"You've seen the papers, of course," she began.
I said I hadn't. The answer seemed to put her off; she replied, almost resentfully: "I never thought you'd have missed them. About Karelsky, I mean."
"Thatman?" I told her frankly that I was sick of hearing and seeing his name, and that I had deliberately avoided the papers because I knew they were all full of it. She nodded slowly and said: "I'm afraid you'llhaveto read about him, all the same. Unfortunately I didn't bring a paper with me.... It's this speech he made at the Conference yesterday."
"What about it?"
She stared at the table and said, after a pause: "I don't suppose you'll believe me—especially as you haven't read the papers.... But what happened—roughly—was this. Karelsky announced in his speech a new discovery—about cancer—and everybody clapped and cheered and made a hero of him. Apparently it's a big thing—this discovery."
"Well?"
She tried hard to be calm. "But the fact is—the fact is—it's not really Karelsky's discovery at all!"
"No?"
"Not his, I tell you."
Even then I wondered what she was driving at. "Then whose is it?" I asked.
"It's Terry's."
"Terry's? ... You mean——"
"Just exactly what I say. It's Terry's discovery."
It was minutes before I grasped what she meant, and then only hazily. She had to keep on saying: "Terry's—not Karelsky's—don't you see what I mean? Karelsky's stolen it. I've proof—loads of proof. I've been copying out for the last month the very same stuff that Karelsky gave to the Conference yesterday...." She tried to give me details, but they weren't very coherent; she could only assure me that the theft was flagrant and indisputable.
"Of course you don't believe me," she said. "I don't blame you. I hardly believed myself when I found it out.... But it's true, all the same."
"You mean that what Karelsky's getting all the fame and credit for now is something that Terry found out while he was in Vienna?"
"Presumably."
"Then, by God, we'll expose the man! We'll fight it out in the courts, and we'll——"
"I guessed you would talk like that," she interrupted, half-smiling. "But for the present there's an even more urgent matter to be settled. And that's to do with Terry himself."
"He doesn't know yet?"
"Probably not. He doesn't read newspapers—perhaps it might be weeks before he'd hear about it at all. But he's bound to know some time, isn't he?"
"Heoughtto know—so that he can fight it out——"
Again she half-smiled, and again, so it seemed to me, she had to make a great effort for self-control. "I told you a little while ago," she said quietly, "that he gave me the impression of having suffered blow after blow. This is another blow—and perhaps the worst. How do you think he'll stand it?"
I didn't answer, and she continued: "It's rather an awful thing—to have your life-work stolen and used by somebody else. I wonder if you can imagine it. I've tried to—and I think I can—just a little.... And I pity him when he finds it out."
"How do you think he will find it out?"
"I'm going to see him the day after to-morrow."
"And tell him?"
"Yes. He'll have to learn—somehow and from somebody. And I think I can tell him better than anybody else."
Then she told me why she had sent for me. "I felt I had to tell somebody about it," she said, "and you were the only person I could think of." She added: "That's a compliment, though it mayn't sound one. You can guess how I felt—reading that speech and recognizing parts of it.... I'm so glad—now—that you came—it's doing me good to have this talk with you...."
We talked on, but there wasn't much else to say. The Liverpool train came in at an adjoining platform; I wanted her to stay for a later one, but she wouldn't. Then I offered to go with her to Liverpool, but she said (sensibly enough) that I had my own work to do and must get back to it. Just before the train started she leaned out of the window and touched my arm. "We mustn't let Terry go under, must we?" she said eagerly. "Thismayseem—when he hears about it—the last straw—but he won't go under, will he?"
"Not if you can stop him, I know."
"And you," she insisted. She went on quickly: "I don't want to have all the job to myself. You've got to help—we've all got to help.... Youwillhelp me, won't you?"
"All I possibly can," I answered, and she smiled happily as the train separated us.
VI
I went back to town by an express that had just come in. At Rugby the bookstalls were open and I bought half-a-dozen morning papers, of all kinds and sizes from twenty-four-page Diehard Conservative to the daily pennyworth of revolution. I don't think I realized the full significance of what June had told me till I had thoroughly digested at least a score of their closely printed columns. First of all I read Karelsky's speech verbatim inThe Times. It was just what I expected—noisy, blatant, self-assertive, full of impertinent jibes at other investigators, and enlivened by quips that would have done credit to a Hyde Park orator. The whole thing gave me the impression of being addressed to the man in the street rather than to the Conference members; there was hardly a sentence that the layman could notthinkhe understood. Theories which most men would have advanced cautiously and modestly, Karelsky hammered out with a sort of slanging, impudent dogmatism; there never could have been, I think, such language spoken to a scientific assembly before.
In a long leading articleThe Timesstruck a note of cautious approval. "The fact that Herr Karelsky's methods of obtaining publicity savour rather of the market-place than the laboratory, should not blind us to the possibility—nay, even the probability—that he has made a noteworthy contribution to the alleviation of human distress.... It would seem that, if the cases he cites are authentic, he has indeed made an important discovery.... Investigators in all countries will not be slow in examining carefully all the details, many of which, in his desire to tickle the ears of the groundlings, Herr Karelsky has doubtless withheld...."
All the other papers had leading articles, but the tone of them varied from straightforward approval to positively ecstatic adulation. It was sickening to wade through some of the pages, especially those of the picture papers, in which Karelsky's face, fat and smiling, stared out from amidst a journalistic rake-up of all his earlier stunts—rejuvenation, Thibetan monasteries, and the rest. "Hats Off To Karelsky!" shouted theDaily Wirerampantly, and even went so far as to praise Karelsky for "talking to the public in words that the public can understand." TheMessenger'sstuff was evidently the work of old 'Pot' Higgins, for it quoted Tennyson, Goethe, Peter the Great, and (incorrectly) Disraeli.... And to think that it was Saturday, and that the scribes of the Sunday papers were already at work! Oh, my God....
Perhaps it is rather silly to have written that. But I am feeling now, as I write it, what I felt during that journey from Rugby to Euston—not so much hatred of Karelsky for being a mean thief, but disgust at the way everybody was taken in by him. Perhaps I am prejudiced. Perhaps I am bound to be. And, anyhow, it doesn't matter....
I reached London in time for a very late breakfast, and in the early afternoon I went up to Hampstead to see Severn.
I
MIDWAY through that April afternoon at the End House I thought: I shall feel like continuing the novel to-night.... I didn't do so, as a matter of fact, because I was too sleepy; but the desire was there, reawakened by the extraordinary way in which events were developing.
Helen was out when I called, but Severn himself, reading in his invalid-chair, was delighted to see me. I think he was still more delighted when I recounted to him the full details of my interview with June. His eyes quickened with excitement, and when I had finished he said: "Well, Hilton, it all sounds most decidedly queer, but let's join in thanking Heaven thatsomethinghas happened. If you only knew how bored I am in this chair all day, you'd understand my deep gratitude to Karelsky."
"Tohim?"
