Lucy's eyes concentrated; they shone. "Who is your sentimental idiot? I haven't the least notion what you mean."

"I mean Francis Lingen, of course. You must admit— Oh," and he nipped her indignation in the bud, "I know you won't misunderstand me. I am not at all a fool. You are kindness itself, generosity itself. But there it is. He's an ass, and there's really nothing more to say."

Lucy was mollified. She was, indeed, amused after the first flash. Remembering the James of a week ago, the eager wooer of the dark, she was able to be playful with a little jealousy. But if he could have known—or if she had cared to tell him—what she had been thinking of on Sunday afternoon when Francis purred to her about himself and sought her advice how best to use his ten thousand of Urquhart's pounds—well, James would have understood, that's all!

So she laughed. "Poor Francis Lingen! He is not very wise. But I must say that your honour is perfectly safe with me."

"My dear child—" said James, frowning.

"No, no, I shall go on. It will do you good. There is one thing you may always be quite sure of, dear, and that is that the more Francis Lingen is a goose, the less likely I am to encourage him in goosery, if there is such a word."

James pished, but she pursued him. Mabel was announced, up from the country to dine and sleep. The Parthian shot was delivered actually on the way to Mabel's embrace. "But I'm flattered to see you jealous—please understand that. I should like you to be jealous of the chair I sit on."

James was hurt and uncomfortable. He thought all this rank form. And Mabel—the bright and incisive Mabel with her high hunting colour—made it much worse. "What! Is James jealous? Oh, how perfectly splendid! Is he going to give secret orders to Crewdson not to admit Mr.—? As they do in plays at the St. James's? Oh, James, do tell me whom you darkly suspect? Caesar's wife! My dear and injured man—" James writhed, but he was in the trap. You may be too trenchant, it would seem, and your cleaver stick fast in the block.

It behooved him to take a strong line. This kind of raillery must be stopped. He must steer between the serious and the flippant. He hated to be pert; on the other hand, to be solemn would be offensive to Lucy—which he would not be. For James was a gentleman. "Mabel, my dear, you stretch the privileges of a guest—" a promising beginning, he thought; but Lucy pitied him plunging there, and cut all short by a way of her own. "Oh, Mabel, you are a goose. Come and take your things off, and tell me all about Peltry, and the hunting, and the new horse. Mr. Urquhart told me he was going to stay with you. Is he? I'm so glad you like him. Lancelot and I highly approve. I must show you Lancelot's letter about him. He calls him the polligamous pirate—with two l's of course."

"Yes," said James, who had recovered his composure, "yes, my dear; but he gives you the accent in polis."

"Does he though? I'm afraid that was beyond me." She paused to beam at James. "That pleases you?"

"It's a sign of grace, certainly." So the squall blew over.

James was dining out somewhere, so the sisters had a short dinner and a very long evening by the fire. Lucy dallied with her great news until Crewdson had served the coffee—then out it came, with inordinate and delightful delicacy of approach. Mabel's eyes throughout were fixed upon her face.... "And of course, naturally—" Here Lucy turned away her own. "But nothing—not a sign. Neither then nor since. I—"; she stopped, bit her lip, then broke forth. "I shall never understand it. Oh, I do think it extraordinary!"

Mabel said at once, "It's not at all extraordinary. It would be with any one else; but not with James."

Lucy lifted her head. "What do you mean, Mabel?"

"Well, it's difficult to explain. You are so odd about James. He is either the sort of being you name in a whisper—or makes you edgy all over—like a slate-pencil. But James—I dare say you haven't noticed it: you think he's a clever man, and so he may be; but really he has never grown up."

Lucy's foot began to rock. "My dear girl, really—"

"Oh, I know. I know. Of course you're annoyed, especially after such a queer experience. We won't discuss it—it will be useless. But that's my opinion, you know. I think that he was completely successful, according to his own ideas." The battle raged; I need not add that the mystery, far from being undiscussed, was driven up and down the field of possibility till a late hour; nor that Mabel held to her position, in high disparagement, as Lucy felt, of Lancelot, deeply involved.

An upshot, and a shrewd one, was Mabel's abrupt, "Well, what are you going to do now? I mean, supposing he does it again?"

Lucy mused. "I don't somehow think he will, for a long time." She added naively, "I wish he would. I like it."

Mabel understood her. "You mean that you like him for doing it." And dreamy Lucy nodded. "Yes, that's exactly what I mean. I do, awfully."

Mabel here kissed Lucy. "Dearest, you're wonderfully sweet. You would love anybody who loved you."

"I don't think I would," Lucy said, "but I should certainly have loved James more if he had ever seemed to love me. And I can't possibly doubt that he did that day that Lancelot went back. What bothers me is that he stopped there." And so, to it again, in the manner of women, tireless in speculation about what is not to be understood.

James, restored in tone, was affable, and even considerate, in the morning. Mabel, studying him with new eyes, had to admire his flawless surface, though her conviction of the shallow depth of him was firmlier rooted than before. "He is—he really is—a tremendous donkey, poor James," she thought to herself as he gave out playful sarcasms at her expense, and was incisive without loss of urbanity. Mabel was urgent with her sister to join the party at Peltry when Urquhart was there. "I do wish you would. He's rather afraid of you, I think, and that will throw him upon me—which is what is wanted." That was how she put it.

James, quite the secure, backed her up. "I should go if I were you," he said to Lucy from behind the Morning Post. "It will do you a great deal of good. You always choose February to moult in, and you will have to be feathered down there. Besides, it's evident you can be useful to Mabel." Lucy went so far as to get out her engagement book, and to turn up the date, not very seriously. What she found confirmed her. "I can't," she said; "it's out of the question."

"Why, what is happening?" Mabel must know.

"It's an Opera night," said Lucy. "The Walkuere is happening."

"Oh, are they? H'm. Yes, I suppose I can't expect you."

Lucy was scornfully clear. "I should think not indeed. Not for a wilderness of Urquharts!"

"Not all the peltry of Siberia—" said James, rather sharply, as he thought; and dismissed the subject in favour of his own neatly-spatted foot. "Wagner!" he said. "I am free to confess that, apart from the glory of the thing, I had rather—"

"Marry one of Mr. Urquhart's wives," said the hardy Mabel.

"Two," said James, quite ready for her.

Mabel rattled away to her Essex and left her sister all the better for the astringent she had imparted. Lucy did not agree with her by any means; it made her hot with annoyance to realise that anybody could so think of James. At the same time she felt that she must steady herself. After all, a man might kiss his wife if he pleased, and he might do it how he pleased. It was undignified to speculate about it. She tried very hard to drive that home to herself, and she did succeed in imposing it upon her conduct. But she was not convinced. She was too deeply romantic for conviction by any such specious reasoning. That affair in the dark had been the real thing; it implied—oh, everything. Let come what might, let be what was, that was the true truth of the mystery. And to be loved like that was—oh, everything!

But she dismissed it from her thoughts with an effort of will, and relations with James resumed their old position. They became formal, they were tinged now and again with the old asperity; they were rather dreary. Lancelot's star rose as James's sank in the heavens. His letters became her chief preoccupation. But James's star, fallen low though it were, still showed a faint hue of rose-colour.

Some little time after this—somewhere in early February, she met Urquhart at a luncheon party, and was glad to see him. He shook hands in his usual detached way, as if her gladness and their acquaintance were matters of course. He sat next to her without ceremony, removing another man's name-card for the purpose, and after a few short, snapped phrases about anything or nothing, they drifted into easy talk. Lucy's simplicity made her a delightful companion, when she was sure of her footing. She told him that she had been saving up Lancelot's letter to show him. "Good," he said. "I want it."

But it was not here, as it happened. So she wrote out from memory the sentence about Urquhart: the polligamous pirate, with wives &c. "Aren't you flattered?" she asked him, radiant with mirthful malice. He frowned approval. He was pleased, but, like all those who make laughter, he had none of his own. "That shot told. I got him with the first barrel. Trust a boy to love a law-breaker. He'll never forget me that. He's my friend for life." He added, as if to himself, "Hope so, anyhow."

Lucy at this, had she been a cat, would have purred and kneaded the carpet. As it was, her contentment emboldened her to flights. She was much more bird than cat. "I wonder if you are really a law-breaker," she said. "I don't think I should be surprised to know it of you."

He frowned again. "No, I should say that the ground had been prepared for that. You wouldn't be surprised—but would you be disturbed? That's what I want to know before I tell you."

This had to be considered. What did she in her private mind think of law-breakers? One thing was quite clear to her. Whatever she might think of them, she was not prepared to tell him.

"I'm a lawyer's wife, you know."

"That tells me nothing," he said. "That would only give you the position of an expert. It doesn't commit you to a line. I'll tell you this—it may encourage you to a similar confidence. If I wanted to break a law very badly, I shouldn't do it on reflection perhaps; but I could never resist a sudden impulse. If somebody told me that it would be desirable in all sorts of ways to break a man's head I shouldn't do it, because I should be bothering myself with all the possibilities of the thing—how desirable it might be, or how undesirable. But if, happening to be in his company, I saw his head in a breakable aspect—splosh! I should land him a nasty one. That's a certainty. Now, what should you say to that? It happens that I want to know." It was evident to her that he really did.

Lucy gave him one of her kind, compassionate looks, which always made her seem beautiful, and said, "I should forgive you. I should tell you that you were too young for your years; but I should forgive you, I'm sure."

