A 
 CHASTE 
 
 MAN
 
 NOVELS BY LOUIS WILKINSON 
 
 THE BUFFOON 
 
 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 BRUTE GODS
 
 LOUIS 
 WILKINSON 
 
 A 
 CHASTE 
 
 MAN 
 
 "So dear to Heaven 
 is saintly chastity..." 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 ALFRED A. KNOPF 
 
 MCMXX
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY 
 ALFRED A. KNOPF 
 
 Published, August, 1917 
 SfetnJ Printing, January, 1920 
 
 PRINTED IN T5 UNITED 8TATIB AMERICA
 
 To 
 JOHN COWPER POWYS 
 
 . . . Stillabat Eloquium . .
 
 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 OLIVER LAWRANCE was back home from the 
 Office. He lived with his wife in a house of 
 moderate pretension in Chiswick ; and he spent 
 his working hours on the premises of Ralston, Inge & 
 Co., an amalgamation for business purposes of two en- 
 terprises rather surprisingly diverse, The Occultists' 
 Magazine and The Applied Arts ' Review. 
 
 The young man was tired and a little morose. As he 
 sat on a chair in the bathroom, drying his hands, he 
 heard the teasing echo of old Ralston 's voice, with its 
 fatigued insistence, dictating letters: "We shall be 
 glad, therefore, of a cheque in settlement of your account 
 with us at your early convenience" or "at your earliest 
 convenience" or "at your very earliest convenience": 
 the three variations of formula, repeated day after day. 
 Life seemed to be made up of repetition and imitation. 
 All those people in the "Tube" train, coming home from 
 their Offices to their wives. . . . Business, family; fam- 
 ily, business. Awful, when it struck you. And these 
 thoughts themselves were being daily repeated in thou- 
 sands of minds. 
 
 There came a light tap at the door how well Law- 
 rjance knew those light taps! and his wife appeared,
 
 10 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 He kissed her, wondering as he did so at the substan- 
 tiality of the fact of their cohabitation. 
 
 ' ' How dear of you, Doll ! " she said. ' ' I saw it. ' ' 
 
 "What did you see, eh?" He was at once artificially 
 bright. 
 
 They went downstairs. 
 
 "You know. A great big " 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 "bottle of fizz!" 
 
 "Greedy little wretch!" He put his arm round her. 
 "Fancy your noticing that!" 
 
 "Fancy! And how could I help it, sir? Right in 
 the middle of the table! Doesn't it seem weird that it 
 was three years ago to-day that we were married?" 
 
 "Three years ago yes by Jove " 
 
 He tried to think of some appropriately playful and 
 affectionate retort. No one could, with a more sensible 
 acuteness than his wife, have rasped the exposed nerves 
 of his present mood. He disliked her would-be "bon 
 camarade" use of the slang term "fizz" for champagne, 
 and the way she dragged in the word "weird," he dis- 
 liked that kind of thing in her extravagantly, unreason- 
 ably, morbidly, though he was not by nature morbid. 
 It was all, he thought, because he knew her too well, be- 
 cause of this business of their living together, under the 
 same roof, year in and year out. 
 
 "How pretty you look to-night, darling!" he said as 
 they went into the drawing-room. 
 
 It was true. Muriel Lawrance had light, soft hair, 
 with a tinge of light gold ; the tone of her blue eyes was 
 clear, her colouring was delicate and fresh. What her 
 husband actually thought as he praised her looks was:
 
 A CHASTE MAN 11 
 
 "Your mouth is too small and tight, there isn't enough 
 of your hair; there's something mean about your eyes, I 
 wish they were larger. ' ' 
 
 Muriel glanced away from him, smiling. "Oh, of 
 course," she said. "Today's the day for compliments. 
 Compliments and champagne ! ' ' 
 
 She was pleased. Lawrance reflected that little 
 tributes always pleased her, that the incidentals of a 
 light and innocent flirtation were really more to her taste 
 than anything else. She was not passionate: it would 
 really have suited her to have gone on being engaged to 
 him forever. His dark skin flushed: his heavy hot un- 
 derlip twitched with a suggestion that it often gave of 
 suffering under control. 
 
 He got up hurriedly, so that she should not notice. 
 ' ' One minute, ' ' he said. " I 've something to show you ' ' ; 
 and he went into the hall to get from his overcoat pocket 
 the trinket he had bought her. 
 
 "Shut your eyes!" he cried as he came back, and as 
 she did so he went behind her and put his gift round her 
 pink neck. "Don't open them yet." He fastened the 
 chain a chain of Venetian make, with coloured half- 
 precious stones. ' ' Now you can look ! ' ' 
 
 Muriel exclaimed, she was radiant, she kissed him, she 
 went to the glass. 
 
 "How pretty ! And how clever of you !" She kissed 
 him again. "And I've something to show you! "When 
 we go to dinner. ' ' 
 
 He kept on forcing a happy exuberance till the maid 
 came in to tell them that dinner was ready. The starchy 
 cleanliness of the linen was stressed, so was the bright- 
 ness of the silver, the pretty orderliness of everything.
 
 12 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 Muriel had evidently concerned herself. By Lawrance 's 
 plate there was a little package; he opened it at once, 
 and found a pair of gold cuff-links. He tried to thank 
 his wife feelingly, but he could not : he aimed at making 
 up for that by emphasis, by saying too much, by taking 
 off the cuff-links that he had on and putting the others 
 in their place. She went over and helped him; he bit 
 his lips to hide his irritation. 
 
 "Oh, what's this?" she said rather sharply. She 
 tapped the edge of a little cardboard box that showed 
 protruding from one of his inner pockets. 
 
 "Oh!" He took the box out, instinctively countering 
 his impulse to thrust it further down. ' ' Do you want to 
 look at it ? Something I got for little Olga Flynn. ' ' 
 
 "Oh, no; don't trouble to undo the string." She 
 went on putting in his cuff-link. "There!" She sat 
 down again, and they began drinking their soup. 
 
 " It 's her birthday to-morrow, you know, darling. I 'm 
 going up there for lunch from the Office." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Lawrance was furious. He bitterly contested his 
 wife's right to her jealousy. It was not fair for her to 
 be of cold temperament and jealous at the same time. It 
 was absurd, he had known Olga since she was a very 
 little girl: she was a little girl still. He was an old 
 friend of the family. Absurd. Now if he had taken 
 up with some woman He had never been unfaithful 
 to Muriel, and that reflection angered him further. Per- 
 haps actual patent infidelities were the only means of 
 keeping some wives in order. 
 
 "How old is Olga Flynn now?" Muriel's tone was 
 clear and thin, suspiciously unimportant.
 
 A CHASTE MAN 13 
 
 "Oh, I think she'll be fifteen to-morrow. No; six- 
 teen, I believe." 
 
 11 Oh, I didn't know." 
 
 Lawrance finished his soup. "I'll open the cham- 
 pagne, Mary," he said to the servant. 
 
 There was nothing new about this, that was the worst 
 of it; there would be nothing new in what was coming. 
 That suspiciously unimportant tone, how well-known it 
 was! And there were never any climaxes, any catas- 
 trophic finales. Violence of some sort, of any sort, 
 would have been better. . . . Jealousy of Olga Flynn, 
 though, that was new to Lawrance; not new, he now 
 suspected, to his wife, for she had been so exactly like 
 this before. No doubt that jealousy accounted for other 
 little scenes, ostensibly backed by other motives. 
 
 They had chicken, which was rather tough not well 
 cooked. Muriel drank very little of the wine: the in- 
 fringement, for his pleasure, of her claims, had to be 
 noted. Her abstinence served as an opportune asser- 
 tion of Puritanism, an assertion against him, for rebuke. 
 
 "Don't you like that champagne, darling?" It was 
 again the familiar conjugal use of this endearing term, 
 to balance a betrayed annoyance of tone. 
 
 "Oh, yes; I was afraid you didn't like your chicken." 
 
 The presence of the maid constrained them, so they 
 talked incessantly and pointlessly on usual topics. The 
 young husband drank a good deal, but the wine had no 
 effect on him. He was too angry and too much disturbed 
 for that. 
 
 Over dessert they were silent at first. He knew that if 
 he talked she would gain her advantage by brief an- 
 swers, and she thought that he would play the same
 
 14 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 game. At last he was so nervous that he had to speak. 
 
 "Come!" he cried, "I must fill your glass. There." 
 Then he emptied the bottle into his own glass. "Let's 
 drink to the day!" 
 
 " 'The day!' " She gave a little shudder. "Oh, I 
 don't like that. It reminds me of those awful Ger- 
 mans. ' ' 
 
 "Well, 111 drink to you! Now, return the compli- 
 ment, you naughty girl!" Muriel sipped. "Now to 
 British arms!" 
 
 She drank all her wine at a gulp, scoring off him. 
 The hit was so cheap and obvious that he would have in- 
 differently despised it coming from any one else, but he 
 hated her for it: and she took it so seriously, she was 
 really pleased with herself, she thought she had man- 
 aged cleverly. 
 
 He was silent : she would think, he knew, that he was 
 sulking. He resolved to ignore that. His resentment 
 against her fermented in him, he felt miserably stirred 
 up, and entirely helpless. 
 
 "Well!" she said after awhile. "And what are you 
 thinking about?" She spoke graciously; she implied: 
 "Now that you're punished, I'm willing to forgive you." 
 
 "Oh, about old Plynn and his family." 
 
 Old Flynn was Olga's step-father. Lawrance had not 
 really been thinking of him; he had been thinking of 
 bachelor flats in West Kensington and envying the men 
 who lived in them. 
 
 "You always did find them interesting, didn't you?" 
 Muriel guessed rightly that the reply was intended to 
 annoy her. She returned at once to the defensive, to 
 the watch for an opening for attack. 
 
 "I find them interesting, certainly."
 
 A CHASTE MAN 15 
 
 "Well, Doll dear, you can't say that I've ever stood in 
 your way. ' ' 
 
 "No, not exactly; but, after all, I told you all about 
 them before we were married. I said I couldn't drop 
 them" 
 
 " Wouldn 't drop them. " 
 
 "If you like. Yes, I wouldn't or couldn't. I 
 couldn't treat old Flynn and his wife shabbily." 
 
 "You certainly haven't done that." 
 
 "I hope not." 
 
 "Well, you might have married a girl who would have 
 thought them horrid." 
 
 Lawrance raised his thick eyebrows. "You do think 
 them horrid, don't you?" 
 
 "Oh, no. Only they're not the sort of people one 
 knows." 
 
 "I know them and you don't. What on earth is the 
 use of discussing it?" 
 
 "Oh, I suppose you think I'm complaining." 
 
 "No, I don't." He got up from his chair. "Why 
 should you complain?" 
 
 "Why? There are a great many women who 
 would." 
 
 "They don't concern us, do they?" 
 
 "A great many women who would think they took up 
 a lot of your time " 
 
 "Oh!" 
 
 "And and " she was tearful "took you away 
 from them!" 
 
 "Oh, come now, Maggie," he often used abbrevia- 
 tions of her other name "we see quite enough of one 
 another. You have your own friends. " 
 
 "How how horrid you are to me!" She began to
 
 16 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 cry. "And to-night when I thought we were going to 
 be so happy ! ' ' 
 
 "I don't see why telling the truth should make you 
 unhappy. ' ' He was bitter in his obstinacy, in his deter- 
 mination not to consider her hurt vanity. "We do see 
 enough of one another. I didn't say we saw too much." 
 
 "No, but you meant it!" 
 
 "Nonsense!" He gave his head an impatient jerk. 
 "I say what I mean. You don't want me to be uxorious, 
 do you ? To be always about the house when I 'm not at 
 the Office? To feel that I 'm tied down ? It's a danger- 
 ous thing for two people to be always under one an- 
 other's noses however fond they may be of each other. 
 In fact," he went on with some heat, "the fonder they 
 are the more dangerous it is. ' ' 
 
 "Oh!" She dried her eyes and spoke sarcastically. 
 ' ' I wonder why people marry then ! ' ' 
 
 "So do I if they can't be sensible about it!" He 
 turned to go. 
 
 ' ' I 'm as sensible as I can be ! Haven 't I been well 
 haven't I been good about these people?" She got up 
 and went over to him. "Don't be so horrid, Oliver." 
 Her voice shook petulantly. "I'm sure it's I who might 
 be horrid, not you! There aren't many " 
 
 "My dear girl, I don't want to be horrid in the least. 
 Why should we go raking over all this ? What good does 
 it do?" 
 
 "Well, it's only that you don't seem to see it from my 
 point of view. Of course I don't mind not for my- 
 self I know it's all right of course. It's only what 
 other people might think. They might think it wasn't 
 only Mr. and Mrs. Flynn. They've three girls, you 
 know, Oliver."
 
 A CHASTE MAN 17 
 
 "Three little girls." 
 
 " Doris isn't a little girl; she's eighteen now, isn't 
 she?" 
 
 "Good heavens, you don't think I'm interested in 
 Doris! I don't know how old she is." 
 
 ' ' She was fifteen when we married. ' ' 
 
 "I tell you I'm not interested in her in the least " 
 
 "Well, that means you're interested in Olga! You 
 know you are ! ' ' 
 
 He looked straight at her. The necklace he had given 
 her caught his eye. He was enraged. 
 
 "This is intolerable, Muriel! I thought you were 
 above this kind of absurd jealousy! I knew them all 
 when they were little girls. Do you want me to drop 
 the family the instant they grow up? What is it that 
 you do want? I wish to goodness you'd state it 
 clearly " 
 
 "I wish you wouldn't be so violent. I'm not jealous: 
 but naturally I don't want you to be drawn into any 
 any sort of an affair. I wouldn't mind if I wasn't fond 
 of you ! Oh, Doll ! ' ' She broke down. He went to the 
 door, leaving her. "Don't go away!" She was sob- 
 bing. "How can you go away like that?" 
 
 "It's much better not to continue this. You'll be ac- 
 cusing me of an 'interest' in Marjorie next. She's ten, 
 I believe if we must be so particular about all their 
 ages. Don 't you see, Muriel, how undignified and absurd 
 this kind of a scene is? And nothing can come of it. 
 Either you want me to drop them, or you don 't. If you 
 don't, well and good. If you do well, I won't." He 
 made the emphasis deliberately brutal. She was silent. 
 "You knew, before we married, that I meant to keep on 
 with them."
 
 18 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 "That wasn't the same thing, they were all children 
 then" 
 
 "I don't remember any limiting clause, breaking up 
 all relations when they grew older. The older Mr. and 
 Mrs. Flynn are, the more indecent it is to chuck them. 
 I suppose I ought to stipulate that their children are 
 kept under lock and key when I go to see them?" 
 
 "Oh, you wouldn't go so often then!" 
 
 "You are impossible." He left the room abruptly. 
 
 A few minutes later he left the house, and took a long 
 walk: up the Chiswick High Road, and then on to the 
 river. He speculated with extreme bitterness upon the 
 nature of feminine jealousy; arguing that a woman could 
 be jealous of anything that gave her man pleasure or 
 even occupation apart from herself, no matter whether 
 relating to sex or not. Yes, Muriel had always been op- 
 posed to his special individual pleasures. He was of 
 course biased, with a sinister personal swerve ; his train 
 of thought was viciously and almost wilfully emotional. 
 Again and again he went back to his wife's coldness of 
 the flesh, and hated her for it: hated her with double 
 edge because of his conviction that this very coldness 
 enlarged the range of her jealousies and made them 
 more fretfully acute. And then the dull, stale recur- 
 rences of everything at "home" recurrences on which 
 this anniversary had set a confirming seal ! Of the eirl 
 Olga he refused to think at all, instinct 
 thoughts that might give any justification tr 
 spoil his own arguments to himself. His satibj. 
 in his grounded resolution not to give up the b 
 his knowledge that Muriel could not shake him tLere, ai* 
 knew she could not shake him.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 LAWEANCE did not see his wife again before 
 he went to the Office the next morning. She 
 told him through her bedroom door that she had 
 a bad headache and could not come down to breakfast. 
 "Oh, all right; I'm sorry," he said, then breakfasted 
 impatiently, and walked off with his daily paper under 
 his arm to take the motor-bus to Hammersmith Broad- 
 way. In the Tube he kept thinking of old Flynn and his 
 family, he nursed his affection for them and looked for- 
 ward to the lunch in their familiar house in the Glasden 
 Road. Suddenly he remembered Olga's present: he be- 
 gan to search his pockets for it : he could not find it any- 
 where how extraordinarily vexing! Well, he must 
 have left it behind; he could not remember whether he 
 had taken it from the dining-room table or not, he rather 
 thought he had. Suppose Muriel had got it now, sup- 
 pose she were to pretend it was lost . . . another miser- 
 able business! He certainly couldn't turn up at the 
 Flynns' without it. If it were lost or appropriated 
 he would buy a new one. It was a gold bracelet he had 
 i i<?;t an expensive one, but costing more than 
 d p nt to give. Still, he knew it was what the 
 is Of course Muriel would think it had cost 
 ;jL r his present to her. So it had, but he had not 
 itrto of course not: the thing was most unpleas- 
 T wrance heard the conductor call out "Cale- 
 >ad ! " He left his seat in annoyed haste. He 
 19
 
 20 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 had gone past his station, he would be late at the Office, 
 and he would have to leave early to allow for going home 
 again for the bracelet. 
 
 Mr. Inge, obese and pale, greeted him with his usual 
 mixture of peevishness and affability : 
 
 " 'Morning, Mr. Lawrance. Don't apologize, though 
 the Lord knows we've enough to see to today. What I 
 particularly want you to do is to read through this num- 
 ber of the 'Astrologist,' pick that confounded silly 
 article of Hyman 's to pieces. Expose Hyman as a char- 
 latan March number discredit him just your style 
 vivid, condensed, hit straight from the shoulder you 
 know the trick. Capital. 'Gross and ignorant distor- 
 tion of the Vedantic philosophy. ' You know the angle, 
 show what an ass the man is and don't be too gentle- 
 manly about it. Lam him. That's the style now, all 
 these modern fellows are doing it. How about calling 
 the article 'The Asinolabe' taking the donkey's measure 
 see? Good idea, eh? Take it for what it's worth. 
 You've a free hand, of course, absolutely free hand. 
 Don't sit down. I want a talk with you on general busi- 
 ness. Come along with me." 
 
 Lawrance followed Mr. Inge's lumbering loose form 
 through the plate-glass door into the private room. He 
 was familiar with these garrulous expositions of inept 
 craft. Talks on "general business" were inevitable 
 every Saturday morning, when Mr. Ralston was out of 
 town. 
 
 "Ah " Inge sighed deeply, a look of care crossed 
 his blurred features, as he began turning over papers on 
 his table. He sat down heavily. " I 'm full of ideas, my 
 boy, worn out by 'em. Too much for me. Fact is, my 
 habit of mind's too much for my habit of body. Yabbit
 
 A CHASTE MAN 21 
 
 of body. The war's wearing on me, too. Horrible 
 business, and the circulation of the Review's going 
 down." He lowered his voice. "Did you know that, 
 Lawrance? You're a stockholder, you ought to know. 
 Feel it my duty to consult you about general business. ' ' 
 
 "Yes, I was afraid the Review was being hit." Law- 
 rance was thinking of the bracelet, and wondering if he 
 would be able to get off by half-past twelve. 
 
 "Of course, the Mag's done fairly well. Horoscopes 
 of the rulers, and all that. Biblical prophecies. No 
 doubt we've enlarged our circle of religious readers, no 
 doubt at all. And those Villeul Angels helped us a lot. 
 But times are bad for the Applied Arts. . . . We can't 
 chuck the Review, even if it comes to be a dead loss. 
 Burpham would take all his money out like a shot all 
 of it. You know that. ' ' 
 
 Mr. Inge put his hands on the arms of his chair and 
 strained forward. The veins on his forehead suggested 
 caterpillars to Lawrance they suggested the silkworms 
 that he used to keep at school. They were crinkly and 
 soft and abnormal, in the same way. 
 
 "You see, Lawrance, we've got to study the Posters. 
 Now what do you think of this? Poster for the Mag. 
 First in fairly small lettering: 'What will be.' 
 ' What will be. ' You get that ? Then underneath bold 
 big print 'Big Sea-Fight off Scotch Coast.' 'Air Raid 
 on Berlin.' 'Sweden Enters War for Central Powers, 
 Holland for Allies.' " 
 
 "Not all at once, you don't mean?" 
 
 "Well ah perhaps no, not all at once." Inge 
 looked discouraged. ' ' Just one or two striking items of 
 forecast, that was my idea. Surely you must see that 
 would help sales enormously. Why, a Poster like that
 
 22 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 would draw anybody! Honestly, now, you must agree 
 with me?" 
 
 "Honestly, I don't think the scheme has staying- 
 power. ' ' 
 
 This was a phrase regularly used by Lawrance to 
 counter Mr. Inge, who was, rather curiously, worth the 
 pains of countering. For his brilliancy could almost 
 equal his silliness, as Mr. Ralston knew. 
 
 "Oh, we'd vary it! of course, we'd vary it! That's 
 the whole essence of advertisement change of tactics 
 very spirit of it, no doubt about that! Might try that 
 Poster business for one week, don't you think?" 
 
 "Too risky, seems to me only make ourselves a gen- 
 eral laughingstock." 
 
 "Well, and what of that!" Mr. Inge slapped the 
 blotting pad with a hand that itself looked as absorbent 
 as blottingpaper. "What of that? Not bad at all to be 
 a general laughingstock, or a general anything. Noto- 
 riety's what we want, that's what pays." 
 
 "How about talking it over with Mr. Ealston? Per- 
 haps you have " 
 
 "Ah er I shall, of course, I shall." Mr. Inge's 
 small brown eyes relapsed to a momentary furtiveness. 
 "But you're a young fellow; not thirty yet, are you? 
 Ah, twenty-nine, good age, twenty-nine. Young blood 
 vim and enterprise. What we must have. " He smiled, 
 and looked like an impostor in the seraphic choir. Law- 
 rance curiously surveyed the rolling expanse of his clean- 
 shaven face. "Vim," Mr. Inge repeated, "Vim. If I 
 had as much vim in my body as I have in my mind 
 ah!" He was overcast: his melancholy seemed to run 
 to fat even more than his enthusiasm. "Well, anyhow, 
 my boy, I've put the Mag. on its feet, no one can deny
 
 A CHASTE MAN 23 
 
 that. In a rut when I took it out of Bellinger's hands. 
 I've put what the Yanks call 'pep' into it, no one can 
 deny that. All going to dry-rot, full of heavy technical 
 stuff, Karma and Yogi, and all that. Abstract. Who 
 cares about the abstract? We've got down to the con- 
 crete. Facts of psychic experience premonitions ap- 
 paritions apports Case of Mr. X and Mrs. Y. Oh, 
 by the bye, Lawrance, how about that article on 'Chil- 
 dren and Elementals' experience of that little girl you 
 know up in Highbury? Ah, Glasden Road, yes, of 
 course, Glasden Road. I must think out a good title. 
 Have you got the material?" 
 
 "Not quite in shape yet. But I have an appointment 
 with her people to-day. The article will be ready for 
 Press Monday." 
 
 "Good. Excellent subject. Curious thing, Law- 
 rance, people who are interested in psychic matters are 
 nearly always interested in children too. So with an 
 article like that you get the double appeal. Just tell me 
 again about that Camden Road stuff. Violent Elemental 
 manifestations, weren't they? Child thrown out of its 
 bed, that kind of thing?" 
 
 "Well, she woke up feeling that she was being 
 shaken " 
 
 "Same thing, same thing. You can put 'thrown out 
 of bed.' Good sensational stuff, that's what we want. 
 Then didn't she see a large black thing with yellow 
 eyes?" 
 
 "Something of that kind. She heard a crash, too, 
 thought the washstand was smashed " 
 
 "Washstand smashed. Put in a photograph of the 
 smashed washstand. Capital. ' ' 
 
 "It wasn't smashed, as a matter of fact."
 
 24 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 "Ah, well, send the article in to me before it goes 
 through, as usual. Get a photograph of the child in her 
 nightdress, I think yes, an appropriate and harmonious 
 touch. Name can be used, can't it? No objection to 
 that?" 
 
 ' ' Not if we pay five guineas. ' ' 
 
 "Five guineas 'm, bit steep. Get it for three if you 
 can, Lawrance or four at the outside. Can 't connect it 
 with the war, can you? Crash Zeppelin raids might 
 be done? No: suggest rationalistic explanation, that 
 wouldn't do. Wish Ralston wouldn't mess my copy up 
 the way he 's been doing lately ; some of my best touches, 
 cuts 'em all out. Wish he'd stick to the Applied Arts. 
 That's his job, really. Don't think he recognizes what 
 I've done for the business. Just look at our American 
 sales these last two years. Doubled more than doubled. 
 My trip out there did no end of good, you know that. I 
 pulled things off right and left in Chicago permanent 
 effect worth thousands to us. Ralston couldn't have 
 done anything there. They all said I looked like Bryan ; 
 no one'd ever say that of Ralston " 
 
 "I'm quite sure Mr. Ralston appreciated the value of 
 your trip in the States." 
 
 "Well, he ought to, he ought to. Great mistake, this 
 conservative point of view. Remember how peeved he 
 was over Welman 's libel suit ? Best thing that ever hap- 
 pened to the Mag., and only a farthing damages! Gad, 
 how we skinned that 'Order of the Saffron Rose' of 
 theirs ! Just the right kind of hints at immorality, too ; 
 couldn't have been better done. That was my master- 
 piece, Lawrance though I say it, that whole affair was a 
 masterpiece ! ' ' His eyes twinkled brightly, his discourse 
 was heightening his spirits. "Now old Bollinger would
 
 25 
 
 never have had the nous for a stunt of that kind ! Im- 
 possible. You need the knack either you're born with 
 it or you're not. Never get into a rut, my boy. I've 
 never been in a rut in my life, and I 'm past fifty, worse 
 luck!" 
 
 "You wanted that thing about Hyman to-day, I think 
 you said. ' ' Lawrance got up. 
 
 "Oh, yes, but there's plenty of time, plenty of time, 
 really." 
 
 "I ought to get off pretty early to keep that appoint- 
 ment in Glasden Road. ' ' 
 
 "Glasden Road Glasden ? Ah, I remember. 
 Child and Elementals. Incubi and Succubi. What was 
 her name ? ' ' 
 
 "Marjorie Flynn." 
 
 ' ' Oh, yes. Child of ten, you said ? My memory holds 
 all right. Constant practice, that 's the only way. Why, 
 that School of Memory Training I used to be in, I made 
 it literally made it ! Wonder how Ralston accounts for 
 my success. Feel of the public pulse, I 've always had it. 
 Born with it. Advertising, memory training, occultism 
 doesn't matter what it is, I've the instinct! Ralston 
 knows it, too, it's jealousy, that's what it is. Do you 
 know, Lawrance, ' ' he dropped to a low portentous tone 
 "do you know I really believe he'd like to chuck me out 
 of this? He couldn't, of course, but he'd be willing to 
 let the whole show go to pot from sheer jealousy ! Wish 
 he 'd attend to his own work, and keep Burpham in hand 
 more than he does. I can't deal with Milord Burpham, 
 Ralston 's the man for him, and yet here we have to stick 
 in a whole bunch of stuff about the new right wing of 
 Lipscot House with diagrams and illustrations! Who 
 cares twopence about Lipscot House? Burpham thinks
 
 26 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 because it belongs to him that makes it exciting for the 
 public!" Mr. Inge champed his jaw, and gave a thick 
 expulsion of his breath. "What if he is a viscount? 
 Dear old British snobbery ain't everything, specially just 
 now. ..." 
 
 "I really ought to be getting to work on Hyman." 
 
 "Of course. Smash him. Personal. Make 'em sit 
 up. No kid gloves. That's what they like hot and 
 strong, and sue me for libel if you want to, I don't care 
 a damn. I'd do it myself if I knew enough about Ve- 
 dantism. You're all right: you do, and you've got the 
 books there by your elbow. But don't be too technical. 
 Be technical in spots, that impresses them then be 
 slangy and ribald force of contrast, always takes. But 
 you know. Lots of other things I wanted to talk to you 
 about never mind they'll keep. Oh, come in to me 
 again at about eleven-thirty; I shall have this stuff of 
 'Israfel's' licked into shape by then. He needs the deuce 
 of a lot of doctoring. Learned air, though ; no one like 
 him for that ; sound, very sound. Between the two of us 
 we'll knock off some prophecies that'll pan out all right, 
 you'll see." He took his pen and unfolded some type- 
 written sheets. "Something definite and something 
 that'll come off something about the war. Dear old 
 'Israfel's' manner and my inspiration yes." 
 
 He wrinkled his forehead, and began to murmur and 
 hum to himself. Lawrance, long impatient, took the op- 
 portunity. 
 
 "Four pounds at most for that Elemental stuff, and less 
 if possible ! ' ' Mr. Inge called after him as he left.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 IT was one o'clock by the time Lawrance got back to 
 his house for Olga's bracelet. The prospect of the 
 return had been jarring him all the morning: he 
 could not keep his mind off the acute unpleasantness of 
 it; he had writhed in his chair, he had found the great- 
 est difficulty in concentrating upon smashing the pseudo- 
 Vedantism of Mr. Hyman. Luckily it was easy to smash. 
 Mr. Inge, inveterate charlatan himself, had an unerring 
 flair for others of the same breed. When Lawrance had 
 finished his article and was released from the pressure of 
 work of immediate claim, he found it impossible to start 
 on anything. Mr. Inge, immersed in his revisions of 
 "Israfel's" occult predictions, waved him aside at eleven- 
 thirty, and the unexpected diversion of the appearance 
 of "Israfel" himself a little later on came as a huge re- 
 lief. "Ah, ha! 'None sing so wildly well!'' Inge 
 had called out, as he invariably did, and this time he fin- 
 ished the quotation, with a pause between every word: 
 11 'As the angel IsrafelP " a sure sign that he 
 thought his morning's work had gone well and that he 
 was in a good humour. 
 
 " Israfel" was unlike any possible angel: a well-worn, 
 hard-bitten, spare, harassed-looking man of about forty, 
 with abundant grey-streaked hair that he brushed 
 straight back from his forehead. His real name was Eu- 
 gene Titmarsh ; and he was a sincere and conscientious as- 
 trologist, although he made his living such living as it 
 
 27
 
 28 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 was entirely out of casting horoscopes and writing about 
 the influences of the planets. He ran one of the astro- 
 logical almanacks "Israfel's" and this brought him in 
 nearly half of his income. He was always in financial 
 straits. On this particular occasion he had come to 
 get a few pounds in advance out of Mr. Inge, and by 
 about half-past twelve he had, after gross embarrass- 
 ments, partially succeeded. 
 
 His appearance gave Lawrance heart. After all, life 
 did not vex him so much as it vexed Titmarsh. That 
 worry of not being able to provide properly for one's 
 children it must be awful. Lawrance 's thoughts re- 
 verted to his wife ; he remembered how he used to have a 
 grudge against her for not bearing him a child a grudge 
 that was emphatic about a year ago. Now he was indif- 
 ferent, more or less : he would have liked the interest of a 
 child, but he recognized more and more the exactions and 
 the complications of a family : the further his observations 
 went, the more he shrank. . . . Still, Muriel might be 
 easier to get on with if she were a mother. The trouble 
 with her one of the troubles with her was that she 
 was not occupied enough. Everything she did was so 
 trifling ; it was as though she spent her life in perpetually 
 snapping little sticks of raw macaroni. When he came 
 back, she would be about, doing nothing; seeing about 
 some detail of the lunch, and seeing about it very in- 
 effectively fussing the servants. Her husband 's return 
 would at once assume inordinate proportions, she would 
 suspect a hidden motive in it, would think that he had 
 come back on purpose to hurt her feelings, that he had 
 left Olga's present behind on purpose. And of course it 
 did look like a slap in the face to come back so briefly, 
 for a reason that threw his gift to the girl and the quar-
 
 A CHASTE MAN 29 
 
 rel of the evening before into such strong relief, then to 
 go out to his lunch with his friends, leaving her to her 
 solitary meal. Everything would be emphasized in an 
 intensely disagreeable way, and Muriel would co-operate 
 not exactly wilfully, no; because she couldn't help 
 it she would co-operate with the emphasis. And she 
 would never see that the emphasis was purely acciden- 
 tal. . . . 
 
 Of course, if she had actually taken or hidden the 
 bracelet well, then she deserved all she would get. She 
 deserved it anyhow! But why should he, Oliver Law- 
 ranee, have to suffer as well ? He felt himself tied up by 
 the leg, his sense of his own dignity relucted with the 
 result of a sudden swamping of his veins with bad blood 
 and the clamping on him of a ridiculous vicious stub- 
 bornness. His lack of humour forbade him the relief 
 usual with most men, while the relief brought by the con- 
 templation of Eugene Titmarsh dropped away from him. 
 He forgot Titmarsh. In his anger that he should be go- 
 ing to have to suffer because of his wife he was almost 
 resolving to go straight on to the Flynns' without Olga's 
 present, but his obstinacy withheld him. No, he would 
 go back home, and he set his ugly thoughts to the paying 
 back of Muriel in her own coin if she were disagreeable. 
 He almost assuaged his personal discomfort with the 
 prospect of a row. 
 
 None the less he was immensely relieved to find on his 
 arrival that Muriel was out. He went straight to the 
 diningroom: the package was not to be seen. He 
 searched the sideboard, and the mantelpiece; he looked 
 about on the floor and behind things. Then he searched 
 in his bedroom, equally vainly, all the while growing 
 more and more suspicious of Muriel. She came in just
 
 30 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 as he had rung for the servant : from the top of the stairs 
 he saw her, looking pale and tired, holding consciously 
 and rather stiffly erect that sterile figure of hers, as he 
 saw it then, with its ungenerous hips. Lawrance saw her 
 as his sham wife, his pretended fellow, frozen fast to 
 him, in violation of life, his congealed mock mate. He 
 was spiritually frostbitten by her. 
 
 "I left something behind. I had to come back for it." 
 He spoke first. 
 
 "Oh, have you found it?" she said as the maid ap- 
 peared. 
 
 "No. Oh, Mary, have you seen a little white card- 
 board box about anywhere? I think I left it in the 
 diningroom yesterday or it may have been in my bed- 
 room." 
 
 "No, sir, I haven't," the girl told him, with bewil- 
 dered solicitude. 
 
 Lawrance noticed her, with some surprise, as remark- 
 ably pretty. She was plump and well rounded, with 
 dark-brown hair curling in chastened abundance from 
 under her white cap ; she was rosy and fresh and young 
 and fruitful, her eyes were bright, she had a provoking 
 little interrogative nose ; Muriel was a foil to her. 
 
 "Oh well I expect I shall find it," he said: think- 
 ing resentfully: "I suppose I'm not the sort of man 
 who notices if his servants are attractive." 
 
 "Are you sure you've looked carefully?" asked Muriel 
 in a dried-up voice. " I '11 come and look. ' ' 
 
 She went upstairs, past the girl, who stood with an un- 
 certain and defenceless air, as though she were in dif- 
 ficulties and hoped that someone would be kind to her. 
 She hesitated about following her mistress, then said: 
 "111 look in the diningroom, sir," and went off. Law-
 
 A CHASTE MAN 31 
 
 ranee and his wife went into the bedroom together. She 
 began turning things over on his dressingtable. 
 
 "I've looked there thoroughly," he said; and then, 
 with a jerk : "I hope your headache 's better. ' ' 
 
 She opened a drawer. He looked at her, and at his 
 reflection in the mirror, and thought : "What a virtuous 
 pair we are!" Their squalid decency impressed him. 
 He recalled the days of his courtship, of their engage- 
 ment. How sentimental he had been about her purity, 
 how proud that she had never had any "affairs." He 
 had congratulated himself on that, had read her into his 
 readings of Edward Carpenter's more idealistically ro- 
 mantic passages "Love's Coming of Age" he remem- 
 bered. He had cherished the idea of her as a Miranda, a 
 Perdita. And she might have been, for all he knew. 
 How could he tell, before they were married? These 
 things were badly arranged. . . . Lawrance thought of 
 certain country customs. But hadn't he been a fool, to 
 think that the absence of what people call "carnality" in 
 his love for her meant that the passion was something 
 peculiarly noble and rare, that it would foster his "bet- 
 ter nature, ' ' and make him ' ' a finer man, ' ' and all that ? 
 Yes, he had thought of his love for Muriel as "holy." 
 What a prig he must have been about it ! Wasn 't he a 
 prig still ? How little it was that chaste men knew about 
 these things before marriage ! What was one to think of 
 morality abstract morality? And how exactly did ac- 
 tual morality the real customs of human beings how 
 did that come in by way of modification ? There must be 
 some connection some connection that people never 
 worked out. Lawrance was wofully at a loss, in his 
 earnest way. He must think this over carefully ; things 
 were evidently not as he had supposed he
 
 32 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 "Don't look so cross, Doll! Great thick eyebrows! 
 I Ve found it ! " Muriel was on her knees by the dress- 
 ingtable : she held up the cardboard box. 
 
 ' ' Oh, have you ? " He looked at her with obvious sus- 
 picion. 
 
 She flushed. ' ' You might say ' thank you ' ! It was on 
 the floor. You must have knocked it off from the back 
 of your dressingtable. " 
 
 "I may have. Thank you." He held out his hand. 
 
 She was nervously playing with the cover of the box. 
 "You never told me what was inside it," she said. 
 
 "Do I need to now?" 
 
 "Oliver ! Do you think I peeped f" 
 
 "I don't think anything." 
 
 "As if I wanted to know !" 
 
 "Do give me the thing, please. I shall be awfully 
 late." 
 
 She gave it, and walked with rapid steps out of the 
 room. Lawrance wondered if she were more angry than 
 he. Each of them had the power to make the other 
 angrier and more unreasonable far angrier and far 
 more unreasonable than any one else could. The bonds 
 of matrimony : he reflected for a moment on the word and 
 its implications. He was in his heart uncertain whether 
 or not Muriel had thrown the box behind the dressing- 
 table, whether she had opened it; but he kept forging 
 for himself the conviction that she had, and the convic- 
 tion answered his demand for a weapon of attack.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 LITTLE Marjorie Flynn, a taut brown child, 
 with dark eyes that were nervous to suit her 
 nervous little body, darted out from the Glasden 
 Road house to meet Lawrance. In her shabby and out- 
 grown Navy-blue dress that showed gartered black stock- 
 ings and gleams of tight-drawn flesh above the knee, she 
 ran to him with jumps and twitters. 
 
 " Uncle Lorrie ! You're late! You've made me hun- 
 gry ! ' ' She flung herself up at him, put both arms round 
 his shoulders, gave him a number of wet and hearty 
 kisses. 
 
 "Well, Marjorie!" He put her down, he was em- 
 barrassed. "I'm sorry I'm late. Why didn't you 
 begin?" 
 
 "Doris wouldn't. She said it would be rude. Come 
 along quick. ' ' She dragged him, by the hand. ' ' Do you 
 like being with us? You do, don't you? Everything's 
 ready, we've got roast beef and there's two bottles of 
 whiskey. Yesterday I fell down and hurt my knee. 
 Look ! It bled a lot, and I 've kept some of the blood, and 
 I 'm writing a letter with it to Jimmy. Jimmy 's awfully 
 nice, he's thirteen ; he's my boy now. He took me to the 
 Pictures last Wednesday, and we held hands all the time. 
 Wasn't that nice? Rosy Mayhew's had her father shot 
 at the front ; he 's dead ; he got the bullet in his head. I 
 wonder if it took his head right off, Uncle Lorrie, do you 
 
 33
 
 34 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 think it would have ? I asked Rosy, but she didn 't know. 
 She and Alec and all of them are in black; they look 
 funny. Should we go all in black if father died? Mr. 
 Deavitt was here yesterday, and he gave me a jigsaw 
 puzzle. He's such a funny man. Doris hates him, but 
 he makes her laugh ; she says she hates him all the worse 
 because he makes her laugh, isn't that funny? He car- 
 ried me with my legs over each of his shoulders. You 
 must carry me that way, it's lovely." She danced, ex- 
 cited, by Lawrance's side. "Do you know what Mr. 
 Deavitt said about Mrs. Lanyon next door ? He said she 
 didn 't order her dresses by the yard, she ordered them by 
 the acre ! He said that 's the lady they 're sending to the 
 front as cover for the troops. He is funny. I hope he '11 
 come some day when you 're here. He says he 's going to 
 take me to the 'Coliseum.' He says Olga's 'too big 
 enough' for him. He says his name's 'Archibald.' I 
 always call him 'Archibald.' ' 
 
 She threw the front door open, and led the way to the 
 diningroom. All the Flynn family was there, the old 
 man and his wife, the two girls Doris and Olga. 
 
 "He's come at last!" Marjorie shouted. 
 
 Lawrance shook hands all round, apologizing rather 
 gravely for being late. ' ' Many happy returns ! " he said 
 to Olga, feeling not quite at ease with her. 
 
 Mrs. Flynn disappeared to the kitchen. ' ' Come along 
 and sit down, Lorrie," Mr. Flynn invited him. "You 
 girls, go and help your mother. Not you, Marjorie, 
 you'd be in the way. You stay here." The child im- 
 mediately sat down on Lawrance's knee. "Well, how's 
 the occult world, eh? When's the war going to end? 
 Why don't you tell us? Set of frauds, you are !" 
 
 He laughed extravagantly. His laugh set Lawrance
 
 A CHASTE MAN 35 
 
 firm at once on friendly soil. The young man gave his 
 host an obviously affectionate look ; he loved that laugh : 
 it rang like a deep bell to summon old memories, memo- 
 ries in which Muriel had no part. 
 
 "Inge is going to give you five pounds for that busi- 
 ness of Marjorie's, anyhow," he said, surprised by the 
 pleasure it gave him to say it. 
 
 "What! A whole blessed fiver!" The old man's 
 lively blue eyes twinkled ; there was a slow deepening of 
 his ruddy colour a ruddiness that seemed to have worn 
 the tissue of his skin as by a deep rubbing in of pigment. 
 "Marj, do you hear that? You shall have a new dress 
 by Moses, you shall have some new stockings, too ; look at 
 your knees. ' ' The little girl laughed, and tried to cover 
 the worn thread with her inadequate skirt. "Now we'll 
 have a drink. Of course we will. Come along. Marjie, 
 take your bony legs off Uncle Lome's lap. He don't 
 want 'em there, do you, Lorrie ? They 're too sharp for 
 comfort. We 11 give you more milk to drink, out of that 
 fiver." 
 
 He walked to the sideboard and took out a bottle of 
 Vermouth. His long lean shanks, in their grey trousers, 
 looked curiously overgrown ; they looked like the shanks 
 of a hobbledehoy, they were out of keeping with the years 
 so richly betokened by his liberal white hair and his well- 
 ripened countenance. 
 
 "Here we are, Vermouth di Torino." He handed the 
 bottle to Marjorie. "Give that to your uncle Lorrie, 
 with a tumbler." Lawrance poured the liquor. 
 ' ' Siphon ! ' ' Mr. Flynn called out, sharpening the edges 
 of the word, "siphon! Marjie, get one from the kitchen. 
 Just a dash of soda. It's pretty good by itself, though. 
 Pretty good, eh?" They sipped. Old Flynn smacked
 
 36 
 
 his purplish lips. "Just a dash of soda, Marj yes, do it 
 yourself, but be careful about the squirting. We'd cry if 
 you spilt any." 
 
 1 ' I say, we must drink to Olga. It 's her birthday. ' ' 
 "We will happy thought. Here they are." 
 "And here's the soup!" exclaimed Marjorie. 
 "We're drinking to you, Olga." Lawrance held up 
 his glass. ' ' Good luck ! ' ' 
 
 He had lost the shyness that he had felt with the girl 
 when he first came in: the idea of the liquor, an idea 
 opportunely timed, dissipated embarrassment. He re- 
 membered last night's champagne, which had only op- 
 pressed him and tightened his head. " I 'm happy now, ' ' 
 he thought. His spleen against Muriel kept in the back- 
 ground of the field of his present experience : he liked it 
 to be there, it gave zest to his enjoyment, it made things 
 more interesting, more dramatic. It gave him a sense of 
 irony. He wished Muriel could see him now, drinking to 
 this young girl who was looking so lovely. 
 
 Olga's appearance was vibrant and foreign in this 
 shabby English room. She had green eyes, eyes that 
 were darkened by her deep lashes; her dark hair, shot 
 with seldom russet half-lights, was strangely dense and 
 fine and soft. Her complexion seemed to have been pol- 
 ished to pallor, and her lips, against that pallor, were of 
 a heightened scarlet. Her slenderness was acute, but 
 only ephemerally there for her special hour of youth: 
 every line foretold the change her sex would claim. 
 Lawrance wondered, for the first time, why her figure 
 was so much more girlish than her face. He had never 
 realized this brilliancy, this richness of her. . . . There 
 she was, so suddenly authentic authentic in her beauty, 
 in her being a girl, and young, and unpossessed.
 
 A CHASTE MAN 37 
 
 Her father had been Polish, a Polish dancer ; she was a 
 natural child of Mrs. Flynn's. Muriel, when her hus- 
 band had told her that, had said: "Well, of course you 
 can't possibly expect me to know them, can you?" 
 There she was, then, smiling slightly at him, this Olga, on 
 the sixteenth anniversary of her stained birth. 
 
 He went to her and gave her the bracelet in its card- 
 board box. Her mouth grew grave, she gave him an 
 almost apprehensive shaft from her long eyes, said: 
 ' ' Oh, thank you ! ' ' quickly under her breath. She began 
 to untie the string, then she stopped, smiled half- 
 ashamed, and with a nervous tremor of pleasure in her 
 voice, exclaimed : "I don 't want to open it now : let me 
 keep it a little, do let me." Her voice was low-pitched, 
 always. She put her hand on his shoulder. ' ' You won 't 
 mind, will you ? ' ' 
 
 "Oh, Olga!" Marjorie addressed her sister in the tone 
 of a child imitating the reprimands of its elders. ' ' What 
 a shame ! I want to see it ; I want to see it now. ' ' 
 
 "Well, you can't, Marjorie," Lawrance laughed at her. 
 
 "Sit down to your dinner, Marj." Old Flynn settled 
 himself into his place at the head of the table. "Bless 
 the dear ladies! Praise them and magnify them for- 
 ever ! ' ' 
 
 "I want to see!" 
 
 "Marjorie, sit down, dear." Mrs. Flynn's tone was 
 unchallengeably final : the child obeyed her mother 's col- 
 lected and gauged command. 
 
 "Of course we mustn't see," said blonde plump Doris 
 in her musical comedy voice. "Olga's said so. She 
 doesn't want to open it now. She must keep it a little 
 longer. ' ' 
 
 Doris tried to pitch her words on a low note, in
 
 38 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 mimicry of her sister. Olga paid no attention, she 
 looked quite abstracted, she was frowning slightly as 
 though at something that came to her from a very long 
 way off. 
 
 ' ' Cheer up, kiddie ! ' ' Doris winked a babyish blue eye 
 at her. "Cheer up, it's your birthday!" 
 
 "Why don't you give Uncle Lorrie a kiss?" Marjorie 
 called out shrilly. "You must give a kiss when you get 
 a present." 
 
 "Saucy little hound!" cried Doris. "Shut it!" 
 
 Olga kissed Lawrance before he realized it, with lips 
 that were cool and light. Her pallor was not even 
 faintly tinged, nor did he colour. They all sat down, and 
 began their soup. Lawrance had Olga and Doris to 
 either side of him. 
 
 Doris and Marjorie between them did nearly all the 
 talking, and more or less simultaneously. 
 
 "Well, you did crib that from Mr. Deavitt," insisted 
 Marjorie. ' ' That's what he says : ' Saucy little hound ! ' 
 He calls every girl ' Mordie, ' Uncle Lorrie, and every boy 
 'Georgie.' He calls Mrs. Lanyon 'Mordie Lanyon.' 
 Doesn't that sound funny? I do like him because he's 
 so silly! He said to Jimmy: 'You're too pretty for a 
 boy, you ought to have been a pig ! ' ' She went on twit- 
 tering at high pitch between mouthfuls of soup. ' ' Doris 
 is a copy-cat. She cribs things out of those pieces at 
 the theatre, too, she " 
 
 "Mr. Fisher's given me a part in 'The Eunaway Girl' 
 that's going on tour this summer. It's a speaking part, 
 too. Four pounds a week. Not half bad, Mr. Lawrance, 
 is it ? We begin rehearsals next week. ' ' 
 
 "She used to hate Mr. Fisher. Mr. Fisher told Edie 
 Newman Doris was a soapy kid ! Mr. Deavitt said "
 
 A CHASTE MAN 39 
 
 "Oh, shut it, silly little owl, you and your Mr. 
 Deavitt!" 
 
 "He said: 'It's the wrong, wrong way to tickle 
 Mary!'" 
 
 "She can't talk of anything but Mr. Deavitt. She's 
 got that Mr. Deavitt on her brain! She's dotty about 
 Mr. Deavitt!" 
 
 "I got five pounds for those animal things I saw in my 
 bedroom ! ' ' 
 
 "Yes, you would see snakes, Marj. Did you really get 
 her five pounds, Mr. Lawrance? How awfully good of 
 you ! ' ' Doris put on her Society air. 
 
 "I'm going to have a new dress and a new pair of 
 stockings ! ' ' 
 
 The chatter continued. 
 
 Mrs. Flynn was carving the beef. Her presence grad- 
 ually emerged, she became noticeable, more and more, 
 even noteworthy. Lawrance reflected, in and out of the 
 incessant patters and trills of the girls' talk, upon the 
 admirable quality of this woman's silence, upon the 
 power she gave it of spelling her out, so emphatically 
 and so without the obtrusion of a silence that is conscious 
 and forced. Wonderful, the way she impressed herself 
 without a word, without even motions or looks that could 
 be called ' ' characteristic. ' ' Lawrance felt that he really 
 loved her, there was no one else who could give him the 
 same sense of ease and security, not even old Flynn, for 
 the "Mariner," as Lawrance called him, had his uncer- 
 tain and even fretful moods. He could not escape every 
 penalty of his Irish blood. Lawrance saw him looking 
 at his wife from across the table, with an expression of 
 permeating content. Devoted to her : Lawrance was well 
 aware, and now rather jealously aware, of that. How
 
 40 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 ugly Mrs. Flynn was, grotesquely ugly, you might say, 
 with her scanty black hair showing uneven grey streaks, 
 hair drawn tightly behind her ears and above her lined 
 forehead, into plaits that looked as though they had been 
 there for decades. Then, her misshapen prominent nose, 
 her asymmetrical mouth, and, over heavy pouches, her 
 round brown eyes that bulged out to what seemed at first 
 so incongruous a company with the rest of her face. 
 
 But Lawrance could be happy, he felt, looking at her 
 for hours together. He would like always to have her 
 about. Though he had known her for nine years, each 
 meeting with her had a freshness. Always at first he 
 found himself ignoring her, noticing the others: always 
 she impressed him, surprised him, later on. Her eyes 
 comforted him immensely ; they had a withdrawn light of 
 humorous friendliness really humorous: of the humour 
 that puts everything in its natural place, that allows 
 for its being there, and understands. Her eyes were 
 what mattered, it was her eyes that were herself : utterly 
 free from guile, and setting upon everything the seal of 
 their freedom. They had a rare and remote roguishness, 
 a roguishness of baffling implication. With those eyes, 
 when she was younger, there must have been reason 
 enough for the. Polish dancer's romance, and for others. 
 Her strange and challenging passiveness, overlying 
 power, must have made all possible sex amends for her in 
 her youth. She seemed to rest all the while in wait, -in 
 an amicable ambush, where she chose to be for the un- 
 troubled reception of what might pass : yet she was ready 
 to raise a withholding hand, on an easy and infallible 
 dignity, when the time came. She was in a chosen back- 
 water, yet she knew the hour of every current, and its 
 strength. Blonde pretty Doris, that "soapy kid," lath-
 
 A CHASTE MAN 41 
 
 ered in bubbly flux from a limply-squeezed sponge of 
 emotion, all her feelings at a haphazard smear about her, 
 threw her mother's moulded surety into high relief. 
 Lawrance looked at Mrs. Flynn with an open admira- 
 tion, impressed anew by her complete unrivalled conquest, 
 in adaptation, of physical handicaps: by that articula- 
 tion of dignity with a frame so round and tight ! 
 
 Marjorie, eating her beef, had now short intervals of 
 silence. Doris addressed herself mainly to the young 
 man : she liked him, because he was dark and tall, with a 
 hard well-strung body. She liked his thick eyebrows, 
 and his hot stressed underlip. She was extremely jealous 
 of Olga, whom she knew Lawrance preferred, though she 
 told herself that really he couldn't, because Olga was 
 "slow" and "soft," and she, Doris, was smart, she knew 
 how to talk to men; they thought her clever and good 
 form, she was the style for them, she had had practice. 
 Olga never talked to any one, she just looked, she was a 
 stick, she couldn 't be any form at all for anybody. And 
 she was a conceited little cat. 
 
 ' ' Isn 't it lovely, ' ' Doris was saying, ' ' that Uncle Tof ty 
 and Uncle Lance have both skedaddled off to-day ? ' ' The 
 two men referred to were boarders of some years' stand- 
 ing at the Flynns'. "Uncle Tofty's gone for the week- 
 end to Portsea, and Uncle Lance is spending the day with 
 his cousins at Acton. Wasn't that lucky for Olga's 
 birthday and you coming ? Oh, I liked that Occultists' 
 Magazine you left here last time, Mr. Lawrance. I 
 thought it was awfully interesting, that part about the 
 lines on the hand. What was it called ? ' Cheiro ' some- 
 thing, wasn't it?" 
 
 "Oh, yes. 'Some Variations of Cheiromantic Read- 
 ing.' Glad it amused you."
 
 42 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 "I thought it was awfully clever. Did you write 
 it?" 
 
 "Yes, I wrote that." 
 
 "Do you know about the lines on the hand, Uncle 
 Lorrie? I didn't know you knew. Do tell mine. Shut 
 up, Doris, my mouth isn't full now. There was an old 
 woman on the Pier at Brighton last summer and she told 
 Olga she was going to be married at seventeen and have 
 three babies, two girls and then a boy. That was nice, 
 wasn't it? I'd like to be an aunt. They put that old 
 woman in prison, they said she " 
 
 "Well, I shouldn't be surprised if they put me in 
 prison, Marjorie. I quite deserve it. Old Inge and I 
 ought to share a cell." 
 
 ' ' Not a bit of it, my boy. ' ' The Mariner poured a long 
 draught of whiskey and water down his lean throat. 
 Lawrance watched the machine-like movements of the 
 Adam's apple that made so much ado in its confinement 
 of withered skin, he noticed the exposed workings of the 
 sharp projecting bones to either side, bones that were 
 of an antique springiness, flexible and frangible at the 
 same time. " Not a bit of it ! You're all right! What 
 would the ladies do without fortune-telling, eh, tell me 
 that? These damned Puritans want to take all our 
 pleasures away. 'Obtaining money under false pre- 
 tences,' is it? What I say is that no one ever obtained 
 money under false pretences who gave pleasure for ut! 
 What do you think, Patsey, my girl?" He looked across 
 to his wife with a glance of affection so unexpectedly 
 keen that Lawrance winced. 
 
 Mrs. Flynn's eyes revolved and brightened. "You 
 know I don 't want to send Lorrie to prison. ' ' 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Lawrance !" Doris cried with innocent eager-
 
 A CHASTE MAN 43 
 
 ness, clasping his arm. "Do tell our hands afterwards, 
 Mr. Lawrance!" 
 
 "Yes, do, Uncle Lorrie do I" Marjorie held out both 
 her thin little long brown hands; she jumped in her 
 chair. "Why do you always call him 'Mr. Lawrance,' 
 Doris? It's so silly! Olga doesn't." 
 
 "Saucy little Madam!" 
 
 "Do you want me to tell your fortune, Olga?" 
 
 The girl didn't answer. 
 
 "Dreaming as usual, Olga!" Doris cried out. "Do 
 wake up. She never says anything all mealtimes, only 
 'Yes' and 'No' and 'Please' and 'Thank you.' She 
 ought to go into a Convent!" 
 
 Olga started and frowned, with delicate little lines all 
 over her white forehead. "I'm sorry," she said, and 
 looked round, vexed and bewildered. 
 
 "Well, and why shouldn't she dream if she wants to? 
 You're all right, Olga darling, you're all right. I don't 
 talk if I don't want to, why should you? You agree, 
 Patsey, don 't you ? ' ' The old man reached for the bottle. 
 "When we've whiskey we talk or we don't talk, and it all 
 comes easy. Pass the water, Marj. Lorrie, fill up." 
 
 Lawrance did so. It was a noble Irish whiskey, well 
 born and well bred, a whiskey of ripe essence, potent and 
 smooth, a whiskey for drinkers of well-determined heads 
 and spirits amply girt. A whiskey that soda would have 
 outraged. Both Lawrance and the Mariner had the ex- 
 perienced right way with their glass: they advanced, in 
 the right slow dear measure, from the terms of acquaint- 
 ance to the terms of intimacy. They had the free- 
 masonry of perfect bottlemen's manners. Lawrance 
 noted, with a rush of really exquisite pleasure, the pres- 
 ence of a second bottle, with its enchanting yellow label,
 
 44 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 on that clipped and tarnished sideboard. They would 
 come, at a later hour, to that second bottle, on terms with 
 it of instant friendship, a friendship of private relish. 
 
 Ah ! a whiskey of parts : they took, in unison, consid- 
 erate mouthfuls. 
 
 "I don't care about whiskey," said Doris. "What I 
 like is a nice glass of Port wine. ' ' 
 
 "You shall have it, my dear!" The Mariner raised 
 his voice to a jocund falsetto. "It's Olga's birthday. 
 Marjie'll go round to the corner and get you a bottle 
 afterwards." 
 
 "What wine do you like, Olga?" Lawrance turned to 
 her rather abruptly, and the girl started again. 
 
 "Oh, I don't know. We had some light sparkling 
 wine once Sparkling Moselle, it was. I liked that. 
 Sparkling Burgundy's nice, too." 
 
 "Good idea." Mr. Flynn gave her a philanthropic 
 look. "Excellent idea. It's your birthday, Olga dar- 
 ling, and you shall have Sparkling Burgundy. Can't 
 have Moselle German wine, can't have that. What I 
 say, my dear, is, go out and get it afterwards and have it 
 for supper. Lorrie and I'll stick to whiskey, though, 
 what do you say, Lorrie? You'll stay to supper, of 
 course? Sparkling Burgundy, Marj, get it at the 
 corner. ' ' 
 
 "What does that big lump under my thumb mean, Mr. 
 Lawrance?" Doris asked him with her sudden innocent 
 curiosity. 
 
 "Oh, that!" The young man took her hand and 
 squeezed the plump ball of flesh. "That's the Mount of 
 Venus." 
 
 "Oh!" She flushed and brightened. "What does 
 that mean?"
 
 'A CHASTE MAN 45 
 
 "It means you're fond of flirtations." 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Lawrance, I'm not a bit!" 
 
 He let her hand go : her disappointment did not escape 
 Marjorie, whose bird-like eyes kept darting everywhere. 
 
 "Doris likes you holding her hand!" she shamelessly 
 exclaimed. "She likes men to hold her hand! Don't 
 you, Dorrie!" 
 
 "Mar-jor-ie/" 
 
 "Well, what was I telling you?" Lawrance laughed. 
 
 Olga's hand was on the table by him: he took it. The 
 fingers were flexible and rather moist a white hand, 
 with resilient bones that seemed as though they might be 
 easily crushed. Strange, that they should be bones, as 
 the Mariner's were . . . bones of age and youth. . . . 
 But Lawrance had no sinister thoughts. 
 
 "You see, Olga's Mount of Venus is nothing to yours, 
 Doris ; but she beats you on the Girdle. ' ' 
 
 "What's the Girdle?" Doris asked suspiciously. 
 
 * ' The Girdle of Venus. Just above the heart-line. Do 
 you see, Olga's goes right round from the forefinger 
 nearly to the little finger. That's very unusual. It's a 
 good deal broken : there in the middle it joins the line of 
 heart." 
 
 ' ' What does it mean ? ' ' Doris asked eagerly now, hop- 
 ing for some point of vantage upon her sister. 
 
 ' ' Oh, it may mean a lot of things ! It means that she '11 
 be in love quite differently from you." 
 
 "Has she been in love already?" 
 
 "No." Lawrance was decisive. "But you have, 
 Doris, you know you have, scores of times. ' ' 
 
 "Oh!" Doris attempted dignity. "I'm not so sure 
 about that!" 
 
 "I'm in love with Jimmy!" cried Marjorie. "And
 
 46 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 Mr. Deavitt's in love with me! Do look at my hand!" 
 She stretched it out. 
 
 "What I say," the Mariner stuck his knife into a 
 piece of cheese "what I say is, if you can make people 
 happy, well, why not ? If a girl can give pleasure, why 
 shouldn't she do it? The worst kind of a girl is a girl 
 that doesn't. She goes rotten inside. Always. You 
 agree with me, Patsey?" 
 
 "I don't think," said Olga slowly, "I don't think I 
 can give any one pleasure. I wish I could." 
 
 "Olga! What a way to talk!" Doris half giggled. 
 
 Lawrance had not let Olga's hand go. Their fingers 
 grew warm together ; suddenly hers twitched and pressed 
 his. Simply nervousness, perhaps? He wondered. Of 
 course she was nervous, nervous and shy. Her palms 
 were intersected with little broken criss-cross lines. He 
 looked at the others. Mrs. Flynn r s round brown eye in- 
 cluded him in a special dispensation of the benignity of 
 its undersurface smile; Doris, fidgety and piqued, was 
 scolding Marjorie as though it were her duty, with a pre- 
 tence of preoccupation. She had turned away from 
 Lawrance, stressing her tact in ignoring that his hand 
 lay with Olga's. Marjorie tossed her head and left the 
 table, throwing herself for a moment at full length upon 
 the horsehair sofa: it escaped Lawrance that there was 
 something curiously engaging about the illusion of ab- 
 normal length that this posture gave to the little girl's 
 form. She returned to her place with an air of caprice. 
 The old man seemed at that moment apart from and 
 independent of them all: he chuckled lightly, embraced 
 by his jolly angels ; he rubbed his hands softly together, 
 set his pleased gaze to a point through and past the vi- 
 sion of the others. Lawrance had an anxious curiosity
 
 A CHASTE MAN 47 
 
 for the thoughts of Olga: her look told him nothing, 
 except that she had thoughts and was baffled by them. 
 He noted again that little teased delicate frown of hers, 
 that frown that seemed suddenly to have become so fa- 
 miliar. He thought of Muriel, whom he saw clearly for 
 a moment, incongruous and intrusive here. The vision 
 made him more friendly to his companions, more un- 
 friendly to her.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE Mariner had a recognized claim on Law- 
 ranee for an hour or so after any meal in his 
 house. "Now for our little time together, 
 Lorrie, what do you think?" the old man would say. 
 The convention was so well established that even Mar- 
 jorie never protested. Lawrance's enjoyment of these 
 hours was as a rule no less than his companion 's : but on 
 this occasion he felt a reluctance, an impatience, that not 
 even the tender insinuations of that Irish whiskey coulcl 
 altogether soothe. 
 
