CHAPTER XIII
A week later, Dodo was interviewing Dr. Cardew in her sitting-room atMeering. He had just spoken at some little length to her, and she hadtime to notice that he looked like a third-rate actor, and recorded thefact also that Edith seemed to have gone back to scales and thedouble-bass. This impression was conveyed from next door. He spoke likean actor, too, and said things several times over, as if it was a play.He talked about fractures and conjunctions, and X-ray photographs, andsatisfaction, and the recuperative powers of youth and satisfaction andX-rays. Eventually Dodo could stand this harangue no longer.
"It is all too wonderful," she said, "and I quite see that if sciencehadn't made so many discoveries, we couldn't tell if Hughie would have aBath-chair till doomsday or not. But now, Dr. Cardew, he is longing tohear, and dreading to hear, poor lamb, and won't you let me be thebutcher, or I suppose I should say, 'Mary'? You've been such a cleverbutcher, if you understand, and I do want to be Mary, who had a littlelamb"--she added in desperation, lest he should never understand herallusive conversation. "Of course he's not my little lamb, but mydaughter's, and he wants to know so frightfully. Yes: I understandabout his intellect, too. It seems to me as bright as it ever was, and Inotice no change whatever. He always spoke as if he was excited. May Igo?"
Dodo intended to go, whether she might or not, but just at the door, sheseemed to herself to have treated this distinguished physician with someabruptness. She unwillingly paused.
"Do stop to lunch," she said, "it will be lunch in ten minutes, and youwill find me not so completely distracted. I shall be quite sensible,and would you ring the bell and tell them you are stopping? Don't mindthe scales and the double-bass, dear Dr. Cardew; it is only Mrs.Arbuthnot, of whom you have heard. She will not play at lunch. I knowyou think you have come to a mad-house, but we are all quite sane. And Imay go and tell Hughie what you have told me? If you hear loud screamsof joy, it will only be me, and you needn't take any notice."
Dodo slid along the passage, upset a chair in Nurse Bryerley's room, andknelt down on the floor by Hugh's bed. She clawed at something with hereager hands, and it was chiefly bed-clothes.
"Oh, praise God, Hughie," she said. "Amen. There! Now you know, andthere won't be any crutches, my dear, or the shadow of a Bath-chair,whatever that is like. You won't have chicken-broth, and a foolishnurse; not you, dear Nurse Bryerley, I didn't mean you, and you willwalk again and run again, and play the fool, just like me, for a hundredyears more. I told Dr. Cardew you weren't ever very calm or unexcited,and your poor broken hip has mended itself, and your kidneys aren'tmixed up with your liver and lights, and you've--you've got your strongyoung body back again, and your silly young brain. Oh, Hughie!"
Dodo leaned forward and clutched a more satisfactory handful of Hugh'sshoulders.
"I couldn't let anybody but myself tell you," she said. "I had to tellyou. But nobody else knows. You can tell anybody else you want to tell."
Hugh was paying but the very slightest attention to Dodo.
"Telegraph-form," he said rather rudely to Nurse Bryerley.
Dodo loved this inattention to herself. There was nothing _banal_ aboutit. He had no more thought of her than he would have had for a newspaperthat contained ecstatic tidings. He did not stroke or kiss or shakehands with a mere newspaper that told him such great things.
"It's so funny not to have telegraph-forms handy," he said.
"I know, dear. They ought always to be in every room. But servants areso forgetful. Talk to me until Nurse Bryerley gets one."
Hugh looked at her with shining eyes.
"How can I talk?" he said. "There's nothing to say. I want thattelegraph-form."
Dodo, human and practical and explosive, yearned for the statement ofwhat she knew.
"Whom are you going to telegraph to?" she asked.
Hugh had time for one contemptuous glance at her.
"Oh, Aunt Dodo, you ass!" he said. "Oh, by Jove, how awfully rude of me,and I haven't thanked you for coming to tell me. Thanks so much: I am sograteful to you for all your goodness to me--ah!"
He took a telegraph-form and scribbled a few words.
"May it go now?" he said.
Dodo was almost embarrassingly communicative at lunch, at which mealEdith did not appear, and the continued booming of the double-bassindicated that Art was being particularly long that morning.Consequently Dodo found herself alone with an astonished physician.
"If only a man could be a clergyman and a doctor," she said, "you couldtell him everything, because clergy know all about the soul and doctorsall about the body, and when you completely understand anything, youcan't be shocked at it. I think I should have poisoned you, Dr. Cardew,if you had said that Hughie would never be the same man again: anyhow Ishouldn't have asked you to lunch. Ah, in that case I couldn't havepoisoned you! How difficult it must be to plan a crime reallysatisfactorily. I always have had a great deal of sympathy withcriminals, because my great-grandfather was hanged for smuggling. Dohave some more mutton, which calls itself lamb. I certainly shall. I'mgoing to have a baby, you know, or perhaps you didn't. Isn't itridiculous at my age, and he's going to be called David."
"In case--" began Dr. Cardew.
"No, in any case," said Dodo. "I mean it certainly is going to be aboy. You shall see. What a day for January, is it not? The year hasturned, though I hope that doesn't mean it will go bad. I wish you hadseen Hughie's face when I told him he wasn't going to have a Bath-chair.He looked like one of Sir Joshua Reynolds' angels with a three weeks'beard, which I shouldn't wonder if he was shaving now, since, as I said,there aren't going to be any Bath-chairs."
"I don't quite follow," said Dr. Cardew politely but desperately.
"I'm sure I don't wonder," said Dodo cordially, "although it's so clearto me. But you see, he's going to propose to my daughter now that it'scertain he will be the same man again and not a different one, and noeligible young man ever has a beard. What a good title for a sordid andtragic romance 'Beards and Bath-chairs' would be. Of course Hughieinstantly called for a telegraph-form, and when I asked him who he wastelegraphing to, he called me an ass, in so many words, or rather sofew. After all I had done for him, too! Oh, here's Edith; Dr. Cardew andI have not been listening to your playing, but we're sure it has beenlovely. Do you know Dr. Cardew? And it's Mrs. Arbuthnot, or ought I tosay 'she's Mrs. Arbuthnot'? Edith, if you don't mind our smoking, Dr.Cardew and I will wait and talk to you for a little, but if you do, wewon't."
Edith shook hands so warmly with the doctor, that he felt he must havebeen an old friend of hers, and that the fact had eluded his memory. Butit was only the general zeal which a long musical morning gave her.
"I'm sure you came to see our poor Hugh," she said. "Do tell me, isthere the slightest chance of his ever walking again?"
"Not the smallest," said Dodo; "I've just been to break the news to him,and he has telegraphed to Nadine to come at once--I can't keep it up.Edith, he is going to be perfectly well again, and he has telegraphed toNadine just the same."
Edith looked a little disappointed.
