Aldous Huxley - Crome Yellow[1]

Chapter I. Along this particular stretch of line no express had everpassed. All the trains--the few that there were--stopped at all thestations. Denis knew the names of those stations by heart. Bole,Tritton, Spavin Delawarr, Knipswich for Timpany, West Bowlby, and,finally, Camlet-on-the-Water. Camlet was where he always got out,leaving the train to creep indolently onward, goodness only knewwhither, into the green heart of England. They were snorting out of West Bowlby now. It was the nextstation, thank Heaven. Denis took his chattels off the rack andpiled them neatly in the corner opposite his own. A futileproceeding. But one must have something to do. When he hadfinished, he sank back into his seat and closed his eyes. It wasextremely hot. Oh, this journey! It was two hours cut clean out of his life;two hours in which he might have done so much, so much--written theperfect poem, for example, or read the one illuminating book.Instead of which--his gorge rose at the smell of the dusty cushionsagainst which he was leaning. Two hours. One hundred and twenty minutes. Anything might bedone in that time. Anything. Nothing. Oh, he had had hundreds ofhours, and what had he done with them? Wasted them, spilt theprecious minutes as though his reservoir were inexhaustible. Denisgroaned in the spirit, condemned himself utterly with all hisworks. What right had he to sit in the sunshine, to occupy cornerseats in third-class carriages, to be alive? None, none, none. Misery and a nameless nostalgic distress possessed him. He wastwenty-three, and oh! so agonizingly conscious of the fact. The train came bumpingly to a halt. Here was Camlet at last.Denis jumped up, crammed his hat over his eyes, deranged his pileof baggage, leaned out of the window and shouted for a porter,seized a bag in either hand, and had to put them down again inorder to open the door. When at last he had safely bundled himselfand his baggage on to the platform, he ran up the train towards thevan. "A bicycle, a bicycle!" he said breathlessly to the guard. Hefelt himself a man of action. The guard paid no attention, butcontinued methodically to hand out, one by one, the packageslabelled to Camlet. "A bicycle!" Denis repeated. "A green machine,cross-framed, name of Stone. S-T-ON-E." "All in good time, sir," said the guard soothingly. He was alarge, stately man with a naval beard. One pictured him at home,drinking tea, surrounded by a numerous family. It was in that tonethat he must have spoken to his children when they were tiresome."All in good time, sir." Denis's man of action collapsed,punctured. He left his luggage to be called for later, and pushed off onhis bicycle. He always took his bicycle when he went into thecountry. It was part of the theory of exercise. One day one wouldget up at six o'clock and pedal away to Kenilworth, orStratford-on-Avon--anywhere. And within a radius of twenty milesthere were always Norman churches and Tudor mansions to be seen inthe course of an afternoon's excursion. Somehow they never did getseen, but all the same it was nice to feel that the bicycle wasthere, and that one fine morning one really might get up atsix. Once at the top of the long hill which led up from Camletstation, he felt his spirits mounting. The world, he found, wasgood. The far-away blue hills, the harvests whitening on the slopesof the ridge along which his road led him, the treeless sky-linesthat changed as he moved--yes, they were all good. He was overcomeby the beauty of those deeply embayed combes, scooped in the flanksof the ridge beneath him. Curves, curves: he repeated the wordslowly, trying as he did so to find some term in which to giveexpression to his appreciation. Curves-- no, that was inadequate.He made a gesture with his hand, as though to scoop the achievedexpression out of the air, and almost fell off his bicycle. Whatwas the word to describe the curves of those little valleys? Theywere as fine as the lines of a human body, they were informed withthe subtlety of art... Galbe. That was a good word; but it was French. Le galbe evasede ses hanches: had one ever read a French novel in which thatphrase didn't occur? Some day he would compile a dictionary for theuse of novelists. Galbe, gonfle, goulu: parfum, peau, pervers,potele, pudeur: vertu, volupte. But he really must find that word. Curves curves...Those littlevalleys had the lines of a cup moulded round a woman's breast; theyseemed the dinted imprints of some huge divine body that had restedon these hills. Cumbrous locutions, these; but through them heseemed to be getting nearer to what he wanted. Dinted, dimpled,wimpled--his mind wandered down echoing corridors of assonance andalliteration ever further and further from the point. He wasenamoured with the beauty of words. Becoming once more aware of the outer world, he found himself onthe crest of a descent. The road plunged down, steep and straight,into a considerable valley. There, on the opposite slope, a littlehigher up the valley, stood Crome, his destination. He put on hisbrakes; this view of Crome was pleasant to linger over. The facadewith its three projecting towers rose precipitously from among thedark trees of the garden. The house basked in full sunlight; theold brick rosily glowed. How ripe and rich it was, how superblymellow! And at the same time, how austere! The hill was becomingsteeper and steeper; he was gaining speed in spite of his brakes.He loosed his grip of the levers, and in a moment was rushingheadlong down. Five minutes later he was passing through the gateof the great courtyard. The front door stood hospitably open. Heleft his bicycle leaning against the wall and walked in. He wouldtake them by surprise. Chapter II. He took nobody by surprise; there was nobody to take. All wasquiet; Denis wandered from room to empty room, looking withpleasure at the familiar pictures and furniture, at all the littleuntidy signs of life that lay scattered here and there. He wasrather glad that they were all out; it was amusing to wanderthrough the house as though one were exploring a dead, desertedPompeii. What sort of life would the excavator reconstruct fromthese remains; how would he people these empty chambers? There wasthe long gallery, with its rows of respectable and (though, ofcourse, one couldn't publicly admit it) rather boring Italianprimitives, its Chinese sculptures, its unobtrusive, datelessfurniture. There was the panelled drawing- room, where the hugechintzcovered arm-chairs stood, oases of comfort among the austereflesh-mortifying antiques. There was the morning-room, with itspale lemon walls, its painted Venetian chairs and rococo tables,its mirrors, its modern pictures. There was the library, cool,spacious, and dark, book -lined from floor to ceiling, rich inportentous folios. There was the dining-room, solidly, portwinilyEnglish, with its great mahogany table, its eighteenth-centurychairs and sideboard, its eighteenth-century pictures--familyportraits, meticulous animal paintings. What could one reconstructfrom such data? There was much of Henry Wimbush in the long galleryand the library, something of Anne, perhaps, in the morning-room.That was all. Among the accumulations of ten generations the livinghad left but few traces. Lying on the table in the morning-room he saw his own book ofpoems. What tact! He picked it up and opened it. It was what thereviewers call "a slim volume." He read at hazard: "...But silence and the topless darkVault in the lights of Luna Park;And Blackpool from the nightly gloomHollows a bright tumultuous tomb." He put it down again, shook his head, and sighed. "What genius Ihad then!" he reflected, echoing the aged Swift. It was nearly sixmonths since the book had been published; he was glad to think hewould never write anything of the same sort again. Who could havebeen reading it, he wondered? Anne, perhaps; he liked to think so.Perhaps, too, she had at last recognised herself in the Hamadryadof the poplar sapling; the slim Hamadryad whose movements were likethe swaying of a young tree in the wind. "The Woman who was a Tree"was what he had called the poem. He had given her the book when itcame out, hoping that the poem would tell her what he hadn't daredto say. She had never referred to it. He shut his eyes and saw a vision of her in a red velvet cloak,swaying into the little restaurant where they sometimes dinedtogether in London--three quarters of an hour late, and he at histable, haggard with anxiety, irritation, hunger. Oh, she wasdamnable! It occurred to him that perhaps his hostess might be in herboudoir. It was a possibility; he would go and see. Mrs. Wimbush'sboudoir was in the central tower on the garden front. A littlestaircase cork-screwed up to it from the hall. Denis mounted,tapped at the door. "Come in." Ah, she was there; he had ratherhoped she wouldn't be. He opened the door. Priscilla Wimbush was lying on the sofa. A blotting-pad restedon her knees and she was thoughtfully sucking the end of a silverpencil. "Hullo," she said, looking up. "I'd forgotten you werecoming." "Well, here I am, I'm afraid," said Denis deprecatingly. "I'mawfully sorry." Mrs. Wimbush laughed. Her voice, her laughter, were deep andmasculine. Everything about her was manly. She had a large, square,middle-aged face, with a massive projecting nose and littlegreenish eyes, the whole surmounted by a lofty and elaboratecoiffure of a curiously improbable shade of orange. Looking at her,Denis always thought of Wilkie Bard as the cantatrice. "That's why I'm going toSing in op'ra, sing in op'ra,Sing in op-pop-pop-pop-pop-popera." Today she was wearing a purple silk dress with a high collar anda row of pearls. The costume, so richly dowagerish, so suggestiveof the Royal Family, made her look more than ever like something onthe Halls. "What have you been doing all this time?" she asked. "Well," said Denis, and he hesitated, almost voluptuously. Hehad a tremendously amusing account of London and its doings allripe and ready in his mind. It would be a pleasure to give itutterance. "To begin with," he said... But he was too late. Mrs. Wimbush's question had been what thegrammarians call rhetorical; it asked for no answer. It was alittle conversational flourish, a gambit in the polite game. "You find me busy at my horoscopes," she said, without evenbeing aware that she had interrupted him. A little pained, Denis decided to reserve his story for morereceptive ears. He contented himself, by way of revenge, withsaying "Oh?" rather icily. "Did I tell you how I won four hundred on the Grand Nationalthis year?" "Yes," he replied, still frigid and mono-syllabic. She must havetold him at least six times. "Wonderful, isn't it? Everything is in the Stars. In the OldDays, before I had the Stars to help me, I used to lose thousands.Now"--she paused an instant--"well, look at that four hundred onthe Grand National. That's the Stars." Denis would have liked to hear more about the Old Days. But hewas too discreet and, still more, too shy to ask. There had beensomething of a bust up; that was all he knew. Old Priscilla --not soold then, of course, and sprightlier--had lost a great deal ofmoney, dropped it in handfuls and hatfuls on every race-course inthe country. She had gambled too. The number of thousands varied inthe different legends, but all put it high. Henry Wimbush wasforced to sell some of his Primitives--a Taddeo da Poggibonsi, anAmico di Taddeo, and four or five nameless Sienese--to theAmericans. There was a crisis. For the first time in his life Henryasserted himself, and with good effect, it seemed. Priscilla's gay and gadding existence had come to an abrupt end.Nowadays she spent almost all her time at Crome, cultivating arather ill-defined malady. For consolation she dallied with NewThought and the Occult. Her passion for racing still possessed her,and Henry, who was a kind-hearted fellow at bottom, allowed herforty pounds a month betting money. Most of Priscilla's days werespent in casting the horoscopes of horses, and she invested hermoney scientifically, as the stars dictated. She betted on footballtoo, and had a large notebook in which she registered thehoroscopes of all the players in all the teams of the League. Theprocess of balancing the horoscopes of two elevens one against theother was a very delicate and difficult one. A match between theSpurs and the Villa entailed a conflict in the heavens so vast andso complicated that it was not to be wondered at if she sometimesmade a mistake about the outcome. "Such a pity you don't believe in these things, Denis, such apity," said Mrs. Wimbush in her deep, distinct voice. "I can't say I feel it so." "Ah, that's because you don't know what it's like to have faith.You've no idea how amusing and exciting life becomes when you dobelieve. All that happens means something; nothing you do is everinsignificant. It makes life so jolly, you know. Here am I atCrome. Dull as ditchwater, you'd think; but no, I don't find it so.I don't regret the Old Days a bit. I have the Stars..." She pickedup the sheet of paper that was lying on the blotting- pad. "Inman'shoroscope," she explained. "(I thought I'd like to have a littlefling on the billiards championship this autumn.) I have theInfinite to keep in tune with," she waved her hand. "And thenthere's the next world and all the spirits, and one's Aura, andMrs. Eddy and saying you're not ill, and the Christian Mysteriesand Mrs. Besant. It's all splendid. One's never dull for a moment.I can't think how I used to get on before-in the Old Days.Pleasure--running about, that's all it was; just running about.Lunch, tea, dinner, theatre, supper every day. It was fun, ofcourse, while it lasted. But there wasn't much left of itafterwards. There's rather a good thing about that inBarbecue-Smith's new book. Where is it?" She sat up and reached for a book that was lying on the littletable by the head of the sofa. "Do you know him, by the way?" she asked. "Who?" "Mr. Barbecue-Smith." Denis knew of him vaguely. Barbecue-Smith was a name in theSunday papers. He wrote about the Conduct of Life. He might even bethe author of "What a Young Girl Ought to Know". "No, not personally," he said. "I've invited him for next week-end." She turned over the pagesof the book. "Here's the passage I was thinking of. I marked it. Ialways mark the things I like." Holding the book almost at arm's length, for she was somewhatlong-sighted, and making suitable gestures with her free hand, shebegan to read, slowly, dramatically. "'What are thousand pound fur coats, what are quarter millionincomes?'" She looked up from the page with a histrionic movementof the head; her orange coiffure nodded portentously. Denis lookedat it, fascinated. Was it the Real Thing and henna, he wondered, orwas it one of those Complete Transformations one sees in theadvertisements? "'What are Thrones and Sceptres?'" The orange Transformation--yes, it must be a Transformation--bobbed up again. "'What are the gaieties of the Rich, the splendours of thePowerful, what is the pride of the Great, what are the gaudypleasures of High Society?'" The voice, which had risen in tone, questioningly, from sentenceto sentence, dropped suddenly and boomed reply. "'They are nothing. Vanity, fluff, dandelion seed in the wind,thin vapours of fever. The things that matter happen in the heart.Seen things are sweet, but those unseen are a thousand times moresignificant. It is the unseen that counts in Life.'" Mrs. Wimbush lowered the book. "Beautiful, isn't it?" shesaid. Denis preferred not to hazard an opinion, but uttered a non-committal "H'm." "Ah, it's a fine book this, a beautiful book," said Priscilla,as she let the pages flick back, one by one, from under her thumb."And here's the passage about the Lotus Pool. He compares the Soulto a Lotus Pool, you know." She held up the book again and read."'A Friend of mine has a Lotus Pool in his garden. It lies in alittle dell embowered with wild roses and eglantine, among whichthe nightingale pours forth its amorous descant all the summerlong. Within the pool the Lotuses blossom, and the birds of the aircome to drink and bathe themselves in its crystal waters...' Ah,and that reminds me," Priscilla exclaimed, shutting the book with aclap and uttering her big profound laugh--"that reminds me of thethings that have been going on in our bathingpool since you werehere last. We gave the village people leave to come and bathe herein the evenings. You've no idea of the things that happened." She leaned forward, speaking in a confidential whisper; everynow and then she uttered a deep gurgle of laughter. "...mixedbathing...saw them out of my window...sent for a pair of fieldglasses to make sure...no doubt of it..." The laughter broke outagain. Denis laughed too. Barbecue-Smith was tossed on thefloor. It's time we went to see if tea's ready," said Priscilla. Shehoisted herself up from the sofa and went swishing off across theroom, striding beneath the trailing silk. Denis followed her,faintly humming to himself: "That's why I'm going toSing in op'ra, sing in op'ra,Sing in op-pop-pop-pop-popera." And then the little twiddly bit of accompaniment at the end:"ra-ra." Chapter III. The terrace in front of the house was a long narrow strip ofturf, bounded along its outer edge by a graceful stone balustrade.Two little summer-houses of brick stood at either end. Below thehouse the ground sloped very steeply away, and the terrace was aremarkably high one; from the balusters to the sloping lawn beneathwas a drop of thirty feet. Seen from below, the high unbrokenterrace wall, built like the house itself of brick, had the almostmenacing aspect of a fortification--a castle bastion, from whoseparapet one looked out across airy depths to distances level withthe eye. Below, in the foreground, hedged in by solid masses ofsculptured yew trees, lay the stone-brimmed swimming-pool. Beyondit stretched the park, with its massive elms, its green expanses ofgrass, and, at the bottom of the valley, the gleam of the narrowriver. On the farther side of the stream the land rose again in along slope, chequered with cultivation. Looking up the valley, tothe right, one saw a line of blue, far-off hills. The tea-table had been planted in the shade of one of the littlesummer-houses, and the rest of the party was already assembledabout it when Denis and Priscilla made their appearance. HenryWimbush had begun to pour out the tea. He was one of those ageless,unchanging men on the farther side of fifty, who might be thirty,who might be anything. Denis had known him almost as long as hecould remember. In all those years his pale, rather handsome facehad never grown any older; it was like the pale grey bowler hatwhich he always wore, winter and summer-unageing, calm, serenelywithout expression. Next him, but separated from him and from the rest of the worldby the almost impenetrable barriers of her deafness, sat JennyMullion. She was perhaps thirty, had a tilted nose and a pinkand-white complexion, and wore her brown hair plaited and coiled intwo lateral buns over her ears. In the secret tower of her deafnessshe sat apart, looking down at the world through sharply piercingeyes. What did she think of men and women and things? That wassomething that Denis had never been able to discover. In herenigmatic remoteness Jenny was a little disquieting. Even now someinterior joke seemed to be amusing her, for she was smiling toherself, and her brown eyes were like very bright roundmarbles. On his other side the serious, moonlike innocence of MaryBracegirdle's face shone pink and childish. She was nearlytwenty-three, but one wouldn't have guessed it. Her short hair,clipped like a page's, hung in a bell of elastic gold about hercheeks. She had large blue china eyes, whose expression was one ofingenuous and often puzzled earnestness. Next to Mary a small gaunt man was sitting, rigid and erect inhis chair. In appearance Mr. Scogan was like one of those extinctbird-lizards of the Tertiary. His nose was beaked, his dark eye hadthe shining quickness of a robin's. But there was nothing soft orgracious or feathery about him. The skin of his wrinkled brown facehad a dry and scaly look; his hands were the hands of a crocodile.His movements were marked by the lizard's disconcertingly abruptclockwork speed; his speech was thin, fluty, and dry. HenryWimbush's school-fellow and exact contemporary, Mr. Scogan lookedfar older and, at the same time, far more youthfully alive than didthat gentle aristocrat with the face like a grey bowler. Mr. Scogan might look like an extinct saurian, but Gombauld wasaltogether and essentially human. In the old-fashioned naturalhistories of the 'thirties he might have figured in a steelengraving as a type of Homo Sapiens--an honour which at that timecommonly fell to Lord Byron. Indeed, with more hair and lesscollar, Gombauld would have been completely Byronic-more thanByronic, even, for Gombauld was of Provencal descent, a black-haired young corsair of thirty, with flashing teeth and luminouslarge dark eyes. Denis looked at him enviously. He was jealous ofhis talent: if only he wrote verse as well as Gombauld paintedpictures! Still more, at the moment, he envied Gombauld his looks,his vitality, his easy confidence of manner. Was it surprising thatAnne should like him? Like him?--it might even be something worse,Denis reflected bitterly, as he walked at Priscilla's side down thelong grass terrace. Between Gombauld and Mr. Scogan a very much lowered deck-chairpresented its back to the new arrivals as they advanced towards thetea-table. Gombauld was leaning over it; his face movedvivaciously; he smiled, he laughed, he made quick gestures with hishands. From the depths of the chair came up a sound of soft, lazylaughter. Denis started as he heard it. That laughter--how well heknew it! What emotions it evoked in him! He quickened his pace. In her low deck-chair Anne was nearer to lying than to sitting.Her long, slender body reposed in an attitude of listless andindolent grace. Within its setting of light brown hair her face hada pretty regularity that was almost doll-like. And indeed therewere moments when she seemed nothing more than a doll; when theoval face, with its long-lashed, pale blue eyes, expressed nothing;when it was no more than a lazy mask of wax. She was HenryWimbush's own niece; that bowler-like countenance was one of theWimbush heirlooms; it ran in the family, appearing in its femalemembers as a blank doll-face. But across this dollish mask, like agay melody dancing over an unchanging fundamental bass, passedAnne's other inheritance--quick laughter, light ironic amusement,and the changing expressions of many moods. She was smiling now asDenis looked down at her: her cat's smile, he called it, for novery good reason. The mouth was compressed, and on either side ofit two tiny wrinkles had formed themselves in her cheeks. Aninfinity of slightly malicious amusement lurked in those littlefolds, in the puckers about the half-closed eyes, in the eyesthemselves, bright and laughing between the narrowed lids. The preliminary greetings spoken, Denis found an empty chairbetween Gombauld and Jenny and sat down. "How are you, Jenny?" he shouted to her. Jenny nodded and smiled in mysterious silence, as though thesubject of her health were a secret that could not be publiclydivulged. "How's London been since I went away?" Anne inquired from thedepth of her chair. The moment had come; the tremendously amusing narrative waswaiting for utterance. "Well," said Denis, smiling happily, "tobegin with..." "Has Priscilla told you of our great antiquarian find?" HenryWimbush leaned forward; the most promising of buds was nipped. "To begin with," said Denis desperately, "there was theBallet..." "Last week," Mr. Wimbush went on softly and implacably, "we dugup fifty yards of oaken drainpipes; just tree trunks with a holebored through the middle. Very interesting indeed. Whether theywere laid down by the monks in the fifteenth century, orwhether..." Denis listened gloomily. "Extraordinary!" he said, when Mr.Wimbush had finished; "quite extraordinary!" He helped himself toanother slice of cake. He didn't even want to tell his tale aboutLondon now; he was damped. For some time past Mary's grave blue eyes had been fixed uponhim. "What have you been writing lately?" she asked. It would benice to have a little literary conversation. "Oh, verse and prose," said Denis--"just verse and prose." "Prose?" Mr. Scogan pounced alarmingly on the word. "You've beenwriting prose?" "Yes." "Not a novel?" "Yes." "My poor Denis!" exclaimed Mr. Scogan. "What about?" Denis felt rather uncomfortable. "Oh, about the usual things,you know." "Of course," Mr. Scogan groaned. "I'll describe the plot foryou. Little Percy, the hero, was never good at games, but he wasalways clever. He passes through the usual public school and theusual university and comes to London, where he lives among theartists. He is bowed down with melancholy thought; he carries thewhole weight of the universe upon his shoulders. He writes a novelof dazzling brilliance; he dabbles delicately in Amour anddisappears, at the end of the book, into the luminous Future." Denis blushed scarlet. Mr. Scogan had described the plan of hisnovel with an accuracy that was appalling. He made an effort tolaugh. "You're entirely wrong," he said. "My novel is not in theleast like that." It was a heroic lie. Luckily, he reflected, onlytwo chapters were written. He would tear them up that very eveningwhen he unpacked. Mr. Scogan paid no attention to his denial, but went on: "Whywill you young men continue to write about things that are soentirely uninteresting as the mentality of adolescents and artists?Professional anthropologists might find it interesting to turnsometimes from the beliefs of the Blackfellow to the philosophicalpreoccupations of the undergraduate. But you can't expect anordinary adult man, like myself, to be much moved by the story ofhis spiritual troubles. And after all, even in England, even inGermany and Russia, there are more adults than adolescents. As forthe artist, he is preoccupied with problems that are so utterlyunlike those of the ordinary adult man-- problems of pureaesthetics which don't so much as present themselves to people likemyself--that a description of his mental processes is as boring tothe ordinary reader as a piece of pure mathematics. A serious bookabout artists regarded as artists is unreadable; and a book aboutartists regarded as lovers, husbands, dipsomaniacs, heroes, and thelike is really not worth writing again. Jean-Christophe is thestock artist of literature, just as Professor Radium of "ComicCuts" is its stock man of science." 'I'm sorry to hear I'm as uninteresting as all that," saidGombauld. "Not at all, my dear Gombauld," Mr. Scogan hastened to explain."As a lover or a dipsomaniac, I've no doubt of your being a mostfascinating specimen. But as a combiner of forms, you must honestlyadmit it, you're a bore." "I entirely disagree with you," exclaimed Mary. She was somehowalways out of breath when she talked. And her speech was punctuatedby little gasps. "I've known a great many artists, and I've alwaysfound their mentality very interesting. Especially in Paris.Tschuplitski, for example--I saw a great deal of Tschuplitski inParis this spring..." "Ah, but then you're an exception, Mary, you're an exception,"said Mr. Scogan. "You are a femme superieure." A flush of pleasure turned Mary's face into a harvest moon. Chapter IV. Denis woke up next morning to find the sun shining, the skyserene. He decided to wear white flannel trousers--white flanneltrousers and a black jacket, with a silk shirt and his new peachcoloured tie. And what shoes? White was the obvious choice, butthere was something rather pleasing about the notion of blackpatent leather. He lay in bed for several minutes considering theproblem. Before he went down--patent leather was his final choice--helooked at himself critically in the glass. His hair might have beenmore golden, he reflected. As it was, its yellowness had the hintof a greenish tinge in it. But his forehead was good. His foreheadmade up in height what his chin lacked in prominence. His nosemight have been longer, but it would pass. His eyes might have beenblue and not green. But his coat was very well cut and, discreetlypadded, made him seem robuster than he actually was. His legs, intheir white casing, were long and elegant. Satisfied, he descendedthe stairs. Most of the party had already finished their breakfast.He found himself alone with Jenny. "I hope you slept well," he said. "Yes, isn't it lovely?" Jenny replied, giving two rapid littlenods. "But we had such awful thunderstorms last week." Parallel straight lines, Denis reflected, meet only at infinity.He might talk for ever of carecharmer sleep and she of meteorologytill the end of time. Did one ever establish contact with anyone?We are all parallel straight lines. Jenny was only a little moreparallel than most. "They are very alarming, these thunderstorms," he said, helpinghimself to porridge. "Don't you think so? Or are you above beingfrightened?" "No. I always go to bed in a storm. One is so much safer lyingdown." "Why?" "Because," said Jenny, making a descriptive gesture, "becauselightning goes downwards and not flat ways. When you're lying downyou're out of the current." "That's very ingenious." "It's true." There was a silence. Denis finished his porridge and helpedhimself to bacon. For lack of anything better to say, and becauseMr. Scogan's absurd phrase was for some reason running in his head,he turned to Jenny and asked: "Do you consider yourself a femme superieure?" He had to repeatthe question several times before Jenny got the hang of it. "No," she said, rather indignantly, when at last she heard whatDenis was saying. "Certainly not. Has anyone been suggesting that Iam?" "No," said Denis. "Mr. Scogan told Mary she was one." "Did he?" Jenny lowered her voice. "Shall I tell you what Ithink of that man? I think he's slightly sinister." Having made this pronouncement, she entered the ivory tower ofher deafness and closed the door. Denis could not induce her to sayanything more, could not induce her even to listen. She just smiledat him, smiled and occasionally nodded. Denis went out on to the terrace to smoke his after-breakfastpipe and to read his morning paper. An hour later, when Anne camedown, she found him still reading. By this time he had got to theCourt Circular and the Forthcoming Weddings. He got up to meet heras she approached, a Hamadryad in white muslin, across thegrass. "Why, Denis," she exclaimed, "you look perfectly sweet in yourwhite trousers." Denis was dreadfully taken aback. There was no possible retort."You speak as though I were a child in a new frock," he said, witha show of irritation. "But that's how I feel about you, Denis dear." "Then you oughtn't to." "But I can't help it. I'm so much older than you." "I like that," he said. "Four years older." "And if you do look perfectly sweet in your white trousers, whyshouldn't I say so? And why did you put them on, if you didn'tthink you were going to look sweet in them?" "Let's go into the garden," said Denis. He was put out; theconversation had taken such a preposterous and unexpected turn. Hehad planned a very different opening, in which he was to lead offwith, "You look adorable this morning," or something of the kind,and she was to answer, "Do I?" and then there was to be a pregnantsilence. And now she had got in first with the trousers. It wasprovoking; his pride was hurt. That part of the garden that sloped down from the foot of theterrace to the pool had a beauty which did not depend on colour somuch as on forms. It was as beautiful by moonlight as in the sun.The silver of water, the dark shapes of yew and ilex treesremained, at all hours and seasons, the dominant features of thescene. It was a landscape in black and white. For colour there wasthe flower-garden; it lay to one side of the pool, separated fromit by a huge Babylonian wall of yews. You passed through a tunnelin the hedge, you opened a wicket in a wall, and you foundyourself, startlingly and suddenly, in the world of colour. TheJuly borders blazed and flared under the sun. Within its high brickwalls the garden was like a great tank of warmth and perfume andcolour. Denis held open the little iron gate for his companion. "It'slike passing from a cloister into an Oriental palace," he said, andtook a deep breath of the warm, flower-scented air. "'In fragrantvolleys they let fly...' How does it go? "'Well shot, ye firemen! Oh how sweetAnd round your equal fires do meet;Whose shrill report no ear can tell,But echoes to the eye and smell...'" "You have a bad habit of quoting," said Anne. "As I never knowthe context or author, I find it humiliating." Denis apologized. "It's the fault of one's education. Thingssomehow seem more real and vivid when one can apply somebody else'sready-made phrase about them. And then there are lots of lovelynames and words--Monophysite, Iamblichus, Pomponazzi; you bringthem out triumphantly, and feel you've clinched the argument withthe mere magical sound of them. That's what comes of the highereducation." "You may regret your education," said Anne; "I'm ashamed of mylack of it. Look at those sunflowers! Aren't they magnificent?" "Dark faces and golden crowns--they're kings of Ethiopia. And Ilike the way the tits cling to the flowers and pick out the seeds,while the other loutish birds, grubbing dirtily for their food,look up in envy from the ground. Do they look up in envy? That'sthe literary touch, I'm afraid. Education again. It always comesback to that." He was silent. Anne had sat down on a bench that stood in the shade of an oldapple tree. "I'm listening," she said. He did not sit down, but walked backwards and forwards in frontof the bench, gesticulating a little as he talked. "Books," hesaid--"books. One reads so many, and one sees so few people and solittle of the world. Great thick books about the universe and themind and ethics. You've no idea how many there are. I must haveread twenty or thirty tons of them in the last five years. Twentytons of ratiocination. Weighted with that, one's pushed out intothe world." He went on walking up and down. His voice rose, fell, was silenta moment, and then talked on. He moved his hands, sometimes hewaved his arms. Anne looked and listened quietly, as though shewere at a lecture. He was a nice boy, and to-day he lookedcharming--charming! One entered the world, Denis pursued, having ready-made ideasabout everything. One had a philosophy and tried to make life fitinto it. One should have lived first and then made one's philosophyto fit life...Life, facts, things were horribly complicated; ideas,even the most difficult of them, deceptively simple. In the worldof ideas everything was clear; in life all was obscure, embroiled.Was it surprising that one was miserable, horribly unhappy? Deniscame to a halt in front of the bench, and as he asked this lastquestion he stretched out his arms and stood for an instant in anattitude of crucifixion, then let them fall again to his sides. "My poor Denis!" Anne was touched. He was really too pathetic ashe stood there in front of her in his white flannel trousers. "Butdoes one suffer about these things? It seems veryextraordinary." "You're like Scogan," cried Denis bitterly. "You regard me as aspecimen for an anthropologist. Well, I suppose I am." "No, no," she protested, and drew in her skirt with a gesturethat indicated that he was to sit down beside her. He sat down."Why can't you just take things for granted and as they come?" sheasked. "It's so much simpler." "Of course it is," said Denis. "But it's a lesson to be learntgradually. There are the twenty tons of ratiocination to be got ridof first." "I've always taken things as they come," said Anne. "It seems soobvious. One enjoys the pleasant things, avoids the nasty ones.There's nothing more to be said." "Nothing--for you. But, then, you were born a pagan; I am tryinglaboriously to make myself one. I can take nothing for granted, Ican enjoy nothing as it comes along. Beauty, pleasure, art,women--I have to invent an excuse, a justification for everythingthat's delightful. Otherwise I can't enjoy it with an easyconscience. I make up a little story about beauty and pretend thatit has something to do with truth and goodness. I have to say thatart is the process by which one reconstructs the divine reality outof chaos. Pleasure is one of the mystical roads to union with theinfinite--the ecstasies of drinking, dancing, love-making. As forwomen, I am perpetually assuring myself that they're the broadhighway to divinity. And to think that I'm only just beginning tosee through the silliness of the whole thing! It's incredible to methat anyone should have escaped these horrors." "It's still more incredible to me," said Anne, "that anyoneshould have been a victim to them. I should like to see myselfbelieving that men are the highway to divinity." The amused maliceof her smile planted two little folds on either side of her mouth,and through their half-closed lids her eyes shone with laughter."What you need, Denis, is a nice plump young wife, a fixed income,and a little congenial but regular work." "What I need is you." That was what he ought to have retorted,that was what he wanted passionately to say. He could not say it.His desire fought against his shyness. "What I need is you."Mentally he shouted the words, but not a sound issued from hislips. He looked at her despairingly. Couldn't she see what wasgoing on inside him? Couldn't she understand? "What I need is you."He would say it, he would--he would. "I think I shall go and bathe," said Anne. "It's so hot." Theopportunity had passed. Chapter V. Mr. Wimbush had taken them to see the sights of the Home Farm,and now they were standing, all six of them--Henry Wimbush, Mr.Scogan, Denis, Gombauld, Anne, and Mary--by the low wall of thepiggery, looking into one of the styes. "This is a good sow," said Henry Wimbush. "She had a litter offourteen. "Fourteen?" Mary echoed incredulously. She turned astonishedblue eyes towards Mr. Wimbush, then let them fall onto the seethingmass of elan vital that fermented in the sty. An immense sow reposed on her side in the middle of the pen. Herround, black belly, fringed with a double line of dugs, presenteditself to the assault of an army of small, brownish-black swine.With a frantic greed they tugged at their mother's flank. The oldsow stirred sometimes uneasily or uttered a little grunt of pain.One small pig, the runt, the weakling of the litter, had beenunable to secure a place at the banquet. Squealing shrilly, he ranbackwards and forwards, trying to push in among his strongerbrothers or even to climb over their tight little black backstowards the maternal reservoir. "There are fourteen," said Mary. "You're quite right. Icounted. It's extraordinary." "The sow next door," Mr. Wimbush went on, "has done very badly.She only had five in her litter. I shall give her another chance.If she does no better next time, I shall fat her up and kill her.There's the boar," he pointed towards a farther sty. "Fine oldbeast, isn't he? But he's getting past his prime. He'll have to gotoo." "How cruel!" Anne exclaimed. "But how practical, how eminently realistic!" said Mr. Scogan."In this farm we have a model of sound paternal government. Makethem breed, make them work, and when they're past working orbreeding or begetting, slaughter them." "Farming seems to be mostly indecency and cruelty," saidAnne. With the ferrule of his walking-stick Denis began to scratch theboar's long bristly back. The animal moved a little so as to bringhimself within easier range of the instrument that evoked in himsuch delicious sensations; then he stood stock still, softlygrunting his contentment. The mud of years flaked off his sides ina grey powdery scurf. "What a pleasure it is," said Denis, "to do somebody a kindness.I believe I enjoy scratching this pig quite as much as he enjoysbeing scratched. If only one could always be kind with so littleexpense or trouble..." A gate slammed; there was a sound of heavy footsteps. "Morning, Rowley!" said Henry Wimbush. "Morning, sir," old Rowley answered. He was the most venerableof the labourers on the farm--a tall, solid man, still unbent, withgrey side-whiskers and a steep, dignified profile. Grave, weightyin his manner, splendidly respectable, Rowley had the air of agreat English statesman of the mid-nineteenth century. He halted onthe outskirts of the group, and for a moment they all looked at thepigs in a silence that was only broken by the sound of grunting orthe squelch of a sharp hoof in the mire. Rowley turned at last,slowly and ponderously and nobly, as he did everything, andaddressed himself to Henry Wimbush. "Look at them, sir," he said, with a motion of his hand towardsthe wallowing swine. "Rightly is they called pigs." "Rightly indeed," Mr. Wimbush agreed. "I am abashed by that man," said Mr. Scogan, as old Rowleyplodded off slowly and with dignity. "What wisdom, what judgment,what a sense of values! 