At the moment when Clare Westcott was climbing the stairs to her husband's rooms Henry Trenchard was walking up the drive through the Duncombe park. The evening air was dark and misty with a thin purple thread of colour that filtered through the bare trees and shone in patches of lighted shadow against tall outlines of the road. Everything was very still: even his steps were muffled by the matted carpet of dead leaves that had not been swept from the drive. He had told them the time of his arrival but there had been nothing at the station to meet him. That did not surprise him. It had happened before; you could always find a fly at the little inn. But this evening he had wanted to walk the few miles. Something made him wish to postpone the arrival if he could.
The day after to-morrow Duncombe was to go up to London for his operation. Henry hated scenes and emotional atmospheres and he knew that Duncombe also hated them. Everything of course would be very quiet during those two days—beautifully restrained in the best English fashion, but the emotion would be there. No one would be frank; every one would pretend to be gay with that horrible pretence that Englishmen succeed in so poorly. No one would be worse at it than Henry himself.
As he turned the corner of the drive that gave the first view of the house a thin white light, a last pale flicker before dusk, enveloped the world, spread across the lawn and shone upon the square, thick-set building as though a sheet of very thin glass had suddenly been lowered from the sky. The trees were black as ink, the grass grey, but the house was illumined with a ghastly radiancy under the bare branches and the pale evening sky. The light passed and the house was in dusk.
When he had been up to his room and come down to the little drawing-room he found Alicia Penrose. "She's been asked to make things easier," he said to himself. He was glad. He was not afraid of her as he was of some people and he fancied that she rather liked him. In her presence he always felt himself an untidy, uncouth schoolboy, but to-night he was not thinking of himself. He knew that beneath her nonsense she was a good sort. She was standing, legs apart, in front of the fire; she was wearing a costume of broad checks, like a chessboard. It reached just below the knees, but she had fine legs, slim, strong, sensible. Her hair, brushed straight back from her forehead, was jet black; she had beautiful, small, strong hands.
"Well, Trenchard," she said, "had enough of London?"
He stammered, laughed and said nothing.
"Why do you always behave like a complete idiot when you're with me?" she asked. "You're not an idiot—know you're not from what Duncombe has told me—always behave like one with me."
"Perhaps you terrify me!" said Henry.
"Damn being terrified! Why be terrified of anybody? All the same, all of us. Legs, arms—— All dead soon."
"Shyness is a very difficult thing," said Henry. "I've suffered from it all my life—partly because I'm conceited and partly because I'm not conceited enough."
"Have you indeed?" said Lady Alicia, looking at him with interest. "Now that's the first interestin' thing you've ever said to me. Expect you could say a lot of things like that if you tried."
"Oh, I'm clever!" said Henry. "The trouble is that my looks are against me. That's funny, too, because I have a most beautiful sister and another sister is quite nice-looking. I suppose they took all the looks of the family and there were none left for me."
Lady Alicia considered him.
"But you're not bad-lookin'," she said. "Not at all. It's an interestin' face. You look as though you were a poet or something. It's your clothes. Why do you dress so badly?"
"My clothes are all right when I buy them," said Henry blushing. (This was a sensitive point with him.) "I go toa very good tailor. But when I've worn them a week or two they're like nothing on earth, although I put them under my bed and have a trousers press. I look very fine in the morning sometimes just for five minutes, but in an hour it's all gone."
Lady Alicia laughed.
"You want to marry—some woman who'll look after you."
Next moment Henry had a shock. The door opened and in came Tom Duncombe. Henry had not seen him since the day of their encounter. In spite of himself his heart failed him. What would happen? How awful if, in front of Lady Alicia, Duncombe went for him! What should he do? How maintain his dignity? How not show himself the silly young fool that he felt?
Duncombe crossed the room, fat, red-faced, smiling. "Well, Alice," he said, "glad to see you. How's everything?"
Then he turned to Henry, holding out his hand.
"Glad to see you, Trenchard," he said. "Hope you're fit."
"Very," said Henry.
They shook hands.
That evening was a strange one. The comedy ofOld Masks to Hide a New Tragedywas played with the greatest success. A thoroughly English piece, played with all the best English restraint and fine discipline. Sir Charles Duncombe as the hero was altogether admirable, and Lady Bell-Hall as the heroine won, and indeed, deserved, rounds of applause. Lady Alicia Penrose as the Comic Guest played in her own inimitable style a part exactly suited to her talents. Minor rôles were suitably taken by Thomas Duncombe, Henry Trenchard and Miss Bella Smith as Florence, a Parlourmaid. . . .
Henry was amazed to see Lady Bell-Hall's splendidsang-froid. The house was tumbling about her head, her beloved brother was in all probability leaving her for ever, the whole of her material conditions were to change and be transformed, yet she, who beyond all women depended upon the permanence of minute signs and witnesses, gave herself no faintest whisper of apprehension.
Magnificent little woman, with her pug nose and puffing cheeks; dreading her Revolution, screaming at the prophecies of it, turning no hair when it was actually upon her! Threatenan Englishman with imagination and he will quail indeed, face him with facts and nothing can shake his courage and dogged pugnacity. Imagination is the Achilles heel of the English character . . . after which great thought Henry discovered that he was last with his soup and every one was waiting for him.
Alicia Penrose carried the evening on her shoulders. She was superb. Her chatter gave every one what was needed—time to build up battlements round reality so that to-morrow should not be disgraced.
Tom Duncombe ably seconded her.
"Seen old Lady Adela lately?" he would ask.
"Adela Beaminster?" Alicia was greatly amused. "Oh, but haven't you heard about her? She's got a medium to live with her in her flat in Knightsbridge and talks to her mother every mornin' at eleven-fifteen."
"What, the old Duchess?"
"Yes. You know what a bully she was when she was alive—well, she's much worse now she's dead. Medium's Mrs. Bateson—you must have heard of her—Creole woman—found Peggy Nestle's pearl necklace for her last year, said it was at the bottom of a well in a village near Salisbury, and so it was. Of course she'd taken it first and put it there—all the same it did her an immense amount of good. Old Lady Adela saw her at somebody's house and carried her off there and then. Now at eleven-fifteen every morning up springs the Duchess, says she's very comfortable in heaven, thank you, and then tells Adela what she's to do. Adela doesn't move a step without her. Did her best to get old Lord John in on it too, but he said 'No thank you.' He'd had enough of his mother when she was alive, and he wasn't goin' to start in again now he was over eighty and is bound to be meeting her in a year or two anyway. Why, he says, these few days left to him are all he's got and he's not going to lose 'em. But Adela's quite mad. When you go and have tea with her, just as she's givin' you your second cup she says, 'Hush! Isn't that mother?' Then she calls out in her cracked voice, 'Is that you, mother darlin'?' then, if it is, she goes away and you never see your second cup——" . . .