 It was the first time that he had been with Olga since 
 his definite knowledge that his wife was jealous of her. 
 The girl excited his interest now, but not, so he made it 
 out, his senses. No, it was not a physical compulsion 
 that he felt to her, he assured himself of that: but he 
 wanted to find out about her, he wanted the real inti- 
 macy of friendship, not the sham intimacy of passion. 
 He wanted to read her innocence and her charms as one 
 reads a book: any love affair would obscure the pages. 
 She did not want it, either, he was sure ; she never had 
 wanted it, any more than he: love affairs were not in 
 place for her. She was too subtle and slow in her growth 
 for them yet. And Lawrance 's pride forbade him a vul- 
 gar expected co-operation with Muriel's suspicion: fur- 
 ther, and more importantly, he tended towards a relation 
 with the girl that should be peculiarly their own, that 
 should have nothing in common, nothing even super- 
 
 48
 
 A CHASTE MAN 49 
 
 ficially in common, with any relation that he had had 
 with his wife. He wanted to swing clear from Muriel 
 in this, and whether his intention justified her jealousy 
 the more or the less he did not allow to concern him. 
 He aimed instinctively at the wider estrangement that 
 came of not being concerned. 
 
 Old Flynn, as soon as his wife and the girls had gone, 
 uncorked the second bottle of whiskey. 
 
 "Not quite ready for it yet," he said, "but I like to 
 see it ready for us. Ah, my dear old boy, we like to 
 see it ready for us, don't we?" He placed it between 
 them, then took his old black meerschaum out of its case 
 that lay always in a corner of the mantelpiece, filled it 
 by sweet degrees, lit it and blew lavish clouds. "Pity 
 you don't smoke, Lorrie. Thank the Lord, you drink, 
 though. That fellow who was round here yesterday 
 Deavitt Crockerton Deavitt he don't either smoke or 
 drink. Jumpy sort of chap, big bulgy blue eyes and a 
 big yellow moustache. Not enough flesh on him, what 
 he wants is Port wine. Doesn't do for a grown man to 
 drink only milk and tea and cocoa. Blood thins out. 
 He's an entertaining cuss, though, and plays a fair hand 
 at whist and 'hearts.' But I tell you, my boy, if a man 
 don't drink, there's something wrong somewhere. A 
 modest wash-down with his meals, and a good hearty 
 stand-to-ut when he gets with a friend once in a while. 
 And to hell with the secret drinkers, damn all the alco- 
 holics, I say; they don't understand. Subjects for the 
 physician, poor devils! But every god worth worship- 
 ping has to have his victims, it's all in the game, ain't it? 
 What do you say?" 
 
 ' ' Your religion 's as sound as a bell ! ' ' Lawrance fin- 
 ished his glass. He continued to think of Olga. The
 
 50 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 sway of Dionysus was disputed within him ; but he paid 
 lipservice by filling up again. 
 
 "We've the best of it these days, we octogenarians. 
 No fighting for us. I tell you, Lorrie, I tell you " 
 The Mariner stopped and took a draught, of slow and 
 lovely percolation. "Ah ... I tell you, when you hear 
 a striding old fellow with the big voice, when you hear 
 him say: 'Lucky young chaps! Wish I was young 
 enough to go too,' well, don't you believe him! Bluff, 
 that's what it is, bluff. They know when they're well 
 off, right enough, with their beds and their victuals and 
 their armchairs and their newspapers on their breakfast- 
 tables of a morning! Don't you believe 'em! Never 
 was such a snug time for the old. But, Jove ! a young 
 chap like you is the best off of all, Lorrie ! Heart that'll 
 last your time, but'd crock up on a march in a twin- 
 kling!" 
 
 "Yes." Lawrance recalled his wandering thoughts. 
 "I suppose I should have to go if it weren't for my 
 heart. . . ." 
 
 "Not that I'm against war, mind you, not a bit of 
 it. Just look at the people who are ; just think of them ; 
 set of lousy rats, lousy. Damned teetotal crew. Never 
 was an honest drinker yet who was a Pacifist. Never. 
 I tell you the two things go together. I tell you 
 what, Lorrie: take the opinion of a man who doesn't 
 drink, and then believe the dead opposite. Sure to 
 be right No, when we get war, we want it. They'll 
 go on longer than they need, of course; these things 
 aren't made to tailor's measure but we wanted it, had 
 to have it. Shambles, yes, sort of lyric shambles bet- 
 ter for it don't you believe " He trailed inaudibly 
 off, as he relit his meerschaum.
 
 A CHASTE MAN 51 
 
 "Well, we were right to come into this war, anyhow." 
 
 "Eight! Right?" The old man wagged his head 
 from side to side, to get a better draught for his pipe. 
 "Right don't matter. We'd have been just as much 
 right if we'd been wrong. If you'd been asea as much 
 as I have, you'd know. Cant gets blown off the decks, 
 my word on it blown off even if it is only the Mer- 
 chant Service Well, you've got your luck, I've got 
 mine, and I'm sticking to it. A long life I'm safe on 
 that, Lorrie; I've had it: that's another way in which 
 we old chaps score, ever occur to you ? good health and 
 a stomach for drink, thank the Lord, and my Patsey. 
 Holy Mary bless her for the best woman in the world! 
 A good woman, and these girls come with her, and what 
 does it matter if they're not my own? You don't think 
 of that, not with a woman like Patsey." 
 
 "Yes, you're well off, all right, Mariner. You're to 
 be envied. I wish more women were like Patsey. ' ' 
 
 "Of course I don't deny we'd rather have that Tofty 
 chap and that Lance chap out of the house. They're 
 in the way rather not have 'em about. Pretty good 
 fellows, but only pretty good. Still, you can't have 
 everything; we need the money. Couldn't get along 
 without it. Well, that 's not much. ' ' 
 
 He drank again, and so did Lawrance, but without the 
 other's release of mind. Lawrance found himself re- 
 sisting the liquor 's happy advance : he wanted to be free 
 for Olga ; he wanted his normal state for her. 
 
 "What's going to happen to-night?" he asked sud- 
 denly. "How about my taking Olga to some show in 
 town for her birthday?" 
 
 The Mariner nodded indulgently from his peaceful 
 heights. "She's a child yet, Olga is," he meditated.
 
 52 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 "Child yet. Girls are different. Doris now, when she 
 was only fourteen quite different to Olga But peo- 
 ple fuss too much about sex, they always have. What I 
 say is, a man should take it clean and straight, as he 
 takes his liquor. Clean and straight I'll tell you 
 something, my boy; I wouldn't tell everybody." He 
 paused, and finished his tumbler. "I don't like the 
 Irish." 
 
 Lawrance knew what was coming. His anticipation 
 of the so habitual sequel was warm and pleasant to him. 
 He began to be less occupied with Olga. He gave his 
 whiskey to a more confederate palate. Why, the first 
 evening they ever drank together, that evening when 
 Bassett, the man who used to be on the Oxford Telegraph 
 and then went off to British Columbia, had ' ' trotted him 
 round," as he put it, "to see a queer old fish I know up 
 in North London" at that very first meeting the 
 Mariner had talked about the Irish. So much the bet- 
 ter The second year at Oxford, wasn 't it ? 
 
 "I don't like the Irish. I hate them. My father was 
 half Irish, but thank God for it, he married a Welsh- 
 woman, and his mother was English all through North- 
 country. I hate the Irish and all their damned ways. 
 They're a slave race; they're bullies and cads and 
 slaves; there never was an Irish gentleman yet, and 
 there never will be ! Home Rule for 'em ! They want a 
 Russian government; they want Peter the Great and 
 the knout, Ulster as well ! A quarrelsome, treacherous, 
 underhanded, lewd-chaste set of swine ! ' ' 
 
 Lawrance laughed. He was almost as happy as the 
 old man with this familiar invective. It soothed and 
 cheered and diverted him, this jolly malice. It was a 
 free explosion of extravagant vigour: sign of a robust
 
 A CHASTE MAN 53 
 
 emotional animus, without rancour's thin edge. A dia- 
 tribe of red corpuscles, un jaundiced altogether. 
 "I see you believe in indictments of nations." 
 "And I do. It was some damned politician said you 
 couldn't. Some one who didn't know the Irish; no 
 politician does, whether he's Irish or not. I've seen 
 enough of 'em in Ireland and in America Must be 
 something wrong with America: hundred millions is 
 it? and not a dozen decent cellars among the lot of 
 'em! They say an Irishman always gets on outside 
 his own country; so he does; he gets on the top and 
 stinks there. He can't get on in Ireland because he's 
 made the whole country stink with him English op- 
 pression ! Stuff and nonsense ! They whine about Eng- 
 lish oppression; look at their faces, then you'll under- 
 stand. What they want is old Oliver back again that's 
 a name for you; be proud you have it, boy; proud you 
 have it; Lord! my name's Michael 'Michael'! They 
 want a Cromwell to say to 'em: 'Now, you be decent, 
 you curs, or we'll smash you to pieces!' They're dan- 
 gerous dogs; they've poisoned teeth. Don't tell me 
 there's no sedition over there now Their whiskey's 
 the only good thing they have, that and their porter : but 
 they drink worse than Germans, too; drink themselves 
 into a worse damnation than they're in when they're 
 sober. As for religion, they aren't Catholics: they're a 
 disgrace and a blight to the Faith ; they're a blasphemy ! 
 They weren't worthy of it; they corrupted it; they 
 turned it to rot! Mother of God! Look at the Latin 
 countries! They'd kick the Irish priests into their cess- 
 pools there. Thank God for it, I 'm a Catholic of Spain. 
 Born and baptized in Toledo. Patsey and Olga are 
 Catholics of Russia. Priests in Ireland take the girls
 
 54 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 and boys and drive the sexuality back into their blood 
 and let it fester ! It 's Puritanism ranker and more mor- 
 bid putrified by the lewd prying priest! It's a thing 
 that hasn 't happened in any other country in the world ; 
 it couldn't happen. They've no love-songs in Ireland; 
 all their love-songs have the fear of Hell before 'em; 
 they're thin as dillwater. They talk of Irish poetry! 
 It's the poetry of thin souls that have been weak enough 
 to be whipped out of their bodies. The Gaelic School! 
 Puh ! It 's wails and snivels and me and my baby, we 're 
 unhappy ; listen to my dreams and give me tuppence ! 
 For God's sake, Lorrie, let's get to that other bottle!" 
 
 He went on, with freer and freer flux of speech, gave 
 final damnation to the Irish, mellowing each acrid word, 
 passed from them to some talk of his travels in British 
 East Africa "British East," he called it and then de- 
 bouched abruptly to the subject of genius. 
 
 "All it comes to, Lorrie," he told him, "is that they 
 go straight at things, and other people go crooked. 
 They're lots more of 'em about than we ever hear of, 
 but only one in a thousand happens to get switched on 
 to painting or writing or that kind of a job. A good 
 doctor's the best judge of genius going a good surgeon 
 better still. I'd take a surgeon's opinion on a book a 
 long way before a critic 's. They know. You can 't fool 
 them. They know if a chap goes straight. Women are 
 the worst judges of all born to go sideways, like crabs. 
 If a book pleases a woman, it's damned forever. Wom- 
 en's souls move sideways." 
 
 "Yes, I believe that. ' ' Lawrance spoke warmly, think- 
 ing of Muriel. 
 
 He looked at the old man with a deepening affection ; 
 he felt himself spiritually enfolded with him, the bond
 
 A CHASTE MAN 55 
 
 between them lay set and signed and sealed. It Was of 
 the Mariner, he thought, that Muriel should be jealous: 
 yes, she should be jealous of this union that was as real 
 as theirs was sham. Lawrance fed his heart on the old 
 man's voice; the sound was that of a ritual enforced and 
 endeared by often repetition, and the actual words no 
 less, for Lawrance had heard them before, over and over : 
 they held him in a firmer clasp for that. He needed 
 their sense no more than a devotee needs the sense of the 
 words of the Mass. 
 
 The room, as the young man looked round it, seemed 
 a temple dedicated to the Mariner's self. Lawrance 's 
 slowly-shifting gaze embraced devotedly the stained 
 clipped sideboard, the worn horsehair sofa and chairs, the 
 long deal table with its green cloth torn and frayed, the 
 heavy gas-chandelier over it, the red excoriated old car- 
 pet underneath, the pictures of ships on the faded brown 
 walls, the engraving of "Boston Harbor, 1876," ugly and 
 dirty, a pious and patient vindication of the past. And 
 it was all this that Muriel grudged him ! But he forgot 
 Muriel, he forgot Olga, as the old man's voice went on.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE whiskey of the second bottle had receded 
 some two inches below the top of the yellow 
 label when Mrs. Flynn came in to them. 
 
 "Do you want any tea?" she asked. 
 
 "Tea, Patsey, tea?" The old man shook his head. 
 ' ' Come and sit with us. I know what you 'd like. Glass 
 of milk and a drop, eh ? Come along. ' ' 
 
 "Yes, come on, my dear, and I'll fetch the milk." 
 Lawrance got up to go to the kitchen. "Yes, I will. I 
 want to." 
 
 He noticed that Mrs. Flynn looked tired, though her 
 eyes smiled still. He took her by the arm and put her 
 into a chair by the Mariner's side. 
 
 The kitchen door was open, and Doris's voice was 
 plainly heard as Lawrance left the dining-room. 
 
 "And you needn't tell me you didn't like holding 
 hands with him ! I saw you, the way you looked ! ' ' 
 
 "Yes, I did like his holding me " 
 
 "Holding you! What do you mean? He wasn't 
 holding you ; he was holding your hand. I 'd be ashamed. 
 Oh, you're the nice good qui-ert girl, you are. Butter 
 wouldn't melt in your mouth, I don't think ! I wouldn't 
 like to look the way you do it's horrid !" 
 
 "How do I look?" 
 
 "You know how you look. You Oh, Mr. Law- 
 rance! You gave me quite a turn. We've washed up 
 all the things, and we're getting ready for supper." 
 
 56
 
 A CHASTE MAN 57 
 
 ' ' Oh. I 'm afraid you 've a lot to do. ' ' 
 
 He looked at Olga, who stood pressed back against the 
 dresser, as though she had been forced into that position 
 for defence. She supported herself by her hands that 
 had been swollen and blanched, slightly, by the hot 
 water; her childlike body was bent a little back. Law- 
 ranee noticed his bracelet on her wrist. She caught his 
 eye. 
 
 ' ' I do like it ! " she said, holding her arm up to him. 
 She straightened herself. "I went upstairs and took it 
 out and put it on in my bedroom." Doris gave her a 
 quick reprehending glance. "It's lovely." 
 
 She made an uncertain step towards him, and Law- 
 ranee put his arms out to her, and lifted her off her 
 feet. How light she was ! He kissed her cheek. 
 
 "Well, I'm glad you like it!" 
 
 "We must get along with that supper," said Doris, in 
 a cold tone of necessary preoccupation, a tone that was 
 busy and detached. "I'm going out with Fred Bovey 
 to the Pictures to-night." 
 
 "Well, Olga, you'll come with me, then. We'll have 
 a birthday party together. We '11 go to the ' Trafalgar. ' 
 Manon Gauffroux's singing there to-night; she's splen- 
 did; you'll like her. Do you think we can have supper 
 at half -past six, Doris? Good Lord, it's nearly six 
 o'clock now!" 
 
 Marjorie ran in, hugging a bottle of Sparkling Bur- 
 gundy. 
 
 "I got it!" she cried. "Mr. Cramer said that as it 
 was me it'd be only three and nine. It's good, too. I 
 saw Fred Bovey; he won't take me to the Pictures to- 
 night ; he said one at a time was enough. What are you 
 going to do after supper, Uncle Lorrie?"
 
 58 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 "He's taking Olga to the 'Traf.' Don't bother, 
 Marj." Doris spoke in a schoolteacher tone. 
 
 "Oo-er!" The little girl fell to extreme gravity. 
 "Mr. Deavitt's taking me to the 'Coliseum.' ' 
 
 "Look here, Marjorie; hold out your hand and see 
 what you'll get!" Lawrance took out his sovereign- 
 case. ' ' Hold it out straight ! There 's one ! " He put a 
 half-sovereign into her palm. "And two three 
 four" 
 
 "Hold your hand still, Marjorie." 
 
 "Don't scream, Marj ! What a soft kid you are!" 
 
 ' ' Eight, nine, and ten ! There ! ' ' 
 
 ' ' Oh, they are pretty ! Thank you awfully, and fancy, 
 each of them's worth ten shillings, isn't it! Thank you 
 awfully!" She threw one arm round him: her little 
 brown hand was crowded with the coins; she clenched 
 it and held it stiffly at arm's length. 
 
 "Don't thank me. Thank your black devils. That 
 isn't my money." 
 
 "Whose is it?" 
 
 "It belonged to the people who are going to put your 
 photograph in the magazine." 
 
 "Oh, yes! I'm going to have my photograph taken 
 when I get my new frock and my new stockings. I'm 
 not ugly, Uncle Lorrie, am I? Jimmy's brother he's 
 fifteen he said to Jimmy: 'I wouldn't be seen dead 
 with that ugly kid,' and the other day he called me 
 'Facey'! Cheek! He said: 'Here comes the living 
 skellington, twopence admission, ladies and gents!' he 
 said. Saucy young owl ! ' ' 
 
 "Oh, he's jealous, Marjorie, that's what's the matter 
 with him." 
 
 44 He called me monkey-face, and said they wanted me
 
 A CHASTE MAN 59 
 
 round at their house to crack nuts. I '11 look nice in my 
 new frock, though, Uncle Lorrie, won't I? Don't you 
 think I '11 look nice?" 
 
 ' ' Goodnight ! The kid might be twenty, the way she 
 goes on about her blessed looks ! It 's about time you put 
 on your China silk decolletay for dinner at the Carlton ! 
 How old are you, Marj? I don't know what's coming 
 over the kids these days. When I was ten I didn 't think 
 of anything but dolls and sweets. I didn't think of the 
 way I looked! Why, Marjie's more set on herself than 
 me or Olga!" 
 
 * ' Get on, old Doris. Who 's got red paint on her lips, 
 oo-er? Fred Bovey got it all over his mouf the other 
 night, and his cheeks all over powder, oo-er ! ' ' 
 
 "Shut up, young Marjorie! It isn't true, Mr. Law- 
 ranee. ' ' 
 
 "He did look a sight!" 
 
 "Spiteful little cat, you are!" 
 
 "Olga doesn't put anything on. Olga never kisses 
 any one, only Uncle Lorrie ! ' ' 
 
 "Oh, yes, Miss Know-it-all ! Go up top, smart Jane !" 
 
 "Well, she doesn't!" 
 
 "You're a fair nosey, you are, to beat the band!" 
 
 ' ' Give me a glass of milk for your mother, Doris. ' ' 
 
 Lawrance had been giving Olga thoughtful looks. She 
 was sitting along the ledge of the dresser, with her 
 browny-green skirt crinkled to her knees, about which 
 there showed an uneven fringe of crumpled white petti- 
 coat. Her black-stockinged legs, from her knees, dropped 
 lightly over the wooden edge. She had taken a red 
 paper-covered book from the dresser, and was reading it, 
 with her head bent forward and her cheeks caressed by 
 her dark fine hair.
 
 60 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 "Can't you sit nicely, Olga?" said Doris severely, as 
 she gave Lawrance the milk. 
 
 Olga gave her skirt a little pull, without looking up. 
 Her pallor was undisturbed. Lawrance glanced at her 
 book, and saw that it was a story by Paul de Kock, picked 
 up, no doubt, by the Mariner, who let the girls read any- 
 thing. What was she making of that book? Her ex- 
 pression told him nothing. He went with his milk, Mar- 
 jorie jumping by his side, her right hand still firmly and 
 possessively clenched.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 "W" ET'S walk to the Tube, Olga, shall we?" 
 | The girl took Lawrance's arm. She looked 
 
 M. ^ two or three years older now ; her figure was 
 concealed by a dusky-red coat, a coat of heavy stuff, 
 coming to just below her knees. She had a close-fitting 
 green velvet cap, and her long hair seemed to be poured 
 out from it as from a goblet. She seemed a girl of two 
 or three generations back; she suggested a photograph 
 in an old Album or an illustration out of a magazine of 
 the 'seventies. Lawrance began to be freshly puzzled 
 about her as they walked down the Glasden Road. He 
 associated her with some Scandinavian country, Nor- 
 way or Sweden some country of keen long frosts, of 
 sports in the snow. She was not abstracted now: her 
 green clear eyes had an immediate light; she walked 
 quickly, rather nervously; her pressure on his arm had 
 conscious life, life of an eager and uncertain flow. 
 
 ' ' I like this birthday, Uncle Lorrie, ' ' she said. 
 
 "So do I. But don't call me 'Uncle Lorrie.' I don't 
 want to be an uncle ! You can 't talk to uncles. I want 
 you to talk to me, to tell me things about yourself : you 
 know not as if I were older " 
 
 "Oh, I don't like people who aren't older. I never 
 can talk to them They don't like me, either. If I 
 do say anything, they laugh. ' ' 
 
 "That's only because they're stupid. I'm not stupid 
 that way, Olga, really " 
 
 61
 
 62 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 "It's hard to talk to people, too, if you've always 
 known them. They think you stay the same." She 
 frowned. "Father and mother are like that. Every- 
 thing seems to stay the same with them. I don't know 
 Why, because everything really gets different, doesn 't it ? 
 Almost every day it gets different somehow or other 
 you can't keep up with it. I can't. And nobody else 
 seems to be interested." 
 
 "When did things begin to be different?" 
 
 "About two years ago " 
 
 "Do tell me about it, Olga!" 
 
 He pressed her arm. He wanted to bring in every 
 sense to the communication between them, while winnow- 
 ing the flesh of all but the finer grain of sympathy: he 
 wanted the finest possible touch, the only touch that could 
 bare and thrill all that she was. Yet he knew that the 
 girl's looks were tremendously important to him: her 
 pallor, her eyes like river-water under trees, her sudden 
 red lips, her frown that was so much her own, the lines 
 of her transient figure that he guessed at now, it was all 
 so necessary! His sympathy with her took in not only 
 her physical self, but even her clothes: he saw the little 
 close velvet cap, and thought of the line it would leave 
 in her hair, of the difference, when she took it off, be- 
 tween the hair that had been imprisoned and the hair 
 that had been free. No, he could never forget that she 
 was a girl, it was the friendship of her, being a girl, 
 that he longed for : a friendship physically involved, but 
 not physically dominated ... a friendship that de- 
 manded her looks, but not her embraces. He could 
 anticipate only vaguely: this was something he never 
 had had. 
 
 He waited for the answer that she did not give him
 
 A CHASTE MAN 63 
 
 at once. But she slackened her pace ; he could feel that 
 she was thinking, remembering. 
 
 "Oh, I don't know!" she said at last. "Or it isn't 
 really that I don't know, but when I think of the words 
 for it, they seem to mean something quite different It 
 was in the spring, and we were in the country, and all 
 the trees, and the sky, and the roads and the fields, and 
 the houses, too, seemed to be suddenly quite new; they 
 were alive and they felt, and I liked them very much; 
 I loved them but that doesn 't say what it was ! "Words 
 don't do much, do they?" 
 
 "How about poetry?" 
 
 "No, it doesn't, quite not for me. I mean that the 
 poetry I've read belongs to some one else; I don't feel 
 that it 's for me. I used to read a lot of it Shelley and 
 Keats; I read nearly all of them, but it wasn't really 
 or they said it in a way I couldn't understand. Of 
 course it's it's beautiful. But music is better; that's 
 more like what I feel. And I don't know it sounds 
 silly, but there's something about flowers. It's the same 
 with well, with the weather, and some people who are 
 nice to look at. They're well, they're there, they're 
 themselves, you see, and poetry and music are only 
 things made up about the other things that really do 
 mean " She stopped suddenly, and gave him one of 
 her apprehensive glances. ' ' It 's silly to talk, ' ' she said. 
 "It spoils things." 
 
 "It doesn't, Olga dear; it makes them awfully inter- 
 esting. I want you to talk Look here, don't let's go 
 by Tube ; let 's take this cab. It '11 be much nicer. " He 
 hailed it. 
 
 When they were inside he took her gloved hand, which 
 she took away from him. Her face was grave: gravely
 
 64 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 she removed the glove and gave him her bare hand. He 
 held it lightly. It seemed alive with her. 
 
 ' ' Oh, Olga ! " he said strugglingly . " I do like you ! ' ' 
 
 "I thought so." She smiled with pleasure: her teeth 
 were small; they looked peculiarly brittle. "I thought 
 you did like me to-day. That was nicer than the brace- 
 let!" 
 
 "It's nicer than anything, to me, your feeling that it 
 was ! ' ' Lawrance paled with excitement. 
 
 "You're the only one that does like me, I think. Fa- 
 ther and mother do, of course, but they would anyhow. ' ' 
 
 "Do you mind that ? Do you mind not being liked by 
 these boys and girls?" 
 
 "No. I don't exactly mind not being liked. I think 
 I mind my not liking them. I mind their being all the 
 same as each other ; I mind their seeming all the same to 
 me, because they can't be really, can they? Doris was 
 different when she was little, but she isn 't different at all 
 now. I like some of the very little girls and boys ; even 
 when they're alike, they're alike in a nice way. I like 
 Marjorie sometimes. I don't dislike the older ones, you 
 know. I only don't like them. But some of them dis- 
 like me. You can tell by the way they look, and the 
 things they say." 
 
 "You haven't any boy friends at all, then, Olga?" 
 
 "No, but I like boys better; they're shy, some of them 
 are. You know what I mean: you feel there's some- 
 thing they don't show; it's mysterious; it's something 
 like dreams. It's something that has a meaning; some- 
 thing that" she frowned "well, it seems to be some- 
 thing that won 't stay the same, and yet in a way it does, 
 because it reminds you of some time hundreds of years 
 ago, and hundreds of years later on, too It's like
 
 A CHASTE MAN 65 
 
 dreams. It's something that we 're inside of in a way. ' ' 
 
 "You feel like this about all the boys?" 
 
 "Yes, unless they're ugly." 
 
 "Do go on telling me about it, Olga. It's tremen- 
 dously interesting." 
 
 "But I can't tell you not properly. I can think it, 
 but thoughts don't go in words, do they? You can think 
 anything almost but it won't get into words. Why 
 don 't you tell me ? Words are much easier for you. ' ' 
 
 "Good heavens! They aren't!" Lawrance thought 
 of the kind of things he wrote in his articles and reviews. 
 "I can't say anything and I don't feel anything worth 
 saying. I wish I did. I suppose I did once, but I've 
 forgotten. Mind you don't forget! But there isn't 
 any particular boy, Olga, is there, who makes you feel 
 like this more than another?" 
 
 "No. I suppose I should be in love with him, 
 shouldn't I, if there were? But, Uncle Lorrie 
 
 "'Uncle' again!" 
 
 ' ' I don 't feel that I come into it not myself, I mean. 
 I suppose if you're in love it's all you and the other 
 person and no one else, isn't it? I don't think Doris is 
 ever in love, not really. She isn't happy. I'm sorry 
 about Doris. ' ' 
 
 "I don't think Doris is very nice to you." 
 
 ' ' I don 't mind the things she says. I wish she would 
 be really in love. She doesn't ever look as if she was. 
 She 's the same as the others. They all have their boys ; 
 sometimes they change about, and that means it was a 
 mistake, doesn't it? Doris changes about a lot. 
 There's one girl, Herga Ashdon, they all say she's 
 they say she's the limit, but I don't mind it with her, 
 somehow. It seems all right ; it seems the way she was
 
 66 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 meant to She's different, and she's happy. Perhaps 
 Marjorie will be like that. But there's something wrong 
 about the others, I know there is. It's like something 
 that hasn't grown properly and gets in the way ; they get 
 it all wrong for themselves. Don't you think it's better 
 to wait to stay out? Then you'll get it right? Then 
 you'd be happy, wouldn't you?" 
 
 "Yes." Lawrance trembled with agitation. "Yes," 
 he repeated under stress: and added, almost harshly. 
 "Don't be like the others, Olga, for God's sake!" 
 
 "I don't want all that. I don't want their sort of 
 kissing and being together and making love. Why 
 should I, if I don't want to? Doris seems to think I 
 ought. She seems to think it's a sort of spite to her 
 that I don't. I can't. It would only be all wrong and 
 ugly; it would only hurt. I think of something quite 
 different, and nobody comes into that. Nobody does: 
 not even a person I've never seen. I don't imagine a 
 person. What Doris does is pretending at least it 
 seems pretending to me. I'm sorry about Doris. You 
 don't know, because she's quite different when you're 
 there. I can't think why she goes with Fred Bovey, 
 because she's either very cross afterwards, or else she's 
 sad, and she keeps on being cross or sad nearly all the 
 time till she sees him again. The other night she cried 
 a lot. She scolded Marjorie, then she scolded me, she 
 looked as if she hated me, and then when we went up 
 to bed she cried most awfully ; she said she 'd been a bad 
 girl and she wished she hadn't. Then she stopped cry- 
 ing, and was angrier than ever; she said I was a pious 
 mule and I made her sick. She said I might think my- 
 self pretty, but the boys didn't, anyhow, and they never 
 would, I was such a fool. I remember everything she
 
 A CHASTE MAN 67 
 
 said. It is funny that I remember it all so clearly just 
 that one time. I don 't like remembering it. ' ' 
 
 "Don't think about things like that. Doris is nervous, 
 you know. You're all three of you rather nervous girls 
 Nerves, that was all Do you know what I should like, 
 Olga? I should like to be able to take you right away, 
 as if I were your brother; I should like to take you 
 abroad " 
 
 " Would the people be different?" 
 
 "Yes, people aren't the same everywhere as they are 
 in North London I wish you didn't go to that Busi- 
 ness College place; you must feel frightfully lonely " 
 
 "No, I'm not lonely. There are such lots of things 
 I don't know No, I'm never lonely, not even when 
 I'm with lots of other people." 
 
 "You've never really talked to me before, Olga. You 
 will again, won 't you ? ' ' 
 
 "Suppose it isn't the same another time?" 
 
 "What do you mean ? Of course it will be the same." 
 
 "You know," she spoke after a pause "I wish he'd 
 go Uiftle Tofty we don't like him not really. 
 Mother doesn't, I don't, nor Doris, either. He's horrid, 
 I 'm sure he 's horrid ! ' ' 
 
 "Oh." Lawrance could not feel much interested in 
 Mr. Tof ton. ' ' Your father why doesn 't he ? ' ' 
 
 "Oh, Father he never hates anybody." 
 
 ' ' I wonder why this time you talked to me ? ' ' 
 
 "I knew I was going to talk to you to-night, because 
 you liked me. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Haven 't I always been fond of you ? ' ' 
 
 "You're different to-day. You were different directly 
 you came in this morning." 
 
 "Do tell me how."
 
 68 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 "I don't know how." 
 
 They were in the Tottenham Court Road. Olga took 
 her hand from him and began putting on her glove. 
 Neither of them spoke again till they reached the ' ' Traf- 
 algar." Lawrance had been all the while shy with her, 
 afraid of saying the wrong thing, of taking what she said 
 in the wrong way. He had picked his few slow words 
 with nervous caution. He felt safer now that he had lost 
 her hand, more on equal terms. ' ' She 's my sister, she 's 
 my friend, ' ' he repeated to himself, and : "If you spoil 
 this, you 're a fool ! You know what she is. ' '
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THEY went in, dazzled from the darkened streets. 
 The place was crowded with people, crowded 
 with voices, crowded with light. Olga held 
 back; she took Lawrance's arm. "It's like when you 
 wake up after taking gas," she said. "It's like a dream 
 with the night all round it ! " 
 
 A man by them heard her and smiled. Lawrance no- 
 ticed, with acute antagonism: "Yes, it is!" he empha- 
 sized his answer. He wanted to say more, but couldn 't ; 
 he felt more uncertain of himself, more incapable of the 
 right kind of answer than ever. "And be damned to 
 you, sir ! " he would have said to the man. 
 
 He saw that Olga was observed, and observed more 
 closely and more generally after she had taken off her 
 coat. A spare, straight, middleaged man in evening 
 dress, with a quick unbelieving eye and a careful grey 
 moustache a man whose impress of breeding was as 
 assuringly stamped through as the watermark of a Bank 
 of England note said something in a dropped voice to 
 his companion, and they both looked at Lawrance and 
 Olga with remote impersonal insolence, in their way. 
 Olga, with her plain pearl-grey frock, and her rich hair, 
 simply tied, was unembarrassed, absorbed by the scene. 
 
 They sat through several rather dull "turns." "It's 
 stupid now," Lawrance whispered her, "but you'll like 
 Manon Gauffroux, and I've seen those Spanish dancers, 
 They're really good." 
 
 69
 
 70 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 "I like watching their faces," said the girl, "even if 
 it 's stupid, what they do. ' ' 
 
 Lawrance kept looking at her: he had not seen her 
 like this, under a continuous preoccupation with outside 
 things, since she was a little girl of twelve or thirteen, 
 before his marriage. He remembered how he had taken 
 her with Doris to Maskelyne and Devant's. But her 
 former preoccupation was different ; it had come of itself : 
 she was personally involved now ; she was, in a new way, 
 responsible. Her red lips had parted then; now they 
 were closed ; her eyes went out to the scene ; they did not 
 wait to be reached. Gradually a flush grew in her 
 cheeks, diversifying her beauty. That delicate colour, 
 delicate as a reflected sunset, was not at all the colour of 
 a child. Lawrance looked at the girls near him : Olga 's 
 face was more mature than any of theirs, much more 
 mature: yet their course was set for these others; hers 
 was not set for her. Olga had a hundred hints of change ; 
 she baffled any view of her future aspect. The contrast 
 between her face and her figure, with its lines of earliest 
 girlhood, was more and more exquisite: no one could 
 have more perfectly corresponded to the term "femme- 
 enfant." Lawrance rejoiced and was sad: he wished to 
 be confederate with the genii of her growth ; he feared 
 he would be withheld. His sense of her was much too 
 diffused for the admission to it, at that moment, of any 
 usual male desire ; she was there for him still as his "sis- 
 ter, " his " child. " 
 
 When the Interval came, she put her hands to her 
 cheeks and turned to him, laughing. 
 
 "They're quite hot!" she cried. "See!" She took 
 his hand and touched her cheek with his knuckles. 
 M Shall we go and walk about?"
 
 A CHASTE MAN 71 
 
 "Yes. "We'll have an ice or something to drink? 
 Which would you rather ? ' ' 
 
 The Promenade resounded with the emphatic presence 
 of foreign prostitutes, all of them dressed with a defiant 
 expensiveness. They were mainly Parisian and Bel- 
 gian, exiles of the war. They roamed with exaggerated 
 steps; they had the air of watchful repose peculiar to 
 the higher grades of their profession. Some of them 
 were arrestingly exotic. "There's La Marquise," said 
 a man 's voice near them. ' ' Don 't you remember ? Used 
 to be at the Chat Maigre." "La Marquise" was tall and 
 thin, in a white dress slashed by great black bars. She 
 swept slowly by, with disdainful dominance, her black 
 eyes were deep-set, burnt in; she wore her red-brown 
 hair dropped in dense coils behind the nape of her neck ; 
 her mouth was an unnatural tiny red spot in the midst 
 of the dead unfleshly whiteness expanded over her cheeks 
 and bosom. 
 
 Olga looked intently at her. "Does she live here?" 
 she whispered. "Do they all live here?" 
 
 Lawrance hurried on to the refreshment place, and 
 they sat down. 
 
 "Everybody seems to be moving about as though it 
 were all arranged beforehand, ' ' she said. Her eyes were 
 very bright. 
 
 "Do you like it?" 
 
 "Well, it isn't exactly whether you like it or not " 
 
 ' ' Ah, Mr. Lawrance ! ' ' 
 
 Lord Burpham's voice, somewhat mannered in its 
 crispness and the judged balance of its tone, accosted the 
 young man. He turned. "Well, sir!" 
 
 The other shook hands negligently with him. 
 
 "You don't happen to know where Mr. Ralston is this
 
 72 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 week-end, do you ? I particularly want to get a message 
 to him to-morrow. ' ' 
 
 "Yes, he's down at Horley." 
 
 "Ah. Thanks. I know the address." The man 
 glanced at Olga; he looked a shade puzzled for a mo- 
 ment. ' ' Ah. ' ' He hesitated. " I 've mislaid my friend ; 
 the place is so crowded." 
 
 "Why not sit down here ? ' ' 
 
 "Good. Quite." 
 
 "Let me introduce you to Miss to my sister. Olga, 
 this is Lord Burpham. ' ' 
 
 Olga looked with a quick interested smile ; she took the 
 introduction without a trace of embarrassment. Lord 
 Burpham gave her a bow the gallantry of which had a 
 dash of humour, for recognition of Olga's youth. He 
 was pleased by her ; he relaxed ; he was genially paternal, 
 with at the same time a discreet and happy, an unim- 
 peachable, eye to her sex. 
 
 "Well, Miss Lawrance, and what do you think of the 
 show?" She started, but very slightly, at the name. 
 " I Ve only just come in, myself. To hear the Gauffroux 
 girl." 
 
 "Yes, that's why we came." Lawrance interrupted 
 out of nervousness. 
 
 "Ah. I suppose that's why most of us have come. 
 Nothing much else, is there? But of course one must 
 see Manon Gauffroux. Of course." 
 
 He went on throwing out an unimportant sentence or 
 two at intervals, and Lawrance, still nervous, and with 
 a feeling of incompetence, put in what words he could 
 bring to mind. Olga remained silent. Once or twice 
 she gave Lord Burpham a clear, full, but momentary 
 glance. He was a tall man of between forty and fifty,
 
 A CHASTE MAN 73 
 
 slightly stooped, with a high permanent colour ; it seemed 
 impossible that he should ever either pale or be flushed. 
 His grey eyes were both wary and naive ; his long thin 
 face descended steeply to a well regulated dark-amber 
 moustache; he presented lengthened straight lines of 
 dark eyebrow, a withdrawing yet aptly modelled nose, 
 with nostrils that had a sensitiveness that seemed to be 
 held in check by his acute, directing rather than con- 
 trolling jaw. His hair was sparse, of a faded light 
 brown, carefully smoothed and arranged because of its 
 sparseness. He suggested a legally defined property in 
 his own features. A safe man, with few possible sur- 
 prises. 
 
 "It's the lack of the sense of relation," he was say- 
 ing, having passed, as he always did, by speedy transi- 
 tion, to his hobby of architecture, a hobby to which he 
 was under resolute bond. "When people build nowa- 
 days, they don't build in any sort of relation to the time 
 in which they live. They imitate: they don't think of 
 their age and its condition, its needs. Look at this pre- 
 posterous theatre. And it's the same everywhere. 
 There's not a single modern building in London. All 
 imitations, er harkbacks, you know. No reality about 
 them, no life. You see what I mean, don't you?" 
 
 "Yes," said Olga, speaking almost for the first time, 
 "but they get it, don't they? They get life after awhile. 
 Everything does, you only have to leave it." 
 
 Lord Burpham looked at her questioningly, with a 
 slight surprise and a slight impatience. He hesitated, 
 and tapped his fingers on the table. It was a little un- 
 comfortable, this switching him off from his lines of 
 usual travel. 
 
 "Ah!" He recovered himself with a smile. "You
 
 74 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 know, there is something in that. I quite take your 
 point. Of course a building does become less of a er a 
 flaming anachronism yes as time goes on. Simply be- 
 cause we get used to it. Gets toned down. Takes its 
 impress in a sort of way yes. But how much better 
 it would be, my dear young lady, if the harmony were 
 there from the first ! Don 't you really think so, ah ? ' ' 
 
 "I don't know But I like all these new buildings. 
 I like the 'Trafalgar' because they're, well, because 
 they're Londony." 
 
 "Yes; well " Lord Burpham was indulgent. "Of 
 course London has so much character that it can stand 
 most kinds of er architectural outrage. I agree there. 
 But you'd find that the right sort of buildings the sort 
 we're trying for would be quite as 'Lcndony,' and in a 
 much more intelligent way." 
 
 "What would they be like?" 
 
 The question replaced Lord Burpham happily in his 
 accustomed track. His eyes became less wary, more 
 na'ive. He began to talk at once of the rejection of old 
 models, the elimination of the Gothic, the Doric, the 
 Georgian, the Renaissance Italian, of ' ' all the sterile imi- 
 tation forms"; he emphasized the need for simplicity, 
 economy, he explained that nothing must be allowed that 
 did not "minister to a need of modern life." 
 
 "No clash with the old buildings, either," he was say- 
 ing as the three-minute bell rang. "Not in the least, not 
 if you look at it in the right way. Architecture should 
 be history, one generation to another, and each genera- 
 tion on its own feet. For instance, down at Lipscot, in 
 my new Wing there, we But it's time for Manon, and 
 besides I can't show you properly without plans. You 
 can explain to your sister, Mr. Lawrance; you've been
 
 A CHASTE MAN 75 
 
 down to Lipscot with Mr. Ralston. Better still, bring 
 Miss Lawrance down yourself. Yes. We'll arrange it 
 when I'm next at the Office. But you take the general 
 idea, don't you? You see what we're getting at?" 
 
 "Yes a little," said Olga, as they rose. "But 
 wouldn't it be all rather like a sort of Exhibition?" 
 
 "Exhibition? Not at all. Absolutely natural abso- 
 lutely fitting. That's the whole point." Lord Bur- 
 pham's tone was rather magisterially corrective, but his 
 glance at the girl bringing him pleasure in her being so 
 young and comely, his temper changed. "You'll see 
 when you come," he went on, as they passed along the 
 Promenade. "We must fix a day when my cousin can 
 be there; he's one of the very few architects who really 
 understand Crockerton Deavitt you may have ah, 
 Colby, there you are " He said good-bye to them, and 
 joined his companion. 
 
 Lawrance looked at Olga with a new admiration. He 
 was extremely perturbed by the developments of the con- 
 versation the invitation to Lipscot, and then Crocker- 
 ton Deavitt! It was now probable enough that his 
 lie about Olga being his sister would be detected; but 
 admiration for Olga was his uppermost emotion, and he 
 sought refuge in it. 
 
 She was wonderful; she had taken Burpham on equal 
 terms, without any effort, no effort in the least ! Now, 
 if it had been Muriel ! Muriel had never met Lord Bur- 
 pham, but if she had, Lawrance knew quite well that 
 somehow or other she would have betrayed herself; she 
 would have shown she was conscious of his being a lord, 
 however hard she might have tried not to show it. She 
 would have been thinking all the while: "Well, I'm a 
 lady ; his having a title doesn't make him superior to me,
 
 76 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 and I shall behave accordingly." The image of Muriel 
 thus struggling and failing was for an instant pathetic 
 to her husband: it pained him sharply; he suffered an 
 unexpected emotional stab in that "Poor girl!" that 
 came to him. He suffered too from the fugitive hint that 
 all the tenderness that had once been so strong in him for 
 "dear little Magsie," would have come swift, in a fine 
 spontaneous outflow, to protect her on just such an oc- 
 casion as that : it was a hint that he suppressed ; he drove 
 it back, but not out. The ghost of the delicate grave 
 passion of old days kept lodging still with him, however 
 silent and remote. 
 
 They were in their seats again. A girl with abundant 
 flaxen hair and a large unnaturally shining bust was 
 giving imitations of popular actresses. Lawrance looked 
 at Olga by his side in the dim light. She was not, 
 certainly not, in the usual acceptance of the term, a 
 "lady," neither by birth nor by upbringing. He re- 
 membered Muriel's reference to the Flynns: "not the 
 sort of people one knows. ' ' Yet Olga ' ' behaved ' ' better 
 than he did himself ; her soul, certainly, was much better 
 mannered than his. She ignored, on the securest in- 
 stinct, all irrelevancy. Perhaps because her father, the 
 Polish dancer, had been really an artist. . . . Was that 
 why she had sat silent, at her special detached ease, till 
 something with which she felt a personal concern was 
 said? "Was that why, when she did speak, she spoke so 
 naturally, altogether without that intrusive talkativeness 
 that girls, leaving girlish silences, make their usual 
 plunges for? She spoke without stupidity and without 
 cleverness. Yes, Olga was neither stupid nor clever; 
 that was one of her secrets ; that was one reason why her 
 mind was unblighted. Lawrance 's thoughts of Muriel
 
 A CHASTE MAN 77 
 
 were quite mute and invisible now : his pride in Olga had 
 banished them far. Again he reverted to her well-man- 
 nered soul, reflecting that he himself, in his early days 
 of acquaintanceship with Lord Burpham, had never got 
 quite clear of the title : and even now he could not over- 
 come a repressed consciousness of it, when other people, 
 strangers to the peer or himself, were present. And yet 
 Burpham, like most men of controlling preoccupations, 
 was readily dissociated from his class. 
 
 After the flaxen caricaturist came Manon Gauffroux, 
 with her fame, her beauty, her popularity as a daughter 
 of allied France, palpably attendant upon her. She 
 seemed to coquet with all three at once, as well as with 
 the collective admiration that rose to her. Her appear- 
 ance gave immediate assurance of her talent, assurance 
 of the complete quality of its brilliant and facile touch. 
 "Touch" was the word for her: as she sang her old 
 French chansons, her old English ballads, these latter 
 with an enchanting French accent, both timid and brave, 
 faltering most winningly to the "Bravos" of her hear- 
 ers' minds, she "touched" at one emotional surface 
 after another, she fluttered on the windowsills of all the 
 passions. She was everything that was pretty and 
 piquant and quaint: the first impressions, from a dis- 
 tance, of beauty and love and jealousy and tragedy, she 
 gave them all; then, with a toss of her admirable little 
 golden head, with a light turn of her bewitching figure, 
 with a moue of every conceivable enticement in caprice, 
 she conjured desolation and broken hearts, angers and 
 lusts and hates, each one, into prettiness and piquancy 
 and quaintness, where, by the magic of her tiny wand, 
 they stayed locked up. And all without real fantasy, 
 without real imagination, without genius : her talent, un-
 
 78 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 challengeable for what it was, exactly suited her huge 
 audience, placed them on equal terms with her in spirit, 
 gave them what was theirs, what was easy and charm- 
 ing to take, flattered and satisfied them, too, by the fact 
 of its being given thus, with this elegance more delectable 
 than any they could have dreamed. Manon Gauffroux 
 was perfectly and happily mistress of her own ruled-off 
 marginal field, a field not ruled off from them, but for 
 them. The house was in a frenzy for her. 
 
 "She's extraordinarily good," said Lawrance, when 
 at last the hubbub subsided, some five minutes after the 
 "call" which the singer decreed as final. 
 
 "Yes." Olga was thoughtful, and her flush had a lit- 
 tle faded. "Yes, but it's all playing at it, isn't it?" 
 
 "Olga! I saw your eyes " 
 
 "I know." She turned and looked at him; she looked 
 affectionately. ' ' But playing at things makes your eyes 
 get wet often." 
 
 Lawrance was not himself too young to recognize in 
 Olga something of the pedantry of youth, something of 
 that stiff-mindedness that is evidence of youth and chas- 
 tity. But this only made her youth more sure for him : 
 and dimly, sweetly, hurtingly, he took account of the 
 future wearing down, on the wakening of passion, of 
 the edges of her sharp impressions, the edges of her al- 
 most acrid desire for truth, of her sense of truth's im- 
 portance. 
 
 The Spanish dancers came, with their southern rap- 
 port of amorous sentiment with amorous sense, their keen- 
 handed swift violence, their proud ferocity, and their 
 "frankness" that really is not frankness as the north- 
 ern mind understands the word, because of the absence 
 for balance of any implied conception of northern "reti-
 
 A CHASTE MAN 79 
 
 cence." They circled, hovered, leapt, clashed, entwined, 
 sang, cried out for one another, closed in on one another, 
 in complete indifference to their audience, an indiffer- 
 ence that struck down to fibres of deep root, that was 
 involved with absorption in essential hungers and essen- 
 tial strifes. Lawrance felt excited and afraid; he took 
 Olga's hand; he was threatened. Her flush returned; 
 she was troubled and stirred, but why, how, he could 
 not tell. She leaned forward, she frowned; once she 
 smiled curiously. Her eyes brightened as they had never 
 brightened for Manon Gauffroux; her face grew sud- 
 denly childlike. . . . Later its expression changed again : 
 she looked remote and yet involved, chaste but not inno- 
 cent. Lawrance could not help breathing heavily. She 
 pressed his hand : he glanced again at her, and saw that 
 now, as at first, she was puzzled, but puzzled as though 
 she liked it. He was baffled : he could not tell at all what 
 was happening, or what might happen : every implication 
 evaded him. 
 
 The audience had settled down to appreciation of the 
 Spanish dancing as of a "turn" that was "a bit thick 
 in parts, you know," still, one could keep an attitude 
 of moral neutrality because the people were foreigners, 
 and of course it was their way: silly to be prudish. 
 Rather naughty, but licensed, and you might as well en- 
 joy it. There was a display of tempered enthusiasm: 
 Lord Burpham, like most of the others, clapped gently 
 and not for too long, so as not to commit himself. The 
 "Trafalgar" was a high-class "Hall." 
 
 ""Well," Lawrance asked, "and how did you like 
 that?" 
 
 She gave him a grave look. "It wasn't so easy," she 
 said.
 
 80 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 "Not so easy! Why, every one thinks Manon is so 
 subtle and delicate and all that, and these Spanish peo- 
 ple, well, they say they 're you know the kind of thing 
 they say, 'primitive force' 'resolving the passions to 
 their first elements' and all that. 'Simplicity and 
 sheer directness of animal vitality.' I was reading a 
 notice only yesterday " 
 
 "I didn't know what they meant what they really 
 meant all the same. But it was something important. 
 I'm very glad indeed we saw them. I shall think about 
 them. They weren't playing at anything." 
 
 Lawrance's emotions kept beating him. She was still 
 grave, and still flushed, when they left the theatre.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 * ' ^""V H, a four-wheeler ! But won 't you be awfully 
 
 I late getting back after coming home with 
 
 V^/ me?" 
 
 "It doesn't matter. No really. Let's take this. 
 You see, the Tube will be crowded, and all the taxis have 
 been snapped up." Lawrance spoke rapidly. 
 
 When they were inside the cab, she touched his knee. 
 "It's exciting, all this, isn't it?" she said, and laughed. 
 
 ' ' Oh, Olga ! " He gave her a long look, a look that he 
 meant to be tender and understanding, but which was, in 
 fact, desirous, apprehensive. 
 
 "Just think! London real London isn't it differ- 
 ent from our part?" She was leaning forward, away 
 from him; she gazed at the streets with their dimmed 
 shine; she took in the blurred and various lines of the 
 buildings. "Just think! All these shops and theatres 
 and hotels ! I love London. And that man would like 
 to have everything altered!" 
 
 "Well, not exactly. He'd leave the old buildings as 
 they are ; what he 'd alter would be the new ones. ' ' 
 
 "Yes, but nearly all these are new, and they're all 
 lovely. Isn't London much better now they've dark- 
 ened the streets ? I like some quite little things about 
 London, I like them awfully. The way they put the 
 'A' in the sign of the Gaiety Theatre, and the 'H.' 
 We're just there, but you can't see it now. Would he 
 think that was wrong?" 
 
 81
 
 82 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 "I'm sure Lord Burpham would say that was unneces- 
 sary and teasing ornamentation." 
 
 "Well, I like it! Oh, wasn't it funny Mr. Deavitt 
 being his cousin? Mr. Deavitt didn't build that new 
 Wing he wanted us to see, did he ? " 
 
 "No." Lawrance avoided looking at her now; he was 
 determined not to be false to the unfleshly ideal of his 
 affection, determined, and horribly nervous under the 
 determination. "No, I'm sure he didn't. I never heard 
 Lord Burpham speak of Mr. Deavitt before. You 
 know," he went on eagerly, for if only they could talk 
 on unimportant subjects all the time, and he could keep 
 his mind fixed, then he would be safe, "you know that 
 new Wing at Lipscot isn't half bad, really. It would 
 have been a sight, right enough, if Burpham had had his 
 way, but the man who did it what's his name? I 
 know it quite well, he, well, he really fooled Burpham, 
 you know, so he ended by making the thing presentable. ' ' 
 Lawrance, not being ready of speech, found this talking 
 for safety a great effort. "There's something in Lord 
 Burpham 's ideas, but he's got no notion of practical 
 application, no notion at all. I wonder why he's taken 
 up Deavitt as an authority now ; I suppose he quarrelled 
 with the other man " 
 
 ' ' Is Lord Burpham 's house old ? ' ' 
 
 "Oh, yes, pretty old. Lipscot House is Elizabethan, 
 I think, or it may be earlier. I don't quite know. 
 You see I don't understand anything about architecture, 
 really; I don't do anything but the Occult business " 
 
 "Well, I should think that new Wing must look funny, 
 even if I don 't ' ' She stopped abruptly. " Oh ! " 
 She leaned back. "I'm tired." Her low-pitched voice 
 quivered a little. She took his hand. " Do you ever get
 
 A CHASTE MAN 83 
 
 tired?" She looked at his strained face, with its suffer- 
 ing dark eyes. "Do you ever get tired like that sud- 
 denly? Oh, Uncle Lorrie, no, 'Lorrie,' I will say 
 'Lorrie,' I remember, I loved it to-night, but I am 
 tired. You are, too. Don't let's talk any more." 
 
 She leaned back farther; she was aslant against him, 
 her head rested below his shoulder, her slight arm lay 
 along. She was utterly relaxed : he felt her unknowing 
 warmth, felt it about and through him, overpowering, 
 with no intent. For more than ten minutes they neither 
 of them moved. He could only repeat to himself, over 
 and over: "This is awful; this is awful!" When she 
 did move, she settled herself rather more closely to him, 
 giving him sharp torture. ' ' I don 't want it ! " he cried 
 inwardly, as though calling God to witness. "I don't 
 want it!" 
 
 The streets grew darker and darker. They were out 
 past Euston now. Lawrance felt that he might be saved 
 by doing something wild, by calling to the driver and 
 telling him to turn back to Euston Station, then taking 
 her away with him by some night-express North. If 
 only he had to get tickets and find a compartment ! Any- 
 thing of that kind ! But this was unbearable, he would 
 go mad. He did not reason at all; he never once 
 thought : ' ' What if I do embrace her ? " or : " What if 
 I do not?" thus setting trains of possible effects in vi- 
 sionary motion. His sole engrossment was with resolve 
 in opposition to desire. The fantastic idea of the mid- 
 night express flashed on him from outside : he could not 
 cope with it, nor with anything else but his desire: it 
 paled, that idea, and vanished, leaving him struggling 
 without help. 
 
 She stirred, and he felt her hair against his chin. Why
 
 84 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 had he taken that four-wheeler ? Those very qualities in 
 her that he had believed must keep him back and set 
 him right, her vague and troubled delicacy, her tremu- 
 lousness still remote, her fugitive half -sense of the bloom 
 that was there for her, but not yet, all this racked him, 
 tore his soul with a cruel temptation of cruelty in pas- 
 sion. It was just because it would be specially wrong 
 and out of time He dared not look at nor think of 
 her unripened figure, her figure so exquisitely in the way 
 to be ready; he tried to think that she was made like 
 Doris. He imagined Doris, grossly burlesqued, by his 
 side. 
 
 "Hold me," she said sleepily. "I should like that 
 Well, don't you want to? I suppose I should make you 
 uncomfortable." 
 
 "If I do " He stopped, and found himself reflect- 
 ing upon his absurdly theatrical intonation of the words. 
 "If I do," he tried to take a lighter pitch, "well, I 
 shall kiss you; I shall hug you; that's all. I tell you 
 I" 
 
 ' ' Well, why ? It wouldn 't matter, would it 1 Don 't 
 you always kiss me ? " 
 
 She sat straight up ; he caught the gleam of her eyes, 
 but could not see her expression. 
 
 ' ' I don 't know, ' ' he said. ' ' I should be sorry, you see ; 
 I should be sorry if oh, Olga!" 
 
 He lifted her to him, took her full in his arms, kiss- 
 ing her savagely about the mouth and neck, trembling 
 to the sense of her unaccustomed flesh. Her lips were 
 open: he held her so closely, his kisses were so violent, 
 that he did not know if she trembled or responded. An 
 immense wave of physical relief overcame him, washing 
 out everything. At last he relaxed his clasp of her a
 
 A CHASTE MAN 85 
 
 little, but he kissed her still ; he kissed her arms, he took 
 her hand and kissed it. He was faint with her, she was 
 so strange and unused. There was no remorse. 
 
 "You're my girl, mine!" he whispered. "I can't 
 love you more I can't!" 
 
 "I'd like to sit quietly now." 
 
 She lay against him in silence, and he heard her heart. 
 He kept his arms about her waist, her waist that was 
 too girlish to be boyish, too boyish to be girlish. He 
 caught gently at her now and again, he kissed her more 
 tenderly, but with passion still. His ecstasy lingered, 
 in sweeter stress. 
 
 "That's what people do when they're in love, isn't 
 it?" she said at last. 
 
 ' ' Ah, then, you don 't love me ! " 
 
 "I don't know. There must be something more it 
 wasn't the end." 
 
 "No in a way; but that isn't the most important." 
 Lawrance misunderstood her: he thought she spoke out 
 of instinct and innocence. 
 
 "I mean that I must have more to feel. I mean that 
 it wasn't important enough. Now if it had made me 
 different all through !" 
 
 "Oh, Olga, I do love you!" He was appealing, al- 
 most plaintive. "I couldn't love you more than this 
 I do love you ! ' ' 
 
 "Do you? I like that if you do really but it's not 
 oh, I don't know! Perhaps ' 
 
 "Kiss me." 
 
 "I'd rather you kissed me. Isn't it funny, how you 
 think about things, and then they're different? I'm not 
 sorry, but it's difficult. Look, there's Camden Town 
 Tube. We're nearly there. I'm not unhappy at all, or
 
 86 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 cross. I wonder why Doris is. Perhaps she can be 
 really in love, after all, and that's why but I don't 
 think so. ' ' 
 
 "Olga! If you didn't want me to let you go, you 
 must love me a little." 
 
 "I hope I don't." 
 
 1 ' Why ? What do you mean ? ' ' 
 
 "Why, don't you see? of course because there 'd be 
 nothing for afterwards nothing new." 
 
 "Shall I have anything to do with that?" He was 
 resentful. 
 
 "I don't know at all." She was unusually decisive. 
 
 "You're not angry with me, anyhow?" he said weakly. 
 
 "Of course not. I like you just the same as I did be- 
 fore. You didn't seem to be there that was what it was 
 like as if you weren 't in it. ' ' He winced, and wanted 
 to feel that she was brutal, but couldn't. Then his ac- 
 quired sentiment blamed her for immodesty, but uncon- 
 vincingly. "I began it. I wanted to, partly because 
 of those Spanish dancers Father talks about Cath- 
 olics of Spain. I think those dancers would be good 
 Catholics, and Manon Gauffroux wouldn't. You see," 
 she went on very slowly, "I thought I could do that 
 like people do when they're in love just trying it as 
 a sort of help because I 've known you so long, and you 
 understood and you weren't like the others and to- 
 day you'd been different to what you were before." 
 
 "But you weren't cold, Olga; you weren't cold!" 
 
 "I didn't feel cold." 
 
 He wondered if she had taken him in a purely literal 
 sense. "You were loving to me!" he protested, not 
 being at all sure that she was. 
 "In a way, yes; I "
 
 A CHASTE MAN 87 
 
 "Not in the right way ? ' ' 
 
 "There'll be another way later on, I'm sure." 
 
 "Well, was it a a help?" He sought relief in an 
 ironical tone. 
 
 "Yes. I know I've I know I've something to love 
 with." 
 
 "You are extraordinary. I can't understand you, 
 Olga." 
 
 "Well, you were happy." 
 
 "I'm not happy now." 
 
 ' ' I want you to be. Would you be happy if you took 
 me and kissed me like that again, another time ? ' ' 
 
 ' ' I think we 'd better wait. ' ' He was on his dignity. 
 
 "It's only playing at it, isn't it? But you can, when- 
 ever you like." 
 
 ' ' Olga ! Don 't let any one else ! ' ' 
 
 "All right. Here's our house." 
 
 "Promise me!" 
 
 "Yes, I promise. I don't want to let any one else." 
 
 "Ah, not yet!" he bitterly reflected, as they got out: 
 then, his emotions switching: "I've done wrong! It's 
 awful!" 
 
 "Well you two!" Doris's voice greeted them jocu- 
 larly as they entered the house. They went through the 
 half-open door of the dining-room and saw her lying 
 half -asleep in a large chair by the fire. "Have a good 
 time?" She got up and felt her hair and patted her 
 blouse before lighting the gas. "What's the show like 
 at the 'Traf.'?" 
 
 Lawrance noticed that Olga's natural pallor had re- 
 turned. 
 
 "We went to the Camden 'Palace,' " Doris went on. 
 "What did you think of Manon? Oh, you are all
 
 88 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 rumpled up !" She looked with veiled jealousy at Olga. 
 "I expect you're tired," she added meaningly. 
 "Yes, awfully." 
 
 ' ' Well, goodnight, Doris ! Goodnight, Olga ! ' ' 
 He touched her cheek with his lips, left them, and 
 walked rapidly, thinking and wondering, being angry 
 and being amorous, to the Camden Town Tube. He 
 could not help feeling that in some way or other Muriel 
 had scored.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 DURING the next few days Muriel, to her hus- 
 band's surprise, was affectionate, maternal and 
 gay. She did not once refer to his visit to the 
 Flynns; indeed she did not refer to the Flynns at all. 
 She treated Lawrance with a specialized tact, as a skilled 
 nurse treats an invalid. He guessed that she was act- 
 ing on a set purpose, and he was puzzled that she should 
 show this kind of cleverness: he did not realize that 
 nearly all women are clever under certain impulses. He 
 had never had any but the scantest glimpses of generali- 
 ties about women or about life: he rarely, even in the 
 humblest way, philosophized. Nor was he at all a close 
 observer, but Muriel's change of conduct was so definite 
 that he could not have helped noticing it. He did not 
 like it at first; it made him uneasy, but he had some 
 consolation in reflecting that Muriel was only making it 
 difficult for him to do what he did not mean to do any- 
 how just yet, that was to go and see the Flynns. He 
 soon found himself, on the whole, much less irritable, 
 much less bitter, much less vindictive. He was, without 
 knowing it, exactly in the mood to be smoothed, in the 
 mood to have his pillows patted, his hair stroked, and 
 his bedclothes tucked in for him. The sincerity of Olga 
 had given his pride a really severe shock. Nothing could 
 have had so surely the effect of a rebuff. 
 
 Married people are especially soothed, just as they are 
 especially exasperated, by the various habitual inci- 
 
 89
 
 90 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 dentals of their state. Hence the extraordinary power, 
 for comfort or for worry, of wife over husband, of hus- 
 band over wife. They both know : it is open to them both 
 to suppress or to evoke: and so, easily, without overt 
 sign, Muriel suppressed during these particular days 
 nearly all the little incidental things that made for the 
 disturbance of her husband's daily course, she evoked 
 nearly all that were calming and harmonious. She 
 tightened the bonds that drew the habit of her grate- 
 fully to him, she relaxed those that drew it vexingly. 
 She played the good wife, she was always on the look 
 out. "You don't understand her," he found himself 
 thinking. "She's a woman of fibre, of self-control." 
 
