RKELEY 
 
 5RARY 
 
 VERSiTY Of 
 aiFORNIA 
 

STILL LIFE 
 
TO 
 
 K. M. 
 
 AND 
 
 L. H. B. 
 
STILL LIFE 
 
 BY 
 
 J. MIDDLETON MURRY 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY 
 PUBLISHERS 
 
M / i 
 *fr 
 
 STILL LIFE 
 
 PART I 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 " BETTER make an end of it. ... Better make an end of 
 it. ... Better make an end of it. . . ." The steady beat 
 of the night train from the German frontier to Paris became 
 part of the argument. It was the argument. Maurice 
 wondered whether he was anything save this monotonous 
 reinforcement of his nagging purpose. Perhaps if the train 
 stopped, he would stop too. After all it was only his 
 cowardice. He had decided as much as he could decide 
 that he would see her once more and tell her that it was 
 impossible. Immediately she would understand, for 
 nothing could be clearer than the certainty that he could 
 not get on with his work in life unless they parted. He was 
 not sure what he meant by his work in life, but it needed all 
 of him, or it needed all that thinking part of him which she 
 could so easily break down by one of her absurdly mis- 
 spelt letters. " Tu m'a fais beaucoup de peine." Oh, yes, 
 he'd written to her to say he would come back to see her. 
 How could he have done otherwise ? He was going to 
 explain it all to-morrow. He was afraid. He was afraid 
 of her silent eyes when the tears stood in them ; above all 
 afraid of himself who would hold her in his arms and tell 
 lies about loving her. She would not believe what he 
 would say ; and he was afraid of the part of him that 
 would watch her as she tried to believe. He was afraid of 
 everything which brought them together. " Better make 
 an end of it. . . ." 
 
 300 
 
2 STILL LIFE 
 
 He watched a fat and wheezing Alsatian crawl over the 
 floor, picking up the cigars the frontier customs men had 
 strewn about, and listened vaguely to his curses. He 
 looked out of the window towards some furnaces that 
 flamed into the black sky ; then back to the dull khaki- 
 coloured seats. 
 
 She had no right to cling to him and drag him down. 
 She must have known that love like theirs did not last, was 
 never meant to last. She had had plenty of affairs before ; 
 but because this was his first love she was determined to 
 hold him for ever. He saw Madeleine as Machiavellian, and 
 burst into weak anger against her. It was not that she was 
 in love with him ; she saw in him that to which she might 
 fasten and save herself from being swept away by her own 
 desire to love. Besides, she had never made even a pre- 
 tence of understanding him. He had a mind that worked 
 somewhere far away from them both, a stupid mind perhaps 
 but which he loved and which was wholly him. He had 
 ideals, or rather, he thought as he vaguely probed the mist 
 to find what they might be, he had a capacity for ideals 
 with which she could never sympathise. She had never 
 displayed a shadow of interest in that ; and once when he 
 had spoken to her in his half-tentative, half-pompous way 
 about writing a book, she had only made a mouth and said 
 that all she could bear to read was histoires d? amour. 
 
 Now he seemed to have his trouble in perspective. Their 
 whole beings stood asunder. She understood him only 
 when he was a child. He could not help being a child 
 sometimes and putting his head upon her breast and look- 
 ing up to be kissed ; and then he had felt that life was 
 wondrously easy if one only let oneself be carried along 
 with the flood. But since he had been away from her the 
 impulse had left him. He had won small victories with 
 his brain, insignificant to all save him alone, victories 
 which seemed to show him that there lay the road by which 
 he must travel to win anything permanent from the life 
 which passed before his eyes continually, in colour like the 
 
STILL LIFE 3 
 
 dun carriage cushions, lighted as the carriage by a low- 
 turned lamp that only deepened the shadows and made 
 nothing plain. He had won something in the six months 
 since he had seen her, if it were no more than a vague in- 
 dication of where he must choose ; and by so much he was 
 strengthened against her now, but so little strengthened 
 that he had a double fear of what she might take from him. 
 He had piled stone on tiny stone to make a wall against 
 her, and he felt that she had power in a second by a word 
 or a glance to topple it down as though it had never been. 
 
 " But still," he thought, " if she wins it is because I 
 don't deserve to." The burst of fatalism gave him a 
 spurious courage. He tried to prevent his thought from 
 turning back upon itself to test its own truth, but in vain. 
 People may be false to their ideals however true, he thought. 
 Not all who are beaten are beaten because they do not 
 deserve to win. The right to victory comes only by long 
 practice and incessant tempering of a will which is not 
 given to a man in its final perfection, but created by each 
 successive impulse to conquest. 
 
 It did not take him long to shatter his own fatalistic 
 confidence. Then he said to himself : " This is a struggle 
 which means years to you. If you win, you win something 
 for ever." Came his answer : "If you lose, you will have 
 many chances still." He was always opening a way of 
 escape for himself ; and he knew that, although his articu- 
 late thought would not allow it, he had acquiesced in his 
 own defeat. She must end it. She would see that he did 
 not love her any more, because she could not fail to see. 
 He summoned up a fine indignation against his cowardice, 
 only to end in a faint suspicion that there was something 
 heroic in remaining with Madeleine. Now he could find 
 in his consciousness no point on which he might lean and 
 resist. All that remained in that chaotic interplay of 
 argument and objection was the deep knowledge that to 
 part finally was right, that all else was wrong, and that he 
 was too weak to do what was right. The train was taking 
 
4 STILL LIFE 
 
 him there. There was nothing to be done. " Better make 
 an end of it. . . ." 
 
 The picture was very clear to him. The only light in 
 his mind was focussed on this thread of his history. He 
 had begun it a boy and now he was a man. He had gone 
 to Paris with a boy's exhilarant expectation of adventure, 
 which he had met with a childish simplicity. With assi- 
 duity he had frequented the cafes of the demi-monde to 
 attain the easy familiarity of the man of the world. In- 
 stead, he had been overwhelmed by a flood of sentimen- 
 tality ; he had fallen in love with all the women, fallen 
 even more deeply in love with his own prodigious conceit 
 of understanding them, as he called it in his innocence. 
 
 He had tramped on Christmas Eve in the company of a 
 tribe of students from some curious Eastern country whose 
 name he never could make out, singing songs which he did 
 not understand, buying gingerbread from the baraques, 
 which he could not eat, nervously aiding and abetting 
 them while they accosted women, to whom if he spoke he 
 would behave as in an English drawing-room. His desire 
 to be accepted as normal in a city where there is no surface 
 normality, and his tormenting self-consciousness while he 
 strove to achieve this desire, drove him into company he 
 hated, and compelled him to do and say things in which 
 he had no heart. He was acutely miserable during that 
 Christmas, because he knew he was guilty of treachery 
 towards himself ; because he was miserable he felt the 
 imperious need of some sincere affection. If he could only 
 unburden himself of his troubles and put away this tyran- 
 nous pretence of manifold experience in another's presence, 
 he knew he would regain some of his happiness ; but he 
 was afraid that the other would laugh at him or laugh his 
 trouble away. His fear of being misunderstood held him 
 back, and in the fear there was a little pride, as always in 
 him, at the thought that he was so individual that he 
 probably would be misunderstood. But the comfort of 
 his pride weighed as nothing against his misery. 
 
STILL LIFE 5 
 
 They stopped Madeleine on the Boulevard. She was 
 known to him by sight already. Maurice watched her 
 dully, for his eyes were fastened upon two cherries which 
 bobbed their independent life upon her hat. 
 
 " Behrens has been looking for you for days. I believe 
 the poor idiot has made himself ill over you. He wasn't at 
 dinner." 
 
 The man who spoke swayed his body so that the sleeves 
 of his coat, slung round his shoulders, swung against her 
 to show his absolute indifference, for her, for Behrens, for 
 both of them together. 
 
 " Can't help it," she said. " I've been properly ill since 
 I saw you last. Anyhow, what have I to do with Behrens ? 
 what a name ! he's only a silly baby." She seemed to 
 be laughing at the recollection of him. Maurice remembered 
 him for a rather dirty, childish, stupid fellow who was tre- 
 mendously addicted to talking of his exploits at " le foot- 
 ing." He had been sitting in a cafe one evening when 
 Madeleine had upset his chair from behind ; and Maurice 
 had watched the struggle in his face between discomfited 
 dignity and a lurking suspicion that this was a declaration 
 of love. 
 
 She tapped with her foot on the ground, smiling at her 
 thoughts. Tall and slim, with her head bent slightly for- 
 ward over her insignificant muff, the red cherries bobbing 
 in her hat as she tapped the ground, she seemed to fit well 
 into the picture into which he shaped the recollections of 
 the cafe. He could not tolerate that she should address 
 all her conversation to the others. 
 
 " Have you been very ill ? What's been the matter with 
 you ? " 
 
 She turned to him, glanced him up and down with the 
 same smile. 
 
 " Bon jour, mon petit Anglais ! Oh, only something 
 wrong with my lungs going out without a coat. I'm all 
 right now, you see." She flung out her arms and held 
 back her head that he should inspect her. 
 
6 STILL LIFE 
 
 " I am very glad." He couldn't find anything to say. 
 Someone was making more jokes about Behrens. To his 
 surprise his usual uncomprehending laugh failed him. He 
 had an idea that they were cruel and vulgar. 
 
 The party moved on. Maurice, the last to shake hands 
 with her, took off his hat, looking straight into her eyes. 
 He wished he could say something. He was not sure 
 whether the laughter in her eyes meant that she found him 
 more ridiculous than another, or more pleasant. He 
 vigorously insisted with his companions that she was very 
 different from the rest ; but they paid not the least atten- 
 tion to the subject save that one remarked that Behrens 
 was an utter fool. 
 
 The same night as he left the cafe, with half-formed 
 purpose, tailing behind his friends, he caught sight of her 
 at a table alone. With a great effort to nerve himself he 
 turned from the door and walked towards her. He asked 
 her whether she would come and have dinner with him 
 to-morrow. It was not much of a restaurant, he thought 
 suddenly, as he told her where he dined ; indeed, it was 
 the cheapest in the neighbourhood. There was time for 
 him first to curse himself for not having proposed some- 
 thing better, then to congratulate himself for thus sug- 
 gesting to her that he was different, before he heard her 
 reply. 
 
 " I should like to very much. I know the place. To- 
 morrow, then." He knew that he looked happy and was 
 sure that she noticed it when he said good-bye, dashed out 
 of another door and joined the others at the corner. 
 Nobody remarked his manoeuvre. He was profoundly 
 relieved. 
 
 Such was the beginning. After that eventful dinner 
 they had sat together in a cafe. Feeling that he was now 
 caught into a process which he could not control, he sur- 
 rendered himself. A woman glanced at him and whispered 
 a question to Madeleine : " Was he her lover ? " He 
 heard it. Delight passed into intoxication at her reply : 
 
STILL LIFE 7 
 
 " I don't know . . . Perhaps." Then he saw her look at him 
 as though there were no doubt at all ; nor did he worry as 
 he would have done the day before, whether it was that he 
 was raised in his own estimation or whether something out- 
 side himself had for the first time laid hold upon him 
 utterly. But not all his intoxication swept away the 
 timidity that held him when he wanted to kiss her. He 
 was so frightened and so determined that he proclaimed 
 his intention in steady and colourless French ; but as he 
 looked at her eyes, brown and laughing, he saw that the 
 laughter had decided itself. She was laughing, not at him 
 but for him. And so they kissed. He was beside himself. 
 He gave her everything he had that might be a keepsake, 
 a tiny gold pin, his only jewellery, and a little leather card- 
 case, which could have been of no use to her. He taught 
 her how to pronounce his name English. When he left her, 
 she said she would be there the next evening at ten. 
 
 He waited in agony. From seven o'clock onwards he 
 could not steady himself for a moment. He was much too 
 early at the rendezvous, and he waited ; for waiting seemed 
 now to him to have acquired a positive quality of torture, 
 as though a man might achieve a destiny of waiting and 
 then die. He saw nothing, not even the clock which slowly 
 hypnotised his sight. He was a thing that waited. Sud- 
 denly somebody, in recollection he thought a woman, asked 
 if he was Monsieur Maurice who was waiting for Madeleine, 
 and put a note into his hand. " I am ill. I cannot come 
 out to-night. Will you come to see me ? " He started up 
 in a fury of motion, which was checked a little, not satisfied 
 as he groped his way up a dark staircase. He saw her 
 lying on her bed, her dark brown hair dishevelled over the 
 pillow, made blacker by the little light that came from a 
 smoky lamp on the mantelpiece. Madeleine raised herself 
 to stretch out her arms towards him. 
 
 " Tu m'aimes alors, mon petit Maurice ? " 
 
 " Oui, je t'aime." 
 
 He kissed her many times, covering himself about with 
 
8 STILL LIFE 
 
 her affection. He was in love with the shelter which she 
 afforded him, with the freedom he had with her to be a 
 child, securely. Having found that which he desired, he 
 desired no more. 
 
 After many days they were lovers, he almost against his 
 will, she in the desire to give him all she had to give, forcing 
 him to accept everything. He was afraid to refuse and to 
 hear her say : " Then you don't love me ? " He answered 
 her question : " Are you happy ? " with " Yes," truly ; 
 because he could not yet tell what that might be which so 
 profoundly bade him say " No." He was frightened by a 
 sure instinct which told him that he had lost everything 
 because she had given everything. Half-intoxicated, half 
 in terror at some power which he had awakened he passed 
 a few days of nervous tormented hours until the time came 
 for him to leave Paris. He was frightened when he was 
 with her, but always a little of the first security remained ; 
 when they were apart he lost even this. At the very 
 moment when they were saying " good-bye " on the 
 station, and he heard himself promising to write every 
 day and to be back with her within a month, he began to 
 see clearly. She had given him all, and she was now seek- 
 ing in him the secure protection, the opportunity of sur- 
 render, which he himself had found in her and had magnified 
 into love ; and because she had thrust all that she had into 
 his keeping she had forced him into sheltering her. He 
 who could not maintain himself, had now to support her. 
 He would have to assure her continually of a love which 
 he did not feel and had never felt ; and as the train left 
 the station, he knew that hypocrisy had begun, that it 
 would grow to a canker because of his cowardice, and would 
 end only if his cowardice, by its very extremity, passed 
 into bravery. 
 
 " Better make an end of it. ... Better make an end of 
 it. . . ." He had seen truly, for perhaps his only virtue was 
 his ability to see into the movements of his own mind. He 
 examined himself so often and instinctively that his whole 
 
STILL LIFE 9 
 
 life seemed to be histrionic, broken by one only impulse to 
 throw himself into another's keeping, and thus be rid of 
 the unending necessity of choosing and acting the part he 
 chose. By some strange and tragic inevitability, at the 
 moment when this impulse was most fully satisfied, and he 
 had lost for days and weeks the consciousness of his 
 accusing mind, he had been forced into a posture of 
 strength, wholly foreign to him. Before he had written 
 the first letter to her he knew that his one desire was never 
 to see her again, to forget her, if he could forget, and the 
 knowledge was never more clear than on the day of their 
 first parting. There remained to complete his miser} his 
 knowledge of the cowardice that held him from telling her 
 the truth. Every time that he wrote a letter he watched 
 himself with disgusted curiosity construct phrases of deep 
 affection ; every time he received a letter from her, a wave 
 of sentiment, which he knew for false at the very moment 
 that it made him cry, broke over him and urged him on to 
 yet another hypocrisy. Thus the affair had dragged on 
 monotonously, interrupted only by some momentary 
 heroics when Madeleine wrote to him to say that she was 
 about to have a child. It did not take him more than a few 
 hours to see that his brave resolution to go off and marry 
 her was but the expression of his supremest cowardice, and 
 thenceforward he despised himself even more profoundly 
 than before. He put off their meeting as long as he could, 
 while his terror of action contorted itself within him, so 
 that he longed to postpone his final cowardice out of 
 cowardice itself. His mind was tinged by a shadowy faith 
 that all difficulties disappeared spontaneously by lapse of 
 time, and his very irresolution took on the appearance of 
 indefinable virtue. Nevertheless, at the last he had found 
 himself relentlessly driven towards her, and now in the 
 train which bore him towards the dreaded meeting his 
 mind was divided in incessant debate with his will. The 
 struggle had reached its most acute stage, and as he lay 
 back in the corner he felt tired. He was inipotently con- 
 
10 STILL LIFE 
 
 scious that he was smiling at the panting, swearing figure 
 of the Alsatian picking up the last cigar. 
 
 " Better make an end of it. ... Better make an end of 
 it. . . ." It would be a good thing to be an engine-driver, 
 with the same pair of straight rails always before him, and 
 nothing to do save to shovel on coal. Then he thought of 
 the men he knew, who never had and never would have to 
 deal with troubles such as his. He thought of Dupont, the 
 Frenchman with whom alone he had the careless intimacy 
 of mutual incomprehensibility, Dupont who said that you 
 must never love a woman more than three or four days, 
 but during those three or four days you must never think 
 of anything else, never leave her for a moment, and thus, 
 knowing her to the last hiding-places of her mind, break 
 with her once for all, leaving no thread of the unknown 
 or the unexplored to bind you to her. Otherwise he 
 recollected the expressive gesture with which Dupont had 
 enforced the words she clings to you and conquers you, 
 enticing you with that in her mind which you have not 
 paused to discover. This was the philosophy on which 
 Dupont had always acted, and it had never failed him. 
 He went straight towards his goal, hindered by no woman, 
 yet knowing more, and adored by more than Maurice had 
 ever dreamed of. Soon after he had first been parted from 
 Madeleine, Dupont had discovered him sending her money 
 and had laughed ; and he had had to conceal the enormity 
 of his offence by an air of nonchalance, for fear of being 
 finally despised. Why was he alone forced to drink the 
 cup to the dregs, he alone compelled to drag out months 
 and years oppressed by a history that had ended in three 
 weeks ? His indignation against destiny and the fatality 
 of his own temperament was easily quelled. He knew 
 too well that the ultimate answer was always the same 
 cowardice ; and he had passed beyond the stage wherein 
 he could let it masquerade under the name of affection or 
 decency and suffer the deceit. Even the infinitesimal 
 labour of unmasking himself became monotonous. He 
 
STILL LIFE 11 
 
 forced himself for a moment to regard the matters of fact. 
 He had written to Madeleine to say that he would be in 
 Paris the next day and would immediately send her word 
 where he was staying. He congratulated himself she 
 would not be at the station to meet him and take him off 
 his guard. Between then and to-morrow he would have 
 time to pull himself together ; besides, it was tyranny 
 that he should have to think more about the affair now 
 that he was tired out. He would not think about it again 
 until he arrived. He did not think any more because he 
 had thought everything ; but the oeating of the train upon 
 the rails left him no peace. 
 
 " Better make an end of it. ... Better make an end of 
 it. . . ." 
 
 He climbed down from the train, conscious of nothing 
 save that a tired porter had his bag, that the station was 
 very dark, and that he was shivering though the air was 
 warm. It was eleven o'clock. There seemed to be no life 
 anywhere, and least of all where the waiters of the station 
 cafe* crawled about in their bright country. In just a few 
 bars and shops the light won a little ground from the dark- 
 ness, but even there it was dim and unreal. Sometimes at 
 its brightest a stream of metallic blue poured in through 
 the windows of the cab. Suddenly a cart halted far ahead 
 in the line of close-following traffic and the sound of stopping 
 ran consecutively from carriage to carriage, like the 
 sound of the marbles he used to run along his desk-groove 
 at school. There was a man with a hand-cart between his 
 cab and the omnibus in front, and as the omnibus stopped 
 dead the man preposterously lifted his leg into the air, to 
 prevent himself from colliding with the tail of the omnibus. 
 Somebody laughed. The man kept his leg there for an 
 eternity. Everything was grotesque and unreal. The 
 porter of his remote hotel rubbed his eyes as he slouched 
 to the cab-door and trailed upstairs with the bag. 
 
 Maurice saw his hands in a circle of light on the table 
 and found himself writing, with a curiously definite know- 
 
12 STILL LIFE 
 
 ledge of times and dates. " I am here. I shall wait for 
 you to-morrow at seven." After he had left her Madeleine 
 had gone into a milliner's shop, where she worked every 
 day until half-past six. She could not see him earlier ; 
 nor could he visit her, because she lived en pension in a 
 cheap boarding-house. He went out to post the letter, 
 walked about for a few minutes, then went to his room 
 again and slept. 
 
 The next day he felt nothing but the fatigue of long 
 exhaustion. Wandering about to find old acquaintances, 
 he seldom thought of the meeting ; he had no power to 
 wonder about it any more, for that part of him was numbed. 
 The mental stress had passed into physical. His body 
 was sick as he dragged up and down stairs, and friends 
 innumerable shook him by the hand and said, " You're 
 not looking very fit, Temple." He felt his own smile as he 
 made the invariable answer : "I'm not much good at these 
 all-night train journeys." He went to see Miss Etheredge, 
 who had known him and Madeleine together. She spoke 
 as though the affair belonged to the past. 
 
 " But she was quite different from the general run. She 
 was just a country child, who had lost her bearings in a 
 strange place. You couldn't help it ; but it wasn't fair 
 the way you had with her. . . . You're too young, too much 
 of a child yourself, you know ; so you upset her values for 
 her. Took her into the domestic, darn your socks and look 
 after the baby part of her mind. They haven't got any 
 use for that kind of thing in Paris. No, it wasn't fair. She 
 was happy enough before you turned up and you upset her 
 life for her. Nobody has a right to take a woman like that 
 too seriously. I shan't forget when you'd gone away how 
 I met her in the street and she danced across to me to show 
 me a photo of yourself that you'd sent her. Same one as 
 you sent me, over there ! No, you've got something to 
 answer for. 
 
 " I don't blame you though. You couldn't help it. You 
 meant it all ; but you are such a child You ought never 
 
STILL LIFE 13 
 
 to be let loose on a civilisation that doesn't cater for that 
 kind of thing. Still, what does it matter ? She's gone 
 back to the country somewhere, to dream of the young 
 and charming Englishman, and have a dozen children by 
 the local butcher, who'll marry her as soon as her family 
 repent enough to put down a hundred pounds. And you've 
 really forgotten her already." 
 
 " It can't be irony, " Maurice said to himself. " She 
 doesn't know." Then he began to laugh, and to make an 
 arrangement for a day of picture exhibitions. He took 
 out his watch. He had half an hour to cover the ten 
 minutes' walk home. Listening to her conversation, he 
 began to be restless and impatient. She noticed it, and 
 half- jealously, half in contrariety, tried to keep him longer. 
 He decided he would go immediately. Piqued, she said as 
 he opened the door : " You mustn't be late for her." 
 
 He pondered over the words as he went down the stairs, 
 and wondered how she knew to whom he was going, and 
 whether all the long conversation had been sheer acting. 
 He tried hard to twist himself round so that he could see 
 the matter calmly. The new problem haunted him as he 
 dodged across the streets ; and he thought there was 
 something diabolical in the way she had guessed his pur- 
 pose. He began to construct a romantic story and to con- 
 vince himself that she was in love with him herself and had 
 spied on Madeleine. That meeting in the street was a queer 
 affair. 
 
 He was under the hotel door vaguely remarking that it 
 was five minutes past seven, when it occurred to him that 
 the phrase might not have been very profound after all. 
 It was just a Parthian shot; while he, by not having 
 laughed it off, had let her see that it hit. He was angry at 
 his stupidity. But even then it only meant that he was 
 going to see a woman ; it had nothing necessarily to do 
 with Madeleine. He was at the door of his room, without 
 any knowledge of his purpose. Then he remembered. 
 
 He had even left his key below ; he had not asked 
 
14 STILL LIFE 
 
 whether a lady had called to see him. At first he was 
 frightened to go downstairs ; then a hungry disappoint- 
 ment swept over him, and he bit his lip to stop the tears 
 that threatened. Madeleine had never come ; she would 
 never come , he had lost her for ever. He paused on the 
 landing for many minutes, and stiffened himself to drive 
 away the dizziness that invaded him when he slackened 
 his hold upon himself. 
 
 It was long before he was steady enough to descend for 
 his key. He would rest a little before asking the porter if 
 anybody had called for him. He crept downstairs. As he 
 picked up the key, someone opened the door of the bureau 
 and addressed him. He listened to a voice. 
 
 " A lady called to see you twice to-day, sir. Once at 
 noon, and just now at seven o'clock. She wouldn't wait. 
 She left this note for you." 
 
 Maurice took the note. It was better not to go upstairs 
 again. He replaced the key. And with the note in his 
 hand left the hotel. He dared not open the envelope, but 
 crumpled it lightly in his pocket as he wandered through 
 the streets, trying to keep himself firm against the anguish 
 that would burst his brain. 
 
 Sometime after midnight he managed to open the letter : 
 " Maurice," it ran, " tu m'a cassais le cceur. Tu me trou- 
 veras jamais." He knew that he could not look for her. 
 He would never find her. The search needed strength and 
 he had none. He sat down upon a bench in the street and 
 sobbed. 
 
 He felt somebody behind him. A woman touched him, 
 and as he looked up, said, " Bon soir, mon petit." Then 
 she suddenly changed her tone. " Quelqu'un t'a fait du 
 mal ? " He rose and hurried on. 
 
 Now he was alone in the world, he thought, with a 
 sorrow more than he could bear ; and at the moment that 
 his thought began once more, he became a third person 
 watching himself walk up the street with hanging head, 
 too utterly cast down to feel anything but the throbbing 
 
STILL LIFE 15 
 
 of his own pain. He regarded himself first with interest, 
 then with complacence. He had become a hero to himself, 
 a man of magnificent sorrow, uncomprehended by the 
 crowd of ordinary men that hemmed his life about. Quickly 
 he destroyed the picture, taking pleasure in the thorough- 
 ness of his own work of destruction, but the feeling of 
 satisfaction remained, slowly defining itself into self-con- 
 gratulation. Yes, he was well out of it. What he would 
 never have had the courage to do, had come of its own 
 motion. He was glad. He turned upon himself ruthlessly, 
 pointing the finger of scorn at a victory won by the excess 
 of cowardice alone. He was climbing the hotel stairs once 
 more when the debate in his heart was at its fiercest. He 
 had won by cowardice. Yes, but he had won, by whatever 
 weapons, and he was free. He was bathed in a flood of 
 self-pity for his loneliness, for a freedom which he could 
 not use. He needed the idea, rather the possibility of Made- 
 leine to support him, and the selfishness of his preoccupa- 
 tion forced him to an outburst of commiseration for her. 
 Slowly he reconstructed her day, the blind anguish of her 
 two vain visits to his room, the sudden sense that that 
 whereon, in spite of all misgivings, she had leaned, was 
 void. He would go to find her ; he was not a traitor after 
 all. The thought of her suffering would dog him for ever 
 through life. He would tell her that everything was right, 
 for he loved her still ; he knew that she would in the end 
 believe him. He heard her cry : " Oh, Maurice." 
 
 He did not move from his room, saying that he could not 
 hope to find her at two o'clock in the morning, knowing 
 that he did not intend to throw his victory away. 
 
 A few more days in Paris passed mistily before him as 
 though he looked at them through frosted glass. He saw 
 many friends, and talked with them intelligently, trying 
 in particular to convey to a painter the outline of a new 
 aesthetic which was being expounded at Bologna. He was 
 even surprised at the clearness with which ideas unrolled 
 themselves before his mind, and wondered at the unac- 
 
16 STILL LIFE 
 
 customed precision with which he used blunted and 
 familiar phrases, until he realised that such things were 
 no longer real to him. The impatience he felt with those 
 who listened to him was not the old impatience to make 
 a chaotic and heartfelt creed plain to another mind ; 
 rather he was beset by an anxiety to keep another idea 
 from him, which threatened at every moment of slackened 
 attention to invade the barrier of his careful defences. 
 
 He was afraid of a letter that might come to him. He 
 was sick with fear that Madeleine would write no letter to 
 him. He could not suffer this twisted thread, yet the only 
 continuous in his life, finally to be broken. Even the know- 
 ledge that she was in a slow torment of suspense, or that her 
 pain was so great that she was driven to express it in a cry 
 of despair, would be, he knew when he was honest, precious 
 to him. Even the extreme of her sorrow bound them 
 together, for she grieved for him. 
 
 No letter came. As he stood in the clear sunlight that 
 shone through the carriage window, looking out upon the 
 cardboard country that lay between Paris and the sea, 
 listening to the beat of the train upon the rails, which had 
 no message, he wondered whether there was any strange 
 element in that grey and unreal earth which might attract 
 men's souls and hold them fast ; for he puzzled how, some 
 few miles back along the railway over which he was being 
 borne, there could be a place where strange and tremendous 
 happenings had overtaken him. 
 
 A comfortable cure, shepherding a company of school- 
 boys who pestered him with unnaturally precocious ques- 
 tions, paused in the munching of his sandwich. 
 
 " Oui, elle n'est pas mal, la France," 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 MAURICE shook himself awake and wandered about his 
 room, peering at the titles of his books, bending occasionally 
 over the table to see what manner of book he had been 
 reading and turning over his paper to assure himself that 
 something had been written. The room was small, perched 
 high in the air to glimpse the Thames from the south ; the 
 books were many, ranged carefully in regular shelves upon 
 every wall, surrounding him as with a fence against the 
 world. He made the circuit three or four times, sometimes 
 taking one out to read the scrupulous inscription, some- 
 times flicking the back of one with his finger-nail and 
 addressing it with serious concentration. While he 
 regarded them he became slowly bemused. Though his 
 books had long been his familiar and only friends, they 
 appeared strange to him. He began to stare at each one 
 as though fascinated by it. They seemed to grow large 
 while he watched and to become terrible mute and grim 
 and silent. 
 
 The dusk of an evening in earliest spring had descended 
 quickly, and with the dusk came silence, palpable and 
 chill. Maurice felt that he dared not pause or the silence 
 would invade him. He began, almost feverishly, to speak ; 
 yet he did not speak aloud : he dared not. He bent down 
 over a book and whispered venomously to it : "I hate you 
 ... I hate you." He held his breath perilously, and waited 
 for the book to strike him. While he waited tense and in- 
 flexible, forjbis punishment, the still silence broke in upon 
 him. |ForJ[a moment he strove against it vehemently, 
 as though it were some malignant impulse of his own mind 
 which sought to destroy all the house of ideas that he had 
 c 17 
 
18 STILL LIFE 
 
 so laboriously constructed. He talked rapidly to himself 
 to gain time to collect his strength. 
 
 " What have you made of it all since ? Cut out women 
 and go for the rest ; shut yourself up with books ; worry 
 about ideas. Oh, yes, you've cut out women, and you're 
 so frightened of them that you're absolutely their slave. 
 Your mind is shaped by the thing you want to exclude. 
 You've shut yourself up with books, and you never know 
 whether you believe in them or not. You are certain now 
 that the whole business is a plant on humanity. You've 
 worried about ideas, and you haven't one left. You mis- 
 trust it before ever it's born. You think and you don't 
 believe in thinking. The only thing solid you've got left 
 is a mad desire to keep women out of it. What the devil 
 have you got left ? " 
 
 He banged his fist on the table, and the noise re-echoing 
 round his room awoke him to his attempt at self-decep- 
 tion. He could no longer keep the silence away : it thrust 
 to his heart. He bowed his head upon the table and 
 sobbed, " I'm too lonely ... I can't ... I can't. . . ." 
 Slowly he raised himself. He grimaced at himself in the 
 mirror above his mantelpiece, and was chilled by the 
 despair in his own face ; he moved round to the window 
 with the indeterminate idea of making sure that there was 
 something outside. 
 
 The lights on a barge crawled along the embankment 
 edge silently, touched by tremulous blades of light from 
 the lamps on the other bank, where the trams moved in 
 and out of the black arms of the trees. He listened to each 
 distinct stroke from a clock, and wondered why it stopped. 
 A frozen shiver passed through him. It was useless to look 
 out^upon a dead waste where nothing was warm with 
 welcome for him ; yet he dared not turn round. He 
 flattened his nose against the panes and shut his eyes ; 
 then holding himself rigid and upright, suddenly he turned 
 about as he had learned as a school cadet, counting the 
 movements, one, two, three. " That's all right," he said. 
 
STILL LIFE 19 
 
 " Four." He opened his eyes. His room was the same. 
 In banging the table, he had scattered a few sheets of paper 
 on the floor. " Why didn't I learn drill for this ? " he said 
 as he began to pick them up, ceremonially, one by one. 
 " Drill, that's what I want. Something to do because you 
 have to, without worrying what it means, or whether 
 there's a better way." He got on to his feet again. Then, 
 with profound conviction : " Yes, that's a good idea. Why 
 on earth don't people make a drill for life, to keep you from 
 thinking about it ? ... Oh, but people do have drill, 
 offices and families and police regulations. . . . Why on 
 earth don't I go to an office all day ? ... It wouldn't be any 
 good, though, I'll see through the drill. ... It would only 
 suit me sometimes just now." He was disappointed as a 
 child with an engine that will not work ; but pleased with 
 the success of his manoeuvre at the window. The engine 
 certainly would run sometimes. A rap at the door did not 
 startle him at all. 
 
 " A letter for you, sir, and I was to remind you that you 
 had to go out to dinner this evening. I've brought the hot 
 water." 
 
 He did not like the look of the letter. It was in his 
 mother's handwriting. It was sure to be an accusation or 
 reproach ; he never had any other kind of letter. He put 
 it into a book that lay on the table, for by experience he 
 knew that there was no more likely way to forget it com- 
 pletely. The engagement to dinner with Cradock cheered 
 him with the idea that he would be opposite to human 
 beings during the evening and attending to their conversa- 
 tion ; besides, he would now be preoccupied with getting 
 ready and finding his way to Kensington. He made his 
 preparations with care, knowing the misery which oppressed 
 him when he was conscious of being badly dressed. He 
 talked to himself incessantly, pausing between each 
 separate remark. 
 
 " I wonder what it would be like to be Cradock for a 
 month or two. . . It must be rather fine to be a dramatic 
 
20 STILL LIFE 
 
 critic . . . especially if you are one of the Cradock kind. . . . 
 He knows exactly what a play should be, and never has 
 any misgivings about his competence, never thinks why 
 the devil do people write plays, and why the devil does he 
 get paid for saying whether they are good or bad. . . . It's 
 quite impossible to bring off a rear attack on him. . . . You 
 can blow him into smithereens, but he doesn't know any- 
 thing about it. ... He's serious as though a pair of full- 
 blown dramatic critics came out of the Ark. ... Of course 
 he wins : he knows what he's in the business for, pays his 
 taxes, dreams of Aristotle, and is awfully decent to me. . . . 
 Yes, I should like to be Cradock." 
 
 By the time he was brushing his overcoat, Maurice con- 
 ceived the Cradocks' house in South Kensington as a secure 
 Elysium, and was happy that he was going there. Con- 
 siderations of Cradock comfortably accompanied him 
 through the bewildering railways, without his having 
 satisfied his curiosity concerning the problem how a 
 Cradock begins to be a Cradock, and why if he were to put 
 fundamental questions to Cradock with transparent clear- 
 ness, Cradock would be sure to laugh at them as amusing 
 and ridiculous imaginations. Yet though Cradock laughed 
 and he was convinced that Cradock was very stupid, he 
 never felt angry with him. He liked going to see Cradock 
 in his office when he was there, and enjoyed lunching with 
 him, because he spread an indescribable kindly warmth 
 about. Maurice solemly classified his acquaintances by 
 the new standard, " Do I like him or him as much as 
 Cradock ? " and decided, not without doubts, that Dennis 
 Beauchamp was the only one who could stand the test, 
 because Dennis always understood at the point where 
 Cradock would have laughed. He was doubtful about the 
 matter, because he was not wholly sure that he preferred 
 being understood to being laughed at in Cradock's way. 
 It was hard to choose between being considered a curious 
 man by Dennis and a curious child by Cradock. Dennis 
 gave him responsibilities, Cradock comforted him with a 
 
STILL LIFE 21 
 
 tolerant warmth. He had not remembered before that 
 they would be together to-night, nor that this was the first 
 time he had ever visited Cradock in his home. The an- 
 ticipated pleasure excited him, and he was grateful to 
 Cradock for having invited Dennis and himself. " Just 
 like him." 
 
 He swung the gate to, finding pleasure in the noise he 
 made. The green and white of the house-front pleased 
 him. It was clean and cool and very honest. He remem- 
 bered just in time to prevent himself from giving the 
 polished bell-handle a violent tug. 
 
 He was almost ashamed of the enthusiasm with which 
 he shook Cradock's hand, and had it not been for a sense 
 of well-being which made him take particular delight in 
 the soft tread of the carpet, the clean comfort of the arm- 
 chairs, and above all in the unobtrusive warmth of 
 Cradock's greeting, shame at his own exuberance would 
 have shadowed him during the evening. Leaning back 
 lazily in a chair he enjoyed his own sense of safety, as he 
 watched Cradock's tall broad form move out of the room, 
 and for some seconds the meaning of the words " My wife 
 will be down in a minute " did not reach him. When he 
 did understand them, his first and ordinary impulse to 
 speculate what manner of woman Mrs. Cradock was, and 
 to deduce her from the arrangement of the room was 
 quickly spent, absorbed by his pervading indolence. 
 Nevertheless he sought to excuse his own inactivity. 
 " The room hasn't got any personality ; it's just comfort- 
 able. There must be thousands like it. Next door is 
 probably the same, outside and in." The bell tinkled far 
 away ; and muffled voices reached to him. " It can't be 
 Dennis. There are two of them." 
 
 Soon after, Cradock ushered in a tall man, who might 
 have been a colonel, and his wife, a small slim woman 
 dressed in a new Early- Victorian fashion, who was raptur- 
 ously appreciating a drawing by the door, before she 
 noticed Maurice's presence. The words, " Mrs. Fortescue. 
 
22 STILL LIFE 
 
 . . . Mr. Fortescue ..." cut in upon his reflection that 
 he knew nothing about colonels after all, that Mr. Fortescue 
 sounded as well as Colonel Fortescue, that perhaps neither 
 of them knew the mediaeval pun which served them as a 
 motto. He pulled himself together enough to realise that 
 he was waiting for Mrs. Fortescue to speak. 
 
 " I love this really modern art. Don't you, Mr. Temple ? 9> 
 She pointed vaguely with her fan towards the picture, as 
 though to show that the introduction had been no more 
 than a momentary interruption in the sequence of her 
 thought. " It's so alive. It's quite a mental tonic." 
 
 " Yes. . . ." Maurice was insisting upon her first 
 question, though she expected no answer. He felt that he 
 must crystallise his dispersed faculties upon this con- 
 versation. ..." But I'm not quite sure that I know 
 what modern art is." He must gather himself together, 
 even if he had to be ponderous. " I suppose the really 
 modern art is good because it attaches to some tradition, 
 after all. Or do you think the tonic quality is something 
 quite new ? " 
 
 " Oh, you're too deep," Mrs. Fortescue had immedi- 
 ately conceived a dislike for him for his suggested opposi- 
 tion, and was trying to cover her aversion by playfulness. 
 " I never think about things, at any rate, not in that 
 way. I mean that I never took any interest in pictures 
 before these modern artists began to do these things. 
 Now I'm absorbed. Besides I know quite a lot of them. 
 They are so interesting when they tell you about their 
 ideas ; it gives you a feeling that you are mixed up in 
 what is being done." 
 
 " Yes ... I suppose it does. ... I don't know very 
 much about it. But what are their ideas ? " Maurice felt 
 that he would enjoy being hated by her for trying to make 
 her ridiculous to herself. "I'm really interested." 
 
 " Oh, colour." She halted a minute, then ran smoothly 
 into a remembered phrase. " The world is self-conscious 
 and afraid of its own impulses. Modern art is the outcome 
 
STILL LIFE 23 
 
 of a desire to bring back colour as a source of pleasure in 
 itself." 
 
 " Oh, a return to the savages." 
 
 " Exactly." She was secure now, having received her 
 cue. "It is ridiculous to imagine we are superior to 
 savages in everything. We're effete. The only thing to 
 do is to go back to the primitive, uncontrolled people. 
 They're splendid, unconscious. . . ." 
 
 Maurice wanted to continue ; but suddenly he had a 
 vision of himself and Mrs. Fortescue, Cradock and Mr. 
 Fortescue, arranged mathematically at the corners of a 
 square, one diagonal for the combatants, the other for the 
 spectators. It was absurd. 
 
 " Well, it doesn't go well with the furniture," said Mr. 
 Fortescue. 
 
 Mrs. Fortescue made an impatient movement of her 
 head, but smiled to show that her husband amused 
 her. 
 
 Maurice seized the opening. " No," he said seriously. 
 " I suppose it is difficult to find suitable stuff." 
 
 " Besides," said Mr. Fortescue, " even if you could, I 
 hate being glared at by a picture. It may be all right for 
 women. They can dress up to it. We can't." 
 
 " That's true," said Maurice. " After all, it's taken a 
 long while to get where we have, and we can't suddenly 
 go back on it. Our furniture shows the way we've gone 
 during the last three hundred years ; and if our pictures 
 won't go with our furniture, it only shows that there's 
 something wrong with the pictures." 
 
 Maurice was pleased with the argument, for he knew it 
 was irritating Mrs. Fortescue. He was yet more pleased 
 with the approval of her husband, for that irritated her 
 yet more. 
 
 " It's all right in moderation." Cradock, as ever, was 
 pronouncing the award. " It's been a good protest against 
 dullness, at any rate. I think it has accomplished some- 
 thing of its own too." The bell was tinkling again. " Any- 
 
24 STILL LIFE 
 
 how," said Cradock, as he moved towards the door, "I've 
 bought some of them." 
 
 Mrs. Fortescue was not satisfied. Desiring completely 
 to vindicate herself, she was explaining to Maurice that it 
 was impossible to judge really modern pictures apart fiom 
 their appropriate setting. " The modern idea isn't merely 
 a matter of hanging a picture on a wall. The modern picture 
 is part of a larger scheme of decoration." 
 
 Somebody was laughing in the hall. Even Mrs. Fortsscue 
 stopped to listen. Maurice was relieved. "That's Cradock," 
 he said to himself, " laughing at Dennis's face." He was 
 himself never sure whether Dennis's lugubrious expression 
 on entering a room was assumed or natural ; nor could he 
 make up his mind on this occasion when he saw him come 
 slowly, blinking, into the room. Maurice was impatient 
 while the introductions were made, even slightly annoyed 
 that the Fortescues should claim Dennis's attention for a 
 moment while he was in the room. He wondered whether 
 Dennis felt the same. " 1 suppose not. That would be 
 too much to expect." Yet he was vaguely disappointed 
 as he stretched out both his hands, nor was he wholly 
 reassured by the smile he saw in Dennis's eyes. 
 
 He had no time to ask him what he had been doing all 
 day before the door once more opened and Mrs. Cradock 
 entered. He saw Cradock take a tremendous stride to the 
 door to hold it open for her, and for the moment Mrs. 
 Cradock was merged in the evident delight which Cradock 
 took in serving her. Maurice was pleased that he alone 
 noticed the pretence by which she turned as though to 
 shut the door herself, and thus placed her hand on her 
 husband's ; and then he turned to look at Cradock, who 
 watched his wife greeting the Fortescues with an obvious 
 pride. It was fine that two people should be so much in 
 love, even though they had been married years and years ; 
 it proved Cradock must be a wonderful man. Maurice 
 could not prevent a touch of envy creeping into his ad- 
 miration, as he shook hands with Mrs. Cradock and re- 
 
STILL LIFE 25 
 
 marked that she was not very pretty, at least not pretty 
 like Mrs. Fortescue, than whom she was a little taller. 
 More than this he thought that her eyes were very restful, 
 and her hand was alive. " It wouldn't be so fine if she 
 were pretty," he said to himself. 
 
 Dennis was asking him what he thought of a book. 
 Maurice tried to tell him while they descended together to 
 dinner. 
 
 During dinner Cradock and his wife took infinite delight 
 in cross-examining Dennis, who was on the staff of a 
 hospital, concerning the fortune he was making ; and 
 Dennis grimly talked of the enormous incomes successful 
 doctors earned. Mrs. Fortescue, who had been certain 
 that he was a writer, was prevented by her new know- 
 ledge from taking any interest in the conversation ; 
 Mrs. Cradock after an abortive attempt to rouse her, 
 applied herself the more intently to probing Dennis's 
 mind. For a long while Maurice entered into the game 
 with absorption, making exaggerated statements concern- 
 ing a house-surgeon's fees, immensely satisfied that 
 Mrs. Cradock made no vain attempts to interest Mrs. 
 Fortescue. 
 
 " What do you really believe in, Mr. Beauchamp ? " 
 Mrs. Cradock asked Dennis. 
 
 " Nothing at all." Unconsciously he beamed, then 
 recollecting the nature of his reply, looked depressed. 
 " Nothing at all." 
 
 " But you must believe in the good of sawing people's 
 legs off ; you do it so well." 
 
 " My dear Mrs. Cradock," there was an expostulatory 
 roll in his voice, " it's precisely because I don't believe in 
 it that I do it at all well. If I did believe in it, I might be 
 enthusiastic and lose my head in a man's stomach. As it 
 is, I consider it is all worthless, keep perfectly indifferent, 
 and don't kill more than one in six." 
 
 Mrs. Fortescue felt that Dennis was ordinary and vulgar. 
 
 " That won't do, Dennis," pursued Mrs. Cradock. " Will 
 
26 STILL LIFE 
 
 it, Jim ? " She turned to her husband. " You must have 
 a reason for doing doctor's work rather than any other ; 
 no, perhaps you haven't. But you must have one for 
 doing work at all ? " 
 
 " Well, I must earn my living." He nearly believed it. 
 
 " Come, you know you don't need to." 
 
 Mrs. Fortescue glanced with new interest at Dennis. 
 
 " Oh, it's something to hang on to. I know what I have 
 to do for eight hours of the day or the night. I have to 
 sleep another eight if I get them. And eight hours' intro- 
 spection is just not enough to paralyse me. If they gave 
 me seven hours' work a day instead, the Lord alone knows 
 what might happen." 
 
 " I am certain he has ideals," broke in Maurice, " of 
 perfect operations, of appendices cut out with one sweep 
 of the knife, and an indestructible digestive apparatus in 
 silver. ..." He suddenly stopped. Dennis was protest- 
 ing. Nobody had noticed anything. Maurice knew that 
 he had nothing to say, that what he had said was cheap 
 and that Dennis recognised it, and he wanted to find out 
 what was the matter with himself. He had spoken because 
 he had wanted to share Mrs. Cradock's conversation, and 
 to hear her address him as Mr. Temple. It was not that 
 she was charming, or that her eyes were kindly and pro- 
 found, for he could hardly see them in the shade ; but 
 rather that in her voice and in her manner of handling 
 Dennis there was the suggestion that she was sure of her- 
 self, that there was in her mind something achieved that 
 maintained her and allowed her to judge securely. Maurice 
 felt that if he could attract her attention and hold it he 
 would feel an access of strength, the knowledge that he was 
 worth something. The idea began to dominate him while 
 he watched her surely and swiftly forcing Dennis to confess 
 that he did believe in something. He saw that Dennis too 
 was anxious to justify himself to her : he heard Dennis 
 confess that always he was certain of one thing, that he 
 believed in poetry ; he heard him break into some verses 
 
STILL LIFE 27 
 
 of Shelley as though it were the most natural thing in the 
 world. He was following the impulse of Dennis's mind as 
 though it was his own. It was his own. He wanted to 
 speak in his defence, to prove to Mrs. Cradock that there 
 was something in him. 
 
 At the sound of the poetry Mrs. Fortescue looked 
 towards her husband, and the lift of her eyebrow was by 
 ever so little extravagant. Maurice caught the glance, and 
 thought that he just stopped himself from saying " Damn 
 you." He wondered what had come over the dinner- 
 party. He could not look at Mrs. Fortescue, for he loathed 
 her, or her husband, who he knew was trying to look as 
 though he was accustomed to such things, or at Dennis, for 
 now his sympathy had changed to a burning jealousy, or 
 at Mrs. Cradock, for fear that he would call out to her : 
 " Please let me speak " ; so ke stared intently at Cradock, 
 and was thankful that he was still absorbed in contempla- 
 tion of his wife, or at least still regarding her every move- 
 ment. Perhaps it was all ridiculous after all. Dennis was 
 still reciting poetry. Maurice was sure he was making a 
 fool of himself, that the poetry would go on and on for 
 ever. Oh, why didn't he stop ? Someone would laugh and 
 then he would go mad. He would laugh himself. " For 
 God's sake don't laugh, don't. . . ." He bit his Irps, for 
 he might cry or laugh aloud. Everything was perfectly 
 still. Nothing had ever been alive. " Don't laugh. . . . 
 Oh, God . . . don't laugh. . . ." Dennis's lips were not 
 moving at all. Yet he heard a sound, equable, monotonous, 
 eternal. A line slowly printed on his brain : 
 
 " The lone and level sands stretch far away." 
 
 Something in him seemed to crack with the sound of 
 falling glass. He was standing up trying to wipe the wine 
 that was spilled over the cloth. He heard himself making 
 far-off excuses as he left the room. 
 
 He held the bannisters, saying weakly to himself, " No, 
 I'm not often like that. . . . Yes. that was a sonnet. . . . 
 
28 STILL LIFE 
 
 Ozymandias. ... It did take a long while. ..." He 
 could nothing do but laugh feebly, even while he bathed 
 himself in cold water. Plunging his face in the basin, he 
 was laughing still, and wondering whether it would be 
 very different if he never moved. In a moment he was quite 
 calm, not even caring to think how it had all happened. 
 He heard a door open, and kept perfectly still, curious to 
 know what the voices were saying. It was Cradock and 
 his wife. 
 
 " Poor chap," he heard the low-pitched words of Cradock. 
 " I've never known him like that before. Perhaps the 
 room was too hot." 
 
 " Perhaps," came the whispered answer, " but I don't 
 think it was that. I hope he's not ill. He's a nice boy. 
 Where is he though ? I can't hear anything. ..." 
 
 Maurice rattled the door, and stamped about so that they 
 should hear him. He plunged his face in the water again 
 and heaved a long sigh of relief " Ha-a-a " as he withdrew 
 it, splashing, to let them know that he was all right again. 
 The door of the dining-room opened and shut very quietly. 
 Mrs. Cradock had returned to the table. Then came a 
 knock at the bathroom door, and Cradock's kindly voice. 
 
 " Are you all right ? Nothing serious, I hope ? " 
 
 " Nothing at all. I am quite fit," he sang out, cheer- 
 fully. Then, opening the door, and laying his hand on 
 Cradock's arm. " I'm very sorry. I don't know what it 
 was. I've been like it once before." He knew that was a 
 lie ; but he felt happy with " He's a ntce boy " sounding 
 insistently in his ears, and he did not want to worry any- 
 body with the idea that he had been really ill. As they 
 entered the room, Mrs. Cradock and Mrs. Fortescue were 
 about to leave, and in the general motion and the hurried 
 answers to sympathetic enquiries, Maurice found himself 
 in his chair, leaning forward as though nothing had 
 happened. 
 
 He tried to say to Dennis that he was sorry for being 
 such a fool, but he saw in Dennis's face that he had been 
 
STILL LIFE 29 
 
 anxious and disturbed. Therefore Maurice merely smiled 
 energetically. Mr. Fortescue was a little afraid of him, 
 and told what must have been a long-familiar story of 
 Jesus under Jelks with less than what must have been his 
 usual ease. Then Cradock asked Dennis his opinion con- 
 cerning a play, and Maurice purposely returned to the safe 
 subject of English furniture, for he was anxious, for some 
 unknown reason, to vindicate his complete sanity to Mr. 
 Fortescue. Nevertheless the atmosphere was still con- 
 strained as they rose to go to the drawing-room. 
 
 Maurice would have given anything to know what Mrs. 
 Cradock and Mrs. Fortescue had said about him. They 
 must have talked about him, and he was sure that Mrs. 
 Fortescue had led off the attack, and equally he felt sure 
 that Mrs. Cradock had defended him. Only he wanted to 
 know exactly the words she had used about him : he did 
 not even care whether she had meant them, or whether, 
 as was probable, she had praised him only because Mrs. 
 Fortescue referred to him slightingly. Sincere or not, the 
 fundamental intention was the same. She had defended 
 him against an enemy, and he knew he was safe with her. 
 All that he wanted was the very words, so that he could 
 use them to comfort himself, saying them to himself in her 
 voice. That was impossible ; but he was happy. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 MAURICE felt even careless as he stood by the fire and 
 watched, a little remotely, the faces in front of him, Dennis 
 being made wretched by Mrs. Fortescue's incessant ques- 
 tions concerning his prospects and his aristocratic friends, 
 Mr. Fortescue still inclined to resent having been brought 
 into such incalculable company, Cradock not able wholly 
 to conceal his pleasure that his wife was dominating, not 
 tyrannically, the whole party, and Mrs. Cradock calm and 
 restful, but perhaps still rather concerned about himself, 
 Maurice. It was some seconds before he realised that Mrs. 
 Fortescue was again stridently concerned with modern 
 art. 
 
 " It's such a refreshing change from what we've been 
 used to. I think the idea that all the young men should 
 suddenly find themselves perfectly free from the terrible 
 influence of tradition is wonderful. It means that we 
 shan't have any more foolish attempts to carve Greek 
 heads, and that alone will be a relief, won't it ? " 
 
 No one made any haste to answer, and she continued : 
 " For my part, I never could see anything in them ; but 
 only nowadays I can dare to say that openly. One doesn't 
 need to have any excuse for not liking the National Gallery 
 or the British Museum." 
 
 " But perhaps you're only waiting for some new modern 
 art to turn up, to say that you don't really like 
 this ? " said Dennis, quietly malevolent. " But, honestly, 
 I don't pretend to know anything about these things." 
 
 " No ? " said Mrs. Fortescue, icily. 
 
 Dennis was quelled and silent, realising it was hopeless 
 to put up a fight with the woman on her own ground. He 
 
STILL LIFE 31 
 
 turned eagerly to Mrs. Cradock who was addressing Mrs. 
 Fortescue, and he wondered whether the gentleness of her 
 tone was purely cynical. 
 
 " I don't know how it is," she said, " but I really do get 
 something out of those statues, you know. I feel very calm 
 and quiet in front of them. All I know about modern art 
 is that I don't generally feel like that in front of it, and it 
 seems to me that unless I can feel that it isn't art ... of 
 course, that only means it isn't what I want." 
 
 As soon as he heard Mrs. Cradock's voice, Maurice was 
 eager to join the conversation ; he felt that he was burst- 
 ing with things to say to an understanding mind. " I 
 think I know what you mean, Mrs. Cradock," he said with 
 an effort, abruptly. " Don't you feel that some of them 
 have what they give to you ? " His advance was headlong. 
 " I mean, that their heads really have the same security 
 which you feel in yourself. It's like a human sympathy 
 suddenly established between two minds. You're con- 
 scious at least I mean I am that you lack something 
 which really belongs to you by right, and those heads not 
 only have it, but they can give it to you for a moment at 
 least. Afterwards, you realise how far you fall short of the 
 thing desired, and realise it far more painfully than before, 
 but I don't think you regret it at all. I know I used to say 
 that I only got that moment any security out of a work of 
 art ; but I'm not sure about that now. ... I'm not sure 
 about anything, you know." At the instant he thought 
 that he had done a foolish thing. He had been hovering 
 on the narrow edge between keen self-consciousness and 
 the unconsciousness with which Mrs. Cradock's presence 
 seemed always to threaten him. He had been talking to 
 her, and he had made a confession to her alone. He did 
 not want those cruel and idiot Fortescues to hear it. He 
 was even blushing. Particular words that he had used 
 seemed to quiver like a nerve exposed. " A work of art." 
 He was being wounded again and again therein. He stared 
 at the fender. It seemed a long while before Dennis took 
 
32 S^ILL LIFE 
 
 him up, and while Dennis spoke, he gradually became 
 interested and confident enough to raise his eyes. Mrs. 
 Cradock was leaning back in her chair, gripping the arms 
 rather tightly in her fingers, watching him as it might be 
 anxiously. He wondered what she was anxious about. 
 
 " I think that's all right," said Dennis, " but what do you 
 mean about getting the feeling of security from a work of 
 art? " When Dennis had said the word, the bare nerve was 
 covered again. " You mean you get it from other things ? 
 What are they ? " Then, turning to Cradock sitting quietly 
 in a chair, on the side of the fireplace opposite Maurice : 
 " He's probably got something in the back of his mind he 
 wants to get out. I know the symptoms." Cradock 
 smiled, gently omniscient. " Let's have it, Temple." 
 
 " I think Mrs. Cradock knows more about it than I 
 do. . . ." 
 
 She said nothing, but still looked at him, still anxiously. 
 Mrs. Fortescue was plainly contemptuous, her husband 
 bored. 
 
 "... Besides, in any case, I am hopeless at explaining 
 things." He shifted nervously against the mantelpiece. 
 " But what I'm after is that the thing you get out of one of 
 these Greek heads, that affects you most profoundly, isn't 
 so much anything actually in the art as the thing that the 
 art seems to assume and allow for. You may call them 
 beautiful if you like, but whatever that beauty may be, 
 it's not the thing that hits you. ..." 
 
 " That's exactly the idea of modern art, if you really 
 look into it," said Mrs. Fortescue. 
 
 " I don't know. Perhaps it is, only I haven't seen it. 
 Perhaps, too, what we call beauty has to be there before 
 you can realise anything of what the artist assumes and 
 allows for. At any rate, I've never had it without the 
 thing we call beauty. 
 
 " What I mean is some state of the mind which is ex- 
 pressed in the way the face is carved. It's generally called 
 repose, or calm, or dignity. You feel that you might have 
 
STILL LIFE 33 
 
 a face like that and yet be worried to death about where 
 you were going to get the money for to-morrow's dinner ; 
 but if you had a mind like that you never could be con- 
 cerned about those things. You would never be at the 
 mercy of life, because you would know what it all meant. 
 Not that that's anything of a discovery, because you can, 
 if you really look, see it behind most things that are written 
 about these statues. But people seem to confuse it all very 
 quickly by talking about the divine, and saying that after 
 all they are statues of gods, or at best they are portraits 
 of idealised men. To me the important thing is not that 
 they are gods or idealised men, but just men if you like, 
 men in a state of grace, but for all that men, and the spirit 
 that they have in them is a human spirit. The strange 
 thing about it is that we recognise that it is quite different 
 from our own, and yet it is our own. We haven't got it, 
 but we believe we could have it, and that we were meant 
 to have it ; and that if we had it we shouldn't be contemp- 
 tuous of other men who don't think the same things as we 
 do and are not concerned with the same ideals, but we 
 should just accept them, For the only reason why we're 
 contemptuous of other people, at any rate I know the only 
 reason why I am, is that I'm not at all sure of myself. 
 
 " Contempt is a kind of rotten foundation on which we 
 build a little tin temple where we bow down to our valuable 
 selves. We have to endow it with a lot of spurious sancti- 
 ties before we can deceive ourselves into worshipping there 
 for a moment, and the first of these sanctities is to convince 
 ourselves that we're somehow different from the rest. Of 
 course it's true that we are, but that's not the important 
 thing. The important thing is that we're the same, only 
 perhaps pushed to a higher degree. The idea of contempt 
 is that the difference is in kind, and once you've really got 
 that idea working inside them, it seems to me you're con- 
 demned not merely never to understand but to make what 
 you want to understand utterly unintelligible. You're 
 warped from the very beginning. 
 
34 STILL LIFE 
 
 " The heads, on the other hand, have something different 
 and the same ; and the thing that they have is security in 
 the soul. I call it harmony in the soul, because I learned 
 the phrase somewhere before I had any notion what it 
 meant, and it has always appealed to me. That is what 
 the people who carved them assumed and allowed for. 
 You can't carve a harmony in the soul, but you can believe 
 in it and leave room for it, so that other people can feel it. 
 And just because it is a quality of the soul, you can surely 
 get it elsewhere than in a work of art you can get it from 
 people who have it when you meet them. . . . 
 
 " Although it may take time for you to realise that you 
 need it, and that it is the thing you're working for, once you 
 have met it you know. I know that I need it, and I know 
 that one way to get it is to be in the presence of a person 
 who has something of it. My life is always tormented by 
 its insecurity, and there's no doubt that I forget all about 
 that, at least when I'm faced with security. And so I seem 
 to spend all my time looking for someone who has got to it. 
 And just because I can do that, and not feel that the whole 
 idea is all wrong, I know that there's something in a Greek 
 statue, and in a great many other things, that isn't in this 
 modern stuff, and what that is, and why it's in one and not 
 in the other, I think I know. It's because the true artist 
 does realise what the harmony in the soul may be, and be- 
 cause we realise that it really belongs to us, and that we 
 should be safe, if we could only get to it. . . ." 
 
 Maurice was tingling at his own outburst. He had gone 
 too far to feel ashamed. No one spoke. For ages no one 
 spoke. Then Mrs. Cradock said : 
 
 " I think that's quite true." 
 
 " It's very mystical, certainly," said Mrs. Fortescue. 
 
 " Perhaps only rather enthusiastic," said Cradock. 
 
 " But you don't tell us how to get to the harmony, 
 Morry," said Dennis ; " and though I think I could believe 
 in everything you've said, that's important enough, isn't 
 it ? Or is it enough to find it in somebody else and ex- 
 
STILL LIFE 35 
 
 perience it that way ? Or do you mean that some people 
 are born with it, and others only see it for moments, and 
 that they have just to keep as many of these moments as 
 they can ? " 
 
 " I don't know. I don't see how I could know. After all 
 it is a matter of your own experience. Anyhow, it's a 
 personal business." 
 
 Maurice was closing up again. He had begun inwardly 
 to shiver as a creeping cold closed in about him after 
 excited heat. He hoped that some ordinary topic would 
 be discussed, so that there should be no chance of bursting 
 out again. Mrs. Cradock commenced to talk about Italy 
 where he had never been, and he had a comfortable leisure 
 in which to convince himself of Mrs. Fortescue's foolishness 
 in listening to her remarks about Umbria. Dennis and 
 Cradock were talking about a play. Cradock was being 
 benignantly firm about the merits of certain actors. 
 
 " Hapwell's really no good, you know. No actor's any 
 good unless he's enough in him to make him unconscious 
 of his own personality. The trouble is that according to 
 the modern system, reputation is built only by the actor's 
 emphasis on his individuality. He begins to command his 
 own particular salary when he is credited with his own 
 particular manner. Not that there's any room for any- 
 thing else in the best plays we can produce nowadays." 
 He turned round towards his wife. " Anne, what was it 
 you said the other evening about Shaw . . .? It was some- 
 thing very good," he added to Dennis. 
 
 Mrs. Cradock smiled at him almost mechanically. The 
 smile had nothing to do with what she was thinking, and 
 was as though the thinnest surface of deep water had been 
 moved. 
 
 " Oh, I've forgotten now," she said. " It wasn't any- 
 thing important, though. ... I love the plain from 
 Assisi, the way those blue hills fold on each other at the far 
 edge." She wondered whether she had been the cause of 
 Maurice's words, and whether they had really been, as she 
 
36 STILL LIFE 
 
 felt they had been, addressed to her. She was sure of it. 
 At first she felt that every one else must have noticed it, 
 and she glanced at her husband who was leaning forwards 
 towards Dennis. She heard him say : "It was awfully 
 good, though, something about the axiom of all drama 
 being the freedom of the spirit. ..." Suddenly Cradock 
 turned round as though to ask her more. Their glances 
 met and she smiled, and Cradock turned away, having 
 forgotten to ask his question. She felt guilty in having 
 smiled. She was deceiving Cradock in smiling at him 
 while she thought about Temple. Yet she was very 
 glad that Maurice had really been speaking to her, 
 and her happiness doubly armed her against the darts of 
 Mrs. Fortescue. 
 
 " You're quite distrait, Mrs. Cradock, you must be very 
 tired." 
 
 " No, thank you. Really I couldn't help listening to 
 Jim and Mr. Beauchamp. They're quite incorrigible when 
 they begin on the theatre." 
 
 Cradock's large and rather heavy face flushed with 
 pleasure. He was always like a big child with his wife, 
 glad whenever he felt that she was taking some notice of 
 him, which was often enough, because she knew his nature 
 and indulged it, not without a certain naive delight in her 
 own conscious power. 
 
 But the Fortescues were incessant in attack. Even Mr. 
 Fortescue was momentarily diverted from his ruminations 
 to hazard a remark about Italian railways. Mrs. Cradock's 
 skill in reply was consummate, because she was aware that 
 her mind was really working apart, trying to answer the 
 inexorable question : "Is my soul secure ? " Indubitably 
 Maurice believed that he had seen a security in her, and 
 she was troubled with anxiety to satisfy herself that this 
 was really true. She did not dare to answer the question, 
 because she might have to say "no." She tried to rid her- 
 self of it by treating the whole matter as unreal and fanci- 
 ful, suggested by an enthusiastic boy's random rhetoric. 
 
STILL LIFE 37 
 
 Yet she could not deny that she was glad that she had 
 inspired it, even while she resented his monopoly of her 
 mind. She turned towards him. 
 
 He was now sitting down, leaning forward as though to 
 listen to the conversation of Dennis and Cradock, his 
 elbows resting upon his knees and his face in his hands, 
 nervously biting at his fingers. She saw immediately how 
 agitated he was, and knew that he was not really listening 
 to the words in which he pretended to be absorbed. The 
 impulse to reassure him suddenly took hold of her. 
 
 " You mustn't be too philosophical, Mr. Temple," she 
 said quietly. He started, but the smile on her face instantly 
 calmed him, and he too began to smile. 
 
 " Why ? " he said. 
 
 " You should have more pity on yourself." 
 
 Mrs. Cradock turned away to riposte to some question 
 of Mrs. Fortescue's, and Maurice found himself confronted 
 with the amused eyes of Cradock, who had turned at the 
 sound of his wife's voice. 
 
 " I hate Cradock's amusement," Maurice said to himself. 
 " He doesn't understand anything, to treat me like a child." 
 But his annoyance faded away. He was really only con- 
 cerned with Mrs. Cradock's solicitude for him, and above 
 all concerned with the expression of it. He thought there 
 must be infinite subtleties in the words, for he seemed to 
 taste something in them which stood in no intelligible 
 relation to " you should have more pity on yourself." He 
 was continually repeating the phrase to himself, finding it 
 very precious. 
 
 The conversation had become general. Mrs. Fortescue, 
 still apprehensive of Dennis's vulgarity, was calling him a 
 mystic ; while he, with perfect gravity, was asking her 
 what she would feel if a sailor on the top of a motor omnibus 
 should lean over and deliberately spit upon her head. 
 Cradock laughed at the situation. Mrs. Fortescue, now 
 convinced that Dennis was quite impossible, irritated by 
 the calmness with which he polished his eyeglass, could 
 
38 STILL LIFE 
 
 find no words to reply to what she felt could only be a 
 personal insult. 
 
 " A sailor did it to me," said Dennis unmoved. " I 
 think I was glad. I should have been, if I'd been sure that 
 he did it deliberately, aiming at me and no one else. It 
 would have meant that I was important to him. Anyhow, 
 it's much more profound than one is inclined to think." 
 
 Mrs. Fortescue was indulging in a sugary " good-bye." 
 " So delightful and unusual," she said. Maurice knew the 
 shaft was meant for him, and though he was unrepentant 
 about her, he felt again ashamed of himself for his 
 behaviour. 
 
 " Good-bye, Mr. Temple," Mrs. Cradock was saying. 
 " I hope we shall see you again soon. I shall think about 
 what you said." 
 
 Maurice walked with Dennis along the High Street. 
 Even though they came very near to understanding each 
 other completely, he could never overcome a certain shy- 
 ness with Dennis, so that he never took Dennis's arm of 
 his own account. Dennis knew this, and to-night he took 
 Maurice's as if it were perfectly normal between them. 
 Maurice was grateful and happy in pressing Dennis's arm 
 close, for he needed exactly this gesture of friendship that 
 his sense of security should continue unbroken. 
 
 " I think that was all right about the soul," said Dennis 
 as though he had been thinking of nothing else since. 
 " I've met a man who can give you the feeling, though I've 
 only spoken with him once or twice- a doctor who lives 
 in Hampstead of all places. He doesn't talk much, hardly 
 at all in fact ; but he listens, and somehow you begin to 
 let off about your soul. I remember the last time but one 
 I talked for about half an hour without a break, and said 
 some things that seemed to me extraordinarily deep ; but 
 I forgot about them. However, I met him once since, at a 
 dinner, and he reminded me about something I'd said 
 about spirit and necessity in society. I didn't understand 
 it, but I thought I could feel something profound in it." 
 
STILL LIFE 39 
 
 "I've never met anybody like it," said Maurice, " but 
 I do believe in them." He felt that he couldn't go on, for 
 he wanted to say that he had met someone like it that even- 
 ing. It would be terrible to risk being misunderstood. 
 After a pause he added, struggling for nonchalance, " I'm 
 not sure, though, that Mrs. Cradock hasn't got something 
 of it. But I suppose you would have to recognise it 
 immediately." 
 
 " I don't know." Dennis was reflecting. " After all, it 
 must have been something that set me off on the poetry, 
 and you on to the soul. We're not in the habit of it at 
 dinner parties, are we ? " 
 
 Maurice found a warm delight in the " we " and laughed, 
 remembering another dinner, where they had both sat 
 silent, while a literary encyclopedist had wagged a porten- 
 tous finger to mark the number of times that Flaubert's 
 Education Sentimentale must be read by one who really 
 wished to be conversant with literary art. 
 
 " No," he said, " I think she must have something of it 
 anyhow." 
 
 " Still, I'm not sure about women," continued Dennis. 
 " I often think that something like it is native to the best 
 of them, but I'm never sure that it is the real thing. A 
 woman, I mean, who is beautiful, is often splendidly sure 
 of herself, almost on the animal plane. She seems to sun 
 herself in life, as if she never had the slightest doubt about 
 it. Probably she hasn't, either. And in a way she'd 
 understand you, simply because she doesn't believe in 
 worrying about the things you worry about, and most of 
 the time you don't believe in it yourself, only you just have 
 to go on. So she's always sure where we are doubtful. 
 
 " But that kind of security won't really satisfy, and it 
 never does. After all, though a man may disbelieve in him- 
 self, and curse his own foolishness for worrying about what 
 the whole thing means for three hundred and sixty-four 
 days in the year, there will probably be the odd one when 
 he sees something in it all, and believes his right to worry 
 
40 STILL LIFE 
 
 in the way he does. If he were to meet the woman on that 
 day he wouldn't think she was wonderful ; he would just 
 think she was intolerable and blind. She seems to be certain 
 and to have what you call the harmony, only because she 
 cuts out all that a man considers to be his soul. And mind 
 you, compared to him she is certain nearly all her life, but 
 on his best day she will be unable to touch him, or to hold 
 him at all. 
 
 " Not that I say that Mrs. Cradock is like that, for she 
 seems different, and she seems to understand ; but I've a 
 queer idea that that's what it might all reduce to in the end. 
 You don't get harmony that is, if we are meaning the 
 same thing by carving out all that part of a man which 
 really tells him that he needs it, but by somehow getting 
 beyond it, and of having something of your best day in 
 every day of the year, or at any rate never f eeling that you 
 are cut off from it absolutely. Where the woman gets you 
 is that for nearly all your life she can convince you that 
 she has known the secrets of the universe from the day of 
 her birth, and you have nothing to put up against it, except 
 perhaps a certain amount of knowledge which you know 
 doesn't count anyway." 
 
 " But, after all," said Maurice, " you can only judge it 
 by its effects, surely. The fact that she managed to start 
 us talking is something, isn't it ? You don't find that in 
 every woman, do you ? " 
 
 " No, you don't. But perhaps the reason is that the 
 majority of them don't know exactly where their strength 
 is, and they try the foolish game of trying to meet you on 
 your own ground the intelligent interest in things. There 
 it's just hopeless. Plenty of them are clever and intelli- 
 gent, enough at least to make me feel uncommonly incom- 
 petent. But my sense of inferiority doesn't last long. 
 There's too much perfection in their cleverness and in- 
 telligence. It hasn't got any loose ends, and the reason is 
 that they're not trying to get anything out of it all. If they 
 were, it wouldn't be so complete, simply because it couldn't 
 
STILL LIFE 41 
 
 be. Their idea in being intelligent is to prove themselves 
 superior to most men, and that's not very hard after all, 
 and it probably doesn't need to be proved. A great many 
 men are like that ; but the best of them are intelligent, not 
 because they think it's a good thing to be intelligent, but 
 because it's a bad way, but the best that they've got, to 
 get hold of something that will make them believe in life. 
 A woman doesn't need to believe in it, and she really 
 doesn't care about anything outside her emotions. If she 
 stays on that ground she's impregnable except on the one 
 day in the year." 
 
 The theory was interesting enough, thought Maurice, 
 but it didn't fit the new fact. However, he kept that rp- 
 mark to himself, and they walked on, without saying 
 anything, to the station where they stopped to say " good- 
 bye." 
 
 '* You know a good deal more about these things than I 
 do," said Dennis, " but I think those very Greeks who, 
 you say, managed to conceive this harmony and express it, 
 rather left women out of it, didn't they ? " 
 
 " I believe they did, now you remind me." 
 
 " Well, good-bye." 
 
 " Good-bye. I suppose I shall be seeing you again soon." 
 
 Maurice had something to occupy him on his journey 
 home. He was not wondering about his feelings, as he 
 generally did, but he took an instinctive delight in re- 
 creating certain scenes of the evening. He did not have to 
 exert himself very much, for the whole episode seemed to 
 resolve itself into one or two pictures in which he could see 
 himself plainly, one where he was tilting back his chair and 
 nervously watching Cradock's face as though his life 
 depended on his not turning to Mrs. Cradock, while she 
 listened to Dennis's poetry. Though he was not looking at 
 her he saw her plainly, her arms leant on the table, draped 
 in some greyish gauze, her eyes smiling a little, yet intent 
 upon Dennis, and again he wanted to call out to her that 
 she must look at him and speak to him. In the other, he 
 
42 STILL LIFE 
 
 was leaning anxiously against the mantelpiece, talking 
 rapidly, while Mrs. Cradock leaned back in her chair and 
 looked at him, a little apprehensive ; she was gripping 
 the arms of her chair very tightly as though to stifle some- 
 thing in herself, yet her eyes were smiling at him. He 
 wondered why she was so anxious, and what she was trying 
 to control. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 " GORGEOUS morning, Anne." Cradock entered the break- 
 fast-room as though he were taking a fence. His vigour was 
 not particularly due to the morning sun, which shone 
 through the windows on this late March morning. A forcible 
 radiation of physical energy at the breakfast-table was 
 habitual with him. When his wife was there before him 
 as to-day, she became apprehensive of the brusqueness of 
 his entrance, and would wait nervously for the sound of 
 his heavy descent of the stairs, three at a time. This 
 morning she had waited in suspense. At his entrance she 
 started and recovered herself. 
 
 "It is good," she said, with a trace of emphasis, of 
 which she alone was aware. " You look very fit, Jim." 
 
 " Do I ? " He laughed and reddened, as a schoolboy 
 embarrassed and being told that he is quite a man. " Well, 
 I feel fit, anyhow. Nothing could touch me on a morning 
 like this except perhaps being kept off my food. I'm 
 going for a walk somewhere. You should too. The 
 morning's made for it." It was no question of their going 
 together, for by old experience they knew that the task of 
 keeping pace with Cradock's energetic stride was too much 
 for his wife, while he felt irked and miserable when he 
 reduced his pace to hers. Besides, Mrs. Cradock liked to 
 go out alone. 
 
 " Perhaps I shall," she said. 
 
 The sunlight was not without its effect upon him. 
 " Perhaps we might go together as far as the Park corner," 
 he said. " It's good to dawdle a bit in the sun." 
 
 She smiled a little at the way he referred to any walk 
 together. " Well, we'll see." There was a pause, during 
 
44 STILL LIFE 
 
 which she leant forward on her elbows, and watched him 
 at his breakfast, waiting for his next words. 
 
 " How d'you like the boy Temple ? You went to bed 
 so quickly last night, I didn't have time to ask you. They 
 made a queer party. The two of them quite put the 
 Fortescues out of their bearings. But I enjoyed it." 
 
 " So did I." 
 
 " He's a quaint child, though. I've never known him 
 go funny like that before. I sometimes wonder whether 
 he looks after himself. He often rattles away a good deal 
 when he comes to see me at the office. But I've never 
 known him take things so seriously as he did last night. 
 Perhaps it's the combination of him and Beauchamp. 
 They're always talking together. Anyhow, he's very 
 young." 
 
 " Yes. . . . What does he do ? " 
 
 " To tell the truth, I don't quite know. He sometimes 
 reviews a book for us, but very seldom. I don't know that 
 he does anything. Sometimes he tutors people lordlings. 
 I think he's quite a good scholar. Once I believe he told 
 me he was going in for an examination for some Museum. 
 At all events he doesn't do very much. I don't think he 
 quite knows what he's up to. But he's only a youngster, 
 after all." 
 
 " Yes, he is very young. So young, that you can't have 
 really any opinion about him. His philosophy is very 
 much the same thing as poetry in other young men, just 
 a symptom of their age. But I like him because he takes 
 himself so seriously, and yet he's not offensive. I never 
 saw a boy so intensely ashamed of himself as he was after 
 his speech. I like him for that." 
 
 " I didn't notice it, though." 
 
 '' You wouldn't, would you, Jim ? Own to it. It's 
 hardly your forte to notice people's feelings, is it ? " 
 
 " I suppose you're right. But I don't see why." 
 
 " Well, do you know what my feelings are now ? Have 
 you the faintest idea of what I am really thinking ? " 
 
STILL LIFE 45 
 
 "You're too deep." Cradock was undecided between 
 seriousness and a smile. "But I don't believe you're 
 really thinking of anything in particular except perhaps 
 what you'll wear when you go out this morning." 
 
 Mrs. Cradock looked at him hard for a second, then her 
 lips laughed amusedly. 
 
 " Oh, Jim. You're altogether too obvious, my darling. 
 I think I should be better doing the theatres myself ; 
 don't you, now ? " 
 
 " I'm sure you would." 
 
 " If only you believed it. ... You're very simple, Jim, 
 not a day older than when you came down from Oxford. 
 Women well there are just sheep and goats. And a good 
 solid thing it was to start your first-nighting with. It's 
 lasted well too. . . . Only I do wish you would tell me, 
 just once, whether I'm a sheep or a goat. We'll take it 
 for granted that I'm a woman." 
 
 " Not a bit of use teasing me, Anne. You're really 
 quite proud of me, but you don't like to show it. You 
 know that I understand you. That's why you won't give 
 up the mystery of the femme incomprise." 
 
 " I shouldn't be at all surprised if you were right. 
 Sometimes you're very profound for a blockhead. But 
 what I was going to ask was Do you think Mr. Temple 
 will ever be any older ? Is he meant to grow up or not ? " 
 
 " Only got to fall in love." Cradock spoke of something 
 incredibly simple, too evident for words. " I've told him 
 so already, myself. He'd have a tremendous idyll with a 
 milkmaid or a miller's daughter full of passion if he 
 were only put in the way of it. I can see myself sitting at 
 my desk and listening to raptures about celestial beauty." 
 
 " Looking forward to it already, in fact." 
 
 " So would you. Obviously he hasn't the least idea of 
 what a woman is, really. I like to think of his eyes being 
 opened." Cradock paused. " Not but what it frightens 
 me a little. It's rather awful to think that he may very 
 well run away with a servant or a chorus girl any quite 
 
46 STILL LIFE 
 
 impossible person. He might never get over it when he 
 discovers that the happiness won't last for ever." 
 
 " I don't know. . . . But I should have thought that 
 he was a great deal too worried about himself to tumble in 
 like that." 
 
 " They're just the kind that do, my dear Anne. It's a 
 commonplace. All great scientists marry their own cooks. 
 Young ones and poets marry somebody else's. . . . But, 
 seriously, it's these young men who have their eyes fixed 
 on the heavenly kingdom, who fall into ditches in the 
 earthly. It's only natural." 
 
 " Very likely. But I believe you've got some inside 
 information. This young man has confided in you already ? 
 He's in love ? " 
 
 " Not a bit of it. I was only giving you the fruit of my 
 experience. But what makes you think he's in love ? " 
 
 " I don't. As I said, I thought that you might have 
 some practical reason for your theory. It's hardly one of 
 your habits to theorise, is it ? " 
 
 " Isn't it ? ... I believe you've got something up your 
 sleeve." 
 
 " How could I have ? . . . Oh, one of these feminine 
 intuitions, you mean ? " 
 
 Cradock nodded, smiling. 
 
 " Nothing, as far as I know," said Mrs. Cradock. 
 
 " If it was true, I'd like to know the woman." 
 
 " So would I." 
 
 " I hope, for his sake, she won't be quite too terrible." 
 
 Cradock rose from the table. He went round to the 
 other side and regarded his wife with admiration. He had a 
 habit of kissing her after meals. Before he did so, he said : 
 " You're fine this morning, Anne. I think those gauzy 
 things you're wearing are very good, very good indeed. 
 A kind of wedding garment effect." Then he bent over 
 her. She rose and stood close to him while they both 
 looked out of the window on to the garden which lay 
 between them and the road. Already a general green was 
 
STILL LIFE 47 
 
 perceptible in the blackened wood of the hedge by the 
 railings. 
 
 " I wonder if you are so clever as you make out," said 
 Cradock, looking down at his wife's face. 
 
 " I wonder . . ." she said. " More so, if anything." 
 
 Anne Cradock sat in her bedroom looking at her face in 
 the mirror. She was exhilarated by the conversation and 
 the morning, and the sight of the blood which had mounted 
 to her cheeks, and was now pulsing and fluttering there 
 before her, made her very happy. She found it hard to 
 stop looking at herself to see whether the blood had faded. 
 She brought her face closer and closer to the glass until 
 she could see the tiniest veins, and her colour seemed to 
 be more broken. Then she laughed. " Oh, you are an 
 absurdity ! " she said. She began to feel that the remark 
 was only half-convincing, and she was thinking about it 
 still while she unfastened the dress she was wearing, but 
 soon she decided it would be silly to go on thinking, 
 because the excitement was too good to be destroyed, nor 
 could she have subdued it. She was hunting among her 
 dresses for something to wear. It was not because she did 
 not like the white " wedding garment " which she had 
 just taken off, but because she wanted something else. 
 Soon she found a blouse that was made of some grey- 
 mauve muslin, and she began to put it on, looking at 
 herself very closely in the mirror as she fastened her collar, 
 and talking to herself. 
 
 " I should like to know why you choose this ? " she 
 said. 
 
 " Because it's spring, yet it's not really spring. It 
 only looks like a blue sky for a moment ; but it's really 
 grey." 
 
 " Anne, you're getting romantic ; and rather a liar." 
 
 She looked at herself for quite a long while without 
 speaking. Then quickly tip-toed to the door and turned 
 the key, while her heart throbbed. Then she sat down in 
 a chair in front of the long mirror and clasped one kn<v 
 
48 STILL LIFE 
 
 above the other with her hands, looking at her shoes, and 
 turning at moments to catch herself in her mirrored 
 reflection. A knock sounded on the door, then Jim's 
 voice : " Are you ready ? We're going up to the Park 
 together, aren't we ? " 
 
 " Oh, it's hopeless, Jim. I've been writing a letter. 
 I shall never be ready now. You'll have to go without 
 me." 
 
 " Right ! Mind you go out though. It's too good to 
 miss. See you at dinner. Good-bye ! " 
 
 " Good-bye. Take care of yourself." 
 
 She was excited by her own unexpectedness. She 
 wondered why she had made the excuse to avoid going 
 out with him the few hundred yards to the Park, and yet 
 she knew that she had never for a moment intended to 
 accompany him. Rocking to and fro on her chair she 
 assured herself that she really preferred to be alone, 
 because she could notice things to her heart's content 
 without being incessantly moved on by Jim's eagerness 
 for action, and that her reluctance was natural and usual. 
 Moreover, she was glad to be alone and with her own 
 thoughts that morning, and although she might enjoy 
 playing with Jim's naive unconsciousness, it soon became 
 wearisome. She was excited enough already, and already 
 tired with excitement, but glad that the whole day was 
 before her for her occupations. She would go out immedi- 
 ately. At the door she turned with the impulse to look at 
 herself in the mirror once more, and as she turned she saw 
 the sunlight spotting the floor of her room. " Yes, it's a 
 wonderful day," she said to herself. She went to the 
 mirror again. " I'm young enough," she said. 
 
 Mrs. Cradock ran downstairs, calling to the maid, with 
 whom she nearly collided at the stair-foot, laughing. 
 " Isn't it a splendid morning, Richardson ? " 
 
 " Yes, m'm, the buds are quite out in the garden. . . . 
 You called me ? " 
 
 k I feel very happy. I never believe Spring can do it, 
 
STILL LIFE 49 
 
 until it does." She had spoken to herself. "Oh! 
 what nonsense. What was it I wanted ? ... oh, 
 my bag. Have you seen it ? I've left it about some- 
 where." 
 
 "I've not yet seen it, m'm. But the drawing-room 
 hasn't been done yet. Perhaps it's there." 
 
 " Yes, it is, ... I remember now. I had it yesterday 
 evening. Thank you." She entered the drawing-room, 
 and rescued her bag from the corner of her chair, then 
 dropped into the chair and stared at the mantelpiece. 
 The room was remote and very quiet. A little brass vase 
 was lying on its side on the mantel-corner. No one had 
 set it up again since Temple's agitated shoulder had 
 knocked it over. She tapped with her fingers upon the 
 arm of her chair, regarding it, and as she pulled herself 
 to her feet again, " It's too much," she said. 
 
 Of the beauty of the day there could be no doubt. 
 Mrs. Cradock was happy with the childish thought that 
 it was all her own. One or two hard little balls of white 
 cloud gravely rested high in the blue sky. A tree which 
 stood between the church and the motor-car shop was 
 filled with the voices of many birds. On the tall buildings 
 men in white jackets were swinging in cradles, painting 
 the stained and dirty surface, and the new colour gleamed 
 and dazzled in the sun. She stood still for several minutes 
 with her head bent back to watch a cradle gradually swing 
 higher and higher until it reached the level of the chimney- 
 pots. A man holding fast to the roof coping gingerly felt 
 for the cradle with his foot, and cautiously lowered himself 
 into it. Vaguely she speculated whether he would fall, 
 and at length decided that it would be useless to wait, 
 because they never do. She watched until she felt that 
 everybody round must be looking at her to see whether 
 she would ever lower her head again. She walked on 
 quickly with her head bent so that no passer-by could see 
 her until she reached the corner of -the Park, when she 
 dared to look at the road again. 
 
50 STILL LIFE 
 
 The omnibuses were toy omnibuses, the motor-cars were 
 toy motor-cars, and the people were for all the world tin 
 soldiers or their brothers ; everything seemed to be going 
 very fast, while she looked upon it all from an immense 
 distance above, as though it were a wonderful game spread 
 out and set in motion for her delight. The feeling, for 
 all its strangeness, was somehow familiar, and she cast 
 about to discover what it had recalled to her mind. She 
 had known the same smallness, the same brightness, and 
 the same delight in her busy surroundings in foreign 
 cities. Perhaps it was that the scene reminded her of Paris 
 by its very arrangement of buildings and spaces, but, 
 while she thought, she knew that this likeness was only 
 accidental, although the same spring sun and the un- 
 wonted clearness of the air may have counted for some- 
 thing. But what she chiefly remembered of her delight in 
 strange cities was the wonder of her sense of apartness, 
 and the impregnable security in herself, when all the 
 familiar things about her were suddenly foreign and un- 
 familiar, and she had nothing more to do than to indulge 
 her curiosity in an agitated and slightly ridiculous life 
 with which she had no real connection. Yes, she knew 
 she was the same isolated and infinitely amused spectator 
 of a little world of toys, and to-day the carelessness which 
 had always been inseparable from that sensation had 
 strong hold of her ; but after all, the Park Gate was a 
 familiar place and the things that passed by it were 
 familiar things. She would like to sit down and think 
 a little. 
 
 Mrs. Cradock passed under the archway ; and as she 
 passed she was compelled to ask the policeman which was 
 the way to the Marble Arch, although she knew it per- 
 fectly well. The policeman told her smiling. She felt she 
 had been found out, and hurried away, until she reached a 
 seat where the policeman could see her no more. Immedi- 
 ately she was tired with the intoxication of the spring air, 
 and far too lazy to think, she said to herself. And she sat 
 
STILL LIFE 51 
 
 still for a long time with her eyes closed, drowsily happy to 
 feel that the blood was hurrying about in her veins and 
 conscious only of her eager bodily existence. Even she 
 clasped her hands together, knowing that they were already 
 too hot, in order that she might feel the goodness of her 
 own flesh. And she wondered why it should be improper 
 for her to pass her hands down her legs and delight herself 
 in the sense that they were firm and hard. " I really do 
 belong to another world," she said, opening her eyes. 
 " To-day, at any rate," she added. 
 
 This reminded her that she had really come to the seat 
 to think why she believed the world was strange to-day. 
 It was quite easy to understand a feeling like this when 
 you were in Paris ; because everything is different there ; 
 the omnibuses look like trains on the Underground, the 
 trains look as though they had been filled with chocolates, 
 when they are clean ; and the trams looked like nothing 
 at all. But in London ? Perhaps there was one day in 
 the year when everything changes suddenly, and that one 
 day was to-day, and to-day was the beginning of real 
 Spring. It might very well be a matter of light and sun 
 and nothing more. " Too thin," she said to herself, " at 
 all events I've never noticed it before." She prodded the 
 gravel with the point of her umbrella. " Besides that's 
 exactly what Jim felt this morning." 
 
 The answer was final. If one thing seemed above all 
 others certain to her that morning, it was that her excite- 
 ment had nothing to do with his. Beyond that she would 
 not go, suspecting that were she to be too exacting in her 
 search she might discover something that would perturb 
 her. A wind blew about her, and behind, some flower- 
 leaves rustled against each other, and she turned to look 
 at them, amused to find that they were so smaD. She 
 realised that all her thinking was not doing very much 
 good, although she had spent a very long time over it, 
 but she refused to get up until she had decided upon what 
 she was going to do next. " You really want someone 
 
52 STILL LIFE 
 
 with you on these occasions," she said impersonally, 
 " otherwise it's not very much fun doing something 
 though it's excellent to do nothing by yourself." However 
 it was nearly lunch-time, she reflected, and it would take 
 some time to get to a restaurant. With this immediate 
 purpose to control her she rose and walked along to the 
 Marble Arch, not so carelessly as she had entered the Park. 
 Somehow she felt rather cold and depressed. She felt 
 infinitely removed from the people round her, but she 
 didn't delight in them any more. They seemed rather more 
 giant than pigmy, after all. The sun was not so very 
 warm, and the sky was cast with grey. " I was quite right 
 about the blouse," she said as she ran up the stairs of an 
 omnibus. 
 
 She was cheered by her own remark, and as she rode in 
 the front seat she was buoyed up by her inward con- 
 viction that she was perfectly and appropriately dressed. 
 She regarded her shoes with complaisance while she con- 
 sidered what would be good for lunch. But the imagina- 
 tion did not please her long. Lunch was quite unimportant, 
 even annoying, for it wasted time. If only she knew what 
 she could do afterwards. " You knew all along," she said 
 to herself, and then she began to laugh impatiently, as 
 though she had foolishly betrayed a confidence and was 
 in haste to forget all about it. 
 
 Lunch was silly, intolerable. People she did not know 
 stared at her, and she detested them. One or two whom 
 she knew spoke to her and she detested them more 
 fervently, because they robbed her of her secrecy, and 
 revealed her hiding-place. 
 
 " Don't often see you here, Mrs. Cradock," said one 
 assiduous young civil servant. " You always seem to be 
 so busy. I suppose the Spring's hit you to-day. I think 
 everybody's affected by it." 
 
 " I'm enjoying it," she said, gravely. 
 
 " So'm I. Besides I've managed to get off early for 
 once in a way." 
 
STILL LIFE 53 
 
 " So I see. I never remember to have seen you here 
 after two o'clock before. I hope you enjoy yourself." 
 
 ;< You do remember things. . . . Are you doing any- 
 thing this afternoon ? If not, might I go with you some- 
 where ? Theatre, pictures, anything I should love to." 
 
 " Thanks, but I'm engaged already at three o'clock. 
 I'm rather late now." She looked hurriedly at the 
 clock and called loudly for the waiter, in order to be rid 
 of Mr. Mortimer. 
 
 Mrs. Cradock was not very good at excuses, generally. 
 She had a foolish way of falling into the most obvious 
 invitation-traps, and a particularly foolish habit of sending 
 palpably ridiculous telegrams at the last moment, and 
 then, in an inevitable burst of self-accusation, following 
 with all speed in person, and steering through the inevitable 
 explanations, with an unexpected sang-froid. She knew 
 therefore, that the engagement at three o'clock was not 
 exactly an excuse, although it certainly was not a reality. 
 " But I had decided to go there early this morning," she 
 answered in her own defence. There was no way out of 
 the dilemma. Either she had decided to go there early 
 this morning, in which case she had been engaged in de- 
 ceiving herself all the day ; or she had never decided at 
 all, and it was merely an excuse to get rid of Mr. Mortimer. 
 Triumphantly she rebutted her own logic. " I decided 
 just on the spur of the moment, although the idea had 
 been at the back of my mind all day. I thought in bed 
 this morning I might go to the British Museum, but it 
 depended. Now I have decided." She slowly counted out 
 money from her purse. 
 
 " I'm complex," she said, " yes, that's it," while she 
 gathered her belongings, smiling as she nodded to the 
 acquaintances but lately detested. " It's interesting." 
 
 Walking 'quickly from the restaurant towards the 
 Museum Mrs. Cradock tingled with an involuntary excite- 
 ment. Neither the road to the Museum nor the Museum 
 itself were very new, and she had made the same journey 
 
54 STILL LIFE 
 
 at the same hour many times before ; but never with the 
 same pulsing of excited apprehension. She had nothing 
 more to expect than before. Indeed she was not one to be 
 moved profoundly by anything in the Museum except 
 that which she had made peculiarly her own like the 
 room of the Elgin Marbles. It was so much her own 
 that she felt intimate and careless among them, as though 
 she were at home in her own room, and the acceptance of 
 the Marbles into intimacy had begun many years before 
 when she and some six other young ladies were regularly 
 conducted thither by their college drawing-master to make 
 meticulous copies of the Parthenon pediment. It may 
 have been she felt differently towards them now, and that 
 they had a more deeply potent relation to her, because the 
 Elgin Room had become a sure refuge and her principal 
 asylum. The Marbles always soothed her, and she liked 
 to ascribe her quieting to a mysterious potency belonging 
 to them alone, although truly she spent most of her time 
 before them in thinking of her delightful drawing after- 
 noons. Although there were always these delights to be 
 expected from a visit to the room, they were old and 
 familiar delights, to which she could look forward with 
 the security of a moment's promised peace. Her blood 
 ran no faster before them, but rather its motion was abated, 
 and in the slow composing of her agitations, while she 
 walked under the successive archways in the dark red 
 walls, chiefly consisted their perpetual attraction. But 
 to-day she was ascending the wide steps with stranger 
 feelings. The nearer she approached the room the more 
 agitated she was, and as she passed under the last doorway 
 and saw the straight line of the familiar pediment stretch- 
 ing up and away from her, she felt faint and sick. She 
 had had a dim belief that somehow everything would be 
 changed to more magnificent, and there instead were the 
 red walls and the yellow varnished seats, all as she remem- 
 bered them, but now a little dirtier and more ordinary 
 than her memory. She sat down upon a seat that was 
 
STILL LIFE 55 
 
 hers by prescriptive right and stared at the " Three Fates," 
 wondering if these things really had any influence upon 
 her. She suspected that her words, spoken on the previous 
 night, now so distant, were merely words. If there were 
 any truth in them it could be proved now, for now if ever 
 she felt the need of security and calm. 
 
 Then she laughed out loud, not caring if all the keepers 
 in the whole Museum should apprehend her. " Sheer self- 
 hypnotism," she said. She was a bad subject that day, 
 and very rebellious, knowing that the attempt to compose 
 herself forcibly was bound to fail. She looked about her 
 fearfully, and then began to walk behind the pedestals, 
 half to hide herself, half to search. 
 
 " Good afternoon, Mrs. Cradock," said Maurice. 
 
 She said, " Good afternoon," and scrutinised him closely 
 from behind her veil. He looked whiter even than she felt, 
 and she knew he was sick with joy and fear. 
 
 " How strange that we should meet. ..." 
 
 " I came to see if what we said last night is really 
 true, Mr. Temple." 
 
 "So did I." He looked on to the floor. "What's the 
 use of lying ? I've been waiting here with the one idea 
 that you might come. I can't say anything at all about it 
 now, you see." He threw his head back and laughed. It 
 was a curious melodramatic laugh, as of the hero about to 
 kill himself. There seemed to be no relation between it 
 and his words. 
 
 " Have you had any lunch, Mr. Temple ? Jim my 
 husband told me that you don't look after yourself. It's 
 silly." 
 
 Maurice was slightly offended. 
 
 " Yes, thank you," he said precisely. " Besides, it will 
 be tea-time soon." 
 
 " Did you say that you have been waiting here with the 
 idea that I might come ? Why, it's the merest chance that 
 I did. I happened to be lunching out not far away, and 
 it's one of my favourite resting-places." 
 
56 STILL LIFE 
 
 " I felt sure it would be, somehow after last night," 
 he added. " That's why I came." 
 
 " Do you seriously mean to say that you came here to 
 see me ? " 
 
 She felt suddenly that it was unfair to hide any longer 
 behind her veil, yet she dared not put her veil up. 
 
 " Yes, I did," he said stubbornly. " I wanted to see 
 you, and I didn't know how. Then I thought you might 
 be here." He spoke hurriedly. ; ' Then I felt sure of it, 
 and I said to myself if she's there, then it will be all right, 
 certain. So it was." He was staring at the shining 
 grating beneath his feet, his hands in his pockets, tapping 
 with one shoe. " Oh, I'm an awful fool." 
 
 " What will be all right, Mr. Temple ? Do I get it too ? 
 I'm fond of good omens." 
 
 " Oh, don't you know ? Don't you ever do it ? Some- 
 times, if you get into bed before the clock strikes it's 
 all right, and if you don't it's bad. Sometimes I have to 
 take off my shirt in bed." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " She had control of herself now 
 and of the conversation. Then, as though recollecting 
 herself, " I know. It's the same as always stepping on 
 the crack between the paving stones. If you don't miss, 
 everything's all right." 
 
 ;< Yes, that's it. It's just the same." 
 
 " So it's all right after aU. I'm glad. I'd like to think 
 you were going to have good luck." 
 
 He paused a moment. " But it's not only me, you 
 know." He checked himself. " You must think I'm 
 mad," he said simply. 
 
 " No, I don't, really. I'm every bit as mad myself. 
 I know exactly what you mean. Besides, I'm glad to have 
 met you here. But let's go and look at something." 
 
 " I'm no good to-day, Mrs. Cradock. I've been looking 
 at things too long. They seem to wobble a bit in my eyes." 
 
 " I believe you've been waiting here a very long while. 
 Didn't you see me when I came in at first ? " 
 
STILL LIFE 57 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Why didn't you speak to me, then ? " 
 
 " I thought you were upset about something. Besides, 
 I couldn't have walked up to you. I hadn't got the nerve 
 then. It took a frightful lot of doing, afterwards." 
 
 She understood perfectly, yet she wanted to hear him 
 explain. 
 
 " But you're not frightened of me, are you ? " 
 
 " Oh, no. That's not it." 
 
 " What was it ? Do tell me ? " 
 
 ;< You can't explain it, really. I just hadn't got the 
 nerve. It seemed so important, and I felt that I'd rather 
 not try than mess everything up. You see, you might just 
 have nodded and gone on. I don't know what I would 
 have done then. Or you might not even have noticed me. 
 I think that would have been better than the other. But 
 I'm not telling you anything. You know what I mean, 
 don't you ? " 
 
 Mrs. Cradock nodded " Yes " very slowly. 
 
 " But still I did manage it, after all." 
 
 He smiled as though he expected her to acknowledge an 
 achievement. 
 
 " Are you pleased ? " she said instead. 
 
 " Oh, yes." He stopped suddenly. " At least, I don't 
 know. I'm not sure. But are you ? please tell me." 
 
 " Shall we go outside ? It's rather stuffy in here, and 
 it's a wonderful day outside. We're not looking out for 
 harmonies very much, are we ? Although they're what 
 we really came for." 
 
 They moved together through the gallery, both treading 
 bravely, even noisily, because they were fearful of their 
 footsteps. Maurice, she saw, was nervous and restless, 
 and she longed to put up her veil to reassure him, but she 
 had not the courage. He, able to divine nothing from her 
 expression and little from her voice, in which he seemed 
 always to detect a note of raillery which frightened him, 
 was so agitated and apprehensive that he made random 
 
58 STILL LIFE 
 
 and incoherent remarks, and she made haste to answer as 
 though she understood. 
 
 " We ought to be processional through the doorways 
 just like an old temple one after the other," he said. 
 
 " Yes, I always feel that. I have a great idea sometimes 
 that I'm a priestess of Isis." She wondered whether " one 
 after the other " meant that they were so to walk, or 
 referred to the vista of doorways. " Isis, yes, that's me," 
 she laughed. " I must have a degenerate mind. I don't 
 know how many times I've looked at the women on the 
 frieze with the robe and admired them, and yet I want to 
 be something to do with Isis. I think I like a mystery 
 in a woman. Too much transparence is insipid." She 
 knew that she was talking foolishly to save him a little ; 
 but her words began to alarm her. She felt she dared to 
 say nothing that was untrue, because she was being taken 
 seriously in every word. " And yet I must be honest. 
 Yes, I should be a poor Isis, when I come to think of it." 
 
 " Perhaps you would. I don't know. But you can't 
 get away from the mystery altogether. I can't. The more 
 honest I try to be the more I seem to deceive myself and 
 other people." 
 
 " I know what you mean. At least, I think I do. When 
 I try to straighten myself out, there's always two of me. 
 One's absolutely honest and callous, the other's just secret. 
 The trouble is I don't quite believe in either of them. 
 There, I'm being what Mrs. Fortescue would call a mystic. 
 . . . That's what always happens. If I try to be honest 
 I'm unintelligible." 
 
 " Oh, no, you're not. That's just it." He was eager in 
 assent. They were standing on the top of the steps 
 vaguely looking towards the pigeons in the courtyard. 
 " I suppose a woman has even more of it than a man, 
 because she has so many more opportunities for running 
 up against it." 
 
