The London Venture

by Michael Arlen

  IX

  Somewhere in these papers I have said that Shelmerdene left England, butI touched on it very lightly, for I am only half-heartedly a realist,and may yet live to be accused of shuffling humanity behind a phrase....Youth must endure its periods of loneliness with what grace it can; andyouth could endure them as resignedly as its preceptors, if it were notfor its grotesque self-importance, which inflates loneliness to such asize that it envelopes a young man's whole being, leaving him at the enda sorry wreck of what was once a happy mortal. Anyway, that is whathappened to me; I took the whole affair in the worst possible spirit,and, during that probation time to wisdom, thought and wrote and did somany silly things, smashed ideals and cursed idols with such morbidthoroughness and conviction (after the fashion of all the bitterestyoung men), that I must have been as detestable a person as evertrickled wheezily from the, well, pessimistic pen of a Mr. WyndhamLewis.... But it takes very little effort to forget that time entirely,to let it bury itself with what mourning it can muster from the Shadeswhich sent it to plague me. Enough that it passed, but not before ithad, as they say, "put me wise" about the world and its ways.

  For Shelmerdene had left behind her much more than just loneliness; muchthat was more precious and, thankfully, more lasting; for she had founda young man shaped entirely of acute angles and sharp corners, and hadrubbed and polished them over with such delicate tact that it was onlymonths, after she had gone that I suddenly realised how much more fit Iwas to cope with a complicated world since I had known her. But, moreimportantly, Shelmerdene to me was England. Before I met her I did notknow England; I knew English, but England only as a man knows thelandmarks about him in a strange country. But when she had come and goneEngland was a discovered country, a vast and ever-increasing panorama inwhich discoveries were continually made, leaving yet more hidden valleysof discoveries still to be made--and to be enjoyed! So much and muchmore, O unbeliever, I learnt from Shelmerdene, and in the learning of itlay the best and gladdest lesson of all.

  Time, they say, can efface all things, but in truth it can effacenothing but its own inability to smooth out the real problems of life;so at least I have found in the one instance in which I have challengedtime to do its best for me, a slave bound down by an unholy wizardry; orelse, perhaps, it was that Shelmerdene was not made of the stuff whichfades into the years and becomes musty and haggard in their increasingcompany. I do not know. But, take it as I will, all the service time hasbeen able to do for me has been negative, for without disarranging onehair of her head it has only emphasised in me the profound and subtleinfluence of that gracefully licentious woman whom I once calledShelmerdene, because, I told her, "it is the name of an American girlwhich I found in a very bad American novel about the fanatical Puritansof New England, and the name seems to suit you because in New Englandthey would have treated you exactly as they treated Shelmerdene Gray,the heroine of this book, whom they branded and burnt as a shamelesswoman, but loved in their withered hearts for her gaiety, and elegance,and wit, which they couldn't understand, but vaguely felt was as much anexpression of Christ as their own wizened virtue."

  Out of the silence of two years at last came a letter from her. I foundit when I came in very late one night, and for a long time I stood in mylittle hall and examined the Eastern stamp and postmark; and the writingon the envelope was so exactly the same as on the last note she had sentme before leaving England that I had to smile at the idea ofShelmerdene, in the rush of her last pursuit of her perfect fate, layingin a sufficient store of her own special nibs to last her for thelifetime she intended to spend abroad; for when I opened the letter Ifound that, as I had guessed, she would never come back to England,saying, "I am a fugitive branch which has at last found its parenttree.... I have run my perfect fate to earth, Dikran! more perfect thanany dream, more lasting than the most perfect dream. And life is sobeautiful that I can scarcely bear your not being here to share it, for,you see, I am quite sure that you are still the dear you were two yearsago. But it is so tiresome of you to be so young, and to have toexperience so many things before you can qualify for my sort ofhappiness; and on top of being young you are so restless and fussy, too,with your ideas of what you are going to do, and your ambitions--how itmust tire the mind to be ambitious! It would certainly tire mine in thisclimate, so will you please make a note of the fact that I simply forbidyou to come out here to join me! You are too young to be happy, and youaren't wise enough to be contented; and you can't hope to be wise enoughuntil you begin to lose a bit of that mane of hair of yours, which Ihope you never will, for I remember how I loved one particular wave init in the far-off age when I thought I was in love with you.... It isterrible, but I am forgetting England. Terrible, because it must bewrong to forget one's country, seeing how you oppressed nationalities goon remembering your wretched countries for centuries of years, andthrowing bombs and murdering policemen for all the world as though youweren't just as happy as every one else, while I, with a country, whichis after all worth remembering, go and forget it after a paltry twoyears! Of course it will always be my country, and I shall always loveit for the good things it has given me, but as a _fact_ in my life ithas faded into something more dim than a memory. A spell has been putupon me, Dikran, to prevent a possible ache in my heart for the things Iwas born among, a spell which has made me forget Europe and all myfriends in it except just you, and you because, in spite of all yourEnglish airs, you will always be a pathetic little stranger in a verystrange land, fumbling for the key.... Ah, this wise old East of mine!so old and so wise, my dear, that it knows for certain that nothing isworth doing; and as you happen, perhaps, on the ruins of a long-deadcity by the desert, you can almost hear it chuckling to itself in itshard-earned wisdom, as though to say that since God Himself is that verysame Law which creates men, and cities, and religions only to level theminto the dust of the roads and the sands of the desert, why fightagainst God! It is a corrupt and deadening creed, this of the East, butit has a weight of ancestral will behind it which forces you to believein it; and belief in it leaves you without your Western defences, andopen to be charmed into non-resistance, as I and my Blue Bird have beencharmed, else perhaps I would not now be so happy, and might even bedining with you on the terrace of the Hyde Park Hotel.... Ratherbitterly you have often called me the slave of Ishtar, though at thetime I did not know who the lady was, for I was always rather weak aboutgoddesses and such like; but I guessed she had something to do with lovebecause of the context, for you were developing your pleasant theoryabout how I would come to a bad end, someday.... Well, Dikran, that'someday' of your prophecy has come. I've never belonged so wholly toIshtar as I do now that I am perhaps in the very same country in whichshe once haunted the imagination of the myriad East. I've made a mess oflife, I've come to my bad end, and, as I tell you, I have never knownsuch perfect happiness. The world couldn't wish me a worse fate, and Icouldn't wish myself a better.... Don't write to me, please. I canalways imagine you much more clearly than your letters can express you,and if I think of you as doing big things, as I pray you may, it will bebetter for me than knowing that you are doing nothing at all, whichmight easily happen, seeing how lazy you are.... In the dim ages I wasall wrong about life. For I know now that restraint in itself is themost perfect emotion...."