'Rightly are they called swine.' Yes. And Iwish I could, with as much justice, say, 'Rightly are we calledmen.'" They walked on towards the cowsheds and the stables of the cart-horses. Five white geese, taking the air this fine morning, even asthey were doing, met them in the way. They hesitated, cackled;then, converting their lifted necks into rigid, horizontal snakes,they rushed off in disorder, hissing horribly as they went. Redcalves paddled in the dung and mud of a spacious yard. In anotherenclosure stood the bull, massive as a locomotive. He was a verycalm bull, and his face wore an expression of melancholy stupidity.He gazed with reddish-brown eyes at his visitors, chewedthoughtfully at the tangible memories of an earlier meal, swallowedand regurgitated, chewed again. His tail lashed savagely from sideto side; it seemed to have nothing to do with his impassive bulk.Between his short horns was a triangle of red curls, short anddense. "Splendid animal," said Henry Wimbush. "Pedigree stock. But he'sgetting a little old, like the boar." "Fat him up and slaughter him," Mr. Scogan pronounced, with adelicate old-maidish precision of utterance. "Couldn't you give the animals a little holiday from producingchildren?" asked Anne. "I'm so sorry for the poor things." Mr. Wimbush shook his head. "Personally," he said, "I ratherlike seeing fourteen pigs grow where only one grew before. Thespectacle of so much crude life is refreshing." "I'm glad to hear you say so," Gombauld broke in warmly. "Lotsof life: that's what we want. I like pullulation; everything oughtto increase and multiply as hard as it can." Gombauld grew lyrical. Everybody ought to have children--Anneought to have them, Mary ought to have them--dozens and dozens. Heemphasised his point by thumping with his walkingstick on thebull's leather flanks. Mr. Scogan ought to pass on his intelligenceto little Scogans, and Denis to little Denises. The bull turned hishead to see what was happening, regarded the drumming stick forseveral seconds, then turned back again satisfied, it seemed, thatnothing was happening. Sterility was odious, unnatural, a sinagainst life. Life, life, and still more life. The ribs of theplacid bull resounded. Standing with his back against the farmyard pump, a littleapart, Denis examined the group. Gombauld, passionate andvivacious, was its centre. The others stood round, listening-HenryWimbush, calm and polite beneath his grey bowler; Mary, with partedlips and eyes that shone with the indignation of a convincedbirth-controller. Anne looked on through half-shut eyes, smiling;and beside her stood Mr. Scogan, bolt upright in an attitude ofmetallic rigidity that contrasted strangely with that fluid graceof hers which even in stillness suggested a soft movement. Gombauld ceased talking, and Mary, flushed and outraged, openedher mouth to refute him. But she was too slow. Before she couldutter a word Mr. Scogan's fluty voice had pronounced the openingphrases of a discourse. There was no hope of getting so much as aword in edgeways; Mary had perforce to resign herself. "Even your eloquence, my dear Gombauld," he was saying--"evenyour eloquence must prove inadequate to reconvert the world to abelief in the delights of mere multiplication. With the gramophone,the cinema, and the automatic pistol, the goddess of AppliedScience has presented the world with another gift, more preciouseven than these--the means of dissociating love from propagation.Eros, for those who wish it, is now an entirely free god; hisdeplorable associations with Lucina may be broken at will. In thecourse of the next few centuries, who knows? the world may see amore complete severance. I look forward to it optimistically. Wherethe great Erasmus Darwin and Miss Anna Seward, Swan of Lichfield,experimented--and, for all their scientific ardour, failed--ourdescendants will experiment and succeed. An impersonal generationwill take the place of Nature's hideous system. In vast stateincubators, rows upon rows of gravid bottles will supply the worldwith the population it requires. The family system will disappear;society, sapped at its very base, will have to find newfoundations; and Eros, beautifully and irresponsibly free, willflit like a gay butterfly from flower to flower through a sunlitworld." "It sounds lovely," said Anne. "The distant future always does." Mary's china blue eyes, more serious and more astonished thanever, were fixed on Mr. Scogan. "Bottles?" she said. "Do you reallythink so? Bottles..." Chapter VI. Mr. Barbecue-Smith arrived in time for tea on Saturdayafternoon. He was a short and corpulent man, with a very large headand no neck. In his earlier middle age he had been distressed bythis absence of neck, but was comforted by reading in Balzac's"Louis Lambert" that all the world's great men have been marked bythe same peculiarity, and for a simple and obvious reason:Greatness is nothing more nor less than the harmonious functioningof the faculties of the head and heart; the shorter the neck, themore closely these two organs approach one another; argal...It wasconvincing. Mr. Barbecue-Smith belonged to the old school of journalists. Hesported a leonine head with a greyish-black mane of oddlyunappetising hair brushed back from a broad but low forehead. Andsomehow he always seemed slightly, ever so slightly, soiled. Inyounger days he had gaily called himself a Bohemian. He did so nolonger. He was a teacher now, a kind of prophet. Some of his booksof comfort and spiritual teaching were in their hundred andtwentieth thousand. Priscilla received him with every mark of esteem. He had neverbeen to Crome before; she showed him round the house. Mr.Barbecue-Smith was full of admiration. "So quaint, so old-world," he kept repeating. He had a rich,rather unctuous voice. Priscilla praised his latest book. "Splendid, I thought it was,"she said in her large, jolly way. "I'm happy to think you found it a comfort," said Mr. Barbecue-Smith. "Oh, tremendously! And the bit about the Lotus Pool--I thoughtthat so beautiful." "I knew you would like that. It came to me, you know, fromwithout." He waved his hand to indicate the astral world. They went out into the garden for tea. Mr. Barbecue-Smith wasduly introduced. "Mr. Stone is a writer too," said Priscilla, as she introducedDenis. "Indeed!" Mr. Barbecue-Smith smiled benignly, and, looking up atDenis with an expression of Olympian condescension, "And what sortof things do you write?" Denis was furious, and, to make matters worse, he felt himselfblushing hotly. Had Priscilla no sense of proportion? She wasputting them in the same category--Barbecue-Smith and himself. Theywere both writers, they both used pen and ink. To Mr.Barbecue-Smith's question he answered, "Oh, nothing much, nothing,"and looked away. "Mr. Stone is one of our younger poets." It was Anne's voice. Hescowled at her, and she smiled back exasperatingly. "Excellent, excellent," said Mr. Barbecue-Smith, and he squeezedDenis's arm encouragingly. "The Bard's is a noble calling." As soon as tea was over Mr. Barbecue-Smith excused himself; hehad to do some writing before dinner. Priscilla quite understood.The prophet retired to his chamber. Mr. Barbecue-Smith came down to the drawing-room at ten toeight. He was in a good humour, and, as he descended the stairs, hesmiled to himself and rubbed his large white hands together. In thedrawing-room someone was playing softly and ramblingly on thepiano. He wondered who it could be. One of the young ladies,perhaps. But no, it was only Denis, who got up hurriedly and withsome embarrassment as he came into the room. "Do go on, do go on," said Mr. Barbecue-Smith. "I am very fondof music." "Then I couldn't possibly go on," Denis replied. "I only makenoises." There was a silence. Mr. Barbecue-Smith stood with his back tothe hearth, warming himself at the memory of last winter's fires.He could not control his interior satisfaction, but still went onsmiling to himself. At last he turned to Denis. "You write," he asked, "don't you?" "Well, yes--a little, you know." "How many words do you find you can write in an hour?" "I don't think I've ever counted." "Oh, you ought to, you ought to. It's most important." Denis exercised his memory. "When I'm in good form," he said, "Ifancy I do a twelve-hundredword review in about four hours. Butsometimes it takes me much longer." Mr. Barbecue-Smith nodded. "Yes, three hundred words an hour atyour best." He walked out into the middle of the room, turned roundon his heels, and confronted Denis again. "Guess how many words Iwrote this evening between five and half-past seven." "I can't imagine." "No, but you must guess. Between five and half-past seven--that's two and a half hours." "Twelve hundred words," Denis hazarded. "No, no, no." Mr. Barbecue-Smith's expanded face shone withgaiety. "Try again." "Fifteen hundred." "No." "I give it up," said Denis. He found he couldn't summon up muchinterest in Mr. BarbecueSmith's writing. "Well, I'll tell you. Three thousand eight hundred." Denis opened his eyes. "You must get a lot done in a day," hesaid. Mr. Barbecue-Smith suddenly became extremely confidential. Hepulled up a stool to the side of Denis's arm-chair, sat down in it,and began to talk softly and rapidly. "Listen to me," he said, laying his hand on Denis's sleeve. "Youwant to make your living by writing; you're young, you'reinexperienced. Let me give you a little sound advice." What was the fellow going to do? Denis wondered: give him anintroduction to the editor of "John o' London's Weekly", or tellhim where he could sell a light middle for seven guineas? Mr.Barbecue-Smith patted his arm several times and went on. "The secret of writing," he said, breathing it into the youngman's ear--"the secret of writing is Inspiration." Denis looked at him in astonishment. "Inspiration..." Mr. Barbecue-Smith repeated. "You mean the native wood-note business?" Mr. Barbecue-Smith nodded. "Oh, then I entirely agree with you," said Denis. "But what ifone hasn't got Inspiration?" "That was precisely the question I was waiting for," said Mr.Barbecue-Smith. "You ask me what one should do if one hasn't gotInspiration. I answer: you have Inspiration; everyone hasInspiration. It's simply a question of getting it to function." The clock struck eight. There was no sign of any of the otherguests; everybody was always late at Crome. Mr. Barbecue-Smith wenton. "That's my secret," he said. "I give it you freely." (Denis madea suitably grateful murmur and grimace.) "I'll help you to findyour Inspiration, because I don't like to see a nice, steady youngman like you exhausting his vitality and wasting the best years ofhis life in a grinding intellectual labour that could be completelyobviated by Inspiration. I did it myself, so I know what it's like.Up till the time I was thirty-eight I was a writer like you--awriter without Inspiration. All I wrote I squeezed out of myself bysheer hard work. Why, in those days I was never able to do morethan six-fifty words an hour, and what's more, I often didn't sellwhat I wrote." He sighed. "We artists," he said parenthetically,"we intellectuals aren't much appreciated here in England." Deniswondered if there was any method, consistent, of course, withpoliteness, by which he could dissociate himself from Mr.Barbecue-Smith's "we." There was none; and besides, it was too latenow, for Mr. Barbecue-Smith was once more pursuing the tenor of hisdiscourse. "At thirty-eight I was a poor, struggling, tired, overworked,unknown journalist. Now, at fifty..." He paused modestly and made alittle gesture, moving his fat hands outwards, away from oneanother, and expanding his fingers as though in demonstration. Hewas exhibiting himself. Denis thought of that advertisement ofNestle's milk--the two cats on the wall, under the moon, one blackand thin, the other white, sleek, and fat. Before Inspiration andafter. "Inspiration has made the difference," said Mr. Barbecue-Smithsolemnly. "It came quite suddenly--like a gentle dew from heaven."He lifted his hand and let it fall back on to his knee to indicatethe descent of the dew. "It was one evening. I was writing my firstlittle book about the Conduct of Life--'Humble Heroisms'. You mayhave read it; it has been a comfort--at least I hope and thinkso--a comfort to many thousands. I was in the middle of the secondchapter, and I was stuck. Fatigue, overwork--I had only written ahundred words in the last hour, and I could get no further. I satbiting the end of my pen and looking at the electric light, whichhung above my table, a little above and in front of me." Heindicated the position of the lamp with elaborate care. "Have youever looked at a bright light intently for a long time?" he asked,turning to Denis. Denis didn't think he had. "You can hypnotiseyourself that way," Mr. Barbecue-Smith went on. The gong sounded in a terrific crescendo from the hall. Still nosign of the others. Denis was horribly hungry. "That's what happened to me," said Mr. Barbecue-Smith. "I washypnotised. I lost consciousness like that." He snapped hisfingers. "When I came to, I found that it was past midnight, and Ihad written four thousand words. Four thousand," he repeated,opening his mouth very wide on the "ou" of thousand. "Inspirationhad come to me." "What a very extraordinary thing," said Denis. "I was afraid of it at first. It didn't seem to me natural. Ididn't feel, somehow, that it was quite right, quite fair, I mightalmost say, to produce a literary composition unconsciously.Besides, I was afraid I might have written nonsense." "And had you written nonsense?" Denis asked. "Certainly not," Mr. Barbecue-Smith replied, with a trace ofannoyance. "Certainly not. It was admirable. Just a few spellingmistakes and slips, such as there generally are in automaticwriting. But the style, the thought--all the essentials wereadmirable. After that, Inspiration came to me regularly. I wrotethe whole of 'Humble Heroisms' like that. It was a great success,and so has everything been that I have written since." He leanedforward and jabbed at Denis with his finger. "That's my secret," hesaid, "and that's how you could write too, if you tried--withouteffort, fluently, well." "But how?" asked Denis, trying not to show how deeply he hadbeen insulted by that final "well." "By cultivating your Inspiration, by getting into touch withyour Subconscious. Have you ever read my little book, 'Pipe-Linesto the Infinite'?" Denis had to confess that that was, precisely, one of the few,perhaps the only one, of Mr. Barbecue-Smith's works he had notread. "Never mind, never mind," said Mr. Barbecue-Smith. "It's just alittle book about the connection of the Subconscious with theInfinite. Get into touch with the Subconscious and you are in touchwith the Universe. Inspiration, in fact. You follow me?" "Perfectly, perfectly," said Denis. "But don't you find that theUniverse sometimes sends you very irrelevant messages?" "I don't allow it to," Mr. Barbecue-Smith replied. "I canaliseit. I bring it down through pipes to work the turbines of myconscious mind." "Like Niagara," Denis suggested. Some of Mr. Barbecue-Smith'sremarks sounded strangely like quotations--quotations from his ownworks, no doubt. "Precisely. Like Niagara. And this is how I do it." He leanedforward, and with a raised forefinger marked his points as he madethem, beating time, as it were, to his discourse. "Before I go offinto my trance, I concentrate on the subject I wish to be inspiredabout. Let us say I am writing about the humble heroisms; for tenminutes before I go into the trance I think of nothing but orphanssupporting their little brothers and sisters, of dull work well andpatiently done, and I focus my mind on such great philosophicaltruths as the purification and uplifting of the soul by suffering,and the alchemical transformation of leaden evil into golden good."(Denis again hung up his little festoon of quotation marks.) "ThenI pop off. Two or three hours later I wake up again, and find thatinspiration has done its work. Thousands of words, comforting,uplifting words, lie before me. I type them out neatly on mymachine and they are ready for the printer." "It all sounds wonderfully simple," said Denis. "It is. All the great and splendid and divine things of life arewonderfully simple." (Quotation marks again.) "When I have to do myaphorisms," Mr. Barbecue-Smith continued, "I prelude my trance byturning over the pages of any Dictionary of Quotations orShakespeare Calendar that comes to hand. That sets the key, so tospeak; that ensures that the Universe shall come flowing in, not ina continuous rush, but in aphorismic drops. You see the idea?" Denis nodded. Mr. Barbecue-Smith put his hand in his pocket andpulled out a notebook. "I did a few in the train to-day," he said,turning over the pages. "Just dropped off into a trance in thecorner of my carriage. I find the train very conducive to goodwork. Here they are." He cleared his throat and read: "The Mountain Road may be steep, but the air is pure up there,and it is from the Summit that one gets the view." "The Things that Really Matter happen in the Heart." It was curious, Denis reflected, the way the Infinite sometimesrepeated itself. "Seeing is Believing. Yes, but Believing is also Seeing. If Ibelieve in God, I see God, even in the things that seem to beevil." Mr. Barbecue-Smith looked up from his notebook. "That last one,"he said, "is particularly subtle and beautiful, don't you think?Without Inspiration I could never have hit on that." He re-read theapophthegm with a slower and more solemn utterance. "Straight fromthe Infinite," he commented reflectively, then addressed himself tothe next aphorism. "The flame of a candle gives Light, but it also Burns." Puzzled wrinkles appeared on Mr. Barbecue-Smith's forehead. "Idon't exactly know what that means," he said. "It's very gnomic.One could apply it, of course to the Higher Education-illuminating, but provoking the Lower Classes to discontent andrevolution. Yes, I suppose that's what it is. But it's gnomic, it'sgnomic." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. The gong sounded again,clamorously, it seemed imploringly: dinner was growing cold. Itroused Mr. BarbecueSmith from meditation. He turned to Denis. "You understand me now when I advise you to cultivate yourInspiration. Let your Subconscious work for you; turn on theNiagara of the Infinite." There was the sound of feet on the stairs. Mr. Barbecue-Smithgot up, laid his hand for an instant on Denis's shoulder, andsaid: "No more now. Another time. And remember, I rely absolutely onyour discretion in this matter. There are intimate, sacred thingsthat one doesn't wish to be generally known." "Of course," said Denis. "I quite understand." Chapter VII. At Crome all the beds were ancient hereditary pieces offurniture. Huge beds, like four-masted ships, with furled sails ofshining coloured stuff. Beds carved and inlaid, beds painted andgilded. Beds of walnut and oak, of rare exotic woods. Beds of everydate and fashion from the time of Sir Ferdinando, who built thehouse, to the time of his namesake in the late eighteenth century,the last of the family, but all of them grandiose, magnificent. The finest of all was now Anne's bed. Sir Julius, son to SirFerdinando, had had it made in Venice against his wife's firstlying-in. Early seicento Venice had expended all its extravagantart in the making of it. The body of the bed was like a greatsquare sarcophagus. Clustering roses were carved in high relief onits wooden panels, and luscious putti wallowed among the roses. Onthe black ground-work of the panels the carved reliefs were gildedand burnished. The golden roses twined in spirals up the fourpillar-like posts, and cherubs, seated at the top of each column,supported a wooden canopy fretted with the same carved flowers. Anne was reading in bed. Two candles stood on the little tablebeside her, in their rich light her face, her bare arm and shouldertook on warm hues and a sort of peach-like quality of surface. Hereand there in the canopy above her carved golden petals shonebrightly among profound shadows, and the soft light, falling on thesculptured panel of the bed, broke restlessly among the intricateroses, lingered in a broad caress on the blown cheeks, the dimpledbellies, the tight, absurd little posteriors of the sprawlingputti. There was a discreet tap at the door. She looked up. "Come in,come in." A face, round and childish, within its sleek bell ofgolden hair, peered round the opening door. More childishlookingstill, a suit of mauve pyjamas made its entrance. It was Mary. "I thought I'd just look in for a moment to saygood-night," she said, and sat down on the edge of the bed. Anne closed her book. "That was very sweet of you." "What are you reading?" She looked at the book. "Rather second-rate, isn't it?" The tone in which Mary pronounced the word"second-rate" implied an almost infinite denigration. She wasaccustomed in London to associate only with first-rate people wholiked first-rate things, and she knew that there were very, veryfew first-rate things in the world, and that those were mostlyFrench. "Well, I'm afraid I like it," said Anne. There was nothing moreto be said. The silence that followed was a rather uncomfortableone. Mary fiddled uneasily with the bottom button of her pyjamajacket. Leaning back on her mound of heaped-up pillows, Anne waitedand wondered what was coming. "I'm so awfully afraid of repressions," said Mary at last,bursting suddenly and surprisingly into speech. She pronounced thewords on the tail-end of an expiring breath, and had to gasp fornew air almost before the phrase was finished. "What's there to be depressed about?" "I said repressions, not depressions." "Oh, repressions; I see," said Anne. "But repressions ofwhat?" Mary had to explain. "The natural instincts of sex..." she begandidactically. But Anne cut her short. "Yes, yes. Perfectly. I understand. Repressions! old maids andall the rest. But what about them?" "That's just it," said Mary. "I'm afraid of them. It's alwaysdangerous to repress one's instincts. I'm beginning to detect inmyself symptoms like the ones you read of in the books. Iconstantly dream that I'm falling down wells; and sometimes I evendream that I'm climbing up ladders. It's most disquieting. Thesymptoms are only too clear." "Are they?" "One may become a nymphomaniac of one's not careful. You've noidea how serious these repressions are if you don't get rid of themin time." "It sounds too awful," said Anne. "But I don't see that I can doanything to help you." "I thought I'd just like to talk it over with you." "Why, of course; I'm only too happy, Mary darling." Mary coughed and drew a deep breath. "I presume," she begansententiously, "I presume we may take for granted that anintelligent young woman of twenty-three who has lived in civilisedsociety in the twentieth century has no prejudices." "Well, I confess I still have a few." "But not about repressions." "No, not many about repressions; that's true." "Or, rather, about getting rid of repressions." "Exactly." "So much for our fundamental postulate," said Mary. Solemnitywas expressed in every feature of her round young face, radiatedfrom her large blue eyes. "We come next to the desirability ofpossessing experience. I hope we are agreed that knowledge isdesirable and that ignorance is undesirable." Obedient as one of those complaisant disciples from whomSocrates could get whatever answer he chose, Anne gave her assentto this proposition. "And we are equally agreed, I hope, that marriage is what itis." "It is." "Good!" said Mary. "And repressions being what they are..." "Exactly." "There would therefore seem to be only one conclusion." "But I knew that," Anne exclaimed, "before you began." "Yes, but now it's been proved," said Mary. "One must do thingslogically. The question is now..." "But where does the question come in? You've reached your onlypossible conclusion--logically, which is more than I could havedone. All that remains is to impart the information to someone youlike--someone you like really rather a lot, someone you're in lovewith, if I may express myself so baldly." "But that's just where the question comes in," Mary exclaimed."I'm not in love with anybody." "Then, if I were you, I should wait till you are." "But I can't go on dreaming night after night that I'm fallingdown a well. It's too dangerous." "Well, if it really is too dangerous, then of course youmust do something about it; you must find somebody else." "But who?" A thoughtful frown puckered Mary's brow. "It must besomebody intelligent, somebody with intellectual interests that Ican share. And it must be somebody with a proper respect for women,somebody who's prepared to talk seriously about his work and hisideas and about my work and my ideas. It isn't, as you see, at alleasy to find the right person." "Well" said Anne, "there are three unattached and intelligentmen in the house at the present time. There's Mr. Scogan, to beginwith; but perhaps he's rather too much of a genuine antique. Andthere are Gombauld and Denis. Shall we say that the choice islimited to the last two?" Mary nodded. "I think we had better," she said, and thenhesitated, with a certain air of embarrassment. "What is it?" "I was wondering," said Mary, with a gasp, "whether they reallywere unattached. I thought that perhaps you might...youmight..." "It was very nice of you to think of me, Mary darling," saidAnne, smiling the tight cat's smile. "But as far as I'm concerned,they are both entirely unattached." "I'm very glad of that," said Mary, looking relieved. "We arenow confronted with the question: Which of the two?" "I can give no advice. It's a matter for your taste." "It's not a matter of my taste," Mary pronounced, "but of theirmerits. We must weigh them and consider them carefully anddispassionately." "You must do the weighing yourself," said Anne; there was stillthe trace of a smile at the corners of her mouth and round thehalf-closed eyes. "I won't run the risk of advising youwrongly." "Gombauld has more talent," Mary began, "but he is lesscivilised than Denis." Mary's pronunciation of "civilised" gave theword a special and additional significance. She uttered itmeticulously, in the very front of her mouth, hissing delicately onthe opening sibilant. So few people were civilised, and they, likethe first-rate works of art, were mostly French. "Civilisation ismost important, don't you think?" Anne held up her hand. "I won't advise," she said. "You mustmake the decision." "Gombauld's family," Mary went on reflectively, "comes fromMarseilles. Rather a dangerous heredity, when one thinks of theLatin attitude towards women. But then, I sometimes wonder whetherDenis is altogether serious-minded, whether he isn't rather adilettante. It's very difficult. What do you think?" "I'm not listening," said Anne. "I refuse to take anyresponsibility." Mary sighed. "Well," she said, "I think I had better go to bedand think about it." "Carefully and dispassionately," said Anne. At the door Mary turned round. "Good-night," she said, andwondered as she said the words why Anne was smiling in that curiousway. It was probably nothing, she reflected. Anne often smiled forno apparent reason; it was probably just a habit. "I hope I shan'tdream of falling down wells again to-night," she added. "Ladders are worse," said Anne. Mary nodded. "Yes, ladders are much graver." Chapter VIII. Breakfast on Sunday morning was an hour later than on week-days,and Priscilla, who usually made no public appearance beforeluncheon, honoured it by her presence. Dressed in black silk, witha ruby cross as well as her customary string of pearls round herneck, she presided. An enormous Sunday paper concealed all but theextreme pinnacle of her coiffure from the outer world. "I see Surrey has won," she said, with her mouth full, "by fourwickets. The sun is in Leo: that would account for it!" "Splendid game, cricket," remarked Mr. Barbecue-Smith heartilyto no one in particular; "so thoroughly English." Jenny, who was sitting next to him, woke up suddenly with astart. "What?" she said. "What?" "So English," repeated Mr. Barbecue-Smith. Jenny looked at him, surprised. "English? Of course I am." He was beginning to explain, when Mrs. Wimbush vailed her Sundaypaper, and appeared, a square, mauve-powdered face in the midst oforange splendours. "I see there's a new series of articles on thenext world just beginning," she said to Mr. Barbecue-Smith. "Thisone's called 'Summer Land and Gehenna.'" "Summer Land," echoed Mr. Barbecue-Smith, closing his eyes."Summer Land. A beautiful name. Beautiful--beautiful." Mary had taken the seat next to Denis's. After a night ofcareful consideration she had decided on Denis. He might have lesstalent than Gombauld, he might be a little lacking in seriousness,but somehow he was safer. "Are you writing much poetry here in the country?" she asked,with a bright gravity. "None," said Denis curtly. "I haven't brought mytypewriter." "But do you mean to say you can't write without atypewriter?" Denis shook his head. He hated talking at breakfast, and,besides, he wanted to hear what Mr. Scogan was saying at the otherend of the table. "...My scheme for dealing with the Church," Mr. Scogan wassaying, "is beautifully simple. At the present time the Anglicanclergy wear their collars the wrong way round. I would compel themto wear, not only their collars, but all their clothes, turned backto frantic--coat, waistcoat, trousers, boots--so that everyclergyman should present to the world a smooth facade, unbroken bystud, button, or lace. The enforcement of such a livery would actas a wholesome deterrent to those intending to enter the Church. Atthe same time it would enormously enhance, what Archbishop Laud sorightly insisted on, the 'beauty of holiness' in the fewincorrigibles who could not be deterred." "In hell, it seems," said Priscilla, reading in her Sundaypaper, "the children amuse themselves by flaying lambs alive." "Ah, but, dear lady, that's only a symbol," exclaimed Mr.Barbecue-Smith, "a material symbol of a h-piritual truth. Lambssignify..." "Then there are military uniforms," Mr. Scogan went on. "Whenscarlet and pipe-clay were abandoned for khaki, there were some whotrembled for the future of war. But then, finding how elegant thenew tunic was, how closely it clipped the waist, how voluptuously,with the lateral bustles of the pockets, it exaggerated the hips;when they realized the brilliant potentialities of breeches andtop-boots, they were reassured. Abolish these military elegances,standardise a uniform of sack- cloth and mackintosh, you will verysoon find that..." "Is anyone coming to church with me this morning?" asked HenryWimbush. No one responded. He baited his bare invitation. "I readthe lessons, you know. And there's Mr. Bodiham. His sermons aresometimes worth hearing." "Thank you, thank you," said Mr. Barbecue-Smith. "I for oneprefer to worship in the infinite church of Nature. How does ourShakespeare put it? 'Sermons in books, stones in the runningbrooks.'" He waved his arm in a fine gesture towards the window,and even as he did so he became vaguely, but none the lessinsistently, none the less uncomfortably aware that something hadgone wrong with the quotation. Something--what could it be?Sermons? Stones? Books? Chapter IX. Mr. Bodiham was sitting in his study at the Rectory. Thenineteenth-century Gothic windows, narrow and pointed, admitted thelight grudgingly; in spite of the brilliant July weather, the roomwas sombre. Brown varnished bookshelves lined the walls, filledwith row upon row of those thick, heavy theological works which thesecond-hand booksellers generally sell by weight. The mantelpiece,the over-mantel, a towering structure of spindly pillars and littleshelves, were brown and varnished. The writing-desk was brown andvarnished. So were the chairs, so was the door. A dark red-browncarpet with patterns covered the floor. Everything was brown in theroom, and there was a curious brownish smell. In the midst of this brown gloom Mr. Bodiham sat at his desk. Hewas the man in the Iron Mask. A grey metallic face with ironcheek-bones and a narrow iron brow; iron folds, hard andunchanging, ran perpendicularly down his cheeks; his nose was theiron beak of some thin, delicate bird of rapine. He had brown eyes,set in sockets rimmed with iron; round them the skin was dark, asthough it had been charred. Dense wiry hair covered his skull; ithad been black, it was turning grey. His ears were very small andfine. His jaws, his chin, his upper lip were dark, iron-dark, wherehe had shaved. His voice, when he spoke and especially when heraised it in preaching, was harsh, like the grating of iron hingeswhen a seldom-used door is opened. It was nearly half-past twelve. He had just come back fromchurch, hoarse and weary with preaching. He preached with fury,with passion, an iron man beating with a flail upon the souls ofhis congregation. But the souls of the faithful at Crome were madeof india-rubber, solid rubber; the flail rebounded. They were usedto Mr. Bodiham at Crome. The flail thumped on india- rubber, and asoften as not the rubber slept. That morning he had preached, as he had often preached before,on the nature of God. He had tried to make them understand aboutGod, what a fearful thing it was to fall into His hands. God-theythought of something soft and merciful. They blinded themselves tofacts; still more, they blinded themselves to the Bible. Thepassengers on the "Titanic" sang "Nearer my God to Thee" as theship was going down. Did they realise what they were asking to bebrought nearer to? A white fire of righteousness, an angryfire... When Savonarola preached, men sobbed and groaned aloud. Nothingbroke the polite silence with which Crome listened to Mr.Bodiham--only an occasional cough and sometimes the sound of heavybreathing. In the front pew sat Henry Wimbush, calm, well- bred,beautifully dressed. There were times when Mr. Bodiham wanted tojump down from the pulpit and shake him into life,-- times when hewould have liked to beat and kill his whole congregation. He sat at his desk dejectedly. Outside the Gothic windows theearth was warm and marvellously calm. Everything was as it hadalways been. And yet, and yet...It was nearly four years now sincehe had preached that sermon on Matthew xxiv. 7: "For nation shallrise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and thereshall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in diversplaces." It was nearly four years. He had had the sermon printed;it was so terribly, so vitally important that all the world shouldknow what he had to say. A copy of the little pamphlet lay on hisdesk--eight small grey pages, printed by a fount of type that hadgrown blunt, like an old dog's teeth, by the endless champing andchamping of the press. He opened it and began to read it yet onceagain. "'For nation shall rise up against nation, and kingdom againstkingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, andearthquakes, in divers places.' "Nineteen centuries have elapsed since Our Lord gave utteranceto those words, and not a single one of them has been without wars,plagues, famines, and earthquakes. Mighty empires have crashed inruin to the ground, diseases have unpeopled half the globe, therehave been vast natural cataclysms in which thousands have beenoverwhelmed by flood and fire and whirlwind. Time and again, in thecourse of these nineteen centuries, such things have happened, butthey have not brought Christ back to earth. They were 'signs of thetimes' inasmuch as they were signs of God's wrath against thechronic wickedness of mankind, but they were not signs of the timesin connection with the Second Coming. "If earnest Christians have regarded the present war as a truesign of the Lord's approaching return, it is not merely because ithappens to be a great war involving the lives of millions ofpeople, not merely because famine is tightening its grip on everycountry in Europe, not merely because disease of every kind, fromsyphilis to spotted fever, is rife among the warring nations; no,it is not for these reasons that we regard this war as a true Signof the Times, but because in its origin and its progress it ismarked by certain characteristics which seem to connect it almostbeyond a doubt with the predictions in Christian Prophecy relatingto the Second Coming of the Lord. "Let me enumerate the features of the present war which mostclearly suggest that it is a Sign foretelling the near approach ofthe Second Advent. Our Lord said that 'this Gospel of the Kingdomshall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations;and then shall the end come.' Although it would be presumptuous forus to say what degree of evangelisation will be regarded by God assufficient, we may at least confidently hope that a century ofunflagging missionary work has brought the fulfilment of thiscondition at any rate near. True, the larger number of the world'sinhabitants have remained deaf to the preaching of the truereligion; but that does not vitiate the fact that the Gospelhas been preached 'for a witness' to all unbelievers fromthe Papist to the Zulu. The responsibility for the continuedprevalence of unbelief lies, not with the preachers, but with thosepreached to. "Again, it has been generally recognised that 'the drying up ofthe waters of the great river Euphrates,' mentioned in thesixteenth chapter of Revelation, refers to the decay and extinctionof Turkish power, and is a sign of the near approaching end of theworld as we know it. The capture of Jerusalem and the successes inMesopotamia are great strides forward in the destruction of theOttoman Empire; though it must be admitted that the Gallipoliepisode proved that the Turk still possesses a 'notable horn' ofstrength. Historically speaking, this drying up of Ottoman powerhas been going on for the past century; the last two years havewitnessed a great acceleration of the process, and there can be nodoubt that complete desiccation is within sight. "Closely following on the words concerning the drying up ofEuphrates comes the prophecy of Armageddon, that world war withwhich the Second Coming is to be so closely associated. Once begun,the world war can end only with the return of Christ, and Hiscoming will be sudden and unexpected, like that of a thief in thenight. "Let us examine the facts. In history, exactly as in St. John'sGospel, the world war is immediately preceded by the drying up ofEuphrates, or the decay of Turkish power. This fact alone would beenough to connect the present conflict with the Armageddon ofRevelation and therefore to point to the near approach of theSecond Advent. But further evidence of an even more solid andconvincing nature can be adduced. "Armageddon is brought about by the activities of three uncleanspirits, as it were toads, which come out of the mouths of theDragon, the Beast, and the False Prophet. If we can identify thesethree powers of evil much light will clearly be thrown on the wholequestion. "The Dragon, the Beast, and the False Prophet can all beidentified in history. Satan, who can only work through humanagency, has used these three powers in the long war against Christwhich has filled the last nineteen centuries with religious strife.The Dragon, it has been sufficiently established, is pagan Rome,and the spirit issuing from its mouth is the spirit of Infidelity.The Beast, alternatively symbolised as a Woman, is undoubtedly thePapal power, and Popery is the spirit which it spews forth. Thereis only one power which answers to the description of the FalseProphet, the wolf in sheep's clothing, the agent of the devilworking in the guise of the Lamb, and that power is the so-called'Society of Jesus.' The spirit that issues from the mouth of theFalse Prophet is the spirit of False Morality. "We may assume, then, that the three evil spirits areInfidelity, Popery, and False Morality. Have these three influencesbeen the real cause of the present conflict? The answer isclear. "The spirit of Infidelity is the very spirit of Germancriticism. The Higher Criticism, as it is mockingly called, deniesthe possibility of miracles, prediction, and real inspiration, andattempts to account for the Bible as a natural development. Slowlybut surely, during the last eighty years, the spirit of Infidelityhas been robbing the Germans of their Bible and their faith, sothat Germany is to-day a nation of unbelievers. Higher Criticismhas thus made the war possible; for it would be absolutelyimpossible for any Christian nation to wage war as Germany iswaging it. "We come next to the spirit of Popery, whose influence incausing the war was quite as great as that of Infidelity, thoughnot, perhaps, so immediately obvious. Since the Franco-Prussian Warthe Papal power has steadily declined in France, while in Germanyit has steadily increased. To-day France is an anti-papal state,while Germany possesses a powerful Roman Catholic minority. Twopapally controlled states, Germany and Austria, are at war with sixanti-papal states-England, France, Italy, Russia, Serbia, andPortugal. Belgium is, of course, a thoroughly papal state, andthere can be little doubt that the presence on the Allies' side ofan element so essentially hostile has done much to hamper therighteous cause and is responsible for our comparative illsuccess. That the spirit of Popery is behind the war is thus seenclearly enough in the grouping of the opposed powers, while therebellion in the Roman Catholic parts of Ireland has merelyconfirmed a conclusion already obvious to any unbiased mind. "The spirit of False Morality has played as great a part in thiswar as the two other evil spirits. The Scrap of Paper incident isthe nearest and most obvious example of Germany's adherence to thisessentially unchristian or Jesuitical morality. The end is Germanworld-power, and in the attainment of this end, any means arejustifiable. It is the true principle of Jesuitry applied tointernational politics. "The identification is now complete. As was predicted inRevelation, the three evil spirits have gone forth just as thedecay of the Ottoman power was nearing completion, and have joinedtogether to make the world war. The warning, 'Behold, I come as athief,' is therefore meant for the present period--for you and meand all the world. This war will lead on inevitably to the war ofArmageddon, and will only be brought to an end by the Lord'spersonal return. "And when He returns, what will happen? Those who are in Christ,St. John tells us, will be called to the Supper of the Lamb. Thosewho are found fighting against Him will be called to the Supper ofthe Great God--that grim banquet where they shall not feast, but befeasted on. 