"Yes. For doing something interesting at last. When I read his stuff in the papers last night, I said to myself—'Ah, the usual thing—some discovery that will either be discredited within a fortnight or superseded within a year....' But itisn'tthe usual thing, if he's stolen his ideas from Terry.... By Jove, it's going to be interesting—damned interesting." He asked me to get him a box of Havanas from a cabinet nearby, and when I brought it to him I saw that his eyes were filling with tears. "Interesting!" he repeated, offering me the box and lighting a cigar for himself. "D'you know—I've wondered some times if I should ever have to use that word again? Butthisnews—well, it deserves it. And it's jolly good of you to use up your valuable time in coming to tell me about it."
"It's more than interesting," I said. "It's serious. And it's going to be made serious, too—for Karelsky."
He laughed then. "What are you going to do—murder him?"
"It will probably be sufficient to bring an action against him."
"What for?"
I said that I wasn't a legal authority, but that it seemed to me that Terry would have a good case if he took the matter to court. "As a matter of fact," I added, "I rather wanted your advice about it."
"My advice is never to expect to win an action because you've got a good case."
"No?"
"The case doesn't matter. It's the lawyer that counts. That's my experience, as a man who's won hundreds of bad cases and made other people lose hundreds of good ones."
"It sounds rather terrible."
He laughed again; I think he would have purred if he had been able. "Shall I tell you," he said, "what I would say if I were defending Karelsky in an action brought against him by Terry?" He paused for a moment, and then, with gleaming eyes and the old professional note in his voice, continued: "Gentlemen of the Jury,—my client is a scientist of world-wide reputation. His honour is assailed by a man of whom none of you, I am sure, have ever heard before. Let me tell you something about him. He was formerly in the employ of my client. After being granted full access to all the privacies of the Professor's laboratories, he left suddenly, breaking his signed contract and leaving behind him not even a word of explanation. Since then he has done no work of any kind, but has been content to live mainly on the charity of friends.... And this is the man who, according to the prosecution, has made a discovery to rank with those of Kelvin and Lister!"
"There are the note-books and papers to prove it," I interjected sharply.
"Ah yes—the so-called evidence of the prosecution. Gentlemen of the Jury—what is it you are asked to believe from thisevidence? I will tell you. That this man—a failure—penniless—unemployed—an unsuccessful applicant for dozens of jobs in all parts of the world—that this man kept in his possession a secret which any day, if he had disclosed it, would have made his pocket full and his name world-famous! ... No, gentlemen, the idea istooabsurd. I suggest that this action is entirely malicious. I suggest that it is the plaintiff, and not his illustrious employer, who did the thieving. I suggest that while the plaintiff was in Karelsky's employ in Vienna he made copies of his employer's private records, and then, nearly a year later, when he read Karelsky's speech, realized the significance and the possible value of them.... It was a silly, futile scheme, my friends, but was it not the sort of one that a man of good education, crazed by failure and disappointment, might devise?"
"This is absolutely monstrous!" I protested. "Do you really mean that the truth could be so diabolically twisted round——"
"The truth," he interrupted cheerfully, "can always be diabolically twisted round, or how else would lawyers get their living? ... Mind you, I'm only telling you the particular twist thatIshould give it ifIwere handling the case.... As a matter of fact, there are one or two points in Terry's favour."
"You do think that?"
"Oh, yes. There's his breakdown in health, and the rather shabby way Karelsky treated him about his money—we should require evidence from your friend Mizzi about that.... And then there's Karelsky's general reputation, which isn't too high amongst the sort of people who don't believe all they read in the newspapers. And of course he's a Russian-born Jew naturalized an Austrian—that can always be made to sound rather terrible to a jury...."
"And the note-books and papers—wouldn't they count?"
"Undoubtedly, though we should have to be damned certain of every detail beforehand. For instance, how did Karelsky make the theft? Did he get hold of Terry's books and make copies? Or were there duplicates left behind in the Vienna laboratories? ... And also—a rather important matter—what exactly were the relations of Karelsky and Terry in Vienna? Supposing that Karelsky, when the action is tried, should say blandly: 'Oh, yes, it was this man who kept my records and looked after my mice and generally made himself useful. But he was under my supervision, and it is outrageous that he should claim credit for doing things that I expressly told him to do... What should we say to that, eh?"
"Surely we could bring witnesses to prove that Terry was an independent research-worker?"
"Could we? I doubt it. And, in any case, Karelsky could bring other witnesses to say he wasn't."
"The disgracefully low wages that Karelsky paid would show the jury what sort of a man he was."
"Not at all. They would show what kind of a man Terry was. Karelsky would say—'These are good wages for a mere laboratory assistant—a man who takes temperatures and cleans test-tubes.'"
I said (and regretted it immediately afterwards); "It seems a pity Terry ever had anything to do with Karelsky."
He replied instantly: "It is. And, of course, it's my fault in the first place. Fortunately I've no conscience. If I troubled about all the thousands of things in the world that are my fault, I should never have a minute's peace."
We talked on until after tea, and he was (or seemed to me) most irritatingly cheerful about it all. There was even a faint undertone of admiration in his voice when he spoke of Karelsky; and my own indignation grew with his calmness. Couldn't something be done, I implored him. Was Terry to stand by helplessly and do nothing at all?
He remarked that Karelsky was clever—damnedclever.
"I daresay he is," I retorted, "and I believe you admire him for that, whether he's a rogue or not!" He laughed then. "I'm afraid it's a shade more subtle than that, Hilton. You see—I like things that make me happy. Being interested makes me happier than anything. And Karelsky interests me.... Therefore—you follow? ... I'm sorry if it seems to you rather callous."
"It's Terry I'm thinking about," I replied. "It's terrible to think that there's nothing really that can be done. Surely there'ssomething—some law or other——"
"Oh, there may be—I certainly don't say there isn't. All I want to make clear is that if he goes into battle against a man like Karelsky he'll have to fortify himself with something more than a few note-books and an immense quantity of moral virtue. Do you think you understand?"
I thought I did. I thought that Severn had made up his mind to stand aside, an amused and cynical spectator of a drama so rare as to be especially worth the seeing. Severn, I decided, was going to be neutral, being bound to Karelsky no less than to Terry by ties of 'interest'. It was a disappointment, but, in any case, whatcouldhe have done? Beyond advice (which he had already given freely enough) there was little that could reasonably be expected from a man unable to move out of his chair without skilled assistance. He had done and was doing his best, and it was perhaps too much to wish that he had shown my own particular brand of indignation.
