imiaiiiiiMiiHiiBUiaiWHlli I i
THE CHO
A TALE OF LOVE AND FOLLY
syl\ia:lynd
LIBRARY
UNlVERSfTY OF CALIFORNIA
RIVERSIDE
THE CHORUS
THE CHORUS
A TALE OF LOVE AND
FOLLY. BY SYLVIA LYND
LONDON
CONSTABLE & COMPANY Ltd.
1915
Printed in Great Britain iy
■Richard Clay & Sons, Limited.
brunswick st., stamford st., s.k..
and bungay suffolk.
To
THE GENEROUS HANDS OF
N. F. DRYHURST
CONTENTS
CHAP. PARE
I A BEAUTIFUL HOUSE, A BEAUTIFUL LADY, A
VERY YOUNG LADY, THE HERO AND ANOTHER I
II SMALL TALK — NINETEEN DASH . . . 14
III INTRODUCES THE HEROINE ... 24
IV SECOND IMPRESSION . . . . -32
V PRELUDE TO AN UNPLEASANT CONCLUSION . 4 1
VI ASIDE ....... 48
VII EARLY SOWING IN A ^VARM BORDER . . 56
VIII CONFESSIONS AND OPINIONS ... 68
IX MRS. HAMEL, ANTHONY HAMEL, NELLY HAYES
IN THOUGHT ..... So
X HILDA BEGINS TO GROW UP . . '93
XI WEEPING AND KISSING , . . -US
XII INEVITABLE . . . . . .137
XIII TRIVIALITIES ...... 139
XIV PANDOLEFSKY ON THE SEX QUESTION . . I50
XV AND ACQUAINTED WITH GRIEF . . . 169
XVI A QUARREL ...... 175
vji
viii CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
XVII MOVES TOWARDS A CLIMAX . . • 183
XVIII NELLY HAYES ORDERS HER TROUSSEAU . 1 95
XIX A VULGAR ROW — HILDA FORGETS THAT IT IS
NOT POSSIBLE TO MAKE A SOw's EAR OUT
OF A SILK PURSE .... 203
XX MORE UNPLEASANTNESS — THE GARDEN-PARTY 213
XXI MARKING TIME — AN HONEST INDIAN ASS GOES
FOR AN UNICORN — FAREWELLS .
XXII NELLY HAYES MISSES SOME TRAINS
XXIII TEMPTATION AND FALL OF MISS FITCH
XXIV MRS. HAMEL TURNS DOWN HER THUMB
XXV FLATNESS .....
220
228
245
264
xxvi london — loneliness — the dangers of
the streets — the arm of coincidence
stretching in all directions — the
happy ending . . . . . 271
epilogue: harlequinade . . . 293
THE CHORUS
CHAPTER I
A BEAUTIFUL HOUSE, A BEAUTIFUL LADY, A VERY
YOUNG LADY, THE HERO AND ANOTHER
It was one of the beauty's good days. Seated
at the inlaid bureau in the hail, she was writing
letters. In her hand was a quill pen stained emerald
green, and so large that it seemed as if a puff of
wind would put "way" on it and send it out of
control altogether. In her sprawling writing she
was covering some thin sheets of grey note-paper
with green ink. Vague little notes: "Do come
down one Friday night and stay the week-end. The
house is going to be nice, I think"; or "Mrs.
Hamel will be obliged if Messrs. Friilige will send
some patterns of brocades and silks for evening
gowns"; and so on. She felt very busy and
efficient.
The room was quiet, save for the squeaking of
the pen and an occasional sound, not unlike a
hiccup, from the tall clock that swung its pendulum
against the wall. At her right a wood fire was
blazing ; at her left long, square-paned glass doors
revealed the garden, as yet a wilderness of black
earth, and the woods of the Warren pencilling the
B
2 THE CHORUS
sky half a mile away. Somewhere a man was level-
ling one of the lawns, making a heavy dunting
sound as he pounded.
The hall was warm and sweet with the scent of
hyacinths that filled with a white foam a lustre
bowl on the round table. The great staircase, lazily
slanted, sloped away into upper regions of luxury
and peace. The fire streamed up the chimney, a
grey Persian cat stretched itself on the hearthrug.
It was the leisure hour between lunch and the exer-
tions of tea. Over all was the cold white light of
a March afternoon.
Mrs. Hamel was a slender, fair-haired woman
whose calm no \vave of thought or feeling had ever
disturbed. She w^as like one of those frail shells
that survive the fiercest storms — "ladies' finger-
nails" children call them. She had only two
interests in life, and was not aware of having any :
her health and her clothes. Her days were par-
titioned between not feeling very well and staying
in bed and feeling well enough to put on a new
gown and come downstairs.
Anthony Hamel had added her to his other pos-
sessions much as he had acquired his carpets and
his furniture, because she was perfect in her way ;
but she always felt a stranger in her own house.
It was no home of hers. She was merely another
jewel that Anthony had chosen to set, and she had
the good sense to let him choose her setting. Her
own taste in visual things was eqtirely non-existent.
She might have been born blind so little did shape
and colour mean anything to her. She liked a
couch to be soft and did not care what it was
covered with ; she liked her gowns to fit — that was,
A BEAUTIFUL HOUSE 8
to be a little tight round the ribs and waist — and
was as content in navy blue piped with crimson
(a favourite scheme of hers before she married),
provided it cost much money, as in the delicate
garments Anthony chose for her. However, she
trusted his taste. She liked to possess what would
probably be the finest house in England even if she
did not feel entirely comfortable in it. She enjoyed
the position of importance that his genius had made
for her. But in sympathy she belonged to the little
crowd of Army men and parsons from which she
had sprung : men so content to be the sons of
other men as not to need to distinguish themselves
in their professions. People with an exaggerated
respect for the trimness and order, the to-morrow
the same as yesterday, of their not important lives.
She viewed with a fine disdain her husband's
patrons and associates — artists and men of letters —
as a horde of ragamuffins and mountebanks. She
believed that she had come down in the world, and
though she was too well bred actually to boast of
her former altitude, she never ceased to condescend
to emotion and intelligence as to ignoble things.
Withal she was scrupulously faithful in the small-
est details of her life, chaste, courageous. She was
a diamond, or, better, a clear frosty morning, con-
trasting with her countrywomen, who too often are
the Sou'wester overwhelming in jollity, or due East.
She had no kinship with April weather.
The clock against the wall cleared its throat and
struck softly.
A few minutes later the door leading to the
garden was opened and a tall girl in a coat and
skirt stepped into the room.
4 THE CHORUS
*'Mr. Hamel sent me to say he may be late for
tea. He's just firing something."
"I hope you've had a good day? "
"Splendid. May I wait to hear how the furnace
behaves ? They don't need me any more out there."
She nodded up the garden.
"Yes, do. Just ring for tea, will you ? I'm much
too hungry to wait for them."
The tall girl, having rung the bell, settled herself
in an arm-chair on the other side of the fire and
stretched her feet in their neat brown shoes to the
blaze. She sat with the seemingly deliberate un-
gracefulness of a young man, her elbows on the
arms of the chair, her hands, with fingers locking,
resting on her breast, her head, its brown hair
ruffled from the wind, poked forward. It was quite
a surprise to realize how pretty her face was. Her
name was Hilda Concannon.
She watched Mrs. Hamel crowd her signature on
to the last scrawled sheet of note-paper, then she
said —
"May I bring my friend Nelly Hayes to see you
when she comes down ? She's comingr to stav with
me at the end of the week."
"Yes, do. Young girls are so amusing. Is she
as quite modern as you are ? "
"Oh no, she's quite ancient. She hasn't any
theories. Not a bit like me. There must have
been scores of Nelly Hayeses since the beginning
of the world. Only most of them get varnished
out of recognition. She's the old Eve."
"Well, I'm glad there are some natural girls
left," said Mrs. Hamel.
Hilda smiled cheerfully.
A BEAUTIFUL HOUSE 5
"You'd better bring her in to dinner" — Mrs.
Hamel corrected herself — "in after dinner on Satur-
day night. There will be rather a big party of
us."
"Thanks ever so much. I shall love to."
Hilda Concannon was the daughter of a mill-
owner. Her father had retired early from business
with a weak heart and a small fortune. From that
time he had had no place in which to exercise his
powers of order and domination but a double-fronted
villa in Ballygrawna. There, with the help of a
threatened fit of apoplexy, he was a despot indeed.
Hilda, a brother who drank, and her shadowy,
low-spirited mother, together with a band of much-
cursed maidservants and grooms, constituted his
state. For years Hilda had grown accustomed to
tip-toeing through life in constant expectation of
uproar. Mr. Concannon trod his house in a per-
manent simmering anger. Until Hilda did so her-
self no one had ever dreamt of combating him, let
alone of trying to conquer him. Hilda it was who
taught him his first lesson.
She had been educated at an expensive English
boarding-school, followed by a year in a Belgian
convent to which, with one of those curious lapses
of logic which distinguish the North of Ireland
Protestant, she had been sent to learn to speak
French. She was picking up what Art knowledge
she could from books and the local Art school,
reading for her degree at Queen's College, and
feeling all the while that intense arrogance and
self-confidence which is the happy lot of people
aged eighteen, when the great moment came. Mr.
Concannon, incited by the eloquence of a clergy-
6 THE CHORUS
man at lunch on the modern girl, her uselessness,
idleness and extravagance, pursued Hilda into the
garden, whither she had at the earliest moment
fled out of reach of the eloquence, and there publicly
and idiotically commanded her to "weed the rockery
bed."
"Don't be silly. Father," said Hilda, summoning
a bored voice. "You know the gardener does it."
" Is that any reason why you should eat the
bread of idleness?" asked Mr. Concannon. (A
large meal of meat and wines always made an
explosion of temper necessary.) "Remember your
father's health, dear," sounded vainly in Hilda's
ears. She was a Concannon and the blood of her
father flowed strongly in her veins.
"And the sooner you have your apoplectic fit,
the better," she had ended.
It was a famous victory. From that day her
father regarded her with a kind of surly admiration.
He settled a little income upon her, and though in
a subsequent rage he tried to disendow her, his
first enthusiasm proved to have been too strong,
and his solicitor told him, not without malicious
enjoyment, that it was impossible to take the money
back again.
This unlooked-for good fortune made Hilda
thirsty for freedom. She abandoned her intention
of taking a degree, and announced that she was
going to Paris to learn to paint. This statement
was provocative of such domestic anguish, however,
that in the end she compromised and went to
London instead. There her first bad disappoint-
ment awaited her. She found that she should never
paint well enough to be in the front rank of her
A BEAUTIFUL HOUSE 7
art. She was too ambitious to be content with
pottering and too honest to disguise a failure from
herself. She believed she could use her gifts of
colour and design in metalwork and enamelling,
and after a preliminary trial in Regent Street, where
she learnt to handle her tools, Anthony Hamel's
name, naturally, was suggested to her. So to
Anthony Hamel she apprenticed herself. He
approved her work ; approved, too, her keen, in-
solent young face ; and now for half a year she
had lived at Elkins's Farm, in Otterbridge, at the
foot of the hill where the Hamels' great house was
nearing completion.
It was to be named The Height, appropriate
to its position and to its owner's success in the
world. It crowned the next hill to the Warren,
and was set on a green space between beech woods
and the pines. It was built of pale stone, roofed
with silver slate ; but the greyness was enlivened
by the brilliant limewashing of the upper storey
and between it and the stone a band of terra-cotta
brick. The red appeared again in the chimney-pots,
the white in the stacks, and the whole was long and
rather low, varied, self-conscious and delightful.
The garden was to be terraced to the main road.
The chief entrance was at the back, as it were,
reached by a steep drive circling the hill. Towards
the Warren stretched a rose-garden of pergola'd
walks and an orchard. At the far end a smaller
white-walled building was the studio. With the
long line of its stables and outhouses standing at
a lower level it had the air of a hill-town, a little
citadel held against commonness, and particularly
against the Jabberwock Halls of the golf links from
8 THE CHORUS
which it differed much as does a Brabazon water-
colour from a Christmas-number oleograph.
Mrs. Hamel sealed the last of her envelopes and
moved from the bureau to the sofa.
"Do make the tea, Hilda," she said. "I am
quite exhausted."
She arranged the folds of her soft gown and with
an effort lifted her small feet on to the couch beside
her. Thus composed she ate a hearty meal.
The curtains were drawn, the kettle was singing,
the lamplight was a benediction. The big silver
teapot and the frail painted cups showed each an
answering speck of flame.
Hilda, busy with the tea-caddy, talked of Nelly
Hayes.
"She's an Irish girl, too, and that made us
friendly at once. You know, English people are
not exactly welcoming at first— not the English
people in a boarding-house. There was one old
lady with a toupee that used to make my blood run
cold. It was as much as my iron self-control could
do not to believe that she would come upstairs and
cut my throat while I was asleep. Have you read
the ' Bagman's Dog ' ? "
"And who is she? "
"Oh, Nelly? I haven't a notion. She told me
' Hayes ' is not her real name. vShe's entrancingly
pretty."
She saw in her mind's eye Nelly seated on her
bed in the dun-coloured Bloomsbu'ry boarding-
house — Nelly, wrapped picturesquely in a grimy
silk kimono, recounting a family history of the
most improbable description.
"And so, you see, it's very important that no one
A BEAUTIFUL HOUSE 9
should find out where my mother is, for fear father
would know and get a hold of Jimmy."
"But, my dearest Nelly, your father couldn't
possibly take your brother away. If he's such a
rufRan as that nobody would allow it. Your mother
could divorce him six times over."
"She could and she couldn't," came the trailing
voice. "There's more in it than that. My mother,
do you see, has a man she's fond of (there's nothing
in it but that), and he's fond of her, too, but she
hasn't much money, and so she lets Joey Harrison
pay the bills. He's my guardian and he's tremen-
dously rich. When I'm older I'm going to marry
him. We have it all arranged. So, you see, it's
very important that father shouldn't know about
it " And so on.
"Father" appeared to be a gentleman with dyed
moustaches (Nelly displayed his "photo"), whose
only known exploits in the last twelve years were
the begetting of Jimmy and the "putting away"
of Nelly's pearl pendant.
"But I know I can always raise five pounds on
it now, and that's one good thing," added his
daughter, with stoicism.
Unfortunately five pounds would be of little use
in the present emergency. They owed the board-
ing-house keeper sixteen. It was Nelly herself that
was in pawn until she received a remittance.
"And then I shall go on a frightful racket and
buy a whole lot of new clothes."
"But, my child, how hateful for you! Don't
vou mind being left behind like this?"
Nelly shrugged her shoulders. "I'm used to it,"
she said.
10 THE CHORUS
Hilda believed very few of the stories that had
for their origin that fluent, indolent brain.
She told Mrs. Hamel —
"Father Hayes, so far as I can make out, is a
pretty complete villain ; ' a bad egg ' Nelly calls
him. Her mother seems to have come down in the
world; I've never seen her."
"Probably a case of a runaway match with a
groom," said Mrs. Hamel, faintly interested. "I've
often wondered what became of them."
"The 'bad end' in this case would give the
gloomiest prophets satisfaction, I should think,"
said Hilda. "I don't understand much about it,
but it's very pitiable. I gather there's a small
brother for whom they sacrifice everything. Nelly
was marooned in a boarding-house when I met
her."
She did not mention, and indeed never reminded
herself, who it was bailed Nelly out of that par-
ticular prison.
Mrs. Hamel was already regretting having in-
vited the girl. She was probably an impossible
creature.
"Dear Hilda, how very impetuous you are ! "
Hilda guessed her thought, and said —
"But, whatever sort of people she has, they
haven't affected her in the least. She has sweet
manners and the best spirits in the world. You
feel the sun comes out when you look at her. I'm
going to make a thousand drawings of her while
she's here."
"And how old is this engaging young person?"
"Oh, sixteen or seventeen, I suppose. I've never
asked her. She looks less."
A BEAUTIFUL HOUSE 11
Men's voices sounded outside, and Anthony
Hamel and his lieutenant, Pandolefsky, a young-
man with no bridge to his nose and a scarlet
shirt, came in from the garden. Pandolefsky was
Hamel's right-hand man. He had a wonderful
technical skill, and if he had had an original brain
as well, Anthony would have been driven out of the
field — so much they both admitted. Pandolefsky
was anything but an attractive being, combin-
ing an adherence to the farmyard theory of life
with a distaste for the contents of his water-jug.
He had a strong belief that all women were of easily
conquerable virtue, provided that the right man
assailed them, and added to this faith, as is usually
the case, another, namely, that he himself was the
right man. It was one of Mrs. Hamel's by-laws
that any maidservant found speaking to Mr. Pan-
dolefsky disappeared at once without wages, notice,
or character. As a result, his progress about the
house was marked with a whirring of petticoats
and hidden gigglings, which helped to make strong
his beliefs. Mrs. Hamel protected herself from the
necessity of having him dismissed with her air of
wanness and ill-health. Hilda's coming had at
the beginning filled both the Hamels with anxiety,
for nothing is more destructive of good work than
an atmosphere of flirtation, unless, indeed, it is an
atmosphere of spite ; and between Pandolefsky and
a good-looking girl these were the alternatives.
Hilda, however, had, Ulster fashion, taken his
measure with disconcerting swiftness, and when
he told her, tete-a-tete in the studio one day, that
Art was Passion and that we must feel in order to
express, she did not disengage her sleeve from his
12 THE CHORUS
hot hand, but indicated gravely that what she
wished to express was something austere and
simple, that in herself she was cultivating, albeit
hardily and with regret, the solitary and austere
life. Hamel found her after this interview shaking
with laughter, the cause of which the utmost per-
suasion could not make her reveal. The relations
of the trio in the studio, however, could not have
been more business-like and friendly.
"Well, darling," said Anthony, kissing his wife's
hand, "how have you been? Isn't she looking
lovely?" His musical voice had a pleasant little
roughness, a grain in it. He seated himself for
a moment on the back of the sofa, glorious with his
red-brown hair and white jersey.
"How did the furnace behave?" asked Hilda.
She was one of those young women in whom a
display of marital affection always aroused a slight
feeling of sickness.
" How did the furnace behave, O Handmaiden
of Art? If I say the whole thing fused you will
burst into tears."
They had been engaged upon a triptych of
enamels for the music-room, and this was the final
firing.
Pandolefsky in a strong Cockney accent said,
"Your peacocks have turned out fine. Miss Con-
cannon."
"Hilda is becoming such a dab at it that she'll
be teaching us soon. She'll be able to strike-break
next time you turn rusty, Pandolefsky."
"Oh, I wouldn't be a blackleg even for you,
Mr. Hamel," said Hilda.
So they drank tea together. Mrs. Hamel aloof
A BEAUTIFUL HOUSE 13
but kindly, Anthony exuberant and sure of him-
self, Hilda cheerful and argumentative, Pandolefsky
with a superior smile on his dark red lips for their
contented ignorance of that intenser life of which
he was so indefatigable an explorer.
CHAPTER II
SMALL TALK — NINETEEN DASH
Mrs. Hamel had collected quite a big party for
the week-end.
Ernst Eckstein was there and his wife, who in
the considered gaiety of her gowns was as decora-
tive in a room as a cabinet of old china. They were
both rich and young and handsome, and belonged
to that esoteric portion of humanity which has
known no stronger agitation than a new opera or
theory of painting. They were not lightly lifted
to clouds of enthusiasm, these young people, but it
was extremely easy to set their teeth on edge.
Miss Fitch, the novelist, was at The Height
too ; a slim, witty woman, her dark hair touched
with grey. She had a sharp tongue and a sharper
eye, but she was not too sincere to be a pleasant
companion.
There was a brown-bearded man called Fyvie,
who was practising some of Hamel 's ideas with a
village industry in the North of England, and
teaching his country people to weave thick carpets
and rich silks that were unfortunately too expensive
for anybody to buy.
And there were the Ardens, a charming couple,
though Alicia had a tiresome tendency to think
that all the world wanted was nice husbands enough
to go round.
14
SMALL TALK 15
Ardent Keath, the well-known litterateur, was
there, a successful young man, with hair smoothed
back and jaded moustache. He had published, at
his own expense, two books of poems, and wrote
sombre letters to the sixpenny papers in defence of
this or that artistic monstrosity.
The Hanburys came, also, man and w'ife both
enormously rich. They were the patrons, in the
more odious sense of the word, of beauty, and, with
enjoyment, of poverty. Even in this well-endowed
gathering money was still their distinctive quality.
Lastly, there was Steven Young — "Stevie," as
his friends called him ; not yet rich or successful or
well-known — perhaps never going to be, comely,
untried. He had a profound admiration for Hamel,
an admiration unstimulated by the great man's
success. It was said of him by Miss Fitch — and
she was the sort of woman who knew — that he was
a perfect darling, but that no one would dream of
falling in love with him. Also that he was nice,
but would never be any nicer. He was a writer
of poems and lampoons, and in the intervals of his
labours, which were not as yet many, he was one
of the most serious young men that it would be
possible to meet. His friends, indeed, thought he
must have a weak heart, and decided that his smile
— not too rare a thing — was pathetic. It gave him
a sharp stab of anger whenever he looked at the
Hanburys to think that people of their kind should
be the employers of a man like Hamel.
Anthony was reconstructing their house at Apsley
Place for them : "Such a pity he cannot reconstruct
the owners at the same time," as Miss Fitch
was reported to have said. There was always a
16 THE CHORUS
" Hanbury " or two at the Hamels* week-end parties
"to keep us in touch with reality" — for Anthony used
his house as a sort of hoarding and laboratory,
trying experiments there and advertising effects.
Every few months one or other of his rooms would
become permanent in some ecstatic stranger's house,
and an army of workmen would invade his own.
He had no fixed allegiance. His brain teemed with
fancies. He was always eager to invent wonderful
trifles for his palaces and wonderful palaces for
his trifles. He knew how much the thought makes
for discontent that "nothing can be better than
this."
"But surely," Hilda had said, "one thing must
be the best?"
"Yes, but I like to think I haven't found it yet."
He was a creative artist to the depths of his
being. The senses and what they meant to him
were his happiness, how to express and enrich and
intensify them a thousandfold his preoccupation.
In metal work, enamel and sparkling stones he
had first seemed able to recapture the solidity and
vividness of Nature. His abundant energy, how-
ever, was not so soon exhausted. It became neces-
sary to elaborate the smallest details of his life.
He designed his house and a hundred prettinesses
for it, his garden, his wife's clothes. He was never
tired and never idle. His strong craftsman's hands
were always busy, his inventive brain brimming
with ideas. He could carry out any piece of work,
from mounting a play to designing a racing-cup.
He might be found at one time carving the plaster
of a ceiling with his workmen, at another bottling
wine in his cellar. He had never been in need of
SMALL TALK 17
money or forced to modify his ideas, and, as a
result, success attended him. He had a factory in
the East End of London — most spacious and con-
venient of factories — run by the invaluable Prestow,
where much of his work was carried out. This he
frequently visited. Much of his time, too, was
spent at the sites where he was to build, surrounded
by abject surveyors, or in the old houses whose dry
bones he was to make live again. It was said of
him that he did not scruple to use another man's
idea, if it suited him ; but it was admitted, also, that
the man whose idea he acknowledged was on the
road to prosperity. For his own enjoyment he
worked in his studio whenever he could, painting
strange panels and altar-pieces, and modelling in
precious metals gauds for women to wear. Occa-
sionally he held a little exhibition of these.
Mrs. Hanbury, seated next to him at dinner, was
loud and eloquent in praise of his salt-cellars. She
was promised them for Apsley Deane. Unaware
of his custom, she was overwhelmed with her good
fortune.
"But will you ever be able to make anything so
lovely again ? "
"My dear lady, if I thought I couldn't I should
go straight to my room and blow out my brains."
(Twenty minutes with Mrs. Hanbury usually turned
a man's mind to graveyard thoughts.)
All the same, they were a merry party at the long
dinner-table. The talk journeyed among books,
pictures and politicians, and the more aggressive
happenings in the world. They discussed the war
scare, and Mrs. Arden declared that she always
pictured herself at the siege of London. "On the
c
18 THE CHORUS
balcony, in my best gown, defying a glorious
Hussar in a pale blue coat."
Fyvie, the man with the beard, was maintaining
that military training was a capital thing for boys;
"makes them grow up straight and muscular, and
with some sense of discipline." Steven Young
disagreed with him, saying that self-control was the
antithesis of discipline, and the last thing taught
in an army. Miss Fitch mocked some military
acquaintance and described him as "sharpening his
moustaches." Mrs. Hamel then quenched the con-
versation by saying she thought it "rather a fine
thing for a man to fight for his country."
They talked then about feminism and whether
women were really on the side of peace, and Fyvie
boldly stated his enthusiasm for the modern mus-
cular young woman. "Plenty of calisthenics," was
his old-fashioned phrase. Mrs. Hamel told him he
must meet Hilda Concannon, a typical modern girl.
"I like her, but I don't pretend to understand her,"
she said, with rather a contemptuous voice. Ardent
Keath told her she should enthuse about the new
school of painting, which was aggressively anti-
feminist, and which proclaimed in its own indecent
way the Kaiser's maxim: "Children, Church and
Cookery," with the last two items left out. "That's
partly why I like it, of course. It seems a herald
of returning sanity."
Hanbury's share of this conversation had been
simply to note Hilda Concannon's name, and deter-
mine to "tease" the young woman should he meet
her. He goggled his eyes above his plate.
Steven Young talked of the Library censorship,
and Miss Fitch imagined its reading new novels
SMALL TALK 19
"with the zest for shocks of a child on a switch-
back."
" Do you expect your new novel to be put on the
Index?"
"Alas, no; I am not one of those to w^hom all
things are pure," laughed Miss Fitch.
Ardent Keath marshalled the conversation to-
wards the Standard Authors, and enunciated,
" Keats is nectar in a golden cup, Shelley a libation
poured out for the gods."
("I suppose he's, been trying all dinner-time to
say that," thought Miss Fitch.)
By the time they had reached dessert the talk had
become more personal. Mrs. Arden lamented the
approaching marriage of a girl friend to an elderly,
ugly widower.
"But, Alicia, you've always wanted everyone to
get married ! " protested Mrs. Eckstein.
"But she's such a nice girl," lamented Mrs.
Arden.
"That's the worst of it," said Steven Young,
"all girls are such nice girls."
They discussed the prospective husband and how
much character was responsible for action. "And
after all," Miss Fitch assured them, "no man can
foresee his past."
Thus encouraged, the men were left to their
cigarettes.
Mrs. Hamel led the way into the music-room. It
was a lofty, octagonal chamber, with a shallow
wooden roof. This ceiling and all the other wooden
surfaces, swing-doors and window frames Hamel
had painted after the futurist fashion in brilliant
red, blue, green, yellow, black. The wall spaces
20 THE CHORUS
were white and held round mirrors and candle
sconces of gold-bronze, the curtains were of white
silk; the carpet, woven in China, was like snow.
The coverings of the chairs and sofas repeated the
colours of the ceiling, their frames were black, gold-
lacquered ; black was the large piano, and the music
cabinet gold-encrusted. A line of gold-bronze
edged the doors, the handles were the same. It
was this room that gave Hamel the reputation in
Otterbridge of having all the fittings of his house
of gold.
At the side of the room farthest from the piano
was the fireplace, with its great bronzed fender and
flamboyant hearthrug. On the mantelpiece, as yet
unset, leant the enamelled plates upon which Hilda
and Pandolefsky had shown their skill.
Round the fire was the inevitable group of soft
chairs and Mrs. Hamel's sofa. She contented her-
self with merely sitting upon it this evening, and
placing her feet, in their brocaded shoes, upon a
gilt-legged tabouret in front of her. She seemed
more than ever a Dresden shepherdess amidst the
barbaric splendour.
Mrs. Hanbury settled her black satin and lace
into the other corner of the sofa and made, as Mrs.
Hamel inwardly commented, an admirable fire-
screen ; Miss Fitch lit her cigarette and amused Mrs.
Arden and Mrs. Eckstein on the other side of the
hearth. The grey cat, following a maidservant with
the coffee, coiled itself on Mrs. Hamel's knees.
"I wish — " said Mrs. Eckstein, drawing close to
the blaze — "I wish I hadn't left off my petticoat to
try and make Ernst think I'm growing thinner."
"Oh, my dear, don't want to be thinner," said
SMALL TALK 21
Miss Fitch, "I feel my skin too tight for my
bones."
"I can hardly eat a meal without dread," said
Mrs. Eckstein cheerfully. "I know so well what I
shall be like in ten more years."
"You must strive to be a mystic like me," said
Miss Fitch, "and I will strive to become — what is
yo<ur religion? — a connoisseur, isn't it?"
Mrs. Hanbury was discoursing of her own affairs,
her soup-kitchen, and the paper she had read a
week ago to the body called in secret by her friends
"The Society for Enduring with Equanimity the
Sufferings of Others."
Mrs. Hamel did not even pretend to be listening,
but stroked the grey cat.
"For Anthony's sake I will endure this w'oman,"
her expression said.
Then Mrs. Hanbury spoke of the less satisfactory
element in her existence, and told how her boy, her
son, her Archibald, was going to Boarding School
next term.
"I want him to go in the summer, he'll be less
liable to catch cold then. But it will be a wrench
for me."
"How old is your little boy? " asked Mrs. Arden
who had children of her own.
"He is just eight. He has never slept anywhere
but in the little room off mine since he was born.
We shall both have to be brave."
"Don't you think it rather hard lines on such
a little child?"
"His father and I want to make a man of him."
"Hurrying Nature a little, isn't it?" from Miss
Fitch.
22 THE CHORUS
Mrs. Hanbury assumed her platform manner.
Rearing her head on her clumsy neck, she asked
Mrs. Arden—
" Have you a boy of your own ? "
"No," said Mrs. Arden, "mine are girls."
"Ah! " cried Mrs. Hanbury, sure now that her
self-satisfaction was fully justified, "when you have
a boy you will understand."
She divided her sex into "Women" and
"Women who have no sons."
"I think," said Mrs. Hamel languidly, "I like a
man to have been through the mill."
"Isn't college time enough?" asked Mrs. Eck-
stein, who, neither having nor desiring children,
still liked to share the new ideas.
And, "Isn't there a danger of going in pig and
coming out sausage? " from Miss Fitch.
And, "The grinding of the mills of God would
come quite soon enough for me," from Mrs. Arden.
Mrs. Hanbury, sure now of the support of her
divine hostess, changed to a personal topic.
" I love to watch you with your cat. You handle
her so lovingly, so — so — beautifully," she said.
"I treat her as you treat your children, perhaps,"
said Mrs. Hamel sincerely and pathetically.
"Poor Pussy!" thought the three others, and
found it difficult not to laugh. They liked each
other warmly after this brief alliance.
They began to discuss the latest crop of engage-
ments and marriages among their friends, a con-
versation that to anyone outside their circle would
be as incomprehensible as the telegraph's clicking
or flash of the heliograph.
"I suppose you've met Maisy's man?" "I
SMALL TALK 23
thought him charming." "His people are fright-
fully opposed to it." "Well, after all, seven sea-
sons, dear " " It was idiotic to bring her out so
soon, she was much too young and not the attractive
sort of immaturity either." "I met her in the High
Street yesterday looking radiant." "And did you
hear that Christine is married already? My dear,
yes ! And came back in time for the new play. She
received people at the reception on the stage after-
wards. The Miillers told me about it. They
thought it quite too courageous of her." "Really,
the Miillers ! When I go into that house I feel I
am behind the Purdah. They think of nothing but
babies, babies, babies, and how they manage to get
into the world." "I hear the adoring Rufus has
defected at last." "Yes, who is the new star?"
"A Miss Hopkinson ; rather nice, I believe. Her
sister married Henry O'Kane." "Isn't that the
girl whose brother made such a fool of himself in
Mexico ? " " No, that's a cousin. There are scores
of them. I knew Chirpy quite well." "Hasn't he
a brother in the Education Office — a man with
wonderful eyelashes?" "Yes, that's the one. I
didn't notice the eyelashes, though. Then there's
C.L. and R.T.C. and D.G.M. and Claude. Simply
hundreds." And so on until the door opened and
it was necessary to be intellectual again.
CHAPTER III
INTRODUCES THE HEROINE
Through the swing-doors came Hilda Con-
cannon and Nelly Hayes.
Nelly was wearing a white dress that had been
her mother's. The hooks were off at the back,
but, as she said, her hair hid that. Such hair !
Masses of it, yellow, hanging below her waist,
straight had it not been so vigorous. Grey eyes,
dark-browed, a wide pink mouth, a delicate nose
with freckles on it, a white skin, and that poised
air of girlhood that suggests light instead of blood
flowing in the veins ! She came in graceful and
confident. Nelly did not know that what made her
face strangers so securely was the fact that she was
always the most beautiful person in a room.
Mrs. Hamel roused herself a little and greeted
them.
"Forgive my not rising. I am chained to my
sofa," she said. "This is my husband's pupil,
Miss Concannon, and you must be her friend. Miss
Hayes ? " she introduced them to the others.
They all smiled and shook hands or bowed, and
the girls found themselves the focus of a hostile
scrutiny, the subconscious warfare between women
and girls. The breach was crossed by Miss Fitch,
who had met Hilda before, and they were soon
engaged in animated talk.
24
INTRODUCES THE HEROINE 25
Nelly sat down near Mrs. Hamel, and, finding
that lady unaccountably silent, began to talk with
her habitual smile.
"How you must love living in this house ! "
"Do you think so?"
Mrs. Hamel narrowed her eyes. She was noticing
the torn lace at the girl's throat and the zigzag
line of scarlet cotton with which some laundry had
signified its innocence of a rent at the hem of
her dress. Nelly had left the red thread there "for
luck."
"I've never seen any house like it before."
Mrs. Hanbury, perceiving an opportunity to
snub, said, "There isn't anything like it. Mrs.
Hamel's house is unique."
"That is unlucky for the rest of you, isn't it?"
replied Nelly sweetly. As she would have ex-
pressed it, Mrs. Hanbury got no change out of
her. All the same the thrust was an effort, and a
sudden reaction sent tears pricking to her eyelids.
"Have you left Ireland long?" asked Mrs.
Hamel. There was so little interest in her voice
that the question was not a solicitude, but an
impertinence.
"A thousand years," said Nelly.
Mrs. Hanbury again advanced to the slaughter.
"I got some Irish novels out of Mudie's the other
day. Why is it, can you tell me, that Irish novels
are all so bad ? "
She opened her eyes triumphantly above her
rudeness. Poor Nelly, who knew too little of any
literature to care to talk about it, flushed and was
silent. It was Miss Fitch who took up the cudgels.
"Oh, please don't say that," she cried. " I claim
26 THE CHORUS
Irish blood, you know." And then, because the
girl was so pretty, "Besides, Miss Hayes may have
written novels herself."
The fury in Miss Fitch's glance so outbalanced
the moderation of her tongue that Mrs. Hanbury
was quite discomfited.
They were all glad when the men joined them.
Ernst Eckstein was to play after dinner. He,
with Keath and Anthony, had been discussing
bookbinding and rare editions and describing their
latest acquisitions. The other three had been talk-
ing politics; at least Hanbury had been talking,
while Fyvie and Steven Young disagreed with
him. It was a three-cornered fight, Steven holding
extreme Socialist opinions, Fyvie arguing in favour
of small holdings and "general tweediness," Han-
bury rolling his thick lips round his cigar, ex-
pressing his faith in the greed and irremediable
corruption of man's heart. He was a cynic and
took pride in it.
As they passed down the wide corridor, its ebon
floor reflecting the white walls and slender furnish-
ings, he paused to admire some engravings, heads
of gentle girls, and said to Hamel —
" I always envy you these."
"I keep them to remind myself that there was
a type of English beauty before the Gaiety girl was
invented."
"Oh, come," said Hanbury; "I rather like the
Gaiety girl."
"Well, you may keep her," said Anthony.
"My dear fellow, I shouldn't have proposed
to do that even in my most lascivious days,"
chuckled Hanbury.
INTRODUCES THE HEROINE 27
They passed on.
"How Hamel does detest a certain type of
woman ! " murmured Steven.
"'Lead us not into temptation,'" suggested
Arden.
They grinned.
They entered the music-room.
"And who," each of them asked himself, "is
the girl talking to Mrs. Hamel ? "
Ernst Eckstein played to them. Some of that
new music at once so elemental and delicate. Nature
observed by the man of science and expressed by the
poet. The minute flickering world of leaves and
grass-blades, blue bells on their hair-like stems ring-
ing together, mist, raindrops falling on burdocks,
fine rain driving across meadows, then roses, heaped
roses, white and without thorns, the sun shines
out, somewhere among the glistening branches a
bird breaks into song. When he had done he
crossed the room and sat down beside his wife.
He was a sophisticated young man. He had ex-
pressed the opinion that the keenest joy civilization
has to offer is the entering of a crowded room
with a perfectly dressed woman. Nelly Hayes,
obviously, was not to his taste.
Mrs. Hamel found her ill-health a useful check
to any prompting that might make her do some-
thing agreeable, so she did not introduce any of
the men to Nelly Hayes. If she had surmised that
such exertion would not be required of her, she
would have been quite right. Hilda, of course,
had met Steven Young — he had been to The
Height several times already — and after saluting
Anthony with a wave of her hand, they began to
28 THE CHORUS
talk together. Steven did not ask to be presented
to her friend. He sat where he could watch her.
"Well, what do you think of her?" asked Hilda
proudly.
"I haven't begun to think yet," said Steven.
"I'm content to look."
Anthony had gone at once to present himself.
He knew his wife's little ways and was not troubled
by them.
*'Well, beautiful person," he said, "and what is
your name ? "
He lowered his voice, but made no suggestion of
secrecy.
"My friends call me ' Nelly,' " said that young
woman, smiling up at him.
"Then I shall call you ' Nelly,' too," said he.
They got on very well together.
Hanbury, after wandering about and finding that
no one intended to introduce him, settled himself
near Hilda and listened to what she and Young
were saying. It was not a particularly interesting
conversation from a listener's point of view, for
they were discussing "national characteristics" and
"religious differences," and, as Mr. Hanbury
phrased it to himself, "God knows what all."
"We must be continental rather than insular,"
Hilda was saying. "We shall never have a
national dress or a national art while we are self-
conscious about it. That's where I quarrel with
the movement "
"What we need is the truth. Unpalatable but
wholesome." "Good taste must come naturally. It
isn't fair to expect people who live in wretchedness
to put on ideals as we put on hats." "Only wealth
INTRODUCES THE HEROINE 29
and no fear of poverty will put the old spending
spirit back into the country." "Ah, if only the
Churches would teach a little vanity!" "My
people, though, refute you. We have money in
the North, but we don't know how to spend it.
Oh, Ballygrawna." "The closed range " "But
it isn't fair to ask people to cook at an open fire;
it's lovely-looking, of course, but what are we to
do?" "Surely the pot-oven makes excellent
bread?" "A fable, my dear Stevie; an old wives'
tale!" "Beauty is suspect in Ireland." "Quite
rightly. You haven't gone through the reign
of Queen Victoria there yet — solid comfort, you
know ! "
Mr. Hanbury was quite out of it.
"I'm a furious anti-Catholic. No, it's not my
Northern blood. I'm jealous for my own religion.
Whoever heard of a Protestant who called himself
an intellectual not reading a book because a stupid
man in a shovel hat condemned it ? "
"Isn't that because so few 'intellectuals' call
themselves Protestants?" "Perhaps. But that
artificial purity of mind, Stevie, wax flowers ! "
"Better than none, I think." "Savages for me,
rather!" "Study anthropology!" They both
laughed. " No, but," said Hilda, " it's the Church's
attitude to the whole of modern life that infuriates
me. Every spring I see some idiotic bishop has
been thumping his pulpit in a Lenten Pastoral,
forsooth ! Thinking because he's fat and stupid
he can crush the life out of Socialism and Suffrag-
ism, and everything that's decent. Such asinine
attacks ! "
A grain of comfort for poor Mr. Hanbury. He
80 THE CHORUS
rolled into a more upright posture, and said :
"You know, Miss Concannon, though I agree
with many of the things you've said, and I must
say that you express yourself admirably, I think
the bishops are right there. Man, you know, has
made a very special place in his imagination for
woman, Miss Concannon."
"Ah, but what sort of place has he made for
her in reality ? "
"Not such a bad place, I think. Think of all
the nice houses, the jewels, the clothes. Why,
civilization, Miss Concannon, is the tribute man
lays at woman's feet."
"Especially in Bermondsey ! " cried Hilda.
"Isn't that a trifle irrelevant? The men don't
have too swagger a time there either."
"Well, that's part of what we are complaining
about."
"Surely a rich woman is as much a tyrant as a
rich man?" suggested Steven.
"Yes, I admit that, but "
"Well, then?"
"Oh, what's the use of giving us pretty things
and denying us equality ? "
"You are our superiors."
"But you sneer at us! "
"Don't servants in the kitchen sneer at their
masters ? "
"You seem to be getting the best of it," said
Hilda, "but all the same I know how suffering
and humiliated women are."
"Oh, but for that you must blame Nature."
"Nature for a woman usually turns up in the
form of a man," commented Miss Fitch, joining in.
INTRODUCES THE HEROINE 81
"Really, dear ladies, we are paying you a com-
pliment in refusing the vote. We are quite satisfied
with you as you are."
"Ah, but the question is — are we satisfied with
you ? "
"You let woman tidy your houses, your streets :
why not your habits and customs?"
"I am afraid I am a hopeless Anti," said Mr.
Hanbury.
"That doesn't matter," said Miss Fitch cheer-
fully, "so long as you are susceptible."
"Heresy ! " protested Hilda.
So the babble went on, a stream of sound broken
occasionally by a leaping silvery fish of laughter.
Miss Fitch said —
"To be praised by an opponent is almost the
same thing as to be called a fool ! "
"Well, I prefer to be called a fool politely ! "
"As bad as having your throat cut with a jammy
knife ! "
"Or to be stunned with a peach instead of a
stone ? "
"But when you came to you could eat the peach."
This was Nelly's contribution. She had no idea
that the conversation was merely flitting among
metaphors. They enjoyed her naivete and thought
it intentional.
Hilda presently detected unmistakable signs of
weariness on Mrs. Hamel's face, so she said good-
bye and took Nelly away with her. Anthony came
out into the hall with them then and put Nelly's
coat on for her — a cheap unlined green woollen
coat. It looked strange in his hands. Steven
Young escorted them down the hill with a lantern.
CHAPTER IV
SECOND IMPRESSION
Nelly Hayes, drowsing in her bed at Elkins's,
yawned and stretched herself. The window-blind,
rattling smartly in the wind, filled and drew up with
a swishing sound, and a ribbon of sunlight ran up
the wall. That yellow ribbon had lain, on its first
appearance in the room, across the foot of Nelly's
bed, and, touching in succession the door, the
washstand, the text over the mantelpiece and the
white-petticoated dressing-table, now showed itself
on the opposite wall. It was eleven o'clock.
Outside was the tumult of a March morning.
Boughs swayed, gates creaked. Posses of sparrows,
jabbering wildly, flung themselves across the
garden. Every twig glittered. In the north-west
pillars of white clouds stood up in a sky intensely
blue. Behind the house Mrs. Elkins's ducks
chorused together. A horse was led by its slow
hooves sounding on the stones, "chock, chock,
chock, chock," and a jingle of harness. Half a
day's work was done.
Nelly Hayes, stretching again luxuriously,
clasped her hands behind her head and screwed
up her little nose. Then she thrust it c-aressingly
into the softness of her arm. Her flesh was
fragrant, spicy, like rose-leaves. She enjoyed the
32
SECOND IMPRESSION 38
smell of it. Her yellow hair strewed her bosom.
On her lips peeped a little smile. She was
thinking.
Hilda long- ago had fastened her neat blouse
and started to her work.
"I think you might come up and see the studio
this afternoon," she had said in the intervals of
dressing. "1 don't think Mr. Hamel would mind."
"Oh, I expect not," Nelly had answered, feeling
herself already his close friend.
"We always work hard in the mornings," Hilda
had said. "But in the afternoons we relax a bit.
We mustn't disturb the routine in any way, because
it's all rather important."
"I'll be a mouse," said Nelly.
"You know, Mr. Hamel is a tremendous swell,
though he never puts on side," said Hilda, who
felt Nelly's attitude to savour just a trifle of
"cheek."
"He was awfully kind yesterday," said Nelly.
"Yes; he wants to draw you. We mustn't let
him forget." (Forget !)
Hilda put on her hat.
"Mrs. Elkins will give you some sort of lunch,
Nelly. I always lunch at The Height. And
there are some books of mine in the sitting-room,
if you'd like to read. W^hen you come up this
afternoon come in by the little iron gate in the
lane. It's unlocked in the day-time. There's no
need to go by the house. IVIrs. Hamel doesn't like
to be bothered with people."
"She's a proposition," said Nelly.
"Well, she isn't precisely as amiable as her
husband," admitted Hilda.
D
84 THE CHORUS
"Don't you worry about me, dear," said Nelly.
"I shall be quite happy."
"And another thing." Hilda put her head in at
the door. "Don't flirt with Pandolefsky."
Nelly opened eyes at her.
"Goo! goo!" cried Hilda derisively. "But I
really mean it. He's forbidden fruit. The Apple
of Eden. S2ich an object ! "
She was gone.
Nelly listened till the brisk footsteps grew in-
audible and the iron gate had swung clangingly
to silence. Then she turned over and had a small
sleep.
Pandolefsky, indeed — whoever he might be !
Well, she expected to have a good time, anyway.
The dark eyelashes drooped.
It took Nelly Hayes a long time to get dressed,
especially on a state occasion such as this. With
her brief, though not uninteresting, experience of
the world, she knew that to make an impression
is child's play ; the difficulty is to confirm it. There
were long delays in the toilet. Wrapped in her
old silk dressing-gown, where birds with out-
stretched necks flew amid a mass of scarlet blossoms
and coffee stains, she sat and darned her stockings.
She mended a loop at the neck of her blouse. She
had to wait for her hair to dry, too, after her bath ;
it was no use trying to do it while the front locks
were wet. She was not oppressed by loneliness.
So much of it had been her share since her life
began. Her patchwork life ! Satin by the side
of sackcloth. These for the present were dimity
days. She did not trouble herself about the future.
Disagreeable things, once past, ceased to be keenly
SECOND IMPRESSION 85
disagreeable. Sitting on the edge of her bed, with
knees crossed and sHm foot swinging, the gaiety
that rippled over her in company was translated
to a warm stillness. Her eyes held the basking
trancjuiUity of a cat on a wall.
She put on her much-worn garments carefully.
When she dressed with this precision her shabbi-
ness enhanced her. Her one brown suit had served
on all occasions. To run to the ham-and-beef shop,
or — rare event — to go to see a friend. For this
occasion she would put on her gloves before her
jacket. That made all the difference.
At last she was ready. She left her room and
descended the noisy stairs. She roamed about the
sitting-room, whistling softly, examining every-
thing, curious, inattentive, while Mrs. Elkins was
preparing lunch. She read the names on books:
Shaw and Francis Adams, Conrad, Lecky, a Life
of Garibaldi. She had no intention of reading
them. Mrs. Elkins's own collection — Nothing to
Nobody, Georgie Merton, and the Adventures of
Jimmy Bro%vn, left by a former lodger — would have
interested her more.
Mrs. Elkins brought in her dinner. Grilled
steak hard as leather, and potatoes ; stewed rhubarb
and "shape." She talked while the girl ate.
"Don't you never feel lonely all alone, Miss?
If 1 was to set still for a minute I couldn't abear
myself. I have to be running about the house or
feeding the chickens, or something. Setting idle
with me hands in me lap would fair knock me."
Nelly flavoured a hostile criticism in her speech.
"Don't you never do no fancywork or nothing,
Miss?" she questioned.
86 THE CHORUS
"I didn't bring any with me." Nelly laughed
to herself. She remembered various pieces of
"fancywork" sinking through a degradation of
tangled silks and lost needles to oblivion.
"Taking a holiday, I suppose, Miss? Well, we
all needs a rest at times. Would you care to see
my chickens, IMiss? \'ery early for them. I shall
have a job to rear them, 1 expect."
Nelly made the tour of the farm buildings, lazily
sympathetic, listening at any rate. She carried the
farm kitten upon her shoulder, pink-nosed and full
of fleas.
The afternoon held disappointment. Anthony
had gone away that morning with the Hanburys
in their motor-car. Nelly, as she climbed the steep
path to the studio, had "somehow felt" that she
should not see him. The wet black earth, as yet
unpierced by any green thing, was devoid of pro-
mise. The narrow skirting path, repeating in
miniature the broad steps and terraces of the main
garden, made her feel furtive and intrusive. She
was trespassing. Mr. Hamel's invitation gave her
no sense of right there. She found herself hoping
that she would not be seen. Through the bare
fruit trees, as yet unflecked with chalk-white buds,
she could see the broad expanses of the lawns and
hear the voices of the men who were laying turf
there. The steepness of the bank hid the house
from her. She was a solitary wayfarer under the
cold, translucent dome of the sky. She felt sud-
denly that inexplicable sense of heartache and
mystery that loneliness gives to a child. How
should she look to Mr. Hamel to welcome her?