'For,' as St. John says, 'I saw an angel standing inthe sun; and he cried in a loud voice, saying to all the fowls thatfly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves togetherunto the supper of the Great God; that ye may eat the flesh ofkings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, andthe flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh ofall men, both free and bond, both small and great.' All the enemiesof Christ will be slain with the sword of him that sits upon thehorse, 'and all the fowls will be filled with their flesh.' That isthe Supper of the Great God. "It may be soon or it may, as men reckon time, be long; butsooner or later, inevitably, the Lord will come and deliver theworld from its present troubles. And woe unto them who are called,not to the Supper of the Lamb, but to the Supper of the Great God.They will realise then, but too late, that God is a God of Wrath aswell as a God of Forgiveness. The God who sent bears to devour themockers of Elisha, the God who smote the Egyptians for theirstubborn wickedness, will assuredly smite them too, unless theymake haste to repent. But perhaps it is already too late. Who knowsbut that to-morrow, in a moment even, Christ may be upon usunawares, like a thief? In a little while, who knows? The angelstanding in the sun may be summoning the ravens and vultures fromtheir crannies in the rocks to feed upon the putrefying flesh ofthe millions of unrighteous whom God's wrath has destroyed. Beready, then; the coming of the Lord is at hand. May it be for allof you an object of hope, not a moment to look forward to withterror and trembling." Mr. Bodiham closed the little pamphlet and leaned back in hischair. The argument was sound, absolutely compelling; and yet-- itwas four years since he had preached that sermon; four years, andEngland was at peace, the sun shone, the people of Crome were aswicked and indifferent as ever--more so, indeed, if that werepossible. If only he could understand, if the heavens would butmake a sign! But his questionings remained unanswered. Seated therein his brown varnished chair under the Ruskinian window, he couldhave screamed aloud. He gripped the arms of his chair-- gripping,gripping for control. The knuckles of his hands whitened; he bithis lip. In a few seconds he was able to relax the tension; hebegan to rebuke himself for his rebellious impatience. Four years, he reflected; what were four years, after all? Itmust inevitably take a long time for Armageddon to ripen to yeastitself up. The episode of 1914 had been a preliminary skirmish. Andas for the war having come to an end--why, that, of course, wasillusory. It was still going on, smouldering away in Silesia, inIreland, in Anatolia; the discontent in Egypt and India waspreparing the way, perhaps, for a great extension of the slaughteramong the heathen peoples. The Chinese boycott of Japan, and therivalries of that country and America in the Pacific, might bebreeding a great new war in the East. The prospect, Mr. Bodihamtried to assure himself, was hopeful; the real, the genuineArmageddon might soon begin, and then, like a thief in thenight...But, in spite of all his comfortable reasoning, he remainedunhappy, dissatisfied. Four years ago he had been so confident;God's intention seemed then so plain. And now? Now, he did well tobe angry. And now he suffered too. Sudden and silent as a phantom Mrs. Bodiham appeared, glidingnoiselessly across the room. Above her black dress her face waspale with an opaque whiteness, her eyes were pale as water in aglass, and her strawy hair was almost colourless. She held a largeenvelope in her hand. "This came for you by the post," she said softly. The envelope was unsealed. Mechanically Mr. Bodiham tore itopen. It contained a pamphlet, larger than his own and more elegantin appearance. "The House of Sheeny, Clerical Outfitters,Birmingham." He turned over the pages. The catalogue was tastefullyand ecclesiastically printed in antique characters with illuminatedGothic initials. Red marginal lines, crossed at the corners afterthe manner of an Oxford picture frame, enclosed each page of type,little red crosses took the place of full stops. Mr. Bodiham turnedthe pages. "Soutane in best black merino. Ready to wear; in all sizes. Clerical frock coats. From nine guineas. A dressy garment,tailored by our own experienced ecclesiastical cutters." Half-tone illustrations represented young curates, some dapper,some Rugbeian and muscular, some with ascetic faces and largeecstatic eyes, dressed in jackets, in frock-coats, in surplices, inclerical evening dress, in black Norfolk suitings. "A large assortment of chasubles. Rope girdles. Sheeny's Special Skirt Cassocks. Tied by a string about thewaist...When worn under a surplice presents an appearanceindistinguishable from that of a complete cassock...Recommended forsummer wear and hot climates." With a gesture of horror and disgust Mr. Bodiham threw thecatalogue into the waste-paper basket. Mrs. Bodiham looked at him;her pale, glaucous eyes reflected his action without comment. "The village," she said in her quiet voice, "the village growsworse and worse every day." "What has happened now?" asked Mr. Bodiham, feeling suddenlyvery weary. "I'll tell you." She pulled up a brown varnished chair and satdown. In the village of Crome, it seemed, Sodom and Gomorrah hadcome to a second birth. Chapter X. Denis did not dance, but when ragtime came squirting out of thepianola in gushes of treacle and hot perfume, in jets of Bengallight, then things began to dance inside him. Little black niggercorpuscles jigged and drummed in his arteries. He became a cage ofmovement, a walking palais de danse. It was very uncomfortable,like the preliminary symptoms of a disease. He sat in one of thewindow-seats, glumly pretending to read. At the pianola, Henry Wimbush, smoking a long cigar through atunnelled pillar of amber, trod out the shattering dance music withserene patience. Locked together, Gombauld and Anne moved with aharmoniousness that made them seem a single creature, two- headedand fourlegged. Mr. Scogan, solemnly buffoonish, shuffled roundthe room with Mary. Jenny sat in the shadow behind the piano,scribbling, so it seemed, in a big red notebook. In arm-chairs bythe fireplace, Priscilla and Mr. Barbecue-Smith discussed higherthings, without, apparently, being disturbed by the noise on theLower Plane. "Optimism," said Mr. Barbecue-Smith with a tone of finality,speaking through strains of the "Wild, Wild Women"--"optimism isthe opening out of the soul towards the light; it is an expansiontowards and into God, it is a h-piritual self-unification with theInfinite." "How true!" sighed Priscilla, nodding the baleful splendours ofher coiffure. "Pessimism, on the other hand, is the contraction of the soultowards darkness; it is a focusing of the self upon a point in theLower Plane; it is a h-piritual slavery to mere facts; to grossphysical phenomena." "They're making a wild man of me." The refrain sang itself overin Denis's mind. Yes, they were; damn them! A wild man, but notwild enough; that was the trouble. Wild inside; raging,writhing-yes, "writhing" was the word, writhing with desire. Butoutwardly he was hopelessly tame; outwardly--baa, baa, baa. There they were, Anne and Gombauld, moving together as thoughthey were a single supple creature. The beast with two backs. Andhe sat in a corner, pretending to read, pretending he didn't wantto dance, pretending he rather despised dancing. Why? It was thebaa-baa business again. Why was he born with a different face? Why was he?Gombauld had a face of brass--one of those old, brazen rams thatthumped against the walls of cities till they fell. He was bornwith a different face--a woolly face. The music stopped. The single harmonious creature broke in two.Flushed, a little breathless, Anne swayed across the room to thepianola, laid her hand on Mr. Wimbush's shoulder. "A waltz this time, please, Uncle Henry," she said. "A waltz," he repeated, and turned to the cabinet where therolls were kept. He trod off the old roll and trod on the new, aslave at the mill, uncomplaining and beautifully well bred. "Rum;Tum; Rum-ti-ti; Tum-ti-ti..." The melody wallowed oozily along,like a ship moving forward over a sleek and oily swell. The four-legged creature, more graceful, more harmonious in its movementsthan ever, slid across the floor. Oh, why was he born with adifferent face? "What are you reading?" He looked up, startled. It was Mary. She had broken from theuncomfortable embrace of Mr. Scogan, who had now seized on Jennyfor his victim. "What are you reading?" "I don't know," said Denis truthfully. He looked at the titlepage; the book was called "The Stock Breeder's Vade Mecum." "I think you are so sensible to sit and read quietly," saidMary, fixing him with her china eyes. "I don't know why one dances.It's so boring." Denis made no reply; she exacerbated him. From the arm-chair bythe fireplace he heard Priscilla's deep voice. "Tell me, Mr Barbecue-Smith--you know all about science, Iknow--" A deprecating noise came from Mr. Barbecue-Smith's chair."This Einstein theory. It seems to upset the whole starry universe.It makes me so worried about my horoscopes. You see..." Mary renewed her attack. "Which of the contemporary poets do youlike best?" she asked. Denis was filled with fury. Why couldn'tthis pest of a girl leave him alone? He wanted to listen to thehorrible music, to watch them dancing--oh, with what grace, asthough they had been made for one another!--to savour his misery inpeace. And she came and put him through this absurd catechism! Shewas like "Mangold's Questions": "What are the three diseases ofwheat?"--"Which of the contemporary poets do you like best?" "Blight, Mildew, and Smut," he replied, with the laconism of onewho is absolutely certain of his own mind. It was several hours before Denis managed to go to sleep thatnight. Vague but agonising miseries possessed his mind. It was notonly Anne who made him miserable; he was wretched about himself,the future, life in general, the universe. "This adolescencebusiness," he repeated to himself every now and then, "is horriblyboring. But the fact that he knew his disease did not help him tocure it. After kicking all the clothes off the bed, he got up and soughtrelief in composition. He wanted to imprison his nameless misery inwords. At the end of an hour, nine more or less complete linesemerged from among the blots and scratchings. "I do not know what I desireWhen summer nights are dark and still,When the wind's manyvoiced quireSleeps among the muffled branches.I long and know not what I will:And not a sound of life or laughter stanchesTime's black and silent flow.I do not know what I desire,I do not know." He read it through aloud; then threw the scribbled sheet intothe waste-paper basket and got into bed again. In a very fewminutes he was asleep. Chapter XI. Mr. Barbecue-Smith was gone. The motor had whirled him away tothe station; a faint smell of burning oil commemorated his recentdeparture. A considerable detachment had come into the courtyard tospeed him on his way; and now they were walking back, round theside of the house, towards the terrace and the garden. They walkedin silence; nobody had yet ventured to comment on the departedguest. "Well?" said Anne at last, turning with raised inquiringeyebrows to Denis. "Well?" It was time for someone to begin. Denis declined the invitation; he passed it on to Mr Scogan."Well?" he said. Mr. Scogan did not respond; he only repeated the question,"Well?" It was left for Henry Wimbush to make a pronouncement. "A veryagreeable adjunct to the week end," he said. His tone wasobituary. They had descended, without paying much attention where theywere going, the steep yew-walk that went down, under the flank ofthe terrace, to the pool. The house towered above them, immenselytall, with the whole height of the built-up terrace added to itsown seventy feet of brick facade. The perpendicular lines of thethree towers soared up, uninterrupted, enhancing the impression ofheight until it became overwhelming. They paused at the edge of thepool to look back. "The man who built this house knew his business," said Denis."He was an architect." "Was he?" said Henry Wimbush reflectively. "I doubt it. Thebuilder of this house was Sir Ferdinando Lapith, who flourishedduring the reign of Elizabeth. He inherited the estate from hisfather, to whom it had been granted at the time of the dissolutionof the monasteries; for Crome was originally a cloister of monksand this swimming-pool their fish-pond. Sir Ferdinando was notcontent merely to adapt the old monastic buildings to his ownpurposes; but using them as a stone quarry for his barns and byresand outhouses, he built for himself a grand new house of brick--thehouse you see now." He waved his hand in the direction of the house and was silent.severe, imposing, almost menacing, Crome loomed down on them. "The great thing about Crome," said Mr. Scogan, seizing theopportunity to speak, "is the fact that it's so unmistakably andaggressively a work of art. It makes no compromise with nature, butaffronts it and rebels against it. It has no likeness to Shelley'stower, in the 'Epipsychidion,' which, if I remember rightly-"'Seems not now a work of human art,But as it were titanic, in the heartOf earth having assumed its form and grownOut of the mountain, from the living stone,Lifting itself in caverns light and high.' No, no, there isn't any nonsense of that sort about Crome. Thatthe hovels of the peasantry should look as though they had grownout of the earth, to which their inmates are attached, is right, nodoubt, and suitable. But the house of an intelligent, civilised,and sophisticated man should never seem to have sprouted from theclods. It should rather be an expression of his grand unnaturalremoteness from the cloddish life. Since the days of William Morristhat's a fact which we in England have been unable to comprehend.Civilised and sophisticated men have solemnly played at beingpeasants. Hence quaintness, arts and crafts, cottage architecture,and all the rest of it. In the suburbs of our cities you may see,reduplicated in endless rows, studiedly quaint imitations andadaptations of the village hovel. Poverty, ignorance, and a limitedrange of materials produced the hovel, which possesses undoubtedly,in suitable surroundings, its own 'as it were titanic' charm. Wenow employ our wealth, our technical knowledge, our rich variety ofmaterials for the purpose of building millions of imitation hovelsin totally unsuitable surroundings. Could imbecility gofurther?" Henry Wimbush took up the thread of his interrupted discourse."All that you say, my dear Scogan," he began, "is certainly veryjust, very true. But whether Sir Ferdinando shared your views aboutarchitecture or if, indeed, he had any views about architecture atall, I very much doubt. In building this house, Sir Ferdinando was,as a matter of fact, preoccupied by only one thought--the properplacing of his privies. Sanitation was the one great interest ofhis life. In 1573 he even published, on this subject, a littlebook--now extremely scarce--called, 'Certaine Priuy Counsels' by'One of Her Maiestie's Most Honourable Priuy Counsels, F.L.Knight', in which the whole matter is treated with great learningand elegance. His guiding principle in arranging the sanitation ofa house was to secure that the greatest possible distance shouldseparate the privy from the sewage arrangements. Hence it followedinevitably that the privies were to be placed at the top of thehouse, being connected by vertical shafts with pits or channels inthe ground. It must not be thought that Sir Ferdinando was movedonly by material and merely sanitary considerations; for theplacing of his privies in an exalted position he had also certainexcellent spiritual reasons. For, he argues in the third chapter ofhis 'Priuy Counsels', the necessities of nature are so base andbrutish that in obeying them we are apt to forget that we are thenoblest creatures of the universe. To counteract these degradingeffects he advised that the privy should be in every house the roomnearest to heaven, that it should be well provided with windowscommanding an extensive and noble prospect, and that the walls ofthe chamber should be lined with bookshelves containing all theripest products of human wisdom, such as the Proverbs of Solomon,Boethius's 'Consolations of Philosophy', the apophthegms ofEpictetus and Marcus Aurelius, the 'Enchiridion' of Erasmus, andall other works, ancient or modern, which testify to the nobilityof the human soul. In Crome he was able to put his theories intopractice. At the top of each of the three projecting towers heplaced a privy. From these a shaft went down the whole height ofthe house, that is to say, more than seventy feet, through thecellars, and into a series of conduits provided with flowing watertunnelled in the ground on a level with the base of the raisedterrace. These conduits emptied themselves into the stream severalhundred yards below the fish- pond. The total depth of the shaftsfrom the top of the towers to their subterranean conduits was ahundred and two feet. The eighteenth century, with its passion formodernisation, swept away these monuments of sanitary ingenuity.Were it not for tradition and the explicit account of them left bySir Ferdinando, we should be unaware that these noble privies hadever existed. We should even suppose that Sir Ferdinando built hishouse after this strange and splendid model for merely aestheticreasons." The contemplation of the glories of the past always evoked inHenry Wimbush a certain enthusiasm. Under the grey bowler his faceworked and glowed as he spoke. The thought of these vanishedprivies moved him profoundly. He ceased to speak; the lightgradually died out of his face, and it became once more the replicaof the grave, polite hat which shaded it. There was a long silence;the same gently melancholy thoughts seemed to possess the mind ofeach of them. Permanence, transience--Sir Ferdinando and hisprivies were gone, Crome still stood. How brightly the sun shoneand how inevitable was death! The ways of God were strange; theways of man were stranger still... "It does one's heart good," exclaimed Mr. Scogan at last, "tohear of these fantastic English aristocrats. To have a theory aboutprivies and to build an immense and splendid house in order to putit into practise--it's magnificent, beautiful! I like to think ofthem all: the eccentric milords rolling across Europe in ponderouscarriages, bound on extraordinary errands. One is going to Veniceto buy La Bianchi's larynx; he won't get it till she's dead, ofcourse, but no matter; he's prepared to wait; he has a collection,pickled in glass bottles, of the throats of famous opera singers.And the instruments of renowned virtuosi-- he goes in for them too;he will try to bribe Paganini to part with his little Guarnerio,but he has small hope of success. Paganini won't sell his fiddle;but perhaps he might sacrifice one of his guitars. Others are boundon crusades--one to die miserably among the savage Greeks, another,in his white top hat, to lead Italians against their oppressors.Others have no business at all; they are just giving their oddity acontinental airing. At home they cultivate themselves at leisureand with greater elaboration. Beckford builds towers, Portland digsholes in the ground, Cavendish, the millionaire, lives in a stable,eats nothing but mutton, and amuses himself--oh, solely for hisprivate delectation--by anticipating the electrical discoveries ofhalf a century. Glorious eccentrics! Every age is enlivened bytheir presence. Some day, my dear Denis," said Mr Scogan, turning abeady bright regard in his direction--"some day you must becometheir biographer--'The Lives of Queer Men.' What a subject! Ishould like to undertake it myself." Mr. Scogan paused, looked up once more at the towering house,then murmured the word "Eccentricity," two or three times. "Eccentricity...It's the justification of all aristocracies. Itjustifies leisured classes and inherited wealth and privilege andendowments and all the other injustices of that sort. If you're todo anything reasonable in this world, you must have a class ofpeople who are secure, safe from public opinion, safe from poverty,leisured, not compelled to waste their time in the imbecileroutines that go by the name of Honest Work. You must have a classof which the members can think and, within the obvious limits, dowhat they please. You must have a class in which people who haveeccentricities can indulge them and in which eccentricity ingeneral will be tolerated and understood. That's the importantthing about an aristocracy. Not only is it eccentric itself--oftengrandiosely so; it also tolerates and even encourages eccentricityin others. The eccentricities of the artist and the new-fangledthinker don't inspire it with that fear, loathing, and disgustwhich the burgesses instinctively feel towards them. It is a sortof Red Indian Reservation planted in the midst of a vast horde ofPoor Whites--colonials at that. Within its boundaries wild mendisport themselves--often, it must be admitted, a little grossly, alittle too flamboyantly; and when kindred spirits are born outsidethe pale it offers them some sort of refuge from the hatred whichthe Poor Whites, en bons bourgeois, lavish on anything that is wildor out of the ordinary. After the social revolution there will beno Reservations; the Redskins will be drowned in the great sea ofPoor Whites. What then? Will they suffer you to go on writingvillanelles, my good Denis? Will you, unhappy Henry, be allowed tolive in this house of the splendid privies, to continue your quietdelving in the mines of futile knowledge? Will Anne..." "And you," said Anne, interrupting him, "will you be allowed togo on talking?" "You may rest assured," Mr. Scogan replied, "that I shall not. Ishall have some Honest Work to do." Chapter XII. Blight, Mildew, and Smut..." Mary was puzzled and distressed.Perhaps her ears had played her false. Perhaps what he had reallysaid was, "Squire, Binyon, and Shanks," or "Childe, Blunden, andEarp," or even "Abercrombie, Drinkwater, and Rabindranath Tagore."Perhaps. But then her ears never did play her false. "Blight,Mildew, and Smut." The impression was distinct and ineffaceable."Blight, Mildew..." she was forced to the conclusion, reluctantly,that Denis had indeed pronounced those improbable words. He haddeliberately repelled her attempts to open a serious discussion.That was horrible. A man who would not talk seriously to a womanjust because she was a woman--oh, impossible! Egeria or nothing.Perhaps Gombauld would be more satisfactory. True, his meridionalheredity was a little disquieting; but at least he was a seriousworker, and it was with his work that she would associate herself.And Denis? After all, what was Denis? A dilettante, anamateur... Gombauld had annexed for his painting-room a little disusedgranary that stood by itself in a green close beyond the farm-yard. It was a square brick building with a peaked roof and littlewindows set high up in each of its walls. A ladder of four rungsled up to the door; for the granary was perched above the ground,and out of reach of the rats, on four massive toadstools of greystone. Within, there lingered a faint smell of dust and cobwebs;and the narrow shaft of sunlight that came slanting in at everyhour of the day through one of the little windows was always alivewith silvery motes. Here Gombauld worked, with a kind ofconcentrated ferocity, during six or seven hours of each day. Hewas pursuing something new, something terrific, if only he couldcatch it. During the last eight years, nearly half of which had been spentin the process of winning the war, he had worked his wayindustriously through cubism. Now he had come out on the otherside. He had begun by painting a formalised nature; then, little bylittle, he had risen from nature into the world of pure form, tillin the end he was painting nothing but his own thoughts,externalised in the abstract geometrical forms of the mind'sdevising. He found the process arduous and exhilarating. And then,quite suddenly, he grew dissatisfied; he felt himself cramped andconfined within intolerably narrow limitations. He was humiliatedto find how few and crude and uninteresting were the forms he couldinvent; the inventions of nature were without number, inconceivablysubtle and elaborate. He had done with cubism. He was out on theother side. But the cubist discipline preserved him from fallinginto excesses of nature worship. He took from nature its rich,subtle, elaborate forms, but his aim was always to work them into awhole that should have the thrilling simplicity and formality of anidea; to combine prodigious realism with prodigious simplification.Memories of Caravaggio's portentous achievements haunted him. Formsof a breathing, living reality emerged from darkness, builtthemselves up into compositions as luminously simple and single asa mathematical idea. He thought of the "Call of Matthew," of "PeterCrucified," of the "Lute players," of "Magdalen." He had thesecret, that astonishing ruffian, he had the secret! And nowGombauld was after it, in hot pursuit. Yes, it would be somethingterrific, if only he could catch it. For a long time an idea had been stirring and spreading,yeastily, in his mind. He had made a portfolio full of studies, hehad drawn a cartoon; and now the idea was taking shape on canvas. Aman fallen from a horse. The huge animal, a gaunt white cart-horse,filled the upper half of the picture with its great body. Its head,lowered towards the ground, was in shadow; the immense bony bodywas what arrested the eye, the body and the legs, which came downon either side of the picture like the pillars of an arch. On theground, between the legs of the towering beast, lay theforeshortened figure of a man, the head in the extreme foreground,the arms flung wide to right and left. A white, relentless lightpoured down from a point in the right foreground. The beast, thefallen man, were sharply illuminated; round them, beyond and behindthem, was the night. They were alone in the darkness, a universe inthemselves. The horse's body filled the upper part of the picture;the legs, the great hoofs, frozen to stillness in the midst oftheir trampling, limited it on either side. And beneath lay theman, his foreshortened face at the focal point in the centre, hisarms outstretched towards the sides of the picture. Under the archof the horse's belly, between his legs, the eye looked through intoan intense darkness; below, the space was closed in by the figureof the prostrate man. A central gulf of darkness surrounded byluminous forms... The picture was more than half finished. Gombauld had been atwork all the morning on the figure of the man, and now he wastaking a rest--the time to smoke a cigarette. Tilting back hischair till it touched the wall, he looked thoughtfully at hiscanvas. He was pleased, and at the same time he was desolated. Initself, the thing was good; he knew it. But that something he wasafter, that something that would be so terrific if only he couldcatch it--had he caught it? Would he ever catch it? Three little taps--rat, tat, tat! Surprised, Gombauld turned hiseyes towards the door. Nobody ever disturbed him while he was atwork; it was one of the unwritten laws. "Come in!" he called. Thedoor, which was ajar, swung open, revealing, from the waistupwards, the form of Mary. She had only dared to mount half-way upthe ladder. If he didn't want her, retreat would be easier and moredignified than if she climbed to the top. "May I come in?" she asked. "Certainly." She skipped up the remaining two rungs and was over thethreshold in an instant. "A letter came for you by the secondpost," she said. "I thought it might be important, so I brought itout to you." Her eyes, her childish face were luminously candid asshe handed him the letter. There had never been a flimsierpretext. Gombauld looked at the envelope and put it in his pocketunopened. "Luckily," he said, "it isn't at all important. Thanksvery much all the same." There was a silence; Mary felt a little uncomfortable. "May Ihave a look at what you've been painting?" she had the courage tosay at last. Gombauld had only half smoked his cigarette; in any case hewouldn't begin work again till he had finished. He would give herthe five minutes that separated him from the bitter end. "This isthe best place to see it from," he said. Mary looked at the picture for some time without sayinganything. Indeed, she didn't know what to say; she was taken aback,she was at a loss. She had expected a cubist masterpiece, and herewas a picture of a man and a horse, not only recognisable as such,but even aggressively in drawing. Trompe-l'oeil--there was no otherword to describe the delineation of that foreshortened figure underthe trampling feet of the horse. What was she to think, what wasshe to say? Her orientations were gone. One could admirerepresentationalism in the Old Masters. Obviously. But in amodern...? At eighteen she might have done so. But now, after fiveyears of schooling among the best judges, her instinctive reactionto a contemporary piece of representation was contempt-an outburstof laughing disparagement. What could Gombauld be up to? She hadfelt so safe in admiring his work before. But now--she didn't knowwhat to think. It was very difficult, very difficult. "There's rather a lot of chiaroscuro, isn't there?" she venturedat last, and inwardly congratulated herself on having found acritical formula so gentle and at the same time so penetrating. "There is," Gombauld agreed. Mary was pleased; he accepted her criticism; it was a seriousdiscussion. She put her head on one side and screwed up her eyes."I think it's awfully fine," she said. "But of course it's a littletoo...too...trompe-l'oeil for my taste." She looked at Gombauld,who made no response, but continued to smoke, gazing meditativelyall the time at his picture. Mary went on gaspingly. "When I was inParis this spring I saw a lot of Tschuplitski. I admire his work sotremendously. Of course, it's frightfully abstract now--frightfullyabstract and frightfully intellectual. He just throws a few oblongson to his canvas--quite flat, you know, and painted in pure primarycolours. But his design is wonderful. He's getting more and moreabstract every day. He'd given up the third dimension when I wasthere and was just thinking of giving up the second. Soon, he says,there'll be just the blank canvas. That's the logical conclusion.Complete abstraction. Painting's finished; he's finishing it. Whenhe's reached pure abstraction he's going to take up architecture.He says it's more intellectual than painting. Do you agree?" sheasked, with a final gasp. Gombauld dropped his cigarette end and trod on it."Tschuplitski's finished painting," he said. "I've finished mycigarette. But I'm going on painting." And, advancing towards her,he put his arm round her shoulders and turned her round, away fromthe picture. Mary looked up at him; her hair swung back, a soundless bell ofgold. Her eyes were serene; she smiled. So the moment had come. Hisarm was round her. He moved slowly, almost imperceptibly, and shemoved with him. It was a peripatetic embracement. "Do you agreewith him?" she repeated. The moment might have come, but she wouldnot cease to be intellectual, serious. "I don't know. I shall have to think about it." Gombauldloosened his embrace, his hand dropped from her shoulder. "Becareful going down the ladder," he added solicitously. Mary looked round, startled. They were in front of the opendoor. She remained standing there for a moment in bewilderment. Thehand that had rested on her shoulder made itself felt lower downher back; it administered three or four kindly little smacks.Replying automatically to its stimulus, she moved forward. "Be careful going down the ladder," said Gombauld once more. She was careful. The door closed behind her and she was alone inthe little green close. She walked slowly back through thefarmyard; she was pensive. Chapter XIII. Henry Wimbush brought down with him to dinner a budget ofprinted sheets loosely bound together in a cardboard portfolio. "To-day," he said, exhibiting it with a certain solemnity, "to-day I have finished the printing of my 'History of Crome'. I helpedto set up the type of the last page this evening." "The famous History?" cried Anne. The writing and the printingof this Magnum Opus had been going on as long as she couldremember. All her childhood long Uncle Henry's History had been avague and fabulous thing, often heard of and never seen. "It has taken me nearly thirty years," said Mr. Wimbush."Twenty-five years of writing and nearly four of printing. And nowit's finished--the whole chronicle, from Sir Ferdinando Lapith'sbirth to the death of my father William Wimbush--more than threecenturies and a half: a history of Crome, written at Crome, andprinted at Crome by my own press." "Shall we be allowed to read it now it's finished?" askedDenis. Mr. Wimbush nodded. "Certainly," he said. "And I hope you willnot find it uninteresting," he added modestly. "Our muniment roomis particularly rich in ancient records, and I have some genuinelynew light to throw on the introduction of the three- prongedfork." "And the people?" asked Gombauld. "Sir Ferdinando and the restof them--were they amusing? Were there any crimes or tragedies inthe family?" "Let me see," Henry Wimbush rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I canonly think of two suicides, one violent death, four or perhaps fivebroken hearts, and half a dozen little blots on the scutcheon inthe way of misalliances, seductions, natural children, and thelike. No, on the whole, it's a placid and uneventful record." "The Wimbushes and the Lapiths were always an unadventurous,respectable crew," said Priscilla, with a note of scorn in hervoice. "If I were to write my family history now! Why, it would beone long continuous blot from beginning to end." She laughedjovially, and helped herself to another glass of wine. "If I were to write mine," Mr. Scogan remarked, "it wouldn'texist. After the second generation we Scogans are lost in the mistsof antiquity." "After dinner," said Henry Wimbush, a little piqued by hiswife's disparaging comment on the masters of Crome, "I'll read youan episode from my History that will make you admit that even theLapiths, in their own respectable way, had their tragedies andstrange adventures." "I'm glad to hear it," said Priscilla. "Glad to hear what?" asked Jenny, emerging suddenly from herprivate interior world like a cuckoo from a clock. She received anexplanation, smiled, nodded, cuckooed at last "I see," and poppedback, clapping shut the door behind her. Dinner was eaten; the party had adjourned to thedrawing-room. "Now," said Henry Wimbush, pulling up a chair to the lamp. Heput on his round pince-nez, rimmed with tortoise-shell, and begancautiously to turn over the pages of his loose and stillfragmentary book. He found his place at last. "Shall I begin?" heasked, looking up. "Do," said Priscilla, yawning. In the midst of an attentive silence Mr. Wimbush gave a littlepreliminary cough and started to read. "The infant who was destined to become the fourth baronet of thename of Lapith was born in the year 1740. He was a very small baby,weighing not more than three pounds at birth, but from the first hewas sturdy and healthy. In honour of his maternal grandfather, SirHercules Occam of Bishop's Occam, he was christened Hercules. Hismother, like many other mothers, kept a notebook, in which hisprogress from month to month was recorded. He walked at ten months,and before his second year was out he had learnt to speak a numberof words. At three years he weighed but twenty-four pounds, and atsix, though he could read and write perfectly and showed aremarkable aptitude for music, he was no larger and heavier than awell-grown child of two. Meanwhile, his mother had borne two otherchildren, a boy and a girl, one of whom died of croup duringinfancy, while the other was carried off by smallpox before itreached the age of five. Hercules remained the only survivingchild. "On his twelfth birthday Hercules was still only three feet andtwo inches in height. His head, which was very handsome and noblyshaped, was too big for his body, but otherwise he was exquisitelyproportioned, and, for his size, of great strength and agility. Hisparents, in the hope of making him grow, consulted all the mosteminent physicians of the time. Their various prescriptions werefollowed to the letter, but in vain. One ordered a very plentifulmeat diet; another exercise; a third constructed a little rack,modelled on those employed by the Holy Inquisition, on which youngHercules was stretched, with excruciating torments, for half anhour every morning and evening. In the course of the next threeyears Hercules gained perhaps two inches. After that his growthstopped completely, and he remained for the rest of his life apigmy of three feet and four inches. His father, who had built themost extravagant hopes upon his son, planning for him in hisimagination a military career equal to that of Marlborough, foundhimself a disappointed man. 