A sudden silence. Down every one goes, down into their ownthoughts. About the house, in and out of the passages, through the doors and windows, figures are passing. Faces, pale and thin, are pressed against the window-panes. Into the dining-room itself the figures are crowding, turning towards the table, whispering: "Do not desert us! Do not abandon us! We are part of you, we belong to you. You cannot leave the past behind. You must take us with you. We love you so, take us, take us with you!"
Alicia's voice rose again.
"But every one's a crank now, Charles. In this year of grace 1920 it's the only thing to be. You've got to be queer one way or t'other. That's why young Pomfret keeps geese in his flat in Parkside. He feeds them in a sort of manger at the back of his dinin'-room. He likes them for their intelligence, he says. You've simply got to be queer or no one will look at you for a moment. That's why they started the Pyjama Society, Luxmoore and Young Barrax, and some others. You have to swear that you'll never wear anythin' but pyjamas, and they've got special warm ones with fur inside for the cold weather. It's catchin' on like anythin'. It's so comfortable and economical too after the first expense. Then there's the Coloured Hair lot that Lady Bengin started—you all have to wear coloured wigs, green and purple and orange. You put on a new wig for lunch just as you used to put on a new hat. There's a shop opened in Lover Street—Montayne's—specially for these wigs. Expensive, of course, but not much more than a decent hat!"
Closer the pale figures pressed into the room, smiling, wistfully watching, tenderly waiting for their host so soon now to join them.
"Do not leave us! Do not forsake us! We must go with you! the beauty of life comes from us as well as from you, do not desert us! We are your friends! We love you!"
"Well, I'm sure," said Lady Bell-Hall, searching for her crystallized sugar at the bottom of her coffee cup, "I never know whether to believe half the things you say, Alicia."
"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Tom Duncombe. "You're right, Meg, don't you believe her. You stick to me."
But as the two women went out of the room together one whispered to the other:
"You are kind, Alicia. . . . I'll never forget it."
The next day was a wild one of wind and rain. Rain slashed the windows and spurted upon the lawns, died away into grey sodden clouds, burst forth again and was whirled by the wind with a noise like singing hail against the shining panes. The day passed without any incident. The normal life of the house was carried on. Henry worked in the library. Duncombe came in, found a book, went out again. The evening—the last evening—was upon them all with a startling suddenness. The women went up to their rooms; Charles Duncombe, his face grey and drawn, stopped Henry.
"Wait a minute," he said. "I'm going round the house for the last time. Come with me."
He lit a candle and they started. The rain had died now to a comfortable purr. Into every room they went, the candle, raised high, throwing a splash of colour, marking pools of flickering light.
The old bedroom near the Chapel seemed to hold Duncombe. He stood there staring, the candlestick steady in his hand, but his eyes staring as though in a dream.
He sat down in a chair near the four-poster.
"We'll stop here a moment," he said to Henry. "It's the least I can do for the old room. It knows I'm going. This was the bridal-chamber of the old Duncombes," he said. "Lady Emily Duncombe died in this room on her wedding-night. Heart failure. In other words, terror. . . . Poor little thing."
"And now I'm going to die too." Henry said something in protest. "Oh, of course there's a chance—a-million-to-one chance. . . ." He looked up, smiling. "I'll tell you one thing, Henry. Pain, if you have much of it, makes death a most desirable thing. Pain! Why I'd no idea at the beginning of what pain really was until this last year. Now I know. Many times I've wanted to die these last months, just before it comes on, when you know it's coming. . . . Pain, yes I know something about that now."
He had placed the candle on a table near to him. He raised it now above his head. "Dear old room. I remember crawlingin here when I was about three and hiding from my nurse. They couldn't find me for ever so long. . . . And now it's all over."
Henry said: "Not over if you've cared for it."
"By Jove, there's something in that," Duncombe answered. "And I depend on you to carry it on. It's strange how my thoughts have centred round you these last weeks. If I get through this by good fortune I'll talk to you a bit, tell you things I've never told a living soul. I've always been alone all my life, not because I wanted to be, but just because I'm English. I've seen other men look at me just as I've looked at them, as though they longed to speak but their English education wouldn't let them lest they should make fools of themselves. Then human beings have seemed to me so disappointing, so weak, so foolish. Not that I've thought myself any better. No, indeed. But we're a poor lot, there's no doubt about it.
"You're honest, Henry, and loyal and affectionate. Stick to those three things for all you're worth. You've been born into a wonderful time. Make something of it. Don't be passive. Throw yourself into it. And take all this with you. Make the past and the present and the future one. Join them all together for the glory of God—and sometimes think of your old friend who loves you."
He came across to Henry, kissed him on the forehead and patted him on the shoulder.
"I'm tired," he said, "damned tired. These haven't been easy weeks."
Henry said: "I think you're going to come through. If you do it will be wonderful for me. If you don't I'll never forget you. I'll think of you always. I'll try to do as you say."
Duncombe smiled. "Look after my sister. Bring out the book with a bang. We'll meet again one day."
Henry saw the candle-light trail down the passage and disappear. He fumbled his way to his room.
Next morning Charles Duncombe went up to London. There was no sign of emotion at his departure; it was as though he would be back before they could turn round. He was his dry, cynical self. He merely nodded to Henry, looking at him a little sternly before he climbed into the car. "I'll see that Spencersends you those notes," he said. "Meanwhile you'd better be getting on with that Ballantyne press." He nodded still sternly, smiled with his accustomed irony at his sister and was gone.
Tom Duncombe and Alicia Penrose disappeared then for the day, rattling over in a very ancient hired taxi to see the Seddons, who were living just then some thirty miles away. Henry tried to fling himself into his work; manfully he sat in the little library driving through the intricacies of Ballantyne finances, striving desperately to lose himself in that old Edinburgh atmosphere and friendly company. It could not be done. He saw, stalking towards him across the leaf-sodden lawn, the harshest melancholy that his young life had ever known. He had faced before now his unhappy times—in his younger years he had rebelled and sulked and made himself a curse to every one around him! he was growing older now. He was becoming a man, but the struggle was none the easier because he was learning how to deal with it.
