At the very moment in the afternoon when Millie was hiding herself from a horrible world in a taxi Henry and Lady Bell-Hall were entering the Hill Street house.
The house was still and unresponsive; even Lady Bell-Hall, who was not sensitive to atmosphere, gave a little shiver and hurried upstairs. Henry hung up his coat and hat in the little room to the right of the hall and went to the library.
Herbert Spencer was there, seated at Sir Charles' table surrounded with little packets of letters all tied neatly with bright new red tape. He was making entries in a large book.
"Ah, Trenchard," he said, and went on with his entries.
Henry felt depressed. Although the day was sunny and warm the library was cold. Spencer seemed most damnably in possession, his thin nose and long thin fingers pervading everything. Henry went to his own table, took his notes out of his despatch-box and sat down. He had a sudden desire to have a violent argument with Spencer—about anything.
"I say, Spencer—you might at least ask how Sir Charles is."
Spencer carefully finished the note that he was making.
"How is he?" he asked.
Henry jumped up and walked over to the other table.
"You're a cold-blooded fish!" he broke out indignantly. "Yes you are! You've no feelings at all. If he dies the only sensation you'll have I suppose is whether you'll still keep this job or no."
Spencer said nothing but continued to write.
"Thank heaven I am inaccurate," Henry went on. "It's awful being as accurate as you are. It dries up all your natural feelings. There never was a warm-blooded man yet who was really accurate. And it's the same with languages. Any one who's a really good linguist is inhuman."
"Indeed!" said Spencer, sniffing.
"Yes. Indeed. . . ." retorted Henry indignantly. "I think it's disgusting. Here's Duncombe, one of the finest men who's ever lived. . . ."
"I can't help feeling," said Spencer slowly, "that one is best serving Sir Charles Duncombe's interests by carrying out the work that he has left in our charge. I may be wrong, of course."
He then performed one of his most regular and most irritating habits—namely, he wiped a drop of moisture from his nose with the back of his hand.
"If you've made those notes on Cadell and Constable, Trenchard," he added, "during these last days in the country, I shall be very glad to have them."
"Well, I haven't," said Henry. "So you can put that in your pipe and smoke it. I haven't been able to concentrate on anything during the last two days, and I shan't be able to either until the operation's over."
Spencer said nothing. He continued to work, then, as though suddenly remembering something, he opened a drawer and produced from it two sheets of foolscap paper thickly covered with writing.
"I believe this is your handwriting, Trenchard," he said gravely. "I found them in the waste-paper basket, where they had doubtless gone by mistake."
Trenchard took them and then blushed violently. The top of the first page was headed:
"Chapter XV. The Mystery of the Blue Closet."
"Thanks," he said shortly, and took them to his own table.
There was a silence for a long time while Henry, lost in a miserable vague dream, gazed with unperceptive eyes at the portrait of the stout, handsome Archibald Constable. Then came the luncheon-bell, and after that quite a horrible meal alone with Lady Bell-Hall, who only said two things from first to last. One: "The operation's to be on Tuesday morning, I understand." The other: "I see coal's gone up again."
After luncheon he felt that he could endure the terrible house no longer. He must get out into the air. He must try and see Christina.
Spencer returned from his luncheon just as Harry was leaving.
"Are you going?" he asked.
"Yes, I am," said Henry. "I can't stand this house to-day."
"What about Cadell and Constable?" asked Spencer, sniffing.
"Damn Cadell and Constable," said Henry, rushing out.
In the street he thought suddenly of Millie. He stopped in Berkeley Square thinking of her. Why? He had the strangest impulse to go off to Cromwell Road and see her. But Christina drew him.
Nevertheless Millie . . . but he shook his head and hurried off towards Peter Street.
I have called this a Romantic Story because it is so largely Henry's Story and Henry was a Romantic Young Man. He felt that it was his solemn duty to be modern, cynical and realistic, but his romantic spirit was so strong, so courageous, so scornful of the cynical parts of him that it has dominated and directed him to this very day, and will so continue to dominate, I suppose, until the hour of his death.
To many a modern young man Mrs. Tenssen would have been merely a nasty, dangerous, black-mailing woman, and Christina her pretty but possibly not-so-innocent-as-she-appears daughter. But there the young modern would have missed all the heart of the situation and Henry, guided by his romantic spirit, went directly to it. He still believed in the evil, spell-brewing, hag-like witch, the dusky wood, the beautiful imprisoned Princess—nothing in the world seemed to him more natural—and for once, just for once, he was exactly right!
The Witch on this present occasion was, even thus early in the afternoon, taking a cup of tea with her friend, Mrs. Armstrong. When Henry came in they were sitting close together, and their heads were turned towards the door as though they had suddenly been discovered in some kind of conspiracy. Mrs. Tenssen tightened her thin lips when she recognized her visitor, and Henry realized that a new crisis had arrived in his adventure and that he must be prepared for a dramatic interview.
Nevertheless, from the moment of his entry into that room his depression dropped from him like the pack off Christian's back. Nothing was ever lost by politeness.
"Good afternoon, Mrs. Tenssen. Is Christina in?"
He stood in the doorway smiling at the two women.
Mrs. Tenssen finished her cup of tea before replying.
"No, she is not," she at length answered. "Nor is she likely to be. Neither now nor later—not to-day and not to-morrow."
"What's he asking?" inquired Mrs. Armstrong in her deep bass voice.
"Whether Christina's in."
Both the women laughed. It seemed to them an excellent joke.
"Perhaps you will be kind enough to give her a message from me," Henry said, suddenly involved in the strange miasma of horrid smell and hateful sound that seemed to be forever floating in that room.
"Perhaps I will not," said Mrs. Tenssen, suddenly getting up from her chair and facing him. "Now you've been hanging around here just about enough, and it will please you to take yourself off once and for all or I'll see that somebody makes you." She turned round to Mrs. Armstrong. "It's perfectly disgusting what I've had to put up with from him. You'll recollect that first day he broke in here through the window just like any common thief. It's my belief it was thieving he was after then and it's been thieving he's been after ever since. Damned little squab.
"Always sniffing round Christina and Christina fairly loathes the sight of him. Why, it was only yesterday she said to me: 'Well, thank God, mother, it's some weeks since we saw that young fool, bothering the life out of me,' she said. Why, it isn't decent."
"It is not," said Mrs. Armstrong, blowing on her tea. "I should have the police in if he's any more of a nuisance."
