Nevertheless, lofty as these flights were, they had a little lost their

thrill for Amory. She had heard them so very, very often. She had

trembled in the taxi in vain if _this_ was all that her stealthy coming

to the "Novum's" offices meant. Nor had she put on her new sea-holly

velvet to be told, however eloquently, that Wilkinson and Brimby were

minor lights when compared with Edgar and herself, and that the "Times"

was always wrong. Perhaps the figures that Edgar had thrust under

her nose as if he had been clapping a muzzle on her meant something

to the right person, but they meant nothing to Amory, and she didn't

pretend they did. They were man's business; woman's was "visualizing."

The two businesses, when you came to think of it, _were_ separate and

distinct. Whoever heard of a man wrapping himself up in a carpet and

being carried by Nubians into his mistress's presence? Whoever heard

of a man's face launching as much as an upriver punt, let alone fleets

and fleets of full-sized ships? And whoever heard of the compelling

beauty of a man's eyes, as he lay on a sofa with one satiny upper-arm

upraised, simply making--making--a woman come and kiss him?... It was

ridiculous. Amory saw now. Even Joan of Arc must have put on her

armour, not so much because of all the chopping and banging of maces

and things (which must have been very noisy), but more with the idea of

_inspiring_.... Yes, inspiring: that was it. There _was_ a difference.

Why, even physically women and men were not the same, and mentally they

were just as different. For example, Amory herself wouldn't have liked

to blow anybody from the mouth of a gun, but she wasn't sure sometimes

that Edgar wouldn't positively enjoy it. He had that hard eye, and

square head, and capacity for figures....

She wasn't sure that her heart didn't go out to him all the more

because of that puzzle of noughts and dots and rupees he had thrust

into her hands....

And so, as he continued (so to speak) to gain time by paying in

pennies, and to keep an ear disengaged for the passage, it came about

that Edgar Strong actually overshot himself. The more technical and

masculine he became, the more Amory felt that it was fitting and

feminine in her not to bother with these things at all, but just to go

on inspiring. She still kept her eyes bent over the column of figures,

but she was visualizing again. She was visualizing the Channel steamer,

and the Latin Quarter, and satiny upper-arms. And the taxi-tremor had

returned....

Suddenly she looked softly yet daringly up. She felt that she must be

Indian--yet not too Indian.

"And then there's suttee," she said in a low voice.

"Eh?" said Strong. He seemed to scent danger. "Abolished," he said

shortly.

But here Amory was actually able to tell Edgar Strong something. She

happened to have been reading about suttee in a feminist paper only a

day or two before. No doubt Edgar read nothing but figures and grey

oblongs.

"Oh, no," she said softly but with a knowledge of her ground. "That is,

I know it's prohibited, but there was a case only a little while ago. I

read it in the 'Vaward.' And it was awful, but splendid, too. She was a

young widow, and I'm sure she had a lovely face, because she'd such a

noble soul.--Don't you think they often go together?"

But Edgar did not reply. He had walked to a little shelf full of

reference books and books for review, and was turning over pages.

"And the whole village was there," Amory continued, "and she walked to

the pyre herself, and said good-bye to all her relatives, and then----"

Edgar shut his book with a slap.--"Abolished in 1829," he said. "It's a

criminal offence under the Code."

Amory smiled tenderly. Abolished!... Dear, fellow, to think that

in such matters he should imagine that his offences and Codes

could make any difference! Of course the "Vaward" had made a mere

Suffrage argument out of the thing, but to Amory it had just showed

how cruel and magnificent and voluptuous and grim the East could be

when it really tried.... And then all at once Amory thought, not of

any particular poem she had ever read, but what a ripping thing it

would be to be able to write poetry, and to say all those things

that would have been rather silly in prose, and to put heaps of

gorgeous images in, like the many-breasted what-was-her-name, and

Thingummy--what-did-they-call-him--the god with all those arms. And

there would be carpets and things too, and limbs, not plaster ones,

but flesh and blood ones, as Edgar said his own were, and--and--and

oh, stacks of material! The rhymes might be a bit hard, of course, and

perhaps after all it might be better to leave poetry to somebody else,

and to concentrate all her energies on inspiring, as Beatrice inspired

Dante, and Laura Petrarch, and that other woman Camoens, and Jenny

Rossetti, and Vittoria Colonna Michael Angelo. She might even inspire

Edgar to write poetry. And she would be careful to keep the verses out

of Cosimo's way....

"Abolished!" she smiled in gay yet mournful mockery, and also with

a touch both of reproach and of disdain in her look.... "Oh well, I

suppose men think so...."

But at this he rounded just as suddenly on her as he had done when he

had told her that she ought not to have come to the office. Perhaps

he felt that he was losing ground again. You may be sure that Edgar

Strong, actor, had never had to work as hard for his money as he had to

work that afternoon.

"Amory!" he called imperiously. "I tell you it won't do--not at this

juncture! I'd just begun to find a kind of drug in my work; I've locked

myself up here; and now you come and undo it all again with a look! I

see we must have this out. Let me think."

He began to pace the floor.

When he did speak again, his phrases came in detached jerks. He kept

looking sharply up and then digging his chin into his red tie again.

"It was different before," he said. "It might have been all right

before. We were free then--in a way. It was different in every way....

(Mind your dress in that tea).... But we can't do anything now. Not

at present. There's this crisis. That's suddenly sprung upon us.

There's got to be somebody at the wheel--the 'Novum's' wheel, I mean.

I hate talking about my duty, but you've read the 'Times' there. The

'Times' is always wrong, and if we desert our posts the whole game's

up--U. P. Prang's no good here. Prang can't be trusted at a pinch. And

Wilkinson's no better. Neither of 'em any good in an emergency. Weak

man at bottom, Wilkinson--the weakness of violence--effeminate, like

these, strongword poets. We can't rely on Wilkinson and Prang. And who

is there left? Eh?"

But he did not wait for an answer.

"Starving thousands, and no Imperial Grant." His voice grew passionate.

"Imperial Grant must be pressed for without delay. What's to happen to

the Real Empire if you and I put our private joys first? Eh? Answer

me.... There they are, paying in pennies--and us dallying here.... No.

Dash it all, no. May be good enough for some of these tame males, but

it's a bit below a man. I won't--not now. Not at present. It would be

selfish. They've trusted me, and----," a shrug. "No. That's flat. I

see _my_ nights being spent over figures and telegrams and all that

sort of thing for some time to come.... Don't think I've forgotten. I

understand perfectly. I suppose that sooner or later it _will_ have to

be the Continent and so on--but not until this job's settled. Not till

then. Everything else--everything--has got to stand down. You do see,

don't you, Amory? I hope you do."

As he had talked there had come over Amory a sense of what his love

must be if nothing but his relentless sense of duty could frustrate

it even for a day. And that was more thrilling than all the rest put

together. It lifted their whole relation exactly where she had tried

to put it without knowing how to put it there--into the regions of the

heroic. Not that Edgar put on any frills about it. On the contrary.

He was simple and plain and straight. And how perfectly right he

was! Naturally, since the "Times" and its servile following of the

capitalist Press would not help, Edgar had to all intents and purposes

the whole of India to carry on his shoulders. It was exactly like that

jolly thing of Lovelace's, about somebody not loving somebody so much

if he didn't love Honour more. He did love her so much, and he had

as much as said that there would be plenty of time to talk about the

Continent later. Besides, his dear, rough, unaffected way of calling

this heroic work his "job!" It was just as if one of those knights of

old had called slaying dragons and delivering the oppressed his "job!"

Amory was exalted as she had never been exalted. She turned to him

where he stood on the hearth, and laved him with a fond and exultant

look.

"I see," she said bravely. "I was wretchedly selfish. But remember,

won't you, when you're fighting this great battle against all those

odds, and saying all those lovely things to the Indians, and getting

their confidence, and just showing all those other people how stupid

they are, that _I_ didn't stop you, dear! I know it would be beastly of

me to stop you! I shouldn't be worthy of you.... But I think you ought

to appoint a Committee or something, and have the meetings reported in

the 'Novum,' and I'm sure Cosimo wouldn't grudge the money. Oh, how I

wish I could help!----"

But he did not say, as she had half hoped he would say, that she did

help, by inspiring. Instead, he held out his hand. As she took it in

both of hers she wondered what she ought to do with it. If it had been

his foot, and he had been the old-fashioned sort of knight, she could

have fastened a spur on it. Or she might have belted a sword about

her waist. But to have filled his fountain-pen, which was his real

weapon, would have been rather stupid.... He was leading her, ever so

sympathetically, to the door. He opened it, took from it the notice

that had kept Mr. Prang away, and stood with her on the landing.

"Good-bye," she said.

He glanced over his shoulder, and then almost hurt her hands, he

gripped them so hard.

"Good-bye," he said, his eyes looking into hers. "You _do_ understand,

don't you, Amory?"

"Yes, Edgar."

Even then he seemed loth to part from her. He accompanied her to the

top of the stairs.--"You'll let me know when you're coming again,

won't, you?" he asked.

"Yes. Good-bye."

And she tore herself away.

At the first turning of the stairs Amory stood aside to allow a rather

untidy young woman to pass. This young woman had a long bare neck that

reminded Amory of an artist's model, and her hands were thrust into

the fore-pockets of a brown knitted coat. She was whistling, but she

stopped when she saw Amory.

"Do you know whether Mr. Dickinson, the poster artist, is up here?" she

asked.

"The next floor, I think," Amory replied.

"Thanks," said the girl, and passed up.

IV

THE OUTSIDERS

"No, not this week," Dorothy said. "Dot wrote a fortnight ago. This

one's from Mollie. (You remember Mollie, Katie? She came to that funny

little place we had on Cheyne Walk once, but of course she was only

about twelve then. She's nearly nineteen now, and so tall! They've just

gone to Kohat).--Shall I read it, auntie?"

And she read:--

"'I'm afraid I wrote you a hatefully skimpy letter last time--,'"

h'm, we can skip that; here's where they started: "'It was the

beastliest journey that I ever made. To begin with, we were the

eighteenth tonga that day, so we got tired and wretched ponies; we

had one pair for fifteen miles and couldn't get another pair for

love or money. We left Murree at two o'clock and got to Pindi at

nine. The dust was ghastly. Mercifully Baba slept like a lump in

our arms from five till nine, so he was all right. We had from nine

till one to wait in Pindi Station, and had dinner, and Baba had a

wash and clean-up and a bottle, and we got on board the train and

off. Baba's cot, etc.; and we settled down for the night. Nurse and

Baba and Mary and I were in one carriage and Jim next door. I slept

beautifully till one o'clock, and then I woke and stayed awake.

The bumping was terrific, and it made me so angry to look down on

the others and see them fast asleep! I had an upper berth. Baba

slept from eleven-thirty till six-thirty! So we had no trouble at

all with him----

"Well, and so they got to Kohat. (I hope this isn't boring you, Katie.)"

"'It was most beautifully cool and fresh, and we had the mess tonga

and drove to the bungalow. The flowering shrubs here would delight

Auntie Grace. I've fallen in love with a bush of hibiscus in the

compound, but find it won't live in water, but droops directly one

picks it. The trees are mostly the palmy kind, and so green, and

the ranges of hills behind are exactly like the Red Sea ranges.

