PART II

I

1

They came to an idle halt near Cleopatra's needle, and leaning against

the Embankment wall, looked across the river to the warehouses opposite,

which, in the evening mist, had the look of stark cliffs guarded by a

solitary watchful lion. The smaller of the two young men took off his

soft hat and set it beside him so that he could let the wind brush

through his thick red hair. He held himself very straight, his slender

body taut with solemn exultation.

"If only one could do something with it," he said; "eat it--hug it--get

inside of it somehow--belong to it. It hurts--this gaping like an

outsider. Look now--one shade of purple upon another. Isn't it

unendurably beautiful? But if one could write a sonnet--or a sonata--or

paint a picture---- That's where the real artist has the pull over us

poor devils who can only feel things. He wouldn't just stand here. He'd

get out his fountain pen or his paint-box and make it all his for ever

and ever. Think of Whistler now--what he would do with it."

"I can't," Stonehouse said. "Who's Whistler?"

Cosgrave laughed in anticipation of his little joke. "Nobody, old

fellow. At least, he never discovered any bugs."

The wind snatched up his forgotten hat and it sailed off up river into

the darkness like a large unwieldy bird. He looked after it ruefully.

"That was a new hat. I'll have to go home without one, and the Pater

will think I've been in a drunken brawl, and there'll be a beastly row."

"That's the one thing he'll never believe. Well, I don't care. It'll be

over soon. If I've passed that exam. I'll get away and he won't be able

to nag me any more. And you, do think I've passed, don't you,

Stonehouse?"

"If you didn't imagine your answers afterwards."

"Honour bright, I didn't. I believe I did a lot better, really. You

know, I'm so awfully happy to-night I'd believe anything. It's queer how

this old river fits in with one's moods, isn't it? Last time we were

here I wanted to drown myself, and there it was ready to hand, as it

were--offering eternal oblivion--and all that. I thought of all the

other fellows who had drowned themselves, and felt no end cheered up.

And now it makes me think of escape--of getting away from

everything--sailing to strange, new countries----"

"The last time you were here," Stonehouse said, "you'd just come out of

the exam. If you really answered as you say you did, there was no reason

for your wanting to drown yourself."

"But I did. You're such a distrustful beggar. You think I just imagine

things. No, I'll tell you what it was--I didn't care. There I was--I'd

swotted and swotted. I'd thought that if only I could squeeze through

I'd be the happiest man on earth. And then, when it was all over I began

to think: 'What's it all for, what's it all about? What's the good?'

Suppose I have passed, I'll get some beastly little job in some stuffy

Government office, 200 pounds a year, if I'm lucky. And then if I'm good

and not too bright they'll raise me to 250 pounds in a couple of years'

time, and so it'll go on--nothing but fug, and dinge, and skimping, and

planning--with a fortnight at the seaside once a year or a run over to

Paris. I suppose it was good enough for our grandfathers,

Stonehouse--this just keeping alive? But it didn't seem good enough to

me. Don't you feel like that sometimes--when you think of the time when

you'll be able to stick M.D., or whatever it is, after your name--as

though, after all, it didn't matter a brace of shakes?"

Robert Stonehouse roused himself from his lounging attitude and thrust

his hands deep into his trousers pockets. There was a nip in the wind,

and he had no overcoat.

"No. When I've got through this next year I shall feel that I've climbed

out of a black pit and that the world's before me--to do what I like

with."

"Well--you're different." Cosgrave sighed, but not unhappily. "You're

going to do what you want to do, and I expect you'll be great guns at it.

I dare say if I were to play the piano all day long--decently, you know,

as I do sometimes, inside me at any rate--and get money for it, I'd think

it worth while---- But it takes a lot to make one feel that way about

a Government office."

His voice was quenched by a sudden rush of traffic--a tram that jangled

and swayed, a purring limousine full of vague, glittering figures, and a

great belated lorry lumbering in pursuit like an uncouth participant in

some fantastic race. They roared past and vanished, and into the empty

space of quiet there flowed back the undertones of the river, solitary

footfalls, the voice of the drowsing city. The loneliness became

something magical. It changed the colour of Cosgrave's thoughts. He

pressed closer to his companion, and, with his elbows on the balustrade

and his hands clenched in his hair, spoke in an awed whisper.

"It does seem worth while now. That's what's so extraordinary. I feel I

can stick anything--even being a Government clerk all my life. I don't

even seem to mind home like I did. I'm in love. That's what it is.

You've never been in love, have you, Stonehouse?"

"No."

"You're such a cast-iron fellow. I don't know how I have the nerve to

tell you things. Sometimes I think you don't care a snap for anything in

the world, except just getting on."

Robert Stonehouse hunched his shoulders against the wind. There was more

than physical discomfort in the movement--a kind of secret distress and

resentment.

"You do talk a lot of sentimental rubbish," he said. "It seems to me

it's only a hindrance--this caring so much for people. It gets in a

man's way. Not that it matters to you just now. You've got a slack

time. You can afford to fool around."

"You think I'm a milksop," Cosgrave said patiently, "I don't mind. I

dare say it's true. There's not much fight in me. I don't seem able to

do without people like you can. I think, sometimes, if I hadn't had you

to back me up I'd never have been able to stick things. Of course, I'm

not clever, either. But you're wrong about being in love. It doesn't

get in one's way. It helps. Everything seems different."

Stonehouse was silent, his fair, straight brows contracted. When he

spoke at last it was dispassionately and impersonally, as one giving a

considered judgment. But his voice was rather absurdly young.

"You may be right. I hadn't thought about it before. It didn't seem

important enough. There was a woman I knew when I was a kid--a common

creature--who was fond of saying that 'it was love that made the world go

round.' (My father married her for her money, which didn't go round at

all.) Still, in her way, she was stating a kind of biological fact. If

people without much hold on life didn't fall in love they'd become

extinct. They wouldn't have the guts to push on or the cheek to

perpetuate themselves. But they do fall in love, and I suppose, as you

say, things seem different. _They_ seem different--worth while. So they

marry and have children, which seems worth while too--different from

other people's children, at any rate, or they wouldn't be able to bear

the sight of them. What you call love is just a sort of trick played on

you. If crowds are of any use I suppose it's justified. It's a big

'if,' though."

Cosgrave smiled into the dark.

"It sounds perfectly beastly. Not a bit encouraging. But I don't care,

somehow. Do you mind if I tell you about her? I've got to talk to

somebody."

"I don't mind. But I don't want to stand here any longer. It's cold,

and, besides, I've got to be up west by six."

They turned and strolled on toward Westminster. Robert Stonehouse still

kept his hands thrust into his pockets, and the position, gave his

heavy-shouldered figure a hunched fighting look, as though he had set

himself to stride out against a tearing storm. He took no notice of

Cosgrave, who talked on rapidly, stammering a little and scrambling for

his words. The wind blew his hair on end, and he walked with his small

wistful nose lifted to the invisible stars.

"You see, I can't tell anyone at home about her. It's not as though she

were even what people call a lady. (Oh, I'm perfectly sane--I don't

humbug myself.) Mother'd have a fit, and the Pater only looks at that

kind of thing in one way--his own particularly disgusting way. She drops

her aitches sometimes. But she's good, and she's pretty as a flower. I

met her at a dance club. I'd never been to such a place before. And

then one evening it suddenly came over me that I wanted to be among a lot

of people who were having a good time. So I plunged. You pay sixpence,

you know, and everybody dances with everybody. Of course I can't dance.

She saw me hanging round and looking glum, I suppose, and she was nice to

me. She taught me a few steps, and I told her about the exam, and how

worried I was about it, and we became friends. I've never had a

girl-friend before. It's amazing. And she's different, anyway----

She's on the stage--in the chorus to begin with--but you'd think they'd

given her a lead, she's so happy about it. That's what I love about her.

Everything seems jolly to her. She enjoys things like a kid--a 'bus

ride, a cinema, our little suppers together. She loves just being alive,

you know. It's extraordinary--I say, are you listening, Stonehouse?"

"I didn't know you wanted me to listen. I thought you wanted to talk. I

was thinking of an operation I saw once--you wouldn't understand--it was

a ticklish job, and the man lost his head. He tried to hide it, but I

knew, and he saw I knew. A man like that oughtn't to operate."

"And did the other fellow die?"

"Oh, yes. But he would have died anyway, probably. It wasn't that that

mattered. It was losing his nerve like that."

"If I saw an operation," Cosgrave said humbly, "I should be sick."

Stonehouse had not heard. They reached the bridge in silence, and under

a street lamp stopped to take leave of one another. It was their

customary walk and the customary ending, and each wondered in his

different way how it was that they should always want to meet and to talk

to one another of things that only one of them could understand.

"Why does he bother with me?" Cosgrave thought.

But he was sorry for Robert, partly because he guessed that he was hungry

and partly because he knew that he was not in love.