"Then I suppose we must resign ourselves to a perfectly conventional andPhilistine ending," she said. "There was all the makings of a twentiethcentury tragedy about the situation, and now I am afraid it is going totail off and be domestic and happy and utterly inartistic. I had betterhopes for Nadine, she always looked as if there might be some wilddestiny in store for her, and when she engaged herself to Seymourwithout caring two straws for him, I thought I heard a great fateknocking at the door--"
This was too gross an inconsistency for even Dodo to pass over.
"And you said at the time you thought the engagement was horrible andunnatural and me a wicked mother for permitting it," she cried.
"Very possibly. No doubt then I was being a woman, now I am talking asan artist. You always confuse the two, Dodo, for all your generalacumen. When I have been playing all morning--"
"Scales," said Dodo.
"A great deal
of the finest music in the world is based on scalepassages, and the second movement of my symphony is based on them too.When I have been playing all morning, I see things as an artist. I knowDr. Cardew will agree with me: sometimes he sees things as a surgeon,sometimes as a man. As a surgeon if a hazardous operation is in front ofhim, he says to himself, 'This is a wonderful and dangerous thing, andit thrills me.' As a man he says, 'Poor devil, I am afraid he may dieunder the knife.' As for you, Dodo, artistically speaking, you spoiled asituation as--lurid as a play by Webster. 'Princess Waldenech' mighthave been as classical in real life as the 'Duchess of Malfi.'Artistically an atmosphere as stormy as the first act of the Valkyriessurrounded you. And now instead of the '_Goetterdaemmerung_' you are goingto give us '_Haensel und Gretel_' with flights of angels."
Dodo exploded with laughter.
"And while I was still giving you 'Princess Waldenech'," she said, "youcut me for a year."
"As a woman," cried Edith; "as an artist I adored you. You were asominous as Faust's black poodle. Of course your first marriage to a manwho adored you, for whom you did not care one bar of the 'Hallelujahchorus,' was a thing that might have happened to anybody; but when, assoon as he was mercifully delivered, you got engaged to Jack, and at thelast moment jilted him for that melodramatic drunkard, I thought greatthings were going to happen. Then you divorced him, and I waited with abeating heart. And now, would you believe it, Dr. Cardew!" cried Edith,pointing a carving fork with a slice of ham on the end of it at him."She has married Lord Chesterford, as you know, and is going to have ababy. And all that wealth of potential tragedy is going to end in asilver christening-mug. The silly suffragette with her hammer and aplate-glass window has more sense of drama than you, Dodo. And nowNadine is going to take after you, and marry the man she loves. Hugh isjust as bad: instead of dying for the sake of that blear-eyed child whocomes up to enquire after him every day, he is going to live for thesake of Nadine. Drama is dead. Of course it has long been dead inliterature, but I hoped it survived in life."
Dodo turned anxiously to Dr. Cardew.
"She isn't mad," she said reassuringly. "You needn't be the leastfrightened. She will play golf immediately after lunch."
Edith had been brought her large German pewter beer-mug, and for themoment she had put her face into it, like old-fashioned gentlemenpraying into their hats on Sunday morning before service. There was alittle froth on the end of her rather long nose when she took it out.
"Why not?" she said. "All artistic activity is a sort of celestialdisease, and its antidote is bodily activity which is a materialdisease. A perfectly healthy body, like mine, does not need exercise,except in order to bring down the temperature of the celestial fever.When I am playing golf, my artistic soul goes to sleep and rests. Andwhen I am composing, I should not know a golf-ball from an egg. That isme. You might think I am being egoistic, but I only take myself as aninstance of a type. I speak for the whole corporate body of artists."
"Militant here on earth," remarked Dodo.
"Militant? Of course all artists are militant, and they fight againstblind eyes and deaf ears. They scream and lighten, and hope to shakethis dull world into perception. But it is fighting against prodigiousodds. The drama that seems to interest the world now is a presentationof the hopeless lives of suburban people. Any note of romance ordistinction is sufficient to secure a failure. It's the same in music:Debussy when he tells us of rain in the garden makes the rain fall intoa small backyard with sooty blighted plants growing in it, out of afoggy sky. When he gives us '_reflets dans l'eau_' the water is a littlecement basin in the same backyard, with anemic goldfish swimming aboutin it. As for Strauss, he began and finished with that terrible'domestic symphony.' It went from the kitchen into the scullery, andback again. Fiction is the same. Any book that deals with entirely dullpeople, provided that they, none of them, ever show a spark of real fireor are touched by romance or joy or beauty, makes success. They musthave the smell of oilcloth and Irish stew around them, and then theworld says, 'This is art' or 'This is reality.' There's the mistake! Artis never real: it is fantasy, a fairy-story, a soap-bubble sailing intothe sunset. It is Art because it takes you out of reality. Of courseartists are militant; they fight against dullness, and they will fightforever, and they will never win. As for their being militant here onearth, you must be militant somewhere. I shall be militant in heaven byand by. I wonder if you understand. As I said, I was disappointed inNadine artistically, but I am enraptured with her humanly. On that sameplane I am enraptured with you, Dodo. Humanly speaking, I have watchedyou with sobs in my throat, battling perilously on the great seas. Andnow you are like a battered ship, having weathered all storms, andputting into port, with all the piers and quays shouting congratulation.Artistically speaking, you are a derelict, and I should like to have youblown up. Hullo, what has happened to Dr. Cardew?"
Dodo looked quickly round. The thought just crossed her mind that hemight be asleep or having a fit. But there was no Dr. Cardew there, noranywhere about, to be seen.
"He has gone away while we weren't attending, just as a conjurer changesa rabbit to an omelette while you aren't attending," she said, "and I'msure I don't wonder. Oh, Edith, at last the 'Hunting of the Snark' hascome true. I see now that we are _Boojums_. People softly and silentlyvanish away when you and I are talking, poor dears. They can't stand it,and I've noticed it before. Dear old Chesterford used to vanishsometimes like that, and I never knew until I saw he wasn't there. I'msure Bertie vanishes too sometimes. I suppose we ought to vanish also,as the table must be laid again for dinner to-night."
Edith finished her beer.
"I had breakfast, lunch and dinner on the same cloth once," she said. "Iwas composing all day, and at intervals things were stuck in front of mewhile I ate or drank. I didn't move from nine in the morning tillhalf-past eight in the evening, and I wrote forty pages of full score,and the inspiration never flagged for a moment. I wonder why artists areso fond of writing what they call 'My Memories'; they ought to becontent, as I am, to stand or fall by what they have done. Thank God, Ihave never had any doubts about my standing. Oh, I see a telegraph-boycoming up the drive. It is sure to be for me. I am expecting aquantity."
This particular one happened to be for Dodo. Edith was disposed to takeit as a personal insult.
* * * * *
Nadine during the days she had spent at Winston had not done muchlooking after Papa Jack, which had been the face-reason of her goingthere; and it is doubtful whether the real reason had found itselffulfilled, since there was substituted for the strain of seeing Hughdaily, the strain of wanting to see him. Dodo, with her own swiftrecuperative powers, and the genius she had for being absorbed in herimmediate surroundings, had not reckoned with Nadine's inferior facilityin this respect, nor had she realized how completely the love which hadat last touched Nadine drained and dominated her whole nature. All herzest for living, all her sensitiveness and intelligence seemed to havebeen, as by some alchemical touch, transformed into the gold which, allher life, had been missing from her. She explained this to Esther, who,with an open-mindedness that might have appeared rather unsisterly,ranged her sympathies in opposition to Seymour.