The outside of our bungalow is covered with purple convolvulus,

and the verandah goes practically all round it. Jim's room is just

like him--heads he's shot, study, dressing-room, and workshop, all

in one, and it's quite the fullest room in the house. Beyond that

there's my room, looking out over the Sinai Range----'

"Then there are the drawing and dining-rooms----"

"'The curtains are a pale terra-cotta pink over the door and dark

green in the bay-windows, with white net in front. The drawing-room

is all green. The durrie (that's the carpet) is green, with a

darker border, and the sofa and chairs and mantelpiece-cover and

the screen behind the sofa all green. There's another bay-window,

with far curtains of green and the near ones chintz, an awfully

pretty cream spotted net with a green hem let in. That makes three

lots, two in the window itself and a third on a pole where the arch

comes into the room. Then over the three doors there are chintz

curtains, cream, with a big pattern of pink and green and blue,

just like Harrods' catalogue----'

"Can't you _see_ it all!--H'm, h'm!... Then on the Sunday morning they

got the mess tonga and went out to Dhoda, with butterfly-nets, and Jim

went fishing--h'm, h'm--and she says--

"'It's just like the Old Testament; I shouldn't have been in the

least surprised to meet Abraham and Jacob. It's the flatness

of it, and the flocks and herds. There are women with pitchers

on their heads, and a man was making scores of bricks with mud

and straw--exactly like the pictures of the Children of Israel

in "_Line upon Line_." And about a hundred horses and mules and

donkeys and carts all stopped at midday, because it was so hot,

and it was just what I'd always imagined Jacob doing. But inside

cantonments it isn't a bit Biblical, but rather too civilized, etc.'

("Isn't Katie patient, listening to all this, auntie!")

"'But you can't go far afield at Kohat. At Murree you could always

get a three or four mile walk round Pindi Point, but here it's

just to the Club and back. We go to the Central Godown and the

Fancy Godown to shop. The Central is groceries, and the Fancy

toothpowder, Scrubb's Ammonia, etc. On Saturday they were afraid

Captain Horrocks had smallpox, and so we all got vaccinated, but

now that we've all taken beautifully it seems it isn't smallpox

after all, and we've all got swelled arms, but Captain Horrocks is

off the sick-list to-morrow. Colonel Wade is smaller than ever.

Mrs. Wade is coming out by the "Rewa." Mrs. Beecher came to tea on

Sunday----'

("Is that _our_ Mrs. Beecher, when Uncle Dick was at Chatham,

auntie?")--

"'--and I forgot to say that Dot's parrots stood the journey

awfully well, but they've got at the loquat trees and destroyed all

the young shoots. Jim saw us safely in and is now off on his Indus

trip. The 56th are going in March, and the 53rd come instead. I'm

sure the new baby's a little darling; what are you going to call

him?----'

"And so on. I _do_ think she writes such good letters. Now let's have

yours, Aunt Grace (and that really _will_ be the end, Katie)."

And Lady Tasker's letters also were "put in."

* * * * *

It was a Sunday afternoon, at Cromwell Gardens. Stan was away with his

film company for the week-end, and Dorothy had got Katie to stay with

her during his absence and had proposed a call on Lady Tasker. They had

brought the third Bit with them, and he now slept in one of the cots

upstairs. Lady Tasker sat with her crochet at the great first-floor

window that looked over its balcony out along the Brompton Road. On

the left stretched the long and grey and red and niched and statued

façade of the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the failing of the

western flush was leaving the sky chill and sharp as steel and the wide

traffic-polished road almost of the same colour. Inside the lofty room

was the still glow of a perfect "toasting-fire," and Lady Tasker had

just asked Katie to be so good as to put more coal on before it sank

too low.

Katie Deedes had made no scruple whatever about changing her coat in

more senses of the words than one. She had bought a navy-blue costume

and a new toque (with a wing in it), and since then had got into the

way of expressing her doubts whether Britomart Belchamber's hockey legs

and Dawn of Freedom eye were in the truest sense feminine. Nay, that

is altogether to understate the change in Katie. She had now no doubt

about these things whatever. As Saul became Paul, so Katie now not

only reviled that which she had cast off, but was even prepared, like

the Apostle at Antioch, to withstand the older Peters of Imperialism

to their faces, did she detect the least sign of temporizing in them.

And this treason had involved the final giving-way of every one of her

old associates. She was all for guns and grim measures; and while she

looked fondly on Boy Scouts in the streets and talked about "the thin

end of the wedge of Conscription," she scowled on the dusky-skinned

sojourners within London's gates, and advocated wholesale deportations.

And in all this Katie Deedes was only returning to her own fold, though

her people were not soldiers, but lawyers. For the matter of that,

her father's cousin was a very august personage indeed, for whose

comfort, when he travelled, highly-placed railway officials made

themselves personally responsible, and whose solemn progress to Assize

was snapshotted for the illustrated papers and thrown on five hundred

cinema screens. In the past Katie had been privileged to call this

kingpost of the Law "Uncle Joe."...

And then Mr. Strong had got hold of her....

And after Mr. Strong, Mr. Wilkinson....

And according to Mr. Wilkinson, the most ferocious of the

hanging-judges had been a beaming humanitarian by comparison with Sir

Joseph. Mr. Wilkinson had the whole of Sir Joseph's career at his

fingers' ends: the So-and-So judgment--this or that flagrant summing

up--the other deliberate and wicked misdirection to the jury. Sir

Joseph's heart was black, his law bunkum, and he had only got where he

was by self-advertisement and picking the brains of men a hundred times

fitter for heaven than himself....

Therefore Katie, hearing this horrible tale, had quailed, and had

straightway given away this devil who was the sinister glory of her

house. She had agreed that he was a man whom anybody might righteously

have shot on sight, and had gathered her Greenaway garments about her

whenever she had passed within a mile of Sir Joseph's door....

But now he was "Uncle Joe" again, and--well, it must have been rather

funny. For Katie's impressionable conscience had given her no rest day

or night until she had sought Uncle Joe out and had made a clean breast

of it all before him. Katie had fancied she had seen something like

a twinkle in those sinful old eyes, but (this was when she mentioned

the name of the "Novum") the twinkle had vanished again. Oh, yes, Sir

Joseph, had heard of the "Novum." Didn't a Mr. Prang write for it?...

And thereupon Katie had given Mr. Prang away too....

But in the end Sir Joseph had forgiven her, and had told her that

she had better not be either a revolutionary, nor yet the kind of

Conservative that is only a revolutionary turned inside-out, but just

a good little girl, and had asked her how she was getting on, and why

she hadn't been to see her Aunt Anne, and whether she would like some

tickets for a Needlework Exhibition; and now she was just beginning to

forget that he had ever been anything but "Uncle Joe," who had given

her toys at Christmas, and Sunday tickets for the Zoo whenever she had

wanted to go there on that particularly crowded day.

Dorothy had had something of this in her mind when she had brought

Katie to Cromwell Gardens that Sunday afternoon. From Katie's new

attitude to her own Ludlow project was not so far as it seemed. If she

could lead the zealous 'vert to such promising general topics as Boy

Scouts, Compulsory Service, and the preparation of boys for the Army

(topics that Katie constantly brought forward by denunciation of their

opposites), her scheme would certainly not suffer, and might even be

advanced.

And, as it happened, no sooner had Dorothy tucked her last letter back

into its envelope than Katie broke out--earnestly, proselytizingly, and

very prettily on the stump.

"There you are!" she exclaimed. "That's all _exactly_ what I mean!

Why, any one of those letters ought to be enough to convince anybody!

Here are all these stupid people at home, ready to believe everything

a native tells them, going on as they do, and hardly one of them's

ever set foot out of England in his life! Of course the Indians know

exactly what _they_ want, but don't you see, Dorothy--," very patiently

she explained it for fear Dorothy should not see, "--don't you see

that it's all so much a matter of course to Mollie and those that they

can actually write whole letters about window-curtains! I _love_ that

about the window-curtains! It's all such an old story to _them_! They

_know_, you see, and haven't got to be talking about it all the time in

order to persuade themselves! There it _is_!--But these other people

don't know anything at all. They don't even see what a perfect answer

window-curtains are to them! They go on and on and on--you _do_ see

what I mean, Dorothy?----"

"Yes, dear," said Dorothy, mildly thinking of the great number of

people there were in the world who would take no end of trouble to

explain things to her. "Go on."

And Katie continued to urge upon her friend the argument that those

know most about a country who know most about it.

Katie had got to the stage of being almost sure that she remembered

Mollie's coming into the studio in Cheyne Walk one day, when Lady

Tasker, who had not spoken, suddenly looked up from her crochet and

said, "Look, Dorothy--that's the girl I was speaking about--coming

along past the Museum there."

Dorothy rose and walked to the window.--"Where?" she said.

"Passing the policeman now."

Dorothy gave a sudden exclamation.--"Why," she exclaimed, "--come here,

Katie, quick--it's Amory Towers!--It is Amory, isn't it?"

Katie had run to the window, too. The two women stood watching the

figure in the mushroom-white hat and the glaucous blue velvet that

idled forlornly along the pavement.

"Do you mean Mrs. Pratt?" said Lady Tasker, putting up her glass again.

"Are you quite sure?"

* * * * *

Once before in her life, in the days before her marriage, Amory

Towers had done the same thing that she was doing now. Then, seeking

something, perhaps a refuge from herself, she had walked the streets

until she was ready to drop with fatigue, watching faces passing,

passing, for ever passing, and slowly gathering from them a hypnotic

stupor. Sometimes, for hour after hour, she had seen nothing but

eyes--eyes various in shape and colour as the pebbles on a beach,

sometimes looking into hers, sometimes looking past her, sometimes

tipped with arrow-heads of white as they turned, sometimes only to be

seen under their lids as a finger-nail is seen within the finger of a

glove. And at other times, weary of her fellow-beings and ceasing to

look any more at them, she had seen nothing but doors and windows, or

fan-lights, or the numbers of houses, or window-boxes, or the patterns

of railings, or the serried shapes of chimneys against the sky. She

had been looking, and yet not looking, for Cosimo Pratt then; she was

looking, and yet not looking, for Edgar Strong now. Had she met him she

had nothing new to say to him; she only knew that he had taken weak

possession of her mind. She was looking for him in South Kensington

because he had once told her, when asked suddenly, that he lived in

Sydney Street, S. W., and frequently walked to the Indian section of

the Imperial Institute in order to penetrate into the real soul of a

people through its art; and she was not looking for him, because one

day she had remembered that he had said before that he lived in South

Kentish Town--which was rather like South Kensington, but not the

same--and something deep down within her told her that the other was a

lie.

But yet her feet dragged her to the quarter, as to other quarters, and

she talked to herself as she walked. She told herself that her husband

did not understand her, and that it would be romantic and silencing

did she take a lover to her arms; and she could have wept that, of all

the flagrant splendours of which she dreamed, London's grey should

remain her only share. And she knew that the attendants of the Imperial

Institute had begun to look at her. Once she had spoken to one of them,

but when she had thought of asking him whether he knew a Mr. Strong who

came there to study Indian Art, her heart had suddenly failed her, and

the question had stayed unspoken. Nevertheless, she had feared that

the man had guessed her thought, and must be taking stock of her face

against some contingency (to visualize which passed the heavy time on)

that had a Divorce Court in it, and hotel porters and chambermaids who

gave evidence, and the Channel boat, and two forsaken children, and

grimy raptures in the Latin Quarter, and its hectic cafés at night....

And so she walked, feeling herself special and strange and frightened

and half-resolved; and thrice in as many weeks Lady Tasker, sitting

with her crochet at her window, had seen her pass, but had not been

able to believe that this was the woman, with a husband and children,

on whom she had once called at that house with the secretive privet

hedge away in Hampstead.

* * * * *

"It _is_ Amory!" Dorothy exclaimed. "Is she coming here?"

Lady Tasker spoke reflectively.--"I don't know. I don't think so.