 He was, at the least, not sorry to be in the same house 
 with her : at the most, he had a sense of domestic security 
 and kind domestic vigilance that pleased him well. ' ' Do- 
 mestic" he was, at bottom: "Bohemia" was hardly a 
 region for his holiday trips, certainly not for his resi- 
 dence. His attraction to the Flynns was for themselves, 
 not for their setting, not for their way of life: it was 
 fed by his profound loyalty to friendships of early youth, 
 by his dependence upon associations to which he was well 
 used. Lawrance's revulsions against the day-after-day 
 intimacies of marriage struck down to no roots of revo- 
 lutionary theory native to his spirit : they were the kind 
 of revulsions known from time to time by most quite 
 usual married men, who come to put up with them as they 
 put up with colds in the head, as normally intermittent ; 
 colds, in a temperate climate: these revulsions, in wed- 
 lock. And particularly severe revulsions, like particu- 
 larly severe colds, result in fever. Muriel was applying 
 what was not pressing the metaphor too far a homoeo- 
 pathic cure.
 
 A CHASTE MAN 91 
 
 She did not want to lose him, and she felt rather than 
 planned her way to hold him. Her task, with men of 
 certain other temperaments, would have been far more 
 difficult, for though Lawrance 's passions were violent and 
 easily stirred, they were easily diverted: if diverted be- 
 fore his obstinacy hardened. Again, he was subject to 
 the flattery and the convenience of personal attention, 
 subject also to the influence of the recall of memories 
 that their earlier married life had given. That "Do 
 you remember . . . ?" touched and pleased him. On 
 one occasion she led him to remember, stirringly and 
 significantly, a certain rare drawing of her to him in 
 their early married days. ' ' How strong you are ! ' ' Her 
 words came back, none the less vibrant because he was 
 not really strong, and never had been. 
 
 Muriel was helped, too, by there never having been 
 between them wounds that went really deep: and, most 
 importantly, her temperamental coldness did not of ne- 
 cessity debar a simulation with which his blood co-oper- 
 ated, hardly at all debarred it now that she was set on 
 "being nice to him." Here she was helped tremen- 
 dously by his experience with Olga : he took, in a sense, 
 revenge upon the girl. 
 
 It was not for one reason only that he had resolved 
 not to go to the Flynns' soon again. The meeting with 
 Lord Burpham troubled Lawrance much, troubled him 
 more and more. The humiliation of his lie about Olga 
 being his sister gathered weight, and he had no humour 
 to bring relief. He was weighted too by the increasingly 
 afflicting consciousness of what the verdict of men of 
 Lord Burpham 's code would be upon his conduct. Mor- 
 ality came home to him in this very usual way : he could 
 hear others talking; he knew that to them he would be
 
 92 
 
 a "rotter" for what he had done. Not that "they" 
 were not lenient within prescribed limits, much more 
 lenient, of course, than the abstract code : but these lim- 
 its, he knew perfectly well, would not include behaviour 
 like his. He would be allowed to have "affairs," under 
 regulation of good form, but: "A married man's no 
 business to go taking a girl barely sixteen to the ' Trafal- 
 gar' and messing about with her in a cab on the way 
 back." It didn't "do"; it wasn't the thing, and it was 
 damn bad luck on his wife. 
 
 He knew exactly why he had lied to Lord Burpham ; 
 knew exactly what Lord Burpham 's defined coldness to 
 him would be like, if he found out. And Lord Burpham 
 would be articulating the attitude of thousands ; he would 
 be representing something that was tremendously and 
 formidably backed, something old and strong, something 
 that must be justified in being there. Lawrance had not 
 a grain of the gay defiance that could ignore it, and en- 
 joy ignoring it all the more because it was so portentous 
 and so fixed. He might clench his hand, but he could 
 never snap his fingers, with : ' ' Oh, don 't you like it, my 
 dear ones! What funny little men you are!" They 
 were not funny at all to him, and they loomed. "It's 
 awful!" he would repeat. He was not able for the 
 reflection that our way of treating sex is quite as much 
 of a Phallic ritual as any, and hardly more unsuccessful 
 than most. He had no fears whatever on the economic 
 score : his fifteen hundred pounds invested with Ralston 
 and Inge kept him securely with them. Besides, he knew 
 he had value : he was indeed excellent in his work, reli- 
 able ; never brilliant, but with serviceable powers of con- 
 centration, a good head, and a journalistic sense. With- 
 out him, old Inge would be sure to run amuck, and he
 
 A CHASTE MAN 93 
 
 would be difficult to replace, especially with so many men 
 gone or going to the war. No, it was the idea of the dis- 
 favour of this consolidated opinion that hurt him; even 
 though he were never to come into actual contact with it, 
 that would not matter. It would still be overpoweringly 
 there. He used to look at Muriel, thinking : ' ' And she 
 has all that behind her ! " He felt that instinctively she 
 knew it, knew that she was in this way "tremendously 
 backed." All her kindness, all her care and thought for 
 him, seemed to emphasize the legality, the acceptedness, 
 of their relations. He was too much in the wash of reac- 
 tion to resent this, to dislike her because of it : it seemed, 
 indeed, rather to support him ; to be bringing ' ' opinion ' ' 
 round to his side, as he had vainly tried to do by telling 
 himself that he had known Olga since she was little, that 
 he was an old friend of the family, a humorous touch, 
 this, to another, that there had been no ' ' impropriety. ' ' 
 These excuses did not in the least affect that sure and dis- 
 passionate condemnation from outside: Lawrance was 
 neither clever nor dishonest enough for them to do that. 
 
 Lord Burpham was "round at the Office" a few days 
 after the "Trafalgar" evening. He asked Lawrance: 
 "How about Monday of next week?" "Charming girl, 
 your sister, Mr. Lawrance," he said. "Charming girl." 
 The young man told him that she was not very well. So 
 the matter dropped, with the usual expressions. 
 
 Lawrance, at the end of the week, was the more im- 
 pressed by and unhappy for the news that his real sister 
 Letty was as a fact "not very well." These were the 
 words used by Lawrance 's mother at the beginning of 
 her letter, but what followed was more alarming, al- 
 though his mother's tone, throughout, was one of gossip 
 at ease about her daughter. Lawrance gathered that the
 
 94 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 girl she was about five years younger than he was 
 threatened by consumption. A sore place at the bottom 
 of one of her lungs. She coughed and had lost weight. 
 The doctor advised complete rest, careful diet, and the 
 open air. He did not think it imperative that she should 
 leave Malstowe, where they lived: there were better 
 places, it was true, but there was no danger in remaining, 
 if Letty were careful about rest and fresh air. Mrs. 
 Lawrance would have liked, she wrote, to have taken the 
 dear girl to one of those " better places," but Oliver knew 
 her difficulties; her heart trouble prevented her from 
 travelling, besides, getting abroad seemed almost impos- 
 sible, with the war; it would be dreadful if there were 
 two invalids, and dear Letty did not at all want to leave 
 her and go with any one else. So they must hope it 
 would be all right at Malstowe, where after all they did 
 have a fine sea air. But what did Oliver think? She 
 wanted they both wanted his advice, very much. If 
 he could possibly come down for a day or two 
 
 Lawrance, upset and sad, handed the letter to his wife. 
 "Poor little girl!" she exclaimed. She was tender and 
 grave, she was sympathetic in just the right way. Law- 
 rance was touched, and in a sense flattered, because 
 Letty, for whom Muriel was preoccupied, was his sister. 
 
 ' ' Of course I shall go, ' ' he said. 
 
 Muriel asked, very sweetly and seriously, if she might 
 come too. 
 
 ' ' Of course, ' ' he told her. ' ' Of course, darling. That 
 is what I should like. We'll take a week." 
 
 ' ' It won 't be a bother for your mother, having us both ? 
 She didn't say" 
 
 "Oh, that was only because she thought I shouldn't be
 
 A CHASTE MAN 95 
 
 able to get off for more than a day or two. But things 
 are slack now. A week will be all right. ' ' 
 
 "Poor Letty ! I am sorry, Doll I do hope " 
 No one could have shown more considerate feeling for a 
 sister-in-law. Muriel made the most of the immense 
 advantage that women have in situations of the kind. 
 
 Lawrance telegraphed. An hour or so later he winced 
 a little when Mr. Ralston, who had overheard him and 
 Lord Burpham, said: "Your sister is worse?"
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 LAWRANCE and his wife, on their arrival at 
 about five o'clock, were greeted by Letty in her 
 hat and coat. She ran out into the hall from 
 the drawingroom. ' ' You dear things ! I am glad we got 
 back in time!" She kissed them. "I'll come up with 
 you." 
 
 Lawrance's glance into the drawingroom revealed two 
 young men, one of whom he knew pretty well, the other a 
 stranger; a young girl, familiar as a friend of his sister's, 
 and his mother. Mrs. Lawrance's plentiful person was 
 fully occupying a deep wicker chair; she made it look 
 flimsy. In her important brown and yellow flowered 
 silk she was like an expensive bouquet in its paper 
 wrapper, she was a floral decoration too abundant for 
 the scene. She was prodigious, not at all superb. They 
 were all having tea, talking, being amused. Lawrance 
 resented strongly the pleasant and casual air of this little 
 tea-party. Nothing in the least as he had expected. 
 Hang it, he'd come to see his family . . . serious mat- 
 ter ... surely they might have . . . this kind of in- 
 trusion. . . . 
 
 "There! You'll come down soon, won't you? We'll 
 have some tea made fresh. Mother's longing to see you. 
 I look all right, don't I ? Nothing really the matter, it's 
 not worth talking about only a stupid little sore place 
 somewhere or other. . . . Yes, I'm drinking milk and 
 I've had the sashes of all my windows taken out. Mother 
 
 96
 
 A CHASTE MAN 97 
 
 and I changed rooms because she has such a lot of win- 
 dows. Come along soon!" 
 
 Lawrance, in his dressing-room, washed his hands 
 slowly. He didn't know who to be angry with: he 
 couldn't be angry with Letty, she was so pretty and she 
 had kissed him so affectionately; he couldn't be angry 
 with his mother, his floral and stationary mother, any 
 more than he could be angry with some enormous bloom. 
 She was there; she had to be there, copiously, just like 
 that, and nothing but her appearance could be expected 
 of her. Lawrance realized, with full flush of feeling, 
 how very fond he was of both his mother and Letty. He 
 remembered Letty as a little girl. By Jove ! how pretty 
 she was then, and what a little flirt ! She had never had 
 an awkward age. Thirteen, fourteen fifteen, he had 
 always been proud of her, and there had never been any 
 trouble, either : she had never gone over the line, or near 
 it, not really near Prettier than ever, she seemed, 
 now she was ill. Her large brown kindling eyes seemed 
 larger, her colour more daring and bright. She seemed 
 to give a keener sense of herself. That brown hair of 
 hers, with its flashes of gold, more frequent and more 
 alight than Olga's russet gleams; her large but clear- 
 cut and wholesomely amorous mouth; her fervent 
 sharply-striking grace of figure. ... No one could be 
 prettier. And now those cursed "T. B."! 
 
 Lawrance noticed a photograph of Letty, taken when 
 she was sixteen: just Olga's age. Olga? Letty would 
 not have been in the least like Olga; she would never 
 . . . He checked himself : he had no business to be think- 
 ing of Olga now What the devil was that young Ted 
 Phillips doing down at Malstowe? Why wasn't he in 
 khaki? Of course he was after Letty; very bad for her;
 
 98 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 he was handsome, too; it must be stopped. Lawrance 
 knew now who to be angry with; he would be, he was, 
 angry with Phillips. A strong, healthy young fellow 
 like that; a bachelor with an independent income; he 
 was the very sort they wanted for the Army. They 
 ought to bring in Compulsory Service ! Lawrance 's pub- 
 lic school honour checked him here: he felt he had no 
 right to wish for Compulsory Service, as he was phys- 
 ically unfit himself. Anyhow, what did Phillips mean 
 by it, idling down at a seaside place, running about after 
 a girl who was ill, upsetting her ? Lawrance would have 
 a long talk that evening with his mother. . . . 
 
 "Aren't you coming, Doll?" Muriel's known tap 
 came at the door between their rooms. 
 
 When they got down, the three intruders had disap- 
 peared. Letty was at the tea-table, and Mrs. Lawrance 
 still in her chair, from which she made a tentative inade- 
 quate effort to detach herself, as her son and daughter- 
 in-law came in. They approached her hurriedly: it 
 seemed so very wrong that she should get up, yet almost 
 indelicate to allude to that operation by asking her not to. 
 
 "Well Oliver darling darling Muriel." As they 
 bent to her, she emitted her salutations, in a voice that 
 seemed to emerge by a difficult yet dignified process of 
 filtration through unseen pores. "I never can go any- 
 where, you know." This was the refrain of her life, 
 as familiar as her vague benevolent smile, her heavy- 
 lidded grey eyes that suggested clouds rather than light, 
 and her pursed irregular mauve-tinted lips. "Yes, do 
 take some tea, Oliver. You must be hungry thirsty, 
 I mean, after your journey." She stopped again for 
 breath, and her body was gently stirred, like the sail of 
 a ship in quiet weather. Her son sat by her, and Muriel
 
 A CHASTE MAN 99 
 
 went over to Letty. "Perhaps you are hungry, though. 
 And you, dear Muriel? You could have eggs. Nellie 
 would boil you eggs. You don't look very well, Oliver 
 darling. You must have been working too hard. Isn't 
 it wonderful, Letty dear, the way he works? Won't you 
 really have eggs ? Yes, they are high just now, because 
 of the war." She confirmed, according to her custom, 
 an imaginary statement of some one else. 
 
 "Is that man Phillips down here for long?" Law- 
 ranee took advantage of another of the intermissions to 
 which his mother was physically compelled. 
 
 "Everything seems to be going up, even the doctors' 
 bills." Lawrance stared at her, amazed, but there was 
 nothing that seemed heartless about her. "I can't un- 
 derstand at all about Doctor Peachey. His last bill 
 so very large, darling, so very large." She dropped her 
 voice, suspiring confidentially. "And really he hasn't 
 been to see me so frequently as usual. Absurdly large. 
 Yes, I feel sure that sugar wouldn't do me any harm, 
 really. That saccharine stuff is not the same, you are 
 quite right. It's like condensed milk you know what 
 I mean not like it, of course, but just as bad. And I 
 do get so tired of " 
 
 She went intermittently on; while Letty talked ex- 
 citedly to Muriel about the diversions of a country house 
 where she had been staying the month before. 
 
 Lawrance was annoyed, dully, because his mother al- 
 ways had a quasi-hypnotic effect upon him. He kept 
 thinking: "She's exactly the same as she was before 
 extraordinary ; it makes no difference whatever, she says 
 all the same things." His attention drifted to the en- 
 thusiasms of Letty; he heard her telling Muriel what a 
 lovely time she had had ; what a lovely time they had all
 
 100 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 had together; how jolly the hunting had been, and the 
 dancing, and the bridge, and what a splendid new 60 
 h.p. motor Mr. Markby-Levin had got. Lawrance cursed 
 the Markby-Levins vulgar new-rich people with their 
 interloping possession of Captain Walmer's place! Of 
 course they had kept Letty up to all sorts of hours, 
 driven her to death one way or another all the day! 
 That was why she was ill. 
 
 "I particularly want to talk to you, Mother," he said. 
 "Do get Letty to take Muriel out into the garden." 
 
 * ' Of course, darling, of course. I want to talk to you, 
 too. That business of the Beecher estate, dear, it is so 
 very trying. Mr. Flick was here for an hour and a half 
 yesterday morning, explaining it. I did wish you had 
 been there to help me. You know how difficult they 
 make these things. It seems we have to give some kind 
 of a what is it that they call it ? I know quite well 
 oh, yes, a 'release,' that's what it is, a 'release.' ' She 
 emphasized the word with the peculiar satisfaction that 
 she always had in legal terms. ' ' If you could spare the 
 time, Oliver dear, just to look over the papers that Mr. 
 Flick left. I was saying to him how lucky it was that 
 we expected you down to-morrow that is, to-day. He 
 quite agreed with me that " 
 
 Lawrance saw that Muriel had finished her tea. 
 " Mother," he interrupted, ''don't you think?" 
 
 "Of course," she continued; "now what was it I was 
 going to tell you ? Something important, I know Oh, 
 yes, about the Beecher estate. You know, it seems so 
 very odd" she panted "so very odd, calling it an 
 estate. But that's the way the lawyers do. Of course 
 dear Uncle Harry had no land, you know he hadn't 
 even a house he always lived in hotels such a strange
 
 A CHASTE MAN 101 
 
 taste, but then of course he was a bachelor, and you see 
 
 "Come along, Magsie, before it grows dark. I want 
 to show you where I'm going to have the tennis next 
 summer. ' ' 
 
 Lawrance gave the women a relieved smile as they 
 went out. 
 
 "And there's that other matter, too, that plot of 
 land near the house. It 's so nice to be able to have your 
 advice, darling: you see, dear Letty, of course, doesn't 
 understand ; how can you expect her to ? " 
 
 ' ' It 's about Letty I want to talk, Mother. Surely she 's 
 more important than anything else just now? What 
 exactly did the doctor say?" 
 
 "Darling Letty! Yes, I quite agree with you; she 
 must take care of herself, and do just what the doctor 
 tells her. She's very sensible about it all. But do let 
 me tell you about this plot of land it will all go out 
 of my head. You see, they're certain to build on it 
 sooner or later, and that would be dreadful, it would 
 quite shut us up. Mr. Flick thought they might build 
 an hotel of several stories! Just fancy! That's why 
 Rawlings is holding out for seven hundred pounds. I 
 think that's much too much. Such a very large sum, 
 considering the size of the plot. Now Mr. Flick says 
 'Wait.' ' With her hands folded upon her profuse lap, 
 with the lavish aspect of her body hallmarked at every 
 point as static, Mrs. Lawrance seemed capable of follow- 
 ing that advice forever. "He says that the price will 
 go down in a few months, because of the war. He says 
 that capital is getting more and more how did he put 
 it in his letter? 'The purchasing power' that was it 
 'the purchasing power of capital is rapidly increasing.' 
 It sounded so convincing ; it was the way he put it. He
 
 102 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 says nobody is building now. Of course, Oliver, as you 
 know, I have every confidence in Mr. Flick, but then the 
 war may be over, mayn't it? I'm sure that's what we 
 all hope. I don't quite like to wait for the price to be 
 less; that would be almost like hoping the war wouldn't 
 be over, wouldn't it? That wouldn't be at all nice. I 
 quite see what you mean, dear, that wouldn't be nice at 
 all. With our brave soldiers out there in those dread- 
 ful trenches. But I don't want to give seven hundred. 
 Five is quite enough, and Mr. Flick says I may get it 
 for four even three, if I wait. Really, I " 
 
 "I'm sure you will wait, Mother. And don't worry 
 about the war. Capital will be just as valuable when 
 it's over for a time, at any rate." 
 
 "Oh, do you think so?" She brightened almost vio- 
 lently, for her; she even swayed a little. "Well, that is 
 a relief ! I do enjoy these little talks with you, darling, 
 you don't know " 
 
 Lawrance felt instantly so sure of her enjoyment that 
 he got up and kissed her. He was all the more baffled 
 because of his affection. She was so helpless, so harm- 
 less, so entirely as he had always known her and always 
 would know her. Noting her mauve-tinted lips, he 
 thought for a moment, anxiously, of her weak heart. 
 His inheritance from her of that weakness was a bond 
 between them. 
 
 "Mother, I do want to talk about Letty." He knew 
 it was no use, but he had to satisfy his conscience. ' ' You 
 say she's sensible, but I'm sure she doesn't realize in 
 the least. I know she doesn't. I must do something, 
 really I must. ' ' 
 
 "Oh, Doctor Peachey told her most distinctly that she 
 must keep quiet."
 
 A CHASTE MAN 103 
 
 "But she doesn't keep quiet I do wish she wouldn't 
 go staying with those awful Levin people! The worst 
 kind of influence " 
 
 "Oh, but that was before she knew she wasn't well, 
 Oliver ! ' ' Mrs. Lawrance looked comfortably at him, as 
 much as to say: "So that makes it all quite right, 
 doesn't it?" "Yes," she continued, "it's quite true 
 they did make all their money out of some kind of soap 
 for dogs or was it a dog-biscuit? it's advertised every- 
 where ; how stupid of me ; I ought to know. Something 
 for dogs, it is, I'm sure of that, but every one knows 
 them, even the Duke, and they certainly did help Lord 
 Framlingham a lot at the last Election. Of course they 
 wouldn't have been quite the sort of people one knew in 
 the old days but still " 
 
 The phrase recalled the Flynns and Olga. Lawrance, 
 on sudden compulsion, kissed the girl again in imag- 
 ination. He flushed, he felt ashamed of his thoughts, 
 they seemed to be guilty of a gross impropriety as he 
 sat there by his mother's bounteous and familiar 
 form. Again, and with an effort as before, he banished 
 Olga. 
 
 "It was probably staying with those Levins that 
 brought on the trouble with Letty," he said gravely. 
 "Late hours and all that." 
 
 "I don't know at all, dear." Mrs. Lawrance sighed. 
 ' ' Of course she must keep quiet. ' ' 
 
 " I 'm sure she doesn 't mean to ! " 
 
 His mother looked at him, wondering and harassed. 
 He felt remorseful. What, after all, was the point of 
 worrying her? He must take the matter into his own 
 hands. What to do? He kept thinking as Mrs. Law- 
 rance talked.
 
 104 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 "And, you know, they say that Mr. Chubb and Mr. 
 Molliott had quite a quarrel " 
 
 She branched out into one of those little pieces of local 
 gossip that she turned over so curiously and pondered 
 upon at such length. For so long as her son could re- 
 member, she had been occupied almost exclusively either 
 with an ineffective struggling concern not in the least 
 avaricious about business, or with a carefully weighted 
 interest in the doings of her neighbours, an interest that 
 always suggested that it was a toil, but an agreeable 
 and necessary one, to her to keep up with them. Being 
 afflicted by a genuine disease, she was not occupied with 
 her health: her doctor interested her only as a neigh- 
 bour, and because of his bills. 
 
 ". . . and it seems that Mr. Chubb came round one 
 morning, and Mr. Molliott was in bed. Mr. Chubb 
 wanted a book and Mr. Molliott threw it down the stairs 
 and hit him on the head. Quite unintentional, of course. 
 It was one of those heavy books a Biography or a book 
 of travels or something so unfortunate. They say Mr. 
 Chubb was very angry and swore dreadfully, that was 
 what the housekeeper said, and then Mr. Molliott 
 laughed, which wasn 't very nice of him, because the book 
 had struck Mr. Chubb on the forehead, but I don 't sup- 
 pose he knew that, it struck him with the edge and 
 made quite a wound. And they were such old friends. 
 I do hope they'll make it up. I told Mr. Chubb that it 
 wouldn 't seem so bad if he thought of the soldiers at the 
 front. He goes about with a plaster, poor man. His 
 cousin is quite a wonderful woman. ..." And so on, 
 gregariously and charitably, till Letty came back and 
 said that Muriel had gone to dress. 
 
 "Oh, then Mabel is ready for me "
 
 A CHASTE MAN 105 
 
 Mrs. Lawrance never called any of her servants by 
 their surnames. Christian names conformed with the 
 sort of intimacy she liked to have with them. Her son 
 helped her up : she leaned on him gently, for all her un- 
 gauged prodigality of flesh. 
 
 Lawrance, as they walked upstairs together, had a 
 careful eye for Letty. Yes, she was a little thinner, 
 but only a little: really she had hardly altered at all. 
 Her eyes were brighter. He had noticed her cough, but 
 it came rarely and seemed insignificant. Some excuse 
 for her refusal to take her illness seriously, perhaps. 
 He must talk to her. How very different it was from 
 what he had expected! One thing was quite certain; 
 they must have a second opinion. Doctor Peachey was 
 an excellent general practitioner, still in a matter of 
 this seriousness Of course any one but his mother 
 would have insisted upon a second opinion. No doubt 
 Doctor Peachey himself had suggested it. He must get 
 Letty up to London to see a specialist. She would jump 
 at London. That would be easy. 
 
 They parted from their mother at her bedroom door. 
 "I must dress, Budsie," said the girl, using the name 
 she had put to him when she was a baby : she only used 
 it now when they were alone. 
 
 "Let's come with you." He took her slim arm, and 
 went with her to her bedroom. 
 
 "Oh!" she said, as she turned on the light, "Amy 
 hasn't pulled down the blinds." 
 
 The unglassed, uncurtained windows struck Lawrance 
 as reminders, black and harsh, of his sister's state: the 
 little blue rolls of blind at the tops of them were really 
 ugly in their meagreness. 
 
 "It's such a nuisance," Letty went on. "She pulls
 
 106 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 them all down before I dress and before I go to bed, 
 then she comes in directly afterwards and pulls them up 
 again. Oh!" She hurriedly turned off the electric 
 switch. "We're breaking the law! Are they strict in 
 London about lights not showing from houses ? They 're 
 awfully strict here. We had Mr. Molliott in the other 
 evening, complaining; he's a Special Constable now, you 
 know." She stopped for one of her little coughs. "I 
 generally undress in the bathroom." 
 
 Lawrance went round the room, pulling down the 
 blinds. When he turned on the light he saw that his 
 sister was leaning against the back of a chair. 
 
 ''You 're tired!" 
 
 "No, I'm not!" 
 
 She walked over hurriedly to the mirror and began 
 unfastening her blouse. He looked at her reflection ; he 
 was struck by the hard sharp sweet savour of her sis- 
 terly intimacy with him. How keen and cool their affec- 
 tion had always been! How full of trust and health, 
 how peculiarly happy! He was sure of her, sure that 
 she really did love him She took off her blouse, show- 
 ing her arms and her neck : yes, she was certainly thinner. 
 Lawrance sighed. 
 
 ' ' You are staring, Budsie ! ' ' 
 
 "Darling, I do want you to be careful!" 
 
 "Oh, lam!" 
 
 "You don't look careful, somehow, not a bit!" 
 
 She made a face at him in the mirror ; she laughed un- 
 certainly. "What do you expect me to look like?" 
 
 "I don't believe you'll ever get really well till you 
 get away from here: I mean till you lead quite a differ- 
 ent kind of life. " 
 
 "Why, Malstowe isn't so hilarious as all that; it isn't
 
 A CHASTE MAN 107 
 
 so frantically lively. ' ' She began playing with her little 
 blue ribbons. 
 
 "But you keep on going out to all sorts of things; 
 dances and bridge-parties and dinners nearly every day. 
 I heard you talking to Muriel. I don't see that you're 
 making any difference at all. You'd just come back 
 from a motor ride when we turned up." 
 
 ''Motoring's good for me." 
 
 "H'm. Depends on whose motor it is." 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Phillips is awfully nice. He's good for me, 
 too!" She turned: her lighted brown eyes teased him 
 frankly. 
 
 "But I'm worried about you, Letty old dear, I really 
 am." 
 
 "Yes, it is an awful nuisance." She stood up, pressed 
 her little hands flat to either side of the top of her skirt, 
 releasing the snaps. "But it isn't as though I had the 
 beastly thing, not really had it." 
 
 ' ' I wish you 'd go slow, all the same, just for a bit. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Oh, I can 't lock myself up, Budsie ! ' ' 
 
 "What are you doing to-night? Staying at home with 
 us, I hope." 
 
 "Well, I was going with Miriam for bridge at the 
 Colonel's. Is that awfully wicked?" 
 
 "Do stay with us, Letty. Send the Conklings a note 
 or something." 
 
 The girl hesitated and looked grave. "All right, I 
 will," she said, but she took it hard; she was clouded. 
 "How gregarious she is!" he thought. "It's every- 
 thing to her!" But he was pleased by her compliance, 
 which seemed to give good promise. He went and kissed 
 her cheek. 
 
 She slipped her skirt off, with a clear straight de-
 
 108 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 cisive gesture familiar to her brother. They had been 
 used from childhood to seeing one another dress and 
 undress; they had never thought anything of going in 
 and out of one another's bedrooms: the difference of sex, 
 with them, had been merged with a completeness rarer 
 than it is supposed or pretended to be with brothers and 
 sisters. Kather, the difference had been distilled, surely 
 and evenly, through the whole body of their intimacy 
 Ah, she wus thinner! She hinted frailness, even, and 
 there had been nothing of frailness about her before : she 
 had been slender and strong. This was terrible : for the 
 first time it seemed to Lawrance really terrible. Letty 
 caught his look as she shook out-her hair: 
 
 "What's the matter!" she cried, and her lips trembled 
 a little ; for the first time she looked frightened. ' ' I 'm 
 not dying, old goose ! And you'll be late for dinner !" 
 
 "Of course you're not! It's only that I hate your 
 being even the least little bit ill. I want you to do all 
 you can so as to stop being that to stop it quickly, 
 darling, quickly! You know " 
 
 He broke off ; he couldn 't speak ; he was convulsed with 
 the emotion of his desire that she should live. All sorts 
 of images were vivid and rapid to him at that moment 
 of heightened feeling: Letty a child of twelve, pulling 
 her dark-blue jersey over her tumbled thick hair: Letty 
 at eight or nine, learning to swim with him, her brown 
 hard little limbs gleaming in the sun : Letty in her first 
 "party-frocks," so pleased with them, so eager for 
 coquetry and excitement: then, evoked from Letty as 
 she was then, in bodice and petticoat, an image of Muriel 
 who undressed so differently, whose way of undressing 
 seemed always to stamp him as her husband, seemed 
 always to have some arriere-pensee to which he never
 
 A CHASTE MAN 109 
 
 could quite reconcile himself: then, an image of Olga, a 
 seemingly disassociated image of Olga wandering in 
 space, in ignorance of the future, feeling for it, an 
 image with which he had a concern that would not, 
 could not, be defined or located. She had too much 
 curiosity, had Olga, it wasn't normal or natural! She 
 reflected and wondered too much ; if she were there with 
 him as Letty was, she would be waiting and wondering ; 
 she would be anxious ; she would not be shy, nor would 
 she be friendly, nor would she be amorous. He would 
 be at the mercy of her dreams. It was what was it ? 
 it was insecure How much younger Letty was than 
 Olga, though a good eight years older ! How to account 
 for that? Olga was spiritually stripped; he could al- 
 most shudder when he thought of her, of the things she 
 said! It wasn't right. With Letty there was a soften- 
 ing and enveloping fragrancy, a spring-mist of fra- 
 grancy that possessed her and covered her up and made 
 her safe in it. Olga was not safe, not for herself nor 
 for any one else. He felt for the first time that Olga 
 could be tremendously stormy. She had winter in her 
 ah, yes, but she had all the seasons, and what might 
 she not ! He checked his thoughts ; he was ashamed. 
 
 "I want you to be safe," he said, clutching at the 
 word, diverting his reflections. "Safe every way," he 
 added, half aloud. 
 
 She moved her lips, she smiled at him, she smiled with 
 an effort. Ah, curse it, she was tired ! He left her ab- 
 ruptly, blinking at the tears in his eyes.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 DURING the week at Malstowe Lawrence's mind 
 had, for various disturbances, more occasions 
 than a few. He was vexed by the casualness, 
 the unimaginative egotism, as he saw it, of the general 
 attitude of the neighbours towards Letty: it seemed to 
 him that they shook limp hands with her condition, in 
 just the same way as they shook limp hands with one 
 another at afternoon teas and little dances. The more 
 reflective of them, or those who did not so much dis- 
 guise their feelings, quickened Lawrance's alarm no less 
 than the others quickened his resentment. With height- 
 ened observation he noticed that this minority realized 
 fully that his sister was "not very well," and that they 
 were impressed by her defiance quite as much as by her 
 justification of that discreet phrase. She justified it 
 with a fling that sent her, for some of them, clear out of 
 the reach of that "Poor girl! I do hope ..." with its 
 sympathetic sadness and sympathetic hush. She was, of 
 course, a "poor girl" still, but more prominently, to 
 this minority, she was a "silly girl" or a "game girl" 
 or a "brave girl" or a "reckless" one, or even she was 
 "wicked." In her brother she kept on arousing alarm, 
 indignation, admiration and affection in turn. "She 
 doesn't care!" he repeated to himself, and then again, 
 with a sting of tenderness and pain: "She doesn't 
 know." "If only," he would think, "she wasn't so 
 abominably pretty ! ' ' 
 
 He was right in the adverb. Letty 's good looks did 
 
 no
 
 A CHASTE MAN 111 
 
 play "abominably" into the hands of her gaiety. Every 
 physical point she had seemed to help on her passion for 
 excitement and pleasure, all of it " innocent, ' ' but with 
 male admiration of her drenching the whole texture all 
 the time. "It's hard luck," thought Lawrance; "it's 
 the worst kind of hard luck." He had not seen her for 
 several months. Again and again he reflected that she 
 was prettier than ever now she was ill. 
 
 Lawrance was disturbed, too, by recurring thoughts 
 of Olga, by recurring desires for her; thoughts and de- 
 sires that afflicted him deeply with a sense of dishonour. 
 The dishonour was the blacker for him because Letty 
 was ill. Towards the end of the week he had a letter 
 from Olga, forwarded from Chiswick: "Why don't you 
 come and see us? I want you to come. Love from 
 Olga." And then a postscript: "I'm not sorry, but 
 perhaps you are. " She began "Dear Lorrie." She had 
 remembered. Lawrance's senses betrayed him horribly 
 on the spur of this little letter; his thoughts about the 
 postscript kept at fever-heat: in what way wasn't she 
 sorry? how, in her mind, did what she was not sorry 
 for appear? A sudden seduction of his principles, his 
 intellect, his judgment, overwhelmed him, even more 
 strongly than it had on the night when he physically 
 yielded. He went to his dressing-room and wrote: 
 "Darling Olga, I'll come to you at once, as soon as I 
 get home, only two or three days. I've been away 
 thinking always about you. I love you. L." He put 
 the letter in an envelope and sealed it hurriedly. Then 
 he heard his wife 's voice from the other side of the door 
 that other side ! asking him if he wasn't coming down 
 to see old Colonel Conkling. 
 
 "Yes, in a moment!"
 
 112 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 "What's the matter?" she replied. 
 
 His tortured voice had surprised himself as well as 
 Muriel. ' ' Yes, what 's the matter with me ? " he thought. 
 "No control." 
 
 He told her " Nothing ; it's all right," forcing his tone ; 
 then he took the letter he had written and tore it up. 
 
 A hundred Colonel Conklings reared themselves moun- 
 tainously before him. They walled him in, these people : 
 a Lord Burpham, a Colonel Conkling, had only to ap- 
 pear, and there with them was their steely wand for con- 
 juring. How immoveable they were, how tremendously 
 important. . . . All that week they had walled him in, 
 they had set him fast ' ' All right, I 'm coming ! ' ' 
 
 The next day he wrote, stubbornly resistant both to 
 his passion and to his inhibitions, a letter that satisfied 
 neither : 
 
 "Dear Olga, As you see, I have been away from Lon- 
 don. I'll come and see you all when I'm back in a few 
 days. I think I am sorry I don't know. 0. L." 
 
 He would not have mentioned his sister for the world. 
 
 His reconciliation with Muriel did not prosper. She 
 behaved well; she attended on his mother, affectionate 
 to her and affectionate to Letty; tactful and quiet with 
 him. But for all that he could not like her ; he liked her 
 much less than during the time that followed the theatre 
 night; he caught himself in the immoral reflection that 
 the more he was with Olga the better disposed, perhaps, 
 he would be to his wife. Certainly he had had, imme- 
 diately after his embraces of Olga, a much stronger phys- 
 ical attraction to Muriel than he had now. Now she 
 hardly interested him at all, though she was far from 
 offering him any sort of rebuff. She was still docile, 
 pliable, good-tempered. Lawrance censured himself for
 
 A CHASTE MAN 118 
 
 his distaste for her, and for the causes of his distaste, 
 causes that sometimes seemed blackguardly, sometimes 
 mean. She was not so well bred as his own people or 
 their acquaintances; this was plainly seen: she was al- 
 ways making very little lapses, and she knew it. Her 
 juxtaposition with these others threw her into a forgot- 
 ten light for Lawrance; it was painful to him doubly, 
 making him ashamed of her, and ashamed of himself 
 for being ashamed. He could not help criticizing her as 
 though she were a stranger, when he saw her with other 
 people. At the same time he was sorry for her, poor 
 girl so trying to do her best, and that hurt him too. 
 He was sorry for her, without any of that intimate ten- 
 derness that his conscience enjoined as the right thing. 
 Repeatedly he called her ''darling"; often he thought: 
 "Now if I knew that any one else felt like this, what a 
 cad I should think him!" He had always been in 
 earnest with himself, but never so thoroughly and so 
 continuously in earnest as now. 
 
 He made harassed plans for Letty, whose gay, pretty, 
 spirited yet not really happy nonchalance seemed every 
 day more baffling. She always wanted to be doing some- 
 thing ; she slid rather than chafed away from all invalid 
 routine. She would say : ' ' Oh, I can go ; I can wear a 
 high frock": then she went, and wore a low one. Her 
 former girlishly bright love of diversion seemed to have 
 become unnaturally touched, changed to a preoccupation 
 tarnished by stressed and secretive purpose. 
 
 Sometimes Lawrance would resolvedly forget his con- 
 cern for his sister, his distaste for his wife, his tempta- 
 tion to Olga, and the age-long fortified code that blocked 
 his way to her ; but in the relaxation of night everything 
 crept back into his blood. He would wake strugglingly, 
 to his same divided self.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 BEFORE leaving Malstowe Lawrance had inter- 
 viewed Doctor Peachey, and had got him to prom- 
 ise to write at once if Letty were any worse: to 
 write, in any case, in a month, with a general report. A 
 comparatively new arrival, the alert little man was al- 
 most a stranger to Lawrance, who was so far impressed 
 by his ability that he waived for the time the project 
 for a second opinion. Doctor Peachey was evidently on 
 the look-out; he could be trusted. The interview was 
 short : Lawrance was told that there was no reason, tak- 
 ing the case in its present character, why his sister should 
 not remain under treatment at Malstowe ; indeed it might 
 do her more harm than good to be sent away : psycholog- 
 ical effects had to be considered. The doctor would not 
 commit himself to any forecast. Lawrance was relieved 
 to see that Peachey had fully grasped the copious in- 
 capacity of his patient 's mother. 
 
 The first days following their return to London passed 
 dully and doggedly. Lawrance was stuffed to suffoca- 
 tion by the undigested emotions of shame and disgust. 
 It was a moral nausea that he could not diagnose in the 
 least: diagnosis never occurred to him. He simply suf- 
 fered. He drove at his work at the Office with a forced 
 energy that lacked any eagerness or intention. Inge 
 could not give him enough to do. When he came back 
 home he was silent, preoccupied with the effort not to 
 think either about his wife or about Olga : but his blood 
 
 114
 
 A CHASTE MAN 115 
 
 ran in aversion to Muriel and in active desire for the 
 girl. The aversion was not active; he blindly wanted 
 it to be, for his own relief: he would have had scope, 
 then ; he would not have been bound up as he was. He 
 wished Muriel no harm ; his feeling towards her was not 
 now one of. hatred; it was rather that it added to the 
 weight he bore that she should be there : the look of her, 
 her voice, drove him down and held him under, to the 
 grasp of an inert horror. All the natural fluid of his 
 feelings seemed turned to a sediment that choked him. 
 
 For his own protection he tried to keep thinking of 
 his sister; he repeated to himself: "I'll take her away 
 in a month, if she's not better," but the words had no 
 meaning, no interest. His shame was driven further into 
 him : he felt that he must have lost his affection for Letty, 
 lost his sensitiveness. He saw himself not only as an 
 unprincipled cad, but as a heartless brute. He lay awake 
 at night, twinged with his formless self-distrusts: he 
 travailed with the unnamed abortions of his senses; 
 strove passionately towards some purgation that should 
 bring a different and a clearer pain, a pain that some 
 sort of expression in reason might explain and relieve. 
 He knew, and was shocked by knowing, that he would 
 be glad if Doctor Peachey were to write at the end of 
 the month that Letty was worse and ought to be taken 
 away. He longed for the clear call on his altruism that 
 this would be. It seemed horrible to him that he should 
 have such a wish : he was too honest not to face it, much 
 too ethically-minded not to loathe it. At times he could 
 almost believe that the Devil had got him, or one of 
 those ' ' Elementals ' ' about which he had written so much 
 that they had come to be only things of pen and paper 
 to him. He had no more faith in them than he had in
 
 116 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 the Devil: these mediaeval consolations did not serve. 
 
 He noticed that Muriel kept watching him, and not 
 only Muriel, but the other women, the servants. Once 
 or twice he surprised an inquisitive and sympathetic 
 glance from Mary, his pretty parlourmaid ; he was struck 
 by the unusualness of her look, that was not, however, 
 at all flagrantly indiscreet. The sympathetic glance of 
 Mary gave him consolation, sudden and swift. He found 
 himself wishing that she could know what was wrong 
 with him; she could help him, he felt. He reached out 
 yearning for the support of a woman's sentiments: he 
 longed to be in this way spiritually nursed. The under- 
 standing of another, that might be a cure for his evil: 
 if only she could be understanding without being told! 
 Muriel 's watching looks made him worse ; they seemed to 
 break up and scatter his intelligence : he felt that she was 
 watching for herself, that her vigilance was not related 
 to his own healing at all. 
 
 For several days he did not go to Olga, nor did he 
 write to her. On a Sunday he started out after lunch, 
 half decided for the Glasden Road. Muriel looked 
 closely at him, but she said nothing. She had been, in 
 general, calmly and expectantly silent since the Malstowe 
 visit. Lawrance took the first tram that came up, a 
 tram to Shepherd 's Bush. When the Tube train stopped 
 at Marble Arch he got out, on a sudden decision. He 
 was nearly too late : the door was beginning to close, and 
 did indeed shut out a man who was a moment later than 
 he, a man who had started from his place in the middle 
 of the car just after Lawrance had made his move. 
 Lawrance, hearing expostulations, looked back from the 
 platform and saw a little dark person with a heavy 
 moustache and a pale face, gesturing in a restrained
 
 A CHASTE MAN 117 
 
 authoritative manner to the conductor. " Sorry, sir; 
 you'll have to get out at Bond Street and go back." The 
 train went on. 
 
 Lawrance walked over to the Park entrance and wan- 
 dered to the forum of an atheist lecturer. " Pillar of 
 salt ! ' ' the derisive voice assailed him. ' ' Why didn 't he 
 turn Lot into pepper and the other two into oil and 
 vinegar, and make a cruet of it while he was abaht it!" 
 
 ''Stow yer jaw, yer blasphemious worm! Gawd '11 
 strike you one of these days with yer tuppeny- 'alf penny 
 lip, yer dirty owl ! ' ' 
 
 "Ow, will 'e? Wish Vd strike you into a gin-and- 
 bitters, there 'd be some use for you then ! ' ' 
 
 Lawrance 's grave look stayed: he responded only to 
 the mention of gin-and-bitters : wondered if a drink 
 would do him good, if he could be helped at all by the 
 sympathy of alcohol. But he dismissed this idea: he 
 associated drinking with happy moods and the collabora- 
 tion of friends. 
 
 " Go on f er 'im ! Swipe the brute ! ' ' 
 
 The words reached Lawrance from some fifty yards 
 away. He turned, and observed a growing crowd at 
 this distance, a crowd that was beginning to chop in ugly 
 little uncertain uneven waves. Two or three policemen 
 stood on the outskirts; with an air of heavy wariness, 
 of suppressed resentment in familiarity. It seemed that 
 the crowd belonged to them, that it was a dog on a long 
 leash. Another policeman, in a stout binding of official 
 neutrality, began slowly walking up from the Marble 
 Arch Gates. 
 
 "You shut it, or you'll get yer fice smashed !" 
 
 Lawrance walked rapidly up to the crowd. He liked 
 his feeling of excitement. A young man was talking
 
 118 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 over there ; he wanted to know what he was talking about 
 and why he was stirring this hostility. He could see his 
 face clearly now, a face that was pale and of a deep-set 
 anxious earnestness, a long face, with prominent light- 
 blue eyes, and a stretched thin jaw that worked with 
 grotesque emphasis. His hair was rather long; he kept 
 brushing it back from his forehead. He was shouting 
 rapidly and unremittingly. Lawrance caught a few 
 words: "I say we are being fooled!" "They tell you 
 your country needs you; I tell you " 
 
 There was a banner fluttering by the young man's 
 head, a white banner, gilt-lettered "Fellowship" 
 "Peace" "World" Lawrance made out. He was in 
 the crowd now. "What's it all about?" he asked the 
 person next to him, and as soon as he had asked he recog- 
 nized his neighbour as the dark heavy-moustached man 
 who had not been quick enough in getting out of the 
 Tube train. 
 
 "Oh, one of those 'Stop the War' fellows," a quiet 
 non-committal voice informed him. But the man seemed 
 surprised, and sheered off at once. 
 
 ". . . all are Christian countries! Our Blessed Lord 
 and Saviour Jesus Christ " 
 
 A bottle flew through the air and hit the speaker on 
 the mouth. He put up his hand and gave a cry: the 
 crowd saw that he was gashed, and they gave out a 
 crowing howl of pleasure. Another missile followed im- 
 mediately, but fell short at the feet of the Peace Propa- 
 gandist. There was a sudden charge at the wooden plat- 
 form, the chair on which the speaker was standing shot 
 away, Lawrance caught a moment's glimpse of the pale 
 earnest unfrightened face dropping down. He felt he 
 must go on into the crowd ; he had no intention, but he
 
 A CHASTE MAN 119 
 
 must go on. He thrust his way with force that gathered 
 up to fury. The noise and the turmoil of bodies did not 
 seem to be about him but through him and of him. He 
 was charged with the blind turbulence of a collective will. 
 But, mixed with him, it was not the will to destroy, but 
 the much more characteristic will to oppose. 
 
 "The man has a right to be heard !" he called fiercely 
 out. ' ' Where is he ? " he thought. ' ' I must get to him. ' ' 
 
 A big loosely-built man of middle age, a man with 
 harsh little eyes and a gross mouth, blocked the path he 
 fought for. 
 
 "What do you think you're doing, eh?" he cried. 
 ' ' Do you want to make trouble for yourself 1 ' ' 
 
 Lawrance, with all the violence of his nerves in his 
 two hands, pushed the man, who fell with arms in air 
 under a foot that trampled the edge of his slack cheek'. 
 In a fury with the pain he heaved himself up from the 
 ground, sending a couple of youths in a flying lurch 
 against the back of a policeman. The policeman, who 
 had a tight clasp on one of the more vociferous rioters, 
 stumbled and swore ; he let his captive go, and drew out 
 his truncheon. 
 
 "You look out there," he called, "or I'll give you a 
 taste!" 
 
 "I ain't goin' to be knocked down for nothing!" the 
 slack-faced man yelled. 
 
 He waved his arm behind his head and slung it with 
 awkward heavy motion against Lawrance 's chin; Law- 
 rance moved his head ; he was only grazed ; he struck at 
 the man's mouth, then with his other hand at his nose. 
 The blows he gave thrilled him with their expense of 
 his spirit : the blows he received in return were irrelevant 
 to him; he did not consciously try to parry them. He
 
 120 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 was struck heavily from behind on the shoulder; his 
 knees gave, he tottered and found himself being lifted 
 off his feet, in a swirl that was all a medley of the mental 
 and the physical. In the distance he saw the receding 
 face of his antagonist, a face blood-smeared, angry and 
 alive with pain. Lawrance felt no pain and no anger: 
 only a spreading satisfaction and relief. 
 
 "Keep off there! 'Aven't yer 'ad enough of it?" A 
 robust-looking man, with an agreeable competent face 
 with resonant features, was keeping the people off Law- 
 rance. "You git aht, young feller; that's the best thing 
 you can do." 
 
 "Where's that man who was talking?" 
 
 "A cop got 'im all right. Don't you worry." The 
 crowd was scattering now; the police were making fur- 
 ther arrests. "You tike my tip and git off quick, or 
 the cop '11 pinch you too. They've enough to do now 
 with them that's up front. You tike my tip git along 
 to the Lavatory and striten yerself up a bit. ' ' 
 
 ' ' That man had a right to be heard ! ' ' 
 
 "G'arn! Cat-ficed blighter, 'e is. Ought to be put 
 in a lunatic asylum. One of them cowardly sniraers. ' ' 
 
 "He wasn't a coward!" 
 
 "Look 'ere, you come along with me." 
 
 The man welcomed the opportunity for authoritative 
 benevolence. He put his arm in Lawrance 's and walked 
 him off. Lawrance, suddenly passive, yielded to him. 
 From a neighbouring booth of Evangelism ' ' God be mer- 
 ciful to me a sinner ! ' ' struck his ears with a shock. 
 
 "We don't want to 'ear our boys in Flanders called 
 fools fer goin', see? More'n flesh an' blood can stand 
 'Ow abaht gittin ' into khaki yerself, my lad, if you must 
 be scrappin'?"
 
 A CHASTE MAN 121 
 
 ' ' I wish I could. ' ' Lawrance 's mind came back to him 
 in a leap : he was struck by the sincerity of his answer, 
 by the fact that he had not felt like that before. ' ' Doc- 
 tor said no use my trying," he added. 
 
 ' ' Ow. ' ' They went on in silence till they reached the 
 Public Lavatory. 
 
 "Now 'ere's the plice for you. What you want is 
 tuppence worf of wash and brush-up. ' ' 
 
 Lawrance thanked him: he went in and followed the 
 advice. As he began washing, his brain started into 
 violent motion. Why had he wanted to be in the war? 
 One ought to want to fight on principle ; he didn 't. He 
 had no principles ; there was something altogether wrong 
 with him; he thought only of himself. He grew more 
 conscious of his physical pain; his face and his left 
 shoulder hurt him: the pain kept coming on, but it 
 seemed merely to trifle with his body. He washed, hurt- 
 ing himself more, but always insignificantly. Suppose 
 he could fight against the war, like that earnest young 
 man with his religious daring, that would do just as 
 well, he knew. It must be that he cared nothing for 
 great causes: no, and affections were nothing to him, 
 either ; nothing in comparison with what might help and 
 relieve him. How base of him to contemplate the use 
 of Letty's illness for himself! Yet he was fond of his 
 sister; he did love her. He was fond of old Flynn and 
 his "Patsey," too: it was hateful that they, as well, 
 should shrink to this same insignificance. Why should 
 the slender dangerous hands of that girl push everything 
 out of sight? His lips would not stop bleeding. "I 
 must go to a chemist 's, ' ' he thought, ' ' and get something 
 for my mouth." "My mouth"! He hated the word 
 "my": it seemed to bring him up so horribly close to
 
 122 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 himself. He patted his beaten face with a towel; more 
 and more he was appalled by his own paltriness, by his 
 lack of generosity, his lack of principle. Looking at his 
 swollen ugly mouth, at his bunged eye, he thought again 
 of Olga ; he thought of how he had kissed and held her. 
 ' ' Oh, this means more to you than your country or your 
 sister!" He did not so feelingly reproach himself with 
 regard to his wife, in spite of the demands of his code. 
 He had an unadmitted conviction that the bond between 
 himself and Muriel was unfair: and she was not real 
 to him as Letty was, or as England. England had a 
 strange indispensable claim; England was deep in his 
 life. Yet this wretched illicit passion for a young girl 
 was the most important thing of all. 
 
 Lawrance ceased to feel his physical pain. He tried to 
 pray, there over a wash-basin in the Public Lavatory 
 of Marble Arch. ' ' God be merciful to me a sinner ! ' ' 
 "I will try to be good!" he resolved, in the phrase of 
 childhood. Then he was overwhelmed by horrible nausea, 
 he stumbled from the basin, with his hands clutching his 
 stomach. He fainted in the closet, in the midst of his 
 vomiting. . . . His consciousness returned to him in a 
 vile filtration, tainted through and through by all the 
 horrid spilth in which he was. He opened his eyes and 
 groaned. "I am like this," he thought.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 LITTLE patches of blackness kept obscuring Law- 
 ranee 's senses at intervals as he went back to 
 Chiswick. After going to a chemist's he took 
 a cab, rather from consideration for Muriel than for him- 
 self. He was too much withdrawn for stares to disturb 
 him, but it would make his wife uncomfortable, he knew, 
 the exposure of his damaged and plastered face in Tubes 
 and trams. 
 
 The weariness of explaining his condition to Muriel 
 came dully to him now and again ; he wondered idly how 
 she would take it, but he did not care. All that was a 
 waste of time. 
 
 The first person that he saw in the house was the pretty 
 parlour-maid. He resisted the impulse to hide his face 
 from her as he walked upstairs, and she looked up at him, 
 startled and grave. ' ' Oh, sir ! " 
 
 "It 'sail right, Mary." 
 
 "Couldn't I do anything for you, sir? Shall I go 
 and tell mistress ? ' ' The girl 's lip quivered. 
 
 "Yes. I'm going to my room." 
 
 He went on up, feeling a malicious physical pressure 
 on his heart, a pressure that sent twisted waves through 
 his head. He walked stubbornly to his room and fell on 
 his bed. The pain grew much worse ; in his shoulder it 
 was especially acute. He was parched, not only in his 
 mouth, but in all his body. He longed for water, but 
 could not get up to reach the carafe from his washstand. 
 
 123
 
 124 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 Very soon the maid Mary tapped at his door. He did 
 not answer, but she came in without tapping again. 
 
 "Mistress is out, sir," she said. Then, as he did not 
 speak : "Is there anything I could do ? " 
 
 "Yes, I want some water." 
 
 The pain of his shoulder and his intermittent giddiness 
 were violently distressing to him, but the sight of the 
 girl, as she crossed the room, was a help, a release. She 
 was made so softly yet so firmly, the movement of her 
 body seemed sympathetic with such a curious meaning, 
 she was utterly a woman . . . willing in service, drawing 
 her power from just that will. . . . Again Lawrance 
 wondered why he had not noticed her more. What 
 pretty hair, what pretty colour ! 
 
 "Hadn't I better go and get you some fresh, sir?" 
 She hesitated by the washstand. "Or shall I bring you 
 the giraffe?" 
 
 Lawrance was seized by a panic of laughter. "The 
 giraffe" seemed to him tormentingly funny, far funnier 
 than anything he had ever heard in his life. "The 
 giraffe ! ' ' His laughter hurt him ; he rocked and gur- 
 gled and groaned, but he had to laugh on. The maid 
 stood, astounded. It was the first time she had ever seen 
 him laugh, except in a perfunctory way. The master 
 was not easily amused ; he was not at all a humorous gen- 
 tleman. But now, when he was ill, to be carrying on like 
 this ! It must be hysterics, like. . . . 
 
 "Yes," he gasped ; "bring it to me. Bring me the 
 
 He laughed again. Only his urgent desire to drink 
 checked him. The water tasted like and unlike itself, 
 as though it had tried to be water and partially failed. 
 Lawrance was reminded of his sensations some years 
 ago, in smoking the first cigarette after an abstinence of
 
 A CHASTE MAN 125 
 
 several weeks: he had broken himself gradually and 
 pertinaciously of the habit, because of his heart. The 
 tobacco had tasted like and unlike itself, in something 
 the same way. 
 
 He handed the carafe back to the girl. "I don't like 
 it much, Mary," he told her. 
 
 "Should I get some barley-water for you, sir?" She 
 was eager and nervous, her quick look at him had in it 
 curiosity, tenderness and admiration, all mingled em- 
 barrassingly for her. 
 
 ''Yes, do." 
 
 Lawrance's attention fixed itself to the girl's hand, 
 with its plump pleasant fingers. So much a woman's 
 hand, it was, a caressing, reassuring hand, not a trou- 
 bling hand like Olga 's. It made him feel safe, and right. 
 He tried to believe that it did not mean so much less 
 than that other. His pain quickened ; he took the hand 
 in his, and the girl blushed crimson. She looked away, 
 and so did her master. 
 
 "I got mixed up, you see, in a sort of a riot in Hyde 
 Park. Crowd got out of hand. A regular fight. 
 Couldn't be helped." 
 
 As he went on telling her what had happened, he was 
 more in ease and contentment. His conscience gave him 
 no trouble, for it could not accuse him of being phys- 
 ically stirred. There was nothing "wrong" in this, he 
 felt sure, because there was nothing of sex as he thought 
 of sex. He was extraordinarily gratified by the girl's 
 liking him; above everything else just then he wanted 
 to be liked by a woman. It seemed that Mary's liking 
 for him made the air tender to his head and his body. 
 He was grateful and fond, and he had the sense of a 
 gratefulness and fondness in her, forthgoing to gentle
 
 126 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 union. Yet every minute his stiffness and soreness were 
 more imperative. 
 
 "I'm so sorry!" Her fingers twitched in his hand. 
 ' ' Ought I to do something to the bandage ? ' ' 
 
 "No, Mary thank you. The man said leave them 
 till to-morrow. ' ' 
 
 "I'd get the barley-water, if you wished, sir." 
 
 "I'd rather you stayed." 
 
 She was not in the same way embarrassed now, but 
 she kept thinking apprehensively of her mistress and 
 of the other servants. Her pleasure went in disturbed 
 flickers ; she was puzzled and unprepared. 
 
 "I'd better not, sir," she tentatively answered. 
 Hearing a rapid step on the stair, she released her hand 
 from his light clasp. The step came nearer. As she 
 went to the door, she gave herself a little shake, and a 
 little pat to her hair under her cap. "I'll get cook to 
 make the barley-water, sir," she said gravely, opening 
 the door, and confronting, as she knew she would, her 
 mistress. 
 
 Muriel, in outdoor dress, went straight into the room, 
 taking no notice of the servant. ' ' Why, Doll ! ' ' she cried. 
 The door closed. ' ' What has happened ? ' ' 
 
 She sat by him on the bed and took his hand. He 
 winced from her. She looked at him, frightened, and 
 her lip drew down. His face was bitter and stubborn; 
 he was resenting his pain and resenting her, who seemed 
 to be in the tide of his pain to strengthen the surge of it. 
 
 "It's nothing much, really," he exclaimed sharply. 
 
 Muriel, still looking at him, collapsed with sudden 
 tears. Her husband stared at her, even more resent- 
 fully. "How unfair she is!" he thought. He wished 
 brutally that she would cover her face.
 
 A CHASTE MAN 127 
 
 ' ' Oh, Muriel ! ' ' He took his peevish stand on his pre- 
 rogative as an invalid. "I do wish you wouldn 't ! 
 Don't make it worse by making a fuss!" She sobbed 
 still, but now she hid her face : she put up her hand de- 
 fensively from him. ' ' It 's nothing, ' ' he went on angrily. 
 "I got into a fighting crowd in the Park. All right in 
 a day or two. Why, think of the thousands of men 
 who 're being seriously wounded ! ' ' He felt a small pride 
 in himself as he said this. ' ' I tell you I '11 be able to get 
 to the Office to-morrow!" 
 
 "Oh, it isn't that!" 
 
 "Well, what, then?" 
 
 She turned from him, shaking, unable to speak. Her 
 sobs drove faster, under sickening impetus; and then 
 were blended with a racking pseudo-laughter that fright- 
 ened Lawrance away from his rage and his artificial 
 brutality. 
 
 ''What is it?" he cried, steadying himself. 
 
 She raised her head and looked at him again. Her 
 small mouth had a twist of wretchedness, a twist that 
 was naive and weak and helpless. She looked like a 
 punished unhappy child. 
 
 "It's because" she began to cry again "it's be- 
 cause you don't love me any more and I'm lonely!" 
 
 ' ' It isn 't true ! " he declared violently. He was stag- 
 gered by the indecency of her words. Then he softened, 
 remembering how sometimes she had tried to please him, 
 how she had cried once when he had been angry with 
 her for some little thoughtless repeated annoyance. "I 
 will try to remember!" she had said. "Of course I 
 love you, Magsie. Something 's the matter with you that 
 you imagine things like that. Of course I love you as 
 much as ever!"
 
 128 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 "No, you don't." 
 
 "Oh, and since when?" 
 
 ' ' I don 't know. ' ' Her blue eyes had a curious strained 
 wide look. "But these last days I've been sure ever 
 since ever since " 
 
 "Well, ever since what?" 
 
 "Since I've known I'm going to have a baby! 
 There ! ' ' She turned from him again. 
 
 "Good Lord! Now!" 
 
 "Are you glad?" She hardly heard him: she asked 
 the question with which she was prepared. 
 
 "Yes; yes, of course I'm glad Give me a kiss, 
 Magsie," he said in a false voice. 
 
 He was bewildered, divided between what he felt and 
 what he thought he ought to feel: tortured by the divi- 
 sion, and by the emergence of this new thing upon the 
 field held by his other experiences. This new thing was 
 dashingly there ; it didn 't fit in ; he couldn 't place it. 
 
 "I can't reach you," he went on. "I'm in pain, you 
 know. Oh curse it! Of course I'm glad. I hope it 
 will be a girl." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Because men oh, well, I think there's something 
 wrong with men. There's something wrong with me, I 
 know." 
 
 "7'm glad. I shall have it, anyhow." She spoke 
 with a hectic feeble savageness: he found it more and 
 more impossible to understand either the event or her. 
 "You wouldn't like it, you know you wouldn't. Oh, it 
 isn't fair!" 
 
 "Like what?" He groaned with the pain of his hurt 
 shoulder. "I say," he went on, as" she didn't answer, 
 "couldn't you get me some kind of a sleeping-draught?
 
 A CHASTE MAN 129 
 
 It hurts like fury, really it does. We'll have a talk 
 about everything later on. I can't now. I don't see 
 why you " He pulled himself up: "But I mustn't 
 blame her," he thought, with a petty access of scruple. 
 "This really isn't quite the time, you know," he for- 
 bearingly added. 
 
 "Oh, but it has to do with it! It's all the same." 
 
 "I don't understand." 
 
 "I mean your getting hurt your getting into this 
 row. You wouldn't have, if there hadn't been some- 
 thing else, something ' ' 
 
 "Oh, come now, Magsie, that's absurd!" 
 
 "Yes, I know it's silly of me to say it, but it's true, 
 all the same!" 
 
 "Magsie, dear, do be a good girl "What pretty 
 stockings you 've got on ! " 
 
 She drew her skirt down with the same defensive move- 
 ment that she had used before. 
 
 ' ' It doesn 't matter ! That doesn 't matter any more ! ' ' 
 
 ' ' Oh, my dear child ! ' ' He didn 't know what to say. 
 He lay there inert and exposed: behind his temples he 
 was all burning and confused. 
 
 "Suppose the baby doesn't make any difference. I 
 don't feel it will make any. It's all funny and differ- 
 ent, but it 's not what I thought You thought I didn 't 
 love you, Doll, because I didn't because I didn't show 
 it so much in that way. I couldn't help it you know 
 people can't help how they are. You didn't under- 
 stand. You didn't try to you weren't very jealous." 
 
 "'Jealous'?" 
 
 "I didn't mean 'jealous,' I meant 'generous.' I sup- 
 pose I said 'jealous' because that was what I was think- 
 ing, only I'm jealous, not you. I wish you were!"
 
 130 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 "Oh, don't let's talk any more now! I can't, 
 really!" 
 
