THE NOVELS OF FRANK SWINNERTON iiiii mn i nn i i n — w i — ii m ii m iMi n i m i i iii mi ii M i n iiiM ■ m uri um i »mm »i MHHuilum i u i »« THE HAPPY FAMILY ►►ON THE STAIRCASE SBRARY NIVERSITY Of CALIFORNIA ON THE STAIRCASE FRANK SWINNERTON ON THE STAIRCASE BY FRANK SWINNERTON AUTHOR OF "THE HAPPY FAMILY," ETC NEW YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY Copyright, 1914, By George H. Doran Company TO PHILIP LEE WARNER IN GRATITUDE AND AFFECTION 089 CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. The Quiet Room i II. Cissie Prologises 13 III. Imperfect Sympathies 22 IV. Half-Lights 35 V. Precipitance 4* VI. Amberley Ascending 49 VII. Amberley's Friends are Indiscreet .... 5 8 VIII. The Baffled Lover I 2 IX. "If it be thus to Dream!" 77 X. The Marriage in Train 83 XI. Friendship 99 XII. Brighton Io6 XIII. Hadley Woods 121 XIV. Poetry at a Discount 130 XV. A Great Deal of Conversation 138 XVI. The Promenade Concert 155 XVII. A New Phase 164 XVIII. A Piece of Cissie's Mind 178 XIX. Poison 185 XX. The Amberleys Receive 195 XXI. A Walk at Night 206 XXII. Barbara Speculates 213 XXIII. Heart to Heart 222 V vi CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE XXIV. Two Cardinal Facts 232 XXV. Amberley is Defeated 241 XXVI. Afterwards 248 XXVII. On the Staircase 254 XXVIII. The Analyst 262 XXIX. Reaction 272 XXX. Cissie 277 XXXI. Flight 284 XXXII. Amberley Takes Charge 292 XXXIII. Clarification 3°3 XXXIV. Dreadful News 3*7 XXXV. Bonne Bouche 323 ON THE STAIRCASE I CHAPTER I THE QUIET ROOM N London the earliest evenings in autumn are romantic beyond any others. The big electric lamps begin to whiz and flutter before the afternoon is gone, and night is upon the city while the dusk is still making eyes strain to see what, a moment earlier, had been quite visible. And while the marvel grows usual and unsurprising during the weeks that follow, it seems at its first coming almost as fresh, and even as welcome, as the spring. That, of course, is to the young and self-conscious, who recognise change without misgiving. To the middle-aged in spirit the early autumn is as much a cause for melancholy foreboding as any other time of progress. There are no old people nowadays. There are the young, to whom everything is capable of pro- viding matter of interest, and there are the middle-aged, whose spirits are dulled. This book is mostly about young people. Barbara Gretton, leaving the typewriting office which gave her employment, walked quickly up Arundel Street and lost her identity. She became one of the millions of people who push and press like conflicting shoals of fish along the Strand every evening. The Strand clocks were striking six; the thicker, duller clock at the Law Courts 2 ON THE STAIRCASE had already sounded in petty emulation of Big Ben. Every- thing was in motion, ever-progressing, ever-renewed. Those who passed had degenerated into a crowd, and crowds cease instantly to be composed of individuals. They are crowds — with a new and abnormal psychology, yet with amazingly steadfast individual aims. Barbara felt at home in crowds, because she was so sure of her own individuality. That was because she had a very powerful sense of personal direction. She never had lost her head ; it was impossible to imagine that she would ever lose it. She had worked too long in offices to feel mistrustful of herself. She tingled with the consciousness that she was Barbara Gretton. So strong was her sense of the fact that she never thought it likely that she would be anything or anybody else. She was hard, courageous, effective. If she had been in a minor crowd she would have been recognisable as an individual. Weedy young men would have seen her, tall, unapproach- able, and would in a glance have taken notice of her assured carriage, and her eager, but controlled, aspect. She was tall, very dark, unusually erect; and her mouth was significantly closed in resolution. Not one of the weedy young men would have supposed it conceivable that he could speak to her. Just as some girls carry themselves with an air of irresolution which invites impertinence, Bar- bara passed like an athlete in good training, completely self- reliant. She dressed plainly, in dark coat and skirt; and a small scarlet trimming was the only adornment of her se- vere hat. But she was not manly; her stride was not noticeable, for she had natural grace; she was in no sense aggressive. That was why, to observing eyes, she lost indi- viduality in a crowd, and yet remained, to perceptive vision, so unquestionably Barbara Gretton. Far up the Strand to the westward the traffic roared, and dark figures melted into the evening grey; to the east, down Fleet Street, a similar swarm of people and of ve- hicles rushed steadily along, bent on some desperate errand, a mass of moving particles, not at all to be distinguished ON THE STAIRCASE 3 one from the other, even by their patrons and familiars. The two fine Strand churches stood up pale and splendid against the sky; a roaring filled the ears, as of an endless wave, for ever breaking fiercely upon stubborn shores. Barbara was unconscious of her own movements ; she went forward resolutely, bathed in the noise and the gleaming lights and the dull hustle of passengers. She only knew how splendid it was to be in the midst of life. II From Aldwich, Barbara turned into the wide and as yet unfinished Kingsway, one of the few noble thorough- fares of London. Here the crowds were less noticeably congested, though they still swept endlessly towards the Strand as tributaries to the main stream passing east and west. She could feel more free, more able to give attention to those who passed ; and she could hear below her the dull rumble of the underground tramcars (known as rabbit- trams from their habit of plunging beneath the roadway a little farther on). To the right, through quiet Lincoln's Inn, through a narrow court, and across Holborn, and through another passage, and then Barbara was fairly in sight of her home. For she lived, with her mother and father and two brothers, at the very top of one of the tall houses in Great James Street. Here, as they rushed up and down Theobald's Road, the tramcars made a great clangour, and heavy carts from the northeast jolted over the rough stones. As the noise of the Strand was to the quiet of her office, so was Theobald's Road more noisy than either; dull, greasy, blatant — a dinning crowd of motor- omnibuses and carts and trams. From the door of that building in which her own home seemed withdrawn from clamour she could still hear the frightful sounds she had left. Yet once Barbara had passed the door, everything became muffled. Here the gas above the door might flicker, 4 ON THE STAIRCASE and heavy doors within the building might slam, and keys might chinkle; but only a distant grinding sound betrayed the nearness of traffic, and the tram-gongs were nearly lost to hearing. She entered the mild silence. Mr. Berry, the housekeeper's husband, was having kippers for tea. Barbara passed the door of Vokes & Vokes, and the offices were still. She mounted the staircase to the first floor, where were the offices of Robinson, Seares, & Turn- pike. They too seemed closed until she was abreast of the door, when suddenly it opened, and a tall young man strug- gled a key into the lock, standing with his back turned, locking the door. She had often seen him before — a tall, pale, serious young man in shabby clothes. She wondered what he did all day in that office, sitting studiously at a desk and working with grim unwillingness. His name, she had heard from Mr. Amberley (of Vokes's), was Val- ancourt. Mr. Amberley had grimaced, shaking his comical head. "Velancourt," he had said. "Accent on the second syllable, and the 't' ellided." Barbara took no notice of Mr. Velancourt as he stood on the landing, but stepped gently on. Here she reached the next floor, and saw the two doors of Mr. Jeffery's flat, very dull, and miserably painted, with his name in squat yellow print above the letter-box. Oh, how glad she would be to reach her own home! Here was the door! Once it was open, she was at home . . . the stair-carpet, the little table on the landing, with her mother's queer-looking plant (several years old, and suggestive of an indiscreet youth), and the fine panelled walls. A beautiful "homey" scent was in the air, not the smell of cooking, or of mackintoshes, but the iudescribable flavour that she always remembered as she thought of home. And here it lay — that home of hers — at the top of the dimly-lighted staircase, warm, cordial, inviting. She closed the door so recently opened : she was now cut off from all the other dwellers on the staircase, at last indisputably Barbara Gretton, shut away from all the soul- ON THE STAIRCASE 5 engrossing business interests of those who laboured in this building. She could hear Mr. Velancourt running down the stairs. ... He was going to his home, she thought. That was curious : she did not know whether he was mar- ried, or if he lived with his mother, or if he had some miserable room in a distant suburb, where he struggled eternally with a mercenary landlady. She knew all about Mr. Jeffery, who lived just below, and she knew all about Mr. Amberley and his curious family. But she strangely knew nothing about Mr. Velancourt. Even Mr. Amberley knew nothing about him, although Mr. Amberley knew sometimes almost too much about people he met. He only grimaced and shook his head over Mr. Velancourt. Oh well, one couldn't know everybody whom one met on the stairs : that would be too much of a good thing. It was quite enough to know Mr. Amberley and Mr. Jeffery, who were so surprising as to be a host in themselves. "Here I am, mudder," Barbara said, entering the sit- ting-room. "And about time!" young Harry bellowed, at the same moment dropping his feet from the chair on which they had been resting. "Why, my good girl, I'm perfectly beastly starving, like a winter spadger!" Ill Young Harry was a freckled, jolly boy of fourteen, a day-scholar at a distant school. He had no apparent re- spect for his sister, though he secretly feared her, as men and boys always do fear a woman of any character. He could bluster now; but if Barbara had shown the least resentment, young Harry would have responded with a sheepishness as uncomfortable to everybody else as it was to himself, and a high embarrassed colour. Fortunately Barbara, disappearing to remove her hat and coat, took no notice of her brother. He lorded it in front of the fire, 6 ON THE STAIRCASE seeing how far apart he could stretch his feet without losing his balance. Barbara, re-entering the room impetu- ously, so startled Harry that he pitched forward, and was very red when he succeeded in standing firm once more. "What are you doing !" she cried. "Merely, good creature," he made answer, trying to cover his chagrin, "merely illustrating the peculiar resili- ence of the human ligaments." "As if you knew anything about it!" Barbara was at once sisterly and crushing. She did not like boys much, and loved Harry so amusedly that she had almost always to pretend to be very much older than he was, in order to maintain her dignity. But Harry did not know this. He would rather confess a scrape to his mother than to Bar- bara. Still, she wasn't a bad old sort. Conceited and all that . . . these women who mixed with affairs always were insufferably conceited. It was because they were so new to it. Of course they didn't know as much as the men, but men never swanked, so the women thought themselves . . . it was appalling! They thought they had you all the way round — you were polite, couldn't very well swear at them or kick them, yet they thought you weak for not doing it, and took every inch as a triumph for their sex. Not as a courteous gift, mind you! "Women!" ejaculated Harry. "Oh, mother, do give him his food!" begged Barbara. "He's going to philosophise !" "Not worth it!" cried young Harry. Barbara looked at him, and his colour rose. He shuffled his feet. "You're clever enough to know it all beforehand," he went on, mingling compliment with irony, and not being quite sure what he meant. "But I do think it's all ROT !" "I'm sure we agree on that," Barbara said, quietly. They exchanged a glance of antagonism, cool and smiling on one side, angry on the other. "Devil!" muttered young Harry. Barbara chose not to hear. She drew her chair up to the table as Mrs. Gret- ON THE STAIRCASE 7 ton appeared from the kitchen, and the atmosphere was cleared in a trice. Mrs. Gretton, though considered by most people rather a silly woman, who never had her wits at hand, was so cheerful and inoffensive that everybody loved her. Under her eye quarrels dissolved — not because she had any stern sense of justice, or because she had any power to discuss grievances ; but simply because she was so smilingly curious that explanations were bound to follow. And nobody likes to be made foolish by the explanation of a quarrel. Mrs. Gretton was a thin little woman with a round face and clear blue eyes like those of a child, "with- out a stain." She was a famous cook, and the devoted servant of her family, who became in their turn devoted servants to herself and to nobody else. She carried a dish, which both Barbara and Harry hastened to take from her. They both fell upon small tasks — such as cutting the bread and bringing other dishes into the room — and were so en- gaged that they did not notice the entrance of the rest of the family. Mr. Gretton and his elder son Ernest therefore were within the range of the lamplight before they became con- spicuous. They were two tall men, the one of fifty-five, the other thirty years younger; and Mr. Gretton was bearded, while Ernest looked less than his age. He almost looked less than Barbara, who was two years his junior. He was a clerk in a big firm of city stationers, and his interests embraced the major arts and some of the minor ones. Although he was tall, Ernest lacked that grand air of as- surance which provokes resentment and awe, so that in spite of his indubitable intelligence he did not succeed in impressing his superiors. His carriage was so easy and so quiet that he earned respect without also obtaining def- erence ; and his power of self-effacement, while it seemed to Mrs. Gretton to make him ever more lovable, gave an impression to strangers that he had not a very strong character. A good deal of this quietness and competence he inherited from his parents, for both Mr. and Mrs. 8 ON THE STAIRCASE Gretton had lived obscurely in comfort all their lives, with- out desiring personal dignities, and without cherishing am- bitions. It was left to their younger children — Barbara and Harry — to develop strange perceptions of their own importance; and Barbara and Harry were in the habit of having their own way. When these two conflicted, one with the other, Barbara's eventual triumph was assured. The entire family was thus very happy, without quite knowing why, for the two younger members did not realise that their own good qualities were slowly maturing in the quietness of the family circle. Their elders — including Ernest — were ready to stand aside in loyalty; but there is no influence more potent than unselfishness when it is voiceless and all-pervading. They all sat round the table and looked at each other; and Mr. Gretton rubbed his hands and slyly kicked young Harry on the ankle. "I say, Dad!" expostulated Harry. Mr. Gretton's jovi- ality was proof against even that outcry. He turned to Barbara. "All right to-day, Babs?" he asked. And then: "No letters for me?" "Fancy a man demanding letters before his food !" cried Mrs. Gretton, in her silly way. "Dad's a litrateur!" said Harry, ashamed of himself before he had spoken. They passed him over in kind silence. Then Ernest sprang a mine. "Met that chap what's-his-name along the road." "How jolly!" Barbara said. "If you'd wait! . . . Vavaseur — what is his name? Harry: you know, don't you?" "I suppose you mean," Harry said, slowly, so as to be the more crushing, "I suppose you mean the man who doesn't interest us any more than . . . any more than " "Get along with it !" "Why don't you wait, my boy! I suppose you mean," ON THE STAIRCASE 9 stammered Harry, having forgotten the name in his own coil of tortuosity, "er . . . Mellincourt!" "What rubbish! Velancourt, of course. Yes, Velan- court !" "Is that all!" Barbara cried. "What a fuss about nothing! I saw him too. But it never occurred to me to shout about it." "Oh, she's proud!" said Mr. Gretton, slyly. "Proud, is my daughter Barbara!" Mrs. Gretton began to laugh very softly, about nothing. "Mother! you encourage him!" "To proceed," went on Ernest, in his patient, cool voice; "to-day's Thursday, and we shall have the usual gang of people here. I was going to say — when Barbara so politely broke in — that I want to discover what the young man mutters about while he's walking along. I thought we might get him up here one Thursday. Amber- ley says he's decent, but a sort of Wandering Jew." "Perhaps he hasn't got a mother," murmured Mrs. Gretton. She was very shy, for fear of the ensuing storm. "Mother!" in protest from Barbara. "That," pursued Ernest, deliberately, "you must find out for yourself. My idea was that Amberley might agree to bring him." The thought was horrible to Barbara, who was emphatic in her protest. "My dear boy! Do you really think Mr. Amberley 's introduction a testimonial? He's just a common bore, himself!" "Only because he's amused at you !" shouted Harry. "He's a man!" Barbara looked sharply across at him, animation giv- ing place in her expression to disdain. "It's better to be a gentleman, Harry," she remarked, a condescending elder sister in a moment. "Oh, bother !" Harry reddened with chagrin. Ernest smiled in silence, for he was an unusually silent young man. All his movements, over-punctilious, and io ON THE STAIRCASE rather characteristically distinct, were marked by silence and efficiency. His tones were modulated and persuasive, and his attitude to the world one of detachment allied with some melancholy, so that Harry rarely lost respect for him. Ernest had once been passionately in love with a girl who could not meet a man without flirtation, and who was no fonder of him than of the others. So he had been sobered, without affectation, and although he was sentimental, was yet rather strictly self-controlled. He had devoted himself to the difficult study of men, as represented by his care- fully-chosen, slightly abnormal friends. These friends, with some others known to the family generally, were the nu- cleus of the Thursday evening meetings which made Mrs. Gretton a second, and perhaps rather bourgeoise, Madame Recamier, who dispensed coffee and cakes and fruits after their talk and music. "I think it's very interesting to know about people's mothers," Mrs. Gretton said, idly fingering her napkin. "But then nobody minds what I think." Which is one of those truths which people find so difficult to accept simply. "You've made mothers your particular study, dear," Mr. Gretton put in, with- a smile. "It's curious how mothers are out of fashion." The remark came surprisingly from Harry. "I should never know the chaps had them, if I didn't guess." "It certainly seems rather obvious," said Barbara, drily. "Well, I suppose nobody minds the young man com- ing?" pressed Ernest. "Any 'nays'?" So it was that Ernest made their friends for them, and when they grew familiar with the friends they forgot all about his role of entrepreneur. In the streets outside men and women and children were all passing, strangers in a strange wonderful world of prosaic things ; and here within the silent room in the silent house, shut out from all distant noises, even from the knowledge of Mr. Berry's tea, the Grettons sat remote in their own intensely interesting world. The large dining- ON THE STAIRCASE n table shone and glistened with white linen and bright silver; the red lamp-shade cast a rich darkness over the room; all the faces were in shadow. At one end of the table Mr. Gretton leaned back in his chair, his hands loosely touching his fruit knife and fork. At the foot of the table Mrs. Gretton sat almost primly erect, grey-haired and slim, but with her eyes bright and her cheeks smooth and fresh- coloured. Ernest and Harry shared a side between them, Harry rough-skinned and restless, as though his proper place was the football field; Ernest rather pale and quiet, with a small moustache, and eyes slow and serious, as his father's were. . . . Each Gretton was thinking Gretton thoughts, unconscious of a life beyond their own intelli- gent horizons. Only Ernest was crumbling his bread, eagerly. "You sometimes don't realise how nice it is to be so cosy!" Mrs. Gretton murmured to Barbara. They looked at her indulgently, mildly provoked. Of course it was cosy ! Mother sometimes said quite silly things, hardly worth saying at all, or thinking. She was a dear good old mother — rather silly, but wonderfully mother to them all. They all had the — quite secret — idea that she was the nicest mother in the world. Father, of course, was father. About the younger ones, Barbara, in soliloquy, had more doubts. Mrs. Gretton, she realised, thought them all astonishing, and their prospects really matter for excitement. But that was obviously the vanity of narrow interests. Barbara felt beyond all that, the one unfettered spirit. . . . She had distinct awareness that her brothers were not clever, or remarkable. They were her brothers, curiously recurrent, as it were, at meal-times, and only a little irritating. Bar- bara felt conscious of certain astonishing qualities in her- self — depths unsounded, and taken for granted. In the faint crimson shadow she looked at her father, at Ernest and young Harry, at her mother. What on earth had made her mother say that about cosiness? Of course it was cosy ! At the end of a long day one needed a cosy home. Other 12 ON THE STAIRCASE people — oh, but what was the use of rubbish of that sort! She knew she would be irritated presently. . . . Mother often made her irritated by some such softness. It was as though mother had no sense of Barbara. Oh, but it was fine to be Barbara Gretton! CHAPTER II CISSIE PROLOGISES I FOR two centuries the Velancourt family had been engaged in the Wiltshire cloth industry, and Adrian Velancourt was born in one of the most beautiful little towns in England — Bradford-on-Avon. Here, in an at- mosphere of quiet dreaming beauty, he stayed only long enough to catch the first sense of undying impressions; for failure made Charles Velancourt remove first to Trow- bridge and then to Salisbury. Finally, on the death of his wife, when nothing but starvation showed itself as a pos- sibility, Charles brought his little boy to London, and they lodged obscurely in Camden Town until Adrian was fif- teen. At that time Charles Velancourt, consumed with a sense of chagrined personal failure, ceased to struggle longer. He died quietly in his chair while Adrian was reading a book by the aid of the gas-lamp which shone outside the window. Thus it was that the boy had to make his own living without any preparation ; and his stumbling success in obtaining and precariously keeping various situa- tions ended after five years in a backwater so apparently stagnant as to suggest a permanency. This backwater was the office of a moribund firm of solicitors named Robinson, Seares, & Turnpike. Seares was the only remaining part- ner, and although the business dragged from one year to another it was occupied chiefly in conveyancing, the execu- tion of ancient wills, and the arrangement of mortgages — routine work little likely to arouse self-respect in one who 13 14 ON THE STAIRCASE was sunk in dreams of quiet delights. Mr. Seares was possessed of a small property, which kept him pleasantly in the Surrey hills ; and as he was an elderly man without family he was content to allow his affairs to dwindle into a state of slow consumption. From ten o'clock in the morning until six o'clock at night Velancourt sat at his desk, monotonously working. The only person in the world who was at all interested in him was the peculiar Mr. Amberley, of Vokes's; and Mr. Amberley was so abrupt in manner that Velancourt was forced further and further into loneliness and reserve, and dread of his friend's company and quick tongue. Vel- ancourt could not understand that Amberley meant well ; he shrank from any new experience ; his attitude was that of a premature spinster, self-conscious, self -engrossed, com- pletely amateurish in his relation to the world. Yet his heart was pure and eager, and his physical beauty — disclos- ing in its delicacy the essential beauty of his nature — was such as to make young women, unattended, cast sidelong eyes of marvel as they passed him. One or two of these, whom he met frequently on his way to or from the office, raised their voices at the encounter (if they were with friends) ; but Velancourt passed impervious, unheeding. He did not hear them, did not see them, except as inci- dental beauties by the way. Lonely as a cloud, he wan- dered among bright and engaging eyes, that sometimes darkened at his negligence. II When he had locked the door of Robinson, Seares, & Turnpike's offices, and had run down the stairs as we have heard, Adrian Velancourt had still to post some let- ters, a task which took him into the narrow, crowded street known as Red Lion Street. The letters posted, he was able to make his way by devious turnings into South- ON THE STAIRCASE 15 ampton Row, and eventually to Euston Road and Camden Town. In all weathers he walked to and from his lodgings near Mornington Crescent, blind to the ordinary vision of the streets. To him, as to an old poet, "the dust and stones of the street were as precious as gold : the green trees when he saw them first transported and ravished him : their sweetness and unusual beauty made his heart to leap, and almost mad with ecstasy, they were such strange and won- derful things. . . . And young men glittering and spark- ling angels, and maids strange seraphic pieces of life and beauty ! Boys and girls tumbling in the street were moving jewels. . . ." Each day, as he passed the landmarks and even the faces that were well known to him, it was Velan- court's habit to see them afresh as though for the first time — not as a conscious fancy, which some indulge, but because he never grew accustomed to anything or found it stale. So it was that Velancourt passed into the grimy ways north of Euston Road. He had two small rooms in a dingy house that stood mutely begging for renovation. It was joined to other houses, which ran in one long level sweep from one end of the road to the other. They were base- ment-houses, made of bricks the colour of convict-uniforms, and in each case the front door was sunk into the house so as to allow of a small, cramped standing-place on the top step. In the evening, at this time, a hundred people were practising on pianos in the front ground-floor rooms. The children who during the day bowled hoops along the pave- ments were all indoors. The gas-lamps were lighted, and shining like earthly stars. Above, in the grey evening sky, the earliest stars were winking through the darkness, just as though they had been lighted with the same effort as the fluttering electric arcs in the main road. Some pieces of paper, and the dropped scraps of green stuff from the carts of itinerant green-grocers, were littered about near the gutters. Velancourt saw none of it. The stars above were his companions : the houses, shrouded in the dusk, were as mysterious as wayside hedges. It was such a beautiful 16 ON THE STAIRCASE world he lived in, as quiet as poetry, as soft and impalpable as the sky. As he walked, the stones rang clear and true ; peace and beauty were about him, existing endlessly in a thousand disguises, to be pierced only by those who pros- trated themselves before the vision of their divine majesty. Velancourt drew a quick breath. His feet, more concerned than he with temporal things, stopped outside the house in which his rooms were. He slightly parted the folds of his dream-cloak, and entered the house. A flickering gaslight, very low, showed him a perambulator standing in the hall, where it had been left by Mrs. Jenkins's married daughter. He went slowly up the stairs to the first floor, and felt for the handle of his door. A small fire was alight in the grate, and the Venetian blinds were lowered. On the table, alight, was a tall oil-lamp of painted glass, with a round globe shade, curiously patterned with a grained design. The room was warm, even close; and his eyes went at once to the shelves, where his books stood shining in the glow of his enthusiasm. Very beautiful he thought them ; and in- deed they made a brave show in the barely furnished room. Sometimes, when he could do nothing else, he used to sit and look at them, feeling a sense of their friendliness, their companionship. . . . He put his hat on a side table, and went over to the fire, smoothing his hair without thinking of his action. The fire was so dead that it might have been made of coke or blocks of solidified coal-dust, but the cause was to be found in the inferior coal for which Mrs. Jenkins charged so exorbitantly. Often, while he had been sitting over it, the fire had slowly expired, not from lack of coal, but through a failure in vital force. Like human beings, fires die if they are ignored, leaving their strange heaped skeleton, and losing all energy. Velancourt stooped, and added one or two small pieces of coal, watching how their presence seemed to darken the dull red ash, and how remarkable little dartings of life showed among the red and grey. He was busy looking into the fire when he heard the door jolted ON THE STAIRCASE 17 open, and, turning, saw that the jolting was caused by his landlady's daughter, who carried a japanned metal tray. "Oh, you are warm in here!" she exclaimed, at the end of her breath. She pushed up the heavy flounce of hair at her forehead. "Those stairs! Mustn't look at my face !" Actually, Velancourt had never done so before — at least, he had never looked at her with any scrutiny or recognisable intention. But he very humanly responded to such an invitation, and saw without doubt that Cissie had been suffering from toothache, and that her face, for the first time revealed to him, was badly swollen. Other- wise, he was jerked into observing her as somebody whom he saw nearly every day, whose features were still only mistily remembered. She had beautiful hair, that curled naturally. It was almost chestnut colour, and was long and luxuriant. Her eyes were a little too light, but they were full and arch; her mouth, when she did not twitch it in speaking, through self-consciousness, was pretty. She was slight and not very tall, and her grace started awake Vel- ancourt's interest. "I say!" he exclaimed naively. "Have you had tooth- ache?" "All last night." She put her hand up to her swollen cheek, half turning away. "I am sleepy now." She laughed, and a faint commonness in her laugh jarred Velancourt as a squeaking slate-pencil would have done. She looked at him in the pause. "Do you ever have it — neuralgia?" "I forget." "Oh, I say! You wouldn't forget if you had it like me. Mother says it's cold. I'm rather delicate. At least, so she says. Always bothering about me, she is. As if I couldn't take care of myself. . . ." Her kindness of heart rescued him from a discourse. "You get on with your dinner," she said. "It'll be cold." As she removed the tray from the table, she looked back casually. 