NOËL ANSON and I had been great friends in our first youthful days, but
our lives and ambitions had led us so contrarily that we had not seen
each other for more than six years when, on the night two weeks ago, we
happened to meet at the Club. We had both, of course, so much to say
that, as often happens, we babbled on quite inartistically, spoiling
many a good story in the gay, breathless exchange of reminiscence and
experience; from all of which, however, clearly loomed out these great
cardinal facts of our lives, that we had both married; my wife, who was
a perfect woman, I explained, I had had to leave behind in New Zealand
to take care of her old father; while his wife, who was also a perfect
woman, he chivalrously insisted, had thought fit to divorce poor Noël
some six months before.
But there was one story, anyway, which Noël Anson did not hurriedly
spoil. He kept it long inside him--until that hour after ten when our
corner of the smoking-room was entirely our own, and until he safely
knew that I had talked enough to be able now to remain comfortably
silent and attentive. Dear Noël, he dearly loved to tell a story!
"You are the very first person to hear this," he began untruthfully;
and the calm grey eyes of my friend Noël Anson merged into the
luxurious stare with which the raconteur hypnotically fixes his prey
all the world over. Even thus must the gentle Marlow have transfixed
his hearers as he led them inexorably through the labyrinth of Lord
Jim's career, and through many another such intricacy of Conradian
imagination.
"It's old, older than the stuff that hills and Armenians are made of,"
he said. "The ageless tale of the inevitable lady sitting alone in the
inevitable box of the inevitable theatre to which our inevitable young
man has gone to wile away a tiresome evening. History supplies the
formula, it is only the details for which I'm personally responsible.
"There I sat, one night years ago, alone in a stall at the old
Imperial; grimly smoking, and watching the footlight favourites
'getting-off' with a stage-boxful of rowdy young men who hadn't the
grace even to try to imitate the few gentlemen who might at one time
have been good enough to know 'em--until, on a moment, my eyes circled
round the upper boxes and fixed on a marvellous lady in white, amazing
and alone and unashamed....
"One has grown into the habit of using phrases trivially, but when I
say that I caught my breath at the sight of that figure through the
smoke, I mean that I actually did. There she suddenly was, a wonderful
fact in a dreary place! A candle lighting even the dimmest recesses of
that mausoleum! She, in contrast to all around, was real, exquisite
life....
"And, of course, there was to her beauty the added attraction of
the curious, as you can well understand. For there simply was not
the slightest trace of the _demi-monde_ about her, nothing at all
to suggest that she might at any moment be the mistress of a great
shopkeeper--as, the deuce take it, there well might be about any woman
who had the effrontery to sit so shamelessly alone and--and _soignée_
in front of a box at the Imperial! I mean, it was not the sort of
thing one's sister could do and look dignified about--in fact, it is
some very special and subtle quality which will prevent a well-dressed
woman looking like a courtesan under certain circumstances. French
women say English women haven't got it, and English women say French
women have got nothing else. But this dark-haired, immobile, alien
woman had just that quality--well, of utter 'rightness'; she was
impeccable, you understand. It was more than an impertinence not to
take for granted that she herself had walked into Cartier's and bought
that rope of pearls around her throat.... For although she was in one
of the upper boxes, I could see her quite clearly.
"But 'desirable'--that's the word for the particular creak in the hinge
of one's mind as it enfolds the beauty of such a person--desirable! You
wanted to stretch out a long graceful arm above the heads of all the
stuffy people around you and catch her up, not by force, for she must
yield; and then, as you brought her close to you, what happened would
depend entirely on the sort of woman she was and the sort of man you
were....
"Of course one couldn't let this sort of thing go on without, anyway,
trying to see about it. In the first _entr'acte_ I made a dash for
that ginger-haired old boy by the box-office and got him to send a
page-boy with a note. It naturally wasn't all done in a breath, for the
note had obviously to be a note of the finer sort, it had to convey
a very particular impertinence which wasn't an impertinence simply
because it was so particular. You must know what I mean.... Oh, it had
to be just right! You must be neither too casual nor too ingratiating.
You must not write it either in clogs or in carpet slippers, but in a
happy mean, in the most exquisite pumps that were ever contrived by
Lobb. You may think I'm exaggerating, but really I sweated blood over
those few lines--how, how did one know that one might not miss the best
thing of a lifetime by a _gauche_ word!
"I sent it off at last--the central idea of it being that I greatly
desired the honour of her presence at supper, while apologising for
my monstrous cheek in asking for her presence at same, and that I
was sitting in the third seat from the end of the third row of the
stalls.... Which, by the way, reminds me! It always pays to take a
stall, for imagine writing to a marvellous woman who may have spent her
maid's quarterly wages on a box and saying that you are sitting in the
dress-circle--the dress-circle, mind you! It sounds so odd--anyway, I
breathe again when I think that I might have missed a perfect thing by
sitting in the dress-circle. One isn't being a snob, but an opportunist.
