HE WAVE 
 
 ALGERNON BLACKWOOD 
 
1 
 
THE WAVE 
 
THE WAVE 
 
 An Egyptian Aftermath 
 
 By 
 
 Algernon Blackwood 
 
 Author of 
 
 "Ten Minute Stories," "Julius LeVallon" 
 "The Centaur" "John Silence," 
 "A Prisoner in Fairyland" etc. 
 
 New York 
 
 E. P. Dutton & Company 
 681 Fifth Avenue 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1916, 
 
 BY 
 E. P. BUTTON & COMPANY 
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 
TO 
 
 M. S.-K. 
 
 EGYPT'S FORGETFUL AND UNWILLING CHILD 
 
PART I 
 
THE WAVE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 SINCE childhood days he had been haunted by a 
 Wave. 
 
 It appeared with the very dawn of thought, and was 
 his earliest recollection of any vividness. It was also his 
 first experience of nightmare: a wave of an odd, dun 
 color, almost tawny, that rose behind him, advanced, 
 curled over in the act of toppling, and then stood still. 
 It threatened, but it did not fall. It paused, hovering 
 in a position contrary to nature ; it waited. 
 
 Something prevented; it was not meant to fall; the 
 right moment had not yet arrived. 
 
 If only it would fall ! It swept across the skyline in a 
 huge, long curve far overhead, hanging dreadfully sus- 
 pended. Beneath his feet he felt the roots of it with- 
 drawing; he shuffled furiously and made violent efforts; 
 but the suction undermined him where he stood. The 
 ground yielded and dropped away. He only sank in 
 deeper. His entire weight became that of a feather 
 against the gigantic tension of the mass that any moment, 
 it seemed, must lift him in its rising curve, bend, break, 
 and twist him, then fling him crashing forward to his 
 smothering fate. 
 
 Yet the moment never came. The Wave hung bal- 
 anced between him and the sky, poised in mid-air. It did 
 not fall. And the torture of that infinite pause con- 
 tained the essence of the nightmare. 
 
 The Wave invariably came up behind him, stealthily, 
 
 9 
 
io The Wave 
 
 from what seemed interminable distance. He never met 
 it. It overtook him from the rear. The horizon hid it 
 till it rose. 
 
 There were stages in its history, moreover, and in the 
 effect it produced upon his early mind. Usually he woke 
 up the moment he realized it was there. For it invariably 
 announced its presence. He heard no sound, but knew 
 that it was coming there was a feeling in the atmosphere 
 not unlike the heavy brooding that precedes a thunder- 
 storm, only so different from anything he had yet known 
 in life, that his heart sank into his boots. He looked up. 
 There, above his head was the huge, curved monster, 
 hanging in mid-air. The mood had justified itself. He 
 called it the "wavy feeling." He was never wrong 
 about it. 
 
 The second stage was reached when, instead of trying 
 to escape shorewards, where there were tufts of coarse 
 grass upon a sandy bank, he turned and faced the thing. 
 He looked straight into the main under-body of the poised 
 billow. He saw the opaque mass out of which this line 
 rose up and curved. He stared against the dull, dun- 
 colored parent body whence it came the sea. Terri- 
 fied yet fascinated, he examined it in detail, as a man 
 about to be executed might examine the grain of the 
 wooden block close against his eyes. A little higher, some 
 dozen feet above the level of his head, it became trans- 
 parent ; sunlight shot through the glassy curve. He saw 
 what appeared to be streaks and bubbles and transverse 
 lines of foam that yet did not shine quite as water shines. 
 It moved suddenly; it curled a little towards the crest; 
 it was about to topple over, to break yet did not break. 
 
 About this time he noticed another thing: there was 
 a curious faint sweetness in the air beneath the bend of it, 
 a delicate and indescribable odor that was almost per- 
 fume. It was sweet ; it choked him. He called it, in his 
 boyish way, a whiff. The "whiff" and the "wavy feel- 
 ing" impressed themselves so vividly upon his mind that 
 
The Wave u 
 
 if ever he met them in his ordinary life out of dream 
 that is he was sure that he would know them. In an- 
 other sense he felt he knew them already. They were 
 familiar. 
 
 But another stage went further than all the others put 
 together. It amounted to a discovery. He was perhaps 
 ten years old at this time, for he was still addressed as 
 "Tommy," and it was not till the age of fifteen that his 
 solid type of character made "Tom" seem more appro- 
 priate. He had just told the dream to his mother for the 
 hundredth time, and she, after listening with sympathy, 
 had made her ever-green suggestion "If you dream of 
 water, Tommy, it means you're thirsty in your sleep," 
 when he turned and stared straight into her eyes with 
 such intentness that she gave an involuntary start. 
 
 "But, mother, it isn't water !" 
 
 "Well, darling, if it isn't water, what is it, then?" She 
 asked the question quietly enough, but she felt, ap- 
 parently, something of the queer dismay that her boy 
 felt too. It seemed the mother-sense was touched. The 
 instinct to protect her offspring stirred uneasily in her 
 heart. She repeated the question, interested in the old, 
 familiar dream for the first time since she heard it sev- 
 eral years before : "If it isn't water, Tommy, what is it? 
 What can it be ?" His eyes, his voice, his manner some- 
 thing she could not properly name had startled her. 
 
 But Tommy noticed her slight perturbation, and 
 knowing that a boy of his age did not frighten his mother 
 without reason, or even with it, turned his eyes aside and 
 answered : 
 
 "I couldn't tell. There wasn't time. You see, I woke 
 up then." 
 
 "How curious, Tommy," she rejoined. "A wave is a 
 wave, isn't it?" 
 
 And he answered thoughtfully : "Yes, mother ; but there 
 are lots of things besides water, aren't there ?" 
 
 She assented with a nod, and a searching look at him 
 
12 The Wave 
 
 which he purposely avoided. The subject dropped; no 
 more was said; yet somehow from that moment his 
 mother knew that this idea of a wave, whether it was 
 nightmare or only dream, had to do with her boy's life 
 in a way that touched the protective thing in her, almost 
 to the point of positive defense. She could not explain 
 it ; she did not like it ; instinct warned her that was all 
 she knew. And Tommy said no more. The truth was, 
 indeed, that he did not know himself of what the wave 
 was composed. He could not have told his mother even 
 had he considered it permissible. He would have loved 
 to speculate and talk about it with her, but, having divined 
 her nervousness, he knew he must not feed it. No boy 
 should do such a thing. 
 
 Moreover, the interest he felt in the Wave was of 
 such a deep enormous character the adjectives were 
 his own that he could not talk about it lightly. Unless 
 to some one who showed genuine interest, he could not 
 even mention it. To his brothers and sister, both older 
 and younger than himself, he never spoke of it at all. 
 It had to do with something so fundamental in him that 
 it was sacred. The realization of it, moreover, came and 
 went, and often remained buried for weeks together; 
 months passed without a hint of it; the nightmare dis- 
 appeared. Then, suddenly, the feeling would surge over 
 him, perhaps just as he was getting into bed, or saying 
 his prayers, or thinking of quite other things. In the 
 middle of a discussion with his brother about their air- 
 guns and the water-rat they hadn't hit up would steal 
 the "wavy" feeling with its dim, familiar menace. It stole 
 in across his brother's excited words about the size and 
 speed of the rat; interest in sport entirely vanished; he 
 stared at Tim, not hearing a word he said ; he dived into 
 bed; he had to be alone with the great mood of wonder 
 and terror that was rising. The approach was unmistak- 
 able ; he cuddled beneath the sheets, fighting-angry if Tim 
 tried to win him back to the original interest. The dream 
 
The Wave 13 
 
 was coming; and, sure enough, a little later in his sleep, 
 it came. 
 
 For, even at this stage of his development he recog- 
 nized instinctively this special quality about it that it 
 could not, was not meant to be avoided. It was inevitable 
 and right. It hurt, yet he must face it. It was as neces- 
 sary to his well-being as having a tooth out. Nor did he 
 ever seek to dodge it. His character was not the kind 
 that flinched. The one thing he did ask was to under- 
 stand. Some day, he felt, this full understanding would 
 come. 
 
 There arrived then a new and startling development 
 in this curious obsession, the very night, Tommy claims, 
 that there had been the fuss about the gun and water-rat, 
 on the day before the conversation with his mother. His 
 brother had plagued him to come out from beneath the 
 sheets and go on with the discussion, and Tommy, furious 
 at being disturbed in the "wavy" mood he both loved and 
 dreaded, had felt himself roused uncommonly. He 
 silenced Tim easily enough with a smashing blow from 
 a pillow, then, with a more determined effort than usual, 
 buried himself to face the advent of the Wave. He fell 
 asleep in the attempt, but the attempt bore fruit. He 
 felt the great thing coming up behind him ; he turned ; he 
 saw it with greater distinctness than ever before ; almost 
 he discovered of what it was composed. 
 
 That it was not water established itself finally in his 
 mind ; but more he got very close to deciding its exact 
 composition. He stared hard into the threatening mass 
 of it; there was a certain transparency about the sub- 
 stance, yet this transparency was not clear enough for 
 water : there were particles, and these particles went drift- 
 ing by the thousand, by the million, through the mass of 
 it. They rose and fell, they swept along, they were very 
 minute indeed, they whirled. They glistened, shimmered, 
 flashed. He made a guess; he was just on the point of 
 guessing right, in fact, when he saw another thing that 
 
14 The Wave 
 
 for the moment obliterated all his faculties. There was 
 both cold and heat in the sensation, fear and delight. It 
 transfixed him. He saw eyes. 
 
 Steady, behind the millions of minute particles that 
 whirled and drifted, he distinctly saw a pair of eyes of 
 light-blue color, and hardly had he registered this new 
 discovery, when another pair, but of quite different kind, 
 became visible beyond the first pair dark, with a fringe 
 of long, thick lashes. They were he decided afterwards 
 what is called eastern eyes, and they smiled into his 
 own through half-closed lids. He thinks he made out a 
 face that was dimly sketched behind them, but the whirl- 
 ing particles glinted and shimmered in such a confusing 
 way that he could not swear to this. Of one thing only, 
 or rather of two, did he feel quite positive: that the dark 
 eyes were those of a woman, and that they were kind and 
 beautiful and true : but that the pale-blue eyes were false, 
 unkind, and treacherous, and that the face to which they 
 belonged, although he could not see it, was a man's. 
 Dimly his boyish heart was aware of happiness and suf- 
 fering. The heat and cold he felt, the joy and terror, 
 were half explained. He stared. The whirling particles 
 drifted up and hid them. He woke. 
 
 That day, however, the "wavy" feeling hovered over 
 him more or less continuously. The impression of the 
 night held sway over all he did and thought. There was 
 a kind of guidance in it somewhere. He obeyed this guid- 
 ance as by an instinct he could not, dared not disregard, 
 and towards dusk it led him into the quiet room overlook- 
 ing the small Gardens at the back of the house, his 
 father's study. The room was empty ; he approached the 
 big mahogany cupboard ; he opened one of the deep draw- 
 ers where he knew his father kept gold and private things, 
 and birthday or Christmas presents. But there was no 
 dishonorable intention in him anywhere; indeed, he 
 hardly knew exactly why he did this thing. The drawer, 
 though moving easily, was heavy ; he pulled hard ; it slid 
 
The Wave 15 
 
 out with a rush ; and at that moment a stern voice sound- 
 ed in the room behind him : "What are you doing at my 
 eastern drawer?" 
 
 Tommy, one hand still on the knob, turned as if he 
 had been struck. He gazed at his father, but without a 
 trace of guilt upon his face. 
 
 "I wanted to see, Daddy." 
 
 "I'll show you," said the stern-faced man, yet with 
 kindness and humor in the tone. "It's full of wonderful 
 things. I've nothing secret from you, but another time 
 you'd better ask first Tommy." 
 
 "I wanted to see," faltered the boy. "I don't know why 
 I did it. I just had a feeling. It's the first time really." 
 
 The man watched him searchingly a moment, but with- 
 out appearing to do so. A look of interest and under- 
 standing, wholly missed by the culprit, stole into his fine 
 gray eyes. He smiled, then drew Tommy towards him, 
 and gave him a kiss on the top of his curly head. He 
 also smacked him playfully. Curiosity," he said with 
 pretended disapproval, "is divine, and at your age it is 
 right that you should feel curiosity about everything in 
 the world. But another time just ask me and I'll show 
 you all I possess." He lifted his son in his arms, so that 
 for the first time the boy could overlook the contents of 
 the opened drawer. "So you just had a feeling, eh ?" 
 he continued, when Tommy wriggled in his arms, uttered 
 a curious exclamation, and half collapsed. He seemed 
 upon the verge of tears. An ordinary father must have 
 held him guilty there and then. The boy cried out 
 excitedly : 
 
 "The whiff ! Oh, Daddy, it's my whiff !" 
 
 The tears, no longer to be denied, came freely then; 
 after them came confession too, and confused though it 
 was, the man made something approaching sense out of 
 the jumbled utterance. It was not mere patient kindness 
 on his part, for an older person would have seen that 
 genuine interest lay behind the half-playful, half-serious 
 
1 6 The Wave 
 
 cross-examination. He watched the boy's eager, excited 
 face out of the corner of his eyes ; he put discerning ques- 
 tions to him; he assisted his faltering replies; and he 
 obtained in the end the entire story of the dream, the 
 eyes, the wavy feeling and the whiff. How much co- 
 herent meaning he discovered in it all is hard to say, or 
 whether the story he managed to disentangle held to- 
 gether. There was this strange deep feeling in the boy, 
 this strong emotion, this odd conviction amounting to an 
 obsession; and so far as could be discovered, it was not 
 traceable to any definite cause that Tommy could name 
 a fright, a shock, a vivid impression of one kind or an- 
 other upon a sensitive young imagination. It lay so 
 deeply in his being that its roots were utterly concealed ; 
 but it was real. 
 
 Dr. Kelverdon established the existence in his eldest 
 boy of an unalterable premonition, and, being a famous 
 nerve specialist, and a disciple of Freud into the bargain, 
 he believed that a premonition has a cause, however 
 primitive, however carefully concealed that cause may be. 
 He put the boy to bed himself and tucked him up, told 
 Tim that if he teased his brother too much he would 
 smack him with his best Burmese slipper which had tiny 
 nails in it, and then whispered into Tommy's ear as he 
 cuddled down, happy and comforted, among the blankets : 
 "Don't make a special effort to dream, my boy, but if you 
 do dream, try to remember it next morning, and tell me 
 exactly what you see and feel." He used the Freudian 
 method. 
 
 Then, going down to his study again, he looked at 
 the open drawer and sniffed the faint perfume of things 
 chiefly from Egypt that lay inside it. But there was 
 nothing of special interest in the drawer : indeed, it was 
 one he had not touched for years. He went over one by 
 one a few of the articles, collected from various points 
 of travel long ago. There were bead necklaces from 
 Memphis, some trash from a mummy of doubtful authen- 
 
The Wave 17 
 
 ticity, including several amulets and a crumbling frag- 
 ment of old papyrus, and, among all this, a tiny packet 
 of incense mixed from a recipe said to have been found in 
 a Theban tomb. All these, jumbled together in pieces 
 of tissue paper, had lain undisturbed since the day he 
 wrapped them up some dozen years before indeed he 
 heard the dry rattle of the falling sand as he undid the 
 tissue paper. But a strong perfume rose from the parcel 
 to his nostrils. "That's what Tommy means by his whiff," 
 he said to himself. "That's Tommy's whiff beyond all 
 question. I wonder how he got it first?" 
 
 He remembered, then, that he had made a note of 
 the story connected with the incense, and after some 
 rummaging, he found the envelope, and read the account 
 jotted down at the time. He had meant to hand it over 
 to a literary friend the tale was so poignantly human 
 then had forgotten all about it. The papyrus, dating over 
 3,000 B.C. had many gaps. The Egyptologist had ad- 
 mittedly filled in considerable blanks in the afflicting 
 story : 
 
 "A victorious Theban General, Prince of the blood, 
 brought back a Syrian youth from one of his foreign 
 conquests and presented him to his young wife who, first 
 mothered him for his beauty, then made him her personal 
 slave, and ended by caring deeply for him. The slave, 
 in return, loved her with passionate adoration he was un- 
 able to conceal. As a Lady of the Court, her quasi-adop- 
 tion of the youth caused comment. Her husband ordered 
 his dismissal. But she still made his welfare her especial 
 object, finding frequent reasons for their meeting. One 
 day, however, her husband caught them together, though 
 their meeting was in innocence. He half strangled the 
 youth, till the blood poured down upon his own hands, 
 then had him flogged and sent away to On the City of 
 the Sun. 
 
 "The Syrian found his way back again, vengeance in 
 his fiery blood. The clandestine yet innocent meetings 
 
1 8 The Wave 
 
 were renewed. Rank was forgotten. They met among 
 the sand-dunes in the desert behind the city where a pleas- 
 ure tent among a grove of palms provided shelter, and 
 the slave losing his head, urged the Princess to fly with 
 him. Yet the wife, true to her profligate and brutal hus- 
 band, refused his plea, saying she could only give a 
 mother's love, a mother's care. This he rejected bitterly, 
 accusing her of trifling with him. He grew bolder and 
 more insistent. To divert her husband's violent suspicions 
 she became purposely cruel, even ordering him punish- 
 ments. But the slave misinterpreted. Finally, warning 
 him that if caught he would be killed, she devised a plan 
 to convince him of her sincerity. Hiding him behind the 
 curtains of her tent, she pleaded with her husband for 
 the youth's recall, swearing that she meant no wrong. 
 But the soldier, in his fury, abused and struck her, and 
 the slave, unable to contain himself, rushed out of his 
 hiding-place and stabbed him, though not mortally. He 
 was condemned to death by torture. She was to be chief 
 witness against him. 
 
 "Meanwhile, having extracted a promise from her hus- 
 band that the torture should not be carried to the point 
 of death, she conveyed word to the victim that he should 
 endure bravely, knowing that he would not die. She 
 now realized that she loved. She promised to fly with 
 him. 
 
 "The sentence was duly carried out, the slave only half 
 believing in her truth. It was a public holiday in Thebes. 
 She was compelled to see the punishment inflicted before 
 the crowd. There were a thousand drums. A sand-storm 
 hid the sun. 
 
 "Seated beside her husband on a terrace above the 
 Nile, she watched the torture then knew she had been 
 tricked. But the Syrian did not know; he believed her 
 false. As he expired, casting his last glance of anguish 
 and reproach at her, she rose, leaped the parapet, flung 
 herself into the river, and was drowned. The husband 
 
The Wave 19 
 
 had their bodies thrown into the sea, unburied. The same 
 wave took them both. Later, however, they were recov- 
 ered by influential friends; they were embalmed, and 
 secretly laid to rest in his ancestral Tomb in the Valley of 
 the Kings among the Theban Hills. In due course, the 
 husband, unwittingly, was buried with them. 
 
 "Nearly five thousand years later all three mummies 
 were discovered lying side by side, their story inscribed 
 upon a papyrus inside the great sarcophagus." 
 
 Dr. Kelverdon glanced through the story he had for- 
 gotten, then tore it into little pieces and threw them into 
 the fire-place. For a moment longer, however, he stood 
 beside the open drawer, reflectingly. Had he ever told 
 the tale to Tommy? No; it was hardly likely; indeed it 
 was impossible. The boy was not born even when first he 
 heard it. To his wife, then ? Less likely still. He could 
 not remember, anyhow. The faint suggestion in his 
 mind a story communicated pre-natally was not worth 
 following up. He dismissed the matter from his thoughts. 
 He closed the drawer and turned away. The little packet 
 of incense, however, taken from the Tomb, he did not 
 destroy. "I'll give it to Tommy," he decided. "Its whiff 
 may possibly stimulate him into explanation!" 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 AS a result of having told everything to his father, 
 Tommy's nightmare, however, largely ceased to 
 trouble him. He had found the relief of expression, 
 which is confession, and had laid upon the older mind 
 the burden of his terror. Once a month, once a week, or 
 even daily if he wanted to, he could repeat the expression 
 as the need for it accumulated, and the load which de- 
 cency forbade being laid upon his mother, the stern-faced 
 man could carry easily for him. 
 
 The comfortable sensation that forgiveness is the com- 
 pletion of confession invaded his awakening mind, and 
 had he been older this thin end of a religious wedge might 
 have persuaded him to join what his mother called that 
 "vast conspiracy." But even at this early stage there 
 was something stalwart and self-reliant in his cast of 
 character that resisted the cunning sophistry; vicarious 
 relief woke resentment in him; he meant to face his 
 troubles alone. So far as he knew, he had not sinned, yet 
 the Wave, the Whiff, the Eyes were symptoms of some 
 fate that threatened him, a premonition of something 
 coming that he must meet with his own strength, some- 
 thing that he could only deal with effectively alone, since 
 it was deserved and just. One day the Wave would fall ; 
 his father could not help him then. This instinct in him 
 remained unassailable. He even began to look forward 
 to the time when it should come to have done with it 
 and get it over, conquering or conquered. 
 
 The premonition, that is, while remaining an obsession 
 as before, transferred itself from his inner to his outer 
 life. The nightmare, therefore, ceased. The menacing 
 interest, however, held unchanged. Though the name 
 
 20 
 
The Wave 21 
 
 had not hitherto occurred to him, he became a fatalist. 
 "It's got to come ; I've got to meet it. I will." 
 
 "Well, Tommy," his father would ask from time to 
 time, "been dreaming anything lately ?" 
 
 "Nothing, Daddy. It's all stopped." 
 
 "Wave, eyes and whiff all forgotten, eh ?" 
 
 Tommy shook his head. "They're still there," he an- 
 swered slowly, "but ." He seemed unable to com- 
 plete the sentence. His father helped him at a venture. 
 
 "But they can't catch you is that it?" 
 
 The boy looked up with a dogged expression in his big 
 gray eyes. "I'm ready for them," he replied. And his 
 father laughed and said "Of course. That's half the 
 battle." 
 
 He gave him a present then one of the packets of 
 tissue-paper, and Tommy took it in triumph to his room. 
 He opened it in private, but the contents seemed to him 
 without especial interest. Only the Whiff was, somehow, 
 sweet and precious, and he kept the packet in a drawer 
 apart where the fossils and catapult and air-gun ammuni- 
 tion could not interfere with it, hiding the key so that 
 Tim and the servants could not find it. And on rare occa- 
 sions, when the rest of the household was asleep, he per- 
 formed a little ritual of his own that, for a boy of eight, 
 was distinctly singular. 
 
 When the room was dark, lit in winter by the dying 
 fire, or in summer by the stars, he would creep out of 
 bed, make quite sure that Tim was asleep, stand on a 
 chair to reach the key from the top of the big cupboard, 
 and carefully unlock the drawer. He had oiled the wood 
 with butter, so that it was silent. The tissue-paper 
 gleamed dimly pink; the Whiff came out to meet him. 
 He lifted the packet, soft and crackling, and set it on the 
 window-sill ; he did not open it ; its contents had no inter- 
 est for him, it was the perfume he was after. And the 
 moment the perfume reached his nostrils there came a 
 trembling over him that he could not understand. He 
 
22 The Wave 
 
 both loved and dreaded it. This manly, wholesome- 
 minded, plucky little boy, the basis of whose steady char- 
 acter was common sense, became the prey of a strange, 
 unreasonable fantasy. A faintness stole upon him; he 
 lost the sense of kneeling on a solid chair; something im- 
 mense and irresistible came piling up behind him; there 
 was nothing firm he could push against to save himself ; 
 he began shuffling with his bare feet, struggling to escape 
 from something that was coming, something that would 
 probably overwhelm him yet must positively be faced and 
 battled with. The Wave was rising. It was the wavy 
 feeling. 
 
 He did not turn to look, because he knew quite well 
 there was nothing in the room but beds, a fender, furni- 
 ture, vague shadows and his brother Tim. That kind of 
 childish fear had no place in what he felt. But the Wave 
 was piled and curving over none the less ; it hung between 
 him and the shadowed ceiling, above the roof of the 
 house, it came from beyond the world, far overhead 
 against the crowding stars. It would not break, for the 
 time had not yet come. But it was there. It waited. He 
 knelt beneath its mighty shadow of advance; it was still 
 arrested, poised above his eager life, competent to engulf 
 him when the time arrived. The sweep of its curved 
 mass was mountainous. He knelt inside this curve, small, 
 helpless, but not too afraid to fight. The perfume stole 
 about him. The Whiff was in his nostrils. There was a 
 strange, rich pain oddly remote, yet oddly poignant. . . . 
 
 And it was with this perfume that the ritual chiefly 
 had to do. He loved the extraordinary sensations that 
 came with it, and tried to probe their meaning in his boy- 
 ish way. Meaning there was, but it escaped him. The 
 sweetness clouded something in his brain, and made his 
 muscles weak; it robbed him of that resistance which is 
 fighting strength. It was this battle that he loved, this 
 sense of shoving against something that might so easily 
 crush and finish him. There was a way to beat it, a way 
 
The Wave 23 
 
 to win could he but discover it. As yet he could not. 
 Victory, he felt, lay more in yielding and going-with than 
 in violent resistance. 
 
 And, meanwhile, in an ecstasy of this half yielding, 
 half resisting, he lent himself fully to the over-mastering 
 tide. He was conscious of attraction and repulsion, some- 
 thing that enticed, yet thrust him backwards. Some final 
 test of manhood, character, value, lay in the way he faced 
 it. The strange, rich pain stole marvelously into his 
 blood and nerves. His heart beat faster. There was this 
 exquisite seduction that contained delicious danger. It 
 rose upon him out of some inner depth he could not pos- 
 sibly get at. He trembled with mingled terror and de- 
 light. And it invariably ended with a kind of inexpres- 
 sible yearning that choked him, crumpled him inwardly, 
 as he described it, brought the moisture, hot and smart- 
 ing, into his burning eyes, and each time to his bitter 
 shame left his cheeks wet with scalding tears. 
 
 He cried silently, there was no heaving, gulping, audi- 
 ble sobbing; just a relieving gush of heartfelt tears that 
 took away the strange, rich pain and brought the singular 
 ritual to a finish. He replaced the tissue-paper, blotted 
 with his tears; locked the drawer carefully; hid the key 
 on the top of the cupboard again, and tumbled back into 
 bed. 
 
 Downstairs, meanwhile, a conversation was in progress 
 concerning the welfare of the growing hero. 
 
 "I'm glad that dream has left him anyhow. It used 
 to frighten me rather. I did not like it," observed his 
 mother. 
 
 "He doesn't speak to you about it any more?" the 
 father asked. 
 
 For months, she told him, Tommy had not mentioned 
 it. They went on to discuss his future together. The 
 other children presented fewer problems, but Tommy, 
 apparently, felt no particular call to any profession. 
 
 "It will come with a jump," the doctor inclined to think. 
 
24 The Wave 
 
 He's been on the level for some time now. Suddenly 
 he'll grow up and declare his mighty mind." 
 
 Father liked humor in the gravest talk; indeed the 
 weightier the subject, the more he valued a humorous 
 light upon it. The best judgment, he held, was shaped 
 by humor, sense of proportion lost without it. His wife, 
 however, thought "it a pity." Grave things she liked 
 grave. 
 
 "There's something very deep in Tommy," she observed 
 as though he were developing a hidden malady. 
 
 "Hum," agreed her husband. "His subconscious con- 
 tent is unusual, both in kind and quantity." His eyes 
 twinkled. "It's possible he may turn out an artist, or a 
 preacher. If the former, I'll bet his output will be origi- 
 nal; and, as for the latter" he paused a second "he's 
 too logical and too fearless to be orthodox. Already he 
 thinks things out for himself." 
 
 "I should like to see him in the Church, though," said 
 Mother. "He would do a lot of good. But he is uncom- 
 promising, rather." 
 
 "His honesty certainly is against him," sighed his 
 father. "What do you think he asked me the other day ?" 
 
 "I'm sure I don't know, John." The answer completed 
 itself with the unspoken: "He never asks me anything 
 now." 
 
 "He came straight up to me and said, 'Father, is it good 
 to feel pain ? To let it come, I mean, or try to dodge it ?' " 
 
 "Had he hurt himself ?" the woman asked quickly. It 
 seemed she winced. 
 
 "Not physically. He had been feeling something in- 
 side. He wanted to know how 'a man' should meet the 
 case." 
 
 "And what did you tell him, dear?" 
 
 "That pain was usually a sign of growth, to be under- 
 stood, accepted, faced. That most pain was cured in that 
 way " 
 
The Wave 25 
 
 "He didn't tell you what had hurt him?" she inter- 
 rupted. 
 
 "Oh, I didn't ask him. He'd have shut up like a clam. 
 Tommy likes to deal with things alone in his own way. 
 He just wanted to know if his way was well, my way." 
 
 There fell a pause between them ; then Mother, without 
 looking up, inquired, "Have you noticed Lettice lately? 
 She's here a good deal now." 
 
 But her husband only smiled, making no direct reply. 
 "Tommy will have a hard time of it when he falls in 
 love," he remarked presently. "He'll know the real thing 
 and won't stand any nonsense just as I did." Where- 
 upon his wife informed him that if he was not careful 
 he would simply ruin the boy and the brief conversation 
 died away of its own accord. As she was leaving the 
 room, a little later, unsatisfied but unaggressive, he asked 
 her: "Have you left the picture books, my dear?"; and 
 she pointed to an ominous heap upon the table in the win- 
 dow, with the remark that Jane had "unearthed every 
 book that Tommy had set eyes upon since he was three. 
 You'll find everything that's ever interested him," she 
 added as she went out, "every picture, that is and I 
 suppose it is the pictures that you want." 
 
 For an hour and a half the great specialist turned pages 
 without ceasing; well-thumbed pages, torn, crumpled, 
 blotted, painted pages ; it was easy to discover the boy's 
 favorite pictures ; and all were commonplace enough, the 
 sort that any normal, adventure-loving boy would find 
 delightful. But nothing of special significance resulted 
 from the search ; nothing that might account for the re- 
 current nightmare ; nothing in the way of eyes or wave. 
 He had already questioned Jane as to what stories she 
 told him, and which among them he liked best. "Hunting 
 or travel or collecting," Jane had answered, and it was 
 about "collecting that he asks most questions. What kind 
 of collecting, sir? Oh, treasure or rare beetles mostly, 
 and sometimes just bones." 
 
26 The Wave 
 
 "Bones! What kind of bones?" 
 
 "The villin's, sir," explained the frightened Jane. "He 
 always likes the villin to get lost, and for the jackals to 
 pick his bones in the desert " 
 
 "Any particular desert?" 
 
 "No, sir; just desert." 
 
 "Ah just desert ! Any old desert, eh ?" 
 
 "I think so, sir as long as it is desert." 
 
 Dr. Kelverdon put the woman at her ease with the 
 humorous smile that made all the household love and 
 respect him; then asked another question, as if casu- 
 ally : Had she ever told him a story in which a wave or 
 a pair of eyes were in any way conspicuous ? 
 
 "No, never, sir," replied the honest Jane, after careful 
 reflection; "nor I wouldn't," she added, "because my 
 father he was drowned in a tidal wave, and as for eyes, 
 I know that's wrong for children, and I wouldn't tell 
 Master Tommy such a thing for all the world " 
 
 "Because ?" inquired the doctor kindly, seeing her hesi- 
 tation. 
 
 "I'd be frightening myself, sir, and he'd make such 
 fun of me," she finally confessed. 
 
 No, it was clear that the nurse was not responsible 
 for the vivid impression in Tommy's mind which bore 
 fruit in so strange a complex of emotions. Nor were 
 other lines of inquiry more successful. There was a 
 cause, of course, but it would remain unascertainable 
 unless some clue offered itself by chance. Both the doc- 
 tor and the father in him were pledged to a persistent 
 search that was prolonged over several months, but with- 
 out result. The most perplexing element in the problem 
 seemed to him the whiff. The association of terror with 
 a wave needed little explanation ; the introduction of the 
 eyes, however, was puzzling, unless some story of a 
 drowning man was possibly the clue ; but the addition of 
 a definite odor, an eastern odor, moreover, with which the 
 boy could hardly have become yet acquainted, this com- 
 
The Wave 27 
 
 bination of the three accounted for the peculiar interest in 
 the doctor's mind. 
 
 Of one thing alone did he feel reasonably certain : the 
 impression had been printed upon the deepest part of 
 Tommy's being, the very deepest ; it arose from those un- 
 plumbed profundities though a scientist, he considered 
 them unfathomable of character and temperament 
 whence emerge the most primitive of instincts ; the gen- 
 erative and creative instinct; choice of a mate; natural 
 likes and dislikes ; the bed-rock of the nature. A girl was 
 in it somewhere, somehow. . . . 
 
 Midnight had sounded from the stable clock in the 
 mews when he stole up into the boys' room and cautiously 
 approached the yellow iron bed where Tommy lay. The 
 reflection of a street electric light just edged his face. 
 He was sound asleep with tear-stains marked clearly on 
 the cheek not pressed into the pillow. Dr. Kelverdon 
 paused a moment, looked round the room, shading the 
 candle with one hand. He saw no photographs, no pic- 
 tures anywhere. Then he sniffed. There was a faint and 
 delicate perfume in the air. He recognized it. He stood 
 there, thinking deeply. 
 
 "Lettice Aylmer," he said to himself presently as he 
 went softly out again to seek his own bed ; "I'll try Let- 
 tice. It's just possible. . . . Next time I see her I'll 
 have a little talk." For he suddenly remembered that 
 Lettice Aylmer, his daughter's friend and playmate, had 
 very large and beautiful dark eyes. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 LETTICE AYLMER, daughter of the Irish Member 
 of Parliament, did not provide the little talk that he 
 anticipated, however, because she went back to her Fin- 
 ishing School abroad. Dr. Kelverdon was sorry when he 
 heard it. So was Tommy. She was to be away a year 
 at least. "I must remember to have a word with her 
 when she comes back," thought the father, and made a 
 note of it in his diary twelve months ahead. "Three hun- 
 dred and sixty-five days," thought Tommy, and made a 
 private calendar of his own. 
 
 It seemed an endless, zodiacal kind of period; he 
 counted the days, a sheet of foolscap paper for each 
 month, and at the bottom of each sheet two columns 
 showing the balance of days gone and days to come. 
 Tuesday, when he had first seen her, was underlined, and 
 each Tuesday had a number attached to it, giving the total 
 number of weeks since that wonderful occasion. But 
 Saturdays were printed. On Saturday Lettice had spoken 
 to him : she had smiled ; and the words were "Don't for- 
 get me, Tommy !" And Tommy, looking straight into her 
 great dark eyes, that seemed to him more tender even 
 than his mother's, had stammered a reply that he meant 
 with literal honesty: "I won't never . . ."; and she 
 was gone ... to France . . . across the sea. 
 
 She took his soul away with her, leaving him behind 
 to pore over his father's big atlas and learn French sen- 
 tences by heart. It seemed the only way. Life had be- 
 gun, and he must be prepared. Also, his career was 
 chosen. For Lettice had said another thing one other 
 thing. When Mary, his sister, introduced him: "This 
 is Tommy," Lettice looked down and asked : "Are you 
 
 28 
 
The Wave 29 
 
 going to be an engineer?" adding proudly, "My brother 
 is." Before he could answer she was scampering away 
 with Mary, the dark hair flying in a cloud, the bright bow 
 upon it twinkling like a star in heaven and Tommy, hat- 
 ing his ridiculous boyish name with an intense hatred, 
 stood there trembling, but aware that the die was cast 
 he was going to be an engineer. 
 
 Trembling, yes ; for he felt dazed and helpless, caught 
 in a mist of fire and gold, the furniture whirling round 
 him, and something singing wildly in his heart. Two 
 things, each containing in them the essence of genuine 
 shock, had fallen upon him: shock, because there was 
 impetus in them as of a blow. They had been coming; 
 they had reached him. There was no doubt or question 
 possible. He staggered from the impact. Joy and terror 
 touched him ; at one and the same moment he felt the en- 
 ticement and the shrinking of his dream. . . . He longed 
 to seize her and prevent her ever going away, yet also he 
 wanted to push her from him as though she somehow 
 caused him pain. 
 
 For, on the two occasions when speech had taken place 
 between himself and Lettice the dream had transferred 
 itself boldly into his objective life yet not entirely. 
 Two characteristics only had been thus transferred. 
 When his sister first came into the hall with "This is 
 Tommy," the wavy feeling had already preceded her by 
 a definite interval that was perhaps a second by the watch. 
 He was aware of it behind him, curved and risen not 
 curving, rising from the open fireplace, but also from 
 the woods behind the house, from the whole of the coun- 
 try right back to the coast, from across the world, it 
 seemed, towering overhead against the wintry sky. And 
 when Lettice smiled and asked that question of childish 
 admiration about being an engineer he was already 
 shuffling furiously with his feet upon the Indian rug. 
 She was gone again, luckily, he hoped, before the ridicu- 
 lous pantomime was noticeable. 
 
30 The Wave 
 
 He saw her once or twice. He was invariably speech- 
 less when she came into his presence, and his silence and 
 awkwardness made him appear at great disadvantage. 
 He seemed intentionally rude. Nervous self-conscious- 
 ness caused him to bridle over nothing. Even to answer 
 her was a torture. He dreaded a snub appallingly, and 
 bridled in anticipation. Furious with himself for his in- 
 ability to use each precious opportunity, he pretended he 
 didn't care. The consequence was that when she once 
 spoke to him sweetly, he was too overpowered to respond 
 as he might have done. That she had not even noticed 
 his anguished attitude never occurred to him. 
 
 "We're always friends, aren't we, Tommy?" 
 
 "Rather," he blurted, before he could regain his com- 
 posure for a longer sentence. 
 
 "And always will be, won't we?" 
 
 "Rather," he repeated, cursing himself later for think- 
 ing of nothing better to say. Then, just as she flew off 
 in that dancing way of hers, he found his tongue. Out 
 of the jumbled mass of phrases in his head three words 
 got loose and offered themselves : "We'll always be !" he 
 flung at her retreating figure of intolerable beauty. And 
 she turned her head over her shoulder, waved her hand 
 without stopping her career, and shouted "Rather !" 
 
 That was the Tuesday in his calendar. But on Satur- 
 day, the printed Saturday following it, the second char- 
 acteristic of his dream announced itself: he recognized 
 the Eyes ! Why he had not recognized them on the Tues- 
 day lay beyond explanation ; he only knew it was so. 
 And afterwards, when he tried to think it over, it struck 
 him that she had scampered out of the hall with peculiar 
 speed and hurry; had made her escape without the extra 
 word or tWo the occasion naturally demanded almost as 
 though she, too, felt something that uneasily surprised 
 her. 
 
 Tommy wondered about it till his head spun round. 
 She, too, had received an impact that was shock. He was 
 
The Wave 31 
 
 as thorough about it as an instinctive scientist. He also 
 registered this further fact that the dream-details had 
 not entirely reproduced themselves in the affair. There 
 was no trace of the Whiff or of the other pair of Eyes. 
 Some day the three would come together; but then. . . . 
 
 The main thing, however, undoubtedly was this : Let- 
 tice felt something too : she was aware of feelings similar 
 to his own. He was too honest to assume that she felt 
 exactly what he felt ; he only knew that her eyes betrayed 
 familiar intimacy when she said "Don't forget me, 
 Tommy," and that when she rushed out of the hall with 
 that unnecessary abruptness, it was because well, he 
 could only transfer to her some degree of the "wavy" 
 feeling in himself. 
 
 And he fell in love with abandonment and a delicious, 
 infinite yearning. From that moment he thought of him- 
 self as Tom instead of Tommy. 
 
 It was an entire, sweeping love that left no atom or 
 corner of his being untouched. Lettice was real ; she hid 
 below the horizon of distant France, yet could not, did 
 not, hide from him. She also waited. 
 
 He knew the difference between real and unreal people. 
 The latter wavered about his life and were uncertain; 
 sometimes he liked them, sometimes he did not; but the 
 former remained fixed quantities: he could not alter 
 towards them. Even at this stage he knew when a person 
 came into his life to stay, or merely to pass out again. 
 Lettice, though seen but twice, belonged to this first 
 category. His feeling for her had the Wave in it; it 
 gathered weight and mass ; it was irresistible. From the 
 dim, invisible foundations of his life it came, out of the 
 foundations of the world, out of that inexhaustible sea- 
 foundation that lay below everything. It was real ; it was 
 not to be avoided. He knew. He persuaded himself 
 that she knew too. 
 
 And it was then, realizing for the first time the search- 
 ing pain of being separated from something that seemed 
 
32 The Wave 
 
 part of his being by natural right, he spoke to his father 
 and asked if pain should be avoided. This conversation 
 has been already sufficiently recorded ; but he asked other 
 things as well. From being so long on the level he had 
 made a sudden jump that his father had foretold ; he grew 
 up; his mind began to think; he had peered into certain 
 books; he analyzed. Out of the nonsense of his specu- 
 lative reflections the doctor pounced on certain points that 
 puzzled him completely. Probing for the repressed ele- 
 ments in the boy's psychic life that caused the triple com- 
 plex of Wave and Eyes and Whiff, he only saw the cause 
 receding further and further from his grasp until it finally 
 lost itself in ultimate obscurity. The disciple of Freud 
 was baffled hopelessly. . . . 
 
 Tom, meanwhile, bathed in a sea of new sensations. 
 Distance held meaning for him, separation was a kind of 
 keen starvation. He made discoveries watched the 
 moon rise, heard the wind, and knew the stars shone over 
 the meadows below the house things that before had 
 been merely commonplace. He pictured these details as 
 they might occur in France, and once when he saw a 
 Swallow Tail butterfly, knowing that the few English 
 specimens were said to have crossed the Channel, he had 
 a touch of ecstasy, as though the proud insect brought 
 him a message from the fields below the Finishing School. 
 Also he read French books and found the language diffi- 
 cult but exquisite. All sweet and lovely things came from 
 France, and at school he attempted violent friendships 
 with three French boys and the Foreign Language mas- 
 ters, friendships that were not appreciated because they 
 were not understood. But he made progress with the 
 language, and it stood him in good stead in his examina- 
 tions. He was aiming now at an Engineering College. 
 He passed in eventually brilliantly enough. 
 
 Before that satisfactory moment, however, he knew 
 difficult times. His inner life was in a splendid tumult. 
 From the books he purloined he read a good many facts 
 
The Wave 33 
 
 concerning waves and wave-formation. He learned, 
 among other things, that all sensory impressions reached 
 the nerves by impact of force in various wave-lengths; 
 heat, light and sound broke upon the skin and eyes and 
 ears in vibrations of aether or air that advanced in steady 
 series of wavy formations which, though not quite similar 
 to his dream-wave, were akin to it. Sensation, which is 
 life, was thus linked on to his deepest, earliest memory. 
 
 A wave, however, instantly rejoined the parent stock 
 and formed again. And perhaps it was the repetition of 
 the wave its forming again and breaking again that 
 impressed him most. For he imagined his impulses, emo- 
 tions, tendencies, all taking this wave-form, sweeping his 
 moods up to a certain point, then dropping back into his 
 center the Sea, he called it which held steady below 
 all temporary fluctuations only to form once more and 
 happen all over again. 
 
 With his moral and spiritual life it was similar : a wind 
 came, wind of desire, wind of yearning, wind of hope, 
 and he felt his strength accumulating, rising, bending with 
 power upon the object that he had in view. To take that 
 object exactly at the top of the wave was to achieve suc- 
 cess; to miss that moment was to act with -a receding and 
 diminishing power, to dissipate himself in foam and spray 
 before he could retire for a second rise. He saw exis- 
 tence as a wave. Life itself was a wave that rose, swept, 
 curved, and finally must break. 
 
 He merely visualized these feelings into pictures; he 
 did not think them out, nor get them into words. The 
 wave became symbolic to him of all life's energies. It 
 was the way in which all sensation expressed itself. Let- 
 tice was the high-water mark on shore he longed to reach 
 and sweep back into his own tumultuous being. In that 
 great underneath, the Sea, they belonged eternally to- 
 gether. . . . 
 
 One thing, however, troubled him' exceedingly : he read 
 that a wave was a segment of a circle, the perfect form, 
 
34 The Wave 
 
 yet that it never completed itself. The ground on which 
 it broke prevented the achievement of the circle. That, he 
 felt, was a pity, and might be serious ; there was always 
 that sinister retirement for another effort that yet never 
 did, and never could, result in complete achievement. He 
 watched the waves a good deal on the shore, when oc- 
 casion offered in the holidays they came from France ! 
 and made a discovery on his own account that was not 
 mentioned in any of the books. And it was this : that the 
 top of the wave, owing to its curve, was reflected in the 
 under part. Its end, that is, was foretold in its beginning. 
 
 There was a want of scientific accuracy here, a con- 
 fusion of time and space, perhaps, yet he noticed the idea 
 and registered the thrill. At the moment when the wave 
 was poised to fall its crest shone reflected in the base 
 from which it rose. 
 
 But the more he watched the waves on the shore, the 
 more puzzled he became. They seemed merely a move- 
 ment of the sea itself. They endlessly repeated themselves. 
 They had no true, separate existence until they broke. 
 Nor could he determine whether the crest or the base 
 was the beginning, for the two ran along together, and 
 what was above one minute was below the minute after. 
 Which part started first he never could decide. The head 
 kept chasing the tail in an effort to join up. Only when 
 a wave broke and fell was it really a wave. It had to 
 "happen" to earn its name. 
 
 There were ripples too. These indicated the direction 
 of the parent wave upon whose side they happened, but 
 not its purpose. Moods were ripples : they varied the 
 surface of life but did not influence its general direction. 
 
 His own life followed a similar behavior; he was full 
 of ripples that were forever trying to complete themselves 
 by happening in acts. But the main Wave was the thing 
 end and beginning sweeping along together, both at the 
 same time somehow. That is, he knew the end and could 
 foretell it. It rose from the great "beneath" which was 
 
The Wave 35 
 
 the sea in him. It must topple over in the end and com- 
 plete itself. He knew it would; he knew it would hurt; 
 he knew also that he would not shirk it when it came. 
 For it was a repetition somehow. 
 
 "I jolly well mean to enjoy the smash," he felt. "I 
 know one pair of Eyes already; there's only the Whiff 
 and the other Eyes to come. The moment I find them, 
 I'll go bang into it." He experienced a delicious shiver 
 at the prospect. 
 
 One thing, however, remained uncertain : the stuff the 
 Wave was made of. Once he discovered that, he would 
 discover also where the smash would come. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 CAN a chap feel things coming ?" he asked his father. 
 He was perhaps fifteen or sixteen then. "I mean, 
 when you feel them coming, does that mean they must 
 come?" 
 
 His father listened warily. There had been many simi- 
 lar questions lately. 
 
 "You can feel ordinary things coming," he replied; 
 "things due to association of ideas." 
 
 Tom looked up. "Associations?" he queried uncer- 
 tainly. 
 
 "If you feel hungry," explained the doctor, "you know 
 that dinner's coming; you associate the hunger with the 
 idea of eating. You recognize them because you've felt 
 them both together before." 
 
 "They ought to come, then ?" 
 
 "Dinner does come ordinarily speaking. You've 
 learned to expect it from the hunger. You could, of 
 course, prevent it coming," he added dryly, "only that 
 would be bad for you. You need it." 
 
 Tom reflected a moment with a puckered face. His 
 father waited for him to ask more, hoping he would. The 
 boy felt the sympathy and invitation. 
 
 "Before" he repeated, picking out the word with sud- 
 den emphasis, his mind evidently breaking against a prob- 
 lem. "But if I felt hungry for something I hadn't had 
 before ?" 
 
 "In that case you wouldn't call it hunger. You wouldn't 
 know what to call it. You'd feel a longing of some kind 
 and would wonder what it meant." 
 
 36 
 
The Wave 37 
 
 Tom's next words surprised him considerably. They 
 came promptly, but with slow and thoughtful emphasis. 
 
 "So that if I know what I want, and call it dinner, or 
 pain, or love, or something," he exclaimed, "it means 
 that I've had it before? And that's why I know it." The 
 last five words were not a question but a statement of 
 fact apparently. 
 
 The doctor pretended not to notice the variants of din- 
 ner. At least he did not draw attention to them. 
 
 "Not necessarily," he answered. "The things you feel 
 you want may be the things that everybody wants things 
 common to the race. Such wants are naturally in your 
 blood; you feel them because your parents, your grand- 
 parents, and all humanity in turn behind your own par- 
 ticular family have always wanted them." 
 
 "They come out of the sea, you mean ?" 
 
 "That's very well expressed, Tom. They come out of 
 the sea of human nature, which is everywhere the same, 
 yes." 
 
 The compliment seemed to annoy the boy. 
 
 "Of course," he said bluntly. "But if it hurts?" The 
 words were sharply emphasized. 
 
 "Association of ideas again. Toothache suggests the 
 pincers. You want to get rid of the pain, but the pain has 
 to get worse before it can get better. You know that, so 
 you face it gladly to get it over." 
 
 "You face it, yes," said Tom. "It makes you better in 
 the end." 
 
 It suddenly dawned upon him that his learned father 
 knew nothing, nothing at least that could help him. He 
 knew only what other people knew. He turned then, and 
 asked the ridiculous question that lay at the back of his 
 mind all the time. It cost him an effort, for his father 
 would certainly deem it foolish. 
 
 "Can a thing happen before it really happens?" 
 
 Dr. Kelverdon may or may not have thought the ques- 
 tion foolish; his face was hidden a moment as he bent 
 
38 The Wave 
 
 down to put the Indian rug straight with his hand. There 
 was no impatience in the movement, nor was there mock- 
 ery in his expression, when he resumed his normal posi- 
 tion. He had gained an appreciable interval of time 
 some fifteen seconds. "Tom, you've got good ideas in 
 that head of yours," he said calmly ; "but what is it that 
 you mean exactly?" 
 
 Tom was quite ready to amplify. He knew what he 
 meant : 
 
 "If I know something is going to happen, doesn't that 
 mean that it has already happened and that I remember 
 it?" 
 
 "You're a psychologist as well as engineer, Tom," was 
 the approving reply. "It's like this, you see : an emotion, 
 with desire in it, can predict the fulfilment of that desire. 
 In great hunger you imagine you're eating all sorts of 
 good things." 
 
 "But that's looking forward," the boy pounced on the 
 mistake. "It's not remembering." 
 
 "That is the difficulty," explained his father ; "to decide 
 whether you're anticipating only or actually remember- 
 ing/' 
 
 "I see," Tom said politely. 
 
 All this analysis concealed merely: it did not reveal. 
 The thing itself dived deeper out of sight with every 
 phrase. He knew quite well the difference between an- 
 ticipating and remembering. With the latter there was 
 the sensation of having been through it. Each time he 
 remembered seeing Lettice the sensation was the same, 
 but when he looked forward to seeing her again the sen- 
 sation varied with his mood. 
 
 "For instance, Tom between ourselves this we're 
 going to send Mary to that Finishing School in France 
 where Lettice is." The doctor, it seemed, spoke carelessly 
 while he gathered his papers together with a view to go- 
 ing out. He did not look at the boy ; he said it walking 
 
The Wave 39 
 
 about the room. "Mary will look forward to it so much 
 and think about it that when she gets there it will seem a 
 little familiar to her, as if almost as if she remem- 
 bered it." 
 
 "Thank you, father ; I see, yes," murmured Tom. But 
 in his mind a voice said so distinctly "Rot !" that he was 
 half afraid the word was audible. 
 
 "You see the difficulty, eh? And the difference?" 
 
 "Rather," exclaimed the boy with decision. 
 
 And thereupon, without the slightest warning, he 
 looked out of the window and asked certain other ques- 
 tions. Evidently they cost him effort; his will forced 
 them out. Since his back was turned he did not see his 
 father's understanding smile, but neither did the latter see 
 the lad's crimson cheeks, though possibly he divined them. 
 
 "Father is Miss Aylmer older than me ?" 
 
 "Ask Mary, Tom. She'll know. Or, stay I'll ask her 
 for you if you like." 
 
 "Oh, that's all right. I just wanted to know," with an 
 assumed indifference that only just concealed the tremor 
 in the voice. 
 
 "I suppose," came a moment later, "a Member of Par- 
 liament is a grander thing than a doctor, is it ?" 
 
 "That depends," replied his father, "upon the man him- 
 self. Some M.P.'s vote as they're told, and never open 
 their mouths in the House. Some doctors, again " 
 
 But the boy interrupted him. He quite understood the 
 point. 
 
 "It's fine to be an engineer, though, isn't it?" he asked. 
 "It's a real profession?" 
 
 "The world couldn't get along without them, or the 
 Government either. It's a most important profession 
 indeed." 
 
 Tom, playing idly with the swinging tassel of the win- 
 dow-blind, asked one more question. His voice and 
 manner were admirably under control, but there was a 
 gulp, and his father heard and noted it. 
 
40 The Wave 
 
 "Shall I have shall I be rich enough to marry some 
 day?" 
 
 Dr. Kelverdon crossed the room and put his hand on 
 his son's shoulder, but did not try to make him show his 
 face. "Yes," he said quietly, "you will, my boy when 
 the time comes." He paused a moment, then added: 
 "But money will not make you a distinguished man, 
 whereas if you become a famous engineer, you'll have 
 money of your own and any nice girl would be proud to 
 have you." 
 
 "I see," said Tom, tying the strings of the tassel into 
 knots, then untying them again with a visible excess of 
 energy and the conversation came somewhat abruptly to 
 an end. He was aware of the invitation to talk further 
 about Lettice Aylmer, but he resisted and declined it. 
 What was the use ? He knew his own mind already about 
 that. 
 
 Yet, strictly speaking, Tom was not imaginative. It 
 was as if an instinct taught him. More and more, the 
 Wave, with its accompanying details of Eyes and Whiff, 
 seemed to him the ghost of some dim memory that 
 brought a forgotten warning in its train something 
 missed, something to be repeated, something to be faced 
 and learned and mastered. . . . 
 
 His father, meanwhile, went forth upon his rounds 
 that day, much preoccupied about the character of his 
 eldest boy. He felt a particular interest in the peculiar 
 obsession that he knew overshadowed the young, growing 
 life. It puzzled him ; he found no clue to it ; in his thought 
 he was aware of a faint uneasiness, although he did not 
 give it a definite name something akin to what the 
 mother felt. Admitting he was baffled, he fell back, how- 
 ever, upon such generalities as prenatal influence, ances- 
 tral, racial, and so eventually dismissed it from his active 
 mind. 
 
 Tom, meanwhile, for his part, also went along his steep, 
 
The Wave 41 
 
 predestined path. The nightmare had entirely deserted 
 him, he now rarely dreamed ; and his outer life shaped 
 bravely, as with a boy of will, honesty, and healthy ambi- 
 tion might be expected. Neither wavy feeling, eyes, nor 
 whiff obtruded themselves: they left him alone and 
 waited : he never forgot them, but he did not seek them 
 out. Things once firmly realized remained in his con- 
 sciousness ; he knew that his life was rising like a wave, 
 that all his energies worked in the form of waves, his 
 moods and wishes, his passions, emotions, yearnings all 
 expressed themselves by means of this unalterable for- 
 mula, yet all contributed finally to the one big important 
 Wave whose climax would be reached only when it fell. 
 He distinguished between Wave and Ripples. He, there- 
 fore, did not trouble himself with imaginary details; he 
 did not search ; he waited. This steady strength was his. 
 His firm, square jaw and the fearless eyes of gray beneath 
 the shock of straight dark hair told plainly enough the 
 kind of stuff behind them. No one at school took un- 
 necessary liberties with Tom Kelverdon. 
 
 But, having discovered one pair of Eyes, he did not let 
 them go. In his earnest, dull, inflexible way he loved 
 their owner with a belief in her truth and loyalty that ad- 
 mitted of no slightest question. Had his mother divined 
 the strength and value of his passion, she would surely 
 have asked herself with painful misgiving: "Is she can 
 she be worthy of my boy ?" But his mother guessed it 
 as little as any one else; even the doctor had forgotten 
 those early signs of its existence; and Tom was not the 
 kind to make unnecessary confidences, nor to need sym- 
 pathy in any matter he was sure about. 
 
 There was down now upon his upper lip, for he was 
 close upon seventeen and the Entrance Examination was 
 rising to the crest of its particular minor wave, yet during 
 the two years' interval nothing no single fact had oc- 
 curred to justify his faith or to confirm its amazing cer- 
 
42 The Wave 
 
 tainty within his heart. Mary, his sister, had not gone 
 after all to the Finishing School in France; other girl 
 friends came to spend the holidays with her; the Irish 
 member of Parliament had either died or sunk into an- 
 other kind of oblivion; the paths of the Kelverdons and 
 the Aylmer family had gone apart ; and the name of Let- 
 tice no longer thrilled the air across the tea-table, nor 
 chance reports of her doings filled the London house with 
 sudden light.' 
 
 Yet for Tom she existed more potently than ever. His 
 yearning never lessened; he was sure she remembered 
 him as he remembered her; he persuaded himself that 
 she thought about him; she doubtless knew that he was 
 going to be an engineer. He had cut a thread from the 
 carpet in the hall from the exact spot her flying foot had 
 touched that Tuesday when she scampered off from him 
 and kept it in the drawer beside the Eastern packet 
 that enshrined the Whiff. Occasionally he took it out and 
 touched it, fingered it, even caressed it; the thread and 
 the perfume belonged together; the ritual of the childish 
 years altered a little worship raised it to a higher level. 
 
 He saw her with her hair done up now, long skirts, 
 and a softer expression in the tender, faithful eyes; the 
 tomboy in her had disappeared; she gazed at him with 
 admiration. The face was oddly real, it came very close 
 to his own; once or twice, indeed, their cheeks almost 
 touched: "almost," because he withdrew instantly, un- 
 easily aware that he had gone too far not that the inti- 
 macy was unwelcome, but that it was somehow prema- 
 ture. And the instant he drew back, a kind of lightning 
 distance came between them; he saw her eyes across an 
 immense and curious interval, though whether of time or 
 space he could not tell. There was strange heat and radi- 
 ance in it as of some blazing atmosphere that was not 
 England. 
 
 The eyes, moreover, held a new expression when this 
 happened pity. And with this pity came also pain : the 
 
The Wave 43 
 
 strange, rich pain broke over all the other happier feelings 
 in him and swamped them utterly. . . . 
 
 But at that point instinct failed him ; he could not un- 
 derstand why she should pity him, why pain should come 
 to him through her, nor why it was necessary for him 
 to feel and face it. He only felt sure of one thing that 
 it was essential to the formation of the Wave which was 
 his life. The Wave must "happen," or he would miss an 
 important object of his being and she would somehow 
 miss it too. The Wave would one day fall, but when it 
 fell she would be with him, by his side, under the mighty 
 curve, involved in the crash and tumult with himself. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THEN, without any warning, he received a second 
 shock it fell upon him from the blue and came di- 
 rect from Lettice. 
 
 The occasion was a tennis party in the garden by the 
 sea where the family had come to spend the summer 
 holidays. Tom was already at College, doing brilliantly, 
 and rapidly growing up. The August afternoon was very 
 hot; no wind ruffled the quiet blue-green water; there 
 were no waves ; the leaves of the privet hedge upon the 
 side of the cliffs were motionless. A couple of Chalk- 
 Blues danced round and round each other as though a 
 wire connected them, and Tom, walking in to tea with his 
 partner after a victorious game, found himself watching 
 the butterflies and making a remark about them a chance 
 observation merely to fill an empty pause. He felt as 
 little interest in the insects as he did in his partner, an 
 uncommonly pretty, sunburned girl, whose bare arms and 
 hatless light hair became her admirably. She, however, 
 approved of the remark and by no means despised the 
 opportunity to linger a moment by the side of her com- 
 panion. They stood together, perhaps a dozen seconds, 
 watching the capricious scraps of color rise, float over the 
 privet hedge on balanced wings, dip abruptly down and 
 vanish on the further side below the cliff. The girl said 
 something an intentional something that was meant to 
 be heard and answered : but no answer was forthcoming. 
 She repeated the remark with emphasis ; then, as still no 
 answer came, she laughed brightly to make his silence ap- 
 pear natural. 
 
 But Tom had no word to say. He had not noticed the 
 maneuver of the girl, nor the maneuver of the two 
 
 44 
 
The Wave 45 
 
 Chalk-Blues; neither had he heard the words, although 
 conscious that she spoke. For in that brief instant when 
 the insects floated over the hedge, his eyes had wandered 
 beyond them to the sea, and on the sea, far off against the 
 cloudless horizon, he had seen the Wave. 
 
 Thinking it over afterwards, however, he realized that 
 it was not actually a wave he saw, for the surface of the 
 blue-green sea was smooth as the tennis lawn itself: it 
 was the sudden appearance of the "wavy feeling" that 
 made him think he saw the old, familiar outline of his 
 early dream. He had objectified his emotion. His father 
 perhaps would have called it association of ideas. 
 
 Abruptly, out of nothing obvious, the feeling rose and 
 mastered him : and, after its quiescence its absence for 
 so long an interval, this revival without hint or warning 
 of any kind was disconcerting. The feeling was vivid 
 and unmistakable. The joy and terror swept him as of 
 old. He braced himself. Almost he bagan shuffling 
 with his feet. . . . 
 
 "Tea's waiting for you," his mother's voice floated to 
 his ears across the lawn, as he turned with an effort from 
 the sea and made towards the group about the tables. 
 The Wave, he knew, was coming up behind him, growing, 
 rising, curving high against the evening sky. Beside him 
 walked the sunburned girl, wondering doubtless at his 
 silence, but happy enough, it seemed, in her own interpre- 
 tation of its cause. Scarcely aware of her presence, how- 
 ever, Tom was searching almost fiercely in his thoughts, 
 searching for the clue. He knew there was a clue, he felt 
 sure of it ; the "wavy feeling" had not come with this over- 
 whelming suddenness without a reason. Something had 
 brought it back. But what ? Was there any recent factor 
 in his life that might explain it? He stole a swift glance 
 at the girl beside him : had she, perhaps, to do with it ? 
 They had played tennis together for the first time that 
 afternoon: he had never seen her before, was not even 
 quite sure what her name was; to him, so far, she was 
 
46 The Wave 
 
 only "a very pretty girl who played a ripping game." 
 Had this girl to do with it ? 
 
 Feeling his questioning look, she glanced up at him and 
 smiled. "You're very absent-minded," she observed with 
 mischief in her manner. "You took so many of my balls, 
 it's tired you out !" She had beautiful blue eyes, and her 
 voice, he noticed for the first time, was very pleasant. 
 Her figure was slim, her ankles neat, she had nice, even 
 teeth. But, even as he registered the charming details, he 
 knew quite well that he registered them, one and all, as 
 belonging merely to a member of the sex, and not to this 
 girl in particular. For all he cared, she might follow the 
 two Chalk-Blues and disappear below the edge of the cliff 
 into the sea. This "pretty girl" left him as untroubled 
 as she found him. The wavy feeling was not brought 
 by her. 
 
 He drank his tea, keeping his back to the sea, and as 
 the talk was lively, his silence was not noticed. The 
 Wave, meanwhile, he knew, had come up closer. It tow- 
 ered above him. Its presence would shortly be explained. 
 Then, suddenly, in the middle of a discussion as to part- 
 ners for the games to follow, a further detail presented 
 itself also apparently out of nothing. He smelt the 
 Whiff. He knew then that the Wave was poised im- 
 mediately above his head, and that he stood underneath 
 its threatening great curve. The clue, therefore, was at 
 hand. 
 
 And at this moment his father came into view, moving 
 across the lawn towards them from the French window. 
 No one guessed how Tom welcomed the slight diversion, 
 for the movement was already in his legs and in another 
 moment must have set his feet upon that dreadful shuf- 
 fling. As from a distance, he heard the formal talk and 
 introductions, his father's statement that he had won his 
 round of golf with "the Dean," praise of the weather, 
 and something or other about the strange stillness of the 
 sea but then, with a sudden, hollow crash against his 
 
The Wave 47 
 
 very ear, the appalling words : ". . . broke his mashie into 
 splinters, yes. And, by the by, the Dean knows the Ayl- 
 mers. They were staying here earlier in the summer, he 
 told me. Lettice, the girl, Mary's friend, you remember 
 is going to be married this week. . . ." 
 
 Tom clutched the back of the wicker-chair in front of 
 him. The sun went out. An icy air passed up his spine. 
 The blood drained from his face. The tennis courts, and 
 the group of white figures moving towards them, swung 
 up into the sky. He gripped the chair till the rods of 
 wicker pressed through the flesh into the bone. For a 
 moment he felt that the sensation of actual sickness was 
 more than he could master; his legs bent like paper be- 
 neath his weight. 
 
 "You remember Lettice, Tom, don't you?" his father 
 was saying somewhere in mid-air above him. 
 
 "Yes, rather." Apparently he said these words; the 
 air at any rate went through his teeth and lips, and the 
 same minute, with a superhuman effort that only just 
 escaped a stagger, he moved away towards the tennis 
 courts. His feet carried him, that is, across the lawn, 
 where some figures dressed in white were calling his name 
 loudly; his legs went automatically. "Hold steady!" he 
 remembers saying somewhere deep inside him. "Don't 
 make an ass of yourself"; whereupon another voice or 
 was it still his own? joined in quickly, "She's gone from 
 me, Lettice has gone. She's dead." And the words, for 
 the first time in his life, had meaning: for the first time 
 in his life, rather, he realized what their meaning was. 
 The Wave had fallen. Moreover this also for the first 
 time in the history of the Wave there was something 
 audible. He heard a Sound. 
 
 Shivering in the hot summer sunshine, as though icy 
 water drenched him, he knew the same instant that he 
 was wrong about the falling: the Wave, indeed, had 
 curled lower over him than ever before, had even toppled 
 but it had not broken. As a whole, it had not broken. 
 
48 The Wave 
 
 It was a smaller wave, upon the parent side, that had 
 formed and fallen. The sound he heard was the soft 
 crash of this lesser wave that grew out of the greater 
 mass of the original monster, broke upon the rising vol- 
 ume of it, and returned into the greater body. It was 
 a ripple only. The shock and terror he felt were a fore- 
 taste of what the final smothering crash would be. Yet 
 the Sound he had heard was not the sound of water. 
 There was a sharp, odd rattling in it that he had never 
 consciously heard before. And it was dry. 
 
 He reached the group of figures on the tennis-courts: 
 he played : a violent energy had replaced the sudden 
 physical weakness. His skill, it seemed, astonished every- 
 body; he drove and smashed and volleyed with a reck- 
 lessness that was always accurate : but when, at the end of 
 the amazing game, he heard voices praising him, as from 
 a distance, he knew only that there was a taste of gall and 
 ashes in his mouth, and that he had but one desire to 
 get to his room alone and open the drawer. Even to him- 
 self he would not admit that he wished for the relief of 
 tears. He put it, rather, that he must see and feel the 
 one real thing that still connected him with Lettice the 
 thread of carpet she had trodden on. That and the 
 "whiff" alone could comfort him. 
 
 The comedy, that is, of all big events lay in it ; no one 
 must see, no one must know : no one must guess the ex- 
 istence of this sweet, rich pain that ravaged the heart in 
 him until from very numbness it ceased aching. He 
 double-locked the bedroom door. He had waited till 
 darkness folded away the staring day, till the long dinner 
 was over, and the drawn-out evening afterwards. None, 
 fortunately, had noticed the change in his demeanor, his 
 silence, his absentmindedness when spoken to, his want 
 of appetite. "She is going to be married . . . this week," 
 were the only words he heard; they kept ringing in his 
 brain. To his immense relief the family had not referred 
 to it again. 
 
The Wave 49 
 
 And at last he had said good-night and was in his room 
 alone. The drawer was open. The morsel of green 
 thread lay in his hand. The faint eastern perfume floated 
 on the air. "I am not a sentimental ass," he said to him- 
 self aloud, but in a low, steady tone. "She touched it, 
 therefore it has part of her life about it still." Three 
 years and a half ago! He examined the diary too; lived 
 over in thought every detail of their so slight acquain- 
 tance together; they were few enough; he remembered 
 every one. . . . Prolonging the backward effort, he re- 
 viewed the history of the Wave. His mind stretched back 
 to his earliest recollections of the nightmare. He faced 
 the situation, tried to force its inner meaning from it, but 
 without success. 
 
 He did not linger uselessly upon any detail, nor did he 
 return upon his traces as a sentimental youth might do, 
 prolonging the vanished sweetness of recollection in order 
 to taste the pain more vividly. He merely "read up," so 
 to speak, the history of the Wave to get a bird's-eye view 
 of it. And in the end he obtained a certain satisfaction 
 from the process a certain strength. That is to say, he 
 did not understand, but he accepted. "Lettice has gone 
 from me but she hasn't gone for good." The deep re- 
 flection of hours condensed itself into this. 
 
 Whatever might happen "temporarily," the girl was 
 loyal and true : and she was his. It never once occurred 
 to him to blame or chide her. All that she did sincerely, 
 she had a right to do. They were in the "underneath" 
 together forever and ever. They were in the sea. 
 
 The pain, nevertheless, was acute and agonizing; the 
 temporary separation of "France" was nothing compared 
 to this temporary separation of her marrying. There 
 were alternate intervals of numbness and of acute sensa- 
 tion; for each time thought and feeling collapsed from 
 the long strain of their own tension, the relief that fol- 
 lowed proved false and vain. Up sprang the aching pain 
 again, the hungry longing, the dull, sweet yearning and 
 
50 The Wave 
 
 the whole sensation started afresh as at the first, yet with 
 a vividness that increased with each new realization of it. 
 "Wish I could cry it out," he thought. "I wouldn't be a 
 bit ashamed to cry." But he had no tears to spill. . . . 
 
 Midnight passed towards the small hours of the morn- 
 ing, and the small hours slipped on towards the dawn be- 
 fore he put away the parcel of tissue-paper, closed the 
 drawer and locked it. And when at length he dropped 
 exhausted into bed, the eastern sky was already tinged 
 with the crimson of another summer's day. He dreaded 
 it, and closed his eyes. It had tennis parties and engage- 
 ments in its wearisome, long hours of heat and utter 
 emptiness. . . . 
 
 Just before actual sleep took him, however, he was 
 aware of one other singular reflection. It rose of its own 
 accord out of that moment's calm when thought and 
 feeling sank away and deliberate effort ceased : the fact 
 namely that, with the arrival of the Sound, all his five 
 senses had been now affected. His entire being, through 
 the only channels of perception it possessed, had re- 
 sponded to the existence of the Wave and all it might 
 portend. Here was no case of a single sense being tricked 
 by some illusion: all five supported each other, taste 
 being, of course, a modification of smell. 
 
 And the strange reflection brought to his aching mind 
 and weary body a measure of relief. The Wave was real : 
 being real, it was also well worth facing when it fell. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 BETWEEN twenty and thirty a man rises through 
 years reckless of power and spendthrift of easy 
 promises. The wave of life is rising, and every force 
 tends upwards in a steady rush. At thirty comes a pause 
 upon the level, but with thirty-five there are signs of the 
 droop downhill. Age is first realized when, instead of 
 looking forward only, he surprises thought in the act of 
 looking behind. 
 
 Of the physical, at any rate, this is true; for the mental 
 and emotional wave is still ripening towards its higher 
 curve, while the spiritual crest hangs hiding in the sky 
 far overhead, beckoning beyond towards unvistaed 
 reaches. 
 
 Tom Kelverdon climbed through these crowded years 
 with the usual scars and bruises, but steadily, and without 
 the shame of any considerable disaster. His father's 
 influence having procured him an opening in an engineer- 
 ing firm of the first importance, his own talent and ap- 
 plication maintained the original momentum bravely. He 
 justified his choice of a profession. Also, staring eagerly 
 into life's marvelous shop- window, he entered, hand in 
 pocket, and made the customary purchases of the en- 
 chantress behind the counter. If worthless, well, every- 
 body bought them ; the things had been consummately ad- 
 vertised ; he paid his money, found out their value, threw 
 them away or kept them accordingly. A certain good 
 taste made his choice not too foolish : and there was this 
 wholesome soundness in him, that he rarely repeated a 
 purchase that had furnished him cheap goods. Slowly 
 he began to find himself. 
 
 5i 
 
52 The Wave 
 
 From learning what it meant to be well thrashed by a 
 boy he loathed, and to apply a similar treatment himself 
 he passed on to the pleasure of being told he had nice eyes, 
 that his voice was pleasant, his presence interesting. He 
 fell in love and out again. But he went straight. More- 
 over, beyond a given point in any affair of the heart he 
 seemed unable to advance: some secret, inner tension 
 held him back. While believing he loved various adorable 
 girls the years offered him, he found it impossible to open 
 his lips and tell them so. And the mysterious instinct in- 
 variably justified itself : they faded, one and all, soon after 
 separation. There was no wave in them; they were 
 ripples only. . . . 
 
 And, meanwhile, as the years rushed up towards the 
 crest of thirty, he did well in his profession, worked for 
 the firm in many lands, obtained the confidence of his 
 principals, and proved his steady judgment if not his 
 brilliance. He became, too, a good, if generous, judge 
 of other men, seeing all sorts, both good and bad, and in 
 every kind of situation that proves character. His na- 
 ture found excuses too easily, perhaps, for the unworthy 
 ones. It is not a bad plan, wiser companions hinted, to 
 realize that a man has dark behavior in him, while yet 
 believing that he need not necessarily prove it. The other 
 view has something childlike in it ; Tom Kelverdon kept, 
 possibly, this simpler attitude alive in him, trusting over- 
 much, because suspicion was abhorrent to his soul. The 
 man of ideals had never become the man of the world. 
 Some high, gentle instinct had preserved him from the 
 infliction that so often results in this regrettable con- 
 version. Slow to dislike, he saw the best in everybody. 
 "Not a bad fellow," he would say of some one quite ob- 
 viously detestable. "I admit his face and voice and man- 
 ner are against him ; but that's not his fault exactly. He 
 didn't make himself, you know." 
 
 The idea of a tide in the affairs of men is obvious, 
 
The Wave 53 
 
 familiar enough. Nations rise and fall, equally with the 
 fortunes of a family. History repeats itself, so does the 
 tree, the rose : and if a man live long enough he recovers 
 the state of early childhood. There is repetition every- 
 where. But while some think evolution moves in a 
 straight line forward, others speculate fancifully that it 
 has a spiral twist upwards. At any given moment, that is, 
 the soul looks down upon a passage made before but 
 from a point a little higher. Without living through 
 events already experienced, it literally lives them over; it 
 sees them mapped out below, and with the bird's-eye view 
 it understands them. 
 
 And in regard to his memory of Lettice Aylmer the 
 fact that he was still waiting for her and she for him 
 this was somewhat the fanciful conception that lodged 
 itself, subconsciously perhaps, in the mind of Tom Kel- 
 verdon, grown now to man's estate. He was dimly aware 
 of a curious familiarity with his present situation, a sense 
 of repetition yet with a difference. Something he had 
 experienced before was coming to him again. It was 
 waiting for him. Its wave was rising. When it happened 
 before it had not happened properly somehow had left a 
 sense of defeat, of dissatisfaction behind. He had taken 
 it, perhaps, at the period of receding momentum, and so 
 had failed towards it. This time he meant to face it. 
 His own phrase, as has been seen, was simple : "I'll let it 
 all come." It was something his character needed. Deep 
 down within him hid this attitude, and with the passage 
 of the years it remained but remained an attitude 
 merely. 
 
 But the attitude, being subconscious in him, developed 
 into a definite point of view that came, more and more, 
 to influence the way he felt towards life in general. Life 
 was too active to allow of much introspection, yet when- 
 ever pauses came pauses in thought and feeling, still 
 backwaters in which he lay without positive direction 
 there, banked up, unchanging in the background, stood the 
 
54 The Wave 
 
 enduring thing: his love for Lettice Aylmer. And this 
 background was "the sea" of his boyhood days, the "un- 
 derneath" in which they remained unalterably together. 
 There, too, hid the four signs that haunted his impres- 
 sionable youth : the Wave, the other Eyes, the Whiff, the 
 Sound. In due course, and at their appointed time, they 
 could combine and "happen" in his outward life. The 
 Wave would fall. 
 
 Meanwhile his sense of humor had long ago persuaded 
 him that, so far as any claim upon the girl existed, or that 
 she reciprocated his own deep passion, his love-dream was 
 of questionable security. The man in him that built 
 bridges and cut tunnels laughed at it; the man that de- 
 vised these first in imagination, however, believed in it, 
 and waited. Behind thought and reason, suspected of 
 none with whom he daily came in contact, and surprised 
 only by himself when he floated in these silent, tideless 
 backwaters it persisted with an amazing conviction that 
 seemed deathless. In these calm deeps of his being, se- 
 curely anchored, hid what he called the "spiral" attitude. 
 The thing that was coming, a tragedy whereof that child- 
 ish nightmare was both a memory and a premonition, 
 clung and haunted still with its sense of dim familiarity. 
 Something he had known before would eventually repeat 
 itself. But with a difference ; that he would see it from 
 above from a higher curve of the ascending spiral. 
 
 There lay the enticing wonder of the situation. With 
 his present English temperament, stolid rather, he would 
 meet it differently, treat it otherwise, learn and under- 
 stand. He would see it from another higher point of 
 view. He would know great pain, yet some part of him 
 would look on, compare, accept the pain and smile. The 
 words that offered themselves were that he had "suffered 
 blindly," but suffered with fierce and bitter resentment, 
 savagely, even with murder in his heart ; suffered, more- 
 over, somehow or other, at the hands of Lettice Aylmer. 
 
 Lettice, of course, he clung to it absurdly still was 
 
The Wave 55 
 
 true and loyal to him, though married to another. Her 
 name was changed. But Lettice Aylmer was not changed. 
 And this mad assurance, though he kept it deliberately 
 from his conscious thoughts, persisted with the rest of the 
 curious business, for nothing, apparently, could destroy it 
 in him. It was part of the situation, as he called it, part 
 of the "sea," out of which would rise eventually the 
 Wave. 
 
 Outwardly, meanwhile, much had happened to him, 
 each experience contributing its modifying touch to the 
 character as he realized it, instead of merely knowing 
 that it came to others. His sister married ; Tim, follow- 
 ing his father's trade, became a doctor with a provincial 
 practise, buried in the country. His father died suddenly 
 while he was away in Canada, busy with a prairie railway 
 across the wheat fields of Assiniboia. He met the usual 
 disillusions in a series, savored and mastered them more 
 or less in turn. 
 
 He was in England when his mother died; and, while 
 his other experiences were ripples only, her going had 
 the wave in it. The enormous mother-tie came also out 
 of the "sea" ; its dislocation was a shock of fundamental 
 kind, and he felt it in the foundations of his life. It was 
 one of the things he could not quite realize. He still felt 
 her always close and near. He had just been made a 
 junior partner in the firm ; the love and pride in her eyes, 
 before they faded from the world of partnerships, were 
 unmistakable: "Of course," she murmured, her thin 
 hand clinging to his own, "they had to do it ... if only 
 your father knew . . ." and she was gone. The wave of 
 her life sank back into the sea whence it arose. And her 
 going somehow strengthened him, added to his own 
 foundations, as though her wave had merged in his. 
 
