I did not see Strickland for several weeks. I was disgusted with him,
and if I had had an opportunity should have been glad to tell him so,
but I saw no object in seeking him out for the purpose. I am a little
shy of any assumption of moral indignation; there is always in it an
element of self-satisfaction which makes it awkward to anyone who has a
sense of humour. It requires a very lively passion to steel me to my
own ridicule. There was a sardonic sincerity in Strickland which made
me sensitive to anything that might suggest a pose.
But one evening when I was passing along the Avenue de Clichy in front
of the café which Strickland frequented and which I now avoided, I ran
straight into him. He was accompanied by Blanche Stroeve, and they were
just going to Strickland’s favourite corner.
“Where the devil have you been all this time?” said he. “I thought you
must be away.”
His cordiality was proof that he knew I had no wish to speak to him. He
was not a man with whom it was worth while wasting politeness.
“No,” I said; “I haven’t been away.”
“Why haven’t you been here?”
“There are more cafés in Paris than one, at which to trifle away an
idle hour.”
Blanche then held out her hand and bade me good-evening. I do not know
why I had expected her to be somehow changed; she wore the same gray
dress that she wore so often, neat and becoming, and her brow was as
candid, her eyes as untroubled, as when I had been used to see her
occupied with her household duties in the studio.
“Come and have a game of chess,” said Strickland.
I do not know why at the moment I could think of no excuse. I followed
them rather sulkily to the table at which Strickland always sat, and he
called for the board and the chessmen. They both took the situation so
much as a matter of course that I felt it absurd to do otherwise. Mrs.
Stroeve watched the game with inscrutable face. She was silent, but she
had always been silent. I looked at her mouth for an expression that
could give me a clue to what she felt; I watched her eyes for some
tell-tale flash, some hint of dismay or bitterness; I scanned her brow
for any passing line that might indicate a settling emotion. Her face
was a mask that told nothing. Her hands lay on her lap motionless, one
in the other loosely clasped. I knew from what I had heard that she was
a woman of violent passions; and that injurious blow that she had given
Dirk, the man who had loved her so devotedly, betrayed a sudden temper
and a horrid cruelty. She had abandoned the safe shelter of her
husband’s protection and the comfortable ease of a well-provided
establishment for what she could not but see was an extreme hazard. It
showed an eagerness for adventure, a readiness for the hand-to-mouth,
which the care she took of her home and her love of good housewifery
made not a little remarkable. She must be a woman of complicated
character, and there was something dramatic in the contrast of that
with her demure appearance.
I was excited by the encounter, and my fancy worked busily while I
sought to concentrate myself on the game I was playing. I always tried
my best to beat Strickland, because he was a player who despised the
opponent he vanquished; his exultation in victory made defeat more
difficult to bear. On the other hand, if he was beaten he took it with
complete good-humour. He was a bad winner and a good loser. Those who
think that a man betrays his character nowhere more clearly than when
he is playing a game might on this draw subtle inferences.
When he had finished I called the waiter to pay for the drinks, and
left them. The meeting had been devoid of incident. No word had been
said to give me anything to think about, and any surmises I might make
were unwarranted. I was intrigued. I could not tell how they were
getting on. I would have given much to be a disembodied spirit so that
I could see them in the privacy of the studio and hear what they talked
about. I had not the smallest indication on which to let my imagination
work.