ROBERT HIGH ENS
 

 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 ROBERT HICHENS
 
 THE SPIRIT 
 OF THE TIME 
 
 A NOVEL OF TODAY 
 
 BY 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 AUTHOR OP "MRS MAEDEN," "THE GARDEN OF ALLAH," 
 
 "THE GREEN CARNATION," "THE CALL 
 OF THE BLOOD," ETC. 
 
 NEW XBJr YORK 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
 
 Copyright, 
 By George H. Doran Company 
 
 Printed in the United States" of America
 
 2136129 '
 
 THE SPIRIT 
 OF THE TIME 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 IN the autumn of 1919 Derrick Merton, 
 although he prided himself on being a man 
 of will and possessing a sense of humour, felt 
 that he really couldn't "stand things" much 
 longer. Like thousands of other people he 
 was suffering from reaction after the long 
 nightmare of war. Although he had been too 
 old alas, he was over fifty for active ser- 
 vice he had spent a great part of the last 
 five years in doing things which were hardly 
 in his "line," because he had considered it 
 his duty to do them. He had served for four 
 years with the Special Constables, had been a 
 helper in an East End hospital for wounded 
 soldiers, had done a lot of dull clerical work 
 for a public department, and, for a few months, 
 
 [7]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 had driven a motor lorry in order that a man 
 might be released for the army. Twenty- 
 seven air raids had fallen to his lot, He had 
 formerly been accustomed to spend a consider- 
 able part of each year in travelling abroad 
 and had not left England once since the War 
 had broken out. And now he had a bad cold 
 in the head which he could not shake off. 
 Even repeated and almost desperate inhala- 
 tions of Friar's Balsam did him no good, and 
 his sneezes were loud and portentous in the 
 land of his fathers. On the top of all this came 
 the great railway strike and a loud call for vol- 
 unteers to do all sorts of extremely unattrac- 
 tive things. It was really too much ! And life 
 seemed almost unbearable to Derrick as he 
 sat sneezing beside a small fire there was very 
 little coal to be had just then in his flat in 
 Cork Street, London, and wondering whether 
 he ought to go off and offer his services as 
 an amateur porter at one of the big stations 
 Waterloo perhaps! 
 
 He decided to ask a doctor. For he felt 
 really very unwell, quite weak in body and 
 mind. Both seemed to be saying, ''We've 
 done and borne enough and more than enough. 
 
 [8]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 If you demand anything more of us we shall 
 go on strike, like everyone else." 
 
 The doctor came and after an examination 
 forbade Derrick to undertake any more work. 
 
 "You're quite at the end of your tether," 
 he said. "Go abroad. Have a long rest. 
 I'll write you out a certificate and you'll have 
 no difficulty about getting a passport. There's 
 functional disturbance of the heart. It's not 
 serious, but you mustn't play with it. Un- 
 less you follow my advice you're in for a com- 
 plete nervous breakdown." 
 
 "Very well; I'll go," said Derrick. 
 
 'Better take someone with you." 
 
 "No, thank you. To tell the truth I long 
 to get away from everybody, to see only new 
 faces which won't recognize me. I'm aching 
 for a little bit of complete personal freedom." 
 
 "Where will you go?" 
 
 "I'll go abroad!" exclaimed Derrick, 
 drawing a long breath. "That covers every- 
 thing!" 
 
 The doctor smiled and wrote out the 
 certificate. 
 
 Not many days later Derrick was in a 
 crowded train starting from Boulogne for 
 
 [9]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 Paris. From Paris he meant to go to Mon- 
 treux. He was almost fiercely fond of the 
 sun, but just now the snows attracted him. 
 After all the weariness of war he longed to 
 look on the vast white solitudes, to see the 
 peaks in the blue, to hear the shuffle of the 
 snow dropping from the branches of pine 
 trees, to let his eyes wander along the glories 
 of the autumn woods on the lower slopes of 
 the hills which guard Lake Leman. And he 
 longed, too, to be in a country which had not 
 been in the War. So he resolved to travel to 
 Switzerland. 
 
 Paris was a nightmare, a phantasmagoria 
 of hurrying people who looked morbid or mad, 
 and who seemed unhinged by war and longing 
 for dreadful repayments. Derrick stayed there 
 two nights and hated it. To him it seemed 
 like a city of vultures. 
 
 "If this is what war makes of human be- 
 ings," he thought, as he sat outside the Cafe 
 de la Paix observing the frantic crowds, "God 
 help humanity!" 
 
 The ugliness of the expressions on most of 
 the faces almost terrified him. He drank a 
 cup of chocolate and was charged three francs 
 
 [10]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 fifty by the waiter, who looked indignant when 
 he received half a franc as a tip for bringing 
 the cup. Derrick had given it to him merely 
 to see how it would be received. 
 
 "Vultures! Vultures!" he said to himself, 
 as he left the cafe. "The War has turned men 
 and women into birds of prey." 
 
 In the evening he went to a theatre and saw 
 a farce full of stale indecencies at which a 
 crowd of men and women of various nationali- 
 ties laughed convulsively. On the following 
 day he escaped that was his feeling from 
 Paris. He was now on his way to a country 
 which had been immune from the horrors, 
 though not from many of the annoyances of 
 war. Already he felt a sense of relief. His 
 mind travelled on leaving the train behind, on 
 to the mountain peaks, the snowfields, the 
 glaciers, the climbing forests, the ravines mu- 
 sical with rivers, on to people who had not 
 had the hiieous duty of killing laid upon them. 
 He lay back in his seat by the big window 
 watching the landscape come up and vanish, 
 with its villages, its fields, its mysteries of 
 shadow and light, its winding white roads with 
 the little mysterious travellers upon them 
 
 EH]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 whom he would never know, and something of 
 the old glory of the pre-War life seemed to 
 swim over him and to possess him. Once more 
 he felt the thrill of a voyager's freedom at his 
 heart, the anticipation of the haphazard, the 
 unexpected, the sense of adventure which turns 
 back the nature towards boyhood. 
 
 To travel again after five years! To be 
 sitting in a big express on foreign soil, rushing 
 towards a frontier and away from all the du- 
 ties of the immediate past! It was jolly in- 
 deed. The schoolboy's adjective fitted it. 
 Derrick fingered his passport almost with an 
 absurd sensuality. Then he took it out and 
 looked at the photograph of himself pasted 
 on it. 
 
 He saw a man who looked about fifty, with 
 a broad forehead, grey hair inclined to be curly, 
 and wide opened, rather anxious, brown eyes. 
 The photographer had given him a sort of 
 pinched smirk which distorted slightly a firm, 
 rather humorous mouth, above which was a 
 close-clipped wiry moustache. An energetic 
 chin gave a certain look of power to the face 
 without destroying its sensitiveness. 
 
 "And that is I!" thought Derrick. "I've 
 [12]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 aged a lot since the War. My hair looks 
 infernally grey. The photographer has given 
 me a disgustingly middle-class smile, like a 
 Clapham tea-party, but he's abolished most 
 of my lines. Can there be much ahead for 
 that man, that still unmarried man? 
 
 Suddenly the thought came upon him that 
 he had passed irrevocably the happy age of 
 adventure which travelling suits so well. 
 Little flutters are easily forgiven to youth, 
 but when one has grey hair, a definite pucker 
 between the eyebrows, and wrinkles not due 
 really to the habit of smiling spraying out 
 beneath the corners of the eyes, one must aim 
 at the undesired dignities which are supposed 
 to dress up suitably the man who has passed 
 his prime. Derrick felt as if he heard the 
 shutting of doors as he returned the passport 
 to its leathern case. During the War, with- 
 out being aware of it, he had taken a leap 
 from the age of still possible adventure to 
 the age of what? What was there really 
 left for such a man as he was? What could 
 the freedom of travel give to him, after all? 
 The license to drift through hotels, to sit 
 solitary in restaurants gazing at the enjoyment 
 
 [13]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 of others, of lovers, young husbands and 
 wives, parents and children, to wander by lake 
 shores or on mountain sides staring at the 
 beauties of nature which in their wonder 
 awaken hungers not to be appeased by them, 
 to greet starry nights alone with no fear of 
 disturbance, but with no hope of affection's ca- 
 resses. Freedom! Derrick had kept his, and 
 now he was going to pay for it. 
 
 An abrupt and intense feeling of gloom 
 overspread him. For a moment he almost 
 wished he had not left England. There, at 
 any rate he was surrounded by friends, by 
 people who had known him so long that they 
 accepted him just as he was without either 
 surprise or criticism. Where he was going he 
 would probably merely be glanced at with the 
 indifference evoked by middle age, or perhaps 
 wondered about, or even coolly pitied as a 
 derelict, grey-haired creature of the drifting 
 type that haunts foreign hotels, and may be 
 seen lounging vaguely in smoking-rooms, or 
 pretending to read a book while sitting over 
 a solitary dinner in the midst of talkative 
 parties. 
 
 Decidedly the War had played the devil 
 [14]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 with Derrick's nervous system, turning him to 
 a pitiable morbidity. He had still the common 
 sense to know he was morbid, but that knowl- 
 edge did not help him much. His gloom per- 
 sisted and even increased, till he came to the 
 ridiculous conclusion that a middle-aged bach- 
 elor has no place in the scheme of things, that 
 nobody wants him, that he exists merely on 
 sufferance and has no right to look for any 
 real happiness. By the time the train glided 
 '"nto the station of Montreux he felt like a 
 pariah, and he got out of his carriage with 
 a sort of dreadful humility which seemed 
 pleading with Switzerland to put up with him 
 in spite of his obvious unworthiness. 
 
 In Montreux he stayed at the Hotel Mon- 
 ney, and had a room with a terrace facing the 
 lake. 
 
 It was grey weather that day. Clouds hung 
 on the mountain sides, hiding the snows. The 
 autumn woods covered the lower slopes with 
 a clinging beauty of red, russet-brown, bril- 
 liant yellow, old gold, pale pink and ash colour. 
 The waters of the lake were still. A few 
 fishermen were out in small boats 'bending over 
 their lines. 
 
 [15]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 Derrick unpacked, had a bath, changed his 
 clothes and went down to dejeuner, which he 
 ate in the small restaurant just before the 
 great dining-room. The train had arrived late. 
 He found himself alone in the restaurant. 
 When he had finished his meal he went into the 
 reading-room, picked up a local paper and 
 carried it into the smoking room. No one was 
 there. He lit a cigar, sat down, opened the 
 paper, and began to look at the list of visitors 
 in the many hotels and pensions of Montreux. 
 The porter had told him that Montreux was 
 not very full, but the paper seemed to give the 
 fellow the lie. Derrick read columns of names, 
 whose owners were at this moment established 
 in Montreux. German and Russian prin- 
 cesses, Polish counts, Turkish pashas, Beys, 
 Ukrainian barons, Bulgarians, Rumanians, 
 Austrians, Serbians, Montenegrins, Armeni- 
 ans, Georgians, Czeko- Slovaks, Italians, Cir- 
 cassians, announced themselves to the world 
 as staying on the shores of the lake. Never 
 before had Derrick read so many names which 
 he would have found it impossible to pronounce 
 correctly. Having nothing to do he read the 
 
 [16]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 whole list right through from beginning to- 
 end. 
 
 "I must go out presently and see some of 
 these people!" he thought. "After five years 
 of England it ought to be amusing." 
 
 He laid the paper down. 
 
 As he did so two ladies came into the long 
 room from the hall. One of them was tall, with 
 jet black hair, black eyes, a curiously square 
 face and irregular features. She was decidedly 
 a plain, almost an ugly, woman, but had an air 
 of intellect and marked distinction. She was 
 very simply but very well dressed, and wore a 
 three-cornered black hat and white kid gloves. 
 Round her neck hung several ropes of pearls. 
 Her companion, who was much younger, was 
 fair, small, with blue eyes and silky brown hair. 
 The two women did not sit down, but stood to- 
 gether near the end of the room in earnest con- 
 versation. Presently the elder woman opened 
 a little bag which hung at her waist, drew from 
 it a case and took out of it a cigarette and a 
 long cigarette holder. With a certain delicate 
 precision, which was evidently characteristic of 
 her, she put the cigarette into the holder and 
 looked round for a match. She pointed to at 
 
 [17]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 table at a little distance, and her companion 
 went towards it, but evidently found no 
 matches, for she shrugged her sloping shoul- 
 ders and made a moue and a gesture of disap- 
 pointment. 
 
 At this point Derrick got up, walked down 
 the room, made a non-committal sort of bow, 
 and said in French: 
 
 "May I give you a match, madame?" 
 
 "You are too good, monsieur," said the elder 
 of the two ladies in French. "Unless I can 
 smoke I am very unhappy." 
 
 Derrick lit a match. She bent forward, with 
 the holder between her lips, and he lit her cig- 
 arette. 
 
 As he did this the lady's large black eyes 
 met his for an instant, and it seemed to him 
 that her mind was in close contact with his, 
 that it said to his mind something like this : 
 
 "So! It is at Montreux that you and I had 
 to meet! I could not go to England to you, 
 and so you have come to Switzerland to me!" 
 
 So strong was his sensation that she was 
 silently speaking to him that he actually 
 opened his lips to make some he didn't know 
 what reply. But he was, as it were, inter- 
 
 [18]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 rupted by the lady, who said, with a slight smile 
 
 of half melancholy politeness : 
 
 "Thank you, monsieur, you are too kind." 
 A moment later he was back in his place at 
 
 the other end of the room. 
 
 [19]
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THAT afternoon Derrick put on his hat and 
 coat and went out for a walk. It was excep- 
 tionally cold that day, and he distinctly felt 
 the breath of snow in the air. Looking up 
 towards the mountains behind the small town 
 he saw the great hotel at Caux above Territet 
 vaguely defined through the tattered skirts of 
 the clouds. White patches lay around it and 
 just below it. To-morrow he would go up 
 there and walk in the snow. There was a great 
 tent pitched on the place near the lake. Little 
 boys were gathered about it, and an orchestra 
 was playing loudly a march from "Ai'da." 
 Derrick read the announcement of a circus. 
 Perhaps he would visit it that night. It would 
 be something to do. He walked on and passed 
 many smart shops. A good many people were 
 about walking slowly and well wrapped up, 
 evidently taking their "constitutionals." He 
 looked at them, trying to guess what nations 
 they belonged to. One enormously fat man, 
 
 [20]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 with a great white face, shining dark eyes, and 
 big carefully waxed moustaches, was probably 
 an Armenian. He looked as if he had just 
 been powdered, like a baby, and thoroughly 
 manicured. A wrinkled old woman went by, 
 carefully tinted the colour of magenta. She 
 carried a gold-headed cane, and was accom- 
 panied by a griffon. What was she? Per- 
 haps an Ukrainian or a Czeko-Slovak. Some 
 Germans were promenading. They looked 
 quite serene, even comfortable, not at all like 
 people who had just lost a war. No doubt they 
 were thankful to be safely out of their own 
 country. Derrick turned and went back, walk- 
 ing now in the direction of Vevey. 
 
 He passed his hotel and went on towards 
 the Montreux Palace Hotel. When he reached 
 the Arcade he saw in front of him the two 
 ladies of the Monney Hotel. The elder one 
 was wrapped up in furs. She had a very dis- 
 tinctive walk. Even the way in which she 
 moved suggested authority and high breeding. 
 What nation did she belong to? Derrick 
 thought she might be a Hungarian. That she 
 was an aristocrat he was quite certain. Her 
 companion, he thought, might be German. 
 
 [21]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 At the end of the Arcade the two ladies 
 paused. Thin snow was beginning to fall. 
 They turned and met him in the Arcade. As 
 he passed them he took off his hat, and they 
 both bowed slightly. 
 
 The pearls round the neck of the elder 
 woman were hidden by the fur coat she wore. 
 
 Derrick wondered why he had thought of 
 them. 
 
 That evening, just before dinner, he had a 
 talk with the director of the hotel, an intelli- 
 gent and agreeable man who knew Montreux 
 like his pocket. The director gave Derrick a 
 brief history of the social conditions in Mon- 
 treux at the moment. 
 
 "They are quite abnormal, monsieur," he 
 said. "Many of the people here are refugees. 
 We have Russian aristocrats who are utterly 
 ruined living in the best hotels, Turks who 
 have escaped from their decaying country, 
 Germans and Austrians who would as soon be 
 in hell as in Berlin, which is a playground for 
 bandits, or starving Vienna. (For make no 
 mistake, monsieur, Vienna is literally starv- 
 ing.) We have here" he lowered his voice 
 cautiously "spies whose occupation is lucra- 
 
 [22]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 tive no longer, but who still hope to find some- 
 thing shady to do. There are princesses here 
 without a halfpenny. You know the condition 
 of the exchange and what the German mark 
 and the Austrian krone are worth. As for the 
 Russian rouble!" He threw up his hands. 
 "You may meet in the street any day diplo- 
 matists who haven't the money to pay for a new 
 pair of trousers, Muscovites who own large 
 tracts of land in Russia and who now are little 
 better than the beggars at Italian street cor- 
 ners. (In Montreux, of course, there are no 
 beggars.) The Greeks here are all fanatical 
 adherents of ex-King Constantine, and have 
 followed him into exile. Most of them, per- 
 haps all, would give thanks to God if they 
 heard that a knife had found its way by chance 
 into the body of Monsieur Venezelos. Then 
 we have Armenians who probably are only 
 alive at this moment because they are beyond 
 Turkish territory. You may see them eating 
 pastries, twenty, thirty at a time, side by side 
 with the Turks in our tea-rooms. We have, of 
 course thank Heaven for it a few war prof- 
 iteers here. They help to keep the shopkeepers 
 going, gamble at the Casino, and put some 
 
 [23]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 money into our poor pockets by drinking 
 champagne in the hotels. But never has Mon- 
 treux been like this before. If one could only 
 get right under the surface here, mon Dieu, 
 what tragedies would be revealed! Imagine 
 people of the greatest families living in our 
 hotels which I think I may say are the best 
 in Europe without two halfpennies of their 
 own, bien entendu to rub together and with- 
 out any hope of having two halfpennies of their 
 own in future time. What a position!" 
 
 "Well, but how on earth can they live in 
 hotels?" 
 
 "Ah, monsieur, how can they? How do 
 they? I know the world pretty well, but it 
 is often a puzzle to me how half the world 
 lives. How do these people who are ruined 
 by the War live as they do here? How do 
 they pay for chocolate and cakes in the tea- 
 shops, for concert tickets at the Casino ? Tenez ! 
 There is a concert to-night, Madame Litvinne, 
 a great artiste. If you go there you will see 
 them, the living mysteries, who live without 
 having the means to live, as one might say. 
 Between the parts of the concert they will risk 
 something which they haven't got, so to speak 
 
 [24]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 at the tables. Of course, the limit here is 
 ridiculous, as you know. But even five francs 
 is five francs, n'est ce pas?" 
 
 "But surely they must have money?" 
 
 "Monsieur, they get it somehow. They sell 
 things. You can buy jewels in Montreux 
 cheap, very cheap. And if you can carry them 
 to London there is a nice profit for you. And 
 they sell other things." He looked very ex- 
 pressive. "Ah, the world! And some, with 
 very great names, are taken into the hotels 
 very cheap, for next to nothing. They are 
 reclame, you understand, for the hotels. And 
 then " 
 
 But at this point of his discourse a secre- 
 tary hurried up, and the director, with a "Par- 
 don, m'sieul Au revoir!" turned away. 
 
 Derrick moved to go into dinner. He had 
 decided to live en pension, so he dined in the 
 big room at a fixed hour, a quarter past seven. 
 When he had found his table he saw sitting 
 close to him the two ladies who were already 
 drinking their soup. They were smartly 
 dressed and wore hats. He wondered whether 
 they were going to the concert that night. 
 They were surely not dressed like that for the 
 
 [25]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 circus. He made up his mind to go to the con- 
 cert. It might be interesting to see the liv- 
 ing mysteries. The elder lady, who was oppo- 
 site to him, wore the pearls. As he glanced at 
 them he thought of the director's remark about 
 
 jewels. Could she be But he put the 
 
 idea from him. He simply could not imagine 
 a woman of her type as a pauper. She looked 
 as if all the good things, the really distin- 
 guished things that make life a song instead 
 of a street cry, must be hers by right. Some 
 things are so unsuitable that they just cannot 
 happen. Such women cannot be allowed to be 
 poor. 
 
 As he thought this he saw the big black eyes 
 looking at him and again he felt that their 
 owner's mind was somehow in direct communi- 
 cation with his. An agreeable thrill went 
 through him. He was emancipated from his 
 morbidity of the train. 
 
 "After all, perhaps I am not too old," he 
 said to himself. "She seems to feel some in- 
 terest in me." 
 
 And he remembered that there are women 
 who like grey hair on the head of a man, and 
 that there are other women in the world be- 
 
 [26]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 sides flappers. For the middle-aged man who 
 is attracted by flappers there is literally no 
 hope on this earth. But Derrick honestly 
 thought flappers bores, and liked women of the 
 world. 
 
 How old was she? Forty, probably; per- 
 haps even more. But he was positive she was 
 a very interesting and very clever woman. 
 Even her ugliness it almost amounted to that 
 attracted him. He was sure that she did 
 not mind it, never had minded it. She was too 
 aristocratic to be cast down by a trifle of that 
 kind. No doubt she had read history, memoirs 
 he could see her reading memoirs and re- 
 membered the Princess Metternich, and many 
 other ugly women who had ruled society with 
 the rods of wit and of will. 
 
 The two ladies finished dinner before Der- 
 rick and left the dining-room. As they went 
 out they bowed to several of the people at the 
 other tables, and Derrick noticed that their 
 salutes were returned with a smiling eagerness 
 by the women and with marked deference by 
 the men. 
 
 "I must find out who they are," he said to 
 himself. 
 
 [27]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 After dinner he hoped to see them about, 
 but he was disappointed. He smoked a cigar, 
 put on his coat and hat and started off on 
 foot to the Casino. 
 
 By the tent door the orchestra was blaring, 
 and people were pouring in to see the sensa- 
 tional feats of the famous Knie family. For a 
 moment Derrick hesitated. He was fond of 
 a good circus. The sawdust and the horizontal 
 bars appealed to something boyish which still 
 lingered in the depths of his nature. But she 
 would certainly not be there. He walked on 
 and found his way to the Casino. 
 
 The big powdered baby with the moustaches 
 entered it just in front of him, showing a mar- 
 vellous coloured waistcoat with diamond but- 
 tons. In the hall were living mysteries of all 
 nations. He bought a stall for the concert 
 which was just going to begin. Madame Lit- 
 vinne had already arrived from the Palace Ho- 
 tel with her accompanist. When he found his 
 seat he saw that the two people he was in 
 search of for really hadn't it come to that ? 
 were sitting exactly in front of him. He could 
 hear them talking from his seat. They were 
 speaking in for a moment he feared it was 
 
 [28]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 German, the forbidden language but no, it 
 was something else. Polish perhaps, or Rus- 
 sian. Finally he made up his mind it was Rus- 
 sian. For there was something soft and liquid 
 about it, a fluidity, a gliding roundness which 
 he associated with Russian. This pleased him, 
 for Russia, whatever she was now, had been an 
 ally. And these ladies could certainly not be 
 Bolsheviks. They did not notice him. They 
 were deep in conversation. The elder lady 
 spoke much more than her younger companion, 
 quickly, with a certain soft violence, as if she 
 were feeling something intensely, but had not 
 forgotten that she was in a public place. Mean- 
 while the room filled up quickly. 
 
 Baby stood up expansively in the front row, 
 showing the waistcoat and diamonds, bowing 
 and smiling to friends in the audience. He 
 looked like one whose soul was made of the 
 very best pastry, and who would eventually 
 soar on sticky wings to a chocolate heaven. 
 Derrick felt sure he was enormously rich and 
 probably generous, for his very definite wiles 
 were gladly responded to by many enigmas in 
 the audience, by strange wrinkled old ladies, 
 by younger women rosy with paint, or dead 
 
 [29]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 white, like clowns, with scarlet lips, by dark, 
 doubtful-looking young men, and by people 
 of uncertain age and both sexes, who had the 
 curious cosmopolitan look which marks wan- 
 dering beings who live for ever in big hotels, 
 and whom one can never think of as at home. 
 He was still bowing and smiling and waving 
 his manicured hands when the great Litvinne 
 walked slowly on to the platform, with her 
 calm and ample grace, followed by a clever- 
 looking dark girl who sat down at the piano. 
 
 The two women in front of Derrick stopped 
 talking, and, after a rustle from the audience 
 and a corpulent volte-face by baby, the concert 
 began. 
 
 When the first part was over almost every- 
 body in the room got up. There was to be a 
 long interval in order that people might have 
 time for a "flutter" at the tables. Derrick 
 went out at once with the crowd and made his 
 way to the "Boule." He did not mean to play^ 
 but to smoke a cigarette and watch. 
 
 Only one table was in use that evening, and 
 people eagerly gathered round it, and began 
 to place small sums on the different numbers 
 while the ball was set in motion. Derrick sat 
 
 [30]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 down by the other table and looked across the 
 "Boule" at the players and those who stood be- 
 hind them. There was not the intent and arid 
 solemnity here which he had always been struck 
 by at Monte Carlo. The maximum at the 
 Casino was only five francs. Nevertheless, as 
 the director of the Monney had said, five francs 
 is five francs. When he had seen two or three 
 people lose their money Derrick began to 
 realize more fully the inner truth of that ob- 
 servation. Some of the players were no doubt 
 among the ruined who made their home at 
 Montreux. Their faces seemed to show it aft 
 their small stakes were indifferently swept 
 away by the sulky-looking croupier. 
 
 The fat Armenian if he were an Armenian, 
 as Derrick believed staked and won five times 
 in succession. His large powdered face was 
 wreathed in smiles. A brick-red Englishman 
 near him cast a look of contempt at his joy and 
 shoved two francs on to "Impair." 
 
 At this moment Derrick was aware of some- 
 one standing behind him. He looked quickly 
 round, and saw the fair, silky -haired woman of 
 the Monney. She was alone, and was looking 
 
 [31]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 at the ball, which had just been thrown in, with 
 a coldly critical expression on her face. 
 
 "Sept!" Derrick presently heard her say, as 
 if to herself. "Sept!" 
 
 The ball rolled into "cinq," rolled out, 
 seemed to hesitate, like one considering which 
 of two courses to take, and finally came to rest 
 in number seven. 
 
 "So!" said the voice behind Derrick. 
 
 And the fair woman passed on, mingled with 
 the crowd round the opposite table, and, with 
 a very definite obstinacy, which suggested a 
 ruthless nature, forced her way into the front 
 and began to play. 
 
 "She is surely a German!" thought Derrick. 
 
 She was young and pretty, but he did not 
 like her face very much. The cheekbones were 
 high and almost too pink, he thought; the large 
 blue eyes were steady and cold as electric light. 
 The expression on her face was acutely dis- 
 satisfied. She staked the maximum on seven, 
 and four came up. Then she staked on four 
 and seven came up. She pressed her lips to- 
 gether and staked again on four, and lost. 
 Then she changed to eight, and the ball chose 
 to stop on two. Her face now began to show 
 
 [32]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 an almost fierce obstinacy, and she cast a look 
 of hatred at the ball as it was again thrown in* 
 This time she did not play, and eight was the 
 winning number. Thereupon, with a sort of 
 almost fierce resolution, she put the maximum 
 on eight, and nine came up. 
 
 Derrick had often watched gamblers playing 
 for large sums at Monte Carlo and elsewhere, 
 but he had never before felt so acutely the ex- 
 asperation which the vagaries of chance can 
 rouse in the human mind. 
 
 And yet he had not been playing, and he 
 felt he did not know why almost hostile to 
 the woman he had been watching. 
 
 A bell rang. In a moment the tables were 
 deserted. He followed the fair-haired woman 
 back to the concert-room. Her companion was 
 just returning to her seat from the other side 
 of the room, and as the two met Derrick heard 
 her say in French: "I found Litvinne. What 
 a charming woman!" 
 
 The other replied with a torrent of Russian. 
 [(By this time Derrick felt sure it was Rus- 
 sian.) She gesticulated as she talked. Her 
 friend listened, looking at her with a sort of 
 stern intent ness, the black eyes steady, the long 
 
 [33]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 lips pressed together and lifted, drawing up 
 the chin. Then she moved her head several 
 times, giving a strong impression of fatalistic 
 resignation, somehow combined with irony. 
 Finally she interrupted the torrent of speech 
 with an Italian word which Derrick had very 
 often heard cried out in Roman theatres. 
 
 "Basta! Basta!" she said. 
 
 And she struck her breast with both hands 
 twice, drawing down her black eyebrows. The 
 other broke off in a long murmur as Litvinne 
 returned to the platform and was welcomed 
 with a discreet applause. 
 
 In the second part of the concert she sang, 
 among many other things, Faure's well-known 
 "Les Roses d'Ispahan," with its faint and 
 creeping nostalgia, its delicate and almost 
 vaporous sentimentality, which suggests a ling- 
 ering perfume hanging in warm air at the twi- 
 light hour. Directly this song was over the 
 black-haired lady slowly turned her head and 
 looked for an instant at Derrick. He realized 
 at once that she had known since the beginning 
 of the concert that he was sitting behind her, 
 although she had certainly never looked at him 
 before. He returned her glance steadily, and, 
 
 [34]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 while he did so, he felt positive that something 
 of Asia dwelt in her, that Europe and Asia 
 mingled in her as they do in so many Russians. 
 She would surely be at home among the roses 
 of Persia with a volume of Hafiz in her hands. 
 She gave him no sign of recognition. There 
 was something Eastern in the unwinking im- 
 personal stare of her long eyes. Her com- 
 panion spoke to her, and she moved slowly, but 
 Derrick felt as if her eyes were still fixed upon 
 him, even when he could see them no longer. 
 
 "That woman intends to know me," he said 
 to himself. "Why?" 
 
 He did not know, but he knew that he 
 wanted to talk to her, to find out something 
 about her. She was not, perhaps, wholly sym- 
 pathetic to him, but she interested him im- 
 mensely. And she had roused him out of his 
 morbid mood and given him a nice little niche 
 in his own estimation. 
 
 "She's a remarkable woman," he said to 
 himself, with conviction. 
 
 Although he had a sense of humour, he for- 
 got to ask himself whether he would have 
 thought her remarkable if she had shown no 
 interest in him. 
 
 [35]
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 'ON the following day it was exceptionally 
 cold for the time of year in Montreux, the 
 snow was dense on the mountain side as far 
 as Glion, and Derrick decided to carry out his 
 intention of the previous day and to go up 
 into the white world above Caux. The train 
 on the mountain railway started before eleven, 
 but he felt active and impatient to be off, and 
 resolved to walk up, and perhaps come down by 
 train. So he put on a pair of strong boots, 
 took a stick with an iron point, and set off 
 about half -past nine. 
 
 He had slept well ; the brisk pure air invig- 
 orated him, and he felt more of the joy of 
 living than he had felt for a long time. As 
 he walked on, leaving the houses below him, 
 and turning now and then, as the road wound 
 upwards, to look out over the lake, blue to-day 
 in the sunshine, and the panorama of moun- 
 tains that gathered about the entrance to the 
 Simplon, he tasted fully his present freedom. 
 