 " How do you mean exactly ? " 
 
 " Well, I always think that men have a fixed idea about 
 
STILL LIFE 59 
 
 women. They generally say they don't understand them, 
 which is just as big a lie as saying that they do, it's just 
 the same lie, really, because it means that they never 
 believe that there's anything to understand. So a woman 
 has only to play with the outside of her mind to satisfy 
 them completely. All the time really she's working back 
 on herself into her own mind. 
 
 " I don't say men are very different with men," he went 
 on, " but they do allow the eccentric and they are curious 
 about him. They do try to get behind a little sometimes. 
 But I suppose there are all sorts of women. I don't know 
 very much about them." He raised his eyes from the 
 ground and looked for a moment directly at her. " You 
 see I'm nearly saying the same thing as the other men. 
 But I never said there weren't any difficulties. It would 
 take some work to get behind Mrs. Fortescue, wouldn't 
 it?" 
 
 " Yes, I think it would. I don't know anything about 
 her, at all events. I think you're right, in general, though. 
 Let's go and have that tea. It's time." 
 
 Mrs. Cradock ran down the steps and Maurice followed. 
 He had tried deviously to tell her that he thought that her 
 mind was like his own, and he suspected that he had done 
 it ridiculously. Nevertheless she had helped him and 
 listened to him, even agreed with him. But he was still 
 nervous lest she should think him wearisome and awkward. 
 Yet for all his misgivings he was glad to be with her, and 
 his gladness coloured everything. If only he could stop 
 and take count, and know what she felt. Two phrases 
 continually danced about in his mind while he walked 
 with her along the narrow street. " He's a nice boy " 
 repeated itself. It sounded like a music-hall song. 
 
 " We shan't have much more of this sun," said Mrs. 
 Cradock. " It's getting thin and cold already." 
 
 " No," he said automatically. He had noticed nothing 
 of it all the day. " Have more pity on yourself more 
 pity on yourself " echoed in his brain. 
 
60 STILL LIFE 
 
 In a cushioned corner that overlooked the street, they 
 sat saying nothing. He looked sideways at her, pretending 
 that he was dreamy, so that he could regard her the more 
 carefully. Through the veil, which was heavy and chequered 
 with black, he could see little more than the light in her 
 eyes. Yet something was perfectly familiar to him, and 
 he thought that it must be the shape of her neck. But he 
 felt vaguely that it was something more tangible, not merely 
 the neck but the framing of the neck. At his discovery he 
 nearly uttered a cry. The grey-mauve ruffle of gauze was 
 the same that she had worn last night. Yet it could not 
 be the same, for he remembered perfectly that she had 
 worn a long dress, not a blouse. 
 
 " Day-dreaming, Mr. Temple ? " she said. And he 
 flushed. " The spring day makes me very tired, too. I'd 
 only just wakened myself." 
 
 " Oh, no, I wasn't dreaming." He was in haste to repel 
 the suggestion, reproachfully. " I was. . . . Perhaps I 
 was dreaming. ... It all depends. I wouldn't have 
 called it dreaming, though." 
 
 Tea was set before them, and Mrs. Cradock raised her 
 veil. Suddenly Maurice felt much more secure. 
 
 " What would you have called it then ? " she said smiling, 
 as she began to pour the tea. 
 
 " I don't know. I was interested in something, thinking 
 hard about it ; but I wasn't dreaming." 
 
 " What was it ? Please tell me." 
 
 He gulped the words out. " I am wondering whether 
 you wore that dress on purpose. It's the same as last 
 night, you see. It's fixed in my mind." At the same 
 moment, with the same words, he was asserting and defend- 
 ing himself. 
 
 " On purpose ! " she said. " Why should I ? What a 
 strange idea ! " 
 
 " I suppose it is. But I do have them sometimes 
 strange ideas . . . I'm very sorry." He paused a moment. 
 " D'you know what it is ? I'm frightened to death by the 
 
STILL LIFE 61 
 
 thought that you'll find me ridiculous. I'm quite . . . 
 helpless ! Oh ! " He jerked back his head in despair. 
 " Tell me what you think of me, really. I don't know 
 anything about you, and you know all about me. It's not 
 fair." 
 
 She leaned forward a little on the table and stretched 
 out her hand towards him until it touched his. He took it, 
 hopelessly, seeing in the gesture only one more incompre- 
 hensible. She clasped his hand firmly. " I like you very 
 much, Mr. Temple. I'm only anxious about you. Please 
 don't think I'm laughing at you. I couldn't do it." His 
 misery didn't seem to change. " Oh, what would you have 
 me do ? I'm happy to be with you. What do you want ? 
 You see it isn't a game for me. I wish I could make you 
 happy. Will it be any good if I say that I came here just 
 to see you, to-day ? . . . I did." 
 
 The astonishment first of incredulity, then of a sudden 
 conviction, seized him. 
 
 " I'm just a fool," he said desponding. " I didn't mean 
 to worry you like that. But I was so miserable. I am 
 all right now, though." Indeed he was smiling. Mrs. 
 Cradock still held his hand. " Why do you like me ? " he 
 said. 
 
 " How can I tell ? " 
 
 "I thought you'd know somehow. You see, I don't 
 know why I like you, except because you seem perfectly 
 different from any other woman. There is nothing to 
 take hold of in you and say, ' That's not good enough. 
 You're perfect. But I know I'm not. Anyone can see 
 that, and everybody knows it. So I thought perhaps 
 you'd know." 
 
 " I don't, really," she protested. 
 
 " But you don't think you'll be tired of me soon ? " 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 " But you don't know how happy I am now," he went 
 on. " I feel safe with you, and I never feel safe when I'm 
 alone. I haven't thought of anything else except you 
 
62 STILL LIFE 
 
 since last night, and that seems years ago. Somehow I 
 knew you would be there to-day, but everything said I 
 was a fool. And I waited and waited, but I always believed 
 you'd come, somehow." 
 
 She was glad that she had calmed him ; and in calming 
 him she had calmed herself. She too felt secure. " We 
 must go now," she said. 
 
 " Must we ? " 
 
 " Of course. I have to get home to dinner. We've been 
 here a long time." 
 
 " But we've hardly said anything." 
 
 " Why should we ? " 
 
 Maurice watched her pay, thinking of what the last 
 words might mean. He felt that he was being accused in 
 them, and rightly accused. She must have misunder- 
 stood what he meant by talking about things. He wanted 
 her to speak about herself. He wanted to tell her all about 
 himself too. Those things weren't unimportant ; yet he 
 felt that she was right. There really wasn't anything else 
 to say. The trouble was that she was infinitely bigger than 
 he. He was childish while she was serene. 
 
 They walked together through a square, whose solid 
 black buildings stood out against the sunset sky. He had 
 not noticed anything until she pointed out the beauty to 
 him, but he acquiesced. ; ' You're worrying about some- 
 thing still," she said. 
 
 " I want to know when I shall see you again. It's use- 
 less. I shall have to wait days and days. I don't know 
 what I shall do when you go away. I suppose I shan't 
 believe it for a long while. But I shall have to, and then 
 I don't know what I'll do." 
 
 His words struck suddenly cold upon her, cold and 
 heavy, heavy. Suddenly she was one of those women she 
 had seen at the end of a windy day bowed and beaten by 
 the weight of the dark heavy child they carried. She 
 longed to fling away this love, to lift up her arms and her 
 breast and be free. 
 
STILL LIFE 63 
 
 " We just can't see each other. It's impossible. You 
 can see that, can't you ? Oh, you must. . . ." She watched 
 his face, again her words were not her own. They shaped 
 themselves apart from her, on every movement of his eyes 
 and lips. " D'you think I don't want to see you ? No, 
 you can't think that. . . . But you don't know what it 
 means. You're a child. ... I don't mean that. But 
 things seem easy to you, and they're not." 
 
 Maurice stood still, looking at her, powerless before the 
 impossibility which he dimly saw. She comprehended so 
 much more than he. His simplicities were her complexities. 
 Her language would not translate into his, and he could 
 say nothing. 
 
 " Oh, it's no use worrying or planning," she went on. 
 " We can be happy enough sometimes, can't we Maurice?" 
 She used his name, desperately, tormenting herself, yet 
 hoping to conjure away the misery which threatened him 
 through her. " Yes, there will be plenty of opportunities, 
 if you come to think about it. After all," she laughed, 
 " we can't monopolise each other ? " 
 
 " But when ? " he said with the obstinacy of a child. 
 " It's all very well to say there will be plenty of oppor- 
 tunities. What's the good of that to me ? I can't go on 
 just waiting for opportunities. It would be like this 
 morning all over again, day after day. I can't stand it." 
 
 A momentary anger took possession of her again ; again 
 she was bowed and bent and beaten. 
 
 " But don't you, can't you, see that it's hard for 
 me ? ... Oh, don't let's muddle things to-day. I'll see 
 you to-morrow." 
 
 "Will you? Why, that's all I wanted." The ring 
 came back into his voice. 
 
 She could not help laughing. " Yes, that's all you 
 wanted," she repeated. " But I will. Don't be frightened." 
 All the traffic roared dizzily before their eyes as they 
 halted irresolutely on the kerb. The lights, dingy with 
 the last gleams of the sunlight, were dotted palely far 
 
64 STILL LIFE 
 
 away. " Don't let's go to the Museum again ; that's 
 over now." 
 
 " Yes," he said, uncomprehending. 
 
 " Where shall we meet, then ? It must be the after- 
 noon." 
 
 He hesitated. " Will you come to have tea with me ? 
 I wish you would. It would be wonderful. 37 Vauxhall 
 Embankment. . . . It's a funny place, and out of the 
 way. But I could meet you somewhere else and take you 
 there, if you would." 
 
 " I know where it is," she said, " and how to get there. 
 Yes I'll come, at half-past four. You'll be kind to me ? 
 I must go now." 
 
 He held out his hand. She had already half turned away 
 when she took it, and when he pressed it and tried to see 
 her face it was wholly turned away. He followed her 
 desperately with his eyes to see whether she would turn 
 round. She did not. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 IT was nearly dark when Anne Cradock reached home. 
 She was very cold and tired. She could not help, as she 
 rode upon an omnibus homewards, contrasting the ex- 
 hilaration with which she had set out and the numbness 
 that now invaded her. The brief light had shown only the 
 depth of the darkness in which she was enveloped. She 
 blindly comforted herself with the thought that something 
 would happen, because something was bound to happen. 
 She blamed herself for having sacrificed too much that 
 day, for having resigned her defences, her very self. Yet 
 she had left Maurice happy, and that was right, whatever 
 it should have cost to make him happy ; or rather it was 
 wrong to leave him unhappy. But why should a boy's 
 happiness tyrannise over her ? He was only a boy, whose 
 misery would be easily forgotten with another comforter. 
 She would not think of that again. 
 
 The green and white house looked obvious and paltry 
 when she stood before the gate. It was an enemy, too, 
 ready to swallow her up. The jaws yawned before 
 her as the door opened. A strong voice sounded from 
 above, echoing down the stairs. She was tired, and she 
 hated strong voices. Their strength was an insult, pointed 
 to remind her that she had forgotten the key by which 
 existence in that house was modulated. She flung herself 
 down upon a seat in the hall ; then, suddenly aware that 
 the maid was regarding her curiously, " I'm very tired. 
 The day has been too much for me." 
 
 " The master's calling you, rn'm." 
 
 Cradock was clattering violently down the stairs. She 
 
 F 65 
 
66 STILL LIFE 
 
 seemed to wake out of a dream of voices and attach the 
 strong and insistent one to him. She rose and saw him, 
 ludicrously big at the top of the narrow stairs. 
 
 " Hullo, Anne, you're late. Didn't you hear me ? " 
 
 " No, I don't think I did. I'm awfully tired. It must be 
 the beginning of spring." 
 
 " Yes, that's it. You've done too much to-day. Why, 
 you've been out since the morning ? " 
 
 " Yes, it must have been a long while." 
 
 " Cheer up. You want your dinner. I know I do. Only 
 ten minutes." 
 
 " I don't think I do, Jim. I'm frightfully tired, and 
 I've a headache. I'll go upstairs and rest." She knew 
 that she was no longer sure of herself, not even sure 
 enough to win through a dinner opposite to him, to engage 
 and answer him for half an hour. 
 
 " Oh." He looked disappointed. " I didn't know it was 
 as bad as that. I'm very sorry, Anne. And I have to go 
 to the play to-night. Would you rather that I didn't ? I 
 dare say I could manage to get Jamieson to go, I'm 
 sure I could." 
 
 "I'm a fraud, Jim. That's what's the matter. And 
 you're a great dear. But I shall probably be all right in half 
 an hour. Please don't worry young Jamieson again. It's 
 not at all serious. Besides, even if it were, I should only 
 get worse by thinking that Jamieson was doing it instead 
 of you, and making a mess of everything. I hate anybody 
 else doing your work. It's bad enough when you're ill 
 yourself." 
 
 " I do like doing it, that's true." 
 
 She began to mount the stairs. " Well, then . . . Good- 
 bye. . . . But you'll come and look at me before you go. 
 Don't go telephoning to old Gumming behind my back. 
 I'd never forgive you, if he came round and felt my pulse. 
 4 My dear lady, j^ou've been overdoing it.' Though he 
 knows it's a perfect sham. It really is, you know. But I 
 think I enjoy shams." 
 
STILL LIFE 67 
 
 "All right, I won't, honour bright. I'll give you the 
 guinea though a reward for economy." 
 
 " Admirable." Fatigue was in her voice, in the word 
 itself. " Don't forget there's a new bottle of Vermouth." 
 
 She saw him take out a cigarette-case as she turned the 
 corner. Her room was lighted by the flames of a newly 
 kindled fire. She turned the key in the lock. 
 
 She lay comfortably in an armchair and contemplated 
 herself in the mirror. " You're pale," she said. " You 
 look tired, very tired." 
 
 Anne Cradock was thirty-two years old, and to-night 
 the darker shadows under her eyes and a curious pallor in 
 her face lent to her a certain agelessness. She was 
 pleased to find herself mysterious to-night, as though 
 suddenly she had beheld an aspect of herself hidden from 
 her ordinary eyes, and could enjoy the sight of it without 
 any afterthought of vanity. . . . 
 
 The position was ridiculous. She was allowing her- 
 self to fall in love with a boy who talked about " har- 
 monies of the soul." That was foolishness number one. 
 She duly ticked it of! upon her fingers, glad to intro- 
 duce something solid into the confusion of her thoughts 
 and feelings. Secondly, she had wanted to fall in love 
 with him. It was proved. She had meant all the 
 while to go and look for him in the Museum that day. 
 Thirdly, he was very young, a boy, and though he prob- 
 ably imagined that he was in love with her, he did not 
 know anything about it. Fourthly, she had pledged her- 
 self to go and see him in his rooms to-morrow, which was 
 reprehensible and childish. Fifthly, she had allowed him 
 to fall in love with her, or to imagine that he had fallen in 
 love with her, all in one day, though she might perfectly 
 well have done nothing of the sort. . . . 
 
 She made a petulant gesture of restraint, displeased 
 because she realised that her arguments were superficial 
 and wholly unrelated to the truth which she felt, disgusted 
 at her own helplessness before the mechanical triviality of 
 
68 STILL LIFE 
 
 her thought, which would not engage with the reality. 
 She could exert no compulsion upon it. All that she could 
 do was to stop the ineffectual revolutions of her mind, and 
 to allow herself to collapse, thinking of nothing at all. 
 
 As she lay back in the chair, outstretched towards the 
 fire, vague sensations of fatigue, of isolation and of warmth 
 clouded about her, but after a moment there began an 
 insistent undertone, though not sensation and hardly 
 thought, yet strangely real. At first it seemed to be a 
 consciousness of wrong-doing. At the suggestion her mind 
 was once more alert. She refused to admit, as she had 
 always refused to admit, any obligation upon her emotions. 
 Faithlessness towards her husband was an impossibility. 
 The word no longer fitted the act in her case. There was 
 too much honesty in their genuine affection and too much 
 indifference in their mutual aloofness to admit of any 
 tragic interpretation of a fact which they both understood. 
 She would do what she liked securely, confident, because 
 she had never pretended to do anything else. But now 
 she was neither secure nor confident. Something in the 
 quality of the day's happenings was wrong, and the wrong 
 had been done to herself, even though for a moment she 
 persisted in regarding it as wrong done to the boy. " I 
 have cheapened myself in his eyes." It was untrue. The 
 faith which Maurice had so obviously given to her had in it 
 no element of calculation or criticism. Besides, she had 
 done nothing which he might criticise. She was ashamed 
 of nothing in the day. It was a regret, a mistake which 
 now occupied her. She had succumbed to an overwhelm- 
 ing pity for a nature which she understood, she thought, 
 completely, and pity would not last them long. Inevitably 
 each would demand something more, she the more quickly 
 by far, something which could not be given. Why, she was 
 seeking for it now, and blaming herself because she had 
 ventured so much without it. 
 
 She stretched her hands behind her neck and clasped 
 them. The attitude expressed her relief that she had come 
 
STILL LIFE 69 
 
 to some understanding of what had happened to her that 
 day. She laughed at herself a little, as her habit was, be- 
 cause her conclusions always seemed transparently plain. 
 " No one would believe that I have to work hard to get 
 there," she said to herself. Everything was straight- 
 forward. It would not really be very difficult to explain to 
 the boy. She could talk her own language to him, confident 
 that he would understand the Tightness of her deci? ; on. 
 Perhaps he would not have to sacrifice anything. There 
 was no reason why the security which he felt with her 
 should not endure. ..." Oh, I won't go on with this," she 
 said. 
 
 She had forgotten to take off her clothes. Jim would be 
 up in a moment. Hurriedly she took them off and put on 
 a dressing-gown. She found David Copperfield by the side 
 of her bed, and sat down in the armchair poising the book 
 on her knees, turning over the leaves to find the old, jam- 
 stained pictures of her nursery days. She looked at Peg- 
 gotty's house by the sea, and it floated off as she looked at 
 it, drumming with her fingers upon the arms of the chair. 
 
 After a few minutes Cradock came in to ask how she felt 
 and to say good-bye before he went away to the theatre. 
 He scolded her in some boyish, half-serious words because 
 she had not eaten the food he had sent up to her, but her 
 reply that she couldn't, although she had tried, completely 
 satisfied him. The atmosphere of his big physical perfec- 
 tions enveloped all her wilfulness and contrariety in a 
 subtle security. He was habitually so much at peace within 
 himself that he could regard all his experiences with a 
 calm and uncomprehending tolerance, and of these experi- 
 ences she was in the end only one, more prolonged and in 
 itself more various than others, but yet to be received with 
 an infinite good humour, to be accepted rather than 
 criticised, and indulged rather than understood. As this 
 attitude had in him been always instinctive, so had she 
 come to take it for granted and to be glad that so much 
 warmth could endure with so little friction, for she knew 
 
70 STILL LIFE 
 
 and felt that he was to the limit of his power in love with 
 her, and though this was no more than a considerable 
 affection it surrounded her with a benignant and paternal 
 adoration, guarded by which she could be careless and free. 
 There was no need to deceive him in anything, because on 
 the few occasions when she had attempted to tell the truth 
 about herself, he had been distracted, comprehending 
 nothing, sure that he was deeply understanding when he 
 had stroked her hair and had dismissed the attempted 
 exposure as fanciful. All her oppositions had fallen within 
 herself since she had been married to him. He never 
 attempted to assert himself against her or dominate over 
 the temperament which he recognised in her as a peculiar, 
 curious and fragile thing, exactly as he might have regarded 
 a nest of carved ivory boxes made by the subtle Chinese, 
 estimating it as precious because it was intricate and not 
 lightly to be disturbed. 
 
 She had no impulse therefore actively to maintain herself 
 against any encroachments from him, but eventually she 
 had apprehended a dim danger of being weakened by this 
 very lack of opposition. Almost instinctively she set great 
 value on her inward conflicts, as affording her some proof 
 of an active life which she might otherwise have doubted, 
 and she had soon reached a strange degree of explicitness 
 in her debates with herself. Indeed, she felt some pride in 
 the completeness with which she could follow out a dialogue 
 between her two selves for hours on end, and in the thorough- 
 ness of the deception by which her voice, when she talked 
 to herself, seemed to have a really stranger sound. Yet all 
 the time she was conscious that these evolutions were con- 
 ducted within the safety of the haze of Jim's comprehen- 
 sive affection, and sometimes she was near to regretting 
 that the affection lacked some quality which would have 
 rendered the whole process silly and inconceivable. 
 
 At the moment when Jim bent over her chair, looking 
 at her book, which he despised as sentimental, she could 
 not help wondering how it was possible that she could 
 
STILL LIFE 71 
 
 enjoy the safe protection which his devotion afforded her, 
 while her mind was still occupied with the decision which 
 she had triumphantly made. If she could only have found 
 some point of solid antagonism in her husband the situation 
 would not have been so ridiculous. It would be easy to 
 make one, she thought for a moment, watching his big 
 hands folded over hers, by telling him that the whole 
 business was rubbish, and that in a day she had fallen 
 in love with young Temple and out again. In a 
 second she knew that it would do nothing of the sort, no 
 matter how much she might insist, for the simple reason 
 that he would never believe it, nor even, not believing, 
 have any suspicion that it might conceivably be true. 
 
 " Jim, aren't you appallingly stupid about me ? " she 
 said to him. 
 
 " Appallingly," he agreed. 
 
 " Why can't you really be serious about me ? Why 
 don't you just for once have an idea that I'm unfaith- 
 ful, or, if that's too definite, imagine that I'm compro- 
 mising myself with somebody. You don't know how 
 exciting it would make life for you for a day or two." Her 
 heart was beating hard now, for this was exciting and 
 adventurous. On an impulse she kicked her slipper on to 
 the fire. It was covered with lace, which caught instantly 
 into flame, leaving little red lines glowing where the pattern 
 had been. " There," she said, " you can't understand 
 that, can you now ? " 
 
 " No, I'm damned if I can. They were jolly slippers." 
 
 In the silence the glass beads from the burnt slipper 
 tinkled into the fender. 
 
 " Say you'll take the guinea away from me that you 
 promised. Do ! " 
 
 " But I shan't ; you know as well as I do." 
 
 " Give it me now, then, now." 
 
 " I don't believe I've got it." He removed his hands 
 from hers and stood upright behind her chair, feeling in 
 his pockets. He found a sovereign and a shilling and gave 
 
72 STILL LIFE 
 
 them to her. She rose from the chair with the money 
 clasped tight in one hand, facing him. He was looking at 
 her steadily, his lips parted a little in his habitual smile, in 
 which showed something of the tolerant sympathy he felt. 
 He was smiling because he did not understand, to conceal 
 his ignorance and uncertainty. Quickly yet awkwardly, 
 with a sudden gesture of her hand as a child throwing a 
 ball, she flung the money at the electric light which hung 
 before the mirror in the corner of the room. The bulb 
 shattered. 
 
 " Why, what's up, Anne ? " Before he had time to 
 reach her, she was in her chair, crying quietly, and weakly 
 laughing. 
 
 " You're nervous-tired, darling." Jim bent over her 
 and stroked her hands. 
 
 " I'm sorry look for my money, dear, there's a dear, 
 Jim, please." 
 
 He left her with a show of reluctance, and, striking a 
 match, hunted among the gleams of the broken glass on the 
 floor. He was not quite comfortable. He was always 
 frightened, against his certain judgment, when she did such 
 things, as she had done once or twice before, and he was 
 uneasy in his effort to treat them as occurrences perfectly 
 natural. Once, the first time, she had hurled a glass from 
 the dinner table against the wall, and he, to show that he 
 too had the same impulse, had thrown his. Then he had 
 felt ridiculous, and known that she found him ridiculous 
 too. He was glad to be hunting for the coins on the floor. 
 Finding them he waited a moment, pretending to be still 
 engrossed in the search, and then, with an assumed cheer- 
 fulness, he called out : 
 
 " I've got 'em." 
 
 "That's all right," she said, "that's all over. I don't 
 know why I do those things. Here, you must only give 
 me the sovereign now. No, don't turn up the other 
 
 ht." 
 
 " I wasn't going to," he said, handing her the sovereign. 
 
STILL LIFE 73 
 
 " Now don't be reproachful. I caught it in your voice 
 that time. I thought perhaps you might be going to, 
 that's all. But do you think I didn't notice that you 
 struck a match instead at first. . . . You're good, much 
 better than me. Still, I'm all right now, quite better and 
 perfectly sensible. You'll be late too. I am very sorry. 
 But don't be worried waiting." She stood up again and 
 caught his hand and kissed it. " All serene. Turn up the 
 light, anything you like." He had caught hold of her, 
 clasping her head to his shoulder. " You understand it's 
 all over now, don't you ? " 
 
 He kissed her and was silent for a little. 
 
 " Won't you want the light ? I'll get another, it won't 
 take a minute. I shan't be late." 
 
 " I don't want it, truly. I'd rather not have it. I like 
 the fire-light, it's good to think by. Poor old Peggotty." 
 She released herself from his arms and picked up the book 
 from under the chair. " I don't believe it will hang to- 
 gether much longer. Twenty-seven years. It's a shame 
 to bring it into such a savage household. I wonder I 
 didn't throw that on the fire, too. Now, Jim, you must 
 go. You'll only make me angry with myself, and then I 
 shall do something absolutely terrible. Don't provoke it. 
 What time will you be back ? If you're really going to be 
 back between one and two, I'll be waiting for you, probably. 
 I don't know, though. I think I'm thoroughly tired. We'll 
 see." 
 
 ; ' You're really better, honest Injun ? " 
 
 " Yes, really, Jim. You must go now. Have you got 
 enough money for a cab ? " 
 
 ;< Yes. But I feel I ought not to leave you like this." 
 
 " Like what ? I've told you I'm quite right. Don't 
 you believe me ? " 
 
 " Well, if you say so. But you are inclined to say you're 
 fit when you're not, aren't you ? " 
 
 " Never. I'd never dream of making out I was better 
 than I was in fact. Quite the other way. You'll be so late, 
 
74 STILL LIFE 
 
 though." She stepped towards him and gave him a kiss, 
 pushing him gently towards the door. " Now don't be 
 contrary. It's so exhausting." 
 
 " I won't. Good-bye : but do look after yourself. Is 
 there anything I can bring in for you ? " 
 
 " No, thanks. Good-bye. Work hard. You've got to 
 keep me, after all." She heard him go more slowly than 
 his wont down the stairs, and then dulled voices reached 
 her, conversing for a moment near the door. It was 
 strange, she thought, that he should be really concerned 
 about her. The door closed, without slamming. At the 
 sound a great weariness came over her. The springs that 
 had been taut and vibrant within her, suddenly slackened 
 altogether, and to prevent herself from falling she reached 
 out towards the bed-rail. Her face, she knew, was smiling, 
 beyond her control. She guided herself round by the edge, 
 and slowly climbed upon it, composing herself for sleep. . . . 
 
 A roaring, not terrible, as of falling water in the sunlight, 
 slowly died down about her ears, sinking at last into the 
 low, clear tone of a distant pipe. Far away through the 
 dense blackness was a little movement, unseen yet certain, 
 and from its eddying emerged a point of silver light. For 
 a moment it pulsed with shadows, modulating its brilliance 
 to the voice of the pipe. As the note of the pipe rose 
 higher and more clear, the light shone clearer, and as it 
 descended, shadows broke from the centre of the light and 
 spread in waves outward to its edge, which was the living 
 darkness. The voice and the light were one. Together as 
 though governed by some long determined purpose, they 
 became more brilliant, yet the ebb and flow of the light 
 and the rising and falling of the pipe never ceased ; and as 
 the music sounded more triumphant and the circling waves 
 of light broke further into the darkness, fixed beams of 
 radiance advanced outward from the central point, along 
 which came yet more light and more sound. By slow and 
 unchecked progression all the darkness was invaded by 
 these veins of light and sound, but the darkness was not 
 
STILL LIFE 75 
 
 driven away by them, but rather in their full clearness it 
 could be seen that the dark was not dark, but only the 
 shade within the very flame of brilliant light. Now the 
 sound of the pipe filled all the space about, having reached 
 the pinnacle of music ; yet it was always one voice, clear 
 and unfaltering, swelling with life. The light was spread 
 throughout the sphere, for its last circle was always the 
 furthest bound and circumference of all things. Then 
 the whole harmony seemed to be poised in its perfect com- 
 pletion, and the swiftly moving circles of light could be 
 seen swiftly returning from their farthest range along the 
 fixed rays, diminishing incessantly yet with undiminished 
 brilliance until they reached the central point, from which 
 while they entered they emerged again and sped outward 
 along the rays. Each circle of light was a wave of sound. 
 The motion of the whole was comprehensible, as though 
 the light and sound, once seen and heard, were known by 
 their own nature to move thus and only thus. Something 
 watched and understood the motion, and was part of it, 
 glad and sorrowful at once, for this motion and this know- 
 ledge of the motion were beyond all gladness and sorrow. 
 First the infinite progression of the circling waves from 
 the living point was terrible and swift in its vehemence, 
 and the soul was awed ; as they returned, the soul was 
 moved with pity and joy, for always the last wave broke 
 over the soul and bore it away in the harmony of light and 
 sound of which it was a part. It was glad, for it was a part 
 of the great brightness and the unending music ; it was 
 full of pity for the dear and familiar things from which it 
 was borne away. Yet from these it was not wholly severed. 
 It was with them even while it moved along the ray with 
 the light, and the knowledge of this was terrible. The 
 parting could not be endured for ever, and as the pain of 
 parting became intense, the unending sweep of the circles 
 and the triumphant note of the pipe was a menace, from 
 which the soul could not escape. The waves broke over it 
 incessantly, yet it did not die, but lived in the sure know- 
 
76 STILL LIFE 
 
 ledge that the next wave would bring death. Then the 
 soul saw that the movement of the great harmony was 
 motionless, and heard that the voice of the pipe had no 
 sound. Every light and every note was poised and still. 
 To its vision the circles moved and to its hearing the sound 
 rose and fell, but the soul knew that all was fixed eternally. 
 It sought to cry out against the horror, but its voice was the 
 sound of the pipe. 
 
 Slowly an atom of life in the soul stirred, and a flickering 
 point of consciousness woke, and the soul knew it was weep- 
 ing. From the centre of pain spread veins of suffering, and 
 these were the soul. The last circle of light no longer broke 
 over it, but the motion was always keen and understood. 
 There came a great weariness of weeping, and in the weari- 
 ness was a smile ; and the soul knew that this was the 
 smile of human death. Knowing this the soul was con- 
 scious of body, and strove against the weariness of weeping 
 and the smile which would take hold of the lips of the body 
 and the body be dead. While it fought against this death 
 the light and the motion and the sound were smaller and 
 smaller, yet visible and perfect, containing in themselves 
 the point of living light which might grow again, and the 
 old terror reawaken. The soul was weeping again and the 
 weariness and the smile which was in it were forgotten in 
 the agony of impotence. Only the central point remained 
 in the darkness, and the pipe was a remembered voice. 
 The consciousness of body, once born, remained. The 
 soul and the body were weeping together in darkness for 
 the blind terror of eternity. 
 
 She dared not raise her head. It was bowed, and it must 
 remain bowed under the pressure of the darkness above 
 her. She knew that she was weeping, yet, though she 
 listened for the sound, she heard none, and her eyes were 
 not wet. Her desire for a sound was overwhelming. She 
 caught at the pulse of her own heart and it did not beat at 
 all. She knew that she was not dead, because death had 
 threatened her and she had withstood it. Her soul had 
 
STILL LIFE 77 
 
 joined her body and she was alive. She waited in suspense 
 for the sound of movement, endeavouring with all her will 
 to force some part of her body into action. Her body was 
 motionless with fear. She knew that nothing had changed 
 in the room, and that everything was familiar and set in 
 its familiar place, but she was afraid to rise and see it with 
 her eyes. 
 
 Slowly and deliberately she raised herself from the bed 
 and looked about her. There was no flame in the fire 
 which now glowed red. Other than this, nothing was 
 changed. And yet everything had changed. It had be- 
 come infinitely old and changeless, as though suddenly a 
 breath had passed through the room and her own soul and 
 made the world timeless and old and evil. The feeling that 
 rose up in her had risen from too deep down in her to be 
 made definite in words, for words belonged to another 
 world than that in which this hidden principle reigned. 
 Where she had been she knew that life and motion and 
 change were illusion, by which men's eyes are blinded. 
 The revelation was not wholly new to her. This final com- 
 pleteness linked in her mind with the vague dreams of her 
 childhood, when she had awakened cold with fear, and to 
 her mother who asked her what it was that frightened her, 
 had replied that it was lines and things going backwards 
 and forwards on them. And later, when she first entered 
 the new railway underground, and waited on the platform, 
 the vision of the round bright train swinging towards her 
 out of the darkness had struck her mind with the same 
 terror. These things could be related to her dream. They 
 were fulfilled and completed in the vision from which she 
 had just emerged. 
 
 But there were others which she knew belonged to the 
 same order, for they woke the same dread in her, which 
 she could not understand. Her first and only sight of 
 obscene carrion birds, perched hoary and foul and im- 
 mobile, with ruffled and decaying feathers, while beneath 
 them, an indefinite distance away, lay red and uncouth 
 
78 STILL LIFE 
 
 bones, had filled her not with disgust, as she tried to re- 
 assure herself, but with terror. " They were perched out 
 of all time," she said, explaining herself to Richmond, a 
 garrulous and silent friend of Dennis's. ; ' They were 
 eternally old " ; and Richmond knew what she meant. 
 " I call it the metaphysical horror," he said. " I had to 
 call it something. But then I get it more often than you. 
 I could tell you no I won't." He had relapsed into 
 silence, and she had never dared to ask what he was going 
 to say. Twice since then she had been troubled, and 
 strangely, because on both occasions she had been brought 
 suddenly into contact with things Egyptian. The first 
 time was when she had seen a statue of the Baboon God 
 in the Louvre, and between his knees a scribe writing his 
 words. The scribe, carved as though he were still drawing 
 deep silent breaths and his pen were moving incessantly 
 over the page of his book, was not frightened by the terrible 
 god. The second time, she had glanced through a book 
 which Richmond had left behind him at their house, con- 
 taining translations from Egyptian hieroglyphs, and her 
 eyes had fastened on a phrase : " The Boat of Millions of 
 Years." 
 
 But to-night and now she understood what this thing 
 might be. A greyness, not of colour, seemed to be shed 
 over all things before her eyes. If only there were someone 
 near her to comfort her by understanding what she had 
 suffered only a moment ago in that very room, what she 
 was suffering now. 
 
 Her mind reached instantly out to Maurice. She moved 
 slowly to her writing table and took hold of a pen. She 
 was crying bitterly and smiling at once ; and she laid 
 down the pen, recognising and acquiescing in the depth 
 of her sudden delusion. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 ANNE CRADOCK awoke into an established and victorious 
 sunlight, which glowed from mirror to mirror in her bed- 
 room. Rubbing her eyes, she knew that it was already 
 late, and for a moment she was annoyed by the thought 
 that she had slept into the afternoon. She soon con- 
 vinced herself that this could not be, and then she was 
 reluctant to arise or stir. No impulse to think about 
 things vexed her where she lay. Her thoughts seemed 
 rather to detach themselves like a vapour from her mind 
 and float lazily upwards in her sight until they finally 
 dissolved into the dust of the sunbeams. She could not 
 hold them for a moment. 
 
 She raised her head and looked over the panels at the 
 foot of the bed. One of her beaded slippers twinkled in 
 the rays that fell upon the hearth. When she recognised 
 it she turned to peer over the edge of the bed. A powder 
 of gossamer glass shone like hoar-frost on the floor. The 
 sight did not please her and she sank eagerly back into 
 the remote contentment of her pillow. She rang the bell 
 which dangled to her fingers. The maid appeared. 
 
 " Please clear up my floor while I'm in bed. I shan't 
 get up till it's done. I'll go to sleep again, and you must 
 wake me when you've finished." 
 
 " Yes, m'm." 
 
 " Is the master at home ? . . . Why didn't anybody 
 wake me up ? ... What's the time now ? " 
 
 " Just after twelve, m'm. The master went out early. 
 He told me that you weren't to be waked. He said he 
 might be in to tea." 
 
 " Very well. I'll get up as soon as you've 
 
 79 
 
80 STILL LIFE 
 
 finished. There's some glass here." She closed her eyes 
 again. 
 
 She had dressed and begun to eat a belated breakfast 
 before her mind would work consecutively. During the 
 short minutes which she gave to that meal her sleepy 
 contentment expanded into an acute sense of well-being. 
 The dull memory of a night of terror vanished quickly 
 before the influence of her decision to see Maurice. It was 
 very fortunate that they had arranged to meet that after- 
 noon. Such things were best done quickly. The prospect 
 of a day of certain sanity even excited her. 
 
 She took up a book of dramatic criticism from the table 
 and settled herself to read. Although she fixed her eyes 
 intently upon it, she comprehended nothing, and arrested 
 herself at the bottom of the page with vehemence, as 
 though she were guilty of a slightly disreputable deception. 
 
 " I'm going out," she said, and returned to her room. 
 She dressed exactly as she had done the day before. 
 
 The maid knocked at the door. Mr. Beauchamp had 
 called in to get a book which he had left behind, but he 
 did not want to disturb Mrs. Cradock. He was downstairs 
 in the drawing-room. 
 
 " Tell him to wait a moment, Richardson. I'll be down 
 in a few seconds." 
 
 Anne welcomed the prospect of a few minutes' speech 
 with Dennis, if the conversation should serve only to 
 steady her. Already she had begun to feel the strain of 
 her impatience. Dennis was just the person to distract her 
 from the anxiety with which her mind and her body con- 
 spired to vex her. She ran down the stairs. 
 
 u How are you, Dennis ? " 
 
 " Splendid, thanks, Mrs. Cradock. I've only come for a 
 book that Cradock lent me. I forgot to take it away with 
 me. ... I meant to come yesterday, but I couldn't get 
 away from the hospital in time." 
 
 " Was it a book in a green cover dramatic criticism ? " 
 
 " Yes, that's it. I forget who it's by." 
 
STILL LIFE 81 
 
 " I've got it. I tried to read it this morning, but after 
 I had finished the first page, I hadn't the least idea what 
 I'd been reading about. I'll get it before you go. Sit down 
 a moment. You're not going immediately ? " 
 
 " I'll smoke if I may. It's my lunch interval, you 
 know." 
 
 She felt nervous and cold ; her hands were trembling 
 and she thought that Dennis would observe a strangeness 
 in her. She made haste to speak. 
 
 " That was a curious dinner-party. The air was so 
 thundery, from the very beginning. After that it was all 
 clouds and flashes. I enjoyed it very much, but I'm 
 certain Mrs. Fortescue has made a vow never to accept 
 an invitation of mine again. ... I had no idea a dinner- 
 party could be such a dramatic affair." 
 
 " Nor I, really. But I had a feeling that something 
 would happen as soon as I got into the room. I've & flair 
 for these things. I'm so desperately self-conscious for 
 other people . . . it's the result of my awful education, I 
 suppose." There was a silence. 
 
 " I know what you mean," said Mrs. Cradock at length. 
 " I get terribly ashamed for people who seem to be making 
 themselves ridiculous. ... It sounds like a good thing, 
 but I feel it's bad. I wonder why ? " She paused to 
 ponder. " Probably it's because you can't be ashamed 
 for other people without despising them. . . . That's 
 quite different to being sensitive for them. It's the disease 
 of the social standard. You can't accept people for them- 
 selves, can't listen unless they speak with the accent. . . . 
 No, we can't listen at all." 
 
 " That's true. When you come to think of it, it's a 
 pretty rotten state to be in never more than half-way to 
 being a listener. . . . Perhaps there aren't any more real 
 listeners left in the world. ... Or are they the kind of 
 people Morry was talking about that night ? . . . (Morry 
 is short for Maurice Temple. I've always called him 
 that.) " 
 
82 STILL LIFE 
 
 There was a silence. 
 
 " Have you ever read Plato ? " he asked. " What I 
 remember about him is not the speakers or what they say, 
 but the calm of listening. Most of the words are beyond 
 me but the listeners are wonderful. Very often they 
 didn't say more than ' yes ' or ' no ' for hours, but you 
 can't forget them. . . . You can hardly imagine a state 
 of mind like that nowadays. ..." 
 
 " Perhaps that's what we're after," said Mrs. Cradock. 
 "To be able to listen. ... I could understand that, 
 anyhow." 
 
 " Better than I should, I'm sure. I rather think you've 
 got something of it yourself, although it's against my 
 principles to grant a woman anything of the kind. . . . 
 But if it were to happen that I got into that state well, 
 I don't think I'd be quite at home in it somehow." 
 
 They sat silent for some time, while the dull roar of the 
 traffic broke faintly into the room, rising slowly and as 
 slowly falling, until its last whisper remained constant in 
 their ears. 
 
 Anne's voice was calm and firm. Dennis was grateful 
 for its fitness. 
 
 " I think that this is a very real belief for some people. 
 Your Mr. Temple, for instance, believes in it, doesn't he ? 
 ... I don't think that Jim does, do you ? " 
 
 Immediately Dennis felt that he was passing sentence. 
 He felt not that she was depending upon his answer, but 
 that never before had he judged a man by a standard so 
 sure. Therefore he hesitated. Almost he seemed to wait 
 for a voice not his own to move his lips. Then, recollect- 
 ing himself, he shirked the issue. 
 
 " I couldn't say. . . ." 
 
 Against his own will he was compelled to deny his own 
 words. 
 
 " No. ... I don't believe he would have any idea of 
 what it means." 
 Now he had given more than he had been asked ; yet 
 
STILL LIFE 83 
 
 he knew that he could not have avoided it. Had he made 
 another answer, she would have despised him for the lie. 
 A great responsibility had been put upon him ; and he 
 was glad now that he had been made to bear it. 
 
 Strangely he knew that the question she had asked had 
 been the end of a struggle. It was the outward sign of a 
 great change in her. He admired and wondered at her 
 calm. 
 
 But the impulse to refuse the burden was still strong. 
 If he could not deny his words, he could whittle them away. 
 
 " I don't think many people would have any idea of 
 what it means, you know," he said. " I know a good 
 many good men who might have listened to this con- 
 versation and not have understood a word." 
 
 " I am sure that's true. Besides, we haven't spoken 
 clearly even to ourselves. But I believe that the listeners " 
 she smiled a little at the word " would have understood. 
 Those that wouldn't well, there's something wrong with 
 them." 
 
 " But it is so very particular," he urged, " it's like a 
 secret code." 
 
 " Do you really think so ? " 
 
 " No, not really." 
 
 ; ' You're a Cappadocian. It is a Cappadocian ? one 
 of those who blow hot and cold in the same breath. You're 
 caught red-handed this time. . . . But you're inclined to 
 the good side, to-day, more than usual. Why is that, I 
 wonder ? " 
 
 " It's your own fault. You've got a way of forcing me 
 up to things. That's why I generally avoid talking to you. 
 You're too exacting altogether." 
 
 " I'm sorry." 
 
 " No, that's my fault. I hate playing above my hand. 
 It lets me down with a crash afterwards. . . . Can I say 
 what I like ? " 
 
 " Anything you like. It's the afternoon for anything. 
 ... It doesn't happen often," 
 
84 STILL LIFE 
 
 "Well, do you know? . . . No, I don't think I will. . . . 
 On the point of a confession. Just stopped in time." 
 
 She did not ask him what he meant, but she was both 
 glad and disappointed that he had not spoken. 
 
 " I hope I'm not responsible for all this," she said. 
 " You mustn't let me worry you. I don't mean to." 
 
 :< You don't." 
 
 " I'm glad of that. I like talking to you very much. 
 You understand so much more than you ever will allow to 
 yourself. . . . But I should hate to think that I tormented 
 you." 
 
 " No. Give me credit for something. I do that part of 
 it at least myself." 
 
 Mrs. Cradock thought, and said : 
 
 " I think it comes to this that you use me to put 
 questions to yourself. I'm not complaining. I only want 
 you to admit that I'm not an accomplice, not deliberately, 
 anyhow." 
 
 "I admit it. In any case I exaggerate. Then it is 
 different, . . . talking to you I am always playing below 
 my hand, ... for safety. You pull me up, very nearly 
 make me plunge. It's rather a shock, that's all." 
 
 " The way I pull you up, do you mean ? " 
 
 " No. It's just being pulled up. There's only one way 
 to do it, I believe. . . . Only it makes me angry with 
 myself afterwards. I shall be furious when I get outside. 
 . . . God pity my patients this afternoon ! " 
 
 Anne laughed outright. 
 
 " It's not really funny," he said. 
 
 " Oh, but it is. You're just going to have an orgy of 
 self-pity, and you expect me to help. I'll not do it. Be- 
 sides, it's unreasonable to expect it. It always ends in 
 the same way. Up till now I've managed to hold out. 
 But do you set a trap on purpose, or is it just natural with 
 you ? " 
 
 " Something of both, probably," he said, laughing. " But 
 I must go now. I don't want to a bit. ... All the same 
 
STILL LIFE 85 
 
 it's good to be put through my paces. You mustn't take 
 me too seriously. . . . You wouldn't, anyhow. That's 
 where you always have the advantage. You deprive me 
 of my rights. I don't have the chance of demolishing 
 myself for you. You've always done that yourself. . . . 
 That's where you're so disconcerting." 
 
 " But other people do that too, surely ? " 
 
 " Plenty. It depends how it's done, though." 
 
 " How do I do it then, tell me ? " 
 
 " I don't know. That's your secret. But if you mean 
 how it appears to me well, even then it's difficult. 
 Perhaps you don't quite demolish everything. There's 
 something left. I'd like to know what it was. It might 
 be some use to me, really some use." 
 
 " You make me too Machiavellian, really." 
 
 " No, not quite that. I don't insinuate that you know 
 more about me than I do myself. I know a great deal too 
 much. Besides it would be a burden for you. . . . You 
 know just enough." 
 
 " I must be very wonderful." 
 
 " No, but I'm occasionally honest : nothing more. All 
 I've been saying only means that you don't fit into my 
 formulas. Most people do." He paused a moment, 
 reflecting. " No, I must say you don't fit. At least, not 
 to-day." 
 
 " Now you're being obscure. Have I done anything 
 particular to-day to make you say that ? " 
 
 " Yes, I think you must have. I don't know exactly 
 when it happened," he said disingenuously. 
 
 " That's a pity. I would like to know what it was. 
 Perhaps you know just enough about me too." 
 
 He shook his head, and stood up to take his leave. 
 " If I thought I did," he said, *' I should give up my 
 job on the spot and take to well, let's say writing 
 novels." 
 
 Only Dennis's movement from his chair convinced her 
 that he was going. She was now quite calm, able to judge 
 
86 STILL LIFE 
 
 serenely. Although she had been so occupied that she had 
 not turned her mind to that which most nearly concerned 
 her, she felt that she had been enabled to consider it 
 calmly when she would, and she was grateful to Dennis 
 for having recalled her to herself. She half regretted that 
 he was going, for she thought that she could have long 
 continued this slow interchange of words. That they so 
 feebly corresponded to the feelings which were their occa- 
 sion excited her as a dangerous game. Dennis had under- 
 stood something of what had been passing with her, she 
 knew, but she did not resent his knowledge. He had a 
 right to all that he could discover. 
 
 " We're very solemn to-day," she said. " Don't you 
 feel that ? . . . But honestly I have enjoyed it." 
 
 He nodded thoughtfully, and with a half-smile said : 
 
 "I've had the same feeling. . . . It's silly to go away 
 now. I must, though. Good-bye." 
 
 " Good-bye. Don't forget your book." 
 
 He paused at the door. " I've forgotten it already." 
 He returned to pick up the book from the chair in which 
 he had left it. She listened to him quietly moving from 
 the quiet house. 
 
 She began to think about herself and Maurice, knowing 
 that whatever she should now resolve to do would be 
 right. A glance at the clock told her that within an hour 
 she would be leaving the house, but she felt neither im- 
 patience nor agitation. It was strange, she mused instead, 
 how completely Jim had passed away. In her mind ran 
 the old phrase which she remembered by its distinction of 
 capitals in her school Bible, " MENE, MENE," and she 
 was comforted by its palpable finality. 
 
 Jim had been rejected once and for all deliberately, by 
 that which lay deeper in herself than her surface debates. 
 While she sat quiet in the room that Dennis had left so 
 calm, she felt glad at the clearness of her own vision. 
 Also she rejoiced at the positive victory won, having 
 completely put away her husband into a past which had 
 
STILL LIFE 87 
 
 been before only in moments discarded. The same clear 
 light gave to the events of the day before a new and just 
 perspective. Little isolated pictures passed before her 
 eyes of herself regarding the painter high on the house 
 wall, her solitary seat in the Park, the eager Mr. Mortimer 
 at the restaurant, and finally an almost stereoscopic image 
 of the room in the Museum, and Maurice's nervous crouch- 
 ing figure at tea. Though she knew that the woman was 
 herself, she could hardly recognise her in those particular 
 surroundings. She seemed to have been so small ; small 
 before the house, insignificant in the Park, shrinking in 
 the restaurant. Only the entrance of Maurice lent to her 
 a comparative bigness, which was again diminutive against 
 herself of to-day. A sense of expanding strength filled her 
 now, and she knew that the acts of yesterday had been 
 but partially her own. Within an hour that would have 
 all been set right. Her course was perfectly defined, and 
 she was confident in her success. Maurice would under- 
 stand her, or rather would understand what she would 
 show him of the reality. Nor would he suffer very much. 
 
 She could have remained there, sitting still in her chair, 
 listening to the sound of her own breathing for hours, so 
 calm was her mind, yet precisely at four o'clock she pre- 
 pared to leave the house. She would have time to walk 
 slowly along the Embankment and across the bridge. 
 
 When she reached the middle of the bridge she stopped 
 and looked over on to the river. She was thinking of 
 nothing, yet her mind was not vacant, but resting con- 
 tented in its own poise, as a climber high on a hill will find 
 a deep delight, looking out upon the country spread 
 beneath him, though he regards and remembers nothing 
 with his eyes. A wind so faint as scarcely to be caught 
 upon a seaman's wetted finger played softly about her face. 
 Gradually a dark mass glided from under the bridge into 
 her sight, and she watched the slow lift and strain of the 
 sweep with which the lighterman eased his barge into 
 mid-stream. A little swirling and a few struggling splashes 
 
88 STILL LIFE 
 
 near the bank drew her gaze to where some small and 
 living thing fought against the water. Before she could 
 tell whether it was bird or animal the struggle had ceased. 
 Close by a boatman lowered himself by a ladder from the 
 wharf into a skiff, and he pulled hard at the stern oar ; 
 yet the boat seemed not to move at all, until she saw him 
 climb on to a laden barge with the painter in his hand and 
 make fast and she knew that there had been some change. 
 Behind the four straight chimneys at the river edge the 
 grey haze of the sky touched the water, and the eye could 
 travel, undisturbed by the black barrier of the opposing 
 bridge, from the water to the air and back again in still 
 security. Into her ears rang the clear echoes of the steps 
 of men crossing the bridge, and they seemed to sound in 
 unison with the quiet colour of the river and the sky ; and 
 then, while she listened, the echoes sank into the lapping 
 of the water on the bridge piers and against the black and 
 empty barges moored to their solitary posts. One vibrant 
 stroke of a bell quivered for a moment in the liquid air, 
 undertone against undertone, and fell after an instant's 
 domination into the indistinguishable silence. 
 
 The last tones of the bell were still faintly distinct to 
 her ear when the meaning of the one stroke came to her. 
 She began to hasten over the bridge, instinctively moving 
 down from the pavement to the carriage-way to dull the 
 tinkling of her hurried footsteps. Her mind, even her 
 body, was wrapped about by the memory of the stillness, 
 of which her movements bore the impress, although she 
 was hastening. Even the sharp rattle of the door-bell 
 was subdued into it. 
 
 " Mr. Temple's expecting you, m'm. Will you go up- 
 stairs ? It's the top floor. Or shall I show you the way ? 
 . . . He's just run out this minute to fetch some things." 
 
 Anne smiled gently at the woman, and moved towards 
 the stairs. Then she remembered to say that she could 
 find the top floor easily by herself. 
 
 Though the door was half-open, she tapped gently upon 
 
STILL LIFE 89 
 
 it before she entered and sat down in the large chair. The 
 window was open wide. Through it came the louder 
 counterpart of the sound that echoed without pause 
 through her, and she closed her eyes, in a dreamy amuse- 
 ment distinguishing the throb of a motor-omnibus in the 
 street below, and the low hum of the tramcars stealing 
 along the far embankment. All the sounds were one, and 
 one with that which had slowly invaded her while she 
 rested on the bridge watching the river. Now that her 
 eyes were closed, for moments there seemed to be no 
 bound at all between the intimacy of herself and the sound 
 that encompassed her. Only the physical sense of strain 
 and the puckering of her lips in a smile recalled her to the 
 knowledge that she was Anne Cradock listening to a multi- 
 tude of voices from a world beyond. The word " beyond " 
 shaped itself actually on her lips, and she opened her eyes, 
 surprised that she had not said " outside " and half- 
 reproaching herself for her romanticism. 
 
 The general neatness of the room dominated each single 
 object. Evidently Maurice had been ordering everything 
 against her coming. Nothing was out of place. She 
 looked round the room, turning slowly on her heel. 
 " Nothing at all," she said. She paused. " Except," she 
 said. There was a book upon his table, marked in many 
 places by slips of paper, a large black book with the 
 dignified and pretentious binding of a school-prize. She 
 well remembered the kind from her own school days, even 
 if the well-garnished rows of Cradock's bookshelves had 
 not served as a continual reminder. Wondering whether 
 its position was due to an innocent deception, she bent 
 over the table and laid a hand upon the cover to see what 
 the book was. A square of white distracted her eye. In- 
 stinctively her regard fastened upon it a square of white 
 paper, with writing. 
 
 The sudden convulsion of her mind was terrible. She 
 had reached for it and now she held it in her hand, not 
 daring to read it, sick and motionless with apprehension. 
 
90 STILL LIFE 
 
 But, though in a moment the calm of her mind had been 
 changed to an unbearable tension, her body still moved 
 with the deliberation that had become her habit during 
 the last few hours, and she read it with her physical being, 
 her eyes following the contours of the letters slowly like 
 the fingers of a blind man, with the blind man's inevitable 
 comprehension. 
 
 " I've gone " it said there was no preamble " only a 
 minute before you were to come. I saw everything in a 
 moment. It would have been too awful when you went 
 away again. I've had a morning of it, and I couldn't face 
 a night. I know I'm a coward but I couldn't. Maurice 
 Temple." 
 
 She stood perfectly still with the letter in her hand, 
 bereft of all purpose. Two atoms had come together for a 
 second of time, then parted, lost in the countless millions 
 of their kind. To her then appeared no shadow of hope 
 that she should find him, nor the faintest tracing of a line 
 by which she might direct her action. In the cold clarity 
 of this desolation, her thought ticked and swung like a 
 pendulum, deliberately, incessantly, until she was dizzy 
 with the emptiness in which it moved. 
 
 She closed the door carefully and descended the stairs. 
 Apprehensive that the woman would hear her fumbling 
 with the latch and interrupt her, she tried the handles 
 noiselessly and emerged into the street, looking once to 
 the right hand before she turned to the left and hurried on 
 her way. At the bridge corner she stopped irresolutely 
 upon the little island of pavement set in the road, restrained 
 by the sudden knowledge that she dared not cross the 
 bridge. To cross it would be to put an impassable gulf 
 between her and Maurice for ever, she felt, and she would 
 not stir a footstep over the river. Yet there was nothing 
 else to do. She glanced back at the house where he lived, 
 and seeing the flash of the brass knocker, determined that 
 she could not move out of sight of that landmark. From 
 the blank mists which wrapped her mind about and spun 
 
STILL LIFE 91 
 
 before her eyes, there had emerged nothing to hold her 
 there, yet she stayed, knowing well that Maurice had 
 gone, because she could not have borne to leave his neigh- 
 bourhood. A policeman was watching her from the 
 pavement opposite. He began to move towards her. She 
 was in agony lest he should ask her if she had lost any- 
 thing. Instead he begged her pardon and wondered if she 
 was waiting for an omnibus, because they only passed 
 over the next bridge. He pointed to where a small, bright 
 car crawled over the bridge in the distance like a lady- 
 bird. 
 
 " No, thank you," she said. She felt she could ask him 
 a question. " I'm waiting for somebody. Have you seen 
 a young gentleman pass along here about ten minutes 
 ago ? I have missed him." 
 
 " What kind of a young gentleman ? " he asked. 
 
 At this she was eager, persuaded that he had something 
 to tell her. " A young gentleman," she said again, " with 
 black hair. He came out of that house, over there," she 
 pointed back to the knocker, and he turned to look at it, 
 then swung back to face her, while she was still turned to 
 the house. 
 
 " I believe I did," he said after a long time. " He was 
 running, I think. Wait a minute." For a moment Anne 
 thought the policeman must be a ridiculous toy, but 
 though he was remote she watched him intently. 
 
 " Mightn't this be the young man ? " he said at last, 
 pointing along the street behind her. She spun round 
 almost into Maurice's face. He looked like a runner who 
 had finished his race and had been beaten. 
 
 " I've been waiting for you," she said. " It's all right." 
 She turned to the policeman. " Thank you, officer." 
 Then she led the way along the street away from Maurice's 
 house. 
 
 He kept pace with her, content only to be led. He was 
 trying to smile, but his pale face and the strain of his lips 
 belied him. At times he broke into a queer hard laugh, 
 
92 STILL LIFE 
 
 for all the world like a cough, but he did not speak. He 
 coughed or laughed again. " Don't," she said. " You 
 mustn't. Try to stop," and then she stopped and leaned 
 over the stone balustrade of the embankment, he at her 
 side. She looked at him and his head instinctively gave 
 back as though to avoid a blow. She stared at her own 
 hands, and said, "We're both safe here. Please don't." 
 Though she understood the beaten look on his face, it 
 frightened her, and she was anxious that he should speak. 
 
 " I couldn't help it," he said. " I had to come back." 
 The moment he had said a word he was eager to be under- 
 stood. " I meant to go. I felt I couldn't stand it. I 
 thought you would understand ; but I had to come back. 
 You're not angry ? " 
 
 " Of course not," she said. 
 
 " I've done something terrible. I know I have. But if 
 you knew what it was like, if you knew what it was like 
 when I had to come back, and I never knew where you 
 were, or what might have happened. Oh, God ! " 
 
 " I know," she said. 
 
 " I couldn't see anything. I don't know what I was 
 going to do. Just run and run. It's all funny, just like a 
 dream." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " But I'm happy now, I think I am. But I don't 
 know about you. I've done something terrible to you." 
 
 " No nothing." 
 
 " Please let us go back. I'm all right now. We shan't 
 get any better here." 
 
 " Yes, it would be better," she said. And they went 
 together back to the house. He fumbled mechanically in 
 his pockets for the key and then rang. He led the way 
 past the landlady in silence. Anne said, " Thank you," 
 and followed him. She sat down in the chair which she 
 had left but a few minutes ago, while he walked nervously 
 to and fro, from the window to the door. 
 
 " No, I don't see how you could forgive this," he said 
 
STILL LIFE 93 
 
 at length. " I have no right to come back. Only I had 
 to. And I'm happy even now with you here, though 
 you're miles and miles away from me. I don't see how I 
 could get close to you now." He stood still. " Do you ? " 
 
 " Don't you ask too much ? I can't quite forget it in a 
 moment. That's all the trouble, truly." Her eyes were 
 glistening. 
 
 " No, I suppose you can't. . . . It's all unreal to me, 
 but it's not to you." He dropped on to the floor in front 
 
 of her chair. " Oh, Anne darling " he said, and then 
 
 hid his face in her lap and cried. She bent forward quickly 
 and kissed him, stroking his hair. " It's all over now, 
 really," she said, as he lifted his head to meet her kisses 
 and looked her in the face. " Oh, darling," he said, and 
 bent his head and kissed her hands. 
 
 She rose from her chair and took off her hat, regarding 
 herself in the mirror over the mantelpiece. " That's 
 better," she said, and moved into his bedroom. Mean- 
 while he sat on a stool before the fire tapping with the 
 poker on the hearth, wondering whether it was over now, 
 stirred by a memory of physical pain and tears. In a little 
 while she returned, and as she settled once more in the 
 chair she made room for him beside her. " Come here," 
 she said. He leant his head upon her shoulder, and she 
 caressed his face. 
 
 " I wonder how much you understand me ? " His only 
 answer was to clasp her closer, and lean his head more 
 nearly to her breast. She was silent for a while and when 
 she spoke, she spoke to herself rather than to him. 
 
 " I suppose you're a child. You hurt like a child." 
 
 "Dol?"hesaid. "I'm sorry. I didn't know I'd hurt 
 you so much. It just came over me, I don't know how, 
 and I had to run away. . . . But I had to come back, you 
 see. I didn't know that you loved me like this. How 
 could I have known ? . . . And even if you did, it would 
 have been too awful when you went away. It came to me 
 suddenly." 
 
94 STILL LIFE 
 
 " What made you think I did not love you ? " 
 
 " You hadn't kissed me, you see." He had hesitated 
 over the words. Even while he reached up to kiss her lips, 
 he threw back his head in angry despair. " Oh, God. . . . 
 You must know that's a lie, and you let me kiss you. . . . 
 If only you'd be angry with me. . . . You're so calm, you 
 frighten me. I don't know what I've done to you." 
 
 He tried to rise while he spoke ; but she pulled him to- 
 wards her and caressed his hair again. " What was the 
 reason ? " she asked. 
 
 " It was what I wrote, what I've just told you. You'd 
 have had to go away." 
 
 " Would have had ? " 
 
 He was silent for a while. " Yes, I suppose you'll have 
 to go away, even now. ... I can't think of it." 
 
 " But you did believe it ? " 
 
 " Yes. ... I couldn't see anything else. Was I wrong ? 
 Could you ? " 
 
 " No, I suppose not." 
 
 Her answer did not satisfy him ; it awakened a mis- 
 trust of himself. He felt that the truth lay behind it, and 
 would be for him at once delight and pain. 
 
 " Please tell me what you really thought," he said. 
 ;< You're trying to spare me. I don't want to be spared." 
 
 Her immediate past of debate and calm decision had 
 fallen away from her. From her changed self she spoke 
 naturally, with a conviction of truth. " You see, it was 
 different for me. I had decided. If I came to you to-day, 
 I was not going back. But how were you to know that, 
 after all ? " 
 
 " No," he said doubtfully. " I ought to have known, 
 though. Don't you see that I ought ? . . . Oh, Anne, I 
 think you're wonderful, wonderful. . . . But don't you 
 think I ought to have known ? " 
 
 She did not answer for a few seconds, as though she 
 were deliberating in herself what to reply. " No, I don't 
 think so," she said. 
 
STILL LIFE 95 
 
 " But that's what hurt you, really," he pursued, " isn't 
 it ? I mean that I mistrusted you. There's no other 
 word. And I had no idea of what was happening. Isn't 
 that the truth ? " 
 
 She nodded. " Yes, I think that was it, even more than 
 that you had gone. It's hard to explain. When I thought 
 you had gone because you didn't quite believe in me, it 
 hurt, hurt. ... It was silly. . . . But we're all right 
 now." 
 
 Inwardly he was wondering at her. He felt that he 
 ought to have known and that he could not have known, 
 and vague in his mind was the notion that too much was 
 expected of him. He was sorry, but he did not see how it 
 could have been different. In truth her quiet declaration 
 that she did not intend to leave him contained a happiness 
 so new and great that even yet he could not wholly believe 
 it, at the moment when he was overwhelmed with joy. 
 
 " You're not going, Anne ? It's so wonderful that I 
 can hardly believe it. You're so much bigger than I am. 
 I don't think I ever dreamed of it. There's nothing more 
 to say, is there except that I'm sorry and you must 
 forgive me." 
 
 " There isn't any forgiving to be done. ... So long as 
 you're happy. You are, aren't you ? " 
 
 " Happy ! I can't even feel that you've suffered. I 
 know I've treated you badly, and I say I'm sorry : but 
 inside I'm laughing, simply because I cannot help it, out 
 of sheer happiness. ... I don't understand it. ... I 
 couldn't even tell anyone about it. ... Somehow, I feel 
 quite safe as though things couldn't knock me down or 
 even touch me any more." 
 
 She nodded. " I know. I'm just as happy. Perhaps 
 I came to it differently. I can't tell yet and if I tried to 
 tell, I might be very convincing to anybody else but I 
 should know that the real thing wasn't in it." 
 
 " Yes, it's ridiculous to talk about it. But yet I can't 
 help doing it." 
 
96 STILL LIFE 
 
 " I like to. Now your running away is only a kind of 
 dream, just as it is to you. ... I can't get hold of it, or 
 imagine that it was real." She bent her head in smiling 
 despair. 
 
 The dusk slowly entered the room. Although its first 
 signs were almost imperceptible, Anne noticed them, and 
 sat forward. 
 
 " Maurice, we must talk seriously. What are we going 
 to do ? We must go away, now. We can't stay here. 
 Besides, London's impossible. It must be in the country. 
 I want the country. And we must go now to-night. 
 . . . You see that, don't you ? " 
 
 " Yes, of course. ... I must know some places." 
 
 " We must decide quickly. We can do that, you and I. 
 But I must go back first, and I don't want to meet Jim. 
 I'd far rather leave him a note." Maurice did not under- 
 stand why she smiled. " Not that I mind meeting him," 
 she went on, " but I should hate to see him cry or do any- 
 thing like that. I might hate him if he did. Yes, I should, 
 and I don't want to do that. So we must be quick. He 
 doesn't come home to dinner to-night ; but I want to 
 get my visit to the house over and done with, now that 
 I've had to think about it. 
 
 " I know a lot of farmhouses and places in the country ; 
 but they're no good. I was always there with Jim. I 
 couldn't stand suspicions. It would be different with 
 your places." 
 
 " I know a farmhouse," he said, " just in between Oxford 
 and Gloucestershire, miles away from anywhere, in the 
 hills. I've not been there for years. It's a good place, 
 and the people like me. Would that do ? " 
 
 " It sounds as if it might. It's only for a little while, 
 because we have nowhere else to go. ... But, I'd rather 
 not have anybody at all about. I want us to be alone. 
 Don't you feel that ? " 
 
 The thought was new to him, but he agreed as though it 
 had been his own. 
 
STILL LIFE 97 
 
 " Yes, I don't want people. It'd spoil everything, if the 
 house wasn't all our own." He pondered a little while, 
 sitting forward on the edge of the chair, his chin resting 
 on his hands. Anne Cradock remembered the attitude, 
 and laid her arm over his shoulder. He turned towards 
 her and asked dubiously, " would a cottage do ? " 
 
 " Why, how do you mean, ' would a cottage do ? " 
 
 " I thought perhaps ... Oh, I'm a fool ! " 
 
 " Well, tell me about the cottage." 
 
 " It's in Sussex. It belongs to a man I know Rich- 
 mond. Of course, you know him too. He's gone abroad. 
 He once said I might have it when he was away. I haven't 
 got the key, but I know the way in by the window. There's 
 a big garden, and it's part of the way up a hill, not far 
 from where the river runs through the Downs. It's a 
 good place. I know all about it. I once stayed there two 
 months." 
 
 " Let's go." 
 
 " Besides, I know the trains," he added. " The one we 
 used to catch went just after nine. I've only got to wire 
 to old Moon to drive us out there. It's eight miles from 
 the station. We'll have to take some things, though. It'll 
 be too late to buy them there. Shops shut at eight at 
 Pirford, that's the station. . . . Oh, but old Moon's 
 sure to let us have enough for a day. Besides, there's 
 two bedrooms," he added inconsequently, " the one I made 
 for myself and Alfred's." 
 
 " That's splendid. Now let's make plans. I must go 
 back and get my possessions together. It won't take me 
 long with Richardson. There aren't so very many. I'll 
 have everything done in an hour, say, an hour and a 
 quarter. What's the time now ? Twenty minutes to 
 seven. Well, I can be at the station at eight, and we can 
 have dinner. You can do everything in that time, can't 
 you ? You haven't got more things than I have, and you 
 don't have to go home. I've got some money, so don't 
 worry about that." She suddenly turned to him and threw 
 
98 STILL LIFE 
 
 her arms round his neck. " Oh, Maurice, I'm so excited. 
 I'm talking nonsense. . . . Oh, Morry. ... Now I'm talking 
 sensibly again. I'll meet you at the station at eight. Take 
 a taxi whatever happens, because the waiting would be 
 impossible." 
 
 He had caught her mood, or rather the mood had caught 
 fire from a spark struck between them. " Eight ! " he 
 almost shouted, " I'll be there, before you. Anne," he 
 said, suddenly approaching her, " I do love you." They 
 held each other close, as though even to part for an hour 
 would be intolerable. " But it's something more," he 
 said. " I can't believe other people feel like this. They'd 
 tell about it more." 
 
 " I must go now, Morry. You won't be miserable when 
 I'm gone, will you ? No, I know you won't. I must 
 make myself respectable." In a moment she had put on 
 her hat, and kissed him again. At the door she turned. 
 " What's the station ? " she said. " You never told me." 
 
 " I didn't, either. I'm off my head. Victoria. What 
 would have happened ? " As answer to his question he 
 heard her running down the stairs and he listened until 
 the noise of a taxi-cab, which he knew for hers, diminished 
 to nothingness, leaving in his ears only the throbbing of his 
 blood. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 MAURICE was peering about the brilliant station ten 
 minutes before the hour. He had barely had time to glance 
 over the patchwork of the bookstall, before he was borne 
 away irresistibly to the entrance pavement, there to fix 
 his restless eyes upon one cab after another, as they paused 
 for a moment in their sweep to shoot a passenger out of 
 the darkness into the light. He approached so near to 
 their halting-place that he could hear, though without 
 comprehension, each successive traveller declare his destina- 
 tion to the porter who opened his door. His eyes soon 
 told him that there was more than a usual insistence upon 
 what was to be done with their baggage. They pointed out 
 individual trunks upon the porter's waggon with vehe- 
 mence, and one old man with whiskers of an amazing and 
 translucent whiteness seemed to tire not of smacking the 
 bags, arrayed in order before him, some with one, 
 some with two blows of the ivory-handled stick. The 
 attitude, the insistence, the vehemence, even the old 
 man himself, now marching stiffly to the ticket-office, 
 and rapping with impatient and staccato knocks upon 
 the wooden wall in the distance under the arch, were 
 all familiar. Next from a circling cab emerged one 
 indisputably French by birth and speech. A roll of 
 the " r's " in " registered " detached itself completely 
 from the equable flow of voices which accompanied 
 the kaleidoscopic motion. Maurice responded with a start 
 at the words : " the Paris train." Instantly the familiarity 
 of the coming and going, the gestures, and the old man 
 were explained. 
 
 99 
 
100 STILL LIFE 
 
 While he watched the incessant sweep of the cabs round 
 the semicircle of the station approach, he gently dis- 
 covered himself repeating, " Defense de se Bencher dehors. 
 . . . Defense de se Bencher dehors." It was an incantation, 
 urging him to smite the heads that were thrust out of the 
 cabs as they swung up to the entrance. Deliberately he 
 decided there were rules to be observed, and that the chief 
 of these was that no heads were to be smitten which should 
 emerge after the cab had stopped, firstly because there 
 would be no satisfaction if all the heads were eligible, and 
 all had eventually to emerge. Secondly, the whole art and 
 science would consist in smiting the moving heads in 
 motion with a fine sweep of the arm, like the great cavalry- 
 man who had ridden into his childhood on the outside of 
 a biscuit-tin, cleaving on either hand a suspended lemon, 
 while the cloven fragments paused on their downward 
 flight to the floor. A sufficient instinct to be on the right 
 side of the law restrained him from carrying his new art 
 into practice ; but the game played on clearly in his mind, 
 and he marked the arrival of each outstretched head within 
 his range by a vicious emphasis on his repeated phrase : 
 " Defense de se Bencher dehors." 
 
 Then one came, and it was Anne's. 
 
 " Whatever did you say then ? " she asked as she 
 stepped on to the pavement. The porter was staring at 
 him. 
 
 " Oh, nothing. . . . It's too stupid. I had to knock off 
 every head that popped out of the window." 
 
 She appeared to understand immediately and took his 
 arm. " Tell the man where they are to go to," she said, 
 pointing to her boxes. " I've forgotten all the names 
 except old Moon." 
 
 " I knew you'd come, Anne. . . . You're not annoyed 
 with me for doing that, are you ? It was only because I 
 was impatient for you to come. I had to do something. . . . 
 Only three minutes past eight, too. . . . Why you weren't 
 late at all" 
 
STILL LIFE 101 
 
 " Did you think I was ? " 
 
 " No, but it seemed a long while. I'd knocked an awful 
 lot of heads off anyhow. Wouldn't it be ghastly if one of 
 us had to wait an hour or something like that ? " 
 
 " Don't talk about such things. The cab was just like 
 a prison. I kept on knocking at the window to make the 
 man go faster, and it never seemed to move. I had to give 
 him a shilling extra for that. He was a very nice old man, 
 though, a grandfather with a white beard. He said he was 
 doing all he could. ... So he was. . . . Have you got the 
 tickets ? " 
 
 Maurice looked at her bemused, and did not answer her 
 question. 
 
 " I don't believe you've listened to anything I've said." 
 
 " Yes, I have. ... All about the cabman with a white 
 beard." He shook his head. " No, I haven't got the 
 tickets." 
 
 " Let's go and get them. Here's my purse, and then 
 we'll have something to eat." 
 
 " Come on then." 
 
 " Do you know, Anne," he said as they sat down together 
 at a table in a corner of the restaurant, " I'm hopeless 
 when I'm with you. I'd be perfectly happy not to go any- 
 where. Everything roars and rushes." He waved his hand 
 generally. " It's so pleasant to hear and look at, that I 
 can't begin to do anything. To buy a ticket now it's a 
 miracle. It's different having dinner. You only have 
 to sit down and it arrives. It's a wonderful feeling 
 though. . . . 
 
 " Can you believe you were in your house this afternoon, 
 only four hours ago ? ... It only begins for me when I 
 came running up to you by the bridge. You might put 
 hundreds of days in between this morning and then ; it 
 wouldn't make any difference. I shouldn't know any- 
 thing about it. ... Do you feel like that too ? " 
 
 She winced a little, so little that he did not notice it, 
 before she said, " Yes, just the same. . . . Look at that 
 
102 STILL LIFE 
 
 waiter over there. He might as well be made of card- 
 board. That's how he looks to me." 
 
 The automatic process that Maurice had expected had 
 been set in motion. The waiter, though Swiss and stolid, 
 was possessed of the discretion of experience, which moved 
 him, after some moments' vain expectation of an order, 
 to start the machinery of the dinner. 
 
 " I don't think you're eating very much, Morry. You 
 can't live off excitement." 
 
 " But you're not eating anything yourself, Anne. I'm 
 sure I'm eating as much as you." 
 
 " Oh, it's different with me, I'm older." 
 
 " That's nothing. Not more than a childhood, anyway. 
 There's nothing else different about it." 
 
 " But there's no excuse for both of us. We're as bad as 
 each other. We won't do anything more for this one. It's 
 cold ; but we'll make a bargain for the next. After the 
 plates have been put down, no one is to talk until the food's 
 finished." She stretched her hand across the table, and 
 he took it. " A bargain ? " 
 
 "Right," he said. 
 
 Their expression was as serious as their labour, until 
 Maurice, grimaced and laughed. " It's no good," he said. 
 " I can't manage it. Please, we've done enough, haven't 
 we ? I'm sure it doesn't do us any good. Besides, you're 
 looking at me and I'm looking at you all the while. 
 It's as bad as reading the newspaper." 
 
 " I can't go on either. We'll cry quits." 
 
 They wandered along to search for an empty carriage in 
 their train. " I can't go into one full of people," she said. 
 " One man, even one man's bag, would make me miserable 
 for hours. I want to hold you close and feel that you're 
 really there. Oh, Morry, I'm a hypocrite. I've tried to 
 be calm since I got out of the cab. But the station's like 
 a great theatre, full of limelight and of people. I've been 
 excited all the while." 
 
 He pressed her arm very close to his side. To hear her 
 
STILL LIFE 103 
 
 words was joy intolerable. Even the little break in her 
 voice when she said " Oh, Morry," seemed to come from 
 his own throat, and to have deprived him of any speech 
 by which he might respond to hers. All that he could do 
 was to press her arm yet closer and hold her fingers inter- 
 twined with his. 
 
 " Anne, it's all right, there are sure to be plenty of empty 
 ones. I know this train. No one ever goes by it except 
 us. I wish it'd come, though." 
 
 " Why, isn't this it ? " 
 
 " No, it's the one after. Ten minutes before it comes ; 
 and then a quarter of an hour before it goes." 
 
 " They do it on purpose." 
 
 Together they stood in the shadow of a pillar and watched 
 the passengers descend, hurrying to the barrier. Anne 
 drew her cloak more closely round her for the night air 
 was cold. Inconsequently she asked Maurice a question, 
 turning quickly towards him. 
 
 " Morry, do you know how old I am ? ... I don't 
 believe you do. You don't know anything about me. 
 Tell me how old you think I am ? " 
 
 " I don't know a bit. You say you're older than I am. 
 Older it's just silly. Besides, I don't know how to 
 guess." 
 
 " I'm thirty-two next birthday. What do you say to 
 that ? " 
 
 " It doesn't mean anything, nothing at all. You might 
 as well say you were sixteen. You're eight years older 
 than me if that's any comfort to you. But what on earth 
 eight years can mean, I can't conceive. ... I suppose 
 they'd say you've got more experience than I have. . . . 
 I think I've had a great deal. I used to be proud of it." 
 
 " Aren't you now ? " 
 
 "It's not even real. It's not my past. I'm not 
 proud of it. I'm not even ashamed of it. It just isn't 
 mine." 
 
 To that she made no answer. Her past was real and 
 
104 STILL LIFE 
 
 instant to her, and she hated it. She had lived too much 
 controlled to be wholly lost in new and unprecedented 
 happenings, and even though for hours she had forgotten 
 everything, already the insurgent past clamoured its 
 continuity with the present. She hated it, therefore. She 
 could not explain this to him, because he would not under- 
 stand all. Understanding less, he would be hurt. 
 
 " I know," she said, and he could only press her 
 hand. 
 
 They were alone in the carriage. A few passengers 
 seeking isolation glanced in through the window. One, 
 less exacting, had turned the handle of the door to enter, 
 idly staying his hand, looking sideways. They saw his 
 face turned towards them, almost pushed against the glass, 
 which touched and tilted the brim of his misshapen felt 
 hat. Then it lit up with an amused half-smile of recog- 
 nition. He shut the door again and walked on. 
 
 " Well. . . . What did he do that for ? " said Maurice. 
 " He must be a good sort. But I don't see how. . . . Oh, 
 it must be pretty plain, I suppose." 
 
 " I'm sure we look the part. If a policeman came and 
 said to me ' You're in love,' I should just have to say 
 4 Yes.' ' 
 
 " I believe a lot of people do recognise it," he said. " I 
 should myself. I'm sure Mrs. Fitch my landlady 
 suspected me when I left. I behaved sensibly, though. 
 I shaved myself. It's very queer to look in a mirror like 
 that. It was so quiet ; my face didn't belong to me. I 
 lost my nerve in the end ; cut a piece out of myself." 
 
 He was sitting in the corner opposite to her, his heart 
 having failed him when he tried to obey the impulse to sit 
 beside her. Even the unnecessary time spent in arranging 
 their smaller properties, her rug, her umbrella, and her 
 dressing-case, upon the netted rack had not been enough 
 to determine him. To lessen the distance he himself had 
 set between them he leaned forward, resting his elbows 
 upon his knees ; but she was remote behind the veil of 
 
STILL LIFE 105 
 
 gloom drawn by the dingy gas-flame, leaning back and 
 looking sideways out of the window. His failure to sit 
 down at her side made him uneasy. He could not continue 
 to tell of his sensations during the early evening ; and 
 while he halted in his words, he was apprehensive that she 
 had turned away her face because of him. 
 
 Now he was afraid to cross the carriage and sit by her 
 side. He should have done it instinctively, but the moment 
 was past. The very thought of moving to her filled him 
 with self-conscious terror, and he stared at the floor. How 
 long would it be before she spoke to him ? She would 
 have to ask him why he was staring at the floor, and that 
 would be an excuse for telling her that he wanted to sit 
 beside her. Without her question, without her help, he 
 could not. 
 
 Suddenly she said : " Why, what's the matter, Morry ? 
 What are you twisting your hands for ? You're not 
 nervous ? " 
 
 He looked at his hands. They were clammy and hot, 
 and he thought it was strange that she had noticed them. 
 Then he lifted his head to look at her, smiling indecisively, 
 as though he feared that she might be angry and hoped 
 that she would see through everything. 
 
 " Oh, it's nothing," he said. " Do you really want to 
 know what it is ? " 
 
 " Of course." 
 
 " Well. ... Oh, it's too silly. . . . You see, I wanted 
 to sit beside you, and ... I don't know. ... I didn't 
 do it at first when we came into the carriage, . . . After- 
 wards I couldn't. ... I didn't dare." 
 
 ' You child. Come over here." She held out her arms, 
 and he came quickly, lowering his head. " It was just the 
 same with me. I wanted you to sit beside me I didn't 
 dare to ask you, or to come over to you." 
 
 She slid her arm round his neck. He leaned against her, 
 still looking at the floor. It was wonderful of her to excuse 
 him like that, but it would not do. " It's no good," he 
 
106 STILL LIFE 
 
 said. " It's not the same, really. You're only defending 
 me. I ought to have done it, and you expected me to do 
 it, didn't you ? " 
 
 " You child. Why do you go on worrying at a tiny 
 thing like that? It's only because you're shy of me. 
 Only that." 
 
 His head rested upon her breast now, and he was con- 
 tented by her words. Somehow they seemed true. And 
 they made him feel happy and careless, oblivious of the 
 past. 
 
 Moon was at the station to meet them. He had always 
 had a fondness for Maurice. It rang in his greeting, 
 " Here you are again, sir." 
 
 Maurice was quick with his explanation. " Hullo, Moon. 
 I'm married. We've come down for our honeymoon. Anne, 
 this is Moon. I've told you a lot about him." 
 
 " I hope it's to my credit, ma'am," said Moon, touching 
 his hat to Anne. 
 
 " All of it," she answered, climbing up into the tall gig. 
 Something in Maurice's pretendly ofi-hand words to Moon 
 vaguely chilled her and the sensation was blent with the 
 coldness of the Down air. She gathered herself together 
 in her wraps. 
 
 The gig plunged out of the station light into the dark- 
 ness. A few shreds of cloud wreathed about the moon set 
 a far distance between the sky and the earth, between the 
 gig and the world. A separateness had descended upon 
 them. The few words that were spoken seemed to faint 
 and fall before they had reached the hearer. Soon there 
 was silence save for the swift and steady crunching of the 
 road beneath the wheels and the clatter of the horse's 
 hooves. Anne felt remote and strange. She was being 
 hurried through a strange country with no purpose. She 
 had surrendered herself to a mechanism which she could 
 not control. Among the close-packed three she was com- 
 pletely denned and aloof. 
 
STILL LIFE 107 
 
 Beneath the rug which covered them all Maurice's hand 
 stole towards hers, and she took it deliberately between 
 her own, suddenly aware of him nervous and anxious 
 beside her. Though her action had been calculated, the 
 contact dissolved the growing sense of separation. The 
 thought of him as someone to be comforted and made 
 secure overwhelmed her. The impulse she had hitherto 
 dreaded, yet only half suppressed, to ask herself an account 
 of her action, became less insistent. 
 
 " Is it much further ? " she asked. 
 
 " No, not very far. A little over a mile. Not more than 
 ten minutes," he added, fearful lest she were growing 
 weary of the journey. " D'you see that light there 
 over to the left ? That's Moon's house. ' The Badger.' 
 That's right, isn't it, Moon ? " 
 
 " That's it, sir. We call it half a mile from Black Jack's 
 triangle there. That's the piece of grass there, ma'am." 
 He pointed with his whip to a shadowy island of coarse 
 turf made by two grassy tracks and the road. " It's a 
 queer name. They say he was a man who did things agin 
 the law, sheep kiUin' or wool smugglin' or such-like, and 
 they hung him high there." 
 
 " We're only a hundred yards behind * The Badger,' " 
 said Maurice, " but it's small and hidden from here. 
 Besides, there's no light, of course. How should there be," 
 his voice trailed into a disappointed silence. A bare dark 
 cottage was no place for them to-night, for Anne. A 
 vision of a cold and repellent reality presented itself and 
 he feared that it would appear even barer and more 
 repulsive to her. 
 
 " The missus put a light there, sir, and lit a fire," said 
 Moon, after a pause. " It's not kindly to come to a cold 
 house. She'd have done more, though, if she'd known 
 that you were coming, ma'am." 
 
 Maurice felt much easier. The anxiety which had 
 oppressed him during the ride began to abate, and as the 
 last distance rolled quickly by the excitement of new 
 
108 STILL LIFE 
 
 adventure was uppermost. He was taking a woman 
 whom he seemed to know less with every hour of intimacy 
 to a remote hiding-place, and she followed him. It was 
 miraculous and incalculable. The wonder elated, while 
 the sense of her incalculability and the tangled dimness of 
 the future disquieted him. 
 
 He leaped quickly to the ground as the gig drew up by 
 the gate and held a slightly trembling hand to Anne, who 
 held it close. Together they went forward up the cobbled 
 path, wet and fresh with the evening rain. Drops fell 
 liquid from the bushes that rustled as they touched them. 
 From the eaves they fell more slowly and heavier with an 
 unfamiliar clinging sound, which changed even to the 
 measured padding of a ghostly animal. 
 
 " It's very wet now," said Maurice, " but it's really a 
 lovely garden or rather a wilderness. You will see for 
 yourself to-morrow," 
 
 " Yes," 
 
 The door had been left unlatched. The sunken fire 
 illumined with a faint redness the bare floor, and tinged a 
 bowl of white tulips on the table corner. Anne was not 
 curious about the room, though she remarked the flowers. 
 She was eagerly content to sit down in the large chair 
 which Maurice pulled towards the fire. From outside 
 came a dull plump as the last trunk descended from the 
 cart, and then the sound of unsteady steps on the cobbles 
 as Moon began his march up the path. Maurice was 
 stowing away her wraps upon the hooks by the door. 
 
 Anne surprised him. He dropped her coat. Her arms 
 had been flung with a gentle violence about him. "Oh, 
 I am glad," she said, and kissed him. Moon was at the 
 door. She ran with a childish shyness back to her chair, 
 and remained still while the bags were taken through the 
 room. 
 
 " I think everything's all right, sir," said Moon, " but 
 my wife didn't get you any things in, because she didn't 
 know what you might be bringing with you from London. 
 
STILL LIFE 109 
 
 But of course we can let you have anything you want. 
 We've always plenty." 
 
 " That's splendid. We didn't bring anything at all. We 
 were in too much of a hurry. But I relied on you as 
 usual." 
 
 " I know, sir. But come along soon, if you can, sir, or 
 shall I send some things across ? It's getting towards our 
 bedtime!" 
 
 " Of course. I'll be round just after you. Thank you 
 very much." The door closed. 
 
 Maurice went across to Anne, who sat as she was used, 
 with her hands clasping the arms of her chair. He spent 
 much of his courage in taking her two hands, and his 
 question was very like a gasp, " Oh, will you like it ? " 
 
 " Well, I can't see it very well ? " she answered, slowly 
 smiling, and then, " Of course I shall. I can't say anything 
 quickly to-night. I'm in a curious mood. That's why I 
 hesitated. Yes. I'm very romantic to-night. A princess 
 of the plain, carried off by her mountain lover." She 
 laughed at Maurice's incredulous face. 
 
 " There wasn't very much of that about it, was there ? " 
 he said. " I wish there had been more, don't you truly ? 
 . . . Except that ... It wouldn't have been me ... 
 after all. . . ." 
 
 " No, it wouldn't have been you." She pulled him 
 towards her and kissed him. " It's hardly the kind of 
 thing I long for, either." A whimsical, wistful look 
 passed over her face. " But you must go off to Mrs. Moon, 
 now, mustn't you ? It doesn't do to keep good people out 
 of their beds. . . . Have you forgotten all about it 
 already ? " She held his face between her hands. 
 
 " I don't know ... I seem to be very woolly to-day. 
 I don't think we should ever have got here if it had been 
 forme. I'll go now though. Let's make a blaze." Entering 
 bodily into a cupboard he rummaged about for a moment 
 and reappeared with an armful of wood which he threw 
 on to the fire. It caught Jinstantly, for it was very dry. 
 
110 STILL LIFE 
 
 The flames had begun to shine on to some blue and white 
 pots which stood in the chimney corner and on to the 
 bowl of flowers. Dancing serpentine shadows of the tulips 
 flickered over the wall against the fire. 
 
 Maurice paused at the door. " It's beautiful. You 
 can't see yourself sitting there. Your hair's all goldy. 
 ... I shan't be many minutes. . . ." 
 
 Anne listened to the quick clatter of his feet down the 
 path, then many softer steps fading away, while the gate 
 swung to and fro over the latch. He must be running 
 hard. " How like a child ! " she said, and at the moment 
 she loved him for that impetuousness. The warmth of the 
 spiry flames, cloven tongues, ascending high before they 
 passed to yellow-brown and streaming smoke, caressed her 
 body, then passed almost burning about her face. She 
 looked out of the window. A passing glimpse of the moon 
 lit the drops on the laurel leaves within the .small space of 
 the window, and beyond them the misty darkness crowded 
 low on the earth. How far she seemed and how com- 
 pletely her own, there by her own choice, and there her 
 own mistress ! There was indeed but little of the captured 
 princess in her. She wondered whether she regretted it, 
 as he so plainly did. A bewildering recollection of her 
 afternoon resolve that afternoon came upon her. What 
 was it had so suddenly changed her ? His letter, his act 
 had he suddenly taken on the stature of a man and the 
 capacity of a man's suffering ? His running steps seemed 
 still to sound in her ears. They were boyish, childish, as 
 were his timid apprehensions in the train. He had not 
 grown in a day. Strange that all her resolution had so 
 instantly been forgotten ! The truth was still the same. 
 She would have to meet him, to advance towards him at 
 every turn. She would be the giver and he the taker 
 always always ? for how long for months of days, 
 years of months, for ages of years. What was bigger than 
 ages centuries, they were not human. She stopped. 
 
 Yes, they would make a strange pair of lovers. Hers 
 
STILL LIFE 111 
 
 was all the responsibility. But it was not very irksome. 
 How deliberate and precise she could be about it ! The 
 phrase " educate him to love " entered into her thought, 
 and she smiled. What a preposterous idea ! Then she 
 was perturbed at her own extreme of consciousness and 
 longed to be rid of it. She awaited the sound of his return- 
 ing steps in eager expectation. After a long while came 
 the noise of a falling cinder, and after a yet longer interval, 
 the faint rumour of a footfall, slow and heavy, pausing 
 for a moment at the gate. 
 
 It was Maurice. The momentary fancy that he had 
 grown old took hold of her as he came up the path to- 
 wards the door. An instinct towards the prophetic and the 
 ominous had time to enlarge upon it before she heard two 
 strong knocks. Involuntarily she started as though they 
 had been unexpected. 
 
 She opened the door. Maurice was apologetic. He had 
 had to kick. He was wonderfully laden. Every pocket 
 bulged and his arms were full of packages and cans. 
 
 " Will you put some of them on the table ? You see I 
 had to get such a lot of things. It took longer than I 
 expected. I managed to set up house out of Mrs. Moon's 
 cupboards. And then I very nearly forgot all about 
 oil." 
 
 " How did you carry them ? " She was angry with 
 him for overburdening himself. " I'm sure you carried 
 far too much. I had no idea you had so much to bring. I 
 could easily have come with you. At any rate I'll not let 
 you do it again." 
 
 " Oh, it's all right, really. I'm quite used to it. Why, 
 I'm sure I carried as much as this last summer all the way 
 from Pirford in my knapsack." Completely unloaded, 
 he stood with his back to the fire and leant his shoulders 
 against the shelf. " I'm very happy," he burst out. " It's 
 so exciting. I know the road to Moon's as well as any- 
 thing, but it was all strange and splendid to-night. D'you 
 feel like that at all ? " 
 
112 STILL LIFE 
 
 " I don't know. . . . Yes, I am excited . . . but far 
 more relieved that you're back here. When the gate 
 snapped, you might have been miles away. I was very 
 lonely." 
 
 " But it won't be too lonely ? You are going to like 
 it?" 
 
 " Yes. Loneliness is one of my special moods. It comes 
 on me suddenly, anywhere. It's one of my vices." 
 
 " It's a ghastly thing while it lasts. ... I know." 
 
 She was hardly prepared to grant him the knowledge. 
 Her loneliness was so intimate that she felt a breath of 
 disparagement in his claim to her experience. He too felt 
 dubious. Anxiety made him fumble with her precious 
 secrets, and the thought that he was guilty of intrusion 
 drove him to hesitating silence. 
 
 Incessantly urged to closer contact with her he bruised 
 her. His innocence was nearly brutal. Yet he was sensi- 
 tive to her lack of response and his own maladroitness. 
 He took refuge in a nervous indifference that belied itself. 
 He rolled back and forward against the mantelpiece and 
 whistled. 
 
 " You haven't shown me the house yet," said Anne. 
 
 " I forget everything," he said despondingly. 
 
 Despite herself she laughed. " What a terrible exag- 
 geration ! Why, one can't be everything . . . Morry, 
 you can't be. I know how it is. You're still fright- 
 ened of me. You don't quite know how to handle me, 
 and it makes you depressed. Don't you see that it's 
 only a double burden ? If I feel you're not happy, I'm 
 miserable. If I feel you're not happy because of me it's 
 twice as bad." 
 
 He slipped to his knees before her chair and rested his 
 head on her lap. He didn't know what to say. Anne 
 went on. 
 
 " Don't you see what it is ? We're new to each other, 
 not yet quite sure. I'm only beginning to get used to 
 something strange in you. You're only beginning to get 
 
STILL LIFE 113 
 
 used to a self-conscious woman. It's only a matter of 
 hours before it will all pass. We shall be so close that 
 we'll respond to each other instantly." 
 'r She stroked his tangled hair. He was close to her now, 
 and her words bore less of definite meaning than of a 
 comforting caress. They seemed to fall into a melody. 
 Nevertheless he marked them, though they were hardly 
 actual. How different things were after they had passed 
 through her ! 
 
 " You're like a purifying fire," he said, glancing up at 
 her, shy at his phrase. 
 
 " What a beautiful thing to say to me ! " She under- 
 stood it. " It makes me feel so strong. . . . Morry, that 
 was wonderful." She took his head in her hands and bent 
 forward to kiss. He, looking up, wondered at the clean 
 fine lines of her face, the dark hair swept straight across 
 her forehead, the delicate motion of her nostrils as she 
 breathed a little more deeply at his words, the dull glint, of 
 the thin coral necklace that sank on to her bosom. Her 
 eyes were glistening and smiling at once. " I must be 
 crying from sheer happiness," she said. 
 
 Why was she so happy ? He had only said a little thing 
 so very simply, he thought, looking back upon it. How 
 could it have made her suddenly so happy? It was 
 unaccountable, but he was content and calm in her 
 happiness. 
 
 " We must go and look at the house," she said. 
 
 He held the candle high in the kitchen so that she might 
 see the copper splendours of the pots that hung high on 
 the walls. It was not a shabby kitchen. For all his meta- 
 physical abstractions Richmond was careful to satisfy his 
 keen appreciation of the dignity due to the mere regimen 
 of life. " I wish I had more money," he used to say, " I 
 would have my used possessions perfect." He always 
 spoke with an elaborate care. One day he said : " You 
 don't know, Maurice, how easy it is to degrade yourself in 
 small things. It's a kind of infection, it will creep in any- 
 
114 STILL LIFE 
 
 where. There's a quality in one's soul that comes 
 directly from the polish on one's saucepans, believe me. 
 I would rather spend nine hours on cleaning to be really 
 free for the tenth, than scamp it in an hour, and have the 
 nine for myself. They would feel to me gritty." Maurice, 
 inclined to the same kind of fantastic speculations, had 
 remembered this. 
 
 Therefore the cottage was intimate to Anne from this 
 first inspection. Its simple delicacy comforted her while 
 she climbed the narrow stairs behind him. Blake en- 
 gravings loomed for an instant upon her from the stair wall. 
 
 " This is the big bedroom." She had had no more than 
 the time to notice that several mirrors made it more of a 
 woman's room than a man's, when Maurice entered a 
 narrow room next door with a desk and some book- 
 shelves. " This is my room," he said. He turned a key in 
 a big box which stood in the corner, and pulled out a 
 trellis on which a canvas mattress was stretched. : ' That's 
 my own bed. I bought it. It all packs away in the day- 
 time, so that I can have the room to myself. It's a good 
 window." He pulled it open, inviting her to look outside, 
 but she could only see the vast masses of black clouds out- 
 lined with dull silver, hardly to be distinguished from a 
 deeper black nearer to the ground. " That's the woods. 
 Dunton Copse it's called. You go about a half-mile 
 further along the road to get into it." 
 
 " Are those your books ? " she asked. 
 
 " Only some of them. Just these." He pointed to two 
 rows on the top shelves. " All mine are in those rooms in 
 London. I shall have to get them sent down some time 
 or other, I suppose. It always takes a long while." 
 
 He was plainly proud of his room, and she asked him 
 another question. " What colour are the walls ? I can 
 hardly tell in this light." 
 
 " They do cheat you," he agreed. " They're really a 
 kind of blue. It's a bit purply though. ... I did them 
 myself another of my inventions." 
 
STILL LIFE 115 
 
 His was a curious little room, hardly a room at all, 
 circumscribed by the quaint correctness of a wooden toy. 
 It was rather a cell of infinite precision. " I like it," she 
 said on the threshold, " very much." 
 
 Another room, the last, occupied all the front of the 
 house, two-windowed and large. Save for a tiny rug and 
 two chairs, one of which rocked for a moment at her touch, 
 it was bare of furniture. 
 
 " This isn't anybody's room, really. Richmond couldn't 
 afford to furnish it. But he intends to. It's really the best 
 room of all. It has the morning sun, and looks straight on 
 to the hills. It's a good room to talk in, even though it 
 looks so bare." 
 
 Anticipating him she made haste to say that she liked 
 the house extremely. It was true enough, but ordinarily 
 she would have deliberated over a pronouncement so final. 
 " I like to feel the house altogether," she used to say. 
 
 " It always seems to me beautiful," he averred. 
 
 Descending the stairs she felt the wall on each side with 
 her hands, steadying herself for the steps were abrupt. 
 The novelty of her surroundings was present to her still. 
 
 " I don't feel at all tired," she said. 
 
 " Nor I." 
 
 " But we ought to be tired. We must be. I think it's 
 time for bed. Shall I make some tea first ? " 
 
 " Let me. I like an evening brew." 
 
 " I'm going to make it though. I want to. Is there 
 anything to eat ? I'm beginning to feel hungry at the 
 idea." 
 
 " There's bread and jam. Mrs. Moon gave us a cake 
 too." 
 
 " Us ? " she said, opening the big cupboard door and 
 looking for cups. "I'm sure she gave it to you particu- 
 larly. She would. But you'll have to give me some." 
 
 Returning from the garden with water, he found tea 
 completely arranged. The arrangement had a certain 
 particularity, centred in a single tulip taken from the 
 
116 STILL LIFE 
 
 bowl and set in a tiny blue and white pot from the mantel- 
 piece. He recognised the difference. 
 
 " How wonderfully you do it," he said, fixing the kettle 
 on the glowing coals. " You must be used to it." 
 
 " I don't know. It's a thing that belongs to a woman." 
 
 " I don't like to leave this fire," said Maurice. He was 
 squatting on the floor like a tailor. " But I suppose we 
 must. We haven't even begun to talk about things." 
 
 " Far better talk in the morning. We agreed that we'd 
 go directly after the tea. Already we must have spent 
 another half-hour, without saying a word, just enjoying 
 our laziness." She rose as she spoke, and lit the two 
 candles which stood on the window-ledge. 
 
 " I have to make my bed," he said, when they reached 
 the stair-head. " I think yours is all right." 
 
 " Do you know how to make one properly ? I don't 
 suppose you do." She led the way to his room. " Bring 
 me the things." 
 
 " That's better than your idea," she said, giving the 
 coverlet its final adjustment, and turned towards the 
 door. " I think I'd better see about my own." He hesi- 
 tated. Abruptly she turned and caught hold of him. 
 " Won't you kiss me good night ? " She had already 
 kissed him, and now he had the courage to hold her close. 
 Immediately his head sank on to her shoulder. " Are you 
 so very tired ? . . . You see I have to do everything," 
 she said, laughing. " Good night, Morry." 
 
 " Good night, Anne." 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 MAURICE listened to the sounds from Anne's room, while 
 he undressed himself mechanically. The feeling that he 
 had once more failed her oppressed him. To have done so 
 now seemed like a culmination of failure. Why did he not 
 go forward to meet her ? Instead, he had not the courage 
 to do as he himself desired. He had lost her in a moment. 
 In him there was a void, so that she found nothing where 
 she expected to meet him. If only he knew what she 
 thought, if only she knew how much self-accusation he had 
 to endure, how much it cost him to do even what he did, 
 then it would all be right. The assurance of her active 
 sympathy was sufficient for him. 
 
 The sounds in her room ceased. She must have gone to 
 bed now. A gust of wind penetrating through the chinks 
 of the diamond glass, fluttered his candle. He wondered 
 whether she was cold, and his mind rushed back to the 
 warm comfort of the house at Kensington. He had thought 
 it so natural that she should come with him that day ; 
 miraculous, too, but by a strangely natural miracle, upon 
 which he had at most moments during the last days 
 securely counted. How far away she was in the other 
 room ! He stared at the dim picture at the foot of his bed, 
 and into the frame he put a vision of her as she lay there in 
 the big room. The dark line which her hair made against 
 the pillow was very clear. Her head would be resting upon 
 her hand that was indubitable. The vision was complete 
 and by worlds remote from him, as he endeavoured to forge 
 a bond between them, to bridge over the utterness of their 
 parting at his door. The effort failed. In spite of all his 
 anxious labour no relation could be made between the 
 
 117 
 
118 STILL LIFE 
 
 wonderful being who lay there apart and him, staring at 
 the picture over his bed foot. A passionate desire grew 
 in him to pass over the abyss between them. If only oh, 
 why did he feel so helpless in their moments of intimacy ? 
 From them he brought nothing away to comfort him ; 
 only a conviction of his own insufficiency remained to make 
 him lonely as he was now. 
 
