Mrs. Rossiter felt that she did indeed hate the young man.

“Clare is very unhappy,” she repeated. “She tells me that she has been

crying all night. You must remember, Peter, that her life has been very

different to yours--”

He wished that she would not repeat herself; he wished that she would

not always use the same level voice; he wanted insanely to tell her that

she ought to say “different from”--he could not take his eyes from the

brooch. But the thought of Clare came to him and he bowed himself once

more humbly.

“I will see that things are better,” he said earnestly. “I don't know

what has been the matter lately--my work and everything has been wrong,

and I expect my temper has been horrible. You know,” he said with a

little crooked smile, “that I've got to work to keep it all going, and

when I'm writing badly then my temper goes to pieces.”

Mrs. Rossiter, with no appearance of having heard anything that he had

said, continued--

“You know, Peter, that your temperament is very different to Clare's.

You are, and I know you will forgive my putting it so plainly, a little

wild still--doubtless owing to your earlier years. Clare is gentle,

bright, happy. She has never given my husband or myself a moment's

trouble, but that is because we understood her nature. We knew that

she loved people about her to be happy--she flourished in the sun, she

drooped under the clouds... under the clouds” Mrs. Rossiter repeated

again softly, as she searched, with care, for her next words.

Irritation was rising within Peter. Why should it be concluded so

inevitably that the fault was all on Peter's side and not at all on

Clare's--after all, there were reasons... but he pulled himself up. He

had behaved like a beast.

“I've tried very hard--” he began.

“Clouds--” said Mrs. Rossiter. “And you, Peter, are at times--I have

seen it myself and I know that it is apparent to others--inclined to be

morose--gloomy, a little gloomy--” Her fingers tapped the silk of her

dress. “Dear Clare, considering what her own life has been, shrinks, I

must confess it seems to me quite naturally, from any reminder of what

your own earlier circumstances have been. Look at it, Peter, for an

instant from the outside and you will see, at once, I am sure, what

it must have been to her, yesterday, to come into her nursery, to find

tables, chairs overturned, strange men shouting and flinging poor little

Stephen towards the ceiling--some talk about Cornwall--really, Peter, I

think you can understand...”

He abandoned all his defences. “I know--I ought to have realised... it

was quite natural...”

In the back of his head he heard her words “You're morose--you're wild.

Other people find you so--you're making a mess of everything and every

one knows it--”

He was humbled to the dust. If only he might make it all right with

Clare, then he would see to it--Oh! yes he would see to it--that nothing

of this kind ever happened again. From Mrs. Rossiter's standpoint he

looked back upon his life and found it all one ignoble, selfish muddle.

Dear Clare!--so eager to be happy and he had made her miserable.

“Will she forgive me?”

“Dear Clare,” said Mrs. Rossiter, rising brightly and with a general

air of benevolence towards all the sinners in existence, “is the most

forgiving creature in the world.”

He went down to her bedroom and found her lying on a sofa and reading a

novel.

He fell on his knees at her side--“Clare--darling--I'm a beast, a

brute--”

She suddenly turned her face into the cushions and burst into passionate

crying. “Oh! it's horrible--horrible--horrible--”

He kissed her hand and then getting on to his feet again, stood looking

at her awkwardly, struggling for words with which to comfort her.

IV

And then at luncheon, there was a little, pencilled feeble note for

Peter from Norah Monogue. “Please, if you can spare half an hour come to

me. In a day or two I am off to the country.”

Things had just been restored to peace and happiness--Clare had

just proposed that they should go, that afternoon, to a Private View

together--they might go and have tea with--

For an instant he was tempted to abandon Norah. Then his courage came:--

“Here's a note from Miss Monogue,” he said. “She's awfully ill I think,

I ought--”

Clare's face hardened again. She got up from the table--

“Just as you please--” she said.

He climbed on to the omnibus that was to stumble with him down

Piccadilly with a. hideous, numbing sense of being under the hand of

Fate. Why, at this moment, in all time, should this letter of Norah

Monogue's have made its unhappy appearance? With what difficulty and

sorrow had he and Clare reached once more a reconciliation only, so

wantonly, to be plucked away from it again! From the top of his omnibus

he looked down upon a sinister London. It was a heavy, lowering day;

thick clouds like damp cloths came down upon the towers and chimneys.

The trees in the Green Park were black and chill and in and out of the

Clubs figures slipped cautiously and it seemed furtively. Just beyond

the Green Park they were building a vast hotel, climbing figures and

twisting lines of scaffolding pierced the air, and behind the rolling

and rattling of the traffic the sound of many hammers beat rhythmically,

monotonously....

To Peter upon his omnibus, suddenly that sound that he had heard

before--that sound of London stirring--came back to him, and now

more clearly than he had ever known it. Tap-tap-tap-tap...

Clamp-clamp-tap-tap-tap-tap--whir! whir!... Clamp-clamp....

It seemed to him that all the cabs and the buses and the little

black figures were being hurried by some power straight, fast, along

Piccadilly to be pitched, at the end of it, pell-mell, helter-skelter

into some dark abysmal pit, there to perish miserably.

Yes, the beast was stirring! Ever so little the pavements, the houses

were heaving. Perhaps if one could see already the soil was cracking

beneath one's feet. “Look out! London will have you in a minute.”

Tap-tap-tap-tap--clamp-clamp--tap-tap-tap-tap--whir-whir--clamp-clamp....

Anyhow it was a heavy, clammy day. The houses were ghosts and the people

were ghosts, and grey shadows, soon perhaps to be a yellow fog, floated

about the windows and the doors and muffled all human sounds.

He passed the great pile of scaffolding, saw iron girders shining, saw

huge cranes swinging in mid-air, saw tiny, tiny black atoms perched

above the noise and swallowed by the smoke... tap-tap-clamp-clamp....

Yes, the beast was moving... and, out and in, lost and then found again,

crept that twisting chain of beggars to whose pallid army Peter himself

had once so nearly belonged.

“I suppose I've got a headache after all that row with Clare,” Peter

thought as he climbed off the omnibus.

V

He realised, as he came into the Bloomsbury square, and saw Mrs.

Brockett gloomily waiting for him, that the adventures of his life were

most strangely bound together. Not for an instant did he seem to be

able to escape from any one of them. Now it would be Cornwall, now the

Bookshop, now Stephen, now Mr. Zanti, now Bucket Lane, now Treliss--all

of them interweaving, arresting his action at every moment. Because he

had done that once now this must not be permitted him; he felt, as he

rang the old heavy bell of Brockett's that his head would never think

clearly again. As the door opened and he stepped into the hall

he heard, faintly, across the flat spaces of the Square

“Tap-tap-tap-tap-clamp-clamp....”

Even Mrs. Brockett, who might be considered if any one in the world,

immune from morbid imaginations, felt the heaviness of the day,

suggested a prevalence of thunder, and shook her head when Peter asked

about Miss Monogue.

“She's bad, Mr. Peter, very bad, poor dear. There's no doubt about that.

It's hard to see what can be done for her--but plucky! That's a small

word for it!”

“I'm sure she is,” said Peter, feeling ashamed of having made so much of

his own little troubles.

“She must get out of London if she's to improve at all. In a week or two

I hope she'll be able to move.”

“How's every one else?”

“Oh, well enough.” Mrs. Brockett straightened her dress with her

beautiful hands in the old familiar way--“But you're not looking very

hearty yourself, Mr. Peter.”

“Oh! I'm all right,” he answered smiling; but she shook her head after

him as she watched him go up the stairs.

And then he was surprised. He came into Norah Monogue's room and found

her sitting up by her window, looking better than he had ever seen her.

Her face was full of colour and her eyes bright and smiling. Only on her

hands the blue veins stood out, and their touch, when she shook hands

with him, was hot and burning.

But he was reassured; Mrs. Brockett had exaggerated and made the worst

of it all.

“You're looking splendid--I'm so glad. I was afraid from your letter-”

“Oh! I really am getting on,” she broke in gaily, “and it's the nicest

boy in the world that you are to come in and see me so quickly. Only on

a day like this London does just lie heavily upon one doesn't it? and

one just longs for the country--”

A little breath of a sigh escaped from her and she looked through her

window at the dim chimneys, the clouds hanging like consolidated smoke,

the fine, thin dust that filtered the air.

“You're looking tired yourself, Peter. Working too hard?”

“No,” he shook his head. “The work hasn't been coming easily at all.

I suppose I've been too conscious, lately, of the criticisms every one

made about 'The Stone House.' I don't believe one ought really to listen

to anybody and yet it's so hard not to, and so difficult to know whose

opinion one ought to take if one's going to take anybody's. I wish,”

he suddenly brought out, “Henry Galleon were still alive. I could have

followed him.”

“But why follow anybody?”

“Ah! that's just it. I'm beginning to doubt myself and that's why it's

getting so difficult.”

Her eyes searched his face and she saw, at once, that he was in very

real trouble. He looked younger, just then, she thought, than she had

ever seen him, and she felt herself so immensely old that she could have

taken him into her arms and mothered him as though he'd been her own

son.

“There are a lot of things the matter,” she said. “Tell me what they all

are.”

“Well,” he said slowly, “I suppose it's all been mostly my own

fault--but the real difficulty is that I don't seem to be able to run

the business of being married and the business of writing together. I

don't think Clare in the least cares now about my writing--she almost

resents it; she cared at first when she thought that I was going to make

a huge success of it, but now--”

“But, of course,” said Miss Monogue, “that success comes slowly--it must

if it's going to be any use at all--”

“Well, she doesn't see that. And she wants me to go out to parties and

play about all the time--and then she doesn't want me to be any of the

things that I was before I met her. All my earlier life frightens her--I

suppose,” he suddenly ended, “I want her to be different and she wants

me to be different and we can't make a compromise.”

Then Miss Monogue said: “Have any outside people interfered at all?”

Peter coloured. “Well, of course, Mrs. Rossiter stands up for Clare. She

came and talked to me this morning and I think the things that she said

were quite true. I suppose I am morose and morbid sometimes--more than I

realise--and then,” he added slowly, “there's Cards--”

“Cards?”

“Cardillac--a man I was at school with. I'm very fond of him. He's

the best friend I've got, and he's been all over the place and done

everything and, of course, knows ever so much more about the world than

I do. The fact is he thinks really that my novels are dreadful nonsense,

only he's much too kind to say so--and, of course, Clare looks up to him

a lot. Although he's only my own age he seems so much older than both

Clare and myself. I don't believe she'd have lost interest in my work so

quickly if he hadn't influenced her--and he's influenced me too--” Peter

added sighing.