18 ON THE STAIRCASE "If you're good," she said, with great friendliness, "you shall have some treacle-pudding. Like some?" "I — well . . .'" stammered Velancourt, who had not quite heard what she said. "I made it myself. Not often I make a pudding. . . ." She didn't know, once she was outside the door, why- she had told him that. She thought to herself : "I'm get- ting quite saucy with him," and sighed loudly, as her friends were in the habit of doing. "Fancy me saying that to him," she thought. "Oh, I am awful !" Ill Velancourt sat and ate his dinner. His thoughts were in the past, on a subject that he had never previously con- sidered with any care. He was trying very hard to remem- ber whether, at any time in his life, he had suffered from toothache. He was so sympathetic that he passed his hand over his face. He wondered if it was possible to recall by effort of will, or to imagine by concentration of mind, such pain as Cissie had felt. He had often turned and turned in the night, from sleeplessness. . . . "Thank you," was all he could say, when she brought the pudding. "It's awfully kind. . . ." "Oh !" laughed Cissie. "You wait till you've tasted it ! It's easy enough to make. I'm going to make some cakes Sunday. . . ." She stood away from the table, with- drawing her eyes. "Mother always lets me do anything I like with the flour. She says it's good practice for me. Mother says some girls can't cook a potato. It's the way they're brought up, she says. It's quite easy — when you know. They teach girls to cook at school, now. They have to say what they'd get if they had to make a dinner with so much. I'm very fond of cooking. Mother says " She stopped, toeing the carpet. "See, girls . . . ON THE STAIRCASE 19 Well, girls ought to know how to cook. I'm rather old- fashioned, you know. Different to other girls. I made some toffee last week. . . ." She checked herself again. "Thanks very much," she concluded, from the doorway. He had not been able to remember about the tooth- ache. When she came again he would say it. He would say: "I don't remember ever having it, though I must have had my teeth aching when I was a child. But I know what sleeplessness is. . . ." Cissie was occupied in thinking that she had talked too much. She didn't like anybody to think she went on and on. It wasn't true about her. She was . . . mother often said to her: "Well, you are quiet. Different to Elsie, I must say!" But then Elsie was married; and she was "gay." Her Bert didn't like her to be always working. She'd been telling mother this evening how Bert had said to her : "Don't like to see you always at it." Bert did go on. . . . Cissie remembered how he'd stood under the mis- tletoe that time. Everybody had laughed. "You are aw- ful!" she had said to him. He hadn't caught her, either; though he had knocked over a chair. "Steady on, there !" mother had called out to him. So he'd dragged mother under the mistletoe. Harry Wingate had been there. But he oiled his hair too much. Mr. Velancourt was different to him, she thought. He was a gentleman — no, well, Harry was very gentlemanly, too. But Mr. Velancourt was dif- ferent. He was ... He treated you . . . Harry treated you like a lady ; but Mr. Velancourt ... He was so quiet . . hardly opened his mouth, and never looked . . . She didn't know. Didn't care, either ! A big sigh came. Elsie looked up sharply. "You're in love, girl !" she said. "Mind your own business, Miss Sharp!" Cissie cried, feeling hot. "Don't put ideas into the girl's head!" said Mrs. Jenkins, smartly. She was mending her husband's socks by the fire — a heavy woman with little black eyes and a 20 ON THE STAIRCASE wrinkled brow. She threw a shrewd glance at her younger daughter, her eyes half closed and cautious. IV Velancourt, eating his pudding upstairs, had forgotten Cissie. He was thinking his own thoughts, and dreaming of the future, of some wondrous time when, having known and tasted the ineffable sweetness of understanding, he might reveal it to others. To know! That was his con- stant prayer. And so long a gap stretched between him and the high ground of his desire that his heart sometimes fainted while he seemed listening awestruck to the music of the spheres. How hot it was in the room! He opened one of the windows, and leaned out into the evening air. A muffled sound of many pianos came to him, speaking surely of the life within all these houses, alien and unknown. He knew nothing of his neighbours save that they were as lost in the world of vague distances as himself. Not his part to think of close rooms and jiggling ornaments and gold frames to pictures that hung awry, of worn carpets and dusty dry grass in the fire-places, and internecine warfare and chil- dren hot and overtired, crying and grizzling, and the inces- sant concern of his fellow-residents with material things. His part was the questioning of eternity. Adrian Velan- court was not the first who has asked "Why ?" at the mys- teries of life and death. Filled with sincere longing as he was, he was yet confused and shy of bringing his mind from the world of reverie into the actual world of his neigh- bours and their preoccupations. Night seemed to him a time of sad ecstasy, and a slamming door and sudden voices had no power to rob him of the thought of beauty. He thought how black the road seemed, in spite of the lamps, and looked imagining the mysteries that lay beyond the darkness of the soft sky. To him the stars held all the ON THE STAIRCASE 21 secrets, clustered high and remote above the daily world. He gave a long shuddering sigh of heightened feeling, of emotion called up by his own intense wish to know the heart of the night, and remained at the window watching until his own fire was dead, and the lamp-light made his presently returning eyes water and smart. Very slowly he turned out the lamp and went into the other room, opening the window there, and undressing by the light of the stars. CHAPTER III IMPERFECT SYMPATHIES THE quiet room in Great James Street was transformed. It was less quiet. Three out of the five members of the Gretton family were augmented by a further seven people, two girls, five men; and all were young and talka- tive. Amy Betters, the author at twenty-three of a single novel of profound (even impenetrable) import, conversed" vivaciously with Ervine Dandison, who, on the strength of great loquacity and no visible means of support, carried much social weight, and lived in unceasing comfort, be- sides being made welcome in a variety of homes where promising young men gave an air of frugal indulgence in distinguished company. Sporrock, heroically famous as the taxi-driver poet, joined issue on the sonnet with Tom Pewter, whose talk about "numbers" suggested that he had some professional connection with song-writing. Spor- rock himself was clean-shaven and "strong" ; Pewter was a little man bearded like a goat, with a rather childish voice. Andie Gremble (hoping everybody would think "Kemble") "drew out" Mrs. Gretton, and stood before her in a variety of self-conscious attitudes, listening to his own sonorities, while Mrs. Gretton exerted herself to remember half-forgotten actors in order to please him. And Joseph and Susan Amberley talked with Barbara and Ernest about the position of women in the modern world. Harry was preparing home lessons in the next room ; and his father, it is unpleasant to record, was helping him. 22 ON THE STAIRCASE 23 It was not a very full gathering : many who often came to the Grettons' free-and-easy evening party were away, or were otherwise engaged. But it was vivacious. Pewter had confounded Sporrock by referring to the second verse of the sonnet ; Dandison had unfortunately committed himself to a definition of the word "drama," and was help- lessly battling with the Socratic method; Barbara could not look, for anger, at the eyes of Joseph Amberley. Mrs. Gretton was trying to cheer Gremble with an account of her juvenile theatre-going, not yet shocked by his stentorian assertion that Robertson was vieux jeu. As for Susan Amberley, she was a Suffragist; and bent, at least, on advertising the fact. Amid so much manifest intelligence, it was the only possible self-assertion. If the truth could ever be known in its minutest degree, it was Joseph Amberley's attitude towards his sister that transformed Barbara into his scowling opponent. Amber- ley's virtues were as water before Barbara's stern condem- nation of his general attitude of inscrutable wisdom. On his departure she would clench her fists and cry through grimly-clenched teeth : "That awful man !" He was the only man who laughed at Barbara : he loved her. "Yes, well of course, what I mean, yes, there's that, there's that" admitted Dandison. "But I mean to say, you mustn't take it for granted that I mean . . ." It came clear across the room, in his thin piercing voice, which always apparently rose from and subsided into a hum, and began and ended with the letter "m." "What do you mean, Mr. Dandison?" called Barbara, glad to escape from Amberley. "It sounds so fascinating." "How inhuman you are!" Amberley murmured. The premature novelist took upon herself to report progress. "He doesn't know," she cried. "Hasn't the least idea!" "I expect you monopolised all the ideas," Amberley said, as they came nearer ; and thereby offended the omnis- cient Amy Betters. She knew that he didn't like her. Well, who could have done so? She was very plain and 24 ON THE STAIRCASE fair, with a dull plump face; and she was dressed in a horrible saffron-coloured sack with purple edges. She was the least appetising of human beings, and her hard voice rattled after the manner of a clapper. She was invariably and offensively sure that she was right. . . . Amberley thought she was rather a fool, and it was unfortunate that whatever other obtuseness Amy Betters had, she was un- erring in her sense of dislike. Liking nobody very much herself, she used associates as sounding-boards for her own opinions ; and at the first recognition of distaste, her malice was aroused, thereafter to be unslumbering. "That's your privilege," she now retorted. "Oh no," Amberley said. "Not ideas : only conversa- tion. You see, I'm a prophet." "Good gracious ! What of ?" came disdainfully from Barbara. "Charity !" he laughed back, to her chagrin. "I was saying," sniffed Dandison, " 'm — to Miss Bet- ters here . . . She said . . ." "You said she said?" "No, Miss . . ." "I really don't think they'd be interested!" cried Amy Betters, with a look of hatred at Amberley. He stood, puzzled at her awareness of his distaste, marvelling at her instinct. Amberley was too clever and too honest not to make mistakes in tact. He thought that so long as he meant no offence, no offence should be taken. Amy Betters always desired to sting : she could not understand badinage. Even Susan, upon similar provocation, sometimes hated him for not taking her Suffrage-enthusiasm quite as seri- ously as her friends did. She said : "He's such an egoist that he can't bear egoism in others !" Which was a remark- ably sage thought, coming from Susan, as her brother was the first to proclaim. "But, my dear chap!" cried Sporrock, in the little pause that followed Amy Betters's irritated speech. "You can't call the sestet the second verse!" ON THE STAIRCASE 25 "Oh well, of course . . . You're a Varsity man, and . . ." said Pewter hurriedly. They spoke lower, so as not to be overheard. "Is he?" eagerly asked Miss Betters. "Most illiterate, so I should think so," Amberley said. "He's rather a good man," explained Ernest. "His father failed when young Sporrock had been up at Cam- bridge a year; and so Sporrock drifted into the motor- business, and became a chauffeur." "But isn't he a taxi-man? Didn't he write 'I sing the song of the traffic's surge,' and all that sort of thing? They had a portrait ... in uniform!" "A pardonable deception !" "What a fraud! I thought . . ." "Yes, but aren't they all registered?" "No, do tell me: I thought he was quite a humble person, who touched his cap during the day . . ." Miss Betters became satirical. "And that one met him in the evening." "What do you mean, Miss Betters?" asked Amberley in a grave voice. Miss Betters looked at him. "I just looked at him," she said afterwards. "Of course, the man's an Utter Cad." II After looking at Amberley, Miss Betters thought she would go and talk to some simple body, such as Mrs. Gret- ton. Mrs. Gretton gave people the idea that she was un- critical and wonder-struck at each new portent. The gathering had become rather narrowed down for Amy Betters: she was not quite sure about one's conduct to a chauffeur; song-writers and actors were beneath her no- tice; Barbara had too keen an eye: she had vanquished Dandison ; Amberley was a cad ; and she wanted to impress 26 ON THE STAIRCASE Susan Amberley, who was a stranger, and she had not yet reached the moment for dropping a gracious word to the bright-faced girl. So there really seemed nobody but Mrs. Gretton. "Dear Mrs. Gretton ... I must find a moment for you !" she observed. "Mr. Gremble's so interesting, dear . . . about Mr. Benson. . . ." "Which of the Bensons?" asked Miss Betters, swiftly. "Oh, the actor . . . No, I don't know him." She left it to be inferred that there were others, his superiors, with whom she was on good terms. "First-rate fellow," said Gremble. "Absolutely." "Do tell me where you get those delicious meringues, Mrs. Gretton . . ." said Miss Betters. Mrs. Gretton looked right across the room, straight into a pair of solemn, scrupulously grave eyes. She met these eyes with a scrutiny as impenetrable as their own, and Amberley coughed. "Joe! I hope you're not getting consumptive," said Susan, suspicious. "Very odd !" thought Barbara. "I do dislike him." Amberley went and sat down beside Ernest, because they liked each other, although they hardly ever talked more than commonplaces. Amberley was enabled to look on, his favourite occupation. He loved to be in shadow, and to watch with the keenest interest and with the quietest manner whatever was passing before him. So pleasant a form of detachment is given to few able-bodied people, whose natural animal spirits make them long to be engaged in the arena. Spectators are rare : contemplation is too nearly a sublime attribute: only learners can observe, and observation requires too much self-discipline to be a com- mon virtue. So Amberley, although he also played his part when occasion arose, saw a great deal of the game of life. He could see all these people in the dim light, crimson shaded ; and he did not moralise. He did not think of them ON THE STAIRCASE 27 as types: to him they were as indubitably individuals as they were to themselves. They fascinated him. And he could see Barbara — tall, rather beautiful, rather arrogant. . . . No single gesture of hers escaped him. Yet he neither stared nor peered at her ; but rather was aware of her, and knew intuitively what she was doing. It was his supremest delight to see her sitting or standing, talking or listening, because there was character in her every pose. No move- ment of hers was abrupt or sudden: everything seemed to flow naturally from her prime vitality, as though she were exquisitely poised, and beautiful in the merest passive ful- filment of each moment's impulse. His sense of her was not purely pictorial; it was not intellectual. Partly it was aesthetic : she pleased his taste, or at any rate exercised it : and she tremendously interested him. He was not her slave, because he was never enslaved ; but his love for her, as he realised, was the finest and most delicate thing in his life. His love for Susan was more amusing, less full of poignant feeling, more taken for granted as a happy thing. His love for Barbara was a precious, apprehensive delight, never to be told or hinted, or even to be vouchsafed in so many words to his own mind: it was a thing apart from his normal scepticism, sufficient in itself, making no call upon his attention, but always subsisting by its own perfect nutrition. It was so withdrawn, so involved in that secret side of his nature that was never to be known, that Bar- bara's responsive feeling was, to his idea, unimportant. On that point his executive self, by virtue of which he was a man, saw quite clearly that if he had a straight course he would always win, and that if the course should be crowded, his temperament would dictate tactics which would assure him against ignominious defeat. So far, these notions had not communicated themselves very clearly: he was in the most disinterested state of loving. And he was happy in observing Barbara, who was wondering how so sweet a girl as Susan could be Joseph Amberley's sister. To Barbara it seemed almost an irony, as though the world might be 28 ON THE STAIRCASE governed by a Being in whom the imp was predominant. She was really almost inclined to carry her suspicion into a conviction, by expressing it. She could hear herself burst- ing out with : "It's an irony, mother ... A perfect irony." And once said, there was never any forgetting it: there the statement would be, irrevocable. All the time she was thinking thus she was sympathetically saying "Yes . . . yes . . ." to Susan, until she awoke to a sense of her own incongruous inattentiveness. Ill "This man downstairs," said Ernest, quietly, engaging Amberley in private conversation. "I wish you could bring him along one time." Amberley looked startled. "Velancourt? Oh, I don't know. ... I will, of course; but he's the queerest lunatic. I like him very much — in a way. If I can, I'll bring him." "D'you know anything about him?" Amberley shook his head. "Don't think so. He makes me feel so English. I want to shout at him, as though he couldn't understand ordinary talk. Perhaps he's deaf. He's one of those ex- traordinary people who interest you, and puzzle you, and irritate you — and I get rather indifferent to him, as though he slid off, through not being properly attached. Know what I mean? It's as though you made all the advances, and he made none, and only suffered yours because he doesn't know how to curse. What he wants is a thorough shaking up. He's full of namby-pamby vagueness, and a sort of . . . He's like a cat, walking alone ; and he's got all the cat's clawishness. Yes : he's exactly like a cat. A cat's always a stranger . . . Say a Persian, or an Angoran. You're never sure of a cat: you're never sure of Velan- court. I suppose people are like that. ... I seem to want ON THE STAIRCASE 29 somebody with good pugnacity when I've been with him. As a tonic, I mean." "I know," nodded Ernest. "Couldn't we " "I've tried, a bit. I've cursed him for a Wandering Jew ; I've tried to make him sick of that death-trap down- stairs. Not a bit of good : he snarls if you try to move him, and if you're angry it's like hitting a child. Just as senseless as that — for all Dr. Johnson said to the contrary." "He wasn't infallible. He wouldn't have been so jolly interesting." Ernest was amateurishly self-conscious at a literary allusion. "Well, I think Velancourt's interesting. He's got per- sonality — a sort of genius, if you won't put a wrong con- struction on it. He interests me." "No more?" "I don't know. I'm not sympathetic towards him. It's like touching velvet. I don't want to excite you, in case you're disappointed, but I feel there's just something rather splendid about him. There's something rather magnificent about a Persian cat." Ernest smiled enjoyingly, but would only plead that Velancourt was human, while the Persian cat more resem- bled Amberley himself, in being inhuman. It is always surprising to be thought inhuman : humanity seems to em- brace so much, that it seems invidious to exclude the chem- ist. So Amberley was rather shocked. He knew he was perhaps more human, in the sense of having greater sus- ceptibility, than Ernest Gretton. It gave him something to think of while he continued to absorb the sense of Barbara. "I'll just say this one thing about Velancourt. He's got a sort of dignity that impresses me as tragic. I think he's got a sense of beauty ; and that's always tragic. Unless you can see beauty pure and naked, you can't really see it at all. You're sentimental, through trying to feel it. And it's being taken for granted, somehow, that purity and nakedness are tragic — you know newspapers talk of 'stark tragedy.' They get hold of comic notions." 30 ON THE STAIRCASE "And do you think you've got a sense of beauty?" asked Ernest, solicitously. "I'll never tell you," Amberley said. "That's my van- ity. The sense is over-claimed. I see things . . . yes, I see things. But I'm not going to pretend." "What an awful affectation that is!" cried Ernest. "Of not pretending." His voice quivered: his hands held the sides of his chair. Amberley looked gently at him, and shook his head. "I know what you mean," he said. "Not with me, though. That's why you say I'm inhuman. A man who's as clear-headed as I am, who pretends, is a charlatan. I'm not a charlatan : I'm a prophet." "What of?" Ernest echoed Barbara's earlier speech. "Charity," Amberley repeated. "Cold comfort !" Amberley's grave eyes stared beyond Ernest, beyond Barbara, until they encountered a sympathetic smile from Mrs. Gretton. "Perhaps I mean 'understanding,' " he amended, in a still voice. IV Miss Betters thought it was time to go. So did the taxi-driver. So did Tom Pewter, who really had an ap- pointment at the Bodega in Bedford Street. So did Grem- ble, who was going so far with Pewter. So did Dandison, who only wanted to hang about until Miss Betters was far enough away to be safe. He did not want to see her any more. Her vanity injured his amour propre! They all went. Susan was drawn aside by Barbara, and hardly heard the rattle that Amy Betters gave as she passed, buttoning her glove. "Patronising little thing . . . that awful frock !" thought Susan to herself. Amy Betters thought of herself leaving with a crowd of cavaliers, and was inspirited. She avoided shaking hands with Amberley: she did not even ON THE STAIRCASE 31 look at him : she bridled. She was one of those unfortunate women who love nobody well enough to learn their own faults of ill-breeding and vanity, and who thus make no friends and no happiness for themselves. Spleen made her writing apt and professional — what male critics called "feminine," and women-critics "spiteful." Nobody was sorry at her going, for she had tired all she had spoken to. Amberley sighed as though he had been relieved of an incubus; yet he was the only one present who was sorry for her. He could have told her home-truths until she quivered, and he could have done this with perfect good- faith ; but he was the only one of them who would have bothered to do it, for the instinct of mankind is to take shelter in indifference. Amberley, seeing Susan standing with Barbara, came across and pinched his sister's arm. "Time, Sue?" he asked. Barbara, reluctant though she was, could not fail to see Susan's eyes warm with affection. It seemed an irony to her that the girl's insight, otherwise so shrewd, should fail here. "Tiresome!" said Susan, whose idea of being a Suffra- gist was resistance to all kindness. "It's quarter-past eleven . . . Miss Gretton will be tired." "He means he's tired, Barbara." Barbara's eyes met his in steady opposition. She would not be rude to him, for Susan's sake. "Joe, I've been asking her to come and see us." "How nice that would be, Miss Gretton," said Amber- ley, serenely. "Barbara won't let me fix a date. She wants to leave it open. I want to look forward to it. Besides, I don't want her to come and find me out." "Gone to meeting." There was an exchange of ameni- ties between brother and sister. "I want to come; but I really can't fix a date, because 32 ON THE STAIRCASE I'm so busy," said Barbara. "You send me a card, saying if you'll be alone one evening." "Alone!" said the unwelcome one, blandly. "Surely Barbara's patience was tried. "Well, Mr. Amberley," she said, "I thought you'd be glad of my consideration." "It would hurt me very much," he assured her. "Wouldn't Mrs. Gretton come too?" "Mother never goes out," said Barbara, in some sur- prise. Invitations for Mrs. Gretton somehow did not seem to "make good." She never visited any but old old people, who lived at Highbury, or Blackheath, or Ealing, or Ux- bridge — people far away, whose fortunes she followed with unabated zest, although her family could hardly distinguish between their names, and thought of them as neolithic. "Let her make an exception," urged Amberley. The words "let her" produced a sudden strangling feeling of rage in Barbara's breast. She bit her lip, her eyes dark as night. And Amberley thought them wonderful eyes, not limited to common expressions, but rich in com- bined anger, courtesy, fear, regard for Sue, and confused desire for concealment of all expression. "I'm afraid she'll never come," Barbara said, in a second. "Let's ask her. Mrs. Gretton: could we persuade you to come with Barbara to see our flat? We should be so glad." "And so should I," Mrs. Gretton said, coming towards him. "It's very kind of you to think of asking me." Barbara, impotent, could do nothing. She was branded as a liar ; and the tears started to her eyes. "There !" cried Sue. "Now, what day ?" Barbara clenched her teeth. She would not go if a date were fixed now ! "No," suddenly said Amberley. "Just let it be soon." To Barbara, aside, he added words that thrilled her with extraordinary emotion. ON THE STAIRCASE 33 "I know your mother won't want to come on the fixed day — through sheer inactivity. But I wish you'd try to rush her into starting before she thinks of all the reasons against ever starting." Barbara could hardly believe that she had heard aright. The stigma was removed : he knew what mothers were : he knew what her mother was ! It was a marvel. He per- fectly well understood that at this moment Mrs. Gretton in- tended to pay the visit: he perfectly well understood that she would think of it at intervals with decreasing warmth, and that on the day itself ten thousand invincible reasons for not going would present themselves ! For a moment she thought his insight piercing: then, as habit swung back, he became merely impertinent, the cause of her discomfiture. "I have no authority, one way or the other," she said, pointedly. And her anger was not lessened by his retort. "I think you'll be able to manage it," he said, in his quiet voice. V They were out of the house, and Susan took her brother's arm. "Enjoyed myself awfully," she said. "That's good. They're all very nice." "Except that awful girl in the sack !" "Poor thing! God made her, Sue." Susan snorted at his biology. "Silly rubbish. She's a survival. She's a governess post-dated." "I see. Well, did you like Mrs. Gretton?" "My dear, you said she was marvellous. She seemed to me just an ordinary nice old thing, with a kind heart. . . . Rather silly; but " Susan checked herself at his amusedly-shaken head. "Oh, you're muddled up with some perverse fantastic notion." "Sue. Mrs. Gretton is Woman Through All The Ages. Didn't you notice that, really?" 34 ON THE STAIRCASE "No," snapped Susan. "I think Barbara's far more in- teresting." "Modern, modern, modern. She's herself. That's what's the matter with her. She's simply herself." "I don't know what you're talking such nonsense for!" cried Susan. "Dear little Sue . . ." Susan writhed. "Your old brother knows and sees something after all that you don't see. I am of course an inquirer, a mere trifler " "You're an awful bore!" she said, in a little high voice of exasperation. "Listen. Now listen. Woman, qua sex, is sublime, infinitely wonderful. Women, as such, are no more won- derful than my hat. They are women, as men are men. Mrs. Gretton is Woman: you, and Barbara Gretton, and all your moderns, are Women. You've lost the divine secret of being Woman. Mrs. Gretton is the las.t of her race. You have one sublime quality, which you're trying to kill — the quality of childishness. Barbara might, in cer- tain circumstances, develop the latent power, by ceasing to be herself and becoming Woman. If not — waugh !" "Dear Joe. You oughtn't to be up so late," said Susan. "It overtires you. It a little overtires me. You don't see " "You're going to tell me that Women become Woman by means of motherhood." "I wasn't! I wasn't going to argue with you at all. I was only going to say that you didn't see how ridiculous you made yourself by all this talk." "You think it injudicious?" "I think it's perfectly awful, Joe. And there's a bus. Come on !" They caught the bus, and went on top. And they talked of many things, which is as though one should say that Joseph Amberley listened to as much of his sister's conversation as he thought necessary or advisable. CHAPTER IV HALF-LIGHTS THAT evening was not the only one upon which Velan- court felt the happiness of companionship. As the weather continued fine, he used to go out in the evenings in order to walk from his rooms to the dim mist-shrouded openness of Hempstead Heath, seeing nothing but occa- sional lovers on a seat, catching only the feeling of the stars so beautiful in the skies, and wandering home later in further estrangement from the common life. But one even- ing as he went out he saw Cissie in the distance, and Cissie dawdled until he came up, so that they walked a little way together. It was only as far as the milk-shop, where Cissie went to buy eggs for the next day's breakfast ; but Velan- court found himself smiling as he walked on alone. He felt so bold, at speaking to her. And Cissie felt almost elated at the way in which he raised his hat. Somehow he put a peculiar constraint upon her, so that she spoke in tones as low as his own, and walked quietly, and was sub- dued ; but within, her heart was beating fast, and she dared not laugh, in case she should laugh loudly, as the girls did who doubled up and went whooping along the street after a glance from some man. It didn't take much to set them off, she thought. Silly cats. She peeped out through the shop window at Velancourt as he went on his way, and as he looked back she held up her hand in farewell. The milkman hastened to serve her. "Don't want to keep him waitin', miss," he said. Well. 35 3 6 ON THE STAIRCASE she couldn't help laughing at that, although she was bound to protest. "Don't know what you mean," she said. "Don't you break my eggs." "Ah well, we all know what you young ladies are!" said the milkman. "You go along!" Cissie couldn't keep pace with such badinage. She hurried home, laughing to herself, holding the eggs very firmly, and looking out so as to avoid col- liding with anybody. It was very funny how everybody seemed to look at her this evening: her cheeks felt quite hot. There were great moths fluttering round the electric street-lamps. Silly things! She was very quiet all the evening, with her mouth quite closed. Her father read a newspaper in the kitchen, smoking, and equally quiet. Her mother was out. The house was absolutely silent, so that Cissie could hear all the steps that echoed down the road and past the front door. She could not sew, could only sit there quite still, with her mind taking little jerks back into memory, and saying the same things over and over again. She had never had so quiet and thoughtful an evening. Velancourt talked to himself as he walked along. He felt as though the last glimpse of Cissie in the shop had been a little happy finish to their talk. The talk had been about — he could remember nothing of what they had said. Perhaps they hadn't said anything! He had said ... oh, it was utterly banal He had asked her if she was going out ; and she had told him where she was going. Was there really nothing else they had said? He walked quickly on- wards, past the Camden Town Tube Station, and through a number of side turnings, until he came, after nearly an hour's walk, to the Heath. It was wonderfully calm and warm, and he stepped off the path, looking at the distant horizon, where the grey sky touched and fell beyond the black silhouetted trees. Somehow all his days seemed suddenly empty. There was nothing in them except his own thoughts, and they did ON THE STAIRCASE 37 not bear thinking over afresh in this wide dark stretch of open land. The Heath seemed to expand at night into a limitless space, mysterious as a moorland upon lonely hills. How sweet it was! It was beautiful! A fine wind came across the Heath, meeting him, and making the leaves rustle against the branches that each night at this season grew more naked. Near him, as he walked, two lovers, who thought themselves more remote than they were, stopped in their aimless rambling over the Heath. Velancourt heard their soft kiss, and his heart seemed to stand still. Then he went on, a slight flush risen to his cheeks. He thought how beautiful it was to love and to be loved. It seemed to him the most wonderful thing in life. His eyes were soft, and his throat was parched as he strode onward. Love was always something apart from him : he continually reached out in ecstasy to love . . . and the kiss made his ecstasy a mockery. He loved nothing : he loved love. He was a cal- low . . . the laughing-stock of innumerable jokers. His lips trembled. II It was after that that Amberley suggested that he should come one evening to the Grettons' ; but Velancourt was frigid with shyness and with the dread of meeting new acquaintances. He stammered a refusal, and Amberley, satisfied that progress had been made even by the mention of such a possibility, let the matter rest. He had asked Velancourt to