  I laid the letter down, and as the windows were already greying with theMarch dawn it did not seem worth while going to a sleepless bed; and soI sat on in my chair, drawing my overcoat round me for warmth, andsmoked many cigarettes. I felt very old indeed, for was not that letterthe echo of a long-dead experience, and are not long-dead experiencesthe peculiar property of old men?

 

  No visions of the Shelmerdene of that letter came up to disturb mypeace, for she did not fit in with my ideas of the East, she had neverappealed to that Eastern side which must be somewhere in me, but hadalways been to me a perfect symbol of the grace and kindliness anddevilry of the arrogant West. I cou
ld not see her as she describedherself, happy, meditative, wise in contentment.... Her contentment istoo much like an emotion, and therefore spurious, I thought, and so shewill still dine with me on the terrace of the Hyde Park Hotel, and willwonder why I look so differently at her, for I will still be young whileshe will be middle-aged.... No, that letter conjured up no perfectvision of her in the East, except that I saw her, melodramaticallyperhaps, pleading on her knees for release from the bonds of Ishtar, forI knew that not even a Shelmerdene among women can evade the penalty ofso many unsuccessful love-affairs just by the success of one.

  The grey of the March dawn became paler, and the furniture and books inmy room seemed so wan and unreal that I thought drowsily that they werea dream of last night and were fading before the coming daylight; andlater, when my thoughts had mellowed into a security of retrospect, Imay have slept, for I realised with a start that the maid had come in totidy up the room for breakfast, but had got no further than the door,perhaps wondering whether I had been very drunk the night before, oronly just "gay."

  Retrospect came naturally after that letter, for she had written at theend how she had found the true worth of "restraint"; it would have beenjust a phrase in a letter if I had not remembered, as she must have whenshe wrote it, that the word had a context, and that the context lay in along summer afternoon on a silent reach of the river many miles fromMaidenhead.... One day that summer I had suggested to her that, as theworld was becoming a nuisance with its heat and dust, we might go andstay on the river for a few days, but she had said, quite firmly, "No, Ican't do that. I am not yet old enough to put my name down for thedivorce stakes, so if you don't mind, Dikran, we will call that bet offand think of something else. For if that same husband heard of mystaying on the river with a young man of uncelibate eye and uncertainoccupation, he would at once take steps about it, and although I likeyou well enough as a man, I couldn't bear you as a co-respondent.... Butif you really do want to stay on the river, I will get the Hartshorns toask us both down, for they have a delightful house on a little hill,from which you can see the twilight creeping over the Berkshire downsacross the river."

  "Oh, we can't do that," I said; "Guy Hartshorn is such a stiffnecked assand his wife is dull enough to spoil any river--"

  "Tolerance, my dear, is what you lack," she said; "tolerance and aproper understanding of the relation between a stiffnecked ass and apossible host. And Guy, poor dear, always does his duty by hisguests.... Please don't be silly about it, Dikran. The Hartshornsdistinctly need encouragement as hosts, so you and I will go down andencourage them. And if you can manage to cloak your evil thoughts behinda hearty manner and watch Guy as he swings a racing punt down the river,you will learn more about punting and the reason why Englishmen aregenerally considered to be superior to foreigners than I could teach youin a lifetime."

  We had been two days at the house on the little hill by the river (for,of course, we went there) before, on the third afternoon, after lunch,our chance came, and Shelmerdene and I were at last alone on the river;I had not the energy to do more than paddle very leisurely and look fromhere to there, but always in the end to come back to the woman who layfacing me against the pale green cushions of the Hartshorn punt, steepedin the happy sunshine of one of those few really warm days which Englandnow and again manages to steal from the molten South, and exhibits in anew green and golden loveliness. From round a bend of the river we couldquite clearly see the ivy-covered Georgian house of our host, perchedimperiously up on the top of its little hill, but not imperiously enoughto prevent the outlet of two days' impatience in the curse I vented onit.

  "Little man with little toy wants big toy of the same pattern and crieswhen he can't have it," she mocked me, and smiled away my bad temper,which had only a shallow root in impatience. But I would not let it goall at once, for man is allowed licence on summer afternoons on theriver, and I challenged her to say if she did not know of better ways ofspending the whole glorious time between dinner and midnight than byplaying bridge, "as we tiresomely do at the house on the hill, much tothe delight of that sombre weeping elm which looks in at the window andcan then share the burden of its complaining leaves with my pessimisticsoul."

  "We will leave your soul severely alone for the moment, but as forplaying bridge, I think it is very good for you," she said. "It is verygood for you to call three No Trumps, and be doubled by some one whowon't stand any nonsense, and go down four hundred or so. It teaches yourestraint."

  "Restraint," I said, "is the Englishman's art of concealing his emotionsin such a way that every one can guess exactly what they are. And I haveacquired it so perfectly that you know very well that only the other dayyou told me how you admired my restraint, and how I would never say to aman's face what I couldn't say just as well behind his back." But shedid not answer, and in silence I pulled into a little aimless backwater,and moored by a willow which let through just enough sun to speckShelmerdene's dress with bright arabesques.

  I changed my seat for the cushions and lay full length in front ofShelmerdene, but it was as though she had become part of the river, shewas so silent. I said something, I can't remember what it was, but itmust have suited the day and my mood. I could not see her face becauseshe had turned it towards the bank and it was hidden under the brim ofher pale blue hat, but when my words had broken the quietness and sheturned it towards me, I was surprised at the firm set of her lips andthe sadness of her smile.

  "You are making love to me, and that is quite as it should be," shesaid. "But on the most beautiful of all days I have the saddestthoughts, for though you laughed at me when I talked about restraint, Iwas really very serious indeed. I know a lot about restraint, my dear,and how the lack of it can make life suddenly very horrible ... for onceupon a time I killed an old man because I didn't know the line betweenmy desires and his endurance." She shook her head at me gently. "No,that won't do, Dikran. You were going to say something pretty about mygood manners, but that is all so much play-acting, and, besides, goodmanners are my trade and profession, and without them I should long agohave been down and under, as I deserve to be much more than EmmaHamilton ever did.... The tragedy about people like me is that we stepinto life at the deep end and find only the shallow people there, andwhen we meet some one really deep and very sincere, like that old man,we rather resent it, for we can't gauge him by the standards we use foreach other. Men like that bring a sudden reality into life, but thereality is unacceptable and always ugly because it is forced upon one,while the only realities that are beautiful are those that were born inyour heart when you were born; just like your country for you, which youhave never seen and may never see, and yet has been your main reality inlife since you were born; a reality as sad and beautiful as theancestral memories which must lurk somewhere in you, but which you can'texpress because you have not learnt yet how to be really natural withyourself. And when you have learnt that you will have learnt the secretof great writing, for literature is the natural raw material which everyman secretes within himself, but only a few can express it to the world.But I may be wrong about all that, and anyway you must know a great dealmore about great thinking and great writing than I do, for you have readabout it in dull books while I have only sensed it in my trivialway...."

