CHAPTER XXIVTHE LAST PHASE
ON the Colchester and Ipswich train it was still possible for her to think. I am not necessarily going to Barhanger. I have a ticket to Holleshont, and there are many places one can get to from Holleshont besides Barhanger. Besides, even if I do get to Barhanger, Barhanger is no doubt an ideal place in which to spend a Bank Holiday week-end. There is no earthly reason why I shouldn’t go to Barhanger. It is close to the sea, and I need a holiday....
And secretly she rejoiced at the ecstasy of the thought: I am going to see him. Whatever he says or does, whatever the issue may be, whatever I suffer then or afterwards, I shall see him.... As the train rolled over the drab eastern suburbs she revelled in the sensation that every throb and pulsation of the wheels narrowed the distance between herself and him.... And withal came another part of her answering her coldly, reprovingly: You are silly to go on this fool’s errand. You are losing the satisfaction and contentment it took you so long to acquire. Where now is your ambition to lead a quiet, sedate and respectable life, without the storm and stress of emotional escapades? Where now in your mind’s perspective are Mr. Hobbs and the Rev. Elkin Broodbank? Oh, you fool! you will suffer, and it will be your own fault. You will have the old slow fight over again, you will have to build up your contentment right from the bottom.... Oh, you fool! ... And still her heart answered: I don’t care. I am going toseehim.... I am going to seehim....
Between Romford and Chelmsford she remembered the unopened letter that she had in her hand-bag from Mr. Hobbs. She tore it open and read it.It was a strange mixture of hopeless adoration and ruffled dignity.
MY DEAR MISS WESTON,I am very sorry indeed if my invitation for Saturday offended you. I am glad to think your reason for declining it is that you had another engagement to fulfil. In the circumstances, is it too impertinent of me if I invite you to spend the Bank Holiday on the Surrey Hills? I know the district pretty well, and am sure you will enjoy the fine scenery as well as the invigorating air. There is a motor omnibus service as far as Reigate, and we could get from there to a number of interesting spots. Hoping you will be able to come with me.Believe me,Yours sincerely,J. A. HOBBS.
MY DEAR MISS WESTON,
I am very sorry indeed if my invitation for Saturday offended you. I am glad to think your reason for declining it is that you had another engagement to fulfil. In the circumstances, is it too impertinent of me if I invite you to spend the Bank Holiday on the Surrey Hills? I know the district pretty well, and am sure you will enjoy the fine scenery as well as the invigorating air. There is a motor omnibus service as far as Reigate, and we could get from there to a number of interesting spots. Hoping you will be able to come with me.
Believe me,
Yours sincerely,
J. A. HOBBS.
She smiled wanly upon the drearily angular handwriting. In rummaging in her hand-bag she had come across the Rev. Elkin Broodbank’s visiting card, left by him that morning, and she caught sight of some writing on the back which she had previously overlooked. “I find you not in,” the Rev. Elkin had written, in his finicky handwriting and pseudo-Carlylean prose style, “so I leave this. Will you have tea with me on Sunday? I have old MSS. church rubric to show you: also good booklet on Oxford movement.—Yrs., E. B.”
Also upon this she smiled wanly....
Chelmsford....
Oh, what have I done with my life? she cried to herself in a moment of sudden horror. What have I to show for all these years of toil and stress? Is there anything of all that I have ever had which has lasted? I am twenty-four years old, and my youth is over. I have had dreams, I have had ambitions, I have had golden opportunities and been near success. But what have I to show? Have I any hold on life which death would not loose? Am I deep set in the heart of any friend, man or woman, in the world? Whatever happens to me, does it matter to anyone save myself? No, no, and therefore I am going to Barhanger. I would go to Barhanger if it cost me pain for the rest of my life....
At the junction station midway between Chelmsford and Colchester she got out. On the opposite platform the train for Holleshont was waiting. Small and feeble it looked beside the great express, but there was an air of sturdy independence about it, and especially about its single track curving away over the hills into the dim distance. Catherine breathed the country air with avidity: she entered a compartment and leaned out of the window as the express rolled slowly out of the other platform. As it vanished into the north-east the station became full of broken silences and staccato sounds. Glorious! she murmured, as the sun warmed her cheeks and the wind wafted to her the scent of pansies growing on the embankment near by. And then suddenly, as if it had a fit of divine inspiration, the train moved off....