But--will you fetch her in? I should like to see her."

"If you like, auntie," said Dorothy, though a little reluctantly.

But Lady Tasker seemed to change her mind. She laid down her crochet

and rose.

"No, never mind," she said. "I'll fetch her myself."

And the old lady of seventy passed slowly out of the room, and Katie

and Dorothy moved away from the window.

Lady Tasker was back again in five minutes, but no Amory came with

her. She walked back to her chair, moved it, and took up her work

again.--"Switch the table light on," she said.

"Was it Amory?" Dorothy ventured to ask after a silence.

"Yes," Lady Tasker replied.

"And wouldn't she come in?"

"She said she was hurrying back home."

That raised a question so plain that Dorothy thought it tactful to make

rather a fuss about finding some album or other that should convince

Katie that she really had met the Mollie who had written the letter

about the window-curtains. Lady Tasker's needle was dancing rather more

quickly than usual. Dorothy found her album, switched on another light,

and told Katie to make room for her on her chair.

Amory, dawdling like that, and then, when spoken to, to have the face

to say that she was hurrying back home!----

It was some minutes later that Lady Tasker said off-handedly, "Has she

any children besides those twins?"

"Amory?" Dorothy replied, looking up from the album. "No."

"How old is she?" Lady Tasker asked.

"Thirty-two, isn't she, Katie?"

"About that."

"Is she very--athletic?" Lady Tasker next wanted to know.

"Not at all, I should say."

"I mean she doesn't go in for marathon races or Channel swimming or

anything of that kind?"

"Amory? No," said Dorothy, puzzled.

"And you're sure of her age?" the old lady persisted.

"Well--she may only be thirty-one."

"I don't mean is she younger. Is she _older_ than that?"

"No--I know by my own age."

"H'm!" said Lady Tasker; and again her needle danced....

Dorothy was explaining to Katie that Mollie was fair, about her own

colour, but of course the hair never came out right in a photograph,

when Lady Tasker suddenly began a further series of questions.

"Dorothy----"

"Yes?"

"Did she--develop--early?"

"Who--Amory? I don't know. Did she, Katie? Of course she was quite the

cleverest girl at the McGrath."

"Ah!... What did she do at the McGrath?"

"Why, painted. You're awfully mysterious, auntie! It was soon after

she left the McGrath that she painted 'Barrage'--you've heard of her

feminist picture that made such a stir!"

"Ah, yes. Yes. I didn't see it, but I did hear about it. I don't know

anything about art.--Had she any affair before she married young Pratt?"

"No. I'm sure of that. I knew her so well." Dorothy was quite confident

on that point, and Katie agreed. Lady Tasker's questions continued.

And then, suddenly, into this apparently aimless catechism the word

"doctor" came. Dorothy gave a start.

"Aunt Grace!... Do you mean Amory's ill?" she cried.

Lady Tasker did not look up from her crochet.--"Ill?" she said. "I've

no reason to suppose so. I didn't say she was ill. There's no illness

about it.... By the way, I don't think I've asked how Stan is."

But for the curiously persistent questions, Dorothy might have

seized the opportunity to hint that Stan was made for something more

nationally useful than getting himself black and blue by stopping

runaway horses for the film or running the risk of double pneumonia by

being fished out of the sea on a January day--which was the form his

bread-winning was taking on that particular week-end. But the Ludlow

design was for the moment forgotten. She would have liked to ask her

aunt straight out what she really meant, but feared to be rude. So she

turned to the album again, and again Katie, turning from turban to

staff-cap and from staff-cap to pith helmet, urged that _those_ were

the people who really knew what they were talking about--surely Dorothy

saw _that_!----

Then, in the middle of Dorothy's bewilderment, once more the

questions.... About that painting of her friend's, Lady Tasker wanted

to know: did Mrs. Pratt get any real satisfaction out of it?--Any

emotional satisfaction?--Was she entirely wrapped up in it?--Or was it

just a sort of hitting at the air?--Did it exhaust her to no purpose,

or was it really worth something when it was done?----

"If Dorothy doesn't know, surely you do, Katie."

Katie coloured a little.--"I liked 'Barrage' awfully at the time," she

confessed, "but--," and she cheered up again, "--I _hate_ it now."

"But did her work--what's the expression?--fill her life?"

Here Dorothy answered for Katie.--"I think she rather liked the fame

part of it," she said slowly.

"Does she paint now?"

"Very little, I think, Lady Tasker."

"Has her children to look after, I suppose?"

"Well--she has both a nurse and a governess----"

"They're quite well off, aren't they? I seem to remember that Pratt

came into quite a lot."

"They seem to spend a great deal."

"But that's only a small house of theirs?"

"Oh, yes, they're rather proud of that. They don't spend their money

selfishly. It goes to the Cause, you see."

"What Cause?" Lady Tasker asked abruptly.

This was Katie's cue....

She ceased, and Lady Tasker muttered something. It sounded rather

like "H'm! Too much money and not enough to do!" but neither of her

companions was near enough to be quite sure.

And thereupon the questions stopped.

But a surmise of their drift had begun to dawn glimmeringly upon

Dorothy. She ceased to hear the exposition of Imperialism's real needs

into which Katie presently launched, and fell into a meditation. And

of that meditation this was about the length and breadth:--

Until the law should allow a man to have more wives than one (if then),

of course only one woman in the world could be perfectly happy--the

woman who had Stan. That conviction came first, and last, and ran

throughout her meditation. And of what Dorothy might compassionately

have called secondary happinesses she had hitherto not thought very

much. She had merely thanked her stars that she had not married a man

like Cosimo, had once or twice rather resented Amory's well-meant but

left-handed kindnesses, and that had been the extent of her concern

about the Pratt household. But first Katie, and now her aunt, had set

her wondering hard enough about that household now.

What, she asked herself, had the Pratts married on? What discoveries

had they made in one another, what resources found within themselves?

Apart from their talks and books and meetings and "interests" and that

full pack of their theories, what _was_ their marriage? Thrown alone

together for an hour, did they fret? Did their yawning cease when the

bell rang and a caller was admitted? Did even the same succession of

callers become stale and a bore, so that strangers had to be sought to

provide a stimulus? And did they call these and half a hundred other

forms of mutual boredom by the rather resounding names that blabbing

Katie had repeated to her--"wider interests," "the broad outlook," "the

breaking down of personal insularity," and the rest?

And for once Dorothy dropped her excusatory attitude towards her

friend. She dropped it so completely that by and by she found herself

wondering whether Amory would have married Cosimo had he been a poor

man. She was aware that, stated in that way, it sounded hideous; nor

did she quite mean that perhaps Amory had married Cosimo simply and

solely because he _had_ not been poor; no doubt Amory had assumed

other things to be equal that as a matter of fact had unfortunately

proved to be not equal at all; but she _did_ doubt now whether Amory

had not missed that something, that something made of so many things,

that caused her own heart suddenly to gush out to the absent Stan. The

thought frightened her a little. Had Amory married and had babies--all,

as it were, beside the mark?...

Dorothy did not know.

But an obscurer hint still had seemed to lie behind her aunt's

persistent questions. "Was Amory ill?" she herself had asked in alarm

when that unexpected word "doctor" had been quietly dropped; and "Ill?

I didn't say she was ill; there's no illness about it," Lady Tasker had

replied. No illness about what? Apparently about something Lady Tasker

saw, or thought she saw, in Amory.... An old lady whose years had

earned her the right to sit comfortably in her chair had gone so far

as to descend the stairs and go out into the street to have a closer

look at a young one: why? Why ask "Is she a Channel swimmer?" and "Is

her painting a mere hitting of the air?" Why this insistence on some

satisfaction for labour, as if without that satisfaction the labour

wreaked on the labourer some sort of revenge? What sort of a revenge?

And why on Amory?

Yes, Dorothy would have liked to ask her aunt a good many questions....

She did not know that Lady Tasker could not have answered them. She did

not know that the whole world is waiting for precisely those replies.

She did not know that the data of a great experiment have not yet begun

to be gathered together. She did not know that, while she and Stan

would never see the results of that experiment, little Noel and the

other Bits, and Corin and Bonniebell might. She only knew that her aunt

was a wise and experienced woman, with an appetite for life and all

belonging to it that only grew the stronger as her remaining years drew

in, and that apparently Lady Tasker found something to question, if not

to fear.

"Is she a Channel swimmer? Does she get any emotional satisfaction out

of what she does?"

They were oddly precise questions....

Much less odd was that homely summing-up of Lady Tasker's: "Too much

money, and not enough to do."...

Dorothy had often thought that herself.

V

"HOUSE FULL"

The gate in the privet hedge of The Witan had had little rest all the

afternoon. It was a Sunday, the one following that on which Lady Tasker

had issued bareheaded from her door, had crossed the road, and had

caused Amory to start half out of her skin by suddenly speaking to her.

The Wyrons had come in the morning; they had been expressly asked to

lunch; but it was known that Dickie Lemesurier was coming in afterwards

to discuss an advertisement, and if Dickie came the chances were that

Mr. Brimby would not be very long after her. As a matter of fact Dickie

and Mr. Brimby had encountered one another outside and had arrived

together at a little after three, bringing three young men, friends

of Mr. Brimby's still at Oxford, with them. These young men wore

Norfolk jackets, gold-pinned polo-collars, black brogues and turned-up

trousers; and apparently they had hesitated to take Cosimo at his word

about "spreading themselves about anywhere," for they stood shoulder

to shoulder in the studio, and when one turned to look at a picture or

other object on the wall, all did so. Then, not many minutes later, Mr.

Wilkinson had entered, in his double-breasted blue reefer, bringing

with him a stunted, bow-legged man who did not carry, but looked as

if he ought to have carried, a miner's lamp; and by half-past four, of

The Witan's habitués, only Mr. Prang and Edgar Strong were lacking. But

Edgar was coming. It had been found impossible, or at any rate Amory

had decided that it was impossible, to discuss the question of Dickie's

advertisement without him. But he was very late.

When Britomart Belchamber came in simultaneously with the tea and the

twins at a little before five, the studio was full. The asbestos log

purred softly, and Mr. Brimby's three Oxford friends, glad perhaps of

something to do, walked here and there, each of them with a plate of

bread and butter in either hand, not realizing that at The Witan the

beautiful Chinese rule of politeness was always observed--"When the

stranger is in your melon-patch, be a little inattentive." Had Dickie

Lemesurier and Laura Wyron eaten half the white and brown that was

presented to them, they must have been seriously unwell. It was Cosimo,

grey-collared and with a claret-coloured velvet waistcoat showing under

his slackly-buttoned tweed jacket, who gave the young men the friendly

hint, "Everybody helps themselves here, my dear fellows." Then the

Norfolk jackets came together again, and presently their owners turned

with one accord to examine the hock and the top-side that hung on the

wall over the sofa.

Not so much a blending of voices as an incessant racket of emphatic

and independent pronouncements filled the studio. Walter Wyron had

fastened upon the man who looked as if he ought to have carried a

miner's lamp, and his forefinger was wagging like a gauge-needle as he

explained that one of his Lectures had been misrepresented, and that

he had _never_ taken up the position that a kind of Saturnalia should

be definitely state-established. He admitted, nevertheless, that the

question of such an establishment ought to be considered, like any

other question, on its merits, and that after that the argument should

be followed whithersoever it led.--Dickie Lemesurier, excessively

animated, and with the whites showing dancingly all round her pupils,

was talking Césanne and Van Gogh to Laura, and declaring that something

was "quite the" something or other.--Mr. Brimby's hand was fondling

Bonniebell's head while he deprecated the high degree of precision of

the modern rifle to Mr. Wilkinson. "If only it wasn't so ruthlessly

logical!" he was sighing. "If only it was subject to the slight organic

accident, to those beautiful adaptations of give-and-take that make

judgment harsh, and teach us that we ought never to condemn!"--Corin,

drawn by the word "gun," was demanding to be told whether that was

the gun that had been taken away from him.--And Britomart Belchamber,

indifferent alike to the glances of the Oxford men and their

trepidation in her presence, stood like a caryatid under a wall-bracket

with an ivy-green replica of Bastianini's Dante upon it.