his own home, and meant that he should still come ; but Velancourt began to avoid him, so Amberley said to himself, "All right, my boy. Wait !" and said no other word. Velancourt seemed very busy, very preoccupied, very pale and handsome: Amberley saw no occasion for further unwelcome endeavour at the moment. He allowed his friend to go his own way. What that way was, he did 38 ON THE STAIRCASE not greatly care. He had his own affairs, and he also was busy. He was too busy to go to the Grettons'. Velancourt, for his part, felt inordinately busy. He gathered papers upon his desk, so that he never could find anything ; and deliciously he felt important and swollen with significance. When he spoke to himself he started, as though awakened by the sound of his own voice. And he began to walk about the big room, with his hands in his pockets, and his eyes bright, thinking of nothing, and say- ing a long drawling ruminative "Yes" to himself every now and then, and smiling. And he was more vague than ever, with a soothed feeling of happy busy-ness pervading his nature. He began to feel disappointment when Mrs. Jenkins waited upon him. She was so dark, and so aggressive ; and she thumped things down on the table with an air almost of unwillingness — as though she meant to imply that she had known of a better state of life than letting lodgings. Velancourt treated her with his old distance of manner, because she never offered any observation, but looked a little worn and disagreeable, as though the monotony of meals had dried up every interest she had once possessed. But the next meal was generally brought by Cissie, who moved restlessly under his hurried glance, and smiled as though she could never stop. Cissie was in a thrill of delight. She did not under- stand herself; but she seemed to find the days endless, full of things half done — things taken up and dropped with impatience. She began to ask Velancourt what he liked to eat, so that he might always have some favourite dish, if that could be reconciled with Mrs. Jenkins's notion of do- mestic economy. It was a check to her that he did not seem to know his own tastes very well. It seemed ridicu- lous to her that he should so often say : "I'm afraid I don't know what that is" ; but when he said that she answered by a little illustrative wave of the hand, and: "You know ... a crust, and ... a ... all chopped fine," so that she ON THE STAIRCASE 39 felt like a linguist making some progress with an Eskimo. She would come into the sitting-room in the morning, and hum as she flung the cloth over the table; and Velancourt never knew what strange intricacies of darning his hose revealed. Buttons reappeared as if by magic. The room became brighter, and once one of his books was replaced upside down. . . . Velancourt was still shy with her: they both behaved with embarrassment. There came times when he almost dreaded the encounter; and yet he was disappointed when he missed it. One day there were chrysanthemums in a glass on the table. He wondered why the room seemed so fresh, until he saw the flowers standing there, as white as snowdrops ; and his heart softened. Chrysanthemums were not his favourite flowers — he loved most the earliest blooms, such as the crocus, and primrose, and daffodil, — but flowers of any kind were his passion. " ' 'Mid hush'd cool-rooted flowers, fragrant eyed,' " he thought. They seemed to him to speak most truly of everything he loved best in the world. To find unexpected flowers in his room brought tears almost to his eyes. He felt it as the first understand- ing kindness ever shown to his newly-emphatic loneliness. How lonely he was ! ... He thanked Cissie for the flowers. "Thought you'd like them," she said. "My sister Elsie brought us a lot. Her boy's got a garden full of them. All different colours, you know — not all white, like these are. He's mad on a garden." " 'And indeed,' " thought Velancourt to himself, " 'it is the purest of human pleasures.' " III The nights drew in, and the days grew shorter, so that a twilight seemed always upon the nearer suburbs, and a dull mist for ever hovering above Great James Street. His walks were more and more in the darkness, and over earth 4 o ON THE STAIRCASE that first was harder with the chill air, and then softer with the damp clinging mists which seemed to hang in odd streaming wisps even at midday in the fields more distant from London. One Sunday, when he returned for tea after a short afternoon walk, he went slowly upstairs in the dark, feeling his way, and making as little noise as might be, for fear of disturbing Mr. Jenkins's afternoon nap. His room door was ajar, and he went in on tiptoe. Cissie was by the table, and the room was in darkness. He could see her pale blouse in the gloom, and her face above it. As she struck the match for the lamp it sprayed up a tiny light that sent startling shadows over her face and hair; and she looked so astoundingly beautiful that he caught his breath. Nor could he forget it. Whatever words she spoke did not reach him ; he only saw beauty in the dim light, and no words could have robbed him of that exquisite first impression. Long after she had gone, he sat in his chair by the fire, with his eyes closed, recalling the vision. CHAPTER V PRECIPITANCE I IT really seemed the merest chance that led to the first of the walks taken together by Cissie and Velancourt. He went out on the Sunday afternoon after the midday meal, and as he turned into the main road he saw Cissie standing, apparently, just round the corner. Cissie said : "Oh!" and he half noticed that her colour deepened. She was going, it seemed, "up here." He was going in that direction also. It was the most pleasant meeting, and they walked together. Velancourt said nothing, because he was overcome by a strange self-consciousness. He saw nothing at all of their route; but was frantically aware that they were walking together. He looked across the road; he looked ahead; he half looked at Cissie, who walked with her eyes cast down. It was intolerable! But it was ex- traordinarily pleasant. He could see her neat walking- shoes, her gloved hand, the regular movement of her skirt as she walked. It was daylight, and all the world to see. Which of the two was more tantalised between pleasure and the desire for flight it would be hard to say. "What a noise the motor-buses make, don't they ! They don't do anything to keep up the roads, father says. It is a shame ; and the men get such little wages, and have to do it all on that; and father says . . . But they're awfully convenient, of course. Take you anywhere you want to go. They can go where trams can't go. . . . It's a wonder to see the change in the traffic these last few years. Poor 4i 42 ON THE STAIRCASE people can get out into the country. Mother says she re- members when it was all green fields. She used to have to walk. . . . Father comes from the country, you know. Uses funny country words every now and then. . . . Tm all dithered,' he says." Breathelessly, Cissie kept up with Velancourt and made the running. All the girls they passed looked them up and down. Some of them said things to the young men by whom they were accompanied ; and there was laughter. Velancourt did not hear the laughter; but Cissie heard every drop of it and talked the more rapidly. They walked a long way together. "Mercy!" cried Cissie. "It's four o'clock. I must go back!" "I " began Velancourt, and turned back with her. Cissie hovered a minute at that. "Want your tea ?" she asked hesitatingly. "Er . . . yes. Yes, I should be . . ." They walked back the same way that they had come. It did not occur to Velancourt that owing to Cissie's shorter steps they had come a shorter distance than he would have gone if he had been alone. His own progress was so strangely uncertain — now fast, now slow — that he had sometimes made tremendous pace; but whenever he had been able for awhile to overcome his self-consciousness he had dawdled to suit her capacity. The return was even slower. Already the light seemed to be falling, so dull was the sky and so grey the neighbourhood. The big red buses rattled by, and the brown-and-cream tramcars ground their heavy weight over their own lines. There was little other traffic, but a casual strolling of girls and young men littered the pavement for many yards ahead. They hardly spoke on the return journey; but now and again stole sud- den glances at one another. Velancourt could not help seeing how pretty Cissie was, and how timid. He did not notice how anxious some of her glances at passers were, and how shrewd were others : his own feelings were too confused and conflicting. Somehow he longed now for the ON THE STAIRCASE 43 adventure to be over, as though it had tried his nerves rather than stimulated them, and as though it had left him jaded and with a sense of failure. Cissie hesitated once or twice. She looked at him, she looked away, half stopped and then went on. Suddenly she spoke. "D'you mind me hurrying on?" she asked. "Oh, I can hurry," he began. It would not do. "No. I mean ... a ... I'd rather." He puzzled a little; but let her go. He watched her little figure leave his side and go forward at a great speed. When he reached the corner she was not in sight. The front door of the Jenkins's house was closed, so that he had to use his key. He could hear Mr. Jenkins speaking in the kitchen, in a low growl, and could hear the tea-things being chinkled together as they were hurriedly laid out in prepa- ration for the meal. He went up the stairs and into his own sitting-room, smoothing his hair and looking at the book he had read over his midday dinner. It was the Faerie Queene, and he idly returned to the fight between Prince Arthur and the giant Orgoglio. But he could not read : his attention was elsewhere. He was listening. Why had Cis- sie hurried on without him? It seemed so curious. She would be bringing his tea in a moment. Perhaps she would not bring it. Perhaps Mrs. Jenkins would bring it. He strained his ears to catch the first sound upon the stairs, so that he might guess who carried the tray. He knew that Mrs. Jenkins trod heavily, as though her skirts were too long in front. He hoped for the light quick step that he was learning to recognise. A little crash came, as of a fallen poker. Still no sound upon the stairs. At last the door. Three quick little sudden steps up the three stairs from the kitchen to the hall! 44 ON THE STAIRCASE II She was coming: she was there! The blood rose to his cheeks, and he stood while she put down the tray. She did not look at him, but he saw her hands — they were small hands — busy with the deft arrangement of cup and saucer and sugar-bowl. "Tea in a minute!" she said abruptly, over her shoul- der, as she left him. Velancourt stood irresolute. His cheeks had paled again, and his lips were parted. She was lovely : she was kind, good. ... He could tell she was embarrassed as well as he. Yet she was surely just as happy ; he could hear her singing below. He would see her again in the shortest space of time; and yet once again when she cleared the table. He had not lighted the lamp; the room was in a pearly darkness very sweet to see and to feel as it en- wrapped him so deliciously. In the sky no stars were yet visible ; the sky was enveloped in a smoky mist that seemed to droop into dusk in all the corners of the room, and yet to leave the white tablecloth shining like silver. It was all in tune with his mood, that was not vivid nor excited, but of a sort of heightened calm: his heart was beating a little faster, but still as regular as ever. In the twilight Velan- court was smiling: he had never been so happy. He re- ceived happiness as he received the winds of summer; he was passive under its caress. The eager steps again ! Her hand seemed almost con- sciously to tremble against his for the merest instant. "You'll want the light," Cissie said, half lingering, her voice almost metallic in its abruptness. "Not yet. . . ." If she could have stayed ! The door closed, and he had only the sense of her disappearing move- ment, that had stirred the air and left him with a hastily- caught vision of her in the motion of turning. It was as though the twilight transfigured her and made his heart ON THE STAIRCASE 45 soft and tender as it had never been : he felt that his heart had been asleep or frozen, and as though it were now for the first time stirring to meet a new life. How long he sat staring at the closed door, he did not know. Yet something made him acknowledge frowningly that Cissie would expect him to drink his tea and eat his bread and butter and cake — that she, of course, had prepared. He did not smile at that : he began his tea t-hinking still of Cissie. Then his mind drifted off into beautiful remembrances of "I send my heart to thee in this my singing," and, more philosophically, to thought of that poem about the King Ozymandias, which he knew by heart, wherein the haughty king's boasted works are shown submerged in the desert. The dusk grew into darkness, and still he sat there in silence. Long ago he had seen the sky deepen to a dull grey, and the gas-lamp over the way flutter up into a high steady little light ; but he did not move. He heard his door open, and brought tranquil eyes round to see the shadowy figure of Cissie. "You're all in the dark !" she said, in a hushed tone. It was a moment before he could speak. "Yes. I didn't notice," he murmured. "You are funny." Still her voice was hushed. "D'you like to sit in the dark? Gives me the creeps. Course, it's very nice sometimes." Her voice was lower. She was near him, bending over the table, stretching her arm across to the sugar-bowl. Her shoulder was very near his face. "It's my favourite time of day," he said. They had never seemed to him so intimate. "It's so awfully quiet," Cissie objected. But her speech had startlingly caught his inflections : it was not Cis- sie's speech at all. He did not answer, his eyes smiling at her in the darkness, unconscious that she could not see the smile and so fill the silence. Cissie moved away sharply. "You won't have the lamp yet?" She spoke thickly, and she lifted the tray. As he held the door open she passed him with her head lowered, without thanking him or look- 46 ON THE STAIRCASE ing up. Some sensitiveness of his own caught the failure of the moment; yet he could not explain it by any reference to their talk. It had been so short, and so full that he could not imagine it otherwise. Oh, it was nothing: he'd imagined it: there was nothing. What could there be? Why, good gracious ! his mind was making and building a fabric where no material existed. A dullness fell upon him; a strange heavy mood of despondency such as he had not recently felt. He was alone, friendless, useless. . . . What did life hold? Other men went triumphant (was it from failure to failure?) : he alone was without a goal, and without energy to reach a goal, should one exist. A man like Amberley, callous and impertinent, knew what he wanted, and went for it. So did most men. He alone stood by, swaying like a frail tree in a hurricane, aimless, improvident. What was there in him? Nothing. Only unrest, wicked hatred of life, unhappiness. Would it last through his lifetime? Was he doomed for ever to be alone in the midst of unsympathetic spirits, alien, unknown, friend-shunning? Men had no friendship for such as he. They went by with their noses to the ground, following the scent of money and money and more money, with their eyes blood- shot, and their souls dried and dwindling like the wild-ass's skin in the story. They had no throw-back into a life where he could meet them and be friends. They despised him, thought little of him. Oh, bitter the thought was to him in his loneliness, sad and friendless as he seemed. Not one of them understood— not one knew the seeking of his soul, the joy that he could command thus solitary and aloof. The splendours he enjoyed were secret and everlasting: his happiness was real. Simple in the most exquisite de- gree, it was by its very simplicity incommunicable. He scorned the world : he would stand alone through his life, unfaltering. They would go on in their mad hunger for Hell : as Dante made Hell the gratification of the evil choice ON THE STAIRCASE 47 so he made it. Hell was Worldly success : Paradise was — O God, not failure of courage ! In the darkness Velancourt bowed his head. It was not pride that swelled his heart : it was the pent-up thought that filled his brain and gave him no light, no air. Possess- ing, he had thought, the secret of spiritual happiness, he found himself at last, beyond anything he had ever yet rec- ognised, desiring human intercourse. The beauty that had been his solace withdrew immeasurable degrees : he was forsaken. He could see how alone he was among millions of his fellows. No consolation could reach him at this hour. "Cissie !" he whispered, his head in his hands. The dark room was very dark now. Ill Then, in the darkness, he knew she had returned, al- though he had not heard her coming because of the closed door. "I've brought you some matches," Cissie said in her prosaic voice. And somehow she seemed to be over beside him, and he caught her hand and held it. "Oh, what is it, what is it?" she said, half crying. He felt her hand wrenched free, and her arms about him, and his face was held tightly against her soft breast. For an eternity they seemed to stay so, until Cissie slipped to her knees. Now Velancourt's arms were round her shoulders, and his face was fiercely against hers. "Kiss me, kiss me !" she begged. "Oh, my dear !" He felt warm soft kisses upon his own lips, hurried, eager. "Dear, let me go. . . . Let me go. They'll notice. I ... let me go." He let her go, and she pressed back into his arms. He was terribly excited ; but not happy. Something kept saying in his head : "It's done, it's done, it's done," over and over 48 ON THE STAIRCASE again, like a curfew, or the dreadful ringing of a buoy at night in a dark sea. It was as though, defiantly, he had ac- cepted the doctrine of the Evil Choice, to demonstrate a strength of purpose that had its root in weakness. He was trembling, vehement, like a counsel with a bad case. And Cissie was in his arms, against his heart, and he heard her quick breathing, and felt her cheek flushing against his own. He seemed stifled, as though he could bear no more, and the blood was behind his eyes, that stared now blindly be- fore him at the impenetrable darkness. CHAPTER VI AMBERLEY ASCENDING THE Amberleys breakfasted late. Mrs. Amberley al- ways lay in bed until eleven o'clock; Susan dreaded the housework she so much disliked ; Joseph found it hard to rise because his work on the previous day had been too strenuous. They were always hoping for permanent amendment ; and in the summer the temporary virtuosity of early rising sometimes lasted for three full weeks. But then Susan's energy flagged. Her enthusiasms so exhausted her that she was impatient of daily needs. She did not care for work in the home : sewing and knitting and darn- ing were abhorrent to her: sweeping and cleaning were provocative of loathing. In vain Joseph consoled her with assurance that such work was healthy: she condemned the flat with ever-new bitterness, and continued desperately to envy her brother an imaginary freedom of action. "Freedom," said Joseph one morning, "is servility to a thousand masters." Susan did not appreciate that. Anything was better than being kept at home. "Joe, you don't realise the horror of doing the same things every day. The washing of dishes, the hideous bed- making and tidying and mending. It's the sameness of everything !" Joseph's keen eyes were fixed upon her delicate face, and the curly hair and slender body that he could see across 49 50 ON THE STAIRCASE the breakfast-table. She never realised that she was selfish. It was not selfishness of nature, but a nervous reaction and an excess of leisure that made her so often complain. "It's these horrible women," he said. "They're spoiling you." "I'm a drudge," she persisted. "You recognise that I haven't had a fair chance." Her eyes were so entirely hon- est, and so pretty in their amiable despair, that Amberley would have been moved if he had not been Susan's brother. "You're a silly little creature," he said. "And spoilt." "Joe, dear. I know you're splendid." She spoke without irony. "But haven't I been wasted!" It was an appeal to his better nature. "Susan Amberley ; you're a fortunate young person. You have never wanted for a meal; you do very much as you like ; you have a kind brother ; you're not overworked ; you have more leisure, more privacy, freedom, privilege, peace, plenty " "Joe!" "It's all true. When I get to the office I never know when I shall be able to leave. Ten thousand details beset me. Ten million people may worry me by walking in, or telephoning, or writing. If I make one mistake in a month I'm rowed into a violent temper. Why, my dear, you've no notion of the toil of my days." "It doesn't make my day any happier." "Did you go to Kew last Sunday? Did you go to twenty- three theatres in the spring? Did you have a new hat last month ? Have you got a new Mudie book whenever you want one? Are you going to have a winter coat in a few days ? Why, you're pampered !" "I said you were splendid." "But the point isn't my splendour: it's your round of pleasant delights. Half the men in London would envy you. When did I have my last hat, when am I going to have an overcoat, when do I go to the theatre? I go with you, or not at all." ON THE STAIRCASE 51 "D'you mind going with me?" It was sudden, persist- ent, as though a hated fear was resurrected. "Susan ! Don't be a young fool. You're a good, willing girl ; and pretty ; and a dear. But you've got bats !" Amberley looked like an owl; and the discussion fell. Susan shrugged her shoulders. He just didn't understand. "But I do!" he objected, easily reading her thought. "I'm only begging you to be less absurdly one-sided. Why not try?" It stung her at last to a retort from a mouth almost closed, so that the vehemence of her words was in- creased into bitterness. "You're so jolly well sure that you know what's best for me!" They looked at one another across the breakfast-table, Joseph quite cool and unruffled, but really hurt, Susan with the colour coming and going in her cheeks. He said noth- ing. Presently he dropped his eyes, and went on with his breakfast. It was when he was going that Susan, not looking at him, apologised. "I'm not angry," he said. "What you said was perfectly true. I do want to manage. I try not to ; but you must re- member that you're a bit provoking. You can't do what you want: nor can I. You ought to have been born in a rich family; or you ought to be a little younger. I can't spank you ; and I can't give you what you want. But you know you're as fractious as a child." "Only to you," she pleaded. His look of indignation as he kissed her was sufficient sign of forgiveness. It softened her heart for an hour, until her mother rang imperiously for assistance in dressing. II "Only to you," muttered Amberley as he went forth and made for that tramcar which ran down Holloway Road, and through dreariest Caledonian Road, to King's Cross 52 ON THE STAIRCASE and Holborn. It amused him that Susan should be so naive. He knew that she was only twenty, and that she was as nice a girl as he could ever expect to meet, but it struck him that he was something of a scapegoat in her eyes. She wanted to travel wide over the earth's surface; she wanted (or had at various times wanted) to be an artist, a school-teacher, and a woman of independence ; and to her every ambition she brought the same provoking timid assurance, divorced altogether from any natural aptitude. Amberley thought her a good little girl with her position in life already foreshadowed by her limitations : she would be a charming little mother-bird in the nest of an estimable young man — the very example of the "dear little woman" of legend. He knew very well that reflection (unless it be of others) was not her strong point. But she had now been crammed with a sense of her own importance. It was a symptom of her futility that she complained. She didn't do even that very intelligently, he thought, smiling. The crux of the difficulty in the Amberley home was that there were only three of them. Mrs. Amberley had been a Vere de Vere of some sort, and had her head full of vanities. Her daughter (owing to the family poverty) had to do all the light work of the flat. She thus had about nine hours a day in which there was nothing to do. These nine hours were hours for irritable musing. Mrs. Amber- ley talked in an affected way ; Susan read books, but had no useful occupation. She made impossible plans. Why should she not travel, meet people, have circles of intel- lectual, artistic, idealist friends, go hither and thither among pretty and even beautiful things, see Egypt and France and Spain and Japan? Why should she stay for ever at home? The unfortunate thing was, that her brother agreed with her. She did not understand that her complaints meant more to him than they meant to herself. They were sin- cere, but they were the fruits of a happy, idle mind, which was so fundamentally sweet and modest that it complained ON THE STAIRCASE 53 without expectation of cure. To Amberley, however, the complaints centred in one place — the lack of complete in- dependence. They could have afforded a servant if Susan earned her own living; but Mrs. Amberley thought earn- ing one's living was ungenteel. Mrs. Amberley was a black- satin lady with gold brooch and ringed hands, and eyes al- most as frigid as those of a stuffed animal. So Susan stayed at home, and loved her brother, and worried him with her frustrated desires for a wider life, and chafed with a sense of her own stultification, and remained as charming as it was possible for her to be in the circum- stances. And Amberley travelled by tram to the office, or sometimes by the red motor-omnibus from Highbury which he and Susan had caught after the evening at Great James Street, and wondered what Susan would do if she really had any cause for complaint, and why she couldn't follow his own utilitarian advice for making the best of things and thereby gathering power to change them. If Susan had been a philosopher, as he was, she would not have thought that making the best of things was acceptance of one's low- est fate. She would have seen that it was a matter of con- serving marvellous energies. But she was not a philoso- pher: Joseph Amberley was the only philosopher in that family. Ill Amberley was twenty-seven, and was just under six feet in height. He had black hair, a rather thin nose, eyes that nobody had ever been able to read, and a solemn mouth that portended mischief. He was neither handsome nor dis- tinguished in appearance, but he carried himself with reso- lution. He could talk to anybody as an equal, and he did, which made some of his associates think him impertinent, but which made none of them think him condescending. They thought him hard and shrewd, or curious and comical, or a dark horse. He thought himself none of these things : 54 ON THE STAIRCASE he thought himself simple and averse from self-deception. He never sought to impose himself upon others : he tried always to act naturally and to keep his inner self remote and contemplative. He was also prompt to act and capable of waiting long. He disliked displays of emotion, and tried always to keep cool and not to lose his head. That was his constant endeavour. Yet he could not help feeling a queer thrill when, as he walked up Theobald's Road from the tram, he caught sight of Barbara Gretton crossing the road. As he reached the corner of Great James Street he turned and watched her tall figure along near the further end of Bedford Row — that short, wide, Dickensian street of high flat houses and projecting doorsteps and area-railings. "H'm. She's late," was all he said as Barbara disap- peared. Then he. went in the opposite direction, and saw young Hackett waiting for him on the doorstep. "Morn', sir!" said Hackett. Hackett wore one of those very shallow, narrow-rimmed bowler hats that used to be called "O.B.'s" — because cheap vendors of such hats provided them to suit the pockets and pretensions of office-boys. He never quite succeeded in cov- ering the washable area visible above his clean collar; and his hair at the temples was always a little matted, through fear of the towel. Amberley had an idea that Hackett brushed his hair before washing ; but he never knew if that was actually the case. Hackett's face was rather white, and his eyes were a very pale grey : his nose was a seeming accident, and did not for a moment compare in size with his mouth. He was the most important person in the office : he was sixteen. They went together into the office, and opened the win- dows. Hackett sat at his desk and began with his knife to shape a goose-quill, in the management of which he was as- tonishingly expert. His hat was hung on a peg, where it still wobbled ostentatiously, showing a bright little feather stuck in the band. His cuffs were stood upon the desk un- ON THE STAIRCASE 55 til such time as he could swathe them in paper to prevent the accretion of dirt. "Spurs won Sat'day," he remarked. "Wasn't arf a good game. Three fellers carried off. Spurs only had eight men on the field the last ten minutes. We all waited for the other lot, an' shouted, 'Urgh, dirty play !' They didn't like it a little bit. Spurs won three to nothing. They'd a got another but for off-side. Ref didn't understand the off-side rule. We told him." "How many of you were there?" asked Amberley. "Er . . . 