By Monday morning when he returned to town, Philip had quite made up his
mind that all thought of travel by way of distraction was futile, and
had determined to find in work, the hardest and most continuous, a
succession of hours of forgetfulness, so far as he could secure it, of
this blow that had fallen on him. Forgetfulness itself, he knew well he
could not hope to secure, but by hard application of the brain to work,
he hoped that for this hour and for that he would be able to put that
which had so stricken and embittered him on a second and more remote
plane of consciousness. True, at any relaxation, at any interval in
which his brain was not actively employed, it would start out again like
the writing on the wall; but for the working hours of the day, and these
he determined should be long and fully filled, he believed he could to
some extent crush the other out of his consciousness. In work, at any
rate, he believed his best chance lay, and the attempt, though perhaps
desperate, was one which none but a strong man could have made.
He occupied at present while in London a flat in Jermyn Street, modest
in dimensions, but containing all he wanted. There was a spare room
there which his mother always used on her rather rare visits to town,
but otherwise it held only the necessary accommodation for two servants
and himself. He had already given his landlord notice that he was going
to quit, but to-day he went to the estate office to ask if he could
renew his tenancy since his bachelor days were not yet over. All this
was horribly uncomfortable; he felt that the clerk in the office knew
what had happened, and would, after his departure, talk it and him over
with the other clerks, and though their criticism and comments could not
possibly matter to him, he felt that some deformity, some malformation
or scar of his own body was being publicly shown the world, and he hated
the world for looking at it. Then also he had to say that he should not
require the house for which he was in contract in Berkeley Square, to
complete which nothing really remained except the signing of the lease.
It was all a business so unexpectedly disagreeable that he wished he had
conducted it by letter.
To-day promised to be very busy; he was to have dined that night with
Lady Ellington, but that engagement was automatically cancelled, and he
left word at his flat that he would be there that night, and would dine
alone. That done, he drove straight down to the City, where he expected
that there would be awaiting him a report of an agent of his with regard
to certain South African mining properties on which he held an extremely
large option which he must take up before the end of the week, when it
expired. He had not been able to make his mind up about it hitherto, and
had wired for the report, putting off his decision until the last
possible minute.
The report in question had arrived, and, without further delay, he
proceeded to master it. The problems it contained were of a complicated
order; the dip and depth of the reef, the assay value of it, the cost of
working, the reduction which might be obtained in this by the use of
Chinese labour, all these were things which had to be considered. Should
he not exercise his option, the right, that is, of buying his shares at
the figure agreed on, he would lose, of course, what he had spent in
purchasing that right. It was by a careful study of this rather
voluminous report on the property that he had to make up his mind
whether he would exercise it or not.
Now the problems of finance, that extraordinary and ubiquitous game in
which the most acute brains in the world are pitted against each other
for the acquisition of those little yellow metal counters, which in this
present world are so undeniably potent to procure for their owner a
comfortable journey through it, had at all times an immense attraction
for Philip, and he found that even to-day they were no less absorbing
than they had ever been. He found, too, that, in spite of the frightful
shock that he had undergone, his reasoning and deductive faculties had
not been shaken or dulled, and he felt himself as capable as ever of
weighing the evidence which should decide his course. The report itself
was fairly satisfactory, and he was inclined to believe that the shares
which he could call up were worth the price, which to-day stood steady
at the figure which he would have to pay for them. His money, which ran
into six figures, would perhaps be locked up for a time, but he did not
particularly object to that. On the other hand, supposing he bought, the
effect on the market would certainly be to send the value of the shares
up, so that he could probably, if he wished, clear out again, realising
a small profit. This was all plain sailing enough; the report was good
enough to justify his exercising his option. But the market altogether,
as he well knew, was, in consequence of the Russo-Japanese war, in a
rather excitable and nervous state, and the more difficult problem must
claim his attention--what would be the effect on it if he did not buy?
It was known, of course, that his option was a considerable one, and
dealers in these shares were awaiting any news as to his movements with
some anxiety.