 ''It's only because I wanted to tell the truth." She 
 got up. She was much calmer. She looked old, all her 
 blondeness seemed faded. ' ' I couldn 't stand not saying 
 anything, I couldn't stand it any longer. "When I saw 
 you like that, I felt I had to It was inconsiderate, I 
 know, but I had to. It didn't seem right to the child 
 to keep it all there shut up with him. And I mightn't 
 ever have told you, if I hadn't now. It was awful at 
 Malstowe." The words seemed to drag through her; 
 she stood there looking in some sort violated, as though 
 her conventions, her domesticity, had been raped. She 
 seemed improperly stripped. Lawrance was sorry for 
 her, but resentful of her still. Grief and unrest did not 
 harmonize with her aspect : they ruthlessly scattered her 
 pretty flaxens and pinks and blues, tarnished them and 
 left them sordid. Her emotions put her physically in 
 the wrong. They gave her features an accent that was 
 harsh and thin. "I did try to be what you would like, 
 but it wasn't any good, though I was nice to your 
 mother and everybody, wasn 't I, Doll ? And all the time 
 I was so dreadfully jealous jealous of that girl. I 
 knew you were always thinking about her. It wasn't 
 right to be as jealous as I was. I was all ugly inside 
 with jealousy. It was terrible. And I'm jealous still, 
 just the same. I was even jealous of Mary, in a differ- 
 ent way. Well, when we were at Malstowe " She 
 went rapidly on, in a tone that was painful in agitation 
 instead of being painful in slowness. "When we were 
 there I wrote to Father, all about it. It was a horrid 
 letter; it wasn't what I felt at all. I couldn't write as
 
 A CHASTE MAN 131 
 
 I felt. I 'm ashamed. I have to tell you and I '11 never 
 do that again! And then I " 
 
 She broke off and went instantly out, leaving Law- 
 ranee in a morass of unintelligibility. He turned over 
 painfully and groaned. "What can I do?" he thought. 
 "I can't do anything." And then: " I must go away : 
 I must clear out, somehow." He was utterly baffled by 
 his wife being new in this way, by her being another 
 person. If only he could escape, somehow ! His imagi- 
 nation could not at all reach to the child that was com- 
 ing. He forced himself to think of the child, but there 
 was no meaning in his thoughts. It should have made 
 some difference, but it hadn 't. The room grew suddenly 
 dim ; he swam in that feverous dimness, and was effaced.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 LAWRANCE'S night was broken by wakefulness 
 and pain and dreams. He dreamed that he was 
 walking along a wide street, a street with a 
 smooth jet-black pavement and a grey smooth asphalt 
 road. No one else was there; on either side there was 
 a high grey wall, beyond which nothing could be seen: 
 wall and street stretched on into a darkness that receded 
 by arbitrary little strokes, irregularly as he advanced. 
 Everything was in a half-light ; he was walking rapidly, 
 feeling that he would be stopped, as, suddenly, he was, 
 but not by any person. A thick rope-like substance was 
 coiling itself round his head and shoulders, keeping him 
 back: he was held fast, thickly and heavily, about his 
 mouth and his eyes ; his shoulder would not move ; it was 
 enormously weighted down by the coils that seemed to 
 grow out of it. A creature with a man 's face and a dark- 
 blue hairy body fell on his head : he was on the ground, 
 and the ground was loosened and brittle with heat; he 
 felt he must fall through it under this fierce pressure 
 from above. The creature's face was white-fleshed and 
 loose, full of evil for him : he tried to cry ' ' Go away ! ' ' 
 but his mouth was so huge and heavy he could not open 
 it. The ground dropped beneath him, and he clung to 
 the hairy body, which slipped from him, while the white 
 face turned to a fist which waved round him and then 
 melted. Again the street was there, but it was narrow 
 
 132
 
 A CHASTE MAN 133 
 
 now ; he felt wedged in it. His body was puffed out into 
 monstrous jutting ridges. Letty stood poised before 
 him ; she laughed and stretched out her hand, which he 
 tried to take, but she too slipped from him. He saw her 
 on a narrow ledge, dancing along it. Muriel came from 
 behind, with a doll which she held out in front of her : she 
 dropped it and picked it up and dropped it again. Then 
 it was not a doll, but a drawing on a sheet of paper 
 which fluttered over his head and disappeared. Muriel 
 turned away. The street widened again ; Olga was there 
 far on the other side, moving slowly. She seemed to 
 pass through Muriel, who was at once obliterated; then, 
 still slowly moving on, she looked at Lawrance. Her 
 face was suddenly near him ; he tried to touch her ; then 
 she was far off. He felt himself dragged away from her, 
 all the bulk about him became heavily but irresistibly 
 motive; he was dragged on, pressing against the wall 
 that hurt him. Olga, all in white, passed backwards 
 and forwards, still slowly, on the other side of the wid- 
 ened street. Her face was turned from him. His drag- 
 ging motion ceased ; he felt an expansion and a breaking 
 up of his knotted ridges. He had to go on quickly; he 
 would be too late. He must be in time. Olga was in 
 front of him now ; she was crossing water that he thirsted 
 for ; she was in a single garment of white, blowing about 
 above her knees. Muriel was with her, holding the 
 girl's hands and crying. He wanted to see Olga's face, 
 but he couldn't: and the bare knees seemed not to be 
 Olga's, but Muriel's. He must go on to her quickly. 
 He was nearer; he struggled to reach her; his anxiety 
 was maddening. Muriel had released Olga; Olga was 
 nearer to him. He strained on in a treble agony of de- 
 sire and pain and fear. Then she was in his arms and
 
 134 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 pressed to him. He held her in doubtful joy, joy shot 
 through with physical pain and the anxiety that still tor- 
 mentingly teased his blood : her hand drove his shoulder 
 fiercely, drove into the bone, her childlike slenderness 
 was attenuated, and quivered through him. He woke in 
 an ecstasy that was immediately followed by a wakeful 
 shame. His shoulder hurt him ferociously ; the compress 
 had slipped from it. He was parched, and reached out 
 for the barley-water by his side. He drank in great 
 gulps. 
 
 Later he slept again, with dreams more incoherent, 
 and twice he woke after dropping down and down 
 through blackness. At about seven o'clock he woke 
 finally, with a sense of freshness and relief : the hot tide 
 seemed to have drawn back from him. He felt an agree- 
 able desire for food, and ate with an almost happy greed 
 of the bread-and-milk that he had not been able to touch 
 overnight. He began to dress himself, with a determi- 
 nation that his body resisted; he was stiffer than ever. 
 Several times he sat down, weak with pain, and his shoul- 
 der hindered him. He looked at his face, with the oily 
 lint bandage that had slipped to the side of his eye; he 
 observed his plastered and swollen mouth and the rich 
 dark colour of his bruised cheek. He sat in a chair, 
 with a hand-glass. His face was like a dirty yellow 
 cloth, claret-stained: perhaps it would be better not to 
 go to the Office for a day or two. He must have some- 
 thing to eat. 
 
 He went downstairs. The post had come: there was 
 a letter for Muriel from her father, and a letter for him 
 from Lord Burpham ; he opened this at once. It was an 
 invitation to him to "run down with his sister" to Lip-
 
 A CHASTE MAN 135 
 
 scot on the following Saturday. ' ' My cousin Crockerton 
 Deavitt will be there then. ... I hope your sister is by 
 now quite well enough to come. ..." 
 
 Lawrance looked at the other envelope: he wondered 
 if Muriel would show him her father's letter. He won- 
 dered if he would show Lord Burpham's letter to her. 
 Why should he, though? Of course he couldn't go to 
 Lipscot with Olga. The thing was impossible. Suppose 
 Olga had been his wife, though : how different everything 
 would be then! You had only one life; why wasn't it 
 possible to strike out and make it what you wished? 
 He was in some way fatally weak, that was the real 
 truth: he had never directed his determination; he had 
 chopped it up and wasted it over little things, little 
 things like giving up smoking and not reading late in 
 bed. He 
 
 Mary came in to set the table for breakfast. She was 
 shy and repressed. 
 
 *'I hope you're feeling better, sir." 
 
 Lawrance, as she spoke, wondered why she was shy, 
 then he remembered. He told her yes, but he was hun- 
 gry. Would she get him some bacon at once, and some 
 tea? He felt that he must have great draughts of 
 weak tea. 
 
 The girl went, and Lawrance sat down at the table : he 
 sat down heavily; he was still rather bewildered. He 
 supposed he ought not to have taken Mary's hand like 
 that : no, it was not the right thing to have done. Every- 
 thing was against it: why had he? And Muriel was 
 going to have a child. Mary was their servant; she 
 evidently was concerned by his having held her hand. 
 It meant something to her. He thought, for a moment,
 
 136 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 vividly, of her cap and apron ... a servant ... he 
 felt uncomfortable. It seemed that there was something 
 in him that made him behave like a cad. . . . 
 
 He had just begun his bacon, when Muriel appeared. 
 She came and kissed him, with uneasy gaiety. "I can 
 hardly find a place to kiss ! ' ' she cried. ' ' I must freshen 
 those bandages. You do look better, though. Hun- 
 gry?" 
 
 "Yes, awfully. I'm all right now." 
 
 "You won't go to the Office to-day, though, will you? 
 What kind of a night did you have ? ' ' 
 
 "Pretty fair. A bit of fever, I should think. Dreamt 
 a lot No, I shan't go to the Office. Wish I could do 
 something to change my looks quickly It's beastly, 
 isn't it?" 
 
 "It must be for you. I don't mind it Oh, there's a 
 letter from Father." She flushed, and they were both 
 silent. 
 
 "You might read it to me," he said at last, deliber- 
 ately. 
 
 "Oh, I'm sure it's not interesting. You know what 
 Father 's letters are ! ' ' Her evasion was so inexpert that 
 he was sorry for her. Curious, he reflected, how very 
 often he had been sorry for her these last few weeks. 
 "You've got a letter, too," she went on hurriedly; "is 
 that interesting?" 
 
 Lawrance had unintentionally left his letter on the 
 table. Mary had put it out of his mind. 
 
 "Not very interesting," he said, but in the pause that 
 followed he made up his mind, with all the determina- 
 tion that he had been accusing himself of wasting on 
 trifles, not to take his cue from her. She had evaded
 
 A CHASTE MAN 137 
 
 and withheld, he would not. "It's from Lord Bur- 
 pham," he added, knowing that this would pique her 
 'curiosity. 
 
 "Oh! on business?" 
 
 ' ' No, it isn 't a business letter. ' ' 
 
 "Oh, I thought your relations with Lord Burpham 
 were purely business ones. You always told me " 
 
 He had always told her so: "Oughtn't I to know 
 Lord Burpham, if you do?" "My dear girl, I'm 
 purely on a business footing with him. ' ' Or, if he were 
 ajinoyed : ' ' You don 't expect me to ask him to dinner, 
 do you?" She had never accepted this: she always 
 thought, and let him see that she thought, that he might 
 have managed things somehow, that other men would 
 have. It was a sore point with her. "I used to meet 
 lots of people of that sort at home!" she had said. 
 Lawrance knew that she would be bitterly chagrined 
 about that letter, but it was inevitable now that she 
 should read it. 
 
 "Lord Burpham 's written to me on a misunderstand- 
 ing," he said. "Bead it." 
 
 She did, and looked extremely puzzled and vexed. 
 
 ' ' He oughtn 't to ask you and Letty without me ! It 
 isn't it isn't well-bred!" 
 
 "Oh, Lord Burpham 's breeding is all right. He 
 doesn't know I'm married; he doesn't realize it, any- 
 how." 
 
 "What, you haven't even told him!" 
 
 "No, there hasn't been any occasion. Inge or Ralston 
 may have I don't know. But, anyhow, he's evidently 
 forgotten. Of course I'm not going." 
 
 "He didn't forget you had a sister. You must have
 
 138 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 told him that. He's a widower, isn't he?" she added, 
 as though that made the matter rather less of an offence 
 to her. 
 "Yes." 
 
 "If there 'd been a Lady Burpham, she'd never have 
 let him write like that, without making sure. She'd 
 know how a woman would feel Why, it's a regular 
 slap in the face ! ' ' 
 
 "Oh, he didn't mean it to be, not in the least." 
 "How are you going to answer?" 
 "I don't know I can easily put him off." 
 "But, Doll dear, you can't just put him off. It 
 wouldn't be dignified; it wouldn't be fair to me. I 
 know what it is ; you don 't want me to come with you ! 
 You think I " She broke off, very much agitated. 
 "Well, what do you think I ought to write?" 
 ' ' I should have thought you would have known ! ' ' 
 "Well, how would you put it? You understand these 
 things better than I do." He was gaming time, think- 
 ing how he should tell her about his ' ' sister ' ' when from 
 her present preoccupation she came to that point. 
 
 "Oh, you can easily put it quite simply and naturally 
 in a dignified friendly way. 'Many thanks for your 
 kind invitation' of course you'd begin like that 'which 
 was evidently given under a a misapprehension.' ' 
 She spoke in a little pedantic voice. " 'Which I am 
 quite sure was given under a misapprehension' that's 
 better. 'I should have told you that I am married.' ' 
 "That sounds well, it sounds rather silly. Why 
 should I have told him?" 
 
 "Well, I think any one else would have!" 
 "Why? I've hardly ever seen Lord Burpham except 
 at the Office."
 
 A CHASTE MAN 139 
 
 "But why did you tell him about Letty, then? Does 
 he know Letty?" 
 
 "No, he doesn't know Letty. I took Olga Flynn to 
 the 'Trafalgar' for her birthday the other night, and 
 we met Lord Burpham there by chance. I introduced 
 her as my sister. ' ' 
 
 "Oh, how horrid of you!" Her voice sounded 
 sharply, at a high nervous angry pitch. She was 
 flushed, and her light eyes shone in contraction. 
 
 "I don't defend myself." 
 
 "Well, it shows you were ashamed of being with 
 her!" 
 
 "Not exactly. It shows I was ashamed of what he 
 might think. ' ' 
 
 ' ' You oughtn 't to have taken her, Oliver ! It wasn 't 
 fair . . . and I can't believe that Lord Burpham asked 
 a girl like that to come to Lipscot " 
 
 ' ' Obviously he has. He rather liked her. ' ' 
 
 "And you could take her!" 
 
 " I 've told you I 'm not going What 's the matter ? ' ' 
 She had turned suddenly pale, her mouth was drawn and 
 weak. 
 
 "I don't feel well!" 
 
 "Take some hot tea Here." 
 
 "I can't touch anything." She pushed the cup peev- 
 ishly. " It 's not right, the way you treat me ! " 
 
 "I haven't seen the Flynns since Olga's birthday." 
 
 "You're always doing things for them ! Getting them 
 money for silly things about seeing ghosts ! Doll, will 
 you promise me you won 't see them again ? ' ' She spoke 
 with a sick frightened rush. 
 
 ' ' I can 't promise that. ' ' 
 
 "You're fond of that girl, I know you are! You're
 
 140 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 fond of her in a horrid way ! You 'd never have said she 
 was your sister, if you hadn 't had a guilty conscience ! ' ' 
 She began to cry. "You've been making love to her, 
 haven't you?" 
 
 "Yes: once I did." 
 
 ' ' I knew that was the kind of girl she was ! ' ' 
 
 "She isn't that kind of girl!" He spoke now with 
 animation, and Muriel suffered her bitterest shock. 
 "She's absolutely innocent!" he added with dangerous 
 emphasis. 
 
 "Innocent! When she lets -you make love to her! 
 Oh, don't look at me in that way!" She hid her face. 
 "I'm so ill and sick and miserable with it all!" She 
 rose, turned quickly away from him. 
 
 "Muriel! I'm awfully sorry, I am really Don't 
 go." 
 
 "I must. Suppose Mary should come in." 
 
 He got up and went to her. "Look here, Muriel " 
 
 ' ' Don 't look at me ! I can 't stand it ! " She trembled. 
 She suffered again from the violation of her reserve, 
 suffered from being stripped and shown. The very 
 strength of her feeling humiliated her. 
 
 "Look here, my dear girl, I don't want this, I really 
 don't!" 
 
 ' ' But you won 't promise me ! " 
 
 "You know I can't drop the Flynns. Don't let's go 
 all over that again." 
 
 "You do everything for them that thing in your 
 paper about the 'Elementals' just to get them money 
 all because of that girl " 
 
 "It's not. I'm friends with all of them" 
 
 "Well, will you promise not to make love to her ?" 
 He was silent, and she went on with a pitiful weak
 
 A CHASTE MAN 141 
 
 energy: "I don't see why you shouldn't promise. It 
 isn't much to ask. You might you don't know how 
 much it means to me. It's all so shameful." She put 
 out her arms to him with a pretty, timid gesture : her 
 head was on his shoulder, he stood in passive resentment 
 of the prompted embrace. "Oh, Doll, I should have 
 thought that what I told you last night might have made 
 some difference. I suppose I'm getting old and ugly 
 but I do love you you don't know! It's awfully 
 hard" 
 
 Lawrance was acutely uncomfortable, and indignant. 
 He felt he was being tricked, but he could not answer 
 according to his feeling. For one thing, he had strongly 
 the sense of her being propped by a support that he could 
 not undermine or defy: for another, he was sure that 
 there was no blame to her here personally, he saw the 
 futility of holding her to any account. Their living to- 
 gether, it was that that was wrong, but yet inevitable, so 
 far as any power of his went. He caught his breath. 
 
 ' ' Oh, his poor shoulder ! ' ' She released him. 
 
 "No, it's the other one Well, all right, I promise 
 you." He went back to the table and continued to eat 
 his bacon. 
 
 She did her best in the look of gratitude she gave him, 
 the look he did not see. Embarrassed by the difficulty of 
 taking the right tone after his capitulation, she sat down 
 and began sipping her tea. 
 
 ' ' How does he sign himself ? ' ' she said, with a domestic 
 brightness, looking at Lord Burpham's letter. "What 
 a funny slopey hand ! Is that a ' J ' ? " She pushed the 
 sheet over to him. 
 
 "No, that's the loop of the *B.' He signs himself 
 simply 'Burpham.' They always do, you know."
 
 142 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 "Oh, I know that!" She gave a little playful laugh. 
 "You think I don't know anything!" She played list- 
 lessly with a piece of dry toast, hoping he would notice 
 her. "I'm so glad you're making a good breakfast, 
 dear," she said. "A penny for your thoughts!" 
 
 "They aren't worth it." 
 
 The dulness of his answer oppressed him : and his re- 
 flection that Olga could never have said anything like 
 that "Penny for your thoughts!" oppressed him too 
 made him feel peculiarly bound. What had been in his 
 mind when Muriel thus challenged him with the am- 
 icable commonplace that she could not possibly help, was 
 the obvious and futile rejoinder to her "Oh, I know 
 that!": "Why did you ask if the letter was a 'J,' 
 then?" It was appalling, the gross dulness of the an- 
 swers she suggested : spoken, or in his mind, their clog- 
 ging weight on him was equal. Why should they have to 
 live together? He could not help angrily feeling that 
 it was not right to put the enormous strain of constant 
 familiarity upon any affection, any passion. Yet it was 
 always done it must be the only way. Anyhow, she 
 would never let him go. His whole being ached with 
 her tenacity of him. 
 
 "You ought to eat something more." He said what 
 she wanted him to say, at last. 
 
 "I can't, dear." She charged the words with a mean- 
 ing modesty. "It's no good trying, you know. 
 Hadn't you better telephone to the Office?" 
 
 " Oh, I'm going." 
 
 * ' What ? Oh, Doll, you aren 't fit to go really ! ' ' 
 
 "I feel all right. I want to go." 
 
 They both got up. She hesitated, but having won
 
 A CHASTE MAN 143 
 
 his promise, she was free to follow her instinct not to 
 thwart him. 
 
 ' ' I '11 freshen your bandages, then, and make you more 
 presentable. ' ' 
 
 "All right. Thank you. I haven't much time, 
 though." 
 
 He was near real hatred of her now: nearer than he 
 had ever been before. The promise that she had made 
 him give ate steadily into him. He did not allow him- 
 self to count it against her, but he would not force his 
 will, to forgive her, and he would not force his prin- 
 ciples, to forgive himself.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 SOME days later, when his cuts and bruises were no 
 longer so impertinent to him, when it was he 
 himself, rather than they, who appeared in his 
 face, Lawrance visited the Flynns. He had told Muriel 
 he was going, and she accepted the fact with a certain 
 embarrassment, a trifle of awkwardness. There was 
 something rather disingenuous in her artificially bright: 
 ' ' Oh, well then, I shall have high tea, and Mary can take 
 the evening ! " No allusion had been made to that prom- 
 ise since its extortion. Muriel had been sedulously at- 
 tentive to her husband 's hurts : compresses and rubbings 
 with embrocation bore her nightly witness. Lawrance 
 wondered occasionally how it was possible for two peo- 
 ple to live so intimately together, and yet not once to ex- 
 change any word or any emotion of the least importance. 
 At any rate they had sometimes before exchanged emo- 
 tions, if never ideas. But Muriel was doing her best 
 again she was ' ' trying. ' ' She had been equally sedulous 
 in her sympathy over the letters that came from Mal- 
 stowe, neutral and uninformative though those letters 
 invariably were. Lawrance thought forbiddenly of Olga, 
 of how differently she would take him if they were mar- 
 ried but if it came to ideas, what, after all, he reflected, 
 had he to give her ? He was conscious of complete intel- 
 lectual sterility; no wonder he couldn't satisfy Olga's 
 urgent young mind, no wonder Olga didn 't love him ! If 
 
 144
 
 A CHASTE MAN 145 
 
 she did, he averred fiercely, he would never have given 
 that promise, it would have been disloyalty, it would 
 have been vile: but as it was, he had only enacted a 
 penalty for himself. 
 
 He was going over this ground again on his way from 
 the Office to the Glasden Road. His meditations were 
 always recurrent, and in their recurrence they hardly 
 varied at all. 
 
 This time Marjorie did not run out to meet him. He 
 heard her shrill little voice, pitched to a tone of delighted 
 excitement, as he opened the gate: "Oh, Mr. Deavitt! 
 Don't, Mr. Ueavitt!" Lawrance felt annoyed with the 
 little girl's preoccupation. He would have liked her to 
 have come out to meet him. That would have made it 
 easier. His heart beat violently, seeming hostile to him. 
 He had anticipations of evil: there was no poetic surge 
 of pain and passion to carry him on. As he entered, the 
 nonchalantly sordid house did not reassure him. 
 
 Doris opened the door. ' ' Oh, Mr. Lawrance, ' ' she said 
 affectedly, ''you're quite a stranger!" She looked over- 
 worked; kitchen worries seemed to hang about her. 
 "Had a good time in the country?" She put on, as 
 usual, her Society air. She looked at him curiously, no- 
 ticing the traces of his bruises. "Mr. Deavitt's here, 
 playing about with Marjorie. He's daft on that kid." 
 
 "Now then, Margarine, if you can't behave better than 
 that, you 'd better not behave at all ! " came Mr. Deavitt 's 
 voice from the dining room. 
 
 ' ' Oo-er ! Let me go, Mr. Deavitt ! I must go and say 
 how d 'ye do to uncle Lorrie ! ' ' 
 
 "Don't trouble, Marjorie," Lawrance called to her. 
 "You'll see me soon enough. Where are the others, 
 Doris?"
 
 146 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 "Mother isn't very well. Uncle Tofty's been awful 
 lately. Mother's been in bed to get out of his way, I 
 think, ' ' the girl whispered. ' ' I 've had all the work here 
 to do as well as my work at the 'Tivoli.' I haven't 
 hardly been out of the blessed house the whole week, ex- 
 cept" 
 
 "Well, I never!" Mr. Crockerton Deavitt suddenly 
 appeared by them, with Marjorie seated on his neck, 
 her thin legs dangling over his shoulders. "Well, I 
 never! Here's the gentleman what's come to see Pappa 
 about the kitchen sink!" Changing his tone, he ad- 
 dressed Lawrance. "I've seen you down at Ralston & 
 Inge's, haven't I?" 
 
 They shook hands, and Marjorie nearly upset herself 
 in her effort to kiss Lawrance from her eminence. 
 
 "Bad dog!" cried Mr. Deavitt. "Don't do that, or I 
 shall be jellyhouse!" 
 
 Lawrance recognized that Deavitt was right. He had 
 seen him at the Office once, and the man 's appearance was 
 not easily forgotten. He had a slight figure and a 
 rather small head, but his expanded active blue eyes and 
 heavy light-yellow moustache were conspicuous features. 
 
 "Of course you know old 'Israfel,' Titmarsh. They 
 live just round the corner here." 
 
 "Old Israfel 's got six little girls!" Marjorie shouted. 
 "Mr. Deavitt 's an awful flirt! He's been there this 
 afternoon, and then he comes to see me. I like that, 
 uncle Lorrie, don't you? Mr. Deavitt says I'm number 
 fifty-three. Cheek, I call it!" 
 
 ' ' Such language ! My word ! ' ' 
 
 "Well, you said it first. Uncle Lorrie, you've got a 
 black eye!" 
 
 "Ssh!" Mr. Deavitt affected profound gravity, and
 
 A CHASTE MAN 147 
 
 held up his hand to his mouth. "Scrapping with the 
 missus. They all do it, you know. What a life! But 
 they get a half-day off now and again, pore fellers. 
 Keep qui-ert, Fido!" Mar j one was wriggling her lean 
 little legs, now tightly encased in a stout new pair of 
 brown stockings. 
 
 "Oh, Marjie, you are tiresome!" Doris put in peev- 
 ishly. 
 
 "I've heard of you from Lord Burpham." Mr. 
 Deavitt again addressed Lawrance with the surprising 
 alternation of a tone of polite and affable acquaintance. 
 "Quite interesting those alterations he's been making 
 down at Lipscot, aren't they? We must have a talk 
 about them some time. Wo-ah, Marjorie! No, please 
 sir, if it's all the same to you, sir," he went on in falsetto, 
 "gran 'ma says will you come and do the plumbing next 
 Thursday, coz M.amah's out charring, and Papah's gone 
 round the corner to have his tooth out, and our old cat's 
 got kittens, and little brother Archibald's fallen down- 
 stairs and broken his epigastrium. That will be all for 
 the present, thank you ! ' ' 
 
 Doris turned away with a disdainful air. Marjorie, 
 screaming with nervous laughter, gasped out : ' ' Oh, Mr. 
 Deavitt, you are silly ! ' ' 
 
 ' ' Don 't Mansion-House it ! " 
 
 "Oh, you're pricking!" 
 
 "Nortiboy." Mr. Deavitt slapped his own hand. 
 "My mistake. Show the gentleman in, Ennyntrude," 
 he addressed Doris; "don't keep him lying out there on 
 the doormat ! Such manners ! ' ' 
 
 Doris elaborately took no notice. "Won't you come 
 and talk to us in the kitchen, Mr. Lawrance?" she said. 
 "Olga's there."
 
 148 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 "All right." 
 
 "I'm sure Mr. Deavitt and Marjorie will be quite 
 happy together. They've got puzzles and things to 
 amuse them." The girl spoke vindictively. "Father 
 will be back soon. We're getting the tea." 
 
 * ' By the way Down, Fido ! Get down a minute, 
 Marjorie, there's a good kid." Mr. Deavitt 's tone was 
 now alert and efficient. He took out a little pocket-diary 
 and referred to it. "I'm booked for Lipscot to-morrow 
 11 :35 train. I understood you were coming with your 
 sister. ' ' 
 
 "Yes, Lord Burpham asked me but not for to- 
 morrow. Anyhow, it's off." 
 
 "Oh." Deavitt seemed displeased. His tone was 
 cold and disappointed. Lawrance was not aware of his 
 peculiar punctilio about engagements. "That's rather 
 odd, isn't? I thought it was all fixed up." 
 
 "No. I wrote to say I couldn't come." 
 
 Lawrance moved towards Doris. He was irked by this 
 emphasis of the Lipscot invitation, though on the whole 
 he had not been at all ill-pleased by Deavitt 's being there, 
 and so very definitely there, on that particular after- 
 noon. Deavitt represented a complete neutrality, he was 
 relievingly dissociated from all Lawrance 's concerns. 
 That allusion to "the missus" and married life it was 
 incomparably remote. Besides, Deavitt was easy: his 
 clowning did not in the least irritate Lawrance, who 
 always liked being with men who took the centre of the 
 stage and made no call on him for conversation. 
 
 "Mr. Deavitt!" Marjorie called from the dining- 
 room. ' ' The little ball keeps on running away ; I can 't 
 make it go properly !" 
 
 "Your lady-love wants you, Mr. Deavitt," observed
 
 A CHASTE MAN 149 
 
 Doris sarcastically. "Come along to Olga," she whis- 
 pered, putting her plump hand on Lawrance's arm. 
 ' ' Olga thinks a lot of you, ' ' she added in a tone of mere- 
 tricious confidence as she took him away. 
 
 That allusion to Lipscot, in making Lawrance feel un- 
 comfortable, had lessened his reluctance to go to the 
 kitchen. Besides, what else, he thought as he went, could 
 he do? He couldn't attend upon the innocent flirtation 
 of Marjorie and Mr. Crockerton Deavitt. 
 
 "He doesn't really know that lord, does he?" asked 
 Doris sceptically. 
 
 "Oh, yes, he's his cousin." 
 
 Doris did not answer. She looked impressed, puzzled 
 and annoyed, at the same time. She had always con- 
 soled herself by the opinion that Mr. Deavitt was ex- 
 cessively vulgar. 
 
 "Olga knows Lord Burpham, too," Lawrance added, 
 without weighing his words. 
 
 "Oh! She never told me. She's a sly one! Olga! 
 Why didn 't you tell me you knew Lord Burpham ? ' ' 
 
 The girl started as her sister burst in. Seeing Law- 
 rance, she gave him a faint abstracted smile. She was 
 sitting reading a paper-covered book. 
 
 "Well, why didn't you?" Doris had only paused for 
 a moment. 
 
 ' ' I thought you 'd talk so much about it. ' ' 
 
 "Talk? Why should I talk?" Doris was intensely 
 angered by this reply, partly because it was evidently 
 given without any desire to score off her : so she had no 
 climbing-ground to any point of vantage for reprisals. 
 She stopped, she was baffled. Lawrance had never seen 
 her nearly so baffled nor nearly so angry before. The 
 very sensible novelty of her emotions served even to dis-
 
 150 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 tract his attention from Olga: for a few moments he 
 ceased to wonder if she would come and kiss him. ' ' I 'm 
 sure I don't see why you should be ashamed of knowing 
 of knowing " 
 
 Doris broke off. There was humiliation and jealousy 
 in her anger. Lawrance was increasingly surprised. 
 He couldn't at all understand it. Olga apparently was 
 not trying to understand. She went on reading her 
 book. 
 
 "Reading!" cried her sister. "You're always read- 
 ing. I have to do everything. What do you suppose 
 we're going to have for tea to-night?" 
 
 "Cold mutton, isn't it?" 
 
 The younger girl gave a momentary straight dispas- 
 sionate glance of her green eyes a glance in which Law- 
 rance felt himself comprehended to no known end. He 
 literally shivered : he was frightened by the sense of his 
 blindness and his insecurity. Doris meanwhile was en- 
 gaged in a harangue concerning vegetables. 
 
 "And I must say," she concluded, "you're not very 
 polite to Mr. Lawrance. Especially considering we 
 haven't seen him for more'n a month. I think you're 
 very rude!" The poor girl could not recover her self- 
 control. 
 
 Lawrance felt embarrassed for her. Again his mind 
 was diverted from Olga, he tried to think of something to 
 say that might help. 
 
 What he did say was not tactful in the least : ' ' Per- 
 haps Olga didn't catch Lord Burpham's name. She 
 only just met him that night we were at the 'Trafal- 
 gar.' " 
 
 " Oh ! " Doris lifted her chin high. ' ' She caught his 
 name all right. Trust her!"
 
 A CHASTE MAN 151 
 
 There was silence. Doris ostentatiously busied her- 
 self with some cabbage and potatoes, while Olga read. 
 Lawrance, looking at the sitting girl, suffered strongly 
 from the especial mobility of her figure, a mobility that 
 was tender, yet keen. It was, as an actual fact, dreadful 
 to him that she should be there, that she should be made 
 in just that way, like a little girl and yet not like a little 
 girl he could not express it. She wore an old blue 
 dress; her sleeves were rolled up. Probably she had 
 been washing dishes. That dark fine hair of hers fell on 
 her bare arm, suggesting fiercely forbidden images: her 
 pale flesh seemed to signal exquisitely sensitive reserves : 
 the dark down that bridged her eyebrows was so delicate, 
 so scarcely seen, and yet so much her personal attribute, 
 that even the faint sight of it seemed to initiate Law- 
 rance to a throbbing intimacy, to initiate him and to 
 withhold. It was an acute and esoteric torture to the 
 young man. He remembered his dream, and flushed. 
 Her indifference was the cruellest possible trouble to his 
 blood. If only she had been demonstrative and affection- 
 ate, he would have had some leverage for the movement 
 of his will not to yield. Now, he could do nothing but 
 feel his weakness. He looked away from her, but her 
 red lips and delicate straight nose and broad low pale 
 forehead were in his mind's eye still. "What does she 
 mean," he brought himself to think, "sitting there read- 
 ing while her sister is doing kitchen work? She must 
 be selfish. She'd make a bad wife." There she sat, 
 immune. Poor Doris ! No wonder she found Olga try- 
 ing. With a feeble flicker of irony, he reflected that he 
 did too. 
 
 He sat down, and took up a cheap illustrated maga- 
 zine. It was absurd to keep on standing up there by the
 
 152 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 dresser, staring at the ground. He would not think of 
 Olga: there, at least, was exercise for his will. He 
 wished he could think of something to say to Doris. He 
 was annoyed by his temperamental inability to say some- 
 thing about nothing. Doris was too much put out to 
 chatter. Well, that wouldn't last long. ... It was odd 
 that Lord Burpham should be the unwitting cause of dis- 
 tress both to Muriel and to Doris, and for the same 
 reason, because another person happened to know him, 
 and they didn't. Lords brought about a great deal 
 of disappointment and heart-burning and general com- 
 motion. He wished they didn't exist. No wonder 
 some people wanted to abolish them. Yes, Muriel and 
 Doris were agitated in just the same way, both so pro- 
 foundly. Hurt vanity hurt in an especially bitter 
 and unforgivable way. . . . No, it was no good. He 
 was in the same room with Olga, breathing the same 
 air. He could not forget it It was Muriel's fault! 
 Her jealousy had let him in for this. But he had co- 
 operated; he was paying the penalty for that. He had 
 not known what he was doing ! 
 
 He dropped the ridiculous magazine on the floor; he 
 got up from his chair, determined at the moment to 
 plead illness or to make some other excuse to get clear 
 of the house. He was choked with continence. He 
 should have been married to some honest, simple, vigor- 
 ous girl, some "jolly pug and well-mouthed wench, "- 
 he should have been a country clergyman married so, 
 freshly a father every two years : that should have been 
 his defence against the flesh. Anglo-Saxon morality 
 was in his blood that ran so steadily and stubbornly with 
 desire. Anglo-Saxon honour, too, was involved in him,
 
 A CHASTE MAN 153 
 
 and he felt it now, bristling under the memory of the 
 promise he had given to his wife. He half turned to the 
 door. Yes, he might save himself from the revenges of 
 his honour and his morality by immediate retreat. 
 
 Olga rose with a swiftness anticipating that of the 
 escape that Lawrance had intended to make. "I'll help 
 you now, Doris," she said. "I did want to finish that 
 chapter. Sorry." She looked at Lawrance with her 
 sudden directed clearness too rapidly for a gaze, too 
 comprehendingly for a glance. "Why didn't you come 
 before ? ' ' she asked him. ' ' I wanted you to come. You 
 never even wrote." 
 
 "And when he does come you don't hardly speak to 
 him ! I wouldn 't come again after this if I was him ! ' ' 
 Doris looked up from by the oven, with a flushed face 
 and pouting lips. "The way you're wrapped up in 
 yourself, Olga, I'd be ashamed! He was just going 
 away, and I'm sure I don't wonder." 
 
 "You weren't, were you?" 
 
 "Well, I I thought you had so many to get tea for, 
 and your mother not being well " 
 
 "We'll have tea ready in a few minutes." Olga took 
 a tray, and began putting cups and saucers and things 
 on it. Her movements were rapid and clear, much more 
 efficient, better gauged, than those of Doris. She went 
 to the oven, sifted out the ashes, put on a light sprinkling 
 of coal. "I'll go and set the table." She took the 
 tray. "You might have written again." She lowered 
 her voice as she passed by the young man at the door. 
 "How did you get bruised like that?" She had a 
 curious look of reluctant tenderness that was new to 
 Lawrance,
 
 154 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 "Oh, an accident nothing much." 
 
 "Well " She stopped and gave her familiar little 
 frown. 
 
 ' ' Give me your tray, ' ' he said, and took it. 
 
 Outside the door she turned intimately to him, with 
 a catch in her breath. 
 
 "We're not happy. Everything's been wrong these 
 last weeks. I want to tell you. Let's talk later on 
 after tea. You'll see that things aren't right." 
 
 He nodded, said "I'm very sorry," being really re- 
 lieved by this presentment of a buffer-state of feeling 
 between them. "There's nothing wrong with your 
 mother?" he asked. 
 
 "She's not ill, exactly. She's unhappy. ... I can't 
 tell you now. I do so wish you'd come before. I wish 
 I was ugly!" 
 
 "What do you mean?" Lawrance was alarmed. The 
 girl had spoken with a violence astonishing in her. 
 
 "Give me the tray. No, don't come in. Take me out 
 somewhere after tea anywhere." 
 
 Lawrance, through the opened door, saw Mr. Crocker- 
 ton Deavitt and Marjorie playing dominoes. "That's 
 the feller!" Deavitt, with his head down sideways on 
 the table, sniffed interrogatively, then turned the domino 
 up. "Double four! My word! Mother will be 
 pleased!"
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 AS Lawrance sat down to tea, he knew that Olga 
 was not mistaken: something was wrong. 
 The air was burdened as with an unformu- 
 lated sentence of punishment. Old Flynn had shuffled 
 unwillingly in at the last moment. He had a bad cold, 
 and could hardly speak. He looked threatened. All 
 through the meal he wore a thick woolly cinnamon-col- 
 oured overcoat, tightly buttoned, and a faded grey com- 
 forter round his throat. After the first moment of see- 
 ing Lawrance he did not meet the young man's eye, 
 which, indeed, was hardly ever there for him to meet. 
 "You've been away," was all he said to him. 
 
 "Father's been all the afternoon at Captain Eagle's!" 
 Marjorie informed them, and, in the silence that fol- 
 lowed, "Captain Eagle's!" assailed Lawrance 's ears with 
 meaningless spectral repetition. He sat down between 
 Doris and Olga, on Mr. Flynn 's right. Opposite him 
 was the boarder "Uncle Lance," an elderly bank-clerk 
 whose full name was Mr. Lancelot Ewing. He was 
 small and sapless, with an indriven blighted face that 
 might have been mean if it had had enough life to be 
 that : as it was, it seemed to represent the human aspect 
 reduced to the last level of insignificance and stultifica- 
 tion. It was only the disproportionate largeness of his 
 ears that redeemed him to some sort of personality. He 
 looked as though he had never had money and had 
 
 155
 
 156 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 never made love. He gave out, from all over him, a 
 thin exudation of poverty and inanimate toil. Mar- 
 jorie, continuously devouring bread-and-butter, sat next 
 to him, and on her other side was Mr. Crockerton 
 Deavitt, not talkative now, evidently susceptible to the 
 atmosphere. He cleared his throat in the intervals of 
 applying himself to a hard-boiled egg. Mrs. Flynn 
 and the other boarder, "Uncle Tofty," whose place was 
 laid next to Olga's, had not appeared. 
 
 Lawrance felt dazed: his very expectancy of evil had 
 dulled edges. They all seemed like dumb animals for- 
 tuitously herded together, with depressed heads, munch- 
 ing. Deavitt, it was true, was on the edge of the herd, 
 he would get clear. He gave Lawrance now and again a 
 glance that seemed to indicate an imminent remark, and 
 Lawrance, fearing a return to the subject of Lipscot, 
 addressed him with the question, Had he known Mr. 
 Titmarsh for long? He hardly heard the brief and 
 determinate reply. The old "Mariner" kept on caress- 
 ing his cup of cocoa, warming his haggard hands. 
 Doris occasionally sniffed, and Mr. Ewing ate audibly. 
 
 "Oh!" Marjorie cried suddenly. "There's Uncle 
 Tofty!" 
 
 Mr. Claude Tofton, a large fair man, somewhat fur- 
 ther on towards middle age than Crockerton Deavitt, 
 stood by the door, regarding them with a facetiously ag- 
 gressive air. He had one thumb stuck in the arm-hole 
 of his dove-coloured waistcoat. His coat and trousers, 
 of light tweed and loosely fitting, served to expand his 
 person. With the appearance of a bookmaker or an 
 auctioneer, he was actually connected, lucratively, with 
 a large Furniture "Emporium" in the West end. He 
 advanced with a gross familiar swing.
 
 A CHASTE MAN 157 
 
 "Well, Lawrance!" He tapped the young man's 
 shoulder. "If a chicken and a half costs four-and- 
 eleven, what 's my share, eh ? You don 't tumble, eh ? " 
 He laughed glutinously. "I've got half the youngest 
 chicken, anyway." He patted Olga's arm, and Law- 
 rance moved in his chair, looking dangerously at him. 
 "By Jinks, ain't we havin' a lively funeral, girls? 
 Hand us over the butter, Doris, there's a good kid! 
 Where's my ale, Marjorie? Gee-whiz!" Tofton had 
 been in the United States once on business, and was 
 proud of the American slang he had picked up. ' ' What 
 kind of a joint is this?" He turned up his little pug- 
 naciously twinkling eyes. "Where's my tumbler?" 
 
 "Where's my fountain-pen?" Mr. Ewing surprised 
 the company by the sudden dry tremulous snap of this 
 question. 
 
 "Lord love us, Ewing," Tofton insolently answered. 
 "You ought to keep that fountain-pen of yours chained 
 up." 
 
 "I lent it to you yesterday, you know I did." 
 
 "Ho didjer? Well, I haven't eaten it." 
 
 "Said 'e only wanted it to endorse a cheque with." 
 E wing's eyes, fixed straight in front of him, were red 
 with anger. "Then takes it orf. 'E writes thick. 
 After 'e 'ad it last time I could 'ardly use it crossed 
 the nib. Man oughtn't to go using another man's foun- 
 tain-pen. Oughter 'ave more " He gulped. 
 
 "Interesting conversation." Tofton forced a yawn. 
 
 Marjorie had been trying to get up to fetch the 
 ale and tumbler, but Deavitt was holding her with his 
 hand firmly clasped under the table just above her 
 knee. 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Deavitt!" She pouted and giggled.
 
 158 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 "What's the matter?" Tofton looked sharply at 
 her, with annoyed suspicion. 
 
 "Naughty child!" Deavitt exclaimed. "Why don't 
 you tell the nice kind gentleman where his tumbler 
 is?" 
 
 "I've got to go and get it for him! Oo-er! Let me 
 go, Mr. Deavitt! You're pinching!" 
 
 "But it's very rude of little girls to leave the table. 
 Isn't it, Pa?" He addressed old Flynn, who sat eating 
 bits of hard dry toast, taking not the smallest notice. 
 Olga looked frightened, and Doris held herself con- 
 sciously aloof. 
 
 ' ' I shall have to get a new nib, ' ' Ewing put in. 
 
 "P'raps you'd like to fetch me the tumbler yourself, 
 then?" Tofton was now furious. His heavy red jowl 
 had a mottled flush. Ewing watched him with gratifica- 
 tion. 
 
 "Fancy that, now!" Deavitt exclaimed in a forced 
 ladylike tone. "I wonder!" He scratched his fore- 
 head, and looked earnestly to the ceiling. "I wonder 
 what it is that makes me wonder!" 
 
 Olga rose quickly, took a tumbler from the sideboard, 
 and put it by Tof ton's plate. 
 
 "Thank you, my dear," he said. "Thank you:" 
 with the' implication that the girl was intimately on his 
 side. "But I haven't any ale," he added. 
 
 "I shouldn't be surprised," said Deavitt in an absent 
 voice. Marjorie began to struggle again to get up. 
 
 "I should think you'd get sick of playing the giddy 
 goat, Mr. Deavitt." Tof ton's voice was thick. "Why 
 can't you chuck it, and let the child get up?" 
 
 "Margarine! Ahem!" Deavitt looked down at her 
 reprovingly. "That's twice I've had to speak to you
 
 A CHASTE MAN 159 
 
 already! How often am I to tell you to get up when 
 you 're called in the morning, lazy little hound ? Please, 
 teacher " He held up his disengaged hand. "Please 
 teacher, this little girl pinched me. Oh, she is rude!" 
 
 "You hurry up and get that bottle of Bass, Marjorie !" 
 Tofton brought his fist down on the table. "Am I to 
 wait all the evening for it ? " 
 
 "I shouldn't be surprised." Deavitt had not once 
 looked at Tofton, nor addressed him directly. 
 
 "Nothing like real wit, is there?" 
 
 "I shouldn't be surprised." Deavitt 's tone, polite 
 and casual, did not vary. 
 
 "Oh, say it again, I would, say it again! What's the 
 charge for the show, eh?" Tofton put his hand in his 
 pocket and took out a sixpence, which he shoved across 
 the table. "Talk about humour! Time for the Second 
 House yet?" 
 
 "I shouldn't be surprised." 
 
 "Good Lord!" Tofton shouted, impaled between his 
 rage and his idea of his dignity. ' ' Good Lord ! A man 
 gets fed up with this kind of tommyrot. A pity some 
 people don't know when they're making exhibitions of 
 themselves." Deavitt laughed. "Dam silly swine!" 
 Tofton bellowed. 
 
 "Mr. Tofton." The old man drew himself suddenly 
 up, and looked steadily at him. "You're at my table." 
 
 "Well!" Tofton stared, taken aback. "Well, what 
 of it? I pay, don't I? What of it?" 
 
 "Nothing but that I'll thank you to behave accord- 
 ingly." 
 
 Mr. Flynn was trembling. The little bank-clerk by 
 his side looked up with features discomposed to a 
 momentary eagerness that seemed too much for him.
 
 160 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 His eyes fell to his plate again at once. Doris grew 
 very red and smothered an exclamation. Deavitt 
 guarded any emotion he might have, but released his 
 grasp of Marjorie, who was too much excited to think of 
 getting up now. Olga was very still ; her fixed eyes di- 
 lated. Lawrance touched her hand, and she at once 
 took his, firmly. 
 
 Tof ton's jaw had dropped. "Well, I " he stuttered. 
 ' ' I Look here, now, ' ' he went on, ' ' this is a bit thick, 
 Mr. Flynn. I put it to you, I didn't start all this silly 
 rot. Why do you go for me, then eh?" 
 
 "Understand this, Mr. Tof ton: that I don't allow my 
 guests to be insulted at my table. I don't allow it." 
 The old man made no gesture. 
 
 "Ho! You don't allow it, don't you! Well, and 
 may I ask you how you're going to stop it?" 
 
 "By turning you out of my house if you insult Mr. 
 Deavitt again." 
 
 ' ' Turn me out ! eh ? You can 't do it. You know you 
 can't do it. Look here." He got up. Lawrance im- 
 mediately got up too, and barred Tof ton's approach to 
 the old man. "What are you interfering for, hey?" 
 
 "I say, Mr. Flynn," Deavitt leaned over "don't 
 trouble about me. I won't rag any more." 
 
 "Hear that? Hear what he says?" Tof ton stamped 
 his foot. "And you expect me to keep mum and not say 
 bo to a goose ! ' ' 
 
 "Get his ale, Marjorie," said Olga quickly, and the 
 child, with full excited eyes, reluctantly left the table, 
 as Mrs. Flynn came in. 
 
 Lawrance, meeting her aspect, was astounded by its 
 change. The roguish light was gone from her eyes;
 
 A CHASTE MAN 161 
 
 they were unhappy and nervous : she looked much older, 
 she looked stiffened and hardened, she, still herself, was 
 crossed by a frightening unfamiliarity. At Lawrance 
 she tried to smile, and the effect of this abortive reasser- 
 tion was to the young man no less than tragic. It was 
 as if there were gathered up into the smile all sickness 
 that would be health, all darkness that would be light, 
 all loss that would be gain. 
 
 ' ' Come along, Ma ! ' ' Deavitt called out, and Lawrance 
 was extraordinarily grateful to him for that tone, at 
 that time. "Another cup of tea for little Archibald! 
 Mine's the one with the cow-catcher, please, teacher. 
 Oh thank you!" He pointed to the cup that had an 
 inner ridge for moustache protection. 
 
 Marjorie, reappearing with the ale, tittered. "I copied 
 that one you told me about the cow-catcher in my note- 
 book!" she said eagerly. "I copied lots. 'Sunday was 
 the day, and 'twas half-past nine, When she took the 
 ticket on the District Line ! ' And : 'We 've marmalade, 
 Of every shade ' you know." She leaned over the 
 table, and pushed Deavitt 's cup to the tea-urn, neatly 
 abstracting Tof ton's sixpence as she did so. 
 
 "Naughty little hound," said Deavitt in an under- 
 tone. "Mustn't do that." 
 
 Tofton had not noticed. He still confronted Law- 
 rance, and his back was turned to Mrs. Flynn. "Better 
 ask Tier what she thinks about turning me out, hadn't 
 you?" He jabbed his head down towards old Flynn, 
 who kept his place, very erect, with his eyes fixed on 
 his wife. 
 
 "Dearly beloved brethren," Deavitt intoned parsoni- 
 cally, "as we have now concluded the last verse of hymn
 
 162 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 number two hundred and tooty-two, may I request you 
 to return to your pews ? The offertory to-day is for the 
 Society for Providing Topboots and Py jama-legs for the 
 Aborigines of East Clapham." He took a sixpence from 
 his pocket and threw it over so that it fell with a ring 
 into Tof ton's plate. "Oh, thank you, madam! 
 Couldn 't you make it sevenpence-half penny ? ' ' 
 
 Doris laughed, and then looked indignant. Mrs. 
 Flynn sat down. 
 
 "There's your ale, Mr. Tof ton," said Olga without 
 looking round. Her lips had paled a little, and those 
 long eyes, that kept fixed to a far point in front of her, 
 were dry and bright. Doris was fidgetting, anxious to 
 say something, but at a loss. 
 
 Tof ton turned. "What d'yer think of it, Mrs. F.? 
 Seems I don't behave so's to suit your friends, so I've 
 gotter be chucked out ! What d 'yer think of that ? ' ' 
 
 "Oh, I say, Mr. Tof ton!" Lawrance, seeing Mrs. 
 Flynn 's distress and her fear, interposed. "Don't you 
 think we've had about enough?" 
 
 He could not say more. His impulse dragged, ex- 
 hausted. Looking round at all their faces, he was smit- 
 ten suddenly by the conviction of a need for purification, 
 for himself, among them all, involved by them all. A 
 Sacrament of Purification ! If only there was one ! There 
 must be, with this so urgent and so sick demand. 
 Lawrance was Christian at heart : he could believe, now, 
 in Christianity as living truth, could believe in the utter 
 indispensability of the Faith. What could deliver Olga 
 from the body of this death ? How could he ? It might 
 be that she would need purification from him, most of 
 all. On what verge was she now, forebodingly?
 
 A CHASTE MAN 163 
 
 Tofton, still standing, took his bottle of ale and poured 
 it into his tumbler deliberately, preening his dignity. 
 
 "What I say," he went on, after a gulp, "what I say is 
 this : 1 11 go certainly of course ' ' 
 
 "Just a drop more cowjuice, madam, if you please!" 
 observed Mr. Deavitt. 
 
 " but there are one or two little matters that have 
 to be settled first, best known to you and me." Tofton 
 gave Mrs. Flynn a heavy stare, then gulped at his ale 
 again. "As a gentleman, I needn't say more." Again 
 he put his thumb in the arm-hole of his waistcoat. ' ' But 
 there's one thing I'm going to have," turning to the 
 old man "and that's an apology. A full apology!" 
 He drained his tumbler. 
 
 "I'd sooner swing than give it you!" Mr. Flynn 
 shot a single flash that sprang from his eyes like blood 
 from a stripe. 
 
 "Oh, you'll think it over! Don't you think so, Mrs. 
 F.t" 
 
 "Well, now!" Deavitt exclaimed severely. "Where's 
 that half an egg that Mother left last Sunday? Wast- 
 ing good hen-fruit like that, Margarine, how dare you ? ' ' 
 
 Mrs. Flynn did not answer Tofton, nor look at him, 
 but went on pouring tea into the "cow-catcher" cup, 
 with a hand that trembled only slightly. 
 
 "Now then, Marjorie," Deavitt continued, "hurry up 
 and get your nose-bag off; we ought to be starting." 
 
 "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen." Tofton 
 looked round him with malevolent triumph. He gave a 
 sarcastic bow. "I'm sure you'll excuse me, won't 
 you?" 
 
 "Anyhow," said Mr. Ewing deliberately, looking at
 
 164 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 no one, "anyhow it's not a decent action for a fellow to 
 spoil another fellow's fountain-pen. An' cost eight-an'- 
 thrippenee." 
 
 Tofton took no notice. "With his gross aggressive 
 swing now consciously heightened, he went out. 
 
 "All /lover!" cried Deavitt, "except the shouting!"
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 DIRECTLY after tea Mr. Deavitt took Marjorie 
 off to some show: all the movements of this 
 gentleman were unexpectedly edged; he was 
 gone in a flash, Marjorie, with her coat half on, hurry- 
 ing at his heels. Mrs. Flynn left the room almost simul- 
 taneously; Doris was already gone. Olga, with her 
 hand on the back of a chair, stood wavering for a mo- 
 ment, her bright mouth shook, she looked searchingly yet 
 uncertainly at Lawrance, said: " Don't forget, will 
 you?" and followed her mother. 
 
 The young man, labouring with a paralyzed conscious- 
 ness, walked over to the fireplace and sat down in his 
 usual chair, opposite the Mariner, who was filling his 
 meerschaum pipe with concentrated attention. ' ' How 
 egg-and-strawberry ! ' ' ' ' Most rikkidoodolous ! ' ' 
 "Here endeth the Second Lesson!" "That's the fel- 
 ler ! ' ' Deavitt 's gags and patter hypnotically echoed : 
 they streaked the silence. Lawrance kept thinking in 
 fits and starts. Was all this better or worse than what 
 he had expected better or worse so far as it affected 
 himf He had prepared himself for a temptation that 
 had not come : the fire had been drawn, was he to go scot- 
 free? Olga was in trouble; he must help her, he must 
 divert his passion for her to sympathy and tenderness 
 and goodwill: why, what better chance could he have 
 had? It was exactly the diversion that he should have 
 
 165
 
 166 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 been the first to demand, for his own salvation, perhaps 
 for hers, but here he was on altogether unseen 
 ground. . . . The old man sat still, smoking his pipe, 
 with one finger laid along the side of his long delicately 
 shaped nose. He was still bound tightly up in his brown 
 overcoat and his faded grey comforter. With the middle 
 finger of his other hand he kept tapping rhythmically 
 on the arm of his chair. Lawrance wished he would 
 drink some whiskey, wished he would not sit there so 
 much exposed to what he knew. . . . Olga in trouble! 
 His thoughts swung slowly back, with a motion like that 
 of a crane loading a ship : then the remembrance of the 
 few looks she had had for him that evening came on with 
 a swift assault of pain and fear. Ah, but it was the very 
 chance he had most to dread! Circumstances were 
 weaving a bond for them. Olga would be changed 
 was changed. This "help" of his would make just the 
 appeal and she, grateful and dependent, with all that 
 super-imposition of new emotions, would be more subtle, 
 more dangerous, in her appeal to him. . . . He would 
 not go on with such thoughts thoughts that brought 
 images. . . . 
 
 "I'll take a drink, Mariner, I think," he said, hoping 
 that his host would reply: "I will, too." But the old 
 man only nodded. 
 
 "Look here " Lawrance stopped: his tone had sur- 
 prised him by seeming impertinent. Pouring his 
 whiskey, he had his back now to Mr. Flynn. 
 
 "Well, what is it?" The Mariner spoke tersely, and 
 showed that he was on his guard. 
 
 Lawrance turned, and receded mentally before those 
 hard clear blue eyes, suddenly wakeful for him. 
 
 "That's what I want to know." He gave a foolish
 
 A CHASTE MAN 167 
 
 half -laugh of embarrassment. "Look here, Mariner, 
 we're old friends. What's up? Of course I know 
 there's some trouble." 
 
 "Trouble? That fellow Tofton's a bounder and a 
 cad, and he's got to go somehow. That's all the 
 trouble." 
 
 "Well, isn't that easily settled?" said Lawrance, 
 knowing that it was not. 
 
 "It can't go on. It can't go on." 
 
 "Don't you want to tell me anything?" The old 
 man did not answer. ' ' Surely you're taking a drdp with 
 me ? " Lawrance added. 
 
 "No. Not to-night. That cur drinks, in his way. 
 Drinks in his room, the swine! He's not fit to drink. 
 He'd got some of his dirty liquor in him this evening. 
 Couldn't you see?" 
 
 "Not very much, had he?" 
 
 "No, that's just it. Not much not enough. That's 
 his way." Mr. Flynn paused and emptied his pipe. 
 ' ' The bottom of the trouble is money, ' ' he went on slowly. 
 "That's at the bottom." 
 
 ' ' Good Lord, is that all ? You don 't mean to say you 
 don 't know you can count on me there ? ' ' 
 
 The Mariner shook his head. "It's too much money, 
 Lorrie. Too much. ' ' 
 
 "How much?" 
 
 "I don't know. He's been lending us money for 
 years, on and off. I don 't know. ' ' 
 
 "Patsey knows, I suppose?" 
 
 "Why do you bring her in?" The old man's pug- 
 nacity of tone startled Lawrance. 
 
 "I don't know I thought" 
 
 "Well, I can tell you as well as she can. Don't go and
 
 168 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 ask her don 't talk to her I won 't have it ! Five or six 
 hundred pounds at least. There ye 've got it ! " 
 
 ' ' I might raise that : with a little time. ' ' 
 
 "Well, you're not going to raise it. I don't borrow 
 money that I can 't pay back. Besides, you 're married. 
 You haven't the right In fact, you'll oblige me by 
 not raising the subject again. Gad! I'd steal the 
 money, but I won't cadge on my friends. Young chap 
 married. You've no right, Lorrie, to propose some- 
 thing you wouldn't accept yourself. Do you see your- 
 self sponging at my age on a young fellow like you ? ' ' 
 
 "Things aren't always as they sound." Lawrance 
 was caught up by his own remark; he knew for a mo- 
 ment that it struck deeply at himself: it lodged in him 
 for later extrication and survey. 
 
 "Are you fond of Olga?" The Mariner was not 
 looking at him, but the question was sharply cut. 
 
 "Yes, I am." Lawrance strained his breath. 
 
 "Well, get her away, then. That's all I want. Get 
 her away. She mustn't stay here any longer. It isn't 
 fair. It's worth your while to get her away, if you're 
 fond of her. I wouldn't ask you else. But this is a 
 chance you won't be sorry for. It's the best way out. 
 It's the only way out." He sat with hands clasped by 
 his chin : his hard fingers made rapid movements. 
 
 "Do you mean to say that that blackguard ? God, 
 I '11 kill him!" 
 
 "Yes, I do. There's enough of that. I do mean to 
 say it, and that's enough." 
 
 Lawrance was not prone to demonstrations, he hardly 
 realized that he had got up and was holding his friend 's 
 two hands in his.
 
 A CHASTE MAN 169 
 
 "I swear she shan't be in the house with him another 
 night!" 
 
 ' ' I could kiss you for that, my boy, I could kiss you 
 for all your black eye ! ' ' The old man laughed under his 
 reaction. 
 
 Lawrance, elated, stood by the mantelpiece. He had 
 acted from an immediate strong impulse, and that im- 
 pulse for the moment made him secure. Here had 
 emerged the matter of weight and force, it was a square 
 boulder, firm-set, sprung up for him ; on it he stood and 
 held ground, looking far over the dwindled parapets of 
 convention. There was a sudden abasement and flat- 
 tening of those towering multitudinous heads that over- 
 looked them. 
 
 ''You mean it?" The Mariner looked up with a con- 
 traction of suspicion. ' ' You '11 take her away at once ? ' ' 
 
 "Of course. Isn't that the only important thing?" 
 
 "Mother of God! If I were a younger man " 
 The Mariner clenched his fingers. "You saw that 
 bullying swine? You saw him to-night? There's only 
 one way with him violence a flogging a smash in the 
 snout put that fear into his dirty soul the fear of 
 death he needs it ! The man sneaked us into his debt, 
 Lorrie paid bills for us one thing and another he 
 was waiting " 
 
 "I could give him a note of hand for it all, with full 
 security " 
 
 "He needn't take it, need he? And he wouldn't 
 what do you think ? And why should you ? You 're do- 
 ing enough, good God! Perhaps you might smash him 
 up into the bargain. I see you've had practice lately." 
 He chuckled, loosened his overcoat and his scarf, and be-
 
 170 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 gan warming his hands. ' ' Ah and 1 11 have a drink 
 now. Can't drink unless I'm happy." 
 
 Lawrance poured him an abundant whiskey. He was 
 longing to consult with him about the details of Olga's 
 escape, but he couldn't say a word. He knew that 
 whatever he might say would jar, would strike out of 
 harmony with the fine completeness of the trust that 
 the Mariner had in him. As Lawrance looked at his 
 friend a wave of admiration and affection came up, 
 loosening all his springs of feeling. The grey trousers, 
 so habituated to the long shanks, the disordered loose 
 collar and red necktie, the spotted waistcoat with its 
 missing buttons, the heavy loose black boots, with their 
 leather rubbed to grey at the ankles all was intimately 
 of the man, confirming love for him. Lawrance, in his 
 turn, could have kissed him, kissed his tight-drawn red- 
 dened cheeks, his capriciously wrinkled mouth. He 
 knew that no one else could have trusted him in that 
 way, without the naming of "trust": no one else could 
 have been so generous, so free, so direct, and so proud. 
 There was the same pride in his neglect of moral con- 
 vention as in his neglect of his clothes: the same pride 
 that prompted, unknown. Lawrance thought of the 
 whispered confabulation there might have been: "I 
 trust you, my boy, I'm sure you'll play fair." If he'd 
 said that, he wouldn't have trusted him, he wouldn't 
 have been sure ! No, they wouldn 't plan details. That 
 was Lawrance 's own affair. But, as he sat on in the 
 silence, his conscience stirred at the beck of his nerves. 
 Had he, too, been generous? He hadn't thought of 
 Doris hadn't thought of what it would be like for the 
 rest of the family after Olga had gone. With Olga's
 
 A CHASTE MAN 171 
 
 departure the whole household had been blotted out for 
 him. Doris ought to go, too, Olga ought to have some 
 one with her of course. . . . He was, out of simple 
 nervous reaction, sharply afflicted by the idea that his 
 plan was impracticable, that he had been rushed on to 
 an absurdity on the spur of his emotions. What would 
 Olga do a young girl staying alone in some little hotel 
 or boarding-house? What would people think? 
 Mightn't she be exposed? Lawrance pulled himself 
 up in resentment at the meanness and the futility of 
 these reflections. They were common and cowardly and 
 constricted. Had he no wit, no will? And wasn't it 
 the great thing, the only thing, to get her out at any 
 cost, at once? 
 
