UNIVERSJTY OF CALIFORN 
 AT LOS ANGELES 
 
 lA 
 
 =rJ:ii
 
 'n-
 
 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 FRANK SWINNERTON
 
 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 BY 
 FRANK SWINNERTON 
 
 AUTHOR OF "ON THE STAIRCASE," 
 
 << 
 
 THE HAPPY FAMILY," ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
 
 COPTHIGHT, 1917, 
 BY GEORGE H. DOBAN COMPANY 
 
 
 • • » « • • 
 
 • • « 
 
 • 
 
 
 • » 
 
 f • • 
 
 • 
 • • 
 
 • • 
 
 • • 
 
 
 « • 
 
 • • 
 
 • • •• 
 
 • • • » 
 
 • 
 
 • • 
 * to 
 
 
 • • 
 
 • * » • 
 
 • 
 
 • 
 
 • 
 
 • 
 
 • • • 
 
 
 •• 
 
 
 • 
 
 • 
 ft ^ 
 
 ,• • 
 
 4 
 
 
 • 
 
 ft • 
 
 « 
 
 
 
 
 
 • % 
 
 • 
 
 
 « 
 
 • • • 
 
 • • 
 
 • •• 
 
 
 • 
 
 • • 
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
 
 a 
 
 
 
 -1 
 
 O 
 
 TO 
 
 Mrs. and P. P. 
 
 WITH THE WISH THAT IT 
 HAD BEEN MORE WORTHY 

 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PART ONE: THE STORY OF THE 
 SCRUPULOUS LOVER 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. Crimson Roses ii 
 
 IL What Dorothy Knew 33 
 
 III. Steps Towards Light 52 
 
 IV. Considerations 75 
 
 V. An Unexpected Visitor 89 
 
 VI. Stephen Alone 103 
 
 VII. Ordeals 116 
 
 VIII. Tea with the Moores 134 
 
 PART TWO: THE STORY OF THE 
 HUSBAND'S PROGRESS 
 
 IX. The Day of Promise 151 
 
 X. Three Letters 168 
 
 XI. Epitome 179 
 
 XII. Visitors at the Cottage 211 
 
 XIII. Confidences 226 
 
 XIV. Stephen's Narrative 241 
 
 XV. Afterwards 253 
 
 PART THREE: THE STORY OF THE 
 CHASTE WIFE 
 
 XVI. Dread 265 
 
 XVII. Directions 277 
 
 XVIII. The Trough of the Wave 290 
 
 vii
 
 viii CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTEB PAQB 
 
 XIX. Tolerance .....' 302 
 
 XX. Roy in Trouble 313^ 
 
 XXI. Straws 327 
 
 XXII. Minnie 335 
 
 XXIII. Danger 343 
 
 XXIV. The Danger Unmasked 354 
 
 XXV. Parental Solicitude 364 
 
 XXVI. Hilary 378 
 
 XXVII. Priscilla's Journey 388 
 
 XXVIII. The Old Man 399 
 
 XXIX. The Last 407
 
 PART ONE 
 
 THE STORY OF 
 THE SCRUPULOUS LOVER
 
 CHAPTER I: CRIMSON ROSES 
 
 IT was a very hot day in the middle of summer. The 
 sky was cloudless, and as Priscilla lay in the ham- 
 mock under a big mulberry-tree she seemed to hear the 
 whole garden droning with the busy song of bees, bum- 
 bling as it were with satisfaction at a harvest so happily 
 plentiful. Near to Priscilla were two young men, both 
 of whom were in flannels, as though they either had been 
 playing or were about to play tennis. Two racquets had 
 been tossed aside upon the grass; and a little farther 
 away, through a screen of bushes (favourable cover for 
 the adroitly self-losing tennis balls), could be seen a 
 delectable lawn upon which the single court had been 
 marked out and a net erected. But the two young men 
 made no stir in the direction of their game — the one be- 
 cause he was in love with Priscilla, the other because he 
 was an unusually lazy person — and continued to lounge 
 in the wicker chairs which offered such shady harbour- 
 age. All three seemed to be drowsy, lost in the lulling 
 sweetness of the afternoon heat. There were many 
 flowers in the sunn}'- part of the garden : the scent of them 
 was heavy, as thickly mingled as the morning choruses 
 of birds which awakened Priscilla each day. Romeo, a 
 little cat, toyed fancifully with a crawling insect upon a 
 neighbouring path. 
 
 Priscilla, in her barely stationary hammock, listened 
 idly to the sounds of the garden. Her brother David 
 watched the thin stream of smoke drift from the bowl 
 of his pipe. Hilary Badoureau, who lay so far back in 
 his chair that his head was little higher than his knees, 
 frowned in a sort of smiling ecstasy. All three were 
 
 11
 
 12 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 hajipy and iintroiibled, enjoying the day and the hour 
 and the peace of the garden. Only Romeo relaxed none 
 of the intcntness of the chase, but pursued his creeping 
 victim with a palatable sense of power felt only by the 
 simple-minded and the unmoral. In some such tranquil 
 hour must the Sleeping Beauty and her retinue have 
 fallen under the spell which had so happy an issue. 
 
 In a moment Priscilla's eyes strayed to the path upon 
 which hunting was in progress. 
 
 "That horrible Romeo's torturing an insect. Romeo! 
 Leave it alone!" 
 
 Romeo's ears acknowledged the call; but his activity 
 did not pause. 
 
 Badoureau, who had looked up at Priscilla's speech, 
 smiled at the result. 
 
 "Romeo's not like a cat," he remarked idly. "He's 
 more like a friend." 
 
 "He's got ears like a horse," Priscilla declared. 
 
 "But much larger," added David. 
 
 Romeo was obviously discomposed by these remarks; 
 but he struggled to maintain an air of nonchalant dis- 
 regard. When his effort provoked their laughter, how- 
 ever, he turned and uttered a sharp protest. 
 
 "Well, leave the little thing alone," called Priscilla. 
 
 Unwillingly, but in a way which suggested that he 
 understood what had been said, Romeo left the path and 
 came across the intervening space, until, making a wide 
 detour in order to avoid the young men, he was able to 
 jump on to the hammock at Priscilla's feet. The ham- 
 mock rocked gently for an instant under the weight of 
 his onset; and once again there was silence, though a 
 light breeze a little disturbed the leaves of the mulberry- 
 tree ; and in every instant tiny speckles of sunlight danced 
 across the shade. 
 
 "How old is Romeo?" asked Badoureau at length, be- 
 cause he wanted to hear Priscilla speak.
 
 CRIMSON ROSES 13 
 
 "Two years. Just two years. And unregenerate. 
 Aren't you, Romeo?" There was no answer. "People 
 talk of animals being so much better than men ; but really 
 there doesn't seem much to choose between them, d'you 
 think?" 
 
 "That's the Humanitarian paradox," Badoureau 
 agreed. "It pleases them. Nobody else minds." 
 
 "Hear, hear!" said David feebly. "O soothsayer." 
 
 "What about that game you were going to play?" 
 
 "Too hot." 
 
 "He knows," David explained, "that he funks my 
 service." 
 
 Badoureau slowly pushed himself up in his chair, rose, 
 and seized his racquet. The gibe fell harmlessly aside, 
 for he was obviously a very active young man in perfect 
 condition. He was one of those very fair men who escape 
 light eyelashes; his hair, which was brushed right across 
 his forehead, was yellow, but it was not canary-yellow; 
 and his bright determined face was that of a brave young- 
 ster who would be a brave man. He was just under six 
 feet high in height, strikingly beautiful. 
 
 "Come along, old thing," he urged. 
 
 David also rose, juggling with his pipe, which fell 
 from his teeth as he moved. He was much smaller than 
 his friend, and much darker. His mouth was rather 
 long, but the lips were thin and firmly set. His hair was 
 more curly than Badoureau's, and was brushed straight 
 back over his head. He also was well built ; but he was 
 slimmer, and more wiry, a fact w^hich he elaborately 
 strove to hide under an incomparable air of laziness. 
 With his legs apart he picked up the racquet. 
 
 Priscilla watched them as they went off to the tennis- 
 lawn, and smiled to see their languor gradually replaced 
 by a subtle air of energy. 
 
 "Well, Romeo," she said, "it's evident that you and 
 I are very lazy people."
 
 14 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 Romeo pretended not to hear. Only the uncontrollable 
 movement of his large ears betrayed him. He was curled 
 up on a cushion at Priscilla's feet, with his head on her 
 muslin dress, and a smile seemed to curve his lips. Romeo 
 was a tabby cat, deeply coloured in rich browns, with 
 large luminous eyes and the thin face of the female. His 
 underparts were of a delicate fawn, and his feet were 
 white. He would not have taken a prize anywhere, 
 though he might have interested the scientist by reason 
 of his advanced intelligence and strongly marked char- 
 acter. Romeo, in fact, was an instance of the modern 
 sexless cat; for while he was in reality a female he still 
 pursued his course "in maiden meditation, fancy free," 
 and was a bold hunter, an outdoor cat, a home-at-night 
 cat, a friendly little cat, passionately loving Priscilla, 
 obedient as a dog to her whistle, and her constant com- 
 panion in the garden. His perception of friendliness in 
 men and women, though, of course, influenced by the 
 quietness of each person's movements, was acute. He 
 was very powerful in the Evandine family, and a good 
 friend to have at court, since his approval was admitted 
 to carry much weight. 
 
 "Romeo," said Priscilla, "you're getting very rude. 
 I spoke to you." 
 
 Romeo made a hoarse noise, as of apology. Satisfied, 
 although rather unwillingly, with this sign of repentance, 
 Priscilla began to remember the first time she had seen 
 Badoureau — when she had gone up to Oxford for one 
 of the celebrations — and she recalled that he had been 
 with David at the station to meet them. There had been 
 a good deal of nonsense, and, upon his part, a little rather 
 undergraduatish pressing sentimentality ; and the celebra- 
 tion had been very delightful in all its elaborate, seemingly 
 casual, details. Later, when the young men lived out of 
 college, he and David had shared rooms in King Edward 
 Street, and Badoureau had come home with David one
 
 CRBISON ROSES 15 
 
 summer for a few days before they went abroad together. 
 Both had taken History — Badoureau with much eclat — 
 and both had come down from the University about 
 three years before this story opens, David, following 
 that ignis fatuus which leads astray so many Oxford and 
 Cambridge men, had, by his father's influence, entered 
 the publishing trade; Badoureau, with rather more 
 money, but less immediate ambition, had subsided in 
 his father's office, had gone so far as to "eat his dinners," 
 and would go, in the legal profession, no farther. His 
 destiny was otherwise, 
 
 ii 
 
 It is not for one moment to be supposed that Priscilla 
 did not know all that was in Hilary Badoureau's mind 
 concerning herself : his earliest rather pressing senti- 
 mental activities had been too unmistakable for that. 
 Moreover, although the manner of his approach to her 
 had improved steadily as he grew older, he still regarded 
 her obviously in a rather possessive way which might 
 well have led a girl of smaller personality to turn in- 
 stinctively towards him. Badoureau sometimes ques- 
 tioned David as to Priscilla's feelings — such exchanges 
 of opinion were passing, half -breathed, something merely 
 to be mentioned at night while a pipe was being lighted, 
 a conference to be smothered by a slight scorch from a 
 waning match — but Priscilla's feelings remained, to the 
 young men, as mystifying as ever. Until one or other, 
 with all the profound penetration of young manhood, 
 should discover a motion of partiality, Badoureau would 
 not venture to hazard everything by the only method 
 which would have resolved his hesitations. His oppor- 
 tunities were so few, his pride so very powerful — and 
 David's attitude was so mixed between sympathetic 
 ridicule, inability to see any issue excepting his friend's 
 success, and deep scepticism about the whole business —
 
 16 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 that Badoureaii's doubts were always blowing like sudden 
 winds upon his pride and his desire, making them both 
 flame into an intolerable heat from which he could never 
 escape. He used to sit in his room at home and write 
 little verses to Priscilla, staring at an aesthetic wall-paper 
 for inspiration, and at his prints of Botticelli's works, 
 and at his books. Then he would leave ofif writing the 
 verses and would rid himself of the poetic impulse by- 
 some more active physical exercise. Then he would meet 
 other nice girls, and would mentally compare them with 
 Priscilla. He lived a very happy, healthy life, working 
 as it suited him, playing a great deal, worrying very little 
 indeed, and enjoying a considerable variety in his days, 
 which never, even when love was uppermost in his 
 thoughts, became in the least tedious. 
 
 David Evandine, on the other hand, being bent upon 
 quite other schemes, went every day to his publishing 
 office — sometimes read a manuscript, generally lounged 
 about, smoking, and in his lazy way kept most alertly 
 aware of all that was passing, both in the business of 
 which he was a part and in the businesses of all rival 
 firms whatsoever. In three years, owing to his casual 
 partnership, his large circle of acquaintances — which he 
 had made through his father, through his fellow Univer- 
 sity men, and through his own researches in aesthetic 
 society, — and his natural talent, David had reached a 
 point of omniscience which was the marvel of his asso- 
 ciates. He would one day write a very brilliant, casual 
 novel, and put into it the results of his unhesitating 
 observation. David's sharp eye riddled the pretensions 
 of all writers. He knew what each man was good for, 
 and what or whom each woman was bad for. All that 
 extraordinary experience of the undergraduate in exploit- 
 ing the nonsense and the vanities of this world for the 
 delight of his friends had served as an excellent basis 
 for his later work. It had given him what is called a
 
 CREVISON ROSES 17 
 
 catholic taste — which, being defined, signifies a cool 
 narrowness of sympathy, supplemented by ingenious 
 prejudices and a very happy knack of turning to ridicule 
 whatever he did not happen to like. He was a very able, 
 likeable, popular young man, quite modest, but very 
 shrewd, and very typical of his kind and of his class. 
 He was much more susceptible to experience than was 
 Badoureau, and so he assimilated more. It gave him the 
 air of being a man of the world, which is an air greatly 
 cultivated by the undergraduate ; but he was almost wholly 
 free of the man-of-the-world's sentimentality. That is 
 to say, he was a gentleman. 
 
 So it was that the two friends, sharing so much, found 
 in each other the necessary strangeness and variety that 
 keeps friendship alive. They argued together, lunched 
 together, walked together, played together. Together 
 they sampled the vintages of life, of which it seems to 
 be the business of every educated young man to be a 
 connoisseur. Together tliey spent hours and evenings 
 of unstinted leisure, and talked as largely, as freely, and 
 as finally as ever they had done in King Edward Street 
 or elsewhere. In spite, however, of so much companion- 
 ship, the two young men could still beat each other at 
 tennis upon a very hot summer day at the bidding of 
 some vital energy which it had never entered their heads 
 to define. And Priscilla listened to them as they ran 
 about and praised and taunted each other and called their 
 score, until at last the magic word "Game!" sounded in 
 David's exulting voice, followed by his little quick laugh 
 of triumph. At that moment she saw, advancing across 
 the lawn, carrying a little table, Biddy, the prepossessing 
 parlourmaid of the Evandines' household — a girl of per- 
 fect manners and, as far as could be ascertained, no 
 personality 'v^hatever — competent, silent, inexhaustible, 
 but apparently senseless. 
 
 Biddy was not one of those Biddies who say, "Ef ye
 
 18 THE CHASTE WH^E 
 
 plaze, miss." On the contrary, she spoke almost more 
 correctly than did Priscilla herself. She carried the 
 table with remarkable ease and simply astonishing grace, 
 and was able to smile friendly at Priscilla as she put it 
 down. Then she went away again, to return with a huge 
 cakestand; then again, to return with the tray. Only 
 when this was done did she address Priscilla. 
 
 "The mistress says that she'll be coming with the 
 American gentleman in a few minutes, Miss Priscilla; 
 and will you please not wait for her." 
 
 "Thank you, Biddy. Come along, David. Hilary !" 
 
 Priscilla eluded Romeo, and without help disentangled 
 herself from the hammock. The tennis-players came 
 droopingly back into the welcome shadow, pretending 
 to be hotter and more tired than they were. And Priscilla 
 demurely poured out the tea for them, to Badoureau's 
 great admiration. 
 
 "Mother will be here in a minute with Mr. Vana- 
 mure," she presently announced. "An American who's 
 come to see father," she added for Badoureau's infor- 
 mation. 
 
 "Oh, that chap !" David frowned a little. "Marvel- 
 lous how he gets about." 
 
 "He admires father, it seems." Priscilla spoke quite 
 seriously. She, too, admired Mr. Evandine, and even 
 sometimes read some chapters of his books. She always 
 handled the books with pride, but they were on sub- 
 jects which did not greatly interest her, so she generally 
 postponed reading them until a more convenient 
 season. 
 
 "I saw Agg lunching him the other day. Vanamure's 
 very short, and Agg's as long as a clothes-prop. They 
 looked awfully queer." 
 
 "I like Mr. Agg: he's so quaint," Priscilla said. "He 
 goggles at you." 
 
 "Oh — Agg. Yes, I know him." Badoureau recalled
 
 CRIMSON ROSES 19 
 
 a very lengthy man in a strange cloth hat and baggy 
 trousers. "He's a writer or something. Who is Vana- 
 mure ?" 
 
 "American critic. Dull little fellow. I should think 
 he admired everybody. 'Why, this is a more excellent 
 song than the other.' Not a bit like an American either, 
 though he's got a very strong accent. He smokes jolly 
 good cigars." 
 
 "D'you mean he's a writer?" Badoureau asked. 
 
 "Well, now you come to mention it — I don't believe 
 he is. I fancy he's a man of means who's simply got 
 books on the brain." 
 
 "That's just like father!" interrupted Priscilla. "Only, 
 of course, he is a writer." 
 
 David handed her his cup. It was a disconcerting 
 movement, which Priscilla did not understand. But she 
 obediently refilled the cup, which was as fine and as clear 
 as her own complexion. 
 
 "By the way : hasn't your father just published a 
 book?" Badoureau asked. 
 
 "A tremendous great book." Priscilla's voice expressed 
 hugeness. 
 
 "Your people do it?" said Badoureau to David. David 
 shook his head. 
 
 "No: Seeds did it. They do all his books, you 
 know." 
 
 "It's an enormous life of Leigh Hunt. He says it fills 
 a great void," explained Priscilla. "You and I mightn't 
 know that, Hilary. Don't you think it sounds rather 
 thrilHng?" 
 
 "Vastly thrilling," said David dryly. "And what's 
 more, there is now indoors a very vigorous slating of it, 
 calculated to cheer the old man up." 
 
 "A slating !" Priscilla's colour rose. "How disgusting ! 
 By somebody jealous, I expect. Why, father knows such 
 an awful lot about Leigh Hunt."
 
 20 THE CHASTE WH^E 
 
 "But your father . . ." Badoureau was beginning, 
 when they saw Mrs. Evandine coming across the lawn 
 with a small dark-bearded man, and the arrival of the 
 new-comers put a stop to any further talk on this un- 
 pleasant subject. 
 
 m 
 
 Mrs. Evandine had passed from youth to middle age 
 so gently that her friends had never noticed the change. 
 It was a shock to them to see that Priscilla was growing 
 up, for, of course, if Priscilla grew up, her mother's age 
 must increase proportionately. That was a conclusion 
 which even they could not shirk. In consternation they 
 would glance at Mrs. Evandine; and in that case they 
 would be reassured. She had grown older so gradually 
 that while she was clearly Priscilla's mother, and not 
 her sister (a relation which could only have been estab- 
 lished by some underhand manipulations), she was still 
 beautiful and still without rival. Mrs. Evandine's life 
 had been so entirely happy that her hair retained its 
 colour and her eyes their fresh clearness : yet her nature 
 had such youth and elasticity that she had grown more 
 mature and more wise with the passage of time, without 
 sacrificing a particle of her old charm. She could laugh 
 as naturally as she had ever done; and she had found 
 in her interest and sympathy with others a spiritual 
 reality denied to those women who vainly seek to evoke 
 from their daily self-consciousness a personality where- 
 with to affright the world. And it is worth noting that 
 even among such women, many of whom she frequently 
 met, Mrs. Evandine was liked and respected. Perhaps 
 it was because she suffered fools gladly ; perhaps the fools 
 were less foolish in her company. For it is too seldom 
 realized that sympathy, as well as love, does not simply 
 imagine or bestow beauty : it also calls it forth. As the 
 girl in love seems to grow more beautiful, so she really
 
 CRIMSON ROSES 21 
 
 grows ; and as one kindly treated seems to soften, so she 
 does actually lose her difficult angularities. There is no 
 illusion. Mrs. Evandine saw good; but there was good 
 for her to see. Nevertheless, she was very patient and 
 often rather long-sighted. 
 
 Mrs. Evandine saw good in Mr. Vanamure. Mr. Vana- 
 mure thought her a most attractive woman. He wished 
 that he could have been snapshotted as he walked across 
 the lawn in her company. It would have made a very 
 charming little picture in a semi-literary periodical — Mr. 
 Vanamure walking with the wife of the eminent critic 
 in the grounds of Mr. Evandine's old-world house at 
 Whetstone. Mr. Vanamure was by no means a typical 
 American; but he had that pictorial sense which many 
 Englishmen suppose to be typically American. He saw 
 himself in charming little pictures, against lovely old 
 porches, and with distinguished men and attractive 
 women, and in the act of mounting a Rolls-Royce motor, 
 and on the side of Snowdon, and gazing at the lions in 
 Trafalgar Square. It was all his modesty. There existed 
 no snapshot of Mr. Vanamure solus, Mr, Vanamure in 
 his own home. Always Mr. Vanamure ventured to emu- 
 late the chameleon, and take the colour of his surround- 
 ings. Not Mr. Vanamure the man was here represented, 
 but Mr. Vanamure the privileged atom. Mr. Vanamure's 
 idea of Paradise must have been a kaleidoscopic view of 
 his encounters with the many celebrated people and places 
 who and which had adorned his snapshots. His manner 
 was placid and benign ; his heavy, dark, silken beard and 
 his very luminous eyes were alike ingratiating. He looked 
 upon the trio of young people with an air of suave won- 
 der. They almost expected that he would extol them. 
 To Priscilla, in one quick glance, it seemed as though 
 he might be Romeo's brother. 
 
 "How d'you do. Charmed," said Mr. Vanamure 
 bravely. "Delightfully hot." He stopped before them
 
 22 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 with a bow of extreme "race, and in his manner a soft 
 inquiring intelhgence that was not quite a smile. 
 
 "You boys seem to be quite exhausted," Mrs. Evandine 
 went on. "But then I suppose you've been playing." 
 They admitted the fact, to Mr. Vanamure's great interest. 
 
 "Now, that's just wonderful !" he declared. "To think 
 that while I was cloistered in Professor Evandine's study, 
 among all those grand old books, there should have been 
 . . . really, you see, the silence of it all. , . . Quite 
 marvellous." 
 
 "But when you were very young, Mr. Vanamure — " 
 Priscilla began. 
 
 "Never, I assure you. Miss Evandine. Studious from 
 the very first, I must always be with my book in the 
 shadow." Mr. Vanamure sighed, and his mild, sweet, 
 drawling voice seemed a part of the drowsy afternoon. 
 "Beauty transfigured in fine literature was always my 
 delight. . . ." 
 
 "Not even sermons in stones?" asked David, smiling. 
 "Did you never conjure the running brook?" 
 
 "Never, Mr. Evandine. I'm sorry for it now. I'm 
 conscious as I sit here of the vast enveloping of nature, 
 the enchanting day, and the lovely oneness of the . . . 
 the ... in fact, of every sound that the breeze carries. 
 But it is always the poet's nature I see, Mr. Evandine, 
 the music of the measured rhythm of life, as one may 
 say. Deepening, as it were. . . ." His voice disap- 
 peared, melting into the shadow and the little freckles 
 of sunlight that glanced through the hardly moving 
 spaces of the tree above. Badoureau turned to Priscilla 
 with an air of partial bewilderment that did not wholly 
 conceal contempt. 
 
 "On Sunday," he said abruptly. "If I motor over 
 . . . I've got a jolly new car . . ." 
 
 "What colour?" asked Priscilla, eager at once to hear 
 such a detail.
 
 CRIMSON ROSES 23 
 
 "It's the fashionable colour. ... I forget what it's 
 called. . . . Sort of buff-grey. David's coming with me. 
 I thought if you . , ." 
 
 "The lovely softness, you see, of these velvety downs 
 of yours. . , ." 
 
 Priscilla could not help listening to that floating voice, 
 those lingering mellifluous accents, and looking from 
 Mr. Vanamure's gentle ingratiating eyes to the quiet 
 sympathy of her mother's expression, and the curious 
 whimsical contraction of David's brow. To return to 
 Badoureau's rather imperative, rather intense contem- 
 plation of herself was to experience a sudden shock. It 
 so markedly divided the scene into two parts — into the 
 peaceable and the vigorous. Not for many months had 
 Hilary Badoureau so clearly adopted the attitude of 
 siege. For a fleeting instant Priscilla involunaritly 
 hesitated. 
 
 "No, I can't, Hilary. Sorry. Ethel Clodd is coming. 
 Do you know her?" 
 
 He was wounded by her refusal, even though it was 
 gently given. 
 
 "She could come," he urged. "She could come as well. 
 Why not?" 
 
 "I rather seem to fancy she's nervous at high speed." 
 
 "There'd be no danger." He was frowning impa- 
 tiently, with, perhaps, the privilege of an old friend. 
 
 "I'm sure of that. But would she know? You see, 
 Hilary, I shouldn't like to promise for her. She's coming 
 to luncheon, and I rather hoped you'd be here to play 
 tennis." 
 
 "With Ethel Clodd?" Hilary was momentarily cha- 
 grined into exclamation. 
 
 "Only the purest expression of the most memorable 
 emotions in the entire gamut," Mr. Vanamure was with 
 some pertinacity pleading in reply to a word of David's. 
 "The loveliest things in all our lovely literature. As one
 
 24 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 might more finally and distillingly put it . . . the very 
 crcme de la creme of the best. . . ." 
 
 "Couldn't you?" 
 
 "Does she play better than Martin Clodd? He's a 
 positive agony to play against." 
 
 "Poor Martin. Yet he's very decent." 
 
 "But at what a cost !" chimed in David, who had 
 forsaken Mr. Vanamure's lethargic monologue and left 
 him to engage Mrs. Evandine's inexhaustible attentive- 
 ness. "Decency that's the last rag. Decency that's grown 
 on him as a vice until the poor old thing's a shambling 
 wreck of manhood." 
 
 "Oh, come!" cried Priscilla. 
 
 "I assure you he's . . ." 
 
 "But if I bring the car?" said Badoureau. "I want 
 you to try her." He looked very insistently at Priscilla 
 as he spoke. 
 
 "You can come in the car, Hilary, certainly," she said. 
 "I only meant that I couldn't promise that she'd go." 
 Then, mischievously, she added: "Not even to satisfy 
 you." 
 
 The slow red came into Badoureau' s cheeks. His lips 
 tightened. Pie was defiantly resolved. 
 
 "Fll persuade her," he said grimly. 
 
 Priscilla smiled, and he drew a sharp breath at the sight 
 of her pretty smiling mouth. 
 
 IV 
 
 When tea was finished Mrs. Evandine and Priscilla 
 walked together to the house, with Romeo following in 
 attendance, his tail rolling in the air. They crossed the 
 sunny lawn before the house, and went into the square, 
 carpeted hall. At the foot of the stairs they paused. 
 
 "Will Hilary be staying to dinner?" Mrs. Evandine 
 asked, as she prepared to ascend. "I forgot to ask him."
 
 CRIMSON ROSES 25 
 
 "No, mother. He's going soon. Will Mr. Vana- 
 mure ?" 
 
 "Your father asked him to stay." 
 
 "He's rather too ecstatic, isn't he? I mean, for com- 
 fort." Their eyes met, with equal candour. 
 
 "I think he's quite sincere." 
 
 Priscilla laughed slightly, and dropped her glance. 
 
 "I'm afraid Hilar}^ affected me," she said. "He seems 
 incapable of hiding his boredom." 
 
 "That's only to say that he still has something to 
 learn, even in charity." Mrs. Evandine had almost said 
 "courtesy." 
 
 "Still, it's rather human . . . don't vou think?" 
 
 Mrs. Evandine was going up the stairs now, and so 
 she did not answer. It may have been that she did not 
 hear. Priscilla turned away, to go into the drawing-room 
 that opened upon the garden, from which she could see 
 the group they had left under the mulberry-tree. Biddy 
 was crossing the lawn with the cake-stand — a trim, 
 demure figure. Mr. Vanamure was following Biddy 
 with his eyes, and Priscilla thought he must be locating 
 her in his kaleidoscopic Paradise. Without any inten- 
 tion of watching, Priscilla stood for a moment at the 
 open window, noticing Hilary Badoureau's rather dis- 
 dainful attitude as he listened to Mr. Vanamure's con- 
 versation. There was a slightly puzzled expression on 
 Priscilla's face. Did her mother not like Hilary? Did 
 she herself understand her mother's feeling about Hilary's 
 manner? And then, still more puzzling, it would seem, 
 did her mother really understand things that Priscilla 
 did not dream of ? Was her mother a mystery ? Priscilla 
 almost sighed at the thought. It seemed so to fit in with 
 the soft lulling heat of that summer day. . . . Such 
 pleasant wonderings, to which there was no apparent end, 
 in which, whatever happened, there was no urgency, were 
 all a part of the gracious life in this old charming house
 
 26 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 — so near to life, so near to nature, yet so far from both. 
 Surely IViscilla was dreaming. . . . 
 
 She turned idly away to the piano, upon which stood 
 a bowl of crimson roses, and at the sight of them her 
 face changed. For an instant her lids drooped, and her 
 lips were compressed, as though the roses held some 
 ancient unforgettable memory. When she smiled again 
 Priscilla's smile was graver, more womanly. In the 
 garden, with her lovely, delicate fairness, and in her very 
 soft muslin gown, she had seemed to be both young and 
 immature. Her deep blue eyes, so naturally wide open 
 beneath their white lids, had held no pain or reflective- 
 ness, but only the pure honesty of her nature. Withdrawn 
 now completely from the others, she became subtly differ- 
 ent — not more secret, in no way less entirely candid, but 
 certainly more beautiful. She became less the fairy prin- 
 cess, less the unawakened beauty of the sleeping wood, 
 and more clearly an English girl, who was daughter and 
 sister, and would eventually be wiit and mother. If 
 before, in the garden, she had been pretty, happy, grace- 
 ful, and in every respect attractive to the eye, Priscilla 
 now became attractive to the imagination, which alone 
 could perceive behind her normal demeanour the charac- 
 ter which actually gave significance to her every feature. 
 When her expression changed, her blue eyes grew darker. 
 Pain, then, was not unknown to her. It would have been 
 impossible to avoid wondering whether the two omnis- 
 cient young men in the garden, listening with condescen- 
 sion to the naive raptures of a middle-aged idealist, had 
 altogether reached an understanding of Priscilla's temper- 
 ament — whether, in concentrating upon a single issue, 
 and in regarding her as related to life solely by this one 
 issue, they had not been guilty of an over-simplification. 
 If the young are always too clever to know anything, 
 might it not be said that in estimating the chances of 
 Priscilla's choice of alternatives they had forgotten all
 
 CRBISON ROSES 27 
 
 about the creative as opposed to the passive or receptive 
 side of Priscilla's character? That will be seen here- 
 after, when those consequences which are neither rewards 
 nor punishments in due course shall have matured. 
 
 Dinner was served while the daylight lingered, and the 
 long windows of the dining-room still admitted during 
 the meal the evening songs of birds and the translucent 
 greys of the declining day. At the dinner-table were 
 four of those whom we have already met — Priscilla, her 
 mother, David, Mr. Vanamure — and, in addition, Mr. 
 Evandine, a moustached man of middle age, with rather 
 bristling eyebrows and deep-set eyes. Spectacles, the 
 glasses of which were almost circular in shape, and 
 without rims, gave Mr. Evandine a benign, learned look 
 (for he was an exceedingly amiable man) ; while his 
 rather thin, seedy voice emphasized a slight fastidious 
 mannerism of speech which was not without its impres- 
 sive effect. He was dressed in the manner described by 
 some writers as "faultlessly," which means that the ex- 
 cellent cut of his dinner-jacket was ably supported by a 
 person well covered with flesh. He was not very tall, but 
 he was very well made, and had always taken such good 
 care of his body, as well as of his tailors, that he looked 
 as though he were in the habit of wearing a dinner-jacket. 
 That is a state to which few spare men and no ill-made 
 men can ever attain. His eyes were blue, and had per- 
 haps once been as blue as Priscilla's ; but they were now 
 a little dulled, and the whites were faded. In spite of 
 that, however, his sight could at times be very swift, and 
 slight acquaintances were never sure whether his amia- 
 bility was normal or a covering for the domestic temper 
 of a scold. That was because his fastidious mannerism 
 sometimes became fastidious irascibility. At the head
 
 28 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 of the table he was ahvays courteous; but at all times 
 his conversation was rather too inclined to be bookish, 
 and that made him something less than the perfect 
 host. 
 
 Priscilla had changed into a dress of very pale blue, 
 and the effect of the low-necked bodice was to show how 
 exquisitely her slender neck rose, and how delicately 
 poised was her small head. Also, the effect was to make 
 her look like a little girl, for her complexion was so un- 
 spoiled, and her expression so unaffected, that one could 
 only think of her as in her teens. In fact, she was exactly 
 twenty-two years and a few days old. 
 
 Mr. Vanamure, sitting beside her, and upon Mrs, 
 Evandine's right hand, was in a state of incommunicable 
 pleasure. His sense of Mr. Evandine's profound wisdom, 
 benevolence, and hospitality was acute. His sense of 
 David's amazingly English air of good breeding was one 
 of silent admiration. His sense of the beauty of Mrs. 
 Evandine and Priscilla, linked also with the clear, opales- 
 cent lustre of the evening, was almost rapturous. His 
 sensitiveness to beauty was, as Mrs. Evandine had seen, 
 quite genuine; but the guiding taste was uncertain, too 
 eager, and apt to lead him from enthusiasm to enthusiasm 
 from sheer nervousness and dread of the awkwardness of 
 debate. Thus it was that he too assiduously hung upon 
 Mr. Evandine's dropped wisdoms, and thus it was that 
 he came rather to distress David. David, drawling 
 rather lazily, at last put a question. 
 
 "But, Mr. Vanamure," he said, "surely you'd admit 
 that most poets write a great deal of bosh — at times 
 when they're below their best? Wordsworth, of course, 
 is the general example." 
 
 "Indeed, yes, Mr. Evandine," admitted Mr. Vanamure, 
 making many slow nods, with his eyes opened to their 
 widest to show his great innocence and willingness to 
 agree. "There is no doubt that some of our very greatest
 
 CRIMSON ROSES 29 
 
 writers have their lapses. You agree?" he asked of Mr. 
 Evandine, smiHng gently, as if gratified, at tlie host's 
 bland consent. "But are not such men, even . . . even, 
 one might say, at their least happy . . . happy, are not 
 they far beyond the common mind of man? Far beyond 
 the reach ... I beg your pardon." His nervous intent- 
 ness upon his own desire to please grew more pronounced. 
 
 "I understood you to deprecate all adverse criticism 
 of eminent men as impertinence," said David. "All I 
 suggested was that if some of what they have written is 
 not good, somebody ought to say so. It ought to be the 
 aim of criticism to distinguish finally between good and 
 less good, less good and mediocre, and mediocre and bad. 
 . . . Only so, it seems to me, can criticism have any 
 reason to be considered an art or a science." 
 
 "Quite so. . . . Between good and less good — I 
 agree," pleaded Mr. Vanamure. "The rest — I venture 
 to think . . . And here" — he glanced deprecatingly side- 
 ways at Mr. Evandine — "the Professor I trust will agree 
 with me . . . the rest I venture to think — no! It is 
 enough to worship the best. Let us not pursue the lesser 
 goods until we criticize" — this word he pronounced with 
 loathing — "criticize them out of their obscurity into a 
 prominence that is undue and undesirable, and arises 
 simply from the desire of the critic to destroy, to depre- 
 ciate. . . ." Trembling, he discontinued his remarks, 
 and took hock. "Excuse me," he breathlessly added. 
 "Those of us who derive our daily life of the spirit from 
 all that is lovely in literature can't bear to have our Muse 
 treated as if it were a quadruped." 
 
 "I'm afraid I'm all for severe scrutiny," said David. 
 "Even of gift-horses." 
 
 "You're young, sir . . . you're young. It's natural, 
 Mr. Evandine, But as one grows older one sees the vast 
 illimitable spaces covered by the glorious minds of our 
 greatest poets. . . . One perceives the futihty of finger-
 
 30 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 ing their lesser works. . . . One even comes to feel that 
 perhaps there's less difference than we had thought be- 
 tween great and small and good and less good. One 
 becomes almost awed before the poet's mind, the creative 
 gift. Afraid to say a word. One realizes, if I might 
 say so, that it may be one's own judgment, one's own 
 failure to understand, that was at fault. , . , What is 
 wanted to stimulate the love of the beautiful is Praise, a 
 Thanksgiving, not Depreciation, not Criticism. Let us 
 have Appreciation." 
 
 David was smiling, not at all ruffled, because he was 
 not talking very seriously. 
 
 "Now the case comes up rather interestingly," he said. 
 "You may have seen my father's book on Leigh Hunt — 
 excuse me, father. . . . My father, I know, has no objec- 
 tion to my saying this. ... In that book my father 
 cannot bear to say that Leigh Hunt was a silly, amateurish 
 writer who did a great many things very badly. He can- 
 not bear to say that; but he knows he can make Hunt a 
 most interesting personality whether he says it or not. 
 Don't you think that in omitting to say true words of 
 Hunt's writing, in concentrating only on Hunt's charm- 
 ing essays, and happy thoughts as a commentator, my 
 father is failing in his duty as a critic?" 
 
 Mr. Evandine permitted such comments in his hearing 
 from David : he was a very wise man. 
 
 "My dear Mr. David Evandine . . ." began Mr. 
 Vanamure. 
 
 "Excuse me, Mr. Vanamure, Before you demolish my 
 son, let me do it for you," said Mr. Evandine with an 
 air of smiling gravity that made him very attractive. 
 "What he says has no value at all, because he has taken 
 it all from that review which you so frankly refused to 
 read this afternoon. ..." 
 
 "The abominable slating?" asked Priscilla with eager 
 interest.
 
 CRIMSON ROSES 31 
 
 "Exactly. A very able, cool, and most interesting 
 article in TJie Norm. I disagree with it entirely. I think 
 it altogether too exacting in its standards — in fact, 
 impossible when one considers the fact that there is 
 room in all human affairs for judgments almost too 
 numerous. . . ." 
 
 "Hear, hear," said David mildly. 
 
 "But," proceeded Mr. Evandine, "the review, the 
 opinions from which David has impudently adopted, does 
 put the book, and Leigh Hunt, and all the rest of it, in 
 a very candid new light which is most interesting. One 
 doesn't do that sort of thing oneself ; nor does one wholly 
 approve it; but one tolerates it for its insight." 
 
 "You should welcome it . . . help it," said David. 
 "If criticism is ever to be of any use at all as a purge." 
 
 "Pardon ... it can only," said Mr. Vanamure, "can 
 only give hurt ... a superfluous act. . . . We can do 
 our best only to bring beauty, gentleness. . . ." 
 
 "When we feel passionately for beauty or truth we 
 surely must sometimes hurt," suggested Mrs. Evandine, 
 speaking for the first time. "It doesn't do to be too 
 conventional, do you think?" 
 
 Mr. Vanamure was destroyed. He became incoherent 
 in an attempt to agree with everything. 
 
 "And this abominable slating," demanded Priscilla. 
 "Does one know who wrote it?" 
 
 "Little lamb," remarked David. 
 
 "And has mother read it?" asked Priscilla, almost with 
 a sort of indignation. 
 
 "Your mother has read it," Mr. Evandine said. "And 
 I'm sorry to say she agrees with it." 
 
 "Mother! And who wrote it?" 
 
 "Curiously enough ... an old friend of yours, 
 Priscilla. It's by that young fellow who used to come. 
 . . . Dear me : what is his name ? 
 
 "It's written by Moore . . ." said David.
 
 32 THE CHASTE WH^E 
 
 "Stephen !" Priscilla did not know that she had 
 spoken. 
 
 Jler mother, closely observing, saw Priscilla's hand 
 move suddenly upon the table, saw Priscilla's head bent 
 as though she had become suddenly short-sighted. 
 
 "Of course . . . Stephen Moore. By the way, why 
 does he never come to see us in these times?" asked 
 Mr. Evandine. "It must be years since we saw him." 
 
 "I've met him once or twice," David said. 
 
 "You've never said — " cried Priscilla swiftly. 
 
 "I don't think I ever met him here. I'm not sure 
 I knew that you knew him. Must have been when I 
 was at Oxford." 
 
 "In point of fact," Mr. Evandine was explaining to 
 his guest, "the writer of that is a sort of relative of 
 mine — far off — a very clever fellow, who I'm afraid has 
 had a rather hard struggle. I met him once in this 
 district, and we knew him for a time; but I'm afraid 
 he's rather lost sight of us." 
 
 "He must be entirely without gratitude; kindness is 
 ill-repaid . . ." said Mr. Vanamure, greatly moved. 
 
 "Oh no!" Mr. Evandine assured him. "My impres- 
 sion is quite otherwise." 
 
 Mrs. Evandine heard nothing more. She could not 
 help letting her shrewd, clear, mother eye fall upon 
 Priscilla; and Priscilla, screened by flowers from her 
 father, seemed to allow her thoughts to continue. Her 
 face was quite changed, as if it had been reawakened. 
 But presently, as though she had not been breathing, she 
 sighed, her eyes almost closing; and a slow faint colour 
 came into her cheeks, increasing until it spread to her 
 temples. As if doubtfully she raised her head and looked 
 at her mother, immediately again averting her glance. 
 
 With the slightest emphasis upon her consciousness 
 Mrs. Evandine pressed home, as it were, the significance 
 of that glance. She, too, sighed.
 
 CHAPTER II: WHAT DOROTHY KNEW 
 
 FROM the days when Upper Street, IsHngton, was a 
 prosperous shopping centre, a long range of hand- 
 somely decorated and window-dressed drapers and 
 clothiers, to these present days when most of the shops 
 show dusty, drawn blinds, and the stagnating bills of 
 estate agents, is no far cry. The increase in cheap con- 
 veyance direct to the great shops of the West End of 
 London, and the huger, more varied selections of stock 
 offered by these great shops, have combined to draw off 
 many old-time purchasers of goods in Islington. More 
 still have passed with the general emigration to the coun- 
 try or the farther suburbs of well-to-do Londoners, at 
 one time resident in the large houses of Islington and 
 Highbury and Barnsbury. All that remains, apart from 
 a few old-established firms with familiar names, is this 
 long row of empty shops, studded here and there with 
 glittering kinema halls and picture palaces, all the more 
 gloomy because of the bright portals of the palaces, and 
 given over to a nightly promenade of the young girls and 
 the young men of the decayed district. So Upper Street 
 and its melancholy neighbours all round, from miserable 
 Pentonville and grimy City Road (where that "Eagle" 
 lived that led roisterers to sing "Pop goes the Weasel") 
 to wretched Liverpool and Essex Roads, present to the 
 eye a depressing picture of shabby life hard to be toler- 
 ated by the eager spirit. To have been born in a street 
 off the Upper Street, to have lived there for a short life- 
 time, to be held in that neighbourhood by the dominating 
 inclination of others — that was the lot of Stephen Moore. 
 The house in which the Moores lived, of which they 
 
 33
 
 34 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 occupied the two upper floors out of five floors (includ- 
 ing the basement) was one exactly like its hundred or 
 tw-o hundred fellows. It had a number — 52 — upon the 
 front door, but, as Dorothy said, that was only to prevent 
 the postman from calling. The house was very solidly 
 built of ugly dun-coloured brick, the rooms were large, 
 and the lower ones were fitted with old-fashioned hang- 
 ing chandeliers of an imposing character, and with huge 
 mantelpieces that dwarfed any but the most substantial 
 furniture. Higher up, at the very top of the house, the 
 tale was different ; but even here the three bedrooms were 
 larger than the bedrooms allotted to those who live in the 
 modern Queen Anne villa. In these three bedrooms slept 
 the Moores, and in the two big rooms below they lived 
 together. John Moore, Stephen Moore, Roy Moore, and 
 Dorothy Moore. John Moore, aged 56 ; Stephen Moore, 
 aged 28; Dorothy Moore, aged 21 ; Roy Moore, aged 16. 
 There had been others very long ago ; but none had sur- 
 vived; and now Stephen was bread-winner for all of 
 them. It is true that Roy had begun to earn money, that 
 he was self-supporting. It is true that John occasionally 
 spoke of work which was engaging his attention. But 
 it was also true that Dorothy was not allowed to earn 
 money, and it is quite certain that Stephen carried the 
 household precariously — if one may use a homely figure 
 that suggests the tale of Sinbad the Sailor — upon his 
 back. Only Dorothy knew that, through her conscience. 
 She had sometimes wondered why Stephen did not for- 
 sake them, and had even asked Stephen this question in 
 so many words. He had grumpily told her that it w^as 
 no business of hers, that even if he could bring himself 
 to do such a thing, the old man would track him down. 
 . . . That was undeniable. She could see the old man 
 doing it. The old man, she knew, was such a marvel- 
 lous actor, such an infernal liar. He would go round 
 spinning pathetic yarns about his defaulting son, he would
 
 WHAT DOROTHY KNEW 35 
 
 destroy Stephen's good name, and he would in the end 
 discover where Stephen was, and once more, Hke the 
 grim wolf of inescapable poverty, establish there his com- 
 fortable quarters. So Stephen continued to support the 
 Moores. Dorothy wondered what would be the end of 
 his patience — if, for instance, he would have supported 
 half a dozen of them. She never dared to ask him. She 
 only knew that the old man was sure somehow to be 
 supported by somebody. She guessed that, failing 
 Stephen, it might have been by herself. The old man 
 had no false pride, Dorothy realized. 
 
 11 
 
 It was evening, and Dorothy was alone. In the street 
 the sun still sent its hot final light against the upper 
 windows of the houses opposite, which looked as if some 
 dreary person's dream of endless 52's was being developed 
 into a nightmare through the use of a distorting mirror. 
 Dorothy had laid a meal, a light meal of potted meat and 
 salad, and a jugful of water, and some cheese and a home- 
 made cake, upon the dining-room table. She was waiting 
 for Stephen to come home and join her. Roy would not 
 be here for another two hours, the old man might come 
 in at any time, and Stephen could not work at night upon 
 a heavy meal. Dorothy sat by the open window with her 
 hands crossed in her lap, and once lifted them to look at 
 the lines on their palms and their already work-worn 
 fingers. 
 
 "Yes,^' she said aloud. "It's all very well to look at 
 them. Little beast." 
 
 She forced her eyes away, to a contemplation of the 
 brown wall-paper, and crushed her handkerchief into a 
 ball between her offendingly seamed fingers. 
 
 "Years hence," she thought, "I'll tell Stephen how 
 much I hate brown as a colour. Perfectly filthy, it is.
 
 36 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 Perhaps not all brown; but chocolate and wall-paper 
 browns and every faded brown under the sun." She 
 sank into a reverie, in the course of which she skimmed 
 across the years that lay before them in a vista of endless 
 time. She perceived, with a sort of understanding which 
 is not cynicism, but which is the fruit of a girl's early 
 experience of such hard things as want and discomfort, 
 that those years could only be reached with toil — on the 
 part of Stephen — and with endurance upon her own part. 
 She longed for them with a passion that made her really 
 press herself physically together and forward in her chair, 
 as though she were about to leap; but her experience, 
 which had made her a woman years before, when her 
 mother died, kept Dorothy from really happy expecta- 
 tion. She believed in Stephen. She believed that if 
 anybody could manage to bridge those years with means 
 to a wider life, Stephen could do it. But she had no 
 illusion. Stephen might fail. He was living on his 
 brains, working and working and working, without 
 friends, without help, without any real joy that he did 
 not get from the work itself; and he might fail. You 
 couldn't work as he insisted upon doing without injuring 
 yourself. It stood to reason. Here was Roy, content to 
 work his regular hours for fifteen shillings a week, and 
 in the evening to mooch the streets with his boy friends, 
 strolling in the wake of girls who looked back and laughed 
 and waited round corners, and walked back when pursuit 
 ceased. . . . Dorothy knew all about that. She had not 
 done it herself — "That's why I'm here," she thought, 
 "instead of married to thirty shillings a week when I 
 was nineteen, as some of them are" — but she could not 
 help knowing all about it, just as she had smelt Roy's 
 breath the first time he had smoked. . . . And here was 
 Stephen, who until two years ago had been a clerk, just 
 as Roy was, working all day and sometimes far into the 
 night — learning, making up for lost education, gathering
 
 WHAT DOROTHY KNEW 37 
 
 scraps of all sorts, writing, reading, compiling bibliogra- 
 phies, going to the British Museum to "search" on starva- 
 tion wages, pushing his way slowly into a part of the 
 world that had, socially, no use for him, though at last 
 it would be bound to admit and tolerate his brains. Here, 
 then, was Stephen, making himself a dull boy, steadily 
 wearing out his nerves and his temper and his bodily 
 strength, earning very little money — barely enough to 
 keep them — and growing sore and sulky and pessimistic 
 and gloomy and abstracted and uncommunicative. Why 
 was he doing it? For Roy, she supposed, and for her- 
 self; though she knew more of Roy's doings than he 
 seemed to know, and though she would have sacrificed 
 a good deal of her own immunity for the sake of seeing 
 him more cheerful, and for the sake of having some work 
 to do in which she could take an interest. Could anybody 
 take an interest in this ugly old place, with the massy 
 pretentious bell-pulls and brown Venetian blinds, and the 
 everlasting dullness of the ugly brown wall-paper and 
 grey cracked ceilings? Could anybody take an interest 
 in pretending or attempting to keep clean these dead old 
 chairs and eternally dusty tables and ornaments and 
 mantelpieces and washstands and shelves of old books? 
 She could not imagine anybody so lost to a sense of 
 human decency and natural life as to enjoy doing such 
 work. It was like perpetual dish-washing — ugly, depress- 
 ing, distasteful. It was something to be loathed, never 
 in all her days to be escaped. If only she could have 
 gone to an office ! Or if only she could live with Stephen 
 and — reluctantly — with Roy in some spotless little cot- 
 tage with damask and muslin and print all fresh and never 
 dirty, far from grimy Islington, deep in some soft unap- 
 proachable countryside! Where the local vicar, and an 
 ancient gawky farmer or two, and the supercilious maiden 
 ladies who lived in the village, were her visitors, and 
 couldn't help finding their prejudices against her melting
 
 38 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 away when they found how simple and unaffected and 
 truly sweet she was ! Stephen in that case would be 
 greatly respected — "the writer gentleman from Lunnon" 
 — and the big man of the district would say to him con- 
 descendingly, "Oh, are you any relation to the Moore 
 whose last book I have just been reading with inexpres- 
 sible admiration?" And Stephen would snap out like the 
 Carlyle she figured him — no, he'd be a little shy, and turn 
 away ... to hide a soft flush. . . , And the big man's 
 sister would say to him, with a melting eye. . . . 
 
 Dorothy's reverie was pulled up short by her cold 
 knowledge of facts. It was all very well. Stephen was 
 a great man. She knew what she was talking about. 
 "Years hence" (as she was fond of saying), when he 
 was tired out and could no longer do his best work, he 
 would be proclaimed and celebrated as Phil May was; 
 although his greatness was even now glaringly present, 
 and closely deserved the ecstatic celebration which she was 
 sure went only momentarily astray. But even if he could 
 do it for himself, for her . . . even if he could do it — 
 rather reluctantly she thought it — for Roy, he could 
 never, never, never do it as long as the old man was 
 there like a hideous barnacle . . . horrible spider, a 
 beastly anemone, alive as by instinct to the floating 
 fragments of good fortune which came within his range, 
 absorbing all the good and expelling upon the surface 
 of life the indigestible remnants of his stolen nutriment. 
 
 "You see," Dorothy explained to herself after delib- 
 erate consideration, "the old man's such a damned 
 rascal !" 
 
 iii 
 
 If Stephen had come a moment earlier he would have 
 been surprised to hear such a speech from Dorothy. But 
 the words were lost in air by the time the sound of his 
 steps upon the final flight became audible. He came into
 
 WHAT DOROTHY KNEW 39 
 
 the room slowly, rather wearily, and put down along 
 with his hat a couple of books fastened together by a 
 webbing strap. Dorothy instantly whipped the kettle 
 from her oil-stove in the fireplace, where it was sighing 
 indignantly and clouding the air with its vehement breath. 
 When Stephen turned round again the tea was half made, 
 and she was watching the water cream and mantle in the 
 teapot's gloomy vastnesses. As she passed to the table 
 she pressed his arm with an affectionate irrepressible 
 gesture. 
 
 *'Nice and early," Dorothy said. "Hoped you would 
 be." She smiled at him with quick delight. 
 
 Stephen in reply made a sound too much like a grunt 
 to be perfectly responsive to her cheerful greeting, and 
 then, without a further word, seated himself. He was 
 not very tall — about five feet eight — was rather squarely 
 built, walked with a noticeable limp, and his complexion 
 was both dark and pale, almost to sallowness. The face 
 was aggressive, partly because his head was thrown back, 
 partly because Stephen's dissatisfied mouth gave one the 
 expectation of biting speeches. His eyes were very fine, 
 a fact which was due to his brave spirit as well as to that 
 short-sightedness which sometimes makes eyes appear 
 to shine. The air of defiance which characterized his 
 appearance was not without its intriguing powers: one 
 certainly wanted to know more of him, to imagine the 
 reasons and the qualities which gave him an air of stub- 
 born intellectual power. And if Stephen was not strictly 
 handsome he was at least distinguished-looking, for his 
 nose was straight, and his bitter mouth clean-cut. To 
 the eye his beauty might have ended there in a sense of 
 disappointment; but the manner with which he fronted 
 the world — "an eye like Mars, to threaten and command" 
 — was not the surest guide to his nature. If it had been, 
 if the hardness, the coldness which was sometimes attrib- 
 uted to Stephen Moore by patrician critics, educated in
 
 40 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 more indulgent methods, had been all that was true about 
 him, he could not have retained the love of his impulsive 
 sister. Dorothy loved him, not thoughtlessly, but deeply 
 and passionately, as a mother might have done. Those 
 whom Dorothy loved had first to prove their integrity, for 
 she was very exacting and saw much further than most 
 girls of her somewhat immature age. Her love for him 
 penetrated even his taciturnity. He was the one real 
 person she knew, whose word was truth, whose will was 
 not obstinate weakness, whose intention was not so much 
 honourable as honest. She likened him to a chisel; but 
 it must be supposed that she thought of him as a chisel 
 with a merciful heart and an understanding which, if it 
 was never warm, was at least surprising in its depth and 
 range. It was her particular vanity to believe that she 
 understood him, and that nobody else could do so. 
 
 "Beside your plate," Dorothy briefly announced, "is 
 a letter. Kindly read it." 
 
 Stephen took up the letter without interest, and opened 
 it immediately. 
 
 "Dear Moore," the letter said, — "My father is greatly 
 delighted with what you have written about his book. 
 I understand that you know him well enough to believe 
 that. He wants to see you, and as I have a note of your 
 address I promised to ask you to come up one evening 
 either to dinner or after dinner, or next Sunday, say, to 
 tea. Do try and come. I shall be very glad of an oppor- 
 tunity to talk to you again; and my mother and sister 
 both look forward to your coming. Make it Sunday if 
 you can possibly spare the time. There are some things 
 T should like to show you in daylight — may I mention 
 some Flaxman and Sandys prints? You'll know, after 
 our last talk, why I think of them in connexion with you. 
 Yours sincerely, David Evandine." 
 
 Stephen allowed the letter to slide back from his hand 
 to the table, and Dorothy, watching his face for some
 
 WHAT DOROTHY KNEW 41 
 
 sign of pleasure or of displeasure, saw no change at all 
 in his expression. His face, then, told her nothing, and 
 she waited in vain for some further communication. 
 
 "Nothing?" she at length asked, almost wistfully, and 
 came near enough to read the first page of the letter, 
 written in David's fine but lazy handwriting. When 
 Stephen answered it was with a reflective hesitation, as 
 though the letter had been unwelcome as suggesting 
 thoughts unconnected with its subject-matter. 
 
 "Nothing you'd be interested in." 
 
 Dorothy grimaced. It was clear that she was being 
 told to mind her own business. 
 
 "It's from the man — or the son of the man — who 
 wrote this week's book," she urged. "I can see that 
 much." Stephen's foot tapped irritably. 
 
 "Yes, yes. Asking me to go and see them." 
 
 "Oh!" Dorothy's tone was one of pleasure. "How 
 nice!" 
 
 "But I shan't go." 
 
 "You won't go? Why ever not?" She was, to all 
 appearance, amazed. As he did not answer she con- 
 tinued eagerly : "Aren't they very influential people — 
 the Evandines?" Dorothy was so bent upon his career, 
 anxious that he should use every advantage; and yet 
 she was not altogether so experienced in Stephen as to 
 leave the decision to him or even, as an older woman 
 would have done, to appear to do so. 
 
 "Influential. . . . What does that matter?" asked 
 Stephen sharply. 
 
 "Well, this father person : isn't he a big man, one of 
 the mandarins? Doesn't he write the books that get 
 fawned on by all his newspaper friends?" Dorothy had 
 learned — but never from her brother — a curious sort of 
 inaccurate knowledge of Press methods. She was so 
 entirely partisan that she exaggerated the power of 
 literary snobbishness, far beyond the negligible coterie
 
 42 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 and into the whole literary world. Stephen checked 
 her. 
 
 "You're talking nonsense," he said. 
 "What's sense, then?" 
 "You're bothering me." 
 "For once. Stephen, dear. Please!" 
 Unwillingly he responded to her pleading. 
 "He's a very cultured man who dabbles in books. He's 
 not a critic. Everybody likes him, and knows he's a 
 decent sort. He knows everybody. His books are well 
 written, inaccurate, superficial, and very delightful to 
 read. If you don't know anything — and that's the case 
 with most people — they're extremely good. It's called 
 'Reading without tears,' " said Stephen perfunctorily. 
 
 "But if you go there you'll meet these people, and 
 they'll appreciate you. . . ." 
 "That's not probable." 
 
 "Will they want to know what school you went to?" 
 she flashed at him. 
 
 "Yes," Stephen said. "Some of them would." 
 "The beasts !" 
 
 "Don't be silly. Other people spy out your family 
 history. If they're going to 'know' you they want to 
 know where you're from, and what your father was." 
 
 "And is!" Dorothy said with a sudden viciousness. 
 "Oh, but your school, Steve! It's too silly. You'll 
 have to say 'privately educated.' " She began to laugh. 
 "But do go." 
 
 In her pink, starched cotton dress, as she stood before 
 him with rebellious eyes and flushed cheeks, Dorothy 
 looked curiously out of congruity with the words she was 
 using. Although, like her brother, she was dark, she 
 coloured so swiftly, and was so very slight and roguish- 
 looking, that she still looked a child until one saw how 
 wise and motherly were the two brown eyes from which 
 she regarded the world.
 
 WHAT DOROTHY KNEW 43 
 
 Stephen tried to assume that the discussion was ended, 
 and accordingly there was a Httle silence; but Dorothy's 
 blood was up, and his repressive methods only aroused 
 a determination really more active than his own. 
 
 "Shall you go?" she asked him, 
 
 "I wish you wouldn't keep on. I don't think I shall 
 
 go." 
 
 "They can't do without you. These people ! It's your 
 
 brains they want." 
 
 "You . . . are . . . being . . . very . . . ridiculous," he 
 told her emphatically. "There's absolutely no need to 
 talk in that way. If I write well I shall certainly make 
 money and reputation. If I don't I shall certainly not 
 make a reputation, though I may make money. No 
 amount of excited feeling alters the logic of that. And 
 I prefer to make reputation through work. It's easier 
 and more dignified. Do you suppose a man who goes 
 toting round everywhere gets anything lasting? He may 
 get boosted into jobs for a time; but " 
 
 She interrupted him. 
 
 "In the long run, yes, Steve. But editors don't read — 
 you told me that yourself. They meet you at dinner or 
 lunch or tea, and make it a friendly affair." 
 
 "You make me very tired, Dorothy," he said. "You've 
 been reading some absurd nonsense — some novel, I expect 
 — and mixing it up with things I've said. You mustn't 
 expect me to make money or reputation quickly, because 
 the whole explanation is simply that I can't and don't 
 write novels. I'm a critic. It's the novelist who has to 
 skip round, so that he can be adored and patronized and 
 written about. And then he sometimes finds that when 
 he sells too largely all his skipping lands him only in a 
 bad Press. He becomes ridiculous and distasteful, and 
 has to console himself with his sales. But that doesn't 
 apply to me." 
 
 "You're trying to put me off. I want you to go to the
 
 44 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 Evandines, as you're invited. And you won't go because 
 there's some secret reason why you shouldn't." Dorothy 
 was moving impatiently at his wilful stubl)ornness — with 
 an irritation quite beyond the needs of the moment. That 
 was because memory was stirring in her thoughts, react- 
 ing upon her jealousy, her every quick impulse of loyalty 
 and responsibility. 
 
 Stephen started. He could not help starting, for her 
 sudden dash into the world of motives had been dictated 
 by that rising anger which pulls away reserves and opens 
 the way for biting disclosures of thoughts long held. 
 Accusations might well follow, showing him an unsus- 
 pected Dorothy drawing upon her sequestered stores of 
 intuition concerning him — a dangerous critic, using in 
 her lightning heat words and thoughts that would never 
 be forgotten. Nevertheless he tried to quell her by 
 haughty indifference. 
 
 "Secret reason?" he deraanded. 
 
 "What then? If it's not that, what is it? I think 
 you ought to go," she vehemently urged. "I think you 
 owe it to yourself and this man who asks you to go." 
 
 Stephen made no reply; and that seemed to move her 
 still nearer to the verge of anger. With a last attempt 
 to reach some simple but convincing reason for his un- 
 necessary refusal to do a pleasant thing for his own good 
 and his own credit, she demanded : 
 
 "Is it the old man?" That was always with Dorothy 
 a dominant thought — almost an obsession. 
 
 Stephen moved impatiently, obviously relieved and yet 
 impatient at her new course. He pushed his chair back 
 and rose to his feet. 
 
 "No, no, no," he said. 
 
 "They wouldn't want to come here." She sprang to 
 another difficulty — this time the social one. 
 
 "No." He smiled grimly. "There's no chance of 
 that."
 
 WHAT DOROTHY KNEW 45 
 
 "Then why not?" 
 
 "I can't tell you." 
 
 She searched his face, a sudden dread in her eyes. 
 When he said "I can't tell you" in so final a tone she 
 could say no more than "I wish you would." But 
 this she said in so gentle a voice that Stephen per- 
 haps did not hear her. He slowly reseated himself, 
 and they began their meal in silence. For a long time 
 Dorothy did not speak, but at last she could bear it 
 no longer. 
 
 "Is it because you don't trust me, or because it's some- 
 thing unpleasant, Steve?" 
 
 Now in his preoccupation, and in the confusion of his 
 manifestly conflicting wishes, Stephen was jangled quite 
 out of patience even by her humble voice. 
 
 "Oh, I wish — " he began in a strangled voice. His 
 fierce temper had broken out. It was only with a violent 
 effort that he controlled it. "My dear," he said with a 
 deliberate steadiness, the condescension of which she 
 found unbearable, "I've told you I can't tell you. Don't 
 you see that that's enough?" 
 
 "You don't trust me. Me — that only lives . . ." she 
 began gaspingly. "Oh ! I know that's not grammar. 
 But I can't bear it, I can't bear it. You ought to tell me. 
 There can be nothing I oughtn't to know. Here are two 
 men. You don't know them well, they're not friends. 
 But you do know them. They might help you to do 
 what you want to do. Yet you won't tell me . . . you 
 won't tell me. And, of course, I know very well what 
 it is. I know very well. You won't tell me, but you 
 can't help my knowing more than you think. I know 
 you used to go there. Why, do you think I don't know 
 why ? Do you think I suppose it was to talk books . . . 
 to see an old man . . . ?" Her voice was trembling, her 
 eyes were moist. She felt the moment was desperate. 
 Stephen was more and more frowning, and his mouth
 
 46 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 was more obstinately twisted. . . . "How can you be 
 so . . . like an ostrich . . .?" 
 
 In the middle of her passion came an interruption that 
 froze her. 
 
 "And what is my daughter agitating herself about?" 
 asked a soothing voice from the doorway. "Not, I hope, 
 any fault in the immaculate Stephen? That would be 
 unbelievable — quite entirely unbelievable !" 
 
 Before them stood, swaying very slightly, the tall figure 
 of an elderly man dressed in a blue serge shaped suit 
 which made him appear much younger than his years. 
 Upon his head was a fashionable bowler hat. His iDeam- 
 ing eyes shone with a happy light. His teeth, showing in 
 a regularity which, for his age, was quite beyond unques- 
 tioning acceptance, were clenched in an immovable smile. 
 His head was very slowly being shaken from side to side, 
 archly, deprecatingly. 
 
 "Singularly unusual," he proceeded. "A singularly 
 unusual state of affairs. The immaculate, spotless, won- 
 derful paragon Stephen being subjected to a daughterly 
 tirade. . . . Really quite shocking. . . . Must protest. 
 Must really protest. Simply unable to stand the strain 
 . , . anything so grossly improbable, so astonishing. . . . 
 Sordid. . . . The singularly virtuous and priggish 
 Stephen, to whom we owe our all, our very existence 
 as a family, by his own account, sitting haughtily there 
 listening to perfectly violent tirade from affectionate 
 sister. . . ." 
 
 It was the old man. 
 
 iv 
 
 In manner, the old man easily set an example to his 
 children. His further movements were characterized by 
 a jauntiness and a bodily grace that were peculiar to 
 himself. He removed his hat with an air, and turned 
 towards the table with a slow swing that, even if it
 
 WHAT DOROTHY KNEW 47 
 
 slightly wavered, which his smile never did, was theatrical 
 in its finish. Stephen's perturbed eye took in the spotted- 
 bordered handkerchief that peeped from his father's 
 breast-pocket, the equally spotted bow that symmetrically 
 adorned his father's almost — but not quite — spotless 
 three-inch linen collar. He revolted at so venerable a 
 beau. Yet his father's face, perfectly shaven, was sur- 
 prisingly fresh and clear ; and his father's eyes, although 
 glassy, were bright with the radiance of a healthy liver. 
 Only somehow, to Stephen's fastidious observation, there 
 was something disgusting, almost obscene, in the old 
 man's appearance. It may have been prejudice, but 
 Stephen was certainly aware of it. But then Stephen 
 knew how well the old man could carry his drink, and 
 he knew that this mood of dangerous polish, helped by 
 the graces of a past day, could have been engendered 
 only by a long busy afternoon with the glass and the 
 bottle. 
 
 Putting aside the subject upon which he had spoken 
 earlier, the old man suavely turned to Stephen, as if he 
 had been recently introduced. 
 
 "Singular pleasure to find you exceedingly early 
 to-night," he gracefully said. "By no means excepted 
 . . . expected. We understand, my boy. Yes, we un- 
 derstand. The old man . . ." He broke ofif with dignity, 
 nodding, and saying, several times over, the word "Yes." 
 When Stephen moved away from the table he started, 
 and smiled tenderly and inquiringly. "What was that? 
 Did you speak?" he asked. Now it was remarkable that 
 neither Dorothy nor Stephen had spoken at all since the 
 old man's entrance, as he presently seemed to become 
 aware; for he again stood up, and then, with increased 
 dignity, went out of the room and up the stairs. They 
 heard him turn the key in the door of his bedroom. 
 
 A sigh broke from Dorothy. 
 
 "Sickening," she said. "Perfectly sickening. Stephen,
 
 48 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 forget that I was waxy. I didn't mean to be. But oh! 
 Steve, do go to the Evandines. Even to get away from 
 the old man for a bit. Wouldn't it be beastly if he in- 
 sisted on calling on them? I hid the letter when he came 
 in. He'd go and call, and sit there talking, and they'd 
 never know he was . . . and he'd borrow half a crown 
 — or try to — from the maid. He'd go back. 'Singularly 
 unfortunate — left my purse.' And he'd go over and over 
 again. How do people escape the old man? Does he 
 get tired of them?" 
 
 "I expect so," Stephen answered. "Who knows?" 
 "He makes you wretched, I know," she went on. "So 
 he does me. But not so wretched as he makes you. I 
 think he hates you, Stephen." Stephen took no notice, 
 but unstrapped his two review books in order to look 
 more closely at them. "I believe you hate him." 
 
 Stephen was wondering where the old man had 
 obtained the money for his carouse. It was a constant 
 subject for speculation, for sometimes the signs so visible 
 to-day had in the past been accompanied by the loss of 
 books, or clothing, or even small pieces of furniture, all 
 of which, where possible, had had to be redeemed. 
 Stephen knew that some impulse more insistent than 
 the mere desire for rest or solicitude must have taken 
 the old man up to his bedroom. He was trying to 
 remember any illuminating bulge in the old man's coat. 
 But as that opened such a field of useless speculation he 
 took the books over to the window, and sat there with 
 them while Dorothy cleared the table. There was no 
 smile on Stephen's face. He seriously opened one of 
 the books and deliberately cut a page so that he might 
 read the preface. This was the work by which he would 
 pay next week's housekeeping expenses. It was bread 
 and butter for them all, and part of it was possibly stimu- 
 lant for the insatiable old man. If Dorothy, with her 
 incorrigible forward-looking to some favourable time
 
 WHAT DOROTHY KNEW 49 
 
 "years hence," could think hopefully of the future, 
 Stephen could not, for the sake of his immediate self- 
 respect, see any such seductive vista. For him the first 
 need was the means of livelihood. If he, too, had his 
 dreams they were never expressed, and perhaps he had 
 no dreams. Perhaps he had had dreams in the past — too 
 many dreams — all now overwhelmed by inexorable cir- 
 cumstances through Avhich he could penetrate only by 
 strict attention to business. His face lost its defiance as 
 he read, and Dorothy crept about on tiptoe until she had 
 finished her work. 
 
 Once or twice she stole a glance at him as he sat by 
 the window. The sunlight had risen above the tops of 
 the opposite houses, and the whole street was in shadow. 
 The sky was film.ed over with the first dimness of the 
 long evening to come. In the street there were only 
 occasional sounds, and only at intervals could Dorothy 
 hear the tramcars grinding along the Upper Street, or 
 their rivals the red motor-omnibuses blaring out a dull 
 buzz-rumble as they swayed past the end of the road. It 
 was very quiet that evening, very still and hot, but even 
 here not oppressive. Dorothy fell again into a reverie. 
 It seemed to her so pleasant to be in the room with 
 Stephen, in spite of the fact that she must not speak to 
 him during his work. She caught his profile silhouetted 
 against the light, his head bent over the book ; and it made 
 her eyes soften to see the black curls clustering so crisp 
 and strong above his ears. In this light he looked almost 
 handsome, she thought. If only — But if she began to 
 think in that way she would only make herself miserable ; 
 and if she were miserable she always felt very lonely, 
 quite cut off from any sort of life apart from Stephen 
 . . . and Roy . . . and the old man. Poor old Stephen 1 
 
 Thinking that, Dorothy looked at him again. To her 
 inexpressible astonishment he was smiling to himself, the 
 book lying as it were dead upon his hands. He was no
 
 50 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 more reading that book than she was ! Instinctively she 
 jerked lier eyes away, and a frown gathered. What was 
 he thinking about? She remembered her own angry 
 words, and was swept again by the jealousy created by 
 her impulsive guess. It thrilled her from head to foot, 
 so that she almost exclaimed aloud in her sudden passion. 
 Only by clenching her hands hard did Dorothy check 
 some sound. 
 
 When the gust had passed she once more turned upon 
 him that searching childish gaze that read plain messages 
 from his face and his attitudes. The smile had gone. In 
 its place reigned dejection. She had seen him look tired, 
 and gloomy, and angry; but never before had she seen 
 him look so clearly without hope. In that moment even 
 Dorothy's spirit quailed. She had surprised, it seemed, 
 the innermost secret of her brother's heart. If it was 
 despair; if Stephen truly saw no future but disaster, of 
 what good were her own inventings? And why did he 
 despair? There was so much she did not know. Just 
 as she could only feel through her love that Stephen was 
 wise as a critic, and distinguished as a writer, so she 
 could only — in the last resort — pretend that she under- 
 stood him. It was the hardest blow to her pride to realize 
 this. She could not face it in its bare truth. She had 
 always to slur over her difficulties and her mystifications. 
 How impossible it was to keep silent any longer! She 
 could not do it! 
 
 "Steve, dear . . ." 
 
 Dorothy was quite close to him, her arm round his 
 shoulders, her sweet soft cheek against his own. Stephen 
 returned to a consciousness of the room, of his book; 
 marvelling at her perception of his mood, but shy again 
 into brusqueness lest she should intrude too nearly into 
 his lately engrossing reflections. Their eyes met, hers 
 beseeching, his quickly veiled. 
 
 "Dorothy!" he was protesting; when she pressed her
 
 WHAT DOROTHY KNEW 51 
 
 face closer, so that, cheek to cheek, he might be unable 
 to see her at all. 
 
 "Steve ... I want you so much to go," she whis- 
 pered. "Do go. I want you to." Then, breathlessly, 
 plunging once and for all to the farthest point of her 
 most intense intuition, she said, so low as barely to be 
 heard: "If she's any good at all she'll . . . know. Only, 
 my dearest, tell her!" 
 
 Stephen felt her tremble as she clung to him. He 
 kissed her. 
 
 "You don't in the least understand," he whispered 
 back. "You're inventing a story. There's nothing . . . 
 nothing. I'll think of it. Now stop !" 
 
 Dorothy drew quickly away again, but she caught his 
 hand and pressed it. She never forgot that evening and 
 his sudden gentleness; for her excited miserable happi- 
 ness and the mystified convinced ignorant guess which 
 swam together in her heart and brain made there such 
 a confusion, a sort of emotional melange, as to leave her 
 almost dizzy with apprehensiveness. She guessed that 
 everybody was much less simple than she had assumed. 
 Was she, therefore, wrong? Stephen's face had recov- 
 ered its normal look, so baffling, so unreadable. Dorothy 
 could not help shrugging her shoulders. The half -elate 
 fraction of consciousness which she felt they had shared 
 was lost to all save memory. She was left still groping 
 for the difficulty. Only she was now sure, from his 
 acceptance of her meaning, that she had located the geo- 
 graphical point at which the difficulty might be said to 
 lie. The clue was somehow to be found at the Evandines, 
 of whom she knew nothing whatever. And it was to be 
 found in a passionate secret.
 
 CHAPTER III: STEPS TOWARDS LIGHT 
 
 ON Sunday afternoon Stephen Moore, dressed to 
 Dorothy's approval in a suit of blue serge much 
 less stylish than his father's, and a brown soft felt hat 
 of a venerable character, started out from his home to 
 walk along the Upper Street until he reached Highbury. 
 This he did in order to economize upon his fare. He 
 then took a rather crowded tramcar as far as the Archway 
 Tavern ; and his transport difficulties became acute. The 
 red and cream tramcars which run between Upper Hollo- 
 way and High Barnet begin — or, at that time, began, 
 since it is true that in these days different arrangements 
 exist — their journey at the Archway Tavern, just beside 
 a huge, gaunt workhouse infirmary. So popular, how- 
 ever, is the Barnet journey — at any rate as far as the 
 Finchley cemetery — that huge crowds congregate at the 
 starting-point and require police regulation lest those of 
 giant's strength should exercise a tyranny by using it 
 in a pellmell rush for the tramcar. And it was at the 
 end of a long queue, magically extended, a moment after 
 his arrival, by many more people who poured from every 
 quarter, that Stephen was forced to take his place. The 
 huge trams slid down the hill, unloaded, and drew like 
 great ships up to the level of the waiting crowd; filled 
 again, and gallantly rode once more to the romantic 
 North. Tram after tram did this, until Stephen despaired 
 of ever reaching his destination. Even when his turn 
 came at last, while he and many more were still pressing 
 and clinging on their way to seats, the gongs sounded 
 and this tram also moved ofif, between the infirmary and 
 
 62
 
 STEPS TOWARDS LIGHT 53 
 
 the low college buildings opposite. Up under the high 
 archway that now spans the road it ground its way ; past 
 that romantic junction of Archway Road with North 
 Hill, Highgate, which marks the beginning of the Great 
 North Road; farther to Finchley; and so on to Whet- 
 stone, where Totteridge Lane ran westward and in the 
 direction of the Evandines' home. There, where he first 
 again saw stretching fields of radiant green, Stephen 
 descended from the tram and prepared to walk the rest 
 of his journey. 
 
 It was impossible for him to avoid noticing as he 
 walked how the air changed ; how the molten sky of 
 Islington had become the fathomless blue of the country ; 
 and how the larks sang their thrilling rapture overhead. 
 He could hardly make any progress down the slow hill 
 from the main road for gazing up at the cloudless sky 
 and loosing his cramped spirit among the sweetly singing 
 birds. To one whose days were spent among houses, in 
 hot streets, and in never-ending application, this day 
 seemed of all others like a happy promise not easil}'' to 
 be reconciled with his patient thoughts. And more, it 
 recalled with painful vividness and precision the last 
 journey he had made upon this very road. The memory 
 and the thoughts that it evoked brought him once to a 
 standstill with a checked groan upon his lips. For a 
 moment his steps faltered; he almost turned back along 
 the road — back to Islington and the work and the whole 
 situation he had left. It seemed for that moment that 
 he could not bear to go forward. Why should he go? 
 What good lay before him at his journey's end? Only 
 pain, em.barrassment, humiliation, could come of this 
 visit. Why should he revive all that had helped to make 
 the last three years a numbed and miserable struggle 
 with penury, when they might gladly have been given to 
 the eager striving for name and power which so long ago 
 he had imagined? True, he had learned a great deal
 
 54 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 about himself in the three years. He had learned some 
 at least of his limitations. But to recognize these was 
 never to accept them. The recognition had onl}^ made 
 ambition the keener and the more bitter. Stephen's face 
 grew set ; the hard lines in his brow and round his mouth 
 were like gashes as he walked ; his eyes, which were like 
 steel, darkened until it seemed that the pupils had over- 
 spread the iris to the very edge. As he brooded, so his 
 steps grew slower, more uncertain; so his shoulders bent 
 and his movements became heavy, and his course upon 
 the roadway less direct. 
 
 And it was while he was thus thinking, while his mind 
 was thus in torment, that Stephen heard as in a dream 
 the rough insistent hooting of a motor-horn, so close 
 behind him that it seemed to screech in his ear; and a 
 light-coloured car brushed past his elbow, almost touch- 
 ing him. The occupant of the car, turning, waved his 
 arm, and impatiently cried, "Keep on the path, you fool 1 
 . . . keep on the path !" And Stephen, roused suddenly, 
 stung by the man's insolent manner, burning with venge- 
 fulness, shouted back in a hoarse voice of passion, "Go 
 to hell!" trembling and breathing fast at the motorist's 
 ever-ready assumption of the wayfarer's inferiority. If 
 it had not been too late he would have struck as blindly 
 as he spoke, so keenly had his anger been awakened ; but 
 the motor was already far ahead, and out of reach even 
 of any verbal challenge. He was thoroughly awake now, 
 still resentful of the incident as marking the old savage 
 grievance of every man who has been born poor. This 
 was its significance — not that a single unidentified motor- 
 ist had insulted him, not that the motorist had been within 
 an ace of injuring him; but that a member of one class 
 had assumed a right over a member of a poorer class, a 
 prior claim to the common road, based upon his power 
 of superior speed. While to the driver Stephen was sim- 
 ply a dawdling fool, to Stephen in his surge of reaction
 
 STEPS TOWARDS LIGHT 55 
 
 the driver was representative of his species. Such an 
 individual claim will always awaken in poor men resent- 
 ment against a class. 
 
 That was the first meeting of Stephen Moore and 
 Hilary Badoureau. 
 
 ii 
 
 Thus it happened that there was a large gathering that 
 Sunday afternoon at Stalcett, the Evandines' home. 
 Ethel Clodd was there, with her brother, cloaked in 
 decency. Hilary was there. Stephen, arriving much 
 later, ill-tempered and dusty, was there. Agg had arrived 
 uninvited, and so had a very deaf professor of Romance 
 languages and Romance in general — a man upon whom 
 Romance had taken apparently a cruel revenge for his 
 too assiduous and academic pursuit, since he was 
 markedly decrepit. When, therefore, Stephen was led 
 out of doors, by that same door through which Priscilla 
 and her mother had entered when Mr. Vanamure visited 
 them, his heart was like lead in his breast. It was too 
 bad to ask him to meet a crowd of people he did not know ! 
 With all the arrogance of the timid and solitary person 
 he felt it as an affront. It made him conscious of his 
 clothes and his dusty boots, his old hat, his ignorance of 
 the etiquette governing conduct in such a group. And 
 that nervous arrogance reacted upon his manner, making 
 it almost noticeably brusque, and making him feel all the 
 inconveniences resulting from the behaviour of conven- 
 tionally bred people towards those whom they regard as 
 ill-bred, or towards those who regard themselves as ill- 
 bred. Stephen knew, of them all, only the Evandines. 
 He had never met even Agg, whose rather bizarre per- 
 sonality was familiar to most of those engaged in writing 
 or reading books. 
 
 As a cricketer in an international match feels when 
 without having scored he returns over miles of close-
 
 56 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 shaven grass to the dismally silent pavilion, so Stephen, 
 ushered so far by the perfect Biddy, felt in crossing that 
 large lawn to the group standing far away in the shadow. 
 Biddy's manner, as tactful as that of a hostess, had given 
 him no hint of shortcoming; but he had flushed to see 
 his hat so patently dilapidated in her hand, and with 
 chagrin he had heard his own steps clatter during the 
 journey upon the uncarpeled edge of a long passage. 
 And now, when Biddy, seeing that Stephen was observed 
 and recognized, was giving way, he seemed bereft of all 
 support. But at that moment David came running 
 towards him, and in the quick hand-clasp there was the 
 first hint of friendship. It was not enough to make the 
 unwilling visitor comfortable; but it was a beginning. 
 Then he saw Mrs. Evandine, then was introduced to the 
 Clodds and to Professor Tidd and to Agg. To all of 
 these he bowed impatiently, hating them for his own hot, 
 dusty shabbiness. But his eye was furtively searching 
 for another figure, and his heart was heavily beating at 
 her absence. Priscilla was not there. She was not there. 
 Not there, not there, beat his heart. He could not hear 
 what they were saying. Was it possible that she was 
 away, that he would not see her? Stephen knew now, 
 without any disguise, that he had come only to see 
 Priscilla. Everything else meant the merest weariness 
 of polite intercourse, which to one of his temper was a 
 long exasperation. In such turbulent distress was his 
 mind when he awoke to find that Mrs. Evandine was 
 speaking to him. 
 
 "Sit here, Mr. Moore," she was saying. "It's so very 
 long since we saw you; and I want you to tell me what 
 you've been doing." 
 
 Stephen shot at Mrs. Evandine a look that was sullen 
 with his disappointment and with the still-pervading sense 
 of shame and chagrin resulting from his dustiness; and 
 the potent resentment which he still felt for the motorist's
 
 STEPS TOWARDS LIGHT 57 
 
 rudeness ; and the feeling that when all was said and done 
 he had not wanted to come and wished he had stayed 
 away. He supposed from her courteous tone that the 
 social baiting had begun. 
 
 "I've been working," he said. 
 
 "All the time?" she rather archly inquired. Then, as 
 he frowned, she continued, with a quick glance at David, 
 who was talking at a little distance with Agg, "I won- 
 dered whether you had moved quite far away; but from 
 what David says you must be still in Islington." 
 
 "Yes, I'm still there." 
 
 "Well, won't you try to come and see us more often? 
 You know, don't you, that we should really like you to 
 come ?" 
 
 To that there was no answer. 
 
 "I'm afraid I forget," she went on, with that sort of 
 persistent disregard of pauses which all hostesses culti- 
 vate, "whether you live alone or with your family. Which 
 is it ? Please forgive me, and tell me ; because I'm really 
 very interested, and should like to know." 
 