The report had fallen rustling to the ground, and Philip sat there
staring in front of him, with his elbows on the table and eyes fixed
intently on nothing. Every now and then some clerk came in with a paper
for his signature, or a letter for his consideration; every now and then
he was rung up on the telephone that stood by his elbow. But he had that
rarest of gifts, a mind that can detach itself from one thing and attach
itself in its entirety to another, and he gave his whole attention to
these interruptions when they occurred, and transferred it all back to
the problem he was digging at when he had dealt with them. The way he
pursued was narrow and winding, but step by step he traced it out.
It took him not less than an hour of hard thinking to make up his mind
definitely on the point: there were so many things to consider, for, as
he always held, there was hardly an event that took place in the world
which did not have its definite and certain effect on the money-market;
and the sole and only office of the financier was to be able, on the
basis of what had happened before, to conjecture what was going to
happen now (for things followed an invariable rule), and estimate what
the effect of his conjectured events would be. And nothing in the world
was more engrossing than that; there was no bit of knowledge a man
might possess concerning human nature, however fragmentary and hard to
fit in, that did not have its place in the puzzle he had to put
together. Above all, Philip did not believe in chance in these affairs;
it might, indeed, be chance whether he himself correctly estimated how
future events would shape themselves, but the element of luck here was
only, if one ran it to the ground, his own ignorance; for if his
knowledge of the past could be complete, so also would his knowledge of
the future be, for in the City of all places is it most true that the
future is only the past entered through another door.
His mind, then, was made up, but once more he ran through the data upon
which his conclusion was based. These goldfields of Metiekull on which
he held an option, were a company that had aroused a good deal of
comment when brought out, and it had been held in level-headed quarters
that the shares which had been run up to 4 had reached that figure
without there having been produced any guarantee that they were worth
half that. But, as is the inscrutable way of the Stock Exchange, they
had, for no particular reason, been turned into a gambling counter, and
there was no venture which enjoyed a freer or more fluctuating market.
Things, however, had steadied down when it was known that Philip Home
had bought this option of 30,000 shares, and just at this moment, as has
been stated, there was considerable interest felt in the question of
whether he would exercise it or not. If he did not, it meant a loss to
him of about £7,000; whereas if he did, it might be regarded as certain
that the shares, since gambling in them was just now, like bridge, a
favourite method of losing money, would enjoy a very substantial rise,
and, as usual, it was highly likely that Philip would reap a profit
worth reaping, should he choose to sell during this.
So much, of course, all the world could see, but Philip saw a little
further. He took into consideration the excitable state of the South
African market, the uncertainty with regard to the Japanese war which
would certainly make French speculators nervous, and French speculators,
as he knew, had been very busy over the goldfields of Metiekull. Then
came in the question of the report which he had been reading; on the
whole it was good, and his sober opinion was that the shares were worth
buying at the price. Yet he proposed not to take up his option, but to
lose at once £7,000. But he would also let it be freely known that he
had received a detailed report from his agent on the spot.
He decided, therefore--so the market would say--to abandon his option
after the receipt of this report. What was the inference? That the
report was unfavourable. Then all the other factors he had been
considering added their weight to the scale; there was a nervous market,
there was likely to be stringency of money, there was the vast hovering
thundercloud of war in the East. If he knew anything about the ways of
the City, it was an absolute certainty that there would be a slump in
Metiekull. He would let it slump; he would even, by selling, assist it
to slump; a hundred little bears--Philip detested the small
operator--would sell, and when they had committed themselves pretty
deeply, he would buy not only the original 30,000 shares of his option,
but somewhere near twice that number; for there was no question as to
the value of the property, and he would be picking up his shares at
something like rubbish price.