'I have brought an abortion into theworld,' he would say, and he took so violent a dislike to his sonthat the boy dared scarcely come into his presence. His temper,which had been serene, was turned by disappointment to morosenessand savagery. He avoided all company (being, as he said, ashamed toshow himself, the father of a lusus naturae, among normal, healthyhuman beings), and took to solitary drinking, which carried himvery rapidly to his grave; for the year before Hercules came of agehis father was taken off by an apoplexy. His mother, whose love forhim had increased with the growth of his father's unkindness, didnot long survive, but little more than a year after her husband'sdeath succumbed, after eating two dozen of oysters, to an attack oftyphoid fever. "Hercules thus found himself at the age of twenty-one alone inthe world, and master of a considerable fortune, including theestate and mansion of Crome. The beauty and intelligence of hischildhood had survived into his manly age, and, but for hisdwarfish stature, he would have taken his place among thehandsomest and most accomplished young men of his time. He was wellread in the Greek and Latin authors, as well as in all the modernsof any merit who had written in English, French, or Italian. He hada good ear for music, and was no indifferent performer on theviolin, which he used to play like a bass viol, seated on a chairwith the instrument between his legs. To the music of theharpsichord and clavichord he was extremely partial, but thesmallness of his hands made it impossible for him ever to performupon these instruments. He had a small ivory flute made for him, onwhich, whenever he was melancholy, he used to play a simple countryair or jig, affirming that this rustic music had more power toclear and raise the spirits than the most artificial productions ofthe masters. From an early age he practised the composition ofpoetry, but, though conscious of his great powers in this art, hewould never publish any specimen of his writing. 'My stature,' hewould say, 'is reflected in my verses; if the public were to readthem it would not be because I am a poet, but because I am adwarf.' Several MS. books of Sir Hercules's poems survive. A singlespecimen will suffice to illustrate his qualities as a poet. "'In ancient days, while yet the world was young,Ere Abram fed his flocks or Homer sung;When blacksmith Tubal tamed creative fire,And Jabal dwelt in tents and Jubal struck the lyre;Flesh grown corrupt brought forth a monstrous birthAnd obscene giants trod the shrinking earth,Till God, impatient of their sinful brood,Gave rein to wrath and drown'd them in the Flood.Teeming again, repeopled Tellus boreThe lubber Hero and the Man of War;Huge towers of Brawn, topp'd with an empty Skull,Witlessly bold, heroically dull.Long ages pass'd and Man grown more refin'd,Slighter in muscle but of vaster Mind,Smiled at his grandsire's broadsword, bow and bill,And learn'd to wield the Pencil and the Quill.The glowing canvas and the written pageImmortaliz'd his name from age to age,His name emblazon'd on Fame's temple wall;For Art grew great as Humankind grew small.Thus man's long progress step by step we trace;The Giant dies, the hero takes his place;The Giant vile, the dull heroic Block:At one we shudder and at one we mock.Man last appears. In him the Soul's pure flameBurns brightlier in a not inord'nate frame.Of old when Heroes fought and Giants swarmed,Men were huge mounds of matter scarce inform'd;Wearied by leavening so vast a mass,The spirit slept and all the mind was crass.The smaller carcase of these later daysIs soon inform'd; the Soul unwearied playsAnd like a Pharos darts abroad her mental rays.But can we think that Providence will stayMan's footsteps here upon the upward way?Mankind in understanding and in graceAdvanc'd so far beyond the Giants' race?Hence impious thought! Still led by God's own Hand,Mankind proceeds towards the Promised Land.A time will come (prophetic, I descryRemoter dawns along the gloomy sky),When happy mortals of a Golden AgeWill backward turn the dark historic page,And in our vaunted race of Men beholdA form as gross, a Mind as dead and cold,As we in Giants see, in warriors of old.A time will come, wherein the soul shall beFrom all superfluous matter wholly free;When the light body, agile as a fawn's,Shall sport with grace along the velvet lawns.Nature's most delicate and final birth,Mankind perfected shall possess the earth.But ah, not yet! For still the Giants' race,Huge, though diminish'd, tramps the Earth's fair face;Gross and repulsive, yet perversely proud,Men of their imperfections boast aloud.Vain of their bulk, of all they still retainOf giant ugliness absurdly vain;At all that's small they point their stupid scornAnd, monsters, think themselves divinely born.Sad is the Fate of those, ah, sad indeed,The rare precursors of the nobler breed!Who come man's golden glory to foretell,But pointing Heav'nwards live themselves in Hell.' "As soon as he came into the estate, Sir Hercules set aboutremodelling his household. For though by no means ashamed of hisdeformity--indeed, if we may judge from the poem quoted above, heregarded himself as being in many ways superior to the ordinaryrace of man--he found the presence of full-grown men and womenembarrassing. Realising, too, that he must abandon all ambitions inthe great world, he determined to retire absolutely from it and tocreate, as it were, at Crome a private world of his own, in whichall should be proportionable to himself. Accordingly, he dischargedall the old servants of the house and replaced them gradually, ashe was able to find suitable successors, by others of dwarfishstature. In the course of a few years he had assembled abouthimself a numerous household, no member of which was above fourfeet high and the smallest among them scarcely two feet and sixinches. His father's dogs, such as setters, mastiffs, greyhounds,and a pack of beagles, he sold or gave away as too large and tooboisterous for his house, replacing them by pugs and King Charlesspaniels and whatever other breeds of dog were the smallest. Hisfather's stable was also sold. For his own use, whether riding ordriving, he had six black Shetland ponies, with four very choicepiebald animals of New Forest breed. "Having thus settled his household entirely to his ownsatisfaction, it only remained for him to find some suitablecompanion with whom to share his paradise. Sir Hercules had asusceptible heart, and had more than once, between the ages ofsixteen and twenty, felt what it was to love. But here hisdeformity had been a source of the most bitter humiliation, for,having once dared to declare himself to a young lady of his choice,he had been received with laughter. On his persisting, she hadpicked him up and shaken him like an importunate child, telling himto run away and plague her no more. The story soon gotabout--indeed, the young lady herself used to tell it as aparticularly pleasant anecdote--and the taunts and mockery itoccasioned were a source of the most acute distress to Hercules.From the poems written at this period we gather that he meditatedtaking his own life. In course of time, however, he lived down thishumiliation; but never again, though he often fell in love, andthat very passionately, did he dare to make any advances to thosein whom he was interested. After coming to the estate and findingthat he was in a position to create his own world as he desired it,he saw that, if he was to have a wife--which he very much desired,being of an affectionate and, indeed, amorous temper--he mustchoose her as he had chosen his servants--from among the race ofdwarfs. But to find a suitable wife was, he found, a matter of somedifficulty; for he would marry none who was not distinguished bybeauty and gentle birth. The dwarfish daughter of Lord Bemboro herefused on the ground that besides being a pigmy she washunchbacked; while another young lady, an orphan belonging to avery good family in Hampshire, was rejected by him because herface, like that of so many dwarfs, was wizened and repulsive.Finally, when he was almost despairing of success, he heard from areliable source that Count Titimalo, a Venetian nobleman, possesseda daughter of exquisite beauty and great accomplishments, who wasby three feet in height. Setting out at once for Venice, he wentimmediately on his arrival to pay his respects to the count, whomhe found living with his wife and five children in a very meanapartment in one of the poorer quarters of the town. Indeed, thecount was so far reduced in his circumstances that he was even thennegotiating (so it was rumoured) with a travelling company ofclowns and acrobats, who had had the misfortune to lose theirperforming dwarf, for the sale of his diminutive daughter Filomena.Sir Hercules arrived in time to save her from this untoward fate,for he was so much charmed by Filomena's grace and beauty, that atthe end of three days' courtship he made her a formal offer ofmarriage, which was accepted by her no less joyfully than by herfather, who perceived in an English son-in-law a rich and unfailingsource of revenue. After an unostentatious marriage, at which theEnglish ambassador acted as one of the witnesses, Sir Hercules andhis bride returned by sea to England, where they settled down, asit proved, to a life of uneventful happiness. "Crome and its household of dwarfs delighted Filomena, who feltherself now for the first time to be a free woman living among herequals in a friendly world. She had many tastes in common with herhusband, especially that of music. She had a beautiful voice, of apower surprising in one so small, and could touch A in alt withouteffort. Accompanied by her husband on his fine Cremona fiddle,which he played, as we have noted before, as one plays a bass viol,she would sing all the liveliest and tenderest airs from the operasand cantatas of her native country. Seated together at theharpsichord, they found that they could with their four hands playall the music written for two hands of ordinary size, acircumstance which gave Sir Hercules unfailing pleasure. "When they were not making music or reading together, which theyoften did, both in English and Italian, they spent their time inhealthful outdoor exercises, sometimes rowing in a little boat onthe lake, but more often riding or driving, occupations in which,because they were entirely new to her, Filomena especiallydelighted. When she had become a perfectly proficient rider,Filomena and her husband used often to go hunting in the park, atthat time very much more extensive than it is now. They hunted notfoxes nor hares, but rabbits, using a pack of about thirty blackand fawn-coloured pugs, a kind of dog which, when not overfed, cancourse a rabbit as well as any of the smaller breeds. Four dwarfgrooms, dressed in scarlet liveries and mounted on white Exmoorponies, hunted the pack, while their master and mistress, in greenhabits, followed either on the black Shetlands or on the piebaldNew Forest ponies. A picture of the whole hunt--dogs, horses,grooms, and masters--was painted by William Stubbs, whose work SirHercules admired so much that he invited him, though a man ofordinary stature, to come and stay at the mansion for the purposeof executing this picture. Stubbs likewise painted a portrait ofSir Hercules and his lady driving in their green enamelled calashdrawn by four black Shetlands. Sir Hercules wears a plum-colouredvelvet coat and white breeches; Filomena is dressed in floweredmuslin and a very large hat with pink feathers. The two figures intheir gay carriage stand out sharply against a dark background oftrees; but to the left of the picture the trees fall away anddisappear, so that the four black ponies are seen against a paleand strangely lurid sky that has the golden-brown colour ofthunder- clouds lighted up by the sun. "In this way four years passed happily by. At the end of thattime Filomena found herself great with child. Sir Hercules wasoverjoyed. 'If God is good,' he wrote in his day-book, 'the name ofLapith will be preserved and our rarer and more delicate racetransmitted through the generations until in the fullness of timethe world shall recognise the superiority of those beings whom nowit uses to make mock of.' On his wife's being brought to bed of ason he wrote a poem to the same effect. The child was christenedFerdinando in memory of the builder of the house. "With the passage of the months a certain sense of disquietbegan to invade the minds of Sir Hercules and his lady. For thechild was growing with an extraordinary rapidity. At a year heweighed as much as Hercules had weighed when he was three.'Ferdinando goes crescendo,' wrote Filomena in her diary. 'It seemsnot natural.' At eighteen months the baby was almost as tall astheir smallest jockey, who was a man of thirty-six. Could it bethat Ferdinando was destined to become a man of the normal,gigantic dimensions? It was a thought to which neither of hisparents dared yet give open utterance, but in the secrecy of theirrespective diaries they brooded over it in terror and dismay. "On his third birthday Ferdinando was taller than his mother andnot more than a couple of inches short of his father's height.'To-day for the first time' wrote Sir Hercules, 'we discussed thesituation. The hideous truth can be concealed no longer: Ferdinandois not one of us. On this, his third birthday, a day when we shouldhave been rejoicing at the health, the strength, and beauty of ourchild, we wept together over the ruin of our happiness. God give usstrength to bear this cross.' "At the age of eight Ferdinando was so large and so exuberantlyhealthy that his parents decided, though reluctantly, to send himto school. He was packed off to Eton at the beginning of the nexthalf. A profound peace settled upon the house. Ferdinando returnedfor the summer holidays larger and stronger than ever. One day heknocked down the butler and broke his arm. 'He is rough,inconsiderate, unamenable to persuasion,' wrote his father. 'Theonly thing that will teach him manners is corporal chastisement.'Ferdinando, who at this age was already seventeen inches tallerthan his father, received no corporal chastisement. "One summer holidays about three years later Ferdinando returnedto Crome accompanied by a very large mastiff dog. He had bought itfrom an old man at Windsor who had found the beast too expensive tofeed. It was a savage, unreliable animal; hardly had it entered thehouse when it attacked one of Sir Hercules's favourite pugs,seizing the creature in its jaws and shaking it till it was nearlydead. Extremely put out by this occurrence, Sir Hercules orderedthat the beast should be chained up in the stable-yard. Ferdinandosullenly answered that the dog was his, and he would keep it wherehe pleased. His father, growing angry, bade him take the animal outof the house at once, on pain of his utmost displeasure. Ferdinandorefused to move. His mother at this moment coming into the room,the dog flew at her, knocked her down, and in a twinkling had veryseverely mauled her arm and shoulder; in another instant it mustinfallibly have had her by the throat, had not Sir Hercules drawnhis sword and stabbed the animal to the heart. Turning on his son,he ordered him to leave the room immediately, as being unfit toremain in the same place with the mother whom he had nearlymurdered. So awe-inspiring was the spectacle of Sir Herculesstanding with one foot on the carcase of the gigantic dog, hissword drawn and still bloody, so commanding were his voice, hisgestures, and the expression of his face that Ferdinando slunk outof the room in terror and behaved himself for all the rest of thevacation in an entirely exemplary fashion. His mother soonrecovered from the bites of the mastiff, but the effect on her mindof this adventure was ineradicable; from that time forth she livedalways among imaginary terrors. "The two years which Ferdinando spent on the Continent, makingthe Grand Tour, were a period of happy repose for his parents. Buteven now the thought of the future haunted them; nor were they ableto solace themselves with all the diversions of their younger days.The Lady Filomena had lost her voice and Sir Hercules was grown toorheumatical to play the violin. He, it is true, still rode afterhis pugs, but his wife felt herself too old and, since the episodeof the mastiff, too nervous for such sports. At most, to please herhusband, she would follow the hunt at a distance in a little gigdrawn by the safest and oldest of the Shetlands. "The day fixed for Ferdinando's return came round. Filomena,sick with vague dreads and presentiments, retired to her chamberand her bed. Sir Hercules received his son alone. A giant in abrown travelling-suit entered the room. 'Welcome home, my son,'said Sir Hercules in a voice that trembled a little. "'I hope I see you well, sir.' Ferdinando bent down to shakehands, then straightened himself up again. The top of his father'shead reached to the level of his hip. "Ferdinando had not come alone. Two friends of his own ageaccompanied him, and each of the young men had brought a servant.Not for thirty years had Crome been desecrated by the presence ofso many members of the common race of men. Sir Hercules wasappalled and indignant, but the laws of hospitality had to beobeyed. He received the young gentlemen with grave politeness andsent the servants to the kitchen, with orders that they should bewell cared for. "The old family dining-table was dragged out into the light anddusted (Sir Hercules and his lady were accustomed to dine at asmall table twenty inches high). Simon, the aged butler, who couldonly just look over the edge of the big table, was helped at supperby the three servants brought by Ferdinando and his guests. "Sir Hercules presided, and with his usual grace supported aconversation on the pleasures of foreign travel, the beauties ofart and nature to be met with abroad, the opera at Venice, thesinging of the orphans in the churches of the same city, and onother topics of a similar nature. The young men were notparticularly attentive to his discourses; they were occupied inwatching the efforts of the butler to change the plates andreplenish the glasses. They covered their laughter by violent andrepeated fits of coughing or choking. Sir Hercules affected not tonotice, but changed the subject of the conversation to sport. Uponthis one of the young men asked whether it was true, as he hadheard, that he used to hunt the rabbit with a pack of pug dogs. SirHercules replied that it was, and proceeded to describe the chasein some detail. The young men roared with laughter. "When supper was over, Sir Hercules climbed down from his chairand, giving as his excuse that he must see how his lady did, badethem good-night. The sound of laughter followed him up the stairs.Filomena was not asleep; she had been lying on her bed listening tothe sound of enormous laughter and the tread of strangely heavyfeet on the stairs and along the corridors. Sir Hercules drew achair to her bedside and sat there for a long time in silence,holding his wife's hand and sometimes gently squeezing it. At aboutten o'clock they were startled by a violent noise. There was abreaking of glass, a stamping of feet, with an outburst of shoutsand laughter. The uproar continuing for several minutes, SirHercules rose to his feet and, in spite of his wife's entreaties,prepared to go and see what was happening. There was no light onthe staircase, and Sir Hercules groped his way down cautiously,lowering himself from stair to stair and standing for a moment oneach tread before adventuring on a new step. The noise was louderhere; the shouting articulated itself into recognisable words andphrases. A line of light was visible under the diningroom door.Sir Hercules tiptoed across the hall towards it. Just as heapproached the door there was another terrific crash of breakingglass and jangled metal. What could they be doing? Standing ontiptoe he managed to look through the keyhole. In the middle of theravaged table old Simon, the butler, so primed with drink that hecould scarcely keep his balance, was dancing a jig. His feetcrunched and tinkled among the broken glass, and his shoes were wetwith spilt wine. The three young men sat round, thumping the tablewith their hands or with the empty wine bottles, shouting andlaughing encouragement. The three servants leaning against the walllaughed too. Ferdinando suddenly threw a handful of walnuts at thedancer's head, which so dazed and surprised the little man that hestaggered and fell down on his back, upsetting a decanter andseveral glasses. They raised him up, gave him some brandy to drink,thumped him on the back. The old man smiled and hiccoughed.'To-morrow,' said Ferdinando, 'we'll have a concerted ballet of thewhole household.' 'With father Hercules wearing his club andlion-skin,' added one of his companions, and all three roared withlaughter. "Sir Hercules would look and listen no further. He crossed thehall once more and began to climb the stairs, lifting his kneespainfully high at each degree. This was the end; there was no placefor him now in the world, no place for him and Ferdinandotogether. "His wife was still awake; to her questioning glance heanswered, 'They are making mock of old Simon. To-morrow it will beour turn.' They were silent for a time. "At last Filomena said, 'I do not want to see to-morrow.' "'It is better not,' said Sir Hercules. Going into his closet hewrote in his day-book a full and particular account of all theevents of the evening. While he was still engaged in this task herang for a servant and ordered hot water and a bath to be madeready for him at eleven o'clock. When he had finished writing hewent into his wife's room, and preparing a dose of opium twentytimes as strong as that which she was accustomed to take when shecould not sleep, he brought it to her, saying, 'Here is yoursleeping-draught.' "Filomena took the glass and lay for a little time, but did notdrink immediately. The tears came into her eyes. 'Do you rememberthe songs we used to sing, sitting out there sulla terrazza in thesummer-time?' She began singing softly in her ghost of a crackedvoice a few bars from Stradella's 'Amor amor, non dormir piu.' 'Andyou playing on the violin, it seems such a short time ago, and yetso long, long, long. Addio, amore, a rivederti.' She drank off thedraught and, lying back on the pillow, closed her eyes. SirHercules kissed her hand and tiptoed away, as though he were afraidof waking her. He returned to his closet, and having recorded hiswife's last words to him, he poured into his bath the water thathad been brought up in accordance with his orders. The water beingtoo hot for him to get into the bath at once, he took down from theshelf his copy of Suetonius. He wished to read how Seneca had died.He opened the book at random. 'But dwarfs,' he read, 'he held inabhorrence as being lusus naturae and of evil omen.' He winced asthough he had been struck. This same Augustus, he remembered, hadexhibited in the amphitheatre a young man called Lucius, of goodfamily, who was not quite two feet in height and weighed seventeenpounds, but had a stentorian voice. He turned over the pages.Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero: it was a tale of growinghorror. 'Seneca his preceptor, he forced to kill himself.' Andthere was Petronius, who had called his friends about him at thelast, bidding them talk to him, not of the consolations ofphilosophy, but of love and gallantry, while the life was ebbingaway through his opened veins. Dipping his pen once more in the inkhe wrote on the last page of his diary: 'He died a Roman death.'Then, putting the toes of one foot into the water and finding thatit was not too hot, he threw off his dressing-gown and, taking arazor in his hand, sat down in the bath. With one deep cut hesevered the artery in his left wrist, then lay back and composedhis mind to meditation. The blood oozed out, floating through thewater in dissolving wreaths and spirals. In a little while thewhole bath was tinged with pink. The colour deepened; Sir Herculesfelt himself mastered by an invincible drowsiness; he was sinkingfrom vague dream to dream. Soon he was sound asleep. There was notmuch blood in his small body." Chapter XIV. For their after-luncheon coffee the party generally adjourned tothe library. Its windows looked east, and at this hour of the dayit was the coolest place in the whole house. It was a large room,fitted, during the eighteenth century, with white painted shelvesof an elegant design. In the middle of one wall a door, ingeniouslyupholstered with rows of dummy books, gave access to a deepcupboard, where, among a pile of letter-files and old newspapers,the mummy-case of an Egyptian lady, brought back by the second SirFerdinando on his return from the Grand Tour, mouldered in thedarkness. From ten yards away and at a first glance, one mightalmost have mistaken this secret door for a section of shelvingfilled with genuine books. Coffee-cup in hand, Mr. Scogan wasstanding in front of the dummy book-shelf. Between the sips hediscoursed. "The bottom shelf," he was saying, "is taken up by anEncyclopaedia in fourteen volumes. Useful, but a little dull, as isalso Caprimulge's 'Dictionary of the Finnish Language'. The'Biographical Dictionary' looks more promising. 'Biography of Menwho were Born Great', 'Biography of Men who Achieved Greatness','Biography of Men who had Greatness Thrust upon Them', and'Biography of Men who were Never Great at All'. Then there are tenvolumes of 'Thom's Works and Wanderings', while the 'Wild GooseChase, a Novel', by an anonymous author, fills no less than six.But what's this, what's this?" Mr. Scogan stood on tiptoe andpeered up. "Seven volumes of the 'Tales of Knockespotch'. The'Tales of Knockespotch'," he repeated. "Ah, my dear Henry," hesaid, turning round, "these are your best books. I would willinglygive all the rest of your library for them." The happy possessor of a multitude of first editions, Mr.Wimbush could afford to smile indulgently. "Is it possible," Mr. Scogan went on, "that they possess nothingmore than a back and a title?" He opened the cupboard door andpeeped inside, as though he hoped to find the rest of the booksbehind it. "Phooh!" he said, and shut the door again. "It smells ofdust and mildew. How symbolical! One comes to the greatmasterpieces of the past, expecting some miraculous illumination,and one finds, on opening them, only darkness and dust and a faintsmell of decay. After all, what is reading but a vice, like drinkor venery or any other form of excessive selfindulgence? Onereads to tickle and amuse one's mind; one reads, above all, toprevent oneself thinking. Still--the 'Tales ofKnockespotch'..." He paused, and thoughtfully drummed with his fingers on thebacks of the non-existent, unattainable books. "But I disagree with you about reading," said Mary. "Aboutserious reading, I mean." "Quite right, Mary, quite right," Mr. Scogan answered. "I hadforgotten there were any serious people in the room." "I like the idea of the Biographies," said Denis. "There's roomfor us all within the scheme; it's comprehensive." "Yes, the Biographies are good, the Biographies are excellent,"Mr Scogan agreed. "I imagine them written in a very elegant Regencystyle--Brighton Pavilion in words--perhaps by the great Dr.Lempriere himself. You know his classical dictionary? Ah!" Mr.Scogan raised his hand a nd let it limply fall again in a gesturewhich implied that words failed him. "Read his biography of Helen;read how Jupiter, disguised as a swan, was 'enabled to availhimself of his situation' vis-avis to Leda. And to think that hemay have, must have written these biographies of the Great! What awork, Henry! And, owing to the idiotic arrangement of your library,it can't be read." "I prefer the 'Wild Goose Chase'," said Anne. "A novel in sixvolumes--it must be restful." "Restful," Mr. Scogan repeated. "You've hit on the right word. A'Wild Goose Chase' is sound, but a bit old-fashioned--pictures ofclerical life in the fifties, you know; specimens of the landedgentry; peasants for pathos and comedy; and in the background,always the picturesque beauties of nature soberly described. Allvery good and solid, but, like certain puddings, just a littledull. Personally, I like much better the notion of 'Thom's Worksand Wanderings'. The eccentric Mr. Thom of Thom's Hill. Old TomThom, as his intimates used to call him. He spent ten years inThibet organising the clarified butter industry on modern Europeanlines, and was able to retire at thirty-six with a handsomefortune. The rest of his life he devoted to travel andratiocination; here is the result." Mr. Scogan tapped the dummybooks. "And now we come to the 'Tales of Knockespotch'. What amasterpiece and what a great man! Knockespotch knew how to writefiction. Ah, Denis, if you could only read Knockespotch youwouldn't be writing a novel about the wearisome development of ayoung man's character, you wouldn't be describing in endless,fastidious detail, cultured life in Chelsea and Bloomsbury andHampstead. You would be trying to write a readable book. But then,alas! owing to the peculiar arrangement of our host's library, younever will read Knockespotch." "Nobody could regret the fact more than I do," said Denis. "It was Knockespotch," Mr. Scogan continued, "the greatKnockespotch, who delivered us from the dreary tyranny of therealistic novel. My life, Knockespotch said, is not so long that Ican afford to spend precious hours writing or reading descriptionsof middle-class interiors. He said again, 'I am tired of seeing thehuman mind bogged in a social plenum; I prefer to paint it in avacuum, freely and sportively bombinating.'" "I say," said Gombauld, "Knockespotch was a little obscuresometimes, wasn't he?" "He was," Mr. Scogan replied, "and with intention. It made himseem even profounder than he actually was. But it was only in hisaphorisms that he was so dark and oracular. In his Tales he wasalways luminous. Oh, those Tales--those Tales! How shall I describethem? Fabulous characters shoot across his pages like gaily dressedperformers on the trapeze. There are extraordinary adventures andstill more extraordinary speculations. Intelligences and emotions,relieved of all the imbecile preoccupations of civilised life, movein intricate and subtle dances, crossing and recrossing, advancing,retreating, impinging. An immense erudition and an immense fancy gohand in hand. All the ideas of the present and of the past, onevery possible subject, bob up among the Tales, smile gravely orgrimace a caricature of themselves, then disappear to make placefor something new. The verbal surface of his writing is rich andfantastically diversified. The wit is incessant. The..." "But couldn't you give us a specimen," Denis broke in--"aconcrete example?" "Alas!" Mr. Scogan replied, "Knockespotch's great book is likethe sword Excalibur. It remains struck fast in this door, awaitingthe coming of a writer with genius enough to draw it forth. I amnot even a writer, I am not so much as qualified to attempt thetask. The extraction of Knockespotch from his wooden prison Ileave, my dear Denis, to you." "Thank you," said Denis. Chapter XV. "In the time of the amiable Brantome," Mr. Scogan was saying,"every debutante at the French Court was invited to dine at theKing's table, where she was served with wine in a handsome silvercup of Italian workmanship. It was no ordinary cup, this goblet ofthe debutantes; for, inside, it had been most curiously andingeniously engraved with a series of very lively amorous scenes.With each draught that the young lady swallowed these engravingsbecame increasingly visible, and the Court looked on with interest,every time she put her nose in the cup, to see whether she blushedat what the ebbing wine revealed. If the debutante blushed, theylaughed at her for her innocence; if she did not, she was laughedat for being too knowing." "Do you propose," asked Anne, "that the custom should be revivedat Buckingham Palace?" "I do not," said Mr. Scogan. "I merely quoted the anecdote as anillustration of the customs, so genially frank, of the sixteenthcentury. I might have quoted other anecdotes to show that thecustoms of the seventeenth and eighteenth, of the fifteenth andfourteenth centuries, and indeed of every other century, from thetime of Hammurabi onward, were equally genial and equally frank.The only century in which customs were not characterised by thesame cheerful openness was the nineteenth, of blessed memory. Itwas the astonishing exception. And yet, with what one must supposewas a deliberate disregard of history, it looked upon its horriblypregnant silences as normal and natural and right; the frankness ofthe previous fifteen or twenty thousand years was consideredabnormal and perverse. It was a curious phenomenon." "I entirely agree." Mary panted with excitement in her effort tobring out what she had to say. "Havelock Ellis says..." Mr. Scogan, like a policeman arresting the flow of traffic, heldup his hand. "He does; I know. And that brings me to my next point:the nature of the reaction." "Havelock Ellis..." "The reaction, when it came--and we may say roughly that it setin a little before the beginning of this century--the reaction wasto openness, but not to the same openness as had reigned in theearlier ages. It was to a scientific openness, not to the jovialfrankness of the past, that we returned. The whole question ofAmour became a terribly serious one. Earnest young men wrote in thepublic prints that from this time forth it would be impossible everagain to make a joke of any sexual matter. Professors wrote thickbooks in which sex was sterilised and dissected. It has becomecustomary for serious young women, like Mary, to discuss, withphilosophic calm, matters of which the merest hint would havesufficed to throw the youth of the sixties into a delirium ofamorous excitement. It is all very estimable, no doubt. Butstill"--Mr. Scogan sighed.-"I for one should like to see, mingledwith this scientific ardour, a little more of the jovial spirit ofRabelais and Chaucer." "I entirely disagree with you," said Mary. "Sex isn't a laughingmatter; it's serious." "Perhaps," answered Mr. Scogan, "perhaps I'm an obscene old man.For I must confess that I cannot always regard it as whollyserious." "But I tell you..." began Mary furiously. Her face had flushedwith excitement. Her cheeks were the cheeks of a great ripepeach. "Indeed," Mr. Scogan continued, "it seems to me one of fewpermanently and everlastingly amusing subjects that exist. Amour isthe one human activity of any importance in which laughter andpleasure preponderate, if ever so slightly, over misery andpain." "I entirely disagree," said Mary. There was a silence. Anne looked at her watch. "Nearly a quarter to eight," she said."I wonder when Ivor will turn up." She got up from her deck- chairand, leaning her elbows on the balustrade of the terrace, lookedout over the valley and towards the farther hills. Under the levelevening light the architecture of the land revealed itself. Thedeep shadows, the bright contrasting lights gave the hills a newsolidity. Irregularities of the surface, unsuspected before, werepicked out with light and shade. The grass, the corn, the foliageof trees were stippled with intricate shadows. The surface ofthings had taken on a marvellous enrichment. "Look!" said Anne suddenly, and pointed. On the opposite side ofthe valley, at the crest of the ridge, a cloud of dust flushed bythe sunlight to rosy gold was moving rapidly along the skyline."It's Ivor. One can tell by the speed." The dust cloud descended into the valley and was lost. A hornwith the voice of a sea-lion made itself heard, approaching. Aminute later Ivor came leaping round the corner of the house. Hishair waved in the wind of his own speed; he laughed as he sawthem. "Anne, darling," he cried, and embraced her, embraced Mary, verynearly embraced Mr. Scogan. "Well, here I am. I've come withincredulous speed." Ivor's vocabulary was rich, but a littleerratic. "I'm not late for dinner, am I?" He hoisted himself up onto the balustrade, and sat there, kicking his heels. With one armhe embraced a large stone flower-pot, leaning his head sidewaysagainst its hard and lichenous flanks in an attitude of trustfulaffection. He had brown, wavy hair, and his eyes were of a verybrilliant, pale, improbable blue. His head was narrow, his facethin and rather long, his nose aquiline. In old age-- though it wasdifficult to imagine Ivor old--he might grow to have an Iron Ducalgrimness. But now, at twenty-six, it was not the structure of hisface that impressed one; it was its expression. That was charmingand vivacious, and his smile was an irradiation. He was forevermoving, restlessly and rapidly, but with an engaging gracefulness.His frail and slender body seemed to be fed by a spring ofinexhaustible energy. "No, you're not late." "You're in time to answer a question," said Mr. Scogan. "We werearguing whether Amour were a serious matter or no. What do youthink? Is it serious?" "Serious?" echoed Ivor. "Most certainly." "I told you so," cried Mary triumphantly. "But in what sense serious?" Mr. Scogan asked. "I mean as an occupation. One can go on with it without evergetting bored." "I see," said Mr. Scogan. "Perfectly." "One can occupy oneself with it," Ivor continued, "always andeverywhere. Women are always wonderfully the same. Shapes vary alittle, that's all. In Spain"--with his free hand he described aseries of ample curves--"one can't pass them on the stairs. InEngland"--he put the tip of his forefinger against the tip of histhumb and, lowering his hand, drew out this circle into animaginary cylinder--"In England they're tubular. But theirsentiments are always the same. At least, I've always found itso." "I'm delighted to hear it," said Mr. Scogan. Chapter XVI. The ladies had left the room and the port was circulating. Mr.Scogan filled his glass, passed on the decanter, and, leaning backin his chair, looked about him for a moment in silence. Theconversation rippled idly round him, but he disregarded it; he wassmiling at some private joke. Gombauld noticed his smile. "What's amusing you?" he asked. "I was just looking at you all, sitting round this table," saidMr. Scogan. "Are we as comic as all that?" "Not at all," Mr. Scogan answered politely. "I was merely amusedby my own speculations." "And what were they?" "The idlest, the most academic of speculations. I was looking atyou one by one and trying to imagine which of the first six Caesarsyou would each resemble, if you were given the opportunity ofbehaving like a Caesar. The Caesars are one of my touchstones," Mr.Scogan explained. "They are characters functioning, so to speak, inthe void. They are human beings developed to their logicalconclusions. Hence their unequalled value as a touchstone, astandard. When I meet someone for the first time, I ask myself thisquestion: Given the Caesarean environment, which of the Caesarswould this person resemble-- Julius, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula,Claudius, Nero? I take each trait of character, each mental andemotional bias, each little oddity, and magnify them a thousandtimes. The resulting image gives me his Caesarean formula." "And which of the Caesars do you resemble?" asked Gombauld. "I am potentially all of them," Mr. Scogan replied, "all--withthe possible exception of Claudius, who was much too stupid to be adevelopment of anything in my character. The seeds of Julius'scourage and compelling energy, of Augustus's prudence, of thelibidinousness and cruelty of Tiberius, of Caligula's folly, ofNero's artistic genius and enormous vanity, are all within me.Given the opportunities, I might have been something fabulous. Butcircumstances were against me. I was born and brought up in acountry rectory; I passed my youth doing a great deal of utterlysenseless hard work for a very little money. The result is thatnow, in middle age, I am the poor thing that I am. But perhaps itis as well. Perhaps, too, it's as well that Denis hasn't beenpermitted to flower into a little Nero, and that Ivor remains onlypotentially a Caligula. Yes, it's better so, no doubt. But it wouldhave been more amusing, as a spectacle, if they had had the chanceto develop, untrammelled, the full horror of their potentialities.It would