 "I live with my father and a brother and sister in 
 rooms in Slapperton Street," said Stephen with a defiant 
 sense of discouraging disclosure. 
 
 "A sister ? You have a sister ?" asked Mrs. Evandine, 
 although she could not help being amused at his grave 
 pronunciation of a name so unusual. "Wouldn't you 
 like to bring her to see us one time?" 
 
 "It's very kind . . ."he grumbled. 
 
 "I should like it so much. I expect the house you 
 live in is a very large old house, isn't it? I can remem- 
 ber . . ." 
 
 Her attempt to suggest that he lived in a large old 
 house in a tedious district for any other reason than the 
 real and glaring one was too dexterous. Somehow the 
 reference to Dorothy and Roy, followed by this later 
 effort, made Stephen's blood boil. He saw Mrs. Evan-
 
 58 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 dine's very gentle, very charming face, was acutely con- 
 scious of her beautiful fawn-coloured dress, of her grace- 
 ful coiffure; and of the fact that she had never in all the 
 days of her life for one single moment felt the desperate 
 need of money, or rest, or food. He thought of Dorothy 
 at home, who would have thought this house and this 
 inexhaustible garden a dream of Paradise — keeping 
 cheerful in her common run of monotonous days by 
 God only knew what subtle alchemy, and never knowing 
 or having known the unalloyed pleasure of young life. 
 He thought of Roy at uncongenial work at an age when 
 Mrs. Evandine's son had been happily at a public school. 
 He thought of himself as a child and boy, often without 
 food, always penniless, tramping London ill-clad and 
 with barely a home to return to. He thought of his lot 
 and hers, and his heart burned at her smiling inquiries 
 about his sister and brother — whom she had never seen, 
 in whom as living realities she could not be interested, 
 whose wretched childhood he knew with the bitter knowl- 
 edge not only of personal experience, but of anxious 
 responsibility. The incongruity between that life as he 
 had endured it and the sweet ease of this kind, generous, 
 sympathetic woman was so tragically clear to him that 
 he could hardly breathe. It was so clear that he felt he 
 could no longer bear to answer her questions. He did 
 not do her any injustice. He only saw that she could 
 have no possible understanding of poverty as he and his 
 sister and brother had known and suffered it. That was 
 why Stephen brushed aside her questions with one glance 
 of impatience. His sullenness was gone, and with it his 
 awkward demeanour. He next spoke to her as to an 
 equal. 
 
 "Mrs. Evandine," he said with extraordinary earnest- 
 ness, and an address so candid as to beautify his expres- 
 sion to her eager eye. "I'm not ashamed of being poor, 
 although it sometimes humiliates me. But it wounds me
 
 STEPS TOWARDS LIGHT 59 
 
 very much to feel that you . . . think it necessary to be 
 conversationally polite to me." 
 
 Mrs. Evandine flushed faintly. His truthfulness was 
 unexpected and quite undesirable. But as they were apart 
 from the others, and as he had spoken very quietly and, 
 as it seemed to her, very much at the impulse of some 
 strong feeling, she did not hesitate. 
 
 "You are doing me an injustice," she said. "I have 
 not once thought of your being poor. If I knew it, it was 
 with sympathy — with admiration for you. I think you 
 are quite misunderstanding me. You hurt me very 
 much." 
 
 The disarming gentleness of her answer made Stephen 
 realize as nothing else could have done his breach of 
 taste, and made him aghast at his own clumsiness in thus 
 wounding a nature so sensitive and so perfectly kind ; 
 but although his sullenness was gone, he still continued 
 to struggle with his awakened pride and with the thoughts 
 by which his pride had been aroused and bruised. 
 
 "And I'm being savagely rude," he said in a quick 
 shame. 
 
 "I'm afraid you are," agreed Mrs. Evandine cordially. 
 But Stephen could see that she was smiling, though his 
 protest had hurt her so much that her eyes were full of 
 tears. 
 
 "I'm very sorry. I'm so very sorry," he began to 
 stammer, increasingly and painfully repentant. "I beg 
 your pardon. I hate to go among people I don't know. 
 I don't know how to behave. I . . ." How could he 
 be sufficiently humble? Her pretty, moved expression 
 made her just like Priscilla — as young and gentle and 
 appealing. "As you can see, I'm an egoist," he stumbled 
 on, "Just a clumsy fellow. And , . . and I've just 
 been made very indignant by something that happened 
 on the way here. I'm not in a fit state to speak to you. 
 Do please forgive me."
 
 60 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 "And you'll believe me in return?" she asked, really 
 triumphant at the discovery of his heart, but very well 
 aware that her own was uncomfortably beating. 
 
 "Every word." 
 
 "Tell me what was the thing that happened. . , . 
 Oh, there's Priscilla at last." 
 
 Stephen's heart stabbed him and began to race. Where, 
 then, was she? His hungry glance went in search of 
 her. There, coming towards them across the lawn, as 
 lovely as she had ever been, in an exquisite soft dress 
 of flowered muslin, and without a hat, was Priscilla. She 
 was the same, the same. Unchanged still in her incom- 
 parable simplicity. Stephen could not think; he could 
 only stand lonely among the others, waiting to meet her 
 as if there had never been any interruption of their sweet 
 friendship. Yet as Priscilla came to him and he took her 
 hand she saw only his stern face, and the old bitter unsat- 
 isfied mouth, and the scrupulously veiled eyes; and her 
 own lips trembled at her childish disappointment, too 
 poignant for thought. ... It was all over in a single 
 moment, and it was nothing. They had met again, and 
 it was nothing — simply as though their hearts had stopped 
 beating, and as though their eyes had become blind. Only 
 afterwards, when the blood flowed back to their hearts, 
 they would remember, and when their eyes were next 
 closed they would see indelibly mirrored each tiniest 
 movement of their meeting, and hear again the sounds 
 of the garden and the trees, which formed its undersong. 
 When it was perhaps too late for everything but inex- 
 pressible regret. . , . 
 
 Behind Priscilla was Hilary, tall, beautiful, smiling, 
 and wholly confident. 
 
 • • • 
 
 111 
 
 It was at this moment that, by a circuitous route, 
 Romeo joined the company, stealing gently over the
 
 STEPS TOWARDS LIGHT 61 
 
 grass to Priscilla's side. Romeo, amid, upon the Evan- 
 dines' part, a hushed silence, advanced towards Stephen, 
 sniffed in a gingerly fashion at his trouser leg and his 
 dusty boot, to which Stephen imagined that every eye 
 now finally turned, and at last, with tail sweeping in the 
 air, rubbed his head against Stephen's leg, Priscilla 
 watched the event with a tremulous sigh; her mother 
 and brother with interested gravity. Awkv^^ardly, notic- 
 ing the silence, and hardly knowing what he did, Stephen 
 bent and stroked Romeo's head. To the Evandines' 
 inexpressible joy Romeo pushed Stephen's hand from 
 his head, and, steadying it with a single alert paw, licked 
 the hand three times before brushing it alfectionately 
 with his face. Stephen, looking up, met their awed 
 eyes. 
 
 "All very satisfactory, I think?" David inquired 
 seriously. 
 
 "Splendid!" said both Priscilla and Mrs. Evandine. 
 
 "What's the ceremony?" asked Hilary, standing close 
 to Priscilla. 
 
 "Romeo captivated by Moore," explained David. To 
 which Hilary's rather blank face and air of chagrin 
 seemed to respond, "More than I am!" Hilary and 
 Stephen were then introduced, and they shook hands. 
 If Hilary recognized the pedestrian he gave no sign. Only 
 Stephen knew and never forgave. 
 
 IV 
 
 For half an hour Stephen and David talked of various 
 things, while Hilary went off to play tennis with Priscilla 
 and the Clodds. They talked of many books and men 
 and pictures, and in their talk Stephen found his discom- 
 fort vanishing, and David found his respect increased. 
 It was David's way to listen, and to prompt ; and it was 
 Stephen's way to talk bluntly and quickly when he had
 
 62 THE CHASTE WH'E 
 
 been made to talk at all. Both learned, Stephen by test- 
 ing his own ideas, David by receiving new impressions. 
 At last they strolled indoors, and up to David's rooms, 
 where Stephen saw for the first time some prints of 
 pictures by the real Post-Impressionists, of whom David 
 had heard at the time when the Continent had heard of 
 them, and long before the first Grafton Caller}^ exhil)ition 
 in London. He also saw one or two original drawings, 
 at times painfully scraped, but all wonderfully full of 
 colour, by Ospovat ; and a very tiny unfinished sketch 
 in water-colour by Conder. Other people, of course, pos- 
 sessed and possess works by these artists, and in England 
 it is almost one of the correct things to have them; but 
 David had these prints and drawings because he really 
 liked them, and his interests were very genuine, even if 
 they were not wholly concerned with pictorial art. He 
 also possessed many beautiful, and one or two rare, books 
 of various kinds, over which Stephen for short intervals 
 pored, patting them as he spoke, in order to emphasize 
 his arguments. Even when David wandered into the 
 subject of music Stephen was interested, though his 
 actual acquaintance with modern music was small, and 
 his technical knowledge negligible. So a friendship 
 began between the two young men, and as they lounged 
 in this lovely room, as fresh as its own clear pale wall- 
 paper and decorations, Stephen entirely lost sight of his 
 boots, and his dusty anger, and all that moroseness that 
 had grown in his nature out of privation and the diffi- 
 culties with which he had ever to fight. 
 
 He developed into a strange Stephen, as young as his 
 host — or younger, because his knowledge was all the 
 result of personal discovery, while David knew a great 
 deal by education, by convention, and by tradition. The 
 Stephen thus revealed was one who was unknown to 
 everybody, even to himself, who was so rarely untram- 
 melled as to be never entirely care-free. He laughed, his
 
 STEPS TOWARDS LIGHT 63 
 
 eyes glowed, his manner grew ingenuous, boyish; and 
 David felt as though there was some of that enviable 
 quicksilver in Stephen which so many men to their un- 
 dying sorrow lack. He was delighted at his discovery 
 of a new personality, rich in interest for this curiously 
 detached youth, who made personality his incessant 
 study. 
 
 At last they spoke of the article on Mr. Evandine's 
 book, the reading of which had been the beginning of 
 David's interest in a young writer whose name he had 
 once or twice noticed for individual work, and whose 
 acquaintance he had casually made at a tea-table in a 
 strange restaurant. 
 
 "My father's a very curious man. He can see the 
 quality of that criticism. He'd be the first to speak of 
 it. But it discomposes him. I think he actually would 
 rather not bring himself to relate it to his own concep- 
 tion of criticism. ... I suppose it simply is that he 
 belongs to a dying school " 
 
 "Educated men with a taste for letters," commented 
 Stephen. 
 
 "Exactlv. Excellent taste. . . ." 
 
 "No analytical power." 
 
 "Possibly." David was not surprised at these cryptic 
 passing opinions. "The st3de has been to say something 
 about everything in a pleasing way. Now your work's 
 different, of course. I should think criticism of that sort 
 is always worth while for its own sake. I mean, as a 
 thing done once for all, and an opinion formed and 
 expressed. But does it pay?" David shot that question 
 suddenly at his companion. Stephen raised quiet eyes 
 to meet his glance. 
 
 "Well, no . . ." he hesitatingly acknowledged. "No." 
 
 "You can write like that for The Norm, because The 
 Norm's a hobby. But not for other papers, I suppose?" 
 
 "I don't write for any others."
 
 64 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 David was drawn up sharply by such an admission. 
 How on earth, then, did Stephen snatch a living? He 
 could not bluntly put the question, any more than he 
 could demand to know what Stephen did with himself 
 when he was not writing occasional two-guinea articles 
 for The Norm. 
 
 "How did you get on to The Norm?" he asked instead. 
 
 "Sent them some stuff and asked for work. I didn't 
 get it for a long time. Then, when I tried again last 
 year, they sent me a novel to review, and somebody 
 asked me to go up and see him, because I slated it too 
 hotly and showed I knew nothing at all about current 
 novels. But they took me on, and I work pretty regu- 
 larly for them, doing short notices, and sometimes a long 
 one like that of your father's book." 
 
 "Isn't that rather stiff work?" asked David horrified. 
 "Why it . . . surely ... I mean, they don't pay very 
 much for work of that sort." 
 
 "I've got to live. I just manage, with other work — 
 not writing." 
 
 "Do you know Selby or Jaggers, who do the books 
 for the Morning News?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Know any of these people?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "I dare say I could introduce you to them." 
 
 "I can't write puffs." 
 
 David did not laugh at Stephen's speech. It v/as not 
 spoken with juvenile contemptuousness, but with a sort 
 of wistful admission of incapacity. 
 
 "Will you let me talk to Selby? I couldn't be sure of 
 him." 
 
 "I'd rather you didn't," Stephen said uncomfortably, 
 "I think I'd rather . . ." 
 
 David did not want, of course, to seem inquisitive or 
 to be interfering. Yet here was this man practically
 
 STEPS TOWARDS LIGHT 65 
 
 wasting because he lacked friends and because he was 
 relying solely on virtue to carry the day. 
 
 **Not if you'd rather not," said David quickly. "You 
 don't much care about prancing round? Of course it's 
 beastly. I say, did I show you this little thing?" He 
 drew attention to a picture by the window, representing 
 in line, very simply, the Annunciation. "That's a thing 
 Badoureau — that's the fair man you saw in the garden — 
 got me last month. It's by a young man. He's doing 
 some work for my firm now. Rather fresh, don't you 
 think?" 
 
 Stephen examined the picture. He said he thought 
 it very sensitive; but David's last words had stopped his 
 thoughts, and when they were again in motion their 
 current, and in fact the current of this conversation, had 
 entirely changed. 
 
 "Is ... is Badoureau an artist?" he asked quietly. 
 
 David laughed a little, and looked out of the window 
 as he answered. 
 
 "He'd tell you he was a connoisseur, I expect." After 
 a pause he went on. "No, he's a man of means, who's 
 not like us. He was at Oxford with me. Do you like 
 him?" 
 
 "No," said Stephen. "He nearly ran me over this 
 afternoon, and swore at me." 
 
 "Really ! The old rough ! Well, I hope you swore 
 back." 
 
 "I did." But Stephen knew from David's tone, from 
 David's hesitation over the word "connoisseur," every- 
 thing that it was possible for him to learn about 
 Badoureau and Badoureau's wishes. Well, was it not 
 what he had expected? Had he ever faced any other 
 conclusion ? He knew he had not. He knew that he had 
 never been in a position to consider any other end to his 
 story. He had always recognized that to marry Priscilla 
 was something forbidden to him. But that did not make
 
 66 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 the grinding pain any less, or serve now to check the 
 sense of jealous dislike of Hilary which he uncontrollably 
 felt. David saw the old expression return to Stephen's 
 face, and could not fathom the cause. 
 
 So immersed had they been that time had passed more 
 rapidly than either could have imagined. To their 
 surprise a thumping gong sounded racketing through 
 the house. 
 
 "Good gracious! Supper!" cried David. 
 
 "Oh, I must go. I've been keeping you talking . . ." 
 
 "Nonsense. Of course you'll stay." 
 
 "No, no." Stephen's thoughts had made him afraid of 
 meeting Priscilla again, "I couldn't. These clothes . . ." 
 
 "We never change on Sundays. You must see my 
 father. Those decent mugwumps you saw in the garden 
 will all be gone. Besides, man, I want to go on talking!" 
 
 He spoke so charmingly, so naturally, that Stephen 
 could not help laughing again; and they ran into the 
 bathroom, which was on the same landing. Then 
 Stephen, with a breathlessness out of all keeping with 
 the seriousness of the subject, exclaimed: 
 
 "Couldn't you give me a brush, or duster, or some- 
 thing, to take the dust off these damned boots?" 
 
 It was the significant indication of some new spirit 
 working in him. With his boots clean he could even 
 face Priscilla, it seemed! Really, what had worked the 
 change was that he hoped Badoureau had gone with the 
 decencies; and in the dreadful hope that he might actually 
 speak with Priscilla he revived. He could not lose that 
 one last desperate joy of seeing her, of hearing her speak. 
 In his excitement Stephen was shivering, as if a cold 
 draught of excitement had cut across his preoccupations 
 and lifted him from despair into a sort of mad exhilarated
 
 STEPS TOWARDS LIGHT 67 
 
 carelessness. Nothing mattered, so long as he might see 
 her. And then? He would not think. It was not fit 
 that he should contemplate before the hour that creeping 
 numbness of the spirit that would steal upon him as he 
 journeyed homeward. Then he might know that every- 
 thing was gone except the daily need of exertion, the 
 endless vista of days emplo3^ed in task-work, and even- 
 ings with the old man, with Roy, and with Dorothy. 
 Until then, in the spirit of that ancient person who said, 
 "Eat, drink, and be merry; for to-morrow we die," he 
 would take with humble enjoyment the satisfactions that 
 might fall to him. 
 
 He followed David down the wide staircase, in a 
 dream. 
 
 vi 
 
 When Stephen saw Priscilla standing in the room his 
 face turned white. His heart seemed to be beating in 
 his throat. Priscilla also was pale. She, too, had had 
 her moments of inexpressible pain since Hilary had gone 
 and she had been alone. She silently listened to Stephen 
 as he responded to her father; she was aware of him all 
 the time as he sat beside her at the table. All those 
 months, those empty months as they now seemed, had 
 been obliterated, and were as though they had never 
 been. Not Priscilla's part now to question. Too clearly 
 she saw that Stephen had been in her heart all the time — 
 Stephen and only Stephen, in all the smouldering passion 
 that this new coming had started into fresh flame. For 
 Priscilla the issue was simple; her fear simply that 
 Stephen did not need her, did not love her. Without 
 looking directly at him she knew that his face was 
 changed. It had hardened. Why had he not come? 
 Why had he ever ceased to come? That was the ques- 
 tion that had hurt her all the time during these three 
 years. Why, too, had he changed? And what at this
 
 68 TIIE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 moment did he feel ? Impossi1:)le to read that stern face : 
 impossible equally to trace feeling- in the blunt voice with 
 which he answered her father. In her mind the one little 
 thread of wonder seemed to vibrate, never stopping, 
 always concerned only with the cardinal fact that she 
 loved him and with the one doubt of his love for her. 
 
 To Mrs. Evandine, who saw the picture before her with 
 sure understanding, there was no question of the love 
 upon either side. She knew that if neither Priscilla nor 
 Stephen looked or spoke it was because their feelings were 
 the same. Yet, confronted as she had been that other 
 day with a revelation that explained many things which 
 had been dark, she was still undecided, and still afraid 
 of some too precipitant action which might result in 
 calamity. If love were all! she thought, with her grave, 
 warm, patient eyes bent upon Stephen. If she could 
 fathom honesty it was here; but so were suffering and 
 pride, and so was one feature that she dreaded most of 
 all — an air of endurance, almost of embittered submis- 
 sion. Such a man, Mrs. Evandine thought, might love, 
 and give; but he might be blind, and he might prove so 
 scrupulous, so patient, and — in the feminine sense — so 
 stupid, as to make marriage a steady failure in the finer 
 sympathies. On the merely economic side, which to 
 Stephen was the spectre, Mrs. Evandine, in her inex- 
 perience of what poverty implied, was only a little 
 dubious. She cared more that Priscilla should be happy. 
 But had Stephen that verve, that imagination, that — in 
 a word — that self-confidence which would allow him to 
 give freely and inexhaustibly and to evoke in Priscilla 
 those rarer and deeper traits which at present were only 
 partially developed? For answers to her doubts Mrs. 
 Evandine wanted time. She had seen nothing three years 
 before, until Stephen had stopped coming. She had heard 
 from Priscilla nothing but the story of a trifling dis- 
 agreement — of an argument which had arisen between the
 
 STEPS TOWARDS LIGHT 69 
 
 two, of Stephen's cynical attitude, of the eager cham- 
 pionship of a friend by Priscilla, and of their momentary 
 estrangement. Apart from that, nothing. Priscilla had 
 been very young, and the matter had seemed to her of 
 little moment. She did not know even that Priscilla had 
 written at the time a letter to Stephen, until she had seen 
 Stephen's reply, which she had been discreet enough not 
 to read and not to mention, and of whose contents she 
 therefore remained ignorant. 
 
 These were Mrs. Evandine's thoughts as she saw the 
 lovers and left the present to the good judgment of both. 
 In the meantime she still preoccupied herself with the 
 future and hesitated to decide even in her own mind the 
 points upon which the happiness of her daughter's whole 
 life depended. Suddenly her eyes softened as she saw 
 Priscilla and Stephen look directly at one another. 
 
 Vll 
 
 An hour later, when they walked in the garden in the 
 slow mild moonlight which flooded the lawn with white 
 and threw strange steel-blue shadows everywhere, it 
 seemed inevitable that the two should walk together. 
 While David went on before them, his arm linked in 
 his mother's arm, Priscilla and Stephen lingered, as silent 
 as the night, listening only to the hushing breeze and the 
 faint echo of London traffic far to the south, afraid to 
 speak in case the spell of their secret passion should be 
 broken. From the great lawn before the house they 
 crossed the tennis-lawn, and wandered down a flagged 
 path under Imdding rambler roses into a small Dutch 
 garden that seemed to them in its conventional beauty 
 a world apart from the rest of life. It was only then, 
 when they were quite alone, that Priscilla, with heart 
 that was like to break at the evening's beauty and her 
 own exalted mood, said, "Stephen . . . you never came.
 
 70 THE CHASTE WH'E 
 
 Why did you never come?" She was Hke a child that 
 had been left lonely, wistfully asking for comfort. 
 
 The hour had struck. He might have meant in all 
 honour to go silently away, and to devote himself to 
 forgetting that Badoureau loved Priscilla, and that his 
 own duties and commitments were such as to tie him to 
 celibacy. But when Priscilla, putting aside all those 
 things v/hich she might have said to indicate a simple 
 kindness, deliberately spoke to him as to one from whom 
 she expected to hear the truth, he could do nothing but 
 answer her question. But it was with fear that he made 
 the admission, 
 
 "I was afraid to come." 
 
 Priscilla shuddered very slightly. 
 
 "If you had come. . , . Were you afraid that I was 
 too stupid to be ashamed afterwards?" 
 
 "I was afraid to come because I found how much I 
 loved you, Priscilla." 
 
 If Priscilla's voice had trembled, Stephen's sounded 
 dry with a sort of parched huskiness. But the words 
 were spoken; both now knew the truth. Their unhap- 
 piness, if that had been unhappiness which perhaps was 
 only suspense, was lightened. For a moment they did 
 not speak, but, trembling, continued to walk by the 
 sharply cut and strangely carven bushes of the garden. 
 Then, with a resolve fully formed, Stephen began to 
 speak, very quickly, and with an absolute trust that made 
 Priscilla's heart swell. 
 
 "If I had come, and if I had said that the thing that 
 made me angry was simply that I was in love with you. 
 ... It could never have been honest. It isn't honest 
 of me to say this now; but I must speak to you. ... I 
 couldn't be silent. You know I'm not alone. I have 
 others to think of — I had vou as well. I mean that I am 
 very poor, never likely to have any sort of — liberty even. 
 You see, I love you. I couldn't keep away when this
 
 STEPS TOWARDS LIGHT 71 
 
 opportunity . . . But if I may tell you that I love 
 you." 
 
 "Oh, but to have waited three years — " she began, in 
 a quivering tone. "To leave me unknowing." 
 
 "Priscilla!" 
 
 Stephen had taken her hand, and raised it so that her 
 arm lay in his, and their hands together, pressed very 
 firmly, as if he would convey to her thus the contrition 
 and half-bewildered exultancy that his tone might already 
 have confessed. So, for a little, they walked; until 
 Priscilla slowly withdrew her fingers from his, not un- 
 kindly but with a nervous impulse to be free. 
 
 "I loved you too, Stephen. I do love you now. . . . 
 I can't bear you to be so humble. . . ." 
 
 "Oh, my dearest !" he cried in a broken voice, appalled 
 at the swift imagining of what that knowledge might have 
 meant to them both. "When I've tried so hard — worked 
 so bitterly. I couldn't think it. How could I think it? 
 When I'm so base, so spoiled. And when everything 
 went against me I couldn't tell you. To come to you so 
 broken, so hopeless. How could I have done it?" 
 
 "But what does it matter, Stephen? If you're poor 
 and . . . Couldn't you have let me help you?" Her 
 voice failed. Wearily she interrupted herself. "Oh, 
 no: I'm only being stupid." 
 
 Eagerly he tried to bridge the discrepancy in their 
 knowledge. 
 
 "Priscilla, you simply could not understand — your 
 mother doesn't understand — how poor we are . . . have 
 always been. You think poverty is something uncomfort- 
 able — a trouble — an inconvenience. You don't know 
 what it is not to have enough food. You couldn't 
 know what poverty really means. The thought of your 
 suffering what I've suffered all my life — even in these 
 last years — is impossible. If I'd been really ... if my 
 love were unselfish I could never have come to-day. It
 
 72 THE CHASTE WH^E 
 
 was a weakness, a sort of hideous temptation. I came 
 only to see you — once. Then, never to come again." 
 
 "To leave me?" She couldn't understand. 
 
 Stephen turned away in despair, flinging out his hands ; 
 but he again began to speak in the same agitated dry 
 voice that she had heard throughout. 
 
 "Do 1 seem cowardly?" he asked. "I don't want to 
 be that. But if you could realize the contrast between 
 your life and mine, you would understand how hateful 
 I seem to myself even in telling you that I love you. I 
 had no idea of doing it. I've thought of you as forget- 
 ting me, as marrying — God forgive me, I've thought you 
 might even be married. . . . And I've tried to be glad 
 of it, glad to think that the danger was over." 
 
 "The danger?" she quickly interposed. "You must 
 explain to me." 
 
 "The temptation. Not the temptation, not the love; 
 but the dreadful stealthy hope that always keeps mad- 
 dening me, and slowly . . . I've tried to crush it. It is 
 an agony. . . ." 
 
 "But why," Priscilla asked in a bewildered voice ; "but 
 why should you try to crush it? Love's not a wicked 
 thing, is it, Stephen?" Then, very low, she added: "If 
 it is, how wicked I must be." 
 
 Even as she spoke, Priscilla gave a quick choking sob 
 and was in his arms, her face cold against his cheek, her 
 lips like sudden stone against his own. For that moment 
 there was nothing else — only the blind turning to each 
 other, denying the validity of any words or thoughts or 
 reasons, of two mortals helplessly enmeshed in the moon's 
 light and the moon's bright madness. Whatever might 
 follow, for that instant no other action had been possible. 
 It was not even a source of happiness, but of consolation 
 alone. As their cheeks lay together, and her soft hair 
 touched his face like the fulfilling of a sweetest dream, 
 it was Stephen who was the more unhappy; because to
 
 STEPS TOWARDS LIGHT 73 
 
 him the future was dark with admitted duties. He alone 
 saw that he could not forsake Dorothy, and Roy, and 
 that nothing upon earth could clear him of the strangling 
 weeds of his father's manner of life. He might verbally 
 repudiate; but inexorable fact would presently destroy 
 him. And in this confession of her love, sweet though it 
 was, exquisite to him in its desperate sense of wonder, 
 Stephen read only a deserted trust, an injury to his love, 
 who so loved him that she would not admit his cowardice. 
 
 "Do you think I'm a coward?" he whispered. "My 
 dearest, I love you, I love you." 
 
 Slowly Priscilla drew her face back, and their eyes met, 
 dark and strange in the faint light. 
 
 "You're not a coward. I trust you," she said. For 
 a moment they stood embraced, until remembrance came 
 to both. "And we must go on walking in the garden," 
 Priscilla continued, "though I hate to say it ; because the 
 others will be coming to look for us. But you must tell 
 me presently what we are to do. I'll do what you tell 
 me to do. I love you enough to do that. And you must 
 be very brave. And bold. You'll be that, won't you, 
 Stephen? Because you know I've been awfully unhappy 
 and afraid you would never come. And now I wholly 
 trust you." 
 
 Her voice brought tears to his eyes; her confidence 
 steeled him. 
 
 "I've been a coward, and I shall always be a coward, 
 dear; and , . ." He could not proceed. Instead, he 
 kissed her cheek, and slowly Priscilla moved her head 
 so that their lips might meet a second time. "You'll make 
 me brave," he whispered. "Perhaps you'll make me 
 brave." 
 
 But to be brave was now in his mind something dif- 
 ferent from what it had been. To be brave had been 
 until now to endure, to bear whatever pain life might 
 send, whatever sacrifice of self the exigencies of his care
 
 74 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 for others might demand. In its newer reading to be 
 brave meant to carry the difficulties of the world by 
 assault; it meant not an accommodation, but a definite 
 victory against odds. Was he strong enough? Could 
 he do it? 
 
 "You are already brave," said Priscilla. "Oh, Stephen 
 . . . you're already brave." 
 
 They presently came in sight of Mrs. Evandine and 
 David, who were with great care examining an evening 
 plant of luxurious scent. Neither Mrs. Evandine nor 
 David made any sign that they had been waiting for their 
 companions; but Mrs. Evandine knew from Priscilla's 
 voice that there had been an explanation between the 
 lovers, and she could not help trembling a little with 
 excitement and sudden dread.
 
 CHAPTER IV: CONSIDERATIONS 
 
 THE next day dawned as fair as its immediate prede- 
 cessors, and the house at Totteridge squarely met 
 the sun upon its brown, weather-stained side. A great 
 triangle of the lawn was sliced into a soft, warm morning 
 shade. A gardener was working within sight of the 
 house ; and Romeo was cleaning himself in the sun, with 
 his large ears working hither and thither as if they were 
 the ears which a horse so comically pricks and moves 
 to every noticeable sound. Birds sang in the trees or 
 hopped and fluttered impudently near Romeo, who some- 
 times left off cleaning himself, with a leg still extended, 
 in order to utter a quivering noiseless miaw of desire at 
 the shamele'ss intruders. Within the house, work pro- 
 ceeded with a swift bustle, and the cheerful voices of the 
 servants rose occasionally from the kitchen or the bed- 
 rooms. Mr. Evandine gently ambled about the garden, 
 speaking to himself from time to time in his dry little 
 voice, which had the air of being ejected from his person 
 through a very small and slightly imperfect opening in 
 his head. He would say "Yiss" and "Rilly" (for "yes" 
 and "really"), and his pronunciation of "oh" was as if 
 he should say "er" and "oo" ; only in giving such a rough 
 transcript one omits to indicate all the other subtle vowel 
 sounds which may appear in so simple an exclamation. 
 There was something a little pinched and fastidious about 
 his whole manner of speech; but not about his bearing, 
 which was entirely pleasant and unruffled. He was un- 
 usually ignorant of flowers, and his acquaintance with the 
 contents of his own flower garden was so slight as to 
 
 75
 
 76 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 ])ring horror into the hearts of his two gardeners. He 
 would awaken one day to the presence of some new flower 
 in one of the beds. "Er, whawt's this, Minch ?" he would 
 say; and Minch would patiently answer, "That's sweet- 
 William, sir," or "Lupin, sir," or even "Snapdragon, sir 
 — hantirrhinum" ; to which Mr. Evandine would pleas- 
 antly respond "Rilly!" and forget all about the matter 
 with a smiling vacancy that made the gardener think him 
 a most absent-minded gentleman. But all the same Mr. 
 Evandine was not entirely absent-minded; and it may 
 have occurred to Romeo that his master was really rather 
 shy and still did not know quite how to converse with 
 his staff. 
 
 As Mr. Evandine wandered about the garden — think- 
 ing, possibly, of Mr. Vanamure's love of fine literature 
 — his wife was talking with her housekeeper, and settling 
 the day's menu. His daughter, with a pair of gardening 
 gloves upon her slender hands, was upon the point of 
 joining him and proceeding to her own garden. His 
 son, of course, was already at the office, opening his 
 letters and very rapidly answering them with the aid 
 of an expert stenographer who could have typed his 
 answers in three different languages if she had been 
 equally expert at ' reading her shorthand notes. The 
 entire Evandine family was lightly engaged, happy in 
 gentle activities. . . . And the warm sun slowly grew 
 warmer, and the deep blue sky seemed to grow deeper, 
 and the glimpses of it through the sweet green leaves of 
 all the surrounding trees became more ravishing, and 
 the flowers proudly lifted their heads to the sun, and the 
 murmur and subdued chanting rustle of garden life 
 seemed to make the air quiver with the warmth and 
 whisper and occupation of a summer morning, as though 
 every activity was but one activity, an unceasing process 
 in the spinning of that eternal web of significant life. It 
 was another of those lovely days when voices seem
 
 CONSIDERATIONS 77 
 
 sweetly to echo in the clear air, when the sound of a 
 spade striking a stone becomes a mellow chink exquisite 
 to the ear, when the birds are happy but less boisterous 
 than they are in the spring, and when, indeed, every sound 
 ripples gently into the general harmony and makes human 
 beings feel that happiness is the normal note of every 
 kind of Hfe. 
 
 Mr. Evandine was very well aware of the soothing 
 effect of the garden upon his own nerves. He always 
 recommended a short dawdle among the flowers and fruit 
 and vegetables as a cure for any slight ailment. And in 
 his own case an apple a day (which is rhymingly supposed 
 to keep the doctor away) was only part of the regimen 
 by which he cultivated perfect health, charity, and ease of 
 spirit. He chafed at nothing. He had of course nothing 
 to make him chafe; for his physical comfort was great, 
 his taste and ambition were alike realized, his wife was 
 perfect, his children quite delightful friends even for their 
 parents, and his circle of attractive acquaintances large 
 and pleasant. Mr. Evandine had nothing in life to wish 
 for. He was a happy man. 
 
 11 
 
 Nothing had so far arisen to disturb the tranquillity of 
 his home. Its occupants were not selfish people, or vulgar 
 people, or restless or stifling or moribund. Having real- 
 ized their function in life, which was to enjoy the treasure 
 to which they had equably been born, they had the 
 candour and the intelligence to exert themselves accord- 
 ingly. Freedom from earthly anxieties, so far from 
 making them stupid, left the Evandines free to see things 
 more clearly than many people are able to do. Mr. 
 Evandine saw things least clearly, because he had his 
 books to think about all day; and the man who thinks 
 about books all day, for any other reason than that he
 
 78 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 is employed to do it, is wantonly missing much of what 
 goes on around him. But Mr. Evandine was not 
 destroyed, for he was not a bookworm, and was easily 
 discovered by bookworms to be a man of facile attain- 
 ments. He would write a delicious essay, upon which 
 he would spend perhaps a refined and delicate month of 
 loving care, and would ravish the taste of the epicures. 
 He would write about very "little" subjects (his lovers 
 spoke about his exquisite "littleness"), such as his sen- 
 sations in recalling early sports with magic-lantern slides, 
 or his first reading of Paradise Lost; and he also wrote 
 charming essays upon Don Quixote and Mrs. Behn and 
 The Gull's Hornbook and Mrs. Leicester's School, in 
 which essays he would with great appositeness quote the 
 really good and amusing things from Peter Pan and Alice 
 in Wonderland. But then he had another species of com- 
 position. He wrote long, and very finished, biographical 
 studies of men who have not yet been overworked as 
 subjects for literary disquisition. Besides five or six 
 volumes of essays and belles-lettres he had produced 
 books on Dr. Burney, Crabb Robinson, Thomas Dekker, 
 and Leigh Hunt. The catholic taste, the fastidious exe- 
 cution, the smiling judgment of Mr. Evandine were all 
 well known. The books were somehow there : they could 
 not be escaped : in the London Library catalogue one saw 
 "Robinson, Henry Crabb . . . see Evandine, Cedric 
 [Stalcett], H. C. R. : a Biographical Study," for 
 example, as the only book. Mr. Evandine almost in- 
 variably wrote the only book. Yet there was nothing 
 threadbare, nothing in the least mean or calculated about 
 these books. Mr. Evandine, in his reading, was struck 
 by the fact that such a man had not been dealt with. 
 What more natural than that he should himself essay 
 to fill the void ? Thus it was that he was always grace- 
 fully doing the unexpected thing in the expected way: 
 if the "way" had been unexpected as well as the subject
 
 CONSIDERATIONS 79 
 
 he would have been less popular. If he had been always 
 doing something different differently a feeling of uncer- 
 tainty would have arisen. He would have seemed one 
 of those brilliant fluttering men through whose work runs 
 no safe note to which critics can honourably turn for 
 comment. Instead, these books bore always the stamp 
 of his easy, kind, good breeding; it was a pleasure to 
 read them and to praise them. Mr. Evandine never grew 
 more profound; but he was always polished and enter- 
 taining, and for those qualities, in spite of such fierce 
 / critics as Stephen Moore, we shall contrive to be gently 
 
 grateful as long as literature is our mistress and not our 
 ardent wayward friend. 
 
 iii 
 
 Mr. Evandine saw Priscilla the moment she left the 
 house. So did Romeo, who dropped all feet to the ground 
 and sailed towards her with his tail flourishing in the 
 air. Priscilla wore a large blue pinafore, and a shady 
 hat, and she carried a basket in which she intended to 
 put any faded flowers or obstreperous grass-blades that 
 she might find in that particular garden whose welfare 
 she tended. As she came towards him Mr. Evandine 
 smiled unconsciously, as most people would have done, 
 from a feeling of pleasure. 
 
 "Priscilla," he said, as soon as she was within hearing, 
 "I've been looking for five minutes at this flower; and 
 Minch kindly told me the name of it; but the name seems 
 to have gone out of my mind again. I particularly want 
 to remember it because it is a colour one can refer to." 
 
 "Well, father," Priscilla said, frankly. "I should 
 say it was a violet viola; but I'm not sure that you'd 
 call it violet." 
 
 "Violet, of course !" cried Mr. Evandine, suavely cov- 
 ering his chagrin. "That delicate colour. It's not quite 
 a violet . . . eh, eh ?"
 
 80 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 "Of course there are different shades : all those secon- 
 dary colours are very elastic, aren't they . . .?" 
 
 "Yiss, yiss," hastily said Mr. Evandine. "Minch was 
 telling me " 
 
 "He's not altogether reliable, father. Sometimes he's 
 carried away. His enthusiasm " 
 
 "Minch, my dear, is one of those men with simple 
 natures who retain the child's love of untruth. He 
 actually doesn't realize that he's lying." 
 
 "So long as you're not taken in !" laughed Priscilla. 
 "I'm afraid you sometimes are, you know. I don't want 
 to make you distrust him." 
 
 Mr. Evandine frowned idly at her irreverence. 
 
 "You seem especially cheerful this morning, my dear," 
 he ventured. 
 
 Priscilla's face instantly grew grave. 
 
 "Do I, father?" she asked, soberly. 
 
 "But you look ... a little white." He scrutinized 
 her sharply, as he sometimes was able to do when his 
 thoughts were not otherwise engaged. "Don't tire your- 
 self in your garden." 
 
 "As if a little weeding would hurt!" she indignantly 
 said. "Come along, Romie." 
 
 Romeo followed, stopping to throw a passing lick at 
 the middle of his back, where he sometimes had a slight 
 irritation which was known to the Evandines as "young 
 Harry" because it seemed such a persistent annoyance in 
 Romeo's otherwise enjoyable life. The name had arisen 
 because David, observing Romeo's gesture of impatience, 
 had said, "He hath a devil . . . but only a little one." 
 
 But when Priscilla, thus as it were discarding her 
 father, reached the little garden she fell dull and silent. 
 When Romeo began once more to clean himself she stood 
 half -leaning upon a spade, and could not help sighing. 
 The short night was over, the night so much of which 
 she had spent with quickening colour and shining eyes
 
 CONSIDERATIONS 81 
 
 recalling every moment of Stephen's presence; and a 
 reaction of doubt had set in. She could hardly believe 
 that their talk had been real. It seemed to her more like 
 a dream. She had the same feeling that dreams give, 
 that one has somehow said things one couldn't in waking 
 moments have said, and yet that the things said have been 
 in some way inexpressible — that the words have been 
 framed, but no more. There was so much that had been 
 left to the future ; so much that had still to be made clear. 
 Did Stephen understand? At the thought of Stephen 
 the colour again crept into her cheeks, and the light into 
 her eyes. With another sigh she put her spade down 
 and bent to take up a swaying weed that had sprung up 
 beside her handsomest rose — the rose from which three 
 years before Stephen had gathered a bunch of blooms 
 for her waist . . . and the blooms of which she had 
 thrown down in her later passionate anger. She could 
 never forgive herself that. 
 
 And Stephen had been right in their quarrel. 
 
 Every word that he had then used had been proved 
 true. Ivy, the friend against whom he had warned her, 
 had quickly illustrated the truth of Stephen's reproach. 
 Priscilla shivered as she remembered. And he had stayed 
 away — not because of their quarrel, but because he had 
 too surely seen that his own unusual heat had arisen from 
 a more powerful emotion. If he had continued to stay 
 away? She had supposed that hearts broke; but hers 
 had not broken. Nobody had seen that she was in love. 
 Even her mother had not seen. She had not cried or 
 moaned or shrunk from others. She had continued to 
 behave as she had always done. But that, perhaps, was 
 not from any conscious impulse. It must surely have 
 been because she had not understood. "I shouldn't think 
 that real love ever did altogether die," thought Priscilla. 
 "I should think it dies down and stays, and sometimes 
 gets diverted into other things. But it couldn't be
 
 82 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 wasted." She was trying to think that she had learned 
 a great deal from a love that had nourished her nature — 
 trying to think that she was wiser than she would other- 
 wise have been. Unconsciously she was holding the weed 
 which she had plucked, and was looking at it with a half- 
 reluctant smile, her fair hair and the big garden hat pro- 
 tecting her face from the sun and deepening her grave 
 expression in the faint shadow. 
 
 So Priscilla stood when Mrs. Evandine came along the 
 path. 
 
 iv 
 
 "Has father remembered the colour of the viola?" 
 asked Priscilla of her mother. 
 
 "He was more concerned with your colour," said Mrs. 
 Evandine. "It isn't very rosy." 
 
 "I slept badly." Priscilla quite frankly admitted the 
 implication. 
 
 "But you're quite happy?" 
 
 "Yes. Quite happy. But I want to ask you about 
 some things, mother." She saw her mother look anxious. 
 In her sensitive mood it chilled her. "Not now, but later," 
 she hurriedly concluded. 
 
 "What things, dear?" asked Mrs. Evandine gently 
 aware of Priscilla's tiniest recoil and bent upon showing 
 only her love and sympathy. For a moment Priscilla 
 did not reply. The colour came into her face and she 
 breathed quickly, as though her heart was painfully 
 beating. 
 
 "Mother," she said impulsively, "why is Stephen so 
 very poor?" 
 
 The blow had certainly come : it was Mrs. Evandine's 
 part now to colour faintly. 
 
 "I suppose because he has to support his family, dear. 
 I wish I knew more." 
 
 "You know we speak of the Clodds as poor. They say,
 
 CONSIDERATIONS 83 
 
 'Of course we're very poor : we shan't be able to go 
 abroad this year.' But Stephen's poverty is not Hke 
 that. It's something far more, isn't it?" 
 
 "No, dear. It's not hke that," agreed her mother. 
 
 "He said he couldn't bear to think of my . . . He 
 spoke of 'starving,' mother. Isn't that, with him, rather 
 ridiculous? It isn't as though he were stupid. I wish 
 I knew how little one could live on?" 
 
 "You've had such an easy life, Priscilla. And so, I'm 
 afraid, have I. I don't think . . ." Mrs. Evandine 
 checked herself. "Stephen will tell us." 
 
 Priscilla looked gratefully at her mother for that con- 
 fidence. 
 
 "I'm so afraid he won't let me marry him," she said. 
 Then : "I'm so afraid he finds it easier to — to repress 
 himself. He'd rather suffer in silence. Mother, it's 
 horrible ; but I could only influence him by being selfish, 
 and saying how much I should suffer." 
 
 Mrs. Evandine was not shocked; but Priscilla's very 
 quiet little voice hurt her. 
 
 "And you said that?" she asked, in a curious silence. 
 
 "I had suffered. And I'm ready to suffer. But . . . 
 it's not right to suffer if you can help it, do you think, 
 mother? Stephen hasn't told me anything. I'm only 
 wondering and wondering. But if he loves me, as I know 
 he does; and if I love him, as I know I do . . . can 
 anything prevent our being married? He speaks as 
 though I were afraid of work, when I'd so proudly work 
 for him — as though I should in some way be degraded." 
 
 "My dear," said Mrs. Evandine, just a little horrified, 
 "I think it would be more of a strain than you imagine. 
 And, dear," she went on, very swiftly, "Stephen isn't 
 a man who would let us help him. You see that. I don't 
 want to seem to make objections — I only want you to be 
 happy, and Stephen to be happy. But if Stephen wants 
 to marry you he'll manage to do so, and I think we'd
 
 84 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 better let him explain to us what his situation is. There 
 is his father to think of, and the younger ones " 
 
 "I wish I could know Dorothy," broke in Priscilla. 
 
 "Is that his sister? I asked him to bring her to 
 see us." 
 
 "Do you think I did wrong, mother?" 
 
 "I don't quite know what you did, dear. No, I don't 
 think you did wrong. I like Stephen, and admire him." 
 
 "But you're afraid, in some way." 
 
 Mrs. Evandine looked distressed. Her face, as pretty 
 and as flushed almost as her daughter's, grew a little 
 pinker, and she stood as if confused. It was impossible 
 for Priscilla to bear such distress, and she put her arm 
 round her mother's shoulders. 
 
 "As if I were a child," Mrs. Evandine protested. "Let 
 me just tell you. I am afraid ; but it is only because you 
 are my little girl. I didn't dream of this till the other 
 night ; and now I can't be sure whether I'm glad or sorry. 
 It's a tremendous risk. I tJiink there are some reasons 
 against it; but there generally are some reasons." 
 
 "The reason for it is that we love each other," Priscilla 
 urgently said. 
 
 "That's the best reason of all," her mother admitted. 
 "Well, we'll see what Stephen says. I quite agree with 
 you, dear, in relying on him. But you see, it's the first 
 time the question has arisen. There hasn't, I mean, ever 
 been anybody else." 
 
 "No," said Priscilla, with quite another meaning; 
 "there has never been anybody else." 
 
 "We won't say any more now." 
 
 "No, mother. Though I wish you were altogether on 
 my side." 
 
 Mrs. Evandine could not help laughing, and kissing 
 her daughter with a little fierceness of motherly affection. 
 
 "It's rather funny to think, isn't it, that the other side 
 is Stephen !" she murmured with the faintest touch of
 
 CONSIDERATIONS 85 
 
 malice in her voice. But when Priscilla's eyes darkened 
 at that she quickly relented. "Oh, but I'm really all on 
 your side, dear. I'm simply wanting to be courteous and 
 give the other side a hearing." 
 
 Priscilla was certainly not going to cry; although her 
 mother's tremulous laughter gave her a strained feeling 
 in her throat as if tears were threatening. She picked 
 up her spade. 
 
 "I'm going to dig," she said defiantly. 
 
 Mrs. Evandine wavered a moment, looking down at 
 her daughter. Priscilla was so slight and so lovely that 
 it seemed impossible to think of her as soiled or jaded by 
 hard work; and yet that was the picture that, momen- 
 tarily, Mrs. Evandine saw in imagination. Neither of 
 them could have borne that. The other picture, from 
 which, motherlike, she had earlier revolted, was one of 
 an entirely different character. It was a picture that 
 had involved no material sacrifice, that seemed in fact to 
 hold no least hint of unpleasantness; yet it was one 
 against which Mrs. Evandine's imagination had for some 
 reason strongly rebelled. Without moving, she said, very 
 distinctly : 
 
 "I wonder what Hilary would think of this." 
 
 Priscilla started, and stood erect, looking at her mother 
 with something like horror in her eyes. She had not once 
 thought of Hilary. 
 
 "I'm sure they dislike each other," Priscilla said, lean- 
 ing on the spade. 
 
 "You can't altogether wonder : men are very quick to 
 feel rivalry — nearly as quick as women." 
 
 "Are women so quick? Are they very jealous?" 
 
 "I think they are. You must rememl)er it shows itself 
 in very different ways. Jealousy is very much involved 
 with personal vanity; and vanity is a profound study."
 
 86 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 Priscilla laughed at her mother's dry oracular man- 
 ner. 
 
 "But Hilary has never . , ." she began. Then, check- 
 ing what she felt was perhaps an unworthy pretence of 
 not understanding Hilary's feeling, Priscilla rather 
 defiantly said : "David likes Stephen." 
 
 "Because he's interested in him." 
 
 "Oh, much more than that," persisted Priscilla. "He 
 really likes him." 
 
 Mrs. Evandine mused for a moment. 
 
 "Yes, I think so. Well, I'm going indoors, dear. You 
 must keep very cheerful, and not think about Hilary or 
 David or I wish Romeo wouldn't play with sun- 
 beetles. It's not a nice trait." 
 
 With such an irrelevancy on her lips Mrs. Evandine 
 lifted Romeo away from a beetle, helped the beetle into 
 security with the aid of a trowel, and disappeared from 
 her daughter's view. 
 
 Left alone, Priscilla began fiercely to dig until she 
 panted from the exertion in this hot sunshine. Only 
 then, realizing that her labour was entirely useless, did 
 she desist. Her mother's sympathetic warning had only 
 confirmed her own uncomfortable thoughts, while it had 
 in no way affected her real desire or her real resolve. To 
 Priscilla everything now depended upon Stephen's action. 
 She did indeed trust him; but uncontrollably she wished 
 to be at hand when he was making up his mind, so that 
 she could prompt him in accordance with her own in- 
 cHnation. Oh dear, if only she knew! 
 
 "How ridiculous it is," she said, coming back to her 
 old starting-point, "to have misgivings. Yes; but for 
 him they're not misgivings. But I wonder if . . ." Her 
 cheeks flamed and flamed until the blood seemed to hurt 
 her. "I do hope he doesn't think me . . . horrible. . . ." 
 
 For the rest of the day that was the dreadful doubt 
 that poisoned her happiness.
 
 CONSroERATIONS 87 
 
 vi 
 
 As Mrs. Evandine went back to the house she again 
 met her husband, whose arm she took as they fell into 
 step together. 
 
 "I was very glad to see Moore last night," he observed. 
 "He's a very intelligent fellow. But I'm . . . not sure 
 . . . You see these young men are so absolute. David's 
 the same. However, I must admit that Moore has knowl- 
 edge. He knows more than David does." 
 
 "He's what you would call 'sound,' then?" Mrs. 
 Evandine queried, not altogether mischievously. 
 
 "Too exacting. Sound. Yes, sound. I would almost 
 say, brilliant as well." 
 
 "You think he has a future?" asked Mrs. Evandine. 
 
 "Certainly." 
 
 "He's rather savage, you must remember." 
 
 "My dear, if he specializes in savagery he'll certainly 
 succeed. He'll be unpopular; but what of that? The 
 stuff's there." 
 
 "You would be ready to back him?" asked Mrs. 
 Evandine. Her husband looked puzzled. 
 
 "Why 'back'? And what does the word mean?" 
 
 She laughed at his fastidious distaste. 
 
 "It's no good pretending to be as ignorant as a judge!" 
 she remonstrated. "I was wondering if you would think 
 it possible to help him to make a reputation. You con- 
 firm my impression that he has unusual ability. I wanted 
 to know whether you are sure enough of that to interest 
 yourself in his future." 
 
 "What do you want me to do?" 
 
 Mr. Evandine's manner, it has been suggested, was 
 capable of being ruffled into irritability; but never with 
 his wife, for whom he had a suitable respect. Therefore 
 his tone in asking the question was one of intimate 
 inquiry.
 
 88 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 "Well, Cedric : Stephen Moore is a young man of no 
 means, no family, no education, and without any of that 
 'manner' that makes for success. You admit that?" 
 
 "Quite." 
 
 "Very well. This young man has brains. He must 
 be enabled to use them." 
 
 "Quite." 
 
 "And we must help him." 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Evandine looked at each other. One 
 might very quickly have counted three while that glance 
 was exchanged and until Mr. Evandine realized without 
 further explanation what was in his wife's mind and what 
 was dimly in prospect. 
 
 "Oh dear! oh dear!" he said in his rather mincing 
 voice. "Rilly!" It was a great blow to him. For a 
 moment he nervously fidgeted, and clucked his tongue 
 against the roof of his mouth. "But . . . but would 
 you countenance . . . ? Rilly, rilly . . . What is Prissy 
 thinking about?" 
 
 He was held by his wife's clear eye, from which he 
 could not escape. To see her so little perturbed soothed 
 him very much. 
 
 "Of course, my dear, if you think . . ." he feebly said. 
 
 One wonders how Priscilla would have liked to hear 
 this. Particularly one wonders how Stephen Moore 
 would have liked the way in which his difficulties were 
 being thus innocently, sympathetically, but perhaps a little 
 undesirably discussed. But Stephen was in sufficient 
 distress with his own affairs, which had suddenly taken 
 a new and most unwelcome turn.
 
 CHAPTER V: AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR 
 
 AFTERWARDS, Stephen could never remember any 
 details of his journey home on that fateful Sunday 
 night. It was as though he were blind, as though he had 
 been stunned at the reversal of all his plans, so delib- 
 erately made, and now so suddenly converted into the 
 merest dusty inhuman denial of human impulse. The 
 road, as he walked quickly along it, was so piercingly 
 white with the moon's colourless lustre that the trees 
 seemed black against the violet sky. The silence of the 
 lovely evening was intense. There were no other persons 
 in all this long clear avenue, streaming with the quiet 
 moonlight. .... He could not be insensible to the beauty 
 by which he was surrounded, but he was unconscious of 
 it, for his heart was throbbing and his mouth and lips 
 were dry with excitement. He was not happy, as other 
 lovers are : he was excited, intoxicated with the new and 
 strange adventure to which he was committed : but 
 happiness was far from his mood. Yet he was not 
 afraid. 
 
 Over and over again, once the first marvel had departed, 
 he was astounded at Priscilla's reality. He had thought 
 of her as lovely, as exquisite; as something inconceivably 
 remote from his possession. But now that he had held 
 her in his arms, now that he could intensely re-imagine 
 that contact, her hands raised upon his breast, her soft 
 cheek, her softer lips and hair, pressed by his own, 
 Priscilla was transformed in his memory. He was con- 
 scious of triumph, of sheer triumph. For this moment 
 nothing else mattered. All that he had stumbled to say 
 
 89
 
 90 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 about his poorness — every attempt that he had made to 
 reduce their love to the plane of his daily preoccupations 
 — had been, it appeared, wholly irrelevant ; for a new and 
 intenser reality had touched him. Priscilla's kisses were 
 no longer dreams — the mockery of eternal temptation; 
 they were no longer sacred em1)lems, sealing confession 
 and promise; he passionately desired to kiss Priscilla 
 again and again because she was the woman he loved, 
 and for no other reason whatever. 
 
 He came abreast of the little church with its white 
 wooden paling, and walked swiftly onward in the steely 
 shadow of the tall trees beyond the church, and past the 
 dull ponds at the farther side of the road where a long 
 broad avenue of grass lay at right angles to the highway. 
 He breasted the hill, and saw the trams flash by along 
 the Great North Road, and his pace grew slower at the 
 return to ordinary life. The sight of the trams made 
 him long to go back to Priscilla, to give a thousand 
 explanations that had occurred to his eagerly seeking 
 mind as he walked. He wanted in some way to prostrate 
 himself before her. He felt that he would have given 
 anything to be able once more to assure her of his love 
 and his intrepid resolve. When he remembered that she 
 had said she could not bear him to be so humble, he felt 
 sick with shame; for the humility had been hers, as he 
 now instinctively saw, in spite of all the fumbling efforts 
 of his tedious vanity. 
 
 The tramcar journey through the lighted streets, with 
 men talking and women laughing and one or two children 
 peevish through sleepiness, seemed to pass in a moment. 
 He could hear, but he did not notice, the men saying, "Oo 
 yes, they made 'im. I ses to 'im, 'Well, George, I ses; 
 it's all very well for you to talk like that, I ses; but it 
 stands to common sense !' Told 'im off, you see. Well, 
 he didn't like that. . . ." Nor the women saying, "You 
 ought to've seen 'er . . . 'Air 'angin' down . , . face all
 
 AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR 91 
 
 dirty. Three o'clock in the afternoon. Oo, she's aivfiil!" 
 Ordinarily he would have heard these things and thought 
 about them, recognizing the quite universal habit of ex- 
 pository narrative and detraction ; only now, when his 
 mind was distraught, he gave no heed, but sat silently 
 in the darkness, watching with sightless eyes the black 
 crow^ds of promenaders upon the pavements below. 
 
 At last the tram — the one going from Highgate almost 
 to the heart of the City — reached Highbury; and he 
 joined the pedestrians. Only then did he become defi- 
 nitely aware of his surroundings, of the tall shuttered 
 shops of the Upper Street; and the respectable crescent 
 separated from the road by dismal railings and a patch 
 of grass and its own gravel sweep; and the big grey 
 church that stood so clear of all the neighbouring houses ; 
 and the dull streets joining the Upper Street; and the 
 clang-clang-clanging tramcars that flew by in a sudden 
 hurry. He sighed impatiently as he caught sight of the 
 moon benevolently dreaming above all these shabby streets 
 and this noisy traffic and this unceasing, talking sweep 
 of the men and women, and girls and boys, who were 
 wandering up and down the wide thoroughfare. How 
 different was this scene from the one so recently stamped 
 upon his memory and his imagination. How different 
 was Priscilla's home from his. A slow creeping feeling 
 of paralysis threatened him at the recognition of facts so 
 unwelcome. To come from Priscilla to this ! His heart 
 sank. How could he ever bridge the distance that divided 
 them? If love were all! 
 
 Ah . . . They will take us. 
 Bleed us, break us, 
 Shackle and smother. 
 And leave us stark! 
 They call it living, 
 Clutching and striving . . .
 
 92 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 For an instant that agony, the thought that love might 
 indeed be dishonoured in the base turmoil of mere exist- 
 ence, overcame him. Even amid the crowd, lost in the 
 solitude of many passengers, Stephen was conscious of 
 panic fear of that disaster. It was the consequence only 
 of his mood, so recently among the stars, so abruptly 
 brought down among the houses and the pressing con- 
 flicting streams of people, and the shabby turnings and 
 the long weary memory of his years of sacrifice in a 
 battle so stern and so remorseless. Thoughts that are 
 discouraging, however inevitable may be their truth, can- 
 not long dominate the mind of a brave man ; and 
 Stephen's distrustful mood passed in a moment. It was 
 but a momentary fit of hopelessness. But Stephen had 
 known the reality of his lonely fight with necessity. He 
 knew how silently hunger forces its opponents by gradual 
 degrees of exhaustion first to their knees and then to the 
 slow squalid defeat which is acceptance of death that is 
 worse than death. He was not a coward ; but he could 
 not idly pretend that there was no danger. He had simply 
 been reminded of its imminence, and of his own imperfect 
 weapons of defence. Well, he must gird himself anew, 
 with fresh resolution! 
 
 At his own door Stephen mechanically drew forth the 
 key, entered, and made his way up the stairs. It was only 
 when he had passed the first floor that he became aware 
 that there were voices above, raised to quite audil:)le 
 heights of merriment. Who could be there? He could 
 think of no possible visitors upon this Sunday evening. 
 He tried for an instant, pausing upon the staircase, to 
 distinguish the tones, but unavailingly ; and with a sense 
 that laughter this evening would be unbearable he opened 
 the door of the sitting-room. 
 
 His entrance seemed to check the high spirits of Roy 
 and his friend Tom Harrington, who were standing by 
 the fireplace with cigarettes between their fingers, lolling
 
 AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR 93 
 
 against the mantelpiece. It seemed to check some anec- 
 dote which was being related by the old man, w-ho, dressed 
 in his distinguished suit of blue serge, with his fine spotted 
 bow tie and spotted handkerchief in the breast-pocket, lay 
 back in a wicker chair by the window, his mouth stretched 
 wide in a white streak of smilingness. Stephen's quick 
 eye, quite restored to its normal activities of relentless 
 observation, took this all in immediately. He saw Tom 
 Harrington's face less frank than it had been a few weeks 
 earlier, he saw that Roy did not look up with any friend- 
 liness as he came in, but that on the contrary he looked 
 as though he were conscious of some repressive influ- 
 ence. There was momentary constraint, as usual, even 
 in the old man's manner, for the old man knew, as well 
 as Roy, the penetrating lengths to which Stephen's glance 
 could go. 
 
 But these three figures were not the only ones in the 
 room, and it was the last one of all that made Stephen's 
 heart jump. For a moment he could not believe his first 
 impression true; then every faintest tinge of colour left 
 his face, which seemed to sink in until his cheek-bones 
 became startlingly prominent. The lamplight, thrown 
 imperfectly over the lower half of the room, saved his 
 change of bearing from disclosure, and his self-control 
 was so good that it did not even here betray him. For, 
 seated beside Dorothy on the old-fashioned horsehair 
 sofa, which was one of the few things remaining in the 
 family that had belonged to the old man's own furnishing 
 days, was Minnie Bayley. 
 
 11 
 
 With a nod to Tom Harrington, Stephen went straight 
 to the remaining visitor and held out his hand. Once 
 the shock of recognition was over he had become curiously 
 cool.
 
 94 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 "This is very unexpected," he said. "How are you ?" 
 
 ". . . the story . . . Mahomet and the mountain . . ." 
 She could hardly speak, her teeth were so disposed to 
 chatter. Her voice waved about among uncertain tones, 
 so remarkably, in spite of her soft speech and the renewed 
 conversation of the old man with the two boys, that even 
 Dorothy noticed the strong emotion under which Minnie 
 laboured. The hand that Stephen took trembled in his 
 grasp ; but Minnie's smile never varied, and her eyes were 
 never still for a moment. "You don't come to see 
 me . . ." she went on. "I wondered ... if you were 
 ill. It's been quite a jolly party. . . . These three boys!" 
 Her little laugh quivered out and was as quickly checked, 
 as if by an effort of determination, 
 
 Stephen brought a chair and sat near, never meeting 
 her eyes, but always looking at the two hands so tightly 
 clasped in her lap. They were long white hands, very 
 thin ; and her wrists were thin and slightly wasted. As 
 her hands moved she showed that they too had hollows 
 in them, and that the bones projected sharply at the 
 knuckles when the fingers were bent. Stephen could not 
 raise his eyes to her face, and in a moment she began 
 nervously to move her wedding-ring up and down the 
 finger upon which it rested. 
 
 "Stephen . . . just fancy! Mrs. Bayley came the 
 moment you had gone !" said Dorothy impetuously. "But 
 she's been very nice about it, and hasn't shown she 
 minded a bit !" 
 
 "That was very kind," Stephen murmured. "What 
 a pity!" In spite of his feeling of imposed coolness, he 
 did not know what he said. 
 
 "He's only saying that," Minnie explained. "He 
 means 'what a good job!'" She again laughed that 
 little staccato giggling laugh. 
 
 "That's not true," Dorothy protested stoutly. "Stephen 
 always means what he says."
 
 AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR 95 
 
 "Not to a woman," said Minnie. "Nor what he does." 
 
 For one instant she had made him look at her ; but the 
 effort had cost almost too much, and Minnie's fingers 
 broke involuntarily from their tight clasp, so that her 
 handkerchief was knocked to the floor. It was inevitable 
 that as she took it again from Stephen their hands should 
 meet. 
 
 "Stephen — excuse me — " Dorothy inclined her head 
 to the table. "Anything to eat ? You've had something? 
 I thought you must have." 
 
 "Have you had a good time?" asked Minnie. 
 
 "What did you say?" 
 
 "Where you've been . . , Have you . . . Oh, don't 
 look so. . . ." The last words were in the lowest pos- 
 sible whisper, meant only for Stephen's ear. His eyes 
 closed for a moment, as if he were forcing himself to 
 take the scene exactly as he found it. 
 
 "Yes . . . excellent. Thank you : I had . . ." 
 
 "He's enjoyed it so much that he's . . . speechless 
 with joy," cried Dorothy. "And we've been having a 
 good time, too, haven't we, Mrs. Bayley?" 
 
 "Oh, splendid !" Again she laughed, and looked im- 
 ploringly at Stephen, sitting beside Dorothy like a school- 
 girl, and looking, in her present pallor, much prettier 
 than usual. 
 
 "You come here, Stephen," Dorothy said abruptly, 
 moving from the sofa. "I'm going to make some more 
 lemonade. And you can talk to Mrs. Bayley." 
 
 Slowly and awkwardly Stephen took his place by 
 Minnie's side. She was beautifully dressed in a very 
 light grey silk costume, cut low at the neck; and her 
 mouse-coloured hair was brushed up away from her small 
 and delicately formed ears. She was perhaps thirty, 
 obviously very nervous. Her eyes, which were of a dark 
 brown, were rather full, but warm and timid, and she 
 used them too much in speaking, as she did her lips. As
 
 96 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 Stephen sat down she turned more directly towards him, 
 instead of turning only her head, as she had done to 
 Dorothy. 
 
 "1 wrote to you," she whispered. "I had to write . . ." 
 
 "When?" Stephen's inquiry was one of astonish- 
 ment. 
 
 "A fortnight ago. Didn't you get it?" 
 
 "Did you send it here?" He was now questioning 
 sharply. 
 
 "Yes. It didn't matter. I only asked you to come . . . 
 Stephen, I can't . . , You must come and see me some- 
 times. . . ." Her voice was hardly above a whisper: 
 unknowingly she had approached her face nearer to his, 
 so that Stephen saw her faint colour rising. 
 
 "I've seen no letter at all. You must tell me what 
 you said." 
 
 "Only 'I want to see you so badly' . . . Something 
 like 'Do come.' " Minnie for a moment looked fright- 
 ened : she blanched. "What is it ? Why are you looking 
 like that?" 
 
 Stephen had noticed that the murmur of voices had 
 stopped for a second. He looked quickly up, to meet the 
 old man's wide fixed smile of indulgent malice directed 
 at him from the wicker chair by the open window. 
 
 ni 
 
 In ancient days the old man had been a lithographic 
 draughtsman, and had made a good deal of money. He 
 was employed in the litho department of a big printing 
 firm, and at one time had become head of the department. 
 Even in his days of prosperity, however, he belonged to 
 what is often affectionately called "the old school," which 
 means a class of men devoted to the study of the bottle 
 and the tankard. As he had a very sweet tenor voice, 
 he was in great demand as a singer upon occasions when
 
 AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR 97 
 
 his fellow-members of the old school gathered together 
 for purposes of hilarity. The old man had shared their 
 sports, had led them, had fought with prowess, loved and 
 philandered with flattering unerringness ; and he had 
 bettered with his peers upon every race in the calendar. 
 Handsome, ruthless, confident, he had been a favorite; 
 all were his friends and his companions. Spirits and 
 horses, Bohemian club evenings and bar-palaverings, had 
 all combined to work upon his nerve. His hand and eye 
 kept wonderfully steady, and it became a legend that he 
 never handled the brush as surely as when he was drunk. 
 It became a boast with him. But he could eat no break- 
 fasts; his need grew for morning stimulants; by noon 
 he was often, with little trips "over to the corner," rather 
 woolly and "muzzy" and vague in his speech. His hand 
 and eye lost, not steadiness but precision. His work 
 became weaker and more elaborate and deficient in 
 "quality." He went from one firm to another. It was 
 a pity; the man was a good man, his employers knew; 
 but it could not go on. Still the old man's cronies 
 boisterously hailed him. "Here's old Moore!" they 
 would cry with welcoming laughter. "How are you, 
 Jack, old boy?" To each other, they said : "D'you know 
 him? Charming fellow. . . , Got his almanac in his 
 pocket? . . . No, but he's got a mighty thirst on him. 
 . . . What's going to win the Cesarewitch, Moore ? . . . 
 Here, Moore, what'ller have? . . . No, you must have 
 it with me. Now boys . . ." 
 
 So Mrs. Moore grew poorer, and so the children went 
 without clothing and without food ; until the old man 
 began to take even the money his wife earned. But she 
 never thought of leaving him, until the day of her death 
 came, because she loved him still, and because the kind- 
 ness of his manner to her, as to everybody else, was 
 unfailing. Drunk or sober, the old man never lost the 
 sweetness of his tongue. It was long since he had worked
 
 98 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 at his craft, though he sometimes spoke of "work"; and 
 what money he earned for himself was earned by the 
 singing of the sweet okl tenor ballads in a voice that was 
 even now almost beautiful and always very readily 
 pathetic. He also had some reputation of knowing the 
 ropes as a picker-up of cheap genuine antiques ; and from 
 these commissions he no doubt amassed a proportion of 
 legitimate booty for his own trouble. Stephen sometimes 
 wondered if the old man's steadily diminishing furniture 
 had been sold as antique merely because it was dilapidated. 
 The money the old man made was always spent in jovial 
 company, as was most of the old man's time; and to 
 his family, recognizing their very questioning attitude 
 towards him, the old man grew noticeably cooler. He 
 had grown also more secretive, as most of those who 
 are good fellows and charming fellows incline to do. He 
 never told them anything about himself excepting mys- 
 teriously to hint at important appointments at the 
 Salisbury or at Anderton's in Fleet Street; but went 
 his way, using the home as an hotel, borrowing from 
 its staff, and never paying his bill. It was the life of 
 a butterfly, filled with a gorgeous insubstantial un- 
 reality. 
 
 There was feud between Stephen and the old man. The 
 old man, having been everywhere loved and approved 
 all his life by his inferiors, could not tolerate the new 
 agnosticism, the scepticism, the corrosion which he found 
 in Stephen's attitude of inelastic rectitude. Could he be 
 blamed for preferring the easy virtues of the brighter 
 path? Not his notion of life to play the puritan, to do 
 things because it was right or necessary that they should 
 be done. "Let me play the Fool," said the old man. 
 "With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come!" — 
 though he was very careful by rest and by the avoidance 
 of all troublesome incidents to preserve his youthful 
 appearance. Always smartly dressed, smartly carried,
 
 AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR 99 
 
 and irrepressibly benign, the old man could have given 
 to no one but an expert in such recondite matters the 
 clue to his secret. His was the lighter burden only. And 
 while the old man had thought only of the day and the 
 splendour of the seizable moment, Stephen's lot in that 
 family had been always to think of the morrow. In a 
 family there must always be one to do that; and if the 
 two men jarred upon each other may it not have been 
 that the difference between them was one not only of 
 temperament but also of office? 
 
 That there was hostility between them, undeclared, but 
 for that very reason the more intense and the more potent, 
 might have been seen in that exchanged glance. Stephen's 
 was sombre, resentful, almost scathing in its cold sus- 
 picion; the old man's was complacent and malicious and 
 — in a strange way that always rankled with Stephen — at 
 the same time subtly indulgent. The old man, sitting as 
 he did by the open window, had upon one side of his face 
 the reflected light of the clear evening, and upon the other 
 the lamp's diffused beam. His eyes were in shadow. 
 Stephen, sitting with Minnie Bayley upon the sofa, was 
 more directly in the light of the room, and his attitude 
 towards Minnie was more directly to be observed. No- 
 body, sitting where the old man was, could fail to notice 
 the suggestion of intimacy conveyed by her increased 
 nearness to Stephen, or by his own embarrassed but 
 dominating manner as he inclined his head nearer to her 
 moving lips and pathetic eyes. 
 
 It was that intimacy which, secure in his distant seat, 
 the old man seemed with such malignant tranquillity to 
 be enjoying, his smile clearly to be seen, but on no account 
 to be read ; while the boys still talked and laughed by the 
 fireplace and Dorothy brought in the lemonade. Stephen's 
 eyes dropped, and he breathed deeply. Very well : that 
 was another difficulty, as this was. He did not think now 
 of Priscilla : he was thinking much more clearly than it
 
 100 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 was yet possible to do of her. He was trying to push 
 away all crowding confusions and to get back to that 
 prime reality which was his own deliberate, unhesitating 
 will. To be in tangible difficulty stiffened him. 
 
 IV 
 
 "Dorothy said you had gone to Totteridge, my dear 
 Stephen," said the old man, with the mild inflexion of 
 one timidly interested in his son's welfare. Stephen, 
 recognizing the stunt, scowled, but made no response. 
 
 "So you've been to Totteridge?" Minnie looked curious, 
 wondering where he had been. "That's in the north, 
 isn't it ? Is it nice there ?" Artlessly she put the question, 
 
 "Yes. Very nice." 
 
 "Nice people ?" Minnie's face was half turned away. 
 
 "Yes. Very nice." 
 
 She gave a little laugh, and looked down at her hands. 
 
 "Put a penny in the slot and the figure — sa3^s 'very 
 nice,' " she answered with an air of suppressed impa- 
 tience. "I expect they're brainy people. Not like me." 
 
 Of that he took no notice, which distressed her. 
 
 "Whetstone very little changed, I suppose?" the old 
 man suggested. 
 
 "Since I was there — yes. Were you thinking of longer 
 ago?" 
 
 "I can remember it as all fields. Before the Finchleys 
 spread." The old man, who had a smattering of anti- 
 quarian knowledge about London, could always remember 
 the farther suburban districts as open land. He could 
 remember a time when that long, shop-fronted thorough- 
 fare was not, as it must now be, called Green Lanes in 
 mockery, and when Clerkenwell and Islington, in which 
 districts all his life had been lived, were the abodes of 
 rich jewellers and craftsmen, not yet the muddy and dusty 
 congestions which they now are.
 
 AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR 101 
 
 ''Once you're off the road at Whetstone it is still pretty 
 open," remarked Stephen. 
 
 "Your friends got a nice house?" asked Minnie. "Oh 
 — I know . . . Don't say it!" Again her quivering, 
 breathless laugh was checked. But when she saw his 
 brow slightly puckered her eyes became once more im- 
 ploring. "I can't help it," she murmured very low. "I'd 
 given you up . . . you're so late. I'm all silly." 
 
 "Secrets?" archly inquired the old man, opening his 
 eyes and smiling as he came towards them. "I really 
 must hear what is going on. My deafness . . . you 
 know the consequences of advanced age. . . ." 
 
 "Get along with you! Advanced age!" protested 
 Minnie. "You look younger than Stephen." The two 
 boys also came nearer, and laughed at her speech. Stephen 
 left her side, and stood against his father. "There's not 
 much likeness between you two." 
 
 "We have one similarity," the old man said. "We're 
 very fond of the ladies." He smiled down at her. "At 
 least, when they're pretty and charming as well." 
 
 Stephen turned away, and Minnie also rose to her feet, 
 looking at her wrist-watch. 
 
 "I must go." 
 
 "Allow me to see you part of the way," said the old 
 man gallantly. She started. 
 
 "Oh, there's no need ! I can get a tram to the door." 
 
 "I'll go with Mrs. Bayley," said Stephen curtly. 
 
 "No, no, my boy. That's my privilege," the old man 
 insisted, with a pleasant and distinguished wave of his 
 shapely hand. "My hat is here." 
 
 For a moment Minnie stood nonplussed, turning to 
 Stephen as if in spite of her wish not to do so. The old 
 man did not give way. It was clear that he would not 
 relinquish his claim. There was no opportunity what- 
 ever for any speech between Minnie and Stephen before 
 Minnie followed Dorothy from the room; and when she
 
 102 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 returned with a smart grey hat which matched her cos- 
 tume perched daringly to one side of her head there was 
 no time for more than a hurried word. She secured that 
 only by having trouble with her long silken scarf. 
 
 "You will?" she murmured. "Any evening." 
 
 "Yes . . . this week." He took her hand and 
 pressed it. 
 
 "Are you ready?" asked the old man, stepping forward 
 with a courtly bow, "Stephen, poor fellow, has had a 
 long journey. A walk will do me good. You ought to 
 come more often, Mrs. Bayley. We miss you, really we 
 do, since you moved away from us. Don't we, Stephen !" 
 
 They were gone. Stephen heard the slamming of the 
 front door. What an age it seemed since he had seen 
 Priscilla. He found that he was trembling slightly.
 
 CHAPTER VI: STEPHEN ALONE 
 
 WHEN one enters the British Museum the reading- 
 room Hes straight ahead, shielded by folding 
 doors and guarded by its own commissioners. Past the 
 doors is a short passage, and then are more doors ; after 
 which one is in the great circular room with its high, 
 domed roof and its rows of desks arranged like the 
 spokes of a wheel for half of the floor-space. A warm 
 stifling glow from the hot-water pipes stales the air quite 
 early in the day, so that eyes are made to ache and heads 
 to nod, and so that when one's attention strays the painted 
 names of eminent authors placed just under the dome 
 hold it with a sort of languorous fascination. The names, 
 and in particular the omissions of other names, form a 
 curious problem in the art of selection. It becomes quite 
 clear that a hundred names were put into a hat and chosen 
 at random from the hat until the available spaces were 
 filled. But w^hile it is easy to laugh at the names, to 
 deplore the strange biscuit-coloured paint, to resent the 
 superheated atmosphere, the British Museum reading- 
 room does somehow stand to the Londoner as a holy of 
 holies. Stephen Moore, sardonically listening to the 
 horrid coughs of the congregation before wisdom, and 
 fully aware of all inconveniences and oppressivenesses 
 as they are illustrated in the conduct of official establish- 
 ments, was as glad of the reading-room as was Wendy 
 Darling of Peter Pan, When the clock chimed he some- 
 times was thrilled at its extraordinary sweetness; and 
 when he benefited by the arrangements he was still ca- 
 pable of appreciating keenly the awful nearly human saga- 
 ciousness of those in charge. He would observe with 
 
 108
 
 104 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 kindness the miserably imprisoned men in the middle of 
 the room to whom he returned his books when he had 
 finished with them. They represented to Stephen the 
 official hostages to misfortune. 
 
 And Stephen, on the Monday morning after that 
 Sunday whose events have been described, was punctually 
 at his usual place, waiting to receive the books upon which 
 his morning's work was to be based. lie had been given 
 a commission by a publisher for whom he worked to 
 prepare material for a book on the River Fleet, which 
 takes its rise among the hills of Hampstead and Highgate 
 and continues to flow underground, all unknown and 
 forgotten, until it reaches the Thames about Black friars 
 Bridge. The work upon which he was engaged was 
 purely mechanical, a matter of extracting and collating, 
 and he would earn by hard absorption only a few pounds 
 and get absolutely no advantage by the book's publica- 
 tion. But the details interested him. It was wonderful 
 to him to think of this river, so lost to knowledge, flowing 
 still as a sewer under the streets he so often trod in his 
 evening wanderings about London. So, for a time, he 
 was become an antiquary, very profoundly ignorant, 
 dreading mistakes of proportion and even of fact, but 
 nevertheless engaged upon a work that did arouse his 
 attention and his resolve to achieve accuracy. He had 
 come by the work in a curious way. A publisher for 
 whom he had done some very meagrely paid research had 
 been approached by a committee of three old gentlemen 
 representing a small society. They wanted such a book 
 prepared, to be published at their expense, with their 
 names upon the title-page, and to be illustrated from old 
 plans. Individually the three old gentlemen were almost 
 wholly ignorant, as they had been each successful in a 
 lowly trade quite unconnected with literature or research. 
 But when they learned that the publisher could provide 
 a trustworthy compiler the passion for literary renown
 
 STEPHEN ALONE 105 
 
 glowed in their hearts hke patriotism. They would get 
 this compiler dutifully to do the work; and they would 
 reap the rew^ards. To them would stand the credit of 
 rescuing the Fleet from oblivion, Stephen w^as to have 
 thirty pounds for his scrupulous examinations and col- 
 lations. 
 
 He found the river upon this Monday morning a god- 
 send for just as long as it would hold his for ever flying 
 attention. For Stephen had much to think upon and to 
 settle in his own mind, and when clear decisions are to 
 be taken and to be followed by decisive actions a state 
 of nerves bordering upon neurasthenia is obviously one 
 that gives little assistance. He w'as called upon to decide 
 the immediate future not only of his own life but, in 
 various degrees, of the lives of five other people. He 
 had to make up his mind quite definitely; and after a 
 wretchedly sleepless night he could not think. He had 
 to settle what was to be done about Dorothy and about 
 Roy. He had to settle what he must offer and promise 
 Priscilla. And there w^as the old man. And Minnie 
 Bayley. The old man was only a danger to peace of 
 mind, to integrity of purse; he and Roy could both look 
 after themselves if only they would do so. That was the 
 difficulty with those two. The other three were women. 
 All, after the manner, or the unfortunate necessity, of 
 their sex, looked to him. And Stephen was not one of 
 those men who, in an expressive figure, can cut the 
 painter. To him life was complex, not simple; a thing 
 full of involvements and counter-currents and reactions 
 and interactions. He could not in any one of these three 
 cases strike out simply for himself, for his own imme- 
 diate impulse; for to each one of these women he repre- 
 sented at this moment, whatever might be the accidental 
 quality which gave him so difficult a role, the central point 
 or figure in their pathetically limited vision of life. He 
 must not fail in any one case to carry through the respon-
 
 106 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 sibility which he acknowledged. Yet Stephen may well 
 have sighed for that simple passage to the realization of 
 personal will which is trodden only in real life by the 
 purely selfish and imtroubled and in fiction by those who 
 are marked out from the first to play the hero or ineffable 
 juvenile lead. Neither of those parts was within the 
 mimetic range of Stephen, who aspired only to the 
 humliler impersonation of a minor character in the play 
 of Hfe. 
 
 • • 
 
 11 
 
 Stephen Moore was born in Islington in 1882; and at 
 the time with which this story deals he was twenty-eight. 
 His mother died when he was fifteen, when Dorothy was 
 eight years old and when Roy was a little boy of five. 
 She died worn out with work and anxiety, but without 
 ever uttering a word of that gathering mistrust and even 
 detestation of her husband which was hardly even then 
 taking stealthily the place of her constancy. That is to 
 say, she died before any explosion could precipitate her 
 with sudden force into the least suspicion of the accumu- 
 lating hatred which would have made her life unbearable. 
 She died still loving her husband. 
 
 When Stephen was eight he fell down a flight of stone 
 steps and broke his ankle ; and delay in having the ankle 
 set resulted in a permanent, but not a disfiguring, lame- 
 ness. His schooling was interrupted; and the need for 
 his constant attention to little Dolphy (as she called her- 
 self) and presently to the still smaller Roy kept him a 
 great deal at home. The school-inspector's calls were 
 evaded, or perhaps the man was a little awed by Mrs. 
 Moore's refined speech and notably remaining beauty; 
 for no pressure was brought to bear upon the Moores. 
 Stephen would wander about, would run errands, would 
 sometimes get a little money for helping a tradesman on 
 Saturdays as an extra boy; and at last, when he was
 
 STEPHEN ALONE 107 
 
 thirteen, went out to work for himself. His father one 
 evening was grumbHng. ''Everything to find," he said 
 untruthfully; "and nobody to help me." "Who d'you 
 want to help you?" asked Stephen, in a high clear voice. 
 "You, if you could !" said his father. Secretly, to his 
 mother, Stephen said: "I'm not going to stand that!" 
 and secretly he answered advertisements and found a 
 situation at six shillings a week. When he received the 
 letter formally engaging him he left it out upon the table 
 beside the supper which had been prepared for his father. 
 "I'll let him see!" thought Stephen, trembling. 
 
 From that time Stephen worked during the day, and 
 when he was sixteen he went two or three evenings a 
 week to keep the books of a shopkeeper in Essex Road. 
 On the evenings when he was not engaged in account- 
 keeping he read at home — books that were borrowed from 
 a small library set up beside a local chapel. He went on 
 with this even after his mother died, when he changed 
 his daily situation for one in which he received a higher 
 wage; and his reading became a little wider, though it 
 was always limited. One thing this limited reading taught 
 him, and perhaps one thing only. If he knew little he 
 knew that little thoroughly. He knew it almost word 
 for word. And the reading of a single book led him to 
 books of a kindred subject and a kindred place in time. 
 He was not taught anything; he simply learned from his 
 reading a great and deep love for literature (as for 
 virtue) for its own sake. He read, that is, only what he 
 loved to read ; and that is why he learned from his read- 
 ing, since if he tried to memorize knowledge of something 
 he did not love he found that his overworked brain 
 rejected such hammering. Stephen, with a chilled feeling, 
 went back to his natural study. 
 