Why should she expect anywhere secure footing
SECOND IMPRESSION 87
or a home ? Her confidence left her as if a warm
cloak had been stripped away. It was a humble
little girl at last who reached the studio door.
Hilda was on the look-out for her.
"Come along-," she said; "I can show you every-
thing. We have it quite to ourselves."
Nelly's heart contracted at the news. Hilda
talked on, emphasizing, explaining.
The studio was very large, lit from above, and
surrounded by a slender gallery. It had windows
also, facing south and north, big, prominent bays
that could be shut off from the large room at will
by sliding-doors. The southern one contained
Hilda's table; the northern was Pandolefsky's
den.
Above them the gallery broadened into narrow
upstair-rooms. The furnace dominated the western
wall, and beside it the iron cooling table. These
were immediately visible from the door. In that
there was a wicket.
"When we are working, anvone who comes with
a message has to peep through there before they
knock, for fear they'd startle us at a critical
moment. ' Wait for the stroke ' — you know the
sort of thing. If you wobble, putting things into
the furnace, vou mess up your whole design. It's
hard not to at first, though, especially if it's a very
large plate. You have to hold it steady in the
mouth of the oven for a minute or two till the
water dries off. Then it's all in powder again.
Then in it goes. There's a frightful row if
Mr. Hamel is interrupted just then."
Anthony was "frightfully fussy" at his work,
apparently. They had to live at the same tem-
88 THE CHORUS
perature all the year round, and terrible things
were said if the studio was too hot or too cold.
A little staircase curved above the door. The air
was full of the scent of matting and freshly planed
wood. Built into the wall were immense presses.
"When he comes back I expect he'll show you
the jewels."
" Is he away, then ? "
"Yes. He went this morning with the Han-
burys. He's building them a house somewhere.
He's hardly ever at home all the week."
Nelly's spirits, beaten to the water, as it were,
by adverse gales, dipped, rose again, and sprang
forward. She was positively glad. It was a
respite, a relief. She would be able to poke about
and enjoy herself without wondering all the time
how she was looking and what was being thought
of her. Hilda, secured all her life by money, a
definite home, above all by her impersonal interest
in things and her splendid cocksureness, had no
conception of the desperate toil that the company
of fellow-beings meant to Nelly. Hilda, who did
the right things instinctively and cared no jot if
she didn't, knew nothing of the doubts and shames
that wrangled with gaiety in Nelly's breast. The
girl was not 3^et sure of her charm, not certain if
she were strong enough to "carry things ofif." She
knew she could not be the conventional young lady ;
she had not mastered the courage to be herself.
Her ingenuousness and ignorance, attractive as it
was, humiliated her. She was wearied with the
burden of trying to please people. Men she found
very easy to please ; with women her soul became
hesitating and servile.
SECOND IMPRESSION 89
Only Mrs. Hamel, however, with her barbed
intelHgence sharpened and perhaps just brushed
with venom after many years of speclatorhood,
could say of her thus accurately (as she had said
the nig-ht before to Anthony) : "Too anxious to
please."
Hilda would at any time have scorned to be
troubled by the trifles that tormented Nelly — whom
to shake hands with first; what implements to
choose from those beside her plate at meal-times;
how much ice-pudding to take without being
greedy; whether the hole in her stocking showed
above the heel of her shoe; a dread of spilling
her tea into her lap. Hilda never troubled in the
least how she appeared. It was just her warm
sympathy of heart that made her realize a little
of what Nelly suffered. She responded to the pain,
though she would have derided its cause. She
was full of love for her protegee.
She showed Nelly the glass they ground for the
enamels, holding the rich slabs up to the light so
that they glowed. The bowl of acid, the sheets of
copper, the hammers, the shears.
Nelly flung open the window and leaned out.
"How beautiful it is ! I should never do a
stroke of work here."
Before her was the loveliest of English land-
scapes. Small woods and pasture-land, the broad
weald with its chess-board of fields and hedges,
scattered roofs, hillocks and hollows, an intricacy
of brownness and greenness stretching away into
the distance, to the blue hills and the invisible
sea.
(Anthony regarded it as the justification of hi^
40 THE CHORUS
art. When younger men heckled him, saying,
"An artist must reveal life as it really is," he
would challenge them, laughing, "Well, come
down, then, and see what I really see. / couldn't
make hideous things without lying." This house
of his was courteous response to loveliness.)
The girls gazed in silence. A white' line of
smoke like a hurrying caterpillar pushed its way
across the country, coming from whence, going
whither? They watched it out of sight.
Nelly sighed. "Lucky you!" It was the
nearest she could approach to envy.
Hilda thought of her as a drifter in miserable
seas cast suddenly upon an island.
"Stay with me as long as you can," she said.
Nelly squeezed her hand.
CHAPTER V
PRELUDE TO AN UNPLEASANT CONCLUSION
Hilda was hammering- a copper plate. As her
strokes fell on the metal she sang- briskly.
My heart ever faithful^
Sing prai-aises, be Joy-oyfu/^
Szn£ prai-aises, be joy-oy-oy-yful.
She was making what she called a "beautiful row."
Her ears were deliberately full of it. It shut out
something she was anxious to hear.
Nelly was lounging in the arm-chair by the stove.
The sunlight poured in upon her. Pandolefsky,
seated on a low stool, pencil and block in hand, was
making a drawing of her. He had attempted half-
a-dozen in the past two days. Now Hilda had
stated expressly that she hoped Nelly would be
admired, and that Mr. Ilamel would make draw-
ings of her. If Mr. Hamel, why not Pandolef-
sky? Clearly she was illogical. She had brought
the girl here. She had talked of her in the studio
as well as in the house to Mrs. Hamel. Why, then,
was she not better pleased with the effect she had
made ? Was this effect of Hilda's making, though ?
She had advertised the grace and beauty of the
girl, her unexpectedness, her unprotectedness, her
mingled diffidence and boldness, the occasional soft
whirring of her Irish accent, her homelessness,
the romantic mystery of her name. She had not
41
42 THE CHORUS
mentioned the little faults, sharply contrasted as they
were with the girl's indisputable dowry, the untidi-
ness, the undaintiness of her, the fact that she said
"an enemy " when she meant "anemone," the indis-
creet comments and revelations that, however com-
bated, popped time and again out of her tell-tale
mouth.
"You know, Hilda," she had said one day, "T
never feel sure if I am talking properly. I never
know just what I ought to say."
"My dear," cried Hilda, "say whatever comes into
your head, of course. I don't know any other rule ! "
"Ah, but you don't know the things that come
into my head," Nelly responded sadly. She never
patronized Hilda for her comparative inexperience.
Above everything, when she thought at all, Nelly
longed to be as other girls were, limited, and
ignorant, and unfeeling.
"It's horrible to know the sort of things I know,"
she complained.
"Oh, I mean to know everything," said Hilda
with her customary vigour, "anything that is good
enough to happen is good enough to know about."
"Ah, but it's different for you."
If she could have put words on her thought
she might have said that a conscious knowledge of
evil had the beauty of mastery, but that the evil that
was never thought about at all, that just soaked in
and overwhelmed you, that had the ignominy of
defeat. Such a reasoning Hilda could have agreed
with, for the one thing she could not endure was
invictoriousness. For that reason the less of sex a
woman had about her the more she admired her.
Nelly would listen in mute submission to her invec-
PRELUDE 48
tive against loss of self-control? "What is civili-
zation except self-control?" "What is the use of
self-knowledg-e if it doesn't help you to control your-
self?" And so on, so many words to Nelly, who
without understanding-, felt in her bones that Hilda
did not know what she was talking about. She
admired Hilda for this ignorance, however, more
than for her positive qualities, and more than she
admired Hilda she admired the tradition that had
brought her up so blessedly untouched by experi-
ence. Because Hilda disliked that tradition she
had learnt all sorts of things with her head, but
her bodv had never taught her anything; her body,
in fact, would perhaps never learn anything. She
puzzled Nelly.
To the accompaniment of her hammering Hilda
grimly pursued her thoughts, or rather, perhaps it
would be more accurate to say, held her thoughts
from her.
"Don't look like that," said Pandolefsky under
cover of the noise, "you madden me."
Nelly trailed her eyelashes at him.
"I mean it. Some night, when you are asleep,
I shall come and carry you off."
"That will be quite exciting."
Nelly smiled provokingly. He was such a
comical little figure with his stumpy bitten fingers
and his legs filling his trousers like bolsters in
bolster cases.
"I stick at nothing."
"In fact, you're a devil when you're roused."
"I shall make you stop laughing at me."
"Would you rather 1 scowled instead?"
Silence.
44 THE CHORUS
"It is no good trying to draw you," he exclaimed
after a moment, "why don't you keep still? "
"I do keep still !"
"You don't. You don't even try. Turn your
head a little."
"Say 'please.'"
He sprang up, seized her chin, and jerked her
head into the right position. "There!"
" How dare you touch me ? "
"It's your own fault. You dared me to do it.
You should wear a label, ' Not to be touched,' It
would make things plainer."
"Don't be rude! "
"Bah! As if vou cared whether I am rude or
ml
not ? You do not care what men say to you as long-
as you are admired. You are a coquette, Made-
moiselle. There, it is spoiled." With a vicious
movement he tore the sketch in half. Hilda, hear-
ing the altercation, turned round.
"HuUoa, what's the matter?"
"Only Mr. Pandolefsky's idiotic temper."
Nelly was enjoying herself. She was entirely
accomplished in the technique of ' scenes.' The
tension preceding an outbreak enlivened her.
Hilda remonstrated. "Really you are a nuisance,
you two."
They had done no serious work for three days.
It vexed her that for all warnings Nelly should be
flirting with Pandolefsky. That they were flirting
was undeniable, and yet Nelly made fun of the
little man. She could not be accused of encourag-
ing him. She was, if anything, too contemptuous.
She obeyed all Hilda's theoretical rules, and yet the
situation was most unsatisfactorv. Hilda main-
PRELUDE 45
tained that the only sort of women for whom sex
relations were not undignified were women like
Thai's or Semiramis, whose beauty brought all men
suing to their feet, while their own hearts remained
cold. She felt it to be an excellent theory, and yet,
while there was Pandolefsky suing- and literally at
Nelly's feet on the studio floor, she was irritated.
Somehow she did not like anyone to have really
personal relations with Pandolefsky. Emotion of
any sort in his regard was a familiarity. They had
been so cool and pleasant and impersonal and polite
in the studio before. It was like rousing the admira-
tion of a waiter, of a shop-boy. It was too flattering
to the creature. \Miat a hateful snob she was !
But she couldn't help it. She could not bear
Pandolefsky to be flattered at Nelly's expense, and
that was what it came to. Why didn't he see what
a worm he was and how they mocked him ? She
hammered furiously.
She understood nothing. The simple rules of
the game of provocation would have seemed to her
merely disgusting. She could hear Nelly's exag-
gerated snubs, but she could not see the message
of her eyes and of the lines of her body. Pandolef-
sky could see it. It was the old challenge of a
man's physical strength — defiance and then flight.
Pandolefsky rejoiced in it even when it angered
him. As yet the scufile was one of looks and
words. It was ignominious, nevertheless.
" I must not and will not be a prig," resolved
Hilda.
Going down to Elkins's that evening she hinted
her doubts to Nelly.
"It doesn't matter how many men you flirt with,"
46 THE CHORUS
responded that young woman, "provided you don't
fall in love with any of them. And I don't think
you need be alarmed about Master Pandolefsky."
Hilda was content that this was a triumphant
doctrine. She could not prevision that Pandolefsky
would succeed in catching and kissing her little
friend in the orchard next morning.
"Nelly is gloriously beautiful," she thought.
"She is sure to be splendid."
So Anthony, returning to his studio, found Nelly
established there. He was in good spirits, kind,
vivacious, interested with apparent profundity in
the people about him. The novelty of the girl's
bright presence pleased him. He unlocked the big
steel-lined doors of the presses and displayed their
treasures. Nelly made an exotic and fascinating
spectacle— a wood-nymph strayed into civilization,
Psyche in the house of love. Her wonder and
delight were so simple. Really to touch these
things, to run her hands through them ! She sat
on the floor, her hair illumined by a beam of dusty
sunshine, and received the jewels in her lap. An-
thony, amused at her frank pleasure, heaped them
upon her. Radiant pearls, chrysoprase and garnet,
dim milky opals, chrysolite and sapphire, "and the
ones you will like best," aquamarines, blue-green
and sparkling like the sea. "Oh, yes, I like these
best of all."
He showed her a pendant he was making : an
orange tree, revealing through its branches the
south wind touching the strings of a lute.
"This is for a lady who comes from vSpain, via
the United Slates. Someday when you are rich
and famous I'll make something for you."
PRELUDE 47
"Oh, I shall have to wait a desperate time, then."
He chaffed her, "Anyone could see you were
destined to wear your diamonds at the opera."
She shook her head. "Joey Harrison doesn't
care for music."
"And who, pray, is Joey Harrison?"
"He's my fiance,'' replied Nelly, with startling
simplicity. "I shall have to marry him some day.
I'd rather not talk about him."
She inspected a jewel against the end of her hair.
"My dearest child, you mustn't talk of marriage
like that."
Seeing the impression she had made she de-
scribed the predestined ogre.
"And he has tufts in his ears and red hair on the
backs of his hands — " she completed the picture.
It made a great sensation. Andromeda menaced
by the sea monster could not have aroused more
sympathy and apprehension. Hilda had not before
treated as serious the talk of "Joey Harrison who
pays the bills." Shocked from her calm disbelief,
she chafed for a rescue.
"You must refuse to do such a thing. You can't
be coerced. Nelly, it's horrible ! "
"Ah, well, I just don't bother about it. I've a
year or two, anyway." She smiled her careless
smile. "Time enough to think about it then."
They visioned her after this with a crooked
horror ever at her heels. It was the required note
of romance.
CHAPTER VI
ASIDE
Mrs. Hamel took but little part in tlie comings
and goings at The Height. It was one of
Anthony's principles that his old friends should
not disappear before his rising fame; also, though
he cared very much for their artistic perceptions
and preferences, he cared nothing at all for the
sort of lives they led. When, on one or two occa-
sions his wife attempted argument, he had remarked
with impatience that he did not propose to write
biography. "As long as I like them I am quite
satisfied." In consequence some really atrocious
people had turned up occasionally, and yet Anthony
had never allowed Lady Kayle Podsnap to be asked
a second time, though the daughter of a duke and
morally irreproachable, because he had heard her
say that she liked Murillo. He called her "that
horrid woman," "perverse," and a "slug-eater";
incidentally, the poor lady was very plain.
Mrs. Hamel had at first. presented an opposition
of feigned chilliness; but in the end she had been
forced to yield. It was a veritable martyrdom for
the poor little lady, and she did not attempt to
disguise her annoyance from her own friends.
That was why she invited Miss Fitch and Mrs.
Arden so often, and Mrs. Eckstein, who had been
at school with her (though she, indeed, was a little
48
ASIDE 49
too smart to be quite relied upon). They made at
any rate, whatever their opinions, a reputable
barrier between their hostess and the unspeak-to-
ables. They could keep a parly together and laugh
at their own tolerance, and they enabled Mrs.
Hamel, when she felt her moral sense strained
beyond endurance, to spend the week-end comfort-
ably in bed.
Never once was she known to waver or hesitate,
or soften her glassy precision. Throned in her
great bed, with its faintly garlanded hangings, she
could lie and polish her nails or read the latest
novel, and let the news of the house reach her
purified, filtered, as it were, through other eyes
and mouths. vShe thought that a social wreck
should be a complete one.
" I could forgive a woman who really sacrificed
everything for love," she sometimes said.
"Sacrificing everything" meant also that she
would not be likely to have to meet the lady.
These new, unsinkable craft were an abomination.
She often said that a wave of depravity was sweep-
ing over England. She wished, if people must
elope, that they would elope to South Africa or
New Zealand, not to West End addresses. It made
her feel that her own virtue was a little wasted if
these bad people were so prosperous.
She disliked the women more than she disliked
the men. For these she could, to a certain extent,
make allowances. She did not mind harbouring
them, as it were, so long as she was not expected,
even for courtesy's sake, to modify her views. She
could permit them, in rare tete-d-tcte conversings,
to tell her that she was not as other women were.
50 THE CHORUS
" I suppose not," she would say, drooping her eye-
lids modestly and lifting up her head. She could
almost like them as long as their womenfolk did
not intrude. "I have never seen the creature, and
so far as I am concerned she does not exist."
When, as sometimes happened, one of these men,
revealing unsuspected depths of both "real" and
"moral" feeling, married a former mistress, or
went for her sake through the dirt of the divorce
court, Mrs. Hamel adopted an attitude towards him
of contemptuous pity : "Surely it was not necessary
for him to marry her ! "
"But, Erica," Miss Fitch might expostulate,
"you used to complain before because they weren't
married. Now you complain because they are ! "
"I suppose it's only a matter of 'feeling,'"
Mrs. Hamel would reply sorrowfully. "You do
not mind. Well, it makes things easier for you.
I, unfortunately, cannot help feeling strongly
about these things. Whatever you say, I do not
feel that such a union is the right basis for happy
married life. Marriage is a little more, to my mind,
than the mating of beasts."
They would agree with her on that point, and,
to tell the truth, most of her relentless hostilities
were rather pleasing. They received from them
such a sense of personal charitableness.
Or Mrs. Hamel would complain: "Surely there
are plenty of charming girls unmarried. Why
couldn't he choose one of them?"
"Dear Erica, girls are becoming so hygienic
nowadays, they aren't fascinated by the reformed
rake any more."
Mrs. Hamel said she preferred not to discuss
ASIDE 51
that point. There were very many aspects of life
which she preferred not to discuss.
Her favourite themes were those in the discussion
of which she could conscientiously praise 'her own
virtues and good luck, beginning with the fact that
she liad married at nineteen.
"She likes despising women," Hilda said to Miss
Fitch as they descended the stairs together. "She
simply revels in despising them."
"Faith, Hope and Chastity," murmured Miss
Fitch, "and the greatest of these "
Hilda herself Mrs. Hamel liked as much as she
could be said to like any human being. She envied
the girl nothing, thought her often ridiculous and
told her so, but Hilda was above all things well
behaved, she showed no disposition to make "a
fool of herself," she could in safety have "an eye"
taken off her.
"I don't much care what a woman says to me,"
Mrs. Hamel would say. "I am not shocked by
plain speaking. But when she has talked Brother-
hood of Man up here and then goes down and
strokes her ankles in the drawing-room — frankly,
it disgusts me. If they must come, they must. I
don't wish to appear intolerant, but as I cannot
exchange a word with them without having to say,
' I can't agree,' or (what would be nearer the truth)
' I know you are telling lies, and so do you,' it's
tiring, and 1 prefer to remain upstairs. My bed-
room, at least, is my own."
Even that bedroom was defiled on one occasion,
however, when Lady Hallam, kindest and most
generous of women, with one failing ("a modern
Lucrezia Borgia" and "a female Henry VHl " she
52 THE CHORUS
was called in that sanctum), hearing of J\Irs.
Hamel's indisposition, came to make inquiries and
remained seated on the foot of the bed for a whole
afternoon.
"What I have suffered!" said poor Mrs.
Hamel. She said to Hilda —
"I don't understand these women. i\Iy own
friends, and the people from whom I come, fell in
love and got married in church and led contented
lives, and now we have nothing but the wildest
talk and behaviour."
"Perhaps it's the mothers' fault," suggested
Hilda. "They put up with all kinds of things,
and now we have the reactions — like me."
"Oh, you're not like that. Your notions are
absurd, of course, but you are a girl. I like girls
to he girls, and married women to be married
women, not "
She checked herself.
"And men to be men?" suggested Hilda slyly.
Mrs. Hamel suspected the trap, for Hilda had
caught her before.
"Men, and not paragons," she said.
"13ut what do you mean by that? You must
give a definition."
"Well, that is fairly simple. I don't think a
man ought to have a theory until he has a banking
account. I like men to be well turned out and to
be strong and capable cuul able to face things
without two hundred silly scruples and considera-
tions. I hate them to be goody-goody and inter-
ested in soul-states. I like to think that there are
people in the world capable of doing things that I
am afraid to do myself. As a matter of fact — "
ASIDE 58
she glanced downwards for a moment at her hands
— "I like a man to be in the Army."
She raised her eyes and gave Hilda a long
glance, almost as if she had been talking to a
Guardsman.
"Then, of course," said Hilda, "you insist that
this ideal gentleman must be spotlessly pure indeed.
You can't have your ' womanly ' woman and your
' manly ' man in the same world, you know. The
ideals as at present defined clash hopelessly.
They've got to be very, very good together or not
at all."
"Really, Hilda," said ]\Irs. Hamel, "I don't
think the conversation is becoming quite nice."
"And there she goes," Hilda lamented to Miss
Fitch, "before you have nailed her down, back into
her prunes and prisms. She thinks she's discuss-
ing an intellectual problem, while really it is simply
' what I tell you three times is true.' "
"Cheer up, my child," said Miss Fitch encourag-
ingly; "nearly all arguments are just like that.
Look at the Parliament Act ! "
As may be supposed, Nelly was a great source
of annoyance to Mrs. Hamel. The girl was so
utterly without roots or background. She was sure
Hilda's "people" would disapprove the alliance.
"We have quite enough of a Wonder Zoo at
The Height as it is without adding Hilda's
specimens," she had remarked acidly.
She did not like the mixture of humbleness
towards women and boldness towards men that
she noted in Nelly. She told Hilda so.
"She's not like that when you get to know her,"
Hilda had asserted, in quick defence.
54 THE CHORUS
"I don't think I care very much for people that
one has to get to know. We had a young man
to stay with us once who used to help himself to
fruit salad with his own spoon. They told me I
should like him when I got to know him. But I
never did get to know him. Even Tony did not
insist upon asking him again. Tony does not
really care for physical piggishness."
Her slow voice came back to Nelly.
" Why does she wriggle ? " she asked absently.
"You make her nervous, I suppose," said Hilda.
"You would make me nervous if I let you for a
single moment."
Mrs. Hamel smiled, but she refused to be dis-
tracted from her quarry.
"She seems to me to alter the very tone of her
voice when she speaks to a man."
"Yes, I know she makes a difference," said Hilda
uncomfortably, "but then she hasn't any theo-
ries as to how she should behave, so she's quite
consistent."
Mrs. Hamel ignored the thrust.
" What are her people ? "
"I don't know. I haven't asked her."
"Publicans, I dare say. All the prettiest girls
for the stage are recruited from publicans, I am
told. They get better fed in their youth — or some-
thing. Or perhaps it was a sweet shop. I can
imagine her selling sweets and cramming her mouth
with all the extra ones."
("A recollection of school-days," thought Hilda.)
She said, "She told me her people had property
in the South of Ireland. She lived there when she
was a child."
ASIDE 55
"Land agents," said Mrs, Hamel.
"Perhaps. I don't think so. It doesn't matter,
does it ? She can sit a horse, at any rate."
"Circus riders!" cried Mrs. Hamel triumph-
antly. She was well pleased with this explanation.
From that on she sometimes referred to Nelly as
the "circus rider."
CHAPTER VII
EARLY SOWING IN A WARM BORDER
Nelly Hayes, perched high on a straight-backed
chair in the studio, watched the flies swinging and
swimming in dizzying monotony from balcony to
balcony and wall to wall. They would collide and
whirl together for a moment, separate, and then
backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards.
They were old flies, hoary Methuselahs that had
survived the winter, thanks to Anthony's heating-
apparatus. They were as sickening to watch as
the old men of the pavements.
"What are you thinking about?" asked
Anthony. He was sitting astride a low bench,
with his back to the light, drawing her. He wore
the white jersey he worked in, and his red hair
was rumpled and standing on end. At intervals
he tossed his head, shaking the hair backwards
and out of his eyes as a horse tosses his harness.
Hilda was busy with some work of her own, and
the tinkling of her hammer sounded clearly.
•'I wasn't thinking at all," said Nelly. "I was
watching the flies."
At his voice thought of herself awoke and she
became self-conscious. Her cheeks grew hot as
she encountered his eyes.
*' How vour face changes I " said Anthony.
56
EARLY SOWING IN A WARM BORDER 57
"You had just the right detached expression.
Here, look up again, quickly."
He was going to enamel her for a chapel in
Westonbury.
"Little children will sav their prayers to you."
"I shall give them whatever they ask for, then,"
said Xelly.
He had drawn the golden head in a hundred
postures. "So fresh," he had said to Hilda, talk-
ing about Xelly as if she were not present, "but
so complete. It is not often that a child passes
straight into girlhood without the clumsy sort of
immaturity. When it happens it's the loveliest
thing in the world."
Anthony did not often take much interest in
people except in their presence. Me questioned
Hilda one morning, however, which was a rare
thing for him to do.
"That child — what is her mother thinking
about?" He was looking into the furnace and
his voice was preoccupied.
"I'm afraid her mother thinks of anvthing but
Nelly."
"A bad lot, I suppose?"
"It's hard to say. Nelly seems to admire her
greatly."
"Why isn't she with her, then?"
Hilda laughed.
"I've asked her that, but she gives such a
peculiar reason ! She says her mother is a very
beautiful woman."
"Um!" said Anthony. He was better able to
estimate the meaning of that answer than Hilda.
For him the young face had a most tender appeal.
68 THE CHORUS
She seemed to regard life with so little criticism,
with so much acceptance. Ardent Keath, coming-
in, had remarked it too.
"Like an angel that has never looked over the
wall of Paradise."
What did the future hold for her? When she
heard what Ardent Keath said she had bent her
head and smiled at him with such piteous eyes.
Was it for herself she was sorry? It angered
Anthony to think of the beautiful face encountering
horrors. He refused at last to hold such a con-
jecture. It became customary for him to find her
in the studio every afternoon. Mrs. Hamel had
asked with her habitual languor
"What have you been busy with to-day, dear?"
and when upon several days in succession he had
answered briefly, "Oh, drawing Nelly Hayes," she
had opened wide eyes,
"Is she a model, then?" she had inquired.
Models she accepted as she accepted mutton.
"She is my model," said Anthony cheerfully.
He was making a large tea. As he ate his sally-
lunns he added, "By the way, I want some bright
green silk to drape her with. Blue, somehow, is
not her colour."
They had decided that yesterday, he and Hilda.
"I didn't know she was a model," persisted
Mrs. Hamel.
"She's not," said Anthony testily. "I told you
I was drawing her head."
Having learned what she wanted to know, Mrs.
Hamel sent for her maid.
"Go and fetch that roll of green silk out of the
chest in my dressing-room." She said to Anthony :
EARLY SOWING IN A WARM BORDER 59
" I thought you were going to have those chairs
covered with it." There was just a breath, a
whisper of expostulation in her voice. Anthony
ignored it.
"Good ! " he cried wlien he saw the silk. "That's
the very thing. Wlien did I buy that ? It was
very clever of me ! "
Mrs. Hamel's gaze, following him as he strode
away, was almost wistful. She remembered the
time in the St. John's Wood days when he had
spent day after day drawing her head. That was
when he made the little silver-point portrait of her
that hung above his bed. It was characteristic of
her : delicate, cool, a trifle distant. She sent the
maid for another shawl to cover her.
"I wish the warm weather would begin," she
murmured.
The green silk had a mad success in the studio.
"I'll have to paint you in that, too," said
Anthony. "I haven't touched oils for years. Pity
the saints always wear blue. That suits you much
better."
"I expect that, for all her angelic expression,
there's something unsaintly about her that spoils
the harmony," suggested Steven Young, who
happened to be there.
"Isn't this splendid?" said Anthony, arranging
the folds. "She's like a sea-princess, or a wood-
spirit."
It was Steven who discovered the right name
for her. "Rapunsel," he said.
Nelly was always given pet names. She accepted
"Rapunsel " just as she had accepted "Baby " from
Joey Harrison.
60 THE CHORUS
"But I won't let anyone go climbing up my
hair," she said, when they told her the story.
"Not even the King's son ? " suggested Anthony.
She gave him a look.
"You haven't seen witches dancing, have you,
Rapunsel ? " Steven asked her.
"I've seen all sorts of things, Air. Young,"
replied Nelly tartly.
"And that settles you, young man," laughed
Anthony.
They were a merry party in the studio.
It was inevitable that the admiration of so famous
a man as Anthony should be echoed with voluble
enthusiasm by those who, in their turn, admired
himself. It was an easy and unservile way of
paying him a compliment.
Nelly, perched above the throng of "week-
enders" in her shining gown, was a centre of
petting and flattery. Steven Young would come
and stretch his length upon the hearthrug, watch-
ing her through half-closed, impersoinal eyes,
smoking innumerable cigarettes. Ardent Keath
would bring up the elaborate artillery of his com-
pliments ("Twelve-point-five," as Miss Fitch called
them). Or there would be a young painter from
town eager with pencil or "wash" to "have a
shot " at her. Kindly women led her to view their
treasures and hung beads or lace collars about her
neck.
Nelly could not understand why. Young men
were anxious to show her the view from the
Warren or teach her to play golf. Nelly under-
stood that better.
" What it will be when the nightingales are
EARLY SOWING IN A WARM BORDER 61
singing " said Miss Fitch, catching sight of
the situation.
They did their best to spoil Nelly among them,
and the women were more dangerous than the men.
At men's judgment she could laugh unconcernedly.
"Men are all alike; if it wasn't me it'd be some-
body else." The flattery of the women made her
uncomfortable. They were so fashionable, so
travelled, so experienced, so accomplished, so
extravagant, so sure of themselves ! It was difficult
for her to keep her head. She strove not to forget
her shortcomings, to remember their incredibly
dainty ways, their lingerie, all the brushing, and
polishing, and perfuming, and reading, and ex-
changing of letters; the gossip, the tea-parties, the
theatres, concerts, picture-shows. It puzzled her
how they found time for it all. She was a savage
beside them.
"They make me feel as if I lived in a cave," she
said mournfully to Hilda.
"They make me feel as if I lived in a harem,"
said that young woman stoutly.
She was disgusted and fatigued with all the
preening and strutting. She loathed the perpetual
consciousness of appearance and clothes. She was
filled with physical irritation by them ; she could
not work; she could not concentrate. The studio
seemed to have exchanged its tranquil atmosphere
for the trivialities of the drawing-room. She felt
them to be insincere. They would talk about Art
to Mr. Hamel, but they never discussed a theory
among themselves. She wondered, a trifle bitterly,
how much attention they would bestow upon Nelly
if Mr. Hamel were not an admirer too. They were
62 THE CHORUS
not the sort of people to see for themselves. She
damned them vigorously and moved with more
deliberate ungainliness than ever.
Nelly had to grow used to being talked about
and admired in detail as if she were some soulless
objet d'art. She no longer grew self-conscious or
suffered from embarrassment. There seemed to be
no end to the interest they took.
One day in the studio they did up her hair to
see how it would look, pulling pins from their own
elaborate tresses to supply hers. Then clapping of
hands, laughter and a sly —
"Why don't you always wear it up?"
(They suspected her of being older than she was.)
"Oh, I'm holding that In reserve," answered
Nelly truthfully.
That delighted them, of course. The girl always
seemed to speak "in character."
Hilda herself began to sink into a softness of
admiration. Idolatry is very infectious. She found
she could love Nelly better for not criticizing her.
These people, too, however little they meant what
they said, seemed to summon in the girl a response
that was both sweet and dignified. With them she
was always on her good behaviour. There was
only one frequenter of the studio, indeed, who
seemed in no way to share the general enthusiasm,
and that was Pandolefsky. It was not to be won-
dered at, for after his brief experience as an im-
portant person during the first days of Nelly's
stay, he had been dropped witfi completeness into
oblivion. lie attributed this to snobbishness on
Nelly's part, when it was simply that she did not
like him. She had enjoyed "larking" with him
EARLY SOWING IN A WARM BORDER 63
when there was no one preferable about, but once
her preference was fixed she hardly remembered
his existence. Nelly's knock became a signal for
him, when the "boss" was present, to unhook his
coat and, slinging it across his shoulder, to slouch
to his room in the house. Ilamel, and most other
men, filled him with a malevolent jealousy. He
despised while he envied them. He hated himself
because he lacked their easy ways and assurance
and their smooth hands, and at the same time he
regarded them as fools. If they tried to be friendly
with him and talked of his work he felt and
resented their unconscious patronage. If they
ignored him he resented them still more. Anthony
had discovered him at the factory, or perhaps it
was his talent that discovered itself. He had
brought him to The Height, fed, and housed,
and paid him lavishly, treated him as a comrade,
praised his talent; but all the while Pandolefsky
was thinking how small was his reward compared
with Anthony's, how little his patience and skill
counted compared with a spoken word or a few
lines scrawled on a piece of paper. It certainly
was disproportionate. Hamel said to him, "You
will never be an artist, Pandolefsky, until you love
your work." But how could he love his work when
another man received all the glory of it ? Anthony
had brought him from the factory only that he
might make better use of him, not that his talent
might have wider scope. No, assuredly the debt
of gratitude was not on his side. All of which was
perfectly true and natural, in so far as human nature
contradicts the supreme truth that it is better to
give than to receive.
64 THE CHORUS
Unto this existence Nelly had added the tinal
smart. She could not guess the agony of humilia-
tion and spite that raged in Pandolefsky's breast.
They all excused his surliness to one another on
the ground that there was a social revolution afoot.
"It's coming gradually," said Steven Young;
"the change from the old servility to the good
manners of equal beings. Meanwhile the transition
stage, I admit, is unpleasing."
"I don't think Pandolefsky has given much
attention to the social revolution," said Hilda.
"Perhaps not. But he's a sign of the times, all
the same."
"A regular revolving sky-sign," embellished
Nelly in her grave sing-song.
She was sitting on a corner of the table darning
the curtain that a slamming window had torn. Her
slim black ankles in their silk stockings (Hilda's
stockings) were crossed beneath her. Her head was
bent. She was tranquil domesticity incarnate.
Anthony said, "Don't waste eyesight over that.
Give it to one of the servants."
"Oh, but I like doing it. It makes me feel not
quite so useless."
"Aren't you content to be sweet and beautiful?
You might as well want birds to drag carts. Con-
sider the lilies of the field," they chanted at her.
Nelly puckered her brows. "But, you see, I've
a reason for doing this."
" What reason ?""
She smiled without answering them. Had she
spoken her thought she would have said, "This
flower is putting out roots."
Rooted Nelly certainly was in a mysterious
EARLY SOWING IN A WARM BORDER 60
fashion. It became customary for Anthony to find
her in the afternoons busied with Httle tasks of her
own imposing. Grinding glass for Hilda in a
mortar, perhaps, teeth on edge, grimacing expres-
sively, or cutting bread and butter while the kettle
boiled for tea. They seemed never to take tea
at Elkins's now. Nelly had introduced a spirit-
lamp and had requisitioned cups froni her lodging.
Their chipped, discoloured ugliness reminded
Anthony of midnight "spreads" at boarding-
school. The whole thing somehow — it puzzled him
— had a spice of adventure about it. The thick
bread and butter — Nelly was invincibly clumsy
with her hands — did not prevent his enjoying a
second tea at the house later. He was grateful to
the girls, he said, for allowing him to belong still
to the fraternity of youth.
He liked to picture the studio while he was away,
and Nelly a good-humoured presence in it. He
never pictured it without her. Her memory rose
to his eyes, full of interest in everything, altogether
without egotism, importunate of kindness. He
began to look forward to his returns, to the moment
when, hands in pockets, whistling, he would stroll
along the flagged causeway from the house, shaking
back his thick hair, feeling with uplifted head the
fresh air of the country upon his throat, grasping
with his eyes the contrasted beauties of house and
lawn and spreading landscape, rejoicing in his
ownership. Sometimes he would break his journey,
descending upon a gardener to know what glory
was to quicken the flower-beds, to return leisurely
across the lawns, and then, with a sudden spring
of boyish activity, fling himself two steps at a time
F
66 THE CHORUS
up the last terrace and burst upon them in the studio
like a hurricane.
"Here's the boss! Hello, Boss! Come and
have some tea."
It was less like coming to his own house than
being the welcomed guest in some hoiise of friend-
liness. Then they would talk and laugh and ex-
change the news of the last few days while the
kettle was boiling, and then would come Nelly's
delicious voice, as she wrapped her handkerchief
round the handle, "H-O-T ! It is H-O-T ! "
Then he would explain some new design to
Hilda; or, taking a fine brush, correct some of
her drawings, moving the wet glass with infinite
precision on the plate.
"How you do it " Hilda would sigh admir-
ingly; and Nelly, unconscious that she said any-
thing comical, would comment —
" My, you are a dab ! "
Anthony and Hilda would laugh joyfully at her.
That was how he remembered her when he was
away.
When he was at home after a long day's work
he would find himself listening for her footfall,
for the persuasive, "May I come in?" at the
wicket. He liked to shout "Come in ! " and remain
with his back turned a minute, seeing her in his
mind before he turned to confirm the wonder of his
vision. Or he would catch sight of her slipping
up the garden by the little path, and know that her
bright eyes, fixed on the window, already held his
image. He would show no sign of seeing her, but
his mouth would smile as he bent above the table.
At the week-ends it was that Nelly held her court.
EARLY SOWING IN A WARM BORDER 67
Visitors were eager to be invited to have tea in
the studio. Nelly's cracked cups were rarer quality
than Mrs. Hamel's Coalport.
"Nelly is the child of the house," Anthony said
once; "it needed a child." Somehow the phrase
put a satisfactory colouring upon the affair. She
was a child, a lovely, delightful child. "The child
of the house " was a pleasant thing to say ; kind
and simple and explanatory. But the house itself,
gleaming across the garden, might have been a
thousand miles away. The girls seldom went near
it. It watched them come and go patiently, a little
reproachfully.
CHAPTER VIII
CONFESSIONS AND OPINIONS
Otterbridge at all times of the year is a pleasant
place to stay in, and the Spring filled the girls with
its own keenness and energy. In the lengthening-
evenings they explored the countryside, finding new
paths, testing short cuts, and inventing rights of
way. It was still a foreign country to Hilda after
the short, much-occupied Winter days.
On the common, in one of the big, red, weather-
tiled houses, lived the Spink girls, three bold
orphans, whose sanity, according to Miss Fitch,
"almost amounted to genius," and who Mrs. Hamel
wished — "though of course they can afford to do
as they please " — would get a chaperon. The young
women themselves always hailed any suggestion
with whoops of mockery. "Poor old thing!
Can't you see her pegging after us in elastic-sided
boots? Imagine her caught on a barbed wire fence
by her black bombazine bustle ! " They told Mrs.
Hamel it was hardly fair of her to want to afflict
any human being with them. ("As if she herself
wasn't enough to keep a whole diocese on its best
behaviour.") "Really, Mrs. Hamel, it isn't at all
necessary ! "
"Of course it isn't necessary," said Mrs. Hamel,
impatience stirring her carefully drawled voice; "if
you were the sort of girls for whom it was really
68
CONFESSIONS AND OPINIONS 69
necessary, I should not be speaking to you about
it "
"In fact you wouldn't be speaking to us at
all ! "
"It isn't as if you couldn't find a perfectly pre-
sentable person," Mrs. Hamel had continued — she
herself indeed knew of several — "all you want is
some nice middle-aged woman "
"A little softened by time and saddened by
years "
"To live at the house "
And carve the mutton-
"And help you with your guests."
"And rub us with camphorated oil when we are
ill."
"She need not go about with you at all. Her
authority would be purely nominal."
"She'd let us off on Sundays, Christmas Day,
and the aforesaid national Bank Holidavs, which
are "
"I am sure vour dear mother "
But there INIrs. Hamel made the fatal mistake.
To "dish up" either of their dead parents to the
Spink girls was an infamy and a sacrilege. It
didn't hurt the "disher" you see, but it hurt them
most horribly. They told her roundly
"Dear iNIrs. Hamel, we are not out for young
men, so we don't see what propriety has to do with
us. We've no wish to outrage anyone's feelings,
and we're not going to, so far as we know at
present, so conventions of the chaperon kind are
simply absurd for us "
"Of course if we feel our passions at any time
getting beyond our control "
70 THE CHORUS
"If we find our feet set untwistably upon the
downward way ^'*
They would advertise in all the London papers
and have a guardian at once.
"An aivf2il one."
Meanwhile, if they felt a need for advice, "a
grey head," "the wisdom that only years and experi-
ence can bring," they would come to Mrs. Hamel.
In fact they had been very nearly rude.
Hilda had made, naturally, a great augmenting
of their forces. They often joined her and Nelly
on the walks. They were inveterate trespassers and
regarded notice-boards as simple incitements to
crime.
"Come and wake the pheasants," Miss Spink
would say as they climbed a fence.
Nelly was a trifle shocked by them.
They had nick-names for all the keepers. There
were "Alphonso," and "Muriel," a fair young man,
and "Corney-toes," whose disability was obvious,
and "Gosh," who had been overheard once so to
exclaim in an East wind, and several others. Nelly
was more reverent than the Spink girls. She
thought "Alphonso" handsome. After all a man
was a man even if he were dressed in brown velve-
teen. "Nelly is right," they admitted, "Alphonso
is not bad looking at all. In fact he is ter-uly
bee-utiful." They eyed her curiously. It was her
turn to shock them when they heard that she had
smoked a cigarette with "Muriel " in the woods one
morning.
"I begin dimly to perceive the point of some of
Mrs. Hamel's arguments," the eldest Miss Spink
had murmured.
CONFESSIONS AND OPINIONS 71
"Oh nonsense, Mary Katherine," her juniors
implored her. "Remember you're eighteen."
Hilda had fought on the younger side. Was it
not hypocrisy of the worst sort for them to believe
in the brotherhood of man, as they did, and
object to a practical exposition of it? Nelly had
her own notions and did not disguise them.
Hilda almost argued herself into peace of mind.
All the same she wished Nelly would not hang
about the woods by herself in the mornings, and
told her so.
"Because, after all, they aren't very interesting
men, are they ? " She tried to pretend that if they
were interesting she would not feel any wish to
condemn Nelly.
The week-ends were happier when Miss Fitch or
Steven Young came down, and they played golf
or made long expeditions together. Miss Fitch,
however, would not always come. She found the
Spinks too "bracing."
"They are so ruthlessly young and clearly think
me a hundred. It's a great honour to be invited by
them, but still "
They certainly had an embarrassing way of dis-
cussing people as if the object of the discussion
were not present. Nelly had a good deal of it in
the studio but it was all flattery there. Here she
was not so sure.
"She is the pre-Victorian woman," they would
say; "she speaks before she thinks."
"She belongs to the fairy-princess tradition.
Observe her hair." That was better.
"Is she good-tempered, Hilda, or does she have
tantrums? "
72 THE CHORUS
"1 get into rages sometimes, if that's what you
mean," said Nelly politely.
"Of course you do. When you grow older 1
believe you'll be able to throw things. Plates full
of eggs and bacon ! Toast-racks ! What a time
you'll have."
"Mother did that once," said Nelly, "and she
was disgusted afterwards."
"Oh, did she?" Katherine Spink was covered
with confusion. "I'm most frightfully sorry for
making such a stupid remark," she apologized.
"Oh, I don't mind," said Nelly. She was
puzzled by them.
They had great fun when Steven Young brought
down an old college friend to The Height, a
sceptical, metaphysical young man with eyeglasses,
who announced that he was a Strindbergian and
had no illusions. They made Nelly promise to pay
him a great deal of attention. She said she would
do her best to "blandish " him. Steven Young was
horrified.
"You dreadful young villains," he said, "to want
to destroy a man's peace of mind."
"Not his peace of mind, Stevie dear," they
chorused at him. "Not his peace of mind, his
conceit."
The young man proved invulnerable however.
He told Steven Young, "Really I don't know why
women still think men can be amused by that sort
of thing."
Nelly failed to be amused either.
" I like a man to be a man," she said
"You mean you like his face to be red and his
neck to bulge above his collar ? "
CONFESSIONS AND OPINIONS 78
"You like him simple-minded and muscular.
You would like him to be able to carry you twenty
miles on his shoulder without panting."
"I certainly should like him not to get tired
before I did," said Nelly, a trifle sulkily.
"I wonder how you will like Cousin Edward?"
said the eldest jMiss Spink. "Girls, how do you
think she will like Teddie Armour? What do you
bet he succumbs at once ? "
They put on a shilling promptly.
"You'll have to say he won't, Nelly. Then you'll
win four bob for certain."
"His neck bulges above his collar, or it will in a
year or two," they told Nelly, "and he is all that
a young man, a nice young man, ' such a nice boy,'
should be. There's no nasty sophistication about
him. He hasn't had his masculinity destroyed by
higher education. He's at Cambridge. We call
him ' the blushful Hippocrene ' — it's a way he has."
They caught Nelly by the arms and galloped
wildly with her over the grass.
"You may marry him, Nellikins. We give you
leave to marry him. I should love to see your
meeting with our Aunt Jobiska."
What strange girls they were ! Nelly knew how
few of the attentive people she met would be willing
to form a closer alliance with her.
"I shall be very nice to him," she said.
"As if you could be anything else ! "
They discussed his approaching visit seated in
conclave at the edge of the Warren. The delicate
smell of pine trees and bracken stems surrounded
them. They felt the Spring sunshine warm upon
their faces.
74 THE CHORUS
"Curious I " said the eldest Miss Spink with level
eyes upon the distant landscape. "I should like the
world to be full of men like Teddie Armour, just
because I don't like that sort of man. They might
sit in rows and rows and they wouldn't worry me
and I shouldn't worry them, and it wouldn't worry
me that I didn't worry them."
"Oh, stow it," her sisters implored her.
"The sort of young man I should like to be,"
said another, "is the lean, eyeglassed sort, some-
thing like Stevie's friend, only unhealthier looking.
I should be frightfully clever and cynical, and make
love to all the girls I met."
"Ah, as long as you did that," said the others
smiling, "Nelly would not be bored by you."
"Quite right," said Nelly, smiling too. She
noticed that these girls seemed to discuss men as
much as or even more than did the girls she had
hobnobbed with for brief periods in hotels and sea-
side places, but they did not giggle about them nor
did they recount experiences. She surmised that
this was not solely because they had no experiences
to recount. They did not, apparently, wish for
adventures, and yet they did not show any hostility
to the girls who had them. It seemed to her an
extraordinary attitude, but she modelled herself
unconsciously upon it. Her ingenuous flow of
confidences ceased almost entirely. She had begun
to be shy of the laughter she invariably provoked.
"Were you ever in love, Nelly? " they had asked
her one day. Surely a leading question. She
settled herself to answer with some enjoyment.
"Oh, I was."
"Who was he? Wa3heaslovelyas'Alphonso ' ? "
CONFESSIONS AND OPINIONS 75
"He was the handsomest man I have ever seen,"
said Nelly. "And he'd the loveliest way of glint-
ing his eyes at you. He was one of Mother's
beaux. His name was Roderigo. He was an
Italian nobleman."
They shrieked at her.
"He was, he was; of course he was. How could
he have been anything else ? "
"I don't know what's funny about it. He was a
Roman Count."
"Did he wear white kid gloves? Did he try to
abduct you ? This is Grand Opera ! "
" He wore white gloves at the balls of course,"
said Nelly, "and he did try to abduct me, so there.
We had to leave Cannes because of him."
All Nelly's stories were true. That was what
spoilt them.
Sometimes walking along roads beside Steven
Young she talked to him about her family and her
way of living.
"All this, you know," her eyes took in the woods
on either side of them and Hilda and the Spink
girls walking on ahead, "is so unlike anything
I've done before. I don't feel it's real, somehow.
I keep pretending to myself it's going on for ever."
"What are you going to do, do you know, when
Hilda's time is up?"
"I haven't decided yet. Maybe I'll try Panto.
I had a good time in the Blackburn Panto two
winters ago. But Mother didn't like it. She said
I was lowering the family. But I don't see that it
matters, does it, when nobody knows my name ? "
" ' Hayes ' isn't your name then ? "
"Oh, no" said Nelly heartily, but she did not
76 THE CHORUS
expand the negative into an explanation. "I had
a good time in Panto. They were awfully decent
to me — the Pros, I mean. I was only a kid, of
course. I used to lead the marches. Maudie
Maisie was our principal boy — you've seen her,
haven't you? She is lovely, isn't she?"
Steven had to confess that he had never seen the
lady.
"Oh, well, she isn't in London as much as she
used to be, of course. Not since she got her sore
leg. She showed it to me once in confidence. It
simply wouldn't heal. I'd have done anything for
Maudie. I liked Panto. I think I shall try it
again. After all. Mother may not know anything
about it. I may not hear from her."