 With her departure, he felt vaguely the desire to settle 
 down, to marry. Unconsciously he caught himself think- 
 ing of women in a new light, appraising them as possible 
 wives. It was a dangerous attitude rather; for a man 
 
56 The Wave 
 
 then seeks to persuade himself that such and such a 
 woman may do, instead of awaiting the inevitable draw 
 of love which alone can justify a life-long union. 
 
 In Tom's case, however, as with the smaller fires of 
 his younger days, he never came to a decision, much less 
 to a positive confession. His immense idealism concern- 
 ing women preserved him from being caught by mere 
 outward beauty. While aware that Lettice was an im- 
 possible dream of boyhood, he yet clung to an ideal she 
 somehow foreshadowed and typified. He never relin- 
 quished this standard of his dream ; a mysterious woman 
 waited for him somewhere, a woman with all the fairy 
 qualities he had built about her personality ; a woman he 
 could not possibly mistake when at last he met her. Only 
 he did not meet her. He waited. 
 
 And so it was, as time passed onwards, that he found 
 himself standing upon the little level platform of his 
 life at a stage nearer to thirty-five than thirty, conscious 
 that a pause surrounded him. There was a lull. The 
 rush of the years slowed down. He looked about him. 
 He looked back. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE particular moment when this happened, suitable, 
 too, in a chance, odd way, was upon a mountain 
 ridge in winter, a level platform of icy snow to which he 
 had climbed with some hotel acquaintances on a ski-ing 
 expedition. It was on the Polish side of the Hohe Tatra. 
 
 Why, at this special moment, pausing for breath and 
 admiring the immense wintry scene about him, he should 
 have realized that he reached a similar position in his 
 life, is hard to say. There is always a particular moment 
 when big changes claim attention. They have been com- 
 ing slowly; but at a given moment they announce them- 
 selves. Tom associated that icy ridge above Zakopane 
 with a pause in the rushing of the years: "I'm getting 
 on towards middle age; the first swift climb impetuous 
 youth lies now behind me." The physical parallel 
 doubtless suggested it; he had felt his legs and wind a 
 trifle less willing, perhaps ; there was still a steep, labori- 
 ous slope of snow beyond ; he discovered that he was no 
 longer twenty-five. 
 
 He drew breath and watched the rest of the party 
 as they slowly came nearer in the track he had made 
 through the deep snow below. Each man made this 
 track in his turn, it was hard work, his share was done. 
 "Nagorsky will tackle the next bit," he thought with 
 relief, watching a young Pole of twenty-three in the 
 ascending line, and glancing at the summit beyond where 
 the run home was to begin. And then the wonder of the 
 white silent scene invaded him, the exhilarating thrill of 
 the vast wintry heights swept over him, he forgot the 
 toil, he regained his wind and felt his muscles taut and 
 vigorous once more. It was pleasant, standing upon 
 
 57 
 
58 The Wave 
 
 this level ridge, to inspect the long ascent below, and to 
 know the heavy yet enjoyable exertion was nearly over. 
 
 But he had felt older. That ridge remained in his 
 memory as the occasion of its first realization; a door 
 opened behind him; he looked back. He envied the 
 other's twenty-three years. It is curious that, about 
 thirty, a man feels he is getting old, whereas at forty he 
 feels himself young again. At thirty he judges by the 
 standard of eighteen, at the later age by that of sixty. 
 But this particular occasion remained vivid for another 
 reason it was accompanied by a strange sensation he 
 had almost forgotten ; and so long an interval had elapsed 
 since its last manifestation that for a moment a kind of 
 confusion dropped upon him, as from the cloudless sky. 
 Something was gathering behind him, something was 
 about to fall. He recognized the familiar feeling that 
 he knew of old, the subterranean thrill, the rich, sweet 
 pain, the power, the reality. It was the wavy feeling. 
 
 Balanced on his ski, the seal-skin strips gripping the 
 icy ridge securely, he turned instinctively to seek the rea- 
 son, if any were visible, of the abrupt revival. His mind, 
 helped by the stimulating air and sunshine, worked 
 swiftly. The odd confusion clouded his faculties still, as 
 in a dream state, but he pierced it in several directions 
 simultaneously. 
 
 Was it that, envying another's youth, he had reentered 
 imaginatively his own youthful feelings? He looked 
 down at the rest of the party climbing towards him. 
 And doing so, he picked out the slim figure of Nagorsky's 
 sister, a girl whose winter costume became her marvel- 
 ously, and whom the happy intimacy of the hotel life had 
 made so desirable that an expedition without her seemed 
 a lost, blank day. Unless she was of the party there was 
 no sunshine. He watched her now, looking adorable in 
 her big gauntlet gloves, her short skirt, her tasseled cap 
 of black and gold, a fairy figure on the big snowfield, fill- 
 ing the world with sunshine and knew abruptly that 
 
The Wave 
 
 59 
 
 she meant to him just exactly nothing. The intensity of 
 the wavy feeling reduced her to an unreality. 
 
 It was not she who brought the great emotion. 
 
 The confusion in him deepened. Another scale of 
 measurement appeared. The crowded intervening years 
 now seemed but a pause, a brief delay ; he had run down 
 a side track and returned. He had not grown older. 
 Seen by the grand scale to which the Wave and "sea" 
 belonged, he had scarcely moved from the old starting- 
 point, where, far away in some unassailable recess of life, 
 still waiting for him, stood Lettice Aylmer. 
 
 Turning his eyes, then, from the approaching climbers, 
 he glanced at the steep slope above him, and saw as 
 once before on the English coast something that took 
 his breath away and made his muscles weak. He stared 
 at it. It looked down at him. 
 
 Five hundred feet above, outlined against the sky of 
 crystal clearness, ran a colossal wave of solid snow. At 
 the highest point it was, of course, a cornice, but towards 
 the east, whence came the prevailing weather, the wind 
 had so manipulated the mass that it formed a curling bil- 
 low, twenty or thirty feet in depth, leaping over in the 
 very act of breaking, yet arrested just before it fell. It 
 hung waiting in mid-air, perfectly molded, a wave 
 but a wave of snow. 
 
 It swung along the ridge for half a mile and more : it 
 seemed to fill the sky; it rose out of the sea of eternal 
 snow below it, poised between the earth and heavens. 
 In the hollow beneath its curve lay purple shadows the 
 eye could not pierce. And the similarity to the earlier 
 episode struck him vividly; in each case Nature assisted 
 with a visible wave as by way of counterpart ; each time, 
 too, there was a girl as though some significance of sex 
 hid in the "wavy feeling." He was profoundly puzzled. 
 
 The same second, in this wintry world where move- 
 ment, sound, and perfume have no place, there stole to 
 his nostrils across the desolate ranges another detail. It 
 
60 The Wave 
 
 was more intimate in its appeal even than the wavy feel- 
 ing, yet was part of it. He recognized the Whiff. And 
 the joint attack, both by its suddenness and by its inten- 
 sity, overwhelmed him. Only the Sound was lacking, but 
 that, too, he felt, was on the way. Already a sharp 
 instinctive movement was running down his legs. He 
 began to shuffle on his ski. . . . 
 
 .A chorus of voices, as from far away, broke round 
 him, disturbing the intense stillness; and he knew that 
 the others had reached the ridge. With a violent effort 
 he mastered the ridiculous movement of his disobedient 
 legs, but what really saved him from embarrassing notice 
 was the breathless state of his companions, and the fact 
 that his action looked after all quite natural he seemed 
 merely rubbing his ski along the snow to clean their 
 under-surface. 
 
 Exclamations in French, English, Polish rose on all 
 sides, as the view into the deep opposing valley caught the 
 eye, and a shower of questions all delivered at once, drew 
 attention from himself. What scenery, what a sky, what 
 masses of untrodden snow ! Should they lunch on the 
 ridge or continue to the summit ? What were the names 
 of all these peaks, and was the Danube visible? How 
 lucky there was no wind, and how they pitied the people 
 who stayed behind in the hotels ! Sweaters and woolen 
 waistcoats emerged from half-a-dozen knapsacks, cook- 
 ing apparatus was produced, one chose a spot to make 
 a fire, while another broke the dead branches from a 
 stunted pine, and in five minutes had made a blaze be- 
 hind a little wall of piled-up snow. The Polish girl came 
 up and asked Tom for his Zeiss glasses, examined the 
 soaring slope beyond, then obediently put on the extra 
 sweater he held out for her. He hardly saw her face, 
 and certainly did not notice the expression in her eyes. 
 All took off their ski and plunged them upright in the 
 nearest drift. The sun blazed everywhere, the snow crys- 
 tals sparkled. They settled down for lunch, a small 
 
The Wave 61 
 
 dark clot of busy life upon the vast expanse of desolate 
 snow . . . and anything unusual about Tom Kelverdon, 
 muffled to the throat against the freezing cold, his eyes, 
 moreover, concealed by green snow spectacles, was cer- 
 tainly not noticed. 
 
 Another party, besides, was discovered climbing up- 
 wards along their own laborious track : in the absorbing 
 business of satisfying big appetites, tending the fire, and 
 speculating who these other skiers might be, Tom's 
 silence caused no comment. His self-control, for the 
 rest, was soon recovered. But his interest in the expedi- 
 tion had oddly waned; he was still searching furiously 
 in his thoughts for an explanation of the unexpected 
 "attack," waiting for the Sound, but chiefly wondering 
 why his boyhood's nightmare had never revealed that 
 the Wave was of snow instead of water and, at the 
 same time, oddly convinced that he had moved but one 
 stage nearer to its final elucidation. That it was solid 
 he had already discovered, but that it was actually of 
 snow left a curious doubt in him. 
 
 Of all this he was thinking as he devoured his eggs 
 and sandwiches, something still trembling in him, nerves 
 keenly sensitive, but not quite persuaded that this wave of 
 snow was the sufficient cause of what he had just ex- 
 perienced when at length the other climbers, moving 
 swiftly, came close enough to be inspected. The cus- 
 tomary remarks and criticisms passed from mouth to 
 mouth, with warnings to lower voices since sound carried 
 too easily in the rarefied air. One of the party was soon 
 recognized as the hotel doctor, and the other, first set 
 down as a Norwegian owing to his light hair, shining 
 hatless in the sunlight, proved on closer approach to be 
 an Englishman both men evidently experienced and ac- 
 complished "runners/' 
 
 In any other place the two parties would hardly have 
 spoken, settling down into opposing camps of hostile 
 silence; but in the lonely winter mountains human rela- 
 
62 The Wave 
 
 tionship becomes more natural; the time of day was 
 quickly passed, and details of the route exchanged; the 
 doctor and his friend mingled easily with the first ar- 
 rivals ; all agreed spontaneously to take the run home to- 
 gether; and finally, when names were produced with 
 laughing introductions, the Englishman by one of those 
 coincidences people pretend to think strange, but that 
 actually ought to occur more often than they do turned 
 out to be known to Tom, and after considerable explana- 
 tions was proved to be more than that a cousin. 
 
 Welcoming the diversion, making the most of it in fact, 
 Kelverdon presented Anthony Winslowe to his Polish 
 companions with a certain zeal to which the new arrival 
 responded with equal pleasure. The light-haired, blue- 
 eyed Englishman, young and skilful on his ski, formed a 
 distinct addition to the party. He was tall, with a slight 
 stoop about the shoulders that suggested study; he was 
 gay and very easy-going too. It was "Tom" and "Tony" 
 before lunch was over ; they recalled their private school, 
 a fight, an eternal friendship vowed after it, and the 
 twenty intervening years melted as though they had not 
 been. 
 
 "Of course," Tom said, proud of his new-found cou- 
 sin, "and I've read your bird books, what's more. By 
 Jove, you're quite an authority on natural history, aren't 
 you?" 
 
 The other modestly denied any fame, but the girls, 
 especially Nagorsky's sister, piqued by Tom's want of 
 notice, pressed for details in their pretty broken Eng- 
 lish. It became a merry and familiar party, as the way 
 is with easy foreigners, particularly when they meet in 
 such wild and unconventional surroundings. Winslowe 
 had lantern slides in his trunk : that night he promised to 
 show them : they chattered and paid compliments and 
 laughed, Tony explaining that he was on his way to Egypt 
 to study the bird-life along the Nile. Natural history 
 was his passion ; he talked delightfully ; he made the bird 
 
The Wave 63 
 
 and animal life seem real and interesting; there was 
 imagination, humor, lightness in him. There was a 
 fascination, too, not due to looks alone. It was in his 
 atmosphere, what is currently, perhaps, called magnetism. 
 
 "No animals here for you," said a girl, pointing to 
 the world of white death about them. 
 
 "There's something better," he said quickly in quite 
 decent Polish. "We're all in the animal kingdom, you 
 know." And he glanced with a bow of admiration at the 
 speaker, whom the others instantly began to tease. It 
 was Irena, Nagorsky's sister; she flushed and laughed. 
 "We thought," she said, "you were Norwegian, because 
 of your light hair, and the way you moved on your ski. 
 
 "A great compliment," he rejoined, "but I saw you 
 long ago on the ridge, and I knew at once that you were 
 Polish." 
 
 The girl returned his bow. "The largest compliment," 
 she answered gaily, "I had ever in my life." 
 
 Tom had only arrived two days before, bringing a 
 letter of introduction to the doctor, and that night he 
 changed his hotel, joining his new friends and his cousin 
 at the Grand. An obvious flirtation, possibly something 
 more, sprung up spontaneously between him and the 
 Polish girl, but Kelverdon welcomed it and felt no 
 jealousy. "Not trespassing, old chap, am I ?" Tony asked 
 jokingly, having divined on the mountains that the girl 
 was piqued. "On the contrary," was the honest assur- 
 ance given frankly, "I'm relieved. A delightful girl, 
 though, isn't she? And fascinatingly pretty!" 
 
 For the existence of Nagorsky's sister had become sud- 
 denly to him of no importance whatsoever. It was 
 strange enough, but the vivid recurrence of long-forgot- 
 ten symbols that afternoon upon the heights had restored 
 to him something he had curiously forgotten, something 
 he had shamefully neglected, almost, it seemed, had been 
 in danger of losing altogether. It came back upon him 
 now. He clung desperately to it as to a real, a vital, a 
 
64 The Wave 
 
 necessary thing. It was a genuine relief that the rela- 
 tionship between him and the girl might be ended thus. 
 In any case, he reflected, it would have "ended thus" a 
 little later like all the others. No trace or sign of envy 
 stayed in him. Irena and Tony, anyhow, seemed ad- 
 mirably suited to one another; he noticed on the long 
 run home how naturally they came together. And even 
 his own indifference would not bring her back to him. 
 He felt quite pleased and satisfied. He had a long talk 
 with Tony before going to bed. He felt drawn to him. 
 There was a spontaneous innate sympathy between them. 
 
 They had many other talks together, and Tom liked 
 his interesting, brilliant cousin. A week passed ; dances, 
 ski-ing trips, skating, and the usual program of win- 
 try enjoyments filled the time too quickly; companionship 
 became intimacy ; all sat at the same table : Tony became 
 a general favorite. He had just that combination of 
 reserve and abandon which provided something genuine 
 lies behind attracts the majority of people who, being 
 dull, have neither. Most are reserved, through emptiness, 
 or else abandoned also through emptiness. Tony Wins- 
 lowe, full of experience and ideas, vivid experience and 
 original ideas, combined the two in rarest equipoise. It 
 was spontaneous, and not calculated in him. There was 
 a stimulating quality in his personality. Like those tiny, 
 exciting Japanese tales that lead to the edge of a preci- 
 pice, then end with unexpected abruptness that is their 
 purpose, he led all who liked him to the brink of a de- 
 lightful revelation then paused, stopped, vanished. And 
 all did like him. He was light and gay, for all the depth 
 in him. Something of the child peeped out. He won 
 Tom Kelverdon's confidence without an effort. He also 
 won the affectionate confidence of the Polish girl. 
 
 "You're not married, Tony, are you?" Tom asked 
 him. 
 
 "Married!" Tony answered with a flush he flushed 
 so easily when teased "I love my wild life and animals 
 
The Wave 65 
 
 far too much." He stammered slightly. Then he looked 
 up quickly into his cousin's eyes with frankness. Tom, 
 without knowing why, almost felt ashamed of having 
 asked it. "I I never can go beyond a certain point," 
 he said, "with girls. Something always holds me back. 
 Odd isn't it?" He hesitated. Then this flashed from 
 him : "Bees never sip the last, the sweetest drop of honey 
 from the rose, you know. The sunset always leaves one 
 golden cloud adrift eh?" So there was poetry in him 
 too! 
 
 And Tom, simpler, as well as more rigidly molded, 
 felt a curious touch of passionate sympathy as he heard 
 it. His heart went out to the other suddenly with a 
 burst of confidence. Some barrier melted in him and 
 disappeared. For the first time in his life he knew the 
 inclination, even the desire, to speak of things hidden 
 deep within his heart. His cousin would understand. 
 
 And Tony's sudden, wistful silence invited the confes- 
 sion. They had already been talking of their forgotten 
 youthful days together. The ground was well prepared. 
 They had even talked of his sister, Mary, and her mar- 
 riage. Tony remembered her distinctly. He spoke of it, 
 leaning forward and putting a hand on his cousin's knee. 
 Tom noticed vaguely the size of the palm, the wrist, 
 the fingers they seemed disproportionate. They were 
 ugly hands. But it was subconscious notice. His mind 
 was on another thing. 
 
 "I say," Tom began with a sudden plunge, "you know 
 a lot about birds and natural history biology too, I sup- 
 pose. Have you ever heard of the spiral movement?" 
 
 "Spinal, did you say?" queried the other, turning the 
 stem of his glass and looking up. 
 
 "No spiral," Tom repeated, laughing dryly in spite 
 of himself. "I mean the idea that evolution, whether 
 individually in men and animals, or with nations his- 
 torically, that is is not in a straight line ahead, but 
 moves upwards in a spiral?" 
 
66 The Wave 
 
 "It's in the air," replied Tony vaguely, yet somehow as 
 if he knew a great deal more about it. "The movement 
 of the race, you mean?" 
 
 "And of the individual too. We're here, I mean, for 
 the purpose of development whatever one's particular 
 belief may be and that this development, instead of 
 going forwards in a straight line, has a kind of spiral 
 movement upwards ?" 
 
 Tony looked wonderfully wise. "I've heard of it," he 
 said. "The spiral movement, as you say, is full of sug- 
 gestion. It's common among plants. But I don't think 
 science, biology, at any rate, takes much account of it." 
 
 Tom interrupted eagerly, and with a certain grave 
 enthusiasm that evidently intrigued his companion. "I 
 mean a movement that is always upwards, always get- 
 ting higher, and always looking down upon what has gone 
 before. That, if it's true, a soul can look back look 
 down upon what it has been through before, but from 
 a higher point do you see?" 
 
 Tony emptied his glass and then lit a cigarette. "I see 
 right enough," he said at length, quick and facile to ap- 
 propriate any and every idea he came across, yet obvi- 
 ously astonished by his companion's sudden seriousness. 
 "Only the other day I read that humanity, for instance, 
 is just now above the superstitious period of the Mid- 
 dle Ages, say going over it again but that the recru- 
 descence everywhere of psychic interests fortune-tell- 
 ing, palmistry, magic, and the rest has become quasi- 
 scientific. It's going through the same period, but seeks 
 to explain and understand. It's above it one stage or 
 so. Is that what you mean, perhaps?" 
 
 Tom drew in his horns, though for the life of him he 
 could not say why. Tony appropriated his own idea 
 too easily somehow had almost read his thoughts. 
 Vaguely he resented it. Tony had stolen from him 
 offended against some schoolboy meum and tuum stand- 
 ard. 
 
The Wave 67 
 
 "That's it the idea, at any rate," he said, wondering 
 why confidence had frozen in him. "Interesting, rather, 
 isn't it?" 
 
 And then abruptly he found that he was staring at his 
 cousin's hands, spread on the table, palm downwards. 
 He had been staring at them for some time, but un- 
 consciously. Now he saw them. And there was some- 
 thing about them that he did not like. Absurd as it 
 seemed, his change of mood had to do with those big, 
 ungainly hands, tanned a deep brown-black by the sun. 
 A faint shiver ran through him. He looked away. 
 
 "Extraordinary," Tony went chattering on. "It ex- 
 plains these new, wild dances perhaps. Anything more 
 spiral and twisty than these modern gyrations I never 
 saw !" He turned it off in his light, amusing way, yet as 
 though quite familiar with the deeper aspects of the 
 question if he cared. "And what the body does," he 
 added, "the mind has already done a little time before!" 
 
 He laughed, but whether he was in earnest, or merely 
 playing with the idea, was uncertain. What had stopped 
 Tom was, perhaps, that they were not in the same key 
 together ; Tom had used a word he rarely cared to use 
 soul it had cost him a certain effort but his cousin 
 had not responded. That, and the hands, explained his 
 change of mood. For the first time it occurred to his 
 honest, simple mind that Tony was of other stuff, per- 
 haps, than he had thought. That remark about the bees 
 and sunset jarred a little. The lightness suggested in- 
 sincerity almost. 
 
 He shook the notion off, for it was disagreeable, un- 
 generous as well. This was holiday-time, and serious 
 discussion was out of place. The airy lightness in his 
 cousin was just suited to the conditions of a winter-sport 
 hotel ; it was what made him so attractive to all and sun- 
 dry ; so easy to get on with. Yet Tom would have liked 
 to confide in him, to have told him more, asked further 
 questions and heard the answers ; stranger still, he would 
 
68 The Wave 
 
 have liked to lead from the spiral to the wave, to his own 
 wavy feeling, and, further even almost to speak of 
 Lettice and his boyhood nightmare. He had never met 
 a man in regard to whom he felt so forthcoming in this 
 way. Tony surely had seriousness and depth in him; 
 this irresponsibility was on the surface only. . . . There 
 was a queer confusion in his mind several incongruous 
 things trying to combine. . . . 
 
 "I knew a princess once the widow of a Russian," 
 Tony was saying. He had been talking on, gayly, lightly, 
 for some time, but Tom, busy with these reflections, had 
 not listened properly. He now looked up sharply, some- 
 thing suddenly alert in him. "They're all princes in 
 Russia," Tony laughed. "It means less than Count in 
 France or von in Germany." He stopped and drained 
 his glass. "But you know," he went on, his thoughts 
 half elsewhere, it seemed, "it's bad for a country when 
 titles are too common, it lowers the aristocratic ideal. In 
 the Caucasus Batoum for instance every Georgian is 
 a noble, your hotel porter a prince." He broke off ab- 
 ruptly, as though reminded of something. "Of course!" 
 he exclaimed, "I was going to tell you about the Russian 
 woman I knew who had something of that idea of 
 yours." He stopped, as his eye caught his cousin's empty 
 glass. "Let's have another," he said, beckoning to the 
 waitress, "it's very light stuff, this beer. These long ski- 
 trips give one an endless thirst, don't they?" 
 
 Tom didn't know whether he said yes or no. "What 
 idea?" he asked quickly. "What do you mean exactly?" 
 A curious feeling of familiarity stirred in him. This 
 conversation had happened before. 
 
 "Eh?" Tony glanced up as though he had again for- 
 gotten what he was going to say. "Oh, yes," he went on, 
 "the Russian woman, the Princess I met in Egypt. She 
 talked a bit like that once ... I remember now." 
 
 "Like what?" Tom felt a sudden, breathless curiosity 
 in him : he was afraid the other would change his mind, 
 
The Wave 69 
 
 or pass to something else, or forget what he was going 
 to say. It would prove another Japanese tale disappear 
 before it satisfied. 
 
 But Tony went on at last, noticing, perhaps, his cou- 
 sin's interest. 
 
 "I was up at Edfu after birds," he said, "and she had 
 a dehabieh on the river. Some friends took me there 
 to tea, or something. It was nothing particular. Only 
 it occurred to me just now when you talked of spirals 
 and things." 
 
 "You talked about the spiral?" Tom asked. "Talked 
 with her about it, I mean ?" He was slow, almost stupid 
 compared to the other who seemed to flash lightly and 
 quickly over a dozen ideas at once. But there was this 
 real, natural sympathy between them both again. It 
 seemed he knew exactly what his cousin was going to say. 
 
 Tony, blowing the foam off his beer glass, proceeded 
 to quench his wholesome thirst. "Not exactly," he said 
 at length, "but we talked, I remember, along that line. 
 I was explaining about the flight of birds that all wild 
 animal life moves in a spontaneous sort of natural 
 rhythm with an unconscious grace, I mean, we've lost 
 because we think too much. Birds, in particular, rise 
 and fall with a swoop, the simplest, freest movement in 
 the world like a wave " 
 
 "Yes ?" interrupted Tom, leaning over the table a little 
 and nearly upsetting his untouched glass. "I like that 
 idea. It's true." 
 
 "And oh, that all the forces known to science move 
 in a similar way by wave- form, don't you see? Some- 
 thing like that it was." He took another draught of the 
 nectar his day's exertions had certainly earned. 
 
 "She said that?" asked Tom, watching his cousin's 
 face buried in the enormous mug. 
 
 Tony set it down with a sigh of intense satisfaction. 
 "I said it," he exclaimed with a frank egoism. "You're 
 too tired after all your falls this afternoon to listen prop- 
 
70 The Wave 
 
 erly. I was the teacher on that occasion, she the adoring 
 listener! But if you want to know what she said too, 
 I'll tell you." 
 
 Tom waited ; he raised his glass, pretending to drink ; 
 if he showed too much interest, the other might swerve 
 off again to something else. He knew what was coming, 
 yet could not have actually foretold it. He recognized 
 it only the instant aferwards. 
 
 "She talked about water," Tony went on, as though 
 he had difficulty in recalling what she really had said, 
 "and I think she had water on the brain," he added 
 lightly. "The Nile had bewitched her probably; it af- 
 fects most of 'em out there, the women, that is. She 
 said life moved in a stream that she moved down a 
 stream, or something, and that only things going down 
 the stream with her were real. Anything on the banks 
 stationary, that is was not real. Oh, she said a lot. 
 I've really forgotten now it was a year or two ago 
 but I remember her mentioning shells and the spiral twist 
 of shells. In fact," he added, as if there was no more 
 to tell, "I suppose that's what made me think of her just 
 now-^your mentioning the spiral movement." 
 
 The door of the room, half cafe and half bar, where 
 the peasants sat at wooden tables about them, opened, 
 and the pretty head of Irena Nagorsky appeared. A 
 burst of music came in with her. "We dance/' she said, 
 a note of reproach as well as invitation in her voice 
 then vanished. Tony, leaving his beer unfinished, laughed 
 at his cousin and went after her. "My last night," he 
 said cheerily. "Must be gay and jolly. I'm off to Trieste 
 to-morrow for Alexandria. See you later, Tom unless 
 you're coming to dance too." 
 
 But, though they saw each other many a time again 
 that evening, there was no further conversation. Next 
 day the party broke up, Tom returning to the Water 
 Works his firm was constructing outside Warsaw, and 
 Tony taking the train for Budapesth en route for Trieste 
 
The Wave 71 
 
 and Egypt. He urged Tom to follow him as soon as 
 his work was finished, gave the Turf Club, Cairo, as his 
 permanent address where letters would always reach him 
 sooner or later, waved his hat to the assembled group 
 upon the platform, and was gone. The last detail of him 
 visible was the hand that held the waving hat. It looked 
 bigger, darker, thought Tom, than ever. It was almost 
 disfiguring. It stirred a hint of dislike in him. He 
 turned his eyes away. 
 
 But Tom Kelverdon remembered that last night in the 
 hotel for another reason too. In the small hours of the 
 morning he woke up, hearing a sound close beside him 
 in the room. He listened a moment, then turned on the 
 light above the bed. The sound, of an unusual and pe- 
 culiar character, continued faintly. But it was not ac- 
 tually in the room as he first supposed. It was outside. 
 
 More than ten years had passed since he had heard 
 that sound. He had expected it that day on the moun- 
 tains when the wavy feeling and the Whiff had come 
 to him. Sooner or later he felt positive he would hear it. 
 He heard it now. It had merely been delayed, post- 
 poned. Something gathering slowly and steadily behind 
 his life was drawing nearer had come already very 
 close. He heard the dry, rattling Sound that was asso- 
 ciated with the Wave and with the Whiff. In it, too, was 
 a vague familiarity. 
 
 And then he realized that the wind was rising. A 
 frozen pine-branch, stiff with little icicles, was rattling 
 and scraping faintly outside the wooden framework of 
 the double windows. It was the icy branch that made 
 the dry, rattling sound. He listened intently; the sound 
 was repeated at certain intervals, then ceased, as the 
 wind died down. And he turned over and fell asleep 
 again, aware that what he had heard was an imitation 
 only, but an imitation strangely accurate of a reality. 
 Similarly, the wave of snow was but an imitation of a 
 reality to come. This reality lay waiting still beyond 
 
72 The Wave 
 
 him. One day one day soon he would know it face 
 to face. The Wave, he felt, was rising behind his life, 
 and his life was rising with it towards a climax. On 
 the little level platform where the years had landed him 
 for a temporary pause, he began to shuffle with his feet 
 in dream. And something deeper than his mind looked 
 back. . . . 
 
 The instinct, or by whatever name he called that posi- 
 tive, interior affirmation, proved curiously right. Life 
 rose with the sweep and power of a wave, bearing him 
 with it towards various climaxes. His powers, such as 
 they were, seemed all in the ascendant. He passed from 
 that level platform as with an upward rush, all his enter- 
 prises, all his energies, all that he wanted and tried to do, 
 surging forward towards the crest of successful accom- 
 plishment. 
 
 And a dozen times at least he caught himself asking 
 mentally for his cousin Tony; wishing he had confided 
 in him more, revealed more of this curious business to 
 him, exchanged sympathies with him about it all. A kind 
 of yearning rose in him for his vanished friend. Al- 
 most he had missed an opportunity. Tony would have 
 understood and helped to clear things up; to no other 
 man of his acquaintance could he have felt similarly. 
 But Tony was now out of reach in Egypt, chasing his 
 birds among the temples of the haunted Nile, already, 
 doubtless, the center of a circle of new friends and ac- 
 quaintances who found him as attractive and fascinating 
 as the little Zakopane group had found him. Tony must 
 keep. 
 
 Tom Kelverdon, meanwhile, his brief holiday over, re- 
 turned to his work at Warsaw, and brought it to a suc- 
 cessful conclusion with a rapidity no one had foreseen, 
 and he himself had least of all expected. The power 
 of the rising wave was in all he did. He could not fail. 
 Out of the success grew other contracts, highly profitable 
 to his firm. Some energy that overcame all obstacles, 
 
The Wave 73 
 
 some clarity of judgment that selected unerringly the 
 best ways and means, some skill and wisdom in him that 
 made all his powers work in unison till they became irre- 
 sistible, declared themselves, yet naturally and without 
 adventitious aid. He seemed to have found himself 
 anew. He felt pleased and satisfied with himself : always 
 self-confident, as a man of ability ought to be, he now 
 felt proud ;, and, though conceit had never been his fail- 
 ing, this new-born assurance moved distinctly towards 
 pride. In a moment of impulsive pleasure he wrote to 
 Tony, at the Turf Club, Cairo, and told him of his suc- 
 cess. . . . The senior partner, his father's old friend, 
 wrote and asked his advice upon certain new proposals 
 the firm had in view; it was a question of big docks to 
 be constructed at Salonica, and something to do with a 
 barrage on the Nile as well there were several juicy 
 contracts to choose between, it seemed, and Sir Wil- 
 liam proposed a meeting in Switzerland, on his way out 
 to the Near East; he would break the journey before 
 crossing the Simplon for Milan and Trieste. The final 
 telegram said Montreux, and Kelverdon hurried to Vi- 
 enna, and caught the night express to Lausanne by way 
 of Bale. 
 
 And at Montreux further evidence that the wave of 
 life was rising then declared itself, when Sir William, 
 having discussed the various propositions with him, lis- 
 tening with attention, even with deference, to Kelver- 
 don's opinion, told him quietly that his brother's retire- 
 ment left a vacancy in the firm which he and his co- 
 directors hoped confidently Kelverdon might fill with 
 benefit to all concerned. A senior partnership was of- 
 fered to him before he was thirty-five ! Sir William left 
 the same night for his steamer, and Tom was to wait 
 at Montreux, perhaps a month, perhaps six weeks, until 
 a personal inspection of the several sites enable the final 
 decision to be made; he was then to follow and take 
 charge of the work itself. 
 
74 The Wave 
 
 Tom was immensely pleased. He wrote to his married 
 sister in her Surrey vicarage, told her the news with a 
 modesty he did not really feel, and sent her a handsome 
 cheque by way of atonement for his bursting pride. 
 
 For simple natures, devoid of a saving introspection and 
 self-criticism, upon becoming unexpectedly successful, 
 easily develop an honest, yet none the less corroding 
 pride. Tom felt himself rather a desirable person 
 suddenly ; by no means negligible at any rate ; pleased and 
 satisfied with himself, if not yet over-weeningly so. His 
 native confidence took this exaggerated turn and twist. 
 His star was in the ascendant, a man to be counted 
 with. . . . 
 
 The hidden weakness rose as all else in him was ris- 
 ing with the Wave. But he did not call it pride, be- 
 cause he did not recognize it. It was akin, perhaps, to 
 that fatuous complacency of the bigoted religionist who, 
 thinking he has discovered absolute truth, looks down 
 from his narrow cell upon the rest of the world with a 
 contemptuous pity that, in itself, is but the ignorance 
 of crass self-delusion. Tom felt very sure of himself. 
 For a rising wave drags up with it the mud and rubbish 
 that have hitherto lain hidden out of sight in the ground 
 below it. Only with the fall do these undesirable ele- 
 ments return to their proper place again where they be- 
 long and are of value. Sense of proportion is recovered 
 only with perspective, and Tom Kelverdon, rising too 
 rapidly began to see himself in disproportionate relation 
 to the rest of life. In his solid, perhaps stolid, way he 
 considered himself a Personality indispensable to no 
 small portion of the world about him. 
 
PART II 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 IT was towards the end of March, and spring was flow- 
 ing down almost visibly from the heights behind the 
 town. April stood on tiptoe in the woods, finger on lip, 
 ready to dance out between the sunshine and the rain^ 
 
 Above four thousand feet the snows of winter still 
 clung thickly, but the lower slopes were clear, men and 
 women already working busily among the dull brown 
 vineyards. The early mist cleared off by ten o'clock, let- 
 ting through floods of sunshine that drenched the world, 
 sparkled above the streets crowded with foreigners from 
 many lands, and lay basking with an appearance of July 
 upon the still, blue lake. The clear brilliance of the light 
 had a quality of crystal. Sea-gulls fluttered along the 
 shores, tame as ducks and eager to be fed. They lent 
 to this inland lake an atmosphere of the sea, and Kelver- 
 don found himself thinking of some southern port, Mar- 
 seilles, Trieste, Toulon. 
 
 In the morning he watched the graceful fishing-boats 
 set forth, and at night, when only the glitter of the lamps 
 painted the gleaming water for a little distance, he saw 
 the swans, their heads tucked back impossibly into the 
 center of their backs, scarcely moving on the unruffled 
 surface as they slept into the night. The first sounds he 
 heard soon after dawn through his wide-opened windows 
 were the whanging strokes of their powerful wings fly- 
 ing low across the misty water; they flew in twos and 
 threes, coming from their nests now building in the 
 marshes beyond Villeneuve. This, and the screaming of 
 the gulls, usually woke him. The summits of Savoy, on 
 the southern shore, wore pink and gold upon their heavy 
 snows ; the sharp air nipped ; far in the west a few stars 
 
 77 
 
78 The Wave 
 
 peeped before they faded; and in the distance he heard 
 the faint, drum-like mutter of a paddle-steamer, remind- 
 ing him that he was in a tourist center after all, and that 
 this was busy, little, organized Switzerland. 
 
 But sometimes it was the beating strokes of the invisi- 
 ble paddle-steamer that woke him, for it seemed some- 
 how a continuation of dreams he could never properly 
 remember. That he had been dreaming busily every 
 night of late he knew as surely as that he instantly forgot 
 these dreams. That muffled drum-like thud, coming 
 nearer and nearer towards him out of the quiet distance, 
 had some connection undecipherable as yet with the 
 curious, dry, rattling sound belonging to the Wave. The 
 two were so dissimilar, however, that he was unable to 
 discover any theory that could harmonize them. Nor, 
 for that matter, did he seek it. He merely registered 
 a mental note, as it were, in passing. The beating and the 
 rattling were associated. 
 
 He chose a small and quiet hotel, as his liking was, 
 and made himself comfortable, for he might have six 
 weeks to wait for Sir William's telegram, or even longer, 
 if, as seemed likely, the summons came by post. And 
 Montreux was a pleasant place in early spring, before the 
 heat and glare of summer scorched the people out of it 
 towards the heights. He took long walks towards the 
 snow-line beyond Les Avants and Les Pleiades, where 
 presently the carpets of narcissus would smother the 
 fields with white as though winter had returned and 
 flung, instead of crystal flakes, a hundred showers of 
 white feathers upon the ground. He discovered paths 
 that led into the whispering woods of pine and chestnut. 
 The young larches wore feathery green upon their crests, 
 primroses shone on slopes where the grass was still pale 
 and dead, snowdrops peeped out beside the wooden 
 fences, and here and there, shining out of the brown de- 
 cay of last year's leaves and thick ground-ivy, he found 
 hepaticas. He had never felt the spring so marvelous 
 
The Wave 79 
 
 before ; it rose in a wave of color out of the sweet brown 
 earth. 
 
 Though outwardly nothing of moment seemed to fill 
 his days, inwardly he was aware of big events maturing. 
 There was this sense of approach, of preparation, of 
 gathering. How insipid external events were after all, 
 compared to the mass, the importance of interior 
 changes ! A change of heart, an altered point of view, a 
 decision taken these were the big events of life. 
 
 Yet it was a pleasant thing to be a senior partner. 
 Here by the quiet lake, stroking himself complacently, 
 he felt that life was very active, very significant, as he 
 wondered what the choice would be. He rather hoped 
 for Egypt, on the whole. He could look up Tony and 
 the birds. They could go after duck and snipe together 
 along the Nile. He would, moreover, be quite an impor- 
 tant man out there. Pride and vanity rose with the 
 Wave in him, but unobserved. For the Wave was in 
 this too. 
 
 One afternoon, late, he returned from a long scramble 
 among icy rocks about the Dent de Jaman, changed his 
 clothes, and sat with a cigarette beside the open window, 
 watching the throng of people underneath. In a steady 
 stream they moved along the front of the lake, their 
 voices rising through the air, their feet producing a dull 
 murmur as of water. The lake was still as glass; gulls 
 asleep on it and patches, and here and there a swan, 
 looking like a bundle of dry white paper, floated idly. 
 Off-shore lay several fishing-boats, becalmed; and far 
 beyond them, a rowing-skiff broke the surface into two 
 lines of widening ripples. They seemed floating in mid- 
 air against the evening glow. The Savoy Alps formed 
 a deep blue rampart, and the serrated battlements of the 
 Dent du Midi, full in the blaze of sunset, blocked the 
 Rhone Valley far away with its formidable barricade. 
 
 He watched the glow of approaching sunset with keen 
 enjoyment; he sat back, listening to the people's voices, 
 
80 The Wave 
 
 the gentle lap of the little waves ; and the pleasant lassi- 
 tude that follows upon hard physical exertion combined 
 with the even pleasanter stimulus of the tea to produce 
 a state of absolute contentment with the world. . . . 
 
 Through the murmur of feet and voices, then, and from 
 far across the water, stole out another sound that intro- 
 duced into his peaceful mood an element of vague dis- 
 quiet. He moved nearer to the window and looked out. 
 The steamer, however, was invisible; the sea of shining 
 haze towards Geneva hid it still : he could not see its out- 
 line. But he heard the echoless mutter of the paddle- 
 wheels, and he knew that it was coming nearer. Yet at 
 first it did not disturb him so much as that, for a moment, 
 he heard no other sound: the voices, the tread of feet, 
 the screaming of the gulls all died away, leaving this sin- 
 gle, distant beating audible alone as though the entire 
 scenery combined to utter it. And, though no ordinary 
 echo answered it, there seemed or did he fancy it? a 
 faint, interior response within himself. The blood in his 
 veins went pulsing in rhythmic unison with this remote 
 hammering upon the water. 
 
 He leaned forward in his chair, watching the people, 
 listening intently, almost as though he expected something 
 to happen, when immediately below him chance left a 
 temporary gap in the stream of pedestrians, and in this 
 gap for a second merely a figure stood sharply defined, 
 cut off from the throng, set by itself, alone. His eyes 
 fixed instantly upon its appearance, movements, attitude. 
 Before he could think or reason he heard himself ex- 
 claim aloud: 
 
 -Why it's " 
 
 He stopped. The rest of the sentence remained un- 
 spoken. The words rushed down again. He swallowed, 
 and with a gulp he ended as though the other pedes- 
 trians all were men 
 
 " a woman !" 
 
 The next thing he knew was that the cigarette was 
 
The Wave 81 
 
 burning his fingers had been burning them for several 
 seconds. The figure melted back into the crowd. The 
 throng closed round her. His eyes searched uselessly ; no 
 space, no gap was visible : the stream of people was con- 
 tinuous once more. Almost, it seemed, he had not really 
 seen her had merely thought her up against the back- 
 ground of his mind. 
 
 For ten minutes, longer perhaps, he sat by that open 
 window with eyes fastened on the moving crowd. His 
 heart was beating oddly ; his breath came rapidly. "She'll 
 pass by presently again/' he thought ; "she'll come back !" 
 He looked alternately to the right and to the left, until, 
 finally, the sinking sun blazed too directly in his eyes for 
 him to see at all. The glare blurred everybody into a 
 smudged line of golden color, and the faces became a 
 series of artificial suns that mocked him. 
 
 He did, then, an unusual thing out of rhythm with 
 his normal self, he acted on impulse. Kicking his slip- 
 pers off,, he quickly put on a pair of boots, took his hat 
 and stick, and went downstairs. There was no reflection 
 in him; he did not pause and ask himself a single ques- 
 tion : he ran to join the throng of people, moved up and 
 down with them, in and out, passing and re-passing the 
 same groups over and over again, but seeing no sign of 
 the particular figure he sought so eagerly. She was 
 dressed in black, he knew, with a black fur boa round her 
 neck: she was slim and rather tall; more than that he 
 could not say. But the poise and attitude, the way the 
 head sat on the shoulders, the tilt upwards of the chin 
 he was as positive of recognizing these as if he had seen 
 her close instead of a hundred yards away. 
 
 The sun was down behind the Jura Mountains before 
 he gave up the search. Sunset slipped insensibly into 
 dusk. The throng thinned out quickly at the first sign 
 of chill. A dozen times he experienced the thrill his 
 heart suddenly arrested of seeing her, but on each occa- 
 sion it proved to be some one else. Every second woman 
 
82 The Wave 
 
 seemed to be dressed in black that afternoon, a loose 
 black boa round the neck. His eyes ached with the strain, 
 the change of focus, the question that burned behind 
 and in them, the joy the strange rich pain. 
 
 But half, at least, of these dull people, he remembered, 
 were birds of passage only; to-morrow or the next day 
 they would take the train. He said to himself a dozen 
 times, "Once more to the end and back again!" For 
 she, too, might be a bird of passage, leaving to-morrow 
 or the next day, leaving that very night, perhaps. The 
 thought afflicted, goaded him. And on getting back to the 
 hotel he searched the Liste des Etrangers as eagerly as 
 he had searched the crowded front and as uselessly, 
 since he did not even know what name he hoped to find. 
 
 But later that evening a change came over him. He 
 surprised some sense of humor : catching it in the act, he 
 also surprised himself a little smiling at himself. The 
 laughter, however, was significant. For it was just that 
 restless interval after dinner when he knew not what 
 to do with the hours until bed-time : whether to sit in his 
 room and think and read, or to visit the principal hotels 
 in the hope of chance discovery. He was even consider- 
 ing this wild-goose chase to himself, when suddenly he 
 realized that his course of procedure was entirely the 
 wrong one. 
 
 This thing was going to happen anyhow, it was inevi- 
 table: but it would happen in its own time and way, 
 and nothing he might do could hurry it. To hunt in 
 this violent manner was to delay its coming. To behave 
 as usual was the proper way. It was then he smiled. 
 
 He crossed the hall instead, and put his head in at the 
 door of the little Lounge. Some Polish people, with 
 whom he had a bowing acquaintance, were in there smok- 
 ing. He had seen them enter, and the Lounge was so 
 small that he could hardly sit in their presence without 
 some effort at conversation. And, feeling in no mood 
 for this, he put his head past the edge of the glass door, 
 
The Wave 83 
 
 glanced round carelessly, as though looking for some 
 one then drew sharply back. For his heart stopped 
 dead an instant, then beat furiously, like a piston sud- 
 denly released. On the sofa, talking calmly to the Polish 
 people, was the figure. He recognized her instantly. 
 
 Her back was turned ; he did not see her face. There 
 was a vast excitement in him that seemed beyond control. 
 He seemed unable to make up his mind. He walked 
 round and round the little hall examining intently the 
 notices upon the walls. The excitement grew into tumult, 
 as though the meeting involved something of immense 
 importance to his inmost self his soul. It was difficult 
 to account for. Then a voice behind him said, "There 
 is a concert to-night. Radwan is playing Chopin. There 
 are tickets in the Bureau still if Monsieur cares to go." 
 He thanked the speaker without turning to show his face : 
 while another voice said passionately within him, "I was 
 wrong; she is slim, but she is not so tall as I thought." 
 And a minute later, without remembering how he got 
 there, he was in his room upstairs, the door shut safely 
 after him, standing before the mirror and staring into his 
 own eyes. Apparently the instinct to see what he looked 
 like operated automatically. For he now remembered 
 realized another thing. Facing the door of the Lounge 
 was a mirror, and their eyes had met. He had gazed 
 for an instant straight into the kind and beautiful Eyes 
 he had first seen twenty years ago in the Wave. 
 
 His behavior then became more normal. He did the 
 little, obvious things that any man would do. He took a 
 clothes-brush and brushed his coat; he pulled his waist- 
 coat down, straightened his black tie and smoothed his 
 hair, poked his hanging watch-chain back into its pocket. 
 Then, drawing a deep breath, and compressing his lips, 
 he opened the door and went downstairs. He even re- 
 membered to turn off the electric light according to hotel 
 instructions. "It's perfectly all right," he thought, as 
 he reached the top of the stairs. "Why shouldn't I? 
 
84 The Wave 
 
 There's nothing unusual about it." He did not take the 
 lift, he preferred action. Reaching the salon floor, he 
 heard voices in the hall below. She was already leaving 
 therefore, the brief visit over. He quickened his pace. 
 There was not the slightest notion in him what he meant 
 to say. It merely struck him that idiotically he had 
 stayed longer in his bedroom than he realized : too long ; 
 he might have missed his chance. The thought urged 
 him forward more rapidly again. 
 
 In the hall he seemed to be there without any in- 
 terval of time he saw her going out ; the swinging doors 
 were closing just behind her. The Polish friends, having 
 said good-by, were already rising past him in the lift. 
 A minute later he was in the street. He realized that, be- 
 cause he felt the cool night air upon his cheeks. He was 
 beside her looking down into her face. 
 
 "May I see you back home to your hotel ?" he heard 
 himself saying. And then the queer voice it must have 
 been his own added abruptly, as though it was all he 
 really had to say: "You haven't forgotten me really. 
 I'm Tommy Tom Kelverdon." 
 
 Her reply, her gesture, what she did and showed of 
 herself in a word, was as queer as in a dream, yet so nat- 
 ural that it simply could not have been otherwise : "Tom 
 Kelverdon ! So it is ! Fancy you being here !" Then : 
 "Thank you very much. And suppose we walk ; it's only 
 a few minutes and quite dry." 
 
 How trivial and commonplace, yet how wonderful ! 
 
 He remembers that she said something to a coachman 
 who immediately drove off, that she moved beside him 
 on this Montreux pavement, that they went up-hill a little, 
 and that, very soon, a brilliant door of glass blazed in 
 front of them, that she had said, "How strange that we 
 should meet again like this. Do come and see me any 
 day just telephone. I'm staying some weeks probably," 
 and he found himself standing in the middle of the 
 road, then walking wildly at a rapid pace downhill he 
 
The Wave 85 
 
 knew not whither, that he was hot and breathless, that 
 stars were shining, and swans, like bundles of white 
 newspaper, were asleep on the lake, and that he had 
 found her. 
 
 He had walked and talked with Lettice. He bumped 
 into more than one irate pedestrian before he realized 
 it; they knew it better than he did, apparently. "It was 
 Lettice Aylmer, Lettice . . ." he kept saying to himself. 
 "I've found her. She shook hands with me. That was 
 her voice, her touch, her perfume. She's here here in 
 little Montreux for several weeks. After all these 
 years! Can it be true really true at last? She said I 
 might telephone might go and see her. She's glad to 
 see me again." 
 
 How often he paced the entire length of the deserted 
 front beside the lake he did not count : it must have been 
 many times, for the hotel door, which closed at midnight, 
 was locked and the night-porter let him in. He went to 
 bed if there was rose in the eastern sky and upon the 
 summits of the Dent du Midi, he did not notice it. He 
 dropped into a half-sleep in which thought continued but 
 not wearingly. The excitement of his nerves relaxed, 
 soothed and mothered by something far greater than his 
 senses, stronger than his rushing blood. This greater 
 Rhythm took charge of him most comfortably. He fell 
 back into the mighty arms of something that was rising 
 irresistibly something inevitable and half-familiar. It 
 had long been gathering ; there was no need to ask a thou- 
 sand questions, no need to fight it anywhere. From the 
 moment when he glanced idly into the Lounge, he had 
 been aware of it. It had driven him downstairs without 
 reflection, as it had driven him also uphill till the blazing 
 door was reached. He smelt it, heard it, saw it, touched 
 it. It was the Wave. 
 
 Time certainly proved its unreality that night; the 
 hours seemed both endless and absurdly brief. His mind 
 flew round and round in a circle, lingering over every 
 
86 The Wave 
 
 detail of the short interview with a tumultuous pleasure 
 that hid pain very thinly. He felt afraid, felt himself on 
 the brink of plunging headlong into a gigantic whirlpool. 
 Yet he wanted to plunge. ... He would. ... He had 
 to. ... It was irresistible. 
 
 He reviewed the scene, holding each detail forcibly 
 still, until the last delight had been sucked out of it. 
 At first he remembered next to nothing a blur, a haze, 
 the houses flying past him, no feeling of pavement under 
 his feet, but only her voice saying nothing in particular, 
 her touch, as he sometimes drew involuntarily against her 
 arm, her eyes shining up at him. For her eyes remained 
 the chief impression perhaps so kind, so true, so very 
 sweet and frank soft Irish eyes with something mys- 
 terious and semi-eastern in them. The conversation 
 seemed to have entirely escaped recovery. 
 
 Then, one by one, he remembered things that she had 
 said. Sentences offered themselves of their own accord. 
 He flung himself upon them, trying to keep tight hold 
 of their first meaning before he filled them with sig- 
 nificance of his own. It was a desperate business alto- 
 gether; emotion distorted her simple words so quickly. 
 "I was thinking of you only to-day. I had the feeling 
 you were here. Curious, wasn't it?" He distinctly re- 
 membered her saying this. And then another sentence: 
 "I should have known you anywhere; though, of course, 
 you've changed a lot. But I knew your eyes. Eyes don't 
 change much, do they?" The meanings he read into 
 these simple phrases filled an hour at least; he lost en- 
 tirely their simple first significance. But this last remark 
 brought up another in its train. As the tram went past 
 them she had raised her voice a little and looked up into 
 his face it was just then they had cannonaded. People 
 who like one another always cannonade, he reflected. 
 And her remark "Ah, it comes back to me. You're so 
 very like your sister, Mary. I've seen her several times 
 
The Wave 87 
 
 since the days in Cavendish Square. There's a strong 
 family likeness/' 
 
 He disliked the last part of the sentence. Mary, be- 
 sides, had mentioned nothing; her rare letters made no 
 reference to it. The schooldays' friendship had evapo- 
 rated perhaps. This sent his thoughts back upon the 
 early trail of those distant months when Lettice was at 
 a Finishing School in France and he had kept that tragic 
 Calendar. . . . 
 
 Another sentence interrupted them: "I had, oddly 
 enough, been thinking of you this very afternoon. I 
 knew you the moment you put your head in at the door, 
 but, for the life of me, I couldn't get the name. All I 
 got was 'Tommy !' " And only his sense of humor pre- 
 vented the obvious rejoinder, "I wish you would always 
 call me that." It struck him sharply. Such talk could 
 have no part in a meeting of this kind ; the idea of flirta- 
 tion was impossible, not even thought of. Yet twice she 
 had said "I was thinking of you only to-day!" 
 
 But other things came back as well. It was strange 
 how much they had really said to each other in those few 
 brief minutes. Next day he retraced the way and discov- 
 ered that, even walking quickly, it took him a good half 
 hour; yet they had walked slowly, even leisurely. But, 
 try as he would, he was unable to force deeper meanings 
 into these other remarks that he recalled. She was evi- 
 dently pleased to see him, that at least was certain, for 
 she had asked him to come and see her, and she meant it. 
 He remembered his reply, "I'll come to-morrow may 
 I ?" and then abruptly realized for the first time that the 
 plunge was taken. He felt himself committed, sink or 
 swim. The Wave already had lifted him off his feet. 
 
 And it was on this his whirling thoughts came down 
 to rest at last, and sleep crept over him just as dawn 
 was breaking. He felt himself in the "sea" with Lettice, 
 there was nothing he could do, no course to choose, no 
 decision to be made. Though married, she was somehow 
 
88 The Wave 
 
 free he felt it in her attitude. That sense of fatalism 
 known in boyhood took charge of him. The Wave was 
 rising towards the moment when it must invariably break 
 and fall, and every impulse in him rising in it without 
 a shade of denial or resistance. It would hurt the fall 
 and break would cause atrocious pain. But it was some- 
 where necessary to him. No atom of him held back or 
 hesitated. For there was joy beyond it somehow an in- 
 tense and lasting joy, like the joy that belongs to growth 
 and development after accepted suffering. 
 
 Vaguely not put into definite words it was this he 
 felt, when at length sleep took him. Yet just before he 
 slept he remembered two other little details and smiled 
 to himself as they rose before his sleepy mind, yet not 
 understanding exactly why he smiled : for he did not 
 yet know her name and there was, of course, a husband. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THIS resumption of a childhood's acquaintance that, 
 by one at least, had been imaginatively coaxed into 
 a relationship of ideal character, at once took on a stand- 
 ing of its own. It started as from a new beginning. 
 
 Tom Kelverdon did not forget the childhood part, but 
 he neglected it at first. It was as if he met now for the 
 first time a woman who charmed him beyond anything 
 known before ; he longed for her ; that he had longed for 
 her subconsciously these twenty years slipped somehow 
 or other out of memory. With it slipped also those 
 strange corroborative details that imagination had clung 
 to so tenaciously during the interval. The Whiff, the 
 Sound, the other pair of Eyes, the shuffling feet, the joy 
 that cloaked the singular prophecy of pain all these, if 
 not entirely forgotten, ceased to intrude themselves. 
 Even when looking into her clear, dark eyes, he no longer 
 quite realized them as the "eastern eyes" of his dim, dim 
 dream ; they belonged to a woman, and a married woman, 
 whom he desired with body, heart and soul. Calm intro- 
 spection was impossible, he could only feel, and feel in- 
 tensely. He could not fuse this girl and woman into 
 one continuous picture: each was a fragment of some 
 much older, larger picture. But this larger canvas he 
 could never visualize successfully. It was colored, radi- 
 ant, gorgeous ; it blazed as with gold, a gold of sun and 
 stars. But the strain of effort caused rupture instantly. 
 The vaster memory escaped him. He was conscious of 
 reserve. 
 
 The comedy of telephoning to a name he did not know 
 was obviated next morning by the arrival of a note: 
 "Dear Tom Kelverdon," it began, and was signed 
 
 89 
 
90 The Wave 
 
 "Yours, Lettice Jaretzka." It invited him to come up 
 for dejeuner in her hotel. He went. The luncheon led 
 naturally to a walk together afterwards, and then to 
 other luncheons and other walks, to evening rows upon 
 the lake, and to excursions into the surrounding country. 
 . . . They had tea together in the lower mountain inns, 
 picked flowers, photographed one another, laughed, 
 talked and sat side by side at concerts or in the little 
 Montreux cinema theater. It was all as easy and natural 
 as any innocent companionship well could be because 
 it was so deep. The foundations were of such solid 
 strength that nothing on the surface trembled. . . . 
 Madame de Jaretzka was well known in the hotel she 
 came annually, it seemed, about this time and made a 
 lengthy stay but no breath of anything untoward could 
 ever be connected with her. He, too, was accepted by 
 one and all, no glances came their way. He was her 
 friend : that was apparently enough. And though he 
 desired her, body, heart and soul, he was quick to realize 
 that the first named in the trio had no role to play. 
 Something in her, something of attitude and atmosphere, 
 rendered it inconceivable. The reserve he was conscious 
 of lay very deep in him ; it lay in her too. There was a 
 fence, a barrier he must not, could not pass both recog- 
 nized it. Being a man, romance for him drew some ten- 
 dril doubtless from the creative physical, but the shade 
 of passing disappointment, if it existed, was renounced 
 as instantly as recognized. Yet he was not aware at first 
 of any incompleteness in her. He felt only a bigger 
 thing. There was something in this simple woman that 
 bore him to the stars. 
 
 For simple she undoubtedly was, not in the way of 
 shallowness, but because her nature seemed at harmony 
 with itself : uncomplex, natural, frank and open, and 
 with an unconventional carelessness that did no evil for 
 the reason that she thought and meant none. She could 
 do things that must have made an ordinary worldly 
 
The Wave 91 
 
 woman the center of incessant talk and scandal. There 
 was, indeed, an extraordinary innocence about her that 
 perturbed the judgment, somewhat baffling it. Whereas 
 with many women it might have roused the suspicion 
 of being a pose, an affectation, with her, Tom felt, it 
 was a genuine innocence, beyond words delightful and 
 refreshing. And it arose, he soon discovered, from the 
 fact that, being good and true herself, she thought every- 
 body else was also good and true. This he realized be- 
 fore two days' intercourse had made it seem as if they 
 had been together always and were made for one an- 
 other. Something bigger and higher than he had ever 
 felt before stirred in him for this woman, whom he 
 thought of now invariably as Madame de Jaretzka, 
 rather than as Lettice of his younger dream. If she 
 woke something nobler in him that had slept, he did not 
 label it as such: nor, if a portion of his younger dream 
 was fulfilling itself before his eyes, in a finer set of 
 terms, did he think it out and set it down in definite 
 words. There was this intense and intimate familiarity 
 between them both, but somehow he did not call it by 
 these names. He just thought her wonderful and 
 longed for her. The reserve began to trouble him. . . . 
 
 "It's sweet," she said, "when real people come together 
 find each other." 
 
 "Again," he added. "You left that out. For I've 
 never forgotten all these years." 
 
 She laughed. "Well, I'll tell you the truth," she con- 
 fessed frankly. "I hadn't forgotten either; I often 
 thought of you and wondered " 
 
 "What I was like now?" 
 
 "What you were doing, where you were," she said. "I 
 always knew what you were like. But I often wondered 
 how far on you had got." 
 
 "You had no news of me?" 
 
 "None. But I always believed you'd do something big 
 in the world." 
 
92 The Wave 
 
 Something in her voice or manner made it wholly natu- 
 ral for him to tell her of his boyhood love. He mentioned 
 the Wave and wavy feeling, the nightmare too, but when 
 he tried to go beyond that, something checked him; he 
 felt a sudden shyness. It "sounds so silly," was his 
 thought. "But I always know a real person," he said 
 aloud, "anybody who's going to be real in my life ; they 
 always arrive on a wave, as it were. My wavy feeling 
 announces them." And the interest with which she re- 
 sponded prevented his regretting having made his con- 
 fession. 
 
 "It's an instinct, I think," she agreed, "and instincts 
 are meant to be listened to. I've had something similar, 
 though with me it's not a wave." Her voice grew slower, 
 she made a pause; when he looked up her eyes were 
 gazing across the lake as though in a moment of sudden 
 absent-mindedness. . . . "And what's yours?" he asked, 
 wondering why his heart was beating as though some- 
 thing painful was to be disclosed. 
 
 "I see a stream," she went on slowly, still gazing away 
 from him across the expanse of shining water, "a flow- 
 ing stream with faces on it. They float down with the 
 current. And when I see one I know it's somebody real 
 real to me. The unreal faces are always on the bank. 
 I pass them by." 
 
 "You've seen mine?" he asked, unable to hide the 
 eagerness. "My face?" 
 
 "Often, yes," she told him simply. "I dream it usu- 
 ally, I think: but it's quite vivid." 
 
 "And is that all? You just see the faces floating down 
 with the current?" 
 
 "There's one other thing," she answered, "if you'll 
 promise not to laugh." 
 
 "Oh, I won't laugh," he assured her. "I'm awfully 
 interested. It's no funnier than my Wave, anyhow." 
 
 "They're faces I have to save," she said. "Somehow 
 I'm meant to rescue them." In what way she did not 
 
The Wave 93 
 
 know. "Just keep them above water, I suppose !" And 
 the smile in her face gave place to a graver look. The 
 stream of faces was real to her in the way his Wave was 
 real. There was meaning in it. "Only three weeks ago," 
 she added, "I saw you like that." He asked where it 
 was, and she told him Warsaw. They compared notes; 
 they had been in the town together, it turned out. Their 
 outer paths had been converging for some time, then. 
 
 "Why did you leave?" he asked suddenly. He 
 wanted to ask why she was there at all, but something 
 stopped him. 
 
 "I usually come here," she said quietly, "about this 
 time. It's restful. There's peace in these quiet hills 
 above the town, and the lake is soothing. I get strength 
 and courage here." 
 
 He glanced at her with astonishment a moment. Be- 
 hind the simple language another meaning flashed. There 
 was a look in the eyes, a hint in the voice that betrayed 
 her. . . . He waited, but she said no more. Not that 
 she wished to conceal, but that she did not wish to speak 
 of something. Warsaw meant pain for her, she came 
 here to rest, to recuperate after a time of stress and 
 struggle, he felt. And looking at the face he recognized 
 for the first time that behind its quiet strength there lay 
 deep pain and sadness, yet accepted pain and sadness con- 
 quered, a suffering she had turned to sweetness. With- 
 out a particle of proof, he yet felt sure of this. And an 
 immense respect woke in him. He saw her saving, res- 
 cuing others, regardless of herself: he felt the floating 
 faces real; the stream was life her life. . . . And, side 
 by side with the deep respect, the bigger, higher impulse 
 stirred in him again. Name it he could not : it just came : 
 it stole into him like some rare and exquisite new 
 fragrance, and it came from her. . . . He saw her far 
 above him, stooping down from a higher level to reach 
 him with her little hand. . . . He knew a yearning, to 
 climb up to her a sudden and searching yearning in his 
 
94 The Wave 
 
 soul. "She's come back to fetch me," ran across his 
 mind before he realized it; and suddenly his heart be- 
 came so light that he thought he had never felt such hap- 
 piness before. Then, before he realized it, he heard him- 
 self saying aloud from his heart: 
 
 "You do me an awful lot of good really you do. I 
 feel better and happier when I'm with you. I feel " 
 He broke off, aware that he was talking rather foolishly. 
 Yet the boyish utterance was honest; she did not think 
 it foolish apparently. For she replied at once, and with- 
 out a sign of lightness : 
 
 "Do I ?" Then I mustn't leave you, Tom !" 
 
 "Never!" he exclaimed impetuously. 
 
 "Until I've saved you." And this time she did not 
 laugh. 
 
 She was still looking away from him across the water, 
 and the tone was quiet and unaccented. But the words 
 rang like a clarion in his mind. He turned; she turned 
 too : their eyes met in a brief but penetrating gaze. And 
 for an instant he caught an expression that frightened 
 him, though he could not understand its meaning. Her 
 beauty struck him like a sheet of fire all over. He saw 
 gold about her like the soft fire of the southern stars. 
 With any other woman, at any other time, he would 
 but the thought utterly denied itself before it was half 
 completed even. It sank back as though ashamed. There 
 was something in her that made it ugly, out of rhythm, 
 undesirable, and undesired. She would not respond she 
 would not understand. 
 
 In its place another blazed up with that strange, big 
 yearning at the back of it, and though he gazed at her 
 as a man gazes at a woman he needs and asks for, her 
 quiet eyes did not lower or turn aside. The cheaper 
 feeling, "I'm not worthy of you," took in his case a 
 stronger form: "I'll be better, bigger, for you." And 
 then, so gently it might have been a mother's action, she 
 put her hand on his with firm pressure, and left it lying 
 
The Wave 95 
 
 there a moment before she withdrew it again. Her long 
 white glove, still fastened about the wrist, was flung 
 back so that it left the palm and fingers bare, and the 
 touch of the soft skin upon his own was marvelous ; yet 
 he did not attempt to seize it, he made no movement in 
 return. He kept control of himself in a way he^ did not 
 understand. He just sat and looked into her face. There 
 was an entire absence of response from her in one sense. 
 Something poured from her eyes into his very soul, but 
 something beautiful, uplifting. This new yearning emo- 
 tion rose through him like a wave, bearing him upwards. 
 ... At the same time he was vaguely aware of 
 a lack as well ... of something incomplete and un- 
 awakened. . . . 
 
 "Thank you for saying that," he was murmuring; "I 
 shall never forget it ;" and though the suppressed passion 
 changed the tone and made it tremble even, he held him- 
 self as rigid as a statue. It was she who moved. She 
 leaned nearer to him. Like a flower the wind bends on 
 its graceful stalk, her face floated very softly against his 
 own. She kissed him. It was all very swift and sudden. 
 But, though exquisite, it was not a woman's kiss. . . . 
 The same instant she was sitting straight again, gazing 
 across the blue lake below her. 
 
 "You're still a boy," she said, with a little innocent 
 laugh, "still a wonderful, big boy." 
 
 "Your boy," he returned. "I always have been." 
 
 There was deep, deep joy in his heart, it lifted him 
 above the world with her. Yet with the joy there was 
 this faint touch of disappointment too. 
 
 "But, I say isn't it awfully strange?" he went on, 
 words failing him absurdly. "It's very wonderful, this 
 friendship. It's so natural." Then he began to flush and 
 stammer. 
 
 In an even tone of voice she answered : "It's wonder- 
 ful, Tom, but it's not strange." And again he was 
 
96 The Wave 
 
 vaguely aware that something which might have made 
 her words yet more convincing was not there. 
 
 "But I've got that curious feeling I could swear it's 
 all happened before." He moved closer as he spoke ; her 
 dress was actually against his coat, but he could not touch 
 her. Something made it impossible, wrong, a false, even 
 a petty thing. It would have taken away the kiss. "Have 
 you?" he asked abruptly, with an intensity that seemed 
 to startle her, "have you got that feeling of familiarity 
 too?" 
 
 And for a moment in the middle of their talk they both, 
 for some reason, grew very thoughtful. . . . 
 
 "It had to be perhaps," she answered simply a little 
 later. "We are both real, so I suppose yes, it has to 
 be." 
 
 There was the definite feeling that both spoke of a 
 bigger thing that neither quite understood. Their eyes 
 searched, but their hearts searched too. There was a 
 gap in her that somehow must be filled, Tom felt. . . . 
 They stared long at one another. He was close upon the 
 missing thing when suddenly she withdrew her eyes. 
 And with that, as though a wave had swept them to- 
 gether and passed on, the conversation abruptly changed 
 its key. They fell to talking of other things. The man 
 in him was again aware of disappointment. 
 
 The change was quite natural, nothing forced or awk- 
 ward about it. The significance had gone its way, but 
 the results remained. They were in the "sea" together. 
 It "had to be." As from the beginning of the world 
 they belonged to one another, each for the other real. 
 There was nothing about it of a text-book "love affair," 
 absolutely nothing. Deeper far than a passional relation- 
 ship, guiltless of any fruit of mere propinquity, the foun- 
 dations of the sudden intimacy were as ancient as im- 
 movable. The inevitable touch lay in it. And Tom 
 knew this partly confirmed, at any rate, by the emotion 
 in him when she said "my boy," for the term woke no 
 
The Wave 97 
 
 annoyance, conveyed no lightness. Yet there was a flavor 
 of disappointment in it somewhere something of neces- 
 sary value that he missed in her. ... To a man in love 
 it must have sounded superior, contemptuous: whereas 
 to him it sounded merely true. He was her boy. This 
 mother-touch was in her. To care, to cherish, somehow 
 even to rescue, she had come to find him out again. She 
 had come back. ... It was thus, at first, he felt it. From 
 somewhere above, beyond the place where he now stood 
 in life, she had "come back, come down, to fetch him." 
 She was further on than he was. He longed to stand 
 beside her. Until he did . . . this gap in her must pre- 
 vent absolute union. On both sides it was not entirely 
 natural as yet. . . . Thought grew confused in him. 
 
 And, though he could not understand, he accepted it 
 as inevitable. The joy, moreover, was so urgent and up- 
 rising, that it smothered a delicate whisper that yet came 
 with it that the process involved also pain. Though 
 aware, from time to time, of this vague uneasiness, he 
 easily brushed it aside. It was the merest gossamer 
 thread of warning that with each recurrent appearance 
 became more tenuous, until finally it ceased to make its 
 presence felt at all. . . . 
 
 In the entire affair of this sudden intercourse he felt 
 the Wave, yet the Wave though steadily rising, ceased 
 to make its presence too consciously known ; the Whiff, 
 the Sound, the Eyes seemed equally forgotten: that is, 
 he did not realize them. He was living now, and intro- 
 spection was a waste of time, living too intensely to re- 
 flect or analyze. He felt swept onwards upon a tide 
 that was greater than he could manage, for instead of 
 swimming consciously, he was borne and carried with it. 
 There was certainly no attempt to stem. Life was rising. 
 It rushed him forwards too deliciously to think. . . . 
 
 He began asking himself the old eternal question : 
 "Do I love? Am I in love at last, then?" . . . Some 
 time passed, however, before he realized that he loved, 
 
98 The Wave 
 
 and it was in a sudden, curious way that this realization 
 came. Two little words conveyed the truth some days 
 later as they were at tea on the verandah of her hotel, 
 watching the sunset behind the blue line of the Jura 
 Mountains. He had been talking about himself, his engi- 
 neering prospects rather proudly his partnership and 
 the letter he expected daily from Sir William. "I hope 
 it will be Assouan," he said, "I've never been in Egypt. 
 I'm awfully keen to see it."- She said she hoped so too. 
 She knew Egypt well : it enchanted, even enthralled her : 
 "familiar as though I'd lived there all my life. A change 
 comes over me, I become a different person and a much 
 older one; not physically," she explained with a curious 
 shy gaze at him, "but in the sense that I feel a longer 
 pedigree behind me." She gave the little laugh that so 
 often accompanied her significant remarks. "I always 
 think of the Nile as the 'stream' where I see the floating 
 faces." 
 
 They went on chatting for some minutes about it. Tom 
 asked if she had met his cousin out there; yes, she re- 
 membered vaguely a Mr. Winslowe coming to tea on her 
 dahabieh once, but it was only when he described Tony 
 more closely that she recalled him positively. "He inter- 
 ested me," she said then: "he talked wildly, but rather 
 picturesquely about what he called the 'spiral movement 
 of life,' or something." "He goes after birds," Tom men- 
 tioned. "Of course," she replied, "I remember distinctly 
 now. It was something about the flight of birds that in- 
 troduced the spiral part of it. He had a good deal in 
 him, that man," she added, "but he hid it behind a lot 
 of nonsense almost purposely, I felt." 
 
 "That's Tony all over," Tom assented, "but he's a rare 
 good sort and I'm awfully fond of him. He's 'real' in 
 our sense too, I think." 
 
 She said then very slowly, as though her thoughts were 
 far away in Egypt at the moment : "Yes, I think he is. 
 I've seen his face too." 
 
The Wave 99 
 
 "Floating down, you mean or on the bank?" 
 
 "Floating," she answered. "I'm sure I have." 
 
 Tom laughed happily. "Then you've got him to rescue 
 too/' he said. "But, remember, if we're both drowning, 
 I come first." 
 
 She looked into his face and smiled her answer, touch- 
 ing his fingers with her hand. And again it was not a 
 woman's touch. 
 
 "He was in Warsaw too a few weeks ago," Tom went 
 on. "So we were all three there together. Rather odd, 
 you know. He was ski-ing with me in the Carpathians," 
 and he described their meeting at Zakopane after the 
 long interval since boyhood. "He told me about you in 
 Egypt, too, now I come to think of it. He mentioned the 
 dahabieh, but called you a Russian yes, I remember 
 now and a Russian Princess into the bargain. Evi- 
 dently you made less impression on Tony than " 
 
 It was then he stopped as though he had been struck. 
 The idle conversation changed. He heard her interrupt- 
 ing words from a curious distance. They fell like par- 
 ticles of ice upon his heart. 
 
 "Polish, of course, not Russian," she mentioned casu- 
 ally, "but the rest is right, though I never use the title. 
 My husband, in his own country, is a Prince, you see." 
 
 Something reeled in him, then instantly righted itself. 
 For a moment he felt as though the freedom of their in- 
 tercourse had received a shock that blighted it. The 
 words, "my husband," struck chill and ominous into his 
 heart. The recovery, however almost simultaneous 
 showed him that both the freedom and the intercourse 
 were right and unashamed. She gave him nothing that 
 belonged to any other: she was loyal and true to that 
 other as she was loyal and true to himself. Their rela- 
 tionship was high above mere passional intrigue ; it could 
 exist in the way she knew it, felt it side by side with 
 that other one, before that other one's very eyes, if need 
 be. ... He saw it true : he saw it innocent as daylight. 
 
ioo The Wave 
 
 . . . For what he felt was somehow this : the woman in 
 her was not his, but more than that it was not anyone's. 
 It still lay dormant. . . . 
 
 If there was a momentary confusion in his own mind, 
 there was none, he felt positive, in hers. The two words 
 that struck him such a blow, she uttered as lightly, in- 
 nocently, as the rest of the talk between them. Indeed, 
 had that other even in thought Tom preferred the para- 
 phrase been present, she would have introduced them 
 to each other then and there. He heard her saying the 
 little phrases even: "My husband," and, "This is Tom 
 Kelverdon whom I've loved since childhood." 
 
 Nothing brought more home to him the high innocence, 
 the purity and sweetness of this woman than the reflec- 
 tions that flung after one another in his mind as he 
 realized that his hope of her being a widow was not jus- 
 tified, and at the same moment that he desired exclusive 
 possession of her that he was definitely in love. 
 
 That she was unaware of any discovery, even if she 
 divined the storm in him at all, was clear from the way 
 she went on speaking. For, while all this flashed through 
 his mind, she added quietly: "He is in Warsaw now. 
 He lives there. I go to him for part of every year." 
 To which Tom heard his voice reply something as natural 
 and commonplace as "Yes I see." 
 
 Of the hundred pregnant questions that presented 
 themselves, he did not ask a single one : not that he lacked 
 the courage so much as that he felt the right was not 
 yet his. Moreover, behind her quiet words he divined 
 a tragedy. The suffering that had become sweetness in 
 her face was half explained, but the full revelation of it 
 belonged to "that other" and to herself alone. It had 
 been their secret, he remembered, for at least fifteen years. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 YET, knowing himself in love, he was able to set his 
 house in order. Confusion disappeared. With the 
 method and thoroughness of his character he looked 
 things in the face and put them where they belonged. 
 Even to wake up to an untidy room was an affliction. He 
 might arrive in a hotel at midnight, but he could not sleep 
 until his trunks were empty and everything in its place. 
 In such outer details the intensity of his nature showed 
 itself : it was the intensity, indeed, that compelled the 
 orderliness. 
 
 And the morning after this conversation, he woke up 
 to an ordered mind thoughts and emotions in their 
 proper places where he could see and lay his hand upon 
 them. The strength and weakness of his temperament 
 betrayed themselves plainly here, for the security that 
 pedantic order brought precluded the perspective of a 
 larger vision. This careful labeling enclosed him within 
 somewhat rigid fences. To insist upon this precise ticket- 
 ing had its perilous corollary; the entire view perspec- 
 tive, proportion was lost sight of. 
 
 "I'm in love : she's beautiful, body, mind and soul. 
 She's high above me, but I'll climb up to where she is." 
 This was his morning thought, and the thought that ac- 
 companied him all day long and every day until the mo- 
 ment came to separate again. . . . She's a married 
 woman, but her husband has no claim on her." Some- 
 how he was positive of that; the husband had forfeited 
 all claim to her; details he did not know; but she was 
 free ; she did no wrong. 
 
 In imagination he furnished plausible details from sen- 
 sational experiences life had shown him. These may 
 
 101 
 
102 The Wave 
 
 have been right or wrong; possibly the husband had ill- 
 treated, then deserted her ; they were separated possibly, 
 though she had told him this there were no children 
 to complicate the situation. He made his guesses. . . . 
 There was a duty, however, that she would not, did not 
 neglect: in fulfilment of its claim she went to Warsaw 
 every year. What it was, of course, he did not know ; 
 but this thought and the emotions caused by it, he put 
 away into their proper places ; he asked no questions of 
 her; the matter did not concern him really. The shock 
 experienced the day before was the shock of realizing 
 that he loved. Those two significant words had sud- 
 denly shown it to him. The order of his life was changed. 
 "She is essential to me; I am essential to her." But 
 "She's all the world to me" involved equally "I'm all the 
 world to her." The sense of his own importance was 
 enormously increased. The Wave surged upwards with 
 a sudden leap. . . . 
 
 There was one thing lacking in this love, perhaps, 
 though he hardly noticed it the element of surprise. 
 Ever since childhood he had suspected this would happen. 
 The love was predestined, and in so far seemed a de- 
 liberate affair, pedestrian, almost calm. This sense of 
 the inevitable robbed it of that amazing unearthly 
 glamour which steals upon those who love for the first 
 time, taking them deliciously by surprise. He saw her 
 beautiful, and probably she was, but her beauty was fa- 
 miliar to him. He had come up with the childhood dream, 
 and in coming up with it he recognized it. It seemed 
 thus somewhat. . . . But her mind and soul were beauti- 
 ful too, only these were more beautiful than he had 
 dreamed. In that lay surprise and wonder too. There 
 was genuine magic here, discovery and exhilarating nov- 
 elty. He had not caught up with that. The love as a 
 whole, however, was expected, natural. It was inevitable. 
 The familiarity, alone, remained strange, a flavor of the 
 uncanny about it almost yet certainly real. 
 
