Glamour 
 
 W. B. MAXWELL
 
 GLAMOUR 
 
 Nlt. Of CALIF. LIBRARY. LOS ANGELES
 
 GLAMOUR 
 
 By 
 
 W. B. MAXWELL 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 Tht DeviFs Garden, The Mirror and the Lamp 
 Life Can Never be the Same, etc., ete. 
 
 O27 
 
 INDIANAPOLIS 
 
 THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 
 PUBLISHERS
 
 COPYRIGHT 1919 
 THE BOBBS- MERRILL COMPAN> 
 
 Printed in the United State* of America 
 
 PRESS OF 
 
 8RAUNWORTH * CO. 
 
 BOOK MANUFACTURERS 
 
 BROOKLYN, N. Y.
 
 GLAMOUR 
 
 2131717
 
 GLAMOUR 
 
 i 
 
 THE time before the war has already become so 
 vague, so difficult to recall, that one is compelled to 
 examine old files of illustrated newspapers, political re- 
 views, and literary magazines in order to find out what 
 people looked like, what they were doing, and what they 
 were thinking. It was said that they thought too much 
 about their food ; but that seems absurd. For they had 
 food. They were too sceptical and cynical; but that 
 seems equally absurd. For they trusted Germany's good 
 faith. They were quarrelling and ready to fight about 
 Ireland; and that really seems most absurd of all as 
 though two oarsmen were rolling about in the bottom of 
 a small boat, clawing each other and calling each other 
 names, just before the boat slid over Niagara Falls. 
 
 All used to agree that nothing can be more contemp- 
 tible than ingratitude; and yet in big things, if not in 
 small, one seems to remember that this virtue was very 
 rare. It was bad form to speak slightingly of people you 
 had dined with, and only the worst sort of snobs did so. 
 But people kicked down the ladders on which they had 
 risen, trod on the hands that had pushed them up, brought 
 a heap of bricks and rubbish on kind heads below in their 
 last frantic scramble to get on top of the wall, and did 
 not even look back to see if anyone was hurt. No one 
 blamed them for this; no one expected them to do any- 
 thing else. 
 
 1
 
 2 GLAMOUR 
 
 Think of the ingratitude of children to parents tak- 
 ing all, giving nothing in return. Think of the ingrati- 
 tude shown sometimes by wives to husbands ; but, above 
 all, think of the ingratitude of husbands to wives. 
 
 Bryan Vaile, the playwright, did think of it. He made 
 it the artfully concealed thesis of two of his most popular 
 plays. His work was not, of course, didactic, and it had 
 no true moral philosophy, or it would not have been suc- 
 cessful; but he did contrive to get across the footlights 
 the healthy common-sense view that the obligations of 
 husbands and wives are mutual and of equal force, and 
 to convey his own firm belief that the man should be en- 
 tirely faithful to the woman in thought as well as in 
 act loyal and faithful, and grateful. He was very- 
 strong about the gratitude. 
 
 But then, Bryan Vaile was unusually happy in his mar- 
 riage, and he had the best of reasons for being grateful 
 to his wife. She had done so much for him. But for 
 her he would not have been a successful playwright : he 
 would not have been anything at all. 
 
 Yet in the beginning he had wanted to marry her. 
 She was not his first love. 
 
 The real story of his life started in 1903; till then all 
 had been colourless. In 1902 he was thirty-three, and he 
 felt very old and tired, nearly worn out, and already 
 thinking of himself as a failure; but as soon as he wrote 
 the new date delightful things began to happen, and he 
 felt very young again and full of hope. It was going to 
 be a glorious year for him. 
 
 His prospects at the bar suddenly lightened; briefs 
 came to him, and he appeared in sensational cases, so that 
 his name was in the newspapers. Stories that he had sent 
 to magazines were accepted; his golf handicap was re- 
 duced ; a famous actress played in a one-act piece that he
 
 GLAMOUR 3 
 
 had written ; and his step-mother changed her mind about 
 letting her flat in Maddox Street and said he might use 
 it all the time she was away. That was a convenience 
 as well as an economy for him. At the end of the hunt- 
 ing season he rode his only two horses in point-to-point 
 races, getting a first and second place, and selling the 
 clever but elderly animals at a fancy price afterwards. 
 And the sun continued to shine. All the world seemed 
 willing to smile at him and take notice of him, instead of 
 allowing him to pass as something vague and meaning- 
 less in the changing and unexplored background of their 
 own lives. Every door seemed to open to him. With- 
 out apparent reason, important personages were kind and 
 friendly to him ; and, surprised at being there, not think- 
 ing for a moment that he ought to be there, or that any 
 special merit or virtue had brought him there, he often 
 found himself in what used to be called great houses. 
 Here he met all sorts of famous and interesting people 
 amongst others, Diana Kenion. 
 
 He saw her first at a dance, and he was still so igno- 
 rant that he had to ask somebody to tell him her name. 
 Diana it seemed to him at once that she could not have 
 been called anything else. She was dressed in pale blue, 
 and round her neck she had a long scarf or streamer of 
 blue gauze that floated in the air as she moved, making 
 her like a nymph. He hung about, not doing his duty 
 and dancing, but trying to get someone to introduce him 
 to her, and he succeeded at the last possible moment, just 
 when she was leaving. 
 
 As everybody else knew, Diana Kenion had been out 
 and about for two years, and was an established institu- 
 tion. She had from the first exercised ascendancy over 
 a group of other pretty girls and young married women, 
 who formed a court for her, and admired her perhaps
 
 4 GLAMOUR 
 
 more than most young men did. But truly it became the 
 fashion to admire her, and all who wished to be in the 
 fashion had to accept her without question as a uniquely 
 delightful phenomenon. She could act and she could 
 sing. No grand charity tableaux were complete without 
 her. Famous artists painted her portrait, budding poets 
 dedicated volumes to her, grave politicians loved to talk 
 to her. She was supposed to be brilliantly clever, and 
 very witty. 
 
 She lived in Bruton Street with her father, who had 
 obtained a divorce from her mother many years ago, and 
 somewhere about the world there were half-sisters and 
 brothers of Diana, much older than she. Sir Gerald 
 Kenion, the father, had been a soldier, then governor of 
 colonies; now he was director of companies, and a fine, 
 distinguished-looking old buck, very much cherished by 
 dowagers, but already verging towards the state described 
 as "ga-ga." At the little house in Bruton Street Diana 
 gave luncheon parties for him, asking clever people, pret- 
 ty people the Prime Minister, the Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury, the Russian actress out of the Empire ballet, the 
 young man who had flown in a machine heavier than air 
 anybody. No one ever refused her invitations, and old 
 Sir Gerald was willing to believe that all guests came to 
 see him, but he was dazed by this varied company. He 
 knew such photographed celebrities as the Prime Minis- 
 ter by sight, so he was sure when they came ; he knew his 
 dowagers by name and immediately recognized them in 
 their own houses, although not certain of spotting them 
 elsewhere; and for the rest he was splendidly vague, as 
 courteous and kindly to strangers as to old friends, filling 
 in blanks with "my dear lady" and "my dear sir," and 
 sustaining a cheery conversation that was made up 
 chiefly of ejaculations "Upon my soul, now ! Bless me,
 
 GLAMOUR 5 
 
 where's Diana? My dear fellow by Jove! How nice 
 this is!" 
 
 Soon now girl friends at the luncheon parties were 
 talking about Diana's clever man Bryan. 
 
 "Have you seen Diana's new clever man?" 
 
 "Yes. Is he clever?" 
 
 "I don't know. Diana says so." 
 
 "He's good-looking in a way. And he rides all right. 
 He was riding with Diana before breakfast this morn- 
 ing." 
 
 Two of her most faithful friends and admirers, those 
 beautiful girls, Lady Violet Kingsland and Lady Sybil 
 Fauldhouse, became a little anxious in regard to this 
 matter. 
 
 "Diana," said Lady Violet, "has told me to get Mr. 
 Vaile asked to the Bembridges for a week-end." 
 
 "Can you manage it?" 
 
 "Oh, of course. I'd manage anything in the world 
 for Diana. But it set me thinking." 
 
 "What," asked Lady Sybil, "does Bryan Vaile do with 
 himself?" 
 
 "Of course, he's desperately in love with Diana." 
 
 "Yes, but except that?" 
 
 "Oh, he "writes, you know and he's a barrister. Diana 
 says he could do anything if he tried be Lord Chancel- 
 lor, and all that. He's going into Parliament as soon as 
 Diana can find him a constituency." 
 
 "Why does Diana worry about him?" 
 
 "Oh, she's so wonderful. Who can explain her?" 
 
 "She is wonderful," said Lady Sybil fervently. "Look 
 at her now. Did you ever see such a perfectly glorious 
 attitude?" And these two loyal adherents went across 
 the room to where Diana sat enthroned upon a sofa, with 
 several male guests standing in front of her. "Don't
 
 6 GLAMOUR 
 
 move, Diana. You are perfect, like that. We don't 
 want to interrupt. We only want to listen. Oh, please 
 don't move !" 
 
 But Diana had changed her attitude, and she rose, 
 .smiling. 
 
 She was a tall, slim girl, with dark hair and a small 
 oval face the oval that narrows to a pointed chin. She 
 carried herself grandly, but was always graceful. Only 
 in photographs and pictures of her did you notice the 
 beautiful features: in life you noticed nothing particu- 
 larly, but merely felt the charm. There was, of course, 
 an individual character in all that concerned her the way 
 she dressed, the way she did her hair, the way she glanced 
 at you and glanced away from you, the lift of her eye- 
 brows, the corners of her mouth; but it all blended and 
 became merely material of the whole spell, which was 
 itself quite unanalysable. 
 
 To Bryan Vaile she was glamour and spell incarnate 
 no, not quite incarnate, because she realised his dreams 
 so completely that he always had a sensation of dream- 
 ing when with her. She summed up everything his love 
 of poetry; his boyish craving for the princess, the god- 
 dess, the unattainable joy. She was music to him, mys- 
 tery, moonlight on woodland pools everything. And 
 she let him like her. She liked him. She sought him, 
 just as he sought her only much more successfully. 
 
 After sitting by her side at a polo match, after walk- 
 ing or riding with her, after being with her at night and 
 dancing with her, after kissing her, he was like a mortal 
 emptied and exhausted by divine excesses. He was not 
 an ordinary young man going home to bed he had fallen 
 from Olympian heights, and he staggered dizzily through 
 this ugly town to find a hiding-place. He flung himself 
 down, and lay glowing with memories remembering, re-
 
 GLAMOUR 7 
 
 membering the colour of her, the light of her; repeating 
 to himself the things she had said; hearing her voice 
 going over the lovely dream from which he had awak- 
 ened. And she loved him. She had said so. The dream 
 and life were to blend into one. 
 
 In the morning he was stung to life and vigour by the 
 longing to be with her again, the necessity of being with 
 her again. 
 
 She had told him to get a telephone installed at the 
 Maddox Street flat. 
 
 "Why haven't you got one already, you great big 
 stupid?" 
 
 "I haven't wanted one," he pleaded, apologetically. 
 "My step-mother rather wanted not to have one." 
 
 "But you want one now," said Diana. "/ want one 
 to talk to you. To tell you when we can meet." 
 
 He got the telephone, and it became a magic instru- 
 ment. She used to speak to him on the telephone some- 
 times quite early in the morning. Her voice then was as 
 fresh and clear as the dawn itself, and while he listened 
 he thought of her standing with sandalled feet among 
 daffodils, by the side of a woodland spring, with the first 
 sunbeams touching her bare arms and neck. "Good-bye, 
 Bryan. Three o'clock. Don't forget ;" and she laughed, 
 and her laughter was like the sound of water breaking 
 upon smooth stones and rippling into silence as it flowed 
 on. When she spoke to him late at night it was mystery, 
 wonderment, glamour. "Bryan, I am so tired. Good- 
 night, dear. I shall be riding at eight o'clock. Come, if 
 you like." And he heard her give a little sigh that was 
 like a breath of air in the foliage of the dark grove where 
 she was lying down to rest. She had been dancing all 
 night at a house to which he could not follow her. Other 
 men had clasped her waist, touched her slender fingers.
 
 8 GLAMOUR 
 
 and intoxicated themselves in the ineffable spell but it 
 did not matter. He felt no torment of jealousy. All 
 could admire her, worship her, but only one could under- 
 stand her. Great lords and princes counted for nothing 
 at the shrine of his goddess; they had nothing to give 
 that was of any value to her who could give immortal 
 bliss. 
 
 At odd hours, once or twice when she was going from 
 one evening party to another, she herself came to the flat. 
 He had some scruples about letting her do this ; but she 
 laughed at his folly, and he was well content to laugh at 
 it, too. She was quite emancipated, in the sense of defy- 
 ing conventions of the old-fashioned sort : no laws could 
 bind her, since obviously she was above all law. 
 
 Throughout the glorious summer weather his delight 
 was deepening. They rode together on many mornings ; 
 he stayed at the same house with her for two week-end 
 parties; they were with each other as often and as much 
 as possible. Because of her, Hyde Park was a fairyland 
 that he had never seen till then, London became a city of 
 fantastic loveliness and the Thames an enchanted stream. 
 Wherever they were, she brought glamour with her. 
 Just to be near her, and see her, if he might not speak to 
 her, made him glow and throb with happiness. He was 
 often silent when he could have spoken, because the small- 
 est of her actions, every swift change of her expression, 
 so fascinated him that it deprived him of ready words. 
 She was like nobody else on earth like nobody who had 
 ever been on earth, except for a brief space thousands of 
 years ago. She was different from common mortals 
 even when eating with her, that ugly act was a joy to 
 watch. She ate very little, seeming to eat only clean and 
 pretty things white rolls of bread, and fruit just what 
 a goddess might eat. When he was exiled from her pres-
 
 GLAMOUR 9 
 
 ence altogether he felt utterly lost as well as lonely and 
 miserable. He thought then not only of her glamour, 
 but of her elusiveness. The whole thing was a dream 
 really: she was the goddess that one cannot hold and 
 possess. 
 
 Certainly not a clumsy uninteresting wretch of thirty- 
 four. He was preposterously too old for her. He told 
 her so, and she said "Not a little bit;" but she conveyed 
 to him that of course he was rather old to have done so 
 little, and let him understand that henceforth he must do 
 a very great deal. He felt himself how all his life he 
 had been wasting time or, rather, waiting for this. 
 That was it truly. He had been waiting for the dream 
 to become reality. Now he would achieve wonders. 
 How could he fail? 
 
 His doubts and self -questionings ceased when he could 
 hear her voice and touch her hand. It was all gloriously 
 true. They were secretly engaged to each other he had 
 the right to think of her as his future wife. Some day, 
 before long, he would be telling her father and asking his 
 consent to their marriage. Diana would tell him when to 
 do it. Obviously some preparation of Sir Gerald would 
 be needed, for just at present Sir Gerald was not able to 
 differentiate Bryan from a very considerable number of 
 other tall, clean-shaven men who nodded to him in the 
 street and whose names he wished he could remember. 
 
 One afternoon towards the end of July he came back 
 from the Temple to meet her at the flat. She had been 
 out of London for four days that had seemed to him four 
 years ; he was in a fever to see her ; and he felt worried 
 because soon now she might be going away on a long 
 round of visits, and they had made no definite plans either 
 for the near or the more remote future. There had been 
 talk of her going to Homburg with her father; and that
 
 10 GLAMOUR 
 
 was what he had wanted her to do, for then he could have 
 gone there too, but this scheme had fallen through. They 
 would discuss what might be possible to-day. She had 
 said in her note that she wished to have a quiet talk, and 
 that he was to expect her at six o'clock or a little later. 
 
 He left his chambers before five and walked to Mad- 
 dox Street to fill in time, and all the way he was think- 
 ing of her, pining for her. At a shop in Regent Street 
 he bought as many roses as he could carry. 
 
 It was a small flat on the first floor ; and from the win- 
 dow of the drawing-room you could see Bond Street all 
 full of life and movement, with the roadway shining like 
 glass in the sunlight, fine carriages, electric broughams, 
 and every now and then a horrid, noisy, petrol-driven 
 automobile, flashing past. Out of the crowd, round that 
 corner, she was coming in half an hour, or, say, in three- 
 quarters of an hour, or an hour at the very worst. He 
 used to think it was a horrid little flat, but he loved it 
 now for all the wonderful service it had done him. 
 
 While arranging his roses, he wished that the room 
 looked a little less atrociously unworthy of its visitor. 
 Mrs. Vaile, as a person who spent most of her life in 
 hotels and hired houses, had not any keen sense of the 
 home beautiful; and during her absence even the ordi- 
 nary decencies of ornament had been carefully packed 
 away. The pretty chintz covers had been stripped from 
 commonplace sofas and chairs ; the piano was as bare as 
 a piano in a shop ; and there was nothing on the chimney- 
 piece except one large sham Sevres clock. Four tall mir- 
 rors on the walls and a broad one behind the clock re- 
 flected this emptiness and uninterestingness, and showed 
 Bryan strong platoons of himself looking excited, anx- 
 ious, and rather foolish.
 
 GLAMOUR 11 
 
 He thought of the room as it had been on wonderful 
 nights, with all the electric light turned on, and the mir- 
 rors showing him his exquisite gracious love, cloaked 
 to the neck in some fairy wrap, her shining hair like a 
 crown, her eyes soft and glowing, she herself so deli- 
 cately beautiful that he scarcely dared to hold her in his 
 arms. Thus she had come and gone his own Diana, 
 filling him with comfort and joy. Ten minutes stolen 
 from the noisy, stupid world to make him deliriously 
 glad. 
 
 He sat in the window waiting for her, thinking of her. 
 He was saturated with thought of her; she had made him 
 so entirely hers that there was not a corner of his mind 
 that did not belong to her. She lit up the dull store of 
 his legal knowledge; she coloured his furthest memories 
 of boyhood; she danced like rainbow fire through every 
 imagination or invention of tales that he had meant one 
 day to write. When, as now, he was waiting for her, 
 she not only filled his thought, but made him feel as if 
 any other kind of thought would forever be impossible. 
 
 It was terrible to be kept waiting. It enervated, it de- 
 stroyed him. At six o'clock he had opened the door of 
 the tiny hall. At five minutes past six he had gone down- 
 stairs to make sure that the outer door was open. It 
 always was open, but he had to be certain. After six- 
 fifteen he could not keep still. When the Sevres clock 
 chimed the half -hour he started as if a gun had been 
 fired, and then sank upon the sofa, clenching his fists in 
 despair. She was not coming at all something had pre- 
 vented her. She had not returned to London he would 
 not see her to-day, perhaps not to-morrow. Next moment 
 he heard her footstep on the stairs. 
 
 "Now, you old Bryan," she said, smiling, "you are to
 
 12 GLAMOUR 
 
 be very sensible to-day. No, don't kiss me not yet 
 not till we have talked and talked. Come and sit down, 
 like a good boy." 
 
 He obeyed her meekly, and they sat side by side on 
 the sofa near the window. She was dressed in black, with 
 one of the coloured gauze scarfs that she always wore, 
 and she let him take her hands and pull off the loose, soft 
 gloves while she talked to him. He hardly listened at 
 first ; his heart was beating fast in happiness because she 
 was here, because she had not failed him after all, and 
 yet she seemed to him a little strange, a little different 
 from the Diana he had expected. 
 
 "Now please attend carefully, Bryan. What is it you 
 say to inattentive judges when you're holding forth in 
 court? Have I your lordshop's ear? Well, I want to 
 submit certain arguments But I had better say at once 
 that I am going away the day after to-morrow, and this 
 must be good-bye!" 
 
 "Where are you going?" 
 
 "To Switzerland." 
 
 "With Sir Gerald?" 
 
 "No, with Violet Kingsland." 
 
 "Who else?" 
 
 "Her father and mother and the Ashburys quite a 
 large party." 
 
 "But a party not large enough to include me ?" 
 
 "No, dear, it's all their own family and old Lord 
 Kirkstead isn't really well. We shall move about quietly 
 you know, with servants, and a nurse, and tons of lug- 
 gage and perhaps a Bath chair and the courier trying 
 to stop the train for Violet to sketch mountains or take 
 snap-shots of a waterfall. So, in any case, I could not 
 have managed to work you into the plot." 
 
 "And how long will Switzerland last?"
 
 GLAMOUR 13 
 
 "Oh, till September and then we shall go down to 
 the Italian lakes." 
 
 "And after Italy?" 
 
 "I may go to friends in Paris or perhaps go to Scot- 
 land." 
 
 "Diana! When do I come into the plot? When am I 
 to see you again?" 
 
 "Bryan, dear." She had released her hands and put 
 them one on each of his shoulders, and she looked into 
 his eyes. "You are not to see me again for ever and 
 ever so long. Bryan, dear, this is good-bye." 
 
 "I don't quite understand that," he said dully. 
 
 "But you must understand." 
 
 "What you said is nonsense." His face flushed, and 
 he was going to take her in his arms, but she moved her 
 hands and gently pushed him from her. 
 
 "Bryan, listen. It's not the least little bit of good for 
 us to try and go on with it. It's hopeless it's madness; 
 and of course we ought never to have begun it. But we 
 now have to talk very sadly and very sensibly just as if 
 we were two ordinary people, and not the people it was 
 so lovely to think we were. Bryan, I haven't any money. 
 You haven't any money." 
 
 He got up, went across to the fireplace, and stood 
 there, with his hands in his pockets, looking at her. Be- 
 hind his back the ugly Sevres clock was ticking slowly. 
 He had glanced at its dial and seen that it marked the 
 time as twenty-five minutes to seven she had been here 
 five minutes, but a lot had happened in a little while. 
 
 "I haven't any money," he said; "not any money worth 
 speaking of. But I have as much money to-day as I had 
 yesterday, or the day before. Besides, I can make 
 money." 
 
 "Yes, but not quick enough. I can't wait. . . . Come
 
 14 GLAMOUR 
 
 back, and talk about it quietly. . . . Bryan, I am dread- 
 fully sorry but it can't be helped." Then she stood up, 
 tall, slender, graceful, stretching her arms toward him 
 appealingly. 
 
 He went to her, and in a moment she became what she 
 had been his own Diana, like no other girl that he had 
 ever seen or heard of, unless in dreams ; giving him quick, 
 light kisses with lips like rose-leaves, as they seemed to 
 him, fluttering, evanescent, unseizable, like herself; 
 touching him with her fingers as children touch one, fin- 
 gering his face and eyebrows ; smiling ; and speaking with 
 such rapidity that one could scarcely follow the words, 
 in a sort of baby language that she had invented for her- 
 self. "Yes, I love you very, very much indeed. I have 
 proved it to you in a thousand and a thousand ways. 
 But I have to think for you as well as for myself. What 
 is it you want? . . . Yes, I'll sit nearer to you quite 
 near like this. It's for the last time. I'll do almost any- 
 thing for you, but I can't marry you. How can I? If 
 you think sensibly for one tiniest little possible instant 
 you'll see it's a million and a million miles out of the 
 question. You know, it isn't as if you were famous 
 even. You will be some day. You ought to be. But, my 
 darling, I can't wait I simply can't wait." She had 
 never called him her darling before, and the word gave 
 him infinite bliss and infinite pain. "Oh, if you had made 
 a real success already oh, then it might be different. 
 I should be very, very proud of you, and, oh, how I 
 would shove you along! Push a boy baby to the tree- 
 top;" and she talked in her adorable rapid way. Then 
 she was serious. "You know, you will get on if you be- 
 lieve in yourself. But you don't believe in yourself nearly 
 enough." 
 
 "You mean you don't believe in me enough."
 
 GLAMOUR 15 
 
 "No, I mean what I said." 
 
 He thought with bitterness, "Of course, she never 
 really cared for me;" and he might have asked her, "If 
 you did not care for me, why have you played with me 
 like this ? Why have you done me this great injury, when 
 I never tried to do you any harm?" But pride forbade 
 that kind of question. His pride was lacerated; he was 
 torn to pieces ; but, above all, the loss of her was so ter- 
 rible, the longing for her so immense. 
 
 He pulled himself together and asked the obvious, ad- 
 missible question. 
 
 "Who are you chucking me for? Who is to be the 
 happy man ?" 
 
 "I can't tell you." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Because I don't know." 
 
 He laughed. "Another compliment! Anybody except 
 me!" 
 
 "No, don't be silly. I think, I think, I very much think 
 it will be Geoffrey Coniston. Or it might be Sedgefield. 
 He doesn't know at all yet that he may be required for 
 the advancement in life of a young person with expensive 
 self-indulgent tastes and a fatally accurate knowledge of 
 the world. " And then her smile flickered out and ten- 
 derness sounded in her voice. "Dear boy, don't be silly. 
 Don't think I wouldn't rather it be you. You have made 
 me feel more than I have felt for any one. Haven't I 
 proved it ? Aren't I not proving it now ? No man lives who 
 can say I have paid him afternoon calls and evening 
 calls. And I give no one on earth little, little, hurried 
 kisses like these" ; and he saw tears in her eyes. 
 
 At sight of her wet eyelashes he strained her to him, 
 pressing her close. "No, I won't let you go. It's rot. I'll 
 hold you against all the world."
 
 16 GLAMOUR 
 
 "No, stop. Be good let me go." She disengaged her- 
 self, and her eyes flashed. "I should hate you if you 
 tried to do that. No, it's not rot, it's wisdom" ; and she 
 melted again. "Bryan, dear, I am sorry." 
 
 Then she stood looking down at him. 
 
 "I must go. Don't come out with me please. I know 
 the stairs I know the way to Bruton Street. Bryan?" 
 
 He remained silent. It was all over. Why go on talk- 
 ing? 
 
 "Now, Bryan, you are not to regret me. I'm not worth 
 it. I'm a worthless, abject, hateful person, really. All 
 our people are. Aunt Adelaide but you didn't know her. 
 My mother my mother's dead. Good-bye. Do you want 
 to kiss me for the last time?" 
 
 "No," he said quietly. "I never want to see you again." 
 
 She looked back at him from the doorway, kissed the 
 tips of her fingers, and was gone. 
 
 It was the end of the world to him the end of the 
 dream that makes life worth living. She took away with 
 her all the beauty, the glamour, the music and poetry of 
 life.
 
 II 
 
 ENDON had become hateful. England, with its over- 
 prosperity, its false standards, and its insatiable 
 greed, was rotten to the core. Only money counted. A 
 longing came to him for the wider life of new countries; 
 for lands where men are still merely men, where the 
 struggle with nature keeps them strong and fearless, 
 where they have to fight with wild beasts, to hunt and 
 kill for their daily food, to build houses with their own 
 hands, and where, if they fail in these essential things, 
 they swiftly perish and disappear. He thought he would 
 go to the Antipodes, and sleep on the ground, wrapt in 
 a blanket, with a gun by his side and the Southern Cross 
 over his head. 
 
 But, instead of doing so, he went to Bournemouth to 
 stay with his step-mother. She wanted him ; and she said 
 he should have a room to himself, in which he could get 
 on with his literary work undisturbed. After all, when 
 you are miserable, it does not much matter where you 
 go to hide your misery. 
 
 Sitting in the Pullman car of the Bournemouth ex- 
 press, and watching the tamely pretty landscape as it 
 glided past, he thought of himself with self-pity. Diana 
 had said, "You don't believe in yourself." Yet he knew 
 that he was not a bad sort really : all that he wanted was 
 something at once firm and fine to lift him and guide him. 
 He had a few good qualities he could sympathise with 
 other people ; he was industrious, not dreading work, but 
 liking it; and he was neither greedy nor envious. He 
 could admire what is high and good, in life as well as in 
 
 17
 
 18 GLAMOUR 
 
 art. He had a certain quickness of imagination ; but his 
 cleverness a doubtful quantity was not solid or far- 
 reaching in character. 
 
 With the sense of failure strong upon him, he thought 
 of himself as one who begins adventures but never ends 
 them. If a woman likes a man a little, it is his own fault 
 if he cannot make her like him a lot. That was it he 
 could not complete anything. He was the kind of a man 
 who, after he has got his adversary beat in a glove-fight, 
 will let himself be knocked out unexpectedly, through his 
 own carelessness. And so it was in everything unable 
 to finish. Deficient follow-through had prevented him 
 from driving a long ball at golf; except this year he had 
 always been beaten at the post in hunt-races; his last 
 words to a jury were always his feeblest; even his fa- 
 mous one-act piece had no proper "curtain." 
 
 Why should a woman care for him ? No woman would 
 ever care for him. As well as breaking his heart, Diana 
 had convinced him that he was totally devoid of power 
 over the whole of her sex. Girls may consent to play 
 the fool with such a man, but they don't really fall in 
 love with him. 
 
 His step-mother had a comfortable house with a large 
 garden, among the pine-trees on the east cliff, and she 
 seemed glad to see him. 
 
 "You look in robust health, Bryan. How are you?" 
 
 "Oh, I'm all right," he said stoutly. "What's more 
 important, how are you?" 
 
 "I have been better and I have been worse. But, on the 
 whole, Bournemouth has done wonders for me." 
 
 Mrs. Vaile was an imaginary invalid of so hardened 
 a type that she did not even trouble to invent the ailments 
 from which she was supposed to be suffering. She said, 
 "For many years I have been obliged to take the greatest-
 
 GLAMOUR 19 
 
 care of myself otherwise I should not be here now"; 
 or, "You know, as well as I do, that I dare not face the 
 east wind." And she left it at that. She was one of those 
 thin, elegant, straight-nosed women who miss being 
 pretty when young, and gain a distinguished air as they 
 advance in years; she spoke in rather a plaintive voice, 
 and her manner was always languid except when she was 
 playing cards ; she took likes and dislikes in social inter- 
 course; and she had an astoundingly reckless tongue. 
 She said dreadful things about anyone with whom she 
 quarrelled, and at various times there had been threats 
 of actions for slander and other worries for the settle- 
 ment of which Bryan had been called in as a lawyer, a 
 step-son, and a man of the world. No matter what she 
 had said, she would never withdraw the words or apolo- 
 gise for them; but if hard-pushed she would run away. 
 Her absence from London throughout the season had 
 been caused by a little tiff and subsequent unpleasantness 
 at her favourite bridge club. 
 
 People said that she was worldly and selfish, but she 
 had always been as kind to Bryan as she could be with- 
 out putting herself to any inconvenience. Indeed, he 
 probably owed to her forbearance or generosity the few 
 poor hundreds a year that he possessed; for there had 
 been something doubtful in his father's will, and the 
 widow, if grasping, might perhaps have cut him out of 
 his small provision. She was well-off herself. 
 
 Wherever she happened to be situated she always had 
 staying with her a nondescript girl visitor, of whom she 
 was inclined to make a slave. She had one now. 
 
 "Bryan, let me introduce you to Miss Gresley, who 
 has been good enough to take pity on my dulness. . . . 
 Mabel, will you, like an angel, write two or three notes 
 for me after puncheon, before we go for our drive?"
 
 20 GLAMOUR 
 
 Mrs. Vaile's afternoon drive was an old-established 
 custom, and, wherever she might be, she seemed able to 
 produce exactly the same carriage. Bryan, looking at it 
 to-day, remembered to have seen it at Brighton, at Tor- 
 quay, and a dozen other places, even as far away as 
 Cannes and Mentone. It was the first-class livery-stable 
 equipage that has no country and defies time a highly- 
 varnished landau with frayed india-rubber tyres; two 
 large insipid horses, looking sleepily apologetic because 
 they are badly groomed and smell of the yard; and a 
 small coachman who sits bolt upright in the middle of 
 the box-seat, with a hat a shade too small for him, a liv- 
 ery coat, crestless buttons, and a blue cloth rug tightly 
 swathing his legs, and saying, "Never mind what I con- 
 ceal. It isn't boots and breeches; nor it isn't trousers 
 with a stripe down the sides ; but it's all right so long as 
 it's kept out of sight." 
 
 Bryan remembered, too, how often he had seen the 
 ceremony of departure the appearance of a maid with 
 rugs and cushions; then a man-servant with a hot-water 
 bottle or a footstool; then a friend with books for the 
 circulating library, supply of visiting cards, small address 
 book, and so on; and finally his step-mother with a lace 
 handkerchief in her hand. Not a detail had been 
 changed ; he saw it all again now. Mrs. Vaile went down 
 the gravel drive for a little, way, and, standing by her- 
 self, solemnly held the handkerchief aloft. All was well 
 to-day; the handkerchief hung limp, without a flutter, in 
 the warm sunlit air ; there was no wind from the east or 
 any other quarter of the compass. 
 
 "Richards," she said, "take us for a nice round." She 
 always knew the name of her coachman. 
 
 Then they took their seats in the carriage, the horses 
 roused themselves with a grunt that was like a sigh, and
 
 GLAMOUR 21 
 
 trotted sedately away out through the pines, among the 
 trim gardens and well-painted houses; down little slopes 
 between rows of villas; through a broad street full of 
 shops and holiday-makers; along a road with trams and 
 immense iron standards; past recreation grounds where 
 flocks of children and nursemaids wandered aimlessly 
 about the lawns. The sun was shining; a band played 
 upon the pier; the sea was calm, with overloaded rowing- 
 boats close to the crowd upon the sands, and an excursion 
 steamer slowly approaching. Heavens, how vapid and 
 tame life can be! 
 
 Mrs. Vaile said there were many pleasant people at 
 Bournemouth, both among the residents and the regular 
 visitors, and she had experienced no difficulty in getting 
 a rubber of bridge. People came and played at her house 
 of an evening. Everybody had been kind and indulgent 
 to her with one exception. The vicar of St. Timothy's 
 and his wife had behaved abominably, and she had told 
 them what she thought of them. This Mr. Denton had 
 not only refused to move one of his permanent seat-hold- 
 ers in order to give her the only place where she would 
 have been out of the draught, but Mrs. Denton had 
 spoken rudely in announcing the refusal. Rudeness she 
 could not forgive. 
 
 It chanced that before the drive was over they saw the 
 offending couple. 
 
 "There he goes," said Mrs. Vaile, "with his wife if 
 she is his wife." 
 
 Bryan smiled for the first time since his disaster. 
 
 "Surely you don't mean to insinuate that a venerable 
 old gentleman " 
 
 "I'd believe anything about him, after the manner in 
 which he has treated me. But, of course," she added 
 languidly, "I don't care whether he has married the
 
 22 GLAMOUR 
 
 woman or not. She was his cook, to begin with, I sup- 
 pose." 
 
 Miss Gresley took very little part in the conversation. 
 She seemed to be a repressed sort of girl, probably about 
 twenty-three or twenty-four, and she glanced at Bryan 
 shyly while he talked to his step-mother. He noticed that 
 she had brown eyes and that her veil was neatly tied un- 
 der her chin. 
 
 After dinner a card-table was set out in the drawing- 
 room, and Mrs. Vaile bemoaned the fact that nobody 
 was coming this evening to make up a rubber. 
 
 "Of course," she said, "we might try to play dummy, 
 if you'd care about it. Mabel, I must confess, is not a 
 great performer." 
 
 But Miss Gresley protested that she scarcely knew the 
 rules of bridge, and Bryan also excused himself. 
 
 "Very well. Then it must be patience. Mabel, do you 
 mind getting me the patience box? . . . There were 
 two such nice young people staying at the Bath Hotel 
 all last week Tarbord by name a young guardsman 
 and his bride, on their honeymoon boring each other 
 to extinction." While she spoke, Mrs. Vaile poured out 
 five or six packs of small cards and shuffled them in all 
 directions over the table. "Well, they came in, two eve- 
 nings, for a friendly game of poker." 
 
 Bryan smiled again. 
 
 "I know your friendly games of poker. After that, 
 were the honey-mooners able to pay their hotel bill ?" 
 
 "No, you wrong me, Bryan. Mr. Tarbord was cer- 
 tainly a gift, but the bride had quite a good idea of the 
 game. There were five of us altogether," and she sighed 
 plaintively; "the ideal number for poker. It was very 
 enjoyable. . . . Now, to business." And she became 
 immersed in a complicated patience.
 
 GLAMOUR 23 
 
 It proved refractory as well as complicated, but Mrs. 
 Vaile continued to tackle it without flinching, and never 
 lifted her eyes from the table. "I am in great trouble," 
 she murmured from time to time. 
 
 When Miss Gresley, standing behind her chair, made 
 a suggestion, she said, "Please don't interrupt"; and 
 when Bryan walked about the room, she said, "Please 
 don't fidget." 
 
 When he began walking about again, she said, "What's 
 the matter with you ?" 
 
 "Might I open this other window?" he asked. 
 
 "No, certainly not. I don't want to be blown out of 
 my chair. But do go out for a stroll and take Mabel 
 with you. Don't bother about me. This may keep me all 
 night but I'm not going to be beaten." 
 
 Miss Gresley jumped at the chance of getting out of 
 doors, and presently she and Bryan were walking side by 
 side on the path above the cliff. 
 
 It was a beautiful summer night, a fringe of white 
 foam just perceptible where the sea broke noiselessly 
 upon the sands, and a perfume of the pines in the soft 
 air. Innumerable lamps still showed upon the pier, and 
 an untiring band sent faint music far out into the dark- 
 ness across the water. All the tourists and holiday-mak- 
 ers were on the pier or about the town ; the east cliff was 
 a pleasant solitude. 
 
 And Bryan opened his heart to this chance companion 
 and told her that he was miserable. He did not of course 
 say that he had been jilted by his lady-love; but he said 
 that at thirty- four he had no further use for life, because 
 he had found it a vast and continuous disillusionment. 
 He believed in nothing; he hoped for nothing. He was 
 lonely and unhappy, and he never expected to be anything 
 else.
 
 24 GLAMOUR 
 
 It was utterly unlike him to talk about himself ; but the 
 egoism bred of his catastrophe possessed him as a disease, 
 and he felt an imperious need to describe his lamentable 
 sensations to someone even to this stranger. The mere 
 sound of the words did him good. Moreover, Miss Gres- 
 ley proved herself to be sympathetic and intelligent, a 
 good listener. Certainly she could sympathise with what 
 he said as to the sense of loneliness, since it was a trouble 
 that she had known well for the better part of her ex- 
 istence. 
 
 When she went to bed she could not sleep for a long 
 time because of thinking about Mrs. Vaile's handsome, 
 enigmatically sad step-son. He seemed to her mysterious 
 and very interesting, the kind of a man one reads of in 
 books; not too young, about thirty- four, with strong, 
 clear-cut features and a rare smile that redeems the stern- 
 ness. She thought his face was rather like the face of 
 that knight in the picture, who with his sword cuts the 
 bonds of a maiden that miscreants have tied to a tree. In 
 the picture the knight is freeing the girl without looking 
 at her, so that she need not feel ashamed. The picture 
 was called "Chivalry." 
 
 The sitting-room that had been specially allotted to his 
 use was on the ground floor, with French windows open- 
 ing into the garden ; and the garden looked pretty enough 
 in the morning light. High walls of rhododendrons 
 screened it from the prying eyes of neighbours ; ilex trees 
 threw dark shadows upon the lawns, and by contrast 
 made the colours of flowers in sunlit beds and borders 
 more intensely vivid; and at the far end there was a 
 white, square-backed seat that invited one to come out 
 and be lazy.
 
 GLAMOUR 25 
 
 In order to occupy himself he had begun to sketch a 
 play of modern life, jotting down dialogue, or, rather, 
 making notes of long speeches; for the theme lent itself 
 to harangue and diatribe. It was to be a terrible, scath- 
 ing indictment of the other sex, and he proposed fairly 
 to let himself go. It was all vague; but the idea would 
 be to show how men waste their highest gifts on women 
 without winning them, when, if they took them by the 
 neck, shook them, and beat them, they might make slaves 
 of them. Nancy was fonder of Bill Sykes than Sarah 
 Jennings was of the Duke of Marlborough. That was 
 the idea if you want a woman, buy her with money 
 or take her by force. There are no middle ways. He 
 would have liked to do a scene in which a man pelted his 
 unfaithful mistress with gold coins, beating her down to 
 her knees with a hail of little golden blows, saying, 
 "Money is all you care for. Then take it. Take some 
 more." But, unfortunately, Alexandre Dumas had done- 
 that scene, so he would have to think of another method 
 of conveying the same idea. Even while planning it he 
 knew that his play was rubbish, and that he would not 
 finish it ; he knew that he would never finish anything 
 knew that he was done for. 
 
 Quite early on this first working morning Miss Gres- 
 ley challenged him to play lawn-tennis, and he immedi- 
 ately threw down his pen and went upstairs to put on flan- 
 nels. He felt a little ashamed of himself for having let 
 loose that astounding burst of autobiography, and he 
 wanted to wipe out any impression of wonder that it 
 might have left on her mind. She took him to a club 
 ground close by, where the courts were in excellent order, 
 and they had some rousing good sets. She was a fine big 
 girl with brown eyes and brown hair a jolly, matter-
 
 26 GLAMOUR 
 
 of-fact creature who played tennis quite well and thor- 
 oughly enjoyed it. The exercise gave him an appetite 
 for luncheon. 
 
 He was sure now of a game of tennis if he wanted it, 
 and Miss Gresley was as a rule available if he cared to 
 take a saunter in the town or see the mob on the pier. 
 His step-mother let him off the afternoon drives, and he 
 could go for long solitary walks by himself. He had his 
 room a stronghold into which he could retire to work, 
 or sadly muse, or take a nap and for a little while forget 
 the cause of sadness. Mrs. Vaile liked having him there, 
 wished him to make a long visit, and he said he would 
 stay three weeks or possibly a month. 
 
 He was rarely bored by being made prisoner at cards, 
 for on most nights Mrs. Vaile succeeded in collecting her 
 own quorum, and he and Mabel Gresley were free to sit 
 on the garden seat or wander upon the cliff enjoying the 
 pleasant air. They used to come to the lighted windows 
 of the house and look at the absorbed card-players so 
 silent, so eager, so entirely satisfied with the eternally 
 repeated amusement. There was a bald-headed colonel, 
 nagged at by Mrs. Vaile between all the deals, who al- 
 ways wanted his revenge, however late it might be. 
 
 So the long, empty days passed by. 
 
 Miss Gresley relieved the all-enveloping dulness and 
 flatness of the place by providing something to look at 
 and to talk to. She even aroused mild interest and easily- 
 answered conjecture. She was a healthy girl, with pretty 
 hair and a good complexion, and by the expression of 
 her face you could read all her thoughts. They were not 
 intricate. When puzzled by any subtlety of language she 
 looked very serious, with a little frown and a droop of 
 the lip; then the frown relaxed and there came a frank 
 broad smile. "Oh! you are laughing at me, Mr. Vaile.
 
 GLAMOUR 27 
 
 You didn't really mean what you said." It amused him 
 to make her look like that, and he enjoyed shocking her 
 by the violence of his opinions tirades against England, 
 the Empire, the Church, anything. He felt what he said 
 for the first day or two, but after that he spoke in this 
 manner on purpose. 
 
 She was very simple, of course, totally different from 
 the girls of that great world that he had recently fre- 
 quented; but she was sensible, and her naive turns of 
 speech sounded like an echo of early Victorian conversa- 
 tion and were not without a kind of charm to ears weary 
 of the imitative tricks of modern fashionable chatter. 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Vaile, you don't mean that. You can't mean 
 it." 
 
 She said, too, "I was afraid of you at first." 
 
 "Why?" he asked, smiling. 
 
 "Because you are so awfully clever." 
 
 "What makes you think that?" 
 
 "Well, one must be clever to succeed at the bar." 
 
 "I haven't succeeded." 
 
 "Oh, but you have. Mrs. Vaile says so. And to write 
 as you do." 
 
 "How do you know how I write?" 
 
 "I read your story in the Windsor Magazine, and it's 
 lovely. Why don't you write novels?" 
 
 "I couldn't." 
 
 "Of course you could just as well as anybody else." 
 
 That was a refreshing touch. "Just as well as anybody 
 else!" No effort at analytical criticism or affectation of 
 cultured fastidiousness about that! 
 
 In her knock-about morning costume Panama straw 
 hat, white skirt, and one of those long Jersey things of 
 violet colour she looked quite smart. As she stood in 
 the sunshine before the house, taking a snap-shot of him
 
 28 GLAMOUR 
 
 with her kodak, he studied her appearance critically and 
 approvingly. He liked her brown stockings and neat 
 shoes, and the single pearls in her ears; although sub- 
 stantially built, she had no clumsiness or lack of ease in 
 her movements; she was really a decent-looking girl. 
 That repressed manner had gone ; shyness had made her 
 seem a little awkward in the beginning, but now that it 
 had been banished by increasing intimacy she met one's 
 eyes with a frank outlook and an untroubled smile. The 
 heightened animation greatly improved her face, and at 
 times she looked almost pretty. 
 
 "Now let me photograph you," he said politely. 
 
 "Oh, no. I don't want my portrait, thank you." 
 
 "But I should like it. Please let me. I must have a 
 souvenir of my antagonist at tennis and my accomplice 
 in dodging the bridge-table." 
 
 Then he took snap-shots of her, and she promised to 
 get them developed and printed in due course. 
 
 One of the subjects on which he drew her out was the 
 "Rights of Women" movement. She was a firm, if not 
 active, supporter of the great cause ; and when he spoke 
 violently against it, attacking the whole sex, using up 
 some of his notes for a crescendo of denunciation, she 
 said, sadly and sagely, "If you only believe half of it, I'm 
 afraid it means that you have known some very bad 
 women." 
 
 And the same evening, when they sat together in the 
 garden, she told him a little about her own life and its 
 loneliness ; of how from time to time she had been forced 
 to work for a living; and all about the other girls and 
 women, known to her, who supported themselves en- 
 tirely, without any help from friends or relations. When 
 you had once worked in that way, you understood the 
 feelings and needs of all the thousands of factory-girls,
 
 GLAMOUR 29 
 
 and so on. She said that men, as employers, were often 
 brutally cruel. And when they were kind, it was worse. 
 They never treated women properly. "That's why I am 
 for the suffrage. / don't want a vote. My friends don't 
 want votes. But women ought to have them." 
 
 Her own tale was more interesting to him than all this 
 stale argument as to votes for women, and he questioned 
 her, making her tell him everything of herself. It seemed 
 that she had been rather kicked about by the world; al- 
 ways hard up, although with some small expectations 
 that she never allowed herself to think of; always left 
 in her own guardianship; not particularly wanted by any- 
 body even so long ago as when she was at school, not 
 having a settled home or any place in which she could 
 be sure of a welcome for the holidays. She had a father 
 who was a great dear, but of no use to anybody, not 
 even to himself. And she had heaps of relations cous- 
 ins, aunts, and great-aunts of whom she was very fond, 
 but upon whom she could not hang as an encumbrance. 
 Of course, she had met with much kindness from friends, 
 and they had given her many treats such as this one, for 
 instance, her visit to Mrs. Vaile. It was extraordinarily 
 kind of Mrs. Vaile, having her here to stay like this. 
 
 She told him her story reluctantly, but by questioning 
 he made her tell it all, and, although perhaps moved by 
 memories and regrets, she spoke stoutly, not in any way 
 putting herself forward as a martyr. While he listened 
 he felt pity, thinking, "Here it is again. Money. This 
 girl is good, kind, self-reliant, a lady; but, just because 
 of the unequal division of wealth, she is neglected, re- 
 pressed, put upon by all the world. The cursed unfairness 
 of it! She has just as much right to the gaiety, the 
 brightness, and the joy of life as the other girls who hap- 
 pen to have rich parents to take care of them." And he
 
 30 . GLAMOUR 
 
 spoke with real sympathy in his voice. "What rough 
 luck! What rough luck!" He had taken her hand, and 
 was gently caressing it. "Poor little Mabel. Never 
 mind, you'll have a good time some day, Mabel." 
 
 Next day he talked of her to his step-mother. Mrs. 
 Vaile said she knew some of her cousins, people who 
 lived in Wales, not far from Llandrindod. 
 
 "I met Mabel herself at Mentone. She was doing com- 
 panion to a consumptive girl a Miss Gaunt or Grange ; 
 and I cannot remember if I ever heard whether she died 
 in the end or not. I must ask Mabel. I am sure Mabel 
 did all she could to keep her alive. I noticed at once how 
 capable she was. Yes, I am very fond of Mabel Gresley, 
 and she has been most useful to me more than once. But 
 it is a little tiresome and stupid of her not to have learnt 
 bridge. She places herself at a disadvantage." 
 
 "Perhaps she can't afford to play bridge." 
 
 "If she played properly, it would cost her nothing. 
 And if she played really well, it might be of the greatest 
 assistance to her quite apart from the pleasure." 
 
 That evening there was moonlight on the wet sands 
 and the fringe of sea-foam. Bryan and his companion 
 walked in the direction of Boscombe, and, returning, 
 found a seat halfway down the cliff on one of the zig- 
 zag paths. Voices sounded over their heads from time 
 to time as men and girls passed slowly along the cliff top, 
 and then all was silent again except for the gentle mur- 
 mur of the sea. 
 
 "Mabel," he asked abruptly, "are you fond of moon- 
 light? Does moonlight stir old instincts in you does it 
 make you feel that ancestors of ours a million years ago 
 were guided by it when they came creeping out of their 
 caves to stalk, and chase, and slay their victims?"
 
 GLAMOUR 31 
 
 She looked at him, but did not answer. 
 
 "Mabel, I asked you if you are fond of moonlight." 
 
 Still she did not answer. 
 
 "Do you mind my calling you Mabel? I can call you 
 Mabel?" 
 
 She was embarrassed, and her distress amused him. 
 
 "No," she said at last, flatly, "of course you can't." 
 
 "Why can't I, Mabel? Of course I can. And you 
 must call me Bryan." 
 
 She got up from the seat. "Shall we go back now?" 
 
 "No," and he took her hand, and would not let her 
 draw it away. "You mustn't go back yet." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "Because I say not. Sit down." 
 
 The sting of Diana was in his blood, making him take 
 pleasure in compelling her to do what she was told. And 
 after this he forced her to kiss him. 
 
 Taking her in his arms almost roughly, scarcely know- 
 ing what he did, behaving like one of the characters in 
 his unwritten play, he kissed her himself, and told her 
 to kiss him. 
 
 "Do it properly. I won't let you go until you do. And 
 call me Bryan." 
 
 She struggled, but he held her in spite of her efforts. 
 
 "You'll make me hate you"; and she was breathing 
 fast. "Yes, I hate you, to-night." 
 
 "Oh, don't do that. I am not worth hating." 
 
 "You you're horrid to me. Oh, please let me go ... 
 Bryan!" And suddenly she kissed him. 
 
 He released her at once, and laughed. "That's right." 
 
 She hid her face with her hands, shivered, and then 
 shook her shoulders as if something terrific had oc- 
 curred ; and all the way back to the house she would not 
 say a word. Perhaps she had never kissed a man before. 
 She was very simple.
 
 32 GLAMOUR 
 
 He did not kiss her again for two nights; and when 
 he did she made no resistance, just giving her face to his. 
 
 She talked freely and contentedly, and always when 
 they were out together now she called him Bryan; but 
 she blushed sometimes when he looked at her across the 
 dinner-table, as though there was a guilty secret between 
 them. 
 
 August was drawing to an end ; he had been at Bourne- 
 mouth over three weeks ; it was time for him to go ; and 
 something that Mabel Gresley said to him one morning, 
 in an expansive talk after a game of tennis, made him 
 feel that it was time to go at once. The more he thought 
 of this little conversation the more uncomfortable he be- 
 came. Quite unconsciously, just by a few words, she 
 had shown him the danger of a most tremendous misun- 
 derstanding. Or so it seemed to him perhaps he was 
 alarming himself quite unnecessarily. Anyhow, it was 
 his plain duty to avoid the chance of such a mistake. He 
 would be off to-morrow morning. 
 
 During the course of dinner he announced that he was 
 obliged to set out for Paris, thanking his step-mother, 
 expressing regret at leaving her, and saying how much 
 he had enjoyed himself. He had a sensation that he made 
 this announcement with too much abruptness, and that 
 his voice sounded constrained, not quite natural ; but Mrs. 
 Vaile noticed nothing wrong. 
 
 "I am sorry you are going," she said placidly. "We 
 shall miss you. Paris, too ! You'll find it very hot, I fear. 
 When Paris is hot, well, it's simply unbearable. I was 
 completely prostrated there one summer with your fa- 
 ther at the Bristol Hotel on our way through. He 
 could not move me for three days; and I was a week at
 
 GLAMOUR 33 
 
 Boulogne before I revived sufficiently to face the cross- 
 ing." 
 
 He glanced at Mabel Gresley. She was looking at him 
 earnestly and inquiringly ; her lip trembled. 
 
 After dinner she asked him to come into the garden, 
 and directly they were by themselves she spoke eagerly 
 and anxiously. 
 
 "Bryan, are you in trouble ? Do tell me." 
 
 "In trouble? No not a bit." 
 
 "But something has happened? You have had bad 
 news ?" 
 
 "No, no." 
 
 "Then why are you going so suddenly?" 
 
 "Well, I have been here a long time, you know." 
 
 "Do trust me," and she stretched out her hand towards 
 him. "As soon as you spoke I felt certain that some sort 
 of trouble or worry something serious was on your 
 mind. And I am so sorry Bryan." 
 
 He took her hand, patted it, and gently relinquished it. 
 
 "I assure you, you are quite wrong, Mabel. I don't 
 know what made you think it." 
 
 "Because you spoke so strangely so suddenly." 
 
 "Did I? If I did, it meant nothing." 
 
 "On your honour?" 
 
 "Yes, on my honour." 
 
 They strolled side by side, beneath the dark ilex trees 
 and past the still fragrant flowers, and when they reached 
 the bench at the bottom of the garden she sat down. He 
 stood near her, and lit a cigarette. 
 
 "You are going to-morrow quite early?" 
 
 "Yes, I want to get through to-morrow, and I have 
 things to do in London." 
 
 "You know how sorry I am that you are obliged to 
 go."
 
 34 GLAMOUR 
 
 Obviously she was sorry more than sorry ; upset 
 about it. He felt very uncomfortable, and began to talk 
 of his own regret, choosing the words carefully. 
 
 "I shall always remember this pleasant time. I loved 
 our tennis, and the jolly evenings, and all of it." 
 
 "I wish it could have gone on," said Mabel simply. 
 "But I'm not going to be doleful. Oh, do sit down!" 
 
 He threw his cigarette away and sat beside her, and 
 she put her hand in his. 
 
 "Will you come back here?" she asked; "I mean, this 
 autumn ?" 
 
 "Oh, no. I shall have to be hard at work. My holiday 
 will be over." 
 
 Then she asked him when and how they were to meet 
 again. 
 
 He answered lamely, saying that his future plans were 
 uncertain and that in any event he would be busy for a 
 long time. 
 
 "Bryan!" She had drawn away from him; and, in 
 her simple, downright way, she asked another question. 
 "Does this mean that you don't want ever to see me 
 again ?" 
 
 "No, I hope very much that chance may bring us to- 
 gether in London or " 
 
 "Chance! You aren't going to try?" 
 
 He was very uncomfortable. It was too dark to see 
 the expression of her face, but she was looking at him, 
 and her voice let him know plainly enough that she was 
 agitated and distressed. 
 
 "Of course I will try if you would really care to see 
 me, Mabel. But is it any good? I am sure it can't be 
 any good." 
 
 "Why not any good?" 
 
 "I mean, our friendship has been so jolly; we have
 
 GLAMOUR 35 
 
 been such pals ; but, honestly, I am not the sort of person 
 who who would make a good friend for you, or for 
 anybody." And he floundered on, feebly and inconsecu- 
 tively; describing himself as a reckless, useless man who 
 had no fixed aims in life, no hope of ever settling down 
 or being in a position that would justify his occupying 
 the thoughts and the regard of a woman. He was not 
 worth thinking about or making a friend of. 
 
 While she listened to this there came from her a sound 
 like a stifled sob, and when he stopped speaking she asked 
 him more questions. 
 
 The case being as he said, she wished to know why he 
 had seemed to like her, why he had seemed so anxious 
 to make her like him. 
 
 Her questions were unanswerable. He got up from 
 the seat, and stood looking down at her. He was greatly 
 perturbed; he felt confusion and remorse. Why had he 
 done it? With no idea of marriage, certainly with no 
 dishonourable ideas, really with no ideas at all, he had 
 been trifling with her for more than three weeks ; draw- 
 ing her out of herself ; leading her on to confide in him, 
 to trust him, to rely on him. He had amused himself at 
 her expense. Just because he had been so knocked out 
 of conceit with himself by Diana, he had almost brutally 
 made love to this other girl the first girl he could find 
 in order to soothe the smart of his vanity, rehabilitate 
 his self-esteem, and wipe out the memory of defeat. That 
 was how it all seemed to him now, when called to account 
 for it. 
 
 "No, don't touch me." 
 
 Suddenly she had begun to cry. She turned herself, 
 put her arms on the back of the bench, laid her head 
 upon them, and sobbed and shook in a manner that was 
 dreadful to see.
 
 36 GLAMOUR 
 
 "Mabel, don't cry. Please don't cry." 
 
 But she would not move; she went on crying. 
 
 "Mabel, do you mean you are fond of me?" 
 
 "No, I'm not," she sobbed. "I was fond of what I 
 thought you were not of what you really are. . . . 
 You said you were miserable. You weren't as miserable 
 as I was." 
 
 Her tears, the tone of her sobbing voice, her bowed 
 head, produced upon him an intensely painful impression. 
 It was something that he would never forget as long as 
 he lived. 
 
 "Mabel, I am so dreadfully sorry. What can I do?" 
 
 "Leave me that's all." 
 
 He obeyed her, leaving her bowed down, alone in the 
 darkness, weeping as though her heart was broken. He 
 looked back at her from a little distance, peeringly, and 
 stood waiting, but she never moved. 
 
 Then he went along the gravel drive, past the lighted 
 windows where the bridge-players sat engrossed by their 
 eternal diversion, out into the roadway, and walked up 
 and down among the pines. When he returned to the 
 house, after some time, he found out from a servant that 
 Miss Gresley had come in from the garden and gone up- 
 stairs to her room. She had left a message for Mrs. Vaile 
 to say that she was tired and had gone to bed. 
 
 Without waiting for the end of the bridge-party, 
 Bryan soon went to bed himself. He told the servant 
 who looked after him that he wanted his things to be 
 packed as early as possible in the morning, because he 
 had decided to catch the first train ; and he walked about 
 the bedroom for a long while, thinking most uncom- 
 fortably. His thoughts had concentrated themselves, and 
 they formed now one sharp and tormenting reproach. 
 
 He had done to Mabel exactly what Diana did to him.
 
 Ill 
 
 IN EACH succeeding mile of his journey he felt more 
 uncomfortable; the farther he left her behind him 
 the sharper his remorse became. By the time he reached 
 Paris he was too tired to eat, yet not tired enough to 
 sleep; and he lay tossing and turning on a stuffy bed in 
 an airless hotel room, listening to the irritant noises of 
 night traffic on the boulevard, and thinking about the 
 girl whom he had treated with such inexcusable levity. 
 
 It had air been serious to her. But to what extent se- 
 rious? If because of his folly she had allowed herself 
 to become really fond of him, she might suffer enor- 
 mously; she might feel so much disgust with life She 
 might commit suicide. Girls do such things. The thought 
 of it filled him with horror. 
 
 He remembered all that she had told him about her- 
 self. Sadness and loneliness had been her portion; no 
 doubt beneath a cheerful, brave aspect she had often car- 
 ried an aching heart. Already, before she saw him, she 
 was perhaps tired of fighting the ugliness of life, sick 
 from many disappointments, ready to pass from a state 
 of weariness to a state of despair. A slight blow would 
 then be sufficient to make her seek peace at the extreme 
 price. The possibility of this was terrible to him in the 
 sleepless, suffocating hours of the night. He thought of 
 her simple nature, her direct, downright way of attempt- 
 ing to solve intricate problems; she ignored subtleties, 
 she dealt only with strongly contrasting facts black and 
 white, yes and no, good and bad, right or wrong; she 
 
 37
 
 38 GLAMOUR 
 
 would be just the girl to take a tragically final short-cut 
 out of a difficulty. 
 