"That's what I wanted to know," said Urquhart, and remained silent for a while. When he resumed it was abruptly, on a totally new matter. "I shall bring my sister over to you after this. She's here. I don't know whether you'll like her. She'll like you."

"Where is she?" Lucy asked, rather curious.

"She's over there, by our hostess. That big black hat is hers. She's underneath it." Lucy saw a spry, black-haired youngish woman, very vivacious but what she herself called "good." James would have said, "Smart." Not at all like her brother, she thought, and said so. "She's not such a scoundrel," Urquhart admitted, "but she takes a line of her own. Her husband's name is Nugent. He is South Irish, where we are North. That boy who went with us to the play is her son. He is a lively breed—so it hasn't turned out amiss. She's not at all your sort, but as you know the worst of us you may as well know what we can do when we exert ourselves." He added, "My old father, now with Beelzebub, was a terror."

"Do tell me about him."

"It would take too long. He was very old-fashioned in most ways. They used to call him King Urquhart in Donegal. The worst of it was that he knew good claret and could shoot. That makes a bad combination. He used to sit on a hogshead of it in his front yard and challenge all and sundry to mortal combat. He really did. Duels he used to call them. He said, 'Me honour's involved, d'ye see?' and believed it. But they were really murders, because he was infallible with a revolver. He adored my mother, but she couldn't do anything with him. 'Tush, me dear,' he used to say, 'I wouldn't hurt a hair of his bald head.' And then he'd have to bolt over to France for a bit and keep quiet. But everybody liked him, I'm sorry to say. They gave him a public funeral when he died. They took him out of the hearse—imagine the great sooty plumes of it—and carried him to the chapel—half a mile away." Lucy didn't know how much of this to believe, which made it none the worse.

"He was a Catholic?"

"He was."

"And so are you?"

He looked up. "Eh? I suppose I am—if any."

"What do you mean?" she insisted.

"Well," he said. "It's there, I expect. You don't get rid of it." She considered this to herself.

Mrs. Nugent—the Honourable Mrs. Nugent, as it afterwards appeared—made herself very amiable. "We both like boys," she said, "which makes everything easy. I hope you liked my Pat—you met him, I know. Yours seems to be an unconscious humourist. Jimmy is always chuckling over him. Mine takes after the Urquharts; rather grim, but quite sound when you know them. My husband is really Irish. He might say 'Begorra' at any minute. The Urquharts are a mixed lot. Jimmy says we're Eurasians when he's cross with us—which means with himself. I suppose we were border thieves once, like the Turnbulls and Pringles. But James I planted us in Ireland, and there have been James Urquharts ever since. I don't know why that seems satisfactory, but it does."

"I saw what Jimmy was saying, you know," she said presently. "He began upon me, and then slid off to our deplorable father. An inexhaustible subject to Jimmy, who really admires that kind of thing."

Lucy smilingly deprecated the criticism.

"Oh, but he does. If he could be like that, he would be. But he wants two qualities—he can't laugh, and he can't cry. Father could only laugh internally. He used to get crimson, and swallow hard. That was his way. Jimmy can't laugh at all, that's the mischief of it. And crying too. Father could cry rivers. One of the best things I remember of him was his crying before Mother. 'Damn it all, Meg, I missed him!' he said, choking with grief. Mother knew exactly what to say. 'You'll get him next time, Jimmy. Come and change your stockings now.' Well, our Jimmy couldn't do that. To begin with, of course, he wouldn't have 'missed him.'"

"No," said Lucy, reflecting, "I don't think he would miss—unless he was in too much of a hurry to hit."

Mrs. Nugent looked quickly at her. "That is very clever of you. You have touched on his great difference from Father. He is awfully impatient."

All this did Lucy a great deal of good. James thought that she had better call on Mrs. Nugent. He knew all about her.



CHAPTER VIII

AGAIN

The second time was in late February, at the Opera: the Walkuere, of all operas in the world, where passion of the suddenest is seen on its most radiant spring morning. James, who was dreadfully bored by Wagner, and only went because it was the thing to do, and truly also because "a man must be seen with his wife," could not promise to be there, dressed, at such an unearthly hour as half-past six—James, I say, did not go with her, but vowed to be there "long before seven." That he undertook. So she went alone, and sat, as she always did, half hidden behind the curtain of her box on the second tier.

The place was flooded with dark. The great wonder began—the amazing prelude with its brooding, its surmisals, its storms, its pounding hooves remorselessly pursuing, and flashes of the horn, like the blare of lightning. She surrendered herself, and as the curtain rose settled down to drink with the eyes as well as with the ears; for she was no musician, and could only be deeply moved by this when she saw and heard. It immediately absorbed her; the music "of preparation and suspense" seemed to turn her bones to liquor—and at this moment she again felt herself possessed by man's love: the strong hand over her heart, the passion of his hold, the intoxication of the kiss. To the accompaniment of shrill and wounded violins she yielded herself to this miracle of the dark. She seemed to hear in a sharp whisper, "You darling!" She half turned, she half swooned again, she drank, and she gave to drink. The music speared up to the heights of bliss, then subsided as the hold on her relaxed. When she stretched out her hand for her lover's, he was not near her. She was alone. The swift and poignant little drama may have lasted a minute; but like a dream it had the suggestion of infinity about it, transcending time as it defied place. Confused, bemused, she turned her attention to the stage, determined to compose herself at all cost. She sat very still, and shivered; she gave all her powers to her mind, and succeeded by main effort. Insensibly the great drama doing down there resumed its hold; and it was even with a slight shock that she became aware by and by of James sitting sedately by her, with the eyeglass sharply set for diversion anywhere but on the scene. Again she remembered with secret amusement that she had not been conscious of the eyeglass when—for reasons of his own—he had paid his mysterious homage to love and her.

She kept a firm grip of herself: she would not move an inch towards him. She could never do that again. But she passed him over the play-bill, and lifted the glasses to show him where they were. She saw the eyeglass dip as he nodded his thanks, and heard him whisper as he passed back the bill, "No good. Dark as the grave." Oh, extraordinary James! She suffered hysterical laughter, but persisted against it, and succeeded.

When the lights went up she afforded herself a gay welcome of him, from gleaming, happy and conscious eyes. He met it blandly, smiled awry and said, "You love it?"

"Oh," she sighed, meaning all that she dared not say, "how I love it!"

James said, "Bravo. I was very punctual, you'll admit." That very nearly overcame her. But all she said was, "I didn't hear you come in—or go out."

James looked very vague at that. He was on the point of frowning over it, but gave it up. It was a Lucyism. He rose and touched his coat-collar, to feel that it gripped where it should. "Let's see who's in the house," he said, and searched the boxes. "Royalty, as usual! That's what I call devotion. Who's that woman in a snow-leopard? Oh, yes, of course. Hullo. I say, my child, will you excuse me? I've just seen some people I ought to see. There's lots of time—and I won't be late." And he was off. A very remarkable lover indeed was James.

Mrs. Nugent waved her hand across the parterre. Francis Lingen knocked and entered. She could afford that; and presently a couple added themselves, young married people whom she liked for their poverty, hopefulness and unaffected pleasure in each other. She made Lingen acquainted with them, and talked to young Mr. Pierson. He spoke with a cheer in his voice. "Ripping opera. Madge adores it. We saw your husband downstairs, but I don't think he knew us."... And through her head blew the words like a searching wind: "You darling! You darling!" Oh, that was great love! Small wonder that James saw nothing of the Piersons. And yet—ah, she must give up speculating and judging. That had undone poor Psyche. Young Mr. Pierson chattered away about Madge and Wagner, both ripping; James returned, bland, positive, dazzling the man of exclusive clubs; was reminded of young Mrs. Pierson, with whom he shook hands, of young Mr. Pierson, to whom he nodded and said "Ha!" and finally of Francis Lingen. "Ha, Lingen, you here!" Francis shivered. That seemed to him to ring a knell. Since when had he been Lingen to James. Since this moment. Now why had James cold-shouldered him? Was it possible that he had noticed too much devotion?... And if he had, was it not certain that she must have noticed it? He stopped midway of the stairs, and passers-by may have thought he was looking for a dropt sixpence. Not at all. The earth seemed to be heaving beneath his feet. But a wave of courage surged up through him. Pooh! no woman yet ever disregarded the homage of a man. He would send some roses to-morrow, without a card. She would understand. And so it went on. Wagner came back to his own.

On this occasion, after this second great adventure, Lucy had no conflict with fate. Thankfully she took the gift of the God; she took it as final, as a thing complete in itself, a thing most beautiful, most touching, most honourable to giver and recipient. It revived all her warmth of feeling, but this time without a bitter lees to the dram. And she was immensely the better for it. She felt in charity with all the world, her attitude to James was one of clear sight. Oh, now she understood him through and through. She would await the fulness of time; sufficient for the day was the light of the day.