"How long I shall be able to stop here," she said, "I don't know. Ipromised Mama I would go away for at least a week, unless Hughie wantedme, but after that I think I shall go back whether he wants me or not. Ican't attend to anything else, and last night when I was playingbilliards I carefully put the chalk into my coffee, which is not at allthe sort of thing I usually do. It is very odd: all my life I have beenquite unaware of this one thing, now I am not really aware of anythingelse. You are rather dream-like yourself to me: I am not quite sure ifyou have really happened, or are part of a general background."
"I am not part of any background," said Esther firmly.
"No, so you say; but perhaps it is only the background that tells me so.And I suppose I ought to think a great deal about Seymour. I try to dothat, but when
I've thought about him for about a minute and a quarter,I find my thoughts wander, and I wonder if Hughie has had his beef-teaor not. I do hope that he is not unhappy, but having hoped it, I havefinished with that, and remember that just at this moment Hughie isbeing made comfortable for the night. But do pin me down to Seymour.Did you see him in town, and does he mean to tell me what he thinks?"
"Yes, I saw him. He was exceedingly cross, but I don't think hiscrossness came from temper; it came from his mind's hurting him. He toldme he had meant to come down here and have it out with you, butpresently he said you weren't worth it. So I took your side."
"That was darling of you," said Nadine; "but I am not sure that Seymouris not right."
"How can he be right? You haven't changed towards him."
"Oh, doesn't jilting him make a change?" asked Nadine hopefully.
"No, that is an accident, as I told him. You didn't do it on purpose.You might as well say that to be knocked down by a motor-car is done onpurpose. You get knocked down by Hughie. You hadn't ever loved Seymourat all, and really you said you would marry him largely because youwanted Hughie to stop thinking about you. It was chiefly for Hughie'ssake you said you would marry Seymour, and it was so wonderful of you.Then came another accident and Seymour fell in love with you. I warnedhim when we were on the family improvement tour in the summer that hewas doing rather a risky thing--"
Nadine got up.
"Risky?" she said. "Oh, how risky it is. It is that which makes it sosplendid! You risk everything: you go for it blind. Do you thinkSeymour went for it blind? I don't believe he did. I think he had oneeye open all the time. He couldn't be quite blind I think: hisintelligence would prevent it. And I don't think he would be cross now,if he had been quite blind. So I am not properly sorry for him."
"I went to lunch with him," said Esther. "He ate an enormous lunch,which I suppose is a consoling sign. But then Seymour would eat anenormous breakfast on the morning he was going to be hung. He would feelthat he would never have any more breakfasts, so he would eat one thatwould last forever. I think we have given enough time to Seymour. It ismuch more important that you shouldn't think of me as a background."
Nadine apparently thought differently.
"But I want to be nice to Seymour," she said, "and I don't see how tobegin. And--and he's part of the background, too. He doesn't seem reallyto matter. But if he was really fond of me, like that, it's hateful ofme not to care. But how can I care? I've tried to care every day, andoften twice a day, but--oh, a huge 'but.'"
The two were talking in Dodo's sitting-room, which Nadine had verywisely appropriated. At this moment the door opened, and Seymour stoodthere.
"I made up my mind not to come and see you," he said to Nadine, "andthen I changed it."
Esther sprang up.
"Oh, Seymour, how mean of you," she said, "not to ask Nadine if youmight come."
"Not at all. She was bound to see me. But I didn't come to see you. Youhad better go away."
"If Nadine wishes--" she began.
"It does not matter what Nadine wishes. Nadine, please tell her to go."
Seymour spoke quite quietly, and having spoken he turned aside and lit acigarette he held in his hand. By the time he had finished doing thatthe door had closed behind Esther. He looked round.
"What a charming room!" he said. "But if you are going to sit in a roomlike this, you ought to dress for it."
Nadine felt that all the sorrow she had been conscious of for him wasbeing squeezed out of her. He tiptoed about, now looking at a picture,and now fingering an embroidery. He stopped for a moment opposite aLouis Seize tapestry chair, and gently flicked off it the cigarette ashthat he had let drop there. He looked at the faded crimson of theSpanish silk on the walls, and examined with extreme care a Dutchpicture of a frozen canal with peasants skating, that hung above themantelpiece. There was an Aubonne carpet on the floor, and after oneglance at it he went softly off it, and stood on the hearth-rug.
"I should put three-quarters of this room into a museum," he said, "andthe rest into a dust-bin. You are going to ask me what I should put intothe dust-bin. I should put that sham Watteau picture there, and thatbureau that thinks it is Jacobean."
"And me?" asked Nadine.
"I am not sure. No: I am sure. I don't put you anywhere. I want to knowwhere you put yourself. Perhaps you think you don't owe me anexplanation. But I disagree with you. I think you owe it me. Of course Iknow you haven't got an explanation. But I should like to hear your ideaof one."
Standing on the hearth-rug he pointed his toe as he spoke, looking atthe well-polished shoe that shod it. Nadine was just on the point oftelling him that he was thinking not about her, but about his shoe, buthe was too quick for her.
"Of course I'm thinking about my shoe," he said. "I was wondering how itis that Antoinette polishes shoes better than any one in the world."
"Is that what you have come to talk about?" asked Nadine.
"That is a very foolish question, Nadine. You have quibbled andchattered so incessantly that sometimes I think you can do nothing else.You might retort with a _tu quoque_, but it would not be true. I wascapable anyhow of falling in love with you, I regret to say."
Seymour paused a moment, and then raised his eyes, which had beensteadily regarding the masterpieces of Antoinette, to Nadine.
"I am wrong: I don't regret it," he said.
Suddenly his sincerity and his reality reached and touched Nadine. Hestepped out of the background, so to speak, and stood firmly andauthentically beside her.
"I regret it very much," she said, "and I am as powerless to help you,as I am to help myself."
"You seem to have been helping yourself pretty freely," said he in asudden exasperation. But she, usually so quick to flare into flame, feltno particle of resentment.
"There is no good in saying that," she said.
"I did not mean there to be. Good? I did not come down here to do yougood."
"Why did you come? Just to reproach me?"
"Partly."
Again Seymour paused.
"I came chiefly in order to look at you," he said at length. "You arequite as beautiful as ever, you may like to know."
It was as if a further light had been turned on him, making him clearerand more real. She had confessed to Esther her inability to be "properlysorry" for him, but now found herself not so incapable.
"I can't help either you or myself," she said again. "We have both beentaken in control by something outside ourselves, which never happened toeither of us before. You feel that I have behaved atrociously to you,and any one you ask would agree with you. But the atrocity wasnecessary. I couldn't help it. Only you must not think that I am notsorry for the effect that such necessity has had on you. I regret itvery much. But if you ask me whether I am ashamed of myself, I answerthat I am not."