"Does she travel about a great deal then? "
"Oh, rather. She's always on the move. That's
for Jimmy's sake. Jimmy is my brother. I've got
a photo of him somewhere I'll show you. She has
to keep moving about, but she often gets tired of it.
Some day she'll settle down and we'll all live quietly
together, she says; but that's years off. She can't
be alwavs letting me know where she is, can she,"
said Nelly,, combating the reproach that she felt to
be in Steven's mind, "when, as she says, she often
doesn't know where she'll be herself from one day
to another? "
She talked on about Jimmy.
"When I came back from Dresden he remem-
bered me all right. ' It's Dumps,' he said. That
was what they called me then because I was always
so depressed." She sparkled at the little sarcasm.
"' It's Dumps,' he said, and came and caught right
hold of me. Now that was wonderful, wasn't it,
CONFESSIONS AND OPINIONS 77
for he hadn't seen me for two years, and he was
only three when I w-ent away ? Mother wasn't best
pleased when I turned up, either. There was an
awful row. But I didn't care. I'd had enough of
that ' superior middle class home to exchange Ger-
man and English.' I wasn't going to be stranded
like that again in a hurry. * Will you walk into my
parlour?' — not twice, I don't think."
"Listen," said Steven; "hear that bird? That's
a yellowhammer."
She stopped obediently ; but her attention was
not concentrated among the gorse bushes. She
insisted upon completing her confidences.
"I was a spectacle in those Dresden days. I'm
not very grand now, but when I grew out of my
clothes there I had to go on wearing them and
Avearing them till, for decency's sake, they took me
to a cheap shop and fitted me out. I shall never
forget those stockings — blue and white rings round
them ! " she laughed. " It was rather decent of them
really, I suppose."
"It must have been a horrible time."
"Oh, the first six months weren't half bad. Then
it was all bowing and scraping about my scJibne
Mamma; but when the remittances didn't come,
and they had to clothe as well as feed me, and
there seemed to be no end of it, old Frau Kopf
used to come shaking her fist at me threatening
blue murder to my Herr Papa. I don't blame her.
It must have been beastly for her. Still, it was
beastlier for me, and it wasn't my fault."
"Still, it was all right in the end, I suppose?"
"Oh yes. It was all right in the end. Frau
Kopf's niece happened to go to Baden and saw
78 THE CHORUS
Mother walking in the gardens there. She tele-
graphed, and old Frau Kopf pushed my hat on ;
I remember how she snapped the elastic under my
chin, and tore off to the station with me. Mother's
astonishment was a picture. * That's not Eleanor,'
she said, ' that little object.' But Jimmy ran over
and caught me round the legs. ' It's Dumps,' he
said; 'it's Dumps.' Mother was furious. It was
a most inconvenient time for me to come, she said ;
but then she always says that. She doesn't mean
it." Nelly turned limpid eyes to her listener. "But
wasn't it wonderful of Jimmy to remember me after
two whole years? And he was only three when
I went away."
No complaining, no sense of injury.
"You have seen the witches dancing, Rapunsel,"
thought Steven Young.
"When Aunt Colquhoun dies, you see," Nelly
was telling him, "Jimmy will have the property.
Then we'll be all right. Father wants to get Jimmy,
if he can, of course; but we won't let him do that.
He's capable of anything. He got Jimmy once,
and we had terrible times. But we stole him again,
thank God ! — and we've been dodging with him ever
since. If it wasn't for the money, Father said, he'd
make an end of it and Mother could have Jimmy
for good. You know he'd say Jimmy wasn't his
son, just for spite, for he knows right well it's a
lie, the blackguard." Nelly's cheeks and eyes
blazed in swift excitement. "If Aunt Colquhoun
knew everything she'd disinherit the whole pack of
us. She always hated Mother, and she always
hated me. Her side of the family is dark, you
know."
CONFESSIONS AND OPINIONS 79
Steven Young could not help smiling. He could
hardly believe, he said, that hair even so yellow as
Nelly's could provoke such family disaster.
"Ah, but you've never seen Mother," said Nelly.
"Is she as beautiful as you ?" he asked.
"She isn't as pretty as me," said Nelly, "but I
shall never be such a fine 'W07nan. Joey Harrison
says that, and he knows."
The road before and behind them was deserted.
Steven lifted the hard little hand and put a strangely
reverent kiss on the back of it.
Then Edward Armour cdme to stay with the
Spinks and Steven began to spend his week-ends
in London.
CHAPTER IX
MRS. HAMEL — ANTHONY HAMEL — NELLY HAYES IN
THOUGHT
"Tony," said Mrs. Hamel ; she was deciding
what earrings to put on, and leaned peering, very
intent upon her choice, above the gUtter of her
dressing-table. "Tony — " the voice was elabor-
ately indifferent — "how long do you suppose
that acquaintance of Hilda Concannon's intends
to stay ? "
Anthony, his back to the room, was enjoying the
wide view from the window.
"My dear, I wish you wouldn't speak of the
child like that."
"Why not?" came the gentle drawl. "Why do
you not want me to speak of her like that ? "
"I don't think it matters, does it, how long she
intends to stay? After all, she isn't staying with
us."
"No, of course she isn't staying with us."
"Surely, Erica, you don't object to the child's
being here? "
"Object? Why should I? Why should I
object, Tony ? "
"I know she is in and out of the studio a great
deal, but, Erica — "^he turned to his wife, confiden-
tial suddenly and expansive — "I want her to be
80
MR. AND MRS. HAMEL AND NELLY 81
here. Shall I tell you what I hope will happen ?
I hope she will marry one of our young men. I
dare say she will find the right one. She attracts
them all. I should feel it a splendid thing. I
loathe the thought of her slipping back into the
sort of life she came from. That's what is in my
mind."
]Mrs. Hamel was still intent upon her jewel-
box.
"That's what is in my mind, too."
"Well, then ?"
His voice had a glad ring in it. He loved to
be at one with his Erica.
"Do you think it quite fair, Tony? " She spoke
gravely.
"Fair?"
"vSurely we owe something to our guests?"
Anthony stared at her.
"You are thinking of Edward Armour, of course.
He's such a boy, Tony. Don't you think he
should have a chance to make a maturer choice ?
Think if you had married the girl you wanted
when you were twenty-one ! The girl out of the
tobacconist's, wasn't it? Or was it the robust
widow? His mother — " her voice trembled and
paused for a moment — "it would grieve his mother
terribly."
Anthony had not been thinking of young
Armour. In fact, his thought had not yet par-
ticularized, and now that it did so, it provoked in
him an involuntary irritation.
"I don't see that we are bound to take care that
none of our guests hurt the feelings of any of their
relations. Really, Erica, you are ridiculous. I
o
82 THE CHORUS
don't suppose Nelly would look at him." He felt
quite angry.
Mrs. Hamel, screwing a big pearl to her ear,
smiled contemptuously into the mirror.
"Nelly, as you call her, might do very much
worse. The boy will be a baronet some day. But,
as you say, it is not my business, of course. No
doubt Edward is old enough to take care of him-
self." She left it at that. She had started a new
succession of ideas, however.
Anthony found himself considering the girl in
a new relationship. The vague, cloudy dreams of
his generous nature were suddenly precipitated in
concrete form before him. He had thought of
Nelly as a secure and merry addition to his own
circle, not as definitely the bride of one of his
friends. The more conspicuous the worldly advan-
tages of this match became to him, the more
furiously he felt himself ranged against it.
Teddie Armour ! The thought had never entered
his head. Had they been much together, then ?
Was he himself the only blind onlooker? The
boy had been down for two week-ends, certainly,
and he was staying with his cousins on the common
now. They came in pretty often, all of them.
They were a lively trio. He found he had hardly
noticed the existence of the boy. He had seemed
to Anthony "a nice young fellow" and "a bit of
a dandy," and not worth talking to ; young men
so seldom were. Anthony noticed with increasing
frequency that he did not like young men. Nelly
as a shipping magnate's wife ! The vision could
not be summoned. Surely such a civilized person
as Edward Armour, so correctly accoutred, so
MR. AND MRS. HAMEL AND NELLY 88
reared under glass, would wither in the fresh-
blowing air of Nelly's indiscreetness.
"But why should I detest the thought of it?"
his mind continued. "How do I know how this
boy and girl appear to one another ? They have,
above all things, youth and vigour on their side.
I must appear very old to them." (He was forty-
three.) "I'm out of it. Keep remembering that ! "
he addressed himself. "You are old and out of
it. You have had your pleasures and the ecstasies
of love. Why do you go on envying the joys of
other people ? " Time to let these things slip past
him. He sighed heavily.
Having thus for the moment adjusted himself to
the undramatic role of audience, he began again
to seek a means of meddling in the play. He
pictured himself as a benign providence seeking
a means to unite two starry destinies. He was
going to try to like Edward Armour. "Love,"
he thought, "ennobles and beautifies." He was
content to accept that. Nelly was already celestial.
Perhaps if he tried hard enough so to think him,
Teddie, spite of eyeglass, spats and wrist-watch,
might appear celestial too.
In such a mood of tenderness and sentimentality
he began to make Nelly an engagement-ring, a
jewel that should be of lyrical beauty in itself, and
not merely a symbol of happiness like the otherwise
ugly things of the jewellers' windows. A wedding-
ring, he thought, rightly typifies a common bond,
but an engagement — the hide-and-seek, the flash
or steady glow of mind and temperament — there
must be something individual to reveal in that. A
ring on Nelly's finger should show that someone
84 THE CHORUS
knew how rare a being was she, and not only that
the person who gave it to her had paid fifteen or
forty pounds for it.
He was eager to get to work. It would be so
easy to make a thing characteristic of Nelly, and
inevitably delightful. He would make a little green
figure of the girl herself, he thought, a little golden-
haired Rapunsel of a figure, but she should hold
a lamp, a diamond, to symbolize her truth and
her wise seizing of life, and all about her should
twine the green of the wood, her refreshing
savagery. Enamel, aquamarines, it would be a
lovely little gem. Always when she drew off her
glove then eyes would fasten upon it and people
would wonder where she got "that." And she,
too, would she not look at it often ? He would
never slip quite away into the dim places of
memory while she wore his ring. It would always
be his touch, however light, upon her hand.
Teddie Armour, unpleasantly flushed with victory,
came into his mind. He luxuriated for a moment
in the thought of Nelly's looking at the ring wath
eyes of unfathomable regret. He saw her, remem-
bering the moment when he had slipped it upon
her finger (he overlooked the fact that that would
be Teddie's part), hushing her ecstatic cries, bid-
ding her be happy, to fill her life with all she really
cared about, to grasp what she wanted and enjoy
it to the full. He pictured himself and herself
together : the long look she would exchange with
him, and all the "might have beens " and the "little
mores" and the "little lesses " that the look would
convey, and then his saying, "We who are in the
shadows must see you revelling in the sun. It will
MR. AND MRS. HAMEL AND NELLY 85
set for you, too, some day." His own life, when
his thoughts came dully back to it, appeared, at
the moment, waste and arid to him.
April came suddenly that year with a flood of
blossoms. In the woods the tall trees, caught in
a net of palest green, stood becalmed amid a sea
of primroses. The brown leaf-covered earth of the
Warren was starred with anemones and studded
with the curled fronds of the bracken. At The
Height a thousand daffodils flaunted their saffron.
Every crocus held the shadow of a labouring bee.
The peach and plum trees, crucified against the
brick walls of the terraces, shook each its shower
of petals. Wave after wave of warmth and per-
fume swept from the south. The whole world
shone, a crystal bowl brimming with beauty.
Blackbirds hidden in the orchard trilled and
clamoured without cease, and the flagged cause-
way joining house and studio became all at once
wreathed and arched and intertwined with the
young red leaves of the rose-stems.
Below Elkins's there was a hazel-wood where
a stream wandered. Thither in the mornings,
when there was no place for her at the studio
and Mrs. Elkins's eye pursued her idleness with
too stern an inquiry, Nelly used to go. Here
among the slender shafts of the trees was an idle-
ness that justified her own. Peace would surround
her as she sat on the steep mossy bank, her hands
clasping her knees, her hair covering her with a
yellow shawl, sheltered from the wind, unseen,
unquestioned, so she could indulge her fancies and
picture in tranquillity a future that seemed ever to
be smiling beneath its cloak. In this place she
86 THE CHORUS
felt secure from the punishment-preparing record
of fate. This was the Alsatia of her dreams. Here
she felt happy and confident. Good luck, she
believed, would come to her. It seemed as if,
through all perilous seas of misfortune, it was
coming to her, drawing ever nearer with a piled-up
cargo of delightful things. The day of arrival
was not fixed, but it was certain — certain as death.
She had no doubt of the overwhelming splendour
of the tidings. Sometimes they seemed almost too
close upon her. She had decided that the great
thing should happen the day she was grown up.
That used to be a time remote to invisibility. Now
it hid excitingly round any corner.
Sometimes, when the gay company of week-
enders had seemed most foreign to her, she wished
a letter from her mother would be the beginning —
a letter containing something more than the usual,
though not, alas ! regular, collection of crumpled
bank-notes, stamps, and postal orders mended with
gummed paper. She thought long of her mother
as she sat there : of the big pale face with the
crown of yellow hair, the white arms, the plump
wrists and hands. Her mother always appeared
in the same way in Nelly's memory : always
reclining on a couch, or in a big chair with her
feet upon another, always doing the same thing —
threading ribbons into underclothing. With half-
closed eyes the girl could see the smooth move-
ments of the arms bare in the loose sleeves of the
wrapper, and the frothy pile of nightgowns and
chemises. Other parts of the scene might vary ;
this one never did. Sometimes she seemed to be
in a drab place that smelt of dust, but oftener she
MR. AND MRS. HAMEL AND NELLY 87
was in a big room with a curtained brass bedstead
and an ottoman, two French windows, and a bal-
cony outside, and one of her customary bouquets
filling a stand in the corner. Perhaps they had
once stayed together in a place like that. They
had stayed in so many places. In the corner, too,
would be Jimmy sitting on the floor with his bricks
or a box of soldiers; Jimmy with the black head
and scowling brows, their darling, their adored
one, at whom the word of scorn should never be
cast. He must be quite a big boy now, thought
Nelly ; too big to care any more for the old games,
perhaps. Oh, if only her mother would send for
her!
Then her thoughts turned to her father for a
while and her one memory of him. That was of
a bedroom, too, and she was sitting on the bed, a
tiny, narrow bed under a sloping ceiling. She
had to sit still lest she should bump her head, and
she watched her father, with his back to her, brush-
ing his hair before the glass. He brushed it until
it shone, with two brushes at once, in what seemed
a recklessly brilliant fashion. He had said to
her, " I have stolen you for the day." She must
have been a very little girl. Her feet on the low
bed did not reach the floor. That was all she
remembered.
Then she would think of her mother again. "If
only she would get tired of being so beautiful and
would let me play the game instead ! " But her
mother had said always, in those curious exclama-
tory monologues that took the place of conversation
between her and her little girl, "I shan't give up
until I must," or "I want you to have as long as
88 THE CHORUS
you can." Nelly felt shut out from a whole world
of glamour. "You're growing up too fast, dearie,"
with a sigh, or a violent "Merciful God ! how fast
you do grow ! " If only her mother would be
content to step aside, to abdicate in her favour,
and to say, "It is time we kept our bargain with
Joey Harrison." Joey, after all, meant certainty.
Nelly, however, did not think of him for long,
for this glade of hers was dedicated to pleasant
thoughts. She thought instead of falling in love,
its wonder and its mystery. She heard again her
own voice, a piping baby voice, asking a question.
It had had some intimate connection with love at
the time, she knew that. Two people had been
standing on the hearthrug ; they were immensely
tall — they towered as people did in those days.
One of them she supposed now to have been her
mother. They were talking up there, and all the
air seemed full of a heavy sweetness. One of them
had said to the other, "Your eyes are the loveliest
things in the world. They are black. Now they
are pale sapphires." The other had said, "Yours
are golden and brown. They have little flecks in
them. Now they are looking wicked. I shall cover
them up." Then Nelly, from somewhere near the
floor, had asked, "And what colour are my eyes? "
She had never lost the faith, quickened in her
there, that love is full of secrecy and heavy
sweetness.
How could she expect to grasp happiness when
what she desired was so remote and guarded from
her ? Visioning it unattainable, her breast became
suddenly choked with a passion of tears, but she
did not yield to them. This place was for dreams
MR. AND MRS. HAMEL AND NELLY 89
that might never come true, but were worth dream-
ing all the same. She sent her thoughts round
about. If she could not storm the steep ambition
of her wish, she could perhaps come to it in another
way.
She would think what it would be to be lifted
in complete security out of the harsh uncertainties
of her life. To be no longer aswing between being
"flush" and being "stoney." To have a quiet
husband and a cheque-book of her own. She
pictured herself in a cloth dress coloured like a
blackbird's egg and elaborate with pierced work
and embroidery, in a pearl necklace and a hat with
feathers in it, a grey fur coat, and a motor pal-
pitating outside. She would come to leave her
cards at The Height like that. Somehow it was
always against her present background that she
wished to reveal her glory. She caressed the idea
of entering the lirelit hall, perfectly in keeping
with it, at ease, in harmony. She would have
come, she supposed, to leave cards on Mrs. Hamel.
She hugged the picture of herself. For a moment,
narrowing her eyes, she speculated as to how she
might definitely attain it. She passed the young
men who came down at the week-ends in review.
There w^as Steven Young — a dear, but everyone
said he had no money. Also she was not quite
sure how he regarded her. He came and sat beside
her often and looked at her oftener still, but he
did not pay her compliments or give her things.
He had only, when opportunity tempted, kissed
the unalluring back of her hand. He might have
kissed the palm. He was, in Nelly's opinion, in
fact, a bit of a prig.
90 THE CHORUS
Ardent Keath, with the heavy machinery of his
speeches (there was an undeniable creaking as of
rust about some of them), she considered a "flat."
Pandolefsky was not to be seriously thought of at
all. Teddie Armour was undoubtedly "keen" on
her, and she liked him, but somehow it "wouldn't
wash." He was easy to talk to. He liked hearing
about her theatrical experiences particularly. They
attracted him more than she did herself. She felt
quite "at home" with him, if such an expression,
in Nelly's case, could represent feeling at ease,
but She tried to see herself for a moment
presented to his hostile "mamma," and behaving
with great dignity; and then a vision rose before
her of photographs of bride and bridegroom in
the shiny ladies' papers. She laughed to herself.
It was an alluring prospect. But Teddie Armour
would no more think of proposing to her than of
jumping over the moon — would he ? She did not
dwell upon the thought. She had a dearer dream.
She pictured herself passing down a garden path
trailing an exquisite white dress. (Nelly's taste in
these matters was mature. Thirty seemed to her
the ideal age for clothes.) She would be cutting
roses, she thought, pink ones and white ones and
the ones that are the colour of flesh ; or, it sug-
gested a closer ownership, pulling the withered
petals off as gardeners do. A flat basket, leather
gauntlets on her hands ; it made her the very
mistress of the place ! Somewhere in the garden
someone was watching her; she would come upon
him, perhaps, at the next turn of the path. She
knew who it was. She closed her eyes. An ecstasy
that was almost a sobbing mounted in her throat.
MR. AND MRS. HAMEL AND NELLY 91
She tried, by pressing her eyelids close together,
to make his image leap to life before her. For the
immeasurable fraction of a second he came ; then
he was gone, not to be recaptured. She was
dreaming, dreaming — ah ! impossible things.
She tried to make her happiness more explicit,
but it vanished from her. The garden became too
like the garden on the hill behind her, and she
too like a trespasser stolen within it. Besides,
the thought would creep in like a reproach to her
that Mrs. Hamel never walked in her garden. The
thought of that aloof little lady was, indeed, always
a splash of cold water to the dreamer. She
struggled with the thought; she proved it un-
reasonable, she vanquished it in battle. After all,
she didn't envy the woman ; she didn't want to rob
her, to oust her, to injure her in any way. How
could she help loving "Tony"? Why, even in
her mind to pronounce his Christian name sent a
hot flush all over her. Why shouldn't she love
him? She didn't ask anything in return. She
didn't expect anything. She was only thinking
rapturous things. She wasn't making plans. No
power on earth would keep her from loving him,
anyhow ; and who was Mrs. Hamel that she should
play the dog in the manger? Nelly wasn't going
to pretend to herself about it. "I love him, I love
him, I love him," she breathed aloud. Those words
were a defiance of all the world. She lifted lazy
arms and stretched them with a thrilling gesture.
After all, why shouldn't she love him ? If he
didn't love her, where was the harm? She couldn't
help wanting him to love her, and pretending that
he did; but if she didn't try to make him, if she
92 THE CHORUS
didn't try a bit? If he just thought of her as a
child or as a faithful dog ? A faithful dog ? (Her
eyes filled with tears.) Confronted by this new
humbleness, the reproachful thought slid quietly
away.
Nelly rose up on a wave of happiness. She took
off her shoes and stockings and paddled in the
stream. She made little dams of mossy stones
and saw the water come pouring over them ; she
wriggled her pink toes in the sand. Then she
picked kingcups for the table at Elkins's. She
felt, as she phrased it to herself, "young again."
It was as if a fresh wind lifted her heart. To
love, to pour out all she had in loving, and to ask
for no return. Happiness spread wings within her.
Fortified by good resolutions, she did for the
first time that afternoon what she had long wanted
to do : she waited for Tony at the little iron gate.
He frequently left the car there on his homecomings
and walked up through the garden, instead of
circling it to the main entrance.
He found Nelly at the first turn of the pathway
standing quietly among flowering trees. The air
was heavy with the scent of hawthorn. She was
awaiting him with none of the inconsequence of
chance. For a moment a prick of doubt disturbed
and pleased him. Then she came to him and said
with disillusioning frankness, " I saw you coming
and I waited for you." It was quite simple. There
was no hidden purpose in those clear eyes. Only
their depths held a look he could not fathom, a
soft fire, an intensity.
They walked in step together to the studio.
CHAPTER X
HILDA BEGINS TO GROW UP
Mrs. Hamel was not alone in her observation
of the Armour Attachment. It had jumped too
clearly to the experienced eyes of Miss Fitch, and
from there the news had been transferred, in its
successive stages, to the ears, no less experienced,
of Mrs. Eckstein. There was no doubt about that
at all ; the question they debated was whether they
might look for an engagement and a marriage, or
if the whole affair was a boy and girl sweethearting,
without any likelihood of a sequel. There was
an interesting little symposium in Mrs. Hamel's
boudoir a fortnight after Teddie's first appearance
at Otterbridge, when the ladies, Miss Fitch, Mrs.
Eckstein, and Mrs. Hamel were ostensibly looking
at pattern-books together, but as they turned the
silken leaves to the murmured "That's pretty," "I
don't much care for that," " How^ would it look over
a dark lining?" and so on, a great many things
unconnected with dress-making came to be dis-
cussed as well. The physical nearness of the three
heads, the isolation of the room in the sunny,
spacious morning, drew them to an unguarded
commentary upon the outer ring of their acquaint-
ances, and then, by a process of gradual elimina-
tion, the circle becoming smaller and smaller, they
93
94 THE CHORUS
found themselves arrived at the heart of their
discontent.
To begin with, there was a small breach of good
manners to complain about — it is only the beautiful
idleness of ladies like these that keeps etiquette
alive — and Mrs. Eckstein complained to Miss
Fitch—
"I asked your friend to dinner, Janet, and I
think, as she knows me so little, she should have
written after telephoning. I dare say she is busy,
but it would have been more polite. I don't feel
inclined to ask her again."
And Miss Fitch would take her little revenge by
asking, "Who was the lady sitting on the floor at
your party, Marie? I didn't recollect her face."
"My dear, I've no notion," Mrs. Eckstein de-
fended herself. "Somebody brought her. The
Thring-Smythes, I think. She made herself at
home, didn't she? "
"The new manner, my children, the new manner,"
sighed Mrs. Hamel. "What a pity we have to go
on being polite. We cannot even tell these people
what we think of them."
" I think they must sometimes guess, dear," com-
forted Miss Fitch.
"Oh, by the way," cried Mrs. Eckstein, as one
delivering good news, " I hear the Sopworth me-
nage is anything but roses, roses all the way. Bertie
Egerton was walking behind them the other day,
and they rowed all down the Earl's Court Road.
Bertie said it was better than a Bank Holiday,
and they drowned the noise of the motor-'buses.
Naturally, they were too absorbed to notice him.
It must be very enthralling."
HILDA BEGINS TO GROW UP 95
"They do seem to make themselves unhappy,"
said Mrs. Hamel, trying to speak with mournful
gravity, but unable to keep a smile from her lips.
"Well, if I had announced in all the papers that
my divorce was the re-beginning of the golden age,
I should lock my door, my dear, before I began to
quarrel," said Mrs. Eckstein. "Just for propriety's
sake."
"Oh, my dear Marie," cried Miss Fitch, "that
is the last sake to appeal to. Don't you know the
new version of Villiers de L'Isle Adam's philo-
sophy : ' As for observing the proprieties, our
servants can do that for us ' ? "
"Oh, Janet, don't let life make you cynical," sup-
plicated Mrs. Hamel earnestly; but a few minutes
later she was cautioning Miss Fitch against sen-
timentality. The conversation had closed in upon
The Height itself, and the gleeful airiness as of
spirits had been displaced by sensations of dislike
and championship.
"It makes me exceedingly uneasy," said Mrs.
Hamel. "Lady Armour will be sure to blame me
if anything happens."
"But surely nothing will happen," Mrs. Eck-
stein said, with assurance; "the boy talks too much
about it."
"What do his cousins think of it, Janet? " asked
Mrs. Hamel.
"Oh, they are highly amused."
"Incomprehensible girls ! "
"I wish we could persuade them to stop it," said
Mrs. Hamel.
"They've asked him to stay longer specially to
be near Nelly," Miss Fitch told her.
96 THE CHORUS
" Well, I dare say it's better than going away and
writing a lot of silly letters."
"My dear Erica, you have a sensational mind."
"My dear Janet, we are dealing with a sensational
person. You've heard the family history ? "
"Oh that! But one isn't expected to believe a
word of it, is one ? "
"In any case it shows you the sort of person you
have to deal with."
"Oh, I'm not going to deal with anyone, Erica,"
cried Miss Fitch. "I decline to be ferocious. And
most men might do worse than marry Aphrodite
Anadyomene."
"She dresses quaintly, doesn't she?" said Mrs.
Eckstein, bringing them back to the patterns again.
It was disappointing to find Miss Fitch a waverer.
"You oughtn't to be sentimental, Janet," Mrs.
Hamel counselled her. " I don't wish to be unkind,
I'm sure; but in cases like this one has to sym-
pathize with someone, and I prefer to sympathize
with my friend's son."
"Doubtless if he knew he would appreciate it,"
said Miss Fitch dryly. They turned to the figured
voiles. So Nelly had become "a case," had she?
The girl's bright youthfulness rose to Miss Fitch's
mind and she thought, "Here we are hobnobbing
over her destiny like witches round a cauldron."
She smiled at Mrs. Hamel and said, "Well, I
ought to write some letters. Good-bye till lunch-
time."
Outside in the corridor she was strongly aware
that she had joined the fell squadron of the enemy.
She did not write letters. She went into the garden
and stood watching the cloud-shadows pouring
HILDA BEGINS TO GROW UP 9?
across the hills, the tossing leaves, feeling the
warm freshness of the sun, scenting the scattered
perfumes. It came to her that Nelly was a part of
all this. She could no more try to suppress and
hide the girl than to order the prodigalities of
Nature.
Mrs. Eckstein came presently and joined her.
They talked.
" Edward Armour is a very good match, certainly."
"What do you think of him personally?"
"He's a nice boy," said INlrs. Eckstein; "it's a
pity he's so young."
"That's the worst of it," said Miss Fitch; "if
he proposes we'll know he's a darling, and if he's
a darling it is a pity for him to be gobbled. But
she must accept him."
" He may not be serious at all, of course. He has
a small mouth signifying caution ! " said iNIrs.
Eckstein.
" But a red jowl signifying danger," laughed Miss
Fitch.
"Of course, Janet, you know I hardly think I
should like, if he were my son, for him to marry
Nelly."
"Ah, poor child," cried Miss Fitch, "what a
wrong it is for her to have no one but herself to
depend on. We've had life smoothed and made
easy for us, a flight of even steps from our nurseries
to our graves, and we never let go the bannisters !
W^e have relations and friends and people who knew
our fathers, and good advice and good clothes, and
good husbands, too, chosen for us whenever we
permit it. Imagine what it would have been like
at her age if we'd had no one to say ' you may ' and
H
98 THE CHORUS
' you mayn't,' and flattery going up all round one
like incense. It's appalling. I wonder she has
kept her head at all. I should have made thirty
fools of myself. And so would you."
"1 don't quite see what we can do, all the same,
Janet," said Mrs. Eckstein diffidently.
" I shall let her know that someone is on her
side," said Miss Fitch.
"But we don't even know which her side is,"
said Mrs. Eckstein.
"Oh, nonsense! " said Miss Fitch.
She determined to seek for allies.
Hilda alone was unconscious of what was happen-
ing. She knew that something was in the air, but
its effect on her was simply to give her a feeling of
being "out of it." She was surprised when a mes-
sapfe reached her from Mrs. Hamel to come and take
tea that afternoon. The lady had not shown much
interest in her lately, and Hilda was glad that it
should revive again. Mrs. Hamel was positively
gushing.
"Come and sit near me," she cried, "and have a
real talk. Tell me all about your work and how
you are getting on, and what horrid books you are
reading."
Hilda told her. When she chose to be amiable
it was impossible not to like Mrs. Hamel. Pre-
sently came the question —
"And where is the beautiful Nelly? Does she
still enjoy being here ? "
"Oh yes, immensely ! She's over at the Spinks
now, practising putting with Teddie Armour."
Mrs. Hamel put down her cup and assumed an
intimately mysterious air.
.c->
HILDA BEGINS TO GROW UP 99
"What do you think of it, Hilda?"
"Think of what, Mrs. Hamel ? "
" I mean do you think Edward Armour serious
about Nelly?" '
"Serious? Do you mean in love with her ? I've
never thought about it."
She puckered her forehead. She was puzzled
and a trifle vexed. She ought to have known of
this before, she felt ; it was somehow rather humili-
ating to have to be told what she should have seen
for herself. All her old opinions and judgments
began a shuffling readjustment in her mind.
"I haven't thought about it," she said blankly.
"Would you like to see them engaged?" sug-
gested Mrs. Hamel.
More dazzling revelation of her own stupidity !
"Engaged?" cried Hilda. "Oh, Mrs. Hamel!
Who in their senses would want to marry Teddie
Armour ? "
" Nearly anyone in their senses, I should say,"
said Mrs. Hamel with asperity.
"But he's so completely ordinary," protested
Hilda.
"He's an exceedingly nice young fellow," said
Mrs. Hamel, tight-lipped.
"But to marry him ? " scoffed Hilda.
"I certainly hope she will not marry him," said
Mrs. Hamel. "It would ruin him for life."
"It would ruin Nelly for life, too, I should
think," said Hilda tiresomely.
" I wish you would use your influence with her,
Hilda. She looks up to you so much," tried Mrs.
Hamel.
"Oh, I don't think she does," said the provoking
100 THE CHORUS
young woman. Mrs. Hamel would willingly have
shaken her.
On the way home Hilda suddenly laughed.
What had they been quarrelling about? They
were entirely in agreement about the issue. It
was Mrs. Hamel's attitude towards Nelly — the
"circus-rider " attitude — that had caused the trouble.
Did Edward Armour want to marry Nelly ? How
silly it all was, and they were both so young. Be-
sides, Nelly said she was engaged already. She was
hardly going to marry two people at once, was she ?
It was all a muddle. Hilda stifled a feeling of
resentment that grew inexplicably within her. Why
had she not seen ? Why had she been out of it
when everyone else at The Height had been gossip-
ing for weeks. It was with difficulty that she pre-
vented herself from feeling aggrieved.
Meanwhile, Miss Fitch had not spent the after-
noon in idleness. Ardent Keath, bidden to come
and walk round the garden with her, was ap-
proached successfully. To begin with he said —
" I refuse to believe that these things are not
best left to chance. Who will risk influencing the
destiny of another soul ? "
"You are a miserable coward," smiled Miss Fitch.
"Standing still is as much an active verb as run-
ning. I'm sure more harm has been done in this
world by letting things drift than by meddling."
"But what do you want me to do?" protested
Ardent Keath. "You don't make human marriages
by turning people loose in a paddock, more's the
pity."
"More isn't the pity," said Miss Fitch, "and I'm
not asking you to do anything of the kind. I only
HILDA BEGINS TO GROW UP 101
want you not to make special plans for Nelly, not
to walk with her, or ask her to play golf, or read
to her, or anything- for a day or so."
"I shall let Xelly — " he was a little shy with the
name — "do just as she pleases." He was unpleas-
antly surprised to find his attentions thus marked
and catalogued.
"Dear Ardent, don't you know that Nelly is the
sort of girl that likes to do what other people
want ? "
He would not agree with her. All the same he
left Nelly alone as she asked him. She had made
him too self-conscious to find pleasure in anything
else.
Pursuing her policy of interference. Miss Fitch
next morning, while the girls were still at breakfast,
knocked at the Elkinses' door. It was Sunday, and
the air had the subdued sweetness of the country
vSabbath. Even the bees seemed to pursue their
murmurous occupations without vigour. From over
the hill came the pathetic sound of distant bells.
"You darling, come in," the girls called to her.
"Have some breakfast." They were fond of Miss
Fitch, for she treated them as reasonable beings.
She did not laugh at them and call them odd, or
stop their confidences with "What strange things
you girls do say ! " or "Where can you have learnt
to think that?" She was good company herself,
and seemed to expect them to be good company
too.
She settled herself in a chair and said, while they
spread their marmalade, "I came down for a walk
and to see you."
"You're not joining the Church party? "
102 THE CHORUS
"No, I've done my duty in that connection often
enough this year. Mrs. Hamel has plenty of re-
cruits to-day without me. I left them buttoning-
their gloves. Well, Hilda, how is everything
going? I haven't seen any of your work for ever
so long." ^' ■
"There really hasn't been anything to show."
"Why, I thought you were doing splendidly.
Mr. Hamel always speaks as if you were going to
do great things."
(It was one of INIiss Fitch's social laws that
compliments should be repeated.)
"Does he?" said Hilda, becoming more cheerful
immediately. "All the same, I seem to have
stuck lately. I can't get anything finished.
There's always a crowd in the studio. I flounder
about, and no one has tifne to help me."
"Wouldn't Mr. Pandolefsky be a help if Mr.
Hamel's too busy?"
"No, thank-you," said Hilda, grimacing. "I'd
rather have the disease than that remedy. I ex-
pect I'm only grousing. Practice is what I want,
and I'm getting that. I've a lot of things on hand,
but I know I'm doing them all wrong because
they're giving me so much trouble. The right way
is always the easy way— isn't it?"
"Don't mind her," cried Nelly, "she's making
lovely things really."
"I'm spoiling them," said Hilda obstinately, "and
I'm not getting anything done. There's a silver
casket in low relief set with crystals — I've put the
feet on four times if I've put them on once, and
they still look rickety. And the coffee spoons will
simply have to be melted again, and I've spent a
HILDA BEGINS TO GROW UP 108
week nearly on each of them." She described them.
Each was to have a different bird in a branch for
the handle and the bowls were to be smooth and
brightly polished. But Miss Fitch had not come to
Elkins's to talk about Hilda's work.
" What are your plans for to-day ? " she asked
generally.
"Oh, tennis, I suppose, with the Spinks."
"Isn't Edward Armour staying with them now ?"
Hilda looked hard at her — had the name cropped
up with purposeful irrelevance?
"Yes. Their cousin. Not a bad little beast."
"A charming boy," said Miss Fitch emphatically.
" What brings him down so often ? "
"I suppose he likes coming," said Nelly, smiling.
"I could suppose that for myself, dear child,"
said Miss Fitch, smiling too. " He'll be Sir Edward
one fine day, and immensely rich. His mamma is
very anxious to keep him out of mischief."
Nelly's smile widened.
Hilda wondered on which side Miss Fitch was
pulling her invisible string — there seemed to be
such a bunch of strings pulling at Nelly. She
looked straight into Miss Fitch's eyes to indicate
that she knew there was a game afoot, and said—
"I should think Master Edward well able to take
care of himself." She experienced a delightful
flutter, as of one delivering a pass-word. She felt
as if she had been admitted into a secret society,
the freemasonry of grown-up women.
"1 should think so, too," said Miss Fitch.
"Teddie is really a man, not a mere child."
(Where was she pulling?) "I wonder if he would
be able to take care of anyone else ? "
104 THE CHORUS
"I should not care to be the experiment," pulled
Hilda.
"I think you are wrong. I believe he'd be
immensely kind to anyone he cared for. And
he's rich and healthy, and has nice manners. I
don't know what else anyone could want."
" But he's so stodgy and tame, and afraid of doing
anything extraordinary."
"I'hat's only his outside. He's probably much
more interesting inside." She addressed Nelly
point blank: "What do you think?"
"I'm considering," said Nelly. "I like him, of
course. He's taking me a walk this afternoon.
He's going to show me the view from the Warren."
"The view from the Warren?" cried Miss Fitch,
with delighted raillery. "Is there some new feature
in the landscape, then ? "
But seeing that Nelly did not laugh with her, she
added: "Of course, places differ altogether seeing
them with different people. Even the Isles of
Greece as T saw them, with a number of German
ladies in cloth caps and plaid shawls, lacked
glamour. Some people make the grass greener and
the sky bluer than others, don't they? I don't
mean the Post-Impressionists."
Nelly smiled wisely. It was impossible to tell
what she was thinking.
Hilda continued the contest.
"Do you think a man's being rich a good enough
reason for marrying him?"
"I don't think it at all a bad one, if he's a nice
man."
"I think a marriage of that sort simply a
tragedy," said Hilda sententiously.
HILDA BEGINS TO GROW UP 105
"For idealists like you, yes; but not for every-
one."
"I thought a tragedy was a play people died in,"
said Nelly softly.
"It's more often a reality people live in," pounced
Miss Fitch.
"But that's what I say," cried Hilda; "why do
you advise, then "
"My dear, I'm not advising. But if I were, I'd
say that even a tragedy is better than nothing."
She sat silent a moment, thinking, perhaps re-
gretting; then she rose, shook hands with them
brightly, and was gone. She congratulated herself
that she had let Nelly know quite plainly that some-
one was on her side.
After lunch, while The Height was stewing in
a warm silence, broken by the sound of an occa-
sional paper-knife cutting the pages of a novel. Miss
Fitch's restless spirit impelled her to wonder what
Anthony was thinking. The thought made her sit
upright and roll her eyes mischievously. Where
was she likely to find him? A lucky instinct sent
her towards the studio. She was struck anew with
the handsomeness of him. There was surely no
one in the world with quite so many perfections as
Anthony. No wonder all women adored him. She
would adore him herself if only she could rid herself
of the analytic mood, the destructive mood, the
search for the weak spot. vShe had not found An-
thony's yet. That made him persistently interest-
ing. And he was so splendid to look at, and so
warm in his greeting. Evidently he had longed for
someone to listen to him., and here was the fortunate
hour. He was bitter and communicative.
106 THE CHORUS
He had come there to get away from the chatter.
He felt just then that he loathed the sight and
sound of nearly everybody. They were all talking
motors in there and golf — his wife's friends — very
decent people, but "They regard me as a freak, you
know — the lion-faced genius sort of thing " — he
wasn't in the mood for making conversation — he
simply wanted to talk. He confessed to a particular
loathing for the sight and sound of young men.
He wondered whether he had looked such a sickly
fool when he was young, and whether love was
always ridiculous except to the people who felt it.
He complained that attainment was so much less
interesting than promise, fulfilment than hope.
"But that's been the lament since the beginning
of the world." And then suddenly he was speaking
of Nelly, "the one person I don't have to pose to.
She doesn't care whether I'm a success or a failure.
Upon my soul I don't believe she knows. It's
restful, Janet. All the other girls that come here
sooner or later fish out an autograph-book. When
I show off she just says, ' You're a clever little
chap * — what an exquisite voice she has ! "
"And here she is," thought Miss Fitch, "walking
in a wood with Teddie Armour instead of staying
in the studio with Anthony Hamel." She lit a
sympathetic cigarette. Certainly it was hard to be
deserted in one's old age. She quenched the satire
in her eyes.
He told her about the ring he was making.
"It's been made clear to me in a hundred ways
that an engagement is inevitable. I try to like the
idea of it, but I've got used to seeing her about the
house, and I can't help thinking all the time how I
HILDA BEGINS TO GROW UP 107
shall miss her. T suppose a father feels much as 1
when a daug-hter marries."
"Doubtless," said Miss Fitch.
"Erica doesn't like the idea of the marriage. It
was she who told me about it. I wanted to be
enthusiastic, but I can't help disliking it, too. I
hate it. But old age is always envious of youth.
Tell me I'm ridiculous, Janet."
She did not tell him that. vShe had never liked
him better. She was curious to see the ring, though.
"Some day, some other day, when it's finished. It's
the best thing I've ever done — but then I always
think that ! "
"Anthonv, you're a wonderful creature." She
left him in gayer spirits. She herself was intensely
alert. She hoped with increasing ardour that Nelly
would land her baronet. On her way back to the
house she amused herself with imagining the effect
of the engagement upon the individual members of
their circle.
She found Mrs. Ilamel presiding in the drawing-
room over a sedate company who seemed still
to swoon under the spell of luncheon— Colonel
and Mrs. Archibald, the Tolly-Keens and their
daughter. Miss Fitch could not help thinking how
much livelier a chatter Tony's poor disreputables
would have been making. Even Mrs. Eckstein's
tea-gown, brilliant as it was, could not dispel the
atmospheric depression, and the cheerfullest sound
in the room was a fly battering high up against
the corner of a window-pane. Presently Ardent
Keath came in, and after him the tea-cups. The
prospect of cucumber sandwiches and maraschino
cake stirred them all at last out of their lethargy.
108 THE CHORUS
"Where, I wonder, are Edward Armour and the
Spink girls?" Mrs. Hamel inquired of the room.
"I expect them to tea to-day."
"Hilda Concannon was to have played tennis
with them, 1 think," said Miss Fitch demurely,
"and there was something- said about a walk, too,
and the view from the Warren — oh, but it was
Nelly Hayes who was to be shown that."
"I don't see why they should be late, even so,"
said Mrs. Hamel with annoyance. She became
frankly absent-minded while the Tolly-Keens and
Colonel Archibald named the places within easy
reach by motor of Otterbridge.
"Charming run." "Delightful run." "Bad sur-
face to the road." "Nasty corner at William-
stowe." . . . "The car jumped and both lamps
were in fragments — simply in smithereens — very
dangerous, very dangerous — of course I sacked the
fella. ..."
A great babble of voices in the hall and the
Spink girls burst joyously upon them,
"We got so hot playing tennis, and then we
found it was most frightfully late. We've been
scrambling up the hill as fast as we could, but we
had to change first — to clean ourselves. Rut liter-
ally, the grass was so wet . . . Oh, thank you
... no I'll have cucumber . . . We are so
ashamed of being late . . . Yes, I did get rather
a bad one — frightfully slippery . . . They won the
first and we won the last two sets. We'd have
won them all, onlv Margery was so greedy at
lunch . . . You can't play good tennis on a gorge
of salmon mayonnaise, can you, Mr. Keath ? . . ."
And so on, and so on.
HILDA BEGINS TO GROW UP 109
Mrs. Hamel's chill voice interrupted. "And
where is your cousin Edward ? "
"Oh, Teddie, I'd forgotten all about him I He
was to have been here. Isn't he?"
Miss Spink looked round the room as if he
might be there and have escaped observation.
Then she began to laugh. "But, of course ! This
is the great day. He's showing Nelly Hayes the
view from the Warren."
Again that phrase. It seemed almost a con-
certed plan prepared against her prejudices. Mrs.
Hamel stiffened.
A new arrival sounded from the hall.
"Here's Teddie, here's Hippocrene," squeaked
the youngest Miss Spink to Miss Fitch's private
ear. "Watch him ! See him blush ! "
"Quiet, dreadful child ! " said Miss Fitch.
The young man did blush, he was lamentably
aware of his cousin's ruthless scrutiny. Suitable
words of apology for his lateness came to his lips,
however, as he greeted Mrs. Hamel; but once the
stir of handshaking, introducing, accepting tea-cup
and scone were over he was seen to sit on the edge
of his chair in a rather miserable silence.
"Had a good walk, Teddie?" inquired Miss
Margery Spink.
"Yes, thanks. Had a good game?" asked
Teddie.
Miss Fitch and Mrs. Eckstein gave it up in
despair and went for consolation to the library.
" He doesn't look much like a happy bride-
groom, Janet," said Mrs. Eckstein.
"He does not," said Miss Fitch.
The tea-party was dispersing. Colonel and Mrs.
110 THE CHORUS
Archibald wanted a little walk before supper. Miss
Tolly-Keen was anxious to get upstairs and see how
she looked with her hair done like Mrs. Eckstein's.
The Spink girls had a message for the rectory.
"Let Edward stay a little while," said Mrs.
Hamel ; "I want to talk to him."
Thus encouraged, Mr. and ^Irs. Tolly-Keen took
themselves off, too. Ardent Keath had seen a
fatuous statement about the new composer, Savaloy,
in the morning's paper, and was going to wTite a
letter about it. At last Mrs. Hamel had Teddie to
herself.
Half closing her glass-green eyes, she prepared
for the attack.
" What have you been doing with yourself
lately?" she said. "We haven't seen much of
you."
"Oh, loafing about, you know. Golf and tennis
and that sort of thing."
"I should think you'll be quite glad to get back
to Cambridge."
" I shan't be sorry."
"When do you go?"
"Twenty-fifth."
"What have you been doing this afternoon?"
Mrs. Hamel cross-questioned unconcernedly.
"I've been for a walk. Charmingly pretty
country it is down here."
" For a walk. All alone ? "'
Confound the woman !
"No, I wasn't alone. Miss Hayes was kind
enough to come with me."
That settled her. He could hardly have bettered
that. But no.
HILDA BEGINS TO GROW UP 111
"Miss Hayes? You know her well then."
"Pretty well, yes."
"Edward," Mrs. Hamel became appealing; "I
know your mother very well. Won't you tell
me ? "
"There isn't anything to tell, Mrs. Hamel."
" You are not engaged to anyone ? "
"She wouldn't have me."
His voice choked a little. He was very miserable.
"That is hard lines," said Mrs. Hamel, satis-
faction sending a pretty flush to her cheeks. "But
I can't help reminding you that you are very
young. Too young, dear Edward, to think of such
things."
Edward boiled. "Does she think me a baby?"
He was thankful to say good-bye.
In the hall he found Miss Fitch. She hailed him
cheerily.
"So she wouldn't have you ? "
" How do you know ? "
"I know from your face. I'm sorry."
They shook hands. "She's the sweetest — the
most beautiful "
"Don't give up hope," said Miss Fitch.
" I shall never care for anyone else," said the
dejected young man.
"Oh yes, you will. You will, indeed. But,
Teddie " — did all the women think they'd a right
now to Christian-name him? — "don't count on all
the girls refusing you." And what did she mean
by that?
He returned to the Spinks.
Nelly Hayes had gone up in the general estima-
tion. The girl aimed high. Questioned by the
112 THE CHORUS
inexorable Miss Fitch that evening, she lifted her
head proudly.
"I am not a cradle-snatcher," she said.
"My dear child, you are far nearer the cradle
than he is."
"Ah, no," said Nellie gravely.
CHAPTER XI
WEEPING AND KISSING
Edward Armour's departure took for Nelly the
immediate interest out of life. It gave her the
feeling- of dullness that the return from a holiday
to familiar surroundings gives. It was grey-
ness and rain on the heels of blue summer. His
presence and the excitement his interest in her
had aroused in other people had for a while
dimmed that sense of the future which made all
her doings seem unreal and the life that she was
living less like her own existence than that of a
stranger. Now there was nothing to do but to
walk alone or read alone — a thing she never enjoyed
— to laugh with the Spink girls when the object
of laughter had become retrospective, to face Pan-
dolefsky's scowls in the studio, and always to be
unnecessary and in the way. Anthony had gone,
too. That was the real misfortune of the moment,
and without him the precincts of The Height
seemed more than ever hostile to her. Hilda,
rejoicing when a week-end was past, was filling
the quiet days with a fury of work. Only Nelly's
occupation was gone.
Walking sadly in the grass at the edge of the
road, a solitary figure timid of the solitude, or
sitting chin on hand in the hazel wood, she would
1 IIS
114 THE CHORUS
have to remind herself again and again, "This is
my Hfe ; I am hving now, not to-morrow or the
day after that." And then the agonizing question,
''This my Hfe?" \\^hat was going to happen to
her? Where should she go when Hilda was ready
to leave Otterbridge ? Would she be packing her
box and going away for ever, and no memory after
her, just "that's over," like a footprint on wet
sand ? She wanted all these people with their busy
lives to have some thought of her. They all seemed
solid, somehow, in a way she was not. Was it their
houses that established them, she wondered, or
simply their contentment? Perhaps that was it.