"I wish you'd come along too," he said a little breathlessly; "I want you

to meet her, you know--for us all to be friends together--just a quiet

supper--and my treat, of course."

It was very transparent. He tried to look up at his companion boldly and

innocently. But the light from the street lamp fell into his strange

blue eyes, with their look of young and anxious hopefulness, and made

them blink. Robert Stonehouse laughed. He knew what was in Cosgrave's

mind, and it seemed to him half comic and half pathetic and rather

irritating.

"I don't suppose you have enough to pay for supper, anyway," he said

roughly, "or you'll go without your lunch to-morrow. Don't be an idiot.

Look after yourself and I'll look after myself. Besides, if you think

I'm not going to have a square meal to-night you're enormously mistaken.

I'm going to dine well--where you'll never Set your foot, not until

you're earning more than 250 pounds a year, at any rate."

"Word of honour?"

"Oh, word of honour, of course."

A shy relief came into the pinched and freckled face.

"Oh, well then--but I do want you to meet all the same; you see, she'd

like it--she knows all about you. I'm always bragging about you.

Perhaps I could bring her round--if Miss Forsyth wouldn't mind--if she's

well enough."

Robert Stonehouse half turned away, as though shrinking from an

unwelcome, painful touch.

"She's all right."

"Then may we come? I'm not afraid of Miss Forsyth. She's an

understanding person. She won't think people common because of their

aitches. Give her my love, won't you, Robert. And good night."

"Oh, good night!" He added quickly, sullenly: "You look blue with cold.

Why don't you wear a decent coat? It's idiotic!"

"Because my coat isn't decent. I don't want her to see me shabby. And I

like to pretend I'm rather a strong, dashing fellow who doesn't mind

things. Besides, look at yourself!"

"I'm different."

"You needn't rub it in." He was gay now with an expectation that bubbled

up in him like a fountain. He made as though to salute Robert solemnly

and then remembered and clutched at his wind-blown hair instead. "Oh, my

hat! Well, it will make Connie laugh like anything!" he said.

2

To be a habitue of Brown's was to prove yourself a person of some means

and solid discrimination. At Brown's you could get cuts from the joint,

a porter-house steak, apple tart, and a good boiled pudding as nowhere

else in the world. You went in through the swinging doors an ordinary

and fallible human being, and you came out feeling you had been fed on

the very stuff which made the Empire. You were slightly stupefied, but

you were also superbly, magnificently unbeatable.

Mr. Brown was an Englishman. But he did not glory in the fact. It was,

as he had explained to Robert one night, his kindly, serious face glowing

in the reflection from the grill, a tragedy.

"To be born an Englishman and a cook--it's like being born a bird without

wings. You can't soar--not however hard you try--not above roasts and

boils. Take vegetables. An Englishman natur'lly boils. And it's no

good going against nature. You're a doctor--or going to be--and you know

that. You've got to do the best you can, but you can't do more. That's

my motto. But if I'd been born a Frenchman---- Well it's no use

dreaming. If them potatoes are ready, Jim, so'm I."

Mr. Brown had taken a fancy to Robert Stonehouse from the moment that the

latter had challenged him on the very threshold of his kitchen and

explained, coolly and simply, his needs and his intentions. Mr. Brown

was frankly a Romantic, and Robert made up to him for the souffles and

other culinary adventures which Fate had denied him. He liked to dream

himself into Robert's future.

"One of these days I'll be pointing you out to my special

customers--'Yes, sir, that's Sir Robert himself. Comes here every

Saturday night for old times' sake. Used to work here with me--waited

with his own hands, sir--for two square meals and ten per cent. of his

tips. You don't get young men like that these days--no, sir."

Robert accepted his prophetic vision gravely. It was what he meant to

happen, and it did not seem to him to be amusing.

Brown's was tucked away in a quiet West End side street, and there was

only one entrance. At six o'clock the tables were still empty, and

Robert walked through into the employees' dressing-room. He put on his

white jacket, slightly stained with iodoform, and a black apron which

concealed his unprofessional grey trousers, and went to work in the

pantry, laying out plates and dishes in proper order, after the manner of

a general marshalling his troops for action. He was deft handed, and

responsible for fewer breakages than any of the old-timers--foreigners

for the most--who flitted up and down the passages with the look of bats

startled from their belfries and only half awake. Through an open, glass

window he could see into the huge kitchen, where Mr. Brown brooded over

his oven, and catch rich, sensuous odours that went to his head like so

many etherealized cocktails. He had not eaten since the morning, and

though he was too strong to faint, it grew increasingly difficult to fix

his mind on the examination question which he had set himself. He found

himself wondering instead, what would happen if old Brown lost his

_flair_ for the psychological moment in roasts, and why it was that a man

who had performed an operation successfully a hundred times should

suddenly go to pieces over it? What made him lose faith in himself?

Nerves? A matter of the liver? We were only at the beginning of our

investigations. And then poor little Cosgrave, who as suddenly began to

believe in himself and in life generally because he had fallen in love

with a chorus girl!

The head waiter looked round the pantry door. He was a passionate

Socialist who, in his spare time, preached the extermination of all such

as did not work for their daily bread. But he disliked Robert bitterly,

as a species of bourgeois blackleg.

"You're wanted. There's a party of ten just come in. Hurry up, can't

yer?"

Robert put down his plates and went into the dining-room with the wine

list. His table-napkin he carried neatly folded over one arm.

And there was Francey Wilmot.

She had other people with her, but he saw her first. He could not have

mistaken her. Of course, she had changed. She was taller, for one

thing, and wore evening dress instead of the plain brown frock that he

remembered. But her thick hair had always been short, and now it was

done up it did not seem much shorter. And it still had that quaint air

of being brushed up from her head by a secret, rushing wind--of wanting

to fly away with her. She was burnt, too, with an alien sun and wind.

Her face and neck were a golden brown, and in reckless contrast with her

white shoulders. One saw how little she cared. She sat with her elbows

on the table, and the sight of the supple hands and strong, slender

wrists stopped Robert Stonehouse short, as though a deep, old wound which

had not troubled him for years had suddenly begun to hurt again. And yet

how happy he had been, as a little boy, when she had just touched him.

It was evidently a celebration in her honour. A tall young man with side

whiskers who came in late presented her with a bunch of roses in the name

of the whole company and with a gay, exaggerated homage. They were a

jolly crowd. They had in common their youth and an appearance of

good-natured disregard for the things that ordinary people cared about.

Otherwise they were of all sorts and conditions, like their clothes. Two

or three were in evening dress, and one girl who sat at the end of the

table and smoked incessantly wore a shabby coat and skirt and a raffish

billycock hat. Chelsea or the University Schools was stamped on all of

them. There wasn't much that they didn't know, and there was very little

that they believed in--not even themselves. For they were of the very

newest type, and would have scorned to admit to a Purpose or a Faith.

But they could not help being young and rather liking one another, and

the good food and the promise of a riotous evening.

Robert knew their kind. He even knew by sight the side-whiskered young

man who now clapped his hands like an Eastern potentate. He had been of

Robert's year at the University, and had been ploughed twice.

"Wine-ho! Fellow creatures, what is it to be? In honour of the occasion

and to show our contempt of circumstances, shall we say a magnum of

Heidsieck? All in favour wave their paws----"

The girl in the billycock hat blew a great puff of smoke towards him.

"Oh, death and damnation, Howard! Haven't I been explaining to you all

the afternoon that I owe rent for a fortnight to a devil in female form,

and that unless someone buys 'A Sunset over the Surrey Cliffs seen Upside

Down,' Gerty will be on the streets? Make it beer with a dash o'

bitters."

Finally it was Francey who decided. She beckoned, not looking at him,

and Robert with a little obsequious bow, handed her the wine card and

waited at her elbow. He was not afraid of Howard's recognition. They

had never spoken to one another, and in any case Howard would not believe

his eyes.

It was strange to stand near to her again and to recognize the little

things about her that had fascinated small Robert Stonehouse--the line of

her neck, the brown mole at the corner of her eye which people were

always trying to rub off, the way her hair curled up from her temples in

two unmistakable horns. He had teased her about them in his shy, clumsy

way. A very subtle and sweet warmth emanated from her like a breath. It

took him back to the day when he had huddled close to her, hiccoughing

with grief and anger, and yet deeply, deliriously happy because she was

sorry for him. It made him giddy with a sense of unreality, as though

the present and the intervening years were only part of one of his night

stories, which, after their tiresome, undeviating custom, had got tangled

up in a monstrous, impossible dream. And then a new fancy took

possession of him. He wanted to bend closer to her and say, very

quietly, as though he were suggesting an order, "What about your

handkerchief? Do you want it back, Francey?"

Amidst his austerely disciplined thoughts the impulse was like a mad,

freakish intruder, and it frightened him, so that he drew back sharply.