He gave up his work, stared out for a little on to the grass pale under a thin autumn sun, then felt that he must move about or die. . . .
He went out into the hall; the whole place seemed deserted and dead; the hall door was open and from far away came the dim creaking of a cart. A little, chill, autumnal wind blew a thin eddy of leaves a few paces into the hall. Suddenly he heard a sound—some one was crying. Like any boy he hated above everything to hear a grown person cry. His immediate instinct was to run for his life. Then he was drawn against his will but by his natural instincts of tenderness and kindness towards the sound. He pushed back the drawing-room door that was ajar and looked into the room. Lady Bell-Hall was sitting there, crumpled up on the sofa, her head in her arms, crying desperately.
He knew that he should go away; the English instinct deep in him that he must not make a fool of himself warned him that she did not like him, that she had never liked him and that she would hate that he above all people should see her in this fashion. There was nevertheless something so desolate and lonely in her unhappiness that he could not go. He stood there for a moment, then very gently closed the door. She heard thesound and looked up. She saw who it was and hurriedly sat erect, tried to assume dignity, rolling a handkerchief nervously between her hands and frowning. . . .
"Well," she said in a strange little voice with a crack and a sob in it, "what is it?"
"I beg your pardon," he stammered. "I wondered—I was thinking—that perhaps there was something——"
"No," she answered hurriedly, not looking at him. "Thank you. There's nothing."
She sniffed, blew her nose, then suddenly began to sob again, turning to the mantelpiece, leaning her head upon her arms.
He waited, seeing such incongruous things as that a grey lock of hair had escaped its pins and was trailing down over the black silk collar of her blouse, that Pretty One was fast asleep, snoring in her basket, undisturbed by her mistress's grief, that last week'sSpectatorhad fallen from the table on to the floor, that the silver calendar on the writing-table asserted that they were still in the month of May whatever the weather might pretend.
He came nearer to her. "I do want you to know," he said, blushing awkwardly, "how I understand what you must be feeling, and that I myself feel some of it too."
She turned round at him, looked at him with her short-sighted eyes as though she were seeing him for the first time, then sat down again on the sofa.
"You do think he's going to get well, don't you?" she said suddenly. "This isn't serious, this operation, is it? Tell me, tell me it isn't."
He lied to her because he knew that she knew that he was lying and that she wanted him to lie.
"Of course he's going to come through it," he said. "And be better than he's ever been in his life before. Doctors are so wonderful now. They can do anything."
"Oh, I do hope so! I do indeed! He wouldn't let me go up with him, although I did want to be there. I nursed my dear husband through three terrible illnesses so I havemuchexperience. . . . But I'm going up to-morrow to Hill Street to be near in case he should need me."
She blinked at Henry, then patted the sofa.
"Come and sit here and talk to me. . . . It is very kind of you to speak as you do."
Henry sat down. She looked at him more closely. "I wish I liked you better," she said. "I have tried very hard to. Charles likes you so much and says you're so clever."
"I'm sorry you don't like me, Lady Bell-Hall," said Henry. "I would do anything in the world for your brother. I think he's the finest man I have ever known."
This set Lady Bell-Hall sobbing again: "He is! Oh, he is! Indeed he is!" she cried, waving one little hand in the air while with the other she wiped her eyes. "No one can know as well as I know how kind he is and good . . . and it's so wicked . . . when he's so good—that they should take away his money and his house that he loves and has always been in the family and give it to people who aren't nearly so good. Why do they do it? What right have they——?" She broke off, looking at him with sudden suspicion. "Oh, I suppose it all seems right to you," she said. "You're the new generation, I suppose that's why I don't like you. I don't like the new generation. All you boys and girls are irreligious and immoral and selfish. You don't respect your parents and you don't believe in God. You think you know everything and you're hard-hearted. The world has become a terrible place and the wrath of God will surely be called down upon it."
Henry said quietly:
"After a war like the one there's just been it always takes a long time to settle down, doesn't it? And all the young generation aren't as you say. For instance, I have a splendid sister who is as modern as anybody, but she isn't immoral and she isn't hard-hearted and she doesn't think she knows everything. I think many girls now are fine, with their courage and independence and honesty. Hypocrisy is leaving England at last. It's been with us quite long enough."
Lady Bell-Hall shook her head. "I daresay you're right. I'm sure I don't know, I don't understand any of you. I'm lost in this new world. The sooner I die the better." She got up and walked with great dignity across the room. She looked back at Henry rather wistfully. "You do seem a kind young man and Charles is very fond of you. I don't want to be unjust.I don't indeed!" She suddenly put up her hand and realized the escaping lock of hair. She cried, "Oh, dear!" in a little frightened whisper, then hurried from the room.
Henry waited a little, then, feeling his own loneliness and desolation in the chilly place, broke out into the garden. He wandered down the paths until he found himself in a little rough-grassed orchard that hung precariously on the bend of the hill, above a little trout-stream and a clumsy, chattering water-mill.
Under the bare trees he stood and stared at himself. As a boy the principal note in his character perhaps had been his suspicion of human nature, and his suspicion of it especially in its relation to himself. The War, his life in London, his close intimacy with Peter and Millie had robbed him of much of this, but these influences had not brought him to that stage of sophistication that would establish him upon such superiority that he need never be suspicious again. He would in all probability never become sophisticated. There was something naïve in his character that would accompany him to his grave; he was none the worse for that.
And it was this very naïveté that Lady Bell-Hall had just roused. As he walked in the orchard he was miserable, lonely, self-distrustful. He seemed to be deserted of all men. Christina was far, far away. Millie and Peter did not exist. His work was nothing. He was out of tune with the universe. He felt behind him the house, the lands, the country falling into ruin. His affection for Duncombe, his master, was affronted by the vision of brother Tom, flushed and eager, selling his family for thirty pieces of silver. He and his generation could assist only at the breaking of the old world, not at the making of the new. . . .
He looked up and saw between the leafless branches of the trees the sky shredding into lines of winged and fleecy little clouds that ran in cohorts across a sky suddenly blue. The wind had fallen; there was utter stillness. The sun, itself invisible, suddenly with a royal gesture flung its light in sheets of silver across the brown tree-trunks, the thick and tangled grass. The light was so suddenly brilliant that Henry, looking up, was dazzled. It seemed to him that for an instant the sky was filled with shining forms.
He had the sense that he had known so often before that in another moment some great vision would be granted him.