"I received my answer in the second interval ... amazed, excited. Yes,
she was a foreigner by her writing; just a couple of cold lines saying
that I could call at her box at the end of the revue.
"Preliminaries are of course always tiresome, but these were perhaps
less so than most, simply because one was so in the air about her,
and so much readier than usual to be appreciative.... And, mind you,
rightly, as it proved. She spoke English charmingly well, but just
incorrectly enough to be recognisable as a 'distinguished foreigner.'
"Almost on my entrance she began to apologise for her 'rudeness' at
neither accepting nor declining my invitation to supper in her note.
"'But let's be amazingly candid,' I suggested, on her note. 'You
wished, of course, to have a look at your host, before--'
"'But no, I wished to have a look at my guest,' she said, quickly. And
by the slightest flutter in her voice I guessed for the first time that
she was frightfully shy. Personally, I never felt so unattractive in
my life, all prickly hot and affected--as one gets, you know.
"'You must understand that I have a charming house,' she explained.
'And if you will not think me too insincere, I will say that I should
be very flattered if you will take supper with me....'
"I was still standing. She had turned towards me in her chair, and
was looking up at me. She smiled up at me, with a pretty pretence at
pathos, and very lightly her fingers just touched my arm....
"'Please, will you not mind my depriving you of the pleasure of
showing me how charming a host you can be? And anyway, it is so much
more important for me to show you my qualities as a hostess. I have
something of a reputation for that, I must warn you.'
"That quickly found note of intimacy, how fascinating it is! This woman
could turn a drawing-room into an adventure, and an adventure into a
drawing-room, all by a particular quality of--what is it? eye, voice,
manner, ancestry? God knows! But all, all a snare and a delusion....
"Her electric brougham took us away from the deserted theatre. I was of
course too interested in my companion to notice where we were going.
I had a vague idea of Piccadilly, that's all.... She was very amusing.
We had stepped off the ice too quickly, if indeed we had ever been on
it, to get back to it in any way, and the twenty minutes or so of that
gliding motion passed in one pleasant moment.
"'But perhaps you would prefer me to be haughty,' she said suddenly,
'or how do you say it--county? It would perhaps be more becoming in a
woman who does not yet know the name of her guest?'
"'You drive me into a fatuous corner,' I said. 'For what on earth can
I answer but that you can well afford not to be county or any stuff of
that kind?'
"She turned her eyes quickly on mine; suddenly, she was very serious.
She brooded on me for a swift, palpable second.
"'You really, really mean that you do not think me--ah, it is very
delicate!--well, you don't think me "cheap" for letting this happen,
like this? But,' she laughed as suddenly, 'but forgive me,' she said.
'I was not trusting my own judgment.... And besides you have just said
that your father is a Bishop!'
"It was as she was about to step out of the brougham that she said: 'It
has a charm, our adventure. You are so delightful a partner, you "play
up." It is most unusual in men.... And perhaps, too, you are good at
forgetting?'
"'Am I being threatened?' I had to ask.
"'But no, you are being trusted!' she said, very gently....
"I followed her into the house a little shamefacedly; taken, as it
were, out of my stride. There seemed, don't you see, to be no tattered
edges about this woman, there was a finesse about her every emotion
and movement, it was as though every mood and motive had been polished
to perfection before it became articulate in word or gesture. She was
deplorably civilized.
"The house was of the sort that one would have expected of her, though
I can't specify what that was; and exactly where it was, as I've said,
I didn't realize, though it couldn't have been a hundred miles away
from Hyde Park Corner.
"I am not much of a hand at describing rooms, so I can't tell you much
more of the room into which I followed her than that it was large and
seemed just right. What I mean is that I wasn't taking much interest
in antique furniture at that moment, but if anything had been wrong or
jarring in the room I would have been on it at once,--so it must have
been a perfect room. Simplicity stunt on Howard de Walden lines, you
know, with Whistler and Meryon etchings scattered here and there about
the pale walls, and a certain suggestion of black and gold lacquer
somewhere, which I can't now exactly place, unless it was a tall boy or
something of the kind.