 In the morning much of his nocturnal worry seemed 
 to him fantastic and absurd. She was a thoroughly sen- 
 sible girl ; within a week she would have forgotten him ; 
 unless they happened to be brought together she would 
 never waste another thought upon him. And he was not 
 likely to intrude on her, or by his accidental presence re- 
 vive unpleasant memories; she could at least trust him 
 to keep out of her way. But before the evening he had 
 decided that he must at all hazards see her once more. 
 
 He had meant to go on to Biarritz to have a look at 
 the place in the French season that he had always heard 
 was so pleasant; he was not afraid of the heat, and he 
 wanted to get off the beaten track of British tourists; 
 but he could not continue his journey. He wandered up 
 and down the boulevards, sat outside cafes, stood in front 
 of shop windows, in a stupid fashion, as if hypnotised 
 by the glare and noise and crowd ; and every minute he 
 was thinking of her. He could not leave the thing in the 
 mess that he had made of it. He must really have one 
 last interview with her, to explain himself, somehow to 
 put a better complexion on regrettable events. Above 
 all else, he must find out that she was all right. 
 
 He went straight back to Bournemouth. But Miss 
 Gresley was no longer there; she had left in a hurried, 
 troublesome manner, disregarding remonstrances or en- 
 treaties, and Mrs. Vaile was almost prostrated by the 
 effects of this violent departure. 
 
 "Did she say why she was going?" 
 
 "No. But I guessed, of course. It is you who have 
 upset her. What else could it be?" And Mrs. Vaile re- 
 proached him in a manner that for her was angry and 
 severe. "I must say that anything more inconsiderate
 
 GLAMOUR 39 
 
 has never happened. You see how useful the girl is to 
 me how necessary here and, to amuse yourself, you 
 play the fool and drive her away from me. I must say, at 
 your age, one would have expected something different. 
 In my house, at least, she ought to have been sacred." 
 And she conveyed an unpleasant implication, which he 
 at once indignantly repelled. 
 
 "She was sacred, she is sacred. Good heavens, you 
 don't pretend to think for a moment " 
 
 "Oh, I don't care what you have meant, or what you 
 haven't meant. The net fact remains. You have robbed 
 me of my companion and left me helplessly stranded." 
 
 "What can I do?" 
 
 "Go and fetch her back. Reason with her. Point out 
 how thoughtless, how ungrateful, she has been. She came 
 to suit her own convenience." 
 
 "But if she won't come back, can't you get anyone 
 else?" 
 
 "How can I ? I have wired to Sybil Gordon begging 
 her to come." 
 
 "Oh, you have?" 
 
 "Yes, but is it likely she will be able to come ? It is a 
 thousand to one chance. The same applies to Ethel Bo- 
 vill." 
 
 "Oh, you have asked her, too?" 
 
 "Of course I have. I am in great trouble which you 
 don't seem yet to understand. I have had two wretched 
 nights. All the good I have derived here is being un- 
 done." 
 
 He was back in London by five o'clock that afternoon, 
 and he went immediately to the house at Earl's Court 
 where Mrs. Vaile had said that he would find Mabel. 
 But he did not find her. 
 
 "No," said the maid-servant, "Miss Gresley isn't stay-
 
 40 GLAMOUR 
 
 ing here. She came with her luggage two days ago, in- 
 tending to stop, I think, but she went away again." 
 
 "Can you give me her address ?" 
 
 "No, sir, I couldn't." 
 
 "She is still in London?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, sir. She called this morning to see if there 
 were any letters for her." 
 
 "Who does live here?" 
 
 "Mrs. George Gresley, sir. She could give you the ad- 
 dress, of course, but she's out." 
 
 "When will she be back?" 
 
 "Oh, about seven, sir. If you could call again, I'd 
 have the address ready for you." 
 
 He filled in the next two hours as best he could by 
 mooning about at the Earl's Court Exhibition, and then 
 presented himself again. Mrs. George Gresley had come 
 home, but the maid-servant had not obtained the address. 
 She said that Mrs. Gresley wished to see him ; and he was 
 shown into a dismal library that looked out upon a most 
 melancholy garden at the back of the house, and there 
 kept waiting for what seemed an unconscionably long 
 time. When at last Mrs. Gresley appeared she made him 
 explain who he was and why he was hunting for Mabel. 
 
 He said that his special and immediate business was 
 to carry some urgent messages from his step-mother to 
 Miss Gresley. 
 
 "Oh, to be sure, yes," said Mrs Gresley. "Mabel has 
 just come from Mrs. Vaile. Very kind of you to take 
 the trouble," and she laughed good-humouredly. Slie 
 was a large, full-blown matron, and she now became cor- 
 dial and talkative. "You'll think it ridiculous of me to be 
 so cautious; but when Calder said a strange gentleman 
 had come asking for Mabel's address, I thought it quite 
 mysterious. I am only too sorry that there was no room
 
 GLAMOUR 41 
 
 for her here, when she turned up unexpectedly. Or, to be 
 absolutely frank, it wasn't the want of room, but the want 
 of servants my cook is away on her holidays. And my 
 husband and I are just pigging it till he himself can get 
 away, which will be directly his partner relieves him. 
 Mabel, of course, quite understood. She knows that she 
 is welcome at any time, when it is not impossible. I have 
 told her so again and again. . . . Well, then, she 
 has gone to lodgings Number 10, Sark Street, Kensing- 
 ton no distance from Kensington High Street. No 
 doubt she goes there to be near her cousins the Ridge- 
 worths. They have a wee little house on Campden Hill. 
 But you know the Ridgeworths, of course?" 
 
 "No, I have not as yet had the pleasure of meeting 
 them." 
 
 "Kate Ridgeworth the elder of the sisters is in some 
 respects a very remarkable woman. She has started a 
 bonnet shop. Mabel worked there last summer. Well, 
 give her my love. We are all of us devoted to Mabel." 
 
 Bryan went away with a very poor opinion of Mrs. 
 Gresley. Why could not she have taken in Mabel and 
 made her comfortable? He thought is was miserably 
 selfish, heartless of her, to make a string of inhospitable 
 excuses, and allow a lonely girl to go away from her door 
 to find shelter in lodgings. He thought, too, how com- 
 pletely this incident tallied with all that Mabel had indi- 
 cated of neglect in the uncomplaining tale of her life. 
 These stupid relatives did not value her; they did not 
 want her. 
 
 It was a poor street for Kensington, and Number 10 
 was not by any means the best house in the street. A 
 very dirty servant-girl told him that Miss Gresley had 
 gone out. As well as being unwashed, the girl seemed so 
 thick-headed that Bryan asked to see the landlady.
 
 42 GLAMOUR 
 
 "Miss Gresley," said the landlady, a clean and jovial 
 woman "Miss Gresley, bless her heart, she has come 
 back to me, and glad I was to see her, and to have her old 
 room vacant for her. Not but what all my rooms are 
 empty natch' rally, at this time of year." 
 
 "Has she gone out for the evening, do you know?" 
 
 "Yes, surely. Miss Ridgeworth came and fetched her 
 in her brougham, not ten minutes ago, for the evening 
 out." 
 
 "I suppose you don't know where they were going?" 
 
 "Theatre or the Exhibition I couldn't say which. 
 No, that I couldn't say. But stop a minute. They were 
 wearing their hats, and that looks more like the Exhibi- 
 tion. A fine evening, too. I know if I was given the 
 preference to choose which, I should say the Exhibition 
 better out o' doors than in, a night like this, / should 
 say." 
 
 Bryan asked the landlady to tell Miss Gresley that he 
 had called, and to say that he would call again to-morrow. 
 
 "Then not in the morning, or you won't find her. I 
 know that for certain, from her own remarks." 
 
 "I'll come in the afternoon say three o'clock; and 
 perhaps you will kindly tell her I hope it will be conveni- 
 ent for her to see me." 
 
 "I'll tell her the minute she returns. I shan't be gone 
 to bed, and she often gives me a few words last thing 
 at night." 
 
 Bryan's heart warmed to the landlady, because she 
 seemed genuinely attached to her lodger ; and he felt, too, 
 that this Miss Ridgeworth the remarkable woman or 
 her sister must be a good sort, since she was giving 
 Mabel a treat. It was an immense relief to know that 
 Mabel, after all, was going on with life in a quite ordi- 
 nary manner.
 
 GLAMOUR 43 
 
 He had some food at an execrable restaurant not far 
 from the District Railway station, and then for the second 
 time to-day he went to the Earl's Court Exhibition. The 
 courts and gardens were still crowded with provincial ex- 
 cursionists, the people who come to take their holiday in 
 London when all Londoners are away; and he walked to 
 and fro, over the little bridges and past the garish wooden 
 scenery, looking for her. There were two bands, one at 
 each end of the grounds, each with a large audience about 
 it, and he went backwards and forwards between them, 
 thinking every time he failed to find her listening to the 
 Royal Horse Artillery that he would be sure to come up 
 with her near the Grenadiers. He saw a dozen girls rather 
 like her, but he did not see her herself. He stayed till 
 both bands played "God Save the King," and then went 
 westward in a cab, feeling tired and disappointed, and 
 thinking of the nights at Bournemouth when they sat 
 side by side, with the cool soft air on their faces and the 
 murmur of the sea in their ears. "Bryan, it is time to go 
 back. . . Bryan, let me go, please " In imagina- 
 tion he could hear her voice close beside him now, as his 
 cab rattled and swung along the ugly streets. 
 
 He had taken a room for himself in Jermyn Street, 
 and before going there he looked in at his club. At the 
 club he was given a telegram, from Mrs. Vaile : 
 
 "Ethel Bovill is coming. Do nothing further in the 
 matter." 
 
 He had lost his prime excuse for hunting Mabel, but 
 he was none the less anxious and eager for the chase. 
 
 His object was attained on the following afternoon. 
 The kind landlady, and not her imbecile maid, opened the 
 door at Number 10, Sark Street, and she said Miss Gres- 
 ley was at home.
 
 44 GLAMOUR 
 
 "You'd best step in here. Yes, she'll be down di- 
 rectly ;" and he was left to wait in the ground floor sit- 
 ting-room. 
 
 He looked about him with wonder and distress; he 
 had never before been in this sort of house and this sort 
 of room. It was not only that the room was small, dingy, 
 wanting clean paint and new paper, it was so poor and 
 sad, so completely devoid of the cheerful if common 
 adornment of a room in a good lodging-house at a seaside 
 town. Yet, mean as it was, Mabel could not afford to 
 have it for her own. Her room, at the top of the house 
 probably, had to serve her both as sitting-room and bed- 
 room. He understood that it was a kindness on the part 
 of the landlady to allow her to use this best parlour for 
 the reception of her visitor. Poor little Mabel! 
 
 "Ah, here you are. Mabel ! " 
 
 She was dressed in a dark blue frock, and it made her 
 look slimmer; she looked paler, too; and that old air of 
 repression seemed to have returned to her. She shook 
 hands limply, and then sat at the table beneath the ugly 
 gas-chandelier, and glanced up at him inquiringly. Her 
 eyes seemed to him larger, with less light in them, and 
 they had dark circles round them that suggested sleep- 
 lessness or fatigue. Her pretty brown hair was arranged 
 a little differently, so that it came lower across her fore- 
 head. 
 
 "You weren't long in Paris." 
 
 "No. I hurried back." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 He had not quite known what he would say to her ; but 
 now that he saw her there was no difficulty. He asked 
 her to be his wife. He really wanted her to accept the 
 offer. He urged her to say yes, declaring that he would 
 not take no as an answer. Something forlorn about her,
 
 GLAMOUR 45 
 
 a mute appeal for the care and tenderness that she had 
 never had, stirred him deeply ; the pity that is akin to love 
 filled his heart. 
 
 But she refused him. She refused firmly and finally. 
 And when he asked her the reason of her refusal, he saw 
 the piteous effort that she made to speak in a light, brisk, 
 business-like tone, and the piteous failure when she tried 
 to smile. 
 
 "Why? Oh, it's absurd, of course. You must know 
 very well. You have only asked me because you thought 
 you ought to." 
 
 He protested feebly, and she adhered to her flat re- 
 fusal. He thought that he would feel disappointed; but 
 he didn't. He went away feeling relieved. He had done 
 the right thing, and there was an end of it.
 
 IV 
 
 YET it was still not quite over. 
 Throughout the autumn and for the most of the 
 winter he continued to keep in touch with Mabel, al- 
 though at first she showed an inclination to avoid him. 
 He cared no longer for his old friends ; his few real pals 
 were hard-working, fully-occupied men; the law bored 
 him; his club bored him; everything, including himself, 
 bored him; but he derived a sense of satisfaction from 
 watching over Mabel in a friendly, brotherly, almost a 
 fatherly, way. 
 
 She would not go to the play with him alone, but after 
 a lot of persuasion she agreed to make one of a theatre- 
 party comprising the Miss Ridgeworths also, and thus be- 
 gan a series of little treats that he organised for her. He 
 was well content to provide dinners and orchestra stalls 
 for her cousins and anybody else if he could get her 
 thrown into the bargain. She was engaged now upon 
 some kind of secretarial work at a ladies' league, and it 
 worried him to think that she did not obtain sufficient ex- 
 ercise. He wanted her to play lawn-tennis with him at 
 Queen's Club, or golf at Richmond; but he could only 
 make her consent to go for a walk with him now and then 
 on Saturday or Sunday afternoon. Tramping about 
 London was not an ideal form of exercise, but it was 
 better than nothing at all. 
 
 Soon he was admitted to a certain extent into Mabel's 
 world, making the acquaintance of more cousins and girl 
 friends, and finding them all amiable, well-bred people 
 who had adopted a bachelor mode of life merely because 
 
 46
 
 GLAMOUR 47 
 
 the necessity of earning money had forced them out of 
 home circles, and not because of any aggressive revolu- 
 tionary protest against the condition of women generally. 
 It was a new atmosphere to him, and on the whole he 
 liked it 
 
 The Miss Ridgeworths accepted him in a most friendly 
 fashion, making him free of their jolly little house on 
 Campden Hill, and even allowing him to penetrate the re- 
 cesses of their bonnet shop. He looked in upon them 
 among the bonnets once or twice between tea-time and 
 dinner-time, because he knew that Mabel had a habit of 
 going there on her way back from the ladies' league. 
 
 Miss Kate Ridgeworth was a big, jolly woman of 
 about forty-five, who did gymnastic exercises every night 
 and morning and loved to talk about them ; she was very 
 active in spite of her bulk, moving about a room so 
 quickly that one had an impression of a large coloured 
 cloud that passed backwards and forwards through the 
 solid impediments of furniture. Then suddenly she 
 would materialise by sinking into a chair and heaving a 
 most substantial sigh. Miss Jane Ridgeworth was a lit- 
 tle younger and thinner, and so active that she never sat 
 down at all. Both sisters had full and yet rather shrill 
 voices, and at their house they kept a parrot and singing 
 birds, as well as Pekinese dogs with bells, which pets, 
 both fur and feather, they encouraged to join in the con- 
 versation and add to its shrillness when it became ani- 
 mated. 
 
 "How are you, Mr. Vaile? . . . Pretty Poll, 
 pretty Poll, did 'um speak ? ~ Trr" . Toto, Toto, bark 
 a nice 'How-de-do' to the visitor. . . . Augustus, 
 what all dat frenzy mean? . . . Yes, Augustus rec- 
 ognises you, Mr. Vaile. He wants to jump on your 
 knee."
 
 48 GLAMOUR 
 
 The house was daintily furnished, full of pretty things; 
 but there was a spirit of unrest in it that the Miss Ridge- 
 worths either did not notice or enjoyed. You could not 
 sit reposefully, admiring the nice little drawing-room or 
 finishing a quietly confidential chat. You were always 
 interrupted. The door was always open, and you heard 
 everything that was happening upstairs and downstairs. 
 Beyond the incessant disturbance caused by the dogs and 
 birds, people came in and out, breaking the sequence of 
 one's ideas and carrying one off on trains of useless con- 
 jecture. 
 
 "Kate, may I borrow your red opera-cloak to-night?" 
 A strange young lady in hat and furs would burst in 
 with such a request. "I'll return it to-morrow, on my 
 sacred." 
 
 "My dear girl, of course. That is, if Nellie Gardiner 
 hasn't got it. Jane, where's Jane? . . . Pretty Poll. 
 Yes, scream for Jane, Pollie." 
 
 Or a breathless and indignant maid-servant came to 
 report that the fishmonger had sent a salmon cutlet not 
 big enough for two persons, much less four. "Stevens 
 says she'd like you to see for yourself before she cooks 
 it that it can't possibly go round among four." 
 
 Then the whole house filled with clamour. Both sis- 
 ters shouted together; the cook yelled up from the base- 
 ment; the indignant parlour-maid started a conversation 
 with the fishmonger on the telephone in the hall ; the dogs 
 and birds nearly went mad because they felt that their 
 mistresses were in trouble and they wished so much to 
 help if anyone would tell them how. 
 
 After this alarm Miss Kate Ridgeworth came back to 
 the visitor in the drawing-room and resumed her seat. 
 "Fishmongers! " With this one word and a large sigh 
 she dismissed the incident. "What were we talking
 
 GLAMOUR 49 
 
 about? Oh, yes, Mabel Gresley. You said you thought 
 she looked pale and seedy." 
 
 "Yes. Do you think she works too hard at that place ?" 
 
 "Oh, no, it's just amusement for her. Child's play to 
 our bonnets ! No, Mabel's health is all right ; but we have 
 all noticed that her spirits aren't as good as they used to 
 be. She has somehow changed hardened." 
 
 "Oh, really?" And Bryan began to talk about some- 
 thing else. That remark of Miss Ridgeworth had made 
 him uncomfortable. 
 
 A peculiar attribute of both Miss Ridgeworths was 
 their passion for Bohemian society. It was as though 
 the blamelessly orthodox customers that they had to deal 
 with all day produced a revulsion of feeling and made 
 them long to rub shoulders with some really bad charac- 
 ters. The patrons of the bonnet shop were wicked enough 
 in one sense for Miss Kate told him they never paid 
 their bills; but they were not picturesque, like actors, 
 socialists, anarchists, and minor poets. 
 
 One Sunday afternoon, quite early in their acquain- 
 tance, Miss Kate took him to what she called a "literary 
 party"; and really it was a terrible affair. The host, a 
 small man with a tremendous loud voice, edited a maga- 
 zine of advanced views that Bryan had never heard of, 
 and many of the guests contributed to its pages. They 
 were at present in an excited and breathless condition, 
 awaiting the issue of their next number, which might 
 either start a revolution or get them all sent to prison. 
 
 "Revolution! Prison!" cried Miss Ridgeworth, be- 
 ginning to enjoy herself at once. "How splendid! Let 
 me introduce Mr. Vaile. He is a barrister, and can tell 
 you all about the law and prisons and everything." 
 
 He was introduced to celebrated people one after an- 
 other so fast that he could not master their names or ab-
 
 50 GLAMOUR 
 
 sorb the little biographical sketch that was given with 
 each introduction. They were not Mr. Locke, Mr. Rud- 
 yard Kipling, Mr. Thomas Hardy, or Miss Corelli or 
 Mrs. Humphry Ward; he had never before heard one 
 of the names; but he soon began to understand that these 
 Were the people of to-morrow, the coming race, the new 
 generation that would push the old favourites from their 
 stools and awaken a sleepy world with something good. 
 Meanwhile they really looked dreadful to his unaccus- 
 tomed eye. The ladies wore dresses of sage green and 
 saffron, cut low at the throat, with necklaces of amber 
 or coral; several of the men also had low necks, with a 
 black bow tie in lieu of the amber beads ; and both sexes 
 had bilious complexions, hollow eyes, and hectic flushes. 
 Two squirming young men, dark and fair, were like 
 young women dressed in men's clothes two male im- 
 personators from a fourth-rate music-hall. One girl, a 
 poetess, had hair dyed a quite ridiculous colour ; and sev- 
 eral ladies had no hair at all that is, it was cropped close 
 and they wore single eye-glasses. These were politi- 
 cal writers, belonging to the Women's Future Move- 
 ment. 
 
 The party was taking place in two small rooms, the 
 squash was dense, the heat became terrific. From what 
 people said to him, and from what he heard on all sides, 
 it was evident that the new literature would be principally 
 of the decadent or morbid kind. Everybody, gesticulating 
 as much as space permitted, talked of what their friends 
 had written or were writing, and compliments of the 
 heaviest calibre were fired point-blank. 
 
 "How goes the magnum opus?" "When do you mean 
 to give the world another Crystabel's Corruption?" . . 
 "You cannot hope to do anything more exquisitely beauti- 
 ful than The Vigil of the Corpse." ... "I have
 
 GLAMOUR 51 
 
 been reading Love in a Maze for the fourth time. I 
 read The Garbage Hunt eight times. They are both of 
 them stupendous." . . . "No, nothing serious of late 
 merely some verses on Perverted Instincts." . . . 
 "Good! To be published by subscription?" "Yes, the 
 same series as Songs of Death" 
 
 Bryan was, of course, very polite to everybody, and he 
 tried to make himself agreeable; he felt that it was snob- 
 bish to notice the queer costumes and strange manners, 
 or to belittle these people because they were pleased with 
 themselves and each other without apparent reason. And 
 who was he to judge or condemn their art and its canons ? 
 Perhaps he ought to respect them, for at least they were 
 living for an ideal, if an odd one. They believed in some- 
 thing beyond mere money ; they were better than prosper- 
 ous stockbrokers and their wives. Indeed, he would not 
 have minded the party including the male impersonat- 
 ors and the female impersonators but for one circum- 
 stance. Mabel was at the party, and he thought that she 
 ought not to have been brought there. 
 
 She looked so sweet and natural in the midst of it all ; 
 such a nice figure in her blue tailor-made gown, with her 
 neat veil and the pearls in her ears. He could not get 
 her to talk ; she had gone or been pushed into a corner be- 
 tween a window and the tea-table, and he had glimpses of 
 her kind smile as she talked to others. Perhaps it was the 
 contrast with this seedy-looking riff-raff that made her 
 seem so attractive. 
 
 He saw her being handed a tea-cup by a red-mous- 
 tached man, and later, while struggling to secure tea for 
 the last genius to whom he had been presented, he heard 
 what the man was saying to her. 
 
 "Yes," said the man, "never thinking, I had run right 
 into it police trap."
 
 52 GLAMOUR 
 
 This man with the reddish moustache did not seem 
 properly to belong to the party any more than did Bryan. 
 He looked robust and very prosperous; his clothes were 
 rich and glossy ; his face shone, and he grinned and chat- 
 tered about his motor-car in a self-confident manner. 
 He had been brought here by somebody, and fastening 
 upon Mabel, pleased with her kindly smile and encour- 
 aged by her gentleness, he bored her with more and more 
 details about the power of his new engines, the pace he 
 could get out of them, the fines that he was willing to 
 pay for the amusement, and so on. One disliked him in- 
 stinctively. He was just a vulgar "road hog." 
 
 Twice Bryan endeavored to rescue Mabel from him, 
 but each time he was defeated by a fresh introduction and 
 a further claim upon his services in the battle for tea and 
 sponge-cake. 
 
 Miss Ridgeworth was enjoying things so. enormously 
 that she could not tear herself away from the party; 
 she elbowed her way in the little mob, laughing gaily, 
 tapping poets on the arm, almost digging novelists in the 
 ribs, and getting hotter and hotter every minute. 
 
 Leaving at last, she thanked the host effusively. "It 
 has been such a privilege. Too kind of you to let us 
 come." 
 
 She was painfully warm, and slightly dilapidated from 
 the struggle, when they got her downstairs and into the 
 open air. But she said, "Is it not refreshing to have a 
 peep like that at the Art World?" 
 
 They were near Campden Hill and Bryan strolled 
 back with her to her house. Mabel had issued from the 
 party with the self-satisfied motorist and a short, brisk 
 lady in velvet; and, to his disappointment, she walked 
 rapidly away with them, just waving her hand to Miss 
 Ridgeworth before she vanished round a corner. Bryan
 
 GLAMOUR 53 
 
 could not possibly break from his companion and follow 
 her, but, since she was gone, he took the opportunity of 
 talking about her. He ventured to suggest that in the 
 kind of society they had just left, however fascinating 
 for men and women of the world like Miss Ridge worth 
 and himself, there might be danger to Miss Gresley of 
 making undesirable acquaintances. 
 
 "Oh, Mabel can take care of herself all right," said 
 Miss Ridgeworth cheerily. 
 
 "No doubt," said Bryan, with an irritation that he 
 found difficult altogether to conceal. "She has always 
 had to take care of herself, hasn't she? I mean, it has 
 been nobody else's business to take care of her. Only it 
 struck me that as young girls are so impressionable, per- 
 haps it might " 
 
 "But Mabel isn't impressionable. Very much the re- 
 verse. Haven't you observed that? She is a girl of ex- 
 traordinarily strong character." 
 
 Miss Ridgeworth had reached home now, and Bryan 
 accepted her invitation to go into the house. 
 
 "Yes, you angels, Auntie's back again. Yes, tinkle 
 de bells and dance on hind legs for Auntie." Then, when 
 the dogs stopped barking, she said, "Of course, it is good 
 of you to take so much interest in Mabel." 
 
 "I take the greatest interest in her," he said, and added 
 after a slight pause, "She did not tell you that I asked her 
 to marry me?" 
 
 "No, she didn't say a word about it. But I can't pre- 
 tend to be surprised, after seeing all your kindness, and 
 the attention you pay her after profiting by it"; and 
 Miss Ridgeworth laughed good-humouredly. "What has 
 caused the hitch?" 
 
 "She refused me." 
 
 "She did, did she? Now I think that's a pity," and
 
 54 GLAMOUR 
 
 Miss Ridgeworth sighed. "But well if Mabel said No, 
 I suppose she must have meant it. Would you like me to 
 tackle her about it?" 
 
 "No, not for the world," said Bryan hastily. And 
 just then Miss Jane Ridgeworth put her head in at the 
 drawing-room door. 
 
 "Come in, Jane," said her sister. "Don't run away. 
 We are discussing Mabel's future. Mr. Vaile makes no 
 secret of the fact that he proposed to her." 
 
 "Just what I guessed," said Miss Jane, becoming shrill 
 immediately. "And though we haven't known you long, 
 we would have given you our blessing, wouldn't we, 
 Kate? But Mabel was stupid and obstinate?" 
 
 "Yes," said Miss Kate. "I was telling him that Mabel 
 always was obstinate, and lately she has been turning into 
 a regular brick wall. Isn't it a pity ?" 
 
 "Yes, I do think it's a pity. But he ought to try his 
 luck again." 
 
 "Yes, but I always find Mabel so difficult to argue with 
 when she has made up her mind." 
 
 Bryan felt horribly embarrassed and not a little an- 
 noyed. He had spoken to Miss Kate of his proposal on 
 the impulse of the moment, without any intention of ex- 
 tending this confidence to her sister ; certainly not think- 
 ing that the matter was to be debated thus openly. He 
 did not at all like their way of making him pose as a re- 
 jected and mortified suitor, or their rapid assumption 
 that he was willing if encouraged to propose again. 
 
 "Miss Vansittart," said the maid-servant, announcing 
 a gaily-dressed visitor. 
 
 "I have come to ask if I may stop to dinner," said Miss 
 Vansittart. "I have nowhere to go to, and no food to 
 get, and I am very hungry already."
 
 GLAMOUR 55 
 
 "My dear girl, of course. But I don't know if there 
 is any dinner to-night. Jane, didn't Stevens say we were 
 to have sardines and an egg?" 
 
 "Make it two eggs for me," said Miss Vansittart. "I 
 haven't done growing, and I do get so hungry." 
 
 Bryan bolted. He felt sure that if he stayed the hun- 
 gry Miss Vansittart would be brought into a resumed 
 conversation about his most private affairs. 
 
 He was annoyed with the Miss Ridgeworths. They 
 meant well, but they were too shrill, too silly; and he 
 doubted if he would ever again set foot in the menag- 
 erie that served them for a house. Nevertheless, they 
 had given him much to think about. What a strange, 
 what an absurd, conception of Mabel, that she was not im- 
 pressionable, that she had great strength of character, 
 that she was hardening into a brick wall. 
 
 Although his afternoon walks with her on Saturdays 
 and Sundays were not a definitely established custom, 
 they were regularly continued. It was understood that 
 if she had nothing better to do, and the weather per- 
 mitted, he might act as escort; and he used to watch the 
 barometer anxiously as the week-end approached. If a 
 downpour deprived him of the promenade he generally 
 contrived to meet her somewhere before Sunday night, 
 and it was a grievous disappointment to him when a week- 
 end passed without this pleasant companionship. 
 
 Then in the new year, all at once the walks and the 
 meetings ceased. Mabel had not disappeared again, but 
 she had become inaccessible. She was not at home if he 
 ventured to call at Number 10 ; she was never to be found 
 at Campden Hill ; she sent messages through her cousins 
 declining to make up theatre parties. Once he let him- 
 self in for a theatre party without her, because Miss
 
 56 GLAMOUR 
 
 Ridgeworth had promised and failed to produce her. 
 This was too much ; and he wrote to Mabel, remonstrat- 
 ing, asking in effect what she meant by it. 
 
 She replied, thanking him for his theatre kindness and 
 for all the trouble he had taken walking about London, 
 but saying in effect that she did not mean to go out for 
 amusement or exercise with him again. 
 
 He was so much fussed and disconcerted by this re- 
 ply that he could not get on with his work. He was al- 
 ways thinking of her thinking of nothing else. He was 
 no good for anything because of the worry of it. And 
 suddenly, thinking of her thus, he realised how com- 
 pletely she had cured him of his pain about Diana. He 
 never gave Diana a transient thought nowadays ; when he 
 heard her name casually mentioned he did not even wince. 
 He ought to be for ever grateful to Mabel for this, what- 
 ever happened. 
 
 At the end of a useless, wasted day he rushed off to 
 see Miss Kate Ridgeworth at the bonnet shop, and to ob- 
 tain if possible some explanation of Mabel's disturbing 
 note. Miss Kate received him in a small parlour or 
 counting-house behind the shop. There were no parrots 
 here, thank goodness, and he shut the door and stood with 
 his back against it to prevent interruptions. 
 
 "I think myself," said Miss Ridgeworth, "that it's a 
 pity things have worked out like this. But there it is. 
 And, of course, you ought to know about it." 
 
 And sympathetically, wishing to spare his feelings but 
 having her duty to perform, she gave him a knock-down 
 blow. 
 
 He was not the only man in the world. Well then, an- 
 other man was now available if Mabel wished for an es- 
 cort. A nice solid sort of man had appeared, and he 
 wanted to marry Mabel.
 
 GLAMOUR 57 
 
 "Who is he?" 
 
 "A Mr. Wainwright." 
 
 "Wainwright! " said Bryan, so surprised that he spoke 
 very abruptly. "That was the name of a murderer." 
 
 "Yes, but in the dark ages. This Mr. Wainwright 
 must be well under forty far too young to have any 
 connection. . . . No, I assure you, he is quite all 
 right." 
 
 "What is he?" 
 
 "He's a merchant." 
 
 "What of?" 
 
 "I believe it's soap and leather, but I'm not sure. 
 Mabel knows, of course." 
 
 "How long has Mabel known him ?" 
 
 "Not a great while. She met him last autumn." 
 
 "But what kind of a man? Surely not worthy of 
 Mabel?" 
 
 "To begin with, he certainly means business. He 
 seems to be very well off. He has a stupendous motor- 
 car that travels faster than " 
 
 A flash of divination made Bryan break in indignantly. 
 "Motor-car! Travels fast! Is he the road-hog?" 
 
 "I don't understand." 
 
 "Did Mabel meet the fellow first at Mr. Clarendon 
 Pirkis's literary party?" 
 
 "I'm not sure. Yes, I rather think she did. But he 
 is a friend of Mrs. George Gresley's." 
 
 "A big, self-satisfied fellow with a red moustache?" 
 
 "Yes, I wouldn't call it red. His hair I mean the hair 
 on his head is dark brown." 
 
 "Surely he's impossible," said Bryan, more indig- 
 nantly. "Miss Ridgeworth, you don't approve of him? 
 You don't think he's good enough for her?" 
 
 "There's nothing against him to my mind except
 
 58 GLAMOUR 
 
 this." Miss Ridgeworth spoke with hesitation, and then 
 laughed. "He is rather stout." 
 
 "Only rather?" 
 
 "Yes. I don't think I ought to call him at all stout 
 at present merely solid. But I myself have such a hor- 
 ror of stoutness; and, looking at Mr. Wainwright now, 
 I seem to see him in twenty years' time, enormous. . . 
 No, forget that I said so. With me it's a craze fatness 
 and all nonsense as far as Mr. Wainwright is con- 
 cerned, probably. He may escape it, too, if he does 
 Swedish exercises. Anyhow, I am sure the idea has 
 never come into Mabel's head, and it would be wicked 
 to put it there." 
 
 Then Miss Ridgeworth talked with much wisdom and 
 kindness. She said that they were all very anxious for 
 Mabel's welfare, that she knew Mr. Vaile was just as 
 anxious for it as any of them, that one cannot have every- 
 thing in life, and that if Mr. Wainwright offered a fair 
 chance of comfort, ease, and contentment, it would be 
 yery wrong to prevent dear Mabel from taking the chance. 
 
 "But it's no chance if she doesn't care for him. And 
 she can't care for him." 
 
 "She will care for him later on. I think she would 
 soon get fond of him, if "; and Miss Ridgeworth 
 paused. 
 
 "If what?" 
 
 "If you would leave her alone. And, honestly, I think 
 you ought to leave her alone now." 
 
 "You do for her sake?" 
 
 "Yes, I do, honestly."
 
 HE DETERMINED to leave her alone. The sadness 
 of renunciation softened him; he obliterated his 
 prejudices against an innocuous stranger; he tried to see 
 everything in a purely unselfish light. What does the 
 colour of your moustache matter if you succeed in your 
 career, if you can afford to purchase all that makes up 
 comfort according to the modern measure, if you really 
 know your own mind and mean business all the time ? 
 
 Thinking of it unselfishly, he felt that it was better so. 
 He had no confidence in himself. This solid man would 
 make her a good husband ; he would give her a luxurious 
 home they would be happy. She would be safer in his 
 hands. There could be no fancies or doubts or imma- 
 turity of purpose and failure of decision about this solid, 
 successful man. 
 
 But then he went on thinking of it, and the more he 
 thought the less he liked it. For her sake, not for his 
 sake, he revolted against the whole idea. She would for 
 ever miss all that makes the highest joy of life. This 
 common fellow would use her, just as others had used 
 her making her a housekeeper, a secretary, a support; 
 an attentive listener to his stupid business plans and a 
 sympathiser for his vulgar boastings. He would not 
 really guard her and cherish her, giving her the tender- 
 ness, the admiration, the delicate care that women must 
 have in order to be in truth happy. 
 
 He wrote to her, taking great trouble to make his let- 
 ter strong in logic as well as eloquent in language, and 
 urged her not to act hastily. He begged to repeat what 
 
 59
 
 60 GLAMOUR 
 
 he had said to her last September, and he asked that she 
 would reconsider her decision and give him a favourable 
 answer this time. 
 
 But truly she had become like a brick wall. Words, 
 however carefully chosen, produced no effect upon her. 
 She answered that she saw no reason to do as he sug- 
 gested; she did not even believe that he was in deadly 
 earnest; she pretended to know what was best for him 
 as well as for herself. "If I did what you ask," she said, 
 "you would be the first to regret it. You don't really 
 wish it. You only ask me because of what happened at 
 Bournemouth." 
 
 He did wish it, and he knew now that he would not 
 regret it. If through his shilly-shallying attitude he had 
 lost her irretrievably, he would never forgive himself. 
 The mental picture of her going through life with a stout, 
 dull merchant was intolerable to him. His mind became 
 like a cinematograph theatre that was always open and 
 never changed its programme ; he saw there all day and 
 half the night an endless film that showed him Mabel 
 and the other man Mabel, neatly dressed in her blue 
 cloth dress, fur boa, and black toque, walking swiftly to 
 the pillar-box with a note addressed to Mr. Wainwright ; 
 Mabel without a hat, seated in a room, looking up with 
 a smile, to welcome Mr. Wainwright as he approached 
 in a confident, proprietorial manner; Mabel, wrapped up 
 so that one could hardly recognise her, getting into an 
 immense motor-car with Mr. Wainwright and vanishing 
 amidst dust and smoke. 
 
 At the week-end he got hold of her, in spite of all im- 
 pediments, and implored her to throw over the other man 
 and take him instead. 
 
 "Don't talk so loud," said Mabel. "Everybody in the 
 house will hear you."
 
 GLAMOUR 61 
 
 "I don't care who hears me, so long as you'll listen to 
 reason." But he nevertheless dropped his voice. They 
 were in the ground floor sitting-room at her lodgings, to 
 which he had forced an entrance, although the landlady 
 seemed reluctant to admit him ; and he drew a chair close 
 to Mabel's at the table beneath the chandelier, took pos- 
 session of her hands, and continued his urgent appeal. 
 "I implore you to give up the idea of it. You can't really 
 like him. I know it. I can see it in your face." 
 
 Her forehead was puckered, her lips drooped, and she 
 looked at him in the way that he remembered so welL 
 
 "Mabel, you can't do it. Be reasonable." 
 
 "I don't think you are reasonable yourself." 
 
 "You are not formally engaged to him?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 Then he argued with her strenuously. However late 
 in the day, even at the church door, it is better to change 
 one's mind than to commit an irrevocable blunder. For 
 a woman marriage is everything, it is much too sacred to 
 play about with; she would spoil her life for ever if she 
 married the wrong man. 
 
 And again she said, "Why do you ask me?" 
 
 "I'll tell you. I ask you because I can't do without you 
 because I have nothing to live for, nothing to hope 
 for, unless I get you." 
 
 "But you are not in love with me." 
 
 "Yes, I am. I love everything you say, everything you 
 think, everything you do." 
 
 "Ah, that's not being in love with me." 
 
 And this was true. There were so many things about 
 Diana that he did not really approve of, that he even 
 secretly condemned, and yet he had been madly in love 
 with her. 
 
 "Mabel, I am sorry for his disappointment, if he lis
 
 62 GLAMOUR 
 
 entertained hopes, but it can't be helped. I dare say he 
 is a much better fellow than I am ; but you would never 
 be happy with him. It isn't as if you cared for money. 
 No doubt he can offer you much more of that sort of 
 thing but it would be no use to you. He wouldn't un- 
 derstand you, he wouldn't value you as I shall. . . . 
 
 "And you must like me best. Mabel, think of how well 
 we got on together from the very first. You couldn't 
 have been so sweet to me unless we suited each other. 
 We do suit each other. We're such pals, such compan- 
 ions. . . . Well, that counts for so much in marriage. 
 Some people say it is everything. . . . 
 
 "Remember, too, that I have always shown you the 
 worst side of myself. Goodness knows I'm not worthy 
 of you but truly I am not a bad sort. Mabel, you said 
 something that I shall never forget. You said you were 
 fond of the man that at first you thought I was. Well, 
 I'll be the man you thought I was. I swear I'll be good 
 and true to you. If you'll only risk it, I swear I'll never 
 let you down. I'll be all that you fancied. Trust me 
 and you shan't regret it." 
 
 At last he made her really believe, and she agreed. 
 
 "I trust you," she said. "After all, why should you 
 go on saying it if you don't mean it?" 
 
 And it was all right about the other man. Things had 
 not gone too far with the poor wretch; there would be 
 no awkward backing out to be done by Mabel ; there was 
 only one man in the world that she could ever really care 
 for and his name was Bryan Vaile. Miss Ridgeworth 
 and other honest well-wishers had perhaps thought it ad- 
 visable to push Mabel over the brink of a marriage of 
 convenience, trusting that if she went over with her eyes 
 open she might fall on her feet; but Mabel herself had 
 never liked the look of the precipice.
 
 GLAMOUR 63 
 
 Bryan hurried her off to Campden Hill to proclaim 
 the glad tidings and receive the blessing that the Miss 
 Ridgeworths had once said they were prepared to give. It 
 was given now with shrill joy. 
 
 "Pollie, they are engaged. Yes, scream, Pollie. Bark 
 it loud, you angels. There's a wedding in the family. 
 Call Jane. Tell Stevens she can't go to church this eve- 
 ning. The engaged couple will stay to dinner." 
 
 The little dogs barked, the parrot screamed, the sing- 
 ing birds nearly broke the glass of the aviary; the Miss 
 Ridgeworths yelled the news up and down stairs, through 
 open doors; a maidservant shouted it on the telephone; 
 and an unknown young lady in a picture hat and ermine 
 stole burst upon them and cried, "This is ripping. I am 
 so glad." 
 
 Bryan did not mind the noise, and he liked to hear the 
 good news published so promptly and widely. He wanted 
 all the world to know it. He could have stopped strangers 
 in the street to tell them that he had won the best, the 
 dearest girl, and that he was the happiest man alive. 
 
 The sun shone clear again, making all things bright, 
 brighter than they had ever been, because everything was 
 real and substantial now, not imagined. Bryan had an 
 object in life; he felt strong and healthy; his happiness 
 made him work hard without fatigue, eat ravenously 
 without indigestion, and sleep long hours without a 
 dream. He thought of himself with profound humility 
 as to the past and with exalted confidence as to the fu- 
 ture. What an ass, what a sickly dreamer, what a never- 
 do-nothing he had always been. But now, with Mabel 
 to work for, he would soon show that there was some- 
 thing in him. 
 
 Mabel herself opened out like a flower that had only
 
 64 GLAMOUR 
 
 been waiting for sunshine to display its coloured petals 
 and give its fragrance to the air. It was a revelation to 
 him that love can so change and glorify a girl who wants 
 to love. She told him how strong and deep her feelings 
 had always been, and how she had never enjoyed a proper 
 outlet for them. She said things about him that made 
 him ashamed and yet happier still. She had wanted to 
 love him from the very beginning ; he had seemed to her 
 the perfect knight that comes to cut the maiden's bonds 
 and lead her by the hand to a place of love and safety. 
 She said too, "If you failed me now, I should kill my- 
 self." And she added, "If you failed me ever, I should 
 kill myself." 
 
 Why should he ever fail her? She was not only the 
 jolliest of companions, she was wise and good and strong. 
 Every day he found new charm in her. She was by no 
 means as simple as he supposed ; she had a luminous com- 
 mon sense that enabled her to look beneath the surface of 
 things and form judgments so rapidly that one did not 
 at first give them all the credit they deserved for their 
 correctness. She had much quiet humour herself and a 
 generously appreciative recognition of the smallest jokes 
 made by others. What more could a man ask for ? 
 
 He felt fatuously happy in the bright spring weather, 
 thinking how absurd it was at his age. Thirty-five, yet 
 here he was, feeling what boys feel, enjoying a fresh 
 transfiguration of London, admiring the sunlit pave- 
 ments, the budded trees, the smoke-stained sky; having 
 palpitations of the heart until a house agent removed all 
 doubt as to his being able to secure the little flat near 
 the Marylebone Road that he and she had chosen to- 
 gether. Going to shops with her was going to fairyland. 
 They were buying for their home; and every common 
 object even each pot and pan was fine, toylike, de-
 
 GLAMOUR 65 
 
 light ful, because he was with her, because the kettle was 
 for them, because they were to be together always. 
 
 One day, after shopping, she said, "Something has 
 happened, Bryan. You are in love with me now." 
 
 And this, too, was true. She said it proudly, her eyes 
 shining, her face all lit up; and, as she said it, she was 
 absolutely beautiful. 
 
 They were to be married from the house on Campden 
 Hill, and the Miss Ridgeworths meant to make the wed- 
 ding a real lark for everybody. Mabel, feeling that her 
 father ought to be dragged out and shown as a sort of 
 family picture on this occasion, took Bryan down to 
 Brighton to see him. 
 
 He met them at the Brighton railway-station, gave them 
 an excellent luncheon at the Metropole Hotel, walked a 
 little distance with them on their way back to the station, 
 and really that was all about it. He was a thin, fresh- 
 complexioned man in a rather sporting though shabby 
 tweed suit, with white spats and a pearl-gray Homburg 
 hat; his eyes were brown like Mabel's, and he had a 
 pleasant smile and laugh, but his manner was curiously 
 detached, as of one who has much on his mind and can- 
 not therefore give you sustained attention. He talked to 
 Mabel as though she was somebody that he had known a 
 long time and always liked, although they met so rarely ; 
 and Mabel, while talking to him, showed, as well as gen- 
 uine affection, a quite unreasoning pride in him and a 
 great tenderness. 
 
 "Do you get your rides here, father?" 
 
 "Yes, Mab, I ride every morning. Are you riding 
 in London ?" 
 
 "No, father, I never have ridden. But Bryan rides 
 sometimes." 
 
 "That's right, Vaile. It's worth it even in London.
 
 66 GLAMOUR 
 
 For a busy man especially better than medicine, as 
 you'll find out when you're my age." 
 
 "Have you got a dog here, father?" 
 
 "Yes, Mab a bull-terrier. I'll show him to you if we 
 have time after lunch. I didn't bring him to the station 
 because he can't bear that mangy retriever with the 
 money-box. He went for him the other day and shook 
 out a lot of coppers, and I had the whole station about 
 my ears. 
 
 "By the way," he said, when they were seated at lunch- 
 con, "I don't want to play the heavy father Mabel 
 knows I never do ; but what about settlements ? Oughtn't 
 you young people to have a marriage settlement?" 
 
 "I am afraid," said Bryan, "I have nothing to settle." 
 
 "No, but perhaps she has," said Mr. Gresley. "One 
 ought to ask a lawyer. But you are a lawyer, Vaile. 
 There's certainly money coming to her some day" ; and 
 he smiled at Mabel. 
 
 "You don't know how much?" asked Mabel, smiling 
 back at him. 
 
 "No. If I ever heard I have forgotten. It was your 
 great-aunt Wyckham's will all tied up in shares ; a share 
 must come to you some day." And he shrugged his 
 shoulders. "Perhaps it's not worth bothering about. 
 Your Aunt Harriet may live to a hundred"; and he 
 ceased speaking of business matters, as though already 
 they had tired him. "Don't look round now. But pres- 
 ently just observe the man with the big nose at the second 
 table on your left. I'll tell you something about him that 
 wfll make you laugh." 
 
 When Mabel was bidding him good-bye in West Street 
 she asked him for a promise that he would come to the 
 wedding and give her away.
 
 GLAMOUR 67 
 
 "It's not worth making promises that I mayn't be able 
 to keep," he said amiably. "But I'll do my best." 
 
 One felt that he would always do his best; but, as 
 Mabel had once indicated, even at his best he was no 
 good to anybody, including himself. 
 
 "He is such a dear," said Mabel sadly and tenderly. 
 "We will be kind to him, Bryan, won't we? He'll never 
 trouble us, you know. You'll let me be kind to all my 
 relations, won't you?" 
 
 Considering how little her relations had ever done for 
 her, Bryan thought this anxiety showed another proof 
 of her affectionate magnanimous nature. 
 
 Travelling back to London and afterwards they made 
 a joke between them about her expectations on the death 
 of Aunt Harriet. "I am an heiress-hunter," he said. "I 
 am marrying you for your money nothing else." 
 
 Miss Ridgeworth had told him to announce his engage- 
 ment in the newspaper, and he did so now, after having 
 received the implied approval of his father-in-law. Not 
 quite sure how these notices should be worded, he con- 
 sulted a copy of the Morning Post for a pattern; but, 
 by curious chance, he happened to find there only one 
 such notice, and it was of so important and grand a char- 
 acter that it could not be safely imitated in humble every- 
 day cases. 
 
 A marriage, said the Morning Post, had been arranged 
 and would shortly take place between the Duke of Mid- 
 dlesborough and Miss Diana Kenion. 
 
 A duke? Well, Diana was out for big game, and he 
 felt glad that she had got such a fine head. He sat think- 
 ing of her, wishing her luck, and hoping that she would 
 be a happy duchess. It seemed to him that she was some 
 character that he had seen in a play or read about in a
 
 68 GLAMOUR 
 
 book, and not a real person that he had known quite 
 well. Certainly the foolish fellow who dangled after her 
 less than a year ago had so completely ceased to exist 
 that he could scarce believe it was himself. 
 
 The wedding came off on a Saturday afternoon, when 
 the bonnet shop was shut; it was a jolly, larkish wedding, 
 and the Miss Ridgeworths and all their friends thor- 
 oughly enjoyed it. Mabel as a bride looked beautiful, 
 and her girl-friends agreed that Bryan was "a lovely 
 man." In the church he was surprised by the strength 
 of his emotions; he felt an immense yearning love as 
 Mabel knelt beside him; her bowed head reminded him 
 of the night when he made her cry, and he vowed and 
 vowed in his heart to guard her and cherish her and 
 never to fail her.
 
 VI 
 
 WHEN BRYAN VAILE first began to hanker after 
 the pleasures of dramatic authorship he started a 
 note-book in which he might jot down the bright ideas 
 that suddenly occurred to him or the rough aphorisms 
 that with conscientious labor could be worked up into 
 polished and pointed lines. He believed, erroneously, that 
 this was the right way to set about the job, and two of 
 his earliest jottings were these: 
 
 ( 1 ) "Marriage is a mystery to all except the married, 
 and to them it is so dreadful a mystery that they cannot 
 speak of it." 
 
 (2) "Married life is a wonderful system of give and 
 take; but until you get married you never know which 
 is to give and which is to take." 
 
 Well, he knew now that No. 1 was the very cheapest 
 kind of nonsense, with no germ of truth to justify the 
 aphoristic form ; for he was always ready to bubble over 
 with talk about the calm joy of marriage. And as to No. 
 2, he knew that, however the account stands in material 
 things, Love can always strike an equal balance; Love 
 will not permit of any debtor and creditor statement of 
 the partnership, so long as each partner is willing and 
 anxious to give all. 
 
 Yet the recognition of this obvious fact did not check 
 the growth of his gratitude to Mabel. Truly from the 
 very beginning she was the one who gave. She made 
 man of him. She did everything in the world for him; 
 
 69
 
 70 GLAMOUR 
 
 she made him believe in himself, because she believed in 
 him; she lifted him up and sustained him and kept him 
 happy. 
 
 It was she who rescued him from the intolerable dul- 
 ness of the law courts and gave him the world of imagi- 
 nation in exchange. He wanted to abandon his profes- 
 sion and take to the precarious trade of play-writing, 
 although he did not feel justified in doing so. His first 
 three-act play had been acted for a hundred nights and 
 had thereby achieved the titular honours of success, but 
 it had not brought him much money. Still, experts said 
 he should strike again while the iron was luke-warm; 
 he must keep hammering away or his chances would 
 vanish. On the other hand, as a husband and a father, 
 he ought not to run risks. They had one child already 
 and the prospect of soon having another; but Mabel was 
 courageous enough to run any risks. She was confident 
 that he would not fail to keep some sort of pot boiling, 
 and she told him to go straight ahead without fear. 
 
 And the bold decision was made before she came into 
 her inheritance. Almost immediately afterwards her 
 Aunt Harriet, instead of living to a hundred as she might 
 have done, was good enough to die at the age of seventy, 
 and Mabel became possessed of six or seven hundred a 
 year. This made all easy and smooth for Bryan; they 
 would not starve now, whatever happened; relieved of 
 anxiety, he could peg away with his pen in comfort of 
 body and mind. 
 
 Another jotting in the soon-abandoned note-book was 
 as follows : "Some men strive for fame and some for 
 money, and often they might eventually get both if they 
 never tried for either, but merely worked hard at what- 
 ever work lay before them." 
 
 This not very brilliant generalisation was perhaps the
 
 GLAMOUR 71 
 
 gem of the note-book; at any rate it seemed to him to 
 contain something like a useful truth, and from the out- 
 set of his serious effort he conscientiously followed its 
 guidance. He worked really hard, hoping that in his case 
 a capacity for taking pains might fill the large gap left 
 by the absence of genius; not waiting for the high in- 
 spiration that did not arrive, but using the commonplace 
 material that lay handy; determined that he would at 
 least achieve quantity in output if quality was impossible. 
 
 Success came with only just sufficient delay and diffi- 
 culty to make its taste the pleasanter. 
 
 He had a nasty little set-back with his second play, 
 which was withdrawn because it failed to attract, and a 
 disappointment or postponing of hope in regard to his 
 third play. It was a domestic drama, and the great Mr. 
 Richard Vandaleur fell violently in love with it. He 
 announced his passion for the play on the telephone one 
 summer evening about six o'clock, and such was his ex- 
 citement and rapture that he seemed to Bryan more like 
 a delightful explosive volcano erupting at the other end 
 of the telephone wire than an illustrious actor-manager 
 telling a humble stranger that he intended to produce his 
 work on the stage. "Can you hear me? . . . Fits me 
 like a glo^e. . . . Colossal. . . . Been waiting for it. 
 . . . The public. . . . See me in emotional part. . . . 
 Not the tripe I've had to do. ... Mean to put it up at 
 once. . . . Run a year in London, then take it to the 
 States . . . four years. . . . Biggest money-maker 
 since East Lynne. . . . Sup with me at Betterton Club. 
 . . . Yes, to-night. . . . Talk over details." 
 
 The volcanic warmth of Mr. Vandaleur, even at two 
 miles' distance, made Bryan hot and red and shaky, so 
 that his wife sprang up alarmed, thinking he was ill, 
 when he rushed to her with' the glorious news.
 
 72 GLAMOUR 
 
 "Mr. Vandaleur! The Minerva Theatre! Oh, Bryan! 
 Didn't I know you were a genius !" 
 
 They kept kissing and clasping each other's hands con- 
 vulsively, and then they went for a long ride on the tops 
 of several omnibuses to cool themselves and count their 
 chickens before they were hatched, and kill the feverish 
 time that intervened between now and supper at the Bet- 
 terton Club with Mr. Vandaleur. 
 
 Then for months Bryan was the willing and excited 
 slave of Mr. Vandaleur, being slapped on the back and 
 embraced by Vandaleur, laughing at Vandaleur's noisy 
 humor, almost crying in sympathy over Vandaleur's love 
 affairs, feeding Vandaleur and ea .ing Vandaleur's food 
 to a quite fantastic extent. They were Dick and Bryan 
 now not any more Vandaleur and Vaile, and it seemed 
 fabulous that they had ever been Mr. Vandaleur and Mr. 
 Vaile. Bryan had to spend week-ends at Dick's country 
 cottage to talk about the cast of the play, and all the 
 week he re- wrote the play to make it suit the people that 
 Dick intended to engage. He had re-written it six times 
 already, but Dick always had further suggestions for 
 improvement. Sometimes he telephoned in the middle 
 of the night merely to gloat over the money that the play 
 was going to make for both of them. "Dear old boy, 
 we'll scoop the pool with it. It's the biggest thing I have 
 ever done. It's straight to the heart. It rings true. That's 
 what the public have been hungering for. We'll put it 
 into rehearsal next month." 
 
 Then something unexpected occurred. Mr. Vandaleur 
 let his theatre for two months to a company of Nigger 
 Minstrels from America, and soon afterwards Bryan 
 read a newspaper paragraph which said that Mr. Vanda- 
 leur had secured a farcical comedy by Mr. Hankey Pritt
 
 GLAMOUR 73 
 
 and intended to make this his autumn production at the 
 Minerva. 
 
 Bryan would not believe it, could not believe it; but 
 Vandaleur, writing to him from Devonshire contritely, 
 yet firmly, said that it was so. "On consideration I 
 fear there is no money in your play. Those with whom 
 I am compelled to consult came to this conclusion, al- 
 though agreeing with me as to its literary merit. I am 
 myself afraid of the somewhat heavy interest, admirable 
 as it. is. You see, the public ask to be amused and not 
 to have their emotions stirred. They like to laugh and 
 not to think. Moreover, they look for me in a certain 
 style of part, and I doubt if it would be fair to them or 
 myself to attempt experiments in a totally different line." 
 
 Still Bryan could scarcely believe it. Dick's conduct 
 seemed so monstrous and absurd. Why should he think 
 one thing one minute and a diametrically opposite thing 
 the next minute? But those older and wiser than him- 
 self in the ways of the theatrical world told him that 
 this was just like Dick Vandaleur, and that one ought 
 not to have expected anything else from him. They said 
 that Dick never had an opinion of his own; he was a 
 weathercock as well as a gas-bag and a humbug. They 
 further explained that Dick's productions were never 
 financed by himself, and that a well-known Mr. So-and- 
 So was putting up the money to produce Hankey Pritfs 
 farce in order to foist a certain Miss Merridew upon the 
 long-suffering public as a comedy actress. 
 
 Mrs. Vaile loyally said all the rude things about Mr. 
 Vandaleur which her husband felt it would be beneath 
 his dignity to say himself, but which he was glad to hear 
 said by somebody else. With some bitterness of spirit 
 he thought of his wasted time, and sat down to re-write
 
 74 GLAMOUR 
 
 the play once more, getting all the Vandaleur flavour 
 out of it. Then something else that no one could have 
 expected occurred. 
 
 Mr. Kelly Gifford, the actor, called upon him at his 
 flat near the Marylebone Road, and said with solemnity, 
 "You may not be aware of it, but I have acquired a lease 
 of the Quadrant Theatre. Now, have you anything in 
 your desk likely to suit me? You know what I can do, 
 and I dare say you can make a tolerable guess of what I 
 can't do." 
 
 Gifford was a very different sort of person from Van- 
 daleur, an earnest, straightforward kind of man, not ex- 
 actly a popular favourite, but with a respectable follow- 
 ing of sober admirers, and he frankly stated his reason 
 for applying to Vaile in this manner. 
 
 He said that he wanted to open his theatre with a play 
 from Bryan's pen because he could obtain any amount 
 of money as "backing" for any play written by the au- 
 thor of Evelyn Lestrange. 
 
 Bryan was so astounded that he could only murmur, 
 "Evelyn Lestrange was a howling failure." 
 
 "Did not catch on," said Gifford, politely. "Neverthe- 
 less, it attracted attention. There was good work in it 
 BO good in the opinion of some people, apparently, that 
 they are prepared to put up big money in support of their 
 opinion." 
 
 "But what people?" 
 
 "The offer has come to me through Wilkinsons', the 
 solicitors." 
 
 Bryan could not at first credit this flattering notion 
 of unknown admirers willing to invest money as proof 
 of their admiration ; and, rendered suspicious by his re- 
 cent disappointment and the revelations of experienced 
 friends, he asked many questions.
 
 GLAMOUR 75 
 
 "If it's not a joke," he said, "I suppose it means that 
 some yellow-haired minx is to be pushed in as leading 
 lady." 
 
 "The leading lady in my theatre," said Gifford, with 
 dignity, "will be Miss Clarence, and nobody else." 
 
 "May I go and see these solicitors Wilkinsons'; and 
 talk about it?" 
 
 "By all means" ; and Gifford told him that Wilkinsons' 
 were a firm that did a lot of theatrical business, acting 
 for authors, managers, theatre owners, and everybody 
 else connected with the stage. They looked after your 
 contracts, wrote to the newspapers for you when you 
 were insulted, defended you as co-respondent in divorce 
 actions, looked after you and took charge of you gen- 
 erally. 
 
 Bryan's interview with the firm was eminently satis- 
 factory. There was no blonde young lady in the back- 
 ground; it was straightforward, above-board business; 
 certain people believed in his capability as a dramatist 
 and were prepared to advance money for the production 
 of his plays. 
 
 "There is nothing very unusual in the matter," said 
 Mr. Wilkinson. "Quite a large number of people are 
 interested in theatrical enterprise, and like to have an 
 occasional flutter ; and it is a mistake to suppose that they 
 always lose their money. The money, let us hope, will 
 not be lost in this case." 
 
 "But you can't tell me who your clients are?" 
 
 No, Mr. Wilkinson was acting for another firm of so- 
 licitors, who, not being connected with theatrical affairs 
 themselves, had naturally turned to him. This other firm 
 did not mention any client's name. 
 