He waited, his hand above his eyes, his heart suddenly flooded with happiness and reassurance. A little wind rose, a sigh ran through the trees and drops of rain like glittering sparks from the sun touched his forehead. Shadow ran along the ground as though from the sweep of a giant's wing.
Strangely comforted he walked back to the house.
Next morning, in the company of Lady Bell-Hall, Lady Alicia and Tom Duncombe, he left for Hill Street.
Victoria Platt was seated in her little dressing-room surrounded with fragments of coloured silk. She was choosing curtains for the dining-room. She was not yet completely dressed, and a bright orange wrapper enfolded her shapeless body. Millie stood beside her.
"I know you like bright colours, my Millie," she said, "so I can't think what you can object to in this pink. I think it's a pet of a colour."
"Pink isn't right for a dining-room," said Millie. (She had not slept during the preceding night and was feeling in no very amiable temper.)
"Not right for a dining-room?" Victoria repeated. "Why, Major Mereward said it was just the thing."
"You know perfectly well," answered Millie, "that in the first place Major Mereward has no taste, and that secondly he always says whatever you want him to say."
"No taste! Why, I think his taste is splendid! Certainly he's not artistic like Mr. Bennett, who may be said to have a little too much taste sometimes——
"But, dear me, that was a lovely dinner he gave us at the Carlton last night. Now wasn't it? You can't deny it although youareprejudiced——"
"Thatyougave, you mean," Millie snorted. "Yes, I daresay he likes nothing better than ordering the best dinners possible at other people's expense. He's quite ready, I'm sure, to go on doing that to the end of his time."
Victoria forgot her silks and looked up at her young friend.
"Why, Millie, whathascome to you lately? You're not at all as you used to be. You're always speaking contemptuously of people nowadays. And you're not looking well. You're tired, darling——"
"Oh, I'm all right," Millie moved impatiently away. "You know I hate that man. He's vulgar, coarse and selfish."
Victoria was offended.
"You've no right to speak of my friends that way. . . . But I'm not going to be cross with you. No, I'm not. You're tired and not yourself. Dr. Brooker was saying so only yesterday."
"There's no reason for Dr. Brooker to interfere. When I want his advice I'll ask for it."
Victoria looked as suddenly distressed as a small child whose doll has been taken away.
"I can't make you out, Millie. There's something making you unhappy."
She looked up with a touching, anxious expression at the girl, whose face was dark with some stormy trouble that seemed only to bring out her loveliness the more, but was far indeed from the happy, careless child Victoria had once known.
Millie's face changed. She suddenly flung herself down at her friend's feet.
"Victoria, darling, I don't want you to marry that man. No, I don't, I don't indeed. He's a bad man, bad in every way. He only wants your money: he doesn't even pretend to want anything else. And when he's got that he'll treat you so badly that you'll be utterly wretched. You know yourself you will. Oh, don't marry him, don't, don't, don't!"
Victoria's face was a curious mixture of offended pride and tender affection.
"There, there, my Millie. Don't you worry. Whoever said I was going to marry him? At the same time it isn't quite true to say that he only cares for my money. I think he has a real liking for myself. You haven't heard all the things he's said. After all, I know him better than you do, Millie dear, and I'm older than you as well. Yes, and you're prejudiced. You never liked him from the first. He has his faults, of course, but so have we all. He's quite frank about it. He's told me his life hasn't been all that it should have been, but he's older now and wiser. He wants to settle down with some one whom he can really respect."
"Respect!" Millie broke out. "He doesn't respect any one. He's an adventurer. He says he is. Oh, don't you see howunhappy you'll be? You with your warm heart. He'll break it in half a day."
Victoria sighed. "Perhaps he will. Perhaps I'm not so blind as you think. But at least I'll have something first. I've been an old maid so long. I want—I want——" She brushed her eyes with her hand. "It's foolish a woman of my age talking like this—but age doesn't, as it ought, make as much difference."
"But you can have all that," Millie cried. "The Major's a good man and he does care for you, and he'd want to marry you even though you hadn't a penny. I know he seems a little dull, but we can put up with people's dullness if their heart's right. It seems to me just now," she said, staring away across the little sunlit room, "that nothing matters in a man beside his honesty and his good heart. If you can't trust——"
Victoria felt that the girl was trembling. She put her arms closer around her and drew her nearer.
"Millie, darling, what's the matter? Tell me. Aren't you happy? Tell me. I can't bear you to be unhappy. What does it matter what happens to a silly old woman like me? I've only got a few more years to live in any case. But you, so lovely, with all your life in front of you. . . . Tell me, darling——"
Millie shivered. "Never mind about me, Victoria. Things aren't easy. He won't tell me the truth. I could stand anything if only he wouldn't lie to me. I ought to leave him, I suppose—give him up. But I love him—I love him so terribly."
She did, what was so rare with her, what Victoria had never seen her do before, she burst into a passion of tears, sobbing—"I love him—and I oughtn't to—and every day I love him more."
"Oh, my dear—I'm afraid it is a great deal my fault. I should have stopped it before it went so far—but indeed I never knew that it was on until it was over. And I liked him—I see now that I was wrong, but I'm not perhaps very clever about people——"
"No, no," Millie jumped to her feet. "You're not to say a word against him. You're not indeed. It's myself who's to blame for things being as they are. I should have been stronger and forced him to take me to his mother. I despise myself. Iwho thought I was so strong. But we quarrel, and then I'm sorry, and then we quarrel again."
She smiled, wiping her eyes. "Dear Victoria, I'm not so fine as I thought myself—that's all. You see I've never been in love before. It will come right. It must come right——"
She bent forward and kissed her friend.
"I'll go down now and get on with those letters. You're a darling—too good to me by far."
"I'm a silly old woman," Victoria said, shaking her head. "But I do wish you liked the pink, Millie dear. It will be so nice at night with the lights—so gay."
"We'll have it then," said Millie. "After all, it's your house, isn't it?"
She went downstairs, and then to her amazement found Bunny waiting for her near her desk.
"Why——" Her face flushed with pleasure. How could she help loving him when every inch of him called to her, and touched her with pity and pride and longing and wonder?
"I've come," he began rather sulkily, not looking at her but out of the window, "to apologize for last night. I shouldn't have said what I did. I'm sorry."
How strange that now, when only a moment ago she had loved him so that most likely she would have died for him, the sound of his sulky voice should harden her with a curious, almost impersonal hostility.