"Cider-cup," she said. "It's my feast--and I like seeing the fruit and

pretending I can taste it. And then Howard won't get drunk and recite

poetry. Three orders, waiter."

He took the wine card, but she held it a moment longer, as though

something had suddenly attracted her attention. Their hands had almost

touched.

"Yes--three orders will be enough."

The company groaned, but submitted. In reality they were too stimulated

already by an invisible, exuberant spirit among them to care much. From

where he waited for Francey's order on the threshold of the pantry Robert

could see and hear them. It was really the old days over again.

Fundamentally things outside himself did not change much. The Brothers

Banditti had grown up. They were not nice children any more. The

innocent building-ground and nefarious plottings against unpopular

authority had given place to restaurants and more subtle wickednesses.

But still Francey played her queer, elusive role among them. She was of

them--and yet she stood a little apart, a little on one side. Probably

Howard thought himself their real leader. They did not talk to her

directly very much, nor she to them. But all the time they were playing

up to her, trying to draw her attention to themselves and make her laugh

with them. She did laugh. It did not seem to matter to her at all that

they were often crude and blatant and sometimes common in their

self-expression. She laughed from her heart. But her laughter was a

little different. It sat by itself, an elfish thing, with a touch of

seriousness about it, its arms hugging its knees, and looked beyond them

all and saw how much bigger and finer the joke was than they thought it.

She was the spirit of their good humour. They could not have done

without her.

And he, Robert Stonehouse, stood outside the circle, as in reality he had

always done. But now he did not want to belong. He knew now how it

hindered men to run with the herd--even to have friends. It wasted time

and strength. And these people were no good anyhow. Howard was one of

these dissipated duffers who later on would settle down as a miraculously

respectable and incapable G.P. The rest were vague, rattle-brained

eccentrics who would fizzle out, no one would know how or care.

Only Francey---- But even in the old days it was only because of

Francey that the Banditti had meant anything to him.

The head waiter pushed across the counter a jug of yellowish liquid in

which floated orange peel and a few tinned, dubious-looking cherries.

"Take it, for God's sake! People who want muck like that ought to keep

to Soho."

Robert poured out with an eye trained to accurate measurements in the

laboratory. It was his practice to do well everything that he had to do.

Otherwise you lost tone--you weakened your own fibre so that when the big

thing came along you slumped. But he could not forget Francey Wilmot's

nearness. It did not surprise him any more. But it charged him with

unrest, and he and his unrest frightened him. He knew how to master

ordinary emotion. Even when he carried off the Franklin Scholarship in

the teeth of a brilliant opposition he had not allowed himself a moment's

triumph. It was all in the day's work--a single step on the road which

he had mapped out deliberately. But this was outside his experience. It

had pounced on him from nowhere, shaking him.

He had to look up at her again. And then he saw that she was looking at

him too, steadily, with a deep, inquiring kindness.

It was as though she had said aloud:

"Are you really a good little boy, Robert?"

The cider poured over the edge of the glass and over the table-cloth and

in a dismal stream on to the lap of the girl with the raffish billycock

hat.

"Well, that settles that," she said good-humouredly. "My only skirt,

friends. She can't turn me out in my petticoat, can she? Oh, leave it

alone, garcong; it doesn't matter a tinker's curse----"

He could not help it. In the midst of his angry confusion he still had

to seek out her verdict on him--just as Robert Stonehouse had always done

when he had been peculiarly heroic or unfortunate. And there it was,

dancing beneath her gravity, her unforgotten, magic laughter.

At half-past ten Brown's cleared its last table. Robert Stonehouse

rolled down his sleeves, picked up the parcel which had been placed ready

for him on the pantry counter, said good-night to the head waiter, who

did not answer, and with his coat-collar turned up about his ears went

out in the street. It was quiet as a country lane and empty except for

the girl who waited beyond the lamp light. He knew her instantly, and in

turn two sensations that were equally foreign and unfamiliar seized him.

The first was sheer panic, and the second was a sense of inevitability.

The second was the oddest of the two, because he did not believe in Fate,

but he did believe in his own will.

It was his own will, therefore, that made him walk steadily and

indifferently towards her. His head bent as though he did not see her.

It was really the wind in her hair now. It caught the ends of her long,

loose coat and carried them out behind her. Her slender feet moved

uncertainly in the circle of lamp-light. Any moment they might break

into one of the quaint little dances. Or the wind might carry her off

altogether in a mysterious gust down the street and out of sight. It was

like his vision of her that evening in Acacia Grove. It made him feel

more and more unreal and frightened of himself.

He was almost past her when he spoke.

"Robert Stonehouse," she said rather authoritatively, as though she

expected him to run away; "Robert Stonehouse----"

He stopped short with his heart beating in his throat. But he did not

take the hand that she held out to him. He could only stare at her,

frowning in his distress, and she asked: "You do know who I am, don't

you?"

"Yes. Francey--Francey Wilmot--Miss Wilmot." He forced himself to stop

stammering, and added stiffly: "I did not know you had recognized me."

"Didn't you? I thought---- Well, I did recognize you anyhow. I was

so astonished at first that I thought it was a sort of materialization.

But you were absurdly the same. And then when you poured the cider out

on to poor Gerty's skirt----"

"Was that one of my childish customs?" he asked. "I'd forgotten."

"I nearly stood up and shook hands."

"I'm glad you didn't."

"I thought you'd feel like that. I remembered that you had been rather a

touchy little boy----"

"I was thinking of your friends. Howard, for instance."

"Why, do you know Howard?"

"By sight."

"If you've never even spoken to him you can't, of course, tell what he

would have felt. Do you mind walking home with me? I don't live far

from here, and we can talk better."

He held his ground, obstinate and defiant. It was unjust that anyone,

knowing himself to be brilliantly clever, should yet be made an oaf by an

incident so trivial.

"I'm sorry. I don't see what we can have to talk about. I'm not keen on

childish recollections. I haven't time for them. And it's fairly

obvious we don't move in the same set and are not likely to meet again."

He burst out rudely. "I suppose you were just curious----"

"Of course. You'd be curious if you found me selling flowers in

Piccadilly. You'd come up and say: 'allo! Francey, what have you been

doing with yourself?' And you'd have tried to give me a leg up, if it

only ran to buying a gardenia for old times' sake."

He suspected her of poking fun at him. And yet there was that subtle

underlying seriousness about her and a frank, disarming kindliness.

"You think I'm down on my luck," he retorted, "and so anybody has a right

to butt in."

"Not a right. Of course, if I'd met you in Bond Street, all sleek and

polished, I shouldn't have dreamed of butting in. I should have said to

myself, 'Well, that's the end of the little Robert Stonehouse saga as far

as I'm concerned,' and I don't suppose I should ever have thought of you

again. But now I shall have to go on thinking--and wondering what

happened--and worrying." She drew her cloak closer about her like a bird

folding its wings, and added prosaically: "I say, don't you find it

rather cold standing about here?"

He turned with her and walked on sullenly, his head down to the wind. He

thought: "I shall tell her nothing at all." But to his astonishment she

was silent, and finally he had to speak himself.

"I'm afraid this silly business has broken up your party. Or was it

getting too lively for you? Howard's beanos used to have a considerable

reputation."

"He often seems drunk when he isn't," she returned tranquilly. "I think

it's because he enjoys things more than most people are able to. It

wasn't that. I wanted to see you so much, and I knew Brown's would be

closing about now. So I sent them to a theatre. It seemed the safest

place."

"And they went like lambs. But, then, the Banditti always did."

"Oh, the Banditti!" He guessed that she was smiling to herself. "The

Banditti wouldn't have grown up like that. They were much too

nice--never quite really wicked, were they? Just carried off their feet.

Still, they were never quite the same after you left. I think they

always hankered a little after the good old days when they rang

door-hells and chivied their governesses. Probably they will never be so

happy again."

"They had you. It was you they really cared about. Everybody did what

you liked."

"You didn't."

"I did--in the end."

It was odd that they should be both thinking of that last encounter and

that they should speak of it so guardedly, as though it were still a

delicate matter.

"I didn't know you were never coming again. I waited for you in the

afternoon--for weeks and weeks."

"Did you?" He looked at her quickly, taken off his guard, and then away

again with a scornful laugh. "Oh, I don't believe it. You knew I wasn't

nice--not your sort. You're just making it up."

"I wonder why you say that?" she asked dispassionately. "It's cheap and

stupid. You're not really stupid and you weren't cheap, even if you

weren't nice. And you know that I don't tell lies."

For a moment he was too startled and too ashamed to answer. Cheap. That

was just the word for it. The sort of thing that common young men said

to their common young women. And, of course, he did know. Her integrity

was a thing you felt. But he could never bring himself to tell her that

he had been afraid to believe too easily, or that he did not want to have

to remember her afterwards, waiting there day by day, in their deserted

playground. It troubled him already, like a vague, indefinite pain.