The Wave 103 
 
 And these things also he tried to face and label, though 
 with less success. To bring order into them was beyond 
 his powers. She had outstripped him somehow in her 
 soul, but had come back to fetch him also to get some- 
 thing for herself she lacked. The rest was oddly fa- 
 miliar : it had happened before. It was about to happen 
 now again, but on a higher level; only before it could 
 happen completely he must overtake her. The spiral idea 
 lay in it somewhere. But the Wave contained and drove 
 it. ... His mind was not supple; analogy, that spir- 
 itual solvent, did not help him. Yet the fact remained 
 that he somehow visualized the thing in picture form; 
 a rising wave bore them charging up the spiral curve 
 to a point whence they both looked down upon a passage 
 they had made before. She was always a little in front 
 of him, beyond him. But when the Wave finally broke 
 they would rush together become one . . . there would 
 be pain, but joy would follow. 
 
 And during all their subsequent, happy days of com- 
 panionship this one thing alone marred his supreme con- 
 tentment this sense of elusiveness, that while he held 
 her she yet slipped between his fingers and escaped. He 
 loved ; but whereas to most men love brings a feeling of 
 finality and rest, as of a search divinely ended, to Tom 
 came the feeling that his search was merely resumed, or, 
 indeed, had only just begun. He had not come into full 
 possession of this woman : he had only found her. . . . 
 She was deep ; her deceptive simplicity hid surprises from 
 him; much and it was the greater part he could not 
 understand. Only when he came up with that would pos- 
 session be complete. Not that she said or did a single 
 thing that suggested this ; she was not elusive of set pur- 
 pose ; she was entirely guiltless of any desire to hold back 
 a fraction of herself, and to conceal was as foreign to her 
 nature as to play with him ; but that some part of her hung 
 high above his reach and that he, knowing this, admitted 
 a subtle pain behind the joy. "I can't get at her quite/' 
 
104 The Wave 
 
 he put it to himself. "Some part of her is not mine yet 
 doesn't belong to me." 
 
 He thought chiefly, that is, of his own possible disa- 
 bilities rather than of hers. 
 
 "I often wonder why we've come together like this," 
 he said once, as they lay in the shade of a larch wood 
 above Corvaux and looked towards the snowy summits of 
 Savoy. "What brought us together, I mean? There's 
 something mysterious about it to me " 
 
 "God," she said quietly. "You needed me. You've 
 been lonely. But you'll never be lonely again." 
 
 Her introduction of the Deity into a conversation did 
 not displease. Fate or any similar word could have taken 
 its place; she merely conveyed her sense that their com- 
 ing together was right and inevitable. Moreover, now 
 that she said it, he recognized the fact of loneliness that 
 he always had been lonely, but that it was no longer pos- 
 sible. He felt like a boy and spoke like a boy. She had 
 come to look after, care for him. She asked nothing for 
 herself. The thought gave him a sharp and sudden pang. 
 
 "But my love means a lot to you, doesn't it?" he asked 
 tenderly. "I mean, you need me too?" 
 
 "Everything, Tom," she told him softly. He was con- 
 scious of the mother in her, as though the mother over- 
 shadowed the woman. But while he loved it, the tinge 
 of resentment still remained. 
 
 "You couldn't do without me, could you?" He took 
 the hand she placed upon his knee and looked up into her 
 quiet eyes. "You'd be lonely too if I went?" 
 
 For a moment she gazed down at him and did not 
 answer; he was aware of both the pain and sweetness in 
 her face; an interval of thoughtfulness again descended 
 on them both: then a great tenderness came welling up 
 into her eyes as she answered slowly : "You couldn't go, 
 Tom. You couldn't leave me ever." 
 
 Her hand was on his shoulder, almost about his neck 
 as she said it, and he came in closer, and before he knew 
 
The Wave 105 
 
 what he was doing his face was buried in her lap. Her 
 hand stroked his hair. Twenty-five years dropped from 
 him he was a child again, a little boy, and she, in some 
 gigantic, half-impersonal sense he could not understand, 
 was mothering him. No foolish feeling of shame came 
 with it ; the mood was too sudden for analysis, it passed 
 away swiftly too ; but he knew, for a brief second, all 
 the sensations of a restless and dissatisfied boy who 
 needed above all else comfort : the comfort that only an 
 inexhaustible mother-love could give. . . . And this 
 love poured from her in a flood. Till now he had never 
 known it, nor known the need of it. And because it had 
 been curiously lacking he suddenly wondered how he had 
 done without it. A strange sense of tears rose in his 
 heart. He felt pain and tragedy somewhere. For there 
 was another thing he wanted from her too. . . . Through 
 the sparkle of his joy peeped out that familiar, strange, 
 rich pain, but so swiftly he hardly recognized it. It with- 
 drew again. It vanished. 
 
 "But you couldn't leave me, either, could you?" he 
 asked, sitting erect again. He made a movement as 
 though to draw her head down upon his shoulder in the 
 protective way of a man who loves, but he could not do 
 it. It was curious. She did nothing to prevent, only 
 somehow the position would be a false one. She did not 
 need him in that way. He was not yet big enough to pro- 
 tect. It was she who protected him. And when she an- 
 swered the same second, the familiar sentence flashed 
 across his mind again : "She has come back to fetch me." 
 
 "I shall never, never leave you, Tom. We're together 
 for always. I know it absolutely." The girl of seventeen, 
 the unawakened woman who was desired, the mother 
 who thought not of herself, all three spoke in those 
 quiet words; but with them, too, he was aware of this 
 elusive other thing he could not name. Perhaps her eyes 
 conveyed it, perhaps the pain and sweetness in the little 
 face so close above his own. She was bending over him. 
 
io6 The Wave 
 
 He looked up. And over his heart rushed again that in- 
 tolerable yearning the yearning to stand where she 
 stood, far, far beyond him, yet with it the certainty that 
 pain must attend the effort. Until that pain, that effort 
 were accomplished, she could not entirely belong to him. 
 He had to win her yet. Yet also he had to teach her 
 something. . . . Meanwhile, in the act of protecting, 
 mothering him she must use pain, as to a learning child. 
 Their love would gain completeness only thus. 
 
 Yet in words he could not approach it; he knew not 
 how to. 
 
 "It's a strange relationship," he stammered, concealing 
 as he thought the deep emotions that perplexed him. 
 "The world would misunderstand it utterly." She smiled, 
 
 nodding her head. "I wish " he added, "I mean it 
 
 comes to me sometimes that you don't need me quite as 
 I need you. You're my whole life, you know now." 
 
 "You're growing imaginative, Tom," she teased him, 
 smilingly. Then, catching the earnest expression in his 
 face, she added : "My life has been very full, you see, 
 and I've always had to stand alone. There's been so much 
 for me to do that I've had no time to feel loneliness per- 
 haps." 
 
 "Rescuing the other floating faces !" 
 
 A slight tinge of a new emotion slipped through his 
 mind, something he had never felt before, yet so faint he 
 could not even recapture it, much less wonder whether it 
 were jealousy or envy. It rose from the depths ; it van- 
 ished into him again. . . . Besides, he saw that she was 
 smiling; the teasing mood that so often baffled him was 
 upon her; he heard her give that passing laugh that al- 
 most "kept him guessing," as the Americans say, whether 
 she was in play or earnest. 
 
 "It's worth doing, anyhow rescuing the floating 
 faces," she said : "worth living for." And she half closed 
 her eyes so that he saw her as a girl again. He saw her 
 as she had been even before he knew her, as he used to 
 
The Wave 107 
 
 see her in his dream. It was the dream-eyes that peered 
 at him through long, thick lashes. They looked down at 
 him. He felt caught away to some remote, strange place 
 and time. He was aware of gold, of color, of a hotter 
 blood, a fiercer sunlight. . . . 
 
 And the sense of familiarity became suddenly very 
 real ; he knew what she was going to say, how he would 
 answer, why they had come together. It all flashed near, 
 yet still just beyond his reach. He almost understood. 
 They had been side by side like this before, not in this 
 actual place, but somewhere somewhere that he knew 
 intimately. Her eyes had looked down into his own pre- 
 cisely so, long, long ago, yet at the same time strangely 
 near. There was a perfume, a little ghostly perfume it 
 was the Whiff. It was gone instantly, but he had tasted 
 it. ... A veil drew up. . . . He saw, he knew, he re- 
 membered almost. . . . Another second and he would 
 capture the meaning of it all. Another moment and it 
 would reveal itself then, suddenly, the whole sensation 
 vanished. He had missed it by the minutest fraction in 
 the world, yet missed it utterly. It left him confused and 
 baffled. 
 
 The veil was down again, and he was talking with 
 Madame Jaretzka, the Lettice Aylmer of his boyhood 
 days. Such moments of the deja-vu leave bewilderment 
 behind them, like the effect of sudden change of focus in 
 the eye ; and with the bewilderment a sense of insecurity 
 as well. 
 
 "Yes," he said half dreamily, "and youVe rescued a 
 lot already, haven't you?" as though he still followed in 
 speech the direction of the vanished emotion. 
 
 "You know that, Tom?" she inquired, raising her eye- 
 lids, thus finally restoring the normal. 
 
 He stammered rather : "I have the feeling that you're 
 always doing good to some one somewhere. There's 
 something" he searched for a word "impersonal about 
 you almost." And he knew the word was nearly right, 
 
io8 The Wave 
 
 though found by chance. It included "un-physical," the 
 word he did not like to use. He did not want an angel's 
 love; the spiritual, to him, rose from the physical, and 
 was not apart from it. He was not in heaven yet, and had 
 no wish to be. He was on earth ; and everything of value 
 love, above all must spring from earth, or else remain 
 incomplete, insecure, ineffective even. 
 
 And again a tiny dart of pain shot through him. Yet 
 he was glad he said it, for it was true. He liked to face 
 what hurt him. To face it was to get it over. ... 
 
 But she was laughing again gently to herself, though 
 certainly not at him. "What were you thinking about 
 so long?" she asked. "You've been silent for several 
 minutes and your thoughts were far away." And as he 
 did not reply immediately, she went on: "If you go to 
 Assouan you mustn't fall into reveries like that or you'll 
 leave holes in the dam, or whatever your engineering 
 work is TomF 
 
 She spoke the name with a sudden emphasis that 
 startled him. It was a call. 
 
 "Yes," he said, looking up at her. He was emerging 
 from a dream. 
 
 "Come back to me. I don't like your going away in 
 that strange way forgetting me." 
 
 "Ah, I like that. Say it again/' he returned, a deeper 
 note in his voice. 
 
 "You were away weren't you ?" 
 
 "Perhaps," he said slowly. "I can't say quite. I was 
 thinking of you, wherever I was." He went on, holding 
 her eyes with a steady gaze: "A curious feeling came 
 over me like like heat and light. You seemed so fa- 
 miliar to me all of a sudden that I felt I had known you 
 
 ages and ages. I was trying to make out where it 
 > 
 
 She dropped her eyelids again and peered at him, but 
 no longer smiling. There was a sterner expression in her 
 face. The lips curved a moment in a new strange way. 
 
The Wave 109 
 
 The air seemed to waver an instant between them. She 
 peered down at him as through a mist. . . . 
 
 "There like that!" he exclaimed passionately. "Only 
 I wish you wouldn't. There's something I don't like 
 about it It hurts" and the same minute felt ashamed, 
 as though he had said a foolish thing. It had come out 
 in spite of himself. 
 
 "Then I won't, Tom if you'll promise not to go away 
 again. I was thinking of Egypt for a second I don't 
 know why." 
 
 But he did not laugh with her ; his face kept the graver 
 expression still. 
 
 "It changes you rather oddly," he said quietly, "that 
 lowering of the eyelids. I can't say why exactly, but it 
 makes you look eastern." Again he had said a fool- 
 ish thing. A kind of spell seemed over him. 
 
 "Irish eyes!" he heard her saying. "They sometimes 
 look like that, I'm told. But you promise, don't you?" 
 
 "Of course, I promise," he answered bluntly enough 
 because he meant it. "I can never go away from you be- 
 cause" he turned and looked very hard at her a moment 
 "because there's something in you I need in my very 
 soul," he went on earnestly, "yet that always escapes me. 
 I can't get hold of all of you." 
 
 And though she refused his very earnest mood, she 
 answered with obvious sincerity at once. "That's as it 
 should be, Tom. A man tires of a woman the moment 
 he gets to the end of her." She gave her little laugh and 
 touched his hand. "Perhaps that's what I'm meant to 
 teach you. When you know all of me " 
 
 "I shall never know all of you," said Tom. 
 
 "You never will," she replied with meaning, "for I 
 don't even know it all myself." And as she said it, he 
 thought he had never seen anything so beautiful in all the 
 world before, for the breeze caught her long gauzy veil 
 of blue and tossed it across her face so that the eyes 
 seemed gazing at him from a distance, but a distance that 
 
no The Wave 
 
 had height in it. He felt her above him, beyond him, on 
 this height, a height he must climb before he could know 
 complete possession. 
 
 "By Jove !" he thought, "isn't it rising just !" For the 
 Wave was under them tremendously. 
 
 April meanwhile had slipped into May, and their daily 
 companionship had become the most natural thing in the 
 world, when the telegram arrived that threatened to in- 
 terrupt the delightful intercourse. But it was not the 
 telegram Tom expected. Neither Greece nor Egypt 
 claimed his talents yet, for the contracts both at Assouan 
 and Salonica were postponed until the autumn, and the 
 routine of a senior partner's life in London was to be 
 his immediate fate. He brought her the news at once: 
 they discussed it together in all its details and as inti- 
 mately as though it affected their joint lives similarly. 
 His first thought was to run and talk it over with her; 
 hers, how the change might influence their intercourse, 
 their present and their future. Their relationship was 
 now established in this solid, natural way. He told her 
 everything as a son might tell his mother : she asked ques- 
 tions, counseled, made suggestions as a woman whose 
 loving care considered his welfare and his happiness be- 
 fore all else. 
 
 However, it brought no threatened interruption after 
 all involved, indeed, less of separation than if he had 
 been called away as they expected : for though he must go 
 to London that same week, she would shortly follow him. 
 "And if you go to Egypt in the autumn, Tom" she 
 smiled at the way they influenced the future nearer to the 
 heart's desire "I may go with you. I could make my 
 arrangements accordingly take my holiday out there 
 earlier instead of here as usual in the spring." 
 
 The days passed quickly; her first duty was to return 
 to Warsaw; she would then follow him to London and 
 help him with his flat. No man could choose furniture 
 
The Wave in 
 
 and carpets and curtains properly. They discussed the 
 details with the enthusiasm of children : she would come 
 up several times a week from her bungalow in Kent and 
 make sure that his wall-papers did not clash with the 
 general scheme. Brown was his color, he told her, and 
 always had been. It was the dominant shade of her eyes 
 as well. He made her promise to stand in the rooms with 
 her eyes opened very wide so that there could be no mis- 
 take, and they laughed over the picture happily. 
 
 She came to the train, and although he declared ve- 
 hemently that he disliked "being seen off," he was secretly 
 delighted. "One says such silly things merely because one 
 feels one must say something. And those silly things 
 remain in the memory out of all proportion to their 
 value." But she insisted. "Good-bys are always serious 
 to me, Tom. One never knows. I want to see you to the 
 very last minute." She had this way of making him feel 
 little things significant with Fate. But another little thing 
 also was in store for him. As the train moved slowly out 
 he noticed some letters in her hand ; and one of them was 
 addressed to Warsaw. The name leaped up and stung 
 him Jaretzka. A spasm of pain shot through him. She 
 was leaving in the morning, he knew. . . . 
 
 "Write to me from Warsaw," he said. "Take care! 
 We're moving!" 
 
 "I'll write every day, my dearest Tom, my boy. You 
 won't forget me. I shall see you in a fortnight." 
 
 He let go the little hand he held till the last possible 
 minute. The bells drowned her final words. She stood 
 there waving her hand with the unposted letters in them, 
 till the station pillars intervened and hid her from him. 
 
 And this time no "silly last things" had been said that 
 could "stay in the memory out of all proportion to their 
 value." It was something he had noticed on the envelope 
 that stayed not the husband's name, but a word in the 
 address, a peculiar Polish word he happened to know : 
 
ii2 The Wave 
 
 "Tworki" the name of the principal maison de sante 
 that stood just outside the city of Warsaw. . . . 
 
 Half an hour, perhaps an hour, he sat smoking in his 
 narrow sleeping compartment, thinking with a kind of 
 intense confusion out of which no order came. ... At 
 Pontarlier he had to get out for the Customs formalities. 
 It was midnight. The stars were bright. The keen spring 
 air from the wooded Jura mountains had a curious effect, 
 for he returned to his carriage feeling sleepy, the throng 
 of pictures drowned into calmness by one master-thought 
 that reduced their confusion into order. He looked back 
 over the past weeks and realized their intensity. He had 
 lived. There was a change in him, the change of growth, 
 development. He loved. There was now a woman who 
 was his entire world, essential to him. He was essential 
 to her too. And the importance of this ousted all lesser 
 things, even the senior partnership. This was the master- 
 thought that he now lived for her. He was "real" even 
 as she was "real," each to the other real. The Wave had 
 lifted him to a level never reached before. And it was 
 rising still. . . . 
 
 He fell asleep on this, to dream of a mighty stream 
 that swept them together irresistibly towards some climax 
 that he never could quite see. She floated near to save 
 him. She floated down. Her little hands were stretched. 
 It was a gorgeous and stupendous dream a dream of 
 rising life itself rising till it would curve and break and 
 fall, and the inevitable thing would happen that would 
 bring her finally into his hungry arms, complete, mother 
 and woman, a spiritual love securely founded on the sweet 
 and wholesome earth. , 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 DURING the brief separation of a fortnight Tom was 
 too busy in London to allow himself much reflec- 
 tion. Absence, once the first keen sense of loss is over, is 
 apt to bring reaction. The self makes an automatic effort 
 to regain the normal life it led before the new emotion 
 dislocated the long-accustomed routine. It tries to run 
 back again along the line of least resistance that habit 
 has made smooth and easy. If the reaction continues to 
 assert its claim, the new emotion is proved thereby a de- 
 lusion. The test lies there. 
 
 In Tom's case, however, the reaction was a feeble re- 
 minder merely that he had once lived without her. It 
 took the form of regret for all the best years of his life 
 he had endured how, he could not think without this 
 tender, loving woman at his side. That is, he recognized 
 that his love was real and had changed his outlook funda- 
 mentally. He could never do without her from this mo- 
 ment onwards. She, equally, needed him. He would 
 never leave her. . . . Further than that, for the present, 
 he did not allow himself to think. Having divined some- 
 thing of her tragedy, he accepted the definite limitations. 
 Speculations concerning another he looked on as beside 
 the point. As far as possible he denied himself the in- 
 dulgence in them. But another thing he felt as well 
 the right to claim her, whether he exercised that right 
 or not. 
 
 Concerning his relationship with her, however, he did 
 not deny speculation, though somehow this time the per- 
 spective was too vast for him to manage quite. There 
 was a strange distance in it : he lost himself in remoteness. 
 In either direction it ran into mists that were interminable, 
 
 ,"3 
 
ii4 The Wave 
 
 as though veils and curtains lifted endlessly, melting into 
 shadowy reaches beyond that baffled all inquiry. The 
 horizons of his life had grown so huge. This woman 
 had introduced him to a scale of living that he could only 
 gaze at with wondering amazement and delight, too large 
 as yet to conform to the order that his nature sought. He 
 could not properly find himself. 
 
 "It feels almost as if I've loved her before like this 
 yet somehow not enough. That's what I've got to learn," 
 was the kind of thought that came to him, at odd moments 
 only. The situation seemed so curiously familiar, yet only 
 half familiar. They were certainly made for one an- 
 other, and the tie between them had this deep touch of 
 the inevitable about it that refused to go. That notion of 
 the soul's advance in a spiral cropped up in his mind 
 again. He saw her both coming nearer and retreating 
 as a moving figure against high light leaves the spectator 
 uncertain whether it is advancing or retiring. He would 
 have liked to talk to Tony all about it, for Tony would be 
 sympathetic. He wanted a confidant and turned instinc- 
 tively to his cousin. . . . She already understood more 
 than he did, though perhaps not consciously, and therein 
 lay the secret of her odd elusiveness. Yet, in another 
 sense, his possession was incomplete because a part of her 
 still lay unawakened. "I must love her more and more 
 and more," he told himself. But, at the same time, he 
 took it for granted that he was indispensable to her, as she 
 was to him. 
 
 These flashes of perception, deeper than anything he 
 had experienced in life hitherto, came occasionally while 
 he waited in London for her return ; and though puzzled 
 his straightforward nature disliked all mystery he 
 noted them with uncommon interest. Nothing, however, 
 could prevent the rise upwards of the Wave that bore the 
 situation on its breast. The affair swept him onwards; 
 it was not to be checked or hindered. He resigned direc- 
 tion to its elemental tide. 
 
The Wave 115 
 
 The faint uneasiness, also, recurred from time to time, 
 especially now that he was alone again. He attributed 
 it to the unsatisfied desire in his heart, the knowledge that 
 as yet he had no exclusive possession, and did not really 
 own her; the sense of insecurity unsettled him, the feel- 
 ing that she was open to capture by any one "who under- 
 stands and appreciates her better than I do," was the 
 way he phrased it sometimes. He was troubled and un- 
 easy because so much of her lay unresponsive to his touch 
 not needing him. While he was climbing up to reach 
 her, another, with a stronger claim, might step in step 
 back and seize her. 
 
 It made him smile a little even while he thought of it, 
 for her truth and constancy were beyond all question. 
 And then, suddenly, he traced the uneasiness to its source. 
 There was "another" who had first claim upon her who 
 had it once, at any rate. Though at present some cloud 
 obscured and negatived that claim, the cloud might lift, 
 the situation change, the claim become paramount again, 
 as once it surely had been paramount. And, disquieting 
 though the possibility was, Tom was pleased with himself 
 he was so naive and simple towards life for having 
 discerned it clearly. He recognized the risk and thus felt 
 half prepared in advance. ... In another way it satis- 
 fied him too. With this dream-like suggestion that it all 
 had happened before he had always felt that a further 
 detail was lacking to complete the scene he half remem- 
 bered. Something, as yet, was wanting. And, this item 
 needed to make the strange repetition of the scene fulfil 
 itself, seemed, precisely, the presence of "another." 
 
 Their intercourse, meanwhile, proved beyond words 
 delightful during the following weeks, when, after her 
 return from Warsaw, she kept her word and helped him 
 in the prosaic business of furnishing his flat and settling 
 down, as in a hundred other details of his daily life as 
 well. All that they did and said together confirmed their 
 dear relationship and established it beyond reproach. 
 
n6 The Wave 
 
 There was no question of anything false, illicit, requiring 
 concealment : nothing to hide and no one to evade. In 
 their own minds their innocence was so sure, indeed, that 
 it was not once alluded to between them. It was impos- 
 sible to look at her and doubt : nor could the most cynical 
 suspect Tom Kelverdon of an undesirable intrigue with 
 the wife of another man. His acquaintance, moreover, 
 were not of the kind that harbored the usual "worldly" 
 thoughts, he went little into society, whereas the compara- 
 tively few Londoners she knew were almost entirely 
 he discovered it by degrees people whose welfare in one 
 way or another she had earnestly at heart. It was a 
 marvel to him, indeed, how she never wearied of helping 
 ungrateful folk, for the wish to be of service seemed in- 
 grained in her. Her first thought on making new ac- 
 quaintances was always what she could do for them, not 
 with money necessarily, but by "seeing" them in their 
 proper milieu and planning to bring about the conditions 
 they needed in order to realize themselves fully. Failure, 
 discontent, unhappiness were due to wrong conditions 
 more than to radical fault in the people themselves ; once 
 they "found themselves," the rest would follow. It 
 amounted to a genius in her. 
 
 It seemed the artist instinct that sought this unselfish 
 end rather than any religious tendency. She felt it ugly 
 to see people at issue with their surroundings. Her re- 
 ligion was humanity, and had no dogmas. Even Tony 
 Winslowe, now in England again, came in for his share of 
 this sweet fashioning energy in her; much to his own 
 bewilderment and to Tom's amusement. . . . 
 
 The summer passed towards early autumn and London 
 emptied, but it made no difference to them. Tom had 
 urgent work to do and was absorbed in it, never forgetting 
 for a moment that he was now a Partner in the Firm. 
 He spent frequent week-ends at Madame Jaretzka's Kent- 
 ish bungalow, where she had for companion at the mo- 
 ment an Irish cousin who, as Tom easily guessed, was also 
 
The Wave 117 
 
 a dependant. This cousin had been invited with her child, 
 Molly, for the summer holidays, and these summer holi- 
 days had run on into three months at least. 
 
 A tall, thin, angular woman, of uncertain manners and 
 capricious temperament, Mrs. Haughstone had perhaps 
 lived so long upon another's bounty that she had come to 
 take her good fortune for granted, and permitted herself 
 freely two cardinal indulgences grumbling and jealousy. 
 Having married unwisely, in order to better herself rather 
 than because she loved, her shiftless husband had dis- 
 graced himself with an adventuress governess, leaving her 
 with three children and something below ^150 a year. 
 Madame Jaretzka had stepped in to bring them together 
 again : she provided schooling abroad, holidays, doctors, 
 clothes and all she could devise by way of helping them 
 "find themselves" again, and so turning their broken 
 lives to good account. With the husband, sly, lazy, de- 
 void of both pride and honesty, she could do little, and 
 she was quite aware that he and his wife put their heads 
 together to increase the flow of "necessaries" she gener- 
 ously supplied. 
 
 It was a sordid, commonplace story, sordidly treated by 
 the soured and vindictive wife, whose eventual aims upon 
 her savior's purse were too obvious to be mistaken. Even 
 Tom perceived the fact without delay. He also perceived, 
 behind the flattering tongue, an acid and suspicious jeal- 
 ousy that regarded new friends with ill-disguised alarm. 
 Mrs. Haughstone thought of herself and her children 
 before all else. She mistook the impersonal attitude of 
 her benefactress for credulous weakness. A new friend 
 was hostile to her shameless ambitions and disliked ac- 
 cordingly. . . . Tom scented an enemy the first time he 
 met her. To him she expressed her disapproval of Tony, 
 and vice versa, while to her hostess she professed she 
 liked them both "but": the "but" implying that men 
 were selfish and ambitious creatures who thought only of 
 their own advantage. 
 
n8 The Wave 
 
 His country visits, therefore, were not made happier 
 by the presence in the cottage of this woman and her 
 child, but the manner in which the benefactress met the 
 situation justified the respect he had felt first months 
 before. It increased his love and admiration. Madame 
 Jaretzka behaved unusually. That she grasped the posi- 
 tion there could be no doubt, but her manner of dealing 
 with it was unique. For when Mrs. Haughstone grum- 
 bled, Madame Jaretzka gave her more, and when Mrs. 
 Haughstone yielded to jealousy, Madame Jaretzka smiled 
 and said no word. She won her victories with further 
 generosity. 
 
 "Another face that has to be rescued ?" Tom permitted 
 himself to say once, after an unfortunate scene in which 
 his hostess had been subtly accused of favoritism to an- 
 other child in the house. He could hardly suppress the 
 annoyance and impatience that he felt. 
 
 "Oh, I never thought about it in that way/' she an- 
 swered with her little laugh, quite unruffled by what had 
 happened. "The best way is to help them to see them- 
 selves. Then they try to cure themselves." She laughed 
 again, as though she had said a childish thing instead of 
 something distinctly wise. "I can't cure them," she added. 
 "I can only help." 
 
 Tom looked at her. "Help others to see themselves 
 as they are," he repeated slowly. "So that's how you do 
 it, is it?" He reflected a moment. "That's being imper- 
 sonal. You rouse no opposition that way. It's good." 
 
 "Is it?" she replied, as though guiltless of any conscious 
 plan. "It seems the natural thing to do." 
 
 Then, as he was evidently preparing for discussion in 
 his honest and laborious way, she stopped him with a look, 
 smiling, sighing, and holding up her little finger warn- 
 ingly. He understood. Analysis and argument she 
 avoided always; they obscured the essential thing; here 
 was the intuitive method of grasping the solution the 
 instant the problem was stated. Detailed examination 
 
The Wave 119 
 
 exhausted her merely. And Tom obeyed that look, that 
 threatening finger. In little things he invariably yielded, 
 while in big things he remained firm, even obstinate, 
 though without realizing it. 
 
 Her head inclined gracefully, acknowledging her vic- 
 tory. "That's one reason I love you, Tom," she told him 
 as reward: "you're a boy on the surface and a man 
 inside." 
 
 Tom saw beauty flash about her as she said it ; emotion 
 rose through him in a sudden tumult; he would have 
 seized her, kissed her, crumpled her little self against his 
 heart and held her there, but for the tantalizing truth that 
 the thing he wanted would have escaped him in the very 
 act. The loveliness he yearned for, craved, was not open 
 to physical attack; it was a loveliness of the spirit, a bird, 
 a star, a wild flower on some high pinnacle near the snow : 
 to obtain it he must climb to where it soared above the 
 earth rise up to her. 
 
 He laughed and took her little finger in both hands. 
 He felt awkward, big and clumsy, a giant trying to catch 
 an elusive butterfly. "You turn us all round that!" he 
 declared. "You turn her," nodding towards the door, 
 "and me," kissing the tip quickly, "and Tony too. Only 
 she and Tony don't know you twiddle them and I do." 
 
 She let him kiss her hand, but when he drew nearer, 
 trying to set his lips upon the arm her summer dress left 
 bare, she put up her face instead and kissed him lightly 
 on the cheek. Her free hand made a caressing gesture 
 across his neck and shoulder, as she stood on tiptoe to 
 reach him. The mother in her, not the woman, caressed 
 him dearly. It was wonderful ; but the surge of mingled 
 emotions clouded something in his brain, and a string of 
 words came tumbling out in a fire of joy and pain, 
 "You're a queen and a conqueror," he said, longing to 
 seize her, yet holding himself back strongly. "Somewhere 
 I'm your helpless slave, but somewhere I'm your master." 
 The protective sense came up in him. "It's too delicious 1 
 
i2o The Wave 
 
 I'm in a dream! Lattice," he whispered, "it's my Wave! 
 The Wave is behind it ! It's behind us both !" 
 
 For an instant she half closed her eyelids in the way 
 she knew both pleased and frightened him. Invariably 
 this gave her the advantage. He felt her above him when 
 she looked like this, he kneeling with hands outstretched, 
 yearning to be raised to where she stood. "You're a 
 baby, a poet and a man rolled fnto a dear big boy," she 
 said quickly*, moving towards the door away from him. 
 "And now I must go and get my garden hat, for it's time 
 to meet Tony and Moyra at the train, and as you have 
 so much surplus energy to-day we'll walk through the 
 woods instead of going in the motor." She waved her 
 hand and vanished behind the door. He heard the patter 
 of her feet as she ran upstairs. 
 
 He went to the open window, lit his pipe, leaned out 
 with his head among the climbing roses, and thought of 
 many things. Great joy was in him, but behind it, far 
 down where he could not reach it quite, hid a gnawing 
 pain that was obscure uneasiness. Pictures came floating 
 across his mind, rising and falling, sometimes rushing 
 hurriedly; he saw things and faces mixed, his own and 
 hers chief among them. Her little finger pointed to a 
 star. He sighed, he wondered, he half prayed. Would 
 he ever understand, rise to her level, possess her for his 
 very own ? She seemed so far beyond him. It was only 
 part of her he touched. 
 
 The faces fluttered and looked into his own, one among 
 them an imagined face the husband's. It was a face 
 with light blue eyes, moreover. He saw Tony's too, 
 frank, laughing, irresponsible, and the face of the Irish 
 girl who was Tony's latest passion. Tony could settle 
 down to no one for long. Tom remembered suddenly his 
 remark at Zakopane months ago, that the bee never sipped 
 the last drop of honey from the flower. . . . His thoughts 
 tumbled and flew in many directions, yet all at once. Life 
 seemed very full and marvelous; it had never seemed so 
 
The Wave 121 
 
 intense before ; it bore him onwards, upwards, forwards, 
 with a rush beyond all possible control and guidance. He 
 acknowledged a rather delicious sense of helplessness. 
 The Wave was everywhere behind and under him. It 
 was sweeping him along. 
 
 Then thought returned to Tony and the Irish girl who 
 were coming down for the Sunday, and he smiled to 
 himself as he recalled his cousin's ardent admiration at 
 a theater party a few nights ago in town. Tony had 
 something that naturally attracted women, dominating 
 them too easily. Was he heartless a little in the business ? 
 Would he never, like Tom, settle down with one? His 
 thought passed to the latest capture: there were signs, 
 indeed, that here Tony was caught at last. 
 
 For Tom, Tony, and Madame Jaretzka formed an un- 
 derstanding trio, and there were few expeditions, town 
 or country, of which the lively bird-enthusiast did not 
 form an active member. Tony took it all very lightly, 
 unaware of any serious intention behind the pleasant in- 
 vitations. Torn was amused by it. He looked forward 
 to his cousin's visit now. He was feeling the need of a 
 confidant, and Tony might so admirably fill the role. It 
 was curious, a little: Tom often felt that he wanted to 
 confide in Tony, yet somehow or other the confidences 
 were never actually made. There was something in Tony 
 that invited that free, purging confidence which is a need 
 of every human being. It was so easy to tell things, diffi- 
 cult things, to this careless, sympathetic being; yet Tom 
 never passed the frontier into definite revelation. At the 
 last moment he invariably held back. 
 
 Thought passed to his hostess, already maneuvering to 
 help Tony "find himself." It amused Tom, even while 
 he gave his willing assistance ; for Tony was of evasive, 
 slippery material, like a fluid that, pressed in one given 
 direction, resists and runs away into several others. "He 
 scatters himself too much," she remarked, "and it's a 
 pity; there's waste." Tom laughed, thinking of his epi- 
 
122 The Wave 
 
 sodic love affairs. "I didn't mean that," she added, smil- 
 ing with him ; "I meant generally. He's full of talent and 
 knowledge. His power over women is natural, but it 
 comes of mere brilliance. If all that were concentrated 
 instead, he would do something real ; he might be ex- 
 traordinarily effective in life. Yes, Tom, I mean it." But 
 Tom, though he smiled, agreed with her, feeling rather 
 flattered that she liked his cousin. 
 
 "But he breaks too many hearts," he said lightly, think- 
 ing of his last conquest, and then added, hardly knowing 
 why he said it, "By the by, did you ever notice his hands ?" 
 
 The way she quickly looked up at him proved that she 
 divined his meaning. But the glance had a flash of some- 
 thing that escaped him. 
 
 "You're very observant, Tommy," she said evasively. 
 It seemed impossible for her to say a disparaging thing 
 of anybody. She invariably picked out and emphasized 
 the best. "You don't admire them ?" 
 
 "Do you, Lettice ?" 
 
 She paused for an imperceptible second, then smiled. 
 "I rather like big rough hands in a man perhaps," she 
 said without any particular interest, "though in a way 
 they frighten me sometimes. Tony's are ugly, but there's 
 power in them." And she placed her own small gloved 
 hand upon his arm. "He's rather irresponsible, I know," 
 she added gently, "but he'll grow out of that in time. 
 He's beginning to improve already." 
 
 "You see, he's got no mother," Tom observed. 
 
 "No wife either yet," she added with a laugh. 
 
 "Or work," put in Tom, with a touch of self-praise, and 
 thinking of his own position in the world. Her interest 
 in Tony had the effect of making himself seem worthier, 
 more important. This fine woman, who judged people 
 from so high a standpoint, had picked out himself ! He 
 had an absurd yet delightful feeling as though Tony was 
 their child, and the perfectly natural way she took him 
 
The Wave 123 
 
 under her mothering wing stirred an admiring pity in 
 him. 
 
 Then as they walked together through the fragrant 
 pine-woods to the station, an incident at a recent theater 
 party rose before his memory. Tony and his Amanda 
 had been with them. The incident in question had left 
 a singular impression on his mind, though why it emerged 
 now, as they wandered through the quiet wood, he could 
 not tell. It had occurred a week or two ago. He now 
 saw it again in a tenth of the time it takes to tell : 
 
 The scene was laid in ancient Egypt, and while the 
 play was commonplace, the elaborate production 
 scenery, dresses, atmosphere were good. But Tom, un- 
 able to feel interest in the trivial and badly acted story, 
 had felt interest in another thing he could not name. 
 There was a subtle charm, a delicate glamour about it as 
 of immensely old romance, but some lost romance of very 
 far away. Yet, whether this charm was due to the stage 
 effects or to themselves, sitting there in the stalls together, 
 escaped him. For in some singular way, the party, his 
 hostess certainly, seemed to interpenetrate the play itself. 
 She, above all, and Tony vaguely, seemed inseparable 
 from what he gazed at, heard and felt. 
 
 Continually, he caught himself thinking how delightful 
 it was to know himself next to Madame Jaretzka, so close 
 that he shared her atmosphere, her perfume, touched her 
 even: that their minds were engaged intimately together 
 watching the same scene ; and also, that on her other side, 
 sat Tony, affectionate, whimsical, fascinating Tony, 
 whom they were trying to help "find himself" ; and that 
 he, again, was next to a girl he liked. The harmonious 
 feeling of the four was pleasurable to Tom. He felt 
 himself, moreover, an important and indispensable item 
 in its composition. It was vague; he did not attempt to 
 analyze it as self-flattery, as vanity, as pride he was 
 aware, merely, that he felt very pleased with himself and 
 
The Wave 
 
 so with everybody else. It was gratifying to sit at the 
 head of the group ; everybody could see how beautiful she 
 was; the dream of exclusive ownership stole over him 
 more definitely than ever before. "She's chosen me! She 
 needs me a woman like that!" 
 
 The audience, the lights, the color, the music influenced 
 him. It seemed he caught something from the crude 
 human passion that was being ranted on the stage and 
 transferred it unconsciously into his relations with the 
 party he belonged to, but, above all, into his relationship 
 with her and with another. But he refused to let his 
 mind dwell upon that other. He found himself thinking 
 instead of the divine tenderness that was in her, yet at 
 the same time of her elusiveness and the curious pain it 
 caused him. Whence came, he wondered, the sweet and 
 cruel flavor? It seemed like a memory of something suf- 
 fered long ago, the sweetness in it true and exquisite, the 
 cruelty an error on his own part somehow. The old hint 
 of uneasiness, the strange, rich pain he had known in 
 boyhood, stole faintly over him; its first and immediate 
 effect heightening the sense of dim, old-world romance 
 already present. . . . 
 
 And he had turned cautiously to look at her. She was 
 leaning forward a little as though the play absorbed her, 
 and the attitude startled him. It caused him almost a 
 definite shock. The face had pain in it. 
 
 She was not aware that he stared: her attention was 
 fastened upon the stage ; but the eyes were fixed, the little 
 mouth was fixed as well, the lips compressed ; and all her 
 features wore this expression of curious pain. There was 
 sternness in them, something almost hard. He watched 
 her for some minutes, surprised and fascinated. It came 
 over him that he almost knew what that was in her mind. 
 Another moment and he would discover it when, past 
 her profile, he caught his cousin's eyes peering across at 
 him. Tony had felt the direction of his glance and had 
 looked round : and Tony mischievously winked ! 
 
The Wave 125 
 
 The spell was broken. In that instant, however, 
 through the heated air of the crowded stalls already 
 weighted with sickly artificial perfumes, there reached him 
 faintly, as from very far away, another and a subtler per- 
 fume, something of elusive fragrance in it. It was very 
 poignant, instinct as with forgotten associations. It was 
 the Whiff. It came, it went; but it was unmistakable. 
 And he connected it, as by some instantaneous certitude, 
 with the play with Egypt. 
 
 "What do you think of it, Lettice ?" he had whispered, 
 nodding towards the stage. 
 
 She turned with a start. She came back. The expres- 
 sion of pain flashed instantly away. She had evidently 
 not been thinking of the performance. "It's not much, 
 Tom, is it? But I like the scenery. It makes me feel 
 strange somewhere the change that comes over me in 
 Egypt. We'll be there together some day." She leaned 
 over with her lips against his ear. 
 
 And there was significance in the commonplace words, 
 he thought a significance her whisper did not realize, and 
 certainly did not intend. 
 
 "All three of us," he rejoined before he knew what he 
 meant exactly. 
 
 And she nodded hurriedly. Either she agreed, or else 
 she had not heard him. He did not insist, he did not re- 
 peat, he sat there wondering why on earth he said the 
 thing. A touch of pain pricked him like an insect's sting, 
 but a pain he could not account for. His blood, at the 
 same time, leaped as she bent her face so near to his own. 
 He felt his heart swell as he looked into her eyes. Her 
 beauty astonished him; in this twilight of the theater it 
 glowed and burned like a veiled star. He fancied it 
 was the trick of the half-light, of course she had grown 
 darker and that a dusky flush lay on her cheeks. 
 
 "What were you thinking about?" he whispered lower 
 again, changing the sentence slightly. And, as he asked it, 
 he saw Tony still watching him, two seats away. It an- 
 
126 The Wave 
 
 noyed him ; he drew his head back a little so that her face 
 concealed him. 
 
 "I don't know," she whispered back; "nothing in par- 
 ticular." She put her gloved hand stealthily towards him 
 and touched his knee. The gesture, he felt, was intended 
 to supplement the words. For the first time in his life he 
 did not quite believe her. The thought was odious, but 
 not to be denied. It merely flashed across him, however. 
 He forgot it instantly. 
 
 "Seems oddly familiar somehow," he said, "doesn't it ?" 
 
 Again she nodded, smiling, as she gazed for a moment 
 first into one eye, then into the other, then turned away 
 to watch the stage. And abruptly, as she did so, the 
 entire feeling vanished, the mood evaporated, her expres- 
 sion was normal once more, and he fixed his attention 
 on the stupid play. 
 
 He turned his interest into other channels; he would 
 take his party on to supper. He did so. Yet an impres- 
 sion remained the impression that the Wave had come 
 nearer, higher, that it was rising and gaining impetus, 
 accumulating mass, momentum, power. The gay supper 
 could not dissipate that, nor could the happy ten minutes 
 in a taxi, when he drove her to her door, decrease or 
 weaken it. She was very tired. They spoke little, he 
 remembered; she gave him a gentle touch as the cab 
 drew up, and the few things she said had entirely to do 
 with his comfort in his flat. He felt in that touch and 
 in those tender questions the mother only. The woman, 
 it suddenly occurred to him, had gone elsewhere. He had 
 never had it, never even claimed it. A deep sense of 
 loneliness touched him for a moment. . . . 
 
 Why the scene came back to him now as they walked 
 slowly through the summery pine-wood he knew not. He 
 caught himself thinking vividly of Egypt suddenly, of 
 being in Egypt with her and with another. But on that 
 other he refused to let thought linger. Of set purpose 
 
The Wave 127 
 
 he chose Tony in that other's place. He saw it in a pic- 
 ture: he and she together helping Tony, she and Tony 
 equally helping him. It passed before him merely, a 
 glowing colored picture set in high light against the heavy 
 background of these English fir-woods and the Kentish 
 sky. Whether it came towards him or retreated, he could 
 not say. It was very brief, instantaneous almost. The 
 memory of the play, with its numerous attendant corre- 
 lations, rose up, then vanished. 
 
 "Give me your arm, Tom, you mighty giant : these pine- 
 needles are so slippery." He felt her hand creep in and 
 rest upon his muscles, and a glow of boyish pride came 
 with it. In her summer dress of white, her big garden 
 hat and flowing violet veil, she looked adorable. He liked 
 the long white gauntlet gloves. The shadows of the trees 
 became her well : against the thick dark trunks she seemed 
 slim and dainty as a flower that the breeze bent over to- 
 wards him. "You're so horribly big and strong," she 
 said, and her eyes, full of expression, glanced up at him. 
 He watched her little feet in the neat, white shoes peep 
 out in turn as they walked along ; her fingers pressed his 
 arm. He tried to take her parasol, but she prevented 
 him, saying it was her only weapon of defense against a 
 giant, "and there is a giant in this forest, though only a 
 baby one perhaps !" He felt the mother in her pour over 
 him in a flood of tenderness that blessed and soothed and 
 comforted. It was as if a divine and healing power 
 streamed from her into him. 
 
 "And what were you thinking about, Tom?" she in- 
 quired teasingly. "You haven't said a word for a whole 
 five minutes !" 
 
 "I was thinking of Egypt," he answered with truth. 
 
 She looked up quickly. 
 
 "I'm to go out in December," he went on. "I told you. 
 It was decided at our last Board Meeting." 
 
 She said she remembered. "But it's funny," she added, 
 
128 The Wave 
 
 "because I was thinking of Egypt too just then thinking 
 of the Nile, my river with the floating faces." 
 
 The week-end visit was typical of many others; Mrs. 
 Haughstone, seeing safety in numbers possibly, was pleas- 
 ant on the surface, Molly deflecting most of her poisoned 
 darts towards herself; while Tom and Tony shared the 
 society of their unconventional hostess with boyish en- 
 joyment. Tom modified the air of ownership he indulged 
 when alone with her, and no one need have noticed that 
 there was anything more between them than a hearty, 
 understanding friendship. Tony, for instance, may have 
 guessed the true situation, or, again, he may not ; for he 
 said no word, nor showed the smallest hint by word, by 
 gesture, or by silence most significant betrayal of all 
 that he was aware of any special tie. Though a keen ob- 
 server, he gave no sign. "She's an interesting woman, 
 Tom," he remarked lightly, yet with enthusiasm once, 
 "and a rare good hostess a woman in a thousand, I de- 
 clare. We make a famous trio. As you've got that As- 
 souan job we'll have some fun next winter in Egypt, eh?" 
 
 And Tom, pleased and secretly flattered by the admira- 
 tion, tried to make his confidences. Unless Tony had 
 liked her this would have been impossible. But they 
 formed such a natural, happy trio together, giving the lie 
 to the hoary proverb, that Tom felt it was permissible to 
 speak of her to his sympathetic cousin. Already they had 
 laughingly discussed the half -forgotten acquaintanceship 
 begun in the dahabieh on the Nile, Tony making a neat 
 apology by declaring to her, "Beautiful women blind me 
 so, Madame Jaretzka, that I invariably forget all lesser 
 details. And that's why I told Tom you were a Rus- 
 sian." 
 
 On this particular occasion, too, it was made easier be- 
 cause Tony had asked his cousin's opinion about the Irish 
 girl, invited for his special benefit. 4 T was never so dis- 
 appointed in my life," he said in his convincing yet airy 
 
The Wave 129 
 
 way. "She looked so wonderful the other night. It was 
 the evening dress, I suppose. You should always see a 
 girl first in the daytime ; the daylight self is the real self/' 
 And Tom, amused by the irresponsible attitude towards 
 the sex, replied that the right woman looked herself in 
 any dress because it was as much a part of her as her 
 own skin. "Yes/' said Tony, "it's the thing inside the 
 skin that counts, of course ; you're right ; the rest is only 
 a passing glamour. But friendship with a woman is the 
 best of all, for friendship grows insensibly into the best 
 kind of love. It's a delightful feeling," he added sym- 
 pathetically, "that kind of friendship. Independent of 
 what they wear!" 
 
 He enjoyed his pun and laughed. "I say, Tom," he 
 went on suddenly with a certain inconsequence, "have 
 you ever met the Prince Madame Jaretzka's husband 
 by the way? I wonder what he's like." He looked up 
 carelessly and raised his eyebrows. 
 
 "No," replied Tom in a quiet tone, "but I exp hope 
 to some day." 
 
 "I think he ran away and left her, or something," con- 
 tinued the other. "He's dead, anyhow, to all intents and 
 purposes. But I've been wondering lately. I'll be bound 
 there was ill-treatment. She looks so sad sometimes. 
 The other night at the theater I was watching her " 
 
 "That Egyptian play ?" broke in Tom. 
 
 "Yes; it was bad enough to make any one look sad, 
 wasn't it ? But it was curious all the same " 
 
 "I didn't mean the badness." 
 
 "Nor did I. It was odd. There was atmosphere in 
 spite of everything." 
 
 "I thought you were too occupied to notice the per- 
 formance," Tom hinted. 
 
 Tony laughed good naturedly. "I was a bit taken up, 
 I admit," he said. "But there was something curious all 
 the same. I kept seeing you and our hostess on the 
 stage " 
 
130 The Wave 
 
 "In Egypt !" 
 
 "In a way, yes." He hesitated. 
 
 "Odd," said his cousin briefly. 
 
 "Very. It seemed there was some one else who ought 
 to have been there as well as you two. Only he never 
 came on/' 
 
 Tom made no comment. Was this thought-transfer- 
 ence, he wondered ? 
 
 The natural sympathy between them furnished the 
 requisite conditions certainly. 
 
 "He never came on," continued Tony, "and I had the 
 queer feeling that he was being kept off on purpose, that 
 he was busy with something else, but that the moment he 
 came on the play would get good and interesting real. 
 Something would happen. And it was then I noticed 
 Madame Jaretzka " 
 
 "And me, too, I suppose," Tom put in, half amused, 
 half serious. There was an excited yet uneasy feeling 
 in him. 
 
 "Chiefly her, I think. And she looked so sad, it struck 
 me suddenly. D'you know, Tom," he went on more 
 earnestly, "it was really quite curious. I got the feeling 
 that we three were watching that play together from 
 above it somewhere, looking down on it sort of from a 
 height above " 
 
 "Above," exclaimed his cousin. There was surprise in 
 him surprise at himself. That faint uneasiness in- 
 creased. He realized that to confide in Tony was impos- 
 sible. But why ? 
 
 "H'm," Tony went on in a reflective way as if half to 
 himself. "I may have seen it before and forgotten it." 
 Then he looked up at his cousin. "And what's more 
 that we three, as we watched it, knew the same thing to- 
 gether knew that we were waiting for another chap to 
 come on, and that when he came the silly piece would 
 turn suddenly interesting, dramatic in a true sense, only 
 tragedy instead of comedy. Did you, Tom?" he asked 
 
The Wave 131 
 
 abruptly, screwing up his eyes and looking quite serious 
 a moment. 
 
 Tom had no answer ready, but his cousin left no time 
 for answering. 
 
 "And the fact is," he continued, lowering his voice, "I 
 had the feeling the other chap we were waiting for was 
 him." 
 
 Tom was too interested to smile at the grammar. "You 
 mean her husband?" he said quietly. He did not like 
 the turn the talk had taken ; it pleased him to talk of her, 
 but he disliked to bring the absent husband in. There was 
 trouble in him as he listened. 
 
 "Possibly it was," he added a trifle stiffly. Then 
 ashamed of his feeling towards his imaginative cousin, 
 he changed his manner quickly. He went up and stood 
 behind him by the open window. "Tony, old boy, we're 
 together somehow in this thing," he began impulsively; 
 "I'm sure of it." Then the words stuck. "If ever I want 
 your help " 
 
 "Rather, Tom," said the other with enthusiasm, yet 
 puzzled, turning with an earnest expression in his frank 
 blue eyes. In another moment, like two boys swearing 
 eternal friendship they would have shaken hands. Tom 
 again felt the impulse to make the confidences that de- 
 sire for sympathy prompted, and again realized that it was 
 difficult, yet that he would accomplish it. Indeed, he was 
 on the point of doing so, relieving his mind of the child- 
 hood story, the accumulated details of Wave and Whiff 
 and Sound and Eyes, the singular Montreux meeting, the 
 strange medley of joy and uneasiness as well, all in fact 
 without reserve when a voice from the lawn came float- 
 ing into the room and broke the spell. It lifted him 
 sharply to another plane. He felt glad suddenly that he 
 had not spoken afterwards, he felt very glad. It was 
 not right in regard to her, he realized. 
 
 "You're never ready, you boys," their hostess was say- 
 ing, "and Miss Monnigan declares that men always wait 
 
132 The Wave 
 
 to be fetched. The lunch-baskets are all in, and the mo- 
 tor's waiting." 
 
 "We didn't want to be in the way," cried Tony gaily, 
 ever ready with an answer first. "We're both so big and 
 clumsy. But we'll make the fire in the woods and do the 
 work that requires mere strength without skill all right." 
 He leaped out of the window to join them, while Tom 
 went by the door to fetch his cap and overcoat. Turning 
 an instant he saw the three figures on the lawn standing 
 in the sunlight, Madame Jaretzka with a loose, rough mo- 
 tor-coat over her white dress, a rose at her throat and 
 the long blue veil he loved wound round her hair and face. 
 He saw her eyes look up at Tony and heard her chiding 
 him. "You've been talking mischief in there together," 
 she was saying laughingly, giving him a searching glance 
 in play, though the tone had meaning in it. "We were 
 talking of you," swore Tony, "and you," he added, turning 
 by way of polite after-thought to the girl. And one of 
 his big hands he laid for a moment upon Madame Ja- 
 retzka's arm. 
 
 Tom turned sharply and hurried on into the hall. The 
 first thought in his mind was how tender and gentle 
 Madame Jaretzka looked standing in the sunshine, her 
 eyes turned up at Tony. His second thought was vaguer ; 
 he felt glad that Tony admired and liked her so. The 
 third was vaguer still : Tony didn't really care for the girl 
 a bit and was only amusing himself with her, but Madame 
 Jaretzka would protect her and see that no harm came of 
 it. She could protect the whole world. That was her 
 genius. 
 
 In a moment these three thoughts flashed through him, 
 but while the last two vanished as quickly as they came, 
 the first lingered like sunlight in him. It remained and 
 grew and filled his heart, and all that day it kept close 
 by him her love, her comfort, her mothering compas- 
 sion. 
 
 And Tom felt glad for some reason that his confidences 
 
The Wave 133 
 
 to Tony after all had been interrupted and prevented. 
 They remained thus interrupted and prevented until the 
 end, even when the "other" came upon the scene, and 
 above all while that "other" stayed. It all seemed curi- 
 ously inevitable. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE last few weeks of September they were much 
 alone together, for Mrs. Haughstone had gone back 
 to her husband's tiny house at Kew, Molly to the Dresden 
 school, and Tony somewhere into space northern Rus- 
 sia, he said, to watch the birds beginning to leave. 
 
 Meanwhile, with deepening of friendship, and experi- 
 ences whose ordinariness was raised into significance be- 
 cause this woman shared them with him, Tom saw the 
 summer fade in England and usher in the longer eve- 
 nings. Light and heat waned from the sighing year; 
 winds, charged with the memory of roses, took the paling 
 skies; the swallows whispered together of the southern 
 tour. New stars swam into their autumnal places, and 
 the Milky Way came majestically to its own. He watched 
 the curve of it on moonless nights, pouring its grand river 
 across the heavens. And in the heart of its soft brilliance 
 he saw Cygnus, cruciform and shining, immersed in the 
 white foam of the arching wave. 
 
 He noticed these things now, as once long ago, in early 
 boyhood, because a time of separation was at hand. His 
 yearning now was akin to his yearning then it left a 
 chasm in his soul that beauty alone could help to fill. 
 At fifteen he was thirty-five, as now at thirty-five he was 
 fifteen again. 
 
 Lettice was not, indeed, at a Finishing School across 
 the Channel, but she was shortly going to Warsaw to 
 spend October with her husband, and in November she 
 was to sail for Egypt from Trieste. Tom was to follow 
 in December, so a separation of three months was close 
 at hand. "But a necessary separation," she said, one 
 evening as they motored home beneath the stars, "is al- 
 
The Wave 135 
 
 ways bearable and strengthening; we shall both be occu- 
 pied with things that must I mean, things we ought to 
 do. It's the needless separations that are hard to bear." 
 He replied that it would be wonderful meeting again and 
 pretending they were strangers. He tried to share her 
 mood, her point of view with honesty. "Yes," she an- 
 swered, "only that wouldn't be quite true, because you 
 and I can never be separated really. The curve of the 
 earth may hide us from each other's sight like that" 
 and she pointed to the sinking moon, "but we feel the pull 
 just the same." 
 
 They leaned back among the cushions, sharing the mys- 
 terious beauty of the night-sky in their hearts. They low- 
 ered their voices as though the hush upon the world de- 
 manded it. The little things they said seemed suddenly 
 to possess a significance they could not account for quite 
 and yet admitted. 
 
 He told her that the Milky Way was at its best these 
 coming months, and that Cygnus would be always visible 
 on clear nights. "We'll look at that and remember," he 
 said half playfully. "The astronomers say the Milky 
 Way is the very ground-plan of the Universe. So we all 
 come out of it. And you're Cygnus." She called him 
 sentimental, and he admitted that perhaps he was. "I 
 don't like this separation," he said bluntly. In his mind 
 he was thinking that the Milky Way had his wave in 
 it, and that its wondrous arch, like his life and hers, rose 
 out of the "sea" below the world. In that sea no separa- 
 tion was possible. 
 
 "But it's not that that makes you suddenly poetic, Tom. 
 It's something else." 
 
 "Is it ?" he answered. A whisper of pain went past him 
 across the night. He felt something coming; he was 
 convinced she felt it too. But he could not name it. 
 
 "The Milky Way is a stream as well as a wave. You 
 
 say it rises in the autumn ?" She leaned nearer to 
 
 him a little. 
 
136 The Wave 
 
 "But it's seen at its best a little later in the winter, I 
 believe." 
 
 "We shall be in Egypt then," she mentioned. He could 
 have sworn she would say those very words. 
 
 "Egypt," he repeated slowly. "Yes in Egypt." 
 
 And a little shiver came over him, so slight, so quickly 
 gone again, that he hoped it was imperceptible. Yet she 
 had noticed it. 
 
 "Why, Tom, don't you like the idea?" 
 
 "I wonder " he began, then changed the sentence 
 "I wonder what it will be like. I have an enormous de- 
 sire to see it I know that." 
 
 He heard her laugh under her breath a little. What 
 came over them both in that moment he couldn't say. 
 There was a sense of tumult in him somewhere, a hint of 
 pain, of menace too. Her laughter, slight as it was, jarred 
 upon him. She was not feeling quite what he felt this 
 flashed, then vanished. 
 
 "You don't sound enthusiastic," she said calmly. 
 
 "I am, though. Only I had a feeling " He broke 
 
 off. The truth was he couldn't describe that feeling even 
 to himself. 
 
 "Tom, dear, my dear one " she began, then stopped. 
 She also stopped an impulsive movement towards him. 
 She drew back her sentence and her arms. And Tom, 
 aware of a rising passion in him he might be unable to 
 control, turned his face away a moment. Something 
 clutched at his heart as with cruel pincers. A chill fol- 
 lowed close upon the shiver. He felt a moment of keen 
 shame, yet knew not exactly why he felt it. 
 
 "I am a sentimental ass !" he exclaimed abruptly with a 
 natural laugh. His voice was tender. He turned again to 
 her. "I believe I've never properly grown up." And 
 before he could restrain himself he drew her towards him, 
 seized her hand and kissed it like a boy. It was that kiss, 
 combined with her blocked sentence and uncompleted ges- 
 ture, rather than any more passionate expression of their 
 
The Wave 137 
 
 love for one another, that he remembered throughout the 
 empty months to follow. 
 
 But there was another reason, too, why he remembered 
 it. For she wore a silk dress, and the arm against his ear 
 produced a momentary rustling that brought back the 
 noise in the Zakopane bedroom when the frozen branch 
 had scraped the outside wall. And with the Sound, absent 
 now so long, the old strange uneasiness revived acutely. 
 For that caressing gesture, that kiss, that phrase of love 
 that blocked its own final utterance brought back the 
 strange rich pain. 
 
 In the act of giving them, even while he felt her touch 
 and held her within his arms she evaded him and went 
 far away into another place where he could not follow 
 her. And he knew for the first time a singular emotion 
 that seemed like a faint, distant jealousy that stirred in 
 him, yet a spiritual jealousy . . . and of some one he had 
 never even seen. 
 
 They lingered a moment in the garden to enjoy the 
 quiet stars and see the moon go down below the pine- 
 wood. The tense mood of half an hour ago in the motor 
 car had evaporated of its own accord apparently. 
 
 A conversation that followed emphasized this elusive 
 emotion in him, because it somehow increased the re- 
 moteness of the part of her he could not claim. She 
 mentioned that she was taking Mrs. Haughstone with her 
 to Egypt in November; it again exasperated him; such 
 unselfishness he could not understand. The invitation 
 came, moreover, upon what Tom felt was a climax of 
 shameless behavior. For Madame Jaretzka had helped 
 the family with money that, to save their pride, was to 
 be considered lent. The husband had written gushing 
 letters of thanks and promises that Tom had seen these 
 letters could hardly have deceived a schoolgirl. Yet 
 a recent legacy, which rendered a part repayment possi- 
 ble, had been purposely concealed, with the result that 
 
i 3 8 The Wave 
 
 yet more money had been "lent" to tide them over non- 
 existent or invented difficulties. 
 
 And now, on the top of this, Madame Jaretzka not only 
 refused to divulge that the legacy was known to her, but 
 even proposed an expensive two months' holiday to the 
 woman who was tricking her. 
 
 Tom objected strongly for two reasons; he thought 
 it foolish kindness, and he did not want her. 
 
 "You're too good to the woman, far too good," he said. 
 But his annoyance was only increased by the firmness of 
 the attitude that met him. "No, Tom; you're wrong. 
 They'll find out in time that I know, and see themselves 
 as they are." 
 
 "You forgive everything to everybody," he observed 
 critically. "It's too much." 
 
 She turned round upon him. Her attitude was a re- 
 buke, and feeling rebuked, he did not like it. For though 
 she did not quote "until seventy times seven," she lived it. 
 
 "When she sees herself sly and treacherous like that, 
 she'll understand," came the answer, "she'll get her own 
 forgiveness." 
 
 "Her own forgiveness!" 
 
 "The only real kind. If I forgive, it doesn't alter her. 
 But if she understands and feels shame and makes up her 
 mind not to repeat that's forgiving herself. She really 
 changes then." 
 
 Tom gasped inwardly. This was a level of behavior 
 where he found the air somewhat rarefied. He saw the 
 truth of it, but had no answer ready. 
 
 "Remorse and regret," she went on, "only make one 
 ineffective in the present. It's looking backwards, instead 
 of looking forwards." 
 
 He felt something very big in her as she said it, hold- 
 ing his eyes firmly with her own. To have the love of 
 such a woman was, indeed, a joy and wonder. It was a 
 keen happiness to feel that he, Tom Kelverdon, had ob- 
 tained it. His admiration for himself, and his deep, ad- 
 
The Wave 139 
 
 miring love for her rose side by side. He did not recog- 
 nize the flattery of self in this attitude. The simplicity 
 in her baffled him. 
 
 "I could forgive you anything, Lettice !" he cried. 
 
 "Could you?" she said gently. "If so, you really love 
 me." 
 
 It was not the doubt in her voice that overwhelmed 
 him then; she never indulged in hints. It was a doubt 
 in himself, not that he loved her, but that his love was 
 not yet big enough, unselfish enough, sufficiently large 
 and deep to be worthy of this exquisite soul beside him. 
 Perhaps it was realizing he could not yet possess her 
 spirit that made him seize the precious little body that 
 contained it. Nothing could stop him. He took her in 
 his arms and held her till she became breathless. The 
 passionate moment expressed real spiritual yearning. 
 And she knew it. She did not struggle, yet neither did 
 she respond. They stood upon different levels some- 
 how. 
 
 "There'll be nothing left to love," she gasped, "if you 
 do that often !" She released herself quietly, tidying her 
 hair and putting her hat straight while she smiled at him. 
 Her dark veil had caught in his tie-pin. She disentangled 
 it, her hands touching his mouth as she did so. He kissed 
 them gently, bending his head down with an air of re- 
 pentance. 
 
 "My God, Lettice you're precious to me!" he stam- 
 mered. 
 
 But even as he said it, even while he still felt her soft 
 cheeks against his lips, her frail unresisting figure within 
 his arms, there came this pang of sudden pain that was 
 so acute it frightened him. There was something im- 
 personal in her attitude that alarmed him. What was it ? 
 He was helpless to understand it. The excitement in 
 his blood obscured inner perception. . . . Such tempestu- 
 ous moments were rare enough between them, and when 
 they came he felt that she endured them rather than 
 
140 The Wave 
 
 responded. He was aware of a touch of shame in him- 
 self. But this pain ? Even while he held her it 
 
 seemed again that she escaped him because of the heights 
 she lived on, yet, partly, too, because of the innocence 
 which had not yet eaten of the tree of knowledge. . . . 
 Was that, then, the lack in her? Had she yet to learn 
 that the spiritual dare not be divorced wholly from the 
 physical and that the divine blending of the two in purity 
 of heart alone brings safety? 
 
 She slipped from his encircling arms and rose. He 
 struggled after her. But that air he could not breathe. 
 She was too far above him. She had to stoop to meet 
 the passionate man in him that sought to seize and hold 
 her. She had the earlier phrase returned come back 
 to fetch him. He did not really love yet as he ought 
 to love. He loved himself in her; selfishly somehow, 
 somewhere. But this thought he did not capture wholly. 
 It cast a shadow merely and was gone. 
 
 Somewhere, too, there was jealous resentment in him. 
 He could not feel himself indispensable to a woman who 
 occupied a pinnacle. 
 
 His cocksureness wavered a little before the sharp 
 attack. Pang after pang stung him shrewdly, stung his 
 pride, his confidence, his vanity, shaking the platform 
 on which he stood till each separate plank trembled and 
 the sense of security grew less. 
 
 But the confusion in his heart and mind bewildered 
 him. It was all so strange and incomprehensible; he 
 could not understand it. He knew she was true and loyal, 
 her purity beyond reproach, her elusiveness not calcu- 
 lated or intended, yet that somewhere, somehow she could 
 do without him, and that if he left her she almost 
 would have neither remorse nor regret. She would just 
 accept it and forgive. . . . 
 
 And he thought suddenly with an intense bitterness 
 that amazed him of the husband. The thought of that 
 "other" who had yet to come afflicted him desperately. 
 
The Wave 141 
 
 When he met those light-blue eyes of the Wave he would 
 surely know them . . . ! He felt again the desire to 
 seek counsel and advice from another, some one of his 
 own sex, a sympathetic and understanding soul like Tony. 
 
 The turmoil in him was beyond elucidation: thoughts 
 and emotions of nameless kind combined to produce a 
 fluid state of insecurity he could not explain. As usual, 
 however, there emerged finally the solid fact which 
 seemed now the keynote of his character; at least, he 
 invariably fell back upon it for support against these 
 occasional storms : "She has singled me out ; she can't 
 really do without me ; we're necessary to each other ; I'm 
 safe." The rest he dismissed as half realized only and 
 therefore not quite real. His position with her was 
 unique, of course, something the world could not possi- 
 bly understand, and, while resenting what he called the 
 "impersonal" attitude in her, he yet knew that it was 
 precisely this impersonal attitude that justified their love. 
 Their love, in fine, was proved spiritual thereby. They 
 were in the "sea" together. Invariably in the end he 
 blamed himself. 
 
 The rising Wave, it seemed, was bringing up from 
 day to day new, unexpected qualities from the depths 
 within him, just as it brings up mud and gravel from 
 the ground-bed of the shore. He felt it driving him for- 
 ward with increasing speed and power. With an irre- 
 sistible momentum that left him helpless, it was hurry- 
 ing him along towards the moment when it would lower 
 its crest again towards the earth and break. 
 
 He knew now where the smothering crash would come, 
 where he would finally meet the singular details of his 
 boyhood's premonition face to face, the Sound, the 
 Whiff, the other pair of Eyes. They awaited him in 
 Egypt. In Egypt, at last, he would find the entire series, 
 recognize each item. He would also discover the nature 
 of the wave that was neither of water nor of snow. . . . 
 
 Yet, strange to say, when he actually met the pair of 
 
142 The Wave 
 
 light-blue eyes, he did not recognize them. He encoun- 
 tered the face to which they belonged, but was not 
 warned. While fulfilling its prophecy, the premonition 
 failed, of course, to operate. 
 
 For premonitions are a delicate matter, losing their 
 power in the act of justifying themselves. To prevent 
 their fulfilment were to stultify their existence. Between 
 a spiritual warning and its material consummation there 
 is but a friable and gossamer alliance. Had he recog- 
 nized, he might possibly have prevented; whereas the 
 deeper part of him unconsciously invited and said, 
 Come. 
 
 And so, not recognizing the arrival of the other pair 
 of eyes, Tom, when he met them, knew himself attracted 
 instead of repelled. Far from being warned, he knew 
 himself drawn towards their owner by natural sympathy, 
 as towards some one whose deep intrusion into his inner 
 life was necessary to its fuller realization the tumul- 
 tuous breaking of the rapidly accumulating Wave. 
 
PART III 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE weeks that followed seemed both brief and long 
 to Tom. The separation he felt keenly, though as 
 a breathing spell the interval was even welcome in a meas- 
 ure. Since the days at Montreux he had been living in- 
 tensely, swept along by a movement he could not control : 
 now he could pause and think a moment. He tried to get 
 the bird's-eye view in which alone details are seen in 
 their accurate relations and proportions. There was much 
 that perplexed his plain, straightforward nature. But 
 the more he thought, the more puzzled he became, and in 
 the end he resigned himself happily to the great flow of 
 life that was sweeping him along. He was distinctly con- 
 scious of being "swept along." What was going to hap- 
 pen, would happen. He wondered, watched and waited. 
 The idea of Egypt, meanwhile, thrilled him with a curi- 
 ous anticipation each time he thought of it. And he 
 thought of it a good deal. 
 
 He received letters from Warsaw, but they told nothing 
 of her life there : she referred vaguely to duties whose 
 afflicting nature he half guessed now ; and the rest was 
 filled with loving solicitude for his welfare. Even 
 through the post she mothered him absurdly. He felt his 
 life now based upon her. Her love was indispensable to 
 him. 
 
 The last letters from Vienna and Trieste were full 
 of a tenderness most comforting, and he felt relief that 
 she had "finished with Warsaw," as he put it. His own 
 last letter was timed to catch her steamer. "You have 
 all my love," he wrote, "but you can give what you can 
 spare to Tony, as he's in Egypt by now, and tell him I 
 shall be out a month from to-day. Everything goes well 
 
146 The Wave 
 
 here. I'm to have full charge of the work at Assouan. 
 The Firm has put everything in my hands, but there won't 
 be much to do at first, and I shall be with you at Luxor 
 a great deal. I'm looking forward to Egypt too im- 
 mensely. I believe all sorts of wonderful things are go- 
 ing to happen to us there." 
 
 He was very pleased with himself, and very pleased 
 with her, and very pleased with everything. The wave 
 of his life was rising still triumphantly. 
 
 He kept her Warsaw letters and re-read them fre- 
 quently. She wrote admirably. Mrs. Haughstone, it 
 seemed, complained about everything, from the cabin 
 and hotel room "which, she declares, are never so good as 
 my own," to her position as an invited guest, "which she 
 accepts as though she favored me by coming, thinking 
 herself both chaperone and indispensable companion. 
 How little some people realize that no one is ever really 
 indispensable." And the first letter from Egypt told him 
 to come out quickly and "help me keep her in her place, 
 as only a man can do. Tony wonders why you're so 
 long about it." It pleased him very much, and as the 
 time approached for leaving, his spirits rose; indeed, he 
 reached Marseilles much in the mood of a happy, con- 
 fident boy who has passed all exams, and is off upon a 
 holiday most thoroughly deserved. 
 
 There had been time for three or four letters from 
 Luxor, and he read them in the train as he hurried along 
 from Geneva towards the south, leaving the snowy Jura 
 hills behind him. "Those are the blue mountains we 
 watched from Montreux together in the spring," he said 
 to himself, looking out of the window. "Soon, in Egypt, 
 we shall watch the Desert and the Nile instead." And, 
 remembering that dream-like, happy time of their earliest 
 acquaintance, his heart beat in delighted anticipation. He 
 could think of nothing else but her. Those Montreux 
 days seemed years ago instead of a brief six months. 
 What a lot he had to tell her, how much they would have 
 
The Wave 147 
 
 to talk about. Life, indeed, was rich and full. He was 
 a lucky man; yet he deserved it all. Belief and confi- 
 dence in himself increased. He gazed out of the window, 
 thinking happily as the scenery rushed by. ... Then he 
 came back to the letters and read them over yet once 
 again ; he almost knew them now by heart ; he opened 
 his bag and read the Warsaw letters too. Then, putting 
 them all away, he lay back in his corner and tried to sleep. 
 The express train seemed so slow, but the steamer would 
 seem slower still. . . . Thoughts and memories passed 
 idly through his brain, grew mingled and confused; his 
 eyes were closed; he fell into a doze: he almost slept 
 when something rose into his drowsy mind and made him 
 suddenly wakeful 
 
 What was it? He didn't know. It had vanished as 
 soon as it appeared. But the drowsy mood had passed, 
 the desire to sleep was gone. There was impatience in 
 him, the keen wish to be in Egypt immediately. He 
 cursed the slow means of travel, longed to be out there, 
 on the spot, with her and Tony. Her last letters had 
 been full of descriptions of the place and people, of Tony 
 and his numerous friends, his kindness in introducing her 
 to the most interesting among them, their picnics to- 
 gether on the Nile and in the Desert, visits to the famous 
 sites of tomb and temple, in particular of an all-night 
 bivouac somewhere and the sunrise over the Theban hills. 
 . . . Tom, as he read it all, felt this keen impatience to 
 be sharing it with them; he was out of it; oh, how he 
 would enjoy it all when he got there! The words "The- 
 ban hills" called up a vivid and stimulating picture in par- 
 ticular. 
 
 But it was not this that chased the drowsy mood and 
 made him wakeful. It was the letters themselves, some- 
 thing he had not noticed hitherto, something that had 
 escaped him as he first read them one by one. Inde- 
 finable, it hid between the lines. Only on reading the 
 
i 4 8 The Wave 
 
 series as a whole was it noticeable at all. He wondered. 
 He asked himself vague questions. 
 
 Opening his bag again, he went through the letters in 
 the order of their arrival ; then put them back inside the 
 elastic ring with a sensation of relief and a happy sigh. 
 He had discovered the faint, elusive impression that had 
 made him wakeful, but in discovering it had satisfied him- 
 self that it was imagination caused by the increasing im- 
 patience of his impetuous heart. For it had seemed to 
 him that he was aware of a change, though so slight as 
 to be scarcely perceptible, and certainly not traceable to 
 actual words or sentences. It struck him that the War- 
 saw letters felt the separation more keenly, more poign- 
 antly, than the Egyptian letters. This seemed due rather 
 to omissions in the latter than to anything else that he 
 could name, for while the Warsaw letters spoke fre- 
 quently of the separation, of her longing to see him close, 
 those from Luxor omitted all such phrases. There were 
 pleas in plenty for his health, his comfort, his welfare and 
 success the Mother found full scope but no direct ex- 
 pression of her need for him. This, briefly, was the 
 notion he had caught faintly from "between the lines." 
 
 But, having run it to earth, he easily explained it too. 
 At Warsaw she was unhappy; whereas now, in Egypt, 
 their reunion was almost within sight: she felt happier, 
 too, her unpleasant duties over. It was all natural 
 enough. "What a sentimental donkey a man is when he's 
 in love!" he exclaimed with a self-indulgent smile of 
 pleased forgiveness ; "but the fact is when she's not by 
 me to explain I could imagine anything!" And he fell 
 at length into the doze his excited fancy had postponed. 
 
 After leaving Marseilles his impatience grew with the 
 slowness of the steamer. The voyage of four days 
 seemed interminable. The sea and sky took on a deeper 
 blue, the air turned softer, the sweetness of the south be- 
 came more marked. His exhilaration increased with 
 every hour, the desire to reach his destination increasing 
 
The Wave 149 
 
 with it. There was an intensity about his feelings he 
 could not entirely account for. The longing to see Egypt 
 merged with the longing to see Lettice. But the two were 
 separate. The latter was impatient happiness, while the 
 former struck a slower note respect and wonder that 
 contained a .hint of awe. 
 
 Somewhere in this anticipatory excitement, too, hid 
 drama. And his first glimpse of the marvelous old land 
 did prove dramatic in a sense. For when a passen- 
 ger drew his attention to the white Alexandrian harbor 
 floating on the shining blue, he caught his breath a mo- 
 ment and his heart gave a sudden unexpected leap. He 
 saw the low-lying coast, a palm, a mosque, a minaret ; he 
 saw the sandy lip of Africa. 
 
 That shimmering line of blue and gold was Egypt. . . . 
 He had known it would look exactly thus, exactly as he 
 saw it. The same instant his heart contracted a little. 
 . . . He leaned motionless upon the rail and watched 
 the coast-line coming nearer, ever nearer. It rose out of 
 the burning haze of blue and gold that hung motionless 
 between the water and the air. Bathed in the drenching 
 sunlight, the fringe of the great thirsty Desert seemed 
 to drink the sea. . . . 
 
 His entry was accompanied by mingled emotions and 
 sensations. That Lettice stood waiting for him some- 
 where behind the blaze of light contributed much ; yet the 
 thrill owned a more complex origin, it seemed. To any 
 one not entirely callous to the stab of strange romance 
 and stranger beauty, the first sight of Egypt must always 
 be an event, and Tom, by no means thus insensitive, felt 
 it vividly. He was aware of something not wholly unfa- 
 miliar. The invitation was so strong, it seemed to entice 
 as with an attraction that was almost summons. As the 
 ship drew nearer, and thoughts of landing filled his mind, 
 he felt no opposition, no resistance, no difficulty, as with 
 other countries. There was no hint of friction anywhere. 
 
150 The Wave 
 
 He seemed instantly at home. Egypt not merely enticed 
 she pulled him in. 
 
 . "Here I am at last !" whispered a voice, as he watched 
 the noisy throng of Arabs, Nubians, Soudanese upon the 
 crowded wharf. He delighted in the color, the gleaming 
 eyes, bronze skins, the white caftans with their red and 
 yellow sashes. The phantasmal amber light that filled 
 the huge, still heavens lit something similar in his mind 
 and thoughts. Only the train, with its luxurious res- 
 taurant car, its shutters to keep out the dust and heat, 
 appeared incongruous. He lost the power to think this or 
 that. He could only feel, and feel intensely. His feet 
 touched Egypt, and a deep glow of inner happiness pos- 
 sessed him. He was not disappointed anywhere, though 
 as yet he had seen nothing but a steamer quay. Then 
 he sent a telegram to Lettice: "Arrived safely. Reach 
 Luxor eight o'clock to-morrow morning"; and, having 
 slid through the Delta country with the flaming sunset, 
 he had his first glimpse of the lordly Pyramids as the 
 train drew into Cairo. Dim and immense he saw them 
 across the swift-falling dusk, shadowy as forgotten cen- 
 turies that cannot die. Though too distant to feel their 
 menace, he yet knew them towering over him, mysterious, 
 colossal, unintelligible, the sentinels of a gateway he had 
 passed. 
 
 Such was the first touch of Egypt on his soul. It was 
 as big and magical as he had known it would be. The 
 magnificence and the glamour both were there. Europe 
 already lay forgotten far behind him, non-existent. Some 
 one tapped him on the shoulder, whispered a password, 
 he was in. 
 