 Now his every member was present to him, sharply con- 
 toured. The vivid lines that bounded him severed him 
 from things beyond, and he was a speck in a vast circum- 
 ambient universe. It seemed to him that he could hear, 
 even watch his brain, ticking as a noisy clock, with a 
 metallic sound that echoed into empty spaces beyond. 
 Drowsy now, he contemplated it and listened. A slight 
 shiver trembled over his body. He was cold, but he could 
 not impel himself to move. Eyes shut, he listened to the 
 noise of his own brain, which now confused with the throb- 
 bing of some pulse in his head. He was so tired that 
 he enjoyed the constant, tiny check upon his desire to 
 sleep. 
 
 A soft footfall made itself heard above the beat of his 
 own blood. Half instinct, half conscious purpose held his 
 eyes open only so far that he could see a blur between his 
 lashes. The noisy latch lifted so quietly, the door moved 
 so slowly that he was nearly frightened. Then he saw 
 Anne on tiptoe moving towards him. So much beauty 
 was apparent in her as she stood for a moment quite 
 still beside him, a reticent loveliness of warm half-hidden 
 lights, he was incredulous that she had come to him. 
 Feigning sleep, he began to breathe more slowly, clutching 
 the coverlet. Her hand was playing lightly with his hair, 
 then was pressed hard on the pillow beside his head, while 
 she bent down. She must be just looking at him, for he 
 could feel the warmth of her slowly-given breath upon his 
 cheek. Every little thread of it was distinct and percep- 
 tible to him. His nerves seemed separately to quiver with 
 their sensitiveness, as though each smallest pulse of sensa- 
 
STILL LIFE 119 
 
 tion, before lost in one indistinguishable, now for the first 
 time had its own quality. Then she kissed him on the lips 
 and whispered : " Morry, darling. . . . How like a little 
 boy he is. . . ." 
 
 He moved in pretended sleep, and he could not prevent 
 a smile of happiness from puckering his lips. For a second 
 her hands were again touching lightly his hair ; yet more 
 lightly in fear to disturb him she touched his lips with hers 
 and moved away. Listening, with eyes still shut, to retain 
 her presence, he heard no sound of her return. 
 
 She had bathed him in herself ; the comfort of her con- 
 tact and caress wreathed in ascending waves, like a curling 
 smoke, above him. The hardness which had circumscribed 
 him gently obliterated and dissolved away. He became 
 one with all that surrounded him ; his consciousness ebbed 
 out into his body and was lost. 
 
 He awoke suddenly into the deep dark. A nameless 
 terror pressed upon him. Still dizzy he stood on the floor 
 and shivered. Then he opened his door and went to hers. 
 He knocked quickly and entered. Hardly noticing whether 
 she were asleep or awake he hurried into the big bed, and 
 curled close to her. Before he fell asleep he knew that she 
 had kissed him and pressed him against her. 
 
 Anne watched him rub his eyes awake with screwed-up 
 fists and thrust the overshadowing hair away from his fore- 
 head. Smiling with tender amusement she wondered what 
 he would say. He, too, smiled with a dreamy recognition 
 at her. Then he started. " oh," he said, and kept a 
 startled silence for a moment, staring into her eyes as she 
 lay beside him. 
 
 " Why," he said, " you've not slept at all." 
 
 " Oh, yes. I can't have been awake more than a half- 
 hour." 
 
 " Why didn't you wake me ? " 
 
 " Why should I ? You were tired. The longer you 
 slept the better." 
 
120 STILL LIFE 
 
 " Wasn't it curious. ... I mean me here beside you while 
 you were awake ? " 
 
 " Not so curious. Besides, I've been looking out of your 
 window on to the fields. They're so beautiful." 
 
 He was ruminative and she laughed aloud. " You have 
 a scared look about you. Are you wondering how you got 
 here ? " 
 
 " I wonder what the time is," he said inconsequently. 
 
 Anne reached across to the table by the bedside for a 
 little travelling clock and placed it in his hands. 
 
 " My hat. It's just on ten." He whistled with an empty 
 windy noise. " A good job I put out the can for the milk. 
 Jim's gone two hours ago." 
 
 He sat upright, stretched his hands behind his head, and 
 looked at her. The puzzled expression was still in his face. 
 
 " Well, what do you think of me ? " he said at length, 
 pausing with one foot still beneath the bedclothes. He did 
 not wait for an answer, but ran to the door. " I'll have 
 the downstairs done in a minute. It'll be all ready for you. 
 I'm an expert. But," he added with his hand still on the 
 latch, " we'll have to get somebody, sure we shall." 
 
 Anne was lazy for a little while, until she heard the 
 sound of violent activities downstairs. Doors banged 
 windy intervals in the noise of vigorous sweeping. A great 
 cleanliness hung, slightly chill, about the house. It was a 
 quicksilver day, and as the spring sun poured busily in 
 through the uncurtained windows and fought amiably 
 with the spring winds that pressed through the chinks 
 there was to her vision something quicksilver in the whole 
 situation. An active, elusive principle was eagerly at work, 
 escaping the grasp. On a moment everything seemed to 
 change its quality. Soon it would be just a windy game, 
 and she a girl. A quick clattering of cans below tinkled 
 accompaniment. She was very gay at heart, and once out 
 of bed, she dressed with an exciting swiftness, and hurried 
 down. 
 
 Maurice was sweeping ashes from the fire, but he turned 
 
STILL LIFE 121 
 
 as she came into the room. " You did look lovely this 
 morning," he said without a pause in his sweeping. 
 
 " Did I ? " A naive answer to this disconcerting attack 
 shaped involuntarily. " I didn't know." She hesitated 
 where she stood, vaguely expecting that he would regard 
 her closely. She had dressed in something he had not seen 
 before, in a long blue gown, shaped close to her waist and 
 body, descending to an amplitude of skirt. She knew it 
 was beautiful. 
 
 " What shall I do ? " she asked as he took up his bucket. 
 " Get the breakfast ? " 
 
 " Will you ? That would be splendid. I shall be over 
 with mine in a quarter of an hour." He hurried out into 
 the back garden ; the creaking of a pump handle and much 
 cold splashing followed his exit. 
 
 Breakfast done, they sat talking in front of the fire. 
 
 " Well, what are we going to do now ? " said Anne. 
 
 Maurice was taken aback. " There's lots of things," he 
 explained generally. 
 
 ' l Tell me then." 
 
 " Why, we've got to clear up for to-day. Then we'll 
 have to go and find somebody to come in and look after us. 
 And there's lunch and dinner. A general round-up wouldn't 
 be a bad thing, would it ? " 
 
 " I don't quite mean these things. They're taken for 
 granted. I mean rather ..." 
 
 " Oh, I see. Well, I thought it would be fine if we went 
 for a long walk this afternoon. I want to show you all the 
 place about. Besides, we could go in and see Mrs. Fletcher 
 at Stackling on the way." 
 
 " Who's Mrs. Fletcher ? " 
 
 " She's the woman who used to do for Richmond and me 
 when we were here. She lives at Stackling. That's not 
 more than a mile and a half along by the path, and there's 
 a gorgeous road on to the hills from there. Not a real 
 road of course, all overgrown, supposed to have been a 
 smugglers' way. I like that kind of thing." 
 
122 STILL LIFE 
 
 Anne was persistent with her question. 
 
 " That's to-day. But what are we going to do the othei 
 days ? I mean ..." She leant forward on the table with 
 her chin on her hands. 
 
 " I never thought about that." 
 
 " I don't know why I did. But it suddenly struck 
 me." 
 
 " Well, it won't be so very different from what it was in 
 London. I never really had anything to do there, you see. 
 I mean that I didn't make any money. I managed to live 
 of course. No one has ever given me money or made me 
 an allowance or anything of that kind. I make a little in 
 between whiles by doing little jobs for papers. Cradock 
 used to get me some." He looked at her with surprised 
 discovery. " I suppose that's all over now. That's funny. 
 It's quite hard to get the hang of things. This business oi 
 ours seems so complete in itself that it's difficult to imagine 
 that it has anything to do with other people at all. Can 
 you believe that lots of people will be talking about us ; 
 fairly dropping on us ? That's so curious," he went on 
 without a pause. " Can't see why they should. They've 
 suddenly all become unreal, and they weren't very real to 
 me before. Are they real or unreal to you ? " 
 
 Anne nodded her head slowly. " Not real at all." 
 
 " Do you know," he said, " this is the first time that I've 
 realised that we've done something ? I knew that it was 
 all wonderful, but there was something so natural in it all. 
 ... I never dreamed till now that we were making an event 
 for other people. My hat, we've been and gone and done 
 it." He wagged his head for a little while. '' Yes, we 
 have," he said. " Are you glad ? " 
 
 :< Yes," said Anne. She did not want to interrupt him. 
 She hardly knew whether to be sorry that he had under- 
 stood so little what she herself had done, or to be happy 
 because he was so spontaneous. She was frightened 
 rather by the depth and sincerity of his natural self- 
 absorption. They were like two circles that had been 
 
STILL LIFE 123 
 
 important in her algebra, she thought, one wholly contain- 
 ing the other. 
 
 " What was it we were talking about ? " he said abruptly. 
 " Oh, what we were going to do. I think I shall go on in 
 much the same way. I read an awful lot. I don't know 
 that I do much besides. I seem to have spent all my time 
 talking, mostly to Dennis. But then I don't see such a 
 great deal of him, not so much as I would like. I wonder 
 what I spend most time at," he said disingenuously. " Of 
 course I do try to write other things." 
 
 How quickly the " we " had whittled down to the " I," 
 Anne thought. It had not occurred to him that she would 
 have to do something. Why should it ? If he did not 
 think about it naturally, far better not think about it at 
 all. After all there was no problem as regards herself, and 
 therefore no need for his help in its solution. It was simple 
 for her to continue as she had been, but with the old 
 restraints and vexations gone. 
 
 He was looking out of the window. " Why, there's a 
 month's hard labour in the garden alone. It's worth 
 making perfect. Do you know a lot about gardening ? " 
 
 " Something, not very much. Perhaps enough to man- 
 age the garden here. We can make a beginning to-day." 
 She, too, glanced out of the window, looking sideways at 
 his face. He seemed to be thinking about nothing at all. 
 " Do you like music ? " she asked. 
 
 He pondered for an instant. " I don't know, honestly. 
 I only have music by fits and starts, and it's hard to tell. 
 Sometimes I like it very much. But there's this certain 
 fact. I've never been to a concert of my own choice. Why, 
 do you ? " 
 
 ' Yes, very much." 
 
 " It's a pity. You can't get very much in the country, 
 can you ? " 
 
 " Another thing," said Anne, " how are we for money ? " 
 
 " That's been at the back of my mind for the last hour. 
 One thing, it's very cheap living here. I've got quite a lot 
 
124 STILL LIFE 
 
 for me in the bank, over forty pounds. That will last 
 a long while. Three months, at least. I dare say I shall 
 make some more during that time. I must," he said, 
 rising from his chair and standing beside her. 
 
 Anne laid her hands on his arm. " I was teasing you," 
 she said. " I've got a lot of money. I forget quite 
 how much. Besides, it's never quite the same. But it's 
 nearly three hundred pounds a year. That's five pounds 
 a week, and it belongs to me. Yes, five pounds a week." 
 
 "Six," said Maurice. 
 
 " Oh, that's why there always seems to be something 
 over. I make a rule never to spend more than five pounds 
 a week. So there's nothing to worry about, is there ? " 
 
 " No," he said dubiously. " What an awful lot of 
 money ! I should never be able to earn as much, never." 
 
 " Why should you ? Isn't it as much yours as mine ? " 
 She stood up and put her arms round him. His lips were 
 pouting. 
 
 " It doesn't seem fair," he said. 
 
 " How not fair ? If you had the money, you'd give me 
 half, wouldn't you ? " 
 
 " You know I would." 
 
 " Well, then." 
 
 He was hardly convinced, but enough convinced to 
 allow him to begin to clear up. " At all events we can 
 afford a servant," she said, as she pushed him quietly aside 
 and piled the tray herself. 
 
 They were slowly climbing the smugglers' road. The 
 freshness of the clean air, the bright flashes of green and 
 yellow from the new turf and the gorse buds, sent a care- 
 less consciousness of their own active bodies through them, 
 and overwhelmed the lingering half-taste of a difference. 
 
 " Do you think she will do for us ? " said Maurice. 
 
 At the bottom of the lane hidden by the copse which 
 they had just skirted was Mrs. Fletcher's house. She would 
 
STILL LIFE 125 
 
 come herself of course if Mr. Temple preferred, but would 
 he mind if her daughter came instead ? Then Mrs. Fletcher 
 had addressed Anne and informed her that Alice had never 
 been out before, but that she knew all about cleaning and 
 cooking. " At least, all that I have to teach her, m'm." 
 Alice had appeared, blushing, with an unexpected curtsey 
 for Anne, and it had been then and there agreed that Alice 
 should begin to-morrow. 
 
 "I think, admirably. I wonder if she will go on curtsey- 
 ing in the house. She can't very well, if she's carrying 
 things." 
 
 " No. I'm sure she'll work hard. Mrs. Fletcher has 
 taught her that, I bet. Did you see her pots and pans in 
 the kitchen ? But you didn't come in. Why not ? " 
 
 " I saw them shining even through the window. I didn't 
 like to go in. I'm always afraid that I shall intrude." She 
 saw that he was wondering whether he had intruded. " It's 
 different for you. You know them very well. Besides, 
 you're not half so self-conscious as I am." 
 
 " I always think I'm the self-conscious one." 
 
 " That's not so really. You weren't in the least self- 
 conscious with Mrs. Fletcher, were you ? " 
 
 " No now that I come to think it never occurred to 
 me." 
 
 " That's it, and I'm sure you never have been. You can 
 forget about it all quite easily, if you have the right people. 
 If you have to do with people who are natural, you are 
 perfectly natural yourself. I hardly ever forget myself 
 entirely. It's not quite what you would call self-conscious- 
 ness. I always hold something in reserve. I never give quite 
 enough of myself to be able to ignore other people's rights. 
 I don't go into Mrs. Fletcher's house because I haven't 
 taken her into mine. Do you understand what I mean ? " 
 
 " Yes. Still I don't think Mrs. Fletcher ever dreamed 
 of looking at it from that point of view." 
 
 " Nor I, of course. I'm really finding out about myself. 
 If I did go in I should have very likely to behave much 
 
126 STILL LIFE 
 
 more amiably than I felt. Besides, I always get cross when 
 I'm treated as a being from another world. People like 
 Mrs. Fletcher never are quite comfortable with me. It 
 doesn't make any odds whether I'm very nice, or over- 
 flowing with hauteur. They always think that I'm doing 
 them a kindness, and that makes me angry. Oh ! I've 
 learnt it by long experience." 
 
 " It's strange how different we are in things like this." 
 At the edge of an old chalk-pit they paused and looked 
 back into the copse, which now began to hide the black of 
 its wood in the greenness of the new leaves, on to the road 
 which curled white round the hill foot till it guided their 
 eyes to their own cottage. 
 
 " Who's more to be envied ? " asked Anne. 
 
 " You." 
 
 " I don't think so. The people who like you like you 
 much more than they would me. And there can't be any 
 people who don't like you. They don't have time to. 
 You're scared off." 
 
 An undecided smile flickered over his lips. " I can't 
 help it." 
 
 " Of course you can't. But I'm amazed that Jim didn't 
 scare you. You went to ask him for work, didn't you ? 
 I've always been told he's terrible in the office." 
 
 " Oh, that was funny. I sent up my name ; but some- 
 one must have made a mistake, and gone to the wrong 
 room. At all events he wasn't expecting anybody. When 
 I got to his room I tapped ever so lightly on the door and 
 slid in. You don't know how quiet I can be when I'm 
 nervous. He was behind a tall desk so that he couldn't 
 see me unless he looked up deliberately. I must have sat 
 in the chair twenty minutes before he noticed me. He was 
 immensely surprised. Then he burst out laughing. After 
 that he must have 1 felt sorry for me or something. He was 
 very decent ; gave me some tea ; and sent me away with 
 a book under my arm. After that day he was always rather 
 amused with me." 
 
STILL LIFE 127 
 
 " Oh, I can see him," said Anne. " It was exactly like 
 him. But didn't he say ' By God, man,' when he noticed 
 you ? " 
 
 " Yes, he did. I'd forgotten that." 
 
 " I knew he would." 
 
 Maurice was perplexed and awkward while Anne spoke 
 of Cradock. He couldn't understand how she could speak 
 of him so easily. Therefore, he dug holes in the turf with 
 his stick and busied himself in constructing a pattern. 
 
 " It's rather sad that a woman can't live by respecting 
 a man," she said as though to herself. But she had spoken 
 to him, for she asked, " Don't you think so ? " 
 
 " Yes, I suppose it is," he said shyly. 
 
 " Have you begun to wonder why I left him so 
 easily ? " 
 
 " I'd just begun to think about it." Now that he did, it 
 puzzled him. He had liked Cradock. Particularly on the 
 night of the dinner-party he had admired the way Cradock 
 had treated his wife. There was a kind of natural courtesy, 
 a real respect, in his behaviour. Of course it would have 
 been hard to be intimate with Cradock. That he realised 
 by comparing him with Dennis. But still . . . there was 
 something decent about Cradock. 
 
 " Let's go on now," said Anne. " I would like an early 
 tea." They walked across the slope of the hill hand in 
 hand. " It's really much simpler to understand if you 
 don't think about it, I believe," she said. " It seems 
 to me so very obvious ; yet it would be quite hard to 
 explain." 
 
 Maurice followed her instantly. He felt that they, walk- 
 ing along together, were so extraordinarily just and right, 
 that it was only a waste of time to bother about things 
 before. From her he felt a growing conviction of sanity 
 that warmed him and slowly welled into a sense of 
 triumph. His grasp of her hand tightened. He faced her 
 and quickly wound her tight in his arms, kissing her 
 passionately. 
 
128 STILL LIFE 
 
 Almost before their lips had met the burning impulse 
 had chilled to ashes in him. He could not lose himself in 
 her. He saw her eyes closed, her head bent back. He saw 
 everything. Above all he saw himself, deliberate and 
 conscious. 
 
 He shut his eyes that the actual things around might not 
 become an obsession. In a moment they were clearer, 
 harder, more instant in his vision. The broken fairy 
 rings of deep green grass were definite as diagrams ; the 
 gnarled trunk of an oak made one clear contorted line. 
 He had seen them blindly but a minute before, now they 
 pressed into his consciousness, tyrannical. Anne dis- 
 engaged herself from him, and he stood gazing at the 
 ground, mute, oppressed and trembling. A vast was 
 between them. 
 
 " I'm sorry," he faltered. 
 
 It was past bearing. Quick anger rose in Anne. Dull 
 fought with the bright in her eyes. " Oh, why ? . . . You 
 torture me. ..." She clenched her hands by her sides, pant- 
 ing breath crowded through her nostrils. Her lips pressed 
 nervously together. He did not lift his eyes, and as she 
 looked at him, her strength and her anger died in her, like 
 a wind that drops and leaves the sail fluttering empty 
 against the mast. For her weakness she could have fallen. 
 She reached for his hand. 
 
 " Let's go home, now," she said. A shudder shook him 
 so violently that his hand trembled in hers. She held it 
 tighter. " Let's go, Morry." 
 
 He strode quickly on the downhill path. The jar of each 
 step was a relief to him. The spring sun wheeling to its 
 setting in a blaze of light mocked them both. A dead fire 
 burned within him. He must do something. He ought 
 to cry. " Oh, God," he moaned. 
 
 The note of the words told Anne that he had passed 
 away from her. " Don't," she said. " It's nothing." He 
 stood stock still, facing her. 
 
 " Oh, no. It's nothing. . . . It's just me." He trembled 
 
STILL LIFE 129 
 
 only a little from fatigue, but the tremor was perceptible 
 in his speech. " I fail . . . just fail. . . ." 
 
 "Don't don't speak like that." She despaired that 
 ever her voice would carry down the void and reach him. 
 
 " You don't want me now." 
 
 " Morry." 
 
 She let his head rest upon her shoulder, glad, unutterably 
 glad of the burden. Upon them both a wide peace de- 
 scended. 
 
 " Let us go now," she said quietly. 
 
 ; ' Yes." He caught her hand and kissed it, resting his 
 lips upon it for a long while, then, saying nothing, they set 
 out for home. 
 
 Sitting in the house while the darkness slowly gathered 
 about them they breathed an exquisite calm. For a while 
 it was common to them both. More than the rest after 
 long physical fatigue was the conscious delight of the body, 
 but lately threatened and agitated by the mind, in the 
 mind's peace. In Maurice it passed imperceptibly into a 
 keen contentment. The struggle was finally ended and he 
 was free. The bond between himself now and himself of 
 two hours ago slipped easily from him. Remembering 
 events, not feelings, he wondered aloud. 
 
 " How strange that was. Wasn't it awful while it lasted, 
 Anne ? " 
 
 " Yes," she said quickly. She had been stabbed 
 again. 
 
 " I can't think of it if I want to. I can see us there 
 on the hill, by the old oak and the fairy rings, but I 
 can't get nearer to it. It's only a picture. But it's 
 ghastly." 
 
 ; ' Yes, . . . it's hard to recall." Anne was hurt that 
 the memory had so wholly faded for him. To herself it 
 was very present. The words he had spoken echoed in her. 
 For a moment she wondered in which Maurice she was to 
 believe, for, she thought, it would be hard to hold them 
 both. She could never go through it again. The sound 
 
130 STILL LIFE 
 
 of his careless voice almost convinced her that she would 
 never need to. 
 
 " Are you going to write to Jim ? " he asked. 
 
 ' Yes Why do you ask ? " 
 
 " I was only curious. Won't it be rather a job ? I'm 
 just thinking about things again, wondering what'll 
 be in his mind now. It seems a shame that you should 
 have the business of writing while I don't have any- 
 thing." 
 
 " I don't think about it very much," she said. " A 
 letter to Jim now is rather like any other letter. I don't 
 want to hurt him, but if I must, well, I can't let it worry 
 me deeply. It wouldn't in any case." 
 
 " No, of course not," he said, as though he saw the 
 matter under a new aspect. 
 
 " I think I'll write now. It'll catch the evening post, 
 won't it ? " 
 
 Maurice looked up at the clock. " If you finish in half 
 an hour, easily." He went upstairs, while she cleared a 
 space upon the table for herself, into which she arranged 
 the pad and paper which he brought down. 
 
 "I'll wash the tea-things," he said, dimly suspecting that 
 this was an occasion on which she should be left alone. He 
 left the room with the tray. 
 
 He wondered what she was saying in her letter, though 
 he tried to convince himself that it didn't really matter. 
 A little spark of resentment that Anne should be busying 
 herself with another person than him kindled. What was 
 the good of knowing ? he thought ; but still he desired to 
 know. That he would not dare to ask her to let him see 
 only sharpened his desire. He made a great noise as he 
 put the china away on the dresser, for thus he managed to 
 assert his presence and his personality. Seeing that he 
 would have to go out to the post-box, he felt grudging 
 about it. The thought that a half-mile walk deserved a 
 sight of the letter was at the bottom of his mind, but* he 
 managed not to present the equation to himself in that 
 
STILL LIFE 131 
 
 shape. Nevertheless, he could not help feeling that he was 
 being hardly treated. 
 
 " Morry, you've surely finished. Come here ! " Anne's 
 call took him by surprise. He had to justify himself. He 
 wiped down an already clean table, and folded the cloth 
 which had been better hung to dry. 
 
 " Just a moment. I'm hanging up the cloths," he said, 
 and after a pause entered. 
 
 " Would you like to read it ? " she said. 
 
 He was at a loss to reply. " What the letter ? " He 
 could not avoid betraying his surprise. " No o. Why 
 should I ? " 
 
 She passed it across the table to him. " I think you had 
 better. It's our letter, after all, rather than mine." 
 
 " If you please, I'd rather not, really," he said. " I don't 
 want to." 
 
 " Perhaps you're right." Then she said, half to herself, 
 " It's my own responsibility anyhow." 
 
 " Oh, no. It's not that," he put in anxiously. 
 
 " Well, what is it then ? " she asked. 
 
 " I don't know." He made a curious little gesture with 
 his head, as though he tried to shake off something that 
 clung to him. " I don't," he protested. 
 
 At that Anne sealed the envelope. " It's not very im- 
 portant one way or the other," she said. " And there's no 
 great hurry about sending it. It's not very pleasant 
 going to the post at this time in the evening." 
 
 "I'd like to go," he said stubbornly. " Besides, I want 
 to send a letter myself. I have just got time to write it." 
 
 ; ' To whom ? " 
 
 " To Dennis. Don't you think we might ask him down ? " 
 He was already writing at the table. After a little while he 
 stopped to remark : " I think Dennis likes you very much. 
 I suppose he likes me. I wonder if he would like us both ? " 
 
 " I wonder. Yes, ask him down." 
 
 During his absence, Anne's thought was turned in- 
 evitably to the afternoon. In the few minutes' solitude 
 
132 STILL LIFE 
 
 she could detach herself and consider. But not even yet 
 had the sense of desolation, of sudden abandonment, com- 
 pletely passed away. She had always been isolated, since 
 she could remember, but the isolation had always been of 
 her own seeking and creation. To-day she had been flung 
 off by eternity. She reconstructed the moment. It was 
 in outline so plain. The second of utter surrender to their 
 full love, the instant torment of self-consciousness that had 
 flowed from him to her immediately and stung her naked 
 nerves, his agony of self-accusation. It was that which 
 froze her. While he wrestled with himself she was as 
 nothing, yet he was the cause of his own agony. What did 
 that matter ? He should have the courage of his own 
 desire. Should, should ? Why should he ? He would not 
 be himself. Being himself, he could not. It was some- 
 thing new to him, this sudden incandescence of love. 
 New ? it was rather as though he had passed his life in 
 blowing cold upon his own flame at its whitest. Twenty- 
 four years. A boy. Every word he spoke, every gesture 
 he made revealed it. Every word but those, every gesture 
 but that. He became old in a moment and passed as 
 quickly back to a boy. Was it her fault that he evaded 
 her ? She was the occasion. She should come nearer to 
 meet him. Somehow she must come closer to him yet, 
 anticipate his reactions. Yes, she had said the truth. She 
 did not give utterly ; something of herself held back 
 frightened him as it were a judgment. It was she who 
 failed, not he. 
 
 Mere words ! she had performed miracles of giving, 
 opened herself so wide to him that she was tired of giving ; 
 not tired, but fearful of the brutality in him, that was never 
 far away. She would give to the man and find the child. 
 Suddenly she seemed to understand. 
 
 She could not always be conscious. Against certain 
 things the reaction was instant and unreasoned. In her 
 life so much had been lifted out of instinct into conscious- 
 ness, so much effort expended on the change, that what 
 
STILL LIFE 133 
 
 remained was irreducible. It was an unchangeable condi- 
 tion of her being. If she gave more, the whole would be 
 play-acting. If she offered more of herself, then she must 
 harden herself against the wounds he would inflict, and 
 hardened, she would not be giving, she would not even be 
 herself. For a little while she thought that she had shirked 
 her own conclusions, but over her thought there hung the 
 misty assurance that there were no conclusions. Through 
 the mist penetrated the feeling that she had failed him, be- 
 yond which, though she strove to weaken it by the thought 
 that it had been born of her thinking, she could not reach. 
 Therefore she was sad, and tender to Maurice when he 
 entered the room once more. 
 
 She had placed a low stool against her chair before the 
 fire, and she motioned him to it. First, he dropped his 
 chin upon his hands and bent forward to watch the fire, 
 but in a moment he leaned his head sideways upon her lap 
 and played with the silver buckle of her shoe. 
 
 " The latchet of whose shoes," he said dreamily. " I 
 am not worthy . . . Don't say ' no.' I've been thinking 
 about us on my way back to-night. It wasn't Judas who 
 said that though, was it ? That would make it better 
 still." He was turned about now. His head rested on his 
 arms, and they upon her lap. " How I betray you. I 
 wonder if I shall go on doing it ? " 
 
 " Betray me. How ? " she asked quietly. 
 
 " All kinds of ways. More than I know even. I know 
 you expect me and I'm not there, time after time. You 
 know what I mean. You must. When I want you you are 
 always there, always." 
 
 " Always ? This afternoon ? " The mournful melody 
 of the words was strange to him, and he looked up at her. 
 Sad and tired, tender and smiling how wonderful she 
 looked ! 
 
 " Why do you say it like that ? " 
 
 She shook her head slowly. " I don't know." 
 
 " But I failed this afternoon. The one thing / can't for- 
 
134 STILL LIFE 
 
 get is the way I knew. It was like a revelation, absolutely 
 certain." To that she could say nothing. He might under- 
 stand, but she could not explain. " I knew something 
 else," he continued, " I shall always depend on you." 
 
 " But you can't always, can you ? Besides, you don't 
 really want to. Only a half of you does." 
 
 " Yes," he said slowly, " I suppose that's right." 
 
 " It's true and it's right." 
 
 :< You do seem to know a lot about me, Anne." 
 
 " Not very much." 
 
 " How much ? " 
 
 " A very little. Don't worry me." She smiled at him. 
 
 " As much as I know about myself ? " 
 
 " Perhaps. I don't know." 
 
 " Yes, you do. I know you do. More than I know about 
 myself. Tell me." 
 
 " Perhaps. How can I tell you ? " 
 
 " I think you do," he said. " Was I really worrying ? " 
 
 " Not really. . . . But how could I answer you ? " 
 
 " Couldn't you ? " 
 
 " Yes, I could answer you. But you didn't want my 
 answer, you wanted your own. Shall I tell you what you 
 really wanted me to say ? " 
 ' Yes, please." 
 
 " You wanted me to say that I knew all about you. 
 Isn't that true ? " 
 
 " I don't know. I have to think. . . . Perhaps. . . . Yes. 
 . . . Why didn't you say it then ? You might as well, 
 mightn't you ? " 
 
 " No. You see it wasn't true." 
 
 " Not really ? " 
 
 " No," she said, and shook her head deliberately. 
 
 " I wish to God you did. I wouldn't mind not knowing 
 myself then, you see. . . . Oh, Anne darling ..." 
 
 The evening moved naturally to its close. Naturally, 
 without hesitations, he went to her room. He curled up 
 so as to be small beside her, and his head lay in the warm 
 
 
STILL LIFE 135 
 
 comfort of her breast. Sleepy soon, he emerged with one 
 last question : 
 
 " Did you ever snuggle up, when you were small ? " 
 " Yes," she said. It was not her word, but she under- 
 stood and kissed him. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 DENNIS BEAUCHAMP was thoroughgoing. As outwardly 
 he never showed surprise, so inwardly, though he was 
 alone in his room at the hospital, he refused to allow that 
 Temple's letter was unexpected. Propping it against the 
 coffee-pot he continued to drink, and read the letter again. 
 
 " So that's all right," he said. 
 
 But he felt that another cubit had been taken from his 
 stature. Suddenly, Maurice had done something, quite 
 definite. Unmistakably he had made a step. Forward 
 or backward, right or wrong, did not matter. He had 
 emerged from the vague background of desires and ideals 
 and committed himself to an action. A tinge of envious 
 resentment clouded Dennis's contemplation. He could 
 not help accusing himself, and his self-directed shafts had 
 a keen, particular barb. Maurice had done something that 
 he himself might have done, and thus had closed one 
 possible avenue of escape for him. He had quite as good 
 a right to run away with Anne Cradock as Maurice, a 
 better right, for he understood her better. She was clear 
 before him as she had been in her drawing-room on the 
 afternoon three days ago, and as the picture took on a 
 sharper reality, he thought with a half-smile that he hadn't 
 any very considerable right to her. None at all, in fact. 
 But he might have created it. The idea of himself as the 
 stern, silent, insistent lover quickly engaged him, almost 
 before he had time to laugh at himself for being ridiculous. 
 Anne Cradock was a little too good to be handled in that 
 way. She would see through it and laugh before he could 
 say the first masterful word. Her amused smile was in- 
 fectious. He was laughing with her BOW. 
 
STILL LIFE 137 
 
 He was rather grieved with things in general because he 
 was not permitted to take himself seriously. After all, 
 there was the fact. Anne Cradock had gone away into the 
 country with Maurice, because she pitied him. And he was 
 to be pitied. His depressions, his insecurities, were over- 
 whelming. Dennis himself had felt that many times. 
 Nevertheless, his own title to pity was at least equal to 
 Temple's. For a moment he thought that he might have 
 made himself as convincing, and he began to reproach him- 
 self for having neglected an opportunity. But no sooner 
 had he run his idea a little way than a vision of Anne 
 Cradock appeared smiling at him with understanding 
 amusement. " It's no use, Dennis another orgy of self- 
 pity." Not the slightest use, he hastened to agree. 
 
 The difference was that he was older than Maurice. But 
 Anne was not the person to run away with a young man 
 just because he was young. " I give it up," he said aloud. 
 A suspicion entered into him that he had not rightly under- 
 stood Maurice, and he could not banish it, although he was 
 certainly not prepared to grant that it even might be true. 
 It was very fortunate that he had been invited down, for 
 now he was urgent to see Maurice and to search him out. 
 With some surprise he recollected that Anne would be 
 there too. Maurice had been isolated in his thought till 
 then. Yes, he wanted to see them very much indeed. 
 
 A clamorous bell called him away for a few minutes to 
 consult with a fellow house-surgeon. Clear, with an im- 
 pressive conviction, he soon persuaded Richards to the 
 opposite of his formed opinion, and Richards admired him 
 for it. 
 
 " By Jove, I never thought of that." 
 
 " Nor I, till now," said Dennis. 
 
 " Is that so, really ? " 
 
 ; ' The fact. Look here, Richards. Do you mind if you 
 let me have the next free week-end ? It's yours really, I 
 know. But I very much want to see a friend, and I may 
 not have another opportunity. Let's see. To-day's Tues- 
 
138 STILL LIFE 
 
 day. I'll do your night turn for the rest of the week if it 
 will be any good to you." 
 
 Richards was very pleased to be asked. Dennis hardly 
 ever wanted an extra week-end, while he was always ask- 
 ing Dennis to change. 
 
 " Of course. Only too pleased. But why do the night 
 duty ? I'm all right. . . . But if you take my turn on Thurs- 
 day, I'd be very much obliged." 
 
 " Certainly. Thanks very much. I haven't quite 
 finished my breakfast." He pulled out his watch. " Only 
 twenty minutes before that lecture. I must be off. Good- 
 bye." 
 
 He turned over the pages of a book of lecture notes. His 
 were held to be very brilliant lectures, and he idly wondered 
 whether the world had a pitiful capacity for self-deception. 
 The mathematical regularity of his handwriting was appro- 
 priate to the utter remoteness of the matter of his analysis. 
 It was so indifferent to him that its appeal to his medical 
 contemporaries was unintelligilbe. He speculated whether 
 the bubble of his reputation would suddenly burst. At 
 all times during the last three years the idea had haunted 
 him, but that consummation was, he suspected, past 
 hoping for. The stuff was right, for it had been written 
 at a time when he had been interested to make it right. 
 What baffled him was that the lectures could be important 
 to anybody else, they were so unimportant to him. 
 
 Nevertheless, as the time for the class approached, an 
 indefinable unction descended upon him, anticipating his 
 controlled and unconcerned attitudes at the lectern. There 
 was an insidious enjoyment to be derived from his un- 
 doubted efficiency ex cathedra, and the satisfaction of 
 standing before an audience intent upon his every word 
 warmed him, although he would not acknowledge it to 
 himself. Instead, he preferred to insist upon the base 
 motives which prompted their attention, their hopes of 
 passing sterile examinations for useless ends. Of course 
 there was something in it all. Occasionally he felt that 
 
STILL LIFE 139 
 
 himself, but that any member of his audience should be 
 concerned with the realities which here dimly foreshadowed 
 in the obscurer physiological facts with which he dealt he 
 refused to allow. It would savour too much of a criticism 
 upon himself. 
 
 He had been speaking a long while on the functions of 
 the optic nerve. In front of him was one row after another 
 of bended heads, the noise of many pens. In the attitude 
 interest seemed to have been concentrated into indifference. 
 A puff of anger and disgust swept into him. 
 
 " Of course," he said, " you must remember that all I 
 have been saying is only an approximation to a truth 
 which cannot be conveyed in such terms as these. It 
 would be more correct and more honest if I were to acknow- 
 ledge here and now that this approach, the normal medical 
 approach, to psychology is only a pis-aller. One forgets 
 so soon in the excitement of research I myself so soon 
 forget that the clumsy word psychology has degraded 
 the object of which it professes to be the science. It is like 
 a black cloud poured about the reality, which is the soul. 
 We explain and explain, we spend our skill in mapping out 
 the ducts and channels of sensation in the human body 
 and what more do we know of the soul ? The thing eludes 
 the finger of science from the beginning." He looked up 
 from his desk to the same expanse of bended heads, and 
 irritation seized him. " Please do not take this down. It 
 will be of no practical use to you." A malicious desire to 
 destroy the construction which he had so laboriously built 
 up for them urged him on. 
 
 " We speak of a sensation being communicated along a 
 nerve fibre. We point out these nerve fibres on a chart, 
 and follow them out in the dissecting-room. We imagine 
 we have said something of account concerning them. What 
 is the fact of the matter ? By our use of the word sensa- 
 tion we have begged the whole question. What is a sensa- 
 tion but something which has been present to our con- 
 sciousiiecs ? How can this something be communicated 
 
140 STILL LIFE 
 
 along a nerve-fibre ? An electrical current passes along a 
 wire until it arrives at a point where the wire is so thin that 
 it becomes incandescent, and we are aware of the presence 
 of the electrical current. That is at least intelligible. But 
 it is the grossest deception when we imagine that sensation 
 can be similarly explained. At one end of the wire is the 
 electrical current, at the other end still electrical current. 
 At one end of the nerve-fibre is some material stimulus, at 
 the other end a sensation, painful or pleasant. And what 
 is a sensation ? Something at any rate of which we are 
 conscious, for otherwise it could not be. A miracle has 
 occurred. Material shock has been communicated, and it 
 ends in consciousness of material shock. Between these 
 two things is an abyss. Physiology is so lucid concerning 
 the mechanism of sensation only because it takes account 
 of nothing but mechanism. In other words, it ignores 
 entirely the abyss between stimulus and consciousness of 
 stimulus. What kind of an explanation can that be where 
 there is no conception of the thing to be explained ? It is 
 a delusion. 
 
 " It is easy to leave the problem on one side and to say we 
 cannot afford to worry about that. There is the fact any- 
 how. We have bodies and we have consciousness. If it is 
 no use trying to explain the connection, you will say for 
 Heaven's sake let us get on with something tangible. That 
 is what I have been trying to do here. But the trouble is 
 that once you approach the question from the other side 
 the impossibility of finding a solution to it is overwhelming. 
 Of course for a great part of the day, we do not worry about 
 it. We just accept the fact that we are conscious beings 
 and are grateful. Then we are happy and to be envied, for 
 the problem does not exist ; in the deepest sense of the 
 words, it does not exist. That is the way of health. Un- 
 fortunately we have begun to be self-conscious. We desire 
 to know things because we desire the truth, and since 
 medical knowledge, one-sided and blind as much of it may 
 be, is nevertheless knowledge, it concerns us deeply to 
 
STILL LIFE 141 
 
 know what manner of truth it is at which we may hope to 
 arrive by this road. We aim at truth ; we are doomed to 
 arrive at something which is at once untrue and true, 
 accurate and false. It is as though we should endeavour 
 to appreciate 
 
 4 When to the sessions of sweet silent thought 
 I summon up the memory of things past ' 
 
 by reading it in a German translation. There is no 
 dictionary of the spirit in which sign and meaning corre- 
 spond each to each. It is given to us as a whole and must 
 be apprehended as a whole. 
 
 " That is why the dualism of the living being has no 
 problem for us, so long as we do not worry about it. Having 
 worried about it, I can forget it when I lie on my back in 
 the grass. I am easily conscious of myself as a living indi- 
 vidual. The old problem has disappeared. Immediately 
 a new distracts me. I am set apart in a surrounding 
 universe which rejects me, and to which I cannot reach. 
 In place of the old abyss a new and greater one. Perhaps 
 you have not felt that. I am sure that you will at one time 
 or another be thrown back absolutely upon yourselves, and 
 then you will be oppressed by a question more profound 
 than any that medical science or even medical psychology 
 will ever set to you." 
 
 He had not been carried away, and a nice appreciation 
 of the appropriate pause did not wholly desert him. " I 
 am afraid that I have allowed myself to be taken outside 
 my subject. I do not think that it is worth while to talk 
 about a form of metaphysical depression in a lecture upon 
 the optic nerve. In fact I cannot see that it will be of any 
 use at all to you except perhaps those of you who are 
 interested in mental pathology." 
 
 As he hurried out of the room he was not unpleasantly 
 aware of a general mystification. He had meant to do 
 something rather extraordinary though he had not done it 
 deliberately. It gave some relief to his mood of the morn- 
 
142 STILL LIFE 
 
 ing. He desired more. Looking at his memorandum he 
 was glad to find that there was nothing more to do until 
 the afternoon, and he hurried outside. A wet wind blew 
 the rain in white spray upon the hospital steps. He ran 
 back to fetch a raincoat, going deviously to his room in 
 order to avoid any curious questions from his friends upon 
 the finale of his lecture. He might be explosive. 
 
 His breakfast things were still upon the table, and 
 leaning against the coffee-pot was Temple's letter. It 
 gave him a clear idea for action that morning, and he was 
 titillated by a half-malicious pleasure at the thought of 
 going to see Cradock. Anxious to be certain of finding 
 him, he called him up on the lobby telephone. Cradock 
 was at the office. 
 
 " I wanted to see you very much. Let's lunch together, 
 somewhere where we can talk." 
 
 " Why, is there anything the matter ? " answered Dennis 
 with native diplomacy. 
 
 " No-o. Well, yes. It's about Anne. A bad business. 
 I want to talk to you. You'll come to the club. I'll tell 
 you about it." 
 
 " Very well, I'll be there." 
 
 " How I hate London," he said as he descended the 
 great steps, hunching up his shoulders, burying his face in 
 his coat collar, so that he might be a small target to the 
 rain that drove against him, while the big drops from the 
 avenue of stubborn plane trees fell with a heavy plop 
 upon his shoulders. When he had leaped on to a bus 
 under the dark and dirty station arches, his hatred did not 
 prevent him from watching with interest the unremitting 
 hail and farewell of the passengers. He was more im- 
 patient than the conductor to be onwards. With him he 
 seemed to tug violently at the bell-pull before the pas- 
 sengers had descended. He raged against the city traffic 
 which held them prisoners. The sharp ting-a-ting of the 
 agitated bell found a responsive echo in him. Slowly sub- 
 siding into apathy, he began to be aware that some one 
 
STILL LIFE 143 
 
 was talking close beside him. He turned away from the 
 door, yet did not commit himself to a point-blank stare. 
 It was a little woman in worn and rain-spotted black, 
 holding an umbrella in a nervous hand covered with thin 
 black cotton gloves. Stealthily he worked upwards towards 
 her face. Beady, half-animal eyes, a square-set chin and 
 mouth deeply lined and angular, but softened with a 
 certain timid tenderness. She was but half seated as 
 though impatient to leave the omnibus. 
 
 Dennis listened to what she was saying, and a little 
 uneasy because he could not be sure whether she was 
 already addressing herself to him. With his usual appre- 
 hension he looked distances, and listened. 
 
 " Five million of 'em every year. There's Yerkes. He 
 had millions of money, millions. And he died five years 
 back, dead. And what good did his money do him ? Oh, 
 yes, it's all very well to have gold and palaces, all very 
 well, but will it save you a moment or turn it away ? 
 No!" 
 
 The word was fired out with a report that all the omnibus 
 could hear. A young man with large restless hands and a 
 top-hat pushed commercially to the back of his head 
 tittered, and glanced from side to side for support. A 
 woman in the corner, with two sharply defined circles of 
 red on her cheeks, holding a portfolio in her hand, leaned 
 her chin upon her umbrella and looked fixedly with the 
 expression of a communicant soul at the little lady in 
 black. Dennis, deeply perturbed by a vicarious embarrass- 
 ment, gazed rigidly at the conductor. 
 
 Abruptly she burst into a long list of names of cities. 
 Lima, he heard, and Bahia and Buenos Ayres. " There's 
 lots of money there," she said, " but I've seen 'em die like 
 flies." Then she spoke, fluent with passion, a liquid 
 gasping language that he judged to be Spanish. Dennis 
 was almost proud of having distinguished it. Finally in a 
 tone of impotent despair some quick muttered French, of 
 which he was not enough alert to catch the words, save the 
 
144 STILL LIFE 
 
 final sentence, " Et de mener une vie ton jours comme ca, 
 toujours pareille, toujours" He was impelled to look 
 at her with intent, to show that he had understood 
 and appreciated. The little lady was staring out of 
 the window, unconscious of him, holding her umbrella 
 tight in her black gloved hand, shifting uneasily upon her 
 seat. He had hardly a moment to watch her lips move 
 with inaudible speech, before she had descended after a 
 hesitation on the footboard, to the pavement. 
 
 Speculations as to what she might be, thenceforward 
 engaged him. He found himself incessantly repeating her 
 final phrase, " Et de mener une vie toujours comme ca, 
 toujours pareille, toujours." A melancholy lilt in the 
 sentence fascinated him, and while he muttered it he 
 forgot its meaning. His turn, too, came to descend. As he 
 stood on the footboard the sudden thought came to him 
 that it was appropriate to himself, and he stood on the 
 kerb immobile, afflicted by doubts. The woman might 
 have spoken to him with purpose. 
 
 A newsboy running in the gutter brushed against him 
 and rushed on crying his special edition. " What the 
 devil . . ." said Dennis. He felt that he towered above, 
 aloof from the canaille. What did they know about the 
 things that troubled him ? Just a few sparks struck out 
 of the lower darkness, one or two scattered points of fitful 
 incandescence, aware of each for a moment and gone into 
 the nothingness whence they came. God, what a life ! 
 Toujours pareille, toujours. Envy and resentment against 
 Maurice flamed in him. They had done something apart 
 from him. They had struck out a spark. But it could not 
 burn long, and when it sank, what then ? He feasted on 
 a vivid picture of their disillusionment. It would break 
 Maurice, surely. Then he hated himself. He could not 
 afford to lose a soul. But he hated Maurice, too, for going 
 apart, worlds away. And Anne ? He could not imagine 
 her broken. It was too hard to draw a line about her, to 
 measure her capacities and find their breaking strain. In 
 
STILL LIFE 145 
 
 the future he saw her as she had been before, always with 
 some power in reserve, a self naturally ungiven, of which 
 she could not be prodigal. What failed him was a vision 
 of them together. Regarding Anne, he saw that nothing 
 would end save by her deliberate choice. Regarding 
 Maurice, he saw him as he would be weakened and thrown 
 down by some inward stress. Dennis envied him even for 
 that, and was malicious against him. 
 
 Well, it was no use to remain there. He greeted the 
 prospect of talking to Cradock with satisfaction. How he 
 would commiserate with him ! A sudden fancy that the 
 little woman in black was close behind him made him 
 turn sharply about. He could see her nowhere. He was 
 rather frightened of her, but the fact that he could not see 
 her made him wish to discover her. She might have had 
 something else to tell him. Instead of hurrying as he had 
 intended he strolled slowly along to Cradock's club, in the 
 vague hope that even yet she might touch him on the arm. 
 
 The big form and the deep voice of Cradock took Dennis 
 into their keeping. It was pleasant to feel that Cradock 
 was really glad to see him, but Dennis had a habit of 
 concealing such things, and he sat with apparent detach- 
 ment listening to Cradock. An excited wonder whether 
 Cradock was really going to say something that came 
 from his depths was chastened and chilled by the in- 
 ordinate care which he devoted to the preliminaries of 
 lunch. Impatience nearly made Dennis forget that he 
 was playing the part of ignorance. Remembering, he 
 devoted a sudden energy to discussing a play of which 
 he had read Cradock's criticism. 
 
 " You're very optimistic about the theatre lately, aren't 
 you, Cradock ? " 
 
 " Why, yes. I suppose I am. There's a good deal of 
 good stuff being written. Enough to be optimistic about. 
 Not but what it's my business to be." 
 
 " I think there are a good many decent plays, too. But 
 I can't get away from the fact that they are only decent 
 
146 STILL LIFE 
 
 after all. They're good enough, but they aren't good in 
 the right way. They're all one-sided." 
 
 " But they can't all be. Think of the extraordinary 
 variety, from the Irish peasant play to Bernard Shaw." 
 
 " And nothing in between. That's exactly my point. 
 One's the unconscious kind. The other the self-conscious. 
 There ought to be something in between. One's all back- 
 ground ; the other hasn't any background at all. The 
 result is that neither kind is true. Do you see what I 
 mean ? " 
 
 In spite of the conviction of his own independence, 
 Cradock was always eager to catch an idea from Dennis. 
 He pressed for further definition. 
 
 Dennis did not know whether he was serious or not. He 
 had begun deliberately to say something, but now he had 
 a real interest in the argument. 
 
 " Well, take the social comedy or the discursive kind of 
 play. The real condition of its being is that everybody 
 should be acutely self-conscious. That is all very well, 
 but the fact is that people aren't. Genuine self-conscious- 
 ness is quite rare, and even with people who have cultivated 
 it some do so naturally there's any amount of room 
 outside. More than half the time they're unconscious or 
 semi-conscious. The peasant variety simply runs the 
 unconscious to death. Destiny and the powers beyond 
 become quite massive. They monopolise the stage. And 
 that's not true either. People that are worth writing plays 
 about swing from one into the other in a curious kind of 
 way. Whether it's the modern consciousness or not I 
 can't say. But it seems to me that if we're to have a 
 really good play, we must have the two things in a natural 
 sequence, not jerked one on top of the other in the same 
 person, and certainly not just symbolised by Destiny and 
 the raging elements outside and the puny human tragedy 
 within as the old people did. No doubt they had the 
 right idea for their time. You can read and enjoy them 
 now, if you want any proof that they must have been right 
 
STILL LIFE 147 
 
 enough. But now we need a different kind of thing, a 
 blend of the unconscious and the self-conscious in the 
 same person. 
 
 " I rather think this man, Tchekhov, has something of 
 what I mean. He's really very significant, now I come 
 to think of it. He uses the elements, and outside the 
 window right enough, but only to echo the states of mind 
 of his people. A kind of sounding board for the small voice 
 of the unconscious within them. He gets away from the 
 tyranny of nature with a capital N. We don't feel that 
 kind of tyranny nowadays. Instead we have any amount 
 of tyrannical motions from within. Why, I ended up a 
 lecture on the optic nerve this morning with a rhapsody 
 on the animida vagula and the relations of man to the 
 Universe. Quite enough to get me the sack, I imagine. 
 Perhaps when I get back I shall find that they have given 
 it me." 
 
 Cradock paused before replying. " That's very interest- 
 ing." Then he seemed to be thinking his own thoughts, 
 oblivious of Dennis. Dennis felt that he was about to 
 deliver himself, and saw that he had without intention, 
 given him an obvious lead. He knew exactly how Cradock 
 would begin now. Cradock began quite differently. 
 
 " Anne's gone off with young Temple." 
 
 " Is that true ? " said Dennis. He had a tight rein on 
 himself, and knew with relief that Cradock would not 
 expect him to evince any violent surprise. 
 
 " Read the letter." With his hand in his breast-pocket 
 Cradock hesitated. A feeling that he ought not show it to 
 anybody restrained him for a moment. He justified him- 
 self against it as he handed it to Dennis. " You're the 
 only person who will see it." 
 
 Dennis did not want particularly to read it. It was 
 Anne's after all. But he reflected that Anne wouldn't 
 mind. More important was the thought that he did not 
 want to share any secret with Cradock. He had enough 
 to do with his own. Nevertheless, he read : 
 
148 STILL LIFE 
 
 "DEAK JIM, 
 
 "I have gone away with Maurice Temple. You 
 will find that rather difficult to understand, and I should 
 find it hard to explain to you, for the reason that it is 
 quite a simple thing. I know this will hurt you, but not 
 very much, really. I hope you won't magnify it, because 
 that would do no good, and only turn me against you. I 
 don't want to be against you at all. 
 
 " And you mustn't think, perhaps you wouldn't in any 
 case, that you have failed me. You haven't. Nor have I 
 failed you. I decided quite easily and quite deliberately 
 about you. Now that I look back upon it I see that I 
 wasn't rash or impulsive or unfair in leaving you. I knew 
 that at the time. But I thought I had better tell you 
 plainly that I am quite certain of myself. 
 
 " I cannot help feeling that I would like to tell you 
 why. But, as I said before, it would be difficult, and it 
 would take a long time and many words to make it per- 
 fectly plain to you ; and there would be the risk that you 
 might misunderstand something that I said and imagine 
 that this was an aberration after all. I should resent that. 
 I would much prefer to have no resentment at all against 
 you. Therefore, though I have put my address plainly 
 on the top of this letter, I would rather that you did not 
 at any time come here to see me unless I were to ask you 
 specially. You must forgive me if I credit you with 
 thoughts that you never have had and never will have. 
 I don't think it's likely. But there is the chance that this 
 affair may affect a Jim that I don't know. I rely on you 
 to do what I ask. 
 
 " You had better tell people quite frankly about it, but 
 don't tell more than is really necessary. I'm quite ready 
 to face the music, but I don't see why it should be a 
 brass-band. 
 
 " I wish you would do one thing for me, gather to- 
 gether all my own things and send them to me as quickly 
 as you can. You will know generally what I mean not 
 
STILL LIFE 149 
 
 the furniture. Particularly, don't forget the music that 
 is in the drawing-room, and the photograph of my mother 
 and the ivory umbrella which are in the panel-drawer of 
 my desk. 
 
 " One thing more. You might be prompted to get 
 Maurice some more work from the office. Please be careful 
 not to do this. It would only hurt. Besides, it's not 
 necessary at all. You know that I have enough to keep 
 both of us in the country. 
 
 ANNE." 
 
 " P.S. If you are still uncertain or unsatisfied about me, 
 see Dennis." 
 
 The letter seemed so natural and inevitable to Dennis 
 that the postscript did not surprise him. " H'm," he 
 mused, " how like her. ... I mean it seems to be like 
 her. It's a good letter." 
 
 Cradock did not know how to take Dennis's remark. 
 It seemed to leave him, his feelings, out of all account ; 
 and instantly he began to manufacture some profound 
 affections. But after all he had some part in the letter. 
 It was a kind of praise to him. 
 
 " Yes, it is," he said. 
 
 " But what are you going to do ? " 
 
 Cradock just nodded slowly from side to side. " I don't 
 know. That's really why I wanted to see you." A 
 momentary twinge of pity stirred Dennis, as he watched 
 him. Cradock looked so big and was so helpless, nodding 
 there. Quickly it passed into a revulsion that the man 
 was unable to cope with his most vital concerns. How 
 right Anne had been, how invincibly right ! He had never 
 seen clearly through Cradock's appearance of strength 
 before, though he had suspected the weakness that now 
 repelled him. 
 
 " Oh, you can't do anything," he said shortly. 
 
 Even that did not sting Cradock to activity. " No, I 
 suppose not. ... I suppose not . . . but ..." 
 
150 STILL LIFE 
 
 " But what ? " 
 
 " She's taken something of me away. I feel I don't 
 know how to explain numb. I don't know. She ought 
 not to have done it. I mean she should have done it 
 before. ... I had no idea." 
 
 " One never has." 
 
 "No ... that's right." 
 
 Dennis was hating Cradock for his impotence. 
 
 " That letter's final. I never read anything so absolutely 
 detached. It's the kind of thing she never would go back 
 on. She would never want to. You feel that, don't you ? " 
 
 " Yes, in a way, but there's something . . ." 
 
 Dennis listened grimly. 
 
 " I can't just take it lying down, can I ? " said Cradock. 
 
 " Why, what else can you do ? " 
 
 " It's not that I can do anything else. She's shut that 
 out pretty effectually, hasn't she ? " He laughed miser- 
 ably. 
 
 Why did he ask these silly questions ? Dennis nodded. 
 " W T ell what ? " he insisted. 
 
 " I must do something, anyhow." 
 
 " Why must you ? That's a mere convention rotten 
 sentimentality." 
 
 At last Cradock responded. " Well, I've got to answer 
 her letter for one thing," he said, with a shade of vicious- 
 ness. 
 
 " Oh, is that what you meant. I thought you meant 
 some definite action." 
 
 " Perhaps I did. . . . What then . . . ? " He asked 
 sullenly. 
 
 " Only that there's nothing to do. You can't get a 
 hold anywhere. It's complete, foursquare. There's no 
 place for a grip. Why anything that you could do would 
 only seem a kind of petulance. What's the good of putting 
 her off you completely ? It's something that she respects 
 you. Yes, it is. I should be grateful enough." 
 
 " Would you, honestly ? " 
 
STILL LIFE 151 
 
 " Yes, honestly." 
 
 " It's not her I'm doubtful about. She's all right. I 
 can't get over her letter, anyway. That's final, yes, it is 
 like her." He did not believe what he was saying, but he 
 was anxious to be thought worthy. 
 
 " But why did she go away with him ? " Dennis had 
 been waiting for it. This time he was not going to put 
 Cradock off by an obvious antagonism. He wanted to 
 know what he would say, to have him more deeply con- 
 victed out of his own mouth. He shook his head dubiously. 
 
 " I don't know," he said. " Probably we don't know 
 Temple. He's not so very transparent, perhaps." 
 
 It was the opportunity for Cradock's superior know- 
 ledge. " He's only a boy. I know him. Concerned with 
 all manner of things. All the kinds of problems that 
 worried me at his age, you too probably. He's just young, 
 young all over. All enthusiasms and depressions. What's 
 Anne going to do when he gets out of it ? He's sure to." 
 
 " I shouldn't worry about that if I were you," Dennis 
 answered, with a deceptive quietness. " That's Anne's 
 affair." 
 
 " And mine. I can't help worrying about it." 
 
 " What is there to worry about, anyhow ? " 
 
 " What's she going to do when it's all over ? She's too 
 old to be left by a boy." 
 
 God, how he hated Cradock ! His rotten mean pride, 
 pricked to a cheap jealousy, and i/urning into slobbering 
 hypocritical pity, how he despised him for it ! He looked 
 up into Cradock's eyes : they glowed with the triumph of 
 a cheap debate. 
 
 " I don't think Anne's so very old. Thirty-two isn't 
 old. That wasn't an old letter. Don't you feel that it's 
 ridiculous to concern ourselves with what is going to 
 happen to her ? I wish I was as sure of myself. Besides " 
 he was impelled by his animosity to make a reluctant 
 addition " if Temple is a boy he's twenty-four anyhow 
 it doesn't follow he's a boy as you and I were. I don't 
 
152 STILL LIFE 
 
 see any reason why he should get through it as you say. 
 To take away from him only means that Anne's made a 
 big mistake. There's not much of that in her letter, is 
 there ? I don't feel it at any rate." 
 
 " There's something in that." Dennis wondered when 
 Cradock would begin to hate him. He could hardly help 
 feeling the spirit of his remarks. Dennis did not care. 
 
 Cradock collapsed into silence. His indignation and 
 his pity were such that they depended upon finding a 
 partner to continue to be. Finding none, they were not ; 
 and Cradock who had for a while been voluble and 
 expectant became listless again. 
 
 "Well," he broke out after a while, "we haven't 
 reached much of a conclusion, have we ? " 
 
 It was the same mood that had first excited his hostility, 
 but now, by contrast to his recent outbursts, it moved 
 Dennis to pity, almost to sympathy. The big man so 
 plainly depended upon him, that a kind of flattered pride 
 moved him to speak comfortable words. The impulse 
 had been so suddenly changed and had so little reality in 
 it, that the search for sympathetic speech was very 
 deliberate. 
 
 " It's rotten for you. I'd like to do something to help 
 you, but what is there to do ? You can see as well as I 
 can, much better, that the thing is finished, for the present. 
 It's hard on you, if you like. It is certainly. But then 
 things are like that." His words were quite empty. They 
 seemed to have been recorded as he had spoken them, 
 and he examined them with disgust, then hastened 
 to say something true. " It's as though you were two 
 straight lines that had crossed. You can never meet 
 again. No matter what you do, you only go further and 
 further apart. It's wonderful to me now that you kept 
 together so long. You can't escape from the facts. Either 
 your meeting was an unhappy accident, best put away 
 for ever, or this is a madness of Anne's. But you can't 
 help believing the letter." 
 
STILL LIFE 153 
 
 " No-o. But it seemed all right, you know, Dennis. 
 Didn't you think it was all right, yourself ? " 
 
 " But I had nothing to go upon. I knew you and I 
 knew Anne, not so much, but I did know her. But I only 
 saw you together. I didn't know you together. If I say 
 that it looked all right, it's not saying anything at all, 
 really." Why had he never thought of the Cradocks 
 together ? Anne had seemed to step out of it all, not in 
 action nor visibly as she had done now, but to have been 
 herself and alone. He had not anticipated what would 
 happen, save when he came to see her on the afternoon 
 that she went, yet when he had realised that something 
 would happen, it had appeared natural and right. When 
 he had known that she had gone with Maurice, it had 
 made no difference. She in herself was right. The out- 
 ward circumstances took her colour. 
 
 " I thought it was all right myself, at all events," Cradock 
 went on, " and now suddenly the whole thing's gone. It 
 isn't that I care twopence about what people will think, 
 except that they will say and hint things about her. They'd 
 better not. But I don't know it was so fine. You see. 
 She was so wonderful. No. I couldn't have understood 
 her. I know I didn't understand her, now. I didn't think 
 about it. I'm not that sort of man, I suppose. But I was 
 so proud of her. You know the way she used to have with 
 people. It's funny, isn't it, but I only began to know 
 what people were worth when she was there. They talked 
 to her differently." Abruptly he stopped. " You're not 
 bored with my talking like this ? " 
 
 Dennis shook his head. 
 
 " I didn't think she would have done it. I never thought 
 of her as being sorry for me then. But now I think she 
 might have been sorry for me. Perhaps it would have 
 been different if she'd had a child. I don't know. Perhaps. 
 ... I can see those straight lines you talked about. 
 They're so plain. It's so awful to think that they go on 
 getting further and further apart. I shall have to go out 
 
154 STILL LIFE 
 
 of that house. These last two days I have remembered so 
 much more than I ever knew." 
 
 The last words hit Dennis hard. This was the Cradock 
 that he had expected. Had he begun thus Dennis would 
 have been firm against him. But now, in contrast to the 
 vindictiveness and the wounded pride of possession to 
 which Cradock had given way, the genuine feeling which 
 showed through the stumbling words met with an in- 
 stinctive response. The walls of criticism and contempt 
 with which Dennis had fenced himself against Cradock 
 fell, as it were, at the sound of a trumpet. Now it was not 
 pity alone that moved him, but an admiration for the 
 truth of Cradock's misery. From comprehensible every- 
 thing changed to incomprehensible. Because a woman 
 did right, why should a man be hurt ? Some element in 
 himself flooded out to unite with Cradock's wounded 
 spirit. 
 
 " There's nothing I can say. But, believe me, Cradock, 
 I would give my soul to say something. Nothing can help 
 you if you're hard hit, I know. That's your own, abso- 
 lutely your own, and you have to get through with it. 
 What's the good of saying that to you ? " 
 
 Cradock was fingering a fork that lay on the table, dully 
 watching the movements of his hand. Again the bigness 
 of the man seemed to surge into Dennis's mind. Again, 
 yet more violently, the contrast between his stature and 
 his inward impotence, revolted Dennis. Into his mind 
 irresistibly there came the figure of a great cuttlefish that 
 he had seen dragged out of a rocky pool by fishermen and 
 left huddled and helpless on the shore. Against his 
 repulsion fought the obligation to pity and sympathy. 
 Though the obligation was false he obeyed it. The moment 
 for pity had gone for ever, yet he desired to express it. 
 Words came to him more easily than before. 
 
 " Look here, Cradock, do you think that I can do any- 
 thing ? I know it's not doing things that matters at all. 
 It's really useless ; but if you had anything for me to do, 
 
STILL LIFE 155 
 
 it would satisfy me. This is only a kind of selfishness 
 really. I'm talking rubbish. As if there was anything at 
 all to do." 
 
 " I'm very grateful." Straightway Dennis despised him 
 for being grateful. Perhaps it was only a phrase. What 
 else could he have said ? Of course he wasn't grateful ? 
 Why should he be ? There wasn't a word of truth in what 
 Dennis had just said. But Cradock hadn't known that. 
 He hated Cradock for not seeing through the pretence ! 
 Cradock was really grateful, that was so despicable. To 
 be grateful for Dennis's meaningless words ! Dennis was 
 not annoyed with himself for having said them, but with 
 Cradock for having received them. How could Anne have 
 lived with him for a day ? Why hadn't he known it before ? 
 The burden of this inferiority was intolerable. Cradock 
 was speaking again, and Dennis listened with a con- 
 temptuous indifference which he could hardly conceal. 
 
 " There is something which you might do perhaps 
 if you would. I can't go to see her, can I ? " 
 
 Dennis knew that Cradock desired the shadow of an 
 opening. He would close them all. " No," he said con- 
 clusively. " That's impossible." 
 
 " Of course. . . . But you may be going to see Temple 
 one of these days. ... He told me that you're his only 
 intimate friend. Then you'll be seeing them both. I want 
 you to tell me everything about her . . . and him. You 
 will know more than ever I should. . . . That was strange, 
 her mentioning you in her letter. It wasn't because of 
 that, that I wanted to see you. I hadn't anybody else. 
 It's rather ghastly to find suddenly that you haven't any 
 friends ; that you've gone on for years without knowing 
 it. You were the only one I could talk to about it. Perhaps 
 Anne knew that. Perhaps she didn't want me to talk to 
 anybody else. I wouldn't have, anyhow. I don't know. 
 Do you know why it was ? Yes, you were the only one. 
 That comes rather hard, all of a sudden. . . . 
 
 '* And the funny thing is I'm not at all sure about you. 
 
156 STILL LIFE 
 
 That's not quite what I mean. But you might be laughing 
 at me all the while, it wouldn't be very different. I know 
 you're not of course but you might be. I wonder why 
 that is. You don't laugh at young Temple, I suppose. 
 Perhaps he has the same feeling about you. You can't 
 help it anyway. Of course, it must be all imagination. 
 
 " Perhaps I'm the only one you laugh at. I don't mean 
 that you laugh at me, of course. I mean that I'm the only 
 person who feels it like that. Anne wouldn't have. Why 
 did she put your name in the letter ? Did you know all 
 about it, before ? No, of course, you didn't. Do you 
 know all about it now ? You haven't told me very much 
 to-day, have you ? Ever since she put your name in the 
 letter, I'm a bit frightened of you. You don't mind me 
 talking like this, do you ? No, you wouldn't, somehow. 
 Why don't you tell me all you know ? You're not afraid 
 to hurt me, are you ? . . . 
 
 " Perhaps you don't know anything more than I do, 
 though. But why did she say your name ? Did she ever 
 tell you anything ? I know she didn't, she wouldn't. It 
 wouldn't be like her. But you must know more than I do. 
 Perhaps if I'd known as much as you do, she would never 
 have gone. I wonder. What a fool I am ! I used not to 
 be like this. I must have changed. Perhaps she wouldn't 
 have done it if she had known. What was the good of 
 doing this to me ? I'm the wrong kind. Yes, that must 
 be it. I'm the wrong kind. ... I wonder what that 
 means ? Do you know, Dennis ? You wouldn't tell me 
 if you did, would you ? Why should you anyhow ? Anne 
 would though. Why didn't I ask her ? Oh, I didn't know 
 it then, of course. Funny, it seems to me now as if I'd 
 known it all the while. Yes, I've always been the wrong 
 kind. But even now I don't know what I mean. I only 
 feel it. Anne will tell me, though. I'll ask her one of 
 these days, soon ... oh ... you'll have to ask her for 
 me, Dennis. Don't forget whatever you do. Perhaps it 
 will be all right when I know. 
 
STILL LIFE 157 
 
 " But that wasn't what I meant to ask you, was it ? 
 I've forgotten. Oh, yes, . . . you were going down to 
 see her. I want you to tell her. . . . No, I don't. ... It 
 doesn't matter now. But don't forget what I said. I 
 didn't know a bit what to tell her, you see. It's much 
 better if you ask her what was wrong with me. It sounds 
 funny, but I can't help it. I can't see what it means, 
 somehow. It just looks ridiculous. No, that wasn't quite 
 it. Just ask her what I mean. Do you see ? Tell her 
 what I said just now and ask her what / mean. She'll 
 understand. 
 
 " What a lot I've been saying. I'm sorry. I don't 
 know why I get like that. But most of it's quite silly. 
 But don't forget the question, will you ? . . . Let's have 
 something more to drink. You don't need to go already, 
 surely." 
 
 Dennis had risen, but slowly, as though impelled, he sat 
 down again in his chair. He felt he wanted to get away 
 from Cradock in this mood. Not that he was alarmed or 
 frightened. There was in it a suggestion of responsibility 
 for him ; and that he desired to avoid. Of course he would 
 take his message, that was a mere nothing, but he dreaded 
 having to support Cradock, to support any man, in this 
 incalculable mood. 
 
 " That's better." Cradock had been agitated and im- 
 patient, intently watching the action of the waiter as he 
 broke the wire, and drew the cork with a flourish. Then 
 he took a long drink from his bubbling glass. " That's 
 better." As suddenly, his familiar, slow deliberate voice 
 returned to him. " It's rather a strain, you know, screw- 
 ing myself up tight against that kind of thing. It's as 
 though I suddenly collapsed inwards. Do you understand 
 me ? As though I managed to keep shape most of the 
 time, and suddenly the whole thing just fell in. But 
 I'll get over that soon, I suppose. It's a momentary 
 weakness. The strange thing is that I'm rather glad 
 of it. , 
 
158 STILL LIFE 
 
 " You're not angry with me for what I said about you, 
 are you ? It wasn't serious." 
 
 " Of course I'm not." 
 
 " No. ... I don't think you are. . . ." 
 
 They sat silent at the table, occasionally looking at each 
 other. The tables of the dining-room had emptied. Dennis 
 watched one solitary waiter. He had a white nervous 
 face. A deep forehead overhung an insignificant chin. 
 Between them was set a thin wet mouth, continually 
 working. Sometimes the point of his tongue darted out 
 to moisten his lips. He could not keep still. His eyes 
 moved from corner to corner, and he turned about con- 
 tinually. He saw that Dennis was looking at him, and he 
 disappeared swiftly behind a tall hat-stand, from whence 
 his face would peer forth for a moment, then withdraw 
 quickly, as he caught Dennis's eyes. He was an infinite 
 offence to Dennis. 
 
 Dennis began to feel the immensity of the room. Empty 
 tables, empty chairs, a dull waste of emptiness spread 
 about them, like a vast grey sea surrounding their island, 
 hemming them in. He longed to be away. Cradock was 
 oppressive with decay. He was, in very truth, fallen in 
 upon himself, a lump where there had been the shape and 
 semblance of a man. Marvelling at the exactness of 
 Cradock's own description, Dennis felt that the sudden 
 awakening of the man to his own condition an awakening 
 so unexpected in him, only added to his repulsiveness. 
 He seemed to have acquiesced in his own disruption. Just 
 now he had been sincere enough, and Dennis had responded 
 to his sincerity ; that was all on the surface. Underneath 
 everything was wrong. There was no mistaking the taste 
 of him. Though at moments he appeared almost to be 
 seeing himself clearly, judging himself to be of the wrong 
 kind, it was only a fetid overflow from some instantaneous 
 corruption. He was wrong all through, repulsive, some- 
 thing to be avoided. If he broke out again like that 
 Dennis could not contemplate the thought. He wanted 
 
STILL LIFE 159 
 
 to get away. For an instant he tried to check himself 
 with the idea that it was only a physical repulsion, that he 
 had allowed something hateful in Cradock's appearance, 
 the horrible contrast between his big form and dull eyes 
 and impotent mouth, to prey upon his mind, to give a 
 false colour to the reality. But nothing could overcome 
 his desire to get away. He must have shifted anxiously in 
 his chair. 
 
 ; ' You want to be going, don't you ? " said Cradock. 
 
 " Yes, I must be off now." To avoid Cradock's look he 
 stared fixedly down at his watch. " I shall be late as it is." 
 
 u Oh, well. I suppose you must. I've got plenty of 
 things to do myself, too." 
 
 As they rose to walk down between the line of tables, 
 Dennis knew that Cradock would take him by the arm. 
 There was no way to avoid it. The thought drove him to 
 desperation. He had a horror of Cradock's touch. He 
 nerved himself, and until they reached the lobby he was 
 conscious of nothing save the tense muscles of his arm, 
 where Cradock's hand touched him. 
 
 " Look here, Dennis. I'm going away to-morrow morn- 
 ing early for a month. I haven't decided even where to go 
 yet, but it's decided." He laughed foolishly. " I wish 
 you'd come round to see me to-night. I'd like to have 
 you there. Do come." 
 
 Dennis's impulse was to refuse, flatly. A change came 
 over him and his " no " was tempered to " You see, I 
 have a great deal of work to do to-night." 
 
 " Couldn't you manage, this once ? I shall be clean out 
 of London to-morrow. At least five hundred miles away, 
 let's hope. You might as well come." 
 
 For all his overwhelming dislike of the man as he had 
 been revealed that day, Dennis was still curious about 
 him. He was fascinated by the desire to spy him out, and, 
 by spying him out, to triumph completely over him and 
 to hold him under his heel. He had declared finally 
 against him. Before their meeting, while he had been 
 
160 STILL LIFE 
 
 anticipating it, he had been hostile, but perhaps more 
 malicious than really an enemy ; now he wanted to crush 
 Cradock. 
 
 " Perhaps I can manage it. But I may be late, you know. 
 What time do you want me to come ? " 
 
 " I suppose it's no use suggesting dinner ? " 
 
 Dennis shook his head decisively. Even to gratify his 
 desire, he would not pay that price. 
 
 " Couldn't manage it possibly. Say nine to half -past. 
 I think I can do that." 
 
 " Very well, then. But don't fail me, will you ? " 
 
 " I'll do my best, I promise. You know how things are 
 at the hospital at night, unless I arrange beforehand. I 
 cannot say for certain, absolutely." 
 
 It was not Dennis's night-duty ; but he could not leave 
 Cradock comfortable. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 As Dennis went his way back along the Embankment by 
 the side of the river, he tried to render himself an account 
 of the last two hours. It was not much use. He could not 
 detach himself sufficiently. The sense of his revulsion from 
 Cradock dominated everything. Every attempt to see 
 them as they had been, narrowed instantly to a picture of 
 Cradock as he had sat there. He could not get beyond it. 
 
 Laughter, clear and high-pitched, sounded so close to 
 him that he halted sharp, and looked about him. He was 
 close to a wall. Nobody was near to him, and he was 
 bewildered. Then he heard it again. He looked up. Lean- 
 ing over the wall were two girls, hardly containing them- 
 selves from laughing in his face. He looked at them with 
 a bemused and evident amazement. Dappled sunlight 
 poured from the trees behind them into his eyes, and he 
 blinked. This time they laughed outright, and turned 
 away. He did not want to say anything to them, but it 
 would have been foolish just to walk on. So he raised his 
 hat to them before he moved slowly away. He heard them 
 whisper together. 
 
 Then he was grateful for the interlude. Their laughter 
 was in key with the weather, clear as the bright sunlight 
 that now melted away the traces of the morning rain. 
 They had surprised him into realising how deeply he was 
 moved against Cradock. The thought of Cradock had 
 completely occupied him before. It could hardly return 
 with the same strength, but he knew how real was his 
 animosity. Now his feelings seemed to connect with Anne. 
 How, he could not tell, but sought to discover. At first he 
 thought that he was engaged to justify her by proving 
 
 M 1G1 
 
162 STILL LIFE 
 
 Cradock's worthlessness. But Anne was already com- 
 pletely justified, without any support of his. Neverthe- 
 less, he could not dismiss the idea from his mind. At all 
 events, whatever might be the inward working of it, he 
 was engaged against Cradock for her in some way. The 
 reflection pleased him, and gave him a confident conviction 
 of rightness. Also, to put so much of himself into a pursuit 
 was a rare and comfortable experience for him. Yes, he 
 was very grateful to those two girls for so awakening him 
 to his own enviable condition. He turned round, and was 
 surprised that he had gone, without noticing it, so far 
 away from them. He could still see something white 
 above the pavement in the distance, which he was content 
 to believe was the white blouse of the older girl, who had 
 been the first to turn away. After a pause, he resumed 
 his journey. 
 
 During the afternoon he wrote to Maurice, saying that 
 he would like to come down, " and see you both," at the 
 end of the following week. He bestirred himself and 
 looked out a convenient train. He would be at the station 
 at ten minutes to twelve, and would walk, so that he would 
 be in " good time for a heavy lunch." 
 
 But the thought of his evening with Cradock accom- 
 panied him continually. He wanted to know why Cradock 
 was so anxious that he should come. It couldn't be that 
 he was going to burst into another maundering confession. 
 Even he, even in his present state, would hardly dare to. 
 Perhaps he had to have somebody about with him now. 
 The possibility that he had been invited to share an orgy 
 of sentimental despondence made him shiver. He had to 
 pay for his curiosity ; but at the same moment the sense 
 that he was doing it for Anne lent a glamour to the even- 
 ing, and in that comforting conviction he remained through 
 an infinity of small occupations at the hospital during the 
 late afternoon, through the exacting dinner-table conversa- 
 tion of men who had heard, or heard by report, his perora- 
 tion to the morning lecture, through a period of dreamily 
 
STILL LIFE 163 
 
 doing nothing, smoking in his own room, deliberately pro- 
 longed, until the moment when he arrived at the familiar 
 door in Kensington. 
 
 He was relieved that Cradock did not open to him in 
 person as he had half expected. The usual preliminaries 
 were unusually valuable to him that evening. When he 
 entered the study Cradock hardly looked up. He lay 
 stretched in a big arm-chair in front of the fire, one hand 
 hanging down over the chair-arm, and a glass of whisky 
 on a little table near to his hand. Apparently he had been 
 staring at the fire. 
 
 " Hullo, Dennis. I'm glad you've come. It's pretty 
 late, but you're within your limits." 
 
 Dennis was wondering whether the attitude was in- 
 tentional. The commonplace of it was terrible. A thousand 
 bad pictures and ten thousand bad novels proclaimed it 
 tlieir own. But he granted that Cradock was not the man 
 to do such a thing of set intention. It was natural to him. 
 He was the kind of man of whom the bad pictures and the 
 bad books were true. This was the climax for which 
 Dennis had unconsciously been waiting. He had been 
 repelled but he had also been mystified by the Cradock of 
 the afternoon. Now all the hints and obscurities were 
 plain, the vague lines had taken their final shape in this 
 picture of Cradock. He had resolved into his own essence, 
 and become the very idea of himself. Dennis rejoiced. He 
 had the full measure of Cradock, and encompassed him on 
 every side. 
 
 And then he was perfectly sure of himself. He could 
 have played his part securely to eternity. 
 
 " Have something to drink ? " said Cradock. " You'll 
 want it. I'm rotten company." 
 
 Dennis helped himself to whisky and soda quickly to 
 anticipate his host. Cradock's hand would certainly 
 tremble, and he did not want to see it. Cradock was not 
 drunk. He never would be. But he had been drinking. 
 Dennis pulled another chair up to the fire and sat facing 
 
164 STILL LIFE 
 
 the window. He saw little more of Cradock than his 
 profile. 
 
 They had forgotten to draw the curtains. Then he saw 
 that there were no curtains. Outside the half-moon, firm 
 outlined and near in the sky, poured a silver light on to the 
 little garden, giving to the stone steps and the two stone 
 bowls that flanked them, the semblance of ghostly flesh. 
 The ivy-covered wall at the end set a shining boundary to 
 the deep, shaped shadows beneath it. Dennis tried to 
 explore them with his eyes. 
 
 Cradock shifted himself up in his chair, bending forwards 
 to the fire, stretching his hands to warm. He looked at 
 Dennis, and then turned his head sharply to the window. 
 
 " Feels cold out there," said he. " I wish they hadn't 
 taken all the curtains away from the back. I ought to have 
 told them to leave these. The house is just a shell. If 
 they raised the blinds in the front, everyone could see the 
 skeleton. It's a rotten feeling, the last time you're in a 
 house that you've lived in a long time." 
 
 " Like standing on a sand castle while it melts away. 
 I know. I've changed rooms often enough," 
 
 " Only it's a bit worse here." 
 
 r " Yes . . . perhaps the sand-castle was wrong. It's not 
 important enough. More like a lonely island crumbling 
 into the ocean with you for the one inhabitant. You don't 
 know where you're going to find a landing any more. 
 
 It may be that the gulfs will wash us down, 
 It may be we shall reach the happy isles 
 And see ... 
 
 What would you like to see, Cradock ? " 
 
 " What do you ask me for ? You know." 
 
 " I'm sure I don't." 
 
 " I know you do "... Cradock slowly insisted. 
 
 " Oh, I thought you had managed to put that out of your 
 mind. You'll have to. You'll make a mess of it if you 
 don't." 
 
STILL LIFE 165 
 
 " How the devil can I put her out of my mind ? Could 
 you ? " 
 
 " I don't know, I'm different. I never put things out of 
 my mind. But then you live, I don't. I just drag about 
 a lumber of memories. I don't pretend to solve any 
 problems. You do ... solve them, I mean not pre- 
 tend." 
 
 " Well, I'm going away by the nine-twenty to-morrow 
 morning. That's shirking, isn't it ? " 
 
 " My dear man, it's a solution in itself. I should never 
 go anywhere, never have the sense to, if I were in your 
 case. I should just hang about till Doomsday." 
 
 " Would you ... really . . . ? " 
 
 " And if nobody brought me food regularly, I should die 
 of starvation." 
 
 Cradock said nothing. 
 
 " You see," Dennis explained, " I'm not one of those 
 who get over things. The only reason why I haven't com- 
 pletely succumbed is that things don't happen to me. But 
 as it is my powers of resistance are gradually decaying, 
 and the moment something really does happen, it'll be all 
 up." 
 
 Cradock suddenly awoke to the situation. " Damn it 
 all, Dennis, it's serious. By God, man, it is." 
 
 " Do you mean that I don't think it's serious 1 " 
 
 " Well." He hesitated. " No o. ... Of course not. . . . 
 What a fool I am ! . . . You mustn't mind if I'm a bit 
 jumpy." 
 
 " It must have been my fault. I must have a way of 
 making people think that I'm laughing at them. It's not 
 the first time it's happened." 
 
 Dennis watched the shadows through the window and 
 Cradock warmed his hands in silence. " Do you want to 
 know why I asked you to come to-night ? " he said in 
 uneasy confession. 
 
 " If you like not otherwise. ..." 
 
 " Well. ... I thought that you v, ould like to be in the 
 
166 STILL LIFE 
 
 house on the last evening. I don't know why. Would 
 you ? " 
 
 :< Yes, of course, very much." 
 
 " You see it was ours for a long time. It seemed a long 
 time, anyhow. But it's an age since that dinner-party, 
 much longer than the time before. I wonder why the 
 dinner-party seems to have been the last thing ... it must 
 have been, of course. That must have been the beginning. 
 She had never seen him before." 
 
 " I don't know anything about that. But I can under- 
 stand why it seems a terribly long time to you. It does 
 even to me." 
 
 ;< You haven't seen Anne, since, have you ? " 
 
 " Yes, I did. I came in the next afternoon to get that 
 book you lent me. No, not the next afternoon, the day 
 after." 
 
 " Why, that was the afternoon she went away." 
 
 14 Yes, I suppose it was." 
 
 " I wonder . . . did you notice anything strange in 
 her ? " 
 
 " Nothing at all. . . . Except perhaps ..." 
 
 Cradock was eager ; therefore Dennis hesitated. 
 
 " Well . . . it's hard to describe . . . there was some- 
 thing about her . . . rather as though ... I don't know 
 how to describe it, but she was a little more Anne than I 
 had ever known her before." 
 
 " Oh," said Cradock. He was disappointed. " I know 
 what you mean ... at least I think I do ... I'm not 
 quite sure, though." 
 
 " Well, I haven't got any other words. It's easy to 
 read all sorts of things into it, now that I know what's 
 happened. But they wouldn't be true." 
 
 " No, of course not. . . . But couldn't you give me 
 some idea ? Do you mean she was extreme, somehow, 
 rather at the edge of things ? I'm worse than you are. 
 . . . But you know what I'm after." 
 
 " Yes, I think I do. It wasn't that at all. Now I know 
 
STILL LIFE 167 
 
 what has happened, I should say that she seemed to me 
 extraordinarily sane, quite calm as and if she had decided 
 about something." The answer gave Dennis a real satis- 
 faction. " But that's reading it with a knowledge of the 
 future. You can't really do that." 
 
 " No." Cradock rose to his feet, and stood looking out 
 of the window with his hands in his pockets. When he 
 spoke again it seemed as though he had been taking a 
 decision apart. " Come upstairs. I'm packing." He led 
 the way to the door. " Bring your drink. I'll bring mine." 
 Glass in hand, Dennis followed him to an unfamiliar height. 
 Open trunks, half-filled, obstructed the landing. Three 
 doors were open. Through each he could see a litter of 
 white paper on the floor. He caught a glimpse through 
 one of a deep yellow wall-paper over which a tenuous 
 pattern straggled with careful labour. Yellowed rather 
 than yellow, he thought, as he stepped behind Cradock 
 over a heap of boots into his bedroom, and he knew that 
 the room was Anne's. 
 
 " I hate packing," said Cradock, setting his glass down 
 upon the chest of drawers. " Somehow, I couldn't let the 
 maids do it, though. I'd sooner do it all myself, now. 
 You see, there's Anne's." 
 
 Dennis evaded giving an answer to this. He felt that he 
 had been trapped up there in the top of the house. Every- 
 thing seemed to be precarious, set on a razor's edge. 
 Dennis felt an uneasy quiet within him. He was bodily 
 apprehensive. Sitting down on Cradock's bed he emptied 
 his glass quickly, and placed it on the chest of drawers, 
 relieved to be rid of it. Cradock, bent over a trunk beneath 
 him, looked up and said : "I can't do any more just now 
 at this one. I've lost all my initiative. I can't even cope 
 with a trunkful of my own things. They bewilder me." 
 
 : ' That's not so very strange, is it ? I'm always like 
 that. It's always touch and go at the station, because the 
 cab has to wait while I do an hour's packing in ten minutes. 
 I tried the dodge of always getting the cab to come ten 
 
168 STILL LIFE 
 
 minutes too early, but it wasn't any good. I can never 
 manage to deceive myself. But I'm just like you are about 
 packing. The only thing is to do something else for a bit 
 . . . you might even tackle another box." 
 
 The last words had been spoken through Dennis rather 
 than by him. More than ever he desired to be away. He 
 would have given anything to be downstairs again, and 
 yet he had suggested that Cradock should begin on another 
 box, knowing that he would have to remain. He knew 
 that he would have to go into that yellow ^oom, yet he was 
 afraid to do it. He might kill Cradock there. A vision of 
 murder passed calmly before his eyes. It was so natural 
 and trivial that it almost amused him. 
 
 " What's the joke, Dennis ? " 
 
 " I just saw myself in the act of killing you. It's an 
 awfully simple thing, you know. I never realised it before. 
 It's done before you remember that we don't live in that 
 real world, but in an unreal one. ..." 
 
 " God, man, but that's a funny idea." 
 
 " Isn't it ? But it's funnier still when you think that at 
 the moment I spoke I didn't think it was funny at all. 
 It was as natural as ... as the movement of my lips 
 now when I'm speaking to you." 
 
 " Do you often feel like that ? " 
 
 " Like murder ? Good heavens, no ! Don't you see 
 that the murder's only incidental ? It might just as well be 
 telling the truth to someone or other. As a matter of fact, 
 that's more common with me. I see myself turning into 
 a spirit, almost not existing any more, then I tell the truth, 
 the real truth. . . . It's the only part of my time I really 
 care about. ... As though I spent a bit of my life in a real 
 world and the rest in an unreal one. . . . And that's prob- 
 ably why people imagine that I'm laughing at them." 
 
 " Don't you ever want to do the things you think 
 about ? " 
 
 " How the devil could I want to ? Can't you see that 
 the moment I begin doing things I'm back again in the 
 
STILL LIFE 169 
 
 unreal world ? There's no connection between. There 
 can't be any." 
 
 " Well," laughed Cradock, " I don't see how a spirit can 
 murder a spirit anyway." 
 
 " No, you wouldn't." 
 
 Cradock was startled by the note. Dennis went on 
 quietly. " You see, I'm rather touchy about these things. 
 Anyhow, it's not for you to apologise because you can't 
 help thinking that I'm laughing at you it's for me. You 
 don't mind, do you ? " 
 
 To the appeal Cradock instantly responded. It freed 
 some impulse in him that Dennis's coldness had repressed. 
 
 " Of course I don't. . . . But you know that. Let's go 
 into the other room. . . . That's what I really wanted you 
 to come for this evening. . . . I've got to pack Anne's 
 things . . . you remember the letter. I don't know why, 
 but I felt that I must have you there while I do it. 
 I'd have told you before, only something put me off. 
 Come on." 
 
 Cradock took his glass into his hand and went before 
 Dennis into the yellow room. A moment later he turned 
 back, brushing past Dennis, and set his glass on the floor 
 outside. Then he turned up the light. Two large wooden 
 boxes stood neatly in the middle of the room with the flaps 
 of a paper lining hanging down by their sides. Every- 
 thing in the room was tidy, scrupulously ordered ; but 
 beneath the veneer of order was an emptiness. Dennis 
 knew that all the intimate possessions had departed, and 
 he half suspected that Anne had deliberately given an 
 unfamiliar arrangement to her room before she left. One 
 thing besides struck him strangely. There was a bracket 
 for two electric lights by the side of her bed. One was 
 missing. Above all else this made him feel that he was in 
 a deserted place. 
 
 " Nothing's been touched since . . .," said Cradock, sur- 
 veying the room. 
 
 " No ? Didn't Anne take anything with her ? " 
 
170 STILL LIFE 
 
 " Nothing. ... I don't think so, at least. Here are all 
 the things." He waved his hand generally round the room. 
 
 Dennis sat on a chair by a small writing-table and 
 watched Cradock slowly take a photograph of himself from 
 the dressing table and close the frame. He was contemp- 
 tuous, and more contemptuous when he heard Cradock, 
 
 " No, I couldn't have done it by myself. I had to have 
 you with me." 
 
 " Shall I just sit here while you stow away the things, or 
 would you rather I helped ? " 
 
 " No . . ." said Cradock hastily. " I'd rather do it 
 myself." 
 
 " Very well. But you'll have to go a bit faster. I have 
 to be in before midnight. You mustn't think I'm callous, 
 but there's the fact." 
 
 The table stood beside a window. Dennis leaned over 
 and pulled aside the curtain. " That's a wonderful moon 
 to-night. It seems very high up here. I suppose it isn't 
 really very far." He paused and listened to the crumpling 
 of the paper in which Cradock wrapped the things. 
 
 " I feel as though I can't go on," said Cradock. " It's 
 like the end of everything. . . I must though. . ." By the 
 time Dennis had left the window for his chair one half of 
 the dressing table had been cleared, Some tortoiseshell 
 boxes and brushes remained. " They're very sumptuous, 
 aren't they ? " he said. 
 
 " Pretty good," said Cradock. " I gave them to her for 
 a birthday present last year." 
 
 " Ah. . . ." Dennis gave up his insistent endeavour to 
 replace Anne in the room. He was baulked at every turn. 
 She might have busied herself in carefully removing every 
 vestige of her presence, folding her tiniest tendrils back 
 again. The things that remained, the tall broad wardrobe 
 with panels of yellowed glass, the table at which he sat, 
 bearing on the full curve of its pedestals little birds and 
 fruits impertinently inlaid, the smooth wood frame of the 
 bed with insets of pliant cane, dully shining with faded 
 
8TILL LIFE 171 
 
 gilt, at head and foot they were gracious, but they were 
 not her. Not even the whisper of a rustling skirt or the 
 fragance of a lingering scent had defied her. 
 
 Finding no trace of her, he was glad, for the sight of 
 Cradock bruising something of hers with his false and 
 clumsy regrets would have exasperated him. He was also 
 disappointed and impatient. Cradock's attempts to convey 
 his broken heart into the gestures with which he packed 
 Anne's most outward possessions were like the spasmodical 
 motions of a marionette. He was sick and tired of the 
 performance. It was so unconvincing that he nearly for- 
 got that it was the manifestation of a living man. Nor did 
 that recollection reconcile him to his waiting part. 
 
 " There isn't much more, is there ? " 
 
 Cradock got up and looked round the room and at 
 Dennis. 
 
 " I can't see anything else, can you ? " 
 
 Dennis shook his head. " Are all the drawers cleared ? " 
 
 " Yes . . . except that desk you're sitting at I haven't 
 
 been through that . . . just see if there's anything in it, will 
 you ? " 
 
 " Very well." He turned round in his chair, and began 
 to open the drawers. They were unlocked. Three were 
 empty. " I think they're all cleared," he said. As he 
 opened the fourth he saw a small packet wrapped in tissue 
 paper and tied with a piece of ribbon. His instant impulse 
 was to say nothing, to slip the packet into his own pocket. 
 But he spoke to Cradock instead. " Here's something." 
 Cradock reached out his hand. Again Dennis felt that he 
 would dispute it with him. He gave it to Cradock. " Anne 
 must have forgotten it," he said lamely, following the 
 packet with his eyes. 
 
 Cradock felt it with his fingers. " I wonder what it is," 
 said he. 
 
 " How can I tell? " Dennis stared at the carpet beneath 
 his feet. He pressed his shoe hard on a cluster of grey 
 grapes that pointed towards the corner, but no juice 
 
172 STILL LIFE 
 
 spurted out. He was in suspense until he heard the dry 
 rustle of outspread tissue-paper. 
 
 " My God, that's funny. Look here, man." He held 
 up in his hand a tiny umbrella of ivory about a finger long. 
 At the top of the handle was a bead of glass or a diamond, 
 for it sparkled in the light. " What on earth could she 
 want with that ? The other thing must be a photo of her 
 mother. I've never seen it before." He held it out to 
 Dennis, who took it. While he heard Cradock mutter : 
 " I wonder what the deuce. . . ." He saw a woman dressed 
 in the ample costume of the 'sixties. Out of the general 
 greyness of the daguerrotype emerged the clear outline 
 of her face. Her dark hair was drawn straight across the 
 profile of her head, and she was leaning forward from her 
 chair as though to contemplate the beauty of her own 
 hands, which rested on a table before her. The line of her 
 mouth was thin and firm, but half-hidden as she turned, so 
 that he could not say whether it was pity or contempt that 
 moved her lips. Written in ink on the glass so that they 
 could hardly be seen were the words, " Mamie, about 
 twenty-seven." Then he felt the presence of Anne once 
 more. She seemed to have risen out of the picture. 
 
 "I've got it now," said Cradock. " It's something you 
 look through. Views of some place or other a dozen 
 oh, it's Paris yes, it's printed at the bottom." Dennis 
 watched his big body against the light. He could just see 
 the wrinkles at the side of his eyes as he screwed them up 
 to look through the pin-point of glass. 
 
 " Well, that's a rum thing to keep all these years. It 
 must have been given her when she was a little girl," said 
 he, still looking through the glass. " Concorde Tuileries 
 Vendome here, you have a look." 
 
 " No, it would strain my eyes." Dennis handed him 
 back the photograph. " Besides, I must be going ." 
 
 " Why, it's not eleven yet. Look." He held his watch 
 so that Dennis could see. 
 
 " Can't be helped. I have to go," 
 
STILL LIFE 173 
 
 " But why ? You said you needn't be in till midnight." 
 
 " Yes, but I want to go now. . . . You don't want to keep 
 me?" 
 
 " Of course I don't, my dear fellow. ..." 
 
 " I stayed to the end," Dennis persisted. 
 
 " I'm awfully grateful. I should never . . ." 
 
 " Well, then, that's why I want to go. Don't you see 
 that it would be an anticlimax ? Just look at it as you do 
 at a first night. Ca saute aux yeux." 
 
 " I see what you mean," Cradock said, feeling his way. 
 " Yes, you're right." 
 
 " I'm sure I am. Good night. Don't bother, I'll let 
 myself out." 
 
 " Well, good night then." 
 
 Dennis walked down the stairs. Every flight seemed 
 like a stage in an ascent of delirium. Cradock was lean- 
 ing over the banisters listening to each eight descending 
 steps followed by the pause of the landing. The sixth 
 pause was the hall, and the passage to the street. 
 
 " Good-bye," he called. " I'm going to-morrow. We 
 shan't see each other for a long while." 
 
 " No." The clean noise of the shutting door cut through 
 his echoing " Good-bye." 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 ANNE stood before the window of the large upper-room 
 with her arm upon Maurice's shoulder, humming the horn- 
 motive from " The Flying Dutchman." Big, restless grey 
 clouds whirled across the sky. A low undertone of wind, 
 rising and falling in the wood, rose in the silences. 
 
 " Morry, I think this is where I shall have the piano." 
 
 Half interested, he looked at the space by the window 
 to which she pointed. 
 
 " It's a good place. You'll be able to see the wood from 
 the small window ; the whole world from here. ... Or 
 do people who play the piano not like to look outside ? " 
 
 " Of course they do. The phrase I was humming came 
 straight out of the clouds there. . . . But you're sure it 
 won't disturb you in the cell next door ? " 
 
 " I don't think anything disturbs me. It wasn't pianos 
 in those rooms in Vauxhall, but carts on cobbles all day 
 long, and they didn't worry me. But you're always 
 asking me that. Don't you believe me ? " 
 
 " You know I do. I only wanted to be quite certain. 
 But I'm getting terribly impatient about the piano. I've 
 never had so much music in me as I have now. ... I 
 wish I had written last night. ..." 
 
 " It wouldn't have made any difference. They couldn't 
 have sent it this week. They'd have got the letter this 
 morning, Saturday. Even if they had what you wanted 
 they wouldn't send till Monday. Besides, it's easy to 
 make it quite all right. I thought of walking into Pirford 
 this morning to meet Dennis. If I start in half an hour 
 and go by the fields, I'll have over twenty minutes to do 
 things before his train gets in." 
 
 174 
 
STILL LIFE 175 
 
 " But isn't it a very long way to walk ? " 
 
 " Not more than five miles by the fields. The road runs 
 right round the foot of Tenpenny Hill, to keep on the level. 
 If you cut straight across it you save an enormous lot. 
 It's a grand morning to go. I don't think it'll rain. There's 
 too much wind. Look how those clouds are spinning. I 
 wonder how they manage to keep together. Besides, 
 Dennis said he was going to walk, and it'll be fun to walk 
 back with him. ... I can see about that box of yours 
 at the station too." 
 
 "I'd like to come with you. But ten miles no, I 
 couldn't manage that. But I'll make something special 
 for lunch. . . . Perhaps I could come to meet you. . . . 
 But if you're going by field paths I'd better not. What 
 time do you think you'll be back ? " 
 
 " About a quarter to two. If you do think of meeting 
 us, it's quite straightforward for the first mile. Do you 
 remember where the path from the hill turns into the 
 little white road the way we came back the other after- 
 noon our first walk ? . . . Well, the path begins just 
 opposite that broken gate. You won't come further than 
 that ? It may be bad going after the rain too. You don't 
 know what real chalk mud is like." He laughed. " But 
 what shall I do about the piano ? Don't you have to 
 choose ? " 
 
 " I don't suppose there'll be an awful lot to choose 
 from. But I've written out a list of the pianos I want in 
 order. They're sure to have one of them, I imagine. You 
 have only to see that it's quite new, and arrange about 
 hiring it and sending it over. ... Do you hate to do things 
 like that ? " 
 
 " No, why should I ? Anyhow, you get that list, and I'll 
 just put on my thick boots. I'll see if there are any other 
 things to get, too. I'll be ready in ten minutes." 
 
 Anne sat down in a chair and watched the driven clouds 
 gather into a dark blue mass on the horizon. Her eyes 
 followed the nearest and biggest to its distant home. Then 
 
176 STILL LIFE 
 
 she began to walk slowly about the room. While she 
 walked, her phrase expanded to a swelling volume of sound. 
 " How I do love that," she said to herself at length, tap- 
 ping on the window-pane. " There are mornings made 
 for music. I don't often find a Wagner morning ; but this 
 is one. . . ." 
 
 Maurice called up to her, but she could not hear the 
 words. She tiptoed quickly to the door, for she desired at 
 that moment to tread delicately, and flung it open. 
 
 " Ye-es," she called. 
 
 " You're enjoying yourself up there. ... I wanted to 
 ask if there was anything else to get you. I'm just off." 
 
 " No, nothing. . . . You're going to see about the box. 
 But there's no hurry about that. It is a wonderful 
 morning . . . au revoir." 
 
 She opened the window as he went down the garden 
 path. The ungallant winds made sport with some rebellious 
 hair. She caught it up with one hand, wryly smiling, and 
 waved to him with the other, as he turned at the gate. 
 " Blowy," he called, pulling his hat down on to his ears. 
 Then he walked quickly along the road, with long, almost 
 exaggerated steps, rolling from side to side. At the corner 
 before he disappeared behind " The Badger," he waved 
 again. 
 
 Anne shut the window and went to her bedroom, busy 
 with her reluctant hair. " As for your hair," she said 
 to the mirror, " you might be a girl of eighteen after 
 a tennis party." Her eyes fixed on her reflection, while 
 her fingers searched the dressing-table for a box of pins. 
 The lid was hard to open with one hand, and she glanced 
 down perforce. It was a black box of Maurice's, labelled 
 vain-gloriously " Studs." She smiled. " It's his only 
 article de toilette the only piece of evidence against me." 
 Still holding a wisp of hair she turned to look at the bed, 
 as yet unmade that day. He had forgotten to take his 
 pyjamas away. Generally he kept them rolled tightly, 
 for they were very woolly and made a clumsy bundle at 
 
STILL LIFE 177 
 
 tkeir smallest, in a drawer of his chest in the cell. Now 
 they lay importantly upon the bed. It was curious. He 
 had dressed in his own room as usual, that morning. Then 
 she remembered that he had come back soon after getting 
 out of bed to remind her that Dennis was coming. He 
 must have been rolling them at the moment, and left them 
 behind. 
 