"That's a lie," said Henry, his cheeks flaming. Stepping forward, "And you know it is. Where is Christina? What have you done with her? I'll have the police here if you don't tell me."
Mrs. Tenssen thrust her head forward, producing an extraordinary evil expression with her white powdered face, her heavy black costume and her hanging podgy fingers. "Call me a liar, do you? That's a nice, pretty thing to call a lady, but I suppose it's about as much manners as youhavegot. He's always talking about the police, my dear," turning round to Mrs. Armstrong. "It's a mania he's got. Although what good they're going to do him I'm sure I don't know. And a pretty thing for Christina to be dragged into the courts. He's mad, my dear. That's all there is about it."
"I'm not mad," said Henry, "as you'll find out one day. You're trying to do something horrible to Christina, but I'll prevent it if it kills me."
"And let me tell you," said Mrs. Tenssen, standing now, her arms akimbo, "that if you set your foot inside that door again or bring your ugly, dirty face inside this room I'll whip you out of it. I will indeed, and you can have as many of your bloody police in as you like to help you. All the police force if you care to. But I'll tell you straight," here her voice rose suddenly into a violent scream, "that I will bloody well scratch the skin off your face if you poke it in here again . . . and now get out or I'll make you."
Here I regret to say Henry's temper, never as tightly in control as it should be, forsook him.
"And I tell you," he shouted back, "that if you hurt a hair of Christina's head I'll have you imprisoned for life and tortured too if I can. And I'll come here just as often as I like until I'm sure of her safety. You be careful what you do. . . . You'd better look out."
He banged the door behind him and was stumbling down the dark stairs.
In the street he had to pause and steady himself for a moment against a wall. He was trembling from head to foot, trembling with an extraordinary mixture of anger, surprise, indignation, and then anger again. Christina had warned him months ago that this was coming. "When mother makes up her mind," she said. Well, mother had made up her mind. And to what?
Where was Christina? Perhaps already she was being imprisoned in the country somewhere and could not get word to him—punished possibly until she consented to marry that horrible old man or some one equally disgusting.
The fear that he might now be too late—felt by him for the first time—made him cold with dread. Hitherto, from the moment when he had first seen the crimson feather in the Circus he had been sure that Fate was with him, that the adventure had been arranged from the beginning by some genial, warm-hearted Olympian smiling down from his rosy-tipped cloud, seeing Henry Trenchard and liking him in spite of his follies, and determining to make him happy. But suppose after all, it should not be so? What if Christina's life and happiness were ruined through his own weakness and dallying and delay? He was so miserable at the thought that he started back a step or two half-determining to face the horrible Mrs. Tenssen again. But there was nothing at that moment to be gained there. He turned down Peter Street, baffled as ever by his own ridiculous inability to deal with a situation adequately. What was there lacking in him, what had been lacking in him from his birth? Good, practical common sense, that was what he needed. Would he ever have it?
He decided that Peter was his need. He would put histroubles to him and do what he advised. Outside the upper part in Marylebone High Street he rang the little tinkly bell, and then waited an eternity. Nobody stirred. The house was dead. A grey, sleepy-eyed cat came and rubbed itself against his leg. He rang again, and then again.
Suddenly Peter appeared. He could not see through the dim obscurity of the autumn afternoon.
"Who's there?" he asked.
"It's me. I mean I. Henry."
"Henry?"
"Yes, Henry. Good heavens, Peter, it's as difficult to pass your gate as Paradise's."
Peter came forward.
"Sorry, old man," he said. "I couldn't see. Look here——"
He put his hand on Henry's shoulder hesitating. "Oh, all right. Come in."
"What! don't you want me?" said Henry, instantly, as always, suspicious of an affront. "All right, I'll——"
"No, you silly cuckoo. Come in."
They passed in, and at once Henry perceived that something was different. What was different? He could not tell. . . .
He looked about him. Then in the middle of his curiosity the thought of his many troubles overcame him and he began:
"Peter, old man, I'm dreadfully landed. There's something that ought to be done and I don't know what it is. I never do know. It's Christina of course. I've just had the most awful scene with her mother; she's cursed me like a fishwife and forbidden me to come near the house again. Of course I knew that this was coming, but Christina warned me that when it did come it would mean that her mother had finally made up her mind to something and wasn't going to waste any time about it. . . . Well, where's Christina, and how am I to get at her? I don't know what's happening. They may be torturing her or anything. That woman's capable of. . . ."
He broke off, his eyes widening. The door from the inner room opened and a woman came out.
"Henry," said Peter, "let me introduce you. This is my wife."
Henry's first thought was: "Now I must show no surprise at this. I mustn't hurt Peter's feelings." And his second: "Oh dear! Poor thing! How terribly ill she looks!"
His consciousness of her was at once so strong that he forgot himself and Peter. He had never seen any one in the least like her before: this was not Peter's wife come back to him, but some one who had peered up for a moment out of a world so black and tragic that Henry had never even guessed at its existence. Not his experiences in the War, not his mother's death, nor Duncombe's tragedy, nor Christina and her horrible parent were real to him as was suddenly this little woman with her strange yellow hair, her large angry eyes, her shabby black dress. What a face!—he would never forget it so long as life lasted—with its sickness and anger and disgust and haggard rebellion.
Yes, there were worse things than the War, worse things than assaults on the body, than maiming and sudden death. His young inexperience took a shoot into space at that instant when he first saw Clare Westcott.
She stared at him scornfully, then she suddenly put her hand to her throat and sat down on the sofa with pain in her eyes and a stare of rebellious anger as though she were saying:
"I'll escape you yet. . . . But you're damned persistent. . . . Leave me, can't you?"
Peter came to her. "Clare, this is Henry Trenchard—my best friend."
Henry came across holding out his hand:
"How do you do? I'm very glad to meet you?"
She gave him her hand, it was hot and dry.
"So you're one of Peter's friends?" she said, still scornfully. "You're much younger than he is."
"Yes, I am," he said. "But that doesn't prevent our being splendid friends."
"Do you write too?" she asked, but with no curiosity, wearily, angrily, her eyes moving like restless candles lighting up a room that was dark for her.
"I hope to," he answered, "but it's hard to get started—harder than ever it was."
"Peter didn't find it hard when he began. Did you, Peter?"she asked, a curious note of irony in her voice. "He began right away—with a great flourish. Every one talking about him. . . . Didn't quite keep it up though," she ended, her voice sinking into a mutter.
"Never mind all that now," Peter said, trying to speak lightly.