“Well--and is there anything else?”

“Yes. There's Stephen. I can't begin to tell you how I love that kid.

There haven't been many people in my life that I've cared about and

I've never realised anything so intensely before. Besides,” he went on

laughing proudly, “he's such a splendid kid! I wish you could see him,

Norah. He'll do something one day--”

“Well, what's the trouble about Stephen?”

“Clare's so odd about him. There are times when I don't believe she

cares for him the least little bit. Then there are other times when she

resents fiercely my interfering about him. Sometimes she seems to love

him more than anything in the world, but it's always in an odd defiant

way--just as though she were afraid that something would hurt her if she

showed that she cared too much.”

There was silence between them for a minute and then Peter summed it

all up with:--“The fact is, Norah, that every sort of thing's getting

in between me and my work and worries me. It's as though I were tossing

more balls in the air than I could possibly manage. At one moment I

think it's Clare that I've got especially to hang on to--another time

it's the book--and then it's Stephen. The moment I've settled down

something turns up to remind me of Cornwall or the Bookshop. Fact is I'm

getting battered at by something or other and I never can get my breath.

I oughtn't ever to have married--I'm not up to it.”

Norah Monogue took his hand.

“You are up to it, Peter, but I expect you've got a lot to go through

before you're clear of things. Now I'm going to be brutal. The fact is

that you're too self-centred. People never do anything in the world so

long as they are wondering whether the world's going to hurt them or no.

Those early years of yours made you morbid. You've got a temper and one

or two other things that want a lot of holding down and that takes up

your attention--And then Clare isn't the woman to help you--”

Peter was about to break in but she went on:--'“Oh! I know my Clare

through and through. She's just as anxious as you are not to be hurt by

anything and so she's being hurt all the time. She's out for happiness

at any cost and you're out for freedom--freedom from every kind of

thing--and because both of you are denied it you are restive. But you

and Clare are both people whose only salvation is in being hurt and

knocked about and bruised to such an extent that they simply don't know

where they are. Oh! I know--I'm exactly the same sort of person myself.

We can thank the Gods if we are knocked about--”

Suddenly she paused and, falling back in her chair, put her hand to her

breast, coughing. Something seized her, held her in its grip, tossed

her from side to side, at last left her white, speechless, utterly

exhausted. It had come so suddenly that it had taken Peter entirely by

surprise. She lay back now, her eyes closed, her face a grey white.

He ran to the door and called Mrs. Brockett. She came and with an

exclamation hurried away for remedies.

Peter suddenly felt his hand seized--a hoarse whisper was in his

ear--“Peter--dear--go--at--once--I can't bear--you--to see me--like

this. Come back--another day.”

He knelt, moved by an affection and tenderness that seemed stronger than

any emotion he had ever known, and kissed her. She whispered:

“Dear boy--”

On his way back to Chelsea, the orange lamps, the white streets powdered

with the evening glow, the rustling plane trees whispered to him,

“You've got to be knocked about--you've got to be knocked about--you've

got to be knocked about--” but the murmur was no longer sinister.

Still thinking of Norah, he went up to the nursery to see the boy in

bed. He remembered that Clare was going out alone to a party and that he

would have the evening to himself.

On entering the room, dark except for a nightlight by the boy's bed,

some unknown fear assailed him. He was instantly, at the threshold,

conscious of it. He stood for a moment in silence. Then realised what it

was. The boy was moaning in his sleep.

He went quickly over to the cot and bent down. Stephen's cheeks were

flaming, his hands very hot.

Peter rang the bell. Mrs. Kant appeared.

“Is there anything the matter with Stephen?”

Mrs. Kant looked at him, surprised, a little offended. “He's had a

little cold all day, sir. I've kept him indoors.”

“Have you taken his temperature?”

“Yes, sir, nothing at all unusual. He often goes up and down.”

“Have you spoken to your mistress?”

“Yes, sir. She agrees with me that there is nothing unusual--”

He brushed past the woman and went to his wife's bedroom.

She was dressed and was putting on a string of pearls, a wedding present

from her father. She smiled up at him--

“Clare, do you know Stephen's ill?”

“No, it's only a cold. I've been up to see him--”

He took her hand--she smiled up at him--“Did you enjoy your visit?” She

fastened the necklace.

“Clare, stay in to-night. It may be nothing but if the boy got worse--”

“Do you want me to stay?”

“Yes.”

“I wanted you to go with me this afternoon--”

“That was different. The boy may be really ill--”

“You didn't do what I wanted this afternoon. Why should I do what you

want now?”

“Clare, stay. Please, please--”

She took her hand gently out of his, and, as she went out of the door

switched off the electric light.

He heard the opening of the hall door and, standing where she had left

him in the dark bedroom, saw, shining, laughing at him, her eyes.

CHAPTER XI

WHY?

I

There are occasions in our life when the great Wave so abruptly

overwhelms us that before we have recovered our dazed senses it has

passed and the water on every side of us is calm again.

There are other occasions when we stand, it may seem through a lifetime

of anticipation bracing our backs for the inevitable moment. Every hour

before it comes is darkened, every light is dimmed by its implacable

shadow. Then when at last it is upon us we meet it with an indifference,

almost with a relief, because it has come at last.

So was it now with Peter. During many weeks he had been miserable,

apprehensive, seeing an enemy in every wind. Now, behold, his adversary

in the open.

“This,” he might cry to that old man, down in Scaw House, “this is what

you have been preparing for me, is it? At last you've shown me--well,

I'll fight you.”

Young Stephen was very ill. Peter was strangely assured that it was

to be a bad business. Well, it rested with him, Peter, to pull the boy

through. If he chose to put his back into it and give the kid some of

his own vigour and strength then it was bound to be all right.

Standing there in the dark, he stripped his mind naked; he flung from it

every other thought, every other interest--his work, Clare, everything

must go. Only Stephen mattered and Stephen should be pulled through.

For an instant, a little cold trembling fear struck his heart.

Supposing...? Then fiercely, flinging the thought from him he trampled

it down.

He went to the telephone and called up a doctor who lived in Cheyne

Walk. The man could be with him in a quarter of an hour.

Then he went back into the nursery. Mrs. Kant was there.

“I've sent for Dr. Mitchell.”

“Very well, sir.”

“He'll be here in quarter of an hour.”

“Very well, sir.”

He hated the woman. He would like to take her thin, bony neck and wring

it.

He went over to the cot and looked down. The little body outlined under

the clothes was so helpless, the little hands, clenched now, were so

tiny; he was breathing very fast and little sounds came from between his

teeth, little struggling cries.

Peter saw that moment when Stephen the Elder had held Stephen the

younger aloft in his arms. The Gods appear to us only when we claim to

challenge their exultation. They had been challenged at that moment....

Young Stephen against the Gods! Surely an unequal contest!

II

Dr. Mitchell came and instantly the struggle was at its height.

Appendicitis. As they stood over the cot the boy awoke and began to

cry a little, turned his head from side to side as though to avoid the

light, beating with his hands on the counterpane.

“I must send for a nurse at once,” Dr. Mitchell said.

“Everything is in your hands,” Peter answered.

“You'd better go down and have something to eat.”

The little cry came trembling and pitiful, driving straight into Peter's

heart.

“Temperature 105--pretty bad.” Mitchell, who was a stout, short man with

red cheeks, grey eyes and the air of an amiable Robin, was transformed

now into something sharp, alert, official.

Peter caught his arm--

“It's all right?... you don't think--?”

The man turned and looked at him with eyes so kind that Peter trembled.

“Look here, we've got to fight it, Westcott. I ought to have been called

hours ago. But keep your head and we'll pull the child through....

Better go down and have something to eat. You'll need it.”

Outside the door Peter faced a trembling Mrs. Kant.

“Look here, you lied just now. You never took the boy's temperature.”

“Well, sir--”

“Did you or not?”

“Well, sir, Mrs. Westcott said there was no need. I'm sure I thought--”

“You leave the house now--at once. Go up and pack your things and clear

out. If I see you here in an hour's time the police shall turn you out.”

The woman began to cry. Peter went downstairs. To his own surprise he

found that he could eat and drink. Of so fundamental an importance was

young Stephen in his life that the idea that he could ever lose him

was of an absurd and monstrous incredibility. No, of that there was no

question--but he was conscious nevertheless of the supreme urgency of

the occasion. That young Stephen had ever been delicate or in any way a

weakling was a monstrous suggestion. Always when one thought of him it

was a baby laughing, tumbling--or thoughtfully, with his hand rolled

tightly inside his father's, taking in the world.

Just think of all the tottering creatures who go on and on and snap

their fingers at death. The grotesque old men and women! Or think of

the feeble miserables who never know what a day's health means--crowding

into Davos or shuddering on the Riviera!

And young Stephen, the strongest, most vital thing in the world!

Nevertheless, suddenly, Peter found that he could eat and drink no more.

He put the food aside and went upstairs again.

In the darkened nursery he sat in a chair by the fire and waited for

the hours to pass. The new nurse had arrived and moved quietly about

the room. There was no sound at all save the monotonous whispering

beseeching little cries that came from the bed. One had heard that

concentration of will might do so much in the directing of such a

battle, and surely great love must help. Peter, as he sat in the

half-darkness thought that he had never before realised his love for

the boy--how immense it was--how all-pervading, so that if it were taken

from him life would be instantly broken, without colour, without any

rhythm or force.

As he sat there he thought confusedly of a great number of things of

his own childhood--of his mother--of a boy at Dawson's who had asked him

once as they gazed up at a great mass of apple blossoms in bloom,

“Do you think there is anything in all that stuff about God anyway,

Westcott?”--of a night when he had gone with some loose woman of the

town and of the wet miry street that they had left behind them as

she had closed the door--of that night at the party when he had seen

Cardillac again--of the things that Maradick had said to him that night

when young Stephen was born--and so from that to his own life, his own

birth, his father, Scaw House, the struggle that it had all been.

He remembered a sentence out of a strange novel of Dostoieffsky's that

he had once read, “The Brothers Karamazoff”: “It's a feature of the

Karamazoffs ... that thirst for life regardless of everything--” and the

Karamazoffs were of a sensual, debased stock--rotten at the base of

them with an old drunken buffoon of a father--yes, that was like the

Westcotts. All his life, struggle ... and young Stephen--all _his_ life,

struggle... and yet, even in the depths of degradation, if the fight

were to go that way there would still be that lust for life.