 "Of course," said Mr. Wilkinson, smiling, "it may be 
 some personal well-wishers a little syndicate of your
 
 76 GLAMOUR 
 
 friends and relations or some rich uncle who wants to 
 give his brilliant nephew a push." 
 
 Bryan laughed. Mr. Wilkinson's surmise was not very 
 near the mark. Bryan had no rich uncles, and he did 
 not remember any friends and relations likely to go into 
 theatrical speculation on his behalf. 
 
 "Very well then," said Mr. Wilkinson, "you have had 
 the good fortune to reach a discriminating and affluent 
 section of the public, and you can avail yourself of the 
 chance with an easy conscience. Leave the whole thing 
 to Mr. Gifford and myself. It really is our affair, and, 
 honestly, I don't know why he should have troubled you 
 about it. You are, of course, dealing with him, and he 
 will deal with me." 
 
 Bryan was more than satisfied, he was intensely grati- 
 fied; and he left Gifford and Wilkinson to conclude ar- 
 rangements with the kindly and discerning capitalists 
 who had been attracted by Evelyn Lestrange, although 
 it failed to attract the public. For a moment the idea 
 had passed through his mind that the unknown backer 
 of his fortunes might be none other than his own wife. 
 Had Mabel, burning with resentment against Mr. Van- 
 daleur, and seeing her husband surrounded with difficul- 
 ties, attempted a magnificent scheme of rescue? It would 
 have been like her to risk her comfort for his sake, but 
 unlike her to do anything in a secret manner, and two 
 words with her showed that she was in no way impli- 
 cated. With a light heart he re-wrote his play a few 
 more times for Mr. Gifford; it was produced as Mr. Gif- 
 ford's opening venture; and it caught on. The money 
 advanced for this enterprise was soon repaid, and no fur- 
 ther backing was ever needed by Bryan. In the current 
 phrase, he never looked behind him after this. 
 
 He slogged along at his work now, and with full con-
 
 GLAMOUR 77 
 
 fidence as to results, year after year turning out plays 
 of comfortable middle-class domestic interest, pleasing 
 the public, and steadily making money. He was not in the 
 front rank of European literature, he did not challenge 
 the supremacy of master hands, but he was a conscien- 
 tious craftsman working at his art as if it was an ordi- 
 nary trade, and doing extremely well at it. If anyone, 
 wishing to be unkind, said that he was merely pot-boiling, 
 they could not wound him ; because to boil the pot for his 
 wife and children had been his prime aim, and his great- 
 est pride lay in the thought of how fine and large a pot 
 it was and how well and regularly kept on the boil. 
 
 Nevertheless, he liked his work for the work's sake. 
 He had grown to love the theatre itself. It was not only 
 the delight in seeing the dry bones of a play come to life, 
 watching the development of the illusion he he ' planned, 
 but the very atmosphere of the stage became pheasant to 
 him. The people of the stage amused him and were dear 
 to him, now that he understood them. They were like 
 children, often very naughty children, and yet good at 
 heart; ruled by the heart always as children are, refusing 
 to listen to reason indeed, not knowing what reason is 
 but giving instant response to an appeal to their better 
 feelings; exploding sometimes on the impulse of a mo- 
 ment into extravagant action that reversed everything 
 that they had been promising, vowing, or threatening for 
 months previously. They all liked Bryan, trusted him. 
 When they quarrelled at rehearsals they at once fetched 
 him out of the obscure corner where as author of the 
 play it was his duty to sit and keep his mouth shut, and 
 asked him to say which was right and which was wrong. 
 Of course, he was not so foolish as to say anything of 
 the sort ; but he soothed them, and distracted their atten- 
 tion, and asked irrelevant questions until they all made
 
 78 GLAMOUR 
 
 it up again and sent him back to his corner. He enjoyed 
 the late luncheons with them at restaurants after rehears- 
 als; he was fond of his two theatrical clubs; he loved 
 the jovial chattering supper-parties that gathered a whole 
 company together in celebration of the hundredth night 
 of a successful run. He even liked that wonderful stage 
 light, Mr. Richard Vandaleur. Dick had never borne 
 rancour for the dirty way in which he had treated Bryan, 
 and he boisterously gloried in his dear old friend's tri- 
 umphant success. There was no real harm in Dick; he 
 was merely preposterous. He patted Bryan whenever 
 near enough at the club, and once publicly embraced him 
 in the street. "Dear old boy, never forget that I was 
 the first to see all there was in you. You owe me one 
 for that. Eh ? Ha-ha ! Some day you must do me some- 
 thing really big. Fantastic character, eh ? Fresh ground. 
 Break fresh ground. Force, emotion, something that 
 rings true, instead of the tripe I'm doing now." 
 
 So the pleasant years passed, and envious people could 
 forgive Bryan his prosperity because in the midst of suc- 
 cess he remained so modest and unassuming that it must 
 be natural and not just an affected pose. He never wrote 
 to the newspapers, never made a speech, never came be- 
 fore the curtain to bow his acknowledgments to an audi- 
 ence. But, although invisible on first nights of his own 
 plays, he regularly attended other people's first nights, 
 and you could not see Mr. and Mrs. Vaile taking their 
 seats in the stalls on one of these exciting occasions with- 
 out understanding how popular they both were. Nearly 
 all the first-nighters seemed to know them and to be glad 
 that they had come. And they themselves seemed so glad 
 to be there. One met them also at private views of pic- 
 tures, at the houses of artists on Show Sunday, at places 
 of amusement like Hurlingham and Ranelagh; but they
 
 GLAMOUR 79 
 
 were never met with in the great world not even at the 
 monstrous evening parties of political leaders, assemblies 
 so astoundingly big that it seems impossible anybody can 
 have been left out. For many reasons Bryan fought shy 
 of the nobs. He had the feeling nowadays that people 
 in high places are like auctioneers in the rostrum; one 
 is afraid to nod to them for fear they should take it as 
 a bid. And he did not like the idea of being trotted out 
 as a celebrity; above all, being trotted out without his 
 wife. So he parried a few friendly advances from po- 
 tentates that he had known in the past, and made no new 
 fashionable acquaintances that he could politely avoid. 
 Occasionally, of course, one of those noble ladies who 
 make it a point of honour to know men of letters beat 
 down all his defences, insisted on knowing Mr. Vaile, 
 and had herself brought to see him at his charming house 
 in the Regent's Park. "Yes, here I am," said the most 
 illustrious of these ladies, archly and yet truculently. "As 
 the mountain would not come to Mahomed, Mahomed 
 has come to the mountain." Mr. and Mrs. Vaile received 
 this and other Mahomeds with a good grace, but the 
 mountain did not pay any return visits. 
 
 Certainly he had no fear that Mabel would not cut a 
 good figure or show to disadvantage with birds of the 
 finest feathers, at Lady Paramont's or anywhere else; 
 it was only that he did not want to go there. She looked 
 magnificent when dressed in highest state and wearing 
 the jewels that he had bought for her; but it became a 
 joke between them that because of their mode of life the 
 opportunities for this display had narrowed down to the 
 one annually afforded by the Royal Academy Soiree. 
 The Academy Soiree was a yearly treat at which Mrs. 
 Vaile wore her diamonds and pearls and her grand frock ; 
 and from the age of five each of their three children well
 
 80 GLAMOUR 
 
 understood the family joke, keeping awake or being 
 awakened for a dazzling glimpse of Mummy in her best 
 clothes. 
 
 They both loved the soiree, doing it with vigour, meet- 
 ing there many friends that they valued, not missing one 
 type of eccentric character, queer costume, or strange de- 
 portment in all the seething crowd. They came early and 
 stayed late; for the fun of the thing they even had re- 
 freshments there, plunging gaily into the dangerous tus- 
 sle on the stone stairs and letting themselves be pushed 
 and pummelled all the way down into the cellars, where 
 the last ice had long since melted and the last cup of tea 
 been spilt by a waiter over somebody's shoulders or back. 
 
 The soiree was Mabel's night out. In the big room she 
 moved surrounded by a band of friends ; and Bryan fol- 
 lowed in her train, admiring the effect of the diamonds 
 on her pretty hair, her splendour, and her graciousness 
 in spite of the grand appearance. He was pleased to ob- 
 serve that others were admiring her. That super-snob, 
 Mr. Ambrose Lake, the critic, was hanging on to her, 
 wanting people to see him going about the room with a 
 comely, well-dressed woman, although she hadn't a han- 
 dle to her name. 
 
 "Come along, Bryan," she said gaily. "Mr. Lake says 
 we must look at the picture of the Duchess of Middles- 
 borough." 
 
 The crowd was thick in front of the full-length por- 
 trait of the famous duchess who had once been a Miss 
 Diana Kenion. Bryan glanced at the tall, slim figure, 
 the beautiful face, and the dark hair. "I want you to 
 notice the treatment of that gauze," said Mr. Lake, half 
 closing his eyes and holding up a fat hand affectedly. 
 "The flesh tone shown through it. Very good indeed." 
 
 All about him people were gazing and whispering, and
 
 GLAMOUR 81 
 
 one could guess well enough the sort of thing they whis- 
 pered. Bryan had heard it often, and it did not interest 
 him. She was so prominent, so beautiful, so continually 
 in the public eye, that all the world had been talking of 
 her for years. Alas, she was a duchess that could not 
 perhaps have flourished in the reign of Victoria. It was 
 said that she provided the money for a recent opera sea- 
 son, and her nanrc was connected with that of a famous 
 tenor. But her name had been connected with so many 
 names with every name, one might almost say, except 
 the Duke's. 
 
 "Pardon me," Mr. Lake was murmuring, "if I now 
 abandon you. That is Lord Bedminster over there, beck- 
 oning to me. If you can wait a minute, I will introduce 
 him to you." 
 
 They did not wait. The annual treat was nearly over ; 
 and soon they went home to the Regent's Park for sup- 
 per, and to put the jewels safely away for another year. 
 
 It really was a charming house, as everybody said. 
 Old-fashioned of aspect, with white walls, pillared por- 
 tico, green verandahs, it was large and roomy inside; 
 and it had a splendid big garden, with two tennis-courts 
 at the bottom where much strenuous tennis was played 
 on summer evenings and all day long on Sundays. It 
 was a hospitable house. Mabel's innumerable relatives 
 came to stay there in relays, and they were all of them 
 nice and jolly and no nuisance to Bryan. Mabel was the 
 head of her immense family now, and she was looked 
 up to as its chieftain instead of being treated as a hanger- 
 on. And young people, the sons and daughters of friends, 
 had the run of the house, coming in and out of the house 
 as if it belonged to them, making Mrs. Vaile a deputy 
 aunt and considering Mr. Vaile as an uncle by courtesy. 
 The mistress of the house was careful that they did not
 
 82 GLAMOUR 
 
 disturb him, and the company of these honest lads and 
 jolly, innocent girls was very pleasant to him. He was 
 kind to them and would do anything to help them, and 
 they all adored his wife. The girls, when engaged to be 
 married, always came to tell her, sometimes before they 
 told anyone else; and when she wished them joy they 
 used to say, "If only we can be like you and Uncle Bryan. 
 That's all I ask." 
 
 It was a beautifully managed house; for Mabel Vaile, 
 although so long homeless, possessed an innate genius 
 for home. The children were well-behaved ; the servants 
 were contented; directly one came in at its front door 
 one felt comfortable, happy, at peace. But each time that 
 Bryan came in at the door, and heard that the house did 
 not contain her, he realised more completely that she her- 
 self was the source of all its pleasure and comfort. Some- 
 times when he had hurried home, expecting to find her, 
 thinking that they would get a stroll together before din- 
 ner, it fell upon him with more than the coldness of 
 disappointment that she had gone out and that he must 
 miss this solace. The pretty rooms seemed blankly dull ; 
 the fine pieces of antique furniture that they had pur- 
 chased with such pride were heavy and sombre ; his own 
 room was no longer a delightful retreat, but an uninter- 
 esting, commonplace workshop; the garden, with all the 
 laburnums and lilacs in full flower, was dismal and dust- 
 coloured ; everything was different. The house was noth- 
 ing without her in it, and he understood better than ever 
 how utterly lost he would be if deprived of his dear com- 
 rade and friend. 
 
 She was at once his support in all passing difficulty 
 and his reward for every honest effort. There was no 
 joy to which she did not add brightness. There was no 
 hour of depression so gloomy that she could not lighten
 
 GLAMOUR 83 
 
 it for him. He had occasional fits of depression, and 
 they always sprang from the same cause. All things were 
 going so well with him, except one thing and that was 
 his golf. It seemed to him sometimes that his golf had 
 gone to rack and ruin. 
 
 When he returned from a disastrous day at Woking, 
 before he went into the room where the children's voices 
 sounded gaily, he paused in the hall, schooling his face, 
 trying to look cheerful, saying to himself, "I will not 
 let Mabel and the kids see that I am annoyed." But when 
 the little innocents sprang up to greet him and invited 
 him to join in a romping game, he simply could not make 
 merry with them. 
 
 "No," said Mabel, with ready tact, "your daddy has 
 had a long day and he is very tired." Her watchful eyes 
 read the sad truth in a moment ; and she sent the children 
 up to the school-room. "Yes, run off, Enid. Here's your 
 battledore, Nancy. Go along, Jack. Daddy and I want to 
 have a quiet talk." 
 
 When the children were gone she busied herself about 
 the room, not speaking, not even looking at Bryan as he 
 sat and brooded heavily. At last she said quite carelessly, 
 as though it were a matter of no consequence, "I am 
 afraid you didn't do yourself justice to-day, Bryan." 
 
 "No. If I did justice to myself as a golf-player, I 
 should hang myself. That's all I deserve." 
 
 Mabel laughed, as if well amused. "But you know 
 what I meant. You let that Mr. Herapath beat you?" 
 
 "Yes, a child of two could do that. But it wasn't be- 
 ing beaten that annoyed me." 
 
 "No, I am quite sure of that. No one could be a better 
 loser than you are." 
 
 "I ought to be able to lose well," said Bryan, with 
 sudden intensity of bitterness. "I get plenty of practise
 
 84 GLAMOUR 
 
 at it, don't I ? No, what upset me was that I behaved as 
 if it was the first time in my life that I'd ever had a 
 wooden club in my hands." 
 
 "But how extraordinary! I wonder what was wrong. 
 You know J, H. Taylor himself said you had a simply 
 perfect swing." 
 
 "Oh, I dare say I swing all right when there doesn't 
 happen to be a ball there that requires hitting." 
 
 "Probably the merest trifle was putting you off your 
 game." 
 
 "Yes, a trifle called either incompetence or imbecility 
 call it which you like" ; and he stared at a lozenge of 
 the parquetry as though keeping his eye on the ball and 
 never meaning to raise his head again. 
 
 "You know, if I were you, Bryan, I wouldn't sit down 
 under my wrongs" ; and she strongly advised him to go 
 for Mr. Herapath in a return match and wipe the floor 
 with him. "I'm sure you'll do it next time." 
 
 "I don't want to see a golf-course for six months. No, 
 I shall give golf a long holiday, and get on with my work. 
 Thank heaven, golf isn't the only thing in the world." 
 
 There was the same expression in Mrs. Vaile's kind 
 face as when she looked at one of her sick children 
 comprehension, sympathy, love mingled in it. She ceased 
 pretending to rearrange a bowl of flowers, and spoke 
 briskly and firmly. 
 
 "Bryan, you can't possibly leave off with such a nasty 
 taste in your mouth. You must play to-morrow." 
 
 "Out of the question." 
 
 "Yes, I'll come with you. We'll go down to Sunning- 
 dale to-morrow morning, and you shall play me nine 
 holes before luncheon, just to recover your form; and 
 then you can get a match afterwards." 
 
 "But my work?"
 
 GLAMOUR 85 
 
 "It will be better for your work. You'll do more work 
 this way. You'll start again like a giant refreshed." 
 
 "Do you really think so?" 
 
 "I am sure of it." 
 
 It was what he wanted to do, and he consented to do 
 it. Next day all went merry as merry could be; in the 
 morning, against her, he drove^one of the longest balls of 
 his life; in the afternoon he beat his man to smithereens. 
 Mabel had returned by train, leaving the car at Sunning- 
 dale to bring him home, and it brought him home smiling 
 and happy ; and he had such a romp with the children as 
 never was. 
 
 Women generally, it would seem, derive much happi- 
 ness from their faculty of living in the moment. They 
 possess this faculty in a much higher degree than men. 
 They do not think that they might be elsewhere, differ- 
 ently employed, in other company, half their time as men 
 do. Even in moments of pleasure men are always in- 
 cline ' to look forward or backwards. That phrase, 
 "He \/ happy I was then, if I had only known it," is used 
 ten times by men for once by women. A woman knows 
 when she is happy, and if at such times she speaks of 
 the future, it is nearly always in recognition of the pres- 
 ent fact "Let us do this again some time. Bring me 
 back here one day. We shall never have a greater treat 
 than this." 
 
 Mabel had this power of present enjoyment in very 
 full measure, and by reason of it she broke her husband 
 of old bad habits of wandering attention and inappro- 
 priate reverie. She made him do his day-dreaming in 
 unoccupied hours, and not when he ought to be the eager 
 recipient of fresh and varied incoming impressions. Be- 
 cause of her lively interest in the external panorama of 
 life, he sympathetically refrained from retiring into him-
 
 86 GLAMOUR 
 
 self while there were things outside him well worth 
 looking at. He had always known how to work; but 
 she taught him how to take a holiday she taught him, 
 too, that holidays do not necessarily belong to a fixed 
 holiday season, and that half an hour is sometimes long 
 enough to give one the true holiday feeling of rest and 
 relaxation. And in doing all this she rendered him 
 calmer, stronger mentally than he could have ever been, 
 but for her. 
 
 He knew that it was so. But he loved her not only 
 for benefits received, because she was the bland medicine 
 that did him good whether he took it in large or tiny 
 doses, but because he could not help loving her. She was 
 the one desired companion. In the early days of their 
 band-box flat, when a walk with her about the streets at 
 dusk was such a treat; when they used to take omnibus 
 rides on summer evenings; when they bustled through 
 the lamp-lit shops on winter afternoons, buying things 
 for home, things for the children, things to be hiddc till 
 Christmas Day; when they were so much youngei and 
 poorer, he might almost have dreaded increasing pros- 
 perity lest it should rob him of simple joys by a compli- 
 cation of machinery intended to manufacture pleasure. 
 But now after nearly ten years it was all just the same 
 really. In essentials nothing had changed. As if uncon- 
 sciously trying to prove it, they gave themselves an om- 
 nibus ride now and then. The chauffeur ought to have 
 an afternoon off, or Mabel's aunt wanted the car any- 
 how, they did not want it ; they walked down to the main 
 road, got on the top of a bus, and went anywhere that 
 the bus wished to go to Liverpool Street Station, to 
 Kennington, to Ealing Common. It was no matter. They 
 were side by side, looking down at the world as though 
 they had bought it and given it away again, chattering,.
 
 GLAMOUR 87 
 
 laughing, being happy. Other couples, much younger 
 couples, perhaps sat near them doing just what they did, 
 being happy as they were for the same reason because 
 they were fond of each other, because they had got away 
 together, and because they knew that the omnibus seat 
 was only licensed for two and nobody could squeeze in 
 between them. 
 
 This is what marriage ought to be ; this is all its mys- 
 tery companionship. There is nothing on earth that 
 has any real value when compared with the value of com- 
 panionship, and its highest and fullest manifestation is 
 reached in a happy marriage. No companion can be to a 
 man what his wife is the other, better self to whom 
 there is nothing that you cannot speak of; for whom you 
 must keep all your life clean and good, so that there shall 
 never come into it something that you cannot speak of. 
 
 Not unnaturally, then, the calm joy of home-life re- 
 flected itself in his work, and the sanctity of wedlock 
 that he felt and blessed he was impelled somehow to ex- 
 press. The critics paid him compliments about it. Time 
 after time they said the same sort of thing "Mr. 
 Vaile's simple theme is sane and sweet; One may rely 
 on Mr. Vaile at least for a healthy outlook; The atmos- 
 phere of Mr. Vaile's plays is always wholesome to 
 breathe." He liked it, and did not mind how often they 
 said it. As he tittuped along the Row on a well-bred 
 hack, he thought of such compliments from Mr. Walk- 
 ley, Mr. Archer, Mr. Maxwell, or other eminent critics, 
 as feathers to wear in his cap ; and he was proud to wear 
 them. 
 
 He had two well-bred hacks that stood at livery in 
 Park Lane all handy for the Row, and sometimes he sent 
 them out into the country, and, overtaking them in his 
 car, had a ripping scamper. By these means, together
 
 88 GLAMOUR 
 
 with the fun of lawn-tennis and the agony of golf, he 
 kept fit and retained his figure. 
 
 Thus Bryan considered himself the most fortunate of 
 men. Work that is an amusement done in order to 
 amuse; love of wife, love of children, love of home; 
 little games at tennis, little talks in the club, little rides 
 a cock horse such small things, all of them; but enough. 
 To be happy what more can life give?
 
 VII 
 
 ALL round them in the Regent's Park there was a 
 colony of prosperous artistic folk people who had 
 long since arrived at the terminus of their early ambi- 
 tion, and who were not frightened by thinking of poor 
 Mr. Clarendon Pirkis and his crowd coming after them 
 in the next train; and the Vailes knew all these neigh- 
 bours. Madame Nathalie St. Cloud, the famous con- 
 tralto, had a house near ; and Claude Rivett, the novelist, 
 and Miss Clarence, the actress, had houses at no distance 
 away. Sir Ronald Vince, the Royal Academician, lived 
 next door, with the blank wall and high studio windows 
 of his red-brick mansion abutting on the Vaile's tennis- 
 courts ; and the windows were not so high but that tennis- 
 balls found their way in by them. Moreover, the chil- 
 dren's kites would catch on the window-bars ; while now 
 and then Bryan, practising chip shots and happening to 
 make as clean and sweet a hit with his mashie as he did 
 with his plays, sent a Midget Dimple or a Heavy Why- 
 not bang through the glass. 
 
 The most friendly relations subsisted between the two 
 families, the young Vinces being conspicuous among 
 Bryan's courtesy nephews and nieces; but when such an 
 accident occurred their father always wrote to Bryan in 
 the third person. "Sir Ronald Vince presents his com- 
 pliments to Mr. Vaile and gives notice that next time mis- 
 siles which destroy the comfort and endanger the lives of 
 himself and his models," etc., etc, Bryan used to hurry 
 
 89
 
 90 GLAMOUR 
 
 round and apologise personally for the accident, and 
 promise that it should not occur again. And it did not 
 occur not until next time. 
 
 Sir Ronald was still busily engaged painting classical 
 Italian pieces like old-fashioned drop-scenes, and organ- 
 grinders and tambourine girls were always going to him 
 as models. 
 
 Just across the road there was another painter, an 
 A. R. A., who painted cattle in the snow, and had been 
 doing it for thirty years. Sometimes he left out the cat- 
 tle, but never the snow. He could paint snow in all 
 weathers, knowing it so well that he did not need a single 
 snowflake to remind him; but he had some arrangement 
 with the butcher for keeping bullocks and sheep in his un- 
 used stables, and thus refreshed his memory of "Steers 
 out on Ben Nevis" or "The flock camming haim to Kittle 
 Brig." The young Vailes were assiduous visitors to the 
 artist's stables until little Nancy almost broke her heart 
 by discovering that when Moo-Moo left Mr. McCal- 
 lum's hospitable outbuilding it was for the slaughter- 
 house, and that, for all one could say, she might by now 
 have eaten a nice slice of her favourite up in the nursery 
 at home. 
 
 Bryan, after he had finished writing a scene that had 
 given him great trouble, would dash across the road to 
 read it aloud to this old Scotsman, who put down his 
 palette, lighted his pipe, and listened attentively. He 
 never by any chance went to the theatre, he knew noth- 
 ing whatever about literature, but he was enormously 
 valued by Bryan, first as an outlet for blowing off steam, 
 and secondly for his infallible criticism. Bryan, after 
 excitedly reading the scene, waited with anxiety for Mc- 
 Callum's verdict on it. 
 
 "I'll be verra frank with ye, Vaile. 'Tis not by any
 
 GLAMOUR 91 
 
 manner of means your best stuff. For myself, I don't 
 like it." 
 
 And the public did not like it either. 
 
 Or McCallum said, "Your endeavour has beem to 
 show the emotion of a young woman under the influence 
 of love ? Well, I think ye've succeeded verra well." 
 
 It seemed to Bryan that McCallum was always right. 
 
 Madame St. Cloud, the contralto, put them in touch 
 with other singers, with composers, with pianists, with 
 concert managers. She was one of Enid's godmothers, 
 and she gave her godchild a golden cup and platter that 
 would have been worthy of a princess. Generous, large- 
 hearted, expansive, she would give anything awaj in 
 sunny moments, and when angry she would give herself 
 away, as the saying is. Bryan once nearly forfeited her 
 friendship by reason of her touchiness and his own 
 stupidity. 
 
 Somebody had said that Miss Noakes, the Australian 
 soprano, had made twenty thousand pounds in the year; 
 and Bryan, wishing to be polite, knowing that, whether 
 regrettable or not, that ugly standard of cash received 
 is admitted among musicians as a gauge of artistic merit, 
 blundered out that twenty thousand pounds was nothing 
 to make in a year and he was sure Madame St. Cloud 
 made it in a month. Whereas he ought of course to have 
 said she could make it in a week. 
 
 "Oh! Ha! Zat is droll. Oh, my God, too droll!" 
 She had sprung up from her chair with a strident cry, 
 which she tried to turn into a laugh but could not; and 
 Signor Dannielli, who had come with her, got up too, 
 looking frightened. She was appallingly angry. As she 
 faced Bryan he saw her real complexion, quite red, be- 
 neath the other one. "Yes, Meester Vaile, perhaps once 
 was I so ill-paid as you say but zat vas long ago. I had
 
 92 GLAMOUR 
 
 my beginnings vich I veel not 'ave you to sneer at. Who 
 are you I like to know to say my voice in thirty days 
 shall bring me so little now? Insult and sneer. My 
 God if Dannielli was a man and not a greening monkey, 
 he would slap the upstart that can insult Nathalie before 
 his face. . . . Suis-moi poltroon." 
 
 Dannielli did not slap Bryan, but it was all very pain- 
 ful while it lasted. 
 
 Next day, however, Madame St. Cloud came back, 
 with a bouquet of flowers for Mabel and tearful prayers 
 that Bryan would make it up and be friends again. She 
 had been at fault; it was her tempair. "But I low 
 Brianne," she vowed. "That it was which hurt. Cruel 
 sneering words from those you low hurt you here," and 
 she put her hand to her large bosom. "They cut the 
 heart. Enough. That he will accept this I beg"; and 
 she would have given Brianne the big emerald brooch that 
 she wore at her neck, as a keepsake and mark of esteem. 
 
 Among their writing friends there were several valiant 
 women, breadwinners, supporters of families; and these 
 Bryan held in high respect, paying them great deference 
 and attention whenever they honoured his house with 
 their presence. One of them had been Mrs. Wilding, the 
 novelist, who maintained her feeble husband to the very 
 end. Wilding was worse than useless, because he not 
 only spent her earnings on himself, but squandered them 
 in ridiculous speculations setting himself up as a laun- 
 dry, a servants' agency, what not. Mrs. Wilding poured 
 out novels, and they had an immense circulation, but 
 nothing would suffice. Mabel said she was killing her- 
 self, and had a great contempt for Mr. Wilding, who 
 really adored his wife in his feeble way. He was a thin 
 man, with sloping shoulders, drooping moustache, and
 
 GLAMOUR 93 
 
 watery blue eyes, and you only had to look at him to be 
 absolutely certain that any business he touched would go 
 to pot. He told them of a new scheme, and Mabel and 
 Bryan both said, "Don't touch it." 
 
 "But I must do something for Nita," he bleated. "Nita 
 poor pet does so much. I am not pulling my weight 
 in the boat." 
 
 It was pathetic to observe the chivalrous, tender man- 
 ner with which Mrs. Wilding made the best of him, try- 
 ing to show him in an amiable light, drawing him into 
 the conversation if he seemed neglected. 
 
 "Cecil," she would call him across the table, "Mr. 
 Vaile is telling me about Richard Pryce's delightful new 
 book. We'll get it from the library, and you must read 
 it to me" ; and she smiled at him, and turned to tell her 
 immediate neighbours at the table how when she was 
 tired he often read aloud to her. "He would go on for 
 hours at a stretch if I allowed him. He reads quite beau- 
 tifully. His voice has a soothing quality, but he brings 
 out every point." 
 
 Mr. Wilding blinked and simpered self-consciously, 
 and kissed the tips of his fingers to her. "Nita darling, 
 I can't hear what you're saying, but I know you're talk- 
 ing about me." 
 
 Then, when she fell dangerously ill, he sat at her bed- 
 side and read aloud to her and never even noticed when 
 she died. 
 
 He told them about it, poor wretch, his face all stream- 
 ing with tears. "Darling Nita had been dead quite a 
 long time so the doctor said. I had asked her if I could 
 do anything, and she gave a little sigh, and whispered, 
 'Cecil, I'm so tired.' So I thought I'd better read to her, 
 as I knew my voice soothed her. Vanity Fair it was
 
 94 GLAMOUR 
 
 one of her favourites" ; and he wept and choked. "And 
 I wouldn't spare myself. I read on and on, never guess- 
 ing that I had lost my darling for ever." 
 
 They genuinely mourned for gallant, chivalrous, over- 
 worked Nita Wilding; and they were kind to the wid- 
 ower for her sake. 
 
 That other novelist who lived near them was notori- 
 ously unfaithful to his wife. Claude Rivett wrote fear- 
 fully sentimental novels Winkie-Blinkie-Wee (a child) ; 
 The Flower-bed of my Heart; and so on and he had 
 not therefore any excuse for his escapades. He could 
 not say that he had gone in search of "copy." Indeed, 
 when he returned from an unlicensed excursion he was 
 more sickly sentimental with regard to subject and treat- 
 ment than ever. 
 
 Mrs. Rivett, a well-favoured youngish woman, was 
 very dignified always, not appearing to know anything 
 about it, although one might suspect that she guessed the 
 truth, until she broke down unexpectedly and opened 
 her heart to Mabel. And after confessing her trouble 
 she made a habit of coming for consolation to Mabel. 
 "Oh, Mrs. Vaile," she would cry, "I know he is in love 
 again. He is going to leave me." And he did. 
 
 Later on Rivett surprised Bryan by saying gloomily, 
 "Vaile, my wife, I understand, has blabbed about my 
 temperament. Well, I'd like you to know it's all true 
 it's all so horribly true." And after this he used to come 
 and confess to Bryan. "I am going to leave her again. 
 I know I shall." 
 
 It was impossible to treat them seriously. One day 
 
 they were both having heart-to-heart talks at the Vailes' 
 
 one of them with Mabel, the other with Bryan; and 
 
 they walked home together arm in arm. But one had 
 
 'enough of their domestic troubles, and the Vailes were
 
 GLAMOUR 95 
 
 not sorry when they left the Regent's Park and went to 
 live in the country near Godalming. The whole thing 
 was lapsing from the absurd to the sordid; ill-natured 
 people said, towards the end of their residence in London, 
 that when Mr. Rivett was on the point of running away 
 with anybody Mrs. Rivett invited the lady to come and 
 stay with them for a long visit, and thus kept him at 
 home. 
 
 From Godalming, where the three of them had settled 
 down comfortably, Rivett launched not a novel, but a 
 book about the Higher Life which surpassed anything for 
 its sentimentality. In this work he described how, if 
 you walked about the grass with bare feet, as well as 
 being good for your health, it set you in tune with the 
 whole universe; you and the sunrise became all one; the 
 beautiful thoughts inside you and the beautiful flowers 
 outside you mingled their pure fragrance ; and your soul 
 if you kept on doing it morning after morning be- 
 came like a lofty temple with many windows, or a deep 
 stream swelling towards the sea, or the all-embracing 
 ether through which the eternal stars shine bright. This 
 was the book which the publishers advertised in such a 
 sensational manner as A New Revelation; A Challenge 
 to the Churches; The Triumph of Spirit over Matter 
 "Mr. Rivett tops his own record. Winkie-Blinkie-Wee 
 beaten. Thirty-seven editions called for in six weeks." 
 
 It was known that the Vailes were at home and glad 
 to see their friends on Sundays, and these Sunday gath- 
 erings became a popular institution in the booky, stagey, 
 canvassy woild to which they belonged. 
 
 In English society, before the great upheaval, no doubt 
 a few people used to be hospitable from ulterior motives, 
 but the majority entertained their friends for the pleas- 
 ure of entertaining them that is, for the pleasure they
 
 96 GLAMOUR 
 
 themselves derived from the entertainment. They did 
 not act from any unkind spirit or a desire to make others 
 suffer. If one could have had a party without having 
 guests, they would willingly have let the guests off. And 
 they did not shrink from suffering in their turn; they 
 generally played fair, and wouldn't attempt to escape 
 when the guests claimed their revenge. 
 
 But truly there was nothing of this sort about the 
 Vailes' Sundays. People would not have come again 
 and again if they did not like it; they asked to be asked, 
 and turned up without asking. By tea-time on a warm 
 July Sunday there would be sometimes as many as a hun- 
 dred and fifty or two hundred people in the garden, and 
 the policeman outside the house had more carriages, cars, 
 and cabs than he could comfortably deal with. Stiff ten- 
 nis, with the best players, was in full swing; and rows of 
 guests sat upon benches watching the game, and moving 
 their heads as regularly and rhythmically as if it had been 
 Wimbledon. Ladies and gentlemen not in flannels but 
 dressed in conventional town garments amused them- 
 selves, without tearing their petticoats or bagging the 
 knees of their trousers, by playing mild golf with putters 
 from hole to hole all round the garden. Groups in red- 
 cushioned armchairs sat under the trees at the neatly ar- 
 ranged tea-tables, and there was a standing crowd at the 
 long buffet under the verandah. 
 
 Naturally the theatre was well represented. The great 
 stars often looked in Miss Tarrant, saying she was sixty 
 and looking sixteen; dear Mrs. Sutherland, flashing like 
 a pretty dragon-fly in the sunlight ; Sir Luke, wearing an 
 inconspicuous white hat and a just discernible purple 
 orchid; Sir Bevis, sometimes brave of aspect, but always 
 kind of heart; Sir Launcelot, the princely leader of his 
 profession, the brilliant wit, the staunch true friend, the
 
 G L A M O U R 97 
 
 splendid comrade who too soon now was to vanish from 
 this and all other earthly gardens and one may imagine 
 the delight of Miss Kate Ridgeway, of Mabel's country 
 cousins, of young admiring girls and boys, at seeing them 
 close by, off the stage, smiling, talking, drinking tea. 
 Beyond these big lights there were youthful actors and 
 actresses pretty young ladies these, wonderfully attired, 
 who strolled about in twos or threes giggling bashfully, 
 or fell victims to elderly anecdote-telling gentlemen at 
 the buffet, or, seeking a moment's solitude, furtively pow- 
 dered their nice little noses somewhere behind the haw- 
 thorn and the rhododendrons. The illustrious Miss 
 Clarence was very often there, and the days she came 
 it often chanced that Mr. Kelly Gifford dropped in also. 
 
 Miss Clarence always said that Bryan's plays had made 
 her, while Bryan said she had made his plays; and they 
 had known each other so long and their friendship was 
 of such a cordial character that they used all their four 
 hands to shake hands with and greet one another. Indeed, 
 now that Miss Clarence was not quite as young as she 
 used to be, Bryan kissed her as well as doing the double 
 shake-hands. Mabel did not mind j- and, what was per- 
 haps more important, Mr. Kelly Gifford did not mind 
 either. 
 
 Among the writers, the well-known journalists were 
 much more like men of the world than the imaginative 
 workers. They dressed better, with well-ironed top-hats 
 and braided edges to their morning coats, and were com- 
 pelled to take themselves a little more seriously because 
 of the always increasing power of the press and the num- 
 ber of European statesmen that they had to keep in touch 
 with. Some of them even wore frock-coats, knowing 
 that they might be in Parliament at any minute now. 
 When the two greatest journalistic chieftains came, only
 
 98 GLAMOUR 
 
 a very few ordinary visitors recognised them; but the 
 editors of the Thunderer and the Avenger as those or- 
 gans had been nicknamed were even at this period al- 
 most too big to speak of openly. Like the inhabitants of 
 Japan or Thibet with regard to their Mikado and Grand 
 Lama, one knew one was ruled by them, although one 
 might not know them by sight. 
 
 Music, even without Madame St. Cloud, had its regu- 
 lar and occasional representatives. "Mr. Odo Mainz, the 
 composer, with his wife and clever, charming daughters, 
 came frequently, but never as frequently as his hosts 
 would have liked to see him there, and he introduced to 
 them all the talented continental song-birds and musicians 
 who were visiting London. 
 
 And over and above all these more or less well-known 
 guests each Sunday party had its background of the un- 
 known, the innumerable people who had been brought 
 to the Vailes because somebody didn't know what else 
 to do with them. McCallum, A.R.A., brought his old 
 spinster sister; Lady Vince brought droves of relatives; 
 Sir Ronald Vince brought the artists who had begun the 
 day by going to spend it with him; the courtesy nieces 
 brought the young men who showed signs of 'wishing to 
 be their fiances; the young actors and actresses brought 
 their mammas not the actress's mother of comic litera- 
 ture, but the real unmistakable article up in town for a 
 fortnight from Burnley or Truro. The bringers knew 
 that it was a kind house and that the brought would be 
 made welcome. Indeed, the hosts freely honoured such 
 drafts on their hospitality. Bryan was assiduous in his 
 attention to wonderful old ladies in lilac bonnets and 
 black silk gowns, and walked up and down the lawn with 
 tall Miss McCallum on his arm fanning herself with an 
 ivory fan.
 
 GLAMOUR 99 
 
 His step-mother had been once or twice to the Sunday 
 parties, but she came no more. Last time there was a 
 little rain and Mrs. Vaile, taking shelter, after unparal- 
 leled efforts had rallied three strangers to consent to play 
 bridge with her. With difficulty Mabel found a card- 
 table, and Mrs. Vaile made her victims sit down at it, sat 
 down herself, and drummed the green cloth with her 
 eager fingers. "But are there no cards, may I ask?" 
 Servants, sent rushing up and down to search in every 
 room in the house, brought cards at last from the nurs- 
 ery, of all places. Mrs. Vaile counted the pack, found 
 it incorrect, and threw the cards face upwards on the use- 
 less green cloth. They were the forty-eight of the Happy 
 Family, not the fifty-two of bridge : "I'll trouble you 
 for Master Bun the baker's son," and so forth. Mrs. 
 Vaile left the party without waiting for the rain to cease. 
 
 Between tea-time and half-past seven the party thinned 
 out; by eight o'clock all were gone, except those who 
 were staying to dinner if it could be called dinner. It 
 was a more than informal, a free and easy, almost a pic- 
 nic meal. One never knew how many would be at it. 
 Sometimes thirty or thirty-five people were seated in the 
 big dining-room; and the buffet having given place to 
 small tables, an overflow of young folk were accommo- 
 dated outside under the verandah. But Bryan always 
 managed to collect some young people round him at his 
 end of the dining-room, and Mabel carried the heavy- 
 weights on her ample shoulders at the other end. Bryan's 
 end was the noisy end, but in fact the chorus of talk was 
 so loud from all quarters that Miss Ridgeway's shrillness 
 could make no effect in it. 
 
 Really a surprising dinner-party, and yet so much en- 
 joyed by all the diners; something that showed Mabel 
 Vaile at her best and strongest as a severely-tried house-
 
 100 GLAMOUR 
 
 keeper for, often as one dreaded that there would not 
 be enough food, there always was. "Man does not live 
 by bread alone," said big Mr. Westerton gaily. "Pass 
 me the bread." And there was no bread to pass to him. 
 For a few moments it seemed as if the staff of life it- 
 self had given out; then more baskets of rolls revealed 
 themselves on the lower shelf of a dumb waiter. Even 
 the soup did not go round, until two further tureens of 
 it were discovered cooling in the verandah. But the sal- 
 mon always went round round and round again ; so that 
 hungry and robust tennis-players could be observed hav- 
 ing another turn at the fish after finishing their goose- 
 berry-tart and cream or pineapple jelly. And the chick- 
 ens never failed. Mabel knew that if you only give Eng- 
 lish men and women sufficient Surrey fowl and York ham 
 they will never complain, and she laid in stock accord- 
 ingly. She could always send her uneaten chickens to 
 the hospital on Monday morning. For the servants it 
 was simply a battle: they put down a barrage of light 
 wines, and held their own as best they could; even 
 stretcher-bearers were combatants; all formation of 
 units was gone, plates were used as so many fighting 
 plates without regard to services, and there was great 
 confusion on the lines of communication. 
 
 McCallum, A.R.A., often dined on salmon, neglecting 
 everything else, but regretting that it had come from the 
 fishmonger's and not been pulled by himself out of a 
 little pool that he kenned of in the stream that rins by 
 Kittle Brig. It could not be as good; and he supported 
 his opinion by adages, such as, "A bo't sawmon is not a 
 catch't sawmon," or, "To taste your fish ye'll aye ha' to 
 hook your fish." And Mabel laughed as if she had never 
 heard it before, and said, "All the same, Mr. McCallum, 
 do have some more."
 
 GLAMOUR 101 
 
 The talk of the elders often ran on literature and art; 
 the talk of the youngers was often sheer nonsense. "Does 
 the successful revival of Sardou's play mean that there 
 is to be a recrudescence of artificial drama?" "Where 
 was Moses when the light went out ?" Mr. Greville, the 
 journalist, perhaps was telling the people near him anec- 
 dotes about two famous but very different authors, de- 
 scribing how Sir Watson Holmes drove his publishers 
 mad just when they were expecting copy for his great 
 new serial by laying all regular work aside in order to 
 write pamphlets about somebody who was serving sen- 
 tence of imprisonment for a crime he had never com- 
 mitted. Mr. Greville contrasted this inconsiderate con- 
 duct with Alfred Dugdale's habit of bursting into 
 revolutionary fury just before the publication of each 
 new novel, denouncing the Government, talking of the 
 wild mob's myriad feet as likely to kick out everybody, 
 and reminding Cabinet Ministers that, although the light- 
 ing arrangements of London have been modernised, there 
 are still enough lamp-posts left for impromptu gallows. 
 Mr. Dugdale's publishers were enraptured by his annual 
 fury, which synchronised so happily with their prelimi- 
 nary announcements of his forthcoming novel. 
 
 At the same time Mr. Willie Eldon perhaps was de- 
 lighting his neighbours with an imitation of a music-hall 
 artist, Mr. Mainz was quoting poetry, Mr. Brown ask- 
 ing conundrums, Mr. Gifford reciting his quarrel with the 
 County Council. And amid all the chatter and the laugh- 
 ter Miss Clarence, the actress, sitting next to Mr. Mark 
 Thyme, the literary critic, was solemnly recounting to 
 him early struggles and poverty that never existed ; and 
 Mr. Thyme, who knew that, however curious her past 
 was, it had never contained any such things, was telling 
 her to make a book about them.
 
 102 GLAMOUR 
 
 "Oh, no," said Miss Clarence. "They are just nothing. 
 Nobody would be interested." 
 
 "There I don't agree," said Mr. Thyme. "It is the 
 simple pathos, the sincerity, that would appeal to all, 
 high and low." 
 
 "Hallo," cried Bryan, overhearing. "Wasn't that a 
 platitude ?" 
 
 "Sounded like it," said somebody else. 
 
 "Oh, Uncle Bryan, do let's play platitudes one round 
 of platitudes." 
 
 They-f indulged in those absurd conversational games, 
 which were, of course, the death of real conversation; 
 and this was a game taught to them by Miss Mary Mar- 
 joribanks, that delightful writer and most delightful of 
 women. She had invented the game after suffering 
 greatly from bores who visited her and tried to talk clev- 
 erly because they knew she was clever. You had to say 
 the tritest thing with the most sententious air, giving to 
 each stereotyped thought the framework of words suit- 
 able to an entirely original reflection. She herself ex- 
 celled at the game, but she was not there to-night to lead 
 them. 
 
 "All right. Here goes. . . . To my mind, there is 
 something very innocent and beautiful about youth." 
 
 "Yes, but age has its compensations." 
 
 "Are not those roses sweet to look at?" 
 
 "Oh, I say, that won't do. That's too thin. Jry 
 again." 
 
 "Well, I may be eccentric, but I confess I love the sight 
 of roses as well as their perfume." 
 
 "Yes, that's all right. Your turn, Greville." 
 
 And so it went on until it reached the turn of Miss 
 Clarence, who had somehow missed the point of it all 
 and said quietly but firmly, "No, please excuse me. I
 
 GLAMOUR 103 
 
 may be old-fashioned, but I don't like making fun of 
 serious things." 
 
 "Oh, she has won !" cried a young lady. 
 
 "Yes, but she didn't mean it," said another. "It's 
 cheating to say it, not knowing you have said it." 
 
 "But why platitudes?" said Mr. Westerton, the essay- 
 ist, in his jovial, booming voice. "Why not coruscations? 
 Let us coruscate. Let us all be Bernard Shaw. One round 
 of Bernard Shaws." 
 
 And he had the audacity to start a new game, attempt- 
 ing to simulate the gambolling grace with which this 
 philosopher draws attention away from the profundity 
 of his thought and the remorseless power of his logic. 
 
 "Go on. You begin, Westerton." 
 
 "Very well. All men hate their native country, and a 
 patriot is one who is ashamed to say so." 
 
 "Hold hard. That won't do. That is Bernard Shaw, 
 isn't it?" 
 
 "Not that I'm aware of," said Mr. Westerton, beam- 
 ing. 
 
 "Oh, he must have said it. Anyhow, it's too like him." 
 
 "All right, then. I'll start again. The Ten Command- 
 ments were made to be broken, and the great thing is to 
 break them without making a noise or hurting your fin- 
 gers." 
 
 But the new game did not catch on. Perhaps it was too 
 difficult or too easy. It never went further than Mr. 
 Westerton, and for a little while one heard hirn still play- 
 ing it all by himself. "Virtue is its own reward, and the 
 prize is not large ; nor are there many competitors. The 
 difference between black and white is one of colour only. 
 The best place to carry coals to has always been New- 
 castle." And so on. 
 
 At Bryan's end of the table mere silliness had set in.
 
 104 GLAMOUR 
 
 People were talking of a walk, or a bathe in the river, 
 taken by Adam and Eve and Pinch-me. A clever young 
 barrister showed his skill by some subtle cross-examina- 
 tions, laying the embargo on you that in your replies you 
 should not say Yes, No, nor Nay ; Black, White, or Grey ; 
 Mr. or Mrs. Mr. Eldon did a sleight-of-hand trick. 
 This end of the table was twice called to order for noise 
 and frivolity. But the contagion spread; the nonsensical 
 repetitions passed from one to the other, and before din- 
 ner was over even the venerable Sir Ronald Vince was 
 himself engaged in trying to repeat without slip such 
 farragos as, "She stood outside Sithers's fish sauce shop, 
 welcoming him in." 
 
 It was very silly, and perhaps it seems almost sillier 
 when one looks back on it, but, for all that, it was thor- 
 oughly amusing at the time. 
 
 After dinner some of the men strolled in the garden, 
 making red moving spots of light with their cigars in the 
 darkness under the trees, talking now seriously of things 
 that interested them books, plays, pictures, arrange- 
 ments of harmonious sounds. If there was a moon some 
 of the ladies were tempted out again also; and in the 
 moonlight the garden was beautiful, seeming to be as 
 large as a park, with deep, thick groves, and the mansion 
 of Sir Ronald Vince rose high and splendid as a Gothic, 
 cathedral. Then people wished that one could really paint 
 moonlight, or put it into printed words, or show anything 
 like it on the stage, or translate it into orchestra parts. 
 
 And then perhaps from the open windows of the draw- 
 ing-rooms came shouts, yells of mirth. It was Mr. Eldon 
 pretending to be a Scotch minister of the little free kirk 
 and delivering a sermon over the back of an armchair, 
 and quiet old McCallum, A.R.A., and his spinster sister 
 had gone into hysterics because it was so like sermons
 
 GLAMOUR 105 
 
 they had heard when they were children at Craigellachie 
 "Yes, to the verra life." 
 
 Or, even better still, there would come rolling through 
 the open windows a burst of splendid melody; and all 
 hurried back to the house. It was Madame St. Cloud 
 singing. Mr. Mainz was at the piano, wagging his head 
 in ecstasy as he played her accompaniments ; and Madame 
 stood by the tail of the instrument, facing her audience^ 
 facing the moonlit windows, challenging the nightingales,, 
 if there were any, to come and listen. It was Nathalie 
 St. Cloud, with her head up, throwing the big banknotes 
 of her glorious voice out of the windows, up to the sky, 
 through and through you singing as she never did in 
 Mayfair or at Buckingham Palace singing for low. 
 And she sang song after song, anything you asked for, 
 because she lowed Brianne, lowed Mabelle, lowed all 
 the world to-night. 
 
 You could not listen and not thrill to the song. She 
 made Bryan feel that he would write a great play one 
 day, even yet; she made his wife thank God for giving 
 him to her, and the children, and this happy home. Old 
 McCallum saw the sunlight on the snow-crested hills, 
 and his sister heard the parting words of the bonny, 
 bonny lad she would have married if only he had asked 
 her. Young Vince, who couldn't be an artist, made up- 
 his mind that he wouldn't be a clerk in an office, but go 
 into the army instead. The boys wanted to fly, the girls 
 felt that they had wings already. The chauffeurs, foot- 
 men, or grooms of the waiting carriages crept nearer 
 across the gravel, and forgot that it was late, forgot that 
 they wanted a drink, forgot that they were domestic 
 servants. Nobody, not anybody, who could hear her was 
 not stirred and stimulated and for a little while changed. 
 
 But all things must come to an end. At last the guests
 
 106 GLAMOUR 
 
 had departed except the three or four men of the sort 
 that never go, that don't require sleep, that cannot weary 
 of talking. These would sit with Bryan in his room till 
 the night was nearly over. One o'clock, two o'clock, three 
 o'clock and they were still at it. They had talked them- 
 selves back to the beginning of things, and down to the 
 simple bed-rock of literary chatter. "After all, which 
 really is most important: the thing you have to say or 
 the way in which you say it?" "If you were being sent 
 to prison for life, and might only take one book with 
 you, which book would you take?" It was broad day 
 when Bryan went upstairs to bed; another Sunday had 
 gone and the pleasant working week had begun. 
 
 Such were his friends; a world of their own, scrib- 
 bling, daubing, strumming, squalling, strutting, as the 
 case might be, but alike in their indifference to all other 
 worlds and in their satisfaction with this one.
 
 VIII 
 
 PERHAPS, unconsciously to himself, his whole mode 
 of thought had been narrowed by the exigencies of 
 the area in which he worked or exhibited the result of his 
 thought. If all the world had not become a stage, that 
 vast portion of the world that cannot be shown on a 
 stage tended to lose its value and substantiality for him. 
 He looked at the universe with the playwright's eye; he 
 thought of human drama as it develops itself within four,, 
 or rather three, walls, and does not ask for too many 
 changes of scene; he suspected the devastating force of 
 any passion that is perambulatory in its manifestations, 
 knowing that for his special purpose it was useless and 
 without importance. 
 
 The great events must be performed "off," and violent 
 action should only be seen in a glimpse through an open 
 window, or be heard in sounds that reach you through 
 an open door. Then for a little while one talked in short 
 sentences : 
 
 "See. That carriage and pair is running away." 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 "Yes, there has been an accident." 
 
 Footsteps and voices on the staircase. 
 
 A voice: "No, don't take the body into the drawing- 
 room." 
 
 Another voice: "Take the body into the spare bed- 
 room." 
 
 Lady Alice (tensely, and very distinctly): "Mother 
 said we were expecting a visitor." 
 
 107
 
 108 GLAMOUR 
 
 But, after that, it was the mental effects one dealt 
 with, not the brutal cause itself. A man of action thus 
 necessarily became less real, less truly alive than a man 
 of thought. He would require a cinematograph theatre 
 to display himself. For the playwright, a general is a 
 person in uniform who appears just before the curtain 
 falls to give somebody the Victoria Cross; a politician, a 
 statesman, or an ambassador is no good except for a 
 touch of eccentric character; an opulent stockbroker is 
 the .strong, silent man of a four-act drama who marries 
 a peer's daughter, and, after accepting in silence number- 
 less snubs and rebuffs from her, finds a voice, and a most 
 stentorian voice, at the end of the third act, to tell her 
 exactly what he thinks of her. 
 
 Till now Bryan had not been troubled by any thoughts 
 or self-questionings as to the unreality of literary work. 
 But now, early in the year 1914 with the culmination 
 of his writing life he began to have doubts as to the 
 worth of it all. It seemed to him too like a dream within 
 a dream. His new play, Penelope's Dilemma, had 
 achieved such a success as he had never had. When 
 doing it, he had felt stale and written out; but it was 
 received by the public as nothing of his had yet been re- 
 ceived. It seemed to set them on fire with enthusiasm. His 
 critics paid him the same kind of compliments, but on an 
 incredibly larger scale. "Mr. Vaile has always been the 
 apostle of pure and simple thought; now he has become 
 an asset in our national life, and added to the wealth of 
 our national treasury of great works. England may be 
 proud of him. . . . This picture of home is like a breath 
 of fresh air; thousands of British homes will be the bet- 
 ter for it." 
 
 Yet the fresh air did not reach him himself or blow 
 away his staleness. The compliments in the press, the
 
 GLAMOUR 109 
 
 letters from strangers, the box-office returns, the con- 
 tracts for America, did not stimulate him as they should 
 have done. He could not get on with his autumn play, 
 and those thoughts about reality or unreality were always 
 returning to him especially after his talks with Alton 
 Grey. 
 
 Alton Grey was of a type different from that of Bry- 
 an's other friends. He was one of those splendidly 
 healthy and noble-minded men that you are forced to 
 class as cranks because of the wild, or at least unsound, 
 ideas that take complete possession of them. It was per- 
 haps natural that, as an old soldier, he should follow 
 Lord Roberts in his bothering crusade about universal 
 service; but he went further than this, believing that 
 England was going to pot, and that its only redemption 
 could be wrought by a great awakening. He believed, in 
 spite of logic and common sense, that Germany, who had 
 everything to gain by peace and everything to lose by 
 war, meant some day to attack us. Lately, however, he 
 had ceased to entertain this particular bogey, or, rather, 
 it had been pushed into the background by the larger 
 phantoms of the decadence of our race, the prevalent 
 worship of false gods, the blindness and deafness to 
 things that are permanently high and good. 
 
 Bryan tried to reassure him and exorcise his crankiness 
 in this matter by reasoning and argument, telling him 
 that he had himself nourished such ideas at one time, 
 when passing through a phase of disappointment and dis- 
 gust; but, taking a careful review of the situation a little 
 later, he had seen that there was really nothing wrong. 
 No. England was all right. A little over-crowded, suffer- 
 ing from over-prosperity, but that was a disease that 
 never seriously hurt one; a little short of breath, now and 
 then; giving too much weight to trifles, and certainly
 
 110 GLAMOUR 
 
 cutting a rather sorry figure just at present in one re- 
 spect going round and round in circles like a half -mad 
 dog, with this Irish question tied to its tail like a tin 
 kettle. 
 
 But Alton, though trying to believe it, could not. His 
 want of belief made him quote Rudyard Kipling "Lest 
 we forget" and "If England were but what she seems." 
 Bryan had so much respect and admiration for him 
 that he would talk about it as long as Alton liked, and 
 Alton, narrowing it all down, brought it to the personal 
 point. "Anyhow, I feel it in myself. I feel I am going 
 down with the rest. I don't want to be like the people I 
 see everywhere" ; and he would walk about the room 
 excitedly, speaking of the City, of the West End, of the 
 country, and the labouring classes ; smug people in shops, 
 fat men at the club ; the upper classes, the middle classes, 
 lower classes; all so abominably selfish and self-compla- 
 cent; afraid of effort, of trouble, of pain young men 
 afraid to marry young girls not afraid to marry, but 
 afraid of being mothers; healthy men afraid of falling 
 sick, sick men afraid of dying; everybody afraid of some- 
 thing, and, because of their fears, all of them doing so 
 little; doing scarcely anything at all. "But you must do 
 something. Only one life, Bryan, old boy. For God's 
 sake let's do something in it and with it." 
 
 "Yes," said Bryan, "I often feel that myself." 
 "Oh, you are all right," said Alton cordially. "You 
 have your work, your wife, and children. You are doing 
 enough ; you needn't trouble." 
 
 "Well, I am sure you have done enough, Alton." 
 
 It was this personal note that touched up Bryan and 
 
 set him thinking. If Alton Grey woke up in the middle 
 
 of the night, as he said he did, to think about life, and 
 
 his own relation to it, in this distressing manner, was
 
 GLAMOUR 111 
 
 there really something wrong with our modern system; 
 was being a playwright, and keeping the pot boiling 
 however large the pot sufficient for a man's life-work; 
 was it really doing anything at all? If Alton refused to 
 be satisfied with himself, could he, Bryan, be satisfied 
 with Vaile, the prosperous author? 
 
 He thought of Alton's distinguished career as a sol- 
 dier; of his travels all over the world; his yacht-racing 
 and his big game shooting; the political missions to dis- 
 tant countries on which he had been sent as military at- 
 tache; his philanthropic work; something to do with 
 hospitals; something to do with the prison system he 
 had seemed a man of untiring energy, always doing 
 something with the utmost vigour. He thought of his 
 opportunities of judging people; he went everywhere, he 
 knew everybody, and was greatly liked by all. 
 
 Bryan was devoted to him; he was extraordinarily 
 well read, full of enthusiasm for the best kind of art, 
 bubbling over with fun and good nature, and the very 
 best playmate that you could possibly find for a long 
 summer's day. They played golf together sometimes, 
 and Bryan enjoyed it so much that, with him, he never 
 cared whether he won or lost. He thought now of visits 
 to golf-links within reach of London, and again he had 
 that picture of Alton as a fountain of energy; a force so 
 active that the two rounds of golf seemed in one's recol- 
 lection submerged in a sea of lively episodes. In the train 
 Alton met friends or long-lost relatives. At the end of 
 the journey he saved a child from being run over at the 
 level crossing. On the way to the club-house he arrested 
 a fly-driver for flogging a wretched under- fed horse, and 
 took the culprit and the whole conveyance to the local 
 police-station. On the course he made his hulking, oafish 
 ,caddy promise him to join the territorials. He drove into
 
 112 GLAMOUR 
 
 the couple ahead of them, ran forward to apologise, and 
 made two friends of them instead of enemies. He threat- 
 ened to punch the head of the man behind them for hit- 
 ting off before he had played his third shot, and then, 
 after a tremendous quarrel, made a friend of him, too. 
 At lunch he gave a hospital ticket to the waitress, and 
 discovered that the waiter was the nephew of the butler 
 of his father's land agent he was doing something out- 
 side golf all the time. Surely he must always have got 
 at least twenty-four hours into every day. What more 
 could one do? 
 
 "If the world's wrong, Alton, one can't put it right," 
 said Bryan at last, using the stereotyped words that in- 
 dicate a no-thoroughfare of thought. 
 
 "No," said Alton, "but one can refuse to let oneself 
 be covered in moss." And he laughed and stretched him- 
 self, and walked about the room again. "I don't want 
 to be moss-grown. Bryan, I am older than you; I am 
 nearly fifty; if I let the moss begin to settle, I shall never 
 get it off." 
 
 And in one of their talks he returned to his old sug- 
 gestion of doing something adventurous with Bryan as 
 a holiday. "Let's get right away from it for once Scot- 
 land Norway I don't care where. It will do us good." 
 
 But the autumn drama. 
 
 "Well, after you have finished it. June, or July, or 
 August. Your Missus would let you go. She thinks just 
 as I do. Is it a bargain?" 
 
 "Well, perhaps. This year or next." 
 