'bout forty thousand." "Poor ref!" "Well, look here. . . . Toddles was here. . . . I'll show you. Make a plan of it." Before he could do that, one of the partners walked in, and called out "Boy!" as he walked through. Hackett stood at attention, with his elbows out. "Yessir. . . . Yes- sir. . . . Very good, sir . . . yessir," he said ; and clicked his heels. On his return : "Oh ... ay gotter go an' see my pal the Duke of Pim- lico, at the Hotel Victoria," he said. "Gis me cabfare, sonny." Amberley handed him twopence. "So-long. Tell you about the Spurs when I git back." He flung on his cuffs and his little hat, and dived out of the office. The twopence was a godsend to him. Amber- ley knew very well that the boy would walk and run all the way there and back, and that his fares would be used for the purchase of lunch or cigarettes. He went preparing his notes for a draft agreement. The office sank to a quiet business-like air of discreet calm, and Hackett's long ab- sence was almost a relief. Above, Adrian Velancourt was agitatedly walking up and down. Higher up, on the second floor, the lonely and mysterious Mr. Jeffery was sitting reading. At the top of the house Mrs. Gretton was pre- paring lunch for Barbara and Mr. Gretton, while Herculea, her aged char-lady, was "doing" the bedrooms. Amberley was hoping he might happen to be leaving for his own lunch 5 6 ON THE STAIRCASE just as Barbara entered, so that he could speak to her in passing, as he knew the ships are said to do. The staircase, their highroad, was empty; they were shut off from one another, preoccupied with their own concerns. . IV As Amberley went out to lunch he met Barbara upon the doorstep. To his surprise she stopped and spoke to him. "Good morning, Mr. Amberley. Do you think it would be all right if mother and I came this evening?" Her pride would not allow her to be more explicit. Their eyes, on a level, so tall Barbara seemed, met sternly. "I'm sure it will be quite all right," returned Amber- ley, concealing exultation. "We shall be very glad." "Your sister will be at home?" "And my mother." He did not dare to add : "And my- self." Her antipathetic feeling was unmistakable. She left him, and he went off to send a telegram to Susan, conveying the news. Then he went to his lunch in the smoking-room of the nearest Tarratonga Tea Shop, and watched idiotic young men playing dominoes and draughts, and at one table a crowd round two chess-players. All the time he was thinking of Barbara, with a grim half-smile upon his mouth. His mind reverted to Susan. "You can see the difference," he thought to himself. "Susan hangs back : she goes forward. She's a dangerous woman" — his smile brimmed over at this — "and wants a good deal of watching. She may do Susie harm: I think, nothing but good. I wonder what she'll think of mother. I wonder what mother will think of her. One thing, Mrs. Gretton will be there." He did not remember ever having looked forward to any- thing as he was looking forward to that evening. It was an occasion. It represented the apex of his immediate ON THE STAIRCASE 57 range of hopes. The achievement of Barbara herself lay quite distinct in his mind, as an aim, but only as the mating of his opponent's king lay in the mind of each of the chess- players across the room. The intermediate stages of the game depended so much upon the intervening situations — the way the game shaped, the openings that offered, the thousand chances and complexities of the comedy, the pieces in which had their characteristic, limited moves just as the chess-men had. The difference lay in the fact that the moves of the chess-men were limited in the eyes of all: the human beings had their moves limited and allowed by inscrutable natural forces. They were beyond his control: he was himself one of the human pieces. His own limita- tions were undefined : how much more so the mysterious activities of a nature which attracted him by its strength and unguessable power to transcend limitations ! He had said to Susan that Barbara was herself ; but that definition was of no use in his present thoughts. He was searching for her, as the lover in Browning's poem sought — "This time, herself — not the trouble behind her." The trouble, indeed, surrounded her. He was not near enough. Therein lay the splendid chances of the game, the inexpressible pos- sibilities of all those intricacies the prospect of which made Barbara, more than any girl he had ever known, worth all the effort that his own nature might enable him to exercise. Amberley ate his meagre lunch in a mood of exultation. To-night, he felt, he should approach herself more nearly, more simply, than ever before. To-night the battle would really be joined. He thrilled ; he grinned ; he felt the ex- citement of onset. Susan faded. Barbara rose dark, reso- lute, magnificent. The comic spirit was abroad. He fore- saw with extraordinary vision the meeting of Mrs. Amber- ley and Mrs. Gretton; Susan and Barbara; Mrs. Gretton and himself ; himself and . . . Barbara ! "It'll really be a most terrific lark !" exclaimed Amberley. CHAPTER VII AMBERLEY'S FRIENDS ARE INDISCREET AND a lark it proved — to Amberley. When he reached home he found Susan in a fever, and his mother in her room, dressing. "Why does she always dress?" he asked Susan, in a grumbling voice. "To impress people." "But her dresses are all alike." "Not a bit. There's Kitty with the black lace; and Emmy with the black silk cord edging; and Mabel with the black silk slashings; and Amelia with the pure black satin; and Hertha with the black tulle front— they're only alike in blackness, my dear. They're all ladylike." "Or lady's maid-like? You're a horrible little creature to talk so." "Joe — I hate black! There are some people it suits: mother only looks monotonous. She's so exasperating with it! They're all old-fashioned, as though she was some- body's housekeeper ! She glories in them. Oh !" Susan's shuddering anger only made him laugh. "Susan!" With a moue, she ran to her mother's room at the call of horrid duty. Amberley went to the fireplace. He began to feel a dread. He hoped his mother was not going to be on her dignity. It always made her so ill-bred — what Susan called "ladylike." She would freeze and kill the very ghost of 58 ON THE STAIRCASE 59 happiness that evening unless she remained true to her best self. What that best was Joseph alone knew : Mrs. Am- berley no more understood it than she understood the art of costume. He hoped and hoped with all his energy that his confidence in Mrs. Gretton was not misplaced. He hoped, in fact, that she would rise to the occasion, and draw his mother into the circle. For Mrs. Amberley self-consciously drew apart from gatherings, and posed with her heavy white lids drooping, as though she sat for her portrait as a Martyr. It seemed to him almost farcical in its dreadful danger. If only she would not play the refined bourgeoise! Soon she came, black and shining, bent on being a figure of dignity. "You do look jolly, mother!" he said, greeting her. Mrs. Amberley shot him a quick look from her frigid eyes. "I'm afraid that surprises you, Joseph," she observed. "Not as much as your modesty leads you to suppose," Joseph insisted gracefully. "Susan appears to be of a different opinion" — she paused, searching among her prepositions — "from yourself. She says I look like a gnome or a beetle." "Susan quite clearly has a juvenile taste in such matters. She favours the secondary colours. She is, one might say, lacking in reposeful dignity." Mrs. Amberley had endured her daughter's protests on too many occasions to be moved by them ; but she was too shrewd, for all her superficial vanity, not to feel nervous of Joseph's opinion, and of the opinion of Joseph's friends. She smiled— still a little frigid, but softened wonderfully by his mendacities, and already in a fit state to receive Mrs. Gretton. "Mrs. Gretton will understand my position," she asserted. "I hope you'll like her," he artfully contrived to suggest. "She's fundamentally sound. You'll find her quite homely. . . ." He was afraid he'd gone too far. 60 ON THE STAIRCASE "No doubt I shall be able . . ." began his mother, on her dignity. "Sure to, sure to," he agreed. "If you two don't come and have your dinners!" cried Susan, bored with a game she never understood. Joseph warned her by a glance. He was not going to have his wonderful diplomacy spoiled by this chit of a girl. "I hope, Joseph," said Mrs. Amberley, "that our visitors know they are coming to a greatly reduced home." "Whatever their expectations, they will not be disap- pointed," said Joseph, suavely. "It's such a lot of rubbish !" said Susan. II Joseph Amberley sat at the dinner-table in a sort of whimsical high spirits. He could do as he liked with many people, and he could do a great deal with his mother. He hated her black clothes as much as Susan did; but his humorous eye was large enough to embrace all sorts of futilities. Susan, with a sense of humour strictly limited by her sex, thought his nonsense boring: his mother, im- pervious to most things, only half perceived that it was nonsense at all. That was Amberley's opportunity. Thus was he able to combat her implacable egomania. She was, he knew, an egomaniac. Susan could do nothing with her : the two lived drily at home without communion — in two stages of the same destructive disease. Only Amberley, philosopher, perceived that his apostolic labours in the di- rection of universal "charity" must begin at home. His mother was his victim, his tool, the domestic subject of his insidious studies in morbid psychology. "If I get home at quarter to seven," he observed, "and we eat a slow dinner, the Grettons will find us with our mouths full." Susan instantly choked in an attempt to finish at once. ON THE STAIRCASE 61 "Susan! You're very un " "I know. I'm very sorry, mother. Joe put me in a panic." They completed the meal expeditiously; and it was cleared away. Joseph then' showed himself of all men one of the most truly noble. Voluntarily, he helped Susan to wash the dishes ! He was as "thorough" as Guy Living- stone, and could be trusted either to wash or to dry effi- ciently. So, to save Susan's hands from being pink and boiled-looking, he washed : and Susan was thrown into ex- traordinary good-humour by the amusingness of his per- formance, so that her cheeks glowed and her eyes shone. When there came a knock at the front door she ran to open it with her spirits and looks equally radiant. Barbara and Mrs. Gretton were there. Joseph, still arranging the dishes on the dresser, after dabbing away at the scullery sink with the sink brush, was not visible for the moment. He stayed in the kitchen chuckling at the imagined picture of all that happened. Susan took the visitors first to her bedroom, so that their out-of-door clothes might be laid out after the manner of two interesting corpses; she then, with anguished trepida- tion, introduced them to her mother, and longed for Joseph to come to their rescue. She was nervous and ill at ease without him. But Barbara sat down and began to talk, and Mrs. Gretton positively enveloped Mrs. Amberley . . . so that when the real martyr of the situation, having emptied the dish-water, and swabbed the kitchen table, and having seen with disgust the havoc wrought upon his own hands, appeared at the door, nobody took any notice of him. "Most interesting," Mrs. Amberley was saying. "I had to take Joseph from school after his father's death. It was a sad blow to us, because my husband, although a man in good position, had been unable to make as great provision for me as he had wished." "You marvel!" thought Joseph, looking at Mrs. Gretton 62 ON THE STAIRCASE with beaming eyes of gratitude. "You're the Apotheosis of Woman Through All The Ages !" It was Mrs. Gretton who first noticed his presence in the room. Ill "There's Mr. Amberley," she said. "How d'you do?" Her eyes seemed to Amberley to say: I hope you're satis- fied ? He was more than satisfied : he was almost wonder- fully content. Barbara looked aside at him, and bowed, but continued listening to Susan's description of something, which was being very vivaciously given. "Oh, you have gas here," Mrs. Gretton murmured pleasantly to her new acquaintance. "You're more fortunate than we are. I have a gas-cooker. . . ." That was the last Amberley heard for some time; but he shook his head in rapture over her mastery of the difficult arts. He and Susan exchanged a glance, and he wandered over to where he might sit un- observed. How wonderful Barbara looked ! She was un- bent to Susan, listening, and watching the vivacious lips that seemed to make Susan's speech so clear and childlike. Susan always smiled as she spoke, and used her lips in the prettiest breathless way, speaking very quickly. Amberley could see Barbara smiling in sympathy, and her manner softened, as though she was a little bewitched. He heard Susan's tiny delighted laugh. It was so different from her morning manner. "Little hypocrite!" he thought, superficially, correcting himself after a moment, as the complete sincerity of her manner convinced him. It would be hard indeed if Susan were never allowed a change of mood ! He speculated on the degree in which individuals influenced each other. There was a sureness about Barbara, an ability to listen, that charmed him. He knew it showed personality. He could listen himself. A slow smile spread over his face, quite serious, born of his pleasure in the scene before him. Sud- ON THE STAIRCASE 63 denly Barbara looked quickly at him, and away again. Susan had mentioned his name. "He's so absurd," he heard her say. "It's such effron- tery to pretend to know things of that sort!" Then her voice fell again, and he could hear nothing more. What he had pretended to know did not reach him : he had no doubt that it was something he understood better than Sue. Well, it was very difficult to persuade her that he knew ; because she never could grasp any point of view but her own. It was impossible to prove that his view embraced or rejected hers. The tyro can never appreciate expert criticism of her own ideas : if she could, she would be an expert critic. Sue could never realise that he had the power of artistic detachment, and she thought his judgment as purely instinc- tive and as unreflecting as her own. That was why she rebelled against his inexorable logic. Logic was outside her mental grasp : it was not beyond Barbara, he believed. In point of fact Barbara, having a very cool judgment, had seen and preferred Amberley's judgment in this case; but she would not admit that even to herself, because of her natural hostility to him. "Of course," she said, oracularly; "men are still medie- val." "And women," thought Amberley, "are still tiresome." He excepted Mrs. Gretton. ". . . mires your mother so much," floated Susan's voice. "It's too ridiculous; but he says . . . course, it's nice . . ." He saw Barbara looking a little indignant. He hoped Sue wasn't repeating all the truths he had betrayed to her. "I wish so much," she was saying emphatically, "that I could do something really good. Joe says my painting ... I should so like to show you . . ." Barbara made some remark, and Susan rose to get some- thing. As she went out of the room Amberley took her place for a moment. "You found us quite easily?" he said. "I'm so glad you 64 ON THE STAIRCASE persuaded Mrs. Gretton. You see my mother's entirely en- grossed." "Yes . . . quite easily," Barbara said, coolly. "Your sister's going to show me her drawings." "She's had very few lessons. But she's got a nice feeling. I want you to hear her sing. She sings really very well indeed." There was no constraint between them, but there was no great ease of conversation. "I hope she will," Barbara said. "If you'd ask her ? I don't like to seem to parade her." "I should have thought it would please you." "To hurt her?" He was really wounded. "To tease her." "That's unjust. I never maliciously tease." "I'm not sure that that's true," Barbara said. She looked away from him in speaking. "You must remember that you're hearing at second- hand," he urged. "And from one whose creative humour is very inferior." "Creative humour — in repetition?" asked Barbara, dis- daining to misunderstand him. "Say interpretative." He grinned broadly at her retort and his own extrication. "I'm not sure that it actually concerns me," she said, rather rudely. "But you challenged me." "I should prefer you to suspend judgment." "Oh, judgment — really !" She implied that he was taking her interest for granted. "Certainly. We're all judging all the time. Some people sum up more precipitately than others. I'm afraid you've directed the verdict wrong." Barbara smiled faintly. "But you can't be unbiased — if you're the defendant." "Is it really so bad as that?" She laughed outright at the sudden inquiry. She liked him in this mood. She was trying hard to dislike him still. "At any rate, I'm not the defendant," she asserted, sud- ON THE STAIRCASE 65 denly realising that he was getting the better of her. What business had he to question her as to her opinions? She wasn't in the least interested in his character : anecdotes in which his opinions had been quoted were no concern of hers. Why should she be bothered? She did not want to know anything about him. "No. You're the Judge," he said. "I am producing the case for the defence." "But really — it's not in my court." "Then you're simply the recipient of scandalous tales. You don't value justice? You're content with rumour?" "On affidavit," she said. He could not help being amused by her persistence in the use of legal figure. It seemed to him that she betrayed the weakness of the woman-novelist, in simulating a knowledge of terms that she did not really understand. It was like carrying artificial cherries to Covent Garden. On legal matters his own knowledge would certainly be better than hers. He wondered if there was a subtle intention of talking him down. He could not sup- pose her so unmannerly, or indeed so weak, as to desire to hurt or to give herself so heavy a handicap. Barbara looked round for Susan. "Here she is," Amberley said. He made room for his sister, who linked her arm in his as she bent over Barbara and the sketches. Barbara rebelled against the indubitable justice of Amberley's criticism. If she had been left un- prejudiced she would have said there was a nice feeling shown in the drawings. She could not say that now with- out appearing to derive from him. "They're awfully pretty," she said. It then struck her how impossible it would be to look at Amberley after saying that. She could feel the expression in his eyes — unreadable, with a very quiet shrewd smile lying far in their depths. She had seen it in their talk, and had suddenly withdrawn her own glance. "They're really very pretty indeed." It seemed horrible to feel Susan's eagerness, and the dreadful understanding in Amberley's whole carriage. There shot 66 ON THE STAIRCASE across her mind Harry's home-thrust : "Only because he's amused at you!" He was amused. Nobody else was: in him it was an impertinence! He was impertinent! And then, still under his eye, she was to ask Susan to sing ! It was impossible! She went back through the drawings in silence, holding some of them at a little distance to cover her own hesi- tancy. She was saying to herself: "I haven't lost my head ! Good gracious, I can't let this go on !" As though she were bereft of sanity she began again at the first pic- ture. Susan gently took them from her. "Oh, not a third time!" cried Susan, and her voice seemed like Amberley's to Barbara, into whose cheeks there stole a faint redness. "I really like them awfully," she said. "I don't know why I shouldn't say so!" She looked angrily up at Am- berley; but he was smiling down at her and stopped her speech. "Sue," he said gently. "I know Barbara is very anxious to hear you sing." He knew also that the use of her Christian name was insufferable; yet he had said it without intention — simply because he thought of her so ; and he could not now with- draw without conspicuous particularity. To Barbara the use of the name came as a shock. She bit her lip hard and angrily. IV And then Susan sang "Batti Batti" in her pure small tender voice; and when she sang "si, si, si, si, si, si" in that descending passage Barbara felt that somehow Sue loved Joseph more than she had guessed. For he was ac- companying, and Sue's voice seemed to caress the notes with such smiling pleasure that they showed all the love in her heart. It was Mrs. Amberley who said : ON THE STAIRCASE 67 "That's a very difficult song to sing. Sue sings it very creditably for an amateur." Barbara glowered. She knew that the song was Susan's, however she sang it. It was clear that she was not a per- fect vocalist : what was clear was that the song, even sung in a room to a pianoforte accompaniment, held its fragrance still. And Barbara thought that a greater thing than vo- calisation. Which it is, for all the quasi-professional, R-rolling people in the world. "It was lovely," she said. "It was perfect." She did not drawl the word "lovely" : she meant it in its special sense, and not its rapturous vulgarisation. Amberley remained at the piano, playing the overture to the opera, which was less successful than "Batti Batti," be- cause it needed the orchestration. Yet Barbara drew a little nearer. "You sing, Barbara?" asked Sue. She shook her head. "Really, Mrs. Gretton?" pursued the inexorable child. It was the queerest feeling for Barbara to hear her mother consulted. "She never has," said Mrs. Gretton. Amberley put aside the music. "Susan is very anxious indeed to get the supper," he an- nounced. "Beast !" "And I'll help— if I may," struck in Barbara. She felt that she really must get away from him or she would scream. She felt as though her will were struggling hard to avoid being turned— as though it were brittle, and afraid to meet a gale lest it should break. And his will was like a steady pressing wind that never slackened, that pushed steadily and ever more resistlessly. She would not give in. She would resist until the end. Once they were away it would be different. He was so unruffled, and unruffle-able that she was at a loss. One couldn't be rude, even to a man who "Then you take Miss Gretton, Sue. Because it's half- 68 ON THE STAIRCASE past nine, and we don't want to make supper the climax of the evening." Miss Gretton ! He was afraid : was he afraid? They went out of the room together — Susan and Barbara. "Miss Gretton !" said Sue. "It sounds so formal. Did you mind my calling you Barbara so quick ?" "No, no, no." "I thought Joe called you Barbara." "I don't see why he should," said Barbara quietly, with a smile. She was already recovered from that panic fear of a moment ago. "I almost think that doesn't seem always somehow to count with Joe," said Susan, with a very roundabout naivete. Barbara said nothing. Her heart was steeled. In her ears young Harry's taunt hummed with fresh insistence. "Only because he's amused at you!" Amused! He was amused ! "You look so cross !" said Susan, suddenly. "How could I be cross?" "I thought perhaps Joe made you feel helpless. He makes me feel helpless." Barbara's lip curled. "Oh, that's perfectly absurd!" she said. "I never feel helpless." When Barbara and her mother were on the tram going home Barbara had plenty to think of. For she had noticed the warm parting between Amberley and her mother, as though they were good friends ; and there were several un- pleasant recurring speeches in her mind. And now her mother was sitting there, jolting when the tram jolted, and they were rushing swiftly through Holloway, through dark streets and past closed shops. Other trams, when they passed, seemed to roar suddenly by with a dazzling bril- ON THE STAIRCASE 69 Hance of light. And Barbara had a very small, pressing sense — no greater than a toothache or a burn — of chagrin and bad temper. Her mother was eyeing with reproachful anger a woman who carried a sleepy baby in her arms without shielding its eyes from the light, so that the baby's little podgy hands made vain startings and its voice uttered faint duckings of incipient uproar. But Mrs. Gretton, having in her own mind dismissed that particular mother to a home where motherhood might be taught, turned to Barbara. "I'm so glad we went," she said, like a little girl coming from a party. "I liked it. I think Mrs. Amberley must have had a sad history ; she has a very miserable nature." "The two things do seem to go together," said Barbara, irritably. "Born to sorrow," murmured Mrs. Gretton. "And little Sue is very sweet. I'm not sure that her mother is quite a good influence for her. . . ." "You're not becoming a Socialist, are you ?" "How, dear?" "Taking children from injudiciously chosen parents." "No, dear. I think Mr. Joseph is a very good influence." "Mother! What an awful name for him/ And a parent !" "I think he's a very fine young man," said Mrs. Gretton, peacefully. "I hope that he and Ernest may be friends." The prospect petrified Barbara. It was not merely that Ernest was so extraordinarily brought in : the idea of Er- nest had never seemed to arise. Of course, Ernest. . . . She supposed Mr. Amberley was older than Ernest. He was twenty-seven, to Ernest's twenty-five. "Oh, but they're not a bit alike," she protested. "I think Sue's a charming and very much to be pitied girl; but he's intolerable." "Why, what nonsense!" said Mrs. Gretton in her slow, happy way. "He makes my blood boil." ;o ON THE STAIRCASE For once in a way Mrs. Gretton convinced Barbara of her wisdom — or rather, of that strange underworld of sensa- tion of which so very insignificant a portion is capable of being expressed by speech. At first she could not believe her mother had spoken : the words were so startling, so horrible. But they must have been spoken by somebody, and her mother must have been the speaker. The words fell like a desolation upon her, like an eclipse, stifling her. "He makes my blood boil." "Yes," said Mrs. Gretton. "But that's only because you recognise a stronger will than your own." It was the crowning touch. That Amberley was abhor- rent to her she was convinced. And all these simpletons were showing her why. "Only because he's amused at you!" Harry had said. "1 thought perhaps Joe made you feel helpless," Susan had said. And now, worse and worse, making her whole nature rise in vehement revolt, was her mother, in the most placid way, saying the thing which capped and explained those others. It was not true. It was not true. None of these people had any proper sense of Barbara Gretton, proud, unflinching. . . . Was that Barbara Gretton a legend? Was she a mere consolidated vanity? Barbara despised the thought. Her proud mouth curved in disdain; her eyelids drooped with an air of cool thought. "Are you very tired, dear?" asked Mrs. Gretton. Really, it was too bad ! Her mother was provoking to the verge of the snubbable. To mistake inextinguishable pride for debil- ity! "No, dear: only thinking of my own obstinacy!" Bar- bara said, with a vicious pleasure in wounding herself. Mrs. Gretton laughed a little. The tram went rushing on, past Holloway Prison, and passed the railway bridge over the road, past the canal. ... In its steady end-to-end pitch- ing and the jolting of the wheels — Barbara supposed — over the joins in the rails, a sort of insistent rhythm was estab- lished. People's heads bobbed and nodded, and the con- ON THE STAIRCASE 71 ductor wetted his pencil, and Barbara's memory hurt her, all in the same dreadful rhythm. "I thought perhaps Joe . . . because you recognise a stronger will!" "Is that it !" exclaimed Barbara, to herself. "Well, 'Mr. Joseph,' we shall see. Shan't we ?" She set her teeth. It never occurred to anybody that night to think: "Poor Joseph Amberley!" But a strange fever of indiscretion had been abroad among his friends : they had amiably, with the best good-will in the world, sown the whirlwind on his behalf. V CHAPTER VIII THE BAFFLED LOVER ELANCOURT was carried upon a flood of enthusiasm when once more he was alone, and when Cissie had gone. He lighted the lamp, and tried to read, and found it impossible to understand the swimming words before his eyes. He laughed little nervous laughs sometimes, half from excitement, half from fear. It was so strange to him : he had hardly spoken to a girl in all his twenty-six years, and now he was a lover ! A lover ! That brought him up with a shock of reality. It couldn't be real ; sooner or later he would awaken, and his supper would be brought, and it would be clear from that that he had dreamed the whole scene, falling asleep after tea. Oh, but it was true! She would not come again. He was afraid of her. Afraid! There was something too real in her, as though she set at naught the old beloved of his vaguest thoughts. He was afraid of it all, in a nervous reaction. If he could have fled the house that night he felt he would never have re- turned. He half rose at the thought ; if he could only think of a place whither he might fly. There was never any place that he could seek in his hour of panic. Nowhere? No- where. He was there, stuck fast and heavy. He began to walk about. A fierce energy possessed him. He walked to and fro in a state of horror, trying to bring his mind down to fact. If he went out, to walk fast for hours along deserted highways, Cissie would think he had 72 ON THE STAIRCASE 73 run away. His very fear made him dread giving that im- pression. What was it that he feared? Was it solitude? With her he felt no fear . . . with her he was happy . . . with Cissie. He could imagine her beside him; he could feel her cheek against his ; her hungry arms. But beyond her presence, what consolatory thought had he ? He yawned with a sort of bitter disgust of himself. He would stay there : she would come again. He felt breathless, as though the beating of his heart had stopped. It was all so unreal. When he came to think of what had happened it seemed like some dream from which he had awakened trembling. He could recall the walk — he recalled it shrinkingly, remembering his own shyness. And there was Cissie as she had gone out of the room with the tea- tray. ... In imagination he again held the door for her. Oh, wonderful! She loved him — poor soul! What was there in him to love ? He had never felt so poor, so shame- ful, so much ashamed of his wasted hours, and his igno- rance. He knew so little, in spite of his efforts to under- stand. He was abashed before the consciousness of Cissie's love, as though he had injured her and deceived her. He took upon himself the blame for deceit. He had never tried to pretend that he was worthy of love ; he only knew that he was shallow and superficial, and that somehow Cissie knew too little of actual life to be aware of that. She was a child, while he, so much older, had drifted into this and had carried her in his wake. The sense of feminine dis- advantage was strong in his mind. How could she have escaped ? He knew so much more of life than she did. He was a man, and men were strong where women were weak. And his weakness had betrayed them both. . . . Bis thoughts ran on, full of solicitousness, and fear, and sympathy, and shame ; and always there was that strange excitement, that made his eyes smart and his breath come quickly. His eyes were turned always to the door; his ears were ever strained to catch any sound of Cissie's re- turn ; his lips were parted as if he were pronouncing aloud 74 ON THE STAIRCASE his vehement thoughts. His long thin hands were joined in a torturing knot, fiercely painful. Above the door his shadow was horribly swollen upon the wall and ceiling, a monster to frighten faint hearts — such a monster as he felt himself. The suspense was exhausting; his thoughts were so in- coherent that they seemed to come thronging all together, struggling to get born, and coming maimed and broken into a chaos of misgivings. His head ached, his eyes ached, his heart ached. It seemed that he was more miserable than he had ever been, more alone, more with the sense of hope- less fear of eventualities. Then again he would feel the leap of excitement in his breast at some slight sound within the house. "She's coming!" his heart would cry, and, at the disap- pointment, would fall dull and heavy, swelling with its in- expressible emotion. He grew to have no other conscious feeling than a longing that she might come again, again to rest so happy in his arms. He went to the door, and opened it, listening. There was no sound in the house: the stairs were quite dark. Down in the hall he could see the tiny jet of gas waving and flickering . . . warm stale air rose from below. He couldn't bear it ! She must come ! He would will her to come. What was the good of that? She would come in time, as soon as she could. . . . She had said in going that he must wait . . . must be a good boy. Seriously he thought of that phrase, and tried to be patient. She would come presently. She would come. "Oh, Cissie . . . Cissie . . ." he groaned. He must wait ; he must be patient. She would come — so he repeated to himself, half aloud, as though he were doubling trying roles. Why couldn't he keep still, and read, or think quietly ? He tried in vain ; and was up again in a fraction of time, holding the back of his chair and watching the door as a handsome patient dog might have done. ON THE STAIRCASE 75 II At last the kitchen door slammed. He heard the knife on the tray slip against a plate or a glass, clinking. He went to the door again, and as Cissie came in he took the tray from her. "I couldn't . . . before !" she whispered. He saw her face quite white in the lamp-glow, and when he put his arms round her Cissie seemed to give a great sob. She was like a child ! He was quivering, and as white as Cissie . . . and they stood thus embraced. "There's a moth on the lamp," she said. Was she not thinking of him, as he of her ? It was the first inconsequence, and sent a pang to his heart. "So short a time !" he said, in a husky voice. "I've been waiting an eternity for you !" "Mind. There's the window. ... I must go . . . I must go. Dad'll want me." She drew away, his hands catching at hers ; and there was a hurried kiss, as though Cissie's attention was riveted on her fears of suspicion being aroused. As though their love were something furtive, to be hidden ! "I shan't see you again . . . to-night. Good night, my dearest." She was gone, smiling up at him out of the faint light from the hall gas. He waited until the kitchen door closed again, his heart chilled. . . . When he awoke from his lethargy, Velancourt shivered. He stood up, and stretched himself, and heard a clock striking. It struck eleven. The food stood there upon the table; but he could not touch it. He would go to bed . . . even though he should lie wakeful and unresting until the late dawn and the tedious new day. It was a strange mood for a successful lover: it was all somehow so much lozver than he had dreamt. He was ex- cited, and he was always miserable when he was excited. 