Over the dim hills, stopping at tiny halts, with waiting-rooms and booking halls fashioned out of wheelless railway carriages, up steep slopes where the grass grew long between the rails, curving into occasional loops, and pausing sometimes like a hard-worked animal taking breath. And then, from the top of a hill, the miles drooped gently into the bosom of the estuary: the tide was out and the mud shone golden in the sun. Yachts were lying stranded off the fair-way, and threading the broad belt of mud the river ran like a curve of molten gold. There were clusters of houses here and there on either bank, and a church with a candle-snuffer tower, and stretches of brown shingle.... And the train went gathering speed as it broke over the summit....
At Holleshont the estuary was no longer in view, but the sea-smell was fresh in the air. “Barhanger?” she said to a man with a pony and trap who was waiting outside the station. He nodded, and helped her to a seat beside him. He was buxom and red-faced and jolly. If he had been younger, it would have been rather romantic to go driving with him thus along the lonely country lanes. But he was taciturn, and stopped once to pluck from the side of the hedge a long grass to suck. At times he broke into humming, but it was a tune Catherine did not recognize. After half an hour’s riding they came upon a dishevelledcountry lane, which on turning a corner became immediately the main street of a village. They passed a church and a public-house, a post-office, a pump, and then another public-house. At this last the driver pulled his horse to a standstill and indicated to Catherine that she should descend. “Barhanger,” he muttered explanatorily. Seeing her uncertainty, he questioned her. “Lookin’ f’ranywhere partic’ler, miss?”
She replied with a momentary impulse: “Seahill.”
He pointed in a southerly direction.
And now she was walking straight to “Seahill.” ...
The road narrowed into an ill-defined pathway and climbed abruptly on to the top of the sea-wall. A long arm of the great shining estuary lay stretched at her feet, and dotted about it were scores of mud-banks overgrown with reeds and sea-lavender. The grasses rose high as her knees, and she pushed through them and against the wind till her cheeks were flushed with exertion. At the mouth of the creek the estuary rolled infinitely in either direction, and miles and miles of brown-black mud were hissing in the sunlight. “Glorious!” she cried, and flung back her head proudly to meet the wind that swept the corner of the creek. She turned to the right and walked on swiftly. Behind her, looking quite near, but really a good distance away, the village of Barhanger slept drowsily in the afternoon heat: ahead the sea-wall swelled and rolled into great meaningless curves. Not a human being besides herself occupied the landscape. The mud hissed and cracked, and the grasshoppers chattered and the wind shook the long grasses into waving tumult. And over on the mudbanks the sea-gulls gathered and rose and called shrilly, and swooped down again to rest....
At one point the land rose slightly inland from the sea-wall, and perched on the crest of the low hill there stood an old-fashioned red-bricked house with a litter of sheds and stabling around it. Something told her that this was “Seahill.” A pathway wound upwards through the long meadow-grass: the pale green streak over the darker green told her that this was a method of approach used sometimes, butnot frequently. And there were ditches to cross—ditches banked with mud, which at high tide must have been brimming with salt water....
She found her way into a sort of courtyard formed by the back of the house and surrounding outbuildings. And there, throwing food to some chickens, was Helen!
“Cathie!” Helen’s voice was full of glad welcome. Helen had grown a fine woman, somewhat stout perhaps, but upright and fine-looking. She kissed Catherine affectionately, and in her quiet way made a great fuss over her.
“How did you know we were here?” she asked, as she led Catherine into the house by way of the kitchen.
“Quite by chance,” replied Catherine. “I just happened to hear somebody mention it—somebody in the musical line.”
“Ah—my husband knows so many people, doesn’t he? And how about your arm? Of course we heard all about that, you know——”
“Oh, that’s getting better again slowly. When did you come back from America?”
“America?” Helen’s face showed a blank. “We never went to America. Who told you that?”
Catherine flushed a little. “I don’t remember,” she replied nonchalantly. “It must have been a wrong idea I picked up from somebody.”
They chatted on for some time and then Helen said:
“Well, perhaps you would like to go and see my husband. He’s in his study—straight up the steps and second on the left. He’ll be working, but he’ll be glad to see you, I daresay. He used to be very interested in you, didn’t he?”
“I’ll go up and see him,” replied Catherine quietly.
