Джон Голсуорси
The Island Pharisees
Antonia was slipping from him!
A moment’s vision from without himself would have shown him that it was he who moved and she who was standing still, like the figure of one watching the passage of a stream with clear, direct, and sullen eyes.
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE RIVER
One day towards the end of August Shelton took Antonia on the river – the river that, like soft music, soothes the land; the river of the reeds and poplars, the silver swan-sails, sun and moon, woods, and the white slumbrous clouds; where cuckoos, and the wind, the pigeons, and the weirs are always singing; and in the flash of naked bodies, the play of waterlily leaves, queer goblin stumps, and the twilight faces of the twisted tree-roots, Pan lives once more.
The reach which Shelton chose was innocent of launches, champagne bottles and loud laughter; it was uncivilised, and seldom troubled by these humanising influences. He paddled slowly, silent and absorbed, watching Antonia. An unaccustomed languor clung about her; her eyes had shadows, as though she had not slept; colour glowed softly in her cheeks, her frock seemed all alight with golden radiance. She made Shelton pull into the reeds, and plucked two rounded lilies sailing like ships against slow-moving water.
“Pull into the shade, please,” she said; “it’s too hot out here.”
The brim of her linen hat kept the sun from her face, but her head was drooping like a flower’s head at noon.
Shelton saw that the heat was really harming her, as too hot a day will dim the icy freshness of a northern plant. He dipped his sculls, the ripples started out and swam in grave diminuendo till they touched the banks.
He shot the boat into a cleft, and caught the branches of an overhanging tree. The skiff rested, balancing with mutinous vibration, like a living thing.
“I should hate to live in London,” said Antonia suddenly; “the slums must be so awful. What a pity, when there are places like this! But it’s no good thinking.”
“No,” answered Shelton slowly! “I suppose it is no good.”
“There are some bad cottages at the lower end of Cross Eaton. I went them one day with Miss Truecote. The people won’t help themselves. It’s so discouraging to help people who won’t help themselves.”
She was leaning her elbows on her knees, and, with her chin resting on her hands, gazed up at Shelton. All around them hung a tent of soft, thick leaves, and, below, the water was deep-dyed with green refraction. Willow boughs, swaying above the boat, caressed Antonia’s arms and shoulders; her face and hair alone were free.
“So discouraging,” she said again.
A silence fell… Antonia seemed thinking deeply.
“Doubts don’t help you,” she said suddenly; “how can you get any good from doubts? The thing is to win victories.”
“Victories?” said Shelton. “I ‘d rather understand than conquer!”
He had risen to his feet, and grasped stunted branch, canting the boat towards the bank.
“How can you let things slide like that, Dick? It’s like Ferrand.”
“Have you such a bad opinion of him, then?” asked Shelton. He felt on the verge of some, discovery.
She buried her chin deeper in her hands.
“I liked him at first,” she said; “I thought that he was different. I thought he couldn’t really be – ”
“Really be what?”
Antonia did not answer.
“I don’t know,” she said at last. “I can’t explain. I thought – ”
Shelton still stood, holding to the branch, and the oscillation of the boat freed an infinity of tiny ripples.
“You thought – what?” he said.
He ought to have seen her face grow younger, more childish, even timid. She said in a voice smooth, round, and young:
“You know, Dick, I do think we ought to try. I know I don’t try half hard enough. It does n’t do any good to think; when you think, everything seems so mixed, as if there were nothing to lay hold of. I do so hate to feel like that. It is n’t as if we didn’t know what’s right. Sometimes I think, and think, and it ‘s all no good, only a waste of time, and you feel at the end as if you had been doing wrong.”
Shelton frowned.
“What has n’t been through fire’s no good,” he said; and, letting go the branch, sat down. Freed from restraint, the boat edged out towards the current. “But what about Ferrand?”
“I lay awake last night wondering what makes you like him so. He’s so bitter; he makes me feel unhappy. He never seems content with anything. And he despises” – her face hardened – “I mean, he hates us all!”
“So should I if I were he,” said Shelton.
The boat was drifting on, and gleams of sunlight chased across their faces. Antonia spoke again.
“He seems to be always looking at dark things, or else he seems as if – as if he could – enjoy himself too much. I thought – I thought at first,” she stammered, “that we could do him good.”
“Do him good! Ha, ha!”