She went on with growing rapidity and animation.
"If you have been in love with me, Seymour," she said, "you willunderstand that, for you will know that compulsion has been put upon me.How was it any longer possible for me to marry you, when I fell in lovewith Hughie? I jilted you: it is a word quite hideous, like flirt, butjust as never in my life did I flirt, so I have not jilted you in thehideous sense. It was not because I was tired of you, or had a fancy forsome one else. There was no getting away from what happened. Hughieenveloped me. My walls fell down, and went to Jericho. It wasn't myfault. The trumpets blew, just that."
"And in walked Hugh," said Seymour.
"I am not sure about that," said Nadine. "I think he was there all thetime, walled up."
Seymour was silent a moment.
"How is he?" he asked.
"He is going on well. They do not know more than that yet. He is gettingover the concussion, but they cannot tell yet whether he will be able towalk again."
"And are you going to marry him in any case, if he is a cripple, Imean?" he asked.
"If Hughie will have me. I daresay I shall propose to him, and berefused, jus
t as used to happen the other way round in the old days. Oh,I know what his soul is like so well! He will say that he will not letme spend all my life looking after a cripple. But I shall have my way inthe end. I am much stronger than he."
Seymour saw and understood the change in her face when she spoke ofHugh. Admirable as her beauty always was, he had not dreamed that suchtender transformation could come to it, or that it was capable ofassuming so inward-burning and devoted a quality and yet shining withits habitual brilliance uneclipsed. The love which he had dreamed wouldsome day awake there for him, he saw now in the first splendor of itsdawning, and from it he could guess what would be the glory of its fullnoonday, and with how celestial a ray she would shine on her lover. Forthe moment it seemed to him not to matter that it was another, not he,on whom that dawn should break, for whom it should grow to noonday, andsink at last in the golden West of a life truly and lovingly livedwithout fear of the lengthening shadows and the night that mustinevitably close as it had preceded it; for by the power of his ownlove, he could detach himself from himself, and though only momentlyreach that summit of devotion far below which, remote and insignificant,lies the mere husk and shell of the world that spins through theillimitable azure. So Dante saw the face of Beatrice, when he passedinto the sweetness of the Earthly Paradise, and there came to him shewhom the chariot with its harnessed griffins drew. And not otherwise, inhis degree and hers, Seymour looked now at Nadine's face, glorified andmade tender by her love, and in the perception that his own love gavehim, he hailed and adored it....
"I came to scold and reproach," he said, "but I also came just to seeyou, to look at you. There is no harm in that. And if there is I can'thelp it. Nadine, I used to wonder what you would look like when youloved. You have shown me that. I--I didn't guess. There's a poem byBrowning which ends 'Those who win heaven, blest are they.' The man whospeaks was just in my case. But he managed to say that. I say it too,very quickly, because I know this unnatural magnanimity won't last. Iagree with all you have said: it wasn't your fault. I hope you won't betied to a cripple all your life, or, if he has to be a cripple, I hopeyou will be tied to him. There! I've said it, and it is true, but itrather reminds me of holding my breath. Give me a kiss, please, and thenI'll climb swiftly down out of this rarefied atmosphere."
He kissed her on the mouth, as his right had been, and for a moment heldher to him in an embrace more intimate than he had ever yet claimed fromher. Edith, it may be remembered, had once seen him kiss her, and hadpronounced it an anemic salutation. But it was not anemic now: his bloodwas alert and virile; its quality was not inferior to that which, oneday in the summer, made Hugh seize her wrists, demanding the annulmentof the profanation of her marriage with Seymour. In both, too, was thesame fierceness of farewell.
For a few seconds Seymour held her close to him, and felt her neithershrink from him nor respond. Her willing surrender to his right was theutmost she could give, and he knew there was nothing else for him.
And then he proceeded to descend from what he had called the rarefiedatmosphere with the speed of a yet-unopened parachute.
"Damn Hugh," he said. "Yes, damn him. For God's sake, don't tell him Iasked after him, or hoped he was getting better. I don't want him todie, since I don't suppose that would do me any good, nor do I want himto be crippled for life, since that also would be quite useless afterwhat you have told me. But if you said to him that I had asked afterhim, I should sink into the earth for shame. He would think it noble andnice of me, and I'm not noble or nice. I should hate to be thoughteither. His good opinion of me would make me choke and retch. I shouldnot be able to sleep if I thought Hugh was thinking well of me. So holdyour tongue."
Nadine had never been able quite to keep pace with Seymour: she alwayslagged a little behind, just as Hugh lagged so much more behind her. Shewas still gasping from the violence of his seizure of her, when he haddescended, so to speak, a thousand feet or so. Tenderness still clungabout her like soaked raiment.
"Oh, Seymour," she said. "I didn't realize you felt like that: I didn't,really. What are you going to do?"
His clever handsome face wore an uncompromising look, but there washumor in his eyes.
"I may take to drink," he said, "like your angelic father. Very likely Ishan't, because I notice that it spoils your breakfast if you areintoxicated the evening before. I shall certainly try to get some morejade, and I shan't marry Antoinette, because she is buxom. If I marry, Ishall marry some girl who reminds me of asparagus, like you. Not thestout French asparagus, of course, but the lean English variety. Ishould not wonder if I came to your wedding, and wrote an account of itto a ladies' newspaper. I shall say you were looking hideous. I haven'tgot any other plans, except to go away from this place. You are a sortof chucker-out, Nadine, at Winston. You chucked out Hugh in the summer,and now in the winter you chuck me out. You are a vampire, I think. Yousuck people dry, and then you throw them away like orange skins. Don'targue with me: if you argued I should become rude. I was rude to AuntDodo the other day, when she showed me you sleeping on the floor byHugh's bed. It was a sickening spectacle: I told her so at the time, andI tell you so now."
Poor complicated Nadine! Her complications had been canceled like vulgarfractions, and she was left in a state of the most deplorablesimplicity. There was a numerator, and that was Hugh; there was a noughtbelow and that was she. The simplest arithmetician could see that thenought "went into" the numerator an infinite number of times. Theresult was that there was Hugh and nothing else at all. Her surrenderedreply indicated this: it indicated also her knowledge of it.
"But it was Hughie there," she said.
And then suddenly Seymour's unexpanded parachute opened, and he floatedin liquid air, with the azure encompassing him.
"Your Hughie," he said.
"Mine," said Nadine.
There came an interruption. A footman entered with a telegram which hegave to Nadine. And once again the ineffable light came into her face,coming from below, transfiguring it.
"That's from the cripple," said Seymour unerringly.
She passed him the words Hugh had written that morning. They could nothave been simpler, nor could he, by any expenditure of separatehalf-pennies have said more.
"Come back," he had written, "important. Good news."
Seymour got up.
"So you are going," he said.
Nadine did not seem to hear this. She addressed the footman.
"Tell them to send round the Napier car at once," she said.
"Yes, Miss. But his lordship ordered the Napier to meet the shooters--"
"Has it gone?"