She was happier than she had been for many years. Half-term was approaching, when she would be allowed to go down and see Lancelot; in these days she felt Spring in the air. February can be kind to us, and show a golden threshold to March. She had a letter from Mabel telling her of Mr. Urquhart's feats in the hunting field.... "He's quite mad, I think, and mostly talks about you and Lancelot. He calls you Proserpine. As for his riding, my dear, it curdles the blood. He doesn't ride, he drives; sits well back, and accelerates on the near side. He brought his own horses, luckily for ours and his neck. They seem to understand it. He hunted every day but one; and then he rushed up to town to keep some appointment and came back to a very late dinner, driving himself in his motor. He is a tempestuous person, but can be very grave when he likes. He talked beautifully one evening—mostly about you." Lucy's eyes smiled wisely over this letter. She liked to think that she could induce gravity upon a hunting party. She had never quite approved of the Peltry atmosphere. Hard riding seemed to involve hard living, and hard swearing. She had once heard Laurence let himself go to some rider over hounds, and had put him on a back shelf in her mind—him and his Peltry with him. A prude? No, she was sure she was nothing of the sort; but she liked people to keep a hold on themselves.

A gay little dinner-party, one of hers, as she told James, finished a month of high light. The young Pierson couple, some Warreners, a Mrs. Treveer and Jimmy Urquhart—eight with themselves. The faithful Francis Lingen was left out as a concession to James and love in the dark. She noticed, with quiet amusement, how gratified James was. He was so gratified that he did not even remark upon it. Now James's little weakness, or one of them, let us say, was that he could not resist a cutting phrase, when the thing did not matter. Therefore—she reasoned—Francis Lingen, absurdly enough, did matter. That he should, that anything of the sort should matter to James was one more sign to her of the promise, just as the weather was one. The Spring was at hand, and soon we should all go a-maying.

So we dined at one table, and had a blaze of daffodils from Wycross, and everybody seemed to talk at once. Pierson told her after dinner that Madge thought Urquhart ripping (as she had thought Wagner); and certainly he was one to make a dinner-party go. He was ridiculous about Laurence Corbet and his sacred foxes. "Don't shoot that thing! God of Heaven, what are you about?" "Oh, I beg your pardon, I thought—" "Are you out of your senses? That must be torn to pieces by dogs." He was very good at simulating savagery, but had a favourite trick of dropping it suddenly, or turning it on himself. He caught Mrs. Treveer, a lady of ardour not tempered by insight. She agreed with him about hunting. "Oh, you are so right! Now can't something be done about it? Couldn't a little paper be written—in that vein, you know?" "Not by me," said Urquhart. "I'm a hunting man, you see." Mrs. Treveer held up her fan, but took no offence.

Lucy, with Mabel's letter in mind, gave her guest some attention; but for the life of her could not see that he paid her any beyond what he had for the others or for his dinner. He joined Pierson at her side, and made no effort to oust him. He did not flatter her by recalling Lancelot; he seemed rather to muse out loud. James with his coat-tails to the fire was quite at his ease—and when Urquhart offered to drive her down to Westgate for the half-term (which she herself mentioned), it was James who said, "Capital! That will be jolly for you." "But you wouldn't come, would you?" "My child, it is that I couldn't come. A motor in March! I should die. Besides," he added, "as you know, I have to be at Brighton that Sunday." She had known it, and she had known also that Brighton was an excuse. One of the bogies she kept locked in a cupboard was James's ennui when Lancelot was to the fore. Could this too be jealousy!

"I'll tell you what I'll do," Jimmy Urquhart said. "The run down would be rather jolly, but the run back in the dark might be a bore. The Nugents have got a house at Sandwich. Why shouldn't you go there? You know my sister Nugent, as they used to say."

"Yes, of course I do," Lucy said, "but I couldn't really—"

"But she is there, my dear ma'am. That's the point. I'll drop you there on my way back. I wish I could stop too, but that's not possible. She'll arrange it."

James thought it an excellent plan; but Lucy had qualms. Odd, that the visit of Eros should a second time be succeeded by a motor-jaunt! To go motoring, again, with a Mr. Urquhart—oh! But she owned that she was absurd. James did not conceal his sarcasms. "She either fears her fate too much..." he quoted at her. She pleaded with him.

"Darling," she said—and he was immensely complacent over that—"I suppose it's a sign of old age, but— After all, why shouldn't I go by train—or in our own car, if it comes to that?"

"Firstly," said James through his eyeglass, "because Urquhart asks you to go in his—a terror that destroyeth in the noonday compared to ours; and secondly because, if you don't want it, I should rather like to go to Brighton in mine."

"Oh," said she, "then you don't mind motoring in March!"

"Not in a closed car," said James—"and not to Brighton." This acted as an extinguisher of the warmer feelings. Let Mr. Urquhart do his worst then.



CHAPTER IX

SUNDRY ROMANTIC EPISODES

A little cloud of witness, assembled at will like seagulls out of the blue inane, would come about her in after years. That madly exhilarating rush to Westgate, for instance, on a keen March morning; and that sudden question of hers to Urquhart, "What made you think of asking me?" And his laconic answer, given without a turn of the head, "Because I knew you would like it. You did before, you know. And that was January." There was one. Another, connected with it, was her going alone up to the schoolhouse, and her flush of pleasure when Lancelot said, "Oh, I say, did He bring you down? Good—then we'll go immediately and see the car; perhaps it's a new one." She could afford to recall that—after a long interval. They had had a roaring day, "all over the place," as Lancelot said afterwards to a friend; and then there had been her parting with Urquhart in the dark at the open door of Queendon Court. "Aren't you going to stop?" "No, my dear." She remembered being amused with that. "Aren't you even coming in?" "I am not. Good-bye. You enjoyed yourself?" "Oh, immensely." "That's what I like," he had said, and "pushed off," as his own phrase went. Atop of that, the return to James, and to nothingness. For nothing happened, except that he had been in a good temper throughout, which may easily have been because she had been in one herself—until the Easter holidays, when he had been very cross indeed. Poor James, to get him to begin to understand Lancelot's bluntness, intensity, and passion for something or other, did seem hopeless.

They were at Wycross, on her urgent entreaty, and James was bored at Wycross, she sometimes thought, because she loved it so much. Jealousy. A man's wife ought to devote herself. She should love nothing but her husband. He had spent his days at the golf course, not coming home to lunch. Urquhart was asked for a Sunday—on Lancelot's account—but couldn't come, or said so at least. Then, on the Saturday, when he should have been there, James suddenly kissed her in the garden—and, of course, in the dark.

She hadn't known that he was in the house yet. He had contracted the habit of having tea at the club-house and talking on till dark. He did that, as she believed, because she always read to Lancelot in the evenings: she gave up the holidays entirely to him. Well, Lancelot that afternoon had been otherwise engaged—with friends of a neighbour. She had cried off on the score of "seeing something of Father," at which Lancelot had winked. But James was not in to tea, and at six—and no sign of him—she yielded to the liquid calling of a thrush in the thickening lilacs, and had gone out. There she stayed till it was dark, in a favourite place—a circular garden of her contriving, with a pond, and a golden privet hedge, so arranged as to throw yellow reflections in the water. Standing there, it grew perfectly dark—deeply and softly dark. The night had come down warm and wet, like manifold blue-black gauze. She heard his quick, light step. Her heart hammered, but she did not move. He came behind her, clasped and held her close. "Oh, you've come—I wondered. Oh, how sweet, how sweet—" And then "My love!" had been said, and she had been kissed. In a moment he was gone. She had stayed on motionless, enthralled by the beauty of the act—and when she had withdrawn herself at last, and had tiptoed to the house, she saw his lamp on the table, and himself reading the Spectator before a wood fire! Recalling all that, she remembered the happy little breath of laughter which had caught her. "If it wasn't so perfectly sweet and beautiful, it would be the most comic thing in the world!" she had said to herself.

A telegram from Jimmy Urquhart came that night just before dinner. "Arriving to-morrow say ten-thirty for an hour or so, Urquhart." It was sent from St. James's Street. Lancelot had said, "Stout fellow," and James took it quite well. She herself remembered her feeling of annoyance, how clearly she foresaw an interrupted reverie and a hampered Sunday—and also how easily he had falsified her prevision. There had been an animated morning of garden inspection, in the course of which she had shown him (with a softly fluttering heart and perhaps enhanced colour) the hedged oval of last night's romance; a pony race; a game of single cricket in the paddock—Lancelot badly beaten; lunch, and great debate with James about aeroplanes, wherein Lancelot showed himself a bitter and unscrupulous adversary of his parent. Finally, the trial of the new car: an engine of destruction such as Lancelot had never dreamed of. It was admittedly too high-powered for England; you were across the county in about a minute. And then he had departed in a kind of thunderstorm of his own making. Lancelot, preternaturally moved, said to his mother, "I say, Mamma, what a man—eh?" She, lightly, "Yes, isn't he wonderful?" and Lancelot, with a snort: "A man? Ten rather small men—easily." And James, poor James, saw nothing kissable in that!

It hadn't been till May of that year that Lucy began to think about Urquhart—or rather it was in May that she discovered herself to be thinking about him. Mabel assisted her there. Mabel was in Cadogan Square for the season, and the sisters saw much of each other. Now it happened that one day Mabel had seen Lucy with Urquhart walking down Bond Street, at noon or thereabouts, and had passed by on the other side with no more than a wave of the hand. It was all much simpler than it looked, really, because Lucy had been to James's office, which was in Cork Street, and coming away had met Jimmy Urquhart in Burlington Gardens. He had strolled on with her, and was telling her that he had been waterplaning on Chichester Harbour and was getting rather bitten with the whole business of flight. "I'm too old, I know, but I'm still ass enough to take risks. I think I shall get the ticket," he had said. What ticket? The pilot's ticket, or whatever they might call it. "I expect you are too old," she had said, and then— "How old are you, by the way?" He told her. "We call it forty-two." "Exactly James's age; and exactly ten years older than me. Yes, too old. I think I wouldn't."