A startled rat went swimming for its life against the stream; and Shelton saw that he had done a dreadful thing: he had let Antonia with a jerk into a secret not hitherto admitted even by himself – the secret that her eyes were not his eyes, her way of seeing things not his nor ever would be. He quickly muffled up his laughter. Antonia had dropped her gaze; her face regained its languor, but the bosom of her dress was heaving. Shelton watched her, racking his brains to find excuses for that fatal laugh; none could he find. It was a little piece of truth. He paddled slowly on, close to the bank, in the long silence of the river.
The breeze had died away, not a fish was rising; save for the lost music of the larks no birds were piping; alone, a single pigeon at brief intervals cooed from the neighbouring wood.
They did not stay much longer in the boat.
On the homeward journey in the pony-cart, rounding a corner of the road, they came on Ferrand in his pince-nez, holding a cigarette between his fingers and talking to a tramp, who was squatting on the bank. The young foreigner recognised them, and at once removed his hat.
“There he is,” said Shelton, returning the salute.
Antonia bowed.
“Oh!” she, cried, when they were out of hearing, “I wish he ‘d go. I can’t bear to see him; it’s like looking at the dark.”
CHAPTER XXIX
ON THE WING
That night, having gone up to his room, Shelton filled his pipe for his unpleasant duty. He had resolved to hint to Ferrand that he had better go. He was still debating whether to write or go himself to the young foreigner, when there came a knock and Ferrand himself appeared.
“I should be sorry,” he said, breaking an awkward silence, “if you were to think me ungrateful, but I see no future for me here. It would be better for me to go. I should never be content to pass my life in teaching languages ‘ce n’est guere dans mon caractre’.”
As soon as what he had been cudgelling his brains to find a way of saying had thus been said for him, Shelton experienced a sense of disapproval.
“What do you expect to get that’s better?” he said, avoiding Ferrand’s eyes.
“Thanks to your kindness,” replied the latter, “I find myself restored. I feel that I ought to make some good efforts to dominate my social position.”
“I should think it well over, if I were you!” said Shelton.
“I have, and it seems to me that I’m wasting my time. For a man with any courage languages are no career; and, though I ‘ve many defects, I still have courage.”
Shelton let his pipe go out, so pathetic seemed to him this young man’s faith in his career; it was no pretended faith, but neither was it, he felt, his true motive for departure. “He’s tired,” he thought; “that ‘s it. Tired of one place.” And having the instinctive sense that nothing would keep Ferrand, he redoubled his advice.
“I should have thought,” he said, “that you would have done better to have held on here and saved a little before going off to God knows what.”
“To save,” said Ferrand, “is impossible for me, but, thanks to you and your good friends, I ‘ve enough to make front to first necessities. I’m in correspondence with a friend; it’s of great importance for me to reach Paris before all the world returns. I ‘ve a chance to get, a post in one of the West African companies. One makes fortunes out there – if one survives, and, as you know, I don’t set too much store by life.”
“We have a proverb,” said Shelton, “‘A bird in the hand is worth two birds in the bush!’.rdquo;
“That,” returned Ferrand, “like all proverbs, is just half true. This is an affair of temperament. It ‘s not in my character to dandle one when I see two waiting to be caught; ‘voyager, apprendre, c’est plus fort que moi’.” He paused; then, with a nervous goggle of the eyes and an ironic smile he said: “Besides, ‘mon cher monsieur’, it is better that I go. I have never been one to hug illusions, and I see pretty clearly that my presence is hardly acceptable in this house.”
“What makes you say that?” asked, Shelton, feeling that the murder was now out.”
“My dear sir, all the world has not your understanding and your lack of prejudice, and, though your friends have been extremely kind to me, I am in a false position; I cause them embarrassment, which is not extraordinary when you reflect what I have been, and that they know my history.”
“Not through me,” said Shelton quickly, “for I don’t know it myself.”
“It’s enough,” the vagrant said, “that they feel I’m not a bird of their feather. They cannot change, neither can I. I have never wanted to remain where I ‘m not welcome.”
Shelton turned to the window, and stared into the darkness; he would never quite understand this vagabond, so delicate, so cynical, and he wondered if Ferrand had been swallowing down the words, “Why, even you won’t be sorry to see my back!”
“Well,” he said at last, “if you must go, you must. When do you start?”
“I ‘ve arranged with a man to carry my things to the early train. I think it better not to say good-bye. I ‘ve written a letter instead; here it is. I left it open for you to read if you should wish.”
“Then,” said Shelton, with a curious mingling of relief, regret, good-will, “I sha’n’. see you again?”
Ferrand gave his hand a stealthy rub, and held it out.