 And Alton Grey laughed. "You old rotter! I shall 
 talk to Mrs. Vaile. You want shaking up. The moss will 
 be all over you by the time you get to my age." 
 
 And some sort of bargain was made between them. 
 Bar accidents they would go somewhere and do some-
 
 GLAMOUR 113 
 
 thing for the good of themselves, if not for the good of 
 the world at large, before the summer was over. 
 
 Bryan's autumn drama was not for Mr. Gifford and 
 Miss Clarence, but for another management. Penelope's 
 Dilemma would keep his old friends going for this year, 
 next year, and the year after, if the experts were correct 
 in their forecast. 
 
 Still stirred up by Alton Grey, Bryan thought of his 
 increasing good fortune, and the duties that it brought 
 with it. One ought to do something with one's money 
 as well as clothing and feeding oneself and one's house- 
 hold. One ought to be more charitable. He acted ten- 
 derly and foolishly with regard to several begging letters 
 that should have been thrown into the wastepaper-basket 
 with all the others. He subscribed in a more handsome 
 manner to the Royal Literary Fund. He sent a fairly 
 large cheque to Lord Knutsford for the London Hos- 
 pital, and founded the Mabel Vaile bed at a home for 
 incurables. And he asked Mabel if she would like to lend 
 some money a nice substantial bit of money to her 
 father. Mabel was deeply touched by this suggestion, 
 and gave it very careful consideration, but decided that 
 a loan would do Mr. Gresley harm and not good. 
 
 Bryan had, of course, meant gift when he said loan, 
 and Mabel knew that he meant it, and was as much 
 touched by his delicacy as his generosity. 
 
 He asked her if she could do with any money herself, 
 or was there anybody else who could do with it, and she 
 said, "No," quite decidedly. 
 
 He thought a lot about his children in these days, and 
 especially about his son. His duty to Jack must be per- 
 formed. He must soon begin to shape Jack's future for 
 him. Jack must be a good man; but what else? Not a 
 playwright; something solider, something more substan-
 
 .114 GLAMOUR 
 
 tial, useful to mankind. But what? England was so 
 over-crowded. The choice of a profession for Jack would 
 not be easy. 
 
 In May, when their Sunday parties began again, he 
 found them less amusing than last year. Their size, even 
 at this early period of the season, bothered him, and he 
 began to dread that they would expand dangerously. The 
 numbers of people brought showed a tendency to rise. 
 Perhaps it was the enormous success of Penelope's Di- 
 lemma that sent up the percentage of the brought. He 
 discussed his fear with Mabel, and asked if she saw any 
 means of keeping the Sunday parties under control. If 
 they grew too big they would have to be given up alto- 
 gether, and that seemed a pity. 
 
 Mabel thought it would be a great pity. She saw that 
 he was not quite himself, and she advised him to get 
 away with Alton for a few days now. This, however, 
 was impossible. She herself had to go away once or 
 twice for a night or two at a time. In sickness and in 
 sorrow her relatives either went at once to her or de- 
 manded that she go to them. Now it was an old lady in 
 Wales one of those people near Llandrindod who was 
 in the worst kind of trouble; not long for this world; as 
 Mabel said, requiring kindness probably for the last time. 
 
 He sent his horses down to the New Forest, and went 
 for a little riding tour by himself, spending three days 
 hacking through the woods and over the heath ; and when 
 he came back to London he was all right that is, able 
 to get on with his task. Though it was not easy, he stuck 
 to it resolutely. Reality or unreality, this was the work 
 that lay before him, and he meant to finish it. He worked 
 slowly; then began to make a little faster progress. The 
 garden was looking at its best; the children were well;
 
 GLAMOUR 115 
 
 Mabel had answered the call of her relatives, and was 
 Happy because she had done her duty. He shook off all 
 his doubts and worrying thoughts. The crisis had passed : 
 Bryan Vaile was himself again.
 
 IX 
 
 . AMBROSE LAKE, the art critic of a big news- 
 paper, was also known as an expert witness in law 
 cases, a guardian or trustee of museums, and the writer 
 of horrid little books about Reynolds the text of which 
 he used first in his famous weekly articles. People said 
 that his books were written by a ghost; but that must 
 be wrong. No ghost could write so badly not even the 
 disembodied spirits that write messages at seances. Mr. 
 Lake went to weddings, funerals, public banquets, and 
 dined regularly at the Guildhall, the Academy, Downing 
 Street, and other exalted places, as a representative of 
 Art and Literature combined. This saved one place at 
 the dinner-party, but it was no economy in food, for he 
 always ate enough for two. 
 
 He had wonderful power over persons of quality ; and, 
 just as a conjurer produces live rabbits out of his hat 
 or other unlikely receptacles, so Mr. Lake in the middle 
 of a private view or on the staircase of a theatre would 
 produce peers and peeresses, introducing you to them, 
 then standing aside and smiling blandly, as though say- 
 ing, "Yes, isn't it wonderful?" or, "They are alive, but 
 don't be frightened. They are quite tame. They will eat 
 out of my hand." 
 
 Thus, in the Regent's Park garden, one Sunday after- 
 noon of June, on a patch of gravel in front of the veran- 
 dah, he produced the beautiful Duchess of Middlesbor- 
 ough. 
 
 "Your husband and I are very old friends," said the 
 Duchess, shaking hands with Mabel. 
 
 116
 
 GLAMOUR 117 
 
 She had another lady with her, and presently they and 
 Bryan were all three strolling round and about the gar- 
 den. 
 
 Meantime Mr. Lake had drifted off, and he was here, 
 there, and everywhere, meeting so many friends and ac- 
 quaintances, and telling them all that he had just arrived 
 with the Duchess of Middlesborough and was soon going 
 away again with the Duchess of Middlesborough. 
 
 The Duchess of Middlesborough the name flew about 
 before her and behind her and all round her; it was on 
 everybody's lips. "Where did you say? Here? . . . 
 Who says so? ... With Mr. Vaile. . . . You saw 
 her yourself? . . . Down at the tennis. . . . Oh, I 
 must have a peep at her." 
 
 The knowledge that she was here, in the garden, flut- 
 tered and excited the party, breaking up its habits and 
 customs, almost disorganising it. People who liked sit- 
 ting lazily under the trees got up and walked briskly; 
 people whom tennis bored suddenly grew interested in 
 the game and wished to watch it; people putting at golf 
 found the holes they were aiming at unexpectedly hidden 
 from them by a crowd of promenaders. Wherever Vaile 
 led these new guests he was passed and repassed by ani- 
 mated groups of walkers who pretended not to be look- 
 ing hard at his duchess. 
 
 "Have you seen her? . . . Yes, twice. . . . I haven't 
 seen her yet. . . . Mr. Lake says they won't stop long. 
 . . . Gone back to the tennis? Thank you." 
 
 It was not because she was a duchess that could not 
 have so fluttered them. It was because she was this duch- 
 ess. She was the one they knew about the one whose 
 photographs they had been seeing in the newspapers and 
 buying at the shops for such a long, long time the one 
 that was talked of, and thought of, too, whether you
 
 118 GLAMOUR 
 
 wished to think of her or not. She was the lovely, illus- 
 trious, and perhaps naughty, lady who could set the fash- 
 ion merely by refusing to follow it, who did things that 
 you and I cannot do even if we wished to do them. 
 Everyone over the age of twenty, knowing so much about 
 her, was naturally curious to look at her; and the boys 
 and girls, knowing nothing, looked because she was so 
 jolly well worth looking at. 
 
 She stood in the crowd by the buffet now, and she 
 drank a cup of tea. Old Sir Ronald Vince talked to her, 
 asking if that poor piece of his The Festa at Baveno 
 still hung in the music gallery at Kirkbride Castle. She 
 delighted Sir Ronald by her reply, and Bryan w r ondered 
 if she really had the faintest idea where the Festa was 
 hanging. Anyhow, Sir Ronald was more than satisfied. 
 She pleased Mr. Mainz, too, by knowing him so well, and 
 thanking him so much for arranging that concert for her 
 last year. 
 
 She stood there, tall, slight, graceful, in a dress that 
 you couldn't describe, in a hat that you couldn't buy, 
 with a long gauze scarf round her neck that you wouldn't 
 have thought of wearing; and there was nothing in the 
 remotest degree like her in all the big garden. She 
 seemed no older than she had been eleven years ago ; but 
 time had given her great dignity, if perhaps it had robbed 
 her a little of charm; and she was certainly more beauti- 
 ful. Her beauty might have raised a question then ; there 
 could be no question now. 
 
 Bryan introduced other people to her; but, of course, 
 it was impossible to introduce all who wanted to be in- 
 troduced. 
 
 "Good-bye, Mrs. Vaile. Thank you so much." 
 
 Bryan went with them to the front of the house, where 
 her yellow motor-car was attracting an immense amount
 
 GLAMOUR 119, 
 
 of attention. All the other chauffeurs had left their en- 
 gines to look at it. It was so big that it gave one the 
 impression here, with such a restricted space for it, of 
 being the royal saloon of a race-train that had broken 
 away from its couplings and drifted off the line. Every- 
 body seemed to get inside it the chauffeur and the foot- 
 man were somehow inside, but in a compartment of their 
 own. The ladies sat in the back of it; Mr. Lake was on 
 a seat in front of them, facing the same way, but he 
 could turn round to talk to them. 
 
 "Good-bye, Bryan. You must come and see me." 
 
 Mr. Lake waved a fat hand, the Duchess smiled, and 
 without a sound of movement the great yellow saloon 
 swam out into the roadway and was gone. 
 
 Bryan hurried back to the garden and was besieged by 
 questioners. His Sunday party was settling down again 
 after its excitement, but people continued to talk of the 
 unusual visitor. They all seemed dull now, rather tired, 
 and he noticed Mrs. Mainz yawning as if she had been 
 kept up too late. Somehow it was as if Mr. Lake's con- 
 juring trick had after all knocked the heart out of the 
 party. He and his apparatus had gone ; he was doing the 
 trick somewhere else by now; it scarcely seemed worth 
 waiting. Nothing more could happen here. 
 
 People soon began to leave, and comparatively very 
 few proposed to stay to dinner. Bryan, after bustling 
 about and trying to keep things alive, obtained Mabel's 
 permission to change into flannels and play tennis. As 
 only old friends were left, they would not think him rude 
 or neglectful.
 
 HE HAD started work comfortably next morning 
 when a servant came to tell him that he was wanted 
 on the telephone. "Somebody who asked for you, sir 
 not Mrs. Vaile." 
 
 In order to avoid being disturbed he had refused to 
 have a telephone in his own room. The family, exten- 
 sionless instrument was in a room off the hall with tables 
 for hats and coats, and stands and cupboards for tennis 
 rackets, tennis balls, golf clubs. The children were al- 
 lowed to keep their gardening implements in a corner, 
 but were not supposed to keep their toys here. .Bryan 
 came out of his work-room, interrupted, irritated, and, 
 going to the telephone, asked in a crusty tone, "Who 
 is it?" 
 
 "Hold the line, please, sir," said a woman's voice. 
 ^Then after a long pause he heard another voice, faintly : 
 
 "Is that" 
 
 But his wife and children had come trooping in, noisy 
 although exhausted after gardening, and Enid dropped 
 her hoe and Nancy let fall her watering-pot. 
 
 Bryan began to bellow. "Who is it ? I can't hear. Oh, 
 stop that noise! Do turn the kids out, for goodness' 
 sake!" Then, in comparative silence, he lowered his 
 Toice. "Oh the Duchess of Middlesborough?" 
 
 "Is that you, Bryan? Yes, I'm Diana." 
 
 "Yes, I am sorry I couldn't hear." 
 
 "I want you" he recognised her voice clearly enough 
 now "to come and see me. When can you come ?" 
 
 120
 
 GLAMOUR 121 
 
 "The fact is," he said, "I'm so busy. Trying to finish 
 something." 
 
 "But, first of all, I want you to do me a favour." 
 
 "What is that?" 
 
 "To speak for me at a drawing-room meeting." 
 
 "But I don't speak," he said. "Not ever. I am simply 
 hopeless at speaking." 
 
 "Oh, that doesn't matter" ; and he heard her off-hand 
 tone and little laugh. "That's no objection at all." 
 
 He stood there with the receiver at his ear and the 
 years had gone. This was happening eleven years ago. 
 
 He listened to what she said ; and then, lamely, he tried 
 to avoid any appointment, conscious, while he spoke, of 
 clumsiness and fatuity. He did not want to see her again, 
 or to have anything whatever to do with her. Not be- 
 cause he dreaded her; she was not of the very slightest 
 consequence ; and yet from deep instinctive loyalty to his 
 wife he must avoid her. But it was horribly difficult, 
 without seeming to imply that she was making undesired 
 advances, that is, trying to resume a friendly intercourse 
 that she ought to have known had become impossible. 
 
 "Bryan," she said, "I really want to have a good talk 
 with you. Come to luncheon any day except Saturday. 
 Or after luncheon before three. Come soon." 
 
 He replied blunderingly. "I will, if possible. Thank 
 you. But you must excuse me," and even as the words 
 came he hated them. "Excuse me" like a tradesman 
 talking about some goods that he has failed to supply 
 "excuse me if I can't. I am so hard at work just now 
 trying to complete something. And I find it takes so 
 much longer than I thought"; and he paused. She re- 
 mained silent. "I am doing a play for this autumn" ; and 
 he paused again. "Hullo! Are you there?" Silence; blank- 
 ness. The fools had cut them off in the middle of a con-
 
 122 GLAMOUR 
 
 versation. But then he understood. No, it was Diana 
 who had cut them off. She must have hung up the re- 
 ceiver after giving her order, "Come soon." That was 
 so like Diana. But he felt glad that she had not listened 
 to his blundering excuses. 
 
 Mabel, since she banished the children, had been stand- 
 ing by the open door, and she followed him to his own 
 room. 
 
 "Was that the Duchess of Middlesborough ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "What did she want?" 
 
 "Wanted me to speak at a meeting." 
 
 "Did you say you would?" 
 
 "No not likely." 
 
 Mabel had been interested by the Duchess yesterday, 
 just as everybody else had been. She was still interested 
 by her. 
 
 "Did you know her very well, Bryan?" 
 
 "Yes, but I did not know her very long. I lost sight of 
 her when she married." 
 
 Mabel sighed tolerantly. "She couldn't have been a 
 really nice girl, or she wouldn't have got such a name. 
 I suppose one must believe." 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 "Well, she is very rapid, isn't she?" 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, my dear girl, how 
 <io I know, and what on earth does it matter?" 
 
 That rather vulgar slang term "rapid" jarred on him. 
 4 Yet he had used it often enough himself. 
 
 "Well, Tom-tits said it quite openly, and they never 
 brought a libel action." 
 
 "Possibly because they considered Tom-tits beneath 
 their contempt," 
 
 "But it has an immense circulation."
 
 GLAMOUR 123 
 
 "More's the pity." 
 
 "Oh, you must never be ungrateful to poor old Tom- 
 tits. Remember their splendid articles about you at the 
 time of Evelyn Lestrange . . . Oh, those children 
 have made me so hot" ; and she sat down, fanning her- 
 self with a handkerchief. Indeed, she looked flushed and 
 warm. Her broad, kind face was flushed, her hair was 
 disarranged the white blouse had puffed out of her 
 waistband on one side. 
 
 As soon as she left him alone he returned to his work. 
 But he could not work. He had been interrupted, put 
 out of his stride, and the little conversation with his 
 wife had enervated him. 
 
 It would be more than unjust to her to <be irritated be- 
 cause Tom-tits was an utterly asinine and atrociously 
 vulgar rag; yet the thought of it irritated him. Its sub- 
 title! "We are only Tom-tits the biggest of us." A 
 copy of the thing was lying on a table; he picked it up, 
 opened the buff cover, and turned the pages. Mrs. Wren 
 on Taxation leading article; In the Nest domestic 
 hints; Picking up the Worms that was the city article. 
 And the column of Tom-tits' Twitters! "The Tits ask: 
 What was the state of mind of a certain countess who 
 ii---s within a hundred miles of Hyde Park Corner when 
 the Dweller sent the bill for sapphires to her instead of 
 to her noble lord?" That was bosh, of course but there 
 would be real libels in the column if you hunted for them. 
 He read it through. There was no libel on the Duchess 
 of Middlesborough this week. 
 
 For a moment he thought of her, so far removed from, 
 so high above the chatter of, Tom-tits. In imagination 
 he could see her, in a carefully shaded room of her 
 palace, in one of her graceful attitudes; looking abso- 
 lutely unruffled ; perfectly dressed so perfectly that
 
 124 GLAMOUR 
 
 did not know how ; after no fashion, in the goddess robe 
 that is for all time so that Reynolds could have painted 
 her like this or Vandyke or Lely or Rafael or Mr. 
 Sargent; and above all looking so cool as if, when she 
 sank down on a bed of flowers and moss after chasing 
 for hours through the woods with her hounds, her pale 
 cheeks were not red, her perfumed hair was not clammy. 
 
 He was completely put off his work. In the idleness 
 and enervation that had befallen him he turned to a 
 standing bookcase that contained useful books for ready 
 reference. There was no Peerage, but he took out a 
 Volume of Who's Who, and looked at the entry, "Mid- 
 dlesborough, Duke of." 
 
 "Married, 1903, Diana, daughter of late Sir Ger- 
 ald Kenion." In 1903 Diana was twenty-one, and now 
 it was 1914. That would make her thirty-two. Yes, 
 that would be right ; but she didn't look it. Her birthday 
 was in the autumn, September or October during their 
 acquaintance a birthday had not come round. He had 
 only known her in the late spring and the summer he 
 did not even know what she looked like in the winter, 
 with furs and velvet cloaks and snow and cold winds 
 his memory of her only pictured her with gauze, delicate 
 fabrics, sunlight, and flowers. Thirty-two some time this 
 autumn. 
 
 The duke's recreations were entered as: "Yachting, 
 shooting, hunting." And Bryan thought: "Evidently 
 an original sort of fellow strikes out new ideas for his 
 amusement. Likes yachting best, since he puts it first, 
 then shooting, and hunting next or has he merely put 
 them down in the order of their expensiveness ? Lives at 
 Middlesborough House, W. ; and his telephone number is 
 3685412 May fair. Very interesting indeed! " 
 
 He jerked the useful volume back into its place, walked
 
 GLAMOUR 125 
 
 to the window, and looked out at the garden. His room 
 was hot, the sunshine had been pouring into it, and 
 the servants ought to have pulled down the outer blinds ; 
 there was a faint smell of soot; as he watched, he saw 
 two or three large smuts floating in the warm air; the 
 kitchen fire was probably blazing, whereas, on days like 
 this, the servants ought to be using a gas-stove for cook- 
 ing. Such trifles can make one uncomfortable. 
 
 He was irritated although with a vexed smile at his 
 own unreasonableness. But dash all interruptions ! Dash 
 that snob, Ambrose Lake, for bringing her here because 
 she was a duchess ! And dash her impudence for ringing 
 him up on the telephone ! 
 
 He went out for a walk, to kill time till luncheon. He 
 was bothered by the slight deception, or suppression of 
 the truth, to his wife. Yet how otherwise could he have 
 acted? From the beginning he had never spoken to her 
 of his relations with Diana, and it was too late in the day 
 to drag out that old history which was concluded his- 
 tory, a dead tale, when he first set eyes on Mabel. Sup- 
 pose he had said just now, "I was once engaged to her," 
 his wife would not have been in the slightest degree jeal- 
 ous. It all happened before they two met. She would 
 say, bless her heart, "But you liked me the best in the end. 
 She is a thousand times prettier than I, but you liked 
 me best. I don't envy her her duke. I got you," But 
 ever afterwards she would return to the subject. "Tell 
 me what she was like then just the same? Didn't I 
 seem very commonplace, almost plain, compared with 
 her?" Her feminine curiosity, once aroused, would be 
 ever greedy for further details. She would make him 
 talk about Diana asking him exactly what it was that 
 he used to admire in her. And he did not want to talk 
 about her. He never wanted to hear her name mentioned
 
 126 GLAMOUR 
 
 again. He greatly resented her reappearance in his 
 life. 
 
 But he could not help thinking about her ; because this 
 secret the fact of there not being absolute frankness be- 
 tween him and his wife bothered him so. 
 
 Two days after this Mabel was claimed again by her 
 family. That old aunt in Wales was still dying, and now 
 one of her nieces, th * one who had been relied upon to 
 nurse the invalid, \ jd fallen ill; and, as usual in their 
 difficulty, they had written to Mabel imploring her to 
 come and help them. 
 
 "Surely," said Bryan, "they can find someone else this 
 time?" 
 
 "No, I am afraid there's no one but me. Agatha is 
 there, but she is so little real use and she says she is 
 obliged to leave them to-morrow." 
 
 "But how long is it going to last ?" 
 
 "Who can say?" said Mabel sadly. "But you know I 
 shan't stay away a minute longer than is necessary." 
 
 She added that she felt she ought to go, but she hated 
 leaving him and the children. "Of course, if you really 
 wanted me here I wouldn't go. You are always first. 
 But they are so helpless, poor dears." 
 
 He said that he supposed she had better go, and she 
 thanked him for his unselfishness ; and they sat for a little 
 while on the leather sofa in the work-room, he with an 
 arm round her waist and she clasping his other hand and 
 caressing it. 
 
 Next morning he and Jack went with her to Padding- 
 ton to see her off. After they had secured a seat for her 
 in the front part of the train near the luncheon-car, 
 and bought her more illustrated newspapers than she 
 could possibly want, there were last words about domestic
 
 GLAMOUR 127 
 
 arrangements. Bryan was to put a notice in the papers 
 saying that Mr. and Mrs. Vaile would not be at home 
 on Sundays ; the car was to be sent in for long-delayed re- 
 pairs and overhauling ; Miss Hignet, the governess, could 
 be trusted implicitly to take care of the children. Miss 
 Hignet would send a post-card every day. "And remem- 
 ber, if you want me, Bryan, you are to telegraph, and 
 I'll come home by the next train, no matter what is hap- 
 pening. You are first." 
 
 Then it was good-bye; with Mummy and the boy 
 very brave in the moment of parting, but both of them on 
 the verge of tears. She stood at a window waving to 
 them; and they ran along by the moving coaches, out 
 beyond the great glass roof, to the very end of the island 
 platform watching her till they could see her no more, 
 then watching the train, then watching nothing at all. 
 
 The little boy, turning round again, felt cold about 
 the stomach and warm about the throat; and Bryan 
 felt as if his sheet anchor if the sheet anchor is the one 
 that holds you steady had snapped and he was all adrift. 
 
 In truth he wanted her now more than at any time. 
 He was lost without her. Home was no longer really 
 home ; the coldness, dulness, and emptiness caused by her 
 absence were always perceptible. He could rely on the 
 wisdom of the governess, a most excellent young person, 
 who was now charged with control of the children; but 
 he himself ought to look after them a bit, and give them 
 a little of his company. He said that he would take them 
 for a treat to Kew Gardens one Sunday if not this Sun- 
 day, next Sunday. 
 
 One evening, after dining at his club, he walked along 
 Piccadilly and through Mayfair before hailing a taxi- 
 cab to take him home. It was a lovely warm night, and
 
 128 GLAMOUR 
 
 in the squares and quiet streets at this part of the town 
 all the world was giving parties. There seemed to be 
 carpets and carriage ranks outside the doors of every 
 other house. At a well-known house at the corner of a 
 square there was a party of the largest dimensions a 
 party that would have a column to itself in the Morning 
 Post to-morrow and he wondered if Diana's name 
 would be in the list of guests. Perhaps she was there 
 now. Perhaps she had just driven in at the gates and 
 descended at the brightly illuminated perron. He passed 
 the corner of the street which would take one to Middles- 
 borough House, where she lived; but she would not be 
 there at this hour, unless she was giving a party of her 
 own. He looked up at the windows of one big house, 
 all dark to-night the house where he had first met her. 
 That party had been nearly over when at last someone 
 introduced him to her outside the dancing room, and he 
 had scarcely said anything to her ; yet in those few words 
 he somehow must have told her that she had cast her spell 
 upon him and that he was spell-bound. For she knew. 
 
 While he passed through this smart, frivolous, gaiety- 
 loving world, he had a transiently uncomfortable sensa- 
 tion of being shut out of it all. With all these parties in 
 full swing, there was not one to which he had right of ad- 
 mittance. So many were being made welcome at these 
 fine houses almost anybody, except himself. It was an 
 absurd thought. For years he had been trying to keep 
 out of such houses, had refused to enter them at any 
 price. 
 
 He walked slowly, sauntering up one street and down 
 another, in no hurry to get home, with nothing to go 
 home for; and as he strolled along he thought of all the 
 beautiful girls and women dancing, whispering, or look- 
 ing with quick bright glances for the only person that
 
 GLAMOUR 129 
 
 mattered the person who would come looking for them. 
 Recollections of his youth vaguely stirred him recollec- 
 tions of youth in the abstract also. How strange it is 
 that time when girls are ethereal, wonderful, instead of 
 just being jolly, healthy young creatures, admirable and 
 pleasing, but with no more power to move you emotion- 
 ally than a lot of young sheep or calves skipping round 
 you in a meadow; when you almost faint at the sight of 
 one particular girl in her party frock ; when you go seek- 
 ing, seeking to find her, only to touch her hand, catch a 
 smile, or gain the smallest little secret sign of approval. 
 It is just the glamour of youth; before love and the ideas 
 belonging to love have taken any material or solid form. 
 
 Then, like a hot memory, adolescent, unworthy 
 thoughts came back to him. He drove them away easily : 
 they had never troubled him long. And he thought again 
 of glamour the glamour that grown men can create for 
 themselves, out of their own imaginations, out of the 
 poetry they have read, the pictures they have seen, the 
 songs they have heard, and, above all, from that innate 
 unreasoned longing for something better than the com- 
 mon order of things, for the supreme gift, the unattain- 
 able joy. How strong it had been upon him that kind 
 of glamour in the days when, following Diana, he had 
 wanted to go to houses like the one with the gates and 
 the perron, because he would meet her there. 
 
 At home, sitting lonely in his room, he still thought 
 of the past. The instinct that makes one weave fancies 
 about ordinary facts and give transcendent qualities to or- 
 dinary people is, he thought, perhaps usefully ordained 
 by nature to satisfy the other instinct that craves for 
 the unattainable delight. But behind it all lies the cruel 
 truth. There is something better, finer, that we might 
 have had and yet always miss. It must be so. Other-
 
 130 GLAMOUR 
 
 wise one would not have such a haunting feeling of it. 
 Otherwise why should one feel from time to time, when 
 one is quite alone and able to think clearly, that, although 
 one may seem to be prosperous, successful, possessed of 
 all one wanted, one has really gained nothing, but missed 
 the chance of everything? 
 
 That peace and solid balance that his married life had 
 brought him was already disturbed. 
 
 
 
 He had not allowed Lady Paramont to Paramont 
 him by beckoning him from his seclusion in order to 
 show him to her friends, and he was not going to be 
 Paramonted by the Duchess of Middlesborough. He 
 thought thus when remembering things said by Diana 
 last Sunday of her admiration of Penelope's Dilemma, 
 of his habit of hiding himself, of the number of people 
 who would like to know him. But Diana was not Lady 
 Paramont; she did not want to trot him out; she had 
 asked him to go and have a good talk evidently mean- 
 ing a tete-a-tete. 
 
 He determined that he would not go to see her would 
 not even pay one call of politeness. It seemed, perhaps, 
 rather rude to ignore her invitation altogether, but he 
 could not help that. For eleven years she had left him 
 alone, not caring whether he was alive or dead ; not know- 
 ing either, unless she happened to see his name on a play- 
 bill; so why should she all at once begin to worry him, 
 and why should he stand on ceremony with her in de- 
 clining to be worried ? Once, for a little while, he was in- 
 clined to go to Middlesborough House. He thought he 
 would go in order to prove to himself that he was not 
 afraid of her, to re-establish himself in his own mind, to 
 get rid of the trouble for ever. But finally he decided 
 not to do it.
 
 GLAMOUR 131 
 
 Nevertheless, he happened to see her, without her 
 seeing him. Dining at the Gridiron Club, he was asked 
 to go on to the opera with a man who had two stalls but 
 said he would not use either unless he could find some- 
 one to help him use both. 
 
 When he looked round the house at the end of the 
 first act, and saw her in a box, it seemed to him that he 
 had really known he would see her and had come there 
 on purpose to see her. Yet nothing could be further from 
 the truth. He had not thought of her once at the Grid- 
 iron Club. He had come because he loved music and was 
 at a loose end. 
 
 He loved music, but to-night he did not enjoy it. This 
 opera worried him by making him think of the dulness 
 and flatness of his own work, and of the nasty way in 
 which he had stuck again over his autumn drama. How 
 poor a thing is a stage play of words only, when com- 
 pared with what a play might be if you could set it to 
 music. The scope of the great stage, the vastness of the 
 auditorium, the splendour of the audience, combined to 
 render the author of Penelope's Dilemma querulous. If 
 English people really cared for the theatre, houses like 
 this would be regularly devoted to the drama, instead of 
 being opened only in the London season for opera. One 
 of Shakespeare's glorious pageants would now be un- 
 folding itself here or some big modern work. If you 
 had stages like this at your disposal, you could open out 
 and expand large bold pictures of contemporary life, in- 
 stead of making a little peep-show the size of a large cup- 
 board and setting five or six people chattering in it. 
 
 For the most of the evening he was watching Diana in 
 her box on the pit tier. She sat with her left shoulder 
 towards the stalls, and she never looked round or down. 
 There was another woman in the front of the box, who
 
 132 GLAMOUR 
 
 gaped at the audience whenever Diana was not speaking 
 to her, and there was someone else in the back of the box, 
 to whom Diana spoke now and then. 
 
 Bryan saw her standing in the outer vestibule when 
 the opera was done, but she did not see him. And again 
 he had the illusion that all the years were wiped out, 
 that this had happened ages ago and was mysteriously 
 happening again. What had been her spell ? What was 
 her spell ?
 
 XI 
 
 RETURNING to his house late one afternoon, he 
 saw her big, yellow motor-car standing at the gate. 
 His heart beat and he felt almost sick he turned and 
 walked away. She had come. She was inside the house, 
 waiting for him. 
 
 He turned again after walking a hundred yards up 
 the road, came back to the house, and let himself in at a 
 side door. Then he stood for a few moments in the hall. 
 The door of his work-room was open, and her voice 
 was sounding. 
 
 She was sitting on the leather sofa, with a volume of 
 Hans Andersen open in her hands, and Nancy, his young- 
 est child, on her lap. It was a strange picture no detail 
 of it escaped his notice : Enid, the elder girl, by her side, 
 nestling close to her; Nancy's garden-stained shoes dan- 
 gling against and dirtying the lovely material of her skirt. 
 And Nancy had folded her little hands in the manner that 
 always pulled some string of his heart. She did it when 
 he first read aloud to her, after her illness. 
 
 "Well, at last," said Diana. "Bryan, what a time 
 you have been. I was going to finish reading this tale and 
 then give you up." 
 
 "But you haven't finished it," said Enid. "Finish it, 
 please." 
 
 "All right. Daddy has kept us waiting, and he must 
 just wait himself." And Diana read to the end of the 
 story. Then she shut the book, kissed Nancy, and got 
 up. 
 
 "I came to see your wife, but I hear she is away." 
 
 133
 
 134 GLAMOUR 
 
 "Yes in Wales." 
 
 "But they said you were coming back soon. So I 
 waited. What's the time ?" 
 
 "Six o'clock." 
 
 "Then I can't stop. You can drive with me if you 
 like." 
 
 But Bryan regretted that it was impossible to do this. 
 
 "Good-bye, Enid. Good-bye, Nancy. Are you fond 
 of your daddy?" 
 
 "Oh, yes." 
 
 "Is he a good daddy?" 
 
 "Yes, he is," said Nancy with conviction. "He's going 
 to take us to Kew Gardens on Sunday." 
 
 "Is he? Kew Gardens. That sounds rather nice"; 
 and Diana sat down, and looked thoughtful. "Who is 
 going?" 
 
 "Enid and Jack and daddy and me." 
 
 "I should like to come too. The roses aren't over yet. 
 Yes, Bryan, may I come with you?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, do come," said Enid. 
 
 "No, dear," said Diana very seriously. "Your father 
 must answer for himself. Bryan, will you let me come 
 too?" 
 
 "Of course, I shall be only too glad." 
 
 She laughed. "Too glad! Not glad but too glad. 
 Bryan, you are absolutely refreshing you are just the 
 same. Age cannot wither you, nor crtstom stale your 
 charm. How do you write your plays ? Your dialogue 
 in real life was always pitiable, and I think it's worse 
 than it used to be." 
 
 And he, too, laughed. The trouble was in him, not in 
 her. Why should he fear her? 
 
 So it was arranged that she should join the Sunday 
 trip. She said, "I really want to see the roses." At first
 
 GLAMOUR 135 
 
 Bryan said that they would meet her at Kew ; but as soon 
 as she heard that his car was temporarily out of action 
 she said she would come in her big car and drive them 
 down. There would be room in it for all of them. If 
 more were to be of the party she would bring a second 
 car. They would have tea in the gardens. It would be 
 ripping. 
 
 Jack, shy of visitors as all boys are, and Miss Hignct, 
 shyer, if possible, than most governesses, came out of 
 concealment, to see Diana leave the house; and Bryan 
 and his family all stood in the roadway waving to her as 
 she rolled away. 
 
 But afterwards Bryan began to think, began to know, 
 that this would not do. Diana was a bore and she was 
 dangerous, dangerous to him. He revolted against her 
 attempt at a capricious, idle intercourse. Let her fill her 
 empty time her own way. 
 
 He asked the children if they would like to go to the 
 Zoo instead of to Kew Gardens, but they did not care for 
 the change of plan. Jack immediately accepted animals 
 in lieu of flowers, but the two girls wanted Kew Gardens 
 and nothing else. 
 
 "I did like the Zoo once," said Nancy; "but I am so 
 tired of it." 
 
 Bryan revolted again against the idea of their being 
 prevented from going where they pleased, against his 
 own desire to deal tenderly with the person who was 
 trying to upset the original plan. He would fulfil his 
 promise to his children; he would take them to Kew 
 Gardens ; and he would take them there alone. 
 
 On Saturday he sent a telegram to Diana "Ex- 
 tremely sorry our Sunday arrangements are cancelled" 
 and he signed it with his surname.
 
 136 GLAMOUR 
 
 Sunday was a splendid fine day, and they went down 
 to Kew by train daddy and Nancy hand-in-hand, walk- 
 ing to the North London Railway station, Jack and Enid 
 prancing ahead, but rallying all together whenever they 
 had to cross the road the regular middle-class outing 
 the way they liked best the perfect treat, if only dear 
 Mummy could have been there too. They would trust 
 to luck to pick up a taxicab to bring them home ; but the 
 train journey was part of the treat. At the station Jack 
 displayed that profound knowledge of and exquisite de- 
 light in railways which all boys, as it seems, can acquire 
 without the slightest aid or prompting. He told his 
 father that, although the North London was the short- 
 est railway in England, it possessed one real long busi- 
 ness tunnel, and they were about to have the felicity of 
 going through it ; he further announced that electric trac- 
 tion would shortly be adopted on the line that, in fact, 
 the new rolling-stock was now being constructed, and it 
 would be better than the drab-coloured Metropolitan 
 trains and ever so much better than the red Districts. 
 
 Arrived at Kew, they did the pond and ducks exhaus- 
 tively; then they did the big palm house, including its 
 upper gallery; and then, in the fresh air again, on the 
 other side of the palm house, among the roses, they came 
 plump upon Diana. 
 
 She had a woman friend with her, and she was really 
 doing the roses. He tried to dodge her, but could not; 
 and she talked to him for a few moments only, about the 
 roses. She was quite unruffled not angry. But he felt 
 an utter fool and rather a brute, stammering out some- 
 thing about the beauty of the gardens. 
 
 "Yes," she said; "public gardens, you know any- 
 body has the right to come and so large that it's easy 
 to avoid people. It's bad luck your running against me."
 
 GLAMOUR 137 
 
 He stammered. "I ought to explain " 
 
 "No, don't explain. The family circle! Tout com- 
 prendre, c'est tout pardonner"; and she spoke to her 
 friend. "Gladys, look at these. Jeanne Marie Cottier 
 aren't they? Can you make out the label?" And they 
 went on examining the flower-beds. He saw her stoop 
 towards the clusters of delicate petals, her small face like 
 a flower itself. 
 
 She turned as Bryan and his family moved away; 
 smiled and nodded across the roses so gracious and so 
 fine, seeming to say to him, "How can you offend me or 
 annoy me ? You are less than nothing to me. You never 
 were much more than nothing to me." 
 
 He was almost worried to death about the incident. In 
 the hall at home he stared at visiting cards in a tray, 
 moved them about until her card was uncovered the 
 card she had left for Mabel the other day. It was kind of 
 her to pay that call. She had wanted to be friendly, feel- 
 ing interested in them because she had known him years 
 ago; thinking, perhaps, erroneously but kindly, that she 
 might be useful to his wife; meaning nothing but kind- 
 ness. 
 
 Next morning he rang her up on the telephone as early 
 as he decently could, and asked if he might go to see her. 
 
 She said, "Come whenever you like. But what about 
 the work you had to finish? Have you finished?" 
 
 "No. It doesn't matter." 
 
 And she seemed delighted her voice sounding so sweet 
 and frank to his ear. "You don't know how I shall love 
 a real talk with you, Bryan. I have so much to ask you." 
 
 "So much to tell me?" 
 
 "No, nothing. My history has been quite uneventful." 
 
 "Has it?"
 
 138 GLAMOUR 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 And they both laughed. The phantom had been ex- 
 orcised. All malaise was gone. He felt that he was him- 
 self again a sensible middle-aged man, not a fool. 
 
 As had been arranged, Bryan lunched that same day 
 at Middlesborough House. He had never entered its 
 dingy old walls before, and he was not attracted by the 
 interior now disclosed to him. One could imagine that 
 it might look grand enough at night when brilliantly 
 lighted, with a crowd of finely-dressed women, and men 
 wearing stars and ribbons going up the big staircase, 
 with all the doors standing open, and music sounding 
 above the murmur of all the voices ; but by day it seemed 
 dark and gloomy, its size seemed oppressive, and its 
 splendour of decoration had the shabby air of an old 
 pretentious fashion that has long since passed awaj. 
 
 If Bryan had described the dining-room in that ter- 
 rible lingo of play-books which he, like all other dramatic 
 authors, was compelled to write when preparing his work 
 for publication in book form a language of tradition, 
 as is that of auctioneers' advertisements and pamphlets 
 about new hotels he would have had to say : All over the 
 room there is a tone of settled magnificence and the pomp 
 that long custom has robbed of ostentation. It is so big 
 that the round table at which luncheon is served seems 
 but an island in the ocean of floor space, a long table, 
 without any table-cloth, stands like a continent beneath 
 clustered golden hanging lamps. The luncheon-table has 
 been drawn towards a bay at one end of the great apart- 
 ment; and through the windows one can see a row of 
 trimmed limes, now in full foliage, and placed there with 
 the obvious intention of creating a screen to neighbour- 
 ing houses. The seven or eight guests seat themselves
 
 GLAMOUR 139 
 
 at the round table. The servants men in sombre liveries 
 and others in plain clothes busy themselves with the 
 service. A pleasant, easy conversation commences. 
 
 The guests had assembled in a library that looked out 
 on the street, and there was only one person that he knew 
 Lord Bekesbourne. The rest of them were two pretty 
 girls, addressed as Adela and Clarice; a big lady whose 
 name he did not catch, obviously of great importance, 
 quite a substantial pillar of society; Sir Somebody Some- 
 thing, a lame man with a cadaverous face, from the For- 
 eign Office ; and a young soldier called Geoffrey. 
 
 "The last time we met, Vaile," said Lord Bekesbourne 
 cheerily, "was at Sir Launcelot's supper-party. Very 
 amusing night, wasn't it?" 
 
 Bryan had sometimes thought of Bekesbourne as a 
 typical instance of a man who always did what he liked 
 and always liked what he did. Throughout life he had 
 enjoyed himself, extracting pleasure from life itself as 
 well as from the finer enjoyment that comes from the sat- 
 isfaction of intellectual tendencies and cultivated tastes; 
 and perhaps the only sorrow that had ever befallen him 
 was the loss of a beautiful young wife. Very tall, thin, 
 with a high-nosed, narrow face, he was as good-looking 
 at sixty as he had been at twenty-five. He preferred the 
 country to London, and in the country he owned one of 
 the show-places of England; he was a judge of pictures, 
 china, and old furniture, and being very rich he was also 
 a collector of them; he dabbled in literature, and because 
 he was really clever he had written what he called a Chap- 
 ter of Napoleon's Life, which many people said was as 
 good as Lord Rosebery's Last Phase. He had a charm- 
 ing paternal manner with women, and with very pretty 
 women he showed exactly the same sort of admiration 
 and without any more reticence or disguise that he
 
 140 GLAMOUR 
 
 would have shown when examining a priceless work of 
 art. 
 
 As they sat at luncheon Bryan observed both his fath- 
 erly manner and his unconcealed admiration in regard 
 to Diana. He was telling her about the week-end party 
 at a house he had left this morning, and she seemed to 
 be mildly interested. 
 
 "They told me Mr. Brentwood and Mr. Jordan were 
 coming. But who else was there ?" 
 
 Evidently it had been a grand and carefully-planned 
 party in slang phrase, "a set-piece" with Cabinet Min- 
 isters, pretty ladies, leaders of fashion; and, as one gath- 
 ered from Lord Bekesbourne's account, it was precisely 
 the sort of party against which Tom-tits would have in- 
 veighed most bitterly for its smartness, fastness, and 
 prodigal waste of money. "The Tits ask : Did the min- 
 ister for finance really think it consistent with the dig- 
 nity of his high office and his own natural sense of the 
 fitness of things to dance the tango on the lawn at 1 a. m. 
 with a certain marchioness who is shortly to make a sec- 
 ond appearance in the divorce court?" and so on. 
 
 "It must have been great fun," said Diana. 
 
 And then Bryan suddenly felt rather warm and un- 
 comfortable, because Lord Bekesbourne began to re- 
 proach her for having so cruelly chucked this party. 
 
 "It was a little severe, Diana, even for you. At the 
 last moment, you know" ; and Bekesbourne, smiling and 
 paternal, looked at her black dress and her rope of white 
 pearls, obviously noticing how the black of the dress con- 
 trasted with the delicate colouring of her face and height- 
 ened the flash and glow of her eyes admiring her just 
 as if she had been a piece of Chelsea china or a painting 
 by Lawrence.
 
 GLAMOUR 141 
 
 "I wired to them on Thursday," said Diana. "You 
 can't call that the last minute." 
 
 "Why did you shirk it?" 
 
 "I shirked because I was so tired." 
 
 "Not ill?" 
 
 "Oh, no." 
 
 "What did you do with yourself on Sunday?" 
 
 "Read Dryden's JEnead, and in the afternoon went to 
 Kew Gardens with Gladys Kemptown." 
 
 Bryan felt ridiculously guilty. Had she really been 
 tired ? Or could it be possible that she had thrown over 
 her friends and abandoned all the delights of a highly- 
 organised set-piece in order to take part in that little 
 family outing from which she had been so boorishly ex- 
 cluded? He, indeed, had done the throwing over at 
 the very last moment. Detaching himself from the young 
 lady called Adela, to whose ingenuous prattle he had lent 
 but an inattentive ear, he turned to his hostess with a dep- 
 recating and apologetic glance. She smiled, but did not 
 seem to read his remorse or recall the reason for it. Set- 
 piece or Kew Gardens it was all nothing to her. 
 
 In spite of the abnormal success of Penelope, no one 
 spoke of the theatre ; and he was glad that they didn't. 
 
 But after luncheon, when for a few minutes they were 
 again in the library, the big important lady took him in 
 charge and told him all about his host and hostess. "You 
 spoke just now as if you didn't know the duke? That is 
 so? Sit down"; and with a half- formed gesture she in- 
 dicated a gilt-legged but armless chair as what he was to 
 sit upon. "Draw a little closer." She reminded him of 
 another important personage, Lady Paramont ; she spoke 
 with the same sort of benign firmness, but she had not 
 Lady Paramont's fascinating little touches of archness
 
 142 GLAMOUR 
 
 and truculence. The substance of her communication 
 was that the duke and duchess were very good friends, 
 although they did not see a great deal of each other; 
 they had not agreed to differ, but merely to go their own 
 ways; and they kept up appearances; they were to be 
 seen together on all solemnly public occasions ; and every 
 year they regularly spent about two months under the 
 same roof, or deck, on the yacht. "Amethyst! It is a 
 big vessel really a floating home!" Bryan wondered 
 why she was telling him all this, and with such an air 
 of benignantly performing a duty. It seemed as if she 
 had said to herself, "Here is a stranger, and it is my 
 duty to take charge of him at once and prevent his put- 
 ting his foot in it." Or, on the other hand, it might 
 only mean that she had not been allowed to talk much 
 at luncheon, and she was fond of talking. "The pity of 
 it is," she said in conclusion, "they have no children. 
 That, no doubt, was a disappointment to Hugo. Th 
 dukedom will go to his cousin, Augustus Pierpoint." 
 
 Then she got up. Everybody was going. 
 
 As the play-books would say: The party breaks up. 
 Business of good-byes. The guests leave unobtrusively, 
 with air of well-bred, fully-occupied people who take 
 everything as a matter of course and do not make moun- 
 tains out of molehills. They came here for nourish- 
 ment, and they return to their avocations. Business of 
 servants. Groom of chambers, or third under-butler, 
 closes the double doors at back; and the stage is empty, 
 save for Bryan Vaile and Diana Middlesborough, who 
 stand regarding each other. 
 
 "Come into my room," said Diana; and she led him 
 through the inner hall, past the foot of the staircase, to a 
 room at the back of the house. 
 
 "I have seen your work-room, Bryan. This is my
 
 GLAMOUR 143 
 
 work-room. It was Middlesborough's work-room till 
 he gave up working." 
 
 It was a lighter, nicer room than any that he had yet 
 seen here the chairs and s-ofas had chintz covers ; there 
 was some beautiful old French furniture; corner cup- 
 boards showed china behind the glass of their upper parts ; 
 and tables were loaded with all kinds of exquisitely 
 pretty, enormously costly, and entirely useless things that 
 had been given to Diana or bought by her herself. A 
 large, rather clumsy writing-table and some bookcases 
 filled with official-looking books suggested the labours of 
 her husband, before he struck work. And no doubt it 
 was he who had installed the full-length picture of Diana 
 over the chimneypiece. 
 
 "That's Malmo's portrait, isn't it, Duchess?" 
 
 "I wish you wouldn't be so absurd." 
 
 "How do you mean?" 
 
 "Well, don't pretend to have forgotten my name. You 
 said it suited me." 
 
 "Oh. You mean I am to call you Diana?" 
 
 "Of course." 
 
 "Well then, Diana, you mustn't let me waste your 
 time. You'll be going out." 
 
 "Not till half-past three. And it's only half-past two 
 now." She had settled down on a high-backed sofa, and 
 with a graceful and fully completed gesture she told him 
 to sit down by her. "Now, Bryan, I want to hear all 
 your life since then everything you have done." 
 
 "Is life what we have done, Diana, or what we have 
 thought ?" 
 
 "A little of both, isn't it? Bryan, were you unhappy 
 when you wrote Evelyn Lestrange?" 
 
 "No, not a bit. But I was unhappy after I'd written it, 
 because scarcely anybody liked it."
 
 144 GLAMOUR 
 
 "/ liked it immensely. I loved it every word of it. 
 But I thought it had a touch of sadness that you haven't 
 put in anything else" ; and she went on talking of Evelyn 
 Lestrange, with an appreciative understanding that was 
 very pleasant to him. The least conceited writers enjoy 
 really intelligent criticism when it is also flattering, es- 
 pecially about their failures ; they do not always think the 
 adverse verdict of the public is quite the last word on 
 the matter. But Bryan resolutely refused to talk about 
 his work or to let Diana do it either. He said he wished 
 to hear about herself. 
 
 "Well," she said, "I have done nothing. And what I 
 have thought wouldn't interest you any more. But 
 I'll show you where I have been. Come and help me." 
 
 She crossed the room, opened the door at the bottom 
 of one of the china cupboards, and displayed shelves 
 with large leather-bound scrap-books. 
 
 "There. Bring these. Bring these too." 
 
 Bryan carried the books back to the sofa, and they sat 
 side by side, with a book open on their knees. They 
 were the sort of albums that Mabel and the children had 
 at home, filled with photographic records of summer 
 holidays at Whitby and Bexhill; but these were more 
 solidly bound, all in the same style, with Diana's name 
 stamped on the leather cover ; the photographs were bet- 
 ter prints ; and Diana had been farther afield. 
 
 "Montenegro! That was three years ago." And she 
 pointed to the royal palace at Cettinge a humble kind 
 of barracks where she had stayed for a fortnight. 
 "Trieste. Fiume. . . . This next book is all India." 
 
 "Did you go there for the Durbar?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Was it worth seeing?" 
 
 "India was not the Durbar."
 
 GLAMOUR 145 
 
 She showed him pictures of herself in various costumes 
 on her wanderings 'Diana dressed like an Arab woman ; 
 Diana dressed like a Serbian peasant ; Diana dressed like 
 a lovely Greek boy in ancient Greece; and Diana on an 
 elephant, a camel, a horse; Diana receiving foreign ad- 
 mirals as they stepped on board the yacht; Diana talk- 
 ing to the Queen of Roumania at a military review; 
 each picture giving them things to talk of. 
 
 "Was that Lady Violet Kingsland?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Do you ever see her nowadays?" 
 
 "Very rarely. She lives in Italy." 
 
 "She was devoted to you." 
 
 "Poor Violet" ; and Diana shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 "Why do you pity her for being fond of you?" 
 
 "Don't be silly. I pity her really because she is quite 
 contented. Her people made her marry a very stupid 
 man when she ought to have married somebody else. 
 There. That's the port of Agadir the place they had all 
 the fuss about." 
 
 He held the heavy book, and she turned its stiff leaves ; 
 and he watched her long finger as it pointed to the pic- 
 tures, noticing, too, the thin blue veins on her white wrist. 
 Each time that she stooped to examine a photograph 
 more closely her shoulder touched his arm, and his face 
 came near the dark waves of her hair. He was satu- 
 rated by the atmosphere of Diana's pictures and of Diana 
 herself. Each minute more old memories that he thought 
 were dead revived in him; all kind of things concerning 
 her in the dim past, things that he would have sworn he 
 had forgotten, recalled themselves vividly; and once or 
 twice she stirred the zone of memory to its depths by 
 speaking exactly as she used to speak to him long ago, 
 in the same tone, employing the very same words.
 
 146 GLAMOUR 
 
 "Don't be an old stupid, Bryan. . . . Look. This 
 is Cashmere. I adored Cashmere." - 
 
 "I thought women weren't allowed to go to Cashmere." 
 
 "Not all women one or two women"; and she 
 laughed. "I may go anywhere, whether it is allowed or 
 not. Have you forgotten that? There's another book 
 of India. Fetch it if this doesn't bore you." 
 
 It did not bore him ; but as he crossed the room a little 
 toy clock on a table began to make a chiming music, 
 and he looked at his watch guiltily. Over an hour had 
 slipped by it seemed impossible. 
 
 "Diana, it's four o'clock and you said half-past three. 
 Why didn't you turn me out? Good-bye." 
 
 She had risen from the sofa, and with a smile she of- 
 fered him her hand. 
 
 "We are to be friends now, aren't we, Bryan; real 
 friends?" 
 
 "You honour me too highly." 
 
 "Don't be an old stupid. You know what I mean. 
 You hated me, didn't you ? But you won't hate me any 
 more?" 
 
 And without waiting for an answer she went out of 
 the room. She was going up the staircase as he passed 
 through the inner hall; and looking down at him, she 
 kissed her hand to him, lightly, carelessly, just exactly 
 as she used to do eleven years ago. 
 
 Outside the house her carriage stood waiting for her 
 a victoria with two well-matched, well-bred blacks; 
 and Bryan wondered idly if she had ordered out her 
 black horses to-day because she was wearing a black dress. 
 
 Well, that was all right. He had done his duty visit. 
 They were all square now, and she had not asked him to 
 go on with the game. Those words about being friends
 
 GLAMOUR 147 
 
 really related more to the past than to the future; they 
 meant, Let bygones be bygones. Only fatuous conceit 
 could make one for half a moment interpret them as, 
 Now let's begin again. 
 
 He strolled away, on the broad uncrowded pavements, 
 through the spacious restful square, thinking of her 
 thinking of the little tricks or individual characteristics 
 that helped to build up the spell : that lift of the eyebrows 
 and the movement at the corners of her lips; her fear- 
 lessness ; the something childlike about her that mingled 
 with her elusiveness and inscrutability ; those deeper tones 
 of her voice that irresistibly stirred one up, in the same 
 way that the notes of Nathalie St. Cloud's singing voice 
 stirred one, automatically, making one vibrate to the un- 
 expectedly sweet sound. The attribute of elusiveness had 
 become less marked he was sure of that. But the whole 
 spell was there still he was sure of that too; in good 
 working order, quite strong for all general purposes; 
 and he understood that, because of mysterious inex- 
 plicable reasons, if he were silly and not holding himself 
 in hand, it might still be deadly potent to him, Bryan 
 Vaile.
 
 XII 
 
 MABEL wrote to him from Wales nearly every day, 
 and he read each letter two or three times. Poor 
 girl, she was having a bad time. She had been away 
 over a fortnight, and she saw no immediate prospect of 
 getting back to him. She gave a pitiful account of her 
 relative's situation the old dame no better, the young 
 cousin a little worse; distress, helplessness; no one to 
 look after things except herself. She had not the heart 
 to leave these afflicted souls in their trouble, but her last 
 letter showed how much she was suffering from home- 
 sickness. 
 
 On the impulse of the moment Bryan wrote to her sug- 
 gesting that he should run down to Wales for a few days 
 to cheer her up, and asking if there was any inn near her 
 aunt's house where he could get a bed. 
 
 But to this suggestion Mabel replied that, much as she 
 would like to have him with her, his absence from home 
 would make her anxious about the children. She trusted 
 Miss Hignet absolutely, but the knowledge that he was at 
 hand, in case of any little untoward occurrence, made 
 her feel doubly secure. She felt, too, that it would not 
 be fair to the children to deprive them of his occasional 
 company. "They do so love you," she said, with one of 
 the bursts of affection to which she had accustomed him. 
 "Who would not love you? Everybody who has ever 
 known you must be fond of you. You are so consider- 
 ate, so kind," etc., etc. 
 
 Whatever happened, she assured him, she would re- 
 
 148
 
 GLAMOUR 149 
 
 turn before the end of July, in good time for the holiday 
 move. The furnished house at Westgate that they had 
 taken for August and September would be ready for oc- 
 cupation by July 30th, and she intended to send on some 
 of the servants to make everything comfortable. She 
 hoped that he would be able to spare her a few days at 
 Westgate before he started on his own holiday with Colo- 
 nel Grey. After such a dreadful long separation it would 
 be so lovely to be together once more. 
 
 Meanwhile, before receiving this answer to his im- 
 pulsive proposal, he had seen Diana again two or three 
 times. To wipe out the last haunting memory of the Kew 
 Gardens fiasco, he had taken her, without his family, to 
 see the herbaceous border at Hampton Court. They had 
 met at a little dinner given by Lord Bekesbourne. And 
 he had drunk tea with her one day in the work-room, 
 and gone for a drive with her after tea. 
 
 He spoke to her more than once about his wife, de- 
 scribing Mabel's unselfishness and devotion with regard 
 to her numerous family, and explaining how her mission 
 of aid to relatives in distress had, as it were, temporarily 
 broken up his home life, thrown him on his own re- 
 sources, and given him this quite unusual task of filling 
 in the time as best he could. 
 
 "Oh, yes, Mrs. Vaile remains in Cornwall then?" 
 
 "Wales a village not far from Llandrindod" ; and he 
 was going to tell her more about it, but something dis- 
 tracted Diana's attention. 
 
 She herself had spoken of Mabel the day before, ask- 
 ing one or two polite questions, but in the careless tone 
 that, had he known her less well, might have offended 
 him. If Mabel had been here, she would have been in- 
 terested and anxious to pay attentions, but, as Mabel was 
 away, there was nothing to be done. And of course, as
 
 150 GLAMOUR 
 
 a general rule, one could not pretend that Diana took 
 sustained interest in people's wives. 
 
 Or in people's husbands either it amused him and for 
 some unanalysed reason pleased him to hear her talk of 
 her own husband. She spoke of him as if she liked him, 
 but with a compassionate tolerance that seemed to show 
 how greatly he had disappointed her at some time or 
 other and how entirely she had got over her disappoint- 
 ment. She seemed also to convey the idea that, since 
 she had ceased to apply any intensive culture to him and 
 had recognised him as a large noble, sort of tree that 
 would never bear any fruit, he himself had been happier 
 and more contented. She had wanted him to take the 
 place that he ought to have filled in the political garden. 
 She had tried to make him blossom as an authority on 
 land and agriculture. She had tried hard, and failed. 
 
 Bryan gathered that he really was fonder of yachting 
 than of anything else. He scarcely cared for hunting at 
 all. But he had yachts of various sizes one so small 
 that it would only hold him and another man, and even 
 then they had to get outside when she lay right over, and 
 one so big that there was room on it for a large party 
 all in separate bedrooms. That was Amethyst, and Diana 
 was going to join her at the end of this month of July 
 but not for Cowes. Hugo shirked Cowes this year be- 
 cause of all the festivities in the North Sea Fleet re- 
 view, and the rest of it. They would cruise westwards. 
 
 If she grew tired of London before it was time to meet 
 Hugo and Amethyst, she would go down to a little place 
 of her own in Wiltshire to which she often withdrew 
 when bored. It was just a garden and a farm, nothing 
 more. "You must see it one day, Bryan." 
 
 After talking of her husband once, she reminded Bryan
 
 GLAMOUR 151 
 
 that politics were to have come into his own career as a 
 future Lord Chancellor. 
 
 "You have done better as it is, Bryan. But I think 
 perhaps you ought to go into Parliament now that you 
 have made money." 
 
 Bryan said he would rather be dead, and that he would 
 not waste twopence on the House of Commons or give 
 twopence for it if it were for sale. 
 
 "Make it threepence, Bryan, and take the House of 
 Lords as well." 
 
 And she spoke of money again. "You have all the 
 money you want nowadays, haven't you, Bryan?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, more than I want." 
 
 "That's all right." 
 
 He admired her way of regarding money, and forgot 
 altogether how he had once condemned her and what 
 harsh thoughts he had entertained because of this very- 
 question. It seemed to him that she spoke in a grand 
 way, and in the only right way, recognising money as 
 something desirable for its use in supplying one's special 
 requirements, whatever they may be, and not otherwise 
 of the least value or consequence. 
 
 One morning, to his surprise, the post brought him 
 two invitations from people that he did not know to at- 
 tend evening-parties on that and the following evening. 
 So sudden and yet tardy a desire for his company aris- 
 ing in the breasts of strangers must surely have been 
 stimulated by external action, and he at once suspected 
 whence the stimulation had come. 
 
 Diana confessed with the utmost frankness that she 
 had asked her friends to ask him. "I thought it might 
 amuse you," she said. They were talking on the tele- 
 phone.
 
 152 GLAMOUR 
 
 "You are very kind but, amusing as I am sure it 
 would be " 
 
 "You prefer to stay at home by yourself. I quite un- 
 derstand. Bryan, I am not wounded about it." 
 
 "Diana, you know I think it's very kind of you to 
 have thought of me." 
 
 "Not at all," and she laughed. "I shall think of you 
 again this evening. What will you really be doing with 
 yourself I mean, after you have put the children to 
 bed? Do you go into your garden and smoke a pipe? 
 Do you wear carpet slippers when you are quite alone 
 like that, just enjoying home?" 
 