 Her fingers returned to her hair. Vexed, she suddenly 
 let it fall down and began a thorough reconstruction. Her 
 cheeks were warm. She remembered Maurice's visit of 
 the morning vividly. There had been a touch of added 
 confidence in his timid knock, which she had awaited with 
 foreknowledge. Last night they had for the first time 
 been lovers. He had been strange with the burden of a 
 half-ashamed desire. Of the tinge of shame she had been 
 more acutely conscious, and she had begun herself to feel 
 ashamed. Nevertheless, knowing he had surrendered him- 
 self, she had striven to give herself up to him. Even now 
 the trace of a shudder passed through her as she recollected 
 the agony with which she had, so vainly, prayed for un- 
 consciousness. In that moment a keen instinct had shown 
 her how she was utterly involved in the falsity she had 
 foretold to herself, and to him. She did not care to think 
 about it, and she covered the thought deliberately with 
 the remembrance of how he had rested his head upon 
 her breast and gone to sleep, while she had watched her 
 own poignant unhappiness fade away. Almost she had 
 heard herself fall asleep. 
 
 Her hair finished, she looked at the clock that lay to her 
 hand. Twenty-five minutes to eleven. She had more than 
 three hours of the morning to herself. Then underneath 
 the clock she caught sight of the list of pianos she had 
 written out. Her impulse was to run after him. But he 
 would be more than a mile away. The only chance was 
 that he might remember and come back for it. But that 
 would certainly make him late for Dennis. Oh, he wouldn't 
 do that in any case. It wasn't to be expected. It was her 
 
178 STILL LIFE 
 
 fault for not having given him the list. It wasn't for her, 
 who had herself forgotten, to expect that Maurice would 
 remember. Probably the piano wouldn't arrive any 
 sooner, even if Maurice were to call at the shop this morn- 
 ing ; but she was so anxious that the least thing definitely 
 done seemed to bring it nearer to her. Still, he couldn't 
 come back. It was her own fault. For all that she could 
 not put away a hopeful suspicion that he might return. 
 Then she would not let him go to Pirford. It would be 
 useless anyhow. 
 
 Anne busied herself with the tulips, talking to them, 
 tenderly stroking those she cut, pale yellow and deep red, 
 white and yellow-brown. Bending over them she seemed 
 to bend beneath a wave of sudden knowledge. How 
 changed were all the outward circumstances of her life ! 
 She thrilled as she used to thrill in the train, approaching 
 unknown cities. As though the rush of consciousness 
 were but the stormy swelling of her material blood, it 
 ebbed away from her brain and left her unchanged, un- 
 changeable, she thought, the same dimly mysterious Anne 
 that she had always been even to herself. She was re- 
 assured and disappointed. She knelt down before the 
 bright yellow flowers. The storm of strangeness over- 
 whelmed her again and she pressed her face into the blooms, 
 crushing the fleshy flower-cups. For an instant, she 
 depended upon the outward things of her life. Their 
 change quickened and frightened her, but only for an 
 instant. She passed back into herself, more aloof, more 
 dispassionate and cold. She felt that she was very old. 
 She seemed to have fulfilled her form, like a crystal, now 
 set hard from among the fluid in which her elements 
 had been dispersed, impervious to new influences and 
 unlearnt knowledge. There was no more communication 
 for her with the beyond, no more communion, hardly 
 a window in the ark from whence she might send forth 
 a dove. 
 
 Something in the definite little picture pleased her, and 
 
STILL LIFE 179 
 
 she brooded over it, sad for her loneliness and glad that 
 she was alone. She moved about the garden in the grey 
 light of the windy day heavy with knowledge, tending the 
 flowers and the little hedges with an infinite care, gently, 
 as knowing that they too were ordered with purpose and 
 set alone, like stars. 
 
 Meanwhile Maurice went quickly forward over the fields. 
 Although he looked seldom to the right or to the left he 
 was happy in the steady harmonious march of his body, 
 and in the stout dancing wind, that threatened instantly 
 to undermine his close- jammed hat. At first, while he 
 walked swiftly, he was timid of a new freedom. The shape- 
 less clouds of his mind were only shaken, not driven away. 
 He put out tendrils of his being, with nervous care, which 
 slowly wound about the joy of health and active happiness. 
 Gradually, more and more of himself seemed to work out 
 of depression and insecurity into carelessness, out of a 
 past where he was uncertain of himself into a future where 
 he simply lived. The thin blade of inevitable distrust 
 which divided him between uncertainty and a whole 
 happiness was imperceptibly withdrawn. As he came down 
 the last slope of Tenpenny Hill, his jolting, long-striding 
 descent quickened by its own momentum into an easy, 
 light-springing run. He kicked his heels into the turf 
 smartly or he would have plunged into the gate that 
 opened on to a hill road thick with silver-grey mud. Along 
 this he pounded noisily. Even the sound of his sticking 
 shoes was comfortable ; the elements conspired with his 
 mood. He stuffed his hands into his coat pockets, and 
 threw back his head, and laughed. A few paces ahead a 
 bird flitted over and under the hedge, off the road and on 
 to the field, with pauses so swift that he never could hold 
 it steady before his eyes, though he pressed on in the 
 exciting chase. His road lay through a wood before he 
 began the last stretch of fields. The wind shook the boughs, 
 and the boughs, green tipped and glistening, let fall their 
 bursting raindrops upon him. Their hollow thudding 
 
180 STILL LIFE 
 
 upon his hat was friendly, and when he took off his hat to 
 shake it dry and a fine spray of tinier drops smothered his 
 face, he only laughed again. 
 
 On a field bridge not far from the town he waited to 
 watch the big fish biting. The eddying circles of a few 
 raindrops beginning a belated shower mingled with the 
 incessant commotions of the rising fish. The unending 
 pattern changed and changed before his eyes, always 
 trembling on the verge of the nothingness of calm, but 
 always withheld on the brink and renewed with ripples 
 out of the depths, quick darting and slow dying. Maurice 
 leant for long over the bridge-rail bemused and fascinated 
 before he was conscious of a deep desire to drink out of 
 the stream. He passed over the bridge and on to the 
 grass. In one place the bank made a small flat promontory, 
 not more than a dozen inches above the water. There he 
 lay down at full length, scrabbling backwards with his 
 toes in the wet grass and the soft earth, gripping some 
 roots that grew in the bank, nearly covered by the stream, 
 with his hands. He bent his face down to the surface : 
 the water covered his nose and mouth, as he took a long 
 gulp of it. Muddy-white, and chalk-clouded to the eye, 
 to the mouth it was fresh with an aftertaste of pleasant 
 earth washed and scoured by the rain. He dabbled his 
 hands about, and absorbed himself in the pleasure of 
 feeling the drops run off his nose and lips before he rose. 
 He looked down at his coat. It was patterned with wet. 
 A bigger drop, like a tear, splashed down upon it while he 
 looked. In bewilderment he put up his hand and touched 
 the rim of his hat. It was soaking. Then he remembered 
 he had forgotten to take it off before he drank, and he was 
 surprised and vaguely happy with himself for being so 
 natural a fool. At the same moment he woke to the fact 
 that he had been by the bridge for a long time. He turned 
 his hat back to front, and set off at a trot across the mile 
 of final fields. 
 
STILL LIFE 181 
 
 The signal by the station bridge was down, and in the 
 level distance he saw the white steam of the engine sweep- 
 ing away on the wind. He ran faster, scattering the sheep 
 before him, eager to race the train. Though the chase 
 was futile he believed and enjoyed it : but the last few 
 hundred yards he ran anxiously lest he should miss his 
 man. On the opposite platform he caught sight of him 
 and whistled. Dennis waved to him, picked up his bag, 
 and walked towards the bridge. Before he had reached it 
 Maurice had rushed up the stairs, clattered loudly across 
 the bridge and descended the steps with a leap. 
 
 " Hullo, you've come." 
 
 " Did you think I wasn't going to ? " 
 
 " No-o. Of course not. . . ." 
 
 Somehow Dennis checked Maurice's exuberance. He 
 was deliberate. He always was, and Maurice expected it. 
 Nevertheless it chilled him now and he became appre- 
 hensive. He was too fond of Dennis to withdraw into 
 himself. He could never be wholly on the defensive with 
 him. But he had been prevented from intimacy, which 
 might have made all the rough places smooth, and he 
 knew that they were waiting each for the other to say 
 something about the affair with Anne. 
 
 " We're going across the fields ? " said Dennis, who 
 knew the way. 
 
 "Yes. . . . But wait a minute. . . . I've got to see 
 about a box . . . belongs to Anne." 
 
 Dennis followed his abrupt dive down the approach 
 into the goods office, and encountered him hesitating 
 under the tall empty shed. He was peering about for 
 the clerk. 
 
 " Hullo, I thought you'd stay in the station. I didn't 
 mean to drag you down here. I wouldn't have bolted 
 either. ..." He looked about him again, stepping 
 forward to see if anyone lurked behind the pile of boxes 
 and bales. " Rather like the bagages enregistres, isn't it ? 
 
182 STILL LIFE 
 
 At St. Lazare ? " He shot the remark over his shoulder 
 at Dennis, and began to pound on the low counter with 
 his hand, ineffectually. 
 
 " What on earth shall I do ? " he asked, bewildered. 
 
 " Isn't there a bell or something ? " 
 
 They both looked about. Maurice was in no condition 
 to remark things of service. He was still some way behind 
 all actual happenings when, rather surprised, he saw 
 Dennis put his finger to an electric button in the wall. 
 
 " Oh, that's it," he said. 
 
 A resentful, pale-faced clerk appeared, dusting crumbs 
 from his waistcoat, and trying to swallow a mouthful 
 prematurely. Seeing Maurice he changed his mind and 
 chewed on. Seeing Dennis in the background, he changed 
 his mind again and swallowed with a gulping effort. He 
 went very red in the face. 
 
 " Oh, I've come about a box that's been sent by goods." 
 The man was impassive. Impassivity echoed in his 
 " What name 1 " 
 
 Maurice was suddenly confused. He looked on the 
 ground. 
 
 Dennis's voice intervened timely. " Temple's the name. 
 Mrs. Temple. T-e-m-p-1-e. Warren Cottage, Selden- 
 hurst. . . ." 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Have you got it ? " Dennis took charge of the negotia- 
 tion. 
 
 " I think there's a box with that name. I'll see, sir." 
 
 " Here it is anyhow." Dennis climbed on to the counter 
 and tapped one with his foot. " What's to be done with it, 
 Morry ? " 
 
 Maurice lifted his head and revealed the colour of his 
 face. " I don't know." His voice was low and shy. 
 " Let me think. . . . Moon will be in on Monday." 
 
 " You know Mr. Moon of ' The Badger,' don't you ? 
 . . . well, he's going to call for it on Monday. Is there 
 anything to pay ? " 
 
STILL LIFE 183 
 
 The clerk disappeared for a moment. 
 
 " That was right, wasn't it, Morry ? " 
 
 " Quite," he said, and hurried into silence. 
 
 " What a depressing hole this is ! It simply reeks of 
 desolation and emptiness. . . . It's as bad as London, 
 worse, because here it's indecent. In town it's natural." 
 
 " No, sir, nothing to pay." The clerk held out a yellowish 
 paper. ;< You have to sign for it, please." 
 
 Dennis handed it on to Maurice. " Here, this is your 
 business. Sign down here." He spread out the paper on 
 the rough counter, and watched Maurice make a hieroglyph 
 with the clerk's pencil stump. " There's nothing more, is 
 there ? " 
 
 Maurice shook his head, and led the way into the sun, 
 and over the first stile. 
 
 " Can't I carry that bag of yours for a bit, Dennis ? 
 You must be sick of it, I'm fresh." 
 
 " No fagging. It's about as heavy as a pair of 
 gloves." 
 
 " Well, you'll tell me when you're tired of it anyway. 
 I must take a turn at it. It's only fair." 
 
 " Very well. . . . But it's all right at present. ... By 
 God, it's worth while to get away from that damnable 
 London." 
 
 ;< Yes, it's good out here to-day. It's been blowing 
 hard, and trying to rain. I stopped so long at the pool 
 that I nearly missed you." 
 
 " And I didn't expect you." Maurice was not attending 
 to Dennis's words, screwing himself up to the point of 
 confession. The silence loomed between them. 
 
 " I was a fool ... in that office. . . . You see, I'd 
 never thought about the name, and it took me by 
 surprise. I don't know what I should have done if you 
 hadn't been there to help me out. It was awfully good 
 of you." 
 
 Dennis was almost embarrassed. " I understood what 
 was up, so I chimed in." 
 
184 STILL LIFE 
 
 " Just at the critical moment," Maurice persisted. 
 " . . . But . . . how did you know what name it was ? 
 I couldn't have guessed. Anyhow, if I'd had to, I should 
 have said the other thing. ... It was rather decent of 
 Cradock, don't you think ? " 
 ' Yes, I suppose it was." 
 
 " But how did you guess it ? " 
 
 "I didn't. I knew." 
 
 " Oh, ..." said Maurice, silenced, not daring to ask. 
 
 " I saw it being sent off, you see. Cradock asked me 
 round one night, and he was packing it up whilst I was 
 there. . . . He said he was going abroad for a month, 
 starting the next morning. That's why I went. Of course 
 I saw the label. I couldn't help seeing it, considering I 
 sat by the box for about an hour." 
 
 " So that's how you knew which one it was, too. I 
 only just remembered that it was strange that you did 
 know." 
 
 They were walking over the footbridge. " That's where 
 I wasted all the time, coming to meet you. Rummy thing 
 water, how it can keep you looking at it. See that little 
 spit sticking out. I had to lie down and have a drink. 
 D'you ever get taken like that ? " 
 
 Dennis shook his head. " I'm too old, or something. 
 I should be thinking that my rump was sticking up into 
 the air, if the muddiness didn't put me ofl altogether. I'm 
 not one of the natural ones . . . and I don't think you 
 are, very. But you've got a touch." 
 
 " How did Cradock take it ? " Maurice burst out. " You 
 knew it had happened before you saw him, didn't you ? 
 Or was it before my letter ? " 
 
 " The same night, I think." 
 
 " It's hard lines on him, I suppose. But I can't help 
 that, can I ? " 
 
 " Not possibly. I shouldn't worry about him, if I were 
 you ! " 
 
 " I don't, really," Maurice repudiated. The momentary 
 
STILL LIFE 185 
 
 flash of conversation died away. At times he thought that 
 Dennis was purposely keeping silence about himself and 
 Anne, to provoke him into an outburst. What else was 
 there to talk about ? How could he avoid it except by 
 intention ? But it was impossible to maintain an irritation 
 against Dennis. He never was really angry with him. 
 Glancing at his face, he saw that he was staring moodily at 
 the ground beneath him. The friendly glance fell in desert 
 places. Of course it was very awkward for Dennis to 
 speak about it. And it was for Maurice himself to begin. 
 He had done it, and he had to explain. Not that he wanted 
 to explain, he wasn't going to, and he couldn't he 
 wanted to hear what Dennis thought. For a while he 
 heard nothing but the soft crushing of their steps on the 
 grass. His desire to ask the question compelled the blood 
 to his head. He worked himself into an extravagant state. 
 Then he did ask : " What do you think . . . ? " but the 
 words crept out of his mouth so husky and small that 
 Dennis did not hear them. Maurice was vexed with 
 shame and confusion ; and immediately in a clear, too 
 decided voice, said : 
 
 " What do you think about this business honestly ? " 
 
 A false calm came upon him while he waited, as though 
 his outer surface had suddenly frozen. 
 
 " It seems all right," said Dennis slowly. "... But it's 
 a bit difficult. There are two sides to it you and Anne. 
 Well, I know you, a bit anyhow, but I'm not sure that I 
 know anything about her." 
 
 " I don't either." Maurice wanted to be contradicted. 
 
 ic You must. After all you've done something. . . . 
 Well, I should have said that you might have any number 
 of things done to you, but you'd hardly do anything. 
 You've begun to get beyond my knowledge of you, if you 
 want me to tell the truth." Dennis wondered whether he 
 was speaking the truth. He recognised a shade of false- 
 hood in his words, but they came naturally. " As for Anne 
 she might do anything. It wouldn't surprise me. I 
 
186 STILL LIFE 
 
 mean only interest me. That was why I wasn't surprised 
 when I got your letter. I wasn't. But that doesn't 
 explain anything. That only means Anne's done some- 
 thing. You see what I mean. It's as though she were 
 positive and you were negative. That was how I used to 
 see you, as a matter of fact. 
 
 " But it's not good enough now. It seems that you've 
 gone and hit something between you, and that's what 
 baffles me. ... I don't see the common point between 
 you. I dare say that's why I've come down to spy out 
 the land." 
 
 Maurice did not reply. Dennis had revealed something 
 to him. He had been taken outside himself and given a 
 glimpse. The unfamiliarity of the aspect troubled him. 
 What was the common point of impact between himself 
 and Anne ? You could not be expected to see things like 
 that when you were so close and entangled. Of course 
 there was one. Why, there they were ! But perhaps that 
 was all wrong about the common point. Perhaps lovers 
 were just complementary to each other, supplying each 
 the other's deficiencies. Anne's deficiencies that was 
 rather queer. You could hardly say that she had any 
 deficiencies. In fact, you didn't look at her that way. 
 But then where did he come in ? A warm memory of his 
 happiness with her last night enfolded him, so close and 
 actual that it decided his thought, and overflowed into 
 words. 
 
 " I don't know any more than you do I can't explain. 
 I was a bit frightened of her at first. Yes, I was. But now 
 it's gone. I don't think at all. I know that sounds just 
 like anybody else. I'm trying hard to tell you, but it's no 
 good. . . . It's as though I had just toppled over the 
 extreme edge of self-consciousness, into unconsciousness 
 anything." 
 
 " Yes. ... Is Anne the same ? " 
 
 " Of course. ... At least, I suppose so. She must be. 
 You see you can't put us apart like that. You're tackling 
 
STILL LIFE 187 
 
 it in the wrong way. It isn't me, and then Anne ; there's 
 something new, a kind of me-and-Anne, and that's so hard 
 to tell you about." 
 
 " That's what I meant by what I said before," said 
 Dennis, " I can't really tell you what I think about it, 
 because it's new. I have to come at it from the past. The 
 you I knew and the Anne I knew, they don't help at all 
 in understanding both of you, rejuvenated." 
 
 The hint of sarcasm stung Maurice. He caught at a soft 
 green twig in the hedge and tore it away, and began slowly 
 to pluck the buds. 
 
 " Well, do you think I'm changed, now ? " he said. 
 
 Dennis glanced at his face. He was apparently intent 
 upon the stripping of the twig. A nervous flush contrasted 
 with an unsteady sternness in his lips. For an instant 
 Dennis racked himself to be honest ; then a sudden in- 
 difference came on him. Except that Maurice was easier 
 to hurt, he felt no change. He had acquired a private 
 possession. Neither the acquiring nor the acquisition were 
 to be criticised, not even bantered. That was a new phase 
 and a weak one. It was only an attempt to conceal that 
 he was not sure of himself. He had never tried to conceal 
 his insecurity before, and it was Maurice's natural honesty 
 about himself, expanding with Dennis's sympathy and 
 understanding, that had held them such close friends. 
 Now Dennis felt indifferent, even complacent that Maurice 
 was betraying himself. 
 
 " No," he said judicially, " it's strange, but you don't 
 seem to have altered, except perhaps in one way. But 
 then I've not had time to size you up. It all comes to the 
 same thing again." 
 
 Maurice felt as though he had been found out. There 
 was not anything to find out, he thought ; but the feeling 
 remained. He had expected, rather hoped, that Dennis 
 would find him changed ; for thus he would have been 
 able to believe in himself. Perhaps he never believed in 
 anything so much as Dennis's belief in him. And Dennis 
 
188 STILL LIFE 
 
 believed in him a little less now than before. It was a 
 bitter disappointment. He found a perverse satisfaction 
 in leading Dennis to enlarge upon his lack of change. 
 
 " But that's not true. I don't believe you need any 
 more time to size me up. I've been a bit awkward with 
 you, waiting to ask you what you thought, but then I'm 
 always like that. It's all me, I'm sure. You don't think 
 I've changed ; and now you won't think it. But I ought 
 to have changed, oughtn't I ? " 
 
 " I can't see there's any ' ought ' about it." 
 
 " That's not the point," Maurice said impatiently. 
 " The fact is I haven't changed. That's right enough for 
 me. I just haven't. It only means that it wouldn't have 
 been me if I had. But you would expect that I'd have 
 changed, wouldn't you ? I know there's no ' ought ' about 
 it in one way. But you don't have to consider me alone. 
 That's all over. You must think of me in relation to Anne 
 oh, Lord ! it's silly of me to tell you that as if you 
 didn't know." He broke off. The twig, twisted, snapped 
 half across. Pulling at the edge of the soft bark, he looked 
 quickly at Dennis. " You did expect me to have changed, 
 didn't you ? " 
 
 " No, I didn't." 
 
 If he could have been angry with Dennis he was angry 
 then. His friend had suddenly turned enemy, seeking out 
 his weak places. He wanted to strike out in defence. 
 
 " Do you think I'm incapable of changing ? " 
 
 " No, it's not that." 
 
 " Why didn't you expect me changed then ? " 
 
 " It depended upon the kind of change ... I thought 
 you would need to become active ; fuller, completed on 
 the incomplete side of you. Do you understand ? I didn't 
 see the beginning of that in you, or anything out of which 
 it might have developed. That's why I didn't expect to 
 find you different. But can't you understand that I'm 
 working from fixed ideas ? It's perfectly ridiculous for 
 me to talk about it. I don't know. I'm only laying down 
 
STILL LIFE 189 
 
 the law about the Ethiopian not changing his skin. How 
 the devil do I know whether you're an Ethiopian, or whether 
 there's any reason why you should change your skin even 
 if you were one ? " 
 
 " Do you really mean that honestly ? " persisted Maurice. 
 
 " Honestly. I do really feel now that I'm just flounder- 
 ing in a mental chaos. As for what I've been saying before, 
 I'm not sure that it wasn't a kind of jealousy." 
 
 Maurice laughed, but the laugh ended dubiously. There 
 was a streak of seriousness in Dennis's remark, that raised 
 him again in his own esteem. He was half convinced by it 
 that he had progressed. Immediately he was strong 
 enough to be silent. 
 
 After a while he said : " Anne said she might come to 
 meet us at the road. I wonder if she'll be there." 
 
 " The weather's cleared at all events," said Dennis. 
 
 It had in truth. A chink of almost colourless blue sky 
 had opened to a vault while they walked. Before it the 
 heavy clouds had been driven into a distant belt on the 
 horizon. While she took shelter within the house from the 
 sudden shower Anne had watched it slowly broadening, 
 debating in herself whether she should go out to the meet- 
 ing-place. She had almost forgotten that Dennis was to 
 be there, and when she remembered it, an instinctive 
 repugnance to go out to them overcame her, as if to go 
 out to them were to expose herself. She preferred to await 
 criticism, for so she could maintain herself impervious to it. 
 Dennis was bound to be critical, she knew. That was of 
 no account. She also knew that he would be critical for 
 her rather than of her. She shrank from affording him 
 occasions for that. Therefore she gathered herself inwardly, 
 until the act of going out to greet them was impossible. 
 
 " I don't see her," said Maurice, balancing himself on 
 the top rail of a stile to look across the field that led to the 
 road. " I suppose she had something to do." Disappoint- 
 ment sank instantly to apprehension of disaster. " Let's 
 hurry up, we must be late." 
 
190 STILL LIFE 
 
 " We've come along at a fair rate," suggested Dennis. 
 
 Maurice made no reply, but led the way furiously across 
 the field. " I think I'll run on," he said, half-way across, 
 " you don't mind ? " He ran fast across the field. Dennis 
 saw him scramble tumultuously over the far stile. His 
 head jerked occasionally into sight over the hedge. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 " WHY, what have you been doing ? " said Anne. 
 
 " Nothing," he gasped, out of breath. " I only came on 
 ahead, to see if you were all right." 
 
 " What made you think there was anything wrong ? " 
 
 :< You weren't at the road, you see. I had an idea 
 quite silly so I just had to run." 
 
 " Oh, I wish I had come ! " Anne took his hand into 
 hers. " There wasn't any reason why I shouldn't ; but, 
 just when I was getting ready I didn't want to." 
 
 " Why didn't you ? " 
 
 " I don't know. I just felt like that. You don't mind 
 now, do you ? " 
 
 " No, of course not. Besides, it wasn't as if I'd really 
 expected you. It was only when I got to the road. The 
 moment I saw you weren't there, I was worried. That's 
 all. But you look tired. Have you been doing too much ? " 
 He stood between the window and the fire. Anne held out 
 his hands, and looked steadily up at him from her chair. 
 
 He turned round to the window. " Here's Dennis," he 
 said, and pulled his hands away. He slipped into the 
 kitchen. Anne rose to open the door. 
 
 " He deserted you on the way then ? " she called to 
 Dennis as he came up the path. 
 
 " Bolted like a hare, almost before I knew he was 
 gone." 
 
 They shook hands as they were used. Each looked for 
 a difference in the other and found none. 
 
 " I envy you, Mrs. Cradock," he began, and stopped 
 short, ludicrously. " So I've begun already," he said, with 
 unfeigned surprise at himself. " What am I to call you 
 
 191 
 
192 STILL LIFE 
 
 now ? It's a serious problem or it will be unless we settle 
 it now." 
 
 " Let's settle it then. I think the safest way out is for 
 you to call me Anne. You won't have to hesitate." 
 
 Dennis was happy enough at that. "I'm not at all sure, 
 though. It may be a bit worse ; but I'll do my best. . . . 
 I was going to say that I envy you. I've forgotten what I 
 envied you for, probably for being in the qpuntry. Oh, 
 yes ! And I was going to give you a pathetjc account of 
 the mental torment I have to undergo in 'the hospital. 
 Your interruption saved you that." 
 
 " I didn't interrupt you as a matter of fact it was 
 you." 
 
 " Well, then / saved you." 
 
 " I'm grateful. . . ." 
 
 " Morry found you uninjured, apparently." 
 
 " Yes. I wonder where he is. He went out just as you 
 came to the door." 
 
 " It's all right. I'm only washing myself," Maurice's 
 voice emerged from the kitchen. " I'm just coming." 
 
 Dennis and Anne watched each other for a little. He 
 was disinclined to make another remark. Unless he 
 attempted to be flippant, he could say nothing. The last 
 attempt echoed so hollow in his ears that he remained 
 silent. Anne was aware of his discomfort, and he knew it. 
 He was angry with himself for being cheap. The situation 
 tried him, for no way of handling it presented itself to him. 
 If he had needed to say nothing it would have been better, 
 for he felt that he could have managed to keep silence. 
 One thing made it impossible. Anne was silent too, and 
 her silence had a quality. It was personal and her own. 
 His own was empty and uneasy beside hers. While this 
 sped through his mind he heard the outer door rattle. 
 Maurice had gone outside. He had to say something now. 
 An impulse rose in him to tell Anne exactly what he was 
 thinking. That would have been an appeal to her mercy 
 and sympathy. He thrust it away from him. A kind of 
 
STILL LIFE 193 
 
 pride urged him to meet her on her own ground, equal with 
 equal. 
 
 " I saw Cradock the other night." He threw the words 
 like a glove of challenge, almost superciliously. 
 
 Anne lightly clasped her fingers together, and bent her 
 head forward until her lips touched them. " I thought you 
 would. I wrote him a letter advising him to see you if he 
 felt inclined." 
 
 " He showed me the letter." Was it to hurt Anne, to 
 damage Cradock or only honesty ? Something of each 
 of these, but chiefly honesty, and in it all was the desire to 
 say something of moment that might provoke a response. 
 He seemed to be shrinking in stature beside her. 
 
 " Ah ! " It was acquiescent. " I think that was sensible 
 of him. He asked you to explain it, I suppose ? . . . That 
 must have been difficult." 
 
 " It would have been, if I'd really tried to ; but I didn't. 
 I don't think he was in the mood to understand." 
 
 " Strange if he had been. . . . But I'm rather sorry that 
 you saw him like that. He can be very unfair to himself." 
 She spoke as though she had known all that had passed. 
 Not an evidence of curiosity escaped into her words. He 
 thought first that hers was a marvellous composure, an 
 impregnable defence erected against him, then that she did 
 know all that there was to know about Cradock, that she 
 neither needed nor desired to learn anything of what had 
 passed, for she already knew more than he. How could he 
 persevere in talking of it ? He was on the point of con- 
 fessing his thoughts. Now that he was near her his control 
 of his own consciousness was so precarious that he desired 
 instantly to be rid of it. He waited, fretting at the bridle, 
 vainly about for some speech that would not betray him 
 by its inconsequence or its inadequacy. 
 
 In spite of himself he said quickly, " I hated him 
 loathed him. I believe I could have killed him." He saved 
 himself sufficiently to let the words sound dispassionate. 
 
 Anne leaned back in her chair, her hands still lightly 
 
194 STILL LIFE 
 
 clasped before her. She seemed for a second to stiffen and 
 stretch like one awakening from a brooding sleep, and her 
 lips held the semblance of a smile, unreflected in her eyes, 
 which shone with the grave comprehending kindness which 
 was their repose. 
 
 " Yes," she said, " I think you would." 
 
 " Why do you think that ? " he pressed. " It was a dis- 
 covery to me." 
 
 " I don't know that I can express it in words. For one 
 thing I haven't the habit. Besides, it's something that 
 doesn't really need words. Jim has it in him underneath. 
 If the blow is hard enough to penetrate, it seems to cut 
 right through him, to separate the inner from the outer 
 man. . . . There's something terrible about the inner Jim. 
 It's so small. Sometimes I've thought it would shrink right 
 away. . . . I've longed for it to strike back. Instead, it was 
 the outside which responded. ... It might have done ugly 
 things. When it came out, I could have beaten the sky 
 in despair. I think you must have felt like that ... a 
 little." 
 
 She spoke as it were a voice out of a darkness, telling of 
 intimate things without intimacy. Dennis wondered if she 
 had suffered so much that the recollection of her suffering 
 were a lifeless memory. The sudden thought that perhaps 
 an element of her soul had withered and turned to stone 
 stung him to the quick. He was impotent to do anything. 
 A mad and heady anger against the incongruity of the room 
 they sat in, the afternoon light, the silly fire flaming yellow 
 as though poised in air, a curiously tense expectancy of 
 Maurice's entrance that would snap the incredible bond 
 that united Anne to him, preyed upon him and filled him 
 with a torment to laugh, inwardly, at himself, at human 
 things, and futile destinies. 
 
 " Yes, that's how I felt but only a little, only a fraction 
 of what you know." 
 
 I?! " Why should you know it ? That's my privilege my 
 part of the bargain. , . , I'm sorry you saw what you did. 
 
STILL LIFE 195 
 
 What's the good ? But you'll have the sense not to pity me 
 at any rate. Then I don't mind very much. . . . Perhaps 
 I'm glad after all. ... To be understood, ever so little 
 I don't mean that this is so very little is a strange 
 sensation. I couldn't tell you whether I'm glad or sorry." 
 There was the same remoteness in her voice. Her words 
 seemed to deny themselves as they were spoken. Then 
 they seemed to be apart from her and from him, to be a 
 third voice descending upon them both. " It will shatter 
 like glass," he thought. He knew it would have to be. He 
 tried to put the apprehension from his mind by repeating 
 to himself her words which came slowly and regularly back 
 to him by no effort of his own. Instinctively he sought to 
 bathe himself in them again, with them to stop his senses 
 and to press down his insurgent consciousness. 
 
 She shattered it deliberately. " How very like a woman 
 you must be ! " she said. 
 
 He accepted the decision. But the new note, the new 
 and normal sense of her words bewildered him by sudden 
 contrast. 
 
 " Why ? How do you mean ? " he almost stammered. 
 
 " I believe you live on confidences. That's like a woman. 
 Men, most men, avoid them. Or would you say that I 
 didn't know men ? " 
 
 " I live by making false ones about myself, if that's 
 feminine." 
 
 ;< They're all false if it comes to that. We lose our sense 
 of proportion : that's why we make them. There's nothing 
 bad in that ; but it spoils the confession. The only really 
 true ones are those we make about other people. The 
 trouble is that we don't often have the opportunity. People 
 aren't important enough. Perhaps it's as well. It would 
 be a strain to live in the heights. . . . Besides, there'd be no 
 adventure in speaking the truth if we always expected 
 to do it. Most of the time we forget that there is a truth. 
 We have to ; because we can't get it just when we want it. 
 But all the same, it's there potentially as you'd say 
 
196 STILL LIFE 
 
 and sometimes we have to act by it. I wonder if your 
 experience is the same ? " 
 
 " I don't know yet. Go on." 
 
 " Yes. . . . But what to say ? I may be very different 
 from others ... no, I don't think that I am, really. But I 
 find that the truth about myself is unconscious. I don't 
 know it, but I feel it. ... Please don't think I believe in 
 female intuitions. It's my fault if you do. I am not used 
 to expressing myself. I mean that the truth of myself is a 
 particular kind of seeing, in an unfamiliar light. It's then I 
 see the truth about other people and other things, because 
 I am the truth of myself. It's as though we were meant to 
 see things clearly, and at moments we managed it com- 
 pleted our own design. ..." Anne spoke carefully, enun- 
 ciating each word as though she were tired. She turned 
 round towards the table and drummed listlessly, noise- 
 lessly upon the corner of the cloth. Her head drooped side- 
 ways against the cushion of her chair, and Dennis saw that 
 she was pale. " I can never make up my mind," she went 
 on, " whether it's good or bad to be made as I am. It 
 seems to make one either indifferent or reckless concerning 
 ordinary affairs tolerating everything or tolerating noth- 
 ing. Perhaps they're both wrong. At any rate, most 
 people would say it was wrong to refuse to venture a 
 farthing to save a nation and risk your life for a sparrow." 
 
 Maurice entered and stood irresolute between them. 
 Anne smiled at him reassuringly. " You've been a long 
 while. What have you been doing ? " 
 
 " Oh, it was only a little job, but it was hard to do. When 
 I was running here, a nail came through my boot. I've 
 been banging it down." 
 
 " Well, what do you say about it ? Is it wrong not to 
 venture a farthing to save a nation, yet to risk your life 
 for a sparrow ? That was where we'd arrived. We were 
 waiting for an answer." 
 
 Maurice played for safety. The atmosphere was be- 
 wildering. " It all depends." He hastened to cover up 
 
STILL LIFE 197 
 
 the foolishness, but he resented that the occasion for it 
 should have been offered him. " I don't mean that. . . . 
 But how " his voice was irritated " can I know what 
 to answer, without knowing all that went before ? There's 
 all kinds of contexts possible for it a debating society the 
 New Testament. Christ would have done both. Plato 
 might have done neither, and they'd have been right, both 
 of them. Who were you talking about, first of all? " 
 
 " I agree. It was a mean advantage. . . . But let's have 
 lunch. I'll explain later." 
 
 :c You've not been waiting for me, have you ? " 
 
 " Yes and no. If you had come we should have begun. 
 As you didn't we didn't want to. Speaking for myself." 
 
 Maurice glanced at Dennis in the chair. " Oh, he'd have 
 shouted to me if he'd been really hungry." Dennis laughed, 
 and made for the kitchen. " Do you mean to say you've 
 been sitting there all this while without having washed 
 your hands ? Well, I'm damned. You're responsible, 
 Anne. You've been listening to his confessions. What on 
 earth has he been saying this time ? " 
 
 " Nothing in particular. He began by calling me Mrs. 
 Cradock, and I've had to apologise for him to himself ever 
 since." 
 
 Maurice had clean forgotten the awkwardness which he 
 had stayed in the garden to avoid. It was so natural to be 
 with Dennis, to banter him and be bantered, that he had 
 moved easily. He was now very much at home, full of 
 health and spontaneity. 
 
 They sat down together. 
 
 " How long are you going to stay here ? " asked Dennis. 
 
 Maurice looked at Aine, expecting her to answer. 
 
 " All through the summer, I expect," she said. " That 
 is unless Morry has any other plans." 
 
 l< You know I haven't," he said with emphasis. 
 
 " I had a letter from Richmond this morning," Dennis 
 explained. " He asked about you, and said you could have 
 the cottage for ever as far as he was concerned, and that I 
 
198 STILL LIFE 
 
 was to tell you. He's gone off walking in some unknown 
 place called the T-a-t-r-a that's how he spells it. He says 
 he's going to stay in a hut through the winter and try to 
 think a bit. I don't suppose anything will come of it. He 
 might perhaps write the books he's always threatening us 
 with. . . . But you don't know him, do you ? " he turned to 
 Anne. 
 
 " Save that Morry's quoted a few sentences of his at me 
 not at all." 
 
 " He's a queer fellow, with a black, triangular kind of 
 face. He's very kindly ; but he can neither get near you, 
 nor you near to him. You never attempt it." 
 
 " He hasn't really very much of himself about his house." 
 
 " No, he wouldn't. . . . He always constructs his sur- 
 roundings, never lets them grow. I believe his affections 
 are all intellectual. What do you think, Morry ? " 
 
 " I'm not quite sure about him." 
 
 " Now I think of it, he was always rather different with 
 you. I suppose I'm just seeing him through my own 
 spectacles as usual." 
 
 " He's always been very decent to me," said Maurice. 
 
 " People always are ' very decent ' to him. I wonder 
 why that is ? " said Anne. 
 
 " There's nothing else to do," Dennis explained. " In 
 the end it's always an appeal ad misericordiam, made to the 
 right people. It works quite simply. The really right ones 
 succumb immediately. The wrong ones scare him miles 
 away like a blown feather. He gets too much entangled 
 with the half and halfs to get away so promptly, so he 
 quivers like the rabbit in front of a snake, long enough for 
 the snake to repent and be decent. Isn't that it ? " Dennis 
 laughed. " Of course it's a flagrant swindle, but it's natural 
 to him. You can't complain." 
 
 " That may be," said Maurice, " but he's not the one to 
 say it. For every person I know, he knows a dozen, they 
 are all decent to him, and, what's more, they think he's a 
 wonderful fellow to get on with. Why he's never quar- 
 
STILL LIFE 199 
 
 relied with anybody. No one gets a hold. Instead 
 everyone's jealous of everyone else because they see more 
 than their fair share of him. This is really a great privilege 
 that he does us in coming to see us. ... The worst of it is 
 that we really are grateful, and we can't help showing it." 
 
 " Anne doesn't seem to agree, anyhow." 
 
 " Do I seem ungrateful ? " she asked. 
 
 " No, I wouldn't say that unconcerned rather." 
 
 " I'll bet she isn't. But, Anne, he really does expect you 
 to confess that you appreciate the honour." 
 
 " I must wait for an opportunity. It'd be too obvious, 
 now." 
 
 " He'd have had a real grievance, if I hadn't been to 
 meet him at the station," pursued Maurice. 
 
 " At all events you forgot all about it. You were within 
 a minute of missing me altogether. If I hadn't half ex- 
 pected you, I shouldn't " 
 
 " There you are, you did expect me after all. What did 
 I say, Anne ? " 
 
 " I said half-expect. That only means that you might 
 possibly come. Anyhow, it was worth while risking a 
 minute or two not more. Besides, I wasn't quite sure of 
 the best way by the fields. They would have been im- 
 possible; so I waited." 
 
 " Was he so very late then ? " asked Anne. " He started 
 early enough." 
 
 " So I did," broke in Maurice. " And I've just remem- 
 bered why. I forgot all about the list, the piano, every- 
 thing except the box at the station. I remembered that. 
 Moon's going to bring it on Monday. I'm awfully sorry 
 about the list. But if you write by to-night's post it will be 
 there first thing on Monday morning. Or you could ride in 
 with Moon and see for yourself. I never thought of that. 
 . . . You knew I'd forgotten it ? " 
 
 ;< Yes. About half an hour after you'd gone I found it in 
 the bedroom. I'd never even given it you. It was my 
 fault." 
 
200 STILL LIFE 
 
 " I don't see that. I ought to have asked for it. ... Well, 
 it can't be helped. It was a good job I did stay by the pool 
 after all. If I'd got to the station early, I should have 
 remembered about it for sure. It would have worried me 
 to death." 
 
 " What's it all about ? " Dennis asked the question of 
 both. 
 
 " Oh, Anne's keen on having a piano here. She made 
 out a list for me to take to Thornton's. So that we can hire 
 any one of them they've got. I went off without the list. 
 That's all. ... Are you very disappointed, Anne ? " 
 
 " How could I be when I forgot to give you the list ? 
 I'm not quite so unreasonable. Anyhow, it's quite easy 
 for me to go in with Moon on Monday. That's better than 
 any list or letter. So long as I get it as soon as possible 
 I'm perfectly happy. As it is, I'm rather lost without one. 
 I've grown accustomed to it. I don't think Morry is quite 
 prepared to grant me the right to have one," she laughed. 
 
 " Why do you say that ? " 
 
 " It just occurred to me. No," she said to anticipate a 
 question, " you've never said anything of the sort, or any- 
 thing calculated to make me suspect it. It's sheer calumny. 
 But it came into my head." 
 
 " I was a fool to forget." 
 
 " But don't accuse yourself any more. We've settled 
 the question. . . . Did Dennis tell you he had seen 
 Jim ? " 
 
 Maurice was resentful. There had been enough truth in 
 Anne's remark to put him on his defence and suggest a 
 sense of injustice. " Yes," he answered, " he told me." 
 
 Dennis was relieved that he said no more. He was 
 anxious that Anne should not make the revelation con- 
 cerning Cradock to another. The confession, if it was one, 
 was at any rate his own, and he guarded it. 
 
 " I wonder if he told me more than he did you. He 
 couldn't very well. He told me nothing." 
 
 " And me, nothing. I must say I didn't ask him very 
 
STILL LIFE 201 
 
 much. I didn't know how to begin. And when I did, I 
 didn't want to know. So that all I got out of him was that 
 he was there while Cradock was packing your box the 
 one at the station." 
 
 Anne glanced at Dennis. 
 
 " You didn't tell me that." 
 
 " You didn't give me the chance, after all." 
 
 " No, I suppose I didn't." Anne kept silence, thinking. 
 
 Lunch wavered to an undecided end in the silence. 
 Clouds came up thickly, bearing with them a half -darkness 
 and broke into a heavy rain. The wind whipped the 
 windows with it. Maurice's shoulders shrugged. " Mur- 
 derous weather," he said as he beat the fire and scattered 
 the floor with splintering coal. " A get-you-outside-and- 
 cut-your- throat kind of weather." 
 
 " Don't vent your spleen on the coal. It's wasteful as 
 well as dangerous." Anne gathered together a few pieces 
 that lay within range of her toe. 
 
 " Didn't you hate it too ? " He pointed with a poker at 
 the window. " It's not light, and you can't call it dark. 
 What's more, it won't be really decently dark for a couple 
 of hours. It's a good thing we managed to make lunch 
 drag up to tea-time." 
 
 " It's a pity we can't go for a walk," ventured Dennis, 
 now smoking in front of the fire. " But I believe Anne 
 rather likes it." 
 
 " As a matter of fact I do. A room never seems to me 
 quite a room until it's a shelter, and you can feel it. It's 
 so safe when the rain bangs on the windows and I'm inside. 
 But you both despise that point of view." 
 
 " But you see it's not really dark," objected Maurice. 
 " That makes all the difference. This is only a kind of 
 Arctic twilight." 
 
 "Anyhow, I'm going to leave you to it," said Anne, 
 rising and moving to the stairs. 
 
 " Why, where are you going ? " 
 
 " Upstairs to my room." 
 
202 STILL LIFE 
 
 " What are you going to do ? " 
 
 " I don't know. . . . You're very inquisitive. Meditate 
 anything." 
 
 " Only won't it be cold ? " 
 
 " No. I can keep myself warm. Besides, I've got a fire 
 there. . . . And now may I go, please ? " 
 
 " Anne, don't ..." 
 
 "No, I won't. You two can have an uninterrupted 
 discourse." 
 
 " I hope you're not doing it for me. I've got nothing to 
 say. Besides, he's in a desperate mood, evidently," said 
 Dennis. 
 
 " Oh, no. I'm only consulting myself. Good-bye for an 
 hour. Do you think you'll want any tea, either of you ? 
 Or shall we leave it out ? " 
 
 " Just as you like," answered Maurice. 
 
 " Very well then no tea. Tell Alice." 
 
 Anne disappeared. 
 
 Maurice was rather puzzled by her. He pulled his chair 
 up to the fire, half-facing Dennis. He too lit a pipe and 
 was silent, save that he remarked again upon the particular 
 horror of the weather. 
 
 In spite of themselves they listened to the sound of 
 Anne's tread in the rooms above them. They were both 
 curious, and both desired not to listen. But the strain of 
 a deliberately started conversation was unfamiliar to each 
 in the other's presence, and neither cared to undergo it. 
 So they sat for some minutes on either side the fire without 
 speaking, almost without moving, save that Maurice from 
 time to time screwed round to take a quick glance at the 
 rain-blinded window panes. 
 
 Above them Anne began to sing, low enough to be sing- 
 ing to herself. She could hear that they were not talking, 
 and she crooned. But the house was so still, beneath the 
 regular beat of the rain between the gusts, that they could 
 hear her when her voice rose above a low humming. Neither 
 knew what she was singing. 
 
STILL LIFE 203 
 
 " Does Anne often sing like that ? " said Dennis, almost 
 whispering. 
 
 " How do you mean, ' like that ' ? " Maurice hardly 
 understood the question. Then something familiar in the 
 sound came vaguely into his memory. " I don't know. 
 Yes, she does sometimes. But not often. ... At least, I 
 don't think so. . .1 don't know." 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 AGAIN silence descended upon them. It was terribly irk- 
 some to Maurice. Between him and Dennis silence was 
 unnatural. They had been silent together, often enough. 
 But this was different. It was oppressive. Maurice wanted 
 to speak, to be friendly and intimate as they used to be, 
 but a weight was on his tongue. For a moment he had the 
 idea that Dennis expected him to be silent while Anne sang 
 in the room above them, and he felt that he had been 
 reproved for a real offence. Instantly, therefore, he 
 determined to speak ; and then the knowledge that he had 
 nothing to say to Dennis came upon him. He never did 
 have anything to say unless he was free enough to be 
 intimate. A suggestion of restraint froze the very fountain- 
 head of speech. Casting about to find whence the restraint 
 had come he became nervous and impatient, for he could 
 not tell whether Dennis or himself was at fault. Nor was 
 he in the mood to consider now, if he had ever been in the 
 mood to consider anything between himself and his friend. 
 He felt that it must be due to some third thing come 
 between them, and he was so anxious to reassure himself 
 that it was not really there, that he managed, though with 
 a constraint perceptible in his voice and his uneasy motion 
 in his chair, to say : 
 
 " I say, Dennis, this isn't going to make any difference 
 to us, is it ? " 
 
 " Why, of course not. I say you haven't changed. I 
 don't think I have. Where could the difference be then ? " 
 
 Now Maurice was happy at the thought that he had not 
 changed. Presented to him under a different light, it com- 
 forted him. " I'm glad I haven't. You see, you're the 
 
 204 
 
STILL LIFE 205 
 
 only man I mean it'd make an awful difference to me if 
 we didn't get on together any more. ... I felt uncomfort- 
 able with you just now. There seemed to be something 
 between us in the air or somewhere. It was so strange 
 it worried me." 
 
 " But we're strange to each other, just now. At least 
 you are to me. It takes me a long while to convince my- 
 self of what I really know I mean that the change as 
 far as concerns me and you is only outward. I think that's 
 all that's the matter with us." 
 
 " Yes, that's it it must be." The solution was grateful 
 to him. " I seem just the same to myself. Of course there's 
 Anne now." He tried hard to reckon in an instant how 
 much Anne had changed him. During the last two days he 
 had, normally, been hardly conscious of her. The state con- 
 trasted with his timidities and apprehensions before. He 
 felt the real comfort of it enough to be honest, he did not 
 know enough about it to be sure of what he meant. " But 
 Anne's somehow natural to me now. Do you know what 
 I mean ? There's Anne and there's my hand " he 
 stretched it out towards Dennis " it's all the same kind of 
 thing." 
 
 Dennis nodded. " That's very wonderful." He spoke 
 sincerely, because Maurice had almost convinced him. 
 " I think I can understand. Not out of my own experience, 
 of course, but I've often thought about that state between 
 two people a man and a woman. I wondered whether it 
 really did exist. I could always see that it ought to. What 
 is curious is that I never thought of it for people like me 
 or you. You're really very like me. I could never see my- 
 self responding enough. . . . 
 
 " I do sometimes think about getting married. It would 
 help to anchor me, and I'd like to have children. But I 
 never get much farther than thinking about it. You see, 
 a big woman would overwhelm me. I believe she'd kill me, 
 because I'd know that I couldn't give back to her. She'd 
 tire of me of course ; but I should be the first to go, half 
 
206 STILL LIFE 
 
 because I'd know that she would tire, half because I 
 shouldn't have the power to respond. The only chance for 
 me is the woman who would be quiet and have children 
 and look after them. I've a good capacity for affection, 
 quite genuine affection. I have for you. It might increase 
 so that I shouldn't despise her and be tired of her. But 
 it's a risk, and then it's not love. She might even be 
 natural to me most of the time. But there would always 
 be moments when I'd compare it with the real thing, and I 
 don't know what would happen then. . . . 
 
 " I sometimes think I might manage to put that part of 
 me the part that lives by an ideal into something else. 
 But I don't think I could do it consciously, and if I did, I'd 
 probably make a terrible hash of it. I dare say there's a 
 way out ; but I see things too clearly. That paralyses me. 
 My trouble's simple enough, really ; the true part of me 
 is an idealist, but that's always suppressed. I suppress it 
 myself. That's why I'm so deathly critical. 
 
 " You're an idealist, too not so much as me, perhaps, 
 because you're not so conscious. But, for all that, you 
 may have a better chance of hitting a star. You say 
 you've hit one now. I'll believe you. You have to, any- 
 way. Yes, Anne's a big woman. ..." Maurice did not 
 interrupt him, but waited. " Yes. ... I feel sure about 
 that," he went on. " And you say she's natural to you, 
 now. , . . That may come too easily. . . . But you must have 
 changed. ... I know I'm going back on what I said just 
 now. I'm only feeling my way. I don't mean that there's 
 anything to change our friendship. I don't feel that. . . . 
 I wish I knew what part of you was in love with Anne." 
 
 " I don't know. All of me, I suppose." 
 
 " No, that's not it. I don't see how it could be, anyway. 
 You wouldn't want me, if that were true." 
 
 "No ... you're right " 
 
 " But we're coming back to the old thing again. I'm 
 not sure whether it's not a terrible waste of energy to talk 
 about things like this, You know about yourself better 
 
STILL LIFE 207 
 
 than I do. But I imagine that it's harder for you to be 
 quite honest, now. . . . I'm not sure that it's not harder for 
 me to be honest, too." 
 
 " You don't mean that you haven't been honest just 
 now ? " 
 
 " About myself, yes. . . . About you, I'm not so certain. 
 Are you certain you've been telling the truth about your- 
 self ? " 
 
 " Yes I think so." 
 
 " Ah, then probably I've been honest too." 
 
 " That's very mysterious. What do you mean ? " 
 
 " I haven't the faintest idea. . . . I'm quite serious. . . . 
 There always comes a time when I'm talking like this when 
 the whole thing seems to blow away like smoke. Smoke's 
 hardly good enough for it's always just at the moment 
 I'm beginning to see things very clear. I was just going 
 to catch hold of something and show it you. ' There's your 
 naked soul,' and the whole thing went." Dennis laughed. 
 
 " I didn't tell you about the lecture at the hospital the 
 other day. That was on the day your letter came. Things 
 seem to be happening riotously just now. . . . What a devil 
 of a lot has happened ! " He spoke to himself. " Oh. . . . 
 I was giving them something on the nervous system the 
 optic nerve. That's the fifth year running I've said the 
 same things. I shall have to chuck it. Perhaps I was 
 deadly sick of it then. I don't know. Suddenly I went off 
 into a rigmarole about the unity of mind and matter. I 
 tried to tell them what a ghastly plant all this medical 
 psychology really is. Just then it was all as simple as the 
 rule of three to me. I began to career off into the unity 
 of man with the universe. It was perfectly plain. Curious 
 how I could see the whole system working together no, 
 not working, playing like music. The moment I was 
 there, beatific, something snapped and it all collapsed 
 together into nothing. I remembered where I was. I 
 wanted to run for my life, to get away from the hideous 
 people. Then came the strangest thing of all. I thought, 
 
208 STILL LIFE 
 
 * My God, that's done it,' and I didn't care a damn. The 
 only thing that worried me was how not to let myself 
 down with a run, not in front of them anyhow. But they 
 really didn't matter. 
 
 " What I didn't want to do was to betray what I'd been 
 saying. Do you understand ? I wanted to hold myself 
 steady on the right side of the line between them and us 
 me and the truth. I remember exactly what I said. * I 
 don't think that it is worth while to talk about a form of 
 metaphysical depression in a lecture upon the optic nerve. 
 In fact I cannot see that it will be of any use at all to you 
 except perhaps those of you who are interested in mental 
 pathology.' It doesn't sound much ; but it meant a hell 
 of a lot to me then. I just managed to save myself with it, 
 and get myself on the side of the elect. It was touch and 
 go ; and, after all, at the critical moment, the thing did go 
 smash." 
 
 Maurice said nothing. He had listened to Dennis's story 
 with his ears alone, still wondering what Dennis had meant. 
 All that about love and affection had been aimed at him- 
 self, he thought ; but then Dennis was so absurdly self- 
 conscious, that he could hardly ever believe in people feeling 
 anything unless they could tell him all about it. There were 
 some things that one could not describe after all. He was 
 still engaged in satisfying himself that Dennis had the 
 wrong point of view when Dennis asked : 
 
 " What are you going to do down here ? " 
 
 " The same as usual read. I've still got a little work 
 reviewing. Cradock's come to an end, of course. . . . 
 Oh, there'll be plenty to do as soon as I can get my books 
 and be settled. I've got a sort of idea for a play. I'd like 
 to earn some more money ; but I've got a little and Anne 
 has plenty, so that we don't have to worry." 
 
 " What's Anne going to do ? " 
 
 " Why I suppose she'll do the same as usual too." It 
 occurred to him that he did not know what she would do ; 
 as far as his knowledge of her went, " the same as usual " 
 
STILL LIFE 209 
 
 was merely a phrase. " Oh, of course," he recollected, 
 " there's the piano. That'll be here early next week. But 
 up till now we've been so busy that there's been no time to 
 do anything." 
 
 " No, I can imagine that." 
 
 " I wonder what Anne does do all day ? " said Maurice, 
 as though questioning himself. It made him curious what 
 she might be doing now. He heard steps that might have 
 been in answer to his thought descending the stairs. 
 
 " Here she comes. Why not ask her ? " said Dennis. 
 
 Maurice was angry with him for suggesting it. His 
 annoyance was aggravated by the problem " why not ? " 
 It would have been so simple and straightforward to ask 
 her, and he wanted to know very much. But for him then 
 it was quite impossible. Standing at the stair-foot, the 
 wavering light from the fire glancing upon her face, Anne 
 became actual again to him. 
 
 " You've not been talking very much," she said. " I 
 can hear perfectly well whether you're saying anything ; 
 though, unfortunately, I can't hear what you're saying. 
 I've been up there nearly two hours. You can't have been 
 talking more than ten minutes." 
 
 " Well, there wasn't anything particular to talk about," 
 said Maurice. 
 
 " Isn't that rather queer for you two ? " 
 
 Dennis was eager to dissociate himself from the in- 
 clusion, he hardly knew why. " It's not so very unusual," 
 he said, " in fact it's rather the normal condition unless 
 I'm violently denouncing the hospital. He's as tired as I 
 am of that now, so there was nothing left for me to talk 
 about. It's quite simple." 
 
 Anne seemed not to hear him. " Won't you have some 
 light now ? " she asked, while she reached down a brass 
 lamp from a shelf by the door. They watched her light it. 
 The full flood of bright light poured upon her for a second. 
 Then the green shade obscured her again, save that her 
 hands still rested on the edge of the shade and shone like a 
 
210 STILL LIFE 
 
 small point of radiance in the surrounding darkness. She 
 might have been materialised out of the dark. With her 
 hands on the table she bent forward towards the lamp as 
 one bends to shelter a flickering flame. Maurice admired 
 her. To him she hazily appeared very beautiful. He 
 wondered at her as he would wonder at the bright moon- 
 light and shadow she loved to point out to him. The im- 
 pulse to criticise and appraise her was foremost in Dennis. 
 Anne was more actual, more a woman to him, and he did 
 his utmost to hold that nearness steady in his mind. It 
 was a potential equality. But he found that it would slip 
 from him. Therefore he spoke. 
 
 " We Morry was wondering what you do . . . ? " 
 
 " What I do ? " she repeated, looking in the half-light 
 first at Dennis, almost peering after the hidden expression 
 of his face, then towards Maurice. He was plainly confused 
 by Dennis's words ; and he shook his head in dissent. 
 
 " No, not really," he said. " Dennis asked me what I 
 was going to do, and I told him ; and then he wanted to 
 know what you were going to do. I said the same as usual, 
 but I wasn't at all sure what that meant. That's all. . . . 
 Dennis has a rotten way of suddenly picking a question out 
 of the past. He makes it sound so different." 
 
 " Yes. I know," she said. " And in any case, how could 
 you say, when I hardly know myself ? " A quiet and 
 steady challenge was in the words. Maurice was warmed 
 by the vindication. With Anne on his side he was proof 
 against an insidious malice that seemed at times to emerge 
 in Dennis, and so quickly disappeared that he could never 
 be certain that it had really been. He was emboldened to 
 ask : 
 
 " But what do you really do, Anne ? Tell us." He 
 would have said " tell me " : but before Dennis he could 
 not. 
 
 " There's nothing to tell. Do you think I'm mysterious ? 
 I, really do nothing that is I sit and dream think if you 
 prefer it, for hours on end when I have the chance." 
 
 
STILL LIFE 211 
 
 " But what about ? " 
 
 " About you and him and Alice and Jim." A shade of 
 petulance was in her gesture at the silly rhyme that inter- 
 rupted like a provoking child. Then she smiled at herself. 
 " But mostly, about myself." 
 
 " I wish I knew some of the things you thought about 
 yourself," said Maurice. " Don't you, Dennis ? " he con- 
 cluded lamely. 
 
 Again Anne wondered at him. He managed to appeal 
 to her and to hurt her at once. " But it doesn't really 
 matter." The thought that Dennis was watching and 
 listening moved her. " I think I'll try to tell you one of 
 these days, Morry. Perhaps it would be worth while for 
 you to know." 
 
 " I wish you would." 
 
 Dennis recoiled into himself. He had not only antag- 
 onised Anne, but he despised himself for the way in which 
 he had done it, by insinuating criticism against Maurice. 
 He did not care that he had betrayed Maurice. Uppermost 
 in his mind when he thought of that was the conviction 
 that Maurice needed it, needed to be made insecure, other- 
 wise he would go on deceiving himself. Again he despised 
 himself for glozing his motives. He wanted to stop Anne 
 from wasting herself on Maurice. It might well go on for 
 ever as far as Maurice was concerned. . . . Ridiculous as 
 if he could prevent Anne from doing what she deliberately 
 chose to do. For a second he wondered whether it was 
 deliberate, really. He would like to know how it had 
 happened. Anyhow, Maurice could not have done it by 
 himself. Anne must have chosen, at least met him half-way. 
 What was the good of trying to stop her ? What con- 
 ceivable right had he to pronounce on her? It was 
 absurd. 
 
 The real fact was that he didn't understand her any more 
 now than he had understood before. All that he had suc- 
 ceeded in doing was to send her to Maurice's side, to parry 
 on his behalf all the blows he aimed. What was he after 
 
212 STILL LIFE 
 
 in trying to hold them apart ? There was Maurice of 
 course, but he would be the same whatever happened. He 
 wasn't thinking of him. What concern of his was it that 
 Anne should not give herself to Maurice ? He knew well 
 enough that he was concerned, even passionately con- 
 cerned, about it. The idea that he might be in love with 
 her did not worry him. He always had been, more or less ; 
 every sensible person was. Was it that Anne derogated 
 from herself ? She didn't. She was just the same, only 
 more perfectly herself. Besides, he had never troubled 
 that she had been married to Cradock ; he had only begun 
 to think about it when she had left him. That was curious. 
 The idea of her with Cradock, ever since he could remember 
 her years ago, overawed him now. He didn't want her to 
 have to go through that again. Oh, he was being silly 
 about her. As if she didn't know infinitely more about it 
 than he ! 
 
 Dennis was disillusioned and inclined to be cynical of 
 himself. Anne and Maurice were talking about bedrooms. 
 
 " Morry says you won't mind a camp bed in the front 
 room," said Anne. 
 
 " No, I'm used to it. ... I think it's the best room in the 
 house." 
 
 " Anne's going to have the piano there, when it comes," 
 said Maurice. 
 
 " Oh." Dennis was indifferent. He would rather hear 
 of Anne's intentions from herself. At all events he did not 
 need Maurice to interpret for him. He glanced at Anne. 
 
 ;< Yes, we arranged it this morning." She spoke very 
 remotely. 
 
 " So you're improving, Morry," he said. 
 
 " Improving ? How do you mean ? " 
 
 " You haven't forgotten why you moved from Chelsea 
 to Vauxhall ? " 
 
 Maurice laughed uneasily. " That's all past. I was only 
 a fool then. Because I hadn't anything in my head, I had 
 to find excuses. Why, you said that yourself." Maurice 
 
STILL LIFE 213 
 
 explained to Anne. " I moved out of my rooms in Chelsea, 
 because the man next door would play the piano. ... I don't 
 know why Dennis should drag it up just now. It's all 
 different. He knows what it was as well as I do. I was all 
 nervy then impatient to be doing something, and nothing 
 in my head. Anything would have irritated me. If it 
 hadn't been the piano, it would have been the milkman. 
 I had to have an excuse. Of course, I was quite serious at 
 the time. ... I moved to the Surrey side. But you under- 
 stand the condition I was in, don't you ? " 
 
 Anne nodded thoughtfully. " Quite well," she said. 
 " I did the very same thing myself in Leipsic of all 
 places." 
 
 Maurice crept under the generous wing and felt strong. 
 Then he was almost ashamed of the support Anne had 
 given him. Shame at the cowardice of this shame chased 
 it out of his mind. He rose from his chair and sat on the 
 floor at Anne's feet. He took her hand which rested on 
 the chair-arm and placed it against his cheek. It was cool. 
 His own face was flushed. He felt Anne's other hand steal 
 round his face, gently clasping his forehead and caressing 
 his hair. His own insufficiency tormented him. He wanted 
 to take Anne's hand and put it away from his forehead, to 
 assert himself independent and free. He was too much of a 
 coward. The conviction crushed him into collapse ; he 
 was inert, with a mere shadow of a control over his 
 words. 
 
 " That business with the piano at Chelsea was only 
 cowardice. I don't see how one can help being a coward. 
 Sometimes I forget about it, that's all. But what's the use 
 of pretending ? The only reason that keeps us from being 
 really honest is sheer cowardice. And what's cowardice 
 my cowardice, anyway ? It's only a cursed, silly, empty 
 pride. I'm too proud to say I'm a liar. How the hell do 
 you get out of that ? " His words contrasted with the 
 weary note in his voice. There was no answer, save 
 that Anne passed the tips of the fingers of her encircling 
 
214 STILL LIFE 
 
 hand gently over his forehead. He felt that the motion 
 was instinctive, almost physical and unconscious, while 
 she herself was far away intent on what he said. " Oh, 
 I'm a fool," he said and laughed, evilly contemptuous of 
 himself. 
 
 Then he burst out. " My God, and that's cowardice, too. 
 I haven't got the courage to stick by my own words, even 
 when they're the best I've got. No wonder I ..." 
 
 " What's the use . . . ? " said Dennis. 
 
 " There isn't any." 
 
 " But listen. Do you think you're any worse than me ? 
 I can tell you that you aren't. ..." 
 
 " That doesn't make it any better." 
 
 " Yes, it does better for you, anyhow. Listen, man. 
 I know what you're driving at. You call it cowardice, be- 
 cause you won't face yourself. You call it pride because 
 you think if you did face yourself you'd have to call it 
 empty, and you won't do that. But the truth is, you don't 
 know yourself. How should you ? Do I know myself ? 
 I'm self-conscious and so are you, but that's all on the out- 
 side. The inside's just unknown. When you say that 
 sometimes you manage to forget about the cowardice, 
 that's only words. Then sometimes, your known and your 
 unknown, your self-consciousness and yourself call them 
 anything j ust come together. You forget you're a coward , 
 because you know you aren't. It is no use telling me that 
 when you were beside that pool this morning you only 
 forgot. You weren't. 
 
 " I don't say we aren't cowards, and I don't say what 
 you said isn't true but it's only half the truth. The 
 reason why you aren't honest, is because you can't be. If 
 you could tell the last word of truth about your self-con- 
 sciousness, it would only be a lie after all. You may be a 
 coward in not telling the last word, but I know there's more 
 in it, and that is that somehow you know always that it 
 would be a lie." He turned to Anne. " Isn't that true, 
 Anne ? " he said. 
 
STILL LIFE 215 
 
 " Very likely," she said. 
 
 " Yes, I'll believe that," went on Maurice, " but that 
 won't get me past my conviction that I am a coward, will 
 it ? I know I'm afraid to tell the truth, when there's only 
 the truth in front of me. It doesn't make any difference if 
 I afterwards believe it wasn't going to be the whole truth. 
 No, as far as I can see, if I were really to act by what you 
 say, I should only be a bigger liar than ever. You say that 
 it's only because we can't ever tell the truth about our- 
 selves. I don't deny it. But is that a reason why I should 
 pretend to have a feeling that I haven't, and pretend not 
 to have a feeling that I have ? That's what I mean by 
 cowardice, and that's the kind of coward I am. You want 
 to make out that I do it because I'm afraid of telling a lie 
 about myself. I know that I do it because I'm afraid. ..." 
 He was going to say, " afraid of hurting other people," but 
 something held the words back, and he stopped, auto- 
 matically repeating, " because I'm afraid." 
 
 " Go on," said Anne quietly. 
 
 He turned round and looked at her face, alarmed as 
 though she had heard his unspoken words. She only 
 smiled at him. " That's all there is," he said. 
 
 " I thought you were going to say what you were afraid 
 of." 
 
 " So I was, but I don't know now." He paused half-way 
 from raising himself from the floor. " At all events, you've 
 cured me, Dennis." 
 
 He stood between Dennis and Anne, looking vacantly at 
 the space between them. Standing apart from them, yes, 
 he was better. He thrust one hand into his pocket and with 
 the other pushed back his hair from his forehead, giving 
 a quick backward jerk to his head as if to shake himself free 
 of something. In his mind he searched for the reason for 
 Dennis's words. It was strange that they had nothing to do 
 with what he called his cowardice, for Dennis generally 
 understood. That he should have mistaken him was almost 
 incredible. A suspicion that Dennis had done it wilfully 
 
216 STILL LIFE 
 
 came into his mind and baffled him. He began to be 
 frightened of a new and inscrutable Dennis, and though for 
 a moment he thought that Dennis might never have been 
 a coward, he rejected it immediately. He was sure that 
 Dennis knew what he meant. 
 
 Another thought emerged into the vacant turmoil. 
 Dennis had tried to prevent him from hurting Anne, by 
 covering, magnifying and changing what he had said. He 
 could see that quite plainly now. Instead of resenting it, 
 for the first time in his life he thought Dennis a fool, and 
 he had a moment of intense superiority to him. As if Anne 
 could be deceived as to what he had meant ! He was 
 coward enough to avoid saying the last actual words, simply 
 because he could not bring himself to hear them spoken 
 and echoing terribly through the room. But Anne under- 
 stood ; of that he was certain. And instantly he flamed 
 against Anne's understanding. Her generosity choked 
 him. In a tyrannous vision he saw himself deliberately 
 hurting, hurting her. He was catching hold of her arm and 
 twisting it horribly and slowly, while she stood quite still. 
 His teeth pressed against each other and the muscles of his 
 jaw stiffened. While he watched, he knew that he was too 
 great a coward to do it. " Too great a coward to do it," 
 he thought, " why, I'm too great a coward to say it." He 
 was still tossing the hair back from his forehead, when he 
 laughed. He knew that his laugh was like a hot barb enter- 
 ing into Anne's flesh, and yet, though his impulse was to 
 stop, he could not. 
 
 " I sometimes think there's a devil in me," he said 
 quietly. " Yes, really, I mean it. I feel sometimes there's 
 positive evil in me. You don't know the way I can hate 
 myself. That's what I mean by the evil. When I laugh at 
 myself, it might be some evil power laughing at my weak- 
 ness. Yes, that's what it is, it's a power laughing at my 
 weakness. . . . Yes " he spoke as though he were medita- 
 ting with himself " that's the real evil the knowledge 
 that we haven't the power to do what we desire. Isn't 
 
STILL LIFE 217 
 
 that right ? " The sound of his voice changed at the 
 question. It was hopeful instead of despairing, triumphant 
 after overwhelmed. 
 
 ; ' That's a discovery," he went on eagerly. " Don't you 
 see ? It's evil when I'm conscious of a desire, and con- 
 scious that I haven't the courage to realise it. Why, you 
 can see why it's evil. It's acknowledging defeat inside 
 yourself. It's a kind of conflict with no issue, and conflict 
 only takes its meaning from the result. But this kind is 
 one that absolutely depends on there being no result, and 
 you can see that that simply must be evil. 
 
 " God, how plain it is. ... And I can see the way out, 
 can't you ? Of course, there are two. You can do what 
 you desire. No, that's no good. That chance is gone. 
 The evil begins because it's gone. The only thing to do is 
 to see that you don't desire what you thought you desired. 
 And you don't. For instance. ..." He was on the point of 
 saying that he desired to torture Anne, but he stopped him- 
 self. 
 
 " Well, you don't really want to do all the things you 
 think you want to. ... But what if you don't quite know ? 
 You don't know whether it's courage or cowardice which 
 stops you. Yes, that's it. Most of the time we don't 
 know. Mostly, it seems like cowardice. I'm not sure, but 
 I've an idea that it's only sentimentality. I sentimentalise 
 about a person who always acts on his impulse ; but after 
 all there is no reason why he should. Perhaps it's only the 
 easier way. When I don't act on impulse I always know 
 that I'll have to go through any amount of this torment 
 about cowardice and that doesn't seem to be very 
 cowardly, does it ? 
 
 " Where have I got to ? It all seems very convenient 
 anyway. If you act on impulse, well and good, you do it 
 unconsciously, so that must be all right. And so soon as 
 you're conscious of an impulse, it isn't an impulse any 
 longer, so there's not the slightest reason why you should 
 act on it at all in fact there's every reason why you 
 
218 STILL LIFE 
 
 shouldn't. Very comfortable indeed very comfortable." 
 Maurice laughed quite happily. " Of course you always 
 go on thinking you're a coward, but that's one of the 
 diseases we inherit, we suppose. . . . It's wonderful what a 
 lot a rotten argument will do. . . ." 
 
 " That's all right, then," said Dennis, " but you know it's 
 not so very different from what I said before." 
 
 Maurice pondered a moment. " Isn't it exactly the 
 same ? " 
 
 " I believe it is." 
 
 " Well, that's funny. What you said sounded all wrong 
 at the time. I wonder why." 
 
 " I think it's because it was all wrong," said Anne. Her 
 words were unexpected and Maurice turned sharply to- 
 wards her. She bent forward, leaning her chin upon her 
 hands and her elbows upon her knees, and went on speak- 
 ing slowly. " You see you were being honest then, feeling 
 honestly at any rate. Dennis was making excuses. He 
 may have thought it was true, but he didn't believe it was. 
 Neither did you, of course." 
 
 " What about what I said just now about evil ? 
 Wasn't that true, either ? " 
 
 " Not very. Perhaps you started with something true, 
 but you couldn't keep it up. You begin to theorise about 
 it and you lose the truth you hold. You're happy enough 
 to lose it, too why not ? " 
 
 " You mean I am a coward then ? " 
 
 " Yes you are. There's nothing very terrible in that. 
 But what's the good of trying to forget it ? You know 
 what you feel, and yet you won't say it. I can feel you 
 holding it back. And what happens ? It only turns in 
 upon itself and gets contorted and exaggerated. That's 
 when the evil begins, I think. Why aren't you quite 
 honest ? You think it's because you're afraid of hurting 
 me, or anybody else. But that's only an insult to me. It 
 might hurt for a moment, but I shouldn't mind not one 
 bit. And it'd be easy to get rid of it, too, for that matter. 
 
STILL LIFE 219 
 
 But the real truth is that you're afraid of hurting yourself. 
 You feel that it might hurt me, but it would certainly hurt 
 you more. That's why you are a coward. But you know 
 it as well as I do. What you do forget sometimes is 
 that I know it as well as you do. It isn't new to me 
 either. I have known it all the while. But I hate to 
 think that you feel that you are hiding it successfully 
 from me." 
 
 Although he was surprised by the words, Maurice was not 
 hurt. There was no note of indignation or recrimination 
 in them to rouse him to hostility. Curiously he thought, 
 "I'm glad of that " ; and he was truly glad, for he knew 
 that if there had been the faintest hint of a pretext he 
 would have been sullen in his own defence. Instead of that 
 he felt safe. Anne had touched him very close, closer 
 than he had ever been touched before, consciously, yet so 
 touched him that the contact was like a caress. A burden 
 had been removed from him, and his responsibility for 
 himself seemed to dissolve away. 
 
 " Yes, I know," he said, " but it's hard to realise that 
 you're understanding me. And very often I resent it. I 
 can't help it. I feel that I don't want to be understood, 
 that I lose too much by it. I want you to understand me 
 only when I ask you to, and the rest of the time I want to 
 be a mystery. That's just my nature. But it isn't really 
 my nature at least I don't think it is when I try to 
 deceive you about what I'm thinking or feeling. But then 
 why do I do it ? I don't know. Perhaps I won't after 
 this." 
 
 " Perhaps not but, I think you will all the same," said 
 Anne. " And that will be right," she continued after a 
 pause. Then she raised her head a little and looked at him. 
 The look in her eyes held his. He knew that he would 
 always remember it. He knew he saw pity there, and he 
 thought that he saw fear for he wondered about it after- 
 wards ; but what held him altogether was the calm of her 
 eyes, not the calm of insensibility or resolution, but of com- 
 
220 STILL LIFE 
 
 plete repose, of balance, of harmony. Yes, that was the 
 word. The very word was mysterious to him. It had for 
 years, even of his life, been dear to him. Seldom had he 
 any glimmering of its meaning, but there were days when 
 it had passed from being merely a word to a symbol of 
 something remotely seen, infinitesimally apprehended. He 
 found himself speaking the word now inwardly to his own 
 mind. 
 
 " Yes, that will be right," said Anne again, as though in 
 answer to some question out of herself. 
 
 Suddenly Anne's words chilled Maurice. With them 
 she put him away for ever. He wanted to cry out 
 to her: " Oh, don't say that, . . . don't say that." 
 He could not. Instead he gathered his strength to- 
 gether. 
 
 " Anne, I want to tell you something," said Maurice. 
 
 " Are you sure ? " 
 
 He pondered a moment. " Yes, I am sure," he said. 
 " You listen, too, Dennis." 
 
 Maurice's manner of speech was changed. His voice was 
 slow and even, monotone and almost drawling. 
 
 " I had a lover once. It seems a long while ago, but it 
 can't be much more than two years in Paris. I was as 
 old as I am now (thus he answered himself about to say 
 * I was very young '). I didn't want to be her lover, but 
 I wanted to love her, and I wanted her to love me. I think 
 it was because I was miserable and alone. I went there to 
 get away from people, and when I got there I envied 
 every man who had someone to talk to in a cafe. It 
 was strange, because I loved to be in a place where 
 there were many people and nobody took any notice 
 of me. 
 
 " I remember the first time I went to that cafe. I sat in 
 a corner at a little round table with my back to the people. 
 I'd reckoned that I had a franc to spend in the cafe every 
 night, so I drank two large beers, because I knew the word 
 for that, because they would last me a long while, and 
 
STILL LIFE 221 
 
 because they made just a franc together. When the time 
 came to go it was just twelve o'clock I put the franc 
 under the saucer and got up for my hat. 
 
 " A little waiter with big moustaches I found after he 
 was called Leonce came up to clear away. 1 had my back 
 to him, as I was doing up my coat. Then I heard him say 
 behind me : 
 
 " ' Et la service ? ' 
 
 " I heard quite plainly. I could have written out the 
 words. I turned round to him and saw him angrily picking 
 up my money. But I could not understand what he meant. 
 I must have known what he meant, but it terrified me so 
 that my brain went still. Then he said it again fiercely : 
 1 Et la service ? ' 
 
 " I stared at him and knew that my lips were trembling. 
 He just threw himself back (ridiculous, like a stage French- 
 man) and looked at me. Then I realised what was the 
 matter. Suddenly I went sick and faint. I pulled out 
 some coppers and tried to say something like ' pardon.' 
 But I knew immediately that he was convinced that I had 
 done it deliberately. He said, ' Mer-ci, Monsieur,' in a way 
 that withered me, and as I pushed my way through the 
 swinging doors with my coat all open and my hat in my 
 hand I knew the people were laughing at me, that the 
 waiter was talking to them about me. I remember the 
 great stride with which I burst into the street. I was blind 
 with insult and shame, and I walked to the river, all the 
 way in the middle of the road, so that no one should see 
 me or be able to speak to me. I forget what happened 
 afterwards. It was three days before I had enough 
 courage to go into that cafe again, and then I went in by 
 another door and sat in the farthest corner. I don't know 
 why I never thought of going to another. Perhaps I'd 
 already seen the woman. Either that or I felt that I was 
 bound to find someone there. 
 
 " But all that doesn't matter at all. I only told you that 
 for you to see the condition I was in. I found my girl 
 
222 STILL LIFE 
 
 eventually. Yes, I must have been in love with her. I 
 remember how in the three weeks after we first met we 
 used to walk in the cold weather up the Kue de la Sorbonne 
 and she used to laugh. When she was happy she used to 
 have all sorts of quick movements, throwing her head for- 
 wards and backwards ; and she had a new hat with a long 
 wavy brown feather that hung down behind, the kind of 
 hat you see in old-fashioned pictures of women on horse- 
 back. I remember the way that feather used to wave 
 better than anything else in the time before we were 
 lovers. That happened on the day before I had to come 
 back to England. I had to go back. I was still keeping 
 terms. 
 
 " Yes, I was in love with her. I remember how I used to 
 be sick with a sort of fever all day until she came to see me. 
 That last day we were together in the cafe all the evening 
 with a friend of hers called Simone, who wore a brown 
 velvet hat with a big brim with an edging of brown fur. 
 She was very fond of me, too, and always called me ' Mon- 
 sieur Maurice.' But I was very wretched. After some 
 time Simone went, but just before she looked at me with 
 a smile I've never forgotten yes, it was a wonderful smile. 
 I can't remember anything so kind and said to Madeleine : 
 * II va chez vous, n'est-ce pas ? C'est bien. C'est triste 
 qu'il va partir.' She was looking at me all the while. 
 Madeleine was at my side. ' Vous allez coucher ensemble ? ' 
 I just looked at her. I was nervous and frightened. I 
 didn't know how to explain. ... I felt that I was in the 
 middle of something I didn't understand, something in- 
 calculable. . . . ' Vous ne 1'avez pas encore fait ? ' I 
 dropped my eyes to the table. I knew Simone was 
 looking at Madeleine. Then I managed to glance at 
 Madeleine too. She was curiously quiet and sad. Simone 
 went away. 
 
 " We didn't stay long after that. Madeleine said she 
 hated the place, and that we mustn't stay there any longer. 
 And so we went. It was very dark in the block of flats 
 
STILL LIFE 223 
 
 where she lived and I had to go quietly so that they should 
 not hear me. When we got to her room, she kept on 
 saying to me ' tu m'aimes.' I don't remember what I said. 
 I don't remember either how she got into bed. Somehow 
 I think that I was looking at the pictures on the wall with 
 my back turned to her. I turned round to go and sit on 
 the bed beside her. Then I lay beside her on the top of the 
 bed. I remember the strange feeling of the coverlet be- 
 tween us. It was hard, and it outlined her back. It didn't 
 strike me at the time that it was funny she should turn her 
 back to me. She rose on her elbow and looked at me. She 
 was biting her lip, and she had been crying. * Tu me fais 
 mal,' she said and buried her face in the pillow away from 
 me. Her hair was dark brown, and it spread all over the 
 pillow. . . . 
 
 " Oh, that's not really what I wanted to say at all. It 
 was some days before that happened. I was living right 
 at the top of a little hotel near the Luxembourg, where two 
 tramlines met. Every day she used to come for me at 
 seven, and we used to have dinner together and then go 
 on to the cafe. The only way I could get through the day 
 till then was by staying in bed. I hardly ever got up before 
 five o'clock. I used to shave myself before the mirror in 
 the wardrobe, and I used to arrange it so that by leaving 
 the door open I could see her as she came upstairs. I cut 
 myself very often, and I cut myself badly on this par- 
 ticular night. I could never hold the razor quite steady. 
 I forgot to say that in the next room lived a man who was 
 a great friend of mine then, called Stephen French. He 
 liked Madeleine. I'm not sure even that he did not love 
 her more than I did I wonder. . . . Anyhow, Madeleine 
 didn't like him. I never quite understood why, but I 
 think it was because she thought he made jokes at us 
 together. 
 
 " Well, that night she was late. She had said that 
 perhaps she would be, but I didn't pay any attention to 
 that. I expected her at seven o'clock. Almost always she 
 
224 STILL LIFE 
 
 arrived when I was shaving, but this time she didn't, and 
 I cut myself. I went into Stephen's room to get some wool 
 to stop the bleeding, and he asked me what was the matter. 
 I said that she hadn't come, although he knew, because his 
 door was always open a little way. ' Oh,' he said, * don't 
 you remember she said that she might be late to-night ? 
 Why, you told me yourself.' He also said something about 
 the chalkiness of my face, and I looked in his mirror. It 
 surprised me that I did look so chalky. I remember I 
 noticed then that my cheeks ached, because I was holding 
 my teeth together very hard. Also I felt sick as though my 
 stomach and bowels had somehow been relaxed. I went 
 back to my own room and sat down in a chair. All the 
 while I had my eyes on the clock so that I knew that I had 
 waited ten minutes before Stephen came in. It was then 
 that something deliberate came into my brain. I don't 
 know how to describe it ; but it made me say to him, ' I 
 can't stick it,' though it wasn't true at all. I said I was 
 going to try to sleep and that I was tired, and while he was 
 there I got on to the bed and lay down with my face to the 
 wall. I got so close to the wall that the whole length of my 
 body was pressed against it. Stephen, I remember, wanted 
 to bring in a rug and throw it over me ; but I managed not 
 to have that. I shut my eyes. There was something 
 peculiar in the roughness of the sleeve of a brown coat I 
 wore when it pressed against my face. . . . Funny that 
 everything was brown now I come to think of it, every- 
 thing except Madeleine's stockings. ... I don't remember 
 what I thought about. All I know is that my mind seemed 
 to get harder and harder. 
 
 " After a time not very long I heard her coming up 
 the stairs. I always knew her step. This time she was 
 hurrying. I jammed myself up close to the wall. I didn't 
 see her come in ; but by her steps I knew that she had just 
 come in, and seen me on the bed, and gone out again. I 
 heard her ask Stephen a question why I was asleep, but I 
 did not catch his answer. She burst into my room and 
 
STILL LIFE 225 
 
 flung herself on the bed, crying bitterly. She tried to clasp 
 me in her arms, but I squeezed myself closer to the wall. 
 She kept on asking, ' What have I done to you, what have 
 I done to you ? ' but I wouldn't answer her. Instead, I 
 drew apart from her. Then I turned round on to my back 
 and stared steadily at the ceiling. I was quite deliberate. 
 I noticed that she didn't try to clasp me any more, but her 
 arms lay limp on the pillow. Also she began to sob in a 
 way I've never heard anyone sob before. It was a kind of 
 dry gasping. I turned over to look at her. The sobs shook 
 her violently, and it seemed as though her body wouldn't 
 yield to them any more. She seemed to be strangely stiff, 
 and I thought that something material and physical in her 
 would break. So she lay beside me with her head in the 
 pillow and her hands just clutching the coverlet, while 
 these dry sobs kept on bursting inside her, and I looked at 
 her. 
 
 " I can see it all now, but what I can see most is the hard- 
 ness of her body. It looked all strained. Then quite 
 deliberately I put my arms round her how hard she was 
 and tried to kiss her. She neither responded to nor pre- 
 vented me, but lay quite still except for the sobs. I kissed 
 her again and again and called to her. All my deliberation 
 went. I was simply mad for a response. Then she lifted 
 her head and looked at me. Her lips were all swollen and 
 her eyes dull and lifeless, full of tears. When the sobs 
 passed through her, her neck jerked and her lips flung 
 open and trembled. That's about all I remember. I think 
 I was sorry for her. I know that I was trembling violently 
 in spite of myself, and my hands and my chin jerked sud- 
 denly every now and then. Also I remember watching her 
 throat a long while after perhaps a quarter of an hour 
 while she was trying to tidy herself before the glass. A 
 great lump seemed to be running up and down it, and to 
 have something to do with her lips which kept on opening. 
 When we went out of the hotel together, she held her head 
 down and her hand over her mouth as though she were 
 
226 STILL LIFE 
 
 walking in the teeth of the wind, and she held my hand so 
 tightly that it hurt. 
 
 " I wonder if you think it's curious that I should tell a 
 story like that. I mean it doesn't seem to be a story at all. 
 I know that I've never thought of it from that day till this. 
 I've told it just as I remembered it, because ... I wanted 
 to just then. I don't know why." 
 
 Maurice knelt down before Anne and rested his head 
 in her lap. He wanted to be near her. At first he waited 
 for some question from Anne about Madeleine : " Had he 
 seen her again ? " or, " What had happened after that ? " 
 No question came, and though he was glad she had not 
 asked, he was disappointed. Then he thought that Anne 
 might have been hurt. Almost immediately he knew that 
 she was not hurt, though he knew nothing of what she was 
 feeling. He wanted to ask her : but while he struggled 
 against a sense of unfitness, a moral anticlimax, Dennis's 
 voice saved him. 
 
 " You've let me in for something asking me down here. 
 I don't think I'd have come if I'd known. ..." 
 
 Maurice began to bite his lip, and to work his chin 
 roughly against his hand. He took hold of Anne's hand 
 and rested it in her lap, where Dennis, sitting against the 
 wall behind them, could not see. He meant to kiss the 
 hand, but he could not do it quickly. Leaning his head 
 sideways on Anne's lap he watched himself stroke her 
 hand. 
 
 Dennis spoke again. " I think it was wonderful. ... I 
 shall be trying to do it myself if I'm not careful. . . . But I 
 don't think it's quite the thing for Saturday afternoon " 
 he looked at his watch " or Saturday evening, which it is 
 now." 
 
 " What is the time then, Dennis ? " asked Anne, turn- 
 ing her head towards him. " Listen. Isn't that someone 
 coming here ? " 
 
 There was a sound of wheels stopping, then of a heavy 
 jump to the ground. Maurice raised himself and sat back 
 
STILL LIFE 227 
 
 on his heels, allowing Anne to rise. He smiled at Dennis 
 with small conviction. Then he listened to the noise. " I 
 believe it's Moon," he said. A heavy thud followed. 
 " That's boxes, for sure." 
 
 Anne went to the door, but Dennis, who had been sitting 
 close to it, opened it before her. She took the handle from 
 him and Maurice saw their hands involuntarily touch. 
 Dennis drew his away quickly like a man who is afraid of 
 being burnt. So it seemed to Maurice. The movement 
 struck him because it reminded him of Cradock at the door 
 of the dining-room when Anne had first entered into his 
 life. He forgot about it in the excitement of hearing 
 Moon's steps up the path. 
 
 " They're very heavy, aren't they, Moon ? " said Dennis. 
 " Can't I give you a hand ? " 
 
 Moon put down the one he was carrying by the door. 
 " I wonder what it is," said Anne, looking at the wooden 
 box bound with iron at the edges. 
 
 " Why, it's your box," said Maurice. " Isn't it, 
 Dennis ? " Dennis was on the point of going down the 
 path to help Moon with the next. It was an excuse for 
 not replying. " I know it is," said Maurice, " I saw it 
 in the station this afternoon." 
 
 " We'll take the other two round to the back," sang out 
 Dennis, now a vague shadow in the yellow light of the gig 
 lamp. " They're too heavy to bring through. You'll have 
 to unpack them first." 
 
 " Right-oh ! " replied Maurice, and he went through the 
 kitchen to open the back door. He was surprised to find 
 no light there and only the embers of a fire. He lit the 
 lamp and flung the door wide. Dennis and Moon moved 
 heavily under the burden of the box, and slowly set it in- 
 side by the door. " Why, Anne, it's my books. They've 
 come already," he called to her. " That's quick work, 
 isn't it ? " 
 
 " I'm very glad," said Anne, and she looked out at the 
 yellow gleam, and the little space won by two candles from 
 
228 STILL LIFE 
 
 the night. Carts calling at distant cottages in the dark, 
 trains roaring through desolate stations in the night, both 
 had fascinated her from childhood. She stood and 
 watched. 
 
 Dennis welcomed the weight of the box under which he 
 staggered round the house. It held him down. He had 
 been on the point of telling some long rigmarole about him- 
 self. Now that Moon's arrival had saved him, he had a 
 horror of the threatened confession, and yet he felt he 
 would have been happier had he made it. " Damn it all," 
 he said to himself, " what a thing to do." For all that he 
 was envious of Maurice and could not believe his own 
 suggestion that Maurice had only made a fool of himself. 
 Nevertheless, he was grateful for the weight of the last box, 
 as with Moon's help he laid it ponderously on top of the 
 other. 
 
 " They must have come this afternoon," said Maurice 
 to Moon. " I was in to Pirford to meet Mr. Beauchamp 
 this morning." 
 
 " They came while I was at the station, sir. I only just 
 had room for them. I wasn't expecting to go in to-day, 
 the missis wanted some things urgent." 
 
 " Well, it was lucky they were there, and very good of 
 you to bring them along. I'm very glad to have them." 
 
 " Not at all, sir," said Moon, replying to the commenda- 
 tion. " It's a nasty night, black as pitch under the hill, 
 and the roads are wellnigh washed away by that rain. 
 We're in for a fair mess, Kitty and me." (Kitty was 
 the mare.) " Good night, sir, good night, Mr. Beau- 
 champ." 
 
 " Anne, did you know there's hardly any fire here ? " 
 
 She turned to say good night to Moon before she shut the 
 door and came to the kitchen. " I told Alice to let it out. 
 I said she could go out this afternoon provided she left 
 everything ready." 
 
 " Isn't anyone hungry ? " asked Maurice. 
 
 " Perhaps we'd better have supper in any case. It's 
 
STILL LIFE 229 
 
 late. What time did you say it was, Dennis ? " said 
 Anne. 
 
 DenmVtook some seconds to realise the question. He 
 was slowly filling a pipe. " I've forgotten," he said, and 
 pulled out his watch again. " Twenty-five minutes past 
 eight," he said. 
 
 " That's me," said Maurice, leading the way out of the 
 kitchen with the loaded tray in his hands. " I must have 
 been in a queer state." Neither Dennis nor Anne made any 
 reply. Maurice shifted the lamp to the wall and set the 
 tray in the middle of the table. He bent down and poked 
 the fire, shaking the kettle to see if it was full. " We had 
 better have some tea at the same time. We missed it this 
 afternoon," and he placed the kettle on the fire. 
 
 They began a conversation at the supper table. The 
 talk was pleasant but fatigued, like an activity that follows 
 a natural exhaustion of the body. . . . For the most part it 
 circled round Dennis's professional success. Dennis was 
 at first very reluctant ; but when Anne suggested that he 
 should come down next week, he had to acknowledge he 
 had been invited to the Midlands to lecture on psychology. 
 Maurice seized the opening and forced him to confess that 
 the invitation was honorific and the lectures well paid. 
 Gradually, thenceforward, he warmed to his theme and 
 told Maurice more about his prospects than he cared to 
 hear. Maurice's delighted interest cooled. Contrasting 
 Dennis's success with his own instability, he resented it. 
 Nevertheless, he found a recondite pleasure in insisting 
 that Dennis should diminish nothing of the brilliance of 
 his prospects. Dennis responded to the insistence with 
 enjoyment. In part he became intoxicated with the smooth- 
 ness of his own future. 
 
 " It's a pity," said Anne, " you don't really want it at 
 all. You make it seem so worth having." 
 
 Dennis was silent for some while after that ; but Maurice 
 did not notice the effect of Anne's words. He was anxious 
 to set something of his own over against Dennis's achieve- 
 
230 STILL LIFE 
 
 ment. But that was not the only reason for his remark, 
 for he put into it more sincerity and conviction than would 
 have come from that alone. Moreover, he himself was 
 aware of some inconsequence in what he said. " I am glad 
 my books have come," he said, in a pause. " I never feel 
 really safe without them." 
 
 After supper Maurice started some tentative reminiscent 
 talk about their first meeting at the dinner party, but 
 Anne, leaning back in her chair, and stroking the back of 
 her hand with a cameo that hung at the end of a silver chain 
 round her neck, appeared to pay little attention, being full 
 of thought or dreams. Dennis, too, was disinclined, but 
 he roused himself to interest at one moment, and asked if 
 Maurice remembered his tirade about the harmony. Anne 
 began to listen and to watch Maurice then. He was 
 anxious to be rid of the subject. "I remember talking 
 about it, but very little of what I said. What is vivid to 
 me, extraordinarily vivid, is the way I was standing at the 
 corner of the fireplace. I can feel my shoulder against 
 the mantelpiece now. That's rather curious, considering 
 that I'm sure I didn't notice that at the time. But I've 
 almost forgotten what I said, and if I did remember 
 I'm certain that I shouldn't know what I meant. It 
 wouldn't be the first time that that had happened. It 
 must be a pretty common experience for people, I should 
 imagine." 
 
 Dennis reminded him of a phrase. 
 
 " Did I say that ? How you do remember these things ! 
 . . . No, I have just a notion what I meant. But I'm too 
 tired even to worry about trying to get it clear." 
 
 " And I can hardly keep awake," said Anne. " I'm 
 going up to bed now." She lit candles, while Maurice put 
 out the lamps, and went upstairs after bidding Dennis 
 good night. A minute later Dennis and Maurice followed. 
 Dennis paused, leaning idly on the banisters, as though he 
 wished to continue the talk. Maurice waited a little, but 
 
STILL LIFE 231 
 
 Dennis said nothing. Maurice grew impatient and restive. 
 He could not go into Anne's room before Dennis's eyes. 
 " Oh, I've forgotten. ... I must go down again," he said 
 abruptly. " Good night, Dennis." He ran precipitately 
 down the stairs and waited idly by the fire, until he heard 
 Dennis's door close. Then he came up very quietly. He 
 entered Anne's room softly and without knocking. Anne 
 was sitting before the mirror to brush her hair, but she had 
 forgotten, and her brush hung down in her forgetful hand. 
 When he reached the bed he saw her reflection start, as, 
 suddenly reminded of her purpose, she began to brush 
 again. 
 
 " Did I frighten you ? " he whispered. 
 
 " Yes, a little," she answered, looking in the glass straight 
 into his eyes. He felt guilty. He wanted to clasp her 
 from behind and kiss her, but he could do no more than to 
 say : 
 
 " Your hair's very beautiful, Anne. It's so full of life. 
 It looks so springy." 
 
 " Is it ? It feels very dead to me to-night ; but I think 
 that's my imagination." 
 
 He was nervous of her speaking so loud. Anxiously he 
 tried to keep his voice within a whisper. " Yes ... it 
 doesn't look dead." 
 
 The words had a raucous choking sound. 
 
 " What's the matter, Morry ? " 
 
 " Nothing," he said abruptly, sitting on the bed and 
 staring at his dangling legs. 
 
 "We're not committing adultery," she said quietly, 
 and went on slowly brushing her dark hair. She fingered 
 it delicately, each several hair like a tender nerve. Maurice 
 glanced up, surprised that she had divined his thought. 
 He saw her smiling gently in the dim light, and his appre- 
 hension dissolved away. 
 
 Maurice laughed, as it were, with a physical reservation. 
 Anne immediately was grave as she had been when he 
 entered the room. He slowly undressed. 
 
232 STILL LIFE 
 
 " Anne," he said, after a while, hesitant, " did you . . . 
 
 hate . . . my telling that about Madeleine . . . ? " 
 " No," she said calmly. " Why should I ? " 
 He did not know what he had really wanted her to say, 
 
 but her answer disappointed him. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 A PRESENCE radiated always from Anne at the beginning 
 of a day. She was half-conscious of it herself. Perhaps it 
 was that she was always glad of a day beginning, and that 
 the change after night had never ceased to hold an element 
 of miracle for her. " A freshet of dawn," said Dennis to 
 himself, and began to wonder what the words meant for 
 him they were poised between being torrential with signi- 
 ficance and absolutely meaningless and where he could 
 have got hold of them. 
 
 "> " No, it's no good," she said. Dennis had proposed a 
 long walk over the hills, " somewhere for some lunch." 
 " You can see that he's simply yearning to unpack his 
 books." 
 
 " I'm not," said Maurice with sturdy indifference. Never- 
 theless, he began to flush. 
 
 " Yes, he's convicted," said Dennis. " After an abomin- 
 able yesterday to waste to-day. Well ..." 
 
 " But we live in it, remember." 
 
 "Yes, that's true. I dare say it'll do as a kind of excuse. 
 .... How long will they take you ? " 
 
 " Well, I shall have to stack them away. It's a longish 
 job. You know as well as I do. If I start now I shan't 
 finish until the afternoon." 
 
 " You won't wait for him till then ? It's foolish," said 
 Anne. 
 
 " I did have a vague thought of helping." 
 
 " Oh, no," protested Maurice. " You mustn't do that. 
 That's unfair. ... If you do I shall have to come out. . . . 
 Why don't you and Anne go for a walk ? I'll be ready if 
 you come back for lunch. . . . You could go the way we 
 
 233 
 
234 STILL LIFE 
 
 went the other afternoon, our first walk. Anne knows the 
 way . . ." 
 
 " No," she interposed quickly, " I think I'd better have 
 a change. It wouldn't do to go the same way. There must 
 be plenty of walks that we haven't been. . . . Yes, I should 
 like to go with you, Dennis," she went on, " provided you 
 don't walk me too far or too fast." 
 
 " Why not go up to the King ? It's a glorious day : and 
 it'll be clear, most likely, on the top. You'll be able to see 
 the sea quite near you unless the rain's left a mist." He 
 went to the window. " I don't think so nothing that you 
 can see out of here anyhow. Dunbury Ring you know 
 it, Dennis ? " 
 
 Dennis looked uncertain. 
 
 " Well, you remember that old chalkpit beyond Wari- 
 bone's Farm, where you slipped down in the rain ? Last 
 year, that must have been in August. . . . What a long time 
 ago it does seem ! " Maurice explained to Anne. " It 
 was muddy and he couldn't get a foothold. He ripped a 
 great piece out of his trousers three-cornered and I 
 had to fasten it up with a safety-pin." Dennis looked 
 quizzical at the recollection. " I pointed it out to 
 you then. I remember you said the Ring was the colour 
 of a fine plum. There's a path straight up to it from the 
 chalkpit, and on top you can see your way down any 
 amount of them." 
 
 "I remember now," said Dennis. "Are you sure you 
 would really like to go, Anne ? " She had hardly listened 
 to the conversation, hardly even comprehended Maurice's 
 explanation. The question took her by surprise, which 
 endured while Dennis continued : " I don't want to drag 
 you out. I'm afraid you may have some idea that because 
 he's failed in his duty, you have to do it for him. I shall 
 be quite happy alone ; but, of course, if you do come . . . 
 I'll enjoy it more." 
 
 " Dennis, don't be foolish. I'll come because I want to." 
 She hurried away to get ready, and in a few moments 
 
STILL LIFE 235 
 
 Maurice was watching the two walk down the path together. 
 As they passed out of the range of the window, he wished 
 that he had gone. So final did this parting seem that they 
 might have left him for ever ; only a sense of the necessity 
 of independence and self-sufficiency held him back from 
 following them. It would have been so childish. Before 
 his mind a little picture of a child's round legs twinkling 
 precipitately after his mother persisted and made him 
 smile wretchedly. He was miserably doubtful of the in- 
 dependence he guarded. 
 
 He sat for a long while in a chair before the yellow fire, 
 his legs stretched in a straight line before him, and his 
 hands thrust to the bottom of his pockets, thinking of 
 nothing, but shrouded in a forlornness which became 
 almost comfortable. At length he moved wearily into the 
 kitchen, and began to prise open his boxes. The prospect 
 which had excited him an hour before now was grey with 
 ugly and interminable labour. By turns he was listless 
 and over-violent in his actions, but careless in both. He 
 tore his finger upon an upturned nail, and purposely paid 
 no regard to the blood which dropped at sluggish intervals 
 over his possessions. He lumped the books together on 
 the floor, and paused half-way through the contents of the 
 first box to look at the depressing heap, while he sat on a 
 chair silently cursing. The day was cold enough to chill 
 the surface of his skin all over. The blood from his finger 
 chilled to stickiness. He was utterly miserable. 
 
 He began to crawl upstairs with armloads of books. 
 When they fell he laughed as though the annoyance were 
 inevitable, and slowly redescended to pick them up again ; 
 but once at the top of the stairs when half his load poured 
 like liquid from his grasp, he turned savagely and threw 
 the rest after them. He almost wept with rage, sitting on 
 the landing, before he could go down to gather them again. 
 He carried the rest with a dour determination, as resolved 
 to inflict upon himself the last torture of self-humiliation. 
 He sat down on the seat into which his peculiar bed col- 
 
236 STILL LIFE 
 
 lapsed when out of use, and wondered whether he could 
 find the strength to arrange the books decently upon their 
 shelves. Indescribably confused, upside down, they had 
 taken on a malicious personality. To one well-used 
 French book that lay fanwise upon the floor he gave 
 a vicious kick, scattering the pieces, and then picked 
 them up and began the labour of putting them in 
 order again. He tied them together and put them in a 
 drawer. 
 