"No, Miss: it was to pick up Lady Esther--"
"Then I want it at once, instead. I am going to start instantly. Tellthem to send the car round at once. And tell my maid to pack a bag forme, and follow with the rest of my luggage."
"Yes, Miss. Where to, shall I say?"
"Meering, of course. She will go by train."
She turned her unclouded radiance to Seymour again, and held out bothher hands.
"Oh, Seymour," she said. "I feel such a brute, such a brute. But it's mynature to."
"Clearly. Go and put on your hat."
"Will you let me hear of you sometimes?" she asked.
"I don't see why I should write to you, if you mean that," he said.
"Nor do I, now I come to think of it. I made a conventional observation.Will you let them know if you want lunch, or want to be taken to thestation?"
"Yes. Thanks. Good-by. And good luck."
She lingered one moment more.
"Thank you," she said. "And don't think of me without remembering I amsorry."
* * * * *
It was still an hour short of sunset when the car emerged from themountainous inland on to the coast. The plain and the line of sand-dunesthat bordered the sea slept under a haze of golden winter sun; a fewwisps of light cloud hung round the slopes of Snowdon, but otherwise thesky was of pale unflecked bl
ue, from rim to rim, and the sea was asuntroubled as the turquoise vault which it reflected. Though January hadstill a half-dozen of days to run, a hint and promise of spring was inthe air, and Nadine sat in the open car unchilled by its headlongpassage. They had taken but five hours to come from the midlands, andthey seemed to have passed for her in one throb of eager consciousness,so that she looked bewildered to find that the familiar landmarks ofhome were close about her, and that they were already close to theirjourney's end. Soon they began to climb out of the plain again up theoutlying flank of hill that formed the south end of the bay, andculminated in the steep bluff of rock at the top of which she and Hughhad sat and quarreled and been reconciled on the morning of the gale.To-day no tumult of maddened water beat at the base of it, nor didthunder of surges break into spray and flying foam, and the line of reefthat ran out from it lay, with its huge scattered rocks, as quiet as aherd of sea-beasts grazing. As they got higher she could see over thesand-dunes the beach itself; no ramparts and towers of surf or ruins ofshattered billows fringed it now; a child could have played on that zoneof shattering and resistless forces. Of its dangers and menaces nothingwas left; the great gift that it had brought to Nadine's heart aloneremained, and flowered there like the rose-pink almond blossom inspring. Nature had healed where she had hurt, and what had seemed but ablind and wanton stroke, had proved to be the smiting of the rock, sothat the spring burst forth, and rivers ran in the dry places.
The house, gray and welcoming, stood dozing in the afternoon sun, andNadine, suddenly conscious that they had arrived without a halt, said acontrite word to the chauffeur on the subject of lunch. She recollectedalso that she had sent no reply to Hugh's telegram, and that her arrivalwould be unexpected. Unexpected it certainly was, and Dodo, who had justseen Edith off to play golf better than anybody else had ever done,jumped up with a scream as she entered.
"But, my darling, is it you?" she cried. "We have been expecting to hearfrom you, but seeing is better than hearing. Oh, Nadine, such news! Ofcourse you guess it, so I shall not tell you, as it is unnecessary, andbesides Hughie must do that. He has been shaved, and looks quite cleanand young again. Will you go up to see him at once? Perhaps it isequally unnecessary to ask that. Shall I come up with you? My darling,there's a third unnecessary question. Of course I shall do nothing ofthe kind. Ask the great grenadier if you may go in to him without hisbeing told you are coming. It might be rather a shock, but personally Ibelieve shocks of joy are always good for one. At least they have neverhurt me. Go upstairs, dear, and after an unreasonable time you mightring for me."
The nurse's room was a dressing-room attached to the bedroom where Hughlay. Nadine went in through this, and the door into the room beyondbeing open, she saw that Nurse Bryerley was in there. At this momentshe looked up and saw Nadine. She turned towards Hugh's bed.
"Here's a visitor for you," she said, and beckoned to Nadine to enter.She heard Hugh ask "Who?" in a voice that sounded somehow expectant, andshe went in. In the doorway she passed Nurse Bryerley coming out, andthe door closed behind her.
Hugh had raised himself on his elbow in bed, and the light in his eyesshowed that, though he had asked who his visitor was, his heart knew. Heneither spoke nor moved while Nadine came across the room to hisbedside. Then in a whisper:
"It is Nadine," he said.
She knelt down by the bed.
"Yes, Hughie. You wanted me," she said.
"I always want you," he answered.
For a moment Nadine hid her face in her hands without replying. Then sheraised it again to him.
"Hughie, you have always got me," she said.
She drew that beloved head down to hers.
* * * * *
"And the news?" she said presently.
"Oh, that!" said Hugh. "It's only that I am going to get quite well andstrong again. That's all."
CHAPTER XIV
Dodo was sitting in her room in Jack's house in Eaton Square, onemorning towards the end of May, being moderately busy. She was trying toengage in a very intimate conversation with her husband, andsimultaneously to conduct communication through the telephone, to smokea cigarette, and to write letters. Considering the complicated nature ofthe proceeding viewed as a whole, she was getting on fairly well, butoccasionally became a little mixed up in her mind, and spoke of intimatethings to Jack in the determined telephone voice habitually used, orpuffed cigarette smoke violently into the receiver. She had just donethis and apologized to the Central exchange.
"I never knew you could send smoke down a telephone," remarked Jack.
"Double one two four Gerrard," said Dodo. "In these days of modernscience you can't tell what is going to happen, and it's well toanticipate anything. No, you fool, I mean Miss, I said double one twofour, eleven hundred and twenty four, if that makes it simpler. As I wassaying, Jack, I don't see why I shouldn't stop in town, and have my babyhere. You can put lots of straw down, like Margery Daw, and that alwayslooks so interesting. I should like to have straw down permanently, whydon't we? Darling, how are you, and as Jack's going out to lunch, and Ishall be quite alone, do come round--"
Dodo's face suddenly became seraphically blank.
"Oh, are you?" she said. "Then will you tell Mrs. Arbuthnot that I hopeshe will come round to lunch with Lady Chesterford. Jack, I said allthat to Edith's footman, who always smiles at me. I wonder if he willcome to lunch instead, and say I asked him, which after all is quitetrue. But Edith talks so much like a man, that of course I thought itwas she, whereas it was he. Yes, I don't see why I should go down toWinston for it. Babies born in London are just as healthy as babies bornin Staffordshire, and people will drop in more easily afterwards.Besides I must go to Nadine's wedding if I possibly can. It would belike reading a story that you know quite well is going to end happily,and finding that the last chapter of all, which you have been saving upfor, so to speak, is torn out. I shall have the most enormous lump in mythroat when I see her and Hughie go up to the altar-rails together, andI love lumps in the throat. Don't you? I don't mean quinzy."
"I'll tell you all about the last chapter," said Jack.
