The Last Time/Part 1

by Robert Hichens

PART I

 

THE romance of autumn lay over the land. Already the September gales, which attack the trees and shake from their branches the weakling leaves, were over, and the stealthy peace of the new season was stealing along the ways. Mists lay at dawn and at eventide in the folds of the hills and along the sedgy banks of the streams. Heavy dews bathed the grasses. Colors were creeping among the woods. The days were rapidly getting shorter. And the minds of men were changing with changing nature, were turning inwards a little like curling leaves, were becoming more aware of.themselves than they had been in the season of open-air joys.

With the first fires crackling on the hearths there came the autumn thoughts, which are strangely different from the thoughts of summer.

Harry Strickland noted that difference as he sat before his fire with a pipe, in his house in Chelsea, looking out on the river. He had been up North, fishing in Cumberland with a friend, and climbing Scawfell Pike, Pillar, and other craggy hills of the Lake District.

Their last nights had been spent in the inn at Wastdale Head, and at the Scawfell Hotel at Seascale. The weather had been wild. But up North at that season one expected wild weather. They had bicycled from Wastdale to Seascale to take the train to the south. All along the great sands, which stretch from St. Bee's Head to Ravenglass and beyond, the sea had shown line behind line of tossing white foam, and had roared with a voice which had sounded full of mysterious invective. The gulls of the Muncaster Gullery had swept down the wind, uttering their cry which was like a cry of the wind and the driven sands. And at sunset, in a pageant of cruel gold, the Isle of Man had showed for a few moments only, far off beyond the roaring waters, like some terrible legendary land, then had been swallowed up by great clouds and the night.

THE North had been harsh, almost wintry in those last days; yet it was not until their train had run into the homelands of southern England that Strickland had suddenly realized the flight of a season. He had gone up North in full summer. He returned to find deep autumn enfolding the land. And now, while he sat by the fire, he felt the autumn harboring among the chimney-pots of London and in the small gardens of Chelsea, felt it hanging over the Thames and creeping about the bridges. Things were dropping, dropping, dropping down. Tawny colors and decay made the great town rich and strange. The wild and vital cries of the North had given place to that stillness which belongs only to autumn days and nights, a stillness not breathless, as sometimes in winter frost-time, but heavy and almost foreboding.

WASTDALE HEAD and the mountains and the wild weather of the so-called Northern summer! London—autumn in the City and the South!

The fire crackled on the hearth. Outside the black river was at almost full tide. Autumn recollections flowed upon Strickland. And nearly all of them were a little sad. For he was one of those more or less imaginative people who feel a sadness in autumn, and are apt to connect the season with the swift fading of life, with the falling away from a man of his strong activities, his high hopes, his keen pleasures of the body, his animal spirits, his thoughtless gaieties, even his loves. Among these autumn recollections of his one stood out, was more vital just now than the others, was oddly persistent. His mind left it, but again and again returned to it.

He had gone over to Paris on some business connected with an electrical company of which he was a director. Towards the end of September he had set out on his return to London. The rapide from Paris to Calais, often crowded, had chanced not to be full that morning, and Strickland had found himself in a first-class carriage with only one other traveler, a woman. She had sat next the window on the far side of the carriage with her back to the engine. He had sat also next the window, exactly opposite to her.

When she got in he had cast a swift but casual glance at her, and had noticed that she was well but simply dressed, that she was tall, handsome but rather austere looking, and that she had the peculiar distinction of being obviously young and yet having snow-white hair. He had guessed that she was an American who had lived usually abroad, probably one of those cultivated American women who make Paris their home.

Then he had gone on reading. At that period he had been half-way through Rolland's “Jean Christophe,” a book which had interested him profoundly. He was a man who could forget everything in a fine book. That day he had forgotten for a long while the woman who was sitting opposite to him.

She was not reading. He had been vaguely aware of that, and had noticed that two or three magazines lay on the seat beside her. She must have sat very still. For no movement had recalled him to recollection of her when he became absorbed in his book. The deep thoughts of Rolland about life and human nature, profound, cynical, often very sad, had carried him away into vastness and a curious twilight had entangled him, as it were, in the immense and intricate complications of existence. Paris, which he had but just left, was all around him in the book, Paris which he had thought he knew, but now felt that he did not really know at all.

Presently, after a long while, he had come to the end of the volume, “Les Amies.” He read the last words, “Elle ne bougeait point, les yeux a demi fermes. Enfin, il se releva, et, sans la regarder, il sortit rapidement.”

He closed the volume.

Above him in the rack, shut up in his dressing-case, was the next volume, “Le Buisson Ardent.” He meant to get hold of it, to go on with his reading. But for a moment he had sat quite still, staring before him, thinking about the episode on which he had just been concentrated. And in that moment he had gradually become aware of the tremendous forward movement of the train, of its noise, of the flying landscape at his side, and then of his silent and still companion. And he had looked up with now seeing eyes.