 Paler and thinner he grew, and his clothes were shabby 
 and his boots leaky and broken, and his nature grew very 
 shy and rather hard. He found himself cherishing bitter
 
 108 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 resentments, and for his father a hatred that was domi- 
 nated by his fear. If he had been alone he would have 
 left his father; but he could not think of leaving the 
 children to whom so assiduously he played the mother. 
 They were his first thought; Dorothy his first love. 
 Thinking as he did always of the children before any- 
 thing else Stephen was certainly estranged from his 
 father, and in some measure cut off from any friendship 
 that he might have formed with others. He had no 
 friends and knew no boys or young men of his own age 
 and tastes. He became superficially misanthropic, by 
 which it is intended to suggest that his speech was unen- 
 thusiastic, called cynical, and to many persons unpalatable. 
 His heart remained kind; but his manner was brusque 
 and too early mature. He became duller, as glass that 
 is not polished becomes duller. But he continued always 
 to think first of others. 
 
 So his life continued until one day he met Mr, 
 Evandine on the road between Barnet and Elstree — a 
 long, winding, hilly road of great interest which for five 
 miles runs roughly east and west and joins two attractive 
 northern suburbs of London. Mr. Evandine was cycling, 
 and the day was warm; so that Stephen, noticing that 
 the older man was very tired, helped him to push his 
 bicycle up the hill. Mr. Evandine found his helper taci- 
 turn but agreeable, talked gently to him, quoted — inac- 
 curately — four familiar lines of Shakespeare's about the 
 merry heart, and received a rather prim emendation that 
 set him privily laughing. He turned the conversation to 
 books, was delighted to find Stephen intelligent, learned 
 his name, discovered a distant relationship, and took the 
 young man home to tea. For a time Mr. Evandine, who 
 caused Stephen frequently to return, cherished the idea 
 of "doing something" for him; but when he forgot this 
 plan, and when Stephen quarrelled with Priscilla upon 
 a matter which seemed at the moment vital, the acquaint-
 
 STEPHEN ALONE 109 
 
 anceship was abruptly broken off by the sensitive young 
 man who somewhat relentlessly pursued truth and virtue 
 at the expense of humour and happiness. Stephen, in 
 fact, returned to his old guard over Dorothy and Roy, 
 and was newly inspired to study other and more difficult 
 subjects than he had yet attempted. That was the whole 
 story, in brief, of Stephen's life up to the time of the 
 meeting with Minnie Bayley, who, with her husband, 
 occupied the floor below the Moores at number 52 Slap- 
 perton Street. The story of his friendship with Minnie 
 is a part of this tale, and will appear in its due course. 
 
 Ill 
 
 So Stephen continued to sit at his desk in the reading- 
 room, the hot engrossing atmosphere of the room stealing 
 upon him like sleep, and his thoughts driving hither and 
 thither among ways and means and among needs and 
 aspirations as if there were no safe love to which they 
 might exultingly return from every excursion. In vain 
 did he concentrate upon printed sentences. They seemed 
 to dissolve as his mind slid off away from their meaning; 
 and from coherent phrases they sank into swimming 
 collections of ridiculous letters. If one actually looks 
 long enough at a word it becomes at length entirely un- 
 convincing, as if there could never have been such a word, 
 so nonsensical a concatenation of letters. Stephen found 
 his work thus*impossible, so long as his mind was domi- 
 nated by the thoughts with which he struggled. But at 
 last he brought into action his resolve to work, and at 
 last he was enabled for a time to forget his troubles. 
 Instead of Priscilla the Fleet; instead of Minnie the 
 foundations of the Metropolitan Railway; and so he 
 obtained momentary ease. For an hour or two he read 
 and noted steadily through the coughing and the stupefy- 
 ing air, liking his work and feeling well employed. Then
 
 no THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 an impulse seized him and he began to write to Priscilla. 
 It was a long letter ; but he had no other course, since he 
 must either explain his position or leave it puzzling. 
 
 "My dearest Priscilla," he wrote, after much hesita- 
 tion as to the manner of his address, — "I can't even now 
 persuade myself that yesterday was a real day. If I could 
 express what I went through ! You see that I'm still think- 
 ing only of myself, and supposing that you were quite 
 different. My dear, that is not true — even for a moment. 
 I won't say any more about it, in case you should for the 
 smallest time think it might be true. But first I must tell 
 you how all the way home I wanted to come back and 
 say that I had been a most terribly boring fellow, and 
 that I knew it; and then I decided not to come back, as I 
 felt sure you must know it. It didn't seem worth while 
 to come back to accentuate the bad impression. You see 
 how excited I am when I write to you. 
 
 "Well : I am clearer in mind now, and I want to explain 
 exactly how I am placed. You know that I have my 
 father and Roy and in particular Dorothy to look after. 
 I will not, at whatever cost to myself, sacrifice Dorothy. 
 That is one chief thing. The other is that you have 
 always lived in a way that it would be impossible for 
 me to manage — certainly for many years. Wait a min- 
 ute : I know you are ready to make any number of 
 sacrifices, simply because you are splendid. What I'm 
 worrying about is whether I ought — knowing much more 
 than 3^ou can know what these involve — to let you make 
 them. You'll say, and from your point of view quite 
 truly, that if we love each other well enough troubles 
 will be almost splendid, for the mere conquering. I quite 
 agree. I'm ready for all sorts of troubles. I've had 
 plenty, and I know that they can be borne. But when 
 I think of the horrible way my mother had to work, and 
 when I think of Dorothy — who is a really wonderful 
 girl — being spoilt by her routine work at home, I then
 
 STEPHEN ALONE 111 
 
 think of you meeting the same difficulties. Now they 
 have been accustomed all their lives to work. You haven't. 
 You don't know what it means. Forgive me. If you had 
 been a poor girl (I mean a girl who had lived in poverty) 
 I should not hesitate. I should say to my father and to 
 Roy that they must shift for themselves — at least, I think 
 I could do that — and I should explain to you about 
 Dorothy and get you to advise. Also no doubt Dorothy 
 would have something to say on her own account ! She 
 generally has. Then you and I would go and live in a 
 half-crown cottage somewhere, and you would quickly 
 find out that life without society was impossible. 
 
 "Am I writing miserably? I don't mean to do that. 
 I only see you unselfishly giving up comfort, and almost 
 giving up friends, to come to me. I know what people 
 are; and if they found you married to me and living 
 somewhere in two rooms they would think that you were 
 mad and that I was a cad ever to have let you do it. I 
 shouldn't mind what they thought. Would you? I know 
 I am seeming to underrate your strength. It is beastly 
 of me to write in this way. I want to make so horribly 
 unattractive a picture of the consequences of marrying 
 me that when you find them quite as bad as you expect 
 you won't feel I've deceived you. Then there are other 
 things. You would be bound to entertain. Entertainment 
 is part of your world. How about two rooms and a 
 charwoman and not enough knives and all that? Can 
 you imagine that? Sometimes I feel in despair at the 
 gulf between us. 
 
 "Can you imagine that in spite of all this rigmarole my 
 one desire is to marry you? That all the rest is so much 
 cobweb? I know it is cobweb; but I know the effects 
 of cobwebs. They're nothing now — things to joke about. 
 Only, do you realize that there's no escaping from them ? 
 If once you do realize, and then feel ready to marry me, 
 I will adore you (as I do now, of course) ; but as long as
 
 112 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 you think that you can put all difficulties and cobwebs 
 out of account, and that our love is independent of meals 
 and the paraphernalia of daily life I shall be frightened 
 in case you wake up and think I've deceived you. If there 
 is no deception, and I'm only being frightened because I 
 don't properly appreciate you, will you try to forgive me? 
 It is just on that one point that I am genuinely afraid. 
 
 "My dearest, I wish I could say what I want to. I 
 can't. I feel as though I were trying and trying all the 
 time to say it and never getting near it. All I zvant to 
 say really is that I love you and must marry you : all that 
 I succeed in saying is that I'm afraid, and that I'm par- 
 ticularly afraid of your weakness and ignorance — and 
 so on. But if I didn't knozv better I couldn't send you 
 such base words, could I? It is only because I'm sure 
 of your love and courage that I have the love and courage 
 to put these sordid considerations before you. If I wasn't 
 sure, I could never do it. But then I love you. 
 
 "It is for you to tell me when I may come to Totteridge 
 again. And may I bring Dorothy ? I want you to know 
 her. I want her to know you and your mother. By the 
 way, we've seemed (only seemed) in talking about mar- 
 riage to ignore your mother and father. They're both 
 splendid; but would they draw the line at me? They 
 must have had quite other ideas. They couldn't want 
 you to marry a shabby failure. Would they draw the 
 line? If they did we should have to persuade them, 
 shouldn't we ? Tell me when I may come. I should like 
 you to see my home. It would be a shock to you; but 
 after that you would certainly know once and for all 
 whether you could bear to marry me and afterwards live 
 with me, which is what it comes to. I don't know what 
 the etiquette is. Will you ask your mother if she could 
 bring you? 
 
 "Forgive me for everything. With all my love, 
 Stephen."
 
 STEPHEN ALONE 113 
 
 Stephen knew as well as anybody could possibly do 
 that this letter would not bring home to Priscilla the 
 difference that lay between them. He did not exaggerate 
 the genuine importance of such differences. But he knew 
 the Evandines' home. He knew that the Evandines 
 belonged to another social world from his own — a world 
 that he only entered on sufferance and by the Evandines' 
 peculiar courtesy. Quite half the people whom he met 
 at Totteridge, he knew, or perhaps only imagined, because 
 sensitive persons easily misconstrue impoliteness or in- 
 difference, would probably fail to see him if they met in 
 the street — because he was unknown, because he was 
 poor. The bitter experience of rebuff from convention- 
 ally bred people of a different order was deep in his heart. 
 He would never forgive it because it was a class resent- 
 ment. Personal insult he never resented; the cultivated 
 rudeness of the well-to-do was something not levelled at 
 him as an individual. It was the manifestation of a 
 particular kind of prejudice, and to be felt and scorned 
 as the brand of an insufferable class. Stephen would 
 never do as some men do, imitate the class and ape its 
 prejudice : the suburbs are full of such men. He would 
 never accept any free assumption of his personal infe- 
 riority, because he found that all the men and women 
 whom he admired or respected were absolutely free from 
 the prejudice he so much loathed. Nevertheless, in his 
 detestation of the social push elsewhere so much culti- 
 vated he was deliberately stultifying himself and destroy- 
 ing his opportunity of gaining wider experience as an 
 individual ; and he was aware that this point was one upon 
 which Priscilla and he might perhaps never reach total 
 agreement. She had all her life been used to a kind of 
 society, and would turn naturally to it — would seek to 
 preserve her relation with it. She would want tennis and 
 exhibitions and concerts and tolerably intelligent talk upon 
 artistic reputations and current movements. He, who
 
 114 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 either ignored it or was ignored by it (the distinction was 
 one simply of the point of view), would continue to shun 
 that society, from dislike quite as much as from inability 
 to afford to take any part in its functions. According 
 to Stephen, the "real"' man could afford to live outside 
 all coteries, pushes, parties, congenial gatherings, etc., 
 safe in the performance of his own purpose. 
 
 He demanded entire liberty, as though he were a man 
 of eccentric and admitted genius. He was still young 
 enough to quote Emerson, and to believe in independence 
 of thought as the one way to salvation. Yet he prided 
 himself upon intellectual normality, and kept himself 
 very much, as it is called, "to himself," as those men 
 sometimes do — but for reasons unlike those of Stephen — 
 who have not very much personality and who are at pains 
 thus to conserve it. His attitude was based upon a fallacy, 
 or at best, so far as the modern literary life is concerned, 
 upon a half-truth. It had its cultivation in his vanity. It 
 was not true that he was better off without friends, with- 
 out society. He only believed that this was the truth. 
 
 Priscilla and Dorothy would both have put their finger 
 upon his real motive without any difficulty at all. Taking 
 into consideration all the facts, they would have said, in 
 a sort of maidenly chorus of arch, penetrating sympathy, 
 "He's shy!" 
 
 iv 
 
 After another half-hour's cogitation Stephen wrote a 
 second letter. It was very short, and very different from 
 the one he had previously written. It ran : 
 
 "Dear Minnie, — I will come in for a little while on 
 Thursday, about eight. — Stephen." 
 
 When that was sealed he put the two letters away — 
 not together, but in different pockets. The silvery chime 
 of the reading-room clock signalled twelve o'clock; and 
 with a sense of weariness Stephen pushed aside his work.
 
 STEPHEN ALONE 115 
 
 took his hat, and went out to post his letters and to eat 
 some lunch. His mouth was twisted in a rather grim 
 smile as he posted the letters. He heard them drop 
 singly into the pillar-box. Each of them was a commit- 
 ment.
 
 CHAPTER VII: ORDEALS 
 
 PRISCILLA said: 
 "Well, you're not to be ridiculous any more; and 
 mother and I are coming to see you next Tuesday; and 
 I think Dorothy is the jolliest girl I ever met and I blame 
 you very much for not letting us meet before ; and I feel 
 so enormously happy that I'm sure all your troubles will 
 fall like the walls of Jericho." 
 
 Stephen sighed ; but there was no doubt at all that his 
 sigh was merely one of perplexity, and not one of doubt. 
 He found her enchanting, and he wasn't going to prevent 
 himself from acknowledging that. 
 
 "Very well, dear," he answered, "we'll see." 
 
 "Come along then. We'll show Dorothy my garden 
 . . . and the rose-bush." 
 
 Priscilla rose, extending her hand, and, as he caught 
 it, permitted Stephen to draw her to him. Her face was 
 alight with happiness — too naive to be anything but 
 tempting to a lover. He found it irresistible. Laughter 
 came into his own expression as he kissed her, still with 
 a thrilling sense of strangely privileged adventure. 
 
 "I should occasionally like you to say that you're happy 
 too," she suggested. 
 
 "I haven't the gift of facility," Stephen replied with a 
 demureness equal to her own. 
 
 "FeHcity?" Priscilla inquired. "That sounds almost 
 more exactly truthful, don't you think?" 
 
 "Do you think my nature's so soured ?" He could not 
 be anything but thoughtful at her light words. 
 
 "It's just a little . . . what's the word? . . . pessi- 
 mistic?" 
 
 116
 
 ORDEALS 117 
 
 He reflected. The word did not appeal to his sense of 
 reahty, so lie ventured another in its place. 
 
 "Shall we say 'wise'?" But that, it seemed, would not 
 meet the case. 
 
 "Not a bit wise. I'm the wise one. Because I've got 
 faith." 
 
 She challenged him, a little defiance in her tone. 
 
 "Oh, I know what I'm talking about," Stephen said, 
 with some obstinacy. "It's easy enough to love you; 
 there's no virtue in that. And in point of fact it isn't 
 you I worry about." 
 
 "Not me? Who is it then?" 
 
 "Not a woman or a man ; it's society . . . everything 
 that is the enemy of the individual." 
 
 Priscilla was struck by something in his tone, something 
 that seemed almost familiar to her in the phrase. 
 
 "Why, my dear Stephen!" she said uneasily; "you're 
 talking like that old gentleman in the play. Was it Doctor 
 Stockman ?" Then her voice took on a more rallying air. 
 She remembered a happy figure, and used it to tease him. 
 "Society ought to be your oyster : your tool. Just make 
 it your willing dupe. That's what you've got to do. 
 You'll see ..." 
 
 Stephen frowned a little. 
 
 "My dear, you're mistaking my lot. That's what dis- 
 tresses me. It's as though I were somebody original. It's 
 such an awful mistake." He did not want to chill her, 
 but to hint a line of safety. 
 
 "You are original," she insisted. 
 
 "No." He still shook his head. "I'm a critic. I'm 
 not creative. If I could only somehow burst out of my 
 limitations and achieve something first-hand — not deriva- 
 tive. I'm living on other men's minds." 
 
 "You're understanding them — which is better than just 
 pretending to be different, as so many men do. You 
 couldn't criticize truly if you had no imagination. My
 
 118 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 dear Stephen, mother and I agree that imagination is the 
 critic's weapon. Your weapon." 
 
 He could see the dehcious vivacity with which she 
 pronounced these words, smiHng with dehghted triumph. 
 
 "You're very kind ; but you overrate mine. I don't 
 want to be solemn; but I'm really an analyst. Or rather, 
 I'm only a ... a boring instrument. A sort of drill." 
 
 Priscilla laughed outright; but she felt bound to 
 protest. 
 
 "Stephen, your figures are very , . . unhappy. I'm 
 going to make you happy. I'm going to make you believe 
 in yourself." She beat down his attempted correction of 
 that effort to interpret his state of mind. "And you're 
 going to carry on the good work." 
 
 "By making you happy?" 
 
 "What does it matter? I'm happy now." 
 
 "But if I made you unhappy?" 
 
 Priscilla stopped suddenly in her effort to challenge 
 his outlook. 
 
 "That would be an awful failure," she said simply. 
 "But then you're not going to. You could only make me 
 unhappy by deceiving me. And you won't ever do that." 
 
 Her speech and her clear eyes were alike renewed 
 testimony to her unquestioning confidence in him. What 
 wonder that Stephen was conscious of a thrill that was 
 almost a pang? With such confidence behind him might 
 not any man learn to go forward unhesitatingly? To 
 Stephen that was a new experience and a rare thought. 
 He followed her in silence. 
 
 11 
 
 They found Dorothy, miraculously concealing her awe 
 of the whole business, sitting talking to Mrs. Evandine. 
 She had made no self-conscious attempt to conceal her 
 hands, and the two other women had noticed these with
 
 ORDEALS 119 
 
 a little warm feeling of pity that neither could have 
 restrained. Dorothy's work-roughened hands stood to 
 them as mute testimony to her share in Stephen's life. 
 And another thing Mrs. Evandine had noticed was that 
 the relation between Dorothy and her brother was as 
 near perfect as it could be. She had feared that perhaps 
 it might be, as in new surroundings such relationship 
 sometimes is, rather demonstrative. It was not. Upon 
 both sides it was entirely dignified and intimate. Dorothy 
 was her brother's adorer ; but Stephen was Dorothy's wise 
 protector. The recognition made Mrs. Evandine respect 
 both, and it slightly relieved one of her hesitations about 
 Stephen. She saw that Dorothy owed much to him. How 
 much she of course could not tell, since she had no inkling 
 of the relationship that had begun in Dorothy's cradle, 
 when Stephen had been nurse and playmate, teacher and 
 little boy, separately in rapid succession or all at once — 
 roles as countless as those of Pooh-Bah, and not as well- 
 salaried. The likeness between them she curiously conned 
 when both were within sight; and it puzzled her. Both 
 were dark, but Dorothy was like a bright little berry, 
 flashing, merry, and irrepressible; Stephen was grim, 
 sombre, only occasionally smiling, and never showing any 
 of his sister's electric vivaciousness. Both, however, 
 moved quietly and swiftly, with an easy and graceful 
 carriage. The suddenness of Dorothy's movements, 
 which for a time kept Romeo at a distance, was in con- 
 trast to Stephen's more deliberate manner. Yet Mrs. 
 Evandine was aware that to know Dorothy was to 
 understand Stephen better; and once Priscilla and 
 Dorothy exchanged a quick look of happiness when 
 Mrs. Evandine laid her hand gently upon Stephen's arm. 
 It was the slightest gesture, but the pride of both girls 
 was touched and satisfied by its significance. That glance 
 would have been enough to show an observer that 
 Stephen, whatever his gloomy and distressing faults.
 
 120 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 must somewhere have concealed within him a subtle 
 quality to be appreciated only by the loving hearts of 
 women. And perhaps in that glance was first created 
 the lasting affection which grew up between Dorothy and 
 Priscilla. It was not simply that both had discovered or 
 invented a virtue for Stephen; it was that each knew 
 that the other cared more for Stephen than for herself. 
 Both loved him, not possessively or selfishly, but with a 
 sublime imagination that, if he had known it, would have 
 made the young man fly speedily for shame from that 
 embarrassing scene. But he, talking to Mrs. Evandine, 
 and engaged in liking her, was blissfully unconscious of 
 the whole aff^air. His awkwardness, the sense that the 
 Evandines were bound to regard him as a scheming inter- 
 loper, an outsider who had plunged for once into the part 
 of adventurer, was gradually giving way to a wiser sense 
 of their extreme kindness. He even did not dread his 
 approaching talk with Mr. Evandine, which both Priscilla 
 and he had agreed should be concluded as soon as possible. 
 
 "Dorothy has been telling me about your researches 
 into the history of the Fleet River," Mrs. Evandine said. 
 "You must tell my husband about them. That is a thing 
 he'd be very interested to hear about." 
 
 "Fve also been telling Mrs. Evandine about the old 
 man," remarked Dorothy. 
 
 "I hope not!" muttered Stephen to himself, with a look 
 of horror, 
 
 "About his love of Islington." The explanation was 
 timely. "Dorothy's been describing a shop where you 
 used to buy jumbles for her." 
 
 "There was a splendid shop where he used to get me 
 toffee-apples. Apples stuck on pieces of firewood and 
 covered with toft'ee. They were splendid. One never 
 sees them now." 
 
 They all laughed at her obvious regret that the trade 
 m toffee-apples should have declined.
 
 ORDEALS 121 
 
 "They were very green apples," Stephen said reflec- 
 tively. "I don't think they could have been so very good 
 for you. Dorothy and 1 used to walk down St. John 
 Street Road and through some of the old streets there 
 — where the old wells used to be . . . Sadler's Wells 
 and the old Islington Wells, that were renamed ... to 
 get these toffee-apples in a back street. I'm afraid 
 Dorothy knew the way there almost too well." 
 
 "I can still see the window. And the place in Exmouth 
 Street where you used to go to get eels for the old man's 
 supper. . . ." There was a sort of hush at this particular 
 memory. Then Dorothy went on, still blithely, in spite 
 of the silence: "Stephen had to cook the horrid things. 
 Did you know that he was a splendid cook?" 
 
 "I wish I was," Priscilla said, ruefully. 
 
 "It's a useful thing in a man." Dorothy's tact was 
 for a moment splendid. She included them all in a benign 
 and infectious smile. Then, impulsively, she fell earth- 
 ward in her eagerness to be of use to her new friend. 
 "I'll teach you ... if your mother . . . Really, I'm a 
 good cook . . . Stephen will testif}-." 
 
 Mrs. Evandine could not restrain her smile; but she 
 was not embarrassed, whereas Priscilla was filled with 
 sudden consternation at her own ignorance. She had 
 her first stab of understanding of Stephen's doubt. This 
 and the glimpse of Dorothy's work-worn hands had their 
 effect upon her. She was struck hard. The few things 
 Dorothy had said had revealed to her a life that really 
 was quite different from her own. She recalled Stephen's 
 remark about the consequence of a visit to his home. Her 
 rather vague determinations to work for him had not 
 hitherto touched the fact of working. But she now un- 
 derstood better. She no longer felt that his caution had 
 been ridiculous. She could and would bear whatever 
 marriage with him might involve. If she had been 
 brought up in one way there was all the more reason why
 
 122 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 she should learn gladly to adapt herself to another way 
 of living. Nevertheless, she had been unwillingly con- 
 scious of a momentary chilled shame. 
 
 Ill 
 
 "You were going to show me your garden," Dorothy 
 said. 
 
 "You'd really like to see it? Shall we go now?" 
 
 The two girls walked away from the others and out 
 across the sunlit lawn into a path beyond. They walked 
 slowly together in perfect harmony, and Priscilla, observ- 
 ing Romeo in the neighbourhood, where he was engaged 
 in secret plans to capture a thrush (a capture which 
 Romeo had never, in spite of all pains, succeeded in 
 making), began to tell the story of his remarkable char- 
 acter. She found in Dorothy an eager listener. 
 
 "But how splendid !" Dorothy exclaimed. "He looks 
 very intelligent. He's got such globular eyes. We've 
 never had a cat. We couldn't, you know; because we 
 live upstairs, and the downstairs people are so unpleasant 
 unless they like you and so horribly inquisitive if they 
 do : and the poor thing could only walk on the tiles. It's 
 different here. You know, I've never seen a house like 
 this before, or such a garden. It's like walking about in 
 Waterlow Park, only not so crowded. I hope you don't 
 mind my speaking about it as a wonder. I expect it's 
 very ill-bred of me; but then you see it's all so un- 
 famihar." 
 
 "Does it, then, make you afraid about me? I mean, 
 about my marrying Stephen?" asked Priscilla a little 
 wistfully. "He was afraid ; and I see that there's some- 
 how a great difference . . . I'm just a little nervous in 
 case I can't do properly what . . . But I can learn. I 
 don't see why I shouldn't be able to learn." 
 
 For a moment Dorothy hesitated. It was wonderful
 
 ORDEALS 123 
 
 to her to see the proud modesty of this lovely girl for 
 whom she was so quickly feehng a motherly pity. She 
 bent her wise little head before she answered. At length : 
 
 ''If I were you I shouldn't worry. I think it's just 
 splendid of you to marry him; and so does he. Only 
 you'd never think it! That's his nature; as you must 
 know. Besides, if you mean that you think Stephen's 
 going to live in lodgings all his life, you've let him depress 
 you. It's only his fun. That man . . ." she paused. 
 "Years hence Stephen will be grumbling because he can't 
 live on a thousand a year. If you'd seen him ten years 
 ago ! Sitting mending holes in his trousers and cobbling 
 his boots, and making toys for Roy. And grum- 
 bling . . ." 
 
 Priscilla was smiling with relief. 
 
 "And are you really glad?" she ventured to ask. 
 Dorothy looked carefully round. 
 
 "I think it's wonderful," she declared. "I'm awfully 
 glad, because it's what I've always longed for." Then, 
 very quickly, she added : "Don't let Stephen know 1 
 said it; but I'd give all I've got — which isn't much — 
 to see the old man's face Vvdien he hears the news! If 
 he isn't absolutely struck dumb I shall be amazed. You 
 see, he thought Stephen was safe to keep him all his 
 days!" 
 
 "Oh, who is the old man?" begged Priscilla. "Is he 
 your father?" 
 
 "He's one of the worst!" said Dorothy solemnly. 
 
 Awed, Priscilla could ask no more. She imagined 
 something almost unimaginably awful. 
 
 IV 
 
 "The old man," proceeded Dorothy, after an interested 
 pause. ". . . Oh, isn't that a beautiful rose! Though 
 I prefer the red ones, just as Stephen does. The old man
 
 124 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 is one of those marvellous people who simply happen. 
 You and I, and Stephen, and so on, have to live. But the 
 old man's like the lilies of the field, or the birds of the air. 
 Has Stephen never told you about him? Well, of course 
 he wouldn't ! You know, nice girls never say unkind 
 things, and as I say unkind things I can't be a nice girl 
 — that's a syllo-something. But I must tell you, that the 
 old man is simply the most marvellous impostor you ever 
 dreamt of. He's our father. And if you want to know 
 anything about our family you must come to me. It's 
 almost extraordinary how much I know. If you ask 
 Stephen you won't get the truth though; because he's 
 constitutionally incapable of telling the truth." 
 
 "Oh!" cried Priscilla. 
 
 "It's true. Stephen's a gentleman. Now a girl isn't 
 bound to be a gentleman, so she can tell the truth." 
 
 "Is that a sign of being a gentleman? I've always 
 wondered what the test was." 
 
 "Well, you mustn't even then apply it too . . , what's 
 that funny word all the critics use — or misuse, as Stephen 
 says? . . . too matriculously. They wouldn't stand it. 
 However, I can tell all about Stephen. Or perhaps not 
 quite all; though a week ago" — she stopped with rueful 
 hesitation — "I should have insisted that I knew every- 
 thing. And I know the old man through and through. 
 And Roy!" 
 
 "Tell me about Roy," begged Priscilla. "And I should 
 love to hear about the . . . about . . ." 
 
 "You haven't heard the last of Roy," said Dorothy. 
 "Stephen doesn't realize about Roy, because there's quite 
 a good deal that is outside his nature. I mean, there are 
 things in Roy that he wouldn't like to admit are there. 
 Things that even I don't know well enough to express — 
 only to feel, and recognize. Do you know that feeling? 
 — that you can see things and people and not know how 
 to describe them. . . . It's an uncanny thing, that makes
 
 ORDEALS 125 
 
 you feel awfully helpless when you think about it. I don't 
 think Stephen can feel quite that way. I think that he 
 simply doesn't know anything he can't express. It just 
 doesn't exist for him. Do you feel that? Besides . . . 
 he's a sentimentalist." 
 
 "It's all very interesting; and I know what you mean 
 about not being able to say what you think. . . . But 
 about sentimentality : do you mean Roy ? Or Stephen ?" 
 asked Priscilla. "I shouldn't have thought Stephen . . ." 
 
 Dorothy turned round eyes upon her. 
 
 "Not Roy . . . Gracious! He's not a sentimentalist. 
 He's rather like the old man in some ways. But he's 
 afraid of Stephen, and very fond of him. When you live 
 with Stephen you can't help being fond of him. That's 
 the marvellous thing about the old man. He hates 
 Stephen. Simply hates him. And if Roy didn't love 
 Stephen he'd be quite ... in a way I think almost — not 
 wicked, you know, nor weak; but somehow mean. I 
 think I don't so much object to wickedness or weakness. 
 But meanness is simply loathsome — sort of unworthy and 
 unmanly, without doing anything specially wrong. If 
 you knew Roy you'd see what I mean, . . . But I'm 
 boring you, and talking a terrible lot." 
 
 "Please go on ! Tell me about your father." 
 
 "No, I'd rather not, if you don't mind. Because I 
 feel as though I'd been gabbling; and I don't really 
 gabble. The only reason I've been doing it is that . . . 
 I'm rather excited, and I suppose that makes me talk 
 quickly. It does some people. And then I like you very 
 much and I've never had a girl friend." 
 
 "I've never had a real one either; though I haven't 
 so much felt the need because I've had mother." 
 
 Somehow their talk had brought them very close 
 together in sympathy ; as though they might have learned 
 the alphabet of each other's spiritual language, which is 
 the necessary preliminary to all friendship. It was not
 
 126 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 what Dorothy had said so much as what she had not said 
 that gave Priscilla so strong a sense of her individuahty ; 
 and to Dorothy it was less what Priscilla had said than 
 what she had interestedly allowed to be said that made 
 her seem so exceedingly honest and candid. Dorothy was 
 very quick in her sympathies and her antipathies ; she read 
 personality very quickly and on the whole very surely; 
 and in this case her intuitions were — if not especially 
 profound — at least very acute and not finally to be found 
 very far from the truth. One thing that moved her 
 greatly was the thought that she could talk so naturally, 
 in spite of all differences of feeling and experience, to the 
 girl who was to be Stephen's wife. When she thought 
 of it the fact brought tears of relief to her bright eyes. 
 How much she gained by Stephen's success in love ! 
 
 They stood and looked back along the path they had 
 traversed. It lay beside a low wall, upon the other side 
 of which was the Dutch garden. Far away, still within 
 view but seemingly isolated by the exaggerated distance, 
 they could see Mrs. Evandine talking earnestly to 
 Stephen. In the middle ground sat Romeo. Right 
 along the path, near the house, they could distinguish 
 three further figures coming towards them — Mr. Evan- 
 dine, David, and Hilary Badoureau. 
 
 "D'you see?" Priscilla said, with a sudden charming 
 breathlessness. "The smaller dark young" man is David 
 — my brother; the tall fair one is a friend of ours, Mr. 
 Badoureau. And the third is father. I wonder what 
 they've all come out for! But of course it's to see 
 you!" 
 
 "Me ?" asked Dorothy, like a little bird, ever so slightly 
 fluttered. "How kind of them." 
 
 "They're all nice men." Priscilla was laughing rather 
 nervously. "You'll be amused at them." But to her- 
 self all the time she was speaking Priscilla had been 
 whispering, "Oh, I hope they won't quarrel. . . . Oh,
 
 ORDEALS 127 
 
 mother, don't let them quarrel!" For she knew that the 
 meeting on that afternoon was the first misfortune that 
 had befallen her since Stephen had returned. 
 
 And indeed there was a constraint among the men as 
 they met. They stood almost with conscious sheepish- 
 ness before Mrs. Evandine — Mr. Evandine with an air 
 of preciousness which only discomfort could produce; 
 Stephen square, blunt, and rather shabby in his blue serge 
 suit; David slim and graceful in strict morning dress such 
 as he often wore at the office; and Hilary very tall and 
 fair, looking almost like a splendid guardsman in mufti 
 as he lounged in his so obviously perfect-fitting tweeds. 
 Stephen tried to crush back his feeling of animosity 
 towards Hilary; but Hilary's rather elaborate indiffer- 
 ence to him w^as almost offensive, and their greeting was 
 brief. Moreover Hilary was without doubt rude in ignor- 
 ing at least one speech of Stephen's, made with a great 
 effort and with definitely pacific intention. Instead of 
 answering it he looked at Stephen with a blank face 
 and said something to Mrs. Evandine. Stephen's face 
 whitened, and he turned away. Presently he and Mr. 
 Evandine fell into a discussion of the work of a half- 
 forgotten poet, Thomas Lovell Beddoes, and became 
 oblivious of the further conversation. They even turned 
 quite away from the others, and Mr. Evandine, well 
 pleased to make Stephen talk, sauntered beside him with 
 a gravely inclined head, irresistibly attracted and stimu- 
 lated by fresh opinions with which he did not wholly 
 agree. Hilary took the opportunity to say quickly to 
 David : "I say, what's that chap doing here?" To which 
 David answered with a curtness that startled him : "You'd 
 better ask him yourself." There could be no satisfaction 
 for Hilary now until he had himself investigated the truth.
 
 128 THE CPLVSTE WIFE 
 
 He spent a bewildered five minutes, answering at random 
 to Mrs. Evandine, until Priscilla came towards them 
 in Dorothy's company. To his jealous apprehensiveness 
 it seemed that her colour deepened slightly as she joined 
 the group; but she did not seem to be embarrassed at 
 seeing him. Was that a good sign or a bad one? Pres- 
 ently he noticed how often her glance strayed to the two 
 wandering figures on the tennis lawn. "That fellow!" 
 he thought savagely, with a scathing sense of physical 
 superiority to this limping man in the shabby suit who 
 could interest Mr. Evandine. 
 
 "Mr. Evandine," Stephen was at that moment saying 
 as he walked with his future father-in-law at a distance 
 from the others, "Priscilla says that you know what I 
 want to ask. I feel a horrible knave in offering myself, 
 so manifestly incapable of giving her what she's used to; 
 but I'm willing to tell you all about myself and to abide 
 by your decision " 
 
 "If it's favourable?" suggested Mr. Evandine, with 
 a dry smile. The side look which he cast behind his 
 circular rimless spectacles was one of the utmost shrewd- 
 ness, which his companion somehow missed, 
 
 "That's just the question," said Stephen, not insensible 
 to Mr. Evandine's tone and the humorous perception 
 which it indicated. "The truth is, I can't take an absolute 
 *No,' though I'm almost ashamed to expect anything but 
 a most hesitating half-consent." 
 
 "Yiss, yiss," said Mr. Evandine, glancing uneasily 
 about, and blinking a little. "I'll tell you exactly how 
 it strikes me, my boy. You mustn't think me unfriendly. 
 In fact, I'm sure you don't ; and that this is a thing we 
 can talk of quite . . . reasonably. Eh, eh? If I were 
 a wholly wise man I might perhaps insist on saying 'No.' 
 As you know, we had no definite wish for Priscilla ; and 
 to you personally I have nothing but kind feelings. You 
 believe me ? But it's quite true that in some ways I think
 
 ORDEALS 129 
 
 it a most unwise arrangement — at least, proposal. You 
 won't accept . . . You see, my boy, I don't understand 
 how you propose to live. You don't see your way, I 
 understand, to accept any pecuniary help." 
 
 "No," Stephen answered him. "I think Priscilla would 
 rather I didn't. And I couldn't bear it myself, even if 
 she wanted it. I should be ashamed. It would create a 
 false position at once." 
 
 "I think you're right. And yet, you see . . ." 
 
 "I can and will make a way for myself. She feels that. 
 It's a part of her great . . . well, her bravery. But all 
 the same I'm resolved to make a way." 
 
 "I'm sure you can." Mr. Evandine's manner was 
 entirely kind. His sympathy was clear. But so also was 
 his hesitant desire to say another thing, to urge his real 
 objection. "Only slowly, though. And in the mean 
 time?" 
 
 "I've tried to persuade Priscilla from taking that 
 immediate risk. But she's a very game girl." 
 
 "Eh, eh? Very what?" begged Mr. Evandine. 
 
 "Plucky. . . . And I think it will do her good." 
 
 "Rilly." Mr. Evandine thought Stephen rather assured 
 in his disposal of Priscilla. It made him ever so slightly 
 frown and lower his head, so that Stephen could see his 
 eyes over his rim.less spectacles. "However, Priscilla is 
 determined; and I find her mother is entirely ... eh 
 ... on Priscilla's side." 
 
 "She's splendid !" burst gratefully from Stephen. "I 
 feel abject before both of them — ashamed to come offer- 
 ing myself so brazenly when I know so well . . ." 
 
 "The modern woman is curiously adventurous. . . . 
 Curiously. Curiously. Yiss, yiss. But, Stephen, I 
 understand my wife to say that you did not share this 
 . . . this curious desire to take risks. I almost hoped 
 to find you — from what she said — something of a remark- 
 able ally."
 
 130 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 Stephen laughed excitedly, driven quite out of his 
 gravity by a sense of the diplomatic situation. The appeal 
 brought out very frankly the point which really had 
 bolstered up his courage and undermined his self- 
 distrust. 
 
 "Mr. Evandine, if I may be quite frank. I want to 
 marry Priscilla. Priscilla wants to take risks. To defy 
 her would be to make her less happy and sure of me — to 
 make her think less of me. That's a risk that to me out- 
 weighs all the others. The other risks are there ; but I've 
 come to an understanding with Priscilla and I won't go 
 back on it — on her — on myself. If I were alone I should 
 not mind risk. I'm not, on my own account, a coward. 
 The thing that holds me back is a partly timid, partly 
 genuine sense of duty to others. The difficulty arises, and 
 it's very, very anxious. But with Mrs. Evandine's help 
 I think I can arrange. And I'm so sure of Priscilla's 
 character that I'm ready to be quite sure that she'll bear 
 the strain. I do sometimes feel qualms — when I'm alone 
 and when I'm tired. I can't help it. It seems to me only 
 natural. But it is for you to say whether you can bear 
 to let me take the risk with her." 
 
 Mr. Evandine here uttered a profound truth, of whose 
 profundity he was distinctly and unwillingly aware. His 
 voice lost its fastidious, high-pitched, thin pipe; and sank 
 once to a lower note and a note of intimacy which Stephen 
 had never once before heard in all their talks. 
 
 "Stephen, I've no voice in the matter. I'm helpless in 
 their hands, I only beg that if you find things going 
 badly — and I don't think you will — you'll let me help 
 you just out of your difficulty. What do you say to 
 that?" He had lost his nervousness; he was ready to 
 take Stephen upon level terms, as a man. He was even 
 rather moved, a danger against which he had all the time 
 been fighting, because he knew that it might make them 
 uncomfortable. They could not shake hands; but they
 
 ORDEALS . 131 
 
 did for one moment stand together in silence to mark 
 their mutual respect. 
 
 With every sign of relief, confidence, and liking, the 
 two men wandered back to the larger group. It was 
 then that Hilary was sure of Priscilla's tremulous smile 
 of love at Stephen; and his face was crimsoned with a 
 surge of blind anger. Upon Stephen's cheek was another 
 flush; but it was one of surprised gladness such as he 
 had never known, because he had become once more 
 conscious of Priscilla's beauty and of his unbelievable 
 good fortune. He had made, in fact, another friend; so 
 that in this family he now had nothing but happiness. 
 The sense of it almost from sheer wonder made him 
 laugh; and for a moment his voice thrilled as he spoke 
 to Mrs. Evandine. 
 
 "You're quite content, Stephen?" she gently asked, too 
 low to be overheard. 
 
 "Content!" he said impetuously. "But Mrs. Evandine 
 — to you I'm . . ." 
 
 Hilary was amazed at the voices around him. His 
 mind took in only two names — Stephen, Dorothy. That 
 meant that the man was accepted here as a friend. This 
 man! His eye contemptuously swept Stephen, finding 
 him unmistakably plebeian, arrogant, inferior. . . . Yet 
 in every face, swiftly interrogated, he read the certainty 
 that the Evandines, for some quality or attribute over- 
 looked or ignored, were unconscious of the signs of 
 inferiority which to himself were only too plain. Could 
 it be that they did not see the fellow's lack of breeding? 
 Was his sense of it only morbidly acute, so that he exag- 
 gerated the clear signs beyond their sufficient meaning? 
 How extraordinary that he had never once anticipated 
 what had actually come to pass. He had never once 
 supposed that he could have a rival. And the question 
 now arose — urgently demanding a clear reply — was it 
 yet too late?
 
 132 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 vi 
 
 During tea Hilary watched Stephen with a heatedly- 
 cool deliberate scrutiny. Partly his expression was one 
 of restrained contempt, partly of unwilling curiosity. He 
 watched every passing shadow upon the hostile face, and 
 was surprised to find how much and how quickly it 
 changed. He found himself forced into an unwilling 
 admiration: he could not have thought that a face so 
 apparently set should be capable of showing so great a 
 variety of fleeting moods. He saw that Stephen, for all 
 his gravely impassive bearing, unostentatiously followed 
 the conversation with incessant keenness; that he was 
 never at a loss to understand what was said to himself 
 or to others. Hilary wondered of what that comprehen- 
 sion of all that was going on reminded him. He thought 
 of adjustment . . . gear . . . timing ... of that par- 
 ticular sensation one has when words slip inevitably into 
 their places in exquisite verse ... of some sort of sure- 
 ness in the painter's art. Not there did he find his illus- 
 tration. It was something, he felt, to do with a motor 
 . . . gear . . . speed. . . . That was it! He had a 
 speedometer in front of him as he drove his car; and 
 that fascinating hand that marked every smallest varia- 
 tion of speed was the thing he was recalling. It had been 
 his marvel and his delight ever since he had bought the 
 car. It had impressed him with its uncanny precision, 
 its extraordinary superhuman sense of the vagaries of 
 pace, more wonderful than power or the registration of 
 time. He began to recognize that this man's brain, or 
 some inexplicable part of his nature, was as sensitively 
 trained to register what was going on as was the hand 
 of the speedometer. With gathering respect grew fear. 
 With fear, the ignorant and now discredited contempt 
 was wholly driven out by hatred. He knew that he hated 
 Stephen — no longer disdaining him, or in any way rating
 
 ORDEALS 133 
 
 low his person or his personality, but recognizing the 
 latter as strong enough for hatred, as a dire mahgn force 
 which he must suddenly with all his energy combat. 
 
 All this Hilary discovered within himself — not quite 
 consciously, but dimly and involuntarily. But as yet he 
 had only a sinking of the heart, a dread. He felt that 
 he must go very carefully . . . very carefully. The 
 word "careful" was often between his teeth, tightly 
 clenched. He must be careful . . . work carefully . . . 
 not give the show away. This was a situation that 
 required handling with the most delicate care. ... It 
 was a matter demanding extraordinary caution. Because 
 only himself could penetrate to the full enormity of the 
 danger, to the dark forest of this unreadable rival's secret 
 heart. 
 
 Yet he found himself later fiercely saying to Priscilla, 
 his voice, and indeed his whole body, vehemently trem- 
 bling, and quite out of his control : 
 
 "This fellow . . . Priscilla , . . What does it all 
 mean? He's not possible. He's . . . What " 
 
 Quite white, but now very determined and in one sense 
 thankful that the ordeal was past, Priscilla tried by will 
 to steady her voice. 
 
 "Only . . . Hilary . . . We love each other. I'm 
 going to marry him." 
 
 "Oh, my God! Oh, my God!" cried Hilary, horror 
 in his face, his lips drawn back from his teeth, his blue 
 eyes dark with the bitter blow. "What a mess you've 
 made of it, Priscilla ! What a ghastly mess ! You must 
 be mad!" 
 
 He turned away and left her standing there.
 
 CHAPTER VIII: TEA WITH THE MOORES 
 
 IT was a merry party that gathered in Slapperton Street 
 when Priscilla and her mother paid their first visit, 
 for David had been invited and Dorothy and Stephen 
 were in a state of high spirits compounded of joy and 
 anxiety for the success of their feast. The others could 
 never know of Dorothy's frantic purchase of crockery 
 that matched and looked delicate, nor of Stephen's work 
 during the morning in getting appropriate food-stuffs 
 and other details of the meal. Dorothy, breathless with 
 excitement and preparation, said that it all reminded her 
 of one of the schoolboy scrambles in Talbot Baines Reed's 
 incomparable school stories. It had always been the same 
 with the Moores, from the time that they ate their meals 
 off odd plates laid upon a tablecloth of old newspaper : 
 they had never had enough crockery that matched, or an 
 uncracked dish for the jam, or quite enough knives that 
 were steady in their handles. They noticed, and even 
 deplored, the imperfections of their cutlery and various 
 services ; but the money which would have made all good 
 was needed for other things, and besides when one is used 
 to incongruous dishes and cups and saucers there is a 
 strange satisfaction to be derived from whatever is irreg- 
 ular. It is as though the inconveniences of a picnic were 
 perpetuated and exalted into everyday phenomena. 
 
 They had lettuce, obtained by Stephen after great 
 labour, and properly washed (which, as David court- 
 eously pointed out, was a unique experience), and they 
 had strawberry jam newly made by Dorothy, and fresh 
 strawberries and cream, and Dorothy's own potted meat 
 
 134
 
 TEA WITH THE MOORES 135 
 
 (which was preserved in little pots as if it had been the 
 real professional stuff) ; and the room was rich with 
 flowers, and bright and polished beyond any previous 
 experience recalled by Stephen or Dorothy or, for that 
 matter, supposing that furniture has any kind of recol- 
 lection beyond the faint retained odours of its origin and 
 cleanings, by the pictures and chairs and tables them- 
 selves. And Dorothy sat smiling at the table in a marvel- 
 lous new muslin dress with a palest cream ground upon 
 which were palest blue flowers intersprigged with small 
 green incidents that might have been meant for little 
 leaves or pieces of inconspicuous fern. Opposite to her 
 sat Priscilla, whose frock was also a pale cream, but quite 
 plain, and made apparently of casement cloth, very sim- 
 ply cut. Mrs. Evandine wore her fawn-coloured dress, 
 because it was the nicest and most comfortable she had. 
 Against these three graces what can be said of the duller 
 clothes of the young men? It would be merely insulting 
 to remark that they wore clean collars and clean shirts. 
 
 The trouble was, as Dorothy once, in the height of her 
 pleasure, frowningly recognized, that while of course one 
 didn't want the Evandines to think that this was a spe- 
 cially manufactured feast it was none the less true that 
 it might give Priscilla a quite wrong idea of them. For 
 herself, Dorothy didn't know whence the money had come 
 or was coming for all these crocks and knives and lovely 
 dishes and flowers . . . and the smallest and most charm- 
 ing of rings that sat by itself in a furry box in Stephen's 
 waistcoat pocket — where his finger was always uncon- 
 sciously and uncontrollably straying. But that might be 
 as it might. Dorothy would not worry. She beamed 
 upon the company with a harrowed watchfulness (for 
 empty cups or plates) that would have been comical to 
 anybody who saw it with detachment, and that was in- 
 deed comical to David, who perhaps of them all was most 
 occupied in contemplating Dorothy in her charm and her
 
 136 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 naivete. He was teasing her during the whole meal, in 
 his slow, quiet, drawling voice, that gave a whimsical 
 dryness to all he said. 
 
 "You see, you'll be my sister-in-law," he was saying; 
 "or at least the sister of my brother-in-law, and my 
 sister's sister-in-law — the sister of the man my sister is 
 going to marry. ... So we're bound to be friends. 
 They always are, you know. They have all the privileges 
 of relationship and none of the cantankering bore. Be- 
 sides, I understand that you're coming to stay with us 
 when we've got Priscilla off our hands. That's not to 
 be for months, of course; but we shall have to 'play you 
 in' by a series of earlier visits. Shan't we? And do you 
 know that I'm going to write an important work that 
 your brother Stephen has lamentably missed the oppor- 
 tunity of writing? It's called Prolegomena to Criticism. 
 Oh, so you're all listening? . . . Yes, Prolegomena to 
 Criticism. The third section (after those on Theology 
 and Philosophy, which are very profound) deals with 
 Creative Literature — poetry, novels, plays, and so on. 
 I've prepared the thesis. I shall say there are three 
 divisions of Creative Literature — Classical, Anti-Classical 
 (or Romantic), and Anti-Romantic (or Realistic). . . ." 
 
 "Are realistic works anti-classical?" inquired Stephen, 
 inaudible at a distance. 
 
 "But what about the things that are none of those?" 
 demanded Dorothy. 
 
 "Oh, they must belong to one or other if they're to be 
 criticallv recognized. But I'll allow subdivisions. There 
 are always the Classico-romantico-realistico combina- 
 tions ; and, among the basest types, the quasi — or pseudo 
 — romantic, realistic, classic. I shall lay down to one 
 tittle the exact constituents of a work of Creative Litera- 
 ture, settle the definition of Romance better than the 
 Schlegels were ever able to do in spite of their Sisyphean 
 labours, and of course come out very strong on Realism.
 
 TEA WITH THE MOORES 137 
 
 That is to say, I shall praise Russian, French, Spanish 
 (the Spanish kind is going to be very much overrated in 
 the future) realism; but I shall entirely condemn any 
 English realism whatever ; because everybody knows how 
 dull, drab, sordid, depressing, and in every way con- 
 temptible any writer is in England who wTites convinc- 
 ingly about anything." 
 
 "Anybody would think you were a novelist working 
 off his spleen," suggested Stephen. 
 
 "Not at all," drawled David, suavely, unmoved by such 
 a damaging comment : "I'm only writing Prolegomena to 
 Criticism in the correct spirit of modest academic and 
 theorist dogmatism. I shan't say anything about English 
 romance, because there isn't any. Perhaps a few ignorant 
 and inaccurate words about Scott. The 'great romantic 
 and idle child' touch. I shall confine myself to the theory 
 of romance in literature, because that gives scope for 
 severity and controversial quotation. I shall have great 
 sport determining whether Homer was classic or romantic 
 and whether Euripides was a realist or not. . . ." 
 
 "I don't believe he's going to write any such book!" 
 declared Dorothy stoutly; and thereby revealed such 
 friendliness and intimacy with David that he was secretly 
 delighted amid all their laughter. 
 
 "And of course David doesn't like what he calls realistic 
 books," said Mrs. Evandine. 
 
 "Quite true," David admitted. "They terrify me. 
 They are my bad conscience." 
 
 "I don't quite see," remarked Priscilla, rather dryly, 
 "what is the particular point of all David's information 
 about himself. Did anybody ask him for it?" 
 
 "Oh, Priscilla! How unkind!" 
 
 "That's always the way the ebullient heart is treated 
 in England. People think that if you talk frankly about 
 yourself you must be second-rate !" wailed David. 
 "Whereas if, like Agg, you deliberately falsify your
 
 138 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 opinions about yourself, and monologize the conversation, 
 you imist be a wit." 
 
 "Does anybody think Mr. Agg a wit ?" inquired Mrs. 
 Evandine. "It seems rather extravagant." 
 
 "Did you talk to Agg . . . Stephen?" David had 
 adopted the Christian name without a qualm ; and Priscilla 
 noticed it with quick delight. "You know he was at 
 Totteridge the other Sunday. He's the most amazing 
 Rodomonte that I've ever met. If you could see Agg and 
 Vanamure lunching together — both talking at once . . . 
 long streams of monologue converted into continuous 
 duet. Really awfully good !" 
 
 "They're both really very pleasant men," Mrs. Evan- 
 dine protested, although she laughed a little at the picture ; 
 "and they're rather appreciative of . . ." 
 
 David interrupted, very coolly, talking as the blase man 
 of extreme comprehension. 
 
 "Yes, I know, mother: 'the creme de la creme of the 
 best in literature' as old Vanamure says. But only 
 Vanamure is pleasant. Agg, you know, is a publisher's 
 reader; and that profession doesn't hold much native 
 kindness and appreciation. They're unfortunate drudges. 
 I speak feelingly, because I know. It's really incredible 
 what a lot of rubbish one has to wade through. You, 
 Stephen, talk of the rubbish that is published. I don't 
 know whether you do ; but I leave it at that. Just imagine 
 that the publisher's reader is mostly dealing with stuff 
 that isn't published; and you'll see how he deserves pity 
 rather than abhorrence. I pity the author ; and I pity the 
 reviewer; but most of all I pity the publisher's reader. 
 You can't expect them to be really sweet-tempered. I 
 don't expect it of Agg; but he's such an egoist that 
 he somehow survives to write those orotund novels of 
 his." 
 
 "Personally, I don't find Mr. Agg very interesting," 
 suggested Priscilla. "Need we?"
 
 TEA WITH THE MOORES 139 
 
 "How querulous she is!" David turned to Dorothy. 
 They had some conversation ; and Stephen heard Dorothy 
 say: "You see his finger in his waistcoat pocket?" 
 Whereat they both laughed, and Stephen hastily with- 
 drew his finger, reddening under their mischievous eyes. 
 
 "I'm afraid David is undermining Dorothy's loyalty," 
 Mrs. Evandine said to him. He explained : 
 
 "Her eyes are very sharp, and she's very outspoken. 
 But I want Priscilla to see it first, before the others." 
 
 "Of course. . . ." 
 
 David was reciting to Dorothy a speech delivered by 
 Bassanio towards the end of The Merchant of Venice and 
 addressed to Portia. Priscilla, mystified, could only hear 
 the words "the ring . . . the ring , , . the ring." Pres- 
 ently she glanced doubtfully at Stephen, who smiled as 
 he again withdrew his finger from his waistcoat pocket. 
 
 11 
 
 It was quite a surprise, amid this happy if not very 
 distinctive chatter, for the company to find a stranger 
 among them — an affable, smiling, elderly gentleman in 
 a blue serge suit. His surprise, if he really felt any, was 
 conveyed in bird-like becks as he greeted the guests at 
 first collectively and then individually. 
 
 "Charmed," he said, "to find my young nestlings 
 enjoying such unwonted gaiety. Delightful surprise. 
 Pleasant company, dainty repast, and all that . . ." 
 
 It was the vagueness of his conclusion that sent light- 
 ning messages between Dorothy and Stephen. Priscilla 
 saw the glow fade from Stephen's face. This must be 
 the old man, of whom Dorothy had spoken. Dorothy 
 had said, in a strong phrase, that he was "one of the 
 worst." What, exactly, did such words mean? She 
 could only see one whose bearing resembled that of an 
 old actor. How curious his skin was! As if it had been
 
 140 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 lightly powdered. She saw his thin, not quite red, lips 
 part; and she thought his smile one of remarkably infec- 
 tious bonhomie. What then did Stephen's changed face 
 and Dorothy's ominous words mean when they were 
 combined ? She looked at her mother and at David, both 
 of whom were smiling with obvious pleasure at the 
 repeated words of gladness uttered by the old man. 
 Nothing, clearly, had struck them as in any way wrong 
 or disconcerting. Yet she could see that Dorothy had 
 paled. 
 
 "And this delightful young lady . . ." said the old 
 man, shaking her hand with extreme friendliness. "I 
 trust that we may all be better acquainted. Thank you, 
 no, Dorothy ... my little Dolphy . . . I . . . pray 
 excuse me. . , . For one moment I am called away. 
 But I shall return, if you will allow me. . . . How kind 
 yovi are!" 
 
 Smiling still, the old man backed away. Only as he 
 turned in the doorway did Dorothy's eye encounter the 
 object of her search — deep in the inner recesses of his 
 coat an unmistakable cork. 
 
 When the old man had gone, David harked back to 
 Agg, who for some perverse reason appealed to him this 
 afternoon as a conversational stand-by, to the exclusion 
 of other more valuable topics. 
 
 "Now, Agg," he said, and every adjective he used 
 hereafter was drawled forth after a hesitation that was 
 almost a stammer, and that gave to his speech an amusing 
 air of pointed fastidiousness not unlike that of his father. 
 "I don't know, Stephen, if you ever read one of his 
 novels? They're extraordinarily florid, otiose works . . . 
 rolling in fluent volubility, and as empty as balloons. 
 They're all about some girl or some man, swollen great 
 monstrous exaggerations, as though the people were all 
 ten feet high and lived their lives very slowly. Plenty 
 of tim.e, says Agg; let's dwell on the significance of every
 
 TEA WITH THE MOORES 141 
 
 minute and every word. So these huge, formless, swollen 
 masses of empty pseudo-psychology come wallowing out. 
 . . . You can't tell one from the other; but they're full 
 of brave words about art, and soul, and beauty, and sacred 
 fires, and eternal wisdoms. Agg's an eternal wiseacre 
 himself. Fancy his talking about art ! He's not an artist, 
 or anything like one." For some moments, in fact, David 
 engaged himself in the process of revealing to the inat- 
 tentive company some of his more ornate views upon 
 modern writers. These views, delivered lazily, and with 
 a good many finished hits at what he considered to be 
 the certain or possible predilections of his individual 
 hearers, took a great deal of time for their proper expo- 
 sition. It was therefore not surprising that, just as every- 
 body was beginning to fidget, or to yawn, or to frown, or 
 to look faintly distressed, his superabundant discourse 
 was checked by the re-entrance of the old man, who had 
 bathed his face, brushed his hair, and changed both collar 
 and handkerchief, from which latter article proceeded a 
 striking scent of white violet. He seemed to regard the 
 company with undiminished benignity. 
 
 "Did I catch the sound of some friendly argument?" 
 he asked. "Argument is so dear to my heart. I often 
 enjoy a quiet discussion with Stephen of the last book 
 he has read. It's surprising how helpful I find that 
 discussion in the following days. Stephen, of course, is 
 always very much occupied, I'm afraid, dear boy, he 
 works too closely. But when I see such . . . such per- 
 fectly charming company here I feel that perhaps . . . 
 I have underestimated the friendships that my boy enjoys. 
 And then I see that my little Dolphy has her friends here 
 as well. . . . How kind that is. . . ." 
 
 He paused, looking gravely and respectfully from one 
 upturned face to the other, until he came to the expres- 
 sionless face of Stephen, who, in his ecstasy of self- 
 control, had entirely suppressed any sign of emotion. Fie
 
 142 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 looked as if he did not hear the old man, whose eye 
 kindled as he allowed it to rest upon his elder son. 
 
 "We have so few friends," he said, a little pathetically, 
 to Mrs. Evandine. Then, with a consummate change of 
 tone and bearing, he swung back to Stephen. "By the 
 way," he proceeded, with an added distinctness which 
 made Dorothy grip the edge of the table, "I met this 
 afternoon, quite near here, a friend of ours — of yours, 
 Stephen — you will know whom I mean. A particular 
 friend. She sent all kindest messages." 
 
 The old man's eyebrows were raised as he spoke; he 
 seemed almost to lift himself upon his toes. Stephen 
 suddenly remembered, with a thrill that sent him cold, the 
 letter that had never reached him. 
 
 ni 
 
 The ill-breeding of the old man's last speech was the 
 first thing that made Mrs. Evandine conscious of distaste 
 for him. She looked a little grave. Where Stephen read 
 menace, and Dorothy a little puzzle too slight to trouble 
 her long, Mrs. Evandine was — although she was ignorant 
 of any double meaning — really distressed at the old man's 
 mysterious hinting. David saw more truly than any of 
 the women. He could see the old man's eyes and mouth, 
 and eyes and mouths will almost certainly remain among 
 men and women the clearest indications from without of 
 mood and character. Not only, to David, was there a 
 falsity in the old man's manner of speech that jarred ; but 
 when he saw the shining hardness of eye and the cruel 
 turn of the lips with which the old man gave secret mean- 
 ing to his message, David read that meaning. David could 
 quickly follow from words spoken to the thoughts and 
 meanings that lay behind — a power that is denied to most 
 people, who are too much occupied with the moment to 
 go beyond — and he of all those who overheard the speech
 
 TEA WITH THE MOORES 143 
 
 was the only one to read into it a hint of maHce. The 
 meeting had obviously taken place with a woman; and 
 what woman was there whose name was not freely men- 
 tioned? David looked quickly at Stephen; but except 
 that his lips were slightly parted Stephen did not seem 
 to be at all hurt. David, upon an impulse, dashed in with 
 words to cover the moment's difficulty. 
 
 "We've been discussing and theorizing about art, 
 Mr. Moore. You will know what a fertile subject that 
 is. I wonder if it was much agitated when you were 
 young." 
 
 The old man drew down the corners of his mouth in 
 a quizzical smile. 
 
 "I don't know." The words were reflectively drawled. 
 "Somehow, d'you see, it all seems so remote from the 
 practical interests of these days — myes." The old man's 
 drawn brow lightened, as if he cheerily threw off the 
 strain of recollection. The unconquerable light of youth 
 returned to his face. "I expect we were all very much 
 like the young fellows of to-day. One likes to believe 
 that one's own time was best. Do you know, Mr. Evan- 
 dine," he charmingly went on, so that even Mrs. Evandine 
 relaxed towards him, "that when I carry my mind back 
 over the years, and think of my youth, I always remember 
 places rather than persons or theories. I can remember 
 all this district when Clerkenwell and Islington and St. 
 Luke's were as sweet and interesting — grave old houses 
 and gardens, occupied by the well-to-do — as some of the 
 more distant suburbs of to-day that people visit by train 
 or tramcar as holiday treats. It is that that I remember, 
 Mr. Evandine; the old joys and the old grandeurs of 
 these now shabby streets. The spirit has changed ; quick 
 growth means quick decay. You have your greater speed, 
 Mr. Evandine; you go farther; it may be that you do 
 more. But those of us who remember the old days — the 
 good old days, we call them — when men were of the old
 
 144 THE CHiVSTE WIFE 
 
 stamp and the old school — when sons loved their fathers 
 and looked up to them, when the grey hairs of the fathers 
 were honoured and not despised ; when these same fathers 
 were consulted . . . were the guides . . . instead of the 
 spurned, the tolerated . . ." 
 
 The old man checked himself as he found his emotion 
 rising. Mildly he turned to Dorothy. 
 
 "I fear that I am too . . . too garrulous, child. . . . 
 Pardon an old man's fancy. When I remember my dear 
 wife . . ." 
 
 "Really, really, father !" said Stephen in an intense low 
 voice of extreme impatience. 
 
 The two men looked at one another for a moment, and 
 the old man, shrugging his shoulders with a slight pitiful 
 gesture of acquiescence, was silent. When he again spoke 
 it was to address himself directly to Mrs. Evandine. 
 
 "I think you have never met my other son, my baby? 
 I should like you to have seen him. He's a brave lad. 
 The loss of his mother has borne most hardly upon him, 
 as it has upon me. . . . But I see from Stephen's face 
 that I've said too much . . . trespassed upon your 
 patience. Stephen is my watch-dog, my Cerberus. . . . 
 Sometimes he is a little fierce with me; but he's a good 
 lad, a good lad. We understand one another very well." 
 
 Under his breath Stephen muttered to himself : "We 
 do indeed." He was too ashamed to meet Priscilla's 
 glance. No longer did he finger the pocket of his waist- 
 coat wdiere reposed the magical box with the furry lining 
 and the precious content. There was the faintest hesi- 
 tating pause. David again broke it. 
 
 "Where is it that you write ?" he asked Stephen. 
 
 Stephen patted the table. 
 
 "Exactly here," he said. "I read at the window. The 
 sun shines right on to the opposite houses as it sets — a 
 sort of burning red light comes on the windows." 
 
 They v/ent to the window and looked out ; and Priscilla
 
 TEA WITH THE MOORES 145 
 
 caught Stephen's hand and pressed it, holding it still as 
 she stood beside him, to show that she was all his. The 
 old man had turned away to the sideboard, and was 
 munching a sandwich that he had casually appropriated. 
 Stephen's disengaged hand stole to his waistcoat pocket. 
 While the others were looking down at the tiny figures 
 that comically walked in the street below — little striding 
 figures so curiously intent upon their errands and so 
 marvellously far from seeming to be men and women — • 
 he perilously withdrew .the box; and Priscilla, blushing 
 and smiling and perhaps a trifle trembling, watched him 
 unfasten the clasp and disclose the small ring so comfort- 
 ably nestling against the plush. It was done in a moment, 
 and the ring was upon her finger, and secretly kissed by 
 Stephen in its new significant dignity, while yet the others 
 contemplated life from unaccustomed angles. Even the 
 old man, whose sharp eyes seemed sometimes as though 
 they must furtively have glistened from the back of his 
 head, was unaware of the swift transformation. Upon 
 Priscilla's hand gleamed the ring; never any more would 
 she be apart from Stephen; for as the heroes of the old 
 fairy tales could call genii by the mere turning of the 
 rings upon their fingers, so Priscilla must for ever call 
 up the vision of Stephen and revive her memory of that 
 strangely coloured afternoon by the action of touching 
 the ring that he had given her. She would be able to 
 feel it even in the darkness, very beautiful and precious 
 as it lay so gently upon her hand. 
 
 IV 
 
 And afterwards, when, after some very kind invita- 
 tions from all three of the Evandines, Stephen saw them 
 on their way to King's Cross Station, Priscilla walked 
 with her hand quietly within his arm, as boldly and as 
 proudly "engaged" as any girl had ever been. She took
 
 146 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 on a new sedateness as she went, and Mrs. Evandine's eyes 
 were filled with a softness that was love and pity and 
 happiness combined and indissolubly united. If she 
 sighed, her sigh was not one of regret, though it perhaps 
 held some regret as well, for she had a graver sense 
 than any that Priscilla had as yet reached of the gravity 
 of her child's engrossing adventure. But when they 
 parted Mrs. Evandine warmly clasped Stephen's hand, 
 and repeated her earnest invitation that he and Dorothy 
 should come as often as they could to Totteridge. 
 
 David took Priscilla's arm and laughingly drew her 
 away. 
 
 "We mtisf catch our train, my dear Stephen. And the 
 parting's so short. Better to be short. Come soon. Let 
 us lunch : shall we ? Ring me up, there's a good man. 
 Good-bye. . . ." 
 
 Stephen stood for a moment looking after them until 
 the traffic swallowed them up, and he could no longer 
 see Priscilla. Then he made his way home again. The 
 setting sun was hot upon the buildings that faced west, 
 upon their blazing windows and transfigured chimney- 
 pots. The day was going down in a red sunset, faithful 
 promise for the morrow, and fit conclusion to that fateful 
 visit. He did not think of anything but his happiness, 
 that warmed his heart and made him humble before a 
 vision of delight. How strange that love so simple and 
 so entirely easy should have seemed only a fortnight 
 before something beyond the furthest dreams of his 
 imagination. How wonderful that Priscilla should love 
 him! Glad and thankful and full of an overwhelming 
 gratitude he retained the vision of her parting look. It 
 brightened these dull streets, that fell away before him 
 as he walked, like so many insubstantial vagaries of the 
 dullard's mind. He reached his home, still in a reverie; 
 still dreaming he ascended the stairs.
 
 TEA WITH THE MOORES 147 
 
 Not once had he thought of his father. Not once had 
 he remembered any of the pain of the whole of his hfe, 
 or even of that last hour when it seemed that some spring 
 would surely break and throw the whole scene into a 
 bitter confusion. Yet he was again reminded of all that 
 had passed the moment he entered the room ; for Dorothy 
 stood by the mantelpiece with her head upon her arm — 
 not crying, but white and spiritless, as if she had passed 
 through some dreadful ordeal. As she heard his step 
 she turned, and came and caught his hand. 
 
 "Oh, Stephen, Stephen!" she said, with her voice all 
 shaking. "He's horrible! He's so horrible!" 
 
 "Poor old girl!" said Stephen, and awkwardly held 
 her, so that her face was against his shoulder. "It's too 
 bad!" Only for a moment did Dorothy stay so; for 
 in her present excited restlessness she could not bear to 
 be still. 
 
 "The moment you were gone . . . Oh, Stephen ! I've 
 never seen him as he was . . . He suddenly said : 'Who 
 are these people?' And I said : 'Stephen's going to marry 
 her' He said: 'What!' I've never seen him like that — 
 so ghastly, like some hideous dream. Hideous ! I thought 
 he was . . . For a minute I was frightened. I said : 
 *You wicked man . . . wicked' ; and he laughed. I never 
 heard such a laugh. It was devilish. , . ." 
 
 "My dear!" Stephen said. "He's an old sinner; but 
 that " 
 
 "It's true. It was so bitter, so ugly. What a cruel 
 man he is ! He said : 'We'll see' . . . He can't stop 
 you, can he?" 
 
 "Of course not, child. How could he?" Stephen 
 laughed quite gleefully. "That's one glorious thing. 
 He'll wish he could. But he can't. As for his rage — 
 It's only the shock of it." 
 
 "And I've been saying I wanted to see the effect of 
 the news. I did see it!" Dorothy herself began to
 
 148 THE CHASTE WH^E 
 
 laugh. "I suppose I asked for trouble! It was inquisi- 
 tive and beastly of me. He's beside himself! Oh, but 
 Stephen, I really was frightened of him. You won't . . . 
 won't leave me to him, will you ?" She lowered her voice, 
 but the appeal was quite genuinely urgent. 
 
 "Never. When I go, you go too. It'll be all right." 
 He was splendidly reassuring. 
 
 The rapid beating of Dorothy's heart began to subside. 
 
 "One thing I wonder," she presently murmured. "I 
 wonder why he made all that mystery about . . . Oh, 
 nothing. I'm only thinking out loud. It's being so much 
 alone. You get into the habit." 
 
 Dorothy left off speaking. She turned again and faced 
 her brother, with a glance in which archness and an 
 inclination to tears struggled for mastery. 
 
 "Stephen . . ." she went on, in a very quiet voice, 
 "I think Priscilla is lovely. And I think it's lovely. The 
 ring, I mean. And I hope — oh, my dear, I do so hope 
 that you'll be as happy as happy can be. As happy as 
 you deserve. . . ."
 
 PART TWO 
 
 THE STORY OF 
 THE HUSBAND'S PROGRESS
 
 CHAPTER rX: THE DAY OF PROMISE 
 
 STALCETT, the home of the Evandines, was very gay 
 indeed. There were no festoons of lamps or obvious 
 external decorations; but if it had lain in a busy thor- 
 oughfare the house would have been watched by half a 
 hundred children and sentimentalists. There were many 
 people there — people of all sorts and shapes and sizes, 
 from the decorous Clodds and the soft and epithalamic 
 Mr. Vanamure, to David and Professor Tidd (the 
 decrepit Romanticist, who illustrated in his person the 
 decay of his moribund study) ; from Montague Parvin, 
 the beet-sugar expert who wanted to convert southern 
 England into a sacchariferous area, to Vernon Agg, who 
 had rather similar designs, according to David, upon the 
 English novel. And there were hundreds — it almost 
 seemed — of women, young, middle-aged, elderly ; women 
 with brains and women with no brains, women with 
 character and women whose minds went no deeper than 
 conventional observance of whatever was proper in life. 
 There were no divorced women ; but that was because 
 Mrs. Evandine did not like any that she had met, and 
 their absence was due not to general disapproval so much 
 as to personal distaste. There was, it is trile, one charm- 
 ing girl who had the reputation of stealing from them the 
 husbands of other girls, a girl in the way of whose free 
 entry into the homes of young married women obstacles 
 were sedulously put, and who met with few such kind 
 and sympathetic hostesses as Mrs. Evandine. But she 
 was maligned, and was merely one irresistibly attractive 
 to light-headed males, and not able to keep herself from 
 
 151
 
 152 THE CIL\STE WIFE 
 
 innocent flirtation. To give definite attention to each 
 person present would need tlie skill and perhaps something 
 more than the normal kindness of a Balzac; since the 
 cruel or malicious eye, by concentrating upon pretensions 
 or physical traits or the most trilling of animosities and 
 suspicions and strangenesses, could so easily have turned 
 ninety per cent, of the gathering to inextinguishable 
 ridicule. It will be enough here to say that all these people 
 were walking about the garden at Stalcett on a brilliant 
 June day (about a year after the events of our previous 
 chapter), as though the garden belonged to them and as 
 though it were a very great deal smaller than it had 
 seemed to Dorothy upon her first visit. 
 
 To Dorothy, in fact, the garden had steadily diminished 
 in size. It no longer appeared to her as large as Waterlow 
 Park. So, too, the house in these days was something 
 less thrillingly immense to explore than Warwick Castle 
 or any other famous country seat ; but was become simply 
 a place of the most exquisite comfort and imperfect 
 privacy, with tremendous advantages in the way of ease 
 and restfulness, and little disadvantages indicated by her 
 still violently suppressed impulse to discuss all matters 
 at meal-times. Dorothy had made acquaintance with 
 Biddy, but she continued to be frightened of her, in spite 
 of Biddy's evident amiability; because Dorothy always 
 wanted to know whether Biddy liked her, and this it was 
 beyond Biddy's power to convey save by way of large 
 helpings or unobtrusive attentions. So Dorothy was 
 afraid of Biddy, and shared some of Stephen's distrust 
 of that matchless parlour-maid as a superior and sphinx- 
 like person. Dorothy was now upon excellent terms with 
 everybody else in the place — could trust Mrs. Evandine 
 completely, could talk considerately to Mr. Evandine, had 
 almost reached the point of teasing David as much as he 
 teased her, which was a good deal. She had struck up 
 a moderate friendship with Romeo ; but they would never
 
 THE DAY OF PROIVOSE 153 
 
 be warm friends, because Dorothy moved too startlingly 
 for Romeo's rather exacting taste. 
 
 Dorothy and Ethel Clodd were for to-day allies; they 
 were dressed alike: the}'- would have looked alike if only 
 Ethel Clodd could for a single hour have flung studious 
 virtue to the winds and been as quick and lively as 
 Dorothy. As it was they were contrasted, the one all 
 mercury, the other rather bewitchingly solemn. Ethel 
 Clodd was a fair, white-faced girl, with grave eyes, who 
 moved as if perhaps she were a little short-sighted and 
 obliged to beware of stepping out of some charmed circle. 
 She was really pretty, or she would have been pretty with 
 a very little more animation; and when once she was 
 interested in anything would talk with much good sense. 
 Nevertheless, in spite of her prettiness, she was unat- 
 tractive to men, who often underrate sterling excellences 
 in casual partners. Ethel Clodd, however, could afford 
 to wait. She was wise in her generation. Not all the 
 flimsy vivacities of her shallower rivals could interfere 
 with her destiny; which was that of a happy wife and 
 mother. Hers was a lot forever to be envied by the early 
 exhausted butterflies as they lost their looks and their 
 tempers in the vain pursuit of transient happiness. She 
 had rather prominent teeth, but they were only so promi- 
 nent as to make her smile a very pleasant one ; and every- 
 body was led by that slow smile to be rather indulgent 
 to her. She and Dorothy were excellent friends now, 
 pitying one another a good deal, but otherwise not ungen- 
 erously alive to each other's qualities. Each had seen for 
 some months that their association upon this day was 
 inevitable, and had accepted wath equanimity the duty 
 and the significant partnership which fate had prepared 
 for them. They had given much time and thought to the 
 whole matter, and knew if possible more about the service 
 and the bride's trousseau than did Priscilla herself, a fact 
 not altogether without parallel upon other such occasions.
 
 154 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 11 
 
 Up in David's study the son of the house sat with 
 Stephen, "puHing him round." It was all very lament- 
 able that the bridegroom should not be moving easily 
 among those who were assembled for his sacrifice; but 
 Stephen had been so tried by the well-meant gushes of 
 some of the ladies that David had watched with anxiety 
 his inclination to become saturnine. At all costs, thought 
 David, any slightest ruffling must be averted. Accord- 
 ingly he had plucked the smouldering brand from the fire 
 of conflict, and, having plied him with a glass of sherry 
 and a biscuit, was busy talking about anything but the 
 day. Neither had changed much in expression during the 
 rapid year of Stephen's engagement; what change there 
 had been was too gradual to be apparent to the casual 
 glance. It might have been seen that Stephen was still 
 too impatient, and that David was still charmingly lazy 
 in appearance and very alert in fact. When one saw them 
 together it was upon David's air of lively good-breeding 
 that one looked with most satisfaction; and yet it was 
 upon Stephen's personality that one lingered with the 
 greater hesitation. That is to say, one liked David more 
 than Stephen ; but one could not help, from some perverse 
 doubt, wondering what Stephen thought of this or that. 
 Very likely the doubt was only personal, because man- 
 kind is fortunately intrigued by many diverse sorts of 
 temperament : it was none the less quite conscious and 
 unmistakable, and may for that reason be supposed to be 
 not wholly groundless. 
 
 The two young men sat together, talking in snatches, 
 every now and then for a stronger reason recurring to the 
 numerous guests with their elaborate talk and compliment. 
 And every time that Stephen recalled the ordeal through 
 which he had passed he winced and tried to forestall any 
 attempt from David to throw him back into the arena.
 
 THE DAY OF PROMISE 155 
 
 He forced himself to talk. Over and over again he 
 revived a subject, for the sake of diverting his thoughts. 
 But at last his native honesty triumphed over his cow- 
 ardice. 
 
 "I know I really ought to go down and out again . . ." 
 he impulsively said. "Hiding here! It's not fair, is it? 
 But I wish they wouldn't stare and chatter. I know all 
 they think and want to say. ... I know it all before 
 they begin to speak. And I want to go right through 
 the talk and say, *Yes, I knozv it's extraordinary that she 
 should marry me, but marriages are always extraordi- 
 nary.' That would be very rude, and not at all fair to 
 Priscilla. Because it's clear that they're all very fond 
 of her." 
 
 "Yes, my boy. If that's the speech that's on your 
 tongue you're better away," admitted David, lolling in 
 his chair, with his thin brown face drawn into an air of 
 commiseration. "Tell Priscilla about it in the train. She'll 
 be glad to hear about it. Save it all up for her. She 
 can't rebel. You can say anything you like to your wife, 
 you know." 
 
 Stephen laughed a little. 
 
 "I hope I shan't be as brutal as that. I shall tell her 
 how jolly they are." 
 
 "She won't beheve you. She knows better. I say: 
 did you see Vanamure link up with Agg? What a treat 
 that was ! To hear Agg telling Vanammre about Zola and 
 Vanamure talking simultaneously about the vernal fresh- 
 ness of the English countryside. . . . You know, for all 
 his idiocy, Agg's got a sort of antic sense of sport. Have 
 you ever noticed it ? He does make one laugh at times." 
 
 "He only bores me," Stephen said, dolefully. "I can't 
 stand these novelists. What's the good of them? I never 
 met a novelist yet who wasn't an egoist. . . . They're 
 so vain!" 
 
 David murmured with laughter:
 
 156 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 "Tliat's Satan rebuking sin, isn't it? With a ven- 
 geance !" 
 
 With a nodding of penitent disgust Stephen accepted 
 the rebuke. 
 
 "I supjwse it is. I suppose no egoist ever likes or can 
 ever understand the egoism of anybody else. Unless he's 
 got more sense of fun than I have, anyway. Agg's got 
 that. I suppose he's quite decent. But really, some of his 
 opinions are the crankiest I ever came across!" 
 
 David roared. Over and over again he laughed aloud. 
 At last he spluttered : 
 
 "Remarkable thing. Astonishing thing. He was say- 
 ing only the other day how curious it was that you, whom 
 he regards as on the whole sound, should be derailed at 
 times — absurdly !" 
 
 Stephen did not laugh. It could hardly have been 
 expected of him. 
 
 "It's quite true," he said, with resignation. 
 
 "Fiddlesticks !" said David. 
 
 And with that the door opened, and Priscilla came in. 
 
 "Where's my husband?" she said. "I heard David's 
 great roaring laughter. I knew it must be Stephen being 
 witty." 
 
 They did not undeceive her. There was no need to do 
 so. For Stephen was not really so devoid of a sense of 
 fun as he pretended to be; and he was so much in love 
 with Priscilla that he could bear to be teased by her 
 without any slightest inclination to resentment. He 
 followed her meekly from the room, his heart dancing. 
 
 Ill 
 
 There was a breathless hurry of farewells and good 
 wishes. Dorothy claimed Stephen for one anguished 
 moment — the dreadful moment of their first parting — 
 and at his quite unashamed embrace was able, through
 
 THE DAY OF PROIVOSE 157 
 
 her misty vision of the vanishing motor-car, to think in 
 a flash of exultation : "He wasn't ashamed. He's still 
 mine!" which was a consoling thought for those first 
 blank minutes. Mrs. Evandine, parting in the same 
 moment from her own girl, had something of the same 
 assurance. Both of the women who remained turned 
 naturally to David, who, less moved, less tragically the 
 witness of an utter cleavage, kept his head and maintained 
 his attitude of intimate sympathy. The rest of tlie party 
 gathered with tepid outcry ; and Mr. Vanamure was con- 
 scious of figuring in one more priceless enviable snapshot 
 upon a distinguished occasion. There was not one un- 
 happy face in all that crowd. The one miserably wretched 
 and disconsolate creature in the house sat alone in Pris- 
 cilla's bedroom, pathetically upon Priscilla's wedding- 
 dress, puzzled and forlorn. 
 
 In the motor-car, suddenly shy and speechless, were the 
 two chief actors in the comedy — pleasurably stunned by 
 the silent privacy of the swiftly running vehicle, aware 
 that the road and the trees were flashing noiselessly past 
 them in a swimming blur of green and brown that had not 
 yet merged together into a hazy grey. It was Priscilla 
 who first recovered, who first laid her hand upon 
 Stephen's hand, and recalled the one forsaken figure in 
 the happy household. 
 
 "Romeo!" she said quickly. "Oh, Stephen! ... It 
 seems silly ; but I can't help feeling so sorry for him. He 
 knew I was going. It was so pathetic to see him sitting 
 in my bedroom, watching. He's awfully unhappy, I'm 
 
 sure." 
 
 Stephen took her hand — so slender within his large 
 one with its strangely pointed fingers. 
 
 "But when we get back," he urged, "Romeo will come 
 and live with us, won't he?" 
 
 "Of course. It's ridiculous to feel as I do ; but he's so 
 dumb. That's what's so very touching. If he'd howled!"
 
 158 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 "I feel rather like that about Dorothy," Stephen 
 confessed. 
 
 They were turning into the Great North Road, and 
 were bumped against each other. 
 
 "Oh, but Dorothy can howl!" protested Priscilla. "I 
 feel a little as though I were going to." 
 
 "The chauffeur would think we were trying to stop 
 him!" 
 
 "Don't!" It was imploring, desperate; for the first 
 tremulous breath of laughter was a breaking down of her 
 self-control. Priscilla really was rather tearful for an 
 instant. Then she lay back and took his arm ; and Stephen 
 rather awkwardly began to talk of other things to give her 
 time for complete recovery. 
 
 "I knocked my hat when we went back from the church 
 — in getting into the carriage. It furred it up all the 
 wrong way. David says that's always done. I shouldn't 
 think he would do it. I expect he was only comforting 
 me. It was extraordinary that your father kept coming 
 up to me and saying that he wanted to talk about Southey. 
 He can't make up his mind whether he'll write a life of 
 Southey or whether he ought to make me do it. He thinks 
 I shouldn't be fair to Southey; but I believe he dreads 
 wading through Southey's voluminous works. . . ." 
 
 "You'd better do it in collaboration," Priscilla ven- 
 tured, drying her eyes and trying to speak in an ordinary 
 voice. "I'm really ashamed of being so absurd, Stephen 
 ... so silly." 
 
 "You couldn't be that, my dearest." His not very 
 successful attempt at off-hand forgiveness made her laugh 
 again, so he went on : "Don't you worry about me, but 
 let me go on talking." 
 
 "Does it do you good?" 
 
 "It's rather a relief. I mean, if you're miser- 
 able " 
 
 "Not really miserable. Only rather dissolved."
 
 THE DAY OF PROMISE 159 
 
 "That's what I meant. You see, I never know what 
 to do. There are men . . ." 
 
 "Oh, but gracious, Stephen ! I haven't married men !" 
 
 "Am I doing all right? That chap might turn round, 
 you know !" 
 
 Priscilla sat up very straight; but she still held his 
 arm. i 
 
 "Now I'm not going to laugh any more," she 
 announced. "And I never really cried. I'm going to 
 talk quite rationally. Do I look nice? Hasn't it been 
 a splendid day! We shall get there in daylight. I sup- 
 pose we're in good time." 
 
 They could see the shadow of the car, with their lug- 
 gage strapped to it, whisking about away from them, 
 now upon the road, now upon a vehicle as they passed 
 it. Everywhere there was bright sunshine, hot and burn- 
 ing, and above them was the impenetrable sky into which, 
 when they looked upwards, they seemed to be soaring 
 towards an ever deeper blue. It was a day without 
 cloud. 
 