"That would be very dear of you, but it wouldn't be the same thing atall. I want to see it, to see Hugh walking as if he had never beensmashed into ten thousand smithereens, and Nadine, as if she had neverthought about anybody else since her cradle. Oh, by the way, they havesettled at last that they would like to go on the yacht for theirhoneymoon. They are both bad sailors, but I suppose there are lots ofharbors or breakwaters about, and they think it is the only plan bywhich they can be certain of being undisturbed. If it is rough, theywill find a sort of pleasure in being sick into one basin: I reallythink they will. They are in that sort of foolishness, that whateverthey do together will be in the Garden of Eden. And they are justforty-five years old between them which is exactly what I am all bymyself. It seems quite a coincidence, though I have no idea what itcoincides with. So let them have the yacht, Jack, as you suggested, andthe moon will be lovely, honey, and they will be exceedingly unwell!"
Dodo finished her letter, and having telephoned enough for the present,came and sat in a chair by her husband, in order to continue theintimate conversation.
"Jack, dear," she said, "I never do behave quite like anybody else, asyou have known, poor wretch, for I don't know how many years. So youmust be prepared for surprises when I give you that darling David.Something ridiculous will happen. There'll be two or three of them, andthe papers will say I have had a litter, or I shall die, or David willarrive quite unexpectedly like a flash of lightning, and I shall say,'Good heavens, David, is it you?' I should be exceedingly annoyed if Idied--"
"So should I," said Jack.
"I really believe you would. But it would be more annoying for me,because however nice the next world is going to be, I haven't hadenough of this. I want years and years more, because eternity is therejust the same, and if I live to be a hundred there won't be anything theless of that. Eternity is saf
e, so to speak: it is invested in the bank,but time is just pocket-money, of which you always say I want such alot. Eternity will always be on tap, or else it wouldn't be eternal. Butthis particular brew will come to an end, and I shall be so sorry whenthe last gurgle sounds, and one knows there is no more. It couldn't comemore nicely, if when it sounded, I had given you a son. I can't imagineany nicer way to die. On the other hand, there's no reason anywhere nearas nice for living."
Jack put a great hand on her arm.
"Dodo, if you talk about dying, I shall be--shall be as sick as Hughieand Nadine together," he said.
"Oh, don't. But you see since we are us--is that right?--there isnothing I can't say to you, because I am only talking to myself. Iwonder if I had better write a quantity of letters to my son, as somewoman, I believe a spinster, did. David shall read them when he haslearned how to read. Oh, I could tell him so well how to make love, Iknow exactly what women like a man to be. Luckily, so few men reallyknow it, otherwise the world would go round much quicker, and we shouldall be blown off it. Oh, Jack, fancy a woman who had never known whatchild-bearing meant attempting to describe it! You might as well sitdown at your bureau and write letters to David."
"I could write jolly good ones," said Jack serenely.
"I am sure they would be excellent, but they would be nonsense from theother's point of view. It is so holy--so holy! Once it wasn't holy tome; it was merely a bore. Then, when Nadine was born, it was not holy,but very exciting, and hugely delightful. But now it is holy."
Dodo put up her foot, and kicked Jack's knee.
"It's yours, as well as mine," she said. "Poor dear holy Jack. But Ilove you; that makes such a difference."
Jack caught Dodo's foot in his hand.
"Oh, Jack, let go," she said. "It's bad for me."
Instantly his fingers relaxed; and a look of agonized apology came overhis face. Dodo laughed.
"Oh, Jack, you silly old woman," she said. "It is so easy to take youin."
But her laughter quickly ceased, and she became quite grave again.
"I don't want you to be as sick as Nadine and Hughie combined," shecried, "but I should like to make a few cheerful remarks about dying.We've all got to do it, and it doesn't make it any closer to talk aboutit. It's a pity we can't practise it, so as to be able to do it nicely,but it's one performance only, without rehearsals, unless you die dailylike St. Paul. I don't think I shall do it at all solemnly ortragically, Jack, for it would not be the least in keeping with my lifeto have one tragic scene at the end. Nor would it suit the rest of mylife to be frightened at it. You see if we all held hands and stood ina row and said, 'One, two, three, now we'll die,' it wouldn't be at allalarming. And then you see from a religious point of view, God has beensuch a brick--is that profane? I don't think it is--such a brick to meall my life, that it seems most unlikely that He won't see me through.Jack, dear, you look depressed. I won't talk about it any more. I shallvery likely out-live you, and I shall be such a comfort to you when youare dying. I shall be exceedingly annoyed, just as you said you would beif I did it, but, oh, my dear, I shall say _au revoir_ to you with sucha stout heart, and when I pass through the valley of the shadow myselfhow I shall look for your dear gray eyes to welcome me. It will beinteresting! And now, as they say at the end of sermons, I must getready to go out with Nadine. I promised to go out with her for an hourbefore lunch. Pull me up, and give me a chaste salute on my marble brow.What a good invention you are! It would be worse than going back to thedays of hansoms and four-wheelers to be without you. Without undueflattery, it would!"
Dodo's slight attack of seriousness evaporated completely, and havingtried the effect of her hat, which comprised, so she said, the entireflora and fauna of Brazil, on Jack's head, put it on her own, and sent amessage to Nadine that she had been waiting an hour and a half.
"But Hughie shall not come out with us," she said, "since he and Nadinedon't pay the smallest attention to me, when they are together, and Ifeel alone in London. Besides, Nadine has to buy things that younggentlemen don't know anything about--and here you are at last, mydarling Nadine, but I'm not going to take your darling with us, any morethan he takes you to his haberdasher, or whoever it is sells that sortof thing. Don't look cross, Hughie, because Jack's going to let you havethe yacht, and you and Nadine can be unwell to your heart's content. Goand sulk at your club, dear, for an hour, and then you come back tolunch, and stop for tea and dinner if you like. But the obduracy of youresteemed mother-in-law elect on the subject of the drive is quiteinvincible. Dear me, what beautiful language!"
Nadine and her mother did their errands, and as only Edith was going tolunch with them, who was almost invariably half-an-hour late, but who,if she arrived in time, would be quite certain to begin lunch withoutthem, they prolonged their outing by a turn in the Park. The morning wasof that exquisite tempered heat that lies midway between the uncertainwarmth of spring and the fierceness of true midsummer weather, andfollowing, as it did, on a week of rainy days had brought out bothcrowds and flowers. The little green seats and shady alleys were full ofkaleidoscopic color from hats and parasols and summer dresses, and morestable than these, but hardly less brilliant, were the clumps offull-flowered rhododendrons and beds of blossomings. The dust had beenlaid on the roads, and washed from the angled planes, and summer sat inthe lap of spring. Summer and spring too, as it were, sat side by sidein Dodo's motor, and who could say which was the more glorious, themother in the splendor of her full-blown life, or Nadine, that exquisiteopening bud, still dewy in the morning of her days, no wild-flower, butmore like an orchid, fragrant and subtle and complex. All that stillremained to her: she would never be wild-rose or honeysuckle, in spiteof the big simple human love which had come to her, and daily spranghigher, flame-like.