AA'hen she had gone away would any of them ask
her to come back, or talk of her at all ? She
thought they would not. She wished she did not
think. She realized, with an aching heart, that it
was nearly May, that the time toward which she
had stretched eager hands a month before was
upon her. Soon it would be past her, and no
load of wonder with it, no miracle, no whirlwind
of amazing joy. The future had just slid into the
present dulled and tarnished. She wished she could
have found a cave somewhere and crawled into it
and put her face into her arms and slept until a
gayer morning dawned. She realized how deadly
her disappointment was. The achievement of
Edward Armour had for the time amused her out
of her essential thoughts and longings. Now there
was a blankness until Anthony came back. A
dread shivered into life before her that there would
be nothing even' then. She steadied herself to
contemplate nothingness. Why had she ever ex-
pected anything else, and what was the else that
WEEPING AND KISSING 115
she had expected? What fantastic world had she
been living in where every meeting with him filled
her soul with an ecstasy of longing and her brain
with a myriad crude, unrealizable hopes ? Was it
possible to love him so much and yet at each
meeting to be no closer to him than that first time,
when he had said ? She remembered all the
things that he had said. Yes, it was possible.
She could not accustom herself to the coldness of
reality. "He doesn't love me. He doesn't love
me. He will never love me," she kept repeating;
but did she let her mind wander from the reiterated
lament for a moment, her eyes became filled at
once with visions of herself w-alking hand in hand
with him or sleeping against his breast. *' I would
die for you, Tony," her brain would say instead;
"I would die for you." Try as she might that
image defeated any knowledge. She found herself
thinking, as she had thought every day for two
months past, "The next time I see him — it will
happen the next time," and she pictured how it
would begin, and invented words of love for him
and tried to hear his voice saying them, and to
feel the warmth of his arms about her shoulders.
And when she found no consolation in this pre-
tending, she would wonder if it was her own fault
that she was so far unsatisfied; and she would
remember some dim precept of her mother's that
there was always a moment in any conversation
with a man that a woman could make him want
to kiss her, and she would wonder if she had been
particularly stupid in her dealings with him, and
she would try to remember all the talks they had
had, sentence after sentence, and say to herself :
116 THE CHORUS
"There — if I had turned to him quickly then — if I
had touched his sleeve then " And she reminded
herself that she had hardly seen him alone.
Then she would feel that she was only hood-
winking herself, and, worse still, that she was being-
gross, and she would cover her eyes with her
hands and begin the lament again: "He doesn't
love me. He will never love me," and then, small
comfort to her vanity: "And I haven't tried to
make him. I haven't tried and I ivon't try."
After that came the question, "But if I did try? "
and she would find herself puckering her mouth
to meet the empty air, and all the sweet insanities
rising in her brain. And so on round and round.
"Mr. Hamel is back," Hilda said to her a few
days later, "tie's been up in Cumberland; he's
been "
But Nelly could not hear the rest. Her ears
were deafened with the beating of her heart. Every
day she had waited for that news; it seemed as if
she had waited for years. The greatness of her
gladness paralysed her. She sent an even little
voice to suppose him in "great form." And a
mouse-like "yes" to Hilda's: "I'm jolly glad he's
back. The studio seems dead when he's away.
He's such a darling." If only her thoughts could
leap free and unashamed into words.
Fighting her longing, she did not go to the
studio next day. She told herself that she dared
not go. She felt too desperate, too headlong.
Something she did not understand seemed burst-
ing its bonds within her. She felt as if another
disappointment would send her mad. She found
herself wringing her hands and exclaiming aloud
WEEPING AND KISSING 117
as she walked in the woods. She had a horrible
certainty that she was about to stake all she had and
lose, and yet that she would not be able to help
staking. It was nightmarish. She prayed that
they might all float on as they were. That nothing
should happen, nothing, nothing. She felt she
could not grasp her joy if it were offered to her.
She prayed hysterically for death.
Hilda asked her again the next day : "Aren't you
coming up to the studio this afternoon ? "
"Oh, I should only be in the way. I'm in a
bad mood."
"Well, come and play tennis with the Spinks,
then. I'm going."
"Perhaps I will, if I feel lively. But there are
four of you, anyway. Don't wait for me."
"Just as you like," said Hilda.
She was not sorry to be sometimes without her
little friend.
Nelly spent the day in solitude. She hated her-
self for her decision. She railed at herself for it;
but she made no effort to go. "I'm not going,"
she kept saying; "I'm going to sit quite still and
let God do what He likes with me." The afternoon
passed, passed, passed.
And then suddenly she had leapt in trembling
eagerness to her feet. " If I hurry," she kept
repeating, "if I hurry I shall be in time." She
did not wait to put on a hat. She was amazed at
her wild haste. She stumbled as she walked.
"Don't be silly," she told herself; "you fool,
don't be so silly. There's nothing to cry about.
If you don't find her at the studio she'll be at the
Spinks'. You can't miss her." And underneath
118 THE CHORUS
all the time she heard another voice warninq- her,
warning- her with an irritating cocksureness : "He
won't be there. The studio will be shut. Take it
calmly. He won't be there."
The afternoon was warm and golden. The
Height seemed deserted. Nelly closed the little
gate with an almost convulsive secrecy. She was
instantly responsive to the garden's mood. Some-
where one of the lawns was being mowed. The
rattle and hush of the machine came desolate as
waves on a stony beach. There was no other
sound. Sadness uncontrollable swept over her. A
sense of failure, of opportunity offered and rejected.
For the first time she reproached herself for refusing
Edward Armour. There was the good thing that
had been in store for her. She would never have
such a chance again. That would have broken the
chain of her old life for ever. That would have
meant wings and glorious possibilities. Never
again might she choose to be lucky. She would
never have a pearl necklace now. That chance did
not come twice to girls like her. What a fool she
had been ! Good luck had been thrown into her
lap and she had not had the wit to recognize it.
Oh, why had she fallen in love? "Never in love;
never in love," her mother's voice came back to
her; "that ruins everything." She had meant to
be so different from her mother, so secure, so
happy. "I've suffered and I know," came back
the voice. Wasn't her mother's suffering enough
for both of them? She believed, she knew, and
yet she had behaved like this. She had felt the
bird of fortune nestling in her hand and she had
let it fly. She had let it fly and she could not
WEEPING AND KISSING 119
call it back again. "If only — if only " But
what was done was done. There was no changing
it. Here was the end of the path and the studio
door, and emptiness on the other side. Oh, she
had done with hoping ! That she had learned, at
any rate. The door was ajar.
With what seemed a physical effort she crushed
down every emotion of hope, of grief, of rapture
in her breast; she became numb. Then she caught
sight of Tony.
A tall man in a white jersey, standing near a
stove. Whv should all the heavenly choirs start
singing? What glorious harmony should build
itself note on note from his thick hair, his pale,
determined mouth, the balance of his figure in its
passive strength, the peaty smell of the rough coat
on the wall, the smell of tobacco? She adored
him. It seemed to her at that moment as if she
pressed him, small and exquisitely tender, into the
very centre of her heart.
Then she heard her own slow voice saying, as
it always said, "May I come in?"
At the familiar sound he turned and let his eyes
dwell on her. "So vou've come at last," he said.
They stood looking at one another as if their
glances had bound them together. Then he was
coming very gravely to where she stood swayed
towards him upon the topmost step ; he had made
an inarticulate sound, and his hands had caught
her beneath the armpits and he had lifted her down
the steps and crushed her against his body, and
her ears were filled with a deafness as of rushing
water, and her mouth was hurting with the insist-
ence of his kiss.
120 THE CHORUS
"It has happened, it has happened, it has hap-
pened," came into her brain out of the blackness;
and then she opened her eyes and found Tony
standing before her, stooping a little, gripping
both her hands, looking intently into her face,
saying —
"Nelly, my darling, Nelly, is it all right?"
"Yes, Tony, yes, of course it is," she could
scarcely articulate. She was pitifully aware that
she was going to cry.
"What is i^ Nelly, what is it?"
"Nothing, only " The tears brimmed over.
"Oh, my darling — " he was holding her again —
"I have made my darling cry." His mouth caught
hers and stilled its quivering. "My little sweet-
heart that I have made so unhappy."
"Oh, Tony, I'm not unhappy. It's because I am
so gla-ad." She divided the word into two quaint
syllables. She was pulling out her handkerchief.
"Forgive me, my precious one, forgive me. I've
been a brute to you."
"Oh, Tony, you have made me so happy." She
was dabbing her eyes with her grubby ball of a
handkerchief. "I'm not crying now. It was only
that you startled me." She was smiling, but the
tears threatened to overflow again.
"I've tired my darling; she must come and sit
here and rest." He put her into the big chair
and knelt beside her.
"My Nelly, can you ever, ever forgive me?"
"There's nothing, simply nothing, to forgive,
Tony."
She tried to tell him. She felt a swift hatred
for that word.
WEEPING AND KISSING 121
"I've behaved like a brute, like a devil."
She said, "If you speak like that, Tony, I shall
go away and never come back again."
He put his head against her shoulder. "You
must not do that," he said. "Do you love me,
Nelly?"
She gave him her mouth.
It was very quiet in the studio. The level beams
of the sun seemed (o share the long softness and
rapture.
"Do you love me, Nelly?" Would she ever tire
of answering that Cjuestion ?
Presently the first wildness of his passion began
to abate. He put repentant lips upon her hair.
"Child, this ought never to have happened. I
ought not to have let it happen."
She held his hand against her cheek.
" Dearest, you couldn't help it. You didn't know,
my Tony."
*'I could have helped it. I knew the minute I
heard your voice. Do 3'ou hate me, Nelly?"
Hate him? Her sensuous arms went round his
neck again.
"Do you blame me very much, Nelly?"
"Tony, if it's anyone's fault it's mine. I couldn't
help wanting you, Tony."
"You angel!"
"If there's anyone to forgive it's me."
"My child, my child!" He put her smooth
palms upon his eyes. "What are we to do, my
Nelly ? "
"Dear Tony, you are worr3Mng."
"Oh, Nelly, I have made things hideous for
you."
122 THE CHORUS
"You have made ihem — oh, my Tony, more
lovely than I could have dreamed."
"But what are we to do, my beloved child, what
are we to do now? I've behaved most caddishly
to you."
She took her hands from his eyes and looked
earnestly into them.
"Tony," she said in a husky little voice, "I shall
be angry if you talk like that. What we've done
can't be helped. We'll just not think about it.
It'll be my secret. My lovely, wonderful secret.
We'll just go on as if nothing had happened.
Remember, Tony, you must keep my secret."
"Ah, but will we be able to keep it?" he mur-
mured, leaning close upon her again.
"Yes, indeed we will. And, to begin with, I'm
going to make the tea."
He let her unclasp his arms and stand up. She
smiled at him with a dancing, dewy brightness.
She lit the spirit-lamp and began to get out the
cups. They jingled noisily in her hands.
"Absurd!" she said, still smiling. "See how
shaky my hands are ! "
She was again enfolded. "Tell me you forgive
me," said Tony.
"Tony, you promised "
"No, I didn't."
She resigned herself.
"The kettle will boil over. Boss," she warned
him.
"I don't care if it does. I want to talk to you.
I want to ask you a thousand things. Why have
you neglected me lately ? "
"I haven't, Boss, I haven't, truly."
WEEPING AND KISSING 123
"Well, why didn't you come here yesterday and
the day before? Answer, JMadam."
"Isn't to-day better?"
She received her answer —
" How can a nice child like you care for an old
fellow like me ? "
"I don't think I am a child, Tony."
"Yes, you are."
"Well, I don't think you're an old fellow,
then."
"That's better. How old are you, Nellikins?"
" I'm sixteen. Boss,"
"I'm seventeen, then."
"You're a very big boy for your age "
The kettle boiled furiously, and he allowed her
to make the tea.
" When did you begin to care for me, Nelly ? "
How delightful it was — a topic that could never
be discussed too fully !
"From the first moment I saw you, Tony ! "
"Why didn't you tell me, then?"
"What a silly question, Boss! When did you
know you cared for me ? "
"When I heard your blessed voice at the door,
Nelly. And yet, do you know, darling, I think
I've always loved you? You made me very
miserable lately ; do you know that ? "
"Miserable? I?"
"Yes, you, indeed. I thought you liked someone
else. Why did you make everyone think you would
marry Edward Armour ? "
"Oh, poor Teddie ! " She gave a small laugh.
''Did you feel really sorry about that?"
" I felt wretched — and I didn't know whv ! I
124 THE CHORUS
made sure you would marry him. I even made
you an engagement-ring."
"You didn't, Boss."
"My Nelly, I did."
He found it and showed it to her. The little
green gems twinkled on his palm.
"It's not quite finished. That's the finger it
goes on. Now remember you are engaged to
me."
Was he flirting — or had he simply forgotten ?
She stole a glance at him. Well, she would forget,
too.
"It's the prettiest thing I've ever seen. It was
lovely of you to make it for me."
"Is she like you at all, do you think? I meant
her to be."
She raised her hand and kissed the tiny figure.
"She's far nicer than me," said Nelly, "because
you made her."
"Nelly, you're an idolator."
"Tony, I thought we were to go on just as
usual," she said, making an unwilling effort to free
herself.
"So we are, darling."
He opened his arms. She slipped away to the
tea-table.
"H-O-T " she began in her old way.
That was too much. He was forced to follow
her over. He stroked the yellow hair.
"May I?" he said. "I've always wanted to.
Was it hateful of me ? "
He knew the answer to that question. Her
perfect happiness lulled and vanquished him.
They would forget all this and go on as if nothing
WEEPING AND KISSING 125
had happened — to-morrow; but now he Hfted the
heavy hair and kissed the white nape of her neck.
"Tony ! " she implored him.
"Beloved, I am cruel to you."
In the end they did have tea together, Nelly
sitting on a low stool at his side. Her youth had
invested him. He wanted to romp and shout. The
solemnity of passion was over. He behaved
absurdly ; he made her with eyes shut play trust
and paid for with the biscuits, he drank out of her
cup, he kissed her ears until she cried for mercy.
A distant clock's chiming dropped them back to
earth.
"Time for me to go," said Nelly, steadying her
voice.
"I'll come with you."
"Better not."
"Perhaps better not."
She tried to smooth her hair at the glass.
" I shall see you to-morrow ? "
"To-morrow for sure."
"Good-bye then, Nelly."
"Good-bye, dearest Tony."
He held her at arms' length, surveying her
beauty, before he kissed her.
"You're sure you forgive me?"
"Not if you talk in that horrid way."
"I haven't spoilt everything?"
"You've made everything perfect."
He held her close again. "Good-bye, my
darling."
She was going.
" I say," She came back. " I shall be expecting
you."
126 THE CHORUS
"Of course you will."
"One more, then."
"The last."
The last and the last and the very last ; and —
"Oh, Nelly, I think I'd better keep that stupid ring
for you. There's something more to be done to it —
and besides "
"Tony, I'd forgotten it. How dreadful of me."
She drew the tell-tale jewel from her finger.
"We'll find somewhere that you can wear it,
beloved," he promised her. They separated.
And now she was flying, racing, running down
the hill to Elkins's. Joy, mounting upon tumul-
tuous wings, nearly choked her. "It has happened.
It has happened." Nothing could unhappen it
again. The bells pealed and rioted; the seventh
heaven had been reached.
CHAPTER XII
INEVITABLE
Nelly awoke next morning with a puzzled feel-
ing that she had lost something. \\'ith her second
yawn she realized w hat it was : she had lost her
longing. Beyond the utmost pinnacle of joy her
mind had made for itself a vague dark background.
It did not trouble to descry other peaks, other steep
and dangerous places in the long vista of succeed-
ing days. It had distinguished one possible event
and set it high as a landmark. It had forgotten that
any other day must follow the crowned day in the
procession.
A dreamless night brought her back to a sensual
reminiscence of Tony's arms, and then to that
sense of something gone. The event she had
longed for had happened — could she ever want
anything so much again ?■ — and it was already a
memory. Anthony's love might still be before her,
a foreign kingdom to explore, but the thing that
had filled her thoughts, the great moment of revela-
tion, the first kiss, were over. Her sense of empti-
ness almost made her forget that she was happy,
and of course she was happy. Resolute humming
while she dressed began to restore that impression ;
smiling lips, eyes opened wide in sudden sparkles,
gave Hilda the same tidings of light-heartedness ;
and by this double deception a solid three-dimen-
127
128 THE CHORUS
sion illusion was reared up, strengthened by every
fresh glance that rested on her, so like the real
thing that only the most weasel-like insinuations
of the mind could have detected its falsity.
" How's the world ? " she cried, popping her head
into Hilda's room. She felt a tremendous warmth
of affection for Hilda, for Mrs. Elkins, for the
kitten, for the noisy stairs. Her heart embraced
all the people she had met, the woods, the skies,
the month of May — everything that had helped to
give her the arms of her dearest. She repeated to
herself again and again, " I have got what I wanted,
I have got what I wanted," until her responsive
breast was aflame with triumph. She went about
all day buoyed up with the knowledge of Tony's
love. She believed, as she lay and gazed at the
lacquer of summer leaves upon blue sky, that she
did not need him ever to kiss her again. Their
love was perfect and a fact without any physical
expression. She could repeat the rapture of those
first kisses in every sensitive fibre of her body. She
meant that they should go about in the old way
as if nothing had happened, that she should see
him at tea-time and feel his eyes desire her, and
some occult means of expression should convey that
she adored him — that was all. She was too young
for her ardour to need the fuel of caresses. She
was radiantly contented. Her life sang in harmony
with her.
All the same she felt strangely shy before her
next meeting with Anthony. She felt that when
he looked at her she must hide her face in her
hands as children do, visibly expressing the desire
to escape which agitated her soul. "How on
<?
INEVITABLE 129
earth shall I ever get through it ? " she kept
asking herself. She was in acute fear of openly
disgracing herself, of displaying an emotion con-
temptible and unlovely; it was the knowledge that
Hilda and others would be there that finally braced
her.
As she drew nearer to the studio her nervousness
disappeared. She found herself looking at the
flowers with an absent-minded absorption that shut
away her secret alarms ; the May flower-beds were
a blazing profusion. She could almost have vowed
herself indifferent when at last the moment for the
question, "May I come in?" had arrived.
There it all was. Hilda in her blue workman's
blouse, the afternoon sun, the pale walls, the smell
of matting, the big chair with its cushions smooth
and unrumpled, and Tony at his table in the
window. Yesterday might have been only a dream.
She drew a quick breath.
" How goes it ? " she called lightly, to let him
know that all was well with her.
He lifted his head and drew the corners of his
mouth back slightly, as if he perceived a something
grimly humorous in the situation, before he said,
"Come along."
She realized intensely as she stood on the step
that she wanted him to lift her down, as he had
done yesterday. Then she perceived that he was
intent above his table, just as she, a few minutes
before, had been intent above the flower-beds. He
was steadying himself.
That sign of weakness similar to her own filled
her with a wave of tenderness. She began to
talk gaily and excitedly; she brought forward a
K
180 THE CHORUS
troop of unusual slang expressions, she made the
silliest jokes with a feeling of absolute heroism.
After a moment or two Anthony's voice joined in
the laughter. The difficult corner was past.
Over the teacups Nelly regaled them with
snatches of ancient street songs. They felt them-
selves to be golden company. Hilda was enchanted
with Nelly again. This was the old quality that
she expected in her, the irresponsible quality that
had charmed in the appalling Bloomsbury days
when any ordinary mortal would have been looking
glum. Then it had been the difficulty of her
situation that had conjured a bold defiance ; now,
had Hilda known it, the cascades of laughter were
for difficulty again. Anthony's uproarious laugh
kept ringing out. He had dreaded this hour. He
was amazed and delighted at the ease of it.
"O Jerusalem, they made me one of the family !
O Jerusalem, let them do as they like with me ! ''
sang Nelly. Life seemed clear as water.
Next day brought visitors to The Height and
not a glimpse of Tony. For Sunday Hilda had
arranged a picnic on the river with the Spink girls.
They spent the whole day strolling beneath the
willows, the evening playing bridge, while Nelly
lay in the bow and let the cold stream flow against
her wrist. She found the fever she had fancied
stilled rising in her veins again. She was shaken
with gusts of anger. Would she never see Anthony
for a second alone ? How could he waste his time
with all those hateful people ? Her sense of baffle-
ment translated itself for the moment into anger
with him. She began to pretend that he had only
been playing with her. She repeated savagely
INEVITABLE 181
many limes, "Well, / don't care either, then." She
wanted to bite herself in her passion. Yet none
of the other girls guessed the blank rage that was
tearing her. She was outwardly listless and
dreamy. She showed no tremor of her irritation.
Monday, and the thought of seeing him, brought
back the old seethe of longing, and as she entered
the studio her brows drew together in a sullen
scowl. Why didn't he break down all the barriers
that restrained them ? It was for him to do it.
The impossibility of even a private word was a
strain almost past enduring. He was strangely
quiet working at his table. She went and stood
beside him. She had an unaccountable impulse to
yell obscene abuse into his ear. Hilda crossed the
studio to lift a copper plate out of the cleaning
bowl. At that instant Nelly's hand was gripped
with a strength that nearly forced a shriek from
her, and Tony's voice gasped, "Nell!" She
realized then that he was enduring the same tor-
ments as herself. It comforted her while her body
became still more restless. They both looked with
morose eyes at the unconscious Hilda. It was
strange that she, so capable, brisk and pleasant,
should be turning their love into a devouring
flame.
Chance showed no likelihood of favouring them.
Anthony's time at The Height had been spent
in too definite a routine for him to vary his occupa-
tions without causing remark. Nelly, though
wandering over half the countryside every morning,
must linger in the woods alone; and the evenings
which he might have spent nominally hard at work
in the studio, Nelly must spend in company with
132 THE CHORUS
Hilda at Elkins's as she had hitherto done. Acci-
dent had thrown them into one another's arms;
accident now determined to keep them apart. By
the irony of fate they were forced to keep their
good resolution, and as circumstances evolved the
triumph of the conventional, Anthony, his con-
science no longer troubling him, was borne in utter
helplessness into the current of his passion. Virtue
was ruthlessly its own reward. They were denied
even the gloAv of righteousness. Only a dry fever
in the veins, heavy eyes, sleepless nights. Clear
consciences were plainly not enough to promote
sleep. It was only when she had rolled sheet and
blanket into a smooth arm about her neck and
pressed her cheek against the smooth cheek of the
pillow that Nelly could find rest.
The studio was maddeningly full of people. The
Spinks and Hilda, Mrs. Hamel and her guests,
seemed to have entered on a conspiracy to thwart
the lovers. Loads of acquaintances began to arrive
for an afternoon even in the middle of the week :
"The weather was so tempting." Nelly and
Anthony began to feel as if they had no spot to
lay their heads.
At last, one afternoon when only Hilda and her-
self were there, Tony brought out a folio of his old
designs and drawings. " Here, look at this and
keep quiet," he said to Nelly almost roughly.
"Hilda and I are going on with our work."
Nelly, subdued, took the big black case and
opened it upon her knees and began to look at it.
Anthony's voice had hurt her so much that the
tears were pricking her eyes. She turned over the
loose pages : drawings of houses, drawings of
INEVITABLE 188
jewellery, drawings of flowers, of birds, of women,
of dresses, and then in the middle a piece of paper
on which was written something that began,
"Sweetheart, I must see you . . ." and that ended,
"Burn this."
The ancient device, old as civilization itself, of
the billet doux had inevitably evolved itself. From
that time, save for flowered satin, Nelly became one
of those tiny Figures that slyly grace the pillared
background of Watteau's pictures. Her life was as
wildly exciting as hide-and-seek all over the house,
it was exhausting, it was exhilarating, it was fright-
ening, it was beautiful, and it was very ugly indeed.
It was the folk-song hidden in the complicated
splendour of full orchestration ; it was a flame-
coloured thread plaited invisibly among the multi-
tudinous strands of other lives. It sent her about
with downward smiles and sidelong glances alight
and brilliant with mischief. It made her sing to
herself as she walked in the woods ; it made the
hours brush past as lightly as a swallow's wing.
It made the company of her fellows the only soli-
tude. It was mad and it was sad and it was bad ;
it brought about a full half of its well-deserved
tragedy, and it ended in being ridiculous; but while
it lasted !
Anthony had made no complex plan. He had to
be away for three days to direct some alterations in
a house the other side of the next county. If Nelly
could contrive to get to Stenling Park gate (about
two miles out of Otterbridge) by half-past ten they
could have a day together. There were so many
things he wanted to say to her. Nelly could con-
trive it. Her contribution to the conspiracy was to
134 THE CHORUS
get Mrs. Elkins to give her some cold meat and
bread and butter to take with her, as she "intended
to eat her hinch up in the Warren or somewhere "
— that would prevent conspicuously missing a meal.
It was a wonderful May morning when she started
from the house. She accompanied Hilda a bit of
the way uphill to The Height. She had left
herself a bare allowance of time, vet somehow she
found herself dawdling and chattering and defer-
ring the moment when she must leave Hilda and
plunge into the green arcades of the wood. Her
heart was beating rapidly, her knees felt as if she
were wading in water.
At last, with a sharp effort, she managed to say,
"Well, so long, Hilda. I won't come any further.
See you at tea-time." And, having crossed a
narrow plank and scrambled through a gap in the
hedge, the woods enfolded her.
Once there she set off to make up for lost time.
The little path jogged shatteringly downward, the
warm, bitter smell as of walnuts rose at every step
from the crushed leaves and mire beneath her feet,
the patches of sunlight as she ran through them
streamed over her in liquid motion.
Presently she emerged from the trees on the
further side of Otterbridge. The path was now
raised, hugging the side of the road. Coarse
grasses caked with dust bordered it. Yellow colts-
foot, bright-eye and red clover struggled through
them. She walked swiftly, feeling intensely hot.
At Baron's Corner she turned southward into a
lane; its violet-scented, leafy walls made a dark
cavern after the dusty glare of the high road. She
wondered anxiously if she was late. She glanced
INEVITABLE 185
behind for the sight of the motor. The lane began
to go uphill and the hedges dwindled.
An old red wall topped with grey stone succeeded
them on the left. A sharp turn brought her in
sight of the gates. The road was empty. She
walked quite slowly. A sparrow flew down into
her path and up over the wall again. She noticed
the red lettex-box sunk in the wall. "Collections
11.30 a.m. and 5.15 p.m.," she read in passing.
The little square with the time of the next collection
on it had been broken away. One could have
imagined robins building in that letter-box. Little
grass-like moss-flowers poked out of the crannies
of the wall. A chestnut tree had made all the
ground beneath it red with fallen blossoms. She
wished she had a watch, she began to wish she
had not come at all, and then somewhere in the
lane she heard the purr of an approaching car.
She did not cease walking, nor did she turn her
head. This might be the doctor, or Mr. Grew, the
publican from Churchfield. If it was Anthony she
would show him how discreet she was. The car
pulled up beside her.
"Good girl," said Anthony. "Hop in quickly."
Only by his voice could she have recognized
him. He was wearing the most abundant motor
"goggles" she had ever seen. "I've brought a
coat for you and a bonnet," he told her. "Let's
put you into them."
He buttoned the coat beneath her chin. "Better
wear the veil down." Nelly disappeared behind the
mole-grey chiffon. Not till the brakes were released
and the car slid forward had he a sense of security.
Then his spirits rose.
136 THE CHORUS
The wind flowed past them, smooth against the
throat as velvet. The famihar surroundings dis-
appeared in an intoxicating, audacious swoop.
Anthony took off his glasses, Nelly flung back her
veil. She did not question him as to their destina-
tion. He spoke to her at last, glancing down into
her eyes —
"Don't you want to know where I am taking
you ? "
Nelly shook her head. "I don't care a bit," she
assured him.
"Nelly — " he half sighed, half smiled — "you're
a hopeless character."
They pulled up at last at the little inn at Chidder-
w'ick, where no one went since coaching days,
thirty miles from home — and, for the matter of that,
from everywhere. There they had dinner in the
deserted dining-room, while an aged waiter polished
innumerable glasses on a sideboard by the door,
and later they walked in the woods behind the inn
and saw great white and golden clouds streaming
up above the spires of Linbury.
" How wonderful it is ! " said Tony. " How
wonderful ! "
He was speaking, he thought of the clouds, but
he put his arms round her and held her to his
breast.
They did not speak of love that day ; they spoke
only of the small things they could see : a late
primrose, an early briar, the roofs below them
among apple trees, an ascending lark — it was
almost as if their kisses were less the objective
than the accompaniment of the journey.
When it was time to go back Nelly remembered
INEVITABLE 137
her packet of lunch that she had not eaten. She
did not know what to do with it. She had all poor
people's horror of the unluckiness of throwing
away food — a superstition that deserves, indeed,
the honour of a faith. She was absurdly worried
about it, and would not "just throw it into the
hedge " the car tore past, as Tony advised. Grind-
ing up the steep High Street of Linbury they per-
ceived a blind beggar sitting against the wall of
the Market House, a blind beggar black clad and
cowled like a leper.
"Here's your man," said Tony, stopping the
car.
Nelly leapt out. "Could you eat a few cold
beef sandwiches, poor man ? " she addressed the
shrouded figure, and, without waiting for an
answer, popped the parcel into his lap and ran
back to the car. His dismal blessing fo'llowed her.
It was the only one that her excursions with Tony
received. They passed him on their way whenever
they could.
Tony brought her back to Stoddington, west of
Otterbridge, on the Brighton road, by mid-
afternoon.
" I wish I could take you to the door, but, you
see "
"Of course, of course, Tony." She scrambled
out of the cloak and bonnet and put on her own
soft hat.
"Good-bye, my darling. Sure you've enjoyed
it?" The brown fingers lingered on her own. "I
shall have to go like the devil now if I'm to get
to Chichester by daylight."
"Be careful, tony."
138 THE CHORUS
His white teeth flashed at her. The motor was
reversed, the car swung slowly round, a backward
wave of the sunburnt hand, and he was rearing
from her. vShe stood looking after him till he was
nearly out of sight; not quite — that would have
been unlucky. She felt unaccountably crestfallen
as she walked back to Elkins's.
That was the first of many expeditions. Some-
times they met at Stenling Park, sometimes outside
Stoddington. Sometimes they lunched beside a
shallow lake in sunny woods, sometimes under the
sun-bleached downs at Arundel, once at Brighton —
but Nelly's beauty and shabbiness were too astound-
ing there — oftenest at the little inn at Chidderwick ;
but wherever they might make the turning-point
of the journey its happiness for Nelly was ever the
same and was reached at that moment when, the
gooseberry pie or rhubarb pie being eaten, Anthony
let his level eyes dwell upon her, and sent his
strong fingers in pursuit of hers across the table-
cloth, and drew her slowly, in her feigned reluct-
ance, round the table and into the imprisoning
ardour of his arms. Held against his knee, her
head pressed into the accepting cavity of his
shoulder, an hour passed, like the indrawing of
a single breath.
CHAPTER XIII
TRIVIALITIES
Meanwhile life at The Height displayed its
usual unruffled surface, there was as yet no swift
eddy, no snag, no floating weed, no darkening in-
dication of danger. May deepened to June, and the
land lay basking. Even Mrs. Hamel went into the
garden sometimes, and might be seen there lan-
guidly promenading on her maid's arm, or sitting
in a lounge chair in the shadow of the cedar trees
with a pile of uncut novels and books of reminis-
cences, preferably by persons of title, on a table
at her side. She gazed with a detached admiration
that could never be described as enjoyment at the
heavy flowers of the standard roses, at the carna-
tions and stocks and delphiniums. She wore a
shady hat of gracious fashion, and drew long
gloves upon her hands before going out.
Sometimes she invited the girls to come and talk
to her, or rather to let her talk to them. They were
a distinctly tanned and freckled pair, and Erica
could not restrain a feeling of satisfaction at the
contrast of their sunburnt skins to her own white
one. Beside them she appeared as might a china
shepherdess strayed into the company of Dryads.
She enjoyed having little discussions with Hilda
139
140 THE CHORUS
and demolishing the girl's sweeping assertions with
her own maturer knowledge. Mrs. Hamel liked to
illustrate in her own person the common idea of
eternal femininity. When Hilda clapped wings
for independence, Mrs. Hamel expressed her need
to be taken care of; when Hilda waved the flag
for courage of one's own opinions, Mrs. Hamel
hoped she personally would always believe that
there existed wiser heads than her own; when Hilda
hurled the guttings of medical pamphlets at her,
Mrs. Hamel made a strategic movement into cover
with the remark that there were some things she
preferred not to think about.
"You can't get to grips with her," Hilda would
complain, "she'll tell you politely you don't know
what you are taking about, and when you throw
a fact at her she lifts a great shield of decency and
hides behind that."
"She's very clever, Hilda," said Nelly solemnly.
"Oh, if you call that cleverness— but after all,
what does the woman know about anything ? She's
only been married and lain on a sofa for the rest
of her life."
"She knows a good deal, all the same," said
Nelly, "she knows what she wants and she gets it.
That's my notion of cleverness," said Nelly.
She resented Mrs. Hamel's presence in the
garden. The big house and all the elaborations it
contained she could grant her, but the garden and
the fragrant winds that blew there she regarded as
her own. Mrs. Hamel would be coming to the
studio next.
"Say what you will, Hilda," Mrs. Hamel was
saying, "women do not as a whole excel in any art.
TRIVIALITIES 141
There isn't a single department in life that man
cannot beat them in."
"It's just as true to say there isn't a single
department that some women don't beat some
men in."
"My dear girl, what nonsense — look at music,
look at painting ! "
"You seem to agree with the people who think
every man is a mixture of Beethoven and Michael
Angelo ! "
"I don't think anything so silly, but you can't
deny the facts ! "
"I don't deny them. I think women are as
capable of appreciating genius as men. But to use
the artistic genius of certain men as reason for
giving every booby paying house-rent the vote,
seems to be about as relevant as the question,
' Should sawdust merchants dance quadrilles? ' I
don't depend on Helen of Troy and Ninon de
I'Enclos for my case."
" I have a book here which proves quite ably —
if you read it I don't think you could deny the
ability — that if women were excluded from every
profession except physical motherhood, the world
would get on very well without them."
"I can imagine the world getting on very well
without half the paraphernalia of a modern state
if it comes to that. I can imagine it without
la^vyers, or police, or cat's-meat men, or soldiers
very well."
"Oh, of course, if you want to abolish the army
like the peace at any price crowd-^ "
Nelly let the argument drone on above her head.
Her thoughts were filled with one thing only and
142 THE CHORUS
the level distance, the waverinfy smoke ribbons, the
faint rattle of hidden carts, the young robin watch-
ing them with bright eye from the handle of a
lawn roller, made for it a subservient harmony.
"An army in times of peace is a plague spot, in
times of war an infamy," cried Hilda, with noisy
rhetoric.
"Please don't abuse my relations," protested
Mrs. Hamel. "The army is a thing you must allow
me to know something about. It's a splendid thing
for a people, it keeps them from getting flabby.
Every man in the country should be compelled to
serve in it."
" Do you call a workman hammering the gigantic
side of a liner flabby? Do you call the men who
build skyscrapers flabby? I don't think they're in
danger of flabbiness, they're much more in danger
of breaking their necks."
"I'm not talking about the lower classes, Hilda.
I mean the sort of men who come here. Conscrip-
tion would do them a world of good. Janet Fitch
says the only first-hand knowledge any of them have
of the sterner side of life is the discomfort of their
starched collars, and some of them don't even wear
those."
"Still — even for their moral welfare — I don't
think we'd really enjoy the wreck and horror of
a war."
"The war is inevitable. It must come," cried
Mrs. Hamel. "I was hearing about it from Sir
Galton Strong only last Sunday. He says Ger-
many must find an outlet for her surplus population.
Germany won't go on being hemmed in. She's
increasing by a million a year."
TRIVIALITIES 143
"Well, the thing for Germany to do is simply
to stop having- a surplus population. Once the
Hausfrau gets a trifle civilized "
"Really, Hilda, the things you young girls talk
about ! "
"Well, it wouldn't be much fun arguing if you
had to rule out half the things you know as im-
proper. Thinking would be like fighting with your
hands cuffed."
"Well, I think the right thing for the world is
that the population should go on increasing."
"With wars to keep it within bounds?"
"With wars to keep it within bounds."
"If you hadn't something of that sort, I sup-
pose," said Nelly, "we'd soon not have room to sit
down."
They laughed a little.
Hilda persisted : " I think your method is an
encouragement of useless suffering."
" Is suffering ever useless ? "
"Of course it is. And degrading too. That's
why I'm a feminist. I regard feminism as a
crusade against suffering."
"My dear Hilda, there is no such thing as
feminism. It is a purely economic movement. I
was told the other day by a man who really knoivs
about these things " And so on.
Mrs. Hamel believed herself to have an oracular
knowledge that could contradict the obvious truths
of existence. Sir Galton Strong, or "someone in
the education office," or "a man who is considered
to have a very brilliant mind indeed," were her
authorities, and once assured of a sound source
she never questioned the quality of the water.
144 THE CHORUS
Nelly had an impression of these people as very
tall and still more solemn beings, whose sense of
their own wisdom fell like a blight upon merriment.
On the talk would go, and presently Nelly would
catch a phrase.
"But surely you are not in favour of free love?"
" I think free is a good adjective to prefix to
most things — but it wants defining."
"Well, I'm sure I don't want anyone else's
husband, and I don't want anyone else to have
mine ! "
"But they are bound to want him, some of them,
he is so charming ! "
Mrs. Hamel smiled. "My dear, we are not
animals."
Nelly w-atched two white butterflies that hid and
sought one another in the tulip bed dancing and
dodging and flickering together, and then one left
behind and the other winging solitary away with
only its small shadow following below it on the grass.
So the weeks went, a little talk, some tennis, a
long walk or two, a sitting in the studio, supper
on Sunday at The Height and music. The new
faces were pleasantly similar in their variety. Very
smart girls and less smart "well-connected" girls
making friends for an afternoon with Nelly in the
studio, amused by her, interested, and then sud-
denly holding her at arm's length, as it were, while
they discussed their balls and whether it was not
as well to perfume the hair, and if so what with
"There's a delightful little new shop at the back
of Dover Street " or they agreed that violet
powder was not the thing for a "gehl." "When
one's married, gf course," but the great thing for
TRIVIALITIES 145
a "gehl " was to be fresh. And they decided that
men always hked hair done "low" better than "on
top." "Of course, you will wear yours low when
you put it up," they said to Nelly. And she learnt
that pale blue ribbons were really the only tolerable
ones for underclothing — pink, perhaps, was pos-
sible ; but mixed colours, mauve or orange, vul-
garity. " It's no use trying for individuality over
that sort of thing." Originality in most things, to
be sure, though amusing for a while in other people,
was really bad form in oneself.
Nelly was humbled before their omniscience.
They in turn felt it to be an immense success if
they contrived to get her society for Sunday
afternoon at The Height. "Will you let us walk
with you to-morrow ? " they would ask, were they
fortunate enough to be included in the Saturday
"drawing-room" of the studio. Nelly's engage-
ments were not of the rigid kind that enforced her
to make refusals, and she would set off resignedly
in her old blue cotton dress between Miss Meale-
Maugham and Miss Cynthia de C. Latham in their
flowered and striped muslins, not a little puzzled
at the ardour in pursuing her and exhilaration in
having captured her that they made no effort to
conceal. She did not know how largely the rumour
of her presence was whispered at The Height.
How a newcomer having said, "Oh, shall we be
let look at Mr. Hamel's studio ? " The answer
would be given with pursed lips: "That depends
on many things — you know there's a sort of fairy
princess down there."
"A fairy princess! How very exciting! Do
please tell me about her — — "
L
146 THE CHORUS
So was Nelly's reputation made, and many were
the disappointed maidens with bitter hearts and
drooping mouths who spent Saturday afternoon
reading in the library or walking in mutual boredom
round the gardens. The men and the older people
did not become aware of this key-stone of social
success, the agitating gossip did not reach them,
but the younger dames were ready to shed tears
should inclusion in the studio be withheld from
them. To share the fairy princess's company in
exclusive splendour for the Sunday afternoon as well
was giddiest triumph. They would return from
these excursions full of disjointed hints as to the
beauty and brilliance of the mysterious stranger.
"She isn't like anyone you've seen before, is
she ? " they would agree before the baffled curiosity
of the envious throng. "There's what Mr. Keath
calls — what was it Mr. Keath called it? — oh, yes,
that's it — a witchcraft about her. He says she's
under a spell." "And Mr. Young said — (Steven
had returned again) — that it was they that were
under the spell, not she." "They all call her
Rapunsel." "She's going on the stage." "Mr.
Hamel thinks her the loveliest person he has ever
seen. He told Mamma so." " Is she very lovely ? "
from one of the curious ones. "Well, she is
extremely pretty, nobody could deny that — she is
very striking, and her hair is simply marvellous.
Yes — I suppose one would call her beautiful . . .
she's certainly very attractive. She has a way of
speaking. . . . Oh, I couldn't call her the loveliest
person I've ever seen. . . . Really Millicent Hard-
wicke is much better looking . . . but she cer-
tainly has a fascination about her. You can't help
TRIVIALITIES 147
watching her all the time to see what she will do
next, . . ." Then they would discuss whether it
is better to be charming or fascinating and which
is which.
Nelly did not enjoy the walks as much as they
did. It gave her almost a sensation of having been
trapped when the warm, slim young arms slid
affectionately into her own. She became conscious
of the extreme delicacy of the shoes that were
advanced and hidden in rhythmic nimbleness on
either side of her common black-laced ones. The
light, high-pitched voices embarrassed her.
"When are you coming out? " they always asked
— a question that may be called a "facer" for a
girl who has never been "in."
They would confide their petty love-affairs to her
and try to hear of hers in return. Failing that,
for Nelly was now gently inscrutable on that sub-
ject, they would get her opinion on how you could
tell if a man was flirting or if he meant what he
said. "Ah, sure, nobody means what they say,"
Nelly would disillusion them, she who on principle
always deducted seventy per cent, from compli-
ments. Then they would make her heart ache
planning frocks that they thought would suit her.
"Why don't you go to Sehna, she really isn't dear ?
She'll make up your own stuff between the seasons
too, and use any old evening gown for a lining
quite ivonderjully." Or "what sort of furs do you
wear, Nelly? You oughtn't to wear shaggy ones
while your hair is still down. . . . You'd look
lovely in ermine." Nelly did not doubt that. By
her second experience of these newly-grown-up
damsels she had learnt to lie a little, it was dull
148 THE CHORUS
for them and humiliating for herself to have to
keep repeating, "I haven't any furs," "I haven't
any old evening dresses." She would give them
the glinted name of her Aunt Colquhoun, and a
tantalizingly shallow insight into her family history.
In the end she would have promised to write to
them and would only just have avoided, they
remembering in time to check themselves, invita-
tions to come and see them in town in the winter.
Mr. and Mrs. Fannan-Wake indeed did ask her,
but when she mentioned them to one of these
Olympians her satisfaction was soon dispelled by
the murmur with raised eyebrows, "The Fannan-
Wakes ? They moved from Wardour Street to
Belgrave Square in a lifetime, didn't they?"
It was all the same, whether she walked with
Miss Meale-Maugham or Miss C. de C. Latham,
Miss Anne Paley, or Miss Jocasta Adams. Sooner
or later in the afternoon would come a request :
"Do ask Mr. Hamel to desie^n a dress for me for
the Albert Hall ball on the loth," or "Father wants
Mr. Hamel to design a music-room at Owlswell
for us — do try to persuade him," or "Wouldn't a
dance be fun here, Nelly? It's a shame to waste
that great room at The Height. Suggest it to
Mr. Hamel and get him to ask us all down.
Do. . . ." There was no limit to their importuni-
ties. Sometimes Nelly did as she was asked,
oftener she didn't. She knew quite well her influ-
ence with Anthony, and it was too precious a
possession for her to risk straining it. He asked
her opinion about everything, not because he
thought her judgment valuable, but because he
believed that she was right. It was a superstition.
TRIVIALITIES 149
He consulted her when other men would toss a
penny. She was his oracle, his little green-clad
familiar spirit, and she was not disposed somehow
to interest him too keenly in the affairs of these
other girls who to her were so wonderful. She
could not control an involuntary jealousy that
sprang within her sometimes as she descended the
hill with Hilda, knowing him in his own house
and the door closed to her. She and Hilda were
only w^orkaday friends of all up there. The week-
ends brought the real people. She did not know
how the memory of her presence lingered with him
like a perfume. She longed to be with him at
different hours of the day. To see him at breakfast
time, and lunch and dinner, to accept all the small
conventional attentions from him, to be part of
his ordinary life. Her breasts felt burnt as with fire
when from a vantage ground on the Warren she
saw a new bevy of daintily dressed women troop
out of the house for a walk or tennis, or to sit chat-
ting among the garden flowers. She often left
Elkinses' now as early as Hilda (she did not wish
their sharp-eyed landlady to remark anything un-
usual in those other special excursions of hers) and
from the Warren watched all day the comings and
goings. She did not know if it more tormented or
consoled her to catch sight of Anthony's minute
figure as he came and went. Sometimes he would
walk in to lunch with Hilda, but oftener a troop
of people surrounded him half-way and bore him
indoors among them. Full length she lay upon
the pine-needles, a female Gulliver plagued by these
remote unconscious Lilliputians.
CHAPTER XIV
PANDOLEFSKY ON THE SEX QUESTION
Anthony Hamel knew very well tliat he had
created what could easily become an entirely dis-
gusting situation. It was one thing to delight in
the constant company of a charming young girl,
and another to seek every opportunity to kiss her.
There was no great difference in the spirit of the
thing perhaps, but it was one of those cases in
which the letter giveth life. It was impossible for
him not to be ashamed of himself. Brought up as
he had been in a tradition of seemliness, which is
at least the most gracious aspect of hypocrisy, it
was the nearness in actual space of Erica and Nelly
that filled him, in the absence of the latter, with a
shuddering contempt for himself. Had he met the
girl on his travels, under Southern stars or similar
provocation, he would not have suffered such
humiliation at his own behaviour. He had, he
assured himself, none of the conventional moral
objections, and it was solely the dislike of hurting
his Erica's feelings, of making her think he was
not sincerely fond of her (which he was), that set
him at such pains to deceive her. To have had
one life with Nelly fifty miles away, and another,
his real life, the life that he himself and everybody
else admired and respected, at The Height would
have been endurable, in fact exceedingly enjoyable,
ISO
PANDOLEFSKY ON SEX QUESTION 151
but to have to lead two lives at once, to be in a
perpetual perspiration of deceit, to have to change
expression and voice like an actor, not for a few
hours, but at any moment throughout the day, was
both nauseating and tiresome. Only Nelly's arms
about his neck could shut away that feeling, and
even then it inspired his tongue to ask her again
and again, "Are you sure you don't hate me,
Nelly ? Are you sure you have forgiven me ? "
(She hated those questions, though she did not
understand them, judging his love for her by her
love for him, they were absurd, but instinct told
her they were ill-omened for her. He never asked
them till they were saying good-bye.) There was
an honourable thing to do, a noble thing, the thing
that Erica had always deprecated in his friends ;
but — he found himself clinging to the fact that
Erica had always deprecated it. He could not bear
the thought of grieving Erica, that punctual soul
in the frail body ; he must not grieve her. He
clung to that duty, letting it fill his mind to
the exclusion of other duties. He could be frank
with himself about certain things, but he was too
kindly a man to care much for the cruelty of com-
plete truth. His mind was a sky of windy weather,
now gleaming clear, now totally obscured ; and
before all things there was the temptation of his
passion and Nelly's lulling encouragement of it.
How it would end, how he wanted it to end, were
not in his imagination. Like Nelly herself, he was
living in the happiness of the present, careless of
what the future might hold. He had a notion that
it contained for them both a way out.
Sometimes he found himself wishing that the
152 THE CHORUS
girl was more fastidious. That she herself would
say to him, "This situation is impossible, Tony.
I can't live like this," and that she would go away.
But the vision of his days without her hurt too
keenly. He would find himself, instead, picturing
the pursuit and reunion with her, and the pleasure
of that scene would set him longing for her voice
at the studio door again. And when she came,
what desire was left him to be rid of her? Slie felt
no degradation in his love, for her there was none.
She trusted him entirely. If he had said, "You
must come away with me," she would have come
without the slightest hesitation. Her perfect faith
in him swept him with tenderness. Her great eyes,
full of an unquestioning devotion, revealed her very
soul at his mercy. And if her soul was his, her
body was his also, beautiful to stroke and hold.