76 ON THE STAIRCASE He wondered why he should not now feel contemptuous of the stars: they still lay upon the broad bosom of the sky, as though this evening had seen no change in his life. They were unmoved, as clear and beautiful as ever. The moon shone down her pale wasting light, and so stabbed him again with a sense of direct failure. Why had he failed? Why was he still Adrian Velancourt, unchanged? As he lay on the bed he turned this way and that, re- calling every incident over and over again. The wonderful thing had happened, and he was overpowered by the knowl- edge that he had failed. It was inexplicable. Was love no more than quick stifled pain, and an everlasting long-drawn agony of unsatisfied emotion? Oh, if he could but know! The old vagueness came creeping over him, enshrouding him, calling up his ancient tattered dreams of understand- ing which should explain every mystery of love, and pain, and beauty ... as though he had still to turn to his own imaginings to find happiness. It seemed to him now that his wondrous adventure into life was the saddest thing of all, and that his joy lay elsewhere, in some undiscovered region beyond his ken. Puzzled, and tired to exhaustion, he tried to compel his mind to yield the secret he desired. "O God !" he cried, in despair. "Teach me. . . . Teach me to understand the way to happiness!" He could hear himself speaking: it made him feel theatrical and full of self-aversion. He hated himself for being so useless, so helpless in the face of experience. Thereafter, he fell asleep, still murmuring, dreading the morning. CHAPTER IX "IF IT BE THUS TO DREAM!' VELANCOURT awoke late. His breakfast was brought by Mrs. Jenkins, who eyed him sourly. It gave him a horrible sensation of disquiet that Cissie had not come. But although he sighed, it was with a relaxation of all his tense nerves. He ate his breakfast, crumbling the bread — pretending to eat well though he had no appetite. He loitered until it was late, standing about holding his hat, thinking she might come. He dared not go to her, or call for her ; but was compelled to hesitate thus, not wanting to hurt her, not wanting to miss her if she came to him. At last he could wait no longer, and he went downstairs as noisily as he could, and as slowly. There was no sign until he was away from the house, and his backward glance dis- covered Cissie at an upper window, waving to him, with her face radiant. When he turned again at the end of the road she was still there. He went on with a lighter heart than he had known since the previous evening. It was such a pretty glimpse that all his love seemed to go up to her, and he disappeared from sight with his head erect and his tired face full once more of pride. So it came about that while Amberley, below him in the same building, was planning to try and meet Barbara Gret- ton as he went out to lunch, Velancourt, who had little work to do, was pacing up and down his office rather miserably happy. He was smiling to himself — because he had seen Cissie at the window. Somehow that recollection was hap- 77 78 ON THE STAIRCASE pier than the others, though it was less beautiful than the memory of that time when he had found her in his room, lighting the lamp, and standing in the dim light. How little there was to remember ! Yet she was everything to him ! He wondered why he had not seen her in the morning. When he went out to lunch she was standing opposite, on the other side of Great James Street, waiting for him. II „ "I must go back at once," she said. "Mother thinks I'm gone to see Elsie. She was so grumpy this morning I couldn't come. I went up to my bedroom and waved. Did you see me?" She was speaking very quickly, and her hand was lightly upon his arm. "Can't you come with me to lunch?" He hung before her, in twenty minds, wondering what to do with her. "I mustn't. I felt I must see you — to arrange." "I'll walk with you." They walked together across Guilford Street into Meck- lenburg Square. "I'm so awfully glad you came," Velancourt was saying. "Really ? You don't mind ?" She was sincerely anxious. "I didn't like to come. It's so — a — so muddling at home. A ... I knew where you were, you see." "It was very clever of you," he said. There was quite a long pause before she burst out with : "I oughtn't to have ... let you kiss me. . . ." "Cissie!" "I was a fool. If mother knew, she'd be furious." "But Cissie . . . you love me, don't you?" Velancourt's voice was very strained. This was a worse fulfilment of his worst misgivings ; something that seemed to make his heart stop beating. He tried to meet her eyes. Cissie looked away: her hat concealed her face. "Cissie!" he begged. ON THE STAIRCASE 79 ''You never asked me." Cissie's voice was muffled. "But you do? I've been feeling so miserable . . . and yet awfully happy . . ." They walked on, dully. "Are we engaged?" she suddenly asked. "I thought you ... I hoped so. You seemed . . ." "I wanted to ask you. . . . Oh, I hope you won't mind !" "Of course not!" Loyally he answered her. "May I tell mother?" Velancourt hesitated : it was so practical that his unprac- tical feelings were disturbed. "Wouldn't she think me rather a bad . . . rather a poor husband? I'm only getting thirty-five shillings a week. I've got some — a little — saved, though." It was the first time in his life that he had been discontented. "That's plenty," Cissie said, stoutly. "D'you mean . . ." he stammered. "D'you mean, to marry on?" Cissie nodded. Velancourt's heart beat violently. He caught her arm. When he spoke next his voice was very husky. "When?" he asked. Cissie began to whimper a very little: he could just hear her quickly drawn breath. She pressed his arm against her side. "I'm a wicked girl !" she said. "A wicked girl." He felt helpless and bewildered at such a development. "But why? Surely you're nothing of the kind?" "You'd have gone on quietly but for me," she said, turn- ing a rather drawn face to him. "My dear — you're all I've got. You don't know. You couldn't know." "Really ? . . . Do you want me ? You're such a gentle- man. I mean " She stopped. She had not meant to say that : it had come out involuntarily. "Cissie, I love you very much — oh, very much." He was tremendously in earnest, stopping before her. The square was almost deserted, and they were away from the houses, quite unconscious of their neighborhood. 80 ON THE STAIRCASE "We could live cheaper than you do," she said. "We should be awfully poor." "You'd get more. I'm sure you would !" For Velan- court had shaken his head. "I'd have to get a different situation," he said, vaguely. "You'd get it easy — easily." "I wonder if I should. . . ." He was overcome with hesitation. "I always feel that if I lost it I shouldn't get another one very quickly. I'm afraid" — he laughed a little in confusion — "I'm afraid I'm not very practical, Cissie. I've just gone on, never thinking. Till now, I mean." "But now " she said, quickly. "You don't mean there'd be any . . ." "I don't know." "You must know. I can't go to mother . . ." He saw steel in her eye, a twist in her lips. "It's awfully difficult." "You've made me . . . well, care for you," she said. "You oughtn't to have . . ." "It was " he began, defensively. Then he thought she was right. He had been a cad to show his love with- out thinking of the future. "But I love you so much," he said, in extenuation. "I do really, Cissie." "You want to make me miserable !" How afraid he felt ! He dreaded already her quick practical eye, her readiness for dismay. It was not that he was a coward; it was his inexperience made him defenceless against such weapons. "Cissie. I can do anything if you'll only help !" Rashly, he gave in to her resolve to think well of his practical abil- ities. "You'll help, won't you?" He hung upon her an- swer, feeling that his happiness depended upon it. His dread was all for her happiness, in case she might suffer. His thought was not at all for himself. "Oh, I must go. Look at the time!" She drew free from his arm. "But you'll help, dear?" ON THE STAIRCASE 81 She looked quickly about, and held up her face to be kissed. "God bless you !" cried Velancourt, with that odd feeling of dismayed gladness that he had felt before. Ill He walked about, exulting. On his way back he met Amberley. A cunning secrecy, new to him, made him self- conscious. "Morning!" said Amberley. "Pretty bobbish?" "Oh, Amberley. . . . Yes, I'm very well. I've been for a walk. You look well." Amberley passed on, with a nod, thinking of the evening ahead of him. Velancourt went back to his office. "You dear!" he was thinking. It was beautiful of her to come so frankly and generously to see him. And to wait ! It was a shock to him to remember that in his sur- prise and delight at seeing her so unexpectedly there be- fore him, he hadn't asked if she'd been there long. . . . He hoped she had only just arrived. What a wonderful girl she was, to see clearly and yet, in spite of everything, to love him! "You shan't regret it," he said, addressing her as though she had been there. "My dear girl, I'd give my happiness for you. You wonderful girl !" Even alone, his eyes were shy at the thought of her. It had never seemed possible that anybody could love him. He felt that he was so clearly not lovable : how could he be ? there was nothing in him to love. Yet she had divined his desire : she had created a man to love — wonderfully she had under- stood him ! He had never told Cissie anything about his hopes for the future: she couldn't be expected to under- stand them. That was not her beauty; she came to him far otherwise than a mentor. She came as a sweetheart — he thought, a wife. He would so gladly and bravely pro- tect her — it was as though she were some very precious little fragile thing, like a delicate flower, made to be shielded 82 ON THE STAIRCASE from the more cruel winds, made to be loved and cher- ished. She was wonderful ! He folded his arms on the table before him and sud- denly laid his head upon them. His lips trembled, and his eyes were wet. He felt so strangely humble, in the face of this most extraordinarily vouchsafed marvel, the first splash of vivid feeling in his life. He remembered a dim picture of Brad ford-on-A von; and his father's dying years. How unhappy they had been ! And he hadn't been living since ! He had wandered in a stupor past the beauties of life, without sharing them! Now they came to him, into his life, rapturously into his heart ! He drew a quick, shudder- ing breath. He had something to live for at last: at last one true soul for whom his love would make service the most blessed thing in the world — a picture of the divine state. I serve — the noblest motto of all: the proudest of all. It was the key to life — not servitude, but service. A very quiet smile was in his eyes. This was the best dream of all. CHAPTER X THE MARRIAGE IN TRAIN CISSIE did not tell her mother. She told Elsie instead, and Elsie gave her other advice as she rocked the baby to sleep. So Cissie, important with a new secret, came busily to Velancourt in the evening. "Elsie says: if I tell mother she'll make a lot of fuss. She says we ought to get married first, and then tell." "But, Cissie!" said Velancourt, "that's not fair to your mother." Cissie reddened a little, and looked pathetically up into his face. "I know what you mean," she said. "But it's not that at all. If I tell her now — Elsie says so — she won't let me. She'll want to keep me to do the work here. See, I'm the one that's left. She never lets me go anywhere. I never go out — can't go out alone. She keeps me busy here. If we're . . . engaged, it means — oh, you know what it means. She'll keep it on and on. You couldn't stay here then." "Couldn't I ?" asked Velancourt, mildly. "No. Cause . . . you see . . ." "Oh !" He seemed to catch something of her intention. "She'd have to let me go if we were married. We'd just go — right away from here. See?" "You're wonderful !" he breathed. "Didn't you know that? If it's not now, you'd have to wait and wait. You want to marry me, don't you?" She 83 84 ON THE STAIRCASE was almost savagely humorous, and, although she smiled, her face for a moment was clouded. "Cissie !" "Well, that's what I think." "When should we be married? This week?" "Elsie says you have to give notice at the registry. . . . She says it takes time. I don't know. You'd have to find that out. . . ." "Oh, of course. . . . What an idiot I am ! I can easily find out. I think it's three weeks. I could do it to-morrow. You have to fill up forms, I remember." "A splendid old lawyer you are!" she jeered. His serious eyes were on hers for a moment, with a pe- culiar look of distaste. Then his frown cleared, and he kissed her lingeringly, as though to erase from his own mind an inconvenient thought. "What a boy!" But she was pleased. "Oh, goodness! I must go." "Don't go, Cissie !" "D'you want me to stay?" "Oh, always !" She came quite near to him again, with her eyelids droop- ing. "Soon . . ." she said, in a very low voice. Then, abruptly: "But p'raps you won't want me then. Once you've got me !" It seemed to him horrible that she should speak with such a thickness of voice — as though, when she was stirred, some uglier Cissie appeared — in the way men speak angrily of money, when they think they have been given short change, or been cheated in some other fashion. Always it wounded him, as any ugliness or deformity did, to find human beings less noble than his own conception of them. "You oughtn't to say things like that," he said, warmly. "It's not like you." Cissie checked herself, though she wondered half-afraid at his protest. ON THE STAIRCASE 85 ''I'm sorry, I'm sure," she made answer with an air of rather defiant flippancy. "You're not offended, are you?" "Gracious no!" Offended! What a word that was ! It ought not to be in the language. She retreated, smiling at him. Then, very quickly, she returned, full of contrition, with her hands outstretched. "I'm a little cat ! I never meant to be beastly. Dear, you forgive me, don't you !" He shrugged his shoulders. What was there in such a question but the pleasure of being hum- ble? "Good-bye for the present!" she whispered; and was gone. And now he'd got to think out his own plans. And when his mind came round to the idea of actually being married in three weeks, he could only feel that the nor- mal world had somehow lost its place in the cosmos, and that he was sliding off into unreality. In three weeks. . . . Why, it was hardly long enough to taste the pleasure of anticipation ! It was as though Paradise had thrown wide its portals to receive one who knew not the way thither, but stumbled still in the cobwebs of the underworld. II Let him for once be quite clear. If he was to be mar- ried, he ought to be quite certain of what he was going to do. Yes, but in order to be quite clear, he must talk to Cissie! He did not imagine he could get more money in his present situation : the firm might even come to an end. Then he thought that would be really impossible. Where did Cissie want to live? If they could only have a little home somewhere of their own ! He was excited at the thought, and the resolve to be clear was forgotten in a haze of imagining. Cissie there by the fireside . . . and he learning from her very simplicity, until, in their happiness, they should touch God's hand. . . . Long afterwards he returned to the clear thought of 86 ON THE STAIRCASE living on thirty-five shillings a week and the kind of home Cissie desired. Poor little girl ! She had been shackled by Mrs. Jenkins — Mrs. Jenkins's moroseness had always seemed to him an unpleasant thing. She could not go out ; could not see or hear anything ; until he liberated her. He smiled, in imagining himself the Red Cross Knight. As he saw how shrewdly she had noted the position in which a mere engagement would place her, he nodded sharply. She had, of course, to think — not of her mother, but of herself. Yet . . . yet . . . the traitorous horrible cleav- ing of thought came ... he wished she had not seen that for herself. He was tremendously delicate about it; but he wished that he might have had the opportunity of plead- ing her interests against her own thought for her mother. If she thought naturally of herself first — didn't he hate that ? He hated selfishness : it seemed to him so mean a vice. But then he found very readily an excuse. She had talked it all over with her sister: very likely Elsie had insisted on her duty to herself. His loyalty was alert : of course that was the explanation. She was everything that was unselfish. She could not think of herself. If she thought first of her own happiness, that made them rather one-sided, as he also was thinking of her. Didn't it? He majestically uprooted the notion, forgetting that it was a weed, and had long tough roots many feet below the sur- face, always growing again, as strong as ever. He did not realise that weeds are more hardy than flowers, and that they nourish themselves and grow imperceptibly, out of sight. "Let us be clear !" he said. "Thirty-five shillings a week. She says we could live more cheaply. I might earn some more money. How? By writing?" His mind drifted to his books, which shone like good deeds. ... It tickled his vanity to think of writing. He thought he knew something about books; but he did not want to write. Why write, when there was so much written? How much better to enjoy the riches of the past ! To-day there was no litera- ON THE STAIRCASE 87 ture: books were published, it was true, but they were nothing: he never read a modern book. They were all novels. If he could have Sir Thomas Browne, and Sir Thomas More, and Bacon, and his old Boethius, he would let all modern books go. But if it should be a question of earning money — people seemed to take up literature with that notion — it might be different. He wondered if Cissie loved books. They would be very poor. Yes ; but if they were happy, they couldn't be poor. Blessed are the poor, for they shall be happy in their poverty. St. Francis spoke of "Our Lady Poverty." He wondered if Cissie — but she couldn't have. He would read it to her: they together would read The Little Flowers of St. Francis. To think that he might so wonderfully see her spirit expanding and growing more beautiful! It was like a magical happening. One week ago to feel that life was far and far from his compre- hension: now to be trembling on the verge of such hap- piness as he had never dared to dream! Ill In those days he knew a thousand moods, from despair to ecstasy, and they changed as though they were kaleido- scopic. He lived in a blur, painfully exact at the office, looking forward to his rare meetings with Cissie, sitting nervously excited when alone. He could not think of any- thing: Cissie had all to do. She took him one Sunday to look at two barely furnished rooms in Islington — that place being "across country" about a couple of miles away, and therefore almost as inaccessible by her mother as the sea- side — and she also arranged, through Elsie, for a week- end at Brighton. The crowning stroke of diplomacy was to leave the house near Mornington Crescent one Sunday afternoon, ostensibly for Elsie's, to pick up Velancourt, take 88 ON THE STAIRCASE him to view the convenient rooms, and then actually to go on to Elsie's, taking Velancourt with her. Her appearance there was at their arrival a complete triumph. Velancourt (whose Christian name she had only learned by question- ing) looked as handsome as he had ever done — as much like an Italian count, thought Cissie; and Elsie's Bert was stupefied by the spectacle. "Pardon me," said he to Cissie, aside; "but did you say you was goin' to marry this distinguished foreigner?" "You go on !" Cissie said, pushing him off in her nervous- ness. "Mind your own business, Saucy." "My mistake!" said Bert, with a profound bow, and his hands thrust out, in the manner of the Frenchman in comic pictures. The Bert Tebbers lived in a flat (which had once been a floor in a very large house) near Holloway road ; and Bert was in a shop in the City. Cissie had told Velancourt that Bert was in the City; but not that he was in a shop. Velancourt would not have minded the shop; but he ob- jected to the easy familiarity of the man, and thought him vulgar. So he became speechless, and they thought he was proud. It was unfortunate that when Velancourt came in the baby was screaming, and Elsie was too hot and distracted to be at her most attentive. It made them all a little quiet ; and Velancourt sat trying not to look about him. The chair in which he sat was an arm-chair, bought on the hire- purchase system, and already supported by a little block of wood instead of its proper back leg. There was another chair, in which Bert sat, which corresponded with his own except that it had no arms. There was the same ground of magenta colour and large square decoration of blue and green and yellow on back and seat. A very cheap greeny- brown carpet was on the floor, and a big simulation marble clock, the hands of which did not move, on the mantel- piece. There were also shells there, and a little calendar. The table was covered with a crimson cloth; the pictures ON THE STAIRCASE 89 were lithographs of imitation Marcus-Stone pictures, framed in imitation polished mahogany with gilt bevels. A copy of a paper containing photographs of half-clothed women lay on the hearthrug. Cissie gave a sort of sneez- ing laugh, and picked it up, putting it behind Velancourt, on a shelf. "Saucy !" she said, in response to Bert's steady look. "These girls," he said, to Velancourt. "They read 'em on the sly." "You story ! I never do !" cried Cissie. "Don't you be- lieve him, Adrian. Nasty common things." "See? She knows all about it, eh?" Adrian frowned. Cissie shook her head warningly at Bert; but he ignored the movement. "Doesn't want me to give her away !" Bert could not understand why he shouldn't have his little joke. Harry Wingate — he'd been after young Cis, Elsie said — would have laughed at it. If Harry Wingate had laughed, Cissie would have laughed too. Couldn't make the girl out. Was she turning priggish? If this fellow sat mum through it all he would be a "pi." He'd be a pale male prurient prude ! Adrian's spirits sank, until he looked the picture of gloom. This horrible man, he thought, would talk like this all the time. He couldn't talk back : he did not know what to say. Bert, finding that he wasn't "going," sat sucking his teeth, and tapping his fingers on the back of a chair. Cissie got up and hurried to Elsie, who had taken the cry- ing baby into the bedroom. "Oh, Bert's awful!" she cried, with tears in her eyes. "He's talking. . . . Might see that he doesn't like it. He is a beast. Adrian's sitting like a bear with a sore head. Oh, it's miserable !" "Here, you tell Bert I want him." Cissie hurried back with the message. Bert stretched his legs out, and fidgeted with his heavy watch-chain. "What's she want?" he said, suspiciously. Then he rose slowly, and stood at his full height of five feet three inches. 90 ON THE STAIRCASE He was rather broad, and fair, with a little moustache, and hair parted at one side and brushed back; and he wore a thick light brown tweed suit with darker brown markings on it. His boots were bright orange, and they squeaked as he walked. Velancourt would have thought of him as a counter-jumper if Bert had not been Cissie's brother-in- law. But Velancourt was not in accord with any sort of normal man, and had very strong distastes. He disliked Bert's grinning self-satisfaction. Bert went very slowly out of the room, and as soon as he was gone Cissie came over and sat against the arm of Velancourt's chair. "Don't take any notice of him !" she pleaded. "He's aw- ful. He doesn't know any better!" Her eyes were full of tears. "Why, Cissie, dear !" he cried. "Don't cry. I only won- der how you can stand it. I was only thinking of you. Really." "I'm so happy here with you. D'you know it's the first time !" "Then I'm happy too." "He's all right when you know him." Velancourt looked gloomy again. "Truly, he is." "He's so horribly familiar." "For my sake," she urged. She removed her caressing arm as the door opened again. "Oho !" said the cheerful Bert. "Don't mind me, dears ! I'm only gooseberry!" "Gooseberry fool !" cried Cissie. "That's better than gooseberry 'pi,' " retorted Bert, rather sulkily. "Well, Elsie's comin' in arf-a-tick. Perhaps she's more of a lady than me. Have a cigarette, mister?" With ruffled hauteur he offered a case. "Thank you, no," Velancourt said in a low voice. "Drop o' whisky?" "Bert!" Cissie was scarlet at the baiting. "We're just going to have tea !" ON THE STAIRCASE 91 "Well, what of it? I only wondered if the gentleman was fond of communicatin' with spirits." "He's not like you are." Cissie was shaking with a sort of nervous excitement. She had so longed for the after- noon to be a success ; and here it was turning into a miser- able failure. What must he think of her? She didn't un- derstand what it was he disliked about Bert; but she knew it was all wrong, and stupid and unhappy. And Bert was as beastly as he could be. She gulped at a sob ; her face seemed swollen, almost as though she had been crying, and her prettiness all blotted with helpless chagrin. Velancourt sat still in the arm-chair, his lips set, and his cheeks even paler. He paled as he became angry. More bitter words were trembling in his mind than he had felt for years. A slow passion of anger was growing in him at this boor's insufferable stupidities. He kept his angry eyes lowered with difficulty, so that Cissie might not be hurt any more. Besides, anger with such a man was beneath him. It would be an indignity. "In my own house . . ." muttered Bert, unheard by Velancourt. What right had a damned white-faced fool to come frowning like that? If the fellow hadn't a drop of sport in him, he ought not to spoil sport elsewhere. Harry Wingate was different to this sort of mug. He was a man — took you at what you were — neither more nor less. Liked a bit of fun, a cigarette, and a glass of beer. One of the best, he was. This fellow wouldn't think of going into a pub. He supposed he'd direct you about London by the churches ! Bert had only known one man who'd done that, and he had trouble over the cash-box, and went out somewhere as a missionary. Lot of swipes, they were ! He muttered to himself. "Come on, old girl," said Elsie, at the door. "Here's the kettle boiling." Velancourt and Bert sat with frowning faces. Bert sighed heavily, and made other musical sounds of exhaus- 92 ON THE STAIRCASE tion. Also, he whistled, until Velancourt almost screamed. They were almost equally bored. IV "When's it to be ?" asked Elsie, at the tea-table. Her own eyes were tired with work, and poor food, and constant truckling; but it seemed like a romance to her that Cissie should be going to have such a handsome husband, and one who was such a gentleman. She meant to be a little arch. Cissie reddened, and fingered the tablecloth. Velancourt tried to conquer his aversion and speak naturally. "Next Saturday week," he blurted out. "Oo. . . . Getting near, isn't it ! I do hope you have it fine. Going to Brighton, aren't you? Ye-es. I love Brighton. People say it's 'London-by-the-Sea.' Well, I tell them : if that's London by the Sea I wouldn't mind liv- ing there. The shops are so good; and everything's as cheap as cheap. Oo you are a lucky girl, Cis." "It's I who am lucky," Velancourt said, gently. "Eh?" cried Bert. "Well, that's very nicely said. I thought you felt we was — er — wasn't good enough for you." "Bertie, dear." "Really . . . you're entirely mistaken," stammered Vel- ancourt. Cissie was still like a rose, as happy as she had ever been in her life at the unexpected turn. "I'm very glad to hear it. What I say is : if a man's ashamed ... no matter who he may be ... if he thinks he's . . . now, I've got mixed. I'd better begin again." "No, Bert!" from Cissie. "I think I understand you." Velancourt seemed almost to rise to the occasion. "Well, sir, I'm very glad to hear you talk in this way. I never meant to be at all, so to speak, er . . ." "More tea, Bert?" "Thanks, my dear. Now, you and me ull 'ave a chat ON THE STAIRCASE 93 after tea. 'Tisn't often I make a mistake. . . . I'll just — as a married man myself. . . . See what I mean?" "Don't you listen to his nonsense," said Elsie. "He's a caution. Did I tell you what he said to the tram conductor, Cis ?" Elsie giggled at the recollection. It was a long story, which took her half over London in preliminary topo- graphical description ; and she rather lost sight of the story in refilling the cups and in diverging into a description of the shops in Brixton. Velancourt did not hear the joke; but Cissie laughed in a suppressed, fearful way, with her eyes strained to their corners to watch his expression. "They don't like the idea of me givin' you a bit of ad- vice," chuckled Bert, lighting his pipe as he finished. "They like to catch us green. Well, I wasn't so very particlery green myself. ... I mean to say : I haven't knocked about a bit without seeing a thing or two." He lowered his voice. "See what I mean ? What the women like is somebody who don't know they're kidding. Cry! Bless you — cry their eyes out. So you think." "Oh, you go on. You know a lot about it, mister Sharp !" cried Cissie. "Just you drink up your tea! And not so much of it." Bert shot a wicked eye at Velancourt, and wagged his head. Velancourt was guilty of a concealed shiver. His temporary unbending had been due to an effort of will ; and his detestation of Bert, and of all that Bert stood for, was as keen as ever. He was. as it were, sodden with dis- may at this sudden glimpse of Cissie's relations. He was still as staunch as ever to her ; but he found Bert's amiabil- ity one degree worse than his resentment. His one idea was to get Cissie out of it. The sister was not so bad, he half- grudgingly, half-anxiously admitted : she had probably been spoiled by association. But to him Bert was as repellent as a drunkard or a libertine. Pie was too coarse to be toler- able. His glances, his speeches — they were alike in unde- cipherable grossness. Velancourt could not follow them; 94 ON THE STAIRCASE but he exaggerated them into perfect vileness through his own ignorance. "Yes. . . . Well, I remember young Cissie when she was so high — as high as the table. Used to be very fond of kissin' in those days, Cis. . . . Course, you've given it up now. Too old for it — I don't think, papa!" He roared with what seemed to Velancourt obscene laughter. "There, there. . . . Look at her. There's many an actress would envy you that colour, Cis. A good many would envy you the blushes, too. There's some who can't change colour for toffee. Ah, my girl . . ." "Don't you think we'd better be going now?" asked Velancourt, in a suppressed voice. And Cissie flew for her hat and coat, although she had hoped that they might stay for part of the evening. "You mustn't mind the way he talks," Elsie said, as she followed her sister. The two men stood up, and Velancourt seemed to tower above Bert, whose head was sturdily deep in his shoulders. Velancourt looked like a young priest, with his fine face and eager out-speaking eyes that seemed always to be look- ing at something beautiful. Bert was content to be himself, in the City shop, mysteriously subsisting in a sort of shoddy affluence. "No. You mustn't mind me," Bert said, ruminating. "I can see I'm not your sort. Well, there's all sorts, ain't there ? I mean, that your sort and my sort's got to go on. See what I mean? 'East is East and West is West,' as Kip- ling says. Ah, there's a great man. One of the best. Eng- lish, to the backbone. I'm English, myself. Wouldn't think it, would you?" "I thought you typically English," Velancourt said, am- biguously. "There's no mistake, you do know how to put it," Bert said, admiringly. "Lit'ry, that's what you are. Great reader, ain't you ? Thought so. Well, I been very busy all my life — started at thirteen. Takes a bit of doing, eh what ? ON THE STAIRCASE 95 Yes, and now look at me, with a wife and family. Yet I keep smiling. D'you blame me? She's a good wife. And your girl's as good as gold. Will of her own, and all that ; but if you show you're going to be boss and wear the breeches, she'll go as sweet as a lamb." He paused a mo- ment before the peroration, which he delivered with empha- sis. "Other hand, you hesitate — she'll get the whip hand in a second. See what I mean? You keep your eye on it. Women are all right if you're drivin'. You can't run a pair abreast without a coachman. And once the woman's on the box . . . Well, I leave you to work out your own salvation, as the papers say." Velancourt could not speak from indignation. "Oh, let's walk!" pleaded Cissie. If she arrived home too early, she would have to explain why she had come away from Elsie's, and that meant lies. She couldn't in- vent them this evening: she felt too awful! She began to walk holding his arm, half timid, half resentful. He was still wild. He hadn't any right to be. It hadn't been as bad as all that . . . but Bert had been an utter beast, to go on like he did, when she'd asked him not to, and all. She gave a big sigh, and drew away from him. Velancourt took her arm. The very fact of being alone with her was a delight to him, and his irritation was almost gone. It was a beautiful night, and very few people seemed to be about. He could feel the stars. "You're not angry with me?" she suddenly asked. Velan- court felt the strange precarious delight of the young man who wants to show that some feeling of his has been hurt, to cause his sweetheart great apologetic anxiety, and to feel the bond of sentiment the stronger for the rift. Cissie, mis- understanding his mood, went on, talkatively : "I don't see why you should be. 