 [36]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 As a Special Constable he had had to pace 
 Grosvenor Square for hours at a time, be- 
 tween the Italian and American Embassies. 
 The monotony of it had sometimes driven him 
 almost to desperation. But now he could be 
 glad of that duty left behind in the past. It 
 gave a sharp edge to the zest he felt in his 
 present situation. He was free at last ! And 
 he revelled in his freedom and even in his 
 solitude of the moment. His cheeks glowed. 
 He drew in the air from the snows he was near- 
 ing. As he mounted steadily he felt the snow 
 like a friend waiting for him up there on the 
 heights. The clouds drew away. The great 
 hotel at Caux stood out clear beneath the blue. 
 Soon he set his feet in the snow and struck the 
 tip of his stick on a film of ice. 
 
 After passing through Glion he was deep in 
 the radiant winter. Some boys were joyously 
 tobogganing down the road. As they passed 
 him swiftly, shooting at the stranger glances 
 of pride, their cries rang out in the still air, 
 and died away in the distance. Soon he was 
 quite alone in the snow-covered woods. The 
 silence of which he had dreamed in London 
 was his possession. It was heavy walking now, 
 
 [37]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 but he ploughed his way upward with steady 
 energy, meeting no one on his way. Evi- 
 dently he was the only person in all Montreux 
 who had imagination enough to care for this 
 beautiful world. There were no cake-shops 
 here. That no doubt accounted for humanity's 
 absence. But the remembrance of cake-shops 
 made him suddenly realize that he was getting 
 infernally hungry. The big hotel at Caux was 
 shut. The concierge at the hotel had told him 
 so. Suppose that no restaurant were open? 
 He couldn't help smiling ironically as he real- 
 ized that he and the Armenian were, after all, 
 brothers when it came to a question of food. 
 
 He reached Caux at last, and made straight 
 for the little hotel which stands to the left of 
 the road. ' There was not a soul about, but the 
 door yielded to his touch, and he passed into 
 an empty hall. Beyond was a restaurant, also 
 quite empty. There was no central heating 
 on, and the bare rooms were cold, but he saw 
 white cloths on some tables and hope leaped 
 up in him. He knocked hard with his stick on 
 the wooden floor, and in a moment a woman 
 appeared looking rather surprised. In answer 
 to his question she told him that there was no 
 
 [38]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 meat in the house but ham. But he could have 
 ham, eggs sur le plat, potatoes, cheese and a 
 bottle of wine if he would wait a little. 
 
 "Have it ready in half an hour, madame!" 
 he said. "Meanwhile I'll stroll up above the 
 hotel, and see what it looks like for skiing. 
 Nobody here?" 
 
 "No, m'sieu. But one or two may come in. 
 The morning train goes no further than Glion, 
 but there's a train down from here in the after- 
 noon. And now and then people get out at 
 Glion, walk up here, take the dejeuner and 
 catch the train back. On a day like this we 
 often get someone." 
 
 "Ah! In half an hour, then?" 
 "Bien, m'sieu. It shall be ready." 
 Derrick left her and was soon once more 
 alone in the snow. 
 
 He turned to the left, passed a chalet with 
 a yard in which two rosy-cheeked men were un- 
 loading wood, and walked on till he was quite 
 alone, out of sight of all habitations. Before 
 him stretched the vast snowfields glittering in 
 the sun; above him were the mountain tops. 
 Behind him were the snow-covered trees, stand- 
 ing thickly together, bearing their burdens in 
 
 [39]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 breathless silence. He stood still for a long 
 while, and something of the tranquillity of win- 
 ter seemed to be in his soul. Far down below 
 him lay Montreux with its strange population ; 
 the war profiteers, the reclame princesses, the 
 pastry-loving Turks and Armenians, the old 
 ladies painted magenta, the enigmatic girls 
 with white, but not snow-white, faces, the 
 ruined diplomatists, the pathetic, yet ridic- 
 ulous gamblers. And here were the moun- 
 tains, the forests, the snows and the silence; 
 here was nature remote, terrifically remote 
 from man and his follies, holding herself aloof 
 as if with a conscious and superb disdain. To 
 Derrick just then it seemed as if there were 
 something profoundly spiritual in nature, 
 which, if only man could reach out to it, would 
 purify him, purge him for ever of his crimes 
 and his ignorance, show him how he might 
 walk intimately with God. 
 
 But how to reach out to it? That was the 
 problem. 
 
 Behind Derrick a load of snow slipped from 
 the branch of a fir tree and fell into the forest 
 depth with a muffled and very personal sound. 
 He waited a moment more. He knew he would 
 
 [40]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 never forget that moment. Five years of war 
 had been necessary to make it just what it was 
 to him, intense, strange, almost cruelly beauti- 
 ful. The moment took its place in the past. 
 He swung round and strode back to the inn. 
 
 When he got there, and had left his hat and 
 stick he kept on his overcoat in the hall, he 
 saw that the restaurant was no longer empty. 
 At a table by the window a lady in a long fur 
 coat was sitting with her back to him. He 
 could not see her face, but he knew at once who 
 it was. A ring of cigarette smoke rose and 
 evaporated in the air above her table. 
 
 "Unless I can smoke I am very unhappy." 
 
 So this was how they had to make each 
 other's acquaintance, up in the snows ! 
 
 Derrick had made up his mind what to do. 
 He felt for his card-case, found it and drew 
 out a card. The lady had not looked round. 
 He walked up to her table. 
 
 "Madame, forgive me " 
 
 The lady looked up without any surprise. 
 
 "May I venture to give you my name, as we 
 are at the same hotel at Montreux, and have 
 already spoken to each other?" 
 
 "Merci, monsieur," 
 
 [41]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 She took the card and read his name. Then 
 she said in English, but with a very strong for- 
 eign accent: 
 
 "I am one of the teacherous Russians whom 
 you English despise, no doubt. I am Princess 
 Aranensky." 
 
 "Many of us pity, rather than condemn, 
 Russia. We know what thousands of Russians 
 have suffered." 
 
 "Russia is a cold hell," she said. "Torture, 
 rape, robbery, murder, in darkness, rain, mist, 
 snow. But I have not seen Russia for eight 
 years or more. As Turgenev did, I live 
 abroad, and so, perhaps, cannot claim to be 
 what is called a good Russian. Ah, here are 
 my eggs!" 
 
 At this moment the woman of the house 
 came in with the Princess's d&jeuner. As she 
 arranged it on the table she said to Derrick : 
 
 "I will bring yours immediately, monsieur." 
 
 "There is room for it here if you like," 
 said the Princess in a casual way to Derrick. 
 "We are the only two. Why should we not eat 
 together? We are both of us too old to be 
 conventional. My bottle of wine?" 
 
 "I have not forgotten it, madame." 
 [42]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 The woman hurried away. Derrick sat 
 down opposite to the Princess. 
 
 "You walked up all the way from Glion?" 
 he said. 
 
 "That is nothing. I often do it. In Mon- 
 treux I feel squeezed. But I have been there 
 all through the War. Imagine that street, 
 the Casino, the tea-shops, the old ladies, the 
 consumptive man who plays the zither, for 
 more than five years!" 
 
 "Then I suppose that now the frontiers are 
 open 
 
 "That makes no difference to me. I cannot 
 leave Montreux. I am too poor. Ah, here is 
 your food and our two bottles of wine! This 
 air makes one hungry, doesn't it?" 
 
 She was eating with delicate energy and ob- 
 vious enjoyment. Now she poured out a glass 
 of white wine. 
 
 "I like its pale colour," she said. "Wine is 
 the blood of a country. For myself I say 'a 
 bas les Pussyfoots !' ' 
 
 "What you read our papers?" 
 
 "Of course. I read everything. What else 
 have I to do? For the last five years I have 
 been reading, studying, forgetting Montreux 
 
 [43]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 and its cake-shops in my sitting-room at the 
 Eden, the Montreux palace, the Lorius and 
 now the Monney. Reading is the one pleasure 
 of paupers like me." 
 
 "And smoking?" 
 
 "And smoking. I come up here to think 
 about what I have read, and to get away from 
 humanity, which at Montreux is une scdbreuse 
 comedie. We are all riff-raff there, not by 
 birth, perhaps that is an accident but be- 
 cause of the way we live and the effect of war 
 upon us. We haven't fought, though some of 
 us have intrigued, we haven't stuck to our coun- 
 tries in their adversity. We have just sat in 
 hotels and hated the War, and worried about 
 the exchange, and got poorer and poorer, and 
 cursed and gone to the tea-shops, and gambled 
 with five-franc pieces. Moral riff-raff that is 
 what we are. And so I come up into the snows 
 now and then! It makes me no better, per- 
 haps. But it pleases me. Being alone with 
 cushions one furnishes a hotel sitting room 
 with cushions, if one is a woman is loneliness ; 
 being alone with Nature is solitude. The dif- 
 ference is vast. I even forget my empty pock- 
 ets up here and the deplorable effect that being 
 
 [44]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 ruined has upon the immortal soul at any 
 rate, if it is Russian." 
 
 She smiled, and again Derrick noticed the 
 irony of her long lips. 
 
 They talked all through the meal, while they 
 sipped their coffee afterwards, while they 
 smoked cigarettes innumerable. Princess Ar- 
 anensky asked Derrick no questions, but con- 
 tinued to speak with amazing unreserve about 
 herself, life, men, books. When he talked she 
 listened to him with a still and complete in- 
 terest. She had no coquetry. She displayed 
 no feminine wiles. There was no hint of sen- 
 suality in her manner or atmosphere. Yet 
 there was something warm and strong in her 
 personality. The time flew till the woman of 
 the house came in with the two bills, which she 
 gave to Derrick. He was about to settle both 
 when the Princess stretched out her hand. 
 
 "That is mine thank you," she said, with 
 quiet decision. And she took it and paid, and 
 gave the woman five francs for herself. Then 
 she looked at her watch. 
 
 "Are you coming down by train?" 
 
 "Yes," said Derrick. 
 
 "Then let us go together. We have half an 
 [45]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 hour to walk in the snow before the train 
 starts." 
 
 It was colder now. The winter day was de- 
 clining and clouds were stealing down the 
 mountain sides. The breath went from their 
 lips like smoke. 
 
 "Another winter in Montreux!" said the 
 Princess. 
 
 Derrick looked at her long sable coat, 
 thought of the five-franc tip she had just given 
 to the waitress at the hotel, and wondered how 
 poor she really was. 
 
 "If I were free," she continued, "I should go 
 to Egypt or to India." 
 
 "Have you ever been in Asia?" he asked. 
 
 "Never. But I often feel Asia within me. 
 Why didn't I go there when I was rich ? What 
 fools rich people are ! I was. Petrograd, Mos- 
 cow, Paris, Vienna, the South of France that 
 sufficed me when I had money. But I only ex- 
 isted then. I did not think. Let us stand here 
 for a moment in the snow. Look at the clouds 
 swallowing up the woods and me and you." 
 
 The mists were indeed floating about them, 
 and the world was fading away, leaving them 
 in a strange isolation. Not a sound was to be 
 
 [46]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 heard when their feet ceased from moving. 
 The Princess compressed her lips and half shut 
 her eyes. Neither she nor Derrick moved or 
 spoke for two or three minutes. 
 
 "It is true what Stiner says," she remarked 
 at last, breaking the silence. "All the world 
 which we see is but a mask. The truth, the real 
 physiognomy, is hidden behind it, behind the 
 mountains, and the seas, the desert sands, the 
 sunsets, the moonlight, as we are hidden be- 
 hind our words, our actions, our laughter and 
 our tears. Even Nature, as we see it, is cam- 
 ouflage. We take for a grey wave of the sea 
 what is really a ship, with perhaps guns trained 
 upon us. Poor little people! Come, let us go 
 down, or we shall miss the train, and then 
 Katya will be frightened for me." 
 
 "The lady I saw last night playing at the 
 Casino?" Derrick ventured to say. 
 
 "Did you? Yes, she hoped to win some- 
 thing. We need money so badly. But she 
 lost. She always loses because she needs to 
 win. That is fatal in gambling to need to 
 win. She is from the Baltic Provinces and 
 has only been here a short time. She has seen 
 dreadful things in Russia, and believes no
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 longer in a God or in any human goodness. 
 In each man and woman, she says, a hyena is 
 hidden, or a wolf. She has seen the wolf come 
 out many times, poor child! She is hard as 
 ice, but she has some affection for me. Ah, 
 here is the train well warmed, I hope." 
 
 That evening in the hotel Derrick was in- 
 troduced to the Princess's friend, Baroness 
 Hausen. 
 
 She made upon him a peculiar and disagree- 
 able impression, which would, perhaps, have 
 been even more disagreeable had not the Prin- 
 cess that afternoon hinted at her history, ex- 
 plained her to some extent. She was certainly 
 good looking, especially at night, when arti- 
 ficial light gave a sort of glow to her fairness. 
 She was evidently highly educated and very 
 intelligent, and of course she was polite and, 
 in a detached way, agreeable. But somehow 
 Derrick could hardly have said how a glacial 
 cynicism made itself felt in her, seemed at 
 times to emanate from her. All warm senti- 
 ment was evidently dead in her, if indeed it had 
 ever existed there. Princess Aranensky had 
 spoken of her friend's affection, and probably 
 she had some feeling for the Princess, but, if 
 
 [48]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 so, there was no faith in it, no restful trust in 
 it, no hope mingled with it. She was quiet but 
 not gentle. It was impossible to imagine that 
 she had ever felt happy, yet she made no pa- 
 rade of misery. As to any demand for sym- 
 pathy, Derrick would as easily have expected 
 it from an ice-covered rock as from Baroness 
 Hausen. She was like a well-bred cultivated 
 human being whose humanity had dried up at 
 the sources, leaving her without regret for it- 
 Possibly she no longer even remembered that 
 it had ever been. She looked at people as one 
 might look at stones in a quarry. The mere 
 expression in her large blue eyes was sufficient 
 to prevent even the most passing allusion to 
 sentiment, heart, or Christian charity, by any- 
 one the least sensitive to human influences* 
 Disbelief, irony, gleamed in them like the light 
 on a spear point. 
 
 She spoke without reserve, like the Princess, 
 and evidently expressed her real opinions in 
 casual conversation, disdaining to hide them. 
 If she did not agree with something which was 
 said she stated the fact bluntly. When the 
 War was alluded to she sneered at the sug- 
 gestion that any of the nations which had been 
 
 [49]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 engaged in it had been moved by any feeling 
 except crude egoism and undiluted selfishness. 
 
 "We still live in the jungle," she said, "and 
 we always shall live there. War has simply 
 uncovered our nakedness and shown us as we 
 really are. I wonder why governments take 
 the trouble to lie and pretend any longer. No 
 one is deceived any more by their childish pre- 
 tences. No one is hoodwinked. So why waste 
 time on humbug? There is one thing, at any 
 rate, to be said for the Bolsheviks. They have 
 no more humbug about them than a tiger has." 
 
 Princess Aranensky neither attempted to 
 combat her friend's opinions nor seemed con- 
 cerned as to what Derrick thought of them. 
 But she did not say she agreed with them. 
 She only remarked 
 
 "It is lucky you are safe here in Montreux 
 among the cake-shops, Katya!" 
 
 "People are really just the same here in 
 Montreux as they are in Petrograd or in Riga," 
 said the Baroness, "only they dare not show 
 it. This long street" she stretched out her 
 thin white arm "if we could uncover it, as 
 you may uncover a drain, we should find every 
 evil passion at work. We should find it full 
 
 [50]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 of actual or potential thieves, murderers, adul- 
 terers, torturers, devils of all kinds. They are 
 held in check here by opinion and the law 
 that is all. Abolish the law, give the public 
 opinion which is merely collective hypocrisy 
 a good shake, and then look at Montreux! 
 Now I am going to bed." 
 
 And she got up, with a sort of frozen tran- 
 quillity, bade Derrick good night and went 
 away. 
 
 "Moral riff-raff!" said the Princess. "You 
 see what she thinks of us." . 
 
 "But forgive me I don't think Baroness 
 Hausen is quite normal," said Derrick. 
 
 And they fell into a discussion which lasted 
 till midnight, one of those discussions which 
 Derrick delighted in, about human character 
 and human motives, about the "why" at the 
 root of strange actions, the pressure of neces- 
 sity, moral and physical, upon human beings, 
 the subtle tug of floating ideas at receptive 
 and emotional natures, the driving force of 
 the passions, the apparently fatal moulding- 
 power which circumstance has over the plastic 
 soul of woman and man. 
 
 The Princess and he sometimes agreed, 
 [51]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 sometimes disagreed; but that didn't seem to 
 matter, for she evidently had a sincere intelli- 
 gence which was absolutely bold in expression. 
 She was never irritable, never showed nervous- 
 ness, but smoked and talked with tireless zest. 
 She was certainly no longer a sentimentalist, 
 whatever she had been in the days of her youth, 
 but she showed none of the perverted cynicism 
 of the Baroness Hausen. 
 
 In the course of the conversation Derrick 
 discovered that the Princess had long been a 
 widow, and that at one time she had been at- 
 tached to the Russian Court. She was evi- 
 dently familiar with many of the well-known 
 men of the time on the Continent, but told 
 Derrick she had never visited England. 
 
 "I have never had any children," she men- 
 tioned casually, "and I have never wished to. 
 I should be afraid of handing on miseries." 
 
 He received from her the net impression of 
 a vivid and bold nature which in long contact 
 with the world had learnt to expect very little 
 really from life. She told him that she believed 
 in the doctrine of reincarnation. 
 
 "So I have always the sensation of passing 
 like a shadow along a wall," she said. 
 
 [52]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 "And do other people seem to you shadows?" 
 he asked her. 
 
 "Many do. They appear to me as grotesques 
 and I can scarcely be civil to them. But there 
 are others who seem to mean a great deal. Per- 
 haps one has met them before and will meet 
 them again, farther along the road." 
 
 Her large black eyes were fixed upon him 
 with a sort of musing abstraction. 
 
 "Perhaps one has to help them or to be 
 helped by them," she added. "I am not so 
 cynical as poor Katya. I do believe in disin- 
 terested human kindness. It is rare, but it ex- 
 ists. People have told me that there is much 
 of it among the English." 
 
 "I hope so," said Derrick. 
 
 "Ah, you value and believe in it! How 
 Katya would laugh at you !" 
 
 And then they separated. The Princess 
 went up to bed and Derrick lit yet another 
 cigar. His brain felt waked up, excited, young 
 even. And he had no inclination to sleep. 
 
 [58]
 
 TEN days passed by, and Derrick was still in 
 Montreux and had no intention of leaving it. 
 He felt much better in health. His nervous 
 depression, his bitter sense of the uselessness 
 of life, had vanished. The slight heart trouble 
 to which the doctor in London had alluded, 
 and which had manifested itself to Derrick by 
 unpleasant thumpings at night, and by a curi- 
 ous illusion of his heart being loose and inde- 
 pendent upon his pillow instead of in his breast 
 was abated. He generally slept well. And 
 the gliding, the soft and empty life of this little 
 town of idlers, stretched out in its narrow space 
 between the mountains and the waters, soothed 
 him deliciously after his labours of a policeman, 
 a clerk, a hospital attendant and a lorry-driver. 
 Each morning he woke up with the delightful 
 feeling that there was nothing to be done in the 
 day, that the hours were entirely his own, that 
 no duties demanded either to be accomplished 
 or to be avoided contemptibly. He had only 
 
 [54]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 to be idle among other idlers; for nobody did 
 anything in Montreux. Even the absolutely 
 penniless did absolutely nothing, except stroll 
 about, look into the shop-windows, visit the tea- 
 shops, listen to the music at the Casino or in 
 the Pavilion near the Montreux Palace, pay 
 visits to acquaintances in the hotels, and gamble 
 mildly now and then at night. There were a 
 few English, it is true, who were supposed to 
 play golf near Aigle, to get up billiard matches 
 at the English club, and to go in for premature 
 winter sports on the mountains, but they were 
 swamped by the Russians, Poles, Turks, Ger- 
 mans, Italians, Egyptians, Greeks, Rumanians 
 and others, who never dreamed of attempting 
 such strenuous diversions. One saw nothing 
 of them. They were merely a legend in which 
 few people believed. Derrick did not meet 
 them. He had come out to Montreux for a 
 thorough change, and it is not a change for an 
 Englishman to meet other Englishmen. In- 
 stead he was peeping in, as if through a crack 
 in a door almost, at a tiny section of the hu- 
 man race, a minute assemblage of the/ nations, 
 waiting after the great war which had shaken 
 the world to its foundations, waiting in hotels, 
 
 [55]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 manicure shops, libraries, tea pavilions for 
 what? What did these strangely various peo- 
 ple of different nationalities expect as they 
 lived in this curious and almost numb pause 
 between war and genuine peace? What did 
 they hope would come about of good for them, 
 who had abandoned their homes, lost the 
 greater part of their fortunes, been driven from 
 their careers, had their estates confiscated, or 
 been forced to abandon countries not their own 
 with which they had been identified for years 
 and in which all their interests lay, enemy 
 countries to them now by the fortune of war? 
 And the utterly ruined financially what was 
 going to happen to them in the future when 
 the world got going again? 
 
 Derrick often wondered as he looked at the 
 crowd of faces around him at the hours of tea, 
 or music, or gambling, or more narrowly at 
 individual faces seen in the street, by the lake 
 shore, casually in a shop, or in the passage of 
 a hotel. And he divined silent and slow trag- 
 edies in the pretty town with its neat, gay, even 
 luxurious aspect; he seemed to hear tragedy 
 sometimes in the tone of a voice speaking some 
 strange language, and coming to him, perhaps, 
 
 [56]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 out of the twilight as he went by beneath an 
 arcade; or the sound of a heavy step on the 
 pavement suggested it to him, as a very well- 
 dressed man passed him, with the careworn, 
 wary look of diplomacy fixed irrevocably on a 
 lined face; or it was half revealed to him by 
 the pale silhouette of a woman, glimpsed 
 through a drifting of snow. 
 
 Nevertheless, he was happier in Montreux 
 than he had been for a very long time. The 
 War had taught him that it is useless to let 
 oneself perpetually loose from one's moorings 
 in pity for others. In sheer self-defence, like 
 many men and women, he had cultivated if 
 not a certain surface hardness at least a de- 
 liberate egoism. This was his well-earned holi- 
 day. His health of body and mind needed it. 
 So he let himself go to his egoism, or tried to 
 as much as he could. And he realized Mon- 
 treux without bleeding at the heart for its 
 woes. His brain was interested by it, even 
 fascinated. And he was not going to allow 
 his heart to be touched to any real suffering. 
 
 Besides, in spite of all, the aspect of the place 
 was cosy and cheerful, and then he had com- 
 panionship. There was no loneliness for him 
 
 [57]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 in Montreux, and he had forgotten all about 
 being middle-aged, and congratulated himself 
 every day on not being married. 
 
 For if he had been married he could not have 
 had his friendship with Princess Aranensky. 
 It was a purely intellectual friendship, of 
 course, but a wife would never have understood 
 that, he told himself. For married women 
 never believe in the intellect as a link between 
 the sexes. 
 
 Every day he was with the Princess; some- 
 times upstairs in her sitting-room although 
 ruined she had a very nice sitting-room look- 
 ing out on to the lake, and, as she had hinted, 
 furnished with cushions, of ample size and de- 
 licious colours sometimes by the shore of the 
 lake, in the gardens, under the arcades, some- 
 times at the Casino, listening to music or to 
 French plays, or watching the gamblers, among 
 them Baroness Hausen, risking their small 
 sums of money at boule, sometimes among the 
 snows high up on the mountains. And when- 
 ever he was with her he felt exceptionally alive. 
 Her mind and her temperament stimulated 
 his. She seemed to set all the life that was in 
 him in active motion; to stir up the dormant 
 
 [58]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 energies of his mind, almost to create in him 
 energies. Through her he realized his own in- 
 telligence as he had never realized it before, 
 and that fact led him to consider her the clever- 
 est woman he had ever met. For men always 
 think women clever who make them feel clever. 
 
 In some ways she seemed to him quite un- 
 like other women. For instance, she would 
 never allow him to spend a penny on her. If 
 they went to a tea-shop together she insisted 
 on paying for her own cup of tea. If they 
 took the train to Glion she paid for her own 
 ticket. If they drove in a cab she paid her 
 share of the fare to the cabman and half the 
 tip. Derrick's remonstrances were in vain. 
 
 "I pay my share, or we don't do these little 
 things together," she said. 
 
 Once or twice Derrick ventured to hint that 
 he was very well-to-do, that the War had not 
 done much harm to his bank balance. It made 
 no difference. 
 
 "The pauper who pays her way has one as- 
 set left," she remarked. 
 
 "What asset?" 
 
 "Her self-respect." 
 
 "You're right!" he answered, thinking with 
 [59]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 a certain irony of various women he knew in 
 London. 
 
 He had noticed that she was very fond of 
 flowers. There were always flowers in her 
 room. So one day he bought her a basket of 
 roses. She accepted it and thanked him with 
 cordiality. But she added : 
 
 "Don't give me any more, please." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "Still the same reason the pauper's one as- 
 set." 
 
 "But every man " 
 
 "I know you will yield to my perhaps fool- 
 ish wish." 
 
 Sometimes the Baroness was with them when 
 they went out, but she never accompanied 
 them on any excursion. 
 
 "Katya doesn't care for the snows," the 
 Princess said. "She has had enough of them 
 in Russia. If she had any money she would 
 go away from here." 
 
 "Where would she go?" 
 
 "To Monte Carlo probably." 
 
 "Not to India too?" said Derrick, remember- 
 ing the Princess's remark about Asia. 
 
 [60]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 "Katya hasn't my reasons for wishing to go 
 to India." 
 
 Derrick wondered what the Princess's rea- 
 sons were, but he did not ask her. She was 
 so frank and unreserved that he always felt 
 that she would tell him what she wanted to tell, 
 and that if she were silent about something 
 her silence was intentional. But eventually he 
 came to believe that her desire to go to Asia 
 was connected somehow with her views on re- 
 ligion. He found that she had studied ll:e 
 doctrines of the Buddha and had a wide knowl- 
 edge of books on theosophy. Once she said 
 to him: 
 
 "Europe is only the playground, or the 
 battle-ground of ignorant, naughty children. 
 The home of all wisdom is Asia. Why didn't 
 I go there when I was rich, instead of to Monte 
 Carlo, where one can smell the varnish?" 
 
 The Princess's physique seemed to Derrick 
 as strong as her mind. Although he judged 
 that she must be well over forty, she was an 
 untiring walker, and delighted in walking up- 
 hill. 
 
 "When I go upwards," she said, "I always 
 feel as if I were leaving all the mesquineries 
 
 [61]
 
 below me, down in the depths with the little 
 people." 
 
 As they walked in the snows they discussed 
 everything or so it seemed to Derrick. And 
 sometimes in the heart of the snow-covered 
 woods they stood together silently for a long 
 time. The Princess leaned on her pointed 
 stick, lit a cigarette at Derrick's match, and 
 they looked at, listened to, the mysterious 
 winter. Now and then a mass of snow slipped 
 from an overburdened tree. And that seemed 
 the winter speaking to them. The sun shone, 
 or the clouds came down, wrapping them in a 
 greater intimacy; they saw the moon with its 
 crystal beauty, the twilight with its curious ef- 
 fects of subtle primrose or dusky ash colour; 
 sometimes the far gleam of a smouldering sun- 
 set, heavy, it seemed, with a burning weari- 
 ness ; and then they walked on, and returned to 
 Montr eux laden with memories. 
 
 The Princess had once said that Nature was 
 camouflage. It might be so. But Derrick had 
 never felt Nature so deeply as since he had been 
 at Montreux. 
 
 With Baroness Hausen Derrick managed to 
 get on fairly well, but he was always repelled 
 
 [62]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 by her outlook on life, and sometimes wondered 
 how Princess Aranensky could be at ease with 
 her, could be so little critical of her. What she 
 had seen, and perhaps had endured in Russia 
 Derrick never knew what experiences she had 
 gone through had certainly affected her vital- 
 ly, and in a terrible way. She was frozen in 
 cynicism. There was at times something cold- 
 ly ferocious in her manifestation of her condi- 
 tion which made Derrick almost physically 
 distressed, as at the sight of an abruptly un- 
 covered cancerous wound. He wondered 
 sometimes why he could not pity her. Per- 
 haps it was because pity demands outstretched 
 hands, and Baroness Hausen's hands were 
 never outstretched, except at the tables to 
 gather in winnings. 
 
 She was a persistent gambler but a very un- 
 lucky one. Unlike the fat Armenian, who was 
 of course very rich, she seldom brought off a 
 coup. 
 
 "It is a mercy the maximum is only five 
 francs," Princess Aranensky said one day to 
 Derrick. "If it were more we should very 
 soon have to leave this hotel." 
 
 "Why do you let her play?" he asked. 
 [63]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 "Let Katya do anything! My dear friend, 
 no one on this earth could prevent her from 
 doing anything she had a fancy to do, if it were 
 possible for her to do it. Those who believe 
 in nothing are always ungovernable. It is be- 
 lief which breeds fear, and it is fear which 
 breeds in men the instinct to obey." 
 
 "Are you fond of the Baroness?" he asked, 
 abruptly. 
 
 "I am very sorry for Katya," said the Prin- 
 cess. "And so would you be if you knew all 
 that has happened to her." 
 
 But she never told him what had happened. 
 
 One evening the Princess proposed to Der- 
 rick to go up on the following day by the moun- 
 tain railway from Aigle to Leysin, and lunch 
 at the Grand Hotel "among the consump- 
 tives." 
 
 "It is an unsmart Davos," she said. "The 
 snows and the ill people who hope to be cured 
 by the snows are there, but there are no bands, 
 no cocottes, no gay young men, no trippers. 
 What do you say? Will it make you melan- 
 choly to spend one day among Doctor Rollier's 
 patients ?" 
 
 "Not with you!" he answered. 
 [64]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 "Will you come, too, Katya?" 
 
 "No, thank you," said Baroness Hausen. "I 
 have no wish to assist at the punishments of the 
 Immanent Will! Besides, I am going to Ge- 
 neva to-morrow.'* 
 
 She looked significantly at the Princess. 
 
 "Baron Krane has lent me his car for the 
 day." 
 
 The Princess said no more. But Derrick 
 noticed that, as if prompted by her friend's 
 look, she lifted her right hand and gently 
 touched the long strings of pearls she was 
 wearing. 
 
 Derrick had often glanced at those pearls 
 and wondered how much they were worth, not 
 because he judged the beauty of jewels by their 
 exact money value, but because he remembered 
 the Princess's poverty. 
 
 He believed that she considered herself a 
 poor woman, because there was something in 
 her whole way of being which carried to him 
 the conviction of her sincerity. Intellectually 
 she was sincere. He felt positive of that. She 
 said what she thought in their discussions, re- 
 gardless of his opinions. Why should she be 
 less sincere about the facts of her life which 
 
 [65]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 she chose to speak about ? On the other hand, 
 it was certainly strange to find a woman who 
 asserted that she was a pauper, ruined, living 
 in a first-rate hotel, with a sitting-room, a maid, 
 dresses and hats which evidently came from 
 Paris, wonderful furs, and jewels which looked, 
 to his inexpert eyes, immensely valuable. 
 Sometimes he could not help remembering his 
 conversation with the director of the Monney ; 
 and the latter's remark: "There are princesses 
 here without a halfpenny." He had asked, 
 "But how on earth can they live in hotels?" 
 And the director had referred to them as "liv- 
 ing mysteries, who live without having the 
 means to live," and had gone on to hint at all 
 sorts of doubtful expedients for money getting. 
 Derrick could not possibly associate in his mind 
 Princess Aranensky with anything doubtful. 
 But perhaps she sold "things." She might 
 have possessed other jewels, other magnificent 
 furs than those which he had seen her wearing. 
 She might have got rid of them at a price. 
 But in the future? 
 