To-day neither paid much attention to the crowd that contained so manyfriends. Occasionally Dodo blew a sudden gale of kissed finger-tips atsome especially beloved face, but the smile that never left her face,though it did duty for general salutation, was really inspired fromwithin. Her daughter's awakening was a deep joy to Dodo.
"You and Hughie and Jack and I ought to be stuffed and put in the SouthKensington Museum, darling," she said, "as curious survivals ofabsolutely happy people, who are getting exceedingly rare. I shouldutter a few words of passionate protest when the executioner and thetaxidermist arrived, but I think I should consent for the good of thenation in general."
Nadine disagreed altogether.
"We are much more useful alive," she said, "because we're infectious. Orwould our broad fatuous grins be infectious when we were stuffed? Oh,there's Seymour, Mama. Do kiss your hand violently, because it wouldn'tbe suitable for me to. I can only smile regretfully."
"But you don't regret," said Dodo, after giving him a perfect volley ofkissed finger-tips.
"No, but only because I can't. My will regrets. He has sent me a lovelynecklace of jade, with a little label, 'Jade for the jade,' on it. So Ithink he must feel better, as it's a sort of joke. I wrote him quite anice little note, and said how dear it would be of him to come to mywedding, if he felt up to it."
Dodo giggled.
"My dear, that is exactly what I should have done at your age," shesaid. "But I think I should have kissed my hand to him just now, andpeople would certainly have thought you heartless, if you had, justbecause they have got great wooden hearts themselves, accuratelyregulated, that pump exactly sixty times in a minute, neither more norless. You do feel kindly and warmly to poor Seymour, and you trust he isgetting over it. About stuffing us, now. I'm not quite sure I shouldstuff Papa Jack. He's anxious about me, poor old darling, as if at myage I didn't know how to have a baby properly. I talked about dying alittle, which upset him, I'm afraid, though it wasn't in the least meantto. My dear, to think that in ten days from now you'll be married!Nadine, I do look forward to being a grandmama: I want to be lots ofgrandmamas, if you see what I mean. Then there'll be Papa Hughie, andPapa Jack, and look, there's Papa Waldenech. I never kne
w he was intown. We must stop a moment: I have not seen him since he came uninvitedto my ball in the autumn, a little bit on. Ah, what a fool I am: hemeant me not to tell you, so bear in mind that I haven't. Waldenech, mydear, what a surprise!"
They drew up at the curb, and he came to the carriage-door, hat in hand,courteous, distinguished and evil.
"I have just come from Paris," he said. "It is charming of you towelcome me. Nadine, too. Nadine, is your father to be allowed to come toyour wedding? May I--"
Dodo had half-risen to greet him, and he saw the lines of her figure. Hebroke off short.
"You are going to be a mother again?" he said.
"Yes, my dear, but you needn't tell the Albert Memorial about it," saidshe. "And of course you may come to Nadine's wedding. I had no notionyou would be in England."
He appeared to pay not the slightest attention to this--but looked ather eagerly, hungrily, at those wonderful brown eyes, at the stillyouthful oval of her face, at the mouth he had so often kissed.
"My God, you are a beautiful woman!" he said. "And you used to be mine!"
Then he turned abruptly, and walked straight away from them withoutanother glance. Dodo looked after him in silence a moment, frowning andsmiling together.
"Poor old chap: it was a shock to him somehow," she said. "But he'll goback to the Ritz and steady himself. How old he has got to look,Nadine."
But Nadine had the frown without the smile.
"I didn't like the way he went off," she said. "He didn't give anotherthought to my wedding, Mama, after he saw. He looked hungry for you, andhe looked horrible. He admired you so enormously. He was thinking ofwhat he had lost and what Papa Jack had gained. And I felt frightened ofhim, just as I felt frightened one night when I was very little, and hecame stumbling into the nursery, and wanted to say good-night to me. Iremember my nurse tried to turn him out, and he looked as if he wouldhave murdered her. Poor Daddy isn't a nice man, you know."
But Nadine looked more puzzled than vexed.
Dodo's frown had quite cleared away. She was far too essentially happyto mind little surface disturbances.
"Poor old Daddy," she said. "He was startled, darling, and when peopleare startled they look like themselves, that is all, and Daddy isn'tquite nice, any more than the rest of us are. But it was rather sweet ofhim to want to go to your wedding. I hope he will be sober. He willprobably want to kiss us all in the vestry, all of us except Jack. Ishall certainly kiss him, if he shows the slightest wish that I shoulddo so. But he might be nasty to Jack. Perhaps we had better not tellJack he is here. It might make him anxious again, like when I talkedabout death this morning. Oh, Nadine, look at those delicious horses,cantering along, and praising God because they feel so strong and young!What a rotten seat that man has: oh, of course he has, because he'sBerts. How he fidgets his horse--Berts, dear--"
And Dodo blew a shower of kisses on the end of her fingers.
Nadine's enjoyment in this liquid air had been suddenly extinguished.She herself hardly knew why, but her lowered pleasure she felt to beconnected with her father. She tried, very sensibly, to get rid of it byspeech, for the unreal thing when spoken, became so fantasticallyabsurd.
"Was Daddy ever very jealous about you?" she asked.
Dodo recalled her mind from the tragedy of Berts riding so badly.
"But violently pea-green with it," she said, "so that sometimes I didn'tknow if I could say good-morning to the butler in safety. That was inthe early days, and I am bound to confess that he got over it. Afterthat came my turn to be jealous, but I never took my turn, for betweenthe particular old brandy and Mademoiselle Chose, if you understand,poor Daddy became entirely impossible. But for auld lang syne I shallcertainly kiss him in the vestry after your wedding, and he shall signhis name if he feels up to it."
Dodo's face recovered all its radiance.
"And he was the father who begot you," she said. "How can I ever forgetthat, you joy of mine? I should be a beast if I wanted to. But he didlook rather wicked just now. I think we had better turn, or Edith willhave finished lunch and gone away."
* * * * *
Waldenech's appearance did not belie him: he both looked and felt verywicked indeed. The sight of Dodo so soon to become the mother of anotherman's child had caused to break out into hideous activity a volcano thathad long smoldered under the slag and ashes of his drunken and debaucheddays, and he flamed with a jealousy the more passionate because it hadso long slumbered. He felt confused and bewildered by the violence ofthis unexpected passion, and, as Dodo had said, he felt he must steadyhimself. He wanted to think clearly and constructively, to determineexactly what he must do, and how he must do it. At present he knew onlyof one necessity, that, even as he had taken Dodo away from Jack yearsago, so now he must take Jack away from Dodo. The particular old brandy,taken in sufficient quantities, would clear his head, and enable him tothink out ways and means.
He shut himself into his sitting-room at the Ritz, and by degrees themonstrous nightmare-like lucidity that alcohol brings to heavy drinkersbrightened in his brain, and he sat there emancipated from all morallaws, and thought clearly and connectedly, seeing himself and hisdesires as the legitimate center of all existence; nothing else andnobody else could be reckoned with. His jealousy that had shot flamingup, no longer flared and flickered: it shone with a steady andtremendous light, a beacon to guide him, and show him the way he mustfollow. What should happen to himself he did not care, nor did it enterinto his calculations: most likely it would be better when he hadaccounted for Jack to account for himself also. That would arrangeitself: he would see, when the time came, how he felt about it. And thetime had better be soon, for there was no reason for delay. But hepushed away from him a glass which he had just refilled: he had drunkhimself steady, and knew that if he went on he would drink himselfmaudlin and confused again. It would have been strange if by this timehe did not know the stages, even as a man knows the stairs in his ownhouse.