  "Shelmerdene, I want to hear about your old man," I said, "whom you sayyou killed. But that is only your way of saying that he was in love withyou, and that you hurt him so much that he died of it."

  "Ah, if it had been only that I would not be so sad this afternoon! Infact, I would not be sad at all, for he was old and had to die, and allthat about love and being hurt is fair and open warfare. But it wassomething much beastlier than that, something animal in me, which willmake me ashamed whenever I think of that day when we three gave ourhorses rein down to the Breton coast, and I turned on the old man, avery spitfire of a girl broken loose from the restraint of Englishgenerations, forgetting for one fierce moment that her saddle was notcovered with the purple of a Roman Augusta, and that she co
uldn't do asshe liked in a world of old men.... Have you ever seen a quarrel, a realquarrel, Dikran? When some one is so bitterly and intensely angry thathe loses all hold on everything but his wretched desire to hurt, andunchains a beast which in a second maims him as deeply as his enemy--no,it maims him more.

  "The old Frenchman was my guardian," she said, "and the last of a namewhich you can find here and there in Court Memoirs, in the thick of thatriot of gallantry and intrigue which passed for life at old Versailles.But the world has grown out of that and does things much better now, forgallantry has been scattered to the four winds of democracy and is thenavvy's part as much as the gentleman's, while intrigue has become themonopoly of the few darling old men who lead governments, more as a wayof amusing their daughters than for any special purpose of their own.But if the world has grown old since then so had my old man, for he wasnone of your rigid-minded _cidevant aristos_ whom you can see any day atthe Ritz keeping up appearances on an occasional cocktail and the use ofthe hotel note-paper; but the air of the _grand seigneur_ hadn'tweathered proscriptions and revolutions for nothing, and so still clungrather finely to him in spite of himself, and made him seem as old andfaded as his ancestors in the world in which he had to live, poor olddear! It was cruel of that other nice old gentleman above him to put himthrough the ordeal, for he did so bitterly and genuinely resent a worldin which honour was second to most things and above nothing. He couldn'tforgive, you see. He couldn't forgive himself, nor France, nor God, butespecially he couldn't forgive France. Sedan, revolution, republic--andno Turenne or Bonaparte to thrash a Moltke with the flat of his sword,for he wasn't worth more! And all a France could muster were thetrinkets of her _monde_ and _demimonde_, and a threatening murmur of'_revanche_' and '_Alsace-Lorraine_'--as though threats and hatred couldwipe out the memory of that day of surrender at Sedan, when he stood notten yards away among only too polite Prussian aides-de-camp whileNapoleon put the seal on his last mistake, and signed away an empire....And allowing for exaggeration, and the white-hot excitement to whichfolk who fuss about honour, etc., are liable, there may have beensomething in his point of view about it all, for I once heard a man witha lot of letters behind his name say that when a country gives up a limbit also gives up its body; but he may have been wrong, for after allFrance is still France!

  "But you would have adored my old man, Dikran, just as I did. He treatedlife, and men, and women with all that etiquette which you so admire, hewas simply bristling with etiquette--a deal too much of it for my taste,for I was only seventeen then and liked my freedom like any otherEnglander.... But I'm finding it very difficult to describe the man hewas, my dear, for in our slovenly sort of English we've got used todescribing a person by saying he is like another person, and I can't dothat in this case because he belongs as much to a past age as Hannibal,and there isn't any one like him now. And even when he was alive therewere very few--two or three old men as fierce and unyielding and vitalas himself, who used to come and dine, and say pretty things to littleme who sat at the end of the table with very large eyes and fast-beatingheart, wondering why they weren't all leading Cabinets and squashingrevolutions, for they seemed to know the secrets of every secret cabaland camarilla in Europe.

  "Yes, my old guardian was a remnant of an empire--but what a remnant!Such a fierce-looking little man he was, with pale, steel-blue eyeswhich pierced into you from under a precipice of a forehead, a bristlingSecond Empire moustache, and thin bloodless lips which parted before themost exquisite French I've ever heard; I can scarcely bear it when yousay I talk French divinely, for I know how pitiful mine is compared tothe real thing, as done by that old man and Sarah Bernhardt, for theywere very old friends and she used often to come and lunch with us.

  "He talked well, too, and all the better for having something to say, aswell he might have since he had been everything and known every oneworth knowing of his time--ministers, and rebels, and artists, and allthe best-known prostitutes of the day; but they did those things betterthen, Dikran. In fact, more as an excuse for getting away from a parvenuParis than from any Bonapartist feelings, for he was always anOrleanist, I think he had represented Louis Napoleon at every city whichcould run to an Embassy from London to Pekin; from where he brought backthat ivory Buddha which is on my writing-table, and which has aninscription in ancient Chinese saying that every man is his own god, butthat Buddha is every man's God, which goes a long way to prove that thewisdom of the East wasn't as wise as all that, after all.

  "But you are getting restless," she said suddenly. "You probably want toopen the tea-basket to see what's inside, or you've just seen a waterrat----"

  "No, it's a little more subtle than that, Shelmerdene, although as afact I do see a water rat not a yard from you on the bank.... I merelywanted to know how it was that, since you had a perfectly good fatheralive in England, you were allowed to go gadding about in France with aguardian, soi-disant----"

  "We will ignore your soi-disant, young man. But I'll allow yourinterruption, for it may seem a bit complicated.... It was like this: asthe fortunes of our family had run rather to seed through generations offast women and slow horses, my father who was utterly a pet, succumbedto politics for an honest living, or, if you pull a face like that aboutit, for a dishonest living. For up to that time, in spite of havingexactly the figure for it, he had always refused to enter Parliament,because his idea was that the House was just a club, and one alreadybelonged to so many better clubs. But once there nothing could stop him,and when he entered for the Cabinet stakes he simply romped home with asoft job and a fat income.... But all that is really beside the point,for between politics and guineas father and I had had a slightdisagreement about a certain young man whom I was inclined to marryoffhand, being only sixteen, you know, and liking the young man--and, ofcourse, my father did the correct thing, as he always did, gave theyoung man a glass of port and told him not to be an ass, and shipped meoff to Paris to his very old friend. You see, he knew about that oldMarquis, and how I'd be quite safe in his care, for any young man who asmuch as looked at me would have a pair of gimlet eyes asking him who thedevil he might be and why he chose to desecrate a young lady's virginalbeauty by his so fatuous gaze.