And yet in most of those thoughts I was entirely wrong. That night, as I was working late in my room, one of the End House servants brought me a note that showed me how wrong I was. Written less than an hour before I broke open the envelope, it was as follows:
"MY DEAR HILTON,—June arrived about half-an-hour ago, and told me over again most of what I already knew from you. She happened to have some of Terry's papers locked up in her room (she had been copying them out at home), and a glance at them convinced me far more (if you will forgive me for saying so) than the combined oratorical efforts of you and June from now until Domesday. I am sorry to appear so distrustful, but the fact is that temperamentally and from experience, I neverreallybelieve extraordinary yarns until I get proof."Not that anything I've seen so far islegalproof; it isn't that at all, but it shows me pretty clearly that K. has been up to his tricks. I doubt if we shall be able to trap him; indeed, I reckon that he wouldn't do a thing like this unless he had a good many safe cards up his sleeve. But even if we don'twinthe action, there's no reason why we shouldn'thaveit, provided we go about it in the right way."See what I mean? First of all, we'll work up a damned great newspaper campaign; I'll have theMessengereditor to dinner next week and see what I can do with him. It's my belief that an anti-Karelsky campaign is just what the country issubconsciouslyready for; the 'great man' stunt has been overdone lately. Then, too, there's the psychological value of Terry himself—he's young, handsome, and English. All that will count."Eventually, of course, we shall begin the action (unless K. frustrates us by a libel charge, which is what I would do in his place). I don't think we shall win, but we'll fight like hell. Besides, if once the dear old British public takes Terry to its ample bosom, it doesn't matter whether we win in the courts or not. Anyhow, I shall take up the case for Terry; and it'll be fearfully impressive when they wheel me into court. By God, it gives me a thrill to think of it! William Pitt the Elder did something rather similar, I believe, in 1778, but that was in the House of Commons. Won't it make a grand subject for next year's Academy—'The Last Speech of Geoffrey Severn'—purchased for the nation by the trustees of the Chantrey Bequest! The really perfect thing, if only Providence could be prevailed upon to oblige, would be to die just after the last word of my final speech. I'd give at least ten years of my life to die at that particular moment."June goes to Hindhead to-morrow to talk over the whole matter with Terry. After that, things ought to move quickly. Can't you imagine how I feel, with the prospect of being drawn so soon out of the Lake of Existence into the Whirlpool of Life? In great haste, yours,"G.S."
"MY DEAR HILTON,—June arrived about half-an-hour ago, and told me over again most of what I already knew from you. She happened to have some of Terry's papers locked up in her room (she had been copying them out at home), and a glance at them convinced me far more (if you will forgive me for saying so) than the combined oratorical efforts of you and June from now until Domesday. I am sorry to appear so distrustful, but the fact is that temperamentally and from experience, I neverreallybelieve extraordinary yarns until I get proof.
"Not that anything I've seen so far islegalproof; it isn't that at all, but it shows me pretty clearly that K. has been up to his tricks. I doubt if we shall be able to trap him; indeed, I reckon that he wouldn't do a thing like this unless he had a good many safe cards up his sleeve. But even if we don'twinthe action, there's no reason why we shouldn'thaveit, provided we go about it in the right way.
"See what I mean? First of all, we'll work up a damned great newspaper campaign; I'll have theMessengereditor to dinner next week and see what I can do with him. It's my belief that an anti-Karelsky campaign is just what the country issubconsciouslyready for; the 'great man' stunt has been overdone lately. Then, too, there's the psychological value of Terry himself—he's young, handsome, and English. All that will count.
"Eventually, of course, we shall begin the action (unless K. frustrates us by a libel charge, which is what I would do in his place). I don't think we shall win, but we'll fight like hell. Besides, if once the dear old British public takes Terry to its ample bosom, it doesn't matter whether we win in the courts or not. Anyhow, I shall take up the case for Terry; and it'll be fearfully impressive when they wheel me into court. By God, it gives me a thrill to think of it! William Pitt the Elder did something rather similar, I believe, in 1778, but that was in the House of Commons. Won't it make a grand subject for next year's Academy—'The Last Speech of Geoffrey Severn'—purchased for the nation by the trustees of the Chantrey Bequest! The really perfect thing, if only Providence could be prevailed upon to oblige, would be to die just after the last word of my final speech. I'd give at least ten years of my life to die at that particular moment.
"June goes to Hindhead to-morrow to talk over the whole matter with Terry. After that, things ought to move quickly. Can't you imagine how I feel, with the prospect of being drawn so soon out of the Lake of Existence into the Whirlpool of Life? In great haste, yours,
"G.S."
II
I have that letter by the side of my typewriter now, and I have copied it word for word. It takes up three sheets of Severn's best parchment notepaper, and each sheet has been torn across into four pieces. And that, even if there were nothing else, would bring back to my mind the Sunday of 'the Karelsky week-end.'
So Fleet Street called it, and with good reason. Never in all my experience have I known such a frenzied chorus as went up from the newspapers on that first Sunday after Easter. From the rolling periods of Mr. Garvin down to the silliest paragraph of the silliest columnist, the theme was just Karelsky—Karelsky—Karelsky.... It was more than infuriating; it was sickening. I remember strolling across Lincoln's Inn Fields in the morning sunlight and asking myself the question: What would you think of all this if you had never met Karelsky and if you didn't know that he was a rogue? I decided that, even so, I should have reacted against the stupendous publicity that the fellow was getting. Severn was right; the 'great man' stunthadbeen overdone.
Something lured me to mention Karelsky's name to people I met. The match-seller in Holborn told me that he hadn't read the papers and had never heard of Karelsky. The policeman at the corner of Kingsway said: "Seems a lot o' fuss about one man, don't it? Time enough to shout when 'e's really done something,Ishould think." Both answers gave me such keen pleasure that I warned myself against letting my feelings develop into an obsession.
In the afternoon I read over all that I had written of the novel, and then tried to resume where I had left off. But I kept thinking: June is at Hindhead now, talking to him, telling him what has happened.... The thought was a disturbing one. At tea-time I gave up the idea of writing any more until I heard from her. And then, in the evening, Helen came.
We hadn't met for weeks, and the sight of her, so sudden and unexpected, made me think, for the first time without an effort, of her age. It wasn't that she looked old; it wasn't that she looked even her age; it was rather that there was some curious expression in her eyes that could never have belonged to a younger woman. She looked—it is the only word—tragic. And she began, without preamble of any kind: "I've just been told about Terry. Is it true?"
"About Terry and Karelsky?"
"Yes."
"It is true, I'm sorry to say." I offered her a chair, and she sat down with a sort of sweeping dignity I have often seen on the stage, and which, until I sawherwith it, always struck me as overdone.
"Geoffrey told me," she went on. "He's wild with delight. It will give himsucha chance of making a show of himself."
I said nothing.
"It's whathe'sgoing to do—his own future success that he's been talking to me about. Never a word about Terry's tragedy."
"And never a word about his own tragedy, either," I put in. "You may as well be fair."
"Fair?" The word stung her, I could see. "Fair? It doesn't matter about being fair tohim.Hecan defend himself. None better. Even stricken as he is, and with the whole world against him, I believe he'd be more than a match for it."
"You ought to admire him for that."
"Ought I? One gets tired of admiring a man for the same thing. I've admired him for his brains and his power so long that I'd like a change."
"And you don't feel sorry for him, lying in that chair all day and positively aching for something to happen?"
"I feel sorrier for Terry—giving the best years of his life to a thief and a fraud."
"I don't see why you shouldn't feel sorry for both of them."
"Youdo, I suppose?"
"Yes."
"Equally?"
"Roughly so, I daresay." I went on, taking advantage of her silence: "Look here, I'll tell you frankly what I think about Geoffrey. He irritates me by his calmness just as much as he irritates you, but I try to look behind it all, and there I see a stoicism that bears his own misfortune just as bravely as he expects other people to bear theirs."
"That's very nicely put."