 "Are you superstitious, Stephen? Do you believe in 
 omens ?" 
 
 He could see her delicately flushed face so near his 
 own; her curling hair beneath the little tilted hat; her 
 soft white neck above the sobriety of her grey travelling- 
 dress. If he had believed in auguries he would have 
 supposed her presence by his side, her loveliness, and the 
 pure pearl-like beauty that seemed to him only a symbol 
 of her intrinsic beauty, to be the best possible omen for 
 the future. The day, the flawless early summer day with 
 its sudden breezes among the thick strong leaves and the 
 gathered dust of the roadway, was only a trifling part 
 of his sense of the future. It was all part of the wonder- 
 ful whole, the transfiguration, as he might have thought 
 it, of his whole life. He did not answer her directly : she 
 did not really care to know whether he was superstitious.
 
 160 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 She wanted to know that he was as happy as she was, as 
 exhilarated and conlident. And that could be told better 
 in his glance than by any words. 
 
 Their car sped through Kentish Town and Camden 
 Town — gloomy districts that made Stephen think of his 
 abandoned home — and down Hampstead Road and Tot- 
 tenham Court Road to Charing Cross. They swiftly 
 crossed Trafalgar Square with its steady sweep of traffic 
 upon the eastern and southern sides; and passed down 
 Whitehall into Victoria Street ; and then, in a flash, they 
 were within the station at Victoria, out upon the platform, 
 hurrying, hurrying, to the train, to their carriage. And 
 Priscilla was conscious of it all like an excited tangle 
 of colour and noise and sensation — a misty bewildering 
 marvel that was given sense and form only by her thrilling 
 knowledge of happiness inextinguishable. The press of 
 incident and emotion was too large, too overwhelming 
 otherwise to have any meaning. She might even have 
 been frightened with a sense of turmoil and strange 
 experience if she had not seen Stephen, who had been 
 hitherto a little constrained, soberly directing everything 
 for her comfort. Though she hated tears, and ordinarily 
 never cried, Priscilla knew that tears were in her eyes 
 when she saw Stephen so concentrated upon thought for 
 her. She loved him with passionate surrender. He was 
 beautiful in her eyes, as a child to its mother. She was 
 too moved for speech. 
 
 iv 
 
 The train jolted over the many points of the terminus 
 and out across the broad river, and they could see other 
 trains going and coming; and, upon the surface of the 
 river, strings of barges and one or two rapid little motor- 
 boats tuff-tuffing in and out among the heavier craft with 
 a sort of sharp busyness that made Priscilla's eyes soften 
 in a smile of pleasure. It was London that they were
 
 THE DAY OF PROMISE 161 
 
 leaving behind — to Stephen that overpressing home of 
 twenty-nine years; to Priscilla that strange palace of 
 dehghts that was still in her dreams of wider life a 
 beckoning mystery. It was London, all that mighty 
 power that she heard every day from her home in a far 
 distant roar like the sound one hears in a sea-shell. And 
 all the time their hearts seemed to beat with suffocating 
 thickness and pain, as though they could not breathe ; and 
 every now and then they would turn from the dull houses 
 and the occasional wide traffic-laden streets to look at one 
 another with ingenuous candour. Stephen now sat beside 
 Priscilla — w^iich some self-consciousness that was not 
 entirely selfish had previously forbidden him to do — his 
 arm about her; so that she, lightly touching his breast 
 with her shoulder, could feel his every respiration almost 
 in accord with her own. It was remarkable to her that 
 his breath should be longer and slower than her own : 
 the fact aroused her curiosity and her attention. She 
 felt, with a little quick surprise at the thought, which 
 intruded upon her preoccupation, that they had never 
 before been so entirely alone together; that the Stephen 
 who was her husband was a new Stephen marvellously 
 fashioned alike for her protection and her tender care. 
 She was absorbed in her love for him, drowned in the 
 sense of his beating heart and his slow, measured breath- 
 ing. She saw his right hand upon his knee almost as 
 though she had never seen it before, and for a moment 
 watched, fascinated, the strong fingers that were so broad 
 at the base and so strangely shaped and pointed. Their 
 beauty was quite unquestionable, and even in her reverie 
 she understood that it was wholly masculine, wholly un- 
 like the beauty of a woman's hand and yet equally beauti- 
 ful in its own right. It was not that she had been ignorant 
 of these thoughts earlier; but she found that they were 
 now insistently grouped and forced upon her consid- 
 eration.
 
 162 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 The train quickly sped through the nearer suburbs, 
 where in many gardens there were children playing, and 
 where washing was limply hanging to dry; where too 
 they saw often only brown earth and the posts to which 
 clothes-lines were intended to be fastened. Then came 
 longer gardens, in which there were bushes and flowers, 
 and wicker chairs in which girls sat, shading their eyes 
 with their hands in order to look at the hurrying train. 
 There was no washing here ; but only a Sunday-afternoon 
 sort of suburban trimness, rather placid and uncomfort- 
 ably rigid. Then at last they came to the first fresh green 
 of the nearer country, where pasture-lands seemed to fly 
 into fields of fluctuating unripe grain and again to emerge 
 beside the railway, filled with grazing cattle. For a long 
 time they saw no sheep at all; but only cows and bulls, 
 and sometimes horses that leapt or that flung up their 
 heads as the train came abreast of them; and once or 
 twice there were delightful ponies that scampered away 
 across the meadows as if they had all their lives for sport 
 and were driven irresistibly by a sudden impulsive friski- 
 ness as whimsical as the wind. With the same eyes 
 Priscilla and Stephen saw everything they passed, sitting 
 very still and silent, but intensely living and only glad 
 to be thus together and alone. Priscilla felt surprised 
 when once there stole into her mind a memory of the 
 morning, of the church and the guests, of her mother and 
 David and Dorothy — surprised to think how far behind 
 this precious moment they all seemed; once, too, she 
 startled herself by the wish that she and Stephen could 
 always feel thus gloriously alone together, with their 
 mood of content unchanged and unchallenged for the 
 rest of their lives. There was as yet no need for 
 them to speak. She was perfectly happy; she had no 
 trouble, no doubt at all. Everything seemed to her to 
 be perfect. 
 
 Then Priscilla began to wonder what Stephen was
 
 THE DAY OF PROMISE 163 
 
 thinking. It pleased her to speculate, to pretend that 
 he must be thinking of her, or not thinking at all, but only 
 as it were existing in the sensation of her nearness. How 
 curious it was that they should both be so silent, and that 
 she should feel such languor and inability to draw her 
 mind away from these fancies ! For one moment she was 
 filled with the wish to express her thoughts — all her 
 thrilling thoughts — as though for once she could say with 
 absolute clearness all that she had always supposed she 
 could never tell anybody. She had a longing to break 
 down all these reserves, both timid and necessary, which 
 all of us (except the merely liquid) guard with such 
 jealous care. To say to Stephen, "This, and this finally 
 and alone, is the real I !" It seemed to be a supreme need 
 of her being — to say in some amazingly permitted speech 
 of pure lucidity that which would for ever make Stephen's 
 mind one mind with hers. It was a fantastic and an 
 engrossing thought that filled and permeated her attention. 
 If only she might once be granted the power of clear 
 expression ! The power to give herself utterly into 
 Stephen's keeping! Then there could never be any mis- 
 understanding, and she and Stephen would be one in 
 reality. The train's quick jogging fell in time with her 
 imaginings, and her dream seemed to take on a poetic 
 rhythm. Stephen, Stephen, said the train, echoing her 
 heart. 
 
 She wondered why he was quiet when her own impulse 
 had turned so abruptly to the need of some self -clarifica- 
 tion. It seemed as though she could never begin to talk ; 
 that from Stephen the first words, that should open their 
 long, intimate record, must come. She turned so that she 
 might see his face, and became conscious that it was so 
 near her own that their cheeks softly touched; and 
 Stephen, thinking that she wanted him to kiss her, turned 
 also. And then it was that Priscilla felt again that there 
 was no need for them to talk; that to be thus silently
 
 164 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 beside him was best of all, and that words were only the 
 baser measure of iheir untrammelled understanding. She 
 was smiling with happiness, in a secret dream that she 
 would never in all her life forget. 
 
 For the remainder of the month of June they had taken 
 a furnished bungalow right up on the Sussex Downs, very 
 nearly remote from ordinary habitations, satisfyingly 
 compact and solitary. It was their prize, upon which 
 Priscilla's thoughts had often gleefully exulted. The 
 bungalow lay beyond the reach of any but the hardiest 
 driver, up a bad road that was steep and wellnigh im- 
 passable; and upon this day they were for a few instants 
 afraid that they had taken a wrong direction. Then 
 at last, upon a plateau quite above the road, they saw the 
 bungalow's white sloping roof, and its brown sides and 
 the short narrow veranda which lay along the front of 
 the little house. From that veranda, when they turned, 
 they could see far and wide over all the lower land of the 
 district — to the east to distinct heights as the down rose 
 once more above the valley, to the north-east a sort of 
 open weald along which they could see beautifully 
 clumped trees and a mysterious distance. At the back 
 of the bungalow the down rose steeply; less than half 
 a mile to the west lay a fine thicket of trees in which on 
 summer nights, they had been told, the nightingale sang. 
 Everywhere they could see the soft warm contours of the 
 downland, less green than brown, less brown than green, 
 in the mysterious lights and shadows cast by the glov/ing 
 sun and the fleeting clouds; mellowed by some native 
 quality which they came to think most potent of all the 
 influences that evoked its peculiar beauty. 
 
 And within the bungalow with its stained and varnished 
 walls there was, in spite of every strangeness, a sense of 
 home that made both Priscilla and Stephen thrill. This, 
 then, was their home. Upon a common impulse they 
 turned to each other in delight. The small room, with
 
 THE DAY OF PROIVnSE 165 
 
 its unknown furnishings and undiscovered limitations, 
 was transfigured in their eyes. They might have been 
 seeing now for the first time after a long period of blind- 
 ness. Priscilla saw Stephen gravely smiling. 
 
 "Yes; but I wish you'd say it's perfect!" She heard 
 her own voice with a sense of strangeness. 
 
 "But it isf Stephen answered, in the same hushed 
 tone. "And you couldn't make that more certain by 
 boasting about it." 
 
 "It can't fade. Or do you think it might?" 
 
 Priscilla was taking off her hat — for all the world as if 
 she had lived there for years. As if this were not their 
 wedding-day. 
 
 The afternoon waned ; the dusk gradually misted the 
 distance and made the dim farther sky change to a shade 
 that might almost have been mauve. Directly above, so 
 clear was the air, the blue faded in tone but remained as 
 deep, entrancing to the eye. As they stood upon the 
 veranda they saw a star quite suddenly ; and although for 
 a time it seemed alone they found that other stars could 
 quickly be seen, very pale in the pale sky. There was 
 no moon ; the new moon was not yet risen. Distant lights 
 began to start up in the growing darkness, like sparks of 
 fire to the seeking eye. Everywhere the day was dying. 
 A low, soft breeze came from the sea, rustling the trees 
 that were close to the bungalow. It seemed to Priscilla 
 that they strained their ears to catch some other sound, to 
 find stillness everywhere except where the leaves moved 
 and swayed so pleasantly around them. The little wind 
 cooled the air, and it was so very fresh and sweet that 
 it gave to the air a new fragrance. She saw the sky 
 deepening once more, to a blue much darker than any that 
 is seen in the daytime, but still clearly a rich blue, untinged 
 with grey. The stars were brighter, thickly clustered,
 
 «1 
 
 166 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 thicker and thicker, so that they hung bewilderingly and 
 dazzled the eye. 
 
 "How quiet it is," Priscilla said in a low voice. "At 
 home you always hear the same never-stopping noise of 
 London. You know that everything is going on there. 
 But here there isn't any sound. You expect to be able 
 to hear little things running in the grass, and scampering. 
 ... It makes me feel rather frightened. Not frightened 
 ... I don't know. . . . Stephen, are you very glad 
 you've married me?" 
 
 "Yes, dear," She could hardly hear him. "Very glad 
 and proud." 
 
 'I'm a little frightened. Only for a moment." 
 
 'It isn't real. I'm very frightened too. But I know 
 it isn't real. If we were really frightened we should hide 
 it. We're only pretending to feel frightened. We're 
 afraid to know our own happiness, perhaps?" 
 
 "Perhaps that is it. When we were in the train I had 
 such a longing to tell you — something ; but I never could 
 think what to tell you. It was like a clamour. As if I 
 could tell you about myself. Do you think it was senti- 
 mental? It was rather yearning. You're not ... I 
 know you wouldn't laugh; I shouldn't like you to be 
 thinking of me as silly." 
 
 "Why should you ever suppose such a thing? It's 
 like the impulse to sing or to dance. It's not — it couldn't 
 be sentimental. It could only be that if we didn't really 
 love each other." 
 
 "How much you know!" she said, teasingly, yet with 
 her eyes gleaming. 
 
 "I only know from experience of myself." 
 
 It was like a revelation to her. How strange that she 
 should have thought of him as passive, when of course 
 he must be as impulsive as herself. She turned again, 
 still rather overwhelmed by the recognition of his deep 
 love.
 
 THE DAY OF PROMISE 167 
 
 "If I'm ever unjust to you," she said ; "it's only through 
 a momentary stupidity. I shan't ever reall}^ be Wind for 
 more than a httle while. But I am blind. I'm ashamed 
 to be blind, and so unjust." 
 
 "So are we all blind and unjust," he assured her. "If 
 you say that, oughtn't I to say it? Because I'm much 
 more stupid than you are, and very stubborn." 
 
 "You're not unjust." 
 
 She could feel his shrug, that sufficiently indicated his 
 disagreement. 
 
 "Well, if you're ever unjust," he said, in a deep tone of 
 amusement, "I'm to — what?" 
 
 "Tell me." 
 
 "Is that . . . Oh, Priscilla : you know that that 
 wouldn't be any good!" His voice was rich with 
 laughter. 
 
 "Then trust me and leave me to find out the truth." 
 
 Stephen hesitated for a moment before replying. Then 
 he said quite seriously : 
 
 "Yes : I should think that would be the better way." 
 
 They continued in silence to look out from the veranda 
 upon which they stood, and to watch the stealthy approach 
 of night, until they were swallowed up in the developing 
 darkness, close together, with quickly beating hearts, 
 thinking, thinking ... as though they hoped to see in 
 the pathless shadow some answer to their thoughts and 
 some solace for their emotion.
 
 CHAPTER X: THREE LETTERS 
 
 DURING the first long week at the bungalow Stephen 
 and Priscilla made wonderful excursions over the 
 Downs, sometimes east, sometimes west; and at other 
 times southwards in the direction of the sea. They took 
 their lunch on these occasions, and ate it in the shelter 
 of little wayward bushes of gorse, or in the soft heaps 
 of hay before a diminishing haystack. The wind swept 
 always like a mild gale over the tops of the Downs, taming 
 the burning heat of the sun and catching Priscilla's curls 
 and her skirt in its progress. Often they saw flying rab- 
 bits, and watched birds hitherto unknown to them hop- 
 ping and skimming low above their surrounding garden. 
 They peered into dew-ponds with many sagacious reflec- 
 tions upon those treacherous legendary places, into which 
 a child, and even a man, may unwarily walk and be 
 drowned without chance of escape. Priscilla told of the 
 naive foreigner who, upon first seeing gorse, went down 
 on his knees to worship the burning bush of God; Stephen 
 with a map of Sussex, discoursed authoritatively (in his 
 new role of antiquary) upon the local place-names, and 
 how Steyning meant this and how Alfriston meant that, 
 until they could have persuaded themselves that they were 
 natives of the friendly county. They could have sung, 
 with one of the poets who have ingenuously adopted 
 Sussex as a kind of beloved stepmother, 
 
 I've given my soul to the Southdown grass . . . 
 Oh, Firll and Ditchling and sail at sea 
 I reckon you keep my soul for me! 
 
 168
 
 THREE LETTERS 169 
 
 — lines for which, whatever their intrinsic virtues, such 
 lovers of Sussex as were these two lovers could never be 
 too grateful. It was like a happy dream to them to 
 wander upon the Downs on these hot bright summer 
 days. Neither had ever been so happy. 
 
 And when they had been away a week they received 
 their first letters, which were also the first reminder of 
 the life they had left, to which they must inevitably 
 return. Two of the letters were addressed to them 
 jointly; the third, of a different character, was for 
 Stephen alone. They came one morning just as the two 
 holiday-makers were about to set forth upon a journey 
 far west from their base. Mrs. Darnley, their char- 
 woman, who lived half a mile away and miraculously 
 did all the work in a couple of hours each day, besides 
 coming in again to prepare the evening meal, saw the 
 postman climbing in a sort of indefatigable stupor up 
 the distressing hill. She called out the good news, and 
 herself took from the postman his triple burden, upon 
 which Priscilla pounced with an eagerness that was subtly 
 not inconsistent with her perfect joy in their solitude. 
 
 "Two . . . three !" she cried, "One for you — two for 
 both of us. This is from mother ; and this from Dorothy. 
 And yours . . ." She scrutinized the writing. "I don't 
 know whom it's from ; but it's a rather attractive writing. 
 Just a very little shaky . . ." 
 
 Stephen took from her hand the letter she held out; 
 and glanced at it while she turned again to the others. 
 A slow frown gathered upon his brow and in his darken- 
 ing eyes. He shook the letter slightly in distaste. 
 
 "It's from the old man," he said, doubtfully. 
 
 11 
 
 Mrs. Evandine's letter was not a very long one, but it 
 was full of her normal kindness. "My dear Children,"
 
 170 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 she wrote, — "We have all been so glad to see how fine 
 the weather is; and were delighted to hear that every- 
 thing at the bungalow is perfect. We thought it would 
 be. Dorothy is here with us, and is writing by the same 
 post. You — Stephen — won't need to be told that she has 
 been a great comfort to us since you have both been 
 gone. Your father — this is Priscilla (really, it's more 
 difficult than I thought to write to two people at once) — 
 has been very busy writing an essay upon gardens, and has 
 had Minch on the verge of madness during the whole of 
 the week. I can't help thinking the subject of the essay 
 was carelessly or recklessly chosen; but I have a sus- 
 picion that either David (for mischief) or Mr, Vanamure 
 (through sheer innocence of heart) suggested the whole 
 thing. Romeo, I'm sorry to say, has been inconsolable. 
 He has miaowed all over the house, has sat for hours 
 upon your bed, refuses milk unless it is actually held 
 under his chin so that he hasn't to stoop at all, and is quite 
 wretched. Poor old chap! We've told him in vain that 
 it isn't for very long (I have consoled myself a little with 
 that thought, though I don't expect that either of you 
 will thank me for it) ; but it is so difficult to convince 
 Romeo that we're speaking the truth. Write as soon as 
 you are able to do so. We always hope for a letter 
 from one or other of you in the mornings; but of 
 course we realize that this is pure greed. Your loving 
 Mother." 
 
 Dorothy's was much longer. It filled ten pages, and 
 was so splashy and breathless in style that they were 
 both forced to laugh. Dorothy was one of those letter- 
 writers who are more colloquial in pen and ink than they 
 are in practical speech. Her letters were always of the 
 "Dear Jo: What-ho!" variety, and as those letters are 
 always more interesting to the recipient than to the patient 
 observer of literal meanings it would be unwise to present 
 this one here. Dorothy confirmed Mrs. Evandine's
 
 THREE LETTERS 171 
 
 account of Romeo. "My dears. The poor thing's got 
 the most awful rats. Sits about mopping and mowing 
 all day long, and at nights roams the staircases. I heard 
 an awful sound at my door last night. Got up in a panic 
 and looked. Behold Romie. Walks in, humbly cringing 
 before me. I felt awful. You can't console him. . . ." 
 
 "Oh, poor Romeo !" said Priscilla. "He must be very 
 miserable !" 
 
 "He's in a bad way. I wish we could send him a 
 message by a sure hand." 
 
 "I'm so grateful to you for not saying, 'Fancy all this 
 fuss about a cat.' Until you've really had a cat and 
 known its nature you never understand cats. You write 
 ridiculous shallowness about them as Maeterlinck did. 
 Even intelligent people — of course, not people with any 
 imagination — think it's absurd to love a cat. They don't 
 understand the reserved nature of cats : it alienates them 
 just as reserved men and women do. They say — a dog — 
 yes; but a cat! As if they knew!" 
 
 "They don't know Romeo," soothingly suggested her 
 hearer. "Very likely that's the whole difficulty." 
 
 "Well, that's true. I admit he's unique. Dorothy 
 writes very vividly, doesn't she ! It's somehow a ram- 
 shackle, headlong sort of writing; but it's very charac- 
 teristic and jolly; and it's splendid that she . . ." Priscilla 
 hesitated . . . "doesn't complain of how much she 
 misses you. I know how much that must be. And you 
 miss her, I expect; just as I miss mother. Not bitterly; 
 but in a pleasant, melancholy way. . . ." 
 
 "A kind of genial sense of discomfort?" he laboriously 
 asked. Priscilla disdained to acknowledge his joke. She 
 did not think a joke came naturally from Stephen; 
 although she thought he could sometimes be rather 
 wittily ironic. 
 
 "And all this time," she said, "there's another letter. 
 Why, you haven't even opened it yet, Stephen!"
 
 172 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 iii 
 
 The old man's letter was very different from both of 
 the others. The writing varied between a polished clear- 
 ness and what seemed to the cruel eye of Stephen a 
 deliberate tremiilousness. The tremulous writing was all, 
 naturally enough, to be observed in the pathetic or emo- 
 tional passages referring to his own health, state, and 
 relation to Stephen : where the letters were distinctly 
 formed the underlying meaning was of another character. 
 The letter was in one sense a human document. As 
 Stephen read, he seemed to visualize the old man sitting 
 and writing it. He could call up so many things belong- 
 ing to the past, incidents, impotencies, angers, as he read 
 the lines and between the lines into the old man's soul. 
 His cheeks grew pale and his eyes glowed. He was so 
 evidently made savage with anger that Priscilla came 
 close to him and put her hand upon his arm. Not know- 
 ing what he did he shook it ofif. It was the first rebuff; 
 and Priscilla's lip trembled. 
 
 "Stephen — don't read the letter," she cried impulsively. 
 "It's a bad letter." 
 
 He put up his free hand to check her. Then, for the 
 first time recognizing her concern, he tried to smile reas- 
 suringly, to recover himself sufficiently to understand 
 Priscilla's words. As if they were still impressed upon 
 his hearing he was able by an effort of memory to call 
 up the speech and comprehend it. 
 
 "Yes," he said. "You're quite right. It is a bad 
 letter." 
 
 "Don't read it!" she again urged. He shook his 
 head. 
 
 "I'd better finish it now." 
 
 "Then let me read it with you." 
 
 "No." 
 
 "But, Stephen!" She was aghast. Urgently she
 
 THREE LETTERS 173 
 
 began: "Surely I ought to know if it's something that 
 hurts you? You know I'm to share " 
 
 He did not hear her. He had gone back to the letter. 
 Again his face had darkened. When his reading was 
 finished he deliberately tore the letter into fragments, 
 standing and tearing as if in making the scraps smaller 
 and smaller he found some passionate physical satis- 
 faction. 
 
 "Dear," he said at last, turning to Priscilla. "There 
 are some things I must sooner or later tell you, that I 
 don't want to tell you now. Only one is a secret thing. 
 You can quite absolutely rely upon my telling you; but 
 not now. And there is only one thing that need cause 
 you any real unhappiness. The other things are only 
 irritations. And the chief irritation is this wretched old 
 man of mine. Sometimes I think he's purely wicked. 
 Sometimes only a comic old rascal. Just now I think 
 him wicked. I should like to tell you something about 
 him ; but I'm not going to do that, or even to think about 
 him or his rascally letter, all the time we're here. Is 
 that a bargain?" 
 
 Priscilla struggled with her fear. She was inwardly 
 reproaching him, and before she could answer must 
 conquer that impulse. She was deeply wounded. 
 
 "If you think it best," she said. "If you must." 
 
 Stephen did not touch her, as she almost feared he 
 would. Had he done so she might from sheer nervous- 
 ness have repulsed him — have been driven into a few 
 mortified tears. The sense of their intimacy, of their 
 hitherto apparently unbroken confidence, had meant so 
 much to her that the awakening was bitter, almost 
 unbearable. 
 
 "I wish," Priscilla went on in a trembling voice, "I 
 wish you hadn't seemed not to trust me not to read it." 
 
 "Oh!" cried Stephen. "How stupid of me! How 
 stupid ! But I never meant that, Priscilla. Don't for
 
 174 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 a moment think such a thing. I never dreamt of it. 
 Really." He began almost to look vainly about for the 
 destroyed fragments. 
 
 Priscilla looked at him for the tiniest fraction of time. 
 Then her eyelids flickered, so that tlie whole had seemed 
 but a passing glance. 
 
 ''Shall we go out now?" she asked composedly. 
 Stephen searched her face for the truth. 
 
 "If you believe me," he said. 
 
 It had come to that! Was their beautiful happiness 
 to be imperilled? 
 
 "I really believe you," Priscilla acknowledged. "And 
 I'm ashamed of having thought that. It was unjust and 
 it was stupid. I've never felt like this before; but, 
 Stephen, I was mortified, and though I see there was no 
 reason I can't shake off the feeling. I'm still, you see, 
 mortified at not being ... at not reading the letter." 
 
 He could not fail to recognize the perfect candour of 
 her speech. It made him rueful. He was in two minds 
 about the wisdom of explaining the whole matter. But 
 his previously formed resolve governed him, and his 
 impulse was subdued. He made a murmured protest. 
 
 "I'm so afraid the feeling will remain : that you'll 
 find it there later." 
 
 "Well, you can tell me what the letter said." That was 
 Priscilla's suggestion, made with a rather conscious smile. 
 
 "Would that do?" He knew it wouldn't. He knew 
 better than she did that the destruction of the letter was 
 a mistake. And it was the second mistake. "The only 
 thing that mortifies you is the thought that you're not 
 trusted. It destroys your happiness?" 
 
 "Don't let's talk any more about it." Bravely, Priscilla 
 tried to check the whole little tangle. "We're taking it 
 too seriously." 
 
 "But now we've begun . . ." he urged. 
 
 "Now it's done we're not to talk," she said. "You're
 
 THREE LETTERS 175 
 
 not to say any more. We're being stupid and serious. 
 Yon are; / am. Both of us. Shall we go?" 
 
 She came to him and held her lips to be kissed. 
 
 "I perfectly trust you. You shall hear it all," said 
 Stephen, before he accepted her forgiveness. 
 
 iv 
 
 The letter which had been destroyed was a long one. 
 It covered much ground. It ran : "My dear Stephen, — 
 You have thought fit to leave me in my old age to the 
 care of strangers. You have with a ready hand also flung 
 off your brother at a time when of all others he needs 
 your help most. I cannot forbear saying, although it is 
 clear to me that any words of mine can do nothing to 
 turn you from the extravagantly selfish course upon which 
 you are now in defiance of all humanity, common sense 
 and indeed of common decency so recklessly embarked. 
 In days gone by I have sometimes felt that I may have 
 been unjust to you, since my preoccupations with other 
 affairs have precluded me from giving as much attention 
 as I should have wished in all good faith Stephen to the 
 affairs of my home. Well, mea culpa, I have felt sorely 
 that I have not given to your upbringing as much of that 
 inordinate care which you have been pleased to dispose 
 for the purposes of my inconvenience. But the result of 
 my forbearance, for that is what it has been, to allow 
 you to follow unchecked your own path to an individual- 
 istic and purely selfish happiness, has been well revealed 
 to me in the past few days. Now that I am too old, too 
 weak, to fend for myself in this weary battle of life, at 
 a time when many men of lesser talents than myself are 
 resting upon their oars while their eldest sons, glad to at 
 length take some share in brightening the last years of 
 loved fathers, devote some little time to the study of best 
 pleasing and looking after the health and well-being of 
 said fathers, it is necessary for me to still more injure
 
 176 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 my health and well-being of their (sic) in order to scrape 
 together some small emolument wherewith to add to the 
 beggarly and contemptiljle weekly pound which you have 
 promised to send for my support. 
 
 "When I think of what you owe to me, the many 
 anxious nights when a child, the many toilsome hours 
 when a boy and young man, when the whole care of the 
 young family devolved upon me in all the dreadful time 
 of the loss of my dear wife which you Stephen never 
 realized as I did because you were lost in your deceitful 
 and ambitious dreams of self-seeking marriage with a 
 rich man's daughter in order that you might be carried 
 to the topmost pinnacle of success though your father, 
 your poor wretched father starve, I confess I am tempted 
 to be cynical. In spite of all, and the rebufifs which my 
 friendly and considerate interest in your work have earned 
 for me from you, I have hoped that a time would come 
 when such narrow egoism upon your part would soften 
 in maturity to a feast of reason when at last you would 
 appreciate the loving thought and care which your father 
 has rendered gladly and yet not without close toil to make 
 your character less rigid and closed to all wider feelings. 
 But enough of this. I cannot without tears write the 
 saddest words that perhaps man ever penned. Enough 
 that I am sick at heart and in body, distressed by the 
 occurrence and its inner significance in the history of 
 our two lives. I write from a bed of sickness, and very 
 sorrowfully, since my day is failing and my hand no 
 longer can execute the labour which my brain can con- 
 ceive. This, however, can hardly interest you, since you 
 have left me without thought. Do I reproach you for 
 this? Do I wrong you? Your heart will give you the 
 best answer, or if not your heart your conscience. 
 
 "But another matter as grave, and in some eyes perhaps 
 even graver, though as to that again I will not pretend 
 in my mortal fallibility to be a judge, though I have my
 
 THREE LETTERS 177 
 
 own opinion, claims my attention. The other evening I 
 had some conversation at a place in this neighbourhood 
 which I need not too nearly specify with a man who has 
 reason to believe himself, as I alas ! have reason to believe 
 him, though here again I write most unwillingly of mat- 
 ters which concern my honour, injured by you. That man 
 is Henry Bayley. I think I see you flinch at that name. 
 Mr. Bayley and myself met each other by accident, and 
 Mr. Bayley, being in a mood in which he was most ready 
 to confide to the ears of an honourable man such as I 
 myself have sometimes believed myself to be, whatever 
 my son may be, the sorrows and unfortunate vicissitudes 
 of his recent Hfe. Mr. Bayley, seeing that I was a just 
 man, not given to dishonourable practices and not very 
 likely either to condone such practices in others, even 
 though he be my own son, confided to me his belief, his 
 inexpressibly sad belief, that his wife, perhaps too trust- 
 ing, perhaps misled, had been unfaithful to him. Of his 
 grief I had no need of proof; for indeed the tears were 
 in his eyes as he called me to witness, as I readily did, that 
 he had been a good husband to her. I do not doubt that, 
 for I have often seen Mr. Bayley on his way home on 
 a Friday night laden with gifts for his wife of an edible 
 variety. Therefore it was with sorrow that I gathered 
 from Mr. Bayley that his wife and he have recently disa- 
 greed violently, and that she has as good as confessed her 
 guilt, while Mr. Bayley has in his possession a most dam- 
 aging letter in which Mrs. Bayley makes an assignation 
 with her lover. That lover, my dear Stephen, both Mr. 
 Bayley and myself fear against all our prepossessions and 
 wishes to be yourself. We have spoken of the matter 
 with the utmost delicacy I assure you, and in response 
 to Mr. Bayley's confidences I have explained to him that 
 what lends considerable colour to his view is the way in 
 which I at the time when of all others, the time when a 
 man is breaking up, need most care, am cast utterly adrift.
 
 178 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 robbed of my daughter and of all the support to which 
 I might legitimately have looked at this time. 
 
 "Now my dear Stephen, Mr, Bayley is under no 
 illusions as to the nature of the evidence he has. He 
 is not a vindictive man, and he understands (now that I 
 have told him) that in all probability he could not get 
 any legal redress for the wrong he has suffered. In the 
 last resort perhaps he might be tempted to have recourse, 
 though I have strongly interceded with him upon your 
 behalf, to the processes whereby he might obtain that 
 redress ; but at present, on my earnest request, he under- 
 stands that the evidence is not such as to carry over- 
 whelming weight in a court of law. Nevertheless, as you 
 will be in a position to judge, Mr. Bayley can hardly be 
 expected to allow so serious a matter as this to pass 
 unquestioned and without some suitable action. You 
 are now, I know, on your honeymoon, and I can see that 
 it would be a serious jeopardizing of that future success 
 for which I fear you have been so ready to sacrifice the 
 health and perhaps even the life of a parent if the news 
 of Mr. Bayley's grievance should reach the perhaps more 
 sympathetically considered (since they are wealthy) 
 parents of your wife. I sincerely hope it will not do so; 
 but if I should venture to offer with all humility my 
 advice in a situation which to all parties is and may be 
 so profoundly embarrassing, it is that you should let me 
 hear what you are prepared to do within the next week. 
 My dear Stephen it is with the utmost regret that I take 
 the step of writing this painful letter — a letter which is 
 to me so doubly, trebly painful; and I trust that w^hat I 
 have said may recall you to a sense of what is due to all 
 those whom I cannot, seeing what is my own experience, 
 but suppose you to have injured. And in that case the 
 very blunt and straightforward issue arises — what are 
 you going to do? 
 
 "I am your affectionate father, John Moore."
 
 CHAPTER XI: EPITOME 
 
 PRISCILLA thought very often about the letter and 
 about the scene connected with the letter. The 
 thoughts sank into her knowledge and worked there like 
 acid. It became clear to her that marriage did not trans- 
 form two people into one person. She had always in 
 reading novels about husbands and wives condemned as 
 untrue all those (and they were the majority) in which 
 it was quite obvious that husband and wife had met for 
 the first time upon page one. How was it possible, she 
 had thought, that a husband and his wife should be 
 strangers to one another ? How possible that all the inti- 
 macies of marriage should be shed at the first bidding of 
 unkind circumstance? Her own father and mother un- 
 derstood each other so well that they never disagreed; 
 their lives had been adjusted so many years before that 
 at this date they were like perfectly responsive partners 
 in a dance. It was not, she felt sure, that they had com- 
 promised, that they jogged along together in middle- 
 aged disillusion, as gloomy writers seemed to suggest 
 that middle-aged people must always ao. That notion 
 was impossible. And if her own mother and father 
 "understood" and were perfectly adjusted in an intimate 
 and no longer passionate love, why should the same not 
 hold good with other married people? That was what 
 Priscilla in her own mind had argued. Just as she had 
 always been sure — she said "known" — that she would 
 marry Stephen. It had seemed to her inevitable. And 
 yet in her honesty she was bound to admit that it might 
 only have been a hope to which she had clung from an 
 
 179
 
 180 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 unutterable fear to face any alternative. That was a 
 reflection that made her very soberly thankful. 
 
 For now it appeared that one could never be sure of 
 anythin*^. Either the comfortable life she had led at 
 Totteridge had been untrue to general experience or she 
 was infected with Stephen's detached scepticism about 
 the ends and the measures of life. She had gradually, it 
 is true, been made to recognize the reality of his point of 
 view — a first step of more importance than it may seem 
 to the casual eye. Where she had always been gravely 
 irritated by that character in one of Thomas Hardy's 
 novels who said that in the happiest moment the distance 
 to sorrow was so short that a man's spirits mustn't — out 
 of respect to his insight — rise higher than mere cheerful- 
 ness, she had now touched a kind of life in which such 
 an attitude had its normal function, in which it actually 
 was the only attitude possible to a self-respecting man. 
 Priscilla knew that the life was harder and more exacting 
 than she had expected, because her love for Stephen was 
 stiffened by such respect and admiration for the quality 
 of his mind that she felt his gravity to be both inexorable 
 and just. For him gravity was right. But for herself? 
 It was not that she found Stephen — as the old man and 
 Roy had done — a repressive influence. Rightly or 
 wrongly she loved him too well for that. She had said 
 to him, after o" , of their arguments, "You're a discipline 
 for me," and Stephen had answered, after a thoughtful 
 pause, "I couldn't tell you what you are to me." She 
 had suggested, "Perhaps a gnat?" 
 
 To which Stephen had replied with an exhaustive 
 general protest against domestic deification. Priscilla, 
 disposed to wish that Stephen had taken the matter less 
 as a spur to one of his hobby-horses, and more with such 
 a light acceptance as she might have expected from her 
 complacent brother, patted Stephen upon the head. "My 
 dear Stephen," she had retorted, "You're coddling your
 
 EPITOIME 181 
 
 vanity. You mayn't know it; but you are. Why can't 
 you let everybody be pleasantly vain ? You're only being 
 puritanical " 
 
 "I'm only talking about myself !" 
 
 "If I make a pie — which, thanks to Dorothy, I can 
 proudly do — I expect you to praise it. I expect you to 
 say, 'There's a clever little woman' (only don't dare to 
 say 'little woman,' or I shall bite you). If you don't 
 praise me, as well as eat my pudding — perhaps I should 
 have said pie ... I shall resent it. Be natural, child, 
 and don't worry so much. Vv^hat you must do is — un- 
 clench yourself. You're all clenched and gripped. I can 
 see perfectly!" 
 
 And so their — to them so interesting — disagreement 
 had continued, in a manner far too tiresome to be 
 recorded. Nevertheless, all such discussions and all talks 
 whatsoever went to mature Priscilla's mind. Her point 
 of view had been so different from his, as her nature was 
 so different, that the mere clash and encounter of their 
 wits had led in her to rapid development. She could 
 definitely look back to the Priscilla of a year before and 
 see how much she had learned. It was not that she had 
 changed : she had only developed. Yet she had cherished 
 the belief that she and Stephen were in some way per- 
 fectly one. For a time she feared that they would always 
 be two people — flint and steel, oil and water, that can 
 never assimilate. She became aware of a barrier, which 
 certainly — since her secret life was only a life of sweet 
 dreaming — must have originated in Stephen's aloofness, 
 his reserve, his native detachment. It must have been 
 the consequence of that rigidity, into which he had been 
 forced by harsh experience, and to which she had given 
 the expressive but unpleasant description of "clenched- 
 ness." It almost seemed to her that this prevented him 
 from receiving light and fresh nourishment. Against 
 that idea, however, was the fact that he could sometimes
 
 182 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 unbend, as he did to her, and allow to be seen the natural 
 kindness of his heart. No reserve, finally, could conceal 
 that. She came to the conclusion that the barrier was 
 intellectual. Could she break down that barrier? In 
 these days she was sometimes despondent of her power 
 to do that, and fell into pensive reverie. When she 
 became silent upon these occasions, Stephen seemed to 
 look at her from his grave eyes as though he were puzzled 
 and almost apprehensive. And all the time that Priscilla 
 was conning her difficulty and remembering innumerable 
 things that made her as often smile as dubiously shake 
 her head, Stephen continued to observe her. At last one 
 day he said a thing that startled Priscilla because it 
 entirely changed the face of her immediate thoughts 
 upon that subject. 
 
 "You know," said Stephen, impulsively, "you're still 
 quite mysterious to me. Quite baffling." 
 
 11 
 
 It sometimes happens that the simplest natures are 
 in this way difficult to read — that the observer, involved 
 in the complex fabric of his own mind, cannot put aside 
 altogether these difficult mental processes and begin his 
 task afresh with sympathetic naivete. And it is imagina- 
 tion only that will help the male observer to understand 
 the simple feminine mind, for no amount of intelligent 
 deduction — such as will serve for political economy or 
 physiological psychology — will in this case have any true 
 value. Priscilla, half dreaming, not yet awakened, 
 thought quickly and as it were in little eddies, all her 
 dreams and her extraordinarily unrelated experience 
 leading her to feel her thoughts rather than to think 
 them. Upon the other hand Stephen, accustomed to 
 subject his thoughts to a rigorous examination, and in
 
 EPITOME 183 
 
 the habit of finding a reason for everything he did, had 
 normally a strictness of judgment quite opposed to 
 Priscilla's speedless certainties. Priscilla could see that 
 his mind was acute and his judgment very rapid : she 
 could see his sympathy, even in particular cases where 
 its exercise had seemed to her to be unlikely, was often 
 astonishingly true. She had asserted, as we have seen, 
 that Stephen had imagination. But perhaps, as Priscilla 
 sometimes thought, there are many different kinds of 
 imagination? Imagination, according to Priscilla, was 
 the particular quality that gives life and intensity and 
 vital reality to the thing seen or invented. It was not 
 to her, as it is to most people, synonymous with fertility 
 of invention. She knew, however, that outside a certain 
 range of probabilities Stephen's imagination was apt to 
 dwindle (unless specially roused) to interest or intel- 
 lectual curiosity. Therefore she did not contradict him 
 when he said that he lacked creative power. That admis- 
 sion was certainly true. He did not see life in pictures 
 or in any of the forms in which presumably it is visible 
 to all artists. His view was no doubt akin to that of 
 the scientist. But imagination, in her eyes, he as certainly 
 had, and it coloured his actions : he was in no sense 
 mechanical or merely groping among probabilities with 
 the purblind manufacturers of opinion. But that imag- 
 ination which springs out into ethereal rapture or joyous 
 absurdity or even into the forms of art his rather exacting 
 and destructive experience had perhaps atrophied. She 
 could not tell 
 
 Sometimes Priscilla divided imagination into the plain 
 and coloured varieties. If that were possible, she would 
 have put Stephen cheerfuHy among the plain imagination. 
 She thought that might be a rather good and helpful 
 division, if one could roughly allot to poets, as of course 
 to painters of equal inspiration, the prismatic imagina- 
 tion, and to ideal novelists and dramatists a limited range
 
 184 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 of colour (including, for once, black and white), and to 
 — still ideal — critics a predominance of black and white 
 with faint reflections and refractions of colour as subtly 
 merged as the hues of the rainbow. Clearly her plan 
 would not have applied to musicians, unless, as it has been 
 mischievously alleged by those with a too fantastic colour- 
 sense or a superfluity of time for the manufacture of 
 theories, every sound has its corresponding colour 
 value. Nevertheless, as no aesthetic theory will ever 
 embrace all the arts, she had no hesitation in using such 
 definitions as these for the purposes of her own private 
 criticisms. 
 
 Priscilla thought that she read behind Stephen's dis- 
 claimers simply a reaction against the free assumption 
 of imagination by all fanciful people and all people whose 
 aesthetic culture is highly conventionalized or sophisti- 
 cated, which is as much as to say all people who seemed 
 to Priscilla to lack a prime originality of character. She 
 thought fancy was often like skittishness — the artificially 
 preserved naivete of the child — and a palpable makeshift 
 for something more ardently desired. She herself prized 
 this originality above all things — the careless sureness of 
 character which need neither imitate nor vehemently run 
 counter to prevailing convention. It was to her defined 
 by a wiser person, "feeling the ground sufficiently firm 
 under one's feet to be able to go alone ... it is the 
 strongest possible feeling of truth; for it is a secret and 
 instinctive yearning after and approximation towards it, 
 before it is acknowledged by others, and almost before 
 the mind knows what it is." That was where she found 
 a point of absolute contact with Stephen, who also, with- 
 out believing himself to be original, made that one quality 
 the single touchstone of life and literature. So far, so 
 good. But the other problem, of imagination, as it applied 
 to Stephen engrossed her. Stephen himself engrossed 
 her. She did not — as women are supposed to do — study
 
 EPITOME 185 
 
 to please him : she was simply given over to the attempt 
 to understand him, to reach the springs of his nature, an 
 absorbing search. And it made her hold her breath with 
 silent laughter to learn from his ejaculation that he was 
 similarly engaged in trying to understand her. Surely 
 they would both succeed? "Doesn't it seem pathetic," 
 she announced in reply, "to think of us groping round 
 each other like wrestlers by a sort of candle-light!" 
 Stephen had merely frowned at her ; but that was l^ecause 
 he too was absorbed. Their rapture of association spent, 
 they fell back thus upon the need for reimagining each 
 other, as all whose perceptions of the world around them 
 are not static are bound to be in constant process of doing, 
 so that the chiaroscuro is always varying and newly 
 colouring and merging in a way most magically inter- 
 esting. 
 
 But it would have been too dreadful if this obsession of 
 theirs, however pardonable in the newly revealed, had 
 spoiled the Moore honeymoon. It did nothing of the 
 kind. Their excursions went on, their days were swift 
 and happy, their health and spirits were perfectly normal. 
 And it was only when they rested that they became 
 studious, and sometimes when they were talking that 
 there flashed across Priscilla's mind some perception that 
 startled her or gave her delight. She was always having 
 such happy thoughts, and such plans. Her mind fed 
 upon them. One led to another. Sometimes she was 
 thrilling with glee at the pictures she had created. 
 Stephen thought her plans invariably extravagant, and 
 warily shook his head over some of them. "Oh, my 
 dearest, not for years!" he would blankly say. "Your 
 ideas of money are terrifying!" To which Priscilla 
 would assuredly answer in a brief and all-sufficient 
 rebuke : "You'll see !" She had made her plans. It was 
 not for a man to swamp them with a cold douche, however 
 frequently administered.
 
 186 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 111 
 
 What these plans were will be seen. They involved 
 Stephen's worldly success, and his acceptance by all parts 
 of the literary world as a critic of unquestionable 
 originality. She did not want him all his life to write 
 reviews for money; but she wanted his opinions to gain 
 wide currency. As far as the thought of money went she 
 knew that she had much to learn. She was afraid of 
 her housekeeping. But that would" come. Her pre- 
 occupation was with Stephen's status. For the securing 
 of this she would have been prepared, if she had had 
 money, to invest it in him, to do as the doctors do, when 
 they set up at a loss for several years a big house in 
 Harley Street from which to derive the kudos attached 
 to the consultant's standing. She was ambitious to that 
 extent and for that alone. Against her impulse to plan 
 his career she had unwillingly to place Stephen's manifest 
 opposition. He was willing to work for her; he wanted 
 for her sake to attain an unassailable position; but he 
 would not consent to be pushed into that position. David 
 had unobtrusively done something in the way of intro- 
 ductions and commendation, with the result that Stephen's 
 work had been lightened and made more remunerative in 
 the past year. But his pride was enormous — if that were 
 pride which well-wishers supposed to be obvious blind- 
 ness to his own interests. He had to be helped without 
 his guessing that he was being helped, and his perception 
 was so acute that this was almost impossible. Priscilla 
 sometimes, in plotting, felt herself a Machiavelli, until 
 when she tried with the most cunning caution to open 
 that path which should lead to the desired and so desirable 
 end, Stephen, reading the whole, suppressed it ruthlessly 
 with his very final "No !" He would stand alone. That 
 was a knell to many a scheme dreamed out through the 
 long winter preceding their marriage. Being young.
 
 EPITOME 187 
 
 Priscilla — as Dorothy had done — failed to see that no 
 good man can be driven from without. It was not enough 
 that she should plan for him : she must all the while seem 
 to trust in providence and in Stephen's own strength. 
 She saw that he was like a child, and must do things 
 by himself, even though a protecting hand should be 
 ready to pounce upon his skirts in the nick of time to 
 save him from falling. She gradually understood. 
 "What children men are!" she thought to herself, never 
 dreaming that her own dreams were childish. But she 
 had learnt. She had really caught at the idea of her 
 relation to Stephen. 
 
 That came soon after their engagement, before she had 
 properly accepted realities. Then, during a talk, Stephen 
 had made another thing clear — a thing that helped very 
 much to mature her view. He had said: "If love were 
 everything, the alchemy it is supposed to be, life would 
 pass in a dream. So it can't be everything, can it! I 
 don't think you and I ever pretend it is, though we regard 
 it as a sort of essential key to everything. It depends 
 on everything, running through it and carrying it, but 
 horribly fragile all the time, and liable to fracture in any 
 other calamity. . . . I'm so sorry to be obvious, dear. 
 . . . It's all because I can never manage to say what I 
 want to. What I want to get at is this. With me it's 
 an instinct to work for you, to make a home, to adore 
 you, and in the end to smother you with my own selfish- 
 ness — to keep you to myself, to hate those who claim 
 your affection or your notice. It's a common instinct. 
 You see the consequences of it everywhere among the 
 middling poor, where trivial jealousy is the chief matri- 
 monial bond. You and I are wise enough to spot its 
 activities and check them. On the other hand, I'm like 
 every other ambitious young man. I don't know what's 
 going to happen in my material life. I may succeed, or 
 I mav come a cropper. What Balzac said — I thought it
 
 188 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 was horribly applicable when I read it years ago in his 
 letters — was something like this : 'I want a woman who 
 shall be able to be what the events of my life may demand 
 of her — the wife of an ambassador or a mere housewife.' 
 That's every ambitious young man's need — a wife who 
 can entertain a Prime Minister or bear poverty and failure 
 with stoicism. So many of them choose wrong — marry 
 vulgar, pretty girls and suffer ever after, because wrong 
 marriage destroys them. It makes me think how lucky 
 I am; but it makes me realize that I've simply got to 
 succeed, or everything's lost." Thinking of that, even 
 as he spoke, he repeated with a sort of holy horror: 
 "Absolutely everything!" 
 
 Priscilla had quickly said : "Not my love, Stephen !" 
 And her extraordinary generosity in tolerating such a 
 tirade — which after a few months he could not have 
 uttered — had touched Stephen to the heart. He had 
 stopped dead. He was not a common bore. It was 
 simply that he was bent upon bringing everything directly 
 within the scope of his intelligence. It might have been 
 seen that he was inexperienced in love; for the experi- 
 enced in love do not talk so, but leave their victims to 
 find out the unspeakable truths of human tyranny. And 
 as Priscilla also was inexperienced, it pleased her to hear 
 him speak to her naturally and in the way in which she 
 knew he must really think. She might have preferred 
 another, more ecstatic manner : who could know that 
 mystery? Certainly not Priscilla, who loved Stephen. 
 
 IV 
 
 She came to know a great deal about him immediately 
 after their marriage that she (iould not have known before, 
 when their meetings had been relatively short and seldom 
 private. One thing she realized anew was his quietness. 
 He was very quiet in everything, and had no need to
 
 EPITOME 189 
 
 clatter or to talk. Also, when he worked he sat very still. 
 Only when he found in a book something he detested — 
 such as the rather mulish complaisance of old men 
 towards dead authors — he exclaimed with disgust. It 
 made Priscilla think of David, who sometimes carried 
 a foolish book about v^ath him, gloating with mischief 
 over its foolishness and finding people to share in his glee 
 as he had been in the habit of doing at the university. 
 Stephen never did that. He did not need to share his 
 detestations or his amusements, but only to expel them. 
 He savagely cried out, and coldly condemned the bad 
 book, exposing with unerring cruelty its flabby judg- 
 ments, its mistakes of fact, its ridiculous deductions and 
 inductions. Priscilla always felt sorry. There might 
 not be much to choose between David and Stephen for 
 charity; but Stephen's almost malignant coldness hurt 
 her. She wondered whether it could ever be good so 
 unsparingly to condemn the feebleness of others. One 
 day she raised that point. 
 
 "You don't seem to agree with Mr. Pipps, Stephen?" 
 "Eh? No: he's a bad fellow." Then, with a smile, 
 he asked: "Did I yelp? I can't help being angry when 
 these chaps get so sentimental. Listen to this — from a 
 man with a tremendous reputation. He's been quoting 
 Spenser's line, The noblest mind the most contentment 
 has,' and he goes on : 'What a noble line ! the noblest, I 
 think, in all literature. Let us commit it to heart, repeat 
 it morning, noon, and night, and it will cast out for us 
 all the devils, aye, all the swine of Pessimism.' Why, 
 it's Pecksniffian, buzzing with hypocrisy; and I'm bound 
 to sav so. in sheer self-defence." 
 
 "I expect Mr. Pipps will be angry with you." 
 "Do you think so?" He thought for a moment if 
 he reads it. I shouldn't wonder." 
 
 "Don't you ever think of the eflfect on others oi wnai 
 you say?"
 
 190 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 "Do you mean on Pipps and his kidney? Well, it's 
 a question of hurting them or encouraging them. 1 don't 
 want to hurt. 1 hate hurting people. But if they're silly, 
 oughtn't I to say so? I've got the truth to defend. Per- 
 haps you think it's only my particular notion of the truth? 
 Very likely that's true. But after all they come first. 
 They come out with their feeble extension lectures, and 
 get crawled over by the provincial papers. Besides, 
 they've made ignorant people sufifer. And they've taught 
 them ineradicable half-truths. It's now time that their 
 bad work should be checked." 
 
 "I was only wondering if there mightn't be a sort of 
 vulgar, ready-made truth — as much as ordinary people 
 can bear — in what they say. I shouldn't like you to be 
 what they call an incurably 'superior' critic, far above 
 human weakness." 
 
 Stephen shook his head. "Father always says that 
 truth has many facets, and that even the fool ought to 
 have his day." 
 
 "Oh, he does!" Stephen said dryly. "He's got it. I 
 can't stop him from enjoying his power. But he claims 
 to-morrow and eternity as well. That's more than I can 
 stomach. And as for Mr. Evandine's compunction, that's 
 because middle-aged men don't want to be troubled to 
 say whether a thing is good or bad. You see, your 
 father's a very kind man; but he's not a critic." 
 
 "But Stephen! He's supposed to be a beautiful 
 critic !" 
 
 "Not a real critic. He's a delightful writer, and what 
 you might call a delicate appreciator. He enjoys the 
 bouquet of literature with a perfectly exquisite taste. 
 ^"■^ ^~ ' 3t no more grasp of literature — no more sense 
 of its ! ity — than that chap Agg that David's always 
 -xploi*. " 
 
 J' gave a serious little nod. Her comparative 
 
 a had not been idle in the last year.
 
 EPITOME 191 
 
 "I know it matters a great deal," she said. Their 
 glances met, not unhumorously, although both honestly 
 felt that it mattered to them more than most things 
 did. 
 
 "It does, I assure you," went on Stephen. "Men like 
 your father are responsible for establishing a canon. 
 According to them nothing later than 1850 is literature; 
 but everything previous to 1850 is to be treated with 
 exactly the same seriousness. It may be Prior or Lang- 
 land or Miss Edgeworth or Shakespeare or Milton or 
 Parnell or some discovery never remembered before. 
 They've all to be merged in a sort of flat equality, and 
 to be dipped into for essays and fancies as one dips into 
 a bran-tub. It's not true. Our business is to get out of 
 all history and art what we constructively need — what has 
 a real original value — and send the rest shuffling into 
 oblivion. But you find men claiming to be literary critics 
 who are mere word-counters, and people who dribble 
 over musty old eighteenth-century books quarrelling over 
 whether this mouldy thing is to be preferred to that other 
 mouldy thing. When both ought to be in the dust-bin, 
 and the scavengers along with them. It's the same every- 
 where, of course. The impulse to hoard everything — 
 dirt, rags, diamonds, wretched crusts, and so on. It's 
 all common enough, wherever one looks. I'm inclined 
 to think that art criticism and musical criticism may be 
 better : I mean, there are really a few people biting into 
 the truth. But in literature — no. Look at the critical 
 papers. Where are their standards? One column con- 
 tradicts another. There's no attempt to grapple with a 
 subject, or to grasp the essential parts of it. There's no 
 room, for one thing. You can do nothing in a thousand 
 words. You want ten thousand. And even so you've 
 got to write readable articles that nod and beck with 
 courtesy and compliment and a beastly sort of mediocre 
 conventionality."
 
 192 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 He paused, exhausted by his harangue. 
 
 "Oh, but Stephen !'' interrupted Priscilla, alarmed by 
 his vehemence. "What are you doing?" 
 
 "Exactly!" he cried ni triumph. "I'm setting an 
 example. And as I'm very conceited I make a great 
 song al)Out it and a martyr of myself. It's quite per- 
 fectly clear." 
 
 "Well, it's very interesting; and it seems to me very 
 plausible. I suppose when people get together they all 
 fall into a mist and conspire to tolerate each other's 
 frailties, and that everybody gets frailer and frailer and 
 more and more tolerant and winking. But I should like 
 to hear you talk about it to father." 
 
 "I have done so. He says I shall grow more tolerant. 
 I've told him that I suppose I shall lose heart. How many 
 must have done that !" 
 
 "But Stephen : this is what I want to know. Do you 
 really mean all this, and does father mean what he says ? 
 If so, why doesn't one of you convince the other one? 
 If one of you is right. Or is it a game? Or is one of 
 you blind ? Are you convinced ? I can't understand why 
 if a man proclaims truth he shouldn't be blowing a sort 
 of last trump and tumbling down all muddleheadedness 
 for ever. Is there any truth in it?" 
 
 "In the tirade?" questioned Stephen. "Oh, it's true. 
 Bitterly true. Except that I make it seem as though 
 there's a conspiracy against truth, when it's only a lack 
 of the scientific spirit. Your father and I, like all men 
 who disagree, from politicians upwards, are simply talk- 
 ing about different things and vilifying and misrepre- 
 senting one another to support our own clamour. He 
 says I'm a puritan : I say he's a latitudinarian. Now this 
 is a very interesting thing. There are certain men — 
 contemporaries, we'll say — whose work I detest. I see 
 absolutely no virtue in it except perverse skill. Some- 
 times not even that. A year ago, before I met David,
 
 EPITOME 193 
 
 I detested the men as well. Never having seen them, of 
 course, I thought they must be frightful cads and 
 poseurs. Now David has introduced me to some of 
 them. They certainly detest me as I do them — think 
 me ill-bred (what Colvin, insufferably talking about 
 Keats, calls 'under-bred') , and so on. But they're curious 
 to see what I'm really like — look at me through their 
 eyelashes and when other people are talking to me. And 
 I find they're extremely nice fellows, kind, courteous, and 
 as generous as possible — really keen to see good and to 
 praise good work even though they don't approve it. Not 
 all of them, but most. I admire them very much. When 
 I'm there I think we're all part of a formidable body 
 fighting for reality. Yet away from me, buried in their 
 stuffies, they're capable of writing blind, ignorant, ran- 
 corous, splenetic rubbish — sheer dislikes bolstered up with 
 disingenuous humbug. You see what I mean?" 
 
 "You seem to mean," Priscilla ventured, "that if you 
 were always their tutor they'd reform, and say what you 
 think." 
 
 "I really mean," he proceeded to explain, frowning at 
 her levity but giving otherwise no sign of impatience, 
 "that they're self-important as well as ignorant senti- 
 mentalists. When they talk they can be as modest and 
 as candid as anybody could wish. When they write they 
 have to remember their canons, and their commitments, 
 and their reputations, and their likes and dislikes, and 
 their feuds, and the feuds of their friends. . . ." 
 
 "Upon my word !" Priscilla said. "I don't wonder 
 they relapse if you tell them home-truths of that sort. 
 I expect their modesty and candour is a mask for resent- 
 ment. That was what I was wondering — if you weren't 
 rather harsh, Stephen. ... If you don't blind them to 
 your rightness by your own intolerance. I don't suggest 
 you're not right. I think what you say is always very 
 convincing. And yet sometimes I'm unwillingly con-
 
 194 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 vinced. I mean that I can't answer it; but that I wish 
 I could." 
 
 Stephen gave signs of satisfaction. 
 
 "That's because you're honest, my dearest. You don't 
 like logic, but you recognize its validity in criticism. 
 These men aren't quite honest. Don't you see, their minds 
 slip back into their old grooves the moment they're alone. 
 I can see the jealous looks they cast on their paper while 
 they're writing. And so they go on adding to the confu- 
 sion by writing their own impulsive apologies for inaccu- 
 rate judgment, so that everybody can find an authority 
 to support his own bad taste. That's why the average 
 man is ignorant and opinionated about literature. All 
 the professional critics are perverting his judgment 
 through sheer ignorance and dread of innovation. Their 
 minds are sealed against contraries. They go on with 
 their tedious babblings. . . . God forgive me, I do it 
 myself !" He was aghast at his own discovery. 
 
 *'But then of course you're right !" urged Priscilla, with 
 what women suppose to be irony. 
 
 "But then of course I'm right," asserted Stephen, in a 
 grave voice. "Still, you see the difficulty, and the harm 
 men like your father can do — who say, 'we're all as good 
 as one another, and I'm the true fount of wisdom.' " 
 
 "I'm afraid I see that I have a very conceited man for 
 a husband," Priscilla said. "But, my dear, I'm quite sure 
 he can hold his own with the others, who are quite as 
 conceited and not so honest." 
 
 Stephen was thoughtful for a time. At last he said : 
 
 "I admit I'm conceited. I don't mind being conceited, 
 because it's a healthy state. But I don't like you to think 
 me conceited." 
 
 "That's because you don't know what you want, 
 Stephen. You don't want me to adore you, and you 
 don't want me to think you conceited. You want me to 
 love you very scientifically; and it can't be done. You
 
 EPITOIME 195 
 
 want to dictate to me the way I should think of you, and 
 it's foreign to me." 
 
 He acknowledged the truth of what she said. 
 
 "Yes. I want everything my own way. I admit it. 
 I'm impatient, and that means I'm unjust." 
 
 "You're also rather cruel." 
 
 Stephen thought for some moments over that accusa- 
 tion. It made him think of Minnie Bayley with a natural 
 but perhaps a rather cold-blooded detachment. 
 
 "You don't mean, to you ?" he presently inquired. 
 
 "In criticism." It made his brows lift. "You don't 
 realize that your normal way of thinking of things isn't 
 everybody's way; and I think that people who don't realize 
 that you criticize yourself quite as unsparingly just have 
 their enthusiasms corroded, and nothing given them in 
 their place. You take the heart out of them, Stephen, 
 with your love of a rather frosty truth." 
 
 This was plain speaking! But Stephen was deeply 
 interested, and was not at all concerned with the purely 
 personal aspect as it might have affected his vanity. 
 
 "Do you find it so?" he asked. "I mean, as far as 
 your own feeling goes." 
 
 "No; you're kind to me. I'm only thinking of the 
 effect on others. I wouldn't have you — to me — one little 
 bit different. You know you're everything to me. Oh, 
 Stephen, I'm rather tired of this talk, though I do think 
 it's very interesting. I feel I'm not wise enough to chal- 
 lenge you on your own ground, and that you have to be 
 considerate to me. But I think a lot about this; and I 
 wish you'd be more tolerant of conventional stupidity; 
 because that seems to me pitiable rather than any- 
 thing else. And you seem to think it criminal. I 
 should have thought you must be wrong in simply attack- 
 ing it." 
 
 "You can't reform by pity, dear. All sorts of people 
 must have tried."
 
 196 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 "You must follow your own course." She spoke hesi- 
 tatingly, as though the admission was forced, 
 
 "Once you shrink you fall among conventions. They're 
 like gins. However, we'll leave it at that. I'm glad we 
 talked. I like to know exactly what you think." 
 
 "I wish I could tell you !" 
 
 "Do you mean that what you think is worse than you 
 can say?" 
 
 "The idea! You know how impossible it is to talk 
 your thoughts. What you say is only the skeleton of 
 what you think. And in this there's so much one can't 
 express. In everything, for that matter. I wish I could 
 express myself. That's what everybody wishes, I expect. 
 I envy all artists very much, because they're expressing 
 themselves all the time, like the skylark and the nightin- 
 gale, . , ." 
 
 "And the donkey and the peacock, no doubt. I expect 
 they're only skeletonizing," 
 
 They both shook heads lugubriously at the notion of 
 this fundamental shortcoming. Then Priscilla began to 
 laugh; and although Stephen was not in the habit of 
 laughing he also, as he returned to the book which had 
 provoked this colloquy, allowed a smile to steal into his 
 eyes and to soften them. His glance at Priscilla was one 
 of amusement, but it was also one of gratitude. She, 
 with a curious feeling of exhilaration, rose to prepare 
 their little supper. Stephen, for his part, thought that 
 possibly artists were those who deliberately — and not 
 involuntarily — skeletonized. 
 
 V 
 
 At last they came to the end of their honeymoon, and 
 with rueful hearts watched the last day coming nearer 
 and nearer. As if to show sympathy with their spirits, 
 but in a blundering way, the weather took a turn for the
 
 EPITOME 197 
 
 worse; and instead of bright days that grew more in- 
 tensely hot until the sun began to decline there came days 
 when south-westerly winds brought clouds and gushes of 
 rain and sudden gusts that tore like storms among the 
 trees by the bungalow. The change was unlooked-for, 
 and it intensified their gloomy sense of approaching loss. 
 They would go to the streaming back window and look 
 across a turnip-field to the soaking doMai; they would 
 look to the northern lowlands and see nothing but a sheet 
 of falling rain so fine that it might have been a mist. 
 
 To add to their discomfort there came from the old 
 man — two days before the end, when the weather was 
 April-like in its uncertainty — a second menacing letter, 
 which Stephen held up to Priscilla before destroying it. 
 
 "My father is trying to bring himself to my notice," 
 he said. "This letter is going to be destroyed unread. 
 I only opened it in case the old man had returned his 
 postal order. But the old man, although he's a kind of 
 Irishman, has a great fund of prudence." 
 
 "You always speak of him with dislike ; but you never 
 tell me why. Dorothy is much more illuminating." 
 
 "Yes. She would be." 
 
 "Dorothy says he's one of the worst." 
 
 "You see what a shady family you've married into." 
 There was bitterness in his tone; not at what he was 
 saying, but at the thought that prompted the speech. 
 
 "One day I expect you'll tell me why you dislike the 
 old man. And I should like to know what you have done 
 about Roy, though I've hardly ever seen him." 
 
 "Roy," said Stephen reflectively, "is a difficulty. It's 
 true that he's at what's called (by the old man) a dan- 
 gerous age; but all ages are very dangerous. Roy's in 
 a city office getting fifteen shillings a week. He's not 
 worth more, and he doesn't seem to show any special 
 aptitude as yet. I shall see him pretty often, of course ; 
 and I'd like him to come and live near us, but not with
 
 198 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 us. By the way, it's cleared off a bit, so we might 
 start?" 
 
 They put on light coats and went out, Priscilla's arm 
 in his, tightly locked to withstand the staggering breeze. 
 The sky had partially cleared, and showed a lovely blue 
 behind hurrying clouds. They plodded up a greasy path, 
 feeling the air in their lungs, and hearing a sudden ven- 
 turesome skylark thrilling as he mounted above them into 
 the incomparable blue. Both were conscious of a fresh 
 exhilaration, an impulse to fly. 
 
 "Yes . . ." resumed Stephen, who was tenacious of 
 memory. "We were talking — or rather, I'm afraid / was 
 talking — about Roy. You see he's too old to be looked 
 after, and not quite old enough to look after himself. 
 And he's not particularly stable." 
 
 "Dorothy says she knows more about him than you 
 do," panted Priscilla, checking him upon the hill so that 
 she might recapture her lost power to breathe. "But that 
 she can't express it. She's said that more than once." 
 
 "Yes. Dorothy guesses a lot, and she's awfully quick. 
 So very likely she does know more. He's quite an at- 
 ■ tractive boy, don't you think? Granting that his voice 
 is hoarse and his fingers nicotined." 
 
 "I thought he was very nice; but as if he weren't very 
 
 happy." 
 
 "I don't think boys ever are very happy at his age. 
 You see he's drifting; and he's just becoming seriously 
 conscious of his sex. He's half a man, but he knows that 
 he's still a kid. Also, he probably wants to go to theatres, 
 to bet, to have a bicycle, and smoke and drink and dress 
 smartly — and he hasn't got the money to do it with. 
 If the old man had any moral sense Roy would have all 
 these things." 
 
 "Is it worse for Roy than it was for you?" Priscilla 
 asked, rather defiantly. 
 
 "I say, isn't that beautiful ! But it looks as if a storm
 
 EPITOME 199 
 
 was coming." For a moment they stopped, breathing 
 hard after their struggle with the hill and the wind. He 
 had drawn attention to the remarkable sweep of the blue- 
 grey clouds that were rushing towards them from the 
 south-west. The clouds seemed to be carried by an 
 irresistible wind, and those that were nearer the earth 
 were torn into dispersed fleeces or absorbed into the 
 larger mass before the eye had properly seized their 
 earlier relation. The Moores slowly pivoted, so that they 
 could see, a very little way below them, the white roof 
 of the bungalow against the wan grey-green background 
 of down and field and tree. Then Stephen, reverting to 
 their talk, went on as they stood there in a temporary 
 shelter below the top of the down, which was besieged 
 by the tumultuous winds, "I shouldn't like Roy to have 
 the time I had, because I can never understand how I 
 lived through it. I must be very strong, and even so I 
 feel as though it had spoilt me. . . . That's what you 
 mean by intolerance. It has so eaten into my bones that 
 I can't help hating with a profound hate all those who 
 take the poor for granted, and legislate accordingly. I 
 hate the governing class in England, with its vile demo- 
 cratic professions, so much that if there were a civil war 
 between workers and legislators I'd give my life for the 
 workers as the one possible thing. Because though I 
 suffered myself it was never that that destroyed me, but 
 the suffering of Dorothy and Roy — the hideous useless- 
 ness and aimlessness of the whole business. However, 
 you don't want to hear my mouthings on such things: 
 they're particularly out of place on a honeymoon. What 
 I was going to say was that Roy's had quite a bad enough 
 time as it is. In me it was bitter, but it was toughening. 
 I'm all through, though I admit that the consequences 
 may be bad, bitter with hatred of things I dislike. Roy 
 simply doesn't understand. He knew what it was when 
 I couldn't give him any bread, or when we made soup for
 
 200 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 three out of a penny packet of desiccated vegetables (I 
 suppose it was vegetable, at least) ; but he wasn't made 
 to think, as 1 was, that in a democracy such a state of 
 things ought never to exist. He took it for granted. 
 And of course toy half looking after him has been a 
 mistake in one way, because it's undermined his self- 
 reliance without giving him anything in place of it — any 
 standards, I mean. He's had a little more education than 
 I had ; but it's only a pseudo-education, that has confused 
 his mind instead of training it. And it had to be done 
 on a parrot-system that gives way immediately the par- 
 ticular rote is interrupted, like loss of memory in playing 
 drama. It's when I think that he might have been of use 
 to the community that I feel so savage, I'm not only 
 selfish, really. But there is talk — always among academic 
 sociologists — about the debt of every man to the State 
 for its protection ; and that seems to me to be such cant. 
 The State never protected Roy. I protected him, and I 
 had such poor opportunities that of course I made a mess 
 of it. Protecting his body, I couldn't — even if I'd had 
 the sense to do it I hadn't the time — I couldn't train his 
 mind. Besides the old man was a horrible influence." 
 
 Priscilla listened with great attention as he spoke, her 
 eyes lowered and her head bent. She knew he must be 
 telling her thoughts long hoarded, thoughts that were 
 the result of his real experience ; and what he said helped 
 her to understand a little more of the life that had made 
 him what he was. She said thoughtfully : 
 
 "Stephen, dear : all you say moves me very much. You 
 know that as far as I can understand I do sympathize 
 — though I admit what you've always said, that nobody 
 who hasn't been through it can quite realize what that 
 kind of hardship means. But it seems to me that it has 
 very likely made you all very loyal to each other. Dorothy 
 said Roy was very fond of you, for example. I thought 
 that meant a great deal."
 
 EPITOME 201 
 
 "It's only that the old man was the common enemy. 
 That drew us all together. Poverty doesn't draw people 
 together : it pinches and warps them. But it draws people 
 together to suffer from some outside force. Poverty is 
 a bond that binds poor people together against rich people 
 — or sufferers against the selfish. We had to protect 
 ourselves and suffer the old man. Nowadays the old man 
 pets Roy — praises him at my expense — and so Roy is 
 draAving away from me. I wish I could keep him; but 
 I can't preach at him and say the things he wants are bad. 
 And he doesn't seem to have any enthusiasm that I could 
 reach him through. He's made his own friends, sees the 
 old man well dressed and very likely better-tempered than 
 I am. It's only natural that he should go obstinately in 
 his own courses. But I'm sure he's got character if it 
 were given a chance." 
 
 "I wonder if I could help." said Priscilla, thereby 
 taking the first step to Roy's salvation. "Don't you think 
 it's the sort of thing I might do?" 
 
 "You shall," returned Stephen emphatically, struck by 
 the idea. "It's a splendid notion." After a pause he 
 resumed in another, almost appealing tone, like an apolo- 
 getic boy : "He's one person you must help. There's 
 another also . . . that I should like you to help. And 
 yet , . ." He faltered. "I expect it's impossible." 
 
 "Oh, tell me!" Priscilla, flushed with the thought of 
 usefulness, pressed a little closer, looking up into his face. 
 Stephen averted his eyes, looking fixedly at the horizon. 
 
 "Later. Not now. It's a woman. I'm afraid it's 
 unthinkable. I wish to goodness I knew more about 
 human nature. . . . Phiou! Here's the rain again!" 
 His voice had almost a tone of relief. His face, upturned 
 to the clouds and the wild slanting rain that had begun 
 to pour down upon them from a sky of level grey, was 
 much lightened. "Hurry! It's a storm! Hallo, look 
 at that chap down there. He must be drenched."
 
 202 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 They hurried, watching as they ran the man whose 
 path would presently join their own. He was a tall fellow 
 in a Norfolk jacket and grey flannel trousers, and the 
 rain had absolutely soaked his clothing, which clung in 
 a black hideousness to his legs and shoulders. He had 
 evidently met the storm early, and continued in its press- 
 ing company. They could see his light-coloured socks 
 all soaked and splashed with mud, and his cap heavy 
 with wet. 
 
 "Shall we shelter him?" Stephen asked. "This is a 
 soaker, and it's going to keep on." 
 
 "If you like. He looks attractively dauntless. But 
 he'll need a change of clothes," warned Priscilla, who 
 now knew all about Stephen's not very exhaustive ward- 
 robe. 
 
 "I'll lend him my blue serge. He's in distress." 
 
 "I wonder if he'd agree to keep it !" Priscilla laughed, 
 as though that thought was too good to be true. 
 
 "You don't seem to like my clothes," grumbled 
 Stephen. "To me they're old friends." 
 
 "I feel they're rather stickers, Stephen, Barnacles. 
 Time-servers. I think they ought to be pensioned, or 
 superannuated." Priscilla, warmed by the run, and 
 stung by the wind and rain, felt perfectly naughty. 
 
 "Well, shall I? He's getting very near now." 
 
 They looked for the first time scrutinizingly at the 
 bedraggled man, who now strode so much nearer, making 
 use of a heavy, polished walking-stick to keep his footing 
 on the slippery road. He was very erect and well built, 
 his shoulders thrown back against the pelting storm. He 
 was very fair, and deeply tanned, as from outdoor life. 
 
 "Oh, Stephen! It's Hilary!" gasped Priscilla, almost 
 stopping, and tugging Stephen's arm. It was too late to 
 withdraw. They were carried right on, sliding on the 
 soil, and keeping upright only by great eflfort. 
 
 "Can you tell me " called the man, looking up
 
 EPITOJVIE 203 
 
 through the rain to where they scrambled upon the sHghtly 
 higher ground above the rough roadway. His eyes were 
 keen and bright, hke those of a hunter or a soldier, and 
 his white teeth glistened like polished ivory. 
 
 "That settles it. We must!" said Stephen, under his 
 breath. "Hello! I say!" 
 
 "Oh dear me, oh dear me!" whispered Priscilla to 
 herself, for this instant a coward. 
 
 "What's his surname? . . . Hallo, Badoureau!" 
 
 "Moore ! Priscilla !" 
 
 The recognition swept over Hilary Badoureau — the 
 recognition and the meaning of their presence together 
 and in this place. The shock was obvious. His teeth 
 met sharply. 
 
 "We're just home," said Stephen. "You must come 
 in and dry yourself." 
 
 "No . . . Really no. Thanks very much. How " 
 
 "Please!" Stephen, by such means silencing every 
 protest, whether polite or profound, led the way through 
 the trees to the bungalow. 
 
 It was all so quick and casual that he might have been 
 a neighbour whom they slightly knew. In silence they 
 trudged through the dripping asparagus-fern that spread 
 out across the pathway in unchecked luxuriance, and out 
 into the surrounding roughly planted garden. At the 
 door of the bungalow Stephen halted to allow the others 
 to precede him. 
 
 All the time Priscilla had not spoken. Her heart had 
 begun to beat faster. She could not speak; she only 
 knew that this meeting was fateful and that she would 
 have given much to avert it. She was passionately thank- 
 ful that Stephen showed himself as completely master of 
 the situation. . She saw that, whatever happened, he could 
 keep his head and behave with dignity. The impassivity 
 of both men was a source of secret wonder to her. She 
 had never seen men in danger, never seen enemies meet,
 
 204 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 or friends after a long parting, or she would have been 
 more ready to understand that men — and women no less 
 — have generally, unless they are of the few cowards, 
 self-command when it is essential. She followed Stephen 
 with her eyes even while she removed her mackintosh 
 and little woolen hat. 
 
 He led the guest to the bedroom, came out again, 
 returned with water, and re-emerged with portions of 
 Hilary's clothing, which, with methodical precision, he 
 proceeded to wring and to array before the kitchen fire 
 so that they might dry. 
 
 It was Priscilla's part to lay the table for tea. It was 
 extraordinary that Hilary should be her first guest! 
 Anxiety regarding his personal attitude was lost in her 
 pride at being a wife and hostess. Her genuine self- 
 respect was involved in Hilary's sufficient entertainment. 
 Be sure she felt very housewifely, and with a quick eye 
 saw that all was in place, while with her quick mind she 
 surveyed the whole question of the meal with the swift 
 decisiveness of a great general and a young housekeeper. 
 
 VI 
 
 "I don't know why it should be an impulse to give 
 drowned people tea," Priscilla said as Hilary appeared — 
 seeming, as it were, to stick out of the famous blue serge 
 suit. "But it's always done, and here it is, all poured 
 out. Sit down cjuick!" 
 
 "Thanks. This is a perfect haven of refuge, and jolly 
 cosy ! It's splendid of you to look after me like this 1" 
 
 As he took the cup Hilary threw back his head. He 
 still drawled a little, the sweep of his brilliant yellow hair 
 was the same ; yet he was different, as Priscilla instantly 
 saw. There was no constraint in his manner. If there 
 was any change there it was in the direction of greater 
 ease. She thought his eyes might be sterner, but they had
 
 EPITOME 205 
 
 always had a rather frosty brightness. They looked very 
 straight and boldly — not, as Stephen's did, as if they were 
 penetrating the surface and obeying some reflective im- 
 pulse, but as if they marked Hilary's confidence in his 
 power to take and to destroy. That was the impression 
 of his mouth also, which was both full and firm, the lips 
 often drawn away from the teeth in a set smile which 
 did not extend to the eyes. She thought him improved, 
 very manly. 
 
 "You got rather caught, didn't you ?" Stephen asked. 
 
 "Yes." Hilary's attention was now turned upon his 
 successful rival, his mouth still smiling and his head 
 thrown back in a conventional assumption of interest. 
 "Started out to walk from Brighton to Eastbourne over 
 the Downs. When one's started there's no chance of 
 picking up a train anywhere." 
 
 "One of the tumbrils," suggested Priscilla. 
 
 "Oh, the omnibuses ? Are they running? I must have 
 seen one or two of them. Thought I'd rather walk. 
 How's David ? I've been out of England since February." 
 
 "Where' ve you been?" Priscilla realized that he must 
 regard this stumble across them as a contretemps. 
 "David's well enough." 
 
 "Italy in the spring — Tuscany. Then I went up to 
 Venice and into Austria. Back through Germany. I 
 went from Vienna to Leipzig; but Leipzig's a dull place 
 — not half so ripping as Dresden, d'you think? Where 
 you go hat in hand to see the dullest painting in the 
 world." He turned to Stephen, who shook his head to 
 show that he had never been there. "Well then from 
 Leipzig to Berlin and through to Brussels. I've been 
 wandering about in Flanders — among all those beautiful 
 old towns — Ypres and Louvain, and so on. Jolly inter- 
 esting — what? Then through the North of France to 
 Paris and Havre. Southampton, and to the Isle of Wight 
 — Pettigrew's; came along the Channel in Pettigrew's
 
 206 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 yacht (you know Pettigrew, Priscilla? He was up with 
 David and me) . . . yes, as far as Brighton. And here 
 I am. Five months away. I've got an aunt at East- 
 bourne. I'm not sure if she lets lodgings there . . ." 
 
 "Poor boy: he's nervous," thought Priscilla, at this 
 execrable attempt at a jest. Aloud she said: "We're 
 going back to London to-morrow. We've got a cunning 
 little cottage in the highest part of Hampstead. You 
 can't get such things as a rule, so we're very triumphant. 
 It's terribly small ; but it's perfectly charming. You must 
 come and see it." 
 
 "Thanks, awfully." Hilary brightened. That was her 
 forgiveness. How kind she was! "It's frightfully nice 
 of you." 
 
 Stephen's face fell. He almost shook his head. Pris- 
 cilla could see him. 
 
 "Tea, Steve?" How malicious she became! The 
 diminutive worked on Hilary and reduced his elation. He 
 hastened on in order to stamp out from his consciousness 
 the thought of that endearing abridgment. 
 
 "How's David? Wasting his time?" 
 
 "He says he's very busy. Apparently his firm is 
 inundated with manuscripts. He claims to read most 
 of them." 
 
 "Poor chap! See, you write, don't you?" Hilary 
 turned again to Stephen, with an air that suggested that 
 he strove condescendingly to notice his host and to 
 assume a quite unthinkable interest in his works. 
 
 "Yes, thank you. Can I pass your cup?" Stephen's 
 mouth was grimly smiling. He was determined not to be 
 patronized, even by a guest. "And where else have you 
 iDcen? Did you go to Munich?" 
 
 "No. I went to Prague. They say that in the guide- 
 books the Germans and Austrians deliberately damn 
 Prague as insanitary, so that people won't go there. It's 
 perfectly beautiful. Pretty mean, isn't itj"
 
 EPITOIVIE 207 
 
 "But I thought it was a part of Austria?" Priscilla 
 asked. 
 
 "Yes; but it's in Bohemia first; and the Czechs are 
 Slavs, you know. They're one of the parts of the 
 Monarchy that keep the Teutons and the Mag}^ars on 
 the go. Austria-Hungary's full of Slav patches and 
 hostile races. I can't help thinking it'll blow up some 
 day, for that reason." 
 
 "D'you mean a revolution?" asked Stephen, appre- 
 ciatively. 
 
 "I should think so. Simply disintegrate. The Czechs 
 are a wonderful people. It's a scandal to see them 
 hemmed in as they are. . . ." 
 
 "Isn't Austria the place where there are all the Court 
 scandals?" asked Priscilla. "I can't help thinking that 
 Ruritania was really in Austria. And all these princi- 
 palities in books. It must be rather a wicked place, I 
 should suppose." 
 
 Hilary and Stephen exchanged an amused glance, 
 and both stiffened again, like dogs that suspect each 
 other. 
 
 "You say you're going to Hampstead?" Hilary in- 
 quired, turning to Priscilla. 
 
 "We shall be within reach of mother and father ; and 
 handy for town. We shan't belong, I should think, quite 
 to the Hampstead intellectuals." 
 
 "Ah, one hears they're rather weird. Curious how a 
 place gets full of people of one sort. Chelsea, now." 
 
 "Stephen refused to live there. He's rather ashamed 
 of Hampstead. I don't know whether it's because he 
 despises the Hampstead intellects or because he thinks 
 they'll look down on me. I suppose they're really very 
 decent people." 
 
 "Those little decencies you know — the little Clodds 
 — live there, don't they?" 
 
 "Ethel was one of my bridesmaids."
 
 208 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 Hilary winced: but his smile continued. 
 
 "Well, they're in the Hampstead group, aren't they? 
 Typically decent people, but perhaps living at Hampstead 
 doesn't necessarily demoralize you into decency. I've 
 met that chap Skeffington who lives there. He seems 
 quite indecent. The man that writes lugubrious novels 
 where the hero prowls about the Heath at all hours of 
 the night." 
 
 "Do you know him? Oh, do bring him to see us. He's 
 Stephen's favourite — only — novelist." 
 
 "Is he a young man?" Stephen asked, suddenly 
 interested. "I have rather liked his work. I don't know 
 about its quality; but I think he knows what he's 
 describing." 
 
 "About thirty? They're all that, you know. It's the 
 age. There are three ages, according to David. No, 
 four. Twenty-three, thirty, forty-five, and seventy-two." 
 Hilary laughed as he ticked them off. "Skeffington's a 
 rather eagly, facetious young man, with an immense 
 tongue that wags at both ends. A huge voracious talker. 
 I think I've only met him with David. I only mentioned 
 him because I knew he lived at Hampstead." 
 