  "I've been saying a lot of nice things about that old man to you, but Ididn't feel quite like that about him at the time. I liked him, ofcourse, because he was a man; but all that French business about thesanctity of a young maid's innocence got badly on my nerves, forinnocence was never my long suit even from childhood, having ears tohear and eyes to see; and I soon began to get very bored with life as myold Frenchman saw it. So it wasn't surprising that I broke out now andagain just to shock him, he was so rigid, but I was always sorry for itafterwards because he just looked at me and said not a word for a minuteor so, and then went on talking as though I hadn't hurt him--but I had,Dikran! I had hurt him so much that for the rest of the day he oftencouldn't bear to see me.... But though I was ashamed of myself forhurting him, I couldn't stop; life with him was interesting enough ina way, of course, but it left out so much, you see; it entirely leftout the stupendous fact that I was almost a woman, and a very feminineone at that, who liked an odd young man about now and again just toplay about with. But I wasn't allowed any young men, except atwenty-five-year-old over-manicured Vicomte who was so unbearablyworldly and useless that I wanted to hit him on the head with myguardian's sword-stick, which he always carried about with him, as asort of mental solace, I think. No, there weren't any young men, nor anyrestaurants, for the old man simply ignored them; my dear, there wasn'tanything at all in my young life except a few old dukes and dowagers,and the aforesaid young Vicomte, who had manicured himself out ofexistence and was considered harmless. And so Paris was a dead city tome who lived in the heart of it, and all the more dead for the faded oldpeople who moved about in my life, and tried to change my heart into aLouis-Quinze drawing-room hung with just enough beautiful and mustytapestries to keep out the bourgeois sunshine and carelessness, which Iso longed for.

&
nbsp; "So I had to amuse myself somehow.... I was a bad young woman then, as Iam a bad woman now, Dikran; for I've always had a particular sort ofvanity which, though it doesn't show on the surface like most sillywomen's, is deep down in me and has never left me alone; a sort ofvanity which makes itself felt in me only in the off-seasons when no onehappens to be in love with me and I in love with no one, and tells methat I must be dull and unattractive, utterly insignificant andnon-existent; it is a weakness in me, but much stronger than I am, forI've never resisted it, but been only too glad to fall in love again assoon as I could; and that is why I've never made a stand against myimpressionableness, why I've never run away from or scotched alove-affair which I knew wouldn't last two weeks, however much I lovedthe wretched man at the time; it was so much the line of leastresistance, it drowned that infernal whisper in me that I was of noaccount at all in the world. But the tragedy of it was, and is, my dear,that indulgence made the monster grow; it was like a drug, for as soonas the off-season came again it was at its old tricks with twice its oldvirulence and malice, and, of course, I gave way again. And so on, andso on--did you murmur _dies irae_, Dikran? Well, perhaps, but who knows?There's a Perfect Fate for every one in this world, and if any onedeserves to find it, it's myself who has failed to find it so often....

  "At that time that wretched vanity of mine was only a faint whisper, butthere it was, and it had to be satisfied, or else I should have become agood woman, which never did attract me very much. I simply had to amusemyself somehow--and so I formed _la grande idee_ of my young life, justas Napoleon III had long ago formed his equally _grande idee_ aboutMexico and Maximilian, and with the same disastrous results. True, therewas no young man about, but there was a man, anyway, and a Marquis toboot, even though he was a bit old and rigid. But it was exactly thatrigidity of his which I wanted to see about; I wanted to find outthings, and in my own way, don't you see? And so, deliberately and withall the malice in me, I set out to subdue the old man. Not childishlyand gushingly, although I was so young, but with all the finesse of theeternal game, for clever women are born with _rouge_ on their cheeks.

  "But it was a disappointing business; I didn't seem to make theimpression I wanted to make; all my finesse went for nothing, except assigns of the affection of a ward. Obviously, I thought hopelessly, Idon't know all there is to be known about subduing old French marquises,and I had almost decided to try some other amusement when one Maymorning, a few months after my father had died and appointed him as myguardian and executor, he came into my little boudoir, looking morestern and adorable than ever. And as he came in I knew somehow that bigthings were coming into my little life; I don't know how, but I knew itas surely as I knew that for all his grand air of calmness he was as shyas any schoolboy.

  "'My child,' he said very gently, 'I am intruding on you only because Ihave something to say to you of the utmost importance and delicacy. I amtoo old and too much of the world to do things by impulse, and so if Iseem to offend against your unworldliness now it is not because I havenot thought very carefully about what I am going to say.... And I begyou not to count it as any more than the suggestion of an old man whothinks only of your good, and to tell me quite frankly at the end whatyou think of it.

  "'My old friend, your father,' he said, 'honoured me by placing youentirely in my charge as guardian and executor; but on looking intomatters I find that he has left very little for me to do in the lattercapacity--very little, in fact, besides that small estate in Shropshirewhich is entailed on you and your children, as with all its associationsof that beautiful girl--scarcely older than you are now, yourmother--your father could not bear the thought of it ever passing tostrangers. And so, my child, without any reflection on my friend, whenyou leave my care you enter the world with an old enough name to ensureyour position, but without the income to maintain it, and, if you willforgive me, a quite insignificant _dot_; though in your case, as in yourbeautiful mother's,' he added, with his little gallant smile, the firstand last of the morning, 'a _dot_ would be the requirement of a blindman.