 He dined in Cairo and took the night-train on to Luxor, 
 the white, luxurious wagon lit again striking an incon- 
 gruous note. For he had stepped from a platform into 
 space, a space that floated suns and constellations. About 
 him was that sense of the illimitable which broods every- 
 where in Egypt, in sand and sky, in sun and stars ; it ab- 
 
The Wave 151 
 
 sorbed him easily, small human speck in a toy train with 
 electric lights and modern comforts ! An emotion difficult 
 to seize gripped his heart, as he slid deeper and deeper into 
 the land towards Lettice. . . . For Lettice also was in- 
 volved in this. With happiness, yet somehow, too, with 
 tears, he thought of her waiting for him now, expecting 
 him, perhaps reading his telegram for the twentieth time. 
 Through a mist of blue and gold she seemed to beckon 
 to him across the shimmer of the endless yellow sands. 
 He saw the little finger he had kissed. The dear face 
 smiled. But there was a change upon it somewhere, 
 though a change too subtle to be precisely named. The 
 eyelids were half closed, and in the smile was power; 
 the beckoning finger conveyed a gesture that was new 
 command. It seemed to point; it had a motion down- 
 wards ; about her aspect was some flavor of authority al- 
 most royal, borrowed, doubtless, from the regal gold and 
 purple of the sky's magnificence. 
 
 Oddly, again, his heart contracted as this changed as- 
 pect of her, due to heightened imagination, rose before 
 the inner eye. A sensation of uncertainty and question 
 slipped in with it, though whence he knew not. A hint 
 of insecurity assailed his soul almost a sense of in- 
 feriority in himself. It even flashed across him that he 
 was under orders. It was inexplicable. ... A restless- 
 ness in his blood prevented sleep. . . . He drew the blind 
 up and looked out. 
 
 There was no moon. The night was drowned in stars. 
 The train rushed south towards Thebes along the green 
 thread of the Nile ; the Lybian desert keeping pace with 
 it, immense and desolate, death gnawing eternally at the 
 narrow strip of life. . . . And again he knew the feeling 
 that he had stepped from a platform into space. Egypt 
 lay spread below him. He fell towards it, plunging, and 
 as he fell, looked down upon something vaguely familiar 
 and half known. . . . An underlying sadness, inexplica- 
 ble but significant, crept in upon his thoughts. 
 
152 The Wave 
 
 They rushed past Bedrashein, a straggling Arab village 
 where once great Memphis owned eighteen miles of 
 frontage on the stately river; he saw the low mud huts, 
 the groves of date-palms that now marked the vanished 
 splendor. They slid by in their hundreds, the spectral 
 desert gleaming like snow between the openings. The 
 huge pyramids of Sakkhara loomed against the faint 
 western afterglow. He saw the shaft of strange green 
 light they call zodiacal. 
 
 And the sadness in him deepened inexplicably that 
 strange Egyptian sadness which ever underlies the bril- 
 liance. . . . The watchful stars looked down with sixty 
 hundred centuries between them and a forgotten glory 
 that dreamed now among a thousand sandy tombs. For 
 the silent landscape flying past him like a dream woke 
 emotions both sweet and painful that he could not under- 
 stand sweet to poignancy, exquisitely painful. 
 
 Perhaps it was natural enough, natural, too, that he 
 should transfer these in some dim measure to the woman 
 now waiting for him among the ruins of many-gated 
 Thebes. The ancient city, dreaming still beside the sto- 
 ried river, assumed an appearance half fabulous in his 
 thoughts. Egypt had wakened imagination in his soul. 
 The change he fancied in Lettice was due, doubtless, to 
 the transforming magic that mingled an actual present 
 with a haunted past. Possibly this was some portion of 
 the truth. . . . And yet, while the mood possessed him, 
 some joy, some inner sheath, as it were, of anticipated 
 happiness slipped off him into the encroaching yellow 
 sand as though he surrendered, not so much the actual 
 happiness, as his right to it. A second's helplessness 
 crept over him ; another Self that was inferior peeped up 
 and sighed and whispered. . . . He was aware of hidden 
 touches that stabbed him into uneasiness, disquiet, almost 
 pain. . . . Some outer tissue was stripped from his nor- 
 mal being, leaving him naked to the tang of extremely 
 
The Wave 153 
 
 delicate shafts, buried so long that interpretation failed 
 him. 
 
 The curious sensation, luckily, did not last; but this 
 hint of a familiarity that seemed both sweet and danger- 
 ous, made it astonishingly convincing at the time. Some 
 aspect of vanity, of confidence in himself distinctly weak- 
 ened. . . . 
 
 It passed with the spectral palm trees as the train sped 
 further south. He finally dismissed it as the result of 
 fatigue, excitement and anticipation too prolonged. . . . 
 Yes, he dismissed it. At any rate it passed. It sank out 
 of sight and was forgotten. It had become, perhaps, an 
 integral portion of his being. Possibly, it had always 
 been so, and had been merely waiting to emerge. . . . 
 
 But such intangible and elusive emotions were so new 
 to him that he could not pretend to deal with them. 
 There is a stimulus as of ether about the Egyptian cli- 
 mate that gets into the mind, it is said, and stirs unwonted 
 dreams and fantasies. The climate becomes mental. His 
 stolid temperament was, perhaps, pricked thus half unin- 
 telligibly. He could not understand it. He drew the 
 blind down. But before turning out the light, he read 
 over once again the note of welcome Lettice had sent to 
 meet him at the steamer. It was brief, but infinitely 
 precious. The thought of her love sponged all lesser feel- 
 ings completely from his mind, and he fell asleep thinking 
 only of their approaching meeting, and of his marvelous 
 deep joy. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 ON reaching Luxor at eight o'clock in the morning, to 
 his keen delight an Arab servant met him with an 
 unexpected invitation. He had meant to go first to his 
 hotel, but Lettice willed otherwise, everything thought 
 out beforehand in her loving way. He drove accordingly 
 to her house on the outskirts of the town towards Karnak, 
 changed and bathed in a room where he recognized with 
 supreme joy a hundred familiar touches that seemed 
 transplanted from the Brown Flat at home and found 
 her at nine o'clock waiting for him on the verandah. 
 Breakfast was laid in the shady garden just beyond. 
 
 It was ideal as a dream. She stood there dressed in 
 white, wearing a big sun-hat with little roses, sparkling, 
 radiant, a graceful fairy figure from the heart of spring. 
 "Here's the inevitable fly-whisk, Tom," was the first 
 thing she said, and as naturally as though they had parted 
 a few hours before, "it's to keep the flies away, and to 
 keep you at your distance too!" And his first remark, 
 escaping him impulsively in place of a hundred other 
 things he had meant to say, was, "You look different; 
 you've changed. Lettice, you're far more lovely than I 
 knew. I've never seen you look like that before!" He 
 felt his entire being go out to her in a consuming flame. 
 "You look perfectly divine." Sheer admiration took his 
 breath away. "I believe you're Isis herself," he laughed 
 in his delight, "come back into her own !" 
 
 "Then you must be Osiris, Tom!" her happy voice 
 responded, "new risen from his sandy tomb!" 
 
 There was no time for private conversation, for Mrs. 
 Haughstone appeared just then and inquired politely 
 after his health and journey. "The flies are awful," she 
 
 154 
 
The Wave 155 
 
 mentioned, "but Lettice always insists on having break- 
 fast out of doors. I hope you'll be able to stand it." And 
 she continued to flutter her horse-hair whisk as though 
 she would have liked to sweep Egypt itself from the face 
 of the map. "No wonder the Israelites were glad to 
 leave. There's sand in everything you eat and flies on 
 everything you see." Yet she said it with what passed in 
 her case for good nature; she, too, was evidently enjoy- 
 ing herself in Egypt. 
 
 Tom said that flies and sand would not trouble him 
 with such gorgeous sunlight to compensate, and that any- 
 how they were better than soot and fogs in London. 
 
 "You'll be tired of the sun before a week is over," she 
 replied, "and long to see a cloud or feel a drop of rain." 
 She followed his eyes which seemed unable to leave the 
 face and figure of his hostess. "But it all agrees wonder- 
 fully with my cousin. Don't you find her looking well? 
 She's quite changed into another person, / think," the 
 tone suggesting that it was not altogether a change that 
 she herself approved of. "We're all different here, a 
 little. Even Mr. Winslowe's improved enormously. He's 
 steadier and wiser than he used to be." And Tom, laugh- 
 ing, said he hoped he would improve, too, himself. 
 
 The comforting hot coffee, the delicious rolls, the cool 
 iced fruit, and, above all, Lettice beside him at last in 
 the pleasant shade, gave Tom such high spirits that the 
 woman's disagreeable personality produced no effect. 
 Through the gate in the stone wall at the end of the gar- 
 den, beneath masses of drooping bougainvillaea, the Nile 
 dreamed past in a sheet of golden haze ; the Theban hills, 
 dipped in the crystal azure of the sky, rose stern and 
 desolate upon the horizon ; the air, at this early hour, was 
 fresh and keen. He felt himself in some enchanted gar- 
 den of the ancient world with a radiant goddess for com- 
 panion. . . . There was a sound of singing from the 
 river below the song of the Nile boatman that has not 
 changed these thousand years ; a quaint piping melody 
 
156 The Wave 
 
 floated in from the street outside ; from the further shore 
 came the dull beating of a native tom-tom; and the still, 
 burning atmosphere held the mystery of wonder in sus- 
 pension. Her beauty, at last, had found its perfect 
 setting. 
 
 "I never saw your eyes so wonderful so soft and 
 brilliant," he whispered as soon as they were alone. 
 "You're very happy." He paused, looking at her. 
 "That's me, isn't it ? Lettice, say it is at once." He was 
 very playful in his joy ; but he longed eagerly to hear her 
 admit that his coming meant as much to her as it meant 
 to him. 
 
 "I suppose it must be," she replied, "but it's the climate 
 too. This keen dry air and the sunshine bring all one's 
 power out. There's something magical in it. You forget 
 the years and feel young against the background of this 
 old land a life-time seems like an afternoon, merely. And 
 the nights oh, Tom, the stars are too, too marvelous." 
 She spoke with a kind of exuberance that seemed new in 
 her. 
 
 "They must be," he rejoined, as he gazed exultantly, 
 "for they're all in you, sun, air, and stars. You're a per- 
 fect revelation to me of what a woman " 
 
 "Am I ?" she interrupted, fluttering her whisk between 
 her chair and his. "But now, dear Tom, my headstrong 
 boy, tell me how you are and all about yourself, your 
 plans, and everything else in the world besides." He 
 told her what he could, answered all her questions, de- 
 clared he and she were going to have the time of their 
 lives, and behaved generally, as she told him, like a boy 
 out of school. He admitted it. "But I'm hungry, Let- 
 tice, awfully hungry." He kept reminding her that he 
 had been starving for two long months; surely she was 
 starving too. He longed to hear her confess it with a 
 sigh of happy relief. "My arms and lips are hungry," 
 he went on incorrigibly, "but I'm tired, too, from travel- 
 ing. I feel like putting my head on your breast and going 
 
The Wave 157 
 
 sound asleep." "My boy," she said tenderly, "you shall." 
 She responded instantly to that. "You always were a 
 baby and I'm here to take care of you." He seized her 
 hand and kissed it before she could draw it away. "You 
 must be careful, Tom. Everything has eyes in Egypt; 
 the Arabs move like ghosts." She glanced towards the 
 windows. "And the gossip is unbelievable." She was 
 quiet again now, and very gentle ; it struck him how calm 
 and sweet she was towards him, yet that there was a de- 
 lightful happy excitement underneath that she only just 
 controlled. He was aware of something wild in her just 
 out of sight a kind of mental effervescence, almost in- 
 toxication she deliberately suppressed. 
 
 "And so are you unbelievable," he exclaimed impetu- 
 ously ; "unbelievably beautiful. This is your country with 
 a vengeance, Lettice. You're like an Egyptian queen 
 a princess of the sun !" 
 
 He gazed critically at her till she lowered her eyes. 
 He realized that, actually, they were not visible from the 
 house and that the garden trees were thick about them; 
 but he also received a faint impression that she did not 
 want, did not intend, to allow quite the same intimacy as 
 before. It just flashed across him with a hint of disap- 
 pointment, then was gone. His boyish admiration, per- 
 haps, annoyed her. He had felt for a second that her 
 excuse of the windows and the gossip was not the entire 
 truth. The merest shadow of a thought it was. He no- 
 ticed her eyes fixed intently upon him. The same minute, 
 then, she rose quietly and rustled over to his chair, kissed 
 him on the cheek quickly, and sat down again. "There!" 
 she said playfully as though she had guessed his thoughts, 
 "I've done the awful thing; now you'll be reasonable, per- 
 haps!" And whether or not she had divined his mood, 
 she instantly dispelled it for the moment. . . . 
 
 They talked about a hundred things, moving their 
 chairs as the blazing sunshine found them out, till finally 
 they sat with cushions on the steps of stone that led down 
 
158 The Wave 
 
 to the river beneath the flaming bougainvillaea. He felt 
 the strange touch of Egypt all about them, that touch of 
 eternity that floats in the very air, a hint of something 
 deathless and sublime that whispers in the sunshine. Al- 
 ready he was aware of the long fading stretch of years 
 behind. He thought of Egypt as two vast hands that held 
 him, one of tawny gold and one of turquoise blue the 
 desert and the sky. In the hollow of those great hands, 
 he lay with Lettice two tiny atoms of sand. . . . 
 
 He watched her every movement, every gesture, noted 
 the slightest inflection of her voice, was aware that five 
 years at least had dropped from her, that her complexion 
 had grown softer, a shade darker, too, from the sun ; but, 
 above all, that there was a new expression, a new light 
 certainly, soft and brilliant, in her eyes. It seemed, briefly 
 put, that she had blossomed somehow into a fuller expres- 
 sion of herself. An overflowing vitality, masked behind 
 her calmness, betrayed itself in every word and glance 
 and gesture. There was an exuberance he called joy, but 
 it was, somehow, a new, an unexpected joy. 
 
 She was, of course, aware of his untiring scrutiny; 
 and presently, in a lull, keeping her eyes on the river be- 
 low them, she spoke of it. "You find me a little changed, 
 Tom, don't you ? I warned you that Egypt had a certain 
 effect on me. It inflames the heart and " 
 
 "But a very wonderful effect," he broke in with ad- 
 miration. "You're different in a way yes but you 
 haven't changed not towards me, I mean." He wanted 
 to say a great deal more, but could not find the words ; he 
 divined that something had happened to her, in Warsaw 
 probably, and he longed to question her about the "other" 
 who was her husband, but he could not, of course, allow 
 himself to do so. An intuitive feeling came to him that 
 the claim upon her of this other was more remote than 
 formerly. His dread had certainly lessened. The claims 
 upon her of this "other" seemed no longer danger- 
 
The Wave 159 
 
 cms. . . . He wondered. . . . There was a certain con- 
 fusion in his mind. 
 
 "You got my letter at Alexandria?" she interrupted 
 his reflections. He thanked her with enthusiasm, trying 
 to remember what it said but without success. It struck 
 him suddenly that there was very little in it after all, and 
 he mentioned this with a reproachful smile. "That's my 
 restraint," she replied. "You always liked restraint. Be- 
 sides, I wasn't sure it would reach you." She laughed 
 and blew a kiss towards him. She made a curious gesture 
 he had never seen her make before. It seemed unlike 
 her. More and more, he registered a difference in her, 
 as if side by side with the increase of spontaneous vitality, 
 there ran another mood, another aspect, almost another 
 point of view. It was not towards him, yet it affected 
 him. There seemed a certain new lightness, even irre- 
 sponsibility in her; she was more worldly, more human, 
 not more ordinary by any means, but less "impersonal." 
 He remembered her singular words : "It inflames the 
 heart." He wondered a little uneasily. There seemed 
 a new touch of wonder about her that made him aware 
 of something commonplace, almost inferior, in him- 
 self. . . . 
 
 At the same time he felt another thing a breath of 
 coldness touched him somewhere, though he could not 
 trace its origin to anything she did or said. Was it per- 
 haps in what she left unsaid, undone ? He longed to hear 
 her confess how she had missed him, how thrilled she 
 was that he had come: but she did not say these pas- 
 sionately desired things, and when he teased her about it, 
 she showed a slight impatience almost : "Tom, you know 
 I never talk like that. Anything sentimental I abhor. 
 But I live it. Can't you see?" His ungenerous fancies 
 vanished then at once ; at a word, a smile, a glance of the 
 expressive eyes, he instantly forgot all else. 
 
 "But I am different in Egypt," she warned him play- 
 
160 The Wave 
 
 fully again, half closing her eyelids as she said it. "I 
 wonder if you'll like me quite as well." 
 
 "More," he replied ardently, "a thousand times more. 
 I feel it already. There's mischief in you," he went on 
 watching the half -closed eyes, "a touch of magic too, but 
 very human magic. I love it." And then he whispered, 
 "I think you're more within my reach." 
 
 "Arn I ?" She looked bewitching, a being of light and 
 air. 
 
 "Everybody will fall in love with you at sight." He 
 laughed happily, aware of an enchantment that fascinated 
 him more and more, but when he suddenly went over 
 to her chair, she stopped him with decision. "Don't, Tom, 
 please don't. Tony '11 be here any minute now. It would 
 be unpleasant if he saw you behaving wildly like this! 
 He wouldn't understand." 
 
 He drew back. "Oh, Tony's coming then I must be 
 careful!" He laughed, but he was disappointed and he 
 showed it : it was their first day together, and eager 
 though he was to see his cousin, he felt it might well 
 have been postponed a little. He said so. 
 
 "One must be natural, Tom," she told him in reply; 
 "it's always the best way. This isn't London or Mon- 
 treux, you see, and " 
 
 "Lettice, I understand," he interrupted, a trifle ashamed 
 of himself. "You're quite right." He tried to look 
 pleased and satisfied, but the truth was he felt suddenly 
 stupid. "And we've got lots of time three months or 
 more ahead of us, haven't we?" She gave him an ex- 
 pressive, tender look with which he had to be contented 
 for the moment. 
 
 "And by the by, how is old Tony, and who is his 
 latest?" he inquired carelessly. 
 
 "Very excited at your coming, Tom. You'll think him 
 improved, I hope. I believe I'm his latest," she added, 
 tilting her chin with a delicious pretense at mischief. 
 And the gesture again surprised him. It was new. He 
 
The Wave 161 
 
 thought it foreign to her. There seemed a flavor of im- 
 patience, of audacity, almost of challenge in it. 
 
 "Finding himself at last. That's good. Then you've 
 been fishing to some purpose." 
 
 "Fishing?" 
 
 "Rescuing floating faces." 
 
 She pouted at him. "I'm not a saint, Tom. You know 
 I never was. Saints are very inspiring to read about, but 
 you couldn't live with one or love one. Could you, 
 now?" 
 
 He gave an inward start she did not notice. The same 
 instant he was aware that it was her happy excitement 
 that made her talk in this exaggerated way. That was 
 why it sounded so unnatural. He forgot it instantly. 
 
 They laughed and chatted as happily as two children 
 Tom felt a boy again until Mrs. Haughstone appeared, 
 marching down the river-bank with an enormous white 
 umbrella over her head, and the talk became general. 
 Tom said he would go to his hotel and return for lunch ; 
 he wanted to telephone to Assouan. He asked where 
 Tony was staying. "But he knew I was at the Winter 
 Palace," he exclaimed when she mentioned the Savoy. 
 "He found some people there he wanted to avoid," she 
 explained, "so moved down to the Savoy." 
 
 Tom said he would do the same; it was much nearer 
 to her house, for one thing : "You'll keep him for lunch, 
 won't you?" he said as he went off. "I'll try," she prom- 
 ised, "but he's so busy with his numerous friends as usual 
 that I can't be sure of him. He has more engagements 
 here than in London," whereupon Mrs. Haughstone 
 added, "Oh, he'll stay, Mr. Kelverdon. I'm sure he'll 
 stay. We lunch at one o'clock, remember." 
 
 And in his room at the hotel Tom found a dozen signs 
 of tenderness and care that increased his happiness; 
 there were touches everywhere of her loving thought for 
 his comfort and well-being flowers, his favorite soap, 
 some cigarettes, one of her own deck-chairs, books, and 
 
162 The Wave 
 
 even a big box of crystallized dates as though he was a 
 baby or a little boy. It all touched him deeply ; no other 
 woman in the world could possibly have thought out such 
 dear reminders, much less have carried them into effect. 
 There was even a writing-pad and a penholder with the 
 special nib he liked. He laughed. But her care for him 
 in such trivial things was exquisite because it showed she 
 claimed the right to do them. 
 
 His heart brimmed over as he saw them. It was im- 
 possible to give up any room, even a hotel room, into 
 which she had put her sweet and mothering personality. 
 He could do without Tony's presence and companion- 
 ship, rather than resign a room she had thus prepared for 
 him. He engaged it permanently therefore. Then, tele- 
 phoning to Assouan, he decided to take the night train 
 and see what had to be done there. It all sounded most 
 satisfactory ; he foresaw much free time ahead of him ; 
 occasional trips to the work would meet the case at 
 present. . . . 
 
 Happier than ever, he returned to a lunch in the open 
 air with her and Tony, and it was the gayest, merriest 
 meal he had ever known. Mrs. Haughstone retired to 
 sleep through the hotter hours of the afternoon, leaving 
 the trio to amuse themselves in freedom. And though 
 they never left the shady garden by the Nile, they amused 
 themselves so well that tea was over and it was time for 
 Tom to get ready for his train before he realized it. 
 Tony and Madame Jaretzka drove him to his hotel, and 
 afterwards to the station, sitting in the compartment with 
 him until the train was actually moving. He watched them 
 standing on the platform together, waving their hands. 
 He waved his own. "I'll be back to-morrow or the next 
 day," he cried. Emotions and sensations were somewhat 
 tangled in him, but happiness certainly was uppermost. 
 
 "Don't forget," he heard Tony shout. . . . And her 
 eyes were on his own until the trees on the platform hid 
 her from his sight behind their long deep shadows. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE first excitement of arrival over, he drew breath 
 as it were and looked about him. Egypt delighted 
 and amazed him, surpassing his expectations. Its effect 
 upon him was instantaneous and profound. The decisive 
 note sounded at Alexandria continued in his ears. Egypt 
 drew him in with golden, powerful arms. In every detail 
 it was strange, yet with the strangeness of a pre-deter- 
 mined welcome. It was not strange to him. The thrill 
 of welcome made him feel at home. He had come 
 back. . . . 
 
 Here, at Assouan, he was aware of Africa, mystic, 
 half-monstrous continent, lying with its heat and wonder 
 just beyond the horizon. He saw the Southern Cross, 
 pitched low above the sandy rim. . . . Yet Africa had 
 no call for him. It left him without a thrill, an uninvit- 
 ing, undesirable land. It was Egypt that made the inti- 
 mate and personal appeal, as of a deeply loved and half- 
 familiar place. It seemed to gather him in against its 
 mighty heart. He lay in some niche of comforting warm 
 sand against the ancient mass that claimed him, tucked in 
 by the wonder and the mystery, protected, even mothered. 
 It was an oddly stimulated imagination that supplied the 
 picture and made him smile. He snuggled down deeper 
 and deeper into this figurative warm bed of sand the ages 
 had preordained. He felt secure and sheltered as 
 though the wonder and the mystery veiled something that 
 menaced joy in him, something that concealed a notion of 
 attack. Almost there seemed a whisper in the wind, a 
 watchful and unclosing eye behind the dazzling sunshine : 
 "Surrender yourself to me, and I will care for you. I 
 will protect you against . . . yourself. . . . Beware!" 
 
 This peculiar excitement in his blood was somehow 
 
 163 
 
1 64 The Wave 
 
 precisely what he had expected ; the wonder and the thrill 
 were natural and right. He had known that Egypt would 
 mesmerize his soul exactly in this way. He had, it 
 seemed, anticipated both the exhilaration and the terror. 
 He thought much about it all, and each time Egypt looked 
 him in the face, he saw Lettice too. They were insep- 
 arably connected., as it were. He saw her brilliant eyes 
 peering past the great tawny visage. Together they bade 
 him pause and listen. . . . The wind brought up its faint, 
 elusive whisper: "Wait. . . . We have not done with 
 you. . . . Wait and listen! Watch . . .!" 
 
 Before his mind's eye the mighty land lay like a map, 
 a blazing garden of intenser life that the desolation ill 
 concealed. Europe seemed infinitely remote, the life he 
 had been accustomed to unreal, of tepid interest, while 
 the intimate appeal that Egypt made grew more insistent 
 every hour of the day. It was Luxor, however, that 
 called him peremptorily Luxor where all that was dear- 
 est to him in life now awaited his return. He yearned 
 for Luxor; Thebes drew him like a living magnet. Let- 
 tice was in Thebes, and Thebes also seemed the heart of 
 ancient Egypt, its center and its climax. "Come back to 
 us," whispered the sweet desert wind; "we are waiting. 
 . . ." In Thebes seemed the focus of the strange Egyp- 
 tian spell. 
 
 At all hours of the day and night, here in Assouan, it 
 caught him, asking forever the great unanswerable ques- 
 tions. In the pauses of his strenuous work, in the watches 
 of the night, when he heard the little owls and the weird 
 barking of the prowling jackals; in the noon-tide heat, 
 and in the cold glimmer of the quiet stars, he was never 
 unconscious of its haunting presence, he was never be- 
 yond its influence. He was never quite alone. . . . 
 
 What did it mean? And why did this hint of danger, 
 of pain, of loneliness lurk behind the exhilaration and the 
 peace ? Wherein lay the essence of the enchantment this 
 singular Egyptian glamour laid upon his very soul ? 
 
The Wave 165 
 
 In his laborious way, Tom worked at the disentangle- 
 ment, but without much success. One curious thought, 
 however, persisted with a strange enough significance. 
 It rose, in a sense, unbidden. It was not his brain that 
 discovered it. It just "came." 
 
 For he was thinking of other wonderful countries he 
 had known. He remembered Japan and India, both sur- 
 passing Egypt in color, sunshine, gorgeous pageantry, 
 and certainly equaling it in historical association and the 
 rest. Yet, for him, these old lands had no spell, no 
 glamour comparable to what he now experienced. The 
 mind contains them, understands them easily. They are 
 continuous with their past. The traveler drops in and 
 sees them as they always have been. They are still, so to 
 speak, going on comfortably as before. There is no shock 
 of dislocation. They have not died. 
 
 Whereas Egypt has left the world; Egypt is dead; 
 there is no link with present things. Both heart and mind 
 are aware of this deep vacuum they vainly strive to fill. 
 That ancient civilization, both marvelous and somewhere 
 monstrous, breaking with beauty, burning with aspiration, 
 mysterious and vital all has vanished as completely as 
 though it had not been. The prodigious ruins hint, but 
 cannot utter. No reconstruction from tomb or temple 
 can recall a great dream the world has lost. It is for- 
 gotten, swept away, there is no clue. Egypt has left the 
 world. . . . 
 
 Yet, as he thought about it in his uninspired way, it 
 seemed that some part of him still beat in sympathy with 
 the pulse of the forgotten dream. Egypt indeed was 
 dead, yet sometimes she came back. . . . She came to 
 revisit her soft stars and moon, her great temples and 
 her mighty tombs. She stole back into the sunshine and 
 the sand ; her broken, ruined heart at Thebes received her. 
 He saw her as a spirit, a persistent, living presence, a 
 stupendous Ghost. . . . 
 
 And the idea, having offered itself, remained. Both 
 
166 The Wave 
 
 he and Lattice somehow were associated with it, and with 
 this elusive notion of return. They, too, were entangled 
 in the glamour and the spell. They, too, had stolen back as 
 from some immemorial lost dream to revisit the scenes 
 of an intenser yet forgotten life. And Thebes was its 
 center; the secretive and forbidding Theban Hills, with 
 their desolate myriad sepulchers, its focus and its 
 climax. . . . 
 
 Assouan detained him only a couple of days. He had 
 capable lieutenants; there was delay, moreover, in the 
 arrival of certain material ; he could always be summoned 
 quickly by telephone. He sent home his report and took 
 the express train back to Luxor and to her. 
 
 He had been too occupied, too tired at night, to do 
 more than write a fond, short letter, then go to sleep ; the 
 heat was considerable ; he realized that he was in Africa ; 
 the scenery fascinated him, the enormous tawny desert, 
 the cataracts of golden yellow sand, the magical old river. 
 The wonder of Philae, with its Osirian shrine and 
 island sanctuary, caught him as it has caught most other 
 humans. After the sheer bulk of the pyramids and tem- 
 ples, Philae bursts into the heart with almost lyrical 
 sweetness. But his heart was fast in Thebes, and not all 
 the enchantment of this desert paradise could seduce him. 
 Moreover, one detail he disliked : the ubiquitous earthen- 
 ware tom-tom that sounded day and night ... he heard 
 its sullen beating in his dreams. 
 
 Yet of one thing he was ever chiefly conscious that he 
 was impatient to be with Lettice, that his heart hungered 
 without ceasing, that she meant more to him than ever. 
 Her new beauty astonished him, there was a subtle charm 
 in her presence he had not felt in London, her fresh spon- 
 taneous gaiety rilled him with keen delight. And all this 
 was his. His arrival gave her such joy that she could 
 not even speak of it ; yet he was the cause of it. It made 
 him feel almost shy. 
 
The Wave 167 
 
 He received one characteristic letter from her. "Come 
 back as quickly as you can," she wrote. "Tony has gone 
 down the river after his birds, and I feel lonely. Tele- 
 graph, and come to dinner or breakfast according to your 
 train. I'll meet you if possible. You must come here 
 for all your meals as I'm sure the hotel food is poor and 
 the drinking water unsafe. This is open house, remem- 
 ber, for you both." And there was a delicious P.S. 
 "Mind you only drink filtered water, and avoid the hotel 
 salads because the water hasn't been boiled." He kissed 
 the letter. He laughed. Her tender thought for him 
 almost brought the tears into his eyes. It was the tender- 
 ness of his own mother who was dead. 
 
 He reached Luxor in the evening, and to his delight 
 she was on the platform; long before the train stopped 
 he recognized her figure, the wide sun-hat with the little 
 roses, the white serge skirt and jacket of knitted yellow 
 silk to keep the evening chill away. They drove straight 
 to her house ; the sun was down behind the rocky hills and 
 the Nile lay in a dream of burnished gold ; the little owls 
 were calling ; there was singing among the native boatmen 
 on the water; they saw the fields of brilliant green with 
 the sands beyond, and the keen air from the desert wafted 
 down the street of what once was great-hundred-gated 
 Thebes. A strangely delicate perfume hung about the 
 ancient city. Tom turned to look at the woman beside 
 him in the narrow-seated carriage, and felt as if he were 
 driving through a dream. 
 
 "I can stay a week or ten days at least," he said at last. 
 "Is old Tony back?" 
 
 Yes, he had just arrived and telephoned to ask if he 
 might come to dinner. "And look, Tom, you can just see 
 the heads of the Colossi rising out of the haze," she 
 pointed quickly "I thought we would go and show them 
 you to-morrow. We might all take our tea and eat it in 
 the clover. You've seen nothing of Egypt yet." She 
 spoke rapidly, eagerly, full of her little plan. 
 
168 The Wave 
 
 "All?" he repeated doubtfully. 
 
 "Yes, wouldn't you like it?" 
 
 "Oh, rather/' he said, wondering why he did not say 
 another thing that rose for a moment in his mind. 
 
 "You must see everything," she went on spontaneously, 
 "and a dragoman's a bore. Tony's a far better guide. 
 He knows old Egypt as well as he knows his old birds." 
 She laughed. "It's too ridiculous his enthusiasm; he's 
 been dying to explain it all to you as he did to me, and 
 he does it exactly like a museum guide who is a scholar 
 and a poet too. And he is a poet, you know. I'd never 
 noticed it before." 
 
 "Splendid," said Tom. He was thinking several 
 things at once, among them that the perfumed air re- 
 minded him of something he could not quite recall. It 
 seemed far away and yet familiar. "I'm a rare listener 
 too," he added. 
 
 "The King's Valley you really must do alone together," 
 she went on, "I can't face it a second time the heat, the 
 gloom of it it oppressed and frightened me a little. 
 Those terrible grim hills they're full of death, those 
 Theban hills." 
 
 "Tony took you?" he asked. 
 
 She nodded. "We did the whole thing," she added, 
 "every single Tomb. I was exhausted. I think we all 
 were except Tony." The eager look in her face had 
 gone. Her voice betrayed a certain effort. A darkness 
 floated over it, like the shadow of a passing cloud. 
 
 "All of you!" he exclaimed, as though it were impor- 
 tant. "No bird-man ever feels tired." He seemed to 
 think a moment. There was a tiny pause. The carriage 
 was close to the house now, driving up with a flourish, 
 and Tony and Mrs. Haughstone, an incongruous couple, 
 were visible standing against the luminous orange sky 
 beside the river. Tom pointed to them with a chuckle. 
 "All right," he exclaimed, with a gesture as though he 
 came to a decision suddenly, "it shall be the Colossi to- 
 
The Wave 169 
 
 morrow. There are two of them, aren't there only 
 two?" 
 
 "Two, yes, the Twin Colossi, they call them," she re- 
 plied, joining in his chuckle at the silhouetted figures in 
 the sunset. 
 
 "Two," he repeated with emphasis, "not three." But 
 either she did not notice or else she did not hear. She 
 was leaning forward waving her hand to her other guests 
 upon the bank. 
 
 There followed then the happiest week that Tom had 
 ever known, for there was no incident to mar it, nor a 
 single word or act that cast the slightest shadow. His 
 dread of the "other" who was to come apparently had left 
 him, the faint uneasiness he had felt so often seemed 
 gone. He even forgot to think about it. Lettice he had 
 never seen so gay, so full of enterprise, so radiant. She 
 sparkled as though she had recovered her girlhood sud- 
 denly. With Tony in particular she had incessant battles, 
 and Tom listened to their conversations with amusement, 
 for on no single subject were they able to agree, yet 
 neither seemed to get the best of it. Tom felt unable to 
 keep pace with their more nimble minds. . . . 
 
 Tony was certainly improved in many ways, more 
 serious than he had showed himself before, and ex- 
 traordinarily full of entertaining knowledge into the bar- 
 gain. Birds and the lore of ancient Egypt, it appeared, 
 were merely two of his pet hobbies ; and he talked in such 
 amusing fashion that he kept Tom in roars of laughter, 
 while stimulating Madame Jaretzka to vehement contra- 
 dictions. They were much alone, and profited by it. The 
 numerous engagements Lettice had mentioned gave no 
 sign. Tony certainly was a brilliant companion as well 
 as an instructive cicerone. There was more in him than 
 Tom had divined before. His clever humor was a great 
 asset in the longer expeditions. "Tony, I'm tired and 
 hot; please come and talk to me: I want refreshing" 
 
170 The Wave 
 
 was never addressed to Tom, for instance, whose good 
 nature could not take the place of wit. Each of the 
 three, as it were, supplied what the other lacked ; it was 
 not surprising they got on well together. Tom, how- 
 ever, though always happy provided Lettice was of the 
 party, envied his cousin's fluid temperament and facile 
 gifts even in the smallest things. Tony, for instance, 
 would mimic Mrs. Haughstone's attitude of having done 
 her hostess a kindness in coming out to Egypt: "I 
 couldn't do it again, dear Lettice, even for you" the 
 way Tony said and acted it had a touch of inspiration. 
 
 Mrs. Haughstone herself, meanwhile, within the limits 
 of her angular personality, Tom found also considerably 
 improved. Egypt had changed her too. He forgave 
 her much because she was afraid of the sun, so left them 
 often alone. She showed unselfishness, too, even kind- 
 ness, on more than one occasion. Tom was aware of a 
 nicer side in her; in spite of her jealousy and criticism, 
 she was genuinely careful of her hostess's reputation 
 amid the scandal-loving atmosphere of Egyptian hotel 
 life. It amused him to see how she arrogated to herself 
 the place of chaperone, yet Tom saw true solicitude in it, 
 the attitude of a woman who knew the world towards one 
 who was too trustful. He figured her always holding up 
 a warning finger, and Lettice always laughingly disre- 
 garding her advice. 
 
 Her warnings to Lettice to be more circumspect were, 
 at any rate, by no means always wrong. Though not 
 particularly observant as a rule, he caught more than 
 once the tail-end of conversations between them in which 
 advice, evidently, had been proffered and laughed aside. 
 But, since it did not concern him, he paid little attention, 
 merely aware that there existed this difference of view. 
 One such occasion, however, Tom had good cause to 
 remember, because it gave him a piece of knowledge 
 he had long desired to possess, yet had never felt within 
 
The Wave 171 
 
 his rights to ask for. Yet it merely gave details of some- 
 thing he already knew. 
 
 He entered the room, coming straight from a morn- 
 ing's work at his own hotel, and found them engaged 
 hammer and tongs upon some dispute regarding "con- 
 duct." Tony, who had been rowing Madame Jaretzka 
 down the river, had made his escape. Madame Jaretzka 
 effected hers as Tom came in, throwing him a look of 
 comical relief across her shoulder. He was alone with 
 the Irish cousin. "After all, she is a married woman," 
 remarked Mrs. Haughstone, still somewhat indignant 
 from the little battle. 
 
 She addressed the words to him as he was the only per- 
 son within earshot. It seemed natural enough, he thought. 
 
 "Yes," said Tom politely. "I suppose she is." 
 
 And it was then, quite unexpectedly, that the woman 
 spoke to him as though he knew as much as she did. 
 He ought, perhaps, to have stopped her, but the tempta- 
 tion was too great. He learned the facts concerning 
 Warsaw and the husband. That the Prince had ill- 
 treated her consistently during the first five years of 
 their married life could certainly not justify her freedom, 
 but that he had lost his reason incurably, no longer even 
 recognized her, that her presence was discouraged by 
 the doctors, since it increased the violence of his attacks, 
 and that his malady was hopeless and could end only in 
 his death all this, while adding to the wonder of her 
 faithful pilgrimages, did assuredly at the same time set 
 her free. . . . The effect upon his mind may be im- 
 agined; it deepened his love, increased his admiration, 
 for it explained the suffering in the face she had turned 
 to sweetness, while also justifying her conduct towards 
 himself. With a single final blow, moreover, it killed the 
 dread Tom had been haunted by so long that this was 
 that "other" who must one day take her from him, 
 obedient to a bigger claim. 
 
 This knowledge, as though surreptitiously obtained, 
 
172 The Wave 
 
 Tom locked within his breast until the day when she her- 
 self should choose to share it with him. 
 
 He remembered another little conversation too when, 
 similarly, he disturbed them in discussion : this time it 
 was Mrs. Haughstone who was called away. 
 
 "Behaving badly, Lettice, is she ? Scolding you again ?" 
 
 "Not at all. Only she sees the bad in every one and I 
 see the good. She disapproves of Tony rather." 
 
 "Then she will be less often deceived than you," he 
 replied laughingly. The reference to Tony had escaped 
 him ; his slow mind was on the general proposition. 
 
 "Perhaps. But you can only make people better by 
 believing that they are better," she went on with con- 
 viction when Mrs. Haughstone joined them and took 
 up her parable again : 
 
 "My cousin behaves like a child," she said with amus- 
 ing severity. "She doesn't understand the world. But 
 the world is hard upon grown-ups who behave like chil- 
 dren. Lettice thinks everybody good. Her innocence 
 gets her misjudged. And it's a pity." 
 
 "I'll keep an eye on her," Tom said solemnly, "and 
 we'll begin this very afternoon." 
 
 "Do, Mr. Kelverdon, I'm glad to hear it." And as 
 she said it, he noticed another expression on her face as 
 she glanced down the drive where Tony, dressed in gray 
 flannels and singing to himself, was seen sauntering to- 
 wards them. She wore an enigmatic smile by no means 
 pleasant. It gave him a moment's twinge. He turned 
 from her to Lettice by way of relief. She was waving 
 her white-gloved hand, her eyes were shining, her little 
 face was radiant and Tom's happiness came back upon 
 him in a rising flood again as he watched her beauty. 
 . . . He thought that Egypt was the most marvelous 
 place he had ever known. Even Tony looked enchanted 
 almost handsome. But Lettice looked divine. He felt 
 more and more that the woman in her blossomed into life 
 before his very eyes. His content was absolute. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 WTH Tony as guide they took their fill of wonder. 
 The principal expeditions were made alone, in- 
 troducing Tom to the marvels of ancient Egypt which 
 they already knew. On the sturdiest donkey Thebes 
 could furnish, he raced his cousin across the burning 
 sands, Madame Jaretzka following in a sand-cart, her 
 blue veil streaming in the cool north wind. They played 
 like children, defying the tide of mystery that this 
 haunted land pours against the modern human soul, while 
 yet the wonder and the mystery added to their enjoy- 
 ment, deepening their happiness by contrast. 
 
 They ate their al fresco luncheons gaily, seated by 
 hoary tombs that opened into the desolate hills; kings, 
 priests, princesses, dead six thousand years, listening in 
 caverns underground to their careless talk. Yet their 
 gaiety had a hush in it, a significance behind the sen- 
 tences ; for even their lightest moments touched ever upon 
 the borders of an awfulness that was sublime, and all 
 that they said or did gained this hint of deeper value 
 that it was set against a background of the infinite, the 
 deathless. 
 
 It was impossible to forget that this was Egypt, the 
 deposit of immemorial secrets, the store-house of stu- 
 pendous vanished dreams. % 
 
 "There was a majesty, after all, about their strange 
 old gods," said Tony one afternoon as they emerged 
 from the stifling darkness of a forgotten kingly tomb into 
 the sunlight. "They seem to thunder still below the 
 ground subconsciously." He was ever ready with the 
 latest modern catchword. He flung himself down upon 
 the sand, shaded from the glare by a recumbent column 
 
 173 
 
174 The Wave 
 
 of granite exquisitely carved, then abandoned of the 
 ages. "They touch something in one even to-day some- 
 thing superb. Human worship hasn't changed so funda- 
 mentally after all." 
 
 "A sort of ghostly deathlessness," agreed Lettice, mak- 
 ing a bed of sand beside him. "I think that's what one 
 feels." 
 
 Tony looked up. He glanced alertly at her. A ques- 
 tion flashed a moment in his eyes, then passed unspoken. 
 
 "Perhaps," Tony went on in a more flippant tone, 
 "even the dullest has to acknowledge the sublime in their 
 conceptions. Isis ! Why, the very name is a poem in a 
 single word. Anubis, Nepthys, Horus there's poetry in 
 them all. They seem to sing themselves into the heart, 
 as Petrie might have said but didn't." 
 
 "The names are rather splendid," Tom put in, as he 
 unpacked the kettle and spirit-lamp for tea. "One can't 
 forget them either." 
 
 There was a moment's silence, then Tony spoke again. 
 He had lost his flippant tone. He addressed his remark 
 to Lettice. Tom was aware that she was somehow wait- 
 ing for it. 
 
 "Their deathlessness ! Yes, you're right." He turned 
 an instant to look at the colossal structure behind them, 
 whence the imposing figures of a broken Pharaoh and 
 his Queen stared to the east across the shoulder of some 
 granite Deity that had refused to crumble for three thou- 
 sand years. "Their deathlessness," he repeated, lower- 
 ing his voice, "it's really startling." 
 
 He looked about him. It was amazing how his little 
 words, his gesture, his very atmosphere created a spon- 
 taneous expectancy as though Thoth might stride 
 sublimely up across the sand, or even Ra himself come 
 blazing with extended wings and awful disk of fire. 
 
 Tom felt the touch of the unearthly as he watched and 
 listened. Lettice he was certain of it shivered. He 
 moved nearer and spread a rug across her feet. 
 
The Wave 175 
 
 "Don't, Tom, please ! I'm hot enough already." Her 
 tone had a childish exasperation in it as though he in- 
 terrupted some mood that gave her pleasure. She turned 
 her eyes to Tony, but Tony was busily opening sandwich 
 packets with hands that Tom thought shared one qual- 
 ity at least of the stone effigies they had been discussing 
 size. And he laughed. The spell was broken. They fell 
 hungrily upon their desert meal. . . . 
 
 Yet, it was odd how Tony had expressed precisely what 
 Tom had himself been vaguely feeling, though unable 
 to find the language for his fancy odd, too, that ap- 
 parently all three of them had felt the same dim thing. 
 No one among them was "religious," nor, strictly speak- 
 ing, imaginative ; poetical least of all, in the regenerative, 
 creative sense. Not one of the trio, that is, could have 
 seized imaginatively the conception of an alien deity and 
 made it live. Yet Tony's idle mood or idler words had 
 done this very thing and all three acknowledged it in 
 their various ways. The flavor of a remote familiarity 
 was manifest in each one of them collectively as well. 
 
 Another time they sat by night in ruined Karnak, 
 watching the silver moonlight bring out another world 
 among the mighty pylons. It painted the empty and 
 enormous aisles with crowding processions of lost ages. 
 Speaking in whispers, they saw the stars peep down be- 
 tween the soaring forest of old stone; the cold desert 
 wind brought with it a sadness, a mournful retrospect 
 too vast to realize, the tragedy that such splendor left 
 but a lifeless skeleton behind, a gigantic, soul-less ruin. 
 That such great prophecies remained unfulfilled was 
 somewhere both terrible and melancholy. The immortal 
 strength of these Egyptian stones conveyed a grandeur 
 almost sinister. The huge dumb beauty seemed menacing, 
 even ominous ; they sat closer ; they felt dwarfed uncom- 
 fortably, their selves reduced to insignificance, almost 
 threatened. Even Tony sobered as they talked in low- 
 
176 The Wave 
 
 ered voices, seated in the shadow of the towering col- 
 umns, their feet resting on the sand. 
 
 "I'm sure we've sat here before just like this, the three 
 of us," he said in a lowered voice; "it all seems like a 
 dream to me." 
 
 Madame Jaretzka, who was between them, made no 
 answer, and Tom, leaning forward, caught his cousin's 
 eye beyond her. . . . The scene in the London theater 
 flashed across his mind. He felt very happy, very close 
 to them both, extraordinarily at one with them, the 
 woman he loved best in all the world, the man who was 
 his greatest friend. He felt truth, not foolishness, in 
 Tony's otherwise commonplace remarks that followed: 
 "I could swear I'd known you both before here in 
 Egypt." 
 
 Madame Jaretzka moved a little, shuffling further 
 back so that she could lean against the great curved pillar. 
 It brought them closer together still. She said no word, 
 however. 
 
 "There's certainly a curious sympathy between the 
 three of us," murmured Tom, who usually felt out of his 
 depth in similar talks, leaving his companions to carry it 
 further while he listened merely. "It's hard to believe 
 that we meet for the first time now." 
 
 He sat close to her, fingering her gauzy veil that 
 brushed his face. There was a pause, and then Madame 
 Jaretzka said, turning to Tony, "We met here first any- 
 how, didn't we? Two winters ago, before I met 
 
 But Tony said he meant something far older than that, 
 much longer ago. "You and Tom knew each other as 
 children, you told me once. Tom and I were boys to- 
 gether too . . . but ..." 
 
 His voice died away in Tom's ears; her answers also 
 were inaudible as she kept her head turned towards Tony : 
 his thoughts, besides, were caught away a moment to 
 the days in Montreux and in London. . . . He fell into 
 
The Wave 177 
 
 a reverie that lasted possibly a minute, possibly several 
 minutes. The conversation between them left him some- 
 how out of it; he had little to contribute; they had an 
 understanding, as it were, on certain subjects that neg- 
 lected him. His mind accordingly left them. He fol- 
 lowed his own thoughts dreamily . . . far away . . . 
 past the deep black shadows and out into the soft blaze 
 of moonlight that showered upon the distant Theban 
 hills. . . . He remembered the curious emotions that had 
 marked his entry into Egypt. He thought of a change 
 in Lettice, at present still undefined. He wondered what 
 it was about her now that lent to her gentle spirit a touch 
 of authority, of worldly authority almost, that he dared 
 not fail to recognize as though she had the right to it. 
 The flavor of uneasiness stole back. It occurred to him 
 suddenly that he felt no longer quite at home with her 
 alone as of old. Some one watched him: some one 
 watched them both. . . . 
 
 It was as though for the first time he realized distance 
 a new distance creeping in upon their relationship 
 somewhere. . . . 
 
 A slight shiver brought him back. The wind came 
 moaning down the monstrous, yawning aisles against 
 them. The overpowering effect of so much grandeur 
 had become intolerable. "Ugh ! I'm cold," he exclaimed 
 abruptly. "I vote we move a bit. I think I'll move 
 anyhow." 
 
 Madame Jaretzka turned to him with a definite start; 
 she straightened herself against the huge sandstone col- 
 umn. The moonlight touched her. It clothed her in 
 gold and silver, the gold of the sand, the silver of the 
 moon. She looked ethereal, ghostly, a figure of air and 
 distance. She seemed to belong to her surroundings 
 another person somehow faintly Egyptian almost. 
 
 "I thought you were asleep, Tom," she said softly. 
 She had been in the middle of an animated, though whis- 
 
i 7 8 The Wave 
 
 pered talk with Tony. She peered at him, with a little 
 smile that lifted her lip oddly. 
 
 "I was far away somewhere," he returned, peering at 
 her closely. "I forgot all about you both. I thought, 
 for a moment, I was quite alone." 
 
 He saw her start again. A significance he hardly in- 
 tended had crept into his tone. Her face moved back into 
 the shadow quickly, beside Tony. 
 
 She teased Tom for his want of manners, then fell 
 to caring for his comfort. "It's icy," she said, "and 
 you're in flannels. The sudden chill of these Egyptian 
 nights is really treacherous," and she took the rug from 
 her lap and put it round his shoulders. As she did so 
 the strange appearance he had noted increased about her. 
 
 And Tom got up abruptly. "No, Lettice dear, thank 
 you; I think I'll move a bit." He had said "Lettice dear" 
 without realizing it, and before his cousin too. "I'll take 
 a turn and then come back for you. You stay here with 
 Tony," and he moved off somewhat briskly. 
 
 Then, instantly, the other two rose up like one person, 
 following him to where the carriage waited. . ., . 
 
 "They're frightening rather, don't you think these 
 ancient places?" she said presently, as they drove along 
 past palms and flat-topped houses of the felaheen. 
 "There's something watching and listening all the time." 
 
 Tom made no answer. He felt suddenly unsure of 
 something almost unsure of himself, it seemed. 
 
 "One feels a bit lost," he said slowly after a bit, "and 
 lonely. It's the size, I think." 
 
 "Perhaps," she rejoined, peering at him with half- 
 lowered eyelids, "and the silence." She broke off, then 
 added, "You can hear your thoughts too clearly." 
 
 Tom was sitting back amid a bundle of rugs she had 
 wrapped him in; Tony, beside her, on the front seat, 
 seemed in a gentle doze. They drove the rest of the way 
 in silence, dropping Tony first at the Savoy, then going 
 on to Tom's hotel. She insisted, although her own house 
 
The Wave 179 
 
 was in the opposite direction. "And you're to take a hot 
 whisky when you get into bed, remember, and don't get 
 up to-morrow if you feel a chill." She gave him orders 
 for his health and comfort as though he were her son. 
 Tom noticed it, told her she was divinely precious to 
 him, and promised faithfully to obey. 
 
 "What do you think about Tony?" he asked suddenly, 
 when they had driven alone for several minutes. "I 
 mean, what impression does he make on you? How do 
 you feel him ?" 
 
 "He's enjoying himself immensely with his numerous 
 friends," she replied at once. "He grows on one rather. 
 He's a dear, I think." She looked at him, then turned 
 away again. "Don't you, Tom?" 
 
 "Oh, rather. I've always thought so. I told you first 
 long ago, didn't I?" He made no reference to the ex- 
 aggeration about the friends. "And I think it's wonder- 
 ful how well we what a perfect trio we are." 
 
 "Yes, isn't it?" 
 
 They both became thoughtful then. There fell a pause 
 between them, when Tom broke in abruptly once again: 
 
 "But what do you feel? Because I think he's half 
 in love with you, if you want to know." He leaned over 
 and whispered in her ear. The words tumbled out as 
 though they were in a hurry. "It pleases me immensely, 
 Lettice; it makes me feel so proud of you and happy. 
 It'll do him a world of good, too, if he loves a woman 
 like you. You'll teach him something." She smiled shyly 
 and said, "I wonder, Tom. Do you really think so ? He 
 certainly seems fond of me, but I hadn't thought quite 
 that. You think everybody must fall in love with me." 
 She pushed him away with a gentle yet impatient 
 pressure of her arm, indicating the Arab coachman with 
 a nod of her head. "Take care of him, Lettice : he's a 
 dear fellow ; don't let him break his heart." 
 
 Tom began to flirt outrageously; his arm crept round 
 her, he leaned over and stole a kiss and to his amaze- 
 
180 The Wave 
 
 ment she did not try to stop him. She did not seem to 
 notice it. She sat very still a stone statue in the moon- 
 light 
 
 Then, suddenly, he realized that she had not replied 
 to his question. He promptly repeated it therefore. 
 "You put me off with what he feels, but I want to know 
 what you feel," he said with emphasis. 
 
 "But, Tom, I'm not putting you off, as you call it 
 with anything," and there was a touch of annoyance in 
 her tone and manner. 
 
 "Tell me, Lettice ; it interests me. You're such a puz- 
 zle, d'you know ? out here." His tone unconsciously 
 grew more earnest as he spoke. 
 
 Madame Jaretzka broke into a little laugh. "You 
 boy !" she exclaimed teasingly, "you're trying to heighten 
 his value so as to increase your own by contrast. The 
 more people you can find in love with me, the more you'll 
 be able to flatter yourself." 
 
 Tom laughed with her, though he did not quite under- 
 stand. He had never heard her say such a thing be- 
 fore. He accepted the cleverness she gave him credit 
 for, however. "Of course, and why shouldn't I ?" And he 
 was just going to put his original question in another 
 form, had already begun it, in fact, when she interrupted 
 him, putting her hand playfully over his mouth for a 
 second : "I do think Tony's a happy entertaining sort 
 of man," she told him, "even fascinating in a certain 
 kind of way. He's very stimulating to me. And I feel 
 don't you, Tom?" a slight change was it softness? 
 crept into her tone "a sort of beauty in him some- 
 where?" 
 
 "Yes, p'raps I do," he assented briefly, "but, I say, 
 Lettice darling, you mischievous Egyptian princess." 
 
 "Be quiet, Tom, and take your arm away. Here's the 
 hotel in sight." And yet, somehow, he fancied that she 
 preferred his action to the talk. 
 
 "Tell me this first," he went on, obeying her peremp- 
 
The Wave 181 
 
 tory tone : "do you think it's true that we three have 
 been together before like that as Tony said, I mean? 
 It's a funny thing, but I swear it sounded true when he 
 said it." His tone was earnest again. "It gave me the 
 creeps a bit, and, d'you know, you looked so queer, so 
 wonderful in the moonlight you looked un-English, for- 
 eign like one of those Egyptian figures come to life. 
 That's what made me cold, I think." His laughter died 
 away. He was grave suddenly. He sighed a little and 
 moved closer to her. "That's what made me get up 
 and leave you," he added abruptly. 
 
 "Oh, he's always saying that kind of thing," she an- 
 swered quickly, moving the rugs for him to get out as 
 the carriage slowed up before the brilliantly lit hotel. 
 She made no reference to his other words. "There's 
 a lot of poetry in Tony too out here." 
 
 "Said it before, has he?" exclaimed Tom with genuine 
 astonishment. "All three of us or or just you and him? 
 Am / in the business too ?" He was now bubbling over 
 with laughter again for some reason ; it all seemed com- 
 ical, almost. Yet it was a sudden, an emotional laugh- 
 ter. His emotion his excitement surprised him even at 
 the time. 
 
 "All three of us I think," she said, as he held her 
 hand a moment, saying good-by. "Yes, all three of us, 
 of course. Now good-night, you inquisitive and imperti- 
 nent boy, and if you have to stay in bed to-morrow we'll 
 come over and nurse you all day long." He answered 
 that he would certainly stay in bed in that case and 
 watched her waving her hand over the back of the car- 
 riage as she drove away into the moonlight like a fading 
 dream of stars and mystery and beauty. Then he took 
 his telegrams and letters from the Arab porter with the 
 face of expressionless bronze, and went up to bed. 
 
 "What a strange and wonderful woman !" he thought 
 as the lift rushed him up : "out here she seems another 
 being, and a thousand times more fascinating." He felt 
 
1 82 The Wave 
 
 almost that he would like to win her all over again from 
 the beginning. "She's different to what she was in Eng- 
 land. Tony's different too. And so am I, I do believe !" 
 he exclaimed in his bedroom, looking at his sunburned 
 face in the glass a moment. "We're all different!" He 
 felt singularly happy, hilarious, stimulated a deep and 
 curious excitement was in him. Above all there was 
 high pride that she belonged to him so absolutely. And 
 the analysis he had indulged in England vanished here. 
 He forgot it all. . . . He was in Egypt with her . . . 
 now. 
 
 He read his letters and telegrams, only half realizing 
 at first that they called him back to Assouan. "What a 
 bore," he thought, "I simply shan't go. A week's delay 
 won't matter. I can telephone." 
 
 He laid them down upon the table beside him and 
 walked out on to his balcony. Responsibility seemed less 
 in him. He felt a little reckless. His position was quite 
 secure. He was his own master. He meant to enjoy 
 himself. . . . But another, deeper voice was sounding in 
 him too. He heard it, but at first refused to recognize 
 it. It whispered. One word it whispered: "Stay. . .!" 
 
 There was no sleep in him; with an overcoat thrown 
 across his shoulders he watched the calm Egyptian night, 
 the soft army of the stars, the river gleaming in a broad 
 band of silver. Hitherto Lettice had monopolized his 
 energies, he had neglected Egypt, whose indecipherable 
 meaning now came floating in upon him with a strange 
 insistence. Lettice came with it too. The two beauties 
 were indistinguishable. . . . 
 
 A flock of boats lay motionless, their black masts hang- 
 ing in mid-air ; all was still and silent, no voices, no foot- 
 steps, no movements anywhere. In the distance the deso- 
 late rocky hills rolled like a solid wave along the horizon. 
 Gaunt and mysterious, they loomed upon the night. They 
 were pierced by myriad tombs, those solemn hills; the 
 
The Wave 183 
 
 stately dead lay there in hundreds; he imagined them 
 looking forth a moment like himself across the peace 
 and silence of the moonlit desert. They focussed upon 
 Thebes, upon the white hotel, upon a modern world they 
 could not recognize upon his very windows. It seemed 
 to him for a moment that their ancient eyes met his own 
 across the sand, across the silvery river, and, as they 
 met, a shadowy gleam of recognition passed between 
 them and himself. At the same time he also saw the 
 eyes he loved. They gazed through half-closed eyelids 
 . . . the eastern eyes of his early boyhood's dream. He 
 remembered again the strange emotion of the day he first 
 arrived in Egypt, weeks ago. . . . 
 
 And then he suddenly thought of Tony, and of Tony's 
 careless remark as they sat in ruined Karnak together: 
 "I feel as if we three had all been here before." 
 
 Why it returned to him just now he did not know: 
 for some reason unexplained the phrase revived in him. 
 Perhaps he felt an instinctive sympathy towards the 
 poet's idea that he and she were lovers of such long 
 standing, of such ancient lineage. It flattered his pride, 
 while at the same time it disturbed him. A sense of 
 vague disquiet grew stronger in him. In any case, he 
 did not dismiss it and forget his natural way of treat- 
 ing fancies. "Perhaps," he murmured, "the bodies she 
 and I once occupied lie there now lie under the very 
 stars their eyes our own once looked upon." 
 
 It was strange the fancy took such root in him. . . . 
 He stood a long time gazing at the vast, lonely necropolis 
 among the mountains. There was an extraordinary still- 
 ness over that western bank, where the dead lay in their 
 ancient tombs. The silence was eloquent, but the whole 
 sky whispered to his soul. And again he felt that Egypt 
 welcomed him ; he was curiously at home here. It moved 
 the deeps in him, brought him out; it changed him; it 
 brought out Lettice too brought out a certain power 
 in her. She was more of a woman here, a woman of the 
 
i8 4 The Wave 
 
 world. She was more wilful, and more human. Values 
 had subtly altered. Tony himself was altered. . . . 
 Egypt affected them all three. . . . 
 
 The vague uneasiness persisted. His mood changed 
 a little, the excitement gradually subsided; thought 
 shifted to a minor key, subdued by the beauty of the 
 southern night. The world lay in a mysterious glow, 
 the hush was exquisite. Yet there was expectancy : that 
 glow, that hush were ready to burst into flame and lan- 
 guage. They covered secrets. Something was watching 
 him. He was dimly aware of a thousand old, forgotten 
 things. . . . 
 
 He no longer thought, but felt. The calm, the peace, 
 the silence laid soothing ringers against the running of 
 his blood; the turbulent condition settled down. Then, 
 through the quieting surface of his reverie, stole up a 
 yet deeper mood that seemed evoked partly by the mys- 
 terious glamour of the scene, yet partly by his will to 
 let it come. It had been a long time in him ; he now let 
 it up to breathe. It came, moreover, with ease, and 
 quickly. 
 
 For a gentle sadness rose upon him, a sadness deeply 
 hidden that he suddenly laid bare as of set deliberation. 
 The recent play and laughter, above all his own excite- 
 ment, had purposely concealed it from others possibly, 
 but certainly from himself. The excitement had been 
 a mask assumed by something deeper in him he had 
 wished and tried to hide. Gently, it came at first, this 
 sadness, then with increasing authority and speed. It 
 rose about him like a cloud that hid the stars and dimmed 
 the sinking moon. It spread a veil between him and the 
 rocky cemetery on those mournful hills beyond the Nile. 
 In a sense it seemed, indeed, to issue thence. It ema- 
 nated from their silence and their ancient tombs. It sank 
 into him. It was penetrating it was familiar it was 
 deathless. 
 
 But it was no mood of common sadness, there lay no 
 
The Wave 185 
 
 physical tinge in it ; but rather a deep, unfathomable sad- 
 ness of the spirit: an inner loneliness. From his inmost 
 soul it issued outwards, meeting half-way some sense of 
 similar loneliness that breathed towards him from these 
 tragic Theban hills. . . . 
 
 And Tom, not understanding it, tried to shake himself 
 free again ; he called up cheerful things to balance it ; he 
 thought of his firm position in the world, of his proud 
 partnership, of his security with her he loved, of his 
 zest in life, of the happy prospect immediately in front 
 of him. But, in spite of all, the mood crept upwards 
 like a rising wave, swamping his best resistance, drown- 
 ing all appeal to joy and confidence. He recognized an 
 unwelcome revival of that earlier nightmare dread con- 
 nected with his boyhood, things he had decided to forget, 
 and had forgotten as he thought. The mood took him 
 gravely, with the deepest melancholy he had ever known. 
 It had begun so delicately; it became in a little while 
 so determined; it threatened to overmaster him. He 
 turned then and faced it, so to speak. He looked hard 
 at it and asked of himself its meaning. Thought and 
 emotion in him shuffled with their shadowy feet. 
 
 And then he realized that, in germ at any rate, the 
 mood had lain actually a long time in him, deeply con- 
 cealed the surface excitement merely froth. He had 
 hidden it from himself. It had been accumulating, gain- 
 ing strength and impetus, pausing upon direction only. 
 All the hours just spent at Karnak it had been there, 
 drawing nearer to the surface, this very night, but a little 
 while ago, during the drive home as well, before that 
 even, during all the talks and outdoor meals and ex- 
 peditions: he traced its existence suddenly, and with 
 tiny darts of piercing, unintelligible pain, as far back 
 as Alexandria and the day of his arrival It seemed to 
 justify the vivid emotions that had marked his entry 
 into Egypt. It became sharply clear now this had been 
 in him subconsciously since the moment when he read 
 
1 86 The Wave 
 
 the little letter of welcome Lettice sent to meet him at the 
 steamer, a letter he discovered afterwards was curiously 
 empty. This disappointment, this underlying sadness he 
 had kept hidden from himself: he now laid it bare and 
 recognized it. He faced it. With a further flash he 
 traced it finally to the journey in the train when he had 
 read over the Warsaw and the Egyptian letters. 
 
 And he felt startled : something at the roots of his life 
 was trembling. He tried to think. But Tom was slow ; 
 he could feel, but he could not dissect and analyze. In- 
 trospection, with him, invariably darkened vision, led 
 to distortion and bewilderment. The effort to examine 
 closely confused him. Instead of dissipating the emo- 
 tion, he intensified it. The sense of loneliness grew in- 
 explicably a great, deep loneliness, a loneliness of the 
 spirit, a loneliness, moreover, that it seemed to him he 
 had experienced before, though when, under what condi- 
 tions, he could not anywhere remember. 
 
 His former happiness was gone, the false excitement 
 with it. This freezing loneliness stole in and took their 
 places. Its explanation lay hopelessly beyond him, 
 though he felt sure it had to do with this haunted and 
 mysterious land where he now found himself, and in a 
 measure with her, even with Tony too. . . . 
 
 The hint Egypt dropped into him upon his arrival was 
 a true one he had slipped over an edge, slipped into 
 something underneath, below him something past. But 
 slipped with her. She had come back to fetch him. 
 They had come back to fetch each other . . . through 
 pain. . . . 
 
 And a shadow from those somber Theban mountains 
 crept, as it were, upon his life. He knew a sinking of 
 the heart, a solemn, dark presentiment that murmured in 
 his blood the syllables of "tragedy." To his complete 
 amazement at first he refused to believe it indeed 
 there came a lump into his throat, as though tears must 
 follow to relieve the strain; and a moment later there 
 
The Wave 187 
 
 was moisture, a perceptible moisture, in his eyes. The 
 sadness had so swiftly passed into foreboding, with a 
 sense of menacing tragedy that oppressed him without 
 cause or explanation. Joy and confidence collapsed be- 
 fore it like a paper platform beneath the pressure of a 
 wind. His feet and hands were cold. He shivered. . . . 
 
 Then, gradually, as he stood there watching the calm 
 procession of the stars, he felt the ominous emotion draw 
 down again, retreat. Deep down inside him whence it 
 came, it retired into a kind of interior remoteness that 
 lay beyond his reach. It was incredible and strange. 
 The intensity had made it seem so real. . . . For, while 
 it lasted, he had felt himself bereft, lonely beyond all 
 telling, outcast, lost, forgotten, wrapped in a cold and 
 desolate misery that frightened him past all belief. The 
 hand that lit his pipe still trembled. But the mood had 
 passed as mysteriously as it came. It left him curiously 
 shaken in his heart. "Perhaps this too," thought mur- 
 mured from some depth in him he could neither control 
 nor understand, "perhaps this too is Egypt." 
 
 He went to bed, emotion all smoothed out again, yet 
 wondering a good deal at himself. For the odd up- 
 heaval was a new experience. Such an attack had never 
 come to him before; he laughed at it, called it hysteria, 
 and decided that its cause was physical; he persuaded 
 himself that it had a very banal cause a chill, even a 
 violent chill, incipient fever and over-fatigue at the back 
 of it. He smiled at himself, while obeying the loving 
 orders he had received, and brewing the comforting hot 
 mixture with his spirit lamp. 
 
 Then, drinking it, he looked round the room with satis- 
 faction at the various evidences of precious, motherly 
 care. This mother-love restored his happiness by de- 
 grees. His more normal, stolid, unimaginative self 
 climbed back into its place again yet with a touch of 
 awkwardness and difficulty. Something in him was 
 changed, or changing; he had surprised it in the act 
 
i88 The Wave 
 
 The nature of the change escaped him, however. It 
 seemed, perhaps this was the nearest he could get to it, 
 that something in him had weakened, some sense of 
 security, of confidence, of self-complacency, given way 
 a little. Only it was not his certainty of the mother- 
 love in her: that remained safe from all possible attack. 
 A tinge of uneasiness still lay like a shadow on his mind 
 until the fiery spirit chased it away, and a heavy sleep 
 came over him that lasted without a break until he woke 
 two hours after sunrise. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 HE sprang from his bed, went to the open window 
 and thrust his head out into the crystal atmosphere. 
 It was impossible to credit the afflicting nightmare of a 
 few hours ago. Gold lay upon the world, and the face 
 of Egypt wore her great Osirian look. 
 
 In the air was that tang of mountain-tops that stimu- 
 lated like wine. Everything sparkled, the river blazed, 
 the desert was a sheet of burnished bronze. Light, heat, 
 and radiance pervaded the whole glad morning, bathing 
 even his bare feet on the warm, soft carpet. It was good 
 to be alive. How could he not feel happy and unafraid ? 
 
 The change, perhaps, was sudden; it certainly was 
 complete. . . . These vivid alternations seemed charac- 
 teristic of his whole Egyptian winter. Another self 
 thrust up, sank out of sight, then rose again. The con- 
 fusion seemed almost due to a pair of competing selves, 
 each gaining the upper hand in turn sometimes he lived 
 both at once. . . . The uneasy mood, at any rate, had 
 vanished with the darkness, for nothing sad or heavy- 
 footed could endure amid this dancing exhilaration of 
 the morning. Born of the brooding night and mournful 
 hills, his recent pain was forgotten. 
 
 He dressed in flannels, and went his way to the house 
 upon the Nile soon after nine o'clock; he certainly had 
 no chill; there was only singing in his heart. The curi- 
 ous change in Lettice, it seemed, no longer troubled him. 
 And, finding Tony already in the garden, they sat in the 
 shade and smoked together while waiting for their 
 hostess. Light-hearted as himself, Tony outlined vari- 
 ous projects, to which the other readily assented. He 
 persuaded himself easily, if recklessly; the work could 
 
 189 
 
The Wave 
 
 wait. "We simply must see it all together," Tony urged. 
 "You can go back to Assouan next week. You'll find 
 everything all right. Why hurry off?" . . . How his 
 cousin had improved, Tom was thinking; his tact was 
 perfect ; he asked no awkward questions ; showed no in- 
 quisitiveness. He just assumed that his companions had 
 a right to be fond of each other, while taking his own 
 inclusion in the collective friendship for granted as natu- 
 ral too. 
 
 And when Lettice came out to join them, radiant in 
 white, with her broad sun-hat and long blue veil and 
 pretty gauntlet gloves, Tony explained with enthusiasm 
 at the beauty of the picture : "She's come into her own 
 out here with a vengeance," he declared. "She ought 
 to live in Egypt always. It suits her down to the 
 ground." Whereupon Tom, pleased by the spontaneous 
 admiration, whispered proudly to himself, "And she is 
 mine all mine!" Tony's praise seemed to double her 
 value in his eyes at once. So Tony, too, was aware that 
 she had changed; had noted the subtle alteration, the 
 enhancement of her beauty, the soft Egyptian transfor- 
 mation ! 
 
 "You'd hardly take her for European, I swear at a 
 distance now, would you ?" 
 
 "N-no*" Tom agreed, "perhaps you wouldn't " at 
 
 which moment precisely the subject of their remarks 
 came up and threw her long blue veil across them both 
 with the command that it was time to start. 
 
 The following days were one long dream of happiness 
 and wonder spent between the sunlight and the stars. 
 They were never weary of the beauty, the marvel, and 
 the mystery of all they saw. The appeal of temple, tomb, 
 and desert was so intimate it seemed instinctive. The 
 burning sun, the scented winds, great sunsets and great 
 dawns, these with the palms, the river, and the sand 
 seemed a perfect frame about a perfect picture. They 
 knew a kind of secret pleasure that was satisfying. 
 
The Wave 191 
 
 Egypt harmonized all three of them. And if Tom did 
 not notice the change increasing upon one of them, it 
 was doubtless because he was too much involved in the 
 general happiness to see it separate. 
 
 There came a temporary interruption, however, in due 
 course his conscience pricked him. "I really must take 
 a run up to Assouan," he decided. "I've been rather neg- 
 lecting things perhaps. A week at most will do it and 
 then for another ten days' holiday again !" 
 
 The rhythm broke, as it were, with a certain sudden- 
 ness. A rift came in the collective dream. He saw de- 
 tails again saw them separate. And the day before he 
 left a trifling thing occurred that forced him to notice 
 the growth of the change in Lettice. He focussed it. It 
 startled him a little. 
 
 The others had not sought to change his judgment. 
 But they planned an all-night bivouac in the desert for 
 his return; they would sleep with blankets on the sand, 
 cook their supper upon an open fire, and see the dawn. 
 "It's an exquisite experience," said Tony. "The stars 
 fade quickly, there's a puff of warmer wind, and the 
 sun comes up with a rush. It's marvelous. I'll get de 
 Lome and his sister to join us ; he can tell stories round 
 the fire, and perhaps slie will get inspiration at last for 
 her awful pictures." Madame Jaretzka laughed. "Then 
 we must have Lady Sybil too," she added; "de Lome 
 may find courage to propose to her fortune at last." 
 Tom looked up at her with a momentary surprise. "I 
 declare, Lettice, you've grown quite worldly; that's a 
 very cynical remark and point of view." 
 
 He said it teasingly, but it was this innocent remark 
 that served to focus the change in her he had been aware 
 of vaguely for a long time. She was more worldly here, 
 the ordinary "woman" in her was more in evidence : and 
 while he rather liked it it brought her more within his 
 reach, as it were, yet without lowering her he felt also 
 puzzled. Several times of late he had surprised this 
 
192 The Wave 
 
 wholesome sign of sex in things she said and did, as 
 though the woman-side, as he called it, was touched into 
 activity at last. It added to her charm ; ai the same time 
 it increased his burning desire to possess her absolutely 
 for himself. What he felt as the impersonal almost 
 spiritually elusive aspect of her he had first known, was 
 certainly less in evidence. Another part of her was ris- 
 ing into view, if not already in the ascendant. The burn- 
 ing sun, the sensuous color and beauty of the Egyptian 
 climate, he had heard, could have this physiological effect. 
 He wondered. 
 
 "Sybil has been waiting for him to ask her ever since 
 I came out," he heard her saying with a gesture almost of 
 impatience. "Only he thinks he oughtn't to speak because 
 he's poor. The result is she's getting bolder in propor- 
 tion as he gets more shy." 
 
 They all laughingly agreed to help matters to a climax 
 when Tom, looking up suddenly, saw Madame Jaretzka 
 smiling at his cousin with her eyelids half closed in the 
 way he once disliked but now adored. He wondered 
 suddenly how much Tony liked her; the improvement in 
 him was assuredly due to her, he felt ; Tony had less and 
 less time now for his other friends. It occurred to him 
 for a second that the change in her was greater than he 
 quite knew, perhaps. He watched them together for 
 some moments. It gave him a proud sense of pleasure 
 to feel that her influence was making a man out of the 
 medley of talent and irresponsibility that was Tony. Tony 
 was learning at last to "find himself." It must be quite 
 a new experience for him to know and like a woman 
 of her sort, almost a discovery. But with a flash too 
 swift and fleeting to be a definite thought Tom was con- 
 scious of another thing as well and for the first time: 
 "How she would put him in his place if he attempted any 
 liberties with her!" 
 
 The same second he was ashamed that such a notion 
 could ever have occurred to him: it was mean towards 
 
The Wave 193 
 
 Tony, ungenerous towards her; and yet he was aware 
 of a distinct emotion, a touch of personal triumph in it 
 somewhere. . . . 
 
 His thoughts were interrupted by a sudden tumult; 
 there was a scurry ; Tony flung a stone, Madame Jaretzka 
 leaped upon a boulder, gathering her skirts together hur- 
 riedly, with a little scream. "Kill it, Tony ! Quick !" he 
 heard her cry. And he saw then a very large and hairy 
 spider crawling swiftly across the white paper that had 
 wrapped their fruit and sandwiches, an ugly and dis- 
 tressing sight. "It's a tarantula," she screamed, half 
 laughing, half alarmed, showing neat ankles as she bal- 
 anced precariously upon her boulder, "and it's coming at 
 me. Quick, Tony, another stone," as he missed it for the 
 second time, "it's making for me! Oh, kill it, kill it!" 
 Tony, still aiming badly, assured her it was not a taran- 
 tula, nor poisonous even ; he knew the species well. "It's 
 quite harmless," he cried, "there's no need to kill it. It's 
 
 not in a house " and he flung another useless stone 
 
 at it. 
 
 What followed happened very quickly, in a second or 
 two at most. Tom saw it with sharp surprise, a curious 
 distaste, almost with a shudder. It certainly astonished 
 him, and in another sense it shocked him. He had done 
 nothing himself because Lettice, he thought, was half in 
 fun, making a diversion out of nothing. Only much later 
 did it occur to him that she had turned instinctively to 
 Tony for protection, rather than to himself. What caused 
 him the unpleasant sensation, however, was that she de- 
 liberately stepped down from her perch of safety and 
 kicked at the advancing horror. Probably her intention 
 was merely to drive it away she was certainly excited 
 but the result was that she set her foot upon the creature 
 and crushed its life out with an instant's pressure of her 
 dainty boot. "There !" she cried. "Oh, but I didn't mean 
 to kill it I How frightful of me !" 
 
 He heard Tony say, "Bravo, you are a brave woman ! 
 
194 The Wave 
 
 Such creatures have no right to live !" as he hid the dis- 
 figured piece of paper beneath some stones . . . and, 
 after a few minutes* chatter, the donkey-boys had packed 
 up the luncheon things and they were all on their way to- 
 wards the next object of their expedition, as though noth- 
 ing had happened. The entire incident had occupied a 
 moment and a half at most. Madame Jaretzka was laugh- 
 ing and talking as before, gay as a child and pretty as a 
 dream. 
 
 In Tom's mind, however, it went on happening over 
 and over again. He could not at once clean his mind 
 of a disagreeable impression that remained. Another 
 woman, any woman for that matter, might have done 
 what she did without leaving a trace in him of anything 
 but a certain admiration. It was a perfectly natural 
 thing. The creature probably was poisonous as well as 
 hideous; Tony merely said the contrary to calm her; 
 moreover, he gave no help, and the insect was certainly 
 making hurriedly towards her she had to save and pro- 
 tect herself. There was nothing in the incident beyond 
 an ugliness, a passing second of distress ; and yet this 
 was what remained with him it was not a natural thing 
 for "Lettice" to have done. Her intention, no doubt, was 
 otherwise; there was miscalculation as well. She had 
 only meant to frighten the scurrying creature. Yet at the 
 same time the instinctive act issued, he felt, from another 
 aspect, another part of her, a part that in London, in 
 Montreux, lay unexpressed and unawakened. And it is- 
 sued deliberately too. The exquisite tenderness that 
 could not have put a fly to death was less in her. Egypt 
 had changed her oddly. He was aware of something that 
 made him shrink, though he did not use the phrase even 
 to himself in thought; or something hard and almost 
 cruel, though both adjectives lay far from clothing the 
 faint sensation in his mind with definite words. 
 
 Tom watched her instinctively from that moment, un- 
 consciously, that is ; less with his eyes than with a little 
 
The Wave 195 
 
 pair of glasses in his heart. There was certainly a change 
 in her that he could not quite account for; the notion 
 came to him once or twice that some influence was upon 
 her, some power that was outside herself, modifying the 
 sharp outlines of her first peculiar tenderness. These 
 dear outlines blurred a trifle in the fierce sunlight of this 
 desert air. He knew not how to express it even to him- 
 self, for it was too tenuous to seize in actual words. 
 