 "Diana, I wish you wouldn't be so flippant. Tell me, 
 are you going to Lady Merstham's ?" 
 
 "I am not sure. It depends." 
 
 "What does it depend on?" 
 
 "On whether you are going, Bryan." Then she laughed 
 again. "Consider that unsaid, please. Of course you 
 are going and, Bryan, I'll go if I possibly can. I'll be 
 there at eleven o'clock and I won't ask you to dance 
 with me. But I'll try to let you take me down to supper 
 if you're just in the right place, just at the right mo- 
 ment. You used to be rather clever at that. Good-bye" ; 
 and she switched off. 
 
 He went out into his garden then and smoked several 
 pipes. Diana's light chaff on the telephone seemed to 
 have done him good and to have done him harm good, 
 because she had shown him that he was perhaps falling 
 into the terrible habit of taking himself too seriously; 
 harm, because she had engendered in him a feeling that 
 his will-power was not as strong as he used to suppose, 
 and that he was becoming a prey to vacillation and in- 
 decision even about trifles. He was enough of a psy-
 
 GLAMOUR 153 
 
 chologist to know that the habit of making up one's own 
 mind rapidly and finally about trifles tends to fortify the 
 will, and thus aids one to make up one's mind about really 
 important matters. And when one has registered a vow ! 
 As he smoked his pipe and meditated on those two invi- 
 tation cards, it was as though trifles were leading up to an 
 hour of crisis. Now perhaps he had arrived at a turning- 
 point in his life, the parting of the ways; for he had 
 sworn to himself that he would never be trotted out in 
 fashionable society. 
 
 That night, at Lady Merstham's dance, Diana talked 
 to him very seriously; telling him that he was wrong to 
 hide himself and try to be the veiled prophet of Regent's 
 Park. She said that, as a writer of plays, he ought to go 
 about freely among all sorts of people; observing their 
 different points of view, their conventional mannerisms, 
 their way of thinking; contrasting different social worlds; 
 and so gathering the wide-spread material from which to 
 draw fresh inspiration. 
 
 She said that writers who always sit at home, no mat- 
 ter how brilliantly clever they may be, suffer from want 
 of aeration in their work; they are like painters who stop 
 in their studios painting things out of their own heads, 
 or with a few stale models who pose for them day after 
 day and year after year, instead of going into the open 
 air and looking at nature face to face. She said, more- 
 over, that now they were friends again and liked meet- 
 ing each other from time to time, it was very convenient 
 that they should be able to meet in this manner when oth- 
 erwise they might not be able to meet at all. 
 
 While she talked he listened submissively, and thought 
 that perhaps there was something in what she said. A 
 case in point seemed to offer itself, as he remembered old
 
 154 GLAMOUR 
 
 Vince and McCallum behind their high studio windows 
 painting Italian sunshine and Scotch snowstorms in all 
 weathers. 
 
 For the last hour he had thought that she was not go- 
 ing to talk to him at all, and had felt rather crusty about 
 it; but now he ceased to blame himself for his folly in 
 coming here, and realised that he had quite enjoyed the 
 evening. 
 
 It was a grand party, such a gathering as he had not 
 seen since he and Diana separated; but the Rip van 
 Winkle feelings that he experienced in contemplating 
 the new generation which had arisen while he slept were 
 not unpleasant. Everything interested him, and he was 
 amused by observing how much had changed and yet how 
 little. Only, as time passed, he was slightly nettled be- 
 cause, after having dragged him here against his incli- 
 nation, Diana was neglecting him. 
 
 She at least had not changed. She looked just the 
 same, only a more stately presence. As of old, people 
 surrounded her and paid court to her. She was not 
 dancing ; but she had been led into the ballroom and ush- 
 ered to seats that represented the estrade of honour of a 
 more formal age, and there she sat enthroned among 
 the high and mighty, and all seemed to go and bow down 
 before her. Without thrusting oneself into this august 
 group it would have been impossible to claim her atten- 
 tion. She had seen him, but she made no sign to him that 
 he might approach; he pretended to have seen her once 
 and not to be able now to see her at all; and when she 
 moved, and some instinct told him that she was within 
 reach, he assumed the aspect of a grave and dignified 
 fish out of water that does not any longer desire to be 
 put back in the swim. Then her voice sounded at his el- 
 bow; she was talking to people close by. He had to
 
 GLAMOUR 155 
 
 turn round to get out of their way, and she said sud- 
 denly, "Oh, I'm so thirsty. . . . Bryan, take me 
 downstairs and get me some soda-water." 
 
 They sat at a little table in the supper-room, and two 
 courteous old gentlemen, who must have been the host 
 and somebody closely connected with the host, asked 
 him beamingly if he was taking care of the duchess, and 
 he said he was trying to do so and she said he had done 
 it. He watched her sip soda-water from a tall wineglass, 
 nibble an ice biscuit, and eat some grapes. That was just 
 the supper that he used to get for her years ago. 
 
 And it was years ago. For a few minutes he had gone 
 back with her to the time that could not really come again. 
 After talking so seriously, she talked lightly, looking at 
 him, laughing at him, with her face lit up by the electric 
 lamp on the table, and her diamonds and her eyes flash- 
 ing and glowing at him. Then in five or six minutes, 
 perhaps ten, supper was over, and she got up and said 
 good-bye. She did not go upstairs again. When she ap- 
 peared in the hall, cloaked, and waiting for her car, he 
 stood with her till she went away. 
 
 A few minutes' talk that was what he used to go out 
 at night for eleven years ago in 1903, in just such a 
 summer as this; dressing himself with inordinate care, 
 considering which set of buttons to wear in his white 
 waistcoat, being as difficult to satisfy with a white tie as 
 Brummel himself; hanging about for an hour in a crowd 
 till his minutes came; thinking they were worth all the 
 effort and fuss and trouble ; going home to dream about 
 them when they had passed. 
 
 Although he had been so inconspicuous and aloof 
 amidst Lady Merstham's festivities, it was as if he had 
 without striving made a great social success, for more 
 and more invitations came to him. One could be sure
 
 156 GLAMOUR 
 
 that these great ladies were not imitating Lady Para- 
 mont and only asking him because he was a literary celeb- 
 rity; since one of them wrote him down as Mr. Byron 
 Veale and another as Mr. Boyce Valli. That invitation 
 promised music; and Boyce Valli struck him as a nice 
 musician-like name. In any such variants or misspell- 
 ings he traced Diana's hasty scrawl when issuing her 
 orders that he should be bidden to concert or hop, as the 
 case might be; but the hospitality prompted by Diana 
 somehow spread far beyond her own circle, and Bryan 
 began to be asked to parties by people Diana had never 
 heard of and never wanted to hear of. Cards tumbled 
 upon him by every post. He was made free of the Ritz 
 Hotel for three nights in succession. Mrs. Brompton- 
 Rhodes asked him to her daughter's coming-out dance at 
 Claridge's, and Mrs. Locke Teddington, asking him to 
 her small and early at the Cecil, told him to respond if 
 he pleased to "The Elms," No. 900, Putney Hill. He 
 was ashamed of his success, knowing that it was not de- 
 served, and he hid his cards in a drawer after sorting 
 out what looked like the trumps and laying them on top 
 of the pack. Really, it was as if he had just been ga- 
 zetted to the Household Cavalry, or been put on good 
 Mr. Goblet's list at the Spinsters' Club or as if some mis- 
 chievous society fairy godmother, taking the fun out of 
 Diana's hands, had flown round, saying, "There is a poor 
 boy called Veal or Valli, or some such name if you are 
 giving a dance, do out of charity ask him. The lad is 
 alone in London, he knows nobody, and he is passionately 
 fond of dancing." 
 
 He availed himself of all this indiscriminate kindness 
 only to the extent of going 1 to such houses as were fre- 
 quented by Diana; and there he renewed acquaintance 
 with some of the people he had known in the past, and
 
 GLAMOUR 157 
 
 was introduced to the successors of others. They were 
 all pleasant, charming of manner, and some of them we're 
 very amusing, and even clever; they never bored him by 
 speaking of his plays, although a few let him understand 
 that they knew he scribbled, and thought he did it quite 
 well. Diana said it was good for him. At any rate, as 
 a little change he liked it. In these weeks he got away 
 from shop, and all talk of shop. He found that he en- 
 joyed this as a welcome relief from what had always 
 seemed inevitable ; although he felt now and then that in 
 so enjoying himself he was guilty of treachery towards 
 the Kelly Giffords and Madame St. Clouds of his own 
 proper world. 
 
 All these days and nights that he was giving to idle- 
 ness and frivolity must be paid for by hard work later 
 on. That was of course understood; and to prove to 
 himself how thoroughly he understood it he wrote to 
 Alton Grey, crying off the adventurous holiday that had 
 been arranged between them. Next year, perhaps. But 
 this year impossible, because he would have to work all 
 through August and September. 
 
 The autumn drama. Yes, by Jove, July getting on 
 now; well on; July beginning to run out fast. 
 
 Then he ceased to practise self-deception, about this 
 matter at any rate. There would be no autumn drama. 
 It was a painful interview at the Renaissance Theatre 
 when he told poor little Mr. Cranbourne. 
 
 "This isn't like you, Vaile." 
 
 He was sorry for Mr. Cranbourne, and he apologised 
 humbly for disappointing him. 
 
 "No, I wouldn't have believed it. It hasn't been your 
 way, Vaile to go and let one down like this." 
 
 Bryan said he would pay forfeits, do anything. 
 
 "I counted on the first rehearsal for August 3rd as
 
 158 GLAMOUR 
 
 sure as I counted on the Bank holiday itself. Really, it's 
 a bit thick, Vaile. When they phoned up from the. box 
 office that you had come wanting to see me, I felt as sure 
 as eggs that you had brought me the book complete." 
 
 Bryan could only repeat that he was sorry. 
 
 "And what am I to do, I'd like to know? Shut my 
 theatre? Let my theatre? Can't let a theatre all in a 
 minute even if I hadn't a company on my hands. Miss 
 Porchester, too! Got her because you couldn't do with- 
 out her for your thing. She'll be a hundred pounds a 
 week walking about to please you." 
 
 "Surely you have something else you can put up?" 
 
 "Nothing nothing what I trust a brass farthing in. 
 Oh, Vaile, you must help me out of this hole somehow. 
 What about a revival? Have you anything free?" 
 
 Then Bryan suggested that he might revive Evelyn 
 Lestrange; although feeling that "revive" was scarcely 
 the word to use about something that had never been 
 really alive. 
 
 But in his despair Mr. Cranbourne snatched at this 
 idea. "Why not? Let's think. It's a chance, anyway. 
 Why didn't they like it? Serious interest! But tastes 
 change. You are on the crest of a wave. See if the suc- 
 cess of Penelope's Dilemma will float it? And it could 
 be brought up to date, perhaps. Look here, Vaile, will 
 you re-write it for me?" 
 
 "I am afraid I can't promise to do that," said Vaile. 
 "But you'll be able to knock it about better than I could 
 myself." 
 
 "That's very handsome of you. Vaile, upon my word, 
 I'll risk it." 
 
 Poor Evelyn Lestrange!
 
 XIII 
 
 BRYAN'S next engagement was a concert at the Do- 
 ver Street Gallery given by that much-wooed but 
 still inveterate old bachelor, Mr. Francis Goldberg. 
 There was no crowd and the music was tip-top, as was 
 the company and the supper, for Mr. Francis was as 
 popular as he was rich. Indeed, his one fault was that 
 for twenty years and more he had refused to share his 
 amiability and wealth with the nice suitable wives that 
 his friends found for him. He never denied that they 
 were nice or suitable; only with subtle tact and kindly 
 oriental smiles he evaded being caught by any of them, 
 and when they married other people in a huff he always 
 gave them a nice suitable trinket out of the glass cabinet 
 that he kept well stocked with wedding presents. 
 
 Diana sat in the front row with several ambassadors 
 and one princess, and Bryan knew that he could not go 
 and sit there too unless requested to do so by Mr. Fran- 
 cis; but when the time arrived for a little friendly talk 
 with her, it didn't come off. It never came off. During 
 an interval in the concert, when he stood expectant, she 
 went round the gallery looking at the Cubist pictures 
 with somebody else. 
 
 This other person had an historic name ; he was head 
 of a family famed for their good looks. He was one of 
 those people known to Greater London, just as Diana 
 was, only in a lesser degree. Schoolgirls bought his por- 
 trait and languished over it, thinking him like the noble- 
 man in their favourite novel. His hair was grey now, 
 
 159
 
 160 GLAMOUR 
 
 but his moustache was brushed and frizzed as well as 
 ever; and he strutted along with Diana, looking like a 
 great goggle-eyed dressed-up doll, smiling in a placid 
 ecstasy of life-long self-conceit. At least, that is how 
 he appeared to Bryan, who, watching him with dignified 
 contempt for his real emptiness and futility, remembered 
 things that he had formerly heard without paying any 
 attention to them or taking the smallest interest in them. 
 This great booby's historic name was one of the names 
 that had been connected with Diana's name. 
 
 When the music began again he was still with her. 
 They sat together in one of the back rows, where there 
 was room for more if Diana had wanted anybody else 
 near her. 
 
 Bryan left the concert and went to the Betterton Club 
 and had supper with the old gang. He was angry with 
 Diana, and more angry with himself for being angry 
 with her. What did it matter to him? 
 
 Not a bit. Only it showed him that his attempted 
 friendship would not do. Certainly he did not propose 
 to waste his time in filling her odd moments with elevated 
 conversation ; to be the pis-aller when she wished to hold 
 forth on art and the drama; to be the trustworthy old 
 father-confessor who is there to listen to the spoilt child 
 when she pours out her vague regrets, and who may be 
 relied on to look the other way when she is naughty. He 
 went to bed feeling sore and angry, but altogether de- 
 termined to have no more of it. 
 
 Then she spoke to him in the morning. 
 
 "Bryan, is that you? Why did you disappear last 
 night?" 
 
 "I was bored." 
 
 "So was I. But I waited, expecting you." 
 
 "Oh, I'm sorry you troubled."
 
 GLAMOUR 161 
 
 "Bryan, what's the matter? Are you angry?" 
 
 "No, of course not. What about?" 
 
 "I don't know. Well, I want you to do something." 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 "Let us go out of London somewhere this afternoon 
 to Windsor or Ascot. It may be my last chance." 
 
 He decided to go, in order to tell her plainly that it 
 was the last time. 
 
 Her yellow car floated slowly out of London, as if 
 merely being carried on the tide of traffic, till they had 
 passed Hammersmith; and then it seemed to lift like a 
 seaplane, to leave the dark shining surface of the Castel- 
 nau Road, and to fly. Even then there was no sense of 
 fast motion, no dipping or rocking, and one only knew 
 that the pace was good because of the distances that were 
 silently, smoothly devoured. They glided through Wind- 
 sor, and flew again in the park and round and round the 
 forest. 
 
 They left the car in one of the forest roads and walked 
 for a little time down rides that had been cut through 
 the younger plantations; and after their walk they re- 
 turned to the car, went on to Ascot, and had tea in the 
 garden behind the hotel. Diana said that she was enjoy- 
 ing it; and it would have been jolly enough, only it was 
 all spoilt for him by his resentful, troubled thoughts. 
 
 It was no good her smiling at him so frankly, talking 
 to him so openly and freely, looking so wonderfully at- 
 tractive that the few people they met turned and stared, 
 forgetting their manners in their admiring surprise, and 
 that two groups of tea-drinkers at the hotel could not 
 get on with their tea because of her dazzling propinquity 
 she might have power over others to-day, but she had 
 no power over him. She had lost it last night. The 
 sharply-detailed mental picture of her seated beside that
 
 162 GLAMOUR 
 
 moustachiod fop at the concert was so vivid that the 
 live picture of herself could not obliterate it. Once, when 
 she said it was good of him to give her this long restful 
 afternoon, his secret indignation nearly made him ex- 
 plode into replying, "I suppose you asked your friend 
 Lord Sedgemoor first, and as you couldn't get him you 
 thought of me again." That would have been a lamen- 
 table thing to say; to blurt out that historic name, and 
 thus betray the first trivial irritating cause of his rea- 
 soned decision. No; if he had said quietly and chamngly, 
 "You must not rely on me for the future; and if you 
 really require a sort of tame-cat companion for your lei- 
 sure hours, I would suggest your promoting Mr. Am- 
 brose Lake to the vacant post," that might have been 
 permissible, and it would have conveyed his intention 
 while concealing his irritation. But no mention of the 
 historic name in any circumstances. 
 
 He would say what he had to say on their journey back 
 to London ; but now, seated again in the car and looking 
 from its depths at the glass panels between them and the 
 chauffeur and footman, it occurred to him that his words 
 might be overheard. 
 
 "Can they hear us ?" he asked. 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Are you sure?" 
 
 "Yes, of course. Oh, Bryan, what fun! Are you go- 
 ing to tell me secrets ?" 
 
 He was silent, and they swung up the long hill through 
 the woods. 
 
 Then she spoke of the invitation that he had received 
 from Lord Bekesbourne for Saturday to Monday at his 
 famous country house in Hampshire. After that, she 
 said, it would be good-bye for some time, because she 
 did not intend to return to London.
 
 GLAMOUR 163 
 
 "I think we'd better say our good-byes beforehand, 
 then. You won't see me at Test Court." 
 
 "Why not? You told him you would go." 
 
 "I know I did. But I have changed my mind. Bekes- 
 bourne will forgive me. He won't feel too much disap- 
 pointed." 
 
 "Yes, but / shall. Bryan!" And in her voice there 
 sounded one of those deep notes that used to thrill him. 
 "You know / counted on your being there." 
 
 Then he spoke abruptly and irritably, almost violently. 
 
 "Diana, what are we playing at ? What are you play- 
 ing at?" 
 
 "How do you mean? Bryan, I don't understand." 
 
 "This ridiculous idea of friendship impossible and 
 out of the question our meetings and arrangements 
 for me to dance attendance " His irritation was ex- 
 ploding in spite of himself; and though he tried to talk 
 reasonably, just explaining why it was inadvisable for 
 them to take any further excursions together, he was 
 merely jerky and incoherent. His failure made him 
 angry; and, losing all control of the internal fireworks, 
 he let go the historic name with a sudden bang. Next 
 moment he found himself talking rather louder than he 
 wished, but very fluently, as he asked her in effect what 
 the deuce she meant by playing the fool with that ass 
 Sedgemoor yesterday evening. And this was not the 
 most regrettable thing that he said, while the fluency 
 lasted, in regard to the in judiciousness of her conduct. 
 
 "Bryan !" Her face had brightened again ; she seemed 
 quite pleased. "Are you really paying me this wonderful 
 compliment? Have I really awakened jealousy?" 
 
 "Jealousy ! You flatter yourself." 
 
 "You big stupid Bryan! Of poor old Jack Sedgemoor, 
 too" ; and she laughed softly.
 
 164 GLAMOUR 
 
 He said further disparaging things about this noble- 
 man, and she told him to go on and say anything he liked 
 if it did him good. It was not paining her in the least. 
 
 She persuaded him that he had been wrong in suppos- 
 ing that she felt tenderness now or had ever felt tender- 
 ness for the much-photographed Sedgemoor. And it was 
 impossible to doubt that this was the truth. The gossip, 
 the twittering of torn-tits, had been, in this case at least, 
 absolutely without sense. It was a relief to him to know 
 it, and yet for a little while he was still angry with her. 
 Weariness and bitterness mingled with his dissatisfac- 
 tion. He had spoken in an unworthy manner ; he wished 
 he had said nothing at all ; but he felt he must go on and 
 say more. It was as though, having started a quarrel 
 without any cause, he must continue the quarrel until he 
 could justify himself. 
 
 While they talked, he had instinctively drawn into the 
 corner of the broad, deep seat, so as to look at her fairly 
 and squarely and not have her close at his side ; and she 
 had drawn away to her corner, turning her face towards 
 him, bringing them face to face. 
 
 Except that they were gliding down-hill now, through 
 the long street of a town, he had no consciousness of 
 anything except themselves. 
 
 She had said something about having always hoped 
 that sooner or later he and she would be friends again, 
 and he had said that he could not believe it. 
 
 "That's not very polite." 
 
 "I'm sorry." 
 
 "And it isn't very kind, either." 
 
 For a moment her face had flushed faintly; but now 
 she was pale again, looking at him appealingly. 
 
 "I can't pretend about it, Diana ; and I can't see what's 
 to be gained by any pretence on your side."
 
 GLAMOUR 165 
 
 "It's not pretence." 
 
 "You know that you never cared for me really." 
 
 "That's not true. And you ought to know that it isn't. 
 I did care for you and I went on caring for you." 
 
 "How am I to believe that?" 
 
 "You don't want to believe it." 
 
 "Well, my dear girl, think. For all this time, till the 
 other day, did it matter to you whether I was alive or 
 dead?" 
 
 "Of course it did. All the time I was taking the great- 
 est interest in you. Following your work with such pride 
 and pleasure, delighting in your success." 
 
 "You didn't write to tell me so, did you?" 
 
 "Did you want me to write ?" 
 
 "No. Only when you talk of being so interested in my 
 wretched work well, I suggested that you didn't show 
 your interest." 
 
 He was quarrelling now for the sake of quarrelling, 
 not choosing his words, saying anything foolish that of- 
 fered itself; and something in Diana's changed manner, 
 her indignant protestations, the reproachful tones of her 
 voice, made him hate himself for his anger even while 
 he stimulated it with memories of her numerous trans- 
 gressions. 
 
 "I showed my interest in every possible way," she said. 
 "I wanted you to get on. I longed for you to make a 
 real hit. I was miserable about it when Evelyn Lestrange 
 failed, and they told me you couldn't find a manager to 
 do anything else of yours. I knew what it would mean 
 to you that you'd lose confidence and be unhappy and 
 I did everything in my power I never rested till But 
 what's the use of talking of it?" She had flushed again, 
 and she turned from him and looked out of the window. 
 "You did make another success. That was the great
 
 166 GLAMOUR 
 
 thing. And I have loved all your plays, Bryan and 
 thought of you much more than you'd ever believe." 
 
 He sat silent, thinking. His unreasoning, self -induced 
 anger had evaporated in a moment, and a coldly uncom- 
 fortable dread was taking possession of him. He spoke 
 hesitatingly now, but very seriously. 
 
 "Diana, what was that you said about hearing that I 
 couldn't find a manager? Who was it told you that?" 
 
 "I don't remember." 
 
 "Somebody must have told you." 
 
 "I dare say I read it in the newspapers. Everybody 
 would know it, wouldn't they?" 
 
 "No, I don't think so. And it certainly wasn't said in 
 the newspapers." 
 
 "Well, I tell you, I tried to find out all about you, and 
 how you were getting on." 
 
 "I see. But you said just now that when you heard I 
 wasn't getting on you did all in your power to help me. 
 What do you mean by that?" 
 
 "Nothing at all, really. I told people how clever you 
 were a writer that must make his way. I advertised 
 you, Bryan" ; and she turned and smiled at him. 
 
 "Didn't you do more than that?" 
 
 She shook her head, and he saw her lips trembling. 
 
 "Did you go to someone and say that money would be 
 provided if a manager cared to try my plays?" 
 
 "No, of course not." 
 
 "That's not true." 
 
 She denied again, but he forced her to confess the 
 truth; and when she put her hand upon his arm with a 
 pretty, deprecating gesture, he moved his arm as if in- 
 stinctively shrinking from the smallest contact with her. 
 
 His sense of humiliation was horrible. Diana had been 
 the founder of his fortunes. It seemed to him as if the
 
 GLAMOUR 167 
 
 discovery of this shameful secret robbed him of every 
 title to respect. It was not only the destruction of that 
 comforting and sustaining idea that he had so long nour- 
 ished with regard to the capitalists who had been struck 
 by his excellence as a writer and had backed their opinion 
 in such a handsome way; it was the hateful thought of 
 having been bolstered up with her money with the 
 money of that unknown man who liked yachting. For 
 it was his money to begin with all of it. 
 
 "You had no right," he said sternly, "to put me under 
 an obligation to you without my knowing it." 
 "Bryan, you are speaking very unkindly." 
 She went on talking, but he did not listen. He thought 
 of his elation in that distant time when Kelly Gifford 
 came and told him of his wonderful backer, and how 
 easily he had swallowed the tale given him by those so- 
 licitors. Did they know that it was Diana? Very likely 
 almost certainly. Those other solicitors, Diana's peo- 
 ple, would have informed them "masonically," as some- 
 thing not to be mentioned. And Wilkinsons' perhaps 
 thought that he knew himself, laughing at him for his 
 affectation of reluctance, but pretending to believe that 
 all his swagger was genuine. Did Gifford know ? In his 
 conceit, he had been so ready to believe that strangers 
 would spring forward to support him and his brilliant 
 efforts. And it was just Diana the woman who had 
 jilted him coming to his rescue, taking compassion on 
 him, seeing that, unaided, his feeble attempts were fail- 
 ing, and thinking they would always fail. The money 
 was paid back promptly thank heaven for that. But 
 without the money, where would he have been? It had 
 brought him success, it had opened his entire career. But 
 for the help given at that crucial moment, he might never 
 have won through to success at all. Everything would
 
 168 GLAMOUR 
 
 have been difficult and different; he would have had no 
 Gifford, no Miss Clarence, no Quadrant Theatre to make 
 a regular going concern of him and his plays. 
 
 "You had no right to do it without letting me know," 
 he repeated. 
 
 He remembered his passing doubt as to whether it was 
 his wife who wished to risk her poor little inheritance in 
 order to get him out of his troubles. He would not have 
 accepted such assistance from his own wife. And it was 
 Diana. 
 
 She was saying now that it had been no obligation, and 
 again she reproached him for his unkindness. 
 
 "Besides, if, as you choose to call it, it was an obliga- 
 tion, what does it matter? When people are fond of each 
 other, what do obligations count? Bryan, dear, don't be 
 ridiculous about it. Look at it the other way round. Sup- 
 pose you had thought that you could anyhow help me, 
 wouldn't you have done it?" 
 
 "That's totally different. You don't seem to under- 
 stand; a man can't take any help from a woman at 
 least, no help that's in the form of money." 
 
 "Is that worthy of you, Bryan? You don't think it 
 really. It is too absurd the fetish of money. You have 
 said yourself, again and again, that it is only common- 
 minded people who make a code of ethics in which money 
 is treated as something sacred not to be given or re- 
 ceived, but only bartered for. You said it in Evelyn Le- 
 strange. You have said it always." 
 
 And this was quite true. He had said something of 
 the same sort even so lately as the other day, when ad- 
 miring Diana's grand manner in speaking of money. 
 Only as applied to this case, his own case, the theory 
 wouldn't hold water. 
 
 "You don't understand," he repeated wearily.
 
 GLAMOUR 169 
 
 They had reached the outskirts of London now, and 
 in the traffic the car was gliding slowly homewards. 
 
 "I am sorry," she said presently, "that we have' 
 dragged out all this ancient history, and excited ourselves 
 about it. Really, it wasn't worth while." 
 
 When they reached Hammersmith she asked if he 
 would let the car go to the Regent's Park and drop him 
 at his door. "I have plenty of time, Bryan." 
 
 "No, please you are very kind. But I'll get out at 
 Hyde Park Corner, if you don't mind dropping me 
 there." 
 
 "And you'll forgive me?" 
 
 "Forgive you!" And he laughed bitterly. "Everyone 
 would say that I ought to thank you and tell you how 
 grateful I am and I suppose it's brutal and boorish of 
 me not to have done so. But you have made me feel such 
 a fool, such an utter fool." 
 
 And neither of them spoke again till the car was pass- 
 ing the wall of Knightsbridge Barracks. Then once more 
 she put her hand on his arm. 
 
 "Say you'll forget all about it, and that it makes no 
 difference." 
 
 "I can't. It has made all the difference in the world 
 to me. But, Diana, of course I do thank you. It was 
 kind of you to bother about me." 
 
 "I bothered because I cared for you. Do you believe 
 it?" 
 
 He looked at her, but did not answer. 
 
 "Bryan," and she looked him full in the face. "Believe 
 it or not. you have always been more to me than any 
 other person in the world." 
 
 He knew now clearly, even if he had felt any linger- 
 ing doubt before, that he ought to have no more to do
 
 170 GLAMOUR 
 
 with her. The episode must be closed at once and for 
 ever. 
 
 He did not see her or communicate with her for three 
 long empty days, and in this time he arrived at the con- 
 clusion that it had been really absurd to make such a fuss 
 about her secret interference in his past affairs. He had 
 certainly been brutal to her after making the discovery. 
 Once more it had been the wound to his self-conceit that 
 stung so cruelly. No; in reason and decency, whether 
 he liked it or not, he should be grateful to her for what 
 she had done. But that result of his reflections, far from 
 altering his view as to how he must necessarily treat her 
 in future, only confirmed it. It was what she had said 
 to him at the end of their drive that necessarily made 
 further relations impossible. 
 
 It was this just the few words and the touch of her 
 hand on his arm and the look in her eyes that he 
 thought of incessantly as the fact which separated them 
 for ever. 
 
 He was thinking of it now, as he sat alone in his room 
 at the end of the third dull day. It was late at night, 
 after one o'clock; everyone slept except himself, and the 
 whole house was dark and silent. He started and dropped 
 his unread book when the telephone bell began to ring. 
 In the silence its sudden clamour seemed to fill the house 
 with sound. 
 
 He went out of his room, across the darkened hall, 
 into the other room; without troubling to switch on the 
 light, made his way to the telephone; and stood in the 
 darkness, holding the receiver to his ear, and quivering 
 with expectancy. 
 
 "Bryan, is it you?" 
 
 "Yes."
 
 GLAMOUR 171 
 
 "Bryan, I am so tired. And I am unhappy, because you 
 are angry with me. Say good-night to me." 
 
 "Good-night." 
 
 "Good-night, Bryan. . . . You are coming to Test 
 Court?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Have you told Lord Bekesbourne that you can't 
 come ?" 
 
 "No, not yet. I shall tell him to-morrow." 
 
 "I have counted on you." 
 
 He stood there spell-bound. The silence of the house, 
 the darkness, isolated him, cut him off from the associa- 
 tions of ordinary ideas all the familiar life that had 
 surrounded him so long had gone, and for the moment 
 was forgotten, as completely forgotten as if it had never 
 been. This was years and years ago; when he was im- 
 pelled by impossible hopes that would never be realised ; 
 when he was full of imaginations and fancies that had 
 the quality of dreams, seeming so glorious till you wake 
 and find they are nothing at all. 
 
 And her voice sounded again, low and sweet. She 
 was standing in a moonlit glade, stretching her arms 
 towards him, trying to draw him to her from the dark- 
 ness beneath the trees, where he stood trembling, fighting 
 the spell, struggling not to yield and go to her. 
 
 "Bryan, I want you there." 
 
 He did not answer. 
 
 "I want you very, very much. . . . 
 
 "Bryan, I want you." 
 
 Then silence. She had dropped her arms; and she 
 moved away through the moonlight, not looking back, 
 because she knew that he was following her. 
 
 And he resisted no more. He did not think of right 
 or wrong. He gave himself to the spell.
 
 XIV 
 
 IT used to be observed with regard to visiting at English 
 country houses before the war that there were two 
 kinds of hostesses the active hostess and the passive 
 hostess. 
 
 When you arrived at the passive house nobody took 
 any notice of you, and you felt as you had felt years ago 
 when going to a new school; you were homesick, you 
 moped a little ; then you made the best of a bad job, tried 
 to win a friend or two, and perhaps after all enjoyed 
 yourself. 
 
 At the active house the hostess took charge of you, 
 and you felt like a prisoner just alighted from the black 
 maria. You were told the rules, the hours of meals, the 
 system of recreation; your name or number was an- 
 nounced to all your fellow-prisoners; you were expected 
 to look bright and cheerful each time you were inspected ; 
 you were made to give the keys of your private port- 
 manteau to one of the warders in a word, you knew 
 that there could be no hope until you had served your 
 week-end sentence and were set free on Monday morn- 
 ing. 
 
 And whereas a, week-end house-party in a small coun- 
 try house used to be an overflowing superabundant af- 
 fair, reminding one in its assembled and factitious gaiety 
 of a bank-holiday fair on the village green, a party of 
 equal numbers in one of the greater houses of England 
 seemed nothing at all. The great house swallowed the 
 party without gulping, and at once resumed its aspect 
 
 172
 
 GLAMOUR 173 
 
 of calm composure. Even when you all gathered together 
 before dinner in one of the many rooms, you felt that 
 the larger portion of the house was still unaware of you; 
 this room had seen so much in its time that you could not 
 startle it; indeed, there was no mischief that you could 
 get up to anywhere about the house that had not hap- 
 pened there before and far worse, too. 
 
 Test Court was this sort of house, and Lord Bekes- 
 bourne and his elderly sister must be classed as hosts of 
 the passive kind. The house itself, although built in the 
 time of William and Mary, was more Italian in style 
 than Dutch, and it seemed immense as you caught 
 glimpses of it through the beech trees of the park. Then, 
 after crossing a stone bridge and drawing near, you saw 
 grandeurs of forecourt, semi-circular wings or dependen- 
 cies, cloisters or colonnades, iron gates, an equestrian 
 statue; and then, as you arrived, the height of the portico 
 above your head and the number of the stone steps before 
 your feet made you feel comparatively very small indeed. 
 You entered a great square hall and had an impression 
 of tall, narrow windows, tall, narrow pictures, rich oak 
 carving, crimson brocade between panels; but no doors 
 apparent, except the vast opening in the wall through 
 which you had escaped from the portico. An invisible 
 door relented and showed itself suddenly, and you passed 
 into another hall of exactly the same size, but higher, lit 
 from the roof, with a shallow staircase, a gigantic hang- 
 ing lantern, and more pictures. This second hall was rich 
 in doors; and you could go through any one of them 
 with full confidence, if a stranger to the house, that you 
 would promptly lose yourself. 
 
 Your only safe plan in that event was to struggle 
 resolutely towards the other side of the house, the garden 
 front. Here the long range of rooms led one into an-
 
 174 GLAMOUR 
 
 other, the view of the terrace with orange trees just out- 
 side the windows served to guide you, an endless path 
 of carpet running across the shining parquetry through 
 all the doorways encouraged you to persevere, and sooner 
 or later, if you w r ere not led astray by the temptations 
 offered by the Bekesbourne Vandykes, the Bekesbourne 
 Lelys, the Bekesbourne china, you would come into a 
 room containing human life in the shape of some of the 
 other visitors. 
 
 Of course, as a new arrival, you had servants to aid in 
 your first hunt for the house-party; and if Bekesbourne 
 happened to be about, and not playing golf in the park 
 or wandering round the garden with a lovely lady, and 
 giving her paternal advice that both knew would not be 
 acted on, he welcomed you in an entirely charming way. 
 In his absence and he generally was absent Lady Eliza 
 did her passive best. But in fact you could safely take 
 it for granted that you were welcome, for some reason 
 or other, or you certainly would not have been there at 
 all. Just as Bekesbourne, always doing what he liked, 
 bought the pictures he wanted, no matter what the cost, 
 so he collected naturally the very choicest guests; but, 
 since he only consulted his own taste, he never scrupled 
 to include in his selection some small unsought- for piece 
 if its manner pleased him, even though it had not a great 
 name to support it's merit. 
 
 These week-end parties of his were famous, although 
 not known of to the suburbs, never written of in news- 
 papers, merely talked about in the highest and most ex- 
 clusive circles. Hitherto stern and forbidding matrons 
 of exalted rank would perk up and begin to take notice 
 of you if you could say, "I was at Test last Sunday." 
 "Oh, really ? Do tell me who was there." Then you re- 
 cited the names those heavy, knock-down names that
 
 GLAMOUR 175 
 
 used to count with dames of high degree, with radical 
 members of Parliament, with Mr. Ambrose Lake: own- 
 ers of other show places as big as or bigger than Test; 
 peers whose titles sounded old-fashioned when Shake- 
 speare wrote Henry the Fifth; the majestic reigning 
 beauties, who were beauties when they began to reign and 
 still reigned by prescriptive right; the young new real 
 beauties, who were more like revolutionary leaders than 
 queens, considering the destruction and havoc that they 
 caused; the excellent plenipotentiaries of kings of for- 
 eign countries; the absolute rulers of England and the 
 British Empire, the men of destiny, like Mr. Brentwood, 
 Mr. Calverley, and Mr. Jordan. Then perhaps, to play 
 light after such terrific rights and lefts, you put in a few 
 Lord Edwards and Lady Hyacinths, and even a Miss 
 or two, who were only supremely fashionable, gallant, 
 or gay. 
 
 And this party of July 25th, as well as being the last 
 party of the year, was by no means the least grand party 
 of the year, both in respect of the beauty of the ladies 
 and the illustrious qualifications of the men. 
 
 It was about six o'clock when Bryan Vaile found a 
 small contingent of it drinking tea in a room with doors 
 open to the long stone terrace. 
 
 Lady Eliza, at the tea-table, welcomed him, knew his 
 name directly the servant murmured it to her, and at 
 once introduced him to the Duchess of Middlesborough 
 and the great Mr. Brentwood, who were seated on the 
 deep cushioned seat of one of the windows. 
 
 The duchess said she knew him already. 
 
 "Oh, yes," said Lady Eliza. 
 
 And Mr. Brentwood said that to a certain extent this 
 was true in his case also, and he begged to express grate- 
 ful thanks for some very pleasant evenings.
 
 176 GLAMOUR 
 
 This troubled Lady Eliza, and made her think that she 
 had been wrong in knowing Mr. Vaile's name so 
 promptly, and that he was really Lord John. Must be 
 the only place in which Mr. Brentwood could be given 
 a happy evening was the House of Commons, and he had 
 meant to compliment Lord John on his oratory. 
 
 Bryan drank his tea absent-mindedly, but noticed that 
 Lady Eliza poured it out absent-mindedly. She talked 
 to two youngish women and a pallid young man, who sat 
 at the table eating cake thoughtfully, but she attempted 
 no further introductions. People passed the windows 
 and their voices floated in a tall man with glasses, who 
 was certainly Mr. Calverley; Lady Merstham; and un- 
 known figures. Diana, in a fawn-coloured dust-cloak 
 and a hat with broad wings, was making Mr. Brentwood 
 laugh. His strong, keen face softened and lit up, so that 
 if you knew him only by photographs and caricatures 
 you would not have recognised him ; he beamed at Diana, 
 and shook his grey head playfully; he liked her as much 
 and was just as fond of sitting by her and frivolling in 
 this manner as when, with her audacious disregard of 
 people's weight and importance in the State, she used to 
 make him come to those luncheon-parties in Bruton 
 Street. 
 
 Bryan glanced at her from time to time, for an in- 
 stant watching the movements of her white hands as 
 they amused themselves with the loose gloves that she 
 had just peeled off, the warm sunlight on one wing of her 
 big hat, the shadowy and dusky tone of her face when 
 she turned from the window towards the room. Ex- 
 cept for her, there was a sense of unreality about every- 
 thing. This solid room, the stone flags of the terrace, 
 the orange trees, the extensive background of gardens, 
 the faint perfume of roses, were only scenic just the
 
 GLAMOUR 177 
 
 setting to her. It was as if she had raised it all ; all that 
 one saw, including grey-haired rulers of England, and 
 all that one didn't see the great house with its halls and 
 corridors and staircases, the river and the bridge, the 
 park, the woods, the steps and balustrades, the groups of 
 strolling men and women; as if by her magic she had 
 made it all spring into existence to furnish her little realm 
 of glamour. The fancy came to him that if he returned 
 here, say, on Tuesday, he would find only wild thicket 
 and brake ; perhaps here and there a stone slab showing 
 beneath the tangle of briars, a broken balustrade, the 
 bust of a faun tumbled from its weed-covered pedestal, 
 to perplex and puzzle one as does the faded memory of 
 a dream; but no vestige of the fine house and the fine 
 company. Having served its brief purpose, all would 
 have vanished again. 
 
 Then, in spite of his wandering thoughts, Bryan be- 
 came fascinated by what Lady Eliza was doing. Al- 
 though she had given people their tea in such a dreamy, 
 careless manner, she now seemed to be making tea with 
 wrapt attention. She poured it into the slop basin ! She 
 put milk in, a little more lump after lump of sugar. 
 Who was it for ? He started. She was offering him the 
 jorum. 
 
 "Have you a steady hand Lord John? Please carry 
 this to the fireplace and put it down by the corner" ; and 
 she pointed. "Bingo ! Bingo ! Bingo ! Tea ! " 
 
 A plethoric King Charles spaniel waddled out from 
 her skirts and went to meet Bryan at the fireplace. 
 
 As he moved back towards the table Diana stopped 
 him and made him go to her in the window. Mr. Brent- 
 wood was laughing again, and he informed Bryan that 
 she had said something very good, but very cynical. 
 "She said What did you say, Diana? Repeat it."
 
 178 GLAMOUR 
 
 "I only told him that there is no such bore as a really 
 intelligent person being intelligent at the wrong time and 
 in the wrong place"; and she, too, laughed. "That's 
 nothing to what I say sometimes, is it, Bryan ?" 
 
 "It's very good," said Mr. Brentwood. "Almost good 
 enough to put into one of your delightful comedies, eh, 
 Vaile?" 
 
 Bryan said it was too good for that; it would make 
 all the rest of his delightful comedy seem so dreadfully 
 flat. 
 
 Then Bekesbourne came in from the terrace, cheery 
 and genial, with fatherly smiles for everybody, clapping 
 Bryan on the back and giving the great Mr. Brentwood 
 a slap on the shoulder. He said that Diana must come 
 into the garden ; he told Mr. Brentwood that he had ar- 
 ranged a match at golf for him on Sunday morning; and 
 he gave his sister an important piece of domestic infor- 
 mation about somebody who had a headache and 
 wouldn't appear at dinner. 
 
 Lady Eliza seemed oppressed by a vague notion that 
 she would have to do something for the invalid, but at 
 present could not guess what. She rose from her chair 
 and looked about her. One felt dimly that, although her 
 attitude towards them was passive, these parties were too 
 much for her. But she loved and feared her brother; 
 she would die at her post rather than desert him. 
 
 Everybody was going out to the terrace, and she fol- 
 lowed Bryan to the open doorway and spoke to him as if 
 answering a question. 
 
 "Bingo is ten years old." Then she looked hard at 
 him, and said firmly and confidently, "You are fond of 
 dogs Mr. Vaile?" as if to prove to herself that she had 
 been right from the very beginning, and had never wav- 
 ered for a moment about his name.
 
 GLAMOUR 179 
 
 The gardens were splendid in the lovely evening light. 
 It was still very warm, and everywhere the air was 
 scented with flowers. As one looked back along the upper 
 terrace the stonework seemed golden, and far away across 
 the park the river was flashing like yellow flame as it 
 crept behind the darkened beech trees. 
 
 Beyond the terraces and the sunken rose-garden, 
 smooth broad lawns merged into ornamental woods, 
 with round points, statues, and stone seats. Bryan 
 thought how beautiful it must be at night. He had been 
 strolling with other people, each couple or group aimlessly 
 following the people a little way ahead of them; and 
 when they came to the first of the circular spaces among 
 the trees the leaders turned, and, all beginning to drift 
 back again, he found himself with Diana by his side. 
 
 "I chose all this for mine," she said, stopping him, 
 with her hand for a moment on his arm. "This is the 
 part I like not the trim lawns and beds and borders; 
 but these trees, and the soft turf, and those benches 
 and the statue. This is for my own." And as they 
 strolled back towards the house she went on talking the 
 silly nonsense talk that they used once to indulge in. 
 "You understand? You know everything I mean but 
 can't say. One little small glance between us two saves 
 all those words and words that ordinary people struggle 
 with because they can't understand." And on the terrace 
 she paused, so as not at once to join the group ahead. 
 "Bryan, what would you like me to wear to-night? I 
 can dress for you in very pale blue. Or would you like 
 me better in silver and grey? What goes best with fir 
 trees and shadows and carved stone ?" 
 
 She smiled at him, and he stood tongue-tied looking 
 at her. Next moment she was with the others, going 
 into the house.
 
 180 GLAMOUR 
 
 Then he went for a comparatively brisk walk with an 
 amiable, shambling man who knew Test intimately be- 
 cause he had been here again and again. This stranger 
 took him through the park, skirting the pretty \roods, 
 and showed him the eighth green and ninth tee of the 
 golf-course; and they talked learnedly of the agonising 
 game, but with strangely little real interest on Bryan's 
 part. 
 
 All the colour had faded when they got back to the 
 gardens; a soft greyness filled the whole world. It was 
 as dark now probably as it would be at any time of the 
 lovely summer night. 
 
 "Everyone gone to titivate, I suppose," said the ami- 
 able stranger, yawning, as they came into the lamp-glow 
 of the empty rooms. 
 
 The whole house was lit up now. The wood-carving 
 had amber tones, the parquetry reflected the lamplight, 
 the hangings and brocaded panels seemed to take richer 
 tints, Lely's pouting-lipped ladies stared from their 
 frames like masqueraders looking at sunshine out of dark 
 casements with unblinking eyes; and as Bryan passed 
 from room to room, through the hall with the staircase 
 and the lantern, all so empty, silent, splendid, he had 
 again that impression of unreality, and the fancy of the 
 enchanted palace, the fabric of glamour, created by Diana 
 to confuse and delight. 
 
 He had the same feeling at dinner unreality, some- 
 thing fantastic about this sumptuous and lengthy meal, 
 with its long perspective of candelabra and gold baskets 
 of fruit that repeated itself in mirrors even when the 
 immense table ended, the painted ceiling of fore-short- 
 ened naked-shouldered nymphs looking down at the 
 naked shoulders below them, the noise of mingled voices,
 
 GLAMOUR 181 
 
 and the wonderful dream-like silence outside the open 
 windows. 
 
 He was somewhere near the middle of the table, and 
 the candelabra prevented him from seeing Diana at the 
 far end, where she sat at his host's right hand. He had 
 seen her before dinner. She had been standing with 
 other women round her, and she seemed to be dressed in 
 silver and grey in moonbeams and shadows in any- 
 thing soft as light and graceful as a cloud ; she had pearls 
 no whiter than her neck; and her eyes were lustrous, 
 large, unfathomable. He had drawn near enough to see 
 all this, and also that the other women were stately of 
 mien, grand and statuesque, full of life and colour, with 
 opulent ripe beauty or budding prettiness, gorgeously 
 clothed, heavily jewelled, and that compared with her 
 they looked like butchers stripped for fight, housemaids 
 dressed for a ball, mountebanks disguised for a street 
 carnival. Then, when Bekesbourne spoke to him, the 
 wild idea had come that, in defiance of laws and rules 
 and mathematical probabilities, he was going to be sent 
 in to dinner with her. That was too wild, too fantastic. 
 Bekesbourne gave him all that he was entitled to in the 
 form of a Miss Hurstley, who started the conversation by 
 saying, "Do you admire the duchess ? I think she is look- 
 ing so well to-night. Not nearly so tired and pinched 
 as she was last year." 
 
 Bryan, always deficient of small talk, seeking for it 
 now was like a man drawing water from a deep well; 
 and every time the bucket came up there was less in it, 
 and more and more obvious became the sound of the 
 windlass as he toiled at it. But Bryan did not mind, and 
 Miss Hurstley did not listen. Nothing mattered; the 
 whole feast was unreal. 
 
 The lady on the other side took abrupt compassion on
 
 182 GLAMOUR 
 
 him at a certain point, and talked to him with decision. 
 She told him that the best sort of women did not desire 
 votes and the wrong sort did not deserve them. As 
 things were, women exerted influence, and, she did not 
 know what Mr. Vaile thought, but she herself was sorry 
 for any woman who could not make at least one man 
 vote the way she wanted. And Mr. Vaile said he was 
 sure she could quite sure exactly he quite agreed. 
 "Women rule in a variety of ways, Mr. Vaile. I don't 
 believe that at any time the sway that is quietly exer- 
 cised by women over men was greater. Look at Mr. 
 ; but I won't be imprudent." 
 
 They had sat down very late, the meal had lasted for 
 ever, and when the ladies had gone they again seemed 
 to sit at the table for ever. Bryan glanced at the win- 
 dows, almost expecting to see daylight. But the grey 
 mystery outside was still untroubled and unchanging. 
 
 Lord Bekesbourne was old-fashioned in this respect; 
 he liked a good long dinner and a good yarn after it. 
 The two elders that sat at Lady Eliza's end had now gone 
 to join their host at his end, and in the reshuffling of 
 places Bryan had moved up a little way. He listened to 
 the talk without taking part or interest in it. 
 
 For a few minutes they talked of European politics. 
 Things were very serious, as they always are when states- 
 men speak of them. If things were ever less than serious, 
 their place and functions might seem to diminish in es- 
 sential importance. Mr. Brentwood said he would not be 
 surprised if he missed his game of golf by being called 
 back to London to-morrow morning. Mr. Calverley said 
 he would be surprised, because nothing could happen now 
 till Monday. Somebody spoke of Austria and Serbia, 
 of the need for a little quiet common sense, and of the
 
 GLAMOUR 183 
 
 mistake of attempting to fan the fire in any way. Some- 
 body else spoke of the assassinated Archduke of hav- 
 ing met him at Cannes and taken walks with him along 
 the Croisette and up to the Observatory. And after that 
 they talked no more politics. 
 
 Bryan heard his host say something about Diana. 
 "Isn't she magnificent?" or words to that effect; and 
 Mr. Brentwood nodded and laughed, and said, "But she 
 takes my breath away." And Bekesbourne, dropping his 
 voice, and looking a kind and perhaps over-indulgent 
 father, said things to Mr. Brentwood of which Bryan 
 caught scraps, though he tried not to listen. "Impossible 
 to chain and to that dull clayey fellow .. . . way 
 she was brought up ... No, Diana . . . made 
 a very good fist of it, all things considered." 
 
 At last Lord Bekesbourne got upon his long legs. The 
 interminable sitting was over. All of them slowly drifted 
 through the opened doors to join the ladies; and slowly 
 groups formed themselves or couples sat apart in room 
 after room, everybody now seeming to know exactly 
 where he wanted to go and by whom he was expected 
 to sit. Mr. Brentwood's bridge-table was waiting for 
 him, and he went to it quietly and soberly, like an honest 
 citizen going to the office to do business. Lady Peven- 
 sea and a sofa only big enough for two awaited Mr. Cal- 
 verley, and he sat down solemnly and devoutly, as one 
 performing a religious rite. Nobody but Mr. Brentwood 
 and his three companions played cards, but people stood 
 round the table at first watching the game. Diana was 
 the centre of a small seated group by an empty hearth, 
 in front of which Lord Bekesbourne stood with his long 
 legs apart, as if warming himself with the memory of 
 winter fires. And Bryan hung about expectant, as in
 
 184 GLAMOUR 
 
 the old time, humbly waiting for his turn to come. All 
 the windows were open, and the silence outside seemed 
 to grow deeper every minute. 
 
 After a long while Diana left her chair by the hearth. 
 She and Bekesbourne were watching the card-players. 
 Bryan drew near to watch too, and Bekesbourne strolled 
 back to the hearth. 
 
 "He oughtn't to have doubled," said Diana severely, 
 addressing Mr. Brentwood's partner. 
 
 "I know, I know," said Brentwood genially. "But I 
 do so many things I oughtn't to do. I mean well. I act 
 for the best " 
 
 Diana turned and looked at the windows. 
 
 "It is fearfully hot in here. Bryan, take me out on 
 the terrace." 
 
 Bekesbourne looked at them with kindly, fatherly eyes 
 as they passed by, and spoke to Bryan. 
 
 "Vaile. Make her put on a wrap." 
 
 "No, this will do," said Diana, as they reached the 
 open doors in the next room, and she held up her gauze 
 scarf. Indeed the night seemed as warm almost as the 
 day had been; not a leaf of the oranges was stirring. 
 Bryan arranged the scarf for her, and his fingers trem- 
 bled as they touched her smooth shoulders. Then they 
 stepped out of the lamplight into the soft greyness, their 
 eyes confused for a moment, and then seeing that it was 
 really not darker than it had been at dusk. 
 
 She took him through the garden to the wood; with 
 linked fingers led him through the scent of the roses, past 
 the lights of the windows, away from the sound of voices ; 
 led him into the wood into her wood, into the heart of 
 the dream, into a place of sacred elysian mysteries where 
 nothing of the earth has value or weight, where no
 
 GLAMOUR 185 
 
 mortal bond can count for the millionth part of a second 
 against the caprice of a goddess. In the wood, by the 
 statue and the stone benches, she stood in front of him, 
 and whispered. 
 
 "Well, Bryan dear?" 
 
 He took her in his arms and kissed her, put his hand 
 to her cool neck to hold lips to lips, and melted, almost 
 fainted in delight. 
 
 Then she made him sit, and she settled down at his 
 side with her bare arms round his neck. 
 
 "So you don't hate me any more ?" 
 
 "I hate you more than ever." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "For making me do this." 
 
 "Hush don't be silly" ; and her sweet soft laugh was 
 like a ripple of water on his face. "This isn't Venus and 
 Adonis. I am Diana. Don't you remember me in your 
 dreams always before you were born even when 
 you dreamed thousands of years ago? You are my 
 Endymion." 
 
 "Endymion wasn't forty-five." 
 
 "He had no age. Diana made him immortal." 
 
 "Endymion wasn't married. He hadn't a family." 
 
 "Hush. Forget. For a little while for two days 
 we belong to each other, and to nobody else." And she 
 nestled closer to him, wrapping him round with the liv- 
 ing charm; giving him little kisses the flutter of rose- 
 leaves; touching his face with her fingers, and talking 
 rapidly, as of old. "I love you, I love you, I love you 
 very much indeed. No man could ever be to me what 
 you are. You need never have let me go you might 
 have had me always. Then I would have been good and 
 faithful instead of what I am." 
 
 He gave a sigh like a groan.
 
 186 GLAMOUR 
 
 "Diana ! You know it's not true." 
 
 "It is very, very true indeed." 
 
 "You were stone in your decision. Nothing could 
 soften you." 
 
 "Yes, you could but you are always the same. You 
 don't believe in yourself. Stop sighing. How rude! 
 Hold me fast now. You have got me at last. Kiss me 
 and kiss me and show that you love me." 
 
 Ecstasy; but in the midst of it sadness the pain that 
 lies deep in such ineffable pleasure. Then swiftly all 
 thought was obliterated, and only joy remained. 
 
 Returning to the house, they paused by one of the 
 orange trees and peeped into a lighted room and listened 
 to the voices. As they stood there two people spoke of 
 them. 
 
 "Have Diana and the literary gent come back from 
 their walk?" 
 
 "No, not yet. Did you expect them? I hope we have 
 not got to sit up till they reappear" ; and there was laugh- 
 ter. 
 
 Diana, pressing his arm, whispered : 
 
 "You see, you are compromised already. Your repu- 
 tation is gone." 
 
 Mr. Brentwood's game of bridge was not finished, 
 and Lord Bekesbourne had brought a chair to the table 
 and sat watching it. He looked round and smiled at 
 Diana. 
 
 "Eliza has gone to bed. She told me to say there are 
 three brands of barley-water in the library, and the lemon 
 variety is the one she recommends. It's the one she gives 
 to Bingo." 
 
 Two days and nights of rapture; and on Monday
 
 GLAMOUR 187 
 
 she could not let him go; she took him with her to her 
 retreat in Wiltshire for three more days. After that she 
 was to join the yacht at Dartmouth. 
 
 He was no longer Bryan Vaile, or Mabel's husband, 
 or anybody in particular ; he was a poor mortal who had 
 impiously broken through the barriers and had reached 
 the unattainable delight that all other men have missed. 
 He was eating forbidden magic fruit in the high gods' 
 garden, drinking at their enchanted fountain, holding one 
 of their immortal sisters against his throbbing heart. 
 
 On the fourth day they parted at a railway-station on 
 the Great Western main line. She would not let him go 
 with her as far as Dartmouth. 
 
 Their real parting had been at dawn in a room at the 
 farm. It had been anguish, the tearing asunder of their 
 loves. She clung to him, cold and shivering and tragic 
 then, as they sat at a window and looked out at the still 
 sleeping world. Beneath them was the -homely English 
 garden, and beyond that orchards and farm buildings, 
 over the roofs of which one had a wide view. Dew 
 sparkled on the grass, the distant woods were rainbow- 
 tinted in the morning light; and one saw a hillside, a 
 river, a church tower, and fields and fields and fields. 
 It was just the common landscape of England : what one 
 belittled so often, comparing it unfavourably with other 
 lands, denying its tame beauty ; until fate grew tired and 
 woke one; and one began to know it better, began to 
 bleed for it, to sigh for it, to die for it just for England. 
 
 "Bryan, I know things are going to happen big 
 things, terrible things." And Diana was like a prophet- 
 ess, with her white cold face, her dark hair all loose; 
 lifting her bare arms, and whispering tragically. "I feel 
 there is no time no time left for anything. That's why 
 I wanted you so dreadfully. Perhaps I am going to die.
 
 188 GLAMOUR 
 
 No, it's more than that. I feel what perhaps people felt 
 before the French Revolution great forces at work, un- 
 seen, unsuspected." And she spoke of the murder of the 
 Archduke. "Do you think that is only a beginning? Are 
 kings and princes to be attacked everywhere? Do you 
 think there is going to be a revolution in England? Do 
 you think if they fight in Ireland the people will rise here 
 too?" 
 
 The westward train had gone, and he was in the train 
 that would carry him back to London. He sat inert. 
 He was saturated with Diana, still breathing her atmos- 
 phere; but all of life that remained inside him was just 
 a flame fed by memories of delight. There was no fuel 
 there that sustains thought and logic and reason. 
 
 This outward shape of Bryan Vaile had been emptied, 
 cast away, tossed towards London because she had no 
 further use for it ; but the soul of him was hers, was with 
 her now if she hadn't thrown that away as useless too.
 
 XV 
 
 SLOWLY remorse, shame, and horror came to him. 
 Could it be possible ? He reached home early in the 
 afternoon, feeling cold and miserable, although the sun 
 was shining as much as it ever shines through the 
 heavy, smoke-laden air of London. The sight of the 
 house touched him with new sadness; it looked forlorn 
 and strange; so dull; and so small, with its queer little 
 portico, green shutters, and the broad eaves that seemed 
 to jut out just above one's head. It had suffered the 
 contraction that surprises one when returning in middle- 
 age to the house one has known in childhood and always 
 remembered as vast and grand. Could this dingy little 
 toy mansion really be the spacious, comfortable, happy 
 home of which he had been so proud? 
 
 He carried unread letters from Mabel in his pocket, 
 and there were unopened letters from her on the hall 
 table. Of course, she was due home. Had she come? 
 No, but Miss Hignet was expecting her to-day. As ar- 
 ranged, servants had gone forward this morning to West- 
 gate to take possession of the furnished house; everybody 
 was packing up; the whole family would move to-mor- 
 row or Saturday. Mrs. Vaile would certainly be here be- 
 fore dinner, but she had not been able to say what train 
 she would travel by, and so Miss Hignet had done noth- 
 ing about sending the car to meet her. The children were 
 excitedly looking out for her. 
 
 Soon after tea-time she arrived, hot and tired, but 
 beaming with love. She threw her arms round Bryan, 
 and he felt that she would push him right over if he 
 
 189
 
 190 GLAMOUR 
 
 wasn't careful, so solid was her embrace ; she kissed hin\ 
 and nearly knocked him down again. Then the children 
 clambered about her ; and she distributed hugs and kisses 
 to them, radiantly happy at being back with them at last. 
 "Say you have all missed me. Say you're glad to see me. 
 . . . Oh, my dear," and she turned to Bryan, "how 
 I have longed for you ! Oh, how I have longed for you ! " 
 
 He smiled, but was in dread that she would begin 
 kissing him again. 
 
 He slunk away. The thing was too monstrous. His 
 heart ached for her, bled for her; but this abominable 
 catastrophe had occurred. The old love was dead. Fire 
 had burnt it out of him. It seemed as if a large, warm, 
 matronly stranger was sitting upon the sofa, where he 
 used to sit with his arm round his wife's waist. 
 