 It was curious, and somehow it was rather 
 melancholy, to know so much about her mind 
 and so little about her life. They were, in a 
 
 [66]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 sense, really intimate, and yet in a sort of way 
 that was how he put it to himself she was a 
 stranger to him. 
 
 He realized that his liking for her had be- 
 come very strong, stronger than he had been 
 conscious of till now. The measure of his 
 wish to be truly intimate with her was the 
 measure of it. Under her immense frankness 
 lay that was evident an immense reserve. 
 Well, of course he would never try to break 
 through it. Perhaps if they had belonged to 
 the same nation she would have taken him more 
 readily into her confidence, have relied upon 
 him as she had certainly not relied. 
 
 He was conscious of an obscure irritation. 
 
 On the following day they started off early 
 to go to Leysin. 
 
 They had to wait for some time at the station, 
 and while they were there the Orient Express 
 came in from Paris, many hours late. The 
 great cars labelled "Bucharest," "Belgrade," 
 "Trieste," were thronged with weary-looking 
 travellers, who stared out at this to them 
 small wayside station with lack-lustre, or 
 rather insolent, eyes. Some sat on tip-top 
 seats in the corridor ; others leaned against the 
 
 [67]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 cushioned walls of the small compartments. A 
 bald-headed man offered himself up to the gaze 
 of Montreux lying on his back in bed, smok- 
 ing a huge cigar, and reading a French novel. 
 An old gentleman wearing a fez peered out 
 through gold-rimmed spectacles. Near him 
 some black-haired, yellow-skinned children 
 pointed at a Swiss soldier, nodding their heads 
 and laughed as they sucked mandarin oranges. 
 After a brief stop the foremost of the two huge 
 engines which drew the train gave a prolonged 
 shriek. 
 
 "They are going!" said the Princess to Der- 
 rick. 
 
 But the train did not move for two or three 
 minutes, and then glided away almost myster- 
 iously towards the Near East, without any 
 warning note. 
 
 "That train gives me nostalgia!" said the 
 Princess, looking after it. "But come, my 
 friend, here is our train to Aigle." 
 
 Her emphasis on the last word was almost 
 bitter, and perhaps she saw on Derrick's face 
 a look of hurt disappointment, for she added 
 when they were sitting together in the well- 
 warmed carriage: 
 
 [68]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 "You must forgive me. If you had been in 
 Montreux for more, much more, than five years 
 you would feel as I do when you saw the Orient 
 Express. But now to-day we are going to 
 enjoy ourselves." 
 
 And from that moment she laid herself out to 
 be charming to Derrick. 
 
 At Aigle they changed and got into the 
 mountain train whose destination was Leysin. 
 A few peasants were with them, sturdy crea- 
 tures with ruddy cheeks, large heads and firm, 
 unimaginative eyes; and there were some 
 others, not peasants, people from distant places 
 with the seal of consumption set upon them, 
 lonely people being carried up into the still 
 coldness, the white serenity of the heights, to 
 struggle against death. 
 
 Two of these were in the carriage with the 
 Princess and Derrick, and sat opposite to 
 them. One was an Englishman of about thirty, 
 whose sunken grey eyes had a sort of still, con- 
 trolled despair in them; the other was a swar- 
 thy middle-aged woman, probably an Ital- 
 ian, horribly thin, horribly feverish, and of 
 a greenish pallor. - These two did not know 
 each other, but from time to time glanced at 
 
 [69]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 each other furtively, as the train crept steadily 
 up through the white forests and the snow- 
 fields. On a distant slope Derrick saw two 
 dark figures skiing. They glided over the 
 whiteness with amazing rapidity and dis- 
 appeared. He imagined them shouting as they 
 went, but no sounds reached his ears. The 
 silence of this world seemed a visible thing. 
 The carriage was very warm. One of the con- 
 sumptives, the Englishman, opened a window 
 for an instant, and immediately the personality 
 of winter was added to theirs, pure, penetrat- 
 ing, aloof and yet full of a thin magic that 
 seemed intentional. The Italian woman cast 
 an agitated glance at the window, and the Eng- 
 lishman immediately shut it, and looked down, 
 folding his thin hands together. And even his 
 hands conveyed to Derrick an impression of 
 doom. 
 
 The Princess was silent now. Her tall, up- 
 right figure was wrapped in a coat of soff 
 mouse-coloured fur, with a wide collar and 
 cuffs, and she wore a round hat of the same fur 
 and gloves of deerskin. As usual, she carried 
 her pointed stick. On her feet were strong 
 boots with nails in the soles. The cold air had 
 
 [70]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 brought colour into her smooth cheeks. Her 
 large black eyes, half shut, were turned to the 
 snows with an expression of steady, but rather 
 indifferent, scrutiny. She knew the snows so 
 well that perhaps they had little more to tell 
 her. 
 
 Higher and higher they went. At last houses 
 appeared, all of them with strange looking 
 faades divided into open compartments. On 
 a snow-covered pathway several people stood 
 to stare at the crawling train. One was a girl, 
 with orange-coloured hair, sticky scarlet lips, 
 eyes that from a distance looked like smudges 
 of ink on a structure of sharpened bone. She 
 leaned on a stick and gazed, bending forward 
 a painted consumptive. 
 
 Where the railway ended they got out. 
 
 "We will lunch at the Grand Hotel," said 
 the Princess, "but let us take a little walk 
 first." 
 
 And they emerged into the wonderful but 
 sad world which nature and a great doctor be- 
 tween them have created far up above Aigle. 
 
 To Derrick even the buildings, the hotels, 
 pensions, huge sanatoria, looked gaunt and 
 stricken, presenting what he thought of as their 
 
 [71]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 hollow eye sockets from which the eyes had 
 been plucked out to the white glare of the 
 snow. The sense of stillness was profound and 
 almost awful. Far off the Diablerets showed 
 their rugged crests against a strip of cold 
 lemon-coloured sky, above which were massed 
 bellying clouds of purplish grey. A shuffle of 
 invalids' feet was faintly audible on the snow, 
 and somewhere below them the thin voice of a 
 bell sounded with peevish persistence. 
 
 "It is time for their dejeuner" said the 
 Princess, "one of the great events of the day 
 up here." 
 
 Suddenly she lifted her arms. 
 
 "MonDieu! Mon Dieu !" she said. "There 
 is someone there must be someone whose busi- 
 ness it is to punish humanity. Katya will not 
 have it so. She says there is nothing but blind 
 energy. But I say there must be a Personage 
 with a rod." 
 
 "And the reincarnation theory?" said Der- 
 rick. 
 
 "The rod, perhaps, drives us out of one ex- 
 istence into another, like rabbits driven from 
 hole to hole by a man with a ferret. But who 
 knows here in Europe?" 
 
 [72]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 She paused. Then she added, with a sort of 
 almost sullen resolution: 
 
 "One must go to Asia to find out, or to get 
 near to, the truth. It is not hidden in Mon- 
 treux no, nor in Leysin." 
 
 A little later, when they were at lunch in 
 the hotel, amid a crowd of consumptives of 
 many nations, she said : 
 
 "Ah, my friend, you do not know what a 
 curse being poor is to one whose only possi- 
 ble joy in life lies in freedom of action. I 
 was rich until this War came, and stayed at 
 Montreux then for my pleasure, knowing al- 
 ways I could go away whenever the whim took 
 me. I had immense estates in Russia, and went 
 there from time to time. Now I have nothing, 
 and I am a prisoner at forty-five ! How long 
 I shall live I don't know many years prob- 
 ably." 
 
 She stopped. Then, after a pause, laying 
 one hand on his wrist, she leaned forward and 
 added : 
 
 "Believe me, this War has done nothing 
 but harm, not only material harm, but what 
 shall I say? spiritual harm. No good will 
 come out of it. There is not one person I knew 
 
 [73]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 before the War who is not the worse for it." 
 
 "You mean morally worse?" 
 
 "I do. The whole of Europe has received a 
 jolt in the wrong direction. Don't you feel 
 it?" 
 
 They fell into another of their long discus- 
 sions. One by one the consumptives got up 
 from their tables and went listlessly away to 
 their rooms to lie down. Derrick did not notice 
 their disappearance. Princess Aranensky had 
 a curious power of taking complete possession 
 of his mind when she chose to. In conversation 
 she concentrated. She did not, as many women 
 do, look about the room while she talked, let 
 her mjnd go to any small happening, attend to 
 the words or movements of other people than 
 those or than the one she was with. And 
 she listened with concentration and without 
 restlessness. 
 
 At last a waiter, who probably longed to 
 get away and have a rest, presented the bill. 
 
 They paid it as always with bills between 
 them, and got up. 
 
 "How long have we been?" said the Princess. 
 
 She looked at her watch. 
 [74]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 'My friend, I talk too much. I forget my- 
 self in talk!" 
 
 "And you make me forget everything too," 
 said Derrick. 
 
 "We shall have time for a little walk before 
 the train goes." 
 
 They went out into the snow-covered 
 grounds of the hotel. But they could not talk 
 there. A notice ordained silence at that hour. 
 
 "The poor people are all lying down in their 
 verandas," said the Princess. "Let us go on 
 the mountain side. They cannot hear us 
 there." 
 
 They passed through the gate and went 
 down the deserted track between the snow- 
 fields. 
 
 It was now intensely cold. The sun had 
 gone, and the almost fierce purity of the air 
 seemed to have grown stronger, more vital, to 
 be asserting itself almost aggressively. 
 
 "If I were one of those ill ones I think I 
 should get to hate this air," said the Princess. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "It seems to be crying out how pure it is! 
 It seems to be marking the contrast between 
 nature and man in an almost vulgar way." 
 
 [75]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 Again they fell into talk, resuming their dis- 
 cussion of the saLle-a-manger. Derrick, per- 
 haps partly for argument's sake, refused to 
 agree with the Princess's contention that only 
 moral harm had come out of the War, that 
 people were the worse instead of the better for 
 it. He pointed to the nobilities, the self-sacri- 
 fice, the wonderful resignation in sorrow, the 
 marvellous examples of courage, endurance 
 and even of tenderness which would never have 
 been manifested but for the War. 
 
 "Yes, yes," she allowed, almost impatiently. 
 "But I say the balance is weighed down on the 
 wrong side. The net result of it is that we are 
 not better but worse because of this war, moral- 
 ly worse. There is more immorality, more rob- 
 bery, more brutality, more hardness, more 
 selfishness everywhere than there was before 
 in all classes. People who do the most impos- 
 sible things excuse themselves by saying, 'We 
 couldn't help it' or 'We can't help it. We are 
 not quite ourselves. We are suffering from 
 the effects of the War.' Shell-shock is the uni- 
 versal excuse. I should use it myself, I know, 
 if necessary." 
 
 [76]
 
 Just then she cast a curious little glance at 
 Derrick out of her long eyes. 
 
 "And perhaps there is really something in 
 it," she added, slowly. "Is Europe normal at 
 this moment? Is Montreux normal?" She 
 paused. "Am I normal?" 
 
 Derrick said: 
 
 "I never knew you before the War, but you 
 seem to me to be perfectly normal." 
 
 "Ah, perhaps in my subtler way I am as ab- 
 normal as you think poor Katya is." 
 
 "Oh, no, you aren't." 
 
 "See, the twilight is coming already! Let 
 us turn." 
 
 They began to retrace their steps, and went 
 towards the station. For it was now nearly 
 time for the departure of the train. 
 
 "I feel since the War that nothing matters 
 very much," said the Princess. "And that is 
 a dangerous feeling. It has got hold of near- 
 ly everyone and it leads to the loosening of the 
 cement which once held things together. Do 
 you know don't think me a snob I believe 
 one of the most tenacious of all human things is 
 the feeling of aristocracy in one who is born 
 what is called an aristocrat, the feeling which 
 
 [77]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 forbids certain things, thought little of by 
 many, to the aristocrat. I call it the "That-I- 
 can't-do' instinct. You know, of course, what 
 I mean.'* 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Well the War has touched even that feel- 
 ing. Noblesse oblige even that has lost half, 
 or more than half, its meaning since the War. 
 Montreux, little Montreux, my prison cell, has 
 taught me that." 
 
 A sombre, almost a heavy, look had come 
 into her face, giving to her rather rough-hewn 
 features something of brutality. 
 
 "There are more farewells than those we say 
 to the dying," she said. "There are more ter- 
 rible farewells to ancient virtues we thought 
 ingrained. There is nothing nothing which 
 cannot be uprooted. There is nothing which a 
 human being might not do if a sufficient reason 
 arose." 
 
 "But you are almost as cynical to-day in 
 what you say as Baroness Hausen. Surely 
 you would never let her influence you?" 
 
 For a moment the Princess reddened, and an 
 angry look came into her eyes. 
 
 "Katya influence me!" she said, proudly. 
 [78]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 But in an instant her anger died in a sort of 
 dark melancholy. 
 
 "No, it is not the Katyas who really influence 
 us, my friend," she said. "It is the terrible 
 Zeitgeist; it is the spirit of the Time." 
 
 [79]
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THAT night, as often happened, Derrick dined 
 at the same table as the Princess and Baroness 
 Hausen. He noticed that neither woman 
 seemed quite as usual. The Princess was cer- 
 tainly abstracted. Her normal concentration, 
 to him one of her greatest attractions, had van- 
 ished. She showed a curious absence of mind 
 in conversation, and even talked at random 
 sometimes, as if she scarcely knew what was 
 the subject in hand. Her eyes were perpetual- 
 ly roving about the room vaguely and Derrick 
 suffered under the unpleasant conviction that 
 for once he was boring her. In despair he de- 
 voted himself to the Baroness, who had re- 
 turned late from Geneva. 
 
 She at least was not absent-minded. Her 
 cruel intelligence was "all there," but her frosty 
 malignancy of outlook struck Derrick more un- 
 pleasantly than ever before. It even roused in 
 him a strong feeling of opposition, and tempted 
 him to get into an argument with her and to 
 
 [80]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 show his teeth. Hitherto he had never strong- 
 ly resented her peculiar and strangely un- 
 sympathetic outlook on life and humanity, 
 though it had always been disagreeable to him, 
 but to-night something exceptionally assured, 
 even arrogant, in her cynicism stung him, went 
 home to him personally. She irritated him, got 
 on his nerves, and he found himself asking, 
 "Why should I allow this young woman to 
 pontificate about human nature as if she alone 
 had all the secrets of worldly knowledge?" For 
 some time, however, he resisted his inclination 
 to stand up to her, and let her say what she 
 would without protest, though without any 
 humbug of personal agreement with her views. 
 She was in an exceptionally bad mood to-night. 
 That was obvious. If the Princess was bored, 
 the Baroness was in that concentrated condi- 
 tion which is bred of a morose temper, held in 
 control but secretly longing for a victim. That 
 she was looking unusually handsome specially 
 annoyed Derrick, he scarcely knew why. As 
 he glanced at her fair, shining beauty, and 
 starry but Polar blue eyes, he even resented her 
 youth, a thing he had never done before. 
 "She's insufferable in her cynicism," he 
 [81]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 thought. "I should like to teach her a lesson." 
 
 But how? It was not his business to do that. 
 If the Princess, a woman, her friend, and much 
 older than she was, suffered her without pro- 
 test, even seemed quite satisfied with, or at 
 any rate quite indifferent to, her excoriating 
 views of every activity, every demonstration, of 
 human beings, wiiat could he seem to do but 
 quietly accept her as she was? But to-night 
 she got dreadfully upon his nerves. He tingled 
 with dislike of her, and when he looked at her 
 felt that his eyes were almost attacking her. 
 She did not seem to notice this, however, and 
 went on composedly pouring out a stream of 
 scathing comment on the refugees in Switzer- 
 land, while the Princess crumbled her bread, 
 played with the food set before her, sipped her 
 claret, and stared about the room. 
 
 "Do you like anyone?" at length said Der- 
 rick, unable to bear any more vituperation. 
 "Do you believe in anyone? Do you trust any- 
 one?" 
 
 The Baroness raised her pale eyebrows. 
 
 "Some people are less unpleasant to me than 
 others, of course," she said. 
 
 "Is that all?" 
 
 [82]
 
 "I don't sentimentalize about anyone." 
 
 "You certainly don't!" he rejoined, with a 
 laugh. 
 
 "I look upon sentimentality as a proof of 
 ignorance." 
 
 "Ignorance of what?" 
 
 "Of human nature." 
 
 "If you'irexcuse my saying so, I think you 
 make a great mistake in generalizing so much 
 as you do about humanity. Men and women 
 are individuals and have widely different 
 qualities." 
 
 She smiled, with a sort of cold and superior 
 venom which almost maddened him. 
 
 "I allow that, of course. But, as Schopen- 
 hauer points out " 
 
 "I loathe Schopenhauer," Derrick inter- 
 rupted, almost with violence. "I think his at- 
 tribution of every manifestation of humanity to 
 some low and detestable motive, some base self- 
 interest, or some abominable intention to do 
 harm, shows him to have had a warped mind, 
 and to have been totally wanting in true in- 
 sight. Your Tolstoy with his gospel of love got 
 far nearer to the truth of human beings than 
 Schopenhauer ever did." 
 
 [83]
 
 "Our Tolstoy with his gospel of love was a 
 humbug of genius," retorted the Baroness. 
 
 "We don't think so in England." 
 
 "Really ! And yet I have always understood 
 that England was in possession of a special 
 means for recognizing and testing humbug in 
 others." 
 
 "And what means is that?" asked Derrick, 
 unable to keep a certain defiance out of his tone 
 and manner. 
 
 Baroness Hausen opened her pale lips to re- 
 ply, but she shut them again without speaking. 
 She had received a warning look from the Prin- 
 cess, who just at that moment, it seemed, had 
 begun to pay attention to the conversation. 
 Derrick, who in his acute nervous irritation was 
 exceptionally alert and observant that night, 
 caught that look on the wing and was startled 
 by it ; it was so keen, so subtle, and so swiftly 
 gone. It was as if a door flew open and in- 
 stantly closed again, leaving him with the im- 
 pression that he had nearly, but not quite, 
 caught sight of some strange and unknown, 
 even unguessed at, personality. Yes, it had 
 been there behind the door, but he had not had 
 time to look really at it. Yet something of it 
 
 [84]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 he must have seen but what? A pallor? A 
 gleam as of fire from unseen eyes? The sug- 
 gestion of a razor-sharp silhouette? For a 
 moment he felt confused and painfully alone, 
 like a man in a deserted house at night. 
 
 "Let me tell you why many of us Russians 
 think Tolstoy was a humbug," said the Prin- 
 cess. 
 
 And from that moment, but as if with an ef- 
 fort, she concentrated. 
 
 After dinner she did a thing which, consider- 
 ing what had happened at the dinner-table, 
 Derrick thought strange. She asked him, in. 
 the presence of Baroness Hausen, to escort the 
 Baroness to the Casino. 
 
 "Katya wants to play," she said, "and I 
 promised her to go, but for once I am tired. 
 The sight of those consumptives has tired my 
 heart and I want to sleep. I shall take a drug 
 to-night, now, immediately. Will you go with 
 Katya?" 
 
 Of course, Derrick could only say yes. The 
 Princess bade him good night with a warm 
 hand-grip, and went upstairs with the Baron- 
 ess, who was to put on her furs. Meanwhile, 
 feeling all on edge with intense nervous irri- 
 
 [85]
 
 tation, Derrick got into his overcoat, took his 
 hat and gloves, and waited in the hall near the 
 bureau. 
 
 "It is snowing, m'sieu!" said the hall porter, 
 looking up from some letters he was sorting. 
 
 "Heavily?" 
 
 "Yes, m'sieu, heavily." 
 
 A ray of hope lighted up Derrick's darkness. 
 No carriage had been ordered. It would prob- 
 ably be difficult to get one at that hour. Pos- 
 sibly when she knew the state of the weather 
 Baroness Hausen would give up the Casino. 
 Derrick fervently hoped so. He moved away 
 from the bureau. He could not keep still that 
 evening. His friend, the director, who was in 
 his room on the right, facing the corridor which 
 led to the dining-room, saw him, smiled, and 
 came out to have a little chat. He had done 
 everything in his power to make Derrick's stay 
 comfortable and Derrick had taken a liking to 
 him. 
 
 "Unusually bad weather, m'sieu," he re- 
 marked. "You are going to brave it?" 
 
 "It seems so, unless when Baroness Hausen 
 hears it is snowing she gives up her idea of 
 gambling to-night." 
 
 [86]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 "Oh, you are going with the Baroness?" 
 
 He paused. Then he said : 
 
 "A beautiful woman." 
 
 "She is very good looking," said Derrick. 
 
 "It is wonderful after what she has been 
 through," said the director. "But" he nearly 
 closed his eyes "it is better not to think of 
 those things. One doesn't wish to have the 
 nightmare." 
 
 He evidently knew something about the 
 Baroness's experiences among the Bolsheviks. 
 Derrick felt curious, but he only said: 
 
 "It would take a good deal to give one the 
 nightmare after this War." 
 
 "Mais oui! But there are some things " 
 
 Again he stopped. 
 
 "Madame, the Princess, is going?" 
 
 "Not to-night." 
 
 "She is a very distinguished lady, very dis- 
 tinguished? one of the greatest families in 
 Russia. But anyone can see that! I shall be 
 very sorry if she leaves us." 
 
 "Leaves you!" said Derrick, startled. "But 
 surely Princess Aranensky is not leaving Mon- 
 treux?" 
 
 "Leaving Montreux oh, no, m'sieu! Her 
 [87]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 Excellency is not leaving Montreux. I only 
 meant that I shall be very sorry if she has to 
 change her hotel." 
 
 At this moment Baroness Hausen, wrapped 
 up in furs, got out of the lift. 
 
 "Do you know that it is snowing very hard, 
 Baroness?" said Derrick, going up to her. 
 
 "Is it? Well, never mind, I've got an um- 
 brella." 
 
 And she held up a tightly furled silk um- 
 brella with a handle of jade. 
 
 "Wouldn't it be wise to try and get a car- 
 riage?" 
 
 "That might take a long time. Are you 
 afraid of a little snow?" 
 
 "Of course not," said Derrick stiffly. 
 
 "Then let us go." 
 
 They started off together. 
 
 It was slippery outside and very dark, and 
 Derrick felt obliged to offer the Baroness his 
 arm. She took it at once with an air of firm 
 decision, and they walked slowly on together 
 down the deserted street. Derrick said nothing. 
 That evening he felt so acutely hostile to his 
 companion that he simply could not "make con- 
 versation" to her. He was unusually tired, 
 
 [88]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 too, after the long day at Leysin, and was long- 
 ing for solitude and bed. The touch of the 
 Baroness, the feeling of her body against his, 
 was hateful to him at that moment. It seemed 
 to create an ugly intimacy between those whose 
 minds and souls were worlds away from each 
 other. Buried deep in his comfortless thoughts 
 he was startled when he heard a voice speaking 
 in the darkness. 
 
 "What was that?" he said. "I didn't hear." 
 
 "I said that you disliked me very much this 
 evening." 
 
 "My dear Baroness!" 
 
 "Oh, yes. Your eyes at dinner were full of 
 hatred. They attacked me. I don't mind that. 
 Why should you like me? Anna is your friend, 
 not I. But when I am at the tables please 
 don't turn your mind upon me with hostility. 
 I have a f eeling that if you do it will bring me 
 bad luck. And I must win to-night." 
 
 "I hope to Heaven you will." 
 
 "I must. You probably have no idea what 
 a situation Anna is in." 
 
 "She has never gone into that with me." 
 
 "No, she wouldn't. They talk of obliging 
 her to leave the hotel." 
 
 [89]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 "Obliging the Princess!" 
 
 "Yes she can't pay enough any longer. 
 Already she has had to leave I don't know how 
 many places the Lorius, the Eden, the 
 Montreux Palace." 
 
 "How horrible!" 
 
 "It is very disagreeable. I went to Geneva 
 to-day to try to sell her pearls. Unfortunately, 
 I failed. I couldn't get a good enough price 
 for them. Those who come to Switzerland now 
 to buy the jewels of those who are starving 
 naturally being human are ferocious profi- 
 teers. I wouldn't throw Anna's pearls to such 
 wolves, so I don't see how she can go on pay- 
 ing her bills at the Monney." 
 
 Derrick understood now the Princess's pre- 
 occupation during dinner. 
 
 "But if she leaves there what will she do?" 
 
 "I suppose she must find a cheap pension. 
 But that sort of thing won't suit her." 
 
 "Of course not." 
 
 "And even a pension keeper expects to be 
 
 paid. She has furs and things which she might 
 
 sell, of course ; but again it would be to wolves 
 
 wolves who come here from Paris to gnaw 
 
 the flesh off our Russian bones." 
 
 [90]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 "How utterly disgusting!" 
 
 "Almost everything that is thoroughly 
 human is utterly disgusting, in spite of your 
 anger with me at dinner. Here we are ! Now 
 please don't stand near me or stare at me when 
 I am playing or I shall lose my money." 
 
 "Do you think I have the evil eye, then?" 
 
 "I know nothing about that. But you dis- 
 like me, and, therefore, you might bring me 
 bad luck." 
 
 And she left Derrick and pushed her way 
 implacably through the small crowd round the 
 tables. 
 
 As he knew it would be almost impossible to 
 stay in the gamblers' room and to keep his eyes 
 always turned away from the Baroness, Der- 
 rick went away and strolled about the almost 
 deserted Casino. The weather, no doubt, had 
 kept all but determined gamblers at home. He 
 saw no one whom he knew, and chafed with ir- 
 ritation at having to dance attendance on the 
 Baroness. His mind ran perpetually on his 
 talk with her in the street. It had shocked him. 
 Although the Princess had several times men- 
 tioned the fact of her poverty, he knew that 
 he had never realized it thoroughly until now. 
 
 [91]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 Having always seen her beautifully dressed 
 and living in luxury, having always known her 
 scrupulously fair about money matters, de- 
 termined to "pay her way" whenever she and he 
 were together and sharing pleasures, generous, 
 even lavish, in the matter of tips, he had sup- 
 posed that, though no doubt "hard up" in com- 
 parison with her condition before the War, she 
 must be still moderately well off. He knew 
 that very rich people, when reduced to mod- 
 erate means, often speak as if they were beg- 
 gars. Why not the Princess Aranensky? 
 But now that illusion was gone. A woman of 
 her rank who had been turned out of several 
 hotels for that was what it came to if the 
 Baroness's statements were true, and he had 
 no reason to doubt them must be almost pen- 
 niless. What was going to become of her? 
 What would she do in the future ? He felt full 
 of pity, of sympathy for her. He longed to 
 help her. The question was how to help her. 
 Derrick was very well off, and by nature a 
 chivalrous and generous man. He would glad- 
 ly have offered to lend the Princess some 
 money, but he felt quite certain that she would 
 refuse a loan. For how could she ever repay 
 
 [92]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 it? The condition of Russia, where, no doubt, 
 all her fortune had been placed, forbade any 
 hope of better things for a long time, perhaps 
 for many years to come. Such a woman could 
 never hope to earn any money. To lend to her, 
 therefore, would be to give under another 
 name. And he was positive that she would 
 never accept such a gift, she who had always 
 refused even the gift of a cup of tea at his 
 hands. 
 
 With Baroness Hausen it would be different, 
 he thought. He could imagine her accepting 
 anything, considering it, perhaps, as partial 
 repayment for what she had gone through at 
 the hands of humanity. But the Princess was 
 not like the Baroness thank God ! He almost 
 hated the one, and he almost 
 
 He sat down on a straight chair. A small 
 orchestra was playing in the distance, and 
 seemed to him to confuse his mind, preventing 
 clear thinking. And then he was tired this 
 evening. The sound of the orchestra reminded 
 him he did not know why of the months just 
 before the outbreak of war, of the delirium of 
 pleasure which had preceded the crash. He 
 thought of the craze for the Russian ballet, of 
 
 [93]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 the mania women had had for undressing, of 
 the dances borrowed from South American 
 negroes, of the madness in art, of the hysterical 
 lectures on Futurism gravely discussed by 
 humbugs who should have known better. He 
 remembered the remark of a friend who, with 
 him, had been watching some young people 
 dancing in the ball-room of a famous London 
 hotel, "When are they going down on all 
 fours?" 
 
 And what was the difference now? Europe 
 in the meanwhile had been deluged with blood. 
 The rod had been used unsparingly. But did 
 punishment have any real, any lasting, effect 
 upon the soul of man? Was the Princess right 
 in her pessimism? Was he wrong in his secret 
 resistance to pessimism? He compared his cir- 
 cumstances with hers and drew a conclusion 
 from the comparison. But she must not be 
 ruined in nature as Baroness Hausen had been. 
 
 Perhaps he had the power to prevent that, if 
 only he could somehow persuade her to let him 
 exercise it. 
 
 The orchestra stopped. 
 
 He thought of the pearls. 
 
 "You can buy jewels in Montreux cheap, 
 [94]
 
 very cheap. And if you can carry them to 
 London there is a nice profit for you !" Those 
 words of the director of the Monney started up 
 in his mind. He had hardly attended to them 
 at the time, but he had remembered them, and 
 now he repeated them to himself, turning over, 
 while he did so, a certain matter in his mind. 
 When, presently, he got up from his chair and 
 strolled towards the room where the orchestra 
 was again playing (this time a selection from 
 "Carmen"), he was aware of two possible 
 means by which he might save the Princess 
 from the ignominy and ruin which threatened 
 her. He might try to persuade her to marry 
 him and to share his fortune ; or he might sug- 
 gest driving a bargain with her, buying her 
 pearls at a moderate price in order to make 
 money by selling them in Paris or London. In 
 the latter event he would have to smuggle them 
 over the frontier. Of course, the idea of mak- 
 ing money out of her difficulty was abhorrent 
 to him, but his knowledge of her character 
 made him feel almost sure that she would never 
 consent to sell her jewels to him unless he was 
 able to convince her that by doing so she was 
 putting him in the way of making money for 
 
 [95]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 himself, that he came to her as a would-be 
 speculator, not as a would-be benefactor. 
 
 And the other alternative? 
 
 Derrick was now fifty-three, and had long 
 ago given up all thought of marrying. Like 
 most men he had wished to marry, and had 
 once met a woman whom he had felt he could 
 be very happy with. But it was a long time 
 ago. She had been in love with another man 
 and had refused Derrick. Since then he had 
 never wished to link his life permanently with 
 any woman's. Certainly he had often felt lone- 
 ly; but gradually he had come to value almost 
 inordinately what he thought of as his "free- 
 dom." Prolonged observation of the world 
 had led him to the belief that the proportion 
 of unsatisfactory marriages to satisfactory 
 marriages was as three to one. The secrets of 
 sad marriages are often very well kept, but 
 Derrick was a close observer, and frequently 
 felt what he did not actually know. A fairly 
 long life, much of which had been passed in the 
 society of his fellow-beings, had made him dis- 
 trust profoundly what is sometimes called 
 "married bliss." As well as this distrust there 
 was another reason against changing his state. 
 