  "'All this preamble must seem very aimless and tiresome to you, but Iwish to put all the facts before you, my dear, before asking you to takethe responsibility, as indeed it is, of weighing the suggestion I amgoing to make.... You must have seen that I am out of sympathy with thismodern world of yours, that I belong to some other period, better orworse, what does it matter? And this world, my child, has little use forthose hard-headed persons who cannot change the bent of their mindsaccording to its passing whims, and so it has little use for me whocannot and will not change.... Do you understand? I mean that I am anold man who is every day losing touch with life, and that I know here,quite certainly, that I have only a very few more years to live. Do notlook sad, child,' he said, almost impatiently, 'it is not that I amcomplaining, but that I wish you to understand my thoughts.... Into anold life you have come like a ray of sunshine which is even now makinglight of your little puzzled frown; and I have a debt of gratitude topay to you, my child, which I wish to pay at the expense even of youryoung peace of mind this morning. Although this new world has passed outof my grasp, and will soon pass out of my understanding, I know that itis the proper setting for you, the only subtle and beautiful thing thatI have found in it, and my greatest wish is to leave you in a positionworthy of your beauty and intelligence. It is not that I am afraid foryou, for you are no trivial chit of a girl, but merely that I wish toleave you both happy and independent.... And, as it is, I can donothing, nothing at all! For it has been a fixed rule of our family thatwe may not leave our fortune and property to any one who does not bearour name, and thus, though my nephew and I have had no occasion to meetfor some fifteen years, I must leave him such money as I have and allthis not unappreciated furniture.... And that is why, my child, becauseof my wish to leave you all I have, I have been forced to suggest theonly alternative, for I would not have even considered it otherwise,that you should consent to bear my name with me for the few years I haveto live, and then, as a young and beautiful widow of means, and bearingan old French name which may still be worth a little consideration, youcan take your fit position in the world in which you, and not I, wereborn to be happy....'

  "There it is, Dikran, or as much of it as I can remember. And do youneed a setting for it? Oh, yes, you do, for you are a little lost.Imagine then, sitting by a window of a large house in the _Rue Colbert_,a young girl with a battered copy of Madame Bovary skilfully hiddenbeside her, and a little erect old man, very stiff but _soigne_, andcruelly aged by the sunlight which poured blessedly into the room,standing by the arm of her chair, asking her to marry him. Oh! but youcan't imagine it, you will think of him as pleading, and of me assurprised. He didn't plead, he couldn't and I, my dear, by the time hehad finished, wasn't surprised.... I knew, you see. Why, I kneweverything! Lexicons and encyclopaedias had toppled off their dustyshelves, and the Sibylline books had come running to my feet, and thewhole world had come trotting out with its wisdom, wisdom as clear andcold as any Dan-nan-Ron that your friend Gloom ever played on his_feadan_, and all in the few minutes that an old man was speaking to me!Of course, it should all have happened differently; I should have beenjust a 'trivial chit of a girl,' and then I would have accepted all theold darling said, and gaped, and cried, and said 'thank you.' But as itwas I did none of those things; I'm not quite sure what I did, unless itwas nothing at all.... It all seems rather mixed now, but on that Maymorning it was as clear as the sunlight in my cruel young mind--howyoung and how cruel, Dikran!

  "You see, as he spoke, he opened out the world which he so despised tome; page by page he showed me life, how beastly and how beautiful; heshowed me both sides, because he himself was both beastly andbeautiful.... And I gloried in it all! At my knowledge and the power itgave me over life. After a while the old man didn't seem tomatter--there he was, talking away! I knew about him, and just howbeastly and beautiful he was. For he _was_ beautiful in his sincerity; Iknew that he wished for my good, that to leave me well provided w
as theonly condition he made with death; but I knew too that there was abeastly little imp somewhere in him, as in other men, which turned hisfinest thoughts into so much bluff, which told him through the lockedand bolted doors of his honour that he wanted me for my own sake, andjust for that, because I was young and because he loved me, and,stripped of all his honour and guardianship, because he loved me just asSolomon loved his wives, and Lucifer loved Lilith, and as you love menow....

  "There it was, then, the whole damnable world, and I, only eighteen, inthe middle of it! And there he was, my dear old man, more rigid and moreadorable than ever; for, cruel as I was in seeing through him, I lovedhim all the more for his sweet naivete and for his old, so old illusionsabout his motives. While as for being shocked at the way he loved me,I've never been shocked by anything but the vulgarity and theindecencies of respectable people, who seem to think that sex is purelya sort of indoor sport to be indulged in darkness and behind barricadeddoors, while it is really a setting for the most beautiful Bacchanalthat was ever devised by the fairest and purest of God's children. Inspite of bibles and the Bishop of London, Mary knew what she was about,Dikran. Love doesn't grow anywhere, to be picked up by the wayside. Purebeauty grows only where beauty already is....

  "But, wise as I was, I didn't know what to say; what could I say? He waswaiting; I had to say, do something. I did--flung my arms round his neckand told him he was a pet to be so nice to me, and that I must thinkabout it. For the first time that he had wanted me to behave like awoman I behaved consciously like a child--it seemed the easiest way out.And I think he saw that I was acting; he had expected something else,for he smiled very sadly down at me, and patted my hair, saying I was asweet child not to be angry with him for making life so suddenlyserious, and then, very gently, he went away, leaving me in thesunshine, a playmate of the gods.... And yet I was so sorry for him thatI almost cried when I thought of him sitting alone and lonely in hislibrary.

  "We never spoke of it again. At first it was as though he was waitingfor me to say yes, or no, or something, but I didn't say anything, and,later, he seemed to forget. I didn't do it out of cruelty, my dear; Isimply couldn't say anything, that's all. After sunshine, rain, youknow; I was dismal, frightened of him a little. The romance of that Maymorning when he had come to me in my room had become a ridiculousfantasy, so that it seemed to me that any reference to it would rathertarnish the very splendid dignity which he had kept, and sort ofincreased, through it all. Besides, anyway, what was there to say? I hadmade up my mind as he spoke that morning, through all the clearness ofmy new-found knowledge. I had never a doubt as to what I was going todo. It wasn't in me to do as he asked, or rather, as he advised, the olddear! I wish it had been in me, for to be a rich French marquise withouta marquis is no bad fate for any girl, and it might have helped me tosteer clear of many complications. But I couldn't, because all my life,Dikran, I've been cursed by an utter inability to make any money out oflove. And that is why I would never be a success in my mother's countryof America, where men throw pearls and beauty roses about as a matter ofcourse and are very offended if one suggests an economical flirtation ona gross of diamonds and a hundredweight of Russian sables.... It isn'tthat I am mean-minded, but I cannot take presents from men who love me,for, after all, the old Marquis' offer was a present. When I see otherwomen with relays of fur coats, and pearl necklaces, and no visiblemeans of support, I am thoroughly sorry for myself, for it isn't throughany excess of morals that I haven't just as many furs and pearls; it issimply because I don't see life that way, as, ten years ago, I didn'tsee life as the wife of an old man, whom I adored but didn't love, andcouldn't have thought of marrying him even if he had promised to arrangefor his death an hour after the wedding.... Do you understand, Dikran?For all this while I've been trying to tell you that whatever else I amnot, I am an honest woman; a very upright gentleman in my way, which ismore than you can say for most really nice women.