She ascended the steps and found her way to the door of his study. With some trepidation she knocked....
It was a large room facing the west. The sun shone drowsily on a table littered with papers and opened books. There was the piano which shehad so often played in the music-room at “Claremont.” There were the same bookcases, with glass doors swung open, and the aperture between the tops of the books and the shelf above filled with letters and papers. That had always been one of his untidy habits. And scattered over all the available wallspace were disconnected fragments of shelving, sagging in the middle if the span were wide, and piled high with longitudinal and horizontal groups of books. The old brown leather armchairs and the club-fender occupied positions in front of the fireplace. The carpet was thick, and littered here and there with the grey smudge of tobacco-ash and scraps of torn paper that had escaped the meshes of the basket. The scene was curiously similar to that on which she had first seen him at “Claremont.” He was sitting in one of his armchairs with an adjustable reading bracket in front of him. She could see nothing of him, but a coil of rising smoke that straggled upwards from the back of the chair told her that he existed. She had knocked on the door before entering, and his voice had drawled its usual “Come in.” He had heard the door open and close again, but he did not look round. She knew this habit of his. Doubtless he would wait to finish the sentence or maybe the paragraph he was reading. She came across the intervening space and entered the limits within which his eye could not avoid seeing her. The sun caught her hair and flung it into radiance; she was glad of this, for it made her seem youthful again.
She saw him for a fraction of a second before he caught sight of her. And a strange feeling of doubt, of perplexity—might it be even of disappointment?—touched upon her. He was the same, quite the same. And yet—there was a sense in which he was not as she expected. But she had not expected him to be very much changed. It was only a passing phase that swept across her—hardly to be understood, much less explained. But she felt it, and it surprised her.
When he saw her he opened his eyes very wide and stared. Then he pushed back the book-rest and rose from his chair. All the time she was watching him narrowly. There was a queer phase during which neitherof them moved or attempted to move. And then, the tension becoming too great to be borne, she gave her head a little toss and said: “Well?”
She had an absurd feeling of curiosity about his first words to her. In her ideal dialogue with him he struck an attitude of surprise and bewilderment and ejaculated, after the manner of the hero in a melodrama: “What?—You!—You! Is it reallyyou?”
Of course he did nothing like that. She might have expected her fancied conversation to go all wrong from the start. He slowly and cautiously held out his right hand, and smiled a careful, quizzical smile.
And his first words were: “How are you?”
“Very well,” she replied mechanically.
There was a pause, after which he said: “Won’t you sit down?”
“Thank you,” she replied, and occupied the other armchair. He still remained standing and smoking.
“I suppose,” he said reflectively, “you got the address from the Directory?”
“No,” she replied nonchalantly, “it was quite by accident. I am one of the assistants in the music department of Ryder and Sons, and you yourself gave me your address over the telephone last Monday.”
“What a startling coincidence!” he muttered, as if by way of comment to himself.
Pause....
“So,” he went on meditatively, “you were the young lady who knew the Bach double-piano concerto from memory! Curious! ... I thought it was remarkable, and the next time I was in town I intended coming up to Ryder’s to see who you were.... Perhaps it is well I didn’t.... We might have startled each other.”
“We might,” she said quietly.
Long pause....
“I don’t remember your ever playing the concerto when I knew you,” he resumed, still in the rôle of a somewhat curious spectator. “I never taught it you, did I?”
“No,” she answered. “I learnt it myself.” And there was just a momentary gleam of fire within at that remark. As much as to say: “Don’t think I am not capable of doingsomethings myself.”
“Do you know all of it?” he asked.
“I did—but I don’t know if I remember it all now.” He tapped his pipe on the mantelpiece.
“I wish you’d play it for me,” he said, slowly and still meditatively, “I should like very much to hear it ... and besides ... it would ... give me time to think....”
“To think what?” she put in sharply.
He sat down, filled his pipe afresh and lit it, saying as he did so: “Well—to think—one of the things, at any rate—why you have come.”
There was something in the tone of that last remark of his which stung her to the retort:
“So you think it is possible for me to go to the piano and play a Bach concerto while you sit coolly down to wonder why I have come?”
“Well,” he said, suddenly and with emphasis, “whyhaveyou come?”
“You said if I was ever over in the States I was to come and see you. I naturally expected that the invitation would extend to when you returned to England.”