'Twasn't my fault if Bert did talk like g6 ON THE STAIRCASE that. He's got no business to; but there's no sense in get- ting ratty with me about it. / couldn't prevent him. And it's spoilt my afternoon, that I was looking forward to so much. You don't think of me, when you sit glum like that all the time — don't think of how miserable it makes me, and what they'll think. I don't know whatever I shall do with you. . . ." "Cissie, stop !" Velancourt said. "Are you trying to quarrel with me? I'm not angry with you; I'm not angry with anybody. It makes me miserable to be with people . . ." he slowed down, because he could not speak candidly to her. She did not understand. "I suppose you think I'm not good enough for you. That's what it is !" She drew her arm free. Well, there were two of them now, with the desire to be coaxed back into forgiveness. "Oh, I wish I'd never met you !" Every word seemed to jar more and more upon him. If he had obeyed the sudden hatred that started into life in his heart, he would have left her — would, perhaps, never have seen her again. But, although his face was ashen, he took her arm again, and she did not resist. "You're making me angry with you, Cissie. You're so unreasonable." "Who's unreasonable?" she asked. If he had knocked her down, she would have followed him for ever; but the squalid attraction of an aimless squabble danced before her. Velancourt made a last effort. "My dearest. I didn't like your brother-in-law. I thought he wasn't nice, and didn't treat you properly. The fact that he was your brother-in-law prevented me from getting up and coming away five minutes after we got to the house. To say it's unreasonable that I should resent the insult to you " "What insult?" "Can't you see that every word was an insult? Surely you see that?" A great horror seized him. "I think you're silly to make such a fuss because he made ON THE STAIRCASE 97 his jokes. He doesn't mean anything. What harm did they do you?" "Well, supposing we don't talk about it any more," Velancourt said, with a grim mouth, and his heart like lead. "But I won't have you making me miserable when we go out, like this." "Very well, you shan't, then." She was terrified at that apparently so final speech, not knowing what he meant. They walked on without speak- ing for some time, until he began to talk about the stars; and as Cissie looked up she came stumbling against him, and they made up their quarrel with only a little laughter, and, on Cissie's side, a few unsuspected tears. Thereafter their walk was one of a softened, affectionate mood; and their parting, in a dark street near their home, was more full of unspoken feeling than ever before. Even when they had said good-night, Cissie came back a few steps; and when he was gone Velancourt stood for several minutes looking into the darkness through which she had passed. If he'd only been able to show her how much he loved her! The depth of her eyes haunted him. Why should there be such bitter trivial misunderstandings — the fruit of vanity, not of pride or nobility, but some stu- pid impassable barrier which prevented communion? If they loved one another, why should there ever be anything wrong between them? If love was not strong enough to conquer the sadness of imperfect sympathy, of what ac- count was it? The night gave no answer: it was as secret and impenetrable as ever. Was no friendship or love strong enough to impose clarity of sympathy upon friends or lovers ? Was there never true union of spirits ? He had shrunk from reports of matrimonial troubles in the news- papers : his view of marriage was the Catholic view. He could never understand why the sacred bond, the tre- mendous intimacy of marriage, gave way to distrust and quarrelling and hatred. He had thought always that those 98 ON THE STAIRCASE who quarrelled had never loved. Yet he and Cissie had been near to savage retort; he was conscious that he could have hated Cissie. Did that mean he did not love her? It was impossible: she was now his only delight. If he had not loved her, his fastidiousness was so strong that he could not have borne to touch her; and to touch her hand was instantly to be carried into a wonderful peace. He was as far as ever from understanding life : it only offered him another series of puzzles, impossible to solve while his heart asked and his eyes sought the darkness passionately for the remembrance of her least movement in the far distance. CHAPTER XI FRIENDSHIP IT was a dull Sunday morning, and everything- seemed grey. The trees Amberley saw were melancholy little limes, and their leaves were turning a jaundiced yellow; the creeper alone was brilliant, falling and hanging in red splashes that were neither crimson nor scarlet. The ground was damp, so that if he pressed his foot hard upon it earth adhered, and revealed a sort of subsoil of moist particles. A few birds chirped. Amberley was undismayed by the general air of lugubrious jaded sprightliness which weighed upon most spirits. He walked through Waterloo Park, and down past the dismal cemetery, and into Parliament Hill Fields. He went right up Parliament Hill, turning slowly round at the top to appreciate the view in each quarter. To the North were Highgate Ponds, and the rising trees and houses above them, which always made him think of a Swiss view. To the East the view was a nondescript, to the West interesting only in virtue of the nearer ground. To the South there was a general wavering haze of smoke above the wide closely-packed area of the interior suburbs. Beyond, he could see St. Paul's Cathedral ; and an old gen- tleman, straining his eyes close by, was trying to persuade himself that he could see Westminster Abbey. "My darter," said the old gentleman — speaking like the mother in "Tom-Tit-Tot" — "My darter have seen the Crystal Palace from this spot." 99 ioo ON THE STAIRCASE "A very meritorious performance," said Amberley, find- ing himself addressed. "I dare say you don't remember '51, when that were in Hyde Park," said the old gentleman. "My mother, I believe, was born in that year," said Am- berley. "There now ! I were born myself the year after," said the old gentleman. "But my mother were at the Exhibi- tion." He chuckled and wheezed himself into a fit of coughing. "You're not a Londoner?" asked Amberley. "But I'm very fond of London. The great Thames Em- bankment, and the Tower Bridge," said the old gentleman. "I'm very fond of them. They're great things. My friends all ask me about them." "They seem quite popular in the Provinces," agreed Am- berley. "News of them has just reached the country." "Aye. London's a great place. D'ye know the Strand? And Buckingham Palace? And the Horse Guards? I've see'd them all." "You may be said," admitted Amberley, "to know Lon- don thoroughly." "Aye. There's no place like it," said the old gentleman. "My darter lives here. She married a Londoner. She lives in one of those roads down there. She told me I should see them flying kites up here. Old gentlemen like myself." "They are very often to be seen." "That's a wonderful sight." "You'll find other middle-aged sportsmen sailing toy yachts on the ponds down there," said Amberley, kindly, pointing down. "They dress in yachting costume to heighten the illusion." The old gentleman manifested considerable excitement. "Is that so!" he exclaimed. "Yes. . . . You may not play any healthy game here on a Sunday ; but you may sail yachts and fly kites, because those are pastimes worthy of the Sabbath." ON THE STAIRCASE 101 The old gentleman looked afraid and uncomfortable ; he began to think Amberley was a lunatic. "Well, good mornin'," he said. "Good mornin', sir." He took sidling steps in the direction of the ponds. It was then, as he moved away, that Amberley perceived Velancourt walking rapidly up the hill, with a soft flush ris- ing to his cheeks as a result of the exercise, and his eyes shining. "Even old gentlemen have their uses," Amberley rumi- nated ; "when they bring about meetings between such folk as Velancourt and myself." He moved to intercept Velan- court, who had not seen him. II "Velancourt !" "Oh, Amberley!" Velancourt blinked, and his flush deepened. "I didn't see you." "The faster you go, the less you see. . . . Take for ex- ample the motorist. His talk's only the tale of his mileage and the places where he had his meals." "I was thinking ... I hardly knew where I was." "Why not walk a little way with me?" Velancourt sighed. Then a profound thankfulness came upon him. His feelings towards Amberley were very mixed ; but of his shrewdness and his honesty he never doubted. They moved away together. "How's business ?" Amberley asked. "We're very busy." "I . . . don't think we're very busy. We never are, you know. Somehow I've been very busy." He fell silent again. In repose his face looked almost tragic. Amber- ley looked aside at him, and saw that his mouth drooped; when their eyes once encountered he saw that Velancourt's pupils were very large — brimming almost, it appeared, to the edge of the iris. "Strain, of some sort," he thought. "What's he been 102 ON THE STAIRCASE doing?" He brought out his pipe. "See, you don't smoke, do you?" Velancourt shook his head. "Very good for the nerves. What they call, sedative." Velancourt's grave face relaxed into a smile that served only to accentuate his illness. "You've told me before," he said, gently ; and made Am- berley laugh. But all the time Amberley's mind was going round all the possibilities of whose influence he could con- jecture. "You're not looking very grand," he ventured. "You've been over-working. You ought to take care. D'you get exercise ?" "Plenty. I'm really all right." Velancourt was quite short, in a moment. "Not with that colour and those eyes," thought Amber- ley. "Well, it's no business of mine." He could not have uttered the comment. But, just as the moment was almost past, he bolted back into the subject. "I don't want to be a busy-body, Velancourt ; but you really look ill. No — wait a minute ! I'm not being inquisitive : I'm only trying to warn you that if you put on too much strain your nerves will go. You'll " "I don't know why I should listen to you," Velancourt cried, in a gust of passion. "It's no business of yours. I'm . . ." The words faded. "I'm sorry, Amberley. I beg your pardon. I haven't slept well." "So long as you resist any sort of good feeling, you'll be lonely," Amberley said, frankly. "I don't want to force myself on you: I've never done it to anybody else. But it seems to me that — if you'll forgive me for putting it in such a way — you shut out anybody else from your life. You can't have friends if you withdraw from them. You surely must know that your manner to me would have frightened off" anybody but myself. It's been as though I perpetually sweated for the sake of being snubbed." "I'm sorry, Amberley." Velancourt's eyes were averted. He seemed idly to be watching the straggle of wandering ON THE STAIRCASE 103 men and girls, and the tattered bunches of leaves hanging dead in the weary trees. "The inference has been that you didn't like me. Very likely that's so. But I don't think it is. You don't know me — you won't. And yet I think that really a good friend would do you more good than anything else in the world. And I should have thought that a man who risked snubs — even if he's a Boswell — would be at any rate a diversion. I haven't sought you out: I've simply offered you my friend- ship because you won't respond. Now I've been explicit because I think you need a friend. I tell you, a friend is here." "Oh my dear God !" Velancourt was whispering to him- self. Then, aloud, he cried passionately in a strangled voice : "Oh, why couldn't you have spoken a month ago !" Ill Amberley, who would have smiled but for the glimpse he had of a marble face, did not speak for a moment. The wild unreasoning cry showed him too much of the an- guished heart that had cherished its pain in silence. It filled his own heart with a sympathy that was almost, but not quite pity; he was penetrated as though with a deep understanding. "You know, you wouldn't have let me," he urged. "And in any case I've never had an opportunity before to-day." With a great effort Velancourt recovered his outward calm. For a moment his hands were clenched, and his teeth met sharply. His voice, when next he spoke, was unsteady ; but he articulated very clearly, and the loss of control had obviously been due only to a momentary loss of nerve. He was again quite dignified ; but he looked at Amberley with a new kindness. He had felt ill and restless, but he had not been actively unhappy. Somehow the kindness of Amber- ley's quiet voice had broken down his calm, as an excited 104 ON THE STAIRCASE girl may cry without apparent reason, simply from a realised contact with a different nature, or even a different mood. "After all," he said, "it's nothing. I shouldn't have acted differently. Only, if you'd known how I've felt — as though I'd been discarded, and lost. But not wholly that. I've been very happy. I've been perfectly happy," — he was persuad- ing himself — "but in the last month I've seemed to waken up, and to discover my own loneliness. That's what I meant — nothing else. I'm very grateful to you, Amberley. But I'm so afraid that there's nothing in me for a friend to like. I feel out of it— distrustful. I can't feel that I can talk to you about anything but myself." "The great thing in friendship," said Amberley, "is not to talk about one's self." "Are you such a friend, then ?" "Well, if one talks, the other can't. You may tell me about yourself ; and then I'll talk to you about the mysteries of life." "The mysteries of life!" ejaculated Velancourt. "Why, what do you know about them?" "The egoism of the man!" cried Amberley. "As much as you or anybody else." "You mean — nothing?" "I mean, evidently, as much as you; because very few people realise they know nothing." "That doesn't help at all," Velancourt said. "That sort of talk." "Well, then : you may talk to me about the mysteries of life," said Amberley. And there was a very deep smile in his eyes, because he felt the sense of power. Just in Velan- court's boyish arrogance, Amberley found his own pro- found humility shining like a pearl of wisdom. "But mean- while tell me about yourself, and tell me what you think of our meeting on Parliament Hill. I call you to witness as a fact, for the confusion of women-novelists, that we have not gripped hands. I don't propose to grip your hand. I ON THE STAIRCASE 105 am proposing to be your friend — not your brotherly Sun- day-school teacher." Velancourt laughed suddenly. It was a strange unprac- tised laugh, for he did not seem ever to have laughed before. It was a very small, short laugh — as small and short as the sound of half a dozen coins dropped singly from one hand to another. The harassed look had disappeared from his eyes : he walked freely, swinging his arms, with his head in the air. "About myself," he said, in a manner almost gay, "there's nothing to tell. I'm twenty-six. I was born in Wiltshire, at Bradford-on-Avon. I came to London very long ago. I'm a clerk in an office on the same staircase as yourself. Reading is my great pleasure. And I have just made my first friend, very gladly." "Quite right," said Amberley. "Oh — and I'm going to be married next Saturday." "Well I'm damned !" Amberley was surprised for the first and only time in his life. "And I wonder," said Velancourt, turning pleadingly to his new friend. "Would you — I wonder, could you — be my witness ? It's at the Camden Town Register Office." CHAPTER XII BRIGHTON IT was over ! Amberley had taken him to lunch, and they had gone to Camden Town together, and there found Cissie and Elsie and another girl. And they had parted again at Camden Town Station — Amberley to go home groaning; Elsie and her friend to go to Elsie's flat, and Cissie and Velancourt, married, to go to Brighton. For all his dislike of hand-shaking, Amberley had held Velancourt's hand firmly for a second, and their eyes had met quite straight and clear. How much friendship Amberley had conveyed by that he did not know : friendship was a pre- carious enough thing, a thing that thrived best unexam- ined. So he was persistently cheerful; and he had his re- ward in Cissie's smiling face. She said, in the Tube train, "I like that friend of yours. He's nice." Velancourt only smiled : he was too excited to talk. The heart of each was beating very fast; but Cissie felt that her face was tired with smiling. She said, "Smile that won't come off. Wish it would !" Her hand was tucked under his arm, snug and pleasant ; and she felt that she didn't mind if all the people in the carriage knew she was married. She was married ! The train jogged out the words "Mrs. Adrian Velancourt." Just once it jogged "Lady Velancourt," which made her shiver ecstatically. It seemed such a grand name, in a way. "Different to Jenkins," she thought. "It's a swanky name. 1 06 ON THE STAIRCASE 107 You ought to have a big house and servants with that name." But then Adrian himself was rather grand. He was deli- cate, like a woman. He had such soft skin; and his eye- lashes were as long as her own, and looked longer, from being so dark. His nose was long and straight; and his lips were rather full. His eyes were very large and bright. They were lovely eyes, she thought. His hands were not small, but were very long and thin, as the hands of a musi- cian might be. She ached to set his tie straight ; it was all crooked, as it too often was. The worst of not having a wife to look after him! She sighed heavily. She wondered what he thought about; then she noticed a young fellow down the carriage staring at her. Saucy! She looked at him. She couldn't help looking at him. Somehow every few minutes she had to look and see if he was still looking. And when he was she brought her eyes away only to find irresistible the desire to look again. She wondered if she was looking pretty. Just sometimes her face had a little look of fatness — it shocked her. It was only passing; but she prayed never to be stout. That would never do : she'd never keep him if she was to get stout : he wouldn't look at her. Adrian, she meant : not that other man. At Charing Cross they changed for Victoria; and pres- ently were in the train for Brighton. They were left much alone, and Cissie hoped against every fear that they might remain so; but a formidable and disagreeable-looking lady flounced into the carriage and stared at them to show how unimportant they were, and the journey was spoiled. The lady lost her ticket before they started, which made Cissie feel tremendously amused. Presently, however, the ticket was found ; and the door was shut ; and a whistle blew ; and the station seemed to move very slowly and gently away from them. Cissie started, and leant back, holding her breath until she was almost suffocated. She was mar- ried! They were off! Nobody could catch her now! They'd never catch her: she was going home on Monday 108 ON THE STAIRCASE afternoon, to see her mother. She dreaded that; but she bridled at her power. She would no longer be at a disad- vantage; she was a married woman, just as her mother was. She felt already a strange contempt for the formida- ble lady opposite; for the lady, who wore several rings upon her engagement finger, for the purpose of dazzling the eye and bewildering the judgment, had no plain gold ring. She was not married. She was not married ; and Cissie was her superior. She smiled scornfully across at the unmarried lady. Poor thing! She probably wasn't even engaged, but was only pretending. The houses began to stream past, as grey as a kinema film in the dull afternoon light. Then came open green spaces, and more houses. Croydon : Cissie had heard of that place. Then green fields, and more green fields, and half-naked trees, and sometimes a shrill whistle from the engine, and cows feeding, and boards advertising foods and laxatives, and some boards saying the number of miles from London — she saw the number mounting from twenty- one to twenty-five, and twenty-seven. . . . She watched some black birds flying in a flock — she couldn't tell if they were rooks or crows, and Adrian was half asleep or some- thing, for they were gone before he understood what was exciting her ; and some men playing football ; and once a level-crossing, with a big motor-car waiting for the train to pass ; and then the sides of the railway cutting grew steep and chalky; and a windmill was to be seen very far off — too far for her to be sure if it was going round ; and then high land, and a long and wonderful stretch of chalk- cutting. And all this time the farther landscape was danc- ing past, as though it were turning in a slow circle round the train; and the ground near by seemed to her to be just like the kinema pictures, racing grittily along, as funda- mentally unstable. The telegraph wires made her dizzy as she tried to keep her eye on them. They swooped down, and ran along, and then suddenly up to the top of a pole; and down again, and then again up; until she felt that her ON THE STAIRCASE 109 eyes were squinting, and as though they were locked to- gether with a perpetual cast in them. And Velancourt's hand held hers tightly all the time, and her shoulder was behind and against his. And then suddenly it seemed as though a mist had been removed. The green seemed still to run up to the horizon on either side; but Cissie felt they were suddenly coming to London again. Roofs and roofs and roofs lay in tiers right up a hill on the left of them ; grey roofs. And farther was green again. But the roofs continued; and the train slid easily over the points, and a station-covering of glass and iron was over their heads. There were cabs there — open, horse-drawn flies — and millions of porters; and a clanking, and the whirring of an unexpected motor; and they were there, out on the platform, stranded, derelict, for- lorn, clinging to each other in the marvellous knowledge that this was their destination. They were in Brighton. The scent of the air was different; the feel of everything was different. Life was different. They were married; their honeymoon was begun. II They went out of the station, Adrian carrying their lug- gage, and Cissie clinging to his arm. Before them was a long, straight, descending road; and it was nearly dark. The road became busier and like a London market. Hun- dreds of people rushed along, on the pavement and all across the road. And then : "There it is !" cried Cissie. A streak of somehow magical grey showed under a dark line before them. Upon their ears beat the sound of the sea. Velancourt had never seen the sea before; he forgot everything else. He forgot the people, he forgot Cissie. He strode forward. There was an endless stone and asphalt pavement, and an iron rail that ran, as it seemed, unbroken from end to end of the sea- front. People walked quickly along in the chill air. Below no ON THE STAIRCASE was a confused medley of boats and wooden structures which he afterwards knew to be bathing machines. But what held his eye was the grey moving sea; and what choked his breath and made his heart beat was the great fresh breeze that came over the sea. His head was thrown back . . . every other magnificent space, from Salisbury Plain, very dimly remembered as a vast illimitable wonder, to Hampstead Heath, which at night had seemed as wide as the earth, was made petty by this extraordinary sense of openness. It filled him with a triumph and fearlessness such as he had never known. He felt as a man might feel who stood upon the edge of the world and looked bravely out into infinite distance, with nothing to fear and every venture to be won. "Fine, isn't it!" said Cissie, in a hushed voice. "But it's rather cold." He looked down at her little pink nose and cheeks pale with the biting wind ; and his mood softened at once. How patient she had been! And uncomplaining! "I'd forgotten," he answered. "You're quite frozen !" They walked very fast for a few moments, and as they walked the Palace Pier began to start into the brilliance of all its tiny coruscating electric lamps. Cissie stopped at the splendour, and pressed his arm. "There !" she cried. "That's the best thing in Brighton." "It's vulgar !" he said. "I can't really admire it." "Adrian! It's fine." "Well, perhaps it's rather striking." He wanted not to hurt her delicate feelings. "You are horrible not to like it." She spoke in a senti- mental lingering tone. "I thought you'd like it. You're only pretending not to like it." "The sea was so much grander," he urged, trying to be simple and yet to compromise with his own candour. "I don't think so. Damp cold old sea." "But my dear !" He began to expostulate. "Oh, don't!" ON THE STAIRCASE in Cissie was chilled and nervous, and the lights seemed cheerful : and she felt terrible lonely, as if she wanted to be coaxed and comforted. And Velancourt himself wanted a different sort of coaxing. So they both, for a moment, felt exceedingly disappointed and disagreeable. "Are you angry with me ?" she presently asked, in a sub- dued voice. "How can you be so silly? I couldn't be angry to-day. Could you?" "I don't know." It was a whisper. "What day is this?" he asked. "I don't believe you know yourself." "It's our wedding-day." "Oh!" Cissie gave a little gulping laugh. "It's ages ago." "Three hours." He was trying to seem as practical as herself ; and so became humourless. They were past the pier now, and had turned into the street where their lodging lay. "And I'm Oh, tell me !" Velancourt was hesitant now. With a great assumption of ease he hurried the words out. "Oh you're my little wife," he said, quickly. "I didn't hear!" said Cissie. "You did." "Say it again. Over and over again." They reached the house. In the window was a grue- some board. It said "Apartments." Ill The landlady was a hideous woman, with one eye. Velancourt thought she looked like a witch. She led them indoors, to a sitting-room which had the atmosphere of a cellar. The furniture was all covered with American cloth, and every spring in every chair was broken. The room was H2 ON THE STAIRCASE brooded over by a memorial card referring to the landlady's late husband. It was a melancholy room; and a battered fire-screen with shavings behind it killed their hope of a fire. Neither had the courage to ask for a fire — Velan- court because he shrank from looking at or speaking to the ogress ; Cissie because she knew it would be "extra." The table was laid, so Cissie examined what was on it. There was thick bread, with very thin butter on it; and three half-hearted pieces of cake. Cissie held up one of the cups, and wiped it with the table-cloth. They both felt very shy of each other before the tea came ; but when Cissie had taken off her coat and hat, and when she held the tea- pot on high, watching the fainting tea emerge tremulously from the choked spout, she looked so entirely adorable that Velancourt was forced to approach her. "You'll make me spill it!" she cried; and when he re- tired discomfited both were made miserable. Instead of passing the tea, she brought it to him, and they kissed and were happy again. "You were a silly !" she said. "As if it mattered about that dirty old cloth. Shouldn't think it had been washed since the flood !" "Perhaps not since August," he suggested. "She lets to actors. The food's sure to be pretty good. It's a clean place, too ; but she doesn't dry the cups properly. Different to me ! If I see a cup dirty I have to clean it — have to. Mother's always been very particular. She used to slap my hands whenever I didn't dry properly. It's as easy as easy, when you're awake. This old tot's half asleep. Elsie's been here. She knows. She told me about it." "Did she" — Velancourt's heart sank — "did she come here . . ." He couldn't ask. It was too degraded, too unbe- lievable. "Course she came here. Oh . . . I see what you mean. They had a week, though. They were married in July, when he had his summer holidays. Wish we could have a week. I don't mind really ; only a week's nice." She some- times had a little felt inclined to envy Elsie her longer ON THE STAIRCASE 113 honeymoon ; but it was no use crying for the — honeymoon. Velancourt was very quiet. He wished to God she would stop talking for a moment. It was frightful ! To think of that horrible ... To think that Cissie could bear to come to a place where that bounder had been. He could im- agine Bert in every part of the room. He could hear his cheap voice in the air. "See what I mean?" Somehow it revolted him that Cissie could be so insensible to the horror of it. If he had known, he would have refused to come. It made the place as hideous to him as a slaughter-house. "More tea, dear? Why, you're not drinking it. I be- lieve you're in love!" Cissie laughed to herself gigglingly. The words "in love" had a peculiar potency : they always had had that potency. Although recurrent, they were never unwelcome. Age could not wither, nor custom stale, their infinite appropriateness to any absence of mind, or eccen- tricity, or confusion, or unlooked-for gaiety. Velancourt drank his tea. He could not tell her what was in his mind. She would not have understood, and she would only have been miserable at the thought that he was somehow displeased. "What shall we do after tea?" he asked. "I'll put on my wrap under my coat ; and we'll go on the front. Might go on the pier." "Could we walk along by the sea?" "You are mean !" She pretended to think that he dreaded the pier-toll. "Whatever you like, then," he said stiffly. "Oh, you are a boy! Can't you take a joke? We'll go to Hove, all along the front !" She spoke with a superficial contempt that wounded him and made him shrink back into himself. But when the tea was finished, and they had told the landlady to lay the supper for nine o'clock, it was a wonderful task for Adrian to wrap Cissie in a big woollen muffler that went round her neck, and crossed on her breast, and went under her arms and back round her waist before its extraordinary convolutions were ended by the 114 ON THE STAIRCASE failure of its apparent endlessness. He fastened it with a brooch, and helped her into her long coat again. "This ought to be thicker," he said, with an assumption of matter-of-fact husbandliness. "Perhaps you'll give me one," she answered, pertly. "I wish I'd given you that instead of the bracelet." "Oh, you old stodgy!" she cried. They slammed the door and went forth again to battle with the wind. It was quite dark now, and the salt air made their cheeks tingle, so that Cissie laughed and clutched him. "It catches my dress !'' she cried. She could hardly walk at first, until she was used to the wind's resistance; and then they went panting down to the front, and held to the railings, watching the white crests of the waves far out; and the clouds flying across the moon's face. There were no boats visible now, and the edge of the moon was suspi- ciously soft and tearful. Cissie's skirt was caught by the wind so that it clung to Velancourt's legs, and they held each other tightly, hand to hand, arm within arm, so as to offer a united front to the tempestuous breeze. IV The wind, and the threat of rain, had driven many visi- tors to shelter; and beyond the West Pier the wide pave- ment was almost deserted. A few people were blown along, bending forward or backward to balance themselves, and too much absorbed in retaining their own possessions to trouble about other passengers. Cissie held Velancourt's arm with one hand, and with the other tried vainly to keep her hat from twitching and wriggling her hair-pins loose. Every now and then they were forced to