“I shall never forget what you have done for me,” he said.
“Mind you write,” said Shelton.
“Yes, yes” – the vagrant’s face was oddly twisted – “you don’t know what a difference it makes to have a correspondent; it gives one courage. I hope to remain a long time in correspondence with you.”
“I dare say you do,” thought Shelton grimly, with a certain queer emotion.
“You will do me the justice to remember that I have never asked you for anything,” said Ferrand. “Thank you a thousand times. Good-bye!”
He again wrung his patron’s hand in his damp grasp, and, going out, left Shelton with an odd sensation in his throat. “You will do me the justice to remember that I have never asked you for anything.” The phrase seemed strange, and his mind flew back over all this queer acquaintanceship. It was a fact: from the beginning to the end the youth had never really asked for anything. Shelton sat down on his bed, and began to read the letter in his hand. It was in French.
DEAR MADAME (it ran),
It will be insupportable to me, after your kindness, if you take me for ungrateful. Unfortunately, a crisis has arrived which plunges me into the necessity of leaving your hospitality. In all lives, as you are well aware, there arise occasions that one cannot govern, and I know that you will pardon me that I enter into no explanation on an event which gives me great chagrin, and, above all, renders me subject to an imputation of ingratitude, which, believe me, dear Madame, by no means lies in my character. I know well enough that it is a breach of politeness to leave you without in person conveying the expression of my profound reconnaissance, but if you consider how hard it is for me to be compelled to abandon all that is so distinguished in domestic life, you will forgive my weakness. People like me, who have gone through existence with their eyes open, have remarked that those who are endowed with riches have a right to look down on such as are not by wealth and breeding fitted to occupy the same position. I shall never dispute a right so natural and salutary, seeing that without this distinction, this superiority, which makes of the well-born and the well-bred a race apart, the rest of the world would have no standard by which to rule their lives, no anchor to throw into the depths of that vast sea of fortune and of misfortune on which we others drive before the wind. It is because of this, dear Madame, that I regard myself so doubly fortunate to have been able for a few minutes in this bitter pilgrimage called life, to sit beneath the tree of safety. To have been able, if only for an hour, to sit and set the pilgrims pass, the pilgrims with the blistered feet and ragged clothes, and who yet, dear Madame, guard within their hearts a certain joy in life, illegal joy, like the desert air which travellers will tell you fills men as with wine to be able thus to sit an hour, and with a smile to watch them pass, lame and blind, in all the rags of their deserved misfortunes, can you not conceive, dear Madame, how that must be for such as I a comfort? Whatever one may say, it is sweet, from a position of security, to watch the sufferings of others; it gives one a good sensation in the heart.
In writing this, I recollect that I myself once had the chance of passing all my life in this enviable safety, and as you may suppose, dear Madame, I curse myself that I should ever have had the courage to step beyond the boundaries of this fine tranquil state. Yet, too, there have been times when I have asked myself: “Do we really differ from the wealthy – we others, birds of the fields, who have our own philosophy, grown from the pains of needing bread – we who see that the human heart is not always an affair of figures, or of those good maxims that one finds in copy-books – do we really differ?” It is with shame that I confess to have asked myself a question so heretical. But now, when for these four weeks I have had the fortune of this rest beneath your roof, I see how wrong I was to entertain such doubts. It is a great happiness to have decided once for all this point, for it is not in my character to pass through life uncertain – mistaken, perhaps – on psychological matters such as these. No, Madame; rest happily assured that there is a great difference, which in the future will be sacred for me. For, believe me, Madame, it would be calamity for high Society if by chance there should arise amongst them any understanding of all that side of life which – vast as the plains and bitter as the sea, black as the ashes of a corpse, and yet more free than any wings of birds who fly away – is so justly beyond the grasp of their philosophy. Yes, believe me, dear Madame, there is no danger in the world so much to be avoided by all the members of that circle, most illustrious, most respectable, called high Society.
From what I have said you may imagine how hard it is for me to take my flight. I shall always keep for you the most distinguished sentiments. With the expression of my full regard for you and your good family, and of a gratitude as sincere as it is badly worded,
Believe me, dear Madame,
Your devoted
LOUIS FERRAND.
Shelton’s first impulse was to tear the letter up, but this he reflected he had no right to do. Remembering, too, that Mrs. Dennant’s French was orthodox, he felt sure she would never understand the young foreigner’s subtle innuendoes. He closed the envelope and went to bed, haunted still by Ferrand’s parting look.