 "We had better not wait," he declared suddenly. 
 
 " You 're right. I'll go and fetch them." 
 
 "No. I will. I '11 bring them here. Where 's Doris ?" 
 
 "At the 'Tivoli.' She's selling programmes there 
 now. Didn 't she tell you ? She won 't be back till late. ' ' 
 
 Lawrance barely reflected that it was very unlike 
 Doris not to have talked a lot about the "Tivoli." He 
 was immensely relieved that she was out of the house: 
 his conscience, that had constrained him to ask where 
 she was because he so very much didn 't want to take her 
 with Olga, was satisfied; but he had to say: "Won't it 
 be pretty bad for all of you without her ? ' ' 
 
 "Not at all. Much better than before." The old 
 man looked at him, surprised. 
 
 "That man's gone out, hasn't he?" 
 
 "Yes. That's all right." 
 
 "Oh, I think I could deal with him!" 
 
 Lawrance disliked himself for his bragging tone,
 
 172 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 which came from sheer nervousness, against his will or 
 feeling. The Mariner, putting a hand on his shoulder, 
 showed that he understood. 
 
 "You go for them, my boy," he said. "And per- 
 haps better not smash Tofton; better not. I didn't 
 really mean what I said, you know." He was agitated. 
 "Oh and there's one thing. When Olga is yours 
 when she is take her. It's best. Remember I told 
 you." 
 
 Lawrance looked away and reddened. He had an as- 
 tonishing sense of inferiority and of blindness. He 
 groped, distracted. What he wanted to say was: 
 "Ah, but I'm not the man you think me!" But the 
 words, so sure of misconstruction by any one who did 
 not know all that was in him, were patently vain. He 
 left the room in haste.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THERE was no air of a conspiracy. "Well, 
 Olga?" Lawrance said, after Mr. Flynn had 
 finished telling them and she did not speak. 
 
 She went towards him ; ' ' Oh, Lorrie ! ' ' she said. She 
 stopped short, both in her movement and her speech: 
 she stood near him with drooped head. She looked 
 amazingly small and young and white; she was like a 
 straight young white tree, and though she was still, 
 there came to Lawrance a sense of trembling branches. 
 
 He was triumphant that she had, naturally and at that 
 moment, called him "Lorrie"; it could not be "Uncle 
 Lorrie" any more, he knew that. 
 
 ' ' You '11 see, ' ' he said ; " it will be all right. Don 't be 
 afraid of anything!" 
 
 ' ' And there you 're right ! ' ' The Mariner got up and 
 began to shake off his overcoat. Mrs. Flynn helped him. 
 "I'm warmed with you, Lorrie! He's right, isn't he? 
 It's courage we need, and then we're safe! Aren't we 
 right, Patsey, my darling!" He took his glass. 
 ' ' Freshen her up ! Yours, too ! Stirrup-cup, you know. 
 Why, Patsey!" 
 
 Mrs. Flynn was in sudden tears. "Olga come " 
 Her words were in a harsh choking gurgle. Lawrance, 
 after looking at her for a moment, lowered his eyes. He 
 had never seen her cry before, and he could not endure 
 it. She did not cover her face, her misery was naked 
 
 173
 
 174 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 there and hideous. It was the extreme of sorrow's 
 ugliness ; being pitiable it was also dreadful to him. Her 
 contortions were those of the lowest burlesque mimicry, 
 her face was like a mask fashioned by a vulgarian cari- 
 caturist. She made these zany mouths at grief and 
 cruelty and pain, and because tragedy had no dignity nor 
 beauty in her, because it was stripped of all symbolic 
 alleviation, it was shot terrifyingly off from all that a 
 young man, ignorant of it, had supposed it to be. 
 Muriel's crying was quite different, it warped her 
 pathetically, but it was not tragic. Lawrance had never 
 before come to this detail in the expression of sorrow, 
 never thought of it as existing. If he thought of a sor- 
 rowful woman his vision was of the tears of a Niobe. 
 
 "Why doesn't she turn her head?" he kept thinking, 
 "why doesn't she poor " Olga was by her: he did 
 not like it that Olga should be seeing her, seeing those 
 distorted lines and pulled down edges, that look of the 
 mouth so horribly resembling laughter; those eyes, not 
 like themselves, eyes that oozed, half-shut. But Olga 
 did not mind as he did ; he could see that. She was not 
 driven off in his masculine way. She put her arms 
 round her mother, and pressed her face to hers : the act 
 seemed heroic to Lawrance ; its heroism broke through his 
 repulsion. Mrs. Flynn clutched her girl. 
 
 "It won't be long," she gasped. "You'll see " 
 
 Olga drew from her, with her pale cheeks stained by 
 those tears. She touched her own cheek with her fingers, 
 she looked wonderingly. 
 
 "I can't cry." She spoke so low that the words 
 hardly reached Lawrance. "There's so much else. 
 That's why, I suppose." 
 
 Old Flynn came between her and his wife. "Dear
 
 A CHASTE MAN 175 
 
 old girl," he said, "darling Patsey. I love you. We 
 know how it is. ' ' He took her hands, one in each of his. 
 She pursed her crooked mouth, and gulped again, but 
 with a slower movement of her throat. "Go up and get 
 your things, Olga." 
 
 "How is she going?" Mrs. Flynn strained her gaze 
 to her daughter. "Don't wear your hair down: you 
 mustn 't you can 't. Do it like you did with Doris that 
 time you dressed up you remember." She spoke rap- 
 idly, hard driven. "And here " she tugged at her 
 finger "Oh, I can't get it off, my finger's swollen." 
 The effort veered her self-control. Wrenching the ring 
 she broke the flesh of her knuckle and the blood sprang. 
 "Here it is!" 
 
 "You mean I'm to wear it?" Olga started. 
 
 ' ' Ah, Olga darling, it 's the ring that keeps your cour- 
 age! Don't you see? When you're alone, the ring's a 
 friend for you." The old man had released Mrs. 
 Flynn 's hands: he was pressing his blue-spotted cotton 
 handkerchief to her hurt finger. 
 
 "Well " The girl hesitated, then she went over to 
 Lawrance. She gave him the ring, and held out her 
 left hand to him. " You ' ' 
 
 He put the gold ring on her second finger, without 
 holding her hand. He remembered his promise to 
 Muriel. "What would this be?" he thought. 
 
 "They're all girls, Michael!" He heard the woman's 
 voice cry out. "I've all of them girls. I wish I hadn't ! 
 It isn't right it'll never be right ! And I've tried such 
 a long time She sat down and put her head between 
 her hands. Lawrance, looking up from Olga, saw the 
 black tight coil of hair, grey-streaked, with one strand 
 loosened and a hair-pin that was coming out. "Give
 
 176 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 pleasure yes they do and they take pain. If it 
 hadn't been for the money " She raised her head. 
 "You must go, Olga." 
 
 "Mother dear." Lawrance went and stood by her as 
 Olga left. "Don't worry. You know I " 
 
 He stopped and took her hand. He felt sure she did 
 not really trust him, that the case was not isolated and 
 individualized for her as it was for old Flynn, that she 
 saw him in the main a young man, accidentally Oliver 
 Lawrance, their friend a young man going off with her 
 girl who was so much a girl, and whom he knew she 
 loved far more than she loved Doris or Marjorie. Yes, 
 she was throwing her Olga perilously from a burning 
 house, that was what she thought : that was obvious. He 
 must make her understand. He wondered what the 
 whole of Tof ton's formidable power upon them was; 
 surely it wasn't from money only, he couldn't believe it: 
 especially now that he had seen Mrs. Flynn. And 
 there was his mother, sitting on in her drawing-room at 
 Malstowe, all the time. . . . 
 
 "You needn't be unhappy, really " He stopped 
 again, afflicted, as he always was, by the inadequacy of 
 his speech and his tone. The old man interrupted him. 
 
 ' ' Come now, Lorrie, we must let the women cry if they 
 want to! No harm in that! Your drink's waiting for 
 you." He swallowed some of his own, with the famil- 
 iar machine-like motion of the straight sparsely fleshed 
 hairy bones of his neck. 
 
 "Well, all I mean is you know me, you I swear to 
 you she 's safe with me ! " 
 
 "You're doing a great deal for us, Lorrie, don't think 
 that we" 
 
 Mrs. Flynn looked at him with, for a moment, her old
 
 A CHASTE MAN 177 
 
 affectionate and roguish glance. Answering as though 
 he had merely promised good care for Olga she seemed 
 to miss the meaning of his declaration. She replied to 
 his attempt to put her mind at rest by quieting him 
 herself. None the less, Lawrance felt tremendously 
 bound by his pledge, far more bound than by the other 
 which he had given to Muriel on demand. 
 
 "There's no question of gratitude between us," he 
 said rather priggishly, though indeed there was nothing 
 priggish about him then. " Besides, I " 
 
 "You drink your whiskey, Lorrie! There's some 
 poetry I read once, wish I could remember it good 
 poetry, none of your Irish sniffle some book in the ship 's 
 Library. Something about standing up and treading 
 everything to dust." The Mariner put his knotty fore- 
 finger to the side of his nose. " 'He stands up and he 
 treads to dust' that was how it started. 'Fear and 
 mistrust' that was the rhyme. Then there was some- 
 thing about knowledge and patience and strength fine 
 lines; the right stuff. Wish I could remember it. 
 'Binds for sandals on his feet ' You know, it isn't 
 always the things that seem right that turn out right. 
 The Church is wise there. You have to take everything 
 into account. Ah, the Jesuits know a thing or two ! I 
 never believed in general principles You've got to 
 know when to tread 'em to dust, along with the rest! 
 We know what we're about, Patsey, don't we?" 
 
 She gave no affirmation. 
 
 "Yes!" he went on, flashing his old eyes. "And now 
 we go gathering grapes from thorns, grapes from thorns ! 
 -Ah!" 
 
 He broke excitedly on his final falsetto. Lawrance 
 looked at him, puzzled: more puzzled still by a certain
 
 178 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 gleam of furtiveness that was shot through the old man's 
 glance at him, furtiveness not free from fear. Mrs. 
 Flynn, erect at the table, sat with hands folded, and with- 
 out a look for either of the two men. She seemed to have 
 cut off every current of communication. 
 
 There was a knock at the door. Lawrance went, and 
 found Olga there, with her coat and hat on, and in her 
 hand an old Gladstone bag. "I don't want to go in the 
 room again, ' ' she said at once. ' ' I 'm ready. ' ' 
 
 Lawrance noticed instantly the effect of the changed 
 arrangement of her hair. The curve of her neck was 
 new, so was the curve of her cheek, and the set of her 
 head: he was startled by the white unfamiliar flesh be- 
 hind and below her ears; it was differently white. He 
 was overcome by this strangeness, then Olga's eyes and 
 her lips reassured him of her, and he was excited by the 
 blend of the strangeness with the reassurance. It dis- 
 concerted him that he should feel her so keenly, that he 
 should be drawn thus : he tried to reject his emotions, he 
 was violently ashamed of harbouring them at such a 
 time. But in his effort towards rejection, in his shame, 
 he was struck heavily by her looking younger than ever 
 with her hair "up"; she was dangerously and unnat- 
 urally and defencelessly young. 
 
 He looked back into the room. The old man stood tall 
 and lank before the fireplace : the woman had turned her 
 chair from the table so that her back, erect still, met 
 Lawrance 's view. Mr. Flynn, seeing his friend put on 
 his overcoat, saluted him with raised hand.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 THE next morning Lawrance was called on the 
 telephone a few minutes after his arrival 
 at the Office. He heard the Mariner's voice, 
 queerly sonorous and metallic: "I beg of you to come 
 at once and bring Olga. ' ' Mr. Flynn seemed not to hear 
 the young man's agitated question; he repeated: "I 
 beg of you," while Lawrance was stammering it. "It 
 is urgent," he added. 
 
 "Of course I'll come, but won't you tell me what's 
 happened ? ' ' 
 
 "Tof ton's dead. Found him this morning with his 
 throat cut." Mr. Flynn rang off. 
 
 As Lawrance had his overcoat half on, Mr. Inge ap- 
 peared, panting as usual from his walk up the two flights 
 of stairs. 
 
 "Ah!" he said, "just arrived, eh?" and then, aston- 
 ished, he saw that the young man was not taking his 
 coat off, but putting it on. This was so unprecedented 
 at such an hour that it completely took the rest of Mr. 
 Inge's wind. He gasped, speechless. 
 
 "Where's my hat?" Lawrance exclaimed. 
 
 ' ' Your hat f ' ' Inge stared at him. ' ' What 's up ? " 
 
 "I've got to go. Where's my hat?" 
 
 "How the devil should I know where you put your 
 blooming hat? Why have you to go?" 
 
 "Britton!" Lawrance called the clerk. "Have you 
 seen my hat? Mr. Inge!" He had not seemed con- 
 
 179
 
 180 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 scious before of that full presence. "You haven't got 
 it, have you? I mean " 
 
 * ' God bless the boy ! D 'you think it 's up my sleeve ? ' ' 
 
 "Will you lend me yours?" 
 
 The large man stared again, then he burst out loudly 
 laughing. It was too much, this earnest intentness of 
 young Lawrance in demanding the loan of a hat that 
 would be three or four sizes too big for him. 
 
 "Do you want to be guyed in the streets, man?" he 
 gurgled. 
 
 "No, but I have to get out. I tell you I have to get 
 out!" 
 
 "Righto. Don't lose your hair about it! What's 
 the trouble?" 
 
 "Sorry." Lawrance recovered himself. "It's only 
 well, it's urgent. I have to go." 
 
 "All right. Be back again to-day?" 
 
 "I can't tell. I don't think so Look here, Mr. 
 Inge, will you lend me your hat ? ' ' 
 
 Inge shrugged his shoulders. "It's a sacrifice," he 
 said. "But of course, if you insist " Lawrance was 
 standing with outstretched hand and a fixed expression. 
 "Well, here you are. Wipe your nose before you put it 
 on!" 
 
 In a few seconds Lawrance was in the street. He 
 took a taxi, telling the driver to go to the nearest Hamp- 
 stead Tube. Olga he had left the night before in a 
 small hotel near Euston Station. In the cab he tor- 
 mented himself by trying to decide if it would be quicker 
 to drive the whole way to the hotel or to finish the 
 journey by Tube. For nearly five minutes he kept won- 
 dering if the driver would answer him honestly if he 
 asked him. All the while his absurdly large felt hat
 
 A CHASTE MAN 181 
 
 was falling over his forehead or over his ears; he con- 
 tinually pushed it back, he took it and tried to squeeze 
 it up: it never occurred to him to lay it on the seat. 
 At last he decided that he couldn't stand the delay of 
 buying a ticket and going up and down in lifts; he 
 lowered the window and shouted to the man, who didn't 
 hear him. Then he put his head further out of the win- 
 dow, and as he was shouting, more loudly than before, 
 Mr. Inge's hat fell into the street. Lawrance, at this 
 tragic hour, seemed destined to be pursued by the spir- 
 its of opera-bouffe. But now the driver stopped and 
 a newsboy came running up, grinning, with the mud- 
 stained hat. The driver looked round, grinning too. 
 "Lost yer 'at, sir?" he said. The man and the boy 
 grinned at one another, united in sympathy with the 
 eternal jest of a hat blown off and having to be run 
 after in the street. The urchin, Lawrance noticed, was 
 almost incredibly pretty, so pretty that it seemed he 
 must have faded long ago, like roses : London street life 
 you would have thought bound to tarnish him in half 
 an hour. He was prettier for a boy even than Letty 
 was for a girl. Lawrance did not think of Olga in com- 
 parison; he never connected Olga with prettiness. He 
 resented the boy's adorable looks; they seemed mis- 
 placed, incongruous at that moment. He gave him 
 some coppers and put on the muddy hat at once. "Ley- 
 ton Hotel!" he called to the driver. "It's near Eus- 
 ton." "Lyetonotel!" The boy gave a grimace that his 
 inordinate beauty perfectly withstood. "Cost 'im four- 
 pence ! " he yelled as he broke away. 
 
 The taxi went on, and Lawrance wondered at the blind 
 lavishness of Nature, at her barren bestowals. Mean- 
 while the mud dripped down over his forehead, and
 
 182 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 blended with the remains of his bruises. He took off 
 his hat, at last, and wiped his face, inadequately. 
 
 He found Olga eating eggs and bacon in her bedroom, 
 with a book propped up in front of her. 
 
 "You're all right?" he asked with hurried embarrass- 
 ment. He stood with his back to the door, holding off 
 from her. 
 
 Olga nodded. She tightened her lips, and the corners 
 of them drew down. Her eyes laughed. "Where did 
 you get that hat?" she asked, and laughed outright. 
 
 "Upon my word!" He felt, and looked, bewildered 
 and foolish. 
 
 "It isn't yours, is it?" 
 
 She leaned back in her chair and laughed without con- 
 trol, her mouth open wide for gleams of her brittle small 
 teeth. Lawrance watched her, not knowing what to say. 
 
 "No," he said at last, " er of course it isn't mine." 
 He wondered why there should be such inherent comical 
 properties in a hat. This intrusion made him vexed and 
 impatient. "I've come to take you back," he declared. 
 He was relieved to be able to bring her to a different 
 sense of the occasion. 
 
 "Oh!" This stopped her laughter. "What? now? 
 At once, Lorrie, do you mean ? ' ' 
 
 "Yes; it's all right now. That man he isn't there 
 any more. ' ' 
 
 "What, they've got rid of him!" 
 
 Lawrance turned his head. He was chilled by these 
 sinister words from the unknowing girl. "I don't 
 know," he said. "But it's all right. He isn't there." 
 
 "You don't seem to know very much " 
 
 "Well, I only heard over the telephone. That that 
 was all I heard, practically all."
 
 A CHASTE MAN 183 
 
 He couldn't tell her here, not for her sake, but for his 
 own. It was their room, though she had been there all 
 the night alone. Still, he had brought her; the room 
 had been taken as for them both. Lawrance refused to 
 associate it with such a monstrous revelation. He 
 walked to the nearer of the two windows and looked out 
 on the broad dull street, a street that was full of little 
 hotels like this one, most of them led up to by a short 
 and narrow flight of steps. The morning was grey, the 
 rain was beginning again in a thin drizzle. 
 
 ''Must we go at once?" 
 
 Lawrance heard the question dimly. Inertia had 
 seized him. He could have stood like that by the win- 
 dow, watching the people and the cabs and the motor- 
 busses, on and on. 
 
 "Well, must we?" the girl repeated. ''Can't I fin- 
 ish this chapter first?" 
 
 "I suppose so." 
 
 He turned and looked at her closely. What a mania 
 she had for reading ! She was intent on her book. Har- 
 rison Ainsworth's "Old St. Paul's" he saw it was, 
 paper-covered, as usual. On a table by her side were 
 three other Ainsworths: "The Tower of London," 
 ' ' Jack Sheppard, ' ' and ' ' The Admirable Crichton. ' ' He 
 remembered that he had promised to get them bound for 
 her. She had wanted them bound in black, with gilt 
 lettering. The Gladstone bag was open; he could see 
 other books in it: de Maupassant's "Yvette" was on the 
 top. So many books ! That was why he had found the 
 bag so heavy. Lawrance had read "Yvette"; he won- 
 dered how far Olga could understand it. She was not 
 ignorant of facts, of course; yet her innocence was con- 
 vincing at all points; she was far more innocent than
 
 184 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 most of the girls who knew nothing. Poor Olga ! What 
 would happen to her? What would be done to her? 
 Lawrance saw, too clearly, at that moment, that he 
 would be much better for her than any one else she was 
 at all likely to come to : he dismissed that clear vision. 
 He bit his hot lip, and repeated to himself that his hands 
 were irretrievably tied, grossly knotted at more points 
 than one. . . . He had not noticed before that her bed 
 was made, that her little plain white nightdress was 
 lying folded by the pillow. No doubt she had done that 
 herself. The basin was full of water in which she had 
 washed. Her brush, on the dressing-table, had in it some 
 dark fine wisps of her hair. Her long plaid coat was 
 hanging on the wall. To-morrow there would be no 
 trace of her. Probably some man and his wife would 
 be in this room, perhaps a couple on their way back to 
 Stafford or Crewe or Manchester, or a man and his 
 mistress. The agony of his not being able to take her 
 grew on him, obliterating the fading images of the dead 
 Tofton and the family awaiting their return in the 
 Glasden Eoad. He felt that it would all happen over 
 again, and again, always with the same void ending of 
 loss. That walk from her house to the Camden Town 
 Tube, that irrelevant physical strain at his heart that 
 carrying her bag gave him, that short Tube journey to 
 Euston, that walk to the street of the little hotels, his 
 haphazard choice of the "Leyton," her few scattered 
 remarks and his, all was in the far past, too, and in 
 the far future. So was their admittance: the little 
 lame percipient French waiter in the background, with 
 his black moustache; the rather pretty red-haired girl 
 who showed them to the room, going on ahead to light 
 the gas her confident and daring air the quick pro-
 
 A CHASTE MAN 185 
 
 fessional look-over that she gave them her finality in 
 leaving them alone together. She had brought towels 
 for two. 
 
 Lawrance had left very soon, a bad, docked, uneasy 
 leavetaking. He had not kissed her. It seemed gro- 
 tesque, undignified, to take so little when he was giving 
 up so much. She did not want him to go, at least not 
 then: he knew that. He was disappointing her un- 
 f rained innocent expectations; he was making her leave 
 off in the middle of the chapter. She was a little afraid, 
 he thought, not much. . . . He had left the hotel as 
 silently as he could, hoping that no one would notice 
 him. There was some shadow of satisfaction in feeling 
 that the people of the house would suppose that he had 
 stayed. 
 
 Olga put her book down. 
 
 ' ' Did you sleep all right ? " he inquired. 
 
 "Not very well. It was strange. The bed was so 
 big. I wish you had stayed. ' ' 
 
 "Oh, Olga!" His pain cried out. 
 
 ' ' Oh, I wanted to get rid of him altogether ! I sup- 
 pose you couldn't, though. Of course I know you had 
 to get back." She regarded him gravely. "But you 
 might have stayed longer, all the same. ' ' 
 
 Her nostrils quivered a little: Lawrance remembered 
 that at one time he had thought them excessively arched : 
 he did not think so now. Every physical characteristic 
 of hers harmoniously entered into her beloved allure; 
 everything would have been the right assurance to him, 
 had he been free. Her deep lashes fluttered, alive, above 
 her smooth and tranquil cheek, above her round chin, 
 very girlish, her caught-in underlip, all her long and 
 lovely face. Her virginity, in its last and strongest
 
 186 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 phase, yet still so unconsciously held ! seemed over- 
 flowing, deciduous through her eyes, her face, her figure. 
 It flowed unknowing, and with purpose. She rose, went 
 to Lawrance, took the lapels of his coat. 
 
 ''Oh, you weren't nice to me!" she said, with a sud- 
 den vivid revealing gaze, most hard for him to bear. 
 
 ' ' I couldn 't help it ! If you if you knew more, you 'd 
 know that I couldn 't help it ! ' ' 
 
 "Your forehead's all over mud! Such a sight! 
 Come along!" 
 
 She took him to the washstand, dipped her sponge in 
 the clean water that was left in the jug. 
 
 "Hold your head over!" She mopped his face. 
 "That won't do; you want soap as well." 
 
 She soaped her fingers, and Lawrance felt them, long 
 and mobile, on his forehead: "The soap," he thought, 
 ' ' that she used this morning. ' ' 
 
 "What's the matter with you," she laughed, "that 
 you're always getting into trouble lately? You never 
 told me how you got so bruised, nor why you had 
 to borrow somebody else's hat. Such a hat!" She 
 laughed again. "You might have borrowed one the 
 right size ! ' ' She picked at his sleeve ; the action seemed 
 the most intimately affectionate that Lawrance had ever 
 known. 
 
 ' ' I came away from the Office in a hurry and couldn 't 
 find mine. Look here, we ought to hurry now. I'll 
 help you pack." 
 
 "It won't take a minute. Why ought we to be in a 
 hurry? I don't want to, not now I know it'll be all 
 right to go home. ' ' 
 
 "Well your father seemed to think " 
 
 "It's wonderful of them to have got rid of him; I
 
 A CHASTE MAN 187 
 
 never thought they would. But I knew I shouldn't stay 
 here very long. I couldn't have, could I?" 
 
 "No, I should have arranged something else. I'd 
 been thinking of course you couldn't have stayed." 
 
 "I was wondering what they'd have thought. I sup- 
 pose they'd have thought you were my husband, and 
 had night work, or were a commercial traveller or some- 
 thing. But I don't look married, do I? Of course you 
 are. I should know you were married, I think. It does 
 make a difference. ' ' 
 
 "Suppose we were married?" 
 
 "Oh, I think I should like it. I don't really know, 
 but I think I should, if you were nice to me." 
 
 "Oh, Lord! I would be!" 
 
 "You're so funny. I was angry with you yesterday. 
 I 've never been angry with you before. You were quite 
 different. I thought it would be like it was in the cab 
 that time, only much better than that, because I like 
 you more now. I don't see why you didn't kiss me." 
 
 "Olga, you don't understand! Don't you see I'd 
 promised. I'd promised your mother " 
 
 "What, not to kiss me? You always have." 
 
 "I know, but oh, you don't understand!" 
 
 "Did you want to, then?" 
 
 ' ' Of course I wanted to. ' ' 
 
 "Do it now, then ! I can 't stand you being so solemn 
 over nothing. Do it now!" She took the towel away 
 from him, held his hands, looked him full in the eyes, 
 laughing. 
 
 "We must go. We ought to have gone before." 
 
 "There's time enough for you to give me a kiss." 
 
 ' ' There 's not time enough for anything ! ' ' 
 
 Lawrance felt acutely that he was in an absurd posi-
 
 188 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 tion, thrust into this role of Joseph. Divided between 
 humiliation and desire, he clung to his native stubborn- 
 ness. He did not want to kiss her that morning, when 
 he had not kissed her last night. He was passionate 
 for the evasion of this compromise between all and noth- 
 ing. 
 
 "What are you afraid of?" She still held his hands. 
 
 "It's you who ought to be afraid." 
 
 "Why? Yes, I know." She looked troubled. 
 "I'm not afraid of you. I couldn't be, ever! Don't 
 you know that? I wish " 
 
 "You wonder why I didn't kiss you last night." 
 Lawrance had hardly heard her last words. ' ' Well, you 
 wouldn't wonder if you understood. If I'd kissed you 
 I couldn't have stopped there. I couldn't have trusted 
 myself" 
 
 "I don't want you to trust yourself. But why 
 couldn't you? And what has that to do with it? It's 
 silly. Oh, I don't see why!" 
 
 "Surely you didn't want " 
 
 ' ' I want you to kiss me. ' ' 
 
 "But, Olga, I've told you" 
 
 ' ' It would have been nice, wouldn 't it, if I could have 
 thought: 'He's fond of me, and he'll come tomor- 
 row.' And this morning isn't last night, anyhow. 
 You wouldn't do anything so very dreadful now, would 
 you?" 
 
 He broke away. He couldn't stand up to her any 
 longer. "What I'm going to do is to pack your bag," 
 he said, trembling. 
 
 She turned at once, and began to squeeze out her 
 sponge. ' ' I took a lot of books, didn 't I ? I thought I 
 should have to read all the time you were at the Office.
 
 A CHASTE MAN 189 
 
 I'm tired of love-stories. If I loved any one, I wouldn't 
 love in the least like that. I don't believe any one 
 would. Would you ? Oh, why did you put down in 
 that book last night 'Mr. and Mrs. Deavitt'? He 
 wouldn't like that much. He's never going to marry: 
 he doesn't care for any girls older than twelve!" 
 
 "Yes, I oughtn't to have done that. It was the first 
 name that came into my head just having met him, you 
 see. It wasn't the right thing to do at all I didn't 
 think" 
 
 "Oh, it was a joke!" She threw the sponge into the 
 bag, impatiently. "You are so serious about every- 
 thing ! It's all the more of a joke because there couldn't 
 be a Mrs. Deavitt. ' ' She drew back from the mirror and 
 began arranging her hair. "I hate these pins. I'll be 
 glad to have it down again. You don't like it up, do 
 you?" 
 
 "Olga." He looked at her in the glass. "You're an- 
 gry with me because you don't know. I wish I could 
 explain; I wish I knew what you felt exactly about 
 everything. ' ' 
 
 "I don't know what I feel!" She frowned, more 
 heavily than he had ever seen her. "Don't tease me!" 
 Her eyes flashed and were vexed. "What's the use of 
 wondering what you feel and why you feel it? That 
 isn't important; the important thing is to go straight 
 on ! ' ' Her emphasis was determined, fierce in vigour. 
 "I'm not going to waste time any more, wondering. 
 It's stupid. I'm not going to any more. Ill tell you 
 why you weren't nice to me, though, taking me away 
 out of charity, I suppose you did, making me feel it, 
 making me feel lonely, so that I couldn 't think : ' Well, 
 he 's fond of me, anyhow, and he 11 come tomorrow. ' ' '
 
 190 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 "Olga, you don't really think I took you away out of 
 charity, and that I 'm not fond of you 
 
 "Well." She turned. " You took me away be- 
 cause you were friends with Father and Mother, not for 
 any nice reason " 
 
 " 'Nice reason'!" 
 
 "Well, a nice reason would have been that you liked 
 me and wanted to kiss me and hug me and love me 
 there! That's a reason that has something to do with 
 me. I'm left out of it all I don't like it ! I don't like 
 you! You hurt me very much and you're horrid!" 
 
 Lawrance had not seen her cry since she was ten or 
 eleven. Now, as then, she cried in a suppressed way, 
 with little quiverings of the lip, and tears that started 
 but did not fall. She brushed her hand over her eyes, 
 and sat down on the bed, her head turned from him. 
 There was a slight movement of her shoulders, and the 
 sound of a withdrawn sob. 
 
 The young man looked, hesitated, then went and put 
 his arm round her. "I love you, anyhow," he said. 
 
 "You don't, then!" 
 
 "Yes, I do. I always shall. Will you remember that, 
 whatever happens?" 
 
 "Oh, I don't know what's the good of remembering 
 that! Don't you see," she spoke in rapid breaths 
 "yesterday we were here together in my room it was 
 what he wanted well, if Don't you see? You'd 
 have driven him away; I should have been safe; I 
 shouldn't ever have been afraid again, in that way, not 
 of him or anybody else. I don 't want that being afraid ; 
 I want to get rid Well, he's gone; it doesn't matter 
 so much now. If I'd had to go back, like it was before, 
 I should never have forgiven you ! ' ' She looked at him
 
 A CHASTE MAN 191 
 
 with bright wet eyes ; her cheeks were faintly, and as if 
 artificially, flushed. Lawrance was utterly baffled by 
 her innocence: but though he could not read it, he ac- 
 cepted it without dispute. ''It was cruel of you," she 
 went on, slowly now and timidly, ' ' my asking you to kiss 
 me, and I didn't ask you in fun, you know I didn't; 
 you knew I meant it ! It wasn 't fair ! I '11 never, never, 
 ask you anything again ! ' ' 
 
 "It's I who want to ask you. I've got to think. I 
 want time." He spoke and felt quite calmly, now that 
 he knew she loved him. "It isn't simple. Will you 
 wait a little just a little? You see, it makes it all 
 different. I I didn't know you cared for me, Olga; I 
 didn't know!" He felt terribly disposed to cry him- 
 self, in spite of his calmed spirit. Tears, indeed, would 
 have been the natural expression of his reaction. "Will 
 you wait, darling, and will you say that you know I 
 love you?" 
 
 "Wait?" She laughed nervously, twisting her fingers 
 in the tassels of the counterpane. ' ' Of course ; I '11 have 
 to. I never read of any lover like you; you're a funny 
 lover! Lovers make love, don't they? No, that 
 wasn 't asking anything ! I " 
 
 She had his kiss at last. He held her close, turning 
 her to him. At first he did not know that she kissed 
 him, loved him with the kiss, but suddenly he be- 
 came aware of her, keen-limbed and with more than 
 answering lips: he felt that she was tremendously his, 
 in a way utterly new to him, a way that he thought must 
 be new forever. His gain seemed vast, it swallowed up 
 the trouble of his desire for her. It brought an equality 
 that pacified and assuaged. Her response to him held 
 him back, made him safe, counselled waiting.
 
 192 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 She left his embrace, and sat back at the head of the 
 bed, drawing her narrow blue skirt down over her knees, 
 which she clasped. Her long look for him was protec- 
 tive and tender, her eyes were glad and grave. Then 
 she smiled, giving her emotions, it seemed, a long dis- 
 missal, returning, it might be, to a world that was whim- 
 sical, whatever else. Wisely and Orientally, with her 
 eyes now narrowed, she seemed to accept and submit. 
 
 "Well what now?" she said. "I thought you 
 couldn't trust yourself? What did that mean?" He 
 did not answer. ''I'm glad we did have something, 
 anyhow." 
 
 "Something! It was everything!" 
 
 ' ' No, it wasn 't ! " She laughed lightly. 
 
 Again he longed to spell out her innocence. Certainly 
 she was not innocent as are many modern girls, whose 
 sensuality is elbowed out of reach by a host of trivial 
 things, love of admiration, love of having a good time 
 or their own way, self-importance. . . . Lawrance felt 
 ignorant and blind, but he felt now that his ignorance 
 and blindness could be waived : the importance of know- 
 ing and seeing was palpably diminished. He sat silent, 
 searching her face, from the low broad forehead to the 
 chin, soft and firm and the whiter for the flush of her 
 cheeks: all her vibrant young curves, of face and neck 
 and figure, were in communion with him: he was con- 
 tent, as never before, to look at her thus, and he knew 
 that in looking he was "making love" and breaking his 
 promise to Muriel far more surely than by any blind 
 embrace. He did not regret: he was even glad to have 
 bought these moments at a price: but though he could 
 dishonour his promise, he could not close his account with 
 it. Curious, that if he had had that "everything," he
 
 A CHASTE MAN 193 
 
 would not so much have broken faith with Muriel: so 
 he felt, though he told himself the feeling was absurd, 
 wrong Had he kept faith with Olga's mother? He 
 thought he had. 
 
 ' ' Why, it 's after eleven ! " It was Olga, now, who had 
 to speak of their going.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 LAWEANCE'S mind returned, with an ugly jerk, 
 to Tof ton's cut throat, as they walked up the 
 Glasden Road. 
 
 "I ought to have told you before," he said abruptly, 
 1 ' about that man. None of you will be troubled by him 
 again, ever." 
 
 Olga, looking at the house, now in view, saw that the 
 blinds were drawn. "What!" she exclaimed softly; "is 
 he dead?" 
 
 "He must have killed himself. They found him this 
 morning. ' ' 
 
 Olga said nothing, but she quickened her pace, and 
 Lawrance, carrying the heavy bag, grew breathless. 
 
 When they were at the door, the girl hurriedly whis- 
 pered : ' ' They 've been waiting ! I 'm glad you didn 't 
 tell me before, all the same." 
 
 They went in. In the dining-room, which had no 
 fire, the bank-clerk Ewing was sitting with Mrs. Flynn. 
 They sat on high-backed chairs, close to the big table 
 with its dirty old green cloth. Olga, with that special 
 unseen swiftness of movement which she could have, 
 was by her mother, kissing her cheek and her forehead. 
 Mrs. Flynn 's eyes were red, and beneath the left one 
 Lawrance noticed a swelling: he wondered if it could 
 have come by crying. She looked very ill and old. 
 
 "Uncle Lance! It was kind of you to stay! Miss- 
 ing your work " 
 
 "Aow no." Ewing spoke with a variable flavour of 
 
 194
 
 A CHASTE MAN 195 
 
 cockney impossible to reproduce. ''They can get on 
 without me at the Bank once in a great while. There 
 was a lot to be done, you see, a lot to be done. The 
 p'lice an' all that." 
 
 "What, are the police here?" Lawrance asked, 
 alarmed. 
 
 "Aow, yes. They had to come, you know, with any- 
 thing sudden like that. They're upstairs. The doctor 
 had to make a report, you see. ' ' He spoke confidentially, 
 shrewdly, almost cunningly. "They're up in Mr. Tof- 
 ton's room now." The egregiousness of this "Mr. Tof- 
 ton's room" took Lawrance 's breath. "They 'ad to, 
 you know." Ewing dropped his aitches irregularly. 
 "Pore feller!" He spoke out loud, as though he meant 
 his voice to carry. "They're looking through Ms 
 clothes and his papers an' all that. Evidence of un- 
 sound mind, you see my point, doncha? Mr. Flynn is 
 talking to the Inspector." 
 
 Lawrance 's heart sank. What had the Mariner said, 
 he wondered, about Olga's absence? What reason had 
 he given? He saw at once how black it would look 
 against them, if it were known that Olga had been taken 
 from the house for fear of Tofton. Of course there was 
 only one explanation that was safe to give: that he, 
 Lawrance, had taken Olga out, to the theatre, ostensibly, 
 and then prevailed on her to go with him to an hotel. 
 There must be no admission of the parents' complicity. 
 Even apart from motive, that would blacken them with 
 the jury. The Coroner and the jury would think them 
 capable of anything. He must tell this story now, if he 
 were questioned, and at the inquest. The inquest! It 
 would be in the papers. It would be abduction. He 
 had not thought before
 
 196 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 "What are we to say?" he whispered to Mrs. Flynn. 
 Then he remembered that Ewing was there. He broke 
 off, turned pale. 
 
 Ewing, with a quickness of perception that Lawrance 
 would never have credited to him, rose from his chair. 
 "I'll take a er turn in the air, if you'll excuse me," 
 he said, with a little jerk of his meagre body. 
 
 "Mr. Swing's a friend." Mrs. Flynn spoke for the 
 first time. "You don't need to go," she addressed him; 
 but he was already half-way to the door. 
 
 "It's better," he murmured. 
 
 Mrs. Flynn watched the door close, then, rapidly, she 
 said: "Michael's told them we knew about Olga." 
 
 ' ' Why on earth did he do that ? ' ' Lawrance was hor- 
 rified by the disgrace. 
 
 "It's done now. We talked it over. We thought a 
 great deal about it." 
 
 "How could he explain ?" 
 
 "There wasn't any need to explain, Lorrie." 
 
 "What ! They take it for granted ! ' ' 
 
 "Don't talk so loud." 
 
 "What must they think of her and of you, too?" 
 
 "You know what they think." 
 
 "You could easily have said something else. Why, a 
 hundred things " 
 
 "Nothing else would have done. We couldn't have 
 given the real reason." 
 
 "You could have said I'd run off with her, and you 
 knew nothing about it!" 
 
 "Then you'd have been arrested." 
 
 "You might have risked that. Anything would have 
 been better. You could have said she was eighteen, any- 
 how." 
 
 "Michael did say that. They may find out she isn't,
 
 A CHASTE MAN 197 
 
 but it won't matter much. They'll only think we were 
 shielding you and ourselves, and that's natural enough, 
 if we knew. If we weren 't supposed to know, it wouldn 't 
 be. I don't think they'll go outside the case, his case 
 Olga, you've heard everything, haven't you? Don't for- 
 get. And you'd better keep your hair up. Michael 
 oughtn't to have telephoned; he didn't think. They 
 hadn't come then." She spoke in a low, calm, even 
 tone. 
 
 Olga's expression, as she stood close by them, was in- 
 tent and remote. She looked as though she were read- 
 ing. 
 
 ' ' It 's all horrible ! ' ' Lawrance spoke in pain. 
 
 "I know it is." 
 
 11 Couldn't you have said she'd gone to friends?" 
 
 "It would have looked as though we'd sent her away 
 on purpose. ' ' Mrs. Flynn had not once raised her eyes. 
 
 "Doesn't the other look like that?" 
 
 "Oh, no. They'll think that might happen any time, 
 often. Besides, they'd never think we'd make that 
 up. It puts them on to another track." 
 
 " I 'd rather have run any risk ! ' ' 
 
 "Then, if we'd said friends, they might have inquired, 
 they would have found out. Michael said: 'Any lie 
 will make their scent keener. ' We thought a great deal. 
 There's one thing we mustn't say." She was almost 
 inaudible. "Do remember that, Lorrie, remember that, 
 Olga, and that's why you took her. That they can't 
 find out." 
 
 ' ' Well, it 's done. I 'd better stay ? ' ' 
 
 " No ; why should you ? ' ' 
 
 "I will. I can't leave you all, Where's Doris and. 
 Marjorie?"
 
 198 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 "Marjorie's at school. Doris is somewhere in the 
 house. I 'd rather you went There 's Michael coming 
 downstairs with one of those men. Wait a minute." 
 She looked up at him at last with wavering frightened 
 eyes. "I didn't do it, Lorrie!" she whispered. 
 
 He started. The question of the authorship of Tof- 
 ton's death had not presented itself to him as important 
 in itself. He had been absorbed by the danger in which 
 his friends were from attachable suspicion. He was 
 shocked back from actual unreasoned experience to the 
 conscious normal moral standpoint. "What if she 
 had?" he thought. The outflow of this reflection was 
 checked by the entrance of Mr. Flynn with a tall sandy 
 spectacled man in the uniform of a Police Inspector. 
 
 The man looked surprised at seeing Lawrance and 
 Olga. "Watkins!" He turned and called. "Haven't 
 you been in the hall?" 
 
 "He's talking to Mr. Ewing, sir!" A husky voice 
 came from upstairs. 
 
 "Tell him he talks too much. Tell him to go to the 
 hall, and stay there. Is this your other daughter, Mr. 
 Flynn?" The old man nodded. "And this gentle- 
 man?" 
 
 "He brought her back this morning." 
 
 "Oh. I see. Did Mr. Tofton make any use of this 
 room?" 
 
 ' ' He had meals here. He used that desk, ' ' Mr. Flynn 
 answered. 
 
 "The desk hasn't been touched this morning, I sup- 
 pose? No? Well, we shall have to look through it. 
 Miles! Just come down here, will you? I should 
 like your name and address, sir. ' ' The Inspector turned 
 to Lawrance, who informed him.
 
 A CHASTE MAN 199 
 
 Lawrance wondered why "out" cricket-matches of his 
 private school days the matches played on the other 
 schools' fields were so forcibly recalled: then he real- 
 ized that the Inspector had exactly the manner of school- 
 masters towards pupils of a school in which they did not 
 teach, a manner bland, distant, superior, precisely cog- 
 nizant of the ' ' locus standi. ' ' 
 
 Miles appeared, and the Inspector drew his attention 
 to the desk. "Do you mind coming with me for a min- 
 ute or two, Mr. Lawrance ? " he went on. ' ' I should like 
 to ask you a few questions. ' ' 
 
 He led the way to the room opposite. It was stuffy 
 and cold there: the room was hardly ever used, and 
 barely furnished. It should have been a drawing-room, 
 for the house was meant for people who were better off 
 than the Flynns. 
 
 The conversation seemed scarcely worth the pains of 
 the Inspector's notebook. He himself behaved as though 
 this were so. Lawrance wondered if his perfunctoriness 
 was a sign of his being a clever man. 
 
 The first questions concerned Tof ton's conduct of the 
 evening before. Remembering what Mrs. Flynn had 
 said, the young man avoided the mistake of seeming to 
 try to divert suspicion. He was frank about the scene 
 at the tea-table, but he added, truthfully, that he had 
 never noticed any signs of bad blood before. 
 
 "Do you know anything of his relations with the two 
 girls?" 
 
 Lawrance replied, rather uneasily, that Tofton was 
 "familiar." 
 
 "Yes." The Inspector half smiled. He did not re- 
 cord the answer in his little book. "The question may 
 or may not be necessary, sir, but your own relations with
 
 200 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 this girl " He jerked his thumb towards the door. 
 ' ' Had the affair been going on for long ? ' ' 
 
 "For some time. In one way and another." 
 
 "I understand." The Inspector hesitated, seemed as 
 though he were about to question further, then shut his 
 book and put it in his pocket. "I may tell you that I 
 don't think we shall have to trouble about that. We 
 know beforehand, you see, pretty well what questions 
 will have to be asked at the Inquest. There won't be 
 anything of an irrelevant nature, you need not feel I 
 needn't detain you, Mr. er Lawrance, except that I 
 should like to know if this Mr. Tofton ever struck you 
 as a man at all likely to er do away with himself ? ' ' 
 
 "I never thought of it. But surely one never does, 
 does one with anybody one meets ? ' ' 
 
 Lawrance was conscious of pulling himself up rather 
 abruptly. That was a false step, he thought, though a 
 slight one. He shouldn't have appeared even casually 
 interested in arguing that Tofton had taken his own life. 
 The Inspector was narrowly regarding Lawrance 's boots. 
 
 "There's nothing that would point to suicide!" He 
 looked up suddenly at the young man as he spoke. 
 * ' Nothing whatever ! ' ' 
 
 "Is there anything that would point against it?" 
 
 The other did not answer. He opened the door and 
 waited for Lawrance to pass first. Lawrance, reflecting 
 that it was curious that a Police Inspector should have 
 eyes so exactly the colour of a cornflower, opened the 
 dining-room door and walked in with quickened pace. 
 He shook hands with Mr. Flynn. 
 
 "You'll telephone me at any time, won't you?" 
 
 "God bless you," the old man replied. 
 
 He did not seem downcast or alarmed. His air was
 
 A CHASTE MAN 201 
 
 almost jaunty; you might have said he was in high 
 feather. He stood, as usual, by the fireplace, he leaned 
 his head back, he seemed a little theatrically conscious 
 that he was showing spirit. Doris, on the other hand, 
 she and Ewing had joined the others, and Mrs. Flynn 
 had left them, looked more miserable than Lawrance 
 would have believed it possible that she could look. She 
 seemed swollen with misery, she was a puffy blanched 
 wretchedness. The purpose of her blue eyes and fluffy 
 hair and little turned-up nose seemed to have been ma- 
 lignantly suspended. Her blondeness, something in the 
 same way as with Muriel, served to exhibit cruelly her 
 unhappy emotions, to forbid her any kind disguise, any 
 garment of mercy. Despair was a discord for her phys- 
 ical aspect, and it was despair that Lawrance saw in 
 her dulled gaze, and the bitter pulled corners of her un- 
 made mouth. Muriel had felt less than this, had not 
 lost so much : she had hoped to retrieve. 
 
 Olga was still remote. Lawrance wondered if the In- 
 spector were now going to talk to her, alone. He could 
 not understand how anybody could look at Olga and not 
 know that she was virgin. But Police Inspectors might 
 not have this kind of observation, or if they had, they 
 would not be allowed to use it officially. What a pellucid 
 look she had, as though she waited and knew ! She was 
 different, she had been different since yesterday. He 
 couldn't tell how, but she seemed less eager, less curious, 
 more inclined to accept than to ask. She was right ; she 
 had given up wondering. She had come to the time; 
 she knew that "wondering" was banished for the event. 
 She stood in the arms of that ; she was not now a ques- 
 tioning spectator. Lawrance suffered rapid strokes of 
 comprehension; no phrases were in his mind. He for-
 
 202 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 got Tof ton ; forgot the uniformed man who was turning 
 out papers from the desk in the corner ; forgot the shame 
 that had been put on Olga; indeed that he could hardly 
 have remembered, seeing her in no way touched by it. 
 He had never seen her long clear face so beautiful: as 
 he touched her hand he sighed deeply. She gave him 
 again that protective look, more than maternal. 
 
 ' ' Well, so long, Doris, why, what 's up ? " Lawrance 
 dropped his voice, puzzled by the girl 's averted face and 
 withheld hand. "Aren't you speaking to me?" he half 
 laughed. 
 
 ''Speak to you? I shouldn't think I would!" 
 
 "I'll see you to the door, Mr. Lawrance!" cried Ew- 
 ing, with a lively little assumption of cheerfulness and 
 tact. 
 
 His smile set in motion the creases of the sallow skin 
 by his eyes and mouth. Lawrance, shifting his be- 
 wildered gaze from Doris's stiffened back, was reminded 
 of the creases that come in one's fingers after a hot 
 bath. Ewing put his hand on the young man 's arm, but 
 almost at once withdrew it, looking childishly shy. 
 
 He went outside the front door with him. "Well?" 
 he said, with a mock-nonchalance that was extremely dis- 
 quieting. 
 
 "Oh, the Inspector? Nothing much. Only he's got 
 some idea that it isn't suicide." 
 
 "Eow, has he?" 
 
 "Yes; he said there was nothing that pointed to sui- 
 cide." 
 
 Ewing considered for a moment. Then his face 
 brightened. "Yew wite till they 'ave a thorough med- 
 ical examination, all over," he said, with his mouth to 
 Lawrance 's ear. ' ' Then there mye be. ' '
 
 A CHASTE MAN 203 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 "I'll see to that. I know. Mustn't stay talking 
 here. ' ' His cockney accent returned to its usual modifi- 
 cation. ' ' Looks bad, y ' know ; looks bad. ' ' 
 
 He went off with an air of perky triumph. Lawrance 
 stared back at him. He seemed significant, Ewing 
 seemed significant and important. This was really more 
 unlooked for than anything else. But, he quite seri- 
 ously reflected, the man's breath was worse than ever.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 IT seemed too late to go back to the Office. The day 
 was a Saturday, when Lawrance usually lunched at 
 home, at about half-past one. It was getting on 
 for one o'clock now. Muriel would be expecting him 
 just about the time he would arrive. 
 
 But it would be intolerable to go back to Chiswick, 
 to his house; to sit opposite Muriel for the whole of a 
 meal; to be conscious of her; to wonder if she guessed; 
 to have to say something now and again ; to have to ask 
 her how she felt ; to be made to feel a brute, as his state 
 of mind would certainly make him. Her presence was 
 a perpetual reproach to him, anyhow, since he was con- 
 vinced of his moral obligation to be fonder of her and 
 more interested in her because she was going to have 
 a child; whereas he was palpably less fond, less inter- 
 ested. To-day, with the idea of returning to her, he was 
 struck by his antagonism to her as by a blow, and he 
 knew why the blow came fresh. Her pregnancy had 
 nothing to do with it : he had never had to increase the 
 sum of his moral blame by charging himself with ani- 
 mosity against his wife because of that. Animosity on 
 any grounds he had indeed scarcely felt since that morn- 
 ing when she had extorted the promise: indifference he 
 had felt, little else: he did not reflect that strong and 
 constant animosity might have been more hopeful, a 
 proof that the links between them were not broken alto- 
 
 204
 
 A CHASTE MAN 205 
 
 gether. Why he, for the first time really deeply, did 
 hate Muriel now, was because she had through that en- 
 forced promise blotted his honour, and, more impor- 
 tantly, though this he did not admit, because Olga 
 wished now, he knew, to be his. Lawrance retreated 
 from this latter intimation to an emphasis of his aver- 
 sion to the return home. He could not go then: why 
 should he have to go after all that had happened? 
 Surely he had rights, as an individual? He had been 
 through a great deal. Lawrance came actually to self- 
 pity. He could not go home. He would go to the Office 
 and make up for his lost morning's work. The clerk 
 Britton would still be there. He would telephone to 
 Muriel. 
 
 Over the wire he gave the natural excuse, pressure 
 of work. The excuse had some ground, but Lawrance 
 was humiliatingly visited by recollections of jokes on 
 picture-postcards as he gave it. "Where are you tele- 
 phoning from?" Muriel asked him casually. "From 
 the Office, of course," h^e replied, annoyed. There she 
 was, dragging him into a lie. But what else could he 
 have said? He couldn't have said: "From Camden 
 Town, near the Tube Station." That would have been 
 unnecessary and absurd. She would have questioned 
 further, she would have been agitated, bad for her. 
 Again Lawrance saw himself the hero of a comic post- 
 card. In the Tube he wondered if for any reason she 
 would call him up at the Office before he had had time 
 to get there. He would of course be exposed, if she did. 
 Britton would be entertained. Dishonour attended his 
 relations with Muriel. 
 
 Opening the Office door, he heard the voice of Crocker- 
 ton Deavitt: "Queer business, isn't it?" Lord Bur-
 
 206 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 pham's cousin was sitting on the edge of a table, with 
 an evening paper in his hand, talking to Britton who 
 seemed flattered by the attention. 
 
 "Hulloa, guv 'nor!" Deavitt sprang alertly to his 
 feet, and came over with the paper. ' ' I was looking for 
 you. Seen this ? ' ' He indicated a headline : ' ' Glasden 
 Road Horror." "Nice mess-up, isn't it?" 
 
 Lawrance read the account. Some of the details were 
 new to him: that the lock of the room had been forced 
 "after the deceased had not put in an appearance at 
 breakfast and did not answer when he was repeatedly 
 called": that the "several gashes in the throat had been 
 made by the deceased's razor, which was found lying on 
 the floor by him ' ' : that the lower sash of one of the win- 
 dows of the room was found thrown up: that "there 
 were no signs of a struggle." The name of the doctor 
 who had been called in was mentioned, and a few lines 
 followed detailing the "long-established connection of 
 the victim of the tragedy with the well-known firm of 
 Messrs. Harper & Shaw, Furnishers and Decorators." 
 Finally: "Investigations by the police are understood 
 to be well under way already. ' ' 
 
 "Well?" Mr. Deavitt queried impatiently. "Well? 
 My word, you do take a time to mop it up. Had lunch 
 yet?" 
 
 He put on his hat, and Lawrance noticed the shining 
 spruceness of his attire, silk hat, morning coat, elegant 
 light grey trousers, smooth kid gloves, and patent leather 
 boots. Mr. Deavitt 's grey-blue excessive eyes and heav- 
 ily drooping yellow moustache were almost violently em- 
 phasized by his attire. The effect went beyond incon- 
 gruity: it was intransigeant in a rather enticing way.
 
 A CHASTE MAN 207 
 
 The man's head looked smaller than before, under his 
 silk hat : it struck Lawrance as queer that the face could 
 contain so large a moustache and such large eyes. It 
 seemed putting an undue strain. . . . 
 
 "If you haven't had lunch," Deavitt went on, "you 
 might as well come and have it with me. There's a new 
 place off the Lane where the grub isn't half bad. 
 Eight you are. My word, Pa and Ma won't half be in 
 the limejuice, otherwise limelight, will they?" He 
 tripped out in front of Lawrance with the suggestion of a 
 lively bird. 
 
 "I'm coming back to work later." Lawrance turned 
 to the clerk. "Been any telephone call for me?" 
 
 "No, sir." 
 
 "If there is, say I'm out to lunch and am coming 
 back." 
 
 "All right. Oh, here's your hat. Found it just after 
 you left." 
 
 Lawrance took it, relieved that Mr. Inge's was not to 
 accompany that shining height of silk. "But what did 
 Mr. Inge go home in?" his conscience prompted him to 
 inquire. 
 
 " 'Pon my honour, sir, I never noticed!" Britton 
 laughed. Lawrance looked at him, puzzled. Why were 
 hats such a joke? 
 
 "I say, don't make a half -hour job of it, guv 'nor!" 
 Deavitt called from the stairs below. 
 
 Lawrance smiled. He thought of answering : " 'Arf 
 a mo'," but could not do himself that violence. Not 
 that he would have minded if he could have brought 
 off the exclamation successfully; he would have been 
 rather proud, but he simply couldn't get it out. He
 
 208 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 could not accommodate himself so far, but compulsion 
 was agreeably absent, so hie replied: "All right, I'm 
 coming!" instead. 
 
 Deavitt had relieved him. He was glad they were 
 going to lunch together. He found the manner, the 
 facilities, the slang, the unencumbered schoolboy push, 
 the bright assured irreverence, the taut activeness, the 
 light genial speedy surface sweep, of his new acquaint- 
 ance, diverting in the literal sense: they drew him off 
 from himself and so refreshed him. All this that would 
 have been excessively irritating to many exactly suited 
 Lawrance, gave him ease and security, lulled his nerves, 
 excused and even justified his own silence and slowness. 
 It refreshed him, too, that Deavitt was not involved by 
 women: the young man enjoyed the presentment of a 
 vista in which no women could, he knew, appear. This 
 was altogether new to him. No doubt it was this in- 
 difference that piqued and even angered Doris. Poor 
 Doris ! Why had she been so sad and fierce that morn- 
 ing? 
 
 As he walked by Mr. Deavitt 's side, he wondered how 
 this exclusive lover of children entertained them. Did 
 he, like Lewis Carroll, tell them stories? He couldn't 
 imagine Mr. Deavitt doing anything that demanded such 
 repose or such protraction as telling a story. How 
 very much life would be simplified if one were interested 
 only in little girls! Lawrance thought of Olga in her 
 little girlhood : how simple, how free and unknotted, his 
 relations had been with her then ! He envied extremely 
 those people who could be satisfied with romantic at- 
 tachments to children : they must have, he thought, sin- 
 gularly delicate and perceptive spirits.
 
 A CHASTE MAN 209 
 
 "That's the second time I've asked you!" he heard 
 Deavitt saying. 
 
 "Oh, I beg your pardon." 
 
 "Don't do it again, nortiboy. How long have you 
 been going to the Glasden Road tank ? ' ' 
 
 Lawranee replied that he'd known the Flynns since 
 his early Oxford days, for nine or ten years; "since 
 soon after Marjorie was born," he said. 
 
 "Ah, she's a jolly kid, isn't she?" Deavitt 's remark- 
 able eyes changed expression: a light and momentary 
 emotional gleam passed over them. "Nice affectionate 
 kiddie. I'm very gone on her. You don't care about 
 kids, I suppose? The other two more in your line, eh? 
 They're quite outside my cab-radius, of course. I only 
 like what I can carry. Olga must have been very nice, 
 though, at ten or eleven. Wish I'd known her then. 
 Frightful jar, how soon they grow up. No old hags of 
 sixteen for me ! This bus ! ' ' 
 
 He was on it in a twinkling. Lawranee darted after 
 him, and scrambled up the steps. 
 
 Deavitt took out his watch. "One thirty-seven," he 
 said. ' ' I shall just do it. Got to see a man at the Law 
 Society's Hall at one forty-five. I've never been late 
 for an appointment in my life." 
 
 How very much annoyed Mr. Deavitt must be, Law- 
 ranee thought, when the lace broke as he was doing up 
 his boots. "How on earth do you manage never to be 
 late?" 
 
 "Oh, I don't know. Simply habit, I suppose. He 
 won't keep me more than five minutes. Then we'll go 
 and have lunch. We must talk over this Tofton busi- 
 ness a bit. Do you play dominoes?"
 
 210 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 "I thought you were going down to Lipscot by the 
 eleven something?" 
 
 ' ' So I was, but not now. Oh dear no, not now. Bur- 
 phie's very peevish with me. He doesn't love his little 
 cousin Archibald any mo-er! All because I rotted him 
 this morning about some ostrich he used to keep when he 
 was out in Africa. Bit of a bore, is Burphie ; when he 
 got started on that ostrich he couldn't get off. Counted 
 all the eggs it laid and measured 'em and took the num- 
 ber of their spots. Fact. He might have been married 
 to the blooming bird ! I forget how I got his shirt out. 
 Some wheeze about a step-ladder. Anyhow, he called 
 me a buffoon. 'You never know where to draw the line, 
 Crockerton. You're a perfect buffoon.' Ever seen 
 Burphie with his shirt out? We must arrange it some 
 time. He said he wanted no more to do with me. Just 
 like that." 
 
 "What did you do?" 
 
 "I said: 'Sewerly not, Algernon: you ain't a-goin' 
 to pass out of my life, har you ? ' or words to that effect. 
 Told him it'd been a lovely day to-day. No use. All 
 over. Bien ne va plus, as they say in France. No. 11.35 
 for me to Lipscot to-day. But look here, why did you 
 get out of it? You're not doing anything, are you? 
 Now then, what's the excuse?" 
 
 "Oh, I " Lawrance was baffled before this inquisi- 
 tion. "Well, he'd asked my sister, and she couldn't 
 come." 
 
 "Oh, yes; between ourselves, Burphie 's a bit struck 
 on your sister. Mentioned her to me, oh, yes, he did. 
 'Child of exceptional beauty and refinement.' I rotted 
 him a bit. Hope you don't mind. Oh, he was peevish. 
 Sure sign. It was that, really, that set him off. He
 
 A CHASTE MAN 211 
 
 said : ' What do you mean ? She 's a mere girl with her 
 hair down her back,' so I called him a cradle-snatcher, 
 and that made him savage. He didn't half bark at me. 
 Poor old Burph ! We did have a lively time ! Next cor- 
 ner!" 
 
 He shot down the steps of the bus. Lawrance fol- 
 lowed, feeling as though he were playing a game. He 
 wondered would Deavitt find out that this "sister" was 
 really Olga ? It seemed impossible that Deavitt shouldn't 
 find anything out. . . . Deavitt would make a comic pic- 
 ture-postcard business of it, but Lawrance did not re- 
 sent this suggestion here. That might be the best way 
 of dealing with such things, after all. 
 
 After handling the man at the Law Society's Hall 
 with anticipated despatch, Deavitt took agile steps to 
 the tape-machine by the door and scrutinized the moving 
 record. 
 
 "Bonny Bird, one," he said with satisfaction. "I 
 backed him for a place as well. That's quite all right. 
 I'm a member here," he went on as they left the build- 
 ing. "Didn't know I was a lawyer, did you? Oh, yes, 
 I'm a bit of an architect, too, on the side. And old 
 Israfel is giving me a tip or two about casting horo- 
 scopes. Tracing Royal Descents is my speciality, though. 
 What with that, and being a Director of a Company or 
 two, I manage to rub along somehow." 
 
 Lawrance could well imagine his interlocutor hopping 
 spryly from this bough to that of the professions, perched 
 on each for a passing interval, with his head to one side. 
 He certainly should have been, for a time at least, a 
 detective. 
 
 "What I'm out for now, ontrer nouse, is a job a real 
 dairy-fed one in the A.P.D. I'm off after lunch to
 
 212 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 see Colonel Voltalin about it. Old Burph 's brother, you 
 know. He's as good as promised me. Pull at the War 
 Office and all the usual extras. Must nail him now be- 
 fore Burphie gets a look in. He might queer my pitch, 
 now that he doesn't love me any mo-er. Proud and 
 happy to be in His Majesty's Service, sir! Ahem!" 
 He saluted. 
 
 "Colonel Voltalin " said Lawrance vaguely, with a 
 lagging mind. 
 
 "Colonel the Honourable Horace Voltalin, D.S.O. 
 Born 1873. That's the merchant. Married 1899, Eva 
 Marion Leggett, only daughter of Major Percival Leg- 
 gett, of Stapley Grange, South Mailing, Kent. And has 
 issue: John Frewin, born 1900. Alastair Humphrey, 
 born 1903. Nina, born 1905, and very nice too ! Any- 
 thing more you want to know?" 
 
 "You're well up in your relatives." 
 