"No, no, not for a moment, my dear sir!" Walter shouted to the man

who looked like (and was) a miner. "That is to ignore the context. I

admit I used the less-known Pompeian friezes as a rough illustration

of what I meant--but I did _not_ suggest that Waring & Gillow's should

put them on the market! What I did say was that we moderns must work

out our damnation on the same lines that the ancients did. Read your

Nietzsche, my good fellow, and see what _he_ says about the practical

serviceability of Excess! I contend that a kind of general _oubliance_,

say for three weeks in the year, to which everybody without exception

would have to conform (so that we shouldn't have the superior person

bringing things up against us afterwards)----"

"Ah doan't see how ye could mak' fowk----," the miner began, in an

accent that for a moment seemed to blast a hole clean through the

racket. But the hole closed up again.

"Ah, at present you don't," Walter cried. "The spade-work isn't done

yet. We need more education. But every new and great idea----"

But here an outburst from Mr. Wilkinson to Mr. Brimby drowned Walter's

voice. Mr. Wilkinson raised his clenched fist, but only for emphasis,

and not in order to strike Mr. Brimby.

"Stuff and nonsense! There you go, Brimby, trimming again. We've heard

all that: 'A great deal to be said on both sides,'"--(Mr. Wilkinson

all but mimicked Mr Brimby). "There isn't--not if you're going to

do anything! There's only one side. You've got to shoot or be shot.

I'm a shooter. Give me five hundred real men and plenty of barricade

stuff----"

"Oh, oh, oh, my dear friend!" Mr. Brimby protested. "Why, if your

principles were universally applied----"

"Who said anything about applying 'em universally? Hang your universal

applications! I'm talking about the Industrial Revolution. I'll tell

you what's the matter with you, Brimby: you don't like the sight of

blood. I'm not blaming you. Some men are like that. But it's in every

page of your writing. You've got a bloodless style. I don't mind

admitting that I liked some of your earlier work, while there still

seemed a chance of your making up your mind some day----"

But here Mr. Wilkinson in his turn was drowned, this time by an

incredulous laugh from Cosimo, who had joined Dickie and Laura.

"Van Gogh says _that_?" his voice mounted high. "Really? You're sure he

wasn't joking? Ha ha, ha ha!... But it's rather pathetic really. One

would think Amory'd never painted 'Barrage,' nor the 'White Slave,' nor

that--," he pointed to the unfinished canvas of "The Triumph of Humane

Government" on the wall. "By Jove, I must make an Appendix of that!...

Here--Walter!--Have you told him, Dickie?--Walter!----"

But Walter was now at deadly grips with the man who had forgotten his

miner's lamp.

"I tell you I never used Saturnalia in that sense at all!----"

But the miner stood his ground.

"Happen ye didn't, but I'll ask ye one question: Have ye ever been to

Blackpool of a August Bank Holiday?----"

"My good man, you talk as if I proposed to do something with the stroke

of a pen, to-morrow, before the world's ready for it----"

"Have ye ever been to Blackpool of a Bank Holiday?"

"What on earth has Blackpool to do with it?----"

"Well, we'll say Owdham Wakes week at t' Isle o' Man--Douglas----"

"Pooh! You've got hold of the wrong idea altogether! Do you know what

Saturnalia _means_?----"

"I know there's a man on Douglas Head, at twelve o'clock i' t' day, wi'

t' sun shining, going round wi' a stick an' prodding 'em up an' telling

'em to break away----"

"I shouldn't have thought anybody could have been so _incredibly_ slow

to grasp an idea--!" cried Walter, his hands aloft.

"Have--you--ever--been--to--Blackpool--when--t' Wakes--is on?"

Then Cosimo called again--

"Walter! I say! Come here!... Dickie's just told me something that

makes the '_Life and Work_' _rather_ necessary, I think!----"

And Walter turned his back on the miner and joined his wife and Dickie

and Cosimo.

Anybody who wasn't anybody might have supposed the noise to be a series

of wrangles, but of course it wasn't so at all really. Issues far too

weighty hung in the balance. It is all very well for people whose

mental range is limited by _matinées_ and Brooklands and the newest car

to talk in pleasant and unimpassioned voices, but what was going to

happen to Art unless Cosimo hurled himself and the '_Life and Work_'

against this heretic Van Gogh, and what was to become of England if

Walter allowed a pig-headed man who could say nothing but "Blackpool

Pier, Blackpool Pier," to shout him down, and what would happen to

Civilization if Mr. Wilkinson did not, figuratively speaking, take hold

of the dilettante Brimby and shake him as a terrier shakes a rat? No:

there would be time enough for empty politenesses when the battle was

won.

In the meantime, a mere nobody might have thought they were merely

excessively rude to one another.

Then began fresh combinations and permutations of the talk. Mr.

Wilkinson, whose square-cut pilot jacket somehow added to the

truculence of his appearance, planted himself firmly for conversation

before Dickie Lemesurier; the miner, whose head at a little distance

appeared bald, but on a closer view was seen to be covered with

football-cropped and plush-like bristles, nudged Cosimo's hip, to

attract his attention: and Walter Wyron sprang forward with a welcoming

"Hallo, Kaffinger!" as the door opened and two young McGrath students

were added to the crowd. For a minute no one voice preponderated in the

racket; it was--

"Hallo, Raff! Thought you weren't coming!"

"I want a gun!" (This from Corin.)

"My dear Corin" (this from Bonniebell), "Miss Belchamber's told you

over and over again guns are anti-social----"

"Anybody smoking? Well, I know they don't mind----"

"But, Miss Lemesurier, where a speaker reaches only a hundred or two,

the written word----"

"Ah, but the personal, magnetic thrill----" (This was in Dickie's

rather deep voice.)

Then Walter, to somebody else, not the miner--

"I should have thought _anybody_ would have known that when I said

Saturnalia I meant----"

"Where's Amory?"

"Sweet, in those little tunics!----"

"A subsidy from the State, of course----"

Then the miner, but not to Walter--

"I' t' daylight, proddin' 'em up wi' a stick--to say nowt o' Port

Skillian bathin'-place of a fine Sunda'----"

"That hoary old lie, that Socialism means sharing----"

"Oh, at any artists' colourman's----"

"No; it will probably be published privately----"

"Van Gogh----"

"Oh, you're _entirely_ wrong!----"

And then, in the middle of a sudden and mysterious lull, the man who

had come without his safety-lamp was heard addressing Cosimo again:--

"Well, what about t' new paaper? Owt settled yet?... Nay, ye needn't

look; Wilkinson telled me; it's all right; nowt 'at's said 'll go

beyond these fower walls. Wilkinson's gotten a rare list together,

names an' right, I can tell ye! But t' way I look at it is this----"

Cosimo looked blank.

"But, my dear--I'm afraid I didn't catch your name----," he said.

"Crabtree--Eli Crabtree. This is t' point I want to mak', mister. Ye

see, I can't put things grammar; but there's lots about 'at can; so

I thowt we'd get a sec'etary, an' I'd sit an' smoke whol' my thowts

come, and then I'd tell him t' tale. Ye see, ye want to go slap into t'

middle o' t' lives o' t' people. Now comin' up o' t' tram-top I bethowt

me of a champion series: '_Back to Back Houses I've Known_.' I'll bet a

crahn that wi' somb'dy to put it grammar for me----"

"My dear Crabtree, I'm afraid, don't you know, that there's been some

mistake----"

And at this point, everybody becoming conscious at the same moment that

they were listening, a fresh wave of sound flowed over the assembly;

and presently Mr. Wilkinson was seen to take Cosimo aside and to be

making the gestures of a man who is explaining some ridiculous mistake.

Then once more:--

"I beg your pardon--I thought you were Mrs. Pratt----"

"Put grammar--straight to fowk's hearts--sinks and slopstones an' all

t' lot----"

"No, Balliol----"

"But listen, Pratt, the way the mistake arose----"

"Ellen Key, of course----"

"The 'Times!'--As if the 'Times' wasn't _always_ wrong!----"

"There's a raucousness about her paint----"

"The Caxton Hall, at eight--do come!----"

"But we authors are so afraid of sentiment nowadays!----"

"Bombay, I think--or else Hyderabad----"

"Oh, he talks like a fool!----"

"Raff! Come here and recite '_The King is Duller_'----"

"But Love _is_ Law!----"

"Suspend our judgments until we've heard the other side----"

"Only water--but they couldn't break her spirit--she was out again in

three days----"

And again there came an unexpected lull.

This time it was broken by, perhaps not the loudest, but certainly

the most travelling voice yet--the voice of the caryatid beneath

the bracket with the bust upon it. Miss Belchamber was dressed in a

sleeveless surcoat chess-boarded with large black and white squares;

the skirt beneath it was of dark blue linen; and there were beards

of leather on her large brown brogues. One of the young Oxford men,

greatly daring, had approached her and asked her a question. She turned

slowly; she gave the young man the equal-soul-to-equal-soul look; and

then the apparatus of perfect voice-production was set in motion.

Easily and powerfully the air came from her magnificent chest, up the

splendid six-inch main of her throat, rang upon the hard anterior

portion of her palate, and was cut, as it were, to its proper length

and shaped into perfect enunciation by her red tongue and beautiful

white teeth.

"What?" she said.

The undergraduate fell a little back.

"Only--I only asked if you'd been to many theatres lately."

"Not any."

"Oh!... I--I suppose you know everybody here?"

"Yes."

"Do point them out to me!"

"That's Walter Wyron. That's Mrs. Wyron. That's Miss Lemesurier. I

don't know who the little man is. That's Mr. Wilkinson. My name's

Belchamber."

"Oh--I say--I mean, thanks awfully. We've heard of them all, of

course," the unhappy young man faltered.

"What?"

"All distinguished names, I mean."

"Of course."

"Rather!----"

And again everybody listened, became conscious of the fact, and broke

out anew.

But where all this time was Amory?

Demonstrably, exactly where she ought to have been--in her bedroom. She

was too dispirited to be accessible to the rational talk of others; she

did not feel that she had energy enough to be a source of illumination

herself; surely, then, merely because a lot of people, invited and

uninvited, chose to come to The Witan, she need not put herself out

to go and look after them. They might call themselves her "guests" if

they liked; Amory didn't care what form of words they employed; the

underlying reality remained--that she was intensely bored, and too

fundamentally polite to bore others by going down. Perhaps she would go

down when Edgar came. She had left word that she was to be informed of

his arrival. But he was very late.

Nevertheless, she knew that he would come. Lately she had grown a

little more perspicacious about that. It had dawned on her that,

everything else apart, she had some sort of hold on him through the

"Novum," and there had been a trace of command in her summons that he

was pretty sure not to disregard. No doubt he would try to get away

again almost directly, but she had arranged about that. She intended to

keep him to supper. Also the Wyrons. And Britomart Belchamber too would

be there. And of course Cosimo.

She moved restlessly between her narrow bed and the window, now

polishing her nails, now glancing at her hair in the glass. From the

window she could see over the privet hedge and down the road, but there

was no sign of Edgar yet. She looked at herself again in the glass,

without favour, and then sat down on the edge of her bed again.