The chain of reasoning was complete, he took his elbows off the table,
and turned to light a cigarette. Then suddenly his heart sank, he felt
sick and empty, for the concentration of thought was relaxed, and from a
thousand spouting weir-gates the thought from which he had obtained an
hour's respite flooded his whole soul. Forgetfulness of that? It was as
if he had just slept in his chair for an hour, and awoke again in full
consciousness of the horror of life. It was no slow awakening, it was a
stab that made a deep and dreadful wound out of which flowed the black
blood of his hatred and resentment, not against those two alone, but
against the world. To this hatred he gave himself up with a hideous sort
of luxury in the overpowering intensity of it. He suffered himself, by
no fault of his; well, others should suffer, too, and if by his
manipulation of the market, which was according to the principles which
governed it perfectly legitimate, others were ruined, it was not his
fault but theirs for competing with him.
Then a thought blacker than these, because it was more direct, more
personally full of revenge, entered his mind. Surely not so long ago
someone had consulted him as to an investment. Yes, it was
Evelyn--Evelyn, in a sudden burst of prudence--who had decided not to
buy a motor-car, but to put away a big cheque that had just been paid
him. Philip had refused to give him advice professionally, since he was
not a broker, but had told him that he had himself bought a large option
in Metiekull. He remembered the interview perfectly, and knew that he
had recommended Evelyn not to dabble, since he did not know the game,
but to put his money into something safe. What he had eventually done
with it Philip did not know. But for a week afterwards his studio had
been littered with financial papers, and he talked the most absurd
nonsense about giving up the artistic career and taking offices in the
City, since he felt sure that his real chance of brilliant achievement
lay there.
Now, bitter suffering like that which Philip was now undergoing cannot
but have a very distinct effect on the sufferer. And in such a nature as
his, the particular kind of suffering he had to bear could scarcely have
had any effect but that of the worst. His circle of friends, those to
whom he showed all that was best in him, was but small, and numbered
four only. By two of these he had been betrayed, and that impulse which
at the first moment of his knowledge did just flicker within him, the
impulse of generosity, of taking the big and sky-high line of which for
the moment he had been capable when he dismissed the motor three days
ago near Evelyn's studio, had been crushed, if not out of life, at any
rate into impotence and unconsciousness by the ingrained hardness of his
nature shown to the world at large. That hardness covered him now and
indurated him; he could feel neither pity nor softening for any, least
of all for one who had so bitterly injured him. His power of hurting, it
is true, might be small compared to the hurt that had been done him, but
such as it was, he would use it. He was hurt himself, but he would not
scream, he would just strike back where and when he could.
London meantime was busy with its thousand tongues in discussing what
had happened, and, as was to be expected, it took a very decided line
over it all. This sort of thing was really impossible, and not to be
tolerated. Why, even the bridesmaids had received their presents, and
everybody's plans, for everybody had settled to go to the wedding, were
absolutely upset. Besides, the whole thing was an insult hurled at the
sacred image of Society, a bomb-shell which had exploded in the very
middle of the temple. And though Gladys Ellington had only one, not a
thousand tongues, she used that one to the aforesaid effect so
continuously that it really seemed impossible that flesh and blood could
stand the wear and strain. She was using it now to Lady Taverner, to
whom she always told things in confidence when she wanted them repeated.
Lady Taverner, it may be remarked, was the pink and butter-coloured
lady, to emphasize whose charms Evelyn had studied purple clematis.
"Of course, dear Alice," she was saying, "I can say these things to you,
because I know you won't repeat them, and, of course, we all want it
talked about as little as possible. But Madge has really behaved too
abominably; it's all very well to say you must follow the dictates of
your own heart, but if your heart tells you to commit really an
indecency, as this is, I should say it was better not to follow it. But
Madge is so odd: it is only a few weeks ago that she told me how devoted
she was to Philip--esteem, affection, and all that. Well, what sort of
esteem and affection has she shown? My dear, three days before the
wedding."
Lady Taverner sighed.
"Of course, I won't talk about it," she said, "but I shall never speak
to Madge again. And my portrait was being done by Mr. Dundas, which
makes it very awkward. Of course, I want it finished, but how _can_ I go
to sit to him again?"