So many times he had been almost under. First Stephen Brant had saved

him, then at Brockett's Norah Monogue, then in Bucket Lane his illness,

then in Chelsea his marriage, lately young Stephen... always, always

something had been there to keep him on his feet. But if everything were

taken from him, if he were absolutely, nakedly alone--what then? Ah,

what then!

He buried his head in his hands. “God, you don't know what young Stephen

is to me--or, yes, of course you do know, God--and because you do know,

you will not take him from me.”

The little tearing pain at his heart held him--every now and again it

turned like some grinding key.

Mitchell entered with another doctor. Peter went over to the window,

and whilst they made their examination, stared through the glass at the

fretwork of trees, the golden haze of London beyond, two stars that now,

when the storm had spent itself, showed in a dark dim sky. Very faintly

the clanging note of trams, the clatter of a hansom cab, the imperative

call of some bell came to him.

The world could thus go on! Mitchell crossed to him and put his hand on

his shoulder--

“He's pretty bad, Westcott. An operation's out of the question I'm

afraid. But if you'd like another opinion--”

“No thanks. I trust you and Hunt.” The doctor could feel the boy's body

trembling beneath his touch.

“It's all right, Westcott. Don't be frightened. We'll do all mortals

can. We'll know in the early morning how things are going to be. The

child's got a splendid constitution.”

He was interrupted by the opening of the nursery door and, turning, the

men saw Clare with the light of the passage at her back, standing in the

doorway. Her cloak was trailing on the floor--around her her pink filmy

dress hung like shadows from the light behind her. Her face was white,

her eyes wide.

“What--?” she whispered in the voice of a frightened child.

Peter crossed the room, and took her with him into the passage, closing

the door behind him.

She clung to him, looking up into his face.

“Stephen's very bad, dear. No, it's something internal--”

“And I went out to a party?” her voice was trembling, she was very near

to tears. “But I was miserable, wretched all the time. I wanted to come

back, I knew I oughtn't to have gone.... Oh Peter, will he die? Oh! poor

little thing! Poor little thing!”

Even at that moment, Peter noticed, she spoke as though it were somebody

else's baby.

“No, no, dear. It'll be all right. Of course it will. Mitchell's here,

he'll pull him through. But you'd better go and lie down, dear. I

promise to come and tell you if anything's the matter. You can't do any

good--there's an excellent nurse!”

“Where's Mrs. Kant?”

“I dismissed her this evening for lying to me. Go to bed. Clare--really

it's the best thing.”

She began to cry with her hands up to her face, but she went, slowly,

with her cloak still trailing after her, to her room.

She had not, he noticed, entered the nursery.

III

He went back and sat down again in the arm-chair by the fire. Poor

Clare! he felt only a great protecting pity for her--a strange feeling,

compounded of emotions that were unexpectedly confused. A feeling that

was akin to what he would have felt had she been his sister and been

insulted by some drunken blackguard in the street. Poor Clare! She was

so young--simply not up to these big grown-up troubles.

Those little cries had ceased--only every now and again an echo of a

moan--so slight was the sound that broke the silence. The hours

advanced and there settled about the house that chilly ominous sense of

anticipation that the early morning brings in its grey melancholy

hands. It was a little house but it was full, now, of expectancy. Up the

stairs, through the passages, pressing against the windows there were

many presences waiting for the moment when the issue of this struggle

would be decided. The air was filled with their chill breath. The

struggle round the bed was at its height. On one side doctors, nurses,

the father, the mother--on the other that still, ironic Figure, in His

very aloofness so strong, in His indifference so terrible.

With Peter, as the grey dawn grew nearer, confidence fled. He was

suddenly conscious of the strength and invisibility of the thing that

he was fighting. He must do something. If he were compelled to sit,

silently, quietly, with his hands folded, much longer, he would go

mad. But it was absurd--Stephen, about whom he had made so many plans,

Stephen, concerning whom there had been that struggle to bring about his

very existence ... surely all that was not now to go for nothing at all.

If he could do something--if he could do something!

There were drops of sweat on his forehead--inside his clothes his body

was hot and dry and had shrunk, it seemed, into some tiny shape, like a

nut, so that his things hung loosely all about him.

He could not bear that dark cavernous nursery, with the faint lights and

the stairs and passages beyond it so crowded with urgent silence!

He caught Mitchell on the shoulder.

“How is it?”

“Oh! we're fighting it. It's the most rapid thing I've ever known. If we

only could have operated! Look here, go and lie down for a bit--I'll let

you know if there's any change!”

He went to his dressing-room, all ghostly now with the first struggling

light of dawn. He closed the door behind him and then fell down on his

knees by the bed, pressing his face into his hands.

He prayed: “Oh! God, God, God. I have never wanted anything like this

before but Stephen is more to me, much, much more to me than anything

that I have ever had--more, far more than my own life. I haven't much to

offer but if you will let me keep Stephen you can have all the rest.

You can send me back to Bucket Lane, take my work, anything ... I want

Stephen ... I want Stephen. God, he is such a good boy. He has always

been good and he will make such a fine man. There won't be many men so

fine as he. He's good as gold. God I will die myself if he may live, I'm

no use. I've made a mess of things--but let him live and take me. Oh!

God I want him, I want him!”

He broke into sobs and was bowed down there on the floor, his body

quivering, his face pressed against the bed.

He was conscious that Clare had joined him. She must have heard him

from her room. He tried as he felt her body pressed against his, to pull

himself together, but the crying now had mastered him and he could only

feel her pushing with her hand to find his--and at last he let her take

his hand and hold it.

He heard her whisper in his ear.

“Peter dear, don't--don't cry like that. I can't bear to hear you

like that. I'm so miserable, Peter. I've been so wicked--so cross and

selfish. I've hurt you so often--I'm going to be better, Peter. I am

really.”

At that moment they might have come together with a reality, an honesty

that no after-events could have shaken. But to Peter Clare was very far

away. He was not so conscious of her as he was of those presences that

thronged the house. What could she do for him now? Afterwards perhaps.

But now it was Stephen--Stephen--Stephen--

But he let her hold his hand and he felt her hair against his cheek, and

at last he put his arm around her and held her close to him, and she,

with her face against his, went fast asleep. He looked down at her. She

looked so young and helpless that the sight of her leaning, tired and

beaten, against him, touched him and he picked her up, carried her into

her room and laid her on her bed.

How light and tiny she was!

He was conscious of his own immense fatigue. Mitchell had told him that

he would wake him; good fellow, Mitchell! He lay down on the bed in his

dressing-room and was instantly asleep.

He was outside Scaw House. He was mother-naked and the howling wind and

rain buffeted his body and the stones cut his feet. The windows of the

house were dark and barred. He could just reach the lower windows with

his hands if he stood on tiptoe.

He tapped again and again.

He was tired, exhausted. He had come a long, long way and the rain hurt

his bare flesh. At last a candle shone dimly behind the dark window.

Some one was there, and instantly at the moment of his realising that

aid had come he was conscious also that he must, on all accounts, refuse

it. He knew that if he entered the house Stephen would die. It depended

on him to save Stephen. He turned to flee but his father had unbarred

the door and was drawing him in. He struggled, he cried out, he fought,

but his father was stronger than he. He was on the threshold--he could

see through the dark ill-smelling hall to the door beyond. His father's

hand fastened on his arm like a vice. His body was bathed in sweat,

he screamed ... and woke to find the room dim in the morning light and

Mitchell shaking him by the arm.

IV

He was still dreaming. Now he was in the nursery. Clare was kneeling by

Stephen's bed. One doctor was bending down--the nurse was crying very

softly.

He looked down on his son. As he looked the little face was, for an

instant, puckered with pain. The mouth, the eyes, the throat struggled.

The tiny hands lifted for a moment, hung, and then like fluttering

leaves, fell down on to the counterpane. Then the body was suddenly

quiet, the face was peaceful and the head had fallen gently, sideways

against the pillow.

At that moment of time, throughout the house, the Presences departed.

The passages, the rooms were freed, the air was no longer cold.

At that moment also Peter awoke. Mitchell said: “The boy's gone,

Westcott.”

Peter, turning his back upon them all, drove from him, so softly that

they could scarcely hear, but in a voice of agony that Mitchell never

afterwards forgot:--

“I wanted him so--I wanted him so.”

CHAPTER XII

A WOMAN CALLED ROSE BENNETT

I

The days that followed were dead--dead in more than any ordinary sense

of the word. But perhaps it was Peter who was dead. He moved, ate,

drank, even wrote his reviews, slept--he thanked gravely all those who

offered him condolences--wrote letters in answer to kind

friends.... “Dear S---- It was just like you to write so kindly and

sympathetically....” And all this time he was without any kind of

emotion. He was aware that there was something in the back of his brain

that, were it once called upon to awake, might stir him into life again.

What it would tell him he did not know, something about love, something

intensely sorrowful, something that had occurred very probably to

himself. He did not want to live--to think, to feel. Thinking meant

pain, meant a sudden penetrating into that room shrouded now by heavy,

black curtains but containing, were those curtains drawn, some great,

phantasmal horror.

He was dimly aware that the people about him were frightened. Clare,

Bobby Galleon, Cardillac. He knew that they would be glad for him to

draw those curtains aside and penetrate into that farther room. That was

unkind of them. He had no other emotion but that it was unkind of them.

Beyond that unkindness, they did not exist.

He was thinner. His shoulders seemed to pierce sharply his clothes; his

cheeks were white and hollow, there were dark lines beneath his eyes,

dark, grey patches. His legs were not so straight, nor so strong.

Moreover his eyes were as though they were covered with a film. Seeing

everything they yet saw nothing at all. They passed through the world

and were confronted by the heavy, veiling curtains....

This condition lasted for many days. Of all about him none understood

him so well as Bobby Galleon. Bobby had always understood him, and now

he felt for him with a tenderness that had both the past and the future

to heighten its poignancy. It seemed to Bobby that nothing more tragic

than the death of this child could possibly have occurred. It filled

him with anxiety for the future, it intensified to a depth that only so

simple and affectionate a character as his could feel, the love that he

had always had for Peter.

He was with him during these days continually, waiting for the relief to

come.

“It's got to come soon,” he said, “or the boy'll go mad.”

At last it came.

One day about tea-time they were sitting in Peter's upstairs study.

It had been a day of showers and now the curtains were not drawn and a

green-grey dusk glimmered beyond the windows.

Peter was writing letters, and as Bobby watched him he seemed to him

like some automaton, something wound into life by some clever inventor.

The hand moved across the paper--the dead eyes encountered nothing in

their gaze, the shoulders were the loosely drooping shoulders of an old

man.