Her meeting with Lady Tasker the week before had greatly unsettled

her. Very stupidly, she had quite forgotten that Lady Tasker lived in

Cromwell Gardens. She would have thought nothing at all of the meeting

had Lady Tasker had a hat on her head and gloves on her hands; she

would have set that down as an ordinary street-encounter; but Dorothy's

aunt had evidently seen her from some window, perhaps not for the first

time, and, if not for the first, very likely for the third or fourth or

fifth. In a word, Amory felt that she had been caught.

And, as she had been thinking of Edgar Strong at the moment when the

old lady's voice had startled her so, it was not beyond the bounds of

possibility that her start had seemed remarkable. Lady Tasker was so

very sharp.

At all events, even Edgar was not going to have everything all his own

way.

For she was sure now that she had the hold of the "Novum" on him, and

that that hold was not altogether the single-minded devotion to his

duty he had made it out to be on that day when she had last gone to the

office. Not that she thought too unkindly of him on that account. The

labourer, even in the field of Imperial Politics, is still worthy of

his hire, and poor Edgar, like the rest of the world, had to make the

best compromise he could between what he would have liked to do and

what circumstances actually permitted him to do. Of course he would be

anxious to keep his job. If he didn't keep it a worse man would get it,

and India would be no better off, but probably worse. She sighed that

all work should be subject to compromises of this kind. Edgar, in a

word, was no longer a hero to her, but, by his very weakness, something

a little nearer and dearer still.

But for all that she had not hesitated to use her "pull" in order to

get him to The Witan that day.

She saw him as she advanced to the glass again. He was nearly a

quarter of a mile down the road. She found a little secret delight in

watching his approach when he was unconscious of her watching. His

figure was still very small, and she indulged herself with a fancy,

closing her eyes for a moment in order to do so. Suppose he had been,

not approaching, but going away--then when she opened her eyes again

he would look smaller still.... She opened them, and experienced a

little thrill at seeing him nearer and plainer. She could distinguish

the red spot of his tie. Now he turned his head to look at some people

who passed. Now he stepped off the pavement to make room for somebody.

Now he was on the pavement again--now hidden by a tree--now once more

disclosed, and quite near----

She straightened herself, gave a last look into the glass, and

descended.

She met him in the hall. They shook hands, but did not speak. There was

no need for him to ask whether anybody had come; the babble of noise

could be plainly heard through the closed studio door. They walked

along the passage, descended the two steps into the garden, and reached

the studio.

Strong opened the door, and--

"_Ha, ha, ha!_ I shall tell them that at the Nursery!----"

"No--just living together----"

"Corin!--Corin!----"

"The eighteenth, at the Little Theatre----"

Then the voice of Mr. Crabtree vociferating to his friend Mr. Wilkinson.

"I thowt ye telled me 'at Pratt knew all about it----"

"One day in the High, just opposite Queens----"

"Not know the '_Internationale_'!--Debout, les damnés de la terre----!"

Next, sonorously, Miss Belchamber.

"Yes, I dance 'Rufty Tufty' and 'Catching of Quails'----"

"But my good chap, don't you see that the Referendum----"

"Oh, throw it down anywhere--on the hearth----"

"Really, the bosh he talks----"

"The Minority Report----"

"Corin!----"

"Plato----"

"Prang----"

Then, before anybody had had time to notice the entry of Amory and

Edgar Strong, an extraordinary, not to say a regrettable thing occurred.

Mr. Eli Crabtree had spent the last twenty minutes in going

deliberately from one person to another, often thrusting himself

unceremoniously between two people already engaged in conversation,

and in subjecting them to questionings that had become less and less

reticent the further he had passed round the room. And it appeared

that this collier who had forgotten his Davy had yet another lamp

with him--the lamp of his own narrow intelligence and inalienable,

if worthless, experience. By the help of that darkness within him

that he mistook for light, he had added inference to inference and

conclusion to conclusion. Cosimo--Wilkinson--Walter Wyron--Brimby--the

Balliol men--the young students of the McGrath--he had missed not one

of them; but none knew the portent of his tour of the studio until he

had reached the hearth again. Then he was seen to be standing with his

hands behind him, as if calmly summing them up.

"By--Gow!" he said half to himself, his football-cropped head moving

this way and that and his eyes blinking rapidly as he sought somebody

to address.

Then, all in a moment, he ceased his attempt to single out one more

than another, and was addressing them in the lump, for all the world

as if he had been allowed the entrée of the house, not as a high and

memorable privilege and in order that he might learn something he had

never suspected before, but as if, finding himself there, _he_ might as

well tell _them_ a thing or two while he was about it. And though his

astonishment at what he had seen might well have rendered him dumb, his

good temper did not for an instant forsake him.

"By--Gow!" he said again. "But this is a menagerie, an' reight!"

The instantaneous dead silence and turn of every head might have

disconcerted a prophet, but they made not the slightest impression on

Mr. Crabtree.

"It _is_ a menagerie!" he continued superbly. "Ding, if onnybody'd told

me I wadn't ha' believed 'em!--Let's see how monny of ye there is----"

And calmly he began to count them.

"Fowerteen--fifteen--sixteen countin' them two 'at's just come in

an' leavin' out t' barns. Sixteen of ye, grown men an' women, an'

not a single one of ye knows ye're born! Nay, it's cappin'!--Him wi'

his Salmagundys or whativver he calls 'em, an' niver been on Douglas

Head!--T' maister here, 'at doesn't know what a back-to-back is, I'se

warrant!--An' yon chap--," Mr. Crabtree's forefinger was straight as

a pistol between Mr. Brimby's eyes, "--'at says there's a deeal to be

said o' both sides an'll be having his pocket'-ankercher out in a

minute!--An' these young men thro' t' Collidge!--Nay, if it doesn't

beat all! I ne'er thowt to live to see t' day!----"

And he made a T-t-t-ing with his tongue on his palate, while his sharp

little eyes looked on them all with amusement and pity.

Out of the silence of consternation that had fallen on the studio

Walter Wyron was the first to come. He nudged Cosimo, as if to warn him

not to spoil everything, and then, with his hands deep in the pockets

of his knickers and an anticipatory relish on his face, said "I say,

old chap--make us a speech, won't you?"

But if Walter thought to take a rise out of Mr. Crabtree he was quite,

quite mistaken. With good-natured truculence the collier turned on him

also.

"A speech?" he said. "Well, I wasn't at t' back o' t' door when t'

speechifyin'-powers was given out; it wadn't be t' first time I'd made

a speech, nut by a mugfull. Mony's t' time they've put Eali Crabtree

o' t' table i' t' 'Arabian Horse' at Aberford an' called on him for a

speech. I'd sooner mak' a speech nor have a quart o' ale teamed down

my collar, an' that's all t' choice there is when t' lads begins to

get lively!... I don't suppose onny o' ye's ever been i' t' 'Arabian

Horse'? We owt to come, of a oppenin'-time of a Sunda' morning. Ye'd

see a bit o' life. Happen ye might ha' to get at t' back o' t' door--if

they started slinging pints about, that is--but it's all love, and

ye've got to do summat wi' it when ye can't sup onny more. I should

like to have him 'at talks about t' Paraphernalia there; it 'ld oppen

his eyes a bit! An' him 'at wor reciting about t' King an' all--t'

little bastard i' t' corner there----"

At this word, used in so familiar and cheerful a sense, Laura Wyron

stiffened and turned her back; but Walter still hoped for his "rise."

"Go on," he said; "give us some more, old chap."

The child of nature needed no urging.

"Ay, as much as ivver ye like," he said accommodatingly. "But I wish

I'd browt my voice jewjewbes. Ay, I willn't be t' only one 'at isn't

talking! T' rest on ye talks--ding, it's like a lamb's tail, waggin'

all day and nowt done at neet--so we mud as weel all be friendly-like!

Talk! Ay, let's have a talk! Here ye all are, all wi' your fine voices

an' fine clothes, an' ivvery one o' ye wi' t' conveeanience i' t'

house, I don't doubt, an' I'll bet a gallon there isn't one o' ye's

ivver done a hands-turn i' your lives! Nay, ye're waur nor my Aunt

Kate! Come down to Aberford an' I'll show ye summat! Come--it's a

invitaation--I'll see it doesn't cost ye nowt! T' lads is all working,

all but t' youngest, an' we're nooan wi' out! No, we're nooan wi'out at

our house! I'll interdewce ye to t' missis, an' ye can help her to peel

t' potates, an' ye can go down i' t' cage if ye like! Come, an' I'll

kill a pig, just for love. Come of a Sunda' dinnertime, when t' beef's

hot. Wilkinson knows what I mean; he knows t' life; he reckons not to

when he's wi' his fine friends, but Wilkie's had to lie i' bed while

his shirt was being mended afore to-day!... Nay, the hengments!" He

broke into a jovial laugh. "Ye know nowt about it, an' ye nivver will!

These 'ere young pistills fro' t' Collidge--what are they maalakin'

at? It doesn't tak' five thousand pound a year to learn a lad not to

write a mucky word on a wall!" (Here Dickie Lemesurier turned her back

on the speaker).... "They want to get back to their Collidges. T' gap's

ower wide. They'll get lost o' t' road. Same as him 'at wrote t' book

about t' pop-shop----," again Mr. Crabtree's forefinger was levelled

between Mr. Brimby's eyes. "Brimbyin' about, an' they don't know a

black puddin' from a Penny Duck! Has he ivver had to creep up again

t' chimley-wall to keep himself warm i' bed, or to pull t' kitchen

blinds down while he washed himself of a Saturda' afternooin? But ye

can all come an' see if ye like. We've had to tew for it, but we're

nooan wi'out now. An' I'll show ye a bit o' sport too. We all have we'r

whippets, an' we can clock t' pigeons in, an' see what sort of a bat

these young maisters can mak' at knurr-an'-spell--eighteen-and-a-half

score my youngest lad does! Ay, we enjoy we'rsens! An' there's quoits

an' all. Eighteen yards is my distance if onnybody wants to laake for

a beast's-heart supper! Come--ding it, t' lot o' ye come! We can sleep

fower o' ye, wed 'uns, heads to tails, if ye don't mind all being i' t'

little cham'er----"

By this time Mr. Crabtree was having to struggle to keep his audience.

Mr. Brimby too had turned away, and Mr. Wilkinson, and even Miss

Belchamber had spoken several words of her own accord to the young

Balliol boy. The tide of sound began to rise again, so that once more

Mr. Crabtree's voice was only one among many. Then Walter started

forward with an "Ah, Amory!" and "Hallo, Strong!" Mr. Raffinger of the

McGrath exclaimed....

"Perseverance Row, fower doors from t' 'Arabian Horse'----", Mr.

Crabtree bawled hospitably through the hubbub....

"Oh, you _must_ see it--the New Greek Society, on the seventeenth----"

"But I say--what _is_ 'Catching of Quails,' Miss Belchamber----?"