 He had done this before he realised that the book was 
 not French at all, but a German novel that Cradock had 
 lent him at his request for something to read, at a time when 
 he was anxious to learn German. Endeavouring idly to 
 fix the date when he had borrowed it, he discovered with a 
 start that it was hardly two months ago. The fulness of 
 those months bewildered him, and while he probed about 
 into his memory, he realised with wonder that this was the 
 last book he had attempted to read. From this solid point, 
 while he slowly untied the parcel and searched mechanically 
 about for the last of his pencil-marks, he slowly let form in 
 his mind the occasion ; the time just before the dinner 
 party, the servant's knock at the door with the hot water, 
 and a letter. . . . 
 
 He had never read that letter. . . . Oh, yes, he had seen 
 that it had come from his mother, and he was always glad 
 to postpone reading letters which only served to worry him 
 and make him miserable. . . . He began to wonder whether 
 it had really been his mother's handwriting, for it was not 
 clear in his recollection. He was anxious to know what he 
 had done with it. ... No, he wouldn't have thrown it away. 
 He never threw letters away unopened, because he was 
 afraid. Instead he let them lie about in the fragile hope 
 that they would hide themselves and pass into a natural 
 oblivion, for which he could plead to himself that he was 
 not responsible. He leant back and closed his eyes in the 
 effort completely to recreate the picture. . . . He must have 
 put it in some book that was a fairly common habit of his. 
 
STILL LIFE 237 
 
 What was he reading ? The German novel, of course. 
 That meant a notebook and a dictionary. 
 
 What was the good of worrying it out like that ? Some- 
 how he knew that the letter was in the dictionary. He 
 seemed to have known it all along and there the dictionary 
 lay in a broken, dirty calf binding close to his hand on the 
 lowest shelf. He knew, and yet he carefully sought out the 
 notebook, went carefully through it page by page, and 
 finally held it by the back and shook it. He was even 
 surprised when he found the letter where his dictionary 
 fell apart. He stared at the writing, and a tremor of 
 physical apprehension passed from his bowels to his fingers. 
 He stared at it still. It was in the old familiar writing to 
 which he had grown accustomed weekly during years of 
 school. The old familiar sensations surged back upon him, 
 with a peculiar appositeness, a magnified significance. He 
 was the same, yet wholly different. His division of soul 
 was the same. Then the apprehension of some gentle 
 scolding, of the tired tolerance, whose sting was the love 
 which even then he did not fail to feel, for some expected 
 letter unreceived or some request for money which could 
 not be afforded, but was sent, warred with a terrible fear 
 which beset him when the Monday letter did not come, and 
 he waited through hours of agonising afternoons on the 
 slender hope of the evening post. When the letter came, 
 tossed over the heads of forty school boys sitting sedately 
 after evening prayers, he would gasp with joy, put the 
 letter in his pocket, and forget it utterly for days. 
 
 Like a warm flood of repentant tears the wave of recollec- 
 tion passed over him. He was still fingering the letter, 
 upon the book which lay in his lap. He laughed miserably. 
 That self of a few short years ago was a caricature of the 
 self of to-day, so bitingly faithful, so justly microscopic. 
 Wherein was he different now ? he asked himself despair- 
 ingly. A sudden perception, agonisingly clear, gave him the 
 answer. The apprehensions were the same. They had the 
 same quality. Only now they went deeper. Only now 
 
238 STILL LIFE 
 
 they were bigger. His lips moved automatically to a 
 forgotten refrain that he had used jeeringly to sing to 
 the boys who passed from lower to upper school, from 
 one world to another. 
 
 He can brush his own clothes 
 
 And blow nib own nose, 
 
 For he's getting a big boy now. . . . 
 
 With an effort he stiffened his resolution, talking aloud 
 to himself. " What the devil's a letter, you fool ? It 
 can't hurt you, it can't hit you, it can't bite you, it can't ..." 
 Slipping his thumb under the flap he tore it open suddenly, 
 as though to surprise himself with the accomplished fact. 
 
 A sheet of written note-paper and another letter. In an 
 agony of haste he hid it in his pocket, seeking to steady 
 himself by staring at the written sheet, and by a physical 
 straining of his eyes to penetrate the mist that swam 
 cloudy before it. He laid the letter down on the seat and 
 rose to regard himself in the round mirror that hung over 
 his chest of drawers. He pinched his pale cheeks, and held 
 his lids down over his eyes, to rub their shining empty 
 focus away. Even then memories danced malignant in his 
 brain above all that which he had recreated for himself 
 out of a grateful dimness last night his face in the mirror 
 larded clown-like with a foam of soap, and two frightened 
 eyes, as he had waited for Madeleine. ... He hardened the 
 sinews of his mind against importunate memory, and sat 
 down once more with a leaden composure to read and com- 
 prehend the big straggling words which his mother had 
 written. 
 
 "MORRY DARLING, 
 
 " I do not know where to send this letter. I know 
 who it is from. You promised me that you would never 
 write to her again that morning in the dining-room at 
 Wimbledon. But I can't see that it would matter now 
 when you don't even care enough for me to let me know 
 
STILL LIFE 239 
 
 where you are living. Perhaps you are afraid that I 
 would come and see you. I wouldn't but I don't even 
 know if you are alive. If you only knew what I have had 
 to suffer in the nights thinking of you. I am sending it to 
 your old address, though I know you don't live there. 
 It may get to you. I can't see that it matters in any 
 case. 
 
 " Your always loving MOTHER. 
 
 " P.S. Though I did go to Ebury Street, I wasn't 
 coming to see you. Only I had to know if you were 
 alive." 
 
 He would melt inwardly, become all tears. Instead he 
 laughed, the same miserable laugh. " If you only knew," 
 he said, " what I am up to now." He thought of that other 
 letter heavy in his pocket, and immediately became remote. 
 He no longer felt himself, but saw himself, a little man of 
 sorrows. By turns the glasses of his mind coloured him to 
 tragic, to heroic, to inflexible, to callous, but finally and 
 always to petty and ridiculous. It had been a little too 
 much. The whole situation seemed to cancel out in feeling 
 and to reduce to nothingness. His mother, Madeleine, 
 Anne, were little round blobs in his mind that coalesced 
 and dissolved away, leaving behind them only a conscious 
 emptiness. 
 
 It was the moment for Madeleine's letter. To him, 
 beaten into a lethargy of indifference, the letter would be 
 indifferent. He pulled it out of his pocket, but paused in 
 the act of opening it, and went downstairs to look at the 
 clock. Twenty- three minutes past twelve. Precisely he 
 calculated that Dennis and Anne would not return from 
 their walk for an hour. They might shorten it and come 
 in upon him suddenly. He considered the possibility and 
 decided that had they shortened the walk they would 
 already have arrived. For the last mile there was nothing 
 to do but to climb on to the hill and return by the ridge. 
 
240 STILL LIFE 
 
 An hour's freedom was enough. He went upstairs again 
 with steady decision and opened the letter. 
 
 He looked at the end of the letter to see if he could read 
 anything in the signature. From the first the curiously 
 decided backward flourish of the last letter of her name 
 had fascinated him, for it had the firm deliberation of a 
 French professional signature. Many times before he had 
 looked to see if the line showed any wavering. During a 
 year he had had time to forget the particularities of her 
 writing ; but he felt sure that the name " Madeleine " was 
 written bigger than it used to be. The flourish showed no 
 deviation from its forerunners. The letters were certainly 
 bigger. " Probably she used a broader pen," he said to 
 himself. The whole letter was indeed blacker than they 
 had used to be. 
 
 " MON MAURICE, 
 
 " Ton silence m'a conduit au desespoir. Je suis au 
 bout de mes forces. C'est la derniere fois que je t'ecris. 
 II m'affole de penser qu'il y avait un temps ou j 'etais 
 pleine de joie et de confiance que tu m' aimais de tout ton 
 cceur. Maintenant je suis vide. Malheur que cela ne 
 te dira rien. Tu n'as jamais eprouve ce qu'il est de se 
 sentir vide. Tu croyais meme que je n'allais point voir 
 dans tes dernieres lettres que tu etais change envers moi, 
 et que c'est au moment ou je me plaignais, que tu as 
 commence ton silence. Je ne sais pourquoi je t'ecris. 
 Je n'ai pas d'esperance, je n'ai meme pas le desir de 
 t'attrister. Tu as choisi. Peut-etre c'est ta mere qui 
 t'a fait changer de force, car tu etais si faible tu m'a 
 fait bien Je sentir, mon petit Maurice mais je sais bien 
 que si ta mere savait jusqu'ou 1'amour de toi a conduit 
 une femme folle, elle s'adoucirait envers moi. Ainsi si 
 c'est comme je pense tou jours, je te supplie de lui montrer 
 ma lettre. Elle est femme, et je suis convaincue qu'elle 
 aura pitie de moi, si tu n'as pas eu la force d'avoir pitie 
 toi-meme. Je te supplie de la lui montrer. 
 
STILL LIFE 241 
 
 "Maintenant je suis au bout. Je reconnais que je ne 
 suis pas fiere, moi. Je reconnais que tu ne m'as jamais 
 aimee comme je le croyais. Mais j'ai tant travaille, j'ai 
 tant souffert, et enfin je suis tellement malade. Tu te 
 souviens de ma phthisic quand j'etais au lit, et tu 6tais si 
 gentille envers moi. Aie pitie* de moi mon Maurice ; je 
 ne demande pas 1'amour. Qa, c'est passe je ne veux 
 rien demander. Je te supplie. De quoi ? Je ne sais 
 plus. J'ai peur de n'etre qu'une folle. Ah, mon bien 
 aime, ne te souviens-tu pas ? ecris-moi un petit mot. 
 Si non, je ne t'ecrirai plus. Je serais morte. 
 
 " MADELEINE." 
 
 He sat with the letter in his hands, in horror at himself. 
 He saw the words, he understood them, he even felt their 
 significance, but all this passed in an outer shell of him. 
 Within he felt nothing at all, save the strange and keen 
 sensation of his failure to feel, a sensation nearly physical 
 and nearly familiar, as the violent pressure of numbed 
 flesh. Fear there was too, but a fear of the letter as a con- 
 crete thing, a living organism with power to hurt and 
 torture him ; and this moved him to tear it across, while 
 he watched the creeping tear, dividing words of sense. 
 Then he hesitated, laid the two parts against each other 
 and placed them in a pocket-book, which he put back in his 
 pocket. He stood up and tidied himself, pulling his clothes 
 down tight against his body, and then went downstairs 
 and out into the garden where he began to gather flowers. 
 For some reason they did not satisfy him, and, keenly 
 remembering the red-white buds of some early May 
 blossom in the lane, he went through the gate snapping 
 and snapping a clumsy jack-knife in his hands. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 PASSING by the edge of the chalkpit, with effort ascending 
 the hill, Anne paused suddenly. Dennis drew up and, in 
 the last completion of an action fading into rest, slowly 
 wheeled round on the hill and faced the prospect. 
 
 " What are you thinking about, Dennis ? " 
 
 He held his peace for a second ; then spoke with a non- 
 chalant abruptness. 
 
 " D'you really want to know ? " 
 
 Anne thought and said : 
 
 " Yes, tell me." 
 
 " Well I was wondering whether I was really glad that 
 you had come with me. . . . Other things, too, but that 
 most." 
 
 " Have you decided ? " 
 
 " Yes, I'm glad." 
 
 " Why ? " 
 
 " I want to ask you things. I don't think I could have 
 asked you them in the house." 
 
 " Do you believe that I will answer them here ? " 
 
 "I'm sure of that. I was always sure, before. The only 
 question was whether I would have the courage to ask 
 them. Now I'm in a state when I could ask anything." 
 
 " Since I said I really wanted to know what you were 
 thinking ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " I said it deliberately." 
 
 " I know you did." 
 
 Anne waited for his words. Her breathing, excited by 
 the steady climb, was slowly sinking to evenness. As 
 she waited she felt that it wholly disappeared into calm. 
 
 242 
 
STILL LIFE 243 
 
 " Why did you go away with Morry ? " 
 
 " You know why I left Jim ? " 
 
 " Yes, I know." 
 
 " And you ask why I went away with Morry ? " 
 
 He lifted up his eyes and looked steadily at hers. There 
 was an unfamiliar eagerness in them, and for a moment it 
 seemed that her whole body was leaning forward to him. 
 He knew that he was mistaken before he replied. 
 
 " Yes. I still want to know." 
 
 Looking at her, he felt that there was some change in 
 her at his words, a change not to be apprehended by the 
 eyes. To him it came as a consciousness of right in what 
 he had said. He was very secure. 
 
 " Well there came a time when I had to." 
 
 He looked his doubts before he spoke them. His foot 
 tapped with a slow impatience on the ground. 
 
 ; ' That's yes, it may be true enough, but that's not 
 what I want. Anybody might say that any woman 
 and I'd have to take it. But I want something more from 
 you. You didn't have to leave Jim. At least you did, yet 
 you stayed. You left him when you didn't have to any 
 more. But you explained that. You must explain again. 
 ... I don't mean you must ; but I ask you to." 
 
 " I thought Morry needed me." 
 
 She spoke with a certain finality, as though the thought 
 and the reality could but be one. 
 
 " Do you think so now ? " 
 
 She thought and said decisively : " Yes, I do." 
 
 " But do you think he needs you ? Not something of you, 
 but you. Are you sure of that ? " 
 
 " No. . . . It's even foolish to speak of not being sure. I 
 know he doesn't need me. But I don't ask for that. He 
 needed something of me so much ; that I wanted to give it, 
 beyond everything and I want to now. Then I went 
 away with him. . . . Oh, it wasn't charity and it wasn't 
 blindness. I was glad and I'm glad now." 
 
 " But how long will you be glad ? " 
 
244 STILL LIFE 
 
 " Always." She looked at him with eyes that he could 
 not understand. For an instant he thought that she was 
 convincing herself against him. The thought was dis- 
 solving from his mind before the question it prompted, 
 when she said : 
 
 " Dennis, tell me. For whom are you asking ? For 
 Morry, for me, or for yourself ? " 
 
 He felt instantly that the ground had been taken from 
 beneath him, and he was at the point of smiling at his own 
 discomfiture. Somehow it was too serious for that. 
 
 " Yes, go on," he said. 
 
 " You're asking for yourself. . . . And there is only one 
 excuse for that that you should be in love with me, and 
 I in love with you . . ." She paused calmly. " Perhaps 
 there's another," she added, " that you should be you." 
 
 The words sang in his ears ; but he held himself steady 
 till the time when he could laugh at himself. 
 
 " Perhaps it's because you're Dennis," Anne went on, 
 " that you don't really know that you're asking for your- 
 self. You can cheat yourself into the idea that you're 
 asking for me, for Morry, for the Universe itself. And 
 somehow you just stop short at the point where you could 
 not help seeing. D'you understand ? " 
 
 Dimly he did, but he shook his head. 
 
 " What held you back from asking me point-blank 
 whether I thought it was fair to myself ? Wasn't it the 
 idea that I should say, ' By what right do you ask ? ' 
 You'd have seen then that you were asking for yourself. 
 And you wouldn't ask whether I thought it was fair to 
 Morry for the same reason. And that was the only 
 reason why you didn't ask whether it was fair to yourself, 
 too." She laughed. " I almost believe you could convince 
 yourself that you were asking in the interests of your pro- 
 fession." 
 
 Both had become gay. They were happy there on the 
 hill-side. Anne with laughing wind-swept eyes, poised 
 delicately like a reed in the wind upon a hummock of 
 
STILL LIFE 245 
 
 grass, above ; Dennis, who stood sideways to her, as 
 though his mind might have been divided betwejn . nne 
 herself and the prospect of silvery Aran and the distant 
 hills. With his hands in his pockets he stood forlornly 
 smiling. Perhaps he was happy at the sight of his own 
 comic figure, and Anne was happy too, and he twice happy 
 in her happiness. 
 
 " We're in the mood to be honest," said Anne. " We 
 will be. You asked for yourself. I'll grant your right to 
 ask because you're Dennis. What does that mean ? Not 
 that you are a cool intellect. No one grants anything to 
 that. No, only that you are partly in love with me. You're 
 in love with me the moment that you think somebody else is. 
 You need somebody else to rouse you to assert your claim. 
 And of course that only means there's no claim at all. You 
 don't need me nor anyone else. You are too completely 
 master of yourself. . . . How much you have mastered, I 
 should not like to say ; much less than you imagine. You 
 hold your feelings so tight in the ordinary way that when 
 they escape you, you're bewildered, and so you can always 
 excuse yourself convincingly and say that you were out of 
 your mind. It's all wrong. Your abnormal moments are 
 your true ones, but you can't see that yet. Perhaps you 
 need . . . No, but until your criticism magnifies instead of 
 diminishing your feelings, you'll go on in the same old way. 
 
 " Yes, I'm very superior, aren't I ? You won't be angry 
 with me with me the inaccessible," she sang, spreading 
 our her arms, and standing tiptoe on her little hill. Her 
 arms sank to her sides like the wings of a bird settled from 
 flight, and she laughed, happily tired. 
 
 " Can't we go home by some quicker way ? We've 
 wasted so much time," she said. 
 
 " No. You could go down now, but it would be longer. 
 The shortest way is to keep up and along the top." 
 
 " Very well, come on." They climbed steadily for a 
 quarter of a mile, and rested naturally on the summit at 
 the edge of the Ring. 
 
246 STILL LIFE 
 
 " Don't you like my explanation ? Is it too personal ? 
 You haven't said a word since I stopped." 
 
 Dennis looked at her with a sideways glance, anxious to 
 divine her purpose, but was reassured. 
 
 " I was only thinking if it was true." 
 
 " There's not the slightest reason why it should be 
 none at all. . . . Let's go on. . . ." 
 
 Maurice was looking out of the window when they 
 entered the house. He moved to meet Anne, and watched 
 her while she removed her coat and hung it on the door. 
 An admiration of the deliberate and self-contained per- 
 fection of her movements held him. " She is mine, she 
 belongs to me," he thought, hardly before the knowledge 
 of the stupidity, the sheer untruth of his claim ebbed back 
 upon him. The very quality of his admiration set distances 
 between them. Distances and then he was aware of a 
 dumb portion of his soul where the appeals of Madeleine 
 and his mother and his stifled response revolved in 
 mechanical iteration. To silence their incessant motion 
 he spoke, hesitatingly. 
 
 " Did you have a good time both of you ? " he added 
 carefully, prompted by some obscure instinct to set Anne 
 completely apart from him. 
 
 Anne hung her coat on the door. Dennis entered and 
 checked her reply, if she had intended to speak. As she 
 turned to face Maurice, she saw on the table a great 
 earthenware basin filled with white may. 
 
 " But that's terribly unlucky ! " she cried suddenty, un- 
 awares. 
 
 " Is it ? I didn't know," said Maurice dully. It chimed 
 too well with his own manifest destiny to surprise him. 
 He hastened to explain away the unmistakable note in his 
 voice. " I might have expected it. I've been in a bad way 
 ever since you left the house. Somehow I got into my 
 head the idea that you were going away for ever and ever, 
 while I watched you going along the lane. I wanted to 
 come after you, but I couldn't. Oh, God, I wish I had 
 
STILL LIFE 247 
 
 it was so lonely. Then it was cold. I couldn't get free 
 from it all the morning. I don't know how I unpacked the 
 books, and then when I'd finished, I wanted to gather 
 flowers. I might have thought they were for putting on 
 my grave only I didn't. I just wanted to bring in flowers, 
 I suppose. I got some from the garden first and I hated 
 them. The tulips seemed so fat and stupid. I had to throw 
 them away. Then I went and cut some may down the lane. 
 It made me quite cheerful comparatively, to hack at it. 
 And now it turns out unlucky. No, I'm not surprised." 
 
 " How terrible, darling ! " she said. She came forward 
 and put her arms on his shoulders. He held her to him, 
 but there was something calculated in the manner of his 
 holding which he could not hide, though he knew she would 
 feel. Again, to excuse himself he said : " It's very hard to 
 fling that clean away. It's made me cold all through. I 
 shall need a lot of thawing." He was dull and insensible 
 to the matter of his lies, but acute in his sense of the manner 
 in which he told them. The necessity to convince Anne 
 pressed upon him, in spite of the conviction that he could 
 not. In his mind he felt " she can't know exactly not 
 exactly." 
 
 She led him to the bowl of white flowers. Still holding 
 his shoulders she leant over, turning her head, to regard 
 them closely. " But they can't be really unlucky . . . 
 they're too beautiful." 
 
 While she leant towards the bowl Maurice kissed the 
 firm white of her bended neck quickly. He felt the grip of 
 her hand upon his shoulders suddenly tighten, then relax 
 again, while she turned slowly back to him. The glimmer 
 of reproach in her eyes told that she had been wounded. 
 He had known that she would be ; but he felt now only 
 that he had taken an extreme and impossible risk. 
 
 " I don't think that's much of a reason," said Dennis, 
 sitting on the table edge and leaning sideways against the 
 wall. " I'm even prepared to set out and support an 
 argument that the extremes of beauty are of necessity 
 
248 STILL LIFE 
 
 evil and unlucky. I disapprove of the desire to let him 
 escape the consequences of his sin." He looked steadily 
 out of the window while he spoke. 
 
 Maurice held Anne the more firmly while he looked over 
 her shoulder at Dennis. " Oh, don't worry. I'm per- 
 fectly prepared to accept the consequences." A cold 
 detachment as of final resolution supported his voice ; but 
 he was conscious that he was acting, terribly acting. He 
 held Anne tighter, and he would have hurt her, had not 
 some physical barrier to his bodily control been fixed. 
 " After all, a little more evil wouldn't matter very much 
 to me. I've had enough not to feel the last straw. I've 
 felt it already and those that come after . . . well, I won't 
 cry about them." 
 
 He knew that he was acting, and yet something of him- 
 self, serious and true, crept in. He realised distinctly that 
 he had no hold of himself, and a strange thought came 
 into his mind. " This is how people are at the crisis of their 
 lives." The thought held him fast by a plain conviction. 
 He felt that it had taken all his responsibility for himself 
 away. Anne disengaged herself from him, taking his hand 
 in hers and putting it away from her body, and her action 
 was sharp with the inevitability of a dream. 
 
 " You take me too seriously," said Dennis. 
 
 " I can't." Maurice was speaking indelible lines. " The 
 thing is serious. Even if it's only flowers, you can't ever 
 tell how much of yourself is going into them. At a certain 
 time I wanted to go out and cut may. I didn't think about 
 it. There was a may-bush in front of my eyes and I had to 
 go. You can't say I take it too seriously." 
 
 Anne bent over the bowl. Her back was turned to 
 Maurice. His eyes were fixed upon her hands, which 
 clenched the table edge so that he thought they might 
 crush it. Dennis was watching him curiously. 
 
 " Things are serious. I know it. I don't take things 
 seriously. They come to me serious. God only knows what 
 they mean. That bowl of flowers is significant. Signifi- 
 
STILL LIFE 249 
 
 cant of what I don't know. Anne said it was unlucky. 
 Yes ..." He held himself again. A moment of calculation 
 came like a clear space in a stormy sky. " But that's only 
 words. All I know is that there is meaning and all I know 
 about that meaning is that it's not just unluckiness. It 
 would make life too simple . . . wouldn't it, Anne ? " 
 
 He had struck at her. She turned round as she was 
 struck and looked at him without a word. Deliberately, 
 he moved his eyes from hers, and looked at Dennis's 
 leg that swung regularly to and fro from the table edge. 
 Half it fascinated him, half he insisted on being fascinated 
 by it. Anne was leaning against the table, with her 
 shoulders hunched up about her neck, and the palms of 
 her hands pressed hard on the table behind her. Dennis 
 still looked at Maurice curiously. They were both looking 
 at him, he knew ; he called . every fibre and nerve in his 
 body to aid him, to keep his eyes steady fixed on Dennis's 
 swinging leg. If he stopped it. ... Else he would go on 
 looking and looking at it for ever. Slowly it stopped, 
 slowly swinging to rest. He felt that he had won, he did 
 not know what he had won. 
 
 " I'm a bloody fool," he said, and dropped like a dead 
 lump into a chair beside him, with his eyes closed. 
 
 Instantly he opened them. Anne was moving towards 
 the stairway. 
 
 " Where are you going to, Anne ? " 
 
 " To my room." 
 
 Maurice was half-way out of his chair to follow her. 
 As she disappeared through the door, he moved for- 
 ward suddenly, then sank back in his chair, all his effort 
 spent. 
 
 He looked with a weary, half - apologetic curiosity at 
 Dennis, who was on the table, swinging his leg again. 
 
 " What the hell," said Dennis with a coolness that gave 
 his explosive words a queer quality, " do you want to do 
 that for ? " 
 
 Maurice smiled feebly. He pulled himself up out of his 
 
250 STILL LIFE 
 
 chair, and went to the bowl. Carefully he looked over the 
 blossom and buds and chose a small piece. " I may as well 
 have a buttonhole . . . after that," he said, and he fixed it 
 with nervous fingers in his coat. 
 
 A few moments passed in silence between him and 
 Dennis, while an anxiety became imperious within him. 
 Then he went quickly upstairs and tapped at Anne's door. 
 " Anne," he whispered, while he plucked at the blossom in 
 his coat and threw it away from him. " Anne." Quietly, 
 as it were performing a duty, neither painful nor desirable, 
 she admitted him. 
 
 He leant back on the door, which shut by his weight. 
 
 " Anne, have I hurt you ? " 
 
 " Too much." 
 
 Again he would act a part. Before he could begin, 
 despair at himself, at his own awful impulse, took hold of 
 him. It puckered a corner of his mouth into a hopeless 
 smile. It broke into his voice as he said : 
 
 " I'm sorry." 
 
 She seemed to be thinking. But her action could not 
 have been the outcome of thought, so gentle and so com- 
 pelling was it. She took his hand that drummed its fingers 
 listlessly against the door, and kissed him on the mouth. 
 " We'll go down," she said. 
 
 She held his arm while they descended the narrow stairs. 
 They were squeezed against each other ; but they went 
 together. At the bottom she said : 
 
 " We must all be famishing. . . . Why, Dennis, what 
 are you doing there ? " He was bending over the fire, 
 which billowed with smoke and steam. 
 
 " I'm burning this cursed stuff. I hate it." 
 
 " But it couldn't do any harm now. It was very beauti- 
 ful." Maurice slipped his arm from hers and ran back up 
 the stairs. 
 
 " Oh I thought . . . Well, it can't be helped I was 
 
 left alone with it, you see." 
 
 Their eyes met. Anne said seriously, " Of course, that's 
 
STILL LIFE 251 
 
 different," and they both laughed. While they laughed 
 Maurice came down and threw the sprig from his button- 
 hole on the fire. Nevertheless, he was a little hurt. Surely 
 it was impossible to laugh. 
 
 " What are you laughing at ? " he asked. 
 
 " Only Dennis's absorption," said Anne. " He might 
 have been burning a baby." 
 
 Maurice laughed too. They had a happy evening, while 
 Dennis cynically explored his soul, and Maurice forgot 
 so much that he was angry with himself for forgetting, 
 when he woke to a chill certainty in the next day's 
 dawn. 
 
 Early in the morning they rode together in Moon's 
 wagonette into Pirford. Dennis was taciturn before the 
 prospect of his return, and the morning air was cold. Fits 
 of helpless apprehension passed through Maurice, and 
 Anne had no impulse, if, indeed, she had the strength, to 
 break through the sombre clouds that wrapped them. 
 Dennis made a few gloomy observations concerning the 
 work and the men awaiting him at the hospital, and 
 depressed himself continually, until the strain was eased in 
 a final outburst : 
 
 " I shall have to give it up." 
 
 " Well, why not ? " said Anne. 
 
 ;< Yes, why not ? " echoed Maurice, shivering. 
 
 " Oh, there're plenty of reasons. And it's not very easy 
 after I've demolished them all. I'm covenanted to stay 
 there at least another year." 
 
 " Can't you resign ? " 
 
 " People have resigned but it's not so easy. They 
 don't like it." 
 
 " Of course if you mean to bother about what they 
 like ..." said Maurice. 
 
 " I don't. But it happens that I do rather like the work. 
 I do it very well and if I'm honest I must confess that's 
 about the only real satisfaction that I get in life. ... It 
 doesn't last a moment afterwards it's true. . . I've a 
 
252 STILL LIFE 
 
 suspicion that I'm only being sentimental about myself 
 when I want to give it up. I'm not sure." 
 
 " I think, if I were you, I'd give it up just to see what 
 happened to myself," said Anne. 
 
 " You think I don't know ? " 
 
 Anne shrugged her shoulders. " If you do, then don't 
 dream of giving it up. It couldn't be worth while." 
 
 " No, that's right." 
 
 " Do you think you know what you'll do ? " 
 
 "No ... but I shall to-night . . . and to-morrow morning 
 I shan't." 
 
 " Well, what does it matter ? " 
 
 " But it does." 
 
 " How can it ? You can let the outside of yourself choose 
 what it likes, but it won't be a choice. As a matter of fact, 
 even the outside won't choose. All you have to do is to 
 wait, till something bigger than you chooses for you. But 
 I think you'd do well to wait until you really chose some- 
 thing yourself. It might be a novel experience." 
 
 Anne was impatient with him, and she allowed him to 
 feel something of her impatience. She began to dislike the 
 importunity with which he displayed himself to her. And 
 annoyed that she should be called upon to suffer his 
 reactions. Dennis realised it. 
 
 " I don't see why I should plague you with my minor 
 afflictions ! " 
 
 " You mustn't. It's an insult, rather subtle, but still an 
 insult. You're really giving me toys to play with when 
 I'm too old for toys. If you want to keep me quiet, you 
 mustn't say so obviously and in any case it's unnecessary. 
 If you're wanting to give me something then I think I'm 
 worth something real." 
 
 Anne leant across to Maurice, who sat looking forward 
 along the road, almost oblivious to their talk. She placed 
 her hand upon his knee. He looked round sharply. She 
 said nothing, but smiled at him, and he smiled in return 
 absently, as though his attention was set elsewhere. He 
 
STILL LIFE 253 
 
 bent towards her and touched her knee, almost perfunc- 
 torily. Nevertheless, there was love in his gesture, but 
 very soon he turned back to look at the road. 
 
 " There he is." He began to wave violently. " It's 
 Dixon. We can get the letters. Pull up for Dixon, please, 
 Moon." 
 
 Maurice exchanged greetings with the little grey-haired 
 postman and took the letters. " There's this for Mrs. 
 Cradock " Dixon spoke interrogatively and held out a 
 long blue envelope " but addressed care of you, Mr. 
 Temple, sir." The wonderful precision of the postman's 
 speech always amused Maurice ; and his amusement saved 
 him from all confusion. 
 
 "Yes, that's all right." 
 
 " I thank you, sir. A good morning to you, madam. . . ." 
 He doffed his cap and trudged on. 
 
 Maurice glanced at his letter while he handed Anne 
 hers. "Bills," he said, assuming a carelessness in which 
 neither Anne nor Dennis, nor he himself had any confi- 
 dence, and stuffing his letters away. He watched Anne 
 opening her long envelope. She gratified his decorous 
 curiosity immediately, putting the letter in his lap. It 
 was a sedate and gentlemanly intimation that the Paulo- 
 grad Railway Company, being debarred by the rules of 
 their constitution from declaring a higher dividend than 
 7 % (which, as they courteously reminded their esteemed 
 shareholder, they had paid in full since the inception of the 
 company), had decided to grant each holder of stock a 
 bonus of 10 % of his holding in stock ; and that Mrs. 
 Cradock's portion was 300, which the London agents of 
 the company signified their willingness to realise at the 
 market rate of 105 7s. 6d. per 100 stock. 
 
 " Well, that's all right," said Maurice. Dubiety was 
 mingled with his delight when he looked at her. She 
 seemed indifferent to her good fortune, and to be watching 
 only for his pleasure. But he was not wholly pleased. 
 Though he knew he shared it, the thought that it had not 
 
254 STILL LIFE 
 
 been his own made him envious. He tried to suppress the 
 foolish feeling, but his remark proved him to have been 
 hardly successful. 
 
 " It's an enormous lot of money," he said. 
 
 " Show it to Dennis. Aren't you pleased ? " 
 
 " Of course. Aren't you ? " 
 
 With her eyes alone she expressed her hesitation to pro- 
 nounce. 
 
 " Very handsome of Mr. Kuraganoff, Chairman," said 
 Dennis. 
 
 " Three hundred and fifteen no, sixteen pounds," said 
 Maurice at the end of a meditative silence, and whistled. 
 
 " It will pay those wretched bills of yours." 
 
 " The odd sixteen would be enough for that and why 
 should you ? At least they belong to my past." 
 
 Anne felt quite cold about the money. She tapped her 
 toes on the floor of the wagonette to warm them, and 
 tapped them viciously. The thought that the money 
 should have seemed God-given had everything been right 
 made her miserable. The sunshine that would have turned 
 the gold into drops of fire was denied her. She decided 
 that the age of sunshine was for her ever past, and she 
 composed herself to a resolute acceptance of life as it is. 
 For all that, she knew that something was dancing and 
 tingling in her. To clinch herself she said : 
 
 " I think it would have been as well if we'd let that letter 
 go home." 
 
 " We're rather early," said Dennis, looking at his watch. 
 They were driving up the level road to the station. 
 " Twenty minutes to spare." They drew up at the cross- 
 ing. " A quarter of an hour when we get there." 
 
 They walked up and down the platform together. 
 
 " I'm sorry you're going, Dennis," said Maurice. " When 
 will you come again ? " 
 
 " I don't know. When I come back from Sheffield 
 that's three weeks ahead." 
 
 " Three weeks," repeated Maurice. 
 
STILL LIFE 255 
 
 Anne had stayed behind to look at the papers on the 
 bookstall. When she came up with them again, Maurice 
 said : 
 
 " Dennis says he won't be down again for three weeks." 
 The sound of the train rumbling over the long wooden 
 bridge broke in upon them. They turned to look, and 
 satisfied that the train was in sight, turned back to talk 
 for the final seconds. 
 
 " Three weeks ? " said Anne. " I don't expect we shall 
 be here then." 
 
 " Why not ? " said Maurice. 
 
 " I've made up my mind that the best thing to do with 
 some of that money is for us to have a real holiday abroad," 
 said Anne to Dennis. 
 
 " A kind of honeymoon," said he. 
 
 The train burst riotously into the station. Anne shrank 
 instinctively back from the wind and the noise, swinging 
 sideways from the train, and drawing her head back be- 
 hind the shelter of her upraised muff. She could not speak 
 above the tumult. Dennis looked at her as he caught hold 
 of the door handle. Behind her mufi he saw her make a 
 little bow of assent and smile. ..." Yes, a kind of honey- 
 moon," it said. She stood still where she was while Maurice 
 spoke his regret, which was keen, again. 
 
 " Well, that's a surprise," said Maurice. " I don't be- 
 lieve she's serious." He looked back as though with the 
 thought of finding her in some palpably non-serious atti- 
 tude. The train began to move. Dennis put out his head 
 once and waved. Anne seemed to be saying, " Yes, a kind 
 of honeymoon." 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 WHILE they were walking in the town after Dennis had 
 gone Anne decided there was no occasion for a piano. She 
 hesitated in front of the big shop in the High Street, and 
 suddenly withdrew her foot from the step, taking Maurice's 
 arm to lead him away. 
 
 " No, I don't want one yet," she said. 
 
 Maurice felt an unaccountable and unreasonable anger. 
 " But why not ? " he asked. 
 
 " It'd be silly. We are going away so soon. It would 
 only be a waste of money to hire a piano which I can't use." 
 
 " So you really have decided to go ? " 
 
 " Yes. Haven't you ? " Her glance conveyed that she 
 had spoken his mind for him. 
 
 " I suppose so. ... But when are we going and where ? " 
 
 " When ! As soon as this business of the shares is 
 finished. It takes some time, not long, but some time. 
 Where ! well, that'll give us something to talk about till 
 then." 
 
 " But why not have the piano ? " he insisted. In a way 
 that he could not have defined, nor wanted to define, the 
 piano had become all-important. " Even if we were away 
 two months it wouldn't cost more than thirty shillings 
 a couple of pounds at most. It's not as though it were 
 really losing money. I'd pay for it myself." 
 
 Her purpose was serious and definite, but she spoke 
 
 gaily. 
 
 ' You don't want to force a piano upon me, when I say 
 I don't want it ? Or do you intend to learn on it yourself ?}" 
 He did not accord with her gaiety ; he was serious too, 
 and impotent to suppress his seriousness. 
 
 256 
 
STILL LIFE 257 
 
 " If you say that, of course . . ." 
 
 " But I do say it. I have said it." 
 
 :< You really mean it ? " 
 
 " Of course. What are you looking so determined 
 about ? I don't want the piano. That's over." 
 
 ; ' Yes, that's over." 
 
 " Why, you speak as though you had committed 
 suicide ! " He did not believe in her nonchalance. He was 
 convinced that she knew the piano was important. Also 
 he knew that she was justified, but that knowledge 
 smouldered without bursting into flame, depressing him 
 into a moody, dishonest hostility. He lied to her though 
 he was certain that she would not believe him ; he lied, 
 because he was certain she would not believe him. He 
 would let her feel, but would not let her know what was 
 passing inside him. 
 
 '' You see I'm angry with myself for having forgotten 
 about it on Saturday. That's really the matter. If you 
 got one now I shouldn't worry so much. If you don't I 
 shall always be accusing myself, being miserable, because 
 I forgot about the piano." 
 
 " But it was my fault more than yours. There wasn't 
 anything to forgive, but I forgave completely, long before 
 you ever came back with Dennis on Saturday. You 
 mustn't be angry with yourself for that. It's too ridiculous, 
 really. Believe me, I haven't given it a thought since. No, 
 it's no kind of an excuse for forcing a piano upon me, none 
 at all." 
 
 " I suppose it isn't," he said moodily. 
 
 They walked about the town, after Anne had visited a 
 few shops. Moon was not starting back until eleven o'clock. 
 Idly they wandered under the old archway and along the 
 Dean's yard, enclosed by sedate and delightful houses, 
 glistening black doors in a setting of reddled brick, into the 
 cloisters, cool with broken vistas of a fountained lawn. 
 
 " How did you like Dennis, while he was here ? " askod 
 Anne. 
 
258 STILL LIFE 
 
 " I'm sorry he's gone back. . . . Did you like him ? " 
 
 " Sometimes very much sometimes not at all." 
 
 " He thinks an awful lot of you." 
 
 " Yes ! " Anne was hardly interested in that. " I like 
 him for his moments," she went on. " I'm too old to 
 accept him altogether." 
 
 " You think that's what I do ? " 
 
 " Yes . . . why not ? Even in his worst moments there's 
 something quite his own, if not quite himself I mean he's 
 individual enough to be taken in the lump. Only I haven't 
 enough energy to respond to his demands perhaps not 
 enough goodwill I can't for ever be running false tracks 
 with him after himself." 
 
 Maurice looked enquiringly at her. 
 
 " He knows they're false before he begins. . . . He knows 
 perfectly well that he starts with a sentimental conception 
 of himself. . . . There's no harm in that, but I don't see why 
 he should expect me to accept it too . . . and then he wants 
 me to sympathise with his reactions against his own 
 sentimentality. . . . No, I lose patience altogether with that. 
 I told him so this morning." 
 
 " But surely, he can't help it ? " 
 
 " I'm sure he can. ... I know he won't try to drag me 
 into it again. It's only a kind of cruelty. He wants to 
 punish everybody for his own sins ; so he appeals to your 
 sympathy, and then when it really is excited and you again 
 giving him all you have, he tells you point-blank that it's 
 not himself after all that you're getting concerned about 
 No, I'm too old for that now." 
 
 " But you do like him ? ... I'd hate to feel that you 
 didn't. He was the only friend I had." 
 
 " I like him immensely, and always have." 
 
 " Did you enjoy that walk together ? " 
 
 She thought and said, " Yes, he had some of his better 
 moments then." 
 
 " What did you talk about ? . . . I often wonder what he 
 says to other people." 
 
STILL LIFE 259 
 
 " He asked me why I went away with you." 
 
 " Yes." Maurice felt again a calm, almost an indif- 
 ference, in Anne, as though she had decided, and her 
 decision had taken all urgent meaning from the past. 
 That was impossible for him, but he tried to assume the 
 manner. 
 
 " And what did you say ? " 
 
 " I said I came because I thought that you needed me." 
 Though he desired to ponder what she said and kept 
 silence to do so, he could not. Strangely, his mind seemed 
 to be set at a different angle, and he could not adjust it. 
 Her words fell, as it were, with but half their significance 
 achieved. But he felt that she was not reluctant to answer 
 his questions. Nor was she eager. 
 
 " What did he say to that ? ... or was he satisfied ? " 
 The latter question was an instinctive attempt to trap her 
 into silence. He hastened to cover it. " No he wouldn't 
 have been satisfied, anyhow." 
 
 " He asked whether I thought that you needed me the 
 whole of me, that is, and I said ' No.' ' 
 
 " Did you really mean that ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 Maurice stood still and stared at the fountain. The 
 springing water seemed to poise immobile. 
 
 They turned round to walk the length of the cloister 
 again. Maurice had saved himself from fully realising her 
 word. In the shell of his mind he began to establish a case 
 for his righteous resentment. That Anne had said he did 
 not need the whole of her was not a revelation of his short- 
 comings, but a confession that she had been the first to 
 fail. If she could say that about their love of course it 
 was not true how could she love him ? Love, why the 
 very essence of it was that each should see perfection in the 
 other. He saw her perfection and loved her. She saw, she 
 imagined that she could see his imperfection, and she 
 couldn't love him, not really. . . . But for all this clamourous 
 rhetoric of his outer mind, which he dared not allow to 
 
260 STILL LIFE 
 
 pass into speech, there was another argument being held 
 and other conclusions reached, with no encouragement of 
 his, in the inner chambers. 
 
 There Anne's word was felt for truth. There it was said 
 that he saw Anne's perfection and rebelled against it, if he 
 did not hate her for it ; that Anne saw his imperfection 
 and yet loved him ; that he was conscious of his imperfec- 
 tion, yet resented a love that was conscious of it. 
 
 The two arguments spun on together, until a cold depres- 
 sion descended upon him and drove the artificialities of 
 his outer mind to the winds. The inner thought remained, 
 hard and inevitable. He submitted, simply because he 
 had no more the force to repel or repress it. Therefore it 
 carried no consequences and set moving no reactions. At 
 the same time he felt its truth, and did not feel at all. A 
 chill, grey mist enwrapped him, and in him there was only 
 a vague desire to do nothing more, but to be borne along 
 by the impact of outward things. 
 
 Yet he was keenly sensible of his silence while he sat in 
 the cart opposite Anne on the way homeward. He must 
 explain somehow. Because he never even conceived that 
 he might confess the truth, he was naively surprised and 
 as pleased as he could be then, that his words were so 
 nearly true. 
 
 " I feel dead, absolutely tired out. . . . It's the reaction 
 after yesterday . . . and the day before," he added, remem- 
 bering that yesterday had its past. 
 
 " It's terrible," she said. . . . " I know what it's like." 
 She looked at him with love so evident that he was almost 
 comforted. For a second he thought that she had really 
 believed him. He dismissed the thought, rather it was 
 driven out by another, that she had read her meaning into 
 his words and believed that. " The reaction after yester- 
 day." He wondered how much she knew everything. 
 Not everything. ... He hugged the memory of the letter 
 in his pocket, though he knew that her knowledge might be 
 complete, was complete, without any suspicion of a letter. 
 
STILL LIFE 261 
 
 She could deduce a letter, he suddenly thought, from his 
 confession on Saturday night. He began to be angry with 
 his foolishness ; but immediately he sank back into the 
 lethargy from which he had waked. 
 
 " Aren't you cold, Anne ? " he said. She shook her 
 head. " I am, terribly," he said, and shivered involun- 
 tarily as one who wakes into a cold room. Cold and luke- 
 warm ripples passed over his body like puffs of wind on a 
 pool. He shivered again, violently. 
 
 " It can't be far to go now," said Anne. ..." You really 
 need a change." 
 
 The steady love that rang unmistakably in her words be- 
 wildered him. If it had not been so plain, he could have 
 been certain that she was tormenting him deliberately. 
 " Need a change." But Anne couldn't be consciously 
 cruel to him, and for unconscious cruelty she knew too 
 much. He hugged the thought of the letter ; that was a 
 secret of his own, at least. Yet in itself he hated the letter ; 
 it was potent with tortures for him. Only against Anne 
 was it a thing of his own and positive. " You really need 
 a change." The memory of her words revolted against his 
 thoughts. Their sound was a gentle music lingering like 
 the note of bells, rung so far away that one may not discern 
 whether they or his fancy is playing. :t You really do need 
 a change." It was the note of conviction. Words so 
 spoken were true, whatever they might mean. Perhaps 
 he did need a change. 
 
 Then he had a vision of a new-found self, new-born from 
 the womb of the world, radiant in sunny lands, and careless. 
 His brain played him a familiar trick over that culminating 
 word. He hesitated for a hair's breadth of time to wonder 
 what " careless " really meant, and he waited too long. 
 The word split up into fantastic syllables, united again 
 into serpentine and unintelligible lines. It passed from 
 emptily simple into the kabbala of the universe and back 
 again ; and when he held it, he held only eight signs carven 
 in indecipherable stone. . . . Then returned a vision of him- 
 
262 STILL LIFE 
 
 self moving freely over hills through olive woods, scrambling 
 down a sheer path to a beach, launched in a wonderful 
 white boat, and smiling in his body, responsive to all 
 created things. He plunged eagerly into the sunshine 
 without a pause to laugh at his own romanticism. The 
 God-given antidote poured through his veins. He was 
 there. The blue bay, the white boat, the olive woods that 
 clung black on to the cliff-edge, the little house swung in 
 air half-way down the cliff, the golden beach, the amazing 
 winds, and the radiance of the sun . . . 
 
 " Anne," through his voice, she heard the note of 
 guilty, shamefaced, boyish laughter. " Anne ... I am 
 glad we're going abroad." He sat back and looked at 
 her with an unsteady smile, rejoicing in the light that 
 came instantly to her eyes. Then he looked from right 
 to left, forward along the homeroad and behind, for 
 he was ashamed that she should see the waves of his 
 unconquerable laughter, rippling softly and incessantly 
 through him to a final plash on the shore which he 
 struggled so stoutly to deny to them. So they reached 
 home. 
 
 Against the strong rock of that ecstatic triumph the 
 tides of reaction were powerless. He was very happy, and 
 talked to her for many hours every day of the places they 
 would visit. Paris, of course. You had to go there to get 
 anywhere, but they would only stay there a couple of days. 
 In any case they knew Paris. They compared recollections 
 of travel, above all recollections of Paris, whereto Maurice's 
 travel had been chiefly confined. Anne was not unpre- 
 pared to find that he knew a different Paris from hers ; but 
 he was amazed that she knew so little of his, and he re- 
 mained rather doubtful whether hers truly existed. A 
 boat on the Rhone from Lyons, the Mediterranean coast 
 from Pyrenees to Alps. Corsica he gave her his vision, 
 and generously made a place for her upon the golden beach, 
 which he set in the island Siena, Assisi he even quoted 
 
STILL LIFE 263 
 
 Propertius Sicily, the Adriatic, Spalato he reminded her 
 that there was a war or something at Durazzo Corfu, and 
 why not Greece and the Islands ? 
 
 " Why not ? " said Anne. She, too, was wonderfully 
 happy, but controlled and determined, as when she in- 
 sisted against his indignant protests, on giving him one 
 hundred of the unexpected pounds. 
 
 " It's better that you should not have to ask me for 
 money," she said. " It is not fair to you." Grudgingly, he 
 gave way. Again she insisted that he should order new 
 clothes, when they went together to cash the broker's 
 cheque in London. 
 
 " I don't want them. Besides, they'll take a week." 
 
 " Not if you insist on having them in four days. ... I 
 think you have to live in my manner, not I in yours. It's 
 only a question of age." 
 
 Inside the shop he was pleased to be buying clothes. It 
 was easy and delightful. Moreover, it was Anne who 
 insisted with the tailor. 
 
 " But what a lot of money we're spending," he said, 
 half in remonstrance, half in admiration, when they 
 emerged into the street. 
 
 " There are times," she replied, " when spending is one 
 of the great joys, one of the real ones. It sounds cheap, 
 I know ; but it's true." 
 
 Maurice was content with that, on the strength of his 
 own new experience. It was, indeed, very new to him, and, 
 when they reached home, after four days in a quiet hotel, 
 he pulled out his pocket-book in his own little room in 
 order to bring himself to earth again. He read the letter 
 and was something moved by it, but so little that he said 
 to himself, " It's amazing how soon I can be dead to a 
 thing like this." He made up his mind to burn the letter, 
 but when he had gone circuitously to reach the kitchen 
 fire, he replaced it in his case. " After all, it's a relic," he 
 said. 
 
 They decided to start in the three days' time. A letter 
 
264 STILL LIFE 
 
 from Dennis, lecturing in Sheffield, enquiring curiously 
 whether the plan still held, and asking that, if it did, they 
 would send him some account of the places they were going 
 to and the time they would be there, because he had an 
 idea that Sheffield had finished him, compelled them to fix 
 a day for his information. Anne fixed on Sunday, " be- 
 cause," she said, " travelling in England on Sunday is so 
 terrible that there's a double thrill in travelling away from 
 it." Maurice replied to Dennis accordingly that they were 
 starting for Paris on Sunday, from whence they would go 
 on to Lyons and the Rhone boat ; but they did not know 
 how long they were to stay in Paris. 
 
 " We were only going to stay a couple of days," he wrote, 
 " but Anne has since been rather full of the idea that she 
 would like to stay there longer, and know my Paris. I 
 suppose that means that I shall have to know hers. And 
 that may take a good deal longer than two days. In any 
 case, I'll write to you immediately we get there, and 
 certainly tell you when we are going away. We are both 
 very excited." 
 
 He looked across the table with the end of the pen in his 
 mouth before addressing the envelope. " If we're going to 
 have a fortnight in Paris," he said, " and do the same right 
 up to Durazzo, Greece and the Islands, it's a good job you 
 didn't get that piano, Anne." He coloured as he said it, 
 and to cover himself he said : 
 
 " Durazzo, Greece and the Islands. ... It would be worth 
 while being a porter to have that to shout on a platform, 
 don't you think ? " 
 
 " I do," said Anne. 
 
 END OF PART I 
 
PART II 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 " ANNE, it was last Monday week that we came over here, 
 wasn't it ? Yes, it must have been. I can remember the 
 days all right, if I think about them. . . . It's hard to think 
 about them properly, because they haven't been days at 
 all weeks or seasons. ... I mean it's nonsense to say that 
 we've only been here a week and a day. One could do that 
 anywhere, be a week and a day in Sheffield even. ... I 
 don't know what has come over me, perhaps it's only lazi- 
 ness, but I feel that I couldn't move on, not even to Lyons, 
 until this comes to an end naturally. . . . Everything's so 
 clear, so certain. It's probably only the air, after all. Look 
 at those men down there." 
 
 They were sitting together on the balcony of a small and 
 admirable hotel close to the Opera, at ten o'clock in the 
 morning. Maurice was pointing to a French workman in 
 a blouse, with black moustaches, who was clattering a pas 
 seul in the middle of the cobbled street below. Another 
 blue-bloused workman, and a woman, bareheaded, wrapped 
 in a shawl, and approaching fatness, stood still on the 
 pavement to laugh at their friend. In a moment he stopped 
 his dance abruptly, ran, holding his hands in his pockets, 
 with little steps back to his companions. 
 
 The three went down the street together, the two men 
 singing, arm in arm, and the woman pausing every now and 
 then that some of her laughter might bubble up, as it were, 
 to the surface of her body. 
 
 " I feel rather like that," said Maurice, "or if I don't 
 
 265 
 
266 STILL LIFE 
 
 feel exactly like that, I can understand it perfectly well. 
 I always had a pretty good opinion of Paris ; but I never 
 gave it credit for this kind of thing." 
 
 " I'm so glad," said Anne. " I don't think that I would 
 have a single thing altered nothing that's happened since 
 we crossed in the boat. It's all been new even to me. I 
 could hardly believe it was Versailles yesterday and I 
 was once there at school. . . . But only one term." 
 
 " What wonderful stuff that coat is made of. I can't 
 help looking at it." Maurice took hold of Anne's sleeve, 
 and felt the pearly grey cloth. It was very soft, and it 
 glinted with something of silver in the morning sun. 
 " That's the tenth time I've done that this morning, at 
 least. . . . For Heaven's sake tell me to leave off." 
 
 " Why ? Every time you do it, you justify my own 
 extravagance. Say a louis a time ; and you have to 
 admire it once more at least to make 275 francs. You 
 know that's what I paid for it, don't you ? 
 
 "To me it seems ridiculously cheap. . . . No, really, I 
 mean it. I know I should never be able to spend eleven 
 pounds on a coat and skirt in England. But here it's 
 different, quite different." 
 
 Anne stood up, thrusting her hands into the deep pockets 
 of the long coat. A collar of brilliant blue silk curved up 
 almost to her ears. 
 
 " You do look beautiful." 
 
 " I feel beautiful." 
 
 " Yes, of course, but that must be a glorious feeling." 
 He leant against the balcony rail. " Do you know I've 
 thought about that several times during the week, what it 
 must be like for a woman to know she is beautiful. . . . This 
 is the first time in my life I ever realised what a beautiful 
 woman is." He spoke as confessing. " Of course I've 
 seen them but I've never been really near one before. 
 While we were in the country I didn't notice you. I believe 
 it's because you've been different since we came over here. 
 But, to be intimate with a beautiful woman . . . it's really 
 
STILL LIFE 267 
 
 a new world to me. To realise it you have to study it. 
 Until now I always thought that women just were beautiful. 
 I mean that beauty was a sort of accident. Now I have an 
 idea that to be beautiful for a woman could be perhaps 
 it ought to be the end." 
 
 " And I've taught you that ! I hope I haven't turned you 
 into a voluptuary. ... I can't help it. You make me very 
 happy when you say that. Even it makes me feel more 
 beautiful still." Anne smiled at him. " That's mutual 
 honesty at any rate." 
 
 " I don't know whether I'm degenerating or not, but do 
 you know, Anne, at that place where we had dinner last 
 night, I felt a real thrill because everything was so 
 exquisite and you were so wonderful. It was quite new 
 to me, I felt it was quite right for everything to be so 
 expensive it was expensive, wasn't it ? I'm sure I 
 shouldn't have been half so excited or happy if things had 
 been the proper price." 
 
 " That's my Paris doing its work. . . . But I wonder if 
 you have the same feeling as I have. I've had it before 
 here, but then it was only a shadow of what it is now. . . . 
 It feels to me so splendidly dangerous. As if it might 
 suddenly all disappear like a feast in the Arabian Nights, I 
 always have somebody at my elbow saying, ' It never can 
 happen again ' ; that makes me so aware of everything. 
 I think that I never can forget the smallest thing that 
 happens. It's not that I'm sad but my nerves are all 
 alert and noticing, simply because they will never have 
 the chance to notice these things again." 
 
 Maurice looked anxious. " But do you really believe it 
 never can happen again ? " 
 
 " It's not a case of believing. I don't believe and I 
 don't think. It's just a feeling that's always there whether 
 I want it or not. I don't even go so far as not to want it. 
 It gives everything a quality ; it makes them unforgettable. 
 . . . And, after all, why should things happen again ? They 
 might be dull the second time. No ... I love the things 
 
268 STILL LIFE 
 
 that come to me with ' never again ' written on their 
 foreheads. What's more, I think they're the only real 
 ones." 
 
 " Perhaps you're right. I don't know. I shouldn't dare 
 to think to feel that. It makes me so terribly miserable. 
 Even your talking about it has made me sad." 
 
 " I shouldn't wonder if that's why you don't feel it ... 
 because you don't allow yourself to. But tell me, honestly, 
 isn't half your feeling that this last week's been so wonder- 
 ful, just the same as mine ? " 
 
 "I dare say it is, but I can't believe it. I can't afford to. 
 No. ... I don't believe it's really true either. ..." 
 
 " Well, it doesn't matter, one way or the other." 
 
 " I think it does." 
 
 " Why ? Things never do happen again. The reason 
 why I feel it so much now is that this has been is very 
 wonderful. And if it ever comes to regretting that things 
 won't come again, it will be this and things like this I shall 
 regret. But there's nothing terrible in that. How many 
 people have something that they can truly regret, some- 
 thing so fine that even in regretting it, they are happy ? 
 No, I shan't be one of a crowd, nor you. But really it 
 doesn't matter. You'll risk its happening again all the 
 same, and it won't come again. It may be better or it may 
 be worse, but it won't be the same. I took the risk in 
 coming back to my Paris and this is what came of it. 
 You're going to take the risk when you begin to show me 
 yours. . . . Please don't look sad. It's only one of my 
 philosophies. I'm sure it's very crude and feminine." 
 
 " I'm sure it isn't. But it frightens me, that's all. I 
 can't understand why it doesn't frighten you." 
 
 She seemed to ponder for a little while. "I wonder why. 
 I have a vague idea that it might be the cynicism of age. 
 After all, I am old very old. And I can see that it might 
 sound cynical to you. But that can't be the reason. I 
 can't remember when I didn't have the same idea. It's 
 part of my temperament. Does it make me happier or 
 
STILL LIFE 269 
 
 sadder, I wonder ? . . . Happier, I'm sure. I seem to taste 
 everything. . . . 
 
 " But what about your friend Ramsay, wasn't it ? 
 You said we were going to see him, and have tea this after- 
 noon. Is that decided, or have you changed your plans ? 
 I'm under your management from to-day on, remember." 
 
 " Yes, we'll do that, but I ought to have written to him. 
 I'll send a bleu. It'll get to him before one o'clock, and I 
 must see about the room for Dennis. I wish he'd been 
 sensible and told us exactly when he's coming. Even if he 
 came immediately he sent the telegram, he wouldn't arrive 
 till to-morrow morning. At least I don't think so." 
 Maurice pulled the crumpled telegram from his pocket, 
 read once more, " Sheffield's done it. Coming Paris," and 
 laughed. " It's Dennis all over. He sent that at twenty- 
 past eight this morning. I bet he was awake all night 
 trying to decide. Even if he sent it on his way to the 
 station he wouldn't be in time for the afternoon boat. He 
 might, though. Oh, I don't know. I'd better go to see 
 about a room now to be quite safe. He'll have to pay if he 
 comes late. And I'll write to Bill. . . . That's Ramsay. 
 Everybody calls him ' Bill.' ' 
 
 He went back into the sitting-room and sat down at a 
 little table to write. The smooth polished table, the fair 
 note-paper discreetly stamped "Hotel d' Avignon," the clean 
 blotter, the shining inkstand, all decorously invited his 
 attention and combined to make the writing of notes a 
 pleasure. He could have written to all his friends, nearly 
 all forgotten friends, for the mere luxury of it. The sense 
 that life was perfectly modulated in that room laid hold 
 of him again, and he glanced backward through the long 
 window at Anne, who leant over the balcony and watched 
 the street below. He could not restrain his feeling of pride 
 that he was with her in the room. The room was hers, 
 even if it was common to both of them. It was her hotel 
 and the room her choosing. He was not yet free from his 
 surprising discovery that a hotel could be so quietly perfect 
 
270 STILL LIFE 
 
 that Anne seemed to be settled in her own possessions 
 while she stayed there. And he himself, he thought, had 
 fitted in with the surroundings. No, it was not snobbish- 
 ness that made him happy to be with her in a place like 
 that. That was how fife ought to be lived, with some 
 exquisite refinement in its very commonplaces. It made 
 you strong to go your own way. He did not worry about 
 anything any more. Instead, he was perfectly content to 
 follow in Anne's train and enjoy. If you always approached 
 life from that angle it would always be wonderful. That 
 was the real secret of last week. 
 
 The thoughts that wreathed about him were not thoughts 
 at all, for they never formed. He was too thoroughly in 
 tune with his regimen to feel more than a pervading con- 
 tentment. There was nothing to irritate and stimulate 
 him into thinking. He looked at Anne again. She had 
 turned and was looking into the room at him, leaning back 
 with her elbows rested upon the balcony rail ; and he, 
 involuntarily smiling, got up and went towards her. 
 
 " Anne, I don't think I'll send a note to Ramsay. I'll 
 go myself. If he's not in, I can find somebody else. Be- 
 sides, it'll be good to walk over the river, through the 
 Luxembourg, Won't you come ? " 
 
 " No, it's better you should go alone I'll stay out here 
 and read a book. You'll be back soon ? By one o'clock ? " 
 
 " Easily. . . . It's not very far. Or distances don't seem 
 to be very much here." 
 
 " Well, I'll wait for you here. . . . Are you sure you want 
 me to go with you this afternoon ? I'd be quite happy by 
 myself if you'd rather go alone." 
 
 " But I want you to come. It was arranged. Besides, 
 you'll like Ramsay. I only wanted to run over and see if 
 he was in." 
 
 " Very well, but won't you have lunch together ? ' 
 
 " I don't suppose so ... I'll come back for it." 
 
 " I won't expect you, anyhow, so that you're free." 
 
 " Au revoir." 
 
STILL LIFE 271 
 
 He went into the bedroom and put on a coat and hat. 
 He was very pleased that Anne had made him buy clothes 
 before he came away, and now he was gently elated, that 
 his grey coat looked so neatly bright and fitted him so well. 
 He went back to say good-bye again, really to be inspected 
 by Anne. She did not fail him. 
 
 " I think you look very well in that coat, very well in- 
 deed," she shifted it a little on his shoulders. 
 
 Happily conscious of well-being he went down the stairs. 
 His conversation with the lady at the bureau about the 
 room for Dennis went more easily than a like conversation 
 had ever gone before, and in French of uncommon fluency. 
 He surprised himself by arranging that should Dennis not 
 arrive until the morrow he would not be called upon to pay 
 for the night, and the lady surprised him by acquiescing 
 without the least protestation. He walked quickly into 
 the Tuileries. 
 
 A clear blue sunlight shone on the pink marble of the arc 
 Carrousel. A fresh spring breeze leapt up and down upon 
 the cobbles of the roadway. The busy motor buses emerged 
 swiftly from the arches and buzzed like noisy summer 
 beetles round the curve. Anne's words " It never can 
 happen again " came into his mind. He replied to them 
 by wondering why it should ever stop. Even while he 
 agreed to the vague suggestion that things had to have an 
 end, he could see none. As for money, there was Anne's. 
 Besides, he could surely earn something, sooner or later. 
 He might really sit down and write a book. That was an 
 uncanny way of looking at things, that of Anne's. He did 
 not have long to shudder over it, for he immediately began 
 to think of Ramsay. It was delightful to be going, unex 
 pected, to his studio. Ramsay would be so glad to see him. 
 He always was glad. Maurice began to anticipate his 
 welcome. Ramsay would smile, with a trace of bewilder- 
 ment, then grip his hand : " Hullo, Temple ! I'm shaving," 
 although the lather on his face was so obvious. He would 
 walk about the room for half an hour then, continually 
 
272 STILL LIFE 
 
 stroking his shining face with his brush, never wholly for- 
 getting that he was engaged in his toilet, never quite 
 remembering. 
 
 The sudden fancy that Eamsay might not be at home 
 spurred him to run. He was up the stairs and ringing at 
 the bell before he could be rid of the fancy. Immediately 
 he heard some steps within, and was once more happy with 
 expectation. 
 
 The door opened. " Hullo, Temple ! " Maurice could 
 hardly believe it was he, so perturbed had he been. The 
 dressing-gown, the smooth black hair, the dark eyes that 
 kindled when they looked at him, the tall white sunny 
 studio behind, they were more like the sudden realisation 
 of a dream than a steady reality. He almost gasped with 
 delight. 
 
 "I'm just up," said Ramsay. 
 
 " I knew you'd say that." 
 
 Ramsay looked at him curiously, and a smile began to 
 light in his eyes. " I always seem to be just getting up. 
 Is that it ? " 
 
 Maurice nodded. " I couldn't help wondering as I came 
 along what you'd say. I decided that would be some of it. 
 I thought you'd be shaving, too." 
 
 " Only just beginning." He pointed to his brush and 
 water standing ready in a corner. " What on earth is the 
 time ? " 
 
 " About half-past eleven. Perhaps a bit more than that. 
 Say a quarter to twelve." 
 
 " Is that so ? " Ramsay looked absorbed, as though he 
 were trying to translate the information into a language 
 of his own. " Isn't it a wonderful day ? " He walked over 
 to his big windows and drew the light curtains wide. The 
 sunlight poured in, broken into a thousand tiny jets of cool 
 light by the leaves of a tree outside, newly unfolded. They 
 stood together by the window and looked out upon the yard 
 below. A cart squatted lazily upon its beam end, like a dog 
 on its haunches. 
 
STILL LIFE 273 
 
 " How have you been getting on, Temple, since I saw 
 you in London ? . . . Why, it must be a couple of years and 
 more since you were here, isn't it ? It's not changed so 
 very much. What have you been doing ? Someone I 
 forgot who told me you were writing on some paper or 
 other." 
 
 " I was, but I've given it up now for the present at any 
 rate. I'm on a holiday. What have you been doing ? " 
 
 " Oh, the same thing. You won't remember any of this 
 stuff. Nearly all of it's new. At least there's none of it 
 more than two years old. You see they've just made up 
 their minds to take a fancy to me as I was ten years ago. 
 I've sold all the stuff that I thought was studio lumber. 
 It's a pity I haven't got any more of it. But when they 
 get to the point of asking me why I don't still paint the 
 same way as I did ten years ago, it's rather annoying 
 yes, rather annoying. . . . 
 
 " Still, I've made more money out of my old pictures in 
 a year than I have out of my new ones in five. But then, 
 it's only money. If someone came and gave me two 
 hundred for this " he pointed to a large canvas, an ample 
 design of dancing men and women " it wouldn't be only 
 money. That's too much to expect though. . . . Will you 
 have some tea ? It's my breakfast making that noise in 
 there." A kettle lid slammed and clattered behind a door. 
 
 They sat down on a sofa beside a low table. Ramsay 
 made tea with a deliberate care, swathing the blue teapot 
 round with a cloth. The tea stood like clear amber in the 
 cup. Maurice watched the smooth black hair on his head 
 as he bent down to cut bread, and thought that Ramsay, 
 too, was perfect, the perfect accomplisher of his purposes. 
 
 " How long are you stopping here ? " 
 
 " I'm not sure. We were going on to Lyons at the end 
 of the week, but we may be longer now." 
 
 Ramsay went on cutting. ; ' You'd best stay awhile, 
 while the weather is like this. It's really possible to live 
 in a Paris spring, I feel alive. I could do anything and 
 
274 STILL LIFE 
 
 eat anything. But I stick to porridge and brown bread 
 in the morning. It's a habit now." 
 
 Maurice had time to bring himself to explain the " we." 
 " You didn't know I was married, did you ? My wife's 
 over here with me." 
 
 " Is that so ? " Ramsay gave him again the look of 
 half-comprehension. " How long have you been married ? ' ' 
 
 " Only a month." 
 
 Ramsay nodded. " Don't believe in it myself. It would 
 interfere with me. . . . But why didn't you bring Madame 
 along with you ? " 
 
 " I wanted to bring her to tea this afternoon." 
 
 " That's a good idea. I'm not working to-day. There's 
 Miss Etheredge coming this afternoon. But that won't 
 matter. You know her." 
 
 " All the better," said Maurice. 
 
 " Do I know your wife ? Who was she ? " 
 
 " No, I don't think you do. She was a Mrs. Cradock." 
 
 Again Ramsay accepted the information in the same 
 way. He seemed to be attending with one self, while the 
 other went on being Ramsay. 
 
 " Not the wife of the writer-fellow ? " 
 
 " I dare say. Cradock's a dramatic critic." 
 
 " Gave him a real drama to criticise, did you ? Quite a 
 good idea. ... Do you know, for a moment I thought you 
 had married that girl you used to be about with here. You 
 remember that night I met you at that little restaurant. 
 ... By the way, what's become of that young chap 
 French, wasn't it who was with you then ? " 
 
 " I haven't heard of him for years only once since we 
 were here together. He was somewhere out in Russia, 
 when I had a letter from him." 
 
 " Nice chap." 
 
 " He's a good sort," Maurice agreed. 
 
 " I'm glad you didn't marry that girl. What was the 
 good ? They don't expect to be married ; but they're 
 ready to take a chance when they see a soft thing. You 
 
STILL LIFE 275 
 
 were a bit soft in those days, Temple. . . . And I wouldn't 
 marry a French girl, anyhow, if I had to marry. Then you 
 came up against a bit of real solid France, quite different 
 from the kind of thing you have here. I was down by 
 Bordeaux thirty miles away this summer. It was a 
 good job I went for the summer and not for the people. 
 They're just a little bit tougher than the people in a small 
 Scotch town. No, it'd take you all your time to survive 
 if you got wedged into that." 
 
 Maurice hesitated, then with an assumed carelessness, 
 said : "I don't think she was that kind of girl, all the 
 same." 
 
 " No, they never are. . . . She was a nice quiet girl though. 
 I liked her. Do you remember when we went to the cafe 
 the night I met you ? I never forgot how she sat next to 
 you, fairly weeping with toothache, while you explained 
 Bergson to me, and I put up Bill Crookes' electrons. I'm 
 still the same. I can go on talking about 'em for hours. 
 I should think I spend half my life talking. It's a good 
 thing to do when you can't work any more. Have you 
 brought any new theories over with you ? . . . What 
 about that Italian fellow you told me about the last 
 time you were here ? I've never heard anything about 
 him since." 
 
 " I don't know whether he has written anything more. 
 . . . No, I haven't got any theories. I'm getting dull. . . . 
 Things don't seem to be anything like as simple as they 
 used to be. I envy you ; you have a job and stick to it. 
 Your life doesn't get more complicated at all events, even 
 if it doesn't get simpler." 
 
 " Oh, I paint just as another fellow builds a steam-engine 
 or a bridge just because I have to. I don't know whether 
 it makes everything easier. I suppose it is solid enough to 
 stand on though." 
 
 " You've always got a point of view, and a pretty steady 
 one. I haven't one at all. I used to have yours, but it 
 didn't wear well for me," 
 
276 STILL LIFE 
 
 " There's something in that. . . . But why don't you get 
 something out of writing ? It's the same kind of thing as 
 painting, surely ? " 
 
 " Perhaps, but I always stop to wonder with it's all for. 
 If I'd got the habit of writing first and started to wonder 
 afterwards it would have been all right. That's how you 
 started painting, isn't it ? But now I have to convince 
 myself that there's something in it first. I haven't suc- 
 ceeded yet. The only thing I can see myself doing is to 
 write a book to show that everybody else is on the wrong 
 track. A devil of a lot of good that would be if I couldn't 
 say which was the right one. And even if I knew the right 
 one, I couldn't reply very much to anyone who said, 
 4 Show us some of your stuff.' ' 
 
 " But couldn't you get an idea out of these Egyptian 
 fellows ? They seem to have been pretty all right at the art 
 business. Didn't they write anything ? " 
 
 " Yes, but as far as I know it's the kind of stuff the 
 Pyramids might have written, facts about armies and wars 
 and gods, nothing else. It looks as though they didn't 
 believe in literature." 
 
 " Thought it was too sentimental, altogether ? " 
 
 " Something like that." 
 
 " I'm glad I didn't make a mistake and become a bloody 
 poet." 
 
 " So am I. ... But perhaps something'll turn up. I'll 
 make some amazing discovery. It's not so easy, though." 
 
 " It don't cost much to start, anyway. Two penn'orth 
 of paper and a pencil that's enough for a masterpiece. 
 You look at my bill for colours and canvas, and I have to 
 have a studio why, it costs a small fortune to set up in the 
 trade." 
 
 " That's true. But I do believe writing's more difficult, 
 at least harder to hit off in a straight line and go on in. ... 
 Lots of people find it devilishly easy, and successful. I 
 despise 'em all, but that doesn't stop me from envying 
 them. They nearly drive me mad with jealousy. When 
 
STILL LIFE 277 
 
 I'm feeling chirpy, I say to myself that it's because I can 
 see beyond that safely enough, but I can't see as far as the 
 next stage. It's a rotten position to be in. . . ." 
 
 " You don't want to be a B.W. Leader, and you can't 
 quite manage a Van Gogh yet ? " 
 
 " That's the idea. . . . But seriously you can't get over 
 the fact that words mean something. That's what they're 
 for. You can't just stick them about and make a pattern 
 with them. They have always got to mean something, 
 and what's more they have to mean something pretty big. 
 The time's past when you could put a middle-class man's 
 ideas into words and make a classic by putting them in 
 beautiful words. 
 
 " It'll always be done of course, until the year before 
 the judgment day ; but people are beginning to live by 
 ideas. They can't be patient while somebody tickles their 
 ears with a straw. There has to be a new idea now, you 
 see some sort of philosophy of life. You understand 
 what I mean ? Writing nowadays means representing 
 living people. Poetry is always second rate, now, simply 
 because the good people don't want to be delighted any 
 more, or they only want to be delighted just as they want 
 to play cricket or sail boats. 
 
 " We've got past that idea now. Now people want to 
 be justified, in their life. You can't just kill them off. 
 Battle, murder and sudden deaths they're only accidents. 
 What you have to prove now is that they are only accidents. 
 You can't burke the question by offering them a share in 
 eternal life on spec. It's not even entertaining any more. 
 No, they want to be justified here and now. I don't mean 
 that a writer has to justify a French politician or your 
 picture dealer, as a politician or a picture dealer. It 
 couldn't be done. The problem is this : stick two, three or 
 a dozen people together, watch them, represent them so that 
 everybody must admit that they have really justified their 
 existence. It's not so very simple is it ? " 
 
 " I'm not quite sure that I've understood. ... It sounds 
 
278 STILL LIFE 
 
 to me rather a sentimental idea. I believe you've been 
 corrupted." 
 
 " I believe you not that I've been corrupted, but that 
 I'm sentimental. There are all sorts of sentimentality. 
 It goes on evolving from kind to kind. All that a writer 
 can do is to discover the kind of sentimentality that the 
 next two hundred years will live by. That's all I have to 
 show for two years of my life, since I was here last. To- 
 morrow I shan't believe a word of it." 
 
 " That's a comfort. ... I don't want anybody worrying 
 me about whether I justify myself. I'd want to knock 
 him down." 
 
 " It's all right. I'm not a missionary. . . . But, Lord, I 
 do envy you, seriously I do." 
 
 " What's the good ? If you were a painter, you'd have 
 done two promising studies from the life, and spent the rest 
 of the time worrying if it was possible to beat Rembrandt 
 at his own game." 
 
 Maurice nodded, smiling. 
 
 " I couldn't. I have to be doing something, sailing a 
 boat, landing a fish, or punching somebody on the nose. I 
 paint, because I can put nearly all those things into it. 
 And you've no idea how a canvas like that takes it out of 
 me. I might have been punching a whole street full of 
 jaws, the way I sleep after it. ... But you look a bit better 
 than you used to. ... Been eating plenty of meat ? " 
 
 " I dare say. I've been in the country for the last month 
 in Richmond's cottage. ..." 
 
 " That's it. ... He's got a cottage somewhere on the 
 South Coast, hasn't he ? He said once I might use it. 
 I might have done when I was hard up ; but so long as 
 I've got any money, I'm not going back . . . what's he 
 doing ? " 
 
 " He's somewhere in Austria, I think. I've not heard 
 of him, but Dennis had a letter from some queer place out 
 there. . . . Oh, you don't know Beauchamp, do you ? He's 
 coming over here soon. You'll like him." 
 
STILL LIFE 279 
 
 Ramsay nodded his head in enquiring assent. " What's 
 he?" 
 
 " He is, at least he was, a doctor. He used to lecture at 
 a hospital. But he says he's given it up now." 
 
 " Old man ? " 
 
 " No, only a bit older than me." 
 
 ;( That's young to be lecturing at a hospital, isn't it ? " 
 
 " I don't know. He's very clever." 
 
 " Bring him along. . . . Are you going anywhere to 
 lunch ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Well, I'll get on with my dressing and we'll go 
 somewhere to Bourdon's." Ramsay disappeared behind 
 a door. Maurice wandered about the room. After his 
 words he was in a fever to be doing something of his own. 
 The tumult of his desire was vague and without focus, re- 
 awakened by every object that arrested him in his wander- 
 ing. Everything, the white table, the lamp of turquoise 
 blue, the great stove with its black pipe running straight 
 like the mast of a ship to the roof against the white wall, 
 had its order and its purpose, plainly subdued to Ramsay's 
 will. They came to a fine point in the canvas he was paint- 
 ing and were dominated by it. The room was a stronghold 
 of Ramsay's personality. Maurice felt that it was useless 
 for him to believe, as he had believed but a second ago, 
 that he could do something in a room like that, secluded at 
 will, and free to be alone and to be himself. The room was 
 not a preliminary but a result of victory. 
 
 There followed the tormenting thought that he was an 
 absolute charlatan, empty and futile, against Ramsay's full- 
 ness, and he felt a kind of terror lest he should be detected 
 as unworthy. But chiefly he was beset by the feverish 
 desire himself to achieve, to maintain himself upon his 
 achievement and approach Ramsay as an equal ; and with 
 the desire was the knowledge that he could achieve nothing 
 having no purpose fixed. It would be enough, he thought, 
 if he could do something that would deceive Ramsay. He 
 
280 STILL LIFE 
 
 might manage that. But what might deceive Ramsay 
 would not deceive Dennis ; and even if he could succeed 
 against both. ... He saw Anne sitting quietly in a chair 
 and watching him, and he knew that she would have seen 
 into the very first workings of his desire. No, he would 
 have to do something himself. He knew that he could do 
 nothing at all. 
 
 He lit a cigarette and smoked nervously. On the point 
 of calling out to offer Ramsay a cigarette he remembered 
 that Ramsay had given up smoking long ago, because it 
 interfered with his work. It was atypical achievement, he 
 thought, and went on in his journeying about the room. 
 Waking beneath his physical impatience was a sense of 
 moral futility. 
 
 The bell chain squeaked and the bell tinkled. 
 
 44 Will you go to the door, Temple ? I'm in my 
 bath." 
 
 A tall, thin man walked past him into the room. He 
 peered through his glasses with more indifference than 
 curiosity, and the slight stoop of his long body strengthened 
 the impression of indifference. 
 
 " Bill in ? " he said to Maurice. 
 
 " Bathing." Maurice spoke to give the effect of easy 
 intimacy. 
 
 " Who's that ? " called Ramsay. 
 
 " Only A. S.," the tall man replied. 
 
 " Shan't be a minute. You know Wauchope, don't you, 
 Temple ? " he called. Wauchope and Maurice shook 
 hands. Maurice knew the name well for that of a painter 
 friend of Ramsay's of whom Ramsay had a high opinion. 
 He was very clever. Maurice was uneasy at his reputation 
 and his appearance and he stood still in the middle of the 
 floor, while Wauchope stepped forward with his hat held 
 lightly in his hands, and looked at the large half-finished 
 picture. He drew himself back with a jerk after his 
 scrutiny and turned to Maurice. " What do you think of 
 that ? " 
 
STILL LIFE 281 
 
 Instantly Maurice decided for complete honesty. " I 
 don't understand it." 
 
 " Huh." Wauchope's short little laugh might have been 
 amusement or contempt. Maurice wondered whether he 
 laughed at the picture or at himself. 
 
 " I've heard of you, haven't I, from Miss Etheredge ? 
 Had a grande passion here two years ago, didn't you ? " 
 
 " Something of the kind." Maurice laughed not with 
 conviction, but to save himself. 
 
 " What are you doing now ? " 
 
 " Having a holiday." 
 
 " No, what are you having a holiday from ? " 
 
 " Myself." Maurice had realised suddenly that he would 
 have to fight against Wauchope. He gained a cheap 
 breathing space, and the time to congratulate himself that 
 it wasn't so cheap after all. 
 
 " That's sensible if you can bring it off. But what does 
 yourself do when it's not en vacances ? " 
 
 " Nothing. Something else tries to write a little, and 
 earns a little money by it." 
 
 " Huh. . . . Are there as many people who write a little 
 as there are people who paint a little ? " 
 
 " Quite, I imagine ; but just about the same number 
 who make a little money by it." 
 
 " What do you write about ? " 
 
 " Books mainly, all kinds of books." 
 
 " Met any good ones lately ? " 
 
 " Not one." 
 
 " Huh ! . . ." 
 
 Again Maurice could not tell whether it was meant in 
 disparagement of the books or himself, and was silent. 
 
 " What are your ideas about writing ? . . . . But, of 
 course, you've let off all your theories to him, already." 
 Wauchope nodded to Ramsay's room. 
 
 " All of 'em, I couldn't do it again." 
 
 " You have 'em at all events." 
 
 ** Sometimes." 
 
282 STILL LIFE 
 
 Maurice felt that he had held his own enough to be 
 able to inspect Wauchope. He looked at him steadily. 
 Wauchope seemed to be looking through him at a drawing 
 which hung on the wall, and then Maurice saw a faint light 
 in his grey eyes and a little movement on his lips, and felt 
 that Wauchope was laughing at him. He thought back to 
 find where he had given himself away by his words, and 
 found no place. But he could not leave things as they 
 were ; nor could he do or say anything definite lest he 
 should give Wauchope yet another hold upon him. 
 
 " Have you seen Miss Etheredge lately ? " he asked. 
 
 " No ! " Wauchope smiled. " We're rather given to 
 avoiding each other, as a matter of fact." 
 
 " I didn't think Miss Etheredge ever troubled very much 
 about avoiding people. She always seemed rather to seek 
 them out the moment she thought they were avoiding her. 
 . . . But, of course, I don't know very much about her. ..." 
 
 " Evidently not ... or you wouldn't confide your affec- 
 tions in her quite so much." 
 
 " Did I tell her so much then ? " 
 
 " Quite enough for her to make a very pathetic story 
 about it and very interesting." 
 
 " Well, I don't see there's very much harm done." 
 
 " It's for you to say, anyhow." 
 
 Maurice was weary of the effort to put up a defence 
 against Wauchope. He felt that even the attempted 
 defence gave him the more completely away, and he was 
 frightened of the man's strange uncaused hostility. He 
 desired to placate him, and in the pause offered him a 
 cigarette. Wauchope took it. Maurice was assiduous in 
 lighting it for him, and waited what he would say. 
 
 Fascinated, Maurice watched him as he stood. He was 
 holding his right arm across his body, his hat dangling 
 from his hand. In the fingers of the other hand he held the 
 cigarette against his lips. His elbow rested upon his right 
 arm. The attitude was artificial, yet it was not a pose. 
 Kather, thought Maurice, it was to deceive his company 
 
STILL LIFE 283 
 
 into'taking him at the obvious value of his attitude. One 
 impression, however, was for Maurice so unusual, that it 
 dominated all. He was sure that Wauchope was a man to 
 fascinate and frighten women ; and he uneasily suspected 
 that he himself in Wauchope's presence was like a woman. 
 
 Wauchope swept his arm about the room. " He's an 
 amazing man, isn't he ? " 
 
 " I think so." 
 
 " Bill ! " Wauchope called in a low voice that carried far. 
 
 " What is it ? " answered Ramsay. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Temple thinks you are an amazing man. . . . 
 Quite emphatic about it." 
 
 " That's all right then," Ramsay appeared with tousled 
 hair, leisurely dragging on a waistcoat. " Did you come 
 round for anything in particular, A. S. ? " 
 
 " I thought I'd see if you're coming to lunch." 
 
 " I was just talking about that to Temple there. We 
 thought of going to Bourdon's. Is that all right for you ? " 
 
 " Quite." Wauchope flicked the ash from his cigarette 
 on to the floor, as one in need of a gesture. 
 
 " There was something else, though. ... I think I'm 
 going to clear out of this place. . . ." 
 
 " Is that so ? ... Curious kind of time to choose though. 
 It's just begun to be tolerable again." 
 
 " Spring, you mean. . . . Yes, there's that. But it's not 
 the place, it's the people. I'm sick to death of having 
 second-hand ideas rammed down my throat by some fifth- 
 rate idiot every time I go out to have a drink at night-time. 
 If I can't have any intelligent company I'll have none at 
 aD." 
 
 " Why should you ? You can have your drink by your- 
 self But is it as bad as all that ? " 
 
 "I'm damned if I can see why it doesn't upset you. You 
 seem to revel in it. . . ." 
 
 Ramsay laughed. " I do. I enjoy it." 
 
 " You never seem to think a man's a fool until he earns 
 his living by being one. Or do you never make up your 
 
284 STILL LIFE 
 
 mind about anybody ? . . . But I can't drink by myself if 
 I'm stuck in Paris. I get mad with loneliness when I 
 think of everybody else drinking and talking and I'm not 
 there. No, I'll have to take some woman and go and 
 live in the country, where I simply can't find anybody at 
 night." 
 
 " It sounds all right but God pity the woman." 
 
 " What d'you mean ? " Wauchope looked as though he 
 had been discovered in murder ; Ramsay laughed as he 
 answered, brushing his smooth hair deliberately before the 
 glass. 
 
 " Damn it all. What do you expect ? Stick a woman 
 in the country, miles away from anywhere, with you when 
 you suddenly want to drink and talk to somebody well, 
 it's not going to be a bergerie exactly, is it ? " 
 
 " No," said Wauchope. " That's true. I suppose I shall 
 have to give up the idea of the woman." 
 
 "Why? Some of them like it." Ramsay finally 
 smoothed the hair down on to the bronzed nape of his neck. 
 ' You might manage a baby. Live in the open with plenty 
 of air and plenty to eat, and you couldn't help it. Intel- 
 lectual painter, simple wife, bouncing baby it ought to be 
 easy enough to work. Anyhow, it sounds quite the thing, 
 don't it, Temple ? " 
 
 Something about Wauchope made him answer as though 
 he had not been really attending to the conversation. 
 
 " What ? . . . Yes. ... I suppose it does." 
 
 " But you've really made up your mind ? " 
 
 " Yes, I was thinking of going to-morrow. I really 
 wanted to see if you knew of a good place." 
 
 " What sort of thing do you want a cottage or rooms 
 in an auberge ? . . . There's a place down by the Pyrenees 
 where we went the year before last, where they've got two 
 good rooms in the auberge, one quite good enough to paint 
 in. I did a good deal there. Would that be any good ? " 
 
 " Give me the address and I'll wire." 
 
 " But what are you going to do with your studio ? You 
 
STILL LIFE 285 
 
 have a woman to look after you. Are you going to take 
 her with you ? " 
 
 " Why, what difference does that make ? I've left her 
 here before now." 
 
 " I don't mean that. I was thinking that perhaps if you 
 cared to let it, Temple might take it for a bit. Better than 
 letting it lie empty. Besides, it's more a flat than a studio." 
 
 " But he could do it cheaper in a hotel. I'd expect him 
 to pay rent. He could board and lodge himself for that in 
 the Lille quite well, too." 
 
 " But he's got a wife, you see and a friend of his is 
 coming to stay with him for a bit. I thought it might be a 
 good notion." Ramsay finished his brushing, put on his 
 coat, and went to rummage for his hat. 
 
 " You're married, are you then ? " Wauchope turned 
 to Maurice and whistled. " That's another story. . . . 
 You'll have some fun when you tell Miss Etheredge that." 
 
 " Well, she won't have to wait long. I'm seeing her this 
 afternoon." 
 
 " You know where she lives then ? " 
 
 " No, I'm meeting her here at tea." 
 
 " Are you though ? " Wauchope called to Ramsay. 
 " Bill, may I come to tea this afternoon ? " 
 
 " Of course. But won't you be busy getting ready for 
 this holiday of yours ? " 
 
 ' l Trying to put me off ? " 
 
 " Not a bit. Only Etheredge is coming." 
 
 ; ' That's just the reason why I want to. She'll be begin- 
 ning to think I'm avoiding her." 
 
 " Aren't you, then ? " 
 
 " It all depends what you mean. I don't like her to 
 interfere with me, but I haven't any objection to interfering 
 with her." 
 
 " So that's it. But she may be angry with me for not 
 having told her. I'd better send her word. I don't want 
 a row here. And it's quite a party. Mrs. Temple is coming, 
 too." 
 
286 STILL LIFE 
 
 " Don't send. I'll not come to tea. But I don't promise 
 not to drop in afterwards. I'd like to see the merry gather- 
 ing." Wauchope glanced at Maurice. Kamsay led the 
 way to the door. Wauchope motioned with his hand that 
 Maurice should precede him. Irresolutely Maurice did 
 the same. After a fraction of a second he blushed, and 
 from his hesitation hurried out in front of Wauchope. He 
 seemed to hear the smile of amusement at his discomfiture. 
 
 During lunch they talked but little. Maurice strove to 
 avoid making any remarks of which Wauchope might take 
 hold, but listened with an assumed interest to the other 
 two, who spasmodically discussed the auberge at Villemain 
 St. Marie, and the immediate decadence of any salon 
 which had ever been or would ever be opened for painters 
 who were beyond the pale of Academies. Ramsay went 
 off the moment lunch was finished. He had business, he 
 explained, on the other side and invited Maurice to share 
 his cab. Wauchope saluted with an intense courtesy when 
 Maurice took his leave. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 MEANWHILE, during the morning, Anne had been reading 
 quietly on the balcony, more often glancing down into the 
 street than at her book. At lunch she was surprised by a 
 second telegram from Dennis announcing that he would 
 arrive at the Gare du Nord at half-past three that after- 
 noon. She read the telegram bemusedly many times as 
 she meandered through lunch, and dimly decided that she 
 would go to meet him. There was plenty of time to walk. 
 She had but little to do in the way of dressing, but it took 
 her half an hour ; so contentedly dreamy was she. Con- 
 tact with the bureau at her enquiry as to which was the 
 best, not the quickest but the best, way to get to the 
 station, awakened her. By the time she had stepped on to 
 the pavement she was alert to everything. A fleeting 
 thought that she had done something ridiculous in her 
 dressing nearly drove her back to the hotel, but she so 
 soon succumbed to the feeling that it was quite unim- 
 portant that she hardly checked her steps. 
 
 She regulated her pace carefully, after she had crossed 
 the Place de I'Op^ra ; she chose a decision in her steps in 
 order to avoid importunities ; she went slowly because she 
 desired above all things to forget that she was going any- 
 where. Her eyes turned delightedly from people to shops. 
 The delight of seeing was so vivid that she forgot to be im- 
 pressed by the objects she saw. Gradually a staring poster 
 asserted itself, claiming by its violent metallic red to be 
 comprehended as well as seen. She paused naturally in 
 front of it, long enough to read, "IS Amour, revue en 
 dix-neuf scenes" and to see that the authors and the artistes 
 were duly recorded upon the bill in their appropriate place. 
 
 287 
 
288 STILL LIFE 
 
 She walked on, saying mechanically to herself, " L' Amour, 
 revue en dix-neuf scenes." It would have contented her 
 until she had been forced to stop before another announce- 
 ment and forced to learn another tag, had not her tongue 
 tripped into another phrase, in spite of herself. She began 
 to say, " L'amour revu et corrige . . . Apres Poriginal . . . 
 par . . . par Anne Cradock." The hesitation she had in 
 rilling out the phrase brought it completely into her con- 
 sciousness. She smiled at the conceit, and her smiling 
 seemed to ripple joyfully through her whole body. She 
 glanced up at the sky, and came near to laughing at three 
 or four hard and woolly white clouds that trundled like 
 white-tailed rabbits along before the wind. 
 
 She walked on deliberate and happy. A sign hanging 
 in front of her : " Concerts Bleu : a trois heures de Vapres- 
 midi," held her attention. She went towards it. A young 
 man selling flowers offered her a red rose : she walked past 
 him, happier than ever in the thought that roses were 
 already in bloom, and she was reading the concert pro- 
 gramme at the door, before she remembered that the roses 
 had probably come from the South or from a big hot-house. 
 She detested hot-houses. They always reminded her of 
 the orchids at Kew that always looked more animal than 
 flower and gave her a queer feeling of horror. She started 
 suddenly. A red rose had been pushed between her eyes 
 and the concert bill. She followed the hand that held it, 
 until her glance fell upon the youth who had offered her 
 roses a moment ago. He was very offhand in his manner. 
 
 " Non, merci," she said automatically. 
 
 " Mais madame . . . Prenez-la, s'il vous plait. ..." 
 
 " Merci, je n'en veux pas." 
 
 " Mais madame . . . je vous la donne. ..." In spite of his 
 offhandedness he had begun to colour. In response to this 
 rather than to his words Anne took the bud in her fingers. 
 She was confused by the abruptness of the gift, and while 
 she hesitated, holding the flower helplessly, she saw the 
 young man lift his peaked cap. His hair was jet black. 
 
STILL LIFE 289 
 
 clinging to his forehead in little streaks. The assurance of 
 his twinkling little eyes hardly fitted with the rings of 
 colour in his sallow cheeks. 
 
 "... Vous etes si belle, madame." 
 
 She hurried through the swing-door into the lobby of the 
 concert-room. While she hastily fumbled with her purse 
 to find the five francs which the clerk at the controle, taking 
 advantage of her irresolution, suavely demanded from her, 
 she pricked her finger. A little pin had been stuck through 
 the stem of the rose. She gathered up her ticket and 
 pinned the bud into her coat. 
 
 She sat down and leaned back. A wave of physical 
 sensation rose and passed through and about her body 
 like a warm cloud, gathering itself from diffusion at her 
 breasts, leaving them kindled and glowing, ascending to 
 her face and steeping it as in intoxicating incense. From 
 the piano came miniature cascades of sound, oddly fan- 
 tastic, a procession of clumsy ridiculous toys, of all toys of 
 which a child has ever been really fond, woodenly galloping 
 horses, stiffly yodling men, the grave and definite tread of 
 inflexible elephants. Pair by pair they came, conscious 
 of their high and sacred mission, noisily themselves, out of 
 the eternal Ark. Never was music with a vision more fixed 
 or more inevitable. The endless procession prolonged into 
 following pairs of living men and women fixed into darling 
 toys for some pre-eminent child. The flower-boy was there, 
 lifting his peaked cap with a rigid arm, incessantly, holding 
 his roses as thanking the world for the bouquet given to 
 him as he passed across the stage. With him went a 
 doll woman, with spots of vivid red on her cheeks, and hair 
 blacker even than his own cut in a deep square fringe like 
 a geisha's ; but she wore a black wooden coat with a 
 painted red flower, and stared immovably in front of her. 
 
 The piano stopped. The clapping of hands made equal 
 accompaniment to the procession that went on forming 
 and passing before her. The fat man whom they had seen 
 in a grey dust-coat and small-brimmed panama hat, wind- 
 
290 STILL LIFE 
 
 ing his motor-car in the station yard at Boulogne, marched 
 corpulently before his little car with the woman, her grey 
 hair swathed in a black shawl, who had wheeled radiant 
 oranges in a perambulator beside the train. Jim followed. 
 His bigness made mock of his serious face. The mocking 
 became sheer absurdity when suddenly his head screwed 
 sharply right round and faced backwards, towards Maurice, 
 whose nodding head swung steadily up and down, crowned 
 by a shock of brown hair. Maurice was holding her hand, 
 and she was for all the world the very woman who had 
 walked out of the hotel that afternoon, stifTer perhaps in 
 her pearl-grey coat and curling blue collar, but the more 
 charming, only ridiculously small. She seemed to be 
 shepherding the flock, for her vision would not go beyond. 
 Into her head came the phrase she had learnt outside. 
 " L'amour, revu et corrige par Anne Cradock." She 
 was curiously anxious to know whether that was the whole 
 of her that had passed processionally before her eyes, 
 closed to isolate the scene. She opened them. Two rows 
 in front a man with fair hair and heavy eyelids that dropped 
 down by their own sheer weight half-way over his eyes 
 leant easily over the back of his chair to regard her. She 
 was conscious of the warmth of the blood in her body, and 
 the man seemed to have detected it. She looked steadily 
 beyond him, too, where the pianist was making ready for 
 another solo. 
 
 As the music began the fair-haired man lazily shifted 
 back to face the piano, leaving his arm hanging loosely 
 over the chair. Anne saw this though her eyes were fixed 
 on the player. What he played was instantly familiar, 
 Debussy's " Jardin sous la Pluie," and she anticipated her 
 delight. But the presence of the fair-haired man in front 
 of her determined her to control herself. She thought the 
 music was wonderfully true to Paris as it had been to her 
 of flat e, but her instant joy in its perfect fitness quickly 
 faded. It was as though at a certain note in the music her 
 heart had actually dropped, an infinitely little distance, 
 
STILL LIFE 291 
 
 but through empty space. The Paris she had felt of late 
 had been clear and beautiful, she thought, but now it 
 seemed also to have been cold and apart from her. She 
 had missed the warm outward radiance of herself into the 
 world, of which the music's summer rain had waked her 
 into awareness. It had been a wonderful spectacle, more 
 wonderful because she had not known that it had been only 
 a spectacle. 
 
 For a moment the contrast between the disappointment 
 of her discovery and the joyful knowledge of the warmth 
 and beauty of her own body made her so sad that she 
 could have bent forward and wept great tears, like the 
 intimate tears of a child. But the warm, wet notes poured 
 about the hall, comforting her, although she knew that 
 they would have comforted her yet more had she lost herself 
 enough to cry. But they glanced before her eyes like golden 
 sunlight on shower-wet leaves, and echoed in her ears like 
 tinkling crystals. The sound of the music had begun to 
 caress her before the misery of her thought could wholly chill 
 the glow which had been kindled by the young man's rose. 
 
 When it ended, and the fair-haired man swung back 
 again to regard her, she smiled at him in an irony of con- 
 descending pity, for she felt she had suddenly grown old. 
 Realising with an unpleasant start that it was much better 
 not to smile at him, however deep might be her irony and 
 her pity, she looked steadily beyond him again to the piano 
 on the platform. She quickly woke to a matter-of-fact 
 mood, and waited only for the music to begin and the man 
 to turn round again so that she could leave the concert- 
 room untroubled. In this mood she waited impatiently, 
 and while she waited she tried to dismiss her desire for 
 tears and her melancholy awakening as sentimentalities. 
 " As though it were the first time it's happened in a 
 concert-room," she thought, as the music began and the 
 fair-haired man slowly faced the piano. 
 
 She made her way out quickly, but her sternness with 
 herself did not prevent her from being embarrassed at 
 
292 STILL LIFE 
 
 passing the young man with the roses again. Beginning 
 to walk hurriedly with an assumption of pressing purpose, 
 she was checked by the feeling that it would be ungracious 
 to ignore him. She hesitated in the lobby, and then 
 walked out slowly, utterly undecided what to do. While 
 she pretended to be busy with her veil before the long 
 mirror, it occurred to her that she would pay him for the 
 rose if she saw him. But then he would refuse, and that 
 might be terrible. Anyhow, she could not offer him money 
 it was impossible. She turned round suddenly to sur- 
 prise herself into action, and caught sight of him on the 
 other side of the street. She seized the moment, and 
 hurried away, involuntarily turning back the way she had 
 come. " I'm going away from the station." She stopped 
 short in a kind of despair. Looking about her she saw a 
 clock. Twenty-five minutes to four. Of course ; the concert 
 only started at three. The most sensible thing she could 
 do was to hurry back to the hotel ; and she kept on her 
 way. 
 
 Nor did her denunciation of her own sentimentality 
 suffice to reinstate the mood in which she had approached 
 the concert. She could not help noticing, though she 
 walked straight on and looked in front of her, the obstinate 
 reality of a succession of short men, rather stout, with 
 luxuriant beards and black portfolios, supported by fat 
 hands. They would have depressed her had she not been 
 constantly alert for the red poster. She passed by it 
 quickly, for it seemed commonplace and sordid now. The 
 memory of the music abode with her, and became a standard 
 of criticism as she went along. She was disappointed with 
 herself for having allowed the place to impose on her, but 
 her disappointment did not make her so much unhappy as 
 consciously superior to her surroundings, too individually 
 herself to be cozened into responding instinctively to them. 
 Not only was this rather contemptuous detachment uncom- 
 fortable and depressing to her, but she knew that it was 
 wrong. 
 
STILL LIFE 293 
 
 Something, somewhere, had been wrong in her since she 
 came away from England. She had been indulging an 
 appetite of weakness that she had discovered in Maurice, 
 carefully administering an opiate. What if he woke out of 
 his dreams too ? She did not want to think of it. She had 
 certainly done wrong, and the idea she took of the wrong 
 she had done him was that she had not loved him enough. 
 The alternative was plain. She must love him more. Some 
 instinct warned her of the impossibility before she formed 
 for herself the reply that he did not want to be loved any 
 more. She felt the more keenly that she desired to love 
 him more, and that he refused it. By his refusal he re- 
 pressed her and made her conscious of the conflict between 
 herself and the world. She was none too sure of her con- 
 clusion about Maurice, though she was certain of her own 
 feeling about herself, and she was dimly oppressed by the 
 foreboding that she did not know how to love him. Though 
 she did her utmost to assure herself that it would be quite 
 different on the morrow, she was disillusioned and critical 
 as she entered the hotel. 
 
 She went to her bedroom first. She did not want to 
 meet Dennis and Maurice immediately. Their voices 
 sounded dully as she quietly opened her door. Inside she 
 stood by the pier-glass idly tidying her dress. The voices 
 sounded yet more plainly. Maurice's had an unexpectedly 
 high pitch, and was more boldly borne into the room. He 
 was excited about something. 
 
 Not for many months, perhaps years, had she been so 
 reluctant to enter a company. She was perplexed about 
 her own attitude, what she should say, how she should 
 bear herself when she went through the door. Nothing 
 in the situation, in Maurice or Dennis, suggested any 
 problem of her behaviour that might worry her : but the 
 hesitation had come once instinctively, and afterwards she 
 could not but be conscious of herself. Her insecurity was 
 apparent to herself, at least in her greeting to Dennis when 
 she opened the door of the sitting-room. She was by a 
 
294 STILL LIFE 
 
 fraction too ready with her outstretched hand, and she 
 thought that she herself could have detected an effusive- 
 ness in her manner, and the faint indication of an attitude 
 as she slowly closed the door. Fully in the presence of them 
 both, she at once forgot her hesitations, and she waited, as 
 she liked to wait, for Dennis to speak. 
 
 " I had to come. I was sick to death of the place and 
 the job." 
 
 " Are you sure you didn't wait to finish the job first ? . . . 
 A Monday afternoon arrival is rather suspicious." 
 
 " We did the same ourselves, after all," said Maurice. 
 