"As we entered the room, and she was putting her cloak, white stuff and
ermine, and other things on a chair, I saw particularly the glitter on
the table which meant supper--and as she turned I suppose that I must
too obviously have shown a hint of _gauche_ surprise; and indeed I was
surprised, for the table was laid for two! She had caught me out, and
rather unfairly, and for a second the divine person watched me quite
severely--a severity that amazingly broke into the most absolute and
whole-hearted laugh that I've ever had the misfortune and fortune to
see on any face. Its abandon and gaiety were quite delightful, but I
don't ever wish repeated the prickly discomfort of being so utterly
laughed _at_, as she laughed at me so helplessly standing there.
"But she mended it, a quick simple gesture towards me changed her from
a possible enemy into a--well--comrade.
"'Fool man!' she said. 'Did you really think that it was you who had,
how d'you say it? "picked me up"? Don't you know that it was decided
this morning that you should come to supper with me, decided quite,
quite, early? Or some one like you, perhaps not so charming--but then I
have been so lucky.... Are you very angry with me?'
"She was very close to me, smiling, intimate. Pure coquetry, of
course,--but what perfect _technique_! You knew that she was playing,
but that did not prevent the blood rushing to your head; and she was
so clean, so much 'one of us'! Perhaps she expected me to kiss her at
that moment, in fact, I could scarcely resist, for I always try to be a
little gentleman and do what is expected of me; but I didn't kiss her
then, for I felt it was the wrong moment, it would have to come about
differently. Besides, I don't like your scrappy kisses.... But she was
waiting.
"'Anger isn't exactly one of my emotions at the moment,' I said,
stupidly enough. 'But will you please be very gentle with me, because
never, never have I met any one like you?'
"'I will make a note of that and refer to it when you make a fool of
yourself. Ah, but I know you very well, you are a cautious person who
will make a fool of himself only when it would be folly to be wise.'
"She was close to me, it was dangerous, and I can only bear a certain
amount of that kind of thing, for my sort of restraint is due entirely
to a desire for, well, greater efficiency.... But why will women do
that, why will they step in where men fear to tread? I only speak from
my own paltry experience, of course, but the only two real affairs
I've had would have gone sadly awry if the women had had their way, if
it hadn't been for my mania for organisation.... But I couldn't stand
there another second, holding my breath over that face, that scent.
She was wearing an orchid, too, and an orchid takes its scent from a
woman's body, you can't really smell it except when it is entangled
in a woman's breath. It was an exquisite, damnable addition. I had to
break loose.
"'Encouraged as I am being to enter for the correspondent stakes,' I
said impertinently, 'I am being most awfully neglected as a guest.'
"The darling, how she laughed! She had the kind of large soft mouth
that's made for laughter--until one day you find it's made for tragedy.
"Not then, nor later, did I see any servant about. But the table was
admirably arranged. I am a commonplace enough person, I think of food
in terms of _cantaloup_ and _caviare_ and damn the labour question;
one would be a charming person if one had ten thousand a year. And so,
though I would have been surprised if the supper had not been good, I
was surprised that it was so good; for women, as you know, are rather
bewildering in their choice of food, generally I don't trust 'em, but
she--how well she had plumbed the particular male beastliness which I,
anyway, affect! Oh, her age? About that of Mary Stuart when Bothwell
and Swinburne fell in love with her....
"It was as we sat down to supper that I really looked round the room
for the first time, and noticed a full length portrait in oils on a
wall by the door; of a very distinguished-looking person indeed, in
the toy uniform of some foreign cavalry--Italian, I imagined. But,
gorgeously decorated and hilted as he was, his chest emblazoned with
the ribbons of orders (merited as much by his birth as by any action,
one thought), there was a great air of distinction about the man which
discounted as well as harmonised with his ridiculous trappings. The
slim, perhaps too waisted, figure bore a thin hawk-like face, which
with its perfectly poised mixture of ferocity and courtesy would have
carried its fortunate owner as easily into the heart of any schoolboy
as into the _boudoir_ of the most unattainable lady; and sweeping
_moustachios_ somehow added prominence to the long, delicate, very
arched nose--surely the nose of a Roman person, I ventured to myself at
the end of my long glance. And as I turned to my hostess, she explained
quickly that the decoration was her husband.
"'A very charming and considerate person,' she said, 'who apologises
for being neglected by me.'
"Over supper I began at last to lose my shyness, for I had been very
nervous, you know. As one only too rarely is.... She had the quality of
making one talk, of making one feel that one was on the top of one's
form. Oh, that insinuating art of unuttered flattery which makes one
weak and sincere and terribly reckless.
"'You are very terrible, you make me almost articulate,' I simply had
to say, as we rose from the table. 'You see the only really nice things
about me are my admirations, and I admire you so unreservedly....'
"Perhaps it was just at that moment that I first kissed her. Yes, it
must have been then, for she had a way of accepting those shameless
remarks with such an air of pretty surprise that I couldn't have
resisted the impulse--and anyway, I didn't want to, the thing could go
its own divine way without any more officious restraint on my part.