This was a new light which Gladys had not yet considered.
"Of course, he has ruined himself," she said cheerfully. "Nobody will go
to be painted by him now. And consider his relation to Philip! Why, he
was his best friend. I haven't dared to see Madge's mother yet, but I
understand she is mad with rage, and I'm sure I don't wonder. And they
were married, I hear, on Saturday, and have left London. How can people
be such fools!"
This last remark was a genuine _cri du coeur_, for Gladys was
absolutely unable to perceive how any interior impulse could possibly
prove too strong for discretion, for _savoir faire_--she was fond of
scraps of French--for any rending of or throwing out of window those
social pads and cushions which alone ensure a passage through life that
will be free from succession of bumps and jars. That was why she was
almost universally considered so charming: she always said the pleasant
thing, and did the agreeable one (for everybody had to assist the pads
and cushions), unless she was quite safe from detection. Then, it is
true, the sheathed claws occasionally popped out, when it was quite
dark, but before the return of light they were always sheathed again,
and the velvet touch was in evidence.
"Imagine the marriage!" she went on. "A sexton and a sextoness were
probably the witnesses, and they probably came--the happy pair, I
mean--in a hansom and went away in a four-wheeler. Such nonsense to
wreck your life like that. And a wreck is a crime; it is a danger to
other shipping unless it is blown up."
Now what Gladys said so directly, all London was thinking, if not with
the same precision, at any rate with the same general trend. There had
been a violation of its social codes, flagrant and open, and for the
time, at any rate, it was disposed to visit the offence with the full
severity of its displeasure. As Gladys had remarked: "How could they be
such fools!" and the children of this world, being wiser in their
generation than the children of light, are the first to punish folly.
And it is very foolish to openly break the rules which Society has laid
down if you wish to continue to occupy your usual arm-chair in that
charming club. For the rules are so few, and so very easy to remember,
and Evelyn and Madge had quite distinctly broken one of the most
elementary of them. And Society, however accommodating in many lines,
never forgives, at once anyhow, any such open violation of its laws as
this. But just at present neither of the sinners cared nearly so much
for all these laws as they cared for a single moment of this blue,
fresh-winded day.
They had been married, as Gladys had said, on a Saturday, and had left
England that same afternoon to spend a fortnight on the coast of
Normandy, and there at this moment they were, on the very coast itself,
with the blue, crisp ripples of the English Channel hissing gently on
the sand. Evelyn had spent most of the morning constructing a huge
sand-castle of Gothic design, but the rising tide half an hour ago had
driven him from the last of its fortifications, and he was now sitting
on the sand with Madge by his side. All this week he had been in the
most irresponsible, irrepressible spirits, which any thought of the
unhappiness that had been caused seemed powerless to dull; any
suggestion of it passed in a moment like breath off a mirror. With the
huge egotism of his nature he had determined quite satisfactorily to
himself that what had happened was inevitable. He knew how ardent was
his own love for Madge, he knew it was returned, he knew too, for she
had told him how different was this from the quiet, sober affection she
felt for Philip. Her marriage with him could not have taken place: she
felt that herself, whereas nothing in the world was strong enough to
pull them apart. And with the great good sense that so often
characterises egotism, Evelyn, though he was very sorry for Philip,
could not either be ashamed of himself, or on the other hand be sorry
for Philip long. He faded from his mind almost the moment he thought of
him. He could not bring his mind to bear on Philip when Madge was with
him.
He had been wading during the building and the subsequent occupation of
the Gothic sand-castle, and his feet were still bare, and his flannel
trousers rolled up to his knees. Also a dead bee had been washed ashore
in the foam of the ripples, and search must be made for a suitable
coffin, since burial with all possible honour must be given to a
honey-maker from those on the honey-moon. A pink bivalve shell was
eventually discovered, which he considered worthy of containing the
honoured corpse. Its grave was dug above high-water mark, a mound of
sand in pyramid form raised over it, and the sides of this decorated
with concentric circles of pebbles. A small passage constructed of
shell, and flat stones led to the tomb-chamber itself, and the door of
this was hermetically sealed. In front a small stone altar was raised,
and offerings of sea-weed laid on it.