TE tall woman with the young face and the white hair—he remembered it all sharply now by the fire on this autumn day—was sitting upright and absolutely still, with her hands calmly folded on her lap. He had glanced at her face, and noticed its refinement, the slightly aquiline nose with sensitive, narrow nostrils, the curved, closely meeting lips, the marked, very dark eyebrows, the rather large dark eyes, the broad, low forehead. The whole aspect of the face was reserved, dignified and, he had thought, almost singularly tranquil. The woman was not looking at him but downward.

For some time they had sat thus quite still, but his thoughts had become busy about her for the first time since they had left Paris.

A cultivated, probably high-minded woman he had thought her. Married, far above the groping hands of want, intellectual, tranquil, very reserved, perhaps even a little cold and distant in her relations with other human beings, yet ardent somehow, in some secret moments, and very, very self-possessed.

And just then a strange and horribly tragic thing had happened.

The face in front of Strickland had suddenly contorted itself in a grimace, had worked violently for two or three ugly seconds; it had become suffused with blood; it had swelled; and then the woman had burst into a passion of tears. She had wept as Strickland had never seen a woman weep before, with a face convulsed, a body shaking.

WHY was Strickland thinking of her on this autumn day with such persistence? The episode dated back three years. Somehow, ever since that day he had connected her in his mind with the autumn, with the season of heavy sadness and decay. He had seen dead leaves falling round her life, rains blurring her fate as they blur a window-pane; the twilight that holds the dark night in its hands settling about her. Poor woman!

That had been strange enough. But a stranger thing still had been this: that Strickland had said, done nothing; had not bent forward in pity; had not spoken a word of inquiry, a word of human gentleness, or chivalrous courtesy. He had wanted to, had had the immediate natural impulse to, had even intended to. But something—and it must have been something in the woman's mind or soul—had absolutely prevented him from either acting or speaking.

Simply—he had not dared to.

When he had realized this—his impotence to dare, he had got up quickly, taken his dressing-case down from the rack, opened it, pulled out of it “Le Buisson Ardent,” and gone on reading Rolland, while his companion had gone on weeping.

And—and that had been all.

HE HAD never spoken to the woman; he had never known what was the matter. The train had rolled on to Calais. Before it had reached its destination, aware at last of absolute silence in the carriage, apart from the noise of the train, he had glanced up over his book. And he had seen once more a tall, handsome, rather austere-looking woman, sitting perfectly still, with an air of dignity and of strong self-possession.

The train had stopped. A porter had quickly opened the door, had taken the woman's belongings. She had stepped down, had mingled with the crowd. And Strickland had never seen her again.

WHY was he thinking of her on this autumn day with such persistence? He wondered. The episode dated back three years now. His life had been fairly crowded since then, one way and another. And yet the woman was there before him, convulsed, shaken, crying horribly.

Somehow, ever since that day of travel he had connected her in his mind with the autumn, with the season of heavy sadness and decay. He had seen dead leaves falling round her life, rains blurring her fate as they blur a window-pane, the twilight that holds the dark night in its hands settling about her.

Poor woman!

Strickland had seen perhaps as many sorrows as the average man, but he had never felt tragedy so strongly as he had felt it in that railway carriage with that stranger. What could it have been that had so suddenly, so utterly overcome such a woman as that? And how had she been able, through her breakdown, to inhibit him from any demonstration of sympathy? In her collapse she must have been strong. He still felt curiosity about her. Now he got up, walked over to the window and looked out on the river, then he opened the window. The autumn came in breathing its many regrets. Barges went by in the twilight. A hoarse voice cried out from the water. A bell rang thinly and was drowned by the rolling of wheels. A little wind came, a little low wind as if out of the earth, and shook some damp yellow leaves from the branches shiver went through Strickland. He shut down the window.

AS HE went back to the fire he thought of Jeanne, the girl wife he had parted from in anger a couple of years ago.

What was Jeanne doing now? It didn't matter to him. They could never get on together again after the unholy row they had had.

And yet they had loved one another, had been terribly near to one another at times.

Yes, there was something terrible in drawing quite close to the soul of another in the dark. It showed one the horrible gap that lies between each human being and any other.

Autumn thoughts—damn them!

Three days later, when he returned from a tiresome meeting in the City, Strickland found a letter lying on his hall table.

Denbury House,
Denbury, Kent,
September 28th.

Dear Mr. Strickland:

If you are free, do you feel inclined to come down to us from next Thursday or Friday till the following Monday? There is a good train down to Appledore from Charing Cross at 4:30. You change at Ashford. We would send the car to meet you. Only three or four people in the house. We have a hard tennis court now, and it is in perfect order. So bring your racquet. Mrs. Ingleton, who plays splendidly, will be with us, an American friend who lives in Paris, Mrs. Armitage—she married an Englishman and is a widow—and probably a couple of men. Dick says you can't get out of it. What do you say? order. So bring your racquet. Mrs. Ingleton, who plays

Yours very sincerely,
Minnie Laparais

He wondered just how much she hated him, if she recognized him.