He could never content himself with the simple
knowledge that she loved him. He seized every
moment that they were alone — and such moments
were few and scattered — to kiss and caress her.
Sometimes it was thanks only to Hilda's lack of
observation that her unpractised youth did not
betray them. He put too fierce a strain upon her
powers of simulation. She felt that all the world
must read his hand's mark on the long smoothness
of her hair or upon the roundness of her breast.
Once when, in the wholly deliberate exuberance of
his homecoming, he had found her and Hilda alone
in the studio, and had caught her by the elbows
and tried to jump her into the air, her sharp "Don't
do that ! " seemed to him to cry their secret to the
winds. He was better at deception than she was.
It astonished her, theease with which he glided from
PANDOLEFSKY ON SEX QUESTION 158
intimacy to ordinariness at a breath. While she
would be shaken and flushed with the ecstasy of him,
he would be taking the temperature of the furnace
or searching in the press for some design or jewel.
It saddened her a little that he should have himself
so well under control, but she only made it into
another attribute for marvelling. How frightful it
would be, she reminded herself, if their secret was
found out ! It was for her sake that they must
have secrecy ; Anthony had told her that. Yet she
should not care, she knew, if what they did was
known to everybody. She was both too proud and
too humble. She loved him so much that she did
not care what happened to her so long as he had
pleasure. That it was that kept her on her guard.
And surely he did not love her less because he did
not want all the world to know it ?
It was very difficult always to remember. Some-
times when she had been but a moment released
from the strong castle of his arms she found herself
on the point of calling him "Tony " in public, and
when, remembering in time, she called him "Mr.
Hamel," her voice had so much scared amusement
in it that even Hilda noticed that there was some-
thing strange. She could not imagine what it was,
but she felt suddenly anxious and worried about the
girl. Suppose she angered Mr. Hamel with this
ill-concealed impertinence and he requested Hilda
to bring her to the studio no more? Only a few
days later her fears seemed realized when she learnt
that Nelly was to confine her presence in the studio
solely to tea-time, and at the same time it struck
her that there was just a perceptible coolness in
Mr. Hamel's treatment of the girl. He no longer
154 THE CHORUS
hailed her extravagantly when she came in, nor did
he even ask her to pose for him. She mentioned
her idea to Miss Fitch.
"I'm afraid Mr. Hamel isn't as interested in
Nelly as he used to be."
"Oho!" said Miss Fitch, whisking wide open
her eyes; "and what, now^, makes you think that?"
Hilda told her.
"M'm ! " said the clever one. She determined to
give the matter her closest attention.
It was not lack of interest, however, that made
Anthony exclude Nelly from the studio. Since he
had admitted his passion for her he found that in
her presence he could not work. It required a con-
stant watchfulness to keep him from stretching out
a hand for hers as he sat at his table, or from kissing
her soft arm as she passed near him. She was so
sweet and wonderful an addition to his life. He
revelled in the thought of her, he exulted and was
ravished ; but for that very reason he had to deny
himself her company. He could not let his work
go to the wall.
About this time anyone at The Height with
an ear finely attuned to the note of the house, as
country people judge the state of mind of the bees
by listening to the sound of the beehive, would
have heard the constant repetition of a single
phrase ; would have heard it spoken in company
and in the unquiet questionings of minds, spoken
sharply, and querulously, and anxiously, and
satirically, and soothingly (with a particular and
conscious dwelling on this last sedative manner).
The phrase was : "Of course, she is quite a child."
The talk was started by a rash impulse of
PANDOLEFSKY ON SEX QUESTION 155
Anthony's. In Linbury one day Nelly noticed in
a shop a set of remarkably fine old china, gay,
resplendent teacups laden with strange Chinese
flowers and butterflies — early work, as it turned out,
of the elder Wedgwood. On his way back a few
days later he bought the set as a surprise for Nelly.
Hilda found him unpacking it when she arrived
at the studio next morning. "What, more china ! "
she cried. "What an eye you have for it, Boss!
But where do you mean to put it?" "We'll use
it out here," said Anthony; "it will be nicer than
those old chipped cups, won't it?" Nelly was in
loud raptures when they were shown to her. "Oh,
Boss, how lovely of you ! Did you really get them
for me ? " She pouted a little when, for Hilda's
benefit, he repeated that he was tired of "those old
chipped cups." It seemed so ungrateful to the old
ones, and they had had such good times with the
help of them. She was very proud when, at tea-
time, she heard the astonished and admiring chorus
of their guests, and Anthony's "Caught sight of
them in Linbury ; thought they were too good to
miss." So far, so good. Steven Young it was
who led her to disaster.
"They are little marvels, Tony," he said; "but
I'm not sure that I don't like Nelly's old ones
better. I have a sentimental attachment to them."
Nelly waited for Tony, and as he did not speak she
said softly, "These are mine, too." There was a
moment of remarkable silence, followed by an
equally remarkable outburst of talk : " How lovely
for you ! " " How wonderfully appropriate for
you ! " "They'd make the fortune of a collector ! "
and a speech that seemed to crawl among the others
156 THE CHORUS
like a stoat: "What a pity we haven't all Mr.
Hamels to give us tea-sets ! " The beastliness of
that smote Nelly. Her miserable eyes sought
Anthony's downcast ones. She was suddenly
aware that many different pairs of eyes were meet-
ing. She made a nervous, convulsive movement,
and the cup she was holding fell to the ground.
There was a rush to pick up the fragments. It
seemed to her at that moment as if all her little
world was falling to pieces. She stood flushing
above the bending backs. The sly voice said again
— it belonged to a deadly smart girl with a cigarette
stuck to her lower lip: "You'll have to be given
another set soon, if that's the way you treat them."
Nelly was plunged in shame. She felt as if she
had been beaten. In their anxiety to avoid harping
on the accident it seemed as if they made the
conversation intentionally skirt her. None of the
women addressed to her another direct remark.
She found herself on the outskirts of the group,
quite unnoticed. She might have been put in the
corner. She was dazed at the unanimity of it. It
was the mob spirit in miniature. She longed to
break away from them and get out into the air and
throw herself upon the grass and cry. She felt
in this unaccustomed neglect the inspiration of
Anthony's disfavour.
"I cannot bear it," she thought; "I cannot bear
it. I must get away."
" I wish Mother would write to me," she said
quaveringly to Hilda that evening as they walked
down the hill to Elkins's. "I'm doing no good
here."
"Ah, don't say that," Hilda implored her.
PANDOLEFSKY ON SEX QUESTION 157
"What's wrong? I did mean you to be so happy
with me."
"Darling Hilda, I've never been so happy in my
life. I can't tell you how happy I've been."
"It was a pity about the cup, but don't be
worried. I'm sure Mr. Hamel won't be vexed for
long."
"Ah, it isn't only that ! " sighed Nelly.
There were a good many discreet conversations
at The Height that evening, beginning with a
significant "Well, my dear, what do you think of
it?" and ending with the usual "Of course, he
regards her as a child." Only the deadly smart
girl, with a whisky-and-soda on her bedroom
mantelpiece, volunteered quite boldly to give them
her opinion, and was surprised at the way the con-
versation fluttered from the subject without her
offer having been accepted. She could not under-
stand all this delicacy being shown in regard to so
entrancing a creature as Nelly. " If you're as pretty
as that you have to be careful. It's one of the
penalties. Thank God, I'm such a rum-lookin' guy
no one ever thinks of slandering me," she confided
to a friend. She did not understand their queer
diffidence.
It certainly was curious that, with so strong a
feeling of having been unable to help noticing in
the air, no one was anxious to give tongue to the
surmises. It was the possible solitariness of the
suspicions that gave a tinge of vulgarity to such
thoughts. No one was eager to be the first to
acknowledge them. "What a coarse, finite mind I
have ! " Miss Fitch would reproach herself, pluck-
ing impatiently at the rose-leaves as she walked
158 THE CHORUS
along the narrow causeway. "What a crude
imagination ! Why can't I be content with what
I see ? Why must I want to go interpreting ? "
And Mrs. Arden, very sweet to Nelly as a balance
for her unworthy doubts, would think: "After all,
Tony Hamel can't be judged like other men. He's
such an unconscious creature." And they would
say to one another : " How boyish he always is !
He will never learn ordinary dull, grown-up,
cautious ways." And that would bring them back
to the childishness of Nelly, and they would shy a
bit at the recurrence of the word, and vaguely hope
that "Hilda's little friend " did not fancy herself in
love with him.
Each was determined not to be the first to
mention what "anyone with a nasty mind might
possibly suspect, my dear." Suspicion of any kind
made one positively ill, and The Height was such
a pleasant place for wearing summer muslins.
There was a hum of half-suppressed utterance in
the air.
The knowledge that people were talking was
conveyed to the objects of the discussion in two
distinct and thoroughly unpleasant ways. To
Anthony it happened in this fashion : An old
acquaintance of his at the club where Anthony
stayed when he was in town became confidential
in the smoking-room.
"I saw your car at Chidderwick the other day,
old man," he began the story; "at least, I'd be
almost ready to swear it was yours— long grey
fellow, six-cylinder. I suppose your chauffeur ain't
in the habit of taking joy-rides?"
"Oh, they all do," said Anthony unconcernedly.
PANDOLEFSKY ON SEX QUESTION 159
"Well, he's a deucedly lucky chap, then," said
Gregory Howard amiably. "Picked up the abso-
lutely handsomest little slip of a girl I've seen this
very long time. Wish you'd ask him to introduce
me."
"I'll try to remember to mention it," said
Anthony imperturbably.
"Do; and there's another thing you might
mention at the same time, and that is for her to
wear her veil down, or she'll be getting into
trouble with her school-ma'am. And if he's wise
he'll take to wearing his goggles, too."
"I'll tell him," said Anthony; "thanks for the
tip, old man."
So it was known.
Plainly their excursions would have to stop. If
by that one chance in a thousand (no one in his
senses went to Chidderwick) they had been seen,
other people might see them, too. Nelly was too
magnificently conspicuous.
"God I" he thought; "what ought I to do?
What do I want to do ? "
Nelly received her hint in a far less genial
fashion, and from the person last in the world that
she would have wished to have the power to give
it. For it came from Pandolefsky. There had
been for a long time something sinister in the way
he looked at her; a gloating and cruel enjoyment.
He knew, she was sure, how uneasy he was making
her, and how a laugh on his face would quench
the laughter in hers. She had been stupid in her
treatment of him. When she reviewed her months
at Otterbridge she wished she had behaved more
cleverly. She tormented herself with thinking of
160 THE CHORUS
it. She had been two swift in ignorini:: him when,
Anthony first absorbed her interest. If only she
had not "fooled round" with the creature in the
beginning — if only she had taken Hilda's advice !
It was too easy to rouse a brute like that; it was,
indeed, more of a success not to rouse him. But
then she had not known how all the men would
like her, and Pandolefsky even was better than
no one. She did wish, though, that she had not
let him kiss her. It did give him a vantage-ground
for sneers. It was housemaidish. She ought to
have known better. Of course, she had meant
nothing by it. It was just to pass the time. Why
couldn't he have forgotten it? She very nearly
had, until his leering face began to disturb her
peace. Did he know^, did he not know? He did
not leave her long in uncertainty. There was a
big crowd in the studio that moment he chose —
Ardent Keath, Stevie, Miss Fitch, everybody— and
before they had come she had had five minutes
alone with Anthony; in fact, while Hilda was
fetching them. She and Anthony had forgotten
Pandolefsky, and, indeed, everything in the world
but themselves, but they fancied they had eluded
his little hot eyes, when his shadow made silent
announcement of his presence at the door. He
said he had left something behind— his pipe, his
penknife — she could not remember which. Per-
haps he had simply been spying on them. It was
most likely. On his heels came all the others, and
instead of leaving in sullen haste, as usual, he stood
about listening to the conversation. His malignant
expression kept her apprehensive eyes upon his
face. Tiien she knew what he was waiting for.
PANDOLEFSKY ON SEX QUESTION 161
Anthony paused near him, and she saw Pando-
lefsky hft his hand and make a motion as of draw-
ing a thread from Anthony's sleeve. Then, looking
very steadily at her, he moved across the room and
stood a moment near her to make sure that she saw
what he wound upon his lingers. It was a long,
bright hair. When he saw that she had seen, he
went away. Yes, Pandolefsky had his own way
of telling a thing. She was haunted now by the
question of what he meant to do with his know-
ledge ; scared and worried, as he intended her to
be. Almost she went to him herself and asked
him, only the humiliation of acknowledging her
cowardice was too deep for her. She could not do
that. She must suffer in uncertainty the insolence
and menace of his smile. She was unable when
away from him to forget her anxiety and pursue
her hereditary habit of trusting to luck. A few
days later one of Anthony's notes came to increase
her despondency —
"My sweet girl, there must be no more motoring.
I have heard something that makes it impossible —
at least for the present. Darling, you know how
badly it hurts, this separation from you, and how
I hate having to increase it. Dear, dear child,
don't be unhappy. I tell myself again and again
that I have only brought you wretchedness, and
yet when I close my eyes I see your smiling mouth
and hear your laughter. I shall find a way to see
you — soon, soon. Good-bye. Think of me some-
times. I kiss your hands."
She was sitting in the little glade with the letter
in her hand when Pandolefsky came on her. She
had taken off her shoes and stockings, and her bare
M
162 THE CHORUS
feet hung dejectedly in the water. She was wonder-
ing what had become of her happiness, grieving at
the blackness of her days, the heaviness of her
spirit. When he came behind her she turned
without any suddenness. There was nothing just
then that could add to her dreariness, nothing to
be surprised or startled at. She accepted his
presence as part of her misfortune, and her mind
made no comment on him as he stood surveying
her with one hand resting on an ash-tree shaft,
shoulders hunched, head thrust forward, leering,
satirical. Round his neck a scarf of silk printed
in many colours had been twisted; his serge
trousers, of too vivid a dark blue, were dusty at
the knees; his shirt was stained with sweat; his
coat was slung across his shoulder. Her eyes took
in the details as if he were a painted image, not
a live meddler with her destiny. She did not
attempt to speak to him. There seemed nothing
just then to say. Presently she was aware that
the image was smiling. Its eyes were directed to
her feet. She realized with a shock that some
action was expected of her ; that they were not
just to stay passively looking at one another and
then to go separate ways. The silence became a
quarrel. She drew back from the edge of the stream
and tried to cover her bare feet with her skirts.
Decidedly she was at a disadvantage. She looked
round for her shoes and stockings, but they were
farther up the bank. She flushed with annoyance.
He enjoyed her discomfiture.
" Waiting for anybody ? " he asked at last.
"No," slie replied, giving him the shortest
possible answer.
PANDOLEFSKY ON SEX QUESTION 163
"Then I shan't be interrupting," he said. He
took his hand from the tree and came heavily down
the bank. " Having" a paddle, eh ? "
"I'm just going home," said Nelly briefly.
"Not going just when I come? That would be
unkind! I've been wanting a talk with you for
quite a long while. This is what I call a Heaven-
sent opportunity." He picked up her shoes and
surveyed them jauntily.
" Give me my shoes, please," said Nelly.
"I'll put them on for you," said Pandolefsky.
"You'll do nothing of the kind," said Nelly.
"Allow me," said Pandolefsky, moving in front
of her; "the right foot, please."
"Will you go away?" She tucked her feet
beneath her.
"What's all the fuss about? " asked Pandolefsky,
with pretended innocence. "My modesty won't be
offended. I'm not one of the nobs. What are you
trying to hide them for ? Thought they were one
of your strong points. You're never anxious to
hide any of your strong points. Miss Hayes, are
you? You're not very clever at hiding anything,
are you ? "
Nelly did not answer. She was cold with anger
and dread.
"Why won't you let me put them on? You
usen't to be so particular. You're not very, very
particular now, are you ? "
Still silence.
"You needn't talk to me if you don't want to,"
he went on. "I can't make you speak or anything
else, can I ? I haven't got the pass-word. I
haven't got carroty hair and a motor-car. I'm just
164 THE CHORUS
a low brute of a servant, that's all I am. ' Yes,
Miss.' ' Thank you. Miss.' ' Pleasant weather
we're 'aving. Miss.' I'm going to sit beside you
snug and comfortable." He sat dov/n beside her
as he spoke. "Now we're cosy, aren't we ? Quite
like old times. Remember that morning in the
orchard? You know, I enjoyed that." Her silence
was beginning to irritate him.
"You never speak to me up there now, do you ? "
He jerked his head towards the house. "Wouldn't
demean yourself, would you ? Got swelled head,
have you ? " He passed one of his unclean hands
over her hair. "Is it painful?"
"Don't touch me," cried Nelly.
He stroked her hair again. "I'll touch you as
much as I please," he said. "You know you like
it really. Nice hair, this — " he pulled it sharply —
"and gen-u-ine."
Nelly sprang to her feet, but his hold on her skirt
drew her down again.
"Let me go."
"I won't."
"Let me go. How dare you ? "
"Now don't you start any rough-and-tumbles
with me, or you'll get more than you bar-
gained for. You wouldn't be the first I've made
yelp."
"What is it you want?" Nelly panted. "Why
are you treating me like this?"
"Oh ho! now we're coming to it. Now "we're
going to be sweetly reasonable. Thought I'd
make you chuck your swanking." He swung her
opposite to him, holding both her arms tightly
above the elbows. Eye to eye he said, "I'm
PANDOLEFSKY ON SEX QUESTION 165
treating you like this because I know the proper
way to treat you — see ? "
"I don't understand."
"Oh yes, you do, Miss Nice."
"I do not."
"I know what's on between you and a certain
person — see ? I know your pretty ways when you
think no one's looking. Oh, you're a beautiful
pair ! "
"You're wrong," gasped Nelly; "you're quite
wrong."
"I'm not an idiot; I know what I've seen."
"It isn't what you think it is."
"What do I think it is. Miss Snow-white
Innocence? Give it a name."
"I don't know what you think, and I don't care
either," cried Nelly, stung to fury. "Let me go."
"Shut up." His grip tightened. "Listen to
me. What's your game ? " She was dumb, so he
shook her lightly.
" What are you doing it for ? W^hat do you reckon
to make out of it? Presents? A dear little flat in
town — eh ? Speak up : what are you hoping for ? "
"I refuse to understand you."
"Well, I'll have to speak plainer, then. If
there's any fun going I mean to share it. The
Boss won't want you all the time. He's not the
only one knows what he wants when he sees it.
I don't mean to be left out. You needn't make a
fuss. You didn't mind larking around with me
when you first came down. You were keen enough
on me then."
"I was never keen on you." She loathed his
mean expressions.
166 THE CHORUS
"You were."
"I wasn't."
"Liar!" He pinched her arms. "You kissed
me."
"That was a joke" — from drooping lips.
"Well it's not the sort of joke young ladies are
supposed to make. Didn't your mother ever tell
you that ? "
"I thought you were so kind and so amusing.
I didn't think you took it seriously," murmured
Nelly. She was prepared to wheedle him now.
There was nothing else for it.
"Thought me harmless, did you? Well, what
do you think now ? "
"I think it's very nasty of you to behave like
this. I didn't expect it of you, Mr. Pandolefsky.
I'm sure you'll be ashamed of yourself by to-
morrow."
"Ashamed ! I like that. You to talk of shame,
after hugging and kissing a married man under
his wife's windows ! Look here—" he stopped his
banter — "I'm as good as he is. I'm just as much
a man. I guess you'll have as much fun with me,
and more. And I won't go back on you. Straight!
You're a little peach, Nelly, and I'm going to eat
you."
His moist hands slid over her, heedless of the
sick horror in her face.
"What do you say — Nelly? You'll be my litde
jo, eh ? "
Her voice came to hrr at last, difficult, scarcely
audible —
"I'd die rather."
"What do you mean? You're not going to be
PANDOLEFSKY ON SEX QUESTION 167
disagreeable, are you ? You know, if you are, 1
may be disagreeable too,"
His hands fell to his sides.
"I don't care what you do."
"Oh, so you don't care what I do. We'll see
about that by and by. Maybe your fine friends
won't care what I do, either; or what you do,
either? What do you think? And the Boss will
so enjoy it! 'My love against the world,' he'll
say, won't he ? "
He rose to his feet, shouldering his coat.
"Well, young Nelly, you've m^de a nice fool
of yourself." He was twisted with jealousy
and malevolence. "You'll find yourself in the
wrong boat, my lady, one day soon. There's no
accounting- for tastes, but — coo, lord — " he forced
a laugh— "fancy being taken with old Tony
Hamel ! That's the best thing I've heard this
long time. That's what I call funny." He slapped
his leg. "Excuse me laughing. I thought the old
man was getting past that sort of thing. Must
have had about enough of it by now, I should
think. You don't suppose that you're the only
one? Why, there isn't a woman comes near the
place without making eyes at him. Mr. Anthony
Hamel, the perfect gentleman ! Have a jolly time,
and then ' good-bye, little girlie ' ! "
His outpouring of words was exciting him.
" ' Good-bye, little girlie,' " he chanted. " ' Sorry
I can't invite you home to tea. Be happy. Enjoy
yourself. Think of me kindly sometimes. Sorry
I can't ask you in; but the missus might object.*
You'll be outside and the door shut tight. You'll
be in the gutter. That's your proper place. Up
168 THE CHORUS
and down the pavement — " he made a few steps,
swaying his hips — "in the filthy muck. 'Good-
evening, Charlie — ' " he mimicked a pert feminine
voice — "and if I saw you then I wouldn't have
you," he cried, "not for fourpence."
He cleared his throat noisily and spat into the
stream, then clambered up the bank and strode
out of sight. Nelly sat quite still when he was
gone. Her heart was thumping, her eyes were
very dark. Presently she put on her shoes and
stockings and went home. She never went to that
place again.
CHAPTER XV
AND ACQUAINTED WITH GRIEF
Anthony's instinct was for the blindest flight.
No girl betrayed by her lover could be more eager
to avoid his fellows' eyes than he was. It was not
reproach he feared so much as inquiry, inquiry that
awakes in mankind that blind folly of confession
from which spring all the embarrassments and dis-
illusionments of life. He wanted to get away, and
he could not permit himself to behave like a skunk.
He would not own that he was tired of Nelly, or
that, being satisfied, he had no further use for her.
No, what appeared to him was that hitherto he had
been stupid, he had not perceived the number and
tediousness of the consequences of his actions. He
had set people talking, he had behaved with
atrocious lack of consideration, and now the best
reparation he could make was to silence those
tongues as soon as possible. The simplest method
of silencing them was to get out of earshot.
Opportunity, after its custom, presented itself.
He received within a few days of one another
invitations to exhibit at the International Society
in Boston, to lecture on craftsmanship at some
American University and to design the country
house of Elisha T. Coonmanrigs, Junior, in the
Adirondacks. He had been tentatively fostering the
offshoot of his American connection for some time
169
170 THE CHORUS
and behold it blossoming. Here was a chance of
escape that was no mere excuse. It was necessary
for him to go to America. Violently necessary. If
he stayed he would be stimulating gossip indeed.
He could only stay by an unusually marked prefer-
ence for this country, and moreover he might blight
his American offshoot for ever. The dollar is not
accustomed to receiving snubs.
He was not more than four minutes making up
his mind. Tilings must sort themselves as best they
could, he was going away, away, away. No boy at
the edge of school holidays could have embraced
freedom more eagerly. Meanwhile he was dis-
tractedly busy. Too busy for retrospection or
recollection or introspection or any uncomfortable
thing. He flung himself upon the neglected pile of
his work like an enthusiastic wave. It was glorious
to lose himself again in the element where he was
master. How he could work when he went at it !
He shut himself into his studio night and day. His
meals were sent out to him on trays. He was too
vehemently absorbed in his work even to wince at
the oddness of the alliance he was making — the
alliance of desire and duty.
Nelly knew nothing of these sudden plans. She
did not trouble to suspect that her time of drifting
was over. But the days were tame. The world was
a top that had ceased singing.
Mrs. Hamel it was who extinguished the sun.
She asked the girls to tea with her the day that
Anthony told her his decision. She anticipated a
tiny pleasure.
" He'll be going for the whole autumn. Probably
for the winter. When he goes I shall seek a change
AND ACQUAINTED WITH GRIEF 171
of air in some civilized place, and workmen will take
possession of this house. It's rather bothersome
being wife to a man of genius. No sooner do I get
used to a room than it's all made different. I never
know what my house is like. I'm continually get-
ting surprises, usually pleasant ones, I admit "
the cool voice went on. She spoke as casually as if
it were no news at all, but a fact so long accepted
as to have ceased to be interesting— as a grand-
mother says to a child: "Before you were born,
my dear."
Blackness was upon the earth. The tea-table and
the balustrade disappeared from Nelly's eyes. She
could hear nothing but her own heart making a dull
tolling in her ears. She realized that she must not
faint. She had not fainted. She heard Hilda ask-
ing intrepidly : " When does he go ? "
A cold dawn seemed to break over the garden
again.
"About the middle of July. He's going first
into the mountains. The country house has to be
something very special. Mrs. Elisha Coonmanrigs,
Junior — I beg her pardon — Mrs. Elisha T. Coon-
manrigs, Junior, wants a villa impregnated with
the life juice of nature. I learnt that phrase by
heart. Americans amuse me."
"I say, it does make me feel blank," said Hilda,
"his going."
"Oh, but he'll come back again," said Mrs.
Hamel, smiling.
"Of course, he'll do that," said Hilda, "it was
myself I was thinking about. I can't tell vou what
these months with him have been to me."
" I know he has enjoyed having you."
172 THE CHORUS
"I hoped my apprenticeship wasn't going to end
so soon, but it's been the time of my Hfe, anyway."
"You must come and stay with us when we are
at home again."
"Thank you most awfully. I shall love to."
They talked of other things.
Tony going away. It was the stroke of a
bludgeon. Even at the cost of pain she must break
through the numbness that was settling upon her
mind. She must think, she must think. No, she
mustn't think or she would scream. She must get
away somewhere that she could scream. She
remembered a description Tony had given in the
studio once of a scene he had happened on in
Sicily. A troop train was departing and a girl was
being left behind, and she had flung herself on
the ground and raved and torn her clothes and
kicked her boots off ; but when the train was out of
sight she had risen and pinned up her hair and
put her boots on again and walked away. How
they had all laughed at the description of that
scene ! O God, God, God, how was she to endure
being alive without him ? Should she just put her
boots on, like the Sicilian girl, and walk away?
She felt so dazed as she walked down the hill that
she could almost believe she was doing it.
All night she lay in alternating torments of hope
and of despair. "It isn't true. He would have
told me. It can't be true." Hope would make her
start to a sitting posture in her bed. "It is true.
Be quiet, you fool, it is certain, certain." Despair
was the less painful of the two. It did not set her
straining to get to him, to clasp his knees, to
implore him never to leave her. It pressed like a
AND ACQUAINTED WITH GRIEF 178
stone, but it did not drive iron hooks into the
body, tearing it asunder. "To see him. If only I
could see him. If only he would tell me it was
true himself." Truth, however ugly, passing his
lips would bring consolation. Partly the thought
of nearness to him, partly had she named it, the
desire for that small boldness on his part, inspired
her. She knew, she had always known, he was
timid of publicity, but gentlemen, real gentlemen,
were like that.
"They don't care for larky hats," her mother
had said, "they don't like you to be as conspicuous
as a Catherine wheel, not really."
She did not mind his being afraid of other
people, but that he should be afraid of her
Next day brought no alleviation of her misery.
With Hilda came word that the studio was too
full for either of them. "The Boss is in great form,
I've never seen him in such spirits. Says he's got
to fit a year's work into a week. He's a wonder.
Says he'll have some odds and ends for me to do
presently."
"Did he say anything," asked Nelly from her
abyss, "about his going away? "
"Oh, he'd only talk nonsense. ' For they've
been to the sea and the terrible Zone and the hills
of the Chankly Bore.' And he said he ought to
have gone a month ago. I'm glad he didn't."
"Going, really going. Wake up and think
about it, you fool," Nelly implored herself, as if
she were addressing a sleeping oaf. But no
thoughts could mend it. No words of hers could
reach him. No tears of hers could move him.
Worse, she had none. She felt like a third person
174 THE CHORUS
helplessly witnessing a crime. It was like the
nightmare in w^hich the child is run over — or worse
still, in which the train goes on without one. At
night from her window in the valley she could see
the green glare of the studio window streaming out
uncurtained upon the summer leaves, making them
look as if they were clipped from tin. Up there,
mysterious as an alchemy, her destiny was being
fashioned. Someone was going to hurt her, and
she w'ould not be able to prevent it. Sometimes
his shadow crossed the light. Sometimes a door
slammed and Pandolefsky came out on a message.
It was something to fix her eyes there in adoration,
it was a bright light and a holy place, but it was
as unconcerned with her, too, as the moon.
CHAPTER XVI
A QUARREL
The work, however, was getting done. Unfor-
tunately for Anthony's peace it could not last for
ever. It was impossible to slip away without even
saying good-bye, and he had not meant to do
that, had he? Or — had he? Well, that was not
his intention now. It would be very pleasant to
say good-bye, to hold Nelly's hands and look into
Nelly's eyes again. Besides, all sorts of people
were coming for farewells, it would seem strange to
them if the green nymph wasn't there. That wasn't
the point. It didn't matter what other people
thought. He wished his brain wouldn't twist out
such contemptible ideas. Oh, let him, for any
sake, stop worrying about things. He stretched
his great arms until the muscles cracked.
"When are you girls coming to make tea for
me?" he asked Hilda.
"Whenever you've time to be bothered with us,
Boss."
"We must have a farewell brew."
Hilda conveyed the message.
So paradise was open to Nelly again. She made
the journey thither on the last day of June, an
afternoon of yellow sunlight singing with bees.
The garden borders were woven thick with flowers,
175
176 THE CHORUS
red and blue, purple and tawny, wide open, bleach-
ing in the heat. The terraces were veiled with per-
fume. It seemed to her as if her happiness was
about to burst into flame again ; but when she
reached the studio it was a flame not of joy but of
anger that burnt up in her heart. Anthony was
surrounded with women. Their clatter and deter-
mined laughter filled the air. They had been
disgorged by a motor in time for lunch at The
Height. Anthony was in high spirits, noisy,
talkative, displaying the contents of the jewel
presses, scattering precious stones to delighted
cries, just as he had done for her a few months
before. He was too absorbed to have more than a
nod for her. She stood in the arch of the doorway
expectant, exquisitely posed, unnoticed, frozen with
disappointment, while the Misses Ahearn-Wylie
praised and criticized and exclaimed and re-
exclaimed, and were as much without shyness as
a dog at dinner time.
"Here's your mascot. Marigold, sapphires for
your birth month. September, isn't it ? . . . Why
is it wonderful for me to have remembered ? Don't
I remember every word you ever said ? It would
be a wonder really if I forgot. Why, look here ! "
with pretended surprise, "they just match her eyes.
My dear Marigold, you don't need any more sap-
phires." He was again at the cupboard.
"Here are the ones for a woman with red hair."
Nelly saw the aquamarines spread broadcast. "Are
these your favourites ? " The question he had put
to her was now addressed to Olivia Wylie — "the
stock question," her mind taunted him — "Just the
thing for a green-eyed enchantress, a rather wicked
A QUARREL 177
enchantress of thirty. No, you mustn't wear any
till you are thirty : thirty to thirty-five will be your
great period."
The red-haired girl protruded her large teeth
among her freckles.
"And pearls for Lydia." (Would he never finish
making an idiot of himself?) "Beautiful cool
pearls from the depths of the sea. This child
should wear ear-rings. She will have immense
distinction when she grows up." The "child," a
lanky and anaemic dowager of eighteen, flushed to
the square bridge of her nose. "I'm not sure that
you oughtn't to wear turquoise," he turned to the
eldest, who was the pretty one, of the three again.
"You could wear them. Most women make them
look like bits of blue china." Miss Marigold
expressed a preference for translucent stones.
"Yes, yes," Anthony agreed with her, "they are
more beautiful. Turquoise just miss the jewel
quality — how did you know that ? " He fixed his
embarrassing eyes upon hers. "The wisdom of
you young people is staggering. At your age I
should have been better able to philosophize on the
qualities of nougat and caramel than on subtle
things like gems." Miss Wylie felt she had said
something profoundly wise. Anthony was swim-
ming in the sound of his own voice. "Gems!
There is always something mysterious about them,
some echo of strange powers of enchantment.
Turquoise, oddly enough, is the one most endowed
with magical qualities — yet it seems such a day-
light stone. Perhaps that is why it is a protection
against evil. There is so little unexpectedness
about it. No night or twilight. Certainly in a fine
N
178 THE CHORUS
gold setting it can have great freshness and charm,
but it always seems to me the stone for luncheon
parties and gaiety and the haunts of man."
"Goodness, what a frivolous person you must
think me I "
"Not frivolous," said Anthony, with a discon-
certing gravity. (He had forgotten that he had
said she should wear them.) "Frank merriment
and sweetness is never frivolous! Why, you
all laufjh like elves ! If I had a detestable thing
here, that you are much too cultured ever to have
encountered, a thing called a gramophone, I should
make you laugh into it whenever I felt dispirited
and bored — oh, I do feel that way sometimes, I
assure you ! — I should just set the disk whirring
and then — hey nonny nonny, your laughter would
come rippling ! It would be delightful for me,
wouldn't it?" His moment's impressive gravity
over, the noise that he praised gathered and broke
again. Hilda, who had been facing the invasion
with amiable fortitude, strolled to the door, and,
squeezing Nelly's arm, slipped out. She had had
enough of it.
Nelly remained where she was, deadly still. All
the fierce angers and reproaches of her miserable
week were seething within her. A hundred bitter
taunts and gibes were leashed in her brain to leap
out at Anthony when she had him alone. She
trembled with fury. Her grey eyes blazed.
The Ahearn-Wylies were enjoying themselves.
They were collecting impressions to compare on
the way home. Preparing, had they known it, to
quarrel a little as to who was most admired. They
sat about, swung their buckled shoes, or crossed
A QUARREL 179
them, lounging in the big chairs, admired the view
from the windows, pulled and poked at everything,
asked bold questions, peeped at themselves in the
old mirror, rolled their eyes, blushed, flashed their
teeth in smiles to one another. Nelly considered it
a sickening performance. To her they had as many
claims to beauty as a bevy of dog-faced baboons in
an ape-house. Certainly their eyes w'ere set too
shallow and too high; but she was not just to
them.
The blue-eyed girl pulled open a door in the
press, she was making a final round of inspection,
and discovered the little package that contained
Nelly's ring.
"What's this? I'm going to peep. May I?"
she cried in one breath, snatching it out of the
paper, before either question could be answered.
She held up the little sparkling rapunsel ; they
crowded to see it.
"How perfectly enchanting!" "How sweet!"
" How lovely ! " " Who is it for ? "
Nelly leant forward quivering. To her it was a
living thing that they handled so thoughtlessly.
"Oh, that's just an experiment. Nothing very
important," said Anthony quickly.
"How I wish it was for me," said the boldest
one, "can't you make me one like it? Will you ? "
"Perhaps I will, if you very much want it."
"My ring," wailed Nelly's thought, "he will not
even let my ring belong to me." For the first time
the indignity of her position stung her. She heard
the rest of the conversation.
"But can't I have this, if it isn't anything
special ? "
180 THE CHORUS
"I'll make you a better one — with sapphires to
match those eyes."
"But I've taken such a fancy to this."
"You'll like the other better."
"Oh, shall I?" she pouted a minute. "Well,
be sure you don't forget or I shall send Papa to
bully you."
She pushed Nelly's ring pettishly away.
Soon after she and her sisters "made their
curtsy," as they called it, and the air was free of
their babble. And as they went Anthony, for
the first time, noticed Nelly.
"Why, child," he cried, holding out his arms
to her, "where have you been hiding yourself?"
Without answering, Nelly ran to the window
and flung it open. She was trembling with rage.
"Now one can breathe ! "
"My dear Nelly!"
"I'm not your dear Nelly."
"My child "
"Don't speak to me."
She stamped her foot.
"You absurd person, what's all this fuss about? "
He tried to take her in his arms.
She struggled away and faced him furiously.
"Why did you let her touch my ring?"
"I shall let people do as I like in here."
"No, you shan't. I won't have it."
"You are ridiculous ! "
"I hate you," the words burst from her.
"Nelly!"
"Why are you going away?"
"I'm going because I must."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
A QUARREL 181
"What difference would that have made? I
couldn't stay here for ever."
"You're just sneaking away to get rid of me ! "
"You are jealous of those silly girls."
"You didn't think them silly when they were in
here."
"Oh yes, I did."
"Why did you talk to them like that, then."
"My good child, I shall talk just as I please."
"I hate your humbug. You never mean a word
that you say."
"Look here, Nelly! Don't make scenes!" he
was angry too. "I've had enough of it. I don't
like it. Please control yourself. You are behaving
ridiculously."
"Oh, how^ can you talk to me like that? "
Followed tears. In the end he had to comfort
her.
"You know you are the sweetest, loveliest of
them all."
He was not going for a week or two.
"Let us make the most of what time we have."
He kissed her eyes and her cheeks and her mouth
and her chin. They were all salt with her tears.
As she went down the hill she realized that they
had not talked of his going away at all. She had
somehow lost sight of it. The big thing had got
blurred and intertwined with paltry angers,
jealousies, reproaches. What had become of all
those moving speeches she had meant to make ?
What had happened ? Somewhere at the back of
her brain her mother's voice began an insistent
iteration — how^ long ago had she heard her say
those things?
182 THE CHORUS
"Don't reproach a man. Don't cry at him.
Don't show him your temper. He'll only con-
gratulate himself when it's all over, and it'll be
over quicker."
They were not much good at taking advice, her
mother and she.
CHAPTER XVII
MOVES TOWARDS A CLIMAX
She tried to put the parting from her mind. She
resumed her old relations with Tony with the added
intimacy that a quarrel gives. They had now seen
one another free of the restraint of politeness and
of the pretence that all was well. Anthony had
kissed her face distorted with crying, and she had
declared her right to be angry with him. Now she
was almost too happy. The thought of his going
still stabbed at her, but she was hidden deep and
shielded by his caresses.
She was always at the studio in those last days.
She was quite scared at the resolute way he con-
trived to keep people away. Hilda he persuaded to
work out a scheme for redecorating the drawing-
room. He told her she must spend a lot of time
there to let the proportions "soak in" and inspire
her. If he liked her design it should be carried out
that autumn — "There's glory for you." Pan-
dolefsky was simply bidden "go and find some-
thing to do."
Anthony was drifting just as Nelly had drifted.
The fact that so soon he would be out of it all made
him careless. He was going to permit these days
as many hours of honey as he could. It was not
pure selfishness. It was the only mercy he could
183
184 THE CHORUS
show the girl now. Then what would be hers to
regret when he was gone would be happiness and
not bitterness of heart. Besides, when he was with
Nelly he loved her to distraction. Whatever way
he chose to justify himself when she was not there,
when she was near his loving was its own justifica-
tion. He would sit beside her in the window seat
and wish they were in a boat on some wide river
together, and while his mind was filled with sensu-
ous thoughts he would listen to her soft voice,
speaking her simple, trivial longings and ambi-
tions, speaking in time to the beat of his thoughts.
"Sometimes I want motors and diamonds and a
big house and servants, so that I could go and make
all the people who don't like me envious. I should
go and drive slowly past their stupid old doors and
know that inside they were gnashing their teeth
with fury. But I shouldn't really like that. I'd
feel it was too much for me. But I should like a
few pretty things. Frocks and silk petticoats and
smart shoes like other girls have. And a little,
little house with great big window-boxes full of
pink geraniums. And one old servant to mend me
and keep me tidy."
Anthony kissing her hand, the back and the palm
and each finger in turn, asked —
"And who's to give you those little things?"
"Ah, someone I love."
"What about the nice hump-backed gentleman
you were going to marry ? "
"Oh, I'm not going to marry him now."
"Why not, Nellie?"
"You know why not."
"Ah, but tell me!"
MOVES TOWARDS A CLIMAX 185
She told him.
He thought, "Poor little love, if I've made you
resolve against that I'm not altogether a brute."
"And what sort of fellow is to give you the little
house with the window-boxes?"
"Nobody ever will, Tony."
"Sure?"
She shook a mournful head. "Sure."
"Shall I?"
She thought of what Pandolefsky had said to
her.
"You don't want to, do you?"
He reproached himself for having made her love
him.
"I shall only have brought you unhappiness,
Nelly."
"Oh, don't say that!" She took his face be-
tween her hands. "Don't say that. I can't bear
you to think that. You've made me happier than
anyone in the world."
"Darling, then why are there tears in your
eyes ? "
"I'm so happy, Tony. I can't bear it all to end.
Ah, why must it end?"
He studied her.
"Do you think, Nell, if you were with me always
you would always be happy ? "
She raised her mouth to his.
"Ah, Nelly, you love me too much," he said.
Every day he determined to be kind to her, and
yet every day he found himself provoking her.
" How much would you do for me ? "
"Anything at all, Tony?"
"I don't think you love me really."
186 THE CHORUS
"You know, you know I do."
Or he would find himself wanting to hurt her, to
tease and torment her.
"You know that I am behaving disgracefully?"
"Tony, that's rubbish. You couldn't do any-
thing wrong."
"Nelly, do you ever think what you are doing?"
"Indeed I do, often."
" What makes you so reckless, then ? "
"Am I reckless? Don't other people love one
another like this ? "
"You angel." He kissed her hand.
"Don't they, Tony?"
"Not conventional young women, dear."
"Oh, Tony," she was swept with grief; "I
thought I was loving you the proper way."
"Ah, golden heart. What I lose in leaving
you," he thought, and —
" Dearest, I wish I could make you stop loving
me," he said.
"You couldn't, Tony, you couldn't. It isn't in
your power."
That comforted him a little. It wasn't in his
power. But he wished aloud sometimes that he
were more of a blackguard so that he wouldn't mind
being one.
"What do you find to love in me? I've been a
cad ever since you knew me? How can you love
a cad, Nelly?"
She would praise him.
" I wish you would criticize me sometimes,
Nelly."
"Oh, Tony," she said, with her old naivete,
"that makes me so unhappy."
MOVES TOWARDS A CLIMAX 187
Yet after every happy hour the parting had crept
nearer. It gave Nelly a sense of being stalked.
She was conscious of an ever watchful grief await-
ing its opportunity. There seemed no moment
appropriate to voicing her despair, none in which
to arouse the emotional crisis which alone, she
instinctively knew, could save her.
As once before, it was common circumstance
that came to her aid. The Height became again
packed with visitors. There was never a tranquil
hour in the pale sun-flooded studio. For three
days she never caught sight of him alone, and then
one afternoon as she opened the little iron gate she
found him standing beside it.
" I say, when am I ever going to see you alone ?
I've so many things to say."
"Have you. Boss? I thought you only had to
say ' good-bye.' " She cursed herself for her
mechanical parrying.
"Well, you might say 'good-bye' nicely any-
how, Nelly."
"Tony, there are heaps of things I want to say
too, really." Thank God, she had forced the words
out. "When can I see you — really, really
alone?"
Again the maddening desire to evade him
entangled her. "My mother used to say," her
voice was between tears and laughter, "that the
best place for a private interview was an island
in Piccadilly Circus at twelve noon, but no one
would ever accept that as a rendezvous."
"Nelly, stop joking." ("Oh, he is in earnest,"
she thought, "I shall not have to make things
happen.") "Couldn't you come up to the studio
188 THE CHORUS
one night when I'm " — he did not falter at the word
—"busy. We shan't be disturbed. I'll give Pan-
dolefsky a night off. He's sure to want a racket
by this time. When you see my light you'll know
I'm alone. Will you come?"
"But how can I get away, Boss?"
"Can't you climb out of the window? You see
I must speak to you."
Oh, that emphatic speak. Of course, it was clear
that she must come.
A soft night lapped in mist with stars showing
only at the height of the sky, and the green-white
star of the studio dazzling among the branches —
Nelly locked her door and put the key in her pocket,
went to her window and leaned out. She had not
had much chance of reconnoitring the place where
she was to climb. It might be simpler to risk un-
barring the door ; but the noisy stairs made a
barrier. Suppose she wakened the fowls and they
all started to crow ! What a good thing Mrs.
Elkins kept no dog. What if Hilda wanted her
for anything during the night and came to the
bedroom door and found it locked, and could get
no answer, and roused the house, and sent for the
police or the doctor from Otterbridge? But if she
stopped to consider all the possible unpleasantnesses
she would do nothing at all. Very cautiously she
climbed on to the window-sill. It looked an un-
commonly long way to the ground. Crouching
she turned her face to the room and took a firm
grip of the inner ledge. Bending forward she
stretched her legs timorously into space, then
downwards so that her toes grated against the wall.
She was more afraid of making a noise than of
MOVES TOWARDS A CLIMAX 189
falling. Slowly she lowered herself till her body
hung at full stretch. Her toes tingled with anxiety
for the ledge above the sitting-room window, and
at last they had found it a few inches higher up the
wall than she had supposed. Next to grip the
outer sill and feel for the sill of the sitting-room,
there was no going back now. "This would be a
silly way to kill myself. Suppose I really do ? "
she thought. The stones grazed her hands. She
must drop, to reach the sill, almost a foot, the rest
was easy. Feeling sick she let go her hold. Her
feet had found the sill, her hands the ledge at the
top of the window, one yard more and with trem-
bling knees she was on the ground. Gracious, how
she was sweating, and how the palms of her hands
did smart ! Moving in the shadows she set off up
the hill to the studio.
Anthony was waiting for her just at the other
side of the whispering trees. Half a mile of dark
road, a little gate that must not clang, a steep path
and bushes that brushed her face with dewy leaves
and suddenly the studio a blaze of light just above
her head, sooner than she had expected it. In a
moment she had found the shelter of the doorway,
and her fingers drummed a tattoo upon it — up and
down they ran scurrying like frightened mice.
Silently the door was opened, she was engulphed
in brightness and the smell of homespun and
tobacco. He fastened the door, holding her round
the shoulders with one arm as he did so, threw his
cigarette at the furnace, and stooping pressed his
warm cheek against her cold one.
"Thank you for coming. I hardly dared to
expect you."
190 THE CHORUS
As usual she had been ready to ^ive more than
he demanded. She said —
"I very nearly didn't come, but once I'd started
I couldn't go back. Look what the wall did to me."
"Oh, the poor little hands." He put her into
the big chair. "And now tell me what you wanted
to see me about ? "
" It was you that wanted to see me ! "
"Was it? But I always want to see you. Aren't
you a beautiful Nelly, tell me, aren't you?"
Sitting on the arm of the chair with her head
against his shoulder, he stroked her neck.
"Tony, dear, I want to think."
"Don't think, my Nelly. Forget everything.
Just remember that you are here with me."
"Oh, Tony, when you touch me I get so con-
fused I can't say anything I want to. And I can't
stay long."
"Suppose I keep you?"
"Ah, my dear, morning would come just the
same."
"Don't talk for a little while. Let me love you."
"No, you've got to listen to me. Please, Tony."
He released her, and holding her hand bent his
gaze intently on each finger in turn.
"Well," he said.
"Tony, you are going away."
His head still bent —
"I have to, Nelly."
"Why have you to?"
"Dear child, we can't do anything for ever."
"Why can't we?"
"Because— well, that's the way of it."
"You mean you've got tired of me."
MOVES TOWARDS A CLIMAX 191
He swung round to her.
"Nelly, I haven't. I swear to you I haven't."
"What is it, then?"
"My dear, we couldn't go on Hke this. It isn't
fair to you."
"I don't mind."
"But I mind, Nelly."
She drew her hand away from him and clenching
her fists beneath her chin leant forward.
"What is fair to me, Tony?" she asked. He
dropped to her feet and put his face upon her knees.
"What a brute, what a selfish brute I have been.
Nelly, forgive me."
For a moment she longed to seize the splendid
shoulders and shake them.
"I'm not asking anything unreasonable," she
went on gently. "Only I can't — I can't," her voice
began to shake and he began to kiss her knees —
"I can't live without you, Tony."
"My poor child, my sweetest."
She bent her lips to his thick hair.
"Why must you leave me, Tony, why, why?"
"iNIy poor beloved, isn't it the only thing?"
"Is it the only thing, Tony? Oh, don't think
about being selfish," she cried, knowing he was
about to reproach himself again. "Oh, don't think
about being selfish. Think what is going to
happen to me. You can't go away and not take
me with you."
"My child, it's impossible."
"Then you are going to get away from me."
"I'm not, I'm not."
"Yes, you are. Oh, Tony, forget about missing
me and all that sort of thing. I want to be with
192 THE CHORUS
you. I want to go with you. I can't stay with-
out you. I should kill myself. Oh, Tony, listen,"
she dragged him into her arms and clasped him
tightly. "I'm not like other girls. I shouldn't
ever trouble you. Only I can't live unless I have
you sometimes. My Tony, I haven't anything to
lose. There isn't anyone to care what becomes of
me. No one need ever know. I'd keep your secret
so well, Tony. I'd be such good company. I
can't be left behind now, Tony, I want you too
badly. All my people are like that — if we want
anything we must have it — we must have what
we've set our hearts on, Tony. If you don't take
me I shall kill myself."