“Did it not occur to you,” he remarked slowly, “that when I returned from the States I should have sent you my address if I had desired to see you?”
“Of course,” she interposed neatly, “as it happens, I know that you never went to America at all.”
He did not seem greatly ruffled by this.
“Then,” he continued, “you know that I told you a lie. And you may have the satisfaction—if it is a satisfaction—of knowing also that you are the only person in the whole world who has ever made me do that. That honour,” he added bitterly, “you share with no one: it is yours entirely.”
She felt: Now we are getting to it.
“I don’t know why it should have been so necessary for you to tell me a lie,” she said.
“The fact is,” he announced brutally, “I wanted to get rid of you, and that seemed the only way.”
She winced a little at his words, but interposed sharply:
“Why did you want to get rid of me?”
He grunted something incoherent, and began to walk towards the door.
“Look here,” he said, “we’ll go for a walk. I’m not going to have you quarrelling in here.”
“But surely we aren’t going to quarrel?”
“On the contrary, wearegoing to quarrel. We’re going to quarrel most damnably.... Come on!”
He led her back down the steps into the kitchen. Helen was there preparing a meal. As he passed he addressed her.
“Miss Weston and I are going out for a stroll along the sea-wall, Helen.... We shan’t be long. Miss Weston has to get back to town to-night, so she hasn’t got much time to spare.”
“You’ve missed the last train already,” replied Helen.
“I shall take her in the car to the junction in time for the night train,” he answered.
“All right.... I shall see you again, shan’t I, Cathie?”
“We shall be back in half an hour,” he said curtly.
When they were out of Helen’s hearing Catherine said:
“Who told you I had to be back in town to-night?”
“I told myself,” he replied. “I insist upon your going back to-night.”
“And supposing I don’t?”
“I can only ask you,” he replied, somewhat subdued, “to avoid making things unnecessarily unpleasant.”
“Things need not be at all unpleasant,” she cried passionately, “if only you weren’t such a brute.”
She had not meant to say this.
He smiled a trifle cynically.
“Do you really think I’m a brute?” he asked. “There are lots of others who would agree with you,” he added encouragingly.
“I certainly think you are,” she replied, determined to uphold her statement. “Wasn’t it brutal to say you wanted to get rid of me?”
“But it was true.”
“Was it?”
“Quite!”
“Really?”
“If you only knew—Look here: there are moments when, if I could have had you painlessly extracted, I would have done it. I would have strangled you with my own fingers if I had not kept control of them!”
“And so, as I couldn’t be painlessly extracted, you extracted yourself, eh?”
“Yes.”
She laughed a trifle hysterically.
“Was it painless?” she enquired archly.
He swore under his breath.
“It was not,” he replied curtly.
Pause.... They were walking on the narrow ridge of the sea-wall, he in front and she a few paces behind. Neither could see the face of the other. The tide was coming in.... If they had not been busy with other matters they might have noticed the loveliness of the scene....
“The fact is,” he said gruffly, “I was in love with you against my will.”
She had known that for a long while, but she liked to hear him say it. And she was infected with a childish daring. She laughed boisterously.
“What?” she cried. “You in love with me?—Surely not? Never—I don’t believe it, Mr. Verreker.”
He answered, slowly and methodically: “It was so.... I will tell you about it if you wish to know. When I first heard you play before Razounov at my house I knew that you were no genius, but a person of slightly above average ability who might be trained or coerced into doing something worth while. But there were lots of people like that whom I refused to teach. I was going to refuse you, though I didn’t want to. A friend of yours—your fiancé, I supposed at that time—was offering to pay for your lessons. It seemed a capital excuse for accepting you as a pupil. To my everlasting regret I grabbed hold of it eagerly. You came to me once a week and I pumped music into you at therate of three guineas a lesson.... Even then I believe I was in love with you....”
“I must have been,” he continued, “because you were such a little fool that normally I should have chucked you up. You had a horrible set of musical bad manners, and not an idea of how to play. I had to give you huge quantities of myself. I thought then I might create out of you something it would be worth my while to love. I tried. I admit you had remarkable receptiveness. You gulped down everything I offered you.... In fact, I made you. You hadn’t an idea in your head till I put some there. You couldn’t have played a note at a public concert unless I had shown you how to. You were absolutely dependent on me.... When I left your life you went smash. You found you couldn’t play without me. I was your sole source of inspiration, and you could no more play without me than a performing monkey will do its tricks without its keeper.”
