"Look here, Seaton," I said, "you know well enough that I don't want to
interfere in your affairs, or to offer advice where it is not wanted.
But don't you think perhaps you may not treat your aunt quite in the
right way? As one gets old, you know, a little give and take. I have an
old godmother, or something. She talks, too.... A little allowance: it
does no harm. But, hang it all, I'm no talker."
He sat down with his hands in his pockets and still with his eyes fixed
almost incredulously on mine. "How?" he said.
"Well, my dear fellow, if I'm any judge--mind, I don't say that I
am--but I can't help thinking she thinks you don't care for her; and
perhaps takes your silence for--for bad temper. She has been very
decent to you, hasn't she?"
"'Decent'? My God!" said Seaton.
I smoked on in silence; but he still continued to look at me with that
peculiar concentration I remembered of old.
"I don't think, perhaps, Withers," he began presently, "I don't think
you quite understand. Perhaps you are not quite our kind. You always
did, just like the other fellows, guy me at school. You laughed at me
that night you came to stay here--about the voices and all that. But I
don't mind being laughed at--because I know."
"Know what?" It was the same old system of dull question and evasive
answer.
"I mean I know that what we see and hear is only the smallest fraction
of what is. I know she lives quite out of this. She _talks_ to you; but
it's all make-believe. It's all a 'parlour game.' She's not really with
you; only pitting her outside wits against yours and enjoying the
fooling. She's living on inside, on what you're rotten without. That's
what it is--a cannibal feast. She's a spider. It does't much matter
what you call it. It means the same kind of thing. I tell you, Withers,
she hates me; and you can scarcely dream what that hatred means. I used
to think I had an inkling of the reason. It's oceans deeper than that.
It just lies behind: herself against myself. Why, after all, how much
do we really understand of anything? We don't even know our own
histories, and not a tenth, not a tenth of the reasons. What has life
been to me?--nothing but a trap. And when one is set free, it only
begins again. I thought you might understand; but you are on a
different level: that's all."
"What on earth are you talking about?" I said, half contemptuously, in
spite of myself.
"I mean what I say," he said gutturally. "All this outside's only
make-believe--but there! what's the good of talking? So far as this is
concerned I'm as good as done. You wait."
Seaton blew out three of the candles and, leaving the vacant room in
semi-darkness, we groped our way along the corridor to the
drawing-room. There a full moon stood shining in at the long garden
windows. Alice sat stooping at the door, with her hands clasped,
looking out, alone.
"Where is she?" Seaton asked in a low tone.
Alice looked up; their eyes met in a kind of instantaneous
understanding, and the door immediately afterwards opened behind us.
"_Such_ a moon!" said a voice that, once heard, remained unforgettably
on the ear. "A night for lovers, Mr. Withers, if ever there was one.
Get a shawl, my dear Arthur, and take Alice for a little promenade. I
dare say we old cronies will manage to keep awake. Hasten, hasten,
Romeo! My poor, poor Alice, how laggard a lover!"
Seaton returned with a shawl. They drifted out into the moonlight. My
companion gazed after them till they were out of hearing, turned to me
gravely, and suddenly twisted her white face into such a convulsion of
contemptuous amusement that I could only stare blankly in reply.
"Dear innocent children!" she said, with inimitable unctuousness.
"Well, well, Mr. Withers, we poor seasoned old creatures must move with
the times. Do you sing?"