He did not even apologize.

"I suppose I should have come back sooner or later. But I didn't have

the chance. My father died that night--unexpectedly." He brushed aside

her low interjection.

"Oh, I was jolly glad. But after that we had to clear out. There was no

money at all."

"But you lived in a big house. Your father was a great doctor."

"I was a great liar," he retorted impatiently. "I suppose I wanted to

impress you. Perhaps he was a great doctor. Anyhow, he never did any

work. There was a bailiff in the house when he died and a pile of bills.

And not much else."

"What happened, then? Did you go with your stepmother? I remember how

you hated her! You wouldn't admit that she was a mother of any sort."

"No. I don't know what became of her. I never saw her again after that

night. I think she went to live with her own people. Christine took

care of me."

"I don't remember Christine. I don't think you ever told me about her."

"I wouldn't have known how to explain. I don't know now. She was a sort

of friend--my father's and mother's friend. There was an understanding

between her and my mother--a promise--I don't know what. So she took me

away with her. Not that she had any money, either. We went to live in

two rooms in the suburbs, and she worked for us both. She had never

worked before--not for money--and she wasn't young. But she did it."

"A great sort of friend. And she came through too----?"

He did not answer at once, and he felt her look at him quickly,

anxiously, as though she had felt him shrink back into himself. She

heard something in his silence that he did not want her to hear. He put

his head down to the wind again, hiding a white, hard face.

"Oh, yes, and we still live in two rooms--over a garage in Drayton Mews.

My room 'folds up' in the day-time, and she sits there and knits woollen

things for the shops. She has to take life easily now. She had an

illness, and her eyes trouble her. But she's better--much better. And

next year everything will be different."

The street had run out into the still shadows of a great dim square. For

a moment they hesitated like travellers on the verge of unknown country;

then Francey crossed over to the iron-palinged garden and they walked on

side by side under the trees that rattled their grimy, fleshless limbs in

an eerie dance. There was no one else stirring. The eyes of the stately

Georgian houses were already closed in the weariness of their sad old age.

But she asked no questions. She seemed to have drifted away from him on

a secret journey of her own. He had to draw her back--make her

realize----

"I shall be a doctor then," he said challengingly.

"You said you would be a doctor. We quarrelled about it."

"How you remember things----"

"You were such a strange little boy. Besides, you remember them too."

"That's different. I've never had anyone else----" He caught himself

up. "I suppose you think I'm still bragging?"

"You never bragged. You always did what you said you were going to

do--even stupid things, like climbing that old wall."

So she had seen him, after all. She had watched--perhaps a little

frightened for him, a little impressed by his reckless daring.

"Oh, well, I admit it didn't seem likely. People think you have to have

a lot of money. We've often laughed about it. For we hadn't anything

except what we saved from week to week. And yet we've done it. You can

do anything so long as you don't mind what you do. It depends on the

stuff you're made of."

He threw his head up and walked freely, with open shoulders. After all,

he was proud of those years, and had a right to be. They had tested

every inch of him, and it would have been stupid to pretend that he did

not know his own mettle. He heard his footsteps ring out through the

fitful whimpering of the wind and they seemed to mark the rhythm of his

life--a steady, resolute progression. The lighter fall of Francey

Wilmot's feet beside him was like an echo. But yet it had its own

quality. Not less resolute.

He heard her say quickly, almost to herself:

"It must have been hard going--but awfully worth while. An adventure. I

can't be sorry for anyone who suffers on an adventure--any sort of

adventure--even if it's only in oneself."

She was more moved than he could understand. But the wind, dashed with

ice-cold rain, blew them closer to one another. He could feel the warmth

of her arm against his. It was difficult to seem prosaic and casual.

"That's just it. Worth while. Why do people want 'chances' and

'equality' and things made smooth for them? What's the use of anything

if there isn't a top and a bottom to it? What's the use of having enough

to eat if you haven't been hungry? I'm going to be a doctor, and I might

have slumped into the gutter. I'm jolly glad there is a gutter to slump

into----" He broke off, and then went on more deliberately.

"Christine and I mapped it out one night when I was ten years old. After

school hours I used to run errands and sell newspapers. On half-holidays

I went down into the West End and hunted taxis for people coming out of

theatres. I took my exams and scholarship one after the other. We

counted on that. I kept on earning in one way or another all through my

first M.B. and during the two years I've walked the Wards. Now I've had

to drop out for a bit to make enough to carry through my finals.

Christine's illness was the only thing we hadn't reckoned with."

Her voice had an odd, troubling huskiness.

"You must be frightfully strong. But then you always were. You used to

beat everyone----"

"I'm like that now. I've got a dozen lives--like a cat. And one life

doesn't know what the other one's doing." He laughed. "Before breakfast

I wash down the car of the man who owns our garage. The rest of the

morning I coach fellows for the Matric. In the afternoon I swot for

myself. You see how I spend my evenings. Brown's been very decent to

me. I get part of my tips and two meals--one for myself and one to take

home." He showed her the parcel that he carried. "Cold chicken and rice

mould," he said carelessly. "We couldn't afford that."

He did not tell her that there had been times when, to keep their

compact, they had gone without altogether, when Christine had fainted

over her typewriter and he had watched her from out of a horrible,

quivering mist--too sick with hunger to help, or even to care much. He

did not want Francey to be sorry for him.

"And the tips?" she asked, with grave concern. "I hope we played the

game. But poor old Howard is always so hard up----"

"Oh, good enough. Usually I get more than the others, and they hate me

for it. I'm quicker and I've got clean hands. People like that."

"I saw your hands first," Francey said, "and I knew at once that you were

something different."

It was too dark for her to see his face. Yet he turned away hastily. He

spoke as though he did not care at all.

"Brown's a smart fellow. He knows what's coming, and what people are

worth to him. We've got an agreement that when I'm Sir Robert I'm to

boost the old place and do his operations free. I think he'll be rather

sick if he doesn't need any."

It was half a joke, but if she had laughed--laughed in the wrong way--the

chances were that he would have turned on his heel and left her without

so much as a good-night. For he was strung up to an abnormal, cruel

sensitiveness. Whatever else they did, people did not laugh at him. He

had never given them the chance that he had given her. He had learnt to

be silent, and now she had made him talk and the result had been an

uncouth failure. He had thrown his hardships at her like a parvenu his

riches. If she did not see through his crudeness to what was real in

him, she could only see that he was a rather funny young man who

swaggered outrageously. And that was not to be endured.

But she did not laugh at all.

"You're sure of yourself, Robert."

"Yes--I am."

"I'm sure of myself, too. Because I'm sure of things outside myself."

He did not try to understand her. He was wrestling with the expression

of his own experiences. He threw out his free hand and turned it and

closed the powerful, slender fingers, as though he were moulding some

invisible substance.

"Outside things are colourless and lifeless--sort of plastic stuff--until

we get hold of them. We twist them to the best shapes we can. Nothing

happens to us that isn't exactly like ourselves. Even what people call

accidents. Even a man's diseases. I've seen that in the Wards. People

die as they live, and they live as they are----"

And now she did laugh, throwing back her head, and he laughed with her,

shyly but not resentfully. It was as though a crisis in their

relationship had been passed. He could trust her to understand. And he

knew that though what he had said was true, it had also sounded young and

sententious.

"You think I'm talking rot, don't you?"

"I only think you've changed," she answered, with a quick gravity. "Not

outside. Outside you're just a few feet bigger and the round lines have

become straight. But when you were a little boy you used to cry a good

deal."

"I don't see--how did you know?"

"I did know. There were certain smears--I don't think you liked having

your face washed--and a red, tired, look under the eyes. The point is

that now I can't imagine your ever having cried at all."

"I haven't." He calculated solemnly. "Not for more than twelve years.

I remember, because it was after I had played truant at the circus."

But he did not want to tell her about the circus. He stopped short and

looked at his watch in the lamplight.

"Nearly twelve. We've been prowling round this place for an hour. I've

got to get home and work. I thought you said you lived near here."

"I do. Over the way. The big house. I've two rooms on the top floor.

Rather jolly--and near St. Mary's----"

"What--what do you want with St. Mary's?"

But she had already begun to cross the road, and the wind, coming down a

side street with a shriek, sent her scudding before it like a leaf. She

was half-way up the grey stone steps before he overtook her. She turned

on him, the short ends of her hair flying wickedly.

"Of course, it's only right and natural that you should talk of nothing

but yourself."

He stammered breathlessly.

"I didn't think--I'm sorry----"

"Do you suppose you're the only person who does what they say they're

going to do?"

"What--not--not a doctor, Francey?"