"It'strue. Do you suppose the man's happy, chained to a chair for the rest of his life? Can't you forgive him his delight at the prospect of once again playing his little piece under the limelight? Maybe it isn't what you or I would crave for, but still,hewants it badly enough, and what right have we to be so confoundedly superior about it?He'sa pagan, frank and unashamed, and we're pagans, maybe, with the cloak of hypocrisy thrown over us."
"You're getting quite eloquent."
"If I am, it's because I feel what I say. IlikeGeoffrey, and I'm damned sorry for him. I don't know which of the two I'm sorrier for—him or Terry. And especially after the letter I had from him last night.... He's going to put up the biggest fight he can on Terry's behalf, and if he can manage to enjoy himself at the same time, I for one am very glad.... Anyhow, here's the letter—you can read it if you'd care to. It may, of course, strike you as something absolutely diabolical and callous, butIthink it's rather pathetic."
She read it slowly, and then deliberately tore it twice across and dropped the pieces on to the floor. "That," she said, with deadly quietness, "is what I think of it.... And now, if you've quite finished defending a man who's well able to defend himself, perhaps you'll tell me what's going to happen to Terry?"
III
When I look at those torn fragments now, I think how excruciating must have been the tension that made her do a thing so pointless and silly. I oughtn't of course to have shown her the letter at all. It merely infuriated her; she didn't and couldn't see in it what I have seen.
I think I never realized fully before then what a difference the years had made in her, and how changed she was from those early days when she had been the charming and immensely popular girl-wife of the successful careerist. She was still good-looking, but there was a growing bitterness in her that was killing the charm, as her altered habits had already killed the popularity. People had admired her in a vague sort of way for sticking to her husband, and then after a time they had forgotten her. She never troubled about her old friends, and when she met them she gave (as she gave me) an impression of grim implacability.
Implacable she was that night when she asked me what was going to happen to Terry. "When he learns how he's been duped and defrauded, how will he stand it? And what can he do? He won't win the action against Karelsky (Geoffrey's been frank enough to tell me that)—the action's merely to give Geoffrey a chance of amusing himself. After Terry's served his purpose in contributing to that noble end, what on earth is to happen to him?"
Implacable....
I said quietly: "One thing at a time. It's no use looking so far ahead.... June's telling him to-day."
"So I gathered."
"She's discussed it with you, no doubt?"
"She discusses nothing with me. She prefers her father as a confidant."
Implacable again....
"Well, anyhow, we can only wait."
"Wait? We've waited long enough.... Seven years—for the inevitable to happen.... I'm tired."
"Of waiting?"
"Of everything."
And that, I saw at once, was the look in her face that no younger woman could easily have had—that look of being tired of everything.
The anger that had made her tear up Severn's letter had spent itself, and for over an hour we talked together very quietly about Terry and what might happen. She, like June, was fearful that the blow would be too much for him. I tried to reassure her by saying that lately there had been distinct signs of the beginnings of recovery, but that seemed to make her more apprehensive than ever. "To hit a man when he's down isn't as bad as to hit him when he's just coming up," she said. And then there was the strain of the fighting campaign that Geoffrey was planning for him—how would he stand that?
Howwouldhe? I wondered myself. I wondered how soon I should hear the result of June's momentous interview, and what degree of catastrophe there would be to learn.... And then, at the moment of deepest gloom, there came a sharp knock on my outer door. I went, and found one of the End House chauffeurs with a letter in his hand. I thought immediately of Severn—that the letter was some urgent summons from him, either to me or to Helen. Yet he would have telephoned if anything had gone seriously amiss. A dozen vague alternative conjectures suggested themselves; and all before the man said: "From Miss June, sir. She told me to bring it to you."
"Miss June? I thought she was at Hindhead?"
"So she is, sir. I drove her down this morning, and she sent me back this evening with the car and this letter."
"She's not coming back herself, then?"
"Not to-night, at any rate, sir. She's staying at the hotel."
"I see...."
But I didn't see. I stood under the light in my small lobby and tore open the envelope. The letter was pencilled and very short. Just this:
"DEAR HILTON,—The most extraordinary thing has happened, and I want you to get down here to-morrow morning if you possibly can. I'll meet the 10.15 at Haslemere. I don't think it's any use my trying to write any details, but I'll tell you this much to reassure you—it's good news. At leastIthink it is. Do come to-morrow."JUNE."
"DEAR HILTON,—The most extraordinary thing has happened, and I want you to get down here to-morrow morning if you possibly can. I'll meet the 10.15 at Haslemere. I don't think it's any use my trying to write any details, but I'll tell you this much to reassure you—it's good news. At leastIthink it is. Do come to-morrow.
"JUNE."
Helen entered from my sitting-room, and before I had time to think, I said: "It's from June."
"June?" she echoed; and then, with what may or may not have been sarcasm, added: "If it isn'ttooprivate, may I see it?"
I gave it to her, and just for a moment while she was reading I wondered if she were going to treat it as she had done Severn's. But at last she handed it back to me, saying sharply: "It tells us nothing."
"Most likely whatever has happened is too complicated to write down," I answered. "Anyhow, June says it'sgoodnews."
"She saysshethinks it's good news."
"Which you fear may not be quite the same thing?"
"Fear?" There was fear in her voice. "I think I fear everything."
"Even after June's reassurance?"
"June? June doesn't understand—doesn't understandanythingin this business. Shecouldn't."
"Why not?"
"Because, for one thing, she's only a child, despite her adult ways of managing things. She hasn't the faintest idea of what sort of a man Terry is—oh, it's absurd—tooabsurd...." She broke off suddenly and added, after a pause: "You'll go to-morrow, of course?"
"Most likely."
She shrugged her shoulders almost contemptuously, and then decided to return to the End House in the car that the chauffeur had driven up. I wasn't altogether sorry; somehow she was just beginning to get on my nerves.... On the pavement, as I saw her into the car, she said, finally: "I'm glad you'll go to-morrow. Then you'll find things out for yourself. June's too young—too unsophisticated. She means well, but shecan'tknow—shecan'tunderstand—she must be making terrible blunders about him all the time. It was all right her teaching him tennis—she can do that well enough ... but now...."
The chauffeur had not heard us talking, and drove away in the middle of that sentence. I have often wondered how, if at all, she had been going to finish it.
IV
And the next morning....
It was one of those cool, sunlit days when to leave London for the country is more than a pleasure—it is an intoxication, an orgy. During the journey from Waterloo there seemed but one rift in the whole sky of optimism—and that one rift was Helen. Shehadbeen getting on my nerves. I had already learned to dislike her attitude towards Terry and her husband, and now, it seemed, I was beginning to dislike her attitude towards her daughter also.
Her daughter met me at Haslemere, cool and pink and smiling in the sunshine. It is the loveliest picture in my mind (no,nearlythe loveliest) that quiet country railway station with June and the sunshine mingling together into a blaze of welcome. We conversed for a few moments in that eager unimportant way that always heralds the important. Had I minded coming? Should we hire a car to take us over the ridge to the Valley?Shepreferred walking—it was only three miles or so.... Very well, we would walk.