"No need to apologize," she said lightly, sitting down at her desk and turning over the letters. "You weren't very nice last night, but last night's last night and this morning's this morning."
"Oh well," he said angrily, still not looking at her, "for the matter of that you weren't especially charming yourself; but of course it's always my fault."
"Need we have it all over again?" she said, her heart beating, her head hot, as though some one were trying to enclose it in a bag. "If I was nasty I'm sorry, and you say you're sorry—so that's over."
He turned towards her angrily. "Of course—if that's all you have to say——" he began.
The door opened and Ellen came in.
Millie had then the curious sensation of having passed through, not very long ago, the scene that was now coming. She saw Ellen's thin body, the faded, grey, old-fashioned dress, the sharply cut, pale face with the indignant, protesting eyes; she saw Bunny's sudden turn towards the door, his face hardening as he realized his old and unrelenting enemy, then the quick half-turn that he made towards Millie as though he needed her protection. That touched her, but again strangely she was for a moment outside this, a spectator of the sun-drenched room, of the silly pictures on the wall, of the desk with the litter of papers that even now she was still mechanically handling. Outside it and beyond it, so that she was able to say to herself, "And now Ellen will move to that far window, she'll brush that chair with her skirt, and now she'll say: 'Good-morning, Mr. Baxter. I won't apologize for interrupting because I've wanted this chance—— '"
"Good-morning, Mr. Baxter," Ellen said, turning from the window towards them both with the funny jerky movement that was so especially hers. "I won't apologize for interrupting because I've wanted this chance of speaking to you both together for some time."
Then, at the actual sound of her voice, Millie was pushed in, right in—and with that immersion there was a sudden desperate desire to keep Ellen off, not to hear on any account what she had to say, to postpone it, to answer Bunny's appeal, to do anything rather than to allow things to go as she saw in Ellen's eyes that woman intended them to go.
"Leave us alone for a minute, Ellen," she said. "Bunny and I are in the middle of a scrap."
Standing up by the desk she realized the power that her looks had upon Ellen—her miserable, wretched looks that mattered nothing to her, less than nothing to her at all. She did not realize though that the tears that she had been shedding in Victoria's room had given her eyes a new lustre, that her cheeks were touched to colour with her quarrel with Bunny, and that she stood there holding herself like a young queen—young indeed both in her courage and her fear, in her loyalty and her scorn.
Ellen stared at her as though she were seeing her for the first time.
"Oh well——" she said, suddenly dropping her eyes and turning as though she would go. Then she stopped. "No, why should I? After all, it's for your good that you should know . . . this can't go on. I care for you enough to see that it shan't."
Millie came forward into the centre of the room that was warm with the sun and glowing with light. "Look here, Ellen. We don't want a scene. I'm sick of scenes. I seem to have nothing but scenes now, with Bunny and you and Victoria and every one. If you've really got something to say, say it quickly and let's have it over."
Bunny's contribution was to move towards the door. "I'll leave you to it," he said. "Lord, but I'm sick of women. One thing after another. You'd think a man had nothing better to do——"
"No, you don't," said Ellen quickly. "You'll find it will pay you best to stay and listen. It isn't about nothing this time. You'vegotto take it. You're caught out at last, Mr. Baxter. I don't want to be unfair to you. If you'll promise me on your word of honour to tell Millie everything from first to last about Miss Amery, I'll leave you. If afterwards I find you haven't, I'll supply the missing details. Millie's got to know the truth this time whatever she thinks either of me or of you."
Bunny stopped. His face stiffened. He turned back.
"You dirty spy!" he said. "So you're been down to my village, have you?"
"I have," said Ellen. "I've seen your mother and several other people. Tell Millie the truth and my part of this dirty affair is over."
Millie spoke: "You've seen his mother, Ellen? What right had you to interfere? What business was it of yours?"
"Oh, you can abuse me," Ellen answered defiantly. "I'm not here to defend myself. Anyway you can't think worse of me than you seem to. I waited and waited. I thought some one else would do something. I knew that Victoria had heard some of the stories and thought that she would take some steps. I thought that you would yourself, Millie. I fancied that you'dbe too proud to go on month after month in the way you have done, putting up with his lies and shiftings and everything else. At last I could stand it no longer. If no one else would save you I would. I went down to his village in Wiltshire and got the whole story. I told his mother what he was doing. She's coming up to London herself to see you next week."
Millie's eyes were on Bunny and only on him in the whole world. She and he were enclosed in a little room, a blurring, sun-drenched room that grew with every moment smaller and closer.
"Whatisthis, Bunny?" she said, "that she means? Now at last we'll have the whole story, if you don't mind. Whatisit that you've been keeping from me all these months?"
He laughed uneasily. "You're not going to pay any attention to a nasty, jealous woman like that, Millie," he said. "We all know whatsheis and why she's jealous. I knew she'd been raking around for ever so long but I didn't think that even her spite would go so far——"
"But whatisit, Bunny?" Millie quietly repeated.
"Why, it's nothing. She's gone to my home and discovered that I was engaged last year to a girl there, a Miss Amery. We broke it off last Christmas, but my mother still wants me to marry her. That's why it's been so difficult all these weeks. But——"
"So you're not going to tell her the truth," interrupted Ellen. "I thought you wouldn't. I just thought you hadn't the pluck. Well, I will do it for you."
"It's lies—all lies, Millie. Whatever she tells you," Bunny broke in. "Send her away, Millie. What has she to do with us? You can ask me anything you like but I'm not going to be cross-questioned with her in the room."
Millie looked at him steadily, then turned to Ellen.
"What is it, Ellen, you've got to say? Bunny is right, you've been spying. That's contemptible. Nothing can justify it. But I'd like to hear what youthinkyou've discovered, and it's better to say it before Mr. Baxter."
Ellen looked at Millie steadily. "I'm thinking only of you, Millie. Not of myself at all. You can hate me ever afterwardsif you like, but one day, all the same, you'll be grateful—and you'll understand, too, how hard it has been for me to do it."
"Well," repeated Millie, scorn filling every word, "what is it that you think you've discovered?"
"Simply this," said Ellen, "that last autumn a girl in Mr. Baxter's village, the daughter of the village schoolmaster—Kate Amery is her name—was engaged secretly to Mr. Baxter. She is to have a baby in two months' time from now, as all the village knows. All the village also knows who is its father. Mr. Baxter has promised his mother to marry the girl.
"His mother insists on this, and until I told her she had no idea that he was involved with any one else."