"And so," said Evelyn, in conclusion of the short panegyric which, in
capacity of preacher as well as architect, undertaker, and mason, he
pronounced when the rites were over, "we commit to rest this follower of
the fragrant life, who made his living among the flowers, and extracted
honey and nothing less sweet than that from the summer of his days. My
brethren, may we constantly follow this example of the perfect life.
Amen. Say 'Amen,' Madge."
Madge laughed.
"I don't think I ever saw anyone so ridiculous," she said; "and it
appears you can go on being ridiculous all the time."
"All the time I am happy," said he.
"And you're happy now?" she asked.
"Absolutely. I want nothing more. All this week I could have said to
every moment: 'Stay, thou art fair.' And, oh! how fair you are, Madge.
Smile, please--no, not the sad smile with all the sorrows of the world
behind it."
Madge ceased smiling altogether.
"Oh, Evelyn, I am so happy, too!" she said. "But I can't forget all the
scaffolding, as it were, in which our house of love was built, which now
lies scattered about in bits."
Evelyn sat up quickly, demolishing the altar he had made with such care.
"Ah! don't think of that," he said. "We agreed that what has happened
had to happen. Now pity and sorrow when you can't help in any way seems
to me a wasted thing."
"But if you can't help pitying and being sorry?" she asked.
Evelyn gave a little click of impatience.
"You must go on trying till you do help it," he said. "Of course, if one
dwells on the matter, one is sorry for Philip; I am awfully sorry for
Philip when I think of him. I hate the idea of anybody being wounded and
hurt as he must have been, and since he was my friend, it is the more
distressing. Only it is an effort for me to think of him at all. I can
only think of one person, and of one thing--you and my love for you."
This time Madge's smile was more satisfactory, and with his bright eager
eyes he looked at her as the eagle to the sun.
"Ah, you are absolutely adorable!" he cried.
* * * * *
The wind, such as there was of it, had veered round at the time of high
tide, and blew no longer off the sea, but breathed gently from the land.
A mile away on the right were the tall, dun-coloured houses of
Paris-plage, perched at the edge of the sea, and the sands there were
dotted with the costumes of the bathers, like polychromatic ants who
crawled about the beach. The sea itself was full of shifting greens and
blues, and far out a fleet of boats like grey-winged gulls hovered,
fishing. Even the shrill ecstasies of the bathers of Paris-plage, whose
bathing appeared to be of a partial description, but who made up for
that by dancing in the ripples, and splashing each other with
inimitable French gaiety, were inaudible here; nothing stirred but the
light, noiseless wind, warm with its passage over the sand-dunes, and
faintly aromatic with the pungent scent of the fir-woods over which its
pleasant path had lain. All things paused in this hour of the glory of
the fulfilled noontide, that seemed equally remote from both past and
future, so splendid and so real was the one present moment. If there had
been hurricane in the morning, it was forgotten now; if there was to be
a tempest to-night, it would be time to think about tempests when the
winds began to blow, and it was mere futility to waste a moment of what
was so perfect in contemplation, whether retrospective or anticipatory,
of what had been or yet might be. There was just the hushed murmur of
blue, breaking ripples, their sh-sh as they were poured out on to the
golden sand, white gulls hung in the air, white boats drifted over the
sea. And by Madge's side sat her lover, the man whom her whole nature
hailed as its complement, its completion. Whatever he did, whatever he
said, she felt that she had herself dreamed that in remote days. Various
and unexpected as were his moods, they were all fiery; the sand-castle
as it first stood triumphant against the incoming tide had been to him a
monument of more than national import, its gradual fall a tragedy that
beggared Euripides. The bee, too--if he had been burying her he could
not have shown a tenderer interest. But she was not so sure that she
agreed with the sermon that had been preached over the grave. And in
spite of the completeness of the noonday, she could not help going back
to it.