“Can you see, Peter?”

“Yes, thanks. Switch on the light if you like.”

Bobby got up and moved to the door. The dusk behind Peter's face flung

it into sharp white outline.

Another shower! The rain at first in single drops, then more swiftly,

fell with gentle, pattering fingers up and down the window. It was the

only sound, except the scraping of Peter's pen. The pen stopped. Peter

raised his head, listening.

Bobby switched on the light and as he did so Peter in a strangled

breathless mutter whispered--

“The rain! The rain! It was like that that night. Stephen! Stephen!”

His head fell on to his hands and he burst into a storm of tears.

II

And now Peter was out to be hurt, hurt more horribly than he could have

ever believed possible. It was like walking--as they did in the days

of the Ordeal--on red-hot iron, every step an agony. Always there was

something to remind him! He could go nowhere, see nobody, summon no kind

of recollection out of the past without this coming to him. There were a

thousand things that Stephen had done, that he, Peter, had never noticed

at the time. He was haunted now with regrets, he had not made enough of

him whilst he was there! Ah! had he only known that the time was to be

so short! How he would have spent those precious, precious moments! It

was as though he had flung away, wilfully, possessions of the utmost

price--cast them off as though it had been his very intention to feel,

afterwards, this burning regret. The things in the nursery were packed

away, but there remained the room, the frieze with the dragons and

princesses, the fire-place, the high broad window. Again and again he

saw babies in the streets, in the parks and fancied that Stephen had

come back again.

The thing had happened to him so swiftly that, behind reason, there

lurked the thought that perhaps, with equal suddenness, Stephen would be

restored. To come back one afternoon and to find him there! To find him

lying there on his back in his cot looking up at the ceiling, to find

him labouring unsteadily on his feet, clinging to the sides of his bed

and shouting--to find him laughing at the jumping waves in the fire--to

find him!... No, never to be found again--gone, hopelessly, cruelly, for

no reason, for no one's good or benefit--simply for some one's sport.

But, strangely, more than the actual Stephen did he miss the imaginary

future Stephen at school, hero of a thousand games, winner of a thousand

prizes, the Stephen grown up, famous already at so young an age, loved

by men and women, handsome, good.... Oh! the folly of it! No human being

could carry all the glories that Peter had designed for his son--no

human being, then how much less a Westcott. It might be best after all,

young Stephen had been spared. Until every stone of Scaw House was level

with the ground no Westcott could be termed safe--perhaps not then.

Now he realised how huge a place in his heart the boy had filled dimly,

because as yet he refused to bring it to the open light he was conscious

that, during these past two years he had been save for Stephen, a very

lonely man. It was odd that Stephen the elder and Stephen the younger

should have been the only two persons in his life to find the real

inside of him--they, too, and perhaps Norah Monogue. But, otherwise, not

Bobby, nor Cards, nor Alice Galleon, nor Mr. Zanti--nor Clare.

Not Clare. He faced the fact with a sudden shudder. Now that Stephen was

gone he and Clare were face to face--face to face as they had never been

since that first happy year of their marriage. That first year of their

marriage--and now!

With an instant clenching of his teeth he pulled down the blinds upon

that desolating view.

III

With teeth still clenched he set himself to build up his house again.

Clare was very quiet and submissive during those first weeks. Her little

figure looked helpless and appealing in its deep black; she was prettier

than she had ever been in her life before. People said, “Poor Mrs.

Westcott, she feels the loss of her baby so dreadfully”--and they didn't

think about Peter. Indeed some people thought him callous. “Mr. Westcott

seemed to be so fond of the child. Now I really believe he's forgotten

all about him.” Bobby was the only person in the world who knew how

Peter suffered.

Clare was, indeed, after a time, reassured. Peter, after all, seemed

not to mind. Did he mind anything? He was so often glum and silent that

really you couldn't tell. Clare herself had been frightened on that

night when the baby had died. She had probably never in all her life

felt a more genuine emotion than she had known when she knelt by Peter's

side and went to sleep in his arms. She was quite ready to feel that

emotion again would Peter but allow her. But no. He showed no emotion

himself and expected no one else to show any, for he was ready to share

it but in her heart of hearts she longed to fling away from her this

emotional atmosphere. She had loved the baby--of course she had loved

it. But she had always known that something would happen to it--always.

If Peter would insist on having those horrid Cornishmen.... At heart she

connected that dreadful day when those horrible men had played about in

the nursery with baby's death. Of course it was enough to kill any baby.

So, ultimately, it all came back to Peter's fault. Clare found real

satisfaction in the thought. Meanwhile she emphatically stated her

desire to be happy again.

She stated it always in Peter's absence, feeling that he would, in no

way, understand her. “It can't help poor dear little Stephen that we

should go on being melancholy and doing nothing. That's only morbid,

isn't it, mother?”

Mrs. Rossiter entirely agreed, as indeed she always agreed with anything

that Clare suggested.

“The dear thing does look lovely in black, though,” she confided to

Mrs. Galleon. “Mr. Cardillac couldn't take his eyes off her yesterday at

luncheon.”

Mrs. Rossiter and Jerry Cardillac had, during the last year, become

the very best of friends. Peter was glad to see that it was so. Peter

couldn't pretend to care very deeply about his mother-in-law, but he

felt that it would do her all the good in the world to see something of

old Cards. It would broaden her understanding, give her perhaps some

of that charity towards the whole world that was one of Cards' most

charming features. Cards, in fact, had been so much in the house lately

that he might be considered one of the family. No one could have been

more tender, more sympathetic, more exactly right about young Stephen's

death. He had become, during those weeks almost a necessity. He seemed

to have no particular interest of his own in life. He dressed very

perfectly, he went to a number of parties, he had delightful little

gatherings in his own flat, but, with it all, he was something more--a

great deal more--than the mere society idler. There was a hint at

possible wildness, an almost sinister suggestion of possible lawlessness

that made him infinitely attractive. He was such good company and yet

one felt that one didn't know nearly the whole of him.

To Peter he was the most wonderful thing in the world, to Clare he

was rapidly becoming so--no wonder then that the Roundabout saw him so

often.

IV

It would need a very acute perception indeed to pursue precisely the

train of cause and effect in Mrs. Rossiter's mind after young Stephen's

death. Her black garments added, in the most astonishing fashion, to

her placid flatness. If she had gloried before in an armour that was so

negative that it became instantly exceedingly dangerous, her appearance

now was terrifying beyond all words. Her black silk had apparently

no creases, no folds--it almost eliminated terms and boundaries. Mrs.

Rossiter could not now be said to come into a room--she was simply

there. One was sitting, gazing it might be at the fire, a looking-glass,

a picture or two, when suddenly there came a black shadow, something

that changed the colour of things a little, something that obscured

certain objects, but scarcely anything more definite. The yellow brooch

was definite, cold, stony eyes hung a little above it, over those a high

white forehead--otherwise merely a black shadow putting out the fire.

She was in the Roundabout now all the time. How poor Dr. Rossiter fared

it was difficult to imagine, but he cared for Clare as deeply as his

wife did and was quite ready for everything to be sacrificed to her at

this crisis of her history.

Mrs. Rossiter, meanwhile, was entirely convinced that Peter was

responsible for his son's death. Had you suddenly challenged her and

demanded her reasoned argument with regard to this matter she would

probably have failed you--she did not like reasoned arguments--but she

would also have been most sincerely indignant had you called her a liar

and would have sworn to her convictions before a court of law.

“Those Cornishmen” had frightened the poor little thing into fits and it

was only to be expected. Moreover it followed from this that a man who

murdered his only child would most assuredly take to beating his wife

before very long. After that, anything might happen. Peter was on a

swift road to being a “Perfect Devil.”

Indeed, allow Mrs. Rossiter two consecutive hours of peace and quiet,

she, sitting like the personification of the English climate, alone

before her fire, and she could make any one into anything--once made so

they remained.

It mattered nothing to her that poor Peter was, during these weeks, the

most subdued and gently courteous of husbands--that was as it might be

(a favourite phrase of hers). She knew him ... and, so knowing, waited

for the inevitable end.

But the more certain she was of his villainous possibilities the more

placid she became. She spread her placidity over everything. It lay,

like an invisible glue, upon everything in the Roundabout--you could

feel it on the door-handles, as you feel the jammy reminiscences of

incautious servant-maids. Peter felt it but did not know what it was

that he had to deal with.

He had determined, when the sharpest shock of Stephen's death had

passed, and he was able to think of other things, that the supremely

important thing for him now to do was to get back to his old relations

with Clare. There was, he grimly reflected, “Mortimer Stant” to be

finished within a month or two and he knew, perfectly well, with the

assurance of past experience that whilst Clare held the stage, Mortimer

had the poorest of chances--nevertheless Clare was, at this moment, the

thing to struggle for.

He _must_ get her back--he _must_ get her back.

Behind his brain, all this time, was the horror of being left alone in

the world and of what he might do--then.

To get Clare back he must have the assistance of two people--Mrs.

Rossiter and Cards.

It was at this point that he perceived Mrs. Rossiter's placidity.

He could not get at her at all--he could not get near her. He tried in

every way, during these weeks, to please her. She apparently noticed

nothing. He could force no direct opinion about anything from her and

yet he was conscious of opposition. He was conscious of opposition,

increasingly, every day.

“I believe she _wants_ Clare to hate me,” he suddenly revealed to

himself, and, with that, all hope of her as an ally vanished.

Then he hated her--he hated her more bitterly every day.

He wanted to tell her not to call him “Peter dear”--she loved to put him

in positions that showed him in the worst light to Clare.

At luncheon for instance: “Peter dear, it would be a nice thing for

you and Clare to go to that Private View at the Carfax this afternoon.

You've nothing to do, Clare, have you?”

Peter knew that Mrs. Rossiter had already ascertained that he was

engaged. He knew also that Clare had had no thought of Peter's company

before but that now she would very speedily feel herself injured.

“I'm afraid--” Peter would begin.

“Peter's too engaged to take you, Clare dear.”

“I dare say Jerry will come--” this from Clare.

“Ah! yes, Mr. Cardillac is always ready to take any trouble, Peter.”

“If you'd let me know earlier, Clare, that you wanted me.”

Mrs. Rossiter. “Oh! don't put yourself out, Peter. It would never do

to break an engagement. Only it seems such a long time since you and

Clare--”

Peter. “We'll go to-morrow afternoon, Clare.”

Clare. “You're so gloomy when you do come, Peter. It's like going out

with a ghost.”