And we walked. Everything she said and everything I said has that winsome background of sunlight and red roofs and green lanes. We were in shadow when I said: "It's good news that I'm to hear, anyway. That relieves my anxiety, but not my curiosity."
Then we came out of the shadow into a yellow blaze of roadway, and she answered: "Yes, it'sgoodnews. It's more than good—it's marvellous."
"He took it well, then, when you told him?"
"Oh." And we passed into the shadow again. "I didn't need to tell him. He knew already."
"Really?"
"He'd seen one of the newspapers.... Odd, wasn't it?" She glanced at me quizzically. "Yousaid he never read them."
"We both said so. The headlines must have caught his eye.... But tell me what happened."
"I will, if you'll give me the chance." She paused, and for a moment we walked on in a rather queer silence. Then suddenly the trees by the roadside gave way, and a blaze of sunshine enfiladed us. That seemed to give her impulse to continue. She said abruptly: "The fact is, Hilton, he hasn't the remotest idea that Karelsky's been thieving from him at all."
"But——"
"It's no good protesting. I know it all sounds incredible. But it's true enough.... When I got here yesterday he was different—utterly different; I knew something had happened the moment I saw him. I thought he was hysterical at first.... Then I found he was absolutely wild with delight."
"Delight?"
"Yes; and I mean it. He thinks—oh, it's so difficult to tell youwhathe thinks. But—somehow or other—he regards Karelsky's speech as a sort of justification of all the work he's done. He says it shows he's been working on the right lines."
"He recognizes his own work in Karelsky's announcements, then?"
"Oh, yes.... That's the queer part of it. Maybe he thinks Karelsky was entitled to do what he did.... I don't know. He doesn't talk about that. He's just pleased (he says) because his work's been worth doing."
"Worth stealing, anyhow."
"Yes, I know.... It's easy to be sarcastic. I tell you—it hasn't occurred to him that he's been let down at all. On the contrary, he thinks it's great that his seven years of hard labour should have led to such a magnificent result."
"Nowyou'rebeing sarcastic."
She shrugged her shoulder. "I'm trying not to be. I'm trying to look at it fromhispoint of view. He really is sincere. I'm certain of that, because of the difference in him.You'llnotice that. And he's working again like mad—trying, he says, to make up for a wasted year."
"But surely, when you put it to him, he could see what had happened?"
She said quietly: "I didn't put it to him. I didn't put anything to him.... And that's just what I want to talk to you about...."
We talked. That quiet country lane, dappled in sunshine, wound upwards to the windy cross-roads, and all the way we argued whether a man who had been the unknowing victim of robbery should be told about it by his friends. Perhaps it isn't fair to put it like that. She wasn't arguing the general case; it was only of Terry that she was thinking. Briefly, her idea was that we should leave things where they were. Since the truth hadn't occurred to him, what was the use of trying to prove it to him?
I answered her as well as I could. I told her that my whole mind and soul revolted against letting Karelsky go scot-free. We ought to fight, and Terry ought to fight—even if we didn't win. Severn thought so, anyway, for he intended to back Terry in a law-suit....
Then she said: "Damn the law-suit. If father wants one to amuse him, he can denounce Karelsky publicly and get himself sued for libel. There's no need to bring Terry into it at all. He's happy—because he thinks he's succeeded in something at last. What's the good of convincing him that whathethinks is a success is only another failure?"
Put like that, it sounded fairly unanswerable; nevertheless, I wasn't by any means convinced. All I promised was that I wouldn't attempt the process of disillusionment till I had discussed the matter with her at least once again. She smiled and answered: "I'm satisfied with that. I'm so certain you'll agree with me when once you've seen him."
And just then I did see him. He was coming up the lane to meet us.
V
He was different. It isn't easy at first to say anything but just that. He came to me with outstretched hand and gave me a quick smile and a grip of iron; with his superb physical fitness there seemed now another and more potent sort of fitness. By God—June was right about him!.... All the way down the lane she and he were talking, but I didn't hear a word: I was desperately trying to size things up for myself. Hewasdifferent; the cloud had passed from him; he looked as he had looked in those old days when we had tramped for miles on those Sunday afternoons.
And at the Valley Hotel we went into the small ground-floor room where June's tidy hand had exercised careful restraint over the litter of his books and papers. But there were signs visible enough of what had been happening—a typewriter, a paper-perforator, and stacks of typed manuscript. I said, cheerfully: "Well, I see you've begun work in real earnest."
And he looked almost embarrassed, as if he had been found out in a guilty act. "I'm just gathering up the loose threads," he replied, and changed the subject.
It was all wonderfully,miraculouslydifferent. Under that clear brightening sun we strolled over to the tennis-court, and there June and he played a few games together with me as spectator. He wasn't dressed for it; that, apparently, didn't matter.... I suppose the play was rather good; but I am no judge of tennis, and the game, like most games, bores me to desperation. All that interested me that morning was Terry's extraordinary physical agility—yes, and June's too. It was hard to realize that he was a decade older than she; and yet, when you did realize it, there seemed something curiously right about the gap. A girl of twentycanbe a woman, and very often is; but a man of twenty is never very much of a man....
Then came lunch, and the sort of lunch that Taplow, alone of all the hotel-keepers I know, can serve at short notice. During the meal the talk was all of tennis and walking and the beauties of the locality and nothing in particular—not a word about anything more important. But afterwards June made an obvious excuse to leave me alone with him, and then, at my suggestion, we went out into the sunlit lane. "Let's climb to the Punch-Bowl," Terry said, and I agreed, as I would have agreed to anything.
That afternoon! It was a time of almost sheer happiness, for I took thought of nothing but the clear truth that somehow or other the miracle had been accomplished. He waskeenagain, filled with the old zest for life and work; and he told me, embarrassedly at first, but with eagerness after a while, the things that were in his mind.
First of all he thanked me for the way I had managed to put up with him. That was rather an unnerving experience. Then he expressed his gratitude to Severn, and said that he would visit him soon and thank him personally. "To think," he exclaimed, "that all these months he's been ill, and I haven't even visited him!"
"He'll certainly be glad to see you," I said, and rather oddly, perhaps, I didn't think of Helen.
"I want to repay him," he went on. "And also—I must have a job. Do you think he could help me again?"
"What sort of a job?" I asked, and he replied confidently: "There's only one sort of a job I'll ever have, whether I starve or not. And that's the job I've been successful in already."
It was fine to hear him talk like that; and yet, when I thought of Karelsky, it was infuriating.Successful? He really thought hehadbeen. He said: "Imustwork. I feel there's work that only I can do. That's conceit, I daresay, but I can't help it. I feel I must get on with the job. I'd go back to Vienna if there were nowhere else."
Before I could check myself I had exclaimed: "Indeed you won't dothat!" and he looked up with such sharp surprise that I knew then, as June had known earlier, the utter impossibility of telling him the truth. She had said that I should agree with her, but it wasn't exactly that. I knew he must find out the truth in time; but I felt thatIcouldn't tell him—not just then, at any rate. I even, in a sort of way, joined in the deception; I felt that for the present he must be helped and not hindered in his dream. I told him I was sure that Severn would manage to find him the sort of post he wanted, and that probably it would be a good deal nearer home than Vienna.