  "The reason why realistic tragedies are impossible, or at best onlymelodramatic, on the stage is that the Person who arranges life has nosense of drama at all. Imagine how Sardou, the wretched man who turnedSarah Bernhardt into an exhibition, would have worked it out: the younggirl would have run away from the lustful old man to Nice; the old manwould have followed her to her boarding-house and made faces at thelandlady's fair-haired son, who was the girl's destiny; a duel, tears,another duel, more tears, and Sarah falling about the stage in exhaustedattitudes, as well she might.... And then imagine how life worked outthe tragedy of that girl and old man; it let them be, or it seemed tolet them be! No, God can have no dramatic sense, as we know it, becauseall the tragedies He arranges for us are slow-moving, so slow and movingnone of the actors know whither; perhaps this tragedy we are acting willfade away, they say hopefully to themselves, and leave us again happyand careless; a little later they are happily sure that their tragedy isfading, there is no possible climax in sight, and then suddenly, out ofthe inmost earth, from some really foul spot of their animal natures,come the sudden ingredients for the tragical climax; the climax lastsonly a second, but after it no blessed curtain falls; God has interferedagain, Life is more cruel than Art, He says, so away with your tricks,your curtains and your finales. And I suppose He is right, you know; itmust be right that shameful memories live beside the beautiful ones, astwenty years from now the memory of that old man and myself will livebeside this very moment of you and I under this willow; for my abundantconfession of it all seems to make it as much yours as mine, Dikran.

  "My guardian and I lived on smoothly enough, then; as before I broke outnow and again when he stepped too sternly between myself and an amusingindiscretion, but rebellions always ended in my smiling at some cuttingremark of his, and in his always sweet dismissal of the subject; therewas nothing to show that we were different with each other. But we were,indeed we were. I did not know it then, but I knew it very clearlylater; how we two people, really loving each other, though in ourdifferent ways, had found a deep, subtle antagonism in each other, avery real antagonism, which it would have shamed us to realise at thetime, and with a very real and inevitable climax; but like God'screatures, mummers in yet another of His cruelly monstrous plays, wethought the tragedy was fading, had faded, and were forgetting it, forwhat climax could there possibly be?

  "Four or five months after that May morning he took me to stay at achateau in Brittany; a very beautiful, tumble-down, draughty place, mydear, standing proudly at the head of a valley like a dissipated actorwho feels that he must have done great things in the past to be what henow is, and with nothing to show for its draughty arrogance but a fewrakish stones which were once the embattlement from which the Huguenot_seigneur_ of the day defied the old Medici; and the slim, white-hairedold woman who charmingly met me at the door, the chatelaine of only onecastle, but with the dignity of an empire in her kind, calm elegance. Myhostess and my guardian were old, old friends, and to watch them intheir gentle, courteous intimacy was a lesson on the perfect managementof such things. When we are old and white-haired, will you come and stayat my place, Dikran, and will you pretend that you have forgotten thatyou ever liked me for anything else than my mind? Just like those twoold people in the Breton chateau, who a thousand years ago may have beenlovers or may have only loved one another.... Who knows? and does itmatter?

  "The idea of this visit, on my guardian's part, to the solitary chateaufrom whose highest windows one could just see the sea curling round theBreton coast, was of course excellent. He wanted me to be out of harm'sway and entirely his own, and was there any better way of achieving thatthan by putting me in a lonely chateau with only my hostess as analternative to himself? But, poor old dear, it didn't fall out likethat; for we had only been there two days when the alternative presentedhimself in the person of the young man of the house, my hostess's son,the young lord of Tumbledown Castle.... He went and spoilt it all, goodand proper, did that young man. His mother hadn't expected him, myguardian didn't want him, and I didn't mind him--there he was,
all theway from England on a sudden desire to see his mother, the only womanwhom Raoul had ever a decent thought about, I suppose. (His name wasn'treally Raoul, you know, but it is a sort of convention that all youngFrenchmen with the title of Vicomte and with languid eyes and fragilenatures are called Raoul.) For he wasn't by any means a nice young man,except facially, but how was I to know that! And besides, the man couldsit a horse as gallantly as any young prince who ever went crusading,and I strained my eyes in prolonging the little thrill I had when, themorning after he came, I saw him from a window riding out of the gatesand down into the valley, very much the young lord of the manor, on thehuge white stallion which, with such a master, defied a Republic andstill proclaimed him as the _Sieur du Chateau-Mauvrai_ to the dour andmorose-minded peasants of the Breton villages....

  "When I say that Raoul was not a nice young man, I mean that he was avery agreeable companion; but, like little Billee, in 'Trilby,' andMaurice, the stone-image of my dreams, that poor young man couldn'tlove, it wasn't in him to love; but unlike the other two, who were sweetabout it and made up for it as much as they could, Raoul had taken itinto his head that love was all stuff and nonsense, anyway, and that hecould do a deal better with the very frequent and not very fastidiouspretences of it; and, according to his little-minded lights, he seems tohave been right, for he had already done fairly well for himself inLondon--this I found much later, of course--with a flat in Mayfair whichwas much more consistent with the various middle-aged ladies who came totea with him than with the extent of his income.

  "No reasonable person could expect that a young man like that and Icould stay in the same house and no trouble come of it. But my guardianwasn't reasonable. He seemed still to expect me to go riding with him,and let a perfectly good young man run to waste for want of a companionto say pretty things to. Raoul and I, in that beautiful spot, werescarcely ever allowed to be alone, and only twice did we manage to rideaway together to the sea for a delicious, exciting few hours; onlytwice, I said, for the second time was very definitely the last....Somehow the Marquis was always there. Not in any unpleasant way, but hewould just happen to come into the room or the particular corner of thelarge garden where we also happened to be; he didn't rebuke or looksulky, he was just the same, except, perhaps, for a little irony toRaoul, whom he refused to take seriously as a young man of the world.And there is where the old man made his mistake with me, for I, too,didn't take Raoul seriously; I took him for just what he was, more knavethan fool, a charming companion, and a very personable young man, as faras being just 'personable' counts, and only so far. If I had beenallowed to deal with the matter in my own way, without let or hindrance,it would only have been very pleasant trifling, and certainly no more;even as it was, the 'no more' part of it was still safe in my keeping,thanks entirely to my having brought myself up properly; but for therest a simple amusement became a rather sordid tragedy, for God andguardian had combined to use a commonplace young man as the climax to afaded and forgotten little fantasy, once sun-kissed by a May morning,now to be shivered and scattered by the shrieking sea wind, discordantchorus enough for the unmingled destinies of any Tristans and Isoldas,which kept forcing our horses apart on that last morning of all, when wethree rode by the sea, and made a world of anger for ourselves becausesome one, something, had suddenly pushed us out of the other world wherewe had been so careless and happy....