Mrs. Rossiter. “Ah! Peter has his work, dear--so much hangs on the next

book, doesn't it, Peter? Naturally the last one didn't quite--”

Peter. “Look here, Clare, I'll chuck this engagement.”

Clare. “No, thank you, Peter--Jerry and I will be all right. You can

join us if you like--”

The fact was that Peter wasn't tactful. He showed Mrs. Rossiter much too

plainly that he disliked her intensely. He had no idea that he showed it

her. He thought, indeed, that he was very skilful in his disguise of his

feelings but Mrs. Rossiter knew and soon Clare knew also.

Peter had no conception of subtlety in the matter. It was clear to him

that he had once been devoted to Clare and she to him, it was clear also

that that relationship had recently been dimmed. Now that Stephen was

gone that early intimacy must be restored and the fact that he was

willing on his side to do anything to bring it back seemed to him reason

enough for its restoration. That the whole matter was composed of

the most delicate and intricate threads never occurred to him for an

instant. Clare had loved him once. Clare would love him again--and the

sooner it happened the better for him.

Meanwhile Mrs. Rossiter being enemy rather than ally there remained

Cards.

But Cards was strange. Peter could never claim to have been intimate

with him--their relationship had been founded on an inequality, on a

recognition from Peter of Cards' superiority. Cards had always laughed

at Peter, always patronised him. But now, although Cards had been in the

place so much of late, the distance seemed farther than ever before.

Cards was as kind as he could be--always in good spirits, always ready

to do anything, but Peter noticed that it was only when Clare was

present that Cards changed from jest to earnest. “He thinks Clare worth

talking to seriously.... I suppose it's because he was at Dawson's ...

but after all I'm not an imbecile.”

This attitude of Cards was in fact as vague and nebulous as all the

other things that seemed now to stand between Peter and Clare.

Peter tried to talk to Cards--he was always prevented--held off with a

laughing hand.

“What's the matter with me?” thought Peter. “What have I done? It's like

being out in a fog.”

At last one evening, after dinner, when Clare and Mrs. Rossiter had gone

upstairs he demanded an answer.

“Look here, Cards, what have I done? You profess to be a friend of mine.

Tell me what crime I've committed?”

Cards' eyes had been laughing. Suddenly he was serious. His dark,

clean-cut face was stern, almost accusing.

“Profess, Peter? I hope you don't doubt it?”

“No, of course not. You know you're the best friend I've got. Tell

me--what have I done?”

“Done?”

“Yes--you and Clare and her mother--all of you keep me at arms'

length--why?”

“Do you really want a straight talking?”

“Of course.”

“Well, I can only speak for myself--but--to tell the truth, old boy--I

think you've been rather hard on poor little Clare.”

For the first time since his marriage Peter resented Cards' words. “Poor

little Clare”--wasn't that a little too intimate?

“What do you mean?” he asked, his voice a little harder.

“Well--I don't think you understand her, Peter.”

“Explain.”

“She's a happy, merry person if ever there was one in this world. She

wants all the happiness you can give her--”

“Well?”

“Well, you don't seem to see that. Of course young Stephen's death--”

“Let's leave that--” Peter's voice was harder again.

“Oh, all right--just as you please. But most men would have seen what

a shock it must be to a girl, so young, who knew so little about the

cruelty of life. You didn't--you don't mind, Peter, do you?--you didn't

seem to think of that. Never tried to cheer her up, take her about, take

her out of herself. You just wrapped yourself up--”

“You don't understand,” muttered Peter, his eyes lowered. “If I'd

thought that she'd really minded Stephen's death--”

“Oh! come Peter--that's grossly unfair. Why, she felt it all most

horribly. That shows how little you've understood her, how little you've

appreciated her. You've always been a gloomy, morbid devil and--”

“All right, Cards--that'll do.”

Cards stood back from the table, his mouth smiling, his eyes hard and

cold.

“Oh! no, it won't. You asked for it and now you're going to get it.

You've not only been gloomy and morbid all your life, you've been

selfish as well--always thinking of yourself and the books you were

going to write, and then when they did come they weren't such great

shakes. You oughtn't to have married at all--you've never considered

Clare at all--your treatment of her--”

Peter stood up, his face white, so that his eyes and the lines of his

mouth showed black in the shadow.

“Clear out--I've heard enough.”

“Oh! that's just like you--ask me for my opinion and then lose your

temper over it. Really, Peter, you're like a boy of ten--you don't

deserve to be treated as a grown-up person.”

Peter's voice shook. “Clear out--clear out or I'll do for you--get out

of my house--”

“Certainly.”

Cards opened the door and was gone. Peter heard him hesitate for a

moment in the hall, get his hat and coat and then close the hall-door

after him.

The house was suddenly silent. Peter stood, his hands clenched. Then he

went out into the hall.

He heard Mrs. Rossiter's voice from above--“Aren't you two men ever

coming up?”

“Jerry's gone.”

“Gone?”

“Yes--we've had a row.”

Mrs. Rossiter made no reply. He heard the drawing-room door close. Then

he, too, took his coat and hat and went out.

V

The night was cool and sweet with a great silver haze of stars above the

sharply outlined roofs and chimneys. The golden mist from the streets

met the night air and mingled with it.

Peter walked furiously, without thinking of direction. Some clock struck

half-past nine. His temper faded swiftly, leaving him cold, miserable,

regretful. There went his damnable temper again, surging up suddenly so

hot and fierce that it had control of him almost before he knew that it

was there. How like him, too! Now when things were bad enough, when he

must bend all his energies to bringing peace back into the house again,

he must needs go and quarrel with the best friend he had in the world.

He had never quarrelled with Cards before, never had there been the

slightest word between them, and now he had insulted him so that,

probably, he would never come into their house again.

And behind his immediate repentance at the quarrel there also bit into

his heart the knowledge that there was truth in the accusation that

Cardillac had flung at him. He _had_ been morbid, he _had_ been selfish.

Absorbed by his own grief at Stephen's loss he had given no thought

to any one else. He had expected Clare to be like himself, had made no

allowance for differences of temperament, had.... Poor Peter had never

before known an hour of such miserable self-condemnation. Had he known

where to find him he would have gone that very instant to beg Cards'

pardon.

Now, in comparison with his own black deeds, Mrs. Rossiter seemed an

angel. He should show her in the future that he could mend his ways.

Clare should make no further complaint of him. He found himself in

Leicester Square and still wrapt in his own miserable thoughts went into

the Empire. He walked up and down the Promenade wondering that so many

people could take the world so lightly. Very far away a gentleman in

evening dress was singing a song--his mouth could be seen to open and

shut, sometimes his arms moved--no sound could be heard.

The Promenade was packed. Up and down ladies in enormous hats walked

languidly. They all wore clothes that were gorgeous and a little soiled.

They walked for the most part in couples and appeared to be absorbed

in conversation, but every now and again they smiled mechanically,

recognised a friend or saw somebody who was likely very shortly to

become one.

There was a great deal of noise. There were numbers of men--old

gentlemen who were there because they had always been there, young

gentlemen who were there because they had never been there before and a

few gentlemen who had come to see the Ballet.

The lights blazed, the heat and noise steadily accumulated, corks were

popped in the bar behind, promises were broken in the Promenade

in front, and soon after eleven, when everything had become so

uncomfortable that the very lights in the building protested, the doors

were opened and the whole Bubble and Squeak was flung out into the cool

and starlit improprieties of Leicester Square.

Peter could not have told you if he had been asked, that he had been

there, felt a devouring thirst and entered a building close at hand

where there were rows of little round tables and numbers of little round

waiters.

Peter sat down at the first table that occurred to him and it was not

until he looked round about him that he discovered that a lady in a huge

black hat was sitting smiling opposite him. Her cheeks were rouged, her

gloves were soiled and her hair looked as though it might fall into a

thousand pieces at the slightest provocation, but her eyes were pathetic

and tired. They didn't belong to her face.

“Hullo, dear, let's have a drink. Haven't had a drink to-night.”

He asked her what she would like and she told him. She studied him

carefully for quite a long time.

“Down on your luck, old chum?” she said at last.

“Yes, I am,” Peter said, “a bit depressed.”

“I know. I'm often that way myself. We all catch it. Come home and have

a bit of supper. That'll cheer you up.”

“No, thanks,” said Peter politely. “I must get back to my own place in a

minute.”

“Well,” said the lady. “Please yourself, and I'll have another drink if

you don't very much mind.”

It was whilst he was ordering another drink that he came out of his own

thoughts and considered her.

“That's right,” she said smiling, “have a good look. My name's Rose

Bennett. Here's my card. Perhaps you'd like to come and have tea with me

one day.”

She gave him a very dirty card on which was written “Miss Rose Bennett,

4 Annton Street, Portland Place.”

“You're Cornish,” he suddenly said, looking at her.

She moved her soiled gloves up and down the little table--“Well, what if

I am?” she said defiantly, not looking at him.

“I knew it,” said Peter triumphantly, “the way you rolled your r's--”

“Well, chuck it, dear,” said Miss Bennett, “and let's talk sense. What's

Cornwall got to do with us anyhow?”

“I'm Cornish too,” said Peter, “it's got a good deal to do with us. You

needn't tell me of course--but what part do you come from?”

Still sullenly she said: “Almost forgotten the name of it, so long ago.

You wouldn't know it anyway, it's such a little place. They called it

Portergwarra--”

“I know,” cried Peter, “near the Land's End. Of course I know it. There

are holes in the rocks that they lift the boats through. There's a

post-box on the wall. I've walked there many a time--”

“Well, stow it, old man,” Miss Bennett answered decisively. “I'm not

thinking of that place any more and I don't suppose they've thought of

me since. Why, it's years--”

She broke off and began hurriedly to drink. Peter's eyes sought her

eyes--his eyes were miserable and so were hers--but her mouth was hard

and laughing.

“It's funny talking of Cornwall,” she said at last. “No one's spoken of

the place since I came up here. But it's all right, I tell you--quite

all right. You take it from me, chucky. I enjoy my life--have a jolly

time. There's disadvantages in every profession, and when you've got a

bit of a cold as I have now why--”

She stopped. Her eyes sought Peter's. He saw that she was nearly crying.

“Talking of Cornwall and all that,” she muttered, “silly rot! I'm

tired--I'm going home.”

He paid for the drinks and got a hansom.

At that moment as he stood looking over the horse into the dimly-lit

obscurities of the Square he thought with a sudden beating of the

heart that he recognised Cardillac looking at him from the doorway of a

neighbouring restaurant. Then the figure was gone. He had got Cardillac

on the brain! Nevertheless the suggestion made him suddenly conscious

of poor Miss Bennett's enormous hat, her rouge, her soiled finery that

allowed no question as to her position in the world.