Strickland had no country engagement for the following Saturday and Sunday and he decided to accept the Laparais' invitation. He had been to Denbury before and was fond of the place. They made him feel at home there, and Mrs. Laparais never put on any frills. Dick, her husband, was an excellent fellow, and knew good wine from bad better than most men. A hard tennis court was an attraction, too, for Strickland was an ardent tennis player. And grass courts were impossible now. He wrote that he would be down on the Friday. And when Thursday came he felt such a longing to be away from misty London that he got out of two Friday morning engagements and wired that he would be at Appledore station at six-thirty that day.

And he duly arrived there at the appointed hour. As he left the train a keen wind, which more than hinted at the nearness of the sea, welcomed him, blowing across the wide green marshes, and he turned to look over them.

A blue motor was waiting. In a moment Strickland was being whirled along the narrow lanes, past the tree-edged canal, towards the upland on which stood Denbury House looking south over a wide Kentish landscape. Soon the bold gray tower of the church, dating from somewhere about 1200, rose into view above the big old trees which surrounded it. The tiny village came in sight. A dog barked at the gate of a cottage garden full of stocks, hollyhocks, nasturtiums. The country postman passed on his bicycle. Then the blue car turned to the right between two low white gate-posts, swung round sharply to the left of a sun-dial, and drew up before the Lutyens front of a red brick house with a porch and stone pillars.

The church clock struck seven.

In the square drawing-room with its Italian furniture, its black paneled walls, its window curtains the color of a cardinal's hat, Strickland found his hostess by the side of a blazing wood fire, with belated tea ready for him if he wanted it. With her were Mrs. Ingleton, a tall, handsome woman, not unlike Britannia, and two men; Arthur Liggan, known in London as “the intellectual stock-broker,” a thin, wiry, brown man, with thick white hair, short white beard, and unusually bright and intelligent eyes, and Barclay Carrow of the F. O., about thirty, large, sallow, with black hair parted in the middle, long-fingered hard hands, melancholy eyes, and a quiet manner, which partially concealed a sometimes severe cleverness.

Minnie Laparais, about forty years old, dressed badly, yet always looked distinguished. had practically no manners, yet was obviously a thorough lady, was almost too unselfconscious, very human, very keen, and extraordinarily kind to those she liked. Those whom she didn't like she seldom seemed to be aware of. She didn't attack them; she just forgot about them. They didn't appreciate it.

After tea Mrs. Laparais said, “You'll see Vivienne Armitage at dinner. You are next to her. Dick has been out on the marshes after wild duck, and may be a minute late. You know how careless he is. We sha'n't wait for him. I'll show you your room.”

AND, very casually, she showed it to Strickland and went away with her “what does it matter?” walk.

Strickland's clothes had all been put out, and he dressed quickly. Dinner was at half past eight. Soon after a quarter past eight he went down-stairs and opened the drawing-room door.

A tall woman was standing alone by the fireplace with her back to him. She had on a black dress. Her hair was snow-white. Hearing the door she looked round. It was the woman who had cried so terribly in the railway carriage on the way from Paris to Calais. Strickland recognized her at once. But he didn't know whether or not she recognized him. He was inclined to think she did not, for she showed absolutely no sign of recollection of him. No sudden movement betrayed surprise. Her face was absolutely non-committal. She just looked at him politely, tranquilly, a little coldly perhaps, not speaking but ready to speak, not smiling, but ready to smile if necessary.

Strickland shut the door, came up to the fire, and introduced himself.

“You are Mrs. Armitage?” he said.

“Yes.”

“Mrs. Laparais told me I should meet you. I believe you live in Paris.”

He could not resist saying that, though, on reflection, he thought it would, perhaps, have been more delicate if he had avoided the remark.

“Yes,” she said. “I am a Parisian-American. I hope you don't dislike the type? I believe some English people find it trying.”

“I hope I am not so insular.'

The rest of the party came in, Mrs. Laparais and Dick last of all.

Then they went in to dinner.

Dick Laparais' chief claim to distinction was as a player of games. He had evidently been born to do astonishing things with balls; cricket balls, tennis balls, golf balls, racquet balls, footballs. He could always get the better of a ball. So he was famous and beloved throughout all England. He was a dear fellow, too, not a bit conceited about his prowess, indeed, decidedly modest and at times when he beat other fellows to love on his own hard court, or bowled men out first ball middle stump on his own cricket ground.

“Chance!” he would say. “All chance! My dear chap, the luck was with me.”

How could he help being loved, in England, the paradise of balls and players with balls?