"A nice kind of story," Bunny broke in furiously. "Just what any old maid would pick up if she went round with her nose in the village mud. It's true, Millie, that I was engaged to this girl last year, and then Christmas-time we saw that we were quite unsuited to one another and we broke it off."
"Is it true," asked Millie quietly, "that your mother says that you're to marry her?"
"My mother's old-fashioned. She thinks that I'm pledged in some way. I'm not pledged at all."
"Is it true that the village thinks that you're the father of this poor girl's child?"
"I don't know what the village thinks. They all hate me there, anyway. They'd say anything to hurt me. Probably this woman's been bribing them."
"Oh, poor girl! How old is she?"
"I don't know. Nineteen. Twenty."
"Oh, poor, poor girl! . . . Did you promise your mother that you would marry her?"
"I had to say something. I haven't a penny. My mother would cut me off absolutely if I didn't promise."
"And you've known all this the whole summer?"
"Of course I've known it."
"And not said a word to me?"
"I've tried to tell you. It's been so difficult. You've got such funny ideas about some things. I wasn't going to lose you."
Something he saw in Millie's face startled him. He camenearer to her. They had both completely forgotten Ellen. She gave Millie one look, then quietly left the room.
"But you must understand, Millie," he began, a new note of almost desperate urgency in his voice. "I've been trying to tell you all the summer. I don't love this girl and she doesn't love me. It would be perfectly criminal to force us to marry. She doesn't want to marry me. I swear she doesn't. I don't know whose child this is——"
"Could it be yours?"
"There's another fellow——"
"Could it be yours?"
"Yes, if you want to know, it could. But she hates me now. She says she won't marry me—she does really. And this was all before I knew you. If it had happened after I knew you it would be different. But you're the only woman I've ever loved, you are truly. I'm not much of a fellow in many ways, I know, but you can make anything of me. And if you turn me down I'll go utterly to pieces. There's never been any one since I first saw you."
She interrupted him, looking past him at the shining window.
"And that's why I never met your mother? That poor girl . . . that poor girl . . . ."
"But you're not going to throw me over?"
"Throw you over?" She looked at him, wide-eyed. "But you don't belong to me—and I don't belong to you. We've nothing to do with one another any more. We don't touch anywhere."
He tried to take her hand. She moved back.
"It's no good, Bunny. It's over. It's all over."
"No—don't—don't let me go like this. Don't——" Then he looked at her face.
"All right, then," he said. "You'll be sorry for this."
And he went.
He stayed beside the desk for a long time, turning the papers over and over, reading, as she long afterwards remembered, the beginning of one letter many times: "Dear Victoria—If you take the 3.45 from Waterloo that will get you to us in nice time for tea. The motor shall meet you at the station."
"The motor shall meet you at the station. . . . The motor shall meet you at the station. . . ."
Well, and why shouldn't it? How easy for motors to meet trains—that is, if youhavea motor. But motors are expensive these days, and then there is the petrol—and the chauffeur must cost something. . . . But that's all right if you can drive yourself—drive yourself. . . . She pulled herself up. Where was she? Oh, in Victoria's sitting-room. How hot the room was! And the beginning of October. How hot and how empty! Then as though something cut her just beneath the heart, she started. She put her hand to her forehead. Her head was aching horribly. She would go home. She knew that Victoria would not mind.
Her only dominant impulse then was to be out of that house, that house that reminded her with every step she took of something that she must forget—but what she must forget she did not know.
In the hall she found her hat and coat. Beppo was there.
"Beppo," she said, "tell Miss Victoria that I have a headache and have gone home. She'll understand."
"Yes, miss," he said, grinning at her in that especially confidential way that he had with those whom he considered his friends.
In the street she took a taxi, something very foreign to her economic habits. But she wanted to hide herself from everybody. No one must see her and stop her and ask her questions that she could not answer. And she must get home quickly so that she might go into her own room and shut her door and be safe.
In the sitting-room she found Mary Cass sitting at the table with a pile of books in front of her, nibbling a pencil.
"Hullo!" cried Mary. "You back already?"
Then she jumped up, the book falling from her hand to the floor.
"Darling, what's the matter? . . . What's happened?"
"Why, do I look funny?" said Millie smiling. "There's nothing the matter. I've got an awful headache—that's all. I'm going to lie down."
But Mary had her arms around her. "Millie, whatisit? You look awful. Are you feeling ill?"
"No, only my headache." Millie gently disengaged herself from Mary's embrace. "I'm going into my room to lie down."
"Shall I get something for you? Let me——"
"Please leave me alone, Mary dear. I want to be left alone. That's all I want."
She went into her bedroom, drew down the blinds, lay down on her bed, closing her eyes. How weak and silly she was to come home just for a headache, to give up her morning's work without an effort because she felt a little ill! Think of all the girls in the shops and the typists and the girl secretaries and the omnibus girls and all the others, they can't go home just because they have a headache—just because . . .
Mary Cass had come in and very quietly had laid on her forehead a wet handkerchief with eau-de-cologne. Ah! That was better! That was cool. She faded away down into space where there was trouble and disorder and pain, trouble in which she had some share but was too lazy to inquire what.
Then she awoke sharply with a jerk, as though some one had pushed her up out of darkness into light. The Marylebone church clock was striking. First the quarters. Then four o'clock very slowly. . . . She was wide awake now and realized everything. It was the middle of the afternoon and she had been asleep for hours. Her head was still aching very badly but it did not keep her back now as it had done.
She knew now what had happened. She had seen the last of Bunny, the very, very last. She would never see him again, nor hear his voice again, nor feel his kiss on her cheek.
And at first there was the strangest relief. The matter was settled then, and that confusing question that had been disturbing her for so many months. There would be no more doubts about Bunny, whether he were truthful or no, why he did not take her to his mother, whether he would write every day, and why a letter was suddenly cold when yesterday's letter had been so loving, as to why they had so many quarrels. . . . No, no more quarrels, no more of that dreadful pain in the heart and wondering whether he would telephone or whether her pride would break first and she would speak to him. Relief, relief, relief—— Relief connected in some way with the little dancing circle of afternoon sunlight on the white ceiling, connected with the things on her dressing-table, the purple pin-cushion, the silver-backed brushes that Katherine had given her, the slanting sheet of looking-glass that reflected the end of her bed and the chair and the piece of blue carpet. Relief. . . . She turned over, resting her head on her hand, looking at the pearl-grey wall-paper. Relief! . . . and she would never see him again, never hear his voice again! Some one in the room with her uttered a sharp, bitter cry. Who was it? She was alone. Then the knife plunged deep into her heart, plunged and plunged again, turning over and over. The pain was so terrible that she put her hand over her eyes lest she should see this other woman who was there with her suffering so badly. No, but it was herself. It was she who would never see Bunny again, never hear his voice.