"Not yet. I'm two years behind you. This will be my first year in the

Wards. Next year you will be full-blown--perhaps on the staff--and I

shall have to trot behind you and believe everything you say." She

smiled rather gravely. "You will have got the big stick, after all."

He looked up at her, holding on to the spiked railing that guarded the

yawning area. But he had a queer feeling that he had let go of

everything else that he had held fast to--that he was gliding down-bill

in a reckless abandonment to an unknown feeling. He knew too little of

emotion to know that he was happy.

"Why--I shall be there too. I'll be on a surgical post--dresser for old

Rogers. And he's going to take me on his private rounds."

It was not what he had meant to say. He had meant to say, "We shall see

each other." Perhaps she guessed. Her hand rested on his, warm and

strong and kind, as though nothing had changed at all. Because they were

grown up she did not hold back in a conventional reserve. If only he

could have cried she would have sat down on the steps beside him, and put

her arm about him, and comforted him.

"And I want to meet Christine," she said.

He nodded.

"Rather."

"And it's been fine--our meeting again. But didn't you always know it

would happen?"

"I believe I did. Yes, I did. I used to imagine----"

And then he knew and saw that she knew too. He saw it in the sudden

darkening of her steady eyes, in the perplexity of her drawn brows. He

felt it in her hand that scarcely moved, as though even now it would not

shrink from whatever was the truth. It came and went like a flare of

fire across the storm. And when it had gone, they could not believe that

it had ever been. They were both shaken with astonishment. And yet,

hadn't they always known?

"Good-night, Robert Stonehouse."

"Good-night."

But he could not move. He watched the blank door open, and her slender

shadow stand out for a moment against the yellow gas-light of the hall.

She did not look back. Perhaps she too was spell-bound. The door closed

with an odd sound as though the house had clicked its tongue in

good-natured amusement.

"Now you see how it happens, Robert Stonehouse!"

At any rate, the spell was broken. Hugging his parcel dangerously close

he raced back to the shelter of the trees and waited. High over head the

house opened a bright eye at him. He waved back at it with an absurd,

incredible boyishness.

Then he walked on deliberately, firmly.

What was it he had to set his mind on?

Of course. That question of therapeutics----

II

1

"I don't understand it," Christine said. "It seems to me better than

anything you've ever read to me."

She counted her stitches for the second time, and looked up at the sun

that showed its face over the stable roof opposite, as though at a lamp

which did not burn as well as it used to do. In the dusty golden light

she was like a figure in a tapestry. Perhaps in its early days it had

been a trifle crude, a trifle harsh in colour, but now worn and

threadbare, trembling on decay, it had attained a rare and exquisite

beauty.

She smiled back blindly into the little room.

"Don't you think so, Robert?"

Mr. Ricardo also looked at Robert, eagerly, pathetically.

"It was to gain your opinion--reinforce my own judgment--solely for

that purpose--difficult to obtain, the impartial opinion of a trained

mind----"

He had grown into a habit of talking like that--in broken disjointed

sentences, which only Robert and Christine who knew his thoughts could

understand. And now, in the midst of his scattered manuscript he

waited, rubbing his shiny knees with his thin, grey, not very clean

hands.

But Robert looked at Francey. He had sat all the time with his arms

crossed on the oil-clothed table and looked at her, frankly and

unconsciously as a savage or a street boy might have done. He was too

tired to care. He had come straight from giving the limousine

underneath an extra washing down for the Whitsun holidays and oil still

lingered in his nails, and there was a faint forgotten smear of it on

his cheek, and another near the thick upstanding hair where he had

rubbed his hand across. They came as almost humorous relief in a face

in which there were things ten years too old--the harsh and bony

structure showing where there should have been a round boyishness, and

the full mouth set in a fierce, relentless negation of itself. But the

oil smears and the eyes that shone out from under the fair overhanging

brows were again almost too young. They made the strength pathetic.

He, too, sat in the sunlight, which was not kind to his green,

threadbare clothes. But the sun only came into the stable yard for an

hour or two, and as it withdrew itself slowly along the length of the

table he shifted his position to move with it, unconsciously, like a

tired animal. Francey, cross-legged and smoking, on the couch which at

night unfolded itself into a bed, saw the movement and smiled at him.

Her eyes were as steady in their serenity as his were steady with

hunger. She did not change colour, so that whatever she understood

from that long scrutiny did not trouble her. He leant forward, as

though he were afraid of missing some subtle half-tone in her voice.

"Mr. Ricardo thinks I'm unprejudiced. He's forgotten the times when he

pulled my ears and smacked my head. But you are different, Francey.

You can say what you think."

"But it wouldn't be at all helpful," she answered very solemnly. "To

begin with, I have the scientific mind, and I cannot accept as a basis

of argument an entirely untested hypothesis."

Connie Edwards thereupon gave vent to an artificial groan of anguish,

followed by an explosive giggle which would have lost her her half of

Rufus Cosgrave's chair had he not put his arm round her. There were

only three chairs in the room, and as two of them had been already

occupied when she and her companion had, as she expressed it, "blown

in" half an hour previously, they had perched together, listening with

clasped hands and an air of insincere solemnity. For Mr. Ricardo had

not stopped reading. He had gone on as though he had not heard their

boisterous entry, and even now would have seemed unaware of their

existence but for something bitter and antagonistic in the hunch of his

thin shoulders. His dark, biting eyes avoided them like those of a

sullen child who does not want to see. But Miss Edwards appeared to be

not easily depressed. She waved her hand in friendly thanks for the

cigarette case which Francey tossed across to her, and, having selected

her cigarette with blunt, viciously manicured fingers, poked Cosgrave

for a match.

"Gawd Almighty, and Little Connie K.O.'ed in the first round by an

untested hypo--hypo---- What was it, Ruffles dear? (Oh, do stop

squeezing my hand! This isn't the pictures, and it's a match I

want--not love.) An untested hypothesis. Thank you, dearie. I wonder

if He's feeling as sore about it as I am?"

She gurgled over her cigarette, and Cosgrave smiled at everyone in

turn, as though he had said aloud, "Isn't she a splendid joke?" He

looked almost mystically happy.

"Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven," Mr. Ricardo muttered. "Mark it,

mark it, Robert--the shallow thinking, shallow jesting, shallow

living----"

Miss Edwards winked at Francey, and Francey looked back at her with her

understanding kindliness. It seemed to Robert that ever since Connie

Edwards had burst into the room Francey had changed. The change was

subtle and difficult to lay hold of, like Francey herself. Mentally

she was always moving about, quietly, light-footedly, just as she had

done among the bricks and rubble of their old playground, peering

thoughtfully at things which nobody else saw or looking at them from

some new point of view. You couldn't be sure what they were or why

they interested her. And now--he had almost seen her do it--she had

shifted her position, come over to Connie Edward's side, and was gazing

over her shoulder, with her own brown head tilted a little on one ear,

and was saying in Connie's vernacular:

"Well, so that's how it looks to you? And, I say, you're right. It's

a scream----"

In her mysterious way she had found something she liked in Connie

Edwards, with her awful hat and her outrageous, three-inch heels and

her common prettiness. Cosgrave obviously was crazy about her. He

seemed to cling to her because she had an insatiable hunger for the

things he couldn't afford. One could see that he had tried to model

himself to her taste. He wore a gardenia and a spotted tie. And,

bearing these insignia of vulgarity, he looked more than ever pathetic

and over-delicate.

Cosgrave was an idiot who had lost his balance. But Francey was

another matter. The Francey who had asked "And are you a good little

boy?" accepted Connie Edwards without question. Because it was

ridiculous to be hurt about it Robert grew angry with her and frowned

away from her, and talked to Mr. Ricardo as though there were no one

else in the room.

"I can't think why they didn't take it, sir. It's fine stuff. A shade

too long for a magazine article. It may have been that, of course."

But Mr. Ricardo bent down and began to gather up his manuscript. The

paper was of all kinds and sizes, covered with crabbed writing and

fierce erasures. It was oddly like himself--disordered, a little

desperate, not very clean. When he had all the sheets together he sat

with them hugged against his breast and bent closer to Christine,

speaking in a mysterious whisper.

"It's not that. Robert knows it isn't, but he doesn't care any more.

He'll say anything. But I know. I've guessed it a long time. People

have found out. They say to one another, when I send in my papers,

'This man is a liar. Every morning of his life he gives his assent to

lies. And now he is going to teach the very lies he pretends to

exterminate. We can't have anything to do with a man like that.' And

there's a conspiracy, Miss Christine, a conspiracy----" His voice

began to rise and tremble. "They've taken me off my old classes under

the pretext that they are too much for me. They've set me on to

Scripture. Then they told me I had to remember--remember

circumstances--to prevent myself from saying what I thought of such

devilish cruelty. But I saw that they wanted me to break out so that

they could get rid of me altogether, and I held my tongue. One of

these days, though, I shall stand up in the open places and tell the

truth. I shall say what they have done to me----"

He had forgotten, if he had ever fully realized, that there were

strangers about him. He shook his fist and shouted, whilst the slow,

hopeless tears rolled down the sunken yellow cheeks onto the dirty

manuscript.

