We understood. He had told us practically everything, and what little he
hadn't told us we could guess. Never had the whole interview seemed more
pointless than at the end of his explanations; there was simply nothing
to be done or said. Except--and it was a slight exception--the matter of
Bentley. Severn, most probably, had no idea that he had been seen by
anyone who knew him besides ourselves, and I let him know as plainly as
I could that whether Helen chose to divorce him or not, his adventures
were very likely to trickle across to England through the medium of
Bentley's chatter. "And then," I said, "you know as well as I do what
will happen."
"Of course," he answered, almost carelessly. "It will mean the end of my
political career--perhaps even the end of my legal career as well,
though I rather doubt that. But, anyhow, do you think I haven't counted
the cost?" His voice became eager as he went on: "My dear fellow, I've
counted _all_ the costs, and my favourite maxim still holds--I'll do
what I _want_ to do. I've climbed the ladder because I've enjoyed
climbing it, but if the price of staying on top is too high, then damn
it all, I'll come down again.... I'll take risks--I'll live
dangerously--I'll do any damned thing in the world except be a
slave--even to my career!"
Deadlock--complete and absolute. He had his reasons for everything, and
most of what he said, whether it convinced or not, was logically
unanswerable. I was tired of the whole business, and Terry's silence
seemed to show that he was the same. The one thing desirable was to get
him away from the brain-twisting intricacies of a situation which had
nothing to do with him.
But just then he spoke. He turned to me and asked me very calmly if I
would mind if he and Severn were to speak alone for a few minutes. And
before I could reply he went on: "Wait for me--in the hall. I won't be
long.... And you might--if there's time--look up the return trains to
Vienna...."
V
_If there were time_! There was almost time to memorize the whole
time-table while I waited for him. I sat in the coolest corner of the
hall and tried to interest myself in a month-old copy of _Lustige
Blätter_--the only non-Magyar newspaper on the premises. But it was
difficult--as difficult as it is to appreciate the comic papers in a
dentist's waiting-room. When a quarter of an hour passed and Terry
didn't return, I began to reproach myself with having left him at all;
and then, as a relief from that, I tried to analyse, in the perspective
of seven years, that early episode with Helen that had so vitally
affected his life. What, exactly, _had_ happened between the two of
them? ...
The clock chiming the hour drove me back again from past to present.
There seemed something ominous in his non-appearance--a hint of
something terrible that might be happening behind the screened door of
the lounge. What might not such a man as Severn do with such a man as
Terry? ... The minutes drew towards the half-hour, and I think I should
have boldly walked into the lounge when the clock struck, had not Terry,
a minute earlier, come out to me--alone. His face was paler than ever,
and his eyes--his eyes were just what I didn't like to see. It angered
me to think of the strain that all this incessant listening and thinking
and arguing was putting on him; it gave me a furious, unreasoning anger
with Severn and Helen and Terry himself and the world in general.
His first words were an eager, disjointed apology for having kept me
waiting longer than he had intended; and I replied, with perhaps a touch
of curtness: "There's a fast train to Vienna at four this afternoon.
Shall we go back?"