have been pleasant and interesting to watch their tics andfoibles and little vices swelling and burgeoning and blossominginto enormous and fantastic flowers of cruelty and pride andlewdness and avarice. The Caesarean environment makes the Caesar,as the special food and the queenly cell make the queen bee. Wediffer from the bees in so far that, given the proper food, theycan be sure of making a queen every time. With us there is no suchcertainty; out of every ten men placed in the Caesarean environmentone will be temperamentally good, or intelligent, or great. Therest will blossom into Caesars; he will not. Seventy and eightyyears ago simple-minded people, reading of the exploits of theBourbons in South Italy, cried out in amazement: To think that suchthings should be happening in the nineteenth century! And a fewyears since we too were astonished to find that in our still moreastonishing twentieth century, unhappy blackamoors on the Congo andthe Amazon were being treated as English serfs were treated in thetime of Stephen. To-day we are no longer surprised at these things.The Black and Tans harry Ireland, the Poles maltreat the Silesians,the bold Fascisti slaughter their poorer countrymen: we take it allfor granted. Since the war we wonder at nothing. We have created aCaesarean environment and a host of little Caesars has sprung up.What could be more natural?" Mr. Scogan drank off what was left of his port and refilled theglass. At this very moment," he went on, "the most frightful horrorsare taking place in every corner of the world. People are beingcrushed, slashed, disembowelled, mangled; their dead bodies rot andtheir eyes decay with the rest. Screams of pain and fear go pulsingthrough the air at the rate of eleven hundred feet per second.After travelling for three seconds they are perfectly inaudible.These are distressing facts; but do we enjoy life any the lessbecause of them? Most certainly we do not. We feel sympathy, nodoubt; we represent to ourselves imaginatively the sufferings ofnations and individuals and we deplore them. But, after all, whatare sympathy and imagination? Precious little, unless the personfor whom we feel sympathy happens to be closely involved in ouraffections; and even then they don't go very far. And a good thingtoo; for if one had an imagination vivid enough and a sympathysufficiently sensitive really to comprehend and to feel thesufferings of other people, one would never have a moment's peaceof mind. A really sympathetic race would not so much as know themeaning of happiness. But luckily, as I've already said, we aren'ta sympathetic race. At the beginning of the war I used to think Ireally suffered, through imagination and sympathy, with those whophysically suffered. But after a month or two I had to admit that,honestly, I didn't. And yet I think I have a more vivid imaginationthan most. One is always alone in suffering; the fact is depressingwhen one happens to be the sufferer, but it makes pleasure possiblefor the rest of the world." There was a pause. Henry Wimbush pushed back his chair. "I think perhaps we ought to go and join the ladies," hesaid. "So do I," said Ivor, jumping up with alacrity. He turned to Mr.Scogan. "Fortunately," he said, "we can share our pleasures. We arenot always condemned to be happy alone." Chapter XVII. Ivor brought his hands down with a bang on to the final chord ofhis rhapsody. There was just a hint in that triumphant harmony thatthe seventh had been struck along with the octave by the thumb ofthe left hand; but the general effect of splendid noise emergedclearly enough. Small details matter little so long as the generaleffect is good. And, besides, that hint of the seventh wasdecidedly modern. He turned round in his seat and tossed the hairback out of his eyes. "There," he said. "That's the best I can do for you, I'mafraid." Murmurs of applause and gratitude were heard, and Mary, herlarge china eyes fixed on the performer, cried out aloud,"Wonderful!" and gasped for new breath as though she weresuffocating. Nature and fortune had vied with one another in heaping on IvorLombard all their choicest gifts. He had wealth and he wasperfectly independent. He was good looking, possessed anirresistible charm of manner, and was the hero of more amoroussuccesses than he could well remember. His accomplishments wereextraordinary for their number and variety. He had a beautifuluntrained tenor voice; he could improvise, with a startlingbrilliance, rapidly and loudly, on the piano. He was a good amateurmedium and telepathist, and had a considerable first-hand knowledgeof the next world. He could write rhymed verses with anextraordinary rapidity. For painting symbolical pictures he had adashing style, and if the drawing was sometimes a little weak, thecolour was always pyrotechnical. He excelled in amateur theatricalsand, when occasion offered, he could cook with genius. He resembledShakespeare in knowing little Latin and less Greek. For a mind likehis, education seemed supererogatory. Training would only havedestroyed his natural aptitudes. "Let's go out into the garden," Ivor suggested. "It's awonderful night." "Thank you," said Mr. Scogan, "but I for one prefer these stillmore wonderful arm-chairs." His pipe had begun to bubble oozilyevery time he pulled at it. He was perfectly happy. Henry Wimbush was also happy. He looked for a moment over hispince-nez in Ivor's direction and then, without saying anything,returned to the grimy little sixteenth-century account books whichwere now his favourite reading. He knew more about Sir Ferdinando'shousehold expenses than about his own. The outdoor party, enrolled under Ivor's banner, consisted ofAnne, Mary, Denis, and, rather unexpectedly, Jenny. Outside it waswarm and dark; there was no moon. They walked up and down theterrace, and Ivor sang a Neapolitan song: "Stretti,stretti"--close, close--with something about the little Spanishgirl to follow. The atmosphere began to palpitate. Ivor put his armround Anne's waist, dropped his head sideways onto her shoulder,and in that position walked on, singing as he walked. It seemed theeasiest, the most natural, thing in the world. Denis wondered whyhe had never done it. He hated Ivor. "Let's go down to the pool," said Ivor. He disengaged hisembrace and turned round to shepherd his little flock. They madetheir way along the side of the house to the entrance of the yew-tree walk that led down to the lower garden. Between the blankprecipitous wall of the house and the tall yew trees the path was achasm of impenetrable gloom. Somewhere there were steps down to theright, a gap in the yew hedge. Denis, who headed the party, gropedhis way cautiously; in this darkness, one had an irrational fear ofyawning precipices, of horrible spiked obstructions. Suddenly frombehind him he heard a shrill, startled, "Oh!" and then a sharp, dryconcussion that might have been the sound of a slap. After that,Jenny's voice was heard pronouncing, "I am going back to thehouse." Her tone was decided, and even as she pronounced the wordsshe was melting away into the darkness. The incident, whatever ithad been, was closed. Denis resumed his forward groping. Fromsomewhere behind Ivor began to sing again, softly: "Phillis plus avare que tendreNe gagnant rien a refuser,Un jour exigea a SilvandreTrente moutons pour un baiser." The melody drooped and climbed again with a kind of easylanguor; the warm darkness seemed to pulse like blood aboutthem. "Le lendemain, nouvelle affaire: Pour le berger le troc futbon..." "Here are the steps," cried Denis. He guided his companions overthe danger, and in a moment they had the turf of the yew-tree walkunder their feet. It was lighter here, or at least it was justperceptibly less dark; for the yew walk was wider than the paththat had led them under the lea of the house. Looking up, theycould see between the high black hedges a strip of sky and a fewstars. "Car il obtint de la bergere..." Went on Ivor, and then interrupted himself to shout, "I'm goingto run down," and he was off, full speed, down the invisible slope,singing unevenly as he went: "Trente baisers pour un mouton." The others followed. Denis shambled in the rear, vainlyexhorting everyone to caution: the slope was steep, one might breakone's neck. What was wrong with these people, he wondered? They hadbecome like young kittens after a dose of cat-nip. He himself felta certain kittenishness sporting within him; but it was, like allhis emotions, rather a theoretical feeling; it did notovermasteringly seek to express itself in a practical demonstrationof kittenishness. "Be careful," he shouted once more, and hardly were the wordsout of his mouth when, thump! there was the sound of a heavy fallin front of him, followed by the long "F-f-f-f-f" of a breathindrawn with pain and afterwards by a very sincere, "Oo-ooh!" Deniswas almost pleased; he had told them so, the idiots, and theywouldn't listen. He trotted down the slope towards the unseensufferer. Mary came down the hill like a runaway steam-engine. It wastremendously exciting, this blind rush through the dark; she feltshe would never stop. But the ground grew level beneath her feet,her speed insensibly slackened, and suddenly she was caught by anextended arm and brought to an abrupt halt. "Well," said Ivor as he tightened his embrace, "you're caughtnow, Anne." She made an effort to release herself. "It's not Anne. It'sMary." Ivor burst into a peal of amused laughter. "So it is!" heexclaimed. "I seem to be making nothing but floaters this evening.I've already made one with Jenny." He laughed again, and there wassomething so jolly about his laughter that Mary could not helplaughing too. He did not remove his encircling arm, and somehow itwas all so amusing and natural that Mary made no further attempt toescape from it. They walked along by the side of the pool,interlaced. Mary was too short for him to be able, with anycomfort, to lay his head on her shoulder. He rubbed his cheek,caressed and caressing, against the thick, sleek mass of her hair.In a little while he began to sing again; the night trembledamorously to the sound of his voice. When he had finished he kissedher. Anne or Mary: Mary or Anne. It didn't seem to make muchdifference which it was. There were differences in detail, ofcourse; but the general effect was the same; and, after all, thegeneral effect was the important thing. Denis made his way down the hill. "Any damage done?" he called out. "Is that you, Denis? I've hurt my ankle so--and my knee, and myhand. I'm all in pieces." "My poor Anne," he said. "But then," he couldn't help adding,"it was silly to start running downhill in the dark." "Ass!" she retorted in a tone of tearful irritation; "of courseit was." He sat down beside on the grass, and found himself breathing thefaint, delicious atmosphere of perfume that she carried always withher. "Light a match," she commanded. "I want to look at mywounds." He felt in his pockets for the match-box. The light spurted andthen grew steady. Magically, a little universe had been created, aworld of colours and forms--Anne's face, the shimmering orange ofher dress, her white, bare arms, a patch of green turf--and roundabout a darkness that had become solid and utterly blind. Anne heldout her hands; both were green and earthy with her fall, and theleft exhibited two or three red abrasions. "Not so bad," she said. But Denis was terribly distressed, andhis emotion was intensified when, looking up at her face, he sawthat the trace of tears, involuntary tears of pain, lingered on hereyelashes. He pulled out his handkerchief and began to wipe awaythe dirt from the wounded hand. The match went out; it was notworth while to light another. Anne allowed herself to be attendedto, meekly and gratefully. "Thank you," she said, when he hadfinished cleaning and bandaging her hand; and there was somethingin her tone that made him feel that she had lost her superiorityover him, that she was younger than he, had become, suddenly,almost a child. He felt tremendously large and protective. Thefeeling was so strong that instinctively he put his arm about her.She drew closer, leaned against him, and so they sat in silence.Then, from below, soft but wonderfully clear through the stilldarkness, they heard the sound of Ivor's singing. He was going onwith his half-finished song: "Le lendemain Phillis plus tendre,Ne voulant deplaire au berger,Fut trop heureuse de lui rendreTrente moutons pour un baiser." There was a rather prolonged pause. It was as though time werebeing allowed for the giving and receiving of a few of those thirtykisses. Then the voice sang on: "Le lendemain Phillis peu sageAurait donne moutons et chienPour un baiser que le volageA Lisette donnait pour rien." The last note died away into an uninterrupted silence. "Are you better?" Denis whispered. "Are you comfortable likethis?" She nodded a Yes to both questions. "Trente moutons pour un baiser." The sheep, the woolly mutton--baa, baa, baa...? Or the shepherd? Yes, decidedly, he felt himselfto be the shepherd now. He was the master, the protector. A wave ofcourage swelled through him, warm as wine. He turned his head, andbegan to kiss her face, at first rather randomly, then, with moreprecision, on the mouth. Anne averted her head; he kissed the ear, the smooth nape thatthis movement presented him. "No," she protested; "no, Denis." "Why not?" "It spoils our friendship, and that was so jolly." "Bosh!" said Denis. She tried to explain. "Can't you see," she said, "it isn't...itisn't our stunt at all." It was true. Somehow she had never thoughtof Denis in the light of a man who might make love; she had neverso much as conceived the possibilities of an amorous relationshipwith him. He was so absurdly young, so...so...she couldn't find theadjective, but she knew what she meant. "Why isn't it our stunt?" asked Denis. "And, by the way, that'sa horrible and inappropriate expression." "Because it isn't." "But if I say it is?" "It makes no difference. I say it isn't." "I shall make you say it is." "All right, Denis. But you must do it another time. I must go inand get my ankle into hot water. It's beginning to swell." Reasons of health could not be gainsaid. Denis got upreluctantly, and helped his companion to her feet. She took acautious step. "Ooh!" She halted and leaned heavily on his arm. "I'll carry you," Denis offered. He had never tried to carry awoman, but on the cinema it always looked an easy piece ofheroism. "You couldn't," said Anne. "Of course I can." He felt larger and more protective than ever."Put your arms round my neck," he ordered. She did so and,stooping, he picked her up under the knees and lifted her from theground. Good heavens, what a weight! He took five staggering stepsup the slope, then almost lost his equilibrium, and had to deposithis burden suddenly, with something of a bump. Anne was shaking with laughter. "I said You couldn't, my poorDenis." "I can," said Denis, without conviction. "I'll try again." "It's perfectly sweet of you to offer, but I'd rather walk,thanks." She laid her hand on his shoulder and, thus supported,began to limp slowly up the hill. "My poor Denis!" she repeated, and laughed again. Humiliated, hewas silent. It seemed incredible that, only two minutes ago, heshould have been holding her in his embrace, kissing her.Incredible. She was helpless then, a child. Now she had regainedall her superiority; she was once more the far-off being, desiredand unassailable. Why had he been such a fool as to suggest thatcarrying stunt? He reached the house in a state of the profoundestdepression. He helped Anne upstairs, left her in the hands of a maid, andcame down again to the drawingroom. He was surprised to find themall sitting just where he had left them. He had expected that,somehow, everything would be quite different--it seemed such aprodigious time since he went away. All silent and all damned, hereflected, as he looked at them. Mr. Scogan's pipe still wheezed;that was the only sound. Henry Wimbush was still deep in hisaccount books; he had just made the discovery that Sir Ferdinandowas in the habit of eating oysters the whole summer through,regardless of the absence of the justifying R. Gombauld, inhorn-rimmed spectacles, was reading. Jenny was mysteriouslyscribbling in her red notebook. And, seated in her favouritearmchair at the corner of the hearth, Priscilla was lookingthrough a pile of drawings. One by one she held them out at arm'slength and, throwing back her mountainous orange head, looked longand attentively through half-closed eyelids. She wore a palesea-green dress; on the slope of her mauve-powdered decolletagediamonds twinkled. An immensely long cigarette- holder projected atan angle from her face. Diamonds were embedded in her high-piledcoiffure; they glittered every time she moved. It was a batch ofIvor's drawings--sketches of Spirit Life, made in the course oftranced tours through the other world. On the back of each sheetdescriptive titles were written: "Portrait of an Angel, 15th March'20;" "Astral Beings at Play, 3rd December '19;" "A Party of Soulson their Way to a Higher Sphere, 21st May '21." Before examiningthe drawing on the obverse of each sheet, she turned it over toread the title. Try as she could--and she tried hard-Priscilla hadnever seen a vision or succeeded in establishing any communicationwith the Spirit World. She had to be content with the reportedexperiences of others. "What have you done with the rest of your party?" she asked,looking up as Denis entered the room. He explained. Anne had gone to bed, Ivor and Mary were still inthe garden. He selected a book and a comfortable chair, and tried,as far as the disturbed state of his mind would permit him, tocompose himself for an evening's reading. The lamplight was utterlyserene; there was no movement save the stir of Priscilla among herpapers. All silent and all damned, Denis repeated to himself, allsilent and all damned... It was nearly an hour later when Ivor and Mary made theirappearance. "We waited to see the moon rise," said Ivor. "It was gibbous, you know," Mary explained, very technical andscientific. "It was so beautiful down in the garden! The trees, the scent ofthe flowers, the stars..." Ivor waved his arms. "And when the mooncame up, it was really too much. It made me burst into tears." Hesat down at the piano and opened the lid. "There were a great many meteorites," said Mary to anyone whowould listen. "The earth must just be coming into the summer showerof them. In July and August..." But Ivor had already begun to strike the keys. He played thegarden, the stars, the scent of flowers, the rising moon. He evenput in a nightingale that was not there. Mary looked on andlistened with parted lips. The others pursued their occupations,without appearing to be seriously disturbed. On this very July day,exactly three hundred and fifty years ago, Sir Ferdinando had eatenseven dozen oysters. The discovery of this fact gave Henry Wimbusha peculiar pleasure. He had a natural piety which made him delightin the celebration of memorial feasts. The three hundred andfiftieth anniversary of the seven dozen oysters...He wished he hadknown before dinner; he would have ordered champagne. On her way to bed Mary paid a call. The light was out in Anne'sroom, but she was not yet asleep. "Why didn't you come down to the garden with us?" Maryasked. "I fell down and twisted my ankle. Denis helped me home." Mary was full of sympathy. Inwardly, too, she was relieved tofind Anne's non-appearance so simply accounted for. She had beenvaguely suspicious, down there in the garden--suspicious of what,she hardly knew; but there had seemed to be something a littlelouche in the way she had suddenly found herself alone with Ivor.Not that she minded, of course; far from it. But she didn't likethe idea that perhaps she was the victim of a put-up job. "I do hope you'll be better to-morrow," she said, and shecommiserated with Anne on all she had missed--the garden, thestars, the scent of flowers, the meteorites through whose summershower the earth was now passing, the rising moon and itsgibbosity. And then they had had such interesting conversation.What about? About almost everything. Nature, art, science, poetry,the stars, spiritualism, the relations of the sexes, music,religion. Ivor, she thought, had an interesting mind. The two young ladies parted affectionately. Chapter XVIII. The nearest Roman Catholic church was upwards of twenty milesaway. Ivor, who was punctilious in his devotions, came down earlyto breakfast and had his car at the door, ready to start, by aquarter to ten. It was a smart, expensive-looking machine,enamelled a pure lemon yellow and upholstered in emerald greenleather. There were two seats--three if you squeezed tightlyenough--and their occupants were protected from wind, dust, andweather by a glazed sedan that rose, an elegant eighteenth- centuryhump, from the midst of the body of the car. Mary had never been to a Roman Catholic service, thought itwould be an interesting experience, and, when the car moved offthrough the great gates of the courtyard, she was occupying thespare seat in the sedan. The sea-lion horn roared, faintlier,faintlier, and they were gone. In the parish church of Crome Mr. Bodiham preached on 1 Kingsvi. 18: "And the cedar of the house within was carved withknops"--a sermon of immediately local interest. For the past twoyears the problem of the War Memorial had exercised the minds ofall those in Crome who had enough leisure, or mental energy, orparty spirit to think of such things. Henry Wimbush was all for alibrary--a library of local literature, stocked with countyhistories, old maps of the district, monographs on the localantiquities, dialect dictionaries, handbooks of the local geologyand natural history. He liked to think of the villagers, inspiredby such reading, making up parties of a Sunday afternoon to lookfor fossils and flint arrow-heads. The villagers themselvesfavoured the idea of a memorial reservoir and water supply. But thebusiest and most articulate party followed Mr. Bodiham in demandingsomething religious in character--a second lich-gate, for example,a stained-glass window, a monument of marble, or, if possible, allthree. So far, however, nothing had been done, partly because thememorial committee had never been able to agree, partly for themore cogent reason that too little money had been subscribed tocarry out any of the proposed schemes. Every three or four monthsMr. Bodiham preached a sermon on the subject. His last had beendelivered in March; it was high time that his congregation had afresh reminder. "And the cedar of the house within was carved with knops." Mr. Bodiham touched lightly on Solomon's temple. From thence hepassed to temples and churches in general. What were thecharacteristics of these buildings dedicated to God? Obviously, thefact of their, from a human point of view, complete uselessness.They were unpractical buildings "carved with knops." Solomon mighthave built a library--indeed, what could be more to the taste ofthe world's wisest man? He might have dug a reservoir--what moreuseful in a parched city like Jerusalem? He did neither; he built ahouse all carved with knops, useless and unpractical. Why? Becausehe was dedicating the work to God. There had been much talk inCrome about the proposed War Memorial. A War Memorial was, in itsvery nature, a work dedicated to God. It was a token ofthankfulness that the first stage in the culminating world-war hadbeen crowned by the triumph of righteousness; it was at the sametime a visibly embodied supplication that God might not long delaythe Advent which alone could bring the final peace. A library, areservoir? Mr. Bodiham scornfully and indignantly condemned theidea. These were works dedicated to man, not to God. As a WarMemorial they were totally unsuitable. A lich-gate had beensuggested. This was an object which answered perfectly to thedefinition of a War Memorial: a useless work dedicated to God andcarved with knops. One lich-gate, it was true, already existed. Butnothing would be easier than to make a second entrance into thechurchyard; and a second entrance would need a second gate. Othersuggestions had been made. Stained-glass windows, a monument ofmarble. Both these were admirable, especially the latter. It washigh time that the War Memorial was erected. It might soon be toolate. At any moment, like a thief in the night, God might come.Meanwhile a difficulty stood in the way. Funds were inadequate. Allshould subscribe according to their means. Those who had lostrelations in the war might reasonably be expected to subscribe asum equal to that which they would have had to pay in funeralexpenses if the relative had died while at home. Further delay wasdisastrous. The War Memorial must be built at once. He appealed tothe patriotism and the Christian sentiments of all his hearers. Henry Wimbush walked home thinking of the books he would presentto the War Memorial Library, if ever it came into existence. Hetook the path through the fields; it was pleasanter than the road.At the first stile a group of village boys, loutish young fellowsall dressed in the hideous ill-fitting black which makes a funeralof every English Sunday and holiday, were assembled, drearilyguffawing as they smoked their cigarettes. They made way for HenryWimbush, touching their caps as he passed. He returned theirsalute; his bowler and face were one in their unruffledgravity. In Sir Ferdinando's time, he reflected, in the time of his son,Sir Julius, these young men would have had their Sunday diversionseven at Crome, remote and rustic Crome. There would have beenarchery, skittles, dancing--social amusements in which they wouldhave partaken as members of a conscious community. Now they hadnothing, nothing except Mr. Bodiham's forbidding Boys' Club and therare dances and concerts organised by himself. Boredom or the urbanpleasures of the county metropolis were the alternatives thatpresented themselves to these poor youths. Country pleasures wereno more; they had been stamped out by the Puritans. In Manningham's Diary for 1600 there was a queer passage, heremembered, a very queer passage. Certain magistrates in Berkshire,Puritan magistrates, had had wind of a scandal. One moonlit summernight they had ridden out with their posse and there, among thehills, they had come upon a company of men and women, dancing,stark naked, among the sheepcotes. The magistrates and their menhad ridden their horses into the crowd. How self-conscious the poorpeople must suddenly have felt, how helpless without their clothesagainst armed and booted horsemen! The dancers were arrested,whipped, gaoled, set in the stocks; the moonlight dance is neverdanced again. What old, earthy, Panic rite came to extinction here?he wondered. Who knows?-- perhaps their ancestors had danced likethis in the moonlight ages before Adam and Eve were so much asthought of. He liked to think so. And now it was no more. Theseweary young men, if they wanted to dance, would have to bicycle sixmiles to the town. The country was desolate, without life of itsown, without indigenous pleasures. The pious magistrates hadsnuffed out for ever a little happy flame that had burned from thebeginning of time. "And as on Tullia's tomb one lamp burned clear, Unchanged forfifteen hundred year..." He repeated the lines to himself, and was desolated to think ofall the murdered past. Chapter XIX. Henry Wimbush's long cigar burned aromatically. The "History ofCrome" lay on his knee; slowly he turned over the pages. "I can't decide what episode to read you to-night," he saidthoughtfully. "Sir Ferdinando's voyages are not without interest.Then, of course, there's his son, Sir Julius. It was he whosuffered from the delusion that his perspiration engendered flies;it drove him finally to suicide. Or there's Sir Cyprian." He turnedthe pages more rapidly. "Or Sir Henry. Or Sir George...No, I'minclined to think I won't read about any of these." "But you must read something," insisted Mr. Scogan, taking hispipe out of his mouth. "I think I shall read about my grandfather," said Henry Wimbush,"and the events that led up to his marriage with the eldestdaughter of the last Sir Ferdinando." "Good," said Mr. Scogan. "We are listening." "Before I begin reading," said Henry Wimbush, looking up fromthe book and taking off the pince-nez which he had just fitted tohis nose--"before their begin, I must say a few preliminary wordsabout Sir Ferdinando, the last of the Lapiths. At the death of thevirtuous and unfortunate Sir Hercules, Ferdinando found himself inpossession of the family fortune, not a little increased by hisfather's temperance and thrift; he applied himself forthwith to thetask of spending it, which he did in an ample and jovial fashion.By the time he was forty he had eaten and, above all, drunk andloved away about half his capital, and would infallibly have soongot rid of the rest in the same manner, if he had not had the goodfortune to become so madly enamoured of the Rector's daughter as tomake a proposal of marriage. The young lady accepted him, and inless than a year had become the absolute mistress of Crome and herhusband. An extraordinary reformation made itself apparent in SirFerdinando's character. He grew regular and economical in hishabits; he even became temperate, rarely drinking more than abottle and a half of port at a sitting. The waning fortune of theLapiths began once more to wax, and that in despite of the hardtimes (for Sir Ferdinando married in 1809 in the height of theNapoleonic Wars). A prosperous and dignified old age, cheered bythe spectacle of his children's growth and happiness-- for LadyLapith had already borne him three daughters, and there seemed nogood reason why she should not bear many more of them, and sons aswell--a patriarchal decline into the family vault, seemed now to beSir Ferdinando's enviable destiny. But Providence willed otherwise.To Napoleon, cause already of such infinite mischief, was due,though perhaps indirectly, the untimely and violent death which puta period to this reformed existence. "Sir Ferdinando, who was above all things a patriot, hadadopted, from the earliest days of the conflict with the French,his own peculiar method of celebrating our victories. When thehappy news reached London, it was his custom to purchaseimmediately a large store of liquor and, taking a place onwhichever of the outgoing coaches he happened to light on first, todrive through the country proclaiming the good news to all he meton the road and dispensing it, along with the liquor, at everystopping-place to all who cared to listen or drink. Thus, after theNile, he had driven as far as Edinburgh; and later, when thecoaches, wreathed with laurel for triumph, with cypress formourning, were setting out with the news of Nelson's victory anddeath, he sat through all a chilly October night on the box of theNorwich "Meteor" with a nautical keg of rum on his knees and twocases of old brandy under the seat. This genial custom was one ofthe many habits which he abandoned on his marriage. The victoriesin the Peninsula, the retreat from Moscow, Leipzig, and theabdication of the tyrant all went uncelebrated. It so happened,however, that in the summer of 1815 Sir Ferdinando was staying fora few weeks in the capital. There had been a succession of anxious,doubtful days; then came the glorious news of Waterloo. It was toomuch for Sir Ferdinando; his joyous youth awoke again within him.He hurried to his wine merchant and bought a dozen bottles of 1760brandy. The Bath coach was on the point of starting; he bribed hisway on to the box and, seated in glory beside the driver,proclaimed aloud the downfall of the Corsican bandit and passedabout the warm liquid joy. They clattered through Uxbridge, Slough,Maidenhead. Sleeping Reading was awakened by the great news. AtDidcot one of the ostlers was so much overcome by patrioticemotions and the 1760 brandy that he found it impossible to do upthe buckles of the harness. The night began to grow chilly, and SirFerdinando found that it was not enough to take a nip at everystage: to keep up his vital warmth he was compelled to drinkbetween the stages as well. They were approaching Swindon. Thecoach was travelling at a dizzy speed--six miles in the lasthalf-hour--when, without having manifested the slightestpremonitory symptom of unsteadiness, Sir Ferdinando suddenlytoppled sideways off his seat and fell, head foremost, into theroad. An unpleasant jolt awakened the slumbering passengers. Thecoach was brought to a standstill; the guard ran back with a light.He found Sir Ferdinando still alive, but unconscious; blood wasoozing from his mouth. The back wheels of the coach had passed overhis body, breaking most of his ribs and both arms. His skull wasfractured in two places. They picked him up, but he was dead beforethey reached the next stage. So perished Sir Ferdinando, a victimto his own patriotism. Lady Lapith did not marry again, butdetermined to devote the rest of her life to the well-being of herthree children--Georgiana, now five years old, and Emmeline andCaroline, twins of two." Henry Wimbush paused, and once more put on his pince-nez. "Somuch by way of introduction," he said. "Now I can begin to readabout my grandfather." "One moment," said Mr. Scogan, "till I've refilled my pipe." Mr. Wimbush waited. Seated apart in a corner of the room, Ivorwas showing Mary his sketches of Spirit Life. They spoke togetherin whispers. Mr. Scogan had lighted his pipe again. "Fire away," he said. Henry Wimbush fired away. "It was in the spring of 1833 that my grandfather, GeorgeWimbush, first made the acquaintance of the 'three lovely Lapiths,'as they were always called. He was then a young man of twentytwo,with curly yellow hair and a smooth pink face that was the mirrorof his youthful and ingenuous mind. He had been educated at Harrowand Christ Church, he enjoyed hunting and all other field sports,and, though his circumstances were comfortable to the verge ofaffluence, his pleasures were temperate and innocent. His father,an East Indian merchant, had destined him for a political career,and had gone to considerable expense in acquiring a pleasant littleCornish borough as a twenty-first birthday gift for his son. He wasjustly indignant when, on the very eve of George's majority, theReform Bill of 1832 swept the borough out of existence. Theinauguration of George's political career had to be postponed. Atthe time he got to know the lovely Lapiths he was waiting; he wasnot at all impatient. "The lovely Lapiths did not fail to impress him. Georgiana, theeldest, with her black ringlets, her flashing eyes, her nobleaquiline profile, her swan-like neck, and sloping shoulders, wasorientally dazzling; and the twins, with their delicately turned-up noses, their blue eyes, and chestnut hair, were an identicalpair of ravishingly English charmers. "Their conversation at this first meeting proved, however, to beso forbidding that, but for the invincible attraction exercised bytheir beauty, George would never have had the courage to follow upthe acquaintance. The twins, looking up their noses at him with anair of languid superiority, asked him what he thought of the latestFrench poetry and whether he liked the "Indiana" of George Sand.But what was almost worse was the question with which Georgianaopened her conversation with him. 'In music,' she asked, leaningforward and fixing him with her large dark eyes, 'are you aclassicist or a transcendentalist?' George did not lose hispresence of mind. He had enough appreciation of music to know thathe hated anything classical, and so, with a promptitude which didhim credit, he replied, 'I am a transcendentalist.' Georgianasmiled bewitchingly. 'I am glad,' she said; 'so am I. You went tohear Paganini last week, of course. "The prayer of Moses"--ah!' Sheclosed her eyes. 'Do you know anything more transcendental thanthat?' 'No,' said George, 'I don't.' He hesitated, was about to goon speaking, and then decided that after all it would be wiser notto say-- what was in fact true--that he had enjoyed above allPaganini's Farmyard Imitations. The man had made his fiddle braylike an ass, cluck like a hen, grunt, squeal, bark, neigh, quack,bellow, and growl; that last item, in George's estimation, hadalmost compensated for the tediousness of the rest of the concert.He smiled with pleasure at the thought of it. Yes, decidedly, hewas no classicist in music; he was a thoroughgoingtranscendentalist. "George followed up this first introduction by paying a call onthe young ladies and their mother, who occupied, during the season,a small but elegant house in the neighbourhood of Berkeley Square.Lady Lapith made a few discreet inquiries, and having found thatGeorge's financial position, character, and family were allpassably good, she asked him to dine. She hoped and expected thather daughters would all marry into the peerage; but, being aprudent woman, she knew it was advisable to prepare for allcontingencies. George Wimbush, she thought, would make an excellentsecond string for one of the twins. "At this first dinner, George's partner was Emmeline. Theytalked of Nature. Emmeline protested that to her high mountainswere a feeling and the hum of human cities torture. George agreedthat the country was very agreeable, but held that London duringthe season also had its charms. He noticed with surprise and acertain solicitous distress that Miss Emmeline's appetite was poor,that it didn't, in fact, exist. Two spoonfuls of soup, a morsel offish, no bird, no meat, and three grapes--that was her wholedinner. He looked from time to time at her two sisters; Georgianaand Caroline seemed to be quite as abstemious. They waved awaywhatever was offered them with an expression of delicate disgust,shutting their eyes and averting their faces from the proffereddish, as though the lemon sole, the duck, the loin of veal, thetrifle, were objects revolting to the sight and smell. George, whothought the dinner capital, ventured to comment on the sisters'lack of appetite. "'Pray, don't talk to me of eating,' said Emmeline, droopinglike a sensitive plant. 'We find it so coarse, so unspiritual, mysisters and I. One can't think of one's soul while one iseating.' "George agreed; one couldn't. 'But one must live,' he said. "'Alas!' Emmeline sighed. 'One must. Death is very beautiful,don't you think?' She broke a corner off a piece of toast and beganto nibble at it languidly. 'But since, as you say, one mustlive...' She made a little gesture of resignation. 'Luckily a verylittle suffices to keep one alive.' She put down her corner oftoast half eaten. "George regarded her with some surprise. She was pale, but shelooked extraordinarily healthy, he thought; so did her sisters.Perhaps if you were really spiritual you needed less food. He,clearly, was not spiritual. "After this he saw them frequently. They all liked him, fromLady Lapith downwards. True, he was not very romantic or poetical;but he was such a pleasant, unpretentious, kind-hearted young man,that one couldn't help liking him. For his part, he thought themwonderful, wonderful, especially Georgiana. He enveloped them allin a warm, protective affection. For they needed protection; theywere altogether too frail, too spiritual for this world. They neverate, they were always pale, they often complained of fever, theytalked much and lovingly of death, they frequently swooned.Georgiana was the most ethereal of all; of the three she ate least,swooned most often, talked most of death, and was the palest--witha pallor that was so startling as to appear positively artificial.At any moment, it seemed, she might loose her precarious hold onthis material world and become all spirit. To George the thoughtwas a continual agony. If she were to die... "She contrived, however, to live through the season, and that inspite of the numerous balls, routs, and other parties of pleasurewhich, in company with the rest of the lovely trio, she neverfailed to attend. In the middle of July the whole household moveddown to the country. George was invited to spend the month ofAugust at Crome. "The house-party was distinguished; in the list of visitorsfigured the names of two marriageable young men of title. Georgehad hoped that country air, repose, and natural surroundings mighthave restored to the three sisters their appetites and the roses oftheir cheeks. He was mistaken. For dinner, the first evening,Georgiana ate only an olive, two or three salted almonds, and halfa peach. She was as pale as ever. During the meal she spoke oflove. "'True love,' she said, 'being infinite and eternal, can only beconsummated in eternity. Indiana and Sir Rodolphe celebrated themystic wedding of their souls by jumping into Niagara. Love isincompatible with life. The wish of two people who truly love oneanother is not to live together but to die together.' "'Come, come, my dear,' said Lady Lapith, stout and practical.'What would become of the next generation, pray, if all the worldacted on your principles?' "'Mamma!...' Georgiana protested, and dropped her eyes. "'In my young days,' Lady Lapith went on, 'I should have beenlaughed out of countenance if I'd said a thing like that. But thenin my young days souls weren't as fashionable as they are now andwe didn't think death was at all poetical. It was justunpleasant.' "'Mamma!...' Emmeline and Caroline implored in unison. "'In my young days--' Lady Lapith was launched into her subject;nothing, it seemed, could stop her now. 