 He went to the bottom of the garden and stood star- 
 ing at the blank wall above the tennis-courts. His dis- 
 tress of mind was terrible. He was like a dreamer rudely 
 awakened to reality; like a man who, after being a little 
 uneasy about his bodily health, learns of a sudden that 
 he has contracted an incurable disease; like one who, in 
 shaking off the effects of drunkenness, begins to remem- 
 ber that while drunk he has committed a murder, that 
 the crime will certainly be discovered, and that perhaps 
 already the police are on his track. 
 
 Presently he began to walk slowly to and fro, with his 
 hands clasped behind his back, thinking; just as he used 
 to walk and meditate here when working out some tangle 
 in the world of his invention, when a fictitious personage 
 would not follow the plan laid down for him, when the 
 claims of plot-interest threatened the higher interest of 
 sound characterisation. He was able to think now, un- 
 able to prevent himself from thinking, with clearness and
 
 GLAMOUR 191 
 
 rapidity. His situation presented itself in its most simple 
 and essential form, and every difficulty or danger that 
 arose from it could be logically followed, no matter how 
 widely complicated each of them became. He dealt with 
 himself as he would have dealt when play-making with a 
 character hemmed round by adverse combinations of cir- 
 cumstance, exhausting the possibilities, seeking the solu- 
 tion that will satisfy ethics but not offend common sense; 
 and it seemed to him that there was no way out. It 
 seemed to him that the situation was like one of those 
 tremendous no-thoroughfares of the Greek tragedies; it 
 was contained in unyielding elements; fate itself had 
 helped to construct its impassable barriers. 
 
 It seemed to him that his whole life was destroyed, 
 that the past had tumbled into dust, that the future could 
 bring nothing but dread and horror. While Diana lived 
 he would be her slave that is, she could call him when- 
 ever she wanted him and he would go to her. If she did 
 not immediately tire of him, if she went on caring for 
 him, their intercourse would infallibly lead to disaster. 
 For him it was an impossible liaison because she was too 
 well known, someone you cannot hide, a duchess. And 
 her rank seemed to make his part so odious and vulgar. 
 The artist and the lady of quality it is the most vulgar 
 of all intrigues, most hateful to him by reason of its an- 
 cient traditions and every modern instance that he had 
 seen or heard of. The author and the actress for whom 
 he writes, the painter and the beautiful model who has in- 
 spired his pencil, the maker of music and the divine 
 singer who sings his songs one may plead excuses for 
 such bonds as these, born, as it were, from the love of 
 art itself, temperamental affinities, two kindred flames 
 that meet and mingle; but what can be said in extenua- 
 tion of the artist who leaves his art behind him, turns
 
 192 GLAMOUR 
 
 his back on friends and comrades, and waits on stair- 
 cases till someone drops her handkerchief for him to pick 
 up and be dazzled by the coronet in its corner? That is 
 how his friendship with the Duchess of Middlesborough 
 would appear to those whose good opinion he used to 
 value. He knew what his own world would say and think 
 of him. He could guess what other worlds would say. 
 He could readily conceive of the questions to be asked 
 about him by Tom-tits. 
 
 If it continued there would be a scandal. No divorce, 
 of course. But soon everyone would know. They would 
 know at the club, at the theatre everybody who came on 
 Sundays would know. And last of all his wife would 
 know. No, first of all his wife would know. She would 
 read the secret in his eyes, his voice, his manner. Their 
 life had been so close, so perfect in its communion, that 
 any foreign influence between them must be at once de- 
 tected. And he himself could not act the part that for so 
 many years had been reality. He could not give her the 
 outward semblance of a loving husband while the inner 
 man was a traitor. 
 
 The more he thought of it the deeper grew his distress. 
 There was no possible excuse for him. Remorse in re- 
 gard to his wife was overwhelming. His gratitude he 
 thought of the million things he owed to her; of their 
 children, of the nights they had watched together when 
 the little girl was ill. He thought of her weeping, of her 
 bowed head and quivering shoulders, when he had been 
 cruel to her in the garden at Bournemouth years ago. 
 He thought of her faith in him, when at last he had re- 
 stored it never to be shaken again. He thought of her 
 kindness, her courage, her unselfishness. He remem- 
 bered his vows in the church. He remembered what she 
 had said to him, the words that had stimulated him to
 
 GLAMOUR 193 
 
 vow fidelity beyond all the promises of the marriage 
 service. She had said, "If you failed me ever, I should 
 kill myself." 
 
 What would she do? Commit suicide? No, she 
 would not do it now because of the children. But her 
 brave strong heart would be broken; every spring of life 
 would be snapped ; it would be worse than death for her. 
 
 No, it was he who ought to be done with it for ever. 
 It was he who should commit suicide. Forsake the chil- 
 dren? What good could such a father be to them? Bet- 
 ter for them a thousand times better that he were dead. 
 
 Suppose that this catastrophe were hidden. Suppose 
 the intrigue with Diana dragging on a little, then finished. 
 He could no longer trust himself. As he grew older he 
 would grow worse. The poison put into his blood now 
 would never fade it would sting him to further in- 
 famies. He would sink to intrigues with girls at the 
 theatre ; abusing his position, making base bargains ; run- 
 ning down the scale from the goddess to any nameless 
 nymph. 
 
 Disgust of himself flooded all his thought. Weari- 
 ness and disgust. The sense of finality, of irreparable, 
 irredeemable trouble struck colder and heavier upon him. 
 No way out of it no means of escape from his home; 
 no cloister that he could retire into ; no prison for expia- 
 tion ; no hospital where he could go to be cured. 
 
 While he was dressing for dinner she came to his room. 
 
 "May I come in, dear? I have been with the children 
 but I grudge every minute that I am away from you 
 now." 
 
 She was still in her travelling dress, and she said, apol- 
 ogetically, "Will you think me very piggy if I don't 
 change to-night? I am so tired."
 
 194 GLAMOUR 
 
 "Of course, don't trouble." 
 
 "I have washed facey and handeys, as Nancy used to 
 say. Mabel quite clean little girl." 
 
 She sat on a chair at the corner of the toilet-table, 
 watching him with her kind brown eyes as he tied his tie ; 
 and he felt towards her as one feels towards the honest, 
 faithful dog that has always loved one, when one is se- 
 cretly planning against it a consummation of treachery 
 to sell it, to abandon it, never to see it again. 
 
 "I know the servants tried, but did they make you com- 
 fortable all the time I wasn't here to take care of you?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, quite." 
 
 And she glanced round the room, at the bed, his dress- 
 ing-gown, his slippers ; at all his belongings. 
 
 "They ought to have given you another quilt." 
 
 "My dear, it has been stiflingly hot." 
 
 "Yet, but I mean for prettiness. I put out a lovely 
 new bedspread amber and gold lovely." Then, still 
 thinking of his comfort, she said, "Bryan, if you aren't 
 coming with us to Westgate to-morrow, I think I had 
 better leave Saunders behind to look after you." 
 
 "Are you all off to-morrow ?" 
 
 "Yes, Miss Hignet has got on with everything so 
 splendidly that I think we ought to go to-morrow after- 
 noon. You see, next day, Saturday, there is sure to be 
 such a crowd. Really the bank-holiday traffic will have 
 begun to-morrow." And she asked again if he would 
 accompany them. 
 
 He said no, it was not possible. 
 
 "When do you start with Colonel Grey?" 
 
 "I am not going. It's put off for another year." 
 
 She was unselfishly sorry. It would have done him 
 good. Colonel Grey was such a splendid man that a holi- 
 day anywhere with him must do one good. Also the
 
 GLAMOUR 195 
 
 complete change of scene would have been refreshing and 
 invigorating. 
 
 "But, oh, Bryan, will this mean that I shall have you 
 down at Westgate?" 
 
 And he allowed her to understand that he would fol- 
 low them to Westgate as soon as possible. 
 
 "Oh, how too lovely!" 
 
 Then she said more about domestic arrangements, al- 
 ways thinking of what would be best for him. She would 
 leave Saunders, and the wife of one of the gardeners 
 would do any cooking for him. The gardener's wife 
 was a good cook; in some respects an even better cook 
 than Mrs. Finney or than Mary the kitchenmaid, who, 
 as she often suspected, did nearly all the cooking that 
 was supposed to be done by Finney. She wanted to leave 
 the car which Miss Hignet said was looking grand after 
 its repairs so that he might be able to run down to 
 Westgate by road. But he would not agree to this ar- 
 rangement. 
 
 She linked her arm in his as they went downstairs, and 
 pressed against him affectionately. At dinner she told 
 him all about her aunt. The poor old lady had taken a 
 turn for the better. 
 
 "Thanks to your good nursing, Mabel." 
 
 "No, I don't think that though of course I was use- 
 ful. I felt I was of real use all the time. She'll never 
 recover; but the doctor said it was a distinct rally. So 
 I left them with an easy conscience. I would have come 
 anyhow. I said I would, didn't I ? Nothing would have 
 made me break faith with you. And now I am to have 
 this heavenly reward your company at Westgate. Oh, 
 Bryan, I think I am the happiest woman in England to- 
 night!" 
 
 Indeed, she was so happy, and prattled so gaily, that,
 
 196 GLAMOUR 
 
 in one way, all was easy for him. When she said it had 
 surprised her to hear that he had been away, and asked 
 where he had been, he merely said that he had been stay- 
 ing for a few days with Lord Bekesbourne ; and she ex- 
 pressed her hope that he had enjoyed himself, but asked 
 no further questions. 
 
 The servants were delighted to see her back again, and 
 she spoke to them cheerily while they waited at table. 
 All their holidays had been arranged by her. They would 
 all go away in turn as usual. 
 
 "Thank you, ma'am. We knew you wouldn't forget 
 anything, ma'am, however anxious and worried you 
 were." 
 
 She had brought with her a large basket of fruit, and 
 she was disappointed that he would not eat any of it. Per- 
 haps he would have some at breakfast. The children had 
 already paid attention to it. 
 
 "They have told me about the treat you gave them, 
 Bryan. They did so love it." 
 
 "Yes, I am sorry I could only give them one." 
 
 "They understood. Oh, do tell me. Is it done?" 
 
 "Is what done?" 
 
 "The play, of course." 
 
 "No, I haven't by any means done it. I had to lay it 
 aside. I couldn't get on with it at all." 
 
 "That's because you hadn't me to help you." She 
 looked round to see if the servants were still there, waited 
 till the door closed, and then put her hand across the 
 table for him to squeeze. 
 
 "Say it once more, Bryan that you are glad to have 
 me back." 
 
 And he had to say it. 
 
 "You are really and truly as glad to see me as I am to 
 see you?"
 
 GLAMOUR 197 
 
 His sense of guilt made him stammer. For a moment 
 her words filled him with fear ; they sounded to him omi- 
 nously, as if some instinct of her own or some failure 
 on his part had already aroused vague suspicions in her 
 mind. In another moment he knew that it was a baseless 
 fancy. She was looking at him with frank and steady 
 eyes, her friendly, homely face full of confident affec- 
 tion. She would say this sort of thing again and again, 
 just for the pleasure of listening to his assurances in 
 reply. 
 
 After she had gone to bed he sat for hours alone down- 
 stairs in his work-room ; and for most of the time he was 
 thinking about her and how he might best spare her pain. 
 
 He could not go on with it there was no other way 
 out for him. He could not deceive her anything was 
 better than that. He could never confess to her, with the 
 slightest hope that she would either forgive or forget. 
 Knowledge of the truth would break her heart. How 
 could there be any condonation for making light of what 
 had smashed the whole fabric of their married life? 
 There would be nothing left worth patching up, not even 
 a foundation on which to build again. They were the 
 Vailes, :^ho loved and believed in each other; they were 
 not Mr. and Mrs. Claude Rivett. 
 
 His love for her was not dead ; perhaps it was stronger 
 than it had ever been; but it had irrevocably altered in 
 character. All the desire for her companionship, the joy 
 of being by her side, the pleasure in the mere sight of 
 her had been totally obliterated; but he felt a yearning 
 desire for her welfare and an immense pity for her. His 
 gratitude was boundless. The memory of every item of 
 his debt to her was unblurred. All the evening he had 
 been torn to pieces by things she had said to him; and 
 even when, in spite of himself, noticing her matronly
 
 198 GLAMOUR 
 
 aspect, the unbecoming fashion in which she had done 
 her hair, the dreadful commonplace appearance of an 
 evening costume that consists only of a white puffy 
 blouse and a tailor-made skirt, he had wondered how 
 till now he believed her to be an outwardly attractive 
 woman, he still could see shining forth upon him the 
 sweet, good soul that had lighted his heaven and been 
 his guiding star; through all, and in spite of all, he 
 could see the real Mabel; the Mabel that time could not 
 touch, that grey hairs, or wrinkles, or increasing size 
 round the waist would never really alter or disfigure. 
 
 He sat with his hands clasped between his knees, star- 
 ing at the carpet; and after a long time there came to 
 him one of those revulsions of feeling that arise from 
 the instinctive desire to escape a stress of thought that 
 is unbearable. After all, was it really such a tragic im- 
 passe f He got up and walked about the room. And for 
 a few moments, in the supreme relief of turning from 
 the darker aspect of Ins situation, he began to believe 
 that he had been torturing himself unreasonably. 
 
 Many sensible, matter-of-fact people would say that 
 he was making a fuss about nothing. Why should he 
 take so gloomy a view of the future? Why should he 
 give up hope? The solution of all his trouble was still 
 possible. Really, the way out lay open before him. His 
 wife need never know, would never know; in a little 
 while, say a year or two, all would be going on in the 
 comfortable old way with them, just as if nothing had 
 ever occurred to disturb or even to threaten their peace 
 and happiness. All that he had to do was to forget Diana 
 and henceforth behave himself properly. 
 
 Only he could not forget Diana. 
 
 He thought of her now, and instantly every cell and 
 fibre of his brain and body throbbed, ached, and burned
 
 GLAMOUR 199 
 
 with remembrance of her. He sat down again, his hands 
 limp, his shoulders drooping; in exactly the conventional 
 attitude that he might have given as a stage direction. 
 Bryan Vaile sits huddled, looking straight before him, 
 as though confronted with despair. 
 
 Incredible as it seemed, it was really no longer ago 
 than this morning that he had said good-bye to her ; and 
 already, feeling that he had been separated from her for 
 years, he was passionately longing to be with her. Sup- 
 pose now the silence of the house were broken by the 
 telephone bell, as had happened once before, and he heard 
 her voice telling him that he might go to her. The mere 
 thought of it made his heart stop beating and then begin 
 to race; just the memory of her voice set him on fire. 
 In imagination he could hear the message that would be 
 rapture to obey. She was telling him that the yacht had 
 not arrived; that for some reason the plan of the cruise 
 had been abandoned ; that she intended to return at once 
 to her farm; that he was to meet her there without an 
 hour's avoidable delay. 
 
 But that was a delirious imagination. No, she was lost 
 to him; the yacht was steaming westward through the 
 night; by dawn she would be another eighty miles far- 
 ther away. She would not call him to her side for two 
 long months. For two unending months she would leave 
 him miserable and alone; and it seemed to him that he 
 would not have strength to live through these two months, 
 even if afterwards there were nothing to prevent the 
 renewal of their love. 
 
 When at last he went upstairs to bed, he stood for a 
 little while in the darkness after he had turned off the 
 light on the landing outside his bedroom. All round him 
 his little innocent world was sleeping soundly and peace- 
 fully; he was their chieftain, their leader, and he had
 
 200 GLAMOUR 
 
 betrayed them. In greater or lesser degrees they all de- 
 pended on him, looked up to him, respected him his 
 wife adored him; his children loved him; Miss Hignet 
 venerated him and yet was fond of him; the servants 
 liked him as much as servants ever like a male employer, 
 they tolerated him as well-meaning, inoffensive, at least 
 were satisfied that he could be relied on to act the gen- 
 tleman; and he felt that he was a traitor to every one 
 of them. He thought of what the house would be in a 
 year or so, if he were dead. It would be all just the 
 same; but it would be safe, the danger gone from it for 
 ever. The legend of his honesty and kindness would live 
 in it, kept alive by Mabel. All her sorrow would be soft- 
 ened then; she would be quite happy, regretting him but 
 no longer mourning for him; the children growing up 
 strong and well would fill her life; there would be plenty 
 of money ; she and they would be comfortable, free from 
 care, contented. 
 
 Yes, that was the only way out. 
 
 Next day all was bustle and gay confusion. The chil- 
 dren, wildly excited, careered about the house and gar- 
 den; there were no lessons to occupy them, toys could 
 not amuse them, their eager thoughts outstripping the 
 slow hours had already flown to Westgate-on-Sea. Miss 
 Hignet and the servants were still performing prodigies 
 of packing, although "practically everything" had been 
 packed over-night. Mabel, rather hot, very business-like, 
 and overflowing with affection every time she ran up 
 against Bryan, was here, there, and everywhere, taking 
 last looks-round, giving last orders, and finding last 
 things forgotten to be put into each locked or corded 
 trunk. 
 
 A compartment had been secured in the Granville ex- 
 press; the big omnibus from the livery stables was or-
 
 GLAMOUR 201 
 
 'dered half an hour before the right time, so as to leave 
 a margin for accidents ; luncheon, on the same principle, 
 would be served an hour in advance Mabel, coming in 
 and out of his room, assured Bryan that the family would 
 move without a single hitch. 
 
 "It is so much better to have time to spare at the sta- 
 tion than to run things too close," she said cheerfully. 
 
 Once she was able to sit and rest for two or three 
 minutes ; and in this pause from effort she spoke of pub- 
 lic affairs. 
 
 "I haven't had a moment to glance at the papers, 
 Bryan. But yesterday, in the train, there was an elderly 
 clergyman who was quite like the fat boy in Pickwick, 
 wanting to make our flesh creep." 
 
 "How did he do that?" 
 
 "Talking about war. Bryan, do deans wear gaiters? 
 I think he was a dean or an archdeacon, perhaps. Any- 
 how, he seemed rather important, and he talked quite 
 nicely to us but he said Germany was forcing a Euro- 
 pean war." 
 
 "Really? I can't believe that" 
 
 "No but that reminds me, Bryan. Miss Hignet, 
 thinking you were coming with us, sent an order to 
 Smiths' to deliver all the papers at Westgate from to- 
 morrow morning. I had better tell them to deliver the 
 Times and Daily Mail here till further notice." 
 
 "Oh, no, don't trouble." 
 
 "Then you must tell Saunders what you want." 
 
 Soon after mid-day the loading of the omnibus began, 
 and in due course it lumbered away with the luggage and 
 the servants. Then after a time the car stood at the door. 
 Miss Hignet and the children were stowed inside; Ma- 
 bel, clinging to him in a last good-bye, was urged by 
 young Jack not to risk 'missing the train.
 
 202 GLAMOUR 
 
 "Good-bye, daddy. Good-bye." 
 
 As the car carried them away Bryan waved his hand 
 and thought that in this world he would never see them 
 again.
 
 XVI 
 
 "TJEOPLE don't do such things." He was thinking 
 JL f Ibsen's play and what Assessor Brack says when 
 Hedda kills herself. From the artistic point of view he 
 had always disliked the cutting of a cleverly-devised tan- 
 gle by a self-inflicted death, had always felt that a sui- 
 cide is never really convincing. He thought of suicides 
 in the best contemporary work. Was there a single case 
 including the masterly two in Sir Arthur Pinero's 
 plays which made you believe that it was inevitable and 
 that it would have happened in real life? You may be 
 satisfied at the moment, the stage illusion may compel a 
 transient belief, but when you think it over afterwards 
 you cannot any more believe in it. Hedda Gabler came in 
 and said she let off the pistol to frighten them; the wife 
 in Mid Channel only tumbled her cloak over the balcony, 
 and will have many more nagging matches with her hus- 
 band; the second Mrs. Tanqueray, in sober fact, was 
 finally divorced by Mr. T., married again, and is living 
 at Brighton. No, however well devised, suicide fails in 
 fiction. It is not true. People don't do such things. 
 Yet he was going to do it. 
 
 In these days he drifted on a sea of thought always 
 drawing nearer to the thing itself. He scarcely left the 
 house, scarcely noted the passing hours; the days were 
 all one to him; Saturday, Sunday, bank-holiday had no 
 meaning for him ; night and daylight mingled themselves ; 
 his dreams were now all woven from the same thought- 
 
 203
 
 204 GLAMOUR 
 
 material. Awake or asleep he was held by the one domi- 
 nant idea. 
 
 His only doubt concerned the manner in which it 
 should be done. He must do it so that neither Mabel 
 nor anyone else would ever guess. Probably the simplest 
 way, the way with least machinery, would prove the best. 
 Veronal, sulphonal get one of those drugs and take an 
 overdose write the day before, perhaps, and tell Mabel 
 that he was suffering from headache or sleeplessness and 
 meant to buy something to cure it tell Saunders, too, 
 that his head was aching, and ask not to be disturbed in 
 the morning. That would be the way. No one would 
 ever suspect; it would seem the common, eternally re- 
 peated accident; it would need no intricate planning of 
 circumstances. But in his dreams he did it in other ways ; 
 or, rather, in dream after dream he was trying to do it 
 and always failing. He was blowing his brains out, and 
 the gun roared like a cannon, hot flames rushed over 
 him ; he was falling over a terrific cliff, and he fell from 
 ledge to ledge, battered and broken, crashing through 
 brushwood, bounding with sledge-hammer blows from 
 rock to rock; he was throwing himself off a ship, drown- 
 ing himself, gasping, suffocated, drowning; he was get- 
 ting run over by a railway-train that came tearing down 
 upon him with the fury of a whirlwind and the noise 
 of an earthquake. He woke agonised, perspiring, chok- 
 ing, but with his resolution unshaken even while the 
 horror of the dream remained strong and real. And 
 when he fell asleep it was to dream that he was trying 
 again. 
 
 Sometimes in the quiet and emptiness of the house he 
 passed now from room to room like a ghost. Already 
 he had detached himself from life; he scarcely belonged 
 any more to the external world; he was bidding good-
 
 GLAMOUR 205 
 
 bye to each familiar object that had helped to make up 
 the illusion of reality to which he used to cling-. He clung 
 to it no longer. Every hour the illusion was weakening, 
 growing thinner and more vague. He picked up things, 
 handled them, looked at them; but their aspect had 
 changed, the very feel of them was different, and he re- 
 ceived the faint messages that they gave with a wonder- 
 ing interest in which there was but the slightest warmth 
 of emotion. The emotional sensations came only when 
 by an internal effort he evoked memories; they did not 
 arise, as normally they would have done, in response to 
 the stimulus from without. Thus, as he pottered about 
 the room with the tennis-rackets and golf-clubs, he pur- 
 posely recalled the thrills and pleasures that had been 
 so long connected mentally with the use of these instru- 
 ments. Was it possible that they had meant so much to 
 him these clumsy, artificial antennae by the aid of which 
 the insect, game-playing man, extends his means of con- 
 tact with the realm of matter? 
 
 In the same manner, voluntarily exciting the zone of 
 memory, he went from shelf to shelf among his books; 
 and, as he picked up and opened a volume here and there, 
 he recalled how and when he had bought it, the pleasure 
 he had derived from it, or the use to which he had put 
 it. His was a craftsman's library, and many of the books 
 had been acquired for special purposes; they were the 
 working tools that had served him well and would not 
 again be employed. He lingered for half a morning in 
 front of his long shelf of presentation copies, reading 
 the inscriptions, thinking of the men who had sent the 
 gifts to him with such kind words and in so kind a spirit. 
 His fellow-craftsmen had been very good to him, wel- 
 coming him at once to their brotherhood, treating him 
 as an equal before he had earned any right to such treat-
 
 206 GLAMOUR 
 
 ment. These books of theirs, given to him in friendliness 
 and good fellowship, formed a testimonial to character 
 of which he had felt proud. 
 
 The house now had recovered its old proportions. No 
 longer dwarfed by comparisons with bigger houses, it 
 was again large and fine. The dining-room would seat 
 twenty- four people comfortably, and it had regularly 
 seated many more without serious discomfort. He 
 thought of the Sunday parties, summoned all the famil-. 
 iar faces, and the room filled itself with ghosts. He 
 looked out into the empty verandah where the extra ta- 
 bles used to be laid ; and without effort now he could see 
 the bright lamp-lit faces, hear the babel of voices, the 
 clatter of knives and forks, with the summer night be- 
 hind it all, dark but free of mystery, more beautiful per- 
 haps than the day, but as innocent. Young and old, these 
 vanished guests had liked him, had been glad to come 
 here, and were happy when they came. And he had been 
 proud and happy because he was their host. What more 
 could a sane man desire? How just and well-founded 
 had been his pride in it all ! It was a beautiful, a splendid 
 home till he himself became unworthy of it. 
 
 Thinking so, he felt no self-pity, only self-contempt. 
 
 He thought of his reputation as a playwright. It was 
 immeasurably higher, especially of late, than he had 
 either deserved or had hoped for. His too indulgent 
 critics had given him fame of a particular and uncom- 
 mon kind ; saying the same kind things always, they had 
 built the solid pedestal for him to stand on, and he stood 
 upon it high and firm, nobody ever trying to shake it or 
 knock him off it. He was the recognised advocate for 
 domestic morality. He was the teacher of the too-often 
 forgotten truth that in all the relations between the sexes 
 honesty is the best policy. He was the apostle of clean
 
 GLAMOUR 207 
 
 living. "There is something at once elevated and elevat- 
 ing in the pictures of home-life painted for us by Mr. 
 Vaile." "More than any writer of the century Mr. Vaile 
 has succeeded in vividly presenting love at its strongest 
 and yet at its purest. In Mr. Vaile's new play the love 
 of the husband and wife, separated so cruelly but brought 
 together again with such consummate art, strikes a note 
 of beauty and truth that will find its echo in every Eng- 
 lish heart." That was the sort of thing, repeated again 
 and again, that had set him on his pedestal and kept him 
 there. He had known that he valued this special reputa- 
 tion, but he had not known till now how great was its 
 value to him. So much that he simply could not face 
 the loss of it. 
 
 Logically, of course, he ought not to be in any danger 
 of losing it, whatever happened to him; the plays would 
 remain untouched; the finished piece of art must be 
 judged solely on its merits, and the private life of the 
 artist has nothing whatever to do with it. Suppose it 
 became known that Mr. Vaile was an unfaithful hus- 
 band, it should not in any way detract from the force 
 of the lesson if Mr. Vaile's next play showed the neces- 
 sity of faithfully keeping the marriage vow. You need 
 not be a soldier to paint a battle-piece; the best book on 
 religion may be written by a man who never goes to 
 church. Critics understand this perfectly, but the public 
 don't understand it at all. In the public mind there is a 
 confusion of ideas that makes the worker and his work 
 all one. They insist that the worker shall live up to his 
 work, they believe that he always lives down to it; they 
 refuse to listen to a preacher who does not practise all 
 that he preaches. He understood well how infallibly any 
 scandal or evil repute that befell him himself would at 
 once destroy his popular fame and rob all his work of
 
 208 GLAMOUR 
 
 the effect of sincerity and genuineness. He could not 
 continue writing on such terms. The critics would not 
 "go back on him" ; they would not by any allusion drag 
 his secrets into the cold light of print; they would merely 
 have their quiet laugh among themselves; but uncon- 
 sciously they would treat him with less respect than of 
 old. Unintentionally, not by a single unkind word, but 
 by the subtle change of tone and manner, they would 
 remind him from time to time that people who live in 
 glass houses should not throw rhetorical stones. Enemies 
 naturally would rejoice in his downfall, and would be 
 careful to see that the editor of Tom-tits was informed 
 as to its sordid details. No, he could not live now with- 
 out his pedestal. The man on the pedestal had never 
 really been himself; yet he, the actual Bryan Vaile, had 
 grown so accustomed to him that he could not do with- 
 out him. 
 
 And he fell to thinking of psychology, not in relation 
 to the soul or any imperishable essence that may have 
 before it a future beyond the grave, but as to the mental 
 states that make up our earthly life and are certainly 
 extinguished by death. He remembered what William 
 James says about the various selfs of which each indi- 
 vidual is composed the ideal self, the actual self, and so 
 on and how the whole aggregate suffers and feels the 
 diminution if any one of the selfs is attacked. 
 
 Then that phantom self, the Vaile of popular esteem, 
 the self that had been built up by inference from his pub- 
 lished work, was truly a part of him. It was, one might 
 say, the man he wished to be. 
 
 There was also the self that consisted of what Mabel 
 thought him the chivalrous knight, the genius, the un- 
 sullied spirit the man that he could never have been. 
 Nothing even remotely like that self had ever existed;
 
 GLAMOUR 209 
 
 and yet for the sake of it he was prepared to die. His 
 death would preserve it intact in Mabel's mind. 
 
 There was the light-comedy self which he never 
 treated seriously, and yet for which he had a sneaking 
 kindness the man who, like Peter Pan, had refused to 
 grow up, who cherished trifles and neglected business, 
 who was absurdly elated when children laughed at his 
 jokes, who suffered agonies when he played golf badly, 
 who idled away whole mornings when he ought to have 
 been hard at work, who promised to make up for lost 
 time in the evening and after all sent a telephone mes- 
 sage to say he was dining at the Gridiron Club and would 
 not be back till late. 
 
 There was, fatally, the self that belonged to Diana; 
 the worthless wretch of whom he did not want to think 
 any more the miserable self which, if not promptly sup- 
 pressed, would tear the whole fabric of him to shreds and 
 tatters. 
 
 And behind these, lying deeper, there was the only self 
 with any real solidity. This was the very commonplace 
 Bryan Vaile of a few firm, strong convictions the self 
 that could not bear to cause pain, that recognised benefits 
 received and did not repudiate debts owed, that had sym- 
 pathy for other people and honestly tried to understand 
 them, that believed men ought to live cleanly and de- 
 cently, that meant to do so and would pardon no failure 
 in itself, although not too hard on failure in others. This, 
 glorified by kindness, was perhaps the self that his friends 
 knew and were good enough to like. They glorified, they 
 over-estimated the humble qualities that it possessed ; but, 
 allowing for the over-estimate, there was something of 
 virtue in it. He had always known so pleading it as ex- 
 cuse for obvious shortcomings. He was not a bad sort, 
 really.
 
 210 GLAMOUR 
 
 He thought of how his friends had trusted him. They 
 had come to him in trouble, opening their hearts to him ; 
 asking his counsel on points of honour; confessing their 
 weakness and saying they leant upon his strength; even 
 getting him to arbitrate in delicate domestic wrangles 
 because they knew, or rather thought, he was a good 
 husband and a good father. Girls and boys believed in 
 him, felt that he wished them well and meant to help 
 them. Mothers trusted him, believing that their daugh- 
 ters were as safe with him as if they had been in church. 
 He thought of old Vince and McCallum, of Madame St. 
 Cloud. They would fight for him if anyone told them 
 that he had disgraced himself. When they found it was 
 true they would feel as if disgraced themselves. He 
 could not forfeit their trustful belief in him ; he could not 
 do without their friendship. He imagined old Vince 
 writing to him : "Sir Ronald Vince presents his compli- 
 ments, and regrets that neither he nor his family can ac- 
 cept Mr. Vaile's invitation." He imagined McCallum 
 speaking to him : "I'll be verra frank with ye, Vaile. To 
 my mind ye've made a beast of yourself, and it's for that 
 I did not move to ye and cannot shak' hands wi' ye." In 
 imagination he saw the tears and paint run down Madame 
 St. Cloud's cheeks as she wept over him. "Bryanne, it 
 has hurt me here" and she put her hands on her bosom 
 "to think of how you have stabbed the low of Ma- 
 belle." 
 
 Yes, this was the self that must drink veronal sooner 
 than sink to trickery, treachery, and lies. 
 
 But it was not only that he had put himself on trial, 
 given judgment, and pronounced sentence, he was tired 
 of himself. Weariness as well as hopelessness compelled 
 him. He was tired of the aggregate self and the compo-
 
 GLAMOUR 211 
 
 nent selfs. The phenomenon known as Bryan Vaile had 
 lasted long enough, and must now cease. 
 
 To-day, Tuesday, had glided by in a dim twilight, and 
 throughout the day he had scarcely thought at all. When 
 people spoke to him their voices sounded as if from a 
 distance, and it was some time before he understood the 
 meaning of what was said. At his evening meal the ser- 
 vant spoke to him, and he made her repeat her question. 
 Noticing that he did not eat, she had asked if he would 
 like any different dishes. Then she asked him if he felt 
 ill, and he replied that he was suffering from a headache. 
 
 He had procured the drug now with the assistance 
 of a local doctor's prescription and two chemists' shops. 
 He had written to his wife, telling her about the head- 
 ache and his purchase of palliatives. The letter would be 
 posted to-morrow morning. Then, to-morrow night, the 
 thing would happen. To-morrow night, wishing for re- 
 lief from pain, for rest, for sleep, he would accidentally 
 take an overdose of his medicine. To-morrow night he 
 would sleep as men sleep when they are so tired that they 
 never want to wake again. 
 
 But in the morning, when Saunders brought him his 
 tea, she lingered after pulling up the blinds and letting 
 in the warm sunshine. She was anxious to talk of the 
 news. 
 
 "Here's the Daily Mail, sir. I thought you'd like to 
 see it." 
 
 "Thanks." 
 
 "I hope your headache's better, sir." 
 
 "About the same, thank you." 
 
 "I suppose you know the war's begun, sir?" 
 
 "What's that?"
 
 212 GLAMOUR 
 
 "Oh, yes, sir. It's quite right You'll see it in the Mail. 
 England and Germany have been at war ever since last 
 night." 
 
 The war had broken out, shaking the universe to 
 pieces, swamping all individual woe in the tears and blood 
 of mankind. 
 
 And Bryan Vaile jumped at it, as if it had .been made 
 for him escape and death. So easy now ; so decent ; so 
 gloriously more simple than his own device, which, after 
 all, might have been botched and bungled. He would go 
 to the war and get killed.
 
 XVII 
 
 A ONE or two barracks they asked him none too 
 politely if he couldn't see they were busy; at sev- 
 eral newly-opened recruiting-offices they laughed at him 
 rather rudely because he was so much too old. But soon 
 he managed it, by the simple expedient of giving his age 
 as twenty-nine ; and three days afterwards he was sleep- 
 ing in a tent with nine others not sleeping, trying to 
 sleep, learning how to rest on wooden boards. 
 
 The preliminary training was so severe that he could 
 barely stand it. In it there was no time for thought; or 
 the little that one could think was of the war. The won- 
 derful stupendous war took possession of him and of 
 everybody else. The war had saved him from himself. 
 It wMild use him for a little while, and then wipe him out. 
 Diana had thrown herself into the war also. She wrote 
 to him three or four times once, asking if he would like 
 to join her in Red Cross work; then to say it was splendid 
 of him to have enlisted. "But of course they must make 
 you an officer." Then a little later she wrote from Paris, 
 telling him that she had inaugurated a small hospital 
 there and was soon going to start a larger one near the 
 coast. Then they ceased to correspond, and he heard no 
 more of her; but while enjoying a glass of beer at a little 
 pub within bounds of the camp he was shown a picture 
 o-f her in the Tatter. She was dressed as a Red Cross 
 nurse; and his pal said, handing him the beer-stained 
 periodical across the table, "That's a nice piece, ole sport, 
 to tuck yer up and make yer cumfy. Duchess, too !" 
 
 213
 
 214 GLAMOUR 
 
 After about two months they gave him a commission, 
 and he was posted to the 8th Battalion of a famous regi- 
 ment. Because of his age they had made him a lieutenant 
 to begin with, so that things might be a little easier for 
 him, but because of his- age it was all horribly difficult 
 to him. He was just twenty-five years too old to learn 
 with facility, and very often he felt like Bultitude Senior 
 in Mr. Anstie's immortal fantasy, when forced to go 
 back to the boarding-school instead of his own son. As a 
 private soldier he nearly died from fatigue ; as an officer 
 he nearly went mad from the sense of responsibility. But 
 in fact, though he did not know it, he soon won approval, 
 and ran no real danger of being kicked out' for decrepi- 
 tude or getting left behind for incompetence. 
 
 When the happy time came they slipped across quietly 
 at night, from a port that they might not mention to a 
 port that you should not guess ; and their story over the 
 water was very likely the story of other battalions of the 
 new armies. 
 
 Out on the cobble-stones of the French town, with the 
 dear French people at shop doors kissing their hands to 
 them; out on the hot, straight French roads through the 
 endless perspective of tall trees; marching easy now; see- 
 ing French troops in lorries, queer French wagons, 
 French peasants in the French fields. One thousand and 
 seven of them all told, a noble long column, and every 
 one of them feeling the uplift. Eight or nine months 
 ago they had been book-keepers, accountants, ploughmen, 
 auctioneers' clerks, playwrights, and so on ; and now they 
 were soldiers come to France to fight in a just cause. 
 From the band sergeant at the head of the column to the 
 transport sergeant at the rear, there was not one unwor- 
 thy thought; except in the mind of Bryan Vaile, who 
 mingled vainglory with the loftier joy that all felt, say-
 
 GLAMOUR 215 
 
 ing to himself, "I am preposterously the oldest subaltern 
 in France. But I have made good. I can do what the 
 boys are doing; I can stick it as well as the youngest of 
 them." And perhaps this thought was not so very un- 
 worthy; or at any rate, it wasn't as unworthy as the 
 thoughts he- used to entertain before the war began. 
 
 So they marched, day after day, and the battalion was 
 one's family, one's mother and father, one's wife and 
 child ; the four travelling kitchens with their fat, heavy 
 draught horses formed the domestic hearth, the smoke of 
 their chimneys was like incense, and one's hunger at the 
 mid-day halt was religion a devout yearning desire, 
 without creed or dogma, which all shared. The sun 
 warmed them, the west wind powdered them with white 
 dust, the rain drenched them to the skin. If they lay 
 down wet at night they woke up dry in the morning. 
 They slept in barns, in factories, in the open fields; but 
 sooner or later the sun shone, always to-morrow's grub 
 came rolling behind them, and high noon brought the 
 steaming stew-kettles along the roadside. Freshness, nov- 
 elty, still made the commonest things seem bright and 
 gay. All ranks talked like young honeymoon couples, 
 counting life from the happy day their first billets; their 
 first bivouac, their second night on a brick floor; their 
 seventy-third village. They reminded each other that this 
 time last week they were on Salisbury Plain, and only 
 ten days ago they were drawing stores at Tidworth. One 
 night they lay down and listened. It was their first sound 
 of the guns. That night they could not sleep, because 
 they knew they were near the front now. 
 
 By the autumn they were veterans. After much ex- 
 perience they had settled down in that delightful ro- 
 mantic part of the line which ran through the once
 
 216 GLAMOUR 
 
 charming but now ruined village of Anonvilliers, with 
 the still charming and quite uninjured village of Sainte 
 Chose just behind them for their intervals of rest and re- 
 laxation. Between these two villages they oscillated com- 
 fortably throughout the winter. 
 
 While in the line they paid all proper attention to busi- 
 ness; for their beloved brigadier wished them to twist 
 the enemy's tail as much as possible, and was avid for 
 the collection of specimens of him, especially live ones. 
 The 8th were not lucky in bringing him back alive, al- 
 though they tried their very hardest. Nevertheless, they 
 gained kudos for their explorations; and Lieut. Vaile 
 showed aptitude on patrols, and made some solitary ef- 
 forts in search of useful intelligence that brought him 
 credit. 
 
 With working-parties it was observed that he walked 
 and stood on top when he ought perhaps to have kept 
 under cover in the trench; and, although his men did 
 not think the worse of him for this, the colonel once 
 spoke with disapproval, telling him that to take unnec- 
 essary risks was "unsoldierlike." 
 
 "You shouldn't behave as if you wanted to commit 
 suicide." 
 
 "No, sir." 
 
 "I don't want my officers to prove they are brave men. 
 I take that for granted." 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "You didn't join the Army for the purpose of chuck- 
 ing your life away, but to serve your king and country. 
 All this that we have seen so far is child's play." 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "But there'll be work next year when the advance 
 begins. Well, then, no one has the right to get killed 
 through his own stupidity or carelessness."
 
 GLAMOUR 217 
 
 "No, sir." 
 
 Even when out of the line, revelling in the quiet of 
 Sainte Chose, they were not idle. Beyond their incessant 
 labours in digging, there was much drill, much route- 
 marching, and much practise of attacks. 
 
 All this was soldiering, but outside of duty there was 
 so much to make existence agreeable. There was com- 
 radeship, for instance; the growing regard for one's 
 brother officers ; a fondness for them, a delight in them, 
 that surpassed reason and baffled analysis something 
 like an obedience to a law of nature which has ordained 
 that until you have lain down in the mud with somebody, 
 stirred uneasily on a brick floor with him, dug holes in 
 the ground with him, and been many, many times wet 
 through with him, you cannot be really fond of him. And 
 finer, more tender than one's love of the officers, was 
 one's ever-deepening love of the men. They were such 
 splendid fellows, good as children, with hearts that sim- 
 ply could not harbour a grouse. It stirred one to one's 
 depths just to see their faces by candlelight as they lay 
 in the barn one had tried to make weather-tight for them, 
 to watch them as they filed up to the cooks at dinner with 
 their mess-tins in their hands, to hear them answer in 
 the daylight, or the darkness, or the dusk, when you 
 asked them if they were all right. 
 
 "All right, thank you, sir." 
 
 It filled one with a pride ineffable to think that they 
 liked one, trusted one, and would follow where one led. 
 
 Another cause of personal contentment, which all rec- 
 ognised, was one's extraordinarily perfect physical 
 health. Even the youngest of them recognised this. One 
 was so well bodily that one had no sensation of possess- 
 ing a body at all. It was there, but it took care of itself 
 now ; it ceased to talk to one, interrupting amusing con-
 
 218 GLAMOUR 
 
 versations by saying, "I am so tired. I want to stop 
 walking" ; or "I have got indigestion again." It did not 
 even tell you it was hungry; if you gave it no dinner or 
 sleep it never complained. When a meal came along there 
 seemed to be just a flaming pit beneath the Sam Browne 
 belt, into which you pitched what there was bully beef, 
 dog-biscuits, greasy slabs of hot, fat stew, anything 
 and the flame blazed and subsided, and there was the end 
 of that. One could eat; and how one slept, too, when the 
 chance came ! 
 
 Mentally, a hundred benefits that one had also yearned 
 for were received during the process of this wonderful 
 health cure that fate and chance had set going out here 
 in France. There was a profound comfort in having got 
 down to essentials at last not to be cumbered with per- 
 sonal property, not to be called on to think; to know 
 always what you had to do and that you always jolly well 
 had to do it. This meant really the boon and blessing 
 of being able to forget yourself almost entirely. The 
 young could quite forget. For the middle-aged there lin- 
 gered only the pleasant remembrance that you were not 
 on the shelf, not played out, but being in it with the 
 younger generation. While to the elderly party who had 
 led a hitherto secluded or sedentary life there was a sat- 
 isfaction in the achievement of something adventurous; 
 for, however dull or tame the routine of each day might 
 seem, the spirit of adventure could be detected as glori- 
 fying, justifying the ordered task and common round. 
 And without doubt the nobler, better thoughts were al- 
 ways strengthening. To live for others, to die for others, 
 to sacrifice all things for the just cause this as a settled 
 aim necessarily elevated and improved those who had 
 never had a settled aim of any kind till now. 
 
 Bryan Vaile felt all this, but at the back of his mind
 
 GLAMOUR 219 
 
 he still had the thought that, apart from the cause, for 
 strictly private reasons, he was not only willing but fully 
 intending to finish here, and not come out of it alive. 
 
 Meanwhile he was happy and at peace. All his old 
 interests, the little world of his inventions, the impor- 
 tance of literary work, had gone utterly. The Bryan 
 Vaile of pre-war epochs was an inconceivable personage. 
 He scarcely remembered his feebleness and vacillation, 
 his fret fulness and triviality; he read about him occasion- 
 ally in the newspapers, and saw with interest that a play 
 of his called Penelope's Dilemma had been actejd for 
 nearly two years, and that another of his plays called 
 Evelyn Le strange was enjoying a record run as a revival. 
 Letters and documents concerning this playwright bored 
 him so much that he could not trouble to answer them. 
 The only time that the new Bryan Vaile could spare for 
 letter-writing was when, like every other married man 
 out here, he wrote to tell his wife that he was well and 
 in no danger. The only theatre that he cared about or 
 valued was the barn where the divisional concert-party 
 sang their songs and acted their revues. 
 
 He sent his men to this theatre, and would cheerfully 
 walk four miles in the mud and rain with other subalterns 
 to attend the first night of a new programme. Seated on 
 a bench with Jarvis, Donaldson, Blackburn, and the rest, 
 he thought it the wittiest, brightest, most entrancing show 
 that he had ever witnessed. He sniggered with them, 
 roared with them, suffocated with them; he firmly be- 
 lieved, as they firmly believed, that Private Bull and 
 Lance-Corporal Hooper were as good as Mr. George Ro- 
 bey and Miss Violet Lorraine. 
 
 Comradeship that was the clean, white magic that 
 made small things great. Anyone can laugh when a 
 whole battalion is laughing. Everything is a treat when 
 your comrades make it so.
 
 XVIII 
 
 ON A BRIGHT December day Lieutenant Vaile was 
 given a duty ride which was also an absolute joy- 
 ride. 
 
 The battalion was coming out of the line to-morrow; 
 the men must be paid without delay; therefore an officer 
 had to be sent down to headquarters of the Army Corps 
 to find the Field Cashier and bring back money. 
 
 The Transport Officer provided a good horse, and 
 Vaile, getting upon its back just when the sun had risen 
 over the German front trenches, rode through the dark- 
 ness by the ruined houses, and down into the twilight 
 by the engineers' dug-outs, past the battery, and out upon 
 the desolate waste. The crop of gross vegetation that 
 had arisen since the land had been abandoned by its cul- 
 tivators was girth-high; it was about two miles broad, 
 stretching to right and left interminably; and the long, 
 low rays of the sun, lighting its surface now, made it 
 look exactly like what it must once have been corn- 
 fields with the ears of corn just changed from green to 
 yellow. It was intersected by tracks used by the regi- 
 mental limbers, and until Vaile found his track he rode 
 slowly and cautiously, because of the innumerable pit- 
 falls offered by disused trenches, rusting wire, and so 
 forth. Then, as he hit the track, there came a sound like 
 the swish of large invisible whips ; he had an impression 
 of quantities of snakes diving at lightning speed into the 
 tangle of weeds, and his little horse made a shy of panic. 
 It was only a spurt of machine-gun fire, aimed at our 
 
 220
 
 GLAMOUR 221 
 
 front line, but drifting over everything and dropping 
 here. Indeed, this was a place where one never lingered. 
 
 Vaile and the little horse cantered away gaily. Ahead, 
 the bare tree-tops of Sainte Chose were pale yellow, the 
 windmill glittered whitely, and the high ground towards 
 the Arras road caught the sunlight. 
 
 And he thought suddenly: Was it wrong to be so 
 happy? Was it wicked to be joyous and light-hearted 
 while so many wept? Was he a monster of selfishness 
 and egoism secretly to like the war; secretly to treat it 
 as though it had been made for his benefit; secretly to 
 bless it, because by its stark realities it had destroyed the 
 sickly dream that oppressed him, saving him from shame 
 and disgrace, cleansing him and fortifying him, because 
 it had put Diana back in her place the impalpable realm 
 of dreams and fancies? 
 
 On this long ride he tried to think seriously ; and once 
 or twice, in the intervals between immense lapses of sheer 
 enjoyment, he succeeded in doing so. 
 
 The day grew brighter and brighter it was quite 
 warm, like October. Pausing on the high ground near 
 gun positions, he looked back at the line. It was in full 
 view for six or seven miles, except where hidden by shat- 
 tered villages, and yet really nothing was visible. I f you 
 knew exactly where it was, as he did, you could make out 
 here and there, at the nearest points, some streaks on the 
 faded verdure, made by the spoil dug out of the trenches, 
 and on hill-slopes some white marks that showed where 
 the ground was chalky. But it required a strong effort 
 of the imagination to see, mentally, all the men hidden 
 in the ground thousands, with their heads only a few 
 inches below the level of that broad, empty, sunlit sur- 
 face ; thousands and thousands facing each other, watch- 
 ing and killing, put there only to tear the life out of the
 
 222 GLAMOUR 
 
 men who faced them. This was the war the business 
 part of it the only part that really mattered. 
 
 He turned his back on it and jogged on ; by roads now, 
 all full of traffic, with military police at every corner to 
 regulate it troops marching, endless strings of horses re- 
 turning from watering, and an unbroken stream of lor- 
 ries. 
 
 A ride down from the line always did one good by 
 shaking one out of one's purely local ideas. As one 
 moved backwards the whole scheme opened out. He 
 passed through the areas of two other divisions after 
 leaving his own, and always the same thing repeated it- 
 self battalion orderly rooms, quartermasters' stores, 
 fields with transport horses and wagons, village streets 
 with platoons holding their arms at the port for inspec- 
 tion by platoon commanders. Villages that contained 
 brigade headquarters appeared to be smarter and cleaner 
 than other villages ; and when one came to a large village 
 containing the headquarters of a division, it was so clean, 
 so grand, and so quiet that one hardly dared to ride into 
 it, even at a walk. 
 
 One rode on, through village after village, for mile 
 after mile, until at the bottom of a hill, by a river, a pretty 
 spick-and-span little town with spires and a medieval bel- 
 fry lay gently twinkling in the sunlight And this was 
 Corps Headquarters. Its majestic pomp took one's 
 breath away; it seemed sacrilege to push on farther, and 
 the military police obviously thought so. The number of 
 offices and their names froze one's blood; the cleanness 
 of the streets made one blink ; the splendour and profuse 
 display of staff officers frightened one into gauche and 
 unnoticed salutes at every few yards' progress. For 
 whereas staff officers at the division were only colonels, 
 these all seemed to be brigadier-generals. The click and
 
 GLAMOUR 223 
 
 slap of the sentry outside the gates of the Corps Com- 
 mander's park made Vaile and his horse shy together. 
 Nothing but the sense of duty enabled one to go on 
 with it. 
 
 After watering and feeding his horse he found the 
 Field Cashier seated in a neat little room like a bank 
 parlour. With overwhelming rapidity the cashier paid 
 him out the many thousands of francs required by the 
 battalion. The money was all neatly tied up in bundles 
 of notes like packs of playing-cards; and it just filled the 
 two large haversacks carried by Vaile, one over each 
 shoulder. He had a third smaller haversack with his 
 lunch in it. 
 
 This was the accomplishment of half his duty; the 
 other half was of a more embarrassing nature. His 
 commanding officer had directed him to fish out the gen- 
 eral's aide-de-camp and talk to him quietly and diplo- 
 matically about a motor-car. Strictly, battalion com- 
 manders should not talk about cars at all. According to 
 the book, they have nothing whatever to do with cars and 
 should not even think about them. I f they are absolutely 
 forced to speak of a car, they should speak to the proper 
 quarter, that is, to their Brigade; and if the Brigade 
 chooses it can speak of it to Division. Nothing could 
 well be more irregular or improper than to short-circuit 
 in this manner and mention the word "car" to Corps; 
 but as the colonel knew all this quite well he had said to 
 Bryan, "Use diplomacy. I am sure you won't make an 
 ass of yourself." 
 
 Feeling not nearly so sure as the colonel, Bryan faced 
 another salute from the sentry, swaggered into the park 
 with a false bravado, and, engaging in the avenue be- 
 hind the sentry's back, carefully wiped mud off his boots 
 on the wet grass under the trees. Then he attacked the
 
 224 GLAMOUR 
 
 general's chateau. It was appallingly grand, and as there 
 was nobody about to guide him he plunged through a 
 hall, tapped at a door, received no answer, and went in. 
 The room was lofty, gilded, with cheval glasses, like a 
 scene in the highest class of French comedy, and it seemed 
 to swim round and round before Vaile's eyes because it 
 was so full of red tabs and gold lace. When it steadied 
 itself he saw that there were only two brigadier-generals 
 and three colonels stooping over some large maps spread 
 out on the table. For a few moments they did not see 
 him, and in this time he saw himself in one of the glasses. 
 
 Anything that looked more incongruous it would have 
 been impossible to imagine. Mud-stained, absurdly bulky, 
 hung round with his haversacks, his gas helmet, field- 
 glasses on one side of his belt and a huge revolver on the 
 other, he was like a highwayman who had burst in to 
 threaten the nobility. He changed the key-note, he de- 
 stroyed the scene, he dropped everything to the level of 
 a Drury Lane melodrama. But, after all, there was 
 really nothing to feel ashamed of in looking like an in- 
 fantryman just out of the line. He felt this in the midst 
 of his confusion of spirit, and stood up very straight and 
 stiff as he stated his business. He said he wanted to see 
 the A. D. C., to ask him something. 
 
 "Which one?" 
 
 He said he had no instructions as to which A. D. C. 
 
 "He'd better see Derwent," said one of the generals. 
 "That other fellow never knows anything"; and they 
 sent for Captain Derwent. 
 
 They were altogether charming to him, these nuts. 
 They asked who he was, and where he came from, and 
 they knew all about the battalion. They asked him to 
 have a drink and said he had better stay for lunch. But 
 what flabbergasted him was their absolutely uncanny
 
 GLAMOUR 225 
 
 knowledge about the line. He knew that the red-hats 
 came up to look at it, because he had seen them at Anon- 
 villers going round with his own general; but from the 
 things they said you might suppose that they lived there ; 
 or they lived down here, but kept their astral bodies up 
 there watching you. 
 
 "Tell me," said one general, "what work you have 
 done this fortnight." 
 
 "How far are you up Newmarket Avenue?" asked 
 the other, naming a communication trench. 
 
 "Have you finished revetting Long Bottom Lane?" 
 
 "Has that fellow, what's his name? Manders? Man- 
 vill, yes has he come back from the Musketry School ?" 
 
 "Are you getting all the whale oil that you asked for?" 
 
 They knew subalterns' names; they knew what the 
 quartermaster had said about whale oil ; they knew every- 
 thing. It filled one with amazement and awe. 
 
 Then somebody said that the A. D. C. wished him to 
 go upstairs to his bedroom ; and the generals said,"Good- 
 morning, Vaile if you won't stay to lunch." 
 
 Captain Derwent's room was under the roof, but it 
 seemed very attractive and cosy when you came to it 
 straight from a dug-out. It had armchairs, an old French 
 escritoire, and a circular window through which you saw 
 the park and an ornamental lake. Captain Derwent him- 
 self was very young and very smart, and woefully bored 
 with life at headquarters. He exhibited none of the jov- 
 ial friendliness that had been shown by the generals and 
 colonels downstairs; but Vaile had the feeling that this 
 young man was not really a stranger, that they had met 
 before somewhere at some time. He asked Vaile politely 
 enough how he could be of service. 
 
 Vaile wished to know if by chance, while the Battalion 
 was at Sainte Chose, it could, would, and might be pos-
 
 226 GLAMOUR 
 
 sible to give his colonel the use of a car one afternoon, 
 or say from the afternoon to the following morning. 
 
 "If he's going on leave," said Captain Derwent, "I 
 should think the Division would send him down to Bou- 
 logne." 
 
 Vaile explained that the colonel had already been on 
 leave ; what he wanted now was to go to Amiens for cer- 
 tain weighty purposes. 
 
 But the delicate mission took a bad turn. 
 
 Captain Derwent assured Vaile that he often could 
 not get a car for his own use, and in this connection he 
 spoke very disparagingly of the Camp Commandant. 
 "The old devil always swears that half his axles are 
 broken. But, between you and me and the post, if he 
 gave cars to everybody who. applies for them, we couldn't 
 run the show. You have no idea how many people ask 
 for cars." 
 
 "My C. O. quite understood that it would be a favour." 
 
 "Just so. And I'm sure we'd be only too glad. Only 
 there you are, don't you see"; and Captain Derwent 
 looked as if he would die of boredom if the conversa- 
 tion went on much longer. 
 
 Vaile remembered now where he had previously met 
 Captain Derwent. It was at Middlesborough House. He 
 was the young soldier, addressed by Diana as Geoffrey, 
 who had lunched there one day in the dim vague time be- 
 fore the war. Vaile did not want to recall this meeting; 
 he did not want to claim acquaintance with anyone who . 
 knew Diana. And yet a bond between himself and Geof- 
 frey, however slender, might still save the diplomatic 
 negotiations from the almost certain failure that was 
 hanging over him. The weak spot in the mission 
 plainly realised by the ambassador had been the insuffi- 
 cient quality of his credentials. He stood silent, hesitat-
 
 GLAMOUR 227 
 
 ing. It would be dreadful to have to ride back and tell 
 the colonel he had failed. 
 
 Geoffrey made a despairing gesture and offered him a 
 cigarette. 
 
 Vaile hesitated no longer. He reminded Geoffrey of 
 that luncheon-party at the Duchess of Middlesborough's. 
 And Geoffrey came to life instantly. He jumped at the 
 human link; he recognised the bond between two people 
 who had eaten a meal together in England, in the happy, 
 happy time before all this intolerable boredom began. 
 Moreover, he betrayed the fact that he was an immense 
 admirer of the duchess, in a boyish effervescent way. 
 
 "Isn't she a topper? Doesn't she knock spots off al- 
 most everybody you ever saw?" 
 
 He had seen her quite recently; and he described how 
 he and his general had been down to the coast to visit a 
 sick friend at her hospital, and how she had given them 
 tea and fascinated "the old man." 
 
 "Look here"; and skipping about the room, he pro- 
 duced a folding leather case with four photographs of 
 pretty ladies, one of which was the duchess. "It's an 
 old one. I bought it. She has promised to give me a 
 new one. There. Aren't they four tip-toppers?" 
 
 Vaile admired the lovely four, put the case down rever- 
 ently, and adverted to that question about a car. 
 
 The car? Oh, yes, the car would be all right. Any- 
 thing for a pal, don't you know. Geoffrey would make 
 that old devil produce one. "Any day You telephone 
 to me. Look here. Ask for the A. D. C. Say the Camp 
 Commandant may go to blazes you want the A. D. C. 
 I'll tell my stable companion, so that he'll do it, if I'm 
 out. And look here, I'll come over to see you. I'll look 
 you up at your place." 
 
 They went downstairs like bosom friends. At a cer-
 
 228 GLAMOUR 
 
 tain stage of the descent, on the first floor, at the end of 
 a noble corridor, one had a dreadful feeling that one was 
 very near the Corps Commander now; that he was be- 
 hind one of those closed doors ; that he might bob out on 
 one if one loitered. Lieutenant Vaile did not loiter. 
 
 He went away feeling extraordinarily elated, because 
 he had succeeded and the colonel would be pleased with 
 him. 
 
 He lunched immediately, in the parlour behind a small 
 estaminet; and while eating his sandwiches he thought 
 of the ascending scale and the opening scheme as one goes 
 backwards. Behind the line, Headquarters of Brigade, 
 Division, Corps; behind this, only a little way farther, 
 another town with Army Headquarters, bigger, grander 
 than this, with major-generals instead of brigadiers as 
 principal staff officers; behind that, General Headquar- 
 ters, teeming, one must suppose, with lieutenant-generals, 
 a city of offices, a labyrinth of departments; and behind 
 that Downing Street. And all of them, all the way 
 back, working hard to keep the business going that is, 
 to put him and his forty N. C. O.'s and men, or another 
 forty exactly like them, in and out of Newmarket Ave- 
 nue, or some other trench somewhere that anyone might 
 mistake for it. 
 
 Then he mounted his horse. He rode down the scale 
 now, and the short winter day was over when he reached 
 Sainte Chose and handed his money to the Transport 
 Officer for safe keeping. The Transport Officer gave 
 him tea and another horse, and they rode up together to 
 the trenches with the limbered wagons and to-morrow's 
 grub. 
 
