appreciably near to
his half century. Yet, in spite of that, the term young man fitted
him--Mr. Satterthwaite was usually right about such things--there was
an impression of immaturity about him. As there is a touch of puppyhood
about many a full-grown dog, so it was with the stranger.
Mr. Satterthwaite thought, _This chap has really never grown up--not
properly, that is_.
And yet there was nothing Peter Pannish about him. He was sleek--almost
plump, he had the air of one who has always done himself exceedingly
well in the material sense and denied himself no pleasure or
satisfaction. He had brown eyes--rather round--fair hair turning
gray--a little mustache and rather a florid face.
The thing that had puzzled Mr. Satterthwaite was what had brought him
to the island. He could imagine him shooting things, hunting things,
playing polo or golf or tennis, making love to pretty women. But in
the island there was nothing to hunt or shoot, no games except golf
croquet, and the nearest approach to a pretty woman was represented by
elderly Miss Baba Kindersley. There were, of course, artists, to whom
the beauty of the scenery made appeal, but Mr. Satterthwaite was quite
certain that the young man was not an artist. He was clearly marked
with the stamp of the Philistine.
While he was revolving these things in his mind, the other spoke,
realizing somewhat belatedly that his single ejaculation so far might
be open to criticism.
"I beg your pardon," he said with some embarrassment. "As a matter of
fact, I was--well, startled. I didn't expect anyone to be here."
He smiled disarmingly. He had a charming smile--friendly--appealing.
"It is rather a lonely spot," agreed Mr. Satterthwaite, and he moved
politely a little farther up the bench. The other accepted the mute
invitation and sat down.
"I don't know about lonely," he said. "There always seems to be
_someone_ here."
There was a tinge of latent resentment in his voice. Mr. Satterthwaite
wondered why. He read the other as a friendly soul. Why this insistence
on solitude? A rendezvous, perhaps? No--not that. He looked again
with carefully veiled scrutiny at his companion. Where had he seen
that particular expression before quite lately? That look of dumb,
bewildered resentment.
"You've been up here before then?" said Mr. Satterthwaite, more for the
sake of saying something than for anything else.
"I was up here last night--after dinner."
"Really? I thought the gates were always locked."
There was a moment's pause and then, almost sullenly, the young man
said, "I climbed over the wall."
Mr. Satterthwaite looked at him with real attention now. He had a
sleuthlike habit of mind and he was aware that his companion had
only arrived on the preceding afternoon. He had had little time to
discover the beauties of the villa by daylight and he had so far
spoken to nobody. Yet after dark he had made straight for La Paz.
Why? Almost involuntarily Mr. Satterthwaite turned his head to look
at the green-shuttered villa, but it was as ever serenely lifeless,
close-shuttered. No, the solution of the mystery was not there.
"And you actually found someone here then?"
The other nodded. "Yes. Must have been from the other hotel. He had on
fancy dress."
"Fancy dress?"
"Yes. A kind of Harlequin rig."
"What?"
The query fairly burst from Mr. Satterthwaite's lips. His companion
turned to stare at him in surprise.
"They often do have fancy dress shows at the hotels, I suppose?"
"Oh! quite," said Mr. Satterthwaite. "Quite, quite, quite."
He paused breathlessly, then added, "You must excuse my excitement. Do
you happen to know anything about catalysis?"