VIII

Severn agreed with me that he was ill. I had a short but amazing

conversation with him as we stood at the bureau counter to settle our

respective bills. He began immediately: "Look here, Hilton, has it ever

struck you that our friend's not quite himself at times?"

"You mean Terry?"

"Yes. I don't lay claim to be a mental expert, but I reckon I can see

trouble when it's staring me in the face.... It struck me he might have

been overworking--I'm told Karelsky's rather a slave-driver--and then

with this affair on top of it all.... Of course it's all perfectly

stupid and none of his business, but then how can you argue with a man

whose eyes keep on telling you that he's trembling on the brink of the

beyond? ... That's a fact--I'm not exaggerating. He was like that with

me this morning when you left us--I felt I _had_ to humour him, or else

he might have gone right off his head there and then.... And, as it

happens, it doesn't particularly matter to me whether I go back now or

next week, as I had intended."

So _that_ was what had happened. Terry _hadn't_ really conquered, and

Severn _hadn't_ really given in.... I said: "And when you get to England

I suppose you'll carry out your original intentions?"

He shrugged his shoulders and replied that he didn't really know what he

should do. It all depended on Helen. If she wanted her freedom she'd

have to have it. There wasn't much fun in staying with a woman who

didn't want you, was there? It was a pity, he said, that there had been

this meeting--it would have been far better if we had waited until the

sensational news came in the Sunday papers--if it ever did. "You don't

suppose I'd do all this without good reasons, do you? The only thing I

didn't bargain for was a meeting with a mad missionary. Yes, I mean

that. And the trouble is that I like him too much to be able to tell him

to go to the devil.... As a matter of fact, the thing's damned serious,

by the look of it. What he wants is rest--absolute rest--for weeks and

months--otherwise there's going to be a serious smash-up. Know what I

mean?"

I said I thought I did, and he relapsed into his semi-facetious humour.

"Thank heaven," he said, "that Madame presents no problem. Dear, kind

creature--she will be delighted to go back to Bukarest for a slightly

larger sum than she charged me for bringing her away.... What a pity we

cannot settle everything in life by money!"

Nothing of all this surprised me. It was plausibility itself compared

with the theory that Terry had persuaded Severn by some miracle of

eloquence or importunity.

Those few remaining hours in Buda-Pesth stay in my memory with

nightmarish vividness. The heat--the dust--the smells of cooking;

_Blattae Orientales_ playing hide-and-seek on the floor; porters

sweating and straining under loads of luggage; the Vienna train at the

platform like a row of sweltering ovens, reeking with paprika and human

bodies and half-molten varnish. Shade temperature in the

station--thirty-four Centigrade.... And over and around the torture of

it was the tragic atmosphere of illusion--Terry thinking all the time

that he had really convinced and converted Severn, and Severn, on his

side, having no suspicion of the Terry-Helen episode. Their crumpled

heat-soaked unawareness was an infinitely pathetic thing.

Only Severn was cheerful. He talked to us endlessly, and without getting

much in the way of answers, for even to open one's mouth to speak a

single word was to cause an extra bead of perspiration to trickle

disagreeably down one's forehead. But Severn seemed not to care, and

when we reached Vienna, with a few hours' interval before the departure

of the Paris express from another station, it was perhaps inevitable

that he should take command. He knew Vienna well (what city _didn't_ he

know well?) and I rather wished he were staying on with us. Even the

night was almost unbearably warm, and with sure instinct he led us to

the cool Rathaus-Keller and ordered iced drinks. Terry spoke hardly at

all, and neither did I; the ordeal of the train-journey had been too

much for us. But Severn, of all the men I ever met, was the most

impervious to physical surroundings; neither heat, nor train-journeys,

nor even all-night sittings at the House could disturb that marvellous

equanimity. He seemed, indeed, as he sat there in the Rathaus-Keller

with his tankard of lager before him, a lithe and entrancingly-mannered

boy; and even the stories he told of his life in Vienna twenty years

before did not take away from him that extraordinary air of

youthfulness. He had spent a year in the city, he said, picking up the

language and having a good time. He had _lived_, and his eyes, seeing

again the old familiar scenes, shone with it. This Rathaus-Keller--what

times he had had there! ... And then on the wall he caught sight of an

advertisement of a variety-show at Ronacher's, and it reminded him of

the old Ronacher's, where he had seen Rannin, the Cingalese with the

Iron Skin, who had climbed a ladder of sword-blades barefoot, and the

Chevalier Cliquot, whose pastime had been to swallow twenty-two-inch

cavalry sabres, and the Human Ostrich, and Madame Elise, the Parisian

Strong Lady, and the rest of them.... Ah, those old days! ...

But the time drew near for the departure of the Paris train. The holiday

season was at its height, and when we reached the East Station we found

it packed with tourists bound for the Tyrol. Severn had not reserved a

seat, and for a few moments it seemed doubtful whether he would even

secure a cramped position in a first-class compartment. A berth in the

_wagon-lit_ was out of the question; all had been reserved weeks before.

It was then, faced with these unexpected privations, that he suggested

staying in Vienna till the morning train, which would probably be less

crowded. "Supposing," he said, "we look in at Ronacher's, and then I'll

take you the round of the sights--the Prater's rather worth seeing after

midnight...."

"Mizzi could probably give him a room," I whispered to Terry. The

postponement of the journey until the morning seemed to me perfectly

reasonable, apart from the attractiveness of the alternative programme

that Severn had sketched out.

But Terry said: "You promised you would get back at the very earliest

moment you could, didn't you?"

And Severn then, with his most charming smile, replied: "I _did_, Terry,

and I'll keep my word.... Perhaps there'll be more room on the train the

other side of Innsbrück. Anyhow, don't wait for it to go out--it'll

probably be hours late. And besides, I'm just as anxious really to get

comfortable in my seat as you are to go back to your hotel....

Ronacher's and the rest will do the next time we are all of us here

together...." (But there hasn't been, so far, and probably never will

be, a next time.)

I liked him at that last moment more, I think, than I had ever done

before. It's true, though odd perhaps, that it's not the big things that

people do that win your heart to them, but often the very smallest. And

so it is that all the big important things that Severn had done to help

me hadn't made me like him so much as this gay, almost nonchalant

farewell, and the thought I had of him sweltering the night through in a

packed train, and then sweltering through the next day and the night

after that--and all for no other reason than to help Terry. His last

words, as he shook hands with me, were: "Ring me up as soon as you get

back to town, and we'll fix up a lunch together."

There was a curious sadness after we had left him, and the warm streets

were full of it. We strolled back to the Laudon Gasse with hardly a word

between us. I wondered what Mizzi would say to our unexpected return,

but she wasn't there when we arrived and the hall-porter told us she

probably wouldn't be back until late.