Matravers stood at an open window, reading a note by the grey dawn
light. Below him stretched the broad thoroughfare of Piccadilly,
noiseless, shadowy, deserted. He had thrown up the window overcome by
a sudden sense of suffocation, and a chill, damp breeze came stealing
in, cooling his parched forehead and hot, dry eyes. For the last two
or three hours he had been working with an unwonted and rare zest; it
had happened quite by chance, for as a rule he was a man of regular,
even mechanical habits. But to-night he scarcely knew himself,--he
had all the sensations of a man who had passed through a new and
altogether unexpected experience. At midnight he had let himself into
his room after that swift, impulsive departure from the Milan, and
had dropped by chance into the chair before his writing-table. The
sight of his last unfinished sentence, abruptly abandoned in the
centre of a neatly written page of manuscript, had fascinated him, and
as he sat there idly with the loose sheet in his hands, holding it so
that the lamplight might fall upon its very legible characters, an
idea flashed into his brain,--an idea which had persistently eluded
him for days. With the sudden stimulus of a purely mental activity, he
had hastily thrown aside his outdoor garment, and had written for
several hours with a readiness and facility which seemed, somehow, for
the last few days to have been denied to him.
He had become his old self again,--the events of the evening lay
already far behind. Then had come a soft knocking at the door,
followed by the apologetic entrance of his servant bearing a note upon
which his name was written in hasty characters with an "Immediate"
scrawled, as though by an after-thought, upon the left-hand corner. He
had torn it open wondering at the woman's writing, and glanced at its
brief contents carelessly enough,--but since then he had done no work.
For the present he was not likely to do any more.
The cold breeze, acting like a tonic upon his dazed senses, awoke in
him also a peculiar restlessness, a feeling of intolerable restraint
at the close environment of his little room and its associations. Its
atmosphere had suddenly become stifling. He caught up his cloak and
hat, and walked out again into the silent street; it seemed to him,
momentarily forgetful of the hour, like a city of the dead into which
he had wandered.
As he turned, from habit, towards the Park, the great houses on his
right frowned down upon him lightless and lifeless. The broad
pavement, pressed a few hours ago, and so soon to be pressed again by
the steps of an innumerable multitude, was deserted; his own footfall
seemed to awaken a strange and curiously persistent echo, as though
some one were indeed following him on the opposite side of the way
under the shadow of the drooping lime trees. Once he stopped and
listened. The footsteps ceased too. There was no one! With a faint
smile at the illusion to which he had for a moment yielded, he
continued his walk.
Before him the outline of the arch stood out with gloomy distinctness
against a cold, lowering background of vapourous sky. Like a man who
was still half dreaming, he crossed the road and entered the Park,
making his way towards the trees. There was a spot about half-way
down, where, in the afternoons, he usually sat. Near it he found two
chairs, one on top of the other; he removed the upper one and sat
down, crossing his legs and lighting a cigarette which he took from
his case. Then in a transitory return of his ordinary state of mind he
laughed softly to himself. People would say that he was going mad.
Through half-closed eyes he looked out upon the broad drive. With the
aid of an imagination naturally powerful, he was passing with
marvellous facility into an unreal world of his own creation. The
scene remained the same, but the environment changed as though by
magic. Sunshine pierced the grey veil of clouds, gay voices and
laughter broke the chill silence. The horn of a four-in-hand sounded
from the corner, the path before him was thronged with men and women
whose rustling skirts brushed often against his knees as they made
their way with difficulty along the promenade. A glittering show of
carriages and coaches swept past the railings; the air was full of
the sound of the trampling of horses and the rolling of wheels. With a
mental restraint of which he was all the time half-conscious, he kept
back the final effort of his imagination for some time; but it came at
last.
A victoria, drawn by a single dark bay horse, with servants in quiet
liveries, drew up at the paling, and a woman leaning back amongst the
cushions looked out at him across the sea of faces as she had indeed
looked more than once. She was surrounded by handsomer women in more
elaborate toilettes and more splendid equipages. Her cheeks were pale,
and she was undoubtedly thin. Nevertheless, to other people as well as
to him, she was a personality. Even then he seemed to feel the little
stir which always passed like electricity into the air directly her
carriage was stayed. When she had come, when he was perfectly sure of
her, and indeed under the spell of her near presence, he drew that
note again from his pocket and read it.
"18, LARGE STREET, W.
"12.30.
"I told you a lie! and I feel that you will never forgive
me! Yet I want to explain it. There is something I want you
to know! Will you come and see me? I shall be at home until
one o'clock to-morrow morning, or, if the afternoon suits
you better, from 4 to 6.
"BERENICE."
A lie! Yes, it was that. To him, an inveterate lover of truth, the
offence had seemed wholly unpardonable. He had set himself to forget
the woman and the incident as something altogether beneath his
recollection. The night, with its host of strange, half-awakened
sensations, was a memory to be lived down, to be crushed altogether.
For him, doubtless, that lie had been a providence. It put a stop to
any further intercourse between them,--it stamped her at once with the
hall-mark of unworthiness. Yet he knew that he was disappointed;
disappointment was, perhaps, a mild word. He had walked through the
streets with Ellison, after that meeting with her at the theatre,
conscious of an unwonted buoyancy of spirits, feeling that he had
drawn into his life a new experience which promised to be a very
pleasant one.
There were things about the woman which had not pleased him, but they
were, on the whole, merely superficial incidents, accidents he chose
to think, of her environment. He had even permitted himself to look
forward to their next meeting, to a definite continuance of their
acquaintance. Standing in the doorway of the brilliantly lighted
Milan, he had looked in at the vivid little scene with a certain eager
tolerance,--there was much, after all, that was attractive in this
side of life, so much that was worth cultivating; he blamed himself
that he had stood aloof from it for so long.
Then their eyes had met, he had seen her sudden start, had felt his
heart sink like lead. She was a creature of common clay after all! His
eyes rested for a moment upon her companion, a man well known to him,
though of a class for whom his contempt was great, and with whom he
had no kinship. She was like this then! It was a pity.
His cigarette went out, and a rain-drop, which had been hovering upon
a leaf above him, fell with a splash upon the sheet of heavy white
paper. He rose to his feet, stiff and chilled and disillusioned. His
little ghost-world of fancies had faded away. Morning had come, and
eastwards, a single shaft of cold sunlight had pierced the grey sky.