She was crying now soft tears that did not mar
her beauty.
"If I only dared," said Anthony.
"You will, you will. Think what fun we'd have
just the two of us together, Tony. You can't
refuse me, Tony, when I love you so much."
"My dear, I mustn't let you."
"Mustn't you?"
Smiling she held him from her, her mouth pro-
vokingly near his.
"Say 'yes.'"
It was "yes."
Afterwards she told him: "I was so afraid you
were going to be horrid. It's queer, Tony, but I
wouldn't mind the whole world knowing you loved
me, but I couldn't bear to know in my own heart
that you didn't. I'd be so ashamed of that I think
I'd die."
"My Nelly, you are all mine now. There's
nobody but you in the world."
MOVES TOWARDS A CLIMAX 193
"My Tony, how solemn you are."
"When I first kissed you, you cried. Do you
remember, Nelly ? "
"That was because I was happy. You've always
made me happy, but now I'm too excited to cry.
To have you for a holiday ! "
"That's it, Nelly. We'll have a holiday to-
gether," he cried, embracing her. "Oh, my love,
what joy it will be. I feel like a boy, Nelly. I
want to throw up my cap and shout."
They began to talk of the journey. Of course,
America was out of the question.
"Well, the world was a pretty good place before
Columbus was born." They would go to Paris
first, of course, perhaps to Moscow, "All golden
spires and domes and not a damned tourist any-
where," or along the Mediterranean to Constan-
tinople, or to Corsica. He had always wanted
to see Corsica. How they would bask in the
sun !
"I shall have to put my hair up," said Nelly
the practical. "And where shall I meet you,
Tony ? "
"I shall carry you all the way in my arms ! "
"Tony, be sensible. You know we'll have to
catch trains like other people."
"Then I suppose we'd better make for the nine
o'clock boat train from Charing Cross on Thursday
week. We'll go by Calais. The earlier we get
off the better."
"I think I'd better get away and stay in town,
hadn't I? People will notice so if we leave here
together."
He frowned for a moment. That word "people "
o
194 THE CHORUS
it brought back all the clamorous small difficulties
with which he was beset.
"I wish we could just spread wings and fly."
"But we can't, Tony; and, Tony," it was a
difficult matter to suggest this, " I shall want a
few things for the journey, you know."
Of course she would. Anthony would not have
dared hint it for the world.
"How much will you want. A hundred
pounds ? "
A hundred ! It was fabulous ! Since she was
old enough to do her own spending she had never
had more than ten pounds in her hand at a time.
She would take only fifty.
"I'll have the notes for you to-morrow."
j\Ioney spoilt the thing for him a little, for her
it sealed the bargain.
"My Anthony," her arms shut out his thoughts.
They lay in the dark and talked of what they would
do and see, until the dawn came in and put a white
line on Anthony's profile. Before she went they
found the ring again, and slung it round her neck
on the ribbon out of her chemise.
"Good-bye, my sweet. Soon we'll have no more
partings."
Oh, how cold the morning air !
Down at Elkins's the ducks were just stirring.
Elkins himself had unbarred the door and was
raking the kitchen fire. He was a model husband.
Covered by the noise Nelly regained her room.
She flung herself all dressed upon the bed. Oof —
but she was sleepy.
CHAPTER XVIII
NELLY HAYES ORDERS HER TROUSSEAU
But if Anthony and Nelly were making plans,
gossip was busy too. The news of Anthony's
departure was hailed by everyone as a sign that
Mrs. Hamel had put her foot down. It was ad-
mitted that what thoughts she herself had were
not easy to guess. She bestirred herself no more
than usual; her voice was tranquil, her delicate
profile cold as glass. No one heard her say a word
on the subject, but, of course, she knew. After
all, there was no mistaking it.
"One needn't adopt the most sinister interpreta-
tion, but it is high time one of them went away.
I wash Erica would talk a little. I don't like to
see her so proud; she'll suffer more."
"Erica is hardly the sort of person who confides
her domestic afflictions to the postman on the door-
mat," but they thought she might afford a little
more excitement to her friends.
Mrs. Hamel, polishing her nails among her
embroidered bed-hangings, was neither secretive
nor suffering. Proud she was, but passively; not
in grim earnest, as her friends supposed. She had
not observed Nelly and her husband chiefly because
she would have considered such things beneath her
notice; really, perhaps, because she was seldom in
195
196 THE CHORUS
any place where they were. She had a notion that
Anthony was better when he was busy, and she
was glad that he would be so busy in America.
She would be lonely without him, but hardly more
lonely than she was with him. Meanwhile they
might as well be busy with a farewell garden-party
and a little dinner. She did not think they had
been quite friendly enough to the local people.
She would want sociable neighbours when she
returned in the autumn and rain and darkening
days kept her friends in town, it would be nice to
have a little bridge, even if one could not have a
proper house-party. It would not matter trampling
the lawns either now, as they w^ould have so long
to recover. Tennis and ices and summer dresses
were always enjoyable. She fancied the fine
weather would hold. The invitations were issued.
The garden-party was an unpleasant surprise for
Nelly. That it should be on the Wednesday when
Anthony should be speeding to her arms seemed
to signify more than a mere coincidence.
"Oh, Hilda, I was going to tell you, I can't stay
for it," she said when the invitation reached
Elkins's. "I have to go up to town."
"That's a sudden resolve, isn't it?" cried Hilda
in surprise. "What's the hurry?"
"Well," said Nelly weakly, "I haven't a frock."
"You can wear one of mine. Do stay; but of
course you will. The party will be great fun."
"I don't think I ought to, Hilda."
There were so many things she must do : her
darling clothes to try on ; and she must be sure of
getting away.
" Have you heard from your mother, Nelly ? "
NELLY ORDERS HER TROUSSEAU 197
Hilda was puzzled. She had expected Nelly to
rejoice at the garden-party.
"Yes," said Nelly.
Hilda looked at her doubtfully. Nelly's eyes
met hers with a wilful stubbornness. Hilda began
to feel worried.
Nelly had been ordering her clothes that after-
noon. She had sat on a stool in the sour-smelling
post-office at Otterbridge while the young lady with
the paper cuffs got her number. She was going
to order her things from a shop near Baker Street.
Its owner had been her mother's maid at one time
and had known vicissitudes. Now she owned a
little shop, with three hats and two blouses in the
window.
" Is that Miss Cluer ? Oh, could I speak to her ? "
She held the line.
"Is that you, Minnie? I'm Miss Hayes. You
remember me, don't you ? I want a whole lot of
things. Do write them down. I'll send the money
by registered letter immediately. Will you get me
a trunk and pack it ? "
"Are you getting married. Miss Hayes?" Miss
Cluer's genteel voice came thin over the telephone.
"Why, yes," said Nelly, "I suppose I am."
"You haven't wasted much time," said Miss
Cluer a trifle less genteelly.
"I suppose not," said Nelly, laughing.
" I beg your pardon ? "
"I said I suppose not."
" How much did you wish to spend ? "
"Not more than fifty pounds."
"I suppose you only want to buy the under-
clothing, then ? "
198 THE CHORUS
Nelly blushed in the box.
" I want to buy everything : something of every-
thing. Just enough for the journey." (She had
an inspiration.) "I shall be getting most of my
things in Paris."
Miss Cluer was now respectful. She would read
through the lists.
"Chemise nine and eleven, camisole five and
eleven, nightgown thirteen and eleven, knickers
seven and eleven. Or we have a better quality.
Chemise twelve and eleven, knickers nine and
eleven, camisole seven and eleven, nightgown
eighteen and eleven. American shape, short
sleeves. Yes, these are very pretty. Hand-made,
of course, trimmed good val edging and insertions.
Or you can have cluny edging or torchon ; they
come dearer. The real lace, you know. Or we
have the plain embroidered ones." The list again.
How Nelly longed to be rummaging in the shop
herself ! It took away all enjoyment, this dull
business of mouth and ear. Finally she arranged,
as that lady had intended, to trust Miss Cluer to
choose her something pretty.
They went on to stockings.
"We can do you a reliable spun silk at four and
six, or the pure silk at seven and eleven."
They left that question to Miss Cluer, too. It
would depend on what they had over.
Corsets then. "Oh, I can never fit on a corset
by telephone ! "
"If you will tell me the make and size you are
wearing at present " Miss Cluer's patient voice.
The list again: through "Daphne and Silver
Swan," through coutillc and bruche and four sus-
NELLY ORDERS HER TROUSSEAU 199
penders and six suspenders. Nelly, in her mind's
eye, could see Miss Cluer holding them against
her own taut figure. In the end that, too, was left
to Miss Cluer. Life was hardly worth living.
Then about the travelling clothes. Miss Cluer
supposed she would wear blue ? Brides usually
did.
"Well, I don't want to," said Nelly.
"Grey, then," said Miss Cluer; "it will have to
be grey. We have some very nice little three-piece
suits in silk serge. I dare say we could alter one
of those to fit you — they work out at seven guineas.
And a hat ? "
"Can't I wear a bonnet?" asked Nelly.
They didn't want, after all, or did they, to be
a trifle — well, theatrical-looking? suggested Miss
Cluer. Of course, if Miss Hayes particularly
wanted a bonnet Nelly had particularly wanted
a bonnet.
"I don't see how I can get a hat to suit me
without trying it on."
"Oh, with your hair you can wear anything,
Miss Hayes. I only wish I had you for the
millinery branch," said Miss Cluer. "Of course,
you have put your hair up ? "
"Oh yes — at least, it will be up by then."
Then there was a petticoat, and shoes, and a silk
wrapper, and gloves, and a cloak for the boat.
"And oh, Miss Cluer, I must have a dressing-bag
of some kind to put the things in "
In the end they had just enough chosen for the
journey, with a change of linen, and her bill came
to forty-seven pounds nine shillings.
Miss Cluer congratulated her on its moderation.
200 THE CHORUS
Would she have pink or blue ribbons in her
underclothing- ?
Very pale blue, Nelly instructed her.
And how would she like them marked — with the
full name or initials?
Oh, that would not matter.
No extra charge for marking them.
Nelly thanked her, but that would be "all right."
She was vexed with herself for being sensitive
to such a question. She would try and get round
on Tuesday or \\^ednesday to see the things. If
not, would iNIiss Cluer have them ready for her
before eight on Thursday? It was frightfully
important. Well, really, what a very unusual
request ! The shop did not open until ten o'clock.
Miss Cluer herself never breakfasted before nine.
"Really, Miss Hayes, it is out of the question."
Well, Nelly must try and fetch them on Wednes-
day at latest.
Bother and blast ! That old shark Minnie Cluer
had grown too big for her boots. Going to sell
her a lot of antediluvian stufT out of stock, too.
Well, Nelly would know what to say when she
saw her.
She bought postal orders for two pounds and
nine shillings, added them to her five-pound notes,
and dispatched them to Baker Street. No use
expecting Minnie Cluer to start any work for her
till she'd spotted the cash with her own eye.
Nelly's mother had often said that Minnie Cluer
had an eye you could hammer a nail on. Nelly
pushed the letter through the letter-box.
So that was settled. She was glad, but she could
not believe it quite real. She could not see herself
NELLY ORDERS HER TROUSSEAU 201
clear and triumphant in those new clothes. Her
old brown skirt, frayed round the tail, seemed
to belong to her as nearly as her skin. Was it
possible to make one step and leave poverty and
squalor and loneliness and uncertainty behind for
ever ? She was going to do that, her brain told
her so, but something else in her could not respond
to the good news. She was like a man with a
winning lottery ticket who suspects there must be
some mistake. She did not feel happy. She had
a premonition of failure. Success could not be so
easy of attainment as this, or there would be no
misery in the world. Things had gone too well of
late. The garden-party came upon her now with
a disagreeable jerk. If she had to stay for that her
plans had all gone to crimini. She braced herself
to meet Hilda's interrogation.
That young woman assumed a judicial air.
"Well, Nelly, is it that you've heard from your
mother, which is very important, or is it that you
haven't a frock, which isn't important at all?"
" It's both," said Nelly, pouting at this scrutiny.
"Really I can't stay, Hilda."
Doubts that had been nibbling at Hilda's peace
for a long while, had she admitted their existence,
seized on her now with a sharp pang.
"What's up, Nelly?" she asked, feeling cold
with unnamed anxiety. "What's gone wrong-
lately ? "
"Nothing, Hilda, nothing." Nelly shook her
head. "Really nothing."
" Haven't you been happy ? Aren't you happy ? "
Nelly sprang to her feet. After all, it was easy
to get round old Hilda.
202 THE CHORUS
"You dearest stupid," she cried, clasping her in
her arms, "of course I've been happy: happier
than ever I've been in my Hfe."
Hilda kissed her and disengaged herself. She
was not altogether pleased with that affectionate
term "stupid." She began to fear that it suited her
too well.
CHAPTER XIX
A VULGAR ROW — HILDA FORGETS THAT IT IS NOT
POSSIBLE TO MAKE A SOW's EAR OUT OF A SILK
PURSE
Hilda, lacerated with curiosity, walked about
the garden of The Height. She no longer felt the
world a good place to be in. She no longer felt
satisfied with her work, with her master, with her
future, with her hitherto so admirable achievements.
The bell of her self-sufficiency was cracked. What
was it, this something that was on foot behind her,
that turned when she turned, dodged when she
dodged ? Why could not her thoughts penetrate
at once to the centre of the mystery ? Stupid.
That was what Nelly had said. Hilda began to
wonder if B.A.'s and artistic accomplishments were
cleverness after all. If they were not — why, then
every nimble woman with tilted hat from Bayswater
to Kensington was cleverer than she. She pushed
back her hair and turned into the dappled shadow
of the orchard. Her young face was innocent as
Mother Eve's among the apple stems. Choosing
his moment, Mr. Pandolefsky came to join her.
'"In maiden meditation fancy free,'" was his
greeting from behind.
"Oh, Mr. Pandolefsky," was hers.
"Not many more of these pleasant days for us to
spend together," said he.
203
204 THE CHORUS
"No, indeed," said Hilda. It had not struck her
that Pandolefsky had been part of the pleasure.
"I've some important news I think you ought to
hear, Miss Concannon."
" Oh, have you ? " said Hilda.
"Of course you may know it already. I may be
a day or two after the fair. Am I right ? "
"I don't know quite what you mean," said Hilda.
"It's not exactly good news, Miss Concannon. I
can't be certain if I ought to tell you. It concerns
another person altogether. I might say another
person's welfare "
Hilda's heart leaped. She was to learn after all.
The mystery was about to be solved. Thirsty with
eagerness, she assumed her most snubbing manner.
" If it concerns someone in whose welfare I am
interested," she said grandly, "I think I should
hear it."
Pandolefsky licked his lips.
There was not much of Nelly's secret that he had
missed — only that intangible tenderness of hers that
lifted all her actions from the squalid to — well, to
some other thing.
"I don't know if I've done right, coming to you
about it, Miss Concannon. I've been looking for
an opportunity these last few days. But it seemed
to be coming to a head, Miss Concannon, and I
wouldn't like anything to happen that we might be
sorry for. Perhaps I should have spoken to Mrs.
Hamel about it; but it seems such a pity to make
her unhappy. Miss Concannon."
"Someone's got to be unhappy," said Hilda
grimly. "Please don't mention this to anybody
else."
A VULGAR ROW 205
"No fear of that, Miss Concannon."
Hilda wanted to scream at him : "And don't call
me * Miss Concannon ' every other second."
Instead she said, "It may not be so serious as
you think."
" It may not. I dare say the Boss knows his own
business best. But it seems such a pity." He dwelt
on the pity of it. "She's very flighty, but such a
taking little thing. I couldn't help kissing her
myself when she first came here."
He spoke as if his discovery of the girl's less
noble qualities had quenched his flame.
Hilda cut short his reminiscences.
She felt as if she had been slapped in the face.
This, then, was the fact to which her eyes had been
blinded. Fierce anger woke in her. She knew only
that she must get at Nelly and blaze the knowledge
at her. How dared the girl I how dared she ! Her
baseness was a humiliation. How could she play
such a vile, bestial game. She stumbled down the
hill to Elkins's. Her anger could hardly contain
itself. She wanted to rail and strike things. She
was too fierce to be surprised at herself.
At Elkins's she found Nelly trying to read a
novel in the sitting-room.
"Hello, what's up?" the girl asked seeing
Hilda's furious face.
Hilda shut the door, then she turned, trembling;
she was going, she thought, to be very dignified.
"Nelly," she said, "Pandolefsky has been talking
about you."
"I don't care. Let him talk," said Nelly, with
staccato jauntiness. She shut her book and rose
uneasily from her chair.
206 THE CHORUS
"He's a hateful creature. I always told you he
was. He talks as if " Hilda paused, her anger
leaping. "He says that you Oh, how am I to
tell you what he says ? "
Nelly stood by the table, fingering the cloth.
She did not want to hear what Pandolefsky had
said. She did not want to have this disagreeable
talk with Hilda. She was absurdly like a naughty
child caught stealing biscuits.
"Can't you guess what he says?"
"Don't want to," the golden head was shaken.
"Stop fooling, Nelly," Hilda suddenly shouted
at her. "Don't you see I know?"
" Know what ? " said Nelly with feeble effrontery.
"I know what has been happening all this time.
You've been letting Mr. Hamel make love to you."
Nelly laughed shakily. "That's all right."
"What do you mean by ' that's all right ' ? Do
you mean it's true ? "
"Well, what if it is?"
"What if it is? Nelly, it's outrageous."
"I don't see that it matters to you."
Hilda ignored that remark, it was too prepos-
terous ; of course the thing mattered to her — mat-
tered tremendously, or she would not feel so furious
about it.
"Pandolefsky says you've been kissing him."
"Kissing him ! "
"Kissing Mr. Hamel. Have you been letting
him kiss you, Nelly? "
Hilda's cheeks were hot with blushes. It was not
she who had been misbehaving, and yet she felt the
humiliation of it.
A VULGAR ROW 207
"Only in the studio," said Nelly, as if that were
an extenuating circumstance.
Hilda was shocked, so she told herself, by the
brazen unconcern of this avowal, but what seethed
within her was a deeper feeling — resentment at
being hoodwinked, the bitterness of being "left
out"; above all, the quick pain and jealousy
that Anthony, whom she admired so much, should
so single out another. She had always believed
in passionate love, but this was nothing but
vileness. She forgot her modern authors, and
repeated a maxim from the copy book for young
ladies.
"No nice girl would let a man kiss her unless
they were engaged."
"Such rot. Such absolute rot. What do you
know about it ? "
"Not very much, I'm thankful to say," said
Hilda.
Nelly laughed an irritating laugh.
"I am thankful to say it," cried Hilda.
"There's no harm in it," said Nelly, sulking
again.
"Harm ! But Mr. Hamel is married."
"You make me laugh," said Nelly savagely.
"What about, Mrs. Hamel? What would she
think ? "
"She won't care," said Nelly quickly; "she won't
know."
"That makes it beneath contempt. It's so
dishonourable."
"It can't hurt her. She won't know. Why
should she have everything ? "
208 THE CHORUS
"Don't talk so wickedly and stupidly! You've
got to face the facts."
"Oh, Lord, have mercy upon us! "
"Stop being so silly. You are making a
desperate fool of yourself."
"I can manage my own affairs, thank you. I
don't want your advice. When I do I'll ask
for it."
She flounced to the door.
"Stand still and listen, will you? Pandolefsky
told me something else. He says you have actually
been planning to go away with Mr. Hamel."
"Pandolefsky knows a lot ! "
"Nelly, you shall talk about it. Think what you
are doing. Has he promised to marry you ? "
"Marry me!" Nelly broke into a laugh.
"Marry me! You little sea-green gooseberry!
Marry me, my heavenly dear ! "
"And you are going away with him, all the
same ? "
"I didn't say so."
"Are you going? "
"I won't be bossed by you."
"Are you going? "
"I shan't tell you."
" Is it to meet him you are going back to Town ? "
"T shan't tell you."
" Did you get a letter from vour mother ? "
"Yes, I did."
"I don't believe you."
"Very well; I'm lying."
"Yes, you are. Who else have you been
kissing ? "
A VULGAR ROW 209
"Find out!"
" I mean to. Did you kiss Pandolefsky ? "
"You'd better ask him."
"Oh, it's too disgusting ! "
"There was no harm in it."
Loathing- drenched Hilda.
" He's such a beast ! "
"Well, if he's such a beast, why were you so
keen to listen to him ? "
It was Hilda's turn to be reproved, but Nelly
could not maintain her advantage.
"And I kissed Teddie Armour, too; and you
can't say he's a beast."
Hilda's mind was in confusion.
"But you refused to marry him ? "
"That wasn't a reason for being disagreeable,
was it ? "
(Disagreeable 1 Must one, for politeness' sake,
kiss all the men one met ?)
"And dear Stevie."
" Steven Young ?" Hilda felt the pang of jealousy
again. She had always regarded him as particu-
larly her friend.
"Oh, they're all alike! He isn't a paragon."
Then, seeing the pain in Hilda's face, her good-
nature added —
"But he only kissed my hand."
"I knew he was different," cried Hilda.
"Yes; he's a bit of a prig."
Hilda could have strangled her.
"Well, you are mighty pleased with yourself,"
she said; "but let me tell you all this is going to
stop. There will be no more of this sort of thing.
p
210 THE CHORUS
I ought to have taken better care of you. You
will stay for the party and go up to town with me
when I go."
"You've no right to interfere."
"Yes, I have. Anyone has. I'm not going to
let you make a fool of yourself."
"You don't know what you're talking about." -
"Yes, I do."
"Go and talk to Tony Hamel, then. Tell him
he's a naughty boy."
"For a very little, I'd go and tell Mrs. Hamel."
"Tell away, Miss Busybody. You'll see how
she likes it."
"You'll see how everyone likes it. Understand
me, Nelly : if you don't behave yourself I'll tell
Mrs. Hamel the whole story. Will you stay now,
or won't you ? "
Nelly measured her. There was nothing to be
gained by prolonging the quarrel. She would find
a way out presently.
"Will you stay?"
"I will."
They hated each other.
Hilda, bright-eyed, picked up a book and pre-
tended to read — pretended to herself, too, that she
was reading with great composure. She had put
her foot down and ended the whole infamous and
silly business. From time to time she shook a
little from the force of her indignation. Not one
corner of the world but must be smirched and
filthicd with these transitory passions. Why
couldn't people have self-control? It made one
hate all love, this travesty of it. Was all freedom
A VULGAR ROW 211
and companionship and equality between men and
women to be a disguise for the secret wallowings
of beasts ? It was an outrage on fineness and sense
and decency. Mrs. Hamel was quite right. It was
a mistake to pick up casual acquaintances. Nelly
had not one of the ideas that made life tolerable
for the rest of them. She was a female Pando-
lefsky. She was uncivilized. She had spoilt
everything. If they had prepared to go away
openly together she could have admired them, she
lied to herself. She would not then have felt the
same torment of anger. It was this furtive lechery
—like an escaped bitch. It degraded all woman-
hood. All she could do now was to save the girl
from herself. Clearly she was lost to all sense of
shame. Mrs. Hamel was quite right : you could
not make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. The
most one could do was to insist upon decency.
Mrs. Hamel was quite right — that was the sicken-
ing thing that made her so angry; that must be
it. Behaviour like Nelly's played into the hands
of all the Grundies and fogies and odious, back-
ward people. It justified every wink and every
leer. Oh, she would do her best for the girl this
once, and afterwards — well, some day she might be
grateful.
Upstairs, Nelly lay on her bed, flushed and rigid,
trying to stifle the misery that was choking her.
She felt adrift in a whelming sea where there was
no swimming. She could not struggle against her
destiny. She was in the grip of misfortune.
Things had been going too well — too well. She
was not meant for happiness.
212 THE CHORUS
She felt for Tony's ring where it lay between
her breasts. She clasped her hands upon it and
held it to her as if it also were desolate and in
grief. Guarding it so, the tears flowed from beneath
her eyelids. Presently she fell asleep.
CHAPTER XX
MORE UNPLEASANTNESS — THE GARDEN-PARTY
The day of the garden-party dawned warm and
cloudy with a promise of bright sun. On one of
the lawns a small marquee was being erected. The
noise of tiie hammers broke the still air ominously.
It might have been a scaffold or a coffin they were
making.
Nelly awoke to a consciousness of trouble. It
was gnawing at her breast before she recollected
the reason of it. Hilda was up already. Nelly
could hear her moving in the next room. Could
she escape her vigilance, she wondered, and get
an early train to town ? Still she must see Tony
for a minute before she went. There must be no
risk of a change of plan at the last moment. She
heard Hilda pause outside her door and her brows
drew together, the door opened, she lay looking at
the ceiling, Hilda did not look at her either. She
said, "Are you coming down to breakfast?"
"No," said Nelly.
"Oh, very well," the door was shut.
Nelly lay sulking. She wanted to get up, but
she wanted still more to irritate Hilda. She lay
on pretending to sleep. Presently Hilda came
upstairs again.
"Are you going to lie in bed all day?"
"No, I'm not."
213
214 THE CHORUS
"Why don't you get up, then ? "
"I've no reason for getting up, have I?"
"Look here, Nelly," said Hilda, "I was a beast
last night. Do cheer up ! You know I wish you
every good thing, don't you? Can't you see how
impossible a mad plan like yours would be ? Be
a nice child."
No response. She tried again.
"Come and choose what you want for this after-
noon. You can have my Liberty muslin, if you
like."
"I'm not going to the garden-party."
"Oh, but you must."
"I'm not going."
"Nelly, don't be a fool," Hilda's temper surged
up again. "I've said we'd go, and we are going
to behave as if nothing had happened."
"You can go if you like. I shall stay here."
"Then I must stay too."
"You are unbearable."
"It's no use getting into a rage. I'm not going
to let you out of my sight, so you can make up
your mind to that."
"Very well, then I stay where I am."
She turned over and drew up the bed-clothes.
Hilda waited a minute.
"Oh, very well, of course, if you won't be
friends," she said. She went downstairs again.
"Idiot;' said Nelly.
Presently she rolled out of bed and prepared to
dress herself.
She was brushing her hair when Hilda came in
again.
"Hullo, I thought you weren't getting up?"
MORE UNPLEASANTNESS 215
"I suppose I can change my mind, can't I?"
"Oh, of course." She went into her own room.
How silly it all was, quarrelling like schoolgirls.
She got out a little pink muslin dress with a net
fichu and carried it into Nelly's room.
"What's that for?" asked Nelly.
"Won't you wear it this afternoon ? "
"I don't want anything of yours." The hostile
voice trembled.
"Dear Nelly, don't keep it up so long. I'm
awfully sorry for having spoken so rudely, but
nobody could help feeling the way I did."
Nelly looked at her. It amazed her to see how
little Hilda realized the importance of the affair.
At last she said —
"Hilda, you're a brick. Forgive me for being
rude too."
Hilda kissed a cold little cheek. She felt the
joy of Heaven over the repentant sinner. She felt
the conquest of reason over instinct, of right over
wrong. Everything, was splendid. Nelly would
wear the dress. Her pride always yielded to seduc-
tion. What a good time they would have ! What
a day for ices !
The garden-party was in full swing when they
arrived. The lawns were crowded with women in
light dresses islanding the rarer figures of men,
Miss Fitch, with the smartest of sunshades, waved
a gay hand to them. Mrs. Arden smiled from
her chair. The Spink girls, already flushed from
tennis, bounded towards them. The air was full
of the shrill chatter of voices saying nothing very
interesting and nothing very witty, just the voices
of people conscientiously enjoying themselves.
216 THE CHORUS
Mrs. Hamel, white-clad and frail as an anemone,
shook hands with them on the steps. Tony was
nowhere to be seen, he was exhibiting the treasures
of the studio. Mrs. Eckstein bustled over, elabo-
rately skirted and in all the latest mysteries of
fashion. Steven Young and Arden Keath greeted
them, and they went to find ices together. They
joined Miss Fitch and made small jokes in the
tumult. Their remarks were all disconnected and
irrelevant. When the noise lulled occasionally
they could only look at one another and laugh,
they had no preparedness for these opportunities.
Nelly could not see Tony anywhere. Her eyes
sent anxious glances into every corner of the
garden, but he was nowhere to be seen. And then
at last she perceived him. He was passing along
the terrace, laughing with some of his friends. He
was bare-headed, suited in white, resplendent be-
neath the sun. Involuntarily she moved toward
him. He saw her, paused in his talk, called to
her, "Having a good time, dear child?" He did
not notice her wanness. People bore down upon
him. She was swept away in the flood. The smile
left her lips. She felt worn out and tired to ex-
haustion. She left the group beside the fuchsia-
hedge, and wandered down to where the green
carpet of the grass bordered the lily pond. There
tlie darting dragon-flies hung, and the music of
the band came with a velvet drowsiness. She stood
and looked at tlie great waxen flowers and the
brown water. Between her and the multitude
crowding the terraces there seemed to be an im-
penetrable veil. She could hear the voices and the
laughter, but remotely as if through a glass screen.
MORE UNPLEASANTNESS 217
xA. fish came to the surface of the pond among the
Hly stems, and watched her for what seemed a
long time with its insolent, unspeculating eyes.
All the eyes behind her in the garden had seemed
to oppose to her that same undeviating stare. She
was in the world, but she had nothing to do with
them. There was nobody on her side. Tony
was not thinking of her. For a moment her soul
seemed to plunge into an abyss of darkness without
sound.
Miss Fitch and Mrs. Arden had noticed her
depression. They sent Ardent Keath up the hill
to find ices for them. Then they looked at one
another.
"Well, what do you think of it?" their eyes
said.
"The poor child is extravagantly in love," said
Miss Fitch. "I wish I'd warned her long ago."
"Really Anthony Hamel is a heartless, self-
centred "
"Oh, don't call him that, poor darling! Don't
call him that ! He never thinks what he's doing.
He can't sight a pretty girl a mile away without
making a run for her. It is his nature to."
"Oh, it's all very well for us to laugh. We are
hardened. But for a woman who cares "
"Oh, my dear, don't let other people's troubles
distress you more than they do themselves. No
one is ever hurt by an unhappy love affair in the
long run. It's like cutting teeth. Painful, but
worth while in the end. Besides, you know, I'm
not so sure that this is an unhappy love affair."
"But surely !" There was only one happy
ending for Mrs. Arden.
218 THE CHORUS
"Well, if you won't think me too scandalous — ■
I think Tony is infatuated too."
"But, my dear! He's old enough to be her
father ! He thinks of her in quite a different way,
I'm sure ! He feels himself a sort of uncle ! "
"A most dangerous feeling."
"Oh, you're an incurable cynic. I'm sure the
whole thing is innocent."
"Oh, innocent! Good gracious, yes. But not
in the Biblical sense ! "
" Has Erica noticed anything ? "
"Oh, Erica is very well able to take care of her-
self." Miss Fitch did not relate the history of her
defeats. She had risked a snub in saying to Mrs.
Hamel : "Tony admires Nelly Hayes greatly,
doesn't he?" and received it with the reply : "Oh,
we all admire her."
"Well, I can't feel happy about it," said Mrs.
Arden. She had a memory of a man she had liked
in the early days of her marriage, and of how he
had said bitterly to her because she was in the
height of her loveliness: "Of course, you are too
good to care for anyone but your husband." To
which she had replied: "Not too good, only too
lucky." She believed that to be profoundly true.
She could not with Miss Fitch think cheerfully of
loves that pass away leaving no trace. For her
own part such a thing would have ruined her and
set the castle of her life tumbling about her ears.
Miss Fitch said these things were not so, and Miss
Fitch was notoriously clever. All the same,
temperaments differed. A flirtation to one woman
might be a broken heart to another. (Mrs. Arden
MORE UNPLEASANTNESS 219
believed in broken hearts.) She thought she would
go and talk to the girl.
She came upon her by the lily pond.
"What's the matter, Rapunsel ? Are you ill?"
She took Nelly by the arm.
The pale face turned to her, and a weak voice
from what seemed far away prayed to her —
"Be kind to me."
CHAPTER XXI
5L\RKING TIME — .\N HONEST INDIAN ASS GOES FOR
AN UNICORN — F.AREWELLS
The long dinner-table of dark mahogany reflected
the bright silver, the flowers, the glasses, the china,
the lighted candles, as the tangled flowers of a
meadow bank hang down into a stream. The walls,
hidden with old tapestry, were shadowed and
remote, the ceiling with its shallow arches was
gently mysterious, dark curtains hid the daylight.
Round the table talk and laughter wove a gar-
land. The candle flames lit white hands, shone
starr\--pointed in eyes, drew into momentary
splendour a pendent jewel.
Mrs. Hamel had Sir Galton Strong on her right,
and smiled with a faint radiance upon her distin-
guished guest. At the other end of the room was
Anthony between Mrs. Arden and a handsome
stranger. Hilda had been taken in to dinner by
Steven Young, Xelly by Ardent Keath, but this
was by an oversight on Mrs. Hamel's part, who
had intended her to have an exceedingly intellectual
partner with a stammer. Miss Fitch had gallantly
volunteered for him at the last moment, and was
flooding conversation into his ears without giving
him time to answer. The Ecksteins were there also,
and an enormously successful novelist (whom
Ardent Keath after dinner looked forward to
220
MARKING TBIE 221
instructing in the rudiments of his art), and
Mr. JoppHng, of Burton-under-Lyne, who had a
legacy to spend for a local Art Gallery-
Nelly had put up her hair for the occasion. It
had taken a long time and made her arms ache,
and now she was watching Tony's face for a sign
that he noticed the great change. The table seemed
to her a board set for an elaborate game whose
rules she did not know. She had never been at
a dinner-party before — indeed, she had only been
invited to this one at the last moment to make the
fourteenth gfuest. The arrav of knives and forks
frightened her. She watched to see what her neigh-
bours did before she dared touch anything. She
was between Mr. Joppling and Ardent Keath, and
the latter had eyes only for the abandoned novelist
and the former for what was on his plate. Hilda's
eyes, too, all the time in scrutiny of her, added to
the ordeal. Her mouth was quite dry with nervous-
ness. She felt as if she were perched in some
remote part of the room near the cornice looking
on, instead of taking part. The only attention she
received from her neighbours was when Ardent
Keath stooped for her napkin, and she saw no sign
of interest in Mr. Joppling's face till its expression
of honest pain and amazement when he heard her
say " Thank you " to the butler. She had a miser-
able time. She wished she had skipped the entree^
as had the handsome stranger, and then when she
did imitate her by skipping the joint (the stranger's
handsomeness was of the increasing kind) she
forgot and helped herself to beans and potatoes —
verv difficult things to eat with a drv mouth and
no gravy.
222 THE CHORUS
Hilda was in bad spirits. She could not help
thinking of Nelly and Hamel sitting so near one
another without a sign of their true nearness. She
saw them ugly with hypocrisy. She rejoiced that
she had Nelly imprisoned there. Sir Galton
Strong, a most irksome bore, but an authority on
tropical plants and the finest writer of villanelles in
England, a staunch town-planner, too, was attack-
ing in his usual way the degenerate age in which
he found himself.
"Why, with all this cotton-wool wrapping, people
soon won't know what suffering is. If we aren't
going to have any more pain I don't see what's to
become of courage and all the Christian virtues."
"Mercy!" said Miss Fitch. "I suppose we'll
still be able to hit our funny-bones ! "
" It seems to me that the exercise of the Christian
virtues has never been begun," said Steven of the
serious eyes.
"But I maintain that it's an incontrovertible
fact — " Sir Galton filled his lungs — "that the
present generation is flabby. In the old days if
a man broke his leg he called for a hatchet and
chopped it off himself ! We've no stamina nowa-
days. We flinch rather than endure. We are
putting scientific discovery in the place of fortitude.
We shall learn to be noble not by the spirit soon,
but by prescription. It seems to me the finest
things are in danger of being coddled out of the
world."
They did the decay of the sense of beauty after
that, and heard the words "deplorable" and
"lamentable." And after that came Cubism and
Dynamism and Vorticism, all of which the success-
MARKING TIME 223
ful novelist disposed of by saying that he'd seen
"the same sort of stuff in Paris five years ago"!
At the other end of the table Anthony was dis-
cussing his chances of being allowed to paint the
interior carvings of Christ Church Priory.
"What places of flame and glory the churches
must have been in the old days, now so many echoes
and gaunt stones I "
"Perhaps it was when the colour began to go
the congregations went into dissent ? "
"Oh, visual beauty is never much attraction,"
said the handsome lady. "Dissenters prefer puce
window-frames and corrugated iron roofs."
"Not only Dissenters. Look at the concert halls.
Their audiences are of the elect, but look at the
halls I "
"Isn't the Catholic revival a move towards
beauty ? "
"Ah, the Mother and Child. That's the bribe.
Women look at the baby and men at the Mother's
face."
"Women look at the Mother's face too, Pm
afraid," said Mrs. Arden, smiling.
"I am in favour of the Greek Church myself,"
said Mr. Eckstein.
"Russian ballet?"
"No; icons. I should like an excuse for an
icon with a little lamp before it in my room, and
to sprinkle incense, and so on."
"Well, dear," said his wife across the table, "we
can have one put in to-morrow if you like."
An icon or a geyser— it was all one to her. Nelly
wondered if they were going to sit at the table
till midnight. She had somehow, she knew, to
224 THE CHORUS
contrive to catch the 11.15 at Otterbridge. If she
did not succeed in that the world fell in pieces about
her. How could she elude Hilda's watchfulness
and get to the station ? She had made sure she
could get her own way about it in the end; she
had not expected Hilda to be so mulish. There
must be some word of persuasion that had failed
her, some statement of her case to melt all hearts,
but she had not the gift to find words for it.
Should she slip into the garden after dinner and
make a bolt for the station as she was ? Oh, but
in that case Hilda would find it a duty to tell
Mrs. Hamel, and if Mrs. Flamel knew everything
was over. Instinctively Nelly knew that Anthony
in a big row could not be relied upon. He would
so hate giving people pain he would be sure to
make everybody suffer. If only she could get a
minute alone with him and persuade him to bring
the motor down to Elkins's for her and tear away
into the night, and risk the scandal ! But he
would not do that. She hardly dared, she knew,
to tell him there was any hitch at all; he would
be so swiftly in concern for her. She must just
pray for luck, she supposed. What did the tall
stiff with the beard mean with his cackle about
cotton-wool? What did he know about suffering?
They had reached dessert.
The evening was elaborate torture for Nelly.
Why, with all her future life in the balance, must
she sit on a floor in a music-room stroking a
grey cat? Why must she hear people chattering
above her, and then Mr. Eckstein chattering on
the piano? What were all these threads of sound
that never wove themselves into one warm melody ?
MARKING TIME 225
It seemed her whole Hfe was Hke that — listening to
a fugue when she wanted a valse tune. She felt as
if she had been buried alive and must not rap on
the coffin. She got no chance of speaking to
Anthony; he was engrossed with Mr. Joppling of
Burton.
Somewhere a clock struck what she knew must
be ten. She terrified herself by saying it was
eleven. Anyhow, she must struggle out of her
petrifaction. She put the cat on to the floor and
rose to her feet.
"Getting stiff?" someone asked her. She
realized she had been talking sometimes as well
as listening all the evening.
She sought out Hilda, who was sitting not very
happily with Steven.
"I'm tired," she said; "1 want to go home."
"Surely we can't go yet," said Hilda; "it's only
ten o'clock."
"I can't help that; I'm going. You can stay
if you like."
"Oh no; I'm coming with you."
"Very well."
They said good-bye to Mrs. Hamel.
"So early?" came the languid voice. "Good-
night, good-night. I shall see you to-morrow,
Hilda?"
She resumed her conversation.
The girls moved to the door.
"I'll put on your cloaks," said Anthony, follow-
ing them.
Was there a chance for one word ? Would he
be angry if she whispered to him while Hilda was
there ? If only he were not so ashamed of her !
Q
226 THE CHORUS
She dropped her handkerchief; he stooped for it,
and so did she.
"You'll wait for me if I'm late, Boss?" she
breathed.
"You aren't going to back out?" Was it hope
or fear struck a beat out of his heart ?
"Oh no."
"Nine o'clock," he said aloud, looking into her
eyes.
"Ten, Boss," said Hilda. "It's later than you
think."
He turned his smile to her.
"So it is," he said, and continued smiling.
"Well, good-bye." He put an arm round each
of them. "I shall look forward to seeing you
again." His fingers squeezed Nelly's shoulder.
"We've had good times, haven't we? You won't
forget me, will you ? " He shook Hilda's hand.
"I'd like to hear how you get on."
It was difficult to be angry with Anthony. It
made it all the liarder to have to think him base.
Perhaps the whole bother was a figment of Nelly's
vanity, thought Hilda.
He saw the girls disappear in the night. Nelly
would keep her promise. He had no time to wonder
how. Anyway, it was her business. If she failed —
well, it could not be his fault.
He went back to more music, more laughter.
Towards midnight ihey drank his health and wished
success to his journey. He felt a great affection
for his friends; it would certainly be good to get
back to them. The last good-nights were said.
The car that was to carry him to London came
round to the door.
MARKING TIME 227
"But you'll get no sleep ! '"
"I shall sleep enough on the boat."
He ran up to change his evening things. When
he came down arrayed for the journey only his
wife was in the lighted hall. He kissed her, hold-
ing his soft hat in his hand. She stroked the
warm, rough sleeve of his travelling coat with her
slender fingers. Fine lace enveloped her shoulders ;
she looked frail and unusually gentle. How sad it
all was, he thought ; how unfortunate !
" Must you go ? " she said, with just a faint note
of mockery in her voice, as if she were smiling at
her own solicitude.
"My darling, will you miss me?"
"Have you to ask that, Tony?"
He held her close to him.
"Take care of yourself, my precious one."
"Dear Tony, don't let it be too long before you
come back."
He looked at her for a last intent moment; then,
with a squeeze of her lingers, he was gone. All
night following the dark road her vision pursued
him : her weakness, her beauty, her line, unwaver-
ing reserve. He hoped nothing he did would make
her feel humiliated. She would always be the
purest of her sex to him ; nothing could smirch
that vision. His mood lasted until he was break-
fasting with the invaluable Prestow at the factory.
CHAPTER XXII
NELLY HAYES MISSES SOME TRAINS
Meanwhile the girls were hurrying down the
dark lane to Elkins's.
"What are you going to do, Nelly?" Hilda
asked.
"I'm going to do as I like."
"You're not going to town to-night?"
"Yes, I am."
"You're not."
"I am."
They wrangled breathlessly, contradicting each
other all down the hill.
Nelly ran up to her room.
Hilda follow-ed her.
Nelly told her to go outside.
"You've made enough trouble for me."
"You're making far more for yourself."
"I won't be bossed by you."
"I'm not going to let you make a fool of your-
self."
"Get out of my way. I'm busy."
"I shan't let you leave here to-night."
Nelly flamed at her. She was tugging with
might and main at the bent hooks on her evening
dress. She had barely time for her train.
"You talk about freedom and liberty," she said.
" But all you mean is a lot of silly rules."
228
NELLY HAYES MISSES SOME TRAINS 229
"I'm not ass enoug-h to be consistent where your
safety is concerned." Hilda was adamant.
"It's all my happiness you're spoiling, you fool."
Nelly was furious.
"Oh, if you're going to be rude again," said
Hilda. She moved to the door. " If you intend to
go away together," she said, "you shall go
openly."
She snapped the key out of the lock : "If I can't
keep you any other way, I shall lock you in."
"Give me that key."
"I won't."
"You shan't keep me here."
"Yes, I shall."
"You shan't." Nelly sprang towards her.
"We'll see about that." Hilda slipped through
the door.
With trembling speed she thrust in the key and
turned it.
"So that's settled," she said. At that grim
moment, had she but known it, she was very like
her father, the retired linen merchant.
For a minute or more blackness and despair
reigned in the bedroom. Then shaking with anger
Nelly resumed her preparations. She tore herself
out of the white dress, kicked her slippers across
the floor, tugged open with a crash the chest of
drawers, so that everything fell over on the top
of it, flittered out a blouse, thrust her arms into
it, buttoned the topmost button, snatched her serge
skirt from ihe peg on the door so that its loop
broke, pulled it over her head, fastened it some-
how, seized her jacket from the bed-rail, buttoned
its two buttons, looked round for her cap, could
280 THE CHORUS
not see it, so decided to do without it, dropped
her purse into her pocket, tied her shoe-strings,
listened a moment, and then, with a dead calm
succeeding- the hurricane of her speed, crossed to
the window. She listened again. No sound but
the noisy breathing in her throat. She was astride
the window sill. An instant more and the sick
drop through the air was over. So she had gone
that other night to be with Anthony— was it a
year ago ?
She landed lightly enough, crouching on her
toes, and her hands steadied her. She sprang up
and stood fronting the darkness, tense, listening.
Still no sound. She crept to the gate. It was
open. She slid through. Tlie night was so still !
The moonlight lay upon the world like a cold white
hand. She started to run. She did not know
what time it was. The fear gripped her with
physical agony that she had missed the train. She
ran wildly, desperately. Her heart seemed burst-
ing, she was forced to walk again. She felt as if
she were standing still. The impotence of a dream
seemed fastened upon lier. Every breath shook
itself from her with a sob. In the reaction of her
sudden activity she longed to fling herself down
and sleep, to cease struggling, to cry out that she
was beaten. So in torment she reached the crest
of the hill.
Here the road from Elkins's to the station crossed
the main road. The ground sloping lightly down-
wards lifted hope within her again. She broke
into a trot. For a while she was a racer in winged
sandals. The ground swept back from her. She
combated the trembling of her mouth; she shook
NELLY HAYES MISSES SOME TRAINS 231
back her tears. Her eyes felt dry and bright,
she was conquering destiny. The grass was
springy and dehghtful, the gorse was a host watch-
ing her run. Ahnost she gave a leap or two for
joy as children do, wasting her strength. Presently
the long, black back of the railway embankment
rose up beside her. She galloped down the hill
now. She could hear the train whistling. In her
heart a prayer shrilled upwards. She reached the
station and ran under the tunnel. Her shoes sent
echoes ringing. She was in time. She reached
the booking office and felt for her purse.
Then fortune struck and stunned her.
It was gone. She sought for it again, her
fingers burrowed feverishly. Oh, God, there were
only those two small, shallow pockets to search
in. The purse was gone. She had lost it some-
where on the road.^ "Oh, God! Oh, God!"
Nothing in her trembling fingers but a twisted
glove without its fellow. The distant thunder of
the train reached her. Her miserable eyes sought
the sleepy boy behind the little window.
"I've lost my purse." She could hardly speak.
"I'll give you my address, will you let me have a
ticket to Waterloo ? "
"Sorry," said the boy, "can't be done." Seeing
her dishevelled hair he did not add "Miss." He
walked back into his office.
She turned to the station-master, a gloomy,
moustached figure blocking the doorway. She
went towards him. "Tickets, please," he said.
She said to him, "I've lost my purse. Can't you
let me through ? I'll send the money in the morn-
ing, you can have my address."
282 THE CHORUS
"Can't travel without a ticket," he said.
The rushing of the train sounded nearer.
"I beg of you," she said. "I assure you I will
send the money." I ^nder his moustache his mouth
twisted cynically.
"Tickets, please," he said. The train roared in.
"I implore you," she cried, "for Christ's sake,
for His mercy."
He said : "You can't travel without a ticket; so
don't you try it on."
They were rolling the milk cans along the plat-
form. There was a small stir and bustle and feet
loud upon the flag-stones.
"I will send you the money. Oh, I beseech you !
I have lost it just on the road."
"Better go back and look for it."
" Will you keep the train, then ? "
"Not 'arf ! " said the man.
They were calling "Right forward ! " on the plat-
form. The steam poured hissing from the boiler.
It was nightmare, hideous nightmare. She fell on
her knees, her beautiful hair unrolled along her
shoulders.
"For the love of God," she cried, "let me come
through."
" No," he said. " Clear out of here."
The train gave a series of sharp coughs. The
chains jerked and the buffers thumped together.
"There she goes," said the porters, as the train
pulled out of the station. The station-master
stamped out on to the platform and watched the
tail-lights disappenr.
Nelly, kneeling on the dusty floor of the booking-
office, groped with numb fingers for her hairpins.
NELLY HAYES MISSES SOME TRAINS 233
Her body seemed filled with lead. She grew con-
scious at last that the boy in the booking-office was
regarding her with a stare fuller of curiosity than
of kindness. She picked herself up and walked out
of the station and through the tunnel again. It
seemed a long- time since she had last been there.
Her brain was paralysed. She could not think.
She was too miserable to cry.