 [96]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 He considered himself too old to marry. There 
 was, he thought, something almost ridiculous in 
 offering grey hairs and a body past its prime, 
 to say nothing of a possibly wrinkled mind, to 
 an attractive woman. Certainly Princess 
 Aranensky, though energetic, healthy and ap- 
 parently, strong, was no longer a young 
 woman. But nevertheless 
 
 It was rather marvellous to Derrick that he 
 should even for a moment be thinking of mar- 
 riage as possible to him. It was evident that 
 he had grown to care for the Princess far more 
 than he had suspected till now. She had made 
 life interesting to him again, vital, definitely 
 worth something. She had swept away his 
 morbid distrust of himself, had subtly put him 
 on better, even on quite good, terms with 
 himself. 
 
 She must be a singularly courageous woman. 
 He tried mentally to put himself into her situa- 
 tion without imaginatively changing his sex. 
 Could he have shown such a brave face to the 
 world in similar circumstances? He doubted 
 it. But, of course, he would have set to and 
 worked. She couldn't do that. And yet she 
 held up her head, and had concealed from him
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 any suggestion, even the smallest hint, of de- 
 spair. 
 
 And she still had a sitting-room and filled it 
 with flowers. 
 
 Fatalism, perhaps, had her fast in its grip. 
 
 It was difficult for him, an Englishman, to 
 understand such a nature as hers, thoroughly, 
 even drastically Russian, perhaps, under its 
 cosmopolitan surface. And yet how splendidly 
 they got on together! 
 
 He thought of the look she had cast at 
 Baroness Hausen during dinner, and wondered 
 what exactly it had meant. It had made him 
 feel suddenly shut out, a thoroughly lonely 
 man, pushed away from a friendship he cer- 
 tainly valued very much. But, of course, two 
 women friends, both of them Russians, must 
 have understandings which he couldn't share. 
 He was, perhaps, hyper-sensitive in matters 
 connected with the Princess. Didn't that prove 
 that his feeling for her was much stronger than 
 lie had ever suspected till this evening? 
 
 He tried to imagine how it would be if he 
 and she were married. But that was a job 
 far too difficult for him in his present condi- 
 tion. He went to the restaurant and asked for 
 
 [98]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 a coffee. The snows, he thought, had got inta 
 his brain and clouded it as they clouded the 
 branches of the trees in the forests. When he 
 had finished the coffee he again walked about, 
 and presently found himself at the entrance to 
 the room where the gamblers were. Despite 
 the prohibition of Baroness Hausen he stood 
 still there and looked into the room, seeking her 
 out. 
 
 She had got hold of a chair and was sitting. 
 A cigarette was between her pale lips. She 
 looked stern, concentrated, and almost old in 
 her intentness. Derrick could not tell from her 
 expression whether she had been winning or 
 not. Besides did it really matter? This was 
 not Monte Carlo. However lucky she was the 
 Baroness could not hope to redeem the fortunes 
 of herself and the Princess linked together it 
 seemed, though he was not sure of that at the 
 tables of Montreux. 
 
 It was a bad face, he thought, considering 
 the Baroness, who was evidently too absorbed 
 in the game to be aware of his presence in the 
 doorway. The beauty of the colouring, the 
 regularity of the features, were spoiled for him 
 by the sheer ugliness of the expression. This 
 
 [99]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 proved to him that he was anything rather than 
 a pagan. Moral beauty meant something to 
 him, after all. 
 
 "But most gamblers are ugly while they are 
 gambling!" he reflected. 
 
 He had noticed that again and again in the 
 rooms at Monte Carlo. 
 
 What would the Princess look like if she 
 were playing? 
 
 She had never gambled while he had been at 
 Montreux, and had sometimes spoken of 
 Katya's taste for Boule with a slight touch of 
 almost pitying sarcasm. 
 
 Could she really like Katya? And if she 
 were able to, was it possible that she could ever 
 be sincerely fond of him? Would not the one 
 liking rule out the other, proving that her soul 
 and his could never really touch? 
 
 As he asked himself this question Baroness 
 Hausen looked up and met his eyes. Instantly 
 she got up and came towards him, pushing her 
 way through the people behind and around her. 
 Her face was even uglier than before as she 
 said: 
 
 "I begged you not to look at me, not to turn 
 your mind on me!" 
 
 [100]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 "But, my dear Baroness, I have only 
 just- 
 
 "I have been winning for once. Everything 
 went well with me until a moment ago, when I 
 hegan to lose. I lost three coups running, 
 looked up, and there you were standing and 
 gazing straight at me. It really is too bad, 
 when you promised me " 
 
 "I beg your pardon!" said Derrick, rigid 
 with vexation. "When you have finished play- 
 ing you will find me in the hall." 
 
 And he turned abruptly and left her. 
 
 "She treats me exactly as if I were a ser- 
 vant!" he thought. "But this shall be the last 
 time. I'll never submit to this sort of thing 
 again." 
 
 For a moment he was inclined to include the 
 Princess as well as Baroness Hausen within 
 the circle of his hostile thoughts. 
 
 "The Princess makes a convenience of me," 
 he said to himself. "She must know I hate the 
 Baroness, and yet she palms her off on me. I 
 might as well be a footman and have done 
 with it." 
 
 He tingled with vexation as he hovered 
 about, waiting the pleasure of that detestable 
 [101]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 young woman. He felt sure that she would 
 not come until play was over for the night, and 
 so it happened. The Casino was about to be 
 closed when she appeared at last. 
 
 "I'm afraid it has been rather dull for you," 
 she said. "Why didn't you play?" 
 
 "You gave me a very strong hint to keep out 
 of the room," he said. 
 
 "You must forgive me. Probably you don't 
 need money. I do. And I have such terrible 
 luck. To-night I was making a little for once, 
 and naturally I didn't want the luck to turn. 
 But I fear I was brusque. Now do pardon me, 
 please." 
 
 "I beg you to say no more about it," said 
 Derrick, with a stiff and very English man- 
 ner. 
 
 They set out on the walk home. This time 
 Derrick did not he simply could not offer 
 the Baroness his arm. Nor did he attempt to 
 keep up any conversation. They two could 
 never be friends. He knew that. And he was 
 not in the mood for pretences. When they 
 reached the hotel he was thankful. The lights 
 were still on in the room just beyond the hall, 
 but there was nobody there. In the bureau 
 [102]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 was the night porter reading the Gazette de 
 Lausanne. 
 
 "Good night," Derrick said to the Baroness. 
 
 But instead of going upstairs to her room, as 
 he expected, she said: 
 
 "Let us go in there for a minute. I am not 
 sleepy, and want a last cigarette. And let us 
 have something to drink." 
 
 "What would you like?" 
 
 "Oh, a brandy and soda will do. But you 
 must have one with me." 
 
 "I'm really not " 
 
 "I can't drink alone." 
 
 "Very well." 
 
 He told the hall porter, and followed the 
 Baroness into the room beyond the hall. 
 
 When the two drinks were brought Derrick 
 lighted his pipe. He felt that he was "in for 
 it," and must try to make the best of things. 
 There was no hope of getting rid of the Baron- 
 ess yet. She looked abominably wide awake, 
 and evidently was far too mentally tough to 
 be made uncomfortable by other people's feel- 
 ings. But though Derrick stayed with her he 
 determined not to make conversation to her, 
 or to help her socially. Not even his sense of 
 [103]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 politeness was capable of that at this moment. 
 After saying a few casual things about the 
 fortunes of the gamblers that evening she 
 turned in her chair, faced him fully, and said. 
 
 "You like Anna very much, don't you?" 
 
 "Of course I like the Princess," answered 
 Derrick, rigidly. 
 
 "And she likes you better than anyone else 
 here." 
 
 "I don't know about that." 
 
 "Well, I know it." 
 
 "If it is so I am very glad," returned Der- 
 rick. 
 
 "I want to ask you something that she would 
 never ask for herself. Can you help her?" 
 
 "In what way?" 
 
 "If something isn't done by somebody she 
 will be put out on the pavement very soon." 
 
 "I should naturally be very glad to help the 
 Princess, but I hardly think she would wish 
 such a matter to be discussed between us." 
 
 "But she will never speak to you, and if she 
 knew I had she would hate me for it." 
 
 "Then, surely, we had better talk of some- 
 thing else." 
 
 '[104]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 "No. I made up my mind at Geneva to 
 speak to you, and I am going to." 
 
 Her manner was as implacable as her face, 
 and Derrick realized the absolute uselessness 
 of attempting any opposition to her. There 
 was no appeal against this young woman's de- 
 termination to do whatever she wanted to do, 
 because she was totally devoid of all natural 
 sensitiveness. 
 
 "She has about as much delicacy in her as a 
 steam-roller has," thought Derrick, in desper- 
 ation. 
 
 He said nothing, only pulled at his pipe and 
 looked on the ground, lest his companion might 
 think that his eyes were again attacking her. 
 
 "There is only one way in which you could 
 help Anna," continued the Baroness Hausen, 
 "and that is by buying her pearls." 
 
 "If the Princess wishes " began Der- 
 rick. 
 
 But she interrupted him. 
 
 "Anna would never ask you to do such a 
 thing. She would rather starve than do that, 
 because I know she considers you as a friend, 
 and she has ideals about friendship, especially 
 between women and men, which I don't share. 
 [105]
 
 No, I am asking you. If Anna could only sell 
 her pearls for a reasonable sum all would be 
 well. That is why I went to Geneva to-day. 
 I knew there was a man there from Paris a 
 soi disant gentleman who was buying jewels 
 cheap to sell them dear. I thought I might 
 persuade him to give me a reasonable price, 
 6,000, for the pearls, which are worth at least 
 double to a dealer. I failed. That is why I am 
 speaking to you. If only you would buy 
 Anna's pearls you could save her from humilia- 
 tion and make a heavy profit for yourself at 
 the What is the matter ?" 
 
 Derrick had got up from his seat. 
 
 "Baroness, I'm sorry, but I must decline to 
 discuss the Princess's affairs with you." 
 
 "But- 
 
 "You don't understand me. I am not the 
 sort of man who tries to make a profit out of a 
 woman in distress." 
 
 "I only wished to point out to you that you 
 would not suffer by being kind." 
 
 "Please let us say no more about it." 
 
 Oh, very well. I only wished to help Anna. 
 She is too proud, or too sensitive, to help her- 
 self. But I've had all that sort of thing 
 [106]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 knocked out of me by the War. The Bolshe- 
 viks have taught me what doesn't pay. Now, 
 good night. I don't apologize for what I have 
 said. I think I was quite right to say it. As 
 far as I can see, only you can help Anna." 
 
 She crushed out the fire in her cigarette on 
 an ash tray, finished her brandy and soda and 
 went up to bed. 
 
 [107]
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 "How sickening!" Derrick thought. He was 
 lying awake in his bedroom, turning over in his 
 mind the events of the evening. The Baron- 
 ess's request had irritated him intensely, be- 
 cause now, if he did what he had thought of 
 doing, and offered to buy the Princess's pearls, 
 it would seem as if the Baroness had prompted 
 his action, as if he were obeying a sort of 
 command given by her, or, at any rate, as if 
 he were following up her suggestion. She 
 would never believe that the idea had occurred 
 to him before she had spoken. He told him- 
 self that it didn't matter what she believed or 
 disbelieved. Nevertheless, his hostility to her 
 made him hate the thought of appearing to 
 have been guided by her in anything he did. 
 
 If only she had not spoken ! 
 
 For one moment it occurred to him that pos- 
 sibly there was an understanding between the 
 two women, that possibly the Princess had 
 known what the Baroness meant to do that 
 [108]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 night, had agreed to it, had even, perhaps, sug- 
 gested it. But he dismissed this idea as un- 
 worthy, contemptible, one of those ugly night 
 thoughts which are bred of insomnia. The two 
 women were certainly friends, but their natures 
 were not akin. One had a distinguished nature, 
 bold, no doubt, but essentially refined; the 
 other had an abominably coarse strain, tram- 
 pled on the delicacies, derided them in her 
 soul. He would not be so mad as to confuse 
 the one with the other, the woman he had 
 thought of as a possible life companion with 
 the woman he frankly detested. His sense of 
 values was too accurate for that. 
 
 In the morning, after an uneasy and unre- 
 freshing sleep, he got up, resolved to do some- 
 thing definite in regard to the Princess that 
 day, but undecided what that something would 
 be. 
 
 During the morning he did not see her, but 
 when he came in to dejeuner she was there 
 with the Baroness and greeted him in her usual 
 cordial manner. Her preoccupation seemed to 
 have gone, and she looked fresh and cheerful. 
 As he stood by her table speaking to her he 
 could scarcely believe she was in such desperate 
 [109]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 straits for money. Certainly she had a marvel- 
 lous courage, a quality which he admired im- 
 mensely. 
 
 "Katya was lucky last night," she said; "she 
 says you brought her luck." 
 
 Derrick exchanged a glance with the Baron- 
 ess. 
 
 "I didn't know I was a mascot," he re- 
 marked, rather drily. "To tell the truth, the 
 gambling here doesn't amuse me." 
 
 "The stakes are ridiculously low," said the 
 Baroness, "but paupers are thankful for any 
 small mercies. . If we were at Monte 
 Carlo- 
 
 "Thank Heaven we are not!" interrupted 
 the Princess. "You would gamble away your 
 dresses and hats." 
 
 "And your pearls perhaps!" said the Baron- 
 ess. 
 
 Derrick's eyes rested on the pearls which the 
 Princess was wearing, and he reddened 
 slightly. 
 
 "Well, I shall see you after lunch," he said. 
 And he went to his table. 
 
 While he ate he tried to decide what he was 
 going to do. He glanced now and then to- 
 [110]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 wards the Princess, and wondered how it would 
 be if they were husband and wife. He would 
 soon get rid of the Baroness; that was certain. 
 He wondered, too, whether she was living on 
 her friend's money or whether she had paid her 
 own way in the hotel. If she had nothing of 
 her own she had had a personal reason for 
 speaking as she had done on the previous night, 
 and in helping the Princess he would be doing 
 her a good turn. He wished she were not so de- 
 testable and that he could like her or, at any 
 rate, pity her. But he could not do either. He 
 could only wish her away. 
 
 The two women left the dining-room before 
 he had finished. As the Princess's tall figure 
 disappeared through the doorway he asked 
 himself what he would feel if she were dis- 
 appearing at the same time out of his life. 
 
 She would leave a great gap if he stayed on 
 in Montreux. The place, he knew, would be 
 almost unbearable to him now without her. 
 But if he too went away? If he travelled, or 
 if he went back again to his old life in Eng- 
 land how would it be then? Just how much 
 did she mean to him? He could not decide. 
 Perhaps his uncertainty meant that she was
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 not indispensable to him. Yet he hated to 
 think of never seeing her again. A man of his 
 age probably could not "fall in love" as young 
 people do. But did he love the Princess? He 
 said to himself that it was ridiculous to be de- 
 bating about such a thing, that the very fact of 
 his doing so must mean that love was far from 
 him. Nevertheless, he did not feel certain even 
 of that. Indecision possessed him, and when 
 he got up to leave the dining room he did not 
 know what he was going to do. All he knew 
 was that he was firmly resolved to do some- 
 thing quite definite before another day dawned. 
 He would draw the inspiration which would 
 prompt him to action from the Princess herself. 
 The day was sunny and cold, and the lake 
 was calm and looked almost like silk in the pale 
 gold of the sun-rays. He decided to suggest 
 a walk on the curving path by the water-side 
 which leads towards Vevey. Few people went 
 there in winter, he knew, and in the afternoon 
 there would probably be scarcely anyone. He 
 looked for the Princess in the public rooms, but 
 did not find her. She had probably gone up 
 to rest and read after luncheon. He sat down 
 [112]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 to wait, certain that she would come down be- 
 fore very long. 
 
 Soon after two o'clock she appeared in the 
 hall dressed for walking, her pointed stick in 
 her hand. He got up and joined her. 
 
 "If you are going for a walk may I come 
 with you?" 
 
 "Yes, do." 
 
 "Where shall we go?" 
 
 "Anywhere you like." 
 
 He suggested the lake-side; she agreed and 
 they started. 
 
 For a little while they walked in silence. 
 Then they began to talk about nature, the 
 various faint colours on the water, the effects 
 of cloud and sunshine on the mountains, the 
 differing beauties which come with the turn- 
 ing of the wheel of Time during the hours of a 
 day. The Princess said that she loved best the 
 frankness and boldness of noon; Derrick was 
 for twilight. 
 
 "And in people?" she said. 
 
 "How do you mean, exactly?" 
 
 "Which do you like best in people, the noon- 
 tide character, bold, direct, forcible, and, per- 
 haps, rather shadowless, or the twilight nature, 
 [113]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 full of softness and shadows, of scarcely defined 
 nuances and suggestions of the not fully re- 
 vealed?" 
 
 He hesitated with his eyes upon her. 
 
 "I scarcely know," he said. "I'm not sure 
 that I have ever thought about character in 
 just that way. And you?" 
 
 "I like the noontide character. There is 
 something in it I can grip and hold on to, some- 
 thing I feel safe with. That is why, on the 
 whole, I like men better than women." 
 
 "Would you would you ever marry 
 again?" 
 
 He said it, almost blurted it out, abruptly 
 before he knew his own intention. The words 
 seemed to have come into his mouth without 
 being impelled by any action of his mind. 
 Without any change of expression the Princess 
 replied : 
 
 "I consider that I have passed the age for 
 marriage. I do not believe in middle-age mar- 
 riages. There is little romance in them, and 
 my experience tells me that marriage without 
 romance is like wine that has been made thin by 
 the addition of water. Besides, in any case, I 
 think marriage a very dangerous experiment. 
 [114]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 Women, I suppose, have to make it if they get 
 the chance, but if I were a man marriage would 
 be the last thing I should undertake." 
 
 "I dare say you are right," said Derrick. 
 
 "Your condition shows me that you hold my 
 opinion on that matter," she said, with a smile. 
 
 And she went on talking about all sorts of 
 things. 
 
 Presently they came to the end of the path 
 and turned to go back. 
 
 "To the eternal Montreux!" the Princess re- 
 marked. 
 
 "I wish I wish you were free," said Der- 
 rick. 
 
 "My friend so do I ! It is terrible to have 
 one's wings clipped if one has a nature like 
 mine. I don't say I am an eagle, but really 
 here I sometimes feel like one in a cage." 
 
 "Would you could you ever allow me to 
 open the door?" 
 
 "You! How?" 
 
 "It would be quite easy." 
 
 "I'm afraid not. I'm afraid it would be im- 
 possible." 
 
 "Indeed it wouldn't." 
 
 "But you know my strict principles about 
 [115]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 money. And only money can open the cage- 
 door. So you see!" 
 
 "The quid pro quo makes everything quite 
 right in such a matter, I think." 
 
 "The quid pro quo?" 
 
 "Yes. Why don't you sell those beautiful 
 pearls of yours? Surely freedom is more to 
 you than some strings of pretty things to hang 
 round your neck?" 
 
 "Oh, as to that, I have long ceased to care 
 for jewels." 
 
 "Then let me buy yours." 
 
 The Princess looked frankly surprised. 
 
 "You I But you are not a trafficker in such 
 things," she said. "One has only to look at you 
 to know that that sort of business is quite out 
 of your line. Why, the mere thought of you 
 dealing in jewels makes me smile." 
 
 And, indeed, she showed her splendid strong 
 teeth in a smile which seemed bordering on a fit 
 of undisguised laughter. 
 
 "A lot of people are buying up jewels and 
 other things in Switzerland in order to sell 
 them at a profit elsewhere," said Derrick. "It's 
 a very paying business. Jewels are fetching 
 immense prices in Paris and London." 
 [116]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 "Yes, that is true. No doubt if I were in the 
 Rue de la Paix I could walk into a jeweller's 
 shop and get a big price for my pearls. They 
 would go to the wife of a war profiteer, one of 
 the new guinea-pigs whom I hear of but seldom 
 see though a few come here from time to 
 time." 
 
 "Forgive me but but have you ever tried 
 to sell your pearls?" 
 
 "Yes, more than once. But the gentlemen 
 to whom I applied, knowing I was a lady un- 
 accustomed to such matters and in great diffi- 
 culties for money, naturally tried to swindle me 
 over the price. The pearls are worth at least 
 twelve thousand pounds. I am willing to sell 
 them for six thousand. But the gentlemen who 
 come to Switzerland on business do not con- 
 sider that to make a profit of some thousands 
 on an outlay of six thousand is sufficient pay- 
 ment for their trouble." 
 
 "Princess let me give you six thousand," 
 said Derrick, reddening. "You will be putting 
 a large profit into my pocket. Isn't that a quid 
 pro quo?" 
 
 "I am sure you are not in Montreux to make 
 money, my friend." 
 
 [117]
 
 "Nevertheless, I have some business instinct 
 and, frankly, this affair appeals to it." 
 
 She looked full into his eyes. 
 
 "You would merely do it for my benefit." 
 
 "And pocket a lot of money into the bar- 
 gain." 
 
 "That by the way. Besides, you would 
 have to smuggle the pearls out of Switzerland." 
 
 "That wouldn't be difficult. I should wear 
 them. I don't think I am the type of man they 
 would be likely to search at the douane" 
 
 The Princess broke into a laugh. 
 
 "Nio, indeed! You would never be sus- 
 pected." 
 
 "Then will you agree?" 
 
 After a moment of silence she said, in a dif- 
 ferent tone of voice, more earnest, more inti- 
 mate: 
 
 "I don't like transactions of this sort between 
 friends. And you and I are friends. It is true 
 that I should be let out of my cage and that 
 you but I don't like the idea. There is some- 
 thing repugnant to me in taking money from 
 you even in such a way as you suggest. Oh, 
 this horrible War! What situations it drives 
 us into!" 
 
 [118]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 "We must face them with common sense. 
 My common sense tells me that when we can 
 both profit by a very simple action we should 
 be foolish to be held back from it by too great 
 sensitiveness. And something else certainly 
 not common sense tells me that I was led to 
 come here for the very purpose of opening the 
 door of your cage." 
 
 She turned her big black eyes on him and 
 now they looked deep and mysterious. 
 
 "It is strange," she said, "that the very first 
 time I saw you I felt as if you had come to 
 Montreux because of me. You never seemed 
 to be really a stranger to me." 
 
 "If there is a purpose in destiny I think the 
 important events in our lives must be planned. 
 Are you a woman who would strive to inter- 
 fere with the plan made for you?" 
 
 "Such striving would be useless, of course," 
 she said. 
 
 And then* they walked on in silence till they 
 were in front of the garden of the Monney 
 Hotel. There she stopped. 
 
 "I will go in now," she said, "and have a 
 long, quiet think. When I have to make an 
 important decision I lie down on my sofa and 
 [119]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 give myself into the hands of the Fates. It is 
 almost like giving oneself up to an anaesthetic 
 something about it which seems physical. It 
 is a resigning of the will to the Guides. I have 
 no idea at present whether I shall accept your 
 suggestion or not. But some time this evening, 
 or at latest to-morrow morning, I shall know. 
 Now, au revoir." 
 
 She gave him her hand, and pressed his 
 warmly, even held it for a moment. In that 
 moment Derrick felt inclined to say, "Why not 
 solve the question by marrying me?" 
 
 But he did not speak. For he realized that 
 the Princess had, in effect, very cleverly re- 
 fused him when they were walking towards 
 Vevey. If he made her refuse him more defi- 
 nitely there would probably be an end to all 
 hope of helping her. 
 
 He watched her tall figure walking away 
 from him and wondered whether he regretted 
 her prejudice against middle-aged marriages 
 or not. 
 
 [120]
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 WHEN the Princess disappeared Derrick went 
 to the post office and telegraphed to his broker 
 in London, telling him to sell out six thousand 
 pounds worth of stock at once. Whatever the 
 Princess decided and he had no idea what her 
 decision would be he would be ready. After 
 sending the telegram he went for a long walk 
 to Villeneuve and beyond. He came back 
 glowing with health, tingling from the strong 
 winter air and pleasantly tired. It was dark, 
 and on looking at his watch he found that it 
 was just six o'clock. He longed to go up to 
 the Princess's sitting-room and have a good tea 
 in her company. But, of course, she had had 
 tea long ago. Well, he would see her at dinner, 
 and must manage to wait until then. But he 
 was beginning to realize very thoroughly the 
 delight of having a clever and sympathetic 
 woman in his life. When they parted he would 
 certainly miss her very much, even painfully, 
 he thought. Suddenly it struck him that if she 
 decided to sell her pearls to him their parting 
 [121]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 would be hastened. For then, no doubt, she 
 would leave Montreux, and he would have to 
 go to Paris or London to get rid of the jewels. 
 
 And where would she go? He wondered. 
 Often she had told him that she longed to 
 leave Montreux, but she had never said where 
 she wanted to go definitely. Or had she? 
 Yes, to be sure, she had spoken of Asia as if 
 with absolute longing, had lamented that when 
 she was rich she had been contented with the 
 varnish and the ignorance of Europe. But 
 even six thousand pounds wasn't such a very 
 large sum. Such a woman, accustomed to lux- 
 ury, couldn't travel for ever on a capital which 
 would only produce some three hundred a year. 
 And if she recklessly decided to treat the six 
 thousand as income she would be facing an 
 impossible future. 
 
 The fact that she had made up her mind not 
 to marry again had proved to him that she was 
 not a greedy woman. Otherwise, with her 
 cleverness and decided physical attraction, to 
 say nothing of her rather brusque, but very 
 definite, personal charm, she could easily 
 shelter herself from poverty under the wing of 
 a wealthy husband, under his wing, for in- 
 [122]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 stance. (Remembering her allusion to the 
 eagle he could not help smiling. ) 
 
 He entered the hotel, meeting its warmth 
 with a strong sensation of cosy pleasure. Im- 
 mediately the hall porter came towards him. 
 
 "If monsieur has not had tea yet, Madame, 
 the Princess, begs him to go up and have it in 
 her sitting-room." 
 
 "Thank you. I'll go at once," said Derrick, 
 with unusual heartiness. 
 
 He left his coat and hat in the hall, and al- 
 most bounded up the stairs like a young man. 
 
 "This Swiss air is wonderful!" he said to 
 himself. "By Jove! I am hungry!" 
 
 He tapped at the door on the second floor. 
 
 "Entrez!" said a firm voice. 
 
 He opened the door.' 
 
 A strong smell of flowers greeted him. He 
 saw violets in vases scattered about the small 
 room. There were also carnations and roses. 
 Books lay about almost everywhere, news- 
 papers, magazines he saw among others the 
 Revue des Deux Mondes, the Hibbert Journal 
 and the Round Table. A big screen concealed 
 the door into the bedroom. A round table with 
 tea things was near it, and a large sofa, well 
 [123]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 supplied with big cushions, on which the Prin- 
 cess was lying in a dark blue dress smoking a 
 cigarette. 
 
 "Ah, it is you at last ! You have been for a 
 long walk. I can see the air from the snows, 
 the exercise, in your eyes. And I can see you 
 are hungry, too. So you have not had tea, 
 and all is well." 
 
 "But you " 
 
 "No, I have waited on the chance." 
 
 She pressed the bell, and an elderly woman 
 came in from the bedroom carrying two plates 
 covered with the cakes and pastries for which 
 Montreux is famous. 
 
 "Bring us the tea and some toast, Margue- 
 rite," said the Princess in French. "All the 
 English like toast." 
 
 "I know I know!" said the maid, with a 
 friendly smile at Derrick, "and to-day we have 
 plenty of butter." 
 
 "Mon Dieu, how jolly!" said Derrick, mix- 
 ing French and English in his enthusiasm. 
 
 When the maid had gone out he added: 
 
 "You are spoiling me to-day, but I'm bound 
 to say I like it, and I feel as if it were doing me 
 moral good." 
 
 [124]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 "I think it is happiness which does us moral 
 good. And I know that unhappiness, worries, 
 great and persistent difficulties, the necessity 
 for perpetual struggling, do us moral harm, 
 whatever the dear teachers European of re- 
 ligion may say." 
 
 "Are you going to allow me to make you 
 happier?" he asked. 
 
 He was standing with his back to the fire, in 
 English fashion, and looking down at her on 
 her sofa. 
 
 "I will tell you all about it when Margue- 
 rite has ministered to us." 
 
 In two or three minutes Marguerite came 
 with tea, perfectly made toast and a plate cov- 
 ered with pats of delicious pale yellow butter. 
 
 "Now all is well!" said the Princess. 
 
 And she sat up, arranged the cushions at 
 her back, and began to pour out the tea. 
 
 "Help yourself to everything," she said, as 
 Marguerite left them alone. 
 
 "I will indeed, without ceremony," ex- 
 claimed Derrick. 
 
 "Oh, and here is jam!" 
 
 She stretched out her hand to a bureau, and 
 [125]
 
 brought out of it a large pot of strawberry 
 jam. 
 
 "That's the finishing touch!" said Derrick. 
 "Do you know you are making me feel very 
 young?" 
 
 "So much the better! When I make people 
 feel old I shall retire entirely from all worldly 
 things." 
 
 "And now I am waiting!" 
 
 "Well," she said, and her face changed, "I 
 gave myself to the Guides." 
 
 "And what did they tell you ? Or didn't they 
 tell you anything?" 
 
 She was silent for so long a time that Derrick 
 wondered. Her face looked stern and almost 
 harsh in its immobility, and her black eyes 
 gazed into vacancy. She seemed to be think- 
 ing profoundly, but there was no evidence of 
 any mental struggle, or even of any mental in- 
 decision in her appearance. On the contrary, 
 she looked strong and dominating, and perfect- 
 ly self-possessed. At last she spoke without 
 turning her eyes towards him. 
 
 "The Guides told me I had better accept 
 your offer," she said. 
 
 [126]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 And there was a sombre and fatalistic sound 
 in her voice, he thought. 
 
 "There is something I have to do, and I can- 
 not do it here. But I dislike very much having 
 this transaction with y&w" 
 
 "Why?" he asked. 
 
 "I cannot tell you why. Do no? ask me. Do 
 not even wish me to tell you. But remember, 
 whatever happens, that I had a real regard for 
 you." 
 
 "Had !" he said. "Is it in the past then?'* 
 
 "Do not let us talk about it. The past, the 
 present, the future perhaps they are all one, 
 though we do not feel it so. That may be one 
 of the mysteries." 
 
 Derrick felt for the moment chilled, almost 
 frightened, as if a strange wave of cold went 
 over and through him. 
 
 "I hope our friendship will never be a thing 
 of the past," he said. "It has meant, if means, 
 a great deal to me." 
 
 "You are a good fellow," said the Princess, 
 "a thorough Englishman. Even your defi- 
 ciencies, if I may call them so, do you credit. 
 When I think of the cunning and meanness of 
 [127]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 others I admire them more than I can say. I 
 respect them even. But " 
 
 "But what? What were you going to say?' x 
 
 "Nothing nothing. Here are the pearls." 
 
 She lifted both her hands and carefully, with 
 her delicate precision, she took the strings from 
 her neck. The lustrous jewels gleamed almost 
 like satin in the light as she moved them. 
 