 "Well, bring him to see us!" commanded Priscilla. 
 "Simply because we'd like to see him." 
 
 Then they talked of other things, until tea was finished 
 and Stephen went to look after the drying clothes. He 
 found them still clammy. The wind was whirling and 
 moaning about the bungalow, rattling the cowl on its. 
 chimney; and the rain had gone. The evening was 
 greying the sky, and the distances were all misty. He 
 came back into the sitting-room, and Priscilla was sure 
 that he felt a thrill when he saw Hilary sitting there in 
 his blue serge suit. The suit in any case looked so care- 
 worn and shiny; and Hilary looked so absurd in it, so 
 like the pictures of Oliver Twist or Smike with their 
 heads and wrists and ankles stretching far out of insuffi-
 
 EPITOME 209 
 
 cient garments, that Stephen's grim expression could 
 hardly fail to be softened by a kind of bitter sympathy. 
 
 "Another hour," he said. "Do you smoke a pipe?" 
 
 "Thanks, no. I've got cigarettes in my coat. At 
 least " 
 
 Priscilla also noticed that Hilary's speech, when 
 addressed directly to Stephen, was more curt and less 
 considerate than his speech to herself. She did not like 
 that, but she excused it on the ground of unsuccessful 
 jealousy. Yet she thought that he had been once or twice 
 deliberately impertinent, and that Stephen's behaviour 
 throughout had been markedly superior. Perhaps there 
 was a reason for that also? 
 
 She was to learn that reason after Hilary's dry depart- 
 ure. He was full of gratitude, and promised to bring 
 Skeffington to see them at Hampstead as soon as possible. 
 Then, once more in his Norfolk coat and flannel trousers, 
 he swung out of doors with Stephen, who was to show 
 him the way to Lewes. 
 
 Priscilla slowly cleared away the dishes and piled them 
 ready for washing up. She and Stephen would do that 
 work together upon his return, and make nothing of it. 
 It had been very curious to see Hilary again, and to 
 remember, as his presence had made her do, the happen- 
 ings of a year ago. She had been so much younger then, 
 and was now so much older. She thought she was also 
 so extraordinarily much more happy, in spite of the fact 
 that those days had been superficially happy and full of 
 delightful occupations. She had very much liked to lie 
 in the hammock and to hear Hilary and David lazily 
 talking to one another, and to her. Well, those days were 
 gone . . . one couldn't, however much one wanted, com- 
 bine one's various happinesses. The strongest impulse 
 drove one forward, and the lesser impulses resolved 
 themselves into pleasant or melancholy memories, and 
 dreams of what might have happened. ... It was very
 
 210 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 nice to be reconciled to Hilary. He had been stupid, 
 insulting. She no longer respected hira as she had done. 
 But there were extenuations. She must not forget that. 
 Poor Hilary! And yet why should she say that? He 
 had everything, when Stephen had nothing. Hilary had 
 always had money and care and friends. Stephen had 
 none of these things. Yet Stephen was the better and 
 the richer . . . and the more modest. Stephen was 
 never rude to inferiors, was never aware that they were 
 inferiors, except when they were pretentious and aroused 
 his quick irritation. Stephen was her husband : she loved 
 him. Hilary had loved her : she pitied him. 
 
 When Stephen came back he was still grave ; but once 
 as they were washing up he began to grin with unexpected 
 mischievousness. 
 
 "I can't help laughing to myself," he said, "when I 
 think of Badoureau in my old blue serge suit. I wish we 
 could have persuaded him to wear it as far as East- 
 bourne." 
 
 "What a curious notion!" cried Priscilla. "It made 
 him look like a growing boy." 
 
 "I felt a satisfaction in seeing him wear it." 
 
 "But why?" 
 
 "Because I wore it the first time I met him, when he 
 ran me down in his motor, and when I first felt an over- 
 whelming resentment against him and all he stood for. 
 And I should — it's very vicious, I know; but I really 
 should — have liked him to wear those clothes in public, 
 because I've worn them in public and suffered from the 
 sense that I was incurably shabby and ill-clothed. I 
 wish he could once have that feeling. It would do him 
 all the humiliating good in the world. But he'll never 
 have it. . . ." Stephen sadly shook his head, and 
 walked about, drying Hilary's teacup. "He's not the 
 kind that does, worse luck! Though he's the kind that 
 needs it."
 
 CHAPTER XII: VISITORS AT THE COTTAGE 
 
 HIGH above London, at an altitude which allows a 
 man to walk on a level with the top of Saint Paul's 
 Cathedral, and even, upon a clear day, to patronize 
 London's great church from a slightly superior view- 
 point, Priscilla and Stephen were making their new home. 
 Their cottage, which lay near the steep street that makes 
 Hampstead continue to show some of the air of a country 
 town, was almost incredibly small. In a bygone day it 
 would have been called "poky," although more recent 
 developments of suburban house-building have strangely 
 destroyed the withering potency of that word; and in 
 small rooms, but with wide-open windows, our newer 
 civilization is being reared in a perfect dream of hygiene 
 and kindergarten. It did not matter to the Moores that 
 their neighbours were puzzled to see people of a dif- 
 ferent culture sharing their group of tiny cottages. Such 
 bewilderment was only a passing phase, preliminary to 
 the chase of all uneducated poor people from the delectable 
 habitations coveted by the modern poor aesthetes. The 
 modern poor aesthete must have a home ; that home must 
 be cheap. Accordingly, until such time as the housing 
 of aesthetes is seriously considered by the State, it has 
 to be inconveniently small. The surviving poor people 
 who occupy small houses in favourite spots are driven 
 forth, partly by a growing snobbery which leads them 
 to horrible little villas, partly by the insistent grasping- 
 ness of the envious, but wholly innocent, aesthete in search 
 of a home. To grab a cottage or a tiny flat, and to 
 furnish it with pick-ups from shops dealing in imitation 
 worm-holes and fake spinnets and spinning-wheels, is the 
 
 211
 
 212 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 rapid work of the nest-building aisthete far and wide. 
 Pewter, brass, lacquer, oak, walnut, china, tapestry, 
 chintz, shabby rugs, pallid wall-papers or simulation 
 rafters — all these are quickly improvised and appropri- 
 ated. And the result is an aesthetic home, fit for the tepid 
 ecstasies of conventional art-lovers. It was a home some- 
 thing upon those lines, because such furnishings are inex- 
 pensive and exceedingly tasteful, that Priscilla and 
 Stephen had made. They were no better, and no worse, 
 than hundreds of others. Why should they have been ? 
 
 In their little cottage there was a tiny sitting-room, a 
 still tinier dining-room, a thimble-like kitchen, and two 
 demure bedrooms which made one think of Cranford 
 and The Vicar of Wakefield and Rosamund Gray. It 
 did not take much furniture to make such a cottage 
 habitable and comfortable, and the less furniture there 
 was in the drawing-room the more people could sit there. 
 Even so, it may be doubted whether all the Evandines 
 and all the presentable Moores could have been comfort- 
 ably accommodated at one time, as that would have meant 
 seven people, and it is surprising how few it takes to 
 make a small room appear overcrowded. Some of them 
 would certainly have drifted back into the dining-room. 
 It was this fact which led Priscilla, when they were, in 
 the common phrase, "settled," to receive her friends in 
 detachments. 
 
 She had obtained, from a cottage in the neighbourhood, 
 one of those little daily helps who, by the initiate, are 
 called "mushrooms" — loquacious children of fourteen or 
 fifteen or sixteen who come each morning with a small 
 bundle and who go away each evening with a mystify- 
 ingly large bundle. They may have earned their generic 
 title by sudden morning appearances, or by their small 
 size, or by all sorts of strange means (though the real 
 origin of the term is a secret) ; but however that may be, 
 and under whatever name they may be known, mushrooms
 
 VISITORS AT THE COTTAGE 213 
 
 are a feature of suburban domestic service which will not 
 lightly be forgotten. Priscilla's mushroom was called 
 Irene. She was an excellent worker, and she took great 
 interest in the household, besides being terrified of 
 Stephen and openly charmed with her mistress. The 
 house was spotless from top to bottom; and Priscilla 
 was able to smooth her skirts complacently in the after- 
 noons, when, on the days that Stephen worked at home, 
 she took her place beside him in the sitting-room and 
 hoped that nobody would call upon them that day. 
 
 11 
 
 The cottage had a narrow garden in front of it, where 
 Stephen was supposed to dig and to plant flowers; but 
 Stephen suggested that Roy might give him a hand with 
 it, and this led to some delay. Besides, to begin remak- 
 ing a garden in midsummer is ridiculous, and it proved 
 to be better to let the brightly coloured flowers fancied 
 by the previous householder bloom and wither before 
 alterations in style and composition were attempted. In 
 the back garden Romeo walked and played, rather wistful 
 at his new surroundings, and obviously a little disillu- 
 sioned at the sight of children peeping through the 
 palings of the next garden and the sound of a dog bark- 
 ing and dragging his chain two gardens away. Romeo 
 had been brought thither in the motor, guarded by Mrs. 
 Evandine and Dorothy. He had seriously watched from 
 Dorothy's side the whole of the road from Totteridge, 
 and Dorothy had the ghastly idea that he was making 
 mental notes for a return journey. His greeting of 
 Priscilla, however, had relieved her of that dread, for 
 he had sprung forward with every mark of delight. 
 Stephen, too, had been welcomed ; but the house had made 
 Romeo shrug his shoulders. He had sniffed all round 
 it, his stomach approaching the ground, and had only
 
 214 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 been reconciled at last by a saucer of milk, a sardine, and 
 a considerable amount of petting. There was always that 
 beastly old dog barking two gardens away. Romeo 
 did not like dogs. He regarded them with outward 
 cool intrepidity, as nervous men do, but with a beating 
 heart. 
 
 On that day Irene brought in the tea, and everybody 
 pretended not to look at her, although they all furtively 
 examined her as she went demurely backwards and for- 
 wards with a brighter colour and a painful, clambering 
 attempt to be very quiet. The moment she had gone 
 Dorothy hurried to say, in a breathless voice : 
 
 "Isn't she sweet! She's got awfully globular eyes, 
 hasn't she? And round cheeks." 
 
 Priscilla proudly smiled, striving to appear indifferent. 
 
 "She's a good worker," she said, with a professional 
 air. "Though I feel I must mutter a charm when I say 
 that ; because our next door neighbour tells me that girls 
 don't go into service now." 
 
 "Biddy really wants to come to you," explained Mrs. 
 Evandine. "She asked me whether you would want a 
 parlourmaid. I asked her what / should do in that case. 
 So she stays with me." 
 
 "How frightened I am of Biddy!" cried Dorothy. 
 "She's secret. I'm sure she's secret." 
 
 "Do you mean 'discreet'?" asked Stephen. "Or 
 ^secretive' ?" 
 
 "Neither. Just secret. Like somebody in the Arabian 
 Nights. You almost expect her to break out into French. 
 ... I do think this is a splendid little house." Poor 
 Dorothy's face paled as she spoke, for though she was 
 as glad as could be of their happiness she could hardly 
 keep from thinking that she too would like such a house 
 of her own. Mrs. Evandine looked gently at her, smiling 
 with that quiet affection which made people confide in 
 her so readily.
 
 VISITORS AT THE COTTAGE 215 
 
 "David is coming, isn't he?" she asked. 
 
 "Yes. Here he is !" They could see him unlatch the 
 wooden gate at the farther end of the garden, and walk 
 up the long flagged path to the front door. Then Irene 
 ushered him into the room, her great eyes bulging with 
 shy joy and her cheeks flushed crimson as she breathlessly 
 pressed back against the door to let him enter. 
 
 "Hallo, people!" He came forward with an inclusive 
 smile and shook Stephen's hand. There was no doubt 
 of his power to be at home anywhere, and of his famil- 
 iarity with the cottage, of which he had been the real 
 discoverer. 
 
 Something made Priscilla glance from David to 
 Dorothy; but Dorothy's eyes were lowered, so she could 
 not read her expression. It had struck Priscilla for the 
 first time that David was very debonair, and she remem- 
 bered that Dorothy was staying at Totteridge. She did 
 not wish either of them to be unhappy. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Later, when Dorothy and Priscilla were alone together, 
 and when nobody was in the house but themselves, there 
 was a little talk between them. 
 
 "Are you pleased with everything?" Dorothy asked. 
 "Your mother and David and I had quite a rush to get 
 things fairly straight before you got back. I didn't know 
 what to do about that big bowl that Mr. Vanamure sent. 
 It's such miles too big for the house, but so awfully 
 sumptuous. . , . He'll expect to see it when he comes!" 
 
 "Oh dear! I suppose everybody will look round 
 furtively! You've done wonderfully, dear. You're a 
 tremendous brick. You know how we feel, don't you? 
 It's all beautiful." 
 
 "Priscilla, I wish you'd tell me. I've been wondering 
 what to do — what to set about doing."
 
 216 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 "What do you mean?" Priscilla's eyes opened. 
 
 "Work, my dear, I must now work." 
 
 "But you're staying with mother!" 
 
 "I know. She's awfully kind and nice. But although 
 I don't mind staying with her a month — or even two 
 months — I can't go on like that." 
 
 "Well, then you come here." 
 
 "That would be jolly too ; but you know Stephen agreed 
 that I might get some work. I thought I might be a 
 cook or dressmaker " 
 
 "Dorothy! Don't!" complained Priscilla. "That 
 sounds horrible." Her voice took on a new urgency. 
 "You know I should hate myself if I thought I'd " 
 
 "You haven't! At least, it was inevitable. But it's 
 one result of our all living together, and Stephen provid- 
 ing all the money. . . . You're so much better off, some- 
 how. . . . But he's giving the old man a weekly sop, and 
 he can't go on supporting me. Besides . . . my occupa- 
 tion's gone. I'm a cumberer. . . ." 
 
 Dorothy spoke lightly ; but as she spoke her eyes filled. 
 Priscilla put her arm round her and protested; struck 
 to the heart by a note in Dorothy's speech of bleak 
 forlornness. 
 
 "Suppose you stay your month or two months with 
 mother, or come here and go back to her. She'd like 
 you to stay always. That's quite perfectly certain." 
 
 "I couldn't." 
 
 "I've thought of you taking my place." It had been 
 a part of Priscilla's consolation in leaving her mother. 
 
 Dorothy shook her head decidedly. Such a life would 
 be one of intolerable inactivity. 
 
 "It's got to be work!" she said, with an exaggerated 
 gravity. "Work or poison." 
 
 "Then we'll think of something. But have your 
 holiday. You're enjoying it? You're happy, aren't 
 you? You're not bored with it?"
 
 Visitors at the cottage 217 
 
 Dorothy hastily removed any doubt upon that score. 
 
 "I'm simply Hving in the lap of comfort and I don't 
 feel I ought to. Your mother stops me from helping 
 Biddy. I can't even sew, and I've got nothing to do. 
 Nothing even to grumble at! I offered to read your 
 father's proofs; but he and I don't agree about punctua- 
 tion, so he said I wasn't to dream of it." 
 
 "You seem to have been a regular busybody." 
 
 "Well, Biddy smiles at me ! I wish I knew what that 
 girl thinks. I'm sure she'll end by marrying Mr. Vana- 
 mure, or Mr. Agg, or that poor old deaf gentleman who 
 talks about Ariosto. . . . But I expect that he's too 
 stupid for her." 
 
 "I expect Biddy will marry Minch." 
 
 "Well then she's married to him already, I shouldn't 
 wonder. The girl intrigues me !" 
 
 "It's quite obvious that you're discontented at having 
 nothing to do, and what father calls 'running to conjec- 
 ture,' which is a kind of seed. We must find you work. 
 But surely you must have been busy here !" 
 
 "Pooh !" said Dorothy, with contempt. "This little 
 cupboard ! I could scour it all in a day !" She was bent 
 upon showing how great were her normal ideas of house- 
 keeping. "And cook meals as well !" 
 
 "I'm sure you couldn't!" cried Priscilla indignantly. 
 "But then perhaps I'm slow!" It was a rueful thought 
 to her, and particularly unwelcome at this stage of her 
 acute housewifely vanity. Such a cry from the heart 
 reduced Dorothy to entire penitence. 
 
 "You poor old thing!" she exclaimed in a warm voice 
 of sympathy. "I didn't mean it. How could I be so 
 beastly !" 
 
 They forgave one another. It seemed to Priscilla that 
 the whole situation was unsatisfactory. There was no 
 reason — except Dorothy's pride — why she should not stay 
 at Totteridge for many months as a privileged guest.
 
 218 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 There was every reason, in Priscilla's mind, which for a 
 httle while was naturally inclined to run on marriage, why 
 Dorothy and David should quite as happily marry as 
 Stephen and herself. Yet if Dorothy, like all these poor 
 people, including Stephen, had a pride that dwarfed every 
 other consideration, she might go away and bury herself 
 somewhere upon some stupid and stupefying work; might 
 lose touch with Stephen, with everybody; might get 
 warped, or drift into marriage out of pity for some 
 hopeless nobody or out of sheer need for distraction. 
 Hastily, Priscilla saw it all, invented a supposititious 
 future history for Dorothy of the utmost unpleasantness. 
 
 "Whatever happens," she said, instinctively struggling 
 against the fulfilment of such a gloomy prophecy, "don't 
 think of doing anything that takes you away from us. We 
 can't do without you. Neither of us can !" 
 
 Dorothy impulsively kissed her. The kind words had 
 gone straight to her heart, which a little ached with the 
 fear of uselessness, and which was so quickly touched that 
 she was always swift in acknowledgment. 
 
 "You're a dear !" Dorothy breathed. "I'm an ungrate- 
 ful pig. But I know you understand, and that makes me 
 feel lots better." The two girls exchanged a frank look 
 that was almost searching. 
 
 IV 
 
 Roy came upon another evening. He met Stephen in 
 town and they travelled to Hampstead together. Roy was 
 now seventeen, and engaged upon a spurt of growth. This 
 made his movements unhandy and his eyes not quite 
 candid. His voice was grufif, his fingers were stained 
 orange as a result of the constant smoking of cigarettes, 
 his complexion was grey and inclined to be thick. Super- 
 ficially, therefore, he was not attractive. But to those 
 capable of reading the signs, Roy was developing into a
 
 VISITORS AT THE COTTAGE 219 
 
 very handsome young man. The furtive grey eyes 
 would presently become clear, as understanding grew of 
 those intimations which at present were making chaos in 
 Roy's mind; the orange fingers would be pumice-stoned 
 clean; the muddy skin would give place to an attractive 
 pallor ready for that bronze which the advertisements 
 say is the mark of the handsome man. And Roy would 
 then attend to his hair and his finger-nails and would 
 change in a week from a hoarse-voiced simulation man 
 into a reality beyond all the dreams of his present coy 
 parent-dodging Phyllises, 
 
 Upon his first introduction to the cottage Roy was ill 
 at ease. He had been some weeks apart from Stephen, 
 so that in his impressionable state he had been further 
 estranged from his brother by the old man. Also he was 
 very shy of Priscilla, because she seemed to him to be a 
 lady, and he was only at ease with the kind of girl who 
 giggles with her back to a wall or stands with her arm 
 linked in the arm of a girl companion. He felt mildly 
 what young Marlow in a more licentious age felt when 
 in the acknowledged presence of Kate Hardcastle. He felt 
 disarmed : the things he could say to other girls did as 
 little here as they would have done with Dorotliy. He 
 was full of the shamed sentimental solicitude of the typi- 
 cal young male concerning his related womenfolk. They 
 stood apart. So he had nothing to say but an awkward 
 "yes" or "no" to everything that was suggested, and 
 "please" and "thanks" to every item of the meal which 
 Priscilla — also rather shy — pressed upon his attention. 
 The meal was not a success. Stephen's attempted cor- 
 diality was hampered by preoccupation. 
 
 After Roy had been shown over the cottage — ^hanging 
 and tip-toeing as awkwardly as privileged visitors to 
 Windsor Castle when the Royal Family is absent — the 
 three of them returned to the sitting-room, and Stephen 
 indicated his magnificently exaggerated plans for the front
 
 220 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 garden. Then they all sat down and looked at one 
 another. Brothers notoriously have little to say : they 
 generally need the spur of a third: and neither Priscilla 
 nor Roy had the least idea of dealing with characters 
 so different as each was from the other. The burden 
 fell upon Stephen, who already knew all that Roy would 
 tell him about the situation in Islington. In vain Priscilla 
 asked Roy about himself: he remained dumb for fear of 
 Stephen. At last Stephen, at Priscilla's bidding, went 
 to look for Romeo, and their exchanged glance agreed 
 upon a longer absence. When he had gone Priscilla began 
 again. 
 
 "Stephen said you were in an office," she said, "I 
 expect it's all routine work. Do you like it?" 
 
 "Oh, it's all right," he answered without enthusiasm, 
 dropping his head and looking at her at last. "Some- 
 times." 
 
 "And sometimes horrid, I suppose. My brother's in 
 an office — in a publisher's office. To hear him speak of 
 it you'd think they never did any work there at all." 
 
 That touched Roy's fancy, and he smiled faintly with 
 an air of superior knowledge. 
 
 "There's a good deal of miking," he said. "At our 
 place the chaps mostly do what they like except when the 
 great T AM' comes in. He tells them all oi¥ properly. 
 He's the manager." 
 
 "I notice you say 'them,' " demurely suggested Pris- 
 cilla. "So I suppose that means you're very virtuous." 
 Such a suggestion spurred Roy's pride. Stubbornly he 
 resisted it. 
 
 "Oh, I don't know so much about that," he said. 
 "Always get me to do any of the cheeking. See, we have 
 a lot of visitors, and there's one deaf old girl — lady comes 
 in pretty often, . . . They tell her all sorts of things. 
 She can't hear, you know : doesn't matter to her what 
 you say. Some of the things would make you laugh.
 
 VISITORS AT THE COTTAGE 221 
 
 . . . But it's not very interesting work. I have to keep 
 the petty cash, and get dockets for everything I pay out. 
 You'd have laughed the other day. I got a docket for 
 a penny — 'Cheese to tempt mice into the dustbin.' We've 
 got a way of catching them — a plank run up against an 
 empty dustbin, and cheese in the bin. They can't get out. 
 We get five or six in a morning." 
 
 "Horrid! And do you kill them?" 
 
 "Oh yes." He smiled in a manly way, flattered by 
 her squeamishness. But he refrained from details, to 
 Priscilla's relief. 
 
 She presently tried a diflferent kind of subject, having, 
 as it appeared, exhausted his office. 
 
 "Stephen and I want you often to come here. You 
 will, won't you?" 
 
 He grinned and faintly flushed before answering like 
 a nice boy : 
 
 "H you'll have me." It did make his eyes sparkle, as 
 a compliment would have done. 
 
 "Of course. We thought, if you would come and live 
 in Hampstead. Or do you feel you must stay with your 
 father?" 
 
 "Oh no!" said Roy promptly. "Don't want to stay 
 with him. No, I'd rather get away, now Dolphy and 
 Steve are gone." She shook her head at the knowledge 
 that none of the three children loved their father. To 
 her it was something hardly conceivable. She loved both 
 of her parents so warmly that the Moores seemed almost 
 callous in that relation. Yet she knew that the two elder 
 ones were not callous, and that there must be something 
 to make them so uniformly unfriendly to the old man. 
 
 "You've seen Dorothy?" He said, "Once or twice," 
 and that he'd been to Totteridge, but then he added, with 
 great ingenuousness : 
 
 "But I didn't much like going there. The maid was 
 so stiff and starchy, and I felt I didn't 'belong' there.
 
 222 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 As though I was messing everything. And young Dolphy 
 was in a state in case I broke anything or carried nm4 
 on my boots. I'm sorry ... I forgot it was your house. 
 You know I can't help thinking how funny it is . . . 
 well . . . not funny, but strange — your marrying 
 Stephen. Not a bit what I should have thought. Really, 
 it's not!" 
 
 "But you're very fond of Stephen, I'm sure." Priscilla 
 was just a trifle nettled. She could never see any need 
 for the amazement which several of her own friends, by 
 more indirect means, and with less candour, had 
 expressed. 
 
 "Oh, I suppose so," he hesitatingly recorded. 
 
 "Roy!" Her exclamation made him laugh. "That's 
 most awfully lukewarm." 
 
 It puzzled her. She could not understand it. Why 
 shouldn't a brother praise frankly, and frankly speak of 
 his deep affection? She was unwittingly walking upon 
 a volcano. She did not guess what she was doing; yet 
 her pressure upon that question was precipitating a 
 catastrophe. 
 
 "Oh, I like him well enough," Roy assured her. "I 
 mean to say, he's not a fellow to go into ecstasies over. 
 Not the sort of chap. He's so quiet. Of course," he 
 began to smile with a sort of laboured archness, "it's 
 different with you. You'd naturally think he was perfect. 
 But you see I know he's not." 
 
 "I think you're horribly unkind," protested Priscilla, 
 laughing, unconsciously relieved by his ingenuous atti- 
 tude. 
 
 Her protest seemed to go to his head like wine. 
 
 "You see I know," he persisted. "That's what Tom 
 Harrington — that's my friend — was saying. He said 
 that Stephen being so quiet put you ofT. . . ." 
 
 "Well, of course if you make up your mind beforehand 
 about anybody it's sure to turn out wrong. You'd be
 
 VISITORS AT THE COTTAGE 223 
 
 surprised how mistaken I was about Dorothy. Before I 
 saw her I thought of her as a tall thin girl with a pale 
 face — very serious." 
 
 "I say," blundered Roy. "About what I said. Of 
 course I'd back up old Stephen in anything. He's a bit 
 stiff; but he's been awfully good to me. I wasn't saying 
 anything against him. I think he's a fine chap. But what 
 the old man says, you see . . ." 
 
 Roy paused, and looked over at the door, because he 
 had heard Stephen's returning footsteps. 
 
 "You oughtn't to mind that," said Priscilla. "When 
 you know Stephen for yourself." 
 
 "Yes, I know. . . . But the old man's been telling 
 me. . . . Ssh!" 
 
 Stephen came into the room, hearing involuntarily 
 Roy's last speech. 
 
 "What's the old man been telling you?" he asked, in 
 a strange voice. 
 
 Roy looked at him for quite a perceptible space, strug- 
 gling between speech and silence. His cheeks flushed 
 up, and his eyes glittered. He was the picture of 
 awkwardness. 
 
 "About . . . about you and Minnie Bayley," he 
 blurted out. "You wanted to know." 
 
 Stephen smiled. Priscilla looked quickly at him. Roy 
 sheepishly hung his head. Not one of them spoke for 
 a moment. Then Stephen went to his bookshelves 
 between the fireplace and the inner wall, and took out 
 a book. It seemed to Priscilla that he was rather pale. 
 
 After the disconcerting pause Stephen replaced the 
 book he had casually examined, and stepped round so 
 that he stood between the others and the window. 
 
 "It's getting dark," he said. "Horrible to think of
 
 224 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 the nights lengthening." Abruptly he continued : "By 
 the way, Priscilla, it's a curious thing that the man next 
 door is Skeffington. You remember that Badoureau said 
 he lived at Hampstead." 
 
 "How strange !" Priscilla tried to shake off the effect 
 of that silence. "How did you hear?" 
 
 "As I was going out this morning he was at the gate. 
 He said : 'Oh, you're Moore.' It seems that David found 
 out and told him. They hadn't met for some time, and 
 Skeffington's recently moved here. He's promised to 
 
 come m one evenmg. 
 
 "Is he married ?" It occurred to Priscilla that the wife 
 of Skeffington might be a pleasant neighbour. Her hope, 
 however, was disappointed. 
 
 "Bachelor. Pie says his place is a pigsty, and that he 
 envies us. I shouldn't imagine he was over-scrupulous 
 in talk. These novelists never are. They'll tell you any- 
 thing about themselves just to see how you take it. It's 
 part of their vanity." 
 
 "How cynical you are! You must have noticed that, 
 Roy." 
 
 Roy flushed up again. He clambered after her mood, 
 pleased at being noticed and referred to. 
 
 "Oh yes," he said, breathlessly. "Frightfully cynical, 
 is old Steve. Doesn't see any good in anybody. Makes 
 you wonder if he sees any good in himself." 
 
 "Do you read Skeffington's books? Have you read 
 any?" 
 
 "Not me. I've got no time for reading. No : what 
 I go in for is comic songs." 
 
 "Hallo!" cried Stephen. "That's something new, 
 isn't it?" 
 
 Roy stammcyred at being caught in some strange and 
 damaging admission about himself. 
 
 "Well, rather new," he agreed. "I've been learning 
 a few. Tom's helping me. You can make money by
 
 VISITORS AT THE COTTAGE 225 
 
 singing them at smokers and masonics. Half a guinea 
 a time. It's not to be sneezed at. That's what the old 
 man says. . . .'' 
 
 "Oh, the old man !" said Stephen, in a dry tone that 
 cut across Roy's confidences like the cruel lash of a 
 malicious whip. Roy flinched and stopped dead. 
 
 The old man, thought Priscilla. How she was begin- 
 ning to dread those words. They always seemed to carry 
 a significance out of all proportion to their sound. It was 
 not only that their familiarity held a crudely contemptu- 
 ous note, though she was not aware of that. The words 
 meant more than a lack of love : they could be so uttered 
 as to contain all the hostilities of the human voice. They 
 were words that stung Stephen into brooding quiet. She 
 had heard them spoken by the old man's three children, 
 never with an affection or as any form of endearment, 
 always with a recognition of some unpleasant power. The 
 old man. The thought of him made her dimly uneasy, 
 unhappy.
 
 CHAPTER XIII: CONFIDENCES 
 
 AFTER Roy had gone, Priscilla sat quietly while 
 Stephen wrote. She never knew what he was 
 writing, unless by accident, for he never talked of his 
 work and it was generally posted immediately upon com- 
 pletion. Indeed, she had seen one article on the South 
 Downs in a weekly review and, upon remarking that it 
 was interesting and that it "might almost have been writ- 
 ten by" Stephen, had learned with mingled pride and 
 hurtness that it actually was his. She couldn't understand 
 why he should refrain from telling her, when she was 
 really so much interested. She guessed that it was less 
 secretiveness than habitual silence that made him thus 
 uncommunicative; but she longed that he should as 
 lavishly share his confidence as she was ready to share 
 hers. That was it. She felt like a child who goes to kiss 
 a constrained visitor and is repulsed, or perhaps like any 
 cordial person chilled by a nature less expansive. She 
 had already felt that chill more than once — the secret 
 armour that he wore about his heart had already made 
 her feel like a rebuffed child. Yet her love was as 
 constant and her hope as keen. She knew that within 
 its armour his heart beat warmly. One day there would 
 be no armour. 
 
 Priscilla, although mindful of Stephen's work, wanted 
 very much to speak about Roy. It would have done her 
 good if she could have said — as she wanted to say : "What 
 a funny boy Roy is. And whatever did he mean about 
 Minnie Bayley? And who is she?" At first she looked 
 at him occasionally with his head bent low, thinking that 
 the busy pen would stop and the head be raised. Then 
 the words had dried upon her lips, and she had felt a 
 
 226
 
 CONFIDENCES 227 
 
 funny faint choking feeling — a sort of sleepiness — and 
 she had not said the words. That curious baulking had 
 surprised her. She had tried to head herself back. The 
 difficulty made her think of all sorts of ways of intro- 
 ducing the subject. Once she thought she really must 
 speak; but no sound had come. It was very strange. 
 Why on earth shouldn't she ask? How silly she was 
 getting. She would say : "Stephen : sorry to interrupt ; 
 but who is Minnie Bayley?" Then she felt that she could 
 never say it naturally, that after all this unwelcome con- 
 straint her voice would tremble, or would sound dry or 
 serious or even suspicious. It was her chief dread that 
 when she asked the question she might seem to give it a 
 solemn turn. It was only curiosity, she assured herself. 
 There was no reason why she should know or want to 
 know about any particular person. Why shoiildn't she 
 ask? It wasn't as though Stephen was ever rude to her. 
 She wasn't afraid ; but one thing she had learnt about men 
 was that they did not like women's anxiety about them 
 unless it was flattering. She knew that if her voice 
 quivered it would irritate Stephen. On any really serious 
 occasion, uncertainty of tone would bring him at once to 
 her side, loyal and eager to be her champion. But this 
 was a triviality. It was nothing, except that for some 
 unaccountable reason the idea of asking the question had 
 made her self-conscious. "I'm tired," she thought. "But 
 I wish he would tell me about her. I wonder who she is. 
 Roy spoke in such a peculiar way. Stephen will tell me, 
 of course. There's nothing to tell. Only I'm curious. 
 That's all that's the matter. I might say: 'Don't think 
 me horrible, Stephen, but I'm simply dying to know what 
 you know about Minnie Bayley.' Or : 'It's a curious 
 thing I can't get that name out of my head — the girl 
 Roy . . .'Or: 'What was that name Roy mentioned?' " 
 No! that wouldn't be a candid way of beginning, because 
 she knew the name. She would have to say: "Minnie
 
 228 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 Bayley : explain !" Or : "Was what the old man said 
 about you not very nice, Stephen?" There were innu- 
 merable ways in which she could raise the question; yet 
 she had now thought about it so much, in such a little 
 time, that she seemed to have been worrying for hours, 
 and the moment had gone by for any simple, nat- 
 ural inquiry. That did not prevent the name of Minnie 
 Bayley from echoing through her thoughts, and con- 
 stantly returning, even when she thought of other 
 things. It kept coming throbbing through, like incipient 
 toothache, that sometimes faintly, as it were, tries the 
 tooth like a cautious skater before it ventures into the 
 open. 
 
 Restlessly, Priscilla got up from the chair and took a 
 book, the pages of which she listlessly turned. She felt 
 quite miserable with the effort not to be silly. Stephen, 
 hearing her movement, turned his head, and laid down 
 the pen. 
 
 "Are you tired, dear?" he asked. "It's too bad that 
 I should be working." 
 
 He came across to her, and sat down upon the floor 
 by her side, taking her hand lightly for an instant. But 
 she thought he did not look at her. Priscilla loved to see 
 his face quite close, though the lines in it hurt her. 
 
 "No, no. I'm not tired," she made answer, trying her 
 voice to see if it were normal, and finding it rather flat 
 and hard. "What is it you're doing?" 
 
 "Well, I'm trying to do the first of a series of 'Walks 
 in London' — a sort of mixture of antiquarian and pedes- 
 trian — mostly pedestrian, I'm afraid — talk about different 
 districts. I've been doing Islington. I shall do King's 
 Cross and Hampstead and Chiswick, and all sorts of 
 places. I thought I might make something by them, if 
 I could get some taken as a series." 
 
 "Good idea!" She was painfully anxious to get over 
 her hesitating state. He continued, gratified :
 
 CONFIDENCES 229 
 
 "And then perhaps a book. Illustrated with old plans 
 and prints. But I must ask David." 
 
 "Do we want money so badly, Steve ?" 
 
 He drew his feet up and clasped his hands round his 
 knees. 
 
 "Rather badly, dear. I've been going into things, and 
 I find that I haven't been averaging much more than 
 three pounds a week for the last month. I must make 
 a minimum of five pounds a week. It can't otherwise be 
 done, with what . . . the . . ." He stopped suddenly, 
 and Priscilla guessed that he was unable to refer to his 
 liability to the old man. 
 
 Here was her opportunity, you would think ? But no ! 
 She was now concerned with their financial position. All 
 her nervousness, it seemed, had run suddenly to cow- 
 ardice. She felt merely and inexplicably abject before 
 that factor, so new, and hitherto in her life so unimpor- 
 tant, which now dominated everything. 
 
 "Am I extravagant, Stephen?" It was the first wistful 
 thought of inexperience. 
 
 "My dear ! You haven't had a chance to be. Of course 
 not. You see I made a good deal in the winter and the 
 spring. I did a great deal, and it paid me well — particu- 
 larly those articles in the New Monthly. But after all 
 I'm principally a journalist, and that means that money's 
 not as certain as it might be, or as regular. I've got 
 The Norm {ioT as long as Kempison runs it as a hobby), 
 and that's a steady two guineas, with often a bit more; 
 but the two other papers have been erratic. I think they're 
 nervous of me. And finally old Subbage hasn't had much 
 hack-work for me. It's quite all right; only I'm always 
 nervy about money. When you've been very poor you're 
 always inclined to be morbid about it." 
 
 She nodded. She remembered his scruples about their 
 marriage. 
 
 "Stephen, you never feel sorry. ... I mean, about
 
 230 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 us?" she whispered. "You're not anxious?" She knew 
 it was absurd to ask such a thing. "I feel I should be 
 to blame if you got wretched. Do try and tell me if 
 you're worried, my dearest. . . ." 
 
 At first he did not trouble to answer her in so many 
 words, but only kissed her slender hand as it lay so 
 temptingly near. She slipped her arm round his neck 
 so that her hand rested gently upon his shoulder and his 
 head against her, 
 
 "As long as you're happy," he said, after a moment of 
 still silence, "I'm not worried about anything. You've 
 given me the first happiness I've ever had, and I've got 
 less to worry about than I've ever had." 
 
 She was struck by the words. 
 
 "Less?" she asked, delightedly. "Really? How 
 beautiful." 
 
 "I only want you to be happy." 
 
 "But I amr She kissed him in a sort of glee. "You 
 see, Stephen ... if you'll excuse me for saying it . . . 
 you don't change much. I can't very well tell if you're 
 worried or rollicking." They both laughed at such a 
 word. "I can't imagine you . . . See, when you look 
 at me I expect to see — perhaps a radiant light on your 
 face . . . transfiguring . . . like one gets in books. And 
 I sort of feel that really you're thinking about Guild 
 Socialism or next week's rent. That makes me wish you 
 talked more about yourself." 
 
 "But, my dear! It seems to me that we spend our 
 days in talking about me. Never about you. I sometimes 
 shut up from the sheer dread of boring you to death. I 
 shouldn't like to leave off one time and find you stiff and 
 cold with boredom." 
 
 "You do talk a lot . . . about what you are, and think, 
 or have done. But never about this minute. Never 
 about . . . you and me. You don't often get rapturous. 
 No, dear. I don't want you to; but sometimes I think
 
 CONFIDENCES 231 
 
 I'd like to be more inside your mind. You've told me 
 about your series of articles : I wish you'd tell me about, 
 Stephen, the . . . Oh, it's no good. I seem to be 
 grumbling, when I'm not. . . ." 
 
 "Should I tell you what I'm going to do, do you mean ?" 
 
 "Sometimes . . . and sometimes remember I'm a girl, 
 Steve." 
 
 There was no need for that reminder, as she knew. 
 She would not have said it if she had not at that precise 
 moment remembered Minnie Bayley. She was opening 
 her mouth to say, "and I'm very curious," when Stephen, 
 unconsciously turning the conversation away from its 
 climax, reverted to his plans, about which he knew she 
 liked to hear. 
 
 "If I could write a book of some sort I should do well. 
 You can write as many reviews and essays and articles as 
 you like, but if you haven't published a book you can get 
 only a little private reputation. But if I wrote a book it 
 would take a tremendous time, and have to be a good 
 one." 
 
 "Southey?" she asked, remembering in a flash her 
 father's suggestion. 
 
 "Nobody much wants it unless your father does such 
 a book. Should I do one, do you think, on Shakespeare ? 
 A real dressing-down ? Telling the truth about him ?" 
 
 "Oh, be careful, dear," pleaded Priscilla. "Not 
 Shakespeare! He's such a fetish!" 
 
 "Very good subject," he warned her, and would have 
 said more but that in his turn he was interrupted. 
 
 At the front door there was a little tapping. 
 
 ii 
 
 The one who tapped was a rather slim man with a 
 deep voice. 
 
 "Skeffington," he said, affirmatively. "I promised to 
 look in. Am I in the way?"
 
 232 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 Stephen shook his hand, which was very skinny, and 
 ushered him into the room. Here the neighbour, who 
 looked about rather hke a bird from behind his pince-nez, 
 greeted Priscilla with a smiHngness that greatly pleased 
 her. In one minute, it was clear, Skeffington made 
 himself at home. 
 
 "First," he said, "before I forget. Have you got any 
 oil? To spare? Thank you very much. 1 could run 
 down to the shop; but you get so oily in carrying a can 
 about. If there's one thing I dislike it is getting my hands 
 oily. I'm a decadent, you see; and the thing a decadent 
 dislikes above all others is grease." 
 
 "If that's the test," Priscilla said quickly, "I'm afraid 
 we're decadents too." 
 
 "You probably like it in food." 
 
 "No." 
 
 "How splendid ! I'm glad we are neighbours. I 
 remember the disgust I felt the first time I read that 
 George Gissing loved everything drenched in fat. I'm 
 supposed to be a disciple of Gissing's; but that is only 
 because we're both urban novelists, and any stick's good 
 enough to beat a dog with when one's out for sapience." 
 
 "You're rather a chatterbox !" thought Priscilla, look- 
 ing at the man's sandy beard and his strong teeth, which 
 showed a good deal as he spoke. "But inoffensive." 
 
 "I hope you don't mind my coming in unceremoniously. 
 I want the oil, but I'd intended to come, in any case, 
 because I wanted to meet you. A man you know — one 
 Hilary Badoureau — writes to me that when he discovers 
 your address, which he seems to have been too flurried 
 to remember, he's going to have the satisfaction of 
 introducing me ... to you, Mrs. Moore. So as I have 
 scraped acquaintance with your husband, I thought I'd 
 write back proudly and say there was already friendship 
 between us." 
 
 "Be sure to do so !" Priscilla told him, laughing. "But
 
 CONFIDENCES 233 
 
 I can't understand why you seem to have thought it 
 necessary to introduce yourself to us." 
 
 "And of course I know your brother. He's my 
 wTetched pubHsher. But he's my friend as well, curiously 
 enough." 
 
 The stranger sat and looked from one to the other with 
 an ingratiating smile, using his little hands to punctuate 
 his remarks, which perhaps he would not have done but 
 for their smallness. His hair was short and thin, his eyes 
 clear but rather almond-shaped, his forehead low and 
 solid but receding and looking higher than it was owing 
 to the loss of front hair. The effect of this and of a 
 broad aquiline nose was to give the head in some aspects 
 a bird-like air, as Hilary had indicated. All his move- 
 ments were nervous but not ungraceful, and while he 
 was clearly a vain man he was not vain in a sombre 
 manner, and so was forgiven for his vice. His voice 
 was low and musical, and his laugh frequent. Stephen 
 and Priscilla both liked him, the one because she liked 
 all people who were cheerful and unafifected, the other 
 because, while he did not altogether follow Skeffington's 
 gratuitous self-explications, he liked the man's work. It 
 was about such a life as he himself had lived, and he was 
 prepared to find that Skeffington, however careless he 
 seemed, was at heart very sober and on the whole candid. 
 A claimant for the martyr's crown. 
 
 "And now," said Skeffington, imperturbably continuing 
 his talk, as they seemed to be waiting for him to do so, 
 "I will borrow the oil if you'll let me, and leave Moore 
 to his work. I didn't realize that he'd be writing." 
 
 "I wasn't." 
 
 "Is the pen and paper there for mere swank? I'll 
 come in again earlier one evening if I may? Perhaps 
 I might even bring Badoureau? Or Evandine? That 
 would be very kind of you. Oh, by the way! I was 
 going to tell you. I don't know if either of you has been
 
 234 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 doing wrong recently?" He looked from Stephen to 
 Priscilla, and back again, with an assumed air of 
 gravity. 
 
 "I don't knoiv of anything," said Priscilla, hesitatingly. 
 
 "Not recently," answered Stephen, with a dry smile. 
 
 "It's very curious. I've been out in my front garden, 
 where I'm waging a warfare against the green fly on my 
 roses; and as you know a novelist always sleeps with 
 one eye open " 
 
 "Why is that?" interrupted Priscilla. 
 
 "Oh, because he can't be in two places at once," replied 
 Skefifington, "like a bird. Well — that interferes with my 
 narrative. It's a digression, and according to the news- 
 papers digressions in a modern book are a sort of rubbish. 
 However. While I was dealing out justice to the green 
 fly and to those disgusting things which I believe are 
 called cuckoo-spit ... I became aware . . ." His voice 
 declined to a note of mystery. "I became aware that 
 visitors to The Grove, come no doubt to see the house of 
 the lamented Du Maurier, had a spy, or watcher by the 
 threshold. ... In fact, I was not alone. . . ." 
 
 "You don't mean Romeo?" inquired Priscilla, with 
 a pang. 
 
 "Romeo?" 
 
 "Our little cat." 
 
 "No — not Romeo. But a most wonderfully attractive 
 spy or detective or dogger of footsteps. I can only 
 suppose he was that, because when I poked my head 
 over the hedge he looked chagrined and departed. Now, 
 don't you think that's remarkable? I should lock up 
 your silver!" 
 
 "How alarming!" said Priscilla. "Where was he?" 
 
 "Up and down here . . . standing at the end cottage 
 . . . always stealing glances, for he could steal nothing 
 else, at this house. I thought it only right to tell 
 you."
 
 CONFIDENCES 235 
 
 Stephen appeared much interested. 
 
 "A shabby man?" he asked. 
 
 "On the contrary. Dressed to the nines. 
 
 "Young or old?' 
 
 "Well-preserved old. He looked something like the 
 Silver King . . . grey-haired, but of the old actor type. 
 ... In a blue serge suit, with a spotted necktie and a 
 delightful spotted handkerchief emerging from an outer 
 pocket. I noticed all this particularly because I'm a 
 novelist, and novelists, you are aware, see everything. 
 Novelists of my kind, sedulously collecting our meticulous 
 detail, are the merest walking spy-glasses." 
 
 During this speech, after the very beginning, the 
 Moores had paid little attention to what was being said. 
 Stephen was biting his lip and smiling with a look of 
 weariness; and Priscilla was frowning, puzzled. What 
 did it mean? What was the sense of it? First Roy, then 
 the name of the mysterious girl or woman, and finally 
 this story of a watcher easily recognizable to both of 
 them. 
 
 "Now," said Skeffington, "I see I've given you a 
 tiresome quarter of an hour! I see you recognize the 
 old man. And Mrs. Moore is going to let me rummage 
 for my oil." 
 
 "Yes," said Stephen, with a quick glance at Priscilla 
 and a most sinister inflexion of his voice. "You're quite 
 right. I do recognize the old man." 
 
 Ill 
 
 After Skeffington had gone, Priscilla said : 
 "Stephen : the old man is evidently being a nuisance 
 to you. It's getting on my nerves. Can't you tell me 
 what it's all about?" Then she went on, with her heart 
 suddenly beating a trifle faster : "Is it this Minnie Bayley 
 that Roy spoke about?"
 
 236 THE CHASTE WH^E 
 
 Stephen gave her no encouragement to proceed further. 
 He sat down again at the table, and examined his pen. 
 
 ''Yes," he said. "The old man's past a joke. I must 
 find a means of stopping him, or he'll be spoiling our 
 lives. There's no question of it. Now, dear, I must 
 just try and think what to do about the old man, and 
 then I must tell you all about it." 
 
 "You'll tell me all about " She broke off, not 
 
 wishing to show her joy. 
 
 "Yes. About Minnie Bayley," said Stephen, patiently, 
 and then sat quiet for a few minutes. Presently he took 
 a sheet of notepaper from their escritoire and wrote a 
 very short note. This he sealed and stamped. 
 
 And all this time Priscilla sat in her chair watching him 
 at his task. When she saw him thus, and with her mind 
 entirely at rest, she allowed her memory to call up the 
 Stephen of an earlier time — a Stephen more abrupt than 
 this one, dogged, more assertive, uncompromising. There 
 was no doubt that this later Stephen was different. It 
 was matter for thought that he should have changed, and 
 matter also for speculation. She knew nothing of his 
 life since their parting, save that he had been working 
 hard and without hope. He had told her that during 
 the whole time of their estrangement he had been practi- 
 cally in despair, and that even his ambition had been 
 blunted. Instead of planning futures he had been scan- 
 ning pasts; instead of hopes he had had regrets. Well, 
 that, she knew, was over now : his hope, although rarely 
 expressed, was deeper (if less ardent and sanguine) than 
 her own. She could therefore only imagine what must 
 have been his state during all the months when he had 
 been dead to her. Priscilla knew that he must have gone 
 about his work — as she had gone about her pastime — 
 with no outward sign of grief; but she knew that the 
 changes so clearly observable as she sat looking at him 
 this evening had been graven in that black time so deeply
 
 CONFIDENCES 237 
 
 that they would never be erased. All that her mother 
 had read in his face, of pride, of pain, and of endurance, 
 was as apparent to Priscilla. She knew very much of 
 Stephen's nature, although she was still bewildered by 
 it. She knew, as women often seem to know things, 
 implicitly. She could not have expressed her knowledge ; 
 but she could with complete authority have criticized any 
 analysis that might have been made. She could not have 
 said, "Thus and thus is my husband" (it would not have 
 occurred to her to say it) ; but if one had said to her, 
 "Thus and thus your husband must be," Priscilla's 
 reception of that theme would have been unerringly just, 
 in spite of her love. 
 
 She wondered about Stephen incessantly. Her own 
 nature did not so greatly interest her, excepting as it 
 answered or did not answer to Stephen's need. He was 
 her boy ; she no longer had any hope that was not bound 
 up with him. She hoped for a baby because it would be 
 also his baby. She hoped for his success, his recognition, 
 because it seemed to her that that must be what he was 
 in the world for. She could not think he was only in the 
 world to make her happy. There must, with Stephen, 
 be some other end. His recognition was to her more 
 important than any worldly success. To Priscilla Stephen 
 was definitely the writer of all those whom she knew who 
 most deserved to be acknowledged as a personal talent. 
 He was not simply a dilettante, not a poseur, not a 
 mediocrity, not a snob, not a mandarin, not a toady, not 
 a busybody ; and she thought that a journalistic critic 
 who was none of these things deserved well of those who 
 prized literature as one of the greatest things in life. 
 
 But above all she loved him. He was her lover. If 
 he had been as poor in talent as he was poor in pocket 
 she could still have thought him the one man ; although 
 that is too glaring a hypothesis to urge, because Stephen's 
 talent was to her so much involved in the personality she
 
 238 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 loved. To say that we should love a man even though 
 he lacked the quality we recognize as most specifically 
 his, is to say that we love some husk, and not the man. 
 But with Priscilla it may be said that she meant that if 
 Stephen had been no writer (as Nanki Poo was "no 
 musician"), but, thinking as he did, had followed some 
 other occupation, she would still have loved him. Her 
 desire for his recognition was thus not a form of vanity 
 or what is called snobbery, but a religious desire that right 
 should triumph. 
 
 When Priscilla thought how much she loved Stephen 
 her eyes half closed and a flush stole into her cheeks. In 
 delicious reverie she recalled a thousand things that she 
 would always remember, a thousand glances, speeches, 
 actions, belonging to herself and Stephen alone, unclaim- 
 able by anybody else in the world, because she and Stephen 
 alone understood them and alone of all others would 
 never forget them. She remembered their first meeting, 
 other meetings, their quarrel, word for word the letters 
 they had exchanged, her slow, unbelieving sorrow that 
 he never came, settling into a dim bewildered acquiescence 
 in the passing of time but never acceptance of the fact 
 that they were severed for ever. She remembered the 
 scene at the dinner-table over Stephen's review of her 
 father's book, the sight of his acceptance of David's 
 invitation, their meeting . . . and their talk. She had 
 long given tip blushing at the memory of her part in the 
 talk, which so definitely had led to his confession. She 
 now only rejoiced in it, with a secret abandonment to 
 pride. She remembered the moment of his meeting with 
 Hilary on that same afternoon and again when he brought 
 Dorothy to Totteridge ; and the time when she and her 
 mother and David had gone to tea at Islington — when 
 Stephen had given her the ring; and many meetings 
 thereafter during their engagement. As she remembered 
 her wedding day her thoughts seemed to beat unquestion-
 
 CONFIDENCES 239 
 
 ingly a slower measure, as though there was too much to 
 be remembered at any but a slow pace which allowed of 
 disentanglement; for the memories of that thrilling day 
 were crowded so thickly as to be almost painful in their 
 number and intensity. She could remember Biddy awak- 
 ing her by drawing back the curtains to admit the warm 
 sun, and Biddy saying in a prim voice that began to 
 tremble and then became quite natural and loud, some- 
 thing to the effect that it was a lovely day "for it," and 
 that she hoped . . . And Priscilla went on remembering 
 her mother's coming, and Dorothy , . , And then all 
 the people looking in on the way to church, and the little 
 breathless drive there. . . . The recollection made her 
 breathe faster. She could see again, with such moving 
 reality that the tears started, the little bungalow upon 
 the down, so lovely in its solitude, and so buried among 
 the beautiful down and valley land and the barely 
 chequered green of the magic vistas. . . . 
 
 While Priscilla thought thus of their past days Stephen 
 was bent upon their future. He had written the letter 
 that was to do so much. His resolve was clearly taken. 
 With his back to Priscilla he stood by the table with the 
 letter in his hand, and as he thought he was idly twisting 
 the letter between his finger and thumb so that the 
 corners nicked successively upon the bare table. At last 
 he turned towards Priscilla. He was very pale indeed. 
 Some emotion seemed to have changed his face entirely, 
 so that his eyes looked like dying lights in far-sunken 
 sockets, and so that his cheeks were thin and ashen. As 
 she saw the change Priscilla was so shocked that instinc- 
 tively she went towards him, stretching out loving arms. 
 But Stephen only kissed her very quietly, and bade her 
 wait until he had posted the letter. 
 
 He was away from the house for only two or three 
 minutes ; and when he came back he methodically took 
 off his boots and put on his slippers, just as he might have
 
 240 THE CHASTE WD^E 
 
 done upon returning from an ordinary journey to town. 
 Then he took a httle arm-chair opposite to her. Priscilla 
 shpped from her own chair and brought a hassock to his 
 side, so that she sat close beside him, with her arm upon 
 his knees and his arm round her shoulders. 
 
 "Now I'll tell you about Minnie Bayley," he said, in 
 a very low voice.
 
 CHAPTER XIV: STEPHEN'S NARRATIVE 
 
 FOR a few minutes they sat together, looking at the 
 small Japanese screen that hid the bars of the empty- 
 grate, and the faint glow of the lamplight sought and 
 revealed the gold in Priscilla's hair, and threw the books 
 beside the fireplace into a pleasant shadow of dusky gilt 
 and impalpable colour. Their heads were very near, and 
 Stephen could feel Priscilla's heart beating against his 
 knee. With his left hand he had taken her hand, so lightly 
 that she scarcely felt his touch, and only was aware of 
 it for the stronger pulsing of the blood in his finger-tips. 
 In that little silence she turned her face to him, 
 
 "I was only curious, Stephen. ... If it's not some- 
 thing that hurts you . . ." she said, in a cjuick eager 
 murmur. "You see, dear, you've only to say you'd rather 
 not. . . . It's so very nice here, isn't it, when we're quite 
 alone, you and I. I think I'm getting just a little fright- 
 ened because you looked so strange." She leant back, so 
 that she might look up into his face and offer her lips 
 for his kiss. 
 
 It was then that Stephen, having decided how he would 
 begin his story, pressed her hand to show that he was 
 ready. 
 
 "Though it's an uncomfortable story, my dear," he 
 said, "and one that would have been better told long ago. 
 I'll begin right at the beginning as nearly as I can. Well, 
 you remember that I've told you all about the way we 
 lived in those two upper floors in Islington. The old man 
 had one room to himself, and Dorothy another, and Roy 
 and I shared the third. I just want to remind you of 
 that, so that you can see that we had the whole of the 
 
 241
 
 242 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 top of the house. On the floor below us there Hved a 
 commercial traveller named Bayley." 
 
 Friscilla gave a start. He felt her arm jerk; but she 
 did not interrupt him. 
 
 "Vm speaking," he continued, "of a good time ago 
 now, you must remember. Getting on for four or five 
 years ago. Well, at that time I met your father between 
 Barnet and Elstree, and he took me home, and I met 
 you, I went on coming, went on seeing you, and somehow 
 it happened that we saw each other very often. But you 
 had a friend who lived in the neighbourhood, and I — 
 because I thought 1 recognized some things in her that 
 gave me a lot of anxiety for you — told you you oughtn't 
 to have anything to do with her. I was convinced that 
 she was one of those wretched girls. . . ." 
 
 "It's all right, Stephen," said Priscilla. "You were 
 quite right about Ivy. Quite right." 
 
 "But you didn't think so, and we had a great row. 
 You told me you never wanted to see me any more." 
 
 "Did I really say that? Oh, how beastly I must have 
 been !" She pressed her face against his for an instant. 
 "And yet you believed it. . . . Oh, Stephen!" 
 
 "I came away from Totteridge in a dreadful anger, 
 and all the way home I was still madly angry. Then I 
 began to cool, and to see that even if I'd been right in 
 fact I'd been wrong to quarrel with you. It seemed that 
 that was the worst sort of treachery to you, when I'd 
 meant to protect you. . . . And I hadn't been able really 
 to warn you because I hadn't liked to say to you what 
 I thought about her. I began to wonder how I could 
 apologize, how get back again, so that our friendship 
 should keep on. But something your father had said to 
 me — something that wasn't meant to apply to me at all, 
 of course — made me think about the kind of life I 
 belonged to and the kind of life you had led. I began 
 to ask why it was that I felt so deeply all that you'd said.
 
 STEPHEN'S NARRATIVE 243 
 
 Because you did rather rake my character in your tem- 
 pest. ... I suddenly saw that I'd been slipping into love 
 with you, so that the thought of never seeing you again 
 was an agony. I began to write all sorts of letters to 
 you, begging you to forgive, to take me back — on any 
 terms; but at that time the old man was doing rather 
 well, and that meant that he was drinking a great deal, 
 and never coming home sober. . . ." 
 
 "Poor Stephen !" 
 
 "I'd never told you about him. Never told your 
 mother and father. I think I almost let them think I 
 was alone in the world. I don't want to get mixed here ; 
 but to show you the three things. There was my quarrel 
 with you — which was very bitter " 
 
 "But not on your side, Stephen. I can't remember a 
 word of yours that rankles." 
 
 "No. I was only angry with you for being so loyal. 
 My anger was chiefly with myself for having been a fool ; 
 but my hatred, all that made the whole thing bitter, was 
 directed against Ivy. There was my quarrel with you, 
 there was the phrase your father had dropped (which I 
 construed, I believe unwarrantably, into a hint that I was 
 coming too often), and which certainly showed that he 
 was a little tired of having me with him. Finally, there 
 was the old man rolling in gorgeously drunk night after 
 night. I thought to myself that these three things were 
 all incompatible with my feelings. They Avere quite in- 
 compatible. They made the whole situation quite impos- 
 sible. Whatever love I might have for you could never 
 please your father. It didn't please him even so late as a 
 year ago. You seemed wholly to despise me. The old man 
 was making me despair. I think I really must have gone 
 mad at that time. I felt as though there was nothing to 
 be done, that everything, every possible outlook, was 
 misery. I don't want to exaggerate all this, but I want 
 to show you that I felt absolutely cut off from you. The
 
 244 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 more I thought of you the greater the agony. I told you 
 I wrote letters. But I tore them up, one after the other 
 — tore them up and I think burned up every hope I had 
 with the pieces. I used to stand watching them burn, and 
 used to go to bed and lie quite rigid to keep myself from 
 crying out and waking Roy, who was in the same bed. 
 And the knowledge soaked into me that I could never 
 come to Totteridge again — because I was horribly poor 
 and your father was far from poor, because my father 
 had degenerated into a wretched toper, because I was an 
 ignorant chap who hadn't even learned how to treat the 
 one he loved." 
 
 As the narration had proceeded, Stephen's voice had 
 grown drier and drier, until it was little above a whisper; 
 but Priscilla heard every word, and when he paused for 
 a moment it was only because his mouth seemed to be 
 wholly parched. 
 
 ii 
 
 "That's the beginning of the story, dear. It's a long 
 exordium ; but it was necessary so that you should under- 
 stand what follows. This is the real story. I told you 
 that the floor below us was occupied by a commercial 
 traveller, but I didn't tell you any more. This man, being 
 a drinker, struck: up — although he was much younger than 
 the old man — a sort of acquaintance with my father. 
 They used to meet when the man was in the City, at those 
 times when he was travelling in London — not as friends, 
 but in a sort of casual way. I suppose that, as the phrase 
 is, they 'used the same houses,' which means that they 
 went into the same public-house at the same times, and 
 saw each other there. This man Bayley was a perfect 
 rascal, and no doubt is to this minute, as he's still alive. 
 . . . He used shamefully to ill-treat Minnie, wdio was his 
 wife."
 
 STEPHEN'S NARRATIVE 245 
 
 "His wife!" cried Priscilla, growing pale. Then she 
 sighed, and her eyes closed. 
 
 "We used to hear him throwing things about on the 
 floor below, and she sometimes came upstairs to escape 
 from him. That was when I was working very late at 
 night, reading and trying to write, as you know I used 
 to. The others were all in bed, the old man perhaps out, 
 but always the children were in bed, and didn't hear the 
 noise clearly enough to wake them. One night I went 
 downstairs when it was extra bad, and threatened to beat 
 Bayley if he didn't leave off. When I went into the room 
 he was there, and she, in her nightdress, was lying on the 
 floor half stunned. So I knocked him down, and said I'd 
 call in the police if there was any more of it. Then I 
 helped Mrs. Bayley up and heard no more that night. 
 You mustn't suppose that this went on every night. He 
 was often away — what is called 'on journey' — and some- 
 times for a fortnight at a time she used' to be alone in 
 her rooms. Quite alone, you understand. I don't think 
 she knew anybody at all. I never heard her mention a 
 friend, and to this moment I don't know where she was 
 born and if she has any relatives living. Well, she often 
 came upstairs to our room when she was alone, to where 
 I was working, because she was very lonely; and she'd 
 sit with me and we'd talk about all sorts of things, but 
 mostly about my work and Dorothy and Roy, and what 
 she wished she could do. And in this way a sort of 
 friendship grew up between us. She was wretched, as 
 I was. She was older than I was ; but I think very little 
 older; and I don't know which of us was the more 
 wretched until we found that we could cheer each other 
 up like this. I used to advise her to leave Bayley; but 
 she could never bring herself to do that. I think if I'd 
 suggested — or been able to suggest — anything definite 
 she might have done it; but she didn't know what she 
 could do to earn a living if she left him. And then of
 
 246 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 course he was not very constantly at home, and wasn't 
 always in this particular brutal state. It's a curious thing 
 that with such men brutality alternates with a meaning- 
 less unreflecting generosity. When he had been away, 
 and even sometimes when he was in London, he would 
 bring her home little hampers of fish, or oysters ; or some- 
 times remnants of material that she could make dresses 
 from, as she was a clever dressmaker; or fruit and 
 flowers — always grapes during the winter, and when they 
 were to be had he'd bring in great loads of squashy 
 strawberries, running through the paper bags. He'd do 
 that sometimes when he was most drunk, and come in 
 crying with a kind of copious watery love for her, the 
 most disagreeable sight you can imagine, sentimental and 
 loathsome. . , , She'd then have to put him to bed, and 
 sometimes she'd sit up all night — just because she couldn't 
 go into the bedroom where he was. I was terribly sorry 
 for her, and the more sorry because I didn't seem able 
 to do anything to help her. She'd sometimes be crying 
 when she came up to me, and all I could ineptly say would 
 be, 'For goodness' sake, don't cry, Minnie,' and dab her 
 eyes with my handkerchief. There wasn't anything else, 
 you see, I could do. So that gradually we slipped into 
 a kind of wretched bewildering affection — poor enough, 
 but quite genuine, because we were both unhappy and 
 lonely. . . ." 
 
 "Stephen darling!" gasped Priscilla. "I can't . . . 
 can't bear any more. , . ." She was convulsively grip- 
 ping his hand while his dry voice went on, as if v/earily, 
 repeating the plain tale he had resolved to tell. 
 
 "You'd better let me finish, my dearest," he begged. 
 "You'll think perhaps I'm trying to make an elaborate 
 defence of myself ? I'm not trying to do that at all. I'm 
 only telling you exactly what happened. Well, you 
 remember that you wrote to me to beg my pardon for 
 the quarrel. ... I hate seeming to mix you up in this;
 
 STEPHEN'S NARRATIVE 247 
 
 but I'm bound to explain about that letter and my answer 
 to it, because it's all a part of that particular time. When 
 I got your letter I was nearly frantic. It was such a 
 friendly little letter and made me see you so clearly, 
 reminding me of all the happiness we'd had together. 
 You remember that I didn't answer it for several days. 
 That was because I was struggling with myself. I didn't 
 know, and couldn't think, what on earth to do. But I 
 thought that as I'd broken with you, as there had been 
 a definite break, it would mean only more and more pain 
 to go on seeing you — whether often or seldom — once I 
 had realized that I loved you and couldn't hope ever to 
 offer you anything that you could possibly accept or your 
 mother and father consider for a moment. I deliberately 
 abandoned you and myself. If I'd thought for a moment 
 that you loved me I couldn't have done it. I want you 
 to believe that because it is the strict truth. But I never 
 supposed it possible. Somehow when I thought of you 
 I always felt so entirely base, as though the ugly life I'd 
 had had somehow become ingrained in me as if it were 
 grime . . . while you were like some lovely little girl 
 that I could hardly bring myself to touch in case I might 
 soil you. I know it was morbid to think that; but you 
 see I was bound, living the isolated life I did, to be rather 
 morbid. But that wasn't the whole of it. You'd seemed 
 to me so always completely apart from any idea of senti- 
 mentality — so frank and friendly, that I couldn't think 
 you loved me. I thought you just rather reluctantly liked 
 me. I tried often to put a construction of love in my 
 memories of your manner, or what you had said; but I 
 never could convince myself. I always came back to the 
 certainty that any thought of love between us was quite 
 out of the question. So I wrote back at last, after I'd 
 painfully thought the whole thing through and through 
 until I was sick of thinking — what you must have tliought 
 a brutal letter — and said I thought I'd better not come.
 
 248 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 that I forgave, and begged forgiveness, but that T couldn't 
 come yet as I was so busy . . . meaning all the time 
 never to come back. 
 
 "And then 1 turned to Minnie Bayley. I used to go 
 down to her sitting-room last thing at night for supper 
 before going to bed, because she had a lire and I couldn't 
 afford to keep a fire in after the children went to bed, 
 even if we'd had one during the evening; because, 
 although I was making more money than I'd ever made 
 before, the old man made such inroads on it that I was 
 still obliged to be parsimonious. So I used to go down 
 to Minnie's sitting-room, and we used to sit by the fire 
 and have our supper together, often in the light of the 
 fire. And when we did that it was only natural that we 
 should seem to be quite alone in the house. Sometimes 
 we used to hear the old man going up the stairs, past our 
 closed door, rather unsteadily. . . . We used to listen 
 over our shoulders, and laugh with great whispered hush- 
 ing and warning, and keep very quiet, until we seemed 
 to become secret, as though we shared some deep secret, 
 and from that we grew almost furtive, as though we were 
 doing surreptitious wrong, and knew guiltily that we 
 were doing wrong. That used to make us laugh in 
 whispers, and we grew bolder. It drew us together — the 
 fact that we mustn't be heard or seen. . . . 
 
 "Priscilla ... I only stayed with her once, for all 
 this. But for that I could still feel quite wholly innocent 
 towards you, in spite of all my blundering; but I want 
 you to believe that it was never more than once. And 
 even so it was stupid and ridiculous in its occasion. . . . 
 She had suffered a great deal all one evening from tooth- 
 ache and was nearly mad. I'd done everything I knew ; 
 run out and bought chloric ether, and oil of cloves, and 
 put hot fomentations on her face. . . . We'd tried every- 
 thing we could think of, and she still cried with the pain 
 — cried in my arms. And then the pain suddenly went
 
 STEPHEN'S NARRATIVE 249 
 
 with two or three great throbs, and she said I had cured 
 her; and we began laughing together in our secret way, 
 shamefaced and . . . Dearest, I'm afraid you think I'm 
 htxuriating in the details. I can feel your hand quite 
 cold. I'm not luxuriating. But I really am defending 
 myself now, desperately." 
 
 "Oh, Stephen!" cried Priscilla, in a dreadful voice. 
 "Don't defend yourself !" 
 
 "Very well, dear. I'll simply tell you. After that — 
 you must remember that it happened years ago — I used 
 not to go downstairs for a time, because I felt guilty. I 
 expect I was simply a coward ; but at that time I thought 
 that with the temptation constantly there I was exercising 
 wonderful self-restraint in resisting it. The alternative 
 was to go away, take her to live with me, and desert the 
 children — Dorothy and Roy. I couldn't do that. So I 
 worked always upstairs, and had my supper alone. Then 
 of course Minnie suffered further from my behaviour, 
 from feeling that I didn't any longer care for her ; and she 
 began to think I'd been all the time a deliberate intriguer, 
 whereas she had only drifted into temptation because she 
 genuinely . . . liked me. I had to explain the whole 
 business ; and we agreed that we'd been unwise in doing 
 what so clearly in retrospect was shown to be leading 
 inevitably to our ruin. But we remained friends and 
 gradually slipped back into our old friendship, but without 
 the sentimental amorousness that we'd begun to hanker 
 after. She behaved very well indeed. You mustn't think 
 she's a weak woman or a bad lot : she's a real woman, as 
 I hope you'll one day care to see for yourself. Though 
 I don't any longer feel any least sort of liking for her. 
 ... It was then that I began really to admire her, 
 because she was so game. She accepted my weakness, 
 and pretended to read into it some manly virtue that I 
 never dreamt of claiming; and never showed, or allowed 
 me to see, any of the suffering that I'd caused her by
 
 250 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 my stupidity. I only guessed at it. So time went on, 
 and Bayley one day decided that as he'd got some other 
 thing in view he'd move away from Ishngton. Since then 
 I've seen Minnie twice — once at our flat in Ishngton, and 
 once at her new rooms somewhere over Stoke Newington 
 way, where I went to see her. The first time was on the 
 night I came to Totteridge again for the first time after 
 our quarrel ; and that was for only a few minutes in the 
 company of others. The second time was when I went 
 to tell her of our engagement. . . . 
 
 "And I think that's the whole story as it affects Minnie, 
 Priscilla." 
 
 iii 
 
 Priscilla was quite silent. She did not look up at him. 
 She might have been made of stone. 
 
 "As far as the old man is concerned, there is this to 
 tell. Before she came to the flat the time that I saw her, 
 Minnie sent me a note, saying : *You haven't been to see 
 me in my new flat. Do come,' or something to that 
 effect. I never got that letter. The old man took pos- 
 session of it and retains possession of it. Very likely 
 it pleased him to think he was becoming acquainted with 
 my affairs. He apparently has told Bayley, or more 
 probably has not told Bayley, of the contents of this 
 letter, which as far as I can tell is in no sense 
 incriminating; and he wrote to me while we were at 
 the bungalow " 
 
 "I remember," said Priscilla in a cold voice. Stephen 
 could feel her shivering within his arm. 
 
 "Saying that I must do something (of a pecuniary 
 nature) to avoid being cited as a co-respondent. Of 
 course such a thing is the merest blackmailing bluff, and 
 it's quite absolutely out of the question — absurdly im- 
 possible; but he may try to get money from your father 
 by threatening some unpleasant disclosure "
 
 <<1 
 
 STEPHEN'S NARRATI\^ 251 
 
 'Stephen: father mustn't hear of it!" 
 'I don't think the old man will tell him." 
 
 'He mustn't!" She was consumed with agitation at 
 such a thought. 
 
 "My dear. The old man only wants money. His desire 
 to injure me is only a secondary consideration. Or so I 
 think. He might injure me by going to your father with 
 wild threats; but your father isn't a fool, and is much 
 more of a man of the world than I am; so he wouldn't 
 be blackmailed. He would certainly, for your sake, dis- 
 like the whole thing, and he would think you had a right 
 to feel yourself injured; but to me as an individual, bear- 
 ing in mind the time that has passed, the extreme 
 unlikelihood of any such discovery being made and used 
 against me, he would quite as certainly not be severe, 
 because he would perfectly recognize the circumstances 
 and their factors. Besides, dear, the letter I've written 
 to the old man this evening will most likely stop the whole 
 thing as far as he's concerned. You're not to worry 
 about that. I'm quite able to deal with it. The only 
 thing for you is the fact, and I've now told you that quite 
 without reserve. The fact, and the way in which it may 
 affect your feelings for me. But there's one point I hope 
 you won't altogether leave out of account. There isn't 
 anything — any other thing in my whole life — that you 
 couldn't be quite sure of. A.part from this one thing — 
 which is fully four years old — I've done nothing that I 
 should be ashamed for you to discover by accident or for 
 yourself. What I've told you is the truth." 
 
 Priscilla withdrew her arm from his knee, her head 
 from his hand. She was as if dazed. 
 
 "Yes, Stephen," she said, in an unsteady voice, as 
 though she were trembling with cold. "I quite under- 
 stand. Not any more to-night. I couldn't — really 
 couldn't bear to talk to-night. I shall go to bed now. 
 . . . But I feel as though my heart were frozen up."
 
 252 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 She was going away from him when she suddenly 
 checked herself and came back, holding her face up like 
 a tired child for his good-night kiss. For a moment, 
 speechless, they stood embraced ; and then she was gone. 
 Stephen turned back and rested his head on his arms, 
 leaning against the mantelpiece. Both were coldly, dully 
 unhappy, as though day would not dawn on the morrow 
 — as though this were one of the dead moments in life 
 which, when they occur, seem to promise no ultimate 
 recompense. To both, such an estrangement was the 
 worst punishment that could with the greatest ingenuity 
 have been devised.
 
 CHAPTER XV: AFTERWARDS 
 
 THAT night Priscilla did not sleep at all. At first 
 she was too coldly unhappy to cry, and afterwards 
 she was too proud. Everything upon which she had 
 so confidently counted had failed her, and she was 
 bitterly alone. By an irony, the one person to whom she 
 could turn for love and sympathy was Stephen, who had 
 injured her. For a time she was deeply shocked by the 
 sense that the whole of her ungrudged gift to Stephen 
 had been sullied — that he himself had been soiled — which 
 made of marriage something that to him was less of a 
 sacred rite and more of a current experience to be taken 
 in his stride. It spoilt everything to think that he was 
 less innocent than she was herself. Upon that one belief 
 she had based so much of her joy. Then there followed 
 the understanding that equally shocked her confidence in 
 him — that he had been dealing with this matter, secretly 
 and unconfessed, since their marriage and even upon their 
 honeymoon. He had practised, from whatever motive, 
 but from a motive first of all that seemed to her to have 
 been fear, a wretched duplicity. Priscilla took Stephen's 
 story very hard. H he could deceive her, if she were only 
 one woman in his life, she felt she had nothing more to 
 say to him. It was as though one should find a love all 
 upon one side. She, undoubting, had come to him with 
 all her heart alive and fresh with trust : he became, in her 
 thoughts at this time, a sinister figure cynically taking 
 her innocence as so much virgin sport, dishonouring 
 her. ... 
 
 Very quietly, with an extreme stealth, she turned from 
 side to side, restless and incapable of resting. She could 
 not think of anything for the dumb pain that was at her 
 
 253
 
 254 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 heart. Her thought was only, "Oh, how could he! how 
 could he!" and all those other passionate knowledges 
 and reactions swept through her conscience unexpressed. 
 Did Stephen sleep? Could he sleep? Holding herself 
 very still she listened for his breathing as he lay so quietly 
 beside her. She could hear nothing. He must be sleep- 
 ing. He had told his story, without hesitation, without 
 any appeal for her kindness; and when that was done 
 and her happiness destroyed he could sleep as if there 
 had been nothing to interrupt their peace. How terrible ! 
 How impossible that he could understand the feelings he 
 had aroused in her. As she listened she thought she could 
 hear a deep, suppressed sigh; but then there was again 
 silence, and the dull ejaculations of her wounded heart 
 absorbed her. It was her hour of extremest pain, a pain 
 that racked her spirit as nothing else could ever do. The 
 feeling that she was betrayed, that she could not now 
 trust anybody in the world, was poignantly hers. When 
 she tried to steady her mind, to ask herself for some 
 calmer mood of charity, such a demand was brushed away 
 by the swift indignation, the horror, that thrilled her each 
 moment in fresh gusts of dismay. It was useless for 
 Priscilla to try to see coolly the causes or the consequences 
 of Stephen's silence and the newly told story. She hated 
 Stephen; because he had made their marriage an ugly 
 reality. They were not married. She didn't love him. 
 With that sort of cold anger she repelled the thought of 
 him. It was such pride that kept her from crying; and if 
 she had cried she must have turned blindly to Stephen 
 and found a miserable unstable relief in his arms. 
 
 So the night passed and the early morning came with 
 the blithe chirpmgs of the birds in their little garden. 
 She heard them before she knew that it was day, and 
 then she watched the pale cool light come gently through 
 the curtains and tint the walls. She knew that the dew 
 was still shaking the tender grass, and felt the slow
 
 AFTERWARDS ^55 
 
 beams of the rising sun growing warmer until all that 
 fresh chill of the morning had passed and the bright hot 
 day had already begun. It was a day, she felt, so clear, 
 so free from any cloud, as to make more wretched the 
 sorrow within doors. . . . And in thinking that, she 
 allowed her eyes to close again, and fell suddenly into 
 a heavy sleep. It was not until much later that she awoke, 
 with the sun shining full into the room; and Stephen 
 was no longer in bed. 
 
 What was she to do ? What was there she could do ? 
 It was an insoluble question. She was only so tired, so 
 entirely weary of her aching thoughts, that she longed to 
 sleep again. Her head was throbbing, her eyes were 
 heavy. And she must somehow face Stephen. Somehow 
 she must decide what she was to do. It was too much 
 trouble to decide upon anything! It meant too much 
 more pain ! 
 
 Priscilla turned and buried her face in the pillow, 
 pressing her arms tightly about her head, and lying there 
 in a sort of lethargic suspension of thought. She was 
 enduring the passing of that dreary moment. And it was 
 while she lay thus that Stephen returned. 
 
 "Come, dear." She heard his voice close to her. He 
 was there. She could not move. It was impossible for 
 her to move. She could not bear him to see her face. 
 She felt his hgjid laid gently upon her shoulder. "Dearest, 
 if you take it so badly you'll be ill. Punish me, if you 
 like; be cruel to me. But don't be hard with yourself." 
 Priscilla could hear his earnest entreaty. It shook her 
 pride : she had not, she never had had, the desire to 
 punish. 
 
 "Oh, Stephen : I'm so wretched 1" It was her con- 
 fession, pitifully and inevitably the turning to him for 
 consolation; and she was in his arms, her face pressed 
 to his, and her eyes filled with tears. She began to cry 
 quietly, while Stephen hushed her.
 
 256 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 "My dear old girl. My dear old kiddie," he was saying 
 in his own weary voice, as though he too were miserable ; 
 and Priscilla pressed her face to his the more passion- 
 ately, although she did not understand the words and 
 only heard the murmur of his voice. 
 
 11 
 
 But when, later, Priscilla came downstairs, wan and 
 listless, there was constraint between them. She averted 
 her eyes, and Stephen could not bear to speak to a 
 Priscilla so new, so frigid. His glance had no fear : he 
 was sternly composed until she should be ready to relax 
 her reserve. Priscilla had not forgiven, would not for- 
 give ; she did not even yet understand. The Stephen who 
 had comforted her was her lover, her husband; not that 
 other Stephen, whom she did not recognize, who had 
 wronged her. To Priscilla that relation was a bewilder- 
 ment. She found her heart softening, swelling, as though 
 it must burst ; and to this dear Stephen that she loved she 
 knew of no hostility. It was only to that other Stephen, 
 the collected narrator of unspeakable injuries to her love, 
 that her heart was forever closed. It was never that she 
 weakly wished not to have heard the truth about Minnie 
 Bayley, or about the letters. She had no feeling of that 
 kind. Nor any feelings at all about Minnie Bayley. It 
 was as though Minnie did not exist. During Stephen's 
 explanation she had had a hot flush of vision, had seen a 
 something that was Minnie Bayley; but it had faded at 
 once and was as dead as a used firework. Minnie did not 
 again occur to her. Minnie's part in the matter did not 
 seem to have any importance. Nor had that far distant 
 action of Stephen's except as a dull horror to her. It was 
 not as an action that it horrified her ; but as an invasion 
 of her own joyous life, an ugly blot upon all her own 
 generous naivete. But still uglier, she came to think, was
 
 AFTERWARDS 257 
 
 the duplicity which had touched even the days of their 
 honeymoon. She duly recalled all her ea^er wishes for 
 some extraordinary culminating confession to Stephen — 
 a desire frustrated by the innocent fact that there was 
 nothing to confess but her love for him, which she had 
 frankly told a hundred times. All that time, when they 
 had seemed beautifully to trust one another, he had been 
 deceiving her. The thought brought blank despair. It 
 was the one thing that she had surely known would break 
 her happiness. 
 
 That, however, was one Stephen. There remained 
 the other whose loving heart she still believed in. It was 
 as though there must be two Stephens. The Stephen she 
 loved — the Stephen she hated. The Stephen whose arms 
 had comforted, the Stephen whose silence had betrayed. 
 And which Stephen sat opposite her? The bad one or 
 the good one? She dared not raise her eyes; she knew 
 too well that the whole Stephen w^as alert for her every 
 gesture, not watchful, but subtly aware. That was 
 where she was torn between straining embarrassments. 
 She loved and she hated, and the whole Stephen gravely 
 knew of her conflicting distresses. She could not hide 
 that from herself. If he was more guilty than herself 
 he was also more wise. He understood her. Cruelly 
 and mercifully, shrewdly and wonderingly, he was 
 regarding her. What could she do? 
 
 He spoke; and the sound of his voice startled Priscilla. 
 
 "Would you rather I didn't stay at home to-day, dear?" 
 he asked. Ah ! they had been going for a walk together. 
 How it stabbed her ! Yes ; but he would have gone with 
 his secret. She would have talked believing him so 
 clearly her own, as she was his; and Stephen would all 
 the time have had his secret. She bent her head still 
 lower under his glance, miserably. 
 
 "I don't know, Stephen," she made answer, truthfully 
 enough; and sharply sighed. "We should have gone if
 
 258 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 you hadn't told me." It was her first note of grinding 
 anger — something quite far from her thoughts. 
 
 "But you see I've told you, Priscilla. I only want you 
 to decide. I thought you might feel you couldn't bear 
 to go — even to talk to me." 
 
 "I hate your pity!" she cried. She rose from the table. 
 "For that's what it is. Anything's better than pity! If 
 only you would . . ," She stood looking at the hearth, 
 her lips trembling, and Stephen also rose, but came no 
 nearer. Then she turned, and their eyes met quite firmly. 
 
 "It's not my love you're doubtful of?" he questioned. 
 
 "Oh, no." Priscilla's voice quivered, even in that 
 assurance. 
 
 "Or your own?" 
 
 She hesitated a moment. Unhappiness, she knew, 
 comes of imperfect love. Was her own love true? Her 
 thoughts were unsteady : she had no confidence. Oh, but 
 Stephen knew she loved him. 
 
 "I don't think you're afraid of that," she said in a low 
 voice. 
 
 "Very afraid," said Stephen. "It's all I care about." 
 
 "You don't seem to care," Priscilla faltered very 
 slightly, "about my . . . my happiness." 
 
 "My dear," answered Stephen, warningly, "you're not 
 thinking about mine." 
 
 It shocked her. It was like an icy blow. It was a 
 true thing. She looked at him with horror in her eyes 
 at such a sudden attack. Had he so soon begun to revolt 
 against her judgment ? Had she so soon begun to judge 
 him? 
 
 "No," she exclaimed. "No . . . I'm sorry, Stephen." 
 After a moment she continued, with no irony whatever : 
 "I know you're thinking all the time about me — wanting 
 me to see everything in some detached way that would 
 deaden all the feeling. But that only makes it all the 
 harder. You see . . . all the time we were away you
 
 AFTERWARDS 259 
 
 knew. And you knew I didn't know. I don't think I 
 envy you your conscience." 
 
 "You needn't envy me any peace of mind," said 
 Stephen gravely. "For I hadn't any." 
 
 She looked piercingly at him, with a sort of dreadful 
 scorn. 
 
 "Do you think you had any right to any?" she asked. 
 If Stephen was pale, so was Priscilla. She was trembling 
 again, as though the day had chilled her. She stood 
 forlornly before him, indescribably wretched. Whenever 
 she spoke, or tried to speak, it was as though her tongue 
 could not form the words, or her trembling lips frame 
 them. "You seemed . . . oh, you seemed content 
 enough. . . ." 
 