“That’s not true,” she protested weakly, but he went on.
“Of course it didn’t really matter in the least my being in love with you. I had other things to think about. But when you began to be in love with me, things began to be dangerous. You see it was quite impossible for me to marry you.”
“Why?” she said sharply.
“Do you really wish to know?” he asked.
“I do.”
“It will offend you, possibly.”
“Never mind.... Tell me....”
He paused before answering.
“Well,” he said, “this is the politest way I can put it. I could not marry you because you weren’t up to standard—my standard, that is.”
“What’s the matter with me?”
“You will be offended if I reply.”
“Tell me, please.”
“If you wish,” he said nonchalantly. “To begin with, you are the most selfish person I have ever met. You are vain, conceited and a prig.Selfishness runs in all your veins. All your desires are selfish—all your aims are selfish—nay, nearly all your actions have been selfish. The only unselfish part of you was the part I compelled you to assimilate, and that was counterfeit.... God help any man you marry if he loves you. You will ruin him if you can. If you love him too, so much the worse for him.... Do you want me to go on?”
She bore all this with amazing calmness. True, she had been in some manner prepared for it, but she had not expected the denunciation to be so severe. What surprised her was that it did not hurt her as much as she had anticipated.
She did not answer his question.
“So you loved me against your will?” she said reflectively.
He nodded.
“Every woman likes to be loved like that,” she remarked daringly.
This speech of hers seemed to infuriate him. He stopped his walking and turned round to face her.
“If you can extract any satisfaction from the knowledge that I loved you against my will, have it!” he cried bitterly. “Nay, I’ll even say this: I love you passionately at this very moment. Take my love!—do what you like with it!—it is no concern of mine when it has once been given to you! ... I tried once to give you intellectual and spiritual sympathy—you showed me that was no use to you! You wanted my love! Well, now you have it, so be satisfied if you can! You have it, and also my profound dislike and contempt!”
She thought: If I were to cry now would it have any effect on him? She tried to cry but could not.
“Turn back now,” he commanded. They commenced the homeward journey.
“Why did you marry Helen?” she asked.
“Because I liked her and respected her.”
“And because if you married her you felt safe from me, eh?”
“If that were a true statement I would never admit it.”
“But you do not love her?”
“No.”
“Does she know?”
“She does not know. Do you want her to know?”
“I don’t care whether she knows or not.”
“Well, then, she shall not know....”
They were silent after this for a long while.
The tide was creeping in now through the maze of mud-banks: when they stopped talking they could hear the water oozing and splashing amongst the reeds. The thin streak of river had widened into a broad lake, and over it the sea-gulls were flapping their wings and crying weirdly. And far in the west where the estuary vanished into the grey hills the sun was sinking in proud splendour. In the near distance lay the village, with its line of cottages facing the sea-wall. Here and there the sun had picked out a window and turned it into a glittering ruby.
Oh, it was all inexpressibly beautiful, this evening picture, with the village and the green meadows and the sun and the rising tide! But Catherine scarcely noticed it. She walked on through the long, stiff grasses, and was thinking only of herself....
To begin with, she felt very tired and weary. Of course she had done a good deal that day. She had every reason to be physically tired. But it was not altogether physical tiredness. She felt like a child who has been looking forward to something for a long time, and is disappointed because its expectations are not realized. And again she felt relieved, as one who has been harbouring a vague dread and finds that the worst is not half so bad as was thought. And again she felt sorry, as if both her disappointment and her relief were things to be regretted and to feel ashamed of. And somewhere—vaguely—subconsciously—what was the thought that came to her? A revolutionary thought, a thought that marked an epoch in her life and development. Nothing less than the thought that the things he and she had been discussing, the questions that at one time had seemed the most momentous in her life, were nowbecome by the sad process of time stale, unmeaning, and out of date. Of historic and achæological interest, maybe, but not living things as she had expected them to be living. She had expected to be immensely moved, immensely stirred by this conversation with him. She had expected it so confidently that she had been stirred at the thought of being stirred. She had tuned herself in readiness for a great conflict. And now the conflict had begun, had lasted and was over. She had not been stirred. Not that the blows had been light. It was something in her that gave her a new invulnerability, a strange imperviousness to blows. Her expectations, her dreads, her excitement, her preparations for conflict, all had been for nothing. And now that she realized that they had been for nothing she felt the effect of them—they made her tired, weary, worn out. The tension snapped. Vaguely she felt sorry that she was not suffering more acutely: vaguely she felt that her invulnerability was purchased at a great price. But try as she would she could not help but feel that her conversation with him had been a futile disinterment of dead bones.... She was not hurt. But she was tired—weary—as after a successful and dangerous operation.