 "Relatives? Nothing of the such. I can give you the 
 date of birth of any peer of the realm, and the number 
 of any hymn you know the first line of. Church Hymns 
 or Ancient & Modern, we keep 'em both in stock, sir. 
 None of your compliments, Georgie, it's a natural gift. 
 Once seen, never forgotten. I'm not infallible with the 
 offspring and collaterals, but could have a pretty good 
 shot for the bull 's eye with most of them. Get a Debrett 
 some time, or a Hymn Book, and test me, cockie. Come 
 along, this is where we get our nosebags on." He led 
 the way into the restaurant. 
 
 "I don't drink," he went on as they sat down. 
 "What's yours, red or white? Better choose yourself." 
 He passed over the wine list. "Better have the table 
 d'hote, hadn't we? Saves time. I'm not much in the
 
 "A CHASTE MAN 213 
 
 epicure line myself. Usually kick off with soup. Dine 
 in the middle of the day, tea in the evening." 
 
 "I wish Colonel Voltalin would get me a job," said 
 Lawrance, looking down the list of clarets. 
 
 "What, sick of spooking? I read that article of yours 
 on Apports ; quite hot stuff. Oh, and we heard all about 
 Marjorie and her Elementals. They haven't been on 
 tap again lately, have they? This little job ought to 
 start them off, though. I suppose we shall both have 
 to trot round at the Inquest, to say nothing of the Police 
 Court proceedings and the balance of the goods, as per in- 
 voice. Doesn't look as though they'd get anybody, 
 though, unless the chap who did the trick has been and 
 gone and muffed something." He stopped to drink his 
 soup. 
 
 "Why shouldn't it be suicide?" 
 
 "Not in these trousers, madam. He's not the sort of 
 merchant who goes and knifes himself. Pretty rank sort 
 of a cuss, between ourselves, bit too rank, even for a 
 bounder. No, there wasn't much class about Georgie 
 Tofton. My word, wasn't he wild last night?" 
 
 Lawrance had a sudden vision of "Georgie" Tofton 
 lying stiff under a sheet, with his chin bound up over his 
 gashed throat, and his little eyes, that would never look 
 pugnacious any more, closed forever. He was gone to 
 a place where there were no distinctions of gentility. 
 And "My word, wasn't he wild last night?" Sudden 
 death it was amazing. Lawrance 's preoccupations 
 with the living during these last few hours had been ex- 
 clusive. Perhaps at that moment they were making 
 that "thorough medical examination" of which Ewing 
 had spoken. What had Ewing meant by that? Sui-
 
 214 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 cide or murder, Deavitt could invest it with the motley, 
 bring it within the music-hall area. And why not? 
 thought Lawrance. There was no doubt that Deavitt 
 suited him extremely well. Recognized "wits" had 
 never suited him at all: he secretly detested "refined 
 humour, ' ' donnish badinage and repartee ; all that made 
 him ill at ease or bored him. Not that he gave any hi- 
 larious response, outwardly or inwardly, to his compan- 
 ion 's echoes of the entertainers of the populace, but they 
 contented him and kept him going. He would like to 
 ask Deavitt to the house, to dinner, perhaps. Muriel, 
 he knew, would dislike him, only she would certainly be 
 glad to have him if she knew that he was Lord Burpham 's 
 cousin. If she didn't know, she would think that he 
 wasn't "quite a gentleman." Many middleclass people 
 would think that. Lawrance 's thoughts turned bitter: 
 he might let her meet Deavitt first, let her throw out her 
 little hints that he wasn't "quite," and then tell her 
 He caught himself up: he was being detestably mean, 
 disloyal, too. At the same time there was an instinc- 
 tive renewal of his resentment against his wife for being 
 so perpetually, so inevitably, the cause of his lapses. 
 He felt a certain need of Deavitt : the man might easily 
 become a harmless but indispensable drug to him. He 
 ought to have more friends. A man should have friends, 
 a married man, especially, perhaps. He had only the 
 Flynns. . . . 
 
 "Wake up, Percivawl! Your sha ving- water 's getting 
 cold!" The waiter had brought them the next course, 
 and was standing expectant of the order for wine. 
 "What did you say the number of your dog-license was? 
 Thirty-seven? That's the feller! By the bye,"- 
 Deavitt lowered his voice as the waiter went. "The
 
 A CHASTE MAN 215 
 
 Flynns had better have counsel to watch the case for 
 them at the Inquest. I don't mind paying my whack. 
 I feel a bit mixed up with the show myself, with that 
 'rag' at tea, much better all round to have the cur- 
 tain-drop with the coroner. What do you think ? ' ' 
 
 ' ' I quite agree with you. I '11 tell them. I would cer- 
 tainly like to share the expenses. ' ' Lawrance stopped to 
 contemplate the suggestion that Deavitt's baiting of 
 Tof ton had led up to the tragedy. He looked at the man, 
 trying vainly to focus him as an instrument of murder. 
 
 ' ' Right you are, then. They haven 't a telephone in the 
 house, have they ? Better telegraph after lunch or write 
 straight away from the Office and send it by messenger. 
 Unless you can go up yourself. But I should be in- 
 clined to give them a miss in baulk for to-day; looks 
 better. I can get the man for you; the very merchant 
 we want. R. D. Walsh; ever heard of him? Clever 
 young hound; known him some time, and he won't stick 
 it on too much with the exes. Telephone to me as soon 
 as you hear from Glasden Road. Let's see, two fif- 
 teen now. Your letter ought to reach 'em before five 
 o'clock. You'll still be at the Office then, I suppose? 
 Well, I'll be at the Law Society by four-thirty and I'll 
 stay there till you call me up." The arrival of the 
 waiter with Lawrance 's wine caused no interruption. 
 "Here's my regular address." He handed Lawrance a 
 card with an address in Hampstead, and the young man 
 responded by giving him a card of his own. "H'm, 
 Chiswick; yes, I know a man who lives there. One 
 Francis Herbert, Sherbet for short. Couple of kippers, 
 aetat nine and eleven. Quite all right, too, every rod, 
 pole and perch Wonder if Walsh '11 be able to work 
 out any motive for suicide," he went on as the waiter
 
 216 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 left them. "That's the real trouble; that's the nasty 
 jar. Coroner may be a bit sniffy." 
 
 "Oh, Ewing said something about a medical examina- 
 tion. He seemed to think that would show a motive for 
 suicide " 
 
 "What!" Deavitt's tone cut sharply. "Well, that 
 is luck and no mistake 1 Just let R. D. W. get his teeth 
 into that!" 
 
 "Well, Ewing may be on a wrong tack." Lawrance 
 was hiding his ignorance. Evidently Deavitt had "tum- 
 bled" at once to something that he'd missed. "He may 
 be 'off' altogether " 
 
 "Oh, no. Serpentinely not. He's lived in the same 
 house, plenty of tuniopporty for observing his habits. 
 Medical examination of course that can only mean one 
 thing, in that connection." Deavitt looked quickly up 
 at his companion, who tried to appear as though he dis- 
 creetly understood. ' ' Oh, by the way, that girl Doris is 
 in trouble, of course you know that ? ' ' 
 
 "Trouble?" 
 
 "Usual kind. Penny plain. No doubt whatevuar! 
 And I shouldn't be at all surprised if Georgie Tofton 
 You see ?" 
 
 Lawrance gulped his wine. He felt embarrassed and 
 bewildered. How stupid and unobservant he must be! 
 
 "Dear, dear! Whatever are we coming to, Maria?" 
 It never seemed necessary for Deavitt to pause for medi- 
 tation. "Well, really, constable, I don't know what to 
 say!" 
 
 Lawrance felt as though he, certainly, didn't. He 
 was completely in the dark, and prevented from demand- 
 ing illumination by his fear of looking an innocent fool. 
 He was, as a fact, innocent, at least in the sense that
 
 A CHASTE MAN 217 
 
 he lacked man-of-the-world astuteness in a marked de- 
 gree. 
 
 The rest of the meal was rather hurried. 
 
 ' ' Time we were drawing stumps pretty soon, ' ' Deavitt 
 remarked, and after that he spoke little. Lawrance no- 
 ticed that he relished his apple-tart, and wondered if this 
 relish went with his taste for children. 
 
 "Your sister lives with you?" 
 
 The young man blushed at the question put casually to 
 him as they went out. Deavitt would certainly detect 
 him, he reflected again. "Oh, no: I'm married, you 
 know." 
 
 "Yes, I know you are. Can't keep anything like that 
 dark, can you, guv 'nor? Well, good-bye. I'm off to 
 rub noses with the Colonel. You'll write that letter as 
 soon as poss., won't you? Hear from you later in the 
 afternoon. There's your bus to Fishgate Street!"
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 LAWRANCE, working slowly and badly, stayed 
 on at the Office until he was able to telephone 
 Deavitt the Flynns' consent to Mr. R. D. Walsh. 
 Mr. Flynn had said: "As you like, as you like; very 
 good of you," with a shade of surprise and more than 
 a shade of indifference. "They've had the medical ex- 
 amination," he added, with an unfamiliar cunning tri- 
 umph in his deep old voice, "and he's rotten through 
 and through! Ewing's the best chap in the world!" 
 Lawrance was still puzzled. 
 
 He returned, weighted, to Chiswick, after taking a 
 late and dawdling tea at a little shop near Liverpool 
 Street, for the sake of further postponement. When he 
 reached home it was nearly seven o'clock. He stumbled 
 at the door. Muriel, rather flushed and nervous, came 
 quickly from the dining room as he was in the hall. 
 ' ' How late you are ! ' ' she cried. ' ' Father 's here. He '11 
 be down in a minute. I must go and dress." 
 
 "Anything the matter?" 
 
 "Oh, no " She turned from him and went rap- 
 idly upstairs. 
 
 Lawrance did not follow her. He washed his hands 
 in the little lavatory on the ground floor : it seemed that 
 he kept clearer of them by doing that and not going up- 
 stairs, where Muriel would be taking things off pegs in 
 her wardrobe, and where his father-in-law, in the spare 
 room, was no doubt at that moment putting on his cler- 
 
 218
 
 A CHASTE MAN 219 
 
 ical evening-coat or brushing his grey thin hair very 
 smoothly over his elderly scalp. The young man felt 
 indecently invaded. His thoughts turned heavily to his 
 father-in-law. Why had he come up from Essex in this 
 unexpected way? Perhaps he was giving a lecture or 
 preaching a sermon in London. 
 
 The Reverend Henry Gleasom Knight was an eloquent 
 clergyman, a great worker with tongue and pen. He 
 was "broad" in his Church views, being especially given 
 to discourses upon the theme : ' ' For if a man love not 
 his brother whom he hath seen, how shall he love God 
 whom he hath not seen ? " " Service and brotherhood, ' ' 
 these were his watchwords : he was of the Kingsley school, 
 modified by more modern liberalities in dogma: he re- 
 sulted, on the whole, from Kingsley, Jowett, and Mat- 
 thew Arnold. Later Victorian Socialism had affected 
 him; he talked a great deal about "equality of oppor- 
 tunity," and often declared that Society was a physical 
 organism; if the lower members suffered there must be 
 suffering throughout. But his strain of Socialism was 
 not at all dangerous, either to him or to any one else: 
 in fact, it increased his popularity among the upper 
 and middle classes, while the lower classes, on a very 
 sure instinct, made no account of it at all. Mr. Knight 
 was a capable organizer, as well as an effective popular 
 speaker. He was always occupied, by getting up new 
 schemes for the improved working of "Kingsley Hall" 
 or the "William Morris Hostel," by travelling to and 
 from meetings and lectures, by making subscription lists 
 "go," by writing innumerable letters. He kept in con- 
 tinuous touch with men of note, was personally ac- 
 quainted with nearly all the bishops and with many of 
 the writers and politicians of the day. A few years
 
 220 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 back he had published a book: "Some Tritons: by a 
 Minnow," which had had a great success. It was full 
 of humorous anecdotes about notabilities: "observant," 
 "modest," and "witty" were the epithets chiefly ap- 
 plied to the author, some critics even spoke of his "in- 
 imitable dry humour," while praise was given to the 
 "conversational ease" of his style. He had two curates 
 for his parish in Essex, and they were needed. For 
 some time he had been a widower, and he had only one 
 child besides Muriel, a boy rather her junior, who was 
 then at the front. 
 
 Lawrance, in the drawing-room, awaited the object of 
 his meditations, awaited this successful and influential 
 cleric, this firmly standing example of a happily active 
 and useful life. The young man's first irritation at 
 the intrusion was wearing off : at any rate he would not, 
 he reflected, have to be alone with Muriel. After din- 
 ner Mr. Knight would produce his cigar-case, one of 
 the numerous objects of grateful presentation in his 
 possession, and would say, as he always did: "Have 
 a cigar, my boy ? ah, I forgot you don 't smoke. ' ' Mr. 
 Knight had a resonant full voice, but its quality was 
 growing rather harsh, rather untuneable, from continual 
 and careless use. At that moment Lawrance heard it 
 from above: "Ah, Oliver back? Well, 111 go down 
 then." He did not speak with his usual professional 
 geniality. 
 
 A minute later he stood before his son-in-law, whose 
 hand he took, but without any warmth of clasp. 
 
 "I've not come on a pleasant errand, Oliver," he said, 
 shutting the door. "Not at all on a pleasant errand." 
 
 He sat down, crossed his legs, and began tapping the 
 floor with his foot. He looked as though his importance
 
 A CHASTE MAN 221 
 
 were aided and abetted by the gravity of the occa- 
 sion. 
 
 "I'm sorry to hear that," said Lawrance, with a sense 
 of the need of being on the defensive. 
 
 * ' I wish to make an appeal to you ! ' ' The parson fixed 
 him with his chilly bright grey eyes. 
 
 " An appeal ?" 
 
 Lawrance, looking back at him, was struck, why, he 
 could not determine, by the man's vulgarity. He had 
 not noticed before that all fineness of tone seemed to 
 have been stamped out from those broad adequate serv- 
 iceable features, which had only the illusion of being 
 strong, which were really pretentious, and, in essence, 
 both coarse and cheap. The lips, held firmly together, 
 could be detected as gross and mean under the thick 
 well-kept moustache. All the expression seemed made- 
 up. The directness of the gaze was tutored, it did not 
 come from any frankness of spirit. There was a com- 
 mon squareness about the jowl. Lawrance thought of 
 old Flynn in contrast. He hardened stubbornly. 
 
 "Yes," said Mr. Knight, after the proper pause. 
 "Muriel is very unhappy." 
 
 "You mean that I am to blame?" 
 
 "I know that you are to blame. I am not speaking 
 to you as a clergyman, Oliver; I wish to speak as man 
 to man, as man-of-the-world for I think I may call 
 myself a man-of-the-world, to man-of-the-world." 
 This, he thought, would flatter his son-in-law, and open 
 the way well. "It is a matter of human relationship." 
 
 "Do you think that I've treated Muriel inhumanly?" 
 
 "I didn't say that. I was prepared to believe I 
 wished to believe that what you had done had been 
 without full intent." He sighed.
 
 222 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 "What have I done, Mr. Knight?" 
 
 ' ' Oliver : I 'm afraid we shall have to be prepared for 
 some very plain speaking." He thrust his chin out. 
 
 "There's nothing I should like better." 
 
 "I must tell you, then, that I have taken steps to ac- 
 quaint myself in detail with your movements during the 
 past two weeks." 
 
 "Oh. You mean you have employed detectives? 
 Well?" 
 
 "The past two weeks include, of course, yesterday 
 night." 
 
 "How long did your detectives stay up in Glasden 
 Road?" Lawrance could not help playing into the 
 clergyman's hands by showing some agitation. The as- 
 sociation of detectives with yesterday night alarmed him 
 for the Flynns. 
 
 ' ' Till you left naturally till you left. ' ' Mr. Knight 
 had a moment's triumph, but he was immediately puz- 
 zled by his son-in-law's relief. "I have full informa- 
 tion as to the er course that you took after leaving 
 Glasden Road. A girl barely over the age of consent ! ' ' 
 
 "You know nothing about it!" 
 
 "Pardon me. I know everything about it." 
 
 Lawrance looked at him, hesitated, then said angrily : 
 "We won't discuss it!" His tone irritated the other 
 extremely: it was an unexpected, an outrageous tone, 
 for a husband so utterly in the wrong, and so soundly 
 proven to be. 
 
 "Indeed you are right. Discussion would serve no 
 useful purpose whatever. I did not come to you to dis- 
 cuss; I came, as I said, to appeal. I want " 
 
 "Judging from what you've done, I should have 
 thought you wanted evidence for the Divorce Courts."
 
 A CHASTE MAN 223 
 
 Lawrance had never felt himself so cold, so set and 
 framed against any capitulation. 
 
 "You would have been wrong." Mr. Knight was 
 steadying his temper. "My conscience and Muriel's 
 conscience could never sanction divorce. ' Those whom 
 God hath joined.' Whatever my antagonists may be 
 pleased to say, I am no false and compromising Lati- 
 tudinarian. Besides, you are a young man, Oliver. 
 I'm not one of those who believe that a single lapse 
 blackens a life or a character forever. I hope I know 
 the world too well for that. I hope my views are more 
 liberal. They are known as more liberal." Again he 
 threw his importance into relief. "No one has ever yet 
 accused me of being wanting in charity. I may say 
 that I am not employing the er Agency further. I 
 am convinced that this is your first breach of your mar- 
 riage vow, and I feel very hopeful more than hopeful 
 that it will be your last. Surely it will be, if only you 
 can bring yourself to consider all that is entailed. ' ' 
 
 He rose, feeling the need of a posture that he asso- 
 ciated more familiarly with speech. Lawrance sat with 
 his chin between his hands, determined on silence. 
 
 "Your wife's happiness is at stake, the whole future 
 of her unborn child. At such a period in your lives as 
 this ! Oliver, I must bring it all clearly to you. There 
 is no one else to do it: if ever a duty were marked 
 clearly, it is my duty at the present time. Do you 
 wonder that I feel strongly, do you wonder that I felt 
 myself bound to take steps that would, I hoped, convince 
 Muriel that she had no grounds for her fears ? Do you 
 wonder, now that it is conclusively proved that she had 
 grounds, do you wonder that I should, as a father and 
 a Christian, most earnestly entreat you to turn and stand
 
 224 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 before you go further, before you go too far? I hope 
 I am no Pharisee. We are all human. No one knows 
 that better than I. Yes, these unhappy infatuations are 
 human enough, temptations in the way of our nature. 
 I hold up no hands of horror. Far be it from me, Oliver, 
 to draw away the hem of my garment, " Lawrance 
 cast an automatic glance at the well-kept clerical eve- 
 ning-coat and the carefully cut black trousers "to 
 make broad er you understand. That is not the line 
 I would take at all, not at all. I grant that it may 
 seem a sacrifice to you, may seem, I say, for I am really 
 appealing to you, not to make a sacrifice, but to avoid 
 a disaster, a disaster for yourself no less than for 
 others. I ask you to reflect, I ask you to be wise. 
 What can come of this miserable sordid affair, in the 
 end? I think you cannot have considered. Only un- 
 happiness. Unhappiness for yourself, for this girl, for 
 Muriel, for your child. It is no light thing to shatter 
 the whole structure and fabric of a marriage. Mind 
 you, I do not say it has come to that : it has not, yet : 
 it need not. There is one remedy, only, one prophy- 
 lactic, as I may say : it is that remedy that I urge ; in all 
 candour, in all sincerity, and with all singleness of heart. 
 It is a remedy that lies in your hands." He paused. 
 "Self-control." He paused again. "Let us leave 
 Christianity out of it." The Reverend Henry Gleasom 
 Knight made a speciality of "leaving Christianity out 
 of it." "Remember the Greeks. Remember the vir- 
 tues that that great ancient race pagan they were, but 
 glorious, held so dear. Aidos. Meden agan. So- 
 phrosune. Do those high words mean nothing to us now ? 
 Surely, in this hour of our national trial, when above
 
 A CHASTE MAN 225 
 
 all we are coming to learn ' Self-knowledge, self -reverence, 
 self-control,' surely now they have a meaning, and a 
 real one." Lawrance felt sure that he was listening to 
 an extract from one of his father-in-law's latest public 
 discourses. Another of Mr. Knight's specialities was 
 "topical reference." " Sacrifices are being made on 
 every side, and made gladly. You cannot take your 
 part as other young men are taking it; I know that, I 
 know you would if you could. All are not called upon 
 to give the same measure. But this other sacrifice, this 
 you can make " 
 
 "Really, sir, I don't see how my giving up 01 how 
 this particular 'sacrifice' would help us to win the war." 
 
 * ' I was not speaking from the practical point of view, 
 Oliver." Mr. Knight replied with, the competent as- 
 perity that he always showed when he was heckled. "I 
 was thinking of the spirit. There is a certain sympathy 
 of sacrifice. ' ' He made a gesture which, like all his ges- 
 tures, was fitting and auxiliatory, not rudely lavish. 
 "If you would only, bravely and resolutely, break this 
 intrigue " 
 
 "It's not an intrigue ! I told you before that you un- 
 derstood nothing about it " 
 
 "Pardon me." Mr. Knight held up his hand. He 
 was much annoyed that his oration had not produced a 
 more promising impression. "I understand that my 
 daughter is suffering. I understand that she has cause. 
 I understand very positively that the most unfortunate 
 possible results have followed from your intimacy with 
 this particular family in Glasden Road " 
 
 "You can understand further that this intimacy will 
 continue ! ' '
 
 226 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 The clergyman looked at his son-in-law. Inwardly ex- 
 asperated and indignant, he tried to appear saddened 
 and calm. 
 
 "I cannot believe," he said, "that if you knew the 
 true character of these people " 
 
 "What do- you mean ? ' ' Lawrance was roused at once. 
 "I do know it!" He got up. 
 
 "Oh. You know that the old man is a drunkard and 
 a thief ? That he was dismissed from the Thurston Line 
 for stealing money when he was purser in the Company 's 
 service ? You know that the woman who lives with him 
 lives with him in sin " 
 
 "If you say anything against her, I'll strike you." 
 Lawrance spoke without passion, but he was noticeably 
 pale. 
 
 "You will " Mr. Knight started, but instantly re- 
 covered himself. "I am exposed to you," he said, in a 
 tone of quiet resignation. ' ' I am an old man. ' ' 
 
 There was a heavy fall of silence. Lawrance turned 
 and moved towards the door. The clergyman was now 
 thoroughly enraged. He had his phrase for Doris 
 ' ' The eldest daughter is little better than a woman of the 
 town" on his lips: he did not at all want to miss say- 
 ing that and other things. 
 
 "It's past the time for dinner," said Lawrance sul- 
 lenly. "It's a quarter to eight." 
 
 "I understood from Muriel that dinner was not to be 
 till eight o'clock to-night." 
 
 "Oh; so as to give you an opportunity " The 
 young man's laugh increased Mr. Knight's anger. 
 
 "So as to give you an opportunity, sir!" the clerical 
 voice rasped. 
 
 "I shall not take advantage of it."
 
 A CHASTE MAN 227 
 
 "You know, I suppose, what happened at your friends' 
 house last night?" 
 
 "Certainly I know. I was there this morning." 
 
 "Oh." Mr. Knight was again disappointed. He had 
 kept this back, hoping to be able to shock and surprise. 
 "You are no doubt anxious to be mixed up in that sor- 
 did and horrible business?" 
 
 ' ' I am not anxious to back out of it if I can be of any 
 use. I shall probably be summoned to the inquest." 
 Lawrance's tone was one of satisfaction. He hoped, 
 now, that he would be summoned. 
 
 "I trust you will find it a congenial occasion." 
 
 "You think, I suppose, that I ought to break with my 
 friends now that they are in trouble?" 
 
 "An utter distortion and perversion of my position!" 
 The clergyman spoke sharply and loudly. "You know 
 perfectly well why I ask you to break with them. There 
 is no connection whatever. I have no interest at all in 
 this shocking affair of the boarder. I have not even 
 mentioned it till now. It has nothing to do with the 
 point at issue When I came up this afternoon I had 
 not even heard of it ! " 
 
 His indignation was cumulative. And he had been 
 so forbearing, so considerate, so delicate, so full of tact ! 
 All wasted. Seeing his son-in-law move again towards 
 the door, he continued: 
 
 "I understand, then clearly that in spite of all I 
 have said, you intend to continue your illicit relations 
 with this girl daughter of a dishonest scoundrel and an 
 adulteress waiving what else there may be and sister 
 of a common strumpet! You can strike me if you 
 wish." Lawrance had advanced threateningly. "I am 
 speaking the truth. Men have suffered before now for
 
 228 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 that offence." Lawrance turned contemptuously away. 
 ''I may tell you that there is no doubt whatever," the 
 clergyman went gluttonously on, "no doubt whatever 
 that the eldest sister is onsant." His tone displayed the 
 peculiar grossness of moral people. As Lawrance did 
 not break the pause, he continued: "You won't give 
 her up, this girl who is your mistress!" 
 
 The man's face was blotched with red: loose ridges of 
 his face and neck were in unnatural prominence, and his 
 large white hands shook in spite of his efforts to con- 
 trol them. He would let himself be struck, he had de- 
 termined: he would let himself be struck. Then he 
 would take Muriel away. 
 
 But Lawrance had no inclination to strike now. It 
 had suddenly impressed him as important to defend 
 Olga. The word "mistress" stung him from this man 
 who was the father of his wife. It was dishonouring. 
 
 "She isn't my mistress!" 
 
 "Ah! Not perhaps in the full sense of the " 
 
 ' ' Not in any sense. She 's ' ' 
 
 "You'll admit at least that you've had every oppor- 
 tunity ?" Mr. Knight was sarcastic. 
 
 "Yes." Lawrance paused; then in a deadened tone* 
 "I have had every opportunity." 
 
 "That is certainly so." 
 
 "You can think what you like!" The young man 
 flamed again. "She's as pure as any girl in England !" 
 Mr. Knight shrugged his shoulders and Lawrance 
 loathed him. "And I wouldn't lower her not lower 
 her below your daughter, sir, you can be sure of that 
 if you can understand it! Muriel shan't have that ad- 
 vantage! But I won't give Olga up nor her family;
 
 A CHASTE MAN 229 
 
 not though you were to talk at me for weeks together. 
 So we may as well stop this." 
 
 ''Indeed, yes. Bitterness and vindictiveness can 
 serve no useful purpose " 
 
 "I wish I'd been unfaithful with anybody a hun- 
 dred times, and I wish I hadn't given you the satisfac- 
 tion of knowing that I haven 't been ! ' ' 
 
 Mr. Knight shrugged his shoulders again. He was 
 careful, however, not to imply by speech that Lawrance 
 was a liar. 
 
 "So long as you don't give her up," he said, "my 
 daughter's happiness is ruined, her life is poisoned 
 the life of an innocent woman whatever your actual 
 relations may be. Facts are hard things. You will 
 scarcely deny, I suppose" he could not resist a sneer- 
 ing tone "that your er attentions to this girl are 
 not strictly compatible with the marriage vow. 'Who- 
 soever looketh on a woman' I need not remind you." 
 
 "I don't want to deny anything." Lawrance opened 
 the door. 
 
 Mr. Knight remained by the farther wall, as though 
 holding his ground. His flush had ebbed: his rutted 
 cheeks were paler than usual as the door shut. 
 
 "I must get out of it," thought Lawrance. "I must 
 get out of it." He realized that Muriel's vanity would 
 always prevent their living apart. 
 
 He went into the dining room. The girl Mary was 
 there, occupied with something or other at the side- 
 board. She turned as he came in: the background of 
 her trained expression seemed grave and hostile. Law- 
 rance was surprised: this must be, he thought, mere 
 imagination on his part. Ever since that Marble Arch
 
 230 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 affair he had been conscious of a pleasant physical sym- 
 pathy with Mary, a sympathy that did not in the least 
 encroach upon his passion for Olga, that, rather, held 
 that passion fixed or threw it into a light less waver- 
 ing. Mary reassured him. Yet he hardly thought of 
 her as a person; he dre,w from the sex of her a certain 
 ease and repose, a sense of having the right ground un- 
 der his feet. 
 
 ' ' Is dinner nearly ready, Mary ? ' ' 
 
 "Yes, sir. I think in five or ten minutes." She went 
 out. How nice her rosy cheeks were, and her chestnut 
 hair! 
 
 Lawrance sighed. Suppose he had been married to a 
 girl like Mary? There were plenty of girls of his own 
 class- like her, enough like her in character and in phys- 
 ical traits 1 . They were the best girls, though he couldn 't 
 love any of that type as he so alarmingly and ungovern- 
 ably loved Olga. Would girls like Mary be jealous ? Of 
 course they would. No doubt Mary was hostile to him 
 now because she had overheard some of that conversa- 
 tion with Mr. Knight. Poor Mary! she couldn't under- 
 stand. He thought of Muriel, but could feel no pity or 
 indulgence for her. Muriel was now irrevocably alien to 
 him. She was the ''injured wife," he could not forgive 
 her for that : he could not soften to her. 
 
 He went upstairs, with no reason for doing so, just 
 as he had gone into the dining room. He wondered at 
 the physical fastidiousness that Muriel had stirred in 
 him lately and that had kept him from her ; he had never 
 experienced it before: it was strong. And her cold- 
 ness of temperament made it stronger. A dash of ani- 
 malism in her would have lessened the strain on him of 
 her personality, which was like a thin tight ribbon al-
 
 A CHASTE MAN 231 
 
 ways bound to his forehead. There was nothing in 
 Muriel for merging, nothing for healing. 
 
 He had walked on to the end of the passage, and was 
 standing outside Mary's room. There were no separate 
 quarters in the house for servants, no backstairs. The 
 door of the room was not quite closed. He hesitated, 
 then turned and went to his own room. "Room," he 
 thought, " blood," and wondered at the association, till 
 he remembered Tofton. Tofton, however, seemed very 
 unimportant. Lawrance was sure that the man could 
 never have had any power against Olga. Still, he was 
 glad that he was dead, if only his death made no trouble. 
 He sat on his bed and closed his eyes. He felt tired. 
 
 He wanted some one some woman to support him in 
 his relation with Olga. He felt this need of support 
 keenly. He was neither strong enough nor insensitive 
 enough to deal with Olga by himself. "What he de- 
 manded was the co-operation of a physical and mental 
 rapport with a girl of type sufficiently opposed to Olga 
 to bring balance equipoise. Suppose that he could 
 have two wives Olga and Mary? Was that fantastic? 
 Lawrance knew that he was the very reverse of fan- 
 tastic, he had always thought himself particularly ra- 
 tional. "With Mary, or with a woman of her mould, he 
 could keep his love for Olga unspoilt, he could deal more 
 delicately and more truly with it, he could avoid mis- 
 takes, he could be steadier with her. And he would be 
 tenderer to the complementary Mary girl because of his 
 passion for Olga tenderer, more tolerant, less ready to 
 tire. Would women ever realize that it could be like 
 this reasonably like this or would they go on want- 
 ing it all, under the spur of some primitive subconscious 
 fear ? Would they go on wanting it all, and so spoiling
 
 232 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 it all ? Lawrance did not feel immoral ; he was too much 
 preoccupied: besides, he was not contemplating action. 
 He did not for a moment see himself, in accomplished 
 fact, with Olga on his right hand and Mary on his left. 
 
 He went out into the passage, and again walked up to 
 Mary's door. He did not hesitate now. He pushed it 
 open and looked in. Everything was strange: a room 
 in his own house, but quite new to him, not at all like 
 any of the other rooms. By the door was a chest of 
 drawers that he had never seen, a chest of the colour 
 of pale linoleum, made perhaps of some kind of imita- 
 tion maple. Ugly, certainly. On it was a number of 
 framed photographs frames standing on teased and 
 twisted spindles of whitish metal, frames decorated by 
 metal lovers '-knots and metal roses. There was a family 
 group, a young man in khaki, with a blown-out face, a 
 plain-faced girl in nurse's uniform. Lawrance 's glance 
 was cursory, withdrawn at once, he felt ashamed of it. 
 He felt all that rebuke of inanimate things that are 
 deeply the personal property of another, things spied 
 upon, so. silently affronted. His shame quickened. His 
 intrusion upon those photographs seemed abominable: 
 never before had he been shocked by himself in that 
 way. The invasion of almost any privacy would have 
 been less outrageous. He stared at the carpet. The 
 carpet was familiar. Yes, it used to be in the dining- 
 room, it had been cut off from the old dining-room car- 
 pet Muriel, of course, knew all these details : how dif- 
 ferent a woman's life was from a man's ! Mary's bare 
 feet on that carpet night and morning ! How curious ! 
 how very incongruous ! That picture, too, of a doctor 
 bending over a sick child 's bed, he recognized that : he 
 had disliked it, he had told Muriel, and then it had dis-
 
 A CHASTE MAN 233 
 
 appeared. Muriel had often tried to please him, but 
 how little difference that made. His eyes wandered 
 along the wall to a framed text and a Christmas Number 
 reproduction of a picture of a little girl with a dog. 
 Pinned on the walls were portraits, evidently cut out 
 of newspapers, of British and Allied Generals, arranged 
 so as to make a sort of pattern No, he had no right 
 to know that she did that. That was more unpardonable 
 than looking at her photographs. He drew back, startled 
 simultaneously by his own caddishness and by the sound 
 of the gong. 
 
 "Oliver! What on earth are you doing? Where's 
 Mary?" Muriel addressed him from the other end of 
 the passage : but her voice did not startle him at all. 
 
 ' ' Oh, she 's downstairs, of course. ' ' 
 
 "Well" 
 
 She looked at him, puzzled, as he walked towards the 
 head of the stairs. He stood by to let her pass, and she 
 did so, markedly erect. Her gown was slightly decollete, 
 showing the fair skin, smooth and faintly pink, in the 
 hollow below her neck. Lawrance, seeing, held back. 
 His flesh bristled and stiffened, as for something at 
 enmity with his blood.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 THE next morning a Sunday was bright and 
 mild, with promise for summer. Lawrance, 
 at breakfast, felt no more embarrassment in 
 the presence of his wife and father-in-law than he had 
 at dinner the evening before. It seemed that they had 
 nothing to do with him. He was aloof and suspended 
 in a region shadowed by anticipations, the form and sub- 
 stance of which were not shown, but which bade him, 
 surely, to wait. His mind made a sound for him like 
 the sound of rippling water, going on and on. He had 
 slept profoundly, without dreams. His whole system 
 was lapped about in a reaction of repose. 
 
 After breakfast Muriel brought him a letter. "I 
 don 't think you saw this yesterday, ' ' she said. ' ' It came 
 by the last post. It's from Malstowe." 
 
 He took it, thanking her, not looking at her, wonder- 
 ing how he had missed it. His invariable habit was to 
 look for his letters in the hall, at the regular post-times. 
 
 The handwriting was unfamiliar, but he guessed at 
 once that the letter was from the Malstowe doctor, al- 
 though the four weeks agreed upon were not yet up. So 
 Doctor Peachey would not have written unless he had 
 come to the conclusion that Letty had better be taken 
 away. And of course she had : of course she must avoid 
 that season of summer distraction at Malstowe. Law- 
 rance examined the envelope, he was unwilling to open it 
 at once. He would take his sister abroad: it was not 
 
 234
 
 A CHASTE MAN 235 
 
 an occasion for half-measures. Doctor Peachey had 
 mentioned St. Franz in Switzerland as a later possible 
 place. No event, Lawrance reflected with great satis- 
 faction, could have been more happily timed. He would 
 get clear. That was exactly what he wanted. In- 
 grainedly English, he had been secretly all the while de- 
 manding a moral pretext for desired action. Now he 
 had it : it was his duty that would liberate him from his 
 domestic life. 
 
 He welcomed the opportunity of procrastinating with 
 Olga. At a distance from her he could, he thought, 
 still be her lover : yet he could not commit himself to the 
 relation that must follow if they remained lovers here in 
 London: of that relation he was, for all his passion, 
 almost virginally afraid, when he was not with the girl. 
 Indeed his very passion, romantically enhancing sig- 
 nificances, was mainly responsible for his fear. Again, 
 he had declared to Mr. Knight that Olga would not be 
 his mistress because as a mistress her position would be 
 inferior to Muriel 's an utterly factitious reason brought 
 forward for the effect of startling and exasperating 
 Muriel's father. For all that he was bound by this 
 declaration, and he would not admit to himself his mo- 
 tive in making it : with the result that his only alterna- 
 tive was to believe that he had meant what he said. This 
 belief had begun to brew in him, by a process to which 
 he was not privy, and from which he instinctively turned 
 aside. More importantly, the girl's response to him of 
 the morning before stayed him in security, abetting his 
 delay. 
 
 Then, too, Olga's family was freshly under calamity. 
 It was not right, it was indecent, to take such a time as 
 this. She would realize that, surely: she would under-
 
 236 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 stand. But yet Lawrance, disquietingly for a moment 
 which he soon evaded, knew that she would not, that she 
 was not of his race, that she had not any instinct for 
 Anglo-Saxon observances. The young man did not look 
 forward, in any kind of detail, to what should happen 
 after he came back from St. Franz; he had no logical 
 previsions, and was not troubled by the lack. It was 
 enough that he had, now, under these various denned and 
 partly denned compulsions, to take his course. He was 
 as sure with himself as he had been with Mr. Knight 
 that he would not give Olga up : apart from that, he had 
 no formed intent; certainly no intent either to boldly 
 break his inhibitions against taking her fully, or to hug 
 them to him as sacred forever. He did vaguely con- 
 template the future as pregnant with circumstances of 
 change: and he had the palpable reflection that Olga 
 would be older. Her being now only sixteen was, to his 
 instinct as well as to his morality, a further check: but 
 again, it was a check that operated much less strongly 
 when she was with him. Then, he was mainly forced by 
 blind stubbornness, blind honour: by his being blindly 
 chaste. 
 
 The contents of the Malstowe letter were much as he 
 had expected. He had not looked for bad news of Letty, 
 and Doctor Peachey's first words assured him that her 
 physical symptoms were not as yet alarming. But the 
 doctor was increasingly inclined to give St. Franz a 
 trial. He had been weighing the case carefully and had 
 now concluded that the general effect of a complete 
 change would be good, that it would divert his patient's 
 mind in the right way and gratify her restlessness. He 
 could not say that she was getting any better at Mal- 
 stowe. He felt pretty sure that she would be ready to
 
 A CHASTE MAN 237 
 
 go. "I think," he added significantly, "that it would 
 be better for Miss Lawrance to be for awhile with 
 strangers. ' ' This meant, Lawrance reflected, one of two 
 things, either that her mother was an irritation to Letty 
 in her particular state, this was likely, there had al- 
 ways been a certain amount of veiled discord between 
 the two, or that young Phillips 's company was disturb- 
 ing. Perhaps both these conditions were in the doctor's 
 mind. He understood clearly, of course, that Letty 
 would be taken to St. Franz by Lawrance and not by 
 her stationary mother. The conclusion of the letter 
 was occupied by reassuring reflections upon the ability of 
 the specialists at the Swiss resort, the excellent ordering 
 of the sanitarium, and the properties of the air, espe- 
 cially curative when the disease was in an early stage. 
 
 Lawrance, hearing the jagged reverberations of his 
 father-in-law's voice from the little room they called 
 the study, went there with his letter, which he handed at 
 once to Muriel. 
 
 "Doctor Peachey thinks I ought to take Letty to St. 
 Franz," he said. 
 
 "Indeed." Mr. Knight started. "I trust she is no 
 worse." 
 
 "Oh, no, but she'd be better off under specialized 
 treatment, and in that air." 
 
 They were silent while Muriel read the letter. She 
 looked questioningly at her husband as she handed it 
 back. 
 
 "What do you think?" he asked. 
 
 "Oh I I really don't know. I suppose you must 
 I " Her lip trembled, she looked vexed and unhappy. 
 
 "May / read the letter?" Mr. Knight impressively 
 asked. Lawrance gave it to him. "Ah Ah. Yes."
 
 238 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 Muriel, as her father read, went over to the window, 
 and sat down, looking away from them. "Your mother, 
 I suppose, could hardly undertake ? No, I suppose 
 that would be out of the question. Your Office work 
 that could be arranged ?" 
 
 "Oh, they won't much like it. But I can send them 
 stuff from St. Franz. They can't very well dismiss me, 
 you know, and they wouldn't, anyhow. I couldn't let 
 the Office stand in the way. My mother would make 
 up any money loss that we couldn't conveniently bear 
 ourselves. ' ' 
 
 "Quite so. Quite. Well, dear Muriel, you would of 
 course come to me. Most certainly. I must say that all 
 this seems to me er in a sense providential." He 
 cleared his throat, and, after a silence, added: "Let 
 us hope that St. Franz will completely restore your 
 sister. I feel that it will. I feel that she will find there 
 what she er really needs. You would, I take it, pro- 
 pose to start soon ? ' ' 
 
 ' ' I shall write to Letty and to Doctor Peachey to-day. 
 There's no reason why we shouldn't start this week. I 
 thought of asking her to come up to London as soon as 
 possible by the day after to-morrow, perhaps. We 
 shall have to get passports, of course." It was before 
 the stringency of the "Green Forms." 
 
 ' ' Your mother will not oppose it ? " 
 
 Lawrance shook his head. "Shall I ask Letty to stay 
 with us?" He turned to Muriel, who was still sitting 
 by the window. 
 
 ' ' Oh, no ! " she said quickly ; then : "I mean of course, 
 why, yes." 
 
 "Oh, it isn't necessary. She has plenty of friends in 
 London."
 
 A CHASTE MAN 239 
 
 "It's only that I didn't quite want just now " 
 Muriel broke off. Her husband was embarrassingly sur- 
 prised to notice that she was nearly crying. 
 
 Mr. Knight made a little gesture. 
 
 "Ah, yes!" His tone was conciliatory and reason- 
 able. "We can understand. I think we can under- 
 stand, Oliver. Now why not leave the whole affair in 
 my hands ? I ought to get back to Chepston in time for 
 the Children's Service this afternoon. Now don't you 
 think?" 
 
 "Yes! That's what I should like I should like to 
 come with you to-day!" Muriel spoke with a violent 
 mingling of defiance, insecurity, fear, and self-pity. 
 
 "Well, now, there we are! What do you say, 
 Oliver?" 
 
 "Oh, all right." Lawrance was piqued, although the 
 arrangement suited him perfectly. Further he was 
 puazled by the expression that Muriel now wore. She 
 looked hurt. He had never seen her look hurt, in that 
 curious animal way. 
 
 "That's settled, then!" The clergyman went briskly 
 and cheerfully on. ' ' And I do believe for the best : yes, 
 I think so, I think so. You can arrange, Muriel dear, 
 for an early lunch? and get through your packing 
 while I'm at St. Saviour's? The servants can come down 
 later, after Oliver and Letty have left. A good plan : I 
 think it's an excellent plan. They can bring down your 
 heavy luggage. Quite enough accommodation for them 
 all at the Rectory. You know I only have a Belgian 
 refugee woman to do all the work of the house, since 
 Gerald went off to Flanders. War economy the simple 
 life, ah ha!" He had quite recaptured his professional 
 geniality. "But I admit she's a good cook. Your peo-
 
 240 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 pie can just take possession. Might release one of them 
 for war-work, perhaps ? I 'm in touch with a number of 
 organizations. That pretty parlourmaid looks as if 
 she 'd be quite up to making munitions. Anyhow, I '11 be 
 pressing them all into service for the harvest later on, 
 you'll see! Well, it's after half -past ten." 
 
 He hurried off to church. Lawrance, alone with 
 Muriel, felt acutely uncomfortable. 
 
 "What's the matter?" was all he could say. 
 
 ' ' Oh, do leave me alone ! ' ' she went to the door. 
 
 "It's all right, isn't it?" he asked feebly. "I mean 
 it suits you, it's what you want." 
 
 "I " She looked at him quickly, then looked away. 
 "I despise you," she said. 
 
 "You what?" He was astounded. "Muriel! What 
 did you say?" 
 
 "I despise you," she repeated. 
 
 He stared at her, shocked. "I can't see I can't 
 Why do you?" 
 
 "Because of everything. Everything. And I should 
 think that girl would despise you too. She will. ' ' The 
 muscles about Muriel's mouth were working unevenly, 
 making her face seem thinner. 
 
 "What did your father tell you?" 
 
 She left without answering him. Because she was 
 going to cry, he wondered ? She seemed very near tears, 
 but he was not sure. He did not wonder if she really 
 despised him, her tone had convinced him that she did ; 
 but his thoughts galled one another's heels in disordered 
 speculation on the cause of her feeling: he protested to 
 himself all the while that he had done nothing to de- 
 serve it, protested with pride deeply hurt. She might 
 hate him, be angry with him, that would be natural.
 
 A CHASTE MAN 241 
 
 Had her father told her that he had declared that Olga 
 was not his mistress, and did Muriel believe it and de- 
 spise him in consequence? Well then, all the more he 
 would hold back ! But it was incredible : unless as in- 
 deed Lawrance had of late dimly suspected women had 
 a secret code of morality quite different from the codes 
 of men. The young man's present passing suspicion 
 that Muriel's jealousy and animosity were heightened 
 by her knowledge of his abstinence was the most dimly 
 fluttering of all. Perhaps Mr. Knight had told her 
 that he kept from Olga for fear of putting his wife in a 
 position of superiority to the girl. That would nat- 
 urally have angered her, and she might be retaliating. 
 Lawrance 's pride preferred this as an explanation.
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 THE solitary husband embraced his solitariness 
 fully. After Muriel and her father had left 
 that afternoon he kept to the house, taking in 
 the enjoyment of the silence, the ease, the relief. There 
 was an agreeable crepitation of emptiness in his ears. 
 All the afternoon he stayed in, although the weather re- 
 mained tempting for out-of-doors. He wrote, carefully, 
 to Letty, to Doctor Peachey, and to his mother : then he 
 read the Sunday paper, and was shocked by the gross 
 intrusion upon him of a reproduction of a photograph of 
 Mrs. Flynn familiar in the Glasden Road dining room for 
 years past. In reproduction the portrait was distorted 
 to a new grotesqueness. It was her face seen in a cruel 
 dream it was dead matter wickedly galvanized to life- 
 m-nightmare. Above it was the headline: " Inexpli- 
 cable Tragedy in the Glasden Road." There was also 
 a photograph, probably taken in the 'nineties, of a fat 
 young man in a straw hat, bow tie and 'wing' collar, a 
 photograph that Lawrance had never seen before and 
 that he did not recognize at first. But the 'Mr. Claude 
 Tof ton ' printed underneath informed him. ' Mr. Claude 
 Tofton'! And he, like the Emperor Maximilian or 
 King Henry of Navarre, was dead. Were they, then, 
 equal now ? Could death level so far as that ? It seemed 
 impossible. That, at least, could not be the true phi- 
 losophy. Lawrance, in the face of the culminating and 
 
 242
 
 A CHASTE MAN 243 
 
 silent fact of death, was momentarily conscious that he 
 had no philosophy at all, that "philosophy" was merely 
 a name that he needed for use in his articles and re- 
 views, that it meant no more to him than any key of 
 his typewriter. He shuffled uncomfortably in his mind, 
 and set to read the report of the ' ' Inexplicable Tragedy. ' ' 
 It was much the same as that of the evening paper of 
 the day before, only more diffuse: but the last sentence 
 set him pondering: "The deceased man had been suf- 
 fering from a certain ailment for some little time past, 
 and it is understood that the medical evidence on this 
 point may prove to be of no inconsiderable importance. ' ' 
 
 "A certain ailment"! Of course. Lawrance under- 
 stood now. Except that he changed colour slightly and 
 held the paper rigidly before him, he gave no outward 
 sign, nor did his thoughts find words. But he knew now 
 what the will to murder was like, he knew just how it 
 paid no heed. 
 
 Mary at that moment came in with a tray and tea- 
 things. 
 
 "Would you wish your tea here, sir?" He was in the 
 little "study." 
 
 "What is it?" He answered with an absent auto- 
 matic smile. "Oh, yes, I'll have some tea." 
 
 "I'll bring it in a few minutes." 
 
 Lawrance 's eyes rested on the girl's face. Her ex- 
 pression seemed changed, she looked more competent for 
 herself, more independent, more decided. He was con- 
 scious of not wanting her to go. 
 
 "Oh Mary," he said slowly, "do you like this ar- 
 rangement? This going down to Mr. Knight's?" 
 
 "I'm not going, sir." She flushed a little. 
 
 "Oh!"
 
 244 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 "No, sir. I've been thinking it over, like. I don't 
 feel as I wish to. I was wanting to ask you for the 
 mistress's address, sir, because I'd better write and tell 
 her." 
 
 "What will you do, then?" 
 
 "Oh, I'll go home, to Baling. I shall get another 
 place, sir." 
 
 "But why do you want to make the change, Mary, if 
 I'm not inquisitive?" 
 
 "Only that I don't feel as I wish to" She looked 
 at the floor. 
 
 "All right: but I'm sorry. I I liked your being 
 here, you know." 
 
 "But you're going away, sir, aren't you?" 
 
 "Oh, I'm coming back of course. Don't you think, 
 Mary I mean, of course you know what 's best for your- 
 self but couldn't you think it over a little more?" 
 After that newspaper account he was particularly re- 
 luctant to lose her. 
 
 "I don't feel as I wish to go to Mr. Knight's." She 
 again repeated her phrase. 
 
 "Well, maybe you'll come back to us later on when 
 we're in this house again?" 
 
 "I don't hardly know about that, sir." She spoke 
 unexpectedly proudly. 
 
 Lawrance involuntarily sighed. He felt vaguely that 
 the full weight of Muriel would be thrown on him if this 
 girl were not there. But after all, that was in the 
 future. 
 
 1 ' Well, Mary of course ' ' 
 
 He stopped, suddenly ashamed, presented by the comic 
 postcard view of his taking an opportunity with his 
 servant in his wife's absence. He remembered an actual
 
 A CHASTE MAN 245 
 
 postcard a young man, with a shiny gallivanting air, 
 embracing a girl in cap and apron, while a fat cook, out- 
 side the door, was stooping, her eye to the keyhole. 
 
 ' ' All right. 1 11 give you the address. ' ' 
 
 He compelled himself to a tone of finality, and Mary 
 left him. When she returned with the tea and but- 
 tered toast he pretended to be reading and they neither 
 of them spoke. 
 
 Lawrance, still under the grinning tyranny of popular 
 ridicule, forbade himself a visit to the Flynns that eve- 
 ning. He refused, on his dignity, the role of the play- 
 ing mouse. For hours he sat, trying to read a "psy- 
 chic" work that he had to review, his mind striking out 
 violently every other minute to that bestial horror of 
 Tof ton's "certain ailment" and all that it had threat- 
 ened. If only he had known before! He would have 
 gone for him, knocked him down, horsewhipped him, 
 kicked him out of the house, the man would not have 
 dared to come back, he would have taken good care. . . . 
 Why hadn 't they told him everything ? And Doris . . . 
 he thought of what Deavitt had hinted about Doris, in 
 connection with Tofton. If that were true, would it 
 come out, and would it strengthen the argument for 
 suicide or for murder? Logically for murder, perhaps, 
 but the jury's sympathies would certainly be favour- 
 ably touched. They would not want to bring in a ver- 
 dict that might be hostile to the relatives of the injured 
 girl. Olga Olga would have been safe anyhow, he 
 knew, safe from that ultimate double abomination. He 
 would not think of it ; he drew breath. Was there any 
 proof? No hint of proof of murder had been given in 
 either of the newspaper reports. There were no signs 
 of a struggle, the bedroom door had been locked : but had
 
 246 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 it been locked from the inside, and where had the key 
 been found? Deavitt, who was a lawyer, had said that 
 they couldn't bring it home to anybody. 
 
 For the first time Lawrance brought himself to the at- 
 tempt to imagine what might have happened. Tofton 
 drunk, probably, a scene with Doris the intervention 
 of the old man and Mrs. Flynn Tofton using physical 
 force against them retaliation, self-defence, then a des- 
 patch of the matter, in terror and rage, by the one pos- 
 sessed of the razor. Was that possible? Mrs. Flynn 
 had not done it; he believed her denial. Doris impos- 
 sible: it was the Mariner, of course. And Ewing must 
 know all about it: how to figure Ewing as a secret re- 
 pository of bloody knowledge ? ' ' Ewing 's the best chap 
 in the world!" He remembered old Flynn 's emphatic 
 declaration. 
 
 But, after all, why shouldn't Tofton have killed him- 
 self? He was diseased; "rotten through and through" 
 what strain on that point, though ! No, Tofton would 
 never have done it. He wasn't, as Deavitt saw, that 
 sort; he couldn't have cut his own throat with a razor. 
 But the jury wouldn't know that. 
 
 All the afternoon and evening Lawrance had been 
 attentive for the ring of the telephone. If they called 
 him up from Glasden Koad, he would go. He would be 
 "allowed to" then; neither his dignity nor his con- 
 science would rebel. He wanted to go very much, and 
 his desire to be with Olga increased as the hours passed, 
 as the novelty of his being in the house without Muriel 
 began to wear off. He consoled himself by anticipating 
 the to-morrow, when he would certainly be there, when 
 he would see Olga, see his girl. It would be only decent
 
 A CHASTE MAN 247 
 
 to go then, it would be unfriendly not to go. Wasn't 
 it unfriendly not to go now ? 
 
 The young man rose and walked about the room. 
 He stood by the door, undecided: he wished they had a 
 telephone at Glasden Road. Should he telephone to 
 Deavitt? The inquest would no doubt be to-morrow. 
 He would find out, early the next morning, he would 
 find out. He decided to leave it till then, because that 
 decision required an effort, and the effort justified him. 
 He began to realize, in spite of himself, that he felt afraid 
 of his next meeting with Olga : he felt a fascinated shrink- 
 ing. Connectingly he thought of Muriel's "I despise 
 you. ' ' "Was that why she despised him, again he asked 
 himself, and now more definitely, because he held back, 
 because he had this fear ? But surely she ought to feel 
 herself protected: could she despise what was her own 
 protection? Ah, but was it? Lawrance knew that his 
 fear of Olga was a measure of his love for her : he did 
 not know that women summon all the materialism of 
 their sex to aid their scorn of this kind of love when it 
 is directed to a rival; and that they may secretly scorn 
 it, and work, though blindly, against it, even when they 
 are its objects themselves.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 A LETTER from Olga was on the breakfast-table 
 the next morning. Lawrance took it, ex- 
 cited by the handwriting the small thick in- 
 expert handwriting, so much a girl's. Could any one 
 else be so much a girl, every way? She was violent in 
 his blood; it was terrible: he had not asked for this. 
 He looked aghast at the little blue envelope: then real- 
 ized that Mary had come in and was watching him as he 
 looked. She dropped her eyes, hurriedly and painfully. 
 He did not feel angry with her ; he wished her well. If 
 only she, too, could somehow come in. He knew that it 
 would be eminently right for all of them, if she could : 
 it was one of those eminently right things that are out of 
 the question, that in our present world, with its Lord 
 Burphams and its Reverend Henry Knights, cannot pos- 
 sibly be. 
 
 Lawrance remembered the headmaster of his Public 
 School. This Dr. Ashe would gather the boys together 
 on occasions when any particular breach of discipline 
 had been current, he would speak tersely and resolutely, 
 and always he would wind up by saying: "Now this 
 is one of those things that must not be." 
 
 When the parlourmaid had gone, Lawrance read the 
 letter : 
 
 "I thought you would have come this evening, and I 
 don't see why you didn't come. It is eleven o'clock 
 now. The inquest is going to be tomorrow. Mr. 
 
 248
 
 A CHASTE MAN 249 
 
 Walsh has been here. He thinks you won't have to 
 come to the inquest. Please don't come unless you have 
 to. I'd rather you didn't." 
 
 He could not make out if she had signed herself ' ' Yours 
 Olga" or "Your Olga." The word "inquest" was mis- 
 spelt. 
 
 Lawrance took the letter in his hand, crumpled it 
 close and held it. He opened his waistcoat and his shirt, 
 pressed the letter to his bare breast, kept it there. He 
 thought himself a weak fool, a sentimental ass, but the 
 letter stayed. He had no appetite, yet he did not want 
 not to eat. Well, he was going to Switzerland, to St. 
 Franz. He repeated to himself: "I am going to St. 
 Franz." He thought of what had to be done. He 
 would go to the Foreign Office, and get two applica- 
 tion forms for passports. They had put up a large 
 wooden structure for the business of issuing passports; 
 he remembered having seen it. Better to start at once. 
 He finished his breakfast hurriedly. 
 
 When he was outside the front door it occurred to him 
 that the Passport place would most likely not be open so 
 early. He would have to go at midday. Now he would 
 be too early at the Office. He would take a bus the 
 whole way, then he would walk about. 
 
 In the Strand a red arrow pointing to a recruiting 
 office caught his eye. "Perhaps they'd take me," he 
 thought. Then he could stay, he would not go to 
 Switzerland, he would have to be in England for train- 
 ing for some time, it would be his duty to be in the same 
 country with Olga. He got down from the bus. Peo- 
 ple said the doctors weren't too particular nowadays. 
 Certainly he didn't feel that there was anything the 
 matter with his heart. It might have got better.
 
 250 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 He hadn't long to wait. It was one of the seasons 
 when recruiting was slack, a little while before the trial 
 of the Derby Scheme. As Lawrance stripped, Olga's 
 letter fell to the floor, and one of the doctors, passing 
 through, smiled. This doctor was a solid agreeable-look- 
 ing man of middle age and middle height, blandly 
 brisk. . . . " Hey ? " he said suddenly, after a minute of 
 examination. "Hey? what's this?" He was silent, 
 listening, tapping. Then: "Won't do, I'm afraid. 
 Aortic. You're no good to us. Put your clothes on. 
 Sorry." 
 
 "You're sure?" asked Lawrance vaguely. It seemed 
 to have happened too quickly. 
 
 "What's the use? You'd never stand the life. You 
 wouldn't stand the training." He said something 
 rapidly and inaudibly to the other doctor, who nodded. 
 "Don't be alarmed. You're all right, but you've got to 
 take care of yourself. You couldn't do that in France. 
 Out of the question. You've a doctor of your own, 
 haven't you?" 
 
 "Yes but I thought You really don't think any 
 one would ?" 
 
 "Not while he retained his senses. Well, you've 
 done the right thing. But if we passed you you'd only 
 be filling a bed that's meant for a better man. Better 
 man physically, I mean. Wouldn't do at all. Well, 
 good-bye. Tell her you're no good to us." He smiled 
 again. "Tell her you've tried. Don't go running up- 
 stairs too hard." He sat down and began to write. 
 
 "Go and put your clothes on," said the other doctor, 
 rather severely, as though Lawrance were doing some- 
 thing indecent, standing there. 
 
 kawrance dressed and walked on to the Office. So it
 
 A CHASTE MAN 251 
 
 was to be Switzerland for him. Perhaps, though, Letty 
 would not come. He did not know what he hoped. The 
 medical examination had taken the wind out of his sails, 
 given him a collapsed helpless feeling. It was useless, 
 then, to try to strike out. That rifle that had been 
 leaning against the wall, was it loaded? he wondered 
 vaguely. That young soldier who had measured and 
 weighed him was a particularly fine-looking man 
 Passing one of Cook's offices he remembered that ap- 
 plication forms for passports could be obtained there. 
 He went in and got two of them. 
 
 Britton was in the Office when he arrived ; no one else, 
 though at first the presence of the large grey felt hat 
 had led him to expect to find Mr. Inge. Then he re- 
 membered. The associations of that hat the hotel near 
 Euston Tof ton 's corpse Olga how grotesque ! He 
 stood looking at it, he even touched it. 
 
 "Don't want to borrow it again, sir, do you?" Britton 
 asked grinning. "Mr. Crockerton Deavitt's been round 
 already," he added. "He said he'd come back in 
 thirty-five minutes. ' ' 
 
 "All right. Let's have a look at the letters." 
 
 Before Lawrance had finished looking through and 
 sorting the correspondence a telegram was brought to 
 him. "From Olga" was his first thought, he was hit 
 emotionally below the belt, in the pit of his fluttering 
 stomach. But the telegram was from Letty. "How 
 exciting of course I'll come Wednesday noon train 
 Letitia." Yes, she would be excited, and happily. 
 "Letitia" was the name between them when any pleas- 
 ant stir was in the air. ' ' Now then, Letitia, hurry up or 
 you'll be late!" How often he had said that! Espe- 
 cially when she had been a little girl, and the name for
 
 252 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 her had seemed more comically incongruous. Lawrance 
 recalled his homecomings from Oxford, when his pretty 
 little sister used to run out to meet him, in her .short 
 skirts and blue jersey. "Hulloa, dear little Letitia!" 
 How bright her eyes had been, how active and well she 
 was then ! She would be well again. It was worth go- 
 ing to Switzerland. He felt ashamed of himself for hav- 
 ing wanted to get out of going. It was sensible of Letty 
 to have thought of telegraphing to the Office. . . . He 
 was very fond of her. . . . He could see her dear brown 
 
 eyes, her affectionate mouth A good thing he 
 
 had got those application forms. He resolved to send 
 one to his sister at once: she could fill it in and get it 
 endorsed by the clergyman at Malstowe, or by Doctor 
 Peachey. He took a long office envelope, addressed it 
 to her, and wrote a few lines: "Very glad indeed you 
 are coming" then he told her what to do with the 
 form: she must hunt out a small photograph and so 
 on. 
 
 As he was signing his name, there came a short sharp 
 tap-tap on the door, and the sideways face of Mr. Crock- 
 erton Deavitt peered into the room, giving the impres- 
 sion that it was detached from his body. 
 
 " 'Morning," he said. "Lovely morning 'smorning. 
 Best morning of all the mornings we've had for several 
 mornings. Hulloa, what's that? Passport application 
 forms ? Going abroad ? ' ' 
 
 "Yes. Switzerland." 
 
 "Oh, you har, har yer?" Deavitt sat down by his 
 side. "Don't mind my stopping for half a minute, do 
 you? One or two things I want to get off my chest. 
 I'm off to the country this morning, so thought I'd bet- 
 ter take the tuniopporty. Old R. D. W. turned up
 
 A CHASTE MAN 253 
 
 trumps." He lowered his voice. "Got on the job at 
 once. Inquest to-day. They won't want you or me. 
 Just as well. E. D. W.'s bill won't be anything out of 
 the way. Quite worth it, you know, from our point of 
 view. He knows the ropes. Hope it'll be all right for 
 the Glasden Road crowd. Sure to be, I think. E. D. 
 W. was a bit non-committal cautious old bird but from 
 what he said I fancy there'll be no serious trouble. 
 Medical evidence will count for a lot, you know." 
 
 Lawrance nodded. He wanted Deavitt to see that he 
 understood. 
 
 ' ' So you 're off to Switzerland ? Be away long ? ' ' 
 
 "Probably two or three months. I'm taking my 
 sister. It depends on how she gets on. She's ill, you 
 know." 
 
 "Oh, I see. When do you start?" 
 
 "She's coming up Wednesday." 
 
 ' ' She 's not in town, then ? ' ' Deavitt questioned rather 
 sharply. 
 
 ' ' No, she and my mother live down at Malstowe. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Oh I thought Burphie seemed to think your sister 
 lived in London?" 
 
 Lawrance blushed, remembering. That lie about Olga 
 being his sister, how it was always coming back at him ! 
 There was something, it seemed, in what he had been 
 told in his childhood "What a tangled web we 
 weave," and the rest. 
 