 "Seemed . . . seemed!" cried Stephen. "Would you 
 believe that I'd never been so happy? Why, I'd never 
 been happy before. Priscilla, you know that. No : I 
 won't talk in that way. My dearest, I wish I might 
 explain one thing. . . . There's the danger that you'll 
 think me only callous. I won't believe that. W^ill you 
 listen?" She inclined her head. Almost, she made a 
 movement towards him, so embarrassed was she at their 
 coldness when her heart longed only to put away the 
 dividing barrier. He resumed : "When I came to 
 Totteridge I didn't expect ever to see you again. It 
 seemed impossible. You know how we spoke. You see 
 that I couldn't have said anything then. . . . Afterwards 
 I simply wanted to marry you. Would the knowledge 
 have made any difference? Why shouldn't you have 
 believed in me? I wasn't a criminal. That I'll never 
 admit. If I'd ever been untrue to you — even in thought 
 — I should have felt bound to tell you ; but that was never 
 the case. Never. I've never been untrue to you. 
 You've been the only woman . . . Oh, but you know 
 it. . . ." 
 
 For a moment he paused. She thought to herself : "I
 
 260 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 wasn't untrue to him. I was as unhappy. Why should 
 it be different?" Then Stephen went on: 
 
 "We'd been away a week before I knew that my father 
 . . . knew anything, or that he'd try to interfere. When 
 he wrote — you remember the letter — I had to choose 
 between telling you that instant and poisoning our honey- 
 moon, and leaving the story until now or later. There 
 was no question of my never telling you. You know 
 that. I didn't choose silence from cowardice of that sort : 
 I have never been afraid to tell you " 
 
 "No!" Priscilla did not say the word. It was not 
 uttered. It was there ; and both knew it. 
 
 "I deliberately wanted you to feel the honeymoon 
 perfect. You did feel it so : and no feeling you may 
 have now about my being silent can affect that. As for 
 me, you know what it meant to me. Besides, my happi- 
 ness was in you. I quite admit that. You hadn't any 
 secret. ... I now have no secret. This moment, now 
 that I have told you, is the first moment of real ease I've 
 had since the old man's letter came. I'm miserable. 
 You'll never believe I'm as miserable as you, though it is 
 so. But at least I'm free of a burden. You know 
 everything: you don't yet dislike me, though you hate 
 what I've told you. To me that's enough. If you'd felt 
 loathing — repulsion — I know that everything would have 
 been lost. I dreaded that. But when you can again 
 believe in my honesty " 
 
 "How could I?" cried Priscilla, flushing deeply. 
 
 "You do already." 
 
 "No. I don't. I feel cheated — tricked. It's horrible !" 
 Vehemently she flung the words at him. "How can you 
 say that so coolly!" 
 
 "You must remember I knew this was bound tc 
 happen." 
 
 "Then you've calculated it! It's all foreseen!" Pas- 
 sionately Priscilla checked her wild outburst. "Oh,
 
 AFTERWARDS 261 
 
 Stephen . . . it's more than I can bear !" She feverishly- 
 left the hearthrug and turned away from him. "When 
 I trusted you so ! Can't you see how horrible it is — what 
 a betrayal? I don't believe you can. If you could see, 
 you couldn't talk of it so calmly. You couldn't!" 
 
 "It's because I see, that I'm trying to be calm. I knew 
 I had to tell you. I knew it would be hateful. I'm 
 not really cool. Surely I don't look like anybody 
 callous !" ' 
 
 "Then I can't understand," she said bitterly. "I never 
 shall understand!" 
 
 "You do understand. But you can't bring yourself 
 to admit it. You're quite wise and generous enpugh to 
 understand. Your heart's clear." 
 
 "You're relying on my love!" she cried. "To make 
 up for evervthing!" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Priscilla looked at him as he stood with his back to the 
 window. He was very white, and the lines upon his face 
 were not, in that light, very noticeable. But his eyes 
 were glowing, and the weary carriage of his head was a 
 sign to her that he was exhausted. She sighed again, with 
 a sharp depth that shook his self-control. Involuntarily 
 he exclaimed and came to her side. Even so, he hardly 
 heard her painful murmur. 
 
 "I think you're asking too much of my love. Quite 
 too much. I can't tell you how bad I feel. Just for- 
 saken. I'd built so much . . . Oh, Stephen ! How can 
 I bear it !" 
 
 They were quite close together, and his hand touched 
 her elbow. She did not flinch, and he put his arm gently 
 round her. Still Priscilla made no motion. Her body 
 was stiff and unyielding within his arm. 
 
 "You can bear it by trusting me," he said, very low. 
 "Only by trusting me." Abruptly he dropped his arm 
 again, though he remained otherwise in the same position,
 
 262 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 steadily regarding her. "And you can trust me if you 
 trust yourself. . . . That's ahvays the main thing." 
 
 His eyes were unreadable. Priscilla hardly heard what 
 he said. She was too greatly troubled to make any 
 response. After a moment's pause he took up his papers 
 again from the side table, and went out of the room, 
 leaving her in the same unhappy state of bewilderment, 
 hopeless of the future, which seemed wholly dark.
 
 PART THREE 
 
 THE STORY OF 
 THE CHASTE WIFE
 
 CHAPTER XYL: DREAD 
 
 THERE are some places which one always remembers 
 in sunshine. Some towns — for example the City 
 of Glasgow — it is permitted to remember invariably in 
 rain; but that is very likely an unhappy fact, and not a 
 freak of memory. On the other hand, Glaswegians may 
 find some other peculiarity to recall joy. They may think 
 of the many tramcars, or the interminable length of 
 Sauchiehall Street, or the shuttered silence of dismal 
 Sundays. There are compensations everywhere — even, 
 one must suppose, in Glasgow. At any rate the Glas- 
 wegians, when rebuked for their city, are often heard to 
 refer defensively to some supreme ugliness in Manchester 
 which restores their ruffled complacency, and makes of 
 Glasgow a comparative Paradise. But there are other 
 places — such as Richmond (in Surrey — not the crum- 
 bling Richmond of the north), or Brighton, or some 
 pretty towns and villages in the southwest of England — 
 which are never, in retrospect, seen otherwise than in 
 sunshine. To Stephen Moore one such place was Hamp- 
 stead Heath. It is open to anybody to say that when it 
 rained at Hampstead Stephen simply wasn't there, that he 
 stayed indoors, or that he was at present no more than 
 a summer visitor. Why, however, should we rob him of 
 his illusion? It was part of his love for Hampstead, the 
 love that is perhaps born in every Cockney. 
 
 Hampstead certainly has its beauties and its associa- 
 tions. It was not merely the home of Jack Straw or 
 Dick Turpin, as one might be led to suppose from a 
 cursory glance at the Spaniards Road. From time to 
 time it has sheltered many poets and artists, and if it 
 continues to do so there are obvious and commendable 
 
 ?66
 
 266 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 reasons for the fact into which it is now unnecessary 
 to inquire. One such reason is that it is the nearest piece 
 of really open land to the heart of London. It is no more 
 than five or six miles from the very centre of the city, and 
 yet it is a wide and beautiful heath, unspoiled for all who 
 are not misanthropists. And upon weekdays (excepting 
 Saturdays) even misanthropists can prowl there un- 
 molested. Moreover, apart altogether from the heath, 
 there is in the suburb of Hampstead proper such a con- 
 fusion of small alleys and winding hilly streets that the 
 heart of man is charmed within him. Outside the range 
 of Hampstead there are horrible attachments, such as 
 South Hampstead, and West Hampstead, called by 
 these names, probably, as Mr. Belloc's book was called 
 Caliban's Guide to Letters, "for purposes of sale." With 
 these the lover of Hampstead will have no concern. 
 When he speaks of Hampstead he means a small circle 
 from the upper end of Rosslyn Hill, Church Road, 
 Frognal, The Grove, West Heath Road, "The Bull and 
 Bush," "The Spaniards," the Vale of Health, and round 
 again (at the very farthest) by Pond Street into Rosslyn 
 Hill. He means, on the whole, a radius of something 
 much less than a mile turning slowly round, as on a pivot, 
 from the middle of Heath Street. That, in spite of all 
 house-agents and railway companies (a romantic brood), 
 is what is meant by Hampstead. What is not meant by 
 Hampstead is that kind of outer district made up of 
 Golders Green and Fortune Green and Finchley Road 
 and Swiss Cottage and Chalk Farm and Gospel Oak. The 
 large outer Hampstead is a privileged area; but it is not 
 what one means by Hampstead. Far from it. And when 
 Stephen thought of Hampstead in sunshine he had no 
 intention of denying rain to Gospel Oak. He did not 
 imagine a parched Chalk Farm. For all he cared Swiss 
 Cottage might be a swamp, and the West End Lane a 
 flooded area.
 
 DREAD 267 
 
 ii 
 
 It was thus a typical sunshiny day upon the heath 
 when Stephen, leaving their home, went out of doors 
 for the sake of Priscilla's relief. The sun shone — not 
 fiercely, as it does in the less breezy days of midsummer; 
 but with a gentle warmth that charmed the air. Dogs 
 barked by the White Stone Pond, pretending that they 
 were at the seaside, and a man had just driven his horse 
 into the pond, so that its legs were wetted and so that the 
 red wheels of his cart flashed and glittered in the sun- 
 shine. Very few people were out ; but there were one or 
 two men lounging against the white rail that runs between 
 the road and the steep descent to that part of the heath 
 which becomes the Vale of Health. Upon that day there 
 was no noise from the Vale ; but of course it is on Bank 
 Holidays that this is the very centre of the tumult. Here 
 may be seen the coco-nut shies, and the heavy hammer, 
 and the vigorous dancing; and here may be heard the 
 conflict of all those wheezy accompaniments to the so 
 thrilling roundabouts. But upon this day there came no 
 faintest hint of the joys that lay a month ahead, when, 
 for a day, pandemonium should reign. Stephen gave a 
 glance among the trees and turned away. He could from 
 such a vantage-point see over the open land to Hendon 
 and beyond. He thought he could see the "Welsh Harp," 
 that famous scene of revelry celebrated in Mr. Albert 
 Chevalier's song, where great sheets of gloomy water are 
 supposed to tempt the oarsman. Nearer to him was the 
 West Heath, all curiously seamed in its bareness by 
 what might almost be cataclysmic causes. His eye ran 
 over the scene, but not with any freshness of perception. 
 He was merely noticing the familiar points. It interested 
 him extremely; he saw it all, and it was mirrored upon 
 his mind ; but he did not feel any sudden pulse of emotion, 
 as some people do when the scene is beautiful or familiar.
 
 268 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 Such emotion was ruled out by his temperament no less 
 than by his preoccupation. He observed intensely: he 
 recognized : he did not passionately enjoy. He was 
 thinking about Priscilla. 
 
 iii 
 
 As he walked, with his eyes bent upon the rough path- 
 way, Stephen became intensely aware of the tiny particles 
 of which it was composed. As his foot touched the earth 
 it was soft to his tread and, since the dew had been heavy, 
 showed a light impress. Thousands of feet had trodden, 
 and would tread, over this spot, each leaving such a mark 
 and obliterating other marks made earlier, so that the 
 surface of the earth was continually moulded by these 
 obstinate pressures. And yet, in spite of such assaults, the 
 modification over a large area was imperceptible. The 
 process of recovery was too incessant. The steps of man 
 might indeed wear the earth bare of grass, as they had 
 done ; but they could not change its character, or seriously 
 modify its contour. This heath remained as testimony 
 to the earth's victory. Was that true also of human 
 beings in the mass? He thought so: he thought them 
 at heart unchanged and unchangeable. That was a part 
 of his outlook upon life. He was conservative in his 
 scepticism of apparent change. There was no change, 
 no progress ; only there were the superficial modifications 
 of times and manners. He wanted conditions changed — 
 economic conditions in the modern world — but he had 
 no hope of any radical movement even there. The tyranny 
 of conditions, he thought, was manifold, as strangling 
 and ineradicable as the bindweed. Those who thought 
 differently from himself he divided into classes — of 
 fanatical optimists ; of churchmen engrossed with the 
 machinery of their faith; of all those practical men, such 
 as soldiers, engineers, and sportsmen, who occupy them- 
 selves seriously with routine and the things next their
 
 DREAD 269 
 
 hand ; of charlatans, such as all makers of laws and 
 practices; of those whose lives are never galled by the 
 tyranny of such practices; and of those who endure it 
 with such facility and acceptance that if it were removed 
 they would collapse from sheer loss of equilibrium. 
 Those who ransacked the secrets of the earth he admired 
 for their devotion and as adding to the sum of human 
 knowledge; he never ceased to regard all efforts after 
 knowledge as exemplifications of the highest aim within 
 the grasp of man. That was the way in which his desire 
 was to learn, so that his knowledge might be a sort of 
 living organism, vitally capable of sure judgment of the 
 subject in which he had, by natural bent, so devotedly 
 specialized. The search for knowledge, material, aesthetic, 
 emotional, spiritual, was his religion; the impulses for 
 personal or collective domination, for continual reshuf- 
 fling of the same old pack of cards, for securing group 
 adhesions to particular ideas, were anathema to him. 
 Stephen, it will be seen, was an individualist; but how 
 far his idea of life was the result and how far it was the 
 cause of his normal temper, his actions, and his general 
 contact with personal affairs, is a question too difficult 
 to be settled in a story which does not pretend to give 
 a full-length portrait. It is enough for us that his love 
 for Priscilla was as deep and as rational as his religion 
 as here outlined. It was a passionate love; but it was 
 not an irrational love. That was why, when he walked 
 across the heath and out tovvards the farther country 
 upon this fine summer day, when the slow, burning heat 
 of the sun was gently tempered by light and hesitant 
 breezes, he did not altogether lose heart. 
 
 IV 
 
 Stephen went for a very long walk during the hours 
 that followed, turning over in his mind many many
 
 270 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 things that he had thought forgotten or never remem- 
 bered. He was for a time quite disposed to argue with 
 himself, urging his own defence and rigorously impeach- 
 ing his own sincerity. He furthermore visualized Pris- 
 cilla as she had been when he left the house, dispirited 
 and miserable; and be sure the memory was the worst 
 part of his own pain. He went over the heath, and 
 through Finchley to Totteridge and Barnet; and then, 
 without plan, and only because he had made the journey 
 before, he turned off to Shenley and Radlett, and even 
 beyond, until he began to feel tired. The farther he went 
 the more did the country reveal its incessant beauties to 
 his eyes, mingling with and unsuspectedly sweetening his 
 thoughts. The roads, the trees, the earth, the air, the sky, 
 and the disentangleable sounds — all these changed the 
 tenor of his thoughts and served for a time to relieve 
 his unhappiness and to awaken in him a new sensation 
 and a new possibility of peace. The walking, although 
 it tired him, did Stephen good : the solitariness enabled 
 him to clarify his thoughts. Alone he could think with- 
 out the confusion that arises from the criss-cross of start- 
 ing ideas ; and to his considerations all the beauties of the 
 day blended together into a harmonious background. 
 
 During the whole of the day, when he was away from 
 the main roads, Stephen saw practically nobody; for all 
 were at their daily work. The houses he passed were all 
 silent, the blinds sometimes drawn to exclude the sun, A 
 sleepy cart lurching over the uneven roads, with the 
 driver dozing within it, he occasionally met, and was 
 forced to stand aside while the great wheels went 
 grumbling past him. In the meadows cows stolidly 
 munched, whisking their tails over their flanks to drive 
 away intruding flies. Otherwise he saw nothing but the 
 day. , . . 
 
 And all the time he was thinking. ... If only Pris- 
 cilla could bring herself to believe that she was everything
 
 DREAD 271 
 
 to him. If only she could see that he had destroyed the 
 old man's letter from anger, and not from fear. If she 
 could believe those two things she would still love him 
 as she had done. Of what use were his assurances if she 
 did not instinctively, intuitively believe that he would do 
 nothing, could do nothing, from motives of abject secret- 
 iveness such as he knew many people would acknowledge. 
 Surely she would believe in his good faith ? That phrase 
 was the clue to the whole situation. His good faith. 
 Stephen admitted to himself all shortcomings; but his 
 honesty of intention he would yield to nobody. If 
 Priscilla did not believe in that, they were eternally 
 separate. Surely she believed in it ? Just as he believed 
 in her. Did he wholly believe ? Had he no doubt ? Not 
 one : he believed absolutely in her. His belief was un- 
 shakable. . . . 
 
 So ran his thoughts, wearily, monotonously, but gain- 
 ing steadily in clearness and in a sort of steady simpli- 
 fication which brought him nearer to some understanding 
 of the vital point of feeling upon which Priscilla and he 
 were divided. He walked on, looking neither to the right 
 nor to the left, stern and inflexible. No fear was in his 
 heart; nor any pride; but only the stubbornness of his 
 rational spirit, which refused to admit the value of 
 feeling in moral relations. 
 
 Then, when the afternoon was come and the sun was 
 past the meridian, glowing in intenser warmth, he began 
 his return journey among the dusty lanes, and his limp 
 grew more noticeable, and his eyes more fixed. When he 
 was tired Stephen always showed it by this same fixity, 
 which seemed to enlarge the pupils of his eyes and made 
 shadows come under his cheekbones : and the two marks 
 always gave an indefinable air of anxiety to his expres- 
 sion. His face became paler beneath the dark curling 
 hair that grew still so thickly and offered such opposition 
 to the brush. Nevertheless, he sometimes whistled as he
 
 272 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 walked, tramping steadily down the solitary lanes, his 
 shoulders slightly hunched because of his preoccupation. 
 The lanes were bordered and deeply scented by banks and 
 hedges rich with the green of early summer: and some- 
 times Stephen heard a magical runnel of water which 
 seemed by its tinkle to freshen the heavy air and wash 
 the traveller's sense of dustiness away. It was, in spite 
 of June rain, a very fine summer; July found the land 
 still unspoilt by the sun, and there would presently be 
 some more steady fertilizing rain before the later heats 
 browned the verdure and ripened the crops. Over 
 Stephen's head as he walked was the clear sky, some- 
 times entrancingly seen through the foliage of tall trees; 
 under his feet the dust rose in little puffs, slowly scat- 
 tering back to its old level after he had passed. The air 
 was full of the subdued buzzing of bees and the bright 
 chirping of finches and the inexhaustible pipe of the 
 blackbird. From every quarter came the sweet droning 
 that the Londoner finds always in his ears when he 
 remembers the byways outside the city area. It was the 
 long, the endless undercurrent of the exquisite day. 
 
 Stephen saw and heard without seeing and hearing, so 
 full was his mind of its own insoluble problem. The day 
 was not his : it was given over to the unhappy memories 
 and forebodings which the situation had created. 
 
 It was late in the afternoon when he reached Edgware, 
 and his journey thence was simple enough. A passage 
 by tram-car left him only a short distance to walk in the 
 dusk which was now gathering. He climbed the hill to 
 the west heath, and saw, upon all the roads bordering 
 the heath, pale lights starting into life against the opal 
 sky. So pale were they, and so lingering was the day- 
 light, that it seemed almost as if the lamps were mere
 
 DREAD 273 
 
 yellow spots in a brighter light. Still the sky was clear, 
 beautiful in its fairness. Stephen could no longer be 
 unaware of the beauty of light among the leaves, and 
 with such a sky overhead. It thrilled him, as a vision 
 might have done. But also it wounded him, and he bent 
 his glance upon the ground, now so mysterious in all the 
 evening's capricious shadows. He would not at first see 
 the untroubled loveliness of this day's closing mood. It 
 mocked him. 
 
 And as he went higher upon the hill, with every step 
 bringing home perceptibly nearer, Stephen slackened his 
 pace, with a dull sudden hopelessness at his heart. What 
 was he to find? Priscilla alone, still sad, still over- 
 whelmed? Anything but composure! he prayed. For 
 that would mean exclusion. It was his dread that she 
 might close her heart to him. . . . He loved her so much 
 that he did not need to tell himself of his love : it was 
 part of his being. Priscilla did not know more of his 
 moods, of the infinitesimal changes in his bearing, than 
 he knew of hers. He could think closely about her every 
 variety of manner, for his observation was unerringly 
 woven from minute to minute, pliant and sure, not less 
 pervasive because it was made more acute by love. He 
 knew that she was wholly true ; as true as steel, tempered 
 finely by her inexpressible love of virtue. 
 
 His good faith ! Her love of virtue! Suddenly, as he 
 paused in the greying light, he was aware of this quick 
 clarification. Those, for the first time seen by him, were 
 the principles in conflict. He clearly saw them, and was 
 led to contrast their implications. On the one side reason- 
 able acknowledgment of imperfection and a strict sense 
 of rectitude. On the other passionate chastity of deed 
 and thought, in no way self-righteous or exclusive, but 
 religious in its intensity. . . . 
 
 How could he ever hope, in face of such a swift illu- 
 mination, to approximate the two outlooks, to make them
 
 274 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 tolerant of each other? How had he never realized 
 before the absolute difference in grain? Had he all his 
 life worked on false assumptions, or at least upon an 
 ignoble ideal? He stopped, aghast at the revelation, 
 puzzled by its insistence, trying in vain to understand the 
 causes of the mortifying sense of inferiority in ideals. 
 
 Stephen became ashamed. It was easier to admit 
 shame to himself at night, here in this quiet road, with 
 the yellow lights growing brighter as the sky darkened. 
 H Priscilla had been with him she too, such was the 
 power of the evening, which so greatly had affected him, 
 would have been humbled. Their lives might from that 
 moment have been even more truly joined than before. 
 With a fresh sensitiveness sprung suddenly into action 
 before him, like a religious ecstasy, Stephen stood quite 
 still in the shadow, looking through the mysterious 
 gloaming at the dark trees; and the eternal beauties of 
 the night breeze and the night shadows were impressed 
 upon his heart. Deeply he sighed, for unhappiness is the 
 key to love as it is the key to beauty ; and when Stephen 
 moved again with laggard steps it was with the sense 
 of immeasurable new experience. 
 
 Still he mounted, until he stood upon the brow of the 
 hill. Here the silence was gone and his new emotion was 
 rebuffed; for there was already the stir of the evening 
 promenade along the Spaniards Road. Many persons, 
 in summer frocks and flannel suits, strolled or lounged 
 upon the highway or the sidewalk; and there was the 
 confused sound of many tongues. With a dry smile, not 
 wholly disagreeable, Stephen scrutinized the passers, who 
 were now so assiduously engaged in their wandering 
 vanity fair, until he came once more to quietness and the 
 little cottage. Here they had thought to spend so many 
 happy days! Were those days still to be spent, or were 
 they a part of the dream bubble? 
 
 There was a faint light in the front room, which
 
 DREAD 275 
 
 showed him that the gas was ahght but that it was 
 lowered. Priscilla, then, was not in the room. He raised 
 his eyes. Nor in the bedroom either. A fear clutched 
 his heart ; to be dismissed with a rough intolerance. Such 
 a fear was absurd. He would not for a moment harbour 
 it. No : the explanation was simple and conventional. 
 He opened the gate, and with steady steps went up the 
 path to the door. He could see the brass knocker, and 
 the brass door-handle, shining brilliantly in the dusk. 
 
 There was a faint sound at his feet. Romeo sat by the 
 door, pathetically waiting for it to be opened. Invol- 
 untarily Stephen smiled. 
 
 "Forgotten?" he said, struck even with this incident 
 and its possible significance. With unusual gentleness 
 he sympathetically spoke again. "That's not like her, 
 you know. Is it, now ? Poor old chappie !" 
 
 He stooped and picked Romeo up in his arms, to 
 receive in acknowledgment the little cat's grateful 
 endearments. Together, and in silence, they entered 
 the house. 
 
 From the dining-room there came the sound of voices. 
 Stephen's heart sank once more. It chilled him to think 
 that others would be present at their meeting, struck, 
 perhaps, by any least suggestion of embarrassment upon 
 either side. Yet Romeo, whom he had again set down 
 as he closed the front door, was clearly waiting for 
 admission to the dining-room, with a trustful air against 
 which Stephen was not proof. Hs must open that door, 
 though it would bring them at once face to face, so that 
 he would instantly read her mood . . . her distrust. 
 
 It was done. He was inside the room, where were 
 Priscilla and David and Hilary Badoureau. They were 
 talking, and were interrupted by his entrance. Dusty 
 and tired as he was, Stephen stood awkwardly before 
 them, stumblingly acknowledging their greeting. He 
 was dazzled by the fresh light, and he could hardly bear
 
 276 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 to look at Priscilla. He noticed that her head was bent. 
 She did not see him. She was stooping to speak to 
 Romeo, who had gone straight, as by right, to her side. 
 Through Stephen's heart there was phinged a stiletto of 
 fatalism. It was over. Something was over, and a 
 change was there. Priscilla would not meet his glance. 
 How he had feared composure! It was the worst! 
 
 He did not know how he spoke, how he excused 
 himself; but without being aware of his movements he 
 was once more out of the room, and was upstairs, chang- 
 ing his dusty clothes for other, clean ones. But as he 
 undressed and dressed again he was still conscious of 
 that stabbing recognition of doom. Vainly he reassured 
 himself. It was too late. The avoidance came after his 
 mood of humility, of clarification, when he was disarmed. 
 He was disarmed, helpless; and Badoureau was there. 
 There was a sinister conjunction. Well? For a moment 
 he sat upon the bed staring before him. For the first 
 time he was shaken by a fierce pang of passionate 
 jealousy.
 
 CHAPTER XVII: DIRECTIONS 
 
 YET he must go down again to where they sat. 
 Whatever happened, whatever the discords and the 
 heartaches, in this Hfe none must be shown, all must be 
 hidden, lest secrets fly and moral gossip be nourished. 
 Stephen descended the stairs. A lethargy was upon him, 
 a failure of energy both mental and physical. The 
 thought of Priscilla's averted glance made him feel sick. 
 He could not now ascribe to her the rational thoughts 
 he had planned. She had become quite incomprehen- 
 sible. Almost, he dreaded to see her again so soon. 
 
 Once in the room his feeling changed abruptly. The 
 very need for behaving normally worked upon him. He 
 was able to speak as he usually did, to listen imperturb- 
 ably to David's jokes, to accord a faintly constrained 
 attentiveness to Hilary. And he was able to look at 
 Priscilla with an unfaltering eye. How pretty she was! 
 She was a little flushed; her eye was bright. . . . He 
 could see that she also was fighting to behave as usual; 
 and that relieved him. He knew it in a hundred ways. 
 Her very slightly increased and quickened movements; 
 the involuntary swiftness with which she met his glance 
 and looked away ; some curious fresh timbre in her voice 
 and in her pretty laughter — all these, so keen was his 
 observation, were the obvious signs of strain. But more, 
 in the expression of her mouth and eyes, in a something 
 unseizable in the curve of her soft cheek, were to be 
 found intimations of her grief. How strange it was that 
 Stephen, feeling so soft and uncertain within, should out- 
 wardly appear so entirely without qualm, should out- 
 wardly appear master of the situation ! How strange, he 
 
 277
 
 278 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 was thinking, that these other men should fail to see 
 what his knowledge made so plain ! 
 
 Half doubtfully he turned to scrutinize the others. 
 Hilary sat upon Priscilla's right, looking very tall and 
 fair and handsome. Had he no inkling? Where a 
 woman saw in Hilary those so admired strengths of will 
 and body and tenacity, Stephen, coldly gazing — ^yet not 
 so coldly, either — saw self-will, cruelty and a sort of 
 obtuseness that goes with such properties in the English 
 type. He admitted Hilary's beauty, which none could 
 deny, and his extremely pleasant and even flattering 
 manner; but he saw in the frosty eyes and the smileless 
 smile a determination that was inimical to himself. The 
 perception made his own scrutiny the more remorseless. 
 He was still engaged in its exercise when Hilary looked 
 quickly at him. 
 
 For only a fraction of time did that encounter last; 
 but Stephen could not help smiling grimly. To his sur- 
 prise he was no longer at all frightened. For Hilary's 
 look, something apart from his lazy manner, which is 
 the cultivated manner of his type, was one of hostile 
 uncertainty. While Stephen was quietly thinking about 
 Hilary, with a .concentration into which he had been 
 trained by long 3'-ears of close reference of all matters 
 to his unhesitating judgment, Hilary was in some way 
 puzzled about Stephen — was in some great perplexity 
 about his strength, or his nature. The understanding 
 for one reason lightened Stephen's heart. This man was 
 not, it would seem, quite as formidable as he might have 
 been. God grant it might be so ! But even as he thought 
 that, Stephen's eyes glinted hardly. He did not fail to 
 perceive behind Hilary's perplexity the cause from which 
 it sprang. It sprang, quite evidently, from something 
 outside a simple interest in himself. 
 
 How he wished he could see Priscilla's eyes; read 
 them ; read her heart ! It came upon him in a flash that
 
 DIRECTIONS 279 
 
 this was intolerable; that David and Hilary were irrele- 
 vancies. He cared for nobody but Priscilla. Priscilla 
 was his love. He could not live without her. If her 
 love were lost, of what use was his life, of what use was 
 any life? His will sprang up, stifling his doubts. If her 
 love were lost, still she was his own. In the last resort 
 he would crush her, force her to love him. His teeth 
 gritted in a savage resolve, the bare doggedness of a 
 primitive sense of conquest. Stephen's heart beat so 
 thickly that he could breathe only in short sudden respi- 
 rations. For a moment, until the savage impulse died 
 down, cruelty was in his face, a vengeful strength plain 
 to any eye. Priscilla must have seen his expression. He 
 saw her look round the circle of faces. 
 
 ii 
 
 All this time David was carrying on his usual slow 
 commentary upon life and letters. He was discussing 
 politics and currents of events in relation to art, sug- 
 gesting that English literature immediately before the 
 South African War with one or two exceptions had been 
 pessimistic through sheer exhaustion, and that since the 
 South African War its note had been meliorative rather 
 than optimistic. He was proceeding to refer to the 
 modern renaissance of the Italians in the direction of 
 science rather than in the arts. His talk was suggestive, 
 easy, and humorous. His wary and whimsical survey of 
 his hearers was incessant, for David was a talker, and 
 talkers must always be testing their hold upon an 
 audience. 
 
 "Italian music and Italian painting," he was saying, 
 "are both about as bad as they can be. The strength 
 seems to lie in science. You get men like Marconi who 
 are doing really notable things. And he's only a sign 
 of the times. But just compare such strength with the 
 work of a man like Puccini ... or Mascagni, Terrible,
 
 280 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 you know. And in another line d'Annunzio, who's a 
 decadent if ever there was one." 
 
 He paused, meditatively ; and Hilary, who had been 
 absorbed in thought, l)roke in : 
 
 "Curious how a long suppressed racial aptitude will get 
 its way in the end. You get the modern Italian going 
 right back by a sort of atavism to the practical Roman 
 character . . ." he said, in a large, general, assertive 
 way. 
 
 *'Oh, surely!" It was Stephen's voice, marked with 
 an unmistakable impatience. "Racial aptitudes ! That's 
 all the Gobineau and Max-Miiller fallacy — and it's the 
 clear result of a linguistic muddle. It's only an academic 
 idea — there's no reality at the bottom of it." 
 
 Hilary started, and flushed. His mouth hardened and 
 his expression changed. 
 
 "Really," he murmured, half in protest, half in repres- 
 sion. Challenge in any case would have been unwelcome ; 
 but from this man it was intolerable. Stephen, not 
 deigning to look at his opponent, but deliberately laying 
 himself out to combat an idea repugnant to himself, 
 continued : 
 
 "You'll find different currents at all times in all nations, 
 all races; but not because of any racial strain. The thing 
 must be a matter of time and occasion . . . opportunity 
 . . . infectious impulse. Sometimes this, sometimes 
 that. Walter Bagehot says a rather good thing about 
 variations of that sort. He puts it all down to an 
 admired type. Somebody does a particular thing so as 
 to attract attention. Others follow at once." 
 
 "One fool makes many," interpolated David, who was 
 lazily and reflectively enjoying the comedy; but uneasily 
 surmising as to its deeper causes. 
 
 Stephen smiled again; but still only with a bitterness 
 that betrayed him to Priscilla. 
 
 "Very likely. You can see how it works. Supposing,
 
 DIRECTIONS 281 
 
 for example, all the little . . . sort of particles that 
 gradually, by stages, evolve and coalesce into a definite 
 point in the progress of invention produce some particu- 
 lar thing that meets the urgent need of an age ... a 
 convention arises. A necessary thing has been done. It 
 stands for ever as a point in evolution. Everybody feels 
 it like a magnet. It swamps everything for a time. The 
 inventor becomes the most admired type. The young 
 brains — imaginations — tend inevitably to explore the 
 reasons ; and to desire beyond everything else the advance 
 of that particular study to a farther point. It opens up 
 innumerable possibilities ; it's not only an end, but a start- 
 ing-point for other ideas. Very well. That would 
 explain the rise of ideas; and any such rise means schools 
 of opinion, and a steady pressure of divergent activities. 
 Doesn't that seem reasonable?" 
 
 "And I suppose," David said, deliberately withholding 
 any personal expression of opinion, "that with all the 
 rival admired types, rival critical standards, rival fol- 
 lowers ad infinitum . . . All the running baggage of 
 an intellectual movement . . ." 
 
 "Parasites," agreed Hilary, with a snap. "There are 
 bound to be quidnuncs. You always find such people. 
 Every movement runs to seed and produces theorists 
 and expositors. No doubt there's a half-truth in what 
 Moore says; but he's misled by something that's only 
 a local symptom. It doesn't account for the fact that 
 nations — races — have their quite special aptitudes. One 
 must surely take a larger view." 
 
 Stephen felt a cold and wicked glee at this sign of 
 resentment from his enemy. It cooled his own ardour. 
 He hugged his dislike, and even felt his mind newly keen 
 for any form which the inevitable combat might pres- 
 ently take. At present there was no profound conflict 
 of idea or opinion; there was only personal animosity. 
 With such animosity as a root divergencies of opinion
 
 282 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 were inevitable. Each wished to indicate disagreement 
 — even contempt; and both were restrained by their 
 company and the circumstances. Each too, it may have 
 been, was affected by a kind of natural interchangeable 
 disdain for the other. But Stephen obviously could not, 
 as host, go very far. He wondered how much Priscilla 
 saw as she sat at the other end of the table listening in 
 silence. However interested she might be, Priscilla would 
 not interpose. She had learnt the power of silence from 
 her mother, who rarely disagreed with anybody, but who 
 never misrepresented her own opinion. And so she did 
 not now take part in the discussion. But Stephen could 
 see her following it with a sweet gravity that became 
 her. 
 
 So interested had he now become in this scene and its 
 possible meanings, that he quite lost contact with the 
 subjects upon which David was suavely discoursing. He 
 leaned back in his chair. David was upon his right, also 
 leaning back, with his thin brown face in shadow, his 
 head slightly cocked, and his eyes fixed upon the ash of 
 his cigarette, which he had just dabbed lightly upon a 
 plate. His lips were thin, and his mouth not quite a small 
 one; there was, however, in the smile which hovered — 
 no more — upon his lips something which to Stephen gave 
 him an extraordinary resemblance to Priscilla. What a 
 clever chap David was ! thought Stephen, without a pang 
 of envy. There was a confidence, a grace, in his bearing 
 that took the eye, and a faint whimsical air in his speech 
 that was altogether pleasing. Stephen felt that he liked 
 David more than he had guessed, and looked upon the 
 thick brown hair, brushed right back from the forehead, 
 with an affection that was brotherly where it was not 
 paternal or wondering. 
 
 "One wonders what the end of it all will be," David 
 was guessing, as he dabbed his cigarette. "What the out- 
 come will be of all this training and rivalry and exploita-
 
 DIRECriONS 283 
 
 tion of national phases. For they are being exploited, 
 yon know. Movements — d'you see? Now, Stephen, 
 why shouldn't there be a book on Movements? Going 
 back right behind the manifestations; finding the roots 
 of the Suffrage agitation, and Pan-Slavism (perhaps 
 that's not a problem), and the dift'erent engineering tradi- 
 tions, and the Christian faith, and the Roman church, 
 and why young Oxford's becoming Roman Catholic 
 under the influence of an English Catholic. . . . All 
 sorts of things. I see it in weekly parts. What do you 
 think, Stephen?" 
 
 Stephen was not listening attentively; but he heard, 
 and replied : 
 
 "You might do something. Why don't you do it, 
 yourself? Call it 'Signposts' or 'Signs of the Times,' 
 'Where are we going?' Then you could have chapters 
 by specialists " 
 
 "Oh ! No specialists !" said David. "A single clear 
 mind is better. You get a man who has his own point 
 of view. It's the sort of thing you could do," 
 
 Stephen started. For the first time such a possibility 
 entered his mind. 
 
 "No, no. I couldn't do such a thing," he said, 
 definitely. 
 
 "On the contrary : it's a thing you might well do. The 
 more I think of it the more I like the idea. Don't you 
 think he could do it, Priscilla?" 
 
 Stephen averted his eyes, his brow furrowed. There 
 was a perceptible pause. Then, with an evident coldness 
 which cut through to his heart and wounded him past 
 forget fulness, Priscilla answered. 
 
 "D'you think so?" she said. "I shouldn't have thought 
 it was the sort of thing for Stephen to do." 
 
 It was her tone that hurt Stephen : it held a hostile 
 indifference. Was he mistaken ? Eagerly his eyes sought 
 hers. If only Badoureau had not been there!
 
 284 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 **Ever so much better," urged David, "than his old 
 scheme of London trampings. That's what I want to 
 get him out of — the idea that he's a hack. Look here, 
 Stephen : I'll go so far as to offer you the job. I'll get 
 my people to write to you about it. . . ." 
 
 Stephen was seized with a sudden embittered exulta- 
 tion. His eyes brightened. He turned to Llilary, who 
 was frowning impatiently and looking bored ; and thereby 
 was stimulated to reply. 
 
 "We'll talk it over," he said, with a supreme defiance 
 of Priscilla. Well, if she was to be hostile, so would he 
 be hostile. He would go his own way. It was his tufn 
 to take the lead in such an attitude. His mouth was set 
 in the old defiant fashion. He would not allow himself 
 to be thus publicly humbled by her repressive tone. "Yes, 
 we'll talk it over. Come into the next room. Shall we 
 all go?" 
 
 There was a general movement, for Priscilla rose as he 
 was speaking. As he held open the door she passed 
 through without a word or glance ; and Stephen paled. 
 
 iii 
 
 When they were alone — for Hilary had followed 
 Priscilla — David stopped at the door. 
 
 "I'm really in earnest," he said. "Why doesn't 
 Priscilla like it?" 
 
 "I couldn't do it." 
 
 "You could. You shall do it. Choose a dozen — 
 twenty subjects. Analyse them. That's what's wanted 
 — analysis. Get to the root of the movements, to the 
 ideas behind them. It's a great notion. Practically it's 
 a survey of current impulses. You've got the clear head ; 
 you can write; you know what you think about things. 
 Why not ? It's the very thing. Get rid of the idea that 
 you're a hack. You're not. With a little more confidence 
 you could make a brilliant book."
 
 DIRECTIONS 285 
 
 «T'. 
 
 Tm not a thinker," urged Stephen, remaining still 
 with his fingers pressed upon the door-handle. 
 
 "That doesn't matter a rap. If you take any of the 
 men who are talked about you'll see they're not sys- 
 tematic thinkers. Most of them catch up ideas and give 
 them colour. You shall give them the severity of black 
 and white. It's individuality that matters, not system. 
 That's your own idea, isn't it?" 
 
 Stephen took his arm, and they both went into the 
 front room, where Priscilla stood talking to Hilary, who 
 had lighted another cigarette. As they entered the room 
 there came at the front door a postman's knock; and 
 Stephen retrieved from the mat a couple of letters. These 
 he had opened when he returned, and they were still in 
 his hand. He spoke quite steadily to David; but one of 
 the letters had been a blow to him. 
 
 "Yes," said Stephen, clearly. "I think I'd better have 
 a shot at that." Aside, to David, he said in a low tone; 
 "This letter says The Norm's to be stopped — unless they 
 can sell it. Of course that's out of the question, as it's 
 been left so late. Pity!'' 
 
 David whistled. Priscilla made an uncontrollable step 
 forward. 
 
 "What did you say, Stephen ?" It was her first direct 
 speech to him. He looked down into her face with the 
 preoccupied glance of one concerned with other matters 
 more important. 
 
 "li's nothing," he said, as though she had no business 
 in what concerned him. He felt a curious wonder at 
 her faint flush, which made Priscilla like a solitary rose 
 in that clouded scene. To himself Stephen was saying, 
 not despairingly, but with a sort of dead certainty of 
 fatalism : "I've come a mucker ! I've come a mucker ! 
 It's all gone now. All I ever had. . . ." Quietly he 
 turned away, seeing nothing and hearing nothing. If 
 he had not married, if he had been still in Islington,
 
 286 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 this would have been a blow, but not a stunning blow. 
 He had done wrong, he felt, and this was the conse- 
 quence, showing in a series of misfortunes. He had 
 left Dorothy — a hazardous realization of what she must 
 be feeling now, without any sense of usefulness, pos- 
 sessed him. He had left Roy. He was breaking Pris- 
 cilla's heart. All for what ? What was the impulse that 
 had led him to such a stage? Was it love for Priscilla? 
 A love that could bring her to this unhappiness? He 
 was coldly dismayed; yet he was all the time conscious 
 that he had not lost his head. He was not hoping any- 
 thing: he was quite clearly feeling that everything was 
 lost: but he was not in despair. Was it that he was 
 only numbed? With curiosity he found that he had 
 begun to revolve in his mind some of the details of 
 David's scheme. Thought of them diverted his atten- 
 tion from the more pressing anxieties. These slipped 
 into a looming background. He found himself, while 
 the others talked, planning and selecting the typical move- 
 ments of which he might be said to have any generalized 
 knowledge. They were few; but there were others in 
 which he found sufficient interest for his purpose. The 
 word "direction" was definitely in his mind. In what 
 direction did events tend? Was there any conceivable 
 object or perceptible end in all these tendencies of thought 
 and action which had gained the weakness of adherents? 
 When a tendency became distinguishable, was it not even 
 then dying as the coral insect dies? It fascinated him 
 to think thus. Whither was the world, whither was 
 England, tending? Humanitarianism he found vaguely 
 powerful, opposing dogma everywhere, and slipping into 
 individual justifications of weakness. Wrong sorts of 
 collectivism, barren sorts of individualism, hypocritical 
 conglomerations of mediocrity assuming the air of con- 
 certed strength — these next swam into his survey. There 
 was the religious tendency away from thought, and the
 
 DIRECTIONS 287 
 
 opposed intellectualism stiffening into rigidity. There 
 was the exaltation of the more dangerous parochiaHsm 
 known as nationahty, with its exploitation of crude com- 
 mon emotions. There was the powerful and still un- 
 plumbed element of sex-hatred — the mystifying complex 
 that he could not pretend to understand. There were 
 academic and reactionary theories of government con- 
 tinually advancing and receding under pressure of the 
 general social conflict and the opportunism of the parties. 
 ... He saw no end to the subjects from which a writer 
 might choose his material for such a book, providing he 
 had the necessary discretion to prevent his work from 
 being the feeble and hot-headed muddle of cantankerous 
 opinion. . . . 
 
 Slowly he came back to the group at the other side of 
 the room. He could now quietly watch Priscilla, and 
 observe her most delicate pallor. A shock struck him. 
 If she should be ill! It seemed to him that he wanted 
 her happiness above all things ; but it must be a happiness 
 definitely reached through understanding, and not a 
 patched-up happiness obtained by glossing over the 
 shock of his confession. His sense of Priscilla was at 
 this moment poignant. He watched her devouringly, 
 with eyes of passion. What would be the outcome of 
 all this? And what, in God's name, was he to do? With 
 The Norm gone, he had no money for their living. His 
 teeth met sharply. With this unhappiness between them, 
 what might not happen? He became consumed with 
 anxiety. Poor Priscilla ! Yet not poor, for she had her 
 incomparable sweetness! As swiftly, his mood changed. 
 He must not pity. He had wronged her. What was his 
 feeling? Was it love or hatred? The thought that he 
 might ever hate her was new to him. But when he saw 
 Hilary so near to Priscilla, talking to her so easily, 
 while he perforce must only witness the conversation, he 
 became aware of the distance that separated them. He
 
 288 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 was cut off from the others, suffering alone. It did not 
 matter how much he suffered. Nobody cared for that. 
 Had he not suffered? His Hfe had been nothing but 
 suffering. Yet he was to be found guilty, and sentenced, 
 as though he were a libertine. . . . 
 
 Bitterly did Stephen's thoughts run, corroding his 
 love, 
 
 iv 
 
 When the others had gone, Priscilla and he stood alone 
 in the room. It was horrible to see her so constrained 
 before him ! And while he thought it horrible, while he 
 was heartsick, he was conscious of a savage pleasure in 
 it also, and a kind of indifferent indignation. Why 
 should she be immune from suffering? thought this 
 malignant part of him. He had suffered : why should 
 she not do so? It was life they were in; not a drawing- 
 room game. Priscilla must understand that this was 
 reality, not a charade. Then that emotion was ousted by 
 his deep regret, by the knowledge that he deeply loved 
 her. And again by his cool appreciation of the fact that 
 she was the most beautiful woman in the world, and the 
 truest. 
 
 *' Stephen," said Priscilla. "I knew that letter was 
 not . . ." She stopped, and came to him. In silence 
 they held each other tightly, face to face, painfully aware 
 of all the difference between them. 
 
 "Don't worry about it. It's The Norm . . . stopping. 
 Don't worry about that, you know. I've dreaded it for 
 weeks." He was abjectly candid. **I guessed it was 
 coming." 
 
 "My dearest . . . and you said . . . You wouldn't 
 have told me." 
 
 "Yes. When they were gone. When he was gone." 
 
 There was silence for a moment. Then Priscilla pulled 
 herself away.
 
 DffiECTIONS 289 
 
 "I love you and I hate you," she said in a strange voice. 
 "And I feel indifferent to you." It was her confession. 
 He could not confess anything: he did not know how to 
 confess. '"But I pity you more than anything else at all," 
 she went on. 
 
 "Pity! Oh, God help me, Priscilla!" 
 
 Stephen was appalled at her words. He looked at 
 Priscilla in a dreadful frenzy. When upon a passionate 
 impulse he would have taken her again into his arms she 
 stepped back, away from him, shaking her head. So for 
 several dead moments, in which the clock's steady ticking 
 cut across the silence, they stood looking at each other, 
 as though their wills were pitted in conflict. Priscilla's 
 head was up, her lips parted, her nostrils pinched as she 
 breathed quickly in such stress of gusty feeling. Then 
 their tension relaxed, with still no word spoken ; and they 
 began once more to look away, to look down, both of 
 them chilled with an awkward shame for such unwonted 
 display. . . . With a sharp sigh, Stephen knew that 
 Priscilla was his no longer. She did not trust him. She 
 would console him, be kind to him ; but she no longer had 
 that implicit trust in him which had made their love real. 
 Curiously, she was now completely detached from him, 
 and he could no longer read her baffling personality. 
 Without further speech he watched her go out of the 
 room, and he was left solitary.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII: THE TROUGH OF THE WAVE 
 
 FOR days Stephen went about his ordinary work 
 deahng patiently with everything that arose; and 
 all the time his heart was aching. There was a dull 
 oppression of his spirit that was almost unbearable. He 
 thought of Priscilla with a sensation akin to dread, and 
 of the future with a clear expectation of disaster. He 
 did not dare to look forward beyond the next few weeks. 
 It was as though he expected to die, as though no plans 
 should be made in case they might never come to fruition. 
 If he thought of his work it was with the knowledge that 
 within a month he would be once more what he had been 
 long ago — a common hack, striving only to make a pound 
 or two by laborious performance of worthless duties. His 
 feeling was worse than one of abandonment, for in that 
 there is the vicious delight of surrender. It was the 
 death of hope. It induced in him a doggedness that was 
 more lonely than ever before. Painfully he left the cot- 
 tage each morning and worked at the British Museum: 
 no longer were there any days at home, or walks, or 
 afternoons of happy leisure. All was work. Sometimes 
 he would spend a day upon writing an article; and the 
 next day, with a groaning desperation, he would destroy 
 what he had written. Once or twice, out of sheer sad- 
 ness, would arise mysteriously some writing that held 
 a kind of vehement quality; and then he would know 
 that the work was as good as he could do. Odd pieces 
 of work found acceptance : he was still far from failure. 
 When he found that he could work, the work absorbed 
 him, and he would afterwards come forth into the air in 
 a dream of satisfaction. But on the whole he was in 
 despair. 
 
 290
 
 THE TROUGH OF THE WAVE 291 
 
 Stephen would sometimes, during the meals in which 
 they talked as though nothing was very much amiss, look 
 suddenly up and catch Priscilla's fleeting expression. She 
 was trying in every way to show him her sympathy; 
 she was never cold to him, as he was to her; Stephen 
 knew that she wanted him to talk to her, to tell her about 
 his work, to behave naturally. Her thought for him was 
 incessant. But it was for that very reason all the less 
 bearable. The sense of being somehow in the wrong 
 worked in his mind so that he felt what was almost a 
 sensation of injury. Her kindness was more paralysing 
 than reproaches would have been; for if she had been 
 reproachful he could have said to himself that she didn't 
 understand . . , that it was all very well to behave like 
 that. . . . He could have found, as men in such case 
 always do find, a sort of dreary bickering satisfaction. 
 But he was denied it. He had no grievance ; only the dull 
 hopelessness of their estrangement. And all the time he 
 was thinking that perhaps it would have been better if 
 he had never written that article upon Mr. Evandine's 
 book which had provoked their reunion. He traced 
 everything back to that — no further. That was the 
 starting-point of their present discord. He had then 
 been unhappy, but not with the sense of having made 
 Priscilla also unhappy. It was that new sense which 
 made him feel criminal — the injury to the one he best 
 loved, who was in every way guiltless. He had known 
 nothing of Priscilla's feeling for three years. If he had 
 not gone to Totteridge she might have married Hilary 
 Badoureau, might even now have been happy in forget- 
 ting himself. And he? With a shrug Stephen recog- 
 nized that he did not care about himself. He did not 
 love himself : it did not matter whether he suffered or 
 not. What did it matter? Who was the poorer or the 
 richer for his suffering? Suppose that he had taken 
 Minnie Bayley away until such time as he could have
 
 292 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 married her and domesticated their common secret. No : 
 he could not have done that. Why not? There again 
 Stephen struggled at a personal mystery. It was incon- 
 ceivable that he should have done such a thing as long 
 as Dorothy and Roy had been there. Yet for Priscilla 
 he had deserted both Dorothy and Roy! And what had 
 happened : what was to happen to them ? What was to 
 happen to Priscilla and to himself? Strange how simple 
 actions can affect so many complex relations! It made 
 Stephen feel that no single day, no single moment, stood 
 apart; since all were involved in the ceaseless motion of 
 life. He saw the progress of life as resembling the 
 whirling motes revealed in a shaft of sunlight. On and 
 on, round and round, went the living souls, as aimlessly 
 as the gyrating molecules. What did it matter ? A few 
 years and the sorrow of this time would be forgotten; 
 "men have died, and worms have eaten them ; but not for 
 love." And through all these bitter thoughts ran the 
 fear that extreme poverty was immediately in store for 
 them. How would that affect Priscilla? There sprang 
 up in him at that thought a feeling of desperation. If 
 that came, then he had indeed wholly betrayed her ! He 
 could not afford, whatever might happen, to be poor 
 again : his pride would not bear the thought that Priscilla 
 should suffer such humiliation. Therefore, at whatever 
 cost, he must set his teeth and win through. 
 
 11 
 
 One day, when there had been a little silence between 
 them, when Stephen was sitting at breakfast for a 
 moment after finishing his coffee, Priscilla impulsively 
 spoke to him upon this subject. 
 
 "I've been wondering," she said, "whether . . . 
 Stephen, I hope you're not having to worry about money. 
 I wish you'd tell me. I know what the stopping of the
 
 THE TROUGH OF THE WAVE 293 
 
 paper must mean; but you haven't said anything. And 
 somehow I haven't had the courage to ask you. I'm all 
 in the dark." 
 
 Stephen gave her a reflective glance; but his face did 
 not lighten. 
 
 "There's nothing to tell," he slowly answered. "I'm 
 trying to make good what's been lost. It's not altogether 
 easy ; but I expect it'll be all right, you know. We always 
 knew there was an element of precariousness. I don't 
 think I ever hid that. ..." 
 
 Priscilla smiled, not very brightly, and hesitated before 
 she spoke again, striving for lightness of tone. 
 
 "You always proclaimed it," she said. "I used to 
 think you protested too much ; though I know you were 
 thinking of me. This is all I mean, dear. When I'm 
 alone I wonder to myself whether I'm not simply . . ." 
 Her voice faltered. For a moment she could not proceed. 
 Then, startlingly, and in a choking voice, she said : "You 
 see, we're both involved. It makes me unhappy to think 
 that you may be trying to bear the whole burden. It's 
 too hard that you should. . . . There's no need for 
 that." 
 
 Stephen's mouth was ugly with his shame and his 
 uncontrollable defiance. In such conflict his reply was 
 harsh. 
 
 "Well, I don't know what you want. I can't come 
 to you now and worry you about myself, because I feel 
 that I haven't your confidence. But you seem to main- 
 tain an interest — a sort of pity — that I really find unbear- 
 able. Really unbearable." This time it was Stephen's 
 voice that slightly trembled. To him it was like fighting 
 in the dark. "If you want to know about the money 
 business I can tell j'-ou exactly ; but it doesn't seem worth 
 while. It would only make me abject before you. It's 
 too much to ask of me — at this time. You know I'm 
 doing badly. Well, that's still going on. It's bound to
 
 294 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 go on. It's in the nature of things. Bit by bit I seem 
 to be losing all I had. But we're a long way oflf starva- 
 tion yet; and if it weren't for our other wretchedness I 
 should still be perfectly cheerful and expectant. With 
 you behind me I'm not afraid of anything. But you're 
 not there. ..." 
 
 "I am there." 
 
 "Not your heart." 
 
 "Yes," persisted Priscilla. "My heart. I'm wholly 
 with you. You've no right to say anything else." He 
 could see her hands trembling as she folded her 
 napkin, and her lovely face ashen, so strong was her 
 emotion. 
 
 "What's between us then?" he urged. "Not only 
 the thought of Minnie. I know it's more than that. 
 Something. . . . Feeling. Somehow I've lost your con- 
 fidence . . . your love. You're only giving me some- 
 thing else — your loyalty. You know I recognize that, 
 and your kindness. But what's the good of it in this 
 case? The whole thing — the real thing — is wanting." 
 
 "Are you accusing me?" she asked unsteadily. 
 
 "A little," Stephen admitted. "A little." He moved 
 restlessly. "I feel in the wrong. I admit that. I couldn't 
 deny it. I haven't denied it. And I'm not accusing 
 you of what you can't help. All I say is, that you're 
 trying to force yourself to . . . what is it? Is it to 
 compromise? I hope that's not so. Because of course 
 that would be the worst possible thing. If you don't 
 trust me I think you ought at least to go the whole way. 
 Not be afraid, and fall back into a half-truth, which is 
 what you're doing." 
 
 "It's not as simple as that, Stephen," cried Priscilla. 
 "I must get up. I can't keep still. You know that 
 nothing we can say really matters now. I can't help 
 behaving strangely. I try not to. I try to show you 
 that you've got as much as I can give."
 
 THE TROUGH OF THE WAVE 295 
 
 "That's just what is the trouble," he broke out, also 
 rising. "Dear, I'm not accusing you now. I know just 
 how much effort you're making; but it makes me so 
 miserable to see you forcing yourself. ... If you really 
 were cruel to me I think I could bear it better. But you 
 see when you're kind . . . with a constraint ... I 
 know so clearly that there's all the difference in the world 
 between that and your old feeling. And what makes it 
 so ugly is that I haven't changed — I mean, that what 
 I am now I was before. I love you just as deeply. I 
 know you can't help it, that you're feeling outraged, that 
 you've got reason to think much evil of me. But that 
 doesn't make it, for me, any more tolerable. Because 
 I'm all the time wishing everything unsaid — not to save 
 myself — you know that — but to spare you. That's 
 priggish; but it's quite true." 
 
 "I know it is," said Priscilla swiftly. "You can't tell 
 me what I've not told myself. Oh, if thought did any 
 good, I could have thought everything through by now. 
 It doesn't do any good. Nor does talking. I simply feel 
 that I can't be as I was before. It's not that I'm shocked. 
 It's something wholly different. All I do blame you for 
 is for not telling me long ago. That's absolutely the only 
 thing, Stephen. Apart from that I don't feel anything 
 against you. And even there I'm beginning to feel only 
 sorry. I know how you're suffering. . . . What I've 
 been trying to do is somehow to accept the thing . . . 
 the state of affairs, and to — not pretend, but really to he 
 as much your old Priscilla as I can. There's everything 
 except my own " 
 
 "Your own love," Stephen said. "Yes : I see it clearly. 
 Do you wish we'd never been married?" 
 
 "No!" 
 
 Stephen turned away, unable to hide his relief at her 
 declaration. 
 
 "Then for God's sake, my dear, don't try to be kind
 
 296 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 to me. I don't want your kindness. I want something 
 quite different. What you offer me is ever so much 
 worse than cruelty." 
 
 "Stephen, I don't think you understand. . . ." She 
 stopped herself. Irene had come into the room to clear 
 away the breakfast things. Stephen looked at her with 
 distaste ; but he bowed to the law of the morning's work. 
 Well, that moment was gone; and they had talked quite 
 openly, face to face. He was no unhappier, at any rate, 
 and Priscilla would certainly feel better for expressing 
 herself and clearly saying what had been much in her 
 mind. He would go now, and perhaps he could work. 
 But she checked him. She could not let him go thus, 
 although she could hardly speak steadily, and wanted 
 only to cover her trembling lips so as to regain some of 
 her self-control. 
 
 "Are you beginning that book for David, Stephen?" 
 
 Stephen looked back at her with doubt. 
 
 "I've done nothing at all with it," he said. "It means 
 a lot of work, and very little return. Books don't pay. 
 It would take me six months at least. And I thought 
 you weren't keen on it." 
 
 "I?" She coloured deeply. "I want you to do 
 it." 
 
 Irene was clambering round the table, her ears pricked, 
 her naive red face and astonished grey eyes making her 
 seem, to their heightened fancies, a perfect living sponge 
 for the absorption of all speeches. Fortunately she 
 dropped a cup, and this so discomposed her, although 
 the cup did not break, that she became too excited for 
 any words to remain intelligible to her listening ear. 
 When she had removed the tray, Priscilla hastened to 
 speak again. 
 
 "I've been ashamed ever since that night," she said. 
 "I was disgusting. I was so miserable and so irritable 
 that I had an impulse to hurt you. I want you to write
 
 THE TROUGH OF THE WAVE 297 
 
 the book. But, Stephen, you'll have to try to believe in 
 my wish to be . . . just as I was . . . dear!" 
 
 Stephen shook his head. His eyes were quite dead, 
 
 "No," he murmured, very low. "What I prized isn't 
 
 there. And what you prized is gone. It's pretty beastly, 
 
 isn't it? ... It makes me feel such an awful cad. . . ." 
 
 Without any more speech he went out of the room and 
 
 of the house, and she saw him no more until the evening. 
 
 Ill 
 
 And when evening came, Skeffington looked in to 
 dinner. 
 
 "It's pretty fair impudence," he admitted. "But then 
 I am impudent. It's the way I've got on. I shall intro- 
 duce you to my tailor, Moore : and get a commission from 
 him. I shall get you to insure your furniture with me. 
 Must turn an honest penny somehow. By the way, how's 
 my old friend the watcher by the threshold? Seen him 
 lately? Your cat ... I forget his name. . . . He's 
 becoming a friend of mine ; he was in sniffing my roses 
 yesterday, and he's taken a fancy to my writing-table. 
 W^alks over my manuscript and leaves his muddy foot- 
 prints there. Charming fellow ! But you mustn't think 
 I'm complaining; because I shouldn't dream of such a 
 thing." 
 
 Skeffington stroked his little sandy beard, and his 
 bright elusive glance travelled from one to the other in 
 an inquiry that was far from inquisitiveness. Stephen 
 caught the flicker of Skeffington's feminine hand. 
 
 "It's a compliment to you, Mr. Skeffington," Priscilla 
 said. "Romeo's not at all a familiar person." 
 
 "I quite realize it. I was really boasting. I'm a 
 boastful fellow." 
 
 "You always seem to be giving yourself away, don't 
 you ?"
 
 298 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 "Sheer morbidness, you know. I'm so afraid of being 
 taken seriously that I go to the opposite extreme. I 
 become tedious. Tediousness, vanity, self -exposition. 
 ... By the way, how's your brother? I saw him one 
 day recently. He was full of a scheme for Moore. I 
 was to work Moore up to the scratch. Moore, I hereby 
 work you up to the scratch. Some book. . . . He's 
 very indignant about some dull scheme of your own. . . ." 
 
 "It's remarkable!" Stephen exclaimed uneasily, 
 "Why shouldn't I write those pedestrian articles ? Every- 
 body's against them." 
 
 "Because they're dull. That's what's the matter with 
 them. Any fool with a paste-pot and long legs could 
 write pedestrian articles. Help me, Mrs. Moore!" 
 
 "I'm afraid," said Priscilla, with one of her old quick 
 glances at Stephen. "I don't think you're going the 
 right way to work." 
 
 "Ought I to condemn the scheme? Is he obstinate?" 
 
 "Yes, I am," admitted Stephen. "And I'm set on 
 pedestrianism." 
 
 "It's not modesty, you know," Skeffington explained 
 to Priscilla. "It's pride. He thinks he can't draw back. 
 That's the man he is. D'you see it? The trouble with 
 Moore is a kind of obtuse pride. Take it away, purge 
 him of it, and he'd be a very decent fellow. But pride's 
 a devil." 
 
 Priscilla nodded — gravely. Stephen saw her nod. 
 
 "I'm tired of being talked about," he said. "Let's try 
 something else.^ Are you working yourself, Skeffington? 
 Or doing nothing?" 
 
 *T never work. I'm lazy. I do all my work in a flurry, 
 at the last minute, to keep a contract date. And get 
 blamed for too much dignity of manner. Pity me!" 
 
 "Intolerably afifected ass!" thought Stephen. He did 
 not say it; but the blackness of his expression sent 
 Skeffington into a great roar of laughter.
 
 THE TROUGH OF THE WAVE 299 
 
 "Simple fellow!" he said at last. Then he devoted 
 himself to Priscilla, leaving Stephen, ruffled, to eat his 
 dinner in silence. 
 
 iv 
 
 But what Skeffington had said about his pride remained 
 in Stephen's mind. Was he so proud? Was he too 
 exacting? If he was exacting, then so was Priscilla, for 
 at this time surely, thought he, she was being quite too 
 extraordinarily exacting, so that she left him no single 
 refuge of self-complacency. As he listened to their talk 
 Stephen's grim expression relaxed : he even joined in it, 
 for Skeffington's gaiety was wholly infectious. He car- 
 ried off the poverty of his jokes with a kind of high 
 spirits that was quite three-quarters nervous. Skeffing- 
 ton's physique was slight, his general air one of extreme 
 delicacy. Stephen found himself becoming as indulgent 
 to this new friend as he had become to David Evandine. 
 There was about Skeffington none of the lackadaisical 
 calm that marked David's slow, provoking survey of all 
 the intricacies of the moment. He was all the time 
 shining and changing and laughing, restless and viva- 
 cious. Stephen envied his vivacity : it made a charm 
 which he himself did not possess. But he had a better 
 brain than Skeffington, who was an artist, and not a 
 critic at all, except of persons, in whom by nature he 
 was abnormally interested. 
 
 Skeffington had been, it transpired, on the previous 
 Sunday to Totteridge. He had met Mr. and Mrs. Evan- 
 dine for the first time, and had been fascinated by them. 
 
 "By the way," he said, looking back at Stephen, and 
 then again swiftly at Priscilla, "our good friend 
 Badoureau was there." 
 
 "Really!" Priscilla spoke. "That's strange. I 
 thought he was going away." 
 
 "Apparently not."
 
 300 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 "See, weren't zve going to Totteridge last Sunday?" 
 asked Stephen. "We didn't go." 
 
 "I thought Master Badoureau — " began Skeffinglon, 
 and checked himself suddenly. "He only stayed a little 
 while. What a jolly little car he's got!" He seemed to 
 be smiling elfishly, as though a whimsical idea had struck 
 him. "Now, of course," said he, "that most delightful 
 child who's staying there must be your sister, Moore." 
 
 "Isn't she lovely?" exclaimed Priscilla. "I'm very 
 glad you saw her." 
 
 "I hope you'll ask me to tea when she comes to see 
 you," artfully hinted Skeffington. 
 
 "She was very impressed with your singing the last 
 time she was here," demurely remarked Priscilla. That 
 considerably dashed him, for he sang in a very loud 
 voice. 
 
 "I'm so sorry. I was probably doing my fireplace. 
 It's such a help to sing as you rake the cinders. Or 
 perhaps I was baking. . . ." He was trying to overcome 
 their bad impression by insidious detail. 
 
 "I'm sorry to say you were beating time with some- 
 thing, Mr. Skeffington," said Priscilla. "I don't think 
 you can have been doing any really useful work." 
 
 "Perhaps not. Perhaps not. Anyway, I hope you 
 won't forget. . . ." 
 
 Stephen had by now quite recovered his spirits; but 
 the talk about Dorothy recalled to his mind the fact that 
 her immediate future was a matter for concern. He fell 
 into a brown study ; and was glad v/hen Skeffington, after 
 a good deal of further desultory nonsense, withdrew. He 
 was then alone with Priscilla. She took his arm as he 
 returned from the front door. 
 
 "I like Mr. Skeffington," she said. 
 
 "I can't help liking him too," remarked Stephen. 
 
 "Why shouldn't you ?" she demanded. 
 
 "Did Badoureau think we were going to Totteridge?"
 
 THE TROUGH OF THE WAVE 301 
 
 Priscilla flinched ever so slightly. She answered quite 
 frankly. 
 
 "He may have done so. I don't remember telling him." 
 There was a moment's silence. Then she continued. 
 "He's a very old friend of David's, of course." 
 
 They did not speak again of Hilary; but went on 
 talking about the book Stephen was to write, which 
 perhaps was to be successful and make a man's reputa- 
 tion. ...
 
 CHAPTER XIX: TOLERANCE 
 
 ALL this time the old man had given no sign. He 
 had not written; there had been no indication 
 whatever, beyond his silence, that he had received 
 Stephen's letter. He was as one dead. Nor had Roy 
 repeated his visit to Hampstead. The old home in 
 Slapperton Street kept its own secret. At Totteridge 
 Dorothy's plan for the re-exploitation of her personality 
 was in abeyance. Mr. and Mrs. Evandine were also out- 
 side the immediate range of Stephen's knowledge. Every 
 other thing, besides his own difficulties and the secret 
 trouble of Priscilla, was in a lull. At times he could not 
 help feeling that this seeming lull was a prelude to some 
 larger and more grievous series of complications. Of all 
 those who formed his personal circle David and Hilary 
 alone were active — the one because his imperturbable and 
 inscrutable behaviour always hid a ceaseless interior 
 movement of the mind, the other because he had appar- 
 ently much leisure and a natural bias towards the social 
 life of Hampstead. Priscilla saw nobody in those days : 
 she was alone. Equally alone was Stephen. The slow 
 evolution of personal interactions, on the surface so little 
 changing, but at bottom so constantly disintegrating and 
 re-forming in new arrays, was for both of them at a 
 standstill. It was as though their little world, before this 
 vital difference, stood aside in contemplation. But, when 
 a fortnight had gone by, the movements which had 
 appeared suspended became once more clearly to be seen, 
 and they had in that interval so definitely progressed as 
 to show that the air of stillness had been deceptive. From 
 that one moment all the conflicting impulses and desires 
 
 302
 
 TOLERANCE 303 
 
 crossed and became again entangled. From then all the 
 interests of those people with whom Stephen's life was 
 associated began directly to react upon him and upon his 
 relation to Priscilla, until that time when, for a period, 
 the immediate end of all this business seemed to be 
 reached. In after life he was able to detect — not the 
 reason, but at least the moment of the turn in his affairs 
 which from now carried him forward upon the crest of 
 a wave, and brought him to the crisis of his passionate 
 adventure. So it was that his present feeling of strange 
 expectation was justified, since the lull, although it had 
 no real existence, but was merely a result of his own 
 momentary weariness, did most certainly leave Stephen 
 at the mercy of untoward events. 
 
 11 
 
 The first indication of the new movement came in a 
 curious way. It came as it were casually, when, one 
 evening, Dorothy appeared at their front door with David 
 as escort, both of them suspiciously breathless and talka- 
 tive. They came into the sitting-room, where Priscilla 
 was reading a novel and where Stephen was frowning 
 over the compression into five hundred words of a review 
 which in eight hundred words was already packed as 
 tightly as he could for the moment pack it. Priscilla's 
 first reflection, after her quick impulse of pleasure, was 
 "they've quarrelled"; her second "she's refused him"; 
 her third "she hasn't let him speak" ; her fourth "what- 
 ever is the matter?" She could tell that both were very 
 excited, and that neither of them looked at the other, or 
 directly at anybody else. Only, they talked. . . . She 
 looked at Stephen, to find him apparently puzzled by 
 Dorothy's behaviour. Were they in love with one 
 another? Priscilla could not be sure. David never 
 spoke seriously of himself : she thought him secretive.
 
 304 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 Dorothvi unlike some girls, never talked about her feel- 
 ings, although she did not seem to put any check upon 
 her tongue. So they sat tliere, laughing and talking, 
 Dorothy quick and merry, her eyes bright and her cheeks 
 flushed, so that she looked like the embodiment of mis- 
 chief; Priscilla graver, still rather pale and exquisitely 
 fair; Stephen with an air of affection overriding his 
 natural seriousness ; and David's very thin but very alert 
 brown face alive with expression while his eyes brimmed 
 with an intriguing and mysterious kind of drunkenness. 
 The visitors gave no hint as to their own relations : they 
 simply said, "We've come to see you." And there they 
 were, talking like children, and saying a great deal of 
 nonsense which nobody (not even themselves) could 
 understand. 
 
 They had come, it appeared, by tramcar from Whet- 
 stone to Golders Green; and had walked the rest of the 
 way. It was such a beautiful night, they said; with so 
 many stars; and there was such a bonny moon; and the 
 tram conductor had dropped David's shilling, and 
 matches innumerable had been required for its recovery ; 
 and the tram had nearly run away with them, through 
 the driver's sudden loss of nerve ; and in fact their recital 
 was as commonplace as anybody could suppose. What, 
 then, had given them this great air of marvellous buoy- 
 ancy? At their age, Priscilla supposed, only one thing; 
 and then she chid herself for being so stupid. Why 
 shouldn't they be amused at their adventures ? She hoped 
 they were not flirting! A dread of it ran across her 
 mind. Did she know of Dorothy that she would not 
 behave in such a way? A glance reassured her. She 
 smiled and shook her head once, in a sort of bewilder- 
 ment; but somehow they amused her very much. They 
 made her feel so old — so married. It occurred to her to 
 think how pleasant it would be, when they had gone, to 
 talk to Stephen about her questions. So she could still
 
 TOLERANCE 305 
 
 talk to him? Of course she could! Priscilla knew that 
 the only topic upon which they could not speak at ease 
 was the topic of their own relation. It made her sigh to 
 think of it; but she did not therefore lose her sense of 
 quick, amused sympathy for the happy children whose 
 mysterious behaviour was proving so engrossing a 
 problem for her wits. 
 
 iii 
 
 "Biddy's going to be married !" announced Dorothy 
 in a startling pause. 
 
 "No!" Priscilla \vas surprised out of her benign sense 
 of elderliness. "How awfully interesting!" 
 
 "A man in Totteridge. Mrs. Evandine knew nothing 
 about it. He's a very rich man — a builder." 
 
 "Builders are very bad men as a rule," observed David 
 languidly. 
 
 "This one's nice. I've seen him. But Biddy deserves 
 somebody nicer, I'm sure. I feel terribly flattered, 
 because she told me herself. She said, very kindly, 
 'I'm going to be married, miss. He's a builder ... a 
 very respectable man. He employs five men.' It does 
 sound rather good. . . . But I feel it's a drop for 
 Biddy." 
 
 "Dorothy thinks she deserves a Marquis," David 
 teased. Priscilla smiled at a recollection. 
 
 "I remember you always admired Biddy," she ad- 
 mitted. "She impressed you." 
 
 "I feel she's so much better bred than I am. Except 
 when she talks naturally. Do* you notice how servants 
 have two manners? When they're being 'servants' 
 they're so very prim and silent and rustling . . . and 
 when they're human beings they talk differently and 
 move differently; and make a noise and laugh. 1 never 
 thought Biddy could laugh; and then one day I heard
 
 306 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 her roarins: awav when she dichi't know I was there. 
 She's two persons." 
 
 "A double-face," suggested David, leaning back in his 
 chair and smiling. 
 
 "Oh no, David," Priscilla interposed. "She's a splen- 
 did girl. What will mother do without her?" 
 
 Dorothy crossed the room to Stephen, and sat beside 
 him. 
 
 "Have you done anything about me?" she asked. 
 
 "I've got some particulars. You shall have them 
 presently — before you go." 
 
 "Is it very expensive?" They were speaking about 
 her cookery lessons. "Talking about Biddy reminded 
 me. She wants to learn cookery too. In two months 1 
 She'll have to cook her builder's meals." 
 
 Priscilla was listening. She looked sharply at the 
 unreadably smiling David. 
 
 "Mr. Skeffington's got some diploma as a cook," she 
 said. "We're going in one night to a dinner prepared 
 entirely by him.self. But, Dorothy, you surely haven't 
 anything to learn?" 
 
 "Only method." The words came abruptly from 
 Stephen. "And she'd get a necessary certificate." 
 
 "Beautiful things!" murmured Dorothy in a sort of 
 trance. "Beautiful things to melt in your mouth. 
 Terribly expensive things for old gentlemen to eat at 
 banquets." 
 
 "Oh, but they have chefs!" objected David. 
 
 "Now, they do !" Dorothy was fiery in retort. "Wait ! 
 Years hence women will do it all, and the dinners will 
 be over early. I shall practise on David. I shall bring 
 him back things with a thousand ingredients. And he 
 shall eat them before my very eyes!" 
 
 David groaned. His complacent expression changed 
 to one of utter helplessness. 
 
 "I don't know which to pity most — among these cooks.
 
 TOLERANCE 307 
 
 You, who dine with old Skeff; or Biddy's builder; or 
 myself. But after all, you may escape the first onset, 
 while the builder and I . . ." 
 
 "It wouldn't be a bad idea," persisted Dorothy, with 
 the reflective enthusiasm of the Mikado when he discusses 
 the merits of boiling oil and molten lead, "for Biddy also 
 to practise on David. He could be a kind of unofficial 
 judge, deciding between us." 
 
 "How terrible all this talk is !" cried David, for whom 
 it had very real terrors. "Parlous d'autres choses! as 
 Madame de Sevigne says." 
 
 "I was only joking. . . . For one thing, I shan't be at 
 Totteridge," Dorothy said in a peculiar tone. David 
 looked straight at her. 
 
 "No. I'd forgotten that." It was impossible to detect 
 any feeling in David's acknowledgment. 
 
 Priscilla almost stamped in her interest and her 
 bewilderment. She could not . . . she really had no 
 wish to be curious; but if she might not be curious about 
 Dorothy and David then her range of interests must 
 be painfully circumscribed. And so she was forced to 
 admit privately to herself that she was frightfully curious. 
 
 "You'll be here," added Stephen, with Priscilla a kind 
 of half -beat late. 
 
 "Though I don't know why you shouldn't be at 
 Totteridge," was Priscilla's murmured supplement. She 
 and Dorothy exchanged a mutually imploring look. "Has 
 father ever finished his essay on gardens ? He was writ- 
 ing it . . . while we were away. , . ." In spite of her 
 momentary preoccupation with other things Priscilla 
 faltered in saying that, and was almost manifestly in 
 distress. 
 
 "Poor old man. Poor old Minch. Poor everybody!" 
 David shed commiseration with a regal bounty. "Only 
 execration for Vanamure." 
 
 "Well, I feel sorry for him!" cried Dorothy.
 
 308 THi:. CHASTE WIFE 
 
 "Do tell us what's happened!" 
 
 "Well, father's hair is bleached ; Minch is bent double, 
 and crawleth upon all-fours; and Vanamure purrs over 
 the whole farrago of nonsense. He's as ignorant as a 
 hen. I said to father: 'It won't do.' I had to say it, 
 to protect him !" 
 
 "Poor old chap!" They all three shook wiseacre 
 heads, Stephen alone thoughtfully considering the un- 
 wisdom of Mr. Evandine from a technical point of view. 
 To Stephen the idea of writing about something one had 
 made no profound effort to understand was as condemn- 
 able as the adulteration of food-stuffs. 
 
 "Why did he do it ?" was the question at last produced 
 from his gloomy thoughts; and as the subject was by 
 then fading gradually from their attention all laughed at 
 his concern. 
 
 "It might be vanity — or innocence — or the lures of 
 that serpent Vanamure," suggested David. 
 
 "Why does your father have anything to do with 
 Vanamure ?" 
 
 David looked smilingly at Priscilla. It was a leading 
 question. It raised vast issues. 
 
 "Well, Stephen," he said candidly, "the obvious 
 answer, and the true one, you wouldn't understand. 
 You're not old enough. And it's not in your Protestant- 
 moral character to appreciate it. And Priscilla wouldn't 
 like me to tell you. But the truth is, he's rather disposed 
 to bask in the sunny warmth of Vanamure." 
 
 "I'm sorry," said Stephen. Priscilla showed her 
 disgust by going out of the room with Dorothy. 
 
 IV 
 
 As the door closed quietly but decidedly behind the 
 two girls, David resumed his explanation. 
 
 "Richard le Gallienne once wrote an article called 'The
 
 TOLERANCE 309 
 
 Desire of the Candle for the Moth.' It's a very inter- 
 esting thing to observe at what point men feel the need 
 of inferiors. It's no doubt when they've reached the end 
 of their intellectual enterprise — when they're not able to 
 learn any more. A remarkable field for the student of 
 intellectual pathology." 
 
 "Do you mean there's a sudden fall in their sense of 
 values?" asked Stephen, interested. 
 
 ''Oh, there are always fluctuations, aren't there? But 
 while a middle-aged man wants a cordial atmosphere of 
 sympathy a young man always wants to know men who 
 stimulate his curiosity." 
 
 "That's not universal," warned Stephen. "Only some, 
 remarkable, young men." 
 
 "Of course I'm assuming some calibre. I think the 
 old boy's got that — or had it. He's a very candid chap. 
 But men of his own type get stuck in one place, as he's 
 done ; and they never meet, except at the Literary Fund 
 dinner, or a banquet to some second-rate foreign person ; 
 so they're all living on memory and old association. They 
 tend inevitably to collect satellites." 
 
 Such talk made Stephen more and more gloomy. 
 
 "If that's so, it's very bad," he observed with great 
 rectitude. David shrugged. 
 
 "Is it?" he asked. "Do you suppose a man's always 
 to go out trailing clouds of glory. It's not the modern 
 literary life, my lad." 
 
 "I couldn't bear it!" cried Stephen, with a magnificent 
 egoism. "It's so hmriiliating. To have adherents and 
 admirers. It's loathly." 
 
 "What do you want then ? Don't you want people to 
 accept your ideas, your estimates ? To rally round you ? 
 Don't you imagine it would be rather fine to be recog- 
 nized and admired?" 
 
 "Not at all. No. I've never thought of it. I should 
 hate it."
 
 310 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 "What then?" 
 
 "I don't know. T want people to think right for the 
 right reasons — not because I say a thing, or because they 
 like me." 
 
 "That's like Priscilla's virtue for virtue's sake. You 
 can see it's all right for her, because she's happy; but, 
 my dear chap, think how inhuman it is !" 
 
 Stephen sighed, and shook his head. 
 
 "Is it? Then what is one to do? I should like above 
 all things to know wise people — people who would be so 
 amazingly instructed in all varieties of truth that the 
 whole of life was mapped before them. There aren't 
 such men. I don't know any who aren't working some- 
 how to some mysterious white spot in the future — some 
 luminous spark that they couldn't describe. But a jour- 
 ney done, a falling-back on lesser aims, I simply can't 
 understand. Why can't men go on pegging away all 
 their lives, sustained by that one unrealizable notion of 
 the white spot?" 
 
 "Because they're human beings. That's the only 
 answer." David seemed rather ruffled. He lighted a 
 cigarette, not as though with any deliberate intention, 
 but as if the action were thoughtless. "I mean, you 
 can't expect human vitality to go beyond a certain point 
 of endurance. There's a strain-point — even a breaking- 
 point. Take something apart from intellect. Take some 
 normal affair. Marriage, for instance." 
 
 "You think that's a compromise?" 
 
 "I think it entails compromise. Call it adjustment. 
 It's not necessarily compromise in the sense of any 
 sacrifice of principle. Losses, gains; it's comparable 
 with your relation to society : you don't go about scream- 
 ing or naked." 
 
 "I don't want to." 
 
 "But you wouldn't like anybody else to do it. It 
 would interfere with you. You couldn't bear to have
 
 TOLERANCE 311 
 
 your liberty curtailed by some outrageous eccentric. 
 That's what society does for you. Society says, suqh 
 things, though pleasing to the maniac, are displeasing to 
 the majority. Either the maniac goes of his own free 
 will to some colony of like persons, or, if he stays with 
 us, he recognizes our sentiments and conforms to our 
 practices. So they either shut him up or ostracize 
 him." 
 
 "Ha," grumbled Stephen. "I wouldn't." 
 
 "But, my dear chap, that's nonsense! Directly he did 
 it in your house you'd say, T can't stand that. I can't 
 work. He must go!' Now, wouldn't you?" David 
 laughed at his own mimicry. 
 
 "You're getting of? the point," advised Stephen, out- 
 debated by a red herring. "When I say 'no compro- 
 mise' I expect I'm being unsophisticated — or is it 
 sophisticated? Don't you recognize the power of recti- 
 tude at all ? I mean, not a mere priggishness, but a love 
 of doing right — not that good may follow, but that the 
 right thing is the thing that most attracts you. You 
 don't, surely, take refuge in a mere cynicism?" 
 
 "Well, at what point does tolerance become cyni- 
 cism?" 
 
 "I should say, at the point where it loses sight of one's 
 own ideal. When all ideals are equally indifferent. Good 
 gracious, David, tolerance is only a word. It's never 
 a fact. Who's tolerant?" 
 
 "You are, on the whole." 
 
 "Never. I savagely detest . . ." 
 
 "Priscilla . . . my mother . . . Dorothy. Even I 
 myself. . . ." 
 
 Stephen was silent for a moment. When he spoke again 
 he was very quiet. 
 
 "You're not," he said. "Dorothy's not." 
 
 "Then we're a pair. I say, she's going to marry me." 
 
 "I thought so. I'm very glad indeed. Your mother
 
 312 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 certainly is very good. She's splendid. . . . But as for 
 Priscilla . . ." 
 
 The girls came breathlessly back into the room. 
 
 "You're in time," David just mentioned. 
 
 "I heard my name." 
 
 "It's a question of your tolerance," explained David. 
 Priscilla started, and seemed as though she were trans- 
 fixed. Dorothy, with a flushed face and slightly trem- 
 bling lips, looked for one instant with a bold pride across 
 the room to David. Stephen looked neither up nor down ; 
 but he hesitated a little. 
 
 "Priscilla isn't tolerant," he said. "She's generous; 
 but she isn't tolerant. She feels too intensely to be 
 tolerant. She can't trust her judgment." 
 
 The lovers, obsessed by their own thrilling happiness, 
 heard nothing. Stephen might just as well not have 
 spoken, for all the attention they paid to his words. 
 They mechanically made ready to depart. Only Priscilla 
 heard.
 