"I found then that she had that rarest of generous gifts, the power of
graceful admission.... You, old man, who have loved beautiful things,
must know how rare that is, how often one is jarred by that meanest
sort of pride which denies, refuses to admit, the influence of another.
Oh, the insaneness of generous people, the indecencies of decent
people! Am I phrasing a sensation too absurdly if I say that I was
_comfortable_ with this woman whom I had known for less than two hours?
And when I had kissed her, and kissed her again, for hers was not the
riddle to be solved by one touch of the lips, the thing did not take on
the air of a _liaison_, it was not a surprising and stolen pleasure, it
was just natural.
"Slowly she unpinned her orchid and threw it among the elegant debris
of the table.
"'You crush orchids,' she said. She didn't smile. She looked up at me
very thoughtfully.
"'But you must know that this is all wrong,' she said. 'It should not
have been like this at all. When I decided this morning that you
must come to supper with me it was on the distinct understanding that
you should not touch more than the tips of my fingers--and they were
manicured so well this afternoon, too! Look.... Oh, no no! It is too
late, now that you have crushed my orchid it is too late to be so
deferential. And anyway, I did not intend that you should kiss even
my hand until you were going away--and I imagined you going away very
disappointed and full of quite pleasant regrets that I was a cold
woman in spite, oh, in spite of everything! Come, Noël Anson, defend
yourself. Give me reasons why you should not be disappointed. I am very
serious.' And I realised that she was indeed serious.
"'But why d'you say that?' I asked quickly. 'Must the thing be exactly
as you planned, can't anything be altered--oh, I know that sounds
fatuous, but when you look like that one feels helpless! I was right.
You are very terrible.'
"'I _know_, that's all.' she said. And she slowly raised her arms and
put her hands on my shoulders. 'Do not be a fool, Noël Anson,' she said
gently. 'Life is not so easy. There is no romance without reality. I am
warning you, because I am afraid.'
"'And will you tell me when a warning has prevented a fool from being
foolish? And besides, I like being a fool. And _I_ am not afraid. I'm
not even afraid of your answer if I ask whether you love me.'
"She laughed, but so lightly that she didn't break the tension--you
know that infernal laugh?
"'But that is a leading question!' she protested.
"'And that is a dangerous way of answering it,' I had to say, though
anything else would have done equally well, for I hadn't mind for
words. She had lost her laugh and her eyes held mine. We stood there
looking at each other.... As men and women will, when they know
everything and nothing of each other. She was close to me, amazingly
kissable! But I didn't, instead I picked her up in my arms and carried
her to the door, and out into the strange hall, and up the strange wide
staircase of this unknown house, up....
"But if my impulse was to carry her, hers was certainly to let me. Do
you understand that, or am I cheapening her to you? Oh, but one was so
uncertain yet certain about her, it was so good to be with a woman with
whom one could lose one's head and be sure that she wouldn't lose her
dignity--until that moment when she, like every one else, must become
self-conscious. And that moment came, on the landing upstairs, when
her fingers suddenly tightened around my arm. I let her stand, gently,
and she whispered something, just two words, into my ear, but I didn't
catch them, they are lost words.... She opened a door.
"In there she suddenly turned on me, and shook my arm. And a sudden,
queer darkness about her face made me wonder if she was angry.
"'Oh, you are so inevitable, aren't you!' she cried, but the
exclamation ended so surprisingly in the air, somehow so high up in
the air, that I've never yet been able to bring it definitely down to
earth and discover its meaning; unless it was that--I don't know....
She was so strange, so different from the other women who had filled
and emptied one's life, and it was difficult to tell her moods from her
emotions. But there was nothing spurious nor counterfeit about her, she
was not unreal, she wasn't even the closely-knit but far away dream
that beautiful women sometimes become in those terrifying, intimate
moments. She was the most essentially feminine woman that I've ever
met, she was so real.... That white oval face with the large, so large
and so articulate eyes, set in a mass of soft black Southern hair which
I myself had unpinned and let fall over her shoulders despite a shy
murmur from her--why, desire is a cheap word to express the passion to
possess that, the living symbol of the loveliest woman of all time!
Yes, yes, I was supremely ridiculous. I still am....
"A second or a century later, at the end of a long, long silence, for
me an infinity of happiness, she moved her head away from me and asked
me to light her a cigarette. I gave it to her, and waited. I knew so
well, you see, what was coming. I had been watching her, I had made a
feast of all the movements of that amazing face. It was a sad face,
wonderfully alive, but sad; and its sadness became fixed, her eyes were
large and held no curiosity at all. I noticed the lack of curiosity
in them, because one is so used to meeting it in women--they want to
find out! But she, perhaps, in her splendid conceit, had found out, she
_knew_, and she was sad--had she not said downstairs that she knew?