Mechanically she mounted the hill, looking for
her purse. She could not see it. She must have
dropped it somewhere near the house. She reached
the crest of the hill. Oh, if only she could find
her purse. She strained her eyes for it. vShe
could not see it. Only the bare cross-roads lay
deathly under the moon. At the fork a sign-post
spread spectral arms.
Nelly moved towards it and read in the still
white glare, "London, 27 miles."
There lay her way then, that deserted and un-
pitying highroad. Its silence filled her with a
strained, agonized attention. She held to the sign-
post momentarily for support. What was that? She
listened, quivering with apprehension. "Hush,"
said the little wind, moving in the tree-tops.
Nelly had all a child's terror of darkness and
the townsman's dread of loneliness as well. She
faced the empty road as a mariner in a shipwreck
might face the menacing waters of the sea. Then
she drew a long breath as if she were about to
dive, and set her purpose before her and controlled
the shaking of her limbs.
She began to walk swiftly, determinedly in the
direction of London. The sign-post, bleached as a
skeleton, seemed to watch her out of sight.
284 THE CHORUS
The road beyond Otterbridge runs out across
low hills, the Ridges, where gorse and heather
desolately take the place of hedged fields and
friendly roofs, and gardens. Nelly had never been
so far. She had never walked much at all. She
had been neither rich nor poor enough all her life
to harden her muscles. She walked with hasty,
fretful eagerness and short steps. She knew before
she had gone three miles that she had been rash
and ill-considerate, but she kept on.
Out there, among the black levels of the Ridges,
a thousand devils lurked. The narrowed night
horizon held no promise of an end.
As she descended each hollow the mist rose to
her breast like lapping water. She was seized with
rending doubts lest she had misread the sign-post
and was walking away from her goal. As the
wooded hills fell away from her the sense of help-
lessness and danger became almost unbearable.
She was conscious of horror at her heels. Her
hair became rigid, and the vertebrae of her spine
thrilled and pained her till she longed to scream.
She became with imaginings almost unconscious.
She changed her path from the resounding road to
the grass. She flitted, one with the ghostly way-
farers of the night, by the edge of the track. She
walked quickly and her feet made no noise. Her
head was bare and her long hair streaming. She
was as strange an apparition as any other by the
light of the moon.
Half-way towards Marbury the Ridges rise to a
considerable height. Facing the steep ascent of
the road in the heavy shadow of the hill, she heard
voices singing on the far side. They were loud
NELLY HAYES MISSES SOME TRAINS 285
voices, men's voices, wavering and uncontrolled.
Her vague horrors were replaced by a definite fear,
but she moved onward swiftly. She was too
stupefied with emotion to have thought of hiding
herself or of any action indeed, but to follow the
London road. The hill rose above her, the moon
resting the edge of its bright disc upon it. Against
this surface two silhouettes appeared. A tall man
with a wooden leg and a shorter one that moved
nimbly. Their clothes hung ragged about them,
and flapped torn edges in the moonlight. As they
walked they swayed inwards and outwards, separat-
ing and colliding together with the movements of
a concertina, and as they staggered they howled.
Nelly advanced swiftly, silently to meet them.
They lurched down upon her, and the big man
gulped, "Give us a kiss." She saw herself for a
moment made captive, caught by the nimble fellow,
dragged in hideous struggiings to the big one.
Rut she walked on. She did not swerve an inch
or turn her head or speak. Fear gave to her
shoulders a slightly raised appearance, the rigidity
of her body made her sinister.
The roisterers stood agape. Then one of them
said, "Oh, Jesus! " and started to run. Their big
boots clattered riotously down the hill.
Nelly walked on. She did not run till she was
down the further slope. She judged thev would
guess her mortal, and follow if they saw her
running.
When she was well away she began to walk
again. The reality of danger had somehow
knocked the fear out of her bones. She identified
herself with the mysteries of night. Her silence
236 THE CHORUS
gave her a fantastic pleasure. She began to enjoy
the short grass under her foot. She was almost
happy. She was conquering destiny.
At the end of the Ridges came a pine wood, and
in a perfumed warmth she heard a nightingale
singing. The notes made a little rippling brook
of sound in the still branches. She and the bird
of love were waking the night together. She was
swept with tenderness and pity for herself, and she
thought of Anthony and her journey's end. She
walked bravely.
Near Marbury the woods began again, and the
road ran through a deep ravine of oak and hazel.
Here it was so dark that she could barely trace her
way. The roadside grass was long and cool as
water about her ankles. She walked through it.
It refreshed her. In the darkness a big man
tramped past her, a gamekeeper going his round.
She caught the long gleam of his gun-barrel.
A gruff "good-night" jumped at her. She did
not answer. In the darkness he thought it was a
man went by.
So through Marbury, with the moon glimmering
between the branches and the fields white with mist,
and on to Altringham, the steep little village above
the common, and there the moon set. It was two
o'clock in the morning. Darkness swathed the
world like a cloak. She found a sign-post on the
common where the road to Weybridge crosses here,
running east and west, but it was too dark to read
it. She dared not go forward without its guidance.
She sat down beside it to wait.
She was tired and her feet hurt her. She leaned
her back against the post. Her eyes closed. The
NELLY HAYES MISSES SOME TRAINS 237
delicious warmth that heralds sleep stole over her
weary body. For awhile she dozed.
She leapt wide awake, her eyes staring. The
common, the surrounding woods, the spire above
them, every blade of grass, every stone in the road
was lit up with a relentless illumination. For a
moment she thought the moon had risen again,
then that it lightened. But the illumination grew.
She looked behind her and saw the shadow of the
sign-post and her own shadow shoot out and bar
the ground for half-a-mile away. Then she heard
the drone of a motor approaching from the west.
It was her opportunity. She read the sign-post,
"London, i8 miles." She had made barely a third
of the way then, but she was on the right road.
The motor changed its gear with a loud grating
sound, and humming busily turned to the left to-
wards London. vShe followed in its wake. She
wished she had asked for a lift along the road,
and hurried after it, but it drew away from her
smoothly, rapidly, and soon its humming was
merged into the silence. While she held it in sight
it was company. She felt her loneliness again
when it was gone. The darkness was impenetrable.
Tears rose to her eyes. She felt outcast from
her fellows. She knew she could not hold up her
head before hard eyes and sharp tongues. She
went forward doggedly.
The road led up to a high plateau and lay between
low hedges and open fields. The air grew colder.
A little wind stirred and freshened it. It made a
soft whispering on each side of her. She was
passing through cornfields. Her skirt and coat
all at once were damp with dew. She noticed the
238 THE CHORUS
rich smell rising from the ground. She passed a
walled garden sweet with stocks, and a wide, grassy
plain fragrant with briar. She heard the shrill,
sad cries of owls. The road dipped. She was
engulphed in darkness. Then it rose again, and
towards her floated the enervating odour of meadow-
sweet. To her right she saw spreading fields, and
a tree suddenly clear and defined, outlined in pale
grey, thrust up among them. The sky grew
leaden. Twittering bird voices awoke in the
branches. A cock sent its raucous voice across the
meadows, another answered it, another and another.
The eastern sky became stained with pale bright
red and yellow and with green. The bird voices
grew louder. It was dawn.
The landscape seemed to drink in colour. The
drab fields became green. Nelly realized of a
sudden that she was desperately hungry. Empty
and tired almost to exhaustion, she came into the
little town of Woodford. No one was awake yet,
the curtains in the windows were all drawn close,
the shutters were up. It gave the place a coffined,
funereal air. The market-square was empty* By
the horse-trough some sparrows pecked the grains
neglected in their yesterday's feast. The town-
hall, ethereal in the delicate rosy light, showed a
new-gilded clock face. The time was 4.15.
She got a drink of water from the fountain
erected, so its inscription said, to commemorate
the Diamond Jubilee. She bathed her face too as
well as she could and rinsed her hands. A fine
sight for well-conducted housewives, had any been
awake. But there was no one to spy upon her,
and she dried herself with the loose hems of her
NELLY HAYES MISSES SOME TRAINS 239
blouse and plaited back the long yellow scarf of
her hair. So she came to the next sign-post, a
little worn but not disconsolate, and read, "London,
13! miles."
Beyond Woodford the road was lightly wooded
again. She saw cows lying in the fields, and once
a rabbit scurried just ahead of her along the ditch.
She walked slowly now. A farmhouse cat slid
across the road, going home from its hunting.
She was tired and hungry. Her feet were sore.
The sole of one of her cheap shoes was loose, and
flapped uncomfortably. She realized that she was
grimy with dust and the night mists. Her spirits
sank low again. She would never arrive in time.
On the hill outside Pemlow village she sat down
by the roadside from sheer fatigue. Opposite her
a milestone read: "London loj miles," there was
no mention of Otterbridge or Marbury upon it.
She sat staring at it. She heard a clock strike six.
She held her sore foot in her hand. A dog came
and barked at her from behind a fence. Tears
welled to her eyes and overflowed upon her cheeks.
She wondered what would become of her.
Her despair was interrupted by a sound of men
and horses, the clattering of hoofs and the creaking
of wheels. Groaning and swaying, a wain, loaded
with flower and fruit boxes, drawn tandem-wise,
mounted the hill. The horses stopped a moment
to breathe, the carter, whip in hand, mopping his
brow. At this moment he caught sight of Nelly's
grief-stricken figure bowed under her yellow hair.
"Like a lift?" he shouted. She raised her tear-
smirched face. "Going to London ?" She nodded
voicelessly. "Like a lift?" She pulled herself
240 THE CHORUS
stiffly to her feet. "Oh, thank you." "Climb on,
then." Slie moved to the wain and stood beside
it. For her life she could not have scrambled on
to it, she felt as if she had been kicked all over.
"Here," shouted the man, "give us a hand." At
his voice a sleepy boy on the top of the boxes
roused himself and stretched down his hand to her.
She caught hold of it. The carter boosted her, she
reached the top of the wain.
"Now then, young Albert," shouted the driver,
"make room for the lady, can't you." Albert,
grinning self-consciously, made a place for her
upon the sacking; it was warm from his grimy
person, but she was too weary to care about that.
Her head sank back into its greasy malodorous-
ness, her legs hung down swaying with the motion
of the wain. She fell asleep.
She was awakened by consciousness of a loud
voice talking. "Jarge," it said, "I reckon as she's
run away from schewl." She did not open her
eyes, but through the lashes perceived Albert reclin-
ing near her addressing the back of the carter, who
from his high seat was driving. Evidently they
were conjecturing who she might be. She opened
her eyes wide and saw they were still in the country,
but the fields displayed large boards with ugly
advertisements on them, and notices of land to sell,
and instead of cottages were hideous rows of red-
brick boxes with slate roofs. They were getting
near London.
The carter glanced down at her, and she smiled
up at him.
"It is kind of you to help me along like this."
The carter, confused before her beauty, blushed
NELLY HAYES MISSES SOME TRAINS 241
to the ears and murmured something- ending with
"a good turn."
"I was feeling just done," said Nelly. "I've
been walking all night."
"Thought you looked as if you'd been in for
something."
"Yes," said Nelly. "I lost my purse and
couldn't go by train, so I started to walk. It is
most important that I should get to London soon.
What time shall we be in, do you think?"
"You're safe enough here," said the carter. He
was incredulous of anything, save that she was
some sort of fugitive.
"Yes, indeed," said Nelly; and then a little
anxiously, "But what time do you reckon to
arrive :*
The man considered. " We did ought to be in
Covent Garden by half-past six by rights, but we're
behind this morning. I dunno what time it is by
right, but 1 reckon we won't be in much afore
nine."
A horse had lost a shoe. That was the cause of
their lateness. She thanked her good angel. She
would be in time.
So they creaked on through the squalid fields
and the dreary suburbs. Presently she saw milk-
men going their rounds and a postman rat-tatting
smartly at closed doors. A servant-maid appeared
shaking a duster, and another further on cleaning
some steps. The city wore an unaccustomed air,
a delicacy, a cleanliness. The sky was a clear
turquoise over it, the shadows were transparent.
The carter told her that his boxes contained
flowers and vegetables for the London market. It
R
242 THE CHORUS
wouldn't matter much being late, he said, there
were always plenty of buyers, and anyhow that was
not his business, and it wasn't his fault. He came
from beyond Woodford. She had walked through
there that morning, and did he know the Ridges.
He'd a brother living near there. He'd been there
sometimes of a Sunday. She had walked over
them that night. "And I wasn't half-scared."
He'd bet she was.
Chatting friendlily they arrived at the outlying
tram-lines. Nelly wished she could have left him
there and gone ahead in a fleet tram to the Embank-
ment, but she hadn't a penny. The lumbering of
the wain filled her with impatience.
They crawled through Clapham and over Water-
loo Bridge. The streets were already busy with
black-clothed clerks and girls going to their work.
Their early morning trimness made her conscious
of her strange and unkempt appearance. She
began to have misgivings as to what Anthony
would think of her. The toil of her journey had
for the most part kept him out of her thoughts.
Would he welcome her, tired and filthy and with
broken shoes? She thought he would. She would
not have the courage to call at Miss Cluer's for
her clothes, even if she had time. She would just
catch Tony and explain the situation and he'd
give her some more money, and when she had had a
bath and breakfast somewhere, she'd get dressed
properly and join him at Dover.
Anthony would laugh to hear how she had ridden
into London with the flowers. He would say
delightful things to her about her company of roses
and lilies and love-in-a-mist. And she would say
NELLY HAYES MISSES SOME TRAINS 243
quite truthfully, "Oh, but you couldn't know they
were there. They were all in cases. You couldn't
see them even through the slats. Or smell them
either for the sacking ! " And he would laugh and
say perhaps, "But the flowers knew you were
there." How thrilling it would be to be seated
opposite him again and to see his eyes fixed upon
her in affectionate mockery and with that intimate
smile that made her cheeks grow hot. Her heart
began to beat in great throbs. She forgot her
tiredness, she forgot the night and its terrors, she
forgot the future and its uncertainties, she remem-
bered only that she was going to her lover, that
she was going to the dearest thing in the world.
Her eyes grew misty with love and her throat
strained.
They reached Wellington Street as St. Martin's
chimed the quarter to nine. Its bells floated
beautifully upon her. She asked the carter to put
her down. She ran along the Strand.
She forgot to say good-bye or thank you to the
carter. All her exhausted energies were concen-
trated on reaching the boat-train platform before
the clock struck nine. Sometimes she ran a few
steps, sometimes she walked. The loose sole of
her shoe dragged at her, the soreness of her feet
made her limp. Everywhere her eyes ranged for
clocks as she hurried on. Seven minutes to nine
said one, eight minutes said another. A public-
house said nine o'clock, a w-atchmaker's wares said
five different things.
At three minutes to nine she was outside the
station. In through the first archway she ran on
to the broad-paved space full of perambulating
244 THE CHORUS
baggage and unhurrying voyagers. She came to
the gateway. Would they stop her? "Seeing
someone ofif?" asked the inspector. Speechless
she nodded. He passed her through. The boat-
train was unmistakably before her, every door shut,
every window full of vacant pink ovals, faces, faces,
but not the one that her eyes sought. Groups on
the platform at every door were smiling in at the
windows. "One more minute," said somebody out-
side to somebody within. She began her limping-
run again. Boys with newspapers and chocolates
got in her way, empty trucks hampered her. The
train began to move. Where was he ? Where was
he? The train was moving out. It was impossible.
vShe was dreaming. It hadn't happened. She
quickened her pace, keeping level w'ith the moving
train. At the same moment in a carriage just
ahead of her she caught sight of Anthony's face.
He was looking past her, at the ground, without a
sign of recognition. The carriage slid out on the
naked metals. The platform was empty. She was
watching the tail of the vanishing train. He had
not seen her.
CHAPTER XXIII
TEMPTATION AND FALL OF MISS FITCH
Eight o'clock in the morning is not a particu-
larly pleasant hour for going to call on one's
friends, but it was at that hour that Hilda, hatless,
breathless and breakfastless, presented herself at
The Height. A little pink-clad maid with a leather
was polishing the brass and glass of the front door.
She gaped when she saw^ Hilda.
"Is anyone down yet? Could I see Miss Fitch,
do you think, or Mrs. Arden ? "
The little maid left her post. "I'll just inquire,
Miss," and Hilda could hear her shrill appeals to
a higher power grow muffled towards the kitchen :
"Mr. Farrow! Mr. Farrow! "
It gave a strangely disorganized feeling to
encounter the butler, when he presently appeared,
unshaved as yet and negligent as to his collar.
No one was down. In fact, no one was expected
before nine o'clock. The trays with the morning
teas were only just going up. Hilda caught sight
of a housemaid that she knew mounting the stairs.
"I'll go up with the tea, then," she said.
She followed the swinging, starched skirt down
the corridor, with its monotonous closed doors.
Outside one of them she recognized Steven Young's
boots, and the sight gave her a small feeling of
intimacy.
245
246 THE CHORUS
*'Do go to Miss Fitch's room first, please," she
said to the housemaid. How dead the house
seemed !
The maid knocked smartly and entered at once
a door on their left. It was so strange to be enter-
ing a bedroom at that hour, to see the drawn cur-
tains barring the sunlight, the tumbled bed. It
gave an impression of sickness, of something
wrong.
Miss Fitch was too sleepy to express surprise.
"Why, my dear," she said, stretching thin arms
above her head, "this is an early visit ! "
"I've come to breakfast with you; may I?"
Hilda's face was obviously anxious.
"That will be delightful. We'll have it up here.
Rose I " she recalled the housemaid, "let us have
a tray up here as soon as breakfast is ready, please.
And now, dear ! " She turned to Hilda.
How strange it all was I Everything seemed
topsy-turvy ! Miss Fitch with her hair tumbled,
helpless among pillows ! Chaos where all had been
bright and orderly ! Hilda moved her hands with
a sudden gesture of despair.
"It's Nelly," she said.
"What — what has happened?"
"She has gone," said Hilda.
"Gone?"
"She has gone away with Mr. Hamel." The
words broke from Hilda with a sort of sob, and
with the sound of them there surged up in her a
sense of desolation that was almost unbearable.
"My dear!" exclaimed Miss Fitch, and sat up
straight in bed. "When did you find out? My
dear, huw frightful ! There must be a mistake !
FALL OF MISS FITCH 247
Tony has never But such a way to do
it!"
Exclamations and questions came pouring on
Hilda.
"I thought she had given it up ! I told her I'd
tell Mrs, Hamel if she went on with it. Pando-
lefsky told me of it first. They've been meeting
and meeting here in the studio for ever so long.
Oh, I have been an abject fool ! "
"My child, you couldn't help it."
"It is so horrible of them I "
So horrible of them to let the beast come into
what had been the veriest flower-garden. For a
brief instant she pictured in her mind's eye Nelly's
smooth arms about the neck, Nelly's yellow hair
against the breast of Anthony's white jersey. It
stirred the deep jealous anger within her.
"It's so horrible of them ! "
"Tell me, tell me, when did she go?"
"After the party last night. She wanted to catch
the last train up to town. I said she shouldn't.
We rowed about it and I locked her into her room.
She must have climbed out of the window."
"She must have been desperate."
"She was mad. She didn't know what she was
doing. I was sure if she had time she wouldn't
be so wicked. I thought everything would be right
again by this morning — once Tony had gone."
"Poor girl I Poor girl! She must have loved
him desperately."
"Then she oughtn't to have loved him. What
right had she to love him ? We were all so happy
before she came 1 "
Miss Fitch looked at her flushed cheeks and
248 THE CHORUS
tear-bright eyes for a moment. Then she said
decisively —
"It's no use blaming" people. If anyone is to
blame it is Anthony. He should have contented
himself with being adored."
Here was very much to talk about.
"Go over, like a dear, and fetch Mrs. Arden.
She'll be dressed by now\ Her room is nearly
opposite."
Hilda went over and fetched her.
Mrs. Arden was engaged in brushing her hair.
She looked very girlish with it down her back, and
she came across to Miss Fitch at once in the prettiest
of morning wrappers.
"Well, this is an early hour for a conference ! "
she began gaily; and then, with a change of voice,
" Has anything happened ? "
They told her.
The three feminine faces wore a strained and
tragic look.
"Out of the windowM " said Mrs. Arden. She
seemed to be more horrified at that than at any
other part of the narration.
"Oh, the fewer morals people have the more
windows they climb out of," said Miss Fitch
impatiently. "It's a gift."
"I made sure she was fast asleep when I got no
answer, and I didn't go near her room again till
this morning. It's been going on for months
and months, Pandolefsky told me. I couldn't
believe him at first, but there were lots of little
things. Oh, I ought never to have brought her
here ! "
"Can't they be stopped?" asked Mrs. Arden,
FALL OF MISS FITCH 249
as if athirst for action, but seating herself for a
good long colloquy on the side of the bed.
"What good would that do?" asked Miss Fitch.
"We're not her guardians." She lifted her
shoulders.
"Of course, he'll marry her," said Hilda.
They both turned to her at once.
"Oh, that's impossible ! "
"Out of the question ! "
"Out of the question? Why out of the ques-
tion ? "
"Anthony isn't free, my dear."
"Well, he could be divorced, couldn't he?"
The two older women looked at one another and
smiled.
"It doesn't rest with him, you see."
"You mean Mrs. FLamel would have to divorce
him ? "
" Well, yes, if she wanted to."
"I don't see," said Hilda grandly, "how any
woman can stick to a man when he shows he
doesn't want her."
''Noblesse oblige. But aren't we talking of
rather remote possibilities? Anthony may not
want to be divorced."
"Oh, he cannot be such a brute as that ! " Hilda
burst out.
"My dear child, don't let's call names. We
must face the facts. Anthony is a perfectly charm-
ing fellow. Abusing him only confuses things."
"Besides," said Mrs. Arden, "we know perfectly
well that Erica is not the sort of woman who
abdicates."
"Even if Anthony has ceased to want her. You
250 THE CHORUS
can't divide people's emotions like pineapple
chunks." Miss Fitch was precise.
"But don't you think he ought to marry her?"
cried Hilda, in hurt amazement.
"I think it would be very unsuitable," said Miss
Fitch. "Here comes breakfast."
"But, Janet, the girl is so young," said Mrs.
Arden when the door had closed again. "I feel
we're in some way responsible too, Hilda. Janet
is an utter cynic, but I feel we ought to make
some effort."
"Oh, Anthony is sure to treat her well. I
shall not cease to maintain that he's a charming
fellow," said Miss Fitch, beginning to butter her
toast.
"But I thought you were fond of Nelly," said
Hilda limply.
"So I was; so I am," Miss Fitch's teeth met on
the toast; "but I'm fond of Anthony as well; also
of our friend Erica."
"I like them all, too," said Hilda. "Oh, what
am I to think about it ? "
Her anger had gone. She could hardly believe
that she had felt it.
" I wish we had married her to Edward Armour,"
said Mrs. Arden. "I suppose this is why she
refused him ? " She put whole worlds of meaning
into the "this."
They ate in silence for a few minutes.
"Still," said Hilda at last, "we haven't decided
what we are to do."
"Do!" said Miss Fitch. "My dear, what can
we do ? Do nothing ! "
They went on with breakfast.
FALL OF MISS FITCH 251
" How are we going to treat him when he comes
back ? " asked Mrs. Arden diffidently.
"* Sufficient for the day,' " said Miss Fitch, help-
ing herself to marmalade. " It's very bad manners
to discuss one's host like this. Perhaps he won't
come back at all. Perhaps they'll both be drowned.
Perhaps they'll disappear like the Austrian Arch-
duke and live happily ever after. I shan't go half-
way to meet trouble."
"That's all very fine, Janet," said Mrs. Arden,
"but you know perfectly well that he will come
back ; and what are you going to do then ? "
"I shall treat him as Pve always treated him.
Gracious mercy alive ! he may have done this sort
of thing a score of times without our knowing
anything about it. I shall be very glad to see him.
You don't want me to take him aside and lecture
him, do you ? "
"But what will have happened to Nelly? "
Hilda's hurt cry struck in upon them.
"My dear, I might say that she should have
thought of that before she started, but Pm not so
bad as that. The end of her adventure won't bear
thinking about."
"But if he loves her?"
"As long as he does that she will be all right."
This was reassuring, but it was a little dull.
"So we are going to do nothing," said Mrs.
Arden, disappointed. "Don't you think Erica
ought to know ? "
"'Lead us not into temptation!'" ejaculated
Miss Fitch. "What good would that do?"
"We might persuade her to divorce him," said
Hilda.
252 THE CHORUS
Miss Fitch glanced into the eyes of Mrs. Arden.
They were loath to see so many dramatic possi-
bilities departing on tiptoe. It was such an irre-
sistible scene to imagine — Hilda making her appeal
to that little porcelain image of perfection. The
wish to thrust a dart of emotion into a being super-
ciliously above such things — sheer love of mischief
— doubt and desire alternated skippingly in Miss
Fitch's brain. If it was serious Erica must know
sooner or later — if not, what harm ?
Miss Fitch fell.
"Perhaps Hilda ought to tell her. She will
certainly be annoyed if she finds out in a casual
sort of way "
Miss Fitch balanced hesitating at the prospect.
"Oh, really," said Hilda, "I don't think I could
do that. I'd much rather you would. You would
know so much better than I should what to say."
Her eyes appealed from one face to the other.
Miss Fitch and Mrs. Arden looked judicial.
Then Miss Fitch said, with an air of great
reasonableness —
"We must try and put ourselves in Erica's
place. To hear of this little indiscretion of
Tony's from you is to hear of it from the fountain-
head. If, on the other hand, / were to tell her
she might ask — and positively I think she would
be justified — why all the world should know of it
before her ? "
Hilda wriggled her shoulder-blades.
"Why need she know at all?" she asked.
"Surely," said Mrs. Arden, "it is only right
that she should? To hide a thing like this doesn't
seem quite straight — does it?"
FALL OF MISS FITCH 253
"It depends which side you take, doesn't it?"
asked Hilda.
"Oh ! sides ! " exclaimed IMiss Fitch.
"I always take the woman's side," said Mrs.
Arden sentimentally.
"But which is the woman's side?" cried Hilda.
Miss Fitch laughed. "Hilda has scored," she
said. "In this case you will have to make division
of yourself. For my own part, I am incurably an
onlooker. But if you do really take the woman's
side — " she addressed Mrs. Arden — "you must take
the girl's, for she at least is flesh and blood."
"And the other is only a doll — a doll stuffed
with steel-filings," said Hilda, rising up. "I shall
go to her and say to her What on earth shall
I say to her ? "
"You will think of something once you begin,"
they encouraged her.
Mrs. Arden put an arm round her waist and
squeezed her lovingly. She had given them such
an interesting morning.
"We'll meet in the garden," said Miss Fitch,
"and hear how Erica takes it. I shall dress at
once."
"So will I," said Mrs. Arden.
"Good luck, dear."
The thing was settled. Whatever "sides" they
took, she was to be sacrificed to make a feminine
holiday. She would do her best for Nelly now.
She found herself solitary in the corridor.
CHAPTER XXIV
MRS. HAMEL TURNS DOWN HER THUMB
The door of Mrs. Hamel's boudoir, from which
her bedroom led, faced the top of the stairs. Hilda
had never entered it without a certain tightening
of the throat in prelude to that formidable little
lady. Now it was with a comical sense of relief,
seeing how near the interview was and in any case
inevitable, that she heard the maid asking her to
wait in the boudoir a little while.
It was a small, many-sided room, tilled with early
sunshine and the smell of carnations. Through the
bright windows fifty miles of exquisite country
formed its south wall. The other walls were
panelled with painted silk, and among blurred
flowers and knotted ribbons nymphs and shepherds
enjoyed a perpetual festival. The little writing-
table, where no one ever disturbed the pens, had
been Marie Antoinette's. The satin-wood china
cupboards filling the corners might have been Jane
Austen's. On the mantelpiece two green parrots
watched with their china eyes. Between them,
flanked by painted bowls and silver candlesticks,
stood a clock surrounded with gilt and set in
crystal. Ii did not tick because Mrs. Hamel did
not like that noise. Its motionless hands drew
Hilda's eyes to them again and again, and each
254
MRS. HAMEL'S THUMB DOWN 255
time the sight of them gave her a sense of irrita-
tion. "Three minutes to four," they registered.
She strolled about the room, drawing comfort
from the daintiness and charm of it. How perfect
and how quiet it was. It was like a fan, a painted
fan that hangs upon a wall. It had just such an
air of aloofness and inutility. She thought to
herself, "The right setting for a fan is a graceful
woman, not a flat white mount. But perhaps there
are no women delicate enough now to handle a
painted fan. Mrs. Ilamel could handle one. Why
can't she handle this, then? I might be in a
museum ! "
She rested her thumbs in the pockets of her
jacket and pursed her mouth in noiseless whistling,
"It's not alive," she thought. "It's all under a
glass case, and it's stopped." It pleased her to be
defying it with her tweed coat and walking shoes.
Why had she been so angry with Nelly ? Had it
been all jealousy? Perhaps. Well, now she was
happy again and feeling as she ought to feel.
Nelly was ruined for certain, but Hilda was elevated
almost to enjoyment by the pity and terror of the
tragedy. She was Nelly's champion through thick
and thin. There was an heroic glow in her cheeks
when Mrs. Hamel's maid came to usher her into
the presence.
Mrs. Hamel lay in her great pink-canopied bed
facing the door. She wore a little Dutch cap of
lace upon her head and seemed very frail among
the pillows. She was engaged in polishing her
nails with a silk handkerchief. She did not cease
this occupation as Hilda came in, but smiled her
shallow little smile and said —
256 THE CHORUS
"Come and bit beside me. Not on the bed, please,
that chair. Now we can talk. Are you glad to
be going- home? "
"Yes," Hilda said, she was glad, she would like
seeing the familiar places again. It was nearly a
year that she had been away. " I shall be very
sorry to leave here, though," she added.
How was she to begin ?
"You must come and stay with us when we are
settled in again. You know I go this afternoon,
too. How exhausting these last days have been ! "
Mrs. Hamel paused between each sentence. She
drooped her hands languidly. Why could not
Hilda see she was tired and thank her for her great
kindness and all that, and go?
" I shall never forget your kindness," the girl
was saying.
"Well? Well?"
Mrs. Hamel gave a keen look at her. She was
sitting in that chair as if she meant to sit there
all day.
Mrs. Hamel tried a long pause. At the end of
it she said —
"You are very quiet. Not that breakfast is the
liveliest time ever, and I simply hate people at this
hour of the morning." Then, feeling that she had
not been as polished as usual, she added in a voice
of the flattest indifference and as if suppressing a
yawn, "How's your friend the circus rider? Does
she go too ? "
A light of battle gleamed in Hilda's eye.
"She has gone," she said. "She has jumped
through the last hoop and ridden out of the
arena."
MRS. HAMEL'S THUMB DOWN 257
"Oh," said Mrs. Hamel. Hilda was not usually
allusive. "What has she done?"
"She has done something very desperate indeed,
I am sorry to say," said Hilda.
"I am sure there is a man in it!" cried Mrs.
Hamel gleefully.
"There is," said Hilda significantly. "That is
what I came to see you about."
"My dear Hilda," exclaimed Mrs. Hamel, "it is
no use asking me to interfere. I simply cannot
take the responsibility of meddling. It's not that
I wish your friend any harm, but I honestly don't
see what good I could do her. It's a case of
temperament. I knew from the moment I saw her
that sooner or later there would be something like
this."
"Did you really know that?" asked Hilda rather
sardonically.
"Perhaps I should not say that I knew. I cer-
tainly felt it. It is the fashion now to pretend that
women have no intuition, but that is all nonsense.
I have known things instinctively again and again.
I never liked the girl and I never expected any-
thing good of her. I am sorry for your sake, Hilda,
because you must feel responsible in a way, and
you know I warned you from the beginning." She
became quite animated with the rightness of her
prophecy.
"Yes, Mrs. Hamel, I know you did," said Hilda.
"That's what makes me feel it all the more."
"Well, we have to buy experience, all of us,"
said Mrs. Hamel. "Thank goodness, she could not
influence you in any way. Another time you will
realize, perhaps, that there is such a thing as
s
258 THE CHORUS
"introduction," and though it is old-fashioned and
conventional it has its uses, and you won't be so
ready to pick up chance strangers and make bosom
friends of them. We all have to buy experience.
Of course, I am very sorry it has happened." Her
voice rang triumphantly. Not often does the
whirligig of time bring in its revenges so that every
one can appreciate them.
"Dear Mrs. Hamel," said Hilda, "you don't
know yet what has. happened."
"I am not at all sure that I want to know," said
Mrs. Hamel. "I don't care particularly for squalid
stories. I can guess very well."
"You cannot guess," said Hilda gravely, "or you
wouldn't talk like that."
"Really, Hilda," said Mrs. Hamel, "don't talk
to me as if you were my grandmother. It is no use
asking me to sympathize with the creature, if that
is what you mean."
Hilda made a gesture of despair. There was
something so childish about Mrs. Hamel at that
moment. Her sophistication seemed stripped from
her. She appeared to Hilda as a small, raw, stupid
thing that had to be hurt.
"I am asking you to sympathize with yourself,"
she said brutally. "I am trying to sympathize with
you."
It was odious, but it was direct.
Mrs. Hamel looked at her for a full minute.
" What on earth do you mean ? " she asked at
last, and then: "It isn't Tony?"
" I am very sorry," said Hilda.
The woman in the bed seemed to have subsided.
Hilda wished she could have got away without
MRS. HAMEL'S THUMB DOWN 259
witnessing- her humiliation. Why had she told?
She had been a fool to let them make her tell.
Then a pale voice said —
"I don't believe it," and again more confidently,
"I don't believe it," and then with something of
her old asperity, "I am quite sure, Hilda, that you
are wrong."
"I wish I could be," said the girl miserably.
"Who told you ? " asked Mrs. Hamel.
"I saw for myself," said Hilda, "and in the end
Nelly told me herself."
"You did not hear of it from my husband, I
presume ? "
The voice was sarcastic.
"He thought no one knew but themselves."
"I see. You heard it from that girl. My good
Hilda, you must know that the best men in the
country are libelled in that fashion, and worse,
every day of the year. Her mind is corrupt. She
is lying-. She is hysterical," said Mrs. Hamel.
Hilda flushed to anger.
"It is so, Mrs. Hamel," she said, "they've loved
each other a long time. I was going to tell you
a week ago, but I thought — -I thought "
"What did you think?"
" I thought it was all over. I made her promise
to give him up. I ought to have stopped her."
"Stopped her!" cried Mrs. Hamel; "how
absurdly you talk. If she wanted to go you should
have let her go. What possible business could it
be of yours ? "
"She is my friend. I ought to have taken care
of her."
"To save her from the ravenings of my husband.
260 THE CHORUS
See how absurd it is, my dear Hilda. He looked
upon her as a child, a child."
Hilda shook her head.
"He expected her to meet him in town to-day.
She got out of the window last night to join him.
I locked her in her room."
"Well, if she chose to make a fool of herself you
couldn't prevent her."
"I thought if Mr. Hamel "
"Oh, don't bring him into it, please."
Hilda stared at her. "But how "
" It has nothing whatever to do with my husband.
I believe you to have been misinformed."
Hilda was staggered.
" But if it is proved to you ? "
"It can not be proved to me. It's preposterous,
and I decline to believe it."
"You must believe what you choose," said Hilda
wearily. She rose from her chair. "I wish I
hadn't told you. Good-bye."
But Mrs. Hamel was as eager to keep the girl
as before she had been to get rid of her.
"Where is she now?"
"I don't know."
" What do you mean ? "
"I mean she ran away last night and I don't
know where she went."
"She hasn't gone to America?"
"I don't know."
Mrs. Hamel burst into a sudden angry gaiety.
"To America ! Oh, that's too hideously comical.
I don't think people, however infatuated, would
elope to America. They'll be held up at Ellis
MRS. HAMEL'S THUMB DOWN 261
Island ! They'll be deported ! Oh, it's all non-
sense, Hilda, it's all nonsense."
"Oh, Mrs. Hamel, it isn't nonsense."
"Don't keep saying things like that. They vex
me. I can't imagine why you should tell me at
all ? "
"I meant — Nelly was my friend — I thought
perhaps — if you knew — that you'd set him free?"
"Set him free?" Mrs. Hamel's eyes were very
bright. "If what you say is true he seems to have
a considerable share of freedom, as it is. What
more do they want?"
"You won't divorce him ? "
"Do what?" asked Mrs. Hamel.
Hilda hesitatingly pushed the word forward.
"Divorce him."
"My dear Hilda, have you taken leave of your
senses ? Why, pray, should I divorce him ? "
"Well, I thought," Hilda stammered lamely, her
fiery speeches had somehow been effectively
quenched. " I thought if a man wanted to be free
— if it had happened to me — I mean — I should let
him go if he wanted to."
"How quite extraordinary. You speak as if a
man should be divorced for wanting to be. He
has no right to wish to be free, don't you under-
stand that ? "
"Yes, but if he does? And besides, Nelly—"
"She did not consider me before running away
with him, why should I consider her now ? "
"It would be kind. It would be the only decent
thing to do."
" Decent ! To divorce, decent ! "
262 THE CHORUS
It was magnificent, it was superb. She went
on —
"Besides, how do you know he wants his free-
dom ? The girl has thrown herself at his head.
He should surely have some chance of changing his
mind. Men are so weak. They are led by their
passions. But because a man has the misfortune
to conceive an infatuation for a low, vulgar woman,
that should hardly be a reason for casting him
off altogether. It might ruin him utterly. It would
be merciless, uncharitable ! "
Now it was in something of this strain that
Hilda's own thoughts were racing, but they advo-
cated by a strange coincidence the case for a divorce.
Mrs. Hamel went on—
"If my husband tells me himself that he loves
another woman, if he asks me to set him free, I
might do so, but I should have to regard the case
in all its aspects and use my wisdom to help his
troubled mind. After all, there is such a thing
as religion, Hilda. Clearly if it is right for a
woman to cleave to her husband while all is well
with him, it should be doubly her duty to stay by
him when he has sinned? But Tony has said
nothing to me of this, and as he has not told me
it seems dishonourable for me to know. Therefore
I shall try and ask God to give me the power — "
her voice shook for a moment — "to put what you
have told me from my mind. As to the girl, her
rights, her sufferings, are between herself and the
man for whom she has so sadly forgotten herself.
I could not help her if I would. M}^ duty is to
my husband. Even if I did not love him he would
have this claim on me. I must try to save him
MRS. HAMEL'S THUMB DOWN 263
from himself. My heart and conscience both teach
me what to do, and I shall do it."
She sank back among the pillows, a faint flush
lighting her face. She was certainly more difficult
to conquer than Hilda had supposed.
"That means you will do nothing?" the girl
asked.
Mrs. Hamel closed her eyes in sign of assent.
This had the secondary effect of ending the inter-
view.
Hilda turned to go.
"Good-bye," she said, "I am sorry for having
disturbed you."
The Beauty made no reply.
Hilda moved through the boudoir and out into
the corridor, reflecting that obedience to one's con-
science and the sweetness of revenge do not usually
live in so much harmony together.
CHAPTER XXV
FLATNESS
She might as well go down to Elkins's and pack,
thought Hilda. The great house with the pale
morning shadows reminded her of a school during
the holidays. It had a desolate feeling. Already
they had begun to shroud the gay furniture in
white cerecloths. It was as if someone had died.
She stepped slowly down the wide staircase.
Should she seek out Miss Fitch and describe the
interview? But she was in no mood for raillery.
Oh, this being left behind !
Steven Young's voice broke in upon the silence.
"And what are you doing here at this hour?"
He was very fresh-looking, with ears pink from
the bath, very domestic-looking with house-shoes
on his feet. She had never seen him before except
with shiny pumps or walking shoes.
Her sad eyes travelled up and met his.
"You don't mean to say you're going away at
this hour? This is a general dissolution."
"I'm going down the hill to pack."
"Come and help me eat my bacon first, and then
I'll come and help you pack. Think how nice that
will be."
"It's very tempting, but I've a train to catch."
They had reached the dining-room door.
"Do come in," he urged her, and pathetically,
264
FLATNESS 265
"I'm so afraid of Farrow. Just think, I'm all
alone. It's past ten o'clock. I shan't dare to let
him know I'm down. I shall have to drink cold
coffee."
"It's no use, my Steven; I am adamant. You'd
better shake me warmly by the hand and say
' good-bye.' "
"Well, if you won't " said Steven, opening
the door. "But I'm not going to say ' good-bye '
now. I'm coming to pack, you know."
He passed in through the door.
It was nice to have someone to be friends with ;
it was nice to be going home again. She was
breathless all at once for whipping winds and
waves with their teeth showing. She wanted them
as another type of girl might want a shoulder to
cry on.
Half-way down the hill she stopped for a moment
and then went on again. It had just occurred to
her that Steven expected to find Nelly at Elkins's.
She had been thinking that everyone knew of the
flight by this time.
In her present mood she felt no bitterness. It
was natural that everyone should have fallen in
love with Nelly. She had fallen in love with her
herself at their first meeting. And it was, after
all, only the hand that Steven Young had kissed !
Packing to go home ! What a tame ending !
What transformation had she imagined the year
would accomplish ? But here she was, just her
own self, with the same brown hair and cheerful
brown eyes, cramming her clothes into a box, her
books, her boots ; squeezing damp sponge and
loofa, remembering her tooth-brush and hot-water
266 THE CHORUS
bottle, just as she had done on twenty other occa-
sions when the unadventurous buzzing wheel of her
life had spun her back to Ballygrawna.
Coming downstairs wdth more books (she was
packing the bulk of her belongings in the sitting-
room) she encountered Steven just entering the
sunlit square of the door.
"Hullo!" he said. "What can I do to be
useful ? "
He took the books from her hands and began to
read the names on the backs. "What a revolution-
ary collection ! And a Maxwell's Rebellion. Is
it illustrated ? "
"If you really want to be useful," said Hilda,
"you might write some labels."
Obediently he sat down to the table. She ran
upstairs for more things. On her coming down
again he asked —
"I say, Where's Nelly?"
"She's gone."
She tried to hush all importance from her voice.
"Oh, but this is too rotten!" said Steven.
"When did she go? I most particularly wanted
to say good-bye to her. I don't even know where
she lives." Then, catching sight of Hilda's embar-
rassed face : " Is anything wrong ? "
"She climbed out of the window," said Hilda.
"I locked her in her room, but she would go;
nothing would stop her."
"But what possessed her — why should you lock
her in her room ? WHiat's the matter ? "
He was profoundly interested now.
"She didn't go alone, Steven. Oh, I'd rather
not talk about it."
FLATNESS 267
"Not alone! You mean she was going with
someone." His head inclined in the direction of
The Height. "You mean she was going
with " He left the name a blank, his jaw
dropping.
"Oh, Steven, it's all so miserable. Everything
is spoiled ! " cried Hilda.
"No, it's not; no, it's not," said Steven testily.
"Why should you say that?"
"It makes me feel so wretched."
"Me, too," said Steven. "Envy, I suppose;
blighting jealousy, being left out. Cheer up, you
fool ! " He gave his chest a thump.
The summer day outside seemed to have gone
cold.
"God give them happiness," he said lightly.
Mrs. Elkins rapped at the door and thrust her
head round it.
"Might I speak to you a minute. Miss?" She
advanced into the room as she continued: "One
of the lads picked this up, Miss, down by the gate
here. I made sure it was Miss Hayes's. Such a
way to carry on — excuse me. Miss Concannon —
climbing out of windows and running wild about
the countryside; and not the first time either, I'll
be bound."
Hilda took the small object from Mrs. Elkins,
while the stream of eloquence continued —
"Idleness never did no good to anything — man,
woman or beast," said Mrs. Elkins; "first day she
come here I doubted she was up to no good.
' People don't look like that for nothing,' I
thought to myself. ' That's no ordinary honest
prettiness,' I thought; if you'll excuse me, Miss,
268 THE CHORUS
'tain't wholesome. I'm sorry for all the trouble
she's caused you. It's my opinion she isn't worth
it. I wouldn't say a word to worry Miss Con-
cannon." She turned to Steven, standing gravely
listening. "A nicer young lady I've never had to
deal with. Not only as she doesn't ask for things
she shouldn't have, but she don't ask for lots of
things as she should have. Not that the other
young lady was any trouble in the 'ouse ; she w-as
a trouble to my mind. I can't help seeing what's
going on. I've eyes in my head same as other
people."
There appeared to be no end to Mrs. Elkins's
discourse. Hilda said —
"Thank you for bringing me this. I'll send it
on to her. (If I only could !) We should give
the boy something." She found her own bag and
produced five shillings. When the door had closed
she opened Nelly's purse. "There's quite a lot
in it : over three pounds. She must have been
wanting this."
Her face was pale with contrition. The result
of her fit of morality appeared with what seemed
an exaggerated ruthlessness.
"Where have they gone — do you know?"
Steven's voice was hushed.
"To America, I suppose," said Hilda.
"Hardly," said Steven.
"Perhaps she'll write to me," said Hilda.
But even as she said it she knew that that would
not happen. They looked at one another, conscious
of their helplessness.
"I wish I hadn't tried to stop her," said Hilda,
thinking aloud, "or that I'd succeeded."
FLATNESS 269
She began to put some more things into the
trunks.
"There's someone from The Height to speak to
you," said Mrs. Elkins, rapping on the door. Her
voice, robbed of its discourse, had a decided asperity
about it.
Hilda found Mrs. Hamel's maid with a note.
"Madam was anxious you should have it, Miss
Concannon. I was to give it into your hands
myself."
Hilda thanked her and saw her away again.
The envelope contained two enclosures, one in
Mrs. Hamel's green ink, saying, "You see you
were wrong. But as you were wrong I forgive
you " — a trivial matter thus dismissed — the other a
telegram from Anthony which said: "Crossing
Majestic, Southampton." It had been handed in
at Dover.
Hilda and Steven studied it together.
"If you went to Southampton you might just
catch them," she said.
"That was what I was thinking," said Steven;
"if I would be any use."
"You could give her the purse. You could hear
where she was going. You could tell her I was
sorry for making an ass of myself."
Her eyes were dancing with animation. They
had not reached the end yet by any means.
"Where's the ABC?"
Headlong they hunted, and found it —
"Waterloo — there must be a million trains.
Here, if you caught the 12.45? But can you?
No, you can't. Well, the 1.18, then. There's
a good train that reaches Southampton soon
270 THE CHORUS
after four. Oh, Steven, wire to me — to Liver-
pool."
"I will," said Steven, "I will. But look here,
I haven't a farthing — not enough to take me there
and back." He dived his hands through his
pockets.
"That doesn't matter," cried Hilda. "I've
plenty of farthings. Thank God for my detestable
father."
She thrust the money into his hand. He was
out of the house. He was gone. He would manage
it somehow. She would have an answer to her
ravenous questionings.
The train moved smoothly, slowly into Lime
Street. The lamps slid by in the darkness like
beads pushed along a string. Hilda, leaning out
of her window, searched the platform for the
telegraph boy. There he was. "Concannon!"
They were calling her name. She ripped open
the pink envelope.
"A. alone," it said. "Going with him America.
Steven."
That was all : the question ; the answer. Turn-
ing, she began to take her baggage out of the
rack.
CHAPTER XXVI
LONDON — LONELINESS — THE DANGERS OF THE STREETS
— THE ARM OF COINCIDENCE STRETCHING IN ALL
DIRECTIONS — THE HAPPY ENDING
A WEST wind blowing half a hurricane caught
Hilda as she emerged from the South Kensington
Museum and blew her, together with some yellow
leaves, down the steps and into the street. A tawny
sunset shone on the wet pavements. The omni-
buses ground by, spurting thick mud from under
their clumsy wheels. It was London and it was
February.
With the great mild wind pushing her, Hilda
turned eastwards. vShe debated with herself whether
she should take a 'bus or walk. There was no
hurrying reason for taking a 'bus, but if she
walked, she would not arrive at her rooms till after
dark, and familiar as they were growing to her,
she could not entirely banish a small quaking that
she felt at their silence and faintly gleaming win-
dows. She no longer groped for matches now as
she used to at first, anticipating, in the pricking
nerves of her spine, contact, perhaps, with the cold
hand of a corpse, or with some running "leggy"
thing, but it was still with an agonized awareness
of the empty bedroom at her back or of a cupboard
271
272 THE CHORUS
with a watchful door that she scraped her "vesta"
on the match-box and saw the green glare of the
incandescent gas flood the room. The wet, brown
streets, however, and the lamps showing primrose-
coloured and ineffectual in the sunset, were too
beautiful to leave. She buttoned her coat across
under her chin and tugged her soft hat firmly above
her eyes. Her leather wallet with some copyings
she had made swung on her left wrist. Her hands
were in her pockets. Head erect, stepping easily,
she felt vigorous and alive. It filled her with
elation to be marching across London like this
when the rest of humanity was sitting indoors at
its tea.