She sat up, her hands clenched, summoning control and self-command with all the strength that was in her soul. She must not cry, she must not speak. She must stare her enemy in the face, beat him down. Well, then. She and Bunny were parted. He did not belong to her. He belonged to that poor girl of whose baby he was the father.
She fought then, for twenty minutes, the hardest battle of her life—the struggle to face the facts. The facts were, quite simply, that she could never be with Bunny any more, and worsethan that, that he did not belong to her any more but to another woman.
She had not arrived yet at any criticism of him—perhaps that would never be. When a woman loves a man he is a child to her, so simple, so young, so ignorant, that his faults, his crimes, his deceits are swallowed in his babyhood. Bunny had behaved abominably—as ill as any man could behave; she did not yet see his behaviour, but when it came to her she would say that she should have been there to care for him and then it would never have been. She was to remember later, and with a desperate, wounding irony, how years before, when she had been the merest child and Katherine had been engaged to Philip, Henry had discovered that Philip had once in Russia had a mistress who had borne him a child.
Millie, when she had heard this, had poured indignant scorn upon the suggestion that Katherine should leave her lover because of this earlier affair. Had it not all had its history before Katherine had known Philip? How ironic a parallel here! Did not Millie's indignant, brave, fearless youth rise up here to challenge her? No, that other woman had surrendered Philip long, long before. This woman . . . poor child—— Only nineteen and the village mocking her, waiting for her child with scorn and coarse gossip and taunting sneers!
She got up, bathed her face, her eyes dry and hot, her cheeks flaming, brushed her hair and went into the sitting-room.
No one was there, only the evening sun like a kindly spirit moving from place to place, touching all with gentle, tender fingers. Strange that she could have slept for so long! She would never sleep again—never. Always would she watch, untouched, unmoved, that strange, coloured, leaping world moving round and round before her, moving for others, for their delight, their pain, but only for her scorn.
Mary Cass came in with her serious face and preoccupied air.
"Hullo Mill! Head better?"
"Yes, thanks."
"That's good. Had a sleep?"
"Yes."
"Splendid. . . . Lord, I've got plenty of work here. I don't know what they think we're made of. Talk about stuffing geeseto getfoie-gras! People say that's wicked. Nothing to what they do to us. Had any tea?"
"No."
"Want any?"
"No thanks."
"Do your head good. But I daresay you're right. I'm going to have some though."
She moved about busying herself in her calm efficient way, lighting the spirit lamp, getting out the cups, cutting the bread.
"Sure you won't have some?"
"No thanks."
Tactful Mary was—none of that awful commiseration, no questions.
A good pal, but how far away, what infinite distance!
Millie took the book that was nearest to her, opened it and read page after page without seeing the words.
Then a sentence caught her.
"Nor is it altogether the remembrance of her cathedral stopping earthquakes; nor the stampedoes of her frantic seas; nor the tearlessness of arid skies that never rain. . . ."
"The tearlessness of arid skies that never rain?" How strange a phrase! What was this queer book? She read on. "Thus when the muffled rollings of a milky sea; the bleak rustlings of the festooned frosts of mountains; the desolate shiftings of the windrowed snows of prairies; all these, to Ishmael, are as the shaking of that buffalo robe to the frightened colt!"
The murmuring of the wonderful prose consoled her, lulled her. She read on and on. What a strange book! What was it about? She could not tell. It did not matter. About the Sea. . . .
"What's that you're reading, Mill?"
She looked back to the cover.
"Moby-Dick."
"What a name! I wonder how it got here."
"Perhaps Henry left it."
"I daresay. He's always reading something queer."
The comfortable little clock struck seven.
"You'd better eat something, you know."
"No thank you, Mary."
"Look here, Mill—you won't tell me what the trouble is?"
"Not now. . . . Later on."
"All right. Sorry, old dear. But every trouble passes."
"Yes, I know."
She read on for an hour. The little clock struck eight. She put the book down.
"I'll go to bed now I think."
"Right oh! Nothing I can get you?"
"No. I'm all right."
"Shall I come and sleep with you?"
"Oh,no!"
She crossed and kissed her friend, then quietly went to her room. She undressed, switched off the light, and lay on her back staring. A terrible time was coming, the worst time of all. She knew what it would be—Remembering Things. Remembering everything, every tiny, tiny little thing. Oh, if that would only leave her alone for to-night, until to-morrow when she would endure it more easily. But now. They were coming, creeping towards her across the floor, in at the window, in at the door, from under the bed.
"I don't want to remember! I don't want to remember!" she cried.
Then they came, in a long endless procession, crowding eagerly with mocking laughter one upon another! That first day of all when she had quarrelled with Victoria and she had come downstairs to find him waiting for her, when they had sat upon her boxes, his arm round her. When they had walked across the Park and he had given her tea. After their first quarrel which had been about nothing at all, and he had sent her flowers, when he had caught her eye across the luncheon-table at Victoria's and they had laughed at their own joke, their secret joke, and Clarice had seen them and been so angry. . . . Yes, and moments caught under flashing sunlight, gathering dusk—moments at Cladgate, dancing in the hotel with the rain crackling on the glass above them, sudden movements of generosity and kindliness when his face had been serious, grave, involved consciously in some holy quest . . . agonizing moments of waiting for him, feeling sure that he would not come, thensuddenly seeing him swing along, his eyes searching for her, lighting at the sight of her. . . . His hand seeking hers, finding it, hers soft against the cool strength of his . . . jokes, jokes, known only to themselves, nicknames that they gave, funny points of view they had, "men like trees walking," presents, a little jade box that he had given her, the silver frame for his photograph, a tennis racket. . . .
Oh, no, no, shut it out! I can't hear it any longer! If you come to me still I must go to him, find him, tell him I love him whatever it is that he has done, and that I will stay with him, be with him, hear his voice. . . .
She sat up, her hands to her head, the frenzy of another woman beating now in her brain. She did not know the hour nor the place; the world on every side of her was utterly still, you might hear the minutes like drops of water falling into the pool of silence. She saw it a vast inverted bowl gleaming white against the deep blue of the sky shredded with stars. On the edge of this bowl she was walking perilously, as on a rope over space.