"I don't care where it is," he answered. "Anywhere will suit me—provided the work's there." And he added, with particular intensity: "Thank God I'm not married, or anything like that.... As it is, I'm free—absolutely—to give my whole life to the sort of things I want...."
VI
In the cool twilight of that evening June and I began our journey back to town. Taplow drove us to Haslemere station in his dilapidated Ford car, and Terry sat with June in the rear seat. All the way she was talking and laughing, and he was evidently saying things that made her laugh. It was an aspect of him that I had never seen before, but when June and I were alone in our compartment she made me realize that I had. "Do you remember years ago," she said, "when he used to come round to the End House and bend glass tubing and mix sulphuric acid with ammonium carbonate and things like that? I was a child then, and he always tried to amuse me.... I'm afraid he still thinks I'm a child."
She was pensive for a while, and then went on quietly: "Of course you've kept your word about not telling him. I knew you would. But I've an idea you haven't evenwantedto tell him. You agree with me, don't you, that it's better to let him keep his illusion?"
"I quite see that it would be very difficult and unpleasant to tell him," I answered. "But, on the other hand, I don't see how he can live very long without finding out."
"Why?"
"Because, for one thing, your father intends to push on with this legal action against Karelsky."
"Then we must persuade him to drop it."
"Do you thinkyoucan persuade him?"
And she answered: "Yes, I think I can." So quietly, so serenely; there were no limits, apparently, to the things she felt she could do.
"Very well, then," I said, and we left the matter at that. It was dark when we reached Waterloo. She took the tube, and as we shook hands gave me her final message.
"You're on my side," she said. "Somehow Iknowyou are. My idea,ouridea, in fact—is that Terry mustn't be told. It might just smash him if he realized.... He mustn't know, and we mustn't let anybody tell him. Just let things go on quietly for a while, and the danger will be over."
"Masterly inactivity?" I suggested, and she answered with a smile:
"Yes, if you like. AndI'llpersuade father."
I
NOTHING happened for nearly a week. Terry stayed at Hindhead; the Karelsky sensation died down a little; and I, after my adventures at Crewe and elsewhere, had no time to visit the End House. On Friday, however, Severn telephoned me to come to dinner the next day, and by the late evening post there came this note from June:
"DEAR HILTON,—I hear you are dining with us to-morrow, and I want you to be on your guard. Father is sure to ask your advice about the Karelsky affair. I've argued with him for hours over it, but it hasn't seemed to be much use so far; and apparently he's rooted out some discreditable part of K's past, which of course makes him keener than ever on action. He likes Terry, and wants to help him, but it's so hard to get him to understand how things are. I think, though, that if you back me up, as you promised, we may just manage it. Yours,"JUNE."
"DEAR HILTON,—I hear you are dining with us to-morrow, and I want you to be on your guard. Father is sure to ask your advice about the Karelsky affair. I've argued with him for hours over it, but it hasn't seemed to be much use so far; and apparently he's rooted out some discreditable part of K's past, which of course makes him keener than ever on action. He likes Terry, and wants to help him, but it's so hard to get him to understand how things are. I think, though, that if you back me up, as you promised, we may just manage it. Yours,
"JUNE."
But Ihadn'tpromised! At least, I ransacked my memory for any word or incident that might have given her such an impression, and I couldn't find any.... Even when I sat down at Severn's table the next night, I was by no means certain what I would do. There was nobody there but the four of us. Helen was very quiet and June rather nervously subdued; only Severn, in his febrile way, possessed any degree of vivacity. There was something slightly horrible in the contrast between the intense activity of his mind and the dead incapacity of his body. During dinner he talked principally politics, but afterwards, when the servants had disappeared, he announced his newest Karelsky discovery. It was pretty shady—some business about a student whom Karelsky had tricked and who, in despair, had drowned himself. The affair had been partially hushed up at the time, but under Severn's skilled manipulation it could doubtless be made to live again. "It's just the very thing we wanted," he exclaimed rapturously. "Nothing could have been better—except a scandal about a woman.... It's just possible we might even get a verdict—you never know. Anyhow, we shall certainly achieve our object, which is, I take it, to give our hero a good boost at the expense of our villain."
"No," said June quietly, and looked at me.
He smiled. "June," he went on, quite good-humouredly, "has some rather peculiar ideas on the subject. May I assume that she has hammered them into you as well as into me?"
She said (and I could feel before she said it, that it was what she was going to say): "Yes, I've told Hilton what I think. And he agrees with me, too. Absolutely."
"What?" And Severn laughed. "What's that?Doyou agree with her? Do you agree that we should all do nothing and say nothing and let Karelsky go on his way rejoicing?"
And the extraordinary thing is that I heard myself answering: "Well, you know, there is something in what she says."
It astonished me; it was as if something sudden and impulsive jerked me into position—into position by her side. I even began to argue the matter—at first as an impromptu defender of something I wasn't very certain about, but later on with conviction and even enthusiasm. I think I made an impression on Severn, for he heard me very attentively. I assured him that, from my own knowledge, Terry was quite ignorant of the fact that he had been duped. "Not only that, but he's actually delighted—because he sees that the work he did is really of value. Probably the idea that he has any proprietary right to the results of his own work has never occurred to him."
"And you don't want it to occur to him?"
"Well, as things are, I feel that I don't. The thought that's he's scored such a success has worked a miracle with him, and one's always rather afraid of a relapse after a miracle."
"Do you think he can possibly go on without knowing?"
"There's an odd chance that he might."
He made a grimace. "All these arguments, you know, Hilton, are June's. I've heard them over and over again during the past week.... Haven't you anything new—something you've only just thought of—something bright and original—anything—anything—I don't care a damn what it is so long as I haven't heard it before?"
I thought he was sneering until I saw his eyes. They were full of a curious, child-like eagerness—an eagerness that almosttorethrough them. Something new—something bright and original—something he hadn't heard before ... it was his heart-cry always.
I said: "I'm sorry. There isn't anything new to say. It's just that, quite sincerely, June and I believe that the best service we can do for Terry is to leave things alone."
"You've changed your mind, then, since the last time we talked about it?"
"Yes, I have."
Then he said, quietly and almost casually: "Very well then, we'll drop the matter."
II
Drop the matter! And June was speechless. She went towards him as if she would have hugged him, but remembering his fragility in time, kissed him warmly on the lips. It seemed to please him; he patted her head and told her that he quite realized her little game of throwing me into the fray at the last minute, as Napoleon threw in his guards at Waterloo. And all she could reply then was: "You dear—dear—to have given up your beautiful trial-scene—for I know—I understand—how much you were looking forward to it."
He said, patting her head again: "Wait till that Chicago fellow has finished with me. Then I'll have all the trial-scenes I want."
She couldn't reply to that at all; I could see her eyes filling and brimming over with tears. I intervened then myself, telling him how glad and grateful I was, and how much I hoped that the future would bring recovery to him. And when I had finished he said, quite in his old half-mocking tone again: "That's very nice of you. Now let's be as sentimental as we can about it—and, to begin with, let us all cry."