In person he was short, deep in the chest, muscular yet extraordinarily quick on his feet, bald, rosy and beaming, with large ears, a round nose and a small, determined mouth. Someone had said of him, “He simply seethes with vitality!” And it was true. Of course, he had had “good luck” on the marshes, and had brought home several brace of wild duck.

“Dick always seems to have luck with the birds,” observed Minnie Laparais casually.

“He happens to be an exceptionally good shot,” murmured Barclay Carrow to Mrs. Ingleton. “I don't believe in luck.”

They began an argument on that subject. It presently spread, and everyone was asked to give an opinion on the matter. When Mrs. Armitage's turn came she said, “I believe in evil chance.”

“Well then—in good luck, too—eh?” said Dick Laparais, in his loud, rather throaty voice.

“I don't know about that,” said Mrs. Armitage.

As she spoke, rather softly, her dark eyes happened to meet the eyes of Strickland, who was sitting beside her, and he surprised—or believed that he surprised—in them a furtive expression, which was gone almost instantly.

“Perhaps she did recognize me!” he said to himself.

AND he was conscious of a slight thrill, He discerned in Mrs. Armitage a surreptitious character, mingled of strength and perhaps of the weakness which often goes with passion, that generous monster which gives away too much. Her defenses seemed perfect, yet—he had reason to know it—she was subject to storms which could sweep them away ina moment. Behind her austere mask there lay burning fire. Perhaps, of all her companions in the long white dining-room, only he guessed that she was one of those immensely deceptive women who spend half their time sitting alone with their secrets, in the peopled solitude inexorably created for them as a dwelling place by character.

He wondered just how much she hated him, if she recognized him. For he felt that she must hate him. Hadn't he seen her soul practically naked? That was surely unforgivable. There could be no possibility of friendship between such a woman, full of reserves and sensitiveness, and peeping Tom.

When his eyes met hers now, he felt they were looking guilty.

But she seemed to notice nothing.

She talked agreeably and with serene self-possession. There was nothing American in her voice or her way of putting things. She was evidently cultivated, slightly critical, quite pleasantly sure of herself, yet without arrogance. He found out that she had been brought up in Paris and knew very little of America.

“My husband loved France,” she said. “His mother was French. And so, oddly enough, was mine. Our blood was all mixed up.

“Many people think that it is an advantage,” said Strickland.

“Well, I don't,” she replied. “I think it a disadvantage to possess two strong strains of blood differing tremendously the one from the other. It may make for intelligence possibly, but it also makes for fever.”

“Fever! But—dare I say it?—you look very tranquil,” said Strickland.

There was just a touch of the lightest irony in his voice.

“Fevers die out when the hair turns white,” she said.

“I don't think so. The fires of a human temperament, I fancy, burn even on the edge of the grave,” said Strickland. “And besides, you are young.”

He lowered his voice in saying that. At that moment he felt that somehow, during dinner, a sort of understanding had been established between him and his neighbor.

And that night, when he was up in his bedroom, he said to himself, “I believe we shall speak of the journey we made together from Paris to Calais.”

They had played bridge all the evening. He and his partner, Mrs. Ingleton, had lost to Mrs. Armitage and Dick Laparais. When they got up from the table Dick had said, “Ah, well, Mrs. Armitage and I had all the luck of the cards.”

And then he had actually been banal enough to add the everlasting, “Lucky at cards, unlucky in love!”

Mrs. Armitage had said nothing. But Strickland had noticed that immediately after he had spoken the tiresome words Laparais had fallen silent and had looked oddly embarrassed—rather like a well-meaning boy who had said the wrong thing.

“Was it the tragedy of an unfaithful husband and one of those inexorable loves of which only women are capable?” Strickland thought, as he got into bed.

ON FRIDAY morning Strickland, Mrs. Ingleton, Barclay Carrow and Laparais played tennis on the hard court. Mrs. Laparais was in the house and about the village. (She was nearly always busy and never made a fuss about it.) Arthur Liggan and Mrs. Armitage went for a walk. After lunch Strickland suggested to Mrs. Armitage a stroll about the garden, but she said she had some letters to write, and Mrs. Laparais offered to come with him. Later there was going to be more tennis.

“How do you like Nellie Armitage?” asked Mrs. Laparais, as they walked over the stone path under the pergola towards the swimming-pool.

Strickland, who now believed that Mrs. Armitage had made up her mind to avoid being alone with him during the visit, answered,

“I scarcely know her yet.”

After a moment he added,

“I should think she is a rather difficult woman to know.”

“You never met her in Paris, I suppose?” said Mrs. Laparais casually.

“I have never seen her about Paris,” returned Strickland. As he spoke he saw his hostess's large gray eyes resting upon him, and he was moved to add,

“Did you think I had?”

“I don't know why, but during dinner last night it came into my head that perhaps you had seen Nellie Armitage before.”