"Why not mind it?" she broke in sharply. "That young man's your friend, isn't he? He ought to know what you were like when you were young. Those happy days. . . ." She laughed bitterly. "Oh! I ruined his work, you know," she went on. "Yes, I did. All my fault. Now see what he's become. He's grown fat. You've grown fat, Peter, got quite a stomach. You hadn't then or I wouldn't have married you. Are you married?" she said, suddenly turning on Henry.
"No," he answered.
"Well, don't you be. I've tried it and I know. Marriage is just this: If you're unhappy it's hell, and if you're happy it makes you soft. . . ."
She seemed then suddenly to have said enough. She leant back against the cushion, not regarding any more the two men, brooding. . . .
There was a long silence.
Peter said at last: "Are you tired, dear? Would you like to go and lie down?"
She came suddenly up from the deep water of her own thoughts.
"Oh, you want to get rid of me. . . ." She got up slowly. "Well, I'll go."
"No," he answered eagerly. "If you'll lie down on this sofa I'll make it comfortable for you. Then Harry shall tell us what he's been doing."
She stood, her hands on her hips, her body swaying ever so slightly.
"Tum-te-tiddledy . . . Tum-te-tiddledy. Poor little thing——! Was it ill? Must it be fussed over and have cushions and be made to lie down? If you're ever ill," she said to Henry, "don't you let Peter nurse you. He'll fuss the life out of you. He's a regular old woman. He always was. He hasn't changed a bit. Fuss, fuss—fuss, fuss, fuss. Oh! he's very kind, Peter is, so thoughtful. Well, why shouldn't I stay? I haven'tseen so many new faces in the last few days that a new one isn't amusing. When did you first meet Peter?"
"Oh some while ago now," said Henry.
"Have you read his books?"
"Yes."
"Do you like them?"
"Yes, I do."
She suddenly lay back on the sofa and, to Henry's surprise, without any protest allowed Peter to wrap a rug round her, arrange the cushions for her. She caught his shoulder with her hand and pressed it.
"I used to like to do that," she said, nodding to Henry. "When we were married years ago. Strong muscles he's got still. Haven't you, Peter? Oh, we'll be a model married couple yet."
She looked at Henry, more gently now and with a funny crooked smile.
"Do you know how long we've been married? Years and years and years. I'm over forty you know. You wouldn't think it, would you? . . . Say you wouldn't think it."
"Of course I wouldn't," said Henry.
"That's very nice of you. Why, he's blushing! Look at him blushing, Peter! It's a long time since I've done any blushing. Are you in love with any one?"
"Yes," said Henry.
"When are you going to be married?"
"Never," said Henry.
"Never! Why! doesn't she like you?"
"Yes, but she doesn't want to be married."
"That's wise of her. It's hard on Peter my coming back like this, but I'm not going to stay long. As soon as I'm better I'm going away. Then he can divorce me."
"Clare dear, don't——"
"Just the same as you used to be."
"Clare dear, don't——"
"Clare, dear, you mustn't. . . . Oh, men do like to have it their own way. So long as you love a man you can put up with it, but when you don't love him any more then it's hard to put up with. How awful for you, Peter darling, if I'mnever strong enough to go away—if I'm a permanent invalid on your hands for ever—— Won't that be fun for you? Rather amusing to see how you'll hate it—and me. You hate me now, but it's nothing to the way you'll hate me after a year or two. . . . Do you know Chelsea?"
"I've been there once or twice," said Henry.
"That's where we used to live—in our happy married days. A dear little house we had—the house I ran away from. We had a baby too, but that died. Peter was fond of that baby, fonder than he ever was of me."
She turned on her side, beating the cushions into new shapes. "Oh, well, that's all over long ago—long, long ago." She forgot the men again, staring in front of her.
Henry waited a little, then said a word to Peter and went.
Yes, life was now crowding in upon Henry indeed, crowding him in, stamping on him, treading him down. No sooner had he received one impact than another was upon him—— Such women as Clare, in regular daily life, in the closest connection with his own most intimate friend! As he hurried away down Marylebone High Street his great thought was that he wanted to do something for her, to take that angry tragedy out of her eyes, to make her happy. Peter wouldn't make her happy. They would never be happy together. He and Peter would never be able to deal with a case like Clare's, there was something too naïve, too childish in them. How she despised both of them, as though they had been curates on their visiting-day in the slums.
Oh, Henry understood that well enough. But didn't all women despise all men unless they were in love with them or wanted to be in love with them or had helped to produce them?
And then again, when you thought of it, didn't all men despise all women with the same exceptions? Clare's scorn of him tingled in his ears and made his eyes smart. And what she must have been through to look like that!
He dreamt of her that night; he was in thick jungle and she, tiger-shaped, was hunting him and some one shouted to him: "Look to yourself! Climb into yourself! The only place you're safe in!"
But he couldn't find the way in, the door was locked and the window barred: he knew it was quiet in there and cool and secure, but the hot jungle was roaming with tigers and they were closer and closer. . . .
He woke to Mary Cass's urgent call on the telephone.
Then, when Millie was in his arms all else was forgotten byhim—Clare, Christina, Duncombe, work, all, all forgotten. He was terrified, that she should suffer like this. It was worse, far worse, than that he should suffer himself. All the days of their childhood, all thetiniestthings—were now there between them, holding and binding them as nothing else could hold and bind.
Now that tears could come to her she was released and free, the strange madness of that night and day was over and she could tell him everything. Her pride came back to her as she told him, but when he started up and wanted to go at once and find Baxter and drag him through the streets of London by the scruff of his neck and then hang him from the top of the Tower she said: "No, Henry dear, it's no use being angry. Anger isn't in this. I understand how it was. He's weak, Bunny is, and he'll always be weak, and he'll always be a trouble to any woman who loves him, but in his own way he did love me. But I'm not clear yet. It's been my fault terribly as well as his. I shouldn't have listened to Ellen, or if I did, should have gone further. I would take him back, but I haven't any right to him. If he'd told me everything from the beginning I could have gone and seen his mother, I could have found out how it really was. Now I shall never know. But what Idoknow is that somehow he thought he'd slip through, and that if therewasa way, he'd leave that girl to her unhappiness. If he could have found a way he wouldn't have cared how unhappy she was. He would be glad for her to die. I can't love him any more after that. I can't love him, but I shall miss all that that love was . . . the little things. . . ."
By the evening of that day she was perfectly calm. For three days he scarcely left her side—and he was walking with a stranger. She had grown in the space of that night so much older that she was now ahead of him. She had been a child; she was now a woman.