 He arrived at this partial conclusion anyhow : that he 
 was aware of what he called the "woman" in her, but 
 a very human woman a certain wilfulness that was half 
 wildness in it. There was a hint of the earthly, too, as 
 opposed to spiritual, though in a sense that was whole- 
 some, good, entirely right. Yet it was rather, perhaps, 
 primitive than earthly in any vulgar meaning. ... It 
 had been absent or dormant hitherto. She needed it; 
 something was it Egypt? Was it sex? had stirred it 
 into life. And its first expression surprising herself as 
 much as it surprised him had an aspect of exaggeration 
 almost. 
 
 The way she raced their donkeys in her sand-cart on 
 the way home, by no means sparing the whip, was ex- 
 tremely human, but unless he had witnessed it he could 
 never have pictured it as possible so utterly unlike the 
 gentle, gracious, almost fastidious being he had known 
 first. There was a hint of a darker, stronger color in the 
 pattern of her being now, partly of careless and abundant 
 spirits, partly of this new primitive savagery. He noticed 
 it more and more, it was both repellant and curiously at- 
 tractive; yet, while he adored it in her, he also shrank. 
 He detected a touch even of barbaric vanity, and this sin- 
 gular touch of the barbaric veiled the tenderness. He 
 almost felt in her the power to inflict pain without flinch- 
 ing upon another. . . . 
 
 The following day their time of gaiety was to end, 
 awaiting only his return later from Assouan. Tony was 
 going down to Cairo with some other friends ; Tom would 
 
196 The Wave 
 
 be away at least a week, and tried hard to persuade his 
 cousin to come with him instead, but Tony had given his 
 word, and could not change. Moreover, he was dining 
 with his friends that very night and must hurry off at 
 once. He said his good-bys and went. 
 
 "We're very rarely alone now, are we, Lettice?" Tom 
 began abruptly the instant they were together. At the 
 back of his mind rose something he did not understand 
 that forced more significance into his tone than he in- 
 tended. He felt very full an accumulation that must 
 have expression. He blurted it out without reflection. 
 "Hardly once since I arrived two weeks ago, now I come 
 to think of it." He looked at her half playfully, half 
 reproachfully. "We're always three," he added with the 
 frank pathos of a boy. And while one part of him felt 
 ashamed, another part urged him onward and was glad. 
 
 But the way she answered startled him. 
 
 "Tom dear, don't scold me now. I am so tired." It 
 was the tone that took his breath away. For the first 
 time in their acquaintance he noticed something like ex- 
 asperation. "I've been doing too much," she went on 
 more gently, smiling up into his face: "I feel it. And 
 that dreadful thing that insect" she shuddered a lit- 
 tle "I never meant to hurt it. It's upset me. All this 
 daily excitement and the sun, and the jolting of that 
 rickety sand-cart there, Tom, come and sit beside me a 
 moment and let's talk before you go. I'm really too done 
 up to drive you to the station to-night. You'll under- 
 stand and forgive me, won't you?" Her voice was very 
 soft. She was excited, too, talking at random rather. 
 Her being seemed confused. 
 
 He took his place on a sturdy cushion at her feet, full 
 of an exaggerated remorse. She looked pale, though her 
 eyes were very sparkling. His heart condemned him. 
 He said nothing about the "dreadful incident." 
 
 "Lettice, dearest girl, I didn't mean anything. You 
 have been doing far too much, and it's my fault ; you've 
 
The Wave 197 
 
 done it all for me to give me pleasure. It's been too 
 wonderful." He took her hand, while her other stroked 
 his head. "You must rest while I'm away." 
 
 "Yes," she murmured, "so as to be quite fresh when 
 you come back. You won't be very long, will you ?" He 
 said he would risk his whole career to get back within 
 the week. "But, you know, I have neglected things rather 
 up there." He smiled fondly as he said "up there." 
 She looked down tenderly into his eyes. "And I have neg- 
 lected you down here," she said. "That's what you 
 mean, boy, isn't it ?" And for the first time he did not like 
 the old mode of address he once thought perfect. There 
 seemed a flavor of pity in it. "It would be nice to be 
 alone sometimes, wouldn't it, Lettice? Quite alone, I 
 mean," he said with meaning. 
 
 "We shall be, we will be later, Tom," she whispered ; 
 "quite alone together." She paused, then added louder, 
 "the truth is, Egypt the air and climate stimulates me 
 too much ; it makes me restless. It excites me in a way 
 I can't quite understand. I can't sit still and talk and be 
 idle as one does in sleepy, solemn England." 
 
 He was explaining with laborious logic that it was the 
 dryness of the air that exhausted the nerves a bit, when 
 she straightened herself up and took her hand away. 
 "Oh, yes, Tom, I know, I know. That's perfectly true, 
 and everybody says that I mean, everybody feels it, 
 don't they?" She said it quickly, almost impatiently. 
 
 The old uneasiness flashed through him at that mo- 
 ment : it occurred to him, "I'm dull, I'm boring her." She 
 was over-tired, he remembered then, her nerves on edge 
 a trifle; it was natural enough; he would just kiss her 
 and leave her to rest quietly. Yet a tiny sense of resent- 
 ment, even of chill crept over him. This impatience in 
 her was new to him. He wondered an instant, then 
 crushed back the words that tried to rise. He said good- 
 by, taking her in his arms for a moment with an over- 
 mastering impulse he could not check. Deep love and 
 
i 9 8 The Wave 
 
 tenderness were in his heart and eyes. He yearned to 
 protect and guide her keep her safe from harm. He 
 felt his older years, his steadier strength ; he was a man, 
 she but a little, gentle woman. And the elemental powers 
 of life were very strong. With a sudden impulsive ges- 
 ture, then, that surprised him, she returned the embrace 
 with a kind of vehemence, pressing him closely to her 
 heart and kissing him repeatedly on the cheeks and eyes. 
 
 Tom had expected her to resist and chide him. He 
 was bewildered and delighted; he was also puzzled for 
 the first second only. "You darling woman," he cried, 
 forgetting utterly the suspicion, the uneasiness, the pass- 
 ing cold of a moment before. He marveled that his 
 heart could have let such fancies come to birth. Surely 
 he had changed for such a thing to be possible at all! 
 . . . Various impulses and emotions that clamored in 
 him he kept back with an effort. He was aware of clash- 
 ing contradictions. Confidence was less in him. He felt 
 curiously unsure of himself also, in a cruel, subtle way 
 of her. There was a new thing in her rising. Was it 
 against himself somewhere ? The tangle in his heart and 
 mind seemed inextricable : he wanted to seize her and 
 carry her away, struggling but captured, and at the same 
 time singular contradiction to entreat her humbly, 
 though passionately, to love him more, and to show more 
 that she loved him. Surely there were two selves in him. 
 
 He moved over to the door. "Cataract Hotel, remem- 
 ber, finds me." He stood still, looking back at her. 
 
 She smiled, repeating the words after him. "And Let- 
 tice, you will write?" She blew a kiss to him by way of 
 answer. Then, charged to the brim with a thousand 
 things he ached to say, yet would not, almost dared not 
 say, he added playfully a child must have noticed that 
 his voice was too deep for banter and his breath came 
 oddly : 
 
 "And mind you don't let Tony lose his head too much. 
 He's pretty far gone, you know, already." 
 
The Wave 199 
 
 The same instant he could have bitten his tongue off to 
 recall the words. Somewhere he had been untrue to him- 
 self, almost betrayed himself. 
 
 She rose suddenly from her sofa and came quickly to- 
 wards him across the floor; he felt his heart sink a mo- 
 ment, then start hammering irregularly against his ribs. 
 Something frightened him. For he caught in her face 
 an expression he could not understand the struggle of 
 many strong emotions anxiety and passion, fear and 
 love; the eyes were shining, though the lids remained 
 half closed; she made a curious gesture: she moved 
 swiftly. He braced himself as against attack. He 
 shrank. Her power over him was greater than he knew. 
 
 For he saw her in that instant as another person, an- 
 other woman, foreign almost eastern ; the barbaric prim- 
 itive thing flamed out of her, but with something regal, 
 queenly, added to it; she looked Egyptian; the Princess, 
 as he called her sometimes, had come to life. And the 
 same moment in himself this curious sense of helplessness 
 appeared he raged against it inwardly as though he 
 were in her power somehow, as though her little foot 
 could crush him too into the yellow sand. . . . 
 
 A spasm of acute and aching pain shot through him : he 
 winced; he wanted to turn and fly, yet was held rooted 
 to the floor. He could not escape. It had to be. For 
 oddly, mysteriously, he felt pain in her quick approach : 
 she was coming to do him injury and hurt. The incident 
 of the afternoon flashed again upon his mind with the 
 idea of cruelty in it somewhere, but a deep surge of 
 strange emotion that flung wild sentences into his mind 
 at the same instant. He tightly shut his lips, lest a hun- 
 dred thoughts that had lain in him of late might burst into 
 words he would later regret intensely. He must not 
 avoid, delay an inevitable thing. To resist was somehow 
 to be untrue to the deepest in him to something painful 
 he deserved, and, paradoxically, desired too. What could 
 
200 The Wave 
 
 it all mean ? . . . He shivered as he waited watching her 
 come nearer. 
 
 She reached his side and her arms were stretched to- 
 wards him. To his amazement, she folded him in closely 
 against her breast and held him as though she never 
 could let him go again. He stood -there helpless; the re- 
 vulsion of feeling took his strength away. He heard her 
 breathless, yearning whisper as she kissed him: "My 
 Tom, my precious boy, I couldn't see a hair of your dear 
 head injured I couldn't see you hurt! Take care of 
 yourself and come back quickly do, do take care of your- 
 self. I shall count the days " she broke off, held his 
 
 face between her hands, gazed into his astonished eyes, 
 and kissed him with the utmost tenderness again, the ten- 
 derness of a mother who is forced to be separated from 
 the boy she loves better than herself. 
 
 Tom stood there trembling before her, and no speech 
 came to help him. The thing passed like a dream: the 
 dread, the emotion left him; the nightmare touch was 
 gone. Her self-betrayal his simple nature did not at once 
 discern. He felt only her divine tenderness pour over 
 him. A spring of joy rose bubbling in him that no words 
 could tell. Also he felt afraid. But the fear was no 
 longer for himself. In some perplexing, singular way, he 
 felt afraid for her. 
 
 Then, as a sentence came struggling to his lips, a 
 step was heard upon the landing. There was time to re- 
 sume conventional attitudes of good-by when Mrs. 
 Haughstone appeared on the staircase leading to the hall. 
 Tom said his farewells hurriedly to both of them, making 
 his escape as naturally as possible. "I've just time to 
 pack and catch the train," he shouted, and was gone. 
 
 And what remained with him afterwards of the curious 
 little scene was the absolute joy and confidence those last 
 tender embraces had restored to him, side by side with 
 another thing that he was equally sure about, yet refused 
 to dwell upon because he dared not yet. For, as she 
 
The Wave 201 
 
 came across the floor of the sunny room towards him, he 
 realized two things in her, two persons almost. Another 
 influence, he was convinced, worked in her strangely 
 some older, long-buried presentment of her interpenetrat- 
 ing, even piercing through, the modern self. She was di- 
 vided against herself in some extraordinary fashion, one 
 half struggling fiercely, yet struggling bravely, honestly, 
 against the other. And the relationship between himself 
 and her, though the evidence was so negligibly slight as 
 yet, he knew had definitely changed. . . . 
 
 It came to him as the Mother and the Woman in her. 
 The Mother belonged unchangeably to him : the Woman, 
 he felt, was troubled, tempted, and afraid. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 A FTERWARDS, months, years afterwards, looking 
 jL\ back upon these strange weeks of his brief Egyptian 
 winter, Tom marveled at himself; he looked back, as it 
 were, upon the thoughts and emotions of another man he 
 could not recognize. This illusion involved his two com- 
 panions also, Madame Jaretzka supremely, Tony slightly 
 less, all three, however, together affected, all three 
 changed. 
 
 As regards himself, however, there was always a part, 
 it seemed, that remained unaffected. It looked on, it com- 
 pared, it judged. He called it the Onlooker. . . . 
 
 Explanation lay beyond his reach ; he termed it enchant- 
 ment : and there he left it Insight seemed only to oper- 
 ate with regard to himself : of their feelings, thoughts, or 
 point of view he was uninformed. They offered no ex- 
 planations, and he sought none. . . . The man honest 
 with himself is more rare than a January swallow. He 
 alone is honest who can state a case without that bias of 
 exaggeration favorable to himself which is almost lying. 
 Try as he may, his statement leans one way or the other. 
 The spirit-level of absolute honesty is hard to find, and, 
 of course, Tom was no exception. . . . Occasionally he 
 recalled the "spiral theory," which once, at least, had been 
 in the minds of all three the notion that their three souls 
 lived over a former episode together, but from a higher 
 point, and with the bird's-eye view which brought in un- 
 derstanding. But if this offered a hint of that winter's 
 inner spiritual structure, Tom certainly did not claim it as 
 a true solution. The whole thing began so stealthily, and 
 progressed so slowly yet so surely. . . . 
 
 He could only marvel at himself : he was so singularly 
 
 202 
 
The Wave 203 
 
 changed imagination so active, judgment alternately so 
 positive and so faltering, every emotion so amazingly in- 
 tensified. All the weakest and least admirable in him, 
 the very dregs, seemed dragged up side by side with what 
 was noblest, highest, and flung together in the rush and 
 smother of the breaking Wave. 
 
 Events, in the dramatic meaning of the word, and out- 
 wardly, there were few perhaps, and those few meager 
 and unsensational. No one was shot or drowned, no one 
 was hanged and quartered : the police were not called 
 in ; to outsiders there seemed no air or attitude of drama 
 anywhere ; but in three human hearts, thrown together as 
 by chance currents of normal life, there came to pass 
 changes of a spiritual kind, conflict between essential, 
 primitive forces of the soul, battlings, temptings, aspira- 
 tions, sacrifice, that are the truest drama always, because 
 the inmost being, whether glorified or degraded, is there- 
 by changed. 
 
 In this fierce intensification of his own being, and in the 
 events experienced, Tom recognized the rising of his 
 childhood Wave towards the breaking point. The early 
 premonition that had seemed causeless to his learned fa- 
 ther, that stirred in his mother the deep instinct to pro- 
 tect, and that ever, more or less, hung poised above the 
 horizon of his passing years, had its origin in the bed-rock 
 of his nature. It was associated with memory and in- 
 stinct ; the native tendencies and forces of his being had 
 dramatized their inevitable fulfilment in a dream. He 
 recognized intuitively what was coming and he wel- 
 comed it. The body shrank from pain ; the soul held out 
 her hands to it. ... 
 
 Thus, looking back, he saw it mapped below him from 
 a higher curve in life's ascending spiral. In the glare 
 of a drenching sunshine that seemed hauntingly familiar, 
 in the stupendous blaze of Egypt that knew and favored 
 it, the action lay spread out : but in darkness, too, an op- 
 pressive, suffocating darkness as of the grave, as of the 
 
204 The Wave 
 
 bottom of the sea. The map was streaked with this al- 
 ternate light and gloom of elemental kind. It passed 
 swiftly, he went swiftly with it. A few short crowded 
 weeks of the intensest pain and happiness he had ever 
 known, and the Wave, its crest reflected in its origin, 
 fell with a drowning crash. He merged into his back- 
 ground, yet he did not drown : in due course he again 
 emerged. 
 
 The sense of rushing that accompanied it all was in 
 himself apparently: heightened by the contrast of the 
 divine stillness which is Egypt the golden, hanging days, 
 the nights of cool, soft moonlight, the sighing winds with 
 perfume in their breath, the mournful palms that fringed 
 the peaceful river, the calm of multitudinous stars. The 
 grim Theban hills looked on ; the ruined Temples watched 
 and knew ; there were listening ears within a thousand 
 tombs. . . . And there was the Desert the endless emp- 
 tiness where everything had already happened, the place 
 where, therefore, everything could happen again without 
 affronting time and space the Desert seemed the infinite 
 background whence the Wave tossed up three little specks 
 of passionate human action and reaction. It was the 
 "sea," a sea of dust. Yet out of the dust wild roses blos- 
 somed eventually with a sweetness of beauty unknown to 
 any cultivated gardens. . . . 
 
 And while he and his two companions made their moves 
 upon this ancient chessboard of half-forgotten, half- 
 remembered life, all natural things as well seemed raised 
 to their most significant expression, sharing the joy and 
 sadness, the beauty and the terror of his own experience. 
 For the very scenery borrowed of his intensity, the fa- 
 miliar details urged a fraction beyond the normal, as 
 though any moment they must break down into their ele- 
 mental and essential nakedness. The pungent odor of 
 the universal sand, the dust, the minute golden particles 
 suspended in the flaming air, the marvelous dawns and 
 sunsets, the mighty, awful pylons and the heat all these 
 
The Wave 205 
 
 contributed their quota of wonder and mystery to what 
 happened. Egypt inspired it, and was satisfied. 
 
 The sediment of his nature was drawn up, the rubbish 
 floated before his eyes, he saw himself through the cur- 
 tains of suspended dust until the flood, retiring, left 
 him high upon the shore, no longer shuffling with his 
 earthly, physical feet. 
 
 In the train to Assouan, Tom still felt the clinging arms 
 about his neck, still heard the loving voice, eager with 
 tenderness for his welfare and his quick return. She 
 needed him: he was everything to her. He knew it, oh 
 he was sure of it. He thought of his work, and knew 
 some slight anxiety that he had neglected it. He would 
 devote all his energies to the interests of his firm: there 
 should be no shirking anywhere; his ten days' holiday 
 was over. His mind fixed itself deliberately, though not 
 too easily, on this alone. 
 
 He knew his own capacity, however, and that by con- 
 centration he could accomplish in a short time what other 
 men might ask weeks to complete. Provided all was go- 
 ing well, he saw no reason why he could not be free again 
 in a week at most. He knew quite well his value to the 
 firm, but he knew also that he must continue to justify it. 
 He was complacent, but, he 'hoped, not carelessly compla- 
 cent. Tom felt very sure of himself again. 
 
 To his great relief he found things running smoothly. 
 He examined every detail, interviewed all and sundry, 
 supervised, decided, gave instructions. There was a let- 
 ter from the London office conveying the formal satisfac- 
 tion of the Board with results so far, praising especially 
 certain reductions in cost he had judiciously effected ; an- 
 other private letter from the older partner, referred con- 
 fidently to greater profits than they had dared to antici- 
 pate; also there was a brief note from Sir William, the 
 Chairman, now at Salonica, saying he might run over 
 
206 The Wave 
 
 a little later and see for himself how the work was get- 
 ting along. 
 
 Tom was supremely happy with it all. There was really 
 very little for him to do ; his engineers were highly com- 
 petent: they could summon him at a day's notice from 
 Luxor if anything went wrong. "But there's no sign of 
 difficulty, sir," was their verdict; "everything's going 
 like clockwork; the men working splendidly: it's only a 
 matter of time." 
 
 It was the evening of the second day that Tom decided 
 to go back to Luxor. He was eager for the promised 
 bivouac they had arranged together. He had written once 
 to say that all was well, but no word had yet come from 
 her; she was resting, he was glad to think: Tony was 
 away at Cairo with his friends; there might be a letter 
 for him in the morning, but that could be sent after him. 
 Joy and impatience urged him. He chuckled happily over 
 his boyish plan ; he would not announce himself ; he would 
 surprise her. He caught a train that would get him in for 
 dinner. 
 
 And during his journey of six hours, he rehearsed this 
 pleasure of surprising her. She was lonely without him. 
 He visualized her delight and happiness. He would creep 
 up to the window, to the edge of the verandah where she 
 sat reading, Mrs. Haughstone knitting in a chair opposite. 
 He would call her name "Lettice. . . ." Her eyes would 
 lighten, her manner change. That new spontaneous joy 
 would show itself. . . . 
 
 The sun was setting when the train got in, but by the 
 time he had changed into flannels at his hotel the short 
 dusk was falling. The entire western sky was gold and 
 crimson, the air was sharp, the light dry desert wind blew 
 shrewdly down the street. Behind the eastern hills rose 
 a huge full moon, still pale with daylight, peering wisely 
 over the enormous spread of luminous desert . . . He 
 drove to her house, leaving the arabyieh at the gates. He 
 
The Wave 207 
 
 walked quickly up the drive. The heavy foliage covered 
 him with shadows, and he easily reached the verandah un- 
 observed: no one seemed about; there was no sound of 
 voices : the thick creepers up the wooden pillars screened 
 him admirably. There was a movement of a chair, his 
 heart began to thump, he climbed up softly, and at the 
 other end of the verandah saw Mrs. Haughstone knit- 
 ting. But there was no sign of Lettice and the blood 
 rushed from his heart. 
 
 He had not been noticed, but his game was spoilt. He 
 came round to the front steps and wished her politely a 
 good-evening. Her surprise once over, and explanations 
 made, she asked him, cordially enough, to stay to dinner. 
 "Lettice, I know, would like it. You must be tired out. 
 She did not expect you back so soon ; but she would never 
 forgive me if I let you go after them." 
 
 Tom heard the words as in a dream, and answered also 
 in a dream a dream of astonishment, vexation, disap- 
 pointment, none of them concealed. His uneasiness re- 
 turned in an acute, intensified form. For he learnt that 
 they were bivouacking on the Nile to see the sunrise. 
 Tony had, after all, not gone to Cairo ; de Lome and Lady 
 Sybil accompanied them. It was the picnic they had 
 planned together against his return. "Lettice wrote," 
 Mrs. Haughstone mentioned, "but the letter must have 
 missed you. I warned her you'd be disappointed if you 
 knew." 
 
 "So Tony didn't go to Cairo after all?" Tom asked 
 again. His voice sounded thin, less volume in it than 
 usual. That "if you knew" dropped something of sud- 
 den anguish in his heart. 
 
 "His friends put him off at the last moment illness, he 
 said, or something." Mrs. Haughstone repeated the in- 
 vitation to dine and make himself at home. "I'm posi- 
 tive my cousin would like you to," she added with a cer- 
 tain emphasis. 
 
 Tom thanked her. He had the impression there was 
 
208 The Wave 
 
 something on her mind. "I think I'll go after them," he 
 repeated, "if you'll tell me exactly where they've gone." 
 He stammered a little. "It would be rather a lark, I 
 thought, to surprise them." What foolish, what inade- 
 quate words! 
 
 "Just as you like, of course. But I'm sure she's quite 
 safe/' was the bland reply. "Mr. Winslowe will look 
 after her." 
 
 "Oh, rather," replied Tom ; "but it would be good fun 
 rather a joke, you know to creep upon them una- 
 wares," and then was surprised and sorry that he said 
 it. "Have they gone very far?" he asked, fumbling for 
 his cigarettes. 
 
 He learned that they had left after luncheon, taking 
 with them all necessary paraphernalia for the night. 
 There were feelings in him that he could not understand 
 quite as he heard it. But only one thing was clear to him 
 he wished to be quickly, instantly, where Lettice was. 
 It was comprehensible. Mrs. Haughstone understood and 
 helped him. "I'll send Mohammed to get you a boatman, 
 as you seem quite determined," she said, ringing the bell : 
 "you can get there in an hour's ride. I couldn't go," she 
 added, "I really felt too tired. Mr. Winslowe was here 
 for lunch, and he exhausted us all with laughing so that 
 I felt I'd had enough. Besides, the sun " 
 
 "They all lunched here too?" asked Tom. 
 
 "Mr. Winslowe only," she mentioned, "but he was a 
 host in himself. It quite exhausted me " 
 
 "Tony can be frightfully amusing, can't he, when he 
 likes," said Tom. Her repetition of "exhausted" an- 
 noyed him furiously for some reason. 
 
 He saw her hesitate then : she began to speak, but 
 stopped herself; there was a curious expression in her 
 face, almost of anxiety, he fancied. He felt the kindness 
 in her. She was distressed. And an impulse, whence he 
 knew not, rose in him to make her talk, but before he 
 could find a suitable way of beginning, she said with a 
 
The Wave 209 
 
 kind of relief in her tone and manner : "I'm glad you're 
 back again, Mr. Kelverdon." She looked significantly at 
 him. "Your influence is so steadying, if you don't mind 
 my saying so." She gave an awkward little laugh, half 
 of apology, half of shyness, or of what passed with her 
 for shyness. "This climate upsets some of us. It does 
 something to the blood, I'm sure " 
 
 "You feel anxious about anything in particular ?" Tom 
 asked, with a sinking heart. At any other time he would 
 have laughed. 
 
 Mrs. Haughstone shrugged her shoulders and sighed. 
 She spoke with an effort apparently, as though doubtful 
 how much she ought to say. "My cousin, after all, is 
 in a sense, at least a married woman," was the reply, 
 while Tom remembered that she had said the same thing 
 once before. "And all men are not as careful for her 
 reputation, perhaps, as you are." She mentioned the 
 names of various people in Luxor, and left the impression 
 that there was considerable gossip in the air. Tom dis- 
 liked exceedingly the things she said and the way she 
 said them, but felt unable to prevent her. He was angry 
 with himself for listening, yet felt it beyond him to 
 change the conversation. He both longed to hear every 
 word, and at the same time dreaded it unspeakably. If 
 only the boat would give him quickly an excuse. . . . 
 He therefore heard her to the end, concerning the un- 
 wisdom of Madame Jaretzka in her careless refusal to 
 be more circumspect, even Mrs. Haughstone feared 
 to the point of compromising herself. With whom? 
 Why, with Mr. Winslowe, of course. Hadn't he noticed 
 it? No! Well, of course there was no harm in it, but 
 it was a mistake, she felt, to be seen about always with 
 the same man. He called, too, at such unusual hours. . . . 
 
 And each word she uttered seemed to Tom exactly 
 what he had expected her to utter, entering his mind as 
 a keenly poisoned shaft. Something already prepared 
 in him leaped swiftly to understanding; only too well he 
 
210 The Wave 
 
 grasped her meaning. The excitement in him passed 
 into a feverishness that was painful. 
 
 For a long time he merely stood and listened, gazing 
 across the river, but seeing nothing. He said no word. 
 His impatience was difficult to conceal, yet he concealed 
 it. 
 
 "Couldn't you give her a hint perhaps?" continued 
 the other, as they waited on the steps together, watching 
 the preparations for the boat below. She spoke with 
 an assumed carelessness that was really a disguised em- 
 phasis. "She would take it from you, I'm sure. She 
 means no harm; there is no harm. We all know that. 
 She told me herself it was only a boy and girl affair. 
 Still " 
 
 "She said that?" asked Tom. His tone was calm, 
 even to indifference, but his eyes, had she looked round, 
 must certainly have betrayed him. Luckily she kept her 
 gaze upon the moon-lit river. She drew her knitted 
 shawl more closely round her. The cold air from the 
 desert touched them both. Tom shivered. 
 
 "Oh, before you came out, that was," she mentioned ; 
 and each word was a separate stab in the center of his 
 heart. After a pause she went on : "So you might say 
 a little word to be more careful, if you saw your way. 
 Mr. Winslowe, you see, is a poor guide just now : he has 
 so completely lost his head. He's very impressionable 
 and very selfish / think." 
 
 Tom was aware that he braced himself. Various emo- 
 tions clashed within him. He knew a dozen different 
 pains, all equally piercing. It angered him, besides, to 
 hear Lettice spoken of in this slighting manner, for the 
 inference was unavoidable. But there hid below his 
 anger a deep, dull bitterness that tried angrily to raise 
 its head. Something very ugly, very fierce moved with 
 it. He crushed it back. ... A feeling of hot shame 
 flamed to his cheeks. 
 
 "I should feel it an impertinence, Mrs. Haughstone," 
 
The Wave 211 
 
 he stammered at length, yet confident that he concealed 
 his inner turmoil. "Your cousin I mean, all that she 
 does is quite beyond reproach." 
 
 Her answer staggered him like a blow between the 
 eyes. 
 
 "Mr. Kelverdon on the contrary. My cousin doesn't 
 realize quite, I'm sure that she may cause him suffering. 
 She won't listen to me, but you could do it. You touch 
 the mother in her." 
 
 It was a merciless, keen shaft these last six words. 
 The sudden truth of them turned him into ice. He 
 touched only the mother in her : the woman but the 
 thought plunged out of sight, smothered instantly as by 
 a granite slab he set upon it. The actual thought was 
 smothered, yes, but the feeling struggled horribly for 
 breath ; and another inference, more deadly than the first, 
 stole with a freezing touch upon his soul. 
 
 He turned round quietly and looked at his companion. 
 "By jove," he said, with a laugh he believed was admi- 
 rably natural, "I believe you're right. I'll give her a little 
 hint, for Tony's sake." He moved down the steps. 
 "Tony is so I mean he so easily loses his head. It's 
 quite absurd." 
 
 But Mrs. Haughstone did not laugh. "Think it over," 
 she rejoined. "You have excellent judgment. You 
 may prevent a little disaster." She smiled and shook a 
 warning finger. And Tom, feigning amusement as best 
 he might, murmured something in agreement and raised 
 his helmet with a playful flourish. 
 
 Mohammed, soft of voice and moving like a shadow, 
 called that the boat was ready, and Tom prepared to go. 
 Mrs. Haughstone accompanied him half-way down the 
 steps. 
 
 "You won't startle them, will you, Mr. Kelverdon?" 
 she said. "Lettice, you know, is rather easily fright- 
 ened." And she laughed a little. "It's Egypt the dry 
 air one's nerves " 
 
212 The Wave 
 
 Tom was already in the boat, where the Arab stood 
 waiting in the moonlight like a ghost. 
 
 "Of course not," he called up to her through the still 
 air. But, none the less, he meant to surprise her if he 
 could. Only in his thought the pronoun insisted, some- 
 how, on the plural form. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 HE boat swung out into mid-stream. Behind him 
 JL the figure of Mrs. Haughstone faded away against 
 the bourgainvillsea on the wall; in front, Mohammed's 
 head and shoulders merged with the opposite bank; be- 
 yond, the spectral palms and the shadowy fields of clover 
 slipped into the great body of the moon-fed desert. The 
 desert itself sank down into a hollow that seemed to 
 fling those dark Theban hills upwards towards the stars. 
 
 Everything, as it were, went into its background. 
 Everything, animate and inanimate, rose out of a com- 
 mon ultimate the Sea. Yet for a moment only. There 
 was this sense of preliminary withdrawal backwards, as 
 for a leap that was to come. . . . 
 
 He, too, felt merged with his own background. In 
 his soul he knew the trouble and tumult of the Wave 
 gathering for a surging rise to follow. . . . 
 
 For some minutes the sense of his own identity passed 
 from him, and he wondered who he was. "Who am I ?" 
 would have been a quite natural question. "Let me see ; 
 I'm Kelverdon, Tom Kelverdon." Of course ! Yet he 
 felt that he was another person too. He lost his grip 
 upon his normal modern self a moment, lost hold of the 
 steady, confident personality that was familiar. . . . The 
 voice of Mohammed broke the singular spell. "Shicago, 
 vair' good donkey. Yis, bes' donkey in Luxor " and 
 Tom remembered that he had a ride of an hour or so 
 before he could reach the Temple of Deir El-Bahri where 
 his friends were bivouacking. He tipped Mohammed as 
 he landed, mounted "Chicago," and started off impa- 
 tiently, then ran against little Mohammed coming back 
 for a forgotten kettle ! He laughed. Every third Arab 
 
 213 
 
214 The Wave 
 
 seemed called Mohammed. But he learned exactly where 
 the party was. He sent his own donkey-boy home, and 
 rode on alone across the moon-lit plain. 
 
 The wonder of the exquisite night took hold of him, 
 searching his heart beyond all power of language the 
 strange Egyptian beauty. The ancient wilderness, so 
 calm beneath the stars; the mournful hills that leaped 
 to touch the smoking moon; the perfumed air, the deep 
 old river each, and all together, exhaled their inner- 
 most, essential magic. Over every separate boulder split 
 the flood of silver. There were troops of shadows. 
 Among these shadows, beyond the boulders, Isis herself, 
 it seemed, went by with audible footfall on the sand, 
 secretly guiding his advance; Horus, dignified and sol- 
 emn, with hawk-wings hovering, and fierce, deathless eyes 
 Horus, too, watched him lest he stumble. . . . 
 
 On all sides he seemed aware of the powerful Egyp- 
 tian gods, their protective help, their familiar guidance. 
 The deeps within him opened. He had done this thing 
 before. . . . Even the little details brought the same lost 
 message back to him, as the hoofs of his donkey shuf- 
 fled through the sand or struck a loose stone aside with 
 metallic clatter. He heard the lizards whistling. . . . 
 
 There were other vaster emblems too, quite close. To 
 the south, a little, the shoulders of the Colossi domed 
 awfully above the flat expanse, and soon he passed the 
 Ramesseum, the moon just entering the stupendous aisles. 
 He saw the silvery shafts beneath the huge square pylons. 
 On all sides lay the welter of prodigious ruins, steeped 
 in a power and beauty that seemed borrowed from the 
 scale of the immeasurable heavens. Egypt laid a great 
 hand upon him, her cold wind brushed his cheeks. He 
 was aware of awfulness, of splendor, of all the immen- 
 sities. He was in Eternity; life was continuous through- 
 out the ages; there was no death. . . . 
 
 He felt huge wings, and a hawk, disturbed by his pass- 
 ing, flapped silently away to another broken pillar just 
 
The Wave 215 
 
 beyond. He seemed swept forward, the plaything of 
 greater forces than he knew. There was no question of 
 direction, of resistance : the Wave rushed on and he 
 rushed with it. His normal simplicity disappeared in a 
 complexity that bewildered him. Very clear, however, 
 was one thing courage; that courage due to abandon- 
 ment of self. He would face whatever came. He need- 
 ed it. It was inevitable. Yes this time he would face it 
 without shuffling or disaster. . . . For he recognized dis- 
 aster and was aware of blood. . . . 
 
 Questions asked themselves in long, long whispers, but 
 found no answers. They emerged from that mothering 
 background and returned into it again. . . . Sometimes 
 he rode alone, but sometimes Lettice rode beside him: 
 Tony joined them. ... He felt them driven forward, 
 all three together, obedient to the lift of the same rising 
 wave, urged onwards towards a climax that was lost to 
 sight, and yet familiar. He knew both joy and shrinking, 
 a delicious welcome that it was going to happen, yet a 
 dread of searing pain involved. A great fact lay every- 
 where about him in the night, but a fact he could not seize 
 completely. All his faculties settled on it, but in vain 
 they settled on a fragment, while the rest lay free, beyond 
 his reach. Pain, which was a pain at nothing, filled his 
 heart ; joy, which was joy without a reason, sang in him. 
 The Wave rose higher, higher . . . the breath came with 
 difficulty . . . the wind was icy ... there was choking 
 in his throat. . . . 
 
 He noticed the same high excitement in him he had 
 experienced a few nights ago beneath the Karnak pylons 
 it ended later, he remembered, in the menace of an un- 
 utterable loneliness. This excitement was wild with an 
 irresponsible hilarity that had no justification. He felt 
 exalte. The wave, he swinging in the crest of it, was 
 going to break, and he knew the awful thrill upon him 
 before the dizzy, smothering plunge. 
 
 The complex of emotions made clear thought impossi- 
 
2i6 The Wave 
 
 ble. To put two and two together was beyond him. He 
 felt the power that bore him along immensely greater 
 than himself. And one of the smaller, self-asking ques- 
 tions issued from it: "Was this what she felt? Was 
 Tony also feeling this? Were all three of them being 
 swept along towards an inevitable climax?" . . . This 
 singular notion that none of them could help themselves 
 passed into him. . . . 
 
 And then he realized from the slower pace of the ani- 
 mal beneath him that the path was going uphill. He 
 collected his thoughts and looked about him. The for- 
 bidding cliffs that guard the grim Valley of the Kings, 
 the haunted Theban hills, stood up pale yellow against 
 the stars. The big moon, no longer smoking in the earth- 
 bound haze, had risen into the clear dominion of the 
 upper sky. And he saw the terraces and columns of the 
 Deir El-Bahri Temple facing him at the level of his eyes. 
 
 Nothing bore clearer testimony to the half-unconscious 
 method by which the drama developed itself, to the de- 
 liberate yet uncalculated attitude of the actors towards 
 some inevitable fulfilment, than the little scene which 
 Tom's surprise arrival then discovered. According to the 
 mood of the beholder it could mean much or little, every- 
 thing or nothing. It was so nicely contrived between con- 
 cealment and disclosure, and, like much else that hap- 
 pened, seemed balanced exquisitely, if painfully, between 
 guilt and innocence. The point of view of the onlooker 
 could alone decide. At the same time it provided a per- 
 fect frame for another picture that later took the stage. 
 The stage seemed set for it exactly. The later picture 
 broke in and used it too. That is to say, two separate pic- 
 tures, distinct yet interfused, occupied the stage at once. 
 
 For Tom, dismounting, and leaving his animal with 
 the donkey-boys some hundred yards away, approached 
 stealthily over the sand and came upon the picnic group 
 before he knew it. He watched them a moment before 
 
The Wave 217 
 
 he announced himself. The scene was some feet below 
 him. He looked down. 
 
 Two minutes sooner, he might conceivably have found 
 the party quite differently grouped. Instead, however, 
 his moment of arrival was exactly timed as though to 
 witness a scene set cleverly by the invisible Stage Man- 
 ager to frame two similar and yet different incidents. 
 
 Tom leaned against a broken column, staring. 
 
 Young de Lome and Lady Sybil, he saw, were care- 
 fully admiring the moonlight on the yellow cliffs. Miss 
 de Lome stooped busily over rugs and basket packages. 
 Her back was turned to Tony and Madame Jaretzka, who 
 were intimately engaged, their faces very close together, 
 in the half-prosaic, half-poetic act of blowing up a gipsy 
 fire of scanty sticks and crumpled paper. The entire 
 picture seemed arranged as though intended to convey 
 a "situation." And to Tom a situation most certainly 
 was conveyed successfully, though a situation of which 
 the two chief actors who shall say otherwise? were 
 possibly unconscious. For in that first moment as he 
 leaned against the column, gazing fixedly, the smoking 
 sticks between them burst into a flare of sudden flame, 
 setting the two faces in a frame of bright red light, and 
 Tom, gazing upon them from a distance of perhaps some 
 twenty yards saw them clearly, yet somehow did not 
 recognize them. Another picture thrust itself between: 
 he watched a scene that lay deep below him. Through 
 the soft blaze of that Egyptian moonlight, across the si- 
 lence of that pale Egyptian desert, beneath those old 
 Egyptian stars, there stole upon him some magic which 
 is deathless, though its outer covenants have vanished 
 from the world. . . . Down, down he sank into the for- 
 gotten scenes whence it arose. Smothered in sand, it 
 seemed, he heard the centuries roar past him. . . . 
 
 He saw two other persons kneeling above that fire on 
 the desert floor, two persons familiar to him, yet whom 
 he could not wholly recognize. In that amazing second, 
 
218 The Wave 
 
 while his heart stopped beating, it seemed as if thought 
 in anguish cried aloud : "So, there you are ! I have the 
 proof !" while yet all verification of the tragic "you" re- 
 mained just out of reach and undisclosed. 
 
 He did not recognize two persons whom he knew, while 
 yet some portion of him keenly, fiercely searching, dived 
 back into the limbo of unremembered time. ... A thin 
 blue smoke rose before his face, and to his nostrils stole 
 a delicate perfume as of ambra. It was a picnic fire no 
 longer. It was an eastern woman he saw lean 'forward 
 across the gleam of a golden brazier and yield a kiss to 
 the lips of a man who claimed it passionately. He saw 
 her small hands folded and clinging about his neck. The 
 face of the man he could not see, the head and shoulders 
 being turned away, but hers he saw clearly the dark, 
 lustrous eyes that shone between half-closed eyelids. 
 They were highly placed in life, these two, for their as- 
 pect as their garments told it ; the man, indeed, had gold 
 about him somewhere and the woman, in her mien, wore 
 royalty. Yet, though he but saw their hands and heads 
 alone, he knew instinctively that, if not regal, they were 
 semi-regal, and set beyond his reach in power natural to 
 them both. They were high-born, the favored of the 
 world. Inferiority was his who watched them, the help- 
 less inferiority of subordinate position. That, too, he 
 knew . . . for a gasp of terror, though quickly smoth- 
 ered terror, rose vividly behind an anger that could gladly 
 kill. 
 
 There was a flash of fiery and intolerable pain within 
 him. . . . 
 
 The next second he saw merely Lettice ! blowing the 
 smoke from her face and eyes, with an impatient little 
 gesture of both hands, while in front of her knelt Tony 
 fanning a reluctant fire of sticks and paper with his old 
 felt hat. 
 
 He had been gazing at a colored bubble, the bubble had 
 burst into air and vanished, the entire mood and picture 
 
The Wave 219 
 
 vanished with it so swiftly, so instantaneously, more- 
 over, that Tom was ready to deny the entire experience. 
 
 Indeed, he did deny it. He refused to credit it. It 
 had been, surely, a feeling rather than a sight. But the 
 feeling having utterly vanished, he discredited the sight 
 as well. The fiery pain had vanished too. He found him- 
 self watching the semi-comical picture of de Lome and 
 Lady Sybil flirting in dumb action, and Tony and Let- 
 tice trying to make a fire without the instinct or ability 
 to succeed. And, incontinently, he burst out laughing 
 audibly. 
 
 Yet, apparently, his laughter was not heard; he had 
 made no actual sound. There was, instead, a little scream, 
 a sudden movement, a scurrying of feet among the sand 
 and stones, and Lettice and Tony rose upon one single 
 impulse, as once before he had seen them rise in Karnak 
 weeks ago. They stood up like one person. They looked 
 about them into the surrounding shadows, disturbed, af- 
 flicted, yet as though they were not certain they had 
 heard . . . and then, abruptly, the figure of Tony went 
 out ... it disappeared. How, precisely, was not clear, 
 but it was gone into the darkness. . . . 
 
 And another picture or another aspect of the first 
 dropped into place. There was an outline of a shadowy 
 tent. The flap was stirring lightly, as though behind 
 it some one hid and watched. He could not tell. A 
 deep confusion, as of two pictures interfused, was in 
 him. For somehow he transferred his own self was it 
 physical desire? was it spiritual yearning? was it love? 
 projected his own self into the figure that had kissed her, 
 taking her own passionate kiss in return. He actually ex- 
 perienced it. He did this thing. He had done it once be- 
 fore! Knowing himself beside her, he both did it and 
 saw himself doing it. He was both actor and on- 
 looker. . . . 
 
 There poured back upon him then, sweet and poignant, 
 his love of an Egyptian woman, the fragrance of remem- 
 
220 The Wave 
 
 bered tresses, the perfume of fair limbs that clung and 
 of arms that lingered round his neck yet that in the last 
 moment slipped from his full possession. He was on 
 his knees before her; he gazed up into her ardent eyes, 
 set in a glowing face above his own ; the face bent lower ; 
 he raised two slender hands, the fingers henna-stained, 
 and pressed them to his lips. He felt their silken tex- 
 ture, the fragile pressure, her breath upon his face yet 
 all sharply withdrawn again before he captured them com- 
 pletely. There was the odor of long-forgotten unguents, 
 sweet with a tang that sharpened them towards desire in 
 days that knew a fiercer sunlight. . . . His brain went 
 reeling. The effort to keep one picture separate from 
 the other broke them both. He could not disentangle, 
 could not distinguish. They intermingled. He was both 
 the figure hidden behind the tent and the figure who held 
 the woman in his arms. What his heart desired became, 
 it seemed, that which happened. . . . 
 
 And then the flap of the tent flung open, and out rushed 
 a violent, leaping outline the figure of a man. Another 
 it seemed himself rushed to meet him. There was a 
 gleam, a long deep cry. ... A woman, with arms out- 
 stretched, knelt close beside the struggling figures on the 
 sand. He saw two huge, dark, muscular hands about a 
 bent and yielding neck, blood oozing thickly between the 
 gripping fingers, staining them . . . then sudden dark- 
 ness that blacked out the entire scene, and a choking 
 effort to find breath. . . . But it was his own breath that 
 failed, choked as by blood and fire that broke into his own 
 throat. . . . Smothered in sand, the centuries roared past 
 him, died away into the distance, sank back into the 
 interminable desert. . . . He found his voice this time. 
 He shouted. 
 
 He saw again Lettice, blowing the smoke from her 
 face and eyes with an impatient little gesture of both 
 hands, while Tony knelt in front of her and fanned a 
 reluctant fire with his old felt hat. The picture the 
 
The Wave 221 
 
 second picture had been instantaneous. It had not 
 lasted a fraction of a second even. 
 
 He shouted. And this time his voice was audible. 
 Lettice and Tony stood up, as though a single person 
 rose. Both turned in the direction of the sound. Then 
 Tony moved off quickly. Tom's vision had interpene- 
 trated this very action even while it was actually taking 
 place the first time. 
 
 "Why I do declare if it isn't Tom!" he heard in 
 a startled woman's voice. 
 
 He came down towards her slowly. Something of the 
 "pictures" still swam in between what was next said and 
 done. It seemed in the atmosphere, pervading the three 
 of them. But it was weakening, passing away quickly. 
 For one moment, however, before it passed, it became 
 overpowering again. 
 
 "But, Tom is this a joke, or what? You frightened 
 me" she gave a horrid gasp "nearly to death ! You've 
 come back !" 
 
 "It's a surprise," he cried, trying to laugh, though his 
 lips were dry and refused the effort. "I have surprised 
 you. I've come back!" 
 
 He heard the gasp prolonged. Breathing seemed diffi- 
 cult. Some deep distress was in her. Yet, in place of 
 pity, exultation caught him oddly. The next instant he 
 felt suddenly afraid. There was confusion in his soul. 
 For it was he and she, it seemed, who had been "sur- 
 prised and caught." And her voice called shrilly: 
 
 "Tony! Tony . . . !" 
 
 There was amazement in the sound of it terror, re- 
 lief, and passion too. The thin note of fear and anguish 
 broke through the natural call. Then, as Tony came run- 
 ning up, a few sticks in his big hands she screamed, 
 yet with failing breath : 
 
 "Oh, oh . . . ! Who are you ... ?" 
 
 For the man she summoned came, but came too swiftly. 
 Moving with uncertain gait, he yet came rapidly terri- 
 
222 The Wave 
 
 bly, somehow, and with violence. Instantaneously, it 
 seemed he covered the intervening space. In the calm, 
 sweet moonlight, beneath the blaze of the steady stars, 
 he suddenly was there, upon that patch of ancient desert 
 sand. He looked half unearthly. The big hands he held 
 outspread before him glistened a little in the shimmer of 
 the moon. Yet they were dark, and they seemed menac- 
 ing. They threatened as with some power he meant to 
 use, because it was his right. But the gleam upon them 
 was not of swarthy skin alone. The gleam, the darkness, 
 were of blood. . . . There was a cry again a sound of 
 anguish almost intolerable. . . . 
 
 And the same instant Tom felt the clasp of his cousin's 
 hand upon his own, and heard his jolly voice with easy, 
 natural laughter in it: "But, Tom, old chap, how rip- 
 ping! You're really back! This is a grand surprise! 
 It's splendid !" 
 
 There was nothing that called upon either his courage 
 or control. They were overjoyed to see him, the sur- 
 prise he provided proved indeed the success of the eve- 
 ning. 
 
 "I thought at first you were Mohammed with the ket- 
 tle," exclaimed Madame Jaretzka, coming close to make 
 quite sure, and murmuring quickly nervously as well, 
 he thought Oh, Tom, I am so glad," beneath her breath. 
 "You're just in time we all wanted you so." 
 
 Explanations followed ; Tony's friends had postponed 
 the Cairo trip at the last moment; the picnic had been 
 planned as a rehearsal for the real one that was to follow 
 later. Tom's adroitness in finding them was praised ; he 
 became the unwilling hero of the piece, and as such had 
 to make the fire a success and prove himself generally 
 the clou of the party that hitherto was missing. He be- 
 came at once the life and center of the little group, gay 
 and in the highest spirits, the emotion accumulated in him 
 
The Wave 223 
 
 discharging itself in the entirely unexpected direction of 
 hilarious fun and gaiety. 
 
 The sense of tragedy he had gathered on his journey, 
 if it muttered at all, muttered out of sight. He looked 
 back upon his feelings of an hour before with amazement, 
 dismay, distress then utterly forgot them. The picture 
 itself the vision was as though it had not been at all. 
 What, in the name of common sense, had -possessed him 
 that he could ever have admitted such preposterous un- 
 easiness? He thought of Mrs. Haughstone's absurd 
 warnings with a sharp contempt, and felt his spirits only 
 rise higher than before. She was meanly suspicious 
 about nothing. Of course he would give Lettice a hint : 
 why not, indeed? He would give it then and there be- 
 fore them all and hear them laugh about it till they cried. 
 And he would have done so, doubtless, but that he real- 
 ized the woman's jealousy was a sordid topic to introduce 
 into so gay a party. 
 
 "You arrived in the nick of time, Tom," Lettice told 
 him. "We were beginning to feel the solemnity of these 
 surroundings, the awful Tombs of the Kings and Priests 
 and people. Those cliffs are too oppressive for a picnic." 
 
 "A fact," cried Tony. "It feels like sacrilege. They 
 resent us being here." He glanced at Madame Jaretzka 
 as he said it. "If you hadn't come, Tom, I'm sure there'd 
 have been a disaster somewhere. Anyhow, one must feel 
 superstitious to enjoy a place like this. It's the proper 
 atmosphere !" 
 
 Lettice looked up at Tom, and added, "You've really 
 saved us. The least we can do is to worship the sun the 
 moment he gets up. We'll adore old Amon-Ra. It's ob- 
 vious. We must!" 
 
 They made themselves merry over a rather sandy meal. 
 She arranged a place for him close beside her, and her 
 genuine pleasure at his unexpected return rilled him with 
 a joy that crowded out even the memory of other emo- 
 tions. The mixture called Tom Kelverdon asserted it- 
 
224 The Wave 
 
 self: he felt ashamed; he heartily despised his moods, 
 wondering whence they came so strangely. Tony him- 
 self was quiet and affectionate. If anything was lacking, 
 Tom's high spirits carried him too boisterously to notice 
 it. Otherwise he might possibly have thought that she 
 spoke a little sharply once or twice to Tony, neglecting 
 him in a way that was not quite her normal way, and that 
 to himself, even before the others, she was unusually 
 almost too emphatically dear and tender. Indeed, she 
 seemed so pleased he had come that a cynical observer, 
 cursed with an ^ acute, experienced mind, might almost 
 have thought she showed something not far from posi- 
 tive relief. But Tom, too happy to be sensitive to shades 
 of feminine conduct, was aware chiefly, if not solely, of 
 his own joy and welcome. 
 
 "You didn't get my letter, then, before you left?" she 
 asked him once; and he replied, "The answer, as 'in Par- 
 liament, is in the negative. But it will be forwarded all 
 right." He would get it the following night. "Ah, but 
 you mustn't read it now" she said. "You must tear it 
 up unread," and made him promise faithfully he would 
 obey. "/ wrote to you too," mentioned Tony, as though 
 determined to be left out of nothing. "You'll get it at the 
 same time. But you mustn't tear mine up, remember. 
 It's full of advice and wisdom you badly need." And 
 Tom promised that faithfully as well. The reply was 
 in the affirmative. 
 
 The bivouac was a complete success ; all looked back 
 upon it as an unforgettable experience. They declared, 
 of course, they had not slept a wink, yet all had snored 
 quite audibly beneath the wheeling stars. They were 
 fresh and lively enough, certainly, when the sun poured 
 his delicious warmth across the cloudless sky, while Tom 
 and Tony made the fire and set the coffee on for break- 
 fast. 
 
 Of the marvelous beauty that preceded the actual sun- 
 rise no one spoke; it left them breathless rather; they 
 
The Wave 225 
 
 watched the sky beyond the hills change color; great 
 shafts of gold transfixed the violet heavens; the Nile 
 shone faintly ; then, with a sudden drive, the stars rushed 
 backwards in a shower, and the amazing sun came up as 
 with a shout. Perfumes that have no name rose from the 
 desert and the fields along the distant river banks. The 
 silence deepened, for no birds sang. Light took the 
 world and it was morning. 
 
 And when the donkey-boys arrived at eight o'clock, 
 the party were slow in starting: it was so pleasant 
 to lie and bask in the sumptuous bath of heat and light 
 that drenched them. The night had been chilly enough. 
 They were a tired party. Once home again, all retired 
 with one accord to sleep, remaining invisible until the sun 
 was slanting over Persia and the Indian Ocean, gilding 
 the horizon probably above the starry skies of far Cathay. 
 
 But as Tom dozed off behind the shuttered windows 
 in the hotel towards eleven o'clock, having bathed and 
 breakfasted a second time, he thought vaguely of what 
 Mrs. Haughstone had said to him a few hours before. It 
 seemed days ago already. He was too drowsy to hold the 
 thought more than a moment in his mind, much less to 
 reflect upon it. "It may be just as well to give a hint," 
 occurred to him. "Tony is a bit too fond of her too 
 fond for his happiness, perhaps." Nothing had happened 
 at the picnic to revive the notion; it just struck him as 
 he fell asleep, then vanished; it was a moment's instinct. 
 The vision it had been an instantaneous flash after all 
 and nothing more had left his mind completely for the 
 time. 
 
 But Tom looked back afterwards upon the all-night 
 bivouac as an occasion marked specially in memory's 
 calendar, yet for a reason that was unlike the reasons his 
 companions knew. He remembered it with mingled joy 
 and pain, also with a wonder that he could have been so 
 blind the last night of happiness in his brief Egyptian 
 winter. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 HE slept through the hot hours of the afternoon. In 
 the cool of the evening, as he strolled along the 
 river bank, he read the few lines Lettice had written to 
 him at Assouan. For the porter had handed him half-a- 
 dozen letters as he left the hotel. Tony's he put for the 
 moment aside; the one from Lettice was all he cared 
 about, quite forgetting he had promised to tear it up un- 
 read. It was short but tender anxious about his com- 
 fort and well-being in a strange hotel "when I am not 
 there to take care of you." It ended on a complaint that 
 she was "tired rather and spending my time at full length 
 on a deck-chair in the garden." She promised to write 
 "at greater length to-morrow." 
 
 "Instead of which," thought Tom with a boy's delight, 
 "I surprised her and we talked face to face." But for 
 the Arab touts who ran beside him, offering glass beads 
 made in Birmingham, he could have kissed the letter there 
 and then. 
 
 The resplendent gold on the river blinded him, he was 
 glad to enter the darker street and shake off the children 
 who pestered him for bakshish. Passing the Savoy Ho- 
 tel, he hesitated a moment, then went on. "No, I won't 
 call in for Tony, I'll find her alone, and we'll have a cozy 
 little talk together before the others come." He quick- 
 ened his pace, entered the shady garden, discovered her 
 instantly, and threw himself down upon the cushions 
 beside her deck-chair. "Just what I hoped," he said, with 
 pleasure and admiration in his eyes, "alone at last. That 
 is good luck isn't it, Lettice?" 
 
 226 
 
The Wave 227 
 
 "Of course," she agreed, and smiled lazily, though 
 some might have thought indifferently, as she watched 
 him arranging the cushions. 
 
 He flung himself back and gazed at her. She wore a 
 dress of palest yellow, and the broad-brimmed hat with 
 the little roses. She seemed part of the flaming sunset 
 and the tawny desert. 
 
 "Well," he grumbled playfully, "it is true, isn't it ? Our 
 not being alone often, I mean?" He watched her with- 
 out knowing that he did so. 
 
 "In a way yes," she said. "But we can't have every- 
 thing at once, can we, Tom?" Her voice was colorless 
 perhaps. A tiny frown settled for an instant between her 
 eyes, then vanished. Tom did not notice it. She sighed. 
 "You baby, Tom. I spoil you dreadfully, and you know 
 I do." 
 
 He liked her in this quiet, teasing mood ; it was often 
 the prelude to more delightful spoiling. He was in high 
 spirits. "You look as fresh as a girl of sixteen, Lettice," 
 he declared. "I believe you're only this instant out of 
 your bath and bed. D'you know, I slept like a baby too 
 the whole afternoon " 
 
 He interrupted himself, for at that moment a cigarette 
 case on the sand beside him caught his eye. He picked it 
 up he recognized it. "Yes I wish you'd smoke," she 
 said the same instant, brushing a fly quickly from her 
 cheek. 
 
 "Tony's," he exclaimed, examining the case. 
 
 He noticed at the same time several burnt matches be- 
 tween his cushions and her chair. 
 
 "But he'd love you to smoke them: I'll take the re- 
 sponsibility." She laughed quietly. "I'm sure they're 
 good better than yours; he's wickedly extravagant." 
 She watched him as he took one out, examining the label 
 critically, then lighting it slowly and inhaling the smoke 
 to taste it. There was a faint perfume that clung to the 
 case and its contents. 
 
228 The Wave 
 
 "Ambra," said Lattice, a kind of watchful amusement 
 in her eyes. "You don't like it !" 
 
 Tom looked up sharply. 
 
 "Is that it? I didn't know/' 
 
 She nodded. "It's Tony's smell, haven't you noticed 
 it? He always has it about him. No, no,'* she laughed, 
 noticing his expression of disapproval, "he doesn't use it. 
 It's just in his atmosphere, I mean." 
 
 "Oh, is it?" said Tom. 
 
 "I rather like it," she went on idly, "but I never can 
 make out where it comes from. We call it ambra the 
 fragrance that hangs about the bazaars : I believe they 
 used it for the mummies ; but the desert perfume is in it 
 too. It's rather wonderful it suits him don't you 
 think? Penetrating, and so delicate." 
 
 What a lot she had to say about it ! He made no reply. 
 He was looking down to see what caused him that sud- 
 den, inexplicable pain and discovered" that the lighted 
 match had burned his fingers. The next minute he looked 
 up again straight into her eyes. 
 
 But, somehow, he did not say exactly what he meant 
 to say. He said, in fact, something that occurred to him 
 on the spur of the moment. His mind was simple, pos- 
 sibly, yet imps occasionally made use of it. An imp just 
 then reminded him : "Her letter made no mention of the 
 picnic, of Tony's sudden change of plan, yet it was writ- 
 ten yesterday morning when both were being arranged." 
 
 So Tom did not refer to the ambra perfume, nor to 
 the fact that Tony had spent the afternoon with her. He 
 said quite another thing said it rather bluntly too : "I've 
 just got your letter from Assouan, Lettice, and I clean 
 forgot my promise that I wouldn't read it." He paused 
 a second. "You said nothing about the picnic in it." 
 
 "I thought you'd be disappointed if you knew," she 
 replied at once. "That's why I didn't want you to read 
 it." And she fell to scolding him in the way he usually 
 loved, but at the moment found less stimulating for 
 
The Wave 229 
 
 some reason. He smoked his stolen cigarette with energy 
 for a measurable period. 
 
 "You're the spoilt child, not I," he said at length, still 
 looking at her. "You said you were tired and meant to 
 rest, and then you go for an exhausting expedition in- 
 stead." 
 
 The tiny frown reappeared between her eyes, lingered 
 a trifle longer than before, and vanished. She made a 
 quick gesture. "You're in a very nagging mood, Tom; 
 bivouacs don't agree with you." She spoke lightly, eas- 
 ily, in excellent good temper really. "It was Tony per- 
 suaded me, if you want to know the truth. He found 
 himself free unexpectedly ; he was so persistent ; it's im- 
 possible to resist him when he's like that the only thing 
 is to give in and go." 
 
 "Of course." Tom's face was like a mask. He thought 
 so, at least, as he laughed and agreed with her, saying 
 Tony was an unscrupulous rascal at the best of times. 
 Apparently there was a struggle in him; he seemed in 
 two minds. "Was he here this afternoon?" he asked. 
 He learned that Tony had come at four o'clock and had 
 tea with her alone. "We didn't telephone because he said 
 it would only spoil your sleep, and that a man who works 
 as well as plays must sleep longer than a younger man." 
 Then, as Tom said nothing, she added, "Tony is such a 
 boy, isn't he?" 
 
 There were several emotions in Tom just then. He 
 hardly knew which was the true, or at least, the domi- 
 nant one. He was thinking of several things at once too: 
 of her letter, of that faint peculiar odor, of Tony's com- 
 ing to tea, but chiefly, perhaps, of the fact that Lettice 
 had not mentioned it, but that he had found it out. . . . 
 His heart sank. It struck him suddenly that the mother 
 in her sought to protect him from the pain the woman 
 gave. 
 
 "Is he yes," he said absent-mindedly. And she re- 
 peated quietly, "Oh, I think so." 
 
230 The Wave 
 
 The brief eastern twilight had meanwhile fallen, and 
 the rapidly cooling air sighed through the foliage. It 
 grew darker in their shady corner. The western sky was 
 still a blaze of riotous color, however, that filtered through 
 the trees and shed a luminous glow upon their faces. 
 It was a bewitching light there was something bewitch- 
 ing about Lettice as she lay there. Tom himself felt a 
 touch of that deep Egyptian enchantment. It stole in 
 among his thoughts and feelings, coloring motives, lift- 
 ing into view, as from far away, moods that he hardly 
 understood and yet obeyed because they were familiar. 
 
 This evasive sense of familiarity, both welcome and un- 
 welcome, swept in, dropped a fleeting whisper, and was 
 gone again. He felt himself for an instant some one 
 else : one Tom felt and spoke, while another Tom looked 
 on and watched, a calm outside spectator. And upon 
 his heart came a touch of that strange, rich pain that 
 was never very far away in Egypt. 
 
 "I say, Lettice," he began suddenly, as though he came 
 to an abrupt decision. "This is an awful place for talk 
 
 these Luxor hotels " He stuck. "Isn't it? You 
 
 know what I mean." His laborious manner betrayed in- 
 tensity, yet he meant to speak lightly, easily, and thought 
 his voice was merely natural. He stared hard at the 
 glowing tip of his cigarette. 
 
 Lettice looked across at him without speaking for a 
 moment. Her eyelids were half closed. He felt her gaze 
 and raised his own. He saw the smile steal down towards 
 her lips. 
 
 "Tom, why are you glaring at me ?" 
 
 He started. He tried to smile, but there was no smile 
 in him. 
 
 "Was I, Lettice? Forgive me." The talk that was 
 coming would hurt him, yet somehow he desired it. He 
 would give his little warning and take the consequences. 
 "I was devouring your beauty, as the Family Herald 
 says." He heard himself utter a dry and unconvincing 
 
The Wave 231 
 
 laugh. Something was rising through him ; it was beyond 
 control; it had to come. He felt stupid, awkward, and 
 was angry with himself for being so. For, somehow, 
 he felt powerless too. 
 
 She came to the point with a directness that discon- 
 certed him. "Who has been talking about me?" she en- 
 quired, her voice hardening a little; "and what does it 
 matter if they have?" 
 
 Tom swallowed. There was something about her 
 beauty in that moment that set him on fire from head to 
 foot. He knew a fierce desire to seize her in his arms, 
 hold her for ever and ever lest she should escape him. 
 
 But he was unable to give expression in any way to 
 what was in him. All he did was to shift his cushions 
 slightly further from her side. 
 
 "It's always wiser safer not to be seen about too 
 much with the same man alone," he fumbled, recalling 
 Mrs. Haughstone's words, "in a place like this, I mean," 
 he qualified it. It sounded foolish, but he could evolve no 
 cleverer way of phrasing it. He went on quicker, a touch 
 of nervousness in his voice he tried to smother : "No one 
 can mistake our relationship, or think there's anything 
 wrong in it." He stopped a second, as she gazed at him 
 in silence, waiting for him to finish. "But Tony," he con- 
 cluded, with a gulp he prayed she did not notice, "Tony 
 is a little " 
 
 "Well?" she helped him, "a little what ?" 
 
 "A little different, isn't he?" 
 
 Tom realized that he was producing the reverse of 
 what he intended. Somehow the choice of words seemed 
 forced upon him. He was aware of his own helplessness; 
 he felt almost like a boy scolding his own wise, affection- 
 ate mother. The thought stung him into pain, and with 
 the pain rose, too, a first distant hint of anger. The tur- 
 moil of feeling confused him. He was aware by her 
 silence chiefly of the new distance between them, a dis- 
 tance the mention of Tony had emphasized. Instinctively 
 
232 The Wave 
 
 he tried to hide both pain and anger it could only in- 
 crease this distance that was already there. At the same 
 time he saw red. . . . Her answer, then, so gently given, 
 baffled him absurdly. He felt out of his depth. 
 
 "I'll be more careful, Tom, dear you wise, experi- 
 enced chaperone." 
 
 The words, the manner, stung him. Another emotion, 
 wounded vanity, came into play. To laugh at himself 
 was natural and right, but to be laughed at by a woman, 
 a woman whom he loved, whom he regarded as exclu- 
 sively his own, against whom, moreover, he had an accu- 
 mulating grievance it hurt him acutely, although he 
 seemed powerless to prevent it. He felt his own stupid- 
 ity increase. 
 
 "It's just as well, I think, Lettice." It was the wrong, 
 the hopeless thing to say, but the words seemed, in a 
 sense, pushed quickly out of his mouth lest he should 
 find better ones. He anticipated, too, her exasperation 
 before her answer proved it: "But, really, Tom, you 
 know, I can look after myself rather well as a rule 
 don't you think?" 
 
 He interrupted her then, a mixture of several feelings 
 in him shame, the pain of frustrate yearning, perplexity 
 too. For, in spite of himself, he wanted to hear how she 
 would speak of Tony. He meant to punish himself by 
 hearing her praise him. He, too, meant to speak well 
 of his cousin. 
 
 "He's a bit careless, though," he blurted, "irresponsi- 
 ble, in a way where women are concerned. I'm sure he 
 means no harm, of course, but " He paused in con- 
 fusion, he was no longer afraid that harm might come 
 to Tony ; he was afraid for her, but now also for himself 
 as well. 
 
 "Tom, I do believe you're jealous !" 
 
 He laughed boisterously when he heard it. It was 
 really comical, awfully comical, of course. It sounded, 
 
The Wave 233 
 
 too, the way she said it ugly, mean, contemptible. The 
 touch of shame came back. 
 
 "Lettice! But what an idea!" He gasped, turning 
 round upon his other elbow, closer to her. But the 
 sinking of his heart increased; he felt an inner cold. 
 And a moment of deep silence followed the empty laugh- 
 ter. The rustle of the foliage alone was audible. 
 
 Lettice looked down sideways at him through half- 
 closed eyelids; propped on his cushions beside her, this 
 was natural: yet he felt it mental as well as physical. 
 There was pity in her attitude, a concealed exasperation, 
 almost contempt. At the same time he realized that she 
 had never seemed so adorably lovely, so exquisite, so out 
 of his reach. He had never felt her so seductively de- 
 sirable. He made an impetuous gesture towards her be- 
 fore he knew it. 
 
 "Don't, Tom; you'll upset my papers and everything," 
 she said calmly, yet with the merest suspicion of annoy- 
 ance in her tone. She was very gentle, she was also very 
 cold cold as ice, he felt her, while he was burning as 
 with fire. He was aware of this unbridgeable distance 
 between his passion and her indifference ; and a dreadful 
 thought leaped up in him with stabbing pain : "Her an- 
 swer to Tony would have been quite otherwise." 
 
 "I'm sorry, Lettice so sorry," he said bruskly, to 
 hide his mortification. "I'm awfully clumsy." She was 
 putting her papers tidy again with calm fingers, while his 
 own were almost cramped with the energy of suppressed 
 desire. "But, seriously," he went on, refusing the rebuff 
 by pretending it was play on his part, "it isn't very wise 
 to be seen about so much alone with Tony. Believe me, 
 it isn't." For the first time, he noticed, it was difficult to 
 use the familiar and affectionate name. But for a sense 
 of humor he could have said "Anthony." 
 
 "I do believe you, Tom. I'll be more careful." Her eyes 
 were very soft, her manner quiet, her gentle tone untinged 
 with any emotion. Yet Tom detected, he felt sure, a cer- 
 
234 The Wave 
 
 tain eagerness behind the show of apparent indifference. 
 She liked to talk to go on talking about Tony. "Do 
 you really think so, really mean it?" he heard her ask- 
 ing, and thus knew his thought confirmed. She invited 
 more. And, with open eyes, with a curious welcome even 
 to the pain involved, Tom deliberately stepped into the 
 cruel little trap. But he almost felt that something pushed 
 him in. He talked exactly like a boy: "He he's got a 
 peculiar power with women/' he said. "I can't make it 
 out quite. He's not good-looking exactly is he?" It 
 was impossible to conceal his eagerness to know exactly 
 what she did feel. 
 
 "There's a touch of genius in him/' she answered. "I 
 don't think looks matter so much I mean, with women." 
 She spoke with a certain restraint, not deliberately say- 
 ing less than she thought, but yet keeping back the entire 
 truth. He suddenly realized a relationship between her 
 and Tony into which he was not admitted. The distance 
 between them increased visibly before his very eyes. 
 
 And again, out of a hundred things he wanted to say, 
 he said as though compelled to another thing. 
 
 "Rather !" he burst out honestly. "I should hate it if 
 you hadn't liked him." But a week ago he would have 
 phrased this differently "If he had not liked you." 
 
 There were perceptible pauses between their sentences 
 now, pauses that for him seemed breaking with a sus- 
 pense that was painful, almost cruel. He knew worse 
 was coming. He both longed for it yet dreaded it. He 
 felt at her mercy, in her power somehow. 
 
 "It's odd," she went on slowly, "but in England I 
 thought him stupid rather, whereas out here he's changed 
 into another person." 
 
 "I think we've all changed somehow," Tom filled the 
 pause, and was going to say more when she interrupted. 
 She kept the conversation upon Tony. 
 
 "I shall never forget the day he walked in here first. 
 It was the week I arrived. You'll laugh, Tom, when I 
 
The Wave 235 
 
 tell you " She hesitated almost it seemed on pur- 
 pose. 
 
 "How was it? How did he look?" The forced indif- 
 ference of the tone betrayed his anxiety. 
 
 "Well, he's not impressive exactly is he? as a rule. 
 That little stoop and so on. But I saw his figure com- 
 ing up the path before I recognized who it was, and I 
 thought suddenly of an Egyptian, almost an old Pha- 
 raoh, walking." 
 
 She broke off with that little significant laugh Tom 
 knew so well. But, comical though the picture might 
 have been Tony walking like a king Tom did not laugh. 
 It was not ludicrous, for it was somewhere true. He 
 remembered the singular inner mental picture he had seen 
 above the desert fire, and the pain within him seemed the 
 forerunner of some tragedy that watched too close upon 
 his life. But, for another and more obvious reason, he 
 could not laugh ; for he heard the admiration in her voice, 
 and it was upon that his mind fastened instantly. His 
 observation was so mercilessly sharp. He hated it. 
 Where was his usual slowness gone ? Why was his blood 
 so quickly apprehensive? 
 
 She kept her eyes fixed steadily on his, saying what fol- 
 lowed gently, calmly, yet as though another woman spoke 
 the words. She stabbed him, noting the effect upon him 
 with a detached interest that seemed indifferent to his 
 pain. Something remote and ancient stirred in her, some- 
 thing that was not of herself To-day, something half 
 primitive, half barbaric. 
 
 "It may have been the blazing light," she went on, "the 
 half-savage effect of these amazing sunsets I cannot 
 say but I saw him in a sheet of gold. There was gold 
 about him, I mean, as though he wore it and when he 
 came close there was that odd, faint perfume, half of the 
 
 open desert and half of ambra, as we call it " Again 
 
 she broke off and hesitated, leaving the impression there 
 was more to tell, but that she could not say it. She kept 
 
236 The Wave 
 
 back much. Into the distance now established between 
 them Tom felt a creeping sense of cold, as of the chill 
 desert wind that follows hard upon the sunset. Her eyes 
 still held him steadily. He seemed more and more aware 
 of something merciless in her. 
 
 He sat and gazed at her at a woman he loved, a 
 woman who loved him, but a woman who now caused 
 him pain deliberately because something beyond herself 
 compelled. Her tenderness lay inactive, though surely 
 not forgotten. She, too, felt the pain. Yet with her it 
 was in some odd way impersonal. . . . Tom, hope- 
 lessly out of his depth, swept onward by this mighty wave 
 behind all three of them, sat still and watched her 
 fascinated, even terrified. Her eyelids were half closed 
 again. Another look stole up into her face, driving away 
 the modern beauty, replacing its softness, tenderness with 
 another expression he could not fathom. Yet this new 
 expression was somehow, too, half recognizable. It was 
 difficult to describe a little sterner, a little wilder, a faint 
 emphasis of the barbaric peering through it. It was 
 darker. She looked eastern. Almost, he saw her visibly 
 change here in the twilight of the little Luxor garden 
 by his side. Distance increased remorselessly between 
 them. She was far away, yet ever close at the same time. 
 He could not tell whether she was going away from him 
 or coming nearer. The shadow of tragedy fell on him 
 from the empty sky. . . . 
 
 In his bewilderment he tried to hold steady and watch, 
 but the soul in him rushed backwards. He felt, but could 
 not think. The wave surged under him. Various im- 
 pulses urged him into a pouring flood of words; yet he 
 gave expression to none of them. He laughed a little dry, 
 short laugh. He heard himself saying lightly, though 
 with apparent lack of interest : "How curious, Lettice, 
 how very odd ! What made him look like that ?" 
 
 But he knew her answer would mean pain. It came 
 just as he expected : 
 
The Wave 237 
 
 "He is wonderful out here quite different " An- 
 other minute and she would have added "I'm different, 
 too." But Tom interrupted hurriedly: 
 
 "Do you always see him like that now? In a sheet 
 of gold with beauty ?" His tongue was so hot and dry 
 against his lips that he almost stammered. 
 
 She nodded, her eyelids still half closed. She lay very 
 quiet, peering down at him. "It lasts ?" he insisted, turn- 
 ing the knife himself. 
 
 "You'll laugh when I tell you something more," she 
 went on, making a slight gesture of assent, "but I felt 
 such joy in myself so wild and reckless that when I 
 got to my room that night I danced danced alone with 
 all my clothes off." 
 
 "Lettice!" 
 
 "The spontaneous happiness was like a child's a sort 
 of freedom feeling. I had to shake my clothes off sim- 
 ply. I wanted to shake off the walls and ceiling too, and 
 get out into the open desert. Tom I felt out of myself 
 in a way as though I'd escaped into into quite dif- 
 ferent conditions " 
 
 She gave details of the singular mood that had come 
 upon her with the arrival of Tony, but Tom hardly heard 
 her. Only too well he knew the explanation. The touch 
 of ecstasy was no new thing, although its manifestation 
 may have been peculiar. He had known it himself in his 
 own lesser love affairs. But that she could calmly tell 
 him about it, that she could deliberately describe this ef- 
 fect upon her of another man ! It baffled him beyond j 
 all thoughts or words. . . . Was the self -revelation an j 
 unconscious one? Did she realize the meaning of what 
 she told him? The Lettice he had known could surely 
 not say this thing. In her he felt again, more distinctly 
 than before, another person division, conflict. Her hesi- 
 tations, her face, her gestures, her very language proved 
 it. He shrank, as from some one who inflicted pain as 
 a child, unwittingly, to see what the effect would be. . , . 
 
238 The Wave 
 
 He remembered the incident of the insect in the 
 sand. . . . 
 
 "And I feel even now I could do it again," her voice 
 pierced in across his moment of hidden anguish. The 
 knife she had thrust again into his breast was twisted 
 then. 
 
 It was time that he said something, and a sentence 
 offered itself in time to save him. The desire to hide his 
 pain from her was too strong to be disobeyed. He 
 wanted to know, yet not, somehow, to prevent. He seized 
 upon the sentence, keeping his voice steady with an effort 
 that cut his very flesh : "There's nothing impersonal ex- 
 actly in that, Lettice !" he exclaimed with an exag- 
 gerated lightness. 
 
 "Oh no," she agreed. "But it's only in England, per- 
 haps, that I'm impersonal, as you call it. I suppose, out 
 here, I've changed. The beauty, the mystery, this fierce 
 
 sunshine or something stir " She hesitated for a 
 
 fraction of a second. 
 
 "The woman in you," he put in, turning the knife this 
 time with his own fingers deliberately. The words 
 seemed driven out by their own impetus; he did not 
 choose them. A faint ghastly hope was in him that she 
 would shake her head and contradict him. 
 
 She waited a moment, then turned her eyes aside. 
 "Perhaps, Tom. I wonder . . . !" 
 
 And as she said it, Tom knew suddenly another thing 
 as well. It stood out clearly, as with big printed letters 
 that violent advertisements use upon the hoardings. Her 
 new joy and excitement, her gaiety and zest for life 
 all had been caused, not by himself, but by another 
 Heavens ! how blind he had been ! He understood at last, 
 and a flood of freezing water drenched him. His heart 
 stopped beating for a moment. He gasped. He could 
 not get his breath. His accumulating doubts hitherto un- 
 expressed, almost unacknowledged even, were now con- 
 firmed. 
 
The Wave 239 
 
 He got up stiffly, awkwardly, from his cushions, and 
 moved a few steps towards the house, for there stole 
 upon her altered face just then the very expression of ex- 
 citement, of radiant and spontaneous joy, he had believed 
 until this moment was caused by himself. Tony was 
 coming up the darkened drive. He was exactly in her 
 line of sight. And a severe, embittered struggle then took 
 place in a heart that seemed strangely divided against 
 itself. He felt as though a second Tom, yet still himself, 
 battled against the first, exchanging thrusts of indescrib- 
 able torture. The complexity of emotions in his heart 
 was devastating beyond anything he had ever known in 
 his thirty-five years of satisfied, self-centered life. Two 
 voices spoke in clear, sharp sentences, one against the 
 other : 
 
 "Your suspicions are unworthy, shameful. Trust her. 
 She's as loyal and true and faithful as yourself !" cried 
 the first. 
 
 And the second : 
 
 "Blind! Can't you see what's going on between them? 
 It has happened to other men, why not to you?" She is 
 playing with you ; she has outgrown your love. It was the 
 older voice that used the words. 
 
 "Impossible, ridiculous !" the first voice cried. "There's 
 something wrong with me that I can have such wretched 
 thoughts. It's merely innocence and joy of life. No one 
 can take my place." 
 
 To which, again, the second Tom made bitter answer. 
 "You are too old for her, too dull, too ordinary! You 
 hold the loving mother still, but a younger man has waked 
 the woman in her. And you must let it come. You dare 
 not blame. Nor have you the right to interfere." 
 
 So acute, so violent was the perplexity in him that he 
 knew not what to say or do at first. Unable to come to 
 a decision, he stood there, waving his hand to Tony with 
 a cry of welcome. His first vehement desire to be alone, 
 to make an excuse, to get to his room and think, had 
 
240 The Wave 
 
 passed: a second, a maturer attitude conquered it: to 
 take whatever came, to face it, in a word to know the 
 worst . . . And the extraordinary pain he hid by an 
 exuberance of high spirits that surprised himself. It 
 was, of course, the suppressed emotional energy rinding 
 another outlet. A similar state had occurred that "Kar- 
 nak night" of a long ten days ago, though he had not 
 understood it then. Behind it lay the misery of loneli- 
 ness that he knew in his very bones was coming. 
 