 The night was so dark that one wondered how the 
 little procession of mules and wagons could find its way 
 when once it had left the road and was crossing the waste.
 
 GLAMOUR 229 
 
 At any rate, one would reach the line somewhere, even 
 if one missed one's own part of it, for along its whole 
 length, at brief intervals of time, the German star-lights 
 rose and glowed and faded. This would go on all night 
 a dismal fireworks display, a pallid, silent entertain- 
 ment that might have been devised by the ghosts of dead 
 men to scare away all living holiday-makers. When one 
 drew nearer and came within range of these phantom 
 rockets, the effect was wonderful. Suddenly, as a star 
 rose, the black protecting veil of night was lifted, the 
 whole desolate scene sprang into view. One saw the 
 village ruins close ahead of one, and the wide plain for a 
 mile at least on either hand, with leafless, sundered trees, 
 a pile of stones that had been a windmill, some mounds 
 beside old gun positions all seen as in a preternaturally 
 long flash of lightning; looking like Macbeth's blasted 
 heath, like a scene from Dante's Inferno, like nothing on 
 earth or that should ever have been on earth. And while 
 the lightning lasted the little procession of wagons seemed 
 a huge, conspicuous affair ; every detail showed large and 
 clear the drivers' intent faces, the crossbars of the poles, 
 the buckles of the harness, the twitching ears of the mules 
 as they plodded on with grave unconcern. A moment 
 ago one had felt a tiny thing lost in vast space ; now one 
 felt enormous, perched high in the air on a horse as big 
 as a monument. Surely one must be observed and picked 
 off. Then the light faded; one was smaller than ever, 
 and blinded now, a poor little insect without eyes moving 
 forward only by instinct. 
 
 It was a quiet night, with only occasional bursts of 
 rifle-fire, and they found their way comfortably; up 
 through the orchards by the pitfalls, up into the street, 
 all among the friendly, familiar surroundings. Another 
 pallid flare lit up the whole street masses of tumbled
 
 230 GLAMOUR 
 
 brick and stone, garden walls, skeleton villas with dan- 
 gling roof- frames, the shell of the church tower, mean 
 little sheds and hutches, and muddy, weary men slowly 
 flitting like ghosts here and there. But these ruins had no 
 forbidding aspect ; they meant battalion headquarters, sig- 
 nal office, company office, cookhouse, mess-room, what 
 not; there was cheerful candlelight showing now from 
 holes in the ground ; well-known voices sounded. Bryan 
 Vaile felt that it was like coming home after his happy 
 day. 
 
 They made much of him to-night; the colonel asking 
 him to dinner because he had not made an ass of himself, 
 all enjoying his society because he had been seeing sights. 
 The kindness of their welcome made his heart glow. 
 This was where he wanted to be, in this dug-out, in the 
 line; not anywhere farther back. But he remembered 
 the excursion with interest and pleasure, thinking again 
 of all that lay behind him and his platoon, Brigade, Divi- 
 sion, Corps; behind that, Army, G. H. Q., Downing 
 Street and behind that, the tears and anguish of thou- 
 sands and thousands of bereaved mothers, sweethearts, 
 wives.
 
 GLAMOUR 247, 
 
 Albert the 8th Battalion lay down to sleep in the open. 
 Six officers, including the colonel and the adjutant, and 
 ninety-seven other ranks. That was the battalion now. 
 It was over five hundred strong again ten days later, 
 when it had pulled itself together. Big drafts had been 
 sent to them, new young officers had arrived in limber- 
 loads, and some of the slightly wounded had rejoined. 
 Then the division marched away northwards, back 
 through peaceful inhabited villages, where the sound of 
 the guns grew faint ; marching by day, in billets at night, 
 the same old game ; up north, to take over a quiet sector. 
 
 The battalion was still everything, and they tried not 
 to think that it was another battalion. They tried not 
 to think of all the officers and men who had landed with 
 it in France. They could not speak of the dead comrades 
 that they loved, and they tried not to think of them. 
 These were gone; their battalion remained. One must 
 think of it always as the old battalion. 
 
 But in one's dreams one knew what had really hap- 
 pened. In dreams one lived again those ten minutes dur- 
 ing which the battalion took Signal Copse and went up 
 in smoke and flame for ever. In dreams one saw the full 
 muster a thousand brave, strong souls; boys and men, 
 giving up home, comfort, love; toiling as they had never 
 toiled before; tramping under rain and snow, sleeping 
 in the mud, watching through the nights; for two long 
 years preparing themselves for the sacrifice; painfully 
 working towards it stage by stage, waiting their turn; 
 and then showing the world what they were for ten 
 minutes.
 
 XXI 
 
 THE war was lasting too long. So many had prom- 
 ised themselves that when it ended they would be- 
 gin life again with a new spirit, caring only for essen- 
 tials, working for the reward that lies in work itself, 
 being content with little, knowing that much is not re- 
 quired for happiness. But it did not end. It went on, and 
 its dead weight sometimes crushed all these aspirations 
 out of one. 
 
 The battalion had lost its colonel the head of the 
 'family, their father. He had been made a brigadier. But 
 they had their beloved general still. Vaile was now do- 
 ing odd jobs for him at brigade headquarters, and had 
 been praised for being useful. 
 
 He was back with the battalion that autumn when they 
 went south again for the fighting on the Ancre ; and in 
 comparison with these operations the battle of the Somme 
 became a retrospect of ease and comfort. It was sum- 
 mer then, the sun shone, and there was firm ground under 
 one's feet. But here, after the pitiless rains, in the fog 
 and cold of November, men were called upon to move 
 forward struggling through mud up to the knees, to scale 
 hills that were sliding quagmires, and to fight desperately 
 at the end of a journey that would have been torture and 
 torment to accomplish if there had been nothing to do 
 when they reached their destination. The dead disap- 
 peared in the mud ; the wounded were suffocated by the 
 mud; the living were often so tired that they would not 
 move to escape from shell-fire if there was another 
 
 248
 
 GLAMOUR 249 
 
 stretch of mud to be crossed in order to reach a safer 
 place. Yet never had the army fought better. The cold 
 and the mud and the misery could not stop them. 
 
 When this battle quieted down the brigade remained in 
 the neighborhood for the winter. 
 
 Always the conditions were getting worse. The front 
 line no longer consisted of snug and commodious 
 trenches; it was a chain of posts in shell-holes, with such 
 links of wire as could be made between them. It took 
 hours to get men up for reliefs; whole platoons stuck 
 fast, and other platoons sent to pull them out themselves 
 stuck or lost their way. There was merciless rain by day, 
 with frost and snow at night. Fog made patrol work 
 dangerous. Raiding parties sent out to mop up German 
 posts succeeded in their objective, captured the nest 
 whole, and coming back, as they thought, with their pris- 
 oners, blundered headlong into the German line. The 
 Germans returned this compliment rarely, as they were 
 not adventurous and the harassing work was done by 
 us; but deserters from the enemy were not uncommon, 
 and it was refreshing to hear from them that the enemy 
 were, if possible, more uncomfortable than we were. 
 There were difficulties in feeding our advanced posts. 
 Everything was difficult. When a battalion came out 
 after doing its allotted time it was dreadful to see. The 
 men were plastered from head to foot with wet or frozen 
 mud, their faces were ashen grey; they looked as if they 
 were the dead men rotting on the hills who had half come 
 to life and were shambling away from the horror up 
 there. Indeed, there was not much life left in the out- 
 coming battalions. 
 
 Yet after forty-eight hours in the dripping huts or in 
 the draughty barns of a dilapidated village they were 
 themselves again, all brushed up and clean, with their
 
 250 GLAMOUR 
 
 buttons polished and their faces shining if there was a 
 pale gleam of sunlight ; ready to spring to attention and 
 for inspection port arms when the platoon commander 
 came to look at their spotless rifles; ready to say "No 
 complaints" as they filed past with their mess-tins at 
 dinner; ready to go back and freeze and fight and die 
 as soon as they were required to do it. They were won- 
 derful, the new men seeming as stout and patient as the 
 original men, although obviously the standard of phy- 
 sique was falling. With such men, it was not strange if 
 platoon commanders loved them ; it would have been odd 
 if platoon commanders did not pray to be worthy of 
 them. "Are you all right there?" "All right, thank you, 
 sir." It would always be the same answer the answer 
 that touched one's heart from the first. "All right, sir 
 only up to my armpits in this mud for the last six 
 hours." "All right, sir only slightly wounded. Don't 
 bother about me." "All right, sir only blown to pieces 
 and dying. Don't think of me, sir. Please go on, sir." 
 
 And nobody could feel aggrieved by being worse off 
 than his neighbours. It was the same for all. In these 
 times Brigade Headquarters oscillated between a sweat- 
 ing dug-out and sheds that would not have been luxurious 
 for poultry; Headquarters of Division, instead of having 
 an imposing chateau, lay in frail huts in the open ; Corps 
 itself was without glass to its windows and displayed 
 shell-craters in lieu of flower-beds at its front door. 
 
 Always, too, one had the illusion of the happy past. 
 Those who remembered it thought of that first idyllic 
 winter at Sainte Chose. The vision of the sunlit heights, 
 the gaiety, the excitement in the battle of the Somme, 
 rose continually to introspective eyes. The long marches 
 up and down France seemed to have been so easy; the
 
 GLAMOUR 251 
 
 pavements and shop windows of inhabited towns, the 
 billets with water-tight roofs, fires in kitchen stoves; 
 estaminets where old women cooked breakfast and smil- 
 ing girls laid the cloth it was all so bright and jolly 
 when one looked back at it. And the sun would shine 
 again ; the good times would come again. This was just 
 a dull phase, and one must stick it cheerfully. Those 
 brutes who had let loose all the misery on an innocent 
 world were tasting it themselves. Their legend of being 
 supermen was shattered for ever. They had been fought 
 and beaten by the jobbing gardener who mowed the 
 lawn, the milkman that measured out the milk, and the 
 lad who brought the Sunday papers. They had been 
 pushed back on the Somme and the Ancre, and next 
 spring they would be pushed farther still. Nothing mat- 
 tered if the cause was prospering. When the great frost 
 set in optimists felt that things were already improving. 
 One might die of the cold, but for a time there was no 
 risk of being drowned in the mud. 
 
 But the war had lasted too long. Towards the end of 
 this abominable winter weariness of spirit more than once 
 overtook Bryan Vaile, and he frankly wished then that, 
 the war was over. He had been very unlucky about leave, ' 
 misb-iig it in the late spring, having it postponed in the 
 early autumn, and only getting it at last in December. 
 He had been home only twice, all told. Not enough 
 experts said to keep you fresh and lively, especially if 
 you were not quite so young as you used to be. 
 
 The adored general had gone, to take command of a 
 division. Nearly all one's old pals were dead or gone. 
 One tried not to notice that it had become quite another 
 brigade.
 
 252 GLAMOUR 
 
 And Vaile was no man's dog now ; sometimes with his 
 own battalion ; sometimes lent to other battalions ; some- 
 times employed at brigade headquarters sent off to fill 
 any gap, put on to any job, used anyhow. He did not 
 mind what he was doing, so long as he could be of use ; 
 he had been given a decoration, and he received just 
 enough compliments to keep him going. It was more and 
 more a young man's war, as people were fond of saying, 
 and he was no longer in his extreme youth, as they often 
 reminded him; but as someone who knew the ropes, a 
 veteran of experience, he had a very obvious value. In- 
 deed, he was spoken of as a competent and responsible 
 officer. He had no feeling of thwarted ambition, but he 
 understood that by playing "general utility" parts he had 
 made it unlikely that he would be selected for "leading 
 business." In the way of promotion the boys had all gone 
 over his head ; but this caused him no uneasiness and he 
 did not make it a grouse, even during the worst hours 
 of weariness. 
 
 Others in their bad hours talked sometimes of having 
 suffered injustice, hankered after soft jobs, and even 
 vowed they would try to get out of France altogether 
 if they were not soon promoted. They spoke of their 
 career meaning by this not their career as an auctio^jer 
 or coal merchant or whatever it was, but as a soldier. 
 The thing had gone on so long that they thought they 
 had been soldiers always, and that soldiering was to be 
 their trade to the end of the chapter. They forgot how 
 in 1914 they had said they wanted to strike a blow for 
 England, no matter in how humble a capacity. They 
 thought, "If Jones is a colonel, why not me?" 
 
 Sometimes then, for a little while, the noble lesson 01 
 the war seemed to be wearing out; the higher motives; 
 seemed to be fading or to have faded completely. It
 
 GLAMOUR 253 
 
 came back to this : one was not so greatly changed 
 after all; one still thought of oneself. 
 
 Vaile, detecting this weakness in others, resolutely 
 struggled with it in himself. 
 
 One February night in billets, the night before they 
 returned to the line, there was something like an outbreak 
 of nostalgia at a mess where he had been asked to din- 
 ner. It was the headquarters mess of a battalion, and the 
 room the kitchen of a cottage was used also as 
 sleeping apartment by the colonel and three other officers. 
 Nevertheless it was famous as the best billet in the vil- 
 lage. The dinner was excellent not an unusual menu, 
 but so well cooked and so well served. A delicious soup 
 made out of soup tablets was followed by a nice piece 
 of stewed beef. There was bully beef, cold, as an entree, 
 and a fine dish of tinned apricots for sweet. After such 
 a repast everybody ought to have been jolly. Warm, 
 well-fed, in this snug room with no wind to mention 
 coming through the boarded windows and the smoke 
 from the damp wood fire not enough to cause inconve- 
 nience, everybody ought to have been at the top of his 
 form, reciting warlike adventures of all the things he 
 might have done if he had thought of doing them; tell- 
 ing the tale that made Noah laugh so heartily in the Ark ; 
 offering to sing a song; bucking, gassing, being jolly. 
 Whereas in fact they began to talk of home of the 
 major's little girl, aged five, of the quartermaster's boy 
 at school, of the padre's mother's seaside cottage; of 
 everything soft and enervating and unattainable. 
 
 The colonel saw it coming the nostalgic attack and 
 tried to stop it. When he found that the situation got 
 out of hand he called for the gramophone. 
 
 "Let's have a tune. We haven't had the gramophone 
 for ages."
 
 254 GLAMOUR 
 
 "Not for a year," said the major. "Do you remember 
 how fond poor Gillanders was of it?" 
 
 "Yes, yes," said the colonel, putting his foot on the 
 sad reminiscent tone of his second-in-command. "Where 
 is the gramophone ?" 
 
 "We dumped it, sir, at Mondicourt. We have never 
 seen it since." 
 
 "But didn't C Company get theirs out? Yes, I know 
 they did. Banks, like a good fellow, run down to C Com- 
 pany and see if they'll lend it to us." 
 
 Young Mr. Banks ran out into the frosty night with 
 the mess sergeant and the mess waiter, and ten minutes 
 afterwards C Company's gramophone was established on 
 a pile of bacon boxes in the corner by the smoky stove 
 and giving out its first bars of crackling music. 
 
 "That's George Robey, I'll be bound," said the colonel 
 cheerily. 
 
 "No, sir," said young Mr. Banks, "that's the massed 
 band of the Guards." 
 
 "So it is," said the colonel. "But I say, Banks, can't 
 you make it play louder?" 
 
 Mr. Banks understood the instrument, and by coaxing 
 he made it play louder and louder with every record he 
 put in. But the louder it played the more one thought 
 of home nostalgia poured out of its funnel in waves, 
 drowning one with unattainable desires. 
 
 "Albert Chevalier," said Banks, announcing the rec- 
 ords. " 'Knocked 'em in the Old Kent Road.' " 
 
 "Come, come," said the colonel, snapping his fingers 
 and wagging his head. "That's better." 
 
 "Mr. George Grossmith, sir. 'You're the only, only 
 girl.' ' 
 
 It made no difference what the thing played merry
 
 GLAMOUR 255 
 
 song and dance, droll duet by knock-about artistes, popu- 
 lar refrain and chorus; it just made one long for all that 
 one could not have. 
 
 Vaile looked at their faces. Banks by the gramophone, 
 two other lads standing with their backs against the 
 broken plaster of the kitchen wall, the major sitting with 
 his head upon his hand, the adjutant staring straight in 
 front of him, the padre looking at the rent in the ceiling, 
 the colonel trying to beat time they were all affected 
 in the same way; they were all thinking; and it seemed 
 to Vaile that he could read each one's thoughts. 
 
 First they all thought of Gillanders and the others, 
 who had listened to the gramophone a year ago, but who 
 could hear nothing any more. Then Banks thought of 
 his sister, and his sister's friend of the cheap little for- 
 get-me-not ring that he gave her on her birthday. The 
 major thought of Marjorie, aged five, who said in her 
 last letter, written in capitals with her own hand, 
 "COME BACK SOON DARLING DADDY." The 
 adjutant was thinking of the tall young lady who gave 
 him the keepsake when he was on leave. The padre was 
 thinking of the church at Hornsey Rise, his mother, and 
 his cousin. 
 
 And Vaile thought of many things, seeing each as he 
 thought of it the firelight on ceilings at the Regent's 
 Park house, the children's toys in the room where they 
 oughtn't to be, the hall of the Betterton Club, the supper 
 table at the Gridiron, his books, his papers, his boxes of 
 new Midget golf -balls. He longed for them all. He 
 yearned for the smell of the theatre, the work that he 
 loved, the social intercourse that used to bore him; for 
 the normal, the commonplace, the uneventful; for any- 
 thing except the deadly routine of adventure out here.
 
 256 GLAMOUR 
 
 "Can't we have something higher class?" said the colo- 
 nel, rousing himself. 
 
 "We'll try this, sir," said Banks, and he read the title 
 of a record haltingly. " 'Star series : La Di-vine Na- 
 tha-lie.' " 
 
 "My goodness!" ejaculated the colonel, when the mu- 
 sic began. 
 
 It was Madame St. Cloud singing. The lovely voice 
 rolled out upon them, penetrating one with its exquisite 
 melody. Her voice triumphed over space, time, and the 
 mechanical barrier of the poor old gramophone. It was 
 Madame St. Cloud herself, singing as only she could 
 sing. The sweet deep notes stirred one to one's entrails, 
 held one vibrating. The young men came from the wall, 
 the others drew their chairs and boxes nearer, to drink it 
 in. It was Nathalie St. Cloud, the divine Nathalie, sing- 
 ing Home, Sweet Home. 
 
 And strangely, wonderfully, this song of all others did 
 not make you want to be at home. It made you want to 
 be here to fight for home to die for home but never 
 to see it again till the cause was won. All their faces 
 had changed. When Vaile looked round at them he saw 
 that all felt what he felt, all were vibrating in the same 
 way. 
 
 The young men stood now to a stiff attention. All held 
 their heads high. The blue eyes of young Banks flashed 
 in the candlelight as he thought of how the Germans had 
 treated innocent girls like his sister's friend with the 
 forget-me-not ring. The major thought of the death of 
 his friend Gillanders as an outstanding debt not yet paid. 
 The adjutant was thinking of Lewis guns and the latest 
 thing in hand-grenades; and the quartermaster twisted 
 his moustache and thought of his father who was a sol-
 
 GLAMOUR 257 
 
 ctier before him, and hoped that his boy wouM grow up 
 to be a soldier after him. 
 
 "That's the stuff," said the colonel, slapping his leg. 
 "Encore! Let's have that again, Banks." 
 
 So, as always happened to her, Madame St. Cloud was 
 made to sing Home, Sweet Home a second time. 
 
 She had helped Vaile to pull himself together. She 
 had put him back on the higher level, and he determined 
 to keep there. Far more than the others he felt the need 
 of stifling nostalgic yearnings and never for a moment 
 lapsing from a lofty ideal. He had come into the war 
 selfishly. He must stick it out unselfishly. 
 
 Next afternoon, while leading a company back to the 
 line, he thought of the war itself. They were coming 
 over the hill above Beaumont-Hamel, plodding in single 
 file along a path of trench-boards that took a serpentine 
 course through the shell-holes and over the ruined 
 trenches. Ahead of them another company was going 
 down the slope towards the station road; behind them 
 at a little distance more files of dark, moving objects 
 followed, and except for these small processions slowly 
 filing across the snow there was nothing but silence, 
 death, and desolation. Below them on the left lay the 
 small rubbish-heap that had been the village of Beau- 
 mont-Hamel, with not even the stump of a tree left 
 standing; on their right was the valley, with blackened, 
 branchless trees through which the river showed darkly, 
 the railway line, and more refuse of destroyed habita- 
 tions; and across the water Thiepval raised a few bare 
 poles high against the sky. The snow was not sufficient 
 to hide the signs of devastation; it only made them stand 
 out black and hideous, and it added to the sense of cold- 
 ness, forlornness, and misery. Hanging low, heavy
 
 258 GLAMOUR 
 
 clouds closed in the scene. It might have been Russia in 
 Napoleon's time. It seemed impossible that this land- 
 scape belonged to Western Europe, to civilisation, to the 
 present day. 
 
 Yet with the slightest effort of imagination one could 
 see it as it was such a little while ago say in July 1914. 
 This valley of the Ancre must have been one of the pret- 
 tiest spots on earth before hell broke loose in it. 
 
 For a few moments Vaile could see the untroubled 
 aspect of the village, basking in the sunshine, with its 
 white-walled houses and green orchards, its church, its 
 school, its miniature square all full of happy, thriving 
 life. Up here the ripening cornfields undulated beneath 
 the summer breeze, red poppies fringed the path, and 
 larks sang in the limpid air. The roadway from the 
 village passed to the railway station through an avenue 
 of sweet-smelling limes, and it was gay with traffic 
 farmers' wagons, old-fashioned gigs, men on horseback. 
 At the station a little crowd stood waiting for the Amiens 
 and Paris train sunburnt women with white caps and 
 huge baskets, men in blouses, a soldier in red trousers; 
 the old schoolmaster seeing off his pretty niece; the 
 mayor and his fat wife starting for a little holiday; one 
 young man, talked to by everybody because he is going 
 all the way to Paris. Everybody would know everybody ; 
 they would all be talking, gesticulating, laughing, till the 
 station-master in his gold-lace cap appears with immense 
 importance and says the train has left Miraumont and 
 will soon be here. And presently, to the sound of an in- 
 nocent trumpet, the train carries the travellers away all 
 along the edge of the water, with delicious peeps of cool 
 shade and bright sunshine, beneath the dense woods of 
 Aveluy, by the little lake, and on to the busy, prosperous 
 town of Albert and on again to wide horizons of hope 
 and love and peace.
 
 GLAMOUR 259 
 
 The vision faded, and Bryan Vaile looked at his men 
 and all round at the ugly reality. He thought of how 
 this scene was like an endless back-cloth stretched across 
 the world's stage. From the sea to the Alps, again in 
 Italy Serbia, Roumania; everywhere these valleys with 
 rivers that had flowed blood and tears; these hills that 
 were like the stations of the cross for half of mankind; 
 these graveyard heaps of brick and rubble beneath which 
 even the dead could not sleep unmolested by shot and 
 shell. He thought of the cruelty, the abomination, the 
 maniacal destroying fury of any war, and of the wicked- 
 ness with which our enemy had produced the immeasur- 
 able disaster of this war. He thought of the villages just 
 ahead, still in the enemy's hands of the brutalities, the 
 infamies there that one could not hinder. What could 
 repay them? It was ridiculous to speak of good coming 
 out of such evil as this, or to suppose that war can be 
 a valuable lesson to people who never wanted to make 
 war. He thought of the glorious youths of the Empire, 
 hundreds of thousands of them, the pride and joy of 
 England and the Overseas Dominions. These truly 
 needed no lesson ; they gave themselves freely, at the first 
 call; yet one might perhaps say that in the great school 
 of self-sacrifice they grew better and stronger still, so 
 that they would be ready to found a new era of altruistic 
 aims and common brotherhood. But they could found 
 nothing now ; they were all dead. 
 
 Waste, destruction, madness that is war. What end 
 can justify it, what gains ever balance the loss? Truly 
 there was nothing to hope for, unless one fixed one's 
 mind to the impalpable spiritual side of it. A struggle 
 between two ideas, elemental strife of right and wrong, 
 the powers of darkness against the powers of light 
 But that made one feel even more infinitesimally small
 
 260 GLAMOUR 
 
 than ever. In the midst of that, how could one go on 
 thinking about oneself? How could one even remember 
 one's own existence? Then he thought of a recent phrase 
 of Mr. Lloyd George words welcomed out here as the 
 best thing as yet said by any statesman. This was the 
 war to end war. In, this would be the justification and 
 the reward, if one dared hope for it. There lay all the 
 hope. 
 
 As he thought of it, he felt the greatness of the cause 
 as he had never done till now. And he tramped on with 
 a stout heart worthy now, for a little while at least, of 
 the men who followed him.
 
 XXII 
 
 IT WAS the autumn again. 
 There had been no respites or soft times; fighting 
 had continued unceasingly along the elastic Hindenburg 
 Line, and casualties were heavy even in local enterprises 
 that scarcely received a short complimentary notice from 
 the press. Vaile's brigade, made up to something like 
 strength again, was still another brigade. But they 
 fought as well as ever, and it seemed to him that both 
 the few veterans and the many newcomers were animated 
 by a harder, grimmer spirit. 
 
 The sight of these recovered villages, the senseless de- 
 struction before the German retreat, the stories of cruelty 
 to the miserable inhabitants, filled them with hatred and 
 scorn for an enemy that all had begun by respecting. 
 They realised how long and arduous the struggle must 
 yet be. They seemed to understand how heavy were the 
 odds against any named person's seeing the end of it. 
 Wounded men who recovered came back and got 
 wounded again; the twice- wounded returned and got 
 killed. There was very little hope for each man, but 
 great hope for the cause. That was enough; that was 
 everything; they fought well for the righteous cause. 
 And Bryan Vaile, forgetting all else, including himself, 
 kept on this higher level of thought; being really useful 
 from the professional point of view, and getting recom- 
 mended quite unexpectedly for a D.S.O. to add to his 
 Military Cross. 
 
 At last, early in October, having turned their backs on 
 
 261
 
 262 GLAMOUR 
 
 the Ancre and the Somme and come northwards again 
 to join another army, they found themselves established 
 in a long, straggling village so far behind the line that 
 one only heard the guns distinctly when the wind blew 
 from the east. Brigade Headquarters, with Vaile tem- 
 porarily attached, had a farm at the bottom of the vil- 
 lage, and Divisional Headquarters had a modest chateau 
 at the top of it. They could have done with D.H.Q. a 
 little farther off but no matter. They were not disposed 
 to grumble about anything. 
 
 Indeed, all ranks showed their joy at escape from the 
 wilderness. Going round the brigade one saw pleasure 
 and satisfaction in every sunburnt face. About the huts 
 and barns men were singing, sprawling on the grass, 
 whistling to the birds in the sky. The young officers were 
 wild with excitement chattering and laughing like 
 schoolboys; joy-riding on empty lorries; rushing to the 
 neighbouring town in order to stare at citizens' wives 
 with coloured parasols and servant girls with marketing 
 baskets, to talk their villainous French to the old dame 
 and her three female relatives at the officers' tea-shop, 
 or to parade at the railway station and intoxicate them- 
 selves with the fact that it was still in working order, a 
 going concern, with civilian trains all complete for which 
 you had to buy tickets instead of merely showing war- 
 rants. 
 
 "I tell you, sir, it's a top-hole town," said young Mr. 
 Pryce, addressing the brigadier at dinner. "We saw some 
 jolly nice fresh girls." 
 
 "It would have been more to the point," said the gen- 
 eral, "if you'd seen some jolly nice fresh fish and 
 brought it back to dinner" ; and he finished his desiccated 
 soup with a gulp. 
 
 But he wasn't ratty. He was just as pleased, really,
 
 XIX 
 
 IN the middle of a January night Vaile left his billet 
 at Sainte Chose and stood waiting by the cross-roads 
 near the Mairie. Not another soul was stirring, except 
 the sentry round the corner. The night seemed deadly 
 silent, held in the grip of a hard frost. 
 
 He was going on leave. Presently he heard the leave 
 bus approaching, and next minute it appeared. It was a 
 veritable London omnibus that a little while ago had been 
 bright red, with advertisements of Penelope's Dilemma 
 and girls in straw hats on top of it, as it trundled along 
 Knightsbridge or over Clapham Common; but now it 
 looked black, sinister, and terrible, with its windows 
 boarded up, its garden seats shorn off, and a curtain of 
 sacking that hung over the door. "Nobody else from 
 Sainte Chose?" said the lance-corporal conductor; and 
 Vaile went through the curtain and subsided in the dark- 
 ness on the laps of sleeping officers, who gave friendly, 
 brotherly growls as they woke and made room for him. 
 
 Four hours' jolting in the bus, two hours' waiting at 
 the station, and then daylight and the train. Who that 
 ever made the journey will forget it? Old men forget, 
 yet all shall be forgot before the smallest detail of that 
 first leave from France will fade or grow colourless. One 
 felt so much, much more than the tumult in little boys' 
 hearts when school breaks up and they go home for the 
 holidays. Never till then had one known the thousandth 
 part of what a holiday can mean. Not till one had started 
 did one make the faintest guess of how acutely every 
 smallest bit of one was aching for a glimpse of England. 
 
 231
 
 232 GLAMOUR 
 
 Vaile made up a second-class compartment with some 
 pleasant companions that he had never seen before. The 
 whole long train was full of pleasant companions. There 
 were no nasty ones on board it. The train was slower 
 than the bus had been, and it seemed to be taking them 
 all round France instead of striking out for the channel 
 port that cannot be mentioned. Quite late in the after- 
 noon it was heading south, and was further from the sea 
 than when it started in the morning. Obviously it could 
 not arrive at the right place by midnight and the sailing 
 of the boat. But this did not matter really, for leave- 
 veterans assured one that if one was hung up for a day at 
 the port the embarkation officer would make it good to 
 one. 
 
 So all day long they bucked and gassed about their 
 regiments and their military adventures, regardless of the 
 placard which warned them to "Be cautious, be silent, for 
 the enemy has e'ars everywhere" ; or they shared sand- 
 wiches, or read one another's shilling novels, or stared 
 out of window and dreamed with bright eyes widely 
 opened. Luck or miracles helped them. The train 
 caught the boat. And soon Vaile was in the saloon, hav- 
 ing the supper of his life fried fish, cold ham, bread 
 and butter and marmalade, and real brown, strong, steam- 
 boat tea ; gassing and bucking again with another set of 
 the most delightful total strangers that one ever met. 
 But this boat-load of strangers seemed friends in a mo- 
 ment, better friends than one's oldest friends used to be. 
 Indeed, they all felt and knew that they were comrades of 
 the great war, long before Colonel Wilfred Ashley told 
 them so. 
 
 The boat was crowded ; there were no berths for any- 
 body below the rank of captain, but Vaile found a snug 
 corner near the staircase, and, lying down on the nice soft
 
 GLAMOUR 233 
 
 wooden deck, slept like a top. By daylight he was in 
 England, and had just time to send a telegram to his 
 wife before he got away in the first train. 
 
 At Waterloo there were people waiting to meet the 
 train, and all ranks came tumbling out of it before it 
 stopped, so that in an instant the broad platform was 
 crowded. Vaile saw a slap-up girl in blue cloth with 
 brown fur round her neck, a fine big, tall, slim, elegant 
 girl with shining eager eyes ; and he took her in his arms 
 and devoured her face with kisses. 
 
 "Mabel!" 
 
 "Bryan!" 
 
 It was intense joy to find that all had come right again. 
 The war had saved them. They were just what they 
 used to be to each other ; he felt the old good love ; every- 
 thing else was an ugly dream. 
 
 To this extent he was the husband and the father that 
 his wife and children believed. That he might not be 
 the military hero they imagined him was really not his 
 fault. For Mabel fancied that, although he did not say 
 so in his letters, he had been performing prodigies of 
 valour and organisation. She attributed the stability of 
 the Western front in chief part to his efforts; the only 
 thing she could not understand was why they had not yet 
 promoted him. If he had been treated properly he would 
 have been a colonel or a general by now. In this lack of 
 prompt recognition of his services she detected, at the 
 best, red tape; at the worst, a very ignoble jealousy. 
 He could not argue with her : it was easier to be a hero. 
 
 She was so splendid in her unselfish pride about him 
 and her unselfish ardour for the great cause. She had no 
 more aoubt as to victory than she had doubt as to the 
 justice of the aims for which we fought. She was work-
 
 234 GLAMOUR 
 
 ing hard at patriotic tasks ; she would work harder. She 
 was ready to make any sacrifices. Nothing counted, not 
 life itself, not the lives of all one loved, in this crusade 
 to rescue the world from the brutal tyranny of a con- 
 scienceless foe. He admired her as much as he loved 
 her. 
 
 But she must take a holiday now. 
 
 These seven days were heaven rest, peace, pure joy. 
 He tried to do as people had advised, not to count the 
 days, not to say to himself, "First breakfast in England; 
 second dinner ; third night between sheets" ; and so on. 
 At tea-time on that first day he seemed to have been at 
 home for a fortnight he had done so much, seen so 
 much, bought so much. But after that the time flew; 
 and whenever he closed his eyes and dreamed, he was al- 
 ready back in France. It was as if B. E. F. had given 
 him leave of absence for waking hours but recalled him 
 to do duty in his dreams. 
 
 While fresh from France the splendour of things that 
 used to seem nothing at all staggered him. Could this 
 really be his own magnificent luxurious house and 
 grounds ? Seen from the outside, it was a divisional head- 
 quarters that any camp commandant would jump at ; in- 
 side, it was fit for a corps commander fit for an army 
 commander. The richness of the upholstery, the variety 
 of the furniture, the glitter of the silver and glass on the 
 dinner-table, impressed him; the warmth and brightness 
 of coal fires burning in all the lovely rooms delighted 
 him; the neatness, cleanness, personal good looks of the 
 servants charmed him. To sit in his gorgeous work- 
 room with no work to do, and no intention of ever 
 doing that silly old work again was rapture. 
 
 After the scenery to which he had grown accustomed, 
 it was incredibly pleasant to find the whole of London
 
 GLAMOUR 235 
 
 going strong, uninjured, just the same; thriving in the 
 midst of the world disaster; the theatres doing big busi- 
 ness, the restaurants so crowded that you had to book a 
 table in advance, the streets so full of traffic that it was 
 just as easy to get run over as it had ever been. Mabel 
 said the streets were darker at night than they used to be, 
 but after Anonvillers and Sainte Chose they seemed blaz- 
 ingly illuminated. He made her "do" the town with him, 
 as if she too had arrived from a distance. They went to 
 the play together, seeing Romance, Peg o' My Heart, and 
 a revue at a music-hall ; and he laughed and enjoyed him- 
 self just as much as at the entertainment of the divi- 
 sional concert party. All critical faculty had died in him, 
 and wherever he went he had the comfortable feeling that, 
 as well as being able to enjoy, he had earned the right to 
 enjoy for these seven days. 
 
 He found his club totally unchanged, except for the 
 trifling circumstance that in the coffee-room there were 
 girls to wait on you; but at the club he had an illusion of 
 being now at least twenty years younger than the men of 
 his own age who had not disguised themselves in khaki 
 and gone abroad for the army health cure. They were 
 awfully nice to him at the club, really appearing to be 
 glad to see him again, and he had no words to tell them 
 how glad he was to see them. But he thought he detected 
 the fact that some of them were not as thoroughly pleased 
 with the poor old war as he was. Out of politeness to 
 him they hid it as much as possible, but one felt it dimly. 
 No one could say that they were gloomy or pessimistic, 
 yet they threw out hints that in their opinion things were 
 going rather slowly. 
 
 During luncheon he used a large Stilton cheese, a vase 
 of celery, and some knives and forks, to represent the 
 formidable strength of the German position, and was
 
 236 GLAMOUR 
 
 explaining how it would be bent and broken in the great 
 advance this spring, when one of the young ladies opened 
 the road to Berlin by taking the cheese away, and spoilt 
 his explanation. 
 
 "Never mind," said old Venables cheerily. "If there 
 really is going to be an advance some day, that's very 
 reassuring." 
 
 No, he could not deceive himself. On this one matter 
 the jolly, health-giving war they were not quite in 
 sympathy with him. 
 
 He was sorry, because he himself felt in such exuber- 
 ant sympathy with everything and everybody; with his 
 old friends and his new friends, soldiers and civilians, 
 men, women, and children. Throughout his leave he 
 looked at the world with eyes that seemed to understand 
 all and to love all. Each corner of London, each phase 
 of its multitudinous life, was dear to him now, and full 
 of new meanings. His thoughts became like the poetry 
 of that colossal humbug of an easily humbugged age, the 
 late Mr. Walt Whitman. Walking across Piccadilly Cir- 
 cus he laughed inwardly, as inwardly he sang the Song 
 of Himself 
 
 "Sempstresses getting on buses. 
 
 Each one is my sister. 
 
 I admire their backs and waists and their neat little ankles 
 
 Without ulterior motive. But with dreams of future motherhood. 
 
 In time they'll be mothers of men, and all men are my brothers. 
 
 "I regard all wearers of skirts as my aunt or my sister. 
 
 My love flows out to them. 
 
 When I saw the waitresses at the club I felt shocked by an aspect of 
 
 incongruity ; 
 
 But then I embraced them all as part of the picture. 
 Especially the one with brown eyes who smiled so pleasantly when I 
 
 ordered and drank more draught beer than is usual.
 
 GLAMOUR 237 
 
 "And these stay-at-home majors and colonels who pass me so 
 
 proudly, 
 
 Each one is my brother. 
 
 I rejoice in the thought of their safety and rapid promotion. 
 I merely salute them in passing, c\A their place is my bosom. 
 I am ready to bleed for them all till they're all major-generals."
 
 XX 
 
 THE war was lasting a long time. 
 There was still plenty of unreasoned optimism. 
 When the sun shone one felt instinctively certain that the 
 war would soon be over. Even if the delayed advance 
 never took place, Germany would collapse unexpectedly. 
 When it rained one took a gloomier view, and gave it 
 till next Christmas or say till February for the ratifi- 
 cation of a just and honourable peace. 
 
 But behind all these barometric ups and downs the 
 noble thoughts were gaining strength, the altruistic faith 
 made a steadily ascending curve. Now that the fresh- 
 ness had gone people were less local in their ideas, and 
 probably thought more of the whole affair. Certainly 
 one was often astonished by what the men said about the 
 cause itself; they showed so clear an understanding of 
 the tremendous issues at stake. Even those who had 
 jumped at it from light-heartedness in August 1914, just 
 for the fun of a scrap, now thought of themselves as en- 
 gaged in a crusade and as fighting for the freedom of 
 the world. 
 
 Vaile was conscious of these nobler thoughts in him- 
 self. Mentally he dwelt on a more elevated plane now, 
 and he was supported and maintained in the higher posi- 
 tion by the letters that Mabel unfailingly wrote to him. 
 Always in what she said there breathed the splendid spirit 
 of the women of England, sustaining their men with a 
 pride that strengthened love, a confidence that could not 
 waver. Never did a man have a better, truer wife. 
 
 238
 
 GLAMOUR 239 
 
 Certainly he no longer wished to be killed. He shirked 
 no duty, but he ran no needless risk. He, like every- 
 body else out here, belonged not to himself but to the 
 cause. 
 
 The battalion had moved in February to another part 
 of the line, and it moved again in April to still another 
 part. In May Vaile got a slight wound and his cap- 
 taincy almost at the same time. Then, at the end of June, 
 came orders for a move that in a moment brought back 
 all the old cheerfulness and excitement. The division was 
 going somewhere for a certain purpose, and the word 
 ran round "Battle-fighting." 
 
 The infallible signs could not be mistaken. The bat- 
 talion dumped its gramophones, soda-water machine, ex- 
 tra tunics, and all other useless impedimenta, at a village 
 in charge of a half-witted lance-corporal; and then, light 
 of luggage and light of heart, it marched away with the 
 rest of the brigade. The men sang again now; they 
 crowed with delight on the second day when lorries and 
 buses picked them all up to get them along faster ; and on 
 the third day, marching once more, they cried, "Oh, my 
 aunt 1 " as they came down a hill above the Amiens road 
 about six miles from Albert, and saw the sights of the 
 vast concentration. 
 
 They were on foot before daylight next morning, but 
 the sun was up by the time they had crossed the main 
 Albert road ; and all over the open country, as far as one 
 could see, columns of troops were moving. Everything 
 men, horses, and wheels was slowly rolling forward 
 towards the town, the river, and the incredible swelling 
 volume of gunfire. Not in one's wildest imagination 
 could one have fancied that so many guns might be let 
 off at the same moment or that it would be possible to 
 keep such a tornado going.
 
 240 GLAMOUR 
 
 It was the battle of the Somme, already in full swing. 
 
 By mid-day the battalion and the rest of the brigade 
 had got close to Albert, and they sat down on high 
 ground near the railway, waiting their turn, enjoying a 
 dinner of hot stew as usual, for the cookers had followed 
 them, and seeing sights. The sun poured down on them, 
 the air was beautifully clear, and the flutter of the guns 
 never ceased. A huge thing on trucks came along the 
 railway just below them and made earthquakes at in- 
 tervals; ahead of them ammunition dumps on the other 
 side of the town exploded; some fires broke out, and 
 then again all was clear. And all round them the scene 
 was like Hampstead Heath on Bank holiday, Epsom 
 Downs on Derby day, and an Aldershot review, all rolled 
 into one. Yet there was no confusion. You merely had 
 to take things quietly and wait for your turn. 
 
 It took them two days to get through the town of Al- 
 bert and out to the open on the other side of it, and then 
 their division pushed on stage by stage through the same 
 astounding crowd. The battle was going magnificently, 
 villages were tumbling into our hands, prisoners were 
 coming down by thousands. Victory was in the sunlit 
 air; nobody wanted to sleep, nobody minded fatigue. 
 
 In a wood full of guns the battalion was checked, and 
 it seemed as if they would never get away from the wood 
 and into the valley beyond. The trees here still had 
 leaves on them; but when at last one got out into the 
 valley one had said good-bye to the last sign of verdure. 
 Thence onward every tree was a shredded trunk; the 
 white chalk itself was scorched and blackened. 
 
 The valley and the slopes on either side offered a 
 strange sight. Engineers had thrown bridges across an 
 abandoned system of enemy trenches and were making 
 a road, and up and down this road traffic was already
 
 GLAMOUR 241 
 
 streaming ammunition wagons, pack-mules, droves of 
 German prisoners with pale expressionless faces; men 
 carrying heavily-weighted stretchers; staff officers on 
 horseback; and the walking wounded, bandaged, blood- 
 stained, staggering. On the high ground our guns stood 
 unsheltered, just dragged into position, pumping out the 
 stuff as fast as the half -naked gunners could serve them. 
 
 Farther on the valley forked, and they went right- 
 handed, across what had been yesterday's battlefield, and 
 another system of German trenches. The engineers were 
 busy here, too, making more bridges, opening out a road 
 amidst the refuse of the fight, the unburied dead of 
 friend and foe. And everywhere, up here, as farther 
 back, there was the same crowd; infantry moving for- 
 ward to relieve, infantry coming out, everything done 
 above ground, regardless of precautions; although here 
 every instant shells were bursting, fountains of earth and 
 chalk flew up, and some more deep craters appeared as 
 the black smoke faded. 
 
 Still farther on the brigade went into trenches on slop- 
 ing ground near quarry-pits, to remain in support until 
 wanted. It was very noisy, and rather uncomfortable, 
 although casualties were surprisingly few. A lot of stuff 
 came over, in a sullen, unmeaning style. People said that 
 the enemy had lost his eyes and was shooting blindly; 
 for our airmen ruled in their firmament. 
 
 But one's turn for actual fighting came slowly. Days 
 passed, and there seemed to be a lull in the battle. Then 
 a further advance was made, and unexpectedly the divi- 
 sion was withdrawn. It seemed that they had been ab- 
 solutely crowded out by the pressure of troops; there 
 simply wasn't room for them at the moment. They must 
 wait outside till an opening could be found for them*
 
 242 GLAMOUR 
 
 So back they went, right back, almost beyond a sight 
 of it. 
 
 They returned after a week's waiting. 
 
 The battle had become an institution now, and the 
 rapidity and completeness with which its moving frame- 
 work had been organised surprised one. The vast crowd, 
 as it rolled forward, seemed to have become more orderly 
 and comfortable every day. Bell-tents had made their 
 appearance, huge sail-cloths were rigged up over quar- 
 termasters' stores, and thousands of small brown sheets 
 made admirable bivouacs for battalions waiting to go 
 into the hot-pot. The valleys had all been given pictur- 
 esque names Death Valley, Sausage Valley, Calamity 
 Walk and the tracks where pack-mules had stumbled 
 across newly-bridged trenches were now broad, smooth 
 roads over which lorries, motor ambulances, and staff 
 cars spun along cheerfully. Light railways were running, 
 and the wounded came down in trains of little trucks 
 now ; broad-gauge railways were being pushed on ; wagon 
 tracks, up and down, had been opened everywhere, so 
 that the slow and the fast traffic should not clash. Be- 
 court Wood, with its water-troughs, timber depots, bomb 
 stores, looked as settled and firmly established as Tid- 
 worth; Fricourt, with its salvage dumps, sidings, and 
 snorting engines, was like Clapham Junction; and for- 
 ward as far as Mametz Wood and Caterpillar Road it 
 was all a procession of goods for delivery and returned 
 empties. You could not lose your way, you could not 
 take a wrong turning. Immense signboards directed you : 
 "This is Piccadilly Circus" ; "This is All Comers' Cor- 
 ner" ; "Walking Wounded this way" ; "No Lorry road" ; 
 "Water-carts only" ; "Up Wagons for Scalliwag Dump" ; 
 and so forth. Military police took charge of you at the 
 big traffic crossings, and told you anything you wanted
 
 GLAMOUR 243 
 
 to know, if you could make yourself heard. This was 
 not always easy, for the thunder of our guns was still 
 ceaseless. Our guns seemed to have multiplied them- 
 selves. There did not seem adequate space for them. 
 They lined every road, they were in tiers on every slope, 
 they crowned every crest. One was nearly shaken out 
 of the saddle by them as they loosed off at three yards' 
 distance, and their hot breath alternately fanned one's 
 face and the back of one's neck. And something that 
 one noticed at once the enemy's guns were more active, 
 although he still seemed in want of his eyes. All the way 
 up there was a lot of promiscuous shelling; one saw 
 wagons knocked over, dead horses dragged away from 
 their burning fragments; while fresh shell-holes were 
 being hastily filled in on every road. 
 
 Through this orderly and animated scene the brigade 
 went straight forward, up to the high ground; and the 
 same evening the 8th Battalion picked its way across a 
 shell-swept plateau and took up its position in a front 
 line of newly-dug trenches. 
 
 Next day the gorgeous fine weather still held, and all 
 felt jolly, gay, light-hearted. One had a wide view up 
 here, and it was easy to make out the battle-front 
 woods looking like clusters of white poles, villages that 
 were merely heaps of white rubble, stretching away for 
 miles on either hand. But up here in the white glare, it 
 was more like what they had been accustomed to. The 
 crowd had been shaken off, and people did not walk about 
 above ground. 
 
 Straight in front of them lay Signal Copse, and it had 
 caused considerable trouble. It had been attacked twice 
 by another brigade first in the ordinary course of busi- 
 ness, and then because experts thought that it had been 
 vacated or that there was nothing except two or three
 
 244 GLAMOUR 
 
 iachine-guns left in it. But the reverse proved to be 
 the case; it bristled with machine-guns; it was choke-full 
 of people. Then it was said that the authorities had de- 
 cided to leave it alone for a bit, until the division on the 
 right took Citadel Hill and the division on the left took 
 Maison Rouge Farm; after that one could mop it up 
 automatically, because outflanked and untenable. 
 
 One looked at it all day long; only two hundred yards 
 away; bare poles that had been trees, a churned-up sur- 
 face of chalk that had been mossy sward under the trees, 
 a white bank that had been covered with wild roses; all 
 bright and yet absolutely lifeless in the sunshine, not a 
 cat showing. And nothing happened for two days. The 
 divisions on each side seemed to be hung up; Citadel Hill 
 and Maison Rouge Farm were still in the hands of the 
 enemy. 
 
 Then orders came that the 8th were to take Signal 
 Copse to-morrow morning at all costs. 
 
 As arranged, they waited for full daylight. They at- 
 tacked in waves, just as they had practised so often 
 making dashes, lying down, and going on again. The 
 place was given another plastering by our artillery, and 
 then, while it still shook, before the earth had done tum- 
 bling about, they went for it. 
 
 The sun was full on their faces as the waves went 
 forward in the comparative silence when our guns ceased 
 shooting at this target, and the first wave had got to 
 within fifty yards of the white bank before the machine- 
 gun fire opened on them. The first wave dropped and 
 lay there half of them never to rise again. Then the 
 second wave said "Hurrah!" and went through them. 
 And the third wave said "Hurrah !" and sprang forward. 
 It was wonderful and glorious, out here, with the sun 
 on their faces, to hear the 8th Battalion cheering, as they
 
 GLAMOUR 245 
 
 used to do in England, as they did last winter, as they 
 would do while a voice was left. 
 
 It was very difficult. There was more wire than one 
 expected. There were many more people than one ex- 
 pected; springing up out of the ground, catching one 
 by the legs, firing point-blank at one's face with pistols; 
 making pavements of the dead, trampling on the dying. 
 
 Vaile, leading the third wave, was over the great bank 
 it seemed a mountain high ; he was down in deep, nar- 
 row slips of trenches that seemed in the bowels of the 
 earth; he was up high again upon the top of dug-outs 
 with incredible galleries and staircases showing through 
 clouds. His men were throwing their bombs beautifully; 
 their bayonet work was splendid; they tore and fought 
 their way to each dug-out door, threw their bombs, and 
 struggled on. But still there was the same mob of men 
 in grey, in front of them, all round them. You killed 
 them and they came to life again. You passed them by, 
 and they tripped and tumbled. Vaile shot at a bellowing 
 red-haired officer at the head of a gathered army, missed 
 him, and yet he fell dead. His revolver empty, he 
 snatched up a rifle, stabbed a man in grey and lost his 
 rifle, used his fists, saw two bayonets darted at his stom- 
 ach and two dead men roll into the gully by his feet. 
 His own men were close at his back ; they were all slowly 
 pushing forward, through this bedlam of violent effort 
 and inexplicable results. The crash of the exploding 
 bombs shook one so that one staggered. The very earth 
 was shaking and quaking and rolling forward in waves. 
 All was dust and smoke and fire till they had got right 
 past the dug-outs. Then it was a frenzy of hand-to-hand 
 fighting for Vaile's lot, stabbing and yelling, clubbing and 
 battering; a series of fantastic football scrimmages, in 
 which the players threw themselves on an imaginary ball,
 
 246 GLAMOUR 
 
 had old-fashioned mauls on the ground, gurgled and 
 waved their arms and died, as the game moved on. But 
 at either side of them the game seemed looser, they were 
 getting the ball away, here and there the men in grey 
 were beginning to run. 
 
 Now they were seventy or more yards inside the bank ; 
 they could see what they were doing ; they had been fight- 
 ing for about two days, as it seemed, but things were 
 going well. The copse ahead was thick with the enemy ; 
 pouring out of more dug-outs on the other side. Vaile 
 got his men into shape, all the men he found behind him, 
 and extended them that was what the others were do- 
 ing, on either side. And they cheered again, a husky 
 shout, as they charged forward. 
 
 Now the men in grey were showing their backs more 
 than their faces. Vaile and his lot were shooting again 
 it was so loose and free. They had been fighting for a 
 week, but things had gone gloriously well. Then it was 
 hand-to-hand fighting for all, yard by yard, step by step 
 a last frenzy; and then in a moment freedom and 
 space. The garrison had been thrown out of the copse, 
 over into the open on the other side, and one saw their 
 grey backs and shot at them as they ambled away. 
 
 It had lasted ten minutes. The 8th had stormed Signal 
 Copse handsomely, and all in ten minutes. 
 
 Before they could tidy up and get their prisoners sent 
 back the German barrage came down on the place. But 
 they had taken it, and they hung on to it in spite of the 
 shelling that they now received. At night they were re- 
 lieved; and forty-eight hours afterwards the brigade was 
 taken out all that was left of it The brigade had done 
 very well, and everybody was pleased with it. 
 
 They marched back along the ridges, avoiding the 
 crowd on the main tracks, and a mile or two this side of
 
 GLAMOUR 263 
 
 as the rest of them. He said they were here for a fort- 
 night certain possibly three weeks. The Divisional 
 Commander had told him so. Corps had it as a straight 
 tip from the Army. They knew what they were here for 
 another concentration, which you must not mention, 
 but which stared you in the face for twenty miles. The 
 general said it should be understood that they were not 
 "in rest," as it was called, but the authorities wished them 
 to do as much training as possible; so the work would 
 be almost as strenuous as if they had really been in rest. 
 But all work was child's play after what they had been 
 doing. Even the back-breaking programme of amuse- 
 ments that "Q" Office was busy about could not frighten 
 them. 
 
 "Look here, Maps," said the brigade major jovially 
 to our Mister Intelligence, "have you found out where 
 the main road leads to, past D.H.Q. ?" 
 
 "Yes," said Symons, "it leads to the French capital, 
 the Channel ports, and the English capital." 
 
 "No chance, I suppose, sir, of Leave opening for us 
 while we are here?" 
 
 "Not an earthly, I should think," said the general. 
 "That is, for England." And he smiled. "If anyone had 
 business or friends in Paris perhaps an application might 
 be considered." 
 
 Then they all talked wildly of Paris. If these sleepy 
 little market towns intoxicated one, what would be the 
 effect of Paris? It was just the same as ever so people 
 had reported scarcely changed at all; the theatres and 
 music-halls open, restaurants in full swing, everything 
 on the hum. 
 
 "Paris is no place for you boys," said the general. 
 "You'd be stone-broke in twenty-four hours." And he 
 told them how two men that he knew had been charged
 
 264 GLAMOUR 
 
 one hundred francs for the very simplest sort of de- 
 jeuner. 
 
 "Twenty-five francs each, for the four of them. 
 That's not much," said the staff captain partly. "But 
 perhaps the two ladies drank water." 
 
 "There were no two ladies," said the general. "Harri- 
 son and Tower were by themselves." 
 
 "A hundred francs! Ah, well," said Jones, the mess 
 president. "Let us eat, drink, and be merry ; for to-mor- 
 row we die." 
 
 But this was an unfortunate remark from a mess pres- 
 ident, and the general turned on him heavily. 
 
 "By Jove, you're a nice fellow, I don't think, to talk 
 about eating and being merry after the dinner you have 
 given us to-night !" 
 
 "What's wrong, sir?" said Jones, looking hurt. "1 
 thought the beef was rather well cooked." 
 
 "The beef! Yes, by Jove, yes the soup, too! And 
 the beef! Yes, the beef!" said the general mockingly 
 Then he shouted at the trembling mess waiter. "What is 
 there for sweet ?" 
 
 "There there's nice ap-ap-apricots," stammered the 
 waiter. 
 
 "I won't have it!" The general struck the table with 
 his hand and turned on Jones again. He said he sub- 
 mitted to it up in the line, in a dug-out, the same thing 
 night after night for months, although he didn't believe 
 it was necessary. He would submit to anything that 
 helped to win the war. But he would not stand it here 
 not once again in the midst of civilisation, miles 
 from the enemy. He said Jones was to go and kill a 
 calf and give them veal, kiss one of those girls at the 
 town and get them fish, cull macaroni and tomatoes in 
 the garden with his own hands and make them a ragout
 
 GLAMOUR 265 
 
 he was to do something different before tomorrow 
 night. For fun the general had pretended to be angry, 
 then unexpectedly he found he really was angry, and 
 after that he was pretending not to be angry. Now 
 soon he was his jolly self again, smiling at Jones. "But 
 I'm the spokesman for all, Jones. It's what they all 
 think, though I'm the only one who's had the courage 
 to tell you." 
 
 "Of course, sir," said Jones respectfully but sadly, "if 
 I have failed, I am ready to resign in favour of anyone 
 who cares to try to do better." 
 
 "No, no," said several voices. 
 
 "No, no," said the brigade major. "What you do, you 
 do excellently. All the general meant was we wished 
 you'd do something else sometimes." 
 
 "That's it," said the general cordially; and he beamed 
 at Jones. "It's quite all right, old chap. Nothing to be 
 huffy about. If it had been Symons who spoke to you 
 about it he might have said something rude. And you 
 can't say I did. Here, you, what's-your-name, I'll change 
 my mind. Give me an apricot." 
 
 "Y-y-yes, sir," said the gratified waiter, coming with 
 the dish. "N-nice large apricots, sir." 
 
 "It's all very well," said Jones, still gloomily. Then 
 his face brightened. "Send me to Paris, sir. It would 
 open my mind and I could bring back fish and things." 
 
 "No, no," said the general; "you are too young. / may 
 possibly be going to Paris myself. And if a respectable 
 married man, like Vaile, or Grantley, wants to go well, 
 that would be different." 
 
 Bryan Vaile did not want to go to Paris. The place to 
 which he wanted to go was home. He thought of it that 
 evening, and there returned to him something of the 
 weariness that had reigned down south. Last May he
 
 266 GLAMOUR 
 
 had had a glimpse of home to freshen and fortify him; 
 and Mabel's letters throughout the summer were, as of 
 old, full of courage and confidence. Their house in the 
 Regent's Park was now permanently a home for con- 
 valescent officers. Mabel had begun by taking three or 
 four such guests, but now she had ten always. It was an 
 authorised establishment, and she devoted all her time 
 to it. 
 
 When his servant called him next morning he indulged 
 in a self-delusion that he had often practised of late. Re- 
 fusing to wake up completely, he pretended to himself 
 that he had been wounded; that he was at a casualty 
 clearing station, in the train, in a base hospital, in the 
 boat, in an English hospital. And the doctors and the 
 nurses there said he was well enough to be sent on to a 
 private house. They said he was to get up and dress at 
 once; a car was waiting outside to take him to Mrs. 
 Vaile's Home in the Regent's Park, where he would be 
 well done and very kindly treated. 
 
 He played this childish game of Suppose-and-Suppose 
 for two or three minutes, and then rose sluggishly and 
 looked out of the window at the large manure-heap that 
 filled the courtyard, the queer tumbrils in the hangar, 
 and the archway through which he could see horses pass- 
 ing in the village street. It was all awfully jolly after 
 the wilderness, but he felt an immense longing for a still 
 greater change. How heavenly just to get away from it 
 all horses and mules going to water, limbered wagons 
 with tattered covers, battalions on the march; to see 
 other things, and forget the Western Front altogether 
 for a little while. He felt it so strongly this intense 
 wish for a change of surroundings that he spoke of it 
 after breakfast to his pal, the brigade major. Knowing 
 that leave was impossible, he nevertheless mentioned the
 
 GLAMOUR 267 
 
 word. He said he thought he was unusually stale, and 
 even five days at home would be the re-making of him. 
 
 Could it anyhow be done special leave, for instance? 
 
 "My dear old boy," said Grantley, "they'll only grant 
 special leave for financial reasons. If you can say you'll 
 be ruined and other people ruined too unless you go?" 
 
 But Bryan could not say this. 
 
 "Then I'm afraid the application would be a wash- 
 out," said Grantley sympathetically. "What about a day 
 or two in Paris ? You heard what the general said about 
 going to see one's friends there." 
 
 Strangely enough, it happened that the same evening, 
 just as they sat down to a startlingly unusual dinner, the 
 post corporal bringing in the mail brought Vaile an in- 
 vitation to Paris from an old friend. 
 
 It was a letter from the Duchess of Middlesborough, 
 and it spoilt his dinner by making him think of all the 
 things that he hoped he had forgotten for ever. It was 
 incorrectly addressed, and had been following him about 
 for a fortnight, as he saw from the date. She had writ- 
 ten it at her hospital by the sea. "Dearest Bryan," she 
 began, "I want to see you " He did not read any more 
 then; but during dinner he thought of her, and all the 
 flavour was taken out of the piquant dainties that Jones 
 had provided, and he would not have known from the 
 taste if the principal dish was veal or the same old beef 
 again. 
 