 " Yes, I finished the job. You're right. I do wish you 
 wouldn't deprive me of every shred of impulse, though." 
 
 " I don't think I do. I just take hold of your coat to 
 see what's underneath ; and before I can let go, you're 
 off with your coat and have flung it on top of me. . . . That's 
 nearer the truth at any rate. I'm sure I'm no enemy to 
 romantic impulse. . . . Morry can bear me witness. . . . 
 What of the Isles of Greece, the Isles of Greece ? " 
 
 Maurice laughed rather uncomfortably. 
 
 " What were you talking about just now ? I heard your 
 voice in the other room. You were very excited about 
 something." 
 
 " I believe you were listening." He was nearly serious. 
 
 " Morry ! " she expostulated. 
 
 " But where have you been ? " 
 
 " I went out with the idea of meeting Dennis. He sent 
 a second telegram at lunch. But the idea got lost in a 
 concert-room. I've only just escaped." She recited her 
 doings in monotone. " Now, Dennis, you tell me what 
 he's been talking about." 
 
 " I was only giving him some idea of a book I wanted to 
 write." Maurice hastily volunteered the information. 
 
 " Is that all ? " said Anne. 
 
 ".Well, I rather felt I wanted to be doing something," 
 apologised Maurice. Anne glanced from him to Dennis, 
 smiling. 
 
STILL LIFE 295 
 
 " I'm afraid he's watered it down a bit," Dennis said. 
 
 <: I'm afraid so, too. He could have whispered that. . . . 
 How long are you going to stay here ? " she asked. 
 
 " I don't know. As long as I like. I really have given 
 up the hospital. Would you like it in black and white ? " 
 He hunted in his pocket-book, and handed her an official 
 letter accepting his resignation. It was extremely eulogistic 
 and regretful. 
 
 " So you've really done it ? " 
 
 " Apparently." 
 
 Maurice reached for the letter and read it inattentively. 
 He was fingering it still when he said : 
 
 " I suppose I was rather enthusiastic, wasn't I, Dennis ? 
 Being in Ramsay's studio this morning made me feel a bit 
 of a worm. I felt it was about time I began to do some- 
 thing. There was something about a book, but that was 
 only ideas rottenly vague. ... I felt I hadn't anything to 
 put up against Ramsay. That's all." 
 
 " Get rid of the women and begin the masterpiece," said 
 Anne, smiling. 
 
 Maurice reddened, and collected himself. " I mustn't 
 be made fun of," he said. 
 
 " But I was perfectly serious." 
 
 He looked at Anne, wondering and anxious. Though 
 she was smiling, he thought he could discover some trace 
 of seriousness in her. His laugh was a half-hearted solution 
 of his difficulty. 
 
 " But hadn't we better be getting ready to go ? " he said. 
 
 " Are you sure you want me to come ? " Anne asked. 
 
 " Oh, Anne . . . it's been arranged for days . . . you know 
 it has." 
 
 " But you only told Mr. Ramsay to-day." 
 
 " Well, that doesn't make any difference, does it ? " 
 
 " What about me ? " asked Dennis. 
 
 " You're arranged, too." He was in a petty despair at 
 petty vexations. " We'll start in ten minutes, and let's 
 have a cab." 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 DURING his sudden journey to Paris, Dennis had not felt 
 all the confidence of an impulse. Although the morning 
 of his departure had been quick and sunny, he had been 
 uneasy, as a man's skin is uneasy when ruffled by an east 
 wind. A thin, precarious line divided him from a senti- 
 mental despondency which crystallised in the worrying 
 question why he had resigned his position. He did not so 
 much regret the loss of it as feel unanchored and at drift 
 without it. It needed but very little to set him revolving 
 this thought incessantly, and he was dubious of his own 
 ability to hold out against it when he reached the hotel. 
 But Maurice had anticipated him with a despondency of 
 his own. He had poured self-accusation for the past and 
 ideas for the future into his ears, and had been so plainly 
 agitated by his insufficiency that the contact stiffened 
 Dennis. He was silently critical of Maurice's attitude and 
 ideas, and a hard centre of insensibility, if not of antag- 
 onism, seemed to form inside him, which was a kind of 
 ballast for his unanchored thoughts. When Anne entered 
 he had been solidly confident of the Tightness of his resigna- 
 tion, and impermeable to criticism. For the first time he 
 could think " that's done," and put it definitely behind 
 him. But he had noticed something unfamiliar in Anne, 
 as she had entered. It had diminished from his confidence. 
 
 " What kind of a man is Ramsay ? " he asked with 
 indifference of Maurice in the cab. 
 
 Maurice broke into hyperbolic praise of Ramsay's com- 
 pleteness. Dennis was proof against the contagion of 
 enthusiasm. To him it savoured more of self-condemna- 
 tion. He said as much to Maurice. 
 
 296 
 
STILL LIFE 297 
 
 " You're not talking about Ramsay. You're talking 
 
 about yourself." Maurice was puzzled. He looked to 
 
 Anne for enlightenment. She was engaged at the window. 
 
 " How terribly raw a new street in Paris does look," she 
 
 said. 
 
 " They take long enough about it, too. This was just 
 the same two years ago." Maurice went on explaining 
 Ramsay to Dennis. 
 
 Ramsay's greeting to Maurice had its invariable quality. 
 It seemed indefinably to expand and include Anne and 
 Dennis. Miss Etheredge was sitting on the sofa, splendidly 
 large, leaning back negligently, her arms stretched out to 
 make one lazily sweeping, but not unconscious curve with 
 her delicately massive shoulders. The indifference which 
 she so palpably assumed was heightened by the languid 
 motion with which she put her cigarette to her lips. Then 
 her fine, clear upper lip seemed to tighten and tremble. 
 One would have said she was on the point of tears, had not 
 tears been incongruous with her full and statuesque beauty. 
 Maurice, always something afraid of her, hastened to greet 
 her warmly. It was almost a measure of precaution. 
 
 "Hullo, Temple," she said, letting the white lids fall 
 half over her eyes, pursing her mouth as though she would 
 mince her speech. " Introduce me." 
 
 Ramsay, exchanging words with Anne, interrupted 
 unknowing. " Mrs. Temple Miss Etheredge, Miss Ether- 
 edge Mr. . . ." Dennis himself supplied his name. 
 
 Anne saw the heavy eyes, the large and delicate oval 
 face, the straight nose. Above all, she saw the trembling 
 nostrils and the long, full upper lip with its chiselled furrow. 
 Strangely, the sight moved her to say to Ramsay : 
 
 " Well, hardly Mrs. Temple, yet. I think I must be 
 Mrs. Cradock here." 
 
 " Quite safe," said Ramsay. " I'm sorry I made the 
 mistake." 
 
 " But I told you," said Maurice. He was confused by 
 the contretemps, and he felt that Anne had betrayed him. 
 
298 STILL LIFE 
 
 " It don't make any difference, one way or the othe T, 
 said Miss Etheredge, looking steadily at Anne. 
 
 Anne sat on the sofa beside her. Ramsay moved deftly 
 and steadily upon his appointed paths, preparing tea. 
 Dennis roamed, indifferent and curious, about the room, 
 wavering before the picture, and finally fixing himself by 
 the long window, looking on to the yard. Maurice sat un- 
 easy, with his hands in his pockets, on the corner of a white 
 table in the middle of the room, looking from Dennis to 
 the sofa, from the sofa to Dennis, uncomfortably aware of 
 a curious glance which Miss Etheredge directed to him 
 from time to time, and grateful when Ramsay appeared 
 from the tiny kitchen, and interposed his body between 
 the sofa and himself. 
 
 " This isn't your first visit to Paris, Mrs. Cradock ? " 
 said Miss Etheredge. 
 
 " No ! But I've never been to Montparnasse before." 
 
 " I envy you. I wish all this " she waved her cigarette 
 about her " was new to me. Even Ramsay's pictures are 
 pretty stale by now." Ramsay came in with the boiling 
 kettle, and bent over the table. " Bill, your pictures are 
 stale. Why don't you get a new idea ? I'm tired of this. 
 I never realised before that sensuality was so boring." 
 
 Ramsay laughed. " Give me the new idea. I'll see what 
 I can do with it." 
 
 " Well, try personality. A little more Bill and a little 
 less idea. I prefer personality without the art to the art 
 without the personality. But I'm not sure that there's 
 any Bill left. I wish you wouldn't be quite so much of a 
 machine. . . . Now, if you'd only be angry with me for what 
 I'm saying, I'd adore you." 
 
 Ramsay's head was still bent over the teapot. Without 
 raising it he nodded in his thoughtful, amused, incredulous 
 way. 
 
 "You haven't seen my new picture," Miss Etheredge 
 continued. " I'm sick of this cold-blooded designing. 
 Why the devil should you mor-mortify the flesh like that ? 
 
STILL LIFE 299 
 
 (' Mortify the flesh ' is right, isn't it, Mrs. Cradock ? I'm 
 rather bad at these things. I didn't have the advantage 
 of an Oxford education.) You never get any atmosphere 
 if you tackle a picture like a spiritual eunuch." She 
 laughed excitedly. " Spiritual eunuch, yes, that's what 
 you are. I must put you into my play. Spiritual eunuch 
 married to the goddess of Art. . . . I'm writing a play, Mrs. 
 Cradock, and I'm going to put them all in, him too." She 
 nodded to Maurice, who had gone over to the window, and 
 was standing with his arm on Dennis's shoulder and his 
 back to the window. 
 
 " How far have you got with this masterpiece ? " said 
 Ramsay. 
 
 " Far enough to make everybody uncomfortable ; but 
 I haven't finished with Wauchope yet. . . . 
 
 " But you don't know what atmosphere is," she went 
 on abruptly. " Any little fool can come along and talk 
 about it. That's why you don't believe in it. But it's 
 true for all that. Last night I was coming home from the 
 other side, about half-past two in the morning, by the 
 Louvre. As I came under the arch, I could have sworn I 
 was in Edinburgh. You know the big magasin, Bill ? 
 They had started rebuilding or something. There were 
 great beams screwed together stuck up against the wall, 
 quite black. Nobody about except a Chinaman, who had 
 been following me for an hour." She laughed excitedly 
 again. " The top of that place over the arches is all a kind 
 of pink in the daytime. There was a bright moon and dead 
 black shadows. I stood under the arch of the Louvre, with 
 the big shop and the scaffolding warm rose and black on 
 the other side of the square. 
 
 " Anything might have happened there. Oh, it was 
 wonderful. That's atmosphere where anything, any 
 damn thing might happen. I tried to paint it all last night 
 when I got in. I went at it till God knows when. I've 
 only just got up. If you could do that, it's better than all 
 your rotten old designs. That's got personality sen- 
 
300 STILL LIFE 
 
 suality everything. Your sensuality is only theory. . . . 
 You'd better come soon. I know I'll burn it when I see it 
 again. I cut up my last four yesterday." Her voice was 
 wet with suppressed tears. Aime saw them brimming in 
 her eyes, always about to overflow. 
 
 " I'll come first thing to-morrow. I'm not painting," 
 said Ramsay. 
 
 " May I come to see it ? " said Anne. 
 
 "I'll try to keep it for you. I can't guarantee any- 
 thing, you see." She laughed helplessly. " But come 
 to-morrow." 
 
 " It's sure to be worth while," said Ramsay. 
 
 To Anne the remark was superfluous, even stupid. Yet 
 Miss Etheredge seemed grateful. Anne was almost 
 annoyed with her, for a moment, and then, because his 
 words seemed to have comforted Miss Etheredge, was 
 herself grateful to Ramsay. 
 
 Miss Etheredge tried hard to control herself into calm. 
 Anne was infinitely apprehensive lest anyone but herself 
 should notice it. Miss Etheredge seemed to care less. 
 
 " I haven't changed much, have I ? " she said to Maurice. 
 
 " I'm glad," he said. The question was intimate and 
 comforting for him. 
 
 " I really believe you are. I think you are the only one 
 who's really cared a damn about me. . . . It's a good job 
 Bill doesn't. ... I'd have been turned out of his studio, 
 years ago." 
 
 Ramsay laughed and went on talking to Dennis about 
 hospitals and medical lectures, of which he, too, had had 
 some experience. 
 
 " Have you been long together ? " Miss Etheredge 
 turned to Anne. 
 
 " No . . . hardly over a month." Anne saw the puzzled 
 look in her eyes, and could not keep her own from smiling. 
 
 " Were you married a long while, before ? " 
 
 " Quite a long while years." 
 
 " Do you like him ? " Miss Etheredge nodded to Maurice. 
 
STILL LIFE 301 
 
 " Naturally." 
 
 "I'm being rude . . . but I can't make you out. Are you 
 simple or very clever ? Perhaps you're both." She looked 
 at Maurice for some moments as though she were trying to 
 understand him. " I don't suppose it matters very much. 
 ... I suppose you thought I was being a fool just now ? " 
 
 " Not for a moment," said Anne quietly. 
 
 " Is that true ? " Miss Etheredge's wonderful upper lip 
 began to tremble. Anne made no reply by word, but 
 looked at her. The glance, potent with Anne's deep desire 
 to be near Miss Etheredge, to stand between her and the 
 world of which she was contemptuous and afraid, did not 
 fail. 
 
 " I was pretty lonely when you were here, wasn't I, 
 Temple ? " 
 
 Anne watched Maurice narrowly. She saw him give a 
 little shudder, when he replied, " Ghastly." 
 
 " He cried over me a bit," Miss Etheredge explained to 
 Anne. " It doesn't happen often. I liked him for it." 
 Maurice smiled feebly at Anne. It was a depressing 
 memory. 
 
 " Well, I'm even worse off now," went on Miss Ether- 
 edge. " Fernandez. . . . You remember Fernandez. . . . Oh, 
 you never saw him . . . but you heard me talk about him. 
 Well, Fernandez is gone. We had a great row, not so very 
 long ago, and now he cuts me dead." 
 
 " What about ? " asked Maurice. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know." She bent down and busied herself 
 with putting her cigarette ash into a saucei. Maurice 
 could see the film of unformed tears through her long 
 lashes. " I had my revolver, and tried to shoot him 
 something like that. It's a complicated story." She turned 
 to Anne. " It always ends like like that. There's nobody 
 except Bill, and Bill doesn't care a hang, does he ? " She 
 spoke to Ramsay, who was drawing a diagram of some 
 proposition in physics on the table. He glanced up, then 
 down at his pencil, then up again at Miss Etheredge. 
 
302 STILL LIFE 
 
 " The only reason that he sticks there is that you can't 
 quarrel with him, can you, Bill ? " 
 
 " It's pretty hard," he said. 
 
 Dennis had been vaguely watching her before. As 
 Ramsay looked up from his diagram, his eyes followed 
 and looked at her steadily. She returned his look coolly. 
 It was rather repartee than curiosity or interest. Her lip 
 did not tremble. Dennis bent down again to consider 
 Ramsay's reasoning, resumed with the pencil. 
 
 *' But a theory like that isn't a fact. It's only a symbolic 
 way of stating facts that you can't discover. There's a gap 
 that must be filled with something, and as nobody knows 
 what does fill it, everybody agrees that the neatest arrange- 
 ment is the true one. They can't even tell whether it works 
 or not. . . ." 
 
 " But look here ..." protested Ramsay. 
 
 " That's Bill all over," said Miss Etheredge. " He's 
 always boiling his personality down into a proposition of 
 Euclid. It wouldn't matter so much if he didn't believe 
 
 in it Perhaps it's as well. . . . He'd go like the rest Do 
 
 you have days like this ? I have weeks of them." 
 
 " Days, yes. I don't think they're as bad as yours, 
 though." 
 
 " Mine are something special. . . . You're older than me, 
 ain't you ? " 
 
 " I'm thirty-two." 
 
 " Six years. It's a good deal. ... I can't make you out." 
 At that moment Maurice realised that he had not made 
 Anne out either. Even now he felt much nearer to Miss 
 Etheredge than to Anne. He looked from her, and with 
 his chin on his hands, watched Anne curiously. 
 
 " Have you got many friends ? " said Miss Etheredge. 
 
 " Very few." 
 
 " Why ? " 
 
 Anne smiled in a semi-perplexity. " I think I got tired 
 of asking first-rate things from second-rate people. I'm 
 very self-absorbed, too." 
 
STILL LIFE 303 
 
 ; ' That sounds very deep. ..." 
 
 " It's not. It's only the words. I fancy I'm not very 
 good at words. But I don't believe it's difficult for you. I 
 should think you'd have done the same thing. Perhaps 
 the difference between us is that you expect more from 
 life than I do." 
 
 " I shouldn't wonder." 
 
 Anne's last sentence struck very chill upon Maurice. 
 He felt it was somehow unfair to him. Anne ought not to 
 have said it. After all, they were together for something. 
 It was a kind of treason to ring down the curtain on their 
 future like that. 
 
 He pretended mere curiosity as he interrupted : 
 
 " How do you mean you don't expect as much from life 
 as Miss Etheredge 1 " he asked. 
 
 " I don't venture quite so much, so my mistakes don't 
 cost me so much." 
 
 " I understand," said Miss Etheredge. 
 
 Maurice resented that. The privilege of understanding 
 Anne was his. But Miss Etheredge's acquiescence shut 
 him off from asking more. He could not show himself be- 
 hind her in understanding. He was jealous, and he turned 
 dully to watch Ramsay and Dennis. He hadn't got very 
 near to Anne, he thought, and yet they were near enough, 
 surely. He had been perfectly happy all the while they 
 had been in Paris. It was a glow in his memory, suffused, 
 too, into the present. The half-formed suspicion that it 
 had been nothing more than a supreme holiday flitted 
 across a window of his mind. It was driven into the un- 
 known whence it came. Ramsay asked him a question. 
 
 " That was your idea about the Egyptians, wasn't it, 
 Temple ? " 
 
 It was, indeed, one of the few theories he had himself 
 excogitated, yet not communicated to Dennis, for it 
 belonged to a period before Dennis had become im- 
 portant to him. He burst into anxious explanation, not 
 without pride, 
 
304 STILL LIFE 
 
 The two women were silent, idly watching. 
 
 " Does this interest you ? " said Miss Etheredge. 
 
 " Sometimes, not now. Just now they seem to me too 
 much like children playing a game." 
 
 Dennis alone of the men heard the remark. His interest 
 in the discussion was but desultory and half-hearted. 
 Anne's opinion chimed with his own, and he would make 
 this plain to her. 
 
 " We'd better change places," he said to Maurice. " I'm 
 getting off my ground. You won't gain anything by talk- 
 ing across me." 
 
 Maurice accepted his profession of incompetence without 
 question, and moved into Dennis's chair without even 
 raising his eyes from Ramsay's pencil. Dennis settled him- 
 self and looked at Miss Etheredge. He had noticed her, 
 when he came into the room, but as anyone might have 
 noticed a woman of an obviously magnificent and un- 
 familiar kind. It was Anne's evident interest in her, and 
 the immediate sympathy which contrasted strongly with 
 his recollections of Anne's attitude to other women, rather 
 than any impulse of his own which prompted the deliberate 
 scrutiny he had afterwards made. While he had been talk- 
 ing with a superficial absorption to Ramsay, he had felt 
 that Anne and Miss Etheredge were completely apart, 
 somehow united and impregnable in the company. Anne 
 did not move out of their stronghold to welcome him, as 
 he drew forward in his chair, away from the theorists. 
 She seemed to be guarding Miss Etheredge, against him 
 or against herself. It was rather against herself, for Miss 
 Etheredge had no hesitations in approach. 
 
 " I suppose all this sort of thing is new to you, too," she 
 said. 
 
 " Very new. I'm feeling very much lost in it all. The 
 theories are too deep and the pictures too strange." 
 
 " You feel altogether rather superior, don't you ? " 
 
 He was not at all prepared for the sudden thrust. The 
 surprise of an unexpected bludgeon, where he might have 
 
STILL LIFE 305 
 
 expected a rapier, stunned him. But he was not the man 
 to show it. 
 
 " I never heard of a good doctor who imagined himself 
 superior to a painter, not even the very worst painter (I 
 dare say a bad doctor might think himself better than 
 Velasquez, so I leave bad ones out). A good one would have 
 a sneaking admiration for a first year student at the 
 Academy." 
 
 " So you're a good doctor, are you." 
 
 " I was," he said. 
 
 " That's a good thing. I hate doctors. I've seen too 
 many of them. My father was one. They're so damn self- 
 confident. Painters are bad enough. They can generally 
 floor anybody by talking about their studio ; but a doctor 
 always carries a stethoscope sticking out of him somewhere. 
 You can't get at him when he hides behind it. ... What 
 did you give it up for ? " 
 
 Dennis knew that Anne was watching him. He was 
 distinctly uncomfortable. If he were to devote himself to 
 a victory over Miss Etheredge, to which she sorely tempted 
 him, he would antagonise Anne. If he allowed himself to 
 be overcome by her, not only would he feel smaller in 
 Anne's sight, but she herself would be disappointed in him. 
 Instinctively he had recourse to as much of candidness as 
 was possible for him. 
 
 " I don't really know how I gave it up. I've been 
 saying I would give it up any time during the last 
 three years. Somehow I never did, and I can't see why 
 I didn't go on in the same way. However, I didn't. I 
 resigned my job about a week ago. Now I'm surprised 
 at myself." 
 
 " That's very nice for you. ..." 
 
 " And quite unusual." There was a portentous hostility 
 beneath her words, and their failure to express it made 
 them nearly ludicrous. Dennis found it better to ignore 
 the hostility altogether. The violence of Miss Etheredge's 
 attack lay rather in her tone than her actual words, which 
 
306 STILL LIFE 
 
 were headlong and clumsy. The very way in which she 
 exposed herself in attack fascinated him. 
 
 " I suppose you think you're very clever," said Miss 
 Etheredge. The curious intonation of her voice, an 
 equable and clearly marked cadence in her words, and the 
 real malice she managed to convey into them prevented 
 Dennis for an instant from realising how childish they were. 
 He realised it with a start of surprise. They were the 
 actual words of innumerable actual children. It was an 
 experience unlike any that he had had before. To have 
 replied to the malice in the words would have demanded 
 all his energy, to reply to the actual words was a triviality 
 he had forgotten in his teens. He recovered himself with 
 difficulty. 
 
 " Not so very clever," he said. " But as clever as most 
 people. But what makes you think I am so very clever ? " 
 
 " I don't." Miss Etheredge sucked at her cigarette. 
 Her full upper lip protruded too far for the gesture to 
 appear anything but conscious. She looked across Anne 
 at the wall. A faint and very uncertain smile in her eyes, 
 that seemed to be drawn and puckered forward like her 
 lips. Her legs were crossed, and one swung with a vigorous 
 indifference. 
 
 " Then why did you say so '? " 
 
 She took the cigarette out of her mouth and slowly 
 turned her face half-way towards him. " I don't know," 
 she said, and resumed her smoking, her stare, and her leg- 
 swinging. 
 
 Dennis knew that if any other woman had behaved like 
 this it would have been ridiculous and contemptible. Miss 
 Etheredge was neither, save to ridiculous and contemptible 
 people. Her perversity was so plainly a mere veneer. 
 Nevertheless, it baffled him. He hated her inscrutability. 
 He could do nothing but look at her. He glanced at Anne. 
 She might have been the impartial arbiter between them, 
 so little could be read in her eyes as they slowly turned 
 from regarding Miss Etheredge to meet his. 
 
STILL LIFE 307 
 
 " Do you like clever people ? " Miss Etheredge asked 
 Anne. 
 
 " Do you mean the really clever, or the other kind ? I 
 like the really clever ones. I've met very, very few. . . . 
 I like him. I think he's really clever." 
 
 " Do you now ? . . . I must have met only the other kind, 
 I think. There are so many people who are supposed to be 
 clever here." She spoke generally to both Anne and 
 Dennis. " They madden me. You can't believe what 
 fools I can make them look in a couple of minutes. And 
 then they hate me for it. ... I don't wonder. ... I dare say 
 he hates me now." She looked at Dennis, with a wry smile. 
 Her voice was liquid and full. 
 
 " Not a bit. Why should I ? " 
 
 " After all, I dicln't make a fool of you." She might 
 have been in despair at the failure. 
 
 " It was touch and go, anyhow." 
 
 Miss Etheredge faced the wall again. After a moment 
 she turned herself half towards him, looking down through 
 her half-closed eyes towards him, mincing her words 
 through her pursed lips. 
 
 " Are you coming to see my picture ? " 
 
 " I'd like to very much." 
 
 " That's very good of you . . . but it's nice to have one 
 visit before I quarrel with you." She faced the wall 
 while she spoke. " I told you I couldn't guarantee the 
 picture. It's pretty certain it won't be there. ... I'd take 
 a bet on it. ... So you'd better come when something will 
 be certain, tea-time. . . . But come when you like. . . . Look 
 here, I'll give you the address." 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE bell tinkled, and Ramsay, with his pencil still in his 
 fingers, went to open the door. 
 
 "Hullo, A. S.," he said, as though thinking of something 
 altogether different, and began to walk back to his seat, 
 leaving Wauchope free to enter through the open door. 
 Then he recollected himself. " But you don't know these 
 people." And perfunctorily he introduced Dennis and 
 Anne Anne as Mrs. Cradock. Wauchope stood in the 
 middle of the room with his hat and coat in his hands, 
 bowing and peering towards the table. Ramsay sat down, 
 looking at his diagrams on the table, and drew curves. 
 He wrinkled his forehead when he raised his eyes to glance 
 at Wauchope. 
 
 " Good afternoon, Mr. Wauchope," said Miss Etheredge, 
 looking away from him to the wall. She turned half-way 
 to meet him as he came forward with outstretched hand. 
 
 " I hardly expected the pleasure of meeting you here," 
 he said. 
 
 Even Maurice began to watch them furtively. The tone 
 of their greeting imparted some electric current to the com- 
 pany. His argument with Ramsay automatically ceased. 
 
 " No ? " she said, and puffed at her cigarette. 
 
 " It occurs so seldom that we must make the most of it," 
 Wauchope said, as he drew forward a chair and sat on 
 Dennis's right hand, " Bill, could you manage just one 
 cup of tea for me ? It doesn't matter if it's cold. Pour me 
 donner du courage" His glance paused on the way back 
 from Ramsay and fixed upon Anne. She quickened in 
 antagonism under it ; but she was so little excited that 
 she knew herself master of the situation. 
 
STILL LIFE 309 
 
 " Are you, by any chance, a relation of the dramatic 
 critic ? " Wauchope asked. 
 
 ;< Yes," she said. " He is my husband." 
 
 " I beg your pardon. I was under a misapprehension." 
 He turned an explanatory glance towards Maurice and 
 Ramsay. 
 
 Dennis felt that he did not like Wauchope, but he tried 
 in vain to despise him. It was curious that he was able 
 to agitate Miss Etheredge so much. For that power, in 
 spite of himself, he rather envied him. Ideally Mauric 
 would have indignantly denounced him, but knowing it 
 impossible, had a sneaking admiration of his sangfroid. 
 
 " Of course, he's in my play," said Miss Etheredge to 
 Anne and Dennis. " He's the ragged harlequin. The suit 
 was new once, but it's getting rather worn now, isn't it, 
 Mr. Wauchope ? . . . One or two extra patches don't 
 matter. They're all in the scheme of decoration." 
 
 " Aren't you being rather obscure ? It's difficult for 
 Mrs. Cradock and Mr. Beauchamp to understand, surely. 
 I'm not quite certain that I understand myself." 
 
 " How's Miss Farrell ? " Miss Etheredge asked inconse- 
 quently. Her white face was a trifle paler. Her leg swung 
 violently. Never for a moment did she look at Wauchope. 
 
 " Quite well, when I last saw her," he said. " She told 
 me if I saw you to give you her love." 
 
 Miss Etheredge was beside herself. 
 
 " I suppose she didn't give you the ten pounds she owes 
 me ? " 
 
 " No, she didn't say anything about that." 
 
 " Well, I'm going to have it back. You can tell her 
 that, if you see her again." Miss Etheredge's voice rose. 
 " People come and live on you and borrow your money, 
 when you haven't got enough to pay your baker or your 
 rent, and then they just clear out without a word, and go 
 and live with some fool of a man who'll keep them for a 
 month. Then they come running back. She'd better not 
 try that this time. You can tell her that, too, Mr. Wau 
 
310 STILL LIFE 
 
 chope. Tell her I'm very grateful that she left my revolver 
 behind." 
 
 Wauchope ostentatiously turned to Anne. 
 
 " You're not in the movement not c one of us ' I 
 suppose, Mrs. Cradock ? " 
 
 Anne was reluctant to be made, even faintly, accessory 
 to the quarrel, doubly reluctant to be opposing Miss 
 Etheredge ; but she could hardly help replying : 
 
 " No, I don't think I've ever managed to be in any 
 movement at all." 
 
 " That's a rare experience. It's only come to me late 
 in life. I think I must be like you, now ; for as far as I 
 can see I've been turned out of this one turned out or 
 left behind. But you don't mean to say you don't paint or 
 write or make music ? " 
 
 " No, I don't do any of those things." Anne had to 
 receive the conversation made for her by Wauchope, but 
 she was not at all inclined to assist him. Miss Etheredge 
 watched him constantly, with an obvious sneer. Wauchope 
 appeared perfectly unconscious of her presence. Dennis 
 listened to the conversation with the indifference of a 
 spectator. He was both anxious and afraid to speak to 
 Miss Etheredge, and he waited in expectation of an ex- 
 plosion. He was fascinated by the large way in which she 
 showed that she was incapable of concealing her feelings 
 or careless of showing them. 
 
 Ramsay glanced up under his wrinkled forehead and 
 waited a moment, inspecting the company. 
 
 " A. S., you come and help us out of this," he said. 
 " Temple can't see my arguments. He's getting senti- 
 mental." Ramsay made room for Wauchope between them 
 and shifted nearer to Anne. " I hope you're not responsible 
 for this," he said to her. " He's a regular heretic now." 
 
 Wauchope, really relieved at the diversion, came round. 
 " What's it all about ? " he asked. 
 
 Maurice explained that he could not see why the fact, 
 if it were a fact, that the whole universe resolved into 
 
STILL LIFE 311 
 
 material atoms, should be regarded as an explanation of 
 life, much less of art. 
 
 " What's your idea, first ? " asked Wauchope. 
 
 " I quite agree that there are atoms or something of 
 the sort. But they can't be everything. There must be 
 something to sort them and shape them. Or does he mean 
 than they do it themselves ? " 
 
 " Well, there are such things as attraction," said Ramsay, 
 not yet wholly decided to leave his argument to Wauchope. 
 " Forces. . . ." 
 
 Maurice, the master of a small dialectic, was confident 
 and happy in the prospect of a fair field. 
 
 " Are the forces all of the same kind ? " he began. 
 
 " You ought to meet Miss Netta Farrell," said Miss 
 Etheredge to Anne. " She's a type I don't suppose you've 
 ever seen." 
 
 " Is she so very remarkable ? What is she like ? " 
 
 " She looks fine, slim, not too tall, small breasts rather 
 like a boy. She was staying with me up to about six weeks 
 ago. Came and said I was her only friend. So I was. At 
 all events she lived ofi me and didn't pay a penny of the 
 rent. She had twice as much money as I had. Brought 
 her men along to my flat." She laughed excitedly. 
 " Perhaps she thought she was doing me a good turn, 
 bringing them along to me when she had finished with 
 them handselling my bridal couch. Oh, yes, Netta's 
 a rare one. She was funny, too." Her voice ran higher 
 and higher. 
 
 " I shan't ever forget the trick she played on me with 
 Bowley. You don't know Bowley, do you ? He's an 
 American with a face like a Jewish gorilla, who wears wide 
 check trousers. Oh, Bowley's a great man, I can tell 
 you. He had a profound passion for me once. Used to be 
 always following me across the street, asking me if I'd go 
 to the Tabarin with him, and sending boxes of chocolate 
 up to my flat studio, I should say. Yes, you must meet 
 Bowley. He's one of those Americans with a highly 
 
312 STILL LIFE 
 
 developed moral sense who never marry their mistresses, 
 and never pay a cocotte more than trade union rates. . . . 
 
 " When Netta turned up, he wasn't quite so sweet on 
 me any more." She laughed hysterically. " But he was 
 terribly sorry for Netta, terribly. Besides, she was going 
 to be very ill for her wickedness, very. Oh, I didn't tell 
 you what she came over here for. That's important. In 
 England she had a great man called Benjamin, really 
 Benjamin, who used to walk about in a deer-stalker hat, 
 and had made a fortune out of a patent beer engine, or 
 something like that. He's a queer type, too, is Benjamin. 
 A devil of a lot more in him than you'd think. He's got 
 the insides of a child, for all his money and his hats and his 
 guns. Netta told me some wonderful stories about him." 
 She laughed again ; all her words were carried upon a note 
 that rose precariously between a shriek and a laugh. 
 " Well, Benjamin was keen on Netta. He never used to 
 have a home always a suite of rooms in a hotel. He used 
 to cry about it sometimes. Anyhow, there was going to 
 be a little Benjamin, and that's why she came over here, 
 to see that there shouldn't be. She came to me, because 
 when she was a model, I was always fond of her. She's 
 different from all the others. She's got personality, I can 
 tell you." 
 
 Miss Etheredge stopped abruptly. " No, I'd better not 
 go on with this story. It's very improper. ' ' Miss Etheredge 
 was crying, but making no sound. Anne and Dennis could 
 see the two large tears that rolled from her eyes. " Netta's 
 a woman you won't meet in a hurry. Perhaps I'll tell you 
 the story when you come to see me. It's something to come 
 for." 
 
 " What's happened to her now ? " asked Anne. 
 
 " She went off with Bowley for a day or two. After that 
 I don't know. She came back to me once, but I didn't 
 let her in. She was outside the door calling out, ' Let me 
 come in. Let me come in.' I wasn't doing anything of 
 the sort, though. She said she'd tell all my relations about 
 
STILL LIFE 313 
 
 me. She'd have some trouble to find them. I should 
 myself. I don't know where she is now. But I've got a 
 pretty good idea. You should ask Mr. Wauchope there." 
 She raised her voice so that he could hear, but he went on 
 undisturbed with his argument. 
 
 " Oh, it's a damn funny world, isn't it ? When you have 
 to turn out the only woman you can tolerate, and she first 
 clears off without paying you a penny herself, and goes 
 and blues all her money with some ghastly idiot of a man 
 between Monday and Thursday night. It wouldn't matter 
 if she got hold of a decent man. But Bowley, my God ! 
 He's got about as much notion of personality as the table 
 here. It's funny. 
 
 " And then if you ask her why she does it, she says, 
 ' Because he is such a poor dear fool.' And it's not very 
 hard to understand either. A woman with personality 
 most of them have got the choice between that and 
 hysteria. I don't wonder they'd sooner have Bowley. 
 Believe I would myself, if my father hadn't been a doctor. 
 . . . Oh, no, you can't get rid of Netta as he'd like to." 
 She nodded at Wauchope. " She's just herself, and it 
 wouldn't matter what she did or what happened to her ; 
 she'd always have some shred of herself on, and you'd 
 have to take off your hat to that, Mr. Beauchamp." 
 
 " I should," murmured Dennis. 
 
 Miss Etheredge was silent for a little while. Anne was 
 thinking about what she had said. Dennis felt that his 
 own word had been ridiculously inadequate, and that 
 anything he might have said would have been equally 
 out of place. Miss Etheredge did not seem to think so. 
 She looked at him with less antagonism than she had yet 
 manifested towards him. Her voice almost lapsed into 
 friendliness. 
 
 " I believe you would. ..." 
 
 Maurice's voice rose in the ensuing silence. 
 
 " But thinking isn't everything. I don't mean that you 
 get anywhere if you give it up, just because you give it up. 
 
314 STILL LIFE 
 
 That's mysticism and rot. But you never really do get 
 anywhere by thinking alone. You believe you do, Kamsay, 
 but you're only deceiving yourself. Take your painting a 
 picture ..." 
 
 " It's a terrible pity your father was a doctor," said 
 Anne to Miss Etheredge. " Or that you had a father at 
 all. . . ." 
 
 She looked doubtfully, enquiringly at Anne. 
 
 " I mean you pay for your personality. The more you 
 pay the more you have. But there's a limit ..." 
 
 " You think I've reached the limit ? . . . Yes, I should 
 think so. ... I wonder sometimes how long I can go on 
 being lonely. ... I quarrel most with the people I like 
 best. That's in my destiny. Some nights I could go mad 
 with thinking about it. You say my father has something 
 to do with it ? ... You weren't an actress, were you ? " 
 she asked inconsequently. 
 
 Dennis was rather surprised that Anne took the question 
 seriously. She shook her head gravely. 
 
 " That's true ? " asked Miss Etheredge again. " Only 
 you look like one. I don't mean one of the types of the 
 Folies Bergeres or the Gaiety, but a real actress an 
 artist. There's something about your mouth, and your 
 eyes. ... I know I've never seen them before, but I seem 
 to remember them. Do you know what I mean ? No, 
 you wouldn't say. Do you see what I mean ? " she asked 
 Dennis, and did not wait for an answer. " There will be 
 some word for it. The only one I know is tragic and 
 that sounds like Madame Steinheil. . . . Was anybody 
 very bad to you ? " 
 
 "No. . . . Why do you ask ?" 
 
 " Only you look as though someone might have been. 
 . . . But it might have been anything else. It's what I 
 meant when I said I remembered your face, though I knew 
 I hadn't seen it." 
 
 Dennis sat forward in his chair to watch and listen. 
 Before his mind hovered the unpleasant thought that he 
 
STILL LIFE 315 
 
 fell in a void between Anne who could thus quietly induce 
 Miss Etheredge to forget herself and Wauchope who could 
 irritate her into a frenzy of unreserve by a look. She had 
 been hostile to him but he had played no conscious part in 
 exciting her hostility. He desired to affect her directly, 
 to compel her. Without that it seemed to him that he was, 
 somehow, unworthy, and that his claim to be an individual 
 person was false. In his moments of detachment he could 
 admire them both, not unenviously, for the completeness 
 of their contact and of their separation from the others. 
 But continually this detachment failed him, as it were 
 dissolved away before a desperate desire to prove his own 
 worth by forcing Miss Etheredge to acknowledge his 
 power. 
 
 He found himself looking in Anne's face for the quality 
 which Miss Etheredge had seen there, wondering why he 
 had not detected it before. He thought he could see it 
 now, but so soon as he tried to define it in her face it 
 escaped him. Anne seemed suddenly to become young, 
 as though in the effort of searching her face a new vision 
 of her triumphantly superseded the old. And she did 
 look young. Her mouth was not full ; though it was not 
 hard, it would have needed much to make it tremble. 
 It was firm and confident like a young girl's. So was the 
 definite oval of her face ; but perhaps a little thinner, not 
 merely bounded, but shaped within itself, and at rare 
 moments pallidly grey. It was her eyes that held the secret. 
 One could not look at them now, he thought, without 
 referring them to a past, when the brown pupils had been 
 clear with perpetual surprise. Now they seemed to have 
 been dusted over with faint red gold. They had darkened 
 themselves from their former clearness, settled down into 
 the dull glowing shimmer, which must, he thought, kindle 
 to everything, if one could but see, in its degree, but for 
 him so rarely seemed to flame out of their grave fire. 
 
 It was an effort for him to remark so much, and he was 
 conscious of the unfamiliarity of the scrutiny while he made 
 
316 STILL LIFE 
 
 it. Somehow he had accepted Anne as a whole person, 
 with whom he was sure, not by reason of his knowledge of 
 her, but of his trust in her. When Miss Etheredge thus 
 revealed to him something of Anne, he felt that he had 
 been blind. He felt more strongly than ever before that 
 she inscrutably enclosed him, stretching beyond his know- 
 ledge on every side. Miss Etheredge was infinitely easier. 
 He was less secure with her if he knew her more, he would 
 be less secure still but there were moments when he 
 thought that he could dominate her more completely. 
 Her secret was so palpably there, indeed so palpably 
 defended against him, that it could not exceed his know- 
 ledge. He wanted to know it. Obscurely he felt that the 
 knowledge would be a gain to his resources of power. 
 
 " Yes, I wish I knew you," said Miss Etheredge to Anne, 
 after a silence. " But you'd be very hard to get at ... 
 perhaps you're like me." 
 
 The words came oddly to Dennis after his thoughts. 
 He had hardly suspected Miss Etheredge would be at a 
 loss, or would confess it, if she were. 
 
 Wauchope rose abruptly from the discussion. " Perhaps 
 it doesn't matter very much anyway. ..." 
 
 " If these things don't matter, what the hell does ? " 
 asked Ramsay, half laughing. ..." Everything else is 
 quite straightforward, once you've got the general hang 
 of it, and an idea to go on with yourself." 
 
 " But we all envy you, Bill all of us." 
 
 " Even I don't find it all so simple," said Maurice. 
 
 " That's only because you've not got the hang of it yet. 
 People make an enormous fuss about life. It's only senti- 
 mentality. I don't know why they should like to think 
 they've got an impossible row to hoe, but they do. You've 
 only got to wait for your idea. ..." 
 
 " It's too damnably true. Think of the time you can 
 spend waiting," said Wauchope. 
 
 " Oh, but you've got such a silly idea of your own 
 importance, A. S., not you only, but everybody almost. 
 
STILL LIFE 317 
 
 You're never content to find an idea for yourself. You 
 want one that'll save the world. It's no good one of 
 these Christian ideas. The world never will be saved 
 and it'd be a rotten place if it were. I think I must have 
 been born with the sentimentality knocked out of me." 
 
 " I think you're very wise, Bill," said Wauchope, with 
 sudden seriousness. "... But what I really came for 
 were those books you said Fernandez brought here. I'll 
 want them if I'm going away. ..." 
 
 " So you're going away, Mr. Wauchope," said Miss 
 Etheredge. 
 
 He turned to her and bowed slightly. 
 
 " Not going to leave Netta behind, surely ? " she 
 pursued. 
 
 " I'm afraid I shall have to," he said, after a pause, as 
 having pondered a suggestion. " I can't discover any par- 
 ticular reason why I should take her. . . . Perhaps you 
 have one ? " he added suavely. 
 
 " Well since you lived off her good luck, you might as 
 well give her a holiday off yours. . . . I'm sure she'd enjoy 
 your company." 
 
 " Perhaps so," he said reflectively. " You know so much 
 more of Miss Farrell than I do. But I'm afraid it can't be 
 managed. I'm going first thing to-morrow morning." 
 
 " Most convenient way of getting rid of her." Miss 
 Etheredge was in her old attitude, regarding the wall. 
 The extravagance of her indifference returned with the 
 excited quickening of her voice. 
 
 Wauchope made no reply to her. He gathered his coat 
 and his hat. " Get those books for me, will you ? " he said 
 to Ramsay. His action drove Miss Etheredge to visible 
 frenzy. 
 
 "I thought you'd run away but, you know, I can't 
 hurt you." Each word had a peculiar fullness, as though 
 it came with added resonance through tears. " I shan't 
 tell anybody about the postmistress in Ardrothan Street, 
 or mesmerism a la carte. It's not interesting to tell people 
 
318 STILL LIFE 
 
 a little clerk's affairs. But you might as well say before 
 you go whether you'll pay her what you lifted from her. 
 I'm interested in that. Then I can get some of my own 
 money back. Don't be afraid. It won't spoil the beautiful 
 romantic situation if you give her a thousand francs. 
 She'd take it right enough now. I know Netta. Besides, 
 it would be a good idea to come back with a new patch 
 a nice new one of bourgeois honesty. I should love to see 
 you with it on." 
 
 Wauchope took the books from Ramsay, who stood 
 looking at Miss Etheredge as one interrupted in thought. 
 Wauchope shook hands with Maurice. 
 
 " You're probably far better off at the hotel than at my 
 studio," he said. Maurice admired the way he managed 
 this nervous affair. Then Wauchope bowed his adieu to 
 the rest of the company and went out. " I'll send you my 
 address," he said to Ramsay. 
 
 " You wouldn't believe I once thought that that man 
 was me only friend," said Miss Etheredge. The self- 
 mockery in her intonation of the last three words was 
 palpable. 
 
 " That's just what I should have believed," said 
 Dennis. 
 
 It was a real glance that she gave him in reply. It 
 seemed to have more of curious apprehension than the 
 anger he had so deliberately courted. Her heavy chin 
 dropped, while she looked towards him, and for once her 
 wonderful mouth opened indecisively for an instant, was 
 weak and unlovely. She recovered. 
 
 " Yes, Wauchope and Etheredge were a pretty pair 
 once, weren't they, Bill ? We were the real geniuses. We 
 told each other so often enough. Now he's got fifty other 
 people to tell him the same . . . but I bet he doesn't 
 believe it quite as much. I dare say that's why he doesn't 
 call me one any more. I don't know but I don't think he 
 does, somehow. . . ." She laughed. " He's a highly 
 superior person, now. ... He doesn't invite everyone to 
 
STILL LIFE 319 
 
 see how he can hypnotise Netta now. . . . But he is very 
 proud of himself when he can get her into his studio with- 
 out anybody knowing. . . . Yes, it's very important for 
 him to keep on the right side of Netta. ... He has to 
 wait till my lady makes some remark about him, so that 
 he can know something about himself. He can carry on 
 with that for a fortnight. I should think that Netta and 
 I, between us, we made him, that way. Then he gets 
 frightened that we should know too much, more than he 
 can understand himself. 
 
 " Oh, he's frightened of Netta, I can tell you ; but he 
 can't quite do without her, for all that. . . . Sometimes 
 he'd murder her for what she says about him, but he 
 he'd never murder anybody. I remember when he first 
 came to me and said : ' Netta's a great woman.' He 
 wouldn't say that now but he believes it. It frightens 
 him because she laughs at him. He's in a holy terror of 
 finding out that there's nothing inside at all, only a lot of 
 little tricks he's picked up. He's clever enough to pick 
 them up better than anybody, and he still goes on learning 
 them. I don't envy him when he finds out that there's 
 nothing inside at all. The funny thing is that he'll find it 
 out just when they give him a last dose of morphia for a 
 painless exit. . . . I'll have to draw him then. It'll make 
 a nice little picture, call it ' The Last Patch.' Netta will 
 see the joke. Lord, that's another drawing. Netta ex- 
 plaining the picture to Wauchope. ' Etheredge, you're a 
 great woman.' That's the one thing I've really got. You'll 
 have to see they put it on my tombstone, Bill. ' Wauchope 
 was afraid of me.' 
 
 " No wonder people hate me, is it, Mrs. Cradock ? But 
 it don't matter. It's something, after all, to be really 
 hated by everyone you ever knew. It makes things 
 exciting when you know that every time you come into a 
 party it stops like dead. It might be all right if there was 
 always a party where you could turn up. ... By Jove, 
 I feel I could work now. ' The Last Patch.' I shall be at 
 
320 STILL LIFE 
 
 that all night. That's an idea, isn't it, Bill ? I ought to 
 make something of that, oughtn't I ? " 
 
 " I should rather think so," said Ramsay, with convic- 
 tion. 
 
 " But Bill's had enough just now. Quite enough for 
 one little tea-party. . . . But I am amusing, aren't I ? " 
 
 Miss Etheredge got up. She stood easily massive, 
 fronting him as in a challenge to a fight. She seemed to 
 slouch, without moving. So she held out her hand to him. 
 Before he took it, " Oh, I'm forgetting," she said, with the 
 forcible drawl which was natural to her quieter moments. 
 " I lose my party manners after I've been talking to the 
 mirror for a fortnight. . . . Perhaps you're coming, too 
 or shall I say good-bye ? " 
 
 In answer Anne had risen and already shaken hands 
 with Ramsay. 
 
 " When shall we see you again ? " asked Maurice, 
 " Can't we have dinner together ? " 
 
 It was arranged for the morrow. They would go 
 together to a cafe afterwards. 
 
 They came into the street together. Miss Etheredge 
 walked in front with Anne. 
 
 " I can spoil things properly, can't I ? " she said, emptily 
 laughing to cover her seriousness. 
 
 " It depends what you mean by spoil." 
 
 '' You mean I gave you one side show instead of 
 another ? " 
 
 Anne was suddenly angry. "If you like," she said 
 shortly. 
 
 Miss Etheredge looked on the ground ; as she slowly 
 walked her heavy body swung round from side to side. 
 Dennis, regarding her from behind, wondered whether, 
 had he not heard her speak and seen her face, he would 
 have recognised her now for what he did, a woman apart 
 from her kind. Beside hers, Anne's slim body, apparent 
 through the squared coat by the perceptible motion which 
 she gave to each little sliding step, as though she were 
 
STILL LIFE 321 
 
 treading a secure and invisible wire, seemed again girlish. 
 Anne was somehow so bewilderingly virgin. A certain 
 naiveness in what he knew was the perfection of her move- 
 ment, recalled to his mind unsophisticated pictures, always 
 of the Virgin, and always pictures. Miss Etheredge, by 
 contrast, had a heavy earth-born sensuality in her gait. His 
 mind, ordinarily unimaginative of physical things, fastened 
 upon the vision of her large, slow-swinging breasts. It was 
 a strange tweak for his vision, and he could not forget it. 
 
 " She is wonderful, though," said Maurice unexpectedly. 
 
 " Who ? " asked Dennis. 
 
 " Why, Miss Etheredge. Don't you think so ? ... 
 She depresses me terribly," he added. 
 
 " It wouldn't take you very long to hate me, would it ? " 
 said Miss Etheredge to Anne. 
 
 " Something else would come first, I know." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 " I should hate myself for being concerned about you. 
 . . . You'd make it intolerable, by letting yourself down 
 too often. . . . That's if I did hate myself. I very seldom 
 do, very seldom." 
 
 " You seem to know a great deal about yourself. It's 
 very queer for a woman ; but you don't seem to me very 
 female, somehow. There's something in you like there is 
 in Netta." She groped perceptibly for a word. " Un- 
 suppressed ... I suppose it would be. Nothing with a 
 lid on, screwed up. . . . But you do know a lot about 
 yourself, don't you ? " 
 
 " Not very much not even whether what you just said 
 is true." 
 
 The street turned suddenly. Anne found herself before 
 an unexpected square. On the far side heavy steam trams 
 rumbled distantly down the sloping road and disappeared 
 in a vista of tall houses and little trees. Another climbed, 
 urging upwards its rigid frame, noisily shaken by the 
 laborious pantings to which it could not yield . A cold 
 grey stole over the sky, like a creeping film of ice, narrowing 
 
322 STILL LIFE 
 
 the last transparent blue. The air was still warm, but the 
 distances were clear and chilly. Even the vague, black 
 with gathered trees, into which the upward road entered 
 and was lost, was indistinguishably clear, as something 
 seen through gross thick glass. One spot of hazardous 
 warmth maintained itself where an early lamp shone 
 through trees near by, and diffused its radiance through 
 the leaves into gold and green, infinitely repeated, and 
 growing stronger, as the last direct light climbed slowly 
 out of the sky. 
 
 Right across the square, as they waited on the pavement 
 edge a row of lights kindled along the parapet of a low 
 building, making coloured posters dimly visible on the 
 wall below. The tall houses that flanked it, loomed in the 
 light from large to gigantic and unscalable. 
 
 " I suppose I had better be going back to my garret," 
 said Miss Etheredge. 
 
 " Do you not come our way ? " asked Anne. 
 
 " No . . . but you are coming to-morrow, aren't you ? . . . 
 Oh, I haven't given you the address. 23 rue Sevigne 
 you'll remember that. ... I think I should like to ... no, 
 I'd better be going home ... do penance for this afternoon. 
 Good-bye, Mrs. Cradock. Don't forget to-morrow, what- 
 ever you do. Good-bye, Mr. Beauchamp. I'm sure I've 
 shocked you, but you'd better come see the beast in its 
 own haunts. Good-bye, Temple. You're too interested 
 in your silly theories. . . . Are you coming too ? " 
 
 " Of course," he said, and then hesitated. " I'm not 
 quite sure. I may have something to do." 
 
 " Not going to stand sentry at the Parthenon. ... I 
 wouldn't. . . ." 
 
 They watched for the little way before she turned the 
 corner. Even when she had disappeared, Maurice still 
 stared at the corner. Anne and Dennis moved away 
 towards a cab. " Come on, Morry," said Anne. 
 
 He ran the few steps after them. " That's not the way 
 to the rue SeVigne," he said. 
 
STILL LIFE 323 
 
 " People have been known to buy things on their way 
 home," said Anne. 
 
 " Yea," said Maurice absently. 
 
 Dennis addressed Anne. " Do you mind if we walk part 
 of the way home ? I feel I would rather walk than drive. 
 . . . But perhaps you're tired ? " 
 
 " No," she said, and they began to descend the slope. 
 Only at long intervals did any word pass between them, 
 and those that were spoken seemed to hang low as a sound 
 carried over water, reluctantly uttered and moving reluc- 
 tantly. Each in his measure was heavy and depressed. 
 So soon as they began to walk Anne felt the depression 
 gather into a physical fatigue. The joints of her arms 
 relaxed and were powerless. Maurice was continually con- 
 fronted by pictures of himself and Etheredge together 
 when he used to visit her three years before. She would 
 sit in her littered room and weep, and while she wept had 
 laughed and said to him : " But you're too young, Temple. 
 You are so very young." He had accepted it, and even 
 been glad. It opened broad vistas of life to him. The 
 remembered tone of her voice brought him to a discovery. 
 She had been glad, too. Perhaps, even she had been half 
 in love with him. Something began to burn tightly within 
 him, as though neither smoke could escape nor flame 
 breathe, at the thought. He felt again the firm warmth 
 of her massive body as he had put his arm round her in an 
 instinctive, frightened attempt to comfort her. He wished 
 he had kissed her. He desired to kiss her now. Anne must 
 surely know what he was feeling. Apprehensive even of 
 the new colour that must run in his cheeks, the excited 
 shortness with which his breath must be taken, he started 
 as if he had been discovered, when Dennis spoke. 
 
 " I must be clean off things. I suppose this road and 
 this weather are rather wonderful. They don't seem even 
 real to me. . . . The air's fresh enough, though. ..." 
 
 " I'm very tired," said Anne. " I think I'll drive. I 
 can rest a little before dinner." 
 
324 STILL LIFE 
 
 " Don't let us have dinner at the hotel," urged Dennis. 
 " We'll go somewhere where there's any amount of music, 
 plenty of life." He laughed at his own phrase. " What 
 do you say to that ? I've got plenty of money for once 
 in a way." 
 
 " Yes," said Maurice eagerly. " I can't stand the idea 
 of the hotel to-night." 
 
 " We'll go to Montmartre," said Anne. " You won't 
 drive with me, will you ? " 
 
 " I'd rather walk," said Dennis. 
 
 " You'll have to show him the way," said Anne to Maurice. 
 " Au revoir." She hailed a fiacre and drove away. 
 
 " We aren't very bright, are we ? " said Maurice. 
 
 " Bright ! Good God ! Your Miss Etheredge has fairly 
 ta,ken it out of me. ..." Then they walked on. 
 
 " What sort of a man is this Wauchope ? " asked Dennis. 
 
 " I don't know any more about him than you do. I only 
 met him to-day. I used to hear them talk about him. 
 He's supposed to be very clever. . . . He's been a friend of 
 Eamsay's for a long while. . . . Why ? Did you like him ? " 
 
 " He interested me. How much of that tale that Miss 
 Etheredge told was true you heard it, didn't you ? " 
 
 " More or less. I don't know whether it was true. Most 
 likely not. She's got her own way of looking at things. ..." 
 
 "Yes, but there was something about the story that 
 made it feel devilishly near being true. I can imagine a 
 man being like that, depending on women to know himself, 
 and frightened that they should know too much. . . . You 
 don't know this Netta either ? " 
 
 " No. ... I've heard of her. That's all." There was a 
 shade of embarrassment in Maurice's voice, when he asked, 
 " What do you think of Etheredge ? " 
 
 " She's extraordinary. I've never seen a woman like 
 her. She bowls me over. . . . She comes clean outside my 
 idea of a woman. One moment I thought what on earth 
 is she doing, painting and messing about here ; she ought 
 to be mixed up in some terrific drama of the primitive 
 
STILL LIFE 325 
 
 passions, wherever those things happen. But really it's 
 just because she is mixed up with all this talking and 
 painting that she is what she is." 
 
 " I think she's wonderful," said Maurice, as though he 
 were assenting to Dennis's opinion. 
 
 " Let's have a drink. There's a cafe down by the river, 
 I suppose." 
 
 " Dozens." 
 
 " Go to the best. There's no hurry. I'm not bursting 
 for food, are you ? and I'm sure Anne's not." 
 
 At the bottom of the hill they turned into a cafe on the 
 quay. Dennis ordered an absinthe. " I don't think I've 
 ever asked for the stuff of my own free will before." Maurice 
 followed suit. 
 
 " I didn't get very much out of the couple of letters you 
 sent me," said Dennis, " but I gathered you've been having 
 a good time." 
 
 " Yes, we did have a wonderful week. . . . Up to and in- 
 cluding yesterday. I don't feel quite so cheerful now, 
 though." 
 
 " It was not my arrival ? " 
 
 " Good Lord, no ! It must be going to the old places, 
 seeing the old people. We haven't been this side of the 
 river before except one afternoon at the Zoo. . . I've a 
 curious, rotten feeling, that nothing's fixed. ... I feel now 
 that someone might come up behind me and take this over- 
 coat off my back, suddenly that it's not quite really there." 
 
 " Has Anne got the same feeling ? " 
 
 " I don't think so." He paused to review the evidence 
 of the day. " I don't know though. I shouldn't be sur- 
 prised. These aren't her old places. But she may get it 
 off me. Perhaps it's in the air. It may be just seeing 
 Etheredge. She always has had that sort of effect on me." 
 
 " I can understand that." 
 
 "... You remember all I was saying to you in the hotel 
 before Anne came in this afternoon about being bursting 
 to write, and get something done ? " Dennis nodded. 
 
326 STILL LIFE 
 
 " Well, that's all rot. I haven't got anything to say 
 nothing at all. The only thing that's any real good to me 
 is another week like the last. I forgot myself completely. 
 If I can't forget myself, I'm hopeless like I am now. . . . 
 I've an idea I've got the makings of a Wauchope in me." 
 
 " That's curious. . . . I've been thinking exactly the 
 same of myself." 
 
 " I wonder who's right. We can't very well both be. 
 I'm not very much like you. ... I wish to God, I'd managed 
 to stand up to something. I think if I'd really seen some- 
 thing through, I might have been all right. . . . If I'd really 
 done what I wanted to, without waiting to be frightened 
 or ashamed. As it is I get a double dose. First I'm 
 frightened and ashamed, then I'm frightened and ashamed 
 for having been frightened and ashamed. . . . That kind of 
 thing could go on for ever and ever like one of those things 
 in algebra. I suppose the only reason that it doesn't is that 
 people have to go to sleep sometimes. Just now I feel I 
 should like to go to sleep all the while. 
 
 " Do you ever have the idea," Maurice went on, " that 
 it would have been a damned sight better if you'd never 
 been allowed to grow up if you'd been stuck in some 
 garden of Eden ? There's a hell of a lot of truth in that 
 story, I think. Here I am twenty-four, absolutely tortured 
 by the thought of all the people there are roaming about 
 the world, whom I've hurt in some way or in another. 
 They give me the shudders when I think about them. 
 Twenty-four that's about four years, five at most, of 
 effective life. What the devil will it be like when I'm 
 forty-eight I wonder ? The funniest part of it is that the 
 reason why I hurt all these people is that I haven't got the 
 courage not to. If I'd just told them that I was well, just 
 what I am quite early on, it would have been all right. 
 But I can never do that. Of course, it's bound to come 
 out, sooner or later, and that's where the trouble begins. 
 I believe they forget about it. I don't. . . . But even if I 
 did tell them about myself at the beginning, they wouldn't 
 
STILL LIFE 327 
 
 believe it not a word. I can see myself telling my mother 
 that I knew I was going to make a mess of everything. . . . 
 No, there's nothing to be done." 
 
 " Except not make a mess of it," said Dennis. 
 
 Maurice looked at him with a disappointed surprise. 
 
 " You think that's rather cheap. I thought so myself 
 before. We're both sentimentalists, of different kinds and 
 degrees. But why not really be a sentimentalist follow 
 every sentimental impulse ? " 
 
 " If you've got the strength to do that," said Maurice, 
 " it seems to me you've got the strength not to be senti- 
 mental. I don't believe you are, yourself, anyhow." 
 
 " No perhaps not," said Dennis thoughtfully. 
 
 " If I once begin to think about myself really, I can't 
 see where my sentimentality stops. It's mixed up with 
 everything I do, somehow. It's not only that I can't end 
 anything, but I can't even believe that anything is going 
 to end. At least I can believe it, I suppose, but I simply 
 won't realise it. I don't dare to. For instance, when you 
 go away again. You'll have to sometime, I suppose ? I 
 simply can't face the idea of saying good-bye to you, and 
 yet I can't get it out of the back of my mind. That a thing 
 should be over and done with for ever it almost makes 
 me freeze with horror. . . . Do you think Anne's like that ? " 
 
 " Anne ? Why do you ask me ? " 
 
 " I only wondered." 
 
 "... My notion of her is that she's different. She's older. 
 I think she's got an ideal. Perhaps that's what makes her 
 so different from anyone else. If things don't come up to 
 her ideal, she would let them go without a word. She 
 always has a standard to judge things by. I'm sure of that. 
 Whether it's an ideal that has never been realised, or 
 whether it's some experience in the past, I can't say. That's 
 my notion of her, anyhow. And I may be wrong. I don't 
 pretend to understand her." 
 
 " Do you notice that she's changed at all since we were 
 in Sussex together ? " 
 
328 STILL LIFE 
 
 " I've hardly seen her. . . . She's so curiously sure of her- 
 self. Why, do you find she's changed ? " 
 
 " She was wonderful last week. It isn't as though we 
 did anything in particular. ... I don't believe it's much 
 good forgetting yourself. It lets you down with a crash. 
 The funny part of it is that you don't know when you have 
 been let down not till sometime afterwards." He gulped 
 down the rest of his absinthe. " Etheredge does take it 
 out of you," he said. 
 
 They walked across the bridges home in silence. 
 
 " It's a quarter- past seven," said Dennis, as they entered 
 the hotel. " If we're ready by eight that ought to give us 
 plenty of time. I'll come to your sitting-room then. You 
 tell Anne." 
 
 Anne lay on the couch in her bedroom. To Maurice's 
 apprehensive vision there was something aloof and resigned 
 in her attitude. She must be thinking her own thoughts 
 alone. He had expected it, yet the reality was far more 
 potent than the thing he had expected. He was afraid of 
 Anne thinking her own thoughts apart from him,, for thus, 
 it seemed to him, she could see him more clearly. Close to 
 her he was hidden. But thought and calculation vanished 
 into impulse as he looked at her lying on the couch. He 
 knelt on the floor beside her and held her tight in his arms, 
 his face bent over hers. 
 
 " What's the matter, Anne ? " 
 
 She raised herself slightly and looked straight into his 
 eyes. 
 
 " Why, do I look as though anything were the matter ? " 
 
 " I thought so. You do look different from what you 
 did this morning." 
 
 " And so do you. . . . But I think I'm tired. ..." 
 
 " Is that all really ? " 
 
 " No. I've been thinking how very much I'm like Miss 
 Etheredge, and wondering what it is that keeps me from 
 being quite like her." 
 
 " How do you mean like Etheredge ? " 
 
STILL LIFE 329 
 
 " When you're lonely, things turn to dust and ashes. 
 ... I'm too old to be lonely." 
 
 " But you aren't lonely, are you ? " 
 
 " Oh, no ! " she said. " That's why I can talk so much 
 about loneliness." 
 
 " Don't talk like that What about me ? " 
 
 Anne made no reply by word. She looked at him so 
 intensely, with a half -smile on her lips, that he felt that she 
 had taken his words and flung them away. Suddenly, she 
 clasped him about the neck, and kissed his face, passion- 
 ately, feverishly. She sprang upon her feet and clasped 
 him tumultuously again. 
 
 ; ' That's over," she said. " Now for Montmartre." 
 
 She bent down before the mirror and rubbed her face, 
 holding her big powder puff in her two hands like a towel. 
 
 While they were dressing, and Anne was still at the 
 mirror, rouging her lips, she surprised him by saying, in 
 little spasms of words, " A Montmartre comme les Mont- 
 martroises. . . . Miss Etheredge is everything. . . . That you 
 told me and more. . . . But you never told me. . . . That she 
 was in love with you. ... Or had been That was curious." 
 
 Maurice was sharpening his razor. His face was thick 
 with soap. 
 
 " Why is it curious ? " he answered. " I never knew it." 
 
 " No," she said. "... I don't believe you would." 
 After a long pause while she delicately pencilled her eye- 
 brows, she returned with the rouge to her mouth. It 
 might almost have been that she sought the staccato it 
 gave to her words. 
 
 " But you do know now. . . . But it is rather strange. . . . 
 Don't you think. . . . That all your tragedies . . . happen . . . 
 while you're shaving . . . ? " They turned together to face 
 each other. The colour of Anne's black eyebrows and 
 reddened lips made her strange to him. 
 
 " Why, you look quite different, Anne." 
 
 "A Montmartre comme les Montmartroises," she said 
 again. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THEY went up the generously carpeted stairs of the Cabou- 
 lot. Dennis led the way. AJI obstinate determination had 
 taken hold of him. It carried him unbending through a 
 dispute with an unsatisfied cabdriver, which would at any 
 other time have driven him to exasperation. Anne 
 followed his long strides at a run, leaping lightly from 
 one stair to another, laughing to herself, excited and 
 irresponsible. She knew that her evident delight estranged 
 Maurice, who kept pace with her ; and she saw the 
 nervous hunger in his eyes when he said to her, "You 
 aren't so tired now ? " ; but she could not feel sorry 
 for him. Her own flight was not steady enough to bear 
 his weight. She was careful of her own exultation, for she 
 knew it might easily be brought down. Instead of 
 responding to the reproach in his words, she ran yet 
 faster up the stairs before him, turning her head to 
 say : 
 
 " No, I've forgotten all about that now." 
 
 A mildly obsequious patron led them through the white 
 doors. The suddenness of sound was unexpected. It set 
 Anne's wavering blood flowing riotously. She caught hold 
 of Dennis's arm and laughed. He turned about at the 
 touch and looked at her ; a tightness in him, that had held 
 his muscles fixed, loosened at the sight of Anne, and 
 of the bright dancing-room. He smiled. 
 
 " Thank God we're here," he said. 
 
 The patron waited while they chose a table. Dennis 
 could not attend to the choice. His wandering eyes 
 vaguely watched two women, who danced, pressed close 
 together, and brushed his coat with their skirts. One was 
 
 330 
 
STILL LIFE 331 
 
 tall, with flaxen hair, dressed like a scarlet doll. She sang 
 raucously but with enjoyment, as with quick decisive steps 
 she backed before her partner down the room. The other, 
 dark-haired, with a hooped dancing-skirt, leant her head 
 sideways against her partner's bosom, and laughed for 
 applause. 
 
 " If monsieur would only choose. ..." 
 
 Dennis turned to consult Anne. She was gone to disrobe. 
 " This will do, won't it ? " he said to Maurice, and pointed 
 to a table at the end of the room. " Anything," said 
 Maurice. 
 
 They sat down and awaited Anne. Maurice idly re- 
 garded the waiter's hands as they prepared the table, and 
 shivered a little. You had to be in the mood for this kind 
 of thing, he thought. He shifted his chair to the side of 
 the table so that he could see the room. The movement, 
 the curious women, some few bored, but most, naturally 
 breathing their natural air, began to interest him, yet he 
 was completely outside it all. The noisy music of the red- 
 coated players, the swirl of faces that he could not arrest, 
 lulled his eyes and ears. He was glad to be there and to 
 have something to look at. But he was out of it all, not 
 definitely but uneasily, as though at any moment he might 
 in part be carried away. He would have rejoiced had he 
 thought he would be whirled into it wholly, if he could 
 drink himself drunk enough to go away with the dark- 
 haired dancing girl, who now sat sideways on a chair look- 
 ing towards them, pouting and drumming with her toes 
 on the floor, with a nonchalant gaiety that (so he assured 
 himself) did not deceive him for a moment. He would be 
 so kind towards her. It would be an unfamiliar experience 
 for her. He knew he would never be drunk enough for 
 that, 
 
 " We want something to drink, immediately," said 
 Dennis, pointing out the champagne on the card. 
 
 " That's good," said Maurice. It was a good thing to 
 drink anyhow. His glance rested upon the black-haired 
 
332 STILL LIFE 
 
 girl. She looked thin and tired. That was only the colour 
 on her eyes, of course, but it would be worth while to be 
 her lover. She might be quite happy with him. It was 
 silly that he could not do it just because he was in love 
 with Anne. Why should it make any difference to that ? 
 If only something would happen and set him free, just for 
 a little while, and he could come back to her afterwards. 
 He did not dare to fix the thought, but he wished that 
 something would happen. 
 
 " Here's Anne," said Dennis. 
 
 She seemed to be unfamiliarly tall and languid as she 
 danced the last few steps towards the table. Her arms 
 were covered tightly by the long sleeves of a white blouse 
 that poured in a cascade of frill over her hands. She 
 sat down quickly at Dennis's side and looked at Maurice, 
 resting her chin upon her hands. 
 
 "I'm very happy," she said. 
 
 To Maurice her happiness was foreign ; because it was 
 foreign, he thought it was forced. He even detected a note 
 of challenge in her words. The idea that they were com- 
 pletely apart swept into him like a cold and desolating 
 mist. In Anne's eyes as they still regarded him he saw the 
 knowledge of his own thoughts. 
 
 " I can't quite get used to you like that," he said. 
 
 " No ? " she said indifferently, then she turned to Dennis. 
 " Am I so terribly unfamiliar ? " 
 
 '' You're different but perfectly recognisable," he re- 
 plied, and stared as he had been staring at the far end of 
 the room, where in a pause of the music a woman with a 
 shock of red hair, in a dead black-coat and skirt, danced 
 an amazing pas seul. Her concentration upon her perform- 
 ance seemed occasionally to snap, and her tenseness to 
 escape in sudden low hoots of hard laughter. 
 
 " I think she's wonderful," said Anne. She drained her 
 glass of champagne. The music began again, quick Ameri- 
 can music of the modern sort. It fired Dennis with a 
 sudden determination. "Let you and I dance, Anne." 
 
STILL LIFE 333 
 
 She stood up and waited for him while he drank. " Order 
 supper," he said to Maurice. 
 
 For all his determinations, Dennis was not ungraceful. 
 The discipline he put upon himself was not apparent in his 
 movements, which, though heavy, were yet measured. 
 He held Anne lightly. Her eyes were shut while she sang 
 the words to the American tune, and her whole body 
 swayed. 
 
 " I wish to God I could lose myself like you," said 
 Dennis to her. 
 
 Anne opened her eyes and looked up at him, and smiled 
 so that Dennis wondered whether she had lost herself after 
 all. 
 
 " I shall have to get drunk," he said. 
 
 Anne nodded, too preoccupied with the rhythm of her 
 body to speak. A blonde-bearded man, dancing gro- 
 tesquely like a clumsy wooden doll, collided with them, and 
 smiled enthusiastically by way of apology. With him he 
 dragged the red-haired girl. Her head was thrown back, 
 and it swayed mechanically to her movements. Her eyes 
 were shut and she looked sick. 
 
 " Don't you think she's wonderful ? " said Anne. 
 
 " I hate the man," he replied. Then he was disgusted 
 at his own sentimental concern. What was it to do with 
 him if the blonde-bearded man was abominable ? Then 
 the music made a pleasant rushing noise in his ears, and 
 he was plunged forgetful into the sense that he and Anne 
 were dancing together. 
 
 Maurice watched them. He admired and envied them 
 for dancing well. He looked round to see if anybody else 
 was admiring Anne. She was very beautiful. She swayed 
 like the slender leaf of a water plant beneath the stream. 
 What on earth had he to do with her now ? She had 
 stepped clean out of him and left him empty ; he shrank 
 back, collapsed, into himself. There was nothing of him- 
 self except a few recollections, of Madeleine, of Etheredge, 
 of Anne. He began to wonder what Madeleine felt about 
 
334 STILL LIFE 
 
 him now. He remembered how she had sat in the window 
 of her room sewing and had suddenly said : " Je crois que 
 tu ne m'aimes pas," and how he had protested, how he had 
 wondered how a man would protest if he were really in love. 
 He ordered supper as he had been told. It was somehow 
 pleasant to realise that it would cost a great deal of money. 
 He had fairly bought his right to be there, and he need feel 
 no obligation to become part of the entertainment, to do 
 anything else than sit still there and watch. It was worth 
 while to watch, too. He was not at all miserable, for all 
 that he felt himself alone. He even enjoyed the warmth 
 of the little gushes of sentimental recollection which burst 
 into his mind. 
 
 The girl in the blue hooped skirt rose from her chair and 
 came towards him. He saw her come, but the idea that 
 she was coming to him never shaped itself, so remote was 
 he, and it was with a little start of surprise that he heard 
 her say, as she sat down on a chair beside the table : 
 " Monsieur is sad." 
 
 He looked at her. If her eyes were dead beneath their 
 artificial lustre, her mouth was plainly alive, thin, un- 
 decided and human. Of course, she did not mean anything 
 by the words, but all the same he thrilled to the expression 
 of a casual sympathy. 
 
 fc ' Life is sad, alas, madame," he said, and as he 
 watched his fingers flick the ash off his cigarette into the 
 tray, he smiled, not merely at his own sententiousness, but 
 in delight at her sympathy. He knew what she would say 
 next. It was always disappointing, but then it was her 
 business to consume champagne at an inordinate profit to 
 the management. It was his duty at least to anticipate 
 the question she could have no pleasure in asking. 
 " If madame would do us the pleasure. . . ." 
 " Monsieur is not alone then. . . . Why is he sad ? " 
 " Aren't you ever sad, then, when you aren't alone ? " 
 " Never," she said decidedly, and drank the glass of 
 champagne he poured for her, in emphasis of her denial. 
 
STILL LIFE 335 
 
 " I don't believe it." 
 
 " Si, si but certainly monsieur is in love. He has the 
 appearance. Then there are sadnesses, I know. Above all, 
 seeing monsieur is so gentil." 
 
 Maurice knew that she said the same thing, every night, 
 in the ordinary way of business, but the knowledge was 
 inactive. He believed that he really was gentil, and he was 
 pleased to accept the tribute. 
 
 Anne and Dennis broke off their dance, though the 
 music resumed at the insistent demand of the raucous pink 
 doll. She danced with a young man, whose thin body and 
 pale sallow face, beautifully framed with dead-black hair, 
 made him look taller than he was. At his partner's vocif- 
 erous " Bis ! " he smiled, cynical and indulgent. He 
 laughed outright towards a woman who smoked and 
 watched him continually, when the flaxen-haired doll 
 cried to the chef d'orchestre " But my baby wishes to 
 dance again, is it not so ? " 
 
 The chef (Torchestre was deferential then. " If monsieur 
 wishes it. . . ." And the tune Alexander's Rag- time 
 Band poured out again. 
 
 " Morry's got someone to talk to," said Dennis, as they 
 approached the table. 
 
 " So I see," said Anne. She greeted the girl. Anne felt 
 that they were very near to each other, the girl and she. 
 
 " Monsieur and madame are friends ? " she said, join- 
 ing Anne to Maurice by her glance. " Then we must change 
 places." 
 
 She made her way for Anne to sit on the cushioned seat 
 against the wall. Dennis sat next to Anne. The girl sat 
 in a chair beside Dennis. 
 
 " That's better, isn't it ? " she said to Dennis. " I was 
 saying," she went on, " that monsieur looked very sad. 
 Evidently it was because you were not here, madame." 
 
 Anne laughed. " So you think that was the reason ? " 
 
 She nodded. " Madame is beautiful and gentil. Mon- 
 sieur is gentil, ..." 
 
336 STILL LIFE 
 
 " But not beautiful ? " interrupted Maurice. 
 
 " Si, si." She looked at him critically. " He is beautiful, 
 is he not, madame ? " 
 
 " Yes, I think so." Anne also looked at him critically. 
 For no reason he wished she had decided against him. 
 
 " But naturally you think so," said the girl. 
 
 " It's too simple altogether," said Anne. 
 
 They began to eat. They were hungry, and the food was 
 excellent. Maurice had chosen it on a simple scheme. He 
 had ordered the most expensive dish in every course. He 
 wanted to spend money, superabundantly to pay his foot- 
 ing there. Moreover, to him poised uneasily between the 
 past and the future in a present to which he was wholly 
 strange, the spending of money came as a positive activity, 
 justifying him. Save that he had had a suspicion that the 
 waiter would see through his method, he had enjoyed its 
 exercise. 
 
 " Is monsieur another who is sad ? " said the girl to 
 Dennis. 
 
 " Unfortunately, he doesn't know himself." Dennis's 
 French was of the square English kind, plain and intel- 
 ligible, but violent and disconcerting. 
 
 " That must be a terrible sadness," said the girl seriously. 
 
 " Or terribly amusing. . . ." 
 
 The girl supped her St. Germain with application. " You 
 find it so ? I don't think I should. I like to know about 
 myself. I always know whether I'm sad or happy." 
 
 Dennis was drinking quickly and his words became 
 brusque. 
 
 " Tell me now, are you sad or happy, now quite 
 frankly." 
 
 " But naturally . . .," she began. 
 
 " No ' naturally,' " he said. " One is never ' naturally ' 
 happy or sad. That's only politeness." Dennis glanced 
 at Anne, and took hold of the girl's wrist on the table. 
 " Tell me now, quite honestly." Dennis looked at Anne 
 while he waited for the answer. Anne watched the girl. 
 
STILL LIFE 337 
 
 " I think," she said quietly, " I should be really happy 
 if monsieur were not hurting my hand." 
 
 Dennis let go of her wrist quickly. " I wasn't thinking. 
 You must forgive me. It was brutal." Suddenly he 
 raised her wrist and bent his head forward. He kissed the 
 faint red mark his fingers had left, lowered her hand to the 
 table and drank again. 
 
 The girl laughed delightedly. " Monsieur est bien 
 gen til," she said and looked for Anne's assent. 
 
 " I assure you, mademoiselle," said Anne, " it's the first 
 time he's ever done such a thing, at least since I have 
 known him." 
 
 " Is that true ? " the girl asked Maurice. He nodded 
 his head. " Is that true ? " she turned to Dennis. 
 
 " Perhaps. I don't know. . . . Probably. . . ." 
 
 " Then, kiss me." She held up her face to him. Maurice 
 watched the tautness of her slender arms as she clenched 
 the chair-seat with her hands. He would never have dared 
 to kiss her, or be kissed by her in front of Anne. Only be- 
 cause he was too much the coward. What difference could 
 it make ? Why couldn't he be free ? Of course he would 
 come back eventually to Anne ; but now he desired to kiss 
 that girl, to be her lover, only for a night. Then he would 
 pass on. What if he did ? It wouldn't change him, save 
 that he would have been honest. But Anne ! He did not 
 know. Perhaps she would be hurt, and not have him back 
 again. Perhaps she would not take any notice. He found 
 that he wanted her to take notice. There was something 
 terribly unfair in that to want her to take notice, and yet 
 to receive him back as though she had taken none. Still, 
 there it was. If that was unfair he was unfair. But did he 
 want her to receive him back ? Perhaps he himself would 
 not go back, of his own choice would not go back. Yes, 
 that was the truth of the matter. He wouldn't go back. 
 ... He was pulled up by a queer inward shock. . . . Why 
 wasn't the idea terrible to him ? It ought to be terrible, 
 and it was not terrible at all. Quite plainly he could see 
 
338 STILL LIFE 
 
 himself deciding not to return. ... He musn't let Anne 
 know that. 
 
 He slowly raised his glass and held it between his eye and 
 the light, curious to know whether his hand trembled. It 
 trembled a little. 
 
 " Anne, I want to drink your health," he said, filling her 
 glass and his own. While they touched glasses, she looked 
 at him. 
 
 " What are you thinking about, Anne ? " he said when 
 they had drunk. 
 
 " I was wondering," she said, " why we're all here instead 
 of anywhere else." 
 
 " Why, where would you rather be ? " 
 
 " I was wondering about that, too." 
 
 " What was it you said, Anne ? " asked Dennis. 
 
 " I only wanted to know why we are all here, rather than 
 anywhere else. . . . Apart from the fact that you've invited 
 us." 
 
 " Because it's the kind of place where you can forget 
 that you've lost your courage. . . . That's why I'm here, 
 anyhow." He laughed at himself. "My God, but I'm 
 being terribly heavy. It's the first stage, when I've drunk 
 too much. . . . When one drinks, one becomes serious, isn't 
 that so, mademoiselle ? " 
 
 " That is true," she said. 
 
 " Please don't agree with me unless you really want to. 
 I don't mind." 
 
 " No . . . but it's true all the same . . . one must drink 
 more, that's all." She filled up Dennis's glass for him. 
 " I want to dance. Madame and I will dance the next 
 together ? It's more gentil when two ladies dance together. 
 I think so." 
 
 " I should like to," said Anne. " But are you never sad, 
 like monsieur ? " She nodded towards Dennis. 
 
 " Never sad like monsieur," she said decidedly, shaking 
 her head and speaking with the rim of the glass between 
 her lips. 
 
STILL LIFE 339 
 
 " But what do you do when your lover leaves you ? " 
 
 " Then I weep tears but I'm not sad like monsieur." 
 
 The orchestra burst into another American dance, 
 tumultuous, noisy, but with some faint echo of the melan- 
 choly lilt of the music whence it came. The girl stood up 
 quickly and moved her doubled fists in impatient delight. 
 
 " This is admirable," she said. 
 
 Maurice and Dennis watched them. The hoop of the 
 girl's blue skirt stuck out ridiculously high behind her, as 
 Anne held her close. Now Anne's dancing seemed to be 
 the full completion of her walk. Because her whole body 
 moved in rhythm, it was as though her feet moved not at 
 all. She might have remained on the spot where she stood 
 and yet she would have been dancing still. The girl seemed 
 to partake of a common rapture. In Anne's arms she was 
 soft and languid, dancing in a dream that might have had 
 no end. She leant her head against Anne's shoulders and 
 closed her eyes, pressing nearer and nearer to her. The lids 
 fell half-way down over Anne's own eyes, bent down to- 
 wards the girl's black hair. In her nostrils she felt nothing 
 but the pungent sweet smell of oranges that rose from the 
 hair that scattered over her bosom. The noisy, monotonous 
 music sped distances away. A glare of white and yellow 
 and red filtered dimly through her lashes. The girl's soft 
 body melted into the instinctive rhythm of her own. 
 
 " Do your lovers leave you often ? " she asked naturally, 
 almost unconsciously. For Anne they might have con- 
 tinued to talk together thus, for ever. 
 
 " I have had very few lovers, madame." The words 
 faded unechoed into the full silence of the dance. 
 
 " Perhaps monsieur is going to leave you and you are 
 sad." The girl shifted her head on Anne's shoulder as she 
 spoke. 
 
 " I don't know. Perhaps," said Anne. 
 
 " All that is nothing. Ca pique pour un petit moment, 
 C'est tout." 
 
 " This is better." Anne held her tight. 
 
340 STILL LIFE 
 
 " When a man can leave you, it's better he should leave 
 you immediately. C'est bien moins de misere." 
 
 " Perhaps it is different for you. You are not so lonely 
 as I." 
 
 " Moi, je ne suis pas seule. J'ai un petit un beau petit 
 gosse. Mais c'est triste d'etre toute seule. Ca vous 
 enerve." 
 
 Anne felt that the whole world had dropped away from 
 them as they danced. She might say anything, do any- 
 thing, be anything, if only the dance went on. The thought 
 that it should stop was incredible. Then a vision of the 
 girl's beau petit gosse loomed ridiculous before her. The 
 thought was so incongruous then and there that she laughed 
 derisively at herself. She waited quite calmly for the 
 music to end, dancing still, her eyes now fixed on the blue 
 hoop that waved like a monstrous heavy tail ; she was 
 amused by the sight and wholly herself. 
 
 " But of course monsieur is not going to leave me at all. 
 It was only a Hague. You made me drunk." 
 
 "But it's beautiful to be drunk like that, with dancing." 
 
 The two men watched them. Into the whirl of yearn- 
 ings and indecisions which worked beneath Dennis's 
 natural control a hard vein of resolution slowly spread. 
 For a moment he had desired the girl. But he desired all 
 women, and since the desire was vague, it faded. Now he 
 needed her, not for the satisfaction of desire, which passed 
 easily and unregrettably away, but to arrest his fluctuant 
 self. In her he could assert himself against the tumult of 
 instinct and impulse which beset him. To go away with 
 her, to treat her as any one of the thousand men he saw 
 and detested in their traffic with women, under Anne's 
 eyes, under the eyes of that tempestuous and accusing soul 
 which took shape sometimes in Anne, but more often 
 strangely in the tremulous sneering lips of Miss Etheredge, 
 that would justify him to himself, prove him a man able 
 to steer by his own star. The purpose hardened within 
 him as his eyes firmly followed their dance. The girl was 
 
STILL LIFE 341 
 
 Anne's now ; but she would have to come with him, have 
 to come into the power of his money. It was the idea of 
 compulsion and brutality upon which he fastened. He 
 would rather she came against her will than liking him. 
 The more she seemed to lose herself in the dreamy intoxi- 
 cation of her dance with Anne, the more the joy of his 
 secret determination glowed beneath him. He followed her 
 every movement. His glance passed from her slender 
 yellow arms to the head which she pillowed as though in 
 sleep on Anne's breast. He felt her little body shrink under 
 his touch ; he saw her eyes open in a childish stare of 
 horror. 
 
 " Do you like that girl ? " he asked Maurice. 
 
 Maurice had heard Anne's question to the girl, " What 
 do you do when your lovers leave you ? " and had been 
 slowly pondering its significance. It was significant, that 
 he knew. Whether to Anne, he did not know. 
 
 " Yes," he said to Dennis. " She's so complete. . . . 
 They both seem to be miles away ... in another world." 
 
 " It's a good thing to meet one of these women that you 
 needn't pity." 
 
 " You couldn't pity her. I can't and I can pity any- 
 body. . . . She might rather pity me." 
 
 " I think she's afraid of me." 
 
 " Do you ? . . . She seems to have taken to Anne." 
 
 " She makes them, somehow. . . . She ought not." 
 
 " Ought not ? ... What do you mean ? " 
 
 " They've no business to take to anybody, except one of 
 themselves. . . . It's better for them. If you have to be 
 animal, stay an animal. . . . There's nothing wrong in being 
 an animal. I'm not sure it's not the right thing ; but to try 
 to be both it only hurts. Think what a shock she'll have 
 when I go home with her and pay the money me after 
 Anne." 
 
 While he spoke Dennis looked at the pair. The music 
 twice repeated, ended suddenly. The girl woke out of her 
 dream. Taking Anne's hand she made her way back to 
 
342 STILL LIFE 
 
 the table. She put a cigarette in her mouth and leant 
 languidly with her arms upon the table to take the light 
 which Dennis made for her. 
 
 " It is not every day one dances like that," she said. 
 c ' It is different with men, but Madame dances as a lover." 
 
 Anne stood up at the table and smiled at the words, as 
 she might smile in the full recollection of sunny dreams, 
 poised between sleep and wakefulness. To Maurice she 
 was foreign. He did not notice, as he had, the unfamiliar 
 colour on a familiar Anne ; now the colour and Anne were 
 one, and both strange to him. He did not wonder at it, 
 but merely saw with his eyes and painfully accepted. His 
 mind was busy with Dennis's declared intention. So 
 decisive was it and unexpected. Envy followed his sur- 
 prise, inevitably. 
 
 At a table in front of him the red-haired girl sat with her 
 head thrown perilously back. Her eyes were shut and her 
 mouth opened uncertainly. Her long hair, escaped from 
 its band, streamed loose over the chair-back. The blonde- 
 bearded man was laughing in front of her. In the middle 
 of the room, stood the tall, sallow man with his wig of jet- 
 black hair. So black were his clothes and so white the 
 light which poured upon them, that he seemed to waver 
 between the poles of colour, to come into definite being out 
 of nothingness, and to pass as quickly back again, like a 
 picture seen on a background of closed eyes. He was sing- 
 ing a loud high-pitched song, seriously, while he drew his 
 tall body up and made stilted gestures with the flattened 
 palm of his hand. The patron, curly-haired, with a red, 
 sunken face, like an American of caricature without his 
 beard, paused in his ministrations to hear. A girl in an 
 orange dress like a Russian peasant's, with high dancing 
 boots, leant, hands in pockets, against the partition by the 
 door. She moved her head from time to time to free the 
 black hair that curled into the nape of her neck. Beyond 
 her, many girls, topped by the scarlet doll, delightfully 
 waited. At the long border of full tables round the room 
 
STILL LIFE 343 
 
 everyone seemed to be silent for the song. The pale-faced 
 woman of many pearls who had watched the man while he 
 danced, watched him still. Her elbows rested still on the 
 table, and the long cigarette still trailed smoke before her 
 face. The man's dead-black head rose yet higher, like a 
 mask upon his firm-lined face. Some ice tinkled musically 
 in a bucket. Then the red-haired girl in front of Maurice 
 jolted her head forward and laughed, harsh and loud. The 
 patron frowned and listened on. The blonde-bearded man, 
 smiling, laid his hand on the girl's arm. She waked into 
 bewilderment, then whispered raucously to him so that 
 Maurice could hear, " Je suis un vrai type, moi." The man 
 nodded assent ; and the song ascended still. 
 
 The bravos and bises sounded hollow. They could not 
 conquer the silence into which they were launched. Long 
 minutes of empty fixity seemed to pass before the patron 
 moved and the chef d'orchestre raised his violin. 
 
 "It is a little polisson. Madame did not understand ? 
 It isn't important. He sings everywhere. ... La grande en 
 perles elle est Russe est diablement amoureuse de mi ; 
 mais il s'en f . . . de tout le monde. II est gentil tout de 
 meme. II dit des fortunes, tres bien, avec des cartes, pour 
 rien. Celle-la " she nodded discreetly towards the red- 
 haired girl " elle s'ensaoule tous les soirs. Ca vous 
 degoute peut-etre, Madame . . . mais elle est malade." 
 
 " Anne, dance with me, will you ? " said Maurice. 
 
 She was surprised. " I thought you didn't dance. ..." 
 
 " I can a little. If it worries you, we'll stop." 
 
 " Madame dances with monsieur. Then I must dance 
 with le bete." She laughed at Dennis. " But the next is 
 for us again, is it not, Madame ? " 
 
 The interminable rag-time struck up again. Anne put 
 her hands on his shoulders and leant back away from him, 
 moving her head slowly from side to side. By the simple 
 throwing back of herself, she was swept clean away from 
 him. He moved anxiously with her. The chef d'orchestre, 
 dodging dexterously among the dancers, swinging his 
 
344 STILL LIFE 
 
 fiddle high and low to avoid them, might have been jeering 
 at him. Why had he danced ? Not because he desired 
 to ... why ? He saw Dennis moving grave and indifferent 
 with the girl pressed close to him. The tall, sallow man 
 swung superbly past him, smiling inscrutably beyond the 
 pearled lady. He looked at his hands on Anne's out- 
 stretched arms, then down the empty space between them 
 to the floor where their feet moved like distant ordered 
 planets. If only some thrill of love, of conquering desire, 
 would pass between them. Anne's throat lay beautiful 
 before him. He would like to kiss it. Like ? The gulf 
 between it and the desire that would justify it was broad 
 as the space between them. Like ? His futility seemed to 
 concentrate in the thought. The hoop of the blue skirt 
 touched his arm. He glanced round, and she grimaced at 
 him. 
 
 Anne opened her eyes. " Don't let's dance any more," 
 she said. 
 
 His determination collapsed at the words, and he followed 
 her back to the table. 
 
 " Why did you ask me ? " she said. " You didn't want 
 to." 
 
 " I know I didn't. ... I was jealous. . . ." 
 
 "Jealous? Of what?" 
 
 " I don't know. ..." A sudden flame caught in him. 
 " Oh ! What the hell am I doing here ? " It died down 
 instantly. " I don't know anything," he said clearly, 
 " about it or myself or anything. I'm tired and sick of it. 
 If only . . ." 
 
 " If only what ? " 
 
 " If only ... No, I don't know . . . but there is an ' if 
 only ' about me somewhere to-night. . . . You seem to have 
 gone right away and left me alone. . . . That's why I wanted 
 to dance." 
 
 " But you want to be left alone, don't you ? Tell me." 
 
 " There are different ways of being left alone." 
 
 One half of him cried out to him to fall at Anne's feet in 
 
STILL LIFE 345 
 
 utter abandonment. Thus he would have been rid of his 
 burden. But something remained to tell him that he had 
 done it too often, that Anne, too, was weary of that. It 
 held him fast and shaped his resolution to something which 
 he did not know. 
 
 " Anne," he said with a curious decision, " I'm very 
 sorry about that. It's being in between sober and drunk, 
 or it may be something else. It's very hard to tell, but, at 
 all events, I've got rid of it. ... But I don't think I'll dance 
 any more. . . . I've an idea," he said, after a few moments, 
 " that it has something to do with Etheredge. I never can 
 tell how much she affects me ; but it's something con- 
 siderable. Does a woman feel like that about her ? . . . 
 but I can't say exactly what it is that she does." 
 
 " She gives me a kind of determination about myself, 
 I think," said Anne. 
 
 " I think it is the opposite with me." 
 
 " Yes, I can see that." Anne turned away to face the 
 girl, who was arranging her rebellious skirt in the chair. 
 " He was nice to dance with ? " 
 
 " Not bad. Much better than I thought. I believe he 
 loves me a little." As he climbed down into his seat, she 
 looked up at him with an inexpert shyness. Her fingers, 
 holding the spoon to eat her ice, were square and babyish, 
 with a baby's wire ring. " It's pretty, isn't it ? " she said, 
 and placed it in the middle of the table for general admira- 
 tion. Herself, she looked at it with her head cocked side- 
 ways and the tip of her tongue showing from the corner of 
 her mouth. " I got it at Christmas in a baroque. I paid 
 two sous and won first time." 
 
 Dennis took the hand and kissed it ; then, as though the 
 action were one, he caught the girl by the shoulders from 
 her chair and set her beside him. She shrank together, 
 and looked up at him with a childish surprise. She was 
 frightened by him, and yet attracted. She put her arms 
 round his neck quickly and said, " You won't be rough with 
 me, will you rnon grand bete ? " With a shy and nervous 
 
346 STILL LIFE 
 
 smile she turned to Anne. " You're not angry with me, 
 madame ? " Her arms were still about Dennis's neck, and 
 her head rested against his breast. 
 
 " But why should I be angry ? " said Anne. " I am 
 very fond of you." A note in Anne's voice that was hardly 
 sure bore witness to her truth. Dennis's arm slowly en- 
 circled the girl's waist. His eyes were fixed on Anne. 
 
 " We must dance then," said the girl suddenly, putting 
 Dennis's arm away. Anne rose at the words. Close- 
 pressed, they moved into the music. 
 
 The girl's head nestled familiar upon Anne's shoulder. 
 While they danced she spoke but once. "He is gentil, 
 your friend, le grand bete ? " 
 
 Anne woke out of the dance and looked at him at the 
 far end of the room before she answered. Dennis was watch- 
 ing them, and listening to something that Maurice was 
 saying. 
 
 " Yes, he is gentil, truly gentil" 
 
 The girl, whose eyes had been turned up to look for her 
 reply, nestled close again, like a child reassured before 
 sleep, to whom one single word can bring contentment. 
 The movement of her head again set free the pungent, 
 sweet smell of her hair, like oranges. But always in Anne's 
 eyes, while she danced, was the large blue tail, outspread 
 and swinging. 
 
 Dennis was strange. His strangeness occupied Maurice's 
 mind. 
 
 "I've never known you like this before," he said. 
 
 " Perhaps you never will again. ... I imagine it's not 
 the kind of thing that will often happen to me." 
 
 " To fall in love with a woman ? " 
 
 Dennis looked at him. His lips twisted in a half-smile. 
 
 " Yes, that's it." 
 
 " What do you mean ? It's happened often enough to 
 you, surely ? " 
 
 " You say you've never known me like this before. 
 Neither have I. . . . It's curious how fast things do happen, 
 
STILL LIFE 347 
 
 isn't it ? Last night reading Tout- Paris in the boat- 
 saloon : to-night, well, I'm not sure what I'm doing. 
 Nobody knows quite. Anne doesn't ; you don't ; and 
 I'm certain this girl doesn't . . . girl ... I suppose 
 she's as old as me . . . older than you, anyhow. . . . 
 That's really the reason why I wanted to come here, after 
 all so that I shouldn't know what I was doing. I've 
 succeeded pretty well, pretty well. . . . 
 
 " I wonder now why I'm going home with this woman. 
 It would be something, quite definitely something, if I 
 knew that. One thing is certain. It's not because I want 
 her. I've wanted hundreds of women before women of 
 the same kind. I can't tell whether it's just vanity the 
 will to power. There's a good deal in that idea of the will 
 to power. . . . Only it's a curious way of showing it, con- 
 sidering that that blonde-bearded fool in front of you 
 there can get just as much power for the same amount of 
 money. Probably more power for his money. . . . 
 Perhaps I'm doing it to spite myself. That's a rotten 
 kind of motive, according to my ideas, but it is fairly 
 strong." 
 
 All the while he watched the patterns he drew with a 
 spoon upon the tablecloth. " Perhaps it's because I'm a 
 little drunk, but since I got drunk on purpose we needn't 
 count that. I mean, I got drunk on purpose to carry it 
 off with some thoroughness. This is good stuff to drink 
 too much of, isn't it ? Twenty-eight francs a bottle. I 
 should think that was about two hundred and fifty per cent 
 profit. It is rather strange that should make it so much 
 better to drink. . . . Anyhow, it's the kind of night that 
 I ought to be drinking stuff that gives the patron two 
 hundred and fifty per cent. It justifies me somehow, or 
 do you not feel that ? " 
 
 Maurice nodded and listened. He was surprised that 
 Dennis was watching the dancers now, while he continued 
 to speak. 
 
 " Funny things do flit across one's mind. . . . About 
 
348 STILL LIFE 
 
 love. There must be something in it. They've turned out 
 quite a lot of poetry about it, quite good, too. Do you 
 think it's peculiar to temperaments ? You know ' Vivaimis, 
 mea Lesbia atque amemus ! ' It couldn't have come out of 
 the same thing that that blonde-bearded b . . . feels 
 about that woman there in front of you, could it ? Not 
 the kind of thing you spend a few years in constructing 
 either. I can see yellow-hair's argument all right, myself. 
 I had two seconds of it with the blue girl yonder. . . . 
 Perhaps it was Catullus's kind, though. I've grown too 
 old, or I was born too old, for that. 
 
 " There's the problem. Does that finish the business, 
 or is there another kind beyond all this the Dante 
 Beatrice love ? Am I just stuck in between them, or is 
 the ideal only a plant ? ... People seem to get along 
 without it, anyhow. . . . What's strange in me is that I 
 can't believe it really is a plant ; and yet I can't conceive 
 it truly existing. What's the good of it existing if it does 
 not exist for a man like me ? How can it exist for a man 
 who is eternally conscious of himself, as I am ? . . . You 
 have to lose yourself. ... He that loseth his life shall 
 save it. I feel that that's true. But what's the good of a 
 feeling to a man with my habit of mind ? Lose myself ? If 
 I just suggest it to myself nine- tenths of me gets up 
 and laughs. . . . 
 
 " No, I believe that there is one way of salvation for me : 
 to do something instead of letting something be done, to 
 do something and wait, something that makes you bound 
 to respond, somehow to baptise myself. You see what I 
 mean. The doing of something that may have no value 
 in itself, but which costs me so much to do that it will 
 always be a symbol that is what I come to. ... What 
 a devil of a time this dance is ! ... or am I talking 
 quickly . . . ? Perhaps I'm after crucifying myself with 
 the blue girl. That's strange, too how one comes back 
 to the old symbols. I wonder whether they meant as 
 much then as they do to me now." 
 
STILL LIFE 349 
 
 Dennis talked on aloud to himself in dispassionate 
 monotone. While Maurice listened the bright lights of 
 the room swam in a changing grey that leapt from black 
 to white as had the shape of the tall singer while he sang. 
 Music boomed about his ears, and the dancers blurred un- 
 weary paths before his eyes. He must be drunk, he thought. 
 An intensity of remembrance, that took neither shape nor 
 name nor time, flooded into the channels of his hungry 
 sense. He could not wait to probe the mystery of recollec- 
 tion. He was urgent to follow Dennis, who was passing 
 beyond him, and he despaired at his earthbound spirit that 
 would not rise. 
 
 " Not to know what to-morrow will bring forth. I do 
 know. I know that I shall remain within my boundaries 
 and refuse myself to everything from fear. We can't go on 
 living like that. I know the shape of myself from one 
 year's end to another. Now I feel I'm imprisoned in it, and 
 I must burst outside somehow. To make yourself in- 
 calculable. It may be only an ideal. . . . The blue girl 
 would be frightened if she knew she had to help me do 
 that. I'm frightened myself. Not to know what I shall 
 be I should be frightened of that, if I didn't know 
 it will never come true. It's all just putting up an argu- 
 ment against Destiny, an argument instead of a challenge. 
 How the psychologists would laugh to hear me talk of 
 challenging my own self, making myself be other than I 
 am. . . . But they only babble after all, and I can babble 
 their own things better than they can. I've made a decent 
 living by it for years. I thought that might be a symbol 
 if I gave it up ; but it means nothing. It doesn't touch 
 me. I want something that will touch me. I shall always 
 be myself, but now my self is smaller than I am. I hate it. 
 I'm dead tired of it. I want the thing that hates and is 
 tired to join with the thing I hate. They might make a 
 job of it, they might ... It is a problem, isn't it ? " 
 
 Maurice heard the words in a daze, through which he 
 tried to grope after the sense which he felt they had for 
 
350 STILL LIFE 
 
 Dennis. His mind refused the quest, and obstinately 
 shaped to other things, to clear recurrent pictures of past 
 moments with Etheredge and with Madeleine, to visions of 
 a secure, untroubled Maurice an ideal of himself so 
 concrete that he might have welcomed the imagined 
 Maurice as a friend who would understand. He was 
 present too in certain moments of the past, and his presence 
 seemed to hold the past together with the future. In both 
 he was possessed by a kind of innocence, which conveyed 
 no meaning to Maurice save in the pictures he saw. 
 