They both felt that they had said all that need be said. On the way home scarcely a remark passed between them, except once or twice when he called her attention to the scenery.
He said: “The tide is coming in fast now. It comes in by inches as you watch it.”
She replied: “Yes,” but she did not think what she was saying.
When they got back to “Seahill,” he disappeared into the garage to prepare the car for use. She was left for a few moments with Helen.
Their conversation (lasting for two minutes) was full of amazing things.
Helen began it.
“Well,” she said, “what do you think of him?”
“He’s very clever.”
“Yes,” agreed Helen, surprisingly, “and like all clever men he is rather stupid. He’s so stupid that he thinks I don’t understand him.”
Pause. Catherine was too much astonished to reply.
“Of course he doesn’t love me,” she went on. “I know that, though he thinks I don’t.... I shouldn’t be at all surprised if he loves you.”
Pause.
“Though of course you and he would never get on at all well together. You’re not suited.... Now we (he and I) get on splendidly. I help him with his literary work. The other day he said to me (I had just finished typing at his dictation): ‘Helen, it’s just splendid to think that you do all this stuff because you take a living interest in it and not on my account!’ I was frightfully pleased: I think it was the best compliment he’s ever paid me.”
Pause.
“Though of course,” a little wistfully, “it wasn’t at all true. I don’t take a living interest in it at all: I only do it to please him. And I can only please him by making him think I’m not doing it to please him. That’s why I say he’s stupid.”
Pause.
“I suppose I shall see you again sometime?”
“Possibly. I don’t know.... I don’t think I shall come again.”
“I hope you will.... I suppose you like him? Well, so do I. That ought to be something in common between us.”
Pause.
“Oughtn’t it?”
Catherine did not answer. But Helen kissed her very affectionately. And at that moment Verreker entered in motor-cap and goggles.
“We’ll catch the 9.40 at the junction,” he said. “Come along!”
A four-seater car stood in the courtyard.
“Get in the back seat,” he said gruffly.
As the car drew them through the sweet-scented country lanes Catherine lolled amongst the heavy cushions and pondered. Once again she had the feeling that had comforted her when she first realized that her musical career was at an end. It was the feeling that she was not going to be very disappointed. Once again, too, she was subtly disappointed at not being disappointed.... Helen had said that he was stupid. That remark set in motion a whole avalanche of unspoken ideas that had been gathering patiently about her for some time. She had not noticed them then, but now as they came tumbling about her ears she perceived them in bulk as a sudden new revelation. They shifted Verreker to a less hallowed perspective. The halo left him and he became a man. And a stupid man at that. She began to sum him up dispassionately, and was amazed at the results she came to....
Even his eccentricities—which she had hitherto admired—lost their glamour and became either vices or the mere foibles of a crank. His manners were atrocious. He did not raise his hat to her in the street. When entering and leaving a railway compartment he did not allow her to take the first place. It was things like those that went to make up a gentleman. And, frankly, he was not a gentleman. His rudeness, his brusquerie, his awful bluntness of speech, were vices which his cleverness might explain but could not excuse. And even his cleverness—might it not be possible to exaggerate that? He was not well known: his books were dry and uninteresting—abstruse, maybe, but extremely tiresome. And even in music, how was it that he had never made a name at concert playing? One remark of his which had especially annoyed her had been his blunt asseveration that her musical success had been derived solely from his instruction. She could not deny this even to herself, but she found partial, if illogical, comfort in the thought: If he can make me into a successful concert pianist, why hasn’t he ever thought it worth while to make himself one?
And he had treated her abominably. It gave her a curious pleasure to discover that. The magnitude of his ill-treatment of her seemed by a subtle process of ethical cancelling out to wipe away all record of her own previous misdeeds.
Once again her soul was white, immaculate, redeemed by his cruelty and her consequent martyrdom. The very thought that his debt to her was incapable now of being ever repaid put her on the plane of loftiest altruism. She was still proud, triumphant, superbly conscious of her own supremacy.