Perhaps we should have cried but for his saying that. As it was we laughed, June, he and I; and then suddenly I noticed Helen. She wasn't laughing and she wasn't crying either; she was just looking dreadfully in front of her, with cheeks pale and lips tightened; and when she caught my eye she said, quickly and sharply: "So you'renotgoing to tell Terry?"
We looked at her, all of us; the centre of gravity had suddenly shifted.
"That's what we've decided," I said.
"You're satisfied for him to get what happiness he can out of ignorance?"
"Well—if you put it that way—yes."
She bit her lips till they were almost white. Then, in the midst of the tense, expectant silence, she retorted: "I'mnotsatisfied, and I never will be. And if you aren't going to tell him the truth, then I am...."
It was a far bigger surprise than Severn's capitulation; it staggered us all, and even Severn was less ready for it than for most things. And before we could collect our scattered wits, she was going on—ranting, if you like—telling us what she thought of us, of Terry, of everything else, and of the world in general. She had hardly spoken all the evening, and it was as if the words had been heaping themselves up behind her barrier of silence, and that now the barrier had given way.
I wish I could have taken down in shorthand everything she said, for it was an impressive tirade. It held us spellbound while it lasted, but the spell is over now, and all that memory yields is a few scraps and sentences.
"Ever since you knew him," I can remember her saying, "you've been planning things out for him and settling things that he ought to have settled for himself, and the result has been just disaster—disaster—over and over again.... And now you're planning that he shan't discover the mistakes you've made.... But heshalldiscover them, and the sooner the better. Let him know the truth—let's all of us know the truth—let's know the truth about his life and your life and my life....
"You're afraid it will make him ill? Then let him be ill—better that he should be ill of the truth than smiling in your fool's paradise. Let him know everything. Even if Karelsky's fooled him,youshan't!"
June was white-hot. "We don't want to fool him, mother. We want to help him. Why shouldyouinterfere?"
"Interfere?" Her bitter laugh was more than words. "Interfere? That's a strange word to use about me and Terry."
"Is it? I don't see why it is. If you deliberately tell him things that you needn't tell him, that's interference, isn't it?"
"All right, then. I'm going to interfere."
"You'rereallygoing to tell him?"
"Rather."
"When?"
"As soon as ever I can. He's staying at the hotel at Hindhead, isn't he?"
"You'd dare to go there and tell him?"
"It doesn't strike me as particularly daring."
"Oh, but ... mother.... Youshan'tgo—you've no right to—you——"
"Haven't I? How do you know what I've a right to do? Perhaps I've a right to do whatyou'redoing, anyway.Youvisit him, don't you?Youtalk to him, and tell him what you want to tell him, don't you?"
The two were facing each other dangerously—June flushed and angry, and Helen with an ashen-pale mask of curious, half-contemptuous calmness. And then, in the midst of the almost ugly tension, Severn thought fit to fling his own delicate and carefully-prepared bombshell.
"You won't need to go anywhere to see him," he announced, looking at Helen. "He'll be here any minute...."
"Here?"
I think we all said that. He watched our bewilderment, enjoying it as a conjuror enjoys the mystification of his audience. But we had had already such a surfeit of surprises that perhaps we showed less than might have been expected. He told us then that Terry had written to him, suggesting a visit, and that he (Severn) had invited him for that night without any anticipation of "this delicious little family contretemps."
Helen remained calm, saying merely: "I don't care. I can tell him here to-night as well as at any other time and place. It makes no difference to me."
And then the butler entered and spoke the name that seemed so strange to us because we never used it ourselves.
It was like a play—one of those rather obvious, melodramatic plays in which, as soon as a character announces that he is expecting somebody to call, there is always a deafening ring of the doorbell.... It was, anyhow, far too "pat" to have been an entire coincidence; and my theory is that Severn, who had exceptionally sharp ears, must have heard or seen Terry approaching along the drive....
There is a sense in which the long-deferred answer to any question is always something of an anticlimax. Often, for example, during the long interval of years, I had thought: Will he ever see her again, and if so, how and when and where?
And here, after a few moments, he was, standing before her with his bronzed face and his keen eyes and his shy, boyish smile. He didn't speak; she didn't speak; it was their first meeting since that storm-riven night eight years before.
Then he went across to Severn. To him more than to her he seemed to show emotion; he said, with almost a child's wistfulness: "Severn.... Howareyou?"
And Severn replied: "Much better for seeing you. Why the devil haven't you come here before?"
"I couldn't," he answered simply, and then he looked round the room and completed his salutations. To me he gave a cordial nod, and to June a curt quick smile which she returned instantly. He was one of us again.
I remember feeling an almost overmastering desire to make some trifling remark—something like—"Extraordinary how the years have flown, isn't it?"—anything, however stupid, that would in some way acknowledge the central fact of that eight years' interval. I don't know whether anybody else felt like that—quite probably not. Except for Severn, they all seemed stricken with a desire to say nothing at all.
Strange—that he should have met her again in that room, and with all of us looking on.... I had pictured so many places—some flower-decked railway-station in the Tirol, a Viennese boulevard at nighttime, some winding, hedge-bordered English lane, even Charing Cross Station—but never that room at the End House, with the port on the table and the twilight creeping over the cold lawns outside. It was disappointing, almost; it seemed to be making such poor use of a romantic opportunity....
The situation, however, was interesting, the more so as none of us knew what would happen.
For quite ten minutes nothing happened at all, and we just sat round the table making remarks as conventional and featureless as if the occasion had been the state visit of a grand-duke. Terry sat at the table with us, and though he declined a glass of port, he pulled a pipe out of his pocket and asked if he might smoke. We chaffed him a little about letting go his good resolutions, and he answered, rather cryptically: "You have to choose what you'll let go and what you'll hold on to."
For a time I allowed myself the faint hope that Helen, after all, mightn't carry out her threat, but her attitude soon dispelled it. "So you're working again?" she remarked, while he was filling his pipe. (And those were her first words to him.)
He replied that he was. He also gave a perfectly natural explanation of everything that had happened to him. "I worked a bit too hard in Vienna," he said, "and the result was a sort of break-down. But I think I've got over it now—at the price of a year's slacking." And he smiled.
She went on, with no more beating about the bush: "What do you think of Karelsky's latest discoveries?"
He looked up sharply, but without perturbation. "They're interesting," he said, puffing contemplatively at his pipe.
And we, as spectators, looked on. June and I lacked the power to intervene, and Severn, I think, was too fascinated by the spectacle to wish to do so. She continued her cross-examination.
"Karelsky's been working rather on your lines, hasn't he?"
"We've been investigating the same subject."
"Do your conclusions tally with his?"
"Some of them."
Pause.... Then: "Karelsky seems to have got the most tremendous publicity out of it."
"Yes. It's the sort of thing he likes."
"And you don't, I'm sure."
"I should hate it."
"It's a good job, then, that he never mentioned you in any of his speeches.... I suppose you helped him?"
"Oh, yes, I was paid to help him."
She wasn't getting on as easily as she had expected; I could see that. I could see the calmness of her eyes turning gradually to exasperation, especially when June put in, rather coldly: "I'm sure Terry doesn't want to answer all these questions, mother."
But it was his casual, "Oh, I don't mind in the least," that stung Helen to absolute desperation. "You don't mind, eh?" she cried fiercely. "You don't mind anything, do you? ... You're a fool, Terry—and I'm going to let the truth into you even if nobody else here has the courage to do it.... These discoveries Karelsky has made are yours, if you only had sense enough to realize it—they'reyours, and he's stolen them off you, knowing what a little fool you are!"
He put down his pipe and stared at her, and I think we were all slightly relieved that he didn't go off immediately into acute hysterics. He just said—almost quizzically: "But really—to tell methis! What grounds can you possibly have for saying such things?"
"You needn't ask me," she retorted. "Ask June—she's had access to all your papers. It was her discovery in the beginning."
He turned to June, wordless; and June smiled at him. "Don't get alarmed, Terry," she said quietly. "It's true what mother says, though I wouldn't have bothered you about it if I'd been her. Idothink Karelsky's stolen your work. I don't see how anybody could help thinking so who'd gone through it all in detail as I have.... There's not much doubt about it, Terry—you've been done ... but never mind—it doesn't really matter...."
And then, to our complete astonishment, he replied, taking up his pipe again: "I daresay you're right. But, as you say, it doesn't really matter, does it?"
III
I felt sorry for Helen then. We were all bewildered, but for her alone bewilderment was defeat. And Terry hardly noticing her, smoked his pipe, as if embarrassed rather than upset by the turn that events had taken.
It was Severn who took up the cross-examination, but did it so calmly and sympathetically that even Terry's embarrassment was soon dispelled. Apparently he had had an idea that Karelsky "might have stolen" his work. He hadn't troubled much about it because what really mattered to him most of all was the revelation that his work was sound. "Sound enough to be stolen?" interposed Severn, and Terry replied smilingly: "Yes, if you like. Only really, you know, you can't stealwork, can you? It's justdone, and it doesn't very much matter who does it."
"It's easy enough to steal credit," said Severn.
"Credit? Yes, but who wants that? I should hate all this newspaper puffing—it would worry me. It's just as well Karelsky's saved me from it. If he'd asked me I'd have given him full permission to do all he has done.... And besides, do I deserve credit? I'd done all that work, and yet I hadn't enough confidence in it or myself to make it public. The world owes something to Karelsky."
"And you may be sure Karelsky will collect the debt in full," replied Severn.
Then June said laughingly: "Do you know, Terry, father had a wonderful idea that you should bring an action against Karelsky for theft or plagiarism, or whatever it is, and that he—father, I mean—would take up your case in court? It would have been rather fine, wouldn't it?"
"So fine," interposed Severn, "that the very ushers would have wept at my eloquence."
Perhaps it was as well to make a joke of it like that. June and her father were in some strange and mystic harmony—I had never been so certain of it as then. They laughed and chattered and made witticisms, and all the time Terry was growing younger and happier before their eyes. The Karelsky business didn't really matter; you had only to look at him to see that. "It's what's done in the world that matters, not who does it," was his way of summing it all up.
It was a happy ending—for all of us except Helen. She stayed, pale and silent, for a while, and then suddenly whispered something to Severn and went out of the room. He told us afterwards, with perhaps the faintest touch of cynicism, that she had begged to be excused owing to a bad headache.
And the conversation went on....
IV
June's eyes as she shook hands with me at the gate that evening were shining with delight. "It's marvellous," she whispered softly, for Terry wasn't far away. "It's wonderful to think that he knows everything now, and that we have nothing more to fear...."
The night had a glow of moonlight, and in it her eyes were shining—with delight, as I said, but also (I wondered) with something more than delight? I could even see her mother in her then—her mother as she had been years before.
Terry and I, having bidden our farewells, walked back down the moonlit lane to the Tube Station. He was staying with me for the night—indeed, for just as long as he wished, though the thought of his unfinished work made him eager to return to Hindhead.
He said, amidst the clatter of the Tube train, that Severn, despite the accident, was really just the same, but that Helen seemed to have changed. "I didn't understand her," he confessed.
I answered that eight years were bound to have made a difference, and that the last year had made perhaps the biggest difference of all. He nodded then, and was silent for a while. It was obvious that talking about her both attracted him and made him embarrassed.
He never mentioned now his old half-crazed idea, that he was personally responsible for all the misfortunes of the Severn family. But the idea was somewhere still in his mind, in essence the same though maybe transmuted into another semblance; and I could sense it easily enough behind the slow, baffled words with which he broke the silence eventually. "I'm more than ever sorry for her now," he told me.
That was all he said about her, but before going to bed we talked for hours about his work and prospects. He told me frankly that one of the chief causes of his earlier despondency had been the thought, which he never dared to express in words, that his work was no good. Karelsky's shabby financial dealings with him had increased that fear; he had begun to sink beneath the awful realization that he was a failure. It wasn't any spectacular success that he wanted; he had no envy of those who made their names prominent in the world's view. All he wanted was the secret inward conviction that he was doing something worth doing. And now he had it.
"All this may sound priggish," he added, "but I don't think it reallyispriggish. Because, after all. I'm only choosing the easiest path for myself. I should hate Karelsky's life of fame and sensation, just as he'd hate my life of hard work and insignificance.... We're just made differently, that's all, and we can't help ourselves."
"All the same," I said, "you ought to have what you're entitled to, if only to stop others from having more than they're entitled to. You've done the work; you ought to get the credit."
"Can't you see that it doesn't matter who gets the credit?"
"Frankly," I retorted, "I'm incapable of feeling like that about it. If there's any fame or credit to be got out of my work, I'll be glad to have it. It may be a lower attitude than yours, but it's more appropriate for earning a living in the twentieth century."
That seemed to embarrass him. He assured me that he had never reckoned my attitude as 'lower' than his in any way; it was just 'different.'
"Yours is medieval," I said, laughingly. "You ought to have been a craftsman on a fourteenth century cathedral, putting your whole life and soul into the carving of a single gargoyle."
He said that gargoyles weren't much in his line. "But, anyhow, doing that would be a nobler way of spending a lifetime than lots of the things that are done to-day—selling rubbishy patent medicines, for instance, or writing rubbishy books...."
And so we argued, half-seriously, half jocularly, far into the night. One thing rather astonished me—the extent to which he had thought about things. He disliked the modern world, on the whole, and he had his reasons for it. He said that newspapers, modern advertising, and big cities, always afflicted him with a sort of terror. He felt he couldn't 'cope with them.' It was odd, really, his being a scientist, because science was supposed to be the key-note of the new age....
"Sometimes," I said, "I think you aren't a scientist at all, but a theologian gone astray."
Oh, no. He wouldn't admit that. He had no sympathy with dogmas. But he did feel that somehow you either had to accept the modern world with an easy cynical fatalism such as Severn's, or else hate it, as he did himself, and long for something warmer and simpler....
And then he made a curious confession—perhaps the most curious he ever made. "When I thought I had failed altogether at the work I liked most, I had to try to think what I would do in the future.... And I had half made up my mind that—if they'd have me—I'd join some sort of mission affair and get sent abroad."
"And how about the dogmas then?" I asked, and he answered puzzledly: "I don't know.... Ireallydon't know.... They'd have been a great nuisance, I admit—but still...."