I didn't care then whether she knew or not, for then life was before
me, the present and the future were in exquisite certainty; but now,
as I waited and watched her draw her cigarette, I looked back on that
future, and was really terrified of the present. There are moments of
ice-clear sanity in all of us--you must know those moments?--when you
realise with helpless vividness what you can and what you cannot do,
what you simply cannot alter. And so with this moment and this woman;
she was inexorable, I could not alter her, I could do nothing but
wait--for the epilogue to that prelude played long ago downstairs, when
she had put her hands on my shoulders and told me that she was warning
me....
"'But perhaps you will think me very vain?' she asked at last, very
quietly.
"'Because you are thinking you will make me wretched by what you are
going to say?'
"'Oh, you are too quick!' she murmured. And she raised her head on her
elbow and looked at me.
"'Dear Noël Anson,' she said, 'our lives go different ways. To-day we
had never met, and to-morrow it must be as though we had never met.
For life is not a romance, it is a reality, and it is much stronger
than our--inclinations? And even if I loved you it would be the same, I
should be saying what I am saying now, because in me there is something
much stronger than love, much more inevitable.... Please, you must
believe me, it will hurt me if you do not believe me. I am not playing
any more. I do not play with memories of crushed orchids, because it
is only fools who think there is no pleasure in being serious ... just
sometimes.'
"'It is no use for me to say any more,' she said, 'because if you like
me very much then, anyway, you will be bitter about me--and if you do
not like me very much then you will only think me (how is it?) an odd
sort of woman.... I command you, and I put you on your honour to obey,
that when you leave this house you will go into the brougham waiting
for you without looking to see the number of the house, nor the name of
the street, so that you will never see me again, you man.... But it is
now very, very late, you must go, Don Noël, you must go! And take with
you my blessings--Adieu!'
"But I can only repeat her words to you barely and crudely. I can't
hope to give you the tragic gesture of impotence in her voice, and the
way her voice grew lighter and lighter until it seemed to become part
of the air, as impalpable, as mysterious. And at the end her voice
had died down to almost less than a whisper, her 'adieu' had fainted
between her tongue and her lips, it was only a wisp of a dying word. It
was strangely as though she were rehearsing something she might have to
say sometime.... She was only rehearsing. I waited.
"'Oh, but isn't that enough!' she almost cried, suddenly. 'Have I not
done it quite, quite well, or do you want me to think of something
else--something more ... more dramatic?'
"'Please, please do make it easy for me, Don Noël--do go away, please!'
she begged. 'This is so difficult, so much more difficult than I.... It
is not a tragedy, this, remember! It is an incident, and the incident
is finished, that's all. Don't please let me make a tragedy of it--by
apologising! You see, my Noël, I am so weak, so weak. I feel such a bad
woman, such a brute.... And you can never understand why, never....
Forgive me, and go!'
"Her very last word was almost brutal in its defined meaning, it held
no uncertainty; but I didn't move at that moment. I remembered that I
did not know her name.
"'A few moments ago, before you spoke, I had a dream,' I said. 'And in
my dream I was told that you would tell me your name, the name that
will explain the initials under the coronet on your hairbrushes. The
adventure would not have been so complete without a coronet, so I
looked to see if one was there, and behold! it was there. I am such a
snob, I would like to know your name.... And then I would forget it.'
"'That was a false dream,' she said. 'You will not know my name, you
will not know where this house is, you will not know anything. Don
Noël, you will be an English gentleman of the kind we find in books,
you will not remember or know anything that I do not wish. You will not
look at the number of the house, nor at the name of the street. That is
my wish.'
"She was quite, quite cold. Just like a woman who has had a love affair
which has lasted an eternity but cannot outlast another second. How
wise she was to let me see that--oh, well, anti-climax! She knew that
men do not fall of their own accord from great heights down to Mother
Earth, they must be pushed over--ever so gently, gently.
"'It is getting light,' she murmured.
"But as I rose she confessed her affectation; she threw her arms round
my neck and brought my face close to hers.
"'You fool man!' she said. 'Why do you hurt yourself and me? Why
did you just say that this was an adventure? This has not been an
adventure, it has been a love-affair.... And always remember that I
asked you to forgive me. Always.'
"When I was at the door I had to turn round. I had feared this moment
of going, and I had made up my mind to go quickly and be done with it.
But I make a bad actor, and artistic effects can go to the devil for
all I care. With my hand on the knob I had to turn round.