 "Tony! So it is. I was afraid he'd change his mind 
 and leave us in the lurch." 
 
 Tom heard the laugh of happiness as she said it; he 
 heard the voice distinctly the change of tone in it, the 
 softness, the half-caressing tenderness that crept uncon- 
 sciously in the faint thrill of womanly passion. Un- 
 consciously, yes ! he was sure, at least, of that. She did 
 not know quite yet, she did not realize what had hap- 
 pened. Honest to the core, he felt her. His love surged 
 up tumultuously. He could face pain, loss, death or, as 
 he put it, "almost anything," if it meant happiness to 
 her. The thought, at any rate, came to him thus. . . . 
 And Tom believed it. 
 
 At the same moment he heard her voice, close behind 
 him this time. She had left her chair, meaning to go 
 indoors and prepare for supper before Tony actually 
 arrived. "Tom, dear boy," her hand upon his shoulder a 
 moment as she passed, "you're tired or something. I can 
 see it. I believe you're worrying. There's something 
 you haven't told me isn't there now ?" She gave him a 
 loving glance that was of purest gold. "You shall tell 
 me all about it when we're alone. You must tell me 
 everything." 
 
 The pain and joy in him were equal then. He was a 
 boy of eighteen, aching over his first love affair ; and she 
 was divinely mothering him. It was extraordinary; it 
 was past belief ; another minute, had they been alone, he 
 could almost have laid his head upon her breast, com- 
 
The Wave 241 
 
 plaining in anguish to the mother in her that the woman 
 he loved was gone. "I feel you're slipping from me! 
 I'm losing you . . . !" 
 
 Instead he stammered some commonplace unreality 
 about his work at Assouan and heard her agree with him 
 that he certainly must not neglect it and she was gone 
 into the house. The swinging curtains of dried grasses 
 hid her a few feet beyond, but between them, he felt, 
 stretched five thousand years and half a dozen continents 
 as well. 
 
 "Tom, old chap, did you get my letter ? You promised 
 to read it. Is it all right, I mean ? I wouldn't for all the 
 world let anything " 
 
 Tom stopped him abruptly. He wished to read the 
 letter for himself without foreknowledge of its contents. 
 
 "Eh ? No that is, I got it," he said confusedly, "but 
 I haven't read it yet. I slept all the afternoon." 
 
 An expression of anxiety in Tony's face came and van- 
 ished. "You can tell me to-morrow frank as you like, 
 mind," he replied, to which Tom said quite eagerly, 
 "Rather, Tony: of course. I'll read your old letter the 
 moment I get back to-night." And Tony, merry as a 
 sandboy, changed the subject, declaring that he had only 
 one desire in life just then, and that was food. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 THE conflict in Tom's puzzled heart sharpened that 
 evening into dreadful edges that cut him mercilessly 
 whichever way he turned. One minute he felt sure of 
 Lettice, the next the opposite was clear. Between these 
 two certainties he balanced in secret torture, one factor 
 alone constant that his sense of security was shaken to 
 the foundations. 
 
 Belief in his own value had never been thus assailed 
 before ; that he was indispensable had been an ultimate 
 assurance. His vanity and self-esteem now toppled omi- 
 nously. A sense of inferiority crept over him, as on the 
 first day of his arrival at Alexandria. There seemed the 
 flavor of some strange authority in her that baffled all ap- 
 proach to the former intimacy. He hardly recognized 
 himself, for, the foundations being shaken, all that was 
 built upon them trembled too. 
 
 The insecurity showed in the smallest trifles he ex- 
 pressed himself hesitatingly ; he felt awkward, clumsy, in- 
 effective ; his conversation became stupid for all the false 
 high spirits that inflated it, his very manners gauche; he 
 said and did the wrong things; he was boring. Being 
 ill at ease and out of harmony with himself, he found it 
 impossible to play his part in the trio as of old ; the trio, 
 indeed, had now divided itself one against two. 
 
 That is, keenly, and in spite of himself, he watched the 
 other two ; he watched them as a detective does, for evi- 
 dence. He became uncannily observant. And since Tony 
 was especially amusing that evening, Lettice, moreover, 
 apparently absorbed in his stimulating talk, Tom's alter- 
 nate gaucheries and silence passed unnoticed, certainly 
 uncommented. In schoolboy phraseology, Tom felt out 
 
 242 
 
The Wave 243 
 
 of it. His presence was tolerated as by favor. The 
 two enjoyed a mutual understanding from which he was 
 excluded, a private intimacy that was spiritual, mental, 
 physical. 
 
 He even found it in him for the first time to marvel 
 that Lettice had ever cared for him at all. Beside Tony's 
 brilliance he felt himself cheaper, almost insignificant. 
 He felt old. . . . His pain, moreover, was twofold: his 
 own selfish sense of personal loss produced one kind of 
 anguish, but the possibility that she was playing false 
 produced another. The first was manageable : the second 
 beyond words appalling. 
 
 Against this background of emotional disturbance he 
 watched the evening pass. It developed as the hours 
 moved. Tony, he noticed, though so full of life, betrayed 
 a certain malaise towards himself and avoided that direct 
 meeting of the eye that was his characteristic. More and 
 more, especially when Mrs. Haughstone had betaken her- 
 self to bed, and the trio sat in the cooler garden alone, 
 Tom became aware of a subtle intimacy between his com- 
 panions that resented all his efforts to include him too. 
 It was, moreover his heart warned him now, an affec- 
 tionate, a natural intimacy, built upon many an hour of 
 intercourse while he was yet in England, and, worst of all, 
 that it was secret. But more he realized that the miss- 
 ing part of her was now astir, touched into life by an- 
 other, and a younger, man. It was ardent and untamed. 
 It had awakened from its slumber. He even fancied that 
 something of challenge flashed from her, though without 
 definite words or gesture. 
 
 With a degree of acute perception wholly new to him, 
 he watched the evidence of inner proximity, yet watched 
 it automatically and certainly not meanly nor with sly- 
 ness. The evidence that was sheer anguish thrust itself 
 upon him. His eyes had opened; he could not help 
 himself. 
 
 But he watched himself as well. Only at moments was 
 
244 The Wave 
 
 he aware of this a kind of higher Self, detached from 
 shifting moods, looked on calmly and took note. This 
 Self, placed high above the stage, looked down. It was 
 a self that never acted, never wept or suffered, never 
 changed. It was secure, superb, it was divine. Its very 
 existence in him hitherto had been unknown. He was 
 now vividly aware of it. It was the Onlooker. 
 
 The explanation of his mysterious earlier moods of- 
 fered itself with a clarity that was ghastly. Watching the 
 happiness of these two, he recalled a hundred subcon- 
 scious hints he had disregarded : the empty letter at Alex- 
 andria, her dislike of being alone with him, the increasing 
 admiration for his cousin, a thousand things she had left 
 unsaid, above all, the exuberance and radiant joy that 
 Tony's presence woke in her. The gradual but significant 
 change, the singular vision in the desert, his own fore- 
 taste of misery as he watched the Theban Hills from the 
 balcony of his bedroom all, all returned upon him, ar- 
 ranged in a phalanx of neglected proofs that the new Tom 
 offered cruelly to the old. But it was her slight exaspera- 
 tion, her evasion when he questioned her, that capped the 
 damning list. And her silence was the culminating proof. 
 
 Then, inexplicably, he shifted to the other side , that 
 the old, the normal Tom presented generously to the new. 
 While this reaction lasted he laughed away the evidence, 
 and honestly believed he was exaggerating trifles. The 
 new zest that Egypt woke in her God bless her sweet- 
 ness and simplicity was only natural; if Tony stimu- 
 lated the intellectual side of her, he could feel only pleas- 
 ure that her happiness was thus increased. She was in- 
 nocent. He could not possibly doubt or question, and 
 shame flooded him till he felt himself the meanest man 
 alive. Suspicion was no normal part of him. He crushed 
 it out of sight, scotched as he thought to death. To lose 
 belief in her would mean to lose belief in everybody. It 
 was inconceivable. Every instinct in him repelled the 
 
The Wave 245 
 
 vile suggestion. And while this reaction lasted his se- 
 curity returned. 
 
 Only it did not last; it merged invariably into its op- 
 posite again; and the alternating confidence and doubt 
 produced a state of confused emotion that contained the 
 nightmare touch in its most essential form. The Wave 
 hung, poised above him but would not fall quite yet. 
 
 It was later in the evening that the singular intensity 
 introduced itself into all they said and did, hanging above 
 them like a cloud. It came curiously, was suddenly there 
 without hint or warning. Tom had the feeling that 
 they moved amid invisible dangers, almost as though ex- 
 plosives lay hidden near them, ready any moment to bring 
 destruction with a sudden crash final destruction of the 
 happy preexisting conditions. The menace of a thunder- 
 cloud approached as in his childhood's dream; disaster 
 lurked behind the quiet outer show. The Wave was 
 rising almost audibly. 
 
 For upon their earlier mood of lighter kind that had 
 preceded Mrs. Haughstone's exit, and then upon the more 
 serious talk that followed in the garden, there descended 
 abruptly this uncanny quiet that one and all obeyed. The 
 contrast was most marked. Tom remembered how their 
 voices hushed upon a given moment, how they looked 
 about them during the brief silence following, peering 
 into the luminous darkness as though some one watched 
 them and how Madame Jaretzka, remarking on the 
 chilly air, then rose suddenly and led the way into the 
 house. Both she and Tony, he remembered, had been 
 restless for some little time. "It's chilly. We shall be 
 cozier indoors," she said lightly, and moved away, fol- 
 lowed by his cousin. 
 
 Tom lingered a few minutes, watching them pass along 
 the verandah to the room beyond. He did not like the 
 change. In the open air, the intimacy he dreaded was 
 less suggested than in the friendly familiarity of a room, 
 
246 The Wave 
 
 her room ; out of doors it was more diffused ; he pre- 
 ferred the remoteness that the garden lent. At the same 
 time he was glad of a moment by himself though a mo- 
 ment only. He wanted to collect his thoughts and face 
 things as they were. There should be no "shuffling," if he 
 possibly could prevent it. 
 
 He lingered with his cigarette behind the others. A red 
 moon hung above the mournful hills, and the stars shone 
 in their myriads. Both lay reflected in the quiet river. 
 The night was very peaceful. No wind stirred. . . . And 
 he strove to force the exquisite Egyptian silence upon the 
 turmoil that was in his soul to gain that inner silence 
 through which the voice of truth might whisper clearly 
 to him. The poise he craved lay all about him in the 
 solemn stillness, in stars and moon and desert ; the temple 
 columns had it, the steadfast, huge Colossi waiting for the 
 sun, the bleak stone hills, the very Nile herself. Some- 
 thing of their immemorial resolution and resistance he 
 might even borrow for his little tortured self . . . before 
 he followed his companions. For it came to him that 
 within the four walls of her room all that he dreaded 
 must reveal itself in such concentrated, visible form that 
 he no longer would be able to deny it : the established in- 
 timacy, the sweetness, the desire, and the love. 
 
 He made this effort, be it recorded in his favor, and 
 made it bravely ; while every minute that he left his com- 
 panions undisturbed was a long-drawn torment in his 
 heart. For he plainly recognized now a danger he knew 
 not how he might adequately meet. Here was the 
 strangeness of it : that he did not distrust Lettice, nor felt 
 resentment against Tony. Why this was so, or what the 
 meaning was, he could not fathom. He felt vaguely that 
 Lettice, like himself, was the plaything of greater forces 
 than she knew, and that her perplexing conduct was based 
 upon disharmony in herself beyond her possible control. 
 Some part of her, long hidden, had emergec 1 in Egypt, 
 brought out by the deep mystery and passion of the cli- 
 
The Wave 247 
 
 mate, by its burning, sensuous splendor : its magic drove 
 her along unconsciously. There were two persons in 
 her. 
 
 It may have been absurd to divide the woman and the 
 mother as he did; probably it was false psychology as 
 well; where love is, mother and woman blend divinely 
 into one. He did not know : it seemed, as yet, they had 
 not blended. He was positive only that, while part of 
 her was going from him, if not already gone, the rest, 
 and the major part, was true and loyal, loving and mar- 
 velously tender. The conflict of these certainties left 
 hopeless disorder in every corner of his being. . . . 
 
 Tossing away his cigarette, he moved slowly up the 
 verandah steps. The Wave was never more sensibly be- 
 hind, beneath him, than in that moment. He rose upon 
 it, it was under him, he felt its lift and irresistible mo- 
 mentum ; almost it bore him up the steps. For he meant 
 to face whatever came; deliberately he welcomed the 
 hurt ; it had to come ; beyond the suffering beckoned some 
 marvelous joy, pure as the dawn beyond the cruel desert. 
 There was in him that rich, sweet pain he knew of old. 
 It beckoned and allured him even while he shrank. Alone 
 the supreme Self in him looked calmly on, seeming to 
 lessen the part that trembled and knew fear. 
 
 Then, as he neared the room, a sound of music floated 
 out to meet him Tony was singing to his own accom- 
 paniment. Lettice, upon a sofa in the corner, looked up 
 and placed a finger on her lips, then closed her eyes again, 
 listening to the song. And Tom was glad she closed her 
 eyes, glad also that Tony's back was towards him, for 
 as he crossed the threshold a singular impulse took pos- 
 session of his legs and he was only just able to stop a 
 ridiculous movement of shuffling with his feet upon the 
 matting. Quickly he gained a sofa by the window 
 and dropped down upon it, watching, listening. Tony 
 was singing softly, yet with deep expression half sup- 
 pressed : 
 
248 The Wave 
 
 We were young, we were merry, we were very very wise, 
 
 And the door stood open at our feast, 
 When there passed us a woman with the West in her eyes, 
 
 And a man with his back to the East. 
 
 O, still grew the hearts that were beating so fast, 
 
 The loudest voice was still. 
 The jest died away on our lips as they passed, 
 
 And the rays of July struck chill. 
 
 He sang the words with an odd, emphatic slowness, 
 turning to look at Lettice between the phrases. He was 
 not yet aware that Tom had entered. The tune held all 
 the pathos and tragedy of the world in it. "Both going 
 the same way together," he said in a suggestive under- 
 tone, his hands playing a soft running chord. "The man 
 and the woman," he again leaned in her direction. "It's 
 a pregnant opening, don't you think ? The music I found 
 in the very depths of me somewhere. Lettice, I believe 
 you're asleep!" he whispered tenderly after a second's 
 pause. 
 
 She opened her eyes then and looked meaningly at him. 
 Tom made no sound, no movement. He saw only her 
 eyes fixed steadily on Tony, whose last sentence, using 
 the Christian name so softly, rang on inside him like the 
 clanging of a prison bell. 
 
 "Sing another verse first," said Madame Jaretzka 
 quietly, "and we'll pass judgment afterwards. But I 
 wasn't asleep, was I, Tom ?" And, following the direction 
 of her eyes, Tony started, and turned round. "I shut my 
 eyes to listen better," she added, almost impatiently. 
 "Now, please go on ; we want to hear the rest." 
 
 "Of course," said Tom, in as natural a tone as possible. 
 "Of course we do. What is it ?" he asked. 
 
 "Mary Coleridge the words," replied Tony, turning 
 to the piano again. "In a moment of aberration I thought 
 
 I could write the music for it " The softness and 
 
 passion had left his voice completely. 
 
 "Oh, the tune is yours ?" 
 
The Wave 249 
 
 His cousin nodded. There was a little frown between 
 the watching eyes upon the sofa. "Tom, you mustn't in- 
 terrupt; it spoils the mood the rhythm," and she again 
 asked Tony to go on. The difference in the two tones she 
 used was too obvious to be missed by any man who heard 
 them the veiled exasperation and the tenderness. 
 
 Tony obeyed at once. Striking a preliminary chord as 
 the stool swung round, he said for Tom's benefit, "To 
 me there's tragedy in the words, real tragedy, so I tried 
 to make the music fit it. Madame Jaretzka doesn't agree." 
 He glanced towards her ; her eyes were closed again , her 
 face, Tom thought, was like a mask. Tony did not this 
 time use the little name. 
 
 The next verse began, then suddenly broke off. The 
 voice seemed to fail the singer. "I don't like this one," 
 he exclaimed, a suspicion of trembling in his tone. "It's 
 rather too awful. Death comes in, the bread at the feast 
 turns black, the hound falls down and so on. There's 
 general disaster. It's too tragic, rather. I'll sing the last 
 verse instead." 
 
 "I want to hear it, Tony. I insist," came the command 
 from the sofa. "I want the tragic part." 
 
 To Tom it seemed precisely as though the voice had 
 said, "I want to see Tom suffer. He knows the meaning 
 of it. It's right, it's good, it's necessary for him." 
 
 Tony obeyed. He sang both verses : 
 
 The cups of red wine turned pale on the board, 
 
 The white bread black as soot. 
 The hound forgot the hand of his lord, 
 
 She fell down at his foot. 
 
 Low let me lie, where the dead dog lies, 
 
 Ere I sit me down again at a feast, 
 When there passes a woman with the West in her eyes, 
 
 And a man with his back to the East. 
 
 The song stopped abruptly, the music died away, there 
 was an interval of silence no one broke. Tom had Hs- 
 
250 The Wave 
 
 tened spellbound. He was no judge of poetry or music ; 
 he did not understand the meaning of the words exactly ; 
 he knew only that both words and music expressed the 
 shadow of tragedy in the air as though they focussed it 
 into a tangible presence. A woman and a man were 
 going in the same direction ; there was an onlooker. . . . 
 A spontaneous quality in the words, moreover, proved 
 that they came burning from the writer's heart, and in 
 Tony's music, whether good or bad, there was this same 
 proof of genuine feeling. Judge or no judge, Tom was 
 positive of that. He felt himself the looker-on, an in- 
 truder, almost a trespasser. 
 
 This sense of exclusion grew upon him as he listened ; 
 it passed without warning into the consciousness of a 
 mournful, freezing isolation. These two, sitting in the 
 room, and separated from him by a few feet of colored 
 Persian rug, were actually separated from him by un- 
 bridgeable distance, wrapped in an intimacy that kept him 
 inexorably outside because he did not understand. He 
 almost knew an objective hallucination that the sofa 
 and the piano drew slightly nearer to one another, 
 whereas his own chair remained fixed to the floor, im- 
 movable outside. 
 
 The intensity of his sensations seemed inexplicable, 
 unless some reality, some truth, lay behind them. The 
 bread at the feast turned black before his very eyes. But 
 another line rang on with a sound of ominous and poign- 
 ant defeat in his heart, now lonely and bereft : "Low let 
 me lie, where the dead dog lies . . ." To the onlooker 
 the passing of the pair meant death. . . . 
 
 Then, through his confusion, flashed clearly this bitter 
 certitude : Tom suddenly realized that after all he knew 
 nothing of her real, her inner life; he knew her only 
 through himself and in himself knew himself in her. 
 Tony, less self-centered, less rigidly contained, had pene- 
 trated her by an understanding sympathy greater than his 
 own. She was unintelligible to him, but not to Tony. 
 
The Wave 251 
 
 Tony had the key. . . . He had touched in her what 
 hitherto had slept. 
 
 As the music wailed its dying cadences into this fateful 
 silence, Tom met her eyes across the room. They were 
 strong, and dark with beauty. He met them with no 
 outer quailing, though with a sense of drenching tears 
 within. They seemed to him the eyes of the angel gaz- 
 ing through the gate. He was outside. . . . 
 
 He was the first to break a silence that had grown 
 unnatural, oppressive. 
 
 "What was it?" he asked again abruptly. "Has it got 
 a name, I mean?" His voice had the cry of a wounded 
 creature in it. 
 
 Tony struck an idle chord from the piano as he turned 
 on his stool, "Oh, yes, it's got a name. It's called 'Un- 
 welcome/ " And Tom, aware that he winced, was also 
 aware that something in his life congealed and stopped 
 its normal flow. 
 
 "Tony, you are a genius," broke in quickly the voice 
 from the other side of the room ; "I always said so. Do 
 you know, that's the most perfect accompaniment I ever 
 heard." She spoke with feeling, her tone full of admira- 
 tion. 
 
 Tony made no reply. He strummed softly, swaying 
 to the rhythm of what he played. 
 
 "I meant the setting," explained Lettice, "the music. 
 It expresses the emotion of the words too, too exactly. 
 It's wonderful!" 
 
 "I didn't know you composed," put in Tom stupidly. 
 He had to say something. He saw them exchange a 
 glance. She smiled. "When did you do it ?" 
 
 "Oh, the other day in a sudden fit," said Tony, without 
 turning. "While you were at Assouan, I think." 
 
 "And the words, Tom ; don't you think they're wonder- 
 ful, too, and strange ?" asked Lettice. "I find them really 
 haunting." 
 
 "Y-es," he agreed, without looking at her. He realized 
 
252 The Wave 
 
 that the lyric, though new to him, was not new to them ; 
 they had discussed it together already ; they felt the same 
 emotion about it ; it had moved and stirred them before, 
 moved Tony so deeply that he had found the music for it 
 in the depths of himself. It was an enigmatical poem, it 
 now became symbolic. It embodied the present situation 
 somehow for him. Tom did not understand its meaning 
 as they did ; to him it was a foreign language. But they 
 knew the language easily. It betrayed their deep emo- 
 tional intimacy. 
 
 "You didn't hear the first part?" said Tony. 
 
 "Not quite. You had just started when I came in." 
 Tom easily read the meaning in the question. And in his 
 heart the name of the poem repeated itself with significant 
 insistence : Unwelcome! It had come like a blow in the 
 face when Tony mentioned it, bruising him internally. 
 He was bleeding. . . . He watched the big, dark hands 
 upon the keys as they moved up and down. It suddenly 
 seemed they moved towards himself. There was power, 
 menace in them there was death. He felt as if they 
 seized choked him. . . . They grew stained. . . . 
 
 The voices of his companions came to him across great 
 distance; there was a gulf between them, they on that 
 side, he on this : he was aware of antagonism between 
 himself and Tony, and between himself and Lettice. It 
 was very dreadful; his feet and hands were cold; he 
 shivered. But he gave no outer sign that he was suffer- 
 ing, and a desperate pride though he knew it was but a 
 sham, a temporary pride came to his assistance. Yet 
 at the same time he saw red. He felt like a boy at 
 school again. 
 
 In imagination, then, he visualized swiftly a definite 
 scene : 
 
 "Tony," he heard himself say, "you're coming between 
 us. It means all the world to me, to you it means only a 
 passing game. If it means more, it's time for you to say 
 so plainly and let her decide." 
 
The Wave 253 
 
 The situation seemed all cleared up; the clouds of 
 tragedy dissipated, the dreadful accumulation of emotion, 
 suspense, and hidden pain, too long suppressed, too in- 
 tense to be borne another minute, discharged itself in an 
 immense relief. Lettice at last spoke freely and ex- 
 plained : Tony expressed regret, laughing it all away 
 with his accustomed brilliance and irresponsibility. 
 
 Then, horribly, he heard Tony give a different answer 
 that was far more possible and likely : 
 
 "I knew you were great friends, but I did not guess 
 there was anything more between you. You never told 
 me. I'm afraid I I am desperately fond of her, and she 
 of me. We must leave it yes, to her. There is no other 
 way." 
 
 He was lounging on his sofa by the window, his eyes 
 closed, while these thoughts flashed through him. He 
 had never known such insecurity before ; he felt sure of 
 nothing; the foundations of his being seemed sliding into 
 space. . . . For it came to him suddenly that he was a 
 slave and that she was set upon a throne far, far beyond 
 his reach. . . . 
 
 Across the room, lit only by a single lamp upon the 
 piano/ the voices of his companions floated to him, low 
 pitched, a ceaseless murmuring stream. He had been 
 listening even while busy with his own reflections, in- 
 tently listening. They were still talking of the poem and 
 the music, exchanging intimate thoughts in the language 
 he could not understand. They had passed on to music 
 and poetry at large dangerous subjects by whose means 
 innocent words, donning an easy mask, may reveal pas- 
 sionate states of mental and physical kind and so to 
 personal revelations and confessions the apparently inno- 
 cent words interpreted. He heard and understood, yet 
 could not wholly follow because the key was missing. He 
 could not take part, much less object. It was all too 
 subtle for his mind. He listened. . . . 
 
 The moonlight fell upon his stretched-out figure, but 
 
254 The Wave 
 
 left his face in shadow ; opening his eyes, he could see the 
 others clearly; the intent expression upon her face fas- 
 cinated him as he watched. Yet before his eyes had 
 opened, the feeling again came to him that they had 
 changed their positions somehow, and the verification of 
 this feeling was the first detail he then noticed. Tony's 
 stool was nearer to the bass keys of the piano, while the 
 sofa Lettice lay upon had certainly been drawn up to- 
 wards him. And Tony leaned over as he talked, bringing 
 their lips within whispering distance. It was all done 
 with that open innocence which increased the cruelty of 
 it. Tom saw and heard and felt all over his body. He 
 lay very still. He half closed his eyes again. 
 
 "I do believe Tom's dropped asleep," said Lettice 
 presently. "No, don't wake him," as Tony half turned 
 round, "he's tired, poor boy!" 
 
 But Torn could not willingly listen to a private con- 
 versation. 
 
 "I'm not asleep," he exclaimed, "not a bit of it," and 
 noticed that they both were startled by the suddenness 
 and volume of his voice. "But I am tired rather," and 
 he got up, lit a cigarette, wandered about the room a min- 
 ute, and then leaned out of the open window. "I think 
 I shall slip off to bed soon if you'll forgive me, Lettice." 
 
 He said it on impulse; he did not really mean to go; 
 to leave them alone together was beyond his strength. 
 She merely nodded. The woman he had felt so proudly 
 would put Tony in his place nodded consent ! 
 
 "I must be going too in a moment," Tony murmured. 
 He meant it even less than Tom did. He shifted his stool 
 towards the middle of the piano and began to strum again. 
 
 "Sing something more first, Tony ; I love your ridicu- 
 lous voice." 
 
 Tom heard it behind his back ; it was said half in ban- 
 ter, half in earnest; yet the tone pierced him. She used 
 the private language she and Tony understood. The little 
 sentence was a paraphrase that, being interpreted, said 
 
The Wave 255 
 
 plainly : "He'll go off presently ; then we can talk again 
 of the things we love together the things he doesn't 
 understand." 
 
 With his face thrust into the cold night air Tom felt 
 the blood go throbbing in his temples. He watched the 
 moonlight on the sandy garden paths. The leaves were 
 motionless, the river crept past without a murmur, the 
 dark hills rose out of the distant desert like a wave. 
 There was faint fragrance as of wild flowers, very tiny, 
 very soft. But he kept his eyes upon the gliding river, 
 rather than on those dark hills, crowded with their an- 
 cient dead. For he felt as if some one watched him from 
 their dim recesses. It almost seemed that from those 
 bleak, lonely uplands, silent amid the stream of hurrying 
 life to-day, came his pain, his agony. He could not under- 
 stand it ; the strange, sinister mood he had known already 
 once before, stole out from the desolate Theban hills and 
 mastered him again. Any moment, if he looked up, he 
 would meet eyes eyes that gazed with dim, yet definite 
 recognition into his own across the night. They would 
 gaze up at him, for somehow he was placed above them. 
 . . . He had known all this before, this very situation, 
 these very actors he now looked down upon it all, a 
 scene mapped out below him. There were two pictures 
 that yet were one. 
 
 "What shall it be?" the voice of Tony floated past him 
 through the open window. 
 
 "The gold and ambra one I like best of all," her voice 
 followed like a sigh across the air. "But only once it 
 makes me cry." 
 
 To Tom, as he heard it, came the shattering conviction 
 that the words were not in English, and that it was neither 
 Lettice nor his cousin who had used them. Reality 
 melted; he felt himself brain, heart, and body drop- 
 ping down through empty space as though towards the 
 speakers. This was another language that they spoke 
 together. He had forgotten it. ... They were them- 
 
256 The Wave 
 
 selves, yet different. Amazement seized him. A familiar- 
 ity, intense with breaking pain, came with it. Where, O 
 where . . .? 
 
 He heard the music steal past him towards these The- 
 ban hills. 
 
 His heart was no longer beating; it was still. Life 
 paused, as it were, to let the voice insert itself into an- 
 other setting, out of due place, yet at the same time true 
 and natural. An intolerable sweetness in the music swept 
 him. But there was anguish too. The pain and pleasure 
 were but one sensation. . . . All the melancholy blue and 
 gold of Egypt's beauty passed in that singing before his 
 soul, and something of transcendent value he had lost, 
 something ancient it seemed, as those mournful Theban 
 hills, rose with it. It was offered to him again. He saw 
 it rise within his reach once more. Upon this tide of 
 blue and of gold it floated to his hand, could he but seize 
 it. ... Emotion then blocked itself through sheer ex- 
 cess ; the tide receded, the vision dimmed, the gold turned 
 dull and faded, the music and the singing ceased. Yet an 
 instant, above the pain, Tom had caught a flush of inex- 
 plicable happiness. Beyond the anguish he felt joy break- 
 ing upon him like the dawn. . . . 
 
 "Joy cometh in the morning," he remembered, with a 
 feeling as of some modern self and sanity returning. He 
 had been some one else; he now was Tom again. The 
 pain belonged to that "some one else." It must be faced, 
 for the final outcome would be joy. . . . 
 
 He turned round into the room now filled with tense 
 silence only. 
 
 "Tony," he asked, "what on earth was it ?" His voice 
 was low, but did not tremble. The atmosphere seemed 
 drawn taut before him as though it must any instant split 
 open upon a sound of crying. He saw Lettice on her sofa, 
 the lamplight in her wide-open eyes that shone with mois- 
 ture. She looked at Tony, not at him. There was no de- 
 cipherable expression on her face. That elusive eastern 
 
The Wave 257 
 
 touch hung mysteriously about her. It was all half fabu- 
 lous. 
 
 Without turning Tony answered shortly: "Oh, just 
 a little native Egyptian song very old dug up some- 
 where, I believe," and he strummed softly to himself, as 
 though he did not wish to talk more about it. 
 
 Lettice watched him for several minutes, then fixed her 
 eyes on Tom ; they stared at each other across the room ; 
 her expression was enigmatical, yet he read resolution 
 into it, a desire and a purpose. He returned her gaze with 
 a baffled yearning, thinking how mysteriously beautiful 
 she looked, frail, elusive, infinitely desirable, yet hope- 
 lessly beyond his reach. . . . And then he saw the eyelids 
 lower slightly, and a shadowy darkness like a veil fall 
 over her. A smile stole down towards the lips. Terror 
 and fascination caught him; he turned away lest she 
 should reach his secret and communicate her own. She 
 looked right through him. Words, too, were spoken, 
 ordinary modern words, though he did not hear them 
 properly: "You're tired out . . . you know. There's 
 no need to be formal where I'm concerned . . ." or some- 
 thing similar. He listened, but he did not hear; they were 
 remote, unreal, not audible quite; they were far away 
 in space. He was only aware that the voice was tender 
 and the tone was very soft. . . . 
 
 He made no answer. The pain in her leaped forth to 
 clasp his own, it seemed. For in that instant he knew 
 that the joy divined a little while before was her, but 
 also that he must wade through intolerable pain to 
 reach it. 
 
 The spell was broken. The balance of the evening, a 
 short half hour at the most, was uninspired, even awk- 
 ward. There was strain in the atmosphere, cross-pur- 
 poses, these purposes unfulfilled; each word and action 
 charged with emotion that was unable to express itself. 
 A desultory talk between Tony and his hostess seemed 
 
258 The Wave 
 
 to struggle through clipped sentences that hung in the air 
 as though afraid to complete themselves. The unfinished 
 phrases floated, but dared not come to earth; they gath- 
 ered but remained undelivered. Tom had divined the 
 deep, essential intimacy at last, and his companions 
 knew it. 
 
 He lay silent on his sofa by the window, or nearly 
 silent. The moonlight had left him, he lay in shadow. 
 Occasionally he threw in words, asked a question, ven- 
 tured upon a criticism ; but Lettice either did not hear or 
 did not feel sufficient interest to respond. She ignored 
 his very presence, though readily, eagerly forthcoming to 
 the smallest sign from Tony. She hid herself with Tony 
 behind the shadowy screen of words and phrases. 
 
 Tony himself was different too, however. There was 
 acute disharmony in the room, where a little time before 
 there had been at least an outward show of harmony. A 
 heaviness as of unguessed tragedy lay upon all three, not 
 only upon Tom. Spontaneous gaiety was gone out of his 
 cousin, whose attempts to be his normal self became 
 forced and unsuccessful. He sought relief by hiding him- 
 self behind his music, and his choice, though natural 
 enough, seemed half audacious and half challenging the 
 choice of a devious soul that shirked fair open fight and 
 felt at home in subterfuge. From Grieg's Ich Hebe Dich 
 he passed to other tender, passionate fragments Tom did 
 not recognize by name yet understood too well, realizing 
 that sense of ghastly comedy, and almost of the ludicrous, 
 which ever mocks the tragic. 
 
 For Tony certainly acknowledged by his attitude the 
 same threatening sense of doom that lay so heavy upon 
 his cousin's heart. There was presentiment and menace 
 in every minute of that brief half-hour. Never had Tom 
 seen his gay and careless cousin in such guise: he was 
 restless, silent, intense and inarticulate. "He gives her 
 what I cannot give," Tom faced the situation. "They 
 understand one another . . It's not her fault . .I'm 
 
The Wave 259 
 
 old, I'm dull. She's found a stronger interest. . . . The 
 bigger claim at last has come !" 
 
 They brewed their cocoa on the spirit-lamp, they 
 munched their biscuits, they said good-night at length, 
 and Tom walked on a few paces ahead, impatient to be 
 gone. He did not want to go home with Tony, while yet 
 he could not leave him there. He longed to be alone and 
 think. Tony's hotel was but a hundred yards away. He 
 turned and called to him. He saw them saying good- 
 night at the foot of the verandah steps. Lettice was look- 
 ing up into his cousin's face. . . . 
 
 They went off together. "Night, night," cried Tony, 
 as he presently turned up the path to his own hotel. "See 
 you in the morning/' 
 
 And Tom walked down the silent street alone. On his 
 skin he still felt her fingers he had clasped two minutes 
 before. But his eyes saw only her face and figure as 
 she stood beside his cousin on the steps. For he saw her 
 looking up into his eyes as once before on the lawn of her 
 English bungalow four months ago. And Tony's two 
 great hands were laid upon her arm. 
 
 "Lettice, poor child . . .!" he murmured strangely to 
 himself. For he knew that her suffering and her deep 
 perplexity were somewhere, somehow almost equal to his 
 own. 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 HE walked down the silent street alone. . . . How 
 like a theater scene it was! Supers dressed as 
 Arabs passed him without a word or sign ; the Nile was 
 a painted back-cloth; the columns of the Luxor Temple 
 hung on canvas. The memory of a London theater flitted 
 through his mind. . . . He was playing a part upon the 
 stage, but for the second time, and this second perform- 
 ance was better than the first, different too, a finer in- 
 terpretation as it were. He could not manage it quite, but 
 he must play it out in order to know joy and triumph at 
 the other end. 
 
 This sense of the theater was over everything. How 
 still and calm the night was, the very stars were painted 
 on the sky, the lights were low, there lay a hush upon the 
 audience. In his heart, like a weight of metal, there was 
 sadness, deep misgiving, sense of loss. His life was fad- 
 ing visibly ; it threatened to go out in darkness. Yet, like 
 Ra, great deity of this ancient land, it would suffer only a 
 temporary eclipse, then rise again triumphant and re- 
 juvenated as Osiris. ..." 
 
 He walked up the sweep of sandy drive to the hotel and 
 went through the big glass doors. The huge, brilliant 
 building swallowed him. Crowds of people moved to and 
 fro, chattering and laughing, the women gaily, fashion- 
 ably dressed ; the band played with that extravagant aban- 
 don hotels demanded. The contrast between the dark, 
 quiet street and this busy modern scene made him feel it 
 was early in the evening, instead of close on midnight. 
 
 He was whirled up to his lofty room above the world. 
 He flung himself upon his bed ; no definite thought was 
 in him; he was utterly exhausted. There was a vicious 
 aching in his nerves, his muscles were flaccid and un- 
 
 260 
 
The Wave 261 
 
 strung; a numbness was in his brain as well. But in the 
 heart there was vital energy. For his heart seemed al- 
 ternately full and empty ; all the life he had was centered 
 there. 
 
 And, lying on his bed in the darkened room, he sighed, 
 as though he struggled for breath. The recent strain had 
 been even more tense than he had guessed the sup- 
 pressed emotion, the prolonged and difficult effort at self- 
 control, the passionate yearning that was denied relief in 
 words and action. His entire being now relaxed itself; 
 and his physical system found relief in long, deep sighs. 
 
 For a long time he lay motionless, trying vainly not to 
 feel. He would have welcomed instantaneous sleep ten 
 hours of refreshing, dreamless sleep. If only he could 
 prevent himself thinking, he might drop into blissful 
 unconsciousness. It was chiefly forgetfulness he craved. 
 A few minutes, and he would perhaps have slipped across 
 the border when something startled him into sudden life 
 again. He became acutely wakeful. His nerves tingled, 
 the blood rushed back into the brain. He remembered 
 Tony's letter returned from Assouan. A moment later 
 he had turned the light on, and was reading it. It was, 
 of course, several days old already: 
 
 SAVOY HOTEL, 
 LUXOR. 
 
 DEAR OLD TOM What I am going to say may annoy you, but 
 I think it best that it should be said, and if I am all wrong you 
 must tell me. I have seldom liked any one as much as I like you, 
 and I want to preserve our affection to the end. 
 
 The trouble is this : I can't help feeling I felt it at the Bun- 
 galow, in London too, and even heard it said by some one whom, 
 possibly, you may guess that you were very fond of her, and that 
 she was of you. Various little things said, and various small signs, 
 have strengthened this feeling. Now, instinctively, I have a feel- 
 ing also that she and I have certain things in common, and I 
 think it quite possible that I might have a bad effect on her. 
 
 I do not suppose for one moment that she would ever care for 
 me, but, from one or two signs in her, I do see possibilities of a 
 sort of playing with fire between us. One feels these things with- 
 
262 The Wave 
 
 out apparent cause; and all I can say is that, absurd as it may 
 sound, I scent danger. To put it quite frankly, I can imagine my- 
 self becoming sufficiently excited by her to lose my head a little, 
 and to introduce an element of sex into our friendship which 
 might have some slight effect on us both. I don't mean anything 
 serious, but, given the circumstances, I can imagine myself playing 
 the fool ; and the only serious thing is that I can picture myself 
 growing so fond of her that I would not think it playing the fool 
 at the time. 
 
 Now, if I am right in thinking that you love her, it is obvious 
 that I must put the matter before you, Tom, as I am here doing. 
 I would rather have your friendship than her possible excitement 
 and I repeat that, absurd as it may seem, I do scent the danger 
 of my getting worked up, and, to some extent, infecting her. You 
 see, I know myself and know the wildness of my nature. I don't 
 fool about with women at all, but I have had affairs in my life 
 and can judge of the utter madness of which I am capable, mad- 
 ness which, to my mind, must affect and stimulate the person 
 towards whom it is directed. 
 
 On my word of honor, Tom, I am not in love with her now at 
 all, and it will not be a bit hard for me to clear out if you want 
 me to. So tell me quite straight : shall I make an excuse, as, for 
 example, that I want to avoid her for fear of growing too fond 
 of her, and go? Or can we meet as friends? What I want you 
 to do is to be with us if we are together, so that we may try 
 to make a real trinity of our friendship. I enjoy talking to her; 
 and I prefer you to be with me when I am with her, really, believe 
 me, I do. 
 
 Words make things sound so absurd, but I am writing like this 
 because I feel the presence of clouds, almost of tragedy, and I 
 can't for the life of me think why. I want her friendship and 
 "motherly" care badly. I want your affection and friendship ex- 
 ceedingly; but I feel as though I were unconsciously about to 
 trouble your life and hers : and I can only suppose it is that hard- 
 working subconsciousness of mine which sees the possibility of 
 my suddenly becoming attracted to her, suddenly losing control, 
 and suddenly being a false friend to you both. 
 
 Now, Tom, old chap, you must prevent that either by asking 
 me to keep away, or else by making yourself a definite part of 
 my friendship with her. 
 
 I want you to say no word to her about this letter, and to 
 keep it absolutely between ourselves ; and I am very hopeful I 
 feel sure in fact that we shall make the j oiliest trio in the 
 world. Yours ever, 
 
 TONY. 
 
The Wave 263 
 
 Tom, having read it through without a single stop, laid 
 it down upon his table and walked round the room. In 
 doing so, he passed the door. He locked it, then paused 
 for a moment, listening. "Why did I lock it? What am 
 I listening for?" he asked himself. He hesitated. "Oh, I 
 know," he went on, "I don't want to be disturbed. Tony 
 knows I shall read this letter to-night. He might possibly 
 
 come up " He walked back to the table again slowly. 
 
 "I couldn't see him," he realized : "it would be impos- 
 sible!" If any one knocked, he would pretend to be 
 asleep. His face, had he seen it in the glass, was white 
 and set, but there was a curious shining in his eyes, and a 
 smile was on the lips, though a smile his stolid features 
 had never known before. "I knew it," said the Smile, "I 
 knew it long ago." 
 
 His hand stretched out and picked the letter up again. 
 But at first he did not look at it. He looked round the 
 room instead, as though he felt that he was being watched, 
 
 as though somebody were hiding And then he said 
 
 aloud with clear distinctness : 
 
 "Light-blue eyes, by God ! The light-blue eyes !" 
 
 The sound startled him a little. He repeated the sen- 
 tence in a whisper, varying the words. The voice sounded 
 like a phonograph : 
 
 "Tony's got light-blue eyes !" 
 
 He sat down, then got up again : 
 
 "I never, never thought of it ! I never noticed. God ! 
 I'm as blind as a bat !" 
 
 For some minutes he stood motionless, then turned and 
 read the letter through a second time, lingering on certain 
 phrases, and making curious, unregulated gestures as he 
 did so. He clenched his fists, he bit his lower lip. The 
 feeling that he was acting on a stage had left him now. 
 This was reality. 
 
 He walked over to the balcony, and drew the cold night 
 air into his lungs. He remembered standing once before 
 on this very spot, that foreboding of coming loneliness so 
 
264 The Wave 
 
 strangely in his heart. "It's come," he said dully to him- 
 self. "It's justified. I understand at last." And then he 
 repeated with a deep, deep sigh : "God how blind I've 
 been ! He's taken her from me ! It's all confirmed. He's 
 wakened the woman in her !" 
 
 It seemed, then, he sought a mitigation, an excuse 
 for the man who wrote it, his pal, his cousin, Tony. He 
 wanted to exonerate, if it were possible. But the gen- 
 erous impulse remained frustrate. The plea escaped him 
 because it was not there. The falseness and insincerity 
 were too obvious to admit of any explanation in the world 
 but one. He dropped into a chair, shocked into temporary 
 numbness. 
 
 Gradually, then, isolated phrases blazed into prominence 
 in his mind, clearest of all that what Tony pretended 
 might happen in the future had already happened long 
 ago. "I can picture myself growing too fond of her," 
 meant "I am already too fond of her." That he might 
 lose his head and "introduce an element of sex" was con- 
 science confessing that it had been already introduced. 
 He "scented danger . . . tragedy" because both were in 
 the present now. 
 
 Tony hedged like any other coward. He had already 
 gone too far, he felt shamed and awkward, he had to put 
 himself right, as far as might be, with his trusting, stupid 
 cousin, so he warned him that what had already taken 
 place in the past might take place he was careful to men- 
 tion that he had no self-control in the future. He 
 begged the man he had injured to assist him; and the 
 method he proposed was that old, well-proved one of as- 
 suring the love of a hesitating woman "I'll tell her I'm 
 too fond of her, and go !" 
 
 The letter was a sham and a pretense. Its assurance, 
 too, was unmistakable: Tony felt certain of his own 
 position. "I'm sorry, old chap, but we love each other. 
 Though I've sometimes wondered, you never definitely 
 told me that you did." 
 
The Wave 265 
 
 He read once again the crudest phrase of all : "From 
 one or two signs in her, I do see possibilities of a sort of 
 playing with fire between us." It was cleverly put, yet 
 also vilely; he laid half the burden of his treachery on 
 her. The "introduction of sex" was gently mentioned 
 three lines lower down. Tony already had an under- 
 standing with her which meant that she had encouraged 
 him. The thought rubbed like a jagged file against his 
 heart. Yet Tom neither thought this, nor definitely said 
 it to himself. He felt it; but it was only later that he 
 knew he felt it. 
 
 And his mind, so heavily bruised, limped badly. The 
 same thoughts rose again and again. He had no notion 
 what he meant to do. There was an odd, half-boyish as- 
 tonishment in him that the accumulated warnings of these 
 recent days had not shown him the truth before. How 
 could he have known the Eyes of his Dream for months, 
 have lived with them daily for three weeks the light- 
 blue eyes yet have failed to recognize them? It passed 
 understanding. Even the wavy feeling that had accom- 
 panied Tony's arrival in the Carpathians the Sound 
 heard in his bedroom the same night had left him un- 
 seeing and unaware. It seemed as if the recognition had 
 been hidden purposely; for, had he recognized them, he 
 would have been prepared ; he might even have prevented. 
 It now dawned upon him slowly that the inevitable may 
 not be prevented. And the cunning of it baffled him 
 afresh : it was all planned consummately. 
 
 Tom sat for a long time before the open window in a 
 state of half stupor, staring at the pictures his mind of- 
 fered automatically. A deep, vicious aching gnawed 
 without ceasing at his heart : each time a new picture rose 
 a fiery pang rose with it, as though a nerve were 
 bared. . . . 
 
 He drew his chair closer into the comforting darkness 
 of the night. All was silent as the grave. The stars 
 wheeled overhead with their accustomed majesty; he 
 
266 The Wave 
 
 could just distinguish the dim river in its ancient bed ; the 
 desert lay watchful for the sun ; the air was sharp with 
 perfume. Countless human emotions had these witnessed 
 in the vanished ages, countless pains and innumerable 
 aching terrors ; the emotions had passed away, yet the wit- 
 nesses remained, steadfast, unchanged, indifferent. More- 
 over, his particular emotion now seemed known to them 
 known to these very stars, this desert, this immemorial 
 river ; they witnessed now its singular repetition. He was 
 to experience it unto the bitter end again yet somehow 
 otherwise. He must face it all. Only in this way could 
 the joy at the end of it be reached. . . . He must some- 
 how accept and understand . . . This confused, unjusti- 
 fiable assurance strengthened in him. 
 
 Yet this last feeling was so delicate that he scarcely 
 recognized its intense vitality. The cruder sensations 
 blinded him as with thick, bitter smoke. He was certain 
 of one thing only that the fire of jealousy burned him 
 with its atrocious anguish ... an anguish he had some- 
 where known before. 
 
 Then presently there was a change. This change had 
 begun soon after he drew his chair to the balcony, but he 
 had not noticed it. The effect upon him, nevertheless, 
 had been gradually increasing. 
 
 The psychological effects of sound, it would seem, are 
 singular. Even when heard unconsciously, the result con- 
 tinues; and Tom, hearing this sound unconsciously, did 
 not realize at first that another mood was stealing over 
 him. Then hearing became conscious hearing listening. 
 The sound rose to his ears from just below his balcony. 
 He listened. He rose, leaned over the rail, and stared. 
 The crests of three tall palms immediately below him 
 waved slightly in the rising wind. But the fronds of a 
 palm tree in the wind produce a noise that is unlike the 
 rustle of any other foliage in the world. It was a curious, 
 sharp rattling that he heard. It was the Sound. 
 
 His entire being was at last involved the Self that 
 
The Wave 267 
 
 used the separate senses. His thoughts swooped in an- 
 other direction he suddenly fixed his attention upon 
 Lettice. But it was an inner attention of a wholesale 
 kind: not of the separate mind alone. And this entire 
 Self included regions he did not understand. Mind was 
 the least part of it. The "whole" of him that now dealt 
 with Lettice was far above all minor and partial means 
 of knowing. For it did not judge, it only saw. It was, 
 perhaps, the soul. 
 
 For it seemed the pain bore him upwards to an unac- 
 customed height. He stood for a moment upon that level 
 where she dwelt, even as now he stood on this balcony, 
 looking down upon the dim Egyptian scene. She was 
 beside him ; he gazed into her eyes, even as now he gazed 
 across to the dark Theban necropolis among the hills. 
 But also, in some odd way, he stood outside himself. He 
 swam with her upon the summit of the breaking Wave, 
 lifted upon its crest, swept onward irresistibly. . . . No 
 halt was possible . . . the inevitable crash must come. 
 Yet she was with him. They were involved together. . . . 
 The sea! . . . 
 
 The first bitterness passed a little; the sullen aching 
 with it. He was aware of high excitement, of a new 
 reckless courage ; a touch of the impersonal came with it 
 all, one Tom playing the part of a spectator to another 
 Tom an onlooker at his own discomfiture, at his own 
 suffering, at his own defeat. 
 
 This new, exalted state was very marvelous ; for while 
 it lasted he welcomed all that was to come. "It's right 
 and necessary for me," he recognized ; "I need it, and I'll 
 face it. If I refuse it I prove myself a failure again. 
 Besides . . . she needs it too!" 
 
 For the entire matter then turned over in his mind, so 
 that he saw it from a new angle suddenly. He looked at 
 it through a keyhole, as it were the extent was large yet 
 detailed, the picture distant yet very clearly focused. It 
 lay framed within his thoughts, isolated from the rest of 
 
268 The Wave 
 
 life, isolated somehow even from the immediate present. 
 There was perspective in it. This keyhole was, perhaps, 
 his deep, unalterable love, but cleansed and purified. . . . 
 
 It came to him that she, and even Tony, too, in lesser 
 fashion, were, like himself, the playthings of great spir- 
 itual forces that made alone for good. The Wave swept 
 all three along. The attitude of his youth returned : the 
 pain was necessary, yet would bring inevitable joy as its 
 result. There had been cruel misunderstanding on his 
 part somewhere: that misunderstanding must be burnt 
 away. He saw Lettice and his cousin helping towards 
 this exquisite deliverance somehow. It was like a mo- 
 ment of clear vision from a pinnacle. He looked down 
 upon it. ... 
 
 Lettice smiled into his eyes through half-closed eyelids. 
 Her smile was strangely distant, strangely precious : she 
 was love and tenderness incarnate; her little hands held 
 both of his. . . . Through these very eyes, this smile, 
 these little hands, his pain would come; she would her- 
 self inflict it because she could not help herself; she 
 played her inevitable role as he did. Yet he kissed the 
 eyes, the hands, with an absolute self-surrender he did 
 not understand, willing and glad that they should do their 
 worst. He had somewhere dreadfully misjudged her: he 
 must, he would atone. This passion burned within him, 
 a passion of sacrifice, of resignation, of free, big accep- 
 tance. He felt joy at the end of it all the joy of perfect 
 understanding . . . and forgiveness ... on both 
 sides. . . . 
 
 And the moment of clear vision left its visible traces 
 in him after it had passed. If he felt contempt for his 
 cousin, he felt for Lettice a deep and searching pity 
 she was divided against herself, she was playing a part 
 she had to play. The usual human emotions were used, of 
 course, to convey the situation, yet in some way he was 
 unable to explain, she was being driven. In spite of 
 
The Wave 269 
 
 herself she must inflict this pain. ... It was a mystery 
 he could not solve. . . . 
 
 His exaltation, naturally, was of brief duration. The 
 inevitable reaction followed it. He saw the situation 
 again as an ordinary man of the world must see it. ... 
 The fires of jealousy were alight and spreading. Already 
 they were eating away the foundations of every generous 
 feeling he had -ever known. ... It was not, he argued, 
 that he did not trust her. He did. But he feared the in- 
 sidious power of infatuation, he feared the burning 
 glamour of this land of passionate mirages, he feared the 
 deluding forces of sex which his cousin had deliberately 
 awakened in her blood and other nameless things he 
 feared as well, though he knew not exactly what they 
 were. For it seemed to him that they were old as dreams, 
 old as the river and the menace of these solemn hills. . . . 
 From childhood up, his own trust in her truth and loyalty 
 had remained unalterably fixed, ingrained in the very es- 
 sence of his being. It was more than his relations with a 
 woman he loved that were in danger : it was his belief and 
 trust in Woman, focused in herself symbolically, that 
 were threatened. ... It was his belief in Life. 
 
 With Lettice, however, he felt himself in some way 
 powerless to deal; he could watch her, but he could not 
 judge . . . least of all, did he dare prevent. . . . Her at- 
 titude he could not know nor understand. . . . 
 
 There was a pink glow upon the desert before he real- 
 ized that a reply to Tony's letter was necessary ; and that 
 pink was a burning gold when he knew his answer must 
 be of such a kind that Tony felt free to pursue his course 
 unchecked. Tom held to his strange belief to "Let it all 
 come," he would not try to prevent; he would neither 
 shirk nor dodge. He doubted whether it lay in his power 
 now to hinder anything, but in any case he would not seek 
 to do so. Rather than block coming events, he must en- 
 courage their swift development. It was the best, the 
 
270 The Wave 
 
 only way ; it was the right way too. He belonged to his 
 destination. He went into his own background. . . . 
 
 The sky was alight from zenith to horizon, the Nile 
 aflame with sunrise, by the time the letter was written. 
 He read it over, then hurriedly undressed, and plunged 
 into bed, A long, dreamless sleep took instant charge of 
 him, for he was exhausted to a state of utter depletion. 
 
 DEAR TONY I have read your letter with the greatest sympathy 
 it was forwarded from Assouan. It cost you a good deal, I 
 know, to say what you did, and I'm sure you mean it for the best. 
 I feel it like that too for the best. I'm sorry you've been upset. 
 
 But it is easier for you to write than for me to answer. Her 
 position, of course, is an awfully delicate one; and I feel no 
 doubt you feel too that her standard of conduct is higher than 
 that of ordinary women, and that any issue between us if there 
 is an issue at all! should be left to her to decide. 
 
 Nothing can touch my friendship with her; you needn't worry 
 about that. But if you can bring any added happiness into her 
 life, it can only be welcomed by all three of us. So go ahead, 
 Tony, and make her as happy as you can. The important things 
 are not in our hands to decide in any case; and, whatever hap- 
 pens, we both agree on one thing: that her happiness is the im- 
 portant thing. Yours ever, TOM. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 HE was wakened by the white-robed Arab house- 
 maid with his breakfast. He felt hungry, but still 
 tired ; sleep had not rested him. On the tray an envelope 
 caught his eye sent by hand evidently, since it bore no 
 stamp. The familiar writing made the blood race in his 
 veins, and the instant the man was gone, he tore it open. 
 There was burning in his eyes as he read the penciled 
 words. He devoured it whole with a kind of visual gulp 
 a flash : the entire meaning first, then lines, then sepa- 
 rate words: 
 
 Come for lunch, or earlier. My cousin is invited out, and 
 Tony has suddenly left for Cairo with his friends. I shall be 
 lonely. How beautiful and precious you were last night. I long 
 for you to comfort me. But don't efface yourself again it gave 
 me a horrid strange presentiment as if I were losing you al- 
 most as if you no longer trusted me. And don't forget that I 
 love you with all my heart and soul. I had such queer, long 
 dreams last night terrible rather. I must tell you. Do come. 
 Yours, L. 
 
 P. S. Telephone if you can't. 
 
 Sweetness and pain rose in him, then numbness. For 
 his mind flung itself with violence upon two sentences: 
 he was "beautiful and precious"; she longed for him to 
 comfort her. Why, he asked himself, was his conduct 
 beautiful and precious ? And why did she need his com- 
 fort ? The words were like vitriol in the eyes. 
 
 Long before reason found the answer, instinct swift, 
 merciless interpreter told him plainly. While the brain 
 fumbled, the heart already understood. He was stabbed 
 before he knew what stabbed him. 
 
 And hope sank extinguished. The last faint doubt was 
 
 271 
 
272 The Wave 
 
 taken from him. It was not possible to deceive himself 
 an instant longer, for the naked truth lay staring into his 
 eyes. 
 
 He swallowed his breakfast without appetite . . . and 
 went downstairs. He sighed, but something wept in- 
 audibly. A wall blocked every step he took. The devas- 
 tating commonplace was upon him it was so ordinary. 
 Other men . . . oh, how often he had heard the familiar 
 tale ! He tried to grip himself. "Others ... of course 
 . . . but me!" It seemed impossible. 
 
 In a dream he crossed the crowded hall, avoiding vari- 
 ous acquaintances with unconscious cunning. He found 
 the letter-box and posted his letter to Tony. 'That's 
 gone, at any rate!" he realized. He told the porter to 
 telephone that he would come to lunch. "That's settled 
 too!" Then, hardly knowing what blind instinct 
 prompted, he ordered a carriage . . . and presently found 
 himself driving down the hot, familiar road to Karnak. 
 For some faultless impulse guided him. He turned to 
 the gigantic temple, with its towering, immense propor- 
 tions as though its grandeur might somehow protect and 
 mother him. 
 
 In those dim aisles and mighty halls brooded a Presence 
 that he knew could soothe and comfort. The immensities 
 hung still about the fabulous ruin. He would lose his 
 tortured self in something bigger that beauty and maj- 
 esty which are Karnak. Before he faced Lettice, he must 
 forget a moment forget his fears, his hopes, his cease- 
 less torment of belief and doubt. It was, in the last 
 resort, religious a cry for help, a prayer. But also it was 
 an inarticulate yearning to find that state of safety where 
 he and she dwelt secure from separation in the "sea." 
 For Karnak is a spiritual experience, or it is nothing. 
 There, amid the deep silence of the listening centuries, he 
 would find peace : forgetting himself a moment, he might 
 find strength. 
 
 Then reason parsed the sentences that instinct already 
 
The Wave 273 
 
 understood complete. For Lettice the tender woman of 
 his first acquaintance had obviously experienced a mo- 
 ment of reaction. She realized he was wounded at her 
 hands. She felt shame and pity. She craved comfort 
 and forgiveness his comfort, his forgiveness. Con- 
 science whispered. As against the pain she inflicted, he 
 had been generous, long-suffering therefore his conduct 
 was "beautiful and precious." Tony, moreover, had hid- 
 den himself until his letter should be answered and she 
 was "lonely." 
 
 With difficulty Tom suppressed the rising bitterness 
 of contempt and anger in him. His cousin's obliquity was 
 a sordid touch. He forgot a moment the loftier point of 
 view. But for a short time only. The contempt merged 
 again in something infinitely greater. The anger disap- 
 peared. Her attitude occupied him exclusively. The two 
 phrases rang on with insistent meaning in his heart, as 
 with the clang of a fateful sentence of exile, execution 
 death : 
 
 "How beautiful you were last night, and precious . . . 
 I long for you to comfort me. . . ." 
 
 While the carriage crawled along the sun-baked sand, 
 he watched the Arab children with their blue-black hair, 
 who ran beside it, screaming for backsheesh. The little 
 faces shone like polished bronze, they held their hands 
 out, their bare feet pattered in the sand. He tossed small 
 coins among them. And their cries and movements fell 
 into the rhythm of the song, whose haunting refrain 
 pulsed ever in his blood : "We were young, we were 
 merry, we were very very wise. . . ." 
 
 They were soon out-distanced, the palm trees fell away, 
 the soaring temple loomed against the blazing sky. He 
 left the arabyieh at the Western entrance and went on 
 foot down the avenue of headless rams. The huge 
 Khonsu gateway dropped its shadow over him. Passing 
 through the Court with its graceful colonnades, and the 
 Chapel, flanked by cool, dark chambers, where the Sacred 
 
274 The Wave 
 
 Boat floated on its tideless sea beyond the world, he moved 
 on across the sandy waste of broken stone again, and 
 reached in a few minutes the towering gray and reddish 
 sandstone that was Amon's Temple. 
 
 This was the goal of his little pilgrimage. Sublimity 
 closed round him. The gigantic pylon, its shoulders 
 breaking the sky four-square far overhead, seemed the 
 prodigious portal of another world. Slowly he passed 
 within, crossed the Great Court where the figures of 
 ancient Theban deities peered at him between the forest 
 of broken monoliths and lovely Osiris pillars, then, mov- 
 ing softly beneath the second enormous pylon, found 
 himself on the threshold of the Great Hypostyle Hall 
 itself. 
 
 He caught his breath, he paused, then stepped within 
 on tiptoe, and the hush of four thousand years closed 
 after him. Awe stole upon him ; he felt himself included 
 in the great ideal of this older day. The stupendous aisles 
 lent him their vast shelter; the fierce sunlight could not 
 burn his flesh; the air was cool and sweet in these dim 
 recesses of unremembered time. He passed his hand with 
 reverence over the drum-shaped blocks that built up the 
 majestic columns, as they reared towards the massive, 
 threatening roof. The countless inscriptions and reliefs 
 showered upon his sight bewilderingly. 
 
 And he forgot his lesser self in this crowded atmos- 
 phere of ancient divinities and old-world splendor. He 
 was aware of kings and queens, of princes and princesses, 
 of stately priests, of hosts and conquests ; forgotten gods 
 and goddesses trooped past his listening soul ; his heart 
 remembered olden wars, and the royalty of golden days 
 came back to him. He steeped himself in the long, long 
 silence in which an earlier day lay listening with ears of 
 stone. There was color ; there was spendthrift grandeur, 
 half savage, half divine. His imagination, wakened by 
 Egypt, plunged backwards with a sense of strange fa- 
 miliarity. Tom easily found the mightier scale his aching 
 
The Wave 275 
 
 heart so hungrily desired. It soothed his personal an- 
 guish with a sense of individual insignificance which was 
 comfort. . . . 
 
 The peace was marvelous, an unearthly peace; the 
 strength unwearied, inexhaustible. The power that was 
 Amon lingered still behind the tossed and fabulous ruin. 
 Those soaring columns held up the very sky, and their 
 foundations made the earth itself swing true. The silence, 
 profound, unalterable, was the silence in the soul that lies 
 behind all passion and distress. And these steadfast 
 qualities Tom absorbed unconsciously through his very 
 skin. . . . The Wave might fall indeed, but it would fall 
 into the mothering sea where levels must be restored 
 again, secure upon unshakable foundations. . . . And as 
 he paced these solemn aisles, his soul drank in their peace 
 and stillness, their strength of calm resistance. Though 
 built upon the sand, they still endured, and would continue 
 to endure. They pointed to the stars. 
 
 And the effect produced upon him, though the adjective 
 was not his, seemed spiritual. There was a power in the 
 mighty ruin that lifted him to an unaccustomed level 
 from which he looked down upon the inner drama being 
 played. He reached a height; the bird's-eye view was 
 his ; he saw and realized, yet he did not judge. The vast 
 structure, by its harmony, its power, its overmastering 
 beauty, made him feel ashamed and mortified. A sense 
 of humiliation crept into him, melting certain stubborn 
 elements of self that, grown out of proportion, blocked 
 his soul's clear vision. That he must stand aside had 
 never occurred to him before with such stern authority : 
 it occurred to him now. The idea of sacrifice stole over 
 him with a sweetness that was deep and marvelous. It 
 seemed that Isis touched him. He looked into the eyes of 
 great Osiris, . . . and that part of him that ever watched 
 the great Onlooker smiled. 
 
 His being, as a whole, remained inarticulate as usual; 
 no words came to his assistance. It was rather that he 
 
276 The Wave 
 
 attained as once before, in another moment of deeper 
 insight that attitude towards himself which is best de- 
 scribed as impersonal. Who was he, indeed, that he 
 should claim the right to thwart another's happiness, 
 hinder another's best self-realization? By what right, 
 in virtue of what exceptional personal value, could he, 
 Tom Kelverdon, lay down the law to this other, and say, 
 "Me only shall you love . . . because I happen to love 
 you . . .?" 
 
 And, as though to test what of strength and honesty 
 might lie in this sudden exaltation of resolve, he recog- 
 nized just then the very pylon against whose vast bulk 
 they had rested together that moonlit night a few short 
 weeks before . . . when he saw two rise up like one per- 
 son ... as he left them and stole away into the 
 shadows. 
 
 "So I knew it even then subconsciously," he realized. 
 "The truth was in me even then, a few days after my 
 arrival. . . . And they knew it too. She was already 
 going from me, if not already gone . . . !" 
 
 He leaned against that same stone column, thinking, 
 searching in his mind, feeling acutely. Reactions caught 
 at him in quick succession. Doubt, suspicion, anger 
 clouded vision; pain routed the impersonal conception. 
 Loneliness came over him with the cool wind that stirred 
 the sand between the columns; the patches of glaring 
 sunshine took on a ghastly whiteness; he shivered. . . . 
 But it was not that he lost belief in his moment of clear 
 vision, nor that the impersonal attitude became untrue. 
 It was another thing he realized : that the power of attain- 
 ment was not yet in him . . . quite. He could renounce, 
 but not with complete acceptance. . . . 
 
 As he drove back along the sandy lanes of blazing heat 
 a little later, it seemed to him that he had been through 
 some strenuous battle that had taxed his final source of 
 strength. If his position was somewhat vague, this was 
 due to his inability to analyze such deep interior turmoil. 
 
The Wave 277 
 
 He was sure, at least, of one thing that, before he could 
 know this final joy awaiting him, he must first find in 
 himself the strength for what seemed just then an im- 
 possible, an ultimate sacrifice. He must forget himself 
 if such forgetfulness involved the happiness of another. 
 He must slip out. The strength to do it would come pres- 
 ently. And his heart was full of this indeterminate, half- 
 formed resolve as he entered the shady garden and saw 
 Lettice lying in her deck-chair beneath the trees, awaiting 
 him. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 EVENTS, however slight, which involve the soul are 
 drama ; for once the soul takes a hand in them their 
 effects are permanent and reproductive. Not alone the 
 relationships between individuals are determined this way 
 or that, but the relationships of these individuals towards 
 the universe are changed upon a scale of geometrical 
 progression. The results are of the eternal order. Since 
 that which persists the soul is radically affected, they 
 are of ultimate importance. 
 
 Had the strange tie between Tom and Lettice been due 
 to physical causes only, to mental affinity, or to mere 
 sympathetic admiration of each other's outward strength 
 and beauty, a rupture between them could have been of a 
 passing character merely. A pang, a bitterness that lasted 
 for a day or for a year and the gap would be filled again 
 by some one else. They had idealized ; they would get 
 over it ; they were not indispensable to one another ; there 
 were other fish in the sea, and so forth. 
 
 But with Tom, at any rate, there was something trans- 
 cendental in their intimate union. Loss, where she was 
 concerned, involved a permanent and irremediable be- 
 reavement no substitute was conceivable. With him, 
 this relationship seemed foreordained, almost prenatal 
 it had come to him at the very dawn of life; it had lasted 
 through years of lonely waiting; no other woman had 
 ever threatened its fixed security ; and the sudden meet- 
 ing in Switzerland had seemed to him reunion rather than 
 discovery. Moreover he had transferred his own sense 
 of security to her; had always credited her with similar 
 feelings; and the suspicion, now, that he had deceived 
 himself in this made life tremble to the foundations. It 
 
 278 
 
The Wave 279 
 
 was a terrible thought that robbed him of every atom of 
 self-confidence. It affected his attitude to the entire uni- 
 verse. 
 
 The intensity of this drama, however, being interior, 
 caused little outward disturbance that casual onlookers 
 need have noticed. He waved his hat as he walked to- 
 wards the corner where she lay, greeting her with a smile 
 and careless word, as though no shadow stood between 
 them. A barrier, nevertheless, was there, he knew. He 
 felt it almost sensibly. Also it had grown higher. And 
 at once he was aware that the Lettice who returned his 
 smile with a colorless "Good-morning, Tom, I'm so glad 
 you could come/' was not the Lettice who had known a 
 moment's reaction a little while before. He told by her 
 very attitude that now there was lassitude, even weariness 
 in her. Her eyes betrayed none of the excitement and 
 delight that another could wake in her. His own presence 
 certainly no longer brought the thrill, the interest that 
 once it did. She was both bored and lonely. 
 
 And, while an exquisite pain ran through him, he made 
 a prodigious effort to draw upon the strength he had felt 
 in Karnak a short half-hour ago. He struggled bravely to 
 forget himself. "So Tony's gone!" he said lightly, "run 
 off and left us without so much as a word of warning or 
 good-by. A rascally proceeding, I call it! Rather sud- 
 den, too, wasn't it ?" 
 
 He sat down beside her and began to smoke. She need 
 not answer unless she wanted to. She did answer, how- 
 ever, and at once. She did not look at him ; her eyes were 
 on the golden distance. It had to be said; she said it. 
 "He's only gone for two or three days. His friends sud- 
 denly changed their minds, and he couldn't get out of it. 
 He said he didn't want to go a bit." 
 
 How did she know it, Tom wondered, glancing up 
 over his cigarette? And how had she read his mind so 
 easily ? 
 
 "He just popped in to tell me," she added, "and to say 
 
280 The Wave 
 
 good-by. He asked me to tell you." She spoke without 
 a tremor, as if Tom had no right to disapprove. 
 
 "Pretty early, wasn't it?" It was not the first time 
 either. "He comes at such unusual hours" he remem- 
 bered Mrs. Haughstone's words. 
 
 "I was only just up. But there was time to give him 
 coffee before the train." 
 
 She offered no further comment ; Tom made none ; he 
 sat smoking there beside her, outwardly calm and peace- 
 ful as though no feeling of any kind was in him. He felt 
 numb perhaps. In his mind he saw the picture of the 
 breakfast-table beneath the trees. The plan had been 
 arranged, of course, beforehand. 
 
 "Miss de Lome's coming to lunch," she mentioned 
 presently. "She's to bring her pictures the Deir-el- 
 Bahri ones. You must help me criticize them." 
 
 So they were not to be alone even was Tom's instant 
 thought. Aloud he said merely, "I hope they're good." 
 She flicked the flies away with her horse-hair whisk and 
 sighed. He caught the sigh. The day felt empty, unin- 
 spired, the boredom of cruel disillusion in it somewhere. 
 But it was the sigh that made him realize it. Avoiding 
 the subject of Tony's abrupt departure, he asked what 
 she would like to do that afternoon ; he made various pro- 
 posals. She listened without interest. "D'you know, 
 Tom, I don't feel inclined to do anything much, but just 
 lie and rest." 
 
 There was no energy in her, no zest for life; expedi- 
 tions had lost their interest; she was listless, tired. He 
 felt impatience in him, sharp disappointment too; but 
 there was an alert receptiveness in his mind that noted 
 trifles done or left undone. She made no reference, for 
 instance, to the fact that they might be frequently alone 
 together now. A faint hope that had been in him van- 
 ished quickly. . . . He wondered when she was going to 
 speak of her letter, of his conduct the night before that 
 was "beautiful and precious," of the comfort she had 
 
The Wave 281 
 
 needed, or even of the dreams that she had mentioned. 
 But, though he waited, giving various openings, nothing 
 was forthcoming. That side of her, once intimately 
 precious and familiar, seemed buried, hidden away, per- 
 haps forgotten. This was not Lettice it was some one 
 else. 
 
 "You had dreams that frightened you?" he inquired at 
 length. "You said you'd tell them to me." He moved 
 nearer so that he could watch her face. 
 
 She looked puzzled for a second. "Did I ?" she replied. 
 She thought a moment. "Oh yes, of course I did. But 
 they weren't much really. I'd forgotten. It was about 
 water or something. Oh yes, I remember now we were 
 drowning, and you saved us." She gave a little unmean- 
 ing laugh as she said it. 
 
 "Who were drowning?" 
 
 "All of us me and you, I think it was and 
 Tony " 
 
 "Oh, of course." 
 
 She looked up. "Tom, why do you say 'Of course' like 
 that?" 
 
 "It was your old idea of the river and the floating 
 faces, I meant," he answered. "I had the feeling." 
 
 "You said it so sharply." 
 
 "Did I!" He shrugged his shoulders slightly. "I 
 didn't mean to." He noticed the beauty of her ear, the 
 delicate line of the nostrils, the long eyelashes. The 
 graceful neck, with the firm, slim line of the breast below, 
 was exquisite. The fairy curve of her ankle was just 
 visible. He could have knelt and covered it with kisses. 
 Her coolness, the touch of contempt in her voice made 
 him wild. . . . But he understood his role; and he re- 
 membered Karnak. 
 
 A little pause followed. Lettice made one of her 
 curious gestures, half impatience, half weariness. She 
 stretched ; the other ankle appeared. Tom, as he saw it, 
 felt something in him burst into flame. He came peril- 
 
282 The Wave 
 
 ously near to saying impetuously a hundred things he 
 had determined that he must not say. He felt the indif- 
 ference in her, the coolness, almost the cruelty. Her 
 negative attitude towards him goaded, tantalized. He 
 was full of burning love, from head to foot, while she lay 
 there^ within two feet of him, calm, listless, unresponsive, 
 passionless. The bitter pain of promises unfulfilled as- 
 sailed him acutely, poignantly. Yet in ordinary life the 
 situation was so commonplace. The "strong man" would 
 face her with it, have it out plainly ; he would be master- 
 ful, forcing a climax of one kind or another, behaving 
 as men do in novels or on the stage. 
 
 Yet Tom remained tongue-tied and restrained; he 
 seemed unable to take the lead; an inner voice cried 
 sternly No to all such natural promptings. It would be 
 a gross mistake. He must let things take their course. 
 He must not force a premature disclosure. With a tre- 
 mendous effort, he controlled himself and smothered the 
 rising fires that struggled towards speech and action. He 
 would not even ask a single question. Somehow, in any 
 case, it was impossible. 
 
 The subject dropped; Lettice made no further refer- 
 ence to the letter. 
 
 "When you feel like going anywhere, or doing any- 
 thing, you'll let me know," he suggested presently. 
 "We've been too energetic lately. It's best for you to 
 rest. You're tired." The words hurt and stung him as 
 though he were telling lies. He felt untrue to himself. 
 The blood boiled in his veins. 
 
 She answered him with a touch of impatience again, 
 almost of exasperation. He noticed the emphasis she 
 used so needlessly. 
 
 "Tom, I'm not tired not in the way you mean. It's 
 just that I feel like being quiet for a bit. Really it's not 
 so remarkable ! Can't you understand ?" 
 
 "Perfectly," he rejoined calmly, lighting another cig- 
 arette. "We'll have a program ready for later when 
 
The Wave 283 
 
 Tony gets back." The blood rushed from his heart as 
 he said it. 
 
 Her face brightened instantly, as he had expected 
 dreaded ; there was no attempt at concealment anywhere ; 
 she showed interest as frankly as a child. "It was stupid 
 of him to go, just when we were enjoying everything so," 
 she said again. "I wonder how long he'll stay " 
 
 "I'll write and tell him to hurry up," suggested Tom. 
 He twirled his fly-whisk energetically. 
 
 "Tell him we can't get on without our dragomcm," she 
 added eagerly with her first attempt at gaiety; and then 
 went on to mention other things he was to say, till her 
 pleasure in talking about Tony was so obvious that Tom 
 yielded to temptation suddenly. It was more than he 
 could bear. "I strongly suspect a pretty girl in the party 
 somewhere," he observed carelessly. 
 
 "There is," came the puzzling reply, "but he doesn't 
 care for her a bit. He told me all about her. It's curi- 
 ous, isn't it, how he fascinates them all? There's some- 
 thing very remarkable about Tony I can't quite make 
 it out." 
 
 Tom leaned forward, bringing his face in front of her 
 own, and closer to it. He looked hard into her eyes a 
 moment. In the depths of her steady gaze he saw shad- 
 ows, far away, behind the open expression. There was 
 trouble in her, but it was deep, deep down and out of 
 sight. The eyes of some one else, it seemed, looked 
 through her into his. An older world came whispering 
 across the sunlight and the sand. 
 
 "Lettice," he said quietly, "there's something new come 
 into your life these last few weeks isn't there?" His 
 voice grated like machinery started with violent effort 
 against resistance. "Some new, big force, I mean ? You 
 seem so changed, so different." He had not meant to 
 speak like this. It was forced out. He expressed him- 
 self badly too. He raged inwardly. 
 
 She smiled, but only with her lips. The shadows from 
 
284 The Wave 
 
 behind her eyes drew nearer to the surface. But the eyes 
 themselves held steady. That other look peered out of 
 them. He was aware of power, of something strangely 
 bewitching, yet at the same time fierce, inflexible in her 
 . . . and a kind of helplessness came over him, as though 
 he was suddenly out of his depth, without sure footing. 
 The Wave roared in his ears and blood. 
 
 "Egypt probably old Egypt," she said gently, making 
 a small gesture with one hand towards the river and the 
 sky. "It must be that." The gesture, it seemed to him, 
 had royalty in it somewhere. There was stateliness and 
 dignity an air of authority about her. It was magnifi- 
 cent. He felt worship in him. The slave that lies in wor- 
 ship stirred. He could yield his life, suffer torture for 
 days to give her a moment's happiness. 
 
 "I meant something personal, rather," he prevaricated. 
 
 "You meant Tony. I know it. Didn't you, Tom?" 
 
 His breath caught inwardly. In spite of himself, and 
 in spite of his decision, she drew his secret out. Enchant- 
 ment touched him deliciously, an actual torture in it. 
 
 "Yes," he said honestly, "perhaps I did." He said it 
 shame-facedly rather, to his keen vexation. "For it has 
 to do with Tony somehow." 
 
 He got up abruptly, tossed his cigarette over the wall 
 into the river, then sat down again. "There's something 
 about it strange and big. I can't make it out a bit." 
 He faltered, stammered over the words. "It's a long way 
 off then all at once it's close." He had the feeling that 
 he had put a match to something. "I've done it now," he 
 said to himself like a boy, as though he expected that 
 something dramatic must happen instantly. 
 
 But nothing happened. The river flowed on silently, 
 the heat blazed down, the leaves hung motionless as be- 
 fore, and far away the lime-stone hills lay sweltering in 
 the glare. But those hills had glided nearer. He was 
 aware of them, the Valley of the Kings, the desolate 
 
The Wave 285 
 
 Theban Hills with their myriad secrets and their death- 
 less tombs. 
 
 Lettice gave her low, significant little laugh. "It's odd 
 you should say that, Tom very odd. Because I've felt 
 it too. It's awfully remote and quite near at the same 
 time 
 
 "And Tony's brought it," he interrupted eagerly, half 
 passionately. "It's got to do with him, I mean." 
 
 It seemed to him that the barrier between them had 
 lowered a little. The Lettice he knew first peered over 
 it at him. 
 
 "No," she corrected, "I don't feel that he's brought it. 
 He's in it somehow, I admit, but he has not brought it 
 exactly." She hesitated a moment. "I think the truth is 
 he can't help himself any more than we you or I 
 can." 
 