"Mr. Wilkinson brought him, I think----"

"Fellow of All Souls, wasn't he?----"

Then that genial Aberford man again:

"I tell ye t' gap's ower wide, young man--ye'll get lost o' t' road----"

"No, the children take her name----"

"Got a match, old fellow?----"

"Rot, my dear chap!----"

"But what _is_ condonation if that isn't?----"

"Oh, the ordinary brainless Army type----"

"I read it in the German----"

"They gained time by paying in pennies----"

"In Père Lachaise----"

"Well, we can talk about it at suppertime----"

"But with cheaper Divorce----"

"One an' all--whenivver ye like--Eali Crabtree, Perseverance Row,

Aberford, fower doors from t' 'Arabian Horse'----"

"Nietzsche----"

"Finot----"

"Weininger----"

"Wadham----"

"Aberford----"

"Rufty Tufty----"

VI

THE SOUL STORM

"I--_say_!----"

"_Wasn't_ he priceless!----"

"You got his address, Cosimo? I _must_ cultivate him!----"

"Pure delight!----"

"You had come in, hadn't you, Amory?----"

"He _shot_ Brimby!----"

"To all intents and purposes--with his finger----"

"Can you do his accent, Walter?----"

"I will in a week, or perish----"

"His bath in the kitchen!----"

"T' wed 'uns can sleep i' t' little chamber----"

"No--he didn't sound the 'b' in 'chamber,' and there were at least

three 'a's' in it----"

"'T' little chaaam'er'----"

"No, you haven't quite got it----"

"Give me a little time----"

The party had dwindled to six--Cosimo and Amory, the Wyrons, and

Britomart Belchamber and Mr. Strong. They were still in the studio, but

they were only waiting for the supper-gong to ring. Cigarette ends were

thickly strewn about the asbestos log. The bandying of short ecstatic

phrases had been between Walter and his wife, with Cosimo a little

less rapturously intervening; the subject of them was, of course,

Mr. Crabtree. To his general harangue Mr. Crabtree had added, before

leaving, more particular words of advice, making a second tour of the

studio for the purpose; and he had distinguished Walter above all the

rest by inviting him, not merely to the house four doors from the

"Arabian Horse," but to spend a warm afternoon with him on Douglas Head

also.

But the Wyrons had these raptures pretty much to themselves. Perhaps

Cosimo was thinking of Mr. Wilkinson, of some new paper of which he had

never heard, and of the assumption that he, apparently, was to find the

money for it. Miss Belchamber was rarely rapturous, so that her silence

was nothing out of the way. Edgar Strong could be rapturous when he

chose, but he evidently didn't choose now. And Amory had far too much

on her mind.

Her original idea in asking the Wyrons to stay to supper had been

that they, as acknowledged experts in the subject that perplexed her,

would be the proper people to keep the ring while the four persons

immediately concerned talked the whole situation quietly and reasonably

and thoroughly out. But she was rather inclined now to think again

before submitting her case to them. It would be so much better, if the

case must be submitted to anybody, that Cosimo should do it. Then she

herself would be able to shape her course in the light of anything that

might turn up. Nothing, she had to admit, had turned up yet, and Amory

was not sure that in that very fact there did not lie a sufficient

cause for resentment. Had Cosimo pleaded a passion for Britomart

Belchamber he would have had Passion's excuse. Lacking Passion, it

could only be concluded that he was bored with Amory herself.

And that amounted to an insult....

The booming of the gong, however, cut short her brooding. They passed

to the dining-room. Britomart and Walter sat with their backs to the

tall black dresser with the willow pattern stretching up almost to the

ceiling; Laura and Edgar took the German chairs that had their backs to

the copper-hooded fireplace; and Cosimo and Amory occupied either end

of the highly polished clothless table. This absence of cloth, by the

way, gave a church-like appearance to the flames of the candles in the

spidery brass sticks that had each of them a ring at the top to lift

it up by; the preponderance of black oak and dull black frames on the

walls further added to the effect of gloom; and the putting down of the

little green pipkins of soup and the moving of the green-handled knives

and round-bowled spoons made little knockings from time to time.

Again Walter and Laura, with not too much help from Cosimo, sustained

the weight of the conversation; and it was not until Amory asked a

question in a tone from which rapture was markedly absent that they

sponged, as it were, the priceless memory of Mr. Crabtree from their

minds. Amory's question had been about Walter's new Lecture, still in

course of preparation, on "_Post-Dated Passion_"; and Walter cursorily

ran over its heads for the general benefit.

"I admit I got the idea from Balzac," he said between mouthfuls

(whenever they came to The Witan the Wyrons supped almost as

heartily as did Edgar Strong himself). "'Comment l'amour revient aux

vieillards,' you know. But of course that hasn't any earthy interest

for anybody. 'Aux vieilles' it ought to be. Then--well, then you've

simply got 'em."

"Why not 'vieillards?'" Amory asked, not very genially.

"I say, Cosimo, I'll have another cutlet if I may.--Why not

'vieillards?' Quite obvious. Men aren't the interest. I've tried men,

and you can ask Laura how the bookings went.--But 'vieilles' and I've

got 'em. Really, Amory, you're getting quite dull if you don't see

that! I'll explain. You see, I've already got the younger ones, like

Brit here--shove the claret along, Brit--but the others, of forty or

fifty say, well, they've all had their affairs--or if they haven't

better still--and it's merely a question of touching the right chord.

Regrets, time they've lost, fatal words 'Too late' and so on--it's

simply _made_ for me! Touch the chord and they do the rest for

themselves. They probably won't hear half of it for sobbing.--Of course

I shall probably have to modify my style a bit--not quite so--what

shall I say----"

"Jaunty," his wife suggested, "--in the best sense, I mean----"

"Hm--that's not quite the word--but never mind. It's a great field.

Certainly women, not men, are the draw."

Amory made a rather petulant objection, and the argument lasted some

minutes. In the end Walter triumphantly gained his first point, that

women and not men were the "draw" in the box-office sense; and also

his second one, namely, that not the Britomarts, but the older women,

who would put their hearts into his hands and pay him for exploiting

their helplessness and ache and tenderness and regret, and never

suspect that they were being practised upon, were "simply made for

him...." "What do you think of my title?" he asked.

And the title was discussed.

Amory was beginning to find Walter just a little grasping. She wished

that after all she had not asked the Wyrons to stay to supper. Formerly

she had thought that marriage-escapade of theirs big and heroic (that

too, by the way, had been in the Latin Quarter, and probably on seven

francs a day); but now she was less sure about that. Quite apart from

the inapplicability of the Wyrons' experience to her own case, she

now wondered whether theirs had in fact been experience at all. Now

that she came to think of it, they had taken no risks. They _had_ been

married, and in the last event could always turn round on their critics

and silence them with that fact....

Nor was she quite so ready now to lay even the souls of Britomart and

Cosimo on the dissecting-table for the sake of seeing Walter exercise

his professional skill upon them. This was not so much that she wanted

to spare Cosimo and Britomart as that she did not want to give Walter

a gratification. She was inclined to think that if Walter couldn't

be a little more careful about contradicting her he might find his

advertisement omitted from the "Novum" one week, as Katie Deedes'

had been omitted, and where would he be then? The way in which he had

just said that she was "getting quite dull" had been next door to a

rudeness....

But she had to admit that she felt dull. Edgar, who sat next to her,

did not speak, and Cosimo, who faced her, was apparently still brooding

on people who planned the spending of his money without thinking it

necessary to consult him first. She was tired of the whole of the

circumstances of her life. Paris on seven francs a day could hardly be

much worse. Nor, if she could but shake off her lethargy, need that

sum be fixed as low as seven francs. For she had lately remembered

an arrangement made between herself and Cosimo before she had ever

consented to become engaged to him. It was a long time since either of

them had spoken of this arrangement--so long that Cosimo would have

been almost within his rights had he maintained that the circumstances

had so altered as to make it no longer binding; but there it was,

or had been, and it had never been expressly revoked. It was the

arrangement by which they had set apart a fund to insure themselves,

either or both of them, against any evils that might arise from

incompatibility. Amory had no idea how the matter now stood. She didn't

suppose for a moment that Cosimo had actually set a sum by each week

or month; but, hard and fast or loose and fluid, he must have made,

or be still ready to make, some provision. It was an inherent part of

the contract that a solemn affirmation, with reason shown (spiritual,

not mere legal reason) by either one or the other, should constitute a

sufficient claim on this fund.

Therefore Paris need not necessarily be the worst penury.

But, for all her new inclination to leave the Wyrons out of it, she

still thought it a prudent idea to carry the fight (not that there

would be any fight--that was only a low way of expressing the high

reasonableness that always prevailed at The Witan) to Cosimo and

Britomart, rather than to have it centre about Edgar and herself.

Walter's eyes were mainly on the box-office nowadays. The original

virtue of that fine protest of theirs was--there was no use in denying

it--gone. He spread his Lectures frankly now as a net. Well, that

was only one net more among the many nets of which she was becoming

conscious. Edgar too, poor boy, was compelled to regard even the

"Novum" as in some manner a net. Mr. Brimby, Amory more than guessed,

had nets to spread. Mr. Wilkinson, in his own way, was out for a catch;

and Dickie fished at the Suffrage Shop; and Katie had fished at the

Eden; and the only one who didn't fish was Mr. Prang, who wrote his

articles about India for nothing, just to be practising his English.

All these nets were spread for somebody's money--a good deal of it

Cosimo's. It had been the same, though perhaps not quite so bad, at

Ludlow. That experiment on the country-side had been alarmingly costly.

And all this did not include the dozens and dozens of nets of narrower

mesh. The "Novum" might gulp down money by the hundred, but the lesser

things were hardly less formidable in the sum of them--subscriptions,

contributions, gifts, loans, investments, shares in the Eden and the

Book Shop, mortgages, second mortgages, subsidies, sums to "tide over,"

backings, guarantees, losses cut, more good money sent to bring back

the bad, fresh means of spending devised by somebody or other almost

every day. It had begun to weary even Amory. The people who came to The

Witan became rather curiously better-dressed the longer their visiting

continued; but the things they professed to hold dear appeared very

little further advanced. All that first brightness and promise had

gone. Amory's interest had gone. She wanted to escape from it all, and

to go away with Edgar appeared once more to be the readiest way out.

But, though she might now wish to keep Walter Wyron out of it all,

that did not necessarily mean that Walter would be kept out. This

_ex-officio_ specialist on the (preferably female) heart, this

professional rectifier of unfortunate marriages, had not done a number

of years' platform-work without having discovered the peculiar beauties

of the _argumentum ad hominem_, and it was one of his practices to

enforce his arguments with "Take the case of Brit here"--or "Let's

get down to the concrete: suppose Amory--" And these descents to

the particular had always a curiously accusatory effect. Walter,

interrupting Amory's meditation, broke into one of them now.

"But my dear chap,"--this was to Cosimo, "--I can't imagine what's come

over all of you to-night! First Amory, now you! You're usually quicker

than this! Let's take a case.--Brit here----"

One sterno-mastoid majestically turned the caryatid's head. Again Miss

Belchamber's grand thorax worked as if somebody had put a penny into

the slot.

"What?" she said.

"Quiet, Brit; I'm only using you as an illustration.--Suppose Brit here

was to develop a passion for somebody--Cosimo, say; yes, Cosimo'll

do capitally; awfully good instance of the cant that's commonly

talked about 'treachery' and 'under his own roof' and all the rest

of it--as if a roof wasn't a roof and it hadn't got to be under

somebody's--unless they went out on the Heath!--Well, suppose it was to

happen to Cosimo and Brit; what then? We're civilized, I hope. We're

a little above the animals, I venture to think. Amory wouldn't fly at

Brit's eyes, and Brit's father wouldn't come round with a razor to cut

Cosimo's throat. In fact----"

"My fa-ther al-ways uses a safety-razor," said Miss Belchamber with a

reminiscent air.

"Don't interrupt, Brit.--I was going to say that the world's got past

all that. Nor Brit wouldn't fly at Amory, nor Cosimo kick the old

josser out of the house--though we should be much more ready to condone

that part of it if they did--if it was only to get quits with the past

a bit----"

"My fa-ther's forty-five," Miss Belchamber announced, as the

interesting result of an interesting mental process of computation.