"'I can't go like this,' I said. And I walked back across the room, and
looked down on her.
"'I can't. It seems wrong,' I said.
"'Perhaps, then, it was not worth it?' she asked, so tentatively!
"'It will always have been worth it.... But there _is_ something
missing, isn't there?'
"'But, of course, Don Noël! There is much missing, for it is
an unfinished romance which will never be finished. You do not
understand--this is life!
"'I know. You are a baby, like all really nice men, and you want a
piece of chocolate to eat as you go away,' she said. 'Bring your head
down--yes, down, down, Noël--and I will give it to you.... Listen, you!
It is decided that you will never see me again, is it not? And that
you will keep your promise not to look where this house is, so that
you will never, never find me again? But, my dear, will you please
believe that I am ver' ver' sorry, that I would like to see you many,
many times before this stupid "good-bye." For it is not every day that
people like you and I meet, we could laugh and cry so well together....
A long time ago, as we came into this house (and we came in because we
had to come in, my Noël) I asked you if you were good at forgetting.
But you have been such a dear that I now give you permission to
remember--me! And that is the end of my vanity and your love affair,
Don Noël, for now you must go away, out of the house into the night
from which you came--oh, so wonderfully! Go--adieu, adieu.'
"And this time I did not turn round at the door, but went out of the
room and out of the house, into the pale darkness of the early morning.
The squat shape of the electric brougham was there, waiting on ice for
me; but the bent figure of the man in the driving-seat seemed asleep,
he certainly did not hear me until I was opening the door of the cab,
when I gave him my direction. And I stepped in. The thing glided softly
away, and I lay back and closed my eyes....
"I don't know how what I've told you has impressed you, I may indeed
have made the thing seem farcical; it had begun as a--well--casual
adventure, it had ended--ended! with me sitting back in her brougham,
seriously, abjectly miserable! My feeling was one of deadly and
unutterable flatness--just that. From my own lips had come a promise
that I would let something go, something which I wanted more than
anything else in the world, something which would never come back! I
would never see her again! Everything but that one agonising certainty
was in utter blankness. I was very flat, everything was grey....
"The brougham soon drew up at my door in Mount Street. I got out and
stood by the footboard, rather absentmindedly fumbling in my pocket for
a pound note to give to this obviously very confidential chauffeur. He
was still huddled up in his seat, his peaked cap well over his eyes,
his coat-collar turned up over half his face. Only his nose was really
visible, and that dimly. I was vaguely staring at it as I picked out
a note, a little piqued by the fellow's utter lack of interest in me.
I had only stood there, say, four seconds or so; he hadn't looked at
me once, wasn't even going to wait for the tip, for I saw that he was
releasing the lever to move off--when suddenly, staring at that nose, I
realised with a shock that I had seen it before. The car was almost in
motion when I said, sharply, amazedly:
"'But you've shaved off your moustache!'
"The car stopped. The man deliberately got out, and stood on the
pavement beside me. I am pretty tall, but he was even taller. I could
see his face clearly now--yes, it was he! looking almost cadaverous
without his sweeping _moustachios_, but still very distinguished. He
was smiling at me, with a strange urbanity.
"'This is very awkward,' he said, or rather murmured; his accent and
voice were distinctly foreign.
"'Very,' I agreed hotly. I was angry, shocked. 'It's so awkward that I
wonder how you put up with it.'
"'I can do one of two things,' he went on, ignoring my bad temper, but
looking intently at me. 'I can either kill you, or I can explain.'
"He looked about forty, and there was a courteous and fatherly air
about him which I found intensely irritating. But any manner would have
been irritating in my absurd position.
"'You have a perfect right to do the first, of course,' I rapped out.
'But may I suggest that you do both, and the explaining first, if you
don't mind. I think I'm rather entitled to one, don't you?'
"He considered me for a moment.
"'As you will, then,' he conceded. 'If you will get back into the cab
I will explain in there. I have found the night air rather chilly.'
"His manner infected me. 'If you will accept my hospitality for a
moment, please come inside. And perhaps a little firewater....' I
suggested vaguely.
"He accepted my invitation with a bow, and followed me into my flat. In
the sitting-room he unbuttoned his heavy coat, and stood with his back
to the empty grate; a tall, slim, decorative, and dangerous gentleman.
He made me feel like a baby in arms, but I stifled my irritation. I
poured out two stiff whiskies.
"'Only a touch of soda, thanks,' he answered my inquiry.