She had slept—but now she was awake, clear-headed, seeing everything distinctly, and what she saw was that she must go to Bunny, must find him, must tell him that she would never leave him again.
She was now so clear about it because the peril she saw in front of her was her loneliness. To go on, living for ever and ever in a completely empty world, walking round and round on that ridge above that terrible shining silence—could that be expected of any one? No. Seriously she spoke aloud, shaking her head: "I can't be supposed to endure that."
She got out of bed and dressed very carefully, very cautiously, realizing quite clearly that she must not wake Mary Cass, who would certainly stop her from going to find Bunny. Time did not occur to her, only she saw that the moonlight was shining into her room throwing milky splashes upon the floor, and these she avoided as though they would contaminate her, walking carefully around them as she dressed. She went softly into the sitting-room, softly down the stairs, softly into the street. She was wearing her little crimson hat because that was one that he liked.
She stayed for a moment in the street marvelling at its coolness and silence. The night breeze touched her cheek caressing her. Yes, the sky blazed with stars—blazed! And the houses were ebony black, like rocks over still deep water.
Everything around her seemed to give, at regular intervals, little shudders of ecstasy—a quiver in which she also shared. She walked down the street with rapid steps, her face set with serious determination. The sooner to reach Bunny! No one impeded her. It seemed to her that as she advanced the rocks grew closer about her, hanging more thickly overhead and shutting out the stars.
She was nearing the Park. There were trees, festoons above the water making dark patterns and yet darker shadows.
Under the trees she met a woman. She stopped and the woman stopped.
"You're out late," the woman said; then as Millie said nothing but only stared at her she went on, laughing affectedly—"good evening or morning I should say. It's nearly four."
She stared at Millie with curiosity. "Which way you going? I'm for home. Great Portland Street. Been back once to-night already. But I thought I'd make a bit more. Had no luck the second time."
"Am I anywhere near Turner's Hotel?" Millie asked politely.
"Turner's Hotel, dear? And where might that be?"
"Off Jermyn Street."
"Jermyn Street! You walk down Park Lane and then down Piccadilly. Are you new to London?"
"Oh, no, I'm not new," said Millie very seriously. "I couldn't sleep so I came out for a walk."
The woman looked at her more closely. She was a very thin woman with a short tightly-clinging skirt and a face heavily powdered.
"Here, we'd better be moving a bit, dear, or the bobby will be on us. You do look tired. I don't think I've seen you about before."
"Yes, Iamtired."
"Well, so's myself if you want to know. But I've been working a bit too hard lately. Want to save enough for a fortnight'sholiday. Glebeshire. That's where I come from. Of course I wouldn't go back to my own place—not likely. But I'd like to see the fields and hedges again. Bit different from the rotten country round London."
Millie suddenly stopped.
"It's very late to go now, isn't it?" she asked. "In the middle of the night. He'll think it strange, won't he?"
"I should guess he would," said the woman, tittering. "Why, you're only a child. You've no right to be wandering about like this. You don't know what you're doing."
"It was just because I couldn't sleep," said Millie very gravely. "But I see I've done wrong. I can't disturb him this hour of the night."
She stumbled a little, her knees suddenly trembling. The woman put her arm around her. "Steady!" she said. "Here, you're ill. You'd better be getting home. Where do you live?"
"One Hundred and Sixteen Baker Street."
"I'll take you. . . . There's a taxi. Why, you're nothing but a kid!"
In the taxi Millie leant her head on the woman's shoulder.
"I'm very tired but I can't sleep," she said.
"You're in some trouble I guess," the woman said.
"Yes, I am. Terrible trouble," said Millie.
"Some man I suppose. It's always the men."
"What's your name?" asked Millie. "You're very kind."
"Rose Bennett," said the woman. "But don't you remember it. I'm much better forgotten by a child like you. Why, I'm old enough to be your mother."
The taxi stopped. Millie paid for it.
"Give me a kiss, will you?" asked the woman.
"Why, of course I will," said Millie. She kissed her on the lips.
"Don't you go out alone at night like that," said the woman. "It isn't safe."
"No, I won't," said Millie.
She let herself in. The sitting-room was just as it had been, very quiet, so terribly quiet.
She had no thought but that she must not be alone. Sheopened Mary's door. She went in. Mary's soft breathing came to her like the voice of the room.
She took a chair and sat down and stared at the bed. . . . The Marylebone Church struck half-past seven and woke Mary. She looked up, staring, then in the dim light saw Millie sitting there.
"Why, Millie! You! All dressed. . . . Good heavens, what's the matter!"
She sprang out of bed.
"Why, you haven't even taken off your hat! Millie darling, what is it?"
"I couldn't sleep so I went out for a walk and then I didn't want to be alone so I came in here."
Mary gave her one look, then hurriedly throwing on her dressing-gown went into the next room, saying as she went:
"Stay there, Mill dear. . . . I'll be back, in a moment."
She carefully closed the door behind her then went to the telephone.
"6345 Gerrard, please. . . . Yes, is that—? Yes, I want to speak to Mr. Trenchard, please—Oh, I know he's asleep. Of course, but this is very serious. Illness. Yes. He must come at once. . . . Oh, is that you, Henry? Sorry to make you come down at this unearthly hour. Yes—it's Mary Cass. You must come over here at once. It's Millie. She's very ill. No, I don't know what the matter is, but you must come. Yes, at once."
She went back to Millie. She persuaded her to come into the sitting-room, to take off her hat. After that, she sat there on the little sofa without moving, staring in front of her.
Half an hour later Henry came in, rough, tumbled, dishevelled. At the sight of that familiar face, that untidy hair, those eager devoted eyes, a tremor ran through Millie's body.
He rushed across to her, flung his arms around her.
"Millie darling . . . darling. . . . What is it? Mill dearest, what's the matter?"
She clung to him; she shuddered from head to foot; then she cried: "Oh, Henry, don't leave me. Don't leave me. Never again. Oh, Henry, I'm so unhappy!"
And at that the tears suddenly came, breaking out, releasing at once the agony and the pain and the fear, pouring them out against her brother's face, clinging to him, holding him, never never to let him go again. And he, seeing his proud, confident, beloved Millie in desperate need of him held her close, murmuring old words of their childhood to her, stroking her hair, her face, her hands, looking at her with eyes of the deepest, tenderest love.