"Next June," she added.

"More interruptions from the back of the hall.--In fact, I'm not sure

that _wouldn't_ be entirely defensible--Brit going for Amory and Cosimo

kicking the old dodderer out, I mean. That's the justification of the

_crime passionel_. It's the Will to Live. And by Live I mean Love. It's

the old saying, that kissing lips have no conscience. Or Jove laughs at

lovers' oaths. Quite right. It's the New Greek Spirit. But for all that

we're modern and rational about these things. If Strong here wanted to

take Laura from me I should simply say, 'All you've got to do, my dear

chap, is to table your reasons, and if they're stronger than mine you

take her.' See?"

At that Edgar Strong, like Britomart, looked up. He spoke for the first

time.--"What's that you're saying?" he asked.

"I don't suppose you'd want her, but suppose you did...."

Mr. Strong dropped his eyes to his plate again.--"Ah, yes," he said.

"Ellen Key's got something about that." And he relapsed into silence

again.

It sounded to Amory idiotic. Walter was so evidently "trying" it on

them in order to see how it would go down with an audience afterwards.

She wouldn't have scratched Britomart's eyes out for Cosimo,--but she

coloured a little, and bit her lip, at the thought that somebody might

want to come between herself and Edgar.... But perhaps that was what

Walter meant--real affinities, as distinct from the ordinary vapid

assumptions about marriages being made in Heaven. If so, she agreed

with him--not that she was much fonder of him on that account. She

wished he would keep his personalities for Cosimo and Britomart, and

leave herself and Edgar alone.--Walter went on.

"And then, when you've got your New Greek Certificate, so to speak,

it's plainly the duty of everybody else, not to put obstacles in your

way and to threaten you with razors and cutting off supplies, but to

sink their personal feelings and to do everything they can to help you.

And without snivelling either. I shouldn't snivel, I hope, if anybody

took Laura, and she wouldn't if anybody took me----"

Here Laura interposed softly.--"I don't want any one to take you,

dear," she said.

Walter turned sharply.

"Eh?... Now you've put me off my argument.... What was I saying?...

Haven't I told you you must _never_ do that, Laura?... No, it's quite

gone.... You see...."

Laura murmured that she was very sorry....

"No, it's gone," said Walter, almost cheerfully, as if not sorry that

for once the worth of what he had been about to say should be measured

by the sense of loss. "So since Laura wishes it I'll shut up."

He passed up his plate for a second helping of trifle.

By this time Amory was perhaps rather glad that she had had the Wyrons

after all. That about people not putting obstacles in the way was quite

neat. "A plain duty," he had said. She hoped Cosimo'd heard that, and

would remember it when she raised the subject of the fund. And so far

was she herself from putting obstacles in _his_ way that, although she

could have sent Britomart Belchamber packing with her wages at any

moment, she had not done so. That, as Walter had said, would only have

been another way of flying at her eyes.... Besides, Amory had been

far too deeply occupied to formulate definitely her charges against

Cosimo and Britomart. For all she knew it might have gone much, much

further than she had thought. Sometimes, when Amory took breakfast in

her own room, she did not see Cosimo until the evening, and Britomart

too had heaps of time on her hands when she had finished with Corin

and Bonniebell. Cosimo must not tell her that the "_Life and Work_"

occupied him during every minute of his time....

Then, presently, she was sorry again that the Wyrons had been asked,

for Walter had suddenly remembered the thread of his discourse, and,

in continuing it, had been almost rude to Laura. She wondered whether

he would have turned with a half angry "Why, what's the matter?" had

Laura cried. Perhaps it was really a good thing the Wyrons hadn't

any children, for this kind of thing would certainly have been a bad

example for them. She herself was never rude to Cosimo before Corin and

Bonniebell. She was always markedly polite. There were excuses to be

made for Passion, but none for rudeness.

By this time Edgar Strong had finished his last piece of cheese and was

wiping his lips with his napkin. Then he looked at his watch, and for

the second time during the course of the meal spoke.

"Look here, Cosimo, I've got to be off presently, and we haven't

settled about those advertisements yet. And there's something else I

want to say to you too. Could we hurry coffee up? Where do we have it?

In the studio, I suppose? Or do the others go into the studio and you

and Walter and I have ours here?"

"We might as well all go into the studio," said Cosimo, rising; and

they left the sombre room and sought the studio, all except Miss

Belchamber, who went upstairs.

The sight of the innumerable cigarette-ends about the asbestos log

reminded Walter of Mr. Crabtree again; and for a minute or two--that

is to say during the time that Walter, taking her aside, told her of

the quiet but penetrating side-light Mr. Crabtree had innocently shed

on Mr. Wilkinson's scheme for some new paper or other that Cosimo was

to finance--Amory was once more glad that the Wyrons had come. But the

next moment, as Walter loitered away and Laura came and sat softly down

beside her, she was sorry again. Laura was gently crying. That struck

Amory as stupid. As if she hadn't enough great troubles of her own,

without burdening herself with the Wyrons' trivial ones!

So, as she had nothing really helpful to say to Laura, she left her,

and sat down on the footstool she had occupied on the day when Edgar

Strong had said that he liked the casts and had asked her whether she

had read something or other--she forgot what.

Edgar was talking in low tones to Cosimo, and Amory thought she heard

the name of Mr. Prang. Then Cosimo, who always thought more Imperially

with a map before him, got out the large atlas, and the two of them

bent over it together. Walter joined them, and, after an interlude that

appeared to be about the Lectures' advertisement, Walter strolled

away again and joined Laura. Amory heard an "Eh?" and a moment later

the word "touchy," and Walter went off to the window with his hands

in the pockets of his knickers, whistling. Edgar took not the least

notice of Amory's eyes intently fixed upon him. He continued to talk

to Cosimo. Walter, who was examining a Japanese print, called over his

shoulder, "This a new one, Amory? What is it--Utamaro?" Then he walked

up to where Laura sat again. He was speaking in an undertone to her:

"Rubbish ... take on like that ... better clear off then"; and a moment

later, seeing Edgar Strong buttoning up his coat, he called out, "Wait

a minute, Strong--we're going down too--get your hat, Laura----"

Five minutes later Cosimo Pratt and his wife were alone.

It was the first time they had been so for nearly a fortnight. Indeed,

for weeks the departure of the last visitor had been the signal for

their own good-night, Cosimo going his way, she hers. There had never

been anything even remotely approaching a "scene" to account for this.

It had merely happened so.

Therefore, finding himself alone with his wife in the studio again,

Cosimo yawned and stretched his arms above his head.

"Ah-h-h!... You going to bed?"

As he would hardly be likely to take himself off before she had

answered his question, Amory did not reply at once. She sat down on

the footstool and stretched her hands out to the asbestos log. Then,

after a minute, and without looking up, she broke one of their tacitly

accepted rules by asking a direct question.

"What were you and Edgar Strong discussing?" she asked.

He yawned again.--"Oh, the Bookshop advertisement--and advertisements

generally. It begins to look as if we should have to be less exclusive

about these things. Strong tells me that it's unheard of for a paper to

refuse any advertisement it can get."

"I mean when you got out the atlas."

"Oh--India, of course. The Indian policy. Strong isn't altogether

satisfied about Prang. He seems to think he might get us into trouble."

"How? Why?" Amory said, her eyes reflectively on the purring gas-jets.

"Can't make out. Some fancy of his. The policy hasn't changed, and

Prang hasn't changed. I wonder whether Wilkinson's right when he

says Strong's put his hand to the plough but is now ... _ah!_ That

reminds me!--Were you here when that preposterous fellow--what's his

name--Crabtree--rather let the cat out of the bag about Wilkinson?"

"You mean about another paper? No. But Walter said something about it."

"Yes, by Jove! He seems to have it all cut-and-dried! Crabtree seems to

think I knew all about it. Of course I did know that Wilkinson had a

scheme, but I'd no idea he was jumping ahead at that rate. I don't want

two papers. One's getting rather serious."

Still without looking at her husband, Amory said, "How, serious?"

"Why, the expense. I'm not sure that we didn't take the wrong line

about the advertisements. Anyway, something will have to be done.

Thirty pounds a week is getting too stiff. I'm seriously thinking of

selling out from the Eden and the Bookshop. Do you know that with one

thing and another we're down more than three thousand pounds this year?"

Amory was surprised; but she realized instinctively that that was not

the moment to show her surprise. Were she to show it, the moment would

not be opportune for the raising of the subject of the fund, and she

wanted to raise that subject. And she wanted to raise it in connexion

with Cosimo and Britomart Belchamber. She continued to gaze at the

log. The servants, she thought, might have taken the opportunity of

dinner to sweep up the litter of cigarette-ends that surrounded it; and

then she had a momentary fancy. It was, that the domestic relations

that existed between herself and Cosimo were a thing that, like that

mechanical substitute for a more generous fire, could be turned off and

on as it were by the mere touching of a tap. She wondered what made her

think of that....

Cosimo had taken out his penknife and was scraping his nails, moodily

running over items of disbursement as he scraped; and then the silence

fell between them again.

It was Amory who broke it, and in doing so she turned her head for the

first time. She gave her husband a look that meant that, though he

might talk about expenses, she also had a subject.

"Walter was excessively stupid to-night," she said abruptly.

He said "Oh?" and went on scraping.

"At the best he's never a model of tact, but I thought he rather

overstepped the mark at dinner."

Again he said "Oh?" and added, "What about?"

"His manners. His ideas are all right, I suppose, but I'm getting

rather tired of his platform-tricks."

"His habit of illustration and so on?"

"And his want of tact generally. In fact I'm not sure it isn't more

than that. In a strange house it would have been simply a _faux pas_,

but he knows us well enough, and the arrangement between us. He might

at any rate wait till he's called in."

Cosimo started on another nail.--"What arrangement?" he said.

Again Amory gave him that look that might have told him that, though he

might think that only a lot of money had gone, she knew that something

far more vital had gone with it.

"Do you mean that you didn't hear what he was saying about you and

Britomart Belchamber?"

"Yes, I heard that, of course. Of course I heard it."

"Well?"

"Well!"

And this time their eyes met in a long look....

Cosimo had only himself to thank for what happened to him then. After

all, you cannot watch a superb piece of female mechanism playing

"Catching of Quails," and openly admire the way in which it can shut

up like a clasp-knife and fold itself upon itself like a multiple

lever, and pretend to be half in love with it lest sharp eyes should

see that you are actually half in love with it, and take it for walks,

and discuss Walter's Lectures with it, and tell it frequently how

different things might have been had you been ten years younger, and

warn it to be a good girl because of dangerous young men, and stroke

its hair, and tell it what beautiful eyes it has, and kiss its hand

from time to time, and walk with your arm protectingly about its

waist, and so on and so forth, day after day--you cannot, after all,

do these things and be entirely unflurried when your ever-so-slightly

tiresome wife reminds you that, be it only by way of illustration,

a young expert in such matters has coupled your name with that of

the passive object of your philanderings. Nor can you reasonably be

surprised when that wife gives you a long look, that doesn't reproach

you for anything except for your stupidity or hypocrisy if you pretend

not to understand, and then resumes her meditative gazing into a

patent asbestos fire. Appearances _are_ for the moment against you.

You can_not_ help for one moment seeing it as it must have appeared

all the time to somebody else. Of course you know that you are in the

right really, and the other person entirely wrong, and that with a

little reasonableness on that other person's part you could make this

perfectly clear; but you _are_ rather trapped, you know it, and the

state of mind in which you find yourself is called by people who aren't

anybody in particular "flurry."