"Evelyn," she said, "were you really serious when you said that the
honey-gatherer, who looked only for what was sweet, was the example of
our lives? Something like that you said, anyhow."
But he continued just looking at her, as he looked when he said: "You
are adorable," with eyes gleaming and mouth a little open. He did not
even seem to hear that she had asked him a question. But she repeated
it.
"I don't know," he said. "How am I to know whether I am serious or not?
I suppose one says a hundred stupid things that are based on something
one believes. I am only serious about one thing in the world."
She did not affect not to know his meaning.
"I know--we love each other," she said. "But we have breakfast and lunch
just the same."
He looked doubtful.
"Do we?" he asked. "But they don't matter!"
Suddenly to Madge the hush of the noonday and the arrest of "before and
after" ceased. It was as if she had been asleep and was suddenly
awakened from a dream by a hand that shook her. The dream was still
there, but also, dimly, there was the wall-paper, a brass knob at the
end of the bed, a counterpane.
"Ah! with all my heart I wish they didn't matter. I wish nothing
mattered, I ask for nothing better than to sit here with you, to go on
living as we have lived this last week. But the time must come when we
shall have to consider what we shall do next. Are we going back to
London, or what?"
"It is August," said he. "London in August----"
"What then? Shall we stop here?"
Then Evelyn was puerile.
"Of course, if you are tired of this," he began.
But she let the puerilities go no further.
"Oh, don't be a baby," she said. "Ah, such a dear baby, I grant you!
But, Evelyn, it is life we are living."
Evelyn stroked his chin with a hugely pompous air.
"'Life is real,'" he said, "'life is earnest.' Now, Madge, Poet
Longfellow said that, therefore he must be right."
"And so Painter Dundas agrees with him?" she said.
"Oh, certainly! Life is undoubtedly real and earnest, but what then? Am
I never to talk nonsense any more? Shall we unbury the bee? Dear me, the
unburial of the bee. How unspeakable pathetic and terrible! But what I
have buried I have buried. So I shall draw your profile in the sand with
one finger and all my heart."
But she still remained serious.
"Tell me when you have finished," she said.
Evelyn was already absorbed.
"With a helmet on," he remarked, "because she has to meet and defeat the
realities of life, and the corners of her mouth turned down because life
is earnest, and just winking with the other eye; the one you see, in
fact, because she wants to signal to her friend, which is me, that it's
all a huge joke really, only she mustn't talk in church."
There was a compelling fascination for her in the nimble finger that
traced a big outline so deftly in the sand, and since she was upside
down to it, where she sat, it followed that she got up, and went round
to see what manner of a caricature this was. Hopelessly funny she found
it, and hopelessly like, so much so that she danced a war-dance all over
the outline, and sat down again on the middle of her own face.
"Now attend!" she said to her husband.
"After you have ruined the picture of my life," said he. "It was more
like you than anything. You are being consumed with moral responsibility
for me. I object to that, you know; you can be consumed by your own
moral responsibility, or you can consume it, like you consume your own
smoke, but mine is mine."
"Evelyn, am I your wife?" she asked.
"I have reason to believe so. I was told so in church."
"Very well--your conscience is kept in the kitchen; when I go to order
dinner I look at it--I order more if we are likely to run short. So give
me the cheque, please, there is a bill for conscience owing, and we must
have a fresh supply."
"I don't understand one word," said Evelyn, rubbing the sand off his
legs preparatory to turning his trousers down again. "Not one word. Does
it matter?"
Madge's face grew quite grave again; smiles had spurted as with
explosions from eyes and mouth when she saw his sand-sketch of her, but
these had ceased.
"Yes, it does matter," she said, "for unless you propose that we should
remain at Le Touquet quite indefinitely, it will be necessary some day
to become definite. I suggest that we should become definite now.