turn their backs upon the wind, to get their breath and to begin afresh. Velancourt felt exhilarated : if it had not been for her hat and skirt Cissie also would have enjoyed the walk ; but she ON THE STAIRCASE 115 felt battered and exhausted. They went on right to the end of the Hove and Brunswick Lawns, and then, quite worn out by the struggle, collapsed upon a wind-screened seat, with their backs to the sea and to the wind. "It's splendid, splendid !" cried Velancourt. "It's all very well for you !" Cissie pouted. "You're a man." "I wish we could see the sea. It's white with foam." "Look at the clouds, boy !" she advised him. He looked up. Long streaming grey clouds were being blown inland at a furious speed, some of them lashed to fragments even as they passed overhead. "They're going to get it in Lon- don to-morrow !" she laughed. "Aren't you glad you're not there? Just think of father grousing and mother in a paddy ; and the rain pouring." "You ought to feel sorry for them," Velancourt said. "In your own happiness." "What a funny idea ! I expect that 'ud make them angrier — if they thought I was being sorry." "But aren't you a little sorry?" "Not a bit. I've been cooped up ever since Elsie was married. If you'd been cooped up like I have, you'd be glad. I don't believe you're a bit happy because we're "I'm so happy I can't talk." "Really happy?" Cissie put her face up. "Nobody can see." They were quiet for a moment, until Cissie shud- dered. "Oosh !" she said. "Somebody walking on my grave." Then, as he did not smile, "Old solemn-sticks !" she added. "I don't believe you love me a little bit, and I believe you wish we hadn't come, and want to go back and get mother to look after you. . . ." When he remained quiet, she began to believe what she had said, and by her sniffing breath he became aware that she was crying quietly to herself. "Why Cissie. . . . What is it, my dearie?" "Go away !" She suffered him to put his arm round her n6 ON THE STAIRCASE and to hold her close until the tears had given way to rare quivering gulps ; and then she kissed him passionately. "Oh, let's go in, let's go in!" she cried. "I'm so cold and tired !" As they rose, to endure afresh the obstreperous breeze, Cissie bethought herself of the fact that if they went back by the inland roads they would be more shel- tered. "You might have thought of that," she said, in a teacher-ish way. "Why can't I think of these things?" Velancourt won- dered. She made him feel such an amateur, by thinking first of precautions that he might have taken on her behalf. It did not occur to either of them that the reason lay in his own passionate desire (which amounted almost to a mo- mentary obsession) to be near the sea, to hear it, to feel the salt of it, and to exult in a freedom so rare and so en- tirely untrammelled. They hurried back through the town to their lodging; where they found supper not yet ready. As it had been ordered for nine o'clock, and as it was now barely half- past seven, the blank eye of the landlady was perhaps not surprising. But Cissie was glad to be able to tidy her hair and to find a refuge from the ravaging wind ; and pres- ently she came back into their sitting-room as fresh as ever. The air had brought a great colour into her cheeks, but the slight absence from Velancourt made her self-conscious at their reunion. "You look as white as white!" she said. "You looked quite red when we came in. What's the matter?" She came over beside him, so that he looked up into her face : then she stooped to kiss him. "Old dear, you are." She knelt by his side, with her elbows on his knees and her face on her hands. "Well, however I look, you look splendid," answered ON THE STAIRCASE 117 Velancourt. He added, in a low voice : "And that's all I care about." "Yes, well what about me? Oh Adrian, you make me miserable ! You don't think about me at all." Their eyes met ; both were puzzled. "Can't make you out, sometimes. I don't believe you love me." "Cissie. . . . That's really blasphemy !" he protested. "Why can't you be more like other men?" "Aren't I ?" His heart sank. "Not a bit. That's what makes me . . . well . . . fond of you. Didn't you know?" "You don't want me to be like other men?" "I don't know. I expect I'm silly. I want you to be, and I don't want you to be ; and I want you to say you love me a lot " "I do!" "Love me, d'you mean? Or say it? Oh, I don't know." She sighed, staring at him. "You never tell me about any- thing. And — oh my dear, I don't want you to. I only want you." She pressed her flushed face against his arm, and his head dropped to hers ; and they seemed swallowed up in an eternal silence of suspended feeling, their hearts beating, all the puzzles for the moment as it were dead. Adrian was still musing, with the feel of her soft hair upon his face — the hair, he did not reflect, which so recently had been tidied and made smooth — when a muffled voice murmured : "It's all very well for you; but I'm kneeling on the floor; and I think my ankles will break if I don't move!" Cissie moved her head, and smiled at him, her eyes swim- ming. He changed his position, brought to earth by the moment-destroying speech. He only looked at her re- proachfully. "Well, I couldn't help it, old serious ! You ought to see what it feels like." They both stood up — Cissie in a sort of smiling, happy intoxication; Velancourt with the feeling that it was all spoiled. In his desire to catch the single instant of happi- n8 ON THE STAIRCASE ness untinctured by pain, he had forgotten the shortcom- ings of physical endurance. As she hung there, only wait- ing for his supporting arms, he could not deny her the caress; but it was given with an undercurrent of indig- nation that Cissie never suspected. Bitterly he remembered that Bert and Elsie, perhaps, had rehearsed the same scene in this room. It was not the least part of his bitterness that he felt Bert would have been more assured than him- self. He remembered the loss of the sea to-night ... he remembered the jarring speeches about her mother and father. In his eyes a great frown of fastidiousness had gathered; on his mouth appeared a curious strained smile of rebellion. Cissie opened her eyes. "What's the matter? You're sulky. What is it? Be- cause I spoke rudely, was it? Diddums? Or wasn't I lady I only said ankles, Adrian !" It was intolerable to him. He had become merely ridicu- lous to her on their wedding-eve. "Cissie, be quiet!" There was anger in his voice. He released her. "I never meant it ... I never meant it!" She caught his hands, half-sobbing. "You're so touchy I never know what I may say, and what I mustn't. Adrian, don't spoil it all. It's been so lovely till now." Her arms were round his neck ; and her little pleading face so near, that he was helpless. With a sudden fierce- ness he kissed her until she seemed to cling to him in a stupor, helplessly. She was so sweet, so much a child, that surely he was cruel to resent with such frigid coldness these failures of hers. He was brutal, the horrible prig he always had dreaded being. "I'm horrible," he whispered, abjectly. "I'm not half good enough for you." "You're splendid," she answered, in a dream. "I'm all love for you." ON THE STAIRCASE 119 VI When supper was done, and Cissie had left him, Velan- court sat over the table, thinking. What a full day it had been, after all ! Amberley had been splendid in the morn- ing ; and the horrors of the register office had been less than his fears ; the journey had been easily made ; and all was well. All that was wrong was his own nature. How could he cure it? Was it curable? There was all the sensitive- ness, the fastidiousness, the melancholy of a man whose na- ture should lead him to the creation of beautiful things. Velancourt thought that he might be such a man; but first he must understand what Amberley called the mysteries of life. But Amberley — presumably in a silly flippant second — had said : "There are no mysteries ; there are only charla- tans." Velancourt did not believe that. He wanted to un- derstand what made him love Cissie, and what made him recoil from some of the things she stood for in his experi- ence. He wanted to understand what seemed to him greater mysteries still — the awe of distance, the sense of God in all things, the wondrous ecstasy produced in him by the multiform beauties of art and nature. Those were the things he wanted to understand. They were there — somehow they were in his heart. Amberley's ideas of mystery seemed much more mun- dane : he seemed to think that psychology was the most im- mediate marvel — that the understandable mysteries were of more interest than the mysteries incomprehensible. Yet Am- berley had read the mystics, and he had not read them : he did not properly understand what mysticism was. Amber- ley had seemed to suggest, even in their two hours' talk of Sunday, that Adrian was a mystic ; and he added that only the critics could define mysticism, because the mystics were too busy being mystic. Perhaps that was it? But then mystics were those who lived apart from the world, while Adrian had taken to himself a wife. Surely 120 ON THE STAIRCASE Cissie was a mystic, as all simple-minded people were. Was Cissie simple-minded? He seemed to find at last an expla- nation of his dubieties. She was simple, but, as the old say- ing said: "Evil communications corrupt good manners." Bert Tebber was the serpent, then, in that Eden ! The thought of Bert destroyed his thoughtful mood. Here, in this room, Bert had lived a week of his hated life with Elsie. Here, thank God ! Cissie and himself would be for only one day longer, and another night. Nervously his fingers interlaced : he now could think of nothing but Cissie. Cissie was his life; they were bound indissolubly. He wondered what lay before him in the long days that were to follow. "Good God!" he ejaculated aloud, staring wildly before him. "I'm married!" It was as though during the day he had done everything without consciousness — with some vague thought of the next thing to be done. Only now, in spite of all his ex- citements, did the bare truth seem for the first time to come home to him. It flung aside all his meandering thoughts of mysticism and the mysteries of life. He almost realised that Cissie was one of the greatest mysteries which life had so far allowed him to glimpse. CHAPTER XIII HADLEY WOODS FROM the Amberleys' flat to Barnet and Hadley Woods was the merest trifling journey by a red and white tramcar — in summer weather. On a winter day it took an age to cover the distance. In the early Autumn it was a pleasant bracing ride of about three-quarters of an hour, and the warm muffling and the warm sun counteracted the chill of the air. Susan liked going with her brother : the journeys were all pleasure. He was always good-humoured with her, and let her talk ; and they had tea out, and Susan chose the nicest cakes and felt as glad as she supposed a girl could feel who was to be always dependent upon man. She often hoped he would say: "Hadley?" because that meant what she called a sturdy afternoon. He was never fussy about her dress, as her mother was; and he did all that a strange young man might have done without ever causing her the inconvenience of feeling that a strange young man might have brought about by behaving foolishly. Susan did not want either of them to marry. So they went to Hadley Woods, a place which has the commendation of all connoisseurs. Deep rich wood, hardly spoilt, with fine sylvan patches of gleaming grass, and glorious silence and winding paths, all mingled together in her mind with the scent of spices and the sense of freedom from her mother's unwelcome survey. When they went thus on the day following Velancourt's marriage, the 121 122 ON THE STAIRCASE clouds had falsified all Cissie's evil hopes by passing over into Wales or into the counties beyond easy reach of Lon- don. It was brilliantly fair ; and had the quality of a sum- mer day, without the closeness and enervating heat of sum- mer. There was a cut in the air that made Susan's blood tingle, and her high spirits active. She laughed to herself as they walked. They went past the closed shops of Barnet, and round through the churchyard of St. Mary's, and across the Com- mon, and into the Wood. Prickly branches caught at Susan's dress and hat and hair, and the path wound in and out, all coloured with fallen leaves, and brittle with ancient twigs that were almost powder. There seemed to be few people about: they were all frowsting themselves before the fire after dinner, or being lectured in congregations, or travelling to distant suburbs to pay unwelcome duty-calls. Only Susan and Joseph seemed to be having the full joy of the day. They saw a poor old foolish man with a camera on a tripod, making vain endeavour to catch some fleeting vision of the Autumnal colouring; and they saw a few nurses; and a few young men with squeaking Sunday boots ; and a few rapt Sunday couples. But Susan was sure none of these people appreciated the day as she did. She thought all the men looked boorish, and all the girls surrep- titiously miserable. In thinking that, she was not philo- sophical : she was merely suffering from a fixed idea. Jo- seph did not undeceive her. He was too wise to undeceive his sister. When he could mould her opinion by some an- ticipatory comment, he did so ; but he recognised the futility of combating a formed theory. Susan would only have looked pitying, and fit to be shaken. There was plenty to see, in the prospect before them, and the depths of the trees, which looked deceptively remote and impenetrable. The browns and the greens and the yellows were as sure and steady as life itself — as varied and as difficult to seize. "Jolly!" Susan said. "Glad we came: aren't you?" ON THE STAIRCASE 123 They went walking on, until the green was open, and they could see a railway train go by in a thunder and cloud of smoke. "Poor devil!" said Amberley to himself. "Oh, who?" begged Susan. "Nobody you know. It's a sad tale; but not for you. You wouldn't understand." Susan saw he wanted to tell her all. "My poor boy," she said. "It's more than you can bear by yourself. You'd far better tell your sister ; and share the sorrow." Her mischievous eyes were peeping up into his face. They rejoined the wide path that runs by the side of the Woods, and then rises over the railway bridge and beyond that until it emerges at Cockfosters. The trees seemed to hang over the path in a little while, and they found a seat shrouded in shade and protected from the wind. "Here let us sit," said Amberley. "Now begin !" "That's the title of a Wagner song. Doesn't it always stir you?" "No Wagner for me. The tale's the thing." Susan was peremptory. "Not in a modern tale. It's all atmosphere, nowadays. The modern writer, like the modern composer, is poor in thematic mat " "Bother ! Not a lecture, Joe !" "Thematic material. He accordingly occupies his talent with atmosphere " "Dear Joe!" "Well. I'll tell you. You've heard me talk of — perhaps you haven't ? There's a man who works on the floor above me. That is, the first floor — two floors below the Grettons. . . . His name is Velancourt. He has just got married. See? Now I saw the girl — in fact I was present at the wedding ; — and she may not be a minx " I2 4 ON THE STAIRCASE "They're all that, of course," said Susan, with a superb insolence, her nose in the air. "Very well. She may be a good girl. She's pretty, and amiable ; but she's not quite what you, with your exagger- ated respect for the French language, would call comme il faut." "I never knew you were such a snob!" cried Susan, vehemently. "You see what a relief it is to have such an understand- ing sister?" His sarcasm passed unheeded. "I mention the young woman in passing, for a purpose. As you have noticed, I'm not a snob. I have no belief in class limita- tions. Only in personal limitations ; and sometimes the two things are involved. Velancourt's a nice good young man with bees in his bonnet. He and I are just, as it were, making friends. I want to bring him to the flat; but if I do that she'll have to come." "I never knew you anxious to bring anybody home be- fore." "Very well. If this girl comes, her superficial faults of manner will set the old lady's back up, and she'll ride a cock horse. Understand?" "Mother's as big a snob . . . with her dresses " "I want them to come when she's out. Will yon see to the girl?" "You're an elaborate creature ! There's something really rather thick-skinned about you, Joe." She withdrew her head so that she could scrutinise him with a sort of relent- less accuracy not to be separated from her sisterly regard. She was musing about his obtuseness with all the triumph of the ignorant person over one who is, in ever so slight a degree, less ignorant. She supposed her brother all before her, like some stumbling school-boy. "Of course I will. You don't realise that girls don't care twopence about a lot of preliminary talk like this. If you'd said to me This man and his wife are coming,' do you think I should have been beastly to her? I'm sure she's very nice." ON THE STAIRCASE 125 Joseph Amberley nodded, well pleased. He did not think it well to tell her that he had behaved with circumspection even in appearing circumspect. He knew Susan quite well enough to be aware that he had kindled a spark of kindness and interest in her heart. Now, he had no fear that the evening would be anything short of a success. He was determined not to lose Valen- court now. He had never been so attracted before. He was content to let matters take their own course, without further anxiety. "Well, that's very nice," he said, contentedly. "But why be so silly about it?" she persisted. Amberley shivered. He was not easily moved, or liable to any violent kind of apprehensiveness ; yet he was just a little puzzled about Velancourt and his wife. "Come along, Sue. It's getting cold," he said. "And you're a dear good girl. And I'll never tell you why, if I live to be as old as Methusalem . . . which is very old in- deed, and very wise. Even wiser than I am now." "If possible," Susan murmured, her attention diverted. "I wonder if you could be." II They went walking on through the wood, or along the path which ran by its edge, until they came to a pond, near which a few people were sitting. It was a surprise to them to hear their names called, and to recognise Ernest Gret- ton, who was taking off his cap to Susan. "I often come up here," he explained. "I'm fond of it." "Jolly good taste," said Susan. "This is my young brother, Harry," introduced Ernest; and they saw young Harry, with a red shining face and a broad grin. "We're both here." They stood for a moment in a group, until Harry at- tached himself to Amberley, and the others, after a faint at- tempt to walk abreast, fell behind. 126 ON THE STAIRCASE "Footballing yesterday?" asked Amberley. "Rather! Too windy, though." "See — you favour the long-passing game?" "I favour the winning game," Harry said. "Our chaps don't play the short-passing game well. They're not nippy enough. We just managed to win ; but it was a scramble." Amberley began to fill his pipe abstractedly. "All well at home?" "Yes, thanks. Barbara's got the rats." Amberley smiled at the proclamation. "Dad says she's just proud; but she treats me as if I was a ragamuffin." "Well, I'm sure you're quite able to look after your- self," said Amberley. "Oh, you don't know. Old Barb's got a tongue. I pity the man who marries her." Amberley still smiled, though the thought of Barbara married gave him a small twinge. "I thought you had a pretty fair tongue yourself," he said, "if it comes to altercation." "Somehow it never does," admitted Harry, with candour. "She just ticks me off. Of course, I get one in now and then; but the truth is, you can't. It's all very well, Mr. Amberley; but manhood's something." "You think so?" Amberley said, rather amused. "I mean, that a man can't treat a woman as his equal. He tries to think she's his superior; but she gives herself away. All the little mean things women do. . . . D'you know?" "I think," Amberley suggested, "you'd better express yourself on this subject to my sister Susan." "Good Lord, no ! I wouldn't be so rude," Harry said. "But — well, look at Barbara. She's as honest as most ; but she's as domineering as a slave-driver. You know, in West Africa." "I believe that would be called 'spirit,' or 'strength,' or some such name," Amberley said. "D'you see that the basis of the relations of the sexes is changing? It's all good. All ON THE STAIRCASE 127 progress is better than stagnation. It all adds to the in- terest of life. Life's a constant movement; and the more variety the better." "I'm so irritated at their swank," explained Harry. "Only the newness. I'm more concerned at the spiritual decline." "Oh, tell me ! I can work it off on Barb !" Harry begged, as quick as lightning. Amberley saw the dreadful danger. "Not so!" he said. "I'm not going to have her more envenomed." "She's rather down on you." "It's curious, isn't it ! It's nothing serious of course ; but your sister perhaps hardly appreciates my best qualities." "I know you're rotting," Harry said. "Barb's a bit of a fool. She's so bally cocksure. She doesn't like to be thwarted. She's all right, you know. Makes you swear, though." "Well, even my sister . . ." "Oh, she's different. She's a dear little soul," said Harry. He looked back over his shoulder. "Goo' lord !" he ejacu- lated. "Old Ernest seems to be jolly well pleased with himself!" Amberley also looked back. If Ernest was pleased, so, it appeared, was Susan. They were conversing with the greatest vivacity, oblivious of their surroundings and their relatives. "Well, why shouldn't they?" Amberley asked himself, with some defiance. Ill When the four travellers had begun to walk together, they instinctively followed the return path; and were now once again in the neighbourhood of the railway-bridge. Harry stopped and looked up the line with a keen eye. 128 ON THE STAIRCASE Then they moved on, up the road, down which a trap drawn by a very small pony was zigzagging. Harry also looked at the pony with a keen eye. Amberley noted that Harry had a keen eye for everything. He hoped Harry would never take it into his head to direct that keen eye upon the movements of Joseph Amberley. He could not think of any way in which, once it was levelled, the purely corrosive effect of that glance could be diverted or repelled. He quailed in spirit before its uncompromising cruelty. "I suppose we shall all have tea together," young Harry said, in a cheerful voice. "We'd better ask your brother." "Oh, he won't mind. Look at him." "I'm not going to turn round again ; and I can't see with- out." "He's telling her about Rossetti, or Mozart, or Michael Angelo. Or some such muck," Harry said, with contempt. "What's the good of these deaders?" "At least, they can't do any more harm, you'd think ?" " The evil that men do lives after them,' " quoted Harry, sententiously. "You don't think they did good?" "Have you ever been lectured about them?" "God forbid !" "There you are !" said Harry. "To hear old Ernest talk- by the hour about Cimabue with some long-haired dude is enough to scare a stone ! Goes on and on. He says it's all right. Even old Barb can't be as boring as that." "And what does she talk about?" "Just snaps at me, mostly ; or I can't hear her." Amberley drew his mouth down in a dry grimace. "You do make a dragon of her!" he said, amusedly. "She's very intelligent." "Oh," said Harry. "I was afraid you thought her at- tractive." "Little beast!" ON THE STAIRCASE 129 "Always seems to me such a pity for good men to be misled." "It's almost worse to be precocious," retorted Amber- ley. ''D'you mean boring?" the boy asked, in some fear. Amberley looked at him with a friendly smile which robbed his admission of its sting. "A little boring," he said, slowly. They had reached the gate that is stretched across the roadway near the church of St. Mary. With one accord, they stopped here, by an old tree that has been railed round, and they looked back along the road. Far behind might be seen two engrossed figures, talking and laughing in the most excellently amiable manner. Amberley felt young Harry's scorching gaze turned from the prospect to his own invul- nerable face. He kept his own eyes averted only by the exercise of his most vehement desire not to meet Harry's terrible look. CHAPTER XIV POETRY AT A DISCOUNT AS soon as they returned from Brighton, Velancourt be- gan his walks backward and forward between the rooms in Islington and the office in Bloomsbury. He was still full of marvel at Cissie, whose fingers and mind seemed of kindred quickness. While he swayed towards and around some proposed action, she plunged for it. Some- times that led to faintest dreariest little disagreements, and hurtnesses, so tender was the sensitiveness of each of them; but when they quarrelled it was a pleasure the more that the quarrels could be so quickly made up. Cissie would say: "Are you angry with me?" in her sharp way; and Velancourt would say, "No : how could I be angry with you?" (for really, when the question was put he marvelled at his own pettiness in resenting or shrinking from what- ever she had said) ; and the cloud was dissolved in a mist of shame. Or Velancourt would say: "Cissie, dear!" in a very pleading, reproachful tone, and Cissie would wait for the caress which should seem to justify her in forgiving him. And so their smallest disagreements had such sweet sequels that sometimes Cissie would look a little sullen in order to bring them about, all in the pleasantest way. They had two rooms in a tall house in a dull, serviceable street. The rooms were large, with remote, dirty ceilings which had a sort of moulding that looked as though it might once have resembled a succession of little shells. For fur- 130 ON THE STAIRCASE 131 niture they had some pictures from the Christmas numbers, representing pussies and doggies and babies and lovers in various constrained attitudes, with a horsehair armchair and a basket-work chair, and two odd chairs for sitting at table, and one that had to lean against the wall like an old lame war-horse. And they had a curious crimson over-mantel, with tarnished gold braid at the edges ; and a thrush in a glass case, surrounded by tropical grasses of the most varie- gated hues. The bedroom was a simpler affair altogether. Its nakedness was clothed in tired oilcloth, and there were two pictures, and a yellow wardrobe-cupboard, and a wash- stand, and a table with an embroidered strip upon it, made to simulate a dressing-table, and a chair that had been enamelled white, and a mirror that made them look like people who had not yet dined at Pearce and Plenty's. In the centre of the room, with its back to one of the walls, was a very large bed, a sort of khaki colour, without the knobs at the foot. It was an unpleasant bed because the mattress was matted, and huge hard lumps made any posi- tion uncomfortable. It also promised winter-discomforts because all the bedclothes were rather too small, and because they could in no way be pegged down to avert periodical slippings to one side or the other. So Velancourt rather hesitatingly hated those rooms. And Cissie liked them, for the time, because the landlady was a large slovenly talkative woman, who leant against doors, and bulged round them, with wide-open eyes of quite surprising interest. She quickly learnt from Cissie the whole circumstances of the marriage, and flattered Cissie by approving the course she had taken. "No matter 00 it may be," she said ; "mother or no mother, you did right, my dear. You did quite right, and I wish I 'ad your pluck. My ole man was a rare trouble to me. Did Mr. V. see your mother too? Oh he is a nice young gentleman. . . ." She bowed very slightly (her ac- tion was slower than a nod, and much more respectful) whenever Cissie spoke, and Cissie, under that round, en- i 3 2 ON THE STAIRCASE couraging, continuously-surprised gaze, found herself rather inclined to exaggerate Velancourt's position in the world. She was only restrained by the fact that if Velancourt really was the manager of his firm he would hardly be lodging in two furnished rooms in Islington. Her own common sense saved her from the pitfall into which many wives have stumbled. She compromised by saying that he had a very good position, with the most wonderful prospects ever held out to mortal man. She said he came of a very old family (which was quite true) ; and she almost succeeded in pro- nouncing her own surname with a patrician air. "No: you don't get it right," she said to Mrs. Robbis. "It's Ve-/aw-coor. I always think it's a nice name. So superior." "Oo, it is," agreed Mrs. Robbis. "I suppose what makes me think of vellum is his being a lawyer." She was im- pressed : she believed Cissie's tales — not because she thought Cissie truthful, but because Velancourt somehow "looked the part." He had that sort of distinction that is especially attractive to the common eye, a white skin, and an air of breeding which marked him off from the other lodgers in the street. Cissie received from her in return the stories of her successive accouchements, which seemed to be Mrs. Robbis's standby in the art of conversation. "Oo," said Mrs. Robbis. "You'll know all about it in time, for all you're such a pretty dear." Cissie's whole body seemed to give a twitch at that. Her own mother had been very particular about talking of such things; and Cissie realised with pride that she was now married and grown up. But beyond that there was another feeling — a mingled eagerness and dread. It made her heart beat for a few moments. Then it became part of her gen- eral store of thought. Mrs. Robbis was just a "person"; it was Cissie herself who counted. ON THE STAIRCASE 133 II Velancourt would come home in the evening, very proud of his wife; and they would have their meal together; and then Cissie would clear away the dishes and wash them up in Mrs. Robbis's scullery. And then they would sit down to spend the long, exquisitely-lonely evenings together. Cis- sie sewed or knitted, Velancourt would sit and look at her with pride in his eyes, until Cissie would say: "You are a. boy ! Oh, do leave off staring : it gives me the fair old shivers!" and she would put down her work and come creeping across the room with her eyes bright and bold, right into his arms. And her voice would get dull and thick, and she would say : "D'you love me just a lit- tle?" and Velancourt would feel his heart all swollen with love and delight. . . . He tried once or twice to read aloud to her; but Cissie yawned, or looked at the fire, or interrupted with some in- consequent remark that chilled his ardour wonderfully. One time he had taken up Keats's Poems, and had begun to read aloud from "Sleep and Poetry," at the lines : " 'Is there so small a range In the present strength of manhood, that the high Imagination cannot freely fly As she was wont of old? . . .'" when his attention was attracted to Cissie by an audible tittering. At once he stopped, to stare at her in surprise. Her eyes were archly and enjoyingly fixed upon him, and she had dropped her work from sheer amused inability to continue it. "You looked such a sketch, with your mouth open," she said, laughing. "Hoarsing it out like that ! I couldn't help . . . What's the matter? Done something wrong, have I?" Velancourt was desperate with anger. i 3 4 ON THE STAIRCASE "Don't you want to hear it?" he said, fiercely. "Well, whether I do or I don't doesn't seem to matter. You went on." Cissie's cheeks reddened, and her eyes be- came glittering. "I thought you liked it." He was aghast. "Don't you?" "Silly rubbish, it is . . ." she said, teasing, trying to put herself in the right, afraid and sorry and defiant. He rose and went to the other side of the room, in the bitterest mood. "I'll never read to you again," he said. "Never." "Why, you're just like a child !" "Please . . ." he began. "Well, what a lot of fuss about nothing. You could have gone on reading. My thoughts are my own, aren't they ?" Velancourt came back, and stood near her. He tried to keep his temper. What was the use of being angry with her? Perhaps he had been a bore, or a prig. Gently, he tried to explain, to put his feeling clearly without hurting her. "No, dear. It's this. Either you like me to read to you, or you don't. I don't want to read if you don't like it. I thought you liked it. Does it tire you? Just tell me. I can't bear you not to pay attention when I'm reading. It's so " He