Rather hurriedly he asked her to get into the cab.

“Come that far--” she said.

He got in with her and she took off one glove and he held her hand and

they didn't speak all the way.

When the hansom stopped at last he got down, helped her out and for a

moment longer held her hand.

“We're both pretty unhappy,” he said. “Things have been going wrong with

me too. But think of Cornwall sometimes and remember there's some one

else thinking of it.”

“You're a funny kid,” she said, looking at him, “sentimental, I _don't_

think!”

But it was her eyes--tired and regretful that said goodbye.

She let herself in and the door closed behind her.

He turned and walked the streets; it was three o'clock before he reached

his home.

CHAPTER XIII

“MORTIMER STANT”

I

Next morning Peter went round to Cardillac's flat and made his

apologies. Cardillac accepted them at once with the frankest expressions

of friendship.

“My dear old Peter, of course,” he said, taking both Peter's hands

in his, “I was horribly blunt and unpleasant about the whole thing. I

didn't mean half what I said, but the fact is that you got angry and

then I suppose I got angry--and then we both said more than we meant.”

“No,” said Peter slowly, “for you were quite right. I have been selfish

and morbid. I see it all quite clearly. I'm going to be very different

now, Cards, old man.”

Cards' flat was splendid--everything in it from its grey Ascot

trouserings kind of wall paper to its beautiful old chairs and its

beautiful old china was of the very best--and Cards himself, in a dark

blue suit with a black tie and a while pearl and white spats on his

shining gleaming shoes, just ready to go out and startle Piccadilly was

of the very best. He had never, Peter thought, looked so handsome.

At the door Cards put a hand on Peter's shoulder.

“Get in late this morning, Peter?”

“Why?” said Peter, turning round.

“Oh, nothing,” Cards regarded him, smiling. “I'll see you to-night at

the Lesters. Until then, old man--”

Neither Mrs. Rossiter nor Clare made any allusion to the quarrel but

it had nevertheless, Peter felt, made reconciliation all the more

difficult. Mrs. Rossiter now seemed to imply in her additional

kindnesses to Cardillac that she felt for him deeply and was sorry that

he, too, should have been made to suffer under Peter's bear-like nature.

There was even an implied atmosphere of alliance in the attitude of the

three to Peter, an alliance fostered and cemented by Mrs. Rossiter and

spread by her, up and down, in and out about the house.

It was obvious indeed now that Mrs. Rossiter was, never again, under any

terms, to be won over. She had decided in her own slow mind that Peter

was an objectionable person, that he neglected his wife, quarrelled with

his best friends and refused to fulfil the career that he had promised

to fulfil. She saw herself now in the role of protectress of her

daughter, and that role she would play to the very end. Clare must,

at all costs, be happy and, in spite of her odious husband, happy she

should be.

Peter discerned Mrs. Rossiter's state of mind on the whole clearly

enough, but with regard to Clare he was entirely in the dark. He devoted

his days now to her service. He studied her every want, was ready to

abandon his work at any moment to be with her, and was careful also to

avoid too great a pestering of her with attentions.

“I know women hate that,” he said to himself, “if you go down on your

knees to them and hang around them they simply can't stand it. I won't

show her that I care.”

And he cared, poor fellow, as he had never cared for her before during

their married life. The love that he had had for Stephen he would now

give to Stephen's mother would she but let him.

But it was a difficult business. When Mrs. Rossiter was present he could

do nothing right. If he were silent she would talk to Clare about people

being morose; and what a pity it was that some people didn't think of

other people a little instead of being miserable about things for

which they had nobody to thank but themselves, and if he tried to be

light-hearted and amusing Mrs. Rossiter bore with his humour in so

patient and self-denying a spirit that his efforts failed lamentably and

only made the situation worse than it had been before.

Clare seemed to be now entirely in her mother's hands; she put her

mother's large flat body between herself and Peter and, through that,

they were compelled to talk.

Peter also knew now that Clare was exceedingly uncomfortable in his

presence--it was almost as though she had something to conceal. On

several occasions he had noticed that his sudden entrance into a room

had confused her; once he had caught her hurriedly pushing a letter out

of sight. She was now strangely timid when he was there; sometimes with

a sudden furious beating of the heart he fancied that she was coming

back to him again because she would make little half movements towards

him and then draw back. Once he found her crying.

The impulse to beg her to confide in him was almost stronger than he

could resist, and yet he was terrified lest by some sudden move he

should frighten her and drive her back and so lose the little ground

that he had gained. The strangest thing of all was that Mrs. Rossiter

herself did not know what Clare's trouble was. She, of course, put it

all down to Peter, but she could accuse him of nothing specific. Clare

had not confided in her.

Did Cards know? Peter suddenly asked himself with a strange pang of

jealousy. That he should be jealous of Cards, the most splendid, most

honourable fellow in the world! That, of course, was absurd. And yet

they were together so often, and it was with Jerry Cardillac alone that

Clare seemed now at ease.

But Peter put all such thoughts at once away from him. Had it been any

other man but Cards he might have wondered... but he would trust Cards

alone with his wife in the wilderness and know that no ill could come

of it. With--other women Cards might have few scruples--Peter had heard

such stories--but with Peter's wife, no.

Peter wondered whether perhaps Clare did not miss young Stephen more

than they knew! Oh, if that were the reason how he could take her into

his arms and comfort her and love her! Poor little Clare... the time

would come when she would show him that she wanted him.

Meanwhile the months passed, the proofs of “Mortimer Stant” had been

corrected and the book was about to appear. To Peter now everything

seemed to hang upon this event. It became with him, during the weeks

before its appearance, a monomania. If this book were a success why then

dare and Mrs. Rossiter and all of them would come round to him. It was

the third book which was always so decisive, and there was ground

to recover after the comparative failure of the second novel. As he

corrected the proofs he persuaded himself that “Mortimer Stant” wasn't,

after all, so bad. It had been ambitious of him, of course, to write

about the emotions and experiences of a man of forty and there was

perhaps rather an overloaded and crude attempt at atmosphere, but there

was life in the book. It had, he thought, more swing in the telling of

it than the other two.

It is possible, when one is correcting proofs to persuade oneself of

anything. The book appeared and was, from the first moment, loaded with

mishap. On the day of publication there was that terrible fire at the

Casino theatre--people talked of nothing else for a fortnight. Moreover

by an unlucky chance young Rondel's novel, “The Precipice,” was

published on the very same day, and as the precipice was a novel one and

there were no less than three young ladies prepared to fall over it

at the same moment, it of course commanded instant attention. It was

incidentally written with an admirable sense of style and a keen sense

of character.

But Peter was now in a fever that saw an enemy round every corner. The

English News Supplement only gave him a line:--“'Mortimer Stant.' A new

novel by the author of 'Reuben Hallard,' depicting agreeably enough the

amorous adventures of a stockbroker of middle-age.” To this had all his

fine dreams, his moments of exultation, his fevered inspiration come!

He searched the London booksellers but could find no traces of “Mortimer

Stant” at any of them. His publishers told him that it was only the

libraries that bought any fiction, with the exception of volumes by

certain popular authors--and yet he saw at these booksellers novels by

numbers of people who could not lay claim to the success that “Reuben

Hallard” had secured for its writer.

The reviews came in slowly, and, excepting for the smaller provincial

papers, treated him with an indifference that was worse than neglect.

“This interesting novel by Mr. Westcott”--“A pleasant tale of country

life by the author of 'Reuben Hallard.' Will please those who like a

quiet agreeable book without too much incident.”

One London weekly review--a paper of considerable importance--took

him severely to task, pointed out a number of incoherences of fact,

commented on carelessness of style and finally advised Mr. Westcott, “if

he is ever to write a book of real importance to work with greater care

and to be less easily contented with a superficial facility.”

But worse than these were the opinions of his friends. Henry Galleon was

indeed gone, but there were a few--Mrs. Launce, Alfred Lester, William

Trent, Alfred Hext--who had taken a real and encouraging interest in

him from the beginning. They took him seriously enough to tell him the

truth, and tell him the truth they did. Dear Mrs. Launce, who couldn't

bear to hurt anybody and saw perhaps that he was taking the book a great

deal more hardly than he had taken the others, veiled it as well as she

could:--“I do think it's got splendid things in it, Peter dear--splendid

things. That bit about the swimming and the character of Mrs. Mumps. But

it doesn't hang together. There's a great deal of repetition. It's as

though you'd written it with your mind on something else all the time.”

And so he had--oh! so he had! What cruel irony that because his mind was

set to winning Clare back to him the chief means for gaining her should

be ruined by his very care for her.

What to do when all the things of life--the bustle and hurry, the

marriages and births and deaths--came in between him and his work so

that he could scarcely see it, so many things obscured the way.

Poor Mortimer! Lost indeed behind a shifting, whirring cloud of real

life--never to emerge, poor man, into anything better than a middle-aged

clothes' prop.

For six weeks the book lingered in the advertisements. A second edition,

composed for the most part of an edition for America, was announced,

there were a belated review or two ... and then the end. The end of two

years' hopes, ambitions, struggles, sweat and tears--and the end, too,

of how much else?

From the beginning, so far back as he could remember, he had believed

that he would one day write great books; had believed it from no conceit

in him but simply because he clung so tenaciously to ambition that it

had become, again and again, almost realised in the intensity of his

dreams of it. He had known that this achievement of his would take a

long time, that he must meet with many rebuffs, that he must starve and

despair and be born again, but, never at any moment, until now, had he,

in his heart of hearts, doubted that that great book was in front of

him.

He had seen his work, in his dreams, derided, flouted, misunderstood.

That was the way with most good work, but what he had never seen was its

acceptance amongst the ranks of the “Pretty Good,” its place given it

beside that rising and falling tide of fiction that covered every

year the greedy rocks of the circulating libraries and ebbed out again

leaving no trace behind it.

Now, after the failure of “Mortimer Stant” for the first time, this

awful question--“What if, after all, you should be an Ordinary

Creature? What if you are no better than that army who fights happily,

contentedly, with mediocrity for its daily bread and butter? That

army, upon whose serried ranks you have perhaps, unconsciously, but

nevertheless with pity, looked down?... What if you are never to write

a word that will be remembered, never even to cause a decent attention,

amongst your own generation?”

What if after all this stir and fluster, this pain and agony and

striving, there should be nothing exceptional about Peter? What rock to

stand on then?