He had laughed. "I'm certain I shall. It appeals to me." Then he had told her, "The first time I saw a man flying I assure you I could have shed tears." She remembered that this was out of his power. "Odd thing! What's gravitation to me, or I to gravitation? A commonplace whereby I walk the world. Never mind. There was that young man breaking a law of this planet. Well—that's a miracle. I tell you I might have wept. And then I said to myself, "My man, you'll do this or perish." Then she: "And have you done it?" and he: "I have not, but I'm going to." She had suddenly said, "No, please don't." His quick look at her she remembered, and the suffusion on his burnt face. "Oh, but I shall. Do you wish to know why? Because you don't mean it; because you wouldn't like me if I obeyed you." She said gravely, "You can't know that." "Yes, but I do. You like me—assume that—" Lucy said, "You may"; and he, "I do. You like me because I am such as I am. If I obeyed you in this I should cease to be such as I am and become such as I am not and never have been. You might like me more—but you might not. No, that's too much of a risk. I can't afford it." She had said, "That's absurd," but she hadn't thought it so.

Mabel came to her for lunch and rallied her. "I saw you, my dear. But I wouldn't spoil sport. All right—you might do much worse. He's very much alive. Anyhow, he doesn't wear an—" Then Lucy was hurt. "Oh, Mabel, that's horrid. You know I hate you to talk like that." Mabel stood rebuked. "It was beastly of me. But you know I never could stand his eyeglass. It is what they call anti-social in their novels. Really, you might as well live in the Crystal Palace." Then she held out her hand, and Lucy took it after some hesitation. But Mabel was irrepressible. Almost immediately she had jumped into the fray again, with "You're both going to his place in Hampshire, aren't you?" Then Lucy had flushed; and Mabel had given her a queer look.

"That's all right," she presently said. "He asked us, you know, but we can't. I hear that Vera Nugent is to be hostess. I rather liked her, though of course you can never tell how such copious conversation will wear. I don't think she stopped talking for a single moment. Laurence thought he was going mad. It makes him broody, you know, like a hen. He rubs his ears, and says his wattles are inflamed."

It was either that day, or another such day—it really doesn't matter which day it was—that Mabel drifted into the subject of what she called "the James romance." Did James—? Had James—? And where were we standing now? Lucy, whose feelings upon the subject were more complicated than they had been at first, was not very communicative; but she owned there had been repetitions. Mabel, who was desperately quick to notice, judged that she was mildly bored. "I see," she said; "I see. But—that's all."

"All!" cried Lucy. "Yes, indeed."

Mabel said again, "I see." Lucy, who certainly didn't see, was silent; and then Mabel with appalling candour said, "I suppose you would have it out with him if you weren't afraid to."

Lucy was able to cope with that kind of thing. "Nothing would induce me to do it. I shouldn't be able to lift my head up if I did. It would not only be—well, horrible, but it would be very cruel as well. I should feel myself a brute." On Mabel's shrug she was stung into an attack of her own. "And whatever you may say, to me, I know that you couldn't bring yourself to such a point. No woman could do it, who respected herself." Mabel had the worst of it in the centre, but by a flanking movement recovered most of the ground. She became very vague. She said, as if to herself, "After all, you know, you may be mistaken. Perhaps the less you say the better."

Mistaken! And "the less you say"! Lucy's grey eyes took intense direction. "Please tell me what you mean, my dear. Do you think I'm out of my senses? Do you really think I've imagined it all?"

"No, no," said Mabel quickly, and visibly disturbed. "No, no, of course I don't. I really don't know what I meant. It's all too confusing for simple people like you and me. Let's talk about something else." Lucy, to whom the matter was distasteful, agreed; but the thought persisted. Mistaken ... and "the less you say...!"



CHAPTER X

AT A WORLD'S EDGE

It was after that queer look, after her too conscious blush that she began to envisage the state of her affairs. She was going to Martley Thicket for Whitsuntide; it was an old engagement, comparatively old, that is; she did want to go, and now she knew that she did. Well, how much did she want to go? Ought she to want it? What had happened?

Questions thronged her when once she had opened a window. What did it matter to her whether Urquhart qualified as an aviator or not? What had made her ask him not to do it? How had she allowed him to say "Assume that you like me"? The short dialogue stared at her in red letters upon the dark. "Assume that you like me—" "You may assume it." "I do." She read the packed little sentences over and over, and studied herself with care. No, honestly, nothing jarred. There was no harm; she didn't feel any tarnish upon her. And yet—she was looking forward to Martley Thicket with a livelier blood than she had felt since Easter when James had kissed her in the shrouded garden. A livelier blood? Hazarding the looking-glass, she thought that she could detect a livelier iris too. What had happened? Well, of course, the answer to that question was involved in another: how much was she to assume? How much did Urquhart like her? She hoped, against conviction, that she might have answered these questions before she met him again—which would probably be at Martley. Just now, stoutly bearing her disapproval, he was doubtless at Byfleet or elsewhere risking his neck. She answered a question possibly arising out of this by a shrewd smile. "Of course I don't disapprove. He knows that. I shiver; but I know he's perfectly right. He may be sure." The meeting at Martley would, at the very least, be extremely interesting. She left it there for the moment.

But having once begun to pay attention to such matters as these, she pursued her researches—in and out of season. It was a busy time of year, and James always laid great stress on what he called "the duties of her station." She must edge up crowded stairways behind him, stand at his side in hot and humming rooms where the head spun with the effort not to hear what other people were saying—so much more important, always, than what your partner was. James's height and eyeglass seemed to give him an impartial air at these dreadful ceremonies. Behind his glass disk he could afford to be impertinent. And he was certainly rude enough to be an Under-Secretary. Without that shining buckler of the soul he would have been simply nobody; with it, he was a demi-god. Here then, under the very shadow of his immortality, Lucy pursued her researches. What of the romantic, hidden, eponymous James? Where did he stand now in her regard?

Since Easter at Wycross, James had not been her veiled Eros, but the possibilities were all there. He was not a garden god, by any means, nor a genius of the Spring. January and Onslow Square had not frozen his currents; February and the Opera House had heightened his passion. At any moment he might resume his devotional habit—even here in Carlton House Terrace. And what then? Well—and this was odd—this ought to have produced a state of tension very trying to the nerves; and, well—it hadn't. That's all. At that very party in Carlton House Terrace, with a band braying under the stairs, and a fat lord shouting in her ear, her secret soul was trembling on a brink. She was finding out to her half-rueful dismay—it was only half—that she was prepared to be touched, prepared to be greatly impressed, but not prepared to be thrilled as she had been, if James should kiss her again. She was prepared, in fact, to present—as statesmen do when they write to their sovereign—her grateful, humble duty—and no more. In vain the band brayed, in vain Lord J——, crimson by her ear, roared about the weather in the West of Ireland, Lucy's soul was peering over the edge of her old world into the stretches of a misty new one.

This was bad enough, and occupied her through busy nights and days; but there was more disturbing matter to come, stirred up to cloud her mind by Mabel's unwonted discretion. Mabel had been more than discreet. She had been frightened. Pushing out into a stream of new surmise, she had suddenly faltered and hooked at the quay. Lucy herself was at first merely curious. She had no doubts, certainly no fears. What had been the matter with Mabel, when she hinted that perhaps, after all, James had never done anything? What could Mabel know, or guess, or suspect? Lucy owned to herself, candidly, that James was incomprehensible. After thirteen years, or was it fourteen?—suddenly—with no warning symptoms, to plunge into such devotion as never before, when everything had been new, and he only engaged—! Men were like that when they were engaged. They aren't certain of one, and leave no chances. But James, even as an engaged man, had always been certain. He had taken her, and everything else, for granted. She remembered how her sisters, not only Mabel, but the critical Agnes (now Mrs. Riddell in the North), had discussed him and found him too cocksure to be quite gallant. Kissed her? Of course he had kissed her. Good Heavens. Yes, but not as he had that night at the Opera. "You darling! You darling!" Now James had called her "my darling" as often as you please—but never until then "you darling." There's a world of difference. Anybody can see it.

And then—after the beautiful, the thrilling, the deeply touching episode—the moment after it—there was the old, indifferent, slightly bored James with the screwed eye and the disk. Not a hint, not a ripple, not the remains of a flush. It was the most bewildering, the most baffling jig-saw of a business she had ever heard of. You would have said that he was two quite separate people; you might have said—Mabel would have said at once—that James had had nothing to do with it.

But she had said so! The discovery stabbed Lucy in the eyes like a flash of lightning, left her blind and quivering, with a swim of red before her hurt vision. That was why Mabel had been frightened. And now Lucy herself was frightened.