They stared at him in consternation, all but Francey, who uncurled

herself negligently and slid from the sofa.

"It's past my tea-time," she announced, "and I want my tea."

It was as though she had neither seen nor cared. Christine turned her

faded, groping eyes thankfully in her direction.

"Of course, my dear. Robert--please----"

"No," he said; "we don't have tea, Francey."

"But, Robert, at least when we have guests----"

"Or guests," he added, with a set, white face.

Cosgrave laughed. He made a comic grimace. He seemed utterly

irrepressible and irresponsible, like a colt let out for the first time

in a wide field.

"You don't know this fellow like I do, Miss Wilmot. A nasty Spartan.

But if you'll put a shilling in the gas meter we'll get cakes and a

quarter of tea. He doesn't need to have any if he doesn't want it, but

he can't grudge us a corner of table and half a chair each. Miss

Christine's on our side, aren't you, Miss Christine? And oh, Connie,

there's a pastrycook's round the corner where they make jam-puffs like

they did when I was a kid----"

"I'll put the kettle on," Francey said, nodding to him.

She passed close to Robert. She even gave him a quick, friendly touch.

He could almost hear her say, "Tag, Robert!" but he would not look at

her. And yet the moment after he knew that it was all make-believe.

His anger was a sham, protecting something that was fragile and afraid

of pain. Now that she had gone out of the barren little room she had

taken with her the sense of a secret, gracious intimacy which had been

its warmth and colour. He saw that the sunlight had shrunk to a pale

gold finger whose tip rested lingeringly on the windowsill, and he felt

tired and cold and work-soiled.

He got up and followed her awkwardly, with a sullen face and a

childishly beating heart. The kettle was already on the gas, and

Francey gazing into an open cupboard that was scarcely smaller than the

kitchen itself.

"It's like a boy's chemist shop," she said casually, as though she had

expected him, "with the doses done up in little white paper packets.

Is it a game, Robert?"

"A sort of game. We used to use too much of everything, and at the end

of the week there'd be nothing left. So we doled it out like that."

"Yes, I see. A jolly good idea. That way you couldn't over-eat

yourselves."

"I--I suppose you think I was an awful beast about the tea, don't you?"

"No, I didn't--I don't."

"I was--much firmer than I would have been, but I wanted you to stay.

So I couldn't give in."

"If it had been just Cosgrave and Miss Edwards?"

"It wouldn't have mattered--not so much."

"I wasn't hurt. It was tactless of me. But I wanted the tea. I

forgot. And I wanted to stay, too. I haven't learnt to do without

things that I want."

"You think I don't want them?"

She closed the cupboard door abruptly. The kitchen was so small that

when she turned they had to stand close to one another to avoid falling

back into the sink or burning themselves against the gas jet. He saw

that the fine colour had gone out of her face. She looked unfamiliarly

tired.

"I think you want them terribly. I suppose I'm not heroic. I don't

like your saying 'No' always--always."

"I shall get what I really want in the end."

She sighed, reflected, and then laughed rather ruefully.

"Oh, well, get the cups now, at any rate."

"There are only three, Francey."

"You and I will have to share, then."

So she made him happy--just as she had done when they had been

children--with a sudden comradely gesture.

But in the next room Mr. Ricardo had begun to talk again. They had to

hear him. He was not crying any more. His voice sounded hard and

embittered.

"He's changed. He doesn't care. He pretended to listen. He was

looking at that girl. She's a strange girl. I don't trust her. She

believes in myths. Oh, yes, I know. She did not say so, but I can

smell out an enemy. She will try to wreck everything. So it is in

life. We give everything--sacrifice everything--to pass on our

knowledge, our experience, and in the end they break away from us--they

go their own road."

Robert could not hear Christine's answer. He felt that Ricardo had

thrown out his arms in one of his wild gestures. "Not gratitude--not

gratitude. He was to have carried on my fight. To have been free as I

am not----"

Miss Edwards and Rufus Cosgrave came racketing back up the steep and

creaking stairs. It was like the whirlwind entry of some boisterous

comet dragging at its rear a bewildered, happy tail. They were as

exultant as though their paper bags contained priceless loot rescued

from overwhelming forces.

"Hurry up there, Mr. Stonehouse. Don't keep the lady waiting. Tea and

puff, as ordered, ma'am. No, ma'am, no tipping allowed in this

establishment. But anything left under the plate will be sent to the

Society for the Cure of the Grouch among Superior Waiters."

She jollied Christine, whose answering smile was like a little puzzled

ghost. She nourished a heavily scented handkerchief in the

professional manner and grinned at Robert, whose open hostility did not

so much as ruffle the fringe of her good humour. In her raffish,

rakish world poverty and wry, eccentric-tempered people abounded, and

were just part of an enormous joke. And Rufus Cosgrave, who gaped at

her in wonder and admiration, saw that she was right. Poor old Robert

and exams, and beastly, bullying fathers and hard-upness--the latter

more especially--were all supremely funny.

But Robert would not look at the jam-puff which she pushed across to

him.

"Thanks. I hate the beastly stuff."

And yet it was a flaky thing, oozing, as Rufus had declared, with real

raspberry jam. And he was very young. But he would not give way.

Could not. It seemed trivial, and yet it was vital, too. There was

something in him which stood up straight and unbendable. Once broken

it could never be set up again. And gradually a sense of loneliness

crept over him. He went and stood next Ricardo, who, like himself,

would have no share in the festivity. And the old man blinked up at

him with a kind of triumph.

"And we're going to a hill that I know of," Francey was saying. "No

one else knows of it. In fact, it's only there when I am. You go by

train, and after that you have to walk. I don't know the way. It

comes by inspiration. When you get to the top you can see the whole of

England, and there are always flowers. I'm taking Howard's gang, and

you people must come along too. It's what you want. A good time----"

"_All_ the time," said Miss Edwards, blowing away the crumbs.

"My people are going in a char-a-banc to Brighton," Rufus said. "But

I'll give them the slip. There's sure to be a beastly row anyhow."

"That's my brave boy! Who cares for rows? Take me. Our Mr. Reilly's

had the nerve to fix up a rehearsal for the new French dame what's

coming to ginger up our show--and, oh, believe me, it needs it--but am

I down-hearted? No! Anyway, if she's half the stuff they say she is

they'll never notice poor little Connie's gone to bury her fifth

grandmother. So I'll be with you, lady, and kind regards and many

thanks."

"And you, too. Miss Forsyth?"

Christine shook her head. She was frowning up out of the open window a

little anxiously.

"What would you do with a tired old woman?"

"Ruffles will carry you. Throw out your chest, Ruffles, and look

fierce. What's the use of a hefty brute like that if it isn't useful?"

"And when you're on my hill," Francey said with a mysterious nod,

"you'll understand it better than any of us." She looked away from the

grey, upturned face. She added almost to herself: "How dark it is

here! The sun has gone down behind the roof."

"Has it? Yes, it went so suddenly. I wondered"--she picked up her

knitting, and began to roll it together--"if Robert could go?" she

murmured.

"Robert can go. I knew before I asked."

But he flung round on her in a burst of extraordinary resentment.

"I can't. You seem to think I can do anything and everything that

comes into your head. People like you never really understand. We're

poor. We haven't the money or the time to--to fool round. Nor has

Cosgrave, but he likes to pretend--humbug himself and anyone else silly

enough to believe in him."

It was as though something long smouldering amongst them had blazed up.

Cosgrave banged the table with his clenched fist. His freckles were

like small suns shining out of his dead-white face.

"You--you leave me alone, Stonehouse. I--I'm n-not a kid any more.

And I d-don't pretend. Connie knows I haven't a c-cent in the world

except what poor mother sneaks out of the housekeeping. But I'm s-sick

of living as I've done--always grinding, always afraid of everything.

If I c-can't have my fun out of life I d-don't want to live at all.

I'm not going to Heaven to make up for it--Mr. Ricardo has just told us

that--so what's the use? You've g-got your work and that satisfies

you. Mine doesn't satisfy me. So when you t-talk about me--you're

just t-talking through your hat."

Miss Edwards threw up her hands in mock horror.

"Oh, my angel child, what a temper! And to think I nearly married him!"

She choked with laughter. And underneath the thin flooring, as though

roused by her irreverent merriment, the big car shook itself awake with

a roar and splutter of indignation. But the sliding doors were thrown

open, and its rage died down at the prospect of release. It began to

purr complacently, greedily.

It was strange how the sound quieted them. They looked towards the

window as though for the first time they were aware of something

outside that came to them from beyond the low, confining roofs--a

spring wind blowing from far-off places.