 "Take them!" she said. "I must let them 
 go to you, though I wish it had been to any- 
 one else." 
 
 And she gave them to Derrick, who received 
 them carefully. 
 
 "Wait a moment!" she added. 
 
 She got up, went into her bedroom, and 
 came back with a dark blue case in her hands. 
 
 "Here is their home! Put them into it." 
 
 Derrick put the pearls into their bed of white 
 velvet and shut up the case. 
 
 "I shall write you out a cheque for six thou- 
 sand pounds to-night," he said, diffidently. 
 
 A slight redness showed in the Princess's 
 cheeks. 
 
 "This War has been an accursed thing for 
 everybody," she said. "What it has destroyed ! 
 [128]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 What it has destroyed! But now let us talk 
 of other things !" 
 
 And suddenly she changed, seemed to force 
 herself back to the woman he knew and fancied 
 he understood, the woman of courage, distinc- 
 tion and fascination, full of mental vitality and 
 interesting frankness. 
 
 That night Derrick wrote out a cheque for 
 six thousand pounds and sent it up to her 
 after she had gone to her rooms. 
 
 In a few minutes he received a note contain- 
 ing only these words: 
 
 "My friend, I thank you. 
 
 ANNA ASANENSKY." 
 
 He read it twice. Then he locked it away 
 with the pearls. 
 
 [129]
 
 THEEE days passed and Derrick was still in 
 Montreux and had done nothing about the 
 pearls which were locked up in his dressing- 
 case. He did not choose to hand them over to 
 the director to be put in the hotel safe. The 
 director might recognize the case as having be- 
 longed to the Princess. So they remained in 
 Derrick's bedroom. Between the Princess and 
 him they had not been mentioned again. The 
 Baroness Hausen had said not a word about 
 them, though, of course, she must know what 
 had happened. Her manner towards Derrick 
 had not changed, had not softened, though no 
 doubt she thought that he had yielded to her 
 suggestion out of compassion, because of the 
 unfortunate situation in which she and the 
 Princess were placed. Any gratitude seemed 
 far from her. In fact, sometimes when Der- 
 rick met her cold blue eyes he found himself 
 wondering whether the Princess could have 
 kept tie matter secret even from Katya. But 
 [130]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 that was surely impossible. For the disappear- 
 ance of the jewels no longer worn by her 
 friend must have attracted the Baroness's at- 
 tention and led to explanations. 
 
 The Princess also had at first shown no 
 change in her manner. Always cordial, friend- 
 ly, frank and outspoken, she had continued to 
 be so until the third day came. Then Derrick 
 thought he noticed a distinct alteration in her 
 demeanour. She seemed to him to be unusual- 
 ly restless, but to be trying to control or con- 
 ceal it. Once or twice, when her eyes met his, 
 he thought he saw in them a fleeting expression 
 of almost hostile inquiry. And there were mo- 
 ments when he had a strong and mysterious 
 sensation that her mind was trying to work in 
 some strange way upon his, was trying to im- 
 pose itself upon his mind, to plead with him or 
 to compel him to do something. He had the 
 feeling that the Princess was endeavouring to 
 convey something to him which she did not 
 choose to express in words. At first he did not 
 know what it was, but on the fourth day after 
 the pearls had come into his possession a phy- 
 sical restlessness, drawn, he believed, by him 
 from the Princess, brought him enlightenment. 
 [131]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 He began to feel like a traveller who has 
 lingered too long in one place, and who ought 
 to go on his way, whether he really wishes to 
 do so or not. And he felt that this feeling in 
 him and the Princess's changed demeanour 
 were caused by the fact that she wanted him to 
 take the pearls away from the hotel, perhaps 
 even from Montreux, that she was irritated 
 with him for not having removed them, that 
 she was trying subtly to convey this irritation 
 to him, and thus to infect him with her own 
 restlessness, without putting it into words. 
 
 He grew at last to be quite certain of this. 
 And yet he did not leave Montreux. For 
 something obstinate rose up and asserted itself 
 in him, something that was part of his English 
 manhood and that declined to bend to a 
 woman. He thought, "Why should I go away 
 until I choose to go for my own pleasure? I 
 have made the Princess safe for a long time. 
 That is all that need matter to her. As to my 
 profit on the sale of the pearls I can take that 
 when I please, or not take it at all. The pearls 
 are mine, and if I decide to keep them that is 
 my affair." 
 
 He did not mean to keep them, but he was 
 [132]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 in no great hurry to sell them. And he did not 
 want to leave Montreux. 
 
 But as the days went by he was increasing- 
 ly conscious of the Princess's secret restless- 
 ness, and of the steady effort which her mind 
 was making to convey her restlessness to him. 
 When they were talking together she some- 
 times dropped the conversation, as a tired 
 hostess does when she wants to get rid of a 
 visitor who has stayed too long in her drawing- 
 room; she showed an increasing weariness of 
 Montreux, an increasing cynicism in her out- 
 look upon its society; she expressed more than 
 once, and with a bitterness which reminded 
 Derrick of the Baroness Hausen, her contempt 
 for European ideals, European culture and 
 tendencies of thought. He felt sure that her 
 mind was turning towards Asia with more defi- 
 nite longing. He had put into her hands the 
 means of escape from the cage; of course she 
 must wish to use them. 
 
 But Montreux was not a cage to him, though 
 he knew he would not stay in it another day if 
 the Princess left it. 
 
 She was free now ; she could go away if she 
 chose. The fact that he remained in Montreux 
 [133]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 did not bind her to stay on there too. But he 
 was resolved for the present not to go away. 
 He liked his life at the Monney; he valued his 
 intercourse with the Princess. So he was ob- 
 stinate and clung to his happiness. The fact 
 that without his aid the Princess would have 
 been obliged to remain on indefinitely in Mon- 
 treux salved his conscience. Already he had 
 risked deliberately losing his present happiness. 
 He was surely unselfish enough. He need not 
 make further sacrifices on the altar of friend- 
 ship. 
 
 But his obstinacy in remaining was met, he 
 believed, by an increasing, though unexpressed, 
 determination on her part that he should go. 
 He felt it underlying all their intercourse, and 
 and it angered him and distressed him. He 
 never alluded to it. If he did so he felt that 
 some change would have to be made. But he 
 began to feel that there was a mysterious war- 
 fare between them which nevertheless had not 
 broken their friendship. He believed that the 
 Princess had a real regard for him, and that 
 she esteemed him highly. He preferred her 
 to all other women. And, nevertheless, they 
 were at war, because he was defying her will, 
 [134]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 and she did not cease to exercise it in conse- 
 quence of his defiance. He began to wish very 
 much that she would be quite frank with him, 
 would tell him exactly what she wanted him to 
 do, would give him the reasons that prompted 
 her desire. A man would probably have done 
 that. But women, he supposed, being more 
 mysterious than men, must act more subtly 
 than men do. Possibly in their subtleties lay 
 their attraction for men, and possibly they 
 realized that, and therefore gave the rein to a 
 natural impulse, knowing that wisdom guided 
 them. But, he thought, it was sometimes 
 damned hard on the men. In fact, it was 
 damned hard on him now. He was beginning 
 to suffer in this warfare which was not made 
 natural by any strong, vigorous blows, but 
 which was a complex matter of ambushes and 
 traps and scouting expeditions in the dark. 
 Their intercourse seemed to him daily more 
 difficult. Oamaraderie was gradually wearing 
 thin between them. There was no more ease 
 and spontaneity in their conversations. At 
 times he even felt that the Princess was grow- 
 ing hostile to him, though she never hinted at 
 it in words. 
 
 [135]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 He read hostility, he believed, occasionally 
 in her long, expressive eyes turned on him in a 
 swift, surreptitious glance, in a rigidity of her 
 lips when they ceased from speaking, in the 
 long, cold silence which followed and which he 
 knew not how to break. 
 
 At last, unable to endure any longer the 
 strange and almost spectral frost in which their 
 friendship, once so warm and lively, was be- 
 coming enveloped, Derrick resolved to ask the 
 Princess what was the matter, whether he had 
 offended her in any way, whether she wished 
 him to do something which he had not done, or 
 to refrain from doing something which he had 
 persisted in doing. If woman was mysterious 
 it was surely the prerogative of man to be bold 
 and uncompromising. He had not been that, 
 but had lost himself in delicacies, and now 
 found himself struggling in the midst of under- 
 things which he could neither grasp with 
 destructive hands nor even understand. It was 
 time to put an end to a situation which he could 
 no longer bear his part in with self-possession. 
 Convinced of this, he acted with a promptitude 
 and energy which surprised himself. He asked 
 the Princess to allow him to come up to her 
 [130]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 sitting-room one night after dinner, and 
 directly the door was shut behind him, he said: 
 "You know why I wished to see you alone this 
 evening." 
 
 "I don't think I do," she said, with less than 
 her usual complete naturalness and self-pos- 
 session. 
 
 She was standing near the fireplace. He 
 came up to her and stood by her side. 
 
 "You are changing towards me. I want to 
 know why. Have I done anything you dis- 
 like?" 
 
 With a sort of deep and sad irony she an- 
 swered : 
 
 "You have done a very dangerous, what you 
 English call a very risky, thing. You have 
 benefited me." 
 
 "Do you mean that my buying your pearls 
 has made you dislike me?" said Derrick, with 
 a cold feeling at his heart. 
 
 "Oh, no, my friend. I am not fallen so low 
 as to be capable of quite such baseness. But 
 but well, you may not understand women's 
 feelings are often so incomprehensible to men 
 but I hate now being in the same house with the 
 pearls. Can you comprehend that? Why do 
 [137]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 you keep them? They are of no use to you. 
 It was understood between us that you were to 
 take them to London and sell them " 
 
 "To London! But we never " 
 
 "I wish you to sell them in London." 
 
 "But why?" 
 
 "I have information that they are paying 
 much higher prices for jewels there than in 
 Paris at the present time." 
 
 "You want me to go to London at once and 
 get rid of the pearls?" 
 
 "They are a gene between you and me here 
 in this house. I have six thousand pounds, a 
 little fortune for me, which makes me feel oh, 
 so rich! And you you have some strings of 
 things useless and ridiculous to you, things 
 which you despise, as all true men despise 
 jewels and wonder at women's passion for 
 them. The inequality between us is too great 
 and makes me feel no longer at ease with you. 
 I have the shame of the benefited. It is poor of 
 me, but I cannot help it. Comrades must 
 stand upon an equal footing. You and I no 
 longer do this. I am on a lower step than you, 
 and as I am not fond, I confess it, of looking 
 up, I am in a false position. The pearls cry 
 [188]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 out to me from your room, 'You beggar on 
 horseback!' ' 
 
 "But, my dear friend " 
 
 "They do, they do! I hear them day and 
 night. I cannot rest for their voices. That 
 is the truth." 
 
 He had never before seen her show so much 
 emotion, so much excitement. There was some- 
 thing akin to anger in her manner and voice, 
 and for the first time he felt strongly the Rus- 
 sian in her, realized that beneath her good 
 breeding, her distinction and savoir faire f there 
 was something quite different, something al- 
 most barbaric, that he knew very little, perhaps 
 nothing, about. 
 
 "Do you understand me?" she asked. "Can 
 you enter into my feelings?" 
 
 "I think so yes. But if you feel like that 
 I almost wonder that " 
 
 He hesitated. 
 
 "What what is it that you wonder?" 
 
 "Well, you are free now. You can go 
 wherever you like. You told me you were sick 
 of Montreux. Yet you stay on here when you 
 could go away away both from Montreux 
 and the pearls." 
 
 [139]
 
 "You wish me to go, and you are to stay!" 
 
 "I don't wish you to go," he exclaimed. 
 "You know that. If you went I shouldn't re- 
 main on here for a day. No, but I wonder, if 
 you feel as you say you do, why you stay on." 
 
 "And why do you stay?" 
 
 "You know quite well why." 
 
 She moved away from him and sat down. 
 
 "But London is not very far!" she said. 
 
 "You mean, I might easily go to London 
 and come back?" 
 
 She said nothing, only sat still looking up at 
 him. 
 
 "Suppose I did go to London and did come 
 back?" 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 "Should I still find you here on my return?" 
 
 As he spoke he noticed that her strong face 
 twitched slightly. 
 
 "Why should I what makes you 
 think ?" she said in a low voice. 
 
 "I don't say I think you would be gone." 
 
 "Then " 
 
 "I scarcely know what I think." 
 
 "Why should you suppose I would run away 
 from you?" 
 
 [140]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 "I don't say that. Indeed, I can't imagine 
 you running away from anything or anyone. 
 It is only the weak who do such a thing as 
 that. And you are not a weak character." 
 
 "Who knows?" 
 
 "I know." 
 
 "You can sum up a woman, and a woman 
 who is not of your nation?" 
 
 "I know you are not weak," he said, with ob- 
 stinacy. 
 
 "I am what the War has made me. That is 
 what I am!" she said, with an extraordinary 
 bitterness. "You do not know what I was, 
 and you never will know." 
 
 "And do I not know what you are?" 
 
 "No not yet." 
 
 Suddenly Derrick thought of the Baroness 
 Hausen. He did not know why. But he felt 
 as if he saw her before him in the room, fair, 
 good-looking, implacable, devoid, apparently, 
 of all soft human feeling, incapable of belief in 
 anything righteous, carrying her burden of 
 nameless experience, desirous of terrible re- 
 venges upon the human brood. 
 
 "When you go away from here is the Baron- 
 ess going with you?" he asked, abruptly. 
 [141]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 The Princess looked almost startled, and 
 again her face twitched. 
 
 "Why should you ask that?" 
 
 "I'm going to be infernally rude. You must 
 try to forgive me. But I I detest the Baron- 
 ess." 
 
 "Katya! What has she done to you?" 
 
 "Nothing, but I detest her, and hate to think 
 of you with her. Will she go with you when 
 you go?" 
 
 "I don't know what is going to become of 
 Katya." 
 
 "Do you care for her?" 
 
 "I pity her." 
 
 "Do you care for her?" 
 
 "It is sometimes very difficult to know just 
 what one feels." 
 
 "Yes; that's true!" he said, gazing at her. 
 
 He was remembering just then how he had 
 debated within himself about the Princess, he 
 was remembering that day on the path by the 
 lake, when she had left him wondering whether 
 she had stricken him by her clever evasion, or 
 whether at the core he was still sound. 
 
 "But it's only with some, very few, people 
 one feels like that," he added. "And I sup- 
 [142]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 pose it always means that a part of them, per- 
 haps a great part, is hidden from you. You 
 don't know of what nature that part is, whether 
 you could be in sympathy with it or not if you 
 knew it." 
 
 "You are stating what you are thinking 
 about me." 
 
 Derrick reddened under her steady gaze. 
 
 "I know this, anyhow," he said, "that the 
 reason why I have not gone away to get rid 
 of the pearls is because I can't bring myself to 
 separate from you. All these days I have felt 
 that something in you was trying to push me 
 away. But I was resolved not to go. If you 
 choose to go I can do nothing. But I don't 
 intend to leave you while you stay here." 
 
 "There can be no happiness, no ease, in our 
 friendship, while you still have the pearls," she 
 said. "Get rid of them as soon as possible, but 
 not here. I know how it is in Switzerland. 
 Take them to London." 
 
 "Paris is nearer." 
 
 "I have told you my reason for wishing it to 
 
 be London. I can say no more. If you do 
 
 not choose to make the matter as decent for 
 
 me as it can be made, if you do not choose to 
 
 [143]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 make the best of your bargain for yourself, 
 and so to pour a little balm on my conscience, 
 I cannot make you do it. You are a free man, 
 and I quite realize a man with a will of your 
 own. But, at any rate, if you really have any 
 regard for me, get rid of the pearls. Till you 
 do I sit here in your debt for six thousand 
 pounds." 
 
 "Princess, I will go away and get rid of the 
 pearls, if you won't make it unnecessary." 
 
 "How? How could I make it " 
 
 "Marry me and take them back as my pres- 
 ent to you." 
 
 There was a long silence between them. It 
 must surely be caused by some strong hesita- 
 tion in her, and, therefore, it made Derrick 
 hope. He knew now that he wished intensely 
 to make this strange woman his ; to pluck the 
 heart out of her mystery, to conquer the ob- 
 stinacies, the resistances, which he divined in 
 her nature, to give her the peace of ordered 
 and stable circumstances, to travel with her to 
 the lands she desired. That there was a risk 
 in what he wanted to do he realized, but now 
 he was ready to take it. The only thing he felt 
 he could not risk was going away in uncer- 
 [144]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 tainty as to whether he would ever see her 
 again. 
 
 "Will you do that?" he said at last, as she 
 did not speak. 
 
 She sighed heavily before she spoke. Then 
 she answered: 
 
 "I wish I could do it, I wish I could." 
 
 "Then do it ! You are free." 
 
 "If only you had never asked me! I never 
 meant to allow you to ask me. But now it is 
 done and can never be undone. All this comes 
 too late.'* 
 
 "What do you mean? Surely it is never too 
 late for a little happiness?" 
 
 "You and I would not be happy together in 
 that way. I know it. But now I " 
 
 Suddenly she got up with an air of strong 
 resolution, went to a writing table, unlocked a 
 drawer in it, and lifted out a small despatch 
 box. Then she drew a little gold chain to which 
 a key was attached from inside her dress, 
 quickly opened the box and took out an en- 
 velope. 
 
 "Here is your cheque to me. Take it back. 
 I do not wish to cash it." 
 
 "Princess!" 
 
 [145]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 "No no! Now you have asked me and I 
 have refused, I cannot take it from you." 
 
 "I shall not take it back." 
 
 "Really you must." 
 
 "I shall not. If I can't be your husband, at 
 least I can, and will, remain your friend. To- 
 morrow I shall go away and take the pearls 
 with me. I will go to London. I will get the 
 biggest price possible, make my profit as large 
 as I can for your sake. If I come back to you 
 richer than I was before I wrote that cheque 
 by some thousands of pounds I shall have been 
 benefited by you. I shan't be like you. I shan't 
 mind that. To be in your debt will be happi- 
 ness for me. I shall enjoy being on the lower 
 step. And then, perhaps, I shall dare to ask 
 you again. Ntow, good night 1" 
 
 He turned quickly and went out of the room. 
 
 On the following day he started for London 
 without obtaining from the Princess any abso- 
 lute promise that she would remain on at Mon- 
 treux till his return. But in their last interview 
 he told her that he would soon come back, and 
 thai; he expected to find her still there. 
 
 "You have not done with me yet!" he said. 
 
 "How do you know that ?" 
 [146]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 "I can't tell you now. But I do know it." 
 
 "I shall not dare to contradict you," she said, 
 with a faint smile. 
 
 At parting she gave him a long pressure of 
 the hand, and followed him with her eyes as he 
 went out of the room. 
 
 He did not see the Baroness Hausen to say 
 good-bye. 
 
 [147]
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 DERRICK arrived safely in Paris with the 
 pearls, and put up at the Hotel Crillon. On 
 his arrival he telegraphed to the Princess as 
 follows : "Am in Paris, may go to London to- 
 morrow night. Best salutations. Au revoir. 
 Derrick Merton." Then he locked up the 
 pearls in a despatch box and consigned the box 
 to the safe of the hotel. This done, he had a 
 bath, rested for a while, then got into evening 
 dress, and went out to dine at the Ritz. 
 
 It chanced that at the Ritz he came across a 
 man whom he knew very well, a fellow-member 
 of one of his clubs, the Travellers', and a re- 
 markably shrewd man of the world. This 
 friend, whose name was George Cockayne, was 
 staying at the hotel and dining alone. He sug- 
 gested that Derrick should join him and that 
 they should go to a theatre after dinner, and 
 Derrick was very glad to agree. For he felt 
 that he wanted company that night to distract 
 his mind, which was inclined to fix itself with 
 [148]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 obstinate persistence upon the recent events at 
 Montreux. 
 
 "Where do you come from, Merton?" said 
 Cockayne, as they sat down among a crowd of 
 Londoners and Americans. 
 
 Derrick told him. 
 
 "They tell me Switzerland's the most com- 
 fortable country in Europe to be in at the pres- 
 ent time," said Cockayne. "First-rate food, 
 moderate prices and very amusing company for 
 those who aren't too particular." 
 
 Derrick confirmed the report as to the com- 
 fort, the food and the prices. 
 
 "And what about the company? They say 
 all the cleverest rascals in Europe are living 
 there like fighting cocks. Did you stay in Ge- 
 neva, Lucerne or Zurich?" 
 
 "No, I've only been in Montreux." 
 
 "What sort of people did you meet there? 
 Russians? Egyptians? Greeks? Laventine 
 adventurers? The hotels are full of them, I'm 
 told." 
 
 Derrick gave him a brief sketch of conditions 
 at Montreux, so far as he had been able to 
 study them. 
 
 "And what about the women?" continued 
 [149]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 Cockayne, who was reputed to have a remark- 
 ably varied and extensive knowledge of the 
 feminine sex. "A regular jewel market, isn't 
 it?" 
 
 "What d<? you mean exactly by a jewel 
 market?" 
 
 "Well, that there are any amount of women 
 over there whose jewels are displayed for sale 
 on the sly. Fellows are perpetually slipping 
 over from here to Switzerland and coming back 
 with as many pearls and diamonds on them as 
 the Shah of Persia, but well hidden, of course. 
 The jewellers in the Rue de la Paix are giv- 
 ing damned good prices for jewels from Switz- 
 erland. Madame de Reval told me only yes- 
 terday " 
 
 And he related a story of a woman, a lover, 
 a deceived husband, jewels and a sale, very 
 Parisian, and very much du jour in its after- 
 the-War actuality. , 
 
 "Women's expedients for getting hold of 
 money are cleverer, more tricky, more damned 
 ingenius than ever in these difficult days," said 
 Cockayne. "Since the War the terrific rise in 
 prices has obliged the adventuress to sharpen 
 her wits, and find new ways of meeting the ex- 
 [150]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 penses necessitated by the art she lives for 
 the art of life. I can tell you one or two 
 things " 
 
 And he told them with the sly and cynical 
 relish which was characteristic of him. For, 
 though a very good-natured man, he was fond 
 of pretending to an absolute disbelief in the 
 inherent virtues claimed by some optimists for 
 human nature, and he was extremely fond of 
 good gossip, as almost all persistent frequent- 
 ers of clubs are. 
 
 "Delicious! Wasn't it?" he exclaimed, at 
 the finish of an excellent story of successful 
 deceit. "But poor well, I suppose I mustn't 
 mention his name has his eyes open now. 
 He's got rid of his dreams of innocent women. 
 It's wonderful, though, how guileless some men 
 are who live up to their necks in the world man- 
 age to be. Take Kit Vernon, for instance! 
 You know him, don't you?" 
 
 "Yes, slightly." 
 
 "Well " 
 
 And there followed another excellent story 
 of a man hoodwinked and then browbeaten by 
 a woman. 
 
 By this time Cockayne was ordering a second 
 [151]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 bottle of 1906 champagne, and was just getting 
 into his stride. He had the art of being con- 
 vivial without ever becoming objectionable, and 
 had one of the toughest heads in London for 
 the carrying of wine. He had been for over a 
 fortnight in Paris, and was able to give Der- 
 rick a great deal of the inner social history of 
 the last two or three months. 
 
 "But what about Switzerland ?" he presently 
 inquired again. "Isn't Montreux a small cos- 
 mospolis? Sometimes it's far more amusing to 
 look at the animalculse in a drop of water than 
 in a glass of water. One sees what they're up 
 to more clearly. One isn't confused by too 
 great numbers. Whom did you run across in 
 Montreux?" 
 
 Derrick gave Cockayne a sketch of the Bar- 
 oness Hausen, without mentioning her name. 
 Cockayne listened with interest. 
 
 "I wonder what exactly she went through in 
 Russia?" he observed. "It would be interest- 
 ing to know that. One can guess, of course. 
 And so she is one of the many whom the War 
 has changed into something less, or more, than 
 what I call average human!" 
 [152]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 "More! Well, I couldn't agree with that," 
 said Derrick. 
 
 "Well, as you describe her there's something 
 big and strong about her, something absolutely 
 ruthless. That means character, will. You 
 can have bowels of mercy without having an 
 ounce of will." 
 
 "I frankly detested that young woman," 
 said Derrick. 
 
 "But, then, you're rather on the pounce for 
 sympathy, aren't you I mean from women?" 
 
 "Possibly. At any rate, I hate hard 
 women." 
 
 "The War has made thousands of women 
 as hard as nails. Your baroness was evidently 
 one of the most finished specimens of the after- 
 the-War female. Was she there alone?" 
 
 "No, with with another Russian, a friend." 
 
 "Same type?" 
 
 "Good heavens no!" 
 
 "Well, I haven't the honour " 
 
 "No, of course not !" 
 
 Derrick had not intended to speak to Cock- 
 ayne about the Princess Aranensky, but now 
 he changed his mind. He was not going to tell 
 Cockayne her name, but it would be interesting 
 [153]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 to put the Princess before Cockayne, with her 
 lights and her shadows, her frankness and her 
 reticence, to sketch her in outline to him, and 
 to hear what he would say of her. Whatever 
 he said it would certainly not be foolish, and 
 perhaps, by chance, it might throw a light into 
 one or two places which still remained dark 
 before Derrick's scrutiny. He gave himself 
 to the task with an interest which grew as he 
 developed his theme. By talking of the Prin- 
 cess thus to a man who had never seen her he 
 seemed to make closer acquaintance with her. 
 It was almost as if he read an analysis of some- 
 one whom till then he had known imperfectly. 
 But he was himself the analyst. 
 
 Cockayne listened attentively. 
 
 "Sounds a curious and very interesting 
 woman," he said, when presently Derrick was 
 silent. "A Russian you said. Was she from 
 the Baltic Provinces too?" 
 
 "Oh, no." 
 
 "A Muscovite, perhaps?" 
 
 "She never told me what part of Russia she 
 was born in. But she formerly had large es- 
 tates in Central Russia I believe." 
 
 "I should guess her to be a Muscovite from 
 [154]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 what you have told me, probably brought up 
 and trained to the world abroad." 
 
 "What do you mean by trained to the 
 world?" 
 
 "Well, you have given me the impression 
 that she was a past mistress of the art of the 
 worldly life, just as in talking of the other 
 woman, her friend, you gave me the strong im- 
 pression of a character tainted by German 
 blood." 
 
 "I felt that too. But in regard to the 
 well, let us call her the Muscovite, she always 
 struck me as marvellously frank and open." 
 
 "My experience is that those apparently 
 frank and open women are much the most 
 dangerous." 
 
 "I could never think of her as a dangerous 
 woman, V said Derrick rather stiffly. 
 
 "Has she been hit by the War, do you 
 know?" 
 
 "I'm afraid she has." 
 
 "A great many of these women in Switzer- 
 land are living on the proceeds of sales. I 
 have heard a lot about them. They sell things 
 piecemeal to people who go over from Paris 
 [155]
 
 and elsewhere. There are plenty of funny 
 stories of those sales going about Paris." 
 
 "Paris is always full of potins." 
 
 "And never fuller than now. You see peo- 
 ple are buying now who are not professional 
 buyers but very often gentlemen on the make. 
 They hear of these needy souls with no money 
 but very often with valuable possessions, and 
 they think it a good opportunity to try and 
 make a bit for themselves. Sometimes they do 
 make a bit ; but, on the other hand, sometimes 
 they get very badly burnt from not knowing 
 the business. As a rule, it's a great mistake to 
 launch out in anything you haven't been prop- 
 erly trained to. Now, for instance, there was 
 young Pierre de Montanvert " 
 
 Another excellent story followed which 
 lasted till dinner was over. 
 
 "Xow where shall we go?" said Cockayne. 
 
 "Anywhere you like," said Derrick. 
 
 Taking the line of least resistance, they de- 
 cided on the Folies Bergere. 
 
 That light-hearted place was crammed, but 
 
 they got two seats near the stage and smoked 
 
 their cigars in comfort. Between the parts they 
 
 walked about in the promenade and the foyer, 
 
 [156]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 and watched all the latest absurdities. Derrick 
 tried to be amused, but there was a latent heav- 
 iness at his heart. After the smallness, the in- 
 timacy, and not lonely peace of Montreux, 
 Paris seemed almost intolerably crowded and 
 noisy. He looked at the panorama of passing 
 or lingering women, he listened to Cockayne's 
 shrewd and cynical comments upon them, he 
 felt the heat of pressed together humanity, he 
 stared into the blaze of the lights, but he 
 thought of the changing lights on the moun- 
 tains round Montreux, of the white silence of 
 the snows, of the cold pure breath of the world 
 about Leysin, of the sound of a pointed stick 
 striking on ice, and, with a sort of fear, he said 
 to himself, "Am I really in love at my age?" 
 Cockayne's keen comments began to depress 
 him, almost to irritate him, for he felt himself 
 at that moment to be a sentimentalist and, 
 therefore, inevitably out of touch with a man 
 who prided himself on being guided by what 
 he called common sense. He remembered 
 Cockayne's remark about the amazing guile- 
 lessness of some men who, nevertheless, had 
 lived long in the world. Somehow, when it had 
 been spoken, that remark had seemed to hit 
 [157]
 
 him. Yet it had certainly not been intended as 
 an allusion to him. No doubt to a man of 
 Cockayne's type anyone who believed thor- 
 oughly in a woman so called of the world 
 seemed a guileless man, and probably an ob- 
 ject of ridicule. It must surely make life like 
 a very cold room to have such a keen insight 
 into the insincerities of one's kind. And yet 
 anything was better than to be a fool. For- 
 tunately, there was a via media, not to mistake 
 trickery for sincerity, but, on the other hand, 
 not to imagine trickery and deceit where they 
 were not present in a nature. 
 
 "I wonder what Cockayne really thought of 
 the Princess as I sketched her out for him," 
 thought Derrick, as they went back to their 
 seats. 
 
 He resolved to ask him at the end of the per- 
 formance. 
 
 They walked away from the theatre. 
 
 "Come into the Ritz and smoke a last cigar," 
 said Cockayne. 
 
 Derrick assented. 
 
 When they were in a quiet corner of the ho- 
 tel, Cockayne said: 
 
 "By the way, where are you bound for now?" 
 [158]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 Derrick hesitated before answering. 
 
 "My plans are rather vague," he said at last. 
 "I shall stay a night or two in Paris. Possibly 
 I may have to run over to London, possibly 
 not. I expect to decide that to-morrow. In 
 any case I don't intend to stay in London, if I 
 go there, for more than two or three days." 
 
 "I shouldn't go there at all if you can help it. 
 The weather is simply infernal, and the jour- 
 ney but you know all about that; trains 
 packed and late in arriving, the boat a seething 
 mass of seasick humanity. I'm going on to 
 Cap Martin. Why not come with me, if you 
 haven't made any special plans?" 
 
 "It's awfully good of you. I must think 
 things over. I've got to go back to Switzer- 
 land presently." 
 
 "To have another look at the stony young 
 woman from the Baltic Provinces?" 
 
 Derrick shook his head with a smile. 
 
 "What did you really make of the other 
 woman whom I told you about?" he asked. 
 