Francis Lingen, absurd! Mr. Urquhart? Ah, that was quite another thing. She grew hot, she grew quite cold, and suddenly she began to sob. Oh, no, no, not that. A flood of tossing thoughts came rioting and racing in, flinging crests of foam, like white and beaten water. She for a time was swept about, a weed in this fury of storm. She was lost, effortless, at death's threshold. But she awoke herself from the nightmare, walked herself about, and reason returned. It was nonsense, unwholesome nonsense. Why, that first time, he was in the library with James and Francis Lingen, his second visit to the house! Why, when she was at the Opera he had been at Peltry with the Mabels. And as for Wycross, he had wired from St. James's in the afternoon, and come on the next day. Absurd—and thank God for it. And poor Francis Lingen! She could afford to laugh at that. Francis Lingen was as capable of kissing the Duchess of Westbury—at whose horrible party she had been the other night—as herself.

She felt very safe, and enormously relieved. So much so that she could afford herself the reflection that if hardihood had been all that was wanting, Jimmy Urquhart would have had plenty and to spare. Oh, yes, indeed. But—thank God again—he was a gentleman if ever there was one. Nobody but a gentleman could afford to be so simple in dealing.

Having worked all this out, she felt that her feet at least were on solid ground. A spirit of adventure was renewed in her, and a rather unfortunate contretemps provoked it. Before she knew where she was, she was up to the neck, as Urquhart would have said, in a turbid stream.

Francis Lingen, that elegant unfortunate, was certainly responsible, if you could call one so tentative and clinging responsible for anything. He had proposed the Flower Show, to which she had been, as an earnest gardener, early in the morning, by herself, with a note-book. She did not want to go with him at all; and moreover she had an appointment to meet James at a wedding affair in Queen's Gate. However, being ridiculously amiable where the pale-haired hectic was concerned, go she did, and sat about at considerable length. He had only cared to look at the sweet-peas, his passion of the hour, and urged a chair upon her that he might the better do what he really liked, look at her and talk about himself. So he did, and read her a poem, and made great play with his tenderness, his dependence upon her judgment and his crosses with the world. He pleaded for tea, which, ordered, did not come; then hunted for the motor, which finally she found for herself. She arrived late at Queen's Gate; the eyeglass glared in horror. James, indeed, was very cross. What any chance victim of his neighbourhood may have endured is not to be known. So far as Lucy could see he did not open his mouth once while he was there. He refused all nourishment with an angry gleam, and seemed wholly bent upon making her self-conscious, uncomfortable and, finally, indignant. Upon this goodly foundation he reared his mountain of affront.

He made himself a monument of matter-of-fact impassivity during the drive home. His arms were folded, he stared out of window; she thought once she heard him humming an air. But he didn't smoke, as he certainly would have done had relations been easy. He kept her at a distance, but not aggressively.

Lucy was by this time very much annoyed. Her apologies had been frozen at the front by his angry glare. She had no intention now of renewing them, nor did she care to justify herself, as she might have done, by pointing out that, while she was half-an-hour late, he was probably a quarter of an hour too early. This would have been a safe venture, for his fussiness over an appointment and tendency to be beforehand with it were quite well known to himself. She kept the best face she could upon the miserable affair, but was determined that she would force a crisis at home, come what might.

Arrived at Onslow Square, James strode into the library and shut the door behind him. When Crewdson was disposed of on his numerous affairs, Lucy followed her lord. He turned, he stared, and waited for her to speak.

Lucy said, "I think that you must be sorry that you have treated me so. I feel it very much, and must ask you how you justify it."

James did his best to an easy calm. "Apologies should be in the air. I should have looked for one myself an hour or so ago."

"You should have had it," she said, "if you had given me time. But you stared me out of countenance the moment I came in. Anger before you had even heard me is not a nice thing to face."

James turned pale. He used his most incisive tones. "I am ready to hear your explanation. Perhaps I had better say that I know it."

Lucy showed him angry eyes. "If you know it, there is no need for me to trouble you with it. You must also know that it isn't easy to get away from a great crowd in a minute."

But he seemed not to hear her. He had another whip in waiting, which nothing could have kept him from the use of. "I think that I must trouble you, rather. I think I should be relieved by hearing from you where the crowd was of which you were one—or two, indeed."

She discovered that he was white with rage, though she had never seen him so before. "What do you mean, James?" she said—and he, "I know that you were at the Flower Show. You were there with Lingen."

"Yes," said Lucy, "I was indeed. And why shouldn't I be?"

"I have told you before this what my views are about that. I don't intend to repeat them, at present."

"I think you must be mad," said Lucy. "Do you mean to tell me that you object to Francis Lingen to that extent—to the extent of such a scene as this?"

He faced her from his height. "I do mean that."

"Then," she said, out of herself, "you are insulting me. I don't think you can intend to do that. And I should like to say also that you, of all the men in the world, are the last person to be jealous or suspicious of anybody where I am concerned."

She hadn't meant to say that; but when she saw that he took it as a commonplace of marital ethics, she determined to go further still.

He took it, in fact, just so. It seemed to him what any wife would say to any indignant husband. "I beg your pardon," he said, "you don't quite follow me. I agree with you that I should be the last person; but I beg to point out to you that I should also be the first person. And I will go on to add, if you will excuse me, that I should be the only person."

"No person at all," said Lucy, "has the right or the reason to suspect me of anything, or to be jealous of any of my acquaintance. You didn't understand me: I suppose because you are too angry. What I meant you to remember was how much, how very much, you are bound to believe in me—now of all times in our life."

Here then was a Psyche with the lamp in her hand. Here was Lucy on the limit of a world unknown. Here she stood, at her feet the tufted grasses and field herbs, dusty, homely, friendly things, which she knew. Beyond her, beyond the cliff's edge were the dim leagues of a land and sea unknown. What lay out there beyond her in the mist? What mountain and forest land lay there, what quiet islands, what sounding mains?

But it was done now. James gazed blankly, but angrily, puzzled into her face.

"I haven't the faintest notion what you mean," he said. Evidently he had not.

She must go on, though she hated it. "You are very surprising. I can hardly think you are serious. Let me remind you of the opera—of the Walkuere."

He gave his mind to it, explored the past, and so entirely failed to understand her that he looked rather foolish. "I remember that we were there." Then he had a flash of light—and shed it on her, God knows. "I remember also that Lingen was in the box."

"Oh, Lingen! Are you mad on—? Do you not remember that you were there before Lingen?"

"Yes, I do remember it." He stood, poor fool, revealed. Lucy's voice rang clear.

"Very well. If that is all that your memory brings you, I have nothing more to say."

She left him swiftly, and went upstairs in the possession of an astounding truth, but rapt with it in such a whirlwind of wonder that she could do no more than clutch it to her bosom as she flew. She sent out word that she was not coming down to dinner, and locked herself in with her truth, to make what she could of it.



CHAPTER XI

ANTEROS

Macartney was no fool in his own world, where a perfectly clear idea of what you want to do combined with a nonchalant manner of "Take it or leave it" had always carried him through the intricacies of business. If he was a fool in supposing that precisely the same armoury would defend him at home, there is this excuse for him, that Lucy had encouraged him to suppose it. When she dashed from the room at this recent moment he sat for some time with his eyes fixed upon his foolscap; but presently found himself reading the same sentence over and over again without understanding one word in it. He dropped the document, rose and picked himself out a cigar, with deliberation and attention disproportionate to the business. He cut, stabbed and lighted the cigar, and stood by the mantelpiece, smoking and gazing out of window.

He had overdone it. He had stretched regime too far. There had been a snap. Now, just where had he failed? Was it with Francis Lingen? Perhaps. He must admit, though, that some good had come out of the trouble. He felt reassured about Francis Lingen, because, as he judged, women don't get angry in cases of the kind unless the husband has nothing to be angry about. He felt very world-wise and shrewd as he propounded this. Women like their husbands to be jealous, especially if they are jealous with reason. Because, then, they say to themselves, "Well, anyhow, he loves me still. I have him to fall back upon, at all events." Capital! He gave a short guffaw, and resumed his cigar. But Lucy was angry: obviously because he had wasted good jealousy on a mere fancy. Damn it, he had overdone it. The next thing—if he didn't look out—would be that she would give him something to be jealous of. He must calm her—there would be no difficulty in that, no loss of prestige.

Prestige: that was the thing you wanted to maintain. Discipline be jiggered—that might do mischief—if you drove it too hard. The fact was, he was a little too sharp with Lucy. She was a dear, gentle creature, and no doubt one fell into the habit of pushing a willing horse. He could see it all now perfectly. He had been put out when he arrived at the Marchants' too early—she was not there; and then that old fool Vane with his, "Saw your wife at the Chelsea thing, with Lingen. They looked very settled"; that had put the lid on. That was how it was; and he had been too sharp. Well, one must make mistakes—

He wondered what she had meant about the Opera. Why had she harped upon that string? "You were there before Francis Lingen," she had said—well, and then—she had been furious with him. He had said, "I know that I was," and she, "If that is all your memory brings you—" and off she went. He smoked hard—lifted his hand and dropped it smartly to his mantelpiece. No; that was a thing no man could fathom. A Lucyism—quite clear to herself, no doubt. Well, he'd leave that alone. The more one tried to bottom those waters, the less one fished up. But he would make peace with her after dinner.

He heard, "Mrs. Macartney is not dining this evening; she has a bad headache, and doesn't wish to be disturbed," received it with a curt nod, and accepted it simply. Better to take women at their word. Her troubles would have simmered down by the morning, whereas if he were to go up now, one of two things: either she'd be angry enough to let him batter at the door to no purpose—and feel an ass for his pains; or she would let him in, and make a fuss—in which case he would feel still more of an ass. "Ask Mrs. Macartney if I can do anything," he had said to Smithers, and was answered, "I think Mrs. Macartney is asleep, sir." He hoped she was. That would do her a world of good.