It was with no small feeling of embarrassment, however, that, having sent the letter to its destination by an early footman, he made his appearance at the breakfast-table. Behind the Austrian coffee-urn, filled with French coffee, Mrs. Dennant, who had placed four eggs in a German egg-boiler, said “Good-morning,” with a kindly smile.
“Dick, an egg?” she asked him, holding up a fifth.
“No, thank you,” replied Shelton, greeting the table and fitting down.
He was a little late; the buzz of conversation rose hilariously around.
“My dear,” continued Mr. Dennant, who was talking to his youngest daughter, “you’ll have no chance whatever – not the least little bit of chance.”
“Father, what nonsense! You know we shall beat your heads off!”
“Before it ‘s too late, then, I will eat a muffin. Shelton, pass the muffins!” But in making this request, Mr. Dennant avoided looking in his face.
Antonia, too, seemed to keep her eyes away from him. She was talking to a Connoisseur on Art of supernatural appearances, and seemed in the highest spirits. Shelton rose, and, going to the sideboard, helped himself to grouse.
“Who was the young man I saw yesterday on the lawn?” he heard the Connoisseur remark. “Struck me as having an – er – quite intelligent physiog.”
His own intelligent physiog, raised at a slight slant so that he might look the better through his nose-nippers, was the very pattern of approval. “It’s curious how one’s always meeting with intelligence;” it seemed to say. Mrs. Dennant paused in the act of adding cream, and Shelton scrutinised her face; it was hare-like, and superior as ever. Thank goodness she had smelt no rat! He felt strangely disappointed.
“You mean Monsieur Ferrand, teachin’ Toddles French? Dobson, the Professor’s cup.”
“I hope I shall see him again,” cooed the Connoisseur; “he was quite interesting on the subject of young German working men. It seems they tramp from place to place to learn their trades. What nationality was he, may I ask?”
Mr. Dennant, of whom he asked this question, lifted his brows, and said,
“Ask Shelton.”
“Half Dutch, half French.”
“Very interesting breed; I hope I shall see him again.”
“Well, you won’t,” said Thea suddenly; “he’s gone.”
Shelton saw that their good breeding alone prevented all from adding, “And thank goodness, too!”
“Gone? Dear me, it’s very – ”
“Yes,” said Mr. Dennant, “very sudden.”
“Now, Algie,” murmured Mrs. Dennant, “it ‘s quite a charmin’ letter. Must have taken the poor young man an hour to write.”
“Oh, mother!” cried Antonia.
And Shelton felt his face go crimson. He had suddenly remembered that her French was better than her mother’s.
“He seems to have had a singular experience,” said the Connoisseur.
“Yes,” echoed Mr. Dennant; “he ‘s had some singular experience. If you want to know the details, ask friend Shelton; it’s quite romantic. In the meantime, my dear; another cup?”
The Connoisseur, never quite devoid of absent-minded malice, spurred his curiosity to a further effort; and, turning his well-defended eyes on Shelton, murmured,
“Well, Mr. Shelton, you are the historian, it seems.”
“There is no history,” said Shelton, without looking up.
“Ah, that’s very dull,” remarked the Connoisseur.
“My dear Dick,” said Mrs. Dennant, “that was really a most touchin’ story about his goin’ without food in Paris.”
Shelton shot another look at Antonia; her face was frigid. “I hate your d – d superiority!” he thought, staring at the Connoisseur.
“There’s nothing,” said that gentleman, “more enthralling than starvation. Come, Mr Shelton.”
“I can’t tell stories,” said Shelton; “never could.”
He cared not a straw for Ferrand, his coming, going, or his history; for, looking at Antonia, his heart was heavy.
CHAPTER XXX
THE LADY FROM BEYOND
The morning was sultry, brooding, steamy. Antonia was at her music, and from the room where Shelton tried to fix attention on a book he could hear her practising her scales with a cold fury that cast an added gloom upon his spirit. He did not see her until lunch, and then she again sat next the Connoisseur. Her cheeks were pale, but there was something feverish in her chatter to her neighbour; she still refused to look at Shelton. He felt very miserable. After lunch, when most of them had left the table, the rest fell to discussing country neighbours.
“Of course,” said Mrs. Dennant, “there are the Foliots; but nobody calls on them.”
“Ah!” said the Connoisseur, “the Foliots – the Foliots – the people – er – who – quite so!”