 "It struck me that she was far the subtler 
 
 of the two. But it's very difficult to judge 
 
 anyone, especially a woman, by a description 
 
 given of her, however good it is. In a woman 
 
 [159]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 a look that she doesn't think you will see 
 often gives her away more than half a dozen 
 actions or half a hundred words. What you 
 told me about her opinion of Europe and her 
 desire for Asia interested me. The key to a 
 good deal in her character may be found in 
 that, I should say. She may, perhaps, have 
 some drops of Asiatic blood in her veins, which 
 would make her more at home in Asia, if she 
 ever goes there, than she is in Europe. But 
 taking your description for what it's worth, I 
 should say that she is the type of woman whom 
 no pure-bred Englishman could ever under- 
 stand. I should say, too, that she is infernally 
 attractive." 
 
 "She is!" said Derrick, simply. "I've never 
 been with a woman who was such a good com- 
 panion." 
 
 "You didn't give me any definite impression 
 of what the Americans would call her physical 
 'make-up.' And that has a tremendous amount 
 to do with what a woman really is." 
 
 "I honestly don't know anything about that 
 side of her. But, remember, she's well over 
 forty." 
 
 "Some of the women in London, and here in 
 [160]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 Paris, are well over sixty, and yet are by no 
 means extinct volcanoes," rejoined Cockayne, 
 with his sly smile. "The women of our time 
 last in the most extraordinary way. They stay 
 the course long after they have passed the win- 
 ning post. It is almost stupefying." 
 
 "I don't think she is at all that type," said 
 Derrick. 
 
 "My dear chap, I'm not attacking her! You 
 asked for my opinion, and I've been giving it 
 to you, and trying to sound you for a little more 
 to go upon. That's all." 
 
 "Of course, I know that." 
 
 "Why not ask both your friends to Cap 
 Martin? Then I could study them at first 
 hand." 
 
 "I wonder if they would come," said Der- 
 rick. "She says she is sick of varnish. And 
 the Riviera is varnished till it glistens." 
 
 "Perhaps the wilds of Asia are more in her 
 line." 
 
 "Who knows? Besides, there's the money 
 question. She ought to be careful, I expect." 
 
 "It's very difficult to get a Russian of that 
 type to be careful with money. They are gam- 
 [161]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 biers and spendthrifts by nature. They are 
 as incapable of living without luxury as a fish 
 is incapable of living out of water. And they 
 are usually fatalists, which doesn't help mat- 
 ters. Has the lady any jewels?" 
 
 Derrick was startled by the question. 
 
 "Why what makes you ask that?" 
 
 "Merely because perhaps a judicious sale 
 might help her to join us at Cap Martin. De- 
 binot is the best man in Paris for selling dia- 
 monds to. For selling pearls I should recom- 
 mend Voirier and Company. Isidore Voirier 
 is the best judge in Paris of what pearls are 
 worth, and really an unusually honest man as 
 things are at present. If he doubles when sell- 
 ing the price he gave when buying he is quite 
 pleased with himself. The real screws are in 
 JLondon." 
 
 "Do you mean that it is easier to get a fair 
 price for jewels in Paris just now than it is in 
 London ?" 
 
 "Much easier, according to my information. 
 You might tell your Muscovite that." 
 
 As he spoke Cockayne shot a penetrating 
 glance from his grey eyes, which were sur- 
 [162]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 rounded by wrinkles, at Derrick. And the lat- 
 ter thought rather uneasily: 
 
 "Can he have read my mind?" 
 
 They parted with an understanding that 
 they would meet at lunch on the morrow. 
 
 [163]
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THAT night Derrick made up his mind that 
 he would not go to London. He hated the 
 idea of travelling further away from Mon- 
 treux, and, after what Cockayne had told him, 
 lie felt sure he would gain nothing by taking 
 the journey. Before lunch he would take the 
 Princess's pearls to Voirier and Company, ask 
 for Isidore Voirier, and see if he could bring 
 off a satisfactory sale. And if he did bring it 
 off what then? The thought of Cap Martin 
 came into his mind, of the pine trees, the smell 
 of the sea, the golden sunshine. Were the 
 snows better? It was good to walk among the 
 pines in the early morning, or near to the twi- 
 light hour. He would persuade her to come 
 there, not to be studied by Cockayne, but to be 
 his companion. If she came out of the cage, 
 owing to his action in opening the door, surely 
 it was right that he should share her first days 
 of freedom. She could hardly refuse him that. 
 Next morning the waiter brought his break- 
 [164]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 fast up to his room, and he got up and put on 
 his dressing-gown. When he woke he had been 
 immediately conscious of an ugly feeling of 
 acute mental depression. The day was foggy, 
 and he was sure it was very dreary and cold 
 outside. He wished he were in his room at 
 the Monney. But if he sold the pearls that 
 morning he could return to Montreux almost 
 immediately. He sat down by the table and 
 poured out his coffee. His mind still felt very 
 disturbed, like the mind of a man who has to 
 face some disagreeable event in the course of 
 the day. He thought of Cockayne and the pre- 
 vious evening, and realized that the conversa- 
 tion with Cockayne had made an unpleasant 
 impression upon him, which seemed to have 
 grown greater mysteriously while he had been 
 asleep. Cockayne, he now knew, had formed 
 an unfavourable opinion of Princess Aranen- 
 sky from his description of her. And yet he 
 had certainly or so he believed displayed her 
 as a fascinating and very delightful woman. 
 But Cockayne, good natured as he was, made a 
 sort of profession of "seeing through" people. 
 He considered it due to himself to pierce 
 through every veil, to carry every defence, and 
 [165]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 to find reason for his worldly distrust of hu- 
 manity in every citadel which he inspected. 
 
 But Cockayne certainly had a sharp mind; 
 Derrick wondered whether he had made an 
 accurate guess at the reason for his, Derrick's, 
 presence in Paris. That was surely impos- 
 sible ; and yet Cockayne had talked a good deal 
 about jewels, and had even mentioned the best 
 man to whom jewels might be disposed of in 
 Paris. But that, no doubt, was merely a 
 chance piece of information thrown out in the 
 course of a conversation which had ranged over 
 many subjects. 
 
 Why had Cockayne spoken of those "appar- 
 ently" frank and open women as the most dan- 
 gerous specimens of their sex? And his men- 
 tion of the look which a woman thinks a man 
 will not see ! 
 
 The remark had recalled to Derrick's mind 
 the look which Princess Aranensky had given 
 to Baroness Hausen one night at dinner at the 
 Monney, swift, surreptitious perhaps a warn- 
 ing look. 
 
 Derrick began to wish that he had not come 
 across Cockayne in Paris. But that could not 
 be helped now. The worst of it was that some- 
 [166]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 thing deep in himself seemed to be reluctantly 
 assenting to certain of Cockayne's remarks 
 about women prompted by the sketch given to 
 him of Princess Aranensky. It must surely be 
 so. Otherwise why should he be so disturbed 
 by them now? 
 
 When he had finished his breakfast Derrick 
 dressed. Then he sent for a directory, looked 
 up Voirier and Company, and found that they 
 carried on business in a street close to the Rue 
 de la Paix. Then he went downstairs and 
 asked for his despatch box to be given to him 
 out of the safe. When he had received it he 
 took it upstairs, opened it, and lifted out the 
 pearls. 
 
 The morning was very dark. He turned on 
 the electric light, opened the case and examined 
 the pearls closely. 
 
 He knew practically nothing about jewels, 
 but he thought that these looked very rare, very 
 precious, fit to be worn by a woman like Prin- 
 cess Aranensky. He weighed the strings in 
 his hand slowly and carefully, lifting his hand 
 and letting it sink two or three times. How 
 long these pale yellow globes, beautifully grad- 
 uated in size, had lain on the neck and bosom 
 [167]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 of the woman who had taken possession of his 
 thoughts ! Perhaps they were family jewels, or 
 perhaps they had been given to her by a man 
 who had loved her, by her dead husband, or by 
 some lover. And now she had had to resign 
 them because of the War. 
 
 The War! 
 
 The electric light gleamed on the pearls, 
 giving to them an exquisite, very delicate, lus- 
 tre. As he looked at them, Derrick was able 
 to understand, at least partially, women's pas- 
 sion for pearls. For they were subtle in their 
 beauty, mysterious in their sheen, reticent in 
 their appeal to the eyes. In their perfection 
 they were not ostentatious. Perhaps among 
 jewels they were really the aristocrats. He 
 wondered how much the Princess had cared for 
 these pearls which he weighed in his hand, how 
 much she had suffered in giving them up. Per- 
 haps she had not suffered at all. She had told 
 him that she had ceased to care for such things. 
 But that might have been merely a courageous 
 lie. 
 
 And so the War had touched even her, had 
 affected her life, more, had affected her nature. 
 For she had said so with bitterness. He won- 
 [168]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 dered what she had been before the War, and 
 just how it had changed her. 
 
 A knock at the door startled him. Hastily 
 he dropped the pearls into their case and shut 
 it. The waiter came in to clear away the 
 breakfast. 
 
 A few minutes later Derrick went down, car- 
 rying the despatch box, hailed a taxi and told 
 the man to drive to Voirier's jewel shop. 
 
 "What can I do for you, sir?" asked a mid- 
 dle-aged man, very smartly dressed in a per- 
 fectly fitting frock-coat and dark trousers, with 
 a large diamond pin gleaming in his black satin 
 cravat. "What can I show you?" 
 
 "Nothing, thank you. I wish to see Mon- 
 sieur Isidore Voirier. Is he in?" 
 
 The middle-aged man cast a glance at Der- 
 rick's despatch box, and looked rather dubious. 
 
 "I'm not quite sure, sir. I'm not certain 
 whether he has arrived yet. Perhaps you could 
 tell me what it is you wish to see him about." 
 
 Derrick hesitated a moment, and then said: 
 
 "I believe Monsieur Voirier is an expert 
 judge of jewels, especially of pearls." 
 
 The middle-aged man smiled faintly. 
 
 "Oh, yes, sir. Our Monsieur Isidore is con- 
 [169]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 sidered quite the best judge of jewels in Paris." 
 
 "I wish to show him some pearls and to ask 
 his advice about them." 
 
 "Ah exactly ! Pray take a seat. I will go 
 and see if Monsieur Isidore has arrived." 
 
 Derrick sat down by a case in which pend- 
 ants were displayed under glass, and held the 
 despatch box on his knees. Meanwhile the 
 middle-aged man walked slowly away and dis- 
 appeared through a doorway at the back of the 
 shop. Exactly at the same moment a young 
 man with beady black eyes entered the shop by 
 another door sheeted with plate-glass, and 
 stood in an indifferent attitude, looking vague- 
 ly in the direction of Derrick. 
 
 A long silence ensued. Derrick felt oddly 
 uncomfortable, almost nervous. He supposed 
 this was because he was totally unaccustomed 
 to transact business in a jeweller's shop. He 
 shifted the box on his knees, looked up, and 
 saw the beady eyes of the young man fixed 
 vaguely, yet, he thought, knowingly, upon it. 
 The young man looked away and coughed 
 faintly. A few more minutes passed. During 
 them Derrick listened to the roar of the traffic 
 [170]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 of Paris, and stared at the gleaming pendants 
 arranged on grey velvet. 
 
 At last the door at the back of the shop 
 opened, and the middle-aged man reappeared. 
 
 "If you will come this way, sir, Monsieur 
 Isidore will see you." 
 
 Derrick got up and followed him, holding 
 the box tightly. 
 
 The middle-aged man showed him into a 
 small, well- furnished room, in which stood a 
 short man, totally bald, with a white, fat face, 
 waxed black moustaches and large keen brown 
 eyes. 
 
 "The gentleman, Monsieur Isidore," he said, 
 and went out softly. 
 
 Monsieur Isidore bowed, looking hard at 
 Derrick. 
 
 "I understand that you wish to consult me 
 about some jewels, monsieur," he said, in 
 French. "Pray sit down." 
 
 Derrick sat down and put his box on a table 
 beside him. 
 
 "I do. I have just come from Switzerland." 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 Monsieur Isidore moved his bald head as he 
 uttered this non-committal ejaculation. 
 [171]
 
 "While there I came into possession of some 
 very valuable pearls." 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 "I believe you buy pearls?" 
 
 "But certainly!" 
 
 "I I bought these pearls." 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 "With with a view to selling them." 
 
 "At an advance. Exactly. We are contin- 
 ually getting jewels from Switzerland. And 
 I suppose you wish me to buy your pearls if 
 they are likely to suit my clientele?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Pray allow me to see them." 
 
 Derrick drew out his key, opened the des- 
 patch box and took out the jewel-case. He 
 was about to open it when Monsieur Isidore 
 held out a fat, white hand. 
 
 "Allow me, monsieur!" 
 
 Very delicately, indeed almost tenderly, he 
 took the case into his hand, carried it to a little 
 table near a window, switched on two electric 
 lamps, and sat down with his fat back turned 
 to Derrick. Then he opened a drawer in the 
 table and took out a lens. This done, he 
 opened the case very gently and exposed the 
 [172]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 pearls to view, and looked at them for a mo- 
 ment as they lay gleaming softly in the light 
 from the lamps. Finally, he fixed the lens in 
 his right eye, picked up the pearls and closely 
 examined them for two or three minutes, shift- 
 ing the strings slowly through his cushioned 
 white fingers. 
 
 Derrick sat still and looked at him, and 
 again he did not know why felt nervous, 
 rather as a man often does who is being ex- 
 amined in silence by a celebrated doctor. 
 
 At last Monsieur Isidore laid the pearls 
 down, rather brusquely, took the lens from his 
 eye, turned in his chair, and cast at Derrick 
 a very peculiar glance, which seemed to be 
 compounded of sharp inquiry and of menace. 
 
 "May I ask, monsieur, who sent you to me?" 
 he said. "How you came to hear of my poor 
 existence?" 
 
 "I was dining last night with a friend, a 
 Monsieur Cockayne ; he spoke of you." 
 
 "Monsieur Cockayne I do not know him." 
 
 "He didn't say he knew you. He merely 
 told me you were a fine judge of pearls." 
 
 "It is my business." 
 
 He paused. 
 
 [173]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 "Did this Monsieur Cockayne know you had 
 pearls to sell?" 
 
 "No. He simply mentioned your name in 
 the course of general conversation." 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 Monsieur Isidore was silent. He folded his 
 fat hands together and looked down at them 
 meditatively, as if he were considering very 
 seriously what line he was going to take. 
 Then, looking up again, he said : 
 
 "Pardon, monsieur, but do you tell me you 
 personally bought these" he negligently 
 flicked the pearls with a forefinger without 
 turning to see exactly where they lay "these 
 ah pearls?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "May I venture to ask how much you paid 
 for them?" 
 
 "Six thousand pounds." 
 
 "Six thousand pounds !" He moved his bald 
 head slowly up and down. "Is it possible?" he 
 concluded. 
 
 "What do you mean by 'is it possible?' " said 
 Derrick. 
 
 Monsieur Isidore twisted his nose sideways 
 and slightly sniffed. 
 
 [174]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 "These pearls are false," he said, sharply 
 observing his visitor. 
 
 The blood rushed to Derrick's forehead. 
 
 "False!" he exclaimed, instinctively getting 
 on to his feet. 
 
 "They are imitation pearls, quite good ones 
 of their kind. Unfortunately, Voirier and CQ. 
 dv, not deal in artificial jewels, but only in real 
 ones. So I cannot offer to buy these." 
 
 Again he contemptuously flicked the pearls 
 with his finger. 
 
 ''I will put them away for you," he said, 
 turning round. 
 
 "Stop a minute, please!" said Derrick. 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 Derrick came up to the table and stood look- 
 ing down on the pearls. 
 
 "I cannot I simply cannot believe that you 
 have not made a mistake," he said. 
 
 "I make a mistake about pearls!" 
 
 "Oh, I've no doubt you are a great expert, 
 but even an expert " 
 
 "My dear monsieur, if you like go round 
 the corner, go all down the Rue de la Paix, 
 show the pearls to Cartier, to anyone you 
 [175]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 please. The verdict will be the same as mine. 
 These pearls are false." 
 
 "But but I can't believe it." 
 
 "Why not? Since you come to me as an ex- 
 pert, why cannot you believe what I say?" 
 
 "Because the circumstances in which I 
 bought the pearls prohibit me from believ- 
 ing " 
 
 He stopped. 
 
 "Do you mean to tell me that you paid six 
 thousand pounds for them without having them 
 valued?" 
 
 "I was told they were worth at least twelve 
 thousand pounds." 
 
 "By whom? By the seller?" 
 
 Derrick was silent under the satirical gaze of 
 the keen brown eyes. 
 
 "Monsieur, I am sorry may I say one feels 
 your bona fides of the English gentleman but 
 you have been done. I may tell you that you 
 are not the first. Others have been over to 
 Switzerland lately and have burnt their fin- 
 gers. May I hazard a guess? The person who 
 sold you these things was a woman?" 
 
 Derrick said nothing. Monsieur Isidore 
 smiled faintly, lifting his pointed moustaches. 
 [176]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 "Allow me to put up your property," he said. 
 
 And he carelessly, almost contemptuously, 
 shoved, rather than insinuated, the pearls into 
 their case, snapped the cover down, and handed 
 the case to Derrick. 
 
 "Good-bye, monsieur!" he said, moving to- 
 wards the door. "I am really very sorry very 
 sorry indeed!" 
 
 He opened the door. Derrick put the case 
 into his despatch-box, and turned to go out of 
 the room. He felt sick, and had difficulty in 
 walking steadily. 
 
 "This way, monsieur!" 
 
 Monsieur Isidore opened the door into the 
 shop. 
 
 The middle-aged man in the frock-coat and 
 the young man with the beady eyes were both 
 there, and both of them looked first at Derrick 
 and then at the box as he came in. 
 
 "Good-bye, monsieur!" 
 
 Monsieur Isidore spoke. 
 
 "Good-bye," said Derrick. 
 
 And he walked slowly down the shop and 
 out into the traffic of Paris. 
 
 [177]
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 WHEN Derrick was outside in the street and 
 had walked a few steps he stood still and hesi- 
 tated. He believed what Isidore Voirier had 
 said about the pearls. The man was an expert, 
 was perpetually judging the value of jewels. 
 His manner had been that of one who knew 
 what .he was doing and who was almost con- 
 temptuously convinced of his own ability. 
 When he had taken the pearls from Derrick 
 he had taken them carefully, almost with a 
 sort of reverence, like one receiving into his 
 hands something very precious. But after he 
 had examined them his manner had changed 
 completely. He had shown the scorn he felt 
 for pretences. When he had put the pearls 
 back into the case he had handled them almost 
 with disgust, as if it offended him to touch 
 them, as if he were in a hurry to get rid of 
 and forget them. He must know; the pearls 
 must be false. 
 
 And yet Derrick hesitated now, reluctant to 
 [178]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 lose for ever a faith, perhaps an illusion, which 
 he had cherished, which he wished still to cling 
 to. He tried to tell himself that even an Isi- 
 dore Voirier might make a mistake, that it 
 would be foolish, wrong even, to take the word 
 of one man as final in a matter of such tre- 
 mendous importance. Experts do make mis- 
 takes. The cleverest man is not infallible. 
 And when the honour of a woman, the faith 
 and the happiness of a man, are at stake, it 
 is surely madness not to take a second opinion? 
 
 A passer-by, hurrying through the murk of 
 the ghastly morning, knocked against Derrick, 
 and passed on with a perfunctory "Pardon, 
 m'sieu!" Derrick moved and slowly walked 
 on till he came into the Rue de la Paix. There 
 he stopped again, this time in front of a jewel- 
 ler's window, in which a very few exquisite or- 
 naments were displayed against a pale back- 
 ground of velvet. 
 
 He was trying to make up his mind to go 
 into this shop and to test his fate once more. 
 
 He stood in front of the window, and pre- 
 tended to be examining the jewels in it while 
 he considered the matter. He still felt phys- 
 ically affected, almost as if his body had re- 
 [179]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 ceived a severe blow; and his mind was not 
 working normally. One of the ornaments in 
 this shop shown to the passers-by was a small 
 necklace of pearls with a diamond clasp and 
 a pendant of diamonds and pearls. Derrick 
 stared at it for a long time, trying to draw a 
 comparison between these pearls and the pearls 
 hidden in his despatch box. Which looked the 
 finer, the more precious? He could not tell. 
 But it seemed to him that if his pearls were 
 displayed with cunning they would look quite 
 as beautiful as the jewels he was now gazing 
 at. 
 
 His pearls! 
 
 Yes, he must have another verdict. He 
 pulled himself together and entered the shop. 
 
 Three well-dressed men were in it, one an 
 old man with a long, very French face, the 
 other two young with suave mouths and ob- 
 servant eyes. The old man at once took Der- 
 rick in hand. 
 
 "What do you wish, m'sieu?" 
 
 "Do you buy jewels?" asked Derrick. 
 
 The two young men looked suddenly intent. 
 
 "Monsieur wishes not to buy, but to sell?" 
 said the old man, with obvious surprise. 
 [180]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 "I have some pearls which I wish to get rid 
 of. They are of no use to me. But I have no 
 idea of their value. It may be great or small. 
 I should like to to have your opinion upon the 
 matter. If the jewels are of any great value 
 I should like to dispose of them, if possible." 
 
 "Well, we do buy jewels, of course," said the 
 old man, with a rather dubious, and even 
 slightly suspicious manner. "But " 
 
 "Is there anyone here who is an expert in 
 jewels?" said Derrick, with sudden despera- 
 tion, and feeling hot all over. "I want a judg- 
 ment on my pearls." 
 
 He looked at the two young men, who were 
 both gazing at him. 
 
 After a slight pause the old man said: 
 
 "Have you shown them to anyone else?" 
 
 "Yes; Monsieur Isidore Voirier has seen 
 them." 
 
 "Monsieur Isidore Voirier!" said the old 
 man, with deep respect, and pursing up his thin 
 lips. 
 
 He glanced round at his two subordinates, 
 then again at Derrick. 
 
 "May I inquire what he thought of them?" 
 
 "If you will look at them, or get your ex- 
 [181]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 pert if you have one to look at them, I will 
 tell you afterwards Monsieur Voirier's 
 opinion." 
 
 "I am, perhaps, a fairly good judge of such 
 things, though I should not certainly put my- 
 self on the level of Monsieur Isidore Voirier." 
 
 "Then please look at my pearls and give me 
 your opinion of their value." 
 
 "Very well, monsieur." 
 
 Derrick put his despatch box on the counter. 
 The two young men drew gently nearer. How 
 he hated them at that moment! He opened 
 the box awkwardly, lifted out the case, opened 
 it and pulled out the pearls. Then he said 
 brusquely : 
 
 "There they are! Have a good look at 
 them!" 
 
 "Monsieur will not mind if I take them away 
 for a moment?" 
 
 "Certainly not. Of course not." 
 
 The old man took the pearls up in his yellow- 
 ish, long-nailed hands, went away to a table set 
 against the back wall of the shop, turned on 
 an electric light, opened a drawer, and prob- 
 ably drew out a lens. (But Derrick could not 
 see exactly what he was doing. ) Then he sat 
 [182]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 down, and there was a pause. Presently he 
 looked round, made an odd noise in his throat, 
 got up, turned out the light, laid something 
 down on the table, and came back with the 
 pearls in his hand. 
 
 "Well well?" said Derrick. 
 
 "I could not tell you the exact value of these, 
 m'sieu," he said. "But they are very good imi- 
 tation pearls, as no doubt Monsieur Isidore 
 Voirier told you, very good imitations indeed. 
 I cannot remember that I have ever seen bet- 
 ter. We do not, of course, buy imitation jew- 
 els. It is not in our line." 
 
 "No. Thank you very much. I am very 
 much obliged to you." 
 
 "If you want the name of a man who buys 
 things of this sort " 
 
 "No, thank you. No!" 
 
 The case was shut with a click. Another 
 click, and the despatch box was shut. 
 
 "Good morning," 
 
 "Good morning, m'sieu ! Allow me I" 
 
 The shop door was opened, and Derrick was 
 once more on the pavement. 
 
 This time he did not hesitate, but walked 
 [183]
 
 away at once in the direction of the Hotel 
 Crillon. 
 
 When he got there it was twelve o'clock, and 
 he remembered that he was due at half -past 
 twelve at the Ritz Hotel, where Cockayne was 
 to lunch with him as his guest in the restaurant. 
 He put the despatch box on a table. There 
 was no need now to consign it to the safe of the 
 hotel. In fact, there never had been any need 
 for such a precaution. Then he sat down in 
 an arm-chair and tried to sum things up. 
 
 He had been "done," swindled grossly. 
 There was no longer any room for doubt about 
 that. In his own eyes he was now ridiculous, 
 contemptible and tragic. 
 
 "Moral riff-raff !" Where had he heard that 
 phrase? He tried dully to remember. Ah, 
 yes she had said it! Moral riff-raff! And 
 that was just what she was. Dully he won- 
 dered about her. Even now he was not able 
 to thing of her as a clever adventuress. When 
 he thought of her, when he remembered things 
 about her, her look, her manner, her ways, her 
 conversation, he felt that she was a distin- 
 guished woman, a thorough lady, an aristocrat 
 through and through. 
 
 [184]
 
 And yet she had deliberately swindled him 
 out of six thousand pounds. 
 
 The fact seemed incredible. 
 
 He remembered his conversation with the 
 director of the Monney Hotel. That conversa- 
 tion, perhaps, should have warned him, should 
 have put him on the qui vive. 
 
 Then he thought of the Baroness Hausen. 
 What role had she played in all this affair? 
 It was she who had prompted him in the mat- 
 ter of the jewels. Had she, perhaps, also 
 prompted Princess Aranensky? Could the 
 Princess have conceived such a plan without an 
 evil genius at her elbow to suggest it to her 
 as a way out of her difficulties? And yet she 
 still seemed to Derrick to be the dominating 
 spirit in that alliance of two women. 
 
 He looked at his watch. If he were going 
 to the Ritz it was time to be off. He did not 
 feel fit to go anywhere or to be with anyone. 
 And yet loneliness was utterly hateful to him 
 at that moment. For never had he felt more 
 dreadfully alone than he did now. 
 
 After a moment's debate he resolved that he 
 would pull himself together and go to the Ritz. 
 
 While he was going there it occurred to him 
 [185]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 that probably the cheque he had given to the 
 Princess had not been passed through the bank 
 and that by sending a telegram to London he 
 might be able to stop it. The Princess had cer- 
 tainly not been in a hurry to cash it, because 
 when he had definitely proposed to her and she 
 had refused him she had taken the cheque from 
 a locked drawer and had offered to give it back 
 to him. So there might still be time. 
 
 He called out to the taxi-cab driver and told 
 him to drive to the nearest post office. 
 
 "Bien, m'sieu," said the man. 
 
 In two or three minutes he drew up beside 
 the kerb. 
 
 "Via, m'sieu!" 
 
 Derrick got out of the cab and went slowly 
 into the post office. It was very full of people, 
 and^ he could not immediately get hold of a 
 telegraph-form and a pen or pencil. So he 
 stood and waited. He looked at the muddle of 
 people, at the dingy room, and then at his 
 watch. It was close upon half -past twelve. 
 If he did not hurry to the Ritz he would be 
 late. He knew Cockayne well, and, no doubt, 
 Cockayne would not mind waiting for a few 
 minutes. Still, when you are the host it is im- 
 [186]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 polite to keep a guest waiting. Derrick de- 
 cided to send the telegram later. After lunch- 
 eon would do. That would only mean a delay 
 of an hour and a half or so. He turned, went 
 out of the post office, got into the cab and drove 
 to the Ritz. 
 
 Cockayne was in the hall, and they went in 
 immediately to lunch. After a little talk Cock- 
 ayne asked Derrick whether he had decided 
 on his plans for the immediate future, and 
 whether, and if so when, he was going to 
 London. 
 
 "I've decided to follow your advice and give 
 up the journey to England," he said. "My 
 business there isn't very important and can be 
 put off." 
 
 "Good! Then what about Cap Martin? 
 Why don't you come there with me? We'll go 
 to Marseilles, stay a couple of days, lunch and 
 dine at La Reserve and take a dip into the ex- 
 traordinary life of rascality there. They tell 
 me Marseilles of after the War is a phenome- 
 non. Crooks of all the nations of the world 
 gathered together to fleece the travellers who 
 are perpetually held up by strikes and can't 
 get away by sea; yellow men by the hundred; 
 [187]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 Spahis on the loose ; Arab chieftains decorated 
 up to the eyes having the time of their lives in 
 the redecorated hotels ; South Americans burst- 
 ing with money who've come over to burn it in 
 exhausted Europe. A man I met here yester- 
 day said to me, 'Whatever you do have a good 
 look at Marseilles. You'd learn more about 
 human nature in a couple of days there than 
 you would in as many months anywhere else.' ' 
 
 "I I don't know whether I'm keen on 
 learning anything more about human nature," 
 said Derrick. 
 
 "Had enough of it?" asked Cockayne, with 
 a keen glance. 
 
 "It isn't very profitable, is it?" 
 
 "Depends what you want out of it. If 
 you're out for amusement you'll get it." 
 
 "And if you're out for a little bit of sin^ 
 cerity you damned well won't get it!" said Der- 
 rick, bitterly. "It's all very well to talk about 
 amusement. But some of us get tired of star- 
 ing perpetually at a satiric comedy ; and that's 
 what life is. Some of us were fools enough to 
 think the War would make a difference " 
 
 "Well, so it has!" interjected Cockayne. 
 
 "A difference the wrong way! Yes, that's 
 [188]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 it! Human beings are more disgusting tljan 
 ever now." 
 
 "My dear fellow, you want too much." 
 
 "Perhaps I do! Well, never mind. I'll 
 come with you to Marseilles, Cap Martin, any- 
 where you like. But I'm afraid I shan't be 
 very good company." 
 
 Moved by a sudden and overwhelming im- 
 pulse, Derrick leaned forward over the table, 
 and added in a low voice : 
 
 "I've had a facer, Cockayne, a terrific 
 facer!" 
 
 "My dear chap, I'm sorry. Can I help?" 
 
 "No. I was a fool, no doubt. I mixed up 
 friendship, affection, with business." 
 
 "And you've been done?" 
 
 "Done to a turn!" 
 
 "I'm awfully sorry." 
 
 "And even now " 
 
 He pulled up short. 
 
 "Talking won't mend it!" he said. "I must 
 try to forget it. It's this cursed War which 
 has brought the whole thing about. People 
 prate about moral regeneration coming out of 
 the War. I see only moral degeneration com- 
 ing out of it nothing else." 
 [189]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 "You must give people time to settle down," 
 said Cockayne, with a sudden unusual earnest- 
 ness. "We've all had a shake. And after a 
 shake one's not wholly normal. I forgive peo- 
 ple a lot just now." 
 
 "Do you?" 
 
 "So many of them have fallen into holes and 
 don't know how to struggle out of them. 
 There's a heap of help wanted." 
 
 "If people would only let one know the exact 
 truth, instead of always telling lies, it would 
 be more satisfactory helping them." 
 
 "Half the time they're afraid." 
 
 "What of?" 
 
 "They are afraid to trust to the goodness 
 in others." 
 
 "I thought you had no faith in human na- 
 ture, that you didn't believe in it." 
 
 "My dear fellow, one believes in a lot more 
 than one confesses to. Irony is one's defensive 
 armour. That's all!" 
 