"Six cylinder," Cosgrave muttered with feverish eyes. "Do you know, if

I had that thing living under me I'd--I'd go off with it one night, and

I'd go on and on and never come back."

Connie Edwards patted his head. She winked at Francey, but Francey was

looking at Robert's sullen back.

"No, you wouldn't. Not for six months or so, anyhow."

He laughed shamefacedly.

"Oh, well, of course I'm rotting. I can't drive a go-cart. Never had

the chance. Oh, I say, Robert, don't grouch. I didn't mean to be

rude. Of course, you're right in a way. But I get that sort of stuff

at home, and if I get it here I don't know what I'll do."

"Oh, you're right, too," Robert muttered. "It's not my business."

Cosgrave appealed sadly to Francey.

"He's wild with me. But a picnic--you'd think any human being might go

on a picnic----"

"You're going," she answered quietly, "and Robert too."

He did not take up the challenge. He was too miserable. He had not

meant to break out like that. As in the old days, he hungered for her

approval, her good smile of understanding. But as in the old days,

too, beneath it all, was the dim consciousness of an antagonism, of

their two wills poised against one another.

The car purred louder with exultation. It came sliding out into the

narrow, cobbled street. It waited a moment, gathering itself together.

"I wonder where it's going," Cosgrave dreamed. "I hope a jolly long

way--right to the other end of England. I'd like to think of it going

on and on through the whole world."

Christine leaned forward, peering out dimly.

"Are the trees out yet, Robert?"

They looked at her in silence. It was a strange thing to ask. And yet

not strange at all. All day long she sat there and saw nothing but the

squat, red-faced stable opposite. Or if she went out it was to buy

cheaply from the barrows in a mean side street. And now she was

remembering that there were trees somewhere, perhaps in bloom.

Even Miss Edwards looked queerly dashed and distressed.

"Now you're asking something, Miss Forsyth. There are trees in this

little old village, but they aren't real somehow, and I never notice

'em. Well, we'll know on Monday. Please Heaven, it doesn't rain."

"I want to get out," Cosgrave muttered; "out of here--right away----"

"I've not had a picnic--not since I was a kid. But I haven't forgotten

it, though. Heaps to eat--and an appetite---- Oh, my!"

"And you can go on eating and eating," Francey added greedily, "and it

doesn't seem to matter."

"Egg and cress sandwiches----"

"Ham pie----"

"Sardines----"

"Russian salad--mayonnaise----"

"And something jolly in a bottle."

They laughed at one another. But after that the quiet returned again.

Francey sat with her hands clasped behind her head and her chair

tip-tilted against the wall. To Robert, who watched her from out of

the shadow, she seemed to be drifting farther and farther away on a

dark, quiet, flowing river.

It grew to dusk. The car had long since set out on its unknown

journey. The narrow street with its pungent stable odour had sunk into

one of those deep silences which lie scattered like secret pools along

the route of London's endless processions. And presently Mr. Ricardo,

who had not moved or spoken, but had sat hunched together like a

captive bird, leant forward with his finger to his lips.

Christine had fallen asleep. Her hands lay folded upon her work and

her face was still lifted to the black ridge of roof where the sun had

vanished. There was enchantment about her sleep, as though in the very

midst of them she had begun to live a new, mysterious life of her own.

She had been the shadowy onlooker. She became the central figure among

them.

Mr. Ricardo rose noiselessly. He looked at no one. He passed them

like a ghost. They heard him creeping down the stairs and his

hurrying, unequal footsteps on the empty street. Cosgrave and Connie

Edwards nodded to one another and took hands and were gone. Francey,

too, slipped to her feet. She gathered up her hat and coat, her

silence effortless. She did not so much as glance at Robert, but at

the head of the steep, ladder-like stairs he overtook her.

"Francey--listen----"

With one foot on the lower step, her back against the wall, she waited

for him. It was too dark for them to see each other clearly. They

were shadows to one another. They spoke in whispers, as though they

were afraid of waking something more than the sleeper in the room

behind them. He could not have told how he knew that her face was wet.

"I wanted to say--I don't know why I behaved like that. I'm not

usually--nervy--uncontrolled. I don't think I've ever lost my temper

before. I've had so little to do with people. Perhaps that's it.

I've gone my own way alone----"

"And now that our ways have crossed," she began with a sad irony.

"No--not crossed--come together--run out together into the

high-road----" He clenched his hands till they were bloodless in the

effort to speak. "You see, a few weeks ago I wouldn't have lost my

temper--and I wouldn't have said queer, silly things like this----

I'm a sort of kaleidoscope that someone's shaken up. I don't know

myself; things have been hard--but awfully simple. I've only thought

of--wanted--the one thing. It doesn't seem to me that I've had to

fight until now. You don't understand--what it has been----"

"I do--I do!" she interrupted hurriedly. "I've seen Christine--and the

way you live--and that dreadful cupboard. Oh, I'm not sorry for

you--only afraid. You're nothing but a boy----"

"You needn't be afraid. I'll pull through. It's only another year

now. But I can't be like the other people you know--who can be jolly

and easy-going--because they're not going anywhere at all. Can't you

be patient, Francey?"

"Was I impatient?" He felt her humour flicker up like a flame in the

darkness. "I suppose I was. It was the jam-puff. You hurt their

feelings. And it was such a little thing."

"I hate jam-puffs," he said, but humbly, because it was not the truth,

and he could never explain.

"Come with us, Robert."

"I can't."

"But you want to come?"

"That's just it. I don't know why. It would be waste of

time--money--everything--all wrong. What have I to do with Howard and

that lot--with girls like Connie Edwards?"

"--and me," she added, smiling to herself.

"Or you with them?"

"Oh, they're my friends. As you say, they're not going anywhere--just

dawdling along and picking up things by the wayside--queer, interesting

things----"

"I've no use for them," he said doggedly.

"--And Christine wanted to go." She added after a moment, gently, as

though she were feeling through the dark, "--is dying to go, Robert."

"You're just imagining it. She's never cared for things like

that--only for my getting ahead with my work--my finals."

"Didn't you hear her ask about the trees?"

He looked back over his shoulder like a suddenly frightened child.

"Yes. It--it didn't mean anything, though. It was just for something

to say."

"She said a great deal more than she meant to."

"We've mapped out everything--every ha'penny--every minute."

"Let me help, Robert. I've got such a lot. I've no one else. I could

make it easier for you both. I should be happier, too. And you could

pay me back afterwards with interest--a hundred per cent.--I don't care

what."

But now feeling through the dark she had reached the barrier. He

answered stonily.

"Thanks. We've never owed anything. We shan't begin now."

She slipped into her coat. She tugged her soft hat down over her hair.

There was more than anger in her quick, impatient movements. She was

going because she couldn't bear it any more. She had given in. She

would never come back. And at that fear he broke out with a desperate

cunning.

"It's too bad to be angry with me. I--I want to go."

"And I've asked you----?

"Because you want me?"

"Of course. It will be the first chance we've had to really talk----"

"It can't matter--just for once," he pleaded with himself.

"It might matter a great deal."

She went on down the stairs, very slowly, lingeringly. He leant over

the creaking banisters, trying to see her.

"Francey--you duffer--you haven't even told me where to meet you."

"Paddington--the Booking Office--10.15."

He held his breath. Her voice had sounded like that of a spirit

laughing out of the black veil beneath. It did not come again. He

could not even hear her footsteps. She had vanished. But he waited,

trembling before the wonder of his own impulse.

Supposing he had yielded--had taken her hands and kissed them--kissed

that pale, beloved face, he who had never kissed anyone but Christine

since his mother died?

He had not done it. It had been too difficult to yield. But he stood

there, dreaming, with his hot eyes pressed into his hands, whilst out

of the magic quiet rose wave after wave of enchantment, engulfing him.

2

They agreed that Francey had not boasted about her hill. It stood up

boldly out of the rolling sea of field and common land and was

tree-crowned, with primroses shining amongst the young grass. From its

summit they could see toy villages and church, spires and motors and

char-a-bancs running like alarmed insects along the white, winding

lanes. But apparently no one saw the hill. No one came to it. Since

it was everything that picnic parties demanded in the way of a hill, it

was only reasonable to accept Francey's theory that it was not really

there at all--or at most only there for her particular convenience.

They spread their table-cloth on its slope and under the dappled

shadows of the half-fledged trees, with Christine presiding on the high

ground. Her wispy grey hair fluttered out from under the wide black

hat, and she looked pretty and pathetic, with her shabby black bag and

her old umbrella, like a witch, as Howard said, who had been caught

whilst absent-mindedly gathering toad-stools and carried here in

triumph to bless their mortal festivity.

"The umbrella keeps off rain," he explained mysteriously, "and besides

that, it's a necromantic Handley-Page which might fly off with her at

any minute. When you see it opening, stand clear and hold on to

yourselves."