“It’s really distressin’. she looks so sweet ridin’ about. Many people with worse stories get called on,” continued Mrs. Dennant, with that large frankness of intrusion upon doubtful subjects which may be made by certain people in a certain way, “but, after all, one couldn’t ask them to meet anybody.”
“No,” the Connoisseur assented. “I used to know Foliot. Thousand pities. They say she was a very pretty woman.”
“Oh, not pretty!” said Mrs. Dennant! “more interestin than pretty, I should say.”
Shelton, who knew the lady slightly, noticed that they spoke of her as in the past. He did not look towards Antonia; for, though a little troubled at her presence while such a subject was discussed, he hated his conviction that her face, was as unruffled as though the Foliots had been a separate species. There was, in fact, a curiosity about her eyes, a faint impatience on her lips; she was rolling little crumbs of bread. Suddenly yawning, she muttered some remark, and rose. Shelton stopped her at the door.
“Where are you going?”
“For a walk.”
“May n’t I come?”.
She shook her head.
“I ‘m going to take Toddles.”
Shelton held the door open, and went back to the table.
“Yes,” the Connoisseur said, sipping at his sherry, “I ‘m afraid it’s all over with young Foliot.”
“Such a pity!” murmured Mrs. Dennant, and her kindly face looked quite disturbed. “I’ve known him ever since he was a boy. Of course, I think he made a great mistake to bring her down here. Not even bein’ able to get married makes it doubly awkward. Oh, I think he made a great mistake!”
“Ah!” said the Connoisseur, “but d’ you suppose that makes much difference? Even if What ‘s – his-name gave her a divorce, I don’t think, don’t you know, that – ”
“Oh, it does! So many people would be inclined to look over it in time. But as it is it’s hopeless, quite. So very awkward for people, too, meetin’ them about. The Telfords and the Butterwicks – by the way, they’re comin’ here to dine to-night – live near them, don’t you know.”
“Did you ever meet her before-er-before the flood?” the Connoisseur inquired; and his lips parting and unexpectedly revealing teeth gave him a shadowy resemblance to a goat.
“Yes; I did meet her once at the Branksomes’. I thought her quite a charmin’ person.”
“Poor fellow!” said the Connoisseur; “they tell me he was going to take the hounds.”
“And there are his delightful coverts, too. Algie often used to shoot there, and now they say he just has his brother down to shoot with him. It’s really quite too melancholy! Did you know him, Dick?”
“Foliot?” replied Shelton absently. “No; I never met him: I’ve seen her once or twice at Ascot.”
Through the window he could see Antonia in her scarlet Tam-o’-shanter, swinging her stick, and he got up feigning unconcern. Just then Toddles came bounding up against his sister. They went off arm in arm. She had seen him at the window, yet she gave no friendly glance; Shelton felt more miserable than ever. He stepped out upon the drive. There was a lurid, gloomy canopy above; the elm-trees drooped their heavy blackish green, the wonted rustle of the aspen-tree was gone, even the rooks were silent. A store of force lay heavy on the heart of nature. He started pacing slowly up and down, his pride forbidding him to follow her, and presently sat down on an old stone seat that faced the road. He stayed a long time staring at the elms, asking himself what he had done and what he ought to do. And somehow he was frightened. A sense of loneliness was on him, so real, so painful, that he shivered in the sweltering heat. He was there, perhaps, an hour, alone, and saw nobody pass along the road. Then came the sound of horse’s hoofs, and at the same time he heard a motor-car approaching from the opposite direction. The rider made appearance first, riding a grey horse with an Arab’s high set head and tail. She was holding him with difficulty, for the whirr of the approaching car grew every moment louder. Shelton rose; the car flashed by. He saw the horse stagger in the gate-way, crushing its rider up against the gatepost.
He ran, but before he reached the gate the lady was on foot, holding the plunging horse’s bridle.
“Are you hurt?” cried Shelton breathlessly, and he, too, grabbed the bridle. “Those beastly cars!”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Please don’t; he won’t let strangers touch him.”
Shelton let go, and watched her coax the horse. She was rather tall, dressed in a grey habit, with a grey Russian cap upon her head, and he suddenly recognised the Mrs. Foliot whom they had been talking of at lunch.
“He ‘ll be quiet now,” she said, “if you would n’t mind holding him a minute.”
She gave the reins to him, and leaned against the gate. She was very pale.