 When lunch was over, Derrick said : 
 
 "Let us leave Paris to-night if you have 
 nothing special to do here. I feel I shall be 
 better out of it." 
 
 "I can go to-night." 
 
 [190]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 "That's good. And now if you don't mind 
 I'll be off. I've got one or two things to do." 
 
 Derrick still thought he meant to go to a 
 post office and send off a telegram to London. 
 He could have sent a telegram from the Ritz, 
 of course, but somehow he didn't care to do 
 that. An acute reserve governed him. At 
 the Ritz he was known. At a public office 
 he wouldn't be known. 
 
 I3ut when he was out of the hotel, although 
 he passed more than one post office he did not 
 send any telegram. Each time he was on the 
 point of entering through the swing doors he 
 was held back by an invisible reluctance. He 
 said to himself, "Suppose she did not know 
 that the pearls were false! Suppose she acted 
 in good faith!" That was, he knew, unlikely, 
 even almost impossible. He could not really 
 believe it to be possible. And yet there was 
 just the chance. By some extraordinary com- 
 bination of circumstances she herself might 
 have been deceived about the nature of the 
 pearls. If he sent the telegram she might be re- 
 duced to penury. She might be turned out of 
 the Monney Hotel. When he thought of that 
 he simply couldn't telegraph to the bank. And 
 [191]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 he went back to the Crillon without doing so. 
 
 In the evening he and Cockayne started for 
 Marseilles. 
 
 They managed to get two places in the sleep- 
 ing-car, but Derrick could not sleep. He lay 
 awake all night listening to the roar of the train 
 and thinking of the immediate past and of his 
 tragic situation. For he now realized how 
 deeply he had come to care for the Princess, 
 how sincerely he had admired her, and how in- 
 tensely he had been looking forward to seeing 
 her again. Although she had definitely refused 
 him, Derrick had certainly not lost the hope of 
 persuading her to change her mind. He had, 
 then, come to believe that she genuinely cared 
 for him, valued his company, found him more 
 sympathetic to her than others were. She had 
 hurt him in his pocket, but that was as nothing 
 f o the injury she had inflicted upon him in his 
 heart. Over and over in his mind he turned 
 all the facts of his short friendship with her, 
 trying to decide whether from the first she had 
 marked him down as a possible prey, or whether 
 she had been driven by circumstances unwill- 
 ingly to do what she had done, hating herself 
 for jthe doing of it, or whether she had been 
 [192]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 tempted, or somehow driven to do it, by the 
 abominable influence of Baroness Hausen, a 
 woman, perhaps, with a German soul housed 
 in her technically Russian body. And in this 
 painful mental debate he tried to be scrupu- 
 lously fair. ( He now felt sure that she could 
 not have been deceived about the pearls. ) 
 
 Some very disagreeable facts came up in his 
 memory. For instance, he remembered that 
 the very first time he had met the Princess it 
 had seemed to him as if her mind had said to 
 his mind, "So ! It is at Montreux that you and 
 I had to meet. I could not go to England to 
 you, so you have come to Switzerland to me !" 
 Did that mean that at a first glance she had 
 "spotted" him as a likely victim? If so, she 
 had probably gone up to Caux on the day when 
 they had lunched together there with the delib- 
 erate intention of becoming acquainted with 
 him. She might have found out that he had 
 started to walk up there, and have followed him 
 by train with the object of catching him alone. 
 
 It was an intolerable supposition, and he 
 
 fried to put it from him. Yet how could he be 
 
 sure that it was not so? At the concert on the 
 
 previous night, when the Princess had turned 
 
 [193]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 round after Litvinne's singing of Les Roses 
 d'Ispahan," he had felt quite definitely that she 
 intended to know him. Why? He could no 
 longer imagine that it was for the sake of his 
 beaux yeiwc. 
 
 There were other things, too, which he re- 
 membered with a now painful distinctness. 
 
 She had spoken to him of her belief in human 
 kindness and, looking at him fixedly, had said, 
 "People have told me that there is much of it 
 in England." At the time he had felt pleased 
 and warmed by that statement, but now it oc- 
 curred to him that the thought in her mind at 
 that moment might very well have been, "Here, 
 perhaps, is an English fool ready to my hand." 
 And her apparent disinterestedness, her re- 
 fusals to allow him ever to pay trifling sums 
 for her all those might have been handfuls of 
 dust thrown in his eyes with the subtle purpose 
 of effectually blinding him, so that he might 
 never suspect her real character, her unyielding 
 and coldly pursued purpose. 
 
 But she might have married him, have shel- 
 tered herself from all poverty for the rest of 
 her life! She had known that he was rich. 
 Why then had she refused him? An adventur- 
 [194]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 ess would surely have jumped at the chance he 
 had offered her. 
 
 At Leysin she had told him that in her 
 opinion the War had affected the morals of 
 men and women for the worse, and had alluded 
 to the almost universal excuse of "shell-shock" 
 put forth by those who did what they knew to 
 be detestable. 
 
 "I should use it myself, I know, if neces- 
 sary," she had added. "And perhaps there 
 is really something in it." And then she had 
 shot at him one of those subtle looks which even 
 then had obscurely troubled him, and which he 
 had never been able to understand. Had she 
 been pardoning herself then for what she in- 
 tended to do to him in the future? 
 
 "There is nothing which a human being 
 might not do if sufficient occasion arose." 
 
 That was another saying of hers which to 
 Derrick now seemed terribly significant. And 
 he repeated to himself in the night her fatalistic 
 remark when he had questioned her or half 
 hinted a question to her as to Baroness Hau- 
 sen's influence upon her- "It is not the Katyas 
 who really influence us, my friend. It is the 
 terrible Zeitgeist ; it is the spirit of the Time." 
 [195]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 Then the night when the Princess had asked 
 him to take the Baroness to the Casino! On 
 that night the Baroness had asked him to help 
 the Princess by buying her pearls. Her mis- 
 sion to Geneva that day had failed. Why? 
 Probably the Princess had really shrunk from 
 trying to palm the false jewels off upon him, 
 and had made a genuine effort to swindle some 
 other, unknown person. The effort had proved 
 abortive. Probably the other man had been 
 too sharp. He would never know about that. 
 But he now felt certain that on that night the 
 Princess had finally decided if possible to make 
 him her victim, and had contrived that the 
 Baroness should be alone with him in order 
 that she might prepare the ground. 
 
 In the early morning, summing the whole 
 matter up to himself as well as he was able in 
 his miserable condition of mind, Derrick came 
 to the conclusion that Princess Aranensky had 
 been at her wits* end for money when he first 
 met her, that she had thought of him as a 
 man from whom possibly she might obtain 
 help, that she had really grown to like him as 
 their intercourse had developed, that she had 
 struggled against the pernicious temptation to 
 [196}
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 try and swindle him, that she had attempted 
 to get rid of the pearls at Geneva, and that, 
 having failed in that attempt, she had at last 
 been driven by the pressure of necessity to do 
 what she had done, hating herself for the doing 
 of it. But why she had refused to marry him, 
 and why she had surely deliberately given 
 him the definite impression that she would 
 never accept a gift of money from him he could 
 not understand. Surely it would have been 
 less detestable to the pride of an aristocratic 
 woman to take money from him as a gift than 
 to steal it from him by a deception! 
 
 But six thousand pounds! That was a big 
 sum. He would, of course, never have offered 
 to give her so much. She had known that, of 
 course. So, perhaps, she had decided to play 
 only for high stakes. That was possible. The 
 marriage question he could not resolve un- 
 less 
 
 Suddenly it occurred to Derrick that there 
 might be another man in the case. And he 
 burned with jealousy at the thought. Yes, 
 even now, after what had happened, he could 
 be jealous of the Princess. That was sheer mad- 
 ness. Yet he writhed on his narrow bed. Why 
 [197]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 had she lingered on in Montreux when the door 
 of the cage was open? Why had she evidently 
 been determined that he should leave the place 
 before she did? Why had she wished him to 
 travel as far as London to get rid of the pearls, 
 instead of trying to dispose of them in Paris? 
 
 Paris was nearer to Montreux than London. 
 He wished that he were in a train rushing to 
 Switzerland instead of in the Paris and Mar- 
 seilles rapide. In Paris he had never contem- 
 plated trying to see the Princess again after he 
 had learnt that the pearls were false. But now 
 a strong desire leapt up in him to go back and 
 confront her, and have it out with her, force 
 from her the whole truth of the matter. She 
 could not refuse him the truth. He would find 
 means to compel her to tell it to him. 
 
 "What's the time ? Have you got the time?" 
 said a muffled voice above him. 
 
 Derrick looked at his wrist-watch. 
 
 "Ten minutes past six," he called out. 
 
 "Seven?" 
 
 "No, six." 
 
 "Thank God time for some more sleep." 
 
 And he heard Cockayne turn over in the 
 berth overhead. 
 
 [198]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 The train was nearly two hours late in reach- 
 ing Marseilles. Cockayne had telegraphed 
 from Paris to the Hotel du Louvre et de la 
 Paix asking for rooms to be reserved for them, 
 but when they arrived at the hotel it was cram- 
 med, and the manager told them that he could 
 do nothing for them. There was a big ship due 
 to sail for India that day, but she had not ar- 
 rived in the port yet, and there was reason to 
 suppose that her departure for the East would 
 be delayed, probably for two or three days. 
 Meanwhile some scores of travellers were wait- 
 ing for her in Marseilles. 
 
 "Our last two rooms were taken only last 
 night by a lady and gentleman who are sailing 
 on the Qphir, monsieur. I'm very sorry. I 
 should advise you to try at the Hotel de 
 Noailles. It has recently been redecorated 
 from top to bottom, and is the best hotel in 
 the town, except ours!" 
 
 They went to the ISToailles and got rooms. 
 
 Meanwhile Derrick had made up his mind 
 that instead of going with Cockayne to Cap 
 Martin he would return to Montreux and see 
 the Princess again. He dreaded seeing her. 
 He knew that their meeting could only be a 
 [199]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 horrible one, but something irresistible drew 
 him back to Switzerland and to her. Perhaps 
 it was something in the heart which he did not 
 comprehend; or, perhaps, it was something in 
 the brain, the insatiable curiosity of man who 
 is driven by the deep desire to understand, to 
 unravel hidden motives, to discover the springs 
 of actions which have affected, which continue 
 to affect, his happiness. Derrick said nothing 
 of all this to Cockayne. He did not mean to 
 leave Marseilles immediately. He would stay 
 with Cockayne till the latter went on to the 
 Riviera. In those two or three days he would 
 have time to consider how he intended to act 
 when he met the Princess ; he would have time 
 also for a little rest, which he felt that he 
 needed badly after the travelling and the men- 
 tal turmoil of the preceding days. 
 
 That day Cockayne and he drove over to the 
 Corniche and lunched at the restaurant of La 
 Reserve which overlooks the sea. Then they 
 took a long walk along the coast and returned 
 to Marseilles on foot. On arriving at their 
 hotel they heard casually that the Ophir had 
 just arrived in the harbour. 
 
 [200]
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 ON the following day Derrick asked Cockayne 
 how long he intended to stay in Marseilles. 
 
 "Well, what do you say?" his friend asked. 
 "This hotel isn't bad, and I find the place very 
 amusing. I've known Marseilles for more 
 years than I can count, but I've never known it 
 like this. Last night, after dinner, when you'd 
 gone up to bed, I wandered about for over two 
 hours and took a bird's-eye view of the after- 
 the-War conditions here." 
 
 "I hope you were satisfied?" 
 
 "My dear chap, I received education. And 
 that's what we are here for." 
 
 "In Marseilles do you mean?" 
 
 "No, in this life. I propose to get a little 
 more education here if you have no objection?" 
 
 "Not the least in the world." 
 
 There was a silence. Then Cockayne said, 
 
 "Perhaps you are longing for the pine woods 
 of Cap Martin?" 
 
 "Well no. To tell you the truth I think I 
 [201]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 shall have to make some change in my plans. 
 I believe I shall have to go back from here to 
 Montreux." 
 
 "You are going to fetch your friends?" 
 
 "My friends?" 
 
 "The Russian Princess and the Baroness 
 from the Baltic Provinces about whom you 
 talked to me." 
 
 "Oh no! They won't be coming to Cap 
 Martin." 
 
 Cockayne lit a cigarette. 
 
 "You'll come on there from Montreux?" 
 he said, carelessly. 
 
 "I really don't know. I I don't want to 
 let you down after promising to come. But 
 my plans have all been I mean that well* 
 Cockayne, something happened in Paris which 
 has thrown me out of gear." 
 
 Of course. I knew that. I only wish I 
 could do something, help you in some way. 
 But I suppose that's impossible." 
 
 "It's good of you. You're a good friend. 
 But you can't do anything. The thing's done, 
 and unluckily it's irreparable." 
 
 "Then take a strong pull on yourself. Put 
 it behind you. Forget it." 
 [202]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 "I can't do that yet. Some day, perhaps 
 but not yet." 
 
 "I don't want to be curious, but do you think 
 that going back to Montreux will help you to 
 forget it?" 
 
 "I don't say that. But I feel I must go." 
 
 "Then there's no more to be said. I shall be 
 awfully sorry to lose your company, but that's 
 a mere detail. I dare say you want to be off at 
 once?" 
 
 Derrick hesitated. Then he said : 
 
 "No. I suppose you'll only be here for a 
 couple of days or so ?" 
 
 "Something like that." 
 
 "Well, I'll go when you do. I think that's 
 the best arrangement." 
 
 "Right! And, my dear fellow, remember 
 that there are very few things in life which 
 leave a permanent wound, and that mere scars 
 may look ugly but they don't hurt us, even 
 when the weather changes. We 'get over' 
 practically everything that doesn't send us into 
 the grave straight away. Nature is very ac- 
 commodating." 
 
 "Oh, this thing won't break me. I'm not 
 afraid of that. But well, it's no use talking 
 [203]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 about it. To tell the truth, what I really fear 
 is losing all faith in human nature. That dries 
 a man up. I dare say you think me a fearful 
 sentimentalist at my age talking like this. But 
 I expect a great many people are thinking as 
 I am just now. The War's been a bad shock, 
 but some of us have looked forward to a 
 finer humanity coming out of it. If, on the 
 contrary, we find humanity the worse for the 
 War, what on earth have we to live for? You 
 are studying Marseilles. You find it changed. 
 Is the change for the better?'* 
 
 "Good heavens, no!" 
 
 "And you are amused?" 
 
 "Interested at any rate." 
 
 "I'm the type that gets disgusted, I'm 
 afraid." 
 
 "I've a rough philosophy that helps me a 
 lot." 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 "Hang on to the best in yourself and let all 
 the rest go hang." 
 
 Derrick stood still for a moment. Then he 
 shook his friend's hand. 
 
 "I'll go out and think that over," he said. 
 
 He went out and took a long walk through 
 [204]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 the crowded streets of Marseilles. Finally, he 
 went down to the harbour and strolled by the 
 edge of the sea. The day was fine and the sun 
 was out. Numbers of ships big and small were 
 lying at anchor. People were putting off for 
 the Chateau d'If. Fishermen were coming 
 ashore brown and hairy, and smelling of the 
 salty waters. Conjurers were performing in 
 the midst of small circles of the curious. A 
 humpbacked dwarf and a woman in tights 
 were doing acrobatic feats. And everywhere 
 rough men of all nations, the hardy travellers 
 and adventurers of the world, were taking 
 their ease in the sunshine, lounging along the 
 water's edge, pipe in mouth, sitting in groups 
 before the shabby cafes, playing cards, drink- 
 ing soup or mysterious liquids, swearing, spit- 
 ting, quarrelling, larking. Among them were 
 many yellow men with melancholy eyes, small- 
 boned limbs and thin faces; there were Arabs 
 too, Negroes, Kabyles, Sudanese. Half the 
 nations of the earth seemed to be assembled in 
 this port of France. Derrick felt vaguely de- 
 tached and almost confused as he made his way 
 slowly through the throng. 
 [205]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 "Hold on to the best in yourself and let all 
 the rest go hang!" 
 
 What else, after all, could one do? It was 
 absurd to concern oneself about the myriads of 
 men, to bother about them collectively. How, 
 indeed, could one ever be sure whether in the 
 mass they were deterioriating, or progressing, 
 however slowly and almost imperceptibly, 
 upon the upward path? 
 
 Some Lascars went by. Derrick thought of 
 the Ophir, that great ship bound for the Far 
 East for which so many travellers had been 
 waiting. 
 
 He wondered where she was berthed and 
 thought he would like to have a look at her. 
 Why was that? He wondered for a moment 
 what could have given rise to such a desire in 
 him. And then he remembered the Princess's 
 allusions to Asia. She had wished to go to 
 India and had expressed her wish to him more 
 than once. The Ophir to-morrow, or the next 
 day, very soon at any rate, would slip out on 
 the high road to the land she must often have 
 dreamed about, or perhaps brooded over, in 
 those rooms furnished with cushions in Mon- 
 treux. 
 
 [206]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 A sturdy seafaring man, evidently British, 
 came towards Derrick, pipe in mouth, hands 
 in pockets. 
 
 "Good-day! Can you tell me where the 
 Ophir is berthed?" Derrick said, going up to 
 him. 
 
 "Keep straight on, go to the right, and you'll 
 find her about a hundred yards before you 
 come to the quay the Algiers boats clear from." 
 
 "Thank you. When does she sail?" 
 
 "Noon to-morrow." 
 
 The sailor walked on, rolling slightly in his 
 gait, and Derrick continued on his way. 
 
 He had a good look at the Ophir. She was 
 a great ship and seemed in good trim. The 
 gang-plank was down to the quay. Some sail- 
 ors and Lascars were moving about on the 
 checks. A man with bare arms was polishing 
 the glasses of portholes with a handful of 
 grimy rags. A young officer paced to and fro 
 on the bridge, looking warily this way and 
 that. But no passengers were visible. Prob- 
 ably they had all gone ashore. And those who 
 had been awaiting the arrival of the Ophir in 
 Marseilles had not come aboard yet. Derrick 
 stared at the gang-plank and thought of Prin- 
 [207]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 cess Aranensky. So many things made his 
 thoughts go to her ! He remembered their talk 
 about Asia, and her words, "I often feel Asia 
 within me." They had been in the snow to- 
 gether when she had said that. The day was 
 declining, the mists were coming down and the 
 light was fading about them. It was their first 
 conversation together, continued after the 
 lunch at the cold little hotel. And she had 
 spoken of Doctor Steiner and of the mask be- 
 neath which all realities are concealed from 
 men. She had said that as the real physiog- 
 nomy of the world is hidden behind the moun- 
 tains and seas, the desert sands and the sun- 
 sets, so men and women are hidden behind their 
 words and their actions. 
 
 But was that true? Had not the Princess 
 revealed herself, stripped her character bare, 
 and shown it naked to him by her action when 
 she sold him false pearls as real ones? Or was 
 the real woman still hidden from him, with all 
 the true lights and the shadows? He had 
 thought her sincere and had cared for her. 
 Now he believed her false and yes he still 
 cared for her against his judgment, his will. 
 But though he believed her to have been false 
 [208]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 to him, did he know her whole and complete, 
 just as she was? He did not. And that was 
 why he would go to Montreux and try to see 
 her again. He would not come upon her as a 
 judge. He would come upon her as a man 
 who knew the worst of her, and who would de- 
 mand to know the rest. Something told him 
 that he had not yet discovered what was the 
 mainspring of her detestable action. She had 
 needed money. Yes. But that was not the 
 whole explanation of her conduct. He won- 
 dered about her religious views. They were 
 strange. He was sure of that. He wondered 
 about her physical life, remembering a ques- 
 tion of Cockayne's. And he gazed vaguely at 
 the great ship. 
 
 A young Englishman came up behind him 
 and said: 
 
 "Are you sailing with us, sir?" 
 
 Derrick started and turned. 
 
 "No!" he said, looking hard at the man. 
 
 "I thought you might be as you were taking 
 such a long look at the ship." 
 
 "No. Are you one of the crew?" 
 
 "I'm a steward, sir. I've been on leave in 
 the town." 
 
 [209]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 "Have a cigarette?" 
 
 "Thank you, sir." 
 
 "I rather wish I were coming with you. Is 
 your passenger list full?" 
 
 "Jam full, sir. The last really good cabin 
 was taken by telegram only a couple of days 
 ago, I heard say. We've got a princess com- 
 ing aboard." 
 
 "A princess!" said Derrick. 
 
 "Oh, not a British princess, sir, nothing of 
 that kind. This one's a Russian, I believe. 
 Anyhow, I know I'm going to look after her 
 with the stewardess." 
 
 "Oh a Russian princess!" said Derrick. 
 
 For a moment he stood quite still. He 
 glanced almost furtively at the man and looked 
 away again. It was, surely, very unlikely, 
 very improbable, and yet it was possible. 
 Yes, it was horribly possible! 
 
 A pulse in his forehead beat violently, and 
 he felt as if a wave of hot blood flooded his 
 brain, submerged it for a moment, drowning 
 his power of thought. 
 
 The steward, a young, quick-witted man, 
 looked at him almost inquisitively. 
 
 "Those Russians, I believe, breed more prin- 
 [210]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 cesses than we do, as I may say, sir, but they 
 seem to be giving them toko over there the 
 Bolshies, I mean. So I s'pose them as can are 
 clearing out of the country." 
 
 "No doubt. And what is this princess's 
 name?" 
 
 "That's more than I can tell you, sir. It's 
 down on the list, but I haven't troubled to read 
 it. Only I was told as I was going to attend 
 on her." 
 
 "Ah! Well, I must be off. Good-day!" 
 
 "Good-day, sir." 
 
 Derrick walked away for a few steps, then 
 abruptly turned; the steward was still there, 
 and had evidently been looking after him. 
 Derrick came back and put his hand in his 
 pocket. 
 
 "Look here!" he said. "I suppose it isn't 
 against rules for you to tell me the name of a 
 passenger on board of your ship. Go and find 
 out for me the name of the princess who is sail- 
 ing with you to-morrow, and here is " He 
 
 stopped short. 
 
 The young officer on the bridge was observ- 
 ing him. 
 
 "I'll walk straight on along the quay. Come 
 [211]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 and tell me the name, and I'll give you fifty 
 francs." 
 
 And he walked slowly away down the quay 
 till he was out of sight of the Ophir. Then he 
 stood still and waited. The fellow had not 
 answered, had not said he would come, but it 
 was worth while to wait. If he did not come 
 well, then, Derrick would find some other 
 means of discovering whether the suspicion 
 which had sprung up in his mind was well 
 founded or not. He would go on board the 
 OpMr on some pretext. Anyhow, he would 
 not go back to the Hotel de Noailles until he 
 knew the name of the princess who was sailing 
 on the Ophir to-morrow. 
 
 After waiting for about ten minutes he saw 
 the steward coming towards him, and he drew 
 out his portfolio and took out fifty francs. 
 The steward came up and handed him a small 
 piece of paper. 
 
 "Sorry to keep you so long, sir, but it took a 
 bit of a time to go over the list. I wrote the 
 name down for you on a piece of paper, as it's 
 foreign, and I might have forgot it." 
 
 "Very good of you. Thanks very much." 
 
 Derrick did not look at the name, but put 
 [212]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 the piece of paper into his pocket and handed 
 the man the fifty francs. 
 
 "Thank you, sir." 
 
 "I wish you a good voyage," said Derrick. 
 "Good-day!" 
 
 He was just about to go when an idea oc- 
 curred to him, and he stopped. 
 
 "By the way, is this lady, the princess, 
 travelling alone?" 
 
 "I couldn't say, sir. All I know is she's got 
 a cabin to herself." 
 
 "Oh ! Well, good-bye and good luck." 
 
 This time Derrick walked on and did not 
 stop for any last words. But as soon as he 
 had got away from the quay, and was in a 
 broad dirty street, between the vast arid dingy 
 houses with shuttered windows which are char- 
 acteristic of Marseilles, he paused and drew 
 out the bit of paper which the steward had 
 given him. On it was carefully written in 
 round hand, "PRINCESS AEANENSKY." 
 
 So it was she! 
 
 He thrust the bit of paper again into his 
 
 pocket and walked slowly on. The street was 
 
 thronged with people and traffic coming from 
 
 and going to the quays, but he scarcely noticed 
 
 [213]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 the faces, or heard the voices, the rumbling of 
 the wheels, the hooting of the horns of the 
 motors. He was absorbed by the knowledge 
 that this woman, whom he had meant to seek 
 out in Montreux, was here with him in this 
 city, was actually in Marseilles. To-morrow 
 she would be on her way to the Far East, 
 would be travelling away from him, would per- 
 haps be removed from his life forever. But 
 for the succeeding twenty four hours she was 
 near him, was possibly even in the same hotel 
 with him. Of course, he had no positive 
 knowledge that she was yet in Marseilles, but 
 he did not doubt it. The Opliir had been ex- 
 pected to arrive before she had come into port, 
 and many travellers were waiting in Marseilles 
 to go away in her. Among those travellers was 
 certainly the Princess. And Baroness Hausen? 
 Was she there too? He wondered. And now 
 as he walked he scrutinized the faces of the 
 women who passed by in the open victorias of 
 Marseilles, in taxi-cabs and cars. At any 
 moment the princess might pass him. If she 
 did, and it were at all possible, he intended to 
 stop her. If he did see her, did stop her, he 
 did not know how he would act, what he would 
 [214]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 say to her. But he would act as impulse di- 
 rected him to act. And if he did not meet 
 her in the crowded streets he would inquire 
 for her at the various hotels. She must be in 
 a hotel. And there were only three or four 
 which she would choose to put up in, his own 
 hotel, the Louvre et de la Paix, the Regina, the 
 Grand Hotel or perhaps La Reserve. There 
 were a few bedrooms at the Reserve above the 
 restaurant. It was very quiet and very sunny 
 there. She might be there. 
 
 A few more steps brought Derrick in front 
 of the Hotel Regina, and he turned in to in- 
 quire if the Princess were there. After look- 
 ing through the list the director said no, there 
 was no one of that name in the hotel. 
 
 Derrick went on, passed the Turkish Baths, 
 and eventually came into the Cannebiere. 
 
 He looked at his watch. It was close upon 
 half -past twelve. Cockayne would be expect- 
 ing him for dejeuner. He would inquire later 
 on at the other hotels, and if he did not find the 
 Princess at any of them, he would drive out to 
 the Reserve. 
 
 He found Cockayne in the hall, and they 
 went at once into the restaurant to lunch. 
 [215]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 An orchestra was playing and many people 
 were sitting at the little tables. Derrick 
 looked at everyone there slowly, deliberately, 
 lest he should miss one. 
 
 "You seem interested in the crowd," said 
 Cockayne. "Are you looking for anyone?' 
 
 "Yes." Derrick said. 
 
 "I didn't know you had friends in Mar- 
 seilles." 
 
 "I find there is someone staying here whom 
 I know, but it may not be in this hotel." 
 
 "Well, shall we lunch 'a prix fixe* or 'a la 
 carte'?" 
 
 The Princess was not in the restaurant, and 
 she did not come in during their lunch. When 
 it was finished they went to have coffee in the 
 hall. 
 
 Derrick had talked very little during lunch. 
 He knew that Cockayne must have noticed his 
 preoccupation. Cockayne was by nature a close 
 observer, and Derrick's perturbation of mind 
 jumped to the eye. Derrick was quite aware 
 of that. But the power of acting seemed to 
 have been withdrawn from him. He no longer 
 cared what his friend thought. Indeed, there 
 were moments when he was strongly tempted 
 [216]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 without mentioning names to tell Cockayne the 
 whole story, even up to the point of his finding 
 out that the woman who had swindled him 
 must be here in Marseilles, perhaps even in 
 the hotel with them. But he had already de- 
 scribed the Princess and Baroness Hausen to 
 Cockayne. The latter would guess at once 
 that the matter of the pearls was connected 
 with the two women he had talked about, the 
 two Russians. And if Cockayne did guess 
 what did that matter? Did Derrick owe it to 
 such a woman as Princess Aranensky to be 
 silent about her misdoings? If he did tell the 
 story to Cockayne why should he conceal her 
 name?" 
 
 "What shall we do this afternoon?" said 
 Cockayne. 
 
 "Well, I may have to go to the Reserve pos- 
 sibly," Derrick answered. 
 
 His friend looked slightly surprised. 
 
 "But before then," Derrick added, "I must 
 just look in at one or two of the principal 
 hotels to inquire for someone." 
 
 "Then probably you'd rather be quite free 
 for the afternoon." 
 
 [217]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 "Perhaps it would be best. I may have to 
 see someone." 
 
 After a moment he added: 
 
 "I say, Cockayne, you must think me an in- 
 fernally tiresome fellow, giving myself airs of 
 mystery. But the fact is I've discovered quite 
 by chance this morning that in all probability 
 the person who gave me the 'facer' I mentioned 
 to you in Paris is here in Marseilles." 
 
 "That's an odd coincidence." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And you want to find out where he is?" 
 
 Derrick looked quickly at Cockayne, recog- 
 nized his tact and looked away. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Then I'll leave you quite free. And we'll 
 meet at dinner-time, shall we?" 
 
 "Perhaps that's best. I fear I'm a bad com- 
 panion." 
 
 "My dear fellow, you're in trouble ! I don't 
 know, and don't want to know, exactly what it 
 is. That's not my affair. But wouldn't it be 
 better to be quite drastic?" 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 "Wouldn't it be better to cut the painter and 
 let the boat go into the darkness?" 
 [218]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 "The boat! But do you of course you're 
 speaking in metaphors. What a fool I am to- 
 day! One thing I can tell you. By to-morrow 
 I'm sure Fate will have cut the painter. But 
 I have something to do before then." 
 
 "Right! I'll be here at seven and wait for 
 you. Till then I'm non-existent." 
 
 "By seven I'll be here for certain." 
 
 They parted, and Derrick went straight to 
 the bureau, and asked whether a Princess Ara- 
 nensky was staying in the hotel. 
 
 "No, m'sieu," said the hall-porter. 
 
 "Are you quite certain?" said Derrick, and 
 he repeated the name. 
 
 "If you like I'll inquire, m'sieu, but I don't 
 think the lady is staying here." 
 
 He went away, and came back in three or 
 four minutes. 
 
 "No, m'sieu, the Princess is not staying 
 here. You will find her at the Hotel du Louvre 
 et de la Paix. It seems she telegraphed both 
 here and to the Louvre for rooms from Swit- 
 zerland. But she has gone to the Louvre." 
 
 "Thanks. Do you happen to know what 
 day she arrived in Marseilles?" 
 
 "I couldn't say for certain, m'sieu. There 
 [219]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 are so many coining and going. But if you 
 wish I can try to find out." 
 
 "No, no. It doesn't matter, thank you." 
 
 What did it matter what day the Princess 
 had arrived in Marseilles? She was there. 
 That was what mattered. He had only to 
 cross the street, walk a few yards, and he would 
 reach her hotel. 
 
 He put on his hat and went out. 
 
 It was just after two o'clock, not an ortho- 
 dox hour for calling, but a very likely hour for 
 finding a woman at home. Derrick went 
 straight to the Hotel du Louvre and asked at 
 the bureau for Princess Aranensky. 
 
 "What name, sir?" said the man at the 
 bureau. 
 