"'It was clever of you to recognise me by my nose,' he said. 'But the
Casamonas have been proud of their noses for so long that I, the last
of them, find it a little hard to have to conceal mine even for a few
minutes. And as for my moustache, to the absence of which you referred
so pointedly, that has been gone for some time. That portrait of me
which you saw was painted a long time ago, and since then I have become
subject to colds in the head. And I found that my _moustachios_ became
frequently _mal-soignés_ after the continual application, however
delicate, of a handkerchief. I begin to concede that there may, after
all, be some defence for that "tooth-brush" parody of a moustache which
you, _par exemple_, can so charmingly affect.'
"No, he wasn't laughing at me. He was just talking courteously on about
whatever had come first. But I couldn't bear it.
"'Eh--about that little matter,' I said absurdly, feeling more and more
like a tradesman.
"'Yes, of course,' he instantly agreed. He drained his glass, put it
delicately down on the table, and then turned to me.
"'If you will forgive a pointed question--did you keep your promise not
to look where the house was?'
"I had given up being irritated, it was so clearly no use.
"'Of course I did.' I answered abruptly.
"'Good! How charming it is to meet in life what one is tired of meeting
in books--for you are exactly like the English gentlemen in Mr.
Oppenheim's novels who always lose secret documents and find beautiful
wives. I envy them, and you--but oh, my dear sir, I do wish you were a
little more wicked and human!'
"'Are you complaining of my being too good!' I burst out, amazed.
"He saw the point, and for the first time really laughed.
"'I see that I must get to my explanation quickly,' he apologised.
'May I sit down? Thank you.... That lady, as you have guessed, is
my wife. Or, more correctly, she was my wife until two years ago.
Since when she has been so only in name. I use the language of
convention so that you may the more quickly understand me.... She
loved me, but she ceased to love me. It happens thus. And though I
love her still, it is without fire or passion; it is not the love
of a possesser, but of a connoisseur. I love her as I love a vase,
a marble, any really beautiful thing. You understand?... We married
four years ago, in Paris. She is of the best Sicilian blood, but a
rebel, an _aristo_ in revolt. She believes in only one law, and that
is the law of lawlessness. We met without the formal courtesies of an
introduction--if I may draw a parallel, as you and she met a few hours
ago. And again, since I am as sensitive a person as yourself--it is
our charm, my dear sir--the same happened to me four years ago as to
you to-night. The night took wings, and carried us away to the very
pinnacles of wonderful adventure--she and I, king and queen of more
than one world! To the very pinnacles of that enchanting adventure
towards which the poets and philosophers of ages have been vainly
scrambling, that adventure for which cities have been sacked and
battles won. You, too, have been on those heights, and you know. In
most men's lives those heights are never attained, but you and I have
been supremely fortunate. _I_ regret nothing.... Night became morning,
romance became life. The adventure ended. And I found myself in the
street, with her last command ringing in my ears, not to look where
the house was, to forget--everything! The Seine seemed alluring to my
agony.... But I am Italian, I have at least the courage of my passions,
and so I broke my promise. I called the very next afternoon. And how
can I express to you, even now, my great surprise at the warmness of my
reception! For the fingers with which I had given the _concierge_ my
card had trembled with fear--had she not commanded me never to see her
again! But it needed only one second of her presence to soothe my fear,
she was so gay, so cordial, so quite delighted to see me! No word of
any promise, no word of last night, passed her lips--we had met before,
that is all! But we were not long together before another joined
us--a short _chic_ little man, of an agreeable air. He looked that
rarest of all human beings, a banker from whom it would be a pleasure
to borrow money. And as he came towards us I wondered if this was yet
one more slave of this marvellous lamp, but she introduced him to my
bewilderment as her husband. And then--imagine it--presented me to him
as her future husband! All in the most casual and un-ostentatious way,
as though she were performing a mere formality; and as such, indeed,
this amazing husband accepted it. For instead of knocking me down,
he bowed politely and took my hand. As for her, I didn't dare look
at her, I was so embarrassed. But when at last, as tea was served,
I did look, she smiled at me, and I knew that her smile was to say,
"This is your punishment for breaking your oath. I am so sorry...."
The husband did not stay for more than five minutes; obviously he did
not wish to intrude. But before he left us he turned to me, and with
the most charming deference, said: "You will find everything arranged.
Madame will explain. I beg you to accept my sincerest wishes for your
happiness." And then his lips touched her fingers, and he left us--to
let himself be divorced so that Madame could marry me, who had never
dared even to dream of such supreme happiness. And so it was that we
married.