 There was a caressing tenderness in her voice as she 
 said it, but whether for himself or for another he could 
 not tell. In his heart rose a frantic impulse just then to 
 ask to blurt it out : "Do you love Tony ? Has he taken 
 you from me ? Tell me the truth and I can bear it. Only, 
 for heaven's sake, don't hide it !" But, instead of saying 
 this absurd, theatrical thing, he looked at her through the 
 drifting cigarette smoke a moment without speaking, try- 
 ing to read the expression in her face. "Last night, for 
 instance," he exclaimed abruptly; "in the music room, 
 I mean. Did you feel that? the intensity a kind of 
 ominous feeling?" 
 
 Her expression was enigmatical; there were signs of 
 struggle in it, he thought. It was as if two persons 
 fought within her which should answer. Apparently the 
 dear Lettice of his first acquaintance won for the mo- 
 ment. 
 
 "You noticed it too !" she exclaimed with astonishment. 
 "I thought I was the only one." 
 
 "We all all three of us felt it," he said in a lower 
 tone. "Tony certainly did " 
 
286 The Wave 
 
 Lettice raised herself suddenly on her elbow and 
 looked down at him with earnestness. Something of the 
 old eagerness was in her. The barrier between them 
 lowered perceptibly again, and Tom felt a momentary 
 return of the confidence he had lost. His heart beat 
 quickly. He made a half impetuous gesture towards her 
 "What is it? What does it all mean, Lettice?" he ex- 
 claimed. "D'you feel what / feel in it danger some- 
 where danger for us?" There was a yearning, almost 
 a cry for mercy in his voice. 
 
 She drew back again. "You amaze me, Tom," she 
 said, as she lay among her cushions. "I had no idea 
 you were so observant." She paused, putting her hand 
 across her eyes a moment. "N-no I don't feel danger 
 exactly," she went on in a lower tone, speaking half to 
 herself and half to him ; "I feel " She broke off with 
 a little sigh ; her hand still covered her eyes. "I feel," she 
 went on slowly, with pauses between the words, "a deep, 
 deep something from very far away that comes over 
 me at times only at times, yes. It's remote, enormously 
 remote but it has to be. I've never given you all that 
 I ought to give. We have to go through with it " 
 
 "You and I?" he whispered. He was listening in- 
 tently. The beats of his heart were most audible. 
 
 She sighed. "All three of us somehow," she replied 
 equally low, and speaking again more to herself than to 
 him. "Ah ! Now my dream comes back a little. It was 
 the river my river with the floating faces. And the 
 thing I feel comes from its source, far, far away its 
 
 tiny source among the hills " She sighed again, more 
 
 deeply than before. Her breast heaved slightly. We 
 must go through it yes. It's necessary for us neces- 
 sary for you and me " 
 
 "Lettice, my precious, my wonderful!" Tom whis- 
 pered as though the breath choked and strangled him. 
 "But we stay together through it? We stay together 
 afterwards? You love me still?" He leaned across and 
 
The Wave 287 
 
 took her other hand. It lay unresistingly in his. It was 
 very cold without a sign of response. 
 
 Her reply half staggered him: "We are always, al- 
 ways together, you and I. Even if you married, I should 
 still be yours. He will go out " 
 
 Fear clashed with hope in his heart as he heard these 
 words he could not understand. He groped and plunged 
 after their meaning. He was bewildered by the reference 
 to marriage his marriage! Was she, then, already 
 aware that she might lose him? . . . But there was con- 
 fession in them too, the confession that she had been 
 away from him. That he felt clearly. Now that the di- 
 viding influence was removed, she was coming back per- 
 haps! If Tony stayed away she would come back en- 
 tirely; only then the thing that had to happen would be 
 prevented which was not to be thought of for a moment. 
 . . . "Poor Lettice. . . ." He felt pity, love, protection 
 that he burned to give; he felt a savage pain and anger 
 as well. In the depths of him love and murder sat side 
 by side. 
 
 "Oh, Lettice, tell me everything. Do share with me 
 share it and we'll meet it together." He drew her cold 
 hand towards him, putting it inside his coat. "Don't hide 
 it from me. You're my whole world. My love can never 
 change. . . . Only don't hide anything!" The words 
 poured out of him with passionate entreaty.. The barrier 
 had melted, vanished. He had found her again, the Let- 
 tice of his childhood, of his dream, the true and faithful 
 woman he had known first. His inexpressible love rose 
 like a wave upon him. Regardless of where they were he 
 bent over to take her in his arms when she suddenly 
 withdrew her hand from his. She removed the other 
 from her eyes. He saw her face. And he realized in an 
 instant that his words had been all wrong. He had said 
 precisely again what he ought not to have said. The 
 moment in her had passed. 
 
 The sudden change had a freezing effect upon him. 
 
288 The Wave 
 
 "Tom, I don't understand quite," she said coldly, her 
 eyes fixed on his almost with resentment in them. "I'm 
 not hiding anything from you. Why do you say such 
 things? I'm true true to myself." 
 
 The barrier was up again in an instant, of granite this 
 time, with jagged edges of cut glass upon it, so that he 
 could not approach it even. It was not Lettice that spoke 
 then: 
 
 "I don't know what's come over you out here," she went 
 on, each word she uttered increasing the distance between 
 them; "you misunderstand everything I say and criticize 
 all I do. You suspect my tenderest instincts. Even a 
 friendship that brings me happiness you object to and 
 and exaggerate." 
 
 He listened till she ceased ; it was as if he had received 
 a blow in the face; he felt disconcerted, keenly aware of 
 his own stupidity, helpless. Something froze in him. 
 He had seen her for a second, then lost her utterly. 
 
 "No, no, Lettice," he stammered, "you read all that 
 into me really, you do. I only want your happi- 
 ness." 
 
 Her eyes softened a little. She sighed wearily and 
 turned her face away. 
 
 "We were only talking of this curious, big feeling that's 
 come " he went on. 
 
 "You were speaking of Tony that's what you really 
 meant, Tom," she interrupted. "You know it perfectly 
 well. It only makes it harder for me." 
 
 He felt suddenly she was masquerading, playing with 
 him again, playing with his very heart and soul. The 
 devil tempted him. All the things he had decided he 
 would not say rose to the tip of his tongue. The worst 
 of them those that hurt him most he managed to force 
 down. But even the one he did suffer to escape gave him 
 atrocious pain : 
 
 "Well, Lettice, to tell the truth, I do think Tony has a 
 bad a curious influence on you. I do feel he has come 
 
 
The Wave 289 
 
 between us rather. And I do think that if you would 
 only share with me " 
 
 The sudden way she turned upon him, rising from 
 her chair and standing over him, was so startling that 
 he got up too. They faced each other, he in the blazing 
 sunshine, she in the shade. She looked so different that 
 he was utterly taken aback. She wore that singular East- 
 ern appearance he now knew so well. Expression, atti- 
 tude, gesture, all betrayed it. That inflexible, cruel thing 
 shone in her eyes. 
 
 "Tom, dear," she said, but with a touch of frigid ex- 
 asperation that for a moment paralyzed thought and ut- 
 terance in him, "whatever happens, you must realize this 
 that I am myself and that I can never allow my free- 
 dom to be taken from me. If you're determined to mis- 
 judge, the fault is yours, and if our love, our friendship 
 cannot understand that, there's something wrong with it." 
 
 The word "friendship" was like a sword-thrust. It 
 went right through him. "I trust you," he faltered, "I 
 trust you wholly. I know you're true." But the words, 
 it seemed, gave expression to an intense desire, a fading 
 hope. He did not say it with conviction. She gazed at 
 him for a moment through half-closed eyelids. 
 
 "Do you, Tom?" she whispered. 
 
 "Lettice . . . !" 
 
 "Then believe at least " her voice wavered suddenly, 
 there came a little break in it "that I am true to you, 
 Tom, as I am to myself. Believe in that . . . and Oh ! 
 for the love of heaven help me!" 
 
 Before he could respond, before he could act upon the 
 hope and passion her last unexpected words set loose in 
 him she turned away to go into the house. Voices were 
 audible behind them, and Miss de Lome was coming up 
 the sandy drive with Mrs. Haughstone. Tom watched 
 her go. She moved with a certain gliding, swaying walk 
 as she passed along the verandah and disappeared behind 
 the curtains of dried grass. It almost seemed though 
 
290 The Wave 
 
 this must certainly have been a trick of light and shadow 
 that she was swathed from head to foot in a clinging 
 garment not of modern kind, and that he caught the gleam 
 of gold upon the flesh of dusky arms that were bare above 
 the elbow. Two persons were visible in her very physical 
 appearance, as two persons had just been audible in her 
 words. Thence came the conflict and the contradictions. 
 
CHAPTER XXV 
 
 A FEW minutes later Lettice was presiding over her 
 luncheon table as though life were simple as the 
 sunlight in the street outside, and no clouds could ever 
 fleck the procession of the years. She was quiet and yet 
 betrayed excitement Tom, at the opposite end of the 
 table, watched her girlish figure, her graceful gestures. 
 Her eyes were very bright, no shadows in their depths ; 
 she returned his gaze with untroubled frankness. Yet the 
 set of her little mouth had self-mastery in it somewhere ; 
 there was no wavering or uncertainty ; her self-possession 
 was complete. But above his head the sword of Damocles 
 hung. He saw the thread, taut and gleaming in the glare 
 of the Egyptian sunlight. . . . He waited upon his cou- 
 sin's return as men once waited for the sign thumbs up, 
 thumbs down. . . . 
 
 "Molly has sent me her album," mentioned Mrs. 
 Haughstone when the four of them were lounging in the 
 garden chairs; "she wonders if you would write your 
 name in it. "It's her passion to fill it with distinguished 
 names." And when the page was found, she pointed to 
 the quotation against his birthday date with the remark, 
 in a lowered voice : "It's quite appropriate, isn't it ? For 
 a man, I mean," she added, "because when a man's un- 
 happy he's more easily tempted to suspicion than a woman 
 is." " 
 
 "What is the quotation?" asked Lettice, glancing up 
 from her deck chair. 
 
 Tom was carefully inscribing his "distinguished" name 
 in the child's album, as Mrs. Haughstone read the words 
 aloud over his shoulder: 
 
 " 'Whatever the circumstances, there is no man so mis- 
 
 291 
 
292 The Wave 
 
 erable that he need not be true/ It's anonymous," she 
 added, "but it's by some one very wise." 
 
 "A woman, probably," Miss de Lome put in with a 
 laugh. 
 
 They discussed it, while Tom laboriously wrote his 
 name against it with a fountain pen. His writing was a 
 little shaky, for his sight was blurred and ice was in his 
 veins. 
 
 "There's no need for you to hurry, is there ?" said Let- 
 tice presently. "Won't you stay and read to me a bit? 
 Or would you rather look in after dinner and smoke ?" 
 The two selves spoke in that. It was as if the earlier, 
 loving Lettice tried to assert itself, but was instantly 
 driven back again. How differently she would have said 
 it a few months ago. . . . He made excuses, saying he 
 would drop in after dinner if he might. She did not press 
 him further. 
 
 "I am tired a little," she said gently. "I'll sleep and 
 rest and write letters too, then." 
 
 She was invariably tired now, Tom soon discovered 
 until Tony returned from Cairo. . . . 
 
 And that evening he escaped the invitations to play 
 bridge, and made his way back, as in a dream, to the little 
 house upon the Nile. He found her bending over the 
 table so that the lamp shone on her abundant coils of hair, 
 and as he entered softly he saw the address on the envel- 
 ope beside her writing pad, several pages of which were 
 already covered with her small, fine writing. He read 
 the name before he could turn his eyes away. 
 
 "I was writing to Tony," she said, looking up with an 
 untroubled smile, "but I can finish later. And you've 
 come just in time to take my part. Ettie's been scolding 
 me severely again." 
 
 She blotted the lines and put the paper on one side, 
 then turned with a challenging expression at her cousin 
 who was knitting by the open window. The little name 
 sounded so incongruous; it did not suit the big gaunt 
 
The Wave 293 
 
 woman who had almost a touch of the monstrous in her. 
 Tom stared a moment without speaking. The playful 
 challenge had reality in it. Lettice intended to define her 
 position openly. She meant that Tom should support her 
 too. 
 
 He smiled as he watched them. But no words came to 
 him. Then, remembering all at once that he had not kept 
 his promise, he said quietly : "I must send a line as well. 
 I quite forgot." 
 
 "You can write it now," suggested Lettice, "and I'll en- 
 close it in mine." And she pointed to the envelopes and 
 paper before him on the table. 
 
 There was a moment of acute and painful struggle in 
 him; pride and love fought the old pitched battle, but 
 on a field of her own bold choosing ! Tom knew murder 
 in his heart, but he knew also that strange rich pain of 
 sacrifice. It was theatrical : he stood upon the stage, an 
 audience watching him with intent expectancy, wondering 
 upon his decision. Mrs. Haughstone, Lettice and another 
 part of himself that was. Onlooker were the audience; 
 Mrs. Haughstone had ceased knitting, Lettice leaned back 
 in her chair, a smile in the eyes, but the lips set very 
 firmly together. The man in him, with scorn and anger, 
 seemed to clench his fists, while that other self as with 
 a spirit's voice from very far away whispered behind 
 his pain : "Obey. You must. It has to be, so why not 
 help it forward !" 
 
 To play the game, but to play it better than before, 
 flashed through him. . . . Half amazed at himself, yet 
 half contented, he sat down mechanically and scribbled 
 a few lines of urgent entreaty to his cousin to come back 
 soon. . . . "We want you here, it's dull, we can't get on 
 without you . . ." knowing that he traced the sentences 
 of his own death-warrant. He folded it and passed it 
 across to Lettice, who slipped it unread into her envelope. 
 "That ought to bring him, you think?" she observed, a 
 happy light in her eyes, yet with a faint sigh half 
 
294 The Wave 
 
 suppressed as though she did a thing which hurt her 
 too. 
 
 "I hope so," replied Tom. "I think so." 
 
 He knew not what she had written to Tony ; but what- 
 ever it was, his own note would appear to endorse it. 
 He had perhaps placed in her hand the weapon that should 
 hasten his own defeat, stretch him bleeding on the sand. 
 And yet he trusted her ; she was loyal and true through- 
 out. The quicker the climax came, the sooner would he 
 know the marvelous joy that lay beyond the pain. In 
 some way, moreover, she knew this too. Actually they 
 were working together, hand in hand, to hasten its in- 
 evitable arrival. They merely used such instruments as 
 fate offered, however trivial, however clumsy. They 
 were being driven. They could neither choose nor re- 
 sist. He found a germ of subtle comfort in the thought. 
 The Wave was under them. Upon its tumultuous vol- 
 ume they swept forward, side by side .... striking out 
 wildly. 
 
 "And will you also post it for me when you go?" he 
 heard. "I'll just add a line to finish up with." Tom 
 watched her open the writing-block again and trace a 
 hurried sentence or two; she did it openly; he saw the 
 neat, small words flow from the nib; he saw the signa- 
 ture : "Lettice." 
 
 "Fasten it down for me, Tom, will you? It's such 
 an ugly thing for a woman to do. It's absurd that sci- 
 ence can't invent a better way of closing an envelope, 
 isn't it ?" He was oddly helpless ; she forced him to obey 
 out of some greater knowledge. And while he did the 
 ungraceful act, their eyes met across the table. It was 
 the other person in her the remote, barbaric, eastern 
 woman, set somehow in power over him who watched 
 him seal his own discomfiture, and smiled to know his 
 obedience had to be. It was, indeed, as though she tor- 
 tured him deliberately. 
 
 For a passing second Tom felt this then the strange 
 
The Wave 295 
 
 exaggeration vanished. They played a game together. 
 All this had been before. They looked back upon it, 
 looked down from a point above it. ... Tom could not 
 read her heart, but he could read his own. 
 
 In a few minutes at most all this happened. He put 
 the letter in his pocket, and Lettice turned to her cousin, 
 challenge in her manner, an air of victory as well. And 
 Tom felt he shared that victory somehow too. It was 
 a curious moment, charged with a subtle perplexity of 
 emotions none of them quite understood. It held such 
 singular contradictions. 
 
 "There, Ettie!" she exclaimed, as much as to say 
 "Now you can't scold me any more. You see how little 
 Mr. Kelverdon minds !" 
 
 While she flitted into the next room to fetch a stamp, 
 Mrs. Haughstone, her needles arrested in mid-air, looked 
 steadily at Tom. Her face was white. She had watched 
 the little scene intently. 
 
 "The only thing I cannot understand, Mr. Kelverdon," 
 she said in a low tone, her voice both indignant and sym- 
 pathetic, "is how my cousin can give pain to a man like 
 you. It's the most heartless thing I've ever seen." 
 
 "Me!" gasped Tom. "But I don't understand you!" 
 
 "And for a creature like that!" she went on quickly, 
 as Lettice was heard in the passage; "a libertine" she 
 almost hissed the word out "who thinks every pretty 
 woman is made for his amusement and false into the 
 bargain " 
 
 Tom put the stamp on. A few minutes later he was 
 again walking along the narrow little Luxor street, the 
 sentences just heard still filling the silent air about him, 
 emotions charging wildly, each detail of the familiar lit- 
 tle journey associated already with present pain and 
 with prophecies of pain to come. The bewilderment and 
 confusion in him were beyond all quieting. One moment 
 .he saw the picture of a slender foot that deliberately 
 crushed life into the dust, the next he gazed into gentle, 
 
296 The Wave 
 
 loving eyes that would brim with tears if a single hair of 
 his head were injured. 
 
 A cold and mournful wind blew down the street, ruf- 
 fling the darkened river. The black line of hills he could 
 not see. Mystery, enchantment hung in the very air. 
 The long dry fingers of the palm trees rattled overhead, 
 and looking up, he saw the divine light of the starry 
 heavens. . . . Surely among those comforting stars he 
 saw her radiant eyes as well. . . . 
 
 A voice, asking in ridiculous English the direction to a 
 certain house, broke his reverie, and, turning round, he 
 saw the sheeted figure of an Arab boy, the bright eyes 
 gleaming in the mischievous little face of bronze. He 
 pointed out the gateway, and the boy slipped off into the 
 darkness, his bare feet soundless and mysterious on the 
 sand. He disappeared up the driveway to the house her 
 house. Tom knew quite well from whom the telegram 
 came. Tony had telegraphed to let her know of his safe 
 arrival. So even that was necessary! "And to-morrow 
 morning," he thought, "he'll get my letter too. He'll 
 come posting back again the very next day." He 
 clenched his teeth a moment; he shuddered. Then he 
 added: "So much the better!" and walked on quickly 
 up the street. He posted her letter at the corner. 
 
 He went up to his bedroom. His sleepless nights had 
 begun now. . . . 
 
 What was the use of thinking, he asked himself as the 
 hours passed? What good did it do to put the same 
 questions over and over again, to pass from doubt to 
 certainty, only to be flung back again from certainty to 
 doubt ? Was there no discoverable center where the pen- 
 dulum ceased from swinging? How could she be at the 
 same time both cruel and tender, both true and false, 
 frank and secretive, spiritual and sensual? Each of 
 these pairs, he realized, was really a single state of which 
 the adjectives represented the extremes at either end. 
 They were ripples. The central personality traveled in 
 
The Wave 
 
 297 
 
 one or other direction according to circumstances, accord- 
 ing to the pull or push of forces the main momentum of 
 the parent wave. But there was a point where the heart 
 felt neither one nor other, neither cruel nor tender, false 
 nor true. Where, on the thermometer, did heat begin 
 and cold come to an end ? Love and hate, similarly, were 
 extremes of one and the same emotion. Love, he well 
 knew, could turn to virulent hatred if something 
 checked and forced it back upon the line of natural ad- 
 vance. Could, then, her tenderness be thus reversed, 
 turning into cruelty. ... Or was this cruelty but the 
 awakening in her of another thing? . . . 
 
 Possibly. Yet at the center, that undiscovered center 
 at present beyond his reach, Lettice, he knew, remained 
 unalterably steadfast. There he felt the absolute assur- 
 ance she was his exclusively. His center, moreover, 
 coincided with her own. They were in the "sea" to- 
 gether. But to get back into the sea, the Wave now 
 rolling under them must first break and fall. . . . 
 
 The sooner, then, the better ! They would swing back 
 with it together eventually. 
 
 He chose, that is without knowing it a higher way 
 of molding destiny. It was the spiritual way, whose 
 method and secret lie in that subtle paradox: Yield to 
 conquer. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 YES, she was always "tired" now, though the "al- 
 ways" meant but three days at most. It was the 
 starving sense of loneliness, the aching sense of loss, the 
 yearning and the vain desire that made it seem so long. 
 Lettice evaded him with laughter in her eyes, or with a 
 tired smile. But the laughter was for another. It was 
 merciless and terrible so slightly, faintly indicated, yet 
 so overwhelmingly convincing. 
 
 The talk between them rarely touched reality, as 
 though a barrier deadened their very voices. Even her 
 mothering became exasperating; it was so unforced and 
 natural; it seemed still so right that she should show 
 solicitude for his physical welfare. And therein lay the 
 anguish and the poignancy. Yet, while he resented fierce- 
 ly, knowing this was all she had to offer now, he strug- 
 gled at the same time to accept. One moment he re- 
 sisted, the next accepted. One hour he believed in her, 
 the next he disbelieved. Hope and fear alternately made 
 tragic sport of him. 
 
 Two personalities fought for possession of his soul, 
 and he could not always keep back the lower of the two. 
 They interpenetrated as, at Dehr-el-Bahri, two scenes 
 had interpenetrated, something very very old projected 
 upon a modern screen. 
 
 Lettice too he was convinced of it was undergoing 
 a similar experience in herself. Only in her case just 
 now it was the lower, the primitive, the physical aspect 
 that was uppermost. She clung to Tony, yet struggled 
 to keep Tom. She could not help herself. And he him- 
 self, knowing he must shortly go, still clung and hesi- 
 tated, hoping against hope. More and more -now, until 
 
 298 
 
The Wave 299 
 
 the end, he was aware that he stood outside his present- 
 day self, and above it. He looked back looked down 
 upon former emotions and activities ; and hence the con- 
 fusing alternating of jealousy and forgiveness. 
 
 There were revealing little incidents from time to time. 
 On the following afternoon he found her, for instance, 
 radiant with that exuberant happiness he had learned 
 now to distrust. And for a moment he half believed 
 again that the menace had lifted and the happiness was 
 for him. She held out both hands towards him, while 
 she described a plan for going to Edfu and Abou Simbel. 
 His heart beat wildly for a second. 
 
 "But Tony ?" he asked, almost before he knew it. "We 
 can't leave him out!" 
 
 "Oh, but I've had a letter." And as she said it his eye 
 caught sight of a bulky envelope lying in the sand be- 
 side her chair. 
 
 "Good," he said quietly, "and when is he coming back ? 
 I haven't heard from him." The solid ground moved 
 beneath his feet. He shivered, even in the blazing heat. 
 
 "To-morrow. He sends you all sorts of messages and 
 says that something you wrote made him very happy. 
 I wonder what it was, Tom?" 
 
 Behind her voice he heard the north wind rattling in 
 the palms; he heard the soft rustle of the acacia leaves 
 as well; there was the crashing of little waves upon the 
 river ; but a deep, deep shadow fell upon the sky and blot- 
 ted out the sunshine. The glory vanished from the day, 
 leaving in its place a painful glare that hurt the eyes. 
 The soul in him was darkened. 
 
 "Ah!" he exclaimed with assumed playfulness, "but 
 that's my secret!" Men do smile, he remembered, as 
 they are led to execution. 
 
 She laughed excitedly. "I shall find it out 
 
 "You will," he burst out significantly, "in the end." 
 
 Then, as she passed him to go into the house, he lost 
 control a moment. He whispered suddenly: 
 
300 The Wave 
 
 "Love has no secrets, Lettice, anywhere. We're in the 
 Sea together. I shall never let you go." The intensity 
 in his manner betrayed him; he adored her; he could 
 not hide it. 
 
 She turned an instant, standing two steps above him; 
 the sidelong downward glance lent to her face a touch 
 of royalty, half pitying, half imperious. Her exquisite, 
 frail beauty held a strength that mocked the worship 
 in his eyes and voice. Almost she challenged him: 
 
 "Soothsayer!" she whispered back contemptuously. 
 "Do your worst!" and was gone into the house. 
 
 Desire surged wildly in him at that moment; impa- 
 tience, scorn, fury even, raised their heads; he felt a 
 savage impulse to seize her with violence, force her to 
 confess, to have it out and end it one way or the other. 
 He loathed himself for submitting to her cruelty, for it 
 was intentional cruelty she made him writhe and suf- 
 fer of set purpose. And something barbaric in his blood 
 leaped up in answer to the savagery in her own . . . 
 when at that instant he heard her calling softly : 
 
 "Tom ! Come indoors a moment ; I want to show you 
 something !" 
 
 But with it another sentence sprang across him and 
 was gone. Like a meteor it streaked the screen of mem- 
 ory. Seize it he could not. It had to do with death 
 his death. There was a thought of blood. Outwardly 
 what he heard, however, was the playful little sentence of 
 to-day. "Come, I want to show you something." 
 
 At the sound of her voice so softly calling all violence 
 was forgotten; love poured back in a flood upon him; 
 he would go through fire and water to possess her in the 
 end. In this strange drama she played her inevitable 
 part, even as he did ; there must be no loss of self-control 
 that might frustrate the coming climax. There must be 
 no thwarting. If he felt jealousy, he must hide it ; anger, 
 scorn, desire must veil their faces. 
 
 He crossed the passage and stood before her in the 
 
The Wave 
 
 301 
 
 darkened room, afraid and humble, full of a burning 
 love that the centuries had not lessened, and that no con- 
 ceivable cruelty of pain could ever change. Almost he 
 knelt before her. Even if terrible, she was utterly ador- 
 able. 
 
 For he believed she was about to make a disclosure 
 that would lay him bleeding in the dust ; singularly at her 
 mercy he felt, his heart laid bare to receive the final 
 thrust that should make him outcast. Her little foot 
 would crush him. . . . 
 
 The long green blinds kept out the glare of the sun- 
 shine; and at first he saw the room but dimly. Then, 
 slowly, the white form emerged, the broad-brimmed hat, 
 the hanging violet veil, the yellow jacket of soft, cling- 
 ing silk, the long white gauntlet gloves. He saw her 
 small face peering through the dimness at him, the eyes 
 burning like two dark precious stones. A table stood 
 between them. There was a square white object on it. 
 A moment's bewilderment stole over him. Why had she 
 called him in? What was she going to say? Why did 
 she choose this moment? Was it the threat of Tony's 
 near arrival that made her confession and his dismissal 
 at last inevitable? 
 
 Then, suddenly, that night in the London theater 
 flashed back across his mind her strange absorption in 
 the play, the look of pain in her face, the little conver- 
 sation, the sense of familiarity that hung about it all. 
 He remembered Tony's words later: that another actor 
 was expected with whose entry the piece would turn 
 more real turn tragic. 
 
 He waited. The dimness of the room was like the 
 dimness of that theater. The lights were lowered. They 
 played their little parts. The audience watched and lis- 
 tened. 
 
 "Tom, dear," her voice came floating tenderly across 
 the air. "I didn't like to give it you before the others. 
 They wouldn't understand they'd laugh at us." 
 
302 The Wave 
 
 He did not understand. Surely he had heard indis- 
 tinctly. He waited, saying nothing. The tenderness in 
 her voice amazed him. He had expected very different 
 words. Yet this was surely Lettice speaking, the Lettice 
 of his spring-time in the mountains beside the calm blue 
 lake. He stared hard. For the voice was Lettice's, but 
 the eyes and figure were another's. He was again aware 
 of two persons there of perplexing and bewildering 
 struggle. But Lettice, for the moment, dominated as it 
 seemed. 
 
 "So I put it here," she went on in a low gentle tone, 
 "here, Tommy, on the table for you. And all my love 
 is in it my first, deep, fond love our childhood love." 
 She leaned down and forward, her face in her hands, 
 her elbows on the dark cloth; she pushed the square, 
 white packet across to him. "God bless you," floated 
 to him with her breath. 
 
 The struggle in her seemed very patent then. Yet in 
 spite of that other, older self within her, it was still the 
 voice of Lettice. . . . 
 
 There was a moment's silence while her whisper hung, 
 as it were, upon the air. His entire body seemed a sin- 
 gle heart. Exactly what he felt he hardly knew. There 
 was a simultaneous collapse of several huge emotions in 
 him. . . . But he trusted her. ... He clung to that be- 
 loved voice. For she called him "Tommy" ; she was his 
 mother; love, tenderness, and pity emanated from her 
 like a cloud of perfume. He heard the faint rustle of 
 her dress as she bent forward, but outside he heard the 
 dry, harsh rattle of the palm trees in the northern wind. 
 And in that was terror. 
 
 "What what is it, Lettice?" The voice sounded like 
 a boy's. It was outrageous. He swallowed with an 
 effort. 
 
 "Tommy, you don't mind? You will take it, won't 
 you?" And it was as if he heard her saying "Help me 
 . . ." once again, "Trust me as I trust you. . . ." 
 
The Wave 303 
 
 Mechanically he put his hand out and drew the object 
 towards him. He knew then what it was and what was 
 in it. He was glad of the darkness, for there was a ri- 
 diculous moisture in his eyes now. A lump was in his 
 throat ! 
 
 "Fve been neglecting you. You haven't had a thing 
 for ages. You'll take it, Tommy, won't you dear?" 
 
 The little foolish words, so sweetly commonplace, fell 
 like balm upon an open wound. He already held the 
 small white packet in his hand. He looked up at her. 
 God alone knows the strain upon his will in that moment. 
 Somehow he mastered himself. It seemed as if he swal- 
 lowed blood. For behind the mothering words lurked, 
 he knew, the other self that any minute would return. 
 
 "Thank you, Lettice, very much," he said with a 
 strange calmness, and his voice was firm. Whatever hap- 
 pened he must not prevent the delivery of what had to 
 be. Above all, that was clear. The pain must come in 
 full before the promised joy. 
 
 Was it, perhaps, this strength in him that drew her? 
 Was it his moment of iron self-mastery that brought her 
 with outstretched, clinging arms towards him? Was it 
 the unshakable love in him that threatened the temporary 
 ascendency of that other in her who gladly tortured him 
 that joy might come in a morning yet to break? 
 
 For she stood beside him, though he had not seen her 
 move. She was close against his shoulder, nestling as of 
 old. It was surely a stage effect. A trap-door had 
 opened in the floor of his consciousness ; his first, early 
 love sheltered in his aching heart again. The entire 
 structure of the drama they played together threatened 
 to collapse. 
 
 "Tom . . . you love me less?" 
 
 He held her to him, but he did not kiss the face she 
 turned up to his. Nor did he speak. 
 
 "You've changed somewhere?" she whispered. "You, 
 too, have changed?" 
 
304 The Wave 
 
 There was a pause before he found words that he 
 could utter. He dared not yield. To do so would be 
 vain in any case. 
 
 "N no, Lettice. But I can't say what it is. . There 
 is pain. ... It has turned some part of me numb . . . 
 killed something, brought something else to life. You 
 will come back to me . . . but not quite yet." 
 
 In spite of the darkness, he saw her face clearly then. 
 For a moment it seemed so easy he could have caught 
 her in his arms, kissed her, known the end of his pres- 
 ent agony of heart and mind. She would have come back 
 to him, Tony's claim obliterated from her life. The 
 driving power that forced an older self upon her had 
 weakened before the steadfast love he bore her. She was 
 ready to capitulate. The little, childish present in his 
 hands was offered as of old. . . . Tears rose behind his 
 eyes. 
 
 How he resisted, he never understood. Some thor- 
 oughness in him triumphed. If he shirked the pain to- 
 day, it would have to be faced to-morrow that alone 
 was clear in his breaking heart. To be worthy of the 
 greater love, the completer joy to follow, they must ac- 
 cept the present pain and see it through experience it 
 exhaust it once for all. To refuse it now was only to 
 postpone it. She must go her way, while he went his. . . . 
 
 Gently he pushed her from him, released his hold ; the 
 little face slipped from his shoulder as though it sank 
 into the sea. He felt that she understood. He heard 
 himself speaking, though how he chose the words he 
 never knew. Out of new depths in himself the phrases 
 rose a regenerated Tom uprising, though not yet sure 
 of himself: 
 
 "You are not wholly mine. I must first oh, Lettice! 
 learn to do without you. It is you who say it." 
 
 Her voice, as she answered, seemed already changed, 
 a shade of something harder, and less yielding in it: 
 
 'That which you can do without is added to you." 
 
The Wave 305 
 
 "A new thing . . . beginning," he whispered, feeling 
 it both belief and prophecy. His whisper broke in spite 
 of himself. He saw her across the room, the table be- 
 tween them again. Already she looked different, "Let- 
 tice" fading from her eyes and mouth. 
 
 She said a marvelous, sweet thing before that other 
 self usurped her then : 
 
 "One day, Tom, we shall find each other in a 
 crowd. . . ." 
 
 There was a yearning cry in him he did not utter. It 
 seemed she faded from the atmosphere as the dimness 
 closed about her. He saw a darker figure with burning 
 eyes upon a darker face; there was a gleam of gold; a 
 faint perfume as of ambra hung about the air, and out- 
 side the palm leaves rattled in the northern wind. He 
 had heard awful words, it seemed, that sealed his fate. 
 He was forsaken, lonely, outcast. It was a sentence of 
 death, for she was set in power over him. . . . 
 
 A flood of dazzling sunshine poured into the room 
 from a lifted blind, as the others looked in from the ve- 
 randah to say that they were going and wanted to say 
 good-by. A moment later all were discussing plans in 
 the garden, Tom as loudly and eagerly as any of them. 
 He held his square white packet. But he did not open it 
 till he reached his room a little later, and then arranged 
 the different articles in a row upon his table: the fa- 
 vorite cigarettes, the soap, the pair of white tennis socks 
 with his initial neatly sewn on, the tie in the shade of 
 blue that suited him best . . . the writing-pad and the 
 dates ! 
 
 A letter from Tony next caught his eye and he opened 
 it, slowly, calmly, almost without interest, knowing ex- 
 actly what it would say : 
 
 "... I was delighted, old chap, to get your note," he read. "I 
 felt sure it would be all right, for I felt somehow that I had ex- 
 aggerated your feeling towards her. As you say, what one has 
 
306 The Wave 
 
 to think of with a woman in so delicate a position is her happi- 
 ness more than one's own. But I wouldn't do anything to offend 
 you or cause you pain for worlds, and I'm awfully glad to know 
 the way is clear. To tell you the truth, I went away on purpose, 
 for I felt uneasy. I wanted to be quite sure first that I was not 
 trespassing. She made me feel I was doing you no wrong, but 
 I wanted your assurance too. . . ." 
 
 There was a good deal more in similar vein he laid 
 the burden upon her ending with a word to say he was 
 coming back to Luxor immediately. He would arrive the 
 following day. 
 
 As a matter of fact Tony was already then in the train 
 that left Cairo that evening and reached Luxor at eight 
 o'clock next morning. Tom, who had counted upon an- 
 other twenty-four hours' respite, did not know this; nor 
 did he know till later that another telegram had been car- 
 ried by a ghostly little Arab boy, with the result that 
 Tony and Lettice enjoyed their hot rolls and coffee alone 
 together in the shady garden where the cool northern 
 wind rattled among the palm trees. Mrs. Haughstone 
 mentioned it in due course, however, having watched the 
 tete-a-tete from her bedroom window, unobserved. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 AND next day there was one more revealing incident 
 that helped, yet also hindered him, as he moved 
 along his via dolorosa. For every step he took away 
 from her seemed also to bring him nearer. They fol- 
 lowed opposing curves of a circle. They separated ever 
 more widely, back to back, yet were approaching each 
 other at the same time. They would meet face to 
 face. . . . 
 
 He found her at the piano, practising the song that 
 now ran ever in his blood; the score, he noticed, was in 
 Tony's writing. 
 
 "Unwelcome !" he exclaimed, reading out the title over 
 her shoulder. 
 
 "Tom! How you startled me! I was trying to learn 
 it." She turned to him; her eyes were shining. He 
 was aware of a singular impression struggle, effort 
 barely manageable. Her beauty seemed fresh made; he 
 thought of a wild-rose washed by the dew and sparkling 
 in the sunlight. 
 
 "I thought you knew it already," he observed. 
 
 She laughed significantly, looking up into his face so 
 close he could have kissed her lips by merely bending his 
 head a few inches. "Not quite yet," she answered. 
 "Will you give me a lesson, Tom?" 
 
 "Unpaid?" he asked. 
 
 She looked reproachfully at him. "The best services 
 are unpaid always." 
 
 "I'm afraid I have neither the patience nor the knowl- 
 edge," he replied. 
 
 Her next words stirred happiness in him for a mo- 
 ment ; the divine trust he fought to keep stole from his 
 
 307 
 
308 The Wave 
 
 heart into his eyes: "But you would never, never give 
 up, Tom, no matter how difficult and obstinate the pupil. 
 You would always understand. That I know." 
 
 He moved away. Such double-edged talk, even in 
 play, was dangerous. A deep weariness was in him, 
 weakening self-control. Sensitive to the slightest touch 
 just then, he dared not let her torture him too much. He 
 felt in her a strength far, far beyond his own; he was 
 powerless before her. Had Tony been present he could 
 not have played his part at all. Somehow he had a curi- 
 ous feeling, moreover, that his cousin was not very far 
 away. 
 
 "Tony will be here later, I think," she said, as she 
 followed him outside. "But, if not, he's sure to come 
 to dinner." 
 
 "Good," he replied, thinking that the train arrived 
 in time to dress, and in no way surprised that she divined 
 his thoughts. "We can decide our plans then." He 
 added that he might be obliged to go back to Assouan, 
 but she made no comment. Speech died away between 
 them, as they sat down in the old familiar corner above 
 the Nile. Tom, for the life of him, could think of noth- 
 ing to say. Lettice, on the other hand, wanted to say 
 nothing. He felt that she had nothing to say. Behind, 
 below the numbness in him, meanwhile, her silence 
 stabbed him without ceasing. The intense yearning in 
 his heart threatened any minute to burst forth in ve- 
 hement speech, almost in action. It lay accumulating 
 in him dangerously, ready to leap out at the least sign 
 the pin-prick of a look, a word, a gesture on her part, 
 and he would smash the barrier down between them and 
 ruin all. The sight of Tony, for instance, just then 
 must have been as a red rag to a bull. 
 
 He traced figures in the sand with his heel, he listened 
 to the wind above thm, he never ceased to watch her 
 motionless, indifferent figure stretched above him on the 
 long deck-chair. A book peeped out from behind the 
 
The Wave 309 
 
 cushion where her head rested. Tom put his hand across 
 and took it suddenly, partly for something to do, partly 
 from curiosity as well. She made a quick, restraining 
 gesture, then changed her mind. And again he was con- 
 scious of battle in her, as if two beings fought. 
 
 "The Mary Coleridge Poems," she said carelessly. 
 "Tony gave it me. You'll find the song he put to music." 
 
 Tom vigorously turned the leaves. He had already 
 glanced at the title-page with the small inscription in one 
 corner: "To L. J., from A. W." There was a pencil- 
 mark against a poem half-way through. 
 
 "He's going to write music for some of the others too," 
 she added, watching him; "the ones he has marked." 
 Her voice, he fancied, wavered slightly. 
 
 Tom nodded his head. "I see/' he murmured, notic- 
 ing a cross in pencil. A sullen defiance rose in his blood, 
 but he forced it out of sight. He read the words in a 
 low voice to himself. It was astonishing how the pow- 
 ers behind the scenes forced a contribution from the 
 commonest incidents : 
 
 The sum of loss I have not reckoned yet, 
 
 I cannot tell. 
 For ever it was morning when we met, 
 
 Night when we bade farewell. 
 
 Perhaps the words let loose the emotion, though of 
 different kinds, pent up behind their silence. The strain, 
 at any rate, between them tightened first, then seemed 
 to split. He kept his eyes upon the page before him; 
 Lettice, too, remained still as before ; only her lips moved 
 as she spoke: 
 
 "Tom. . . ." The voice plunged into his heart like 
 iron. 
 
 "Yes," he said quietly, without looking up. 
 
 "Tom," she repeated, "what are you thinking about so 
 hard?" 
 
 He found no answer. 
 
310 The Wave 
 
 "And all to yourself?" 
 
 The blood rushed to his face; her voice was so soft. 
 
 He met her eyes and smiled. "The same as usual, I 
 suppose/' he said. 
 
 For a moment she made no reply, then, glancing at 
 the book lying in his hand, she said in a lower voice: 
 "That woman had suffered deeply. There's truth and 
 passion in every word she writes; there's a marvelous 
 restraint as well. Tom," she added, gazing hard at him, 
 "you feel it, don't you? You understand her?" For 
 an instant she knit her brows as if in perplexity or mis- 
 giving. 
 
 "The truth, yes," he replied after a moment's hesita- 
 tion; "the restraint as well." 
 
 "And the passion?" 
 
 He nodded curtly by way of agreement. He turned 
 the pages over very rapidly. His fingers were as thick 
 and clumsy as rigid bits of wood. He fumbled. 
 
 "Will you read it once again?" she asked. He did so 
 ... in a low voice. With difficulty he reached the end. 
 There was a mist before his eyes and his voice seemed 
 confused. He dared not look up. 
 
 "There's a deep spiritual beauty," he went on slowly, 
 making an enormous effort, "that's what I feel strong- 
 est, I think. There's renunciation, sacrifice " 
 
 He was going to say more, for he felt the words surge 
 up in his throat. This talk, he knew, was a mere safety 
 valve to both of them; they used words as people at- 
 tacked by laughter out of due season seize upon anything, 
 however far-fetched, that may furnish excuse for it. 
 The flood of language and emotion too long suppressed, 
 again rose to his very lips when a slight sound stopped 
 his utterance. He turned. Amazement caught him. 
 Her frozen immobility, her dead indifference, her bore- 
 dom possibly all these, passing suddenly, had melted in 
 a flood of tears. Her face was covered by her hands. 
 She lay there sobbing within a foot of his hungry arms, 
 
The Wave 311 
 
 sobbing as though her heart must break. He saw the 
 drops between her little fingers, trickling. 
 
 It was so sudden, so unexpected, that Tom felt un- 
 able to speak or act at first. Numbness seized him. His 
 faculties were arrested. He watched her, saw the little 
 body heave down its entire length, noted the small con- 
 vulsive movements of it. He saw all this, yet he could 
 not do the natural thing. It was very ghastly. . . . He 
 could not move a muscle, he could not say a single word, 
 he could not comfort her because he knew those tears 
 were the tears of pity only. It was for himself she 
 sobbed. The tenderness in her in "Lettice" broke 
 down before his weight of pain, the weight of pain she 
 herself laid upon him. Nothing that he might do or say 
 could comfort her. Divining what the immediate future 
 held in store for him, she wept these burning tears of 
 pity. In that poignant moment of self-revelation Tom's 
 cumbersome machinery of intuition did not fail him. He 
 understood. It was a confession the last perhaps. He 
 saw ahead with vivid and merciless clarity of vision. 
 Only another could comfort her. . . . Yet he could help. 
 Yes he could help by going. There was no other way. 
 He must slip out. 
 
 And, as if prophetically just then, she murmured be- 
 tween her tight-pressed fingers : "Leave me, Tom, for a 
 moment . . . please go away . . . I'm so mortified . . . 
 this idiotic scene. . . . Leave me a little, then come back. 
 I shall be myself again presently. . . . It's Egypt this 
 awful Egypt. . . ." 
 
 Tom obeyed. He got up and left her, moving without 
 feeling in his legs, as though he walked in his sleep, as 
 though he dreamed, as though he were dead. He did 
 not notice the direction. He walked mechanically. It 
 felt to him that he simply walked clean out of her life 
 into a world of emptiness and ice and shadows. . . . 
 
 The river lay below him in a flood of light. He saw 
 the Theban Hills rolling their dark, menacing wave along 
 
312 The Wave 
 
 the far horizon. In the blistering heat the desert lay sun- 
 drenched, basking, silent. Its faint sweet perfume reached 
 him in the northern wind, that pungent odor of the sand, 
 which is the odor of this sun-baked land etherealized. 
 
 A fiery intensity of light lay over it, as though any 
 moment it must burst into sheets of flame. So intense 
 was the light that it seemed to let sight through to to 
 what? To a more distant vision, infinitely remote. It 
 was not a mirror, but a transparency. The eyes slipped 
 through it marvelously. 
 
 He stood on the steps of worn-out sandstone, listen- 
 ing, staring, feeling nothing . . . and then a little song 
 came floating across the air towards him, sung by a boat- 
 man in mid-stream. It was a native melody, but it had 
 the strange, monotonous lilt of Tony's old-Egyptian mel- 
 ody. . . . And feeling stole back upon him, alternately 
 burning and freezing the currents of his blood. The 
 childhood nightmare touch crept into him: he saw the 
 wavelike outline of the gloomy hills, he heard the wind 
 rattling in the leaves behind him, to his nostrils came the 
 strange, penetrating perfume of the tawny desert that 
 encircles ancient Thebes, and in the air before him hung 
 two pairs of eyes, dark, faithful eyes, cruel and at the 
 same time tender, true yet merciless, and the others 
 treacherous, false, light blue in color. ... He began to 
 shuffle furiously with his feet. . . . The soul in him went 
 under. . . . He turned to face the menace coming up be- 
 hind . . . the falling Wave. 
 
 "Tom !" he heard and turned back towards her. And 
 when he reached her side, she had so entirely regained 
 composure that he could hardly believe it was the same 
 person. Fresh and radiant she looked once more, no sign 
 of tears, no traces of her recent emotion anywhere. Per- 
 haps the interval had been longer than he guessed, but, in 
 any case, the change was swift and half unaccountable. 
 In himself, equally, was a calmness that seemed unnat- 
 ural. He heard himself speaking in an even tone about 
 
The Wave 313 
 
 the view, the river, the gold of the coming sunset. He 
 wished to spare her, he talked as though nothing had hap- 
 pened, he mentioned the deep purple color of the hills 
 when she broke out with sudden vehemence. 
 
 "Oh, don't speak of those hills, those awful hills," she 
 cried. "I dread the sight of them. Last night I dreamed 
 again they crushed me down into the sand. I felt bur- 
 ied beneath them, deep, deep down buried." She whis- 
 pered the last word as though to herself. 
 
 The words amazed him. He caught the passing shiver 
 in her voice. 
 
 "'Again'?" he asked. "You've dreamed of them be- 
 fore ?" He stood close, looking down at her. The sense 
 of his own identity returned slowly, yet he still felt two 
 persons in him. 
 
 "Often and often," she said in a lowered tone, "since 
 Tony came. I dream that we all three lie buried some- 
 where in that forbidding valley. It terrifies me more 
 and more each time." 
 
 "Strange," he said. "For they draw me too. I feel 
 them somehow known familiar." He paused. "I be- 
 lieve Tony was right, you know, when he said that we 
 three " 
 
 How she stopped him he never quite understood. At 
 first he thought the curious movement on her face por- 
 tended tears again, but the next second he saw that in- 
 stead of tears a slow strange smile was stealing upon her 
 upwards from the mouth. It lay upon her features for 
 a second only, but long enough to alter them. A thin, 
 diaphanous mask, transparent, swiftly fleeting, passed 
 over her, and through it another woman, yet herself, 
 peered up at him with a penetrating yet somehow distant 
 gaze. A shudder ran down his spine ; there was a sensa- 
 tion of inner cold against his heart ; he trembled, but he 
 could not look away. . . . He saw in that brief instant 
 the face of the woman who tortured him. The same 
 second, so swiftly was it gone again, he saw Lettice 
 
The Wave 
 
 watching him through half-closed eyelids. He heard her 
 saying something. She was completing the sentence that 
 had interrupted him: 
 
 "We're too imaginative, Tom. Believe me, Egypt is 
 no place to let imagination loose, and I don't like it." 
 She sighed : there was exhaustion in her. "It's stimu- 
 lating enough without our help. Besides " she used 
 a curious adjective "it's dangerous too." 
 
 Tom willingly let the subject drop; his own desire was 
 to appear natural, to protect her, to save her pain. He 
 thought no longer of himself. Drawing upon all his 
 strength, forcing himself almost to breaking-point, he 
 talked quietly of obvious things, while longing secretly 
 to get away to riis own room where he could be alone. 
 He craved to hide himself ; like a stricken animal his in- 
 stinct was to withdraw from observation. 
 
 The arrival of the tea-tray helped him, and, while 
 they drank, the sky let down the emblazoned curtain of 
 a hundred colors lest Night should bring her diamonds 
 unnoticed, unannounced. There is no dusk in Egypt; 
 the sun draws on his opal hood; there is a rush of soft 
 white stars : the desert cools, and the wind turns icy. 
 Night, high on her spangled throne, watches the sun dip 
 down behind the Lybian sands. 
 
 Tom felt this coming of Night as he sat there, so close 
 to Lettice that he could touch her fingers, feel her breath, 
 catch the lightest rustle of her thin white dress. He 
 felt night creeping in upon his heart. Swiftly the shad- 
 ows piled. His soul seemed draped in blackness, drained 
 of its shining gold, hidden below the horizon of the 
 years. It sank out of sight, cold, lost, forgotten. His 
 day was past and over. . . . 
 
 They had been sitting silent for some minutes when a 
 voice became audible, singing in the distance. It came 
 nearer. Tom recognized the tune "We were young, we 
 were merry, we were very, very wise" ; and Lettice sat 
 up suddenly to listen. But Tom then thought of one 
 
The Wave 315 
 
 thing only that it was beyond his power just now to 
 meet his cousin. He knew his control was not equal to 
 the task; he would betray himself; the role was too ex- 
 acting. He rose abruptly. 
 
 "That must be Tony coming," Lettice said. "His tea 
 will be all cold !" Each word was a caress, each syllable 
 alive with interest, sympathy, excited anticipation. She 
 had become suddenly alive. Tom saw her eyes shining 
 as she gazed past him down the darkening drive. He 
 made his absurd excuse. "I'm going home to rest a bit, 
 Lettice. I played tennis too hard. The sun's given me 
 a headache. We'll meet later. You'll keep Tony for 
 dinner ?" His mind had begun to work, too ; the evening 
 train from Cairo, he remembered, was not due for an 
 hour or more yet. A hideous suspicion rushed like fire 
 through him. 
 
 But he asked no question. He knew they wished to be 
 alone together. Yet also he had a wild, secret hope that 
 she would be disappointed. He was speedily undeceived. 
 
 "All right, Tom," she answered, hardly looking at 
 him. "And mind you're not late. Eight o'clock sharp. 
 I'll make Tony stay." 
 
 He was gone. He chose the path along the river bank 
 instead of going by the drive. He did not look back once. 
 It was when he entered the road a little later that he met 
 Mrs. Haughstone coming home from a visit to some 
 friends in his hotel. It was then she told him. . . . 
 
 "What a surprise you must have had," Tom believes he 
 said in reply. He said something, at any rate, that he 
 hoped sounded natural and right. 
 
 "Oh, no," Mrs. Haughstone explained. "We were 
 quite prepared. Lettice had a telegram, you see, to let 
 her know." 
 
 She told him other things as well. . . . 
 
PART IV 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 TONY had come back. The Play turned very real. 
 The situation a trois thenceforward became, for 
 Tom, an acutely afflicting one. He found no permanent 
 resting-place for heart or mind. He analyzed, asked 
 himself questions without end, but a final decisive judg- 
 ment evaded him. He wrote letters and tore them up 
 again. He hid himself in Assouan with belief for a com- 
 panion, he came back and found that companion had 
 been but a masquerader dis-belief. Suspicion grew 
 confirmed into conviction. Vanity persuaded him against 
 the weight of evidence, then left him naked with his 
 facts. He wanted to kill, first others, then himself. 
 He laughed, but the same minute he could have cried. 
 Such complicated tangles of emotion were beyond his 
 solving it amazed him; such prolonged and incessant 
 torture, so delicately applied he marveled that a hu- 
 man heart could bear it without breaking. For the af- 
 fection and sympathy he felt for his cousin refused to 
 die, while his worship and passion towards an unre- 
 sponsive woman increasingly consumed him. 
 
 He no longer recognized himself, his cousin, Lettice; 
 all three, indeed, were singularly changed. Each du- 
 plicated into a double role. Towards their former selves 
 he kept his former attitude of affection, love, belief; 
 towards the usurping selves he felt he knew not what. 
 Therefore he drifted. . . Strange, mysterious, tender, 
 unfathomable Woman! Vain, primitive, self-sufficing, 
 confident Man ! In him the masculine tried to reason and 
 analyze to the very end ; in her the feminine interpreted 
 intuitively: the male and female attitudes, that is, held 
 true throughout The Wave swept him forward irre- 
 
 3i9 
 
320 The Wave 
 
 sistibly, his very soul, it seemed, went shuffling to find 
 solid ground. . . . 
 
 Meanwhile, however, no one broke the rules rules 
 that apparently had made themselves subtle and delicate, 
 it took place mostly out of sight, as it were, inside the 
 heart. Below the mask of ordinary surface-conduct all 
 agreed to wear, the deeper, inevitable intercourse pro- 
 ceeded, a Play within a Play, a tragedy concealed thinly 
 by general consent under the most commonplace comedy 
 imaginable. All acted out their parts, rehearsed, it 
 seemed, of long ago. For, more and more, it came to 
 Tom that the one thing he must never lose, whatever hap- 
 pened, was his trust in her. He must cling to that though 
 it cost him all trust in her love and truth and constancy. 
 This singular burden seemed laid upon his soul. If he 
 lost that trust and that belief, the Wave could never 
 break, she could never justify that trust and that be- 
 lief. 
 
 This "enchantment" that tortured him, straining his 
 whole being, was somehow a test indeed of his final wor- 
 thiness to win her. Somehow, somewhence, he owed 
 her this. . . . He dared not fail. For if he failed the 
 Wave that should sweep her back into the "sea" with him 
 would not break he would merely go on shuffling with 
 his feet to the end of life. Tony and Lettice conquered 
 him till he lay bleeding in the sand ; Tom played the role 
 of loss obediently almost ; the feeling that they were set 
 in power over him persisted strangely. It dominated, at 
 any rate, the resistance he would otherwise have offered. 
 He must learn to do without her in order that she might 
 in the end be added to him. Thus, and thus alone, could 
 he find himself, and reach the level where she lived. 
 He took his fate from her gentle, merciless hands, well 
 knowing that it had to be. In some marvelous, sweet 
 way the sacrifice would bring her back again at last, but 
 bring her back completed- and to a Tom worthy of her 
 love. The self-centered, confident man in him that 
 
The Wave 321 
 
 deemed itself indispensable must crumble. To find re- 
 generation he must risk destruction. 
 
 Events yet always inner events moved with such 
 rapidity then that he lost count of time. The barrier 
 never lowered again. He played his ghastly part in si- 
 lence always inner silence. Out of sight, below the sur- 
 face, the deep wordless Play continued. With Tony's 
 return the drama hurried. The actor all had been wait- 
 ing for came on, and took the center of the stage, and 
 stayed until the curtain fell a few weeks, all told, of 
 their short Egyptian winter. 
 
 In the crowded rush of action Tom felt the Wave 
 bend, break, and smash him. At its highest moment he 
 saw the stars, at its lowest the crunch of shifting gravel 
 filled his ears, the mud blinded sight, the rubbish choked 
 his breath. Yet he had seen those distant stars. . . . 
 Into the mothering sea, as he sank back, the memory of 
 the light went with him. It was a kind of incredible 
 performance, half on earth and half in the air : it rushed 
 with such impetuous momentum. 
 
 Amid the intensity of his human emotions, meanwhile, 
 he lost sight of any subtler hints, if indeed they offered : 
 he saw no veiled eastern visions any more, divined no 
 psychic warnings. His agony of blinding pain, alternat- 
 ing with briefest intervals of shining hope when he re- 
 covered belief in her and called himself the worst names 
 he could think of this seething warfare of cruder feel- 
 ings left no part of him sensitive to the delicate prompt- 
 ings of finer forces, least of all to the tracery of fancied 
 memories. He only gasped for breath sufficient to keep 
 himself afloat and cry, as he had promised he would cry, 
 even to the bitter end : "I'll face it ... I'll stick it out 
 . . . I'll trust . . . !" 
 
 The setting of the Play was perfect ; in Egypt alone 
 was its production possible. The brilliant lighting, the 
 fathomless, soft shadows, deep covering of blue by day, 
 clear stars by night, the solemn hills, and the slow, eternal 
 
322 The Wave 
 
 river all these, against the huge background of the Des- 
 ert, silent, golden, lonely, formed the adequate and true 
 environment. In no other country, in England least of 
 all, could the presentation have been real. Tony, himself, 
 and Lettice belonged, one and all, it seemed, to Egypt 
 yet, somehow, not wholly to the Egypt of the tourist 
 hordes and dragoman, and big hotels. The Onlooker hi 
 him, who stood aloof and held a watching brief, looked 
 down upon an ancient land unvexed by railways, gra- 
 ciously clothed and colored gorgeously, mapped burn- 
 ingly mid fiercer passions, eager for life, contemptuous of 
 death. He did not understand, but that it was thus, not 
 otherwise, he knew. . . . 
 
 Her beauty, too, both physical and spiritual, became 
 for him strangely heightened. He shifted between moods 
 of worship that were alternately physical and spiritual. 
 In the former he pictured her with darker coloring, half 
 barbaric, eastern, her slender figure flitting through a 
 grove of palms beyond a river too wide for him to cross ; 
 gold bands gleamed upon her arms, bare to the shoulder ; 
 he could not reach her ; she was with another it was 
 torturing; she and that other disappeared into the cov- 
 ering shadows. ... In the latter, however, there was no 
 unworthy thought, no faintest desire of the blood; he 
 saw her high among the little stars, gazing with tender, 
 pitying eyes upon him, calling softly, praying for him, 
 loving him, yet remote in some spiritual isolation where 
 she must wait until he soared to join her. 
 
 Both physically and spiritually, that is, he idealized 
 her saw her divinely naked. She did not move. She 
 hung there like a star, waiting for him, while he was 
 carried past her, swept along helplessly by a tide, a flood, 
 a wave, though a wave that was somehow rising up to 
 where she dwelt above him. . . . 
 
 It was a marvelous experience. In the physical moods 
 he felt the fires of jealousy burn his flesh away to the 
 bare nerves resentment, rage, a bitterness that could 
 
The Wave 323 
 
 kill; in the alternate state he felt the uplifting joy and 
 comfort of ultimate sacrifice, sweet as heaven, the bliss 
 of complete renunciation for her happiness. If she 
 loved another who could give her greater joy, he had no 
 right to interfere. 
 
 It was this last that gradually increased in strength, the 
 first that slowly, surely died. Unsatisfied yearnings hunt- 
 ed his soul across the empty desert that now seemed life. 
 The self he had been so pleased with, had admired so 
 proudly with calm complacence, thinking it indispensable 
 this was tortured, stabbed and mercilessly starved to 
 death by slow degrees, while something else appeared 
 shyly, gently, as yet unaware of itself, but already clearer 
 and stronger. In the depths of his being, below an im- 
 mense horizon, shone joy, luring him onward and bright- 
 ening as it did so. 
 
 Love, he realized, was independent of the will no 
 one can will to love: she was not anywhere to blame, a 
 stronger claim had come into life and changed her. She 
 could not live untruth, pretending otherwise. He, rather, 
 was to blame if he sought to hold her to a smaller love 
 she had outgrown. She had the inalienable right to obey 
 the bigger claim, if such it proved to be. Personal free- 
 dom was the basis of their contract. It would have been 
 easier for him if she could have told him frankly, shared 
 it with him; but, since that seemed beyond her, then it 
 was for him to slip away. He must subtract himself from 
 an inharmonious three, leaving a perfect two. He must 
 make it easier for her. 
 
 The days of golden sunshine passed along their ap- 
 pointed way as before, leaving him still without a final 
 decision. Outwardly the little party a trois seemed har- 
 monious, a coherent unit, while inwardly the accumulation 
 of suppressed emotion crept nearer and nearer to the final 
 breaking point. They lived upon a crater, playing their 
 comedy within sight and hearing of destruction: even 
 
324 The Wave 
 
 Mrs. Haughstone, ever waiting in the wings for her cue, 
 came on effectively and filled her role, insignificant yet 
 necessary. Its meanness was its truth. 
 
 "Mr. Winslowe excites my cousin too much ; I'm sure 
 it isn't good for her in England, yes, but not out here in 
 this strong, dangerous climate." 
 
 Tom understood, but invariably opposed her: 
 
 "If it makes her happy for a little while, I see no harm 
 in it; life has not been too kind to her, remember." 
 
 Sometimes, however, the hint was barbed as well: 
 "Your cousin is a delightful being, but he can talk non- 
 sense when he wants to. He's actually been trying to 
 persuade me that you're jealous of him. He said you 
 were only waiting a suitable moment to catch him alone 
 in the Desert and shoot him!" 
 
 Tom countered her with an assumption of porten- 
 tous gravity : "Sound travels too easily in this still air," 
 he reminded her; "the Nile would be the simplest way." 
 After which, confused by ridicule, she renounced the hint 
 direct, indulging instead in facial expression, glances, and 
 innuendo conveyed by gesture. 
 
 That there was some truth, however, behind this be- 
 trayal of her hostess and her fellow-guest, Tom felt cer- 
 tain; it lied more by exaggeration than by sheer inven- 
 tion : he listened while he hated it ; ashamed of himself, 
 he yet invited the ever-ready warnings, though he invari- 
 ably defended the object of them and himself. 
 
 Alternating thus, he knew no minute of happiness; a 
 single day, a single hour contained both moods, trust 
 ousted suspicion, and suspicion turned out trust. Let- 
 tice led him on, then abruptly turned to ice. In the morn- 
 ing he was first and Tony nowhere, the same afternoon 
 this was reversed precisely yet the balance growing 
 steadily in his cousin's favor, the evidence accumulating 
 against himself. It was not purposely contrived, it was 
 in automatic obedience to deeper impulses than she knew. 
 Tom never lost sight of this amazing duality in her, the 
 
The Wave 325 
 
 struggle of one self against another older self to which 
 cruelty was no stranger or, as he put it, the newly 
 awakened Woman against the Mother in her. 
 
 He could not fail to note the different effects he and 
 his cousin produced in her the ghastly difference. With 
 himself she was captious, easily exasperated; her rela- 
 tions with Tony, above all, a sensitive spot on which she 
 could bear no slightest pressure without annoyance; 
 while behind this attitude, hid always the faithful moth- 
 erly care that could not see him in distress. That touch 
 of comedy lay in it dreadfully: wet feet, cold, hungry, 
 tired, and she flew to his consoling! Towards Tony this 
 side of her remained unresponsive ; he might drink unfil- 
 tered water for all she cared, tire himself to death, or sit 
 in a draught for hours. It could have been comic almost 
 but for its significance : that from Tony she received, in- 
 stead of gave. The woman in her asked, claimed even 
 of the man in him. The pain for Tom lay there. 
 
 His cousin amused, stimulated her beyond anything 
 Tom could offer; she sought protection from him, leant 
 upon him. In his presence she blossomed out, her eyes 
 shone the moment he arrived, her voice altered, her spir- 
 its became exuberant. The wholesome physical was 
 awakened by him. He could not hope to equal Tony's 
 address, his fascination. He never forgot that she once 
 danced for happiness. . . . Helplessness grew upon him 
 he had no right to feel angry even, he could not justly 
 blame herself or his cousin. The woman in her was open 
 to capture by another ; so far it had never belonged to 
 him. In vain he argued that the mother was the larger 
 part; it was the woman that he wanted with it. Hav- 
 ing separated the two aspects of her in this way, the di- 
 vision, once made, remained. 
 
 And every day that passed this difference in her to- 
 wards himself and Tony grew more mercilessly marked. 
 The woman in her responded to another touch than his. 
 Though neither lust nor passion, he knew, dwelt in her 
 
326 The Wave 
 
 pure being anywhere, there were yet a thousand and deli- 
 cate unconscious ways by which a woman betrayed her 
 attraction to a being of the opposite sex ; they could not 
 be challenged, but equally they could not be misinter- 
 preted. Like the color and perfume of a rose, they em- 
 anated from her inmost being. ... In this sense, she 
 was sexually indifferent to Tom, and while passion con- 
 sumed his soul, he felt her, dearly mothering, yet cold as 
 ice. The soft winds of Egypt bent the full-blossomed 
 rose into another's hand, towards another's lips. . . . 
 Tony had entered the garden of her secret life. 
 
CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 AND so the fires of jealousy burned him. He strug- 
 gled hard, smothering all outward expression of his 
 pain, with the sole result that the suppression increased 
 the fury of the heat within. For every day the tiniest 
 details fed its fierceness. It was inextinguishable. He 
 lost his appetite, his sleep, he lost all sense of what is 
 called proportion. There was no rest in him, day and 
 night he lived in the consuming flame. 
 
 His cousin's irresponsibility now assumed a sinister 
 form that shocked him. He recognized the libertine in 
 his careless play with members of the other sex who had 
 pleased him for moments, then been tossed aside. He 
 became aware of grossness in his eyes and lips and bear- 
 ing. He understood, above all, his hands. 
 
 Against the fiery screen of his emotions jealousy threw 
 violent pictures which he mistook for thought . . ., and 
 there burst through this screen, then, scattering all lesser 
 feelings, the flame of a vindictive anger that he believed 
 was the protective righteous anger of an outraged man. 
 "If Tony did her wrong," he told himself, "I would kill 
 him." 
 
 Always, at this extravagant moment, however, he 
 reached a climax, then calmed down again. A sense of 
 humor rose incongruously to check loss of self-restraint. 
 The memory of her daily tenderness swept over him; 
 and shame sent a blush into his cheeks. He felt morti- 
 fied, ungenerous, a foolish figure even. While the reac- 
 tion lasted he forgave, felt her above reproach, cursed 
 his wretched thoughts that had tried to soil her, and lost 
 the violent vindictiveness that had betrayed him. His af- 
 fection for his cousin, always real, and the sympathy be- 
 
 327 
 
328 The Wave 
 
 tween them, always genuine, returned to complete his 
 own discomfiture. His mood swayed back to the first, 
 happy days when the three of them had laughed and 
 played together. 
 
 And to punish himself while this reaction lasted, he 
 would seek her out and see that she inflicted the punish- 
 ment itself. He would hear from her own lips how 
 fond she was of Tony, fighting to convince himself, while 
 he listened, that she was above suspicion, and that his 
 pain was due solely to unworthy jealousy. He would 
 be specially nice to Tony, making things easier for him, 
 even urging him, as it were, into her very arms. 
 
 These moments of generous reaction, however, seemed 
 to puzzle her. The exalted state of emotion was con- 
 fined, perhaps, to himself. At any rate, he produced re- 
 sults the very reverse of what he intended; Tony be- 
 came more cautious, Lettice looked at himself with half- 
 questioning eyes. . . . There was falseness in his atti- 
 tude, something unnatural. It was not the part he was 
 cast for in the Play. He could not keep it up. He fell 
 back once more to watching, listening, playing his proper 
 role of a slave who was forced to observe the happiness 
 of others set somehow over him, while suffering in si- 
 lence. The inner fires were fed anew thereby. He knew 
 himself flung back, bruised and bleeding, upon his orig- 
 inal fear and jealousy, convinced more than ever before 
 that this cruelty and torture had to be, and that his pain 
 was justified. To resist was only to delay the perfect 
 dawn. 
 
 The sum of loss I have not reckoned yet, 
 
 I cannot tell. 
 For ever it was morning when we met, 
 
 Night when we bade farewell. 
 
 He changed the pronouns in the last two lines, for al- 
 ways it was morning when they met, night when they 
 bade farewell. 
 
The Wave 329 
 
 Mrs. Haughstone, meanwhile, neglected no opportunity 
 of dotting the vowel for his benefit; she crossed each t 
 that the writing of the stars dropped fluttering across 
 her path. "Mr. Winslowe has emotions," she mentioned 
 once, "but he has no heart. If he ever marries and settles 
 down, his wife will find it out." 
 
 "My cousin is not the kind to marry/' Tom replied. 
 "He's too changeable, and he knows it." 
 
 "He's young," she said, "he hasn't found the right 
 woman yet. He will improve a woman older than him- 
 self with the mother strong in her might hold him. He 
 needs the mother too. Most men do, I think ; they're all 
 children really." 
 
 Tom laughed. "Tony as father of a family I can't 
 imagine it." 
 
 "Once he had children of his own," she suggested, "he 
 would steady wonderfully. Those men often make the 
 best husbands don't you think?" 
 
 "Perhaps," Tom replied briefly. "Provided there's 
 real heart beneath." 
 
 "In the woman, yes," returned the other quietly. "Too 
 much heart in the man can so easily cloy. A real man is 
 always half a savage; that's why the woman likes him. 
 It's the woman who guards the family." 
 
 Tom, knowing that her words veiled other meanings, 
 pretended not to notice. He no longer rose to the bait 
 she offered. He detected the nonsense, the insincerity as 
 well, but he could not argue successfully, and generaliza- 
 tions were equally beyond him. Too polite to strike back, 
 he always waited till she had talked herself out; besides 
 he often acquired information thus, information he both 
 longed for yet disliked intensely. Such information 
 rarely failed : it was, indeed, the desire to impart it with 
 an air of naturalness that caused the conversation almost 
 invariably. It appeared now. It was pregnant informa- 
 tion, too. She conveyed it in a lowered tone : there was 
 news from Warsaw. The end, it seemed, was expected 
 
330 The Wave 
 
 by the doctors ; a few months at most. Lettice had been 
 warned, however, that her appearance could do no good ; 
 the sufferer mistook her for a relative who came to per- 
 secute him. Her presence would only hasten the end. 
 She had cabled, none the less, to say that she would 
 come. This was a week ago; the answer was expected 
 in a day or two. 
 
 And Tom had not been informed of this. 
 
 "Mr. Winslowe thinks she ought to go at once. I'm 
 sure his advice is wise. Even if her presence can do no 
 good, it might be an unceasing regret if she was not 
 there. . . ." 
 
 "Your cousin alone can judge," he interrupted coldly. 
 "I'd rather not discuss it, if you don't mind," he added, 
 noticing her eagerness to continue the conversation. 
 
 "Oh, certainly, Mr. Kelverdon just as you feel. But 
 in case she asks your advice as well I only thought 
 you'd like to know to be prepared, I mean." 
 
 Only long afterwards did it occur to him that Tony's 
 informant was possibly this jealous parasite herself, who 
 now deliberately put the matter in another light, hoping 
 to sow discord to her own eventual benefit. All he real- 
 ized at the moment was the intolerable pain that Lettice 
 should tell him nothing. She looked to Tony for help, 
 advice, possibly for consolation too. 
 
 There were moments of another kind, however, when 
 it seemed quite easy to talk plainly. His position was 
 absurd, undignified, unmanly. It was for him to state 
 his case and abide by the result. Hearts rarely break in 
 two, for all that poets and women might protest. 
 
 These moments, however, he did not use. It was not 
 that he shrank from hearing his sentence plainly spoken, 
 nor that he decided he must not prevent something that 
 had to be. The reason lay deeper still: it was impos- 
 sible. In her presence he became tongue-tied, helpless. 
 His own stupidity overwhelmed him. Silence took him. 
 He felt at a hopeless disadvantage, ashamed even. No 
 
The Wave 331 
 
 words of his could reach her through the distance, across 
 the barrier, that lay between them now. He made no 
 single attempt. His aching heart, filled with an immeas- 
 urable love, remained without the relief of utterance. 
 He had lost her. But he loved now something in her 
 place beyond the possibility of loss an indestructible 
 ideal. 
 
 Words, therefore, were not only impossible, they were 
 vain. And when the final moment came they were still 
 more useless. He could go, but he could not tell her he 
 was going. Before that moment came, however, another 
 searching experience was his: he saw Tony jealous 
 jealous of himself ! He actually came to feel sympathy 
 with his cousin who was his rival! It was his faithful 
 love that made that possible too. 
 
 He realized this suddenly one day at Assouan. 
 
 He had been thinking about the long conversations 
 Tony and Lettice enjoyed together, wondering what they 
 found to discuss at such interminable length. From that 
 his mind slipped easily into another question how she 
 could be so insensible to the pain she caused him? 
 when, all in a flash, he realized the distance she had 
 traveled from him on the road of love towards Tony. 
 The moment of perspective made it abruptly clear. She 
 now talked with Tony as once, at Montreux and else- 
 where, she had talked with himself. He saw his former 
 place completely occupied. As an accomplished fact he 
 saw it. 
 
 The belief that Tony's influence would weaken de- 
 serted him from that instant. It had been but a false 
 hope created by desire and yearning. 
 
 There was a crash. He reached the bottom of despair. 
 That same evening, on returning to his hotel from the 
 works, he found a telegram. It had been arranged that 
 Lettice, Tony, Miss de Lome and her brother should join 
 him in Assouan. The telegram stated briefly that it was 
 not possible after all: she sent an excuse. 
 
332 The Wave 
 
 The sleepless night was no new thing to him, but the 
 acuteness of new suffering was a revelation. Jealousy 
 unmasked her amazing powers of poisonous and devas- 
 tating energy. . . . He visualized in detail. He saw Let- 
 tice and his cousin together in the very situations he had 
 hitherto reserved imaginatively for himself, both sweets 
 hoped for and delights experienced, but raised now a 
 hundredfold in actuality. Like pictures of flame they 
 rose before his inner eye ; they seared and scorched him ; 
 his blood turned acid; the dregs of agony were his to 
 drink. The happiness he had planned for himself, down 
 to the smallest minutiae of each precious incident, he now 
 saw transferred in this appalling way to another. Not 
 deliberately summoned, not morbidly evoked the pic- 
 tures rose of their own accord against the background of 
 his mind, yet so instinct with actuality, that it seemed he 
 had surely lived them, too, himself with her, somewhere, 
 somehow . . . before. There was that same haunting 
 touch of familiarity about them. 
 
 In the long hours of this particular night he reached, 
 perhaps, the acme of his pain; imagination, whipped by 
 jealousy, stoked the furnace to a heat he had not known 
 as yet. He had been clinging to a visionary hope. "I've 
 lost her . . . lost her . . . lost her/' he repeated to him- 
 self, as though with each repetition the meaning of the 
 phrase grew clearer. Numbness followed upon misery; 
 there were long intervals when he felt nothing at all, pe- 
 riods when he thought he hated her, when pride and 
 anger whispered he could do without her. ... A state 
 of negative insensibility followed. . . . On the heels of 
 it came a red and violent vindictiveness ; next resigna- 
 tion, complete acceptance, almost peace. Then acute sen- 
 sitiveness returned again he felt the whole series of 
 emotions over and over without one omission. This 
 numbness and sensitiveness alternated with a kind of 
 rhythmic succession. . . . He reviewed the entire epi- 
 sode from beginning to end, recalled every word she had 
 
The Wave 333 
 
 uttered, traced the gradual influence of Tony on her, 
 from its first faint origin to its present climax. He saw 
 her struggles and her tears . . . the mysterious duality 
 working to possess her soul. It was all plain as daylight. 
 No justification for any further hope was left to him. 
 He must go. ... It was the thunder, surely, of the fall- 
 ing Wave. 
 
 For Tony, he realized at last, had not merely usurped 
 his own place, but had discovered a new Lettice to her- 
 self, and setting her thus in a new, a larger world, had 
 taught her a new relationship. He had achieved per- 
 haps innocently enough so far as his conscience was con- 
 cerned ? a new result, and a bigger one than Tom, with 
 his lesser powers, could possibly have effected. 
 
 There was no falseness, no duplicity in her. "She still 
 loves me as before, the mother still gives me what she 
 always gave," Tom put it to himself, "but Tony has 
 plowed deeper reached the woman in her. He loves 
 a Lettice I have never realized. It is this new Lettice 
 that loves him in return. . . . What right have I, with 
 my smaller claim, to stand in her way a single moment? 
 ... I must slip out." 
 
 He had lost the dream that Tony but tended a blossom, 
 the fruit of which would come sweetly to his plucking 
 afterwards. The intense suffering concealed all proph- 
 ecy, as the jealousy killed all hope. He spent that final 
 night of awful pain on his balcony, remembering how 
 weeks before in Luxor the first menacing presentiment 
 had come to him. He stared out into the Egyptian won- 
 der of outer darkness. The stillness held a final men- 
 ace as of death. He recalled a Polish proverb. . . . "In 
 the still marshes there are devils." The world spread 
 dark and empty like his life; the Theban Hills seemed 
 to have crept after him, here to Assouan; the stars, in- 
 credibly distant, had no warmth or comfort in them ; the 
 river roared with a dull and lonely sound; he heard the 
 
334 The Wave 
 
 palm trees rattling in the wind. The pain in him was 
 almost physical. . . . 
 
 Dawn found him in the same position yet with a 
 change. Perhaps the prolonged agony had killed the ache 
 of ceaseless personal craving, or perhaps the fierceness 
 of the fire had burned it out. Tom could not say; nor 
 did he ask the questions. A change was there, and that 
 was all he knew. He had come at last to a decision, made 
 a final choice. He had somehow fought his battle out 
 with a courage he did not know was courage. Here at 
 Assouan, he turned upon the Wave and faced it. He 
 saw her happiness only, fixed all his hope and energy on 
 that. A new and loftier strength woke in him. There 
 was no shuffling now. 
 
 He would give her up. In his heart she would al- 
 ways remain his dream and his ideal but outwardly he 
 would no longer need her. He would do without her. 
 He forgave if there was anything to forgive forgave 
 them both. . . . 
 
 Something in him had broken. 
 
 He could not explain it, though he felt it : Yet it was 
 not her that he had given up it was himself. 
 
 The first effect of this, however, was to think that life 
 lay in ruins round him, that, literally, the life in him was 
 smothered by the breaking wave. . . . 
 
 And yet he did not break he did not drown. 
 
 For, as though to show that his decision was the right, 
 inevitable one, small outward details came to his assist- 
 ance. Fate evidently approved. For Fate just then fur- 
 nished relief by providing another outlet for his ener- 
 gies : the Works went seriously wrong : Tom could think 
 of nothing else but how he could put things right again. 
 Reflection, introspection, brooding over mental and spir- 
 itual pain became impossible. 
 
 The lieutenants he trusted had played him false; sub- 
 
The Wave 335 
 
 contracts of an outrageous kind, flavored by bribery, 
 had been entered into; the cost of certain necessaries 
 had been raised absurdly, with the result that the profits 
 of the entire undertaking to the Firm must be lowered 
 correspondingly. And the blame, the responsibility was 
 his own ; he had unwisely delegated his powers to under- 
 lings whose ambitions for money exceeded their sense 
 of honor. But Tom's honor was involved as well. He 
 had delegated his powers in writing. He now had to 
 pay the price of his prolonged neglect of duty. 
 