He had never, perhaps, analysed his feelings about it all. He had

certainly never thought himself an exceptional person ... but always in

his heart there had been that belief that, one day, he would write an

exceptional book.

He was very young, not yet thirty, but he had had his chance. It seemed

to him, in these weeks following the death of “Mortimer Stant,” that his

career was already over. There was also the question of ways and means.

Just enough to live on with the reviewing and a column for an American

paper and Clare's income, but if the books were all of them to fail as

this one had failed--why then it was a dreary future for them both.

In fact there were now, at his feet, pits of so dismal and impenetrable

a blackness that he refused to look down, but clung rather to his

determination to make all things right with Clare again, and then things

would come round.

If that failed him--why then, old black-faced father in Scaw House with

your drunken cook and your company of ghosts, you shall have your merry

way!

II

Henry Galleon was dead. Mrs. Launce was, unfortunately, during the whole

of this period of Peter's career, away in the country, being burdened

with work, children and ill-health. He turned then once again to Bobby.

He had seen very little of Bobby and Alice Galleon lately; he was

as fond of Bobby as he had ever been, but Bobby had always been a

background, some one who was there, one liked to think, if one wanted

him--but if there was any one more exciting, then Bobby vanished.

Lately--for quite a long time now--there had been Cardillac--and somehow

Cards and Bobby did not get on together and it was impossible to have

them both at the same time. But now Peter turned to Bobby with the

eagerness of a return to some comfortable old arm-chair after the

brilliant new furniture of a friend's palace. Bobby was there waiting

for him. It is not to be denied that the occasional nature of Peter's

appearances had hurt them both--wounded Bobby and made Alice angry.

“He's given us up, Bobby, now that he's found so many new friends. I

shouldn't have expected him to do that. I'm disappointed.”

But Bobby nodded his head. “The boy's all right,” he said, “he's

just trying to forget young Stephen and he forgets things better in

Cardillac's company than he does in mine--I'm not lively enough for that

kind of thing. He'll come back--”

But, at the same time, Bobby was anxious. Things were wrong up there at

The Roundabout, very wrong. He knew Clare and Cards and Peter and Mrs.

Rossiter, in all probability better than any one alive knew them--and he

was no fool.

Then Peter came back to him and was received as though he had never left

him; and Alice, who had intended to tell Mr. Peter what she thought of

his disloyalty, had no word to say when she saw his white drawn face and

his tired eyes.

“There's something awfully wrong up there,” said Alice to Bobby that

night. “Bobby, look after him.”

But Bobby who had heard by that time what Peter had to say shut his

mouth tight. Then at last:

“Our friend Cardillac has a good deal to answer for,” and left Alice to

make what she could out of it.

Meanwhile up in Bobby's dusty old room, called by courtesy “The Study”

but having little evidence of literature about it save an edition of

Whyte-Melville and a miscellaneous collection of Yellow-backs, Peter had

poured out his soul:

“Bobby, I feel as though I'd just been set up with my back against

the wall for every one to make shies at. Everything's going

wrong--everything. The ground's crumbling from under my feet. First

it's young Stephen, then it's Clare, then my book fails (don't let's

humbug--you know it's an utter failure) then I quarrel with Cards, then

that damned woman--” he stopped at the thought of Mrs. Rossiter and

drove his hands together. Then he went on more quietly. “It's like

fighting in a fog, Bobby. There's the thing I want somewhere, just

beside me--I want Clare, Clare as she used to be when we were first

married--but I can't get at her and yet, through it all, I don't know

what it is that stops me.

“I know I hadn't thought of her enough--with the book and Stephen and

everything. Cards told me that pretty straight--but now I've seen all

that and I'm ready to do anything--anything if she'll only love me

again.”

“Go directly to her and tell her,” said Bobby; “have it all out in the

open with her.”

“That's just it,” Peter answered, “I never seem to get her alone.

There's always either her mother or Cards there. Cards sees her alone

much more than I do, but, of course, she likes his company better than

mine just now. I'm such a gloomy beggar--”

“Nonsense,” said Bobby roughly. “You believe anything that any one tells

you. They tell you that you're gloomy and depressing and so you think

you are. They didn't find you gloomy at Brockett's did they? And Alice

and I have never found you depressing. Don't listen to that woman.

Clare's always been under her influence and it's for you to take her

out of it--not to lie down quietly and say she's too much for you--but

there's another thing,” he added slowly and awkwardly, after a moment's

pause.

“What's that?” asked Peter.

“Well--Cards,” said Bobby at last. “Oh! I know you'll say I hate him.

But I don't. I don't hate him. I've always known him for what he was--in

those days at Dawson's when if you flattered him he was kind, and if you

didn't he was contemptuous. At Cambridge it was the same. There was only

one fellow there I ever saw him knock under to--a man called Dune--and

he was out and away exceptional anyhow, at games and work and

everything. Now _he_ made Cards into a decent fellow for the time

being, and if he'd had the running of him he might have turned all that

brilliance into something worth having.

“But he vanished and Cards has never owned his master since. Everything

was there, ready in him, to be turned one way or the other, and after he

left Cambridge there was his silly mother and a sillier London waiting

to finish him--now he's nothing but Vanity and Fascination--and soon

there'll be nothing but Vanity.”

“You're unjust to him, Bobby, you always have been.

“Well, perhaps I am. He's always treated me with such undisguised

contempt that it's only human that I should be a little prejudiced. But

that's neither here nor there--what is the point, Peter, is that he's

too much up at your place. Too much for his own good, too much for

yours, and--too much for--Clare's.”

“Bobby!”

“Oh yes--I know I'm saying a serious thing--but you asked me for my

advice and I give it. I don't say that Cards means any harm but people

will talk and it wouldn't do you any damage in Clare's eyes either,

Peter, if you were to stand up to him a little.”

Peter smiled. “Dear old Bobby! If any one else in the world had said

such a thing of course I should have been most awfully angry, but I've

always known how unfair you were about Cards. You never liked him, even

in the Dawson days. You just don't suit one another. But I tell you,

Bobby, that I'd trust Cards more than I'd trust any one in the world. Of

course Clare likes to be with him and of course he likes to be with her.

They suit one another exactly. Why, he's splendid! The other day when

I'd been a perfect beast--losing my temper like a boy of ten--you should

have heard the way he took it. One day, Bobby, you'll see how splendid

he is.”

Bobby said no more.

Peter went on again: “No, it's my mother-in-law's done the damage.

You're right, the thing to do is to get Clare alone and have it right

out with her. We'll clear the mists away.”

Bobby said: “You know Peter, both Alice and I would do anything in the

world to make you happy--anything.”

Peter gripped his hand.

“I know you would. If I could forget young Stephen,” he caught his

breath--“Bobby, I see him everywhere, all the time. I lie awake hours

at night thinking about him. I see him in my sleep, see him sometimes

grown-up--splendid, famous.... Sometimes I think he comes back. I can

see him, lying on his back and looking up at the ceiling, and I say to

myself, 'Now if you don't move he'll stay there' ... and then I move

and he's gone. And I haven't any one to talk about him to. I never

know whether Clare thinks of him or not. He was so splendid, Bobby, so

strong. And he loved me in the most extraordinary way. We'd have been

tremendous pals if he'd lived.

“I could have stood anything if I'd been able to see him growing up, had

him to care about.... I'm so lonely, Bobby--and if I don't make Clare

come back to me, now that the book's failed, I--I--I'll go back to Scaw

House and just drink myself to the devil there with my old father; he'll

be glad enough.”

“You once told me,” Bobby said, “about an old man in your place when you

were a kid, who said once, 'It isn't life that matters but the courage

you bring to it--' Well, that's what you're proving now, Peter.”

“Yes, but why me? I've had a bad time all my life--always been knocked

about and cursed and kicked. Why should it go on all the time--all the

time?”

“Because They think you're worth it, I suppose,” said Bobby.

III

And the result of that conversation was that, on that very night Peter

made his appeal. They had had a silent evening (Mrs. Rossiter was

staying in the house at this time), and at last they all had gone up to

bed. Peter stayed for a moment in his dressing-room, seeing his white

face in the looking-glass, hearing the beating of his heart and then

with a hand that strangely trembled, knocked on Clare's door.

Her voice sounded frightened, he thought, as she called to him to come

in. Indeed, as he entered she folded a letter that she had been reading,

and put it in a drawer in the dressing-table at which she was sitting.

It was only seldom now that he disturbed her in that room. She had

turned on the electric light over her dressing-table; the rest of the

room was in darkness. She seemed to Peter very fragile and tiny as she

sat there in her black evening frock, her breast rising and falling

as though something had suddenly frightened her, her eyes wide and

startled. He felt a gross, coarse brute as he stumbled, coming across

the dark floor to her.

“My God,” he cried in his heart, “put everything right now--let this

make everything right.”

His big square body flung huge fantastic shadows upon the wall, but

he looked, as he faced her, like a boy who had come to his master to

confess some crime.

Apparently she was reassured now, for she took off her necklace and

moved about the things on her table as though to show him that she was

on the point of undressing.

“Well, Peter, what is it?” she said.

“I've come--Clare--just a moment--I want a talk.”

“But it's late, I'm tired--won't some other time do?”

“No, I want it now.”

“What is it?”

She was looking into the glass as she spoke to him.

He pulled a little chair over to her and sat forward so that his knees

nearly touched her thin black dress. He put out his big hand and caught

one of her little ones; he thought for a moment that she was going to

resist--then it lay there cold as ice.

“Clare--darling--look here, everything's been wrong with both of us--for

ages. And I've come--I've come--because I know it's been very largely my

fault. And I've come to say that everything will be different now and I

want you to let things--be--as they were before--”

For a moment he fancied that he saw a light leap into her eyes; he felt

her hand tremble for a moment in his. Then the expression was gone.

“How do you mean?” she said, still looking into the glass. “What do you

mean, Peter? I haven't noticed anything different.”

“Oh yes, you have. You know that--ever since Stephen died and before

that really--you've avoided me. You'd rather be without me than with

me. You've all thought me selfish and glum and so I suppose I was. But

I missed--the kid--a lot.” Again Peter felt her hand tremble. He pressed

it. Then he went on, leaning more toward her now and putting an arm out

to touch her dress.