Which is perhaps rather a long way of saying that Cosimo was suddenly

and entirely disconcerted.

And his flurry included a certain crossness and impatience with Amory.

She was--could be--only pretending. She knew perfectly well that there

was nothing really. The least exercise of her imagination must have

told her that to press Britomart Belchamber's hand, for example, was

the most innocent of creature-comforts. Why, he had pressed it with

Amory herself there; he had said, jokingly, and Amory had heard him,

that it was a desirable hand to press, and he had pressed it. And so

with Britomart's dancing of "Rufty Tufty." Amory, who, like Cosimo, had

had an artist's training, ought to be the last person to deny that any

eye so trained did not see a hundred beauties where eyes uneducated saw

one only. And that of course meant chaste beauties. Such admiration was

an exercise in analysis, not in amorousness.... No, it was far more

likely that Amory was getting at him. She was smiling, a melancholy

and indifferent little smile, at the asbestos log. She had no right

to smile like that. It made him feel beastly. It made him so that he

didn't know what to say....

But she continued to smile, and when Cosimo did at last speak he hated

himself for stammering.

"But--but--but--oh, come, Amory, this _is_ absurd! You're--you're

tired! Me and Britomart! Oh, c-c-come!----"

And then it occurred to him that this was a ridiculous answer, and that

the proper answer to have made would have been simply to laugh. He did

laugh.

"Ha, ha, ha! By Jove, for the moment you almost took me in! You really

did get a rise out of me that time! Congratulations.--And I admit it is

rather cool of Walter to pounce on the first name that occurs to him

and make use of it in that way. Deuced cool when you come to think of

it. It seems to me----"

But again that quite calm and unreproaching look silenced him. There

was a loftiness and serenity about it that reminded him of the Amory of

four or five years before. And she spoke almost with a note of wonder

at him in her tone.

"My dear Cosimo," she said very patiently, "what is the matter? You

look at me as if I had accused you of something. Nothing was further

from my thoughts. I suppose, when you examine it, it's a matter for

congratulation, not accusation at all. As Walter said, I don't want to

fly at anybody's eyes. We foresaw this, and provided for it, you know."

At this cool taking for granted of a preposterous thing Cosimo's

stammer became a splutter.--"But--but--but--," he broke out: but Amory

held up her hand.

"I raise no objection. I've no right to. What earthly right have I,

when I concurred before ever we were married?"

"Concurred!... My dear girl, concurred in what? Really this is the most

ridiculous situation I was ever in!"

Amory raised her brows.--"Oh?... I don't see anything ridiculous about

it. It received my sanction when Britomart stopped in the house, and I

haven't changed my mind. As I say, we foresaw it, and provided for it."

"'It!'" Cosimo could only pipe--one little note, high and thin as that

of a piccolo. Amory continued.

"I'm not asking a single question about it. I'm not even curious. I

didn't become your property when we married, and you're not mine. Our

souls are our own, both of us. I think we were very wise to foresee it

quite at the beginning.--And don't think I'm jealous. Perfectly truly,

I wish you every happiness. Britomart's a very pretty girl, and nobody

can say she's always making a display of her cleverness, like some of

them. I respect your privacy, and want you to do the best you can with

your life."

The piccolo note changed to that of a bassoon.--"Amory--listen to me."

"No. I'd _very_ much rather not hear anything about it. As Walter said,

Life _is_ Love, and I only mentioned this at all to-night because there

is one quite small practical detail that doesn't seem to me entirely

satisfactory."

She understood Cosimo to ask what that was.

"This: You ought to be fair to her. I know you'll forgive my mentioning

anything so vulgar, but it is--about money. She can't be expected to

think of such things herself just now,"--there were whole honeymoons

in the reasonable little nod Amory gave, "--and so _I_ mention it.

It's my place to do so. For us all just to dip our hands into a common

purse doesn't seem to me very satisfactory. She's rights too that I

shouldn't dream of disputing. And don't think I'm assuming more than

there actually is. I only mean that I don't see why, in certain events,

you shouldn't, et cetera; that's all I mean. You see?... But I admit

that for everybody's sake I should like things put on a proper footing

without loss of time."

Cosimo had begun to wander up and down among the saddlebag chairs. His

slender fingers rested aimlessly on the backs of them from time to

time. Amory thought that he was about to try the remaining notes within

the compass of his voice, but instead he suddenly straightened himself.

He appeared to have come to a resolution. He strode towards the door.

"Where are you going?" Amory asked.

"I'm going to fetch Britomart," he replied shortly. "This is

preposterous."

But again he hesitated, as perhaps Amory surmised he might. His offer,

if it meant anything, ought to have meant that his conscience was so

clear that Amory might catechize Britomart to her heart's content; but

there _had_ been those hair-strokings and hand-pattings, and--and--and

Britomart, as Amory had said, was "not always making a display of

her cleverness." She might, indeed, let fall something even more

disconcerting than the rest--

Cosimo was trying a bluff.

In a word, between fetching Britomart and not fetching her, Amory had

her husband by the short hairs.

She mused.--"Just a moment," she said.

And then she rose from the footstool, put one hand on the edge of the

mantelpiece, and with the other drew up her skirt an inch or two and

stretched out her slipper to the log.

"It really isn't necessary to fetch Britomart," she said after a

moment, looking up. "Fetch her if you prefer it, of course, but first I

want to say something else--something quite different."

That it was something quite different seemed to be a deep relief to

Cosimo. He returned from the door again.

"What's that?" he said.

"It's different," Amory said slowly, "but related. Let me think a

moment how to put it.... You were speaking a few minutes ago of selling

out from the Eden and the Suffrage Shop. If I understand you, things

aren't going altogether well."

"They aren't," said Cosimo, almost grimly.

"And then," Amory continued, "there's Mr. Prang. Neither you nor Strong

seem very satisfied about him."

"It's Strong who isn't satisfied. I've no complaints to make about

Prang."

"Well, I've been thinking about that too, and I've had an idea. I'm not

sure that after all Strong mayn't be right. I admit Prang states a case

as well as it could be stated; the question is whether it's quite the

case we _want_ stated. His case is ours to a large extent, but perhaps

not altogether. And as matters stand we're in his hands about India,

simply because he knows more about it than we do. You see what I mean?"

"Not quite," said Cosimo.

"No? Well, let me tell you what I've been thinking...."

Those people who are nobodys, and have not had the enormous advantage

of being taken by the hand by the somebodys, are under a misconception

about daring and original ideas. The ideals seem original and daring to

them because the processes behind them are hidden. The inferior mind

does not realize of itself that every sudden and miraculous blooming is

already an old story to somebody.

But Cosimo occupied a sort of intermediary position between the sources

of inspiration and the flat levels of popular understanding. Remember,

he was in certain ways one of the public; but at the same time he was

the author of the "_Life and Work_." He took his Amory, so to speak,

nascent. Therefore, when she gave utterance to a splendour, he credited

himself with just that measure of participation in it that causes us

humbler ones, when we see the airman's spiral, to fancy our own hands

upon the controls, or, when we read a great book, to sun ourselves

in the flattering delusion that we do not merely read, but, in some

mysterious sense, participate in the writing of it also.

And so the words which Amory spoke now--words which would have

caused you or me to give a gasp of admiration--affected him less

extraordinarily.

"Why don't you go to India and see for yourself?" she said.

Nevertheless, Cosimo was not altogether unaffected. Even to his

accustomed ear it was rather stupendous, and, if he hadn't been again

uneasily wondering whether he dared risk having Britomart down when

Amory should return to the former subject again, might have been more

stupendous still. He resumed his walk along the saddlebag chairs, and,

when at last he did speak, did not mar a high occasion with too much

vulgar demonstrativeness.

"That's an idea," he said simply.

"You see, Mr. Chamberlain went to South Africa," Amory replied, as

simply.

"Yes," said Cosimo thoughtfully.... "It's certainly an idea."

"And you know how people have been getting at the 'Novum' lately, and

even suggesting that Prang was merely a pen-name for Wilkinson himself."

"Yes, yes."

"Well, if you went, for six months, say, or even three, nobody'd be

able to say after that that you didn't know all about it."

"No," Cosimo replied.

"The stupid people go. Why not the people with eyes and minds?"

"Exactly," said Cosimo, resuming his walk.

Then, as if he had been a mere you or a simple me, the beauty of the

idea did begin to work a little in him. He walked for a space longer,

and then, turning, said almost with joy, "I say, Amory--would you

_like_ to go?"

But Amory did not look up from the slippered foot she had again begun

to warm.--"Oh, I shouldn't go," she said absently.

"You mean me to go by myself?" said Cosimo, the joy vanishing again.

Then it was that Amory returned to the temporarily relinquished subject

again.

"Well ...", she said, with a return of the quiet and wan but brave

smile, "... I've nothing to do with that. I shouldn't set detectives to

watch you. I was speaking for the moment purely from the point of view

of the 'Novum's' policy.--But I see what you mean."

But Cosimo didn't mean that at all. He interposed eagerly, anxiously.

"You _do_ jump to conclusions!"--he began.

"My _dear_ Cosimo," she put up her hand, "I'm doing nothing of the

kind. As I said, the other isn't my affair. Oh, I do wish you'd believe

that I was perfectly calm about it! As Emerson said, soul ought to

speak from the top of Olympus or something, and, except that I want

you to be happy, it's a matter of indifference to me who you go with.

Do try to see that, Cosimo. Let's try to behave like civilized beings.

We agreed long ago that sex was only a matter of accident. Don't let's

make it so hatefully pivotal. After all, what practical difference

would it make?"

But this was too much for Cosimo. He must have Britomart down and take

his chance, that was all. At the worst, he did not see how Amory could

be so unreasonable that a hand-pat or a hair-stroke or two could not be

put before her in the proper light.

Unfortunately, the trouble was, not that she made a fuss, but that she

made so little fuss....

Again he moved towards the door.

But Miss Belchamber herself, as it happened, saved him the trouble

of fetching her. Their hands were at the door at the same moment,

his inside, hers outside. She entered. She was wrapped in the large

black-and-gold Chinese dressing-gown Cosimo had given her for a

Christmas present, and there were pantofles on her bare feet, and her

hair hung down her back in two enormous yellow plaits. She was eating a

large piece of cake.

"I've left the hot water tap running," she announced. "I hadn't gone to

bed. Does anybody else want a bath? I like lots of hot baths. I came

down for a piece of cake."

She crossed to the sofa, crammed the last piece of cake into her mouth,

dusted the crumbs from her fingers, tucked the dressing-gown close

under her, and with her fingers began softly to perform the motions of

_pétrissage_ upon herself in the region of the _erectors spinae_. As

she did so she again spoke, placidly and syllabically.

"I made a mistake," she said. "Father's forty-six. Next June. And

I shall go to Walter's new Lecture. He's in the guard's van. I

mean the van-guard. And Prince Ead-mond's is in the van-guard too.

Especially Miss Miles. She says the Saturn-alia is a time of great

li-cen-tiousness and dancing. Are they going to start it soon?"

Cosimo was nervous again. He cleared his throat.--"Britomart--," he

began; but Miss Belchamber went on.

"I hope they are. Walter says it would be a very good thing. I shall

dance 'Rufty Tufty.' And 'The Black Nag.' I love 'The Black Nag.'

That's why I'm having a hot bath. Hot baths open the pores, or

sweat-ducts. Then you close them again with a cold sponge. I always

close them again with a cold sponge."

Cosimo cleared his throat again and had another try.--"Listen,

Britomart--we were talking about you----"