"'I am sorry to be so tiresome and detailed, but the worst is over. For
the rest of my tale is a commonplace in the history of the world--you
realise? She tired of me. Gently, but remorselessly. As such wonderful
women will, you know. It is no use kicking--no man, neither Hector, nor
Adonis, nor Machiavelli, can supply the deficiencies of the sphinx. She
smiles and says "no," she says "no" even to the wisdom of Solomon, and
besotted man sprawls at her feet and murmurs frantically that, anyway,
it is better to be miserable about her than to be happy about any one
else.... Yes, my friend, men have been known to say that to women. I
myself have said it more than once, but I only believed it once. That
was two years ago. But it was no use, her love was as dead as though
it had never been--I was a man, I had become a God, and now I was a
man again. And so the revolt of man ended in submission, and I had to
acquiesce in her mere affection for me--that affection with which all
splendid women enshroud their dead loves. And how much in oneself dies
with their dead love! Why, there dies the ritual of love, the sacrament
of sex! for sex can be exalted to a sacrament only once in a lifetime,
for the rest it's just a game, an indoor sport....
"'You see, such women as she make their own laws. It is not her fault,
nor her arrogance, it is ours, who are so consistently susceptible.
Physically she belongs to the universe, not to one single man. She
never belonged to me, I was just an expression of the world to her.
She has never belonged to any one, she never will--for she is in quest
of the ideal which even she will never find. And so she will go on,
testing our--our quality and breaking our hearts. Men have killed
themselves because of her, poor dear, and I too would have considered
it seriously if I had not found that she ranked suicide high in the
list of supreme impoliteness from men to women.
"'I had suggested that she should divorce me, but she would not do
that, for she complained of a nervous fear of being left alone in a
house. We were in Rome then, and we could envisage no possible husband
for her from among our acquaintance--so she begged me to continue in
my capacity for a while. Of course, I was only too pleased.... In the
end we hit upon the only way out of the _impasse_--that she should do
what she had (so successfully, she sweetly said) done before, and risk
the adventure; and if the young man was acceptable, and broke his
solemn promise, and came to see her, then he would be made to suffer
the penalty of his weakness--happy, wretched youth! But I would not let
her take the risk without some guarantee as to her safety, for even
adventures can sometimes become unpleasant, and so I insisted that I
should be her chauffeur for the occasion--and from beginning to end of
the adventure, I insisted. To which she replied, smiling, that it would
not always be the same--"you will not be kept waiting long," she said.
"'And it happened as she said, for in the two adventures before this of
yours I was indeed not kept waiting long. Not for more than an hour, in
fact--in each case the wretched young man had a good supper and left
immediately after, wondering how this most unattainable of women had
ever come, so informally, to invite him. The first happened in Vienna,
the second in Paris--they bored her utterly to death, she told me. And
thus the occasion for the promise, the pivot of the adventure, as you
realise, never arose in those two cases. But in yours, the third....'
"'Yes?' I asked eagerly.
"'The night air was certainly chilly,' he demurred gently.
"He was silent for a few long minutes. I waited intently. And then he
leaned forward towards me, and put a hand lightly on my knee.
"'Young man, will you forgive an impertinence?' His eyes held in them
the kindliest light; my silence answered them, and he continued: 'I am
perhaps twelve or thirteen years older than you, so I may be allowed
the liberty of advising you--about something in which I am an expert.
Never, never try to find the house to which you went a few hours
ago--never, I say! And I say it because I like you, and because I know
that she is the most enchanting woman in the world; and if _she_ likes
you, so she is the more enchanting--and the more dangerous! As she was
dangerous to me.... You forgive the liberty I have taken?'
"He let his quite solemn speech balance in the air for a long pause,
then got up and, very lazily, stretched his arms over his head. And a
delightful, intimate smile passed over his lean face--the man had a
large share of the divine essence of childishness.
"'You know your 'Trilby'? he asked lightly; and murmured into the air:--
'Hélas! Je sais un chant d'amour,
Triste et gai, tour à tour!'
"As he went to the door I sat on in my chair; circumstances somehow
waived aside common politeness. I just stared after him--to meet his
eyes, for from the door he turned round just to say:--
"'I did not mean to jeer at your honesty in keeping your promise to
madame--please never think that. On the contrary, I sincerely admire
you--and congratulate you! For you have avoided a marvellous misery....
Good-night, Sir Lancelot. Adieu!'"
The Italian's exit seemed to bring Noël Anson's tale to an end, and yet
so abruptly that I could not but wait for a final ending. He waited,
but threw the end of his cigarette into the dying fire, and continued
silent.
"And so you never saw her again, and lived unhappily ever after?" I
suggested at last. But I wasn't prepared for his quick, pitying stare.
He heaved himself up from his chair.
"You damn fool!" he said. "Didn't I tell you all through dinner that I
was divorced six months ago!"
"But your promise--you told him--"
"The first thing I did when I left that house," he explained firmly,
"was to look round at the number on that door...."