 Derrick hesitated. It had not occurred to 
 him that, of course, he would have to send up 
 his name before being admitted to see any 
 guest in the vast hotel. Yet if he did send up 
 his name, surely the Princess would refuse to 
 see him. Or would she refuse? She could not 
 know why he was in Marseilles or what had 
 happened in Paris. She could not know thai 
 he knew about the pearls. And even if she 
 guessed that, or feared it, or was in complete 
 [220]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 uncertainty about it, she might have the cour- 
 age to face him. 
 
 He had never actually tested her courage, 
 Nevertheless, he believed in it instinctively. 
 Even now that he knew of what she was 
 capable he could not think of her as a possible 
 coward. 
 
 Anyhow, if he wished to see her he must give 
 his name. 
 
 "Mr. Derrick Merton," he said. "Is the 
 Princess in?" 
 
 "I couldn't say, sir. If you will give me 
 your card I will send up a boy." 
 
 Derrick pulled out his card-case. In doing 
 this he noticed that his hand shook slightly. He 
 tried to keep it steady as he gave the card to 
 the man in the bureau. 
 
 "If you will sit down, m'sieu, I will have the 
 card sent up at once." 
 
 Derrick found a seat in the hall, and picked 
 up a paper. He saw a boy in livery take his 
 card, look at it, and go away with it towards 
 the staircase of the hotel. 
 
 Suddenly he felt that this was one of the 
 most intolerable moments of his life. A 
 strange and ridiculous feeling of guilt took 
 [221]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 possession of him. He had been grossly in- 
 jured, yet at the thought of perhaps confront- 
 ing in a moment the woman who had inflicted 
 the injury he was possessed by a sense as of 
 shame. He dreaded the thought of meeting 
 the Princess's eyes; he dreaded the thought of 
 being shut up alone with her. And if he were 
 not alone with her? 
 
 Probably she had not a sitting-room here in 
 this hotel de passage. In that case they would 
 have to meet, if they met, in public, in this hall, 
 perhaps, or in one of the rooms opening out of 
 it. He looked round furtively and saw strang- 
 ers everywhere, reading, smoking, or simply 
 sitting and staring hard at everyone who came 
 into or went out of the hall. Some of them 
 were staring at him. 
 
 The boy was away for a very long time. But 
 the hotel was large, with long corridors and 
 many rooms. And servants, Derrick remem- 
 bered, are seldom allowed the use of the lifts. 
 The boy was bound to be a long time. 
 
 Having nothing to do, and being unable to 
 
 fix his attention upon the paper he had taken 
 
 up, Derrick looked at the people coming and 
 
 going in the hall of the hotel, and wondered 
 
 [222]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 now and then vaguely about them; wondered 
 who and what they were, why they looked anx- 
 ious or self-satisfied, what were their profes- 
 sions, where they lived, where they were going, 
 how their lives were passed. All the time he 
 was doing this he was secretly trying to com- 
 bat his concealed agitation, to brace himself for 
 the interview which perhaps lay before him. 
 He had made no plan of conduct; he was un- 
 able to make one now; but he strove to pull 
 himself together, to banish his absurd sense of 
 shame. And at the same time he looked at the 
 travellers and gave an edge of his mind to 
 them. 
 
 But presently, just for one moment, his at- 
 tention was riveted. 
 
 A man appeared in the hall. He was alone, 
 and came, apparently, from the inner part of 
 the hotel where the lift and the staircase were, 
 for Derrick first saw him standing very near 
 the place where the boy had gone off with the 
 card for the Princess. 
 
 This man was about thirty-eight, or perhaps 
 forty years old, and looked wasted, not with 
 ill-health but with thought. There was some- 
 thing almost terrifically mental about his ap- 
 [223]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 pearance. Derrick thought of it as a glare of 
 mind. But this glare of mind was strangely 
 mingled with something else, something in- 
 tensely physical and almost barbarous, which 
 might either attract or repel, as the intensity 
 of an animal may either attract or repel. The 
 man was thin, large boned, gaunt and not much 
 under six feet in height, with thick yellow- 
 brown hair and a quite yellow beard and 
 moustache. His face was pale, with a bony 
 structure which was very apparent and marked 
 cheek bones. His lips were large and the 
 teeth large and very white and regular. Upon 
 the bossy forehead there was the stamp of 
 thought. It was the forehead of a deep and 
 persistent thinker, of one who often drowned 
 himself and sank down out of reach in thought. 
 The eyes were yellow brown, exceptionally 
 large, long in shape, and glittering with light, 
 with energy, and with determination. 
 
 "A marvellously interesting man!" Derrick 
 thought, as he looked at him. "And perhaps a 
 marvellous brute too. A fierce mind in a fierce 
 body!" 
 
 The man lifted a large thin hand, pulled at 
 his yellow beard, then walked down the hall. 
 [224]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 He had seen an unused writing-table. He 
 went to it and sat down at it with his back to- 
 wards Derrick. And just then the boy who 
 had taken Derrick's card came back. 
 
 "Madame, the Princess, has gone out." 
 
 "You are sure?" said Derrick. 
 
 "She isn't there," said the boy. 
 
 He held out the card. Derrick took it, and 
 went again to the bureau. 
 
 "I'll come back later on and see if I can find 
 the Princess," he said to the man there. "Prin- 
 cess Aranensky." 
 
 "Bien, m'sieu!" 
 
 "She is leaving to-morrow, I understand." 
 
 "Madame la Princess sails for India on the 
 Ophir to-morrow." 
 
 "I'll call again this evening." 
 
 "Bien, m'sieu!" said the man, with supreme 
 indifference. 
 
 Derrick left the hotel. 
 
 All the afternoon he walked about Mar- 
 seilles. He had a cup of tea in the Grand Cafe, 
 smoked a cigar, and when darkness had fallen 
 went once more to the Hotel du Louvre. 
 
 He did not, of course, know whether the 
 Princess had been in when he had called, and 
 [225]
 
 had refused to see him, or whether she had 
 really been out. He had no means of ascer- 
 taining that. But as he drew near to the hotel 
 he debated with himself how he had better act 
 this time. He might again send up his card 
 and again be told that the Princess was out. 
 In that case he could say he would wait in 
 the hall till she returned. If she were in reality 
 in her room upstairs that would be useless. 
 What he wanted to do was to ascertain for 
 certain whether she was in the hotel or was 
 not in it. He realized for the first time what 
 security there is in a large hotel for one who 
 does not wish to be got at by someone from 
 outside. The servants have a code of discre- 
 tion. There is no means of forcing the doors. 
 
 Or is there, if one has only a little self-pos- 
 session or call it impudence? 
 
 It struck Derrick that he might get at the 
 Princess in this way: he might go into the 
 hotel, avoiding the bureau go straight to the 
 lift, give the lift attendant a big tip, and say, 
 "Take me up to the sitting-room of the Prin- 
 cess Aranensky." The Princess might not have 
 engaged a sitting-room. In that case the ruse 
 would fail, for the attendant would certainly 
 [226]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 not take a stranger up to a lady's bedroom. 
 But if by chance the Princess had a sitting- 
 room it was quite possible that the man would 
 pocket the tip and take Derrick up. 
 
 Derrick resolved to carry out this plan. 
 
 He found the hall of the hotel more crowded 
 than ever. Travellers were arriving. Lug- 
 gage was being unloaded. The bureau was 
 bombarded by people asking questions and 
 trying to engage rooms. The moment could 
 not have been more favourable. Derrick made/ 
 his way to the lift, which was luckily empty. 
 A young man in the hotel livery stood beside it. 
 Derrick got in. 
 
 "Kindly take me up to the Princess Ara- 
 nensky's sitting-room," he said. 
 
 The man looked doubtful. 
 
 "Is Madame, the Princess, expecting mon- 
 sieur?" he asked. 
 
 Derrick held out ten francs. 
 
 "Yes. The Princess is expecting me." 
 
 The young man, with a faint understanding 
 smile, pocketed the bribe and the lift shot up- 
 ward. 
 
 [227]
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE lift stopped at the second floor. 
 
 "What is Princess Aranensky's number?" 
 asked Derrick. 
 
 "The sitting-room is number HB, m'sieu," 
 said the young man. "Go to the right. It is 
 on the left at the end of the corridor." 
 
 He stepped backwards into the lift and shut 
 the ironwork gate. 
 
 Derrick walked slowly down the right-hand 
 corridor till he was in front of the door which 
 hid from him the Princess's sitting-room. 
 There he stopped. 
 
 It was rather dark in the corridor, and for 
 the moment there was no one in it except him- 
 self. In the distance he heard a slight noise 
 of voices talking in the "service" room near the 
 stairs, and from another direction came the 
 faint sound of a bath "running." He lifted 
 his hand and rapped on the door. There was 
 no answer. And for a moment he felt a sen- 
 sation of intense relief. Perhaps the room was 
 [228]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 untenanted ; perhaps the Princess was out. He 
 heard an electric bell, then the sound of a dress, 
 and saw a housemaid hurrying down the cor- 
 ridor with her back to him. Immediately he 
 knocked again at the door. This time a voice 
 answered. 
 
 "Entrez!" it said. "Entrez!" 
 
 It was the Princess's voice. Derrick drew 
 in his breath and opened the door. 
 
 He saw a rather large and banal room com- 
 fortably furnished, and with a door at one end 
 leading into another room. This door was 
 half open. Red curtains were drawn. The 
 electric lights were turned on. A small fire 
 was lit in the grate. About the room there 
 were strewn cushions and books and maga- 
 zines. There were also several vases full of 
 roses and violets. A large red sofa was drawn 
 up near the fire. Its gaudy colour was par- 
 tially hidden by a piece of black and gold 
 oriental embroidery worked with dull red and 
 blue flowers. Upon this sofa, with a book in 
 her hand, and her head on a dark-blue cushion, 
 Princess Aranensky was lying in a closely fit- 
 ting black travelling dress. 
 
 When Derrick came in the book fell out of 
 [229]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 her hand and dropped on the floor. For a 
 moment she did not speak, nor did he. Then 
 she pushed herself up on the sofa. A dull flush 
 of red showed for an instant in her rather 
 rough-hewn face and faded away. 
 
 "You here in Marseilles!" she said. 
 
 He knew then that she had been out when 
 he had called before and that she had not heard 
 of his visit. 
 
 "But how " she added, and stopped. 
 
 She got up slowly. 
 
 "But how did you know I was here? How 
 did you find my room?" 
 
 "The lift-man brought me up and told me 
 your number." 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 She waited, but Derrick said nothing more. 
 Then she held out her hand. Mechanically he 
 put his into it. At that moment it occurred to 
 him that she could not know what he had done 
 in Paris about the pearls, and, therefore, could 
 not know that he had discovered her deception. 
 
 "I wish to stay a little while," he said, with 
 acute embarrassment. - 
 
 "Of course! But wait a moment!" 
 
 She went to the door at the end of the room 
 [230]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 and passed into a further room, no doubt her 
 bedroom. Meanwhile Derrick stood on the 
 hearth and listened to the noise of the traffic 
 in the Cannebiere. His eyes fell on the book 
 the Princess had dropped, and he bent down 
 and picked it up. It was Steiner's "An Out- 
 line of Theosophy." 
 
 He laid it down carefully on a table beside a 
 vase of roses. 
 
 In about five minutes the Princess came 
 back and shut the door behind her. 
 
 "I thought you had gone to London," she 
 said, coming up to him. 
 
 "And you meant to leave Europe for India 
 without letting me know that you were going!" 
 
 "India! You know that " 
 
 "I know that you intend to sail on the Ophir 
 to-morrow." 
 
 "Yes; that's true." 
 
 "Wouldn't it have been what shall I say 
 kinder to tell me that before I left Montreux?" 
 he said, with bitterness. 
 
 Now that he was with the Princess, now that 
 
 he had just touched her and was close to her, 
 
 looking at her, feeling her atmosphere, now 
 
 that he was standing among the books and 
 
 [231]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 cushions and flowers which she carried about 
 with her, or bought wherever she was, a hor- 
 rible jealousy and almost hatred of her had 
 suddenly come to him. It was terrible to care 
 for a woman who swindled you, then got rid 
 of you, and, finally, with your money, pur- 
 chased the means of escaping out of your life 
 without giving you any hint of her intention. 
 It was humiliating, it was intolerable, still to 
 have any feeling for such a woman. Derrick 
 wanted to look upon the Princess as a low 
 creature, a disgraceful adventuress, a woman 
 only fit to be thrown to the police. But he 
 couldn't. Everything in her and about her 
 forbade that. And it was the struggle between 
 his appreciation of her infamy and his appre- 
 ciation of her intense and painful attraction 
 for him which caused him to feel so bitter. He 
 was rent and hated himself, and her for having 
 turned him into this tragic enigma of a man, 
 this thing that could feel fiercely but was un- 
 able to understand itself. And he was abom- 
 inably jealous of the woman, the flesh and 
 blood human being, who was slipping away 
 from him into the shining mystery of the East, 
 drawn by influences which he knew nothing of, 
 [232]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 which she meant that he should never know 
 anything of. 
 
 "Yes, perhaps it would," she answered. "I 
 don't know. There are ways of kindness that 
 are easy but cruel in the end. I made up my 
 mind that it was better to go as I intended to 
 
 go." 
 
 "That is without ever seeing me again!" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 She had not asked him to sit down but now, 
 perhaps seeing in his eyes the determination of 
 violent feeling, she sat down and, with the air 
 of almost brooding fatalism which he had 
 noticed once or twice at Montreux, said : 
 
 "Since you are here and have found me, how 
 I don't know and cannot divine, stay for a little 
 while. We have been much together in the 
 snows. It was ordained that we were to be 
 together again here on the edge of my journey. 
 Nothing foretold this to me. But it had to be." 
 
 He sat down. 
 
 "Why did you come here?" she asked. 
 
 She stretched out her hand. He now saw a 
 
 bag lying on a table near her. She took it, 
 
 opened it, drew out a case. Things repeated 
 
 themselves horribly. He remembered the first 
 
 [233]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 time he had seen her at Montreux. Now here 
 she lit a cigarette at the match he held. 
 
 "I was on my way to Cap Martin with a 
 friend. I couldn't make up my mind to go to 
 London in winter. I I thought London 
 could very well wait!" 
 
 As he was vaguely trying to give her a 
 wrong impression he did not look at her while 
 he said this. 
 
 "And you saw me in the street?" 
 
 He felt that her eyes were fixed on him with 
 intensity. 
 
 "No." 
 
 He told her exactly what had happened, how 
 he had gone to look at the Ophir and the epi- 
 sode of the steward. 
 
 "And what led you to the Ophir?" she asked. 
 
 I believe it was what you once said to me 
 about your desire to go to India. If not it was 
 mere chance!" 
 
 "It certainly was not mere chance. Then 
 you were not going back to Montreux?" 
 
 "Yes, I should have gone. I came here to 
 go to Cap Martin, but while I was here I de- 
 cided to go back to Montreux. Of course, that 
 was before I knew you were here." 
 [234]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 She was silent, and sat quite still. 
 
 "Is Baroness Hausen with you?" he asked. 
 
 "Katya no." 
 
 "You are going to India alone?" 
 
 "Marguerite will accompany me. You re- 
 member she always made tea for us." 
 
 "Marguerite yes, I remember." 
 
 She had spoken as if it were a very long time 
 ago. And now he felt that indeed it was long 
 ago the short period of their intimate friend- 
 ship. A sickness of the heart came upon him, 
 a sort of nausea of the affections. 
 
 "Is Baroness Hausen still in Montreux?" 
 he asked dully. 
 
 "I left her there." 
 
 Again a silence fell between them. Derrick 
 was trying to force himself into frankness. 
 He had come there to tell the Princess that he 
 had discovered her fraud. And now he was 
 talking vaguely about India, and asking use- 
 less questions about Baroness Hausen. 
 
 At this moment the bedroom door opened 
 and Marguerite appeared carrying a tray with 
 tea things. She greeted Derrick with a smile, 
 and was evidently not at all surprised to see 
 him. 
 
 [235]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 "Put the tea here, Marguerite!" said the 
 Princess, indicating a table close to where she 
 was sitting. 
 
 "Please don't have it for me," said Der- 
 rick. 
 
 "I take it myself at this hour." 
 "Oh, then but really I don't want it." 
 He felt at that moment that if he had tea 
 once again with this extraordinary woman he 
 might falter in his resolution to "have it out" 
 with her about the pearls. Although he knew 
 that his money would pay for these rooms, 
 this meal, the cabin on the OpJiir, all the ex- 
 penses of the journey and perhaps the long 
 residence in India, the preposterous idea was 
 in his mind that he could not break bread with 
 this woman and then attack her, that to do 
 that would be disgraceful on his part. He 
 knew she was moral riff-raff her own expres- 
 sion but somehow he could not feel that she 
 was. He even presently began to wonder 
 vaguely again whether it were possible that she 
 herself had been deceived about the pearls, 
 whether she could possibly have supposed that 
 they were genuine. For now that he was with 
 her once more it seemed incredible that she 
 [236]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 could be a subtle swindler. There was no at- 
 mosphere of an adventuress about her. She 
 now seemed quite at her ease. There was 
 nothing abashed in her face or manner, nothing 
 furtive or sly in her demeanour. 
 
 Could she have not known? If only that 
 were so! But how could it possibly be? 
 
 Marguerite went away and returned with 
 the teapot and toast. Then she smiled again at 
 Derrick and disappeared, shutting the door 
 behind her. 
 
 "Now won't you have some tea?" said the 
 Princess. 
 
 "No, thank yotr, I don't want it." 
 
 She looked at him, and there was a very 
 definite question in her eyes. 
 
 "You are angry with me? That is why you 
 won't share this little meal with me?" 
 
 "Yes; that's it." 
 
 She said nothing, and poured out some tea 
 for herself. 
 
 "Do you mean to tell me that you are sur- 
 prised at that? Do you deny that I have the 
 right to feel angry with you? Haven't you 
 been false to our friendship? Haven't you 
 trampled on it?" 
 
 [237]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 "You mean by intending to go away with- 
 out letting you know?" 
 
 "I suppose we English have different no- 
 tions about friendship from those held by Rus- 
 sians. I considered we were friends. You 
 called me friend. You signed yourself 'Your 
 friend' to me. Baroness Hausen told me that 
 you valued my friendship, even that you had 
 ideals about the friendship of a woman and a 
 man." 
 
 "I did not give Katya the right to say any- 
 thing about that." 
 
 "Then do you mean that you never felt any 
 friendship at all for me? Is that it?" 
 
 "I enjoyed our talks, our expeditions in the 
 snows. Much that you said interested me. 
 There was much in your character which I ad- 
 mired." 
 
 "But you never at any time, even at the be- 
 ginning, felt any real friendship for me?" 
 
 She looked at him with eyes which seemed 
 to him to be full of brooding mystery. 
 
 "In the vastness of our many lives what is 
 
 such a brief connection as ours has been, yours 
 
 and mine?" she answered. "We meet. We 
 
 pass a few weeks weeks only together. We 
 
 [238]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 separate, probably for ever. To-morrow I 
 shall be on my way to India. Is it of any use 
 to try to analyse such a relation as ours? It 
 was designed as everything is designed. It 
 had to be. And now it has to come to an end." 
 
 "You have plenty of brains," said Derrick. 
 "But you have no heart at all. You are one 
 of the most deceiving characters I have ever 
 met with. You suggest warmth, and you are 
 as cold as ice. You suggest sympathy, and 
 you don't know what sympathy means. I al- 
 ways felt at Montreux that you and Baroness 
 Hausen were at the opposite Poles. But it 
 wasn't so. I understand now why you were 
 friends, why you were able to be together. 
 You were linked by character. There was the 
 tie of a mutual frigidity between you. No 
 wonder you were able to live among the snows 
 and the ice. Such conditions suited you both. 
 You will be an alien among the fires of India 
 if you go there." 
 
 "You make a mistake. I belong rather to 
 Asia than to Europe, like many Russians." 
 
 After a moment of silence Derrick said: 
 
 "You have achieved something like a mir- 
 acle." 
 
 [239]
 
 "What miracle?" 
 
 "You have made me respect the Baroness. 
 She, at any rate, shows herself as she is. She 
 doesn't pretend friendship. She doesn't pre- 
 tend anything. She is made of stone, and she 
 lets you see the stone, touch it, know it for 
 what it is. You expect nothing from her." 
 
 He got up mechanically and went towards 
 the red curtains which hid the windows; then 
 he turned and came back to the hearth. This 
 woman was making him feel the uselessness of 
 everything, the smallness, futility, momentari- 
 ness of everything, in an almost paralysing 
 way. Friendship, love even, anger, the sense 
 of outrage, the desire for revenge they 
 seemed inevitably to wilt, to wither under the 
 action of her peculiar mind and temperament 
 on this winter afternoon. And yet and that 
 was the Devil of it her attraction for him 
 remained, and had never been more great in its 
 influence upon him. 
 
 As he stood still there, with the little fire be- 
 hind him, a cold jealousy possessed him, with 
 which his ignorance was horribly linked. He 
 had the feeling that there was something 
 which, known by him, would explain, make 
 [240]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 clear, this woman to him. And he was jealous 
 of this mystery, almost as if it were a living 
 being. 
 
 "I have never understood you," he said bit- 
 terly. "And I never shall understand you." 
 
 He made an almost violent movement un- 
 der the influence of acute feeling. 
 
 "You are going!" the Princess said. 
 
 He stopped. 
 
 "Going! Do you wish me to go?" 
 
 He looked down at her. 
 
 "I don't believe you care whether I go or 
 stay. I suppose I have no meaning for you 
 have never had any meaning for you. And 
 yet you were resolved to know me at Mon- 
 treux. Why was that ? Why was it ?" 
 
 After a moment she said: 
 
 "Directly I saw you I felt we were destined 
 to know each other." 
 
 "Destined! It was your will power which 
 drew me towards you. Do you deny that? Do 
 you deny that human beings have will and ex- 
 ercise it freely?" 
 
 "The Arabs say that the outline of our lives 
 is imposed upon us but that we can colour them 
 as we will. Perhaps that is the truth." 
 [241]
 
 "And how have you led me to colour my 
 life?" 
 
 "You are as free as I am." 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 He bent towards her. 
 
 "Perhaps I could force you to feel that I 
 have some power over you," he said. 
 
 She sat silent with her eyes fixed upon him. 
 
 "I have the power to prevent you from sail- 
 ing to India to-morrow," he said. 
 
 "I don't think so." 
 
 "I have!" he asserted, almost with violence. 
 
 He stared at her. He wished to tell her the 
 nature of the power he had asserted he pos- 
 sessed, to tell her that he could lodge a com- 
 plaint against her, charge her with being a 
 swindler, have her arrested. The Ophir would 
 sail without her if he took action in time. But 
 could he take action? As he looked down at 
 this woman the terrible influence of person- 
 ality came upon him, that psychic mystery 
 which works like a thing underground in the 
 dark, and which can sap the foundations of 
 life; he felt it like something as definite as 
 wood or iron, although it was as unsubstantial 
 as mist. 
 
 [242]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 "I have!" he had said. But was it true? 
 Has a man power if he is unable to exercise it? 
 Is not the exercise of the power the only posi- 
 tive proof of its possession? As Derrick gazed 
 at the Princess, something in her calm and 
 steady expression, even in her attitude, in the 
 shape of her body, in the forms of her delicate 
 hands, in the way the thick black hair grew and 
 was folded about her head, told him that he 
 would never denounce her to the police of 
 Marseilles or of any other city, that he would 
 never give away the secret which he had found 
 out in Paris. Could he even tell it to her be- 
 fore he left her for ever? 
 
 "Well?" she said at last, as he did not speak. 
 
 "When I was in Paris " he began. 
 
 "Yes?" she said. 
 
 "It's no use !" he muttered. 
 
 A cry, ridiculous and tragic, rose up in his 
 heart at that moment "Why have I the feel- 
 ings within me, the traditions behind me, of a 
 gentleman?" 
 
 With a desperate effort to get the better of 
 those feelings and those traditions he said: 
 
 "Don't you know what happened in Paris?" 
 
 "No," she said in a calm voice. 
 [243]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 He stood for a moment in silence looking 
 down, not at her now but at the dull red hotel 
 carpet, which was complicated with drab and 
 blue flowers. During that moment he was 
 trying to force himself to speak about the 
 pearls, to attack her for having so basely 
 swindled him. 
 
 "She shall know what I found out in Paris," 
 he said to himself. "I will tell her." 
 
 But his lips obstinately refused to speak. 
 Within him a voice, persistent and final, said: 
 
 "You wished to marry this woman. You 
 must let her alone." 
 
 At last he looked at her again. He read 
 nothing in her eyes but a deep and sombre 
 fatalism. What she read in his he did not 
 know. Finally, he turned and went out of 
 the room without another word, shutting the 
 door behind him.
 
 HE went back to the hotel, dined with Cock- 
 ayne, to whom he told nothing, and then, with 
 the excuse that he was tired, went up to his 
 bedroom and shut himself in. 
 
 He told himself that he had seen the Prin- 
 cess for the last time, that she had vanquished 
 him and that he had done with her. But in 
 the night a strange and cold and very intense 
 curiosity took possession of him and kept him 
 for a long time awake. He felt that the heart 
 of the mystery of this woman had escaped his 
 investigation, that he knew nothing of it, ab- 
 solutely nothing, that he had never drawn near 
 to it, but that if he could look into it perhaps 
 everything would be clear to him. 
 
 Even now was it too late to know something 
 of the truth? 
 
 Perhaps the next morning. 
 
 The morning came and with it decision. He 
 sent a message to Cockayne to say that he 
 would be in to lunch but was engaged till then. 
 [245]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 Afterwards he dressed, breakfasted, and by 
 ten was down at the wharf from which the 
 Ophir was to sail that morning for India. 
 
 There was a great bustle at the wharf. Sea- 
 faring men were coming and going. Knots 
 of nondescript people were standing near the 
 sheds talking in many languages. Cabs were 
 driving up full of travellers and hand baggage. 
 Derrick was jostled by passers-by, and stared 
 at by lounging men, and by boys with hungry, 
 knowing eyes and dirty hands that looked 
 greedy. One ruffian approached him and said 
 in very bad French: 
 
 "Can I do anything for you, monsieur? Are 
 you looking for anyone? The 'Due d'Au- 
 male' " 
 
 Derrick moved abruptly away. The man 
 with a scowl looked after him. 
 
 At half -past ten a large omnibus loaded with 
 luggage rumbled heavily over the cobble 
 stones. A placard fixed on it announced that 
 it was from the Hotel du Louvre est de la 
 Paix. Standing behind a pile of dirty sacks, 
 Derrick watched the descent of the people in 
 the omnibus. Among them was Marguerite. 
 She stood for some time on the quay quite near 
 [246]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 him, but did not see him. She was surrounded 
 by trunks and vociferating porters. Finally, 
 attended by a man in uniform from the hotel, 
 she disappeared under the shed roof in the di- 
 rection of the Ophir, grasping in one hand a 
 large case, which looked like a jewel-case, and 
 in the other some strapped together umbrellas 
 and sticks. 
 
 Was the Princess's pointed stick among 
 them, the stick on which she had so often leaned 
 as she and Derrick had stood together in the 
 snows ? 
 
 Eleven o'clock was striking from the 
 churches of Marseilles when Derrick saw in the 
 distance a victoria drawn by a big brown horse 
 coming along the quay towards him. It pulled 
 up not far from him in front of the place where 
 the OpMr was berthed. As the horse faced 
 him, and the driver on the box was a broad 
 heavy man, Derrick could not see who was in- 
 side the carriage. Directly it stopped, a tall, 
 thin and large-boned man got out with a sort; 
 of almost awkward litheness. For a moment 
 his face was turned full towards Derrick, a 
 face framed in thick yellow-brown and yellow 
 hair, pale, with a bossy forehead, prominent 
 [247]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 cheek bones, large lips and large white teeth 
 the man Derrick had noticed on the previous 
 day in the hall of the Hotel du Louvre. For 
 an instant only the man's eyes travelled along 
 the crowded quay with a glance that seemed at 
 the same time piercing and indifferent, and to 
 Derrick it was as if a glare of mind was just 
 then turned on the stones, the sheds, the ve- 
 hicles and the people, like a search-light, 
 fierce, implacable and disturbing. Then the 
 man swung round. Derrick knew why. He 
 knew who was going to get out of the car- 
 riage, who was the man's companion, who was 
 going with him on the Ophir to India. The 
 man held out a big hand. Another hand took 
 it. Princess Aranensky got down. For a 
 moment they stood together on the quay. The 
 man paid the driver, took the Princess famil- 
 iarly by the arm, and seemed to draw her 
 powerfully, but calmly, towards the great ship. 
 
 The crowd swallowed them up. 
 
 Derrick stood quite still by the pile of dirty 
 sacks. Should he follow them? Should he 
 accost them? Should he even now try to do 
 something to prevent the Princess from leav- 
 ing France with his money, and with this man, 
 [248]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 for whose sake probably, almost certainly, she 
 had done what she had done? 
 
 "Can I do anything for you, monsieur? Are 
 you " 
 
 It was the lounging ruffian again. 
 
 "Damn you ! Let me alone, will you?" 
 
 Derrick had turned upon him ferociously. 
 The man slunk away. And then Derrick 
 went off in the opposite direction without 
 another glance towards the OpMr, which in an 
 hour would be carrying her burden to Asia. 
 He turned to the left presently and came to 
 the harbour, where the conjurers and acrobats 
 were performing in the midst of the watching 
 crowds. There he drew out his watch and 
 looked at it. Twenty past eleven! He had 
 forty minutes to do what he had just thought 
 of doing. Time enough! He went on, walk- 
 ing fast. 
 
 Between twelve and half -past, from a point 
 on the sea front high above the sea, he saw the 
 Ophir, pouring black smoke from her enor- 
 mous funnels, drawing out of the harbour into 
 the open waters of the Gulf of Lyons. He 
 watched her steady progress with a sort of 
 dull, and yet staring, interest. She was carry- 
 [249]
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME 
 
 ing away with her an unexplained mystery 
 which had injured his life. She faded present- 
 ly upon the horizon into greyness and a sug- 
 gestion of mist. 
 
 When he was back again in the hotel he went 
 up to his bedroom, took the pearls from their 
 case, spread them out mechanically on a table, 
 sat down and stared at them for a long time. 
 Presently there was a knock on the door and a 
 voice called out: 
 
 "Merton! Are you there?" 
 
 "Come in!" Derrick answered. 
 
 Cockayne showed himself. 
 
 "I lunched long ago. Aren't you " 
 
 He saw the pearls and was silent. 
 
 "What do you think of these?" said Derrick. 
 
 Cockayne came up to the table, bent down 
 and picked up the pearls. 
 
 "They look remarkably fine," he said, after 
 a moment's consideration. 
 
 "Yes, don't they? But they're false." 
 
 Cockayne put down the pearls. 
 
 "They make marvellous imitations now- 
 adays," he said. "It's easy to be taken in." 
 
 "Yes, isn't it? When I get back to Lon- 
 don I think I shall give them to a flapper." 
 [250]
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 Cockayne looked hard at him. 
 
 "I don't think you will," he said. 
 
 Derrick left the case open on the table, threw 
 the pearls carelessly into his despatch box, shut 
 it, and said: 
 
 "Now I'll do anything you like!" 
 
 THE END 
 
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 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
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