 He had not heard from her for a year, and in this time 
 he had scarcely once thought of her. About a year ago 
 she had sent him one or two letters, asking for his news, 
 and telling him that she had been in Egypt, in Serbia, 
 in Italy. He knew that her ardour for war work had 
 not cooled up to that point, and that there had been noth- 
 ing of the fine lady playing at patriotism in any of her
 
 268 GLAMOUR 
 
 war enterprises. One did not see her photograph in the 
 Tatler and the Sketch so often nowadays. Her husband, 
 a newspaper said, was with the army at Salonika, and 
 more than a year ago his famous yacht, Amethyst, had 
 been torpedoed in the Mediterranean with wounded on 
 board. Why, after this long silence, should Diana take 
 up her pen and begin letter-writing again? What had 
 she to say to him ? 
 
 "Dearest Bryan, I want to see you." He took her let- 
 ter over to the brigade office, and read it there quietly 
 among the maps and the files of routine orders. "I am 
 off to Paris, and shall be at the Hotel Bristol till the end 
 of October" ; and she went on to say that he must arrange 
 to run up while she was there. "You can easily get leave. 
 Don't pretend you are too busy. Let me know when to 
 expect you." 
 
 "So likely," he thought, with slight bitterness ; "so very 
 likely." He wrote a few lines saying it was impossible 
 for him to accept this invitation, put his reply in the 
 improvised letter-box by the office door, and went on 
 with his work. The post would not go till to-morrow 
 afternoon. He tried to dismiss her from his thoughts, 
 but he could not do so. Although he tried not to admit 
 it to himself, the tone of her letter had offended him; 
 and he did not care to own that she retained even so 
 much power as that. When he saw the "Dearest Bryan" 
 at the beginning of the letter, and the "I want to see 
 you," he had dreaded what was to follow, had hardened 
 himself against an appeal which might call for all his 
 strength to resist it; but nothing of the sort was neces- 
 sary. Far from it. Some accident, perhaps, had recalled 
 his name to her, and she scribbled her careless summons, 
 believing that he would be ready and willing enough to 
 dance attendance on her for a day or two and then gcj
 
 GLAMOUR 269 
 
 back to his unimportant duties. He did not mind her 
 treating him so lightly, but he could not stand her casual 
 tone with regard to his work as a soldier. "Don't pre- 
 tend you are too busy. . . . You can easily get leave." 
 She asked him nothing about himself, or how he had 
 fared in this last year, of what he had been doing. She 
 thought, possibly, that he had been having an easy time 
 of it; that he was like the butterfly soldiers whom she 
 met at the coast or on the railway her smart friends 
 who carried bags for ministries, ran messages for em- 
 bassies, or laid out the pens and paper for the statesmen 
 assembled at those international councils and conferences. 
 Her letter was very different from the letters she wrote 
 him at the beginning of the war when she said it was 
 so splendid of him to have put on khaki, when she spoke 
 with such enthusiasm of the great events in progress, 
 when she prayed that fate would be kind and soon re- 
 unite them. It was different from her letters of a year 
 ago, when she seemed so eager for news about him, when 
 she still remembered all that episode which for him had 
 been such a tremendous tragedy. Now, if she had not 
 entirely forgotten it, it had become as nothing to her; 
 so slight a recollection that she felt one might naturally 
 ignore it altogether. How astounding women can be 
 especially this woman. In her case, it was not the war 
 that had obliterated the past, with all its unworthy hopes 
 and little fears and follies; it was her own temperament 
 and character. For her, the past had never possessed the 
 strength of reality. She had always lived in the passing 
 moment, without yesterdays or to-morrows. Like him- 
 self, she had plunged headlong into the war; but, big 
 as the war was, it was not big enough to change her es- 
 sentially. After a very little while she had become again 
 just the same Diana.
 
 270 GLAMOUR 
 
 When he left the office he was so deep in thought that 
 he did not hear the first challenge of the sentry, and the 
 man had to shout a second "Halt!" Instead of going 
 straight to bed, he strolled up the village street, past the 
 courtyard where the division had stabled their cars, past 
 another sentry at the gate of the chateau, in front of 
 which a car was waiting; as far as the barrier with the 
 lamp and the police guard. There he stood looking along 
 the dark road that would take one towards the French 
 capital. Three or four hours would get one there in a 
 car ; it would take longer by train. And he thought sud- 
 denly that, if Diana were not in Paris, he would love to 
 go there for a day or two. 
 
 It had not occurred to him till now, in spite of all the 
 talk. He had felt no inclination that way. But if it was 
 impossible to go home, why not jump at the chance of 
 going to Paris ? 
 
 Next morning his letter was still in the box on the of- 
 fice wall; and he asked himself if he should send another 
 letter in its place, merely saying that he might possibly 
 be in Paris before long, and, if so, he would call to pay 
 his respects. Why should she keep him out of Paris if 
 he wanted to go there? He could go to Paris without 
 seeing her. He need never go anywhere near the Hotel 
 Bristol. 
 
 He did not send this second-thoughts letter. He al- 
 lowed the one in the box to be collected by the post cor- 
 poral. It had been a passing temptation, and he recog- 
 nised it as a temptation to which he must not yield. No, 
 Diana had cut off the chance of Paris by her occupation 
 of the glittering city. He felt resentment against her for 
 blocking the way to a brief holiday that might have done 
 him good. 
 
 But Paris itself continued to draw him towards it.
 
 GLAMOUR 271 
 
 During the next two days the notion of Paris possessed 
 his mind. He had always adored Paris. Mental pictures 
 of it rose between him and his work ; whether writing in 
 the stuffy brigade office or riding round the area staring 
 at hutments, musketry ranges, bombing grounds, gas 
 schools, or model trenches, he had visions of wide squares 
 with fountains splashing, long vistas of tall white houses, 
 broad pavements with men and women sitting outside 
 cafes; visions of gaiety, colour, careless unordered move- 
 ment. He knew the place so well, every corner of it, as 
 it was of old; but he wanted to see it under its war as- 
 pect. In a sense it was the one interesting place on earth 
 nowadays; it was the place about which people would 
 ask questions after the war; it was the place where he 
 would lay the scene of a war drama if he lived to write 
 plays again. He did not believe that its joyous life went 
 on just the same, in spite of the long agony through 
 which France was passing, but he would like to observe 
 the true state of affairs with his own eyes. 
 
 Paris was tempting him cruelly. And everything aided 
 and abetted the temptation the incessant talk; rain all 
 one night, making the village as muddy and odious as 
 if winter had begun already; the divisional cars going 
 up and down through the mud or standing parked wait- 
 ing for orders in the courtyard of the chateau, telling 
 you, each time you saw one at rest or were splashed by 
 it in motion, how easy it would be to escape from here 
 and arrive there. The brigadier was "boiling up" to go. 
 The ordnance officer was going; and the G.S.O.'s 2 and 
 3. The divisional commander and one of his A.D.C.'s 
 had gone, and were just back again. 
 
 They were full of talk about it on the night that Bryan 
 Vaile had the honour of dining at Divisional Headquar- 
 ters. This was not quite the informal gathering of the
 
 272 GLAMOUR 
 
 brigade mess, where rank was put out of sight and all 
 babbled in chorus ; it was obviously a happy family party, 
 but of a more old-fashioned sort; the elders and juniors 
 of the family both remembered that seniors are seniors, 
 and no one, old or young, forgot that a major-general is a 
 major-general. Bryan sat becomingly silent and listened 
 deferentially. Then all at once, towards the end of the 
 dinner, he heard the general speak of the Hotel Bristol, 
 and next moment he was speaking of the Duchess of 
 Middlesborough. Everyone became interested immedi- 
 ately. 
 
 "What was she looking like ?" 
 
 "As pretty as ever ?" 
 
 "I didn't see her," said the general. "She didn't show 
 in the public rooms." 
 
 Bryan had felt a wave of prickly heat, and was about 
 to burst into the conversation with the clumsy announce- 
 ment that he knew this lady very well, that she was a very 
 old friend of his, and so on one of those automatic 
 danger signals that are hurriedly released when you 
 know that, unless you do something desperate, things are 
 going to be said which you cannot possibly hear said, 
 however natural it may be for others to say them. Such 
 interventions are doubly awkward when the absent per- 
 son you wish to protect from criticism is more or less a 
 public character. However, there was no need to inter- 
 vene. The general was praising Diana, not maligning 
 her. 
 
 "If I had seen her, I should have introduced myself 
 in order to thank her for her extraordinary kindness 
 to my son after he was wounded at Festubert." 
 
 And the others praised her also, for her hospital and 
 her various good work.
 
 GLAMOUR 273 
 
 "My wife," said the G. S. O. 1 /'served on a committee 
 with her in London, and says she was magnificent." 
 
 Then one of the A. D. C.'s, perhaps only attempting 
 to be facetious, said something that flavoured of dis- 
 paragement, and the general shut up with curt decision. 
 
 "Oh, I don't know anything about what she was be- 
 fore the war; but I know what she has done since." 
 
 They all praised her; drifting presently from praise of 
 her to praise of the women of her social class ; passing on 
 to praise of the women of all classes the great sis- 
 terhood of England the sisterhood of the allied coun- 
 tries that had been bound into one by the war. 
 
 Bryan felt enormously pleased that he had not com- 
 mitted the solecism of checking the talk of a major-gen- 
 eral seated at his own table in the midst of his principal 
 staff officers, and he experienced a glow of quite unex- 
 pected pleasure from listening to the praise of Diana. 
 He believed at once that she deserved the kind things 
 they had said. He had wronged her in his thoughts. 
 Truly the war had lifted her too, had brought out her 
 tvetter qualities ; and he thought of her now as the same 
 outwardly, and yet purified inwardly raised in spirit 
 high above the trivialities. 
 
 In imagination he could see her, graver and more 
 dignified, but as beautiful as ever, as she passed through 
 the hall and up the staircase of the Hotel Bristol on her 
 way to the suite of rooms where she dwelt secluded from 
 the public gaze. The general had said that she never 
 showed herself. She was not flaunting about Paris, she 
 was not there to amuse herself; business probably occu- 
 pied her; but she would see a few friends, perhaps have 
 guests of an evening sometimes in her salon great 
 French soldiers, statesmen, diplomatists and talk to
 
 274 GLAMOUR 
 
 them in the way that used to capivate such people, only 
 earnestly now, not lightly as of old. 
 
 She mingled herself henceforth with his thoughts of 
 distraction and relief. It seemed wonderful that, at such 
 a little distance from this zone of mud-stained, perspir- 
 ing men who thought that huts were luxury and farm- 
 house beds delight, there should be brilliantly lit and 
 beaut fully furnished rooms where delicately dressed, well- 
 bred, charming women like Diana handed you cups of tea, 
 told you by a gesture to sit on the sofa beside them, and 
 asked you your opinion of Mr. Lloyd George's last speech 
 or Monsieur Clemenceau's new manifesto. 
 
 Diana was the temptation not Paris. He thought of 
 being there with her; of sitting with her at breakfast, 
 walking with her in the Bois, hearing her talk about 
 things. They would talk together as only they could 
 talk. They might perhaps go to a French play run out 
 of Paris for an afternoon somewhere have one dinner 
 at a restaurant. Of course it would be all innocent and 
 friendly the meeting of ancient comrades with no non- 
 sense of any sort. 
 
 But that would not do. He had tried that once before, 
 over three years ago. He pulled himself together and 
 made a resolute effort to dismiss all these fancies. 
 
 He asked for more work, a request to which the bri- 
 gade major readily acceded, and he sat late and early in 
 the office, or when not busy with papers took long rides 
 and rapid walks; but he did not succeed in'occupying his 
 mind so completely as to exclude extraneous matter, or 
 to tire himself by exercise sufficiently to sleep without 
 dreaming at night. He felt fussy and irritable at his 
 work and moody and depressed when away from it. 
 He felt unlike Captain Vaile of the British Expedition-
 
 GLAMOUR 275 
 
 ary Force, the healthy, active person to whom he had 
 grown accustomed; he felt like Mr. Vaile, the man of 
 many selfs, the aggregate of whims and fantastic imag- 
 inings, who used to dawdle through the vapid days ages 
 ago in England. 
 
 Throughout his service abroad he had carried with 
 him a small leather case with his wife's photograph in it. 
 The little case was shabby and nearly worn out after 
 all its travels in the breast-pocket of his tunic; when his 
 wife gave it to him he had said he would always carry 
 it in the same place close against his heart. He took 
 it out at odd moments and looked at the stained and 
 spotted photograph. "Mabel. 1915." Alone in his bed- 
 room he laid the photograph on his knee and sat staring 
 at it, summoning mental pictures of Mabel herself see- 
 ing her again on the platform at Waterloo when she met 
 him on his first leave from France ; seeing her with her 
 eyes full of tears and her lips trembling when she said 
 good-bye to him last May at Charing Cross. He read 
 some of her letters a few that had touched him so 
 much that he could not tear them up and was forced to 
 carry about with the leather case. He thought of his 
 gratitude to her, his gratitude to fate; of home, of the 
 children. They all believed in him, were so proud of 
 him, insisted that he was such a hero. He stared at the 
 photograph, as though praying her to save him from 
 himself. 
 
 The spell of Diana was upon him. But it was differ- 
 ent now from what it used to be. She represented all 
 the graciousness and charm that this cursed war had de- 
 stroyed; she wove herself into every desire for things 
 different from this prison of a village. It had been ab- 
 surd to think of her as changed inwardly or outwardly.
 
 276 GLAMOUR 
 
 All her power of attraction lay in the fact that she did not 
 change. Her power over him, from the very beginning 
 had been derived from his realisation that the common 
 trammels of life did not bind her, that ordinary conven- 
 tional joys and griefs could not touch her, that she was 
 like a daughter of the gods ruled by other laws than ours, 
 irresponsible to us, above and beyond our standards of 
 judgment. This world-wide chaos made by foolish mor- 
 tals could not rob her of her attributes. She was the one 
 thing that all the abominable havoc had left unchanged. 
 That was her charm. 
 
 Then with a revulsion of thought he swung violently 
 from these threadbare fancies to the brutal reasoning of 
 the commonplace. He turned to realities and the ethics 
 of the hour. And he thought he was making a great fuss 
 about nothing at all. Campaigning, one cannot take one- 
 self so seriously. What on earth would it matter if he 
 went to Paris and had a jolly time with Diana? Why 
 not snatch at what the sternest moralists out here would 
 call an innocent relaxation? Two, three days of harm- 
 less companionship. No nonsense, of course. Diana 
 herself only wanted somebody anybody to relieve the 
 boredom; just any pal, to frivol with. There was no 
 danger that either of them would wish to re-open the 
 past. One of them, in fact, had evidently forgotten it. 
 And it could not be disloyalty to Mabel because he was 
 debarred from going to Mabel. He had tried hard to 
 do so. 
 
 "Eat, drink, and be merry; for to-morrow we die" 
 as Jones had not unaptly said. That, too, provided a 
 basic argument to support the ethics of the hour. Out 
 here, if you did not do things when the chance came you 
 were not sure of getting a second chance. You were all 
 candidates for the longest of all journeys to the place
 
 GLAMOUR 277 
 
 where leave is permanently suspended. No change of 
 scene possible then. 
 
 The temptation was very strong. He did feel that he 
 wanted a change of scene so badly. Yet, all the time, in 
 spite of every fluctuating phase of thought, he knew per- 
 fectly well that it would not do ; that he must stay where 
 he was and stick things out as best he could. 
 
 "No, thank you, sir." 
 
 "You won't come ?" 
 
 "No, thank you, sir, it's very good of you; but I don't 
 feel like going." 
 
 This was when his kind brigadier specifically offered 
 to take him to Paris. The brigadier was off with G. S. 
 O. 2; they would go by car to an important town that 
 cannot be mentioned and thence by train. They would be 
 back in three days. 
 
 "Well," said the general, "if you change your mind, 
 Grantley will probably be able to arrange it for you. I 
 should have thought it would do you good. Between you 
 and me and the post, I don't think we shall get more than 
 our fortnight here. But that's not to be mentioned." 
 
 "No, sir." 
 
 And next morning Bryan saw them depart in their 
 car two red-hats trying to look important, but to those 
 who knew looking like a couple of schoolboys out for a 
 lark. 
 
 The temptation had been severe. It had put him off 
 his work; it spoilt everything. Ever since he received 
 Diana's letter he had been thinking of nothing except 
 himself or what concerned himself.
 
 XXIII 
 
 THEN he received a second letter from Diana. 
 The post was late that evening, and the bag was 
 brought to the office after dinner. Bryan Vaile himself 
 sorted out the letters, and the sight of her handwriting 
 made him hot and cold. There was silence for a few 
 minutes while people sat reading their letters, and Bryan 
 stood by the fire and had read his letter four or five times 
 before anyone spoke again. 
 
 "I want you," the letter began. She implored him to 
 go to her. "You can easily get leave. I want you now 
 more than ever in my life. By what I have been to you, 
 you must not refuse. You need only stay an hour, but 
 let me see you." 
 
 "My old father," said Grantley, looking up, "has joined 
 the Volunteers. He's nearly eighty. Rather shorty 
 of him. . . . Hullo, Vaile, where are you dashing 
 off to?" 
 
 "Back directly," said Vaile, as he plunged out of the 
 office. He nearly impaled himself on the sentry's bay- 
 onet a little way up the street. He heard no challenge. 
 He could hear no sounds near at hand. He could only 
 hear Diana's voice, calling to him from a distance. 
 
 "I want you more than ever in my life. By all I have 
 been to you, you must not refuse." 
 
 She had not forgotten. She did care for him. He 
 was the only person she had ever cared for ; and she was 
 there waiting for him. This was all that she had to tell 
 him. What else could she have to say? By all that we 
 have been to each other! She remembered. 
 
 278
 
 GLAMOUR 279 
 
 In the days that followed he lived again those other 
 days at Test Court and the farmhouse. Every minute 
 of that time came back to him. Waking and dreaming 
 he thought of her. He could hear her whispering to him 
 in the wood; he could feel her hands upon his face; he 
 could see her beckoning to him, smiling at him, drawing 
 him towards her. Her spell grew stronger and stronger. 
 She was here, by his side, as he walked up the filthy vil- 
 lage street in the morning; she was leading him by the 
 hand when he hurried past the barrier and walked along 
 the high road late at night. 
 
 He longed to go to her. It was a yearning desire that 
 lay outside the realm of reason, and that could not be 
 governed by considerations of right and wrong. He 
 knew he was a traitor to have such thoughts; he knew 
 that he was now confessing to himself that nothing had 
 been achieved by all his efforts to tear her out of his 
 heart. Nevertheless, he longed to be with her alone, 
 they two, even if the whole world tumbled to ruin while 
 they clung to each other and whispered and loved. He 
 longed for her, he ached and burned for her. He longed 
 for her as wounded men lying out days and nights in 
 No Man's Land long for a drink of water. 
 
 "You need stay only an hour." Suppose it was true, 
 that she really wanted to see him for some special pur- 
 pose and would then dismiss him. Even then he dared 
 not go, he must not go. At the end of his hour he would 
 ask for another hour he would ask to stay with her 
 while the spell lasted, while life lasted. If she chose, she 
 would be able to keep him there till an escort came to 
 fetch him. Arrests, courts-martial, irreparable disgrace 
 would all seem nothing, a price to pay that was infinites- 
 imally tiny, if by it he could purchase a few more hours 
 with his goddess.
 
 280 GLAMOUR 
 
 These were the thoughts that he could not escape from, 
 that he had to fight, that everything all round him con- 
 spired to reinforce; but beneath the conflict there was 
 steady resolve still. His temptation was terrible, shak- 
 ing him to pieces. And yet now at its worst and strong- 
 est, as when it had been so insidiously gentle in its on- 
 slaught, he knew that he would not really yield to it. 
 He knew that, once understanding it, there was no danger 
 of his yielding. Sooner than that, he would fall back 
 on the solution of civilian days a dose from his serv- 
 ice revolver instead of the veronal. He would rather 
 blow out his brains than own himself beaten. 
 
 He sent her a telegram of two words "Regret im- 
 possible." 
 
 The struggle between conscience and inclination was 
 over; he had not yielded, and yet he felt vanquished. 
 The contest had destroyed him; it had forced him back 
 on himself; it had brought all the unworthy past to life 
 again. He felt utterly miserable. 
 
 Diana had knocked him down to the bottom of the 
 ladder that he had been painfully climbing for three 
 years. She had undone all his labour, she had robbed 
 him of his lofty impersonal thoughts, she had made the 
 highest things seem valueless. He felt now that nothing 
 could really save him from himself; that every effort 
 had been useless, every hope unrounded. He was just 
 the same Bryan Vaile, no better for living with brave 
 good men, no better for the more extensive sympathy 
 that had seemed to be awakened by the sufferings of hu- 
 manity, no better for the whole gigantic lesson of duty, 
 sacrifice, and death. 
 
 Once again he was definitely and completely tired of 
 the phenomenon known as Bryan Vaile. Vaile, the civ-
 
 GLAMOUR 281 
 
 ilian, who had been praised for laying down his pen and 
 taking up a sword; Vaile, the decorated hero of his wife, 
 children, and domestic circle; Vaile, the regimental offi- 
 cer who was thought well of by colonels and brigadiers 
 as competent and painstaking; Vaile, the sentimental 
 leader who loved the men under his command; Vaile, 
 the married man who wanted to be unfaithful to the best 
 and most faithful of wives there was not among the 
 lot a Vaile worth keeping alive, a Vaile worth regret- 
 ting if he ceased to exist. He was fed up, dead sick of 
 himself. 
 
 He told them at the Brigade that he wanted to be sent 
 back to a battalion his own or any other battalion ; and 
 they promised to do this before the Division moved. 
 
 "What the devil is the matter with Vaile?" asked the 
 kind brigadier-general after his return from Paris. "One 
 can't get a word out of him at meals, and he looks as 
 glum as be blowed." 
 
 "I can't make him out," said Grantley, the brigade 
 major. "I asked him if anything was wrong with his 
 liver. Perhaps he has had bad news from home. He is 
 very much wrapped up in his wife and children." 
 
 "Ah," said the general, "one ought to be a bachelor fof 
 this sort of game."
 
 XXIV 
 
 THEN he received a third letter. 
 This was not from Diana herself, but from one 
 of her friends. "You will remember me years ago as 
 Violet Kingsland," said the writer, "and I know that 
 what I have to tell you will cause you grief. 
 
 "Diana is very, very ill. A week ago in Paris the 
 doctors let her know that her case was hopeless unless 
 there was an immediate operation, and that even then 
 the hope was small ; and she says she wrote to you ask- 
 ing you to come to her. You know how brave she is; 
 but she says her heart failed her and she wanted to tell 
 you. They got her back here (at her own hospital), and 
 I fear the end cannot be far off. She asks for you con- 
 stantly. I am sure you will come." 
 
 Diana dying Diana not immortal ; Diana craving for 
 human sympathy, for the touch of a friend's hand, for a 
 word of kindness from someone to whom she once had 
 been dear, before she went out into the unfathomable 
 night; and he had refused to go; thinking of her, there 
 had not been a single worthy thought in his mind. He 
 had been filled with selfish fears and base desires ; he had 
 thought of her as though she had been one of the thou- 
 sands of soldiers' friends waiting in Paris to give pleasure 
 to the men from the trenches; he had thought of her 
 without one redeeming touch of respect, tenderness, or 
 decency and all the while she lay dying. 
 
 Lady Violet's letter nearly drove him out of his mind 
 because of the remorse and distress it so violently aroused 
 in him. 
 
 282
 
 GLAMOUR 283 
 
 He was with his battalion now, in huts just outside 
 the village. The division was to move in three days, and 
 when he rushed to the colonel and said he had been sum- 
 moned to a friend's death-bed, difficulties presented them- 
 selves. So many people were dying nowadays ; and this 
 one not his wife or a mother only a valued friend. 
 The colonel did not object, if permission could be ob- 
 tained, but he had his doubts. He wrote a letter to him- 
 self for Vaile to sign, and sent him on with it to the 
 brigade office. 
 
 At the office Grantley helped him. Brigade and divi- 
 sion did much telephoning, and finally permission was 
 granted to Captain Vaile to be absent for two days, for 
 the purpose of proceeding to the coast to visit a sick per- 
 son at the Duchess of Middlesborough's hospital. And 
 the division would give him a car. Someone wanted to 
 go in that direction, and the car could take Vaile on. 
 But it could not wait. He must find his own way back. 
 
 All this occupied the evening, and at dawn he was on 
 the road, spinning along through village after village 
 and always the same thing: horses going to water, bat- 
 talions in rest billets, platoons falling in for morning pa- 
 rade, sentries outside orderly rooms, transport parked in 
 fields signs and tokens of the war the cursed infernal 
 endless war that killed people far and near; not only the 
 men fighting and bleeding out here in France, but innocent 
 people at home from broken hearts ; that killed old people, 
 young people, from the strain and horror of it, from 
 fatigue, anxiety, the sickness of hope deferred; that 
 killed and killed and spared no one not even Diana. 
 
 He talked a little to the other man in the car without 
 knowing what was said; he thought of him and noticed 
 him so little that he was scarcely aware that the man had
 
 '284 GLAMOUR 
 
 reached his destination and the car was spinning along 
 again without him. 
 
 It was a bright, fine day. They went through great 
 woods, rich with autumn tints, where thousands of men 
 were hacking and massacring the live trees; and on by 
 timber depots, light railways, camp after camp, a vast 
 industry to cut wood and carry it to the war. They went 
 up hills and over tablelands, and it was still the war 
 all sorts of unconsidered assistants for the insane toil 
 Zulus, Hottentots, Chinese, Hindoos, every race, it 
 seemed a host of exotic labourers in fancy dress, 
 dragged together from the far corners of the earth and 
 thrown into the devil's dance. 
 
 Then they came down among the hospitals, the realm 
 of the sick and wounded another army that seemed as 
 big as, bigger than, the armies of still undamaged men 
 left behind. Camps that covered leagues; newly-con- 
 structed railways, huts as long as barracks, tents as large 
 as houses, water-towers like church steeples; thousands 
 of motor ambulances on the roads; the Red Cross dis- 
 played over twenty miles of country, as one neared the 
 coast and all of it just one rubbish-heap of mutilated, 
 still-living remains carted down here from the shambles 
 of the damnable merciless war. 
 
 Throughout the journey he thought of her with over- 
 whelming pity. 
 
 Her hospital had been a hotel before the war an im- 
 mense white building planted on the sea-shore, with an- 
 nexes and cupolas, terraces and balustrades, a dilapidated 
 casino close by, the beginnings of a fashionable bathing- 
 station. 
 
 Over the doors in the circular hall one could still read 
 what the rooms used to be salon, salle de lecture, res-.
 
 GLAMOUR 285 
 
 taurant, administration; there was an estrade where a 
 string band sat playing lively waltzes after dinner; and 
 behind a mahogany counter one saw a few of the octag- 
 onal tables that waiters carried about from group to group 
 of smart Parisians, drinking coffee and liqueurs before 
 they went to a concert or a game of baccarat at the neigh- 
 bouring casino. It had been a purely French resort, not 
 yet known to the English; and one could imagine how 
 bright and noisy and gay the French people made it. 
 Now it was all deadly white and clean, colourness, silent, 
 and sad, a hospital, like every other hospital a place of 
 torn bodies and shattered hopes, where quick movement 
 meant pain, where laughter was a proof of stoical cour- 
 age. 
 
 Vaile was told that he had been expected, and that 
 Lady Violet would see him at once. The nursing sister, 
 taking him along a corridor, said that the duchess was 
 "much the same," no better, and she shook her head 
 ominously. He was left in a sitting-room with windows 
 that looked out to the sea ; and he knew immediately that 
 this had been Diana's own room. There were pretty 
 things in it, such as only she would have thought of 
 bringing to France ; and on the writing-table he saw two 
 books that he had given her himself. They were daint- 
 ily bound, in bindings that he had chosen for her, with 
 gold moons and clouds engraved upon the white vellum. 
 This was where she used to sit till lately till her work 
 was interrupted. 
 
 Lady Violet appeared soon, while he was looking at 
 the things that spoke of Diana. 
 
 "It is good of you to come. But, of course, I knew 
 you would." 
 
 "I I am not too late. Thank God for that. I hear 
 she is no better. Is there any hope?"
 
 286 GLAMOUR 
 
 "I fear not," said Lady Violet ; and she began to cry. 
 "Sit down, and I'll tell you everything." And she wiped 
 her eyes. "Diana does not know you have arrived. She 
 is resting. I'll take you to her presently." 
 
 They sat by the open window, and Bryan for a few 
 moments felt as if life had already faded and he was a 
 dead man talking to a ghost. This woman with tear- 
 stained eyes and grey hair had been beautiful a little 
 while ago, one of the group of pretty girls that had 
 formed Diana's court, the one that was fondest of her; 
 and now, except perhaps for a tone of the voice, a look 
 of the eyes, nothing remained of her youth and her charm 
 by which one could possibly recognise her. Only Diana 
 had been able to defy the cruel years only Diana had 
 seemed till now to be immortal. 
 
 "Tell me," he said, "first of all, how has this hap- 
 pened so suddenly?" 
 
 "It isn't really sudden," said Lady Violet. "There 
 was something wrong two years ago, and she ought to 
 have stopped working then and taken care of herself. 
 But she would go on. She never gave herself a chance, 
 the doctors say. Sir John Aldrich says so. I saw her 
 last year, when she was. in Italy, and I was horrified at 
 the change in her. I tried to make her rest then ; but she 
 wouldn't. I knew she was ill only she is so brave that 
 she would not own it. And she has worn herself out 
 absolutely. Then in Paris, just lately, she began to suffer 
 violent pain, and was forced to get medical advice. Sir 
 John Aldrich saw her, and said there must be an opera- 
 tion as the only possible chance. And it was then that 
 she wrote to you, feeling so dreadfully alone." 
 
 "If I had guessed the truth! " 
 
 "Yes, of course you would have gone to her, if you
 
 GLAMOUR 287 
 
 had known. When you said it was impossible she tele- 
 graphed to me, and I came straight here. Sir John 
 brought her here for the operation. Sir John did it him- 
 self." 
 
 "But it wasn't successful?" 
 
 "No, only partially. Sir John says it was a hopeless 
 case. She had taken such liberties with her constitution. 
 She had neglected herself too long. He says she must 
 have been in pain, more or less, ever since the mischief 
 began." 
 
 "Is she in pain now?" 
 
 "No. That was the chief reason for the operation. 
 She will not suffer any more"; and Lady Violet began 
 to cry again. 
 
 "Does her husband know?" 
 
 "Oh, yes. I have cabled to him and written. He is 
 at Salonika. Of course, he could not get here in time. 
 But it would be no good in his coming, anyhow." 
 
 Then she got up, blowing her nose and sniffing. 
 
 "I'll go and see how she is getting on, and tell her you 
 are here. How long will you be able to stay ?" 
 
 "Till to-morrow night or even till the following morn- 
 ing if I can possibly get a car to take me back." 
 
 "Of course we can get you a car. I'll ask Colonel 
 Yates to see about it. She'll want you to stay with her 
 as long as possible." And Lady Violet wiped her eyes 
 once more. "It may be all over before to-morrow night." 
 
 The room upstairs faced the sea also. It seemed large 
 and bare, with no furniture, no pretty things nothing 
 but the narrow hospital bed, a table by the bedside, and 
 the mechanical contrivances that tell of helpless weak- 
 ness. He saw this the coldness, bareness, sadness be-
 
 288 GLAMOUR 
 
 fore he had come round the screen that stood at the head 
 of the bed to guard against draughts from the opened 
 door. Then his heart almost stopped beating and his 
 temples began to throb, as he heard her voice and saw 
 her herself. 
 
 "Bryan darling!" 
 
 "Diana. I didn't know." 
 
 Her face was like wax, so woefully small and thin, 
 yet so beautiful still; her eyes seemed enormous, not a 
 flash of the old fire in them, but dark, shadowy, with a 
 faint glow or lustre as they turned in their deep orbits 
 towards him ; her hands feebly stretched to seek his were 
 so thin that they seemed transparent. Her pretty hair 
 was hidden by white cambric bands that bound her head 
 and went down beneath her chin, like the head-dress of 
 a nun. Her voice was unchanged, a whisper now always 
 slow and breathless, but with the deepening note that 
 used to give it such irresistible sweetness. 
 
 "You don't mind the trouble ? You're not angry with 
 me for wanting you ?" 
 
 "Diana!" 
 
 They were alone now. There had been a nurse sitting 
 near the window, but she had got up from her chair when 
 Bryan came in and had gone out of the room with Lady 
 Violet. 
 
 "Darling," whispered Diana, "forgive me for all the 
 harm I have done you. I couldn't help it. Your poor 
 Diana loved you loved you, oh, so very much." 
 
 He tried to speak, but his breath caught in a sob. 
 
 "Am I dreadful to look at ugly, repulsive?" 
 
 "No, no." 
 
 He knelt by the bed, took her hands and kissed them 
 -went on kissing them till his tears began to fall upon
 
 GLAMOUR 289 
 
 them. Then he bowed his head, and wept and wept. 
 And with her hands upon his head, caressing his hair 
 with her fingers, she begged him not to weep, not to be 
 sorry, not to mind. 
 
 "But yet I am glad that it makes you cry just a little," 
 she whispered; "because it tells me that you loved me. 
 Say it to me once." 
 
 And he said it. "I loved you more than heaven and 
 earth more than honour, more than life." 
 
 "I couldn't do without you, Bryan. I tried to and 
 I couldn't. You didn't want you fought against me 
 you thought it very, very wicked and wrong for us to be 
 happy." 
 
 She was fingering his face now as he looked up at 
 her, tracing the line of his eyebrows with her forefinger, 
 as children do, as she did years ago. 
 
 "Bryan dearest, you mustn't kneel it's tiring. Bring 
 that chair and sit by me close by me." 
 
 He brought the nurse's chair from the window and 
 set it so that she could rest her head upon his arm. And 
 they spoke to each other and were silent, and spoke again ; 
 and she told him that she felt quite happy now. 
 
 "Nobody but you, Bryan, that I really cared for ever. 
 And nobody at all nobody that I ever thought of or 
 looked at since the time of our love down at Test. You 
 believe that?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Your Diana has been good and true ever since. I 
 wouldn't say it now, would I, if it wasn't true? Bryan, 
 you do believe?" 
 
 "Yes, my darling, I believe I know it's true." 
 
 He was with her as much as they would let him, all
 
 290 GLAMOUR 
 
 that day and the next day, and during the night that 
 followed. She was unconscious for a part of the time. 
 Then in the early morning he had to go back to duty. 
 
 With infinite effort she put her wasted arms round his 
 neck, and kissed him good-bye.
 
 XXV 
 
 A r EW days later he was in Belgium, marching to the 
 line with his own battalion, in command of a com- 
 pany. 
 
 They were blocked just beyond Elverdinghe village, 
 and a message came down the column saying they were 
 to take their ten minutes' halt here, although it was not 
 yet due. Their next halt would be for dinner. It had 
 been raining heavily again, and the filthy black mud 
 oozed from every ditch and dyke, made a liquid sea upon 
 the roads, and turned the flat, grassless fields into a sticky 
 quagmire. The men, ordered to leave the road clear, 
 lined the far side of the ditch with their equipment as 
 they took it off, and themselves sat on the least wet 
 ground or by luck found heaps of road material on which 
 to recline. 
 
 The road was insufficient for the press of traffic. Men, 
 horses, wagons, and mechanical transport ebbed slowly 
 past, stopping every moment; occasionally a staff car 
 fussed and fretted behind immense noisy caterpillars draw- 
 ing guns ; motor ambulances with wounded charged down 
 upon every gap ; and in all directions across the flat plain 
 there was the now familiar crowded camp or fair that 
 went always with battle-fighting horse lines, dumps, 
 light railways, field ambulances, R. E. parks congeries 
 of astounding little huts and shelters, brown tents, tar- 
 paulin sheets a sort of Klondyke city that had arisen 
 directly the smell of blood began to fill the sluggish air. 
 
 Just before the ten minutes' halt ended Vaile noticed 
 
 291
 
 292 GLAMOUR 
 
 two wagons of Brigade Headquarters struggling by, and 
 someone called to him from them. It was the brigade 
 quartermaster-sergeant, and he said that he had a tele- 
 gram for Vaile. 
 
 "French telegram, sir. Came through with our bag 
 last night" ; and while Vaile walked beside him he groped 
 for it in his wallet. "Here you are, sir. I meant to give 
 it to your transport sergeant to send it up to you 
 quickest." 
 
 "Thank you." 
 
 Vaile got to the side of the road again and opened the 
 blue paper. 
 
 "DlANA DIED AT NINE THIS MORNING." 
 
 He looked at the date. Two days ago. He put the 
 telegram hurriedly into his pocket and gave the order to 
 fall in. The whistle had sounded. 
 
 The men put on their equipment, hopped across the 
 ditch, and formed up. The road was a little clearer now. 
 
 "B Comp'ny," Vaile shouted. "By the right. Quick 
 march!" 
 
 And they plodded on again. 
 
 They had gone about a mile and a half farther when 
 they halted after another fifty minutes, and this next halt 
 meant dinner. They got off the road, upon some fairly 
 hard ground that had been used by an ambulance till it 
 was bombed out; and not without risk of broken axles 
 the four travelling kitchens came lurching and stagger- 
 ing after them. All eyes watched the four smoking chim- 
 neys, while each in turn rose high on the narrow culvert 
 over a ditch, wobbled, and then sank as the horses 
 strained across the lower level of the field. There were 
 no mishaps; if the drivers did not know their work by
 
 GLAMOUR 293 
 
 this time, they never would know it. Soon then the 
 steaming kettles were carried along ; mess-tins were filled 
 with the savoury stew; and the battalion, standing up, 
 lying down, or at full-length on its face, ate its dinner. 
 It was probably the last nicely-served hot dinner that 
 they would enjoy in peace and comfort for some little 
 time. 
 
 "Are you all right?" asked Vaile, going round his 
 company, all among the diners. 
 
 "All right, thank you, sir." 
 
 "All right there?" 
 
 "Quite all right, sir." 
 
 Then he and the other company officers, sitting to- 
 gether on some railway sleepers, had their own food. 
 He ate because he was hungry ; he talked to his compan- 
 ions because they talked to him; he laughed because it 
 was his duty to be merry and bright. But in truth nearly 
 all that he did was automatic. He could have done it 
 all just as well in his sleep. He was a company com- 
 mander going up to the line with his company, fulfilling 
 his contract as a temporary soldier, and not likely to allow 
 private worries to interfere with the public service. 
 
 Presently he went round the company again ; talked to 
 the company quartermaster-sergeant, who was going to 
 the transport lines with the cookers; talked to the com- 
 pany sergeant-major, who was coming on with him ; and 
 then again he sat on the sleepers. Here, for perhaps 
 two minutes, with no one speaking to him, he thought of 
 Diana and himself. 
 
 The spell should have been broken now. While he 
 lived, nothing short of her death could have set him free. 
 He had known this so well that once he had meant to 
 kill himself, since he could not anyhow escape. Well, 
 he was free now. But he thought of his dead love with
 
 294 GLAMOUR 
 
 overwhelming sorrow and regret; thinking of all that 
 was best in her nature, remembering nothing that was 
 not fine. She had been so brave, so glorious in her 
 beauty, so regardless of herself; and the war had de- 
 stroyed her, as it destroyed everything. 
 
 He looked about him, Ahead, long rows of dismal 
 branchless trees, with tattered screens like hoardings 
 hung there by a mad advertisement contractor, marked 
 the course of the canal. Somewhere on the right, per- 
 ceptible or guessed at, were the ruins of Ypres, and far 
 on the left one could see vaguely the broken outlines of 
 another town. Now and then gleams of pale watery sun- 
 light made touches of brightness on a tumbled slate roof, 
 a pile of red tiles, or the chalky fragment of a wall; and 
 then again dark clouds rolled up, and all was dingy black 
 and grey. Cloudy or sunny, wet or dry, who cared? 
 Cloudy or sunny, the guns were at work just the same. 
 Their voices never ceased. Big and small, they flashed 
 and spat and bellowed at their work. 
 
 How long was it going on this fantastic universal 
 industry of destruction that had obliterated sunshine and 
 smiles from the face of the world, that had taken out of 
 life all its spells and charms and glamour, that was mak- 
 ing life as forlorn and colourless as death? The sadness 
 of it, the ugliness and cruelty of it, were symbolised by 
 these Belgian flats even more perfectly than by the de- 
 vastated hills and valleys of France. Here, even imagi- 
 nation failed to break the thraldom of the dreadful real- 
 ity. One's mind could not contend against the dull, 
 hopeless misery of the landscape; no effort of imagina- 
 tion could restore the scene of placid prosperity that had 
 once existed. How much longer was the war to last? 
 And he thought, If the war stopped to-morrow, the mis- 
 chief would nevertheless be irreparable. Love was killed,
 
 GLAMOUR 295 
 
 hope was killed, for too many. The living were too tired ; 
 youth was as exhausted as old age. 
 
 "Got a match?" 
 
 "Yes, rather," said Bryan, fishing out a matchbox 
 from the pocket that held the telegram. 
 
 Young Simpson, a jolly second-lieutenant who had 
 begun the war in the ranks, lit his pipe, and then pointed, 
 grinning, in the direction of the canal. 
 
 "They seem to be shelling the ridge pretty well." 
 
 "Yes," said Vaile, "don't they, the beggars ?" 
 
 Simpson nodded and laughed, watching the puffs of 
 yellow smoke against the gloomy sky. 
 
 The horses were being hooked into the cookers to take 
 them back. The men put on their equipment, picked up 
 their rifles; soon the battalion resumed its march. 
 
 Marching by companies, with distances between, so as 
 not to block the still crowded roads, they came to the 
 embankment where generals and their staffs had bur- 
 rowed themselves into dug-outs beside the black, stink- 
 ing water; and when they had crossed the canal they 
 marched by platoons, with increased distances. 
 
 They were on a timbered track now that ascended the 
 gentle slope towards the first low ridge; and still there 
 was a crowd, still the shell-marked ground to right and 
 left was like an abject sort of Klondyke city, with heaps 
 of battle refuse, tarpaulins stretched upon stacks of ma- 
 terial, indescribable shanties. No lorries or caterpillars 
 now, but endless streams of men leading horses and 
 mules as they went up laden with ammunition or riding 
 the animals as they came down light; salvage parties, 
 burial parties, engineers, signallers; all the supers and 
 property men employed in this dismal theatre for a mod- 
 ern battle pageant. 
 
 Ahead, near the top of the slope, shells were bursting
 
 296 GLAMOUR 
 
 with increased frequency, and there seemed to be some 
 commotion among the small dark figures up there. The 
 platoon in front of Vaile had halted, and he halted too, 
 in order to preserve distance. 
 
 Men on mules came down the track at a smart trot, 
 and a staff officer strolling down shouted at them, order- 
 ing them to walk their animals, asking them what the 
 devil they meant by it. He nodded to Vaile in passing, 
 and said, "I should think your lot had better wait a bit. 
 They are shelling rather badly farther on." And next 
 moment Vaile received a message from the colonel, tell- 
 ing him not to come on till things were quiet again. 
 
 The moment after that a shell burst midway between 
 him and the platoon in front with a tremendous crump. 
 More crumps followed here, there, and everywhere, as 
 it seemed ; and for a minute or two everybody was busy. 
 Timbers and earth were flying; wounded, bleeding mules 
 came at a frenzied gallop; men were running with their 
 laden horses ; no one told anybody to walk now. 
 
 Vaile had taken his company off the track to a place 
 he noticed as seeming to offer the only chance of shelter, 
 about sixty yards to the right of the track, but a little 
 nearer the ridge ; a low bank with the remains of a con- 
 crete strong-point and some disused trenches. It was 
 the ostrich kind of shelter rather than the real article, 
 but better than nothing, and he made them all snuggle 
 down there; for the bombardment widened as well as 
 deepened, and became much more intense. 
 
 "Silly s!" said somebody, after a shell had burst 
 
 within fifty yards. 
 
 "Here comes another ! Tuck in your twopenny !" 
 
 The bombardment grew more intense every minute. 
 They were fairly shaking the ridge. 
 
 This was the sort of senseless, boring incident in the
 
 GLAMOUR 297 
 
 war that the men all detested. To be delayed, turned out 
 of your path, to be messed about for nothing at all. It 
 enervated one being interfered with on your way to 
 business, having to dodge and duck in the wrong place. 
 It made them hate the enemy more than ever. Blast the 
 swine ! Why can't they fight fair ? No sense in this back- 
 yard sprinkling. Let 'em shoot at the front windows. 
 . . . Crump. Crump. Here we are again ! 
 
 Vaile was on the concrete wall, surveying the scene, 
 and the company sergeant-major stood just below him, 
 holding forth about the character of each adjacent shell- 
 burst. The track was empty now, not a soul in sight; 
 the crowd had vanished absolutely. 
 
 "Tha'at's big stoof, sir," said the sergeant-major, 
 with the satisfaction of an expert. "There, agin! 'Ows, 
 sir! That was a' eight- or ten-inch 'ow an 'ow, sir!" 
 
 " 'Ow, when, and where ?" said a voice. "Ast me first 
 question, mate" ; and there was a laugh in the trench. 
 
 " 'Owitzer fire," continued the sergeant-major, with 
 jovial disregard of would-be humour from the rank and 
 file. "Tha'at's why we can 'ear 'em cooming so plain 
 because of the 'igh trajectry Ma word! They're rind- 
 ing our address!" 
 
 From howitzer or gun, you could plainly hear the shells 
 coming straight towards you. Vaile heard a big one; 
 a whistle growing to a scream in the air ; then the rending 
 crash of the explosion, a terrific upheaval ; the monstrous 
 black fountain of earth rising close by, red-hot pieces 
 of the shell singing as they sailed far away, avalanches 
 of rubbish falling on you, small particles tinkling on un- 
 seen steel hats over a hundred yards off. Then he heard 
 another screaming straight for them. 
 * But he never heard that one burst. He was listening 
 for the burst; but nothing seemed to happen.
 
 XXVI 
 
 "WIT THEN he recovered consciousness he was being 
 VV carried on a stretcher along the roadway, right 
 back by the canal bank. They put him and the stretcher 
 into an ambulance car. The car started, and he lost con- 
 sciousness again. 
 
 Then for a long time the days and nights were all 
 one; lamplight, sunlight, darkness, were alike full of 
 the torture of movement. He wanted not to move, or 
 change direction right or left, or even to form fours; 
 and it seemed that he was always being drilled and 
 marched and hurried forward towards impossible things. 
 This was the inexorable order of fate keep troops on 
 the move. It seemed that he was carrying out the order 
 himself, in spite of his own entreaties for mercy. He 
 made himself fall in, right dress, number, and all the 
 rest of it; and then he marched himself off by companies, 
 by platoons, keeping distance as best he could without 
 a single officer or N.C.O. to help him. Another intoler- 
 able cruelty of fate. If you were in command of a whole 
 army, you would get no one to help you. 
 
 Movement to be in agony and yet forced to continue 
 the journey. "With all respect, sir, rather a tall order 
 for wounded men who have marched out here from 
 Salisbury Plain without halting. Badly wounded too, 
 sir! All right, sir; my men will do it. They never re- 
 fuse; but I submit they are tired." 
 
 An endless journey He thought of himself as a dead 
 man in an express train who was allowed to come to life 
 
 298
 
 GLAMOUR 299 
 
 every time the train flashed through a station, but who 
 must lie dead again till the next station. You had to be 
 so nippy not to miss the chance as the stations slipped 
 by; the effort was too great; the glimpse of life wasn't 
 worth it. And then he had a clear perception that he was 
 really in a train, a solid, matter-of-fact railway coach 
 on wheels. But what train? Where? He was going to 
 Scotland with Alton Grey to shoot grouse. No, he was 
 going to the races he had to ride in the big race, just 
 when he ought to have been finishing an autumn drama. 
 He was in the royal saloon of the race special, with the 
 King and the Pope, and Madame St. Cloud and Miss 
 Clarence, and Mr. Lloyd George and Monsieur Clemen- 
 ceau, and a crowd of illustrious civilians. They were 
 all shrinking away from him, not acknowledging his 
 salute, because he was covered with blood and mire. The 
 changing background and the phantom faces of delirium 
 held him again. 
 
 The journey continued on tables, in ambulance mo- 
 tors, even in beds; and mysteriously he began to gather 
 correct information about himself, from things people 
 said, from some subtle mental readjustment with regard 
 to realities and illusions. "Captain Bryan Vaile, 8th Bat- 
 talion: Head, neck, left arm, both legs; arm broken" 
 that was his title, warrant, or authority for riding in 
 trains and lying on tables. Yes, he had been hit; and 
 before the journey was over two salient facts were added 
 to his increasing knowledge. It was loss of blood that 
 made him so weak ; it was a knock on the head that made 
 him so stupid. 
 
 He was lying quiet in bed now, in a hospital at Rouen ; 
 and he seemed to have been here for a long, long time. 
 "Colonel Lawford : Chest and thigh," in the bed next to
 
 300 GLAMOUR 
 
 his, had died during the night. "Lieutenant Petherick: 
 Stomach," in the bed opposite, never stopped groaning 
 till they gave him more morphia. Morphia was what he 
 kept asking for himself. Weakness when it reaches a 
 certain pitch is as bad as pain; after an injury to the 
 head sleep is as tiring as wake fulness. He did not appear 
 to take much interest when they told him that they would 
 save his arm, badly as it had been broken, and he did 
 not show a gleam of pleasure when he heard that he 
 would not lose the sight of his right eye. Yet his intel- 
 lect was quite clear now; his temperature was down 
 again. 
 
 It was a bad case, but the authorities were agreed that 
 he ought to get well. Nevertheless, the days passed and 
 he did not show the improvement looked for. He put 
 out their calculations ; he should have been evacuated to 
 England promptly, like everybody else; he was too slow 
 for anything. His nurse chaffed him about it, as she 
 coaxed him to drink some soup and take interest. "Come 
 now. You'll get me a bad mark if you go on like this. 
 It isn't fair to me, you know not bucking up and doing 
 your best." She was a dear, the nurse. 
 
 The sister spoke to him in the same style. The matron 
 talked to him, with extraordinary kindness, and yet 
 firmly, as one who, because of her position of trust and 
 responsibility, could not allow any nonsense in the wards. 
 
 She said that neither she nor the doctors were pleased 
 with his behaviour. "You'll make the colonel think you're 
 not trying. That would make him very angry, and get 
 me into trouble too" ; and she smiled and nodded. "We 
 have done all we can for you. It is now for you to help. 
 No one can get well if they don't want, if they don't 
 try." 
 
 Then after another day the colonel himself spoke to
 
 GLAMOUR 301 
 
 the patient. It had become an irritating case. It had been 
 talked of at the doctors' mess, and the colonel had said 
 there, "Don't tell me, Saunders, that you are going to 
 let that chap, Vaile, slip through your fingers?" 
 
 "I think he'll peg out, sir," said Captain Saunders. 
 
 "Well," said the colonel to Vaile, "how goes it ? Only 
 so-so, eh? Are we downhearted? No"; and he laughed 
 jovially. "You must rally your forces, Vaile. As an in- 
 fantryman, you know your duty. Counter-attack, eh? 
 You have been pushed back. Well, organise get ready, 
 counter-attack. Don't submit. Go on fighting the enemy. 
 You see what I mean, eh?" 
 
 A faint flicker of a smile showed on Vaile's face. 
 
 "How old exactly?" 
 
 "Forty-eight." 
 
 "What's that? Nothing! Look at me"; and the colo- 
 nel slapped his chest. "Fifty-five every day of it. Mar- 
 ried man too. Wife and children. Got to live, for their 
 sake, you know. Keep on trying, and you'll be all right." 
 
 But that was just it. They had all spotted it. He 
 wasn't trying. 
 
 One evening, after visiting hours, when there ought 
 not to have been any strangers in the ward, Vaile woke 
 from a doze, stirred uneasily, and looked round. His 
 wife and the colonel were standing by the bed, with the 
 matron, the sister, and the nurse behind them. 
 
 "There," said the colonel to Mrs. Vaile. "Sit down. 
 Not too much talk, you know," and he and the others 
 went away. 
 
 It was just such a scene as he might have devised for 
 the last act of an up-to-date domestic drama. "The au- 
 tumn night has closed in" as he would have had to say 
 if publishing the play in book-form. ''Save for the light
 
 302 GLAMOUR 
 
 from a shaded lamp, the ward is in comparative dark- 
 ness. On the bed by the circle of light Bryan Vaile lies 
 dying. Waking from fitful slumber, he sees his wife 
 standing near the bed." 
 
 "Mabel!" He murmured her name, and sighed. 
 
 "Bryan, my beloved. My hero. My own true hus- 
 band!" 
 
 "How did you know I was here ?" 
 
 "They sent for me." 
 
 In the lamplight her face was as white as his; her 
 lips trembled; but when she spoke it was with an un- 
 shaking voice. She must not show fear; she must not 
 cease to hope. Stooping, she touched his forehead with 
 her lips. Then she sat beside him just as he himself 
 had sat by a sick-bed a little while ago. 
 
 "Soon, I pray God, I shall have my dearest one safe 
 at home." 
 
 "I I don't think so." 
 
 "Oh, but of course" ; and her voice shook a little. 
 "The children are longing for you. They sent their dear- 
 est love to their brave, splendid daddy." 
 
 "Mabel. There are things I have to tell you." 
 
 "Yes, but you mustn't talk too much." 
 
 "It doesn't matter. See if they are asleep. I don't 
 want to be heard by anyone but you. Get up and see." 
 
 For a moment she did not grasp what he meant. Then 
 she went to the bed on each side of his and looked in 
 turn at the prostrate figures. 
 
 "Yes. I think I am sure they are both sleeping." 
 
 The nurse at the end of the ward, seeing her move, 
 had come a few steps toward them. Then, seeing her sit 
 down again, she went back. 
 
 "Mabel, I have failed you." 
 
 "Never, my dearest not for a fraction of a moment."
 
 GLAMOUR 303 
 
 "You don't understand. It's the truth. I was unfaith- 
 ful to you. I loved somebody else." 
 
 "Bryan!" 
 
 "In England before the war began. Since then I have 
 only been unfaithful in thought for a little while." 
 
 "It's not true. You mustn't talk. Bryan, please stop." 
 
 "I must tell you. It's the truth. It is all over now. 
 She is dead. You must never try to find out or to 
 guess." 
 
 "Bryan, don't go on. I don't want to know. I don't 
 want to guess. You are breaking my heart." 
 
 "I must tell you. I can't die without telling you. I 
 can't live without telling you." 
 
 She was crying now, quite silently, dabbing her eyes 
 with her handkerchief and looking at him again each time 
 that she had wiped away the tears. 
 
 "I can't explain it. I did love her And now she is 
 dead I mourn for her, and hold her higher than I ever 
 did when she was alive. It would be too mean and cow- 
 ardly not to say it I loved her very greatly. But it was 
 all different from my love for you. All that isn't hateful 
 and beastly about me came from my love for you and 
 your love for me. So, when I had spoilt it our love I 
 hated myself, and meant to kill myself, rather than go 
 on deceiving you. That's the truth, Mabel." 
 
 She began ta cry rather noisily, her shoulders jerking. 
 
 "Bryan! Oh, Bryan! Do you mean you don't love me 
 at all?" 
 
 "No. I love you as much as ever now." 
 
 The nurse had come down the ward, and was looking 
 at them. Mabel gave a sob, blew her nose, spoke firmly, 
 and the nurse went back. 
 
 "We'll talk about these things, Bryan, when you are 
 stronger not now. You must get well first."
 
 304 GLAMOUR 
 
 Then he told her what the doctors and nurses had said 
 about trying to live. 
 
 "I can't want to live, unless you can forgive me. No, 
 that's like threatening you. Of course you would say 
 'Yes.' . . . But, if I lived, could you forget it could 
 we be as we were ?" 
 
 "If you were the same, I would be the same." 
 "You could trust me? You'd let us both forget?" 
 "Yes." She said it at once, without an instant's hesi- 
 tation. She said he was to come back to her and the 
 children. She cared for nothing else. "Good-night, 
 Bryan." 
 
 Now he wanted to live. He wanted to be at home, in 
 Regent's Park, with Mabel and the children; to lean on 
 her as he used to do ; tj forget all troubled dreams. He 
 was too weak and tired still to think logically of the war, 
 and life, and the future. He postponed that. He felt 
 that he wanted never to think of himself again not to 
 be clever and write successful plays; not to be rich and 
 leave a lot of money to his children; not to teach any 
 more or to learn any more only to live at peace, doing 
 a little good to anybody, loving everybody, because all 
 have so suffered. 
 
 These were the best thoughts he could achieve just 
 now, lying like an insignificant bit of wreckage in the 
 wreck of the whole world. 
 
 The colonel was pleased with him next day, talking of 
 his having rallied. 
 
 "Are we downhearted? No!" And the colonel slapped 
 his chest. "Up, guards, and at 'em! We shall have you 
 back in the line by February if Mrs. Vaile doesn't get 
 you a cushy job in England" ; and he laughed jovially.
 
 GLAMOUR 305 
 
 "Come. Tliat's more like it," said the jolly, chaffing 
 nurse. "Now you're eating your soup as though you 
 meant business. . , . That's the good effects of Mrs. 
 Vaile. What a great baby, to be sure! Frightening and 
 bothering everyone, till his missis has to be sent for to 
 make him behave himself !" 
 
 The improvement was maintained ; he gained strength 
 rapidly; soon now they would be able to get rid of him 
 by evacuation. With returning strength came a certain 
 capacity for thought nothing" very grand, but still some- 
 thing. He thought of his gratitude to Mabel. Health 
 was coming to- him from her, strength was coming ; he 
 had been right down in the mud, and once more she was 
 lifting him up. 
 
 On the day before she went back to England they 
 spoke again of the confession he had made to her. 
 
 "This must be for the last time, Bryan. I thought of 
 it all the night after you told me. That was enough. Un- 
 less you make me, I shall never think of it again." 
 
 "I am forgiven?" 
 
 "Yes. You said it all happened before the war began?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders and opened her hands. 
 "What happened before the war it is as if it never hap- 
 pened at all. The war has changed all one's thoughts. 
 Everything is different." 
 
 He understood what she meant. But for the war, she 
 could never have forgiven him; because of the war, she 
 would be able to forget. He watched her face, and it 
 seemed to him changed ; stronger, nobler, and quite beau- 
 tiful. Her lips set firmly, her forehead was puckered 
 with thought, and her brown eyes glowed. When she 
 spoke next her words showed that she had been think-
 
 306 GLAMOUR 
 
 ing; but it was not about herself, nor yet was it about 
 him. 
 
 "Bryan, you don't doubt ever do you that we are 
 going to beat them in the end?" 
 
 "No, of course not." 
 
 "We must do it. We can't fail with America on our 
 side with right, with justice with God on our side." 
 
 "Of course not. It may be a longer job than " 
 
 "Who cares how long? What does anything matter 
 how much it costs, how long it lasts except the victori- 
 ous end?" 
 
 Strength flowed from her. His thoughts took life and 
 light. He felt that he did not want to sit down and wait 
 for the glorious end; he wanted to get fit quickly. In 
 imagination he saw himself at home, lunching at the 
 Betterton Club, running down to see Jack at school, play- 
 ing Beggar-my-neighbour with Enid and Nancy, going 
 about a lot with Mabel. Then before February he would 
 be passed by a Board and come out again to the grand 
 old task, and strike another blow for England and the 
 cause. The knock on the head might have been a blessing 
 in disguise, knocking the very last of the nonsense out 
 of him. When he returned to duty he would be as fit as 
 a fiddle, really cured this time, able to do better able 
 to lose all petty personal hopes in the greater hope of 
 mankind. 
 
 Yes, he felt, making another vow, he would be worthy 
 of her yet, before he had done. 
 
 THE END
 
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