“Did she say so?” said Strickland.

“Oh, no. But I didn't speak about it to her.”

They walked on for a moment, passed through a tall, iron gateway and came to the swimming-pool. There, on the stone coping which edged it, they stood still.

The motionless water was now discolored. Dead leaves floated on its surface. Water insects straggled across it. The trees which drooped over the end where the diving board projected from the bank above the deepest part were yellow and brown, and reminded Strickland of a withered old woman's face. It was difficult to think that this pool a few weeks ago had called men to swimming, had been clear and green and inviting. Now it looked sad, even almost repellent.

“I have seen Mrs. Armitage before,” said Strickland now, gazing at the water. “But I'm not positive that she knows it.”

“Yes?” said Mrs. Laparais.

“But I had never spoken to her till last night. About two years ago I traveled with her in the express from Paris to Calais. Her appearance struck me; perhaps because of her white hair. For her face looks young.”

“She is youngish—about thirty, I think. I wonder if she remembers you.”

“I'm not sure.”

“I think she does.”

“Good Heavens! Why?”

“I don't know. Would you like to see my white Leghorns?”

They went through a gateway into a field and came to a large chicken run.

“They are certainly beauties,” said Strickland.

They talked for a few minutes about the chickens, then went on into the big kitchen garden.

“Has Mrs. Armitage been a widow long?” asked Strickland presently.

“Rather more than two years. Her husband died suddenly—I think it was in the month of August. Was she in black when you saw her in the train?”

“Yes, but not in deep mourning.”

“I don't think she ever wore mourning for him. I believe they got on very badly together. Probably it was a relief to her when he died. I don't know exactly where the fault lay. But people who have known her much longer than I have say that she used to be very fiery and to have a tremendous temper. I only met her after her husband's death, and I have never seen a sign of it. She seems to me to have supreme self-control. I cannot imagine her being out of temper. Can you?”

“I don't know. You see, I scarcely know her. What are those?”

“That's spinach.”

“Does—does Mrs. Armitage know about me?”

“About you and Jeanne?”

“Yes.”

Mrs. Laparais nodded.

“She has met Jeanne in Paris.”

“In Paris? I didn't know Jeanne was there.

“It seems she is.”

“Hullo! What about some more tennis?”

Dick Laparais stood before them racquet in hand, red, beaming, looking almost as eager as a spaniel who sees his master walking towards a gun case.

“Mrs. Ingleton's on the lawn already.”

“Right you are!” said Strickland.

And he went off to get his racquet.

STRICKLAND did not play his best game that afternoon. He found it difficult to concentrate. Many of his volleys went wide, and not a few of his forehand drives were held up by the net. Dick Laparais, who, with Liggan, opposed him and Mrs. Ingleton, remarked at the close of play that he and Liggan had had all the luck of the game. But Strickland, with a glance at Mrs. Armitage, who had been watching the struggle from a garden chair in the company of her hostess, said,

“Not a bit of it. I'm quite off color this afternoon. I ought to go on my knees to Mrs. Ingleton.”

“You did play badly,” said she, with a good-natured smile. “But you should have seen me at Eastbourne this year. I couldn't hit a ball right. And two days before I could almost have stood up to the Lenglen. You were thinking of something else.”

And she strode off cheerfully towards the house.

“What were you thinking of?” asked Mrs. Laparais.

But Strickland gave an evasive answer and ran in to have a bath and change.

When he came down again Arthur Liggan tackled him on an important financial question, and then Laparais suggested they should get in an hour on the marshes with guns before dark. The motor would “run them down” in a jiffy, and the birds were simply asking to be killed. Strickland opened his mouth to refuse, but shut it again when he saw his friend's face. One couldn't refuse such an expression.

Dick's “hour” meant shooting till the night was too black around them for them to distinguish a bird from a tree. They were even late for dinner.

That evening Strickland sat between his hostess and Mrs. Ingleton. After dinner Laparais begged him to play bridge, which Mrs. Armitage refused to play with the plea of having a slight headache, and when the women went up to bed Strickland had found no opportunity of a quiet word with her.

HE DID not sit up very late that night with the men, but when he went to his bedroom he found a wood fire burning, and he resolved to smoke a last pipe “up the chimney.” Minnie Laparais wouldn't mind. She never seemed to mind anything men did. That was why they all liked her. He got into his dressing-gown and slippers, lit his pipe and sat down in an armchair.

And he sat there smoking till two, although he was decidedly tired. Perhaps he was too tired to leave his armchair and get into bed.

He slept till very late the next morning, disgracefully late. It was half past ten when he went down the broad staircase to breakfast. Just as he came into the long corridor from which most of the sitting-rooms opened he heard the purr of a motor car, Dick Laparais' genial voice crying out “Good-by! Too bad! Too bad! Sorry you're going!” the toot of a horn, then the diminishing noise of a car in swift movement. Finally there was silence.