She and the wind seemed in harmony and
travelling together. The moist air made little
ringlets of the locks about her face, chilled her
cheeks to rose-colour, set her eyes dancing. In-
dependence had its charm as well as its terrors, and
the charm was just now the greater. This walk of
hers would enable her to make but one meal of
tea and supper too, no small advantage when you
have to do all your own "chars." How splendidly
compact she felt, a small world in herself swinging
through space.
Dusk drew down and clouds moved across the
sunset. Now and again rain sprinkled. The
'buses roared by with lighted rain-spotted windows
steamy with crowded breaths, damp clothing and
umbrellas. It was better to be outside in the drizzle
than in that. Six o'clock and pitch darkness found
her at her own door.
Hilda's lodging was in a street that runs beside
LONDON— LONELINESS 273
the Tottenham Court Road. It was in a con-
spicuously "low " neighbourhood. The house door
had no knocker upon it, the letter-box gaped
hideously naked of brazen rim. It suggested to
Hilda inevitably a toothless mouth eaten by disease.
Rats might have gnawed it. At one side was a
vertical row of dirty bell handles. A key inserted,
the open door revealed a dirty hall lit by a bead
of gas in a wire cage, and immediately before the
door a sunken square that had possibly in the
remote past enclosed a door-mat. Now Hilda reck-
lessly tramped over it to carry all the mud adhering
to her shoes up the wooden stairs. Somewhere in
the basement lived an old woman who on a Satur-
day would be found slopping them with dismal
water.
Hilda's apartments were on the top floor and
consisted of a tiny bedroom and a capacious studio,
the two inter-communicating by a third door. The
door of the bedroom faced the landing, but was
kept permanently bolted upon the inside. The
second door, the door of the studio, Hilda now
unlocked herself. She was warm and pleasantly
tired with walking. It was nice to be home again.
Having scrubbed her muddy shoes vigorously
upon her own mat, she tip-toed across the floor and
lit the gas, then the gas-fire and the ring under
the kettle. That done she removed her gloves and
drew the curtains. The room was comfortable and
pretty. Thanks to the Concannon mills, she had
been able to furnish it as she wished. Beside the
door was the furnace, and a strong deal table stood
beside it under the second window, the work-table.
T
274 THE CHORUS
On the other side of the door was the cupboard,
whose creaking had often made her shudder. In
the corner beside it hung a broom and a dustpan.
Beside the bedroom door was a tall-boy chest, con-
taining all her clothing and the things of her trade.
The bedroom held precisely five things : a bed, a
looking-glass, a washstand, a small dressing-table
and a chair.
Hilda took off her wet hat, shook it and hung it
on a peg on the door. Her coat and skirt followed.
Her muddy shoes were flung into a corner. Active
as a fencer in her close knickerbockers, she spread
her tablecloth and made her tea. Two eggs nest-
ling in a paper bag were transferred to a saucepan.
A loaf of bread, an unshapely lump of butter with
crumbs sticking in it and a very stale morsel of
cake (a cake lasts so long when one eats it alone)
were placed upon the table. A cup and saucer,
two plates, a jug with a little milk in it, salt, another
plate for the teapot.
Then while the kettle was singing she tore off
her blouse and put on a loose house-dress. She
hesitated, but did not tidy her hair. She had made
enough concessions to civilization for one evening.
Opening a volume of Strindberg, she read it steadily
while she ate her tea. Sometimes she gave a little
snort that she told herself was amusement, but was
really indignation.
Hilda had been settled in her new life for seven
weeks. The loneliness was still rather exciting,
but it had its drawbacks. There was a terrible want
of happenings about the days. vShe needed the
occasional help of a word: "Do this," or "Hurry
LONDON— LONELINESS 275
up and finish that." She feU herself ready to shp
into unenjoyable idleness.
At first she had shirked her metal-work in the
mock industry of housework, that narcotic of active
brains, but two rooms even by her inexperience
could be kept clean in an hour or so. She so
needed orders. There was not much fun in making
things for people who could only praise without
appreciating like her Ulster friends, and the small
thing needed for a cousin's wedding present was
soon done. She missed the business that Tony
Ilamel's interest was to have given her. He had
promised introductions and work for her on his own
account, but she had received neither and could not
ask for them. The quarrel that her mind had had
with Tony gave her a sense of isolation from her
London friends. Time passed with desperate swift-
ness while she was doing nothing. To make one's
bed, to shop and bring home one's parcels, to get
a look at the Limoges enamels by daylight, to read
the week's papers and the last Conrad, to "do"
a gallery and to "get in" a little fresh air — and
the week was over. She used to go to Kensington
Gardens sometimes on her way from the Museum,
and eat her lunch under the deserted trees. She
loved to watch the dainty little fuchsias of children
bowling their hoops. She had a shame-faced
adoration for clean babies, they were so much
pleasanter to look at, spite of all fine theorizing,
than the screaming brats that hop-scotched and tip-
catted about her in Soho. She longed to clean the
dirty ones, and she sometimes gave them sweets,
but she could not pretend to love them.
276 THE CHORUS
"Poverty must make people odious," she justified
herself, "if it didn't, there would be no reason for
getting rid of it."
Kensington was too far for more than an occa-
sional pilgrimage, and if she was to get a share of
exercise at all she must walk in the streets. For
the most part she crossed Oxford Street and down
the Charing Cross Road to the book-shops. "This
season's hats" and satin broches did not interest
her. She passed as quickly as she could the furni-
ture shops with their mahogany that seemed to
have been dipped in treacle and their "Chippen-
dale " sideboards standing as if on corns, but by
the book-counters she lingered, feeling at one with
all the quiet tweed-clad beings passing the hours
with an opiate of unwanted volumes, bent of head,
absorbed. Hilda would sometimes lift a volume
and simulate an equal absorption ; but she was con-
scious all the while of the people near her, she
could not, as these others seemed to do, open a
door with an opening book, and enter a distant
place. However, she found some to be coveted
"remainders," books of modern essays and George
Moore's Untilled Field, and in a threepenny poetry
box Ardent Keath's Lute of Chrysoprase, which
caused her gloating ecstasies of amusement.
One day, while she was looking over some
Beardsley and Bakst prints in a shop window, she
became conscious of someone standing near her,
a person who differed in some way from the men
who usually stood beside her. His presence was
so definite that she had a confused notion that he
must be someone she knew, so she turned a little
LONDON— LONELINESS 277
and raised her eyes disconcertingly to find herself
looking" into the yellow-rimmed eyes of a huge,
pock-marked man with a forked beard, who had
evidently been expecting that very encounter.
Feeling confused and flurried, Hilda turned away,
disengaged herself from the row of readers and
started for home. It was with difficulty that she
did not run. Her instinct was for flight. Realiza-
tion of this came upon her, and with customary
self-control she lessened her pace, another moment
and she was calling herself a fool. That meeting
of the eyes must have been as accidental on his
part as it was on hers. To confirm her folly she
looked over her shoulder. The huge man was
strolling in her wake. Again she was plunged in
terror. She felt in her pocket for her latchkey and
gripped it with her fingers. Through the forest she
fled screaming (outwardly she walked across Oxford
Street), and across Oxford Street strolled his
Satanic majesty. Down Tottenham Court Road
they went and to the left past the "Tour Eiffel"
("confirming," as Hilda thought afterwards, "his
worst suspicions"). In sight of her own door her
control failed her, and she made an undignified
bolt for the steps ; but at the threshold she paused,
he was not the sort of person one liked to know
one's address, and stood panting and tremulous,
waiting for him. He smiled most affably, showing
red lips and sharp white teeth.
" How dare you follow me ? " whispered Hilda
in a blaze.
He took his pointed boot from the lowest step
and moved back on to the pavement.
278 THE CHORUS
"Pardon, Mees," he said, raisino; his hat.
"If you come round here again," snarled Hilda,
"I'll tell die police."
Mr. Satan went away with himself. Hilda let
herself in and slammed the door. She sat down
on the stairs for a moment and laughed weakly at
herself.
"Get thee anywhere, but behind me, Satan," she
murmured.
She did not go out again that day.
However, she found the lesson useful. She never
sought refuge in flight again. Instead she met the
advances of strange men with a stare and a distinct :
"Were you speaking to me?" that made her feel
quite sorry for them, they looked so sheepish. "I
suppose," she thought, "the lifting of the hat is
the tribute vice pays to virtue. Why should any
dreary little clerk with a moustache imagine I want
to hug him ? One would hardly touch those people
to rescue them from drowning ! "
She was very seldom accosted. There was
nothing in her quick walk that resembled the pro-
tuberant glide of the streets, "Only a duffer could
mistake me," she thought. "Danger! there's no
danger in the street, except poverty. If that were
done away with there'd be precious little need for
rescue work. Who would go with a shop-walker
to the Oxford if she could afford to do anything
pleasanter? Immorality ! It's simple dullness ! "
The thought of Nelly came back often and
always hurt her. She longed for knowledge that all
had not gone as badly as she feared. vShe scanned
the picture postcards and the "movies" for her
LONDON— LONELINESS 279
face. It would be the blessedest relief to know
that she was a successful actress or married to a
lord.
It would lift all the weight of guilt from her
conscience. But no eager scrutiny found Nelly
anywhere among swathed furs and feathers. Once
only did Hilda see her semblance, and that w-as in
the Euston Road. She saw a slim figure coming
towards her, a figure in a long woollen coat, bright-
haired Hive Nelly, and w^th a big felt hat bent
bonnet-wise about her head and held in place with
a veil. For one joyous moment Hilda prepared
to hail her, to fling arms about her and bury a
repentant face upon her neck, but as the girl came
close she perceived that she had been mistaken.
This girl was not Nelly. She was unutterably
hideous. She looked as if some brutal hand had
set upon her soft prettiness and wiped it out. The
grey eyes under the dark brows blazed with
agonized defiance. From brow to chin there was
nothing but a pinch of flesh. She had no nose.
"It's not that," Hilda told herself, with shaking
lips, "it will never be that; but I'd like her to
know I was sorry for interfering, though it
wouldn't be any consolation to her if she did, dear
God ! "
A chastened Flilda, but by no means a reformed
one. That meeting kept her shuddering all night.
It was with an ecstatic rush of excitement, excite-
ment closely similar to that with which a ship-
wrecked mariner sights a sail, that she ran into, as
the saying is, Miss Fitch one afternoon outside
Mudie's in New Oxford Street. Miss Fitch's
280 THE CHORUS
greeting, though less thrilled with intensity and
hampered by a bundle of books under one of her
elbows, was satisfactorily warm.
"Why, my dear child," she exclaimed; "what
has become of you all this time ? "
She slipped an arm through Hilda's, and the)-
turned towards Tottenham Court Road together.
"Come and see my digs," said Hilda, "and have
tea."
It was very pleasant to have a companion again.
Hilda squeezed the thin wrist against her ribs.
"I am glad I met you. These last months, I am
just realizing it, have been like solitary confinement.
I haven't spoken to a soul, do you know, except in
shops, since I settled down in London."
She dragged Miss Fitch into De Bry's for some
cakes, and then they set out homewards. Miss
Fitch explaining as they went that she had hidden
herself all the winter to finish her book on Fanny
Burney.
"Yes, Fm taking to biography in my old age
— Purple Paramours and that sort of thing — but
I think you'll like Fanny, and Fve got some
tremendously good new chair covers to help me
with the atmosphere."
They picked their way across Fitzroy Street,
and: "This is the house," said Hilda proudly,
stabbing in her key.
"What in the world, my darling girl, made you
come to live here?" asked Miss Fitch.
"Isn't it the right place to live?" asked Hilda.
"Isn't it a rather — well — dangerous neighbour-
hood?" asked Miss Fitch.
LONDON— LONELINESS 281
"Oh, nonsense," cried Hilda, "it's as safe as the
bank."
She felt annoyed with the Italian gentleman of
the first floor for choosing this moment for thrusting
out a curious, mustachioed head, to survey with
astonishment Miss Fitch's elegant blue serge and
feathered hat.
"Here we are," said Hilda, opening the studio
door. "Tell me it's nice."
It was undeniably nice.
"Delightful," said Miss Fitch, "and so aloof.
What a courageous person you are, Hilda."
"Indeed I'm not," said Hilda, glowing with
pride, "it's a very tame existence, I assure you."
She lit the fire and put on the kettle. Tea-cups
were soon rattling on to the table. Miss Fitch
watched her. Presently she said, "This is rather
different from our last meeting. Do you remember
it?"
Both of them became acutely conscious of their
last troubled morning together. The details flashed
in painful brightness through Hilda's mind. She
felt her ears growing red as she bent above the
kettle.
"You know we were all completely mistaken
about that affair. Tony went unaccompanied."
"I know," said Hilda, "I wish he hadn't."
" How typical of you to wish that in the end !
But things are much better as they are. ilnd one
bit of news you'll be glad to hear. Steven Young's
becoming quite famous. He's had a long- poem in
the Century Magazine; and the Atlantic Monthly
has taken ten short stories of his. His American
282 THE CHORUS
connection is a sure thing. It was a lucky inspira-
tion of Tony's to take him to America."
"Luck," thought Hilda, "what a rum accident."
Aloud she said, "That's splendid. Have you seen
him?"
"Yesterday," said Miss Fitch. "He's only just
back. And Anthony too. We've had our first
reunion down at Otterbridge. Really the house is
nicer than ever. How glad I am I met you to-day,
dear child, it just completes things."
"And if she hadn't met me," thought Hilda, "I
should just have disappeared from their view as
completely as Nelly has."
"They were talking about you," said Miss Fitch,
"and praising your work tremendously. And that's
something interesting, by the way — Pandolefsky
has been given his conge. He got one of the
housemaids into a scrape."
"I want to laugh," said Hilda; "who sacked
him ? "
"Well, Erica, I suppose, was the moving spirit,"
said Miss Fitch. "It is rather funny, I agree, but
you'll have to stop seeing jokes like that if you are
coming back to The Height. No one cares for
too elaborate a memory. But don't you see, my
child, the plan I have made for you now that
Pandolefsky is gone ? "
Hilda shook lier head.
"Oh, well. I won't say anything about it, but
you'll see." She nodded a satisfied head. "Now
that Erica will know you are alone she'll ask you
down again, and you'll come, won't you?"
Hilda poured hot water into the tea-pot before
LONDON— LONELINESS 283
replying. She would have liked to be able to shake
the dust of all these worthless ones from her feet,
but they were too attractive. In less than a minute
she had decided to be one of them. What was the
good of crying over spilt milk ? Society heals over
its painful memories as healthy flesh heals over a
wound. Wasn't it a beggarly sort of thing to keep
a wound open ?
"I suspect I'll come if I'm asked," she said
soberly.
Then she asked for the others. Ardent Keath,
the Ecksteins, Mrs. Arden. They were all just as
usual. Mrs. Arden had been having cooks and
housemaids all the winter, and now she was having
a baby. jMiss Fitch could not imagine where people
found monotony in domestic life. As far as she
could see it was horror upon horror's heels, a gutter
blocked or something wrong with the fuse-box. In-
finite variety. Mrs. Arden, said Miss Fitch, would
be delighted to sec Hilda. So would they all.
Might she have another cup of tea, and what
delicious cakes Hilda had bought for her, she'd
no notion such delights were to be found in
Bloomsbury.
All the while Hilda kept thinking with a fury
of revolt. She remembered the adulation these
people had showered upon Nelly less than a year
ago. It was only to please Anthony, after all. It
had been his praise they were praising, his love
they were loving, him they were flattering, as if
Nelly had been the work of his hands. How would
they have behaved if he and Nelly had gone away
together, as they would have done but for her own
284 THE CHORUS
besotted interference, if the girl had been installed
mistress, perhaps, of a second "Height"? There
would have been much talk of "charity" then, of
"preferring not to judge," of "sins of the flesh
being no sins." Mockeries and upbraidings raced
through her head. Miss Fitch was saying: "We
were so afraid that you were dropping us altogether.
We hated the thought of your seeing too much of
the wrong kind of people. We thought you and
that girl were probably still in partnership."
"I wish we were," said Hilda; "I shouldn't feel
so despicably mean then. I don't even know where
she is."
"Hilda, you're a great goose. Don't you see
that that's providential ? "
"I feel there is blood on my head," said Hilda,
smiling sadly.
"Well, it isn't my blood, anyway," said Miss
Fitch, "and I'm not going to be lugubrious. Sup-
pose you'd had your way and Erica had divorced
him, whose blood would you have been suffering
from then ? "
"Not Mrs. Hamel's," said Hilda, "because she
hasn't any."
"Oh, rubbish! " said Miss Fitch. "And if you
are so oppressed by bad works let me tell you of a
good one. Erica is much improved by the little
shaking you gave her. She was livelier than I've
known her yesterday night. Evidently it was a case
of the child who wants slapping. You supplied
the remedy."
"Oh, well," said Hilda.
"Oh, well?" said Miss Fitch.
LONDON— LONELINESS 285
"I suppose in time I'll stop feeling ashamed of
myself."
Miss Fitch embraced her affectionately as they
parted.
Next day brought Steven Young hot-foot to repay
his debt to her and to recount his adventures. It
was a saga of triumph. He had forgotten the con-
tributive cause of his good fortune.
"You know, Hamel is a great man," he assured
her. "You've no notion how splendid he seemed
when he was alone like that."
Hilda's mouth curved disparagingly.
"You needn't have a knife into him, Hilda.
He's most tremendously sad under all the liveliness
and good humour."
" Did he say anything about Nelly ? "
"He said very little about her. He loves her as
he loves all the charming and tender things in this
world. Hilda, I shall be mad with you if you
sneer."
Steven could see in his mind's eye Hamel sitting
beside him on the deck with hat on knee and wdnd
lifting his thick hair. "Of course I loved her. She
was made to be loved. I can't blame myself for
that. But I'm too old and too tame or, I begin to
think, too effete for a romantic adventure. Civil-
ization puts a kind of moral impotence into all of
us. We desire a thing, we stretch out our hands
for it, but when it's in our grasp we don't know
what to do with it. We need a static pursuit, a
kind of Grecian Urn love that never knows fulfil-
ment. It's not fear or self-control that stays us,
but self-criticism, an onlooking from which we
286 THE CHORUS
cannot escape. It's more disconcerting than the
eye of God. It takes a man of strong character
nowadays to be a rake. Not that I was that even
at my basest. Twenty years ago I might have
been different, less scrupulous or less self-centred,
certainly happier. As it is I fled not from tempta-
tion but from the cessation of it. Perhaps I have
not done much harm. I taught her the sweetest
part of love for a while, anyway. She might have
had a worse teacher."
He put back his handsome head to feel the wind
on his throat, and sunlight made sharply visible
some little white hairs among the bronze of his
temples.
"He's so kind. He's full of gentleness. He
might have behaved so infinitely worse. I don't
think there's much use in judging people."
Hilda could have shaken Steven ; but after all
he had come quickly to see her, and why should
she want him to quarrel with his friend? JMiss
Fitch was quite right. One did not want too
elaborate a memory.
She heard about the American summer, the
bathing and boating, the camping in the moun-
tains. The villa Tony had seen completed for the
Coonmanrigs. She took Nelly's purse after he had
gone and put it away in a drawer — to remind her
from time to time and at long intervals how expert
she had grown at forgetting. But it had a sur-
prising moment of usefulness first.
A few days later came the letter that IMiss Fitch
had prophesied, and with it the suggestion that the
Ilanu'ls would like to have Hilda to till the post left
LONDON— LONELINESS 287
vacant by Pandolefsky. This was glory and an
awakening of the world indeed. With headlong
rap^re she accepted the position and prepared to
return to The Height the very next week-end. She
fled across to jMiss Fitch to impart the go/od news,
and they arranged to travel down together.
Now there was nothing but the land of milk and
honey before her. No more lonely walks, no more
fears, no more aimlessness. Taking her last look
at the muddy March streets, her glances stroked the
houses with affection, the foggy evening blue, the
little doves' wings of shadows onCatesby's chimney-
pots. She was so very glad to be leaving them
behind.
Shop windows were beginning to show^ an occa-
sional light, home-going workers to crowd the
pavements. She walked along blissfully presaging
what marvels of dexterity her hands were about to
prove themselves, what contentment was going to
be hers. She passed the Tube Station in Cran-
bourne Street, busy with imagined hammerings and
firings, grindings and gildings. In this mood her
eyes fell on some jewellery in a pawn-shop window
— pinchbeck emeralds, agate-topped snuff-boxes,
Sheffield pepper-pots, cut glass decanters, purple
glasses, a frayed fire-screen, spoons of Dutch silver,
square rims of brooches pearl-set, miniature of a
lady in a yellow turban, a pewter ladle, a china
group that was never in Chelsea, a torn lace ruflle,
a tray of ear-rings, watches, buckles, rings. Hilda's
eyes fastened upon one among them.
"Surely I know enough about my trade by this
time to know that that's good," she thought. She
288 THE CHORUS
pushed open the door and entered the shop. In
there it was ahiiost dark. The Hght fiUered in
beams through the miscellany of the window
shelves. An old man with wrinkled hands was
reading the afternoon's paper. He raised moist
eyes and looked at her above his spectacles.
"I wanted to look at a ring that I see in the
window," said Hilda.
The old man rose with a grudging air as if he
resented her interruption, and lifted out the tray
shakily.
"That's the one," said Hilda, "what do you want
for this?"
"Two pound ten," said the old man, looking hard
at her, "it's gold."
Hilda looked in her purse mechanically, for she
knew she had not so much with her, and (provok-
ing) the banks were by this time shut. She must
have the ring. That she had set her soul on. She
thought of Nelly's purse lying useless in her flat.
That was the thing ! For one night she would
borrow.
"Very well," she told the old man, "put the ring
aside for me. I'll call back for it."
vShe disguised her eagerness a little — after all she
was born in a commercial city.
She was back in half an hour, breathless and
rejoicing.
"Two pounds ten, you said? Right." The ring
was handed across the counter. "It's frightfully
cheap," said Hilda.
"I'm glad you think so," said the old man
sarcastically. Seen close to it was even more
LONDON— LONELINESS 289
wonderful than she had supposed. A little wood
spirit with a lamp ! It was entrancing-.
"I say, I suppose you don't know where this
came from ? " she asked.
"We don't ask questions," said the old man,
presenting a blighting- indifference to her enthu-
siasm. "But it's not old, if you want to know."
He thought that would disappoint her. He re-
venged himself for her "cheap."
"I should think not, indeed."
She hastened into the street again. Her new
possession was a triumph. If that was modern
work there must be a man somewhere doing as good
stuff as Tony Hamel. How excited he'd be when
he saw it. Wliat fun if they found out who it was,
and the man was as wonderful as his work. He
must be a man of genius anyhow. Perhaps they
might help him to fame and fortune. Perhaps he
was handsome. Her pleasant fancies increased as
she journeyed homeward.
^liss Fitch was sitting composedly with her toes
on a foot-warmer when Hilda burst into the train
at Waterloo.
"Janet, I've made such a find! It's simply too
wonderful. An unknown genius. I'm suffocating
with enthusiasm. Just look here."
She flung her bag on to the seat, stripped off her
glove and displayed her treasure.
"There! What do you think of that? And on
top of all the other good fortune. Am not I a lucky
beast ? "
Miss Fitch was properly impressed with the ring.
It certainly was marvellous.
u
290 THE CHORUS
" Oh got ye this by sea or land ?
Or got ye it off a dead man's hand?"
she quoted. "You must show it to Anthony
Hamel."
"I shall indeed. You'll see how keen he'll be.
The man who made this was a master. The Boss
couldn't do better himself."
How pleasant it was to smell the country air.
To be speeding- along- sandy roads with rain-water
brightening- the ruts and wagtails scuttling into
the hedges. The Height was just the same as
Hilda had left it. Only some of the walls and
floors were different. The music-room had gone to
the Fannan-\\^akes, and the Hanburys had got the
dining-room. New lamps for old, perhaps, but
the oil was the same. There was the same babble
of talk in the white and blue drawing-room, the
same group round the fire awaiting dinner. Mrs.
Hamel, smihng more than formerly, in pale scarlet,
Mrs. Arden, looking peaceful in grey. Ardent
Keath, with a new^ volume of poetry by a natural-
ized Syrian from Antioch, entitled The Bull
Roarer, which was, he said, as if the manure of
the fields found speech.
How amusing it was to be welcomed there, to
be part of the old instead of part of the new (which
consisted of two tall Americans with wonderfully
underpinned front teeth, Anthony's latest market),
to see Steven Young in a Bond Street evening suit,
to hear Miss Fitch laughing as usual. Nothing
was altered. The siren singer had disappeared and
the waters had closed over her. Presently came
Anthony, magnificent as ever, more magnificent
LONDON— LONELINESS 291
even by contrast with her evil thoughts of him.
How thriUing to have clasped his hand, to be patted
on the shoulder ! There he was glowing w ith
paternal kindliness ! Of course, she worshipped
him, the greeting was scartely over when she
drew off the ring and put it eagerly into his fingers.
"Look what I found in a pawn-shop, Boss. What
do you think of it ? "
The ring lay upon Anthony's hand. The little
golden Nelly in the greenwood holding up the
lamp of truth, but the lamp, the diamond, had
fallen out. He looked at it without speaking for
several minutes. The group round the fire waited
too, politely considerate of his opinion.
F"or a moment Anthony was unaware of them.
He saw again the yellow hair, felt the soft touch
of lips coaxing at the corner of his mouth. All
the summer of tenderness and doubt and stolen
meetings pressed in a suffocating flood upon him.
A passion of regret surged up as he looked into
Hilda's waiting eyes.
AVTiat were they waiting for ? Was it a trap that
she had set him ? The candour of the gaze denied
a hidden thought. Oh, yes — the ring.
"It's very charming," he said dully.
He saw again a skirt stained at the hem with
dust, a broken shoe with a dirty great-toe showing
through it.
"But, Boss, don't you think it very good? I
thought I'd discovered a genius."
"There's a stone missing," he said absently. He
appeared to be half asleep. They watched him a
Utile curiously.
292 THE CHORUS
"Don't you like it, Mr. Hamel ? I iioped you
would think it so good," Hilda's voice roused him.
Anthony suddenly smiled down at her.
"The man who made it certainly had talent,"
he said, "but he bungled the setting. It didn't
last."
Hilda was disappointed.
They went in to dinner.
HARLEQUINADE
At two o'clock on a November morning a young
man in an opera hat was standing beside a lamp-
post. He was not a handsome youth, being some-
what thick of body and full of lip, but his eyes
were lively, his expression amiable, and there was
a certain rosiness and roundness about him which,
together with a curliness of hair which no rigour
of the barber could subdue, gave him an air both
innocent and attractive. As he stood he lightly
tapped a foot and puckered his mouth in ghostly
whistling with a sort of resigned impatience. His
coat collar was turned up so that his muffler inter-
jected a white corner between it and his left ear;
his hands were deep in his pockets, where they
clutched — one a book and the other a box of
matches. He was aware of the dampness of the
pavement through his evening shoes. He had
smoked his last cigarette.
The sky above the houses was dull with rain.
Beneath each lamp a yellow strip of reflection made
the roadway deep as a canal. The houses seemed
to have assumed a look of deliberate blankness and
indifference. Shutters, lace curtains, plush cur-
tains, white curtains, ground glass, glass in pink
293
294 THE CHORUS
and yellow squares, glass with two faded chrysan-
themums in pots behind it, lifeless as so many
coffins, baffling and ignoring- him. Dark blinds,
buff blinds, patterned blinds, Venetian blinds—
solely for the purpose of his hoodwinking. The
young man tapped his foot and whistled inaudibly.
They might make him feel foolish, but they should
not make him go away.
A policeman prowled down the street, flicking his
light rhythmically into the areas. He observed
the young man with a solemn impersonal scrutiny,
opera hat, overcoat, patent shoes, all his right
side, and then, more closely in passing, his back,
shoes, overcoat, opera hat. The young man did
not turn his head to see if his left side were
scrutinized as thoroughly. The policeman's pre-
sence increased his feeling of foolishness until he
almost wriggled in his embarrassment, but he suc-
ceeded in assuming an outward appearance of calm
as blank, he hoped, and bafflingly indifferent as
that of the houses themselves, implying, by a
slightly contemptuous drooping of the eyelids, that
his position at that hour in that place was as
correctly usual as their own.
After all, their null air was also subterfuge.
Behind the smooth walls of their hypocrisy men
and women were at that moment sprawled in every
attitude of sleep and nakedness. They Avere as full
of fierceness and sloth and colour as his head was
full of thoughts. Was not his brain, indeed, almost
identical with number twenty-seven opposite? Did
he not know what forms of furniture, what intricacy
of ornament it held? In his memory did he not
HARLEQUINADE 295
grasp the entire orientation of the place as if it
were a set scene with the bones of his own head
for proscenium ? Dismissing all expression from
his face, conforming involuntarily to his surround-
ings, he began to live again in the picture his
memory placed before him.
Only two hours ago he had been supping in the
house opposite — less than two hours, for it was
half-past twelve when he had left, when they had
all left: an hour and a half since the Lady in
Mauve and Miss America had smiled "Good-
night" to him from the window of their limousine;
since Henry Berners and George Richardson had
slammed the door of their taxicab ; since the
sw^arthy face of their host had smiled that sen-
sationally dazzling smile of his from the bright
grotto of his open door, followed by the swift
seriousness of the shut door and the headlong
blackness of the fanlight; an hour and a half since
our young man had marched away round the corner
with emphatic steps, to return much less emphatic-
ally (like a spy? No, not like a spy), like a good,
kind, curly retriever dog, to take up his sentinel
position beneath the lamp-post.
What had been happening, he wondered, since
his host of the black eyebrows had switched off the
hall light and rushed upstairs? He had been in
the devil of a rage and the devil of a hurry.
Was that a sound from behind the obfuscating
windows? The young man sprang tense, his self-
consciousness vanishing in the need for action ;
but his straining ears caught only the spurt of a
taxicab crossing the Edgware Tvoad away to his
296 THE CHORUS
left, and behind him he became aware that what
had seemed until then utter silence was full of
the shunting of trains in Paddington Station.
The house opposite gave no encouragement,
but there had been a sdund distinctly, he could
swear to it, of breaking glass. He resumed his
thoughts.
The owner of No. 27 was a curious man, a
blackness and whiteness in a neutral world. The
Mauve Lady had said that he was the onl}^ man
in London who still made vice attractive. "Not
that he's really wicked, you know, but he's so
clever, he pays such public compliments, he knows
such a lot about clothes, and his smile is simply
glamorous ! " She enjoyed knowing him, she
enjoyed his dinner-parties, "always something to
eat you can't get elsewhere"; his theatre-parties,
"always takes you to the thing you have to see
and can't get tickets for "; his guests, "always the
last new man or the next new man " — to-night they
had been celebrating his discovery of the Leonardo,
there was talk of a public banquet to him over
that, tliey had dined at the Savoy and seen the
"new thing" at the theatre; and then they had
"trundled" back to sup at his own house and see
some Chinese lacquer chairs he had "picked up"
in Islington.
He had let them himself into his panelled
hall.
"How I envy you this house! It would be a
show place if sight seers had any real sense of the
beautiful," from Lady Mauve as they mounted the
circling stairs.
HARLEQUINADE 297
"Aren't you very lonely?" had asked Miss
America, an elf in pink tulle.
"Lonely? But why?" from their host, with his
black eyes upon her.
"It's such a bio- house. I should be afraid to
live all by myself."
"Nonsense!" cried the Mauve Lady. "Who
could dare to be anything but in transports all the
time among- such lovely things?"
So much in single file above him.
Their host makes them sit in the lacquered
chairs, while he heats soup for them at the table.
The big room is full of towering shadows. The
branching silver candlesticks light up the table like
an altar. It is a little island of brightness among
the old Jamaica furnishings, dark walls and
bronzes. Over the mantelpiece is a shell-like
fifteenth-century Madonna in a painted frame, with
a small flame wavering before her. The rays fall
steeply from it on to the burnished head and
drooping shoulders of Miss America, who has
taken a seat beside the fender, and having learnt
that some little pieces of black stuff she has found
on the mantelpiece are incense, she is amusing
herself with "josses," as she calls them, sending
the grey spirals of sweet smoke to mingle with her
companions' cigarettes.
"I've lit three josses," she informs the room:
"one for the Madonna, and one for Mr. Buddha
in the corner, and one for you," she tells their host,
"because you're looking so like Mephistopheles."
Their host assures them that he is very like
Mephistopheles— very like Mephistopheles stirring
298 THE CHORUS
soup in a saucepan. The likeness had always been
remarkable.
Fizz ! A drop of soup goes into the spirit-lamp,
and Miss America starts so that she rattles the
fire-irons.
Lady Mauve says it is time she was in bed ; but
they have no intention of going away yet awhile.
The soup is ready and they sit down to table,
Madame Mauve on their host's right, Miss America
on his left next to George Richardson, and behind
her is the archway into the adjoining room, hung
with a Jacobean embroidery, concealing and reveal-
ing an impenetrable blackness. She glances
towards it with only half-simulated apprehension.
Her joke about Mephistopheles has affected her
nerves.
What have they all talked about, making so
lively a clatter? Their host is carving a game pie.
Henrv Berners is looking after the drinks. Lady
I\Liuve discourses on chaperons and their right to
drink Benedictine, which she concedes herself :
"Girls have to be amused nowadays. They won't
put up with years of certain boredom for the sake
of a problematical husband." "And years of cer-
tain boredom," adds somebody, who is not the
curlv-headed voung man. How they talk and
laugh, and how the champagne sparkles in the big
faceted goblets ! The table-spoon goes with a suck
into the trifle. George Richardson is eating a jam
tart "with his fingers."
"What's that?" exclaims Miss America sud-
denly. She cannot forget the cavern at her back.
"I'm sure I heard something."
HARLEQUINADE 299
Bats, they suggest to her, in these old houses, or
a white owl, or the grey l^icly, or Saint Gengulphus
with his head under his arm. But Miss America
persists that she did hear something- : a sort of
rustling.
"There!" They all hear it now: a quiet step
upon the floor. All eyes are intent on the dark
square and the embroidery. "What fun if I've
caught you a burglar ! " says Miss America. Then
a white hand takes hold of the edge of the curtain,
a white hand and a white arm, and draws it
deliberately aside.
George Richardson and Henry Berners and the
curly-headed young man rise slowly to their feet
and stand staring, for in the archway is a glorious
young woman posed as if for tableaux, much
amused at the sensation she is making, enjoying-
the eyes that are upon her. She stands there
motionless long enough for them to observe in
detail the splendour of her hair and the whiteness
of her skin and the starry brightness of the candle-
flames reflected in her eyes. Her g-own below her
white bosom is deep pink; a grey fur coat hangs
from her shoulders.
"How very nice of you all to come! " says the
newcomer at last, stepping over the threshold. "I
do like to have a birthday party."
She strolled across to a couch under the window
and very unconcernedly sat down upon it, thrust
a hand beneath it and brought forth a pair of gilt
shoes with preposterous heels, and, still talking,
proceeded to put them on. This she did by thrust-
ing the toe of one v/al king-shoe into the heel of
300 THE CHORUS
the other and gouging her feet out of them without
untying the laces.
"It's a vile night. Not a taxi to be had. I've
been prancing about in mud up to my knees."
With a backward kick she sent the muddy shoes
under the sofa and rose to her feet. "That's better.
Now I am ready to say how d'you do. I won't
take off my coat, thanks; I'm probably not fastened
down the back. I'll have a little trifle, and you
might pass me one of those carnations for my
hair."
Henry Berners chooses her a carnation, and
George Richardson holds his watch open for her
while she fastens the pink rosette into the yellow
pyramid.
"Talk," says the Lady in Mauve in an agonized
whisper. They all rush into the gap at once,
offering her pie and grapes and salad and raspberry
tarts. "Champagne!" cries the lovely stranger.
"Give me two glasses of champagne and I'll sing
to you." Henry Berners pours out the wine. The
forks begin to clink again, the conversation becomes
again noisy and entangled. There was something
infectious in the newcomer's laughter that put
cheerfulness into them anew. The curly-headed
young man laughed with her and adored her : her
beauty was a lamp in the room. His eyes were
filled with the piled glitter of her hair, the long,
pink mouth, the eyes that bewildered his above
the wine-glass; he forgot the Mauve Lady and
Miss America and the place and the hour and
everything except the young woman on the other
side of the table.
HARLEQUINADE 801
Henry Berners it was who jarred him from this
amorous trance by a smart kick on the ankle and
reminded him of reaHty ; of reahty, alas ! with its
common and over-repeated expression, a scowl. A
deadly scowl it was, too, and their host at the end
of the table was wearing it. Seeing him thus in
the midst of the rosy glow the young man felt as
if he had looked through a trap-door on to icy
water. He became in his turn watchful, and leant
back in his chair gazing on the black eyes that
were fixed in such a blighting steadiness on the
seemingly unconscious bright ones at the other end
of the tables. What was the bright ones* intention ?
Less to charm, the young man fancied, than to
make mad. Their owner had consented to sing.
"Signorita la belle maman," came the childish
soprano, so young a voice out of the gold and
scarlet, while she offered Miss America an imagin-
ary bouquet; and then "Wiede, wiede, wenne," and
at " Heisst mein Ganz " her fingers just for the
briefest of seconds tickled George Richardson under
the chin. Then sitting on the arm of the chair,
reckless of its venerable vSheraton,she struck up ihe
marching song that never loses its freshness of
brutality : " 'Twas on the road to sweet Athy :
Hurroo ! hurroo ! " Following this she had another
glass of champagne, and was now prepared, she
assured them, to give an imitation of IMadame
Marcelle Irvon of the Folies Berg^res, Paris.
At this point the Mauve Lady found it imperative
to drag herself and the equally reluctant Miss
America away. She would have done so before,
but the situation had so numbed her wits that she
302 THE CHORUS
really had not the words on which to make an exit;
and from a fete galante of that kind one really had
to make an exit. It was not a case for a simple
getting away ; it required extrication. She managed
it when the inspiration came in what appeared to
the young man a masterly manner.
"We mustn't stay another minute. We should
have gone long ago; but once this delightful treat
began I'd no idea — " she pressed the hand of
her grim host — "you had such a surprise in store
for us. It's been too perfect. Good-night." She
beamed round upon everybody. She felt she had
risen to the occasion.
"Good-bye," said Miss America quite simply,
too enthralled with the adventure to bear ill-will to
her extinguisher. "So pleased to have met you ! "
W^hat a convenient language, American ! She
would have said just the same thing to the Arch-
bishop of Canterbury.
Henry Berners opened the door for them and
they passed out. Their host did not immediately
follow. There was a brief duel of eyes between
him and George Richardson, and then they were
all saying good-bye to the mysterious beauty
(except the curly-headed young man, who, to his
disgust, was dumb); and "Well, old man, it isn't
our funeral" Henry Berners could be heard sotto
voce to the reluctant George Richardson on the
stairs. And there at the end of everything was the
midnight street, and the lamps, and the smell of
rain, and the sound of the closing door of the
Mauve Lady's motor, the last flicker of "Good-
night," "So long, old chap," quenched in the
HARLEQUINADE 303
oncoming, laughter-scattering silence, the splash of
the muddy pavement as they turned away, the
shutting of the front door, George Richardson
cursing the weather, Henry Berners, ever practical,
hailing the taxicab with his umbrella, more "good-
nights," and our young friend disconsolate beneath
the lamp-post.
So his mind reconstructed it.
A clock sent the notes of the half-hour drifting
into the sodden darkness. Out of the curtained
windows behind him came a single "ting" from a
dining-room mantelpiece. It hardly seemed worth
while to wait any longer. Beauty and Beast were
both happily asleep by this time. Hadn't he made
a pretty complete fool of himself ? And here was
the policeman again, confound him ! Why couldn't
he go to bed like other people at a decent hour,
instead of prying and prowling through the streets ?
He was advancing inexorable as fate. The young
man braced himself to meet another scrutiny.
" What about half-a-crown ? " he asked himself.
He knew how the whole tenor of a life may hang
upon such a trifle. Suppose he were arrested for
loitering, what sort of figure would he cut in the
dock next morning ? He could see the little
paragraph —
" Magistrate : ' How many glasses of champagne
does he say he had?' 'Two, your worship.'
Magistrate : ' Two too many ' (laughter)." They
thought themselves mighty funny at Marylebone.
What would his father think about it ? Would
he laugh, too, or would it be: "Damn you, you
young puppy ! I make you an allowance to live
304 THE CHORUS
decently " Should he give the poHceman the
half-crown? A\^ouldn't that look too suspiciously
like bribery? Well, what on earth else was it?
But surely in a free country a man might stand
outside a friend's house without having to pay for
the privilege? Why should he care what a police-
man thought? His conscience was clear. If the
man interfered with him he was an ignorant brute;
if he could be bought off he was a scoundrel. The
young man squared his shoulders. The light of
the lantern was flitted over him. "Good-night,
sir," said the policeman. He was, after all, a
thoroughly worthy and respectable man ; a simple,
kindly— and, moreover, he was twice the age, at
least, of the young hero. "Good-night, constable.
Beastly weather." The slow tramp went up the
street and turned the corner. Fortified by the rites
of the law the young man continued to watch
No. 27. By God ! he'd stay there till the milk came.
Almost at once he was rewarded for his con-
stancy. There was a sound from the house opposite
that resembled nothing so much as a composite fall
downstairs, the door was shaken with a heavy blow
from the inside, opened an inch, banged to, opened
again, held open, the toe of a patent leather shoe
thrust between it and the door-post. "I won't,
I won't ! " the vouno- man heard a feminine voice
saying and a sound of hard breathing through
noses. Crash ! The door swung back to the wall
so that its bolts and chains clattered. Crash !
Someone in grey was bundled out on to the step.
Bang ! from the knocker as the door swung to
again.
HARLEQUINADE 3o5
"No, you don't," says the grey somebody, throw-
ing herself against the door. "Get out," says
the voice inside. The young woman wastes no
breath in words; she is pushing. "Get your foot
in," the young man silently conjures her; he is
j'gging with excitement. The door is closing ; the
young woman reverses her position and leans all
her weight backwards against it. Useless : with
a sharp click the latch has caught, the bolts shoot
home in aggressive triumph.
" Dirty swine ! " screams the young woman,
whisking round and putting her mouth to the
letter-box.
The young man crossed the road and waited, hat
in hand, for her attention. With her fair hair
unrolled down her back she looked like a Fatima in
train for execution. She had told Bluebeard inside
to cut his throat with the carving-knife, and was
suggesting mutilations, when she became aware of
the young man standing near her. Instantly her
manner changed : she stood upright, smiled a
deprecating, disarming smile, and said in a mincing
voice, "Forgotten my latch-key. Too bad. Can't
make anybody hear."
"Can I be of any assistance to you?" asked the
young man, still uncovered.
"Thank you very much. I really don't know
what's to be done. It's such an unusual position
for a lady to find herself in. Why — " she began
to smile as she looked into the young man's face —
"you're trying to kid me. I've seen you before
to-night. You were at the party, weren't you?"
" I was indeed."
X
306 THE CHORUS
The young woman shook back her hair and
laughed.
"I gave them fits," she said. Having finished
laughing, she looked at him once more suspiciously.
"What did you come back for?"
He was a trifle confused. "I thought things
might be difficult for you. I've been waiting in
case you needed help."
She laughed delightedly, catching her lower lip
with her teeth. "Bless him ! he's a dear boy. He
thought he could help me."
" If I could "
"Of course you can. Here, hold these a minute
while I do my hair."
This was not quite the sort of assistance the
young man had looked forward to giving, but he
made obediently a cup of his hands and received
an assortment of combs and pins that she pulled
out of the mane upon her shoulders, and among
them a red carnation.
"I believe it was you gave me that," she said,
beginning to weave the golden mass with uplifted
hands. It was Henry Berners, as they both knew,
but the young man had courage to say —
"I wish you'd give it me back."
She stabbed the final hairpins into her hair, took
the carnation, kissed it, gave it to him again.
"There," she said; "there's something to cry
over when you're sixty — if you haven't lost it."
The young man put it into his breast pocket and
took timid possession of the hand that had given it.
"I say, you know, what are you going to do ? "
"Do? Why, I haven't begun to think about it.
HARLEQUINADE 307
Did I look nice in there ? " Slie nodded at the door
behind them.
"You were glorious. But what did you do it
for?"
She began her laugh again. "Just devilment;
sheer, unnecessary devilment. It doesn't do to let
a man get too sure of one. One must make sur-
prises. One mustn't let him get to think he's got
one. No-ho ! that would never do."
"You made him pretty mad."
"I meant to. He's made me pretty mad once or
twice, I can tell you. I was feeling larky : I had
to have my bit of fun. And besides, if there's
going to be a change, I've got to be seen, you
know."
The fine rain in the lamplight made a white
radiance about her.
"Don't you worry, childie; I shall be all right."
" But what are you going to do now ? "
She drew her brows together for a second.
"Tell me—" the words sprang at him — "do I
smell of drink? "
The young man was so taken aback that he nearly
fell down the steps. She gripped his hand and
steadied him.
"Of course you don't."
"Of course I do, you mean."
"A very little, perhaps," said the young man,
blushing.
"Ah, that's better," said the young woman.
"Would you say, now, I was drunk?"
"Certainly you're not." He was indignant. "I
swear you're not,"
808 THE CHORUS
"Would you say that if you were the police-
doctor up at the barracks?"
"I should, most certainly."
She smiled at his fervour.
"I suppose you're all right yourself. Used to
champagne? I mean, I can take your word for
it?"
The young man laughed. "I've had horrid
doubts; but I'm sober all right. I swear I am."
"Very well," said the girl, "we'll take that as
settled. I shall stay here all night and create a
scandal. That'll annoy somebody."
"But you can't stay here in the rain ! "
"Why not? My complexion will stand it, so
far."
"But you'll catch cold."
"The boy is talking nonsense."
"But your coat will be spoiled."
"I'll buy a new one."
Her smile was imperturbable. He had a curious
feeling that he had shrunk to pigmy size and was
walking into her eyes beneath the starry lashes.
"Look here," he said, "at least you might sit
down. Sit on this book."
He pulled out of his pocket a volume that he
had been reading. The Philosophy of Change, and
put it on the step. She sat down without glancing
at it.
"I've chained myself to the scraper," she said,
yawning; "call me at eight."
He realized that she was tired enough almost to
fall asleep. Her tiredness made her look, not old,
but very young. The rain was hanging like a dew
HARLEQUINADE 309
upon the fur of her coat and the locks of her hair.
Her delicate face was framed in a mist of little
curls. Bending down, he told her so.
"Go on," she said, "tell me some more. I like
to hear you."
"If you were on my doorstep," he said, "I
shouldn't keep the door shut."
"If you'd take my advice, darling, you wouldn't
mix yourself up with persons like me."
"I can't tell you what a happiness it is even to
look at you. I wish you would trust me to take
care of you."
"Ah, but there's your own good to think about."
(Was there a hint of slyness in that suggestion ?)
"I am thinking of that all the time, I'm ashamed
to say. Dearest, won't you come?"
"You're a complete darling," said the girl; but
she made no attempt to move.
Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch: the steady
tramp of the policeman again.
"It is the lark, and not the nightingale," mur-
mured the girl, rising to her feet.
The lantern was turned upon them.
"Oh, constable," said the girl, with the mincing
quality of voice, "it's so provoking: I've come
out without my latch-key. Could you make some-
body hear ? "
The policeman looked from one to the other,
but came at once under the spell of beauty in
distress.
"I'll have a try. Miss," he said. "Have you
knocked, Miss?"'
"Once or twice," said the voice, very small.
310 THE CHORUS
The policeman put down his lantern.
"I'll try the area bell, Miss."
Diapasons pealed. He did it again.
" Do the servants sleep in the basement ? "
"No, they sleep at the top of the house."
" Ho ! Then I'll try the knocker."
Thunders reverberated.
"You'll have to keep on and on, I expect," said
the girl sweetly.
The policeman went at it.
"Try the electric bell," she presently suggested.
" We can't help it if we wake the street. I'll ring,
while you keep on at the knocker."
They made an astounding amount of noise
between them.
"Try a shout through the letter-box."
"Hulloa!" bawled the policeman. "Hulloa in
there ! "
The young man felt it was time to be going. At
any moment the door might open and reveal his
share in the conspiracy. His help was no longer
needed. He could trust the policeman to put the
case to No. 27's infuriated owner. He separated
himself from the pair on the doorstep and began
to move away.
"Have another go at the knocker," the girl was
saying, with evident enjoyment. "I simply must
get in." The young man was forgotten.
Well, he had helped her do her hair, anyhow.
He walked away in the shadow of the houses. The
policeman was now hammering like an impatient
school audience : Thump — thump — thump thump
thump Thump — thump — thump thump thump.
HARLEQUINADE 311
Glancing over his shoulder, the young man saw
the girl in an attitude of graceful nonchalance,
hand on hip, gilt shoes crossed, head tilted, leaning
all her weight on one thumb and that thumb on
the stud of the electric bell. With that last glimpse
he turned the corner.
THE END
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