She told him that Baxter had written to her and that she had answered him. She went back to Victoria. She was calm, quiet—and, as he knew, most desperately unhappy.
He had a little talk with Mary.
"She'll never get over it," he said.
"Oh yes, she will," said Mary. "How sentimental you are, Henry!"
"I'm not sentimental," said Henry indignantly. "But I know my sister better than you know her."
"You may know your sister," Mary retorted, "but you don't know anything about women. They must have something to look after. If you take one thing away, they'll find something else. It's their only religion, and it's the religion they want, not the prophets."
She added: "Millie is far more interested in life than I am. She is enchanted by it. Nothing and nobody will stop her excitement about it. Nobody will ever keep her back from it. She'll go on to her death standing up in the middle of it, tossing it around——
"You're like her in that, but you'll never see life as it really is. She will. And she'll face it all——"
"What a lot you think you know," said Henry.
"Yes, I know Millie."
"But she's terribly unhappy."
"And so she will be—until she's found some one more unhappy than herself. But even unhappiness is part of the excitement of life to her."
After a dreamless night he awoke to a sudden consciousness that Millie, Clare Westcott and Christina were in his room. He stirred, raising his head very gently and seemed to catch the shadow of Christina's profile in the grey light of the darkened window.
He sat up and, bending over to his chair where his watch lay, saw that it was nine o'clock. As he sprang out of bed, King entered with breakfast and an aggrieved expression. "Knocked a hour ago, sir, and you hanswered," he said.
"Must have been in my sleep then," said Henry yawning, then suddenly conscious of his shabby and faded pyjamas.
"Can't say, I'm sure, sir . . . knocked loud enough for anything. No letters this morning, sir."
Henry was still at the innocent and optimistic age when letters are an excitement and a hope. He always felt that the world was deliberately, for malicious and cruel reasons of its own, forgetting him when there were no letters.
He was splashing in his tin bath, his bony and angular body like a study for an El Greco, when he remembered. Tuesday—nine o'clock. Why? . . . What! . . . Duncombe's operation.
He hurried then as he had never hurried before, gulping down his tea, choking over his egg, flinging on his clothes, throwing water on his head and plastering it down, tumbling down the stairs into the street.
A clock struck the half-hour as he hastened into Berkeley Square. He had now no thought but for his beloved master; every interest in life had faded before that. He seemed to be with him there in the nursing home. He could watch it all, the summoning, the procession into the operating theatre, the calm, white-clad surgeon, the nurses, the anaesthetic. . . . His hand was on the Hill Street door bell. He hesitated, trembling. The street was so still in the misty autumn morning, a faint scent in the air of something burning, of tar, of fading leaves. A painted town, a painted sky and some figures in the foreground, breathlessly waiting.
The old butler opened the door. He turned back as Henry entered, pointing to the dark and empty hall as though that stood for all that he could say.
"Well?" said Henry. "Is there any news yet?"
"Sir Charles died under the operation. . . . Her ladyship has just been rung up——"
The old man moved away.
"I can't believe it," he said. "I can't believe it. . . . It isn't natural! Such a few good ones in the world. It isn't right." He stood as though he were lost, fingering the visiting-cards on the table. He suddenly raised dull imperceptive eyes to Henry! "They can say what they like about new times coming and all being equal. . . . There'll be masters all the same and not another like Sir Charles. Good he was, good all through." He faded away.
Henry went upstairs. He was so lost that he stood in the library looking about him and wondering who that was at the long table. It was Herbert Spencer with his packets of letters and his bright red tape.
"Sir Charles is dead," Henry said.
The books across that wide space echoed: "Sir Charles is dead."
Herbert Spencer looked at the letters in his hand, let them drop, glanced up.
"Oh, I say! I'm sorry! . . . Oh dear!" he got up, staring at the distant bookshelves. "After the operation?"
"During it."
"Dear, dear. And I thought in these days they were clever enough for anything." He rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. "Not much use going on working to-day, I suppose?"
Henry did not hear.
"Not much use going on working to-day, I suppose?" he repeated.
"No, none," said Henry.
"You'll be carrying the letters on, I suppose?" he said.
"I don't know," Henry answered.
"Well, you see, it's like this. I've got my regular work I'll have to be getting back to it if this isn't going on. I was put on to this until it was finished, but if it isn't going to be finished, then I'd like to know you see——"
"Of course it's going to be finished," said Henry suddenly.
"Well then——" said Herbert Spencer.
"And I'll tell you this," said Henry, suddenly shouting, "it's going to be finished splendidly too. It's going to be better than you can imagine. And you're going to work harder and I'm going to work harder than we've ever done in our lives. It's going to be the best thing that's ever been. . . . It's all we can do," he added, suddenly dropping his voice.
"All right," said Herbert Spencer calmly. "I'll come to-morrow then. What I mean to say is that it isn't any use my staying to-day."
"It's what he cared for more than anything," Henry cried. "It's got to be beautiful."
"I'll be here to-morrow then," said Spencer, gathered his papers together and went.
Henry walked round, touching the backs of the books with his hand. He had known that this would be. There was no surprise here. But that he would never see Sir Charles again nor hear his odd, dry, ironical voice, nor see his long noseraise itself across the table—that was strange. That was indeed incredible. His mind wandered back to that day when Duncombe had first looked at the letters and then, when Henry was expecting curses, had blessed him instead. That indeed had been a crisis in his life—a crisis like the elopement of Katherine with Philip, the outbreak of the War, the meeting with Christina—one of the great steps of the ladder of life. He felt now, as we all must feel when some one we love has gone, the burden of all the kindness undone, the courtesy unexpressed, the tenderness untended.
And then he comforted himself, still wandering, pressing with his hands the old leather backs and the faded gilding, with the thought that at least, out there at Duncombe, Sir Charles had loved him and had spoken out the things that were really in his heart, the things that he would not have said to any one for whom he had not cared. That last night in Duncombe, the candle lighting the old room, Sir Charles had kissed him as he might his own dearly loved son. And perhaps even now he had not gone very far away.
Henry climbed the little staircase into the gallery and moved into the dusky corners. He came to the place that he always loved best, where the old English novelists were, Bage and Mackenzie and absurd Clara Reeved and Mrs. Opie and Godwin.
He took outBarham Downsand turned over the leaves, repeating to himself the old artificial sentences, the redundant moralizing; the library closed about him, put its arms around him, and told him once again, as it had told him once before, that death is not the end and that friendship and love know no physical boundaries.