 Anne and the girl had come back from the dance. Dennis 
 was silent, until the girl looked at him carefully and said : 
 
 " Here is another who is sad. You are sad, too, grand 
 bete ? " 
 
 " It's not sadness. I'm always like this, I assure you." 
 
 She looked incredulously at him and shook her head. 
 " You are funny. I don't understand you." 
 
 He leant his cheek on his hand. The pressure twisted 
 his lip into a crooked smile. 
 
 " What is it you don't understand ? " 
 
 " You change so quickly. Sometimes you look cruel, 
 and sometimes you look as though someone were hurting 
 you. . . . Perhaps you hurt yourself," she added sagely. 
 " But you love me, don't you, grand bete ? " 
 
 " I ask myself," he replied, as one really pondering. 
 " Perhaps. I don't know." 
 
 " Then you do love me," she said, with triumphant 
 conviction. She jumped up from the chair and sat in the 
 cushioned seat beside him. 
 
 The last dance had fatigued Anne. While her excited 
 breathing calmed, she sat still and pale, looking down at 
 her hands that lay languid on the table. Indifferent to 
 what passed about her, weary of the familiar aspect of 
 Maurice's eyes, that were always apprehensive of discovery, 
 she pressed the blood into her finger-nails, striving vaguely 
 to account for her weariness. The still suspense of waiting 
 had weakened her. She had for so long been endeavouring 
 
STILL LIFE 351 
 
 to hold herself in poise, neither too eager nor reluctant in 
 response to that which confronted her, in the desperate 
 knowledge that were she to topple from her poise she would 
 fall beyond recovery. It seemed to her that unless she 
 maintained herself on this narrow edge the stream of life 
 would pass her by. She held by some deep instinct of right 
 and wrong, but never till then had the burden of the right 
 been so heavy. She would gladly suffer the waters to pass 
 over her, she thought, while she gazed through dim lashes 
 at the fast vanishing blood under her nails. She had 
 played for something too high for her, and had not foreseen 
 the cost. She had too arduously controlled herself to some 
 end that sped away in smoke. Her own fatalism aroused 
 her unquiet expectation. She only had the courage to 
 expect little of life when she expected much, to believe 
 things would never happen again when she believed a 
 better thing was in store for her. She thought of Maurice, 
 and she seemed inwardly to smile at her own prophetic 
 soul. It was strange how all plans, all foreknowledge, 
 failed her at the last. She thought of Miss Etheredge, 
 who seemed so close to her. She was very old. 
 
 She heard the words that the girl spoke to Dennis. 
 They were so serious and childishly profound. " When 
 one does not know, then one loves." She was born into 
 the belief that Anne had tried to acquire. How far they 
 were away from each other ! Anne wondered whether it 
 was the distance between youth and age. She could cry 
 over the girl in blue, with the scent of oranges in her hair. 
 She was very near to crying, even while she answered her 
 questions : whether Anne thought that she could wear a 
 black hat with a yellow feather. She had seen it that 
 afternoon, when she got up early to look at the shops. It 
 was an indubitable occasion at fifteen francs. Whether it 
 was good or bad to have little square nails like hers. 
 Marcelle the girl with Russian boots had told her they 
 were demode. They compared hands, and Anne was warned 
 that it was dangerous to have a broken line of life. Yes, 
 
352 STILL LIFE 
 
 Anne could have cried over her she did not know whether 
 it would have been over her but she could not dance with 
 her any more. 
 
 " I think I'm going now," she said. " Would you like 
 to stay ? " she asked Maurice. He was eager to go. Trust- 
 ing to her incomprehensible English she said aloud that he 
 was to give Dennis fifty francs to give to the girl from her. 
 
 Dennis looked up. " Don't worry about the money now. 
 I'll do it. We can settle up afterwards. I am paying for 
 everything else." 
 
 " Don't forget," said Anne. 
 
 " Madame is going ? " said the girl, disappointed. 
 
 " I feel so tired." 
 
 ; ' You got up very early perhaps ? " 
 
 " At eight in the morning." 
 
 " Al ors. ..." Anne was relieved that she found 
 the explanation so complete. " Mais le grand bete reste 
 avec moi ? " 
 
 Anne answered for Dennis. " Naturellement." 
 
 " Je suis content," she said, looking up at him, then at 
 Anne, and swinging her legs from the cushioned seat. 
 
 While Maurice waited on the landing the girl said good- 
 bye to Anne in the ladies' room. She kissed Anne on the 
 mouth, and Anne was glad to be kissed. ' You will 
 remember me sometimes, is it not so, Madame ? " 
 
 Anne and Maurice went down the stairs together. They 
 saw the girl in blue leaning over the banisters and waving 
 to them, after the sound of the music had died finally 
 away. 
 
 In the cab, as they drove home together, Maurice felt 
 something of Anne's silent weariness. He wanted to 
 approach her, although he knew that his approach would 
 not penetrate past her silence or dissipate her weariness. 
 He would only be acting again, and she would know it 
 only too well ; he could not bring himself to do that again, 
 and make himself utterly worthless in her eyes. But against 
 his strained resolution warred an instinct, He was afraid 
 
STILL LIFE 353 
 
 of Anne silent and weary. Thus the last bond that held 
 him to a being who loved him was broken. He was peril- 
 ously and terribly alone. But he could not attempt to 
 approach close to her. His very fingers were hypocrites 
 as they sought for her hand and rested uneasily upon it. 
 Yet the silence in which the last ground crumbled under 
 his feet was not to be borne. He must say something, even 
 though his words and her answer were only sounds that 
 would fill the void between them as they were spoken. He 
 was not desperate, nor excited ; only he seemed instinctively 
 to react to her silence. It left him alone and empty, and 
 he could not bear to be finally alone. 
 
 " I didn't think Dennis would stay behind with that 
 girl. . . . It's not a practice of his. But as far as I can 
 make out he's queer to-night. He was talking to me a lot 
 while you were dancing. I didn't understand it all. I 
 couldn't listen. But he has an idea of symbolic regenera- 
 tion." He tapped with the window-strap upon his hand 
 bent forward. 
 
 "It is strange," said Anne, ". . . in some ways . . . 
 and then again it doesn't seem to me strange at all. . . . 
 It might even be that the world will stop to-night. ..." 
 
 " Oh . . . the world never does stop. Men and women 
 do, that's all. Perhaps Dennis is stopping to-night." 
 
 " Perhaps . . . but it isn't everybody can stop . . . 
 only those that are moving. But then to move may only 
 be a habit that it's best to get out of . . . . Dennis may have 
 come to that conclusion. It's not very far from anybody, 
 until they are old and full of pity and at peace. . . . But 
 to look for forgetfulness isn't a sure way of finding it, I 
 suppose. Dennis would know that ... I think that I 
 should like above all other things a window on to the world. 
 It might make all the difference, if the painful things were 
 only curious and pitiful." 
 
 " Is Dennis painful, then ? " 
 
 " I wasn't thinking of Dennis." 
 
 The quiet tinkling of the bell in the hotel door was 
 2 A 
 
354 STILL LIFE 
 
 forlorn and solitary to Anne. A momentary wave of 
 rushing, painful blood pressed about her temples as she 
 climbed the stairs. Her slow, thoughtful talking in the 
 cab had repressed the ferment, and now that her thoughts 
 had escaped her control, it raged stormily back again. 
 She held on to the stair-rail. Maurice stopped and took 
 her by the elbow. 
 
 " Is anything the matter ? " 
 
 "I'm afraid I drank too much champagne. . . . It's 
 all right now. ... It was as though my forehead were on 
 fire. ... I shall be asleep in a moment." 
 
 Anne undressed quickly. " I need to sleep," she said. 
 
 Maurice lay beside her thinking. He was sure that his 
 busy brain would not let him sleep. It was ghastly to lie 
 there together, when they weren't really together at all. 
 
 " It's funny how much will happen in a day," he said 
 aloud, "... after last week. ..." 
 
 Anne made no reply. He saw that her eyes were closed, 
 and wondered whether she was really asleep. He would 
 have understood so well if it had been only pretence. He 
 turned away from her full of sobbing thoughts that sank 
 into drowsiness. He felt Anne's arm steal over his shoulder. 
 She must be sleeping, he decided, and himself slept. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 WHEN Anne first woke the daylight had faintly begun 
 callously to disclose the disorder of the room. She glanced 
 under half-raised lids at the litter of clothes upon the chairs 
 and the chaos of her dressing-table, then closed her eyes 
 and lay still. Incessant thoughts, hybrids of truth and 
 vain imagination, started on flight within her mind and 
 fell, like new-fledged birds, grotesquely to the ground. In 
 her wakeful sleep she smiled at her own languid impotence 
 to control or impel them. Maurice's hand lay warm upon 
 her breast, and she gently covered it with her own. Had 
 there been no smile upon her lips one would have thought 
 that her gesture was of pain. The smile slowly relaxed 
 and her firm underlip drooped a little, while she pressed 
 his hand yet closer to her breast. She was very sad, and so 
 weak before her sadness that she yielded almost with 
 relief. It wrapped her completely about, and in its embrace 
 she passed into a light sleep. 
 
 She woke again when Maurice jumped out of bed sud- 
 denly, as abruptly roused by a voice. She heard him wash, 
 and turned with open eyes to watch him. Though he had 
 been noisy enough in his movements, he was surprised 
 when he faced her quiet observation. 
 
 " I must go out," he said. " Last night . . . it's upset 
 me . . . it's silly to drink so much. I'll walk it off." 
 
 " Yes," she said. 
 
 " Do you feel all right ? " 
 
 " I don't know. I haven't had time to feel." 
 
 " You don't look very fine." Her face pillowed upon 
 her hands, her brown eyes open wide, of which he could not 
 tell whether they were dumb with pain or not yet awakened, 
 made him uneasy. 
 
 355 
 
356 STILL LIFE 
 
 " Perhaps I'm not used to it," she said. She longed to 
 call to him not to go. In the breast upon which his warm 
 hand had lain an ache of sudden loneliness seemed to have 
 become material. With her teeth she held her lip and a 
 cruel contempt of herself possessed her, as one betrayed 
 into knowledge of unknown deeps of weakness in his soul. 
 
 " You're going to Etheredge this afternoon, aren't you, 
 Anne ? " He knotted his tie before the mirror and his back 
 was turned to her. 
 
 " Yes ... I suppose so," she said slowly. 
 
 " And we're dining with Ramsay to-night. . . . You don't 
 mind my going out now, do you ? Or would you rather I 
 stayed ? " He was putting on his coat. If he did not 
 make haste to go he would not go at all. he thought, and he 
 was impatient to be out of the room. 
 
 " It will do you good," she said. " To stay here suits me 
 better." 
 
 He did not believe her words, but they were there and 
 sufficient for him. He had waked with a resolution which 
 obsessed him. It might have been slowly crystallising into 
 form during his hours of sleep, so that he was shaped, when 
 he awoke, by one definite and dominant plan. He must 
 not, at whatever cost, must not go back on what had 
 happened last night. While he dressed under Anne's eyes 
 his decision sensibly weakened. He strove to hold himself 
 rigid like a man who faces long contemplated physical pain, 
 and to force a new strength into his resolution by repeating 
 in his mind : "I must not, I must not." 
 
 He stood, ready to depart, in the middle of the room, as 
 though he was deliberating. 
 
 " I think I'll go and see that man Boissonier," he said. 
 " He's at St. Cloud. The ride will be long enough to blow 
 my headache away." It was, indeed, to have been expected 
 that his head should ache. 
 
 He went to the bed and leaned over Anne, kissing her 
 lips. " Would you rather I didn't go ? " he said, and 
 looked into her eyes. They were steady. 
 
STILL LIFE 357 
 
 " Why ? " she simply said. 
 
 "I don't know. . . ." He kissed her again. Smiling 
 wryly, he lingered. "I'll be back here after tea-time. . . . 
 
 I don't want to go to Etheredge I thought I shouldn't." 
 
 He hesitated seeking something to say. 
 
 " Good-bye," was all he said. 
 
 Maurice sat in the Tuileries, smoking many cigarettes. 
 At times he would lean back and watch through the rail- 
 ings the flickering silhouettes of those who passed along the 
 Rue de Rivoli, and at others he would thrust his hand into 
 the breast-pocket of his coat, only to withdraw it again 
 and bend forward, watching the ground. A large yellow 
 ball rolled into his vision. He regarded that with the same 
 concentration. A small leg, encased in shining brown 
 gaiters, was gingerly stretched between his own, followed 
 by a small hand that vainly struggled with the excessive 
 ball. The boy for it was a boy bumped unsteadily 
 against Maurice's knee, before he woke sufficiently to 
 notice a big Breton nurse looming before him. She held 
 by the hand a little girl with a hoop, and looked at Maurice 
 unfavourably. He bent down and extricated the ball ; 
 then watched the empty ground again. 
 
 He was seeking the courage to read Madeleine's letter. 
 It had lain in his pocket since the day of its discovery ; 
 and now he could not even find it in him to take the case 
 out again, for it seemed that the reading must hurt him. 
 To follow out those sloping phrases once more ... he could 
 not. He knew all that they had to say. He knew the 
 address. The very room was known to him. He withdrew 
 his hand from his pocket and watched the twinkling figures 
 through the railings. 
 
 A large impulse came to him. The cigarette was thrown 
 away ; the case taken from his pocket without a tremor. 
 He held the pieces together on his knee and read the letter 
 slowly. Then he rose and began to walk along the Quai du 
 
358 STILL LIFE 
 
 Louvre. A warmth of comforting decision and a fear of 
 detection, that only wakened him to a fuller knowledge of 
 his new felicity, were all that he felt while he crossed the 
 bridge and passed the cold plenty of the fountains of the 
 place. Not till he approached the Hue Valette did his 
 inquietude begin. A remembered shop window, full of 
 mildly aesthetic jewellery, of statuettes and photographs 
 and first editions, unwillingly detained him while he 
 glanced along the street to the high door. After a little 
 while he walked on past the door, casting as it might be 
 casually a furtive look into the grey emptiness which the 
 doorway framed, and sat down in front of a cheap cafe. 
 He drank coffee and asked for pen and paper. 
 
 The cafe was at the corner where the Rue Valette 
 cascaded down broad stone steps into the empty boulevard. 
 On the other side of the street, instead of the terrace on 
 which he sat the ground had been cut away into a great 
 basement stretching for many }^ards beside and below the 
 boulevard, spanned at the near end by the stone steps as 
 by a bridge. Out of this cutting tall dilapidated houses 
 rose above forgotten shops, with crazy windows and signs 
 written awry. It struck Maurice as curious that houses 
 should be so old. As if from a tunnel beneath his feet a 
 man and a woman appeared, dragging a tall heavy barrow 
 along the cutting. The man's arms were bent, in the effort 
 to balance the barrow, above his shoulders, even above his 
 head, which was bowed almost to the ground. He seemed 
 to be crawling slowly like an insect. The bare arms of the 
 woman, who pushed the cart from behind, were very red. 
 They might have been painted. Maurice saw them stop ; 
 heard the man call. Then a wooden arm swung heavily 
 out from the roof, and a long shining chain shot down like a 
 stream of falling water and crashed on to the ground. The 
 woman and the man together began to haul up sacks from 
 their barrow. The sacks jumped unsteadily upwards until 
 they were finally engulfed in a black hole in the top of the 
 house. Maurice counted twenty-two that made the 
 
STILL LIFE 359 
 
 journey. Twenty- two sacks that must have been heavy. 
 He wondered what they might contain. Grain ? No one 
 could pull twenty-two sacks of grain in a barrow. They 
 were probably full of rags. The answer satisfied him, and 
 as the barrow slowly climbed up from the depths many 
 yards away, Maurice turned to his cold coffee and his pen 
 and paper. 
 
 For a while he held the pen undecidedly over a sheet. 
 Having written nothing, he put it down and lit a cigarette. 
 Again he took the pen and set it down once more. Then 
 he folded a clean sheet of notepaper and sealed it into an 
 envelope, drank his coffee, and paid the gar$on. With 
 the envelope in his pocket he walked across the road to a 
 second-hand bookshop. He read the titles of innumerable 
 books, following the volumes one by one along each shelf ; 
 and, when the last title had been read, he turned sharply 
 and walked up the Rue Valette. Standing to one side of 
 the doorway into which he had glanced descending, he 
 stared doubtfully at the number 57. He found it strange 
 that the blue and white number above his head should 
 really be 57 ; somehow he expected it to change. That it 
 did not change depressed him. Of course it could not be 
 anything else. Not houses change but their inhabitants. 
 But he could not argue himself out of a terror of that blue 
 and white number. Someone would surely come to him 
 if he stayed longer by the door. 
 
 The thought precipitated him over the wooden step, and 
 he was waiting nervously in the filtered grey light of the 
 entrance. He could not tap at the concierge's door, and 
 he was wondering how long he could bear it, checking his 
 incessant impulse to run away, before anyone should come. 
 
 But the concierge opened her door quickly. Her voice 
 was very distinct ; but it had very little to do with her. 
 
 " Monsieur desire . . . ? " 
 
 With anxious politeness Maurice raised his hat. With 
 the other hand he felt for the envelope, while he asked 
 pardon many times. 
 
360 STILL LIFE 
 
 " Does Mademoiselle de la Pene live here ? " he asked. 
 He was struck by a quick agony of suspicion that she 
 recognised him. He did not remember her at all. She had 
 been no more than a vague voice to him. The suspicion 
 was untrue. She was preparing to return into her room. 
 
 " She went away two months ago." 
 
 u Could you tell me where she lives now ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 He could not believe in the " No." It was too final a 
 severance. 
 
 " But I have an important letter for her," he said halt- 
 ingly. "... If I only knew. ..." 
 
 The concierge watched him curiously. 
 
 " Oh, a letter. ... I believe there is an address for a 
 letter, if that's all. She doesn't live there, though." The 
 concierge passed into the room, and hunted among the 
 papers in a little table. At last she came out with one slip 
 and held it before Maurice while she fumbled the words of 
 the address. 
 
 " 76 Rue Vauquelin. Don't know it. It's not in this 
 quarter." 
 
 The handwriting was Madeleine's. The address printed 
 on his brain. 
 
 " Then I will write there," he said and hurried away. 
 
 The ordeal had been intolerable. It continued while he 
 went up the street. At the top he was exhilarated and 
 free. He felt that he had escaped from the brink of destruc- 
 tion, when he had emerged from the street and passed into 
 an open square. On the corner of the pavement he hesi- 
 tated what he should do. It was of no use to return to the 
 hotel, for then he would have to go with Anne to Miss 
 Etheredge. He did not want to do that. If he went to see 
 her, he would go alone. The thought that Etheredge would 
 assuredly talk to Anne of Madeleine disturbed him for a 
 little while, until he was reassured by a subtler conviction 
 that she would not say a word about him and Madeleine, 
 unless he was there. And then it would not matter at all. 
 
STILL LIFE 361 
 
 He walked on slowly through the streets, idly pausing 
 before the shop windows, looking idly into the faces of the 
 passers-by, who sometimes returned his glance. When 
 they did he looked quickly away. A woman passed, wear- 
 ing a black hat and a long grey thick coat of tweed buttoned 
 across her throat. It made her bosom look very full. She 
 looked at him at the very moment that he looked at her, 
 and he glanced guiltily away. After a few steps it broke 
 into his consciousness that she had looked at him with 
 intent. He looked backwards over his shoulder. She was 
 looking at him still. As their glance met she turned and 
 walked away very slowly. He followed her a little faster. 
 Her hands were in the pockets of her coat, and sometimes 
 she would glance round to a point beyond him. She was, 
 he knew, only looking to see whether he still followed. He 
 was quite close to her, so that he could count the six large 
 buttons of dark grey in the middle of her back. She was 
 crossing a narrow street, and when she was fairly on the 
 far pavement he was on the edge of the near. As he crossed, 
 she suddenly swerved down the narrow street and hurried 
 desperately away. 
 
 Disappointment that he had been forbidden followed 
 his relief that he had been delivered, and he wandered un- 
 comfortably on through unknown streets, finding some 
 pleasure in the knowledge that it did not matter whether 
 he was lost, for he would always be able to call a cab. His 
 hand closed on the perceptible weight of his purse with 
 satisfaction, even while he still felt indefinite regrets that 
 he had not been free to follow the woman. It was as 
 though one element were lacking in his destiny. So many 
 were free to do what they desired without fearing the con- 
 sequences. For them there were no consequences. He 
 read the names of all the shops that he passed, wondering 
 if it were possible to remember them all, for he recollected 
 that a famous writer, whose name he had forgotten, could 
 pass down a street and remember every shop that he had 
 passed. Accordingly he tried to make a notebook of his 
 
362 STILL LIFE 
 
 memory, though he foresaw, with disappointment, but 
 little success. His purpose soon flagged, and he went on 
 reading the names, acquiescing in the fact that he forgot 
 them almost before his eyes had travelled the last letter. 
 Then he paused before an obscure stationer's in the hope 
 that he would find displayed in the window some of the 
 excessively realistic photographs of nude women which are 
 sold in these places. There were none. He was rather 
 horrified at himself, and it tormented him to think that 
 perhaps after all it was his real self that desired to see 
 obscene pictures. Perhaps that part of him which would 
 thrust such impulses down was unnatural. He did not 
 solve the problem ; it was too hard for him to be quite 
 honest, but before it passed clean away from his mind he 
 was convinced that the desire to see the pictures was much 
 more real and vivid than his will to repress the desire. He 
 wished he had the courage of his true self. All through this 
 minor discussion loomed the thought that he had something 
 more urgent to settle ; but it was misted over, almost 
 comfortably, by the abiding sense that he had made a 
 triumphant escape from the concierge. 
 
 After a while he noticed an element of strange familiarity 
 in the streets. The names of the shops were half remem- 
 bered. He came on to a square, where men were vigorously 
 erecting a roundabout. He went over to the middle of the 
 square and watched them from close by. A fat pursy man 
 with a wet underlip and a profusion of unnatural flesh 
 directed them. His nose was soft and flabby, and his skin 
 the colour of a chicken trussed and yellow. He stood 
 facing Maurice and patted a rope on which four men were 
 hauling. It was pleasant that they paid no attention to the 
 manager at all, but talked and laughed in gasps among 
 themselves. The fat man would have a horrible way with 
 women. There were probably women in the show, who 
 must loathe him. Maurice caught sight of one with a thin 
 face, and brown hair drawn tightly over her head, standing 
 in the background. Her neck was swathed in a black com- 
 
STILL LIFE 363 
 
 forter, and her hands were in the pockets of a long grey 
 overcoat, for all the world like the coat of the woman from 
 whom he ran away. She would have a horrible time. He 
 turned back to look in the direction whence he had come. 
 It was the Place Gervais. He glanced quickly at the name 
 on the outspread canopy of the cafe at the corner. It was 
 the Parthenon. He wondered that he should not have 
 recognised this familiar place, merely because he had come 
 to it by an unfamiliar way ; and he slowly retraced his 
 steps, remembering with a thrill of anticipation a restaurant 
 near by. It served lunch at four francs. He had never 
 dared to enter it before. 
 
 As he sat down at a table he saw that few people were at 
 lunch, and those for the most part within easy view of the 
 end. It came as a relief therefore when the waiter came to 
 serve him without visible reluctance. Three other people 
 came soon after him, talking loudly. He wondered, as he 
 had wondered many times before, that insignificant 
 business men with plentiful beards and unhealthy faces, 
 should not be ashamed to talk aloud with such assurance 
 in public places. 
 
 He sat for a long while smoking while the restaurant 
 became once more a cafe, and the brown tables reappeared 
 from under their white cloths. When he thought of Anne 
 he could not rid himself of an apprehension that he might 
 be detected. 
 
 Detected in what ? he replied victoriously, but the 
 apprehension lingered, although he knew there was no 
 one to detect him. Supplied with a directory, he searched 
 for the Rue Vauquelin. He meditated over the little 
 picture-map in the margin in precarious delight. It was a 
 very long way distant. Seventy-six Rue Vauquelin the 
 name and number were somehow familiar. Madeleine 
 must have spoken of it to him. While he turned the pages 
 of the directory with aching fingers, he had an uneasy pre- 
 monition of physical sickness, that brought back to him a 
 memory of a time when he had sat, thus perturbed, in a 
 
364 STILL LIFE 
 
 small bar in the Market, turning anxiously, as now, the 
 leaves of a directory. 
 
 The morning had been grey and chilly, the little bar 
 dingy, the waiter tired and dishevelled, the flimsy partition 
 of wood and glass about to fall at a touch, it seemed, and 
 the grog he drank lukewarm and sickly. With Madeleine 
 he had just been to the general post office in the vain 
 attempt to cash a money order of which the advice had gone 
 astray. How he had hated the man at the desk, who told 
 him he must go to yet another office, for his abruptness, 
 and yet he shrank under it. The next day he was to return 
 to England ; he needed the money for his journey. Made- 
 leine had sat by him in the bar with a strained and serious 
 face. He had seen when she had stretched out her hand to 
 show him the office in the directory, how tight were the 
 muscles. Then she had found the bus for him, a bus that 
 went forlornly through raw streets to the fortifications. 
 She had refused to go with him. " Non, je ne peux pas." 
 An intense and torturing purpose showed in her face when 
 she put her hand on his shoulder and half pushed and half 
 led him to the bus. She waved to him with her small muff, 
 so disproportionate to herself. He had found himself at 
 last in a strange land, walking through long streets that 
 seemed to be all builders' fences and bare iron railway 
 bridges, topped here and there by lanky stone buildings, 
 new and already stained. He remembered the impatient 
 face of the black-bloused woman at the desk, because he 
 had no pieces justificatifs ; and then while he looked at her 
 in despair she had relented and been gracious to him. 
 
 He read the names of those who lived at 76 Rue Vauque- 
 lin Madame Schlegel veuve, BoifEard, ingenieur, Chern- 
 inot, Victor, commissionaire, Plimsoll, Delamour, docteur 
 en droit and speculated which of these might be Made- 
 leine's friend. He was sentimentally inclined to Delamour, 
 but Delamour was docteur en droit. 
 
 He over-tipped the waiter and left the cafe. The round- 
 about was now completed, and the men were fixing a 
 
STILL LIFE 365 
 
 raised platform round it, with little flights of stairs. With 
 no definite intention he walked by the hotel where he stayed 
 at the time he first met Madeleine ; but he turned away 
 suddenly, for inside the door lolled the short, red-haired 
 gar$on as of old. The sight shook him, and he passed agent 
 after agent without pausing, before he accosted one nervously 
 and asked the way to the Rue Vauquelin. The police- 
 man looked dutifully in his little book, before replying. If 
 Maurice continued up the street he would come to the 
 trams, and if he took one of those to the Place de Serbie, 
 he would be quite near. He had only to ask again. As he 
 went on his way, Maurice thought of writing a letter ; but 
 the answer, if there was an answer, would come to the 
 hotel. Besides, there would be no answer. He asked him- 
 self why then he did not take a cab, and he answered sin- 
 cerely that it would be too certain and too sudden if he 
 took a cab. In such deliberations he wasted many minutes 
 before he boarded the tram. Once, indeed, he turned about 
 and walked back the way he had come, but after a hundred 
 yards his step slackened and halted in front of a coiffeur's 
 window in which he had no interest ; and then he walked 
 slowly back again. 
 
 As the tram swung swiftly along between the screeching 
 of brakes at the halts, he found a certain inevitability in 
 the motion. It may have frightened him ; but it was 
 welcome, too. Two schoolboys chattered energetically 
 behind him, laughing noisily. A woman in a black shawl, 
 holding a basket in one hand and her keys in the other, 
 waited stolidly for her destination. It was wonderful that 
 the journey should have no particular significance for her. 
 Perhaps she was right and he was wrong. Perhaps he was 
 in some sort insane. He took pride in the fact that he must 
 be of different stuff to the rest ; but his feeling of pride 
 would not swallow up the apprehension which crept over 
 him as he came near the Place de Serbie. 
 
 It was deserted, save for a few people who descended 
 from the train with him, and a few who walked on the 
 
366 STILL LIFE 
 
 surrounding pavements, small and almost indistinguish- 
 able in the distance. Though his agitation would not 
 subside enough to allow him to choose surely between 
 different lines of action, he strove to consider what he 
 would do if he went to seventy-six. He would find out 
 from the concierge whether Madeleine was living there. 
 If she was there . . . then he would go away. But the 
 woman in the Rue Valette had said that she was not living 
 there, and that appeared to him to be true. If she was not 
 there, he could find out where she had gone ; but the 
 concierge would not know. She would only have been 
 staying with somebody. Then it was impossible im- 
 possible to go to the people with whom she had been stay- 
 ing and ask them. They would know who he was. They 
 might recognise him, for they had never seen him before, 
 but they would know. He could not contemplate the 
 thought ; but he went to a cheap bar and drank a tasteless 
 marc, in order to ask for the Rue Vauquelin with some 
 fresh confidence, not with the confidence of drink in which 
 he had never learned to trust, but of having paid for the 
 information. He asked the man who served him on the 
 zinc, busy with wiping glasses; and his question was 
 answered by the woman who sat severely over the tobacco. 
 But her manner was quite kindly when she informed him 
 that it was quite near, a matter of two turnings and five 
 minutes' walk. She even smiled at him when he thanked 
 her, while she rearranged her shawl. It had been disturbed 
 by her outstretched arm. 
 
 As he went along he decided not to wait outside the door 
 before entering. That would unnerve him completely, and 
 this time he might not enter at all. The grey walls of a 
 barracks covered with strips of posters downtorn in execu- 
 tion of the unconfident " defense d'qfficher" and a closed 
 kiosk, that could never have been opened, were the inter- 
 ludes in the two monotonous streets along which he passed. 
 The end of the second plunged him directly upon number 
 seventy-six. He had not been prepared for that, but he 
 
STILL LIFE 367 
 
 carried out his plan with a timid assurance, and knocked 
 at the concierge's door. She was not there. The whole 
 house was comparatively new and cheerlessly clean. He 
 trusted nervously in inspiration what he should say when 
 the concierge did come, for he could frame nothing while 
 he waited. She came out of the courtyard, looking un- 
 expectedly young, but rather florid. She dropped a key, 
 and plunged down to pick it up, before passing under the 
 archway. 
 
 " Does Mademoiselle de Pene live here ? " He said the 
 words abruptly, with the last gasp of his falling courage. 
 
 " She's gone. You have a message for her ? " 
 
 " No. ... I wanted to see her, herself . . . something im- 
 portant." 
 
 " Impossible. She has left Paris. . . ." 
 
 He did not know what to say, but he managed to make 
 his look one of deliberate reflection. 
 
 " Then I must send a telegram. . . . But I don't know the 
 address." 
 
 " Neither do I. She was not one of the localaires." 
 
 " But what can I do, madame ? " he asked in an access 
 of helplessness. She kept silence until she finally said : 
 
 " She lived with Madame Delamour, au troisieme. You 
 can go and ask her." 
 
 " I shall disturb her ? " 
 
 " That's your affair." 
 
 The woman laughed, not unfriendly. He thanked her 
 and opened the door on to the stairs. Out of her sight, on 
 the first story, he decided to wait some minutes, and then 
 to leave as though he had found out the address from 
 Madame Delamour. He waited one minute in suspense. 
 The bell of the door below sounded and someone began to 
 ascend the stairs, whistling Sur les Fonts de Paris. Maurice 
 went up the stairs slowly. The steps behind would neither 
 overtake him nor stop. He saw the brass plate on the door 
 Etienne Delamour. Docteur en Droit and went past. 
 On the landing above he stopped perforce. It was the top 
 
368 STILL LIFE 
 
 of the house save for a narrow gallery slung high in air, 
 which could lead only to a single door. Holding himself 
 perfectly still, Maurice heard the steps halt, a key turn in 
 a lock, and the whistling suddenly ceased as the door 
 latched. That must have been Monsieur Delamour. He 
 was very glad he had not waited in front of his flat. He 
 came down slowly, stopped in front of the door, and pulled 
 at the red cord of the bell. 
 
 Sur les Fonts de Paris approached. The temptation to 
 run away was great, but the quick thought that there was 
 no time, that the whole house would hear his steps as he 
 clattered down the three stories, enabled him to stand 
 his ground. The man, black with a thin curled black 
 moustache, was plainly surprised. 
 
 " I wish to know the present address of Mademoiselle 
 de la Pene." 
 
 " I will call my wife," the man said, all but closing the 
 door. Maurice heard him call her by a name he could not 
 catch it sounded like " Broua " and speak a word with 
 her. She came to the door, opened it wide and said, 
 " Come in." 
 
 He began to say " Je voudrais seulement . . .," but he 
 could not avoid entering. She ushered him into the salon, 
 a tiny room, curtained to suffocation, ticked by a mon- 
 strous clock. As she followed him into the room, he found 
 something familiar in her face, with its thin black eyebrows 
 and pinched nose, even in the high black collar of her 
 blouse. He thought that he could detect recognition in her 
 look. 
 
 " I wished to know the address of Mademoiselle De la 
 Pene. I hope that I do not disturb you ; but the concierge 
 could not tell me. She said I might find it from you." 
 
 " Would you please tell me your name ? " 
 
 Foolishly he had not expected the question. He dared 
 not hesitate with his answer. " My name is Monsieur 
 French," he said, glib with sudden inspiration. An instinct 
 that he must not reveal his name had come to him. 
 
STILL LIFE 369 
 
 With it came an intolerable desire to see Madeleine once 
 more. 
 
 :< You'll pardon me, but I am her sister. Before she 
 left she told me not to give her address to certain people. 
 Vous etes Anglais, peut-etre ? " 
 
 He told an unexpected he, smiling. " Non. Je suis 
 Irlandais," he said. " C'est autre chose." 
 
 " I will write the address for you." She went over to a 
 table by the window. While she looked for paper she said, 
 casually, with her back turned to him : 
 
 " You have known my sister for a long while ? " 
 
 " I met her three years ago. ... I was in Paris with a 
 friend who knew her well." 
 
 " She never spoke to me of you. That is why I asked, 
 Monsieur F . . ." 
 
 " French," he explained. 
 
 " Monsieur French," she repeated. She turned round 
 in her chair suddenly. 
 
 " What was his name, your friend ? " 
 
 " Temple," said Maurice unhesitating. " . . . He was 
 English." 
 
 " I know that name," she said. 
 
 " It's a sad story. ..." As he spoke he felt unutterably 
 sad. 
 
 " You have news of him ? " Against the light he could 
 hardly see her face. Vaguely she seemed to him divided 
 between severity and pity. 
 
 "He is dead. . . . That is why I wanted to find the 
 address." 
 
 " Oh, la pauvre, la pauvre petite. . . ." said Madame 
 Delamour. 
 
 " He died two years ago," Maurice continued. Desola- 
 tion swept over him at his own words. They seemed to 
 wither him. He was crying. But he went on slowly. 
 
 " ... He was Madeleine's lover. You know, I suppose. 
 But I was the only one of all his friends who knew about it. 
 I was with him when he first saw her. After that, about 
 2 B 
 
370 STILL LIFE 
 
 three months afterwards, I went away to America. I was 
 travelling about everywhere, and I did not get any letters. 
 When I came back, six weeks ago, I found a letter from 
 Maurice saying that he was going to kill himself. ... He 
 had killed himself, a year ago. His family would not hear 
 of his marrying, and without them he had no money. . . . 
 In his letter he told me to find Madeleine, and to give her 
 all the money he had. It's not very much six hundred 
 francs." 
 
 " And she loved him all the while," said Madame Dela- 
 mour. "... Only he never wrote. It broke her heart. 
 . . . You would not recognise her now. ... I said to her that 
 perhaps he was dead ; but she always said ' no,' but that 
 it was his mother who would not let him write, and would 
 not let him come to her. ... I was right. ..." She was 
 crying, too. " It is sad," she said. 
 
 " That is why I wish to go to her myself," said Maurice. 
 " He sent me a letter which I was to take to her myself, if 
 I could. . . . But it's two years ago. ... I must take it. ... 
 You understand ? " 
 
 " Naturally. ... It will be a sad journey for you. . . . She 
 has thought of him always . . . always. She thinks of him 
 now, of nothing else. I have not been able to prevent her. 
 She should not have stayed in Paris. She had so very little 
 money. It's a hard life as a modiste here, you know. . . . 
 But now she has gone home to the South. . . . It's a long 
 way from here, not far from Bordeaux, on the main railway 
 line. . . . Perhaps it would be better to write first. I could 
 write her a word myself." 
 
 " I think it would be better if I went. That is what his 
 letter said. I will go to-morrow, and I shall get there before 
 the letter would. ... In any case I think it would be better 
 not to write." 
 
 " I believe you are right. Here is the address, Mon- 
 sieur." Before giving him the slip of paper she read 
 it aloud. " Mademoiselle de la Pene, rue Gambetta, 
 Lesdigues, Correze." 
 
STILL LIFE 371 
 
 " Is there no number ? " 
 
 " No ... it is only a village ; but there is a railway 
 station." 
 
 " I thank you." Maurice rose. As he said " Good-bye " 
 Madame Delamour held out her hand to him. When he 
 took it, she said, " You must tell her softly. It is a thing 
 that can kill." He saw that she was near to crying. With 
 her before him, tall black collar, little mouth, long thin 
 nose, and hair & la Bernhardt, he believed it all. On an 
 impulse he bent down and kissed her hand. It was a 
 gesture he had often wished to accomplish, but for which 
 his courage had always failed him. In another room on 
 the door of which another brass plate shone faintly through 
 the gloom of the corridor, he heard Monsieur Delamour 
 whistling Sur les Fonts de Paris. 
 
 Passing downstairs he was thrilled with confused excite- 
 ment. He was silent and sad at his own death. He glowed 
 with the triumph of his inspiration. Hardly he could tell 
 which was the truth. Slowly from the turmoil emerged a 
 sense of achievement. More than achievement, he reflected, 
 for he was now certain that Madeleine had forbidden her 
 sister to give him her address. It was a miracle of achieve- 
 ment. 
 
 The spring wind, as it scattered old newspapers along 
 the street, blew a grey chill, as from the walls it grazed, 
 into his heart. Sooner or later, Madeleine would be told 
 that he was dead. It would be terrible if she believed him 
 dead. Better believe that, came a grotesque echo, than 
 that you are alive. He would have none of the echo. He 
 wanted her to be thinking of him still, always thinking of 
 him, and himself to be alive. Madame Delamour's assur- 
 ance that she had always thought of him salved his pride ; 
 but he could not believe it was his pride that was assuaged. 
 
 And so it comforted him that he carried Madeleine's 
 address in his pocket ; for it gave him a dim confidence in 
 setting matters right by writing to her. By the time that 
 he had found a place in the returning tram, he felt guilty. 
 
372 STILL LIFE 
 
 He was afflicted by the knowledge that he had done some- 
 thing wrong, for which there was no excuse. The faster 
 the tram sped towards his familiar ground, the more the 
 crookedness of his day presented itself to him. It was an 
 instinctive conviction, unrelated to any person. He was 
 approaching the hotel and Anne. His only concern was 
 that he should not betray himself by any awkwardness in 
 his behaviour. His love for Anne was not affected by what 
 he had done, and it was really preposterous that he should 
 have to guard his behaviour, because of an unmeaning 
 pretence. He wondered whether it would be more con- 
 vincing to be forward with an account of an imaginary day 
 or to say nothing at all until he was asked. Inclining to- 
 wards saying nothing at all, he postponed the problem. 
 Nor was any harm done to Madeleine. On the contrary, 
 if she believed him dead, it would probably be a good deal 
 better for her, seeing that an ideal would have been pre- 
 served to her. Arguments, visions of Anne and Madeleine 
 tempested together ; but the knowledge of guilt remained 
 to make him uneasy. 
 
 What on earth did he do it for ? he began to ask himself, 
 and he could find no answer. Well, it was done, he thought, 
 and it was no use wishing it undone, and if it was any use 
 to wish, he would not have had it undone. He had, in some 
 way, approached nearer to Madeleine thereby, and he 
 wanted that. But he had enough. He crumpled the paper 
 Madame Delamour had given him, and threw it out of the 
 window ; but he knew very well that he could not forget 
 the address. 
 
 Anne was the only problem, and that was only a question 
 of the manner in which he met her. He recollected that 
 she was going to tea with Etheredge, and fervently hoped 
 that she had not repented of her intention. If she had not 
 she would be at Etheredge's still. The woman at the hotel 
 bureau anticipated his asking. 
 
 " Madame has gone out a few minutes ago." 
 
 " And Monsieur Beauchamp mon ami ? " 
 
STILL LIFE 373 
 
 " He did not return last night ; and he has not been in 
 all day." 
 
 " He met some of his friends last night. What could you 
 expect ? " He was on comfortable terms with this lady. 
 
 " C'est dommage, parfois des amis," she said reflec- 
 tively. 
 
 " Vous croyez ? C'est une espece tres rare, tout de 
 meme." 
 
 " a c'est vrai," she said in the same tone. 
 
 It was warm in the sitting-room, and the lights were 
 warmly shaded. He ordered tea with some prospect of 
 enjoyment. When the waiter had left the room he in- 
 spected himself in the mirror, anxious to see that no start- 
 ling, self-revealing change had occurred. He half-expected 
 it. Curious why Dennis had not come back, he went to 
 peep in his room and found that the door was locked. 
 " Naturally," he said to himself and settled in an armchair. 
 Turning over the leaves of the big time-table in an idle 
 search to find where Lesdigues might really be situated, he 
 waited, in a hazy fatigue, but not uncomfortably, the 
 arrival of the ordered tea. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE door clicked softly when Maurice left the room in the 
 morning. " Finis to that chapter," said Anne to herself. 
 Though she was sad and weary, the click of the self-closing 
 latch seemed to her such a ridiculous end. " The death of 
 tragedy," she said aloud, putting her hands behind her 
 head and closing her eyes as she lay upon her back. No 
 heroic emotions rioted in her soul. Instead she felt empty. 
 A living pulse which controlled her being and made her one, 
 had ceased to act. She found herself smiling when she had 
 no cause to smile, fastening upon words and incidents, 
 when not they, but the bigger event of which they were the 
 outward fringe, were important. " Well, well," she said. 
 
 If that was the natural motion of her soul, there was 
 nothing better than to yield to it. A cloud of doubts, 
 anxieties, apprehensions, hung very close to her ; but 
 there was no contact between her and them. In her mood 
 she was free of such perturbations, free of all things save 
 that persistent throb of physical pain in her breast. 
 
 Then thoughts began to assail her. She tried to see the 
 beginning and end of the story ; and, while old emotions 
 came back to vivid life, she wondered whether she had ever 
 been really in love with Maurice. Steadily she answered 
 herself " No." But she had been at the beginning of love ; 
 she had spread the ground with palms before it ; she had 
 waited for love. She had waited for love, and how could 
 it come to a woman who waited for it ? She had been too 
 conscious ; she would pay for it now, by waiting. This 
 was only her end, not his, and she would wait until he made 
 an end. She could not ; she wanted to be cleanly free. 
 He should leave her of his ovn deliberate choice, and 
 
 3/4 
 
STILL LIFE 375 
 
 finally. " How can you treat him so ? " came the reply, 
 " It's only cruelty." She denied the charge. Maurice was 
 himself, hard, impenetrable, alone ; he could work out his 
 own destiny. He was no burden on her conscience now. 
 Her mind thought clear of him. Her feelings had been 
 bruised where they touched him, and were insensible. 
 
 Her mind turned towards the future and was afraid. 
 She was lonely again, and in her loneliness weaker than of 
 old. She peered about in the shadows for what might come. 
 Love a tightness in her throat, a sudden upburst of tears 
 in her eyes, came as the unsought accompaniment of her 
 thought was a beautiful, futile thing ; like the bird in the 
 pagan king's story, which flew out of the darkness across 
 the lighted window and returned to the darkness again. 
 She revolted against this temporary thing, and longed for 
 a permanent thing beyond it, whence she might derive a 
 strength to maintain herself against the life which brutally 
 beat against her. Strong and permanent the very words 
 seemed to laugh at her, at this moment when she was at 
 the mercy of life again. She thought of the barren years, 
 the weak years when she had been with Jim, when she had 
 come to expect nothing of life and to fear nothing. Never 
 could she return to that condition. Now she expected 
 much and feared much. 
 
 When would the last remains of this ~old "affection be 
 gone ? She was waiting for Maurice to act, and in the 
 waiting-space she was empty and dead. How could she 
 wait thus calculating ? It was cruel to him perhaps, but 
 more cruel to her ; and it was not calculation, but some 
 instinct which bade her wait. Calculation ! How could 
 she calculate ? Her memory throbbed with the pain of 
 intimate memories ; her breast seemed to ache for his 
 pillowed head, and her hands for the feel of his rough hair. 
 Wait, wait ! She could not suffer more ; she had suffered 
 too much and to wait. She buried her head in her 
 pillow. 
 
 The inertia that gradually invaded her while she lay 
 
376 STILL LIFE 
 
 still was welcome. Her thoughts were muffled and dumb 
 when they came to her. Having once resigned control of 
 herself, she was again natural and free in her waking sleep ; 
 and she wondered how it could be that she should accept 
 her sundering from Maurice as a natural thing. Already 
 she seemed to have passed beyond it ; and it had cost her 
 no more than that. In a mood of vague wonderment she 
 fell asleep, and slept into the afternoon. 
 
 Waking, she was perplexed ; and then she worried about 
 the time. For some reason she was eager not to fail Miss 
 Etheredge. When she found it was no more than twenty 
 minutes past three, she dressed carefully and descended 
 into the dining-room. 
 
 While she ate mechanically, with a kind of amazement 
 at the character of her occupation, she was consumed with 
 an impatience to see Miss Etheredge. The engagement 
 was solid and definite, amid the ineffectual chaos of her 
 mind. More than that she wanted to see Miss Etheredge 
 for herself. In spite of her weakness and inward anarchy, 
 by which Anne had at first been almost persuaded to 
 regard her as one of her own possible selves, remotely past, 
 Etheredge was positive and achieved. Anne pitied her ; 
 yet she repelled pity, and seemed to demand a more equal 
 approach. Anne could have made many explanations of 
 Etheredge. She made some while she sat in the empty 
 dining-room, outlasting the creeping minutes, and each, 
 she felt, had some truth. They were built upon the scheme 
 of strong sensuality in incessant conflict with a deeply 
 native virginity ; but always beyond the explanation was 
 Etheredge's power. She was not futile nor was she pitiful. 
 It was no excess of pity which had so affected Anne at their 
 meeting yesterday. Anne could hardly give an account of 
 her feelings ; she was in no mood for that : but she knew 
 that an instinctive repulsion had worked side by side with 
 an intimate attraction. She might have been fronting 
 some strange woman from the immemorial East. The 
 figure of Etheredge now rose constantly before her eyes in 
 
STILL LIFE 377 
 
 the closer memory wherein thought is only a haze to 
 obscure all definite vision. 
 
 Thus as Anne slowly walked out of the hotel, on the way 
 talking for a moment with the woman in the bureau, her 
 mind was, without any direction of her own, intent upon 
 Miss Etheredge. Even the slowness of her walk might 
 have been due rather to a natural response to the nature of 
 the attraction than to her own desire. Indeed, she had no 
 cause to linger. The people of Paris had never been so 
 profoundly strange and alien to her. They glided by her 
 like material phantoms, until she was borne onwards out 
 of the eddy of her momentary delay by a dim purpose, 
 which left her, unsurprised, at the corner of a street which 
 she had never seen before. Though her information had 
 been vague and was now forgotten, she knew that this was 
 the street she sought. She turned round and watched in a 
 dream the thin wisps of mist slowly moving from the face 
 of the river, and their place supplied by other sweeping 
 white threads. The quay, the open book-boxes, the little 
 sprouting trees, whose round tops were each like one large 
 straggling bud, the estraded pavement with its iron rail, 
 and across the Seine the long mass of crouching buildings 
 like some misshapen animal these were canvas decora- 
 tions. They had no solid reality to support them. She 
 alone was real, in a way she could not comprehend. She 
 was foreign to herself now, and through her mind ran a 
 thin vein of self-suspicion, or doubt that this Anne whom 
 she did not know, could truly be, as she felt, more real than 
 the Anne she knew. 
 
 She was looking at a long shop-window opposite, filled 
 with prints. It was only a background to the little sil- 
 houettes of people hurrying along before it, not intent with 
 real purpose as she, but propelled by some giant mechanism. 
 One of them retained her look for more than a glance. Her 
 eyes followed it slowly, for it moved more slowly than the 
 rest. Then it was familiar. That did not suffice to lift 
 it out of the unreal procession : but it gave it an interest, 
 
378 STILL LIFE 
 
 as one more grotesque figure than the rest might hold the 
 attention in a marionette-show. More, its familiarity had 
 an indefinable tweak and was suddenly unfamiliar. He 
 went with head bent towards the ground, with one or two 
 stiff motions of his arms, which contrasted with the dragging 
 gait, and so disappeared round the corner by the shop. All 
 the while Anne had known it was Dennis ; but the know- 
 ledge could not be translated into meaning. They might 
 have been two planets on their courses, meeting for a 
 moment in an eternity. But the twist of sudden strange- 
 ness intruded upon her a question, as it were an arabesque 
 inscrutably entwined in some far edge of her mind, a point 
 of irritation. She remembered with surprise when and 
 where she left him, how long ago it was ; and in the interval 
 he had changed. " Something has happened to him." 
 The interest of a passing curiosity was awakened in her. 
 It was still engaging some disconnected working of her 
 mind, when she passed inside the door of number twenty- 
 three, rue Sevigne". 
 
 The passage was long and dark, lined with glazed tiles 
 which reflected no more than the obscurity they bounded. 
 Her sudden glance perceived the dark light of a glazed 
 double door. There seemed to be no exit. Nevertheless, 
 she went forward without pausing, resolved to ask no 
 direction from the concierge, who must, she knew, be loom- 
 ing in the darkness beyond. The clatter of the swing-doors 
 as she passed through served to hasten her steps to the top 
 of the first flight of narrow stairs, where she was beyond 
 the range of the janitor. Then she mounted slowly, gravely 
 inspecting the names upon the doors. The brown of in- 
 describable varnish, feebly glancing the rays of the chill 
 sun, dirtied in their reflected passage down the well of the 
 courtyard and through the dusky panes of the stairlight, 
 was only the sordid and evitable edge of her dream. The 
 grimy red bell-rope, that dangled a tarnished and incon- 
 gruous splendour beside the door where a thumbed card, 
 pinned askew, told her to stop, soiled her white glove when 
 
STILL LIFE 379 
 
 she pulled. The sharp clangour of the bell after the rusty 
 whisper of the wire, sounding close by instead of in a 
 muffled distance, startled her. She looked at the dust- 
 marks on her gloves, as at something incomprehensible, 
 while she waited. 
 
 A sound of shuffling feet, a voice pitched uncertainly 
 between nervous laughter and exclamation, came to her. 
 The latch was drawn with an exaggerated click and the 
 door opened a little way. The opening was wholly filled 
 by a narrow glimpse of Miss Etheredge, clothed in some 
 hardly visible stripes, turned half away as though she were 
 talking to someone behind her. A curious expression 
 showed in her face. It had something of mincing shyness 
 and of false embarrassment ; but her dark eyes, intensely 
 black in the surrounding half-lights, regarded Anne 
 steadily. 
 
 " Oh, it's you, is it ? Do come in. ... I'm not at all 
 dressed." 
 
 She backed her legs behind the door in her affectation of 
 shyness, and laughed, in a tiny, explosive, inconsequent 
 way. 
 
 It was some while before she opened the door enough for 
 Anne to attempt to enter. Miss Etheredge stood in the 
 corner by the door, holding a striped blanket about herself, 
 clad beneath in pyjamas. 
 
 While she held out her hand to Anne, she seemed to hold 
 back her body, so that the gesture was incongruous, 
 strangely compounded of big and little, attractive and 
 repellent. The accent of her greeting was elaborate. 
 
 " How do you do, Mrs. Cradock ? I had made up my 
 mind that you wouldn't come, or I would have been 
 dressed, and done something to the studio. . . ." Her 
 voice suddenly changed, became quicker and unelaborate. 
 " But I'm glad you've come. I was certain you wouldn't." 
 
 As she watched her, Anne longed to put her arms round 
 her neck. Then the bigness of the woman before her 
 penetrated to her mind, and she 6\ ailed. 
 
350 STILL LIFE 
 
 " Why did you think I wouldn't come ? " 
 
 " I thought you'd forget something like that. . . . We 
 made the arrangement very quickly after all. I didn't 
 take it quite seriously myself. . . . You haven't brought 
 Temple with you ... he wouldn't come ? " The question 
 asserted the fact. 
 
 " No. He didn't want to." 
 
 Miss Etheredge gathered herself together out of her 
 corner, and led the way into a long low room, littered with 
 papers, chaotic with tumbled canvases, the mantel-mirror 
 insecurely placarded with drawings and cards. A dirty 
 sun-blind, hanging unseasonably low outside the window 
 that looked on to the well, obscured everything. In the 
 greater gloom at the end of the room, through the space 
 where once had been a wide door, was a cushioned seat 
 against the wall, encompassing on three sides a marble- 
 topped table from some derelict cafe. 
 
 " It's the only place to sit down the only decent place." 
 
 Anne made her way to it. 
 
 " My God it is in a mess," said Miss Etheredge. 
 
 She took a yellow paper of cigarettes from the mantel- 
 piece and sat down opposite Anne. The cigarettes she 
 spread upon the table between them, and lighted one for 
 herself, waiting till the blue flame of the sulphur match 
 changed into white. Anne would not smoke. Though she 
 watched Miss Etheredge, the gloom was such that only in 
 the brief moment of the yellow flame, could she see her 
 plainly. Then her lips appeared to be tight pressed, and 
 her eyes full of tears. But Anne remembered that this was 
 the permanent aspect of her eyes, and waited. 
 
 " You're not in a hurry for tea ? I've put the kettle on ; 
 but it takes a long while. Something's wrong with the 
 gas. . . . Not much of a place to live in, is it ? " 
 
 " It is rather dark," said Anne. 
 
 " Yes. ... I dare say it suits me though." 
 
 The memory of her encounter at the corner of the street 
 pressed upon Anne. She made her discovery aloud. 
 
STILL LIFE 381 
 
 " But Mr. Beauchamp was to have come too, wasn't 
 he . . . ? I haven't seen him since last night." 
 
 " He was here just before you came. ... He wouldn't 
 stop to tea." The addition was an afterthought. " That's 
 an awfully nice coat you're wearing," she went on. " Did 
 you get it in England or here ? " 
 
 Anne wondered why she should trouble to make con- 
 versation. She could not really see the coat. But they 
 had looked at each other in the passage. 
 
 " I bought it here a week ago. ... I'm glad you like it." 
 
 Silence and the dim light went together. Miss Ether- 
 edge smoked, bending forwards, her elbows resting upon 
 her knees. The end of her cigarette faintly glowed. Anne 
 could hear the distant purr of the kettle. 
 
 ;< That was a funny tea-party ... at Ramsay's yester- 
 day." Miss Etheredge's words shot up into a laugh. " I 
 suppose it's rather trying if you're a stranger. . . . I'm not 
 the person to be about with here. Everybody I know is 
 my enemy . . . except Bill. . . ." 
 
 There was a long silence. Miss Etheredge broke it sud- 
 denly. 
 
 " Oh, you came to see my pictures, of course. And so 
 did Mr. Beauchamp, now I come to think of it. Well, it 
 doesn't matter. He didn't see them. That's where they 
 are." 
 
 She pointed to the fireplace in the further room, where 
 a trickle of smoke painfully climbed from a mass of charring 
 cinder. Then she went across to the fire and stirred the 
 ashes about with a piece of broken picture-frame. A dull 
 red showed like a winter sun, sprinkled with yellow, 
 draggled sparks that died down into the blackness again. 
 
 " They made a fine blaze just when he came in. ... And 
 yet I forgot all about telling him what it was. He didn't 
 ask either. Perhaps that was politeness." 
 
 She put a few odd pieces of wood from the hearth into the 
 red centre of the ashes. As she rose again to her full height 
 from powerfully crouching, she threw the stick she held 
 
382 STILL LIFE 
 
 in her hand on to the rest, and went back to her place. 
 Both were silent. The creeping gloom stole about Anne, 
 sealing her lips. The wood on the fire caught into a few 
 yellow flames that danced lamely upwards and expired. 
 Before they died they flashed a fitful light from wall to wall. 
 
 " You don't say very much," said Miss Etheredge. 
 
 " No " 
 
 " Not much to say, is there ? I suppose this kind of 
 thing is hard to understand. You'd pity me if you didn't 
 feel that I'm not exactly the person to be pitied. Isn't 
 that it ? " 
 
 " I wonder. . . . Yes, that's part of it, anyhow." 
 
 " No wonder I'm a strange animal when I come out into 
 the light. Perhaps I don't belong there any more. Do you 
 think I've lived with myself too long ? . . . But then you 
 have, too . . . longer than me, haven't you ? " 
 
 " A long while, certainly." 
 
 " And you can still do things, can't you ? You went 
 away with young Temple. That wants doing. I couldn't 
 do that. If I want to begin, everything seems rotten. I 
 know beforehand that everything will fail. Everything 
 and everybody. It's all the same. The men turn beasts. 
 The women turn nothing at all. They're only a second- 
 rate double of the men they hang on to. The best of them 
 go that way. I can't do that." 
 
 Miss Etheredge was crying. Her words came in short, 
 high-pitched rushes between the sobs which rose through 
 her body, like quiet waves. 
 
 " And this is the best I can do with life. . . . Four pictures 
 burnt and making the hell of a mess in my fireplace. . . . 
 I don't even know what I want from anybody. ... I only 
 know I'm bound to hate them, and they're bound to hate 
 me. . . . It's there at the very beginning. . . . The people that 
 would be good to me, only do it because they pity me. . . . 
 I can't have that. It's no good. . . . 
 
 " How I hate this room ! . . . But it's mine. It's me. It 
 makes you miserable, just the same as I make you miser- 
 
STILL LIFE 383 
 
 able. Funny . . . young Temple was just like that when 
 he met me. I hurt people just because I have to hurt them. 
 What the devil should I be if I didn't fight? There 
 wouldn't be anything left. . . . No, I'll have to keep a dog 
 and a cat perhaps, like Colette be nice and meek and 
 mild, cutting up meat and biscuits for the darling. Yes, 
 I should be fine with a menagerie, fine, a world of my own 
 to manage on six sous de lait a day." 
 
 Anne listened. It was all like what she had heard 
 yesterday ; but now it held her silent. Miss Etheredge 
 was speaking inside Anne herself now ; and Anne could not 
 believe that this was the woman and these the words of 
 yesterday. Her eyes were fixed through the gloom upon 
 her companion, and when a sudden gleam of light passed 
 with deep flickering shadows between them, her gaze did 
 not falter. It was as though she heard herself speaking. 
 Some part of her of which she had been afraid, which she 
 had suppressed with all her power, had suddenly become 
 triumphant and vocal. She listened. She did not even 
 feel that Miss Etheredge was a separate person. The 
 momentary impulse of her pity was forgotten. She 
 listened to a voice. 
 
 Miss Etheredge threw her burnt cigarette abruptly away. 
 It lay a dying cinder, in the middle of the floor. The 
 gesture woke Anne. Quietly and deliberately she took off 
 her hat, and laid it on the cushioned seat beside her, stab- 
 bing in the pins. Then she pushed her way between the 
 round table and the seat and sat down by Miss Etheredge. 
 Even while she put her arms round her neck, she felt how 
 large were her shoulders, how incongruous her own 
 embrace. 
 
 " Oh, my darling . . .," she said. " I know." Miss 
 Etheredge's head sank upon Anne's shoulders. She was 
 aware of the full weight of the body that pressed down upon 
 hers ; and she braced herself against it. 
 
 There was silence in which Anne's mind would jio longer 
 work. The power of thought floated far away from her. 
 
384 STILL LIFE 
 
 Her hands gently caressed the body which she clasped, 
 caressed it automatically. Automatically she was saying 
 ineffectual things. " Don't cry. . . . Don't cry." 
 
 When Miss Etheredge lifted her head again, Anne leant 
 back in the corner. She was weak, as though a strength 
 had departed from her, and the great sobs that moved 
 through Miss Etheredge's body had been torn from the 
 depths of her own. 
 
 " I suppose," said Miss Etheredge, with a half-laugh, 
 " that does me good. They say so, don't they ? " 
 
 Anne nodded. Through her mind unexpectedly flashed 
 some ridiculous words that she had read as a child. " Smiles 
 after tears are like sunshine after rain." She closed her 
 eyes a moment and waited for the sunshine. 
 
 " But it really doesn't make much odds, does it ? " went 
 on Miss Etheredge. " I shall be just the same. Everybody 
 goes on hating me. You'll hate me. . . . No, perhaps you 
 won't. You're too much like me. I wonder what's the 
 difference between you and me, after all." 
 
 " Not very much," whispered Anne. 
 
 " You're hurt and you don't hurt back. Is that it ? 
 You don't make such a muck of it as I do. I'll go on hurt- 
 ing people. . . . You'll go on loving young Temple. He'll 
 take every bit of it and give you credit for nothing. He'd 
 only give you credit for something if you were like me. . . . 
 No, but you don't really love him. ... I can see that. . . . 
 Some people think I ought to marry." 
 
 She spoke with a voice suddenly changed. Anne had an 
 instant sense that she was no longer speaking from a mind 
 full of thoughts and ideas, but from some active actual 
 wound within her. It was like the upburst of a cry of pain, 
 for all the vagueness of the words. 
 
 " What do you think about that ? " She put the question 
 to Anne abruptly, savagely. It might have been a grim 
 and ridiculous joke, covering an outrage to herself. 
 
 " To marry." Anne repeated the phrase dully. Her 
 comprehension was tired. "No," she said sharply, in- 
 
STILL LIFE 385 
 
 stinctively : and then continued as she realised the ques- 
 tion. 
 
 " It's easy to say ' rnarry,' as though it were something 
 like having your teeth seen to. ... To marry means to 
 marry a man. The man's the important thing. He may 
 be one man in a million. He'd have to be. With the rest 
 you'd lose yourself, or be worse off than you are ... so much 
 yourself that you'd go mad. To some women marriage 
 may be the beginning of everything, or it may be hell ; and 
 it's always for those women that the chances are a million 
 to one that it will be hell, one kind of hell or another. . . . 
 And marriage, after all, is a bad word. Marriages are 
 common enough. There must be a hundred an hour. If 
 you say love, you get some idea of what you're after. . . . 
 We don't say so because we're afraid of being sentimen- 
 talists. ' Love,' yes. You ought to be in love. So ought 
 I and every woman alive. Sometimes I think I'm always 
 thinking it now that life can only begin when we have 
 finished with love. I don't mean a year's passion. That's 
 good. But we come out of it wanting it again, wanting 
 more from it than ever is in it. We never find it, of course. 
 How should we ? Life can't go on by old experiences. 
 They aren't experiences any more. They're dead before 
 they are ever born. And we are tired of them before they 
 come. So we accept some drug to make us forget that we 
 ever were ourselves, that we ever wanted anything more 
 than to forget. Perhaps the time has come for that for me. 
 I've felt terribly old to-day, terribly old. But I can't be- 
 lieve it. Something in me won't let me believe it. I think 
 there's something in love and still beyond it, a moment 
 when you see something beyond love before love is dead, 
 something to be achieved out of two persons and beyond 
 themselves. 
 
 " After all the lesser thing will never be enough for 
 people like you and me. We have the wrong tempera- 
 ment ; perhaps we belong to the wrong people. I can't 
 face an experience any more that has an end and is dead. 
 2 c 
 
386 STILL LIFE 
 
 1 thought I could until quite lately. It's that makes me 
 wonder whether I am growing old. Is it old, I wonder, to 
 find out that where I thought I was asking nothing from 
 life, I was asking everything : and that it was only because 
 I was asking so much that I seemed to be asking so little ? " 
 
 They were silent a little while. Anne seemed to be trying 
 to answer her own hard question. 
 
 " Perhaps," she went on, now as though she were talking 
 aloud to herself, " what I'm asking for is only marriage after 
 all. Every woman that's any good, then, asks for that 
 the freedom to be herself. Every man, too, I suppose. 
 It's funny that it should take so long for a man to know he 
 must find it in a woman, and a woman to know that it's a 
 man. I'm sure it's really true that we're given in marriage 
 in heaven. If that's the marriage you mean, then you 
 should marry, and so should I ... But that doesn't tell us 
 much, does it ? 
 
 " I used to think I could master life by having a sort of 
 poise ; if I was only steadily myself, never letting myself 
 go altogether, it would be all right. But that was only a 
 kind of sickness, I can see now. It meant denying things 
 beforehand. It was forced, just as if you were to decide to 
 behave to everybody else as everybody else behaves, to 
 play their own little game with a sort of contempt. I 
 thought I was superior to all my experience. I don't think 
 it was offensive. It would be hard for me to hurt anybody 
 deliberately. But it was so poor. I held myself back from 
 everything as though my lif e depended upon it ; and in my 
 way I must have been just as Morry has been all along. It 
 was the narrowest chance I ever went away with him. I 
 can see all that now. He let himself go for a moment, the 
 critical moment, and I felt it and followed him. You're 
 right. In a small way it was a real thing that I did. 
 
 " Then I've had to get back this . . . poise. ... I had to 
 maintain myself against him, because he would never help 
 me. He fights away from me always. Perhaps I am 
 stronger than he is. But he's always frightened for him- 
 
STILL LIFE 387 
 
 self, and so I've had to become myself again ; right at the 
 very beginning I had to. I've only just realised that that's 
 what I meant by poise. It's only holding yourself clear. 
 And now it's not enough any more. It's old and tired and 
 empty. People are not meant to be self-contained. ... To 
 give everything to somebody who gives himself in return, 
 to be free of the load of one's self that would make us 
 really free, to accept the things we're frightened of." 
 
 Anne stopped. While she leant back wearily in the 
 corner, and looked into the chilly gloom in front of her, she 
 wondered why she had talked. She had rid herself of no 
 burden, and in recompense she felt only a throb of anxiety 
 lest what she had said should be handled by an enemy. 
 The very fact of her confession seemed to have put a wall 
 between her and Miss Etheredge, at the moment when they 
 had come closest together. In the silence was a suggestion 
 of something hostile, that she was in no way fit to combat, 
 for she had laid down hostility for ever. 
 
 The kettle asserted itself noisily in the lull, and Miss 
 Etheredge bestirred herself to get tea. She did it so quickly 
 that Anne, fastening aimlessly on small evidences, was 
 certain that it must have been ready prepared. There was 
 even a plateful of cakes. 
 
 ;t You're coming to dinner to-night, aren't you ? " Anne 
 asked. 
 
 " I wasn't invited. They don't invite me. You know 
 why." 
 
 " Neither was I invited, as far as I can remember. Morry 
 told me about it." 
 
 " Stay here then. I'll get something to eat. We can 
 go and upset them afterwards. They're going to the 
 Parthenon, I suppose." 
 
 " He did say something about a cafe." 
 
 " That's it then. It's always the same." 
 
 " But you see I promised Morry that I'd go. I think I 
 must. Why don't you come, too ? " 
 
 " The same old reason. . . . Who's going to be there ? " 
 
388 STILL LIFE 
 
 " I don't know ; but I imagine the people who were at 
 tea yesterday." 
 
 " But Wauchope's gone into the country. I'd like to 
 know if he's taken Netta with him, like to know very much. 
 ... I'd make it damned uncomfortable for him. . . . Every- 
 body except Wauchope. . . . No, I shan't go. I'll go to the 
 Parthenon afterwards. Then I'll pay for my own drink 
 and be quite independent. . . . And I shall see my new beau. 
 . . . You don't know about him ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 Miss Etheredge laughed. " Oh, that's your Mr. Beau- 
 champ. We had a beautifully intimate conversation here 
 this afternoon, a little while before you came. We suited 
 each other fine, I can tell you. We even wept together. 
 He's a great admirer of mine now ; ready to sacrifice every- 
 thing for me, just out of kindness and pure affection. Oh, 
 quite a romance. ... I wonder whether he'd be glad to 
 see me, again, to-night." 
 
 " Surely he would." 
 
 Fantastic anxieties beset Anne in her desolation. She 
 was troubled by Miss Etheredge's words. The thought that 
 Dennis had done this thing apart from her hurt her now. 
 She did not know what the thing might be. But Dennis 
 had failed her too. She had not yet believed that she stood 
 so nakedly alone. For an instant she thought that Miss 
 Etheredge was aiming at her. But how could Miss Ether- 
 edge know that it mattered to her what Dennis did ? She 
 herself knew it only now. 
 
 " Why not ? " she added. 
 
 " I don't think he would somehow. He'd feel he had 
 given himself away. And he'd be upset at the idea I would 
 give him away too. . . . Give him away. . . . That's what the 
 best man does at a marriage, isn't it ? ... I'm terribly 
 ignorant, really. ..." 
 
 " Yes, that's nearly right." 
 
 " That's damn funny, then damn funny ! " Her laugh 
 escaped into a shriek, 
 
STILL LIFE 389 
 
 Anne was frightened, not of her hysteria, but of a sense 
 beneath her words. Miss Etheredge lit a smoky lamp and 
 set it on the table. Then she took a scattered, loose-leaved 
 sketch-book and, as she sat beside Anne, began to draw 
 quickly. Leaning forward, massively beautiful, her long 
 fingers sweeping a piece of charcoal over the paper, she 
 seemed to Anne ruthless and terrible. Anne wanted to 
 escape from her as from an evil thing. 
 
 " No, it's too good," said Miss Etheredge, laughing with 
 tears in her eyes while she drew. " * Miss Etheredge giving 
 Mr. Beauchamp away,' that's so much better than Mr. 
 Dennis giving himself away." 
 
 Whether of purpose or not, she held the paper so that 
 Anne could see. Though Anne tried to drag her eyes away 
 she was fascinated by the charcoal point. Miss Etheredge 
 drew a gigantic caricature of herself, statuesque and im- 
 perturbable like a smiling Egyptian god. The smile seemed 
 to Anne to be the very expression of what she feared in her. 
 " But that must be imagination," she thought, for the 
 mouth was only a hasty line, and she sought to shake off 
 the illusion. With outstretched, implacable hands the 
 goddess was giving two pigmies each to the other. One 
 was beyond all doubt Dennis with a strange familiar 
 droop to his shoulders ; the other while she waited Anne 
 was haunted by the strange attitude of Dennis Miss Ether- 
 edge herself, as she sat there opposite Anne but a little 
 while ago Miss Etheredge, shy and reluctant, virginal, 
 caricatured, but real. Before she had finished, she crumpled 
 the paper up and threw it on to the floor. 
 
 " It's a good idea," said Miss Etheredge, much calmer 
 now. " It's the only way I can hold up against things, by 
 drawing them. But I'll never make anything of that one 
 anyhow. I can't go through with it. Sentimentality or 
 something gets in the way. It's always the same. ..." 
 
 The relief that came to Anne when Miss Etheredge 
 crumpled up the drawing and threw it away was sudden 
 and profound. Even the white ball of paper lying impotent 
 
390 STILL LIFE 
 
 upon the floor still fascinated her like a malignant insect 
 done to death. She was still trying to discover what had 
 brought to her mind the drooping line of Dennis's shoulder 
 in the drawing. It was so vivid that it obsessed her, and 
 she said with but half her thought to her speech : 
 
 ;c You can be terribly cruel . . . too cruel." 
 
 " Genius gone wrong ? " 
 
 " You're so cruel to yourself. . . . You shouldn't do 
 things like that. Somehow it seems to me wrong evil ! " 
 
 " I won't draw you, anyhow. I couldn't." 
 
 " There's something in you that frightens me, as though 
 you had the power to turn bad really bad. I don't know 
 how to tell you." 
 
 " Perhaps I have. Who knows ? Who's got any idea of 
 what I have to go through, what I've been through ? And 
 if I'm turned wrong and cruel it's myself I'm wrong and 
 cruel to, first of all. ... But do you know ? Other people 
 would just think that was funny, just as they think I'm a 
 kind of joke. The only ones that really appreciate me are 
 terrified of me. You can understand that, can't you ? 
 They can't. Not even those who are frightened of me. 
 They've no idea how I'm frightened of myself. You don't 
 think I don't know there something wrong in that ? " She 
 pointed to the ball of paper. " You know I hate myself 
 when I do that . . . but if I didn't . . . " she lifted her eyes 
 from the ground and her head from her breast and looked 
 at Anne " ... I believe I should go mad. Lonely. . . . 
 They don't know what loneliness is. I think I could paint a 
 lonely woman. They'd think that was funny too the 
 swine. 
 
 " One thing about your Mr. Beauchamp. He didn't see 
 anything funny in me. I will say that for him. . . . But he 
 saw something he won't forget, before he got away. Yes, 
 he'll remember me. 
 
 " I suppose you've read a lot. You've read Wilde, any- 
 way, and Baudelaire. . . . They're said to be naughty, aren't 
 they ? I dare say they are. And not much good, really. 
 
STILL LIFE 391 
 
 I don't know a bit what's first chop in these things. But 
 they were lonely. People go like that because they're 
 lonely, I know. My God, I don't blame them. . . . But a 
 woman . . . that's a different affair. Yes, I'd like to find 
 someone like me. You're like me in some ways ; and then 
 you're quite different. Wauchope's like me. But it's only 
 a touch. Lots of men have a touch. But you don't find 
 many who've got nothing else, all day long, nothing else at 
 all. They are bloody freaks. Yes, it's true, they are funny, 
 bloody funny. 
 
 " But I'm being quite sensible about it now, ain't I ? 
 No more weeping. That's you being here. Wait till you've 
 gone. No, stay here till you have to go. Then I can go out 
 to dinner at the same time as you. It's not many minutes 
 more. But I am being very quiet about it now. I haven't 
 been like this for months. . . . 
 
 " Then, sometime, I'll have to go back to the bosom of 
 my family. I shouldn't get any money if I didn't. And 
 my mother'll say : ' My poor child, what have you been 
 doing to yourself ? * She always starts off like that. ' We 
 must feed you up. You've been eating that horrible 
 French food. . . .' 
 
 " When I'm like this I can see it really is funny. There 
 is some humour in the old world still. Perhaps I shall like 
 that one of these days, and I'll just stay there, and go on 
 being well fed by my mother. . . . I'm making you tired." 
 
 " No," said Anne, " I was tired long before I came here ; 
 and I'm not more tired now." 
 
 " I'd like to come to that dinner." 
 
 ; ' Then why not ? " 
 
 " No, it's no good. I can't stand too much. I don't 
 think I'd be much good to-day. I shouldn't be funny 
 enough, and they'd be disappointed. No, it's been a 
 heavy day, even for me. I was dancing a pas seal even be- 
 fore you came. Really a pas seul, in front of the mirror 
 there. That's always about the beginning of the end." 
 
 " The beginning of the end." The phrase became real. 
 
392 STILL LIFE 
 
 A chill atmosphere of death seemed to hang about that 
 room, to have crept into Anne's soul. Memories of ancient 
 dreams and old deaths gathered about it. Pitifully she 
 desired Miss Etheredge's tears, Miss Etheredge weeping 
 rather than Miss Etheredge cold and hard. This tyran- 
 nised over her and held her fast. She had not even the 
 desire to be away. She was fixed with something that she 
 dared not look at, and dared not escape. 
 
 " I don't think your Mr. Beauchamp will be at 
 dinner. ..." 
 
 " No. ..." Anne knew that he would not be there now. 
 
 " I shan't meet him again, I know. Not him. He'll be 
 changed, if ever I see him again. I dare say he will have 
 forgotten it. He won't be able to remember. ... I shan't 
 see you again, either." 
 
 " But to-night ? " 
 
 " Yes, to-night, of course. But to-night belongs to to- 
 day. It's nothing new, only the end of this. Put a night's 
 sleep to finish it, and then ? You can't afford to see me 
 again. It would be asking for it. Oh, I know well enough. 
 I'm not blind. You'll have to be strong again before you 
 can risk it, and then you won't know why it was at all." 
 
 Anne did not answer. Again Miss Etheredge's words had 
 the undefinable ring of certainty. It would have been 
 trivial and false to protest. 
 
 " You feel that's true, don't you ? " said Miss Etheredge. 
 
 " Yes, I do." There were long pauses between question 
 and answer, pauses with some compelling quality of their 
 own, that stifled the very beginning of untruth. 
 
 " I like you for saying so. ... It makes me feel that I 
 shan't hate you like the rest." 
 
 " It was not I that said so, after all." 
 
 Anne felt that she was compelled to be honest about her- 
 self. Beside her companion now, she was small, and she 
 wondered whether there was a real Anne. The feeling that 
 she was less than Miss Etheredge left her without any being 
 of her own. She was all or nothing. She could not hold 
 
STILL LIFE 393 
 
 herself of a few minutes ago with herself now. The im- 
 mediate past had become yet more foreign than the remote. 
 And the present held so little, so pitifully little. 
 
 " Does it worry you to think that in a little while I'll be 
 whining and raging again . . . just as I did yesterday ? " 
 
 " I don't know," said Anne. " It's so different, so hard 
 to imagine. No. ... I don't think it does. . . . But that's 
 because it doesn't seem real any more, I think that's the 
 reason." 
 
 " I dare say. . . . Now, I don't know whether I envy you 
 at all. Things are so certain. I'm too old to aim after 
 anything, dreams. I couldn't begin. I must have hesi- 
 tated too long. ' Linger shivering on the brink and fear 
 to launch away ' there's a hymn like that, isn't there ? 
 I suppose it's not what the swells'd call poetry ; but there's 
 something in it. I don't want ..." Again she hesitated. 
 " Dreams any more. Just don't want them. I wish . . . 
 your Mr. Beauchamp had come to see when I was like this. 
 But I haven't been like this for a long while, perhaps never 
 before. 
 
 " It won't last very long, either. You've just got to go 
 away and it's all up, the whole damn thing busted. Not 
 quite so sudden as that perhaps, but the beginning of the 
 end. 
 
 " You ought to be going now, oughtn't you ? You're 
 quite right about going to that dinner. It's no use stopping 
 here, is it ? We've done all we can do." 
 
 " Yes, I think I'll go, now," said Anne. She rose and 
 gathered her hat and the pins. As she put on her hat she 
 said : " How very far away from life we are here." Then 
 she corrected herself. " Very far away from the world." 
 
 " Listen by the window," said Miss Etheredge. 
 
 Together they went to the window. The low sun-blind 
 bent their eyes downwards. Through a large lighted 
 window below them they saw the moving shadow of some 
 activity. 
 
 " It's quite dark now," said Anne. 
 
394 STILL LIFE 
 
 She felt Miss Etheredge's arm close softly round her 
 shoulder. While she looked at the moving shadow her 
 eyes were slowly covered as with a curtain. The light in 
 the window below spread and swam into a darkness. 
 Then she heard a quick, dull tapping, that echoed up the 
 dark well. 
 
 " It's a sculptor ... an Italian," said Miss Etheredge. 
 
 " Good-bye," said Anne. The impulse came to them 
 together. They kissed on the mouth. 
 
 A glimmer from a low gas flame escaped from the kitchen. 
 Anne felt her way to the door, sliding her feet carefully be- 
 fore her, and groped for the latch. She tried the unfamiliar 
 latch a long while with her fingers, neither expecting nor 
 receiving aid. As it clicked open, she heard a voice from 
 behind her, and waited, quite still. 
 
 " Ah, you've found it. ... Good-bye." Then it changed, 
 indefinitely changed. ..." Yes, I shall be at the Parthenon 
 to-night outside. ' ' 
 
 While she made her way to the street, Anne asked much 
 of the cool air and the people passing. She felt that these 
 would bring her back to herself, or bring her some relief. 
 She did not know what she expected from them. There 
 was warm darkness and warm lights in the street. It was 
 not inhospitable, and it was very real. But neither the 
 warmth nor the hospitality were for her. She had been 
 taken out of the world, out of life. Again she stood irreso- 
 lutely upon the pavement corner. To her thought distance 
 was overwhelming and unconquerable ; and as she glanced 
 vaguely about her she saw the dim white of the prints in 
 the long window opposite, and the vision of Dennis, with 
 the strange droop in his shoulders, as Miss Etheredge had 
 drawn him, took its place naturally before the window and 
 moved slowly round the corner out of her sight. 
 
 She was not deceived. She saw the window opposite 
 steadily all the while, and she saw that no one was there. 
 Only in her mind was the picture of Dennis, shaped by 
 Miss Etheredge's fingers ; but the picture seemed to free a 
 
STILL LIFE 395 
 
 sudden understanding. {Some weighty gloom, which she 
 could not grapple while it had pressed upon her, dispersed. 
 She was sad now, but calm and somehow herself. 
 
 Hailing & fiacre at the corner, she was driven back to the 
 hotel. She had come out of an ordeal. She had emerged 
 alive, where she might have been dead. The fatigue of 
 deliverance weighed her steps as she climbed up the stairs. 
 
 Maurice was in an armchair. He had on his overcoat 
 and his hat rested on his knee. She felt the sudden gladness 
 in him as he jumped up. 
 
 " I thought you were never coming." 
 
 " I suppose I'm very late." 
 
 " No, it wasn't that I meant " He stopped suddenly, 
 
 as a man before a precipice. 
 
 Anne hardly noticed it. She was not ready to feel things 
 acutely again. Maurice held her hand. 
 
 " You are very tired, aren't you ? . . . That's Etheredge." 
 
 " I'll be ready in a second." 
 
 " Are you sure you want to come ? " asked Maurice, and 
 even as he asked, the door was closing upon Anne. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THEY were late. They were late nearly by a half an hour. 
 It was so utterly unimportant to Maurice as he sat in a cab, 
 close by Anne's side, that it tinkled pleasantly in his brain. 
 The recollection of his day slid so completely away from 
 him, that he answered, sincerely, with a puzzled ignorance 
 of what he had really been doing, when Anne asked 
 
 " What did you do all day ? " 
 
 " Oh ... I just wandered about," he said. " I didn't go 
 to see Boisonnier after all." 
 
 He did not understand himself and Anne, sitting there 
 close together. She seemed in a way so near to him ... as 
 if nothing had happened ... as if something had happened 
 to them both, rather. And yet there was something 
 changed. A cloud of mutual kindness encompassed them. 
 In it they were equal. He was grateful for it, even though 
 he knew that it was not enough. It exacted nothing from 
 him. 
 
 " What are you thinking about, Anne ? " 
 
 Anne smiled at him, slightly turning her head, so gently, 
 so full of kindness, that he felt a warm sadness like the 
 relief of tears. 
 
 " All kinds of odd things," she said. 
 
 He did not ask any more. What she said was sufficient, 
 and he understood it, without knowing what she meant. 
 He played with the two rings which were on her left hand 
 for a little while, until the cab stopped, when he bent down 
 and kissed it. 
 
 He was glad that he had done that while he led the way 
 into the restaurant. In a corner he saw Ramsay and 
 Wauchope and a woman whom he did not know. 
 
 396 
 
STILL LIFE 397 
 
 " Dennis hasn't turned up," he said to Anne. " I wonder 
 what has happened to him." Meanwhile he waved in 
 response to Ramsay's salutation. 
 
 ' You're late, Temple," he said when they had reached 
 the table. " But we were, too, so it was as well." 
 
 Anne was speaking to Wauchope. They were both in- 
 troduced to Miss Bathurst, a fresh-coloured lady who broke 
 immediately into torrents of kindly talk. She had been 
 hearing a great deal about Anne from Wauchope, she 
 averred, who had been singing her praises, which happened 
 seldom enough. She passed without pause to common- 
 places of Paris, ending her first speech with the assurance 
 that Anne really must live there, seeing that it was the only 
 possible place. 
 
 " Have you decided when you are going yet ? " Ramsay 
 asked. 
 
 " No more idea than we had yesterday." 
 
 " Well, it doesn't matter very much." 
 
 " I thought you were off to the country," Maurice said to 
 Wauchope, turning round on his chair to order food while 
 he spoke. 
 
 " So did I. But I find I'm not opulent and free, like 
 you." 
 
 " No ? " Wauchope did not trouble him any more. He 
 was only an incident. Even Ramsay was remote and 
 trivial. He realised it suddenly, when Ramsay began to 
 talk to him about the philosophy they had begun to discuss 
 yesterday. Maurice answered his questions lucidly. He 
 felt that he could touch the game with his fingers, and 
 move the pieces. 
 
 "All I say, after all, is that if you start by thinking 
 that you are there on one side, and everything else is out 
 there on the other side, you can never ge"t away from it. 
 I am I and the world's the world may sound right enough ; 
 but seeing that everything one ever does or is ever likely 
 to do is based on a quite different idea, it can't be so very 
 valuable. The fact is that you never are isolated wholly. 
 
398 STILL LIFE 
 
 and you can't possibly be isolated. It's only taking hold 
 of the wrong end of the stick." 
 
 While he spoke his eyes turned to Wauchope, who sat 
 beside him. He might have been listening. Fingering his 
 thin moustache, he returned Maurice's look. His colourless 
 blue eyes focussed through his pince-nez, and seemed more 
 lifeless than ever. Except for a little upward twist of his 
 thin lips, his face carried no expression. Strangely Maurice 
 thought that Wauchope knew he had changed. Wauchope 
 knew something about him. He was on the point of asking 
 Wauchope point-blank : " What do you know about me, 
 tell me ? " But he could not do that. Kamsay there and 
 Miss Bathurst, they would have found it strange. He had 
 nothing at all to do with them. Perhaps he was to them 
 exactly as they were to him. He marvelled that Ramsay 
 should be interested in the words he was saying. 
 
 Miss Bathurst, pink and genial, was talking all the while 
 to Anne. Anne should see old Berthelot's shop. All the 
 things that were really being done in this art affair the 
 phrase was Ramsay's and it pricked Maurice's ears were 
 there, Badaud and Cochin and Picasso, and Berthelot him- 
 self was such a dear. And there was the Salon d'Antan. 
 Anne had not seen that ? It was wonderful, really wonder- 
 ful, it was modern. She did not know Harry Borden ? He 
 was amazing. He smashed all the crockery at the Cafe 
 d'Europe, put out every single light, before the agents got 
 him ; and Paul Bussy. . . . Miss Bathurst was indefatigable 
 in enumerating the stupendous company, and Anne 
 listened gently. 
 
 " Bill ! " Miss Bathurst's voice, a pleasant voice with an 
 echo of laughter, rose, "isn't Wauchope's picture of the 
 tulips a masterpiece ? " 
 
 " You should see that, Temple. It's really got some- 
 thing. The artist's getting somewhere." Ramsay smiled 
 at Wauchope, and Maurice knew that Wauchope was glad, 
 not for the praise, but for the smile. 
 
 "Yes," said Maurice mechanically. He was nearly 
 
STILL LIFE 399 
 
 impelled to tell them that he would never see any pictures 
 any more. They had for him neither use nor meaning. 
 
 And then he felt the unintelligible burden of his day. 
 His memory was laden with every incident, and he had to 
 support the weight in secret. He wished it undone. It 
 seemed that even when he did not think about it, it was 
 fermenting in hidden activity. He looked at Anne in the 
 hope that she would read it in his eyes. She was listening 
 to Miss Bathurst. He might have been freed from some- 
 thing of it. But now that Anne was not looking, he knew 
 that he was weak. He would not tell her, but he wanted 
 her to know. He recoiled from the sight of his own disin- 
 tegration. " But I don't see how you can expect to be 
 primitives in 1913. The world-consciousness, or whatever 
 you call it, won't allow it ; or if it does allow, it's no more 
 than a protest, like throwing a brick through a plate-glass 
 window. You talk about moderns but really, there 
 hasn't been a modern painter since Rembrandt. And even 
 now he's a hundred years ahead of you." 
 
 Ramsay laughed. " You've vamped along in two years." 
 
 " Some two years are as good as a lifetime, after all." 
 
 " Yours are a bit better." 
 
 " Perhaps. . . . But you know you haven't succeeded in 
 being a bit more modern than the people who began your 
 movement. You've only made a theory out of their work 
 that they never had themselves. ..." 
 
 " Oh, you're an impossible reactionary." 
 
 Miss Bathurst was talking to Anne about Miss Ether- 
 edge. She gave them all advice of it by raising her too 
 pleasant voice again. 
 
 " Bill. . . . Mrs. Cradock has been to see the lioness in her 
 den." Ramsay raised his eyebrows and smiled vacantly. 
 He was still attending to the desolate argument. " It's 
 not everyone dares to do that," Miss Bathurst explained to 
 Anne. " How did you get on with her ? Better than we 
 do, I'm sure." 
 
 " I found her very interesting," said Anne, 
 
400 STILL LIFE 
 
 " Oh, she's inter estirig, right enough . . . and she's very 
 clever." 
 
 " So I thought." 
 
 " She quarrels with everybody. I'm her deadly enemy 
 just now." 
 
 " Oh. ..." Anne thought that she was not so very 
 deadly, and would have smiled, had not the conversation 
 been so far away from her, no more than a little aimless 
 whisper in her ears. 
 
 "I'm not sure I don't agree with him, Bill," said 
 Wauchope. 
 
 Maurice was surprised a moment ; then he saw that the 
 trailing discussion meant as little to Wauchope as it did to 
 him. And Wauchope was a painter. 
 
 Wauchope leaned forward over the table and drew with 
 his finger on the cloth. The smoke from his cigarette 
 ascended in a swift stream, in colour like his eyes. 
 
 " I don't believe anything really matters to you, Bill." 
 His thin lips slanted into his odd smile, and he watched his 
 finger make curves. "Ah ... it's rather like running a rail- 
 way with you. ..." 
 
 " How do you make that out ? " 
 
 " I don't make anything out. You have to be explained. 
 You're really a phenomenon, that's all." 
 
 " You're too damnably obscure." Kamsay was not 
 angry, but amused and expostulating. " What's the 
 point of saying things if you're not going to explain 
 them ? " 
 
 " That's your unfortunate prejudice. Running railways 
 again by the time-sheet." 
 
 Wauchope thought the same about Ramsay as Maurice 
 did, then Maurice still felt that Wauchope knew something 
 about him, that he did not want Wauchope nor anybody 
 to know. Wauchope might even be able to see the visions 
 of Madeleine that came into his mind unsought, of Made- 
 leine hurt, Madeleine waiting, crowding recollections of old 
 intimacies. He might even read the straggling words of 
 
STILL LIFE 401 
 
 Tu nCas cassais le cceur, written lives ago, and being written 
 again in his mind now. 
 
 While these pictures passed before his mind, he felt that 
 his soul was open for eyes to see. He glanced up to look at 
 Anne. She was still listening to Miss Bathurst, who leant 
 with her plump arms folded upon the table. At that 
 moment he had a clear sight of Anne. He could not hurt 
 her any more ; she was beyond his power to hurt. Nothing 
 that he did would increase her pain, nothing would assuage 
 it. That was why that kindness had enveloped them both 
 on their way hither. He would have changed, he would 
 have loved her and responded to her love, only she had 
 passed beyond him now. He did love her now, he asserted 
 to himself as he looked at her again, and sank his eyes to 
 Wauchope's circling finger. Her fingers drummed again, 
 her arm was stretched out again upon the table before his 
 eyes. How he longed to kiss her hand, to kiss her lips, to 
 be watched and mirrored by her eyes. How he wished 
 that all these people were miles away, the whole world 
 shattered out of sight. A dread foreboding sounded 
 terribly through him, that he should never again be touched 
 by her, never be held by her and forget everything. He 
 could not look into the void without her, it was too close 
 and too terrible. It was in him now. His mouth opened. 
 He looked upwards suddenly, as one who sees a horror and 
 cannot trust that the world is real. 
 
 " What's up, Temple ? " said Ramsay. " You're look- 
 ing queer." 
 
 Immediately, he looked queer no longer. " Oh, nothing," 
 he said. " Have you ever tried to imagine eternity, some- 
 thing that goes on for ever, without stopping, for ever and 
 ever ; something that doesn't move, but just remains, 
 never changes ? " 
 
 Ramsay shook his head. 
 
 " It gives you a nasty turn," said Maurice. 
 
 " So you get that kind of thing, too ? " said Wau- 
 chope. 
 
 2 D 
 
402 STILL LIFE 
 
 " Something wrong with you physically. ... All kinds 
 of rummy diseases ..." said Ramsay. 
 
 " Yes, that's it," said Wauchope, still following his finger 
 with his eyes. 
 
 Ramsay looked up and about him with wrinkled fore- 
 head, and the familiar half-smile, idly tapping with a five- 
 franc piece on the table. " We'd better be going." 
 
 They strolled along the boulevard. Anne and Miss 
 Bathurst led the way. Miss Bathurst was talking still ; 
 but occasionally she turned her head backward. " Don't 
 lag behind so," she called. Then Ramsay looked up from 
 his meditations for a second and dropped his head again. 
 The luminous blue sky of a Paris night in spring arched 
 overhead. The wide streets were desolate to Maurice ; the 
 cafe" lights like distant beacons. 
 
 Wauchope broke the silence to say to him : 
 
 " That's a queer idea eternity." 
 
 " Yes " 
 
 The idea of physical loneliness had gradually stolen 
 through Maurice ; his craving went forth into empty 
 spaces. Even yet it seemed that it could not be so ; that 
 he was only trembling upon the brink of a void into which 
 he never would be plunged. His thought could not hold a 
 future so terrible. Before it, it drooped and was lifeless. 
 Even his words were paralysed. 
 
 " Yes," he said again, " it's ghastly." 
 
 Wauchope was very close to him, desolate, like himself. 
 He understood Wauchope now ; but at the moment when 
 he felt near to him he had a horror of contact. He could 
 not acknowledge that they were alike. If he really were 
 like Wauchope he would die. 
 
 - ; uch were the furious, rhetorical ideas that surged 
 through him, ideas of mortal death and clamorous defiance 
 of inexorable destiny and silent endurance, ideas that he 
 knew for empty swollen things, but could not put away. 
 Either these must be in his mind or this utter desolation. 
 " I don't see why you should ever leave this place," said 
 
STILL LIFE 403 
 
 Ramsay. " After all it is the only decent place to live in. 
 Nobody really does care a damn about you here after all, 
 so that you really are free in some sort of a way." 
 
 Maurice heard himself say : " But I've got my living to 
 earn." The idea flickered into a half -reality and faded 
 away. It came back contorted, revealing a sordid depth 
 in himself that he could not believe. Without Anne he 
 would have no money : he would have to go to go to 
 Cradock again. God alone knew what he would have to 
 do. He could not think about that ; but to be without 
 Anne was real to him, now that it meant to be without 
 money. That he could see and feel. "My God," he 
 moaned to himself, striving to thrust the thought away, 
 loathing the very mechanism of his mind that had brought 
 it before him. It dissolved away. His mind and his body 
 were one in passionate hunger to be enfolded in Anne's 
 arms again. 
 
 " But couldn't you make some kind of a living from 
 here ? Don't people write about Paris in the Sunday 
 papers ? One of them would give you enough to live on." 
 ;t Yes, but they're not to be had for the asking." 
 
 " No ? ... I suppose it's only the R.A.'s who get them " 
 
 Wauchope beside Maurice said not a word. He was not 
 even listening. He walked along with his hands in his 
 pockets, tall, even though his head was bent downwards. 
 He raised it as they drew near the cafe, and peered across 
 the road. 
 
 " There's some kind of a fair on, isn't there ? " He 
 blinked at the changing light of the arc lamp. They stood 
 still. Anne and Miss Bathurst had paused before them. 
 The triumphant steam organ magnified a whistled tune 
 into an orgy of music, that poured out with the flooding 
 light. The cafe by the corner was dark against the brilliance 
 that illumined only a circle of faces, and made the black 
 shadow beyond them blacker, and solid as iron. As the 
 horses swung swiftly round thin black streaks shot out 
 from the darkness, and changed into coloured streamers. 
 
404 STILL LIFE 
 
 " Isn't it splendid ? " said Miss Bathurst. In her ex- 
 citement she tiptoed up and down. 
 
 " Good things ! " said Ramsay. " We'd better get a 
 seat while we can." 
 
 They crossed the road. Maurice walked beside Anne. 
 
 " Are you cold, Anne ? " he said. He could not speak 
 to her now. He had nothing to say ; words were empty 
 and ridiculous. 
 
 " Not a bit," she said and looked at him. Though he 
 could not see her eyes, he knew they were gentle and kind. 
 He felt that in them, and desolation swept him again. One 
 sole desire gripped him, to take her hand and walk hand in 
 hand with her, like two little children across the road. 
 " Like two little children," his mind repeated, for that was 
 strangely part of his desire. He could not do it. Wide 
 spaces were between them now. 
 
 He had something to say to her even now, he thought, 
 walking by her side. He would have to say, naturally : 
 " What would she have to drink ? " It was a precious 
 possession. While he sat down opposite her with his back 
 to the roundabout, he was in a fever lest Ramsay should 
 anticipate him. 
 
 " Anne," he said in a hard, thin voice, " what will you 
 have to drink ? " 
 
 Miss Bathurst, with a playful glance at him, bent across 
 Anne beside her and whispered with amorous intensity : 
 
 " Qu'est ce que tu prends, ma cherie ? . . ." Then 
 relapsing into her chair. " That's the way it should be 
 done, Mr. Temple." 
 
 Maurice stared at her, aghast. It was the ringer of destiny. 
 Miss Bathurst, uneasy before his eyes, turned and spoke to 
 Ramsay, ordering her drink. Maurice had frightened her. 
 
 " I'll have some coffee," said Anne. The patient quiet- 
 ness of her voice hurt him. She looked at him, and it 
 seemed to him that he was not there, that she was looking 
 at an unreal thing. He looked back at her, and his eyes 
 were like insentient lenses of glass, that reflected and did 
 
STILL LIFE 405 
 
 not see. Anne's gaze shifted to the roundabout behind him. 
 He saw himself in the future weeping, calling upon her who 
 would never come to him, never comfort him. He was a 
 stranger, a statue in his own sight ; he saw himself to be, 
 and felt nothing, save that he could not feel. But that 
 future was fixed and ineluctable. 
 
 What he saw he accepted without rebellion or question- 
 ing. He was weary and incapable now. 
 
 And the words that he had to say to her were doubly pre- 
 cious. They shaped upon his lips into elaborate courtesies. 
 
 " You would like the coffee really hot ; it's nearly 
 always cold." 
 
 " Yes, please," said Anne. 
 
 He was nervous of no waiter now, and he rapped sharp 
 and loud upon the table. The waiter hurried to him. 
 Maurice insisted, as he had never insisted before, that his 
 bidding should be done, and for the first time he knew that 
 it would be done. Then he sank back into himself. He 
 had nothing to say. The sound of the organ, shrieking 
 Sur les Fonts de Paris above the grinding machinery, was 
 acceptable. 
 
 " Won't you come for a ride ? " said Miss Bathurst to 
 Anne. Quivering with impatient excitement, she rose 
 from her seat as she asked. Anne rose too, and they passed 
 together between the tables into the crowd. Ramsay's 
 hands were clasped between his knees, and his body bent 
 close to the table, where he sat next to Miss Bathurst. He 
 raised his eyes, wrinkling his forehead, and smiled. Then 
 he shook his head suddenly. Miss Bathurst had beckoned 
 to him from the crowd. Wauchope sprawled sideways, 
 resting his head in the palm of his hand, watching the grog 
 which he monotonously stirred. 
 
 Maurice shifted round in his chair to watch. The two 
 women had disappeared into the shadow of the crowd. 
 Miss Bathurst emerged and ran up a few steps on to the 
 platform and waved to them. Anne followed her. They 
 waited for the swinging horses to stop : while they waited 
 
406 STILL LIFE 
 
 they were festooned with streamers from the crowd. Miss 
 Bathurst jerked her hand out continually to catch the 
 streamers in their flight. 
 
 A basket full of the coloured papers, rolled up like 
 ribbons in a draper's shop, came under his eyes. He re- 
 garded them vaguely for an instant, and looked upwards 
 to see a woman urging him to buy. Her eyes were turned 
 towards the roundabout, and she looked down again at her 
 basket only when he took a handful and paid the money. 
 As she moved to the next table he got up and threaded his 
 way through the people. On the pavement he was arrested 
 by a voice. 
 
 " Oh, here you are ! " It was Miss Etheredge. 
 
 " Hullo," he said. 
 
 " Going to throw papers with the little boys ? " 
 
 " Yes." He looked up at her. 
 
 " Why, what's the matter with you ? " She took hold 
 of his arm ; it was limp and unresisting in her hand. 
 
 " Nothing. ... I'm only a bit tired." 
 
 " Little boys shouldn't be let loose in this wicked town," 
 she mocked, but kept hold of his arm : and so they stood 
 close together on the edge of the crowd, looking towards 
 the horses. 
 
 " Is that Miss Bathurst up there ? . . . and Mrs. Cradock ? 
 ... it is ... yes, Miss Bathurst would be Bohemian, 
 thoroughly Bohemian. Give me one of those." 
 
 He held out his handful. As the horse that Miss Bathurst 
 rode, side saddle, facing the crowd, clutching ineffectually 
 at the streamers, intoxicated with delight, came round to 
 view again Miss Etheredge launched her missile. It fell 
 feebly on the edge of the platform. 
 
 " No, I'm no good at this. ..." She looked round at the 
 cafe tables. " Who's there ? " 
 
 " Ramsay, Wauchope, Anne, Miss Bathurst and me." 
 
 " Mr. Beauchamp isn't there ? " 
 
 " No. ... I haven't seen him since last night." 
 
 The organ and the horses stopped. Neither Miss Bathurst 
 
STILL LIFE 407 
 
 nor Anne dismounted. Anne rode in a monstrous white 
 swan, alone, leaning backwards ; she never looked to right 
 or left. Miss Etheredge and Maurice moved forwards as 
 the people crowded behind them. Out of the general sea 
 of faces shot quick arms, and above the general tumult 
 sounded loud explosive laughs. The horses and chariots 
 swung so swiftly and lightly round that they blurred before 
 Maurice's eyes. One thing alone was steady before him, 
 the figure of a man in brilliant white shoes who stood in 
 the dark centre of the roundabout, with his back against a 
 column of mirrors, moving his feet in little sideways steps, 
 instinctively, so that he was always turned towards them. 
 Anne soared in her swan for an instant, sank again, and 
 was gone. 
 
 He turned round suddenly and looked behind him. Miss 
 Etheredge felt him start and turned with him. She saw 
 only a horizon of uplifted faces looking intently before them. 
 
 " Someone you know ? " she asked. 
 
 " I thought I recognized a voice . . ." he said. 
 
 " Where ? " 
 
 " Oh, somewhere behind . . . but it was a mistake." 
 