'In my young days, if youdidn't eat, people told you you needed a dose of rhubarb.Nowadays...' "There was a cry; Georgiana had swooned sideways on to LordTimpany's shoulder. It was a desperate expedient; but it wassuccessful. Lady Lapith was stopped. "The days passed in an uneventful round of pleasures. Of all thegay party George alone was unhappy. Lord Timpany was paying hiscourt to Georgiana, and it was clear that he was not unfavourablyreceived. George looked on, and his soul was a hell of jealousy anddespair. The boisterous company of the young men became intolerableto him; he shrank from them, seeking gloom and solitude. Onemorning, having broken away from them on some vague pretext, hereturned to the house alone. The young men were bathing in the poolbelow; their cries and laughter floated up to him, making the quiethouse seem lonelier and more silent. The lovely sisters and theirmamma still kept their chambers; they did not customarily maketheir appearance till luncheon, so that the male guests had themorning to themselves. George sat down in the hall and abandonedhimself to thought. "At any moment she might die; at any moment she might becomeLady Timpany. It was terrible, terrible. If she died, then he woulddie too; he would go to seek her beyond the grave. If she becameLady Timpany...ah, then! The solution of the problem would not beso simple. If she became Lady Timpany: it was a horrible thought.But then suppose she were in love with Timpany--though it seemedincredible that anyone could be in love with Timpany-- suppose herlife depended on Timpany, suppose she couldn't live without him? Hewas fumbling his way along this clueless labyrinth of suppositionswhen the clock struck twelve. On the last stroke, like an automatonreleased by the turning clockwork, a little maid, holding a largecovered tray, popped out of the door that led from the kitchenregions into the hall. From his deep arm-chair George watched her(himself, it was evident, unobserved) with an idle curiosity. Shepattered across the room and came to a halt in front of what seemeda blank expense of panelling. She reached out her hand and, toGeorge's extreme astonishment, a little door swung open, revealingthe foot of a winding staircase. Turning sideways in order to gether tray through the narrow opening, the little maid darted in witha rapid crab-like motion. The door closed behind her with a click.A minute later it opened again and the maid, without her tray,hurried back across the hall and disappeared in the direction ofthe kitchen. George tried to recompose his thoughts, but aninvincible curiosity drew his mind towards the hidden door, thestaircase, the little maid. It was in vain he told himself that thematter was none of his business, that to explore the secrets ofthat surprising door, that mysterious staircase within, would be apiece of unforgivable rudeness and indiscretion. It was in vain;for five minutes he struggled heroically with his curiosity, but atthe end of that time he found himself standing in front of theinnocent sheet of panelling through which the little maid haddisappeared. A glance sufficed to show him the position of thesecret door--secret, he perceived, only to those who looked with acareless eye. It was just an ordinary door let in flush with thepanelling. No latch nor handle betrayed its position, but anunobtrusive catch sunk in the wood invited the thumb. George wasastonished that he had not noticed it before; now he had seen it,it was so obvious, almost as obvious as the cupboard door in thelibrary with its lines of imitation shelves and its dummy books. Hepulled back the catch and peeped inside. The staircase, of whichthe degrees were made not of stone but of blocks of ancient oak,wound up and out of sight. A slit-like window admitted thedaylight; he was at the foot of the central tower, and the littlewindow looked out over the terrace; they were still shouting andsplashing in the pool below. "George closed the door and went back to his seat. But hiscuriosity was not satisfied. Indeed, this partial satisfaction hadbut whetted its appetite. Where did the staircase lead? What wasthe errand of the little maid? It was no business of his, he keptrepeating--no business of his. He tried to read, but his attentionwandered. A quarter-past twelve sounded on the harmonious clock.Suddenly determined, George rose, crossed the room, opened thehidden door, and began to ascend the stairs. He passed the firstwindow, corkscrewed round, and came to another. He paused for amoment to look out; his heart beat uncomfortably, as though he wereaffronting some unknown danger. What he was doing, he told himself,was extremely ungentlemanly, horribly underbred. He tiptoed onwardand upward. One turn more, then half a turn, and a door confrontedhim. He halted before it, listened; he could hear no sound. Puttinghis eye to the keyhole, he saw nothing but a stretch of whitesunlit wall. Emboldened, he turned the handle and stepped acrossthe threshold. There he halted, petrified by what he saw, mutelygaping. "In the middle of a pleasantly sunny little room--'it is nowPriscilla's boudoir,' Mr. Wimbush remarked parenthetically--stood asmall circular table of mahogany. Crystal, porcelain, andsilver,--all the shining apparatus of an elegant meal--weremirrored in its polished depths. The carcase of a cold chicken, abowl of fruit, a great ham, deeply gashed to its heart of tenderestwhite and pink, the brown cannon ball of a cold plum- pudding, aslender Hock bottle, and a decanter of claret jostled one anotherfor a place on this festive board. And round the table sat thethree sisters, the three lovely Lapiths--eating! "At George's sudden entrance they had all looked towards thedoor, and now they sat, petrified by the same astonishment whichkept George fixed and staring. Georgiana, who sat immediatelyfacing the door, gazed at him with dark, enormous eyes. Between thethumb and forefinger of her right hand she was holding a drumstickof the dismembered chicken; her little finger, elegantly crooked,stood apart from the rest of her hand. Her mouth was open, but thedrumstick had never reached its destination; it remained,suspended, frozen, in mid-air. The other two sisters had turnedround to look at the intruder. Caroline still grasped her knife andfork; Emmeline's fingers were round the stem of her claret glass.For what seemed a very long time, George and the three sistersstared at one another in silence. They were a group of statues.Then suddenly there was movement. Georgiana dropped her chickenbone, Caroline's knife and fork clattered on her plate. Themovement propagated itself, grew more decisive; Emmeline sprang toher feet, uttering a cry. The wave of panic reached George; heturned and, mumbling something unintelligible as he went, rushedout of the room and down the winding stairs. He came to astandstill in the hall, and there, all by himself in the quiethouse, he began to laugh. "At luncheon it was noticed that the sisters ate a little morethan usual. Georgiana toyed with some French beans and a spoonfulof calves'-foot jelly. 'I feel a little stronger to- day,' she saidto Lord Timpany, when he congratulated her on this increase ofappetite; 'a little more material,' she added, with a nervouslaugh. Looking up, she caught George's eye; a blush suffused hercheeks and she looked hastily away. "In the garden that afternoon they found themselves for a momentalone. "You won't tell anyone, George? Promise you won't tell anyone,'she implored. 'It would make us look so ridiculous. And besides,eating is unspiritual, isn't it? Say you won't tellanyone.' "'I will,' said George brutally. 'I'll tell everyone,unless...' "'It's blackmail.' "'I don't care, said George. 'I'll give you twenty-four hours todecide.' "Lady Lapith was disappointed, of course; she had hoped forbetter things--for Timpany and a coronet. But George, after all,wasn't so bad. They were married at the New Year. "My poor grandfather!" Mr. Wimbush added, as he closed his bookand put away his pince-nez. "Whenever I read in the papers aboutoppressed nationalities, I think of him." He relighted his cigar."It was a maternal government, highly centralised, and there wereno representative institutions." Henry Wimbush ceased speaking. In the silence that ensued Ivor'swhispered commentary on the spirit sketches once more becameaudible. Priscilla, who had been dozing, suddenly woke up. "What?" she said in the startled tones of one newly returned toconsciousness; "what?" Jenny caught the words. She looked up, smiled, noddedreassuringly. "It's about a ham," she said. "What's about a ham?" "What Henry has been reading." She closed the red notebook lyingon her knees and slipped a rubber band round it. "I'm going tobed," she announced, and got up. "So am I," said Anne, yawning. But she lacked the energy to risefrom her arm-chair. The night was hot and oppressive. Round the open windows thecurtains hung unmoving. Ivor, fanning himself with the portrait ofan Astral Being, looked out into the darkness and drew abreath. "The air's like wool," he declared. "It will get cooler after midnight," said Henry Wimbush, andcautiously added, "perhaps." "I shan't sleep, I know." Priscilla turned her head in his direction; the monumentalcoiffure nodded exorbitantly at her slightest movement. "You mustmake an effort," she said. "When I can't sleep, I concentrate mywill: I say, 'I will sleep, I am asleep!' And pop! off I go. That'sthe power of thought." "But does it work on stuffy nights?" Ivor inquired. "I simplycannot sleep on a stuffy night." "Nor can I," said Mary, "except out of doors." "Out of doors! What a wonderful idea!" In the end they decidedto sleep on the towers--Mary on the western tower, Ivor on theeastern. There was a flat expanse of leads on each of the towers,and you could get a mattress through the trap doors that opened onto them. Under the stars, under the gibbous moon, assuredly theywould sleep. The mattresses were hauled up, sheets and blanketswere spread, and an hour later the two insomniasts, each on hisseparate tower, were crying their good- nights across the dividinggulf. On Mary the sleep-compelling charm of the open air did not workwith its expected magic. Even through the mattress one could notfail to be aware that the leads were extremely hard. Then therewere noises: the owls screeched tirelessly, and once, roused bysome unknown terror, all the geese of the farmyard burst into asudden frenzy of cackling. The stars and the gibbous moon demandedto be looked at, and when one meteorite had streaked across thesky, you could not help waiting, open-eyed and alert, for the next.Time passed; the moon climbed higher and higher in the sky. Maryfelt less sleepy than she had when she first came out. She sat upand looked over the parapet. Had Ivor been able to sleep? shewondered. And as though in answer to her mental question, frombehind the chimney-stack at the farther end of the roof a whiteform noiselessly emerged--a form that, in the moonlight, wasrecognisably Ivor's. Spreading his arms to right and left, like atight-rope dancer, he began to walk forward along the roof-tree ofthe house. He swayed terrifyingly as he advanced. Mary looked onspeechlessly; perhaps he was walking in his sleep! Suppose he wereto wake up suddenly, now! If she spoke or moved it might mean hisdeath. She dared look no more, but sank back on her pillows. Shelistened intently. For what seemed an immensely long time there wasno sound. Then there was a patter of feet on the tiles, followed bya scrabbling noise and a whispered "Damn!" And suddenly Ivor's headand shoulders appeared above the parapet. One leg followed, thenthe other. He was on the leads. Mary pretended to wake up with astart. "Oh!" she said. "What are you doing here?" "I couldn't sleep," he explained, "so I came along to see if youcouldn't. One gets bored by oneself on a tower. Don't you find itso?" It was light before five. Long, narrow clouds barred the east,their edges bright with orange fire. The sky was pale and watery.With the mournful scream of a soul in pain, a monstrous peacock,flying heavily up from below, alighted on the parapet of the tower.Ivor and Mary started broad awake. "Catch him!" cried Ivor, jumping up. "We'll have a feather." Thefrightened peacock ran up and down the parapet in an absurddistress, curtseying and bobbing and clucking; his long tail swungponderously back and forth as he turned and turned again. Then witha flap and swish he launched himself upon the air and sailedmagnificently earthward, with a recovered dignity. But he had lefta trophy. Ivor had his feather, a long-lashed eye of purple andgreen, of blue and gold. He handed it to his companion. "An angel's feather," he said. Mary looked at it for a moment, gravely and intently. Her purplepyjamas clothed her with an ampleness that hid the lines of herbody; she looked like some large, comfortable, unjointed toy, asort of Teddy-bear--but a Teddy bear with an angel's head, pinkcheeks, and hair like a bell of gold. An angel's face, the featherof an angel's wing...Somehow the whole atmosphere of this sunrisewas rather angelic. "It's extraordinary to think of sexual selection," she said atlast, looking up from her contemplation of the miraculousfeather. "Extraordinary!" Ivor echoed. "I select you, you select me. Whatluck!" He put his arm round her shoulders and they stood lookingeastward. The first sunlight had begun to warm and colour the palelight of the dawn. Mauve pyjamas and white pyjamas; they were ayoung and charming couple. The rising sun touched their faces. Itwas all extremely symbolic; but then, if you choose to think so,nothing in this world is not symbolical. Profound and beautifultruth! "I must be getting back to my tower," said Ivor at last. "Already?" "I'm afraid so. The varletry will soon be up and about." "Ivor..." There was a prolonged and silent farewell. "And now," said Ivor, "I repeat my tight-rope stunt." Mary threw her arms round his neck. "You mustn't, Ivor. It'sdangerous. Please." He had to yield at last to her entreaties. "All right," he said,"I'll go down through the house and up at the other end." He vanished through the trap door into the darkness that stilllurked within the shuttered house. A minute later he had reappearedon the farther tower; he waved his hand, and then sank down, out ofsight, behind the parapet. From below, in the house, came the thinwasp-like buzzing of an alarum-clock. He had gone back just intime. Chapter XX. Ivor was gone. Lounging behind the wind-screen in his yellowsedan he was whirling across rural England. Social and amorousengagements of the most urgent character called him from hall tobaronial hall, from castle to castle, from Elizabethan manor- houseto Georgian mansion, over the whole expanse of the kingdom. To-dayin Somerset, to-morrow in Warwickshire, on Saturday in the Westriding, by Tuesday morning in Argyll--Ivor never rested. The wholesummer through, from the beginning of July till the end ofSeptember, he devoted himself to his engagements; he was a martyrto them. In the autumn he went back to London for a holiday. Cromehad been a little incident, an evanescent bubble on the stream ofhis life; it belonged already to the past. By tea-time he would beat Gobley, and there would be Zenobia's welcoming smile. And onThursday morning--but that was a long, long way ahead. He wouldthink of Thursday morning when Thursday morning arrived. Meanwhilethere was Gobley, meanwhile Zenobia. In the visitor's book at Crome Ivor had left, according to hisinvariable custom in these cases, a poem. He had improvised itmagisterially in the ten minutes preceding his departure. Denis andMr. Scogan strolled back together from the gates of the courtyard,whence they had bidden their last farewells; on the writing-tablein the hall they found the visitor's book, open, and Ivor'scomposition scarcely dry. Mr. Scogan read it aloud: "The magic of those immemorial kings,Who webbed enchantment on the bowls of night.Sleeps in the soul of all created things;In the blue sea, th' Acroceraunian height,In the eyed butterfly's auricular wingsAnd orgied visions of the anchorite;In all that singing flies and flying sings,In rain, in pain, in delicate delight.But much more magic, much more cogent spellsWeave here their wizardries about my soul.Crome calls me like the voice of vesperal bells,Haunts like a ghostlypeopled necropole.Fate tears me hence. Hard fate! since far from CromeMy soul must weep, remembering its Home." "Very nice and tasteful and tactful," said Mr. Scogan, when hehad finished. "I am only troubled by the butterfly's auricularwings. You have a first-hand knowledge of the workings of a poet'smind, Denis; perhaps you can explain." "What could be simpler," said Denis. "It's a beautiful word, andIvor wanted to say that the wings were golden." "You make it luminously clear." "One suffers so much," Denis went on, "from the fact thatbeautiful words don't always mean what they ought to mean.Recently, for example, I had a whole poem ruined, just because theword 'carminative' didn't mean what it ought to have meant.Carminative--it's admirable, isn't it?" "Admirable," Mr. Scogan agreed. "And what does it mean?" "It's a word I've treasured from my earliest infancy," saidDenis, "treasured and loved. They used to give me cinnamon when Ihad a cold--quite useless, but not disagreeable. One poured it dropby drop out of narrow bottles, a golden liquor, fierce and fiery.On the label was a list of its virtues, and among other things itwas described as being in the highest degree carminative. I adoredthe word. 'Isn't it carminative?' I used to say to myself when I'dtaken my dose. It seemed so wonderfully to describe that sensationof internal warmth, that glow, that--what shall I callit?-physical self-satisfaction which followed the drinking ofcinnamon. Later, when I discovered alcohol, 'carminative' describedfor me that similar, but nobler, more spiritual glow which wineevokes not only in the body but in the soul as well. Thecarminative virtues of burgundy, of rum, of old brandy, of LacrymaChristi, of Marsala, of Aleatico, of stout, of gin, of champagne,of claret, of the raw new wine of this year's Tuscan vintage--Icompared them, I classified them. Marsala is rosily, downilycarminative; gin pricks and refreshes while it warms. I had a wholetable of carmination values. And now"--Denis spread out his hands,palms upwards, despairingly--"now I know what carminative reallymeans." "Well, what does it mean?" asked Mr. Scogan, a littleimpatiently. "Carminative," said Denis, lingering lovingly over thesyllables, "carminative. I imagined vaguely that it had somethingto do with carmen-carminis, still more vaguely with caro-carnis,and its derivations, like carnival and carnation.Carminative--there was the idea of singing and the idea of flesh,rose-coloured and warm, with a suggestion of the jollities ofmi-Careme and the masked holidays of Venice. Carminative--thewarmth, the glow, the interior ripeness were all in the word.Instead of which..." "Do come to the point, my dear Denis," protested Mr. Scogan. "Docome to the point." "Well, I wrote a poem the other day," said Denis; "I wrote apoem about the effects of love." "Others have done the same before you," said Mr. Scogan. "Thereis no need to be ashamed." "I was putting forward the notion," Denis went on, "that theeffects of love were often similar to the effects of wine, thatEros could intoxicate as well as Bacchus. Love, for example, isessentially carminative. It gives one the sense of warmth, theglow. 'And passion carminative as wine...' was what I wrote. Not only was the line elegantly sonorous; itwas also, I flattered myself, very aptly compendiously expressive.Everything was in the word carminative--a detailed, exactforeground, an immense, indefinite hinterland of suggestion. 'And passion carminative as wine...' I was not ill-pleased. And then suddenly it occurred to me thatI had never actually looked up the word in a dictionary.Carminative had grown up with me from the days of the cinnamonbottle. It had always been taken for granted. Carminative: for methe word was as rich in content as some tremendous, elaborate workof art; it was a complete landscape with figures. 'And passion carminative as wine...' It was the first time I had ever committed the word to writing,and all at once I felt I would like lexicographical authority forit. A small English-German dictionary was all I had at hand. Iturned up C, ca, car, carm. There it was: 'Carminative:windtreibend.' Windtreibend!" he repeated. Mr. Scogan laughed.Denis shook his head. "Ah," he said, "for me it was no laughingmatter. For me it marked the end of a chapter, the death ofsomething young and precious. There were the years-years ofchildhood and innocence--when I had believed that carminativemeant--well, carminative. And now, before me lies the rest of mylife--a day, perhaps, ten years, half a century, when I shall knowthat carminative means windtreibend. 'Plus ne suis ce que j'ai ete Et ne le saurai jamais etre.' It is a realisation that makes one rather melancholy." "Carminative," said Mr. Scogan thoughtfully. "Carminative," Denis repeated, and they were silent for a time."Words," said Denis at last, "words--I wonder if you can realisehow much I love them. You are too much preoccupied with mere thingsand ideas and people to understand the full beauty of words. Yourmind is not a literary mind. The spectacle of Mr. Gladstone findingthirty-four rhymes to the name 'Margot' seems to you ratherpathetic than anything else. Mallarme's envelopes with theirversified addresses leave you cold, unless they leave you pitiful;you can't see that 'Apte a ne point te cabrer, hue!Poste et j'ajouterai, dia!Si tu ne fuis onze-bis RueBalzac, chez cet Heredia,' is a little miracle." "You're right," said Mr. Scogan. "I can't." "You don't feel it to be magical?" "No." "That's the test for the literary mind," said Denis; "thefeeling of magic, the sense that words have power. The technical,verbal part of literature is simply a development of magic. Wordsare man's first and most grandiose invention. With language hecreated a whole new universe; what wonder if he loved words andattributed power to them! With fitted, harmonious words themagicians summoned rabbits out of empty hats and spirits from theelements. Their descendants, the literary men, still go on with theprocess, morticing their verbal formulas together, and, before thepower of the finished spell, trembling with delight and awe.Rabbits out of empty hats? No, their spells are more subtlypowerful, for they evoke emotions out of empty minds. Formulated bytheir art the most insipid statements become enormouslysignificant. For example, I proffer the constatation, 'Blackladders lack bladders.' A self-evident truth, one on which it wouldnot have been worth while to insist, had I chosen to formulate itin such words as 'Black fire-escapes have no bladders,' or, 'Lesechelles noires manquent de vessie.' But since I put it as I do,'Black ladders lack bladders,' it becomes, for all itsself-evidence, significant, unforgettable, moving. The creation byword-power of something out of nothing-- what is that but magic?And, I may add, what is that but literature? Half the world'sgreatest poetry is simply 'Les echelles noires manquent de vessie,'translated into magic significance as, 'Black ladders lackbladders.' And you can't appreciate words. I'm sorry for you." "A mental carminative," said Mr. Scogan reflectively. "That'swhat you need." Chapter XXI. Perched on its four stone mushrooms, the little granary stoodtwo or three feet above the grass of the green close. Beneath itthere was a perpetual shade and a damp growth of long, luxuriantgrasses. Here, in the shadow, in the green dampness, a family ofwhite ducks had sought shelter from the afternoon sun. Some stood,preening themselves, some reposed with their long bellies pressedto the ground, as though the cool grass were water. Little socialnoises burst fitfully forth, and from time to time some pointedtail would execute a brilliant Lisztian tremolo. Suddenly theirjovial repose was shattered. A prodigious thump shook the woodenflooring above their heads; the whole granary trembled, littlefragments of dirt and crumbled wood rained down among them. With aloud, continuous quacking the ducks rushed out from beneath thisnameless menace, and did not stay their flight till they weresafely in the farmyard. "Don't lose your temper," Anne was saying. "Listen! You'vefrightened the ducks. Poor dears! no wonder." She was sittingsideways in a low, wooden chair. Her right elbow rested on the backof the chair and she supported her cheek on her hand. Her long,slender body drooped into curves of a lazy grace. She was smiling,and she looked at Gombauld through half-closed eyes. "Damn you!" Gombauld repeated, and stamped his foot again. Heglared at her round the halffinished portrait on the easel. "Poor ducks!" Anne repeated. The sound of their quacking wasfaint in the distance; it was inaudible. "Can't you see you make me lose my time?" he asked. "I can'twork with you dangling about distractingly like this." "You'd lose less time if you stopped talking and stamping yourfeet and did a little painting for a change. After all, what am Idangling about for, except to be painted?" Gombauld made a noise like a growl. "You're awful," he said,with conviction. "Why do you ask me to come and stay here? Why doyou tell me you'd like me to paint your portrait?" "For the simple reasons that I like you--at least, when you'rein a good temper--and that I think you're a good painter." "For the simple reason"--Gombauld mimicked her voice--"that youwant me to make love to you and, when I do, to have the amusementof running away." Anne threw back her head and laughed. "So you think it amuses meto have to evade your advances! So like a man! If you only knew howgross and awful and boring men are when they try to make love andyou don't want them to make love! If you could only see yourselvesthrough our eyes!" Gombauld picked up his palette and brushes and attacked hiscanvas with the ardour of irritation. "I suppose you'll be sayingnext that you didn't start the game, that it was I who made thefirst advances, and that you were the innocent victim who sat stilland never did anything that could invite or allure me on." "So like a man again!" said Anne. "It's always the same oldstory about the woman tempting the man. The woman lures,fascinates, invites; and man--noble man, innocent man--falls avictim. My poor Gombauld! Surely you're not going to sing that oldsong again. It's so unintelligent, and I always thought you were aman of sense." "Thanks," said Gombauld. "Be a little objective," Anne went on. "Can't you see thatyou're simply externalising your own emotions? That's what you menare always doing; it's so barbarously naive. You feel one of yourloose desires for some woman, and because you desire her stronglyyou immediately accuse her of luring you on, of deliberatelyprovoking and inviting the desire. You have the mentality ofsavages. You might just as well say that a plate of strawberriesand cream deliberately lures you on to feel greedy. In ninety-ninecases out of a hundred women are as passive and innocent as thestrawberries and cream." "Well, all I can say is that this must be the hundredth case,"said Gombauld, without looking up. Anne shrugged her shoulders and gave vent to a sigh. "I'm at aloss to know whether you're more silly or more rude." After painting for a little time in silence Gombauld began tospeak again. "And then there's Denis," he said, renewing theconversation as though it had only just been broken off. "You'replaying the same game with him. Why can't you leave that wretchedyoung man in peace?" Anne flushed with a sudden and uncontrollable anger. "It'sperfectly untrue about Denis," she said indignantly. "I neverdreamt of playing what you beautifully call the same game withhim." Recovering her calm, she added in her ordinary cooing voiceand with her exacerbating smile, "You've become very protectivetowards poor Denis all of a sudden." "I have," Gombauld replied, with a gravity that was somehow alittle too solemn. "I don't like to see a young man..." "...being whirled along the road to ruin," said Anne, continuinghis sentence for him. I admire your sentiments and, believe me, Ishare them." She was curiously irritated at what Gombauld had said aboutDenis. It happened to be so completely untrue. Gombauld might havesome slight ground for his reproaches. But Denis--no, she had neverflirted with Denis. Poor boy! He was very sweet. She becamesomewhat pensive. Gombauld painted on with fury. The restlessness of anunsatisfied desire, which, before, had distracted his mind, makingwork impossible, seemed now to have converted itself into a kind offeverish energy. When it was finished, he told himself, theportrait would be diabolic. He was painting her in the pose she hadnaturally adopted at the first sitting. Seated sideways, her elbowon the back of the chair, her head and shoulders turned at an anglefrom the rest of her body, towards the front, she had fallen intoan attitude of indolent abandonment. He had emphasised the lazycurves of her body; the lines sagged as they crossed the canvas,the grace of the painted figure seemed to be melting into a kind ofsoft decay. The hand that lay along the knee was as limp as aglove. He was at work on the face now; it had begun to emerge onthe canvas, doll-like in its regularity and listlessness. It wasAnne's face--but her face as it would be, utterly unillumined bythe inward lights of thought and emotion. It was the lazy,expressionless mask which was sometimes her face. The portrait wasterribly like; and at the same time it was the most malicious oflies. Yes, it would be diabolic when it was finished, Gombaulddecided; he wondered what she would think of it. Chapter XXII. For the sake of peace and quiet Denis had retired earlier onthis same afternoon to his bedroom. He wanted to work, but the hourwas a drowsy one, and lunch, so recently eaten, weighed heavily onbody and mind. The meridian demon was upon him; he was possessed bythat bored and hopeless post-prandial melancholy which thecoenobites of old knew and feared under the name of "accidie." Hefelt, like Ernest Dowson, "a little weary." He was in the mood towrite something rather exquisite and gentle and quietist in tone;something a little droopy and at the same time-how should he putit?--a little infinite. He thought of Anne, of love hopeless andunattainable. Perhaps that was the ideal kind of love, the hopelesskind--the quiet, theoretical kind of love. In this sad mood ofrepletion he could well believe it. He began to write. One elegantquatrain had flowed from beneath his pen: "A brooding love which is at mostThe stealth of moonbeams when they slide,Evoking colour's bloodless ghost,O'er some scarce-breathing breast or side..." when his attention was attracted by a sound from outside. Helooked down from his window; there they were, Anne and Gombauld,talking, laughing together. They crossed the courtyard in front,and passed out of sight through the gate in the right-hand wall.That was the way to the green close and the granary; she was goingto sit for him again. His pleasantly depressing melancholy wasdissipated by a puff of violent emotion; angrily he threw hisquatrain into the waste-paper basket and ran downstairs. "Thestealth of moonbeams," indeed! In the hall he saw Mr. Scogan; the man seemed to be lying inwait. Denis tried to escape, but in vain. Mr. Scogan's eyeglittered like the eye of the Ancient Mariner. "Not so fast," he said, stretching out a small saurian hand withpointed nails--"not so fast. I was just going down to the flowergarden to take the sun. We'll go together." Denis abandoned himself; Mr. Scogan put on his hat and they wentout arm in arm. On the shaven turf of the terrace Henry Wimbush andMary were playing a solemn game of bowls. They descended by theyew-tree walk. It was here, thought Denis, here that Anne hadfallen, here that he had kissed her, here--and he blushed withretrospective shame at the memory--here that he had tried to carryher and failed. Life was awful! "Sanity!" said Mr. Scogan, suddenly breaking a long silence."Sanity--that's what's wrong with me and that's what will be wrongwith you, my dear Denis, when you're old enough to be sane orinsane. In a sane world I should be a great man; as things are, inthis curious establishment, I am nothing at all; to all intents andpurposes I don't exist. I am just Vox et praeterea nihil." Denis made no response; he was thinking of other things. "Afterall," he said to himself--"after all, Gombauld is better lookingthan I, more entertaining, more confident; and, besides, he'salready somebody and I'm still only potential..." "Everything that ever gets done in this world is done bymadmen," Mr. Scogan went on. Denis tried not to listen, but thetireless insistence of Mr. Scogan's discourse gradually compelledhis attention. "Men such as I am, such as you may possibly become,have never achieved anything. We're too sane; we're merelyreasonable. We lack the human touch, the compelling enthusiasticmania. People are quite ready to listen to the philosophers for alittle amusement, just as they would listen to a fiddler or amountebank. But as to acting on the advice of the men of reason--never. Wherever the choice has had to be made between the man ofreason and the madman, the world has unhesitatingly followed themadman. For the madman appeals to what is fundamental, to passionand the instincts; the philosophers to what is superficial andsupererogatory--reason." They entered the garden; at the head of one of the alleys stooda green wooden bench, embayed in the midst of a fragrant continentof lavender bushes. It was here, though the place was shadeless andone breathed hot, dry perfume instead of air--it was here that Mr.Scogan elected to sit. He thrived on untempered sunlight. "Consider, for example, the case of Luther and Erasmus." He tookout his pipe and began to fill it as he talked. "There was Erasmus,a man of reason if ever there was one. People listened to him atfirst--a new virtuoso performing on that elegant and resourcefulinstrument, the intellect; they even admired and venerated him. Butdid he move them to behave as he wanted them to behave-reasonably,decently, or at least a little less porkishly than usual? He didnot. And then Luther appears, violent, passionate, a madmaninsanely convinced about matters in which there can be noconviction. He shouted, and men rushed to follow him. Erasmus wasno longer listened to; he was reviled for his reasonableness.Luther was serious, Luther was reality-- like the Great War.Erasmus was only reason and decency; he lacked the power, being asage, to move men to action. Europe followed Luther and embarked ona century and a half of war and bloody persecution. It's amelancholy story." Mr. Scogan lighted a match. In the intense lightthe flame was all but invisible. The smell of burning tobacco beganto mingle with the sweetly acrid smell of the lavender. "If you want to get men to act reasonably, you must set aboutpersuading them in a maniacal manner. The very sane precepts of thefounders of religions are only made infectious by means ofenthusiasms which to a sane man must appear deplorable. It ishumiliating to find how impotent unadulterated sanity is. Sanity,for example, informs us that the only way in which we can preservecivilisation is by behaving decently and intelligently. Sanityappeals and argues; our rulers persevere in their customaryporkishness, while we acquiesce and obey. The only hope is amaniacal crusade; I am ready, when it comes, to beat a tambourinewith the loudest, but at the same time I shall feel a littleashamed of myself. However"--Mr. Scogan shrugged his shoulders and,pipe in hand, made a gesture of resignation--"It's futile tocomplain that things are as they are. The fact remains that sanityunassisted is useless. What we want, then, is a sane and reasonableexploitation of the forces of insanity. We sane men will have thepower yet." Mr. Scogan's eyes shone with a more than ordinarybrightness, and, taking his pipe out of his mouth, he gave vent tohis loud, dry, and somehow rather fiendish laugh. "But I don't want power," said Denis. He was sitting in limpdiscomfort at one end of the bench, shading his eyes from theintolerable light. Mr. Scogan, bolt upright at the other end,laughed again. "Everybody wants power," he said. "Power in some form or other.The sort of power you hanker for is literary power. Some peoplewant power to persecute other human beings; you expend your lustfor power in persecuting words, twisting them, moulding them,torturing them to obey you. But I divagate." "Do you?" asked Denis faintly. "Yes," Mr. Scogan continued, unheeding, "the time will come. Wemen of intelligence will learn to harness the insanities to theservice of reason. We can't leave the world any longer to thedirection of chance. We can't allow dangerous maniacs like Luther,mad about dogma, like Napoleon, mad about himself, to go oncasually appearing and turning everything upside down. In the pastit didn't so much matter; but our modern machine is too delicate. Afew more knocks like the Great War, another Luther or two, and thewhole concern will go to pieces. In future, the men of reason mustsee that the madness of the world's maniacs is canalised intoproper channels, is made to do useful work, like a mountain torrentdriving a dynamo..." "Making electricity to light a Swiss hotel," said Denis. "Youought to complete the simile." Mr. Scogan waved away the interruption. "There's only one thingto be done," he said. "The men of intelligence must combine, mustconspire, and seize power from the imbeciles and maniacs who nowdirect us. They must found the Rational State." The heat that was slowly paralysing all Denis's mental andbodily faculties, seemed to bring to Mr. Scogan additionalvitality. He talked with an ever-increasing energy, his hands movedin sharp, quick, precise gestures, his eyes shone. Hard, dry, andcontinuous, his voice went on sounding and sounding in Denis's earswith the insistence of a mechanical noise. "In the Rational State," he heard Mr. Scogan saying, "humanbeings will be separated out into distinct species, not accordingto the colour of their eyes or the shape of their skulls, butaccording to the qualities of their mind and temperament. Examiningpsychologists, trained to what would now seem an almost superhumanclairvoyance, will test each child that is born and assign it toits proper species. Duly labelled and docketed, the child will begiven the education suitable to members of its species, and will beset, in adult life, to perform those functions which human beingsof his variety are capable of performing." "How many species will there be?" asked Denis. "A great many, no doubt," Mr. Scogan answered; "theclassification will be subtle and elaborate. But it is not in thepower of a prophet to go into details, nor is it his business. Iwill do more than indicate the three main species into which thesubjects of the Rational State will be divided." He paused, cleared his throat, and coughed once or twice,evoking in Denis's mind the vision of a table with a glass andwater- bottle, and, lying across one corner, a long white pointerfor the lantern pictures. "The three main species," Mr. Scogan went on, "will be these:the Directing Intelligences, the Men of Faith, and the Herd. Amongthe Intelligences will be found all those capable of thought, thosewho know how to attain a certain degree of freedom--and, alas, howlimited, even among the most intelligent, that freedom is!