Hearing a step he looked up and saw below him Lady Bell-Hall. She raised her little pig-face to the gallery and then waited, a black doll, for him to come down to her.
When he was close to her she said very quietly: "My brother died under the operation."
"Yes, I have heard," Henry said.
She put out her hand and timidly touched him on the arm: "Every one matters now for whom he cared," she said. "And he cared for you very much. Only yesterday when I sawin the nursing-home he said how much he owed to you. He wanted us to be friends. I hope that we shall be."
"Indeed, indeed we will be," said Henry.
"What I want," she said, her upper lip trembling like a child's, "is for every one to know how good he was—how wonderfully good! So few people knew him—they thought him stiff and proud. He was shy and reserved. But his goodness! There never was any one so good—there never will be again.Youknew that. You felt it. . . . I don't know . . . I can't believe that we shall never—never again . . . see . . . hear . . ."
She began to cry, hiding her face in her handkerchief, and he suddenly, as though he were many years older than she, put his arm around her. She leant her head against him and he stood there awkwardly, longing to comfort her, not knowing what to say. But that moment between them sealed a friendship.
Nevertheless when he left the house he was in a curious rage with life. On so many occasions he himself had been guilty of spoiling life, and even in his worst moods of arrogance and ill-temper he had recognised that.
But often during the War he had seen cloven hoofs pushing the world, now here, now there, and had heard the laughter of the demons watching from their dusky woods. At such times his imagination had faded as the sunlit glow fades from the sky, leaving steel-grey and cold horizons all sharply defined and of a menacing reality.
In his imagination he had seen Duncombe depart, and the picture had been coloured with soft-tinted promises and gentle prophecies—now in the harsh fact Duncombe was gone just as the letter-box stood in Hill Street and the trees were naked in Berkeley Square. Life had no right to do this, and even, so arrogantly certain are we all of our personalities, he felt that this desire should be important enough to defeat life's purpose.
Christina and her mother, Millie and her lover, Duncombe and his operation, what was life about to permit these things? How strongly he felt in his youth his own certainty of survival, but one cock of life's finger and where was he?
Well, he was in Piccadilly Circus, and once again, as many months before, he stopped on the edge of the pavement looking across at the winged figure, feeling all the eddy of the busy morning life about him, swaying now here, now there, like strands of coloured silk, above which were human faces, but impersonal, abstracted, like fish in a shining sea. The people, the place, then suddenly through his own anger and soreness and sense of loss that moment of expectation again when he rose gigantic above the turmoil, when beautiful music sounded. The movement, suddenly apprehensive, ceased! like God he raised his hand, the fountain swayed, the ground opened and——
Standing almost at his side, unconscious of him, waiting apparently for an omnibus, was Baxter.
At the sight of that hated face, seen by him before only for a moment but never to be forgotten, rage took him by the throat, his heart pounded, his hands shook; in another instant he had Baxter by the waistcoat and was shaking him.
"You blackguard! You blackguard! You blackguard!" he cried. Then he stepped back; "Come on, you swine! You dirty coward! . . ." With his hand he struck him across the face.
At that moment Baxter must have been the most astonished man in England. He was waiting for his omnibus and suddenly some one from nowhere had caught him by the throat, screamed at him, smacked his cheek. He was no coward; he responded nobly, and in a whirl of sky, omnibuses, women, shop-window and noise they were involved, until, slipping over the edge of the kerb, they fell both into the road.
Baxter, rising first, muttered: "Look here! What the devil . . ." then suddenly realized his opponent.
They had no opportunity for a further encounter. A crowd had instantly gathered and was pressing them in. A policeman had his hand on Henry's collar.
"Now, then, what's all this?"
No one can tell what were Baxter's thoughts, the tangle of his emotions, regrets, pride, remorse, since that last scene with Millie. All that is known is that he pushed aside some small boy pressing up with excited wonder in his face, brushed through the crowd and was gone.
Henry remained. He stood up, the centre of an excited circle, the policeman's hand on his shoulder. His glasses were gone and the world was a blur; he had a large bump on his forehead, his breath came in confused, excited pants, his collar was torn. So suddenly had the incident occurred that no one could give an account of it. Some one had been knocked down by some one—or had some one fallen? Was it a robbery or an attempted murder? Out of the mist of voices and faces the large, broad shoulders of the policeman were the only certain fact.
"Now, then, clear out of this. . . . Move along there." The policeman looked at Henry; Henry looked at the policeman. Instantly there was sympathy between them. The policeman's face was round and red like a sun; his eyes were mild as a cow's.
Henry found that his hat was on his head, that he was withdrawn from the crowd, that he and the policeman together were moving towards Panton Street. Endeavours had been made to find the other man. There was apparently no Other Man. There had never been one according to one shrill-voiced lady.
"Now what's all this about?" asked the policeman. His tone was fatherly and even affectionate.
"I—hit him," said Henry, panting.
"Well, where is 'e?" asked the policeman, vaguely looking about.
"I don't know. I don't care. You can arrest me if you like," panted Henry.
"Well, I ought to give you in charge by rights," said the policeman, "but seeing as the other feller's 'ooked it—— What did you do it for?"
"I'm not going to say."
"You'll have to say if I take you to Bow Street."
"You can if you like."
The policeman looked at Henry, shaking his head. "It's the War," he said. "You wouldn't believe what a number of seemingly peaceable people are knocking one another about. You don't look very savage. You'll have to give me your name and address."
Henry gave it.
"Why, here's your lodging. . . . You seem peaceable enough." He shook his head again. "It don't do," he said, "just knocking people down when you feel like it. That's Bolshevism, that is."
"I'm glad I knocked him down," said Henry.
"You'd feel differently to-morrow morning after a night in Bow Street. But I know myself how tempting it is. You'll learn to restrain yourself when you come to my age. Now you go in and 'ave a wash and brush up. You need it." He patted Henry paternally on the shoulder. "I don't expect you're likely to hear much more of it."
With a smile of infinite wisdom he moved away. Henry stumbled up to his room.
Perhaps he had been a cad to hit Baxter when he wasn't expecting it. But he felt better. His head was aching like hell. But he felt better. And to-morrow he would work at those letters like a fanatic. He washed his face and realized with pleasure that although it was only the middle of the morning he was extremely hungry. Millie—yes, he was glad that he had hit Baxter.