  "Once things happened, they happened quickly. For all my not taking himat all seriously, I suppose I liked him quite a lot, really--I must havedone, else I would not have been such a fool. He was my first experienceof dishonesty in man, and I suppose I wanted to plumb this dishonesty ofhis to the depths, which was very stupid of me because he was much morelikely to find out about me than I about him.... Raoul had been at thechateau two weeks, and our little affair had taken the important andunpleasant air of a conspiracy. Our own stay was to last another month,and if it hadn't been that my guardian would not for the world haveoffended his old friend by cutting short this long-looked-for visit, hewould very soon have taken me away from the so desecrating gaze of youngRaoul.

  "On that day, towards evening, he and I had managed to steal out walkingfor an hour. Agreeable enough as he was, he would have bored me if I hadlet him. But I wanted him, I intended to keep him in my mind; I wantedhim as an assertion of my independence from the old man. As we went backup the drive to the chateau I carefully became as animated and smilingas I could, for I knew that he would be watching us from thedrawing-room windows, and I wanted to irritate him as much as hisincessant care was irritating me, though that would have beenimpossible, for that evening I was absurdly, fiercely angry with him.Life seemed made up of the interferences of old men. I didn't want oldmen in my life. I wanted young men, and sunshine, and fun. And so, asRaoul and I went up the steps to the massive door, and as I turned tohim just below the drawing-room window and gave him my most trustfulsmile, I was feeling reckless, unrestrained, fiercely independent....Oh, Dikran! what idiocies we do for the fancied sake of independence!

  "It was time to dress for dinner, so I left Raoul and went straight tomy room. A minute later came a knock on the door, and as I turnedsharply from the mirror, it opened and Raoul stood there, rather shy,smiling. I wasn't old enough to know the proper way of dealing withyoung men in one's bedroom, even if I had overpoweringly wanted to.

  "'I had an impulse,' he said, but he still stood in the doorway, alittle question somewhere about him. I didn't answer it; just watchedhim, rather interested in his methods.

  "'Because,' he went on, 'I used to sleep in this room once, and rememberit as a dreary little place, and I wanted to see what it looked likewith you in it.' Poor silly fool, I thought, but rather loved him. Ihave found since then, though, that his fatuous speech was quite theproper one to make, for the established way of entering a woman's roomis by expressing an interest in the furniture, thus making the ladyself-conscious and not so sure about her dignity; seductions aresuccessful through women fearing to look fools if they refuse to beseduced.

  "But this time, as he spoke, he closed the door behind him and came intothe room towards me. 'This isn't playing fair, Raoul,' I only said; 'youwill get me into a row.'

  "'Fair!' he said, lifting his eyebrows, the gallant ass. 'My sweet, doyou think anything real is fair in this world? And don't you trust me?That isn't fair of you, you know--haven't I made love to you for twoweeks, haven't I loved you for two weeks, haven't I loved you all mylife--and now?' And with that he had me in his arms, not for the firsttime, mind you, but this time very differently; and, over his shoulder,as he held me, I saw the door open, and the Marquis stood there,outraged. Raoul didn't seem to know, still held me, and I, for aparalysed moment, couldn't move, just stared at the old man standingvery stiffly in the doorway, a hand outstretched on the door-knob--hellseemed to have opened for him through that door, and he could move aslittle as I. At last I jumped away from Raoul with a sort of cry, and heturned quickly round to the door. He didn't go pale, or look a fool; hemust have made a study of such contretemps; nothing was said, the oldman waiting in the doorway, with words terribly smothered; he movedaside a little from the door as though to let a dog slink through. ButRaoul wasn't going to slink; he was rather pink, negligent, resigned;and as, without the least hurry, he bent over my fingers and his eyessmiled gently at me, I found myself admiring him, really loving him forthe first time. Women are like that.... All this, of course, hadhappened in less than a minute; from point of time my guardian came intomy room and Raoul left it--but in point of fact a great deal happened.For, as Raoul left me and walked across the room to the door, andthrough it without taking the least notice of the old man, and as Iheard his even steps receding down the _parquet_ corridor, my firstparalysed fear simmered in me and boiled up into a fierce, vixen anger.I simply trembled now with anger at the old man as I had first trembledwith fear of him. What right had he to be standing there, ordering aboutmy life and my young men? What right had he to be closing the door, ashe was doing now? What
right, what right? The words were throbbinginside me, just those words, fixed unrestrainedly on the old man, whohad made a step towards me, and stopped again....

  "'Child!' the pain in that one word, the lack of anger in it, an utter,absolute pain accusing me, did not soothe. Accuse me? By what right?

  "The scene was dreadful, Dikran. I can't tell you what we said, what Isaid, for I did most of the scene-making. He just forbade me to talkagain alone with Raoul or to go out with him; said he would take me awayto-morrow if it weren't that explanations would then be necessary to ourhostess, who was in feeble health and might be killed by such a disgraceas this in her own house. As for Monsieur le Vicomte, he himself wouldarrange that I did not see him for longer time than could be helped.That's all he said, but my white heat took little notice of hiscommands. I said I don't know what--it must all have been terrible, forit ended on a terrible note. Dikran, how could I have done it? I pointedat the door and asked him how he could think he had more right in myroom than Raoul, for though he was my guardian our relations had beenchanged by a certain proposal, which perhaps he remembered.... A look atme, in which was the first and last contempt that's ever been given me,and the door closed on the wonderful old man.

  "Dinner that night passed off quite well considering the unsettledclimatic conditions aforesaid. Myself didn't contribute much, but myguardian and Raoul talked smoothly away about anything that came, whileMadame, our hostess, smiled sweetly at us all, on brooding me inparticular.... Quite early I made for bed; the old man and I hadn'texchanged a word all evening, and his 'good night' was a little bow, andmine cold. As I passed Raoul he cleverly put a small piece of paper intomy hand. Upstairs in my room, that piece of paper said that he would begoing away in a day or two, and would I ride with him to-morrow morningbefore breakfast, at seven o'clock. Of course I would.