--fromthe mental bondage of their time. A select body of Intelligences,drawn from among those who have turned their attention to theproblems of practical life, will be the governors of the RationalState. They will employ as their instruments of power the secondgreat species of humanity--the men of Faith, the Madmen, as I havebeen calling them, who believe in things unreasonably, withpassion, and are ready to die for their beliefs and their desires.These wild men, with their fearful potentialities for good or formischief, will no longer be allowed to react casually to a casualenvironment. There will be no more Caesar Borgias, no more Luthersand Mohammeds, no more Joanna Southcotts, no more Comstocks. Theold-fashioned Man of Faith and Desire, that haphazard creature ofbrute circumstance, who might drive men to tears and repentance, orwho might equally well set them on to cutting one another'sthroats, will be replaced by a new sort of madman, still externallythe same, still bubbling with a seemingly spontaneous enthusiasm,but, ah, how very different from the madman of the past! For thenew Man of Faith will be expending his passion, his desire, and hisenthusiasm in the propagation of some reasonable idea. He will be,all unawares, the tool of some superior intelligence." Mr. Scogan chuckled maliciously; it was as though he were takinga revenge, in the name of reason, on enthusiasts. "From theirearliest years, as soon, that is, as the examining psychologistshave assigned them their place in the classified scheme, the Men ofFaith will have had their special education under the eye of theIntelligences. Moulded by a long process of suggestion, they willgo out into the world, preaching and practising with a generousmania the coldly reasonable projects of the Directors from above.When these projects are accomplished, or when the ideas that wereuseful a decade ago have ceased to be useful, the Intelligenceswill inspire a new generation of madmen with a new eternal truth.The principal function of the Men of Faith will be to move anddirect the Multitude, that third great species consisting of thosecountless millions who lack intelligence and are without valuableenthusiasm. When any particular effort is required of the Herd,when it is thought necessary, for the sake of solidarity, thathumanity shall be kindled and united by some single enthusiasticdesire or idea, the Men of Faith, primed with some simple andsatisfying creed, will be sent out on a mission of evangelisation.At ordinary times, when the high spiritual temperature of a Crusadewould be unhealthy, the Men of Faith will be quietly and earnestlybusy with the great work of education. In the upbringing of theHerd, humanity's almost boundless suggestibility will bescientifically exploited. Systematically, from earliest infancy,its members will be assured that there is no happiness to be foundexcept in work and obedience; they will be made to believe thatthey are happy, that they are tremendously important beings, andthat everything they do is noble and significant. For the lowerspecies the earth will be restored to the centre of the universeand man to pre- eminence on the earth. Oh, I envy the lot of thecommonality in the Rational State! Working their eight hours a day,obeying their betters, convinced of their own grandeur andsignificance and immortality, they will be marvellously happy,happier than any race of men has ever been. They will go throughlife in a rosy state of intoxication, from which they will neverawake. The Men of Faith will play the cup-bearers at this lifelongbacchanal, filling and ever filling again with the warm liquor thatthe Intelligences, in sad and sober privacy behind the scenes, willbrew for the intoxication of their subjects." "And what will be my place in the Rational State?" Denisdrowsily inquired from under his shading hand. Mr. Scogan looked at him for a moment in silence. "It'sdifficult to see where you would fit in," he said at last. "Youcouldn't do manual work; you're too independent and unsuggestibleto belong to the larger Herd; you have none of the characteristicsrequired in a Man of Faith. As for the Directing Intelligences,they will have to be marvellously clear and merciless andpenetrating." He paused and shook his head. "No, I can see no placefor you; only the lethal chamber." Deeply hurt, Denis emitted the imitation of a loud Homericlaugh. "I'm getting sunstroke here," he said, and got up. Mr. Scogan followed his example, and they walked slowly awaydown the narrow path, brushing the blue lavender flowers in theirpassage. Denis pulled a sprig of lavender and sniffed at it; thensome dark leaves of rosemary that smelt like incense in a cavernouschurch. They passed a bed of opium poppies, dispetaled now; theround, ripe seedheads were brown and dry--like Polynesian trophies,Denis thought; severed heads stuck on poles. He liked the fancyenough to impart it to Mr. Scogan. "Like Polynesian trophies..." Uttered aloud, the fancy seemedless charming and significant than it did when it first occurred tohim. There was a silence, and in a growing wave of sound the whir ofthe reaping machines swelled up from the fields beyond the gardenand then receded into a remoter hum. "It is satisfactory to think," said Mr. Scogan, as they strolledslowly onward, "that a multitude of people are toiling in theharvest fields in order that we may talk of Polynesia. Like everyother good thing in this world, leisure and culture have to be paidfor. Fortunately, however, it is not the leisured and the culturedwho have to pay. Let us be duly thankful for that, my dearDenis-duly thankful," he repeated, and knocked the ashes out ofhis pipe. Denis was not listening. He had suddenly remembered Anne. Shewas with Gombauld--alone with him in his studio. It was anintolerable thought. "Shall we go and pay a call on Gombauld?" he suggestedcarelessly. It would be amusing to see what he's doing now." He laughed inwardly to think how furious Gombauld would be whenhe saw them arriving. Chapter XXIII. Gombauld was by no means so furious at their apparition as Denishad hoped and expected he would be. Indeed, he was rather pleasedthan annoyed when the two faces, one brown and pointed, the otherround and pale, appeared in the frame of the open door. The energyborn of his restless irritation was dying within him, returning toits emotional elements. A moment more and he would have been losinghis temper again--and Anne would be keeping hers, infuriatingly.Yes, he was positively glad to see them. "Come in, come in," he called out hospitably. Followed by Mr. Scogan, Denis climbed the little ladder andstepped over the threshold. He looked suspiciously from Gombauld tohis sitter, and could learn nothing from the expression of theirfaces except that they both seemed pleased to see the visitors.Were they really glad, or were they cunningly simulating gladness?He wondered. Mr. Scogan, meanwhile, was looking at the portrait. "Excellent," he said approvingly, "excellent. Almost too true tocharacter, if that is possible; yes, positively too true. But I'msurprised to find you putting in all this psychology business." Hepointed to the face, and with his extended finger followed theslack curves of the painted figure. "I thought you were one of thefellows who went in exclusively for balanced masses and impingingplanes." Gombauld laughed. "This is a little infidelity," he said. "I'm sorry," said Mr. Scogan. "I for one, without ever havinghad the slightest appreciation of painting, have always takenparticular pleasure in Cubismus. I like to see pictures from whichnature has been completely banished, pictures which are exclusivelythe product of the human mind. They give me the same pleasure as Iderive from a good piece of reasoning or a mathematical problem oran achievement of engineering. Nature, or anything that reminds meof nature, disturbs me; it is too large, too complicated, above alltoo utterly pointless and incomprehensible. I am at home with theworks of man; if I choose to set my mind to it, I can understandanything that any man has made or thought. That is why I alwaystravel by Tube, never by bus if I can possibly help it. For,travelling by bus, one can't avoid seeing, even in London, a fewstray works of God --the sky, for example, an occasional tree, theflowers in the window-boxes. But travel by Tube and you see nothingbut the works of man--iron riveted into geometrical forms, straightlines of concrete, patterned expanses of tiles. All is human andthe product of friendly and comprehensible minds. All philosophiesand all religions--what are they but spiritual Tubes bored throughthe universe! Through these narrow tunnels, where all isrecognisably human, one travels comfortable and secure, contrivingto forget that all round and below and above them stretches theblind mass of earth, endless and unexplored. Yes, give me the Tubeand Cubismus every time; give me ideas, so snug and neat and simpleand well made. And preserve me from nature, preserve me from allthat's inhumanly large and complicated and obscure. I haven't thecourage, and, above all, I haven't the time to start wandering inthat labyrinth." While Mr. Scogan was discoursing, Denis had crossed over to thefarther side of the little square chamber, where Anne was sitting,still in her graceful, lazy pose, on the low chair. "Well?" he demanded, looking at her almost fiercely. What was heasking of her? He hardly knew himself. Anne looked up at him, and for answer echoed his "Well?" inanother, a laughing key. Denis had nothing more, at the moment, to say. Two or threecanvases stood in the corner behind Anne's chair, their facesturned to the wall. He pulled them out and began to look at thepaintings. "May I see too?" Anne requested. He stood them in a row against the wall. Anne had to turn roundin her chair to look at them. There was the big canvas of the manfallen from the horse, there was a painting of flowers, there was asmall landscape. His hands on the back of the chair, Denis leanedover her. From behind the easel at the other side of the room Mr.Scogan was talking away. For a long time they looked at thepictures, saying nothing; or, rather, Anne looked at the pictures,while Denis, for the most part, looked at Anne. "I like the man and the horse; don't you?" she said at last,looking up with an inquiring smile. Denis nodded, and then in a queer, strangled voice, as though ithad cost him a great effort to utter the words, he said, "I loveyou." It was a remark which Anne had heard a good many times beforeand mostly heard with equanimity. But on this occasion--perhapsbecause they had come so unexpectedly , perhaps for some otherreason--the words provoked in her a certain surprisedcommotion. "My poor Denis," she managed to say, with a laugh; but she wasblushing as she spoke. Chapter XXIV. It was noon. Denis, descending from his chamber, where he hadbeen making an unsuccessful effort to write something about nothingin particular, found the drawing-room deserted. He was about to goout into the garden when his eye fell on a familiar but mysteriousobject--the large red notebook in which he had so often seen Jennyquietly and busily scribbling. She had left it lying on thewindow-seat. The temptation was great. He picked up the book andslipped off the elastic band that kept it discreetly closed. "Private. Not to be opened," was written in capital letters onthe cover. He raised his eyebrows. It was the sort of thing onewrote in one's Latin Grammar while one was still at one'spreparatory school. "Black is the raven, black is the rook,But blacker the theif who steals this book!" It was curiously childish, he thought, and he smiled to himself.He opened the book. What he saw made him wince as though he hadbeen struck. Denis was his own severest critic; so, at least, he had alwaysbelieved. He liked to think of himself as a merciless vivisectorprobing into the palpitating entrails of his own soul; he was BrownDog to himself. His weaknesses, his absurdities--no one knew thembetter than he did. Indeed, in a vague way he imagined that nobodybeside himself was aware of them at all. It seemed, somehow,inconceivable that he should appear to other people as theyappeared to him; inconceivable that they ever spoke of him amongthemselves in that same freely critical and, to be quite honest,mildly malicious tone in which he was accustomed to talk of them.In his own eyes he had defects, but to see them was a privilegereserved to him alone. For the rest of the world he was surely animage of flawless crystal. It was almost axiomatic. On opening the red notebook that crystal image of himselfcrashed to the ground, and was irreparably shattered. He was nothis own severest critic after all. The discovery was a painfulone. The fruit of Jenny's unobtrusive scribbling lay before him. Acaricature of himself, reading (the book was upside-down). In thebackground a dancing couple, recognisable as Gombauld and Anne.Beneath, the legend: "Fable of the Wallflower and the Sour Grapes."Fascinated and horrified, Denis pored over the drawing. It wasmasterful. A mute, inglorious Rouveyre appeared in every one ofthose cruelly clear lines. The expression of the face, an assumedaloofness and superiority tempered by a feeble envy; the attitudeof the body and limbs, an attitude of studious and scholarlydignity, given away by the fidgety pose of the turned-infeet--these things were terrible. And, more terrible still, was thelikeness, was the magisterial certainty with which his physicalpeculiarities were all recorded and subtly exaggerated. Denis looked deeper into the book. There were caricatures ofother people: of Priscilla and Mr. Barbecue-Smith; of HenryWimbush, of Anne and Gombauld; of Mr. Scogan, whom Jenny hadrepresented in a light that was more than slightly sinister, thatwas, indeed, diabolic; of Mary and Ivor. He scarcely glanced atthem. A fearful desire to know the worst about himself possessedhim. He turned over the leaves, lingering at nothing that was nothis own image. Seven full pages were devoted to him. "Private. Not to be opened." He had disobeyed the injunction; hehad only got what he deserved. Thoughtfully he closed the book, andslid the rubber band once more into its place. Sadder and wiser, hewent out on to the terrace. And so this, he reflected, this was howJenny employed the leisure hours in her ivory tower apart. And hehad thought her a simple-minded, uncritical creature! It was he, itseemed, who was the fool. He felt no resentment towards Jenny. No,the distressing thing wasn't Jenny herself; it was what she and thephenomenon of her red book represented, what they stood for andconcretely symbolised. They represented all the vast consciousworld of men outside himself; they symbolised something that in hisstudious solitariness he was apt not to believe in. He could standat Piccadilly Circus, could watch the crowds shuffle past, andstill imagine himself the one fully conscious, intelligent,individual being among all those thousands. It seemed, somehow,impossible that other people should be in their way as elaborateand complete as he in his. Impossible; and yet, periodically hewould make some painful discovery about the external world and thehorrible reality of its consciousness and its intelligence. The rednotebook was one of these discoveries, a footprint in the sand. Itput beyond a doubt the fact that the outer world reallyexisted. Sitting on the balustrade of the terrace, he ruminated thisunpleasant truth for some time. Still chewing on it, he strolledpensively down towards the swimming-pool. A peacock and his hentrailed their shabby finery across the turf of the lower lawn.Odious birds! Their necks, thick and greedily fleshy at the roots,tapered up to the cruel inanity of their brainless heads, theirflat eyes and piercing beaks. The fabulists were right, hereflected, when they took beasts to illustrate their tractates ofhuman morality. Animals resemble men with all the truthfulness of acaricature. (Oh, the red notebook!) He threw a piece of stick atthe slowly pacing birds. They rushed towards it, thinking it wassomething to eat. He walked on. The profound shade of a giant ilex tree engulfedhim. Like a great wooden octopus, it spread its long armsabroad. "Under the spreading ilex tree..." He tried to remember who the poem was by, but couldn't. "The smith, a brawny man is he,With arms like rubber bands." Just like his; he would have to try and do his Muller exercisesmore regularly. He emerged once more into the sunshine. The pool lay before him,reflecting in its bronze mirror the blue and various green of thesummer day. Looking at it, he thought of Anne's bare arms andseal-sleek bathing-dress, her moving knees and feet. "And little Luce with the white legs,And bouncing Barbary..." Oh, these rags and tags of other people's making! Would he everbe able to call his brain his own? Was there, indeed, anything init that was truly his own, or was it simply an education? He walked slowly round the water's edge. In an embayed recessamong the surrounding yew trees, leaning her back against thepedestal of a pleasantly comic version of the Medici Venus,executed by some nameless mason of the seicento, he saw Marypensively sitting. "Hullo!" he said, for he was passing so close to her that he hadto say something. Mary looked up. "Hullo!" she answered in a melancholy,uninterested tone. In this alcove hewed out of the dark trees, the atmosphereseemed to Denis agreeably elegiac. He sat down beside her under theshadow of the pudic goddess. There was a prolonged silence. At breakfast that morning Mary had found on her plate a picturepostcard of Gobley Great Park. A stately Georgian pile, with afacade sixteen windows wide; parterres in the foreground; huge,smooth lawns receding out of the picture to right and left. Tenyears more of the hard times and Gobley, with all its peers, willbe deserted and decaying. Fifty years, and the countryside willknow the old landmarks no more. They will have vanished as themonasteries vanished before them. At the moment, however, Mary'smind was not moved by these considerations. On the back of the postcard, next to the address, was written,in Ivor's bold, large hand, a single quatrain. "Hail, maid of moonlight! Bride of the sun, farewell!Like bright plumes moulted in an angel's flight,There sleep within my heart's most mystic cellMemories of morning, memories of the night." There followed a postscript of three lines: "Would you mindasking one of the housemaids to forward the packet of safety- razorblades I left in the drawer of my washstand. Thanks.-- Ivor. Seated under the Venus's immemorial gesture, Mary consideredlife and love. The abolition of her repressions, so far frombringing the expected peace of mind, had brought nothing butdisquiet, a new and hitherto unexperienced misery. Ivor, Ivor...Shecouldn't do without him now. It was evident, on the other hand,from the poem on the back of the picture postcard, that Ivor couldvery well do without her. He was at Gobley now, so was Zenobia.Mary knew Zenobia. She thought of the last verse of the song he hadsung that night in the garden. "Le lendemain, Phillis peu sageAurait donne moutons et chienPour un baiser que le volageA Lisette donnait pour rien." Mary shed tears at the memory; she had never been so unhappy inall her life before. It was Denis who first broke the silence. "The individual," hebegan in a soft and sadly philosophical tone, "is not a self-supporting universe. There are times when he comes into contactwith other individuals, when he is forced to take cognisance of theexistence of other universes besides himself." He had contrived this highly abstract generalisation as apreliminary to a personal confidence. It was the first gambit in aconversation that was to lead up to Jenny's caricatures. "True," said Mary; and, generalising for herself, she added,"When one individual comes into intimate contact with another,she--or he, of course, as the case may be--must almost inevitablyreceive or inflict suffering." "One is apt, Denis went on, "to be so spellbound by thespectacle of one's own personality that one forgets that thespectacle presents itself to other people as well as tooneself." Mary was not listening. "The difficulty," she said, "makesitself acutely felt in matters of sex. If one individual seeksintimate contact with another individual in the natural way, she iscertain to receive or inflict suffering. If on the other hand, sheavoids contacts, she risks the equally grave sufferings that followon unnatural repressions. As you see, it's a dilemma." "When I think of my own case," said Denis, making a more decidedmove in the desired direction, "I am amazed how ignorant I am ofother people's mentality in general, and above all and inparticular, of their opinions about myself. Our minds are sealedbooks only occasionally opened to the outside world." He made agesture that was faintly suggestive of the drawing off of a rubberband. "It's an awful problem," said Mary thoughtfully. "One has tohave had personal experience to realise quite how awful it is." "Exactly." Denis nodded. "One has to have had first-handexperience." He leaned towards her and slightly lowered his voice."This very morning, for example..." he began, but his confidenceswere cut short. The deep voice of the gong, tempered by distance toa pleasant booming, floated down from the house. It was lunch-time.Mechanically Mary rose to her feet, and Denis, a little hurt thatshe should exhibit such a desperate anxiety for her food and soslight an interest in his spiritual experiences, followed her. Theymade their way up to the house without speaking. Chapter XXV. "I hope you all realise," said Henry Wimbush during dinner,"that next Monday is Bank Holiday, and that you will all beexpected to help in the Fair." "Heavens!" cried Anne. "The Fair--I had forgotten all about it.What a nightmare! Couldn't you put a stop to it, Uncle Henry?" Mr. Wimbush sighed and shook his head. "Alas," he said, "I fearI cannot. I should have liked to put an end to it years ago; butthe claims of Charity are strong." "It's not charity we want," Anne murmured rebelliously; "it'sjustice." "Besides," Mr. Wimbush went on, "the Fair has become aninstitution. Let me see, it must be twenty-two years since westarted it. It was a modest affair then. Now..." he made a sweepingmovement with his hand and was silent. It spoke highly for Mr. Wimbush's public spirit that he stillcontinued to tolerate the Fair. Beginning as a sort of glorifiedchurch bazaar, Crome's yearly Charity Fair had grown into a noisything of merry-go-rounds, cocoanut shies, and miscellaneous sideshows--a real genuine fair on the grand scale. It was the local St.Bartholomew, and the people of all the neighbouring villages, witheven a contingent from the county town, flocked into the park fortheir Bank Holiday amusement. The local hospital profitedhandsomely, and it was this fact alone which prevented Mr. Wimbush,to whom the Fair was a cause of recurrent and neverdiminishingagony, from putting a stop to the nuisance which yearly desecratedhis park and garden. "I've made all the arrangements already," Henry Wimbush went on."Some of the larger marquees will be put up to-morrow. The swingsand the merry-go-round arrive on Sunday." "So there's no escape," said Anne, turning to the rest of theparty. "You'll all have to do something. As a special favour you'reallowed to choose your slavery. My job is the tea tent, as usual,Aunt Priscilla..." "My dear," said Mrs. Wimbush, interrupting her, "I have moreimportant things to think about than the Fair. But you need have nodoubt that I shall do my best when Monday comes to encourage thevillagers." "That's splendid," said Anne. "Aunt Priscilla will encourage thevillagers. What will you do, Mary?" "I won't do anything where I have to stand by and watch otherpeople eat." "Then you'll look after the children's sports." "All right," Mary agreed. "I'll look after the children'ssports." "And Mr. Scogan?" Mr. Scogan reflected. "May I be allowed to tell fortunes?" heasked at last. "I think I should be good at telling fortunes." "But you can't tell fortunes in that costume!" "Can't I?" Mr. Scogan surveyed himself. "You'll have to be dressed up. Do you still persist?" "I'm ready to suffer all indignities." "Good!" said Anne; and turning to Gombauld, "You must be ourlightning artist," she said. "'Your portrait for a shilling in fiveminutes.'" "It's a pity I'm not Ivor," said Gombauld, with a laugh. "Icould throw in a picture of their Auras for an extra sixpence." Mary flushed. "Nothing is to be gained," she said severely, "byspeaking with levity of serious subjects. And, after all, whateveryour personal views may be, psychical research is a perfectlyserious subject." "And what about Denis?" Denis made a deprecating gesture. "I have no accomplishments,"he said, "I'll just be one of those men who wear a thing in theirbuttonholes and go about telling people which is the way to tea andnot to walk on the grass." "No, no," said Anne. "That won't do. You must do something morethan that." "But what? All the good jobs are taken, and I can do nothing butlisp in numbers." "Well, then, you must lisp," concluded Anne. "You must write apoem for the occasion--an 'Ode on Bank Holiday.' We'll print it onUncle Henry's press and sell it at twopence a copy." "Sixpence," Denis protested. "It'll be worth sixpence." Anne shook her head. "Twopence," she repeated firmly. "Nobodywill pay more than twopence." "And now there's Jenny," said Mr Wimbush. "Jenny," he said,raising his voice, "what will you do?" Denis thought of suggesting that she might draw caricatures atsixpence an execution, but decided it would be wiser to go onfeigning ignorance of her talent. His mind reverted to the rednotebook. Could it really be true that he looked like that? "What will I do," Jenny echoed, "what will I do?" She frownedthoughtfully for a moment; then her face brightened and she smiled."When I was young," she said, "I learnt to play the drums." "The drums?" Jenny nodded, and, in proof of her assertion, agitated her knifeand fork, like a pair of drumsticks, over her plate. "If there'sany opportunity of playing the drums..." she began. "But of course," said Anne, "there's any amount of opportunity.We'll put you down definitely for the drums. That's the lot," sheadded. "And a very good lot too," said Gombauld. "I look forward to myBank Holiday. It ought to be gay." "It ought indeed," Mr Scogan assented. "But you may rest assuredthat it won't be. No holiday is ever anything but adisappointment." "Come, come," protested Gombauld. "My holiday at Crome isn'tbeing a disappointment." "Isn't it?" Anne turned an ingenuous mask towards him. "No, it isn't," he answered. "I'm delighted to hear it." "It's in the very nature of things," Mr. Scogan went on; "ourholidays can't help being disappointments. Reflect for a moment.What is a holiday? The ideal, the Platonic Holiday of Holidays issurely a complete and absolute change. You agree with me in mydefinition?" Mr. Scogan glanced from face to face round the table;his sharp nose moved in a series of rapid jerks through all thepoints of the compass. There was no sign of dissent; he continued:"A complete and absolute change; very well. But isn't a completeand absolute change precisely the thing we can never have--never,in the very nature of things?" Mr. Scogan once more looked rapidlyabout him. "Of course it is. As ourselves, as specimens of HomoSapiens, as members of a society, how can we hope to have anythinglike an absolute change? We are tied down by the frightfullimitation of our human faculties, by the notions which societyimposes on us through our fatal suggestibility, by our ownpersonalities. For us, a complete holiday is out of the question.Some of us struggle manfully to take one, but we never succeed, ifI may be allowed to express myself metaphorically, we never succeedin getting farther than Southend." "You're depressing," said Anne. "I mean to be," Mr. Scogan replied, and, expanding the fingersof his right hand, he went on: "Look at me, for example. What sortof a holiday can I take? In endowing me with passions and facultiesNature has been horribly niggardly. The full range of humanpotentialities is in any case distressingly limited; my range is alimitation within a limitation. Out of the ten octaves that make upthe human instrument, I can compass perhaps two. Thus, while I mayhave a certain amount of intelligence, I have no aesthetic sense;while I possess the mathematical faculty, I am wholly without thereligious emotions; while I am naturally addicted to venery, I havelittle ambition and am not at all avaricious. Education has furtherlimited my scope. Having been brought up in society, I amimpregnated with its laws; not only should I be afraid of taking aholiday from them, I should also feel it painful to try to do so.In a word, I have a conscience as well as a fear of gaol. Yes, Iknow it by experience. How often have I tried to take holidays, toget away from myself, my own boring nature, my insufferable mentalsurroundings!" Mr. Scogan sighed. "But always without success," headded, "always without success. In my youth I was alwaysstriving--how hard!--to feel religiously and aesthetically. Here,said I to myself, are two tremendously important and excitingemotions. Life would be richer, warmer, brighter, altogether moreamusing, if I could feel them. I try to feel them. I read the worksof the mystics. They seemed to me nothing but the most deplorableclaptrap--as indeed they always must to anyone who does not feelthe same emotion as the authors felt when they were writing. For itis the emotion that matters. The written work is simply an attemptto express emotion, which is in itself inexpressible, in terms ofintellect and logic. The mystic objectifies a rich feeling in thepit of the stomach into a cosmology. For other mystics thatcosmology is a symbol of the rich feeling. For the unreligious itis a symbol of nothing, and so appears merely grotesque. Amelancholy fact! But I divagate." Mr. Scogan checked himself. "Somuch for the religious emotion. As for the aesthetic--I was at evengreater pains to cultivate that. I have looked at all the rightworks of art in every part of Europe. There was a time when, Iventure to believe, I knew more about Taddeo da Poggibonsi, moreabout the cryptic Amico di Taddeo, even than Henry does. To-day, Iam happy to say, I have forgotten most of the knowledge I then solaboriously acquired; but without vanity I can assert that it wasprodigious. I don't pretend, of course, to know anything aboutnigger sculpture or the later seventeenth century in Italy; butabout all the periods that were fashionable before 1900 I am, orwas, omniscient. Yes, I repeat it, omniscient. But did that factmake me any more appreciative of art in general? It did not.Confronted by a picture, of which I could tell you all the knownand presumed history--the date when it was painted, the characterof the painter, the influences that had gone to make it what itwas--I felt none of that strange excitement and exaltation whichis, as I am informed by those who do feel it, the true aestheticemotion. I felt nothing but a certain interest in the subject ofthe picture; or more often, when the subject was hackneyed andreligious, I felt nothing but a great weariness of spirit.Nevertheless, I must have gone on looking at pictures for ten yearsbefore I would honestly admit to myself that they merely bored me.Since then I have given up all attempts to take a holiday. I go oncultivating my old stale daily self in the resigned spirit withwhich a bank clerk performs from ten till six his daily task. Aholiday, indeed! I'm sorry for you, Gombauld, if you still lookforward to having a holiday." Gombauld shrugged his shoulders. "Perhaps," he said, "mystandards aren't as elevated as yours. But personally I found thewar quite as thorough a holiday from all the ordinary decencies andsanities, all the common emotions and preoccupations, as I everwant to have." "Yes," Mr. Scogan thoughtfully agreed. "Yes, the war wascertainly something of a holiday. It was a step beyond Southend; itwas Weston-super-Mare; it was almost Ilfracombe." Chapter XXVI. A little canvas village of tents and booths had sprung up, justbeyond the boundaries of the garden, in the green expanse of thepark. A crowd thronged its streets, the men dressed mostly inblack--holiday best, funeral best--the women in pale muslins. Hereand there tricolour bunting hung inert. In the midst of the canvastown, scarlet and gold and crystal, the merry-go-round glittered inthe sun. The balloon-man walked among the crowd, and above hishead, like a huge, inverted bunch of many-coloured grapes, theballoons strained upwards. With a scythe-like motion theboat-swings reaped the air, and from the funnel of the engine whichworked the roundabout rose a thin, scarcely wavering column ofblack smoke. Denis had climbed to the top of one of Sir Ferdinando's towers,and there, standing on the sunbaked leads, his elbows resting onthe parapet, he surveyed the scene. The steam-organ sent upprodigious music. The clashing of automatic cymbals beat out withinexorable precision the rhythm of piercingly sounded melodies. Theharmonies were like a musical shattering of glass and brass. Fardown in the bass the Last Trump was hugely blowing, and with suchpersistence, such resonance, that its alternate tonic and dominantdetached themselves from the rest of the music and made a tune oftheir own, a loud, monotonous see- saw. Denis leaned over the gulf of swirling noise. If he threwhimself over the parapet, the noise would surely buoy him up, keephim suspended, bobbing, as a fountain balances a ball on itsbreaking crest. Another fancy came to him, this time in metricalform. "My soul is a thin white sheet of parchment stretched Over abubbling cauldron." Bad, bad. But he liked the idea of something thin and distendedbeing blown up from underneath. "My soul is a thin tent of gut..." or better-"My soul is a pale, tenuous membrane..." That was pleasing: a thin, tenuous membrane. It had the rightanatomical quality. Tight blown, quivering in the blast of noisylife. It was time for him to descend from the serene empyrean ofwords into the actual vortex. He went down slowly. "My soul is athin, tenuous membrane..." On the terrace stood a knot of distinguished visitors. There wasold Lord Moleyn, like a caricature of an English milord in a Frenchcomic paper: a long man, with a long nose and long, droopingmoustaches and long teeth of old ivory, and lower down, absurdly, ashort covert coat, and below that long, long legs cased inpearl-grey trousers--legs that bent unsteadily at the knee and gavea kind of sideways wobble as he walked. Beside him, short andthick-set, stood Mr. Callamay, the venerable conservativestatesman, with a face like a Roman bust, and short white hair.Young girls didn't much like going for motor drives alone with Mr.Callamay; and of old Lord Moleyn one wondered why he wasn't livingin gilded exile on the island of Capri among the otherdistinguished persons who, for one reason or another, find itimpossible to live in England. They were talking to Anne, laughing,the one profoundly, the other hootingly. A black silk balloon towing a black-and-white striped parachuteproved to be old Mrs. Budge from the big house on the other side ofthe valley. She stood low on the ground, and the spikes of herblack-and-white sunshade menaced the eyes of Priscilla Wimbush, whotowered over her--a massive figure dressed in purple and toppedwith a queenly toque on which the nodding black plumes recalled thesplendours of a first-class Parisian funeral. Denis peeped at them discreetly from the window of the morning-room. His eyes were suddenly become innocent, childlike,unprejudiced. They seemed, these people, inconceivably fantastic.And yet they really existed, they functioned by themselves, theywere conscious, they had minds. Moreover, he was like them. Couldone believe it? But the evidence of the red notebook wasconclusive. It would have been polite to go and say, "How d'you do?" But atthe moment Denis did not want to talk, could not have talked. Hissoul was a tenuous, tremulous, pale membrane. He would keep itssensibility intact and virgin as long as he could. Cautiously hecrept out by a side door and made his way down towards the park.His soul fluttered as he approached the noise and movement of thefair. He paused for a moment on the brink, then stepped in and wasengulfed. Hundreds of people, each with his own private face and all ofthem real, separate, alive: the thought was disquieting. He paidtwopence and saw the Tatooed Woman; twopence more, the Largest Ratin the World. From the home of the Rat he emerged just in time tosee a hydrogenfilled balloon break loose for home. A child howledup after it; but calmly, a perfect sphere of flushed opal, itmounted, mounted. Denis followed it with his eyes until it becamelost in the blinding sunlight. If he could but send his soul tofollow it!... He sighed, stuck his steward's rosette in his buttonhole, andstarted to push his way, aimlessly but officially, through thecrowd. Chapter XXVII. Mr. Scogan had been accommodated in a little canvas hut. Dressedin a black skirt and a red bodice, with a yellow-and-red bandanahandkerchief tied round his black wig, he looked--sharpnosed,brown, and wrinkled--like the Bohemian Hag of Frith's Derby Day. Aplacard pinned to the curtain of the doorway announced the presencewithin the tent of "Sesostris, the Sorceress of Ecbatana." Seatedat a table, Mr. Scogan received his clients in mysterious silence,indicating with a movement of the finger that they were to sit downopposite him and to extend their hands for his inspection. He thenexamined the palm that was presented him, using a magnifying glassand a pair of horn spectacles. He had a terrifying way of shakinghis head, frowning and clicking with his tongue as he looked at thelines. Sometimes he would whisper, as though to himself, "Terrible,terrible!" or "God preserve us!" sketching out the sign of thecross as he uttered the words. The clients who came in laughinggrew suddenly grave; they began to take the witch seriously. Shewas a formidable- looking woman; could it be, was it possible, thatthere was something in this sort of thing after all? After all,they thought, as the hag shook her head over their hands, afterall...And they waited, with an uncomfortably beating heart, for theoracle to speak. After a long and silent inspection, Mr. Scoganwould suddenly look up and ask, in a hoarse whisper, somehorrifying question, such as, "Have you ever been hit on the headwith a hammer by a young man with red hair?" When the answer was inthe negative, which it could hardly fail to be, Mr. Scogan wouldnod several times, saying, "I was afraid so. Everything is still tocome, still to come, though it can't be very far off now."Sometimes, after a long examination, he would just whisper, "Whereignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise," and refuse to divulgeany details of a future too appalling to be envisaged withoutdespair. Sesostris had a success of horror. People stood in a queueoutside the witch's booth waiting for the privilege of hearingsentence pronounced upon them. Denis, in the course of his round, looked with curiosity at thiscrowd of suppliants before the shrine of the oracle. He had a greatdesire to see how Mr. Scogan played his part. The canvas booth wasa rickety, ill-made structure. Between its walls and its saggingroof were long gaping chinks and crannies. Denis went to thetea-tent and borrowed a wooden bench and a small Union Jack. Withthese he hurried back to the booth of Sesostris. Setting down thebench at the back of the booth, he climbed up, and with a great airof busy efficiency began to tie the Union Jack to the top of one ofthe tent-poles. Through the crannies in the canvas he could seealmost the whole of the interior of the tent. Mr. Scogan'sbandana-covered