Mists were clearing. The sun had emerged fiery above a mountain-range
of clouds. As they hurried in search of their hotel, they caught
glimpses of the Danube, spanned by many bridges, and on the further bank
the palace-crowned heights of Buda. The ancient city looked imperially
beautiful. There was a touch of the East about it, a lavishness and
rose-tinted whiteness. Its quays and pavements shone wet, as though
they had been daubed with lacquer. It seemed incredible that behind its
gold-splashed walls the ghosts of hunger gathered.
During their absence from the Ritz, a transformation had been effected.
All signs of disorder had been banished. In place of the untimely
Bacchanalians, stiff-bosomed waiters stood guard over neat tables with
a solicitous air which was bewilderingly normal. Even the breakfast menu
gave the lie to starvation.
They took their seats in silence, eating without interest whatever was
set before them. Hindwood's sensations were those of a man who has given
way to his emotions at a theatre. It was as though the lights had
gone up, shaming him in public. There had been nothing to warrant his
surrender to sentiment. He totaled up the accumulated incentives: he
had witnessed a street-riot, people slain at the frontier, the hideous
contrast between the death train and dancing--and last of all Varensky.
But these things in themselves constituted no argument; the cause that
lay behind them was still conjectural. As for Varensky, whatever he had
said was unreliable. His wish was parent to his thought. He was a man
born to stir up turbulences, which he considered it his mission to
pacify. He was dangerous as a forest-fire: one spark of his wild
idealism made the whole world lurid. In the breath of adversity he
became a sheet of flame, destructive and self-destroying. His goal was
the vanishing-point, in the No Man's Land between desire and things
attainable.
Hindwood writhed at remembering the ease with which his judgment had
been unseated. In his weakness he had given a promise, which it would
be folly to fulfill and dishonorable to withdraw. He glanced across at
Santa. How was she taking this return to normality?
She met his eyes with passionate adoration. “It was god-like of you.”
He pretended ignorance. “What?”
“Your self-denial. You've given up everything--Anna, ambition,
money--all the things you worship.”
He assumed a judicial expression. “Perhaps not. It mayn't be necessary.”
“But it will.”
“If it is,” he said, “I shall stick to my contract. But I've reason to
believe we've exaggerated.”
“Would to God we had!”
Her fervor disturbed him. He leaned across the table. “You don't mean
to tell me you accept this bogey story about starving millions marching?
There's a sense of security this morning. Surely you must have felt it?”
She shook her head. “We've had a meal--that's all. Within a mile from
here I could show you a hospital where five hundred babies sit shivering
like monkeys. They're wrapped in paper; they've never known what it was
not to be hungry from the day they were born. I could take you to the
workmen's quarter, where naked men and women would squirm at your
feet like dogs; they're too weak to walk. I could lead you past the
bread-lines, already forming----”
He stayed her by covering her hand. “I'm not denying it. When countries
make wars they have to pay penalties.”
The storm that was brewing betrayed itself in her eyes. “What are you
denying?”
“Don't let's make a scene,” he urged. “My promise holds if I find that
circumstances warrant it. In a little while I'm seeing the Governor of
Hungary; after that I'll be sure. While I'm gone, I have one request to
make of you: keep your room and talk to nobody.”
She rose from the table in suppressed defiance.
“Why?”
“For your own safety. It was lucky I slept across your threshold last
night. Your door was tried.”
Her smile accused him. “By whom?”
“If I'm not mistaken, by the man who afterwards tracked us through the
fog.”
She turned away as though she were finished with him. When she found
that he was following, she delivered a parting shot. “You told me this
to frighten me. Did you think you could make me your accomplice in
cowardice?”