 "Oh, no," he replied, "in Malstowe. Did you get 
 that paymaster job ?" he added quickly. 
 
 ' ' Yes ; panned out all right. The Colonel was in beau- 
 tiful working order. 'B.W.O.' as they say in the 
 Church. Not half a bad screw, either. I shall be keep- 
 ing up two homes and going racing. I go to Woolwich
 
 254 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 later in the week. Then to Calais or the Base after a 
 bit. Old Israfel tells me I'm perfectly safe from bombs 
 or shells. You better look me up on your way back from 
 Switzerland. Shan't see you again, I suppose. You 
 haven 't your Swiss address, have you ? ' ' 
 
 "No. Letters to the Office will be forwarded. Let 
 me know what I owe for R. D. Walsh, won't you?" 
 
 "All right. I'll send you the bill for your whack." 
 
 As he was shaking hands and saying "Ta-ta" Lord 
 Burpham came in. Seeing his cousin, Deavitt whipped 
 out his handkerchief and hung it over his own face. 
 
 "Haven't you heard?" He turned to Lawrance and 
 whispered hoarsely. "We don't speak since he started 
 playing the oboe. ' ' With his handkerchief veil he stood 
 stiffly pressed close to the wall, with his hands by his 
 sides. 
 
 "Well, Crockerton," Lord Burpham affably addressed 
 him. 
 
 "Discovered! ha!" ejaculated the other, snatching the 
 handkerchief from his face. "If I am discovered, I am 
 lo-host! Penetrated me disguise with his eagle eye! 
 Who'd have thought it?" 
 
 "Playing the clown as usual, eh?" 
 
 "No, Georgie, it's my Monday off. I say, Master 
 Horace has got me that paymastership. What d'you 
 think of that?" 
 
 "You don't deserve it. I wish I'd told him so." 
 
 "I got in first, though, didn't I, cockie? All because 
 you won't get up early in the morning." 
 
 "Well, Mr. Lawrance." Lord Burpham turned to 
 him. "Mr. Ralston in yet?" 
 
 "No. Mr. Inge hasn't come, either." 
 
 "I particularly wish to see Mr. Ralston."
 
 A CHASTE MAN 255 
 
 "Can't be done, I'm afraid," Deavitt whipped in. 
 "Quite imposs. His hours are from twelve to two, with 
 an hour and a quarter off for lunch. Didn't you know? 
 And our young friend here's going off to Switzerland. 
 Don't think we ought to allow it, do you?" 
 
 "Switzerland? H'm?" Burpham looked inter- 
 rogatively. 
 
 "Yes, my sister's ill. I've got to take her out and 
 look after her." 
 
 "Dear, dear. I'm sorry to hear that. No idea she 
 was seriously ill. Very sorry." 
 
 "I was going to ask if you'd mind signing this ap- 
 plication form." Lawrance, embarrassed, spoke to di- 
 vert his interlocutor. 
 
 "Certainly, certainly." Burpham took the form. 
 "Let's see. 'Fit and proper person to receive a pass- 
 port' But I'm not a banker or a doctor or a clergy- 
 man. Ah, yes, magistrate I see. Certainly. 
 'Miss Olga Lawrance.' I'm sure I wish her the very 
 best of luck speedy recovery I think the name was 
 'Olga'?" 
 
 "Oh, this is a Form for me." Lawrance blushed 
 deeply; he had seen Deavitt 's wink at him. Of course 
 Deavitt would find out; he had known he would, all 
 along. "I've sent my sister's on to her." 
 
 "All right, then." Burpham looked a shade put out 
 and a shade puzzled. He moved over to a table, with 
 the paper in his hand. 
 
 "I twig," Deavitt whispered. "The Germans have 
 taken Peckham Eye," he added loudly. "Oh, yes, in- 
 deed, auntie. And now they've got it they say they 
 don't want it. But Kitchener told 'em they'd got to 
 keep it. Good gag, eh? Well, I'm off. Have to get
 
 256 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 down to Weston. Three of my families down there. 
 Bye-bye!" He made his usual despatch. 
 
 Lord Burpham made a good deal of the application 
 form. ' ' This won 't go abroad, will it ? " he said, a little 
 apprehensively, and then: "But look here, it seems to 
 me you ought to put in all these answers first. Don't 
 forget ah you must sign your name in full. I'll 
 wait till you've done. Be careful about it. We want 
 to have everything in order. "Where exactly are you 
 going in Switzerland?" He spoke with an official im- 
 portance. 
 
 "St. Franz." Lawrance took the paper, and began 
 to fill it in. 
 
 ' ' St. Franz ! Well well. ' ' Lord Burpham sat down 
 again and stared meditatively at the wall. He crossed 
 his discreet legs, and his steady blue eyes remained fixed 
 for a minute or two, as Lawrance went on filling up the 
 Form. "Ah yes," he said at length. "My sister-in- 
 law is out there curious thing with her mother. I'll 
 give you a letter, if you like." 
 
 "Thanks very much." Lawrance looked up. He 
 was pleased. He had noticed that Lord Burpham had 
 been distinctly friendlier ever since that meeting with 
 Olga at the theatre. Of course he thought that the 
 letter of introduction was to include her. That was 
 why. . . . Shame clouded the young man's pleasure. 
 He blushed again. 
 
 "My sister-in-law is Lady Blanche Voltalin," Burp- 
 ham went on, with a dry abstracted air. "Trouble with 
 her throat; soon after my poor brother's death. But 
 she's much better, much better. I heard from Lady 
 Petistree her mother the other day. They're both
 
 A CHASTE MAN 257 
 
 very tired of being out in that place; it's a dull hole, I'm 
 afraid. You'll cheer one another up. I'll post you the 
 letter to-night Not at all. Very glad. You'll have 
 to get a Visa at the French Consulate, of course. You 
 know that? Great nuisance it is, you have to wait for 
 hours, standing up. But perhaps Cook's can manage 
 that for you Dear me, I do wish Kalston would 
 hurry. What do you think of my cousin Crockerton ? 
 Never knew any one so fond of playing the fool. He's 
 a little mad, really. Can be very annoying. Not a 
 bad sort, though, really at bottom. No. And under- 
 stands architecture. ..." 
 
 Lawrance, as he finished filling in the form, could not 
 resist the conviction that Lord Burpham was thinking 
 all the time about Olga. It was quite unlike him to be 
 talkative in this way. he seemed to be covering a pre- 
 occupation. Lawrance felt oddly triumphant, trium- 
 phant in his own person. He got up and handed over 
 the Form. Lord Burpham took out his glasses, and read 
 it over with a deliberate magisterial air. 
 
 ' ' All right, ' ' he said. ' ' That 's all right. I '11 sign. ' ' 
 Further colloquy followed. Burpham reminded the 
 young man that he must also have his photograph en- 
 dorsed "by me, as guarantor"; told him that he could 
 get it taken at a moment 's notice at a place in the Strand, 
 near the Foreign Office. ' ' They make a speciality, a spe- 
 ciality." Lawrance had better post it to him, to Queen 
 Street, for endorsement as soon as possible. The matter 
 was very seriously taken. Mr. Ralston 's arrival precipi- 
 tated its conclusion, to the relief of Lawrance who was 
 beginning to get nervous. Mr. Ralston did not take 
 kindly at all to the prospect of Lawrance 's departure.
 
 258 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 "You must talk to Mr. Inge," he said severely, two or 
 three times: "You must talk to Mr. Inge." He then 
 withdrew with Lord Burpham to his private room. 
 
 Lawrance found that he was undisturbed. Inge would 
 splutter, he knew, but it couldn't be helped. How won- 
 derful Olga was, how intensely to be desired! Lord 
 Burpham 's concealed but motive admiration thrillingly 
 heightened his consciousness of how wonderful and how 
 desirable she was. He forgot Letty.
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 THE aloofness that came upon the young man 
 gave him a peculiar sense of power. 
 Everything was insignificant, and he, with 
 the strength and the reality of his passion for Olga, 
 could dominate it all. The machinery of his will moved 
 with perfect ease and certainty, in an inevitable drive. 
 It took in the remonstrances of Mr. Inge and smoothly 
 reduced them to an unavailing pulp. ' ' Well, ' ' Inge had 
 said at last, "I suppose it's necessary. You certainly 
 seem to have made up your mind." Lawrance was, at 
 every point, enabled. His conversation with Inge, his 
 arrangements for carrying on some of his work by post, 
 his getting his photograph taken at the Strand shop, the 
 couple of reviews that he wrote all were immaterial ex- 
 cept in so far as they had to be done with before he could 
 go on to Olga. The prospect of St. Franz, though it 
 was none the less sure, had faded : his girl shut out the 
 future. He would see her that evening, and to-morrow : 
 he was centred there. 
 
 Olga opened the door for him. He held her. She 
 said nothing, she looked tired, but she welcomed him with 
 bright eyes that exalted him to an edge tremulous but 
 secure. He could not realize, though, that she kissed 
 him. But he felt that her look banished others from 
 them, he felt that everything was understood in a new 
 freedom. He had the conviction how beautifully lit- 
 
 259
 
 260 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 teral a one it was! that he had never been so happy. 
 The words of a text came to him with startling inter- 
 pretation: "I live, and yet not I, but -Olga liveth 
 in me. " " Olga in me ! " Yes, it was so, it was in per- 
 fect truth. "She is come that you may have life, and 
 that you may have it more abundantly." This was no 
 profanity; profanity was not even suspected. 
 
 "My girl!" he whispered at last. 
 
 "Then it will be all right now, won't it?" she said, a 
 little sadly. 
 
 They stood apart, and he met the gaze of her washed 
 green eyes that gave him love, though they were sure 
 of nothing. He, for his part, was sure then that he 
 must take and keep her. Her eyes dropped and were 
 darkened by her lashes. Little Marjorie came out sud- 
 denly from the dining-room. 
 
 "Uncle Lorrie!" she cried, too much excited to think 
 of kissing him. "It's all over! What do you think 
 those men said it was? 'Wil-ful murder'!" 
 
 "What!" 
 
 "Yes, they did ! Oo-er ! I s'pose it must be true, be- 
 cause they said so." 
 
 "Against some person or persons unknown," Olga 
 hurriedly put in. 
 
 "It was exciting," Marjorie went on eagerly, "it was 
 like a story. They asked us all a lot of questions. 
 There was a man who called me ' my dear. ' I told him I 
 wasn't his dear. Cheek! They laughed, and the man 
 who was put up at a desk said they weren't to. He 
 said: 'I shall clear the Court.' ' She frowned and 
 deepened her voice. "He was very cross, and said I 
 mustn't say anything, but answer the questions." She 
 continued to chatter as they went into the dining room
 
 A CHASTE MAN 261 
 
 and Lawrance greeted Mr. Flynn who was there alone. 
 "Uncle Lance said that he and Uncle Tofty had had 
 words because Uncle Tofty had used his fountain-pen and 
 would jab the point when he wrote. Uncle Lance gets 
 angry when other people use his fountain-pen. It's the 
 only thing that makes him angry. He said " 
 
 "Well." Lawrance addressed the Mariner under 
 Marjorie's flow. "So it's all over." 
 
 "Yes, we're through with it. Whole damned busi- 
 ness. Lord help us, what a fuss about nothing ! Why, 
 they don't make any account of things of that sort, out 
 in British East. Poor Patsey, she's upset, though. And 
 no wonder. You'd have knocked that fellow down, 
 Lorrie, if you'd been there. Much as I could do to keep 
 myself under. She might have been on the streets, the 
 way he talked to her! Poor Patsey! Damned swine!" 
 Lawrance noted the Mariner's air of bravado. He didn't 
 like it. It was a deformity. The old man was struggling 
 uneasily unnaturally. He was cruelly wrought. 
 "Damned swine!" he repeated. 
 
 "I saw him!" Lawrance 's attention returned to 
 Marjorie. "I've never seen any one dead before. He 
 didn't look like a real person. I don't like dead people, 
 do you, Uncle Lorrie ? Mother 's been up in her room 
 ever since we came back. I wish she'd come down. 
 She's always upstairs now. And Doris stayed in the 
 train ; she went right on, when we all got out. I s 'pose 
 she's gone to the theatre, though that isn't till evening, 
 is it? I'm going to sell programmes, too, when I get 
 older. I'm going to begin when I'm fourteen. Our 
 house smelt of stale milk yesterday " 
 
 "Sit down, my boy. Why are we all standing up? 
 My legs ache, and I want a drink. Marjie, get the
 
 262 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 whiskey. Patsey poor old darling she doesn't feel 
 well. And Ewing do you know, Lorrie, it's a damned 
 shame, it's a damned outrage, they've given him the sack 
 at his Bank. What 's he going to do ? He asks leave off 
 for the inquest, they give him his pay, and tell him they 
 don't want him back. He's well over forty. Out now 
 looking for a job. What's his chance? You know. 
 He's got no chance. Of course we'll keep him here, of 
 course we will poor fellow, why he 's smashed, ain 't he ? 
 No two ways of looking at it smashed. ' ' 
 
 "I don't know about that. It isn't so difficult now 
 for a man over military age. ... I might be able to do 
 something. But you're right, it's outrageous. Peo- 
 ple are curs." Lawrance tried to feel indignant, but he 
 couldn't. Ewing 's misfortune did not seem to matter. 
 
 "The fuss they make about a thing like this!" The 
 Mariner took a long gulp of his whiskey. "I tell you, 
 Lorrie, we haven't got the right hang of things, we 
 don't see things right. Civilization. . . . Huh! Life 
 isn't so important as all that. Cowardice at the bottom 
 of it all this precious worry about who gets killed and 
 who doesn't. The war ought to give us a good lesson 
 lesson we need. Why, when I was out in British 
 East. . . . Wish I could pack those long-faced jurymen 
 out there. Stuffed up with damn nonsense about the 
 sanctity of human life and all the rest of it. They've 
 been too blasted safe too blasted safe from the cradle 
 on, that's what's the trouble with them. In British 
 East, in my time, if a man died, he died, and there was 
 an end of it. Same way in Colorado, in the old days. 
 Men were better then, too, knew how to live, knew how 
 much life was worth, knew how much death was worth. 
 Eight proportion. Gosh ! If a nigger 's dying in British
 
 A CHASTE MAN 263 
 
 East the others give him to the hyenas or burn him 
 make a clean job of it no corpses. Good instinct. 
 That fellow Tofton, he was dying rotten through and 
 through, I told you. Well, it was a clean job for him 
 whoever did it. Probably did it himself " He trailed 
 off on an uncertain note. 
 
 "I'm sorry about the verdict," said Lawrance in a 
 low voice. 
 
 ' ' Oh, what 's it matter ? 'Person or persons unknown. ' 
 Ought to have said 'philanthropist.' Ha! ha!" He 
 drank again, finishing his tumbler. His eyes were rather 
 rheumy. " 'By some philanthropist or philanthropists 
 unknown.' ' He laughed loudly and blew his nose. 
 ' ' That lawyer you sent us is all right. Good idea. Not 
 his fault they didn't bring it in felo de se." 
 
 "We shan't get any supper!" Marjorie, who had 
 slipped out of the room, appeared again. "Mother 
 won't come down. Olga, do stop reading! I'm 
 hungry." 
 
 "Don't let's trouble about cooking." Lawrance put 
 his hand in his pocket. "Go out and get a tongue 
 or something, Marjorie. That 11 be all right, won't it?" 
 
 "I don't believe we've any butter." The child looked 
 grave. 
 
 "Well, get anything you haven't got." He gave her 
 five shillings with a sense of pleasure in paying for what 
 Olga was to eat. 
 
 "Don't like this briar!" Mr. Flynn suddenly ex- 
 claimed. "D'you know I broke my meerschaum? Had 
 it for years. That's a stroke of real bad luck. Dear 
 old meerschaum gone. Dropped and smashed to bits 
 Time for another drink. You don't drink to-night, 
 Lorrie, you 're sipping it. I never drink when I 'm alone.
 
 264 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 Never." He was so emphatic that Lawrance suspected 
 him. "You ought to have heard old Ewing at the show 
 this morning. Good as a play. Wasn't it, Olga?" 
 
 The girl started, and looked up from her book. "It 
 was a horrid room," she said. "I hated that ugly 
 room. ' ' 
 
 Mr. Flynn laughed and stretched his long legs out over 
 the hearthrug. "Old Ewing kept asking him about 
 the night before. Very curious about that. Wanted to 
 find out what sort of a row there 'd been. Ewing says, 
 oh, yes, there 'd been a row. 'About what?' 'About 
 my fountain-pen,' he says very indignant. 'What 
 about your fountain-pen?' 'He would keep using it 
 without my leave. He writes thick,' says Ewing, 'and 
 I write fine. He jabs the nib and spoils it.' And 
 there was Tofton stiff on his back in the next room 
 and " The Mariner drew his hand across his throat 
 and gave a hoarse clicking sound. " 'I can't write with 
 it when he's been at it,' says Ewing, 'and yesterday he'd 
 crossed the nib.' Told them they'd had words words!" 
 Mr. Flynn leaned further back and laughed. "Old 
 Ewing was restive, I can tell you. 'He did it on pur- 
 pose!' Coroner thought he was touched. 'Well, he 
 won't do it again, Mr. Ewing/ he said. 'He'd better 
 not,' says Ewing. 'Better not'! What d'you think of 
 that?" 
 
 "I suppose it all came out about the row at tea?" 
 
 "In a sort of way. Not so important as the foun- 
 tain-pen, though The jury were fools. They had the 
 medical evidence you know. They had the motive all 
 right. What more did they want? Doris wasn't 
 brought in. ' ' He turned and stared into the fire. ' ' No, 
 not at all. Much better. She gave evidence, of course.
 
 A CHASTE MAN 265 
 
 Nothing important I wish Patsey would come. You 
 know, Lorrie, I never see her now upon my soul and 
 honour, never seem to see her. Of course she's upset. 
 Poor old dear poor old " He drank again. 
 
 ' ' I hope she 11 see me to-night. ' ' Lawrance continued 
 to give his whiskey occasional casual sips. He did not 
 feel like drinking. 
 
 "Wish you could stay the night with us, old boy." 
 
 "Well, I can. I should like to." Lawrance was con- 
 scious of boldness, without knowing why. Olga put 
 down her book. 
 
 "That's good: that's very good." 
 
 "My wife is away, you see." 
 
 "Ha. Yes. We've a spare room now. You don't 
 mind, do you? No reason to mind, is there? Not in 
 the least not for a man of sense." 
 
 Lawrance hesitated for a moment. It certainly was 
 soon. Then: "Oh, of course I don't mind," he said. 
 The reflection came: "What would Mary think?" but 
 again he felt bold. He ejected considerations of Mary. 
 But he could not look at Olga, though he wanted to. 
 "May I stay with you two nights?" he asked suddenly, 
 after a pause. 
 
 "Stay all the nights you want. More the better." 
 
 "Ah, but I'm leaving London!" Lawrance saw that 
 Olga started; he could not see her face. 
 
 ' ' What ! Not for long, though, are you ? ' ' 
 
 "Perhaps for some months. I'm going to Switzer- 
 land with my sister." He spoke rapidly. "She's ill, 
 she must go. There's no one else to take her. My 
 mother's an invalid." 
 
 There was silence. The old man moved his bearded 
 chin up and down, he smacked his lips, then spat in the.
 
 266 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 dying fire. "Bad news for us," he said at last. "We 
 were counting on you, Lorrie. You understand. 
 We've no friends except Ewing." 
 
 Lawrance, turning to Olga, on resolve, caught the 
 girl's stricken look. Her face seemed laid bare, it was 
 a woman's face. She got up, drawing her breath, and 
 left them. 
 
 "You've upset her, Lorrie. You'll be upsetting us 
 all." 
 
 "I'm awfully sorry " 
 
 "The girl's fond of you. She's yours. She's not 
 one of these English girls. She's worth more You 
 know, Lorrie she means more. She's deeper. Can't 
 express it, but you know. These last few weeks, I've 
 been sure. She's the best of the three always will be. 
 I 've always cared most for her. Haven 't you ? ' ' 
 
 "Yes. I love her." 
 
 "What, an' your going away?" 
 
 "I must. Why, what's the use? You know I 'm mar- 
 ried. From the practical point of view morality 
 apart " 
 
 "You could make her happy, all the same " 
 
 Lawrance shook his head. 
 
 "Stuff and nonsense!" The Mariner was violent. 
 "What's it all about? All this cant people talk. 
 We're here for fifty or sixty years beggarly snatch 
 and we go picking our way between the joins of the 
 paving-stones under our feet, all the time, like a lot of 
 damn degenerate paranoiacs! We ought to walk with 
 a free stride! What do those dividing-lines mean?" 
 He raised his voice, the veins stood blue on his high 
 flushed forehead. "Nothing at all accidents arbi- 
 trary Olga's yours: it doesn't happen often, not
 
 A CHASTE MAN 267 
 
 like that, you're lucky, both of you, take her. Take 
 one another. Why, Lord have mercy, are you running 
 away from the girl ? Best thing for her ; best thing for 
 you both Stuff and nonsense ! ' ' 
 
 "It's all very well." Lawrance was bewildered. 
 * ' You wouldn 't say that if you were her real father. ' ' 
 
 "And isn't she Patsey's daughter? And don't we 
 know you? Aren't we your friends? I talk like this, 
 because I see straight. It's my talking that hits you. 
 There are plenty of others who might think it, and keep 
 it to themselves. Haven't the courage. I look things in 
 the face." 
 
 "I don't believe Patsey would agree with you!" 
 
 The Mariner's fixed gaze at him shook slightly: his 
 old eyes were for a moment furtive. "Didn't she let 
 the girl go with you that night?" he asked defiantly. 
 
 "You know why. That was different. She didn't 
 want to, either. Any one could see And Olga was 
 safe," he added proudly. "Patsey knew she would be." 
 
 "Oh, she was safe! I knew that as soon as she came 
 back." 
 
 "Didn't you know it before?" 
 
 "Patsey didn't," he evaded. "Do you think a 
 mother ever knows that? But Patsey feels as I do. 
 She wouldn't say so, but she does, in her heart. Why, 
 she must. Good Lord!" His hands trembled: he was 
 excited. 
 
 ' ' You 're wrong ! ' ' Lawrance was passionately in arms 
 against this assault upon the value of his sacrifice. 
 "We aren't in the kind of world you've got in your 
 mind" 
 
 "If we're not strong enough to make our own world 
 we ought to be kicked ! And we get kicked, too ! Look
 
 268 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 here keep their law, do the right thing, as they call it. 
 What's your gain, eh? It's the anarchist that scores 
 here. I suppose you think good deeds huh ! ' good ' ! 
 bring good fruit. It's not how things are. You think 
 you're to get grapes and your lip's cut with a crop of 
 thorns; think you've got figs, and they're thistles in 
 your beard. I've lived. I know. I've given you your 
 chance to call me a miserable old pandar, not a chance 
 I 'd give to another man in the world : I know better than 
 that. Take it, if you like. But you 11 learn that what 
 looks like a bad man can do good things, what looks 
 like evil gives good growth, and the other way round. 
 All the time ! Wedge yourself up in their blessed code, 
 you're bound hand and foot! Good and evil! Huh! 
 Keep your eyes open !" 
 
 As the old man spoke, Lawrance 's resolution hardened 
 in its mould. The conviction, strangely ultimate, that 
 he himself could never be so loosed and so scattered, 
 that in such a dissolution of the strands that bound but 
 held him he would perish, took its place. 
 
 * ' Of course I don 't think you 're a a pandar. I know 
 you 're honest, but I 'm sure you 're wrong. I can 't marry 
 Olga. I'm a husband; it won't be long before I'm a 
 father. Think of the position for her. It's common- 
 sense. And there is something in the rules people have 
 made. Anyhow, there 'd come to be something simply 
 because the rules are there and have been working for 
 ages. That would be enough of itself. Say I take Olga. 
 I shut everything else out from her." He stopped, and 
 then, with his heart beating vehemently and his eyes 
 blurred and hot, added: "Suppose we have a child." 
 
 "You needn't. You aren't an infant, Lorrie, are you? 
 And things like that simply depends on how much.
 
 A CHASTE MAN 269 
 
 money you've got. A detail. Later on perhaps. 
 Well, and do you think we wouldn't like a son of yours 
 in our family?" 
 
 "You must see that it wouldn't mean happiness for 
 Olga, in the end?" 
 
 "Question of degree. Not many of us get happiness, 
 not steady and unmixed. Your leaving Olga won't 
 make her happy. Suppose you'd like her to have some- 
 body else?" 
 
 "She won't! I'm not giving her up!" 
 
 "What the devil do you mean?" 
 
 "Of course I'm not. How could I? Oh, you don't 
 understand at all!" 
 
 "No, I don't. That's right. I don't. There's noth- 
 ing to be understood, God help us ! You won 't take her 
 and you won't leave her; you want what can't work " 
 
 ' ' Oh, you don 't know what may happen ! ' ' 
 
 Lawrance suffered. He felt as though the old man 
 were taking him by the head, twisting it round, forcing 
 him to a view that he hated and denied, with a denial 
 stultified by his hatred. 
 
 "What are you going to do then? What's your 
 plan?" 
 
 "You've no right to question me! I haven't got it 
 worked out like a proposition of Euclid. Olga's very 
 young. We can take things as they come to us. There 
 may be some way later. I can't give her up: I won't 
 give her up!" 
 
 "You're going off to Switzerland. You better take 
 care. Not a wise move. You'll lose her. I know the 
 girl, know her well, too. Didn 't you see her face when 
 you said you were going? She's not a child. She's 
 older than girls of twenty. I don't know what she'll do,
 
 270 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 but it won't please you, and the pity of it is it won't 
 please her. When you come back, you'll be just as 
 much married as you ever were, won 't you ? You 're too 
 much afraid, Lorrie, that's the trouble. You're going 
 to Switzerland because you want to put off. Don't tell 
 me that any young fellow will sacrifice himself and his 
 girl to his sister. Not in human nature. For the mat- 
 ter of that, you could perfectly well take your sister out, 
 settle her in, and leave her there. It 's only a chance that 
 that isn't what you've got to do. You're doing the 
 wrong thing. You'll be sorry for it. You wouldn't 
 do it if you faced probabilities. "What's the good of 
 fooling yourself with the off-chance of this or that? 
 Moonshine! A good General doesn't reckon on off- 
 chances " 
 
 "He does, if that's all he has to reckon on." Law- 
 ranee was bitter and dogged. "I've a reason. I can't 
 put Olga on a lower level than my wife. I can't I 
 don't choose to degrade her like that. Don't you see" 
 he tried to warm up convincingly "that it's mon- 
 strous for the one I love to be made inferior ? 
 Why" 
 
 He had fallen back heavily on this idea, which had, 
 since the day before, been working its growth all the 
 more obstinately in his mind because that growth was 
 adventitious and forced. 
 
 The old man raised his grey eyebrows and stared. 
 "Superstition," he said. "And you know it as well as 
 I do." 
 
 Lawrance, feeling that he could not argue, grew angry, 
 and still more tenacious of the "reason" that he had 
 foisted on himself. It was a glove for the hand of the
 
 A CHASTE MAN 271 
 
 inhibition that was stronger than his desire of a more 
 constant and inherent strength. 
 
 "It's the way I feel," he heavily asserted: to which 
 declaration of ethical sentiment the Mariner 's only reply 
 was a long, slow, drink. 
 
 They were silent till Marjorie came in to lay the cloth 
 for supper.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 THERE were only four of them at the meal. 
 Mrs. Flynn stayed upstairs: and she was not 
 again mentioned, except by Marjorie, whose 
 rather woful little chatter was baulked by the silence 
 of her three companions. Ewing did not return, nor did 
 Doris: once Lawrance asked where she was, and Olga 
 said: "She's ill; she's gone to the doctor." Olga's 
 eyes were veiled as she spoke ; her tone was indifferent, 
 and diminished as it were by distance. 
 
 Lawrance, indeed, felt himself surrounded by dis- 
 tances. He had anticipated nothing of this: he had 
 reached out to a nearness to these friends, to a nearness 
 to Olga. He had thought that he would set a seal on 
 the formless future. But Olga hardly seemed to be 
 there : as the meal went on he ceased to give her his looks ; 
 he found himself viewing her in the mirror of past time. 
 All that sense of power that he had had was melted : the 
 world apart from Olga was just as insignificant, but its 
 insignificance had no call on any dominating force from 
 him. Was it because of what the Mariner had said, was 
 it because ? 
 
 Suddenly Marjorie cried: "I've made your bed in 
 Uncle Tof ty 's room ; I got out the clean sheets ! ' ' 
 
 "All right, Marjie. Thanks." 
 
 "Yes, it's at the top of the stairs, next to Olga's. 
 Doris and I sleep at the end of the passage. I'll come 
 in and wake you in the morning. It's fun, your sleep- 
 ing here, isn't it?" 
 
 272
 
 A CHASTE MAN 273 
 
 Lawrance was answering, but stopped, distracted, as 
 he saw that Olga trembled. 
 
 "I'm going to bed d'rec'ly after supper," Marjorie 
 went on. "I'm tired. Olga, aren't you tired? Don't 
 let's wash up tonight. I shan't have to go to school 
 tomorrow morning, shall I? Have you seen Mr. Dea- 
 vitt ? When is he coming again ? ' ' 
 
 Lawrance gave her news of Mr. Deavitt. 
 
 The Mariner hardly uttered a word, and, after sup- 
 per, when Olga and Marjorie had left them, he was no 
 less silent. He kept doing innumerable little things : he 
 cleaned his pipe with a feather, he scraped the bowl, he 
 filled his pouch, and his matchbox, he walked round in 
 search of his slippers : he was earnest with these trifling 
 activities. He kept putting his head to one side, dis- 
 playing his brown crinkled neck, he laid his forefinger 
 meditatively to the side of his long well modelled nose. 
 He drank no more, nor did Lawrance. Lawrance grew 
 nervous with him, wanted to go away. He could not 
 keep on in this wrong current. 
 
 "I think I'll go to bed." He got up. "It's early, 
 I know, but " He held out his hand, which the Mar- 
 iner took, without looking at him. They wished one an- 
 other goodnight. 
 
 In the deceased Claude Tof ton's room Lawrance sat 
 still for a long while. He had recoiled, on his entrance, 
 from the look of the bed, and he sat with his back to it. 
 The clean white linen seemed funereal. He shrank, too, 
 from the very personal reminder given him by the col- 
 lection of Tof ton's ties, hanging with uneven ends on 
 a peg. What were they going to do with the man's 
 things? There was a brown leather collar-box on the 
 dressing-table. On a long nail by the door was hang-
 
 274 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 ing a washbag that bulged, full, no doubt, of Tof ton's 
 last week's dirty linen that would normally have gone 
 to the wash that morning. Who would attend to all 
 these details? Those soiled clothes with their recent 
 contact ? Civilization certainly made things uglier : now 
 a sudden death among savages. . . . Lawrance let his 
 thoughts run in and out: he sat with his eyes fixed on 
 the ground. In that bed to-night he would be the sup- 
 planter of a corpse A bathmat had been put just in 
 front of the dressing-table. Everything, he had noticed, 
 was very neat. They had cleared things away: why 
 should they have left just the ties, the collar-box, and 
 the washbag? Lawrance was glad he had not seen Tof- 
 ton. . . . 
 
 He reflected on the Mariner's point of view, beginning 
 with an embrace, in forced urgency, of the conviction 
 that the old man was utterly wrong. If, agreeing with 
 him, he could act as though he were right, he would 
 shatter himself altogether. It was his unrealized egoism 
 that kept him on the side of virtue. The one sacrifice 
 that was not possible to Lawrance was the sacrifice of 
 his individual inelasticity. Then the fact of his having, 
 with such tremendous completeness, his chance, brought 
 into fierce action all his instinct for refusal and restraint. 
 In his conscious mind he did nothing but repeat his old 
 "tags": "It would be the wrong thing": "I won't 
 degrade her": "She is too young": "Every decent 
 man would say I was right." He suffered, and was 
 proud of his suffering with almost the pride of a cox- 
 comb, though he was too much of a "gentleman" to 
 allow himself to appear before his mind's mirror 
 as "a fine fellow." All his aim was towards humil- 
 ity.
 
 A CHASTE MAN 275 
 
 Growing cramped on his little cane-bottomed chair, he 
 got up and found himself looking at the backs of some 
 dozen of books that were tidily arranged on a small shelf. 
 No doubt they belonged had belonged to Claude Tof- 
 ton. There were no romances of Paul de Kock: these 
 were innocent works, detective stories, humorous stor- 
 ies Lawrance took down "Three Men in a Boat." 
 Yes, it was Tof ton's: "C. Tofton, Cliftonville, August, 
 1901" was written on the flyleaf in a bold broad hand, 
 with flourishes and a thick line underneath. No wonder 
 Ewing's fountain-pen suffered. He turned the pages, 
 and it occurred to him that the ' ' George ' ' of Mr. Jerome 's 
 story rather resembled Tofton in his personal appear- 
 ance, and that he was of just the same social class. You 
 could always tell if a man was not a gentleman by the 
 way he wore his flannels. That way of wearing them, 
 either unusedly, without ease, or with a bravado of lei- 
 sure. Tofton, in flannels, would have looked like this 
 ' ' George. ' ' He would have called them ' ' whites. ' ' Was 
 it worth so much, though, to be a gentleman? If he, 
 Lawrance, had not been a gentleman, he would not 
 have married a lady. He wished that he had married, 
 not just a little beneath him, as he had done, but very 
 flagrantly beneath him. It would have been better, it 
 would have been different. . . . Olga was not of any 
 class. 
 
 Lawrance went back to his chair with the book. He 
 had not read it since he was thirteen, sixteen years 
 ago. For that reason he liked the idea of reading it 
 again. 
 
 In half-an-hour or so he heard Olga 's step on the stair- 
 case, and then her opening of the door of the room next 
 to his. The old man had come up some time before, so
 
 276 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 had Marjorie. Lawrance strove to continue to read. 
 He gave no play to himself. 
 
 It was without any patent volition that he left his 
 room and tapped on the girl 's door. She did not answer, 
 and he went in. 
 
 "Oh!" she exclaimed, "you do look ill." 
 
 She was sitting at a little desk, looking over some let- 
 ters. She wore a white dressing-gown of fine wool, with 
 silk braidings and a silk cord. Her hair was loose and 
 hid her cheeks. The dressing-gown reached nearly to her 
 ankles, which were bare; her feet were in old slippers 
 with a ragged fur lining. The bracelet he had given 
 her on that birthday was on her wrist, hanging rather 
 loosely. How slender her wrist was! So slender that 
 he felt a kind of fear. He stood, with the door ajar, 
 looking at her. 
 
 "I never said goodnight to you," he declared in a 
 hot dry tone of assertion, as though he were arguing a 
 point. 
 
 "I expect you were tired. I'm tired awfully." 
 
 "That's a nice dressing-gown." His hand shut the 
 door. 
 
 "He gave it to me." 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 Olga pointed her thumb towards Tof ton's room. "I 
 didn't think it mattered," she said in an even voice, "if 
 he wanted to." 
 
 "Oh, well; I suppose not, so long as " 
 
 "I've been wondering if these things people make 
 such a lot about do matter very much after all. ' ' 
 
 "Your father's said anything? He's wrong, Olga. 
 Don't you believe " 
 
 "No, he didn't. I've been saying things to myself :
 
 A CHASTE MAN 277 
 
 I'm not happy at all. Everything seems to have to 
 have gone away. You're going away!" She stood be- 
 fore him, with her rich young head drooped and her 
 child 's figure a little swaying. ' ' I wish you hadn 't kissed 
 me at all ever! I wish you hadn't taken me away that 
 time I wish I'd stayed! It wouldn't have mattered. 
 The things that do happen are the worst, not the things 
 we're afraid will happen. If we stop what's coming, 
 it's so much the worse After this, I'm going to take 
 everything that comes everything. The other way's 
 wrong ! Oh ! " She put her hand to her lips which were 
 trembling under her trembling words. She turned from 
 him to the window, and leaned against it, with one arm 
 raised. 
 
 Lawrance cleared his throat with a queer pedantic 
 sound. "Can't you wait for me?" His eyes were fixed 
 upon the white curve of her wrist and the frail begin- 
 ning lines of her arm shown by the dropping of her 
 sleeve. " I 'm coming back ! ' ' 
 
 She didn't answer: she leaned her head a little fur- 
 ther forward. Her neck showed, defenceless, between the 
 falls of her hair. The young man went to her and took 
 her quickly in his arms. 
 
 "You must believe in me," he whispered. "I shall 
 always love you. I shall never give you up !" 
 
 To his amazement, she laughed. 
 
 "Olga!" he added, rather pompously. "You don't 
 believe me, then?" 
 
 "It doesn't matter, does it, do you think? what we 
 say?" 
 
 She was sitting on his knees now, on her bed, one of 
 her slippered feet toying with the other. She sat there, 
 as though she had been ten years old, with an attentive-
 
 278 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 ness so slight that it was almost listless. It seemed that 
 she was tired, but not quite too tired to listen to a story. 
 
 Lawrance did not know what to do. His attention be- 
 gan to be distracted, painfully, by her left slipper, which 
 had loosened and was showing her smooth heel. He 
 thought of the marble of those bridges at Venice, marble 
 that was warm, worn from the chill of its first surface. 
 It would be terrible, he thought gravely, if the slipper 
 should come off. How far could his own endurance be 
 trusted ? Far it must go. 
 
 "It's not what we say." He spoke at last. "It's 
 what we mean. I want to tell you what I mean. ' ' 
 
 "But I know you're going away." 
 
 "But if I'm fond of you still if you" 
 
 "7 wouldn't go away. It doesn't come even. It 
 isn't fair. Oh, I don't want to want you ! And I shall 
 do I shall do whatever happens. I don't belong to 
 you!" She gave her foot a little jerk, so that the slip- 
 per at last fell off: she began rubbing her toes against 
 the other slipper's edge of fur. 
 
 Lawrance looked away, but the pressure of his arms 
 on her tightened. He clung to the sense that, for all 
 that she said, she was belonging to him more than ever 
 before, that he lived in her more surely. "I live, and 
 yet not I " He had never felt that before to-day, not 
 in his whole life. . . . When he was nineteen there had 
 been a phase of conversion to ritualistic Anglicanism; 
 he remembered that now. Then there had been some hint 
 of this. He had gone to Confession : then, as now, he had 
 been purged of himself. Lawrance made the call, in 
 full, upon his idealism, and Olga, by her defencelessness, 
 her fatigue, her unhappiness, unwittingly gave him aid. 
 
 "You won't do that," he told her, feeling that he must
 
 A CHASTE MAN 279 
 
 speak to be safe, though his words seemed to try to 
 artificialize his emotions. "Can't we trust each other? 
 It 's not brave to take things as they come, it 's not intel- 
 ligent, is it? And it doesn't work out right, either. 
 Think of poor Doris ! ' ' 
 
 "I'm not Doris. And I'd just as soon be Doris, any- 
 how." 
 
 She put up her bare foot, resting it upon her knee. 
 Lawrance felt himself rolled up like a wave to her, and 
 then rolled back, again and again. He watched, ab- 
 sorbed: he wondered what would happen. It was like 
 the first tentative stage of the operation of an anesthetic. 
 He began to feel calm, resigned, irresponsible. 
 
 "You know " Olga said slowly, "I told you; I'm 
 not afraid of you. I thought I would be afraid, I 
 thought I'd be afraid and happy, excitingly and fear- 
 fully and terribly happy. You made me think that, be- 
 cause I'd never thought it before. It was after that 
 time we were in the cab, after the theatre. And much 
 more later. It grew; it was funny, how it grew, quite 
 suddenly, one time and another. I knew you couldn't 
 be happy in that way, unless you were afraid I must 
 be afraid, I must be! You showed me, but I knew 
 it, really, by myself, afterwards. When you were with 
 me that morning in that hotel, I was sure. It had been 
 coming all that time. A sort of fear and a sort of joy: 
 but I don 't have either ! ' ' 
 
 "It's I who am afraid of you " 
 
 She turned and looked at him, troubled; with her 
 frown. ' ' If any one else comes, ' ' she said painfully, ' ' it 
 won 't be the same ; it won 't be what I thought. But it 
 will be, in a way. Ah, I thought it would be like I 
 said, only you and me and no one else " She broke
 
 280 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 off, and then, with a bitter and ashamed release of pas- 
 sion: "It's through you!" she cried, "it ought to be! 
 I couldn't say it to anybody else, and yet you don't 
 understand ! You 're the first doesn 't that matter ? 
 isn't that important? Sometimes when I've thought 
 of you, I 've been ashamed of things. Do you know what 
 Doris said to me one day ? She said : ' I wouldn 't like 
 to look the way you do; it's horrid!' She made me 
 worse ashamed, but I needn't be any more, need I? 
 I'm not going to be! You you " 
 
 She put her light arms round him, and to his breast 
 her shadowed pale face, that was to him not so real now 
 as the face of a dream. He knew, and did not know, 
 that she kissed him, many times. He was under com- 
 pulsion to stand up. 
 
 "Goodnight," he said, and then caught sudden sight 
 of himself as preposterous, a sight determining his reso- 
 lution. 
 
 "What is it?" She drew away, but held him still. 
 1 'Is it your wife?" 
 
 "Oh, Olga!" He snatched at the old false reason. 
 "She's not going to be better than you! You 
 wouldn't" 
 
 "That doesn't matter it doesn't! You shan't go!" 
 she cried out, looking like a mother, a look tragic, dom- 
 inating. The whiteness of her lips and the usurping 
 haggardness of her face enhanced her transformation. 
 She clung to him. 
 
 "Don't you see I must?" But her sweet and bitter 
 violence was deterring him from the goal of his words 
 at the moment when she released him. 
 
 "You shan't stay to-morrow! No, I can't I hate 
 you! You've taken it all away from me! I didn't be-
 
 A CHASTE MAN 281 
 
 long to you you're not mine and I don't want your 
 bracelet any more ! ' ' 
 
 Her changed look, as she pulled at the bracelet, which 
 would not easily come unclasped, chilled him: he knew 
 that she thought him a fool, and that, like Muriel, and 
 as Muriel had said she would, she despised him: de- 
 spised him for his feelings and his principles and his 
 half -measures, for his set resolve that cut such a sorry 
 figure under the passion that shook and seared, but would 
 not boldly break it. 
 
 ' ' There ! ' ' she cried, holding the bracelet to him, then 
 throwing it on the bed. 
 
 He fell back, after that moment, on being what he was, 
 on doing what he "had to do." Those waves no longer 
 rolled up and back again, but a single drawing tide had 
 come for him, with power of outer reach. She gazed 
 at him, with losing eyes, from the distance that she knew.
 
 CHAPTEE XXIX 
 
 ST. FRANZ struck Lawrance, on his first view, as 
 ugly and dirty. The snow had begun to melt on 
 the lower slopes; further up it lay caked and 
 gleaming, sometimes with a bluish whiteness in the strong 
 sun. It seemed an inhospitable country, unfriendly to 
 efforts of intelligence, with a cold machine-like demand 
 for efforts of the body. The little houses of the Chalet 
 type looked all as though they had been put, awkwardly, 
 in the wrong places ; against the snow they had a yellow 
 dirty look, a look that was on everything, on the piled- 
 up wood seen everywhere, on the roads scraped of snow, 
 on the balconies, with their chairs and beds, their rugs 
 and cushions, on the plump peasants, with their heavy 
 brows and stupid faces. They, too, had this yellow dirty 
 look, even though they were rosy-cheeked. 
 
 The mountains were not very high: after the other 
 Alps by which Lawrance and his sister had passed, they 
 seemed dwarfed. Then those trees, with their very 
 bright, their painted, green : Lawrance was not inclined 
 to accept the unfamiliarity of them, either. He sat in 
 his room at the sanitarium friends and relatives of pa- 
 tients could stay there, looking away from the window 
 at his unopened trunk. Letty's room was next to his. 
 He was not sorry to be running some slight risk of con- 
 sumption. But was he ? The people here took all man- 
 ner of precautions, and the air was so good. Its pe- 
 
 282
 
 A CHASTE MAN 283 
 
 culiar rare quality did not suit Lawrance's heart, he 
 had found that out already; he was breathless and a 
 little faint from walking upstairs. But no doubt he was 
 tired from the journey What a horrible depressing 
 place! There was no softness, no subtlety, anywhere: 
 it was made for hard, insensitive, brutal people. The 
 very flowers had no caress in their bloom; they were 
 unfeelingly bright, like those trees and the feathery vivid 
 green grass down in the valleys. 
 
 Letty tapped from outside. As he said "Yes!" he 
 was reminded of those taps of Muriel's on the communi- 
 cating door of their rooms at Malstowe. "Was there al- 
 ways to be another woman keeping him from Olga 
 tapping at his door ? 
 
 "I simply love this place!" cried Letty. 
 
 She looked as pretty and as happy as he had ever seen 
 her: yet he could not be glad. He reproached himself 
 angrily, as he had many times reproached himself dur- 
 ing their journey. The higher Letty 's spirits, the more 
 depressed were his own, in obedience, it seemed, to some 
 natural law. Lawrance was increasingly convinced of 
 sin, afflicted by his own immorality, restive under it. 
 
 ''I'm sure I shall get quite well here," Letty went 
 brightly on. ' ' Don 't you like it too ? " 
 
 ' ' Oh, yes, of course I do. ' ' 
 
 "So this situation of mine is my reward for virtue," 
 he was thinking. "Am I glad can I be that I left 
 Olga like that?" What would it have been if. . . . 
 Would his arms have been so empty then; empty by 
 night, empty by day ? 
 
 "There seem to be some awfully nice people staying 
 here. I just saw such a handsome young man in the 
 passage. ' '
 
 284 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 "I daresay there are lots of handsome men." 
 
 Yes, that was what he had felt, when he had got back 
 to his own room that night, that his arms were empty. 
 A void striking from his arms inwards, and striking 
 ever since then. 
 
 " Where is it that those people of yours live, Lady 
 Petistree and Lady Blanche ?" 
 
 ' ' Oh, Villa something. I 've got the letter in my suit- 
 case." 
 
 He should be wearing the garland of virtue. If he 
 wore it, it was thorny, and he could not be proud of his 
 pain now. 
 
 " Isn't it a beautiful place? All the snow, and such 
 bright sunshine ! ' ' Letty stood on tiptoe ; she threw out 
 her arms. ' ' I feel ever so much better already ! ' ' 
 
 She went on talking as he got up and looked for the 
 letter in the flap of his valise. ' ' Here it is, ' ' he told her. 
 '" Villa Kraus.' " 
 
 "What a horrid German name!" 
 
 "Oh, this is German-speaking Switzerland. All the 
 names are German." 
 
 He should never have kissed Olga that night after the 
 theatre. Yes, that was the beginning of everything. 
 He was suffering for the immorality of that, not for the 
 morality of his later refusals. But yet 
 
 "How stern you're looking, Oliver! It doesn't mat- 
 ter so much the names being German, does it ? " 
 
 "Oh, no!" He smiled with a smile that seemed to 
 strain his cheeks. "And the money's French, anyhow!" 
 
 ' ' Well, that 's something ! " She laughed. ' ' Don 't go 
 losing that letter." She took it, and read aloud: 
 " 'The Countess of Petistree, Villa Kraus. Introducing 
 Oliver Lawrance, Esq., and Miss Lawrance.' It was
 
 A CHASTE MAN 285 
 
 very nice of Lord Burpham, wasn 't it ? especially as he 
 didn't know me. But of course," she was increasingly 
 gay ' ' he knew how nice you were ! ' ' 
 
 Lawrance, thinking of the intention of that letter, 
 looked sterner still. "Oh," he said, "they were finding 
 it pretty dull here ! ' ' 
 
 "I expect they're the kind of people who are bored 
 in any place they're not used to. I'm not a bit like 
 that. I don't mean to be bored. I don't see how any 
 one can be, in this air! Wasn't the journey exciting, 
 too? Those soldiers in red trousers guarding the rail- 
 way lines ! I shall always remember seeing that bridge 
 you know, the bridge near Amiens that they showed 
 us, the one the French had blown up when the Germans 
 were getting so near Paris. Fancy they'd been fight- 
 ing only a mile or two off from where we were. Then 
 directly we got into Switzerland everything was differ- 
 ent I suppose they'll stay neutral; do you think they 
 will?" 
 
 She chattered on, sitting on his bed. He felt that he 
 was without life ; even the flick of disliking the place had 
 left him. How curious that he had once been fright- 
 ened by the idea of annihilation, he was thinking, as he 
 murmured something about the nuisance of their having 
 had to wait so long at Folkestone and Boulogne. He had 
 never before reached the point where he would have 
 deliberately preferred non-existence to existence. 
 
 "Let's go out!" said the girl, teased by his irrespon- 
 siveness. 
 
 He told her that she ought to rest after the journey. 
 "Doctor Meyer's coming to see you, too." 
 
 ' ' Come along ! ' ' She did not argue. 
 
 A little way outside the sanitarium they passed a par-
 
 286 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 ticularly good looking young man of about Lawrance's 
 age. He took off his straw hat, and bowed to them with 
 a radiant smile that showed teeth white as a negro's. 
 Lawrance was startled out of his apathy into the obser- 
 vation that the young man compelled. He was beauti- 
 fully dressed in grey; his double-breasted coat had a 
 perfect hang, and his brown boots looked expensive, but 
 not too new. His young but not boyish face was ex- 
 tremely sunburnt; he had crisp short curls of a blond 
 gold, glistening. 
 
 Lawrance turned and watched the receding figure. 
 ''He's going to the sanitarium," he said. "He can't be 
 ill, surely?" But the figure, he reflected, might be too 
 dainty for health. Yes, the legs and waist were cer- 
 tainly abnormally slender, though the shoulders looked 
 broad, padded, perhaps, thought Lawrance, who began 
 to feel, mildly, the natural male resentment. 
 
 "A pretty fellow," he said sarcastically. 
 
 "He looks awfully nice," retorted Letty, who had not 
 turned to look back. "He's the one I saw in the pas- 
 sage." She flushed slightly. "He's got such jolly 
 eyes." 
 
 "I didn't notice his eyes. I don't like his mouth, 
 though ; and what the deuce does he mean by taking off 
 his hat to us?" 
 
 "Oh, he's in the sanitarium, and so are we. I sup- 
 pose everybody knows one another here." 
 
 "I don't in the least want to know that chap." 
 
 Letty would get excited, he was thinking ; it would be 
 worse than at Malstowe. Fellows like Phillips were 
 everywhere. He looked at his sister, whose gaiety was 
 now subdued. She was not ' ' fast, ' ' certainly she wasn 't. 
 She was a "nice girl," the kind of girl you could trust,
 
 A CHASTE MAN 287 
 
 the kind of girl who wouldn't think of anything "hor- 
 rid." You could see, from her wholesome mouth and 
 her confident playful eyes that she was, from a brother's 
 point of view, "the right sort." She remained silent; 
 he saw that she was half smiling. 
 
 ' ' Look here, Letty, ' ' he said rather awkwardly. ' ' You 
 must keep pretty quiet here, you know. I've got to 
 you know. You want to get well, don 't you ? ' ' 
 
 "Oh, I'll get well all right! Don't you worry and 
 don't be silly." 
 
 As they were making their way to one of the narrow 
 mountain-paths she grew suddenly tired, and had to 
 rest. They came back to the sanitarium slowly and by 
 degrees, though the way was short. She lay down on a 
 long chair on the balcony outside her room: she was 
 exhausted. 
 
 Lawrance felt a brute, but he could not help being 
 glad of this diversion that compelled him to be con- 
 cerned.
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 THE handsome young man reappeared the next 
 morning: he came up to Lawrance in the big 
 bright hall of the sanitarium, and introduced 
 L^ himself. Cyprian Strange, his name was. Lawrance 
 could not make up his mind if his manners were good: 
 they were certainly easy; they had a vivid nonchalance 
 that was unusual and taking. He succeeded in being 
 companionable at once, but not in the least intrusive or 
 stressed. "He doesn't want to know me, confound 
 him!" thought Lawrance, as young Strange amicably 
 rippled off his inquiries and his suggestions. "It's Letty 
 he's after. This is his first move." 
 
 "No, I can't say that I do like the place, as yet," 
 he replied ungraciously to a question that was followed 
 by a pause. 
 
 "Of course you don't. No one could, not any one 
 with any intelligence, any taste. "We poor devils have 
 to stay, though. You're not one of us, I can see that." 
 The tone was suave, with an intentional flavour of flat- 
 tering jealousy. "It's a dreadful place. As these 
 Americans say, it's the limit. All those horrid bric-a- 
 brac shops, with their souvenirs and their Tauchnitz 
 books! And have you seen that semi-English sporting 
 hotel where people arrive in cars and wear knickerbock- 
 ers and tweed suits? I can't stand the very name of 
 Harris tweed, can you?" He eyed Lawrance tenta- 
 tively. 
 
 288
 
 A CHASTE MAN 289 
 
 "Oh, I don't know. It's the dirty look of everything 
 that gets on my nerves. And the climate doesn't suit 
 me, either." 
 
 "You're right; you're right, sir! The whole place 
 does look soiled. Odd that that should have struck you, 
 too. And then there's that abominable cemetery, but 
 look here," he began to speak eagerly, still keeping his 
 bright and not large hazel eyes on his interlocutor, "you 
 wait till you get to know some of the people, some of 
 the patients, some of us. We 're a fine lot, I can tell you ! 
 All nationalities Are you doing anything? We 
 might go out and I could tell you." 
 
 "It won't be too much for you?" Lawrance did not 
 disguise his reluctance. 
 
 "Well, it's some time since I had my last little 
 haemorrhage. ' ' 
 
 They went out into the liberal sunlight. Lawrance 
 felt quite as though his arm were being taken, but it 
 wasn 't : he glanced sharply at Cyprian Strange, to make 
 sure that he was not being touched. 
 
 "There's a Kussian here, or I believe he's a Pole, 
 he's the most entertaining. Desperately in love with a 
 little Italian girl who won't look at him. They're ro- 
 mantic, these Poles." Lawrance's attention quickened 
 at the mention of a nationality in which Olga had a 
 share. "He shot himself. Through the chest, too, but 
 he didn't die. He'd been given up because of his lungs 
 long ago. But now he's getting better, and his doctor 
 thinks he '11 recover. His one wish now is that he should 
 live and the girl die. Very likely she will. To round 
 the story off, she ought now to be hopelessly in love with 
 him, but I'm afraid she isn't." He stooped, picked a 
 bright flower, and put it in his buttonhole.
 
 290 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 "Are there many love-affairs among the patients?" 
 
 "All the time." Young Cyprian spoke with convic- 
 tion. "It's perfectly scandalous. The discipline is so 
 very lax. Of course if your temperature goes up above 
 a certain point you're kept in bed. But there's no sys- 
 tem. It's an individual thing; depends on your doctor's 
 personal orders. They are, I suppose, to be considered 
 as binding. There's a perpetual shifting about 
 you'll see in the dining room; people coming and going 
 all the time, to and from the general table. Dramatic, 
 you know; yes, really, it's a bit dramatic. You never 
 know who will go next. They disappear: sometimes 
 they come back, sometimes they don't. I've seen a good 
 few of 'em picked off. They take them out by night, 
 you know, when nobody's looking. Everything kept 
 dark; so discouraging to us if it weren't. But of course 
 we know all right." 
 
 Lawrance recoiled: it was abominable, he thought, of 
 this fellow to talk to a patient's brother in that way, the 
 first time he got hold of him. He determined to show his 
 disapproval by not speaking. Cyprian Strange walked 
 on, debonair as ever, smiling to himself, not at all em- 
 barrassed by the silence. He broke it, at length, quite 
 casually. 
 
 "You won't be here long," he remarked. "Your wife 
 will be cured in a month or two. I can always tell with 
 a new case. In fact I know as much about consumption 
 as the doctors. Three classes Live: Die: Doubtful. 
 And the doubtful class is a very small one. The only 
 one I've been wrong about in the last year is that Rus- 
 sian. But it was his trying to kill himself that saved 
 him. How is your wife today ?"
 
 A CHASTE MAN 291 
 
 "My sister has to stay in bed, for to-day, at any 
 rate." 
 
 "I'm sorry." Cyprian made no reference to his mis- 
 take, but there was a change in his expression. "But 
 you know that often happens the first day. The journey 
 and the change it all sends the temperature up. Your 
 sister will be all right tomorrow. I'm glad the snow's 
 melting. ' ' 
 
 Lawrance had been waiting, on the defensive, for the 
 young gallant to mention Letty, but he recognized that 
 to this mention of her his defensive could not apply. 
 He was now well on his slow way to forgive Strange 's 
 cynical flippancy: it did not seem to have been in such 
 bad taste, after all. 
 
 Cyprian continued to be conversational as they walked 
 down and up the slopes, among the pines, and along the 
 little mountain-paths, or stood and watched the "great 
 blond bully-boys," as he phrased it, "showing off as 
 daredevils, crossing glaciers," and a party of mountain- 
 climbers, with Alpenstocks and great knapsacks, stream- 
 ing up from the German hotel. He loved looking about, 
 he informed his companion, and he loved walking: he 
 was always walking too much and bringing on haemor- 
 rhages. ' ' I give myself five years more, ' ' he said. " I 'm 
 a slow case." Lawrance had to admit that he was di- 
 verted, that it was more tolerable being with Strange 
 than being alone: but "Hang it," he thought at the 
 same time, "that's of course just what he wants me to 
 feel; that's what he's after." He had given the fellow 
 no encouragement, yet he was "getting in with" him 
 splendidly. Strange had the strong advantage, which 
 Lawrance could not clearly place, of being totally dis-
 
 292 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 connected with Olga; he gave Lawrance the full view 
 of a sphere completely foreign to the girl; he provided 
 precisely the refreshment and relaxation of which Law- 
 rance stood in need. Letty's brother was still, however, 
 mistrustful to a certain point, and irritated now and 
 again by some shades of Cyprian's way with him, a way 
 which could bear remotely the implication, friendly 
 enough, that he was a bit stupid and a bit crude. It 
 was irritating, too, that smooth deference of this good- 
 looking fair fellow 's to him, as to a distinctly older man, 
 his calling him occasionally "sir," for example, con- 
 sidering that there could not be more than a year or 
 two 's difference in their ages. Strange was treating him 
 as a chaperon; he was being galant to him out of 
 habit, perhaps, as if Lawrance were a rather elderly 
 lady. Especially since he had found out the relation- 
 ship to Letty. All the same the chap was diverting; he 
 took Lawrance's mind off, he passed the time. He had 
 a certain impudence that was really rather becoming, 
 though it had no business to be. 
 
 Lawrance that evening remembered things Strange had 
 said, with an amusement that his ingrained decency a lit- 
 tle resented ; things about women, in particular. Strange 
 had the greatest contempt for women. They should 
 either, he had declared, be insulted or fooled, if you 
 wanted to get hold of them. "And it's a question if 
 they're even worth the trouble of doing that. We get 
 to know just how much the game with girls is worth, 
 don't we? We get to put them in their right place. 
 One can be quite happy without them," he added, in- 
 creasing his companion's determination to be watchful. 
 Lawrance observed, and checked the fact, that Letty was 
 not mentioned again.
 
 A CHASTE MAN 293 
 
 Young Strange would put a lavender-gloved finger to 
 his dainty little nose at Death : but casually, without any 
 violence of gesture. "I keep the old grey dog at a dis- 
 tance still," he said. "Some of my friends have been 
 bitten lately, though." He would make little hits at 
 Mortality. 
 
 Lawrance, after very few days, was drawn into a sort 
 of intimacy with this man, whose bland yet stinging 
 aplomb was continually striking him as being the most 
 immoral thing he had ever come across. But he was in 
 no mood for the exercise of his own morality against the 
 vicious blitheness of this new comrade : he was apathetic, 
 willing enough to drift. He did indeed pay tribute to 
 his conscience by arguing that it was an excellent thing 
 that he should be often with young Strange, because 
 that narrowed the fellow 's opportunities with Letty ; but 
 the argument was listlessly made. Lawrance felt very 
 much older and milder, and dull in a new way, dull to 
 himself, as he had never been before. He wondered 
 sometimes that Cyprian Strange could put up with him : 
 certainly he was a sorry companion. 
 
 Cyprian invariably paid much more attention to Law- 
 rance than to Letty when the three of them were to- 
 gether. At Letty he would smile in his dazzling sudden 
 way; he was of course consistently galant with her, but 
 with a gallantry of discreet poise and light distant wings. 
 She was always there, it seemed, as his good friend's 
 sister: Lawrance was never ''the girl's brother," not 
 for a moment. 
 
 Lady Petistree and her daughter were, as might have 
 been supposed, already known to Cyprian. "I culti- 
 vate the aristocracy," he remarked. "I always have. I 
 believe in a certain amount of honest snobbery." He
 
 294 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 could not help showing that he was rather impressed, 
 even a little piqued, by the Lawrances having a letter 
 of introduction. He was informative about the two la- 
 dies. ''Lady Blanche " he told Lawrance in the 
 course of one of their frequent walks together, "her 
 husband killed at Mons, I expect you know. Captain 
 Voltalin. She went into a consumption afterwards. 
 Too faithful to his memory, that was it," he added, an- 
 ticipating and enjoying with keen relish the twinge of 
 this observation. "She's happier now, though, and I 
 think she'll get well. A tall fair girl, rather pretty. 
 The mother's a nonentity. One of the 'many too 
 many. ' They never call on any one, you know. And 
 anyhow the newcomers call here, Continental fashion. 
 I called on them myself, just walked in one afternoon. 
 That was all right why not ? When will you go ? " 
 
 But Lawrance would not call on Lady Petistree yet. 
 Letty was in a fluctuating state, with an uncertain tern- . 
 perature. Her doctor frequently insisted on her stay- 
 ing in bed, and on those days she was nervous and ir- 
 ritable. Lawrance would sit on her balcony and listen 
 to her complaints. These balconies, with their chairs 
 and beds, overlooked one another, producing thus a pe- 
 culiarly melancholy and subduing effect on him, but no 
 effect at all, apparently, upon her. In bed she was 
 neither melancholy nor subdued, but petulantly restless, 
 and when she was up, the released vitality of her spirit 
 was more disconcerting still. She made friends on every 
 side ; she talked too much ; she overdid everything. She 
 worked up a lively interest in taking lessons in French 
 from a young Hungarian who spoke the language nearly 
 as badly as she did. He told her he was a naturalized 
 Greek. She perplexed herself excitedly over the cos-
 
 A CHASTE MAN 295 
 
 tume that she should wear at a coming fancy dress ball 
 that was to be held in the sanitarium. She was pop- 
 ular and made several conquests. Lawrance vowed that 
 he would not countenance even the small diversion of 
 a call at the Villa Kraus till she had really settled 
 down. Meanwhile Doctor Meyer was fairly encourag- 
 ing. 
 