 The position was irremediable; Tom's neglect and 
 inefficiency were established beyond question. He had 
 failed in a position of high trust. And to make the situa- 
 tion still less pleasant, Sir William, the Chairman of the 
 Company Tom's chief, the man to whom he owed his 
 partnership and post of trust telegraphed that he was 
 on the way at last from Salonika. One way alone of- 
 fered to break the disastrous contracts by payments 
 made down without delay. Tom made these payments 
 out of his own pocket; they were large; his private re- 
 sources disappeared in a single day. . . . But, even so, 
 the delay and bungling at the Works were not to be con- 
 cealed. Sir William, shrewd, experienced man of busi- 
 ness, stern of heart as well as hard of head, could not 
 be deceived. Within half an hour of his arrival, Tom 
 Kelverdon's glaring incompetency worse, his unrelia- 
 bility, to use no harsher word were all laid bare. His 
 position in the Firm, even his partnership, perhaps, be- 
 came untenable. Resignation stared him in the face. 
 
 He saw his life go down in ruins before his very eyes ; 
 the roof had fallen long ago. The pillars now collapsed. 
 The Wave, indeed, had turned him upside down; its 
 smothering crash left no corner of his being above water; 
 heart, mind, and character were flung in a broken tan- 
 gle against the cruel bottom as it fell to earth. 
 
 But, at any rate, the new outlet for his immediate 
 energies was offered. He seized it vigorously. He gave 
 
336 The Wave 
 
 up his room at Luxor, and sent a man down to bring his 
 luggage up. He did not write to Lettice. He faced the 
 practical situation with a courage and thoroughness 
 which, though too late, were admirable. Moreover, he 
 found a curious relief in the new disaster, a certain com- 
 fort even. There was compensation in it somewhere. 
 Everything was going to smash the sooner, then, the 
 better ! This recklessness was in him. He had lost Let- 
 tice, so what else mattered ? His attitude was somewhat 
 devil-may-care, his grip on life itself seemed slipping. 
 
 This mood could not last, however, with a character 
 like his. It seized him, but retained no hold. It was 
 the last cry of despair when he touched bottom, the mo- 
 ment when weaker temperaments think of the emergency 
 exit, realize their final worthlessness proving themselves 
 worthless, indeed, thereby. 
 
 Tom met the blow 'in other fashion. He saw himself 
 unworthy, but by no means worthless. Suicide, whether 
 of death or of final collapse, did not enter his mind even. 
 He faced the Wave, he did not shuffle now. He sent a 
 telegram to Lettice to say he was detained; he wrote to 
 Tony that he had given up his room in the Luxor hotel, 
 an affectionate, generous note, telling him to take good 
 care of Lettice. It was only right and fair that Tony 
 should think the path for himself was clear. Since he 
 had decided to "slip out" this attitude towards his cousin 
 was necessarily involved. It must not appear that he 
 had retired, beaten and unhappy. He must do no single 
 thing that might offer resistance to the inevitable fate, 
 least of all leave Tony with the sense of having injured 
 him. True sacrifice forbade ; renunciation, if real, was 
 also silent the smiling face, the cheerful, natural 
 manner ! 
 
 Tom, therefore, fixed his heart more firmly than ever 
 upon one single point: her happiness. He fought to 
 think of that alone. If he knew her happy, he could live. 
 He found life in her joy. He lived in that. By "slip- 
 
The Wave 337 
 
 ping out," no word of reproach, complaint, or censure 
 uttered, he would actually contribute to her happiness. 
 Thus, vicariously, he almost helped to cause it. In this 
 faint, self-excluding bliss, he could live even live on 
 until the end. That was true forgiveness. 
 
 Meanwhile, not easily nor immediately, did he defy 
 the anguish that, day and night, kept gnawing at his 
 heart. His one desire was to hide it, and if the huge 
 achievement might lie within his powers to change it 
 sweetly into a source of strength that should redeem him. 
 The "sum of loss," indeed, he had not "reckoned yet/' 
 but he was beginning to add the figures up. Full meas- 
 urement lay in the long, long awful years ahead. He had 
 this strange comfort, however that he* now loved some- 
 thing he could never lose because it could not change. 
 He loved an ideal. In that sense, he and Lettice were in 
 the "sea" together. His belief and trust in her were not 
 lost, but heightened. And a hint of mothering content- 
 ment stole sweetly over him behind this shadowy yet gen- 
 uine consolation. 
 
 The childhood nightmare was both presentiment" and 
 memory. The crest of the falling Wave was reflected in 
 its base. 
 
CHAPTER XXX 
 
 TOM took his passage home ; he also told Sir William 
 that his resignation, whether the Board accepted it 
 or not, was final. His reputation, so far as the firm was 
 concerned, he knew was lost. His own self-respect had 
 dwindled dangerously too. He had the feeling that 
 he wanted to begin all over again from the very bottom. 
 It seemed the only way. The prospect, at his age, was 
 daunting. He faced it. 
 
 At the very moment in life when he had fancied him- 
 self most secure, most satisfied mentally, spiritually, ma- 
 terially the entire structure on which self-confidence 
 rested had given way. Even the means of material sup- 
 port had vanished too. The crash was absolute. This 
 brief Egyptian winter had, indeed, proved the winter of 
 his loss. The Wave had fallen at last. 
 
 During the interval at Assouan ten days that seemed 
 a month! he heard occasionally from Lettice. "To-day 
 I miss you," one letter opened. Another said: "We 
 wonder when you will return. We all miss you very 
 much : it's not the same here without you, Tom." And 
 all were signed "Your ever loving Lettice." But if 
 hope for some strange reason refused to die completely, 
 he did not allow himself to be deceived. His task no 
 easy one was to transmute emotion into the higher, self- 
 less, ideal love that was now oh, he knew it well enough 
 his only hope and safety. In the desolate emptiness of 
 desert that yawned ahead, he saw this single tree that 
 blossomed, and offered shade. Beauty and comfort both 
 were there. He believed in her truth and somehow in 
 her faithfulness as well. 
 
 338 
 
The Wave 339 
 
 Tom sent his heavy luggage to Port Said, and took 
 the train to Luxor. He had decided to keep his sailing 
 secret. He could mention honestly that he was going to 
 Cairo. He would write a line from there or, better still, 
 from the steamer itself. 
 
 And the instinct that led to this decision was sound 
 and wise. The act was not as boyish as it seemed. For 
 he feared a reaction on her part that yet could be mo- 
 mentary only. His leaving so suddenly would be a shock, 
 it might summon the earlier Lettice to the surface, there 
 might be a painful scene for both of them. She would 
 realize, to some extent at any rate, the immediate sense 
 of loss; for she would surely divine that he was going, 
 not to England merely, but out of her life. And she 
 would suffer; she might even try to keep him the only 
 result being a revival of pain already almost conquered, 
 and of distress for her. 
 
 For such reaction, he divined, could not be permanent. 
 The Play was over ; it must not, could not be prolonged. 
 He must go out. There must be no lingering when the 
 curtain fell. A curtain that halts in its descent upon the 
 actors endangers the effect of the entire Play. 
 
 He wired to Cairo for a room. He wired to her too : 
 "Arrive to-morrow, en route Cairo. Leave same night." 
 He braced himself. The strain would be cruelly exacting, 
 but the worst had been lived out already; the jealousy 
 was dead ; the new love was established beyond all reach 
 of change. These last few hours should be natural, care- 
 less, gay, no hint betraying him, flying no signals of dis- 
 tress. He could just hold out. The strength was in him. 
 And there was time before he caught the evening train 
 for a reply to come : "All delighted ; expect you break- 
 fast. Arranging picnic expedition. LETTICE." 
 
 And that one word "all" helped him unexpectedly to 
 greater steadiness. It eliminated the personal touch even 
 in a telegram. 
 
340 The Wave 
 
 In the train he slept but little ; the heat was suffocating , 
 there was a Khamsin blowing and the fine sand crept 
 in everywhere. At Luxor, however, the wind remained 
 so high up that the lower regions of the sky were calm 
 and still. The sand hung in fog-like clouds shrouding 
 the sun, dimming the usual brilliance. But the heat was 
 intense, and the occasional stray puffs of air that touched 
 the creeping Nile or passed along the sweltering street, 
 seemed to issue from the mouth of some vast furnace in 
 the heavens. They dropped, then ceased abruptly; there 
 was no relief in them. The natives sat listelessly in 
 their doorways, the tourists kept their rooms or idled 
 complainingly in the hotel halls and corridors. The om- 
 inous touch was everywhere. He felt it in his heart as 
 well the heart he thought broken beyond repair. 
 
 Tom bathed and changed his clothes, then drove down 
 to the shady garden beside the river as of old. He felt 
 the gritty sand between his teeth, it was in his mouth and 
 eyes, it was on his tongue. . . . He met Lettice without 
 a tremor, astonished at his own coolness and self-control ; 
 he watched her beauty as the beauty of a picture, some- 
 thing that was no longer his, yet watched it without envy 
 and, in an odd sense, almost without pain. He loved the 
 fairness of it for itself, for her, and for another who 
 was not himself. Almost he loved their happiness to 
 come for her sake. Her eyes, too, followed him, he 
 fancied, like a picture's eyes. She looked young and 
 fresh, yet something mysterious in the following eyes. 
 The usual excited happiness was less obvious, he thought, 
 than usual, the mercurial gaiety wholly absent. He fan- 
 cied a cloud upon her spirit somewhere. He imagined 
 tiny, uncertain signs of questioning distress. He won- 
 dered. . . . This torture of a last uncertainty was also 
 his. 
 
 Yet, obviously, she was glad to see him; her welcome 
 was genuine ; she came down the drive to meet him, both 
 hands extended. Apparently, too, she was alone, Mrs. 
 
The Wave 341 
 
 Haughstone still asleep, and Tony not yet arrived. It 
 was still early morning. 
 
 "Well, and how did you get on without me all of 
 you?" he asked, adding the last three words with em- 
 phasis. 
 
 "I thought you were never coming back, Tom; I had 
 the feeling you were bored here at Luxor and meant to 
 leave us." She looked him up and down with a curious 
 look of admiration almost, an admiration he believed he 
 had now learned to do without. "How lean and brown 
 and well you look!" she exclaimed, "but thin, Tom. 
 You've grown thinner." She shook her finger at him. 
 Her voice was perilously soft and kind, a sweet tender- 
 ness in her manner, too. "You've been over-working 
 and not eating enough. You've not had me to look after 
 you." 
 
 He flushed. "I'm awfully fit," he said, smiling a little 
 shyly. "I may be thinner. That's the heat, I suppose. 
 Assouan's a blazing place you feel you're in Africa ." 
 He said the banal thing as usual. 
 
 "But was there no one there to look after you?" She 
 gave him a quick glance. "No one at all?" 
 
 Tom noticed the repeated question, wondering a little. 
 But there was no play in him; in place of it was some- 
 thing stern, unyielding as iron, though not tested yet. 
 
 "The Chairman of my Company, nine hundred noisy 
 tourists, and about a thousand Arabs at the Works," he 
 told her. "There was hardly a soul I knew besides." 
 
 She said no more ; she gave a scarcely audible sigh ; she 
 seemed unsatisfied somewhere. To his surprise, then, 
 he noticed that the familiar little table was only laid for 
 two. 
 
 "Where's Tony?" he asked. "And, by the by, how is 
 he?" 
 
 He thought she hesitated a moment. "Tony's not com- 
 ing till later," she told him. "He guessed we should 
 
342 The Wave 
 
 have a lot to talk about together, so he stayed away. 
 Nice of him, wasn't it?" 
 
 Behind the commonplace sentences, the hidden word- 
 less Play also drew on towards its Curtain. 
 
 "Well, it is my turn rather for a chat, perhaps," he re- 
 turned presently with a laugh, taking his cup of steaming 
 coffee from her hand. "I can see him later in the day. 
 You've arranged something, I'm sure. Your wire spoke 
 of a picnic, but perhaps this heat this beastly Kham- 
 sin " 
 
 "It's passing," she mentioned. "They say it blows for 
 three days, for six days, or for nine, but as a matter of 
 fact, it does nothing of the sort. It's going to clear. I 
 thought we might take our tea into the Desert." 
 
 She went on talking rapidly, almost nervously, it 
 seemed to Tom. Her mind was upon something else. 
 Thoughts of another kind lay unexpressed behind her 
 speech. His own mind was busy too Tony, Warsaw, 
 the long, long interval he had been away, what had hap- 
 pened during his absence, and so forth? Had no cable 
 come? What would she feel this time to-morrow when 
 she knew ? these and a hundred others seethed below his 
 quiet manner and careless talk. He noticed then that she 
 was exquisitely dressed; she wore, in fact, the very 
 things he most admired and wore them purposely: the 
 orange-colored jacket, the violet veil, the hat with the 
 little roses on the brim. It was his turn to look her up 
 and down. 
 
 She caught his eye. Uncannily, she caught his thought 
 as well. Tom steeled himself. 
 
 "I put these on especially for you, you truant boy," 
 she said deliciously across the table at him. "I hope 
 you're sensible of the honor done you." 
 
 "Rather, Lettice! I should think I am, indeed!" 
 
 "I got up half an hour earlier on purpose too. Think 
 what that means to a woman like me." She handed him 
 a grape-fruit she had opened and prepared herself. 
 
The Wave 343 
 
 "My favorite hat, and my favorite fruit! I wish I 
 were worthy of them!" He stammered slightly as he 
 said the stupid thing: the blood rushed up to his very 
 forehead, but she gave no sign of noticing either words 
 or blush. The strong sunburn hid the latter doubtless. 
 There was a desperate shyness in him that he could not 
 manage quite. He wished to heaven the talk would shift 
 into another key. He could not keep this up for long; 
 it was too dangerous. Her attitude, it seemed, had gone 
 back to that of weeks ago; there was more than the 
 mother in it, he felt : it was almost the earlier Lettice 
 and yet not quite. Something was added, but something 
 too was missing. He wondered more and more ... he 
 asked himself odd questions. ... It seemed to him sud- 
 denly that her mood was assumed, not wholly natural. 
 The flash came to him that disappointment lay behind 
 it, yet that the disappointment was not with himself. 
 Another caused it. 
 
 "You're wearing a new tie, Tom," her voice broke 
 in upon his moment's reverie. "That's not the one / 
 gave you." 
 
 It was so unexpected, so absurd. It startled him. 
 He laughed with genuine amusement, explaining that he 
 had bought it in Assouan in a moment of extravagance 
 "the nearest shade I could find to the blue you gave me. 
 How observant you are !" Lettice laughed with him. "I 
 always notice little things like that," she said. "It's what 
 you call the mother in me, I suppose." She examined the 
 tie across the table, while they smoked their cigarettes. 
 He looked aside. "I hope it was admired. It suits you." 
 She fingered it. Her hand touched his chin. 
 
 "Does it? It's your taste, you know." 
 
 "But was it admired?" she insisted almost sharply. 
 
 "That's really more than I can say, Lettice. You see 
 I didn't ask Sir William what he thought, and the na- 
 tives are poor judges because they don't wear ties." He 
 was about to say more, talking the first nonsense that 
 
344 The Wave 
 
 came into his head, when she did a thing that took his 
 breath away, and made him tremble where he sat. Re- 
 gardless of lurking Arab servants, careless of Mrs. 
 Haughstone's windows not far behind them, she rose sud- 
 denly, tripped round the little table, kissed him on his 
 cheek and was back again in her chair, smoking as in- 
 nocently as before. It was a repetition of an earlier act, 
 yet with a difference somewhere. 
 
 The world seemed unreal just then; things like this 
 did not happen in real life, at least not quite like this; 
 nor did two persons in their respective positions talk ex- 
 actly thus, using such banal language, such insignificant 
 phrases half of banter, half of surface foolishness. The 
 kiss amazed him for a moment. Tom felt in a dream. 
 And yet this very sense of dream, this idle exchange of 
 trivial conversation cloaked something that was a cruel, 
 an indubitable reality. It was not a dream shot through 
 with reality, it was a reality shot through with dream. 
 But the dream itself, though old as the desert, dim as 
 those grim Theban Hills now draped with flying sand, 
 was also true and actual. 
 
 The hidden Play had broken through, merging for an 
 instant with the upper surface life. He was almost per- 
 suaded that this last, strange action had not happened, 
 that Lettice had never really left her chair. So still and 
 silent she sat there now. She had not stirred from her 
 place. It was the burning wind that touched his cheek, a 
 waft of heated atmosphere, lightly moving, that left the 
 disquieting trail of perfume in the air. The glowing 
 heavens, luminous athwart the clouds of fine, suspended 
 sand, laid this ominous hint of dream upon the entire day. 
 . . . The recent act became a mere picture in the mind. 
 
 Yet some little cell of innermost memory, stirring out 
 of sleep, had surely given up its dead. . . . For a second 
 it seemed to him this heavy, darkened air was in the 
 recesses of the earth, beneath the burden of massive 
 cliffs the centuries had piled. It was underground. In 
 
The Wave . 345 
 
 some cavern of those mournful Theban Hills, some one 
 had kissed him ! For over his head shone painted stars 
 against a painted blue, and in his nostrils hung a faint 
 sweetness as of ambra. . . . 
 
 He recovered his balance quickly. They resumed their 
 curious masquerade, the screen of idle talk between sig- 
 nificance and emptiness, like sounds of reality between 
 dream and waking. 
 
 And the rest of that long day of stifling heat was sim- 
 ilarly a dream shot through with incongruous touches 
 of reality, yet also a reality shot through with the glamour 
 of some incredible ancient dream. Not till he stood later 
 upon the steamer deck, the sea-wind in his face and the 
 salt spray on his lips, did he awake fully and distinguish 
 the dream from the reality or the reality from the 
 dream. Nor even then was the deep, strange confusion 
 wholly dissipated. To the end of life, indeed, it remained 
 an unsolved mystery, labeled a Premonition Fulfilled, 
 without adequate explanation. . . . 
 
 The time passed listlessly enough, to the accompani- 
 ment of similar idle talk, careless, it seemed to Tom, with 
 the ghastly sense of the final minutes slipping remorse- 
 lessly away, so swiftly, so poignantly unused. For each 
 moment was gigantic, brimmed full with the distilled es- 
 sence, as it were, of intensest value, value that yet was 
 not his to seize. He never lost the point of view that 
 he watched a picture that belonged to some one else. His 
 own position was clear; he had already leaped from a 
 height; he counted, as he fell, the blades of grass, the 
 pebbles far below; slipping over Niagara's awful edge, 
 he noted the bubbles in the whirlpools underneath. They 
 talked of the weather . . . ! 
 
 "It's clearing," said Lettice. "There'll be sand in our 
 tea and thin bread and butter. But anything's better than 
 sitting and stifling here." 
 
 Tom readily agreed. "You and I and Tony, then?" 
 
346 The Wave 
 
 "I thought so. We don't want too many, do we?" 
 
 "Not for our la not for a day like this." He cor- 
 rected himself just in time. "Tony will be here for 
 lunch?" he asked. 
 
 She nodded. "He said so, at any rate, only one never 
 quite knows with Tony." And though Tom plainly 
 heard, he made no comment. He was puzzled. 
 
 Most of the morning they remained alone together. 
 Tom had never felt so close to her before; it seemed to 
 him their spirits touched ; there was no barrier now. 
 But there was distance. He could not explain the para- 
 dox. A vague sweet feeling was in him that the distance 
 was not of height, as formerly. He had risen somehow ; 
 he felt higher than before ; he saw over the barrier that 
 had been there. Pain and sacrifice, perhaps, had lifted 
 him, raised him to the level where she dwelt ; and in that 
 way he was closer. A new strength was in him. At 
 the same time, behind her outer quietness, and her calm, 
 he divined struggle still. In her atmosphere was a hint 
 of strain, disharmony. He was positive of this. From 
 time to time he caught trouble in her eyes. Could she, 
 perhaps, discern foreknow the shadow of the dropping 
 Curtain? He wondered. He detected something in her 
 that was new. 
 
 If any weakening of resolve were in himself, it disap- 
 peared long before Tony's arrival on the scene. A few 
 private words from Mrs. Haughstone later banished it 
 effectually. "Your telegram, Mr. Kelverdon, came as a 
 great surprise. We had planned a three-day trip to the 
 Sphinx and Pyramids. Mr. Winslowe had written to 
 you; he hoped to persuade you to join us. Again you 
 left Assouan before the letter arrived. It's a habit with 
 you!" 
 
 "Apparently." 
 
 The poison no longer fevered him; he was immune. 
 
 "Mr. Winslowe I had better warn you before he 
 comes was disappointed." 
 
The Wave 347 
 
 "I'm sorry I spoilt the trip. It was most inconsiderate 
 of me. But you can make it later when I'm gone to 
 Cairo, can't you?" 
 
 Mrs. Haughstone watched him somewhat keenly. Did 
 she discover anything, he wondered. Was she aware that 
 he was no longer within reach of her little shafts? 
 
 "It's all for the best, I think," she went on in a casual 
 tone. "Lettice was too easily persuaded she didn't 
 really want to go without you. She said so. And Mr. 
 Winslowe soon gets over his sulks " 
 
 Tom interrupted her, turning sharply round. "Oh," 
 he laughed, "was that why he wouldn't come to break- 
 fast, then ?" And whether it was pain or pleasure that he 
 felt he did not know. The moment's anguish he verily 
 believed it was for Lettice. And for Tony? Some- 
 thing akin to sympathy perhaps! If Tony should ever 
 suffer pain like his even temporarily . . . ! 
 
 The other shrugged her angular shoulders a little. 
 'It's all passed now," she observed; "he's forgotten it, 
 I'm sure. You needn't notice anything, by the way," she 
 added, "if if he seems ungracious." 
 
 "Not for worlds," replied Tom, throwing stones into 
 the sullen river below. "I'm far too tactful." 
 
 Mrs. Haughstone looked away. There was a mo- 
 ment's expression of admiration on her face. "You're 
 big, Mr. Kelverdon, very big. I wish all men were as 
 generous." She spoke hurriedly below her breath. "I 
 saw this coming before you arrived. I wish I could have 
 saved you. You've got the hero in you." 
 
 Tom changed the subject, and presently moved away: 
 it was time for lunch for one thing, and for another he 
 wanted to hide his face from her too peering eyes. He 
 was not quite sure of himself just then ; his lips trembled 
 a little ; he could not altogether control his facial muscles. 
 Tony jealous ! Lettice piqued ! Was this the explanation 
 of her new sweetness towards himself ! The position 
 tried him sorely, testing his new strength from such 
 
348 The Wave 
 
 amazing and unexpected angles. It was all beyond him 
 somehow, the reversal of roles so afflicting, tears and 
 laughter so oddly mingled. Yet the sheet-anchor his 
 selfless love held fast and true. There was no dragging, 
 no shuffling where he stood. 
 
 Nor was there any weakening of resolution in him, any 
 dimming of the new dawn within his heart. He felt sure 
 of something that he did not understand, aware of a ra- 
 diant promise some one whispered marvelously in his 
 ear. He was alone, yet not alone, outcast yet compan- 
 ioned sweetly, bereft of all the world holds valuable, yet 
 possesor of riches that the world passed by. He felt a 
 conqueror. The pain seemed somehow turning into joy. 
 He seemed above the earth. Only one thing mattered 
 that his ideal love should have no stain upon it. 
 
 The lunch he dreaded passed smoothly and without 
 alarm. Tony was gay, light-hearted as usual, belying 
 Mrs. Haughstone's ominous prediction. They smoked 
 together afterwards, walking up and down the garden 
 arm in arm, Tony eagerly discussing expeditions, picnics, 
 birds, anything and everything that offered, with keen in- 
 terest as of old; he even once suggested coming back to 
 Assouan with his cousin alone! . . . Tom made no 
 comment on the adverb. Nor was his sympathy mere 
 acting ; he genuinely felt it ; the affection for Tony some- 
 how was not dead. . . . The joy in him grew, mean- 
 while, brighter, clearer, higher. It was alive. Some 
 courage of the sun was in him. There seemed a great 
 understanding with it, and a greater forgiveness. 
 
 Of one thing only did he feel uncertain. He caught 
 himself sharply wondering more than once. For he 
 had the impression the conviction almost that some- 
 thing had happened during his absence at Assouan 
 that there was a change in her attitude to Tony. It was 
 a subtle change ; it was beginning merely ; but it was 
 there. Her behavior at breakfast was not due to pique, 
 not solely due to pique, at any rate. It had a deeper ori- 
 
The Wave 349 
 
 gin. Almost he detected signs of friction between herself 
 and Tony. Very slight they were indeed, if not imagined 
 altogether. His perception was still exceptionally alert, 
 its acuteness left over, apparently, from the earlier days 
 of pain and jealousy. Yet the result upon him was con- 
 fusing chiefly. 
 
 In very trivial ways the change betrayed itself. The 
 talk between the three of them remained incongruously 
 upon the surface always. The play and chatter went on 
 independently of the Play beneath, almost ignoring it. In 
 that Wordless Play, however, the change was registered. 
 
 "Tom, you've got the straightest back of any man I 
 ever saw," she exclaimed once, eyeing them critically 
 with an amused smile as they came back towards her 
 chair. "I've just been watching you both." 
 
 They laughed, while Tony turned it wittily into fun. 
 "It's always safer to look a person in the face," he ob- 
 served. If he felt the comparison was made to his dis- 
 advantage he did not show it. Tom, wondering what 
 she meant and why she said it, felt that the remark an- 
 noyed him. For there was disparagement of Tony in it. 
 
 "I can read your soul from your back alone," she 
 added. 
 
 "And mine!" cried Tony, laughing: "What about my 
 back too ? Or have I got no soul misplaced between my 
 shoulder-blades?" 
 
 Tom laid his hand between those slightly-rounded 
 shoulders then and rather suddenly. 
 
 "It's bent from too much creeping after birds," he ex- 
 claimed. "In your next life you'll be on all fours if 
 you're not careful." 
 
 The Arab appeared to say the donkeys and sand-cart 
 were waiting in the road, and Tony went indoors to get 
 cameras and other paraphernalia essential to a Desert 
 picnic. Lettice continued talking idly to Tom, who stood 
 beside her, smoking. . . . The feeling of dream and real- 
 ity were very strong in him at the moment. He hardly 
 
350 The Wave 
 
 realized what the nonsense was he had said to his cousin. 
 There was a slight sense of discomfort in him. The lit- 
 tle, playful conversation just over had meaning in it. 
 He missed that meaning. Somehow the comparison in 
 his favor was disagreeable he preferred to hear his cou- 
 sin praised, but certainly not belittled. Perhaps vanity 
 was wounded there that his successful rival woke con- 
 tempt in her was unendurable. . . . And he thought of 
 his train for the first time with a vague relief. 
 
 "Birds," she was saying, half to herself, the eyes be- 
 neath the big sun-hat looking beyond him, "that reminds 
 me, Tom a dream I had. A little bird left its nest and 
 hopped about to try all the other branches, because it 
 thought it ought to explore them had to, in a way. And 
 it got into all sorts of danger, and ran fearful risks, and 
 couldn't fly or use its wings properly, till finally " 
 
 She stopped, and her eyes turned full upon his own. 
 The love in his face was plain to read, though he was not 
 conscious of it. He waited in silence : 
 
 "Till finally it crept back up into its own nest again," 
 she went on, "and found its wings lying there all the 
 time. It had forgotten them ! And it got in, felt warm 
 and safe and cozy and fell asleep." 
 
 "Whereupon you woke and found it was all a dream," 
 said Tom. His tone, though matter-of-fact, was lower 
 than usual, but it was firm. No sign of emotion now was 
 visible in his face. The eyes were steady, the lips be- 
 trayed no hint. Her little dream, the way of telling it 
 rather, perplexed him. 
 
 "No," she said, "but I found somehow that the bird 
 was me." She sighed a little. 
 
 It flashed upon him suddenly that she was exhausted, 
 wearied out; that her heart was beating with some in- 
 terior stress and struggle. She seemed on the point of 
 giving up, some long long battle in her ended. There 
 was something she wished to say to him he got this im- 
 pression too something she could not bring herself to 
 
The Wave 351 
 
 say, unless he helped her, unless he asked for it. The 
 duality was ending, perhaps fused into unity agan? . . . 
 The intense and burning desire to help her rose upon 
 him, the desire to protect. And the word "Warsaw" 
 fled across his mind ... as though it fell through the 
 heated air into his mind . . . from her's. 
 
 "Tony declares," she was saying, "that our memories 
 are packed away under pressure like steam in a boiler, 
 and the dream is their safety-valve ... I wonder. . . . 
 He read it somewhere. It's not his own, of course. But 
 Tony never explains because he doesn't really know. 
 He's flashy not the depth we thought the truth . . . 
 Tom!" 
 
 She called his name with emphasis, as if annoyed that 
 he showed so little interest. There was an instant's cloud 
 upon her face; the eyes wavered, then looked away; he 
 felt again there was disappointment somewhere in her 
 w : th himself or with Tony, he did not know. . . . He 
 kept silent. He could think of nothing by way of answer 
 nothing appropriate, nothing safe. 
 
 She waited, keeping silent too. The Curtain was low- 
 ering, its shadow growing on the air. 
 
 "I dream so little," he stammered at length. "I can't 
 say." It enraged him that he faltered. He turned away. 
 . . . Tony at that moment arrived. The cart and animals 
 were ready, everything was collected. He announced it 
 loudly, urging them with a certain impatience, as though 
 they caused the delay. He stared keenly at them a mo- 
 ment. . . . They started. 
 
CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 HOW trivial, yet how significant of the tension of in- 
 terior forces the careless words, the foolish little 
 dream, the playful allusion to one man's stoop and to 
 another's upright carriage, how easy to read, how obvi- 
 ous ! Yet Tom, too intensely preoccupied, perhaps, with 
 keeping his own balance, was unaware of revelation. His 
 mind perceived the delicate change, yet attached a wrong 
 direction to it. Perplexity and discomfort in him deep- 
 ened. He was relieved when Tony interrupted; he felt 
 glad. The shifting of values was disturbing to him. It 
 was as though the falling Curtain halted. . . . 
 
 The hours left to him were few; they both rushed 
 and lingered. The afternoon seemed gone so quickly, 
 while yet the moments dragged, each separate instant too 
 intense with feeling to yield up its being willingly. The 
 minutes lingered ; it was the hours that rushed. 
 
 Subconsciously, it seemed, Tom counted them in his 
 heart. . . . Subconsciously, too, he stated the position, 
 as though to do so steadied him: Three persons, three 
 friends, were off upon a picnic. At a certain moment 
 they would turn back; at a certain moment two of them 
 would say good-by; at a certain moment a final train 
 woud start his eyes would no longer see her. ... It 
 seemed impossible, unreal; it could not happen. . . . He 
 could so easily prevent it. No question had been asked 
 about his going to Cairo ; it was taken for granted that he 
 went on business and would return. He could cancel 
 his steamer-berth, no explanation necessary, nor any 
 asked. 
 
 But having weighed the sacrifice against the joy he was 
 not wanting. 
 
 352 
 
The Wave 353 
 
 They mounted their lusty donkeys ; Lettice climbed into 
 her sand-cart ; the boys came clattering after them down 
 the street of Thebes with the tea-things and the bun- 
 dles of clover for the animals. Across the belt of bril- 
 liant emerald green, past clover-fields and groves of 
 palms, they followed the ancient track towards the des- 
 ert. They were on the eastern bank, the Theban Hills 
 far behind them on the horizon. Towards the Red Sea 
 they headed, though Tom had no notion of their direc- 
 tion, aware only that while they went further and further 
 from those hills, the hills themselves somehow came ever 
 nearer. The gaunt outline followed them; each time he 
 looked back the shadow cast was closer than before, al- 
 most upon their heels. But for the assurance of his 
 senses he could have believed they headed towards these 
 yellow cliffs instead of the reverse. He could not shake 
 off the singular impression that their weight was on his 
 back ; he felt the oppression of those ancient tombs, those 
 crowded corridors, that hidden subterranean world. No 
 mummy, he remembered, but believed it would one day 
 unwind again when the soul, cleansed and justified, came 
 back to claim it. Regeneration was inevitable. A glori- 
 ous faith secure in ultimate joy! 
 
 They hurried vainly; the distance between them, in- 
 stead of increasing, lessened. The hills would not let 
 them go. 
 
 The burning atmosphere, the motionless air caused 
 doubtless the optical illusion. The glare was blinding. 
 Tom did not draw attention to it. He tugged his ob- 
 stinate donkey into line with the slower sand-cart, riding 
 for several minutes in silence, close beside Lettice, aware 
 of her perfume, her flying veil almost across his eyes 
 from time to time. Tony was some way ahead. 
 
 "Tom," he heard suddenly, "must you really go to 
 Cairo to-night?" 
 
 "I'm afraid so. It's important." But after a pause he 
 added "Why?" He said it because his sentence sounded 
 
354 The Wave 
 
 otherwise suspiciously incomplete. Above all, he must 
 seem natural. "Why do you ask?" 
 
 The answer made him regret that extra word: 
 
 "There's something I want to tell you." 
 
 "Very important ?" He asked it laughingly, busy with 
 the reins apparently. 
 
 "Far more important than your going to Cairo. I want 
 your advice and help." 
 
 "I must," he said slowly. "Won't it keep?" He tugged 
 violently at the reins, though the donkey was behaving 
 admirably. 
 
 "How long will you stay ?" she asked. 
 
 "One night only, Lettice. Not longer." 
 
 They were on soft and yellow sand by now ; the desert 
 shone with a luminous glow ; Tom could not hear the 
 sound of his donkey's hoofs, nor the crunching of the 
 sand-cart. He heard nothing but a voice singing beside 
 him in the burning air. But the air had grown radiant. 
 He realized that he was beating the donkey without the 
 slightest reason. 
 
 "When you come back, then I'll tell you when you 
 come back," he heard. 
 
 And a sudden inspiration came to his assistance. 
 "Couldn't you write it ?" he asked calmly. "The Semira- 
 mis Hotel will find me in case anything happened. I 
 should have time to think it over I like that best if it's 
 really so important. My mind, you know, works slowly." 
 
 Her reply had a curious effect upon him. She needed 
 help his help. "Perhaps, Tom. But one can depend so 
 upon your judgment." 
 
 He knew that she was watching his face. With an ef- 
 fort he turned to meet her gaze. He saw her against the 
 background of the hills, whose following mass towered 
 menacingly above her little outline. And as he looked he 
 was suddenly transfixed, he dropped his reins, he stared 
 without a word. Two pairs of eyes, two smiles, two 
 human physiognomies once again met his arrested gaze. 
 
The Wave 355 
 
 He knew them, of course, well enough by now, but never 
 before had he caught the two expressions so vividly re- 
 vealed, so distinctly marked ; clear as a composite picture, 
 one face painted in upon another that lay beneath it. 
 There was the darker face and there was Lettice; and 
 each struggled for complete possession of her features. 
 There was conflict, sharp and dreadful; one second, the 
 gleam of cruelty flashed out, a yellow of amber in it, as 
 though gold shone reflected faintly the next, an anguish 
 of tenderness, as though love brimmed her eyes with 
 the moisture of divine compassion. The conflict was 
 desperate, amazing, painful beyond words. Then the 
 darker aspect slowly waned, withdrawing backwards, 
 melting away into the shadows of the hills behind as 
 though it first had issued thence as though almost it be- 
 longed there. Alive and true, yet vanquished, it faded 
 out. . . . He saw at last the dear, innocent eyes of Let- 
 tice only. It was this Lettice who had spoken. 
 
 His donkey stumbled it was natural enough, seeing 
 that the reins hung loose and his feet had somehow left 
 the stirrups. Tom pitched forward heavily, saving him- 
 self and his animal from an ignominious accident just 
 in the nick of time. There were cries and laughter. The 
 sand-cart swerved aside at the same moment, and Tony, 
 from a distance, came galloping back towards them. 
 
 Tom recovered his balance and told his donkey in hon- 
 est English what he thought of it. "But it was your 
 fault, you careless boy," cried Lettice; "you let go the 
 reins and whacked it at the same time. Your eyes were 
 popping out of your head. I thought you'd seen a ghost." 
 
 Tom glanced at her. "I was nearly off," he said. "An- 
 other second and it would have been a case of 'Low let 
 me lie where the dead dog ' " 
 
 She interrupted him with surprising vehemence: 
 
 "Don't, don't, Tom. I hate it! I hate the words and 
 the tune and everything. I won't hear it ... !" 
 
 Tony came clattering up and the incident was over, 
 
356 The Wave 
 
 ended as abruptly as begun. But, as Tom well realized, 
 another hitch had occurred in the lowering of the Cur- 
 tain. The actors, for a moment, had stood there in their 
 normal fashion, betrayed, caught in the act, a little fool- 
 ish even. It was the hand of a woman this time that 
 delayed it. 
 
 "Did you hurt yourself anywhere, Tom?" Her ques- 
 tion rang in his head like music for the next mile or two. 
 He kept beside the sand-cart until they reached their 
 destination. It was absurd yet he could not ride in 
 front with Tony lest some one driving behind them 
 should notice yes, that was the half-comical truth 
 notice that Tony was round-shouldered oh, very, very 
 slightly so whereas his own back was straight! It was 
 ridiculously foolish, yet pathetic. At the same time, it 
 was poignantly dramatic. . . . 
 
 And their destination was a deep bay of yellow sand, 
 soft and tawny, ribbed with a series of lesser troughs 
 the wind had scooped out to look like a shore some with- 
 drawing ocean had left exposed below the westering sun. 
 A solitary palm tree stood behind upon a dune. 
 
 The afternoon, the beating hotness of the air, the 
 clouds of high, suspended sand, the stupendous sunset 
 as if the world caught fire and burned along the whole 
 horizon it was all unforgettable. The yellow sand about 
 them blazed and shone, scorching their bare hands; the 
 Desert was empty, silent, lonely. Only the western heav- 
 ens, where the sun sank in a red mass of ominous splen- 
 dor, was alive with energy. Colored shafts mapped the 
 vault from horizon to zenith like the spokes of a pro- 
 digious wheel of fire. Any minute the air and the sand 
 it pressed upon might burst into a sea of flame. The 
 furnace where the Khamsin brewed in distant Nubia 
 sent its warnings in advance ; it was slowly traveling 
 northward. And hence, possibly, arose the disquieting 
 sensation that something was gathering, something that 
 might take them unawares. The sand lay listening, wait- 
 
The Wave 357 
 
 ing, watching. There was whispering among the very 
 grains. . . . 
 
 It was half way through tea when the first stray puffs 
 of wind came dropping abruptly, sighing away in tiny 
 eddies of dust beyond the circle. Three human atoms 
 upon the huge yellow carpet, that ere long would shake 
 itself across five hundred miles and rise, whirling, driv- 
 ing, suffocating all life within its folds three human 
 beings noted the puffs of heated air and reacted variously 
 to the little change. Each felt, it seemed, a slight un- 
 easiness, as though of trouble coming that was yet not 
 entirely atmospherical. Nerves tingled. They looked 
 into each other's faces. They looked back. 
 
 "We mustn't stay too late," said Tony, filling a basket 
 for the donkey-boys in their dune two hundred yards 
 away. "We've a long way to go." He examined the 
 portentous sky. "It won't come till night," he added, 
 "still they're a bit awkward, these sandstorms, and one 
 never knows." 
 
 "And I've got a train to catch," Tom mentioned, "ab- 
 surd as it sounds in a place like this." He was scraping 
 his lips with a handkerchief. "I've eaten enough bread- 
 and-sand to last me till dinner, anyhow." He helped his 
 cousin with the Arabs' food. "They probably don't mind 
 it, they're used to it." He straightened up from his 
 stooping posture. Lettice, he saw, was lying with a cig- 
 arette against the bank of sloping sand that curved above 
 them. She was intently watching them. She had not 
 spoken for some time; she looked almost drowsy; the 
 eyelids were half closed; the cigarette smoke rose in a 
 steady little thread that did not waver. . . . There was 
 perhaps ten yards between them, but he caught the direc- 
 tion of her gaze, and throwing his own eyes into the same 
 line of sight, he saw what she saw. Instinctively, he took 
 a quick step forward hiding Tony from her immediate 
 view. 
 
 It was certainly curious, this desire to screen his cou- 
 
358 The Wave 
 
 sin, to prevent his appearing at a disadvantage. He was 
 impelled, at all costs and in the smallest details, to help 
 the man she admired, to increase his value, to minimize 
 his disabilities, however trivial. It pained him to see 
 Tony even at a physical disadvantage; Tony must show 
 always at his very best ; and at this moment, bending over 
 the baskets, the attitude of the shoulders was disagree- 
 ably emphasized. 
 
 Tom did not laugh, he did not even smile. Gravely, 
 as though it were of importance, he moved forward so 
 that Lettice should not see the detail of the rounded 
 shoulders that, he knew, compared unfavorably with his 
 own straighter carriage. Yet almost the next minute, 
 when he looked back again, he saw that the cigarette had 
 fallen from her fingers, the eyes were closed, her body 
 had slipped into a more recumbent angle, she seemed 
 actually asleep. 
 
 "Give a shout, Tom, and the boys will come to fetch 
 it," said Tony, when at length the basket was ready. 
 He put his hands to his own mouth to co-ee across the 
 dunes. Tom stopped him at once. "Hush ! Lettice has 
 dropped off," he explained; "you'll wake her. It's the 
 heat. I'll carry the things over to them." He noticed 
 Tony's hands as he held them to his lips. And again 
 he felt a touch of sympathy, almost pity. Had she, so 
 observant, so discerning in her fastidious taste had she 
 failed to notice the small detail too? 
 
 "No, let me take it," Tony was saying, seizing the ham- 
 per from his cousin. Tom suggested carrying it between 
 them. They tried it, laughing and struggling together 
 with the awkward burden, but keeping their voices low. 
 They lost the direction too; for all the sand-dunes were 
 alike, and the boys were hidden in a hollow. It ended 
 in Tony going off in triumph with the basket under one 
 arm, guided at length by the faint neighing of a donkey 
 in the distance. 
 
 Some little time had passed, perhaps five minutes, per- 
 
The Wave 359 
 
 haps longer, and Tom went back to the tea-place across 
 the soft sand, stepping cautiously so as not to disturb 
 the sleeper. And another five minutes, perhaps another 
 ten, had slipped by before Tony's head reappeared above 
 a neighboring dune. A boy had come to meet him, short- 
 ening his journey. 
 
 But Fate calculated to a nicety, wasting no seconds 
 one way or the other. There had been time just time 
 before Tony's return for Tom to have stretched himself 
 at her feet, to have lit a cigarette, and to have smoked 
 sufficient of it for the first ash to fall. He was very 
 careful to make no sound, even lighting the match softly 
 inside his hat. But his hand was trembling. For Lettice 
 slept, and in her sleep made little sounds of pain. No 
 words were audible. . . . He watched her. There was 
 a tiny frown between the eyebrows, the lips twitched 
 from time to time, she moved uneasily upon the bank of 
 sliding sand ; and, as she made these little broken sounds 
 of pain, from beneath the closed eyelids two small tears 
 crept out upon her cheeks. 
 
 Tom watched, making no sound or movement. The 
 tears rolled down and fell into the sand. The suffering 
 in the face made his heart beat irregularly. Something 
 transfixed him. She wore the expression he had seen in 
 the London theater. For a moment he felt terror a ter- 
 ror of something coming, something going to happen. 
 He stared, trembling, holding his breath. She was dream- 
 ing, as a person even in a three-minute sleep can dream 
 deeply, vividly. He waited. He had the amazing sen- 
 sation that he knew what she was dreaming that he took 
 part in it with her almost. . . . Unable, finally, to re- 
 strain himself another instant, he moved and the noise 
 wakened her. She sighed. The eyes opened of their 
 own accord. She stared at him in a dazed way for a mo- 
 ment. Then she looked over his shoulder across the 
 desert. 
 
360 The Wave 
 
 "You've been asleep, Lettice," he whispered, "and ac- 
 tually dreaming all in five minutes." 
 
 She rubbed her eyes slowly, as though sand was in 
 them. She stared into his face a moment before she 
 spoke. 
 
 "Yes, I dreamed," she answered with a little fright- 
 ened sigh. "I dreamed of you There was a tent 
 
 the flap lifted suddenly oh, it was so vivid ! Then there 
 was a crowd and awful drums were beating and my 
 river with the floating faces was there and I plunged in 
 to save one it was yours, Tom, yours " 
 
 She paused for a fraction of a second, while his heart 
 went thumping against his ribs. He did not speak. He 
 waited. 
 
 "Then somehow you were taken from me," she went 
 on ; "you left me, Tom." Her voice sank. "And it broke 
 my heart in two." 
 
 "Lettice . . . !" 
 
 He made a sudden movement in the sand at which 
 movement, precisely, Tony's head appeared above the 
 neighboring dune, the rest of his body following it im- 
 mediately. 
 
 And it seemed to Tom that his cousin came upon them 
 out of the heart of a dream, out of the earth, out of a 
 sandy tomb. His very existence, for those minutes, had 
 been utterly forgotten, obliterated. He rose from the 
 dead and came towards them over the hot, yellow desert. 
 The distant hills the Theban Hills above the Valley of 
 the Kings disgorged him. And, as once before, he 
 looked dreadful, threatening, his great hands held out in 
 front of him. He came gliding down the yielding slope. 
 He caught them ! 
 
 In that second it was but the fraction of a second 
 actually the impression upon Tom's mind was acute and 
 terrible. Speech and movement were not in him any- 
 where ; he could only sit and stare, both terrified and fas- 
 cinated. Between himself and Lettice stretched an in- 
 
The Wave 361 
 
 terval of six feet certainly, and into this very gap, the 
 figure of his cousin, followed and preceded by heaps of 
 moving sand, descended now. It was towards Lettice 
 that Tony came so swiftly gliding. 
 
 It was his cousin surely . . . ? 
 
 He saw the big hands outspread, he saw the slightly 
 stooping shoulders, he saw the face and eyes, the light 
 blue eyes. But also he saw strange, unaccustomed rai- 
 ment, he saw a sheet of gold, he smelt the soft breath 
 of ambra. . . . And the face was dark and menacing. 
 There were words, too, careless, playful words, uttered 
 undoubtedly by Tony's familiar voice: "Caught you 
 both asleep ! Well, I declare ! You are a couple ... !" 
 followed by something else about its being "time to pack 
 up and go because the sand was coming. . . ." Tom 
 heard the words distinctly, but far away, tiny with curi- 
 ous distance ; they were half smothered, half submerged, 
 it seemed, behind an acute inner hearing that caught an- 
 other set of words he could not understand in a lan- 
 guage he both remembered and forgot. And the deep 
 sense of dread passed swiftly then into a blinding jealous 
 rage; he saw red; a fury of wrath that could kill and 
 stab and strangle rushed over him in a flood of passionate 
 emotion. He lost control. He rushed headlong. 
 
 Seconds dragged out incredibly into minutes, as though 
 time halted. ... An intense, murderous hatred blazed 
 in his heart. 
 
 From where he sat, both figures were above him, shel- 
 tered half way up the long sliding slope. At the base 
 of the yellow dune he crouched; he looked up at them. 
 His eyes perhaps were blinded by the red tempest in his 
 heart; or perhaps the tiny particles of flying sand drove 
 against his eyeballs. He saw, at any rate, the two fig- 
 ures close together, as if the man came gliding straight 
 into her arms. 
 
 At the same moment a draught of sudden, violent wind 
 broke with a pouring rush across the desert, and the en- 
 
362 The Wave 
 
 tire crest of the undulating dune behind them rose to 
 meet it in a single whirling eddy. As a gust of sea-wind 
 tosses the spray into the air, this burst of scorching des- 
 ert-wind drew the ridge up after it, then flung it in a 
 blinding swirl against his face and skin. 
 
 The dune rose in a Wave of glittering yellow sand, 
 drowning them from head to foot. He saw the glint and 
 shimmer of the myriad particles in the sunset; he saw 
 them drifting by the thousand, by the million through 
 the whirling mass of it; he saw the two figures side by 
 side above him, caught beneath the toppling crest of this 
 bending billow that curved and broke against the fiery 
 sky ; he smelt the faint perfume of the desert underneath 
 the hollow arch; he heard the thin, metallic grating of 
 the countless grains in friction ; he heard the palm leaves 
 rattling; he saw two pairs of eyes ... his feet went 
 shuffling. It was The Wave of sand. . . . 
 
 And the nightmare clutch laid hold upon his heart with 
 giant pincers. The fiery red of insensate anger burst 
 into flames, filled his throat to choking, set his paralyzed 
 muscles free with uncontrollable energy. This savage 
 lust of murder caught him. The shuffling went faster, 
 faster. . . . He turned and faced the eyes. He would 
 kill rather than see her touched by those great hands. 
 It seemed he made the leap of a wild animal upon its 
 prey. . . . 
 
 Fire flashed . . . then passed, before he knew it, from 
 red to shining amber, from sullen crimson into purest 
 gold, from gold to the sheen of dazzling whiteness. The 
 change was instantaneous. His leap was arrested in mid- 
 air. The red wrath passed amazingly, forgotten or trans- 
 muted. With a miraculous swiftness he was aware of 
 understanding, of sympathy, of forgiveness. . . . The 
 red light melted into white the white of glory. The 
 murder faded from his heart, replaced by a deep, deep 
 glow of peace, of love, of infinite trust, of complete com- 
 
The Wave 363 
 
 prehension. . . . He accepted something marvelously. 
 He forgot himself. . . . 
 
 The eyes faded, the gold, the raiment, the perfume 
 vanished, the sound died away. He no longer shuffled 
 upon yielding sand. There was solid ground beneath his 
 feet. ... He was standing alert and upright, his arms 
 outstretched to save Tony from collapse upon the slid- 
 ing dune. And the sandy wind drove blindingly against 
 his face and skin. 
 
 The three of them stood side by side, holding to each 
 other, laughing, choking, spluttering, heads bent and eyes 
 closed tightly. Tom found his cousin's hand in his 
 own, clutching it firmly to keep his balance, while behind 
 himself against his "straight back/' he realized, even 
 while he choked and laughed Lettice clung for shelter. 
 Tom, therefore, actually had leaped forward but to pro- 
 tect and not to kill. He protected both of them. This 
 time, however, it was to himself that Lettice clung, in- 
 stead of to another. 
 
 The violent gust passed on its way, the flying cloud of 
 sand subsided, settling down on everything. For a mo- 
 ment they stood there rubbing their eyes, shaking their 
 clothing free; then raising their heads cautiously, they 
 looked about them. The air was still and calm again, 
 but in the distance, already a mile away and swiftly trav- 
 eling across the luminous waste, they saw the miniature 
 whirlwind driving furiously, leaping from ridge to ridge. 
 It swept over the innumerable dunes, lifting the series, 
 one crest after another, into upright waves upon a yellow 
 shimmering sea, then scattering them in a cloud that 
 shone and glinted against the fiery sunset. Its track was 
 easily marked. They watched it. ... 
 
 Tony was the first to recover breath. 
 
 "Whew !" he cried, still spluttering, "but that was sud- 
 den ! It took me clean off my feet for a moment. I got 
 your hand, Tom, only just in time to save myself !" He 
 shook himself, the sand was down his back and in his 
 
364 The Wave 
 
 hair, his shoes were full of it. "There'll be another any 
 minute now another whirlwind we'd better be start- 
 ing." He began packing up busily, shouting as he did so 
 to the donkey-boys. "By jove!" he cried the next sec- 
 ond, "look what's happened to our dune !" 
 
 Tom, who was on his knees, helping Lettice shake her 
 skirts free, rose to look. The high, curving bank of sand 
 where they had sheltered had indeed changed its shape; 
 the entire ridge had been flattened by the wind ; the crest 
 had been lifted and carried away, scattered in all direc- 
 tions. The wave-outline of two minutes before no longer 
 existed, it had broken, fallen over, melted back into the 
 surrounding sea of desert whence it rose. . . . 
 
 "It's disappeared!" exclaimed Tom and Lettice in the 
 same breath. 
 
 The boys arrived with the animals and sand-cart; the 
 baskets were quickly arranged, Tony mounted, Tom 
 helped Lettice in. She leaned heavily on his arm and 
 shoulder. It was in this moment's pause before the ac- 
 tual start that Lettice turned her head suddenly as though 
 listening. The air, motionless again, extraordinarily 
 heated, hung in a dull and yet transparent curtain be- 
 tween them and the sinking sun. The entire heavens 
 seemed to form a sounding-board, the least vibration res- 
 onant beneath its stretch. 
 
 "Listen !" she exclaimed. She had uttered no word till 
 now. She looked down at Tom, then looked away again. 
 
 They turned their heads in the direction where she 
 pointed, and Tom caught a faint, distant sound as of little 
 strokes that fell thudding on the heavy air. Tony de- 
 clared he heard nothing. The sound repeated itself rap- 
 idly, but at rhythmic intervals; it was unpleasant some- 
 where, a hint of alarm and menace in the throbbing 
 note ominous as though it warned. In the pulse of the 
 blood it seemed, like the beating of the heart, Tom 
 thought. It came to him almost through the pressure of 
 
The Wave 365 
 
 her hand upon his shoulder, although his ear told him it 
 came from the horizon where the Theban Hills loomed 
 through the coming dusk, just visible, but shadowy. The 
 muttering died away, then ceased, but not before he sud- 
 denly recalled an early morning hour beside a mountain 
 lake, when months ago the thud of invisible paddle-wheels 
 had stolen upon him through the quiet air. . . . 
 
 "A drum," he heard Lettice murmur. "It's a native 
 drum in Thebes. My little dream ! How the sound trav- 
 els too! And how it multiplies!" She peered at Tom 
 through half-closed eyelids. "It must be at least a dozen 
 miles away ... !" She smiled faintly, then dropped 
 her eyes quickly. 
 
 "Or a dozen centuries," he replied, not knowing quite 
 why he said it. "And more like a thousand drums than 
 only one!" He smiled too. For another part of him, 
 beyond capture somehow, knew what he meant, knew also 
 why he smiled knew also that she knew. 
 
 "It frightens me ! It's horrible. It sounds like death !" 
 And though she whispered the words, more to herself 
 than to the others, Tom heard each syllable. 
 
 The sound died away into the distance, and then 
 ceased. 
 
 Then Tony, watching them both, but, unable to hear 
 anything himself, called out again impatiently that it was 
 time to start, that Tom had a train to catch, that any 
 minute the real, big wind might be upon them. The hand 
 slowly, half lingeringly, left Tom's shoulder. They start- 
 ed rapidly with a kind of flourish. In a thin, black line 
 the small procession crept across the immense darkening 
 desert, like a strip of life that drifted upon a shoreless 
 ocean. . . . 
 
 The sun sank down below the Lybian sands. But no 
 awful wind descended. They reached home safely, ex- 
 hausted and rather silent. The two hours seemed to Tom 
 to have passed with a dream-like swiftness. The stars 
 were shining as they clattered down the little Luxor 
 
366 The Wave 
 
 street. In a dream, too,, he went to the hotel to change, 
 and fetch his bag ; in a dream he stood upon the platform, 
 held Tony's hand, held the soft hand of Lettice, said 
 good-by . . . and watched the station lights glide past as 
 he left them standing there together. 
 
CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 ONE incident, however, trivial, yet pregnant with 
 significant revelation, remained vividly outside the 
 dream. The Play behind broke through, as it were; an 
 actor forgot his role, and involved another actor; for an 
 instant the masquerade tripped up, and merged with the 
 commonplace reality of daily life. Explicit disclosure 
 lay in the trifling matter. 
 
 There was a touch of comedy, but of rather ghastly 
 comedy, ludicrous and at the same time painful those 
 smart, new yellow gloves that Tony put on when he 
 climbed into the sand-cart and took the reins. His don- 
 key had gone lame, he abandoned it to the boys behind, 
 he climbed in to drive with Lettice. Tom, riding beside 
 the cart, witnessed the entire incident; he laughed as 
 heartily as either of the others ; he felt it, however, as she 
 felt it a new sudden spiritual proximity to her proved 
 this to him. Both shrank from something disagreeable 
 and afflicting. The hands looked somehow dreadful. 
 
 For the first time Tom realized the physiognomy of 
 hands that hands, rather than faces, should be photo- 
 graphed ; not merely that they seemed now so large, so 
 spread, so ugly, but that somehow the glaring canary 
 yellow subtly emphasized another aspect that was dis- 
 tasteful and unpleasant an undesirable aspect in their 
 owner. The cotton was atrocious. So obvious was it to 
 Tom that he felt pity before he felt disgust. The obnox- 
 ious revelation was so palpable. He was aware that he 
 felt ashamed for Lettice. He stared for a moment, 
 unable to move his eyes away. The next second, lifting 
 his glance, he saw that she, too, had noticed it. With 
 a flash of keen relief, he was aware that she, like himself, 
 
 367 
 
368 The Wave 
 
 shrank visibly from the distressing half-sinister revela- 
 tion that was betrayal. 
 
 The hands, cased in their ridiculous yellow cotton, had 
 physiognomy. Upon the pair of them, just then, was an 
 expression not to be denied : of furtiveness, of something 
 sly and unreliable, a quality not to be depended on 
 through thick and thin, able to grasp for themselves but 
 not to hold for others; eager to take, yet incompetent 
 to give. The hands were selfish, mean and unprotective. 
 It was a remarkable disclosure of innate duality hitherto 
 concealed. Their physiognomy dropped a mask the face 
 still wore. The hands looked straight at Lettice; they 
 assumed a sensual leer; they grinned. 
 
 "One second," Tony cried, "the reins hurt my fingers," 
 and had drawn from his pocket the gloves and quickly 
 slipped them on canary yellow cotton ! 
 
 "Oh, oh !" exclaimed Lettice, "but how can you ! It's 
 ghastly . . . for a man ... !" She stared a moment,, 
 as though fascinated, then turned her eyes away, flicking 
 the whip in the air and laughing a trifle boisterously. 
 
 Why the innocent, if vulgar, scraps of clothing should 
 have been so revealing was hard to say. That they were 
 incongruous and out of place in the Desert was surely 
 an inconsiderable thing, that they were possibly in bad 
 taste was of even less account. It was something more 
 than that. It came in a second of vivid intuition so, at 
 least, it seemed to Tom, and therefore perhaps to Lettice 
 too that he saw his cousin's soul behind the foolish de- 
 tail. Tony had put his soul upon his hands and the 
 hands were somewhere cheap and worthless. 
 
 So difficult was it to catch the elusive thought in lan- 
 guage, that Tom certainly used none of the adjectives 
 that flashed unbidden across his mind; he assuredly 
 thought neither of "coarse," "untrustworthy," nor of 
 "false" or "nasty" yet the last named came probably 
 nearest to expressing the disquieting sensation that laid 
 its instant pressure upon his nerves, then went its way 
 
The Wave 369 
 
 again. It was disturbing in a very searching way ; he felt 
 uneasy for her sake. How could he leave her with the 
 owner of those hands, the wearer of those appalling yel- 
 low cotton gloves ! The laughter in him was subtle mock- 
 ery. For, of course, he laughed at himself for such an 
 absurd conclusion. . . . Yet, somehow, those gloves re- 
 vealed the man, betrayed him mercilessly! The hands 
 themselves were stained and they were naked. 
 
 It was just then that her exclamation of disapproval 
 interrupted Tom's curious sensations. It came with wel- 
 come. "Thank Heavens !" a voice cried inside him. . . . 
 "She feels it too!" 
 
 "But my sister sent them to me," Tony defended him- 
 self, "sent them from London. They're the latest thing 
 at home!" He was laughing at himself. At the same 
 time he was shifting the responsibility as usual. 
 
 Lettice laughed with him then, though her laughter 
 held another note that was not merriment. He felt dis- 
 gust, resentment in her. There was no pity there. Tony 
 had missed a cue the entire Play was blocked. The 
 "hero" stirred contempt in place of admiration. But 
 more the incident confirmed, it seemed, much else that 
 had preceded it. Her eyes were opened. 
 
 The conflict of pain and joy in Tom was most acute. 
 His entire sacrifice for an instant trembled in a hair- 
 like balance. For the capital role stood gravely en- 
 dangered in her eyes. 
 
 "Take them off, Tony ! Put them away ! Hide them ! 
 I couldn't trust you to drive me with such things on your 
 hands. A man in yellow canary cotton !" 
 
 All three laughed together, and Tom, -watching the triv- 
 ial incident, as he rode beside them, saw her seize one 
 hand and pull the glove off by the fingers. It seemed she 
 tore a mask from one side of his face the face beneath 
 was disfigured. The glove fell into the bottom of the 
 cart, then caught the loose rein and was jerked out upon 
 the sand. The next second, something of covert fury in 
 
370 The Wave 
 
 the gesture, Tony had taken off the other and tossed it to 
 keep company with the first. Both hands showed naked : 
 the entire face was bare. Tom looked away. 
 
 "They are hideous rather, I admit," exclaimed Tony. 
 "The donkey boys can pick them up and wear them." 
 And there was mortification in his tone and manner; al- 
 most he was found out. 
 
 It was the memory of this pregnant little incident that 
 held persistently before Tom's mind now, as the train 
 bore him the long night through between the desert and 
 the river that were Egypt. The bigger crowding pic- 
 tures, scenes and sentences, thronged panorama of the 
 recent weeks, lay in hiding underneath; but it was the 
 incident of those yellow gloves that memory tossed up 
 for ever before his eyes. He clung to it in spite of 
 himself. Imagination played its impish pranks. What 
 did it portend? Removing gloves was the first act in 
 undressing, it struck him. Tony had dressed up for the 
 Play, the Play was over, he must put off, piece by piece, 
 the glamour he had worn so successfully for his passion- 
 ate role. Once off the stage, the enchantment of the 
 limelight, the scenery, the raiment of gold that left a 
 perfume of ambra in the air all the assumed allurements 
 he had borrowed must be discarded. The Tony of the 
 dream withdrew, the real Tony stood discovered, un- 
 dressed by no means admirable. No longer on the 
 boards, walking like a king, with the regal fascination 
 of an older day, he would pass along the busy street un- 
 noticed, unadorned, bereft of the high distinction that 
 imagination, so strangely stirred, had laid upon him for 
 a little space. . . . The yellow gloves lay now upon the 
 desert sand; perhaps the whirling tempest tossed them 
 to and fro, perhaps it buried them; perhaps the Arab 
 boys, proud of the tinsel they mistook for gold, now wore 
 them in their sleep, lying on beds of rushes beneath the 
 flat-roofed houses of sun-baked clay. . . . 
 
The Wave 371 
 
 This vivid detail kept the heavier memories back at 
 first ; somehow the long review of his brief Egyptian win- 
 ter blocked each time against a pair of stooping shoulders 
 and a pair of yellow cotton gloves. 
 
 During the voyage of four days, however, followed 
 then the inevitable cruel aftermath of doubt, suspicion, 
 jealousy he had fancied long since overthrown. A hun- 
 dred incidents and details forced themselves upon him 
 from the past glances, gestures, phrases, such little 
 things and yet so pregnant with delayed or undelivered 
 meaning. The meanings rose remorselessly to the sur- 
 face now. 
 
 All belonged to the first days in Egypt before he no- 
 ticed anything; the mind worked backwards to thei.r 
 gleaning. They had escaped his attention at the time, yet 
 the mind had registered them none the less. He did not 
 seek their recovery, but the series offered itself, com- 
 pelling him to examine one and all, demanding that he 
 should pass judgment. He forced them back, they leaped 
 up again on springs ; the resilience was due to their life, 
 their truth ; they were not to be denied. 
 
 All pointed to the same conclusion: the month spent 
 alone with Tony had worked the mischief before his own 
 arrival by the time he came upon the scene the new 
 relationship was in full swing beyond her power to stop 
 it. Heavens, he had been blind! Ceaselessly, endlessly, 
 he made the circle of alternate pain and joy, of hope and 
 despair, of doubt and confidences yet the ideal in him 
 safe beyond assault. He believed in her, he trusted, and 
 he hoped. 
 
 The most poignant test, however, came when port was 
 reached and the scented land-wind met his nostrils with 
 the Spring. He saw the harbor with its white houses 
 shining in the early April sunshine ; the blue sea recalled 
 a wide-shored lake among the mountains : he saw the sea- 
 gulls, heard the lapping of the waves against the ship- 
 ping. . . . 
 
372 The Wave 
 
 He took the train to a little town along the coast, mean- 
 ing to stay there a day or two before facing London, 
 where the dismantling of the Brown Flat, and the search 
 for work awaited him. And there the full-blooded 
 spring of this southern climate took him by the throat. 
 The haze, the sweet moist air, the luscious fields, the 
 woods and flowery roads, above all the singing birds 
 this biting contrast with the dry, blazing desert skies of 
 tawny Egypt was dislocating. The fierce glare of per- 
 petual summer seemed a nightmare he had left behind; 
 he came back to the sweet companionship of friendly life 
 in field and tree and flower. 
 
 The first soft shower of rain, the first long twilight, the 
 singing of the thrushes after dark, the light in the little 
 homestead windows he felt such intimate kindness in it 
 all that the tears rose to his eyes. He longed to share 
 it with her . . . there was no joy in life without her. . . . 
 Egypt lay behind him with its awful loneliness, its stern, 
 forbidding emptiness, its nightmare sunsets, its cruel des- 
 ert, its appalling vastness in which everything had al- 
 ready happened. Thebes was a single, enormous tomb; 
 his past lay buried there; from the solemn, mournful, 
 desolate hills he had escaped. ... He emerged into a 
 smiling land of running streams and flowers. His new 
 life was beginning like the Spring. It gushed everywhere, 
 reminding him of another Spring he had known among 
 the mountains. . . . The "sum of loss" he counted min- 
 ute by minute, hour by hour, day by day. He began 
 the long, long reckoning. . . . 
 
 He felt intolerably alone. The hunger and yearning in 
 his heart seemed more than he could bear. This beauty 
 . . . without her beside him, without her to share the 
 sweet companionship of the earth . . . was too much to 
 bear. For one minute with her beside him in the mead- 
 ows, picking flowers, listening to the birds, her blue veil 
 flying in the wet mountain wind he would have given all 
 his life, his past, his future, everything that mind and 
 
The Wave 373 
 
 heart held precious. ... In the middle of which and at 
 its darkest moment came the certain knowledge with a 
 joy that broke in light and rapture on his soul that she 
 was beside him because she was within him. . . . He 
 approached the impersonal, selfless attitude to which the 
 attainment of an ideal alone is possible. She had been 
 added to him. . 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 THE silence, meanwhile, was like the silence that 
 death brings. He clung tenaciously to his ideal, yet 
 he thought of her daily, nightly, hourly. She was really 
 never absent from his thoughts. He starved, yet per- 
 haps he did not know he starved. . . . The days grew 
 into weeks with a grinding, dreadful slowness. He had 
 written from the steamer, explaining briefly that he was 
 called to England. He had written a similar line to Tony 
 too. No answers came. 
 
 Yet the silence was full of questions. The mystery of 
 her Egyptian infatuation remained the biggest one of all 
 perhaps. But there were others, equally insistent. Did 
 he really possess her in a way that made earthly compan- 
 ionship unnecessary? Had he lasting joy in this ideal pos- 
 session? Was it true that an ideal once attained, its 
 prototype becomes unsatisfying? Did he deceive him- 
 self? And had not her strange experience after all but 
 ripened and completed her nature, provided something 
 she had lacked before, and blended the Mother and the 
 Woman into the perfect mate his dream foretold and his 
 deep heart's instinct prophesied? 
 
 He heard many answers to these questions; his heart 
 made one, his reason made another. It was the soft and 
 urgent Spring, however, with its perfumed winds, its 
 singing birds, its happy message breaking with tumultu- 
 ous life it was the Spring on those wooded Mediter- 
 ranean shores that whispered the compelling truth. He 
 needed her, he yearned. An ideal, on this earth, to retain 
 its upward lure, must remain an ideal. Attainment in 
 the literal sense destroys it. His arms were hungry and 
 his heart was desolate. Then one day he knew the happy 
 
 374 
 
The Wave 375 
 
 yet unhappy feeling that she suffered too. He felt her 
 thoughts about him like soft birds. . . . 
 
 And he wrote to her : "I should just like to know that 
 you are well and happy." He addressed it to the Bunga- 
 low. The same day, chance had it, he received word from 
 her, forwarded from the Semiramis Hotel in Cairo. She 
 wrote two lines only : "Tom, the thing I had to tell you 
 about was Warsaw. It is over. As you said, it is bet- 
 ter written, perhaps, than told. Yours, L." 
 
 Egypt came flooding through the open window as he 
 laid the letter down; the silence, the desert spaces, the 
 perfume and the spell. He saw one thing clearly in that 
 second, for he saw it in a flash. The secret of her trouble 
 that last day in Luxor was laid bare the knowledge that 
 within a few hours she would be free. To Tom she 
 could not easily tell it; delicacy, modesty, pride forbade. 
 Her long, painful duty, faithfully fulfilled these many 
 years, was over. Her world had altered, opened out. 
 Values, of course, had instantly altered too; she saw 
 what was real and what ephemeral; she looked at Tony 
 and she looked at himself. She could speak to Tony 
 it was easier, it did not matter but she could not so 
 easily speak to Tom. The yellow gloves of cotton! . . . 
 His heart leaped within him. . . . 
 
 He stared out of the window across the blue Mediter- 
 ranean with its dancing, white-capped waves; he saw 
 the white houses by the harbor ; he watched the whirling 
 sea-gulls and tasted the fresh, salt air. How familiar 
 it all was ! Of her whereabouts at that moment he had 
 no knowledge; she might be on the steamer, gazing at 
 the same dancing waves ; she might be in Warsaw or in 
 London even; she might pass by the windows of the 
 Brown Flat. . . . 
 
 He turned aside, closing the window. Egypt with- 
 drew, the glamour waned, the ancient spell seemed lifted. 
 He thought of those Theban Hills without emotion. 
 Yet something in him trembled; he yearned, he ached, 
 
376 The Wave 
 
 he longed with all the longing of the Spring. He wav- 
 ered oh, deliciously . . . ! He was glad, radiantly 
 glad, that she had written. Only he dared not, he could 
 not answer. . . . 
 
 Yet big issues are decided sometimes by paltry and 
 ignoble influences when sturdier considerations produce 
 no effect. It is the contrast that furnishes the magic. 
 It was contrast, doubtless, that swayed Tom's judgment 
 in the very direction he had decided was prohibited. 
 His surroundings at the moment supplied the contrast, 
 for these surroundings were petty and ignoble they 
 drove him by the distress of sheer disgust into the world 
 of larger values he had known with her. Probably, he 
 did not discover this consciously for himself : the result, 
 in any case, was logical and obvious. Values changed 
 suddenly for him, too, both in his outlook and his judg- 
 ment. 
 
 For he was spending a few days with his widowed 
 sister, she who had been playmate to Lettice years ago ; 
 and the conditions of her life and mind distressed him. 
 He had seen her name in a hotel list of Mentone; he 
 surprised her with a visit; he was received with inex- 
 plicable coldness. His tie with her was slight, her hus- 
 band, a clergyman, little to his liking; he had not been 
 near them for several years. The frigid reception, how- 
 ever, had a deeper cause he felt ; his curiosity was piqued. 
 
 His sister's chart of existence, indeed, was too remote 
 from his own for true sympathy to be possible, and her 
 married life had not improved her. They had drifted 
 apart without openly acknowledging it. There was no 
 quarrel, but there was a certain bitterness between them. 
 She had a marked faiblesse, strange in one securely born, 
 for those nominally in high places that, while disingenu- 
 ous enough, jarred painfully always on her brother. 
 God was unknown to her, although her husband preached 
 most familiarly concerning Him. She had never seen 
 the deity, but an Earl was a living reality, and often very 
 
The Wave 377 
 
 useful. This banal weakness, he now found, had in- 
 creased in widowhood. Tom hid his extreme distaste 
 and learned the astonishing reason for her coldness. It 
 was Mrs. Haughstone. It took his breath away. He was 
 too amazed to speak. 
 
 How clearly he understood her conduct now in Egypt ! 
 For Mrs. Haughstone had spread stories of the Bunga- 
 low, pernicious stories of an incredible kind, yet with 
 just sufficient basis of apparent truth to render them 
 plausible plausible, that is, to any who were glad of an 
 excuse to believe them against himself. These stories 
 by a roundabout way, gathering in circumstantial detail 
 as they traveled, had reached his sister. She wished to 
 believe them, and she did. Certain relatives, moreover, 
 of meager intelligence but highly, placed in the social 
 world, and consequently of great importance in her life, 
 were remotely affected by the lurid tales. A report in 
 full is unnecessary, but Mary held that the family honor 
 was stained. It was an incredible imbroglio. Tom was 
 so overwhelmed by this revelation of the jealous woman's 
 guile, and the light it threw upon her role in Egypt, that 
 he did not even trouble to defend himself. He merely 
 felt sorry that his sister could believe such tales and 
 forgave her without a single word. He saw in it all an- 
 other scrap of evidence that the Wave had indeed fallen, 
 that his life everywhere, and from the most unlikely di- 
 rections, was threatened, that all the most solid in the 
 structure he had hitherto built up and leaned upon, was 
 crumbling and must crumble utterly in order that it 
 might rise secure upon fresh foundations. 
 
 He faced it, but faced it silently. He washed his hands 
 of all concerned ; he had learned their values too ; he now 
 looked forward instead of behind ; that is, he forgot, and 
 at the same time utterly forgave. 
 
 But the effect upon him was curious. The stagnant 
 ditch his sister lived in had the result of flinging him 
 headlong back into the larger stream he had just left be- 
 
378 The Wave 
 
 hind him; in that larger world things happened indeed, 
 things unpleasant, cruel, mysterious, amazing but yet 
 not little things. The scale was vaster, horizons wider, 
 beauty and wonder walked hand in hand with love and 
 death. The contrast shook him; the trivial blow had 
 this immense effect, that he yearned with redoubled pas- 
 sion for the nobler region in which ideals with their 
 prototypes, however broken, existed side by side. 
 
 This yearning, and the change involved, remained 
 subtly concealed, however. He was not properly con- 
 scious of it. Other very practical considerations, more- 
 over, influenced him; his money was getting low; he 
 had luckily sublet the flat, but the question of work was 
 becoming insistent. There was much to be faced. . . . 
 A month had slipped by, it was five weeks since he had 
 left Egypt. He decided to go to London. He tele- 
 graphed to the Club for his letters he expected impor- 
 tant ones to be sent to Paris, and it was in a small high 
 room on the top floor of a second-rate hotel across the 
 Seine, that he found them waiting for him. It was here, 
 in this dingy room, that he read the wondrous words. 
 The letter had lain at his Club three days, it was dated 
 Switzerland and the postmark was Montreux. It was in 
 pencil, without beginning and without end; his name, 
 her signature did not appear: 
 
 Your little letter has come yes, I am well, but happy I am not. 
 I went to the Semiramis and found that you had sailed, sailed 
 without even a good-by. I have come here, here to familiar little 
 Montreux by the blue lake, where we first knew the Spring to- 
 gether. I can't say anything, I can't explain anything. You 
 must never ask me to explain ; Egypt changed me brought out 
 something in me I was helpless to resist. It was something per- 
 haps I needed. I struggled perhaps you can guess how I 
 struggled, perhaps you can't. I have suffered these past weeks, 
 I believe that I have expiated something. The power that drove 
 me is exhausted, and that is all I know. I have worked it out. 
 I have come back. There is no blame for others for any one; 
 I can't explain. Your little letter has come, and so I write. Help 
 
The Wave 379 
 
 me, oh, help me in years to find my respect again, and try to love 
 the woman you once knew knew here in Montreux beside the 
 lake, long ago in our childhood days, further back still, perhaps, 
 though where I do not know. And, Tom tell me how you are. 
 I must know that. Please write and tell me that. I can bear it 
 no longer. If anything happened to you I should just turn over 
 and die. You have been true and very big, oh, so true and big. 
 I see it now. . 
 
 Tom did not answer. He took the night train. He 
 was just in time to catch the Simplon Express from the 
 Gare de Lyon. He reached Montreux at seven o'clock, 
 when the June sun was already high above the Dent du 
 Midi and the lake a sheet of sparkling blue. He went 
 to his old hotel. He saw the swans floating like bundles 
 of dry paper, he saw the whirling sea-gulls, he obtained 
 his former room. And spring was just melting into full- 
 blown summer upon the encircling mountains. 
 
 It was still early when he had bathed and breakfasted, 
 too early for visitors to be abroad, too early to search. 
 . . . He could settle to nothing ; he filled the time as best 
 he could ; he smoked and read an English newspaper that 
 was several days old at least. His eyes took in the lines, 
 but his mind did not take in the sense until a familiar 
 name caught his attention and made him keenly alert. 
 The name was Anthony Winslowe. He remembered sud- 
 denly that Tony had never replied to his letter. . . . The 
 paragraph concerning his cousin, however, dealt with an- 
 other matter that sent the blood flaming to his cheeks. 
 He was defendant in the breach of promise suit brought 
 by a notorious London actress, then playing in a popular 
 revue. The case had opened; the letters were already 
 produced in court and read. The print danced before 
 his eyes. The letters were dated last October and No- 
 vember, just before Tony had come out to Egypt, and 
 with crimson face Tom read them. It was more than 
 distressing, it was afflicting the letters tore an estab- 
 lished reputation into a thousand pieces. He could not 
 
380 The Wave 
 
 finish the report; he only prayed that another had not 
 seen it. ... 
 
 It was eleven o'clock when he went out and joined the 
 throng of people sunning themselves on the walk beside 
 the lake. The air was sweet and fresh, there were sail- 
 ing-boats upon the water, the blue mountains lifted their 
 dazzling snow far, far into the summer sky. He leaned 
 over the rail and watched the myriads of tiny fishes, he 
 watched the swans, he saw the dim line of the Jura hills 
 in the hazy distance, he heard the muffled beat of a steam- 
 er's paddle-wheels a long way off. And then, abruptly, 
 he was aware that some one touched him; a hand in a 
 long white glove was on his arm; there was a subtle 
 perfume ; two dark eyes looked into his ; and he heard a 
 low familiar voice: 
 
 "One day we shall find each other in a crowd." 
 
 Tom was amazingly inarticulate. He just turned and 
 looked down at her, moving a few inches closer as he did 
 so. She wore a black boa; the fur touched his cheek. 
 
 "You have come back/' he said. 
 
 There was a new wonder in her face, a soft new 
 beauty. The woman in her glowed. . . . He saw the 
 suffering plainly too. 
 
 "We have both found out," she said very low, "found 
 out what we are to one another." 
 
 Tom's supply of words failed completely then. He 
 looked at her looked all the language in the world. And 
 she understood. She lowered her eyes. "I feel shy," he 
 thought he heard. It was murmured only. The next 
 minute she raised her eyes again to his. He saw them 
 dark and beautiful, tender as his mother's, true and faith- 
 ful, as in his boyhood's dream of years ago. But they 
 were now a woman's eyes. 
 
 "I never really left you, Tom . . ." she said with 
 absolute conviction. "I never could. I went aside . . . 
 to fetch something to give to you. That was all !" 
 
 THE END 
 
THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA CRUZ 
 
 This book is due on the last DATE stamped below. 
 
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