  "It was all a silly business, Dikran. If I had ever been in love withRaoul, I certainly wasn't that morning when we rode away from thegloomy, silent chateau, a little frightened by our own bravado; for thatis all it was. But later, as we reached the sands, I forgot that, Iforgot Raoul, though of course he always talked; I was enjoying thehorse under me, the summer morning, the high sea wind dashing its saltair against my cheeks; I was enjoying every one of those things morethan the company of the young man, but, tragically, my guardian couldnot know that.

  "We had been out about half an hour when Raoul, looking back over hisshoulder, murmured, 'Ah!' 'What is it?' I asked. I could barely force mylittle voice through the wind. 'That old man,' Raoul said indifferently.'It seems that he too is out to take the salt air.' Yes, there was afigure on horseback, perhaps half a mile behind us but rapidly gainingon our slow canter. I had forgotten my anger, but now again it thrustitself viciously on me.

  "'Come on, let's give him a run,' I said, a little excitedly.

  "'Oh, no! I am not a baby to be chased about by my own guests or otherpeople's grandfathers!'

  "Affected idiot, I thought, and we rode on in silence. So really sillyit all was, my dear; for if it hadn't been for my anger, the naturalreaction, in a way, of the muffled life I had led with him, I had muchsooner been riding with the old man than with the young one. But thatfeeling didn't last long--no one gave it a chance to last. For at last,after what seemed an age, his horse drew beside mine, and I heard hisvoice distantly through the wind, saying, 'Sandra! You must come back.'I didn't answer, but worse, I looked sideways at him and laughed. It wasthe first time that I had ever seen him in the least bit ridiculous, andmy laugh took advantage of it. Raoul was a yard or so ahead of us andwas giving his horse rein, and so I put mine to the gallop--andheigh-ho! there were the three of us racing away on the Bretonsands--until, with wonderful and dangerous horsemanship, my guardian'shorse leapt a yard or so ahead and swung broadside round in front of ourstartled horses. Near as anything there were broken collar-bones. Ourhorses reared high up, almost fell backwards, nearly braining the oldman with their frantic hoofs, and then at last took the ground, startledand panting. My guardian didn't wait. He pointed his whip at Raoul andsaid sternly, 'If I were not a guest at your mother's house I wouldthrash you, for that is what you need'; and then to me, harshly, 'Come,Sandra. Enough of this nonsense. Home.'

  "'Not I,' I cried against the wind. 'I'm enjoying my ride.' And roundhis horse I went, towards the sea, leaving them to their argument. Ialmost wanted him to follow me, I was so bitterly angry. I don't knowwhat I thought I would do--but I suppose I didn't think.

  "I must have galloped two hundred yards or so when he was beside meagain. I took no notice; we rode on, almost knee to knee. And then I sawhis hand stretch out, clutch my rein, and pull; I saw red, I sawnothing, or just his old, lined face bending over ... and, my dear, Iswung my riding-whip as hard as I could across it. The hand left myrein, but my horse had already been pulled up. I don't remember whathappened. I stared at him as unbelievingly as he stared at me. I seemedto see a weal across his face, where my whip had struck him--had I donethat? And then he smiled. Dikran, that dear old man smiled after thathorrible insult, so sweetly and sadly.

  "'That then is the end, my child,' he said very gently; and then he leftme, and for a long time I watched him as he rode slowly away.Frightfully ashamed.

  "It was done, irretrievably; such things can't be forgiven, except inwords; and as far as words went he, of course, forgave me. A few hourslater I saw him in the hall; he was going to pass me, but suddenly Iflung my arms about him, begging him ... very pitiful, dreadful thing Iwas. He was splendid. He said very softly into my ear that of course heforgave me, but that he was too old to have a proper control over hismemory, and so couldn't forget, and that he was too old to be hurt anymore, and so this would be the very last time, for he didn't think itwould be wise for me to live with him any more. 'Sandra, my child, youmust not think me too unkind for sending you away, but I think it is thebest plan. You have lived with an old man long enough--it was a mistake.I see now that it was a mistake. You must forgive me, child. I was wrongto keep you so long. I thought, perhaps, it might have beendifferent....' He was inexorable about that, and it wasn't my place to,I couldn't, beg him to keep me. I, who had hurt him so much!

  "He must have made some excuse to our hostess, for the next day saw usin Paris. Raoul? Oh, I never noticed him any more. And two days later Iwas with a stodgy uncle in Portman Square, hating London but hatingmyself more. I have been miserable many times, but never so shamefacedlyas then, during the two weeks which passed between my arrival in Londonand the coming of that note from the old man's valet, saying thatMonsieur le Marquis was very ill, and the doctor said he would die; andso he had taken the liberty of writing to me, without permission, incase I should like to go and see him; would I be so kind as not to tellMonsieur le Marquis that he had written to me?

  "Like a young woman to a dying lover, I went to Paris, and with aterrible flutter in my heart stood on the doorstep of the stern-lookinghouse in the _Rue Colbert_.... They hadn't told him I was coming, but hemust have expected me, for there was no surprise in the smile with whichhe met the timid little figure which came into his room. He seemed to menot ill, but just dying; he looked the same, only very tired. And then Irealised that he was dying because he wanted to die. An angry girl hadshown him that life was indeed not worth living, and so he was stoppinghis heart with his own hand.... It was terrible to realise that as Istood by his bed and he smiled quite gaily up at me. The weakness wastoo strong inside him, and he couldn't speak, just patted my hand andheld it very tightly.... I was very glad when I was out of that room,and I did not see him again before he died early the next morning.

  "And so you see, Dikran, for all your talk of _dies irae_ in the future,I've already had my _dies irae_, and very sadly, too--and been the wiserfor it in restraint."

  * * * * *

  Then it was that I realised with a start that my housemaid was staringat me from the door in the grey March morning, and that I was notlistening to Shelmerdene in a backwater of the Thames, b
ut was inLondon, where there is less time for cherishing one's ideals than forenquiring into other people's....

  THE END

  Transcriber Notes:

  Passages in italics were indicated by _underscores_.

  Small caps were replaced with ALL CAPS.

  Throughout the document, the oe ligature was replaced with "oe".

  Throughout the dialogues, there were words used to mimic accents ofthe speakers. Those words were retained as-is.

  Errors in punctuations and inconsistent hyphenation were not correctedunless otherwise noted.

  On page 19, "distate" was replaced with "distaste".