 CHAPTER XX: ROY IN TROUBLE 
 
 ONE morning there came a letter from the old man. 
 Priscilla saw the shiny cheap envelope lying upon 
 the mat, and by instinct lifted it up by a single corner. It 
 was not a clean envelope; the edges were slightly yel- 
 lowed as with age or preservation; and the old man's 
 flowing, half-tremulous, unmistakable handwriting was 
 revealed. Still holding the envelope by the corner Pris- 
 cilla w^nt back into the room where Stephen was eating 
 his simple breakfast. She did not want to give him the 
 letter: it was hateful to her: yet she knew that he must 
 see it and must read it. Across her mind flashed the 
 thought that there was now nothing in the world that 
 the old man could write which Stephen could wish her 
 not to know. That impulsive thought deepened. She 
 felt that the letter had perhaps some significance, that as 
 the old man had been the occasion of the partial estrange- 
 ment of which she and Stephen alike were heartily tired, 
 so he might possibly have something to say which would 
 make their future relation easier. 
 
 With a sinking heart she handed the envelope to 
 Stephen, and he, with an expression of almost equal 
 trouble, opened it. Priscilla quietly resumed her seat 
 and pretended to take no notice of the letter. Then, with 
 a gesture that made her heart seem for an instant to stop 
 beating, Stephen handed it across the table. Their eyes 
 met. With a rising colour Priscilla turned to the letter, 
 conscious as she did so of a curious shudder at contact 
 with paper so subtly unclean. 
 
 "My dear Stephen," said the old man, — "I write in 
 the utmost haste and with all conceivable rapidity to 
 apprise you of events of the gravest moment which are 
 
 313
 
 314 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 at this time befalling the remainder and I regret to say 
 the apparently to you neglible remainder of your family. 
 Not for myself do I upon this occasion plead with you 
 for assistance. Far from that. It is for him alone — in 
 danger, through his too considerate heart, beset upon 
 every hand by spies, a pardonable weakness, and in fact 
 the danger of irremediable disgrace. Were I able to rise 
 from my bed I would even old as I am, even ignored and 
 worthless as I am, come to you upon my knees to save 
 this unfortunate, this misguided and stricken boy from 
 the dire and dreadful consequences of his rash act. Come, 
 Stephen, I implore you, without delay; for as I have 
 explained a few moments may make all the difference. 
 Come, if you would relieve the paternal heart, stricken 
 but indomitable, at this last, this painful and resounding 
 backhanded blow from the hand of Fate. Your father, 
 J. M." 
 
 Even in the midst of her growing bewilderment Pris- 
 cilla observed that Stephen was hurrying to finish his 
 breakfast. She read again the puzzling words, and 
 found in them no enlightenment. 
 
 "Surely he's left something out," she murmured at 
 last. 
 
 "Roy's evidently in trouble. . . . He's excited, and 
 he's forgotten that I don't know what it is that's hap- 
 pened. Tautologists always leave out the essential thing. 
 I shall go down there at once." 
 
 "To Slapperton Street?" 
 
 "It looks as though there's been some accident," 
 Stephen said, putting his cup hastily down. "Or Roy's 
 done something, or been accused of doing something." 
 He spoke with a sort of miserable grimness. "I dare say 
 the old man's at the bottom of it." 
 
 "He's ill, Stephen ... the old man." Priscilla's 
 quick sympathy rose in defence of the weak. 
 
 "Ill !" Stephen's inflexion was a significant one. "The
 
 ROY IN TROUBLE 315 
 
 old man always takes to his bed when anything uncom- 
 fortable happens. I'm not simply speaking cruelly : it's 
 a fact. But I must go at once. That poor kid may be 
 in a thorough fix. By the way, if Dorothy comes, don't 
 mention it. She'd be alarmed, and probably go rushing 
 down there." 
 
 He was gone, leaving the letter still upon the table in 
 front of Priscilla. 
 
 • • 
 
 11 
 
 The morning was cloudy, and there had already been 
 some rain, which was drying away from the centres of 
 the paving-stones. The atmosphere was both hot and 
 moist, so that Stephen felt the perspiration upon his face 
 as he hurried to the Tube railway station. He v^^as in 
 that mood when everything seems to be an obstruction 
 or a cause of delay; and he suffered accordingly from a 
 crowd at the ticket office; a dilatory liftman; a slow and 
 jerky journey to the centre of the earth; a missed train; 
 and presently from the inpouring of huge numbers of 
 girls and women on their way to offices in the City or 
 the West End. He was alarmed at the hint contained 
 in the old man's letter, and irritated at the manner in 
 which the hint had been conveyed. But he also tormented 
 himself with the thought that if he had been standing by 
 Roy as he ought to have done any trouble such as the 
 one he feared would have been averted. Why was it 
 that he had done nothing? To plead that he was busy, 
 or worried, or careless, was not in his nature: he could 
 not offer any excuse; he could only arraign himself 
 and the old man. This, in both cases, he did very 
 heartily. 
 
 So the journey passed, until he reached Euston and 
 turned eastwards by omnibus, growing each moment 
 more convinced of his own shortcoming and that of the 
 old man. It never occurred to him to blame Roy. Roy,
 
 316 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 he felt, was a sort of joint product of the old man and 
 himself. He had never had a chance, owing to the rivalry- 
 bet ween his elders. Very well. If Roy was in a scrape, 
 as it seemed, the time had come to take a firm line and 
 to insist that henceforward Roy should live under Pris- 
 cilla's eye. For himself Stephen thought nothing: his 
 responsibility was an accepted thing. What was also 
 clear was that the old man must be finally dealt with on 
 this point also. The old man, like a bad husbandman, 
 must be punished by the withdrawal of his fallow lands. 
 Roy must be taken away from him. Angrily, coldly, 
 grimly, Stephen decided that upon his journey. The 
 determination expelled everything else from his thoughts. 
 The time had come. The old man's hour had struck. 
 Therein Stephen thought truer than he knew. 
 
 iii 
 
 In the watery sunlight of this morning, while the sun 
 was burning away the mists which had arisen from the 
 summer rain, and was preparing an oppressive, windless 
 midday, Pentonville Road and Upper Street were alike 
 vile to the human eye. Dirt seemed ingrained in the 
 shabby buildings; the hurrying people and the noisy 
 vehicles, so crowded upon the roadway, deepened 
 Stephen's sense of dismay. Carts loaded with boxes 
 and bales and cases trundled before the vehemently 
 gouging electric tramcars; red huge swaying motor- 
 omnibuses lurched and roared among the traffic; the air 
 was full of grinding din. At "The Angel," a public- 
 house which gives its name to the point of junction of 
 about seven busy and traffic-laden thoroughfares, there 
 was a notable congestion of vehicles. Upon this spot 
 were discharged the grimy affairs of Pentonville Road 
 and Saint John Street Road, of City Road and Goswell 
 Road, of Essex Road and Upper Street and Liverpool 
 Road. Wherever he looked Stephen saw the buildings
 
 ROY IN TROUBLE 317 
 
 which had been famiHar to him all his life. Down there 
 to the right as he reached the top of Pentonville Road 
 was Rosebery Avenue, the "opening" of which by the 
 earl after whom it had been named he remembered wit- 
 nessing as a boy : before him was a music-hall in which, 
 when it was the Grand Theatre, he had taken Dorothy 
 to see their first pantomime. As he hurried along the 
 Upper Street he came to the Agricultural Hall, familiar 
 to him as the home of innumerable tournaments and 
 exhibitions and cycle-shows, with a smaller hall behind 
 it where he had sometimes watched the ancient ]\iohawk 
 Minstrels. He could remember hearing them sing 
 "Clementine" and a hundred other songs of an imme- 
 morial character on very rare evenings when he had 
 been able to indulge himself with what he called "an 
 extravagance." There, too, was Collins's Music Hall, 
 which he had never entered; and upon his left lay all 
 this long hideous boring succession of stale shops, now 
 so reduced in the world. He could remember walking 
 stolidly along this wide pavement looking into those 
 windows at the waxen little boys who displayed stiffly 
 and with an altogether inhuman passivity the uncomfort- 
 able virtues of some suit of clothes beyond the means of 
 their observer, who went for years in shabby clothes that 
 he kept whole only by assiduous and strictl}'' private 
 repairs of his own. Every inch of the way made him 
 suffer once more the old feeling of being crushed, the 
 defiant hatred of poverty, the bitter dread of the triumph 
 of unkindness. To him as he walked, thinking not of 
 himself but of Roy, it seemed that any misdemeanour 
 might be forgiven a rebellious dweller among such over- 
 whelming dreariness. He did not once think of himself : 
 he was absorbed in recollection of old sensations, re- 
 imagining the past with such vividness that he lived it 
 through again. And he thought with comprehension of 
 Roy, weak, untrained, without guidance, under the
 
 318 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 influence of the old man and the old man only. Bitterly- 
 then did he again accuse himself. 
 
 iv 
 
 So he came to the familiar turning wherein lay that 
 tall house among its many fellows, distinguished from 
 them only by the number upon the door, which, according 
 to Dorothy's rueful irony, had served merely as a warn- 
 ing to the postman — like the leper's bell. Here Stephen 
 had to knock, to receive the familiar odours of the base- 
 ment, to mount the stairs. ... In the sitting-room little 
 was changed : only the place was untidy and dirty. Well, 
 who was to blame for that? Blame , . . blame . . . 
 blame . . . the thought ran in Stephen's mind. If one 
 blamed one could only bring the accusation finally against 
 oneself. Dorothy would have blamed the old man. 
 Stephen, with a morbid sense of responsibility, felt the 
 fault to be his own. In the next room he found Roy, 
 very white, newly shaved and very carefully dressed, 
 standing listlessly by the window. At Stephen's entrance 
 Roy started, turned quickly, and to Stephen's horror, 
 flinched before him, as though his impulse had been to 
 escape. 
 
 "Hallo, Roy: where's the old man?" 
 
 Roy could not speak. He swallowed once or twice, 
 and his lips moved : then he darted forward and caught 
 at Stephen's hand. Gaspingly he said : 
 
 "I've come a mucker, Steve. I've come a mucker. . . ." 
 
 No recollection of the phrase reminded Stephen of his 
 own moment of despair at the stoppage of The Norm. 
 The word, ugly as it was, was too much a part of their 
 ancient, and upon his side discarded, vocabulary to arrest 
 his attention; but he was quick to respond reassuringly, 
 for such an appeal instantly produced all the kindness 
 of his nature. 
 
 "We'll get you out of it, old chap. So long as you
 
 ROY IN TROUBLE 319 
 
 let me know the whole of it. Tell me." Stephen's eye 
 had a new light at the sense of Roy's willingness to 
 confide in him. To find Roy with his naturally stubborn 
 vanity in abeyance was to be enabled to meet the real 
 difficulty with his hands free. A sullen Roy, from whom 
 the details must laboriously be obtained, would have 
 made long and dexterous negotiation with his vanity the 
 first wearisome preliminary to any kind of remedial step ; 
 but this wholly candid boyish turn of readiness was the 
 way to a rapid solution. "What's it all about? A 
 quarrel, or something more troublesome?" 
 
 There was a dead stoppage. Roy turned away to the 
 window. Then, as if with an effort, he faced round 
 again. Stephen's keen watchfulness and keener judg- 
 ment were busy, guessing, observing, calculating. 
 
 "It's so hard to tell . . ." Roy began; and his eyes 
 looked everywhere but at Stephen's face. His orange- 
 tipped fingers were twisting as he stood there like a 
 culprit before his brother. Once or twice a different 
 feeling seemed to come over him, for he made an uncon- 
 trollable little vain grimace and shrugged his shoulders 
 in a way horribly reminiscent to the observer of the 
 old man. Stephen waited for quite a moment in the 
 silence, and Roy grew a fiery red in his increasing 
 embarrassment. 
 
 "Have a shot at it. You know I'll help you. But 
 I can't if I don't know what it is you've been doing." 
 
 "It's so awkward ... I feel you won't understand. 
 . . . But it's simply hellish!" said Roy, in a voice that 
 was unlike his own, almost complaining, but apologetic 
 and shamefaced as well. "You wouldn't understand the 
 temptation." 
 
 "Shouldn't I ?" Stephen asked dryly. "What sort of 
 thing?" 
 
 "Beastly. Dishonest." It was blurted out at him. 
 
 "You mean you've been taking money?" Stephen
 
 320 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 said at length slowly, in a patient voice from which 
 miserable certainty had„ taken all the hope and all the 
 life. Somehow the knowledge did not surprise him; 
 but it had been his worst inexpressible fear, painfully 
 realized at the last. 
 
 There was a hesitation — another clear pause that left 
 no doubt of Roy's answer. 
 
 "Tell me how it happened." 
 
 Huskily and in gasping sentences, each of which was 
 followed by a perceptible break, Roy explained. 
 
 "Two months ago . . . they put me on the till. I've 
 been putting dockets through. They found it out. Of 
 course I swore blind I hadn't done it; but they'd found 
 out somehow. I know all the other chaps have done it. 
 It's always done." 
 
 "But you, Roy!" It was Stephen's only reproach. 
 Roy's voice grew still lower. 
 
 "It was all right at first, I . . . But the old man's 
 been taking my money. It's been gone out of my pockets 
 . , . and he's asked me for odd bits of it. . . ." 
 
 "Why didn't you tell me?" Stephen cried. "I could 
 have stopped it as easily as anything. There's no reason 
 why he should do that. Why ever didn't you tell me?" 
 
 Roy shot a quick glance at him, with an air that was 
 partly cunning, partly afraid, and partly altogether 
 honest. His speech followed the truth. 
 
 "Well — after that last time at Hampstead ... I 
 thought I'd put my foot in it about Minnie. I thought 
 you wouldn't want me. . . . You see, the old man 
 said " 
 
 "Oh, damn the old man !" Stephen exclaimed, jerking 
 his hands, and walking about the room in a fierce irri- 
 tation. "You know you oughtn't to listen to him. Damn ! 
 It's sickening! . . . However, it's no good to say that. 
 It's too late. Is it much money?" He turned abruptly 
 upon Roy.
 
 ROY IN TROUBLE 321 
 
 Roy wavered. He couldn't bring himself to say any- 
 thing, in case Stephen might fly out at him. He was 
 genuinely afraid. He began to speak inaudibly. 
 
 ''They found out and sent me home. Told me to 
 come. . . ." 
 
 "Is it much?" 
 
 "I . . . not a lot ... I don't know . . ." stammered 
 Roy. "I'm to go down there. . . ." 
 
 "How much is it? How much do you think it is?" 
 Stephen was inexorable. "I suppose they won't prose- 
 cute as they sent you home; but the money must some- 
 how be paid back. I must know how much it is. You 
 see that, don't you?" 
 
 He appealed suddenly to Roy, who had grown white 
 again, and stood cowed before him. 
 
 "It's about . . . God knows how it's mounted. I 
 haven't kept any account. I started doing it, meaning 
 at first to put it back. . . . It's about . . . it's about 
 fifteen pounds." 
 
 Stephen was appalled. To him, even now, it was 
 a great sum; and he did not know how he could ob- 
 tain it. 
 
 "I say, Roy, that's ... In such a short time. What 
 have you been doing with it ? Is it betting? Something 
 of that sort?" 
 
 Roy's head sank lower; his foot moved uneasily. 
 
 "I can't tell you what I've done with it. It's gone. 
 The old man had some ... a lot." 
 
 "You're trying to throw all the blame on the old man ! 
 Don't be such a coward, Roy !" Stephen spoke sharply 
 because he saw that Roy's impulse was to exploit their 
 natural hostility to one another. He would not permit 
 such a blind. "You must have spent a good deal your- 
 self. And as I've got to make it good I want to know 
 what I'm paying for. Have you thought of it like that ?" 
 
 "No."
 
 322 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 "Don't talk about the old man then ! Own up to your 
 own share. You know what he is." 
 
 "It's God's truth, Stephen," began Roy eagerly. "He's 
 had a lot. As much as me." 
 
 "Have you been drinking, or playing cards, or . . . 
 what is it?" 
 
 There was a silence. Roy's face had stiffened; his 
 mouth was twisted in an ugly expression of obstinacy, 
 and his general cast had assumed an uncompromis- 
 ing stubbornness. Stephen saw that inquiries such as 
 he had been making must tend to make other matters 
 between them more difficult; and he desisted for the 
 time. 
 
 "I'd better go and call on David Evandine, get him 
 to lend me the money for a few days, and then go down 
 with you to your office and see the manager, Roy, I 
 hope you haven't been taking one of these squawking 
 girls to the music-halls. . . . That's not it, is it ? Cheap 
 jewellery and chocolates? That gets rid of a lot." He 
 thought he had probably hit upon the true explanation; 
 but he knew that even if he were right there would be 
 no chance of having his guess confirmed. He knew that 
 the peculiar code of honour of young manhood prevents 
 revelation of that sort to an elder. He sighed sharply, 
 as Roy gave him the expected refusal. 
 
 "I can't tell you." Roy's tone was dogged. "The 
 old man's had a lot. Really, he has." 
 
 Stephen thought quickly as to a possible course. 
 
 "One thing," he said. "You stay here no longer. 
 You're coming home with me to-day. That's certain. 
 But meanwhile I must borrow the money and go with 
 you to the office." 
 
 A slow painful scraping noise, as of somebody descend- 
 ing stairs one by one in slack and broken slippers, reached 
 the ears of both. 
 
 "Here's the old man!" cried Roy in quick alarm.
 
 ROY IN TROUBLE 323 
 
 "He's in an awful state!" He moved behind Stephen, 
 shielding himself. 
 
 A moment later the door opened, and the old man 
 appeared as in a frame, bowed and with a look of elab- 
 orate misery upon his face. His hair was over his eyes, 
 his brilliant teeth were all gone, his scraggy neck appeared 
 above the collar of a dressing-gown which had once been 
 gorgeous. He supported himself against the doorway. 
 
 "Ss . . . Stephen . . ." he mumbled, with a lisp. 
 "Thank God, my boy, you've come." His voice sank 
 to an impressive whisper. "I've had . . . I've had , . ." 
 His head waggled. "I've had a wakeful night . . . 
 thin . . . thinking about you. . . . Thank God, my boy. 
 .... Back to your old home. . . . Eh, but it's a sight 
 for sair eyes. . . . My brave boy Stephen!" 
 
 Stephen's reply to these greetings was a silent look 
 which had the effect of making the old man come from 
 the doorway into the room, blinking his eyelids and 
 carrying his shoulders forward as though he were sud- 
 denly bent with age. And indeed Stephen was aware 
 of a subtle change in him. It had not been his wont to 
 appear thus in his dressing-gown. He had clearly grown 
 for some reason careless of appearances, if it were not, 
 as Stephen suspected, that he had for this occasion as- 
 sumed the part of an enfeebled old creature, forlorn and 
 piteous. His eyes had lost their bitter smiling glance of 
 complacency and were bloodshot and weak-looking; his 
 carriage was strangely reduced, so that his figure appeared 
 wizened. The absence of his denture had allowed his 
 cheeks to fall in and his lips to lose all their firmness ; and 
 his neck, which usually rose from above his very tall 
 collar in proud support of his head, was withered and 
 shrivelled in a hundred tiny inglorious puckers. He was
 
 324 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 indeed old. To call him old, by a familiar method of 
 reference, seemed to be an indecency, because it had lost 
 its humorous sting. He was old, grey, haggard. Stephen 
 looked at him; and the longer he looked the more im- 
 pressed he was by the change in his father's appearance. 
 
 "I'm going to see Roy through his scrape," Stephen 
 said ; "and then I'm going to take him away from you." 
 
 The old man groped forward. He had become 
 grotesque. 
 
 "Steve! . . . Don't take my boy." It was a piercing 
 cry, almost a prayer. His attitude became imploring. 
 "What should I do without my boy? He's my baby. 
 You've taken little Dolphy!" 
 
 "D'you see what you've brought him to?" Stephen 
 said slowly. "D'you see that this is your doing? It's 
 mine, too, of course; but I'm going to set it right." 
 
 The old man drew himself upright. He drew a breath 
 through his flaccid lips. His voice changed, and with 
 it his entire manner. In an instant he had assumed 
 something of his old malicious air. Once more he and 
 Stephen were declared enemies, uncompromising in their 
 mutual dislike and contempt. 
 
 "Yes, Stephen, that's you all over," he said in a 
 shocking toothless way, like a beggar hag who curses 
 the insensitive passenger. "As you've been from the 
 very start. As hard as stone ... as hard as stone. But 
 with the most beautiful sentiments. Always . . . always 
 the most admirable, the most admirable sentiments. . . . 
 You're like a Christian, Stephen. Yes, you're like one 
 of those damned self-righteous parsons. Singular thing, 
 Stephen. A singular thing, I say." There came at this 
 point an involuntary pause, during which he mouthed 
 soundlessly in a way that chilled Stephen by its dreadful 
 suggestion of impotence. "You take your mother, and 
 you try to poison her mind against me ; you take Dorothy 
 and my boy there; and you try to poison their minds
 
 ROY IN TROUBLE 325 
 
 against me. You take them away from me. . . . Why, 
 you're hke a magistrate, Stephen ; a bawdy magistrate. 
 That's what you're hke. Taking my . . . children away 
 from their father . . . handing them over to the Court 
 . . . Missionary. . . . And all the time — you sly fellow 
 — you're methodically debauching another man's wife 
 . . . like the impeccable fellow you are. Impeccable! 
 Immaculate! The immaculate Stephen ! He he! There's 
 virtue for you ! The old man's too low, too popular, too 
 debonair for you, Stephen. ..." He stopped breath- 
 lessly, his anger having exhausted him; and leant up 
 against the wall, recovering his breath. Stephen had 
 never seen him so vehemently moved; but he was himself 
 stung to a cold anger by his father's accusations. 
 
 "The old man would have done more to earn my 
 respect if he'd sacrificed a little of his popularity and 
 looked after his children better," Stephen said contemptu- 
 ously. "Instead of posing his life away and letting his 
 youngest child pilfer for him." 
 
 "It's a lie!" shouted the old man, rearing up against 
 the wall with his arms erect. "It's a lie!" He choked 
 for an instant, and subsided into a dreary sort of whisper. 
 "My baby, my Roy !" 
 
 "Come along, Roy. Get your hat," said Stephen. To 
 the old man he said in the same grim way: "I shall 
 come and see you again. But Roy doesn't come back. 
 D'you see?" He did not wait for an answer; but went 
 out of the room with Roy at his heels. The old man 
 stood where they left him, huddled in his stale dressing- 
 gown, the wreck of a gorgeous plumage of old. And as 
 Stephen hurried along, shaken by the scene but still bent 
 upon his determination, he was beset by one sure piece 
 of unhappy knowledge that made his position ten times 
 more difficult. He knew, that is to say, that the old man 
 was really ill; but the knowledge which most troubled 
 him was not that, nor anything connected with it. He
 
 326 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 knew that in spite of all histrionics, all feuds, the old man 
 deeply and passionately loved Roy; and he was guessing 
 that the old man's hatred for himself had its roots in 
 jealousy. It was another lesson for him, and he had 
 much to learn, much to re-examine.
 
 CHAPTER XXI: STRAWS 
 
 FOR some time after he had made this discovery 
 Stephen walked by Roy's side deep in thought. If 
 the discovery proved true, it would explain much that 
 had puzzled Stephen in the past. It would put some of 
 his own behaviour in a new light. Was he jealous of 
 the old man ? That thought made him smile. Neverthe- 
 less it was possible. What seemed to him at the moment 
 absolutely certain was the old man's profound — almost 
 fanatical — jealousy. For the sake of preserving Roy he 
 had written that excited letter; but that was simply 
 because he could not lay his hands upon a sufficient sum 
 of money to cover Roy's liability. Stephen, apparently, 
 was his sole resource. 
 
 They went by the underground electric railway to 
 Covent Garden, where, in the heart of publishers, where 
 there is as much that is amusing to be seen as there is 
 anywhere else in the world, David lived his airy life of 
 secrecy and knowledge. Directly the Moores entered the 
 building a remarkably tall youth who was called Orry by 
 his fellow-workers (because Horace was not his Christian 
 name) appeared from behind a glass erection and with 
 long, superhuman strides which left them like panting 
 Time toiling with admiration in his rear led them down 
 an endless, book-bordered aisle to a dark room where 
 they languished for some moments. It was like pene- 
 trating to the depths of a mountain. The room seemed 
 to be brilliantly lighted by electricity, but its area was so 
 small and its general appearance so circumscribed that 
 it gave them the impression of being in a cavern, because 
 it enjoyed no natural light and no fresh air of any descrip- 
 
 327
 
 328 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 tion. Huge trolleys were allowed to run up and down 
 the aisle on rubber-tyred wheels, and every now and then 
 a pile of books, propelled by some unseen hand, would 
 fall with a crash near the door of the room. The noises 
 were so sudden, and so much in contrast with the solemn 
 quietude of the office, that involuntarily Stephen and Roy 
 jumped at each discharge. From behind another door 
 came the tic-tac-tacking of a typewriter. The noise 
 pierced their brains like the dreadful peppering of a 
 hidden machine-gun. They shared a sense of being 
 appalled. The room was a highway. Hundreds of 
 persons poured through it, until it seemed like the scene 
 of a farcical cinema film. Roy's brain whirled. It was 
 a revelation to him — this strange mixture of ease and 
 velocity. 
 
 And then came a knock, and Horace appeared once 
 more, this time to lead them into David's enormous blue, 
 bluely furnished, barely adorned private room, where he 
 lived in seclusion like a choice blue spider. David was 
 putting tobacco from a jar into a pouch with one hand 
 while with the other he held a telephone receiver. Roy 
 stared round the room with awe. Its blueness and its 
 comfort alike struck him with wonder. Although he was 
 accustomed to offices this one was run on lines that were 
 new to him. As he was rather quick in thought this 
 surprise went so far as to suggest to him that David's 
 office, whether it was typical of publishers' offices in 
 general or whether it stood as a single unsurpassable 
 example of the trade, was run on no lines at all ; but 
 that was only a momentary notion, dispelled by a glance 
 at David. 
 
 "Yes," David was saying into the telephone receiver, 
 nodding his head as though his hearer could be aware 
 of his action. "Well, you tell him he's jolly well got to 
 deliver it on the 30th. I've got to get something for my 
 travellers to show. . . . He mustn't fail !" To Stephen,
 
 STRAWS 329 
 
 as he rang off, he said, with a grin, "These damned 
 authors! They don't understand they're only our em- 
 ployees." 
 
 Stephen then demanded fifteen pounds. 
 
 ii 
 
 From that office they went east, and Roy became paler. 
 He had been gradually getting more and more disinclined 
 to face his own emplo3^ers; and if Stephen had not been 
 there he very likely would not have gone, but would have 
 disappeared for a time until he could get some other 
 situation. But as Stephen was there he was driven on 
 as it were by inexorable necessity. The City, at the point 
 at which they touched it, looked superb; for the sun 
 was full out and the life and brightness of the streets 
 was a thing to make the heart glad. Stephen had no sense 
 here of the crushing weight of life; he felt far too 
 strongly for that the pressing and intricate detail of the 
 business machine. Besides, here were large shops, shops 
 where they sold books and splendid things, ofifices where 
 enormous masses of trade were reduced to order and 
 made negotiable; shops and offices where the real occu- 
 pations of men were illustrated. So while Roy's heart 
 sank, Stephen's mounted. Every moment increased 
 Stephen's sense of liberty, of belief in the organizing 
 power of man in the hive : every moment increased Roy's 
 paralysing dread. 
 
 "Here," suddenly said Roy; and they went into a big 
 building and up many stone stairs. There was a swing 
 door, and a general air of varnish and crystallized glass. 
 A boy of about fourteen came round from behind a 
 partition. He wore a high collar of many days' stand- 
 ing; and his appropriate name was Grubb. 
 
 "Hallo !" he said, with a grin. "Wodger want ?" That 
 was because he saw Roy. 
 
 In another moment they were in the manager's room.
 
 330 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 where the manager, a hard-faced man with a very dehght- 
 ful smile, received them. He looked rather curiously at 
 the two of them as they went in, and left Stephen to 
 explain his call. 
 
 "See, you've been away from home for a month or 
 two, haven't you?" he asked. "The boy's been alone 
 . . . with his father." He was addressing Stephen, at 
 whom he looked with no unfriendliness at all. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 The man nodded. He was able quite easily to under- 
 stand the situation. 
 
 "Your brother's been at a loose end. It's a pity, 
 because he's not a bad boy. Of course we shan't prose- 
 cute. In fact I hardly expected to see him to-day. I gave 
 him a talking to last night. He won't say what he's done 
 with the money. He'd better get another job — where 
 there's not the temptation. One's bound to take a certain 
 amount of risk; and I'd give him another chance myself 
 if we had anything to turn him on to. Bound to happen 
 if there's a temptation, you know. But I expect this 
 wouldn't have happened if you'd been at home, eh?" 
 
 "No, it wouldn't!" blurted out Roy. "He's a 
 brick !" 
 
 iii 
 
 From the City they went again to the West End, for 
 it was Stephen's day to call at The Norm office. There 
 he met with an unexpected piece of news which put him 
 in high glee. It was to the effect that for the present 
 The Norm would be continued, as calculations had shown 
 the dilettante proprietor that if he carried it on for 
 another year it might begin to pay, or at least to get so 
 near to paying that he might sell it to advantage as a 
 going concern. For the time, therefore, Stephen was 
 safe, unless this rather arbitrary proprietor should once 
 again change his mind and decree otherwise.
 
 STRAWS 331 
 
 "Don't be too sure !" advised the editor. "He's tender 
 now. At any moment ... Of course I should get 
 six months' salary and drop into something. And I 
 should keep in touch with you." 
 
 The editor was a fat jovial-looking man from the 
 North of England, who took himself very seriously, but 
 who took everything else with a superabundance of 
 jocosity which adjusted matters and made him an agree- 
 able companion. He was curious about Stephen, and 
 had once asked him to lunch in order to understand him 
 better. But as the experiment had not been a success, 
 and as Stephen never knew whether he ought to ask the 
 editor back again, their acquaintance remained that of 
 a capable editor and his industrious, reliable assistant, 
 without developing, as it might well have done, into a 
 friendship based upon mutual esteem. On this occasion 
 he beguiled a few moments with scandalous anecdote, 
 and sent Stephen away with a bright red load under his 
 arm and a very black load off his heart. 
 
 "We'll get some lunch," said Stephen to Roy. 
 
 iv 
 
 It was at lunch that they began for the first time to 
 talk. 
 
 "It'll be best if you come home with me now," said 
 Stephen. "I mean home to Hampstead. We'll put you 
 up for a bit. Don't go on. ... I know you won't do 
 it, though. It's such a beastly thing. Once you start, 
 you go on. . . . You can't help it. But if you pull up 
 now . . . D'you see?" 
 
 "Yes," said Roy. "I say, Steve . . . You've been 
 jolly good. I mean to say, I thought . . . Well, I was 
 afraid you'd snarl. I won't do it . . . you know I 
 won't. I felt rotten; but I suppose I went off my head. 
 I know she's no good, and all . . . I've been swank- 
 
 "'to- • • •
 
 332 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 Stephen nodded. 
 
 "D'yon think you'll want to go back?" he asked. 
 
 "Not if . . . See, it's been so beastly — evenings, you 
 know; and the place all quiet. Only the old man. He 
 got on my nerves. He's been crazy about you. I've 
 had yards of it. Yards. Like what he said this morning. 
 Over and over again. So I stopped out. I got fed up 
 with it. And I was with young Tom ; and she — Emerald 
 — was with another girl. We talked to them. She's 
 . . . she lives in Slapperton. Her father's a window- 
 cleaner, a little drunken chap with about a hundred kids. 
 She's ... I couldn't help it, somehow : Tom's given the 
 other one — her friend — a little brooch; and Emerald 
 started dropping hints about how she wished she'd got 
 somebody to give her things. For a long time I didn't 
 take any notice; and then she started going off with 
 another fellow. I tried to give her up. I went home 
 every evening. Couldn't go with Tom, 'cause he was 
 with his one. And the old man was worse than ever. 
 Then I met her one Saturday and we went to the pictures, 
 and I . . . well, I blued all I'd got, getting her some 
 bangles. Hadn't got much. It's gone on. I told her 
 I was getting two pounds a week. I got some clothes 
 .... and a ring and a cane. You know. . . . But the 
 old man's had a lot. Really, he has. He's been taking 
 it out of my pockets. When he gets a bit 'on' he's got 
 the cunning of the very devil. . . ." 
 
 Stephen did not check this quick, mumbled monologue. 
 The whole thing was tumbling out now that he had ceased 
 to question ; and the strained, earnest voice of Roy was 
 a good enough indication of his sincerity. Stephen felt 
 sick as he realized the picture, and saw that ugly, unin- 
 viting home again before his eye. Yet before his mar- 
 riage he had tried to wean Roy from the old man and 
 had found his very effort checked and countered by some 
 adroit move on the old man's part. Dorothy had been
 
 STRAWS 333 
 
 easy : she would on no account have stayed at home : and 
 a talk with Airs. Evandine long before had relieved his 
 mind about her immediate future. But for Roy the 
 father and brother had struggled long and silently; and 
 in the end Roy had under pressure manifested so decided 
 a wish to stay with the old man that Stephen with fore- 
 boding had submitted to his choice. And this was the 
 outcome. Well, it was over. 
 
 "He's been mad about you and Minnie. He found 
 something out about it in a letter he showed me. Then 
 he got on to Bayley; and they both cried with drunken- 
 ness. I saw them in the street, leaning on each other. 
 . . . But the old man only tried to find out . . . about 
 Minnie. And he made up a long yarn. At first Bayley 
 wanted to fight him. That was when he was only half 
 tipsy. Later on it was all the other way round. I say, 
 you know : Minnie's left him. She's doing dressmaking 
 or something. She lives somewhere off City Road . . . 
 a little street. Looks awful. . . ." 
 
 "Oh." Stephen felt his blood stir; he felt it in his 
 cheeks. "Where's she living? D'you know where it 
 is? Good God!" he said, under his breath. 
 
 Roy managed to dig up the name of the street from the 
 recesses of his memory. 
 
 "I told her she ought to let you know," he said. "But 
 she wouldn't. She started crying when I said that. . . ." 
 
 They finished their lunch and went to the Tube again. 
 Stephen heard the boys shouting as they trudged through 
 the crowded Strand down towards Charing Cross. Big 
 bills in all kinds of type, all colours of ink, roared at 
 them. "CRICKET : LUNCH SCORES" or "SUSSEX 
 ALL OUT" and some racing information in smaller 
 type at the foot. Taxicabs hummed along, and there was 
 a great press of people, like a released theatre audience,
 
 334 THE CHASTE WH^E 
 
 forced into the roadway by their excessive numbers. A 
 lazy heat burned the air and made the very roadway a 
 medium for further heat. In the Tube all was cool. A 
 gust of wind met them in the passages leading to the 
 trains, like a November gale. 
 
 At Hampstead it was as though they had reached the 
 country. The winding street to the Heath was as allur- 
 ing as ever. Here nobody hurried; for all seemed bent 
 upon some pleasant hasteless errand. It was four o'clock 
 in the afternoon, so slow had been their progress ; and the 
 sun, though now declining, was still oppressively fierce. 
 Here as one ascended to the heights there was a gentle 
 breeze, stirring languidly the sweeping bunches of green 
 that cast so exquisite a shadow. They breathed more 
 freely, glad to be released from the troubles of the earlier 
 day. 
 
 As they approached the cottage Stephen pressed 
 forward, thinking only of the way in which he might 
 best relieve Minnie's necessities. He could think of 
 nothing else, and was hardly aware of Roy's presence 
 at his side. But when they came nearer he looked on 
 ahead. At the other end of the pleasant little road he 
 saw two figures, walking towards him. Both were un- 
 mistakable, and the recognition of both sent a fresh pang 
 to his heart, compared with which no single moment of 
 the day had carried an equal unhappiness. Instinctively 
 he looked aside at Roy, who was gazing about him with 
 undisguised interest and wonder. Stephen shrugged; 
 but his shrug was one of misery ; for Hilary was walking 
 with Priscilla back to the cottage, and Priscilla had not 
 seen Stephen because she was listening to Hilary and 
 looking towards him.
 
 CHAPTER XXII: MINNIE 
 
 MINNIE was busy with the sewing-machine when 
 Stephen called at the address Roy had given 
 him. He went into a very dirty passage with brown wall- 
 paper against which a million people had leant, and saw 
 it peeling away at the joints. The woman who opened 
 the door was haggard and only half dressed, with a long 
 dressing-gown on top of her deshabille : she called up the 
 stairs, "Missus Bayley!" "Missus Bay-lee!" and other 
 variants upon Minnie's name with an air of long-suffering 
 that was ridiculous. Then she allowed Stephen to 
 ascend, which was a privilege he did not expect, since 
 he knew from experience that tenants of a ground floor 
 have generally sufficient goodwill to those resident in 
 upper floors to exclude anybody likely to be a dun. He 
 w^ent up and up until the whir of Minnie's machine struck 
 his ear. Even so, his knock did not reach her, so loud 
 and engrossing was the fierce buzz of the gyrating wheel : 
 and when at last he entered she stopped her work with a 
 blanched face. The tears started to her eyes. Instinct, 
 however, reinforced her self-control. 
 
 "Hallo!" said Minnie. "Never expected to see 
 you!" 
 
 Stephen closed the door and put his hat down. The 
 room, so drab and so bare in every detail of its repulsive 
 dinginess, was like a blow. It would be impossible to be 
 cheerful in such a room. To work in it was to taste the 
 sheer horror of solitary confinement. 
 
 "I only heard yesterday that you were here," he said. 
 "Have you been doing this long?" 
 
 She smiled at him and stretched her hands out to him 
 
 335
 
 336 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 across the top of the sewing-machine — a weary but in- 
 gratiating gesture. 
 
 "Well, it's fine to see you!" she said. "No, I haven't 
 been here long. You heard I'd left him? Couldn't 
 stand it. He got mixed up with that old gaffer of yours 
 — a fine pair of them. And he lost his job too. That 
 meant he was always hanging about !" She smiled, and 
 as her lips drew back they revealed her beautiful teeth. 
 Although her cheeks were pale her teeth and her warm 
 soft brown eyes remained singularly lovely. But Stephen 
 could tell how thin she was. Her hands, which for a 
 moment had been held by his own, were wasted. "Well, 
 what was the good of staying? It isn't as though I'd 
 ever had a baby or anything to keep me there. And it 
 isn't as though I cared a pin for him. You know there's 
 only one man I ever did that for." She had left oflF 
 smiling, and was quite grave again now, watching him 
 with a meditative air. "You don't look as if you were 
 happy, Stephen," she said sharply. "It's not me, is it? 
 He hasn't been worrying you about me — ^your old gaffer, 
 I mean?" 
 
 In spite of Stephen's disclaimer, Minnie rose from her 
 sewing-machine and drew him to the window, so that 
 she might look at him with the more attention. 
 
 "I didn't come here to be looked at," Stephen said, 
 with a half-smile; "but to look at you. And now I 
 see you I see that this sort of thing can't go on. . . . It's 
 terrible, Minnie." 
 
 "Well, if / was your wife I should feel worried about 
 you. I know that much. Look at your face !" She 
 took his arm and pressed it to her side. "She wouldn't 
 mind that, if she could see it — would she? Perhaps she 
 would, though." For a moment they stood thus, and 
 then she released his arm. "Think so?" Minnie added, 
 with a sigh. 
 
 "I want to know what you're doing," said Stephen,
 
 MINNIE 337 
 
 turning back to the room and indicating the machine. 
 "How much you're making: and what you need. And 
 also, I want to know how long you mean to stay in this 
 filthy hutch. It can't be done, Minnie." 
 
 She laughed a little : but her lips trembled. The pallor 
 round her eyes was the more noticeable because the eyes 
 themselves were so bright and tender. Some women use 
 belladonna to lend such brightness : but Minnie had no 
 need of other drugs than her love for Stephen. 
 
 "Don't be cross with me," she begged, and again laid 
 her hand upon his arm. "I had to come somewhere. 
 That — what's on the machine there and those other 
 things" — she pointed into a gloomy corner with her free 
 hand — "are shirts. I get two bob a dozen for machining 
 them and doing the buttonholes. The woman on the 
 ground floor gets them all ready cut out from the factory, 
 and she gives them out to me and half a dozen others. 
 Then she does the finishing herself. She's a funny 
 woman. . . . Very proud. She says she 'don't assho- 
 shiate' with the people in this neighbourhood. She's 
 rather pally with me though. ..." 
 
 "But look here, Minnie. It can't go on. You can't 
 live like this." He was stern, because he thought she 
 was trying to evade him. 
 
 "And it's not going on, if I can help it," she answered 
 with a sudden vehemence. "But I had to come some- 
 where. I had to get something to do. When you don't 
 know a soul to help you it's not so easy as it might seem. 
 I made up my mind to come away. Next thing — get 
 something to do. When I'm more confident I shall get 
 more ambitious. I shall be a finisher : I shall cut out : 
 I shall go into a suburb and be a dressmaker. I've worked 
 it all out. 'Madame Bayley,' or 'Madame Minnetta.' 
 See them flock ! Follow the crowd !" She was pre- 
 tending a gaiety that was practically all of it a 
 defence.
 
 338 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 Stephen grunted. It might be a practical, but it 
 certainly was not an ideal, scheme of life. 
 
 "Have you got any money?" he demanded, as a first 
 attempt to ascertain a necessary fact. 
 
 "Oh, yes," she said airily. "A fair sum. And now 
 what about you?" 
 
 "How much money have you got?" inquired Stephen. 
 
 "Oh, bother! You're a regular Nosey Parker!" 
 Minnie cried, with a wretched attempt to bluff him, 
 "Why, Fm rolling in it 1" 
 
 Stephen shook his head gloomily. He was not deceived. 
 The attempt made him the more suspicious. 
 
 "I'm afraid you haven't got any," he said. "I don't 
 believe )'^ou've got any at all." 
 
 "Yes I have — in that box!" Minnie pointed into the 
 dullness. 
 
 He made a step towards the mantelpiece, upon which 
 the box lay: and she moved quickly to intercept him. 
 For a moment she clung to him with her arms, and then, 
 upon an impulse, darted her head forward and kissed 
 his cheek. 
 
 "There!" she cried. "Don't look in the box! It's 
 got my treasures. And, really, I've got two shillings 
 there as well. I'm saving!" 
 
 ii 
 
 As quickly as before she drew back and surveyed 
 Stephen from a distance. He made no further move- 
 ment towards the box. He looked from the faded, 
 stained wall-paper to her face, into which, at her own 
 boldness, a faint tinge had come. Her eyes were spark- 
 ling; for her Stephen was the only man in the world. 
 
 "Two shillings is not enough," he said dryly. 
 
 "Old sober! Well, it's better than being the other 
 way. But, Stephen . . . what's the matter with you? 
 I mean, of course you're shocked at me. I know you're
 
 MINNIE 339 
 
 that. You think I've forgotten you're a married man, 
 and all that. Don't you ? No : I know you're not 
 shocked. But you look miserable. Oh crikey! Isn't 
 there a lot of that in this world !" She broke off with 
 a long sigh. ''My word ! What a lot there is ! And 
 not a soul cares for anybody else's but their own. It's 
 true, you know. It's a funny thing — you've always been 
 everything to me; and you can't — couldn't understand 
 it. But I understand. Is ... is your . . . you know, 
 your wife ... is she happy? I'd like to see her one 
 day. You know, not to talk to; but " 
 
 "Minnie! Minnie!" cried Stephen, "don't talk Hke that! 
 Of course you shall see her. And she shall talk to you. 
 She'll talk to you. D'you think she can't understand 
 you?" 
 
 "Oh, no." Minnie shook her head. "I shouldn't like 
 to talk to her ... I should feel I was playing it low 
 down, talking to her — and her not knowing who I was. 
 And if she knew, she wouldn't want to talk to me. Not 
 a nice woman wouldn't !" 
 
 Stephen took her hand in order to emphasize his 
 explanation. 
 
 "She knows — " he began. "I've told her all about 
 everything . . . every word." 
 
 "Oh, that's why you're miserable!" cried Minnie in 
 a flash. "That's certain!" 
 
 "Yes. That's why." 
 
 "You must be pretty sure of her to tell her so soon," 
 Minnie said, with a rueful air. "Alfred didn't start 
 telling me anything of that sort till we'd been married 
 a couple of years. And then he was drunk." 
 
 Stephen groaned. The reference seemed to make his 
 heart bitter within him. 
 
 "Yes . . . but you see I'm not Alfred," he said slowly, 
 and at her murmur he went on to explain. "No : she's 
 gone right away from me. But that's nothing. She
 
 340 THE CHiVSTE WIFE 
 
 knows who you are. I've told her everything. And 
 she'll understand. D'you see? I shall ask her if I may 
 bring you to see her." 
 
 Minnie laughed — a dreadful nervous titter at a sugges- 
 tion so naive. 
 
 "A lot you know about it !" she said. "You try it on !" 
 
 "I will!" answered Stephen. "You'll see." 
 
 "It's not human nature." 
 
 "No : it's Priscilla," was his retort. "That's a different 
 thing. She's real." 
 
 iii 
 
 Minnie mused for a moment at that. She sat down 
 again at her machine, with her arms across it, thinking. 
 
 "Priscilla," she repeated. "It's a nice name, isn't 
 it?" Then she laughed a little. "So that's where you 
 were that evening. Funny ! My saying 'nice' brought 
 it all back. I was soppy that night. I didn't know what 
 I was saying. When I got there and you were out I 
 thought I should have flopped down. I felt quite sick 
 . . , kept hoping you'd come in. And then when you 
 came I was worked up. Did you know I used to come 
 and see Dorothy? She never let on. She's a real sport. 
 I used to come and hear what you were doing, and see 
 what you'd written — not that I could read it. Too 
 educated for me. And you never knew I'd been any- 
 where there. No good now you're married. It wouldn't 
 do. When I heard you were going to be married it nearly 
 killed me. I seemed to go all soft. Did you feel sorry 
 for me? Did you think about me? Oh, I do talk — 
 don't I? And your Priscilla ... I would like to see 
 her. You'll never understand what it is to love anybody 
 that doesn't love you. Feel you could let them trample 
 on you; and they wouldn't dream of doing it. You 
 needn't begin to frown. I'm not ashamed of saying it. 
 Why should I be? She wouldn't like me. She's never
 
 MINNIE 341 
 
 been married to Alf Bayley! If she had — my word! 
 Then she'd know a httle bit more about what hfe was. 
 Don't you think so?" 
 
 Stephen took no notice of the long speech. He heard 
 it : the words pierced through to his heart. He saw 
 Minnie made wise by suffering which had been hard to 
 bear. He tried to imagine a meeting between Minnie and 
 Priscilla. Well? His mind did not shrink from it, 
 though his heart did. He thought Minnie might behave 
 badly, as she did when she was not at ease, when she 
 became self-conscious, moved about, and twisted her lips. 
 But here, now, he admired her as he had never done. 
 He was puzzled at finding her so. How could he know 
 the lonely hours she had spent thinking of him? How 
 could he guess that her love for him was as great as 
 Priscilla's love? And perhaps greater, because it had 
 never looked for any return beyond the kindness he 
 would have given his least friend. 
 
 "What I feel," he suddenly blurted out, "is the amount 
 of harm a man can do who tries to go straight and . . . 
 Here are you . . . and my wife . . . and ... I think 
 you're perfectly splendid, you know. . . . Look here, 
 Minnie : I must go. If I start talking I shall get 
 sentimental." 
 
 "And I shall lose my character!" she said, starting 
 up. "My friend downstairs will have a fit. Not proper, 
 you know ! Well, I shall see you again . . . shall I ?" 
 
 "And Dorothy?" 
 
 Minnie smiled with an archness that made her eyes 
 seem big and mysterious. 
 
 "Oh, you're a great big baby!" she said. "D'you 
 think I don't get a letter every week from Dorothy? 
 Why, I know she's engaged. She hasn't been here. I 
 don't want her to come here. It'd make her cry. She's 
 such a soft-hearted kid. Good-bye, my dear; and God 
 bless you."
 
 342 TIIE CHASTE T\^FE 
 
 She remained behind the sewing-machine and extended 
 her hand, as though she were frightened that he would 
 try to kiss her. Stephen took the hand she held out, 
 and pressed it hard. 
 
 "You're splendid," he said breathlessly. "Good- 
 bye. You'll hear . . . you'll see me again." 
 
 He closed the door and stumbled down the stairs; 
 and Minnie, standing still behind her machine, looked at 
 the hand he had pressed as if it were something strange. 
 Then with a quick almost furtive gesture she raised it 
 to her lips. 
 
 "The dear!" she said in a minute, and meditatively 
 rubbed her check with her hand, looking into a far 
 distance, lost in reverie.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII: DANGER 
 
 SKEFFINGTON was inclined to be interested in Roy 
 as the latest example of Moore Psychology made 
 known to him. In Roy he saw none of the grim endeavour 
 which he respected in Stephen, none of the good temper 
 and sanguine spirits of Dorothy. Instead, there was the 
 puzzling half-bakedness of youth, when — as at night all 
 cats are said to be grey — there comes a time when one 
 young man seems very much like another young man 
 of his own age and tradition. Skeffington, who often 
 came to see the Moores, was quietly interested in all that 
 he saw in their house. All that curious electrical nervous- 
 ness which made him talk at times foolishly sank into 
 nothingness when he was receptive. Accordingly he 
 surveyed this small family with the beaming eye of affec- 
 tion, minutely interested in their doings and their natures. 
 And Roy interested him because — in a phrase — Skeffing- 
 ton was waiting to see how the cat would jump. If it 
 jumped amiss, into the pocket — let us say — of the old 
 man, or into the pocket of ordinary business which has 
 such a gaping mouth, then Skeffington supposed, some- 
 where in a remote consciousness where such probabilities 
 were disinterestedly canvassed, that the good of Roy 
 would be lost, and that he would become irrevocably like 
 his fellows. On the other hand, Skeffington was ready 
 to imagine that Roy m.ight grow towards the sun, as 
 flowers do, and like them expand and flourish into a 
 spiritual individuality. What particular technical form 
 this might take for its exemplification Skeffington did not 
 care. Roy might jump towards a scientific career, or 
 he might abide in a tabernacle : he might be a painter, 
 
 343
 
 344 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 or he might go to sea. All that mattered, in Skeffington's 
 belief, was that Roy should not jump wrongly in the 
 first instance and stultify himself. It was this thought 
 which made him, after examining the new-comer by the 
 light of nature and reporting thereafter to his own imagi- 
 nation, say to Stephen with a mixture of cocksureness 
 and hesitation : 
 
 "That brother of yours. . . . Have to be careful of 
 him, you know." 
 
 ii 
 
 The occasion of this remark was a walk undertaken by 
 the two men upon Hampstead Heath, where they had 
 thrown themselves on the grass. Both were lazily smok- 
 ing, propped upon their elbows, and watching the shim- 
 mer of the hot air just above the earth. They had 
 become firm and even intimate friends; for Skeffington 
 had a very clear perception, and he was entirely free from 
 that conventional breeding which Stephen disliked so 
 much. Also, he had his own point of view, and he 
 acted as a tonic to Stephen, who, from long solitude, was 
 inclined to be immovable. In addition to the kind affec- 
 tion which David felt, Skefiington had the novelist's 
 powerful moral prepossessions ; and where David on the 
 whole preferred to allow Stephen's attitude to go un- 
 challenged (rarely arguing with him, but merely as it 
 were collecting and supplementing his views) Skeffing- 
 ton raised his own standard and raked Stephen's prin- 
 ciples with a hot fire of merriment. The fact that they 
 thought much alike made their differences the more 
 piquant; and the differences themselves increased their 
 friendship. Stephen could not easily refer to his affec- 
 tions; but Skeffington, with much greater savoir-faire, 
 made no secret of his. Likes and dislikes he expressed 
 freely, but so lightly that it is to be hoped that nobody 
 mentally accused him of malice. Of malice he had none
 
 DANGER 345 
 
 — only a quick judgment, a ready tongue, and a fund 
 of eager nonsense. 
 
 They lay in the shadow of a tall bush, so thick that the 
 sun could penetrate its interstices only at rare points. A 
 little breeze fluttered idly above them, but so fitfully as 
 to be hardly noticeable. They were looking down a hill, 
 and the view before them was of more bushes, and hedges, 
 and then fields barely broken by houses, until a number 
 of villas, very new, but not as ugly as they might have 
 been, shared the view with its other, more lovely, beauties. 
 Skefiington was sending thin blue spirals of smoke from 
 the bowl of his pipe, luxuriating in complete ease. 
 
 "Fortunate fellows we are!" he observed. "If we 
 only knew it." 
 
 "Being here, you mean?" Stephen asked. "Or any- 
 how?" 
 
 "Both. And being able to keep quiet, too. Not that 
 I'm doing it. I say, that chap Badoureau's a rum un, 
 isn't he!" 
 
 Stephen was conscious of a thrill at the name and at 
 the tone. He changed his position, so as to rest upon 
 the other elbow, whereby he was able to see Skefifington's 
 face. Skeffington also moved; but that was because he 
 had put his hands behind his head, which he thus sup- 
 ported just sufficiently to continue his smoking without 
 inconvenience. He was looking up in the air, where, 
 amid the blue, he saw through his little glasses what 
 seemed to be a continuous atmospheric movement before 
 his eyes. 
 
 "Badoureau," said Stephen. "Is he?" He tried to 
 make his voice indifferent — with what success he could 
 not tell. 
 
 "Don't you think so?" It was clear that Skeffington 
 was not to he bounced. 
 
 "I don't like him very much," admitted Stephen, 
 curtly. "In fact I dislike him. But apart from his
 
 346 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 arrogance I don't know anything . . . He's a very bad, 
 conventional thinker." 
 
 "Yes, that's the tradition, of course. He's coming 
 to tea with me to-day. I baked this morning, so I shall 
 give him some of my little cakes; but it's a bore, I'm 
 not interested in him. He's not interesting. He'll be 
 cheerful enough, I expect." 
 
 "I thousfht the Evandines liked him — found him 
 interesting," said Stephen, vaguely. It was not by any 
 very genuine impulse that he thus momentarily ranged 
 himself as a defender of Hilary. 
 
 Neither spoke for several minutes, but both continued 
 to smoke and to gaze upon the scene without for a mo- 
 ment paying any conscious attention to it. 
 
 "Funny little cat that is of yours," Skeffington went 
 on, after a long pause. "He's developed a great feeling 
 of friendship for me. Something like Badoureau, in 
 fact; though I prefer Romeo. Romeo doesn't like my 
 singing. It's painful to him. You don't like it much 
 yourself. ... If I whistle, he miaws in protest. . . . 
 He's like a child." 
 
 Stephen puffed away for a little while, meditatively. 
 
 "You know Badoureau pretty well, don't you?" he 
 asked. 
 
 "Oh," said Skeffington, "I've known him for some 
 time. He's taken lately to coming to see me ; but that's 
 a new habit. . . . We haven't any intimacy." 
 
 Stephen's teeth closed more firmly upon the stem of 
 his pipe. He read into Skeffington's words a warning 
 to himself. Sluggishly in his brain were running many 
 thoughts, all bidding him beware of Badoureau, He 
 would have ignored them if It had not been for his present 
 difficult relation with Priscilla. That relation, and the 
 knowledge that he purposed still further taxing Priscilla's 
 generosity by mentioning his visit to Minnie, and his 
 desire that she should see Minnie, made every thought
 
 DANGER 347 
 
 of Hilary one of burning trouble. Nevertheless, he was 
 enabled to answer as though he could afford to ignore 
 danger from Hilary. 
 
 "He comes pretty often to see us," Stephen said 
 casually. 
 
 "Yes. What do you talk about?" A smile curved 
 Skeflington's lips. Other people, seeing him smile, gen- 
 erally began to smile also, which was a very pleasant 
 fact in his life. 
 
 Stephen thought solemnly. 
 
 "He brings us the news of the beau monde, I think," 
 he said at length. "Galleries, and music, and so on, . . . 
 As a matter of fact I don't listen to him." 
 
 "Why don't you see those things for yourself?" Skef- 
 fington suddenly inquired, with a criticism in his voice. 
 "You ought to. It's not fair on Mrs. Moore. . . . You 
 ought to run about a bit." 
 
 Stephen's heart seemed to begin to beat in his throat. 
 He moved restlessly upon the grass. 
 
 "I've thought of that," he admitted. "I thought of 
 that more than a year ago. I don't think she wants 
 that sort of thing." 
 
 "I suppose you mean you don't," said Skeffington, 
 with a smile. "I was only thinking of Badoureau as a 
 privileged purveyor. It would do you good to nose 
 about a bit. You see, Moore, you've got a lot to learn. 
 We all have, more or less. Even I. Even the perfectly 
 informed David Evandine. By the way, I should like 
 very much to see how far your sister will modify his 
 general omniscience. It won't be perceptible, of course. 
 No, Moore : the fact is, you're an innocent. So's Badou- 
 reau. But you're a man with brains. He isn't. Though 
 you wouldn't think so, that's a vital difference." He 
 turned his head sharply at that, and glanced shrewdly 
 at his friend. "But I expect you exaggerate it already," 
 he added coolly.
 
 348 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 "I'm generally supposed to," answered Stephen, with 
 equal coolness; "though in point of fact I don't." 
 
 "Badoureau's got a mind like a mud bank. You throw 
 a stone into it, and nothing happens. The stone stays 
 exactly — absolutely — where it falls. It doesn't crystallize 
 or dissolve ; it stays there like a nugget. And I suppose 
 some time or other gets washed out again." Skeffington 
 paused. He was speaking quite cheerfully, and without 
 venom; as though stating a simple fact. "He's a very 
 very typical 3^oung man of his class — correctly educated, 
 with all the hard, unimaginative self-righteousness of the 
 Churchman, and the intelligent mediocrity of the civil 
 servant. He's for Church and State — not God and man. 
 . . . It's a vital difference, Moore!" 
 
 "Is it?" said Stephen dourly. "All this doesn't touch 
 my feeling about Badoureau." 
 
 "What's that, then? Yours is only indifference, 
 perhaps?" 
 
 "No, no. It's a resentment. I think he's arrogant. 
 I think he's typical of a class, perhaps." 
 
 "Yes, I think that. Certainly. You see, he's never 
 done anything." 
 
 "I suppose not. I think of him as an Empire-builder 
 wasted. I should have thought he might do something 
 in a few years. Unfortunately he seems to have too much 
 money." 
 
 "I don't think he'll ever do anything, except be a 
 sport, a regular good fellow, a ladies' man, and a good 
 Rugby footballer — I must admit he can play football; 
 but only because of his weight and his speed. And what 
 does that mean ? When he's thirty he'll be a veteran : 
 he'll have lost his speed. And where is he? I ought 
 to have said that of course he's a dilettante. He can 
 talk about Giotto and the Siennese school; and he likes 
 Cesar Franck, and can tell you what's the matter with 
 the modern English composers, ^nt what's the good of
 
 DANGER 34{> 
 
 that? He only tells you what everybody else tells you. 
 There's nothing original in it. He's simply a product! 
 And that means he'll go through life a shallow, unimagi- 
 native, selfish creature, rather fine and mysterious in 
 his insensitiveness, the type English people most admire ; 
 but quite unteachable except by some such bastard 
 abstract idea as Empire or Honour. That's not my 
 ideal, nor yours. We want good men, modest men, wise 
 men ; not these swaggering hounds that push everywhere 
 because they're too stupid to understand anything but 
 physical prefulgence or absolute social convention. 
 Damn ! My pipe's gone out." 
 
 "So I should think," said Stephen. "And I must 
 say that I don't think you'd get many people to agree 
 with you, either about the type or about Badoureau. Of 
 course I see there's something in it — or feel there is." 
 
 "Well, I'm right, for all that," said Skeffington, lazily. 
 "Now, about Badoureau. It's a curious thing that the 
 only person who's really seen through him all the time 
 is Mrs. Evandine." 
 
 "Oh, you think that," said Stephen, slowly. 
 
 "I know it. So do you." 
 
 "I thought it, certainly. But you seem to know Mrs. 
 Evandine more intimately than I do." 
 
 "No. I've been there several times lately when he's 
 been there. I'm in the habit of noticing things. And 
 it's remarkable that I always prefer to notice people 
 who are in the background. You learn more. It's much 
 more instructive than watching the protagonists. Now 
 Mrs. Evandine is in every way admirable." 
 
 "Certainly. Wonderful." Stephen thought for a mo- 
 ment. "One thing that strikes me, Skeffington, is — 
 why on earth do you keep up a sort of friendship with 
 Badoureau?" 
 
 "Without quarrelling with him I can't break it off. 
 Mind you, I'd tell him what I've told you except that
 
 350 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 I don't know him well enough to be candid. I'm sick of 
 the fellow. He haunts me. I've had him two or three 
 times a week for the last six weeks. . . ." 
 
 "Auch !" cried Stephen in disgust. How many times, 
 then, had Hilary seen Priscilla? And if she was seeing 
 him, why did she not say? "I say, I . . . can't stay 
 here any longer ... I feel as though my bones were 
 broken. Let's walk a little." He stumbled to his feet. 
 If she were seeing Badoureau, why on earth . . . why 
 on earth ... As he set a match to his pipe his hands 
 were shaking. He was filled with consternation. How 
 many times had Badoureau been to the cottage? He 
 had been to Skeffington's two or three times a week. . . . 
 He had been at Totteridge — he had gone to Totteridge 
 thinking she would be there. It was clear. ... It was 
 clear. Stephen doubted not that Hilary loved Priscilla. 
 His thought would go no further than that. He could 
 not bear to think that Priscilla . . . 
 
 "Here — here — here!" cried Skeffington. "Second 
 speed, old chap! I'm not a racing car!" Together they 
 walked across the Heath, but Stephen answered at ran- 
 dom to everything his companion said. 
 
 ni 
 
 Skeffington was engaged in praising Mrs. Evandine. 
 For the moment he was full of enthusiasm for her as for 
 one whose stored and inexhaustible riches of wisdom 
 might still be appreciated solitarily by himself. With a 
 naive delight in his own perceptiveness, he acclaimed 
 Mrs. Evandine. In her he found a reality of knowledge 
 greater even that that possessed by her daughter, for 
 whom also his admiration was genuine. 
 
 "It needs a man like myself," he was saying, with a 
 return to his customary egotistical method, "to appreciate 
 the fineness of Mrs. Evandine. Henry James is the one
 
 DANGER 351 
 
 man who understands these larger things better than I 
 do; and he'd simply dote on Mrs. Evandine. You may 
 say — and I won't altogether contradict you, though I'd 
 admit it was an extreme statement — you may say he'd 
 see more than is there. That may be so. But I see the 
 fact. I delight in the illustration. What more? I'm 
 not talking of writing round her. All I do is to observe. 
 I tell you, Moore, Mrs. Evandine is absolutely the most 
 remarkable woman I ever met. I commend her to you. 
 You'll find ... Of course you know that she's your 
 friend ? Her account of you is quite perfect. ... I tell 
 you this, also : that if I were in a difficulty I'd go to 
 Mrs. Evandine. Do your hear that?" 
 
 Stephen disengaged himself from the flurry of his 
 perturbation. 
 
 "What's that?" he asked. Then, recovering the 
 words from his unconscious memory, he repeated them : 
 "If I were in a difficulty I'd go to Mrs. Evandine. Was 
 that it?" 
 
 "It was so. Remember !" 
 
 Stephen turned the words in his mind reflectively. For 
 a moment he could not consider them. Then, with an 
 effort, he brought his attention to bear upon their mean- 
 ing. In a difficulty. . . . Was he not in a difficulty? 
 Mrs. Evandine? A warm memory of that lady as he 
 had last seen her in the doorway at Stalcett came 
 into his mind. His expression changed. It lightened. 
 He looked aside at Skeffington as upon one who 
 had brought good tidjngs, half smiling in spite of his 
 anxiety. 
 
 "Yes," he said, willingly. "I think you're quite right. 
 Quite right." 
 
 iv 
 
 But although he spoke with such conviction Stephen 
 soon returned to his miserable contemplation of the
 
 352 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 threatened danger. Was he so sure that there was a 
 danger? He certainly at this time had no distrust of 
 Priscilla. All he thought was that she might unwit- 
 tingly be allowing herself to slip into indiscretion, driven 
 thither without reflection by her bewildered distress. Of 
 Hilary's feeling, on the other hand, he had no doubt. 
 Every recollection of Hilary's behaviour to him showed 
 Stephen that Hilary was his implacable opponent, and 
 that Hilary was a man who set his own wish before 
 every other consideration. It was a part of his dislike 
 of Hilary that he saw this opponent so ruthless in the 
 pursuit of his desire. Stephen's attitude was antago- 
 nistic : he most desired the happiness of those he loved. 
 It was by an irony that he should, in spite of this will, be 
 an instrument to bring unhappiness where he most wished 
 its opposite. Scruples beset him at every point : only 
 resolute determination to work for his aim made those 
 scruples impotent. If he were to fail, if at any point he 
 should lose heart, then his scruples, like those jackals in 
 the tale, which waited without the eremite's cell ready to 
 rush in and devour him whensoever he succumbed to evil 
 temptation, would be overwhelming. Then they would 
 fall upon his will and paralyse it, so that Stephen would 
 become like any other battered idealist. But this doleful 
 possibility was not yet. Will for will he could yet beat 
 Hilary, so long as he should not be betrayed by circum- 
 stance. His problems remained unsolved, as they had 
 been more than a year before — Roy, Minnie, Priscilla. 
 Only Dorothy, by the interposition of another force, and 
 by no direct result of any action of Stephen's, had won 
 the first stage to freedom. The old man was still to be 
 finally overthrown, though his end seemed to be, and 
 in fact was, in sight. 
 
 What wonder, therefore, that Stephen, whose other 
 difficulties might be said to have reached their climax, 
 found this dangerous and bafiling diversion a thing
 
 DANGER 353 
 
 almost past bearing? If he lost Priscilla to another man 
 — her love, that is to say — there would be nothing for 
 him but disaster. He did not trust Hilary. He did not 
 recognize his code of manners. Was his code of morals 
 equally untrustworthy? Only by putting out a hand to 
 detain his friend did Skeffington continue really to walk 
 in his company ! And how much did Skeffington know, 
 or guess? How much did he understand? To Stephen 
 this hitherto unclouded afternoon had become like a 
 hideous dream — converted in an instant by a single, 
 seemingly innocent, statement of fact. How unhappy he 
 was ! As ever, his unhappiness lay in uncertainty, for 
 armed with knowledge he was cap-a-pie for combat.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV: THE DANGER UNMASKED 
 
 WHEN Stephen returned from his walk with 
 Skeffington Roy was with Priscilla, and Irene 
 was bringing in the tea. Romeo, sitting in an arm-chair 
 supposed to be Stephen's, was smihng at the world and 
 daintily washing his toes. For Romeo this operation 
 presented no difficulties. He put his paw out as does the 
 newly engaged girl when she wears her ring for the first 
 time, spreading her fingers apart. He then raised his 
 paw with the most graceful of gestures and presented it 
 to his mouth. Thenceforward Romeo's every lithe 
 richly coloured movement was a delight to the eye, and 
 his exquisitely pink tongue seemed to represent the quin- 
 tessence of his nature. 
 
 Roy sat in a similar arm-chair rather sheepishly watch- 
 ing Romeo. The few days he had spent at Hampstead 
 had done him a great deal of good. For one thing he 
 was recovering some of his self-respect through the 
 behaviour of Priscilla and Stephen. For another he was 
 rid of the almost intolerable dread with which his first 
 experiment in illegitimate money-getting had poisoned 
 his recent days. That was over, hke a bad dream. The 
 raw ugliness of Emerald, with her early mature material- 
 istic horse-sense, was seen by him with such exactitude 
 that he marvelled at his dead infatuation. It had been 
 the result of an impulse which he had called "swank" : 
 in an atmosphere where "swank" did not appear to be 
 a necessity, where, in fact, he discerned nothing but peace 
 (so inscrutable are the manners of men and women), he 
 had become a boy again. In a few days more he would 
 make up his mind that he must begin to work ; and then, 
 with good fortune, Stephen thought that he could not 
 
 354
 
 THE DANGER UNMASKED 355 
 
 cease growing until he became a man. Stephen, con- 
 suhed, would have attributed the change entirely to the 
 influence of Priscilla. He regarded that as a sovran 
 cure for all base impulses. 
 
 11 
 
 That was the feeling that made Stephen still keep his 
 head in spite of all. He loved Priscilla above all things. 
 So he too, entering this pretty room with its sparse furni- 
 ture, found the atmosphere reassuring. The fever which 
 had lately possessed him sank to an undercurrent. His 
 pleasure at seeing Priscilla there, in a very simple dress 
 of blue linen, with her delicate fair face and fair hair 
 looking so adorable, was intense. Nothing whatever 
 could rob him of that delight. Her clear eyes, her in- 
 describably candid manner, her small head, her grace, 
 all these moved him deeply. All were a part of his 
 vision of her. And Priscilla's sober greeting — a glance 
 and no more — filled him with pride. He looked from 
 one to the other, until his eye rested upon Romeo, who 
 had thrown himself upon his side and now looked coquet- 
 tishly at the new-comer. Romeo knew very well that he 
 was on Stephen's chair. Not in vain had he whimsically 
 studied comfort during the whole of his short and nimble 
 life. Stephen, however, upon this occasion ignored 
 Romeo's ingratiating gestures. He happened not to 
 want his chair. Instead, he turned to Roy. 
 
 "Have you been in, this afternoon?" he inquired. "Or 
 out? It's been particularly fine." 
 
 "Er . . . Priscilla . . . er . . . and I went out for 
 a walk," answered Roy, still a little conscious at the use 
 of his sister-in-law's name. "We went down to the 
 cricket ground," he added more cheerfully. "It's the 
 cricket week ; and they were playing some crack team — 
 Hornsey, or Southgate, or somebody. Jolly fine, it was."
 
 356 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 He made a further start. "Hampstead batted all the 
 time we were there . . . didn't they!" He appealed to 
 Priscilla. 
 
 "That's what the man told you," said Priscilla, smiling. 
 "The man with the dog." 
 
 "So it might have been Hornsey or Southgate really," 
 suggested Stephen. 
 
 "Anyway, they batted splendidly. I think it was 
 Hampstead. And we met Mr. Badoureau there," said 
 Roy innocently. "He wished he was playing. He played 
 in his college team, but he says he wasn't good enough 
 for the first-class matches. . , ." 
 
 Priscilla saw that Stephen's face went white. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Irene had clambered out of the room again, breathing 
 hard, and looking "perfectly globular," as Dorothy said. 
 Dorothy's idea was that Irene was all curves, and opulent 
 curves at that. She was very young, and very strong 
 indeed — as strong as a horse; but youth and strength 
 were not yet disciplined, so to speak, to the table. She 
 either breathed very loud, or held her breath with startling 
 results. When she held her breath her cheeks grew 
 crimson and her eyes rolled and seemed to burst from her 
 head. She always held her breath when talking to 
 Stephen, as a result of extreme fear of him, as though 
 she thought he might snap her up, or bite her; and her 
 voice always at that moment disappeared. She became 
 perfectly inaudible, and would come closer and closer to 
 him, her eyes gaping. She had a secret passion for him, 
 an awed respect that was almost religious. For Stephen 
 she had this feeling; for Priscilla a protective pity allied 
 to adoring marvel at one so incomparably beautiful. But 
 that did not prevent Irene from bringing a small bundle 
 in the morning and taking a large bundle away with her
 
 THE DANGER UNMASKED 357 
 
 at night. She was a mushroom, as Romeo was a Httle 
 cat. Nothing more need be said. You cannot change a 
 mushroom's spots. 
 
 When Irene had gone, shutting the door — as she 
 usually did, through a miscalculation both of strength and 
 distance — with a loud bang, Priscilla sat before the teapot 
 and motioned Roy to his place. Stephen mechanically 
 came to the table, and listlessly received his cup. 
 
 *'Roy very much wanted to see the cricket," Priscilla 
 said, in a moment. "You only heard of these matches 
 this morning, didn't you, Roy?" 
 
 "No," said the artless Roy. "Yesterday Mr. Badou- 
 reau was talking to me about them. He said I ought to 
 go. . . . He said you might like to see one for an hour 
 or so. That's why I suggested it." 
 
 Priscilla and Stephen exchanged a long, steady glance 
 — upon both sides a troubled one. Then Stephen abruptly 
 changed the subject by saying: 
 
 "When shall we see Dorothy again? Will she come 
 soon?" 
 
 Priscilla was puzzled at the change, however welcome 
 it may have been. She answered him, and then went 
 on with her tea. In the next cottage they heard voices, 
 as was very often the case when Skeffington had a visitor, 
 since the walls were so extremely thin. 
 
 "I bet that's Mr. Badoureau," said Roy, with a finger 
 in the air. 
 
 "Very likely," admitted Stephen, coldly and dryly. "I 
 believe he's very fond of coming to see Skeffington." 
 This time he did not look up; but put a small piece of 
 cake carefully into his mouth. Roy seemed to have 
 nothing more to say, except : 
 
 "I pumice-stoned my fingers this morning. Better, 
 aren't they!" 
 
 "Much better," agreed Stephen, with a grave glance. 
 "They're getting on splendidly."
 
 358 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 IV 
 
 When Roy had gone to bed that night, Priscilla and 
 Stephen sat a httle while together. Both would have 
 liked to speak: both found it hard to do so. When 
 Stephen began at last, with a great effort, Priscilla, 
 though her heart beat faster, welcomed the words. Any- 
 tliing was better than silence. 
 
 "Does Badoureau come here a good deal?" he asked 
 abruptly. His own heart was beating hard. Priscilla's 
 eyes were dark; her voice trembled faintly. 
 
 "When you're not here? He's been several times to 
 tea," she answered. "He's in this neighbourhood a good 
 deal. ... He goes to see Mr. Skeffington, ..." 
 
 "I know. I got just a little uncomfortable. . . . You 
 know I don't want to make you uncomfortable, too; 
 but when I brought Roy home he was here, and ... I 
 suppose he's quite straight?" 
 
 Priscilla sat looking at hirfi with a very curious — sadly 
 smiling — expression upon her face. 
 
 "I've known him for several years. He's David's 
 friend, and mine. He can be very rude ; but I think he's 
 very honest," she said. "And I've been rather glad to 
 see anybody lately." 
 
 Stephen was struck by her tone. His first base thought 
 was that she was remembering Minnie and thinking that 
 he had no right to be censorious. 
 
 "My dearest," he said earnestly, "I wasn't thinking 
 that — never that. It did occur to me that he might be 
 being a nuisance. If you had said anything about him 
 to me . . . But I know that we haven't had . . . we've 
 not been talking much lately about ourselves." 
 
 "No," said Priscilla, still with that sober smile flitting 
 upon her lips. 
 
 "Did you like the cricket this afternoon?"
 
 THE DANGER UNMASKED 359 
 
 Priscilla gave a miserable dry little laugh. She thought 
 his change altogether too abrupt. 
 
 "No, Stephen," she said; "don't let's talk about the 
 cricket. There's so much else to talk about. Do you 
 really feel uncomfortable because Hilary sometimes 
 comes to tea?" 
 
 "I don't know anything about these things. I want 
 you to do whatever you like. It wasn't anything of that 
 sort I meant ; but I've seen him or heard of him several 
 times; and Skeffington seems to have him there a good 
 deal. He seems to have nothing to do. He doesn't live 
 in Hampstead; yet he's always about. And he doesn't 
 come when I'm here." 
 
 "Stephen !" Her cry was urgent. 
 
 "He doesn't like me. He's jealous of me, just as I'm 
 jealous of him." 
 
 "Are you afraid of him?" Priscilla eagerly questioned. 
 
 "Only because he's got so much that I haven't got. 
 I wonder . . . It's wrong, I know; but I suppose I'm 
 conscious of being his inferior in physique, and education, 
 and manner. Is that very pretty?" 
 
 "Stephen, I wish you'd tell me this. Are you afraid 
 of him?" 
 
 Stephen looked straight at her. 
 
 "As a man," he answered, "no ! As a lover — yes !" 
 
 Priscilla sat for a moment as though she were stunned 
 by his words. Her hands were still clasped in her lap, 
 as they had been all the time, and they did not now 
 move. 
 
 "Oh, Stephen !" she said, in a breathless way. "Has 
 it really come to this?" 
 
 Stephen did not answer at once. Pie thought they 
 were heading direct for a misunderstanding; and that 
 was the last thing he could afford to risk. At all costs,
 
 360 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 even at a sacrifice of this moment of opportunity, it must 
 be avoided. 
 
 "I wish we didn't always get so shaky when we talk 
 like this," he said at last. "It puts us both on edge. I 
 expect I've given you a wrong impression. It's come 
 to nothing. Nothing. Except that I love you and that 
 you've been punished for my fault. Very likely the fact 
 that I'm in the wrong is always rankling. That may 
 account for everything I feel. Don't think for a moment 
 that I'm afraid of anything Badoureau can do to me. ' In 
 that sense I'm not in the least afraid of him. My dear, 
 • you know that. Don't you?" She shook her head sadly. 
 "Not even that? Well, we are in a mess!" For an 
 instant his heart was leaden. He hesitated, in extremest 
 fear. Then he plunged. "Let me say — let me say all 
 I've got in my mind — nothing kept back. That's best, 
 even if it hurts. And it's not what I started with — it's 
 what's there at this instant, after what we've been say- 
 ing. Is it possible that you've been glad to see him, and 
 have got a lot of good from seeing him (because you're 
 feeling rather wretched) ; and that he's . . . well, not 
 misunderstood . . . but allowed himself to . . . per- 
 haps to revive ... a ... an old feeling?" Why 
 couldn't he say right out "Badoureau's in love with you, 
 and I hate him for it"? 
 
 Priscilla had listened with a strained attention. Now 
 she slipped from her chair and came to his side, kneeling 
 there as she had done in their happy days. She too made 
 her effort to preserA^e their mutual confidence. 
 
 "You do love me?" she asked. "And I think you 
 trust me?" 
 
 "Absolutely," Stephen said in a firm voice. Priscilla 
 laughed again; but this time naturally, though the laugh 
 was not very cheerful. 
 
 "Doesn't it seem strange," she mused, "to think of 
 our talking like this? It's horrible, too, Stephen. And
 
 THE DANGER UNIVIASKED 361 
 
 all because — you'd say because I've been too exacting, 
 because I'm ignorant — innocent in a bad sense?" 
 
 Steplien slipped his arm round her shoulders, and she 
 made no resistance, though she did not further yield 
 herself. 
 
 "It's I who am wrong," he asserted. "I know it; but 
 I can't help it. I began wrong and I'm going further 
 and further wrong. If you want to see Badoureau, see 
 him. But I think it's a danger. You'll see that for 
 yourself. Because it's confirming you in your estrange- 
 ment from me." 
 
 "No !" she cried impetuously. 
 
 "I think so. You get something from him — admira- 
 tion, or sympathy. . . . Something. . . . You look to 
 him for it. That's bound to take you away from me." 
 
 Priscilla moved restlessly, so that he dropped his arm. 
 
 "I wish you wouldn't say that," she said in a very low 
 voice. "It's quite untrue." 
 
 "You don't think about it. But in a few weeks you'll 
 find yourself drifted. . . ." 
 
 Priscilla turned to him. She laid her hands upon his 
 knees. 
 
 "Before . . ." she said. "For three years. . . ." 
 
 "I hadn't injured you. You were thinking of me — 
 loving me. Now, the situation is different. As long as 
 you wholly trusted me, he was powerless. But now he's 
 gone through all the fire of seeing you married to me, he 
 suddenly finds you turning to him. . . . Oh, I think 
 you're unwise, Priscilla! You don't know how things 
 drift when you're unhappy. Think of me " 
 
 "Oh!" cried Priscilla in abhorrence. "That's wholly 
 different. You don't think " 
 
 "It's only different because you're different, my dearest. 
 Only that. Think. There was an unhappy girl, an 
 unhappy man. Here " 
 
 "Really, Stephen!" Priscilla protested again. She
 
 362 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 half rose to her feet. "It's no good! It's no good! I 
 can't bear to go on talking like this." 
 
 "If you were to see Minnie . . ." he began, and 
 stopped. He had taken her hand. 
 
 "Stephen !" 
 
 "I should like you to. Do you zvant to love me?" 
 
 With a groan, Priscilla turned to him and put her arms 
 round his neck. 
 
 "Do you really think I don't love you?" she asked in 
 horror. "Why, my dearest, it's because I love you that 
 I'm unhappy. I'm unhappy because I feel I'm treating 
 you cruelly — being somehow ridiculous. ... It humili- 
 ates me. And now ... to suggest such a comparison ! 
 It's outrageous !" 
 
 Slowly Stephen shook his head, and held her tightly 
 against him. 
 
 "So you've got no further than that?" he asked in a 
 dead voice. "Are you really only being priggish?" 
 
 "You think that?" she breathed. 
 
 "If I begged you to see her?" 
 
 Priscilla remained silent for a space. The life seemed 
 gone out of her body. 
 
 "What good would that do?" she asked. 
 
 "I've put all my hope in it. Either you'll drift away, 
 or you'll drift back to me — unless you try really to under- 
 stand me, and to understand Minnie. I want you to 
 feel that you understand me. That's all. It may make 
 you detest me. I'd take the risk of that. All I want is 
 that you should know all the facts." 
 
 "Very well," said Priscilla. Her tone was dubious; 
 but she was surprised at her own composure. How 
 strange that the proposal no longer lacerated her beating 
 heart. "I'll think about it." 
 
 "She's left her husband — a real scoundrel. A real 
 scoundrel. She's trying to make money by machining 
 cotton shirts. Roy told me so. I went to see her "
 
 THE DANGER UNIVIASKED 363 
 
 "You went ! You didn't tell me !" Her tone was quick 
 with reproach. Well, had she told him about Hilary's 
 visits? No: the case was different, as he quickly saw. 
 
 "Just now," Stephen said. "The day after Roy came. 
 I wanted to talk to you, d'you see; and haven't liked to 
 begin. I went there because, although she'd eventually 
 have left him in any case, I thought . . . well, I thought 
 I ought to go. If you could bring yourself to see her 
 you'd love her — at any rate, like her. And after all — 
 God knows, I've injured you both !" 
 
 Priscilla did not move. She remained in his arms, held 
 to his breast. 
 
 "What would she think?" she presently asked. 
 
 "She thought you wouldn't." 
 
 "Did you speak of it to her then?" 
 
 "I said you could do it — that you were able to. I said 
 you would. ..." 
 
 Priscilla sighed deeply. There were so many things 
 that puzzled her. 
 
 "I think you'd better let me go now," she said gently. 
 "I think you've got a very strong will, Stephen, under 
 your . . . persuasiveness." She drew away from him, 
 and rose to her feet. As she stood before him with her 
 head bent and her hand hanging by her side he looked 
 up at her with a renewal of that pride which he had felt 
 earlier. "Do you want me to go to see . . . Minnie; 
 or will she come here?" 
 
 "As you wish," Stephen said. "She's in a horrible 
 place though." 
 
 "I'll go to see her," said Priscilla. "You must give 
 me the address. Give it to me now." 
 
 "Thank God!" He too rose, and lifted her hand to 
 his lips. They had both forgotten Hilary.
 
 CHAPTER XXV: PARENTAL SOLICITUDE 
 
 IT used to be possible — and may still be possible — to 
 walk by direct roads from the flagstaff near the 
 White Stone Pond at Hampstead to the pretty Hendon 
 (now rendered less picturesque by shining villas and by 
 the aeroplane hangars) ; and thence by field-paths, as the 
 guide-books say, to Totteridge. It was certainly possible 
 when Stephen and Priscilla walked from their cottage on 
 the day after this talk and paid a visit to Mr. and Mrs. 
 Evandine. They started early in the afternoon and 
 arrived to tea ; and at the house they found Dorothy and 
 Mr. Vanamure, as well as Priscilla's father and mother. 
 They found all these virtuous people sitting in the garden 
 under the mulberry-tree, waiting for Biddy to bring out 
 the cake-stand, and a little table, and the large tray. And 
 Stephen remembered ancient days, with something like 
 shame in his heart. He could so clearly remember coming 
 back here and being rude to Mrs. Evandine and seeing 
 Priscilla again for the first time after their obscure 
 quarrel. It was like a dream — a dream such as one may 
 have upon a summer's day, when the birds are chirping 
 merrily or ill-temperedly among themselves, and when 
 sparrows and starlings are discussing the characters of 
 other sparrows and starlings which have appropriated 
 all the tit-bits. And the party under the mulberry-tree, 
 waiting contentedly for tea time, hailed with joy the 
 advent of such welcome callers. Dorothy was the first 
 to rise and walk impetuously towards them; but the 
 others were very nearly as quick. Mr. Vanamure in 
 especial was profound in his respectful salutations. He 
 stood there with his soft eyes beaming and his rich beard 
 
 364
 
 PARENTAL SOLICITUDE 365 
 
 as dark as a fine chestnut ; and it seemed to Priscilla that 
 he could never have left off talking since she had last seen 
 him. He still smoked the most magnificent cigars, the 
 scent of one of which hurried across the lawn before him, 
 racing with the sound of his mellifluous voice. 
 