He sat still a moment longer, rehearsing in his mind what he had takenso long to construct. He would go to the house in Eaton Square, so thatDodo would be there, and he would see her look on what he had done. Tomake the picture complete that touch was necessary, though he did notwant to hurt her. Then he would have finished with them, and wouldfinish with himself, instead of waiting for the farce of a trial, andthe ignominy of what must follow.
The afternoon had already waned, and looking at his watch he saw that itwas after seven. That was a suitable hour to go on his errand, for itwas probable that Jack would be at home now, soon to dress for dinner.As he got up to get from his despatch-box the revolver that he knew wasthere, he saw the glass of brandy which a little while ago he had pushedaway from him, still standing there, and from habit merely he drank itoff. Then he put the weapon, completely loaded, into his pocket, andtook one more look round before leaving the room. Somehow deep down inhim, and smothered and shadowed, was some vague repugnance towards whathe was going to do, and once more, forgetful of his resolution not totrespass on the steadiness of nerves the spirit brought him, he refilledand emptied his glass. That, he felt sure, would soon stifle anyconflicting voices within him. His plan was actively seated in hisbrain; inertia, almost, would achieve it.
He had been indoors all the afternoon, and an instinct for fresh air andthe evening breeze caused him to go on foot across the Green Park. Theair was fresh but coldish, and it or the extra brandy he had just takenseemed quickly to harmonize and quiet that vague jangle of repugnancethat twanged discordantly in his mind, and he became reconciled tohimself again. But the wish not to hurt Dodo became rather morepronounced in his poor fuddled brain. He had to kill Jack, but he hopedshe would not mind very much: he could make her understand surely thathe was obliged to do it. He had always been devoted to her, even when hemost outraged the merest decencies of their married life, and thismorning the sight of her glorious beauty had wakened not jealousy only.She was superb in her wonderful womanhood: she was mor
e beautiful nowthan she had ever been, and Nadine was not fit to sit beside her.
It was with surprise that he saw he had come to the house. A motor wasat the door, which stood open. On the pavement there was a footmanbearing a coat and hat, holding a rug in his hand: another, bareheaded,stood by the door. Waldenech told himself that he had come veryopportunely, for it was clear that they would soon come out.
He hesitated a moment, swaying a little where he stood, not certainwhether he should just wait for them, or go into the house. Soon hedecided to take this latter course, for it was possible that Dodo orNadine might be going without Jack, and seeing him standing there wouldask him what he wanted. That risked his whole plan: they might suspectsomething, and with one hand in his coat pocket, where his fingersgrasped the thing he had brought with him, he went up the three stepsthat led to the front door.
"Is Lord Chesterford in?" he asked.
"Yes, sir. But his Lordship is just going out," said the man.
"Please tell him that Prince Waldenech would like to speak to him. Ishall not detain his Lordship more than a moment!"
* * * * *
Dodo and her husband had dined early, for they were going to the operawhich began at eight, and at this moment the dining-room door, whichopened on to the back of the hall opposite the staircase, was thrownopen, and Waldenech heard Dodo's voice.
"Come on, Jack," she said, "or we shall miss the overture which is thebest part, and you will say it is my fault."
She came quickly round the corner, resplendent and jeweled, and saw hisfigure with its back to the light that came in through the open door, sothat for half-a-second she did not recognize him. Simultaneously, Jackcame out of the dining-room just behind her. As he came out he turned upthe electric light in the hall which had not been lit, and she sawWaldenech's face. And at the moment he took out of his pocket what hisright hand was fingering.
"Stand aside, Dodo," he said rather thickly. "It is not for you."
Not more than half-a-dozen paces separated them, and for answer Dodowalked straight up to him, with arms outstretched so that he could notpass her, screening Jack. She was menacing as a Greek fury, beautiful asthe dawn, dominant as the sun.
"You coward and murderer," she said. "Give me that."
For one half-second he stood nerveless and irresolute, his poor soddenwits startled into sobriety by the power and glory of her, and without amoment's hesitation she seized the revolver that was pointed straight ather, and tore it from his hand. By a miracle of good luck it did not gooff.
"Out of the house," she cried, "for I swear to you that in anothersecond I will shoot you like a dog. Did you think you would frighten me?Frighten me! you drunken brute."
She stood there like some splendid wild animal at bay, absolutelyfearless and irresistible. Without a single word, he turned, andshuffled out into the street again.
"Shut the door," said Dodo to the footman.
Then suddenly and unmistakably she felt the life within her stir, and astart of blinding pain shot through her. So short had been the wholescene that Jack hurrying after her had only just reached her side, whenshe dropped the revolver, and laid her arms on his shoulders, leaning onhim with all her weight.
"Jack, my time has come," she said. "Oh, glory to God, my dear!"
* * * * *
Just as dawn began to brighten in the sky, Dodo's baby was born, andsoon made a lusty announcement that he lived. Presently Jack wasadmitted for a moment just to see his son, and then went out again towait. It was but a couple of hours afterwards that he was again sent forby a well-pleased nurse.
"I never saw such vitality," said this excellent woman. "It's like whatthey tell about the gipsies."
Dodo was lying propped up in bed, and her baby was at her breast. Shegave Jack a brilliant smile of welcome.
"Oh, Jack, you and David and I!" she said. "Was there ever such afamily? I may talk to you for five minutes, and then David and I aregoing to sleep. But about last night. I don't know how much the servantssaw, or what they know, but Waldenech came here to shoot you. He wasdrunk, poor wretch, he couldn't face me for a moment. It was such adeplorable failure that I feel sure he won't try it again, but I shouldbe happier if he left England. See your solicitor about it, have himthreatened if he doesn't go. Do that this morning, dear, and when I wakebe able to tell me he has gone. And now, oh, you and David and I! Itold you I should behave in some unusual manner, but I didn't thinkWaldenech would be concerned in it. Jack, kiss the top of David'sadorable head, but don't disturb him. And then, my dearest, kiss me, andI shall instantly go to sleep. And neither Waldenech nor I will be ableto go to Nadine's wedding, but my reason for not going is much thenicest. Isn't it, oh my David?"
* * * * *
About ten o'clock Jack went out to do as Dodo had bidden him, andpreferring to walk, crossed the Green Park, and went through the arcadefronting the Ritz Hotel. He had forgotten to ask Dodo where Waldenechwas staying, but fancied that when he was in England last winter, he hadstopped here. So he went through the revolving-door, and into theBureau.
"Is Prince Waldenech stopping here?" he asked.
The clerk looked down to consult the register of guests before heanswered:
"His Serene Highness left for Paris this morning."
THE END
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