On the next afternoon about four of the clock Millie was writing letters with a sort of vindictive fury at Victoria's desk. Beppo had just brought her a cup of tea; there it stood at her side with the bread and butter badly cut as usual. But she did not care. She mustwork, work, work.
Like quicksilver were her fingers, her eyes flashed fire, the rain beat upon the windows and the loneliness and desolation were held at bay.
The door opened and in came Major Mereward; he looked as usual, untidy, with his hair towselled, his moustache ragged and his trousers baggy—not a military major at all—but now a light shone in his eyes and his eyebrows gleamed with the reflection of it. He knew that Millie was his friend, and coming close to her and stammering, he said:
"Miss Trenchard. It's all right. It's all right. Victoria will marry me."
Her heart leaped up. She was astonished at the keenness of her pleasure. She could then still care for other people's happiness.
"Oh, I am glad! I amglad!" she cried, jumping up and shaking him warmly by the hand. "I never was more pleased about anything."
"Well, now, thatisnice—that's very nice of you. It will be all right, won't it? You know I'll do my best to make her happy."
"Why, of course you will," cried Millie. "You know that I've wanted her to marry you from ever so long ago. It's just what I wanted."
He set back his shoulders, looking so suddenly a man of strength and character that Millie was astonished.
"I know that I'm not very clever," he said. "Not in your sort of way, but cleverness isn't everything when you come to my time of life and Victoria's."
"No, indeed it isn't," said Millie with conviction.
"I'm glad you think so," he said, sighing so hastily that quite a little breeze sprang up. "I thought you'd feel otherwise. But I know Victoria better than she thinks. I'm sure I shall make her happy."
"I'm sure you will," said Millie. They shook hands again. Mereward looked about him confusedly.
"Well, I mustn't keep you from your work. Hard at it, I see. Hum, yes . . . Hard at it, I see," and went.
Millie sat at her desk, her head propped on her hands. She wasn't dead then? She drank her tea and smoked a cigarette. Not dead as far as others were concerned. For herself, of course, life was entirely over. She must drag herself along, like a wounded bird, until death chose to come and take her. The tea was delicious. She got up and looked at herself in the glass. She was wearing an old orange jumper to-day; she'd put it on just because it was old and it didn't matter what she wore. Yes, itwasold. Time to buy another one. There was one—a kind of purple—in Debenham & Freebody's window. . . . But why think of jumpers when her life was over? Only five days ago she had died, and here she was thinking of jumpers. Well, that was because she was so glad about Victoria. However finished your own personal life might be that did not mean that you could not be interested in the lives of others. She loved Victoria, and it would have been horrible had she married that terrible Bennett. Now Victoria was safe and Millie wasglad. She must find her and tell her so.
She found her, as she expected, in her bedroom. Victoria had been wonderful to her during those three days, using a tact that you never would have expected. She must have known what had occurred but she had made no allusion to it, had not asked where He was, had watched over Millie with a tenderness and solicitude that, even though a little irritating, was very touching.
Now she sat in her bedroom armchair, still wearing hergay hat with peacocks' feathers; she was near laughter, nearer tears and altogether in a considerable confusion. Millie flung her arms around her and kissed her.
"Well, now, you've got your way," said Victoria, "and I hope you're glad. If the marriage is a terrible failure it will be all your fault; I hope you realize your responsibility. It was simply because I couldn't go on being nagged by you any longer. Poor man. He did look so funny when he proposed to me, and when I said yes he just ran out of the room. He didn't kiss me or anything."
"He's just mad with delight," said Millie.
"Is he? Well, it's settled." She sat up, pushing her hat straight. "All my adventures are over, my Millie. It's a very sad thing, when you come to think of it. A quiet life for me now. It certainly wouldn't have been quiet with Mr. Bennett."
"Now don't you go sighing over him," said Millie. "Make the most of your Major."
"Oh, I shan't sigh after him," said Victoria, sighing nevertheless. "But it would be lovely to feel wildly in love. I don't feel wildly in love at all. Do you know, Millie mine, it's exactly what I feel if I want to buy a dress that's too expensive for me. Excited for days and days as to whether I will or I won't. And then I decide that I will and the excitement's all over. Of course I have the dress. But it isn't as nice as the excitement."
"Perhaps the excitement will come with marriage," said Millie, feeling infinitely old. "It often does."
"Now how ridiculous," cried Victoria, jumping up, "to talk of excitement at my age. I ought to be thankful that I can be married at all. I'm sure he's a good man. Perhaps I wish that he weren't quite so good as he is."
"You wait," said Millie, "he may develop terribly after marriage. They often do. He may beat you and spend your money riotously and leave you for weeks at a time."
"Oh, do you think so?" said Victoria, her cheeks flushing. "That would be splendid. Just the risk of it, I mean. But I'm afraid there isn't much hope. . . ."
"You never know," Millie replied. "And now, dear, if you'll let me I'll be off. You'll find all the letters answeredin a pile on the desk waiting for you to sign. The one from Mr. Block I've left you to answer for yourself." She paused. "After your marriage you won't be wanting me any more, I suppose?"
"Want you! I shall want you more than ever. You darling! I'm never going to let you go unless you——" Here she felt on dangerous ground and ended, "unless you want to go yourself, I mean."
"No, you didn't mean that," said Millie. "What you meant was unless I marry. Well, you can make your mind easy—I'm never going to marry. Never! I'm going to die an old maid."
"And you so beautiful!" cried Victoria. "I don't think so," and she threw her arms round Millie's neck and gave her one of those soft and soapy kisses that Millie so especially detested.
But on her way home she forgot the newly-engaged. The full tide of her own personal wretchedness swept up and swallowed her in dark and blinding waters. She had noticed that it was always like that. She seemed free—coldly, indifferently free—independent of the world, standing and watching with scorn humanity, and then of a sudden the waters caught, at her feet, the tide drew her, the foam was in her eyes and with agony she drowned in the flood of recollection, of vanished tenderness, of frustrated hope.
It was so now: she did not see the people with her in the Tube nor hear their voices. Only she saw Bunny and heard his voice and felt his cheek against hers.
Then there followed, as there always followed, the fight to return to him, not now reasoning nor recalling any definite fact or argument, but only, as it had been that first night, the impulse to return, to find him again, to be with him and near him at all possible cost or sacrifice.
She was fighting her own misery, staring in front of her, her hands clenched on her lap, when she heard her name called. At first the voice seemed to call from far away: "Millie! Millie!" Then quite close to her. Some one, sitting almost opposite to her was leaning forward and speaking to her. She raised her head out of her own troubles and looked and saw that it was Peter.