Everything," and she dug impatiently in the sand with scooping
fingers--"everything has been left at a tag-end. We can't forever leave
things frayed like that----"
Evelyn interrupted her.
"Oh, I know so well!" he exclaimed; "the metal thing comes off the end
of a lace, and you have to push it through the holes; a little piece
only comes through, and what does not come through gets thicker and
won't follow. Then one has to take it out and begin again."
Madge leaned forward.
"Yes, it is exactly that," she said. "That has happened to us. When that
happens, what do you do?"
"I take off the boot in question," said Evelyn gravely, "and ring the
bell. When answered, I tell them to take away the boot and put in
another lace. That is done: then I put the boot on. But I don't wrestle
with laces which have not tags. You are wrestling, you know."
For the second time this morning a feeling as if she was dealing with a
child seized Madge. The child was a very highly-developed man, too. This
was a handicap to her; a heavier handicap was that she loved him. Even
now, as he sat most undignifiedly wiping the sand from his feet,
preparatory to getting his socks on again, she felt this immensely.
"The sand will be rubbed through the skin, and cause mortification," he
remarked to himself.
Madge turned on him with some indignation.
"Ah, can't you see," she cried, "that I am serious? And you talk about
the sand between your toes! You are rather trying."
Evelyn paused in his toilet.
"Dearest, I am sorry," he said. "I thought we were still playing the
fool! But we are not--you, at any rate, are not. What is it then?"
This completeness of surrender was in itself disarming, and her tone was
gentle.
"It is just this," she said--"that you and I are lost in a golden dream.
But the dream can't go on forever. What are we to do? Shall we go back
to London? Will you go on painting just as usual? People, perhaps, will
be rather horrid to us, you know."
Everything now, even to him, had become serious.
"Do you mind that?" he asked.
"No, of course not, if you don't," she said. "But I have been wondering,
dear, whether if by your marriage with me you have hurt your career."
"You mean that pink Jewesses who want to be fashionable won't come to
ask me to paint their portraits any more?" he said.
"No, not that, of course. What does that matter?"
Evelyn finished putting his shoes and socks on.
"Then, really, I don't understand what you do mean," he said, "by my
career, if you don't refer to the class of person who thinks it a sort
of _cachet_ to be painted by me--though Heaven knows why she can think
that. What are we talking about? How otherwise can my career, which is
only my sense of form and colour, be touched?"
Madge's eyes dreamed over the sea for a little at this.
"No, I was wrong," she said. "Taken like that, it can't matter. But we
must (though I was wrong there, I am right here)--we must settle what we
are going to do. We must go back some time; you must begin working
again."
Evelyn finished tying the last lace.
"Romney painted Lady Hamilton forty-three times," he said. "I could
paint forty Madges of the last hour. You never look the same for two
minutes together, and I could paint all of you. Let's have an exhibition
next spring called 'Some Aspects of the Honourable Mrs. Dundas.
Artist--her husband.'"
"They would all come," said Madge.
* * * * *
There was no more discussion on this present occasion about the future.
Evelyn being again properly clothed, they went back by a short cut
across the sand-dunes to the clearing in the forest behind, which was
known as Le Touquet. For a space of their way, after they had got out of
the pitiless sun on the sand, their path led through the primeval pine
forest, where the air was redolent and aromatic, and the footfall went
softly over the carpet of brown needles. Then other growths began, the
white poplar of France shook tremulous leaves in fear of the wind that
might be coming, young oak-trees stood sturdy and defiant where poplars
trembled, and away from the pines the bare earth showed a carpet of
excellent green. Then, as they approached the hotel, neat white boards
with black arrows displayed signs in all directions, and a rustic bridge
over a pond, by which stretched a green sward of lawn on which it was
'defended to circulate,' led to the gravel sweep in front of the hotel.