When her ideals had tottered one by one, and at last she had realized the futility of her musical ambitions, she had thought: Here goes my last ideal! Henceforth I am without them.... But now she saw that there had been a survivor that had remained with her even to the last. And that was her ideal of him—a man, superbly good, superbly great, fit object of her respect and worship.... Now this ideal had tottered and fallen also. He was a mere irritable crank, pedantically clever, perhaps, but rather brutal and, as Helen said, curiously stupid.
The car went racing up the low hills from the estuary inland.... Was it a case of “sour grapes”? she wondered for a fleeting moment, but she answered “No” with sufficient emphasis to convince herself.
Of course he had assumed that she loved him. But was that true? Did she? ... Anyway, there were many reasons for getting married, and love was only one of them, and perhaps neither the best nor the most frequent. There was companionship, for instance, and a desire for home and children and money. One might marry in order to secure at a cheaper rate the services of a skilled shorthand-typist.... One might even marry to secure part ownership of a motor-car.
At the junction he saw her on the platform, shook hands with her very quietly and, she had to admit, for him, very politely, and then left her. She heard him drive off out of the station courtyard, and saw the headlights of his car flashing over the hill beyond the town....
An episode in her life was closed.
It was half-past nine. The bookstall had just opened for a few moments before the arrival of the night train to town. She spent some time examining the cheap novels it displayed for sale, and finally with perfectsang-froidshe purchased a sevenpenny detective story, with a paper wrapper depicting a woman in evening dress sprawled face downwards across some stairs with a revolver by her side....
The train came in, and she found a comfortable seat next to the window. “Chelmsford and London only!” the porters called out, and she smiled quietly. Her fellow travellers were mainly half asleep.
After the train had started she fished in her hand-bag for a sheet of paper and pencil.... Then, using her book as a desk, she wrote the following note:
DEAR MR. HOBBS,How absurd of you to think your invitation had offended me! I am only too grateful to you, and sorry that I could not have come with you to-day. But I shall be pleased to accept your invitation for Monday if you will still have me. I shall like to go into Surrey very much: I have heard such a lot about it but have never been there. It will be rather difficult for us to fix up arrangements about meeting each other, won’t it, so perhaps I had better call at your house to-morrow afternoon. (I know your address, I think.) I shan’t be able to stay long, though, as I am going to tea with the St. Luke’s curate, Mr. Broodbank—do you know him?—a charming and interesting man. Thanks again for your invitation.—Yrs., etc.,CATHERINE WESTON.
DEAR MR. HOBBS,
How absurd of you to think your invitation had offended me! I am only too grateful to you, and sorry that I could not have come with you to-day. But I shall be pleased to accept your invitation for Monday if you will still have me. I shall like to go into Surrey very much: I have heard such a lot about it but have never been there. It will be rather difficult for us to fix up arrangements about meeting each other, won’t it, so perhaps I had better call at your house to-morrow afternoon. (I know your address, I think.) I shan’t be able to stay long, though, as I am going to tea with the St. Luke’s curate, Mr. Broodbank—do you know him?—a charming and interesting man. Thanks again for your invitation.—Yrs., etc.,
CATHERINE WESTON.
Reading it over afterwards she smiled again to herself. Then she put it in an envelope, addressed the latter, and began to read the detective story. First she scanned the first paragraph of the first chapter, then the last paragraph of the last chapter, and then a paragraph selected haphazard from the middle, this being her established formula for commencing any book.... After that she began to read consecutively from the beginning.
After all, she reflected here and there, where the printed matter failed to keep its grip on her attention, the long troublesome episode in her life was over. Henceforth she would be quiet and sedate and respectable, a lady of perfect manners and breeding. Passion was atiresome thing. It was, to use a favourite adjective of Mrs. Lazenby’s, very “wearing.” ... To-morrow she would have tea with the Rev. Elkin Broodbank, M.A. (Cantab.), and discuss church missals and cassocks and Puseyism. On Monday she would go with Mr. Hobbs on the top of a bus to Reigate. He would be frantically polite and meekly adoring. He was, at any rate, a gentleman....
The detective story began to be interesting, so she ceased her nursings, and meanwhile the train went speeding Londonwards....
THE END
Printed in Great Britain byUNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON