John was awakened the next morning by the sound of rain against his window. He got out of bed and looked upon a scene of desolation. The clouds hung low, and rain was coming down in level sheets. The lawns and gardens which yesterday had had the air of waiting for the spring were to-day a sudden wilderness.
There was a knock at the door, and the butler brought in his tea.
"Lady Hilda sends her compliments, sir," he announced, "and as the morning is so unfavorable she will not rise until eleven o'clock. Breakfast will be ready down-stairs at half past nine, or can be served in your room."
"Thank you, I'll come down," John replied.
He bathed and shaved himself, he even packed his own clothes. Then he left the room, descending the stairs softly, and glancing furtively at the door of Lady Hilda's room with an air almost of a guilty schoolboy. He breakfasted alone and spent the morning in the billiard room until Lady Hilda appeared.
"I am a terrible hostess, am I not?" she said apologetically, as she opened the door; "but what is there to be done? The weather is too hopeless, isn't it?"
"Appalling!" John agreed. "Still, it's very comfortable in here, and I have just made a seventy-one break."
"We'll have a two hundred and fifty up—thatought to last until lunch-time," she suggested, throwing herself into a chair. "Give me ten minutes, will you? This weather is so depressing. Even the effort of getting up seems to have tired me."
She threw herself into an easy chair, and John tried to concentrate his attention upon the balls. More than once, however, he glanced across at his hostess. She was looking older this morning, paler, her face a little drawn, her eyes large and soft. She sat looking into the fire; on her knee were some letters, at which she scarcely glanced. Presently she threw them aside and rang the bell.
"Bring me a brandy-and-soda and the cigarettes," she told the butler. "Now, Mr. Strangewey, I am ready," she went on, turning to John. "Give me fifty in two hundred and fifty, if you dare!"
"We'll try," he agreed.
They played until lunch-time, both affecting a rapt interest in the game. At the sound of the gong Lady Hilda laid down her cue.
"We'll finish later," she suggested.
John strolled to the window. There were some signs of clearing in the sky, although the whole place seemed still to reek of moisture.
"I am afraid I shall have to start soon after lunch," he said. "It will take some time to get up to town. I am not a very experienced driver, and my car is a little inclined to skid on wet roads."
She made no remark, and to both of them the presence of servants during the meal appeared to be somewhat of a relief. The coffee and liqueurs, however, again were served in the billiard room, and there was a very awkward silence. For some time Lady Hilda had baffled his efforts at ordinary conversation, and his lastfew remarks about the weather she had ignored altogether.
"So you are going up this evening?" she said at last.
"This afternoon, if you don't mind," he replied, glancing at the clock, and thinking of the bliss with which he would turn his car out into the road. "I explained, didn't I, that I had an engagement this evening?"
"Quite right," she admitted. "All the same, you are rather an inconsiderate guest, aren't you, to leave me here alone in this swamp?"
"Come, too?" he suggested. "I'll motor you up."
"Thanks," she replied, "I will."
He was a little taken aback, but, after all, it was perhaps the simplest way out of his difficulties.
"I'll take you, with pleasure, if you don't mind being drenched."
"I can stand physical discomforts," she said. "It's the other sort of knocks that bruise."
"It won't be so bad," he continued, ignoring her last speech, "if you wear a mackintosh and something thick for your head. Shouldn't wonder if it cleared up presently."
Lady Hilda smiled.
"I have been out in a shower in Patagonia," she reminded him, "which lasted for three weeks. Will it suit you to start in half an hour?"
"Any time you like," he agreed.
She had changed her position a little, and he was forced to look at her.
"Mr. Strangewey," she said, "I want to ask you a question. Are you going to marry Louise Maurel?"
"I am," he replied, without hesitation; "at least, I hope to do so."
She looked at him for a moment with a strange expression. Then she rose to her feet. Her lips were quivering. She leaned against the mantelpiece, with her forehead upon her arms. At first he imagined that she was going to weep; then, to his horror, he found that she was laughing—half-hysterically, perhaps, but still laughing. He drew a step nearer to her, but she waved him away.
"Sit down!" she gasped. "Oh, if I might tell this to Henri Graillot! What a play! What humor! My friend John Strangewey, I congratulate you! You have created a new situation in life. Leave me alone, please!"
She bent forward until her face was completely hidden. Her body was shaken. Once or twice he fancied that her laughter had turned to sobs. When at last she looked up, however, there were the remains of an almost devilish mirth on her lips. She rang the bell.
"That is for my maid," she said. "I am now going to change my clothes and let you motor me up to London. I shall get some fresh air, at any rate, and your car always fills me with longing. Amuse yourself, won't you? I shall be an hour getting ready, and I will order an early tea."
"You wouldn't care to tell me, I suppose," he asked, "what is the new situation in life which you say I have created?"
She turned to him from the door. She was really a very handsome woman. Her lips were most expressive.
"My friend," she said, "if you knew, if you understood, the priceless humor of it would be gone."
She closed the door and left John alone. He went back to the billiard-table, but somehow or other his skill seemed to have vanished. He had the picture ofher face in his mind, the subtle meaning of her lips, the mockery of her eyes.
They drove up to London almost in silence. It was nearly seven o'clock when John swung the little car in Pont Street. It was still raining softly.
"Thank you very much," he said, "for my week-end. I enjoyed the river immensely yesterday afternoon."
"And thank you very much for everything, Mr. John Strangewey," she returned. "You have given me what we are all sighing for, a new sensation—not exactly what I expected, perhaps, but something new."
"I know you think I am a country yokel and a fool," John said; "but I wish you'd tell me why you laughed at me in that mysterious fashion."
She shook her head.
"It would spoil it," she replied. "Besides, it isn't for me to tell you. I am the last person who should."
They drew up outside her little house, from which came no sign of light.
"Will you dine with me to-night?" he asked suddenly.
She turned toward him quickly—and understood.
"Very nice of you," she replied lightly. "I shall go round to my club. You don't agree with me, somehow. When I look at you or think of you, I feel inclined either to laugh or cry, and I hate emotions. Don't get out, please. You see, they are opening the door already."
She slipped away and disappeared into her house. John drove slowly back toward the Milan. Just as he was turning in, a little waterproofed figure from the pavement waved her hand and called to him. He drew up and she hastened to his side.
"What are you doing here?" Sophy asked. "I thought you were spending the week-end up the river."
"I stayed there last night," he answered. "To-day—well, look at the weather! I have just motored Lady Hilda up."
"And what are you going to do now?" she inquired eagerly.
"Give you some dinner," he replied promptly.
"Hurrah!" she answered. "I have been so bored and miserable that I went and walked over Waterloo Bridge in a mackintosh, just to get a little air. I'll be round in an hour. Will that do?"
"Any time you like," he agreed; "the sooner the better. I was almost wishing, a few minutes ago," he went on, "that I could find the courage to storm you in your little room. Louise is away, and I'm hating myself."
"So I am to come and amuse my lord!" she laughed. "Well, I'll come," she went on quickly. "We'll sit and you shall imagine that I am Louise, and make love to her. Will that make you happy?"
John leaned out of the car.
"Sophy," he whispered, as he slipped in his clutch, "just now I do not feel like making love to any woman on earth!"
"Fed up with us, eh?"
He nodded.
"You're different, thank Heaven! Don't be late."
"This is very nearly my idea of perfect happiness," Sophy murmured, as she leaned across the table and listened idly while John ordered the dinner. "Give me very little to eat, John, and talk a great deal to me. I am depressed about myself and worried about everything!"
"And I," he declared, "am just beginning to breathe again. I don't think I understand women, Sophy."
"Wasn't your week-end party a success?" she asked.
"Not altogether," he confessed; "but don't let's talk about it. Tell me what is depressing you."
"About myself, or things generally?"
"Yourself, first."
"Well, the most respectable young man you ever knew in your life, who lives in Bath, wants me to marry him. I don't think I could. I don't think I could live in Bath, and I don't think I could marry any one. And I've just thirteen shillings and fourpence left, I haven't paid my rent, and my dressmaker is calling for something on account on Monday morning."
"There's only one answer to that," John insisted cheerfully. "I am going to lend you fifty pounds while you make your mind up about the young man."
She made a face at him.
"I couldn't borrow money from a strange gentleman," she protested.
"Rubbish!" he exclaimed. "If you begin calling mea stranger—but there, never mind! We'll see about that after dinner. Now what is the other cause for depression?"
"I am not very happy about you and Louise," she observed.
"Why not?"
She hesitated. While she seemed to be pondering over her words, John studied her almost critically. Unquestionably she was very pretty; her fair hair was most becomingly arranged, her petite features and delicate mouth were charming. Her complexion and coloring were exquisite, her neck and throat very white against the plain black satin of her gown.
"In a way," she confessed at last, "it's the play that's bothering me."
"The play?" he repeated.
"You won't like it," she sighed. "The reason the production has been delayed so long is Graillot's insistence upon calling a spade a spade. Even with all Louise and Miles Faraday have managed to get him to leave out, there is one scene which is certainly a little startling for English playgoers."
"And Louise is in it?" he asked.
"Louise is the principal figure in it."
John's face darkened a little.
"I have noticed lately," he remarked gloomily, "that she rather avoids talking about the play. I wish she'd chuck it altogether!"
Sophy shook her head.
"Louise won't do that," she said. "I sometimes think that her work is more to her than anything else in life. I suppose you two will find a way out of it, somehow."
"There is only one way, and Louise will have tomake up her mind to it," John declared steadfastly. "However, my time hasn't come just yet. Until it comes, I must make the best of things. Tell me more about your own love-affairs, Sophy."
"It isn't a love-affair at all!" she exclaimed, almost indignantly.
"Why, I am sorry. Your prospective alliance, then, shall I call it?"
"Oh, it isn't interesting," she said. "It's just a young man in Bath. He is a lawyer and moderately well off. He has wanted me to marry him for years. He was a friend of my brother's. Lately he has been bothering a little more than usual—in fact, I suppose I have received what might be called an ultimatum. He came up yesterday, and I went out with him last night. He has gone back to Bath this morning, and I have promised to let him know in a month. I think that is why I went out to Waterloo Bridge in a mackintosh and got wet."
"Do you like him?" John asked practically.
"I like him, I suppose," Sophy sighed. "That's the worst of it. If I didn't like him, there might be some chance. I can't realize myself ever doing more than liking him in a mild sort of way; and if he expected more, as of course he would, then I should probably hate him. He tried to kiss me on the way to the station and I nearly scratched him. That isn't like me, you know. I rather like being kissed sometimes."
John buried himself in the wine-list.
"Well," he admitted, "it doesn't sound very hopeful. I'm no sort of judge in these matters, but I have heard lots of people say that one gets on all right after marriage without caring very much before. You don't seem to have a very comfortable life now, do you?"
"Comfortable? No, but I am free," Sophy replied quickly. "I can come in and go out when I please, choose my own friends, give my kisses to whom I please. Marriage—the sort of marriage mine would be—is slavery, and nothing else. What I am afraid of," she went on, "is that when I was down in that highly respectable old city, sitting all day in a respectable little villa, with two servants to order about and housekeeping-books to keep, I should feel the old pull come over me, and some day I should chuck it all and come back here to play around under the lights. It's rather fine to be here, you know—to be in the atmosphere, even if the lime-light misses one."
John sighed, and regarded her thoughtfully.
"You're a queer little girl, Sophy," he said. "I don't know how to advise you."
"Of course you don't," she answered. "No one could. As for you, I suppose you will marry Louise. What will happen to you after that, I don't know. Perhaps I sha'n't care so much about London then. You've made it very nice for me, you know."
"You've made it bearable even for me," he told her. "I often think how lonely I should have been without you to talk to. Louise sometimes is delightfully companionable, and kind enough to turn one's head. Other days I scarcely understand her; everything we say to one another seems wrong. I come away and leave her simply because I feel that there is a wall between us that I can't get over."
"There isn't really," Sophy sighed. "Louise is a dear. Considering everything, I think she is wonderful. But you are utterly different. She is very complex, very emotional, and she has her own standards of life. You, on the other hand, are very simple, veryfaithful and honest, and you accept the standards which have been made for you—very, very rigidly, John."
"I wonder!" he murmured, as he looked into his wine-glass. "Sometimes I think I am a fool. Sometimes I think I'd do better to let go the strings and just live as others do. Sometimes ideas come into one's head that upset principles and everything. I don't know!"
Sophy leaned across the table toward him.
"Be a little more human, John," she begged. "You must feel kind things sometimes. Couldn't you say them? I am depressed and gloomy. Be like other men, for once, and flirt with me a little! Try to say things, even if you don't mean them—just for once, for a few short hours!"
He held her hand for a moment. The fingers seemed to respond to his touch with a little thrill.
"You silly child!" he exclaimed. "If I were to begin to say all the kind things I feel about you—"
"Begin, then—begin!" she interrupted. "What do you think of me, really? Am I pretty? Do you like to have me here at the table with you, or is your mind too full of Louise? Do you notice that I've a pretty frock on, and my hair is nicely arranged? I have taken so much trouble to-night. What are you looking at?"
John's whole expression had suddenly changed. His eyes were fixed upon the door, his face was stern as a granite block. Sophy turned quickly around. Themaître d'hôtel, with another satellite in his rear, was welcoming with much ceremony two lately arrived guests. Sophy clutched at the table-cloth. The newcomers were Louise and the Prince of Seyre.
"I don't understand this!" John muttered, his lips twitching.
Sophy Gerard said nothing. Her cheeks were pink with excitement.
Suddenly Louise saw John and Sophy. She stood quite still for a moment; then she came toward them, slowly and a little languidly. The prince was still studying through his eye-glass the various tables which the head waiter was offering for his consideration.
"What an astonishing meeting!" Louise remarked, as she laid her hand for a moment on Sophy's shoulder. "What is going on behind my back?"
John rose very slowly to his feet. He seemed taller than ever, and Louise's smile remained unanswered.
"The rain broke up my week-end party," he explained, "and I met Sophy in the Strand. In any case, I intended returning to-night. I understood that you would not be here until to-morrow about eleven o'clock."
"Those were my plans," Louise replied; "but, as you see, other things have intervened. Our little house party, too, was broken up by this abominable weather, and we all motored up to town. The Faradays have gone home. The prince heard from Miles that I was at home, and telephoned me to dine.Me voici!"
John was struggling with a crowd of hateful thoughts. Louise was wearing a wonderful gown; her hair was beautifully arranged; she had the air of a woman whose toilet was complete and perfect down to the slightest detail. The prince's slow drawl reached them distinctly.
"It was my servant's fault, I suppose," he said. "I told him to ring up last night and order the table for two in that corner. However, we will take the vacant one near your desk."
He looked around and, as if for the first time, missed Louise. He came toward them at once.
"The prince seems to have ordered his table last night," John remarked, his tone, even to himself, sounding queer and strained.
Louise made no reply. The prince was already shaking hands with Sophy.
"I thought you were spending the week-end with my cousin, Strangewey," he remarked, turning to John.
"We did spend part of it together," John replied. "The weather drove us back this afternoon."
"I congratulate you both on your good taste," said the prince. "There is nothing more abominable than a riverside retreat out of season. We are taking the table on the left, Louise."
He led her away, and they passed down the room. John slowly resumed his seat.
"Sophy," he demanded hoarsely, "tell me the truth. Is there anything between the prince and Louise?"
Sophy nervously crumbled up the toast by her side.
"The prince admires Louise, and has done so for many years," she answered. "No one knows anything else. Louise never speaks of him to me. I cannot tell you."
"But you must know," he persisted, with a little break in his voice. "Forgive me, Sophy, if I make an ass of myself. First Lady Hilda, and then Graillot, and then—well, I thought Louise might have rung up to see whether I was at home, if she came back sooner than she expected; and the prince took the table last night!"
She leaned over and patted him on the hand.
"Don't worry," she begged. "If Louise has to choose some day between him and you, I don't thinkshe'll hesitate very long. And please remember that you were commencing to flirt with me. I insist upon it! I won't be put off. Don't look so stern, please. You look very statuesque and perfect, but I don't want to dine with a piece of sculpture. Remember that I am really looking very pretty, and that I am finding you too attractive for my peace of mind. There's your text!"
He poured a glass of wine and drank it off.
"I'll do my best," he agreed. "If it sounds like rubbish, you can still believe that I appreciate everything you've told me. You are pretty, and I am lucky to have you here. Now I'll try to make you believe that I think so."
She leaned over so that her head almost touched his.
"Go on, please!" she murmured. "Even if it hurts afterward, it will be heavenly to listen to!"
The next night Sophy acted as showman. Her part was over at the end of the first act, and a few minutes later she slipped into a seat by John's side behind the curtain.
"What do you think of it so far?" she asked, a little anxiously.
"It seems quite good," John replied cheerfully. "Some very clever lines, and all that sort of thing; but I can't quite see what it's all leading to."
Sophy peered around the house from behind the curtain.
"There isn't standing-room anywhere," she declared. "I don't suppose there ever was a play in London that was more talked about; and then putting it off for more than three months—why, there have been all sorts of rumors about. Do you want to know who the people in the audience are?"
"Not particularly," John answered. "I shouldn't know them, if you told me. There are just a few familiar faces. I see the prince in the box opposite."
"Did you telephone to Louise to-day?" Sophy asked.
John shook his head.
"No. I thought it better to leave her alone until after to-night."
"You are going to the supper, of course?"
"I have been asked," John replied, a little doubtfully. "I don't quite know whether I want to. Is it being given by the prince or by the management?"
"The management," Sophy assured him. "Do come and take me! It's going to be rather fun."
The curtain went up upon the second act. John, from the shadows of the box, listened attentively. The subject was not a particularly new one, but the writing was brilliant. There was the oldMarquis de Guy, a roué, a degenerate, but still overbearing and full of personality, from whose lips came some of Graillot's most brilliant sayings; Louise, his wife; and Faraday, a friend of the old marquis, and obviously the intended lover of his wife.
"I don't see anything so terrible in this," John remarked, as the curtain went down once more and thunders of applause greeted some wonderful lines of Graillot's.
"It's wonderful!" Sophy declared. "Try and bear the thread of it all in your mind. For two acts you have been asked to focus your attention upon the increasing brutality of the marquis. Remember that, won't you?"
"Not likely to forget it," John replied. "How well they all act!"
There was a quarter of an hour's interval before the curtain rose again. Rumors concerning the last act had been floating about for weeks, and the house was almost tense with excitement as the curtain went up. The scene was the countrychâteauof theMarquis de Guy, who brought a noisy crowd of companions from Paris without any warning. His wife showed signs of dismay at his coming. He had brought with him women whom she declined to receive.
The great scene between her husband and herself took place in the square hall of thechâteau, on the first floor. The marquis is on the way to the room of one of hisguests. Louise reaffirms her intention of leaving the house. Her husband laughs at her. Her position is helpless.
"What can you do?" he mocks.
She shrugs her shoulders and passes into her room. The marquis sinks upon a settee, and presently is joined by one of the ladies who have traveled with him from Paris. He talks to her of the pictures upon the wall. She is impatient to meet theMarquis de Guy.
The marquis knocks at his wife's door. Her voice is heard clearly, after a moment's pause.
"In a few minutes!" she replies.
The marquis resumes his flirtation. His companion becomes impatient—the marquis has pledged his word that she should be received by his wife. An ancient enmity against theMarquis de Guyprompts her to insist.
The marquis shrugs his shoulders and knocks more loudly than ever at his wife's door. She comes out—followed by Faraday.
"You asked me what I could do," she says, pointing to her lover. "You see now!"
There was a moment's breathless silence through the house. The scene in itself was a little beyond anything that the audience had expected. Sophy, who had been leaning over the edge of the box, turned around in no little anxiety. She heard the door slam. John had disappeared!
He left the theater with only his hat in his hand, turning up his coat by instinct as he passed through the driving rain. All his senses seemed tingling with some nameless horror. The brilliance of the language, the subtlety of the situation, seemed like some evil trail drawn across that one horrible climax. It was Louisewho had come from that room and pointed to Faraday! Louise who confessed herself a—
He broke out into language as he walked. The desire of Samson burned in his heart—to stride back into the theater, to smash the scenery, to throw the puppets from the stage, one by one, to end forever this ghastly, unspeakable play. And all the time the applause rang in his ears. He had read with one swift glance the tense interest—almost lascivious, it seemed to him—on the faces of that great audience. The scene had tickled their fancies. It was to pander to such base feelings that Louise was upon the stage!
He reached his rooms—he scarcely knew how—and walked up-stairs. There he threw off some of his dripping garments, opened the window wide, and stood there.
He looked out over the Thames, and there was a red fire before his eyes. Stephen was right, he told himself. There was nothing but evil to be found here, nothing but bitter disappointment, nothing but the pain which deepens into anguish. Better to remain like Stephen, unloving and unloved, to draw nearer to the mountains, to find joy in the crops and the rain and the sunshine, to listen stonily to the cry of human beings as if to some voice from an unknown world.
He leaned a little further from the window, and gazed into the court at a dizzy depth below. He had cut himself adrift from the peace which might have been his. He would never know again the joys of his earlier life. It was for this that he had fought so many battles, clung so tightly to one ideal—for Louise, who could show herself to any one who cared to pay his shilling or his half-guinea, glorying in her dishonor; worse than glorying in it—finding some subtle humorin the little gesture with which she had pointed, unashamed, to her lover.
John bent a little lower from the window. A sudden dizziness seemed to have come over him. Then he was forced to turn around. His door had been quickly opened and shut. It was Sophy who was crossing toward him, the rain streaming from her ruined opera-cloak.
"John!" she cried. "Oh, John!"
She led him back to his chair and knelt by his side. She held his hands tightly.
"You mustn't feel like this," she sobbed; "you mustn't, John, really! You don't understand. It's all a play. Louise wouldn't really do anything like that!"
He shivered. Nevertheless, he clutched her hands and drew her closer to him.
"Do, please, listen to me," she begged. "It's all over. Louise is herself again—Louise Maurel. TheMarquis de Guynever lived except upon these boards. It is simply a wonderful creation. Any one of the great actresses would play that part and glory in it—the very greatest, John. Oh, it's so hard to make you understand! Louise is waiting for you. They are all waiting at the supper-party. You are expected. You must go and tell her that you think it was wonderful!"
He rose slowly to his feet.
"Wonderful!" he muttered. "Wonderful! But, child, it is damnable!"
"Don't be foolish," she answered. "Go and put on another dress coat, tie your tie again, and brush your hair. I have come to take you to the supper."
He caught at her hands roughly.
"Supposing I won't go?" he whispered hoarsely. "Supposing—I keep you here instead, Sophy?"
She swayed for a moment. Something flashed into her face and passed away. She was paler than ever.
"Dear John," she begged, "pull yourself together! Remember that Louise is waiting for you. It's Louise you want—not me. Nothing that she has done to-night should make her any the less worthy of you and your love."
He strode away into the farther room. He reappeared in a moment or two, his hair smoothly brushed, his tie newly arranged.
"I'll come, little girl," he promised. "I don't know what I'll say to her, but I'll come. There can't be any harm in that!"
"Of course not," she answered cheerfully. "You're the most terrible goose, John," she added, as they walked down the corridor. "Do, please, lose your tragical air. The whole world is at Louise's feet to-night. You mustn't let her know how absurdly you have been feeling. To-morrow you will find that every paper in London will be acclaiming her genius."
John squared his shoulders.
"All the same," he declared grimly, "if I could burn the theater and the play, and lock up Graillot for a month, to-night, I'd do it!"
The days and weeks drifted into months, and John remained in London. His circle of friends and his interests had widened. It was only his relations with Louise which remained still unchanged. Always charming to him, giving him much of her time, favoring him, beyond a doubt, more than any of her admirers, there was yet about her something elusive, something which seemed intended to keep him so far as possible at arm's length.
There was nothing tangible of which he could complain, and this probationary period was of his own suggestion. He bore it grimly, holding his place, whenever it was possible, by her side with dogged persistence. Then one evening there was a knock at his door, and Stephen Strangewey walked in.
After all, this meeting, of which John had often thought, and which sometimes he had dreaded a little, turned out to be a very ordinary affair. Stephen, although he seemed a little taller and gaunter than ever, though he seemed to bring into the perhaps overwarmed atmosphere of John's little sitting room something of the cold austerity of his own domain, had evidently come in no unfriendly spirit. He took both his brother's hands in his and gripped them warmly.
"I can't tell you how glad I am to see you, Stephen!" John declared.
"It has been an effort to me to come," Stephen admitted."But I had it in my mind, John, that we parted bad friends. I have come to see how things are with you."
"Well enough," John answered evasively. "Sit down."
Stephen held his brother away from him, gripping his shoulders with both hands. He looked steadily into his face.
"Well enough you may be, John," he said, "but your looks tell a different story. There's a look in your eyes already that they all get here, sooner or later."
"Nonsense!" John protested cheerfully. "No one pretends that the life here is quite as healthy as ours, physically, but that isn't everything. I am a little tired to-day, perhaps. One spends one's time differently up here, you know, and there's a little more call upon the brain, a little less upon the muscles."
"Give me an example," Stephen suggested. "What were you doing last night, for instance?"
John rang the bell for some tea, took his brother's hat and stick from his hand, and installed him in an easy chair.
"I went to a political meeting down in the East End," he replied. "One of the things I am trying to take a little more interest in up here is politics."
"No harm in that, anyway," Stephen admitted. "That all?"
"The meeting was over about eleven," John continued. "After that I came up here, changed my clothes, and went to a dance."
"At that time of night?"
John laughed.
"Why, nothing of that sort ever begins until eleven o'clock," he explained. "I stayed there for about anhour or so, and afterward I went round to a club I belong to, with the Prince of Seyre and some other men. They played bridge, and I watched."
"So that's one of your evenings, is it?" Stephen remarked. "No great harm in such doings—nor much good, that I can see. With the Prince of Seyre, eh?"
"I see him occasionally."
"He is one of your friends now?"
"I suppose so," John admitted, frowning. "Sometimes I think he is, sometimes I am not so sure. At any rate, he has been very kind to me."
"He is by way of being a friend of the young woman herself, isn't he?" Stephen asked bluntly.
"He has been a friend of Miss Maurel since she first went on the stage," John replied. "It is no doubt for her sake that he has been so kind to me."
"And how's the courting getting on?" Stephen demanded, his steely eyes suddenly intent.
"None too well," John confessed.
"Are you still in earnest about it?"
"Absolutely! More than ever!"
Stephen produced his pipe from his pocket, and slowly filled it.
"She is keeping you dangling at her heels, and giving you no sort of answer?"
"Well, I wouldn't put it quite like that," John declared, good-humoredly. "I asked her to marry me as soon as I came up, and we both agreed to wait for a time. You see, her life has been so extraordinarily different from mine. I have only half understood the things which to her are like the air she breathes. She is a great artist, and I scarcely ever leave her without feeling appallingly ignorant. Our life down in Cumberland,Stephen, is well enough in its way, but it leaves us outside many of the great things of life."
"That may be true enough, boy," Stephen admitted, blowing out dense volumes of smoke from his pipe; "but are you sure that it's toward those great things that she is pointing you?"
"I am sure of it," John answered earnestly. "I appreciate that in my heart. Let us talk together, Stephen, as we used. I will admit that I have found most of the time up here wearisome. On the other hand, I am beginning to understand that I have been, and still am, very ignorant. There is so much in the world that one can only learn by experience."
"And what are you willing to pay for the knowledge?" Stephen asked. "Your health, I suppose, your simple life, your love of the pure ways—all these are to go into the melting-pot?"
"There's no such payment demanded for the things I am thinking of," John assured his brother. "Take art, for instance: We reach the fringe of it with our books. There are pictures, even here in London, which when you look at them, especially with one who understands, give a new vigor to your understanding, a new resource to living. You become conscious of a new beauty in the world, a new garden, as it were, into which one can wander every day and yet not explore it in a lifetime. I have seen enough, Stephen, to make me want to go to Italy. It's a shameful thing to keep one's brain and taste unemployed!"
"Who takes you to see the pictures?" Stephen demanded.
"Miss Maurel, generally. She understands these things better than any one I have ever talked with."
"Pictures, eh?" Stephen grunted.
"I mentioned pictures as an example," John continued; "but the love of them includes many other things."
"Theaters?"
"Of course," John assented. "It's no good being narrow about theaters, Stephen. You read books readily enough, and theaters are only living books, after all. There is no real difference."
"There is a difference in plays, though, as there is a difference in books," Stephen reminded him. "What about the play Miss Maurel is acting in now? She's a man's mistress in it, isn't she, and glories in it?"
John, who had been walking about the room, came and sat down opposite to his brother. He leaned a little forward.
"Stephen," he confessed, "I loathed that play the first night I saw it. I sha'n't forget how miserable I was. Louise was so wonderful that I could see how she swayed all that audience just by lifting or dropping her voice; but the story was a horror to me. The next day—well, she talked to me. She was very kind and very considerate. She explained many things. I try my best, now, to look at the matter from her point of view."
Stephen's eyes were filled for a moment with silent scorn. Then he knocked out the ashes from his pipe.
"You're content, then, to let the woman you want to make your wife show herself on the stage and play the wanton for folks to grin at?" he asked.
John rose once more to his feet.
"Look here, Stephen," he begged, a little wistfully, "it isn't any use talking like that, is it? If you have come here with evil things in your mind about the womanI love, we had better shake hands and part quickly. She'll be my wife some day, or I shall count my life a failure, and I don't want to feel that words have passed between us—"
"I'll say no more, John," Stephen interrupted. "I was hoping, when I came, that there might be a chance of seeing you back home again soon. It's going to be an early spring. There was June sunshine yesterday. It lay about the hillsides all day and brought the tender greens out of the earth. It opened the crocuses, waxy yellow and white, all up the garden border. The hedgerows down in the valley smelled of primrose and violets. Art and pictures! I never had such schooling as you, John, but there was old Dr. Benson at Clowmarsh—I always remember what he said one day, just before I left. I'd been reading Ruskin, and I asked him what art was and what it meant. 'My boy,' he answered, 'art simply represents man's passionate desire to drag the truth out of life in half a dozen different ways. God does it for you in the country!' They called him an ignorant man, old Benson, for a schoolmaster, but when I'd struggled through what I could of Ruskin, I came to the conclusion that he and I were something of the same mind."
"It's good to hear you talk like that, Stephen," John said earnestly. "You're making me homesick, but what's the sense of it? For good or for evil, I am here to wrestle with things for a bit."
"It's no easy matter for me to open out the things that are in my heart," Stephen answered. "I am one of the old-fashioned Strangeweys. What I feel is pretty well locked up inside. The last time you and I met perhaps I spoke too much; so here I am!"
"It's fine of you," John declared. "I remembernothing of that day. We will look at things squarely together, even where we differ. I'm—"
He broke off in the middle of his sentence. The door had been suddenly opened, and Sophy Gerard made a somewhat impetuous entrance.
"I'm absolutely sick of ringing, John," she exclaimed. "Oh, I beg your pardon! I hadn't the least idea you had any one with you."
She stood still in surprise, a little apologetic smile upon her lips. John hastened forward and welcomed her.
"It's all right, Sophy," he declared. "Let me introduce my brother, may I? My brother Stephen—Miss Sophy Gerard."
Stephen rose slowly from his place, laid down his pipe, and bowed stiffly to Sophy. She held out her hand, however, and smiled up at him delightfully.
"How nice of you to come and see your poor, lonely brother!" she said. "We have done our best to spoil him, but I am afraid he is very homesick sometimes. I hope you've come to stay a long time and to learn all about London, as John is doing. If you are half as nice as he is, we'll give you such a good time!"
From his great height, Stephen looked down upon the girl's upturned face a little austerely. She chattered away, entirely unabashed.
"I do hope you're not shocked at my bursting in upon your brother like this! We really are great pals, and I live only just across the way. We are much less formal up here, you know, than you are in the country. John, I've brought you a message from Louise."
"About to-night?"
She nodded.
"Louise is most frightfully sorry," she explained,"but she has to go down to Streatham to open a bazaar, and she can't possibly be back in time to dine before the theater. Can you guess what she dared to suggest?"
"I think I can," John replied, smiling.
"Say you will, there's a dear," she begged. "I am not playing to-night. May Enser is going on in my place. We arranged it a week ago. I had two fines to pay on Saturday, and I haven't had a decent meal this week. But I had forgotten," she broke off, with a sudden note of disappointment in her tone. "There's your brother. I mustn't take you away from him."
"We'll all have dinner together," John suggested. "You'll come, of course, Stephen?"
Stephen shook his head.
"Thank you," he said, "I am due at my hotel. I'm going back to Cumberland to-morrow morning, and my errand is already done."
"You will do nothing of the sort!" John declared.
"Please be amiable," Sophy begged. "If you won't come with us, I shall simply run away and leave you with John. You needn't look at your clothes," she went on. "We can go to a grill-room. John sha'n't dress, either. I want you to tell me all about Cumberland, where this brother of yours lives. He doesn't tell us half enough!"
John passed his arm through his brother's and led him away.
"Come and have a wash, old chap," he said.
They dined together at Luigi's, a curiously assorted trio—Sophy, between the two men, supplying a distinctly alien note. She was always gay, always amusing, but although she addressed most of her remarks to Stephen, he never once unbent. He ate and drank simply, seldom speaking of himself or his plans, andfirmly negativing all their suggestions for the remainder of the evening. Occasionally he glanced at the clock. John became conscious of a certain feeling of curiosity, which in a sense Sophy shared.
"Your brother seems to me like a man with a purpose," she said, as they stood in the entrance-hall on their way out of the restaurant. "Like a prophet with a mission, perhaps I should say."
John nodded. In the little passage where they stood, he and Stephen seemed to dwarf the passers-by. The men, in their evening clothes and pallid faces, seemed suddenly insignificant, and the women like dolls.
"For the last time, Stephen," John said, "won't you come to a music-hall with us?"
"I have made my plans for the evening, thank you," Stephen replied, holding out his hand. "Good night!"
He left them standing there and walked off down the Strand. John, looking after him, frowned. He was conscious of a certain foreboding.
"I suppose," Sophy sighed, as they waited for a taxicab, "we shall spend the remainder of the evening in the usual fashion!"
"Do you mind?" John asked.
"No," she assented resignedly. "That play will end by making a driveling idiot of me. Only think for yourself! At first we had to rehearse an extra month to please M. Graillot. I never had more than a dozen lines to say, even before my part was practically cut out, but I had to be there every time. Now it has been running for I don't know how many nights, I have played in it half the time, and if your highness ever vouchsafes me a few hours in the evening, you turn to me about nine o'clock with just the same plaintive expression, and murmur something about going on to the theater!"
"We'll do something else to-night," John proposed heroically. "I really had no idea that you were so fed up with it."
Sophy shook her head. They were in the taxicab now and on their way.
"Too late!" she sighed. "Besides, my sense of economy revolts at the idea of your empty box. If Louise is tired to-night, though, I warn you that I shall insist upon supper."
"It's a bargain," John promised. "We'll drive Louise home, and then I'll take you back to Luigi's. We haven't been out together for some time, have we?"
She looked up at him with a little grimace and patted his hand.
"You have neglected me," she said. "I think all these fine ladies have turned your head."
She drew a little closer to him and passed her arm through his. John made no responsive movement. He was filled with resentment at the sensation of pleasure that her affectionate gesture gave him.
"I might as well try to flirt with a statue!" she declared, discontentedly. "What makes you so unlike other people, you man of granite? You used to kiss me very clumsily when I asked you to, and now—why, how hot your hand is!"
John pushed her away almost roughly.
"Yes, I know I did," he admitted, "and now I don't want to any more, do you see? It's this cursed place and this cursed life! One's feet seem always on the sands. I wouldn't have believed it when I first came here. Don't tease me, Sophy," he added, turning toward her suddenly. "I am rather inclined to despise myself these last few weeks. Don't make me worse—don't make me loathe myself!"
She shrugged her shoulders a little pettishly as she leaned back in the cab.
"You are nothing but a crank," she declared; "you and your brother, too! You've lived among those flinty rocks till you've become almost like them yourselves."
The taxi drew up at the theater. John, with a little sigh of relief, was already out upon the pavement. Sophy's eyes were still shining at him through her veil, as she walked lightly and gracefully by his side, but he led the way in silence down the stairs to the box that he had taken for the season.
"And now," she exclaimed with a pout, as she leaned back in the corner, "my little reign is over! You will sit in the front seat and you will look at Louise, and feel Louise, and your eyes will shine Louise, until the moment for your escape comes, when you can go round to the back and meet her; and then you will try to make excuses to get rid of me, so that you can drive her home alone!"
"Rubbish, Sophy!" he answered, as he drew a chair to her side. "You know quite well that I can't sit in the front of the box, for the very prosaic reason that I haven't changed my clothes. We shall both have to linger here in the shadows."
"Well, there is some comfort in that, at any rate," Sophy confessed. "If I become absolutely overcome by my emotions, I can hold your hand."
"You had better not," John observed. "The stage manager has his eye on you. If his own artists won't behave in the theater, what can he expect of the audience?"
Sophy made a little grimace. "If they stop my three pounds a week," she murmured, "I shall either have to starve or become your valet!"
The curtain was up and the play in progress—a work of genius rather in its perfectly balanced development and its phraseology than in any originality of motive. Louise, married as an ingénue, so quickly transformed into the brilliant woman of society poking mild fun at the unsympathetic husband to whom she has been sold while still striving to do her duty as a wife, easily dominated every situation. The witty speeches seemed to sparkle upon her lips. While she was upon the stage, every spoken sentence was listened to with rapt attention. Graillot, seated as usual among theshadows of the opposite box, moved his head appreciatively each time she spoke, as if punctuating the measured insolence of her brilliance.
Exquisitely gowned, full of original and daring gestures, she moved about the stage as if her feet scarcely touched the boards. She was full of fire and life in the earlier stages of the comedy. She heaped mild ridicule upon her husband and his love-affairs, exchanged light sallies with her guests, or parried with resourceful subtlety the constant appeals of the man she loved.
The spell of it all, against which he had so often fought, came over John anew. He set his chair back against the wall and watched and listened, a veritable sense of hypnotism creeping over his senses. Presently the same impulse which had come to him so many times before induced him to turn his head, to read in the faces of the audience the reflection of her genius. He had often watched those long lines of faces changing, each in its own way, under the magic of her art. To-night he looked beyond. He knew very well that his search had a special object. Suddenly he gripped the arms of his chair. In the front row of the pit, sitting head and shoulders taller than the men and women who lounged over the wooden rest in front of them, was Stephen. More than ever, among these unappropriate surroundings, he seemed to represent something almost patriarchal, a forbidding and disapproving spirit sitting in judgment upon some modern and unworthy wantonness. His face, stern and grave, showed little sign of approval or disapproval, but to John's apprehending eyes the critical sense was there, the verdict foredoomed. He understood as in a flash that Stephen had come there to judge once more the woman whom his brother desired.
At last the second act ended, and John pushed backhis chair. Sophy, whose apprehensions were remarkably acute, especially where John was concerned, lifted the edge of the curtain and understood. She exchanged a quick glance with her companion.
"He won't like it!" she whispered.
"If only we could get him away before the next act!" John muttered.
They both glanced once more into the auditorium below. Many of the spectators had left their places to stroll about. Not so Stephen. Unflinchingly he sat there, with an air of dogged patience. He had bought a program and was reading the names, one by one.
"Is there nothing we can do?" Sophy asked. "Couldn't we send a message—persuade him that the last act isn't worth staying for?"
John shook his head.
"Stephen has come here with a purpose," he said gloomily. "I might have guessed it. He will see it through. He will sit there till the end."
The curtain went up again and the play moved on, with subtle yet inevitable dramatic power, toward the hated and dreaded crisis. Louise's moment of combined weakness and strength was so wonderfully natural, so very human, that its approach sent a thrill of anticipation through the audience. The intense lifelikeness of the play predominated over every other feeling. It was as if real things were happening, as if they were watching and listening to a woman at the moment of her choice. And then at last the tense moment, the sudden cessation of her husband's foolish laughter and futile taunts, the supreme dénouement with its interval of breathless silence.
John, who was slowly tearing his program to pieces, turned his head toward the spot where his brother wassitting in the dimmer light. Stephen's countenance seemed to have changed into the color as well as the likeness of those granite rocks. The line of faces on either side of him appeared now curiously featureless. His eyes were still riveted upon that closed door, his eyebrows had come together in a stupendous frown.
Sophy had parted the curtain and was peeping through.
"Nothing in the world could make him understand!" she murmured. "Do you think it would be of any use if we met him outside?"
John shook his head.
"You can't convince people," he replied, "when you are unconvinced yourself."
The play came to an end presently, amid a storm of applause. The grim figure in the front of the pit remained motionless and silent. He was one of the last to leave, and John watched his retreating figure with a sigh. Sophy drew him away.
"We had better hurry round," she said. "Louise is always very quick getting ready."
They found her, as a matter of fact, in the act of leaving. She welcomed them naturally enough, but John fancied that her greeting showed some signs of embarrassment.
"You knew that I was going out to supper to-night?" she asked. "Or didn't I tell you? The prince has asked the French people from His Majesty's to meet M. Graillot at supper. I am hurrying home to dress."
John handed her into her waiting automobile in silence. She glanced into his face.
"Is anything the matter?" she asked.
"Nothing!"
"The prince would have asked you, without a doubt," Louise continued, "but he knows that you are not really interested in the stage, and this party is entirely French—they do not speak a word of English.Au revoir!Sophy, take care of him, and mind you behave yourselves!"
She waved her hand to them both and threw herself back among the cushions as the car glided off. John walked to the corner of the street in gloomy silence. Then he remembered his companion. He stopped short.
"Sophy," he begged, "don't hold me to my promise. I don't want to take you out to supper to-night. I am not in the humor for it."
"Don't be foolish!" she replied. "If you stay alone, you will only imagine things and be miserable. We needn't have any supper, unless you like. Let me come and sit in your rooms with you."
"No!" he decided, almost roughly. "I am losing myself, Sophy. I am losing something of my strength every day. Louise doesn't help as she might. Don't stay with me, please. I am beginning to have moods, and when they come on I want to be alone."
She drew a little closer to him.
"Let me come, please!" she begged, with a pathetic, almost childlike quiver at the corner of her lips.
He looked down at her. A sudden wave of tenderness swept every other thought from his mind. His mental balance seemed suddenly restored. He hailed a passing taxi and handed Sophy into it.
"What a selfish pig I am!" he exclaimed. "Anyhow, it's all over now. We'll go back to Luigi's to supper, by all means. I am going to make you tell me all about that young man from Bath!"
Louise glanced at her watch, sat up in bed, and turned reproachfully toward Aline.
"Aline, do you know it is only eleven o'clock?" she exclaimed.
"I am very sorry,madame," the latter hastened to explain, "but there is a gentleman down-stairs who wishes to see you. He says he will wait until you can receive him. I thought you would like to know."
"A gentleman at this hour of the morning?" Louise yawned. "How absurd! Anyhow, you ought to know better than to wake me up before the proper time."
"I am very sorry,madame," Aline replied. "I hesitated for some time, but I thought you would like to know that the gentleman was here. It is Mr. Stephen Strangewey—Mr. John's brother."
Louise clasped her knees with her fingers and sat thinking. She was wide awake now.
"He has been here some time already,madame," Aline continued. "I did not wish to disturb you, but I thought perhaps it was better for you to know that he was here."
"Quite right, Aline," Louise decided. "Go down and tell him that I will see him in half an hour, and get my bath ready at once."
Louise dressed herself simply but carefully. She could conceive of but one reason for Stephen's presence in her house, and it rather amused her. It was, of course, no friendly visit. He had come either tothreaten or to cajole. Yet what could he do? What had she to fear? She went over the interview in her mind, imagining him crushed and subdued by her superior subtlety and finesse.
With a little smile of coming triumph upon her lips she descended the stairs and swept into her pleasantly warmed and perfumed little drawing-room. She even held out her hand cordially to the dark, grim figure whose outline against the dainty white wall seemed so inappropriate.
"This is very nice of you indeed, Mr. Strangewey," she began. "I had no idea that you had followed your brother's example and come to town."
She told herself once more that her slight instinct of uneasiness had been absurd. Stephen's bow, although a little formal and austere, was still an acknowledgment of her welcome. The shadows of the room, perhaps, had prevented him from seeing her outstretched hand.
"Mine is a very short visit, Miss Maurel," he said. "I had no other reason for coming but to see John and to pay this call upon you."
"I am greatly flattered," she told him. "You must please sit down and make yourself comfortable while we talk. See, this is my favorite place," she added, dropping into a corner of her lounge. "Will you sit beside me? Or, if you prefer, draw up that chair."
"My preference," he replied, "is to remain standing."
She raised her eyebrows. Her tone altered.
"It must be as you wish, of course," she continued; "only I have such pleasant recollections of your hospitality at Peak Hall that I should like, if there was any possible way in which I could return it—"
"Madam," he interrupted, "you must admit that the hospitality of Peak Hall was not willingly offered to you. Save for the force of circumstances, you would never have crossed our threshold."
She shrugged her shoulders. She was adapting her tone and manner to the belligerency of his attitude.
"Well?"
"You want to know why I have found my way to London?" he went on. "I came to find out a little more about you."
"About me?"
"To discover if there was anything about you," he proceeded deliberately, "concerning which report had lied. I do not place my faith in newspapers and gossip. There was always a chance that you might have been an honest woman. That is why I came to London, and why I went to see your play last night."
She was speechless. It was as if he were speaking to her in some foreign tongue.
"I have struggled," he continued, "to adopt a charitable view of your profession. I know that the world changes quickly, while we, who prefer to remain outside its orbit, of necessity lose touch with its new ideas and new fashions. So I said to myself that there should be no mistake. For that reason I sat in a theater last night almost for the first time in my life. I saw you act."
"Well?" she asked almost defiantly.
He looked down at her. All splendid self-assurance seemed ebbing away. She felt a sudden depression of spirit, a sudden strange sense of insignificance.
"I have come," he said, "if I can, to buy my brother's freedom."
"To buy your brother's freedom?" she repeated, in a dazed tone.
"My brother is infatuated with you," Stephen declared. "I wish to save him."
Her woman's courage began to assert itself. She raised her eyes to his.
"Exactly what do you mean?" she asked calmly. "In what way is any man to be saved from me? If your brother should care for me, and I, by any chance, should happen to care for him, in what respect would that be a state from which he would require salvation?"
"You make my task more difficult," he observed deliberately. "Does it amuse you to practise your profession before one so ignorant and so unappreciative as myself? If my brother should ever marry, it is my firm intention that he shall marry an honest woman."
Louise sat quite still for a moment. A flash of lightning had glittered before her eyes, and in her ears was the crash of thunder. Her face was suddenly strained. She saw nothing but the stern, forbidding expression of the man who looked down at her.
"You dare to say this to me, here in my own house?"
"Dare? Why not? Don't people tell you the truth here in London, then?"
She rose a little unsteadily to her feet, motioning him toward the door, and moving toward the bell. Suddenly she sank back into her former place, breathless and helpless.
"Why do you waste your breath?" he asked calmly. "We are alone here, and I—we know the truth!"
She sat quite still, shivering a little.
"Do we? Tell me, then, because I am curious—tell me why you are so sure of what you say?"
"The world has it," he replied, "that you are the mistress of the Prince of Seyre. I came to London to satisfy myself as to the truth of that report. Do you believe that any man living, among that audience last night, could watch the play and know that you passed, night after night, into your bed-chamber to meet your lover with that look upon your face—you are a clever actress, madam—and believe that you were a woman who was living an honest life?"
"That seems impossible to you?" she demanded.
"Utterly impossible!"
"And to John?"
"I am speaking for myself and not for my brother," Stephen replied. "Men like him, who are assailed by a certain madness, are best left alone with it. That is why I came to you to bargain, if I could. Is there anything that you lack—anything which your own success and your lover, or lovers, have failed to provide for you?"
It was useless to try to rise; she was powerless in all her limbs. Side by side with the anger and horror that his words aroused was a sense of something almost grotesque, something which seemed to force an unnatural laugh from her lips.
"So you want to buy me off?"
"I should be glad to believe that it was within my power to do so. I have not John's great fortune, but I have money, the accumulated savings of a lifetime, for which I have no better purpose. There is one more thing, too, to be said."
"Another charge?"
"Not that," he told her; "only it is better for youto understand that if you turn me from your house this morning, I shall still feel the necessity of saving my brother from you."
"Saving him from me?" she exclaimed, rising suddenly and throwing out her arms. "Do you know what you are talking about? Do you know that if I consented to think of your brother as my husband, there is not a man in London who would not envy him? Look at me! I am beautiful, am I not? I am a great artist. I am Louise Maurel, and I have made myself famous by my own work and my own genius. What has your brother done in life to render him worthy of the sacrifice I should make if I chose to give him my hand? You had better go back to Cumberland, Mr. Strangewey. You do not see life as we see it up here!"
"And what about John?" he asked, without moving. "You tempted him away. Was it from wantonness, or do you love him?"
"Love him?" she laughed. "I hate you both! You are boors—you are ignorant people. I hate the moment I ever saw either of you. Take John back with you. Take him out of my life. There is no place there for him!"
Stephen picked up his hat from the sofa where it lay. Louise remained perfectly still, her breath coming quickly, her eyes lit with passion.
"Madam," he said, "I am sorry to have distressed you, but the truth sometimes hurts the most callous of us. You have heard the truth from me. I will take John back to Cumberland with me, if he will come. If he will not—"
"Take him with you!" she broke in fiercely. "He will do as I bid him—do you hear? If I lift my little finger, he will stay. It will be I who decide, I—"
"But you will not lift your little finger," he interrupted grimly.