“I do hope he has n’t hurt you,” Shelton said. He was quite close to her, well able to see her face – a curious face with high cheek-bones and a flatfish moulding, enigmatic, yet strangely passionate for all its listless pallor. Her smiling, tightened lips were pallid; pallid, too, her grey and deep-set eyes with greenish tints; above all, pale the ashy mass of hair coiled under her grey cap.
“Th-thanks!” she said; “I shall be all right directly. I’m sorry to have made a fuss.”
She bit her lips and smiled.
“I ‘m sure you’re hurt; do let me go for – ” stammered Shelton. “I can easily get help.”
“Help!” she said, with a stony little laugh; “oh, no, thanks!”
She left the gate, and crossed the road to where he held the horse. Shelton, to conceal embarrassment, looked at the horse’s legs, and noticed that the grey was resting one of them. He ran his hand down.
“I ‘m afraid,” he said, “your horse has knocked his off knee; it’s swelling.”
She smiled again.
“Then we’re both cripples.”
“He’ll be lame when he gets cold. Would n’t you like to put him in the stable here? I ‘m sure you ought to drive home.”
“No, thanks; if I ‘m able to ride him he can carry me. Give me a hand up.”
Her voice sounded as though something had offended her. Rising from inspection of the horse’s leg, Shelton saw Antonia and Toddles standing by. They had come through a wicketgate leading from the fields.
The latter ran up to him at once.
“We saw it,” he whispered – “jolly smash-up. Can’t I help?”
“Hold his bridle,” answered Shelton, and he looked from one lady to the other.
There are moments when the expression of a face fixes itself with painful clearness; to Shelton this was such a moment. Those two faces close together, under their coverings of scarlet and of grey, showed a contrast almost cruelly vivid. Antonia was flushed, her eyes had grown deep blue; her look of startled doubt had passed and left a question in her face.
“Would you like to come in and wait? We could send you home, in the brougham,” she said.
The lady called Mrs. Foliot stood, one arm across the crupper of her saddle, biting her lips and smiling still her enigmatic smile, and it was her face that stayed most vividly on Shelton’s mind, its ashy hail, its pallor, and fixed, scornful eyes.
“Oh, no, thanks! You’re very kind.”
Out of Antonia’s face the timid, doubting friendliness had fled, and was replaced by enmity. With a long, cold look at both of them she turned away. Mrs. Foliot gave a little laugh, and raised her foot for Shelton’s help. He heard a hiss of pain as he swung her up, but when he looked at her she smiled.
“Anyway,” he said impatiently, “let me come and see you don’t break down.”
She shook her head. “It ‘s only two miles. I’m not made of sugar.”
“Then I shall simply have to follow.”
She shrugged her shoulders, fixing her resolute eyes on him.
“Would that boy like to come?” she asked.
Toddles left the horse’s head.
“By Jove!” he cried. “Would n’t I just!”
“Then,” she said, “I think that will be best. You ‘ve been so kind.”
She bowed, smiled inscrutably once more, touched the Arab with her whip, and started, Toddles trotting at her side.
Shelton was left with Antonia underneath the elms. A sudden puff of tepid air blew in their faces, like a warning message from the heavy, purple heat clouds; low rumbling thunder travelled slowly from afar.
“We’re going to have a storm,” he said.
Antonia nodded. She was pale now, and her face still wore its cold look of offence.
“I ‘ve got a headache,” she said, “I shall go in and lie down.”
Shelton tried to speak, but something kept him silent – submission to what was coming, like the mute submission of the fields and birds to the menace of the storm.
He watched her go, and went back to his seat. And the silence seemed to grow; the flowers ceased to exude their fragrance, numbed by the weighty air. All the long house behind him seemed asleep, deserted. No noise came forth, no laughter, the echo of no music, the ringing of no bell; the heat had wrapped it round with drowsiness. And the silence added to the solitude within him. What an unlucky chance, that woman’s accident! Designed by Providence to put Antonia further from him than before! Why was not the world composed of the immaculate alone? He started pacing up and down, tortured by a dreadful heartache.
“I must get rid of this,” he thought. “I ‘ll go for a good tramp, and chance the storm.”
Leaving the drive he ran on Toddles, returning in the highest spirits.
“I saw her home,” he crowed. “I say, what a ripper, isn’t she? She ‘ll be as lame as a tree to-morrow; so will the gee. Jolly hot!”
This meeting showed Shelton that he had been an hour on the stone seat; he had thought it some ten minutes, and the discovery alarmed him. It seemed to bring the import of his miserable fear right home to him. He started with a swinging stride, keeping his eyes fixed on the road, the perspiration streaming down his face.