So one of the party had left—on a Saturday!

He knew at once who it was, and when Laparais met him at the door of the breakfast room with, “'Isn't it too bad? Mrs. Armitage has had a letter obliging her to go back to town. London on a Sunday! Poor woman! I pity her. She asked me to say good-by to you for her. Come along! You must be as hungry as a hunter after all that exercise yesterday. We'll see who has the luck at tennis to-day—” he simply shrugged his shoulders.

Dear old Laparais! He was a splendid fellow, but really—

“I'll play up to-day, old chap, never fear!” he said, after a moment. (One must live up to a fellow's character when he's your host and the kindest fellow on earth.)

And that day Strickland played ferociously, his best, and won the approval even of Mrs. Ingleton, who was ever chary of praise, but whose stalwart appearance and Britannia-like mien seemed to demand the last ounce of effort from everyone who played with her, or against her.

After tea that day Laparais came up to the armchair in which Strickland was lounging by the fire.

“Well, old chap, what do you say to another hour with the birds? Bob's in the hall barking himself into a fit by the guns.”

(Bob was Laparais' brown spaniel.)

“All right!” began Strickland mechanically, almost hypnotized by the eager, doglike expression on the beaming face which impended above him.

Then a sudden revulsion seemed to take hold of him, almost as if by the throat.

“Why the devil should I say 'yes' to everything? I won't. Damn it, I will not!”

He had already half got up out of his chair. Now he dropped back.

“My dear fellow, I've played so hard to-day that I'm quite on a rough edge. I really think I' ll lie low if you won't think me a molly-coddle.”

Dick Laparais' face fell for a moment. It was very difficult for him to realize that any man had ever had enough exercise. But in an instant he beamed again.

“Of course! Of course! Keep quiet! Perhaps—I'll do the same. Eh, Minnie?

A loud, though distant, barking was heard.

“Poor old Bob! 'Pon my soul I don't like to disappoint the dog. Eh?”

He hesitated. His wife smiled. Nobody said anything.

“Well, I'll—I'll just go for half an hour, only to keep poor old Bob in health, you know. A dog needs exercise. I hate to see a dog going to pieces for lack of exercise. Eh?”

He was gone. Minnie Laparais laughed heartily, and somehow there was love in her laughter.

“Poor old Dick! Isn't it sad to be the victim of a dog?” she said.

And then she rang for the tea to be taken away.

“Have a game of billiards?” said Mrs. Ingleton to Arthur Liggan. “Just a couple of hundred up?”

“Certainly. I shall be delighted. But you'll beat me. You are worse than Laparais. You beat me at every game, even at spilikens.”

“Now, that isn't true. I've never really studied spilikens.”

“Don't!” said Liggan. “You'd become English champion in a day.”

They went off together amicably.

Barclay Carrow sat for a little while, to save appearances, as Strickland decided. He never did the wrong thing, not even in an examination. They talked of books. Mrs. Laparais was an ardent reader. Then they spoke of people.

Presently Carrow said, “What a singular charm your departed friend has.”

“Nellie Armitage! I think so too. Yet she makes little effort to please.”

“I dislike all social effort that is apparent.”

“So do I. But perhaps because I am incapable of it. I know I am often horribly rude by being too passive. Dick calls me 'the unselfconscious jelly-fish,' that is, of course, when I get among the wrong lot. I lose my voice with a bore. A country garden party has exactly the same effect upon me as a bad attack of laryngitis.”

“That is carrying things rather far. Isn't it, Strickland?”

“Yes. But even that is better than having an acute attack of social hysteria, which so many of us are subject to.”

“Nellie Armitage never has that. How quiet and still she is! And yet I never find her dull.”

“I think I know why that is,” said Carrow, getting out of his chair.

“Why?”

“Because on her hearth a fire is always burning.”

WITHOUT making any excuse he went slowly out of the room.

“Do you agree?” said Mrs. Laparais, when the door shut behind him.

“Yes,” said Strickland.

“It may be so. I don't know Nellie Armitage really well. I don't know anyone who does.

“I am sorry she went so suddenly,” said Strickland.

“So am I.”

He fidgeted for a moment, hesitating whether to say a certain thing or not. Finally he said, “I have a ridiculous idea that she went because of me.”

“Because of you! Why should she?”

“Perhaps she didn't like meeting me.”

Mrs. Laparais asked no questions. She only leaned forward and said in her self-possessed and rather deep voice,

“I feel like telling you something. Before Nellie Armitage went she asked me for your London address.

“For my—how very odd! But perhaps ... does she know Jeanne well?”

“I have no idea. When I told her a man called Henry Strickland was coming she said, 'Is he separated from his wife?' I said you were. Then she said, 'Is she called Jeanne?' I said she was.”

