They found the theatre easily, and, from their snug box, enjoyed a most
lurid melodrama, which amply redeemed the promise of the hoarding, and
was played by a vigorous company who seemed in no wise dismayed by
yawning spaces and a thin scattering of audience. Nay, the thrills were
even more than the adventurers had reckoned on, for pistol shots
suddenly rang out in the third act, and Lady Betty clutched hard at the
curtain of the box. She presently realised, however, that the iniquitous
foreign nobleman with the fur overcoat and large moustachios, whose
veiled hand had directed the remorseless persecution of the good and
righteous, had at last paid for his misdeeds, and with this passing of
the villain Lady Betty found that her sense of poetic justice was
abundantly satisfied; though the luckless heroine, appearing on the
scene just then, and incautiously picking up the fallen pistol, was at
once arrested as the manifest murderess. Then the curtain went down, and
Lady Betty rose.
"We must not stay to the end. Our day is over, and I want to give you
the promised souvenir of our brief friendship."
There was a catch in her voice, and he understood that the sob had been
suppressed with difficulty. He felt it was for him now to be strong; to
set the note of stoic resignation, even as she had led off their
adventures with a mood that had made this day the most wonderful of all
his life.
"Ah, your strange, strange souvenir!" he laughed. "You must admit I have
waited patiently."
"It was very wicked of me," she admitted. "But I shall keep you tortured
with curiosity till the moment I give it to you. I have it at home. We
had better drive back all the way, if we can find a vehicle."
They slipped out of the box and along the corridor and into the open
road. It was a keen night, but very clear. The perspective of street
lamps stretched endlessly on either hand. There was a plentiful
sprinkling of people about, and the tram-cars were still passing. At the
kerb were a few cabs, waiting for possible clients, so they selected the
smartest of the vehicles; and the driver, who had been standing flinging
his arms about for warmth, climbed into his seat, stolidly indifferent
that "fares" from the theatre should wish to go so far afield into the
regions of the elect.
No doubt the horse was glad to be off, for they started at an
astonishingly brisk pace. Outside lay the endless road and all the
shuttered world of streets and houses, over which still hung the romance
of their splendid day. Quietly they had their last glimpses, as if
fearing to speak, and yet thrillingly conscious of their proximity to
each other. Lady Betty was sunk in sadness; as if she recognised now
that any affectation of cheerfulness was utterly vain. And Wyndham was
thinking of the definite moment of parting. He had resigned himself to
saying "goodbye" at the door of her home; not daring to suggest now that
she should visit his studio, even for the first time and last--since the
chance had not naturally arisen in the course of the day's wanderings,
and she had not even expressed the desire for it. Indeed, in all these
weeks she had thrown out no hint of such a wish, and he had felt that
she considered the ground as within Alice's absolute sphere, and would
not intrude on it. No doubt many mingled shades of feeling went to
create this attitude of hers. Still, Wyndham, having dreamed of her
coming there on this last day, was to that extent unsatisfied. Time and
again the suggestion mounted to his lips even at this eleventh hour, but
he had not the confidence to let the words fall.
Perhaps they had both fallen into reverie, for Wyndham found himself
saying suddenly, "Why, here is the Bank of England!" And Lady Betty
started, too, astonished at the stillness and the solitude here in the
heart of the City.
"The night seems darker now, and how ghostly and silent the lights are!"
she said. "The sky has clouded. Goodbye, dreamland," she added in
meditation. "I shall never dare revisit the ground we have covered. I
don't want to see it again; I couldn't bear it. But I shall always think
and dream of it."
He dared not answer. The least false note, and she would be unnerved.
Since the parting had to be, let them grip hands silently for the last
time, almost without realising it; let them go off as if they were to
meet again on the morrow--as in so many partings that life itself brings
about.
And as they were borne westwards, signs of life began to appear again;
as they approached the Strand they came full upon the torrents of
population pouring out from their amusements. At Trafalgar Square the
town was alive with masses of hansoms in motion that broke into jets and
streams flashing and darting into all the avenues. They seemed to have
returned into this familiar, dazzling London of the night as from a long
journey. They were giddy with the impression of it all, and winced as if
they had long grown disaccustomed to it. But, definitely, they were at
home again; soon the houses of Grosvenor Place would loom up before
them, though somehow their everyday universe had taken on some subtle
quality of unreality since the morning.
And yet how small the distance they had gone afield, how soon
annihilated! Up St. James's Street went the cab, alongside the Green
Park, and in a few minutes it had pulled up in Grosvenor Place. Wyndham
sprang out with a forced alertness, and helped his companion to descend.
The house was quite dark. Lady Betty led the way to the door-step and
produced a latch key from her purse. Wyndham stood by, strained and
nervous.
"You must come in to receive your souvenir," she said. "You have well
deserved it," she added with a brave smile.
He followed her in as she pushed the door open; then she switched on the
light. "You had best wait in the dining-room, I shall join you again
presently."
Wyndham stood alone in the spacious room, with a sense of chill and
desolation. The thought of his marriage and life to come flashed on him
with a stroke of terror. Suddenly he shivered. Ah, it was bleak here in
this deadly, all-pervading stillness. The very lights seemed to flood
the room mournfully. How tired he was! Everything seemed to swim before
him.
And then he was aware she was in the room again, smiling at him and
exhibiting a package. Her presence seemed to revive him.
"At last I am to be enlightened," he murmured.
"I am afraid you are doomed to be disappointed," she said, as she came
and stood by his side at the table. "I have made such a mystery of it,
whereas, no doubt, you will find it trivial."
"You said it was a weird idea. I am sure it is a charming one. Whatever
it is, you know what it will be to me."
"I know, darling," she said, suddenly grave again.
She bade him cut the string and open the package. At last, as he was
removing the many wrappings, "It is an old door-knocker," she said; "the
figure of a lovely grotesque old wizard, wrought in bronze. I came
across it on the door of a fifteenth-century house in Delft a year or
two ago, and it so fascinated me that I bargained for it with the owner.
It has ever since remained one of my pet possessions, and I at once
thought of it for you. Tell me truly what you think of it!"
Wyndham held up the strange bronze man, slim and long, with fantastic
bearded head, and grasping in one hand a rod that merged into a huge
serpent that lay coiled round the body. The two legs were welded at the
bottom into one big foot, the heel of which formed the hammer. It was a
piece of grotesqueness worthy of the East, finely and subtly modelled,
and quaint rather than grim in its suggestiveness.
"A masterpiece!" he said at last. "I have never seen anything of the
kind to match it."
"I should say it is by an artist of at any rate the early renaissance,"
she ventured, her face agleam, for she had awaited his verdict with
anxiety. "The modelling is so careful and scientific."
"Those were the days when artists still thought only of their work, and
so much forgot their own existence that they took no pains to proclaim
themselves to the world. The work of the so-called dark ages remains,
the artists lie unknown and unheard of, if indeed they were known to the
world at any time."
"You will set up my wizard on the door of your house. Every time you
hear it you will think of me as floating there like a spirit. Isn't that
weird? I have the idea that if an enemy should touch it, you would
somehow know at once, and be on your guard. Oh, yes, I was convinced it
was a magic knocker the moment I saw it."
He was still staring at it gravely, as if he, too, felt some eerie
quality in it. She looked at him, then broke into laughter. "Aren't we a
charming pair of children, taking our own make-believe so seriously?"