He made a limerick on this particular fancy. It was a very bad

limerick, as bad, probably, as his theories on pyridine and its

relation to the alkaloids which had floored him in his last exam.; but

the Gang applauded enthusiastically, and drank to Christine out of mugs

of beer. Unlicked and cynical as they were, they seemed to have a

chivalrous tenderness for her. And she was at home among them--silent,

smiling wistfully down upon their commonplace eccentricities, as though

through the mist of her coming blindness they were somehow lovable.

They ate outrageously of fearsome things. Yet over her third meringue

Connie Edwards broke down with lamentations for the lost powers of

youth.

"I can remember eating five of 'em," she said, "and coming home to a

tea of winkles and bloater paste. Oh Gawd! I'll be in my grave before

I can turn round."

She had been from the start in an unusually pensive and philosophic

mood--a trifle wide-eyed and even awe-struck. It seemed that the night

before the "French dame" had appeared unexpectedly during a

rehearsal--a peculiarly gingerless performance according to Connie's

account--and had watched from the wings awhile, and then, unasked and

apparently without premeditation, had broken in among them and at the

edge of the footlights, to a gaping, empty theatre, had danced and sung

a little song.

"A French song," Connie said solemnly. "Not a word of the blessed

thing could we understand, and yet we were all hugging ourselves. Not

pretty either--a mere bone and a yank of hair--and no more voice than a

sparrow. But you just went along too. Couldn't help it. And

afterwards we played up as though we liked it, and hadn't been plugging

at the rottenest show in England for the last ten weeks. And she

laughed and clapped her hands, and our tongues hung out we were that

pleased. She's It, friends. It. Gyp Labelle from the Folies Bergeres

and absolutely It."

Rufus Cosgrave rolled over on his face and lay blinking out of the long

grass like a sleepy, red-headed satyr.

"Gyp Labelle," he said drowsily, "Gyp Labelle!"

Robert knew that he was thinking of the Circus. And he did not want to

think about the Circus. He pushed the memory from him. He was glad

when Howard said gravely:

"That's genius. That's what we poor devils pray to and pray for. We

know we haven't got it, but we're always hoping that if we agonize and

sweat long enough, one day God will lean out of His cloud and touch us

with His finger."

"Michael Angelo," said Gertie Sumners, with a kind of sombre triumph.

"The Sistine Chapel. I've got a print of it in my room. That's where

you saw it." She leaned back against a tree trunk with her knees drawn

up to her chin, and blew out clouds of smoke, and looked more than

usually grey and dishevelled and in need of a bath. "In a way it's

like that with Jeffries. He rubs his beastly old thumb over my

rottenest charcoal sketch, and it's a masterpiece."

Robert, lying outstretched at Francey's feet, wondered at them--at

their talk of genius in connection with a revue star and a smudgy,

underpaid studio hack, more still at their reverence for a God in Whom

they certainly did not believe.

Miss Edwards snatched off her cartwheel hat smothered with impossible

poppies, and sent it spinning down the hill.

"What's the good?" she demanded fiercely. "We're just nothing at all.

We're young now. But when we aren't young, what's going to happen to

the bunch of us?"

"This is a picnic," Howard reminded her. "Not a funeral. You haven't

eaten enough. Have a pickle."

But the shadow lingered. It was like the shadow thrown by the white

clouds riding the light spring wind. It put out the naming colours of

the grass and flowers. It was as though winter, slinking sullenly to

its lair, showed its teeth at them in sinister reminder. Then it was

gone. It was difficult to believe it could return.

Robert looked up shyly into Francey's face, and she smiled down at him

with her warm eyes. They had scarcely spoken to one another, but

something delicate and exquisite had been born between them in their

silence. He was afraid to touch it, and afraid almost to move. He

felt very close to her, very sure that she was living with him,

withdrawn secretly from the rest into the strange world that he had

discovered. He was happy. And happiness like this was new to him and

terrifying. He was like a waif from the streets, pale and gaunt and

young, with dazzled eyes gazing for the first time into great distances.

"Italy----" Gertie Sumners muttered. She threw away her cigarette, and

sat with her sickly face between her hands. "I've got to get there

before I die. Think of all the swine that hoof about the Sistine

Chapel yawning their fat heads off, and me who'd give my immortal soul

for an hour----"

"You'll go," Howard said, blinking kindly at her. "I'll take you.

We'll get out of this for good and all. I'll bust a bank or forge a

cheque. You've got the divine right to go, old dear!"

Robert stirred, drawing himself a little nearer to Francey, touching

her rough tweed skirt humbly, secretly, as a Catholic might touch a

sacred relic for comfort and protection. They were talking a language

that he could not understand---they were occupied with things that he

despised, not knowing what they were; they made him ashamed of his

ignorance and angry with his shame. He could not free himself of his

first conviction that they were really the Banditti--inferior children,

who yet had something that he had not. He was cleverer than they were.

He would be a great man when they had wilted from their brief,

shallow-soiled youth to a handful of dry stubble. (This Gertie Sumners

would not even live long. He recognized already the thumb-marks of

disease in her sunken cheeks.) And yet he was an outsider, blundering

in their wake. Just because they accepted him, taking it for granted

he was one of them, they deepened his isolation. He could not talk

their talk. He could not play with them. He had tried. The old

hunger "to belong" had driven him. But he was stiff with strength and

clumsy with purpose. If he and Francey had not belonged to one

another, he would have been overwhelmed in loneliness.

He shut his ears against them. But when she spoke he had to

listen--jealously, fearfully.

"It would be no use, Howard. You'd come back. You can't strip off

your nationality like an old-fashioned coat and throw it away. All

this--isn't it English and different from any other country in the

world--deeply, deeply different, just as we are different?

England--she's a human, lovely woman, quiet and broad-bosomed, busy

about her home, and only sometimes, in the spring and autumn, she stops

a little to dream her mystic dreams. In the summer and winter she

pretends to forget. She's anxious about many things--how she shall

keep us warm and fed--a little stupid-seeming, with wells of all sorts

of kindly wisdom.

"And Italy--the saint, the austere spirit, close to God, preparing

herself for God, with unspeakable visions of Him. Where I lived"--she

made a sudden passionate gesture of delight--"we looked over the

Campagna, and there were three hills close to one another with towns

perched on their crest, as far from the world and comfort as they could

get. And at night they were like the three kings with their golden

crowns and dark flowing robes, waiting for God to show them the sign.

"But we build our towns in the valleys and sheltered places. We like

our trains to be punctual, and to do things in decent order. We

pretend to be a practical and reasonable people. We're of our soil.

In Italy what do trains matter--or when they come and go--when, even to

those who don't believe in Him at all, it's only God who matters?" She

laughed, shaking herself free. "So you'll come back, Howard--because

you're part of all this. You'll always hate waiting for your train,

and you'll always be a little ashamed of your dreams. And you'll never

be real anywhere else."

Howard applauded solemnly.

"I'll make a poem of that--one day, when I'm awfully drunk, and don't

know what I'm doing."

But Robert sat up sharply, frowning at her, white, almost accusing.

"When did you live in Italy, Francey?"

"Last year--all last year."

"You mean--you chucked your work--everything--just to play round----?"

Howard yawned prodigiously.

"You don't get our Francey's point of view, Stonehouse. You don't

understand."

"Just to play round," she echoed to herself. Then she laughed and

unclasped her hands from about her knees and stood up effortlessly,

stretching out her arms like a sleepy child. "And now I'm going to

gather sticks for a fire and primroses to take home. Coming Robert?"

"No," he muttered.

Howard rolled over in the grass.

"Sulky young idiot--if I wasn't half asleep--or I'd been asked----"

His voice died into an unintelligible murmur.

So she went alone. The rest, heavy with food and sunshine, nibbled

jadedly at the remnants of the feast, exchanging broken, drowsy

comments. Perhaps Gertie Sumners was brooding over the three kings

with their golden crowns. But Robert knelt and watched Francey run

down the hill-side, faster and faster, like a brown shadow. There was

a thick belt of beech trees at the bottom, and she ran into them and

was lost.

He rose stiffly. He did not want the others to see--he did not want to

know himself, that he was following her. He strolled indolently about

the crest of the hill, whistling to the breeze, his eyes hunting the

wood beneath like the eyes of a young setter at heel. But when at last

he was out of sight he slipped his leash and was off, running

recklessly, headlong. The hill rose up behind him and sent him down

its hillocky slopes as though before the horns of an avalanche. The

wind blew the scent of trees and flowers and young grass against his

burning face. It was like draughts of a cold, clear wine. It was like

running full-tilt down Acacia Grove leaping and whooping.

It was frightening, too--a hand fumbling at the heart--this fierce

coming to life of something dormant, this breaking free----