“And then—then——”

“Then she merely said, 'I have met her in Paris.'”

“And that was all?”

“That was all. She never alluded to you again.”

“Perhaps she—I dare say she thinks I have behaved like a brute.”

“I dare say she does,” said Mrs. Laparais calmly. “She may be a feminist.”

“Oh, I don't think so! I don't know, of course.”

“No more do I. Anyhow, she has your address.”

And she changed the conversation, without taking the trouble to try to find a bridge from one subject to another.

Strickland left Denbury House early on Monday morning. He traveled up to town with Arthur Liggan and Barclay Carrow, and they agreed that they had had a pleasant time. Carrow, however, added, “in spite of the abrupt defection of by far the most interesting member of our party.” They discussed Mrs. Armitage amiably. Arthur Liggan, although he had never met her before, had heard a good deal about her. The ramifications of his acquaintanceship with all manner of people were so extensive that he had heard a good deal about almost everyone above a certain level in Europe. Carrow showed interest in this hearsay and edged Liggan into talk. The most striking fact which emerged from Liggan's report was this: that there was an extraordinarily marked difference between Mrs. Armitage married and Mrs. Armitage widowed.

“THEY all tell me so,” he asserted, stroking his silky white little beard.

“They?” questioned Carrow, cocking up his left eyebrow in a manner difficult of achievement by any but a Foreign Office man.

“People who know her in Paris. Armitage was very rich and knew all the American Colony there, and most of the best French people, barring the Jews.”

“And what is the difference between Mrs. Armitage the wife, and Mrs. Armitage veuve?”

“Some such difference as one notices between a volcano and an Alpine snow peak,” said Liggan.

“A volcano in activity or an extinct volcano?”

“Oh, the former, very much the former.”

“Does Mrs. Armitage suggest an Alpine peak to you, Strickland?” said Carrow.

“Not altogether. But she is more like that than like an active volcano. She suggests to me great self-possession, great self-control.”

“And she was, I understand, noted for her lack of self-control,” said Liggan. “She and her husband used to have tremendous rows. I believe the Armitage rows were almost notorious in their set. But since his death she has seemed another woman.”

“Probably she married the wrong man and has only known happiness since she got rid of him. Armitage may have been an irritant. And it must be exquisite to lay an irritant to rest in the grave, or to place the ashes of an irritant reverently in a pretty little urn. Mrs. Armitage may have known that joy. Call no woman happy till she is a widow. Hullo! Ashford and the papers!”

AT CHARING CROSS they separated, and Strickland was free.

He often enjoyed a country-house visit, but he was generally glad when it was over. Even the most delightful country house had a faint flavor of the cage for Strickland—after two or three days.

Free! He got a taxi and drove to his house. It was a very charming and well arranged, though quite small house, and he had never lived in it with Jeanne. So it possessed no tragic memories for him. Nevertheless, he thought it looked almost drearily empty as he carried his kit bag into the hall and put it down. He spoke a few words to Ellen, his parlor maid, and to his housekeeper, Mrs. Fry, ran through the letters that were lying on the hall table, then went off to the City.

It was a mercy to have plenty of work.

About five that day he was walking home by the river-side.

In the country he had thrown off the depressing effect which autumn had had upon him. Laparais had kept him very busy. And at Denbury he had seldom been alone. But now again he felt his loneliness acutely and the soft, and yet heavy, depression of the season flowed over him.

And so Jeanne was in Paris! And the woman of the railway carriage knew her. Strickland wondered how intimate the acquaintance between the two women was and what Jeanne had said about him. For no doubt she had spoken about him to Mrs Armitage. The latter, he felt sure, had left Denbury because he was there. Nevertheless, she had asked for his address. She must then surely intend to write to him, or perhaps to see him again. Her going away so abruptly, and her asking for his address, seemed to him, in consideration of the two facts, to show a contradictory mind and disposition. But then all interesting, all really attractive women were contradictory. Jeanne had been contradictory. He remembered, when they were engaged, that he had often been taken aback by her apparently opposing moods. And after their marriage he had not always understood her. And he doubted whether she had ever understood him, although she had certainly loved him, even with violence. Violence! There had always been a certain violence in their relation to one another, in their intimate intercourse. Perhaps that fact had lain at the root of their disagreement which had ended in rupture.

He paused by the river not far from Battersea Bridge and looked over the water. It was very dark and very calm, almost, horribly calm—like his life now that Jeanne was out of it. During his married life he had often felt terribly impatient, had often longed for quiet and peace. Now that he had them he was acutely dissatisfied.

“I must be a difficult beast,” he thought. “I suppose I want to eat my cake, and have it, and give it away.”

A great barge went by drifting in the middle of the river with the tide, which was going out. He looked at it and saw two figures of men upon it, and a sort of reckless and absurd longing to be one of them came to him. For the moment he felt sick of his life, and that theirs must be far more interesting and attractive than his. To get on that barge, and float away down the great river, away from the huge City with all its troubles and hindrances, away to silent places, to a distant life, to sea marges! Wouldn't that change a man?