Morning. In the breakfast-room he faced a Lucy self-possessed, with guarded eyes, and, if he could have seen it, with implied reproach stiffening every line of her. Her generosity gratified him, but should have touched him keenly. She came to him at once, and put up her face. "I'm sorry I was so cross, James." His immediate feeling, I say, was one of gratification. That was all right. She had come in. To that succeeded a wave of kindness. He dropped his glass, and took her strongly in his arms. "Dearest, I behaved very badly. I'm truly sorry." He kissed her, and for a moment she clung to him, but avoided his further kisses. Yet he had kissed her as a man should. She had nothing more to say, but he felt it her due that he should add something while yet he held her. "As for poor Francis—I know that I was absurd—I admit it frankly." He felt her shake and guessed her indignation. "You'll believe me, dear. You know I don't like owning myself a fool." Then she had looked up, still in his arms—"Why should you be so stupid? How can you possibly be? You, of all people!" There she was again.

But he intended to make peace once and for all. "My dearest, I can't be more abject, for the life of me. I have confessed that I was an abounding ass. Please to believe in me. Ask Francis Lingen to tea for a month of days—and not a word from me!"

She had laughed, rather scornfully, and tried to free herself. He kissed her again before he let her go. Almost immediately he resumed his habits—eyeglass, Morning Post, and scraps of comment. He made an effort and succeeded, he thought, in being himself. "Johnny Mallet gives another party at the Bachelors to-day. I believe I go. Has he asked you? He means to. He's a tufthunter—but he gets tufts.... I see that the Fathers in God are raving about the Tithe Bill. I shall have Jasper Mellen at me—and the Dean too. Do you remember—did you ever hear, I wonder, of Box and Cox? They have a knack of coming to me on the same day. Once they met on the doorstep, and each of them turned and fled away. It must have been very comic...." Lucy busied herself with her letters and her coffee-cups. She wished that she did not feel so ruffled, but—a walk would do her good. She would go into the Park presently, and look at the tulips and lilacs. It was horrid to feel so stuffy on such a perfect day. How long to Whitsuntide? That was to be heavenly—if James didn't get inspired by the dark! Something would have to be prepared for that. In her eyes, sedate though they were, there lurked a gleam: the beacon-fire of a woman beleaguered. Certainly Jimmy Urquhart liked her. He had said that she liked him. Well, and so she did. Very much indeed.

James went, forgiven, to his Bishops and Deans, and to lunch with his Johnny Mallet and the tufted. Lucy, her household duties done, arrayed herself for the tulips of the Park.

The grey watches of the night with their ache and moments of panic, the fever and fret, the wearing down of rage and emptying of wonder and dismay, the broken snatches of dream-sleep, and the heavy slumber which exhaustion finally gave her—all this had brought downstairs, to be kissed, embraced and forgiven, a Lucy disillusioned and tired to death, but schooled to patience. Her conclusion of the whole matter now was that it was James who had indeed loved her in the dark, with an access of passion which he had never shown before and could drop apparently as fitfully as he won to it, and also with a fulness of satisfaction to himself which she did not pretend to understand. It was James and no other, simply because any other was unthinkable. Such things were not done. Jimmy Urquhart—and what other could she imagine it?—was out of the question. She had finally brushed him out as a girl flecks the mirror in a cotillon. It was James; but why he had been so moved, how moved, how so lightly satisfied, how his conduct at other times could be fitted in—really, it didn't matter two straws. It meant nothing but a moment's silliness, it led to nothing, it mended nothing—and it broke nothing. Her soul was her own, her heart was her own. It was amiable of him, she dared say, but had become rather a bore. She conceived of a time at hand when she might have to be careful that he shouldn't. But just now she wouldn't make a fuss. Anything but that. He was within his rights, she supposed; and let it rest at that. So arrayed, she faced him, and, to let nothing be omitted on her part, she herself apologised for what had been his absurd fault, and so won as much from him as he could ever have given anybody. As for Francis Lingen—she had not once given him a thought.

Now, however, James away to his Bishops, she arrayed herself anew, and went out, fraiche et dispose, into the Park, intending that she should see Urquhart. And so she did. He was on horseback and dismounted the moment he saw her. He was glad to see her, she could tell, but did not insist upon his gladness. He admired her, she could see, but took his admiration as a matter of course. She wore champagne-colour. She had snakeskin shoes, a black hat. She was excited, and had colour; her eyes shone.

"Well," he said, "here you are then. That's a good thing. I began to give you up."

"How did you know—?" She stopped, and bit her lip.

"I didn't. But I'm very glad to see you. You look very well. Where are you going?"

She nodded her direction. "Tulips. Just over there. I always pilgrimise them."

"All right. Let us pilgrimise them. Tulips are like a drug. A little is exquisite, and you are led on. Excess brings no more enchantment, only nausea. You buy a million and plant your woodland, and the result is horror. A hundred would have been heavenly. That's what I find."

She had mockery in her look, gleams of it shot with happiness to be there. "Is that what you've done at Martley? I shan't praise you when I see it. I hate too-muchness."

"So do I, but always too late. I ought to learn from you, whose frugality is part of your charm. One can't imagine too much Lucy."

"Ah, don't be sure," she cautioned him. "Ask James."

"I shall. I'm quite equal to that. I'll ask him to-day. He's to be at an idiotic luncheon, to which I'm fool enough to be going. Marchionesses and all the rest of it."

"How can you go to such things when you might be—flying?"

"Earning your displeasure? Oh, I know, I know. I didn't know how to refuse Mallet. He seemed to want me. I was flattered. As a matter of fact—I have flown."

"Alone?"

"Good Lord, no. I had an expert there. He let me have the levers. I had an illusion. But I always do."

"Do tell me your illusion."

"I thought that I could sing."

"You did sing, I'm sure."

"I might have. One miracle the more. As for the machine—it wasn't a machine, it was a living spirit."

"A male spirit or a female spirit?"

"Female, I think. Anyhow I addressed it as such."

"What did you say to her?"

"I said, 'You darling.'"

That startled her, if you like! She looked frightened, then coloured deeply. Urquhart seemed full of his own thoughts.

"How's Lancelot?" he asked her.

That helped her. "Oh, he delights me. Another 'living spirit.' He never fails to ask after you."

"Stout chap."

"He harps on your story. The first you ever told us. This time he put in his postscript, 'How is Wives and Co?'"

He nodded. "Very good. I begat an immortal. That tale will never die. He'll tell it to his grandchildren."

They stood, or strolled at ease, by the railings, she within them, he holding his horse outside them. The tulips were adjudged, names taken, colours approved.

"You'll see mine," he said, "in ten days. Do you realise that?"

She was radiant. "I should think so. That has simply got to happen. Are you going to have other people there?"

"Vera," he said, "and her man, and I rather think Considine, her man's brother. Fat and friendly, with a beard, and knows a good deal about machines, one way and another. I want his advice about hydroplanes, among other things. You'll like him."

"Why shall I like him?"

"Because he's himself. He has no manners at all, only feelings. Nice feelings. That's much better than manners."

"Yes, I dare say they are." She thought about it. "There's a difference between manner and manners."

"Oh, rather. The more manner you have the less manners."

"Yes, I meant that. But even manners don't imply feelings, do they?"

"I was going to say, Never. But that wouldn't be true. You have charming manners: your feelings' clothes and a jolly good fit."

"How kind you are." She was very pleased. "Now, you—what shall I say?"

"You might say that I have no manners, and not offend me. I have no use for them. But I have feelings, sometimes nice, sometimes horrid."

"I am sure that you couldn't be horrid."

"Don't be sure," he said gravely. "I had rather you weren't. I have done amiss in my day, much amiss; and I shall do it again."

She looked gently at him; her mouth showed the Luini compassion, long-drawn and long-suffering, because it understood. "Don't say that. I don't think you mean it."

He shook his head, but did not cease to watch her. "Oh, but I mean it. When I want a thing, I try to get it. When I see my way, I follow it. It seems like a law of Nature. And I suppose it is one. What else is instinct?"

"Yes," she said, "but I suppose we have feelings in us so that we may realise that other people have them too."

"Yes, yes—or that we may give them to those who haven't got any of their own."

They had become grave, and he, at least, moody. Lucy dared not push enquiry. She had the ardent desire to help and the instinct to make things comfortable on the surface, which all women have, and which makes nurses of them. But she discerned trouble ahead. Urquhart's startling frankness had alarmed her before, and she didn't trust herself to pass it off if it flashed once too often. Flashes like that lit up the soul, and not of the lamp-holder only.

They parted, with unwillingness on both sides, at Prince's Gate, and Lucy sped homewards with feet that flew as fast as her winged thoughts. That "You darling" was almost proof positive. And yet he had been at Peltry that night; and yet he couldn't have dared! Now even as she uttered that last objection she faltered; for when daring came into question, what might he not dare? Remained the first. He had been at Peltry, she knew, because she had been asked to meet him there and had refused on the opera's account. Besides, she had heard about his riding horses as if they were motors, and— Here she stood still; and found herself shaking. That letter—in that letter of Mabel's about his visit to Peltry, had there not been something of a call to London, and return late for dinner? And the opera began at half-past six. What was the date of his call to London? Could she find that letter? And should she hunt for it, or leave it vague? And then she thought of Martley. And then she blushed.