 "It is the mind, my dear young sir." He spoke 
 through his beard, with a thick yet lucid emphasis, in 
 short and often uncompleted sentences, with a timed in- 
 terval between each. ''The mind. If you could lay 
 just a little finger. It is like what is in a clock. How 
 do you call it? A pendulum? Ah, yes! If you 
 could touch the pendulum." He held out a forefinger, 
 moved it horizontally backwards and forwards, then 
 touched it with the forefinger of his other hand. "Jus' 
 like that. Or the tongue of a bell. You stop it. You 
 see? The young lady moves too much inside. The 
 same, too, when she is in bed. More, perhaps. You un- 
 derstand me, my dear young sir? To be joos a leetle 
 more you know steady. It is not a bad case. Not 
 bad at all. Not now. But if we could make her steadied. 
 Settled. If she could be interested in something that is 
 quiet. It is difficult, I know. It is always difficult. It 
 may be you will think of some way. For this you would 
 be a good doctor ; you would be a better doctor than I, 
 my dear young sir. If she were phlegmatic, as they say 
 you English are, if she were content. "We want some- 
 thing to make her content. She might be cured nearly 
 in a month in two months." 
 
 "How silly of him!" was what Letty said when the 
 substance of this discourse was passed on to her. "Why, 
 I am quiet. I'm as quiet as I can be! We don't do
 
 296 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 anything, and I've never been in bed so much in my 
 life." 
 
 She grew restive with her brother. She would tell him 
 that they weren't the Siamese twins, and now and again 
 she gave him the slip. He did not reproach her. He 
 stood on his dignity, and was helped to this position 
 by his inertia. How could he be "after her" every min- 
 ute? He did what he could. He had gone so far as to 
 warn her about young Strange. "Take care: remember 
 you've never met a man of his kind before." That was 
 sensible enough, but she had only laughed at him. 
 
 Lawrance was occupied to some extent by his work 
 for the Magazine. Every week he despatched manu- 
 script to Mr. Inge. Then he wrote regularly to his wife 
 and to his mother, regularly and mechanically. He did 
 not write to Olga. He thought it would be weak to 
 write. He had said: "Wait for me": he would not 
 repeat it. He had given her his address before he left 
 Glasden Road, he had stayed only the one night, and 
 she had handed the paper back to him, with no betraying 
 sign of any emotion. He concluded, or determined to 
 conclude, that she simply meant they had better not 
 correspond. Muriel wrote to him in a reserved, but 
 friendly tone: she always inquired after Letty. Mrs. 
 Lawrance wrote exactly the same kind of letters that she 
 had been writing her son ever since he went to his Pri- 
 vate School: she often did not refer to Letty at all, ex- 
 cept to send her her love. 
 
 Lawrance 's mood of apathy did not hold constant oc- 
 cupation. There came after awhile the alternation of 
 a mood of savage desire, of passion clawed and f anged 
 that tore at him as at an anchorite victim, and left him 
 in the throes of a saddening hunger. Olga, in waking
 
 A CHASTE MAN 297 
 
 thoughts and in dreams, crucified his flesh. He could 
 understand the need of that adjusting remedy for pas- 
 sionate anchorites, self-torture. When under this mood 
 or its after-effects, he let his wilful sister go her own way 
 entirely, then only his affection for her seemed to waver 
 and fail, he applied himself much more arduously than 
 usual to his work for the Office, and he avoided Cyprian 
 Strange.
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 AS the weeks went, Letty improved in health. 
 Doctor Meyer was much pleased with her. 
 "She has sense," he said. ''She has will. 
 She is cured. She shall so surely be cured that she is 
 cured now. You understand me?" Quite suddenly, it 
 seemed, she had become stable and calm, docile. The 
 change struck Lawrance as unnatural; he suspected it 
 at first, but it held ground. She had come to be per- 
 fectly willing to rest, to do what she was told. She 
 would read Tauchnitz novels, or sit still and contented 
 for hours together on her balcony, resting a tranquil 
 gaze upon the smally successful landscape, upon the 
 mediocre pines. Yet she was not lethargic : she was her- 
 self, but older and more serene. 
 
 Lawrance acknowledged the working virtue of the air. 
 He wrote happily to his mother and his wife, and he was 
 himself, if not happy, satisfied and justified. Something 
 at least had been done: he had done something. Be- 
 cause he had, as he thought, saved Letty, his affection 
 for her returned with a will, an affection of quickened 
 pulse. They would soon go back to England ; he would 
 see Olga again ; he would lose neither Olga nor Letty : he 
 would have been right. He indulged these anticipations 
 without thought of the barrier that his wife presented, 
 though the barrier was as real as ever. Such reflections 
 as he entertained about his child that was to be born 
 
 298
 
 A CHASTE MAN 299 
 
 were always in rigid separation, and he could not make 
 them important. When he tried to imagine his son or 
 his daughter, his imagination failed him: he found it 
 difficult to believe in offspring, and still more difficult 
 to apply offspring to Muriel and himself together, as 
 equal sharers. Muriel mentioned her health now and 
 then ; she told him she was quite well. 
 
 They had been several times to the Villa Kraus, and 
 Cyprian Strange had occasionally come with them. Law- 
 ranee thought him a shade too well-mannered with Lady 
 Blanche. Lady Blanche, if -she had not been dressed with 
 such skilful adaptation, would have had to confess to 
 being built on too large a scale : as things were, she was 
 Juno-like still in a girlish way, and her mourning set off 
 her fairness admirably. Her rather too full face was 
 of a usual pink and white. There was intelligence in her 
 blue eyes, but an intelligence demurring to effort. The 
 eyes hinted a possible betrayal of cruelty, cruelty of a 
 patrician kind, in which she herself would not be too 
 much involved. She did not interest Lawrance, neither 
 did Lawrance interest her, but there was evidently a rap- 
 port between her and Cyprian. He was recognizably a 
 sort of squire for her, in his place : he pleased her, but 
 any excitement that he gave was well under the poised 
 young lady's control. She certainly had no affection 
 for him : it was obvious that affection was not in her line. 
 Lady Petistree, a slim straight woman with abundant 
 grey hair and thin grey eyebrows, questioningly arched, 
 did not favour the young beau, but she took to Lawrance, 
 who might, if he had been so minded, have reaped a re- 
 ward for his sacrificial exile by sitting and talking for 
 hours with this elderly countess. His being married and 
 yet not middle-aged seemed to give him a standing with.
 
 300 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 her, but it was some time before she could determine 
 who he was and what was his reason for existing. She 
 had a particularly vague mind. 
 
 "And what relation were you to dear Charley?" she 
 had asked suddenly in her low blurred voice, during the 
 first visit : and a little later : ' ' Wasn 't there an aunt of 
 yours, one of the Wrevilles?" which she pronounced 
 "Wrivvles." 
 
 She had a pleasing childishness : one of her ungrounded 
 convictions was that St. Franz was within sound of the 
 guns: "We can hear them doing it from here; making 
 war, you know." When Cyprian informed her that 
 Lawrance went in for writing : ' ' Writing ? ' ' she queried, 
 with sweet simplicity. "Books?" She was always in 
 the same tone. 
 
 Both ladies were "nice" to Letty, though the daughter, 
 before Cyprian, was apt to play her, as ' ' the other girl, ' ' 
 off against herself, with the usual dissimulation of aim. 
 But this was not done in any earnest: it was a matter 
 of simple reflex action, and put nobody out. Lady 
 Blanche, being as her brother-in-law had said, bored at 
 St. Franz, was inclined to be more amiable than anything 
 else to these strangers. It is true that she tried amus- 
 ing herself by saying little snubbing things to Lawrance 
 now and again: he remarked once that there had been 
 a "rage" a few winters ago for a certain indoor game: 
 ' ' Oh, indeed, ' ' she replied ; " I was spared it. ' ' He did 
 not miss the implication that the game had been con- 
 fined to bourgeois circles, nor did Letty, who was ruf- 
 fled. Lawrance was not ruffled at all ; the constant back- 
 ground of his emotional concerns was incompatible with 
 any social anxieties or social lapses. "Well, I won a 
 match-holder at that game, anyhow," he had rejoined
 
 A CHASTE MAN 301 
 
 calmly, and whsn Lady Blanche neatly shot out to trip 
 him up with: "And what is a match-holder?" he kept 
 his balance perfectly in the grave reply: "A receptacle 
 for holding matches." She had the satisfaction of no- 
 ticing that he blushed a moment later: an illegitimate 
 satisfaction, because the blush came from a sudden an- 
 ticipation of Lady Petistree 's writing to Lord Burpham, 
 or meeting him later, and revealing that Olga and Letty 
 were two quite different people. 
 
 The two patrician widows did not embarrass Lawrance, 
 but they more and more impressed him as irrelevant. 
 Now if only Muriel could have had his chance with them ! 
 He had refrained from even mentioning the ladies in his 
 letters to her ; he knew she would be pained and envious. 
 If only she What a pity ! But what had Lady Petis- 
 tree and Lady Blanche Voltalin to do with him? he 
 thought: why was he sitting there with them at this 
 Villa Kraus? For the first time he was confronted by 
 the curious fact that Life is forever bringing us into 
 relations with people who are foreign. Why do we all 
 submit ? he thought : why do we not put our hands over 
 our eyes and turn away? But instead, our submission 
 goes further still: we consent to lose those whom we 
 like and those whom we love. It was quite the way of 
 things that he should be in the Villa Kraus and not in 
 the house in the Glasden Road. Thousands of others 
 millions shared his destiny. 
 
 He envied Cyprian Strange. Cyprian could evidently 
 turn everything to his purpose. He enjoyed himself at 
 the sanitarium ; he enjoyed himself with the two ladies. 
 Their drawing-room had drama for him: he played his 
 part, with interest in himself and in others, no matter 
 what others, and no matter where he might be. He
 
 302 
 
 would discourse at great length upon Lady Blanche and 
 Lady Petistree, with many epithets for each of them 
 and many flings of phrase : he would discourse upon the 
 inmates of the sanitarium, Gustav de Letay, the Hun- 
 garian who said he was a naturalized Greek, "that pre- 
 dacious little devil" : Raymond Vignolles, who had been 
 an actor at the Comedie Franchise and whose wife was 
 "touchingly devoted, I hear, to the care of his larynx": 
 Heinrich Ehrmann, the rich German Jew, always gut- 
 turally declaring that "My only vish, shentlemen and 
 ladies, is to be in the background"; "And he will be," 
 said Cyprian with a leer. "Wait a month, and he'll be 
 well in the background, and a good thing too!" Then 
 there was Ramalinga Lai, of Madras, "a cynical dog, a 
 philosophic dog, ' ' who had given Lawrance pause by de- 
 claring once that if the verdict of history on the war 
 were published now in any belligerent country, the au- 
 thor would at once be put in prison and probably shot. 
 He was naive, too, this Indian, in curious contrast, 
 naively vain, spending much pains on his moustache, 
 and more than once announcing the fact of his distin- 
 guished birth: "Though I do not at all like to say it, 
 I have the blood of kings in my veins. ' ' Lawrance liked 
 him, and Admired his intellect which was considerable, 
 and formidably weighted by study. This weight rather 
 irritated Cyprian, but Ramalinga 's personal foibles 
 pleased him hugely. "These Indians, though, they 
 should be kept well under." 
 
 All these people flicked Cyprian's observation in curi- 
 osity, gave him material on which he seized with deft 
 slim fingers. "And think!" he exclaimed, "what a sit- 
 uation for us all English and Germans and Austrians 
 and French and the rest here in this hole scooped out
 
 A CHASTE MAN 303 
 
 for us in the belly of Europe ! War north and south and 
 east and west ! This is about the only place where Eng- 
 lish and Germans are allowed to make love to one an- 
 other; doesn't that strike you as dramatic? By the 
 Lord, there's some drama in that, some lustre; what do 
 you think ! You 've no idea how the war has cheered us 
 all up. Oh, I tell you, it has brightened our lot, our 
 trivial round, our common task. We all of us think: 
 'Well, anyhow, we've got as good a chance as the man 
 in the trenches.' Well, I suppose the press-gangs will 
 soon be getting to work in earnest in England ? ' ' 
 
 Lawrance yielded to him more and more, and even 
 came to share some of his diversion in the general spec- 
 tacle; though he could not make that diversion vivid. 
 He often wondered if he really liked this debonair curly- 
 haired young blade or really disliked him, and in the 
 end he concluded that he both liked and disliked. In 
 spite of his deepset nerve of Puritanism, Lawrance felt 
 that it was a good thing that Cyprian should be happy 
 in his particular way: sometimes his equally deepset 
 nerve of passion would vibratingly carry him on to the 
 rebellious conviction that anything could be pardoned 
 to a man who made much of life. Cyprian's careless 
 defiance of the code that Lawrance himself made so 
 much of set up assailing doubts. "There's nothing we 
 can't do, really," the pretty anarchist had flung off one 
 day. "It all depends on how you do it. Style is every- 
 thing. They'd stand a good deal from me," he added, 
 with a conceit so lightly weighted that the other could 
 not resent it. "But of course there's nothing in their 
 morality, really, the sly dogs ! It 's partly a ritual and 
 partly a protection." 
 
 Lawrance could never have been seduced by the im-
 
 304 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 moralities of old Mr. Flynn, by those spleenful anarchies 
 of his, half -jovially defiant, always ungaugedly reaching 
 out for a philosophic dress: but this idle young fellow, 
 this "Indifferent," with his good temper and his good 
 looks, was a far more formidable disintegrating force. 
 
 "There's no doubt," he said to himself one day, as 
 Cyprian tripped by his side, after a visit they had made 
 together to the Villa Kraus, "there's no doubt you do 
 get a great deal out of it all. ' ' 
 
 "Oh, my name is Lady Blanche," the golden youth 
 was singing and making little grimaces "my name is 
 Lady Blanche, damn your eyes ! ' ' Lawrance recognized 
 the variation of a ribald song once current at Oxford. 
 "Oh, you can patronize, can't you, in your wa/y, you 
 can put us in our right places ve-ry well! She's a 
 beauty, she 's a fine upstanding mare ; we know her little 
 tricks, don't we? the whole bloody bag of 'em! Well, 
 m'lady, I guess you're one of those who were born to lie 
 between lawful sheets." 
 
 Shortly after Letty's turn for the better Cyprian had 
 grown much more intimately freespoken with Lawrance. 
 1 1 Do tell me about your amours, ' ' he would demand, and 
 when Lawrance did not respond, he would give full and 
 varied information about some of his own. "We con- 
 sumptives are always reckless, you know," he said, 
 "reckless and amorous." 
 
 Cyprian's principal topics in these later days were 
 Desire and Death, with occasional excursions to Moral- 
 ity. He insisted that Morality didn't "cut much ice, 
 really, not anywhere, you see, not really." Once he 
 had elaborated: "It's expediency rules the roost, and 
 the line of least resistance. Men are faithful to their 
 wives out of sheer inertia, or because they're short of
 
 A CHASTE MAN 305 
 
 money. We used to think when we were boys that Life 
 was going to be a terrific struggle between the right and 
 the wrong, all sorts of sweet temptations. I tell you 
 you have to make your temptations, in this world, and 
 it's the hardest thing to do really successfully." 
 
 "You're wrong!" Lawrance had broken in, with a 
 bitterness and a violence that startled the other. 
 
 "Ah, well!" Cyprian paused and laughed. "Of 
 course if you run away, all sorts of things may hap- 
 pen. Well, I may be wrong, a little wrong. There 
 might be temptations for some people in this place. 
 What a place! More like a bawdy-house than a sani- 
 tarium, isn't it?" 
 
 "Oh, that's absurd! You like saying sensational 
 things, you can't believe them. There may be two or 
 three three or four, perhaps but to say that " 
 
 ' ' Oh, well, it 's not very important ! After all, desire 
 isn't everything. I've often been quite happy without 
 it. ' ' He spoke defiantly, as though expecting contradic- 
 tion: then changed his tone. "Paddling my feet in 
 brooks, watching the tiny fountains spout up between 
 my toes. I've often thought that simple laziness was 
 quite enough to ask of Life. I think so now. Quite 
 enough. I must say, though, I should rather like to be 
 what they call 'a man of letters.' One like Anatole 
 France. But I never write anything but my diary. ' ' 
 
 Lawrance, after this, used to wonder if Cyprian could 
 have used his faculty for observation in writing. He 
 came to the conclusion that he could not have, that he 
 was an egoist in the wrong way for that, that he had 
 none of the requisite objectivity. Lawrance himself ob- 
 served much more objectively, though not nearly so 
 keenly and with much less personal satisfaction. Cy-
 
 306 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 prian seemed to smear with himself everything he 
 touched, to smear it thickly and gluttonously, with the 
 sweet rich butter of his personality. 
 
 As Letty's health grew more and more stable, Cy- 
 prian's more and more wavered. He began not to be 
 able to walk far, was indignant at his inability, tried to 
 walk, had to give it up. One day he had a bad haemor- 
 rhage, and was kept in bed, for the first time for months. 
 Lawrance went to see him, and found him much weak- 
 ened, but determined to talk. 
 
 "I know I shan't recover," he said. "I know too 
 much about this damned disease. It doesn 't matter what 
 I do now. Consumptives always think they're going to 
 get better : I 'm not fooled that way. Well, when we die, 
 we're gone." 
 
 Lawrance felt that he was set for a disquisition about 
 Death, and tried to stop him. "Nonsense; you 
 mustn't " 
 
 "Of course we're gone. I say, you might go to that 
 bottom drawer there and get out a bottle of brandy. I 
 want to drink it with my coffee. I persuaded Lisl to 
 get me coffee. You might as well," he added as Law- 
 rance hesitated. "It's for a dying man. 'We are 
 dying day by day,' as that quizzical hymn has it, but 
 some of us not quite so soon, Mr. Lawrance, not quite so 
 soon! I drink it very seldom Thank you." Law- 
 rance recognized the brandy as a particularly fine vin- 
 tage of a famous French firm. "There's a liqueur 
 glass wrapped up in tissue paper. I always wash it my- 
 self. Under the shirts. You don't mind pouring it out 
 for me, do you ? We 're gone, yes. Think of that poor 
 little English governess who died last week thousands
 
 A CHASTE MAN, 307 
 
 like her you can't imagine her existing now, can you? 
 And it's the same with all of us." He took three tiny 
 relishing sips of the brandy, then poured a very little, 
 very carefully, into his coffee. "You've only to look at 
 a corpse to know it's all over. Some sooner, some later. 
 What a chance it all is ! I shall be quit of these malicious 
 mountains, though, damn 'em! Old Miiller told me a 
 week ago that I was killing myself. Of course he knew 
 why. Yet I wanted to live: I admit I wanted to live. 
 Well, my only amusement to-day has been to have the 
 Continental Daily Mail read to me." 
 
 "Look here, isn't there something I could read to you 
 now?" 
 
 "No." Cyprian took a dainty mouthful of his sea- 
 soned coffee. "I want to talk. Not for long; I can't. 
 Miiller will be round soon enough. I take a special 
 interest in the Casualty Lists, you know. I scan them 
 with a certain avidity. I'm worse off than those am- 
 munition-bearers, or whatever they call them, now, 
 though. I don't think I've one chance in ten Well, 
 I've managed to live longer than some of my friends 
 not much consolation, considering that I want to live for- 
 ever. One of them was killed only the other day; 
 Raynes, his name was." He sipped again, then poured 
 more brandy. ' ' Edward Raynes. We weren 't friends 
 for long, though. He had a certain humour, he could 
 laugh; but he was really commonplace. I found him 
 out. A discreet philistine, and a bit of a bounder. Shot 
 clean through the head, they tell me, somewhere near 
 Lille." 
 
 "Like Rosy Mayhew's father," thought Lawrance, as 
 Cyprian took another little mouthful. The fair youth
 
 308 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 now emptied the glass deliberately into his cup, on timed 
 completion of his graded preparation for the draught of 
 crowning fervour. 
 
 "Oh, damn, there's Miiller. I say, this is what I 
 wanted to tell you. I've got a Diary, there are some 
 good things in it, I know there are. Well, I've left di- 
 rections that you're to have it at my death." He fin- 
 ished his cup with one rich gulp. "But they may for- 
 get. See that you get it, please do. I keep it in that 
 right-hand top drawer, at the bottom. You'll remem- 
 ber, won't you? Put the glass back in its tissue 
 paper, please. I really believe some of it might be 
 worth publishing; I should like that, I like my little 
 diary. You see " He stopped, exhausted. 
 
 "Of course I will," Lawrance gave rapid assurance. 
 He heard Doctor Miiller 's voice outside the door. "Of 
 course. You can count on me." 
 
 He was strongly moved by the haggardness of Cy- 
 prian's admirably handsome young face, with its crisp 
 gold curls, still so carefully so pathetically arranged. 
 
 "You'll do what you can, won't you, eh? I thought, 
 you see, being on a paper and all that In with some 
 publishers, I suppose?" 
 
 "I'll do what I can. I promise you." Lawrance re- 
 sisted the impulse to add the conventional: "But of 
 course you're going to get better." No, one couldn't 
 say that kind of thing to Cyprian Strange. 
 
 "Good-bye," he said instead, as Doctor Miiller en- 
 tered.
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 LAWRANCE was wakened the next morning by 
 the delivery of a telegram. It was from his 
 father-in-law, and imperatively urged him to 
 come back at once. "Muriel's condition dangerous." 
 The young man was numbed at first by the shock of this 
 utter unexpectedness, the time for the baby being still 
 distant by two or three months : then he was horrified by 
 a leaping in him of hope for Muriel's death. He cried 
 out in repulsion from himself, he could not have believed 
 that he was so evil. Thenceforward he tried not to 
 think of the event, for fear of being taken again from 
 so horrid an ambush. He sent a telegram in reply that 
 he was coming as soon as possible, and he had dressed 
 and finished packing his valise before Letty was stirring. 
 Letty after her "Poor Magsie!" wanted to go with 
 him. She was well now, she said ; she did not at all care 
 to be at St. Franz by herself. It would be absurd for 
 him to come back for her, yet, again, it would not do for 
 her to travel alone. She was particularly anxious to go 
 then: she used one argument after another, she seemed 
 set for the immediate journey. Her brother found her 
 entirely unreasonable. How could she go then? There 
 was the packing, there were endless things to be done, 
 the passports, and so on, he could hardly do everything 
 in time for himself. Besides, she was not absolutely re- 
 covered, not at all; she would have a relapse. How 
 could she think of going straight back, there and then, 
 
 309
 
 310 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 with him, at top speed? Everything would be undone. 
 He could not in the least understand why she should 
 cling so obstinately to so absurd an idea. 
 
 In one of the intervals of his hurryings backwards 
 and forwards between the Sanitarium and the British 
 and French Consulates he called at the Villa Kraus and 
 sought alliance with the two ladies. Lady Blanche, for- 
 tunately, decided that she would be more interested than 
 not in lending her co-operation. "Why, of course we'll 
 look after your sister," she said in her clear authori- 
 tative voice. And: "Why, of course," Lady Petis- 
 tree echoed with her vague air. Lady Blanche went 
 further : she herself was practically cured, they were go- 
 ing home in a few weeks a month, perhaps and if Miss 
 Lawrance would come with them ? 
 
 Miss Lawrance 's brother was most grateful. He did 
 not at all want to return to St. Franz: the idea of re- 
 turning to this dirty-yellow place was in fact intolerable ; 
 equally intolerable, whatever might happen. He could 
 not help wondering, though, if by any untoward chance 
 they might meet with Lord Burpham in London. He 
 imagined all three of them in Lord Burpham 's house in 
 Queen Street, having tea with him. What then ? 
 
 Letty yielded, but in yielding she surprised her brother 
 by an outburst of tears. He could not at all under- 
 stand her. These fixed ideas women sometimes got ! 
 
 Cyprian Strange had been completely dislodged from 
 his mind : but at the last moment Lawrance remembered 
 him, and sent to make inquiries and to let him know that 
 he was called suddenly to England by the illness of his 
 wife. A brief message came back from Doctor Miiller 
 that Mr. Strange 's condition was precarious. Lawrance, 
 lilting down at his table in hat and waterproof, wrote at
 
 A CHASTE MAN 311 
 
 the beck of his wakeful conscience a hurried note to the 
 doctor, giving him the address of the Office, and asking 
 that Mr. Strange 's book, ' ' about which he will have given 
 directions," should be sent, by registered post, to him 
 there, "if necessary."
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 BY the time Lawrance reached the Essex Rectory, 
 after a delayed journey, Muriel was out of dan- 
 ger from the effects of the miscarriage. She 
 was still in bed, she looked pale and drawn, and much 
 older. Her looks had suffered severely, her mouth had 
 new lines. Lawrance knew that he ought not to notice 
 this. His feelings did not, however, give his conscience 
 much trouble: not being uxorious, he was genuinely 
 more sorry for her than for himself. It was feared that 
 she might be permanently an invalid. 
 
 She was gracious to him, gracious and forgiving: she 
 behaved very well. But he knew that she had not, as a 
 fact, forgiven: he did not speculate as to whether she 
 ever would. She talked about ordinary things, very 
 little of herself. She was a good patient. Once she 
 said: "I have been rather lonely," but not in a tone 
 that implied "lonely without you." She said she felt 
 rather "weird." He used all his energy upon being 
 tender and considerate to her. Mr. Knight approved of 
 him. 
 
 The clergyman had changed; he seemed thinner, he 
 was less self-assured. Lawrance had expected that he 
 would speak to him of the calamity from his private pul- 
 pit, drawing lessons, in his way. But he barely alluded 
 to what had happened: "It was terrible, Oliver," was 
 all he said. It was the first time he had ever struck his 
 son-in-law as being sincerely moved, this man who had so 
 
 312
 
 A CHASTE MAN 313 
 
 seldom told the truth, so seldom even thought it. He 
 was like a child at that moment. He did not add: 
 "Thy Will be done!" or "We must have faith that it is 
 for the best." Lawrance waited for such words, feel- 
 ing most strongly that he could not echo them, rebelling, 
 for all that he was so much Christian, against the slavish 
 trick of them, against their cowardly attempt to drug 
 the soul of a tragic moment. "It is for the worst," he 
 would have said, rather : ' ' and we take it for the worst. ' ' 
 But Mr. Knight said nothing, either way. He had been 
 there. 
 
 Lawrance had written to Olga, saying simply that he 
 was back in England and would be in London soon, 
 when he would see her. He had given no address. It 
 was, of course, reasonable enough that he should return 
 to his work at the Office, after a decent interval. He de- 
 cided to stay at one of the little Sefton Hotels till he 
 could settle on temporary lodgings in Kensington 
 Church Walk or the neighbourhood. Their servants 
 were at Mr. Knight's rectory, according to the plan; 
 except Mary, who had kept her word and left. It was 
 arranged that he should come down to see Muriel on 
 Saturdays, staying the night, until she was enough re- 
 covered to travel up and open the Chiswick house again. 
 "Well," he said disingenuously, under the resisted 
 stress of his passionate anticipation of Glasden Road, 
 "well, I suppose old Inge will be keen on my getting 
 back." 
 
 He left the Rectory on the afternoon of the Sunday 
 week following his arrival. Every day there, after the 
 first, had been the same: nothing had come of any of 
 them. He had sat by Muriel's bed, talking of Letty and 
 her restored health, describing St. Franz not at all as
 
 314 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 he really felt about it and the journeys; listening to 
 the local news and the news of his brother-in-law Gerald, 
 who had been slightly wounded, but was now back in 
 France. No period in Lawrance's life had ever passed 
 so slowly. 
 
 At Liverpool Street he left his luggage in the Cloak 
 Room, and went on at once to Glasden Road. Now that 
 he was out of the railway train his expectations and 
 fears were less painfully acute. The pendant hand of 
 Time seemed suddenly to be clenched for a swift for- 
 ward sweep to no matter what unknown quarter ; it was 
 enough that the sweep was to be swift : this was so much 
 everything that Lawrance was absorbed in the fact, and 
 he watched, fascinated. "Change at Tottenham Court 
 Road" he had to repeat to himself. "Change at Totten- 
 ham Court Road." However, when he was actually 
 walking within a hundred yards or so of the house itself, 
 he could not hold back the once more recurring : " I do 
 wish I had had some news of them. " " How stupid ! " he 
 told himself at once. "You'll have it soon enough now. 
 It'll be all the more interesting." Then his senses with- 
 drew, dulled. 
 
 Doris opened the door, started and cried out: "Why, 
 it's Mr. Lawrance!" "Well, you are a stranger!" 
 came as an inevitable addition. 
 
 She was looking just as Lawrance remembered her 
 on the night when he had taken Olga to the theatre; 
 she seemed perfectly well, quite as happy as she had ever 
 been: and she was better dressed than usual. Law- 
 rance congratulated her gravely on her good looks and 
 good health. 
 
 "Oh, well," she said saucily, "I s'pose I am my 'old 
 bright self again, Hoppy.' Mr. Deavitt still comes
 
 A CHASTE MAN 315 
 
 round," she went on casually. "He's in khaki now. 
 He's gone to the Base at Rouen, you know. Won't 
 you come inside, Mr. Lawrance?" She took on her 
 funny little formal tone. 
 
 "Yes," said Lawrance as he went in, "I've heard 
 from him once or twice." 
 
 He remembered that Deavitt in his last letter had 
 asked after "Mordie Voltalin." "No doubt," he re- 
 flected, "Deavitt would always be quite happy." Part 
 of his job, he had written, was to exchange paper money 
 found on the killed, spoilt by shot and blood. "I'm on 
 the go all the time between 9 & 6." 
 
 "He seemed in very good spirits," Lawrance said 
 aloud. 
 
 "He's dead nuts on Marjorie! He spoils the kid." 
 
 "Is Marjorie here?" 
 
 "No, she's gone to the sea with a party of kiddies for 
 the week-end." 
 
 They were in the empty dining room. Lawrance 's 
 mind kept its dreamy drift to Crockerton Deavitt and 
 his letter. Deavitt had said that his "gags" had worked 
 their way to the trenches, where they went down splen- 
 didly. Lawrance recalled, with a swimming sense of dis- 
 tance, some examples he had given: "No shells on tap 
 this afternoon." "A good shot is a dairy-fed one, with 
 ball bearings throughout." Suddenly he noticed that 
 Doris was wearing the bracelet he had given to Olga. 
 
 "Shall I light the gas, Mr. Lawrance? Light enough 
 without it, though, isn't it?" The girl spoke quickly, 
 she seemed embarrassedly eager. "You'll take a chair, 
 won't you? Did you know I've got an awfully good 
 job; I'm in the chorus at the 'Variety.' I have some 
 lines. Dora Howard, my stage-name is. Lucky you
 
 316 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 came on Sunday, or I shouldn 't have been in. Have you 
 seen the new Revue at the 'Traf.'? They tell me it's 
 simply topping!" She pitched her voice high. "Oh, 
 but you've been abroad, haven't you? Perhaps I'd 
 better light the gas, after all." She went to pull down 
 the blinds. "When did you come back? I was begin- 
 ning to think you were going to stay away all the sum- 
 mer and you have, almost, haven't you?" 
 
 "But didn't Olga get my letter?" 
 
 ' ' Your letter ? I didn 't know ' ' 
 
 She looked distressed and ill at ease. Lawrance stared 
 at her. He was no longer dulled and dreamy, but per- 
 turbed, sure that something was dreadfully wrong. 
 
 "Where is Olga?" he demanded. "Where is she?" 
 His heart-beats strangled him. 
 
 "Oh Well well, you see, Mr. Lawrance, she isn't 
 here just now. She's " 
 
 ' ' Do be quick, Doris, you might tell me where she is. ' ' 
 
 "Oh, here's Father!" The girl jumped up, relieved. 
 
 "Where's Olga?" Lawrance asked of Mr. Flynn: then 
 shook hands with his old friend, who looked away from 
 him, just as he had at their last leavetaking. His clasp 
 was limp. 
 
 "Where's Olga?" Lawrance repeated. 
 
 "Gone to Canada." The old man turned away, and 
 walked over with deliberation to the empty fireplace. 
 
 "There! I didn't want to tell him!" Doris's voice 
 trembled. She put her hand to her mouth, and hurried 
 from the room. Lawrance did not notice her. 
 
 "Alone? Has she gone alone?" He raised his voice, 
 as though old Flynn were deaf. 
 
 "She went with Patsey." Flynn shuffled to the side- 
 board and poured himself out a drink of whiskey.
 
 A CHASTE MAN 317 
 
 "Why on earth?" 
 
 "I told you." The old man gave him a sideways 
 glance, almost malicious. "I was right quite right. 
 Figs and thistles, grapes and thorns remember ? She 'd 
 have been happier with you. I know Olga." He sat 
 down, holding his glass carefully between his hands. 
 "She's married, too." 
 
 Lawrance remained standing in the same spot. 
 There seemed to be no meaning in all this. Where was 
 there a gauge? He wanted a gauge. He was dissoci- 
 ated, his senses seemed thinly fluctuant. He was sure 
 that his voice could not reach the Mariner, who was no 
 longer the Mariner, but somebody of quite a different 
 sort. The curious thing was that that picture of "Bos- 
 ton Harbor, 1876," was just the same. 
 
 ' ' Why not ? ' ' The young man heard the voice from a 
 distance, but very clearly. "Much better, really. She 
 didn 't lose much time. Married a fellow who was on the 
 boat going out with them, a Scotchman married almost 
 as soon as they landed. Patsey seems to think he's a 
 good fellow. Man about thirty. A farmer. Patsey 's 
 in service. She 's a cook. You 'd think she might as well 
 have cooked for Olga and her husband they haven't 
 any servant, of course but she got a chance of good 
 wages. She sent me some money last week. She 
 oughtn't to she's too good, she's ' His voice broke 
 and startled Lawrance into a sense of the old man's 
 reality as himself. 
 
 "It must be pretty bad for you." 
 
 "Well. She had to go. It seems a long time now: 
 soon after you went to Switzerland almost at once. 
 And Olga wanted to go, too. Of course Ewing hadn't 
 given himself up then."
 
 318 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 "What do you mean!" Lawrance's senses were no 
 longer thinly fluctuant, they were suddenly in spate. 
 
 "Ewing killed Tofton. Didn't you know?" 
 
 "Why did he?" 
 
 "He lost his temper with him. They had a quarrel 
 about that fountain-pen." 
 
 Lawrance laughed loudly, to his own surprise. 
 
 ' ' Yes. ' ' The old man went quietly on. ' ' Ewing went 
 to Tof ton's bedroom some time after midnight, and said 
 he wanted his fountain-pen. They both got angry. 
 Tofton hit Ewing, and then Ewing got hold of his razor. 
 Tofton couldn't have been looking. Anyhow, he didn't 
 step out of the way quickly enough." 
 
 "He couldn't have meant to have killed him." The 
 narrative had steadied Lawrance. He found himself 
 critical, observant. He could see Ewing with the razor 
 in his hand, throwing back his unimportant little head. 
 
 "Well, he did, anyhow. They suspected Patsey and 
 me. Got to know we owed him money. Nobody would 
 speak to us. Hard lines on the girls little Marjorie. 
 And that Fred Bovey he chucked Doris, and Well. 
 Patsey couldn't stand it. Ewing begged her not to go, 
 but she would, and in the end he lent her some money 
 for the passage. He got another job all right, you know, 
 better pay, too. Yes, lent her money. Said he could 
 wait for it " 
 
 "Did you know that he'd done it?" 
 
 "We didn't know." 
 
 "Why shouldn't Patsey come back now?" 
 
 "She won't come back. She's heard about Ewing. 
 She wrote that she was all the more glad she'd gone. 
 Ewing comes to trial this week." 
 
 "Will they hang him?"
 
 A CHASTE MAN 319 
 
 "I can't tell. They oughtn't to; he gave himself 
 up." 
 
 "The thing's absurd!" Lawrance was vehement. 
 "You can't believe that he murdered Tofton because of 
 a fountain-pen!" 
 
 "Well, there was that trouble at tea. And old Ewing, 
 you know, he cared about Olga." 
 
 Ewing was immediately displaced from the young 
 man's mind. There came the bitter vision of that girl 
 with the long eyes and the rich hair lost. Why hadn 't 
 he written to her, begged her to wait ? But that wouldn 't 
 have been any use. What could he have begged her to 
 wait for? Gone utterly; married; mistress of a 
 Canadian farm-house. What would become of her 
 youth, her dreams, her spirit? Surely she might have 
 had something better? That fine gold of her youth 
 and her virginity She would have children. Her 
 children and 
 
 "What is his name?" he asked imperatively. 
 
 "Whose name?" The old man sipped his whiskey. 
 
 "The man who married Olga." 
 
 "Oh; Mac something. I forget." Flynn rum- 
 maged in his pocket. "I believe I've got the letter 
 here" 
 
 "Oh, it doesn't matter." 
 
 The Mariner took out a letter, and Lawrance saw his 
 own handwriting. 
 
 "Ah, this is the letter you wrote to Olga. I meant 
 to have sent it on to her. I forgot; I'm sorry." 
 
 "Don't send it on. Give it to me." 
 
 Lawrance took the envelope, looked at the name: 
 "Miss Olga Flynn" then he tore it and threw it in the 
 grate. "The children of Olga" he applied that ter*
 
 320 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 rible sentence that he had never realized as terrible be- 
 fore "the children of Olga call Mac Mac something 
 father." Better not to know the name. It would be 
 too hard to the touch. Everything was hard to the 
 touch now. 
 
 "Don't trouble about the other letter," he said 
 sharply. 
 
 "It's a pity," the Mariner absently remarked after a 
 pause. "Women they're always suffering; I suppose 
 they deserve it except her. Sometimes you want 'em 
 to suffer, sometimes you 're glad when they do. You wish 
 they would, eh? But not her. You see "What are 
 we, eh? Only a lot of damned bed-bugs, after all. 
 Spawn. That's true, ain't it?" He rambled on for 
 awhile, jerkily and obscurely. 
 
 "Your life is done," thought Lawrance. "I wish I 
 were you." Yes, the Mariner's life was done done 
 for ; there was no doubt about that. Lawrance began to 
 realize his impression of the change in his friend, who 
 was his friend no longer. Friendship had dried out in 
 the poor old man, dried out, with much else He had 
 not offered Lawrance a drink : it seemed to make a very 
 great difference that he had not done that. His eyes 
 were mean, except when he spoke of Patsey, then they 
 had looked hurt, like a hurt beast 's : but later, as he drank 
 more and more, when they were not mean they were 
 maudlin. Lawrance saw plainly now that he had taken 
 to drinking too much, and drinking alone "blasphem- 
 ing Bacchus." He remembered a favourite saying of 
 his : ' ' Some people aren 't fit to drink. ' ' And his brand 
 of whiskey now was a cheap Scotch one. That familiar 
 blackened meerschaum lay broken on the mantelpiece: 
 of course there was nothing much in that; a mere coin-
 
 A CHASTE MAN 321 
 
 cidence. Probably Marjorie had taken the pieces out of 
 a drawer, been playing with them. Still He was 
 smoking a French briar a pseudo-briar. . . . Lawrance, 
 though disillusioned about the Mariner, was compassion- 
 ate. Poor old man! Why should all his simple sea- 
 soned pleasures have been stripped from him? Surely 
 he might have been allowed his good liquor, taken gen- 
 ially, he might have been allowed a new meerschaum, 
 he might have been allowed to talk and play cards with 
 his wife and family, and to say scandalous things when 
 he was in the mood : to talk improbably about his nautical 
 experiences His clothes had always been untidy and 
 old, but now they were dirty, they had lost their look 
 of individuality in defiance, and were declassed as their 
 oldness and untidiness had never declassed them. He 
 had no necktie. Lawrance remembered the gay ties he 
 used to wear, jauntily knotted. 
 
 "You know " he broke a long pause, "if you do want 
 any money " 
 
 "Money? Patsey sent me some " 
 
 "Well, if you want any more at any time " 
 
 The Mariner did not answer. He drank more whiskey ; 
 with none of his old fastidious gusto. 
 
 "You're drinking too much." 
 
 "Don't think so." Old Flynn was not in the least 
 indignant. "Always have." 
 
 "Not in that way." 
 
 "Your fault partly." The Mariner spoke as though 
 answering quite another suggestion. "I don't blame 
 you mind you, I don't blame you. No use blaming 
 anybody. It's the way it all went They said things 
 about Olga and you, too all came out; talked about. 
 Bad for the girl. Well Patsey. House not meant to
 
 322 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 be without her, you see her and Olga. Ewing he 
 had great respec' for Patsey, great respec'. Even 
 Deavitt " he gulped "respected her. About Tof- 
 ton, you see huh wouldn't believe, would you, that 
 that swine struck her " 
 
 ' ' Good God ! Why on earth did you let him stay on 1 ' ' 
 
 "Oh money, of course, and er other things. Did 
 it for the best. Everything for the best." He drew 
 his spare frame up with drunken dignity for a moment, 
 and then collapsed. "Turn the gas lower, won't you? 
 Hurts my eyes. ' ' 
 
 "I'd better be going." 
 
 "I'm going, too." Flynn staggered to his feet. "I 
 never sit here. I sit in the parlour. Stoopid sitting 
 there, I suppose; might as well be in my grave Don't 
 like this room. You can go away if you like, I'm going 
 to the parlour. Bring the whiskey." Lawrance took 
 the bottle, and gave his other arm to the old man. ' ' Yes, 
 you better go. I 'm not fit for you, you 're not fit for me. 
 Not now. Tell you the truth, I don't like seeing you. 
 You understand. No offence." He disengaged his arm, 
 and leaned heavily against the sideboard, looking hard 
 at the ground. "An Irish blackguard, that's what I am. 
 D'you think she'd have left me if I'd been any good? 
 Wasn't any good to her." 
 
 He walked on unsteadily in front of his visitor, out 
 of the room. Doris, hearing them, came from the kitchen 
 to the hall, as Lawrance was putting on his hat. 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Lawrance! Aren't you staying to supper? 
 It's rather late, I'm afraid, but it won't be long." 
 
 "Thank you, Doris, but I must be off now." 
 
 He was watching Mr. Flynn fumbling at the door of 
 the "parlour" that stuffy cold unused room in which
 
 A CHASTE MAN 323 
 
 he had interviewed the Police Inspector. He noted his 
 old friend's short coat and the familiar length of grey 
 trouser below it. So the Mariner was broken, so late. 
 Doris stepped forward, looking ashamed, and shut the 
 door behind her father. 
 
 "Well, ta-ta!" she said in her high strained pitch. 
 "You'll come again soon, won't you now you are back 
 and cheer Father up? He will go on sitting in that 
 old parlour. He oh, I suppose he's all right, really." 
 She looked ashamed again. "I wish you'd come soon," 
 she added in a softened tone. She blushed: then with 
 a belying personal appeal : "He isn't happy at all ; any 
 one would be sorry, wouldn't they?" 
 
 Lawrance put the whiskey-bottle down on the hall 
 table and wished her good-bye.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 CYPRIAN'S Diary arrived the next day. Law- 
 ranee did not open the package till his work 
 was over and he was back in his little hotel 
 in Bloomsbury. He did not feel much curiosity about 
 the Diary; no more and no less curiosity than he could 
 feel about anything. A letter from his sister had come 
 that morning, too. Lady Petistree and Lady Blanche 
 were leaving earlier than they had planned: Lady 
 Blanche seemed more bored than ever by St. Franz: 
 "She says it may have cured her, but now it's killing her 
 with ennui." So Letty would be back at the end of the 
 next week; Doctor Meyer had approved. She wrote ex- 
 citedly: she did not mention Cyprian Strange 's death. 
 Lawrance had read the letter through twice running, and 
 answered it immediately. He said everything that he 
 ought to say. It was impossible to be interested. . . . 
 
 As he loitered in the hall of the hotel a young girl 
 passed him; her hair was dark against her white neck. 
 He trembled, thought of Olga, of her hair and how it 
 might have fallen against his neck, his breast So 
 much had he done for pride and honour, for decency 
 and "the right thing"! 
 
 There was half-an-hour or so before dinner. He might 
 as well look at the Diary : it was in his hands. He went 
 into the smoking-room, chose a corner, and sat down in 
 one of the red leather armchairs. 
 
 On what day had Strange died? he wondered, as he 
 324
 
 A CHASTE MAN 325 
 
 undid the package. He turned first to the present 
 month, of which all the pages seemed to be blank. No, 
 there were a couple of lines written just a week ago : 
 
 / am fighting hard. 1 may live and not die. 
 
 That was the last entry: seven days back. And now 
 he was dead. Such things were common ; in time of war 
 they happened thousands of times every day : they never 
 struck any the less deep, though, and there was never 
 any more to be said. That kind of finality. . . . There 
 were three young officers in the smoking-room with him, 
 in London on leave, probably; in a week's time perhaps 
 one of them . . . well. He opened the Diary at the be- 
 ginning : 
 
 "Though one be fair as roses, 
 His beauty clouds and closes, 
 And well though Love reposes, 
 In the end it is not well." 
 
 Appropriate, certainly. 
 
 He turned the pages, many at a time, till another 
 quotation, under an August date, arrested him. 
 Young Strange, it seemed, had a fancy for quoting. 
 
 To-day is the first anniversary of this darling little 
 war. 
 
 "And what of logic or of truth appears 
 In tacking ( Anno Domini' to the years?" 
 
 The words of Thomas Hardy smote Lawrance, words 
 destroying with their weight of passion all the clever lies 
 of all the clever bishops who ever lived. 
 
 He turned back to the date of his arrival with Letty
 
 326 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 at St. Franz. His eye soon caught his own name Mr. 
 Lawrance and his The word wife had been crossed 
 out, and sister substituted. He frowned at the hand- 
 writing, which was careless, difficult to read ; the spelling 
 was bad, too, and there was practically no punctuation. 
 Lawrance, from his Office training, had a precise eye for 
 these things. Really, to have to go through the whole 
 Diary ! Again he turned the leaves. Yes, the writing 
 was all pretty much the same. "And he can I mean 
 could write clearly when he wanted to. That last 
 entry and the quotations were all right." What a lazy 
 chap! Hang it, he was forgetting that Strange was 
 dead: you couldn't get annoyed with a man who was 
 dead. 
 
 He came again to his own name, and read on with dif- 
 ficulty : 
 
 Mr. Lawrance is a dry stick, but he has a sister. 
 Meredith says somewhere of one of his heroes "But he 
 has a leg." He recurs to this as I recur to Mr. Law- 
 rance having a sister very important. 
 
 Strange oughtn't to have shown him this Diary; not 
 a decent thing to do, not at all. He skimmed to an entry 
 of a few days later: 
 
 This Lawrance isn't commonplace, as I thought. A 
 little scrutiny reveals that he has a really passionate 
 f ace / don't mean passionate as "sensual," or "sensu- 
 ous," even, though I've no doubt the fellow's desires 
 whip him, as these entertaining Americans say, "all the 
 time." 
 
 The reader blushed with embarrassment and annoy-
 
 A CHASTE MAN 327 
 
 ance: he resented utterly the intimacy of this. But he 
 had, of course, to read on. 
 
 He is virtuous, he is one of those good moral ones, he 
 is perfectly continent. " 'So am not I,' quoth the fool- 
 ish scullion." But he has tremendous store of feeling, 
 and no sense of humour. Not stupid, though, as you 
 think at first. Stubborn as the devil, honourable, cer- 
 tainly a gentleman. One of those people who are un- 
 questionably gentlemen without being in the least aristo- 
 crats. I'm not so much of a gentleman, maybe. I'm an 
 adventurer tinged with aristocracy. By God! he doesn't 
 adventure, he keeps within doors. Reserved to the 
 limit. You couldn't think of calling him by his Chris- 
 tian name. 
 
 What was Strange about, imagining that this Diary 
 could possibly be published? What possible public in- 
 terest. . . ? "He must have passed it on to me out of 
 sheer malice well, perhaps not that, but as a kind of 
 'rag.' And 'stubborn.' I'm not stubborn. I'm 
 particularly reasonable. Inge or Ralston could have told 
 him that. They know. 'No sense of humour.' As if 
 I were one of those people who never can see a joke. A 
 lot he knows about my character. I was quite right to 
 mistrust his observation extremely shallow and all off 
 the point. ' A gentleman ' Thank you. I suppose al- 
 most any one can tell the difference between a gentleman 
 and a bounder. I never pretended to be an aristocrat. 
 And what does he did he know about me, anyhow?" 
 
 He has a sister. I mean to get on with him. ("Well, 
 I knew that.") He must be very devoted to her. He 
 has a wife, I discover left her in England. Well, there
 
 328 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 are many reasons for leaving wives in England. How- 
 ever, his reasons must be unimpeachable. (Lawrance's 
 cheek had a deep dark flush.) I detect that the sister is 
 one of those who have been brought up to dissipate her 
 amorousness in harmless flirtations. (Lawrance flushed 
 more heavily still. He was now really angry.) Well, 
 we shall see about that. St. Franz is not an Anglican 
 parish, and a good thing, too! No consumptive should 
 hesitate. Of course I shall have her. 
 
 Lawrance violently closed the book. He would not 
 read any more. If Strange had thought he would read 
 any more, after that ! No more outrageous insult ! 
 His sister! The most indecent thing he had ever heard 
 of in all his life ! He slipped the book into his pocket, 
 and went at once to wash his hands for dinner. 
 
 His occupation for the evening was to go to Kensing- 
 ton and find lodgings. 
 
 When he got back to the hotel, it was early yet, but he 
 decided to go to bed. He was tired : there was nothing 
 else to do. If he slept, he would not be thinking. He 
 wished that Nature required a full twelve hours of sleep : 
 then there would be practically no margin to his Office 
 work and his meals. He undressed slowly, doing noth- 
 ing automatically, but concentrating his attention. 
 
 He could not go off to sleep. He had slept heavily 
 the night before ; perhaps, he thought, that was why he 
 was now so wakeful. Olga "And yet not I, but 
 Olga in me ' ' Oh, of course he would get over it. Peo- 
 ple always did only a question of time. He must con- 
 trol himself, he must use his will. But he felt so defence- 
 less, lying there in the dark. It had been a mistake to 
 go to bed so early There were many other things to
 
 A CHASTE MAN 329 
 
 think of: the war; Zeppelin raids; submarines; how 
 could any decent man keep boxed up in his own trou- 
 bles, with so much suffering everywhere? He might 
 ring and get the latest edition of the evening paper. 
 Then Letty; she was coming back, she was cured. That 
 Diary Now, at last, Lawrance did succeed in sepa- 
 rating his thoughts from Olga. He would never read 
 any more of that Diary. To read more would be dis- 
 honouring to Letty would seem as though he suspected 
 her. At what point, he wondered, had Cyprian Strange 
 realized that he must give up ? Would he have acknowl- 
 edged his failure in his Diary, or would he have been 
 too much of a coxcomb for that ? Lawrance recalled his 
 dandified ways, recalled the things he used to say. He 
 wrote very much as he talked; a little less easily, per- 
 haps, more with an eye to effect. For instance, he would 
 never have said: "I detect that she is " Bather a 
 stilted phrase. Lawrance would not have used it in his 
 articles. What good, though, were his articles? He 
 had developed a facility for framing sentences of very 
 little meaning, that was all. Did he ever think? 
 Well- 
 It would not be disagreeable to read that fellow's ad- 
 mission of his failure . . . but no, he was quite right 
 to have made up his mind not to read any more. To 
 have made up his mind. Strange was not very clever 
 for such a "squire of dames" not very observant. 
 Yes, that was his weak point, he had no observation ; no 
 true observation, only a superficial and sensational kind. 
 He must have recognized that he had been altogether 
 mistaken about Letty, there had been time enough for 
 that, must have seen that she was not in the least like 
 that "white Saxon girl" that young woman from
 
 330 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 Leipsic with whom he had had an affair; an affair de- 
 scribed, no doubt, in detail in the Diary. The man had 
 no shame! 
 
 What should he do with the Diary, though? That 
 suggestion of getting it published what impertinence! 
 He would destroy it. ... But that seemed hardly right : 
 the Diary of a dead man. . . . He could lock it up, keep 
 it always locked up. "What would be the good of that, 
 though ? 
 
 Perhaps there was something important in the little 
 book, something that ought to be read? Well, it would 
 have to go unread, then. . . . "It will have to go un- 
 read," he reflected again, with vehemence. The quality 
 of Lawrance's determination had become curiously viti- 
 ated through its repeated unhappy applications. His 
 determination, his will, and his emotions, that he had 
 never known how to use, had kept on throwing up sullen 
 little hillocks in his path. 
 
 He lay awake for more than two hours, cut by one 
 broken thought after another. How little everything 
 had led to ! He saw that, though without analysis, with- 
 out active grasp. The only way in which he could keep 
 himself from thinking of Olga was by thinking of Letty 
 and of Cyprian Strange. He did not consciously argue 
 himself into continuing the reading of the Diary, and 
 when he finally got out of bed, turned on the light, and 
 took the book from his coat-pocket, he was shocked by 
 surprise at himself. But it had become impossible to lie 
 awake any longer. 
 
 . . . and a good thing, too! No consumptive should 
 hesitate 
 
 Something about Lady Blanche now:
 
 A CHASTE MAN 331 
 
 Lady Blanche (He spelt the baffling handwriting 
 slowly out:) rebuffed me this afternoon. I received her 
 rebuff with imperturbable sang-froid. I may be a match 
 for her yet; if only I were well I would be. She is un- 
 romantic and intelligent, without conscience, but still 
 under the code a little. Of course she wants to excite 
 me. Not undesirous, not undesirable. Something 
 should be made of her. . . . This morning a letter from 
 the Archangel, with a sonnet on Lust. 
 
 "It seems the fellow is obsessed by sex, and his friends 
 as well. 'The Archangel'!" Lawrance settled his pil- 
 lows and yawned. Perhaps this Diary, of which he had 
 made so much matter, would send him to sleep. No 
 allusion to Letty on that page : probably she would not be 
 mentioned again. After all, Strange had not seen much 
 of her. . . . 
 
 (( That slandered shape that is Love's very kin, 
 Interpreter, fulfiller, whose name is writ 
 Love's brother and indissoluble twin, 
 Creator of forms to mould Love's spirit in. . . ." 
 
 "Well, did Strange think that ought to be published? 
 Disgraceful stuff." Everybody knew lust had nothing 
 to do with love. . . . His eye ran on; he was getting 
 more used to the handwriting. 
 
 There is a great deal to be said for being quite open, 
 for saying simply "I desire you" to paint the pleasures 
 of love. Girls are not used to that kind of attack. They 
 often succumb to it. 
 
 "This is odious," thought Lawrance. "What kind of 
 girls could he have had to do with?"
 
 332 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 He turned the page, turned three or four pages, barely 
 glancing at the entries. Then there came one much more 
 clearly written than usual, much less closely, standing 
 by itself under one date : 
 
 It is certain now the best cup and the last. 
 
 Lawrance read on, read, with his head bent to the 
 leaves, every word of the writing that followed, again in 
 close-set lines. Incredible, it was incredible, he couldn't 
 believe it! The invention of a coxcomb, of a roue, a 
 lying vain blackguard! 
 
 At the end came : 
 
 God, I love her! This is just the opposite of what I 
 had expected. 
 
 Then the rest of the page blank. 
 
 Lawrance read it all through again, wincing again 
 under the alternations of cynicism and sentimentality. 
 "Impossible Why, Letty !" She was such a "nice 
 girl," anybody would have said she was such a nice 
 girl There was his mother, it would be the one thing 
 she would feel but it was impossible. 
 
 She is better, came after the blank space. Her good 
 brother will no doubt take the credit for that. She is 
 less "frivolous." Oh, yes, Mr. Lawrance, she is less 
 frivolous! She is no longer "the lady" not in that 
 way. She will be cured. "You go to life," I told her. 
 "I salute you from the arena." Once I said the same 
 thing to Lady Blanche, and she replied, "Don't say such 
 silly things." My Letitia never could have answered 
 like that. She said nothing; she looked at me. I know
 
 A CHASTE MAN 838 
 
 she does not love me, 1 know I love her. It is this that is 
 so extraordinary, when you think of everything. 
 
 "Quite extraordinary," Lawrance tried to reflect 
 ironically. "A little too extraordinary, in fact. Too 
 improbable even for your little essay in fiction, Mr. Cy- 
 prian Strange." 
 
 There were hardly any more entries : that was to be, it 
 seemed, the final outrage of Cyprian Strange 's pen 
 that implication that he had could have cured the 
 * ' good brother 's ' ' sister. One or two more isolated lines, 
 that was all: 
 
 I'm killing myself, but I can't resist L., her stored up 
 treasure. . . . She will have something of the attrac- 
 tion of a widow, as well. . . . I think of Pater's phrase, 
 
 <( sweet usage" . . . 
 
 Lawrance tore the Diary from its cover, struck a 
 match, put the little block of red-edged sheets into the 
 empty grate, and made ashes of them. He turned off 
 the electric switch, went to the window, drew the blind, 
 and put his head out for the mild breath of the Septem- 
 ber night. The moon looked at him like a pantaloon 
 with a hooded mouth.
 
 CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 THE autumn waned. It was now near the end, 
 of October, and Lawrance, looking out on to 
 Fishgate Street from the Office window at the 
 closing in of the afternoon, reflected that the days were 
 just about as short now as they had been at the time of 
 his wedding anniversary; just about. Eight months 
 ago. 
 
 As he went on with his proof -correcting he kept urg- 
 ing himself dully to the conclusion that all had been for 
 the best. The news from Malstowe that morning, that 
 was argument strong enough, surely? Letty was en- 
 gaged to be married to young Phillips, her old admirer, 
 in the Army now, and, by good luck, with a commis- 
 sion. The wedding would come off very soon, as the 
 bridegroom would be going to France with his regiment. 
 "Quite a quiet wedding," Mrs. Lawrance had written, 
 "but nice and military, like everything is now." She 
 was evidently well pleased : preoccupied by the pleasure, 
 for she hardly touched upon her legal affairs. 
 
 Letty he had not seen since Lady Petistree had handed 
 her over to him in London. There had been no tea-party 
 with Lord Burpham no exposures. Lawrance thought 
 that Lord Burpham regarded him now and again with a 
 puzzled look ; he could not be sure. How little that mat- 
 tered! The brother and sister had lunched together. 
 "I asked him to send you the Diary," she had said, and 
 he replied : ' ' I 've read it. ' ' These were the only words 
 
 334
 
 A CHASTE MAN 335 
 
 on that matter between them ; hers had not shocked him : 
 he had known, really, that the Diary told the truth. 
 The atmosphere of that cursed place . . . she had not 
 been herself . . . anyhow, no harm had come. And 
 Letty was cured. Lawrance repeated to himself that 
 he had good reason to be glad that he had gone at that 
 time to St. Franz. Very good reason. Yes, in spite of 
 that affair of Strange : that was outweighed. One must 
 be reasonable: one must see that it was certainly out- 
 weighed. 
 
 And for himself, he would get over the loss of Olga. 
 Even after the six or seven weeks, why, it was much 
 better. Much better. The pain was duller generally: 
 of course, sometimes when he lay awake, when he woke 
 but he could stand it. He was getting over all that 
 
 "Yes, but what," came snapping his reasoned consola- 
 tions, "but what are you getting over it fo?" Muriel 
 had despised him Olga, too; even Doris, perhaps . . . 
 and Mary . . . 
 
 Lawrance concentrated his mind fully, for a time, 
 upon his proof -correcting. 
 
 Then : It was the worst thing of all that could have 
 happened. Of all. Marriage. And a marriage of that 
 kind. Olga could not have been in love. To throw him 
 over for what wasn't the finest! Three thousand 
 miles away. He faced the event defiantly. Wasn 't that 
 the better way, the quicker way? he demanded. As to 
 what he was getting to, let that come. After all, there 
 must be something for him in infinity. You couldn't 
 follow that sort of idea; all the more reason that there 
 might be truth in it. ... The Mariner and his ideas 
 about Good and Evil . . . figs and thistles. But there 
 was more in the matter than that. If you could only
 
 336 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 get at causes . . . rules. The obscurity was impene- 
 trable: still, you had to go on. Poor old Mariner! 
 Lawrance had not been to Glasden Road since that time : 
 he would not go again, not yet. Perhaps later on but 
 it might be better not ; almost certainly better not. 
 
 From the Mariner his thoughts passed to Ewing, who 
 had committed suicide in prison, just before he was to 
 be tried: how he had done it had not been published. 
 No doubt the warders were off their guard with poor 
 little Ewing a man like that who seemed a nothing ; he 
 had given himself up, too. Ewing could do that, could 
 kill a man, give himself up, and then kill himself, save 
 himself from the gross dealings of the Law. And he 
 had seemed a nothing. He had ended in the right tragic 
 way, this unnoticeable little bank-clerk: a great catas- 
 trophe. With Lawrance himself, how was it, all this? 
 Too dull, too heavy: shapelessly dragging days. 
 
 He had talked to himself of "getting at causes"; 
 couldn't he get, at least, at the cause of his own present 
 suffering? Lawrance 's Puritanism, so operative against 
 himself, so little operative against others, rose up to con- 
 vict him. It was his own blame. He had allowed his 
 wife's jealousy of Olga to turn him to the girl: that 
 night of their going to the Music-Hail, he had lapsed 
 then, he had blasphemed his spirit. Everything had 
 followed from that lapse, from that blasphemy. He had 
 done wrong! Why hadn't he known that, fully, at the 
 time? Now he was punished. But yet 
 
 ' ' Oh, Mr. Lawrance, I must see you for a few minutes 
 when you're done with those proofs. Really believe I've 
 hit on something at last Israfel and I between us ah, 
 ha, 'None sing so wildly well!' Don't forget!" 
 
 Mr. Inge, pale and obese, waddled back hopefully to
 
 A CHASTE MAN 337 
 
 his room behind the plate-glass door. He was still try- 
 ing to forecast the date of the end of the war, though ad- 
 mitting that it seemed harder to do that successfully now 
 than it had in February. But he had been fairly suc- 
 cessful in other ways, had brought off some lucky hits: 
 the Zeppelin raids had at least had an effect upon his 
 prophetic prestige. His ideas teemed no less than ever: 
 Lawrance and he had exactly the same kind of talks on 
 "general business," Lawrance kept staving off his ''in- 
 spirations," or winnowing them, in just the same way. 
 
 "... before the 1st prox. we shall be regretfully 
 compelled to place the matter in the hands of our solici- 
 tors. " Old Ralston 's voice came, as before, with its 
 tired insistence. 
 
 Yes, the days were certainly just about the same length 
 as they had been in February, just about. 
 
 In half-an-hour or so Lawrance would be going back 
 to his home in Chiswick. His wife had returned the 
 week before; she was there at home. Getting better. 
 He must remember to be very kind to her; she was not 
 really well yet. He would have to be considerate, tact- 
 ful : any decent man would be, of course. Deavitt would 
 be in London on leave soon : he would ask him to dinner, 
 that would please her, he had told her that Deavitt was a 
 cousin of Lord Burpham's. Muriel . . . she remained, 
 she was his wife. Well? And what could any one 
 fairly say against Muriel? Many a man had a worse 
 wife. "I'm pretty well off, really oughtn't to com- 
 plain you can't have everything haven't run amuck, 
 anyhow might be much worse a man must make the 
 best of all he 's got. ' ' 
 
 The blind faces of his virtues were about him. 
 
 "... and we shall be glad to receive a cheque from
 
 338 A CHASTE MAN 
 
 you in settlement of our account as enclosed 'as 
 enclosed,' you've got that? at your very earliest con- 
 venience. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Ready now, Mr. Lawrance ? Won 't keep you long ; 
 know you want to get back home early. Of course. 
 And how is Mrs. Lawrance ? Better ? Ah, that 's good ; 
 'm, yes. That 's good news. ' ' 
 
 SAPERE AUDE
 
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