 The organ and the horses stopped again. The great 
 machine waited and throbbed and sang. The pair of riders 
 reappeared on the platform and descended the steps. 
 Maurice and Miss Etheredge edged their way out of the 
 crowd, pausing on the pavement. 
 
 " Is there a table near you ? " 
 
 " The next one." Maurice pointed to a round table next 
 to Anne's, divided from hers by a gangway. 
 
 " Good. ... I mustn't be too close." She went to it, and 
 Maurice to his own seat, half-turned towards the round- 
 about. 
 
 Miss Bathurst saw Miss Etheredge and turned without 
 a word to her seat. 
 
 " So you enjoyed that, Jane ? " asked Ramsay. 
 
 " It was fine," she said. While she went on in praise of 
 roundabouts she glanced uneasily behind her at the vacant 
 
408 STILL LIFE 
 
 seat. She felt that it was a dereliction that Anne should 
 sit beside Miss Etheredge. Miss Etheredge, while she spoke 
 to Anne, was looking continually to the other table and 
 sketched ostentatiously in her book. Anne, with her hands 
 in her muff, leant forward and watched her. 
 
 " Etheredge is immortalising you, Wauchope," said Miss 
 Bathurst. 
 
 Wauchope was still sprawling beside the table with his 
 head sideways upon his hand. He was scraping the bottom 
 of his glass with a spoon. 
 
 " Well, she'll do it if anybody will," he said. 
 
 Miss Bathurst had not expected that answer. She went 
 on talking briskly to Ramsay, who listened, half-attentive, 
 watching the crowd in front of him. Occasionally, she 
 glanced at Maurice, staring at the curtained window of the 
 cafe. 
 
 " Did you have a nice dinner ? " Miss Etheredge asked 
 Anne. 
 
 ;c Yes, I suppose so. I didn't notice it very much." 
 
 " Miss Bathurst did the honours of Paris ? " Miss 
 Etheredge pretended to be engrossed in her sketching, and 
 did not wait to be answered. " She gets it all from Bill. . . . 
 I said your Mr. Beauchamp wouldn't be here, didn't I ? " 
 ' Yes. ... I didn't expect him, myself." 
 
 " Temple doesn't seem to be very happy. But then we 
 aren't exactly bursting with joy. ... What does he want to 
 go and sit there for ? " She called his name across the 
 gangway, and he came over and sat by them, with his 
 hands in his pockets. 
 
 " What have you done with your friend ? " asked Miss 
 Etheredge. 
 
 " My friend . . . ? " he repeated, bewildered. " Oh, you 
 mean Dennis. I don't know where he is." 
 
 " Getting rid of his money at Montmartre. That's a 
 thing we all do alone. It's more economical. Unless we 
 can do it with someone else's money. . . . Where are those 
 ribbons you had ? " 
 
STILL LIFE 409 
 
 He thrust his hand absently into his pocket. " I wonder 
 what I did with them ? " he said. 
 
 " I met him at the corner of the crowd there. He had a 
 handful to shy at you," she said to Anne. " Put 'em on 
 the table." 
 
 He spread the rolls of coloured paper on the table before 
 her, slowly, as though it gave him pleasure to arrange them 
 in an ordered pattern. Anne looked at them. To her they 
 seemed strange, unaccountable things. 
 
 " Aren't you going to get me something to drink ? 
 You're not such a nice, thoughtful boy as you used to be." 
 
 While he beckoned a waiter, he nodded his head slowly. 
 " I suppose I'm different," he said. Miss Etheredge stopped 
 sketching and looked at him. She took up one of the rolls 
 of paper from the table, put it down, and looked at him 
 again. ' You're too young," she said, " for Paris. Don't 
 you think so ? " She turned to Anne, who seemed to be 
 surprised at the question and smiled as though she did not 
 comprehend it. 
 
 " I must go and say ' How d'ye do ' to my friends. 
 I'm very polite by nature." Miss Etheredge put her book 
 down on the table. " You're not to look at it. I'll have 
 a vermouth cassis" 
 
 They both watched her as she went across to the others, 
 looking steadily away from them. She greeted Ramsay, 
 who shook her hand. Miss Bathurst fixed her eyes upon 
 the table, shrinking back into her seat. They saw Wau- 
 chope raise himself and hold out his hand to her, unex- 
 pectedly. She, unexpecting, made as if to take it, and then 
 drew back. He let his hand fall limp and flat upon the table. 
 
 Anne turned away and began to finger the rolls of paper. 
 " Did you buy these ? " she said. 
 
 He nodded. Somehow he could not answer the tone of 
 her question in words. His eyes were fixed on her fingers 
 which held a roll poised between. 
 
 ;c You didn't throw any ? " 
 
 " No," he said. The word came easily, but from a 
 
410 STILL LIFE 
 
 distance, from other lips than his own. " I wish ..." the 
 unfamiliar tone that made the words so distant cutjiiin 
 short. Anne looked at him, and the sight of the vague pain 
 in his face, pain that would not take shape, save in an 
 expression of his eyes that seemed to be frightened of 
 nothing definite, was so sharp a stab that it would have 
 killed her. It touched a hidden place and was gone. The 
 whole world of her sight and thought became grotesque. 
 She wanted to laugh. She felt she must laugh. 
 
 " No, it doesn't matter," he said. His head bent down. 
 He tilted his chair backwards and looked at the ground 
 beneath. Anne looked across at Miss Etheredge. She 
 seemed to be making large fantastic gestures towards 
 Wauchope. Maurice's hat seemed to cut one-half from her 
 vision. It was monstrous and huge. She held her hand- 
 kerchief tight in her hand for fear that she should laugh 
 at that. 
 
 It suddenly tilted upwards. She could see Maurice 
 tighten all over. The very chair in which he sat seemed to 
 tremble with a sudden rigidity. A woman talking loudly 
 swept by her back. She saw the black sleeve brush his 
 neck, and as the woman passed by him up the gangway 
 into the cafe, she saw him look after her, and the tautness 
 in him relax. He leant over the table, sliding his elbow 
 against Miss Etheredge's sketchbook, and began to stand 
 the rolls of coloured paper each on end, balancing them 
 carefully upon the edge of paper that they should not roll 
 away. Anne knew that he had thought the woman was 
 Madeleine. 
 
 " What was it you were going to say, Morry ? " she 
 asked. He raised himself. He was white, and a weak, 
 pitiful smile passed unsteadily over his lips. Anne felt that 
 her eyes were brimming with her uncontrollable anguish 
 for laughter. She clenched her handkerchief inside her 
 muff with all her strength. 
 
 " Oh," he said with the same smile, " it was too silly, too 
 silly " 
 
STILL LIFE 411 
 
 " What was it ? " she said, sharply. 
 
 He looked away from her eyes at her muff. " I was only 
 going to ask if you'd come for a ride with me. . . . There are 
 some motor-cars there with two seats. I saw them. . . . 
 It's too silly. It doesn't matter now." 
 
 " Of course I'll come," she said. " But you don't want 
 to go now ? " 
 
 " Do you ? " 
 
 " Yes." She said it as though it hurt her, and rose. He 
 pushed back his chair and followed her. 
 
 Miss Etheredge stopped Anne in the gangway. 
 
 " You're going to have a ride together ? " 
 
 Anne broke into a quiet laughter. While she did so she 
 caught hold of Miss Etheredge by the arm, and leaned for 
 a moment heavily against her, or she would have fallen. 
 
 " Only, it's so ridiculous, so foolish," she said. She held 
 herself upright. 
 
 " Come on, Morry," she said. 
 
 He came to her side and took her arm. " Is anything 
 wrong ? " he said. 
 
 " Nothing . . . nothing at all ... it's just excitement . . . 
 come on ... it's riding with you in a motor-car ... on a 
 roundabout." 
 
 " I'm coming, too," said Miss Etheredge. Together, 
 with Anne in the middle, they descended to the pavement 
 and into the crowd. 
 
 On the top of the wooden steps they waited for the 
 roundabout and the music to stop. To Maurice the horses 
 and the cars flew by in a maddened dream. To Anne it 
 was as though nothing had ever been real before, save those 
 empty seats that swung past her, and that music shrieking 
 in the air about her. Already they were festooned with 
 streamers. 
 
 " I'm going to have a swan," said Miss Etheredge. " I 
 think a swan would be very becoming to me. It suits my 
 personality." 
 
 Into Maurice's mind continually thrust those perfect 
 
412 STILL LIFE 
 
 rolls of paper on the table behind them. They were being 
 wasted. 
 
 Miss Etheredge's swan was in front of their motor-car. 
 As they sat down, they saw her gather the reins of her bird. 
 Anne laughed. As the moan of the engine died away into 
 the swelling noise of the organ, she was laughing still. 
 Maurice looked at her. They could not speak for the noise. 
 She pointed to Miss Etheredge holding the reins of her 
 swan and laughed again. An emptiness that had been in 
 Maurice seemed to swell and swallow him up. The whole 
 world rushed away from him with the roundabout. He 
 felt sick in his body, and waited through an age for it to 
 stop. He forgot that Anne was beside him. He saw only 
 two hands that clasped his wrists while he held the dummy 
 steering wheel. 
 
 The horses and the music stopped. 
 
 " The swan would have been all right if it hadn't started 
 bucking," said Miss Etheredge. 
 
 " It's the last time for me," said Anne. 
 
 Maurice followed them down the stairs into the blackness 
 of the crowd. They sat down together at the table. 
 
 4 You aren't very enlivening, either of you," began Miss 
 Etheredge. Her fingers played nervously round the stem 
 of her glass. " We couldn't be called a cheerful party, 
 could we ? What a pity your Mr. Beauchamp isn't here. 
 We might go off to the Olympia together, five in a fiacre. 
 Wauchope would come. He's sad enough. You might get 
 it out of him, Anne." It was the first time that Miss Ether- 
 edge had called her Anne. " It might be Netta. I'd like 
 to know. Go and try to get it out of him." 
 
 Anne picked up a roll of the paper. While she shook her 
 head she put it in her rnufi. 
 
 " No, I suppose you couldn't. Wouldn't you like to 
 know ? But you don't know Wauchope. There's some- 
 thing fine at the bottom of him. All that coldness, all that 
 staring at you that's only the outside. Underneath 
 there's something fine, I tell you. All that's only to prevent 
 
STILL LIFE 413 
 
 you hurting him. He's j ust like a child beneath, frightened. 
 It comes out when he's like this. Somebody gets through 
 the armour and it's all up. He's worth fifty Bills and a 
 thousand Bathursts. I'd h'ke to know what it was that did 
 it to-night. Was he like that at dinner ? " 
 
 ; ' Yes, he was," said Maurice. 
 
 " How do you know ? " 
 
 " I spoke to him." 
 
 " What did you say ? " 
 
 " I've forgotten . . . something that I was feeling. . . . 
 He said he felt like that. . . . Perhaps he didn't say it, but 
 I knew." 
 
 " So you've found it out, have you ? You're growing up. 
 You found it out through that girl of yours. What was her 
 name ? Madeleine. I tell you what, Mrs. Cradock, he'll 
 be getting quite interesting soon." 
 
 The words hovered in Maurice's mind. Yes, he was 
 quite interesting. He was a man with a tragedy. He was 
 different from all those other people. He was making a 
 past now. A strange question confronted him. " How 
 long do interesting people live ? " They can't keep it up 
 for many years. No, he wasn't interesting at all. The 
 whole structure of his tragedy dissolved. There was Made- 
 leine, crying so quietly that you could not see the tears 
 before they had fallen. 
 
 " I wonder what Netta's done to him or what he's done 
 to Netta. She'll come and tell me one of these days, but I 
 want to know now . . . I'll go and ask him." Miss Ether- 
 edge suddenly rose half-way up from her chair and sank 
 back again. " No, I'd better not. I can't." 
 
 " I'll go then," said Anne. 
 
 " No ... no ... I didn't really mean it. He won't tell 
 you. He can't tell you in front of those two." 
 
 " I'll see," said Anne. Miss Etheredge followed her with 
 her eyes, as she went across and sat by Wauchope's side. 
 They began to talk. Miss Bathurst leant slowly forward 
 to listen, pretending to be the more engrossed in Ramsay's 
 
414 STILL LIFE 
 
 diagrams on the table. Anne felt, while she spoke, that the 
 ball of paper was cutting into her hand. Miss Etheredge 
 saw Wauchope change his seat. From opposite Miss 
 Bathurst he moved away to the little round table where 
 Maurice and Anne had sat. 
 
 " Why don't you say anything ? " Miss Etheredge asked 
 Maurice. " Can't think of anything clever ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " What is it then, for God's sake ? Thinking of the old 
 days when we all loved you, because you were so young 
 and thought yourself so clever ? Or are you just hating 
 me?" 
 
 He shook his head. " I don't believe I ever did hate 
 you," he said. " What is there to say ? " 
 
 " Quite a lot of things, seeing I'm interested." She was 
 looking at her sketch-book, drawing again, and he was 
 watching her. " I always like to know the history of these 
 little affairs. When did you meet Mrs. C. ? What did you 
 say to her ? How did you manage it ? Is she charming 
 in bed ? Tell me all that, and I'll be delighted, really." 
 
 " Yes, I suppose you would. But we'll leave all that to 
 some other time. Or I'll write you a nice long letter. Don't 
 you think you might tell me something about yourself in- 
 stead ? ... It doesn't matter very much, anyway." 
 
 " Or you can tell me when she's going to leave you or 
 you're going to leave her. Are you going to live happily 
 ever after, and where are you going to do it ? You'll have 
 to do that very soon. It's not safe for you to be roaming 
 about, without a sense of humour." 
 
 " You don't think so ? " 
 
 " I'm quite sure of it. ... You're too damn selfish alto- 
 gether," she burst out. ; ' You'd suck the life out of any- 
 body and never give anything back. You're blind, you 
 selfish little beast, you can't see it. You think you're a 
 damned hero, because you go about and everybody gives 
 you things, like pouring water into a pitcher with a hole in 
 it. You can't see that, can you ? " 
 
STILL LIFE 415 
 
 " Yes, I can," he said. " But what's the use ? I've 
 learnt something about myself, don't worry. I know all 
 you say is true, but that don't change it. D'you think I 
 get any fun out of it ? " 
 
 She put her hand on his arm. " We're not the kind of 
 people to go for each other. That's true. You've changed. 
 I haven't seen you for a long time, that's all. You wouldn't 
 come to see me this afternoon. Why didn't you ? You're 
 not frightened of me, are you ? " 
 
 " No. ... I don't think I am. I don't know why, but if 
 I came, I should come alone." 
 
 " It didn't matter. Mrs. C. and I had a nice intimate 
 conversation. Oh ! very nice and intimate. That's why 
 I'm such an angel now. You'd have spoilt that for certain. 
 Don't you see I'm behaving very well indeed ? But what's 
 the matter with you ? " 
 
 " I don't know." 
 
 " Are you hard up ? Because ..." 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 " Well. . . . Let's go and finish up these ribbons. They'll 
 be shutting up the show soon." She gathered up half of 
 them in her hands and he followed with the rest. They 
 stood at the edge of the crowd. The man in the white shoes 
 came forward to the top of the steps and shouted out that 
 it was the last turn but one. " Onferme a minuit" The 
 whole crowd seemed to surge forward on to the steps. Into 
 the swans, on the horses, swarmed pairs. Into the motor-cars 
 crowded fours. It took a long while for the men to collect 
 the money. The machine revolved more slowly under the 
 new weight. Even the organ seemed to groan-painfully. 
 
 " Good God ! " Maurice heard Miss Etheredge say 
 abruptly, and then to him, " There's the beautiful Bowley. 
 . . . And Netta, too, the beauty." She was pointing to a 
 pair on a horse, slowly swinging out of sight, moving faster 
 while he watched. The woman wore a round black cap 
 that might have been of astrakhan. It showed plainly 
 against the long white woollen coat which she wore tight 
 
416 STILL LIFE 
 
 round her slim body. She was kicking hot legs outward, 
 for the admiration of the crowd. The crowd admired. 
 They roared out " Bravo " and " Bis," and showered her 
 with paper garlands. Of the man Maurice could see no 
 more than that he was fat and wore check trousers, and sat 
 with a nervous firmness upon his horse. He had no brass 
 pillar to hold on to. 
 
 " No, she's only half what she can be now. But you can 
 see she's different from the rest. Why even in the way she 
 kicks out her legs she's got personality. What on earth 
 does she want with Bowley ? I don't know. ' Bowley's 
 a dar-r-ling,' " she quoted. 
 
 The two flew by again and again. Suddenly Miss Ether- 
 edge threw a roll of ribbon. She had not unfastened it. 
 It travelled like a stone and hit the wooden horse beneath 
 Netta's feet. 
 
 " You have to undo those things before you throw them. 
 Else they don't spread. They might hurt somebody." 
 
 " I knew that," she said. " Well, no luck. Let's finish 
 'em up." She threw them one after the other, quickly, 
 aiming at no particular mark. " Come on," she said, turn- 
 ing back to the cafe. " She can go to hell for all I care. . . . 
 Anne's still getting a confession out of Wauchope. . . . 
 Remember," she said quickly, " if you're ever stranded 
 here and you don't know where to go there's always a room 
 where I live." 
 
 Wauchope passed them in the gangway. Without 
 pausing he raised his hat to Miss Etheredge. " Good 
 night," he said. " Good night, Temple." Maurice watched 
 him until he was round the corner and hurrying down the 
 boulevard. He felt that he could have spoken to Wauchope, 
 that Wauchope had something to say to him. The unex- 
 pected address " Good night, Temple " left a pang of 
 regret behind it. Now he would never hear what 
 Wauchope had to say. 
 
 " Netta makes him pay for it. She's a devil, when she's 
 like this. Oh, he's got something to go through. The fool ! " 
 
STILL LIFE 417 
 
 Miss Bathurst was standing ready to go. Ramsay was 
 paying his bill. She asked Anne if she was coming too. 
 " We go the same way, I think down the hill." 
 
 Maurice went back to pay. 
 
 " Well, I'd better go home too," said Miss Etheredge. 
 " Good night, Mrs. Cradock. It's been enough for one day. 
 Good night." 
 
 " But aren't you coming with us ? " 
 
 " No. ... It wouldn't do. Miss Bathurst would object. 
 Not at all desirable company to keep nowadays, you know 
 declasse, absolutely declasse. ' ' She was j ust within earshot 
 of Miss Bathurst. 
 
 " Oh, I forgot," said Anne. " Which way are you 
 going ? " 
 
 " Up the hill for me, turn to the right, and down again. 
 ... I don't see why she shouldn't go the long way for once. 
 . . . But I won't suggest it. I wonder what she would do 
 if I went to speak to her." 
 
 Maurice caught them up on the pavement. The great 
 arc light of the roundabout went out, just as a big clock 
 began to strike the hour of midnight. They were very 
 punctual. Two agents stood together in the middle of the 
 square watching. That was the reason. Some men, faint 
 shadows in the darkness, were pulling a tall tarpaulin that 
 gradually moved round the side of the roundabout and 
 made it look like a tent. The white shoes of the man who 
 had stood in the middle were conspicuous. They seemed 
 to twinkle in the shadow of the tarpaulin. Out in the light 
 of the moon, a woman in a long grey coat, with a black 
 scarf about her neck and her hands down in her deep 
 pockets, watched them with a familiar interest. 
 
 " Morry " Anne spoke to him " go with the others. 
 Explain that I'm going to walk home with Miss Etheredge. 
 I shan't be very long." 
 
 " All right. ..." He paused to say good-bye to Miss 
 Ethercdge. 
 
 " Trot along home like a good boy," she said, " and 
 
 2 E 
 
418 STILL LIFE 
 
 don't get lost. You can give my love to Miss Bathurst, if 
 you like." 
 
 The other two had walked on very slowly. They were 
 now at the corner of the boulevard. He walked after them. 
 At the corner he looked back, and saw Anne and Miss 
 Etheredge on the other side of the square. While he looked, 
 they disappeared into the shadow. 
 
 " You're coming by yourself ? " asked Miss Bathurst. 
 Maurice explained. 
 
 " Haven't seen much of you to-night," said Kamsay, 
 " and when I have you've been very quiet. Getting sick 
 of talking at last ? " 
 
 " No, it's not that. I've been thinking about something 
 else most of the time. I can't do two things at once." 
 
 " You're not tired of Paris ? " said Miss Bathurst. " I 
 never think what other people might feel. It seems to me 
 wonderful always. But it might be tiring if you aren't 
 actually painting, I suppose." 
 
 " No, I always like it. I like walking down the streets. 
 As a matter of fact. I think I never do get tired here. Any- 
 how, it's a place I always remember vividly." 
 
 " That's true," said Eamsay. " There's something clean 
 about the place that sticks in the mind. . . . Besides, you 
 left your heart behind here once, after all. That makes a 
 difference, I should imagine." 
 
 Miss Bathurst laughed, as though she enjoyed laughing. 
 
 " Yes, I dare say it does make a difference," said Maurice. 
 
 " / should have thought so," laughed Miss Bathurst. 
 
 " What's Wauchope's address ? " asked Maurice. 
 
 " 42 rue de la Grande Fermiere. . . . Why ? Do you 
 want to see him ? " 
 
 " I thought I might go to see him one day that's all. 
 I don't suppose I ever shall." 
 
 " It's a bit too late now, at any rate. He's going away 
 by the train at twenty past twelve. He was running to 
 catch it then. But he only just made up his mind in time. 
 It took him one minute to decide. He was off well inside it . " 
 
STILL LIFE 419 
 
 " It was just as though your wife had advised him. 
 Really it was," said Miss Bathurst. " He hadn't any idea 
 he was going before. He was arranging a party with us 
 for Thursday, wasn't he, Bill ? " 
 
 " Yes, more or less. . . . You were doing the arranging. 
 . . . He's gone off, anyhow." 
 
 The pain which Maurice had felt when Wauchope passed 
 him stung him more. Wauchope had passed clean away 
 now. He might write to him, now that he had the address. 
 But what was he to write about ? 
 
 " You go over the bridge, don't you ? " said Ramsay. 
 " We go along here. . . . Well, when am I going to see you 
 again ? You were very unsatisfactory at dinner. ..." 
 
 " And when are you coming to see me ? " chimed Miss 
 Bathurst. "I've heard you're so brilliant. You must give 
 me a chance to make quite certain." 
 
 " When do you think you're going away from Paris, any- 
 how ? . . . Oh, you said you didn't know. . . . You're terribly 
 vague." 
 
 " I'm thinking of going to-morrow morning," said 
 Maurice on an impulse. 
 
 " That's silly . . . what the devil for, might I ask ? " 
 
 " Not trying to imitate Wauchope ? " said Miss Bathurst. 
 
 Maurice looked at her hard. The words seemed to have 
 stung him. He discovered nothing in her face however. 
 
 " Not that I know of," he answered her. " I think I am, 
 all the same. You know we're used to the country, and 
 even Paris begins to get on Anne's nerves. It's the noise." 
 
 " He's not really going," said Miss Bathurst. Maurice 
 did not worry about her any more after that. 
 
 " I should think it over at any rate," said Ramsay, 
 " and if you do change your mind, you might as well come 
 and see me to-morrow afternoon." 
 
 " Well, I'll say good-bye in case." 
 
 They said " Good-bye," and Maurice hurried over the 
 bridge, walking as though he had no time to lose. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 MAUEICE'S purpose was clear in his mind while he walked 
 along. It was clearer and more compelling because it was 
 immediate and practical, something to be done and to be 
 done now. He must get away from the hotel before Anne 
 returned. Then . . . then he would go to Lesdigues to find 
 Madeleine. His walk passed into a trot, from a trot into 
 a steady run. That he should hail a cab never came into 
 his mind. The continual and increasing bodily movement, 
 as he ran, satisfied his yearning to act, and he felt nothing 
 save that yearning and its satisfaction. Outside the hotel 
 he dropped into a walk again. He accepted an instinctive 
 warning not to attract attention, and he passed the ambush 
 of the lighted bureau with brisk intention, but unhurried. 
 He glanced at the clock when he began to pack. It was 
 twenty minutes past twelve. His eyes returned to it con- 
 stantly while he gathered together his possessions. They 
 suggested themselves to him in the order of their im- 
 portance. Deliberately he left behind all the newly-bought 
 clothes that he had brought with him from London. 
 Money he counted nine hundred francs from his drawer 
 such of his old clothes as were clean for these he rum- 
 maged carefully, replacing the new things which he had 
 disturbed. These included in a small bag, he looked once 
 more at the clock. Twenty-six minutes past. All Anne's 
 familiar toilet things were on the table. He sat down on 
 the couch in front of them and stared. Then he bent his 
 head in his hands and passed his fingers nervously over his 
 forehead. The touch seemed to determine his first and 
 only hesitation. He caught hold of the bag and went 
 downstairs. During the brief moment of descent he debated 
 
 420 
 
STILL LIFE 421 
 
 in himself whether he should speak with the bureau. They 
 might suspect him. He decided against it, and passed 
 quickly outside the hotel, along the street into the Place 
 de 1'Opera. 
 
 Then it was that the desire to see Madeleine took hold of 
 him. He welcomed its urgent monopoly of his mind. It 
 was more than a desire. It was a justification that would 
 not fail him in his necessity. He was filled with a sense of 
 triumph and right as he mounted into an open fiacre and 
 was borne softly with a pleasant tinkling of bells to the 
 Gare d'Orleans. He leaned back and let the darkened 
 streets ripple quietly before his eyes. Madeleine came 
 gently into his vision. Now it was as though they had 
 never parted. Two years fell away from him like the 
 curtain of a dream. Already he was bathed in the happi- 
 ness of loving reconciliation. C'est toi, mon bien aime. . . . 
 A new and unexpected thought came like a spark of added 
 warmth and radiantly glowed within him, slowly fanned. 
 Perhaps he had a child. Perhaps she had lied when she 
 wrote to him to say that the danger was over. She would 
 have done that to hold him then. The nightmare of his old 
 life was now the promise of the new. A slow and steady 
 certainty crept into this thought. And then he was sad 
 because the child would now be nearly two years old. He 
 had not been there while it was a tiny baby. He could see 
 Madeleine holding it to her. He remembered how she had 
 spoken on that day when she said so deliberately and 
 quietly : " Je crois que tu ne m'aimes pas. ... Si j'avais 
 seulement un petit Maurice, je serais content. ..." His 
 tenderness was sweet, but near to tears when the cab 
 stopped outside the station. 
 
 There would be no train to Lesdigues until half-past 
 seven in the morning. But surely there were fast trains in 
 the night-time. Surely, but Lesdigues ..." c'est un tout 
 petit village, monsieur. Les rapides ne s'arretent jamais, 
 jamais . . . Naturellement." For a few minutes he walked 
 up and down the great hall. It was chilly in the dead hours. 
 
422 STILL LIFE 
 
 His feet unduly echoed ; and he was glad to come out into 
 the street again. He wondered for a moment what he 
 should do, and then joyfully remembered that there was a 
 cafe in the Market that never closed at all. It was made 
 for such as he. Again the petulant fever of his impatience 
 to board the train that would take him to Madeleine sub- 
 sided when he had a definite end to accomplish. He walked 
 quickly along. 
 
 When he entered, the noise surprised him, for he had in 
 an hour forgotten his familiarity with these things. A pale, 
 round-faced man with yellow hair twanged a loud guitar 
 almost under his chin, while he stood, bewildered, in front 
 of the door. The man looked at him, made way for him, 
 and watched him while he chose a seat in the corner, but 
 the guitar twanged irrevocably on. When Maurice looked 
 up again the man was still looking at him, not with curiosity 
 but with the indifferent unoffending stare of habit. Then 
 he tucked the guitar under his arm and went to a table 
 opposite. Someone had asked him to have a drink. 
 
 The sense that the time of waiting here would be inter- 
 minably long gradually stole into Maurice. He was fright- 
 ened of waiting, for then he weakened in body and soul. 
 Somehow he must fill up the long hours. He asked for a 
 pen and paper, and sat tracing dreamy lines and fragments 
 of words, with his coffee by his side. He tried to reckon 
 his situation, to see himself plainly and to pass a verdict 
 upon what he had done, but he could not. The vision of 
 Madeleine's surprise, her joy, her embrace flooded back 
 over the feeble barrier of his thought, which sought to hold 
 it away and judge. But those continual visions did not 
 fill him completely. An infinitesimal vein of doubt flowed 
 with them. He did not know what it was ; he only knew 
 it was there, because the tender triumph he had felt a little 
 while ago was not complete. Perhaps he had changed ; 
 perhaps he could not be the same as he had been any more. 
 Two years must mean something. Yet when he tried to 
 find wherein two years had brought any change, he could 
 
STILL LIFE 423 
 
 find nothing. He had been hungry all the while forMade- 
 leine, he said, and the experience of two years fell empty 
 away because the hunger had never been filled. 
 
 The twanging of the guitar rounded out his conclusions. 
 The man began to sing Dodo, mon homme, fais vitf dodo. 
 Maurice looked up to find the indifferent glance ranging 
 about him, as his pen made inconsequent characters upon 
 the paper. Under that detective eye he squared himself 
 instantly to write. He had been meaning to write to Anne. 
 He wrote the vague superscription : " Paris, Wednesday," 
 with laborious care. The musician's glance was to him as 
 a schoolmaster's, and his own writing that of a copy-book. 
 "Anne, darling," he began, and hesitated. That was a dis- 
 honest address : it was unfair to Anne. He crossed it out 
 delicately with a network of thin lines, so that Anne could 
 see also what he had written. He contemplated this for a 
 little while, and then crumbled the paper up and threw it 
 angrily to the floor. Could he do nothing cleanly, honestly, 
 once for all ? He wrote the superscription again, and con- 
 tinued slowly but without hesitation. 
 
 " I went away as soon as I got back to the hotel. I am 
 going to Madeleine. I couldn't tell you why I have gone, 
 because although I had to, I don't know why. But you 
 know much better than I do. I may be coward enough to 
 want to come back. I may write you letters. For God's 
 sake never answer them. But I know you never will. You 
 don't know how sad I am, now that I've written that. I 
 wasn't sad before. 
 
 " I thought that it was because you were older than me. 
 Now I know it is because I am a coward. Good-bye." 
 
 He poised his pen before the words : " You don't know 
 how sad I am, now that I've written that. I wasn't sad 
 before," as the impulse came to strike them out. No, it 
 was true. Everything in the letter was true. He felt that 
 at the last he had given a little thing completely to Anne. 
 
 The swing-doors beside him swung noisily open. A fat 
 man entered boisterously, clapping his hands together. 
 
STILL LIFE 
 
 They were large, flabby hands, but he brought them to- 
 gether lustily and for their flabbiness they made a pro- 
 digious noise. He wore a small bowler hat tilted backwards 
 upon a close mat of curly grey hair. His wide face was 
 loose-lipped and sensual ; but there was a pleasant twinkle 
 in his small eyes. Even the cheerful blatancy of his 
 entrance was comfortable. A younger man was behind 
 him, dressed in breeches and gaiters. His round, ruddy 
 cheeks and fresh stupid eyes were rightly crowned by an 
 old tweed hat, whose short brim sagged carelessly round 
 it. His fingers were in his pockets, and for the essential 
 straw he was chewing the stem of a yellow rose. He edged 
 his face to the side of the fat man's shoulder and stared 
 diffidently at the bar in front of him. 
 
 " Philippe, mon vieux," roared the fat man. The 
 musician smiled as though the phenomenon were familiar 
 to him. 
 
 " C'est toi, Victor ? " came the stentorian response from 
 behind the polished partitions. 
 
 Philippe appeared. Unexpectedly he was spruce and 
 slim, with black hair and notable black moustaches. One 
 would have thought him incapable of the vigorous welcome 
 with which he shook his Victor's portentous hand. 
 
 " One devil two devils want supper. Tu en as de 
 bon ? " 
 
 Philippe laughed. It must have been an old-standing 
 joke, for it was not at all funny. The fat man sat down 
 heavily on Maurice's long bench before the table next to 
 his. The younger immediately slipped into a chair opposite. 
 Philippe and Victor talked very quickly. At the end 
 Philippe's smile incredibly broadened. 
 
 " Pas de blague ? " 
 
 " Les voici." 
 
 The fat man pulled a clumsy purse out of his pocket, and 
 took out a small rouleau. " On gagne quelquefois, mon 
 vieux." 
 
 " Je vais avoir de belles songes. Au revoir. Mais tu 
 
STILL LIFE 425 
 
 boiras du bon. Je me'y occupe et puis fc Dodo, mon horn- 
 me."? 
 
 " Et tu en as du meilleur au lit ..." the fat man roared. 
 Philippe disappeared, more discreetly smiling. 
 
 The fat man's little eyes roamed leisurely about the 
 room. They travelled comfortably over Maurice, over the 
 musician, and rested benignly for a while upon two women 
 and two men who sat close to the counter. There were no 
 others in this part of the cafe. 
 
 ; ' Tres peu de monde," he said to the younger, and then, 
 robustly translating. " Damn poor crowd to-night." He 
 ate with conviction. The waiter put two bottles of cham- 
 pagne by his side. The fat man regarded the label rumin- 
 atively. " That's a'right," he said. 
 
 That he was English solved the problem of the younger 
 man, though Maurice speculated what he was doing here. 
 But the fat man was not so easily settled. Frenchmen did 
 not speak such English, nor Englishmen such French. He 
 could not imagine what they were ; and his curiosity only 
 began to pass away while he contemplated his letter again. 
 He addressed and sealed an envelope and put hVin his 
 pocket. The muscian brought round a plate. The fat man 
 clattered a five-franc piece on to it. There was no ostenta- 
 tion in the noise ; it was natural to him. He whispered 
 something into the man's ear, and he laughed and nodded. 
 Maurice could do no less than to give him a franc now. 
 
 The guitar began again. The fat man paused in his eat- 
 ing, which was nearly done, to listen. The younger leaned 
 his arm over the back of his chair and watched the playing, 
 as though it were a miracle, familiar, but still a miracle. 
 Maurice could not recognise the tune, until the fat man 
 waved his hand, and said : " Come on " to his companion, 
 and began to sing, as he would have sung : 
 
 " Good-bye, my bluebell, 
 Farewell to you . . ." 
 
 Several times he sang it, with the same gesture and gusto. 
 
426 STILL LIFE 
 
 The younger man was shyer, but he was singing too. 
 Maurice could not help joining in. He leaned his head on 
 his hand and drew on the paper before him while he sang. 
 
 The fat man's " bravo " and " bis " were like his singing ; 
 but the player shook his head. Victor gave him a friendly 
 nod, and then slid himself heavily along the seat. 
 
 " You're English, ain't you ? " he asked Maurice. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Then come along here and have a drink with us. It's 
 good fizz." He winked. " You always get the best if you 
 don't pay for it, wimmen and wine. ..." 
 
 There was no refusing Victor. Even though Maurice did 
 not really want to refuse it, he would have done, had the 
 invitation come from anyone but Victor. How he had 
 always hated men of Victor's type ; but Victor was dif- 
 ferent, somehow genuine beneath his genial and capacious 
 ruffianism. He slid along beside him. 
 
 " That young gentlemen," said Victor, " is Mr. Walter 
 Thompson. He's as innocent as 'e looks." 
 
 Walter reddened, shook Maurice by the hand, and 
 chewed at the rose stem. " Don't mind 'im," he said. 
 " 'E's like that." 
 
 " My name's Temple," said Maurice. 
 
 " What's your job ? " 
 
 " I don't know. ... I can't make up my mind." 
 
 : ' You came 'ere to make it up ? " Victor winked, by way 
 of reply to his own question. " A drink 'd do you good. 
 Nothing like fizz to see you through till the morning." 
 Victor interrupted his conversation to make a complicated 
 sign to one of the women opposite. Maurice did not under- 
 stand it ; but the woman laughed and Victor reverberated. 
 ' You wouldn't guess what I am. French or English ? " 
 
 " No, I couldn't tell at all." 
 
 " Oh, 'e's a froggie," said Walter. 
 
 ; ' You 'aven't seen one like me before, I bet." 
 
 Maurice shook his head. 
 
 " Ever been to Maisons Lafitte ? " 
 
STILL LIFE 427 
 
 " No." 
 
 :< You should. Go there and ask anybody who's Victor. 
 You're a toff, ain't you ? Down on your luck ? " He 
 stroked the shoulder of Maurice's coat. " By gum, that's 
 natty. You got that in London, for a cert. Don't tell me." 
 
 :t Yes, I did." 
 
 " Well, what' you doing 'ere alone ? Not the place to 
 sit in a corner, is it ? " 
 
 " Why not ? It's very comfortable. . . . But I'm waiting 
 to catch a train." 
 
 " That's more like. So'm we, ain't we, Wally ? We'll 
 catch the b , by God, we will." He laughed immoder- 
 ately, and generously filled Maurice's glass. Himself, he 
 drank heroically. " Garon, encore une bouteille, la meme 
 chose." 
 
 " II n'en reste plus, malheureusement, monsieur." 
 
 " Good old Phil. I told you so, Wally. Gave us 'is best, 
 all 'e 'ad. 'E's a pal. Alors . . ." He chose a certain 
 
 Mumm " Cana of Galilee," he said. " That was t'other 
 
 way about, though, wasn't it, sir. . . . You see I know a bit 
 about these things . . . though I was a horse-jockey at New- 
 market twenty years, before you was born, I'll swear. 
 
 Nom d'un chien, I've let the b y cat out of the bag. 
 
 I'm a b y fool, if ever there was one. I wasn't going to 
 
 tell you a word about it. ... Come over 'ere, me dear." 
 He spoke to a girl who had just come in. She was very 
 slim, neatly dressed a 1'Anglaise, and she carried an in- 
 congruous brown -paper parcel under her arm. " Viens 
 done, mon ange." 
 
 " C'est toi, vieux brute ? " 
 
 He grinned expansively at her and she laughed. " Non, 
 je ne bois pas . . . rate . . . suis sage." 
 
 He made a long, lethargic arm after her parcel. For a 
 little while she amused herself in moving just out of his 
 reach. Walter looked up at u her in open adoration. " Mon- 
 trez," Victor insisted. She gave it up to him. " Ce n'est 
 pas de la lingerie, alors," he said, feeling it. 
 
428 STILL LIFE 
 
 " Pas de chance, vieux salop." 
 
 He untied the parcel and examined the pair of new boots 
 that it contained. " Tres chic," he averred. He put his 
 hand into his waistcoat pocket, and slipped a louis into the 
 toe of the shoe. Then he packed them up into their paper 
 again. " J'ai gagne un peu," he explained. " Va te 
 coucher." 
 
 " J'y vais, mon brave. . . ." She bent over and kissed 
 him on the cheek. Then she went round the partition, 
 waving her hand to him. 
 
 " There y'are, Wally. There's a lady for you. And she 
 likes me a damned sight better than she does you. I'm 
 fifty-six, and y're twenty-three. I'm ashamed of y'." 
 The despair in his tone was sincere. 
 
 " Well, if y'flush y'cash about like that " 
 
 " Y're a fool. . . . Ton me word, you make me think 
 sometimes that you ain't worth educating. Y'couldn't see 
 that I gave her that because she liked me ! She didn't like 
 me because I gave her a quid. You know that, I bet," he 
 said to Maurice. 
 
 Maurice nodded. 
 
 " How old are you, if I might ask ? " 
 
 " Twenty-four." 
 
 " What's y'r weight ? " 
 
 " Nine stone six." 
 
 " Pity y'arn't a bit smaller. Y'd do well, you would. 
 Y've got brains, I'll be bound. Instead of that pudden- 
 'ead there." Walter smiled as at a familiar compliment. 
 " What d'y' do to get y'r money ? " 
 
 " I don't get any now. ... I used to write a bit." 
 
 " Stories for the newspapers, and that sort of thing ? " 
 
 " Yes, that's the kind of thing." 
 
 " Not much in it ? " 
 
 " Nothing at all now." 
 
 " Well . . . I c'd put y'into the way of making a little 
 bit. . . . Not much, but it'd keep y'going if y're in a 'ole. . . . 
 I like someone to talk to, I do, specially if it's a toll. I 
 
STILL LIFE 429 
 
 didn't get 'old of the right kind of English when I was at 
 Newmarket. You come down to me. I got a lovely room, 
 v'c'd 'ave, slap-up English. I'd feed you like a fighting 
 cock. Y'can see I'm one as feeds himself decently. I'd 
 give you a bit of pocket money . . . and the boys'd 
 give y'any amount of tips if they knew you was with 
 me. They like a gentleman, too. . . . Y'c'd make a 
 tidy bit."' 
 
 Maurice was about to explain, when Victor put his hand 
 upon his shoulder. 
 
 " I don't mean now, straight off. But when y're really 
 
 stumped You come along to me, and we'll do something. 
 
 He's not a bad lad, when he's back among the horses. 
 Victor, Portland Bar, Maisons Lafitte. You remember 
 that. Any time. Don't y 'worry to send me word." 
 
 Maurice was touched profoundly. It was all so incon- 
 gruous and so real. " I've never met anyone who said a 
 thing like that to me. I don't suppose I shall ever come, 
 but . . ." 
 
 " Don't say that. . . . You just remember it. I've got 
 y'r name. I won't forget. . . . It's a rum thing, meeting 
 people, 'pon my siwy, it is. Christ, it makes y'think, 
 don't it ? Talk about religion. . . . Y'ain't religious, 
 are you ? . . . Might 'ave trod on a corn, you see. 'Ave 
 to be careful." 
 
 " He gets that way sometimes," Walter confided aloud, 
 removing his rose. 
 
 " Wait till y're fifty-six, me buck. You'll want some- 
 thing to get on with. This won't do all the time." He 
 swallowed a glass of champagne. "... even if y've got 
 the money to pay for it." 
 
 " All right, oP cock, we'll see about that. . . ." 
 
 Victor laughed. " By God, if y'weren't such a babe, 
 Wally. . . . Y'd fair make me sick, sometimes." 
 
 " What time's y'r train ? " he asked Maurice. 
 
 " Half-past seven. Garc d'Orleans." 
 
 " If you ain't doin' anything, what might you be going 
 
430 STILL LIFE 
 
 there for ? ... No, I'm asking questions. Like my cheek, 
 ain't it ? " 
 
 " Not a bit." Maurice wanted to tell him, but hesitated 
 involuntarily. 
 
 " It's a woman," said Victor. Wally woke up to atten- 
 tion. " That's what's done it. You're a bit soft that way, 
 I reckon. ... I was once. Don't let y'self in too quick. 
 There's good 'uns and bad 'uns. That little 'un with the 
 boots is a good 'un. But they're all funny things. . . . 
 Quarter to five. . . . See's a bit of daylight got into this 'ole. 
 You come and 'ave that room. Windows so's you can see 
 for miles. D'ssay it's sun there by now. Shan't we have 
 another bottle ? We got to go in twenty minutes ; get 
 back and start the day like a couple of little birds. By 
 God, we'll have a thumping fine breakfast when we do get 
 back. Bacon and eggs, heaps of 'em. Real bacon, none of 
 this damned lard. . . . That makes him wake up." 
 
 " No, you won't have another ? P'r'ps y're right. I've 
 lived on it a'most, you see. Portland Bar. Pouring it out 
 all day. But it's a natty little place. New and clean. A 
 real English architec' come and done it ; and ev'ry one of 
 the fittings come from the Tott'n'm Court Road. A regular 
 fine saloon. And the boys ain't bad. They talk a bit. My 
 own talk ain't a daisy. But they'd knock it into a cocked 
 hat. But they're all right, really. You needn't be fright- 
 ened of them." 
 
 " No, of course you wouldn't be. ... Don't it give you a 
 bit of a funny feeling, sittin' in a place like this and waiting 
 for the daylight. God knows how many times I done it. 
 ... I can't get used to it somehow. I always got to shut at 
 two sharp. I lose something over it too. But there y'are." 
 
 " Well, come up, Wally. 'S got some 'orses to look after 
 at the station. ... I do the talkin'." Victor settled a 
 generous bill while he spoke. " Y'want anything to go on 
 with ? I'm not stony. . . . Au revoir, mon brave," he said 
 to the garon. " Good-bye, don't forget that address. 
 What about yours ? " 
 
STILL LIFE 431 
 
 " I haven't got one, just now." 
 
 " No, of course, you wouldn't have." He went out of 
 the door. Wally shook hands, and then bent down. 
 
 : ' The old cock's a decent sort. He means it. He's not 
 pullin' your leg." 
 
 So soon as they had gone the encounter was unreal to 
 Maurice. His body, cheated of rest, trembled with chilly 
 emptiness. To still it he called for a bowl of coffee and 
 bread. When he had drunk and eaten, he began to doze in 
 his corner. His anxiety about the time prevented him 
 from sleep. The tune of the guitar reasserted in his head : 
 
 "Good-bye, my bluebell, 
 Farewell to you ..." 
 
 and the words seemed to him mournful like the steely-grey 
 light that spread into the room. He heard men shouting 
 viciously as they drove their heavy carts, laden high, over 
 the cobbles. All things but these faded out of his mind. . . . 
 
 " II est parti ? " His eyes were closed, and he was 
 dozing still ; but he heard the words distinctly. It was 
 the lady of the boots. He blinked at her. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " more than an hour ago." 
 
 " Pt-pt." She clucked with her lips. " I had an idea 
 that he'd be gone." She showed Maurice a small bunch 
 of splendid clove carnations, then thrust them under his 
 nose. " They were for him. He loves flowers. Carnations 
 more than anything. Oh, la ... la ... You're tired. . . . 
 It's sad in the early morning, isn't it. ... I give them to 
 you. I'm off to bed. Good-bye." 
 
 It wasn't worth while to doze again. The clock showed 
 half-past six. He went out. High-booted men were 
 flushing the roadways of their litter of cabbage leaves. 
 Sweepers pushed mountains of green refuse down the 
 gutters before them. Here and there an old man or woman 
 packed the last of his unsold goods into a cart. Besides, 
 there was only the dense knot of men before the bar 
 opposite. 
 
432 STILL LIFE 
 
 " II fera beau temps," said a woman tying up a sack 
 to a man waiting to receive it on his cart. The light was 
 still grey and cold. 
 
 Maurice went slowly through the empty markets. His 
 legs dragged as at the laborious end of an interminable 
 walk. But he was relieved that there were so few people 
 about, for while he passed the few that remained his feelings 
 were divided and painful. He was remote, a being from 
 another earth, and yet he felt guiltily conscious that they 
 knew all that he had done, all that he was doing. Inside 
 the station hall, he was one of many who waited for trains. 
 His presence there was unremarkable and he was sheltered. 
 
 He had yet an hour to wait. It was the longest hour 
 of his life. It enfolded him immeasurably, and he was 
 nothing but an apprehension that it would never end. He 
 was the first to board the train when it slowly backed into 
 the platform. 
 
 " Pas si vite, monsieur," said the man at the barrier. 
 " Vous n'etes pas le rapide, vous." 
 
 Maurice turned and smiled at the laughing man. Again 
 he had been detected. 
 
 He was in a second-class carriage. Men and women, 
 bearing bundles and pails, passed by his window, but none 
 entered. Only a soldier climbed up and stood in the corri- 
 dor beside him. It was to him a little shock when he recol- 
 lected that plenty of soldiers in the French Army were well 
 off, and more accustomed than he himself to travelling 
 second-class. He seemed to have forgotten all he ever 
 knew. 
 
 When the train began to move he was happy for a 
 moment, for he had never quite believed it would really 
 carry him away. He walked up and down the carriage. 
 A sour taste was in his mouth from smoking so many 
 cigarettes. He lit another. It burned away with furious 
 speed. 
 
 The sun began to stream into his carriage. The soldier 
 sang in the corridor, Maurice leaned his cheek against the 
 
STILL LIFE 433 
 
 window and looked sideways on to the country. A nervous 
 physical inquietude prevented him from fixing upon the 
 landscape with his eyes. It melted past him ; and some- 
 times from the swiftly flowing stream a bridge or a house 
 by the railside would emerge terribly close to him, and 
 stupefy him as it roared away. White spots were the 
 houses, green mists the fields. He could neither turn his 
 eyes away from them nor hold them in his vision ; save 
 only when the country parted on either side of a broad 
 river, with dark and gentle water and dark trees, and the 
 scene became a remembered picture, a romantic landscape 
 that belonged to the past whence it had sprung to his 
 mind. 
 
 Sometimes, but only for moments, he would see Made- 
 leine before him, and he was engulfed in tenderness. But 
 now there was a reluctance in him that would not suffer 
 him to enjoy his own surrender. More and more of himself 
 seemed to remain outside his emotion, and the instants 
 when he saw her with a sudden clearness near to him and 
 bound to him with an indissoluble bond became more and 
 more momentary. Still into his mind there would flash a 
 speech of her large eyes, a rough and childish movement 
 of her hands to her throat, a tremulous movement of her 
 lips, and a yearning to be with her again would pass through 
 him like a gasp. He seemed to have leapt then over the 
 distance between them, and the years and the miles fell 
 away. But the moments would not stay with him. After 
 them, motive and purpose left him. He was possessed by 
 a fear. He was afraid to meet her again. 
 
 The train stopped at a wayside station. One person 
 alone was on the whole length of the gravelled platform, 
 a girl who ran along in the sun, selling cakes and fruit. On 
 a mound of clay that showed over the platform fence three 
 navvies were digging. They stopped to look at the train, 
 but did not move at all. It was so quiet in the sunlight 
 that Maurice heard himself breathing. He started from 
 the silence, took hold of his bag and placed his hand upon 
 2 r 
 
434 . STILL LIFE 
 
 the handle of the door. Then he hesitated and the train 
 moved. He threw himself back in the corner and smiled. 
 
 The train was a destiny bearing him on, and he acqui- 
 esced in it. Then he was consumed with bitterness against 
 himself. " Weak I'm weak," he muttered to himself. 
 He sought to convince himself that he appreciated a joke 
 that life had played upon him and he laughed. The end of 
 his journey now bore continually into Ms mind, and always 
 he was afraid of it. He did not know why he was afraid. 
 
 His actions would not stand steady before him that he 
 might judge. They dissolved into one another and eluded 
 him. Anne was distant as a star : he seemed to grope 
 along a ray to find her, and then it was not Anne. The rest 
 of his thoughts had mingled in chaos. He chimed in- 
 cessantly that he had done wrong wrong. The iteration 
 drove him to feverish distraction, adding a last disorder to 
 his chaos. If only there was a right in it all to hold by. 
 Deliberately, he smashed his fist with all his strength 
 against the wooden wall of his carriage. His body defied 
 his will and at the last instant checked the blow. " You 
 can't even do that," he said aloud. Nevertheless, his hand 
 was hurt and he sat down and sucked at the pain with his 
 lips. 
 
 Plucking nervously at the arm strap by the window he 
 was bewildered by the crazy question : " What am I doing 
 here ? " Everything became incredible, the empty carriage, 
 the streaming landscape, the smarting hand. Had he sud- 
 denly been inveigled out of life into this ? The smooth and 
 steady beat of the wheels upon the rails answered him. 
 It brought him steadily nearer and nearer to something he 
 feared. Again he asked himself petulantly what there was 
 to fear. He could not reply, but he could not convince 
 himself against his fear, for a suspicion worked in him that 
 he was afraid to tell himself of what he was afraid. 
 
 " This is when men commit suicide, surely," he said. 
 He had no weapon ; but would he dare to kill himself ? 
 If any was the time for suicide it was this. No, he was 
 
STILL LIFE 435 
 
 not afraid to. Suicide was not a matter of courage, but of 
 belief. He would do it now, only he believed in Life, no, 
 not believed, desired life. He felt that something might 
 come. Why did other men kill themselves then ? They 
 did it now, why ? Because they did not desire life, did not 
 believe that something would come. No, that was im- 
 possible. He saw the door, and knew that he had only to 
 throw himself out, only to let himself fall. " I'm a coward," 
 he said. 
 
 What was he afraid of ? Again and again the question 
 tormented him. It was the only respite he had from being 
 afraid. All the dreams of triumphant and final return had 
 dissipated into the cold mist. The flooding warmth of 
 tenderness and self-pity ebbed utterly away. Even now 
 he would stop and go back. The thought had no positive 
 meaning. When he had stopped, when he had gone back, 
 what then ? What had he to do with anything after this ? 
 And this must end, must end. But how could an end 
 come ? It would not come by his action. It would come, 
 he supposed, when he could not any more. ... A vicious 
 flash of determination kindled him. He would find the end 
 in Madeleine. He would love her as she loved him. On 
 that he would lift himself and conquer life. Of course it 
 was so plain. Here he had been deluding himself into 
 agonies, and the answer had been before him. Again he 
 saw her in a small clear picture of that old life of theirs. 
 They had been sleeping together. On the chair by their 
 bed had lain a sketch-book and a pencil that he had taken 
 out of his pockets, when he got up to fumble for matches. 
 She had asked what the book was for. " C'est pour des- 
 siner," he said, just as he lit the little lamp. 
 
 " Alors, dessine moi." Suddenly with the word she had 
 flung away all the bedclothes, and had lain there naked 
 watching him. That was how he had begun before, he 
 thought, as the warmth of his recollection clouded about 
 him ; and now he had lost what he had but a moment 
 found. He was afraid again. He sought to put down his 
 
436 STILL LIFE 
 
 fear by holding fast to his determination. They would live 
 together, happily, and life would begin. He would compel 
 himself to the pattern of life, and thus he would find himself 
 again. He would find nothing, nothing. His love for 
 Madeleine had been the beginning of himself. He could not 
 go back and be the thing he had been. Neither recollection 
 nor imagination of that he had been came to him ; only a 
 written record of indecipherable events. 
 
 His mind travelled the same weary circle many times. 
 Fear was followed by a tender calm, and the calm awoke 
 the fear again. The effort to hold fast to his determination, 
 to find the end in Madeleine, occupied all his will ; but his 
 will was weak now, and soon spent. " Why not ? " he 
 said to himself once more as the train entered the station 
 at Lesdigues. 
 
 It was a full half-mile to the town. He could see the 
 distance plainly, for the houses were bunched upon a brown 
 and yellow hill-side. He asked the station-master if there 
 was a rue Gambetta in the town, and when the answer 
 came that it led straight on to the place he was glad that he 
 had asked, as though he had narrowly avoided an ambush. 
 
 " II y a de la musique tous les dimanches a la place," 
 said the station-master. 
 
 It was past noon and far hotter than it had been in Paris. 
 The road was white and dusty. On one side the ground 
 sloped steeply up to the hill, and the small enclosures were 
 covered with a framework of poles, climbed by slender 
 green plants. On the other was marsh and pasture down 
 to the railway and beyond. Maurice looked curiously up 
 the hill as he walked ; then he realised with a certain sur- 
 prise that they were vineyards, and it seemed to him then 
 that this was a wonderful place to have lived in. He 
 leaned against a rough wall by the road-side, reluctant to 
 go further. It was hot, and he was apprehensive. The 
 general quiet was broken only by the dwindling echo of a 
 far-departing train and the sound|of voices drawing near. 
 He looked rigidly at the vineyards ft above him, for he dared 
 
STILL LIFE 437 
 
 not look at the road. Two women passed behind him 
 without pausing. He knew they were women's voices, 
 but their speech was so strange that he could not make out 
 their words. When they were well past, he looked after 
 them. One was dressed in the commonplace and frighten- 
 ing black of the towns, the other in a peasant costume, wide- 
 skirted and white-bonneted. Neither was Madeleine. He 
 felt that it was beyond his power to go nearer to the town. 
 
 He made an effort of will to follow out the beginning of 
 his determination, and walked on. The first house, whose 
 garden straggled out and was lost on the hill-side, smote him 
 with fear, like the gate of a prison. Turning on his heel he 
 paused. Some people were coming up the hill behind him. 
 Surely they were watching him now. He bent his head and 
 went blindly forward. Once he lifted his eyes to look in 
 front of him along the road, and saw a few small trees, like 
 rows of black-headed pins, at the end of the vista. In his 
 glance he caught sight of two women who sat sewing in 
 their doorways, quite close to him, for the road was narrow 
 between houses now. Timidly his eyes rested upon them. 
 One, grey-haired, looked up at him indifferently, then down 
 the hill and spoke to her companion. Maurice lowered his 
 eyes and quickly hurried on. 
 
 At the corner of the place he peered about, wondering 
 which of the roads that led on to it from over the edge and 
 up the slope of the hill which it crowned, might be the rue 
 Gambetta. To ask anyone was impossible. The town was 
 so still and small that every whisper would have reverber- 
 ated to its confines. He turned to look back the way he 
 had come. He could see in the clear distance the railway 
 station and the silver line. How far away it was and infi- 
 nitesimal ! It was strange that he should have been able 
 to come along that vanishing thread. ... It would not do 
 to stand like this. Everybody would be staring at him. 
 Abruptly he faced about, and for an instant on the way his 
 eyes rested upon the enamel label of the street. " Rue 
 Gambetta," it spelt. 
 
438 STILL LIFE 
 
 He was overwhelmed, distraught and sick ; and then 
 his spirit soared in the knowledge that he had been 
 delivered. He had been lifted out of the very jaws. . . . 
 Everybody must be watching him now. He headed quickly 
 across the square. A debit de boissons loomed before him 
 and he entered. It was cool and dark. The latch clicked 
 and an epoch closed behind him. Sitting down at a 
 wooden table he watched in the silence the dust marks on 
 the narrow slit of clear glass above the window. The rest 
 was covered with dark paper. Somewhere a clock ticked 
 incredible seconds lazily to the sun. From away behind the 
 house cries languidly reached him. A man came in with 
 soft, shuffling steps. 
 
 " Monsieur desire . . . ? " 
 
 " Du vin blanc." 
 
 Maurice leant back against the wall, and watched the 
 man bend down behind the counter with a bottle. The 
 wine ran cool to his ears. The man served him and stood 
 by, contemplating him. 
 
 " One begins to be thirsty now," said Maurice. 
 
 " It's the summer beginning. . . . Does monsieur come 
 from far ? " 
 
 " From Paris." 
 
 " It's a long journey. Very tiring. If monsieur wishes 
 for a room . . ." 
 
 " I'm going back to-night. . . . You have a time- 
 table ? " 
 
 The landlord shook his head. " There are only three 
 trains each way every day. One can remember them. 
 There is one back to Paris at five o'clock. . . . Monsieur is 
 in business ? " 
 
 Maurice shook his head. " Travelling simply." The 
 need of the excuse was imperious. " I ought to have got 
 out at Poitiers, but I was asleep. I was up all last night, 
 so as not to miss the train ! " 
 
 " Oh, la belle histoire ! " the man laughed. " That will 
 have cost you three good pieces." 
 
STILL LIFE 439 
 
 " It's my luck," said Maurice. " One has to pay for 
 stupidities." 
 
 The landlord nodded his head. 
 
 " Is there no other road to the station but the one I came 
 up . . . ? I should like to go a different way, to see every- 
 thing." 
 
 " I don't know one myself," said the landlord. 
 
 Maurice was safe in the dark, cool room. Desperately 
 he longed to be alone. While he talked to the landlord, he 
 could tliink of nothing save the words he was saying. He 
 could not even approach himself to understand and be 
 honest. More than all else he desired to be honest ; but 
 now all his thoughts and feelings seemed to have departed 
 from him. While he spoke with the landlord he felt that 
 his very soul belonged elsewhere than to him. The man 
 would go if he said nothing ; and yet an urgent question 
 trembled on his lips. He shrank from asking it ; but the 
 desire tormented him. He wanted to say it, no more. The 
 answer mattered nothing. 
 
 The landlord turned slightly away, bending to wipe a 
 table that was not stained. Maurice said : " Do you by 
 any chance know some people called De la Pene here ? " 
 
 The landlord made no reply. He went on with his tidy- 
 ing. Maurice had spoken so low that he had not heard. 
 He began to shuffle away. 
 
 " If monsieur wants anything more," he said at the door, 
 " he has only to knock hard." 
 
 Maurice could not ask again, though he tried. His mind 
 and body were one dull torment of pain. The emptiness 
 of unfulfilled desire encompassed him. Yet the relief of 
 his escape and his present security was with him also. His 
 desires were unfulfilled ; but what did he desire ? All 
 things and none to be near Madeleine and to escape from 
 her, to be with Anne and not to return to her, to die and to 
 live on. The impulse to each awoke in him only its instant 
 denial. They followed hard on one another, pressing down 
 and obscuring that which had gone before. " Choose, 
 
440 STILL LIFE 
 
 choose now." Something at his elbow seemed to urge him 
 to instant choice, fevering him. 
 
 Voices and the sound of loitering footsteps came to 
 him. They paused outside close by. He shuddered with 
 a terror lest they should enter. The darkened window and 
 the stout door were but a flimsy curtain between his refuge 
 and them. 
 
 " Elle est triste, vous savez." It was a woman's voice, 
 and she laughed. A man responded. Maurice did not hear 
 what he said ; but he heard everyone laugh. At a snail's 
 pace they passed by the door, and every step was leaden 
 upon his heart. 
 
 " No, no, no," he muttered, and he did not know what 
 he was denying. Everything blent into one unbearable. 
 " If only ..." he said. "No ... no, God, I wasn't made for 
 this. . . . Something stronger. ..." He stopped himself 
 with a kind of bodily violence. 
 
 " I must get away," he said. He rose and dropped back 
 into his seat again. His head leaned heavily upon his 
 hands, and his eyes were fixed upon two flies that crawled 
 upon the windows. They were not moving. The space 
 between them did not change. He wanted to get up and 
 see if they were really flies. Rising again, he was driven 
 to agony by the scraping of his chair. He waited, listening 
 if the landlord would come, until his lungs would burst for 
 need of breath. 
 
 . . . 4 ' You'll crack up, like this, ' ' he said. Incomprehensibly, 
 he thought of his mother. He was very tired, and he was 
 leaning his head against her shoulder. She patted it gently 
 and said, " It's all right, dear. It's all right." Immediately 
 the dream became terrible and grotesque, actual and 
 charged with horrors. His lips moved rapidly, saying over 
 lines of poetry. Verses repeated themselves over and over 
 again : 
 
 " There's nothing to tell : my heart is dead . . . 
 . . . Have not many watched their soul 
 "Wither and die ? It is not well 
 That sick hearts should torment the whole." 
 
STILL LIFE 441 
 
 He began a long speech of King Arthur's learned at school. 
 
 " Thus spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere, 
 This sequel of to-day unsolders all 
 The goodliest fellowship . . ." 
 
 " This sequel of to-day," he repeated. He felt that it had 
 something to do with him ; but he could find no meaning 
 in the words. " This sequel of to-day. ..." It was urgent 
 to be understood ; but he had lost the key. It was only a 
 sound. 
 
 " I must get away," he said, as though he were seriously 
 remonstrating with somebody. He had to go down that 
 street. " Lord," he said gravely, " let this cup pass from 
 me." When he had muttered the words to himself he was 
 cold with horror at their blasphemy. He had offended one 
 of the unknown powers that held him fast. For the first 
 time came to him the idea of a power which worked upon 
 him ; then too late, when he had sinned the sin against it. 
 This desperate conviction of ultimate offence stiffened 
 him. He stood up, and the noise of his scraping chair was 
 good. It was something done. " Die in the open," he 
 said, smiling, waiting by the counter. The man appeared 
 in the passage. Maurice held up a franc in his fingers and 
 laid it on the counter. Then he went over to his table and 
 took a long drink of his wine. 
 
 " Bon jour, monsieur." He returned the landlord's 
 greeting and went out, closing the door slowly behind him. 
 He had to go down the rue Gambetta. The landlord must 
 be watching him from the door, for he had not waited for 
 his change. He had to go down the rue Gambetta. He 
 walked slowly round the side of the square. He had sinned 
 against the power. " It's all up," he said. He was over- 
 come by a sense of destiny. 
 
 So he walked down the rue Gambetta, saying to himself 
 words about Destiny, looking steadily at the houses on 
 either side and the people who passed him. None of them 
 did he recognise. He felt that he would not even start if a 
 hand were put upon his shoulder, or a voice should call to 
 
442 STILL LIFE 
 
 him " Maurice." His pace grew slower and slower, in 
 response to an instinct that he must give Destiny plenty 
 of time. " They wouldn't know me," he said to himself 
 with sudden surprise ; and he knew that in the last hours 
 he had changed. He was hardly moving at all now ; but 
 all curious to know what he really looked like. Instinc- 
 tively he put his hand to his face. It was cold. His eyes 
 fixed upon a doorway flanked by two empty chairs, and 
 then he knew beyond all doubt that Madeleine had been 
 sitting there when he came up the street, that she was the 
 woman who had not looked at him. Very slowly moving 
 down the hill, he came level with the door. His eyes were 
 immovably set upon the chairs. Madeleine had seen him 
 when he came up the street. Madeleine was dead. The 
 logic of his strange knowledge could not be questioned. 
 How funny were empty chairs ! He had never known 
 before that they could look so stupid, so utterly empty. 
 He had passed them now, but he glanced back to see them 
 again. The sun shone on the polished seat of one of them 
 and it glinted. He loitered along down the hill, waiting for 
 Destiny. Bitterness and irony were together in his mind 
 as he passed below the straggling garden of the last house. 
 Destiny had missed its chance. 
 
 So he came again to the station. A train would not be 
 long, said the surprised official. Maurice sat in the most 
 conspicuous seat by the door, and nearly fell asleep. People 
 were talking, but their speech was drowsy, like the hum- 
 ming of insects in the sun. A woman with a basket nudged 
 him. Would he like some cakes ? Her basket was full of 
 them. Then he knew that he was hungry, and the woman 
 with wide, amazed eyes, gave him the worth of fifty 
 centimes. 
 
 " It's not every day that one sells like that." She 
 dragged a bag from a deep pocket under her apron and put 
 the silver piece into it. Maurice blinked at her kindly, 
 wrinkled eyes, and smiled. " Monsieur is hungry, evi- 
 dently." 
 
STILL LIFE 443 
 
 " Yes. I've been a long way." 
 
 " Ah ! " She picked up her basket, trilling a youthful 
 " Bon jour." 
 
 He was almost too sleepy to munch one of his many 
 cakes. He pulled himself together for the duty, sitting 
 forward. A group of two women and three men were 
 talking together and looking at him. Plainly they were 
 talking about him. The station-master was putting in a 
 word. His white Imperial wagged vehemently. 
 
 " Le voici," called out someone on the platform ; and 
 the group moved one pace together towards the inner door. 
 
 The station-master stood over Maurice. He wondered 
 what he was looking at him so close for. The Imperial was 
 wagging, and there was a puzzled twinkle in his blue eyes. 
 
 44 Monsieur has no ticket, I believe." 
 
 " No more have I," said Maurice in English, then in 
 French. " I forgot all about it. I didn't know I was going 
 back to-day." 
 
 The station-master had scurried into the office. The 
 group was looking at him and nodding, " What did I tell 
 you ? " to each other. He could hear the train now. It 
 came into the platform just as the station-master returned 
 with the ticket, smiling. 
 
 44 You are fatigued, monsieur ? " 
 
 * 4 Yes, a little. Good day." Maurice went on to the 
 platform to board the train. As he shut the door, the 
 station-master dashed up again. 
 
 44 And monsieur's valise ? " he called out, as though it 
 were the culminating joke. He hauled it up into the 
 carriage and settled it in the rack over the head of a fat 
 man, who watched placidly but did not cease to talk to his 
 companion. 
 
 Maurice put his hand into his pocket. The station- 
 master laid a friendly hand upon his arm, shaking his head. 
 
 44 There's no reason. Bon voyage." 
 
 44 Merci. ..." He leant out of the window. 44 1 haven't 
 heard the music in the place after all," he called. 
 
44:4 STILL LIFE 
 
 " Next time," shouted the station-master. The train 
 was moving away. Maurice looked back to wave farewell 
 to him. He was standing beside the cake woman. They 
 both waved in reply. 
 
 Maurice sat eating his cakes in the corner of the carriage. 
 The voluble conversation of the fat man rolled about his 
 ears. He was lulled to sleep before he could finish a mouth- 
 ful. Once or twice he roused himself sufficiently to swallow, 
 but the effort was soon spent. 
 
 The fat man, whose red face was like a generously 
 rounded triangle, its apex in his stubbled sandy hair, bent 
 forward as far as he could. The movement was hardly 
 perceptible. But he seemed to enjoy his own disabilities. 
 His two hands rested appreciatively upon his fleshy thighs. 
 he indicated Maurice with a movement of his eyes and a 
 simultaneous swing of his little finger. 
 
 " Epuise," he said. 
 
 The man opposite, comparatively thin, mainly black 
 and very smart, lifted his eyebrows in surprise, and regarded 
 Maurice. 
 
 " C'est vrai. Pauvre diable." 
 
 " Peut meme pas manger," said his companion. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 ANNE hesitated, entering the hotel. Her final conversa- 
 tion with Miss Etheredge, while they walked slowly under 
 the dark arches of the Odeon, had been of a piece with the 
 rest of her day, heavy with the weight of incalculability. 
 Words and actions had risen, suddenly, into brief, con- 
 suming instants, that were and were gone. They stretched 
 her spirit and left it aching with the strain. Yet she had 
 known it all. She had been prepared. But these instants 
 had been beyond all preparation. Like lightning out of 
 storm clouds they had leaped apart from the matter whence 
 they were born. Pressure broke into flame. She had been 
 steeled against the pressure ; but the flame struck through 
 her defence as though it had not been. 
 
 Anne knew that the last flame had not yet been sped 
 against her. She waited in the shadow by the hotel steps, 
 entranced by vain and sick imaginations. She would not 
 enter, but go, now, far away. Facing life was only a 
 romantic lie. Life was, whether she faced it or not, and 
 she would live without the help of empty heroism. Let her 
 be taken away and set in some remote paradise, where wise 
 old women would touch her gently and speak softly to her. 
 " My daughter," they would say, looking at her as she lay 
 feeble and sick and world-broken. The sun would be 
 heavy with afternoon. She would lie there and sleep and 
 wonder that she was ever strong, that she had ever been 
 awakened. " My daughter," they would say, and they 
 would smooth the cool pillows for her because she had been 
 burnt with a bitter fever out in the distant world that was 
 only a memory of evil and pain. 
 
 She swayed a little, and leant heavily against the wall. 
 
 445 
 
446 STILL LIFE 
 
 The dream and the temptation were sad like remembered 
 music, sounding about her while she ascended the steps. 
 She was heavy with foreknowledge. Its weight, not any 
 will of her own, held her still in the vestibule. The little 
 light from the bureau made a circle on the ground. She 
 stood just beyond it. In front of her the dim stairs climbed 
 to another light and then were dim again. She stood out- 
 side the circle of light like a player in the darkness of the 
 wings. She was not ready to step forward on to the stage. 
 She was tired beforehand of the part she had been cast to 
 play. She could not say her opening lines. And so she 
 waited for the reply. 
 
 It came with a rustling and a jangling of the key upon 
 the counter-plate. 
 
 " Madame Temple ? " said a voice, politely tired. 
 
 "Oui. C'estmoi." 
 
 " Monsieur est sorti ... a minuit." Anne waited still. 
 "... Avec une valise." 
 
 Mechanically, Anne felt it was her cue. Slowly it set her 
 movement free. The play had begun. She was climbing 
 the stairs on to the stage. 
 
 The light which she turned on into the room seemed 
 itself to create a sudden cold desolation. She sat down in 
 the chair before the dressing table, and gently lifted each 
 box and tray from the table and set it back again. She did 
 not find any message. She held the last a long while in her 
 hands. It was the little round black box with the broken 
 silver label Studs. She opened it and moved the studs and 
 buttons with her finger. Shutting it again she contem- 
 plated it as though it had been a strange shell picked up 
 from the sands. 
 
 || She stood up from her chair and undressed herself 
 quietly, recognising the new clothes which Maurice had so 
 carefully left behind him ; and with the recognition came 
 a separate stab. Then she took up the little box again, 
 biting her lip in agony, and sank into the chair again. " Oh, 
 Morry . . . my lover," she said. She saw in the mirror 
 
STILL LIFE 447 
 
 before her the tightened flesh of her lip and the tears that 
 rushed impetuously down her cheeks. For an instant the 
 very sight of her own abandonment loosened the iron bonds 
 that gripped her body ; but, the instant past, she knew 
 that what she would see would frighten her. She lay down 
 on the bed with her face in the pillow, which she clasped 
 about her head. 
 
 Every tautened spring in her was loosed in utter weak- 
 ness. Without sleep she dreamed, the vision that she had 
 seen while she waited outside the hotel. She was on the 
 borderland between life and death. Old women were 
 smoothing the pillows for her hot cheeks. Their fingers 
 passed lightly over her forehead and over her hair : " My 
 daughter," they said. 
 
 Anne slept on till the spring sun warmed her face, and 
 she slowly wakened at the touch. She remembered all that 
 had passed before her sleep, and she looked, so soon as her 
 eyes were strong to see in the bright sunlight, for the black 
 box upon the table. Inwardly she was calm ; but the pale 
 face she saw in the mirror made her smile. The smile 
 brought back some blood into her cheeks and sent little 
 waves of tired contentment through her whole being. The 
 miracle of mere existence awoke in her body a response 
 which her mind neither controlled nor desired. While she 
 moved about the room in slow preparations, often forgotten 
 as soon as begun, she was for a time no more than her 
 gently acting body. Behind it, in a vague and separate 
 distance, trailed recollections, sharp in outline, thin in 
 substance, of a play in which she had borne a part. But 
 not that face which steadily smiled at her when her eyes 
 met it in the glass, which smiled as though the condition of 
 its life were to smile, had played a part in the past. Some- 
 thing had been lost in the perilous passage. The principle 
 which united soul and body, her recollections and that 
 foreign face, had been worn or burnt away in the darkness. 
 A life that had been despaired had been saved ; but there 
 
448 STILL LIFE 
 
 was a chasm between the past and the present. In the 
 crossing her life had been enfeebled. 
 
 She took up the black box once more from the table, and 
 moved the buttons about with her finger. 
 
 " What funny studs ! " she said. She took out a long 
 one with a swivel-top, and it stood like a tiny monument 
 alone on the dressing-table. " It's just like Morry . . . 
 Morry. ..." She mouthed the name as though it were 
 half-foreign to her, a word that had suddenly lost its mean- 
 ing ; and she seemed to be waiting, puzzled, until it should 
 be informed by a sense once more. The stud was somehow 
 more really Maurice than he. 
 
 " I must keep the stud to remind me." 
 
 It was then that she began to hate the room in which 
 she was. She wished to be away from it, away from the 
 city. She was not desperate or impatient, but from a 
 point in her mind the clear and invincible conviction slowly 
 radiated that to be herself again she must leave Paris. 
 Paris held the chasm between her present and her past ; it 
 was the chasm. If she remained here her mind would 
 never cease to grope backwards for the thing it could not 
 reach. Away, she could hold the past close to her again, 
 and so forget it. Now it was outside her, and she was 
 obsessed by it. 
 
 She began to gather her things together. The activity 
 of ordering them beautifully in her boxes was a deep 
 pleasure, the beginning of deliberate calm. Her mind had 
 chosen and her body was the willing servant of her mind. 
 Harmony, brutally broken, began to be again. She thought 
 idly, while the sun played bewilderingly upon the silver of 
 her dressing-case, where she would go. She was gracious 
 to her wounded mind when she found that it was searching 
 for a place like the haven of her dream. The peace, the 
 gentle warmth of that persuasive sunlight, allured her. 
 " I should make one of those old women, now," she said, 
 remembering their ministry. " That must be in the 
 South.": |No use to look for opulent summer north of a 
 
STILL LIFE 449 
 
 Paris spring. She would go to Avignon. Once it was 
 their honeymoon she had been over the palace with Jim. 
 He was a dim, dissolving outline now. 
 
 She felt herself ready to take all experiences deep into 
 her. Now she was transparent and open, ready to receive. 
 There was no barrier of her own personality to be broken 
 down any more. The slightest wave would ripple gently 
 to her heart. This it was to be free ; freedom was this calm 
 and harmony which she felt was being so sweetly born in 
 her. So sure of it was she that she asked herself whether 
 she was not strong enough now to stay in Paris and thus 
 put her new freedom to the test. She was disappointed at 
 the question as a little girl is disappointed to whom a 
 promised holiday is suddenly denied ; and she was filled with 
 a naive wonder when she remembered that she was the mis- 
 tress even of her minor destinies. She would go to Avignon. 
 
 Her boxes were packed. She went into the sitting-room 
 to summon a servant for her bill, and to look at the time- 
 table. The time-table lay in the side of the armchair in 
 which Maurice had sat. Even in the smallest things the 
 conclusion had so delicately fitted. A dozen hours, and 
 she was doing the same things that he had done, sitting in 
 the same chair, the same time-table on her knees. 
 
 The door was softly opened. Anne looked up without 
 surprise to see Dennis. She had almost forgotten his 
 strange absence. It was not important. Though she was 
 wondering whether he had changed, she seemed to have 
 no memories of him with which she could compare what 
 she saw now. 
 
 " Hullo, Anne," he said, oddly smiling. " I've spent the 
 last three hours sitting on my bag in the other room, trying 
 to decide whether I would wait to see you or not. ... I 
 don't know whether I decided that I would wait." He 
 spoke as one sick with weariness of his own debate. " I 
 suppose I forgot what I was thinking about." 
 
 " Maurice has gone away," she said, " he went away last 
 night." 
 
 2 
 
450 STILL LIFE 
 
 " He's left you ? " Dennis might have been indifferent, 
 or have failed to understand. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " I suppose I ought to be surprised. ... I suppose I am 
 surprised. . . . But I'm left behind now." He laughed. " I 
 made my grab at life, and just touched it with my finger- 
 tips. So now I can't see the importance of anything. 
 Perhaps nothing is important. So Morry's gone. . . . Tell 
 me, what do you feel about it ? ... No, I mustn't ask that. 
 . . . You know I can't think that other people aren't in the 
 same condition. . . . What a wonderful sun ! " 
 
 " There's no reason why you shouldn't ask. Only I 
 couldn't tell you. I felt so very many things. . . . What are 
 you going to do now ? " 
 
 " I was thinking about that, too. I don't know. . . . 
 After all, it's hardly likely that I should. ... I asked Miss 
 Etheredge to marry me yesterday." 
 
 " I knew that." 
 
 " She told you ? " 
 
 " No, I don't think so. I hardly remember ; but I 
 gathered it from her." 
 
 " Were you surprised ? " Without waiting for the 
 answer Dennis looked hard at her. " You've changed a 
 lot, haven't you ? " 
 
 " Was I surprised ? . . ." She seemed to be thinking 
 back with an effort. " No. That wasn't it. I was more 
 frightened, I think. Perhaps it was Miss Etheredge. Yes, 
 I was terrified." 
 
 " I know what you mean. It came to me too. On my 
 box there, I was wondering whether it had been a night- 
 mare. Not what happened. There's no doubt about that. " 
 He laughed. " But the way I saw it. I thought that I 
 might have been sick, disordered in my soul. Either 
 that, or I saw something plainly for once. Perhaps it was 
 life. I never know what that means, except that it is 
 always something quite different from what other people 
 mean. ... I don't think it was sickness, really. 
 
STILL LIFE 451 
 
 " So Morry's gone. He'll never come back. He'll try to. 
 But now he'll be strong enough, just strong enough, not to. 
 He'll not be worth having if he comes, and somehow he 
 is worth having. One of these days when he loses his 
 pride, he'll know what it was that he nearly held, so very 
 nearly. He won't be sad because he will have no pride. 
 Either that, or he will never see. . . . 
 
 " But I believe in Morry in the end." 
 
 " I believe in him," said Anne. 
 
 " Why I talk about pride," said Dennis slowly, " is that 
 I am losing mine. I discovered that on the box, too. 
 Pride . . ." he nodded, recognising the truth in his own 
 mind. The recognition seemed to change his very tone. 
 " May I tell you what happened to me after you went 
 away that night ? I think I'd like to. It'd help me. I can 
 go away clear then." 
 
 " I should like to hear." 
 
 Dennis glanced at her. " I'll make it short," he said. 
 " If I tried to tell all why, then there might be pride 
 again. Only what matters. 
 
 " When I think back, there was one great reason why I 
 came over here. There may have been others. There 
 certainly were ; but one was important. I wanted to do 
 something. The work, the position, the money, the kudos 
 it wasn't very much. I can see now that it was very 
 little. Two days ago, I thought it was nothing at all. But 
 before I came, even if it wasn't much, it had hold of me. 
 I hated it with one part, and delighted in it with another. 
 And then perhaps it was seeing you two together I felt 
 that I was at the end of my tether. I had to do something, 
 immediately. It was to be a kind of symbol of my own 
 will to good. Chuck up my job came into my mind 
 instantly. No ... it had been there all the while ; but only 
 then the day I left you at the station it begun to obsess 
 me. It seems incredible now that I hesitated and tortured 
 myself almost mad up there in Sheffield. It took me a fort- 
 night, anyway. You can see by that that it was something. 
 
452 STILL LIFE 
 
 " Then I did it. Last Sunday it was last Sunday. 
 Good Lord ! when I was going to the station I was happy 
 enough. That was a gain. I can't remember that I've 
 ever been happy even for half an hour before. But when 
 I got into the train my mind began to work, slowly at first. 
 I thought that it was my own particular devil worrying me 
 for a bit. But it didn't take long to convince me. Chuck- 
 ing up my job seemed only to be a thing that I ought to 
 have done years ago. It hadn't any meaning any more. 
 I'd done it ; and I might just as well have stayed up there 
 in Sheffield . . . telling them about the optic nerve. I was 
 wretched on the journey, wretched. I convinced myself 
 that it didn't matter what I did, I should always be the 
 same ; and now I'd nothing even to occupy my hands. 
 The whole place was foreign. It laughed at me. I had 
 something to eat at the Gare du Nord, I remember, and I 
 tried to decide whether I would just go back. Every time 
 I thought that it got as far as taking a ticket I felt 
 somewhere that I was funking. 
 
 " And so I came along. When I saw you here, for a few 
 moments I had an idea that I had really done something 
 worth while after all. I don't quite know what you had to 
 do with that feeling ; something anyway. That was when 
 I showed you the letter, wasn't it ? I was proud of it at 
 the moment. And then I could see that you thought it 
 was just ordinary, what you might have expected. I knew 
 that was the truth. And it hurt me terribly while we went 
 along to that tea-party, terribly. When I got there I felt 
 that I couldn't say a word to anybody ; because they 
 would see immediately what kind of a man I was. I 
 couldn't believe it, when they didn't see. I think I ex- 
 pected them, the moment they saw my face, to rise up and 
 turn me out. They didn't see anything unusual, only Miss 
 Etheredge. She knew. And there was something in the 
 way she knew it that made me feel that I could have killed 
 her. (You don't know how chock full of murder I've been 
 these days.) She seemed to take my soul in between her 
 
STILL LIFE 453 
 
 fingers and just throttle it, like that. . . . And when I saw 
 that, I turned bitter with anger against her. Then I 
 changed . . . curiously. I felt that I had an enormous 
 power, that I could be cruel beyond imagination. I felt 
 that I was being cruel and I was glad. Do you understand 
 that ? All that I saw in Miss Etheredge, I was, only ten 
 thousand times more. This fellow Wauchope came in, and 
 when I saw him, I felt that he was just like me not in 
 everything but in the thing that Etheredge stirred up in 
 him. Only there was a difference. He had been beaten 
 by her. Netta was only something to help him forget. I 
 wasn't going to be beaten by her. I was all power ; and 
 the power was to humiliate and crush her. 
 
 " I was frightened of myself. I was two things this 
 power and desire to be cruel, and an ebb of sentimentality. 
 I pitied the whole world, myself the first. I was in a kind 
 of agony of regret, all at the same time. But when I got 
 outside, everything seemed to leave me. I felt as though I 
 had been living under terrible pressure for years and years, 
 and had at last been pressed too hard and failed. . . ." 
 
 Dennis got up and began to walk up and down the room. 
 His hands were in his pockets, and his head bent. 
 
 " That didn't last very long. The memories of what I 
 had felt came back like a nightmare, but much more real 
 than any nightmare. It had been a kind of revelation. I 
 argued to myself about it on the way to Montmartre, and 
 I proved that the thing which was myself, the thing that I 
 had been trying to find, by doing things, was a monstrous 
 evil infinite, deliberate cruelty, not for the sake of any 
 pleasure in cruelty, but because that was the only way of 
 action for me. I thought of all kinds of monstrous things, 
 quite deliberately. When I was dancing with that girl- 
 Josephine no, it's not worth telling. But all the while 
 I was horrified at this cruelty that seemed to have taken 
 shape inside me. I was just dumb with the horror, fascin- 
 ated. Sometimes this, sometimes the cruelty went all 
 through my mind. Sometimes they both disappeared, and 
 
454 STILL LIFE 
 
 again I wanted to do something, that would cost me a 
 struggle. I think it was because I thought that I should 
 learn something about myself and then it was a symbol 
 of my own good will. 
 
 " That was why I took that girl." Dennis laughed, 
 despairing and indifferent. " At least that was the first 
 why. All kinds of other things crowded into my mind 
 afterwards. It seemed to me cruel that I should take the 
 girl, neither loving nor desiring her, but just paying. Be- 
 sides, I could see tliat she was frightened of me, and anxious 
 that I should be gentil you remember. I wanted to do all 
 those cruelties. I hated them and I was frightened too. 
 I was obsessed by the certainty that this would change me, 
 and I was terrified of a me that I did not know. It was 
 like waiting for death with half a hope of a life to come. 
 I was in an agony at the idea of this incalculable future ; 
 and at the same time I couldn't get rid of the thought that 
 if I couldn't find the will and the courage to do it, then it 
 was all over with me. Then, again, I thought that it would 
 hurt you. (Did it, I wonder ?) That, too, made it harder 
 to do it, and made it more worth while. I was set on doing 
 all the hurt I could, deliberately. Again, there were 
 moments when the girl seemed to me so simple that I 
 wanted to be kind to her, and thought that she would be 
 happy when she found that I was different from the other 
 men she had. I know that these things sound ridiculous 
 together. They contradict each other. But I felt them, 
 and they did not contradict each other then. . . . 
 
 " When you went away I was better. I had stuck out 
 the first trial. I wanted to go away with you both, des- 
 perately. It seemed to me that I should never see you 
 again. Something was going to happen, to you, as well as 
 to me. If I was not there. . . . Oh, there's no point in going 
 into that. It doesn't really belong to this story. . . . 
 
 " The girl took me home. She said it was better to walk ; 
 that the air was so fresh after the restaurant. It may have 
 been true, it probably was. But I thought she was trying 
 
STILL LIFE 455 
 
 to put off the moment when I should be in her room alone 
 with her. And then she kept on asking me : ' You'll be 
 kind to me ? I'm very small, quite a child ' she actually 
 said that. She said she had one of her own, and I must 
 see him. His hands were smaller than hers. I remember 
 she said all that. She kept looking up at me, (She was 
 hanging on to me, so light, that I had an idea that I was 
 carrying some kind of silk wrap on my arm. ) I saw she was 
 frightened of me ; and when I saw that I wanted to be 
 more and more cruel to her, so cruel I saw this actually at 
 the time that she should not cry at all, but just stare at 
 me stare. . . . That was very clear in my brain, clearer 
 than any diagram. It looked as though it had been drawn 
 ruled in front of me. There was no need to hurry. It 
 was impossible for either of us to escape for part of me 
 wanted to escape as much as she. . . . 
 
 " Well, we got to the room. It was quite small, at the 
 top of a long stairs. There was a bed and a chair and a 
 table with a mirror, and a wallpaper with bright green 
 crosses on it, a pattern of green crosses. I sat in the chair, 
 and looked at her. But my eyes seemed not to be working. 
 I hardly saw her. She had her back turned to me and 
 slipped off her clothes on to the floor. Suddenly she turned 
 round to me. I thought for a second she had done it on 
 purpose, to make me passionate. She was bent forward, 
 with her hands between her knees, looking at me, more 
 frightened than before. Then I knew she had done it on 
 purpose because she thought she could soften me, that I 
 would see how small and slight she was. So she was. I 
 think she was very beautiful in her way very complete, 
 perfect. . . . That's not the word, but it doesn't matter. 
 I sat in the chair and watched her get into bed. She made 
 a place for me, banged the pillows. Yes, she was very 
 pretty. She told me to come. 
 
 " I was thinking of other things. She was more fright- 
 ened because I did not come. Then I asked her if men had 
 been brutal to her. 
 
456 STILL LIFE 
 
 " ' Never,' she said, and then : ' There was one once ' 
 
 " l What did he do to you * ' 
 
 " She did not answer, and I asked her again. 
 
 " Then she said ' no,' and went on saying ' no.' 
 
 " I seemed to forget that I had asked her. I said to my- 
 self over and over again, ' No, she wouldn't answer,' while 
 my thoughts became harder and harder, more brutal. 
 They were hardly even thoughts any more. My mind had 
 nothing to do with them that's what I mean. They 
 simply were there, like a lot of lines. I seemed to follow 
 them out, infinitely, along lines, one after the other. . . . 
 (I told you about the wallpaper, didn't I ? Bright green 
 crosses a pattern of them. . . .) All these crosses seemed 
 to have faded away, all except one. That stuck out. It 
 was very bright, shining. Well, all these thoughts they 
 weren't thoughts. I can't explain. You understand ? 
 ended in that cross. I suppose it was rather like a flower 
 with petals. I say that now. Every petal was one of these 
 thoughts. When it got to the centre of the cross I was 
 satisfied. Some of them didn't and then I must have gone 
 nearly mad. But even when I was satisfied, I knew it was 
 evil, cruel, terribly cruel. . . . 
 
 " I must have forgotten myself, while that went on. 
 I could see the girl in my mind. She was very clear, mixed 
 up with all those lines ; but I forgot that she was really 
 there, in the same room, in bed. Then I heard her saying 
 something, just a kind of noise drumming in my ears. I 
 knew it meant something, and I wanted to find out. I 
 knew I had only got to do something to hear her . . . you 
 know . . . what do they call it ? ... focus your attention. 
 But I knew it was terribly important what she said. Every- 
 thing depended on it. Absolutely everything. I could 
 hardly force myself to listen. I felt too weak to know. Of 
 course, that can only have taken a second or two. 
 
 44 1 heard her say, 4 You're too tired.' 
 
 44 1 was saved. Then she said : 4 Come and sleep. We'll 
 be good.' 
 
STILL LIFE 457 
 
 " I only wanted someone to hold me up and take me into 
 the air. That's what I felt ; but I was standing up as 
 strong as anything. I forgot what I said to her probably 
 that I wasn't feeling well. I forget. I know she sat up in 
 bed and I kissed her. She said : ' You're coming back. . . . 
 I love you . . . grand 'bete.' 1 I remember the funny way she 
 looked up at me when she said 'grand bete? I gave her 
 that fifty francs from you, put it in the hand with the ring 
 and shut it up. . . . 
 
 " I wonder if I'm being too tragic about all this. ... It 
 sounds like it, doesn't it ? Perhaps but I can't tell it any 
 other way. 
 
 " Aren't the nights getting short now ? Have you 
 noticed ? It was just on the point of dawn when I got out 
 of that house. I could see the steps down the stairs. I 
 dare say I was there longer than I thought. 
 
 " It wasn't far from the river. I don't know quite where, 
 but not far from a kind of market-place full of barrels, 
 barrels each side of the roadway. I told you how weak I 
 felt. There were a few people about, mostly people who 
 had to stay out all night, poor ones, beggars. I gave them 
 all something, until I hadn't any more. It wasn't charity 
 or kindness, not at all. I wanted to buy something from 
 them, just wanted them to say c God bless you,' or any- 
 thing like that. And every time they did almost every 
 one of them did I knew it wasn't any good, just like when 
 somebody says, ' Don't think about that,' when you can't 
 help thinking about it, and it makes you think about it all 
 the more. Not that I was thinking, at any rate, not what I 
 call thinking. 
 
 " I only felt hungry for something hard and definite, 
 that I could take hold of. I nearly achieved it, with 
 Josephine . . . but I was stopped, saved. Yes, I knew (felt, 
 I mean) that I had been saved. That it would have been 
 better if I hadn't been. I was only a wreck, left behind. I 
 wanted something to crystallise round, and it had to be my 
 own. I walked miles and miles like that. I'm just begin- 
 
458 STILL LIFE 
 
 ning to feel tired in the legs after all that walking. I had 
 some more of it. Sometimes I saw queer little pictures. 
 You were in most of them. Especially us two on the top 
 of that hill, you remember ? Not so very long ago, is it ? 
 No, I wasn't thinking. I wanted to get into the country ; 
 but there didn't seem to be any. Outside Paris, the way I 
 went, was just like the inside. 
 
 " It's not worth while telling all this, really. . . . Well, it 
 was pretty late when I had something to eat. I couldn't 
 have been very changed, really I kept enough money for 
 food, enough to bring me back." He felt in his pocket and 
 showed a few coppers in his hand and laughed. " Rather 
 nicely calculated, I should say. I ate meat and things 
 somewhere near the fortifications. The wine, ordinary 
 cheap wine, made me warm and cloudy, rather as though 
 I had been asleep and just waked up. I began to remember 
 about what had happened since I came to Paris. It was all 
 hazy and not intolerable. Then Etheredge came into my 
 mind. She never went out of it again. 
 
 " She suddenly solved everything. I was going to marry 
 her. It was very nearly one o'clock when I knew that. I 
 had to do it all before you came to see her ; for I remem- 
 bered perfectly that you were going. It took me some 
 time to get there, because I didn't know exactly where I 
 was ; but much less time than I had expected. All the way 
 I was surer and surer that to marry her was the one way 
 for me. I can't say why I wanted to marry her ; but it was 
 plain to me that this was the thing I was seeking, that 
 would save me. I don't think she came into my mind 
 except as that. I'm certain I didn't have the ideas about 
 her that I had at Ramsay's the day before. They may 
 have been there, of course, but they didn't count for any- 
 thing then. It was a revelation if there ever was one ; 
 I never had any doubt about it, and after a little while I was 
 convinced that she was as certain as I was. Only I was 
 desperately anxious that I should get to her before you 
 did. After you had been, it would be too late. (It wasn't 
 
STILL LIFE 459 
 
 you who would have interfered. I didn't think so, any- 
 how. But it had to be done immediately.) I got to her 
 street, as it happened, in plenty of time. . . . 
 
 " She opened the door herself, and looked at me for a 
 second, and said : ' You've come to see the pictures.' 
 Then she went away and left me to shut the door. As soon 
 as I saw her, I began to doubt. The way she said ' You've 
 come to see the pictures,' and being left alone to shut the 
 door it all helped. It began to be inconceivable. Some- 
 where the whole world was laughing at me in my face. A 
 foundation had been knocked away from under my feet. 
 As I went after her into the other room, I clung to the 
 words I was going to say, as if they were the only thing that 
 remained. Nothing could have stopped me from saying 
 them then. 
 
 " She was kneeling on the floor by the fire. As I came 
 into the doorway she struck a match and set some paper 
 in the fireplace on fire. 
 
 " ' You've just come in time,' she said, ' . . . I'm burning 
 the gallery.' She didn't look at me. 
 
 " I was hanging on to my words, and I said them. 
 ' I want you to marry me.' 
 
 " The moment I had said them it was all over. There 
 was nothing more to hold on to at all. She didn't even 
 look round, but stared at the fire in the fireplace. It began 
 to blaze and crackle. 
 
 " Then she said : ' I knew you'd do that. . . . But you've 
 been very quick about it.' 
 
 " I don't know how long it was that we said nothing 
 a very long time. No, it can't have been very long. The 
 fire hadn't stopped blazing. She turned round to me and 
 said : 
 
 4 Smash up that canvas there. It's too strong for me.' 
 
 " It was lying against the wall where I was leaning. It 
 was all wet and sticky, and when I took it in my hands the 
 colour came off upon them, on my coat, too. I couldn't 
 break it. She told me to put it on the floor and hold it with 
 
460 STILL LIFE 
 
 my feet. I tried to hold the frame under the point of my 
 boot so as not to harm the canvas. Then she said : 
 
 " ' For God's sake stick your boot through it, now, 
 now.' 
 
 " I did, and then I pulled the stretchers apart. She 
 turned away and put them on the fire. 
 
 " I think I remember every word she said. There wasn't 
 very much. I can see everything in the room. But you've 
 been there. 
 
 " First, when the second blaze was nearly over, she said : 
 
 " ' We're two lost souls.' She was half laughing. You 
 know the way she laughs. ' We're not going to save each 
 other.' 
 
 " She never turned round, and I never said a word. I 
 just watched the fire dying down. I couldn't have taken 
 my eyes away from it. I think she was doing the same. 
 There were hardly any flames left one or two when she 
 said : 
 
 " ' I'm married to me art.' She was laughing all the 
 while now, and I could see her back going up and down. 
 I was frozen, dead. ' Married to me art, that's what I am. 
 Now we're burning the bridegroom. Like they do in India. 
 . . . No, that's the widow. ... I read all about it in a mis- 
 sionary book on Sundays at home. ... It wouldn't be any 
 good, would it.' 
 
 " I said no, I could see now, and I said good-bye. 
 
 " i Don't go,' she said, but she didn't look round. 
 
 " I went out of the door and down the stairs." 
 
 " You passed me in the street," said Anne. 
 
 " Did I ? " 
 
 " Yes," he went on, " it was a good job I went then. But 
 I don't suppose it would have mattered, who had met me 
 then. I was done. I went into a cafe, the other side of the 
 river. I was determined to go away. That and the know- 
 ledge that I mustn't go back to the hotel until you and 
 Morry had gone away to dinner that was all there was to 
 me. I felt I was finished. I had made my throw, and it 
 
STILL LIFE 461 
 
 hadn't come off. So nothing mattered very much either 
 way. 
 
 " I came in here after you'd gone, a good while after. 
 I couldn't stay here, and I wanted to see you before I went 
 away. I sat in some cafe or other until it shut. I heard 
 you moving about your room when I came back. 
 
 " This morning I tried to think it out. I tried to make 
 up my mind whether I would tell you. After all, you're 
 the only person I could have managed to tell it to. ... 
 
 " It's a funny story. I'm very different from what I was 
 two days ago. I seem to have lost my pride, my bad pride. 
 It will all go soon. ... I thought I'd like you to understand. 
 . . . Yes, I'm glad I told you." 
 
 Anne looked at him. Her ringers rustled the leaves of 
 the time-table. While he had spoken, the despair had 
 slowly passed out of his voice, and she knew he was truly 
 glad that she had been there to hear. To her it seemed 
 that to have listened was natural to her, and it gave her a 
 sense of happy calm that he had found relief in her. " I 
 am one of those old women," she thought, and spoke her 
 thought aloud. 
 
 Dennis glanced towards her, not understanding. 
 
 " I was only thinking of a dream I had." She bent her 
 mind to the fact. " What are you going to do now ? " 
 
 "I'm going away to think about it all, I suppose. I 
 haven't thought where I shall go. Not back to England, 
 that's certain." 
 
 Anne opened the time-table upon her knees, and regarded 
 it for a little while. Placing her finger against a line upon 
 the page she looked up. Then, looking down again, 
 
 " At fifty- three minutes past one," she said, translating 
 the figures slowly, " I leave for Avignon. Why not come 
 with me ? " 
 
 " I'd like to more than anything. . . ." Then he spoke 
 ruminatively as though to himself. " I think I should have 
 asked if I might, before you had gone. Yes, I am certain 
 that I should, now that I have told you." 
 
EPILOGUE 
 
 THREE days later Maurice climbed the stair to Miss 
 Etheredge's appartement. He carried in his hand the bag 
 which he had taken on his fruitless journey to Lesdigues. 
 Miss Etheredge opened to him. He stood, saying nothing, 
 but unsteadily smiling, with a shamefastness, which 
 he had anticipated and tried vainly to suppress on his 
 way. 
 
 " You've come for the room," she said. 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 " No, not that." 
 
 They stood together in the passage. In her presence he 
 began to feel the dignity of his recent past. He was no 
 longer shamefast, nor did he smile any more, and he spoke 
 with the appearance of decision. 
 
 " No. ... I thought I would like to see you. That's all. 
 You see I didn't come that day you asked me." 
 
 " Very good of you, I'm sure. You think you're a hero 
 at last " 
 
 He did not answer. 
 
 " When did you run away from Mrs. C. ? " 
 
 " Three days ago." 
 
 " Oh, the same night. You'll have to get somebody else 
 to mother you now. ... Or did you think I might be 
 anxious to ta,ke on the job. No. . . ." Her voice quickened. 
 " I've had enough of you. Enough ! I'm dead sick of it. 
 What the devil d'you want to come worrying me for ? 
 D'you want me to go and arrange things with your lady- 
 love for you ? " 
 
 Maurice became stubborn with decision. 
 
 462 
 
STILL LIFE 463 
 
 " I thought we were friends. That's why I came to see 
 you. I wanted to say ' good-bye,' because I'm leaving. 
 But I made a mistake. We weren't friends." 
 
 "All right. I'm sorry." 
 
 " It doesn't matter. Besides, I'm going in a minute." 
 
 " What's the hurry ? You don't have to catch a train to 
 heaven ! " 
 
 " No, but I'm going." 
 
 Miss Etheredge seemed not to hear. 
 
 " So it busted with Mrs. C. It was too pretty to last. . . . 
 Where's she gone ? " 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 " You take it pretty quietly. I shouldn't have thought 
 it of you. You might weep a bit, make it more convincing. 
 Or perhaps you're out for a Don Juan nowadays ? " 
 
 " Perhaps. But don't let's quarrel about it, will we ? 
 It's not worth while." 
 
 " You think you're damned superior now, don't you. 
 Tragic look in the eye. Tragic good-bye. * It's not worth 
 while,' " she mocked. " D'you think I care twopence 
 whether you quarrel with me or not ? " 
 
 " No. It was only that I didn't want to ; but still ..." 
 
 " All rotten conceit. You think you're the hell of a fine 
 fellow because you've made a muck of everything quite 
 proud of it." 
 
 Inwardly he asked himself if it was true. The answer 
 seemed to tremble like the needle of a balance, and be 
 trembling still, while he said, holding out his hand : 
 
 " Well, good-bye." 
 
 She had dropped down on her knee to read the label on 
 his bag. 
 
 " Maisons Lafitte," she said as though she had victori- 
 ously surprised a guarded secret. " Where's that are you 
 going to stay there long ? " 
 
 " I don't know," he said. " Good-bye." 
 
 When he had gone, and Miss Etheredge could no longer 
 hear the sound of his feet on the stairs, she went out of the 
 
464 STILL LIFE 
 
 passage into her room. She sat on the cushioned seat and 
 leaned her arms upon the marble table. 
 
 " The fool, the fool ... the little fool," she said at length, 
 and began to cry. 
 
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