 "A most unlooked-for and enchanting pleasure," said 
 Mr. Vanamure. "I was inquiring only the other moment 
 of good Mr. Evandine here whether you were both in the 
 perfection of health." 
 
 "And now you see for yourself," said Priscilla, gently 
 smiling, "that we are !" 
 
 "That is my pleasure," Mr. Vanamure assured her, 
 with an additional bow of compliment. 
 
 "Oh, Priscilla, Pm so glad to see you!" cried 
 Dorothy. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Evandine, if less effusive, were as 
 cordial; and the matchless Biddy, approaching at this 
 moment, smiled also in a delicious unbending of joy. 
 Upon her finger lay a great hoop of gold, coruscating 
 with gems, so that every available ray of sunshine darted 
 to the spot, as birds to a crumb. It took away the breath 
 of the visitors unexpectedly to see such splendour ; but it 
 is gratifying to record that their appetite remained 
 staunch. 
 
 "Tea," said Mr. Vanamure, falling into a philosophic 
 vein, "is of all meals the one which most charmingly 
 permits the freedom of discourse. In this enchanting 
 garden, with the birds . . ." 
 
 "Yiss," said Mr. Evandine hurriedly. "Very nice 
 . . . very nice. And now, my dear Priscilla . . ." 
 
 "Don't listen to them!" whispered Dorothy; "but tell 
 me how you are !" 
 
 What a pleasant tea it was! The afternoon was very 
 warm, but there was a strong breeze, and the tree above 
 their heads rustled in a lovely undersong to their thoughts 
 and little speeches. Upon the air came the fragrance of
 
 366 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 the garden, and the sweet noises that make summer 
 afternoons such happily woven memories. The tinkle 
 of the spoons, the sweet and insubstantial foods, the 
 general air of kindness and courtesy, were as soothing 
 to Priscilla as they were to Stephen. She found herself 
 thinking of many other such days, when, after tennis or 
 after some less strenuous pastime, she had enjoyed of old 
 teas almost exactly comparable. She gave herself up to 
 reverie, recalling a thousand things. . . . Then, when 
 there had been a little pause, they noticed her smiling, 
 and Dorothy invited her to declare the reason. 
 
 "I've been remembering other times when we've had 
 tea here," Priscilla admitted. "And I was wondering 
 what it was . . . what little nice thing I missed from 
 this one. I've just thought of it." 
 
 "Oh, Priscilla! How nice of you!" cried Dorothy. 
 "It's David, of course." 
 
 "Well, no!" hesitated Priscilla. "Not David, dear. 
 . . . I'm so sorry it wasn't David. The one I missed 
 was Romeo. I feel so strongly that Romie ought to be 
 here, lying on the edge of my skirt." 
 
 "Now that's just beautiful !" exclaimed Mr. Vanamure. 
 "Just beautiful! One can't help observing the benefits 
 of association" — he bowed respectfully to Mr. Evandine 
 — "with one who, if I may say so, has brought humane 
 letters to a fine art." 
 
 "Ugh!" grunted Stephen; and Mr. Evandine flinched 
 under the merry eyes of the two girls. 
 
 "Yiss, yiss," he said in perturbation. "And whawt, 
 my dear Priscilla, has our friend Romeo been doing 
 lately? Yiss." 
 
 Mrs. Evandine looked up hopefully. It sprang into 
 her mind that what David had called the day of the evil 
 Vanamure was nearing its end. When her husband 
 showed signs of unrest she could begin to regard him 
 once more as independent of adulation. She looked
 
 PARENTAL SOLICITUDE 367 
 
 comically at Stephen, whose grunt had reached her; and 
 he, seeing her amusement, nodded in return. Neverthe- 
 less, Mrs. Evandine was sorry for Mr. Vanamure. 
 
 ii 
 
 When tea was finished, and when Biddy had taken 
 indoors the remains of the meal, the party gradually 
 dispersed. Mrs. Evandine and Stephen went a- walking 
 in the garden, Dorothy and Priscilla remained in the 
 shadow, and Mr. Evandine was followed to his room by 
 a faithful satellite. There Mr. Evandine listened to a 
 grave discourse disguised as an interrogatory, and did 
 his utmost to appear more interested than in fact he was. 
 It is a curious thing, that Mr. Evandine, seeing Stephen, 
 of whom he was rather afraid, had become startlingly 
 aware of his own weakness; and although he was a 
 weak and amiable old gentleman he was not wedded to 
 weakness, so that he saw Stephen as something better 
 than Mr. V'anamure. He was full of eagerness to talk 
 to his son-in-law, whose good opinion he now coveted; 
 and it was by a pathetic irony of fate that Mr. Vanamure 
 was present upon this otherwise unclouded afternoon. 
 It was not, then, the merry glances of the girls which had 
 disturbed Mr. Evandine : it was the silent incorruptible 
 presence of Stephen which had sent a searching question 
 to his self-respect. He sat with his admirer an embar- 
 rassed victim, much too polite to bid him go, but engaged 
 in a private mesmeric endeavour, trying vainly to com- 
 pass Mr. Vanamure's departure by means of hypnotic 
 suggestion. 
 
 The girls had much to say to each other; and Mrs. 
 Evandine was showing Stephen how very obstinate Minch 
 could be. She had suggested certain changes in the bed- 
 ding, which, she was convinced, would have been quite 
 practicable. But Minch, called by her into counsel, had 
 been obdurate. He had said that what she had wanted
 
 368 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 could not be clone; that, even if it could be done, it would 
 be very costly, very unsatisfactory, very difficult, very 
 unpleasant, very unnecessary. . . , And he had wriggled 
 and twisted until Mrs. Evandine had been forced to 
 abandon her idea. , 
 
 "Doesn't it seem to you that it could be done?" she 
 appealed. 
 
 "I should have thought so," answered Stephen, in his 
 most solemn manner. "From here, you mean? . . ." 
 He indicated the spot with his foot. Mrs. Evandine 
 stooped and made motions with her hands. From behind 
 a bush many yards away, where he had been stooping 
 in the shade to tie up a wanton branch, the object of 
 her maledictions watched them. The wicked Minch, 
 unable to hear a word, breathed heavily at his knowledge 
 of what was going on. He eyed Stephen in an unfriendly 
 way, in case Stephen should emphatically declare that the 
 alteration could and should be made. How wicked Minch 
 was will never be known. He was a complete profes- 
 sional gardener; and these are evil men. It is the result 
 of stooping so much in the sun. 
 
 "However," said Mrs. Evandine, "it's too bad to worry 
 you about this. It's only an idea of mine; and the reason 
 I asked you was that I want a moral support. When one 
 comes to deal with a man like Minch one feels so power- 
 less, so amateurish. He's able to assume the most con- 
 temptuous expression I ever saw !" 
 
 Stephen saw Minch lurking behind a bush many yards 
 away. 
 
 "He's practising espionage," he said. "Don't look 
 that way." 
 
 They elaborately avoided the brigand-like Minch, 
 instead of calling him, as they might have done, and 
 telling him to produce his considered objections. How- 
 ever, as the alteration was for next year, and as it was 
 eventually made by the reluctant Minch, in accordance
 
 PARENTAL SOLICITUDE 369 
 
 with Mrs. Evandine's plan, there does not seem to have 
 been much amiss in their conduct. Th-^y proceeded to 
 walk about the garden, under the long, beautiful arches 
 of rambler roses, now at their height, and to talk of 
 other things. 
 
 iii 
 
 "You've been seeing a good deal of Skeffington lately, 
 haven't you?" began Stephen. "He's a funny chap. He 
 often comes in to see us in the evenings." 
 
 "It was rather amusing to hear him talking to Mr. 
 Agg the other evening," went on Mrs. Evandine. "They 
 dislike each other, and each other's work, intensely. I've 
 never seen such opposites. But they get on very well 
 indeed, because they try to outdo each other. However, 
 I like Mr. Skeffington. He's a cheerful man. I think 
 he likes you very much." 
 
 Stephen became rather uncomfortable because he did 
 not like to feel so pleased. 
 
 "I was with him yesterday. This is the second lazy 
 afternoon I've had this week." 
 
 "Not ill?" 
 
 "No. But instead of going up to town I've worked 
 at home both mornings. I've been working on David's 
 book. It's remarkable that I can get on ever so much 
 better at home ; but the cottage is so small that it means 
 Irene going about on tip-toe. . . . So I don't do it often." 
 
 "You're not working too hard? I don't really think 
 either of you looks well. I hope Hampstead agrees with 
 you both." Mrs. Evandine spoke anxiously. "Are you 
 both quite happy ? I mean, no worries?" She was look- 
 ing up at him with that clear truth-telling and truth- 
 seeking expression which she had in common with Pris- 
 cilla. Stephen looked back at her dubiously. How could 
 he answer such a direct question, situated as he was? 
 
 "I've been worried about The Norm," he admitted,
 
 370 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 disingenuously. "But that's over now. It's being kept 
 on, at any rate for a time. You know we've got Roy 
 staying with us? He's been rather a worry. Still, 
 Priscilla's taken him in hand ; and she's worked wonders 
 already." 
 
 "And are these all your worries?" asked Mrs. Evan- 
 dine. " They're not enough to make Priscilla so white." 
 
 "You think she's ill?" asked Stephen quickly, 
 
 "I'm rather shocked at her appearance." 
 
 What could Stephen do or say ? How could he set the 
 mother's heart at rest? 
 
 "We haven't been quarrelling," he assured her. "But 
 we've been talking a lot. I think it'll be all right. But 
 there are some other worries. Or rather . . . there have 
 been. Some of them continue, worse luck !" 
 
 "Stephen, you alarm me, you know !" cried Mrs. 
 Evandine. "I don't want to ask inconvenient questions ; 
 but I don't like to see you both looking . . . It's not 
 possible, I suppose, that you're keeping something from 
 Priscilla that she's found out in some other way — by 
 accident?" 
 
 "No. She knows everything. We've got no secrets." 
 
 "And no disagreements?" 
 
 "Hardly any." 
 
 "Don't give in, Stephen. Never give in, if you're sure 
 you're right." He laughed at her whimsical instruction, 
 which he supposed to be intended ironically, "I mean 
 that. Stephen — do you realize that Priscilla's rather a 
 young girl?" 
 
 "Yes," he soberly said. 
 
 "And that you must treat her , , . rather carefully? 
 Really, I mean, make demands on her." With a faint 
 frown Stephen looked up. "Priscilla's rich in all sorts 
 of ways. But I think — I always have thought — that 
 you may spoil her by being afraid to call out these 
 resources. She's unselfish, and she can understand and
 
 PARENTAL SOLICITUDE 371 
 
 do all sorts of things that you think a woman can't do 
 and understand. And if you're afraid to make demands 
 she may not know enough to rise to the occasion. If 
 you trust her — and depend upon her — let her see that 
 you expect her help at every turn, as a right, and not as 
 a favour — you'll find that she'll respond. But you must 
 be a man, Stephen ; and treat her as though she not only 
 had your love, but your reliance. . . . This is wisdom, 
 I assure you." 
 
 Mrs. Evandine had grown so prettily serious during 
 this long speech that she had looked exactly as if Priscilla 
 herself v.^ere pleading to be put into harness. Stephen 
 nodded his head. 
 
 "I hadn't worked on this plan," he said. "I doubt 
 if I could have done so. But," and at this he a little 
 shook his head, with self-reproach, "I'm quite sure I've 
 made plenty of demands on Priscilla. And what's more, 
 Priscilla is splendidly rising to the occasion." He was 
 proud to say that, and his eye kindled. 
 
 iv 
 
 On the way home, when Priscilla and Stephen were 
 walking to Whetstone, he noticed that she was very quiet, 
 and wondered whether by any chance Mrs. Evandine 
 had spoken to her in a similar sense. As they were walk- 
 ing in the early evening, when the overhanging trees made 
 the pathway dark, he could not see Priscilla's face; but 
 could only look past her at the road, now grey as a 
 spider's web, and across at the darkness of the fencing 
 opposite. Many many times in the past had he walked 
 along this way, after parting with Priscilla ; and he could 
 not now see this lovely scene, mysterious in its dimness, 
 without emotion. He did not love it for itself, as some 
 of us do; he loved it because it was associated in his mind 
 with those moments of his life when feeling had been 
 strongest within him. The road belonged to times when
 
 372 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 he could never have imagined Priscilla as his wife, times 
 when he was sure she could never marry him, times again, 
 more recent, when she had promised to do so. He had 
 never walked this way since their marriage. Uncon- 
 trollably he was moved to walk nearer to her, and gently 
 to take her arm. 
 
 "A little tired, are you?" he asked. Priscilla impul- 
 sively drew his arm closer instead of replying in words. 
 So bound, they went onwards, Priscilla stepping out more 
 boldly now that she had his support. Stephen also was 
 in no mood for talking; but he was also anxious not to 
 appear glum, so he rather forced himself to speak of the 
 afternoon in what he conceived to be a cheerful spirit. 
 
 "Your father," he said, "seems to have solved his 
 Southey difficulty — by deciding not to write that biogra- 
 phy at all. He says it would need so much rereading of 
 stuff he went over for the Crabb Robinson book. That 
 period is so — what he calls 'fully documented' — that it 
 means years of work unless he sticks to it constantly. He 
 asked me to do it. . . ." Stephen paused a moment in 
 case she might make any comment. "But I told him that 
 as I wasn't specially interested in Southey I didn't think 
 I'd make any attempt. He's always coquetted with that 
 idea. His idea is that you can make yourself interested. 
 I wish I could do that; but I can't. He seems to be able 
 to take a man, read through his work and all the material 
 about him, improvise a sort of enthusiasm for it, and 
 write a charming book. . , ." 
 
 "I thought you thought his books were bad," said 
 Priscilla quickly. 
 
 "Er . . . well, I suppose I do think they're wrong," 
 he admitted. "In one way. I could understand if he 
 didn't improvise his enthusiasm — if he set himself defi- 
 nitely to find out what he thinks of a man, and put that 
 on record, once and for all. That I understand, because 
 it's an intellectual experiment. What I can't understand
 
 PARENTAL SOLICITUDE 373 
 
 is, making oneself a partisan for the occasion, as he seems 
 to be able to do — 'making the best' of somebody. That 
 doesn't seem to me to have any critical value. It's mere 
 patronage. But all the same, I think his books are charm- 
 ing (however wrong), and I'm sure he'd write a very 
 nice book about Southey, and say very apt things about 
 the vast heap that Southey wrote. . . . However, he 
 says he can't do it. I can't imagine him wading through 
 all that stuff with any pleasure. . . ." 
 
 "Is it worth wading through?" asked Priscilla. 
 
 "I should think it was very interesting. I could read 
 it with interest; but I couldn't praise it." 
 
 Priscilla laughed — a laugh that had sudden tears in 
 it. 
 
 "Oh, you are funny!" she murmured. "There must 
 be something inhuman about you!" 
 
 Stephen was taken aback. He had been carefully 
 discriminating; and he had somehow made Priscilla 
 laugh. It was very strange. The surprise did not irri- 
 tate him ; but then it did not please him. He remained 
 impersonal. "Do you mean," Priscilla went on, "that 
 father would read it all with a sort of something like 
 boredom, and then extricate himself by some pleasant 
 praise . . . and let poor Southey remain where he is 
 now . . . nobody reading him?" 
 
 "Exactly," said Stephen, much pleased. "And he 
 wouldn't even be quite perfectly accurate in his facts. 
 He'd work in somebody else's opinion of something he 
 hadn't been able to read through ... so as to give it 
 a gloss of . . ." 
 
 "What a dishonest man you must think him !" cried 
 Priscilla. "D'you think he feels like that about Mr. 
 Vanamure?" 
 
 Stephen laughed, as he had not laughed for several 
 weeks. 
 
 "I'm sure of it!" he declared. "He admits he's bored
 
 374 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 by him. He began to complain this evening, after Vana- 
 mure had gone. And then he gave a most deHcate 
 description of Vanamure — a portrait, d'you see? — and 
 all the boredom was toned down into a charming . . . 
 call it an 'appreciation' . . . with the boringness slurred 
 over and the enthusiasm exalted. Not at all true : it 
 bore as much relation to Vanamure as to me. If I were 
 to die " 
 
 "Stephen!" Priscilla's heart gave a jump. 
 
 "I'm very tough. I was going to say that he'd write 
 about my bad temper in such a way as to show that I 
 wasn't bad-tempered at all. He'd sAy that my writing 
 was beautiful. And the cunning man would actually 
 find somewhere a sentence or two that bore out what he 
 said!" 
 
 Priscilla made no protest. She only thought to herself 
 that some people had curious ideas about their own 
 natures ; and that outsiders perhaps after all did see more 
 of the game. In a moment she spoke again : 
 
 "Did mother speak to you about me?" 
 
 "A little. She thought you looked ill. I had to be 
 very nimble to escape her." 
 
 "Oh," Priscilla said, half to herself. "Did you . . . 
 Stephen, did you by any chance mention Hilary to her?" 
 Stephen reflected. He could not remember anything. 
 
 "I don't think so," he answered slowly. "Oh, you 
 mean — Certainly not. I don't think his name came up 
 at all. Why?" 
 
 Priscilla bent her head so that for a moment it touched 
 his shoulder. 
 
 "Oh, nothing," she said. "Only she spoke to me about 
 him. She said exactly what you said." 
 
 V 
 
 The long journey by tramcar to Golders Green, and
 
 PARENTAL SOLICITUDE 375 
 
 the walk from there in the beautiful summer evening, was 
 made by these two in almost complete silence. But 
 Stephen had led Priscilla along the Finchley Road so 
 that they could reach the Heath by way of Hermitage 
 Lane End and the West Heath Road. He was disap- 
 pointed at the fact that the sky was too dark for a 
 repetition of that thrill which he had felt after his long 
 day's walk. 
 
 "I wanted you to see a beauty," he said in a low voice. 
 "But though the lights look jolly now they're not as I 
 saw them. It's too dark. That day ... a dreadful day, 
 dear. . . . The day after I'd told you about Minnie. 
 When I told you, I thought I understood you; but it 
 wasn't till I'd had that day by myself, and came back 
 in the evening, that I really understood, and was really 
 ashamed. . . ." 
 
 "Dear!" said Priscilla, wonderingly. Stephen sighed. 
 She could not see that his eyes were bright. 
 
 "I was coming home — I came home hoping you'd be 
 alone, and not cold ; and came hurrying up here, and 
 along home. . . . That was the first time I really felt 
 personally jealous of Badoureau. He was at home, with 
 David; and you were . . ." While he hesitated over a 
 word, Priscilla supplied another. 
 
 "I was hateful," she said. "I remember. I still am 
 hateful." 
 
 "No, dear, you weren't. It was just getting dusk, and 
 the lamps were shining in the twilight. I wonder why it 
 is that lights at twilight always seem so beautiful. . . . 
 Oh, my dear, I ivas unhappy." 
 
 It is astonishing how much easier it is to speak of past 
 unhappiness — of a past occasion, even though the same 
 unhappiness remains — than of that which is present. 
 Stephen could say this to her; but he could not have 
 said, as he might with truth have done. "I am absolutely 
 at your mercy; and if the next few days go wrong, and
 
 376 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 you still are estranged after seeing Minnie, I shall be in 
 despair, hopeless of any future." 
 
 VI 
 
 As they entered their gate Priscilla gave a choked 
 little scream. 
 
 "Stephen !" 
 
 The dark figure which had turned from the unlighted 
 window drew itself up. 
 
 "Pardon," said a voice. "I crave the lady's pardon." 
 And with that the old man, with characteristic dignity, 
 made a step to move past them. His tone changed. "To 
 such straits I'm reduced, my dear daughter-in-law. The 
 old man has to steal by night to try and see his lost boy, 
 his baby." He stood before Priscilla. "Good night to 
 you," he said, hurried to the gate, and walked swiftly 
 down the road. 
 
 They went into the empty house, and Stephen turned 
 on the light in the sitting-room. Priscilla followed him 
 into the room, still wearing her hat. 
 
 "Stephen," she said. "I suppose it is right to take 
 Roy away from him? . . . Oh, of course it must be 
 right. But I do think he sounded rather pathetic." 
 
 "You think Pm hard on him?" Stephen asked. "Roy 
 is probably at Slapperton Street now, trying to see the 
 old man. I told him to go, because the old man really 
 is frantically fond of him. But if he stays there — d'you 
 see?" 
 
 Priscilla nodded. 
 
 "Oh!" she burst out. "It's horrible . . . the way one 
 has to be deliberately cruel !" 
 
 "Well, I think careless cruelty's worse," answered 
 Stephen, "because it's wanton. The old man kept Roy, 
 and made a mess of it. That's all. You don't want to 
 see Roy go under?"
 
 PARENTAL SOLICITUDE 377 
 
 "No. I'm not blaming you. I meant what a pity it 
 was necessary. Why isn't Roy strong enough to look 
 after himself?" 
 
 ''Roy's a son of the old man." 
 
 "So are you. You're strong enough. . . . Strong 
 . . . How implacable you are !" 
 
 "Dearest, I can assure you I haven't always been. 
 Dorothy used to be quite as indignant about my softness. 
 Quite as indignant. She used to ask me why I let the 
 old man spoil all our lives. If I'd done as I ought to 
 have done, and thrown him over as soon as my mother 
 died, life would have been a different thing. People like 
 the old man can't somehow be escaped without brutality. 
 Really I've given him every chance. But since Roy was 
 born he's been drinking all the time, and that rots the 
 moral fibre. He's got no moral sense left!" 
 
 "Drinking!" said Priscilla. "Had he been drinking 
 just now?" 
 
 "Always." 
 
 "Tell me, how did you stop him from always writing 
 and coming . . . prowling?" 
 
 Stephen smiled very grimly. 
 
 "I told him that if he kept on blackmailing me he not 
 only wouldn't get any more money, but wouldn't get 
 his pound a week. That was quite enough. Also I 
 told him that the only two people he had in his mind . . . 
 the people whose opinion of me might be affected by 
 anything he said, knew the real facts." 
 
 "Two people?" breathed Priscilla. 
 
 "Yourself and your father. I told him long before 
 we were married." 
 
 Priscilla stood thoughtfully for a moment before she 
 went to remove her hat.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI: HILARY 
 
 FOR a long time Priscilla could not sleep for thinking 
 of Stephen's last words; and in the morning they 
 were still the subject of her anxious attention. So her 
 father had known all along ! He had seen in the knowl- 
 edge nothing to affect his relation to Stephen ; more, he 
 had consented ... he must have consented to Stephen's 
 silence. From that it was an easy step to the idea — 
 Suppose he had even suggested that silence ? The moment 
 she thought of that her mind seemed to give a great 
 jerk. If the suggestion had been his, did not that make 
 a great difference ? It made almost as great a revolution 
 in her mind as Stephen's original disclosure. For if her 
 father knew, was it not possible that her mother also 
 knew? Priscilla shivered at such a supposition. It made 
 her seem extraordinarily lonely, until a flaming heat came 
 upon her with indignation that she should have had so 
 little voice in a matter that concerned her happiness. She 
 was not a child ! Oh, it was all so squalid — so solemn ! 
 Irritation succeeded to anger, and was again displaced by 
 bewildered sadness. To think of all these kind people 
 watching over her, and trying to make her life smooth 
 in a bypath ! Oh, she must end this way : it was a shame- 
 ful road to travel! Restlessly she moved about during 
 the morning, giving her attention to daily things as they 
 arose, but anon recurring to the principal theme of her 
 present discontents. Her resolutions gradually took form 
 as she went about the house, and she was glad also to 
 devote herself to particular pieces of work as emphasizing 
 a new utility upon which she was determined to concen- 
 trate. She would be useful ; she would be virtuous ; she 
 would in every way show these well-wishers that they 
 
 378
 
 HILARY 379 
 
 had underrated her strength. Gravely Priscilla nodded 
 to herself, thinking how great that strength trul}'^ was. 
 
 ii 
 
 In the afternoon, which was again one of bright sun- 
 shine, she discarded her working dress for one better 
 suited to the work she had in hand, put on her pretty 
 blue hat, took her gloves and purse, and prepared with 
 great deliberation to go out. She returned to the sitting- 
 room to see that it was thoroughly in order, and paid a 
 visit to the kitchen where Irene was occupied in harmless 
 tasks. 
 
 "You'll be all right till I come back?" inquired 
 Priscilla. 
 
 "Yes, ma'am." It had taken days of training to make 
 Irene cease calling her "Mrs. Moore." It had been 
 "Yes, Mrs. Moore," "No, Mrs. Moore," "Good night, 
 Mrs. Moore," until Priscilla, in self-defence, had been 
 forced to remonstrate. So the more decorous form of 
 address had come into play. 
 
 And it was precisely at this moment — as Irene said 
 "Yes, ma'am," in her most well-bred and least embryonic 
 manner — that Hilary's knock came at the front door. 
 Precisely at this moment, when Priscilla had her resolu- 
 tions so firmly in hand that she could have carried them 
 out at a single venture, that there came this interruption 
 which checked and threw into confusion the plans she 
 had formed. It did not need any violence of conjecture 
 to know who stood there. It is impossible for any sensi- 
 tive person to hear a knock without knowing at whose 
 hands the knocker tells its significant story. And it was 
 precisely her attitude to Hilary that seemed in that 
 moment never to have been irretrievably fixed. Or was 
 it truer to say that her determined attitude had been 
 shattered and scattered in an instant ? Slowly and pain- 
 fully, while Irene darted to the front door with a haste
 
 380 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 indicative of the receipt on a previous occasion of one 
 private shilling, Priscilla stood by the kitchen table pull- 
 ing off her thin gloves. She knew, and she was alarmed. 
 While yet the visitor's step sounded in the hall, and while 
 the clicking of the sitting-room door was striking her car, 
 Priscilla put her hands up to the blue hat, removed the 
 pin, and continued to stand holding the hat listlessly in 
 her fingers. Her eyes had for a moment closed; her 
 cheeks had grown faintly more pink; her body had 
 drooped. Words and thoughts and feelings belonging to 
 her talks with Stephen and her mother recurred swiftly, 
 as memory is supposed to flow in the dreadful seconds 
 of extremest danger. Cowardice assailed Priscilla: she 
 was oppressed with a knowledge of her youth and inex- 
 perience, like a little girl shamed before a visitor. This 
 was the emergency for which she was unready. 
 
 Irene was back again, breathing hard, her globular eyes 
 beaming, her whole plump and muscular person wrig- 
 gling as it were with suppressed enthusiasm. To Irene 
 the occasion was one of delight, not of conjecture. The 
 handsome gentleman was in the parlour, making it seem 
 ever so small by his fine upstanding gentlemanliness. 
 
 "Please'm, iss Missster Badoureau !" hissed the mush- 
 room, as if she had been a snake. Priscilla paid no heed 
 to the hissing. She was only wondering whether she had 
 really enough self-control to behave towards him as 
 though there had been no warning given. To Irene she 
 gave no sign of nervousness. 
 
 "Very well, Irene. Then I shan't be going out. You 
 can bring in the tea in twenty minutes. See, we've got 
 everything? The china teapot — do put plenty of tea 
 in the pot; and make quite sure the kettle's boiled. 
 Boiled fiercely, remember! Not just sung. . . ." 
 
 Irene giggled at memory of a time when she had seen 
 tea-leaves swimming about like cruisers in a pond of 
 horrid pale tea. She promised her endeavours.
 
 HILARY 381 
 
 Then Priscilla, still holding her hat, which she hung 
 in passing upon a peg in the passage, went bravely from 
 the kitchen to the sitting-room, with a heavy heart and 
 an air to which nervousness had given only a most 
 bewitching vivacity. 
 
 iii 
 
 When she entered the sitting-room Hilary was stand- 
 ing with his back to the door, and was looking at a small 
 caricature of Romeo which had been made by the many 
 talented Skeffington. He turned at the sound of the 
 opening door, and a smile of welcome lighted up his 
 face. 
 
 "Hallo!" he said, taking Priscilla's hand with eager- 
 ness. "I say, I know I'm an awful nuisance; but I had 
 to come in. How are you?" Smiling thus, he was 
 superbly handsome. Every line of his body was full of 
 health and beauty — the beauty of the athlete, with every 
 muscle in splendid exercise. To Priscilla, as to Irene, 
 he filled the room, making it appear inadequate. There 
 was, seen thus, a gusto in his manner of addressing him- 
 self to life that gave him extraordinary charm. He was 
 beautiful, winning, impetuous; and his yellow hair above 
 his bronzed face served only by the contrast to give 
 manliness to that face and determination to its expres- 
 sion. "Just looking at this sketch of Romeo. It's jolly 
 good. Skeffington's a clever chap !" 
 
 When he paused, Hilary grew less handsome, his eyes 
 less frank. With his praise was mingled some of his 
 inner feeling, his general reservation concerning the 
 object of his praise. Yet he praised warmly, generously. 
 Priscilla felt her colour rising as she smiled again in 
 respbnse to his eagerness. 
 
 "Yes," she said. "He gave us that the other evening 
 when we were there to dinner." 
 
 "How did you like it? I've heard about the apple 
 
 ,«
 
 382 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 pudding. He's a great theorist about apple puddings. 
 When I saw him last he gave me a lecture. , , ." 
 
 "I know !" laughed Priscilla. "He and Dorothy both 
 say the same thing." 
 
 "See, it's anti-cloves, anti-lemon, anti-water: isn't it? 
 Only apples." 
 
 "Fortunately that's the way I was taught !" agreed 
 Priscilla. To herself she was saying, "I'm being horribly 
 forced and unnatural; and my face is hot; and I'm 
 shaking away. I really must . . ." Aloud she begged 
 him to sit down. If only he were sitting down, she felt, 
 it would be better. It was his marvellous largeness that 
 made Hilary dominate the room; the air he carried of 
 being magnificently supple. He sat down, his blue eyes 
 unwinking, as blue and clear as glass. 
 
 "How did you like the cricket ?" he went on. "Pretty 
 boring, wasn't it? Your young friend seems to be cricket 
 mad." 
 
 "Oh," Priscilla asked, while her heart thudded at the 
 remembrance of Roy's indiscretion, "is that where he is 
 to-day? You've seen him?" 
 
 Hilary also appeared to feel embarrassed at that 
 question. "Yes," he admitted. "Well, I really went 
 there to-day to see if you'd been encouraged to go again. 
 It was so jolly the other day. . . ." 
 
 "Are . . . are they playing another team to-day?" 
 asked Priscilla, at a loss for alternative words. He gave 
 an account of what he had seen, describing the play for 
 a moment. 
 
 "I was at Lord's this morning," he went on. "Nothing 
 much doing there. The best places to see cricket are the 
 country grounds — at Maidstone, or Horsham. There 
 you get a pretty scene. It's social. Plenty of women 
 go there, and there's a lot of enthusiasm. . . . How's 
 David? I've not seen him since . . . See, only once 
 since he got engaged."
 
 HILARY 383 
 
 "Yes ; of course you've met Dorothy several times." 
 
 "Yes," said Hilary, without comment. Priscilla's eye- 
 brows were a little raised. No enthusiasm here meant 
 everything. It was clear that Dorothy and he were not 
 friends. Swiftly she decided that that was only natural, 
 since Dorothy had remarked to her that Hilary was 
 conceited, and thought only of himself. Strange again. 
 How quick were the Moores at summing up a character 
 — particularly at disliking it. Was it abnormally quick 
 and perceptive judgment, or was it prejudice due to mis- 
 understanding? 
 
 "I should have thought you'd be going away," she 
 ventured, "You're not generally in London during the 
 summer, are you?" 
 
 "I can't get away." Hilary pierced her with his 
 glance. "I say, are you all right? Not hot, or any- 
 thing? The window is open." He looked quickly at 
 the door. Irene's steps were heard in the passage as she 
 traversed it on the v/ay upstairs to the bedroom. "It's 
 frightfully hot where I am. I think I shall try to get 
 a place up in this neighbourhood. I've been getting very 
 fond of Hampstead. ..." 
 
 "You wouldn't like it," said Priscilla, with a decision 
 born of her feeling of desperation. "It's terribly cold 
 in the winter, they say. Everything freezes. Besides, 
 I shouldn't have thought you could get what you wanted 
 in Hampstead." 
 
 "How d'you know what I want?" asked Hilary in a 
 curious voice. 
 
 Priscilla met his glance and read there sudden danger. 
 With a vehement effort she answered steadily. 
 
 "I thought you were altogether comfortable." 
 
 "And you're not, eh?" 
 
 "Oh, yes," she quickly assured him. "We're quite 
 comfortable." 
 
 "Priscilla ..."
 
 384 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 Clod, clod, clod came Irene's steps down the stairs. 
 Priscilla breathed again. It was astounding to her that 
 she should have become aware unquestioningly that the 
 conversation was being forced into a fateful channel. 
 Both of them were aware of it. Hilary's eyes seemed 
 burned right back into his head, coldly, fixedly glowing. 
 Priscilla's cheeks lost a little colour. She braced herself. 
 
 "That means that tea's imminent," she said calmly. 
 
 IV 
 
 Irene came, superlatively happy, clumping round the 
 table with an energy that no warning had yet sufficed 
 to tame. That energy which in rougher work was so 
 admirable she brought to every task, and with extra 
 obviousness into such an act as this. A held breath 
 struggled to free itself in periodical bursts of panting; a 
 tip-toeing dash after stealth made ft appear that her 
 feet were stubborn iron-shod pegs. In this desperate 
 clamouring half -silence, like the coalman who has been 
 warned that an invalid lurks within the house, Irene laid 
 the table while Priscilla tried hard to keep the conversa- 
 tion within a normal range. Presently Irene, with one 
 last stertorous survey of the table — beautifully set in 
 spite of her apparent clumsiness — departed, dragging the 
 door slowly and carefully to, only to slam it at the last 
 instant. 
 
 "Bit of a drop from Biddy," said Hilary tactlessly, 
 abusing the privilege of a familiar acquaintance. "Ade- 
 noids, I should think." 
 
 "She's a very good mushroom indeed," returned 
 Priscilla, in steady protest. She was fully aware that 
 his remark presumed her sense of a fall since her mar- 
 riage in standards of comfort. "In a year or two Irene 
 will be a very good maid." 
 
 "Then she'll leave you," promised Hilary, in a sudden
 
 HILARY 385 
 
 cynicism. "The thing will have to begin all over again. 
 How you can stand it, Priscilla, I don't know," 
 
 Priscilla ignored a remark so impertinent. 
 
 "Have you still got your old housekeeper?" she 
 inquired. It was useless. 
 
 "Priscilla . . . how long are you going to stand it?" 
 Hilary pressed. "Can't you see for yourself? It's kill- 
 ing you. It's bound to kill you. You're not used " 
 
 "Hilary: you're my guest, remember." 
 
 "I'm sorry. But this is something ... I must speak 
 of it. I can't bear to see 3^ou in this shanty !" 
 
 "Then you'd better not come to see me at all," Priscilla 
 said, very quietly, but with a thrilling sense of crisis 
 arrived. "It would be far better. Because I can't let 
 you talk like that." She contrived to drink her tea, 
 although her composure was so assailed. 
 
 "Upon my word, Priscilla!" cried Plilary, "you can't 
 mean that ! You know you've made a mistake." He 
 spoke with assurance that was half contempt for her 
 weakness in attempting such a pretence. "It's glaring!" 
 He leant across the table as he spoke, trying to reach her 
 hand, trying to make her meet his pressing, unmistakable 
 glance of authority. 
 
 "Don't be a cad, Hilary!" She grew hot "I don't 
 think you understand what you're saying. It's intoler- 
 able!" 
 
 Hilary got up from the table. He was fierce with 
 excitement. His words rushed out in a torrent. 
 
 "It's damnable!" he exclaimed. "The fellow's — 
 Don't, for God's sake, say you're happy. You're not. 
 I know you're not. I'm not blind. To see you . . . 
 What d'you think I'm made of? You'll never stand it. 
 Never — you couldn't ! It's not your life at all. And that 
 sour-faced rancorous prig " 
 
 "Hilary! Be quiet. This is awful. I can't stand 
 it. If you can't behave decently — and talk decently,
 
 386 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 you must go." Priscilla also rose to her feet, her eyes 
 dark with anger. "You're entirely mistaken. You've 
 no " 
 
 "Oh . . . But let me say . . ." He was coming 
 closer, passionately. "I'm simply mad for you. Pris- 
 cilla, dearest! If you were happy . . . No, I must say 
 it! It's no good putting me off! If you were happy — 
 didn't I go away? I ought never to have let him have 
 you. But you're as miserable as you can be : it's heart- 
 breaking! Look!" 
 
 He impetuously caught her arm and drew her to the 
 small oak-framed mirror which hung in the room. Pris- 
 cilla saw her face reflected in it, white and drawn, her 
 eyes dark as night. She drew away, shivering convul- 
 sively, excited and rendered frantic by his terrible air 
 of mastership. 
 
 "I don't want to hear any more of this," she said 
 steadily. "Listen, Hilary, once and for all! I love 
 Stephen with all my heart. All my heart, do you hear? 
 As he loves me!" 
 
 And with that she lost her nerve and began to cry. 
 
 For an instant Hilary stood as one enchanted, spell- 
 bound by the machinations of an evil force. 
 
 "You tell me that?" he said in a low voice. "You 
 tell me that? Yes, but why have you let me go on? 
 You . . . Oh, you're lying! You're lying!" 
 
 She moved away again, across the room; but he 
 followed. He caught her hand, her shoulder. With a 
 rough motion he took her violently in his arms. Impos- 
 sible to struggle while those strong arms held her so 
 tightly. They were like steel ropes that bound her to 
 him. Priscilla felt hopeless, hopeless. Desperately and 
 unavailingly she put forth her too insignificant energy.
 
 HILARY 387 
 
 "Hilary! Hilary!" she cried chokingly, while he 
 continued to kiss her with savage power. "You 7nust 
 let nie go !" 
 
 Her agony made her struggles more vigorous, at last 
 of more avail. He could not continue to hold her against 
 such desperately effective protest. As she wrenched one 
 arm free she forced his head back and away from her 
 face. 
 
 "Priscilla !" he exclaimed in a fierce whisper. 
 
 Terrified, afraid to call out, but with every fear stab- 
 bing her heart, Priscilla looked wildly round the room. 
 Her eye fell upon the window. Against the pane was a 
 white face, and two eyes met her own for that frightful 
 instant. She screamed shrilly with horror. Hilary too 
 had seen the face. It sobered him. He released her and 
 they both stood panting. They heard the kitchen door 
 open, and Priscilla went quickly to the door of the sitting- 
 room. 
 
 "It's all right, Irene," she said in as steady a voice 
 as she could command. Then she turned, and to Hilary 
 said: "Now go. Go. Never . . . never . . ." She 
 could say no more. 
 
 How she remained upright until he went she never 
 knew; but the moment the front door banged her 
 strength seemed to evaporate, and Priscilla slid sobbing 
 and half fainting to the ground.
 
 CHAPTER XXVII: PRISCILLA'S JOURNEY 
 
 WEARILY Priscilla rose : mechanically she put her 
 hands to her hair and to her eyes. The self- 
 disgust she felt was mingled with horror at recollection 
 of that peering and malignant face. It was as if a dream 
 sufficiently unpleasant had drifted without warning into 
 nightmare. Still half sobbing she went across the room, 
 leaning upon the mantelpiece and looking down into the 
 empty grate, blind to everything, conscious only of a 
 passionate loathing which made her almost hysterical. 
 So she remained, with long quivers of horror shaking 
 her body, immersed in her sense of shame, until thought 
 began once more to play its part. It seemed to steady 
 her for a moment. She acted upon an imperious impulse 
 — from whatever it sprang — of self-protection in forcing 
 herself to be calm until an emergency was past; and, after 
 a hesitation, she rang for Irene to clear away the tea- 
 things. 
 
 That done, Priscilla went, her composure turned to 
 stupor, up the short flight of stairs to her bedroom. 
 Oblivious of everything, with wave upon wave of reac- 
 tion breaking down her powers of nervous resistance, she 
 flung herself sobbing quietly upon the bed. Had she per- 
 mitted it, had she begun to sob aloud, she would have 
 lost self-control and abandoned herself to passionate 
 weeping. With desperate will she maintained that self- 
 control, suffering the more, but preserving her pride. 
 Only at times, when her mind went creeping back to 
 particular feelings, there came upon her a frantic surge 
 of excitement that could only have found vent in an 
 hysterical scream had she not opposed an equally fierce 
 repressive impulse. With her little sobs growing less 
 
 388
 
 PRISCILLA'S JOURNEY 389 
 
 and less, and her stupor increasing, Priscilla lay upon the 
 bed in a state between sleeping and waking. An hour 
 passed. Two hours . . . 
 
 It was not until the clock below chimed six times that 
 Priscilla started up, at first leaning heavily and languidly 
 upon her elbow, stupidly feeling that she could not bear 
 to go downstairs again. But she was unable to stay. 
 Roy and Stephen would be home. . . . They must not 
 know that she was ill, or the cause of her distress. Slowly 
 she rose, sitting on the bed for another few moments of 
 exhausted lethargy. Then, with a sense of fatal delay, 
 she feverishly staggered to her feet, smoothed her gown, 
 bathed her face, and dressed her hair before slipping 
 down once more to the kitchen. 
 
 11 
 
 As soon as Stephen came in he saw that she was ill, and 
 sent her to bed. Although he speculated about the cause 
 he made no comment or inquiry. Only he insisted that 
 she should rest; and later found her asleep, her face 
 almost as white as the pillow-slip upon which her head 
 lay. 
 
 So night passed and morning came. 
 
 In the morning Priscilla rose. She could not bear, 
 although she was still unrefreshed to stay in bed; and 
 she went down to breakfast as usual. Irene was there, 
 cutting some bread and making tea, with one or two 
 small pots on the gas-stove, as if an army were being 
 fed. Stephen was for a moment writing; Roy in the 
 garden picking a rose; Romeo watching him, stretched 
 under a shady bush with his light fawn underparts shin- 
 ing. They all assembled at l)reakfast, and as the post- 
 man's knock sounded Priscilla blanched. There were 
 three letters — two for Stephen, and one for herself. It 
 needed no glance to see from whom her letter came. It 
 was from Hilary. She could not bear to read it now.
 
 390 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 Later she would read it. Meanwhile, she must watch 
 Stephen's face. . . . 
 
 "One's from Dorothy," he said, after grinning at both; 
 "and the other's from a man who doesn't like my articles 
 in The Norm and thinks I ought to know it." 
 
 It was Roy who laughed. Stephen knew very well 
 that Priscilla had not opened her letter. 
 
 • • • 
 
 111 
 
 The letter, which she opened when she was alone, was 
 a hasty apology. Hilary was, so he said, ashamed to have 
 allowed his feelings to mislead him : he was going North 
 in the morning and would not trouble again. But he 
 gave her the address to which he was going. 
 
 "I suppose," said Priscilla, half aloud, "in case I want 
 to write to him. . . ." 
 
 She went out into their garden, where there were many 
 old flowers left by earlier tenants, such as tall holly- 
 hocks and beautiful straggling rose-bushes, with brighter 
 flowers bordering the narrow path. There were vege- 
 tables also, behind a small discreet little hedge. It was 
 under this hedge that Romeo had taken up his position 
 since breakfast; and he now lay there in enviable peace, 
 stretched at full length, with every muscle relaxed, ideally 
 happy except when a bird or a butterfly hovered tempt- 
 ingly near. For Romeo was not asleep : he was basking, 
 keenly alive to all that passed. When the bird approached 
 Romeo's muscles would tighten, his tail fiercely twitch 
 . . . when it flew away Romeo hid his chagrin in a yawn, 
 and lay back once more. He was enjoying each fleeting 
 fraction of time, living in sensation; and when Priscilla 
 came and stooped over him he lazily rolled upon his back 
 and looked at her comically over the top of his head. 
 His softness, his delicate colouring, his extreme beauty 
 of movement, all made Romeo an unusual little cat; but 
 he was unsurpassed also for a sense of the ridiculousness
 
 PRISCILLA'S JOURNEY 391 
 
 of any situation. So Priscilla, strangely comforted by 
 his air of savoir-vivre, tickled Romeo, and felt very 
 much better. As far as Hilary was concerned, she felt 
 a thankfulness that it was all over, settled, she felt, once 
 and for all time. He would not come back. But for 
 the rest? Only to Romeo, and such as he, did life 
 present itself as a continuous panorama of pleasant 
 things. 
 
 iv 
 
 An hour later Priscilla resumed the hat and the gloves 
 which she had been forced so fatally to discard upon the 
 previous day. And, walking very quickly, she went down 
 the little road towards the "town" of Hamipstead. In 
 her hand, in the small bag which she carried, was the 
 piece of paper given her by Stephen the other evening. 
 She was going to see Minnie Bayley. 
 
 What she was to say, what either of them was to say, 
 she could not imagine. Trepidation grew as the journey 
 proceeded. Of what use was her visit to be ? What was 
 its object? Priscilla had no answer. She was going 
 because Stephen had wished her to do so. There were 
 still few things for which that was not a sufficient reason. 
 She had no image of Minnie. Minnie was simply there 
 across her mental horizon like a little dark impalpable 
 cloud. Somewhere, in a secret corner, was an unwritten 
 dossier containing inexorably every least detail of Min- 
 nie's action gleaned from Stephen, or from Dorothy, or 
 from Roy's casual mention. Often enough, Priscilla had 
 examined this incriminating record; at first dismissing 
 Minnie for life in the brief word "horrid" ; but later 
 dwelling more upon interpretations, until she had come 
 to a highly subtilized version of Minnie's character and 
 lost all certainty about it. Only the ignorant are positive ; 
 and when one sees even a wise person definitely assert-
 
 392 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 ive it is best to assume that he is either an expert or, for 
 this occasion only, unsure of his facts. That is why most 
 theological discussion meets dogma with dogma and ends 
 in dust. And Priscilla started as the theologian here, 
 which will explain why she was even now puzzled rather 
 than tolerant. If she had once seen Minnie, or if she 
 had seen her photograph, or her dress, or heard her voice, 
 she would have known exactly what her opinion was. 
 But there was only report; and report so confusing that 
 it seemed to have no consistency. 
 
 But as Priscilla reached King's Cross, and Pentonville ; 
 when she reached "The Angel" and saw the forking 
 roads, and heard the rumbling of incessant traffic, she 
 was chilled with a dismayed feeling of adventure beyond 
 her powers. It was like a forlorn hope, in which none 
 but the sturdy should engage. She was bereft of the 
 support which she would have had in her own home ; but 
 bereft of it of her own deliberate will at the moment of 
 engaging to perform this task. And she was here because 
 she loved Stephen — because Minnie also loved Stephen. 
 That was her watchword. Although she shrank, she did 
 not gainsay. She went on, reluctantly, down the City 
 Road, miserably wondering about the people who lived 
 in these ugly houses, wondering if they were happy, won- 
 dering how they could be happy, not yet arrived at the 
 complacency with which the well-to-do suppose all pov- 
 erty to be as natural as it is inevitable in a capitalist 
 society. Everywhere she saw ugliness, solemn ugliness; 
 and in the side streets she saw that particular kind of 
 hopeless shabbiness which we describe as squalor. In 
 the heart of this Minnie lived; and it was here that 
 Priscilla found her. 
 
 Minnie was not machining. Her room was silent.
 
 PRISCILLA'S JOURNEY 393 
 
 She sat by the window sewing, sometimes looking up 
 from her work and out at a patch of sunHght. She had 
 been whistHng to herself, because she thought of going 
 out for a little while later in the day; and she was sur- 
 prised to hear the timid knock at her door. When Pris- 
 cilla entered, Minnie rose at once, standing in the window. 
 She knew instantly who was there, and stood like a person 
 stunned by some loud noise or by the sense of immediate 
 and inescapable danger, looking directly at Priscilla, with 
 the light falling upon her face, which was very pale. 
 What Priscilla saw was a woman several years older than 
 herself, very thin, with a great deal of soft brown hair. 
 Her eyes were soft, her rather full, mobile lips, when 
 they were parted, disclosed beautifully perfect teeth. 
 Minnie was not ungraceful; her blue overall gave her 
 a fresh and attractive air. She looked startled and ex- 
 cessively nervous. What Minnie saw was a slighter 
 figure than her own, dressed in a plain dress of a cream 
 colour, and a hat of cornflower blue ; a girl obviously still 
 immature, her eyes very blue and clear, her complexion 
 and hair very fair, her manner wholly simple, like that 
 of a child. It was as a child that Priscilla struck Minnie, 
 in spite of her gravity and noticeable breeding. They 
 looked at each other in silence for an instant. Then : 
 
 "I know who you are," said Minnie. "You're Mrs. 
 Moore." She moved quickly and cleared her second 
 chair. "Will you sit down?" She did not offer to shake 
 hands. Priscilla sat down, her hands in her lap. She 
 felt breathless, disarmed by Minnie's self-control and the 
 almost protective kindness of her manner. 
 
 "... Stephen told you I would come," she began. 
 
 "I didn't really believe him. It's kind of you." Minnie 
 spoke awkwardly. As she spoke Priscilla saw that her 
 hands moved, that her lips trembled and as it were over- 
 pronounced the words. But there was no indication of 
 resentment or of fear. Priscilla knew that both their
 
 394 THE CHASTE WH^E 
 
 hearts were beating fast: all feeling dropped away, and 
 in her heart there moved a quick pity for Minnie. Minnie 
 was at the same time feeling a pity for Priscilla. They 
 were strangers; they did not understand one another; 
 they were sorry for each other and full of kind feeling. 
 Having spoken once, they both became afraid, and sat 
 tongue-tied. 
 
 It was again Minnie who began to speak. 
 
 "I always wanted to see you," she said. "Dorothy 
 told me about you. I didn't think I ever should." 
 
 "No," Priscilla acknowledged. Then, impulsively, she 
 continued : "I wish you hadn't to live here." 
 
 "I'm not going to. Had to come somewhere, and I 
 know this neighbourhood. You always come back to 
 what you know. You can't help it. Like going home 
 to die." 
 
 They both looked at each other again. At each pause 
 they looked directly at each other; and it seemed as 
 though it brought them to a standstill. Priscilla was 
 deeply aware of the four oppressive walls of the room, 
 with their cheap, ugly wall-paper, and the grey ceiling. 
 She could see upon the mantelpiece a box, and beside it a 
 photograph. That, and a table and the two chairs upon 
 which they were sitting, with a low bed in the corner 
 half hidden by a screen, was the only furnishing in the 
 room. Dominating all was the sewing-machine, and 
 pieces of light-coloured material lay heaped upon the 
 table, so that the room seemed to be all dark where it 
 was not littered with sewing and with pieces of cotton 
 ready cut out for machining. "What nasty coloured 
 stuff," Priscilla was thinking. Her eyes strayed. 
 
 "I expect you hate me, don't you ? . . . Spoiling your 
 happiness, and all," said Minnie suddenly. Priscilla grew 
 hot. The attack was unexpected. 
 
 "Hate you?" she answered. "No, no. I don't think 
 I ever did that. You see, I didn't know what you were
 
 PRISCILLA'S JOURNEY 395 
 
 like. I might have hated you then, I think. But I never 
 did. Oh, no. . . ." 
 
 Minnie gave a curious small laugh. 
 
 "You know what I'm like now," she said. 
 
 "Well, and I came to see whether I couldn't help you." 
 Priscilla spoke earnestly : that had been her object, and 
 the talk had hitherto suggested that something quite 
 different had been in her mind. "That's quite true. It 
 was the only idea — Stephen's and mine." 
 
 "Bless you for it!" cried Minnie, in a great tender 
 voice that was hardly her own, but the voice of some 
 strong consciousness within her. "I don't wonder he 
 loves you. No, I don't wonder. Not now. Though I 
 did when I saw him. You know, I feel so much older, 
 wickeder than you. I'm not wicked, though : you needn't 
 think it. You don't think it, I'm sure." 
 
 "No, I don't," said Priscilla warmly. 
 
 "What did you think I was going to do — ^when you 
 came? Cry?" 
 
 "I was wondering what I could say to you." 
 
 "What did you decide?" 
 
 "I didn't decide anything. But I don't see what I can 
 do. Is there anything at all?" 
 
 Minnie considered : her eyes were full of tears. She 
 could not speak for a little while, and even then her voice 
 had a slight quiver in it, as though it would have been 
 a relief to cry aloud. 
 
 "I'm a fool," she began. "I never meant to cry. I've 
 got into the way of it. You do get into the way of it 
 if you're alone. If you're not very cheerful." Her voice 
 was a very pleasant voice, though she did not speak very 
 well. It was not loud, nor was it very sweet ; but it did 
 not grate upon the ear, and its cadences, although not 
 refined, were pretty. Priscilla's heart softened towards 
 her. Both were full of this incommunicable pity. It was 
 as though to each of them had for this moment been
 
 396 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 revealed the other's sorrowful heart. Minnie wiped her 
 eyes. "He's the only one who's ever been kind to me," 
 she went on soberly. "I thought he loved me. I was 
 . . . well, I suppose I wanted him to love me so much 
 I made myself believe he did. I don't think he ever 
 thought it — not for more than five minutes anyway. Not 
 that it matters now what he thought. I say, you're not 
 treating him badly — you know, because of me? You 
 didn't ought to do that." 
 
 "You said," Priscilla murmured, very low, "you said 
 you felt older than me. I've been feeling very young. 
 I wish I could tell you. I don't know what's happening 
 to me. I love him just as much; but it's not the same. 
 It's not all the same — as though he and I were different 
 people. Do you understand? Wouldn't you feel as I 
 do?" She was speaking very earnestly, really opening 
 her heart, in spite of all. 
 
 "I suppose I don't expect as much as you do," said 
 Minnie, rather dryly. "I knozv a bit more. But I'd 
 let Stephen do anything he liked, so long as he came back 
 to me. Stephen, I would — not any other man . . . now. 
 That is, I mean ... I mean, you're his wife." 
 
 Priscilla sighed and averted her eyes with the impulse 
 of hiding her disagreement. She could not agree to such 
 self-abnegation. It was of no use to talk in this way 
 about one's feelings, which were beyond control. She 
 looked away, and then back again. Minnie was observ- 
 ing her; but this time perceptibly with less pity, less 
 sympathy. 
 
 "Oh, you think I don't love him!" cried Priscilla, 
 fiercely answering the unspoken message. 
 
 Minnie did not answer for a moment. When she 
 spoke the words came very slowly, almost with an air 
 of irony. 
 
 "I don't know. Yes, I do, though. Only you love 
 yourself a bit, don't you?" she asked.
 
 PRISCILLA'S JOURNEY 397 
 
 vi 
 
 It wounded Priscilla to the quick. She flushed deeply 
 and painfully, and the tears started to her eyes. 
 
 "I beg your pardon," Minnie said quickly. "That's 
 not what I mean." 
 
 "No. Very likely it's true. I'm afraid it's true." 
 Priscilla shook her head gravely. 
 
 "Now you've seen me do you feel the same . . . what 
 you said?" 
 
 Priscilla hesitated. The effect of the simple inquiry 
 was very great. It was powerful relief, because it made 
 her think, and it averted their disagreement. She looked 
 up, and smiled cordially, in a way that always made 
 Hilary Badoureau draw a quick breath of desire. 
 
 "I'm very glad I've seen you," she said deliberately. 
 "It's done me a lot of good. It's made me feel differ- 
 ently altogether. I should like to see you again ... I 
 should like to. You say you see Dorothy? . . ." 
 
 "I wish I was you, I wish I was you!" startlingly 
 cried Minnie, and came over to her side. Her eyes were 
 shining and her lips were parted, so that in spite of her 
 pallor — perhaps because of it — she looked really beauti- 
 ful. Priscilla half rose, and their hands met and clasped. 
 "I envy you — ever so much. You can do such a lot, for 
 everybody. You can make him happy — if you want to. 
 And you can make me happy, by being kind to me. All 
 sorts of things you can do." 
 
 "I will, I will !" exclaimed Priscilla, deeply moved by 
 the appeal. 
 
 "But be kind to him," Minnie urged. "It doesn't 
 matter about me. I'm nothing. I'm only a miserable 
 woman who's got nothing to live for. But Stephen's 
 different. He's a man in a million. And if . . . When 
 I saw him he looked so ill. Worried, he was. You 
 ought to look after him. That's what we're for, you
 
 398 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 know — women — though it takes us a long time to learn. 
 Just think of me — the mistakes I've made. Awful things. 
 I never ought to have married my husband. I've stayed 
 with him seven years, and now I can't stand it any longer, 
 because he's such a boozer. But I've stayed with him till 
 I knew it was no good. And when I think of you and 
 Stephen I think to myself how lucky you are to have him. 
 That's why I envy you. You've got him all the time, and 
 the way he loves you — if he loved me a quarter of that 
 I should be half dead with joy. It's easy work being 
 Stephen's wife — for you. It wouldn't be easy for me. 
 I couldn't do it. I'm not good enough, and I'm not a 
 lady. But for you — it's the chance of a lifetime!" 
 
 She was half laughing and half crying as she spoke, 
 still holding Priscilla tightly by the hand and emphasiz- 
 ing her words by means of urgent jerks. But when 
 Priscilla looked a little up and into Minnie's face she 
 saw that every part of the speech was meant in earnest, 
 and that Minnie was speaking right out of her heart, 
 from her passionate love for Stephen. Moved beyond 
 words Priscilla quickly put her face up and kissed 
 Minnie's cheek.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII: THE OLD MAN 
 
 WHEN Stephen left the cottage that morning with 
 Roy he expected that they would both go to the 
 British Museum. There he purposed introducing Roy 
 to the marvels of the Egyptian section and leaving him 
 to find his way about the building for a couple of 
 hours, while Stephen himself went into the Reading- 
 room and made up for the days of semi-holiday which 
 he had spent at home. He did not expect that the day 
 was instead to be one of the most remarkable in his life, 
 nor that it would see the end of his chief troubles. He 
 thought of it as a day much like other days, crowded 
 with work, lightened with sunshine, but still oppressed 
 by the feeling of uncertainty which had grown to be his 
 settled habit. Therefore he was astonished at what 
 happened. 
 
 He and Roy were walking down the pretty road in 
 which stood the cottage, when they met a rather roughly 
 dressed man, who was hurrying up towards them from 
 the direction of Mount Vernon. The man was looking 
 anxiously at the houses upon his right, with a rather 
 perplexed expression ; and as he came abreast of the two 
 Moores he wavered, half inclined to speak to them. 
 Something apparently decided him to do so, for he 
 stopped, his heel grinding in the gravel. 
 
 "Excuse me," he said in a rather Cockney voice. "Do 
 you know anyl^ody living here of the name of Moore?" 
 
 "That's our name," answered Stephen. 
 
 "Wasn't sure of the number," said the man. "They 
 say he diddin know it 'imself. Asked 'im, but he diddin 
 know it. Just your name, like, and where it was. . . ." 
 
 399
 
 400 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 Stephen was mystified at the man's words, and looked 
 at him questioningly. The man was a very brown man 
 who might have been a gardener or a coachman, and his 
 speech was thick and difficuh to follow, 
 
 "Who is it you're speaking about?" asked Stephen. 
 "Who sent you?" 
 
 "Mr. Vuggage of The Towers. . . . Last night he was 
 comin' down Heath Street in the car, drivin' 'imself, and 
 this old gentleman ran into it. Fair old smash-up, sir. 
 Old gentleman was very badly hurt, and they diddin know 
 where 'e belonged till this morning. He's only just come 
 round a bit, and they asked him where he lived, and he 
 couldn't remember. . . ," As the man was speaking he 
 had turned and they were unquestioningly going with 
 him, so that this explanation was jerkingly given as they 
 walked. "Mr. Vuggage picked him up and took him 
 along to the 'ouse. And there he is. It was almost out- 
 side, sir; not far away. Mr. Vuggage is a doctor, sir. 
 He's been lookin' after him himself. Streets are so dark 
 at night, and that's a nasty tricky corner. Well, I'm 
 very glad I found you so quick. . . ." 
 
 "He's been unconscious?" Stephen questioned. 
 
 "So they say, sir. They said to me I was to tell you 
 he's only just come to." 
 
 "Badly hurt?" 
 
 "I believe so. . . . Say he's all bandaged." 
 
 They spoke no more until they arrived at the doctor's 
 house, and were ushered into a room. The man left 
 them, and they had nothing to do but to stare at the 
 handsome mantelpiece of black marble, and the gravely 
 ticking clock above it, and the mahogany sideboard with 
 its adornments of silver bowls and cut glass. It was a 
 very typically comfortable room, and an old carroty cat 
 of immense size lay upon the shaggy hearthrug of ani- 
 mal's fur. In the window stood a bureau; and a big 
 dining-table occupied the middle of the room. It was a
 
 THE OLD MAN 401 
 
 very dull place, so that they only had this impression of 
 its solidity and the ticking of the clock. Uneasily they 
 waited, until the clock began in a silver tone to chime 
 ten. 
 
 ii 
 
 A moment later the door opened and Mr. Vuggage 
 came in, looking very grave, and giving each of them a 
 keen glance from his very shrewd eyes. 
 
 ''Good morning, Mr. Moore," he said. "Good morn- 
 ing. Your father's had a rather nasty accident. . . . I'm 
 afraid I'm partly responsible, because 1 was driving my 
 own car at the time. Your father was knocked down and 
 badly cut about. He was stunned. I brought him in 
 here as it was so near, and I thought I might be able 
 to do something for him. Now I'm afraid I can't do 
 anything. . . ." 
 
 "You mean, he's too badly hurt?" Stephen asked. 
 
 "Yes. He's been unconscious for several hours; but 
 he's conscious now. He asked for you. I take it you 
 are Mr. Stephen Moore? I doubt if he'll last many 
 houps. Of course he can't be moved. It's out of the 
 question. I don't think I can do anything for him. Wish 
 I could. In any case I question if he'd have lasted much 
 longer." He looked piercingly at Stephen. 
 
 "I thought he seemed very much aged when I last 
 saw him," Stephen said. 
 
 "How old is he — sixty, sixty-two?" 
 
 "About that." 
 
 "He's been killing himself. You know?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Mr. Vuggage nodded again as Stephen made the 
 admission. 
 
 "Well, you know where I am," he said in a resolute 
 tone. "I reported the accident, at once; and an inspector 
 has all the particulars. I've done whatever I could
 
 402 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 medically, and I've sent for you. If I may say so, with- 
 out seeming to shirk responsibility for my share in the 
 accident, I should imagine that he was . , . that he 
 stumbled in crossing the road, and fell violently in front 
 of the car. It was going at a fair speed, of course; but 
 in the ordinary way a man might have avoided a serious 
 accident. Of course I had the brakes on. I stopped at 
 once. Perhaps you would like to see your father ? Come 
 this way, please. Excuse me, . . ." 
 
 Ill 
 
 In a room on the same floor, overlooking the garden, 
 a bed had been fitted up, and upon it, heavily bandaged, 
 as the messenger had indicated, lay the old man, groaning 
 heavily. They heard him groaning before they reached 
 the room — in deep, hoarse groans — and when they were 
 beside him they could hear that he was ejaculating as 
 well as groaning. He was speaking Roy's name and 
 Stephen's. Over and over again he said the names, 
 sometimes adding a word or a phrase — such as "Ah, my 
 boy . . . Stephen," or "My baby Roy . . ." — which 
 showed how his mind was running on familiar thoughts, 
 brokenly turning them and repeating them in disturbed 
 soliloquy. His hands, which lay uninjured on top of the 
 coverlet, were never still. The fingers were clenched and 
 twisted constantly, so that the knotted veins showed on 
 the back of the hands. Stephen had not realized before 
 that his father's hands were those of an old man, the 
 veins discoloured and the skin yellow as old ivory. And 
 the old man continued to repeat his name. He had not 
 yet seen them, for he could not move his head at all. 
 His eyes seemed to be fixed upon the ceiling, so dim in 
 this darkened room. They could see his lips moving. 
 
 Stephen went forward, and together he and Roy stood 
 beside the bed, so that they were at last seen and recog-
 
 THE OLD MAN 403 
 
 nized. The old man ceased his ejaculations, and for a 
 moment continued to groan, closing his eyes when he did 
 so. Then he opened them again, looking up into the 
 faces of those above him. 
 
 "Who's there?" he demanded in a breathless voice. 
 
 "Roy and Stephen." 
 
 "Stephen," said the old man. "Roy. You've come!" 
 He seemed to have so little strength, and so little power 
 of speaking, that his eyes closed in exhaustion. 
 
 "Is there anything we can do for you?" Stephen asked 
 very distinctly. "Anything at all?" 
 
 The old man took no notice of the inquiry. His eyes 
 remained closed; he groaned again. Stephen saw lying 
 before him the dumb and helpless shell of his father, a 
 man whose life was far spent — not the strong and un- 
 scrupulous man whom he had always feared and despised. 
 His father had so changed, this recumbent figure was so 
 different from the rather sinister figure which he had 
 carried in his mind's eye, that he could not have recalled 
 his enmity. Only he felt intensely curious, observant of 
 every detail. He saw Roy impressed by the scene, bend- 
 ing farther than himself over the bed, his face white with 
 the shock, his whole carriage betokening sensibility. He 
 saw the doctor standing opposite, a little impatient. A 
 nurse sat at a small table a little distance from the bed. 
 The room was rather dark; there was a cooling and 
 pungent smell of medical dressing in the atmosphere. 
 Slowly Stephen's mind concentrated upon the helpless 
 figure under- his eye, upon those twisting fingers, upon 
 that pale face and bandaged head. He did not think 
 about what his father had been, nor about his mother, 
 nor about any part of their life in Islington. He thought 
 only of this wreck, watching in silence the moving lips, 
 hearing almost unmoved the groans that proceeded from 
 them. He it was who saw that the old man was looking 
 up at him through his eyelashes.
 
 404 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 "You know we're here, don't you?" Stephen said — 
 half as an interrogation, although his tone was not that 
 of a question. The old man did not answer. He remained 
 still for a longer time. 
 
 "I'm dying," he said suddenly. It sent a shock 
 through both his boys. 
 
 "No, daddy!" cried Roy, in a low voice, urgently. 
 "No!" 
 
 A faint smile curved the old man's lips. 
 
 "D'you hear that, Stephen?" he gasped. "After all 
 you've done !" 
 
 "Oh, hush!" whispered Stephen. "If you're . . ." 
 He was appalled at the retention of vindictiveness even 
 here, when his own mind was so free from hatred. Then 
 he became ashamed of his protest. 
 
 "After all you've done!" repeated the old man. "My 
 Roy! my little boy . . ." 
 
 Roy took one of the moving hands and held it. 
 
 "I'm here, father," he said. 
 
 "Not so hard, my boy," whispered the old man. "Eh, 
 he loves me, this boy!" His eyes turned and he 
 looked at the doctor. "This one," he went breathlessly 
 on. "Not the other one. Not the other one." For a 
 moment or two he lay still. Then his free hand moved 
 impatiently, and his lips moved without sound. 
 
 "He wants you to let go his hand," the doctor whis- 
 pered to Roy, who drew back and away from the bed. 
 
 "The mighty Stephen," muttered the old man. His 
 lips parted, and showed his gums. How old he looked ! 
 "Well, my boy, I 've had a happy life." He breathed 
 heavily again. "It's over now. It doesn't matter, now 
 it's over. But I like ... to see your face ... up 
 there, Stephen. It reminds me." He groaned; his eyes 
 closed. "I wanted . . . wanted to see you. If I could 
 sit up. . . ." 
 
 "No !" they told him. He lay for several minutes with
 
 THE OLD ]\L\N 405 
 
 his eyes closed, and the doctor exchanged a glance with 
 Stephen. Yet the old man did not seem to be dying: 
 his mind was clear, his speech, although indistinct, 
 was still intelligible. 
 
 "Stephen," said the smiling lips. "I wanted to . . . 
 Bend down, Stephen." Stephen put his head lower — so 
 low that he could not see the old man's eyes, but could 
 only watch his mouth. There was another pause. Then 
 the old man seemed to give a chuckle which was checked 
 by another fierce groan. Stephen felt his father's breath 
 upon his cheek. "An irony, Stephen," went on the old 
 man in a faint voice. "An irony. The impeccable 
 Stephen . . . you understand ... a letter . . . poor 
 Bayley. The impeccable . , . the incorruptible . . . 
 Paid back ... in his own coin . . ." Still the old man's 
 eyes peered at Stephen through their long lashes, merci- 
 lessly. "Own coin," gasped the old man. "His own 
 wife . . . another man's arms. . . . Do you understand 
 what I mean?" Then in a dreadful whisper he hissed 
 one word into Stephen's ear. "Cuckold!" he said. 
 
 IV 
 
 Stephen started up for a moment. Then he spoke 
 deliberately in reply. 
 
 "If you're dying," he said in a low voice, "you might 
 be better employed. There's nothing you want us to 
 do?" He was trembling, but he would not let the old 
 man see that he was trembling. He had too much pride 
 to let the old man see that he had been hurt. 
 
 "Only to go," said the old man clearly. "I don't 
 want you !" He groaned again, and seemed to struggle 
 a little. "I've always hated you, Stephen. . . ." And 
 v/ith that he fell into silence again, and became oblivious 
 of them. His lips only now uttered the ejaculations they 
 had heard upon their first entry, punctuated by the low
 
 406 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 groans which he could not have restrained even if he had 
 attempted to do so. 
 
 The doctor looked at Stephen. 
 
 "I must be here," he said. "There's no sense in your 
 staying. Except for . . . Unless you wish to do so. 
 You'll get no more from him. You'd better go home. 
 If there's a change I'll send up for you. He may last 
 twenty-four hours. I'll let you know." 
 
 He led the way to the door, and they both followed 
 him. Even Roy made no attempt to stay. They left 
 the doctor at his front door, and turned away up the hill 
 again to the cottage. 
 
 "What was that he said to you ?" asked Roy in a dazed 
 voice. "I didn't hear." 
 
 "Oh, nothing," Stephen returned. "Nothing you'd 
 appreciate." 
 
 Roy sighed, and asked no more. 
 
 Two hours later, a few minutes before Priscilla 
 returned from seeing Minnie Bayley, Stephen received a 
 message to say that the old man was dead.
 
 CHAPTER XXIX: THE LAST 
 
 ROY was at home when Priscilla arrived ; but Stephen 
 had hurried down to the house of Mr. Vuggage on 
 receipt of the doctor's message. It was thus from Roy 
 that Priscilla heard the account of all that had happened 
 during the morning. It took her breath away. Her first 
 thought was a wild hope. "Oh, if he's said nothing!" 
 She was terrified of the old man. To tell Stephen of her 
 struggle with Hilary, of its ending, of that white face at 
 the window — that was one thing. To combat by explana- 
 tion a tale told by hostile lips was another. It was enough 
 to force a faint sound of fear from her. If she could 
 only be sure! If there was to be a painful explanation, 
 then she trusted that Stephen might have learned nothing 
 that would prejudice him against her. Of what use was 
 innocence before calumny ? She could see it all : she 
 could see the old man's malignant delight at sowing mis- 
 trust. Now at last she recognized Stephen's hatred of his 
 father, his desire to prevent the old man's mischief- 
 making talent from enjoying its due triumph. The 
 understanding made her nerves quiver. Did Stephen's 
 love stand true ? Did he still believe in her? Or was his 
 jealousy, already aroused, to lay him open to believe a 
 charge against her? She was innocent. Was that 
 sufficient shield? 
 
 Priscilla knew that for Stephen the old man's death 
 spelt freedom from an intolerable bondage. But for 
 herself might it not mean the loss of Stephen's love? 
 
 407
 
 408 TIIE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 If the old man had spoken! He could say he had seen 
 her in Hilary's arms. It was true. If Stephen asked 
 her only — as she had asked him whether he was afraid 
 of Hilary — whether the facts were so, she could not deny. 
 She could only explain. Explain! How explain? She 
 could imagine Stephen saying: "Yes, but is it true?" 
 She had no defence. She was guilty thus far. She had 
 been thoughtless, had truly welcomed Hilary, had not 
 discouraged his visits. That was criminal, as she now 
 saw. She had done in innocence, or in ignorance, that 
 which she now saw in the glaring light of retrospect. 
 And yet Stephen might refuse to l^elieve his father. He 
 might cling to his trust in her. The old man might not 
 have spoken, as he certainly had not written. That was 
 her hope. If she might only narrate the event to Stephen 
 all would be well. He would understand. But if not — 
 would he then understand ? In ordinary times, he would 
 certainly be displeased; he might blame her. But now? 
 Had he that generosity, that confidence in her? 
 
 It came to Priscilla that she was asking to be under- 
 stood, to be trusted, as Stephen had asked to be under- 
 stood and to be trusted. The very difference between 
 their cases made the similarity strike her the more nearly. 
 Stephen had not asked forgiveness : to him the honest 
 narration of a fault had seemed in itself the best claim 
 upon her charity. And to Priscilla now the desire that 
 she mig*ht not be put in the wrong was paramount. In 
 each case the old man was the danger, the one from whom 
 came the vital threat ! It was impossible that she should 
 fail to feel afraid. She had only once before been in the 
 wrong in her relations with Stephen. Only once ! Had 
 she not been in the wrong more recently? He did not 
 think so, except in so far as she had tried to force herself 
 to show no difference in her behaviour. Could she herself 
 remain equally content? It was not only Stephen's 
 feeling that mattered. Her own was fully as important.
 
 THE LAST 409 
 
 At that moment, in the middle of her fear, Priscilla 
 despised herself. 
 
 ii 
 
 In this state of agitation she awaited Stephen's return. 
 She longed for it and she dreaded it. She was so excited 
 that she had no impulse to think what she would say to 
 him. But that she would explain to him that day she 
 was determined. Insensibly she had been very much 
 influenced by her talk with Minnie. She did not for a 
 single moment accept Minnie's attitude of a-11-forgiveness. 
 It was not a question, it never had been a question, of 
 forgiveness. Stephen had not asked to be forgiven. It 
 was a mere technical term used by men who deceived 
 their wives. All Stephen had asked was that she should 
 remember the circumstances of his fault ; that she should 
 understand his reason — ^his admittedly selfish reason — 
 for keeping silent during their engagement; that she 
 should recognize his motive for concealing the nature of 
 the old man's threat upon their honeymoon. She had 
 seen Minnie, and she thought she could make great allow- 
 ances with sympathy; she was almost eager to believe 
 that her own father had foreseen the effect upon her of 
 disclosure and advised its postponement — 'though that she 
 could not, and would never, forgive ; and she was already 
 sure that Stephen's one desire upon their honeymoon 
 had been her happiness. She did not palliate ; she tried 
 to see clearly and to admit candidly that her lover had 
 been unwillingly in fault. Therefore, for her own part, 
 having been through a fire of pain, she had learned that 
 her love for Stephen was stronger than her pride. She 
 could not feel the same : she nevertheless loved him above 
 all men and believed once more wholly and without shame 
 I in his love and his honesty. 
 
 What would Stephen think of her? It gave Priscilla 
 great distress to think of herself as helpless to plead her
 
 410 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 innocence in face of any malign accusation from the old 
 man. That he had stolen to the window in the hope of 
 seeing Roy she did not doubt. It was clear to her, after 
 the encounter at night in their front garden, that he 
 would do such a thing. He really loved Roy — he craved 
 for the sight of him, as mothers are said to do if they 
 are separated from their children. Could she not under- 
 stand even the old man? In her present excitement that 
 was beyond her. She was too much afraid of what he 
 might before his death have said of her. How she longed 
 for Stephen's return! 
 
 iii 
 
 At last he came, and Priscilla vainly scanned his 
 unreadable face. She saw him sitting at the table, very 
 grave and sturdy, with his dark hair crisping above his 
 ears, and the little wrinkles about his mouth and eyes 
 cut deep with years of endurance. But he did not frown. 
 His face was serious at all times; he laughed too seldom; 
 even his smile was so rare that it lighted his face with 
 a great boyish and unlooked-for charm. On this day 
 he was more than usually grave; but he looked at her 
 always with a kindness that had no reproof, and, better 
 still, no accusation behind it. They ate their very simple 
 lunch to the accompaniment of spasmodic talk in which 
 Roy more freely joined. From him Priscilla heard fur- 
 ther details than those which he had already supplied. 
 From Stephen there came only the information that he 
 had telephoned to David in order that David, if he saw fit, 
 might break the news to Dorothy. That was Stephen's 
 only fresh contribution, and it represented an action of 
 which she approved. 
 
 "What shall I do this afternoon?" asked Roy of 
 Stephen. "Makes you feel rotten to think of . . ." He 
 hesitated, unable to finish his speech.
 
 THE LAST 411 
 
 "What were you going to do?" Stephen questioned. 
 "You can't do anything more about him. I shall have 
 to go down to Islington, and you can come with me if 
 you like; but I shan't go until after tea." 
 
 "I was going to cricket," murmured Roy, fiddling with 
 a crumb. 
 
 "Then I should still go." Stephen glanced at Priscilla. 
 "Unless you feel badly." 
 
 "Oh . . ." said Roy ingenuously. "Oh, no, I don't. 
 . . . Not very bad." And he left them a few minutes 
 after lunch, since wherever he went he would be thinking 
 of the cricket and not of the old man. 
 
 When Stephen was alone with Priscilla he began to 
 smoke, quietl}'^ puffing for some time at his solid little 
 pipe. And Priscilla sat opposite to him in the other arm- 
 chair, on tenterhooks lest his first words should be those 
 of accusation. She felt that her cheeks were hot, and 
 her heart heavy as lead. Yet his first words were not 
 as she had feared : they were, on the contrary, upon quite 
 another topic. 
 
 "I sent David my first chapter the night before last," 
 he puffed ; "and when I spoke to him over the telephone 
 just now he thought I was ringing up about that. He 
 says he's delighted." 
 
 "Splendid !" said Priscilla quickly. 
 
 Stephen went on puf^ng slowly, and she watched in a 
 state of fascination the thin bursts of grey smoke from 
 his mouth and the climbing blue curls from the bowl of 
 his pipe. Her heart had become less heavy, but she was 
 conscious of its rapid beating. Her breath came quickly. 
 
 "I was glad," Stephen added. "I suppose he'd say if 
 he didn't really like it. . . ." 
 
 "Stephen !" began Priscilla, in an unsteady voice. "I 
 went to see Minnie this morning." 
 
 There was a little shock in the atmosphere, and she 
 knew from the slight riovement of his pipe that Stephen's
 
 412 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 teeth had clenched more tightly than before upon its 
 black and solid stem. 
 
 iv 
 
 But just at that moment their talk was interrupted by 
 an extraordinary incident. There came, from Romeo's 
 covered basket near the fireplace, three piercing squeaks. 
 Eee-wee-weew ! said a strange voice, like the voice of a 
 mouse. 
 
 "Whatever's that?" exclaimed Priscilla, blanching. 
 
 "Funny!" Stephen rose and went to the basket. 
 Together they knelt and folded back the soft cover, and 
 were transfixed with astonishment. Within, purring 
 loudly, with his paws opening and shutting in ecstasy, lay 
 Romeo. But along with him, with long horrid little 
 black paws spread out and paddling, was a tiny creature 
 of the same species as Romeo! Horror seized both the 
 onlookers. 
 
 "Oh, Romie!" cried Priscilla in consternation. "How 
 could you !" 
 
 "A single kitten!" Stephen said. "Is that possible? 
 I suppose so; but how amazing! Did you expect it?" 
 He turned, almost accusingly, to Priscilla. 
 
 "Never ! Romeo, I'm ashamed of you !" Priscilla's 
 eyes had filled with tears. Romeo, with all the beaming 
 pride of the little mother-cat, stretched himself more 
 comfortably, his eyes shining and inviting their praise. 
 He did not realize his faux pas. He did not understand 
 that he had fallen from grace by being a normal little cat. 
 To him this event was a matter of pure joy. 
 
 Priscilla turned back to Stephen. He took her hand 
 as both of them knelt by the cradle of this solitary son of 
 Romeo. 
 
 "This is because he was left!" she said dismally. "He 
 must have been demoralized." 
 
 Stephen comforted her.
 
 THE LAST 413 
 
 "Many people," he said, "would like to own Romeo's 
 kitten. Don't worry, dear. It's only one. Romeo," he 
 went on, addressing the complacent mother, "she's really 
 very delighted with you. She's proud of you. And so 
 am I." 
 
 Romeo smiled upon them inscrutably, and moving his 
 head looked irresistibly at them over the top of it. The 
 kitten remained busily silent. 
 
 It all came more easily then. Priscilla, who had been 
 really moved by all the side-thoughts provoked by 
 Romeo's accouchement, was able to speak clearly, without 
 trembling. It gave her confidence to feel from Stephen's 
 manner that she had everything to tell, nothing to 
 answer. She described her talk with Minnie, and dwelt 
 at length upon her feeling, her half-formed plan for 
 helping Minnie, her determination to regard Minnie as 
 one to whom kindness was due. Stephen listened in most 
 attentive silence, merely nodding at times; and when 
 she had finished he smiled in appreciation. But with- 
 out waiting for him to express approval, Priscilla 
 hurried on. 
 
 "And Stephen," she said, "yesterday afternoon Hilary 
 came. . . ." 
 
 Again he slightly stififened and she saw his eyes take a 
 deeper colour of regard, as though he were giving her a 
 kind of attention more urgent even than she had had 
 before. 
 
 "So he came," Stephen slowly prompted. 
 
 She told him of the scene with Hilary. She told him 
 of the exact happenings, from their beginning to that 
 end of horror when she had seen the old man's white 
 face pressed against the window. Stephen continued to 
 sit opposite to her, and she was aware that he continued
 
 414 THE CHASTE WIFE 
 
 to smoke, his face remaining to all appearances wholly 
 impassive, whatever his feelings might be. 
 
 "I was afraid," faltered Priscilla. "I was afraid . . . 
 that he might have written to you. But he didn't . . . 
 because . . . And then T was afraid he might have — 
 just for malice, though it was wrong of me to think 
 that — he might have ... It was hateful of me to think 
 such a thing. . . ," 
 
 "You thought the old man might have tried to make 
 me think . , . tried to make mischief between you and 
 me?" inquired Stephen in a grave voice. 
 
 Priscilla nodded. Stephen sat in silence looking at her, 
 as though he were thinking deeply of what she had said. 
 
 "I was very afraid," she said. "I wanted to tell you 
 how everything happened. I was afraid you might . . ." 
 She faltered. "Might have been, in some way, set 
 against me. . . ." 
 
 "Could you believe that?" he asked, very gently. "My 
 dearest . . ." 
 
 Priscilla looked up : their eyes met. Both rose, and 
 their hands were joined; she was in his arms. 
 
 "You believe me?" Priscilla said. "I love you alto- 
 gether." Her eyes were bright now with the grave 
 boldness of a girl truly in love. 
 
 "Are you happy again?" he begged. 
 
 "Always." 
 
 "Whatever happens?" 
 
 Priscill'a allowed him to kiss her, and made no reply 
 but to offer her lips. 
 
 To have recovered that old happiness, that content in 
 him, that feeling that they had no longer any secrets, 
 was for Priscilla to return to her old allegiance. To 
 Priscilla nothing that might come would disturb the 
 profound serenity of her love. Suffering might come — 
 anxiety, and the dread of lo'ss — but with restored con- 
 fidence between them she could face with unflinching
 
 il 
 
 THE LAST 415 
 
 pride whatever sorrow the world might send. That 
 her resolute heart should have its pain we who live in 
 the present may well believe; but that Priscilla endured 
 unchanged, that at least we shall do her the justice to 
 
 imagme. 
 
 THE END
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below 
 
 -I? 1 3 V 
 
 JUL? 19*? 
 
 aEC 3 1941. 
 
 ■'* '- D ' ■ 
 
 Form L-0 
 a07/l-l,' 41(1122) 
 
 msn 
 
 :-"f rs^' 
 
 mmsuk 

 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 AA 000 381 620 4 
 
 PR 
 6037 
 S97c