head was just below him; his terrifying whisperscame clearly up. Denis looked and listened while the witchprophesied financial losses, death by apoplexy, destruction byair-raids in the next war. "Is there going to be another war?" asked the old lady to whomhe had predicted this end. "Very soon," said Mr. Scogan, with an air of quietconfidence. The old lady was succeeded by a girl dressed in white muslin,garnished with pink ribbons. She was wearing a broad hat, so thatDenis could not see her face; but from her figure and the roundnessof her bare arms he judged her young and pleasing. Mr. Scoganlooked at her hand, then whispered, "You are still virtuous." The young lady giggled and exclaimed, "Oh, lor'!" "But you will not remain so for long," added Mr. Scogansepulchrally. The young lady giggled again. "Destiny, whichinterests itself in small things no less than in great, hasannounced the fact upon your hand." Mr. Scogan took up themagnifying-glass and began once more to examine the white palm."Very interesting," he said, as though to himself--"veryinteresting. It's as clear as day." He was silent. "What's clear?" asked the girl. "I don't think I ought to tell you." Mr. Scogan shook his head;the pendulous brass ear-rings which he had screwed on to his earstinkled. "Please, please!," she implored. The witch seemed to ignore her remark. "Afterwards, it's not atall clear. The fates don't say whether you will settle down tomarried life and have four children or whether you will try to goon the cinema and have none. They are only specific about this onerather crucial incident." "What is it? What is it? Oh, do tell me!" The white muslin figure leant eagerly forward. Mr. Scogan sighed. "Very well," he said, "if you must know, youmust know. But if anything untoward happens you must blame your owncuriosity. Listen. Listen." He lifted up a sharp, claw- nailedforefinger. "This is what the fates have written. Next Sundayafternoon at six o'clock you will be sitting on the second stile onthe footpath that leads from the church to the lower road. At thatmoment a man will appear walking along the footpath." Mr. Scoganlooked at her hand again as though to refresh his memory of thedetails of the scene. "A man," he repeated--"a small man with asharp nose, not exactly good looking nor precisely young, butfascinating." He lingered hissingly over the word. "He will askyou, 'Can you tell me the way to Paradise?' and you will answer,'Yes, I'll show you,' and walk with him down towards the littlehazel copse. I cannot read what will happen after that." There wasa silence. "Is it really true?" asked white muslin. The witch gave a shrug of the shoulders. "I merely tell you whatI read in your hand. Good afternoon. That will be sixpence. Yes, Ihave change. Thank you. Good afternoon." Denis stepped down from the bench; tied insecurely and crookedlyto the tentpole, the Union Jack hung limp on the windless air. "Ifonly I could do things like that!" he thought, as he carried thebench back to the tea-tent. Anne was sitting behind a long table filling thick white cupsfrom an urn. A neat pile of printed sheets lay before her on thetable. Denis took one of them and looked at it affectionately. Itwas his poem. They had printed five hundred copies, and very nicethe quarto broadsheets looked. "Have you sold many?" he asked in a casual tone. Anne put her head on one side deprecatingly. "Only three so far,I'm afraid. But I'm giving a free copy to everyone who spends morethan a shilling on his tea. So in any case it's having acirculation." Denis made no reply, but walked slowly away. He looked at thebroadsheet in his hand and read the lines to himself relishingly ashe walked along: "This day of roundabouts and swings,Struck weights, shied cocoa-nuts, tossed rings,Switchbacks, Aunt Sallies, and all such smallHigh jinks--you call it ferial?A holiday? But paper nosesSniffed the artificial rosesOf round Venetian cheeks through halfEach carnival year, and masks might laughAt things the naked face for shameWould blush at--laugh and think no blame.A holiday? But Galba showedElephants on an airy road;Jumbo trod the tightrope then,And in the circus armed menStabbed home for sport and died to breakThose dull imperatives that makeA prison of every working day,Where all must drudge and all obey.Sing Holiday! You do not knowHow to be free. The Russian snowflowered with bright blood whose roses spreadPetals of fading, fading redThat died into the snow again,Into the virgin snow; and menFrom all ancient bonds were freed.Old law, old custom, and old creed,Old right and wrong there bled to death;The frozen air received their breath,A little smoke that died away;And round about them where they layThe snow bloomed roses. Blood was thereA red gay flower and only fair.Sing Holiday! Beneath the TreeOf Innocence and Liberty,Paper Nose and Red CockadeDance within the magic shadeThat makes them drunken, merry, and strongTo laugh and sing their ferial song:'Free, free...!'But Echo answersFaintly to the laughing dancers,'Free'--and faintly laughs, and still,Within the hollows of the hill,Faintlier laughs and whispers, 'Free,'Fadingly, diminishingly:'Free,' and laughter faints away...Sing Holiday! Sing Holiday!" He folded the sheet carefully and put it in his pocket. Thething had its merits. Oh, decidedly, decidedly! But how unpleasantthe crowd smelt! He lit a cigarette. The smell of cows waspreferable. He passed through the gate in the park wall into thegarden. The swimming-pool was a centre of noise and activity. "Second Heat in the Young Ladies' Championship." It was thepolite voice of Henry Wimbush. A crowd of sleek, seal-like figuresin black bathing-dresses surrounded him. His grey bowler hat,smooth, round, and motionless in the midst of a moving sea, was anisland of aristocratic calm. Holding his tortoise-shell-rimmed pince-nez an inch or two infront of his eyes, he read out names from a list. "Miss Dolly Miles, Miss Rebecca Balister, Miss DorisGabell..." Five young persons ranged themselves on the brink. From theirseats of honour at the other end of the pool, old Lord Moleyn andMr. Callamay looked on with eager interest. Henry Wimbush raised his hand. There was an expectant silence."When I say 'Go,' go. Go!" he said. There was an almostsimultaneous splash. Denis pushed his way through the spectators. Somebody pluckedhim by the sleeve; he looked down. It was old Mrs. Budge. "Delighted to see you again, Mr. Stone," she said in her rich,husky voice. She panted a little as she spoke, like a short- windedlap-dog. It was Mrs. Budge who, having read in the "Daily Mirror"that the Government needed peach stones--what they needed them forshe never knew-had made the collection of peach stones herpeculiar "bit" of war work. She had thirty-six peach trees in herwalled garden, as well as four hot-houses in which trees could beforced, so that she was able to eat peaches practically the wholeyear round. In 1916 she ate 4200 peaches, and sent the stones tothe Government. In 1917 the military authorities called up three ofher gardeners, and what with this and the fact that it was a badyear for wall fruit, she only managed to eat 2900 peaches duringthat crucial period of the national destinies. In 1918 she didrather better, for between January 1st and the date of theArmistice she ate 3300 peaches. Since the Armistice she had relaxedher efforts; now she did not eat more than two or three peaches aday. Her constitution, she complained, had suffered; but it hadsuffered for a good cause. Denis answered her greeting by a vague and polite noise. "So nice to see the young people enjoying themselves," Mrs.Budge went on. "And the old people too, for that matter. Look atold Lord Moleyn and dear Mr. Callamay. Isn't it delightful to seethe way they enjoy themselves?" Denis looked. He wasn't sure whether it was so very delightfulafter all. Why didn't they go and watch the sack races? The two oldgentlemen were engaged at the moment in congratulating the winnerof the race; it seemed an act of supererogatory graciousness; for,after all, she had only won a heat. "Pretty little thing, isn't she?" said Mrs. Budge huskily, andpanted two or three times. "Yes," Denis nodded agreement. Sixteen, slender, but nubile, hesaid to himself, and laid up the phrase in his memory as a happyone. Old Mr. Callamay had put on his spectacles to congratulate thevictor, and Lord Moleyn, leaning forward over his walking- stick,showed his long ivory teeth, hungrily smiling. "Capital performance, capital," Mr. Callamay was saying in hisdeep voice. The victor wriggled with embarrassment. She stood with her handsbehind her back, rubbing one foot nervously on the other. Her wetbathing-dress shone, a torso of black polished marble. "Very good indeed," said Lord Moleyn. His voice seemed to comefrom just behind his teeth, a toothy voice. It was as though a dogshould suddenly begin to speak. He smiled again, Mr. Callamayreadjusted his spectacles. "When I say 'Go,' go. Go!" Splash! The third heat had started. "Do you know, I never could learn to swim," said Mrs. Budge. "Really?" "But I used to be able to float." Denis imagined her floating--up and down, up and down on a greatgreen swell. A blown black bladder; no, that wasn't good, thatwasn't good at all. A new winner was being congratulated. She wasatrociously stubby and fat. The last one, long and harmoniously,continuously curved from knee to breast, had been an Eve byCranach; but this, this one was a bad Rubens. "...go--go--go!" Henry Wimbush's polite level voice once morepronounced the formula. Another batch of young ladies dived in. Grown a little weary of sustaining a conversation with Mrs.Budge, Denis conveniently remembered that his duties as a stewardcalled him elsewhere. He pushed out through the lines of spectatorsand made his way along the path left clear behind them. He wasthinking again that his soul was a pale, tenuous membrane, when hewas startled by hearing a thin, sibilant voice, speaking apparentlyfrom just above his head, pronounce the single word"Disgusting!" He looked up sharply. The path along which he was walking passedunder the lee of a wall of clipped yew. Behind the hedge the groundsloped steeply up towards the foot of the terrace and the house;for one standing on the higher ground it was easy to look over thedark barrier. Looking up, Denis saw two heads overtopping the hedgeimmediately above him. He recognised the iron mask of Mr. Bodihamand the pale, colourless face of his wife. They were looking overhis head, over the heads of the spectators, at the swimmers in thepond. "Disgusting!" Mrs. Bodiham repeated, hissing softly. The rector turned up his iron mask towards the solid cobalt ofthe sky. "How long?" he said, as though to himself; "how long?" Helowered his eyes again, and they fell on Denis's upturned curiousface. There was an abrupt movement, and Mr. and Mrs. Bodiham poppedout of sight behind the hedge. Denis continued his promenade. He wandered past the merry-go-round, through the thronged streets of the canvas village; themembrane of his soul flapped tumultuously in the noise andlaughter. In a roped-off space beyond, Mary was directing thechildren's sports. Little creatures seethed round about her, makinga shrill, tinny clamour; others clustered about the skirts andtrousers of their parents. Mary's face was shining in the heat;with an immense output of energy she started a three-legged race.Denis looked on in admiration. "You're wonderful," he said, coming up behind her and touchingher on the arm. "I've never seen such energy." She turned towards him a face, round, red, and honest as thesetting sun; the golden bell of her hair swung silently as shemoved her head and quivered to rest. "Do you know, Denis," she said, in a low, serious voice, gaspinga little as she spoke--"do you know that there's a woman here whohas had three children in thirty-one months?" "Really," said Denis, making rapid mental calculations. "It's appalling. I've been telling her about the MalthusianLeague. One really ought..." But a sudden violent renewal of the metallic yelling announcedthe fact that somebody had won the race. Mary became once more thecentre of a dangerous vortex. It was time, Denis thought, to moveon; he might be asked to do something if he stayed too long. He turned back towards the canvas village. The thought of teawas making itself insistent in his mind. Tea, tea, tea. But thetea-tent was horribly thronged. Anne, with an unusual expression ofgrimness on her flushed face, was furiously working the handle ofthe urn; the brown liquid spurted incessantly into the profferedcups. Portentous, in the farther corner of the tent, Priscilla, inher royal toque, was encouraging the villagers. In a momentary lullDenis could hear her deep, jovial laughter and her manly voice.Clearly, he told himself, this was no place for one who wanted tea.He stood irresolute at the entrance to the tent. A beautifulthought suddenly came to him; if he went back to the house, wentunobtrusively, without being observed, if he tiptoed into thedining-room and noiselessly opened the little doors of thesideboard--ah, then! In the cool recess within he would findbottles and a siphon; a bottle of crystal gin and a quart of sodawater, and then for the cups that inebriate as well as cheer... A minute later he was walking briskly up the shady yew-treewalk. Within the house it was deliciously quiet and cool. Carryinghis well-filled tumbler with care, he went into the library. There,the glass on the corner of the table beside him, he settled into achair with a volume of Sainte-Beuve. There was nothing, he found,like a Causerie du Lundi for settling and soothing the troubledspirits. That tenuous membrane of his had been too rudely buffetedby the afternoon's emotions; it required a rest. Chapter XXVIII. Towards sunset the fair itself became quiescent. It was the hourfor the dancing to begin. At one side of the village of tents aspace had been roped off. Acetylene lamps, hung round it on posts,cast a piercing white light. In one corner sat the band, and,obedient to its scraping and blowing, two or three hundred dancerstrampled across the dry ground, wearing away the grass with theirbooted feet. Round this patch of all but daylight, alive withmotion and noise, the night seemed preternaturally dark. Bars oflight reached out into it, and every now and then a lonely figureor a couple of lovers, interlaced, would cross the bright shaft,flashing for a moment into visible existence, to disappear again asquickly and surprisingly as they had come. Denis stood by the entrance of the enclosure, watching theswaying, shuffling crowd. The slow vortex brought the couples roundand round again before him, as though he were passing them inreview. There was Priscilla, still wearing her queenly toque, stillencouraging the villa gers--this time by dancing with one of thetenant farmers. There was Lord Moleyn, who had stayed on to thedisorganised, passoverish meal that took the place of dinner onthis festal day; he one-stepped shamblingly, his bent knees moreprecariously wobbly than ever, with a terrified village beauty. Mr.Scogan trotted round with another. Mary was in the embrace of ayoung farmer of heroic proportions; she was looking up at him,talking, as Denis could see, very seriously. What about? hewondered. The Malthusian League, perhaps. Seated in the corneramong the band, Jenny was performing wonders of virtuosity upon thedrums. Her eyes shone, she smiled to herself. A whole subterraneanlife seemed to be expressing itself in those loud rat-tats, thoselong rolls and flourishes of drumming. Looking at her, Denisruefully remembered the red notebook; he wondered what sort of afigure he was cutting now. But the sight of Anne and Gombauldswimming past--Anne with her eyes almost shut and sleeping, as itwere, on the sustaining wings of movement and music--dissipatedthese preoccupations. Male and female created He them...There theywere, Anne and Gombauld, and a hundred couples more--all steppingharmoniously together to the old tune of Male and Female created Hethem. But Denis sat apart; he alone lacked his complementaryopposite. They were all coupled but he; all but he... Somebody touched him on the shoulder and he looked up. It wasHenry Wimbush. "I never showed you our oaken drainpipes," he said. "Some of theones we dug up are lying quite close to here. Would you like tocome and see them?" Denis got up, and they walked off together into the darkness.The music grew fainter behind them. Some of the higher notes fadedout altogether. Jenny's drumming and the steady sawing of the bassthrobbed on, tuneless and meaningless in their ears. Henry Wimbushhalted. "Here we are," he said, and, taking an electric torch out of hispocket, he cast a dim beam over two or three blackened sections oftree trunk, scooped out into the semblance of pipes, which werelying forlornly in a little depression in the ground. "Very interesting," said Denis, with a rather tepidenthusiasm. They sat down on the grass. A faint white glare, rising frombehind a belt of trees, indicated the position of the dancing-floor. The music was nothing but a muffled rhythmic pulse. "I shall be glad," said Henry Wimbush, "when this function comesat last to an end." "I can believe it." "I do not know how it is," Mr. Wimbush continued, "but thespectacle of numbers of my fellowcreatures in a state of agitationmoves in me a certain weariness, rather than any gaiety orexcitement. The fact is, they don't very much interest me. They'rearen't in my line. You follow me? I could never take much interest,for example, in a collection of postage stamps. Primitives orseventeenth-century books--yes. They are my line. But stamps, no. Idon't know anything about them; they're not my line. They don'tinterest me, they give me no emotion. It's rather the same withpeople, I'm afraid. I'm more at home with these pipes." He jerkedhis head sideways towards the hollowed logs. "The trouble with thepeople and events of the present is that you never know anythingabout them. What do I know of contemporary politics? Nothing. Whatdo I know of the people I see round about me? Nothing. What theythink of me or of anything else in the world, what they will do infive minutes' time, are things I can't guess at. For all I know,you may suddenly jump up and try to murder me in a moment'stime." "Come, come," said Denis. "True," Mr. Wimbush continued, "the little I know about yourpast is certainly reassuring. But I know nothing of your present,and neither you nor I know anything of your future. It's appalling;in living people, one is dealing with unknown and unknowablequantities. One can only hope to find out anything about them by along series of the most disagreeable and boring human contacts,involving a terrible expense of time. It's the same with currentevents; how can I find out anything about them except by devotingyears to the most exhausting first-hand study, involving once morean endless number of the most unpleasant contacts? No, give me thepast. It doesn't change; it's all there in black and white, and youcan get to know about it comfortably and decorously and, above all,privately--by reading. By reading I know a great deal of CaesarBorgia, of St. Francis, of Dr. Johnson; a few weeks have made methoroughly acquainted with these interesting characters, and I havebeen spared the tedious and revolting process of getting to knowthem by personal contact, which I should have to do if they wereliving now. How gay and delightful life would be if one could getrid of all the human contacts! Perhaps, in the future, whenmachines have attained to a state of perfection--for I confess thatI am, like Godwin and Shelley, a believer in perfectibility, theperfectibility of machinery--then, perhaps, it will be possible forthose who, like myself, desire it, to live in a dignifiedseclusion, surrounded by the delicate attentions of silent andgraceful machines, and entirely secure from any human intrusion. Itis a beautiful thought." "Beautiful," Denis agreed. "But what about the desirable humancontacts, like love and friendship?" The black silhouette against the darkness shook its head. "Thepleasures even of these contacts are much exaggerated," said thepolite level voice. "It seems to me doubtful whether they are equalto the pleasures of private reading and contemplation. Humancontacts have been so highly valued in the past only becausereading was not a common accomplishment and because books werescarce and difficult to reproduce. The world, you must remember, isonly just becoming literate. As reading becomes more and morehabitual and widespread, an ever-increasing number of people willdiscover that books will give them all the pleasures of social lifeand none of its intolerable tedium. At present people in search ofpleasure naturally tend to congregate in large herds and to make anoise; in future their natural tendency will be to seek solitudeand quiet. The proper study of mankind is books." "I sometimes think that it may be," said Denis; he was wonderingif Anne and Gombauld were still dancing together. "Instead of which," said Mr. Wimbush, with a sigh, "I must goand see if all is well on the dancing-floor." They got up and beganto walk slowly towards the white glare. "If all these people weredead," Henry Wimbush went on, "this festivity would be extremelyagreeable. Nothing would be pleasanter than to read in awell-written book of an open-air ball that took place a centuryago. How charming! one would say; how pretty and how amusing! Butwhen the ball takes place to-day, when one finds oneself involvedin it, then one sees the thing in its true light. It turns out tobe merely this." He waved his hand in the direction of theacetylene flares. "In my youth," he went on after a pause, "I foundmyself, quite fortuitously, involved in a series of the mostphantasmagorical amorous intrigues. A novelist could have made hisfortune out of them, and even if I were to tell you, in my baldstyle, the details of these adventures, you would be amazed at theromantic tale. But I assure you, while they were happening--theseromantic adventures--they seemed to me no more and no less excitingthan any other incident of actual life. To climb by night up arope-ladder to a second-floor window in an old house in Toledoseemed to me, while I was actually performing this rather dangerousfeat, an action as obvious, as much to be taken for granted,as--how shall I put it?--as quotidian as catching the 8.52 fromSurbiton to go to business on a Monday morning. Adventures andromance only take on their adventurous and romantic qualities atsecond-hand. Live them, and they are just a slice of life like therest. In literature they become as charming as this dismal ballwould be if we were celebrating its tercentenary." They had come tothe entrance of the enclosure and stood there, blinking in thedazzling light. "Ah, if only we were!" Henry Wimbush added. Anne and Gombauld were still dancing together. Chapter XXIX. It was after ten o'clock. The dancers had already dispersed andthe last lights were being put out. To-morrow the tents would bestruck, the dismantled merry-go-round would be packed into waggonsand carted away. An expanse of worn grass, a shabby brown patch inthe wide green of the park, would be all that remained. Crome Fairwas over. By the edge of the pool two figures lingered. "No, no, no," Anne was saying in a breathless whisper, leaningbackwards, turning her head from side to side in an effort toescape Gombauld's kisses. "No, please. No." Her raised voice hadbecome imperative. Gombauld relaxed his embrace a little. "Why not?" he said. "Iwill." With a sudden effort Anne freed herself. "You won't," sheretorted. "You've tried to take the most unfair advantage ofme." "Unfair advantage?" echoed Gombauld in genuine surprise. "Yes, unfair advantage. You attack me after I've been dancingfor two hours, while I'm still reeling drunk with the movement,when I've lost my head, when I've got no mind left but only arhythmical body! It's as bad as making love to someone you'vedrugged or intoxicated." Gombauld laughed angrily. "Call me a White Slaver and have donewith it." "Luckily," said Anne, "I am now completely sobered, and if youtry and kiss me again I shall box your ears. Shall we take a fewturns round the pool?" she added. "The night is delicious." For answer Gombauld made an irritated noise. They paced offslowly, side by side. "What I like about the painting of Degas..." Anne began in hermost detached and conversational tone. "Oh, damn Degas!" Gombauld was almost shouting. From where he stood, leaning in an attitude of despair againstthe parapet of the terrace, Denis had seen them, the two palefigures in a patch of moonlight, far down by the pool's edge. Hehad seen the beginning of what promised to be an endless passionateembracement, and at the sight he had fled. It was too much; hecouldn't stand it. In another moment, he felt, he would have burstinto irrepressible tears. Dashing blindly into the house, he almost ran into Mr. Scogan,who was walking up and down the hall smoking a final pipe. "Hullo!" said Mr. Scogan, catching him by the arm; dazed andhardly conscious of what he was doing or where he was, Denis stoodthere for a moment like a somnambulist. "What's the matter?" Mr.Scogan went on. "you look disturbed, distressed, depressed." Denis shook his head without replying. "Worried about the cosmos, eh?" Mr. Scogan patted him on thearm. "I know the feeling," he said. "It's a most distressingsymptom. 'What's the point of it all? All is vanity. What's thegood of continuing to function if one's doomed to be snuffed out atlast along with everything else?' Yes, yes. I know exactly how youfeel. It's most distressing if one allows oneself to be distressed.But then why allow oneself to be distressed? After all, we all knowthat there's no ultimate point. But what difference does thatmake?" At this point the somnambulist suddenly woke up. "What?" hesaid, blinking and frowning at his interlocutor. "What?" Thenbreaking away he dashed up the stairs, two steps at a time. Mr. Scogan ran to the foot of the stairs and called up afterhim. "It makes no difference, none whatever. Life is gay all thesame, always, under whatever circumstances--under whatevercircumstances," he added, raising his voice to a shout. But Deniswas already far out of hearing, and even if he had not been, hismind to-night was proof against all the consolations of philosophy.Mr. Scogan replaced his pipe between his teeth and resumed hismeditative pacing. "Under any circumstances," he repeated tohimself. It was ungrammatical to begin with; was it true? And islife really its own reward? He wondered. When his pipe had burneditself to its stinking conclusion he took a drink of gin and wentto bed. In ten minutes he was deeply, innocently asleep. Denis had mechanically undressed and, clad in those floweredsilk pyjamas of which he was so justly proud, was lying facedownwards on his bed. Time passed. When at last he looked up, thecandle which he had left alight at his bedside had burned downalmost to the socket. He looked at his watch; it was nearlyhalf-past one. His head ached, his dry, sleepless eyes felt asthough they had been bruised from behind, and the blood was beatingwithin his ears a loud arterial drum. He got up, opened the door,tiptoed noiselessly along the passage, and began to mount thestairs towards the higher floors. Arrived at the servants' quartersunder the roof, he hesitated, then turning to the right he opened alittle door at the end of the corridor. Within was a pitch- darkcupboard-like boxroom, hot, stuffy, and smelling of dust and oldleather. He advanced cautiously into the blackness, groping withhis hands. It was from this den that the ladder went up to theleads of the western tower. He found the ladder, and set his feeton the rungs; noiselessly, he lifted the trap-door above his head;the moonlit sky was over him, he breathed the fresh, cool air ofthe night. In a moment he was standing on the leads, gazing outover the dim, colourless landscape, looking perpendicularly down atthe terrace seventy feet below. Why had he climbed up to this high, desolate place? Was it tolook at the moon? Was it to commit suicide? As yet he hardly knew.Death--the tears came into his eyes when he thought of it. Hismisery assumed a certain solemnity; he was lifted up on the wingsof a kind of exaltation. It was a mood in which he might have donealmost anything, however foolish. He advanced towards the fartherparapet; the drop was sheer there and uninterrupted. A good leap,and perhaps one might clear the narrow terrace and so crash downyet another thirty feet to the sun-baked ground below. He paused atthe corner of the tower, looking now down into the shadowy gulfbelow, now up towards the rare stars and the waning moon. He made agesture with his hand, muttered something, he could not afterwardsremember what; but the fact that he had said it aloud gave theutterance a peculiarly terrible significance. Then he looked downonce more into the depths. "What are you doing, Denis?" questioned a voice fromsomewhere very close behind him. Denis uttered a cry of frightened surprise, and very nearly wentover the parapet in good earnest. His heart was beating terribly,and he was pale when, recovering himself, he turned round in thedirection from which the voice had come. "Are you ill?" In the profound shadow that slept under the eastern parapet ofthe tower, he saw something he had not previously noticed--anoblong shape. It was a mattress, and someone was lying on it. Sincethat first memorable night on the tower, Mary had slept out everyevening; it was a sort of manifestation of fidelity. "It gave me a fright," she went on, "to wake up and see youwaving your arms and gibbering there. What on earth were youdoing?" Denis laughed melodramatically. "What, indeed!" he said. If shehadn't woken up as she did, he would be lying in pieces at thebottom of the tower; he was certain of that, now. "You hadn't got designs on me, I hope?" Mary inquired, jumpingtoo rapidly to conclusions. "I didn't know you were here," said Denis, laughing morebitterly and artificially than before. "What is the matter, Denis?" He sat down on the edge of the mattress, and for all reply wenton laughing in the same frightful and improbable tone. An hour later he was reposing with his head on Mary's knees, andshe, with an affectionate solicitude that was wholly maternal, wasrunning her fingers through his tangled hair. He had told hereverything, everything: his hopeless love, his jealousy, hisdespair, his suicide--as it were providentially averted by herinterposition. He had solemnly promised never to think of selfdestruction again. And now his soul was floating in a sad serenity.It was embalmed in the sympathy that Mary so generously poured. Andit was not only in receiving sympathy that Denis found serenity andeven a kind of happiness; it was also in giving it. For if he hadtold Mary everything about his miseries, Mary, reacting to theseconfidences, had told him in return everything, or very nearlyeverything, about her own. "Poor Mary!" He was very sorry for her. Still, she might haveguessed that Ivor wasn't precisely a monument of constancy. "Well," she concluded, "one must put a good face on it." Shewanted to cry, but she wouldn't allow herself to be weak. There wasa silence. "Do you think," asked Denis hesitatingly--"do you really thinkthat she...that Gombauld..." "I'm sure of it," Mary answered decisively. There was anotherlong pause. "I don't know what to do about it," he said at last, utterlydejected. "You'd better go away," advised Mary. "It's the safest thing,and the most sensible." "But I've arranged to stay here three weeks more." "You must concoct an excuse." "I suppose you're right." "I know I am," said Mary, who was recovering all her firm self-possession. "You can't go on like this, can you?" "No, I can't go on like this," he echoed. Immensely practical, Mary invented a plan of action.Startlingly, in the darkness, the church clock struck three. "You must go to bed at once," she said. "I'd no idea it was solate." Denis clambered down the ladder, cautiously descended thecreaking stairs. His room was dark; the candle had long agoguttered to extinction. He got into bed and fell asleep almost atonce. Chapter XXX. Denis had been called, but in spite of the parted curtains hehad dropped off again into that drowsy, dozy state when sleepbecomes a sensual pleasure almost consciously savoured. In thiscondition he might have remained for another hour if he had notbeen disturbed by a violent rapping at the door. "Come in," he mumbled, without opening his eyes. The latchclicked, a hand seized him by the shoulder and he was rudelyshaken. "Get up, get up!" His eyelids blinked painfully apart, and he saw Mary standingover him, bright-faced and earnest. "Get up!" she repeated. "You must go and send the telegram.Don't you remember?" "O Lord!" He threw off the bed-clothes; his tormentorretired. Denis dressed as quickly as he could and ran up the road to thevillage post office. Satisfaction glowed within him as he returned.He had sent a long telegram, which would in a few hours evoke ananswer ordering him back to town at once--on urgent business. Itwas an act performed, a decisive step taken --and he so rarely tookdecisive steps; he felt pleased with himself. It was with a whettedappetite that he came in to breakfast. "Good-morning," said Mr. Scogan. "I hope you're better." "Better?" "You were rather worried about the cosmos last night." Denis tried to laugh away the impeachment. "Was I?" he lightlyasked. "I wish," said Mr. Scogan, "that I had nothing worse to prey onmy mind. I should be a happy man." "One is only happy in action," Denis enunciated, thinking of thetelegram. He looked out of the window. Great florid baroque clouds floatedhigh in the blue heaven. A wind stirred among the trees, and theirshaken foliage twinkled and glittered like metal in the sun.Everything seemed marvellously beautiful. At the thought that hewould soon be leaving all this beauty he felt a momentary pang; buthe comforted himself by recollecting how decisively he wasacting. "Action," he repeated aloud, and going over to the sideboard hehelped himself to an agreeable mixture of bacon and fish. Breakfast over, Denis repaired to the terrace, and, sittingthere, raised the enormous bulwark of the "Times" against thepossible assaults of Mr. Scogan, who showed an unappeased desire togo on talking about the Universe. Secure behind the cracklingpages, he meditated. In the light of this brilliant morning theemotions of last night seemed somehow rather remote. And what if hehad seen them embracing in the moonlight? Perhaps it didn't meanmuch after all. And even if it did, why shouldn't he stay? He feltstrong enough to stay, strong enough to be aloof, disinterested, amere friendly acquaintance. And even if he weren't strongenough... "What time do you think the telegram will arrive?" asked Marysuddenly, thrusting in upon him over the top of the paper. Denis started guiltily. "I don't know at all," he said. "I was only wondering," said Mary, "because there's a very goodtrain at 3.27, and it would be nice if you could catch it, wouldn'tit?" "Awfully nice," he agreed weakly. He felt as though he weremaking arrangements for his own funeral. Train leaves Waterloo3.27. No flowers...Mary was gone. No, he was blowed if he'd lethimself be hurried down to the Necropolis like this. He was blowed.The sight of Mr. Scogan looking out, with a hungry expression, fromthe drawing-room window made him precipitately hoist the "Times"once more. For a long while he kept it hoisted. Lowering it at lastto take another cautious peep at his surroundings, he foundhimself, with what astonishment! confronted by Anne's faint,amused, malicious smile. She was standing before him,--the womanwho was a tree,--the swaying grace of her movement arrested in apose that seemed itself a movement. "How long have you been standing there?" he asked, when he haddone gaping at her. "Oh, about half an hour, I suppose," she said airily. "You wereso very deep in your paper--head over ears--I didn't like todisturb you." "You look lovely this morning," Denis exclaimed. It was thefirst time he had ever had the courage to utter a personal remarkof the kind. Anne held up her hand as though to ward off a blow. "Don'tbludgeon me, please." She sat down on the bench beside him. He wasa nice boy, she thought, quite charming; and Gombauld's violentinsistences were really becoming rather tiresome. "Why don't youwear white trousers?" she asked. "I like you so much in whitetrousers." "They're at the wash," Denis replied rather curtly. This white-trouser business was all in the wrong spirit. He was just preparinga scheme to manoeuvre the conversation back to the proper path,when Mr. Scogan suddenly darted out of the house, crossed theterrace with clockwork rapidity, and came to a halt in front of thebench on which they were seated. "To go on with our interesting conversation about the cosmos,"he began, "I become more and more convinced that the various partsof the concern are fundamentally discrete...But would you mind,Denis, moving a shade to your right?" He wedged himself betweenthem on the bench. "And if you would shift a few inches to theleft, my dear Anne...Thank you. Discrete, I think, was what I wassaying." "You were," said Anne. Denis was speechless. They were taking their after luncheon coffee in the library whenthe telegram arrived. Denis blushed guiltily as he took the orangeenvelope from the salver and tore it open. "Return at once. Urgentfamily business." It was too ridiculous. As if he had any familybusiness! Wouldn't it be best just to crumple the thing up and putit in his pocket without saying anything about it? He looked up;Mary's large blue china eyes were fixed upon him, seriously,penetratingly. He blushed more deeply than ever, hesitated in ahorrible uncertainty. "What's your telegram about?" Mary asked significantly. He lost his head, "I'm afraid," he mumbled, "I'm afraid thismeans I shall have to go back to town at once." He frowned at thetelegram ferociously. "But that's absurd, impossible," cried Anne. She had beenstanding by the window talking to Gombauld; but at Denis's wordsshe came swaying across the room towards him. "It's urgent," he repeated desperately. "But you've only been here such a short time," Anneprotested. "I know," he said, utterly miserable. Oh, if only she couldunderstand! Women were supposed to have intuition. "If he must go, he must," put in Mary firmly. "Yes, I must." He looked at the telegram again for inspiration."You see, it's urgent family business," he explained. Priscilla got up from her chair in some excitement. "I had adistinct presentiment of this last night," she said. "A distinctpresentiment." "A mere coincidence, no doubt," said Mary, brushing Mrs. Wimbushout of the conversation. "There's a very good train at 3.27." Shelooked at the clock on the mantelpiece. "You'll have nice time topack." "I'll order the motor at once." Henry Wimbush rang the bell. Thefuneral was well under way. It was awful, awful. "I am wretched you should be going," said Anne. Denis turned towards her; she really did look wretched. Heabandoned himself hopelessly, fatalistically to his destiny. Thiswas what came of action, of doing something decisive. If only he'djust let things drift! If only... "I shall miss your conversation," said Mr. Scogan. Mary looked at the clock again. "I think perhaps you ought to goand pack," she said. Obediently Denis left the room. Never again, he said to himself,never again would he do anything decisive. Camlet, West Bowlby,Knipswich for Timpany, Spavin Delawarr; and then all the otherstations; and then, finally, London. The thought of the journeyappalled him. And what on earth was he going to do in London whenhe got there? He climbed wearily up the stairs. It was time for himto lay himself in his coffin. The car was at the door--the hearse. The whole party hadassembled to see him go. Good-bye, good-bye. Mechanically he tappedthe barometer that hung in the porch; the needle stirredperceptibly to the left. A sudden smile lighted up his lugubriousface. "'It sinks and I am ready to depart,'" he said, quoting Landorwith an exquisite aptness. He looked quickly round from face toface. Nobody had noticed. He climbed into the hearse.