The barge grew dim on the river. It had passed under Battersea Bridge. The pace of it on the water seemed to quicken. It was escaping from London furtively.

Yes, he envied those men who moved to and fro on it, busy with mysterious tasks.

He turned, crossed the road and went into his house.

“If I weren't tied by business, I'd get away and travel for a year!” he said to himself.

In the hall he looked for a letter. Since he had returned to London he had be to expect a letter. But there was none. Perhaps, after all, the woman of the railway carriage would never write to him. She had asked for his address. But that might have been merely a whim.

He began to think it was merely a whim when a month had gone by and he had not had a word from her. The hard winter, with its fogs and its ineffable dreariness and oppression, got London well into its grip, and Mrs. Armitage made no sign. And at last Strickland ceased to expect any word from her. She had fled from him at Denbury, and he would probably never see her again. He would certainly never hear from her. The lines carved by dissatisfaction deepened in his face. Often, thinking of life, he said to himself “À quoi bon?” What was the good of it all? Existence was a stagnant thing.

On the day when he had parted from Jeanne his life had been divided into two parts as if by a sharp sword. The past had been intense, violent, full of fierce ups and downs, tortured sometimes, sometimes ecstatic, always quivering with vitality, with love, with tempers, with tears. The other part, well, it was very Anglo-Saxon. And Strickland knew that he found it very dull. When he entered his club too often he saw boredom towering up like a heavy monster. The routine of society was becoming very insipid to him. Even his work not seldom seemed stale and flavorless. And when he put the key in the door of his house he did it without expectation. Indeed, often he thought, as the door yielded to his touch, “What on earth am I going to do in here?” Life had lost its savor for Strickland, and life without savor is not merely dull. Very soon it becomes hideous.

IT WAS becoming almost hideous to Strickland, when one evening towards the end of January, on coming home from the City, he found a large square envelop lying on his hall table. He took it up. He didn't know the handwriting, which was firm and clear. On the front of the envelop in small letters was printed “Claridge's Hotel.”

An invitation no doubt. He opened it and read:

Claridge's Hotel,
Thursday.

Dear Mr. Strickland:

I met you last autumn staying at Denbury. Do you remember? I am in London for a few days and should like, if possible, to see you. Can you suggest an hour, if you have any free time?

Believe me,

Yours sincerely,
Vivienne Armitage.

So—she had written!

Suddenly: the flatness of life seemed to disappear. Strickland carried the note into his library where there was a big fire.

“What can she want to see me for?”

He re-read;the note and felt intense reserve almost bristling in it. She did not suggest a place for their meeting. The natural thing would be for him to offer to go to her hotel. But since she had not asked him to do that he resolved to follow his impulse, and to ask her to come to him. Possibly she really wished to visit him, as she had not hinted at his going to Claridge's.

He sat down at his writing-table and wrote a note inviting her to tea the next day. He sent it off by by messenger boy whom he told to bring back an answer. The boy returned in about an hour with a note.

Claridge's Hotel,
Thursday.

Dear Mr. Strickland:

As you kindly ask me, I will come to tea with you to-morrow. Many thanks.

Yours sincerely,
Vivienne Armitage

ON THE following day Strickland had a talk with his housekeeper, Mrs. Fry, before he went to the City. He came back earlier than usual, with a quantity of flowers which he had bought in Covent Garden. Mrs. Fry was ready with cases and specimen glasses, and helped Strickland to arrange the flowers and to distribute them about the room. A big fire was burning. The tea table was ready. The sofa cushions were “plumped” out, the blinds and curtains drawn, a few books put out to make the room look lived in. Some candles were lighted.

“It looks all right, Mrs. Fry, doesn't it?” said Strickland.

“Very nice indeed, sir,” said Mrs. Fry.

“When the lady—Mrs. Armitage is her name—comes, please tell Ellen to bring her up at once. And I am not at home if anyone else calls.”

“Yes, sir.”

Mrs. Fry departed and Strickland went to stand by the fire.

He felt strongly expectant, even a little excited. The smell of the flowers was strong in the room and reminded him suddenly of Jeanne.

If, instead of Mrs. Armitage, it were Jeanne who was coming back! How different the house would seem in a day, in an hour even. Although he lived alone Strickland had never re-captured the bachelor feeling. Once married, that was surely destroyed in a man for ever. A bachelor might, probably often did, feel complete. A married man—Strickland judged the matter from his own experience—separated from his wife felt somehow lopsided. And a woman separated from her husband?

But Strickland was sure that he would never know how women felt about such things.

A bell sounded thinly below. He took his hands out of his pockets and looked towards the door.

(To be concluded in the February issue)