Peter! The very sight of his square shoulders and thick, resolute figure reassured her. Peter! Strangely she had not actually thought of him in all this recent trouble, but the consciousness of him had nevertheless been there behind her. She smiled, her face breaking into light, and then, with that swift sympathy that trouble gives, she realized that he himself was unhappy. Something had happened to him, and how tired he was! His eyes were pinched with grey lines, his head hung forward a little as though it was tumbling to sleep.
Just then Baker Street Station arrived and they got out together. He caught her arm and they went up in the lift together. They came out to a lovely autumn evening, the sky dotted with silver stars and the wall of Tussaud's pearl-grey against the faint jade of the fading light. "What's the matter, Millie?" he asked. "I haven't seen you for a fortnight. I was watching you before I spoke to you. You looked too tragic before I spoke to you. What's up?"
"I was going to ask you the same question," she said.
"Oh, I'm only tired. Here, I'll walk with you as far as your rooms. I want to get an evening paper anyway."
"Only tired? What's made you?"
"I'll tell you in a minute. But tell me your trouble first. That is, if you want to."
"Oh, my trouble!" she shrugged her shoulders. "Ordinary enough, Peter. But I don't think I can talk about it, if you don't mind—at least not yet. Only this. That I'm not engaged and I'm never going to be again. I'm a free woman Peter."
She felt then his whole body tremble against hers. For an instant his hand pressed against her side with such force that it hurt. Then he took his hand from her arm and walked apart. He walked in silence, rolling a little from leg to leg as was his way. And he said nothing. She waited. She expected him to ask some question. He said nothing. Then, when at last they were turning down into Baker Street, his voice husky, he said:
"My trouble is that my wife's come back."
It took her some little while to realize that—then she said:
"Your wife?"
"Yes, after nearly twenty years. Of course I don't mean thatthat'sa trouble. But she's ill—very ill indeed. She's very unhappy. She's had a terrible time."
"Oh, Peter, Iamsorry!"
"Yes, it's difficult after all this time—difficult to find the joining-points. And I'm not very good at that—clumsy and slow."
"Is her illness serious? What is it?"
"Everything! Everything's the matter with her—heart and all. But that isn't her chief trouble. She's so lonely. Can't get near to anybody. It's so difficult to help her. I'm stupid," he repeated. They had come to Millie's door. They stood there facing one another in the dusk.
"Oh, Iamsorry," she repeated.
"Well, you must help me," he suddenly jerked out, almost roughly. "Only you can."
"Help you? How?"
"Come and see her."
"I? . . . Oh no!" Millie shrank back.
"Yes, you must. Perhaps you can talk to her. Make her laugh a little. Make her a little less unhappy."
"I make any one laugh?"
"Yes. Just to look at you will do her good. Something beautiful. Something to take her out of herself——"
"Oh no, Peter, I can't. Please, please don't ask me."
"Yes, yes, you must." He was glaring at her as though he would strike her. "Do you remember when we three were in Henry's room alone and we swore friendship? We swore to help one another. Well, this is a way you can help me. And you've got to do it."
"Peter, don't ask me—just now——"
"Yes, now—at once. You have got to."
Suddenly she submitted.
"Very well, then. But I'll be no good. I'm no use to any one just now."
"When will you come?"
"Soon. . . ."
"No, definitely. To-morrow. What time?"
"Not to-morrow, Peter. The day after."
"Yes, to-morrow. To-morrow afternoon. About five."
"Very well."
"I'll expect you." He strode off. It was not until she was in her room that she realized that he had said no single word about her broken engagement.
Millie stood in Peter's room looking about her with uneasy discomfort. She was alone there: Peter, after greeting her, had gone into the bedroom. She felt that he was in there protesting and arguing with some one who refused a meeting. She hated him for putting her in so false a position. She was tired with her day's work. Victoria, now that she was engaged, allowing, nay encouraging, moods to sweep across her as swiftly as clouds traverse the sun. She would wait only a moment longer and then she would go. She had kept her word to Peter by coming. That was enough.
The door opened, and a little woman, a shawl around her shoulders, came out, moved to the sofa without looking at Millie, and lay down upon it. Peter followed her, arranged the cushions for her, drew a little table to her side and placed a cup and saucer upon it. Millie, in spite of herself, was touched by the careful clumsiness of his movements. Nevertheless she longed to do these things herself.
Peter turned to her. "Clare, dear," he said, "I want you to know a very great friend of mine, Miss Trenchard. Millie, dear, this is my wife."
Millie came over to the sofa, and in spite of her proud self-control her heart beat with pity. She realized at that instant that here was a woman who had gone so far in life's experience beyond her own timid venturings that there could be no comparison at all between them. Her passionate love of truth was one of her finest traits; one glance at Clare Westcott's face and her own little story faded into nothingness before that weariness, that anger, that indignation.
She took Clare's hand and then sat down, drawing a chair closer to the sofa. Peter had left the room.
"It's kind of you to come and see me," Clare said indifferently, her eyes roaming about the room.
"Peter asked me," said Millie.
"Oh, I know," Clare said. "Do come and see my poor wife. She's very ill, she hasn't long to live. She's had a very bad time. You'll cheer her up. Wasn't that it?"
Millie laughed. "He said that you'd been ill and he'd like me to come and see you. But I believe it was more to do me good than you. I've been in a bit of trouble myself and have altogether been thinking too much about myself."
Millie's laugh attracted Clare's attention. Her wandering glance suddenly settled on Millie's face.
"You're beautiful," she said. "I like all that bright colour. Purple suits you and you wear clothes well, too, which hardly any English girls do. It's clever, that little bit of white there. . . . Nice shoes you have . . . lovely hair. I wonder . . ."
She broke off, staring at Millie. "Why, of course! You're the girl Peter's in love with."
"Me!"
"Yes, you. Of course I discovered after I'd been back an hour that there was somebody. Peter isn't so subtle but that you can't find out what he's thinking. Besides, I knew him twenty years ago and he hasn't changed as much as I have.You'rethe girl! Well, I'm not sorry. I did him an injury twenty years ago, more or less ruined his life for him, and I won't be sorry to do him a good turn before I go. You won't have long to wait, my dear. I was very nearly finished last night, if you want to know. I can tell you a few things about Peter that it will be good for you to understand if you're going to live with him."