A broad verandah in the admirable French style sheltered those who
lunched there from the sun; small tables were dotted about it, and from
the glare of the gravel sweep it was refreshment to be shielded from the
heat. Their table was ready spread for them, and the obsequious smile
of the head-waiter hailed them.
But for the first time Madge was not content. Evelyn still sat opposite
her; all was as it had been during the last week. Yet when he said: "Oh,
how delicious, I am so hungry!" she felt she was hungry, too, but not in
the way he meant. She was hungry, as women always are and must be, for
the sense of largeness in the man, and she asked herself, but quenched
the question before it had flamed, if she had given herself to just a
boy. Yet how she loved him! She loved even his airy irresponsibility,
though at times, as this morning, she had found it rather trying. She
had lived so much in a world that schemed and planned, and was for ever
wondering what the effect of doing this or avoiding that would be, that
his utter want of calculation, of considering the interpretation that
might be placed on his acts, was as refreshing as the breath of cool
night air on one who leaves the crowded ball-room. And for very shame
she could not go on just now pressing him to make decisions; she would
return to that again to-morrow, for to-day seemed so made for him and
his huge delight in all that was sunny and honey-gathering. To-morrow,
also, she would have to mention another question that demanded
consideration, namely, that of money. They were living here, with their
big sitting-room and the motor-car they had hired--and, as a
matter-of-fact, did not use--on a scale that she knew must be beyond
their means; and since she was perfectly certain that Evelyn had never
given a thought to this question of expense, any more than the price of
the wine which he chose to drink concerned him, it was clearly time to
remind him that things had to be paid for. He had loaded her, too, with
presents; she felt that if she had expressed a desire for the moon, he
would have ordered the longest ladder that the world had ever seen in
order, anyhow, to make preliminary investigations with regard to the
possibility of securing it. He apparently had not the slightest notion
of the value of money, no ideas of his were connected with it, and
though this argued a certain defective apparatus in this money-seeking
world, as if a man went out to walk in a place full of revolver-armed
burglars with no more equipment than a penny cane, she could not help
liking his _insouciance_. Once she taxed him with his imprudence, and
he had told her, with great indignation, how he had read nothing but
financial papers for a whole week earlier in the summer, and at the end,
instead of spending a couple of thousand pounds in various delightful
ways, he had invested it in some South African company in which--well, a
man who was very acute in such matters was much interested. And yet she
called him imprudent!
After lunch they strolled across to the lawn where circulation was
forbidden.
"We won't be breaking any rules," said he, "unless the word applies to
the currents of the blood, because we will sit under a tree and probably
sleep. I can think of nothing which so little resembles circulation as
that."
Letters and papers had arrived during lunch, and Evelyn gave a great
laugh of amusement as he opened one from Lady Taverner, asking if he
would be in London during October, and could resume--this was
diplomatic--the sittings that had been interrupted.
"Even that branch of my career hasn't suffered," he observed.
There was nothing more of epistolary interest, and he opened the paper.
There, too, the world seemed to be standing still. There had been a
skirmish between Russian and Japanese outposts at a place called
something like Pingpong, fiscalitis seemed to be spreading a little, but
otherwise news was meagre.
"Is there nothing?" asked Madge, when he had read out these headings.
"No, not a birth or death even. Oh, by-the-way, you called me imprudent
the other day! Now we'll find the money-market, and see what my two
thousand pounds is worth. Great Scott, what names they deal
in--Metiekull, that's it."
There was a long silence. Then Evelyn laughed, a sudden little, bitter
laugh, which was new to Madge's ears.
"Yes, I bought them at 4," he said. "They are now 2. That was a grand
piece of information Philip gave me."
He got up.
"Oh, Evelyn, how horrible!" she cried. "Where are you going?"
"Just to telegraph to them to sell out," he said. "I can't afford to
lose any more. I'll be back in a minute. And when I come back, dear,
please don't allude to this again. It is unpleasant; and that is an
excellent reason for ceasing to think about it. In fact, it is the best
reason."
[Illustration: text decoration]
[Illustration: text decoration]