“Clare--it's been like a fog all these weeks--we've never had it out,

we've never talked about it, but you've been disappointed in me. You

thought I was going to write great books and I haven't--and then your

mother--and I--don't get on. And then I suppose I'm stupid in society--I

can't talk a lot to any one who comes along as all you people can. I've

been brought up differently and--and--I know you don't like to think

about that either, and so I'll never bring my old friends into the house

and I'll see that I'm not such a gawk at your parties--”

He paused for a moment; she was looking down now and he couldn't see her

eyes. He bent forward more closely--his arm caught her waist--his hand

crushed hers--

She tried desperately to pull herself together to say something--

“No--there's nothing. Well, if there is--Of course I suppose it happens

to all married people--”

“What happens?”

“Why, they find one another out a little. Things aren't quite as they

thought they'd be. That must happen always.”

“But tell me--tell me the things in me that have disappointed you and

then I can alter--”

“Well--it's a little as you say. You have been rather rude to Mother.

And then--your quarrel--”

“What! You mean with Cards!”

“With--Jerry--yes. And then,” her voice was high and sharp now--her

eyes avoided his--“I've always--been happy, until _I_ married.

Things frighten me. You don't understand me, Peter, how easily I'm

frightened--you never seemed to see that. Other people--know.”

“I've been selfish--I--”

“Yes,” she went on still in that high voice, “and you never consider me

in little things. And you laugh at me as though I were stupid. I don't

suppose it's all your fault. You were brought up--roughly. But you _are_

rough. You hurt me often. I can't bear,” her lip was trembling and she

was nearly crying--“I can't bear being unhappy--”

“My God!” cried Peter, “what a beast I am! What a brute I've been!”

“Yes--and you never seemed to think that I minded poor little Stephen's

death--the dear little thing--of course it hurt me dreadfully--and you

never thought of _me_--”

“It's all going to be different now. Love me, Clare--love me and it will

all come back. And then if you'll only love me I'll be able to write the

most wonderful books. I'll be famous all the world over--if you'll only

love me, Clare darling--”

He dropt on to his knees before her and looking up at her

whispered--“Clare--darling, darling--you're all that I've got

now--everything in the world. And in return I'll try to be everything

to you. I'll spend my life in making you happy. I'll care for only one

thing and that is to be your servant. Clare--Clare--”

She gave a little protesting cry--“Peter, Peter--don't--I--I--can't--”

and then in a shuddering whisper--“Peter--I'm not good enough--I don't

love you now--I--can't--”

But he had caught her, was holding her to him now, with both his arms

round her, pressing her against his shirt, hurting her--at last covering

her mouth, her eyes, her cheeks with kisses.

He had not heard those words now, in the triumph of having her back

again, his as she had been on the first day of their marriage, did not

feel her body unresponsive, her hands cold, nor did he see the appeal,

wild and desperate, in her eyes....

At last he left her, closing, softly her door between them.

CHAPTER XIV

PETER BUYS A PRESENT

I

Peter did not hesitate now. He should win Clare back with his strong

right hand and he would rule The Roundabout with a rod of iron. Ruling

The Roundabout meant ruling Mrs. Rossiter and he was surprised at the

ease with which he won his victory over that lady. Had he considered it

more deeply that easy victory might have seemed to him ominous.

At luncheon on the day after his talk with Clare they three sat

together--Mrs. Rossiter silent, Clare silent, Peter silent.

Suddenly Peter said: “Oh by the way, Clare, I telephoned for seats this

morning for the new thing at the Criterion. I got two stalls.”

They had not been to the theatre together since Stephen's death.

Clare lifted a white face--“I don't think I--”

“Oh yes,” said Peter, smiling across at her--“you'll enjoy it.”

Mrs. Rossiter stroking her large bosom with a flat white hand said, “I

don't think Clare--”

“Oh yes,” said Peter again, “it will do her good.”

Mrs. Rossiter smiled. “Get another stall, Peter, and I will come too.”

“I'm afraid,” said Peter very politely, “that it's too late. The piece

is a thumping success. I was very lucky to get any seats at all.”

And then Mrs. Rossiter subsided, absolutely subsided ... very strange.

That was not a very happy evening. Clare scarcely spoke, she answered

him with “Yes” and “No,” she sat in the stalls looking like a little

unhappy ghost. She did not in any way repulse him--she let him take her

hand coming home in the cab. She shivered and he asked whether she were

cold and she said, Yes, she thought that she was. That night he came in,

took her for a moment in his hands, kissed her very gently on the lips,

and said--

“Clare, you're not angry with me for last night?”

“No” she answered him. Then she added slowly, as though she were

repeating a part that she'd learnt, “Thank you for taking me to the

play, Peter. I was rather tired. But thank you for taking me.”

He went to bed thanking God for this change in her. “I'll make her love

me just as she used to, those days on our honeymoon. God bless her.”

Yes, Mrs. Rossiter was strangely altered. It all shows what one can do

with a woman when one tries. Her hostile placidity had given place to

something almost pathetic. One would have thought, had one not known

that lady's invariable assurance of movement, that she was perplexed,

almost distressed.

Peter was conscious that Clare was now as silent with her mother as she

was with him. He perceived that Mrs. Rossiter was disturbed at Clare's

reticence. He fancied that he sometimes interrupted little conversations

between the mother and the daughter the intention of which was, on Mrs.

Rossiter's part at any rate, that “Clare should tell her something.”

There was no doubt at all, that Mrs. Rossiter was anxious.

Even--although this seemed impossible--she appeared to be ready to

accept Peter as a friend and ally now--now after these many weeks of

hostility. Surely women are strange creatures. In any case, one may

observe the yellow brooch agitated now and ill at ease.

Very soon, too, Cards came to make his farewells--he was going to Paris

for the whole of May.

“What! Won't you be back for the beginning of the Season?” cried Peter

astonished.

“No,” Cards answered, laughing. “For once the Season can commence

without me.”

He was especially affectionate but seemed anxious to be gone. His dark

eyes avoided Peter's gaze. He didn't look well--a little anxious: and

Cards was generally the soul of light-hearted carelessness.

What a splendid fellow he was! Peter looked him up and down taking

that same delight that he had always taken in his distinction, his good

looks, his ease. “He ought to have been born king of somewhere,” Peter

used to think, “he ought really--no wonder people spoil him.”

“There's another thing,” Peter said, “you're forgetting Clare's birthday

next week. She'll be dreadfully disappointed at your not being here for

it.”

“I'll have to remember it from Paris,” Cards said.

“Well--it's an awful pity that you're going for a whole month. I don't

know what we shall do without you. And you cheer Clare up--she's rather

depressed just now. Thinks of the kid a bit, I expect.”

“Well, I'll write,” said Cards, and was gone.

II

Peter received at this time a letter that showed him that he had, at any

rate, one friend, in the world who believed in him. It was from James

Maradick and it was strangely encouraging--now at this period of yawning

pits from whose blackness he so resolutely turned away.

It asked him to go with Maradick as his guest to some Club dinner. Then

it went on.... “You know, Westcott, we don't meet as often as we should.

Like ships in the night, we signal every now and again and then pass.

But I am quite sure that we have plenty to say to one another. Once or

twice--you remember that party when I gassed about Cornwall?--we have

nearly said it, but something has always prevented. I remember that you

divided the world once in a fit of youthful confidence, into Explorers

and Stay-at-homes. Well, those words will do as well as any others to

describe the great dividing line. At any rate, you're an Explorer

and you're trying to get on terms with the Stay-at-homes, and I'm a

Stay-at-home and I'm trying to get on terms with the Explorers and

that's why we're both so uncomfortable. The only happy people, take my

word for it, are those who know the kind of thing they are--Explorers or

Stay-at-homes, and just stick at that and shut their eyes tight to the

other kind of people--_il n'existe pas_, that other world. Those are the

happy people, and, after all most people are like that. But we, you and

I, are uncomfortably conscious of the other Party--want to know them, in

fact, want them to receive us.

“Well, I'm getting on and it's late days for me, but you've got all

your life before you and will do great things, take my word for it. Only

don't be discouraged because the Stay-at-homes don't come to you all at

once. Give 'em time--they'll come....”

This seemed to Peter, at this moment of a whole welter of doubt and

confusion and misunderstanding of people's motives and positions, to

explain a great deal. Was that the reason why he'd been so happy in

old Zachary Tan's shop years ago? Why he'd been happy through all that

existence at the bookshop, those absurd unreal conspirators--happy, yes,

even when starving with Stephen in Bucket Lane.

He was then in his right company--explorers one and all. Whereas

here?--Now? Had he ever been happy at The Roundabout except during the

first year, and afterwards when Stephen came? And was not that, too, the

explanation of young Stephen's happiness upon the arrival of Mr. Zanti

and Brant? Did he not recognise them for what they were, explorers? He

being a young explorer himself.

On the other side Mrs. Rossiter, Clare, Cards, old Bobby who in spite of

his affection never understood half the things that Peter did or said,

the Galleons, old Mrs. Galleon and Percival and his sister?... Had Henry

Galleon known that dividing-line and suffered under it all his life, and

borne it and perhaps conquered it?

And Peter suddenly, standing at his window watching London caught by the

evening light, saw for an instant his work in front of him again. London

with her towers, her roofs and chimneys--smoke and mist and haze weaving

a web--and then beneath it, humming, buzzing, turning, all the lives,

all the comedies, all the tragedies--Kings and princes, guttersnipes and

duchesses, politicians and newsboys, criminals and saints--

Waiting, that golden top, for some hand to set it humming.

In that moment Peter Westcott, aged twenty-nine, with a book just behind

him that had been counted on every side the most dismal of failures, saw

himself the English Balzac, saw London open like a book at his feet,

saw heaven and all its glories... himself the one and only begetter of a

thousand masterpieces!

But the sun set--the towers and roofs and chimneys were coldly grey, a

ragged wind rose through the branches of the orchard, dark clouds hid

the risen moon, newsboys were crying a murder in Whitechapel.

“I hate this house,” Peter said, turning away from the window, into a

room crowded now with dusk.

III

It was the first of May, and the day before Clare's birthday. It was

one of the most beautiful days of the year, with a hint of summer in its

light and shadow, a shimmer of golden sun shaking through the trees in

the orchard, flung from there on to the windows of The Roundabout, to

dance in twisting lines along the floors and across the walls.

All doors and windows seemed to be open; the scent of flowers--a

prophecy of pinks and roses where as yet there were none--flooded the

little Chelsea streets.

The Velasquez on the walls of The Roundabout danced in her stiff skirts,

looking down upon a room bathed in green and gold shadow.

It was three o'clock in the afternoon and Peter was going out to buy

Clare a present. He had seen a ruby pendant many months ago in a window

in Bond Street. He had thought of it for Clare but he had known that,

with young Stephen's education and the rest of the kid's expenses, he

could not dare to afford it. Now... things were different.