CHAPTER XII

MARTLEY THICKET (1)

Urquhart was a man of explosive action and had great reserve of strength. He was moved by flashes of insight, and was capable of long-sustained flights of vehement effort; but his will-power was nourished entirely by those moments of intense prevision, which showed him a course, and all the stages of it. The mistakes he made, and they were many and grievous, were mostly due to overshooting his mark, sometimes to underrating it. In the headlong and not too scrupulous adventure he was now upon, both defects were leagued against him.

When he first saw Lucy at her dinner-party, he said to himself, "That's a sweet woman. I shall fall in love with her." To say as much was proof that he had already done so; but it was the sudden conviction of it which inspired him, filled him with effervescent nonsense and made him the best of company, for a dinner-party. Throughout it, at his wildest and most irresponsible, his fancy and imagination were at work upon her. He read her to the soul, or thought so.

Chance, and Lancelot, gave him the chart of the terrain. The switch at the drawing-room door gave him his plan. The opportunity came, and he dared to take it. He marked the effect upon her. It was exactly what he had foreseen. He saw her eyes humid upon Macartney, her hand at rest on his arm. Jesuitry palliated what threatened to seem monstrous, even to him. "God bless her, I drive her to her man. What's the harm in that?"

So he went on—once more, and yet again; and in the meantime by daylight and by more honest ways he gained her confidence and her liking. He saw no end to the affair so prosperously begun, and didn't trouble about one. All he cared about just now were two courtships—the vicarious in the dark, and the avowed of the daylight.

He intended to go on. He was full of it—in the midst of his other passions of the hour, such as this of the air. He was certain of his direction, as certain as he had ever been. But now his mistakes and miscalculations began. He had mistaken his Lucy, and his Macartney too.

What he didn't know about Macartney, Lucy did know; what he didn't know about Lucy was that she had found out James. James as Eros wouldn't do, chiefly because such conduct on James's part would have been incredible. Urquhart didn't know it would be incredible, nor did he know that she did.

One other thing he didn't know, which was that Lucy was half his own before she started for Martley. She, in fact, didn't know it either. She had been his from the moment when she had asked him to keep out of the air, and he had declined.

All this is necessary matter, because in the light of it his next deliberated move in his game was a bad mistake.

On the night before she was expected at Martley, being there himself, he wrote her a letter to this effect:

"Dear Mrs. Macartney: To my dismay and concern I find that I can't be here to receive you, nor indeed until you are on the point to go away. I shall try hard for Sunday, which will give me one day with you—better to me than a thousand elsewhere. Vera will be my curate. Nothing will be omitted which will show you how much Martley owes you, or how much I am, present or absent, yours,

"J. U."

That letter he gave to Vera Nugent to deliver to Lucy. Vera wanted to know what it was all about.

"It's to say that I can't be here," he said. "That is the fact, unfortunately."

"Why, my dear Jimmy, I thought you adored her. Isn't the poor lady the very latest?"

"My dear girl, I do adore her. Leave it at that. It's an excellent reason for not being here: the best. But I'm going up with a star, which is another reason. And I hope to be here on Sunday, which is the most I can afford myself. Really, that's all. But you like her, you say; or you should."

"I do like her. She's not very talkative—to me; but listens well. Considine will like her. Listeners are rare with him, poor dear. But you move me. I didn't know you were so far gone."

"Never mind how far I am gone, provided that I go," said Urquhart.

"Oh, at this rate, I will hasten you. I can't be bothered with a cause celebre. But what am I to tell the lady? You must be practical, my fine man."

"Tell her that I was sent for in a hurry. Hint at the air if you think proper. I think I have said all that is necessary in the note."

* * * * *

The Macartneys were expected to lunch. Urquhart left his house at noon, driving himself in a motor. He disappeared in the forest, but didn't go very far.

James heard of his host's defection with impassivity and a glance of his eyeglass. "Wonder what Jimmy has shied off for?" he said to Lucy through the dressing-room door. "Aeroplaning or royalty, do you think? The ——s may have sent for him. I know he knows them. But it's characteristic. He makes a fuss about you, so that you think you're his life or death; and then you find out—not at all! You simply don't exist—that's all. What do you think?"

"I don't think that we don't exist," she said. "I think that something important has happened."

"Oh, well," said James, "one had got into the way of thinking that one was important oneself. D——d cool, I call it."

There had been a moment when Lucy knew anger; but that had soon passed. She knew that she was bitterly disappointed, and found a rueful kind of happiness in discovering how bitterly. She had reached the stage where complete happiness seems to be rooted in self-surrender. In a curious kind of way the more she suffered the more surely she could pinch herself on the chin and say, "My dear, you are caught." There was comfort in this—and Martley itself, house, gardens, woodlands, the lake, the vistas of the purple wolds of forest country, all contributed to her enchaining. Luncheon passed off well under Vera Nugent's vivacious brown eyes, which could not penetrate the gentle mask of Lucy's manner. Nugent the husband was a sleepy, good-humoured giant; Lord Considine, whose beard was too long, and jacket-sleeves much too short—as were his trousers—"his so-called trousers," as James put it in his scorn—talked fiercely about birds'-nests and engaged Lucy for the whole afternoon. This was not allowed him by his sister-in-law, who had other more sociable plans, but the good man had his pleasure of a docile listener after tea, took her for a great walk in the woods, and exhibited nearly all his treasures, though, as he said, she should have been there six weeks earlier. Alas, if she had been, she would have had a more open mind to give to the birds and their affairs.

After dinner, when they were on the terrace under the stars, he returned to his subject. There were nightingales, it seemed. What did Mrs. Macartney say to that? It appeared that six miles away the nightingale was an unknown fowl. Here, of course, they were legionaries. You might hear six at a time: two triangles of them. Did she know that they sang in triangles? She did not. Very well, then: what did she say? What about shoes—a cloak—a shawl? All these things could be brought. Lucy said that she would fetch them for herself, and went upstairs—shallow, broad stairs of black oak, very much admired by the experts. But of them and their excellence she had no thought. She did not care to let her thoughts up to the surface just then. Adventure beckoned her.

When she returned Nugent had withdrawn himself to the smoking-room, and James was talking to Vera Nugent about people one knew. Neither of them was for nightingales. "You are very foolhardy," James said. "I can't help you with nightingales." Lord Considine, in a black Spanish cloak, with the staff of a pilgrim to Compostella, offered his arm. "We'll go first to the oak Spinney," he said. "It's rather spongy, I'm afraid, but who minds a little cold water?" Vera assured him that she did for one, and James added that he was rather rheumatic. "Come along, Mrs. Macartney," said the lord. "These people make me sorry for them." So they went down the steps and dipped into the velvet night.

It was barely dark skirting the lake. You could almost see the rings made by rising trout, and there was enough of you visible at least to send the waterfowl scuttering from the reeds. Beyond that again, you could descry the pale ribbon of the footpath, and guess at the exuberant masses of the peony bushes, their heavy flowers, when they were white, still smouldering with the last of the sunset's fire. But once in the woods you had to feel your way, and the silence of it all, like the darkness, was thick, had a quality which you discovered only by the soft close touch of it upon your cheeks and eyes. It seemed to clog the ears, and made breathing a deeper exercise. The further in they went the greater the guesswork of the going. Lord Considine went in front, to keep the branches from her face.

Upon that rich, heavy silence the first birds' song stole like a sense of tears: the low, tentative, pensive note which seems like the welling of a vein. Lucy stayed and breathlessly listened. The doubtfulness, the strain of longing in it chimed with her own mood, which was one, perhaps, of passive wonderment. She waited, as one who is to receive; she was not committed, but she was prepared: everything was to come. The note was held, it waxed, it called, and then broke, as it were, into a fountain of crystal melody. Thereafter it purred of peace, it floated and stopped short as if content. But out of the dark another took up the song, and further off another, provoking our first musician to a new stave. Lucy, with parted lips, held her heart. Love was in this place, overshadowing her; her sightless eyes were wide, waiting upon it; and it came. She heard a step in the thicket; she stayed without motion, will or thought. Expectans expectavit. She was in the strange arms, and the strange kisses were on her parted lips.

She knew not, nor cared, how long this rapture held. She got, and she gave. James, or another, this was Eros who had her now. She heard, "Oh, Lucy, oh, my love, my love," and she thought to have answered, "You have me—what shall I do?" But she had no reply to her question, and seemed to have no desire unsatisfied.

Lord Considine's voice calling, "I say, shall we go on—or do you think you had better go in?" sounded a very homely note. Her Eros still held her, even as she answered, "Perhaps we had better turn back now. I could stop out forever on such a night. It has been more beautiful than I can say." Approval of the sentiment expressed was stamped upon her. For a moment of wild surrender she clung as she kissed; then she was gently relinquished, and the lord was at hand. "There's nothing quite like it, is there?" he said. "I've heard astounding orchestras of birds in South America; but nothing at all like this—which, moreover, seems to me at its best in England. In Granada, up there in the Wellington elms, they absolutely—mind, mind, here's a briar-root—they shout at you. There's a brazen hardihood about them. In Athens, too, in the King's Garden, it is a kind of clamour of sound—like an Arab wedding. No, no, I say that we are unrivalled for nightingales." The enthusiastic man galloped on, and Lucy, throbbing in the dark, was grateful to him.