"Oh, but you're wrong! You're entirely wrong!" cried Millie. "I'm sure Peter doesn't love me, and even if he did—anyway, I don't love him. I was engaged until a few days ago. It has just been broken off—some one I loved very much. That's the trouble I spoke about just now."
"Tell me about it," said Clare, looking at her with eyes half-closed.
"Oh, but you wouldn't—it isn't——"
"Yes, I would . . . Yes, it is. . . . Remember there's nothingabout men I don't know. You look so young: you can't know very much. Perhaps I can help you."
"No," said Millie, shaking her head. "You can't help me. No one can help me but myself. It's all over—quite, quite over."
"What did he do, the young man?"
"We were engaged six months ago. Meanwhile he was really engaged to another girl in his own village. She is going to have a baby this month—his baby. I didn't know of this. He never would have told me if some one hadn't gone to his village and found it all out."
"Some one? Who? A woman?"
"Yes. She thought she was helping me."
"Are you sure it's true?"
"Yes. He admitted it himself."
"Hum. Were you very much in love with him?"
"Yes, terribly."
"No, not terribly, my dear, or you'd have gone off with him whatever happened. Do you love him still?"
"I don't know. He doesn't seem to belong to me any more. It was knowing that he wasn't going to help that poor girl about her baby that came right down between us. That was cruel, and cruelty's worse than anything. He could have been cruel to me—he was sometimes, and I daresay I was to him. People generally are when they are in love with one another. But that poor girl——"
"Never mind that poor girl. We don't know how much of it was her doing. Perhaps she's not going to have a baby at all. Anyway, it may not be his baby. No, if you'd been really in love with him you'd have gone down to that village and found it all out for yourself, the exact truth. And then, probably you'd have married him even if it had been true. . . . Oh, yes, you would. My dear, you're too young to know anything about love yet. Now tell me—weren't you feeling very uncertain about it all long before this happened?"
"I had some miserable times."
"Yes, more and more miserable as time went on. But not so miserable as they are now. I know. But what you're feelingnow is loneliness. And soon you won't be lonely with your prettiness and health and love of life."
"Oh, you're wrong! you're wrong!" cried Millie. "You are indeed. Love is over for me. I'm never going to think of it again. That part of my life's done."
Clare smiled. "Good God, how young you are!" she said. "I was like that myself once, another life, another world. But I was never like you, never lovely as you are. I was pretty in a commonplace kind of way. Pretty enough to turn poor Peter's head. That's about all. Now listen, and I'll tell you a little about myself. Would you like to hear it?"
"Yes," said Millie.
The memory came to her of Peter telling her this same story; for a flashing second she saw him standing beside her, the look that he gave her. Was she not glad now that he loved her?
Clare began: "I was the daughter of a London doctor—an only child. My parents spoilt me terribly, and I thought I was wonderful, clever, and beautiful and everything. Of course, I always meant to be married, and there were several young men I was considering, and then Peter came along. He had just published his first book and it was a great success. Every one was talking about it. He was better-looking then than he is now, not so fat, and he had a romantic history—starving in the slums and some one discovered him and just saved his life. He was wildly in love with me. I thought he was going to be great and famous, and I liked the idea of being the wife of a famous man. And then for a moment, perhaps, I really was in love with him, physically, you know. And I knew nothing about life, nothing whatever. I thought it would be always comfortable and safe, that I should have my way in everything as I always had done. Well, we were married, and it went wrong from the beginning. Peter knew nothing about women at all. He had strange friends whom I couldn't bear. Then I had a child and that frightened me. Then he got on badly with mother, who was always interfering. Then the other books weren't as successful as the first, and I thought he ought to give me more good times and grudged the hours he spent over his work. Then our boy died and the last link between us seemed to be broken. . . . Well, to cut a long story short, his best friendcame along and made love to me, and I ran off with him to Paris."
"Oh!" cried Millie, "poor Peter!"
"Yes, and poor me too, although you may not believe it. I only ran off with him because I hated my London life so and hated Peter and wanted some one to make a fuss of me. I hadn't been in Paris a week before I knew my mistake. Never run off with a man you're not married to, my dear, if you're under thirty. You're simply asking for it. He was disappointed too, I suppose—at any rate after about six months of it he left me on some excuse and went off to the East. I wasn't sorry; I was thinking of Peter again and I'd have gone back to him, I believe, if my mother hadn't prevented me. . . . Well, I lived with her in Paris for two years and then—and then—Maurice appeared."
She stopped, closing her eyes, lying back against her cushions, her hand on her heart. She shook her head when Millie wanted to fetch somebody.
At last she went on: "No, let's have this time alone together. It may be the only time we'll get . . . Maurice . . . yes. That was love, if you like. Didn't I know the difference? You bet! He was a French poet. Funny! two writers, Peter and Maurice, when I myself hadn't the brain of a snail. But Maurice didn't care about my brain. I don't know what he did care about—but I gave him the best I had. He was married already of course, and so was I, but we went off together and travelled. He had some money—not very much, but enough—and things I wouldn't have endured for Peter's sake I adored for Maurice's.
"We settled down finally in Spain and had three divine years. Then Maurice fell ill, money ran short, I fell ill, everything was wrong. But never our love—that never changed, never faltered. We quarrelled sometimes, of course, but even in the middle of the worst of our fights we knew that it wasn't serious, that really nothingcouldseparate us but death—for once that sentimental phrase was justified. Well, deathdid. Two months before the War he died. My mother had died the year before and as I learnt later my father two years before. But I didn't care what happened to me. When real love has come to you, then you do know what loneliness means. The War gave me something todo but my heart was all wrong. I fell ill again in Paris, was all alone, tried to die and couldn't, tried to live and couldn't. . . . We won't talk about that time if you don't mind.
"I had often thought of Peter, of course. I felt guilty about him as about nothing else in my life. He was so young when I married him, such an infant, so absurdly romantic; I spoilt everything for him as I couldn't have spoilt it for most men. He is such a child still. That's why you ought to marry him, my dear, because you're such a child too. And your brother—infants all three of you. I used to think of returning to him. I myself was romantic enough to think that he might still be in love with me, and although I was much too tired to care for any one again, the thought of some one caring for me again was pleasant. Twice I nearly hunted him out. Once hunger almost drove me but I tried not to go for that reason, having, you see, still a scrap of sentiment about me. Then a man who'd been very good to me but at last couldn't stand my moods and tantrums any longer left me—small blame to him!—and I gathered my last few coppers together and came to Peter. I nearly died on his doorstep—now instead I'm going to die inside. It's warmer and more comfortable."