The lights of the house recalled her to the world. Presently, up the slope, she saw Vera Nugent, at the piano, turning to say something to somebody. It was James, rather bored in an arm-chair. James liked neither the society of women nor the notes of a piano. But he liked still less for such things to be known of him. His own social standard may perhaps be put thus: he liked to appear bored without boring his companions. On the whole he flattered himself that, high as it was, he nearly always reached it.

"Where's my beautiful young brother?" said Lord Considine, plunging in upon them. "Asleep, I'll take my oath. My dear Vera, you are too easy with him. The man is getting mountainous. You two little know what you've missed—hey, Mrs. Macartney?" He was obviously overheated, but completely at ease with himself.

"What do you say we have missed?" Vera asked of James, and he now, on his feet, said bravely, "For myself, a nasty chill." A chill—out there!

* * * * *

Lucy was asked, Did she like it all, and boldly owned, All. "The dark is like an eiderdown bed. Impossible to imagine anything softer." She rubbed her eyes. "It has made me dreadfully sleepy," she said. "I think, if you won't be horrified—" Vera said that she should go up with her. James stooped to her cheek, Lord Considine bowed over her hand.

In Lucy's room the pair had a long talk, all of which I don't pretend to report. It began with, "I'm so glad that you take to poor Considine. You are so very much his sort of woman. He's a dear, simple creature, far too good for most of us—and a Nugent freak, I assure you. They've never known the like in the County of Cork.... I like him immensely, but of course he's too remote for the like of me. No small talk, you know, and I'm aburst with it. I talk while I'm thinking, and he when he has thought. You understand that kind, evidently. I suppose your clever husband is like that. Not that I don't get on with him. We did excellently—I think he knew everybody that I could think of, and I everybody he chose to mention. But Jimmy likes Considine, you know.... By the way, it was very disgraceful of Jimmy, but not so disgraceful as you might think. In its way it's a compliment. He thinks so much of you—Oh, I may as well tell you the shocking truth. He ran away. What a moth in the drawing-room ought to do, but never can, Jimmy, not at all a moth, quite suddenly did. My dear Mrs. Macartney, Jimmy ran away from you. Flying! I doubt it profoundly. Wrestling, I fancy, fighting beasts at Ephesus. You have doubtless discovered how enthusiastic Jimmy is. Most attractive, no doubt, but sometimes embarrassing. As once, when we were in Naples—in the funicolare, halfway up Vesuvius—Jimmy sees a party at the other end of the carriage: mother, daughter, two pig-tailed children, and a governess—quite a pretty gel. Jimmy was enormously struck with this governess. He could see nothing else, and nobody else either, least of all me, of course. He muttered and rolled his eyes about—his chin jutted like the bow of a destroyer. Presently he couldn't stand it. He marched across the carriage and took off his hat with a bow—my dear, to the governess, poor gel! 'I beg your pardon,' says he, 'but I have to tell you something. I think you are the most beautiful person I ever saw in my life, and take pride in saying so.' Wasn't it awful? I didn't dare look at them—but it seemed all right afterwards. I suppose she told her people that of course he was mad. So he is, in a way; but it's quite nice madness. I won't say that Jimmy never goes too far—but nobody could be nicer about it afterwards than Jimmy—no one. He's awfully sorry, and contrite, and all that. Most people like him amazingly. I suppose he's told you about our father? He loves all the stories there are about him ..." and so on. Vera Nugent was a great talker.

Lucy at her prayers, Lucy in her bed, had large gaps in the sequence of her thoughts. Safety lay only with Lancelot. She could centre herself in him. Lancelot it was who with forceful small fingers, and half-shy, half-sly eyes, finally closed down hers, with a "Go to sleep, you tired mamma."



CHAPTER XIII

MARTLEY THICKET (2)

The day that succeeded was prelude to the night, sufficient to show Lucy her way into that spacious unknown. By her own desire she passed it quietly, and had leisure to review and to forecast.

She put it to herself, roughly, thus. I may guess, but I don't know, who loves me so. It cannot continue—it shall stop this very night. But this one night I must go to him, if only to say that it can never be again. And it won't be again; I am sure of that. However he may take it, whatever he may be driven to, he will do what I say must be. As for me, I don't think women can ever be very happy. I expect I shall get used to it—one does, to almost anything, except toothache. And I have Lancelot. She put all this quite frankly to herself, not shirking the drab outlook or the anguish of doing a thing for the last time—always a piercing ordeal for her. As for James, if she thought of him at all, it was with pity. Poor dear, he really was rather dry!

She ought to have been very angry with Urquhart, but she was not. "The first time he did it, I understand. I am sure he had a sudden thought, and couldn't resist it. It must have been more than half fun, and the rest because it was so romantic. The other times were much more wrong. But I'm not angry with him. I ought to be—but I'm not—not at all. I suppose that is because I couldn't be angry with him if I tried ... not if he did much more.... No, I am sure he doesn't hold me cheap. He's not at all like that. James might—only James holds all women cheap. But He doesn't. I never felt at all like this about a man before. Only—it must stop, after this once...."

You see, he had not kindled passion in her, even if there were any to be kindled. Lucy, with a vehement imagination, lacked initiative. You could touch her in a moment, if you knew how, or if you were the right person. Now Urquhart had never touched, though he had excited, her. To be touched you must respond to a need of hers—much more that than have a need of your own. And to be the right person you must be empowered, according to Lucy. Urquhart was not really empowered, but an usurper. Of course he didn't know that. He reasoned hastily, and superficially. He thought her to be like most women, struck by audacity. What really struck her about him were his timeliness—he had responded to a need of hers when he had first kissed her—and his rare moments of tenderness. "You darling!" Oh, if James could only have said that instead of "My darling!" Poor James, what a goose he was.

It was a very peaceful day. James and Nugent had driven out to play golf on some first-class course or other by the sea. Lord Considine was busy with his secretary over a paper for the British Association. In the afternoon he promised Lucy sight of two golden orioles, and kept his promise. She had leisure to look about her and find traces of Urquhart in much that was original, and more that was comfortable and intimate, in Martley Thicket. It was a long two-storeyed house of whitewashed brick, with a green slate roof, intermixed with reed-thatch, deep-eaved and verandahed along the whole south front. The upper windows had green persanes. The house stood on the side of a hill, was terraced, and looked over a concave of fine turf into a valley, down whose centre ran the lake, at whose bottom was the wood; and beyond that the moors and beech-masses of the forest. Beside the house, and behind it, was a walled kitchen garden, white-walled, with a thatch atop. On the other side were stables, kennels and such-like. Everything was grown to the top of its bent; but there was nothing very rare. "No frills," said Lord Considine, and approved of it all. "I dare say a woman would beautify it, but it would cease to be Jimmy's and would cease to be interesting too. She would have more flowers and fewer shrubs. Now Jimmy knows enough about it to understand that shrubs and trees are the real test of gardening. Anybody can grow flowers; but shrubs want science." Lucy felt rebuked. She had desiderated more flowers. James, who knew nothing and cared little about gardens, passed approval of the house and offices. "It doesn't smell of money," he said, "and yet you see what a lot it means when you look into it." Success, in fact, without visible effort: one of James's high standards. He didn't know how Jimmy got his money, but had no doubts at all of its being there. A man who could lend Francis Lingen L10,000 without a thought must be richissime. Yet Jimmy had no men-servants in the house, and James glared about him for the reason. Lucy had a reason. "I suppose, you know, he wants to be really comfortable," she proposed, and James transferred his mild abhorrence to her. "Comfortable, without a fellow to put out his things!" He scoffed at her. But she was rather short with him, even testy. "My dear James, Mr. Urquhart's things are things to be put on or taken off—like Lord Considine's 'so-called clothes.' To you they seem to be robes of ceremony, or sacrificial vestments." James stared rather through than at her, as if some enemy lurked behind her. "My clothes seem to annoy you. May I suggest that somebody must get the mud off them, and that I had rather it wasn't me? As for ceremony—" But she had gone. James shrugged her out of mind, and wondered vaguely if she was rather attracted by Jimmy Urquhart. It was bound to be somebody—at her age. Thirty-two she must be, when they begin to like a fling. Well, there was nothing in it. Later on it occurred to him that she was looking uncommonly well just now. He saw her, in white, cross the lawn: a springy motion, a quick lift, turn of the head. She looked a girl, and a pretty one at that. His heart warmed to her. How could a man have a better wife than that? Success without effort again! There it was.

The evening came, the close of a hot and airless day. The sun set heavy and red. A bluish mist seemed to steal out of the forest and shroud the house. The terrace was not used after dinner, and when the men joined Vera and her in the drawing-room Lord Considine, who had proposed a game of chess to James at the table, now came forward with board and box of men. Nugent, as usual, had disappeared. "He's dormant when there's no hunting," his wife explained. "He has nothing to kill and hates his fellow-creatures." "Then," said James, "he might kill some of them. I could furnish him with a rough list." Lucy felt restless and strayed about the room, looking at things here and there without seeing them. Vera watched her, saw her wander to the open window and stand there looking gravely into the dark. She said nothing, and presently Lucy stepped out and disappeared. Vera, with raised eyebrows and a half smile, resumed her book.