had been going to say "ill-bred," when his tongue was checked by the horror of applying such a word to her. "Well, you looked so funny," she prevaricated. "Does it tire you ?" "What a fuss the boy makes !" "Cissie, dear, does it tire you? Would you rather I didn't?" "Yes." She said it loudly and sulkily. "Certainly I would!" "Very well." His lips trembled, and he put the book on the table, and drew his chair up, so as to pretend to read it. "You don't ask if I'm tired, or anything," Cissie went on, with a sense of grievance. "It's nothing to you if I've had a ON THE STAIRCASE 135 dull day, waiting for you to come home. After all, it's nothing so very dretful if I did interrupt. Surely!" The hot tears made Velancourt's eyes smart, and he could not see the swimming page. He had never been so hurt. If she couldn't bear him to be himself, what was the good of her love? Was it love? Did she love him? He couldn't understand her. He tried to be interested in what she told him about Mrs. Robbis, and her marketing, and the sudden little thoughts that seemed to come into her mind. When they were trivial he was sorry that her days should be so, and longed to awaken in her the power of loving his favour- ite books. But if his books bored her, he himself bored her. She could have no possible communion with him. They were condemned for ever to that silent love-making which had so often concealed the sterility of their common life. They did not talk: he had supposed it was because there was no need. But it seemed from this that they did not talk because they had nothing to say to one another. It was too horrible to think of: the pain was too great. How could he bear it? "Adrian." He made no answer. He hardly heard her. "Big baby, you! . . . Oh, if you're going to be sulky!" She went back to her work, with her head lowered. In a little while she began to hum to herself, to show that she didn't care. Then the humming stopped. Velancourt read over and over again : "The visions all are fled — the car is fled Into the light of heaven, and in their stead A sense of real things comes doubly strong, And, like a muddy stream, would bear along My soul to nothingness. . . ." He smiled to himself with conscious bitterness at the ap- propriate air of those words. He felt indeed that life was barren now, a dreary thread of sorrowful experience. His mouth drooped, his eyes were dark; his hands so held his face that Cissie could not see more than the bent head and a long white hand. 136 ON THE STAIRCASE There came a little dump on the floor. "Oh bother! There's my cotton dropped. Adrian, my cotton's on the floor. Pick it up for me !" He steeled himself against her air of humility, as well as against the obvious artifice she had chosen for a reconcilia- tion that could not fail to leave them where they were ; and picked up the reel of cotton, not looking at Cissie as he replaced it in her hand. "Thanks. You are a silly, to be angry with me. . . ." He did not say anything: she would not apologise, because it would be bad for him. "Oh, well : I'll just have to wait till you get over your sulks. Adrian !" "It seems that I can't even read to myself," he said, in a quivering voice that he tried to keep level. "Stupid old book !" she said, venomously. Then, upon another course : "If you love your books better than you love me . . ." She let him hear her tremulous breath. "Please don't say any more !" He felt passionately angry. A sense of his own ridiculousness was creeping stealthily upon him. He was being like some stupid sentimental boy, far sunken in his ostentatious anger and unable to climb back into ordinary behaviour. He was being weak and undignified — showing his hurt when his manhood (as well as her girlhood) demanded that he should be unmoved. Yet it was not a slight thing to him. A great sympathy or fun- damental failure of sympathy was involved. It was not her laughter he minded : it was her insensitiveness that drove him nearly mad with disappointment. He had thought her so wonderful, and so sweet: and she had no feeling for what moved him to ecstasy. It made her seem what he dreaded even to admit to himself — mundane. It made him seem a prig. Every time they quarrelled, she made him seem a prig, as though all the reverence with which he hedged her about made her despise him for inexperience. "Feeling better ?" asked Cissie. "How much longer are you going to make me miserable ?" ON THE STAIRCASE 137 He raised his head and looked at her coolly, without emotion. "I'm not making you miserable," he said. "Nor am I being sulky. I'm simply trying to read to myself as you don't care for what I want to read." Cissie's eyes were moist. "You're making me cry," she told him. "It's such a . . . such a . . ." She seemed to shudder, and looked at him with a piteous expression which was half disdain. "Adrian, dear!" In a moment her work was thrown aside, and she was kneeling beside him, sobbing in his arms. "You are a brute!" she managed to say. And presently, withdrawing herself a little: "Aren't you! The silly old book . . . making you think you didn't love me any more !" The marvel of her intuition shocked Velancourt. He kissed her again and again, horror-stricken. CHAPTER XV A GREAT DEAL OF CONVERSATION BUT Cissie and Velancourt in a short time began to wake up to the need of importing into their daily affairs some of that casual variety without which it seemed to them at first that they would be both happier and more fully con- tented. It was when they had been married a fortnight that they went up to see the Amberleys. Mrs. Amberley was out for the evening, and indeed was staying the night away, with some relatives ; so the young Amberleys were almost sorry to be having visitors at all. Susan, in spite of her desires for a larger life, was glad to be quietly at home with her brother. Joseph sometimes realised that it was only the ceaseless jar of her own temperament with her mother's that made Susan so eager to seek new tribulations. He longed for an opportunity of projecting this simple fact along the lines of a useful and irritating generalisation. They sat demurely waiting for the Velancourts, Susan's mind think- ing in little jerks about the things she might have forgotten to do, Amberley thinking of Barbara. The Velancourts were very punctual; and Cissie was so bent on behaving nicely that she gave Susan a tight little smile, and seemed afraid to move a muscle. With Amber- ley she was different, and was ready to laugh and to ex- change bright glances. Velancourt instantly won Susan's heart, because he was unaffected and naively "Bromidic" in his first speeches ; but he proved a little shy with her, and 138 ON THE STAIRCASE 139 their acquaintance did not make much progress in the course of the evening. He was touched by Amberley's considera- tion, and charmed with the comfortable prettily-furnished rooms, and impressed by the fact that Amberley had about seven hundred books ; but he would not talk to Susan. She felt curiously snubbed at first, until she saw that he was perfectly at ease and only preferring to listen. So she told them all about the Promenade Concerts; and Amberley showed how Sir Henry Wood made his orchestra respond to the enthusiastic plaudits of the audience ; and Susan de- scribed how on one occasion, two or three years ago, the organ at Queen's Hall had suddenly failed while it was taking a leading part in some performance, and how Sir Henry Wood, with impressive aplomb, had jumped down and finished the organ part on the grand piano, leaving the orchestra to transact its own affairs by the light of nature. And in telling this story, Susan's eyes glowed, and her cheeks flushed, and her pretty mouth seemed even prettier and more vivacious than ever, so greatly did she admire the masculine virtue of presence-of-mind, and so vividly did she recall that sensational evening. Cissie watched her jeal- ously, sick with fear. "We haven't had time to go anywhere yet," she said, when Susan said they ought to go to the Promenade Con- certs, which were in full swing. She wasn't going to let Susan suppose that she never went anywhere. A fierce and pathetic instinct made her defiant of Susan's so manifest superiorities. "Joe takes me sometimes," Susan explained. "As often as I can persuade him to." "You understand that I never want to go myself," Joseph added. "I'm dragged there." "Oh, it's the most awful job every time. He's frightfully sordid about it." The Velancourts listened to this exposure with serious faces. "I should have thought he'd have liked to go," Cissie said. 140 ON THE STAIRCASE "But I know how it is. Some people like one thing, and some another, don't they? Tastes differ. I expect he likes the music-halls. What they see in them I can't make out. Nasty common things !" Velancourt looked anxious at such a long speech. "Is it easy to get into these concerts?" he asked. "I mean, would you . . . Could we one night go together? I should like to take Cissie." They looked out the season programme and warned him off the Wagner night, because Susan had got beyond Wag- ner and was now all for Mozart ; and when they found that neither Cissie nor Velancourt could claim the smallest knowledge of music, Susan became animated in an attempt to choose the best and most delicate programme of all. Un- fortunately the programme which should have included all her best-loved items and excluded all those for which she felt an unconquerable dislike was one never to be found at any one concert. It seemed that if one had the overture to Figaro one must also have "1812," and that if one got rid of Tschaikowsky altogether one did not hear the Emperor Concerto or Boccherini's minuet; and as Susan's prefer- ences embraced the Fifth Symphony and the "Mock Mor- ris" of Percy Grainger, as well as many other compositions equally contrasted, both visitors were bewildered, and one of them found herself yawning and glancing surreptitiously at the clock. So Susan, leaving them still poring over the programme, disappeared into the kitchen, because she had observed the yawn and the furtive glances. She felt that such inattentiveness could only denote complete boredom ; she did not know that Cissie sometimes lost interest rather quickly and yawned more from habit than from dire need. Amberley thereupon turned his attention to Cissie, and engaged her in conversation. "Now what was that you were saying about music-halls ?" he asked. This was before the music-hall had been sealed with Royal patronage, and so Cissie looked confused, and tongue-tied. ON THE STAIRCASE 141 "I only said they were common," she said. "How d'you know? Have you been?" She looked in a panic at Adrian. She wanted to seem neither a fool nor an habitue. "Yes, well, once or twice." "To the West End halls?" "No." "Then you'd better get Velancourt to take you to a good West End hall. You'd enjoy it." Amberley was not going to argue with her. Cissie quailed under his eye. "Bert goes," she said, defensively. "They're not for ladies. Ladies don't go." "Oh !" cried Velancourt, involuntarily. He was consumed with disgust. Amberley laughed. "The reason everybody ought sometimes to go to the music-hall," he went on, "is that the halls form the only kind of entertainment in England where the best people are incontestably at the top. Somehow quality tells in the halls more than anywhere else, because it's based on Personality. The second-rate personality is a second-rate star. In other professions it is impossible for the best to be also the most popular. On the halls the stars have to make and to keep their position. They're the quietest and surest of actors, absolutely dependent on their own resources. You go to the music-halls, Mrs. Velancourt. Take my tip." Cissie giggled. "I'll see," she said. "I don't know if Adrian will take me." Velancourt was silent. He felt that he disagreed with Amberley, without knowing why. "If he says they're bad, I shall invite him to take you, for his own sake," Amberley proceeded. "He's very peculiar in his ways," began Cissie, glad of a chance of indirect criticism. "Fussy, you know." She sighed. "I don't know what I shall do with him." She enjoyed saying that, because it gave her such a sense of power. "He can't see a joke." 142 ON THE STAIRCASE "Oh, well," objected Amberley. "That's a desperate test for any man." "You can see a joke," said Cissie. "Not all jokes. The man who sees every joke is a cham- pion bore." "No, well, I mean . . ." "You mean he can't see your jokes." "They're not jokes at all," interruoted Velancourt. "What are they, then ?" she challenged him, pertly. "I couldn't say." "Old sober-sides," Cissie said. "You must know, Mrs. Velancourt, that the appreciation of jokes is really confined to the joker. Half the laughter of the jokee is an artificial prolongation, to prevent his own subsequent joke being suspected of murder. Besides, as long as he's laughing, the first joker can't double his joke by making another one." Velancourt smiled faintly at his friend's ingenuities. "I don't think jokes are very good things," he said. "Very rarely what they're cracked up to be," Amberley added. "Besides, jokes are generally no joke at all. If they're witty, they're wit. If they're stories, they're stories. If they're puns, they're puns. And so on. What Mrs. Velancourt dislikes is the absence of humour." "I only want him not to look glum," Cissie said, feeling happy at getting that in. "Perhaps you look glum at his jokes?" suggested Am- berley. "Never makes any!" she pouted. "I don't believe he could." "Could you?" Amberley asked Velancourt. Velancourt thought for a moment. "No," he admitted. "Perhaps something very involved and laboured." "The sort of joke that poets make — very elephantine and ingenious, as though it was so trumpeted as to be mangled in the process. Poets are poor jokers." ON THE STAIRCASE 143 "Poor anything!" cried Cissie. "Mr. Amberley, do you read poitry ?" "Oh, no, no, no!" cried Velancourt, seeing whither her intention drifted. "Sometimes," Amberley admitted. "Adrian reads it to me till I could scream !" "That's very injudicious." Amberley did not look at Velancourt. "You don't understand !" cried Velancourt. "I don't see why I should have to listen to it. Do you ?" Cissie said, flushed with success. "You might do it if you wanted to please him." Her mouth opened a very little. "To p " She stopped. "I suppose he's trying to share his own pleasure with you." Velancourt sat very white, looking at Cissie with eyes that besought silence. Amberley stared into the fire with a curious persistency, as though the glow had caught his eyes and mesmerised him. Cissie gave a fidgeting look from one to the other. "Course you'd take his side," she said. Amberley, in a little side glance, saw her eyes shine; but he saw also an obstinate mouth. "I've no doubt there are two sides to everything," he said. "As we can see by the door. Because Susan's bumping the tray on the other side, to be let in." He opened the door. "It's not at all heavy!" said Susan, defensively. "But I'm sorry to have been so long." She tottered in. Amberley forbore to scold : he thought she had perhaps produced the best possible diversion. II Later, Amberley took Velancourt into his own room, in which a bed was so inconspicuous an object that Velancourt i 4 4 ON THE STAIRCASE hardly knew there was a bed there until Amberley men- tioned the inconveniences, of a flat. "I wish we had one," Velancourt said. "I can't help disliking our rooms. I'm sure they have a bad effect on me. They're so ugly." "Well, I should get out of them," Amberley said. "I should like to." "Why not do it?" "Get out? I really don't know. One stays on. . . . Well, one thing I know is that I haven't got any money to buy furniture." "Your best plan," Amberley said, very distinctly, "is to leave your antediluvian old fossil at Great James Street, and get a good serious paying job somewhere else. In the country — why not? You like the country. Or even in London. There are jobs to be had : they only want find- ing. Velancourt, standing moodily by the fire, nodded at Am- berley's confident tone. "You're quite right, of course," he said. "I'm awfully dissatisfied with myself." "That's bad. You ought to be dissatisfied with Robin- sons." Amberley puffed away, holding his pipe by the bowl and resting his elbows on the arm of his chair. Velancourt looked quickly at him. "I'm always wondering," Velancourt said, "whether you hope to sting me into confidence by talking like that. Or if you really believe it. I think I do know myself better than most people " "So do most people," snapped Amberley. "What?" "Their own self-knowledge, their own sense of humour, and their own imaginativeness are the three things most people are most sure about. They're all wrong. I ought to have added, their own appreciation of beauty." ON THE STAIRCASE 145 "It must be excellent to be as sure of most things as you are," retorted Velancourt. "Thanks. I'm pretty sure." "You're an atrocious humbug." Velancourt's face was lighted up, and he gave a little laugh. "You're so exas- perating. I know I'm no good as a solicitor's clerk. I haven't any knowledge of anything." "You can't distinguish the will from the deed. The person who says / will, does everything. Everything's pos- sible for you. I wish you smoked." "You know," — Velancourt sat down — "I think thafs a fallacy. The idea that we can both do the same things. You've got a supreme sense of facts ; while I " "I implore you not to be arrogant !" Velancourt stared at him, half irritated. "Arrogant?" "You were going to say you had no sense of facts. That's because you despise them. Also you think that all precise knowledge is opposed to imagination. You think you've got imagination and that I'm on a lower plane. You think that I'm an analyst. You're just like Ernest Gretton. He thinks I'm a chemist, and that I'm inhuman. Well, you say that Edgar Allan Poe was a poet ; and he says I'm the really imaginative person." "What did he say?" "I don't mean he came and proclaimed it; but what he said was : 'The ingenious are always fanciful, and the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic' Wait a minute; I'll get the book down." He reached down Poe's Tales, and read aloud : " 'The analyst . . . makes, in si- lence, a host of observations and inferences. So, perhaps, do his companions ; and the difference in the extent of the information obtained lies not so much in the validity of the inference as in the quality of the observation. The necessary knowledge is that of what to observe.' Then it goes on about whist-playing ; and in the end reveals the true quality of imagination — which involves the analytical quality. Now 146 ON THE STAIRCASE I am analytic. I am therefore, by inference, imaginative. The average man thinks that the more incapable he is of analysis and precise observation, the more he shows his imaginative superiority. He thinks himself an esprit fort and an esprit superieur simply because his brain recoils from analysis. 'Behold,' says he: 'I'm too good for this sort of thing.' But he's really neither strong nor superior : he's simply a dull, humourless rascal." Again Velancourt laughed. "I think it's very good," he said. Then his face changed. "I wish I knew something," he added, broodingly. "If I knew only one thing." "Don't you know a single thing?" "Not one. Good gracious ! What certainty is there? I can think myself splendid at one minute; and the next min- ute the splendour fades. And I can feel with tremendous intensity sometimes ; but the same thing leaves me quite dull at another time. I suppose I am what you call arrogant; but it's in seeing other people doing things I so much hate. It's not — surely — that I despise them. I don't think I de- spise anything. But I do hate things, and dread other things that I don't understand. There are things I keep myself — try to keep myself from knowing, because I feel they'll break in on the only happiness I have. And then you come along, and seem to get somehow ever so much more richness and happiness out of life than I do. I can see your position, and admire you: but I can't adopt your way. After all, it's a temperamental thing. There are things you can understand — thousands, I'm sure — that I simply can't guess. But if you rob me of the idea that I also have my understandings, of things completely hid from you, well — what do you leave me?" "Why shouldn't we know the same things? Why be such a miser?" asked Amberley. "Oh, simply because if you take away my belief in my own individuality, my own 'different-ness' from other peo- ple, there's no reason for me to exist at all." ON THE STAIRCASE 147 "You can't bear the idea of being a part of the future?" "No." "And do you grant the same belief in individuality to everybody else?" Velancourt stammered. "I think so. At least, I don't challenge it." "Well, I just wondered. I don't see any need for con- cern about the whole matter; but that's because I find the mere spectacle of life so engrossing. Your position doesn't seem to be compatible with a genuine give-and-take con- tact with the life of others." "Oh no: why should it be?" "You don't need others in your life?" "N oh yes, I do!" He said it with feeling. "Is it just that I'm weak ?" "Not at all : you're very sincere. It takes a lot of strength to be sincere. More than you're conscious of. I don't expect it's ever occurred to you to be insincere. You've probably always been afraid of being over-valued (which is a sort of vanity) : the majority of people are always trying to be over-valued, trying to accept their own esti- mate of themselves. What's wrong with you is that you're inexperienced. And to be inexperienced is awful. In time it grows into a craving for both solitude and sympathy, a horror of everything. Really, you exaggerate the coarse- ness and roughness of everything. Seen in their proper relations, things are not at all disgusting: they're simply crammed through and through with interest and character." "It's rather ridiculous of me to sit listening and asking advice," Velancourt murmured. "You're not asking for advice. You don't know any- body of your own calibre, and you're taking advantage of me for a good purpose. As to listening: you'll find I can listen," Amberley said, with a smile. "It's done me good." "And me." i 4 8 ON THE STAIRCASE "Why, how could that be?" Velancourt asked, in sur- prise. "Oh : I very rarely meet anybody who makes me want to talk." "And I do that?" "Certainly. I say, I wish you smoked." "I loathe it. It seems right for you. It would be hor- rible for me. It doesn't interest me." "Try not to be too fastidious." "Am I that, too?" Velancourt, with gleaming eyes, leaned back in his chair. His face was alert with vivacity, as Amberley had never seen it. He gave one of his shy, boyish laughs. "Fastidiousness is a sort of Hellish torment. Fastidious- ness is superabundance of kindness turned to acid. It cor- rodes a man's happiness. I'm rather fastidious myself." "But you're very happy?" "Am I? If I am, it's only because I've got plenty to do, and plenty to interest me." "How I envy you!" Amberley shook his head. "Why should you? You can get both plenty to do and plenty to interest you. If you desire a thing strongly, you can obtain it. What prevents you from being active and interested is that you desire also to be quiet and withdrawn and solitary. What prevents people from attaining their desires is that they have so many that conflict one with an- other. I only simplify my desires. You can do that." "No," Velancourt said. "I can't do that." "You'll see." Velancourt still shook his head with a conviction that filled his face with sadness. "No," he said. "You can do it : I can't. I wish I could. But now I know that I couldn't do it. Still, it's been splen- did to have this talk. It's heartened me up. I don't think I've ever felt friendly to anybody before. I've never had ON THE STAIRCASE 149 a friend: I don't think I've felt I could trust anybody. I trust you, though." Amberley smiled, a little grimly. "I'm very safe," he said. "And you have no responsi- bility to me." Ill They went back to where the girls were; and presently Cissie and Velancourt prepared to go home. Amberley accompanied them to the end of the road, through a sud- denly-dense fog that made the streets thick with horrible slow-wreathing smokiness, which seemed to become abruptly thin and hesitant about the big electric arc lights. Susan made up the fire, and when he returned she was sitting close to it, with her skirt turned up so as to prevent it from scorching. She turned round rather nervously as her brother entered, presenting to him a flushed, scorched face that resembled more the face of a child than that of a girl of twenty. "Well, my lass!" said Amberley. "It's thick with fog, outside. There's quite a mist in here." "I think she's a poor little thing!" burst out Susan. "Very likely. And you're a very sage and reflective woman, Sue." "And I think he's a handsome simpleton." "In which again you reveal yourself a critic." "And I can't see you doing what he's done." "Wisdom upon wisdom! Though I'm not so absolutely sure of my own wisdom as all that. She's awfully pretty." "And I can't see myself doing what she's done." "Ah ! There, dear, you step a little outside the range of your own immediate knowledge." "I can't." Susan gave a sign of annoyance almost in excess of any annoyance she might have been supposed to feel. 150 ON THE STAIRCASE "You couldn't. But that's not really anything to go by. Wait !" "I shall never marry," said Susan. "You'll be married within three years," said Amberley. "Really, Joe ! When you get one of these awful sen- tentious moods on, I could kill you !" cried Susan, in an exasperated voice. "It's not as though it was genuine. You only pretend to be so sententious !" "Witness deposed to hearing accused threaten de- ceased " "Joe! You're horrible. If you know that, perhaps you'll describe my husband." "I won't — I wouldn't. He will deserve you. He will be a good man. Within three years." "Can you see your future, too?" She was just a little intrigued, ready to be played a further degree onward. "It's a little difficult, child : I'm not so easy to forecast as you are." "Oh !" It was incredulity itself. "Well, I hope you can see something nice ahead for those two poor young people." Amberley became serious, and sat on the hearthrug in front of the fire. "Well, dear: I hope so too. D'you know, I can see only one thing." But he would not tell her what that was. One does not gain a reputation for wisdom by the utterance of wise words ; but by claiming after the event to have anticipated it. This is wisdom itself. IV The two travellers were forced to climb, coughing, to the covered-in top of the electric tramcar. Through the mov- able window, which was almost closed, they could peer out at the yellow rolling fog, while they shivered with the damp ON THE STAIRCASE 151 cold and at the seeming clamminess of all the wood-and- iron-work around them. "Oo, breezy, isn't it!" Cissie cried, snuggling against Velancourt. He smiled back happily. "It's quite damp, too," he said. "D'you see that other tram all glistening with wet?" "I expect this one is, too. Ugh !" She shuddered. "You look happy, boy!" "I feel it," he said. "I like Amberley." "He's a nice boy. D'you like his sister? She's pretty." Her scrutiny was persistent, though surreptitious. "Very pretty." Velancourt was not thinking of Susan, and he assented in an absent way. "D'you like her?" "I didn't notice her much." "Oh, what a . . . You're getting quite careful ! Ah me !" But she was appeased : her eyes were not anxious any longer. She relapsed into her own thoughts : she had given Susan a long breathless history, spiced only with caution. The tram took them, clanging, almost to the end of their own street. Every now and then it stopped with an alarm- ing jerk, and sometimes the sliding sinister form of a motor omnibus would sway up against them, as though it must surely collide, to disappear silently into the fog like some ghostly vessel. When they passed a brilliantly lighted building they craned to see the people scattered in the range of its bilious radiance. Cissie gave occasional chuck- les of half-sincere excitement. Their walk from the tram was an elaborate affair; and she pretended to be more be- wildered than she really was, in order that she might bear him a little this way, and be borne a little that way, until, breathless and gasping, they reached their home. Without a fire, there was nothing for them but bed, be- cause the sitting-room was bitterly cold. So they lighted the gas in the bedroom, and peered about in the mist ; and Cissie wiped the Pearce and Plenty mirror with a cloth, so that she might be able to see herself. She stopped im- 152 ON THE STAIRCASE pulsively during her preparations, and came across to Vel- ancourt, touching his shoulder, and leaning against him. "Adrian," she said, in a half-choked voice; "you do love me, don't you?" "My dearest!" he protested, his arm round her. "Why should you doubt it?" "You don't say it." "A thousand times a day," he assured her. "I'm always thinking about you." "When you're with me, you're never as happy-looking as you were to-night." He hesitated, his face against her, his heart soft and full of the strangest loyal humility. But his words, so different from his feeling, came out as hard as stone, as bald as unacceptable truth. "You wouldn't understand, dear," he said, in the gentlest tone. It hurt her, so that she almost twisted herself away from him. "I should ! You seem to think I'm a fool !" "But there are things in you I don't understand," he pro- tested, helplessly. How was it possible to argue with her about a sad reality ? "What things ?" Velancourt thought a moment: many of them were things he could not tell her. "All sorts of things," he at last ventured. "But then, I'm a girl." She drew the word out linger- ingly, staunch in the belief that her sex is still the baffling one, that its members are ringed round with the incanta- tions of mystery. "Men never do understand girls." "Well, Amberley makes me think — in some curious in- explicable way." "Don't I?" "You make me feel. That's ever so much better !" He was only coaxing her, as she could see, and he was doing it improvisingly, without much conviction. ON THE STAIRCASE 153 "I'm jealous of him. I want all of you. I can't spare you." Velancourt frowned : his arm, about her, relaxed very slightly. She pressed fiercely back against him. "But do you only want all my attention?" he asked. "You know you've got my love." "I don't know anything. You're just like a stranger, sometimes." "And what is it you want?" In his bewilderment he sighed deeply, as though he were past patience. Cissie slipped to her knees, holding him passionately. She did not want all this talk. It all went nowhere. She wanted something he seemed never to give her — the sense of com- plete, absolute possessiveness. "I want you to read me poitry," she breathed. "Like you used to." "But not to listen to it?" Velancourt asked, with a sud- den bitter thought of that other day. "Can't you make me like it?" she asked, piteously. She only wanted to keep him, by whatever means. "I'll take you to Queen's Hall, and we'll hear the music; and be very happy. And we shall both get to understand one another. And you'll always be happy, and you'll get happier every day." Still he was coaxing her. "But will you be happy, too?" "I've got rather a miserable nature, Cissie. . . ." "You haven't. Silly rubbish. You're so sillified with your old books !" "Well, when the spring comes we'll go for wonderful walks, and see the country ; and when I'm rich we'll live in the country, and go up the hills, and look wide over the earth, and see all the beauties of the world." The fog was oozing in at the window: the mirror was misted over again : Cissie shivered. "That 'ud be nice," she said. "Be lovely !" Velancourt sobered, thinking of the distance that seemed to stretch between them and the Paradise he had conjured. 154 ON THE STAIRCASE "Amberley says I must get away from Robinsons," he said. Cissie stirred in his arms. "I always said that," she cried, in a sudden hard voice. "You never took any notice when I said it. You just shook your head. Now, because he says it, you've made up your mind. You're weak!" Velancourt turned his head away: into his eyes crept again that horrible apathy that betrayed him. "He says I'm not. I wish you wouldn't be so easily resentful and jealous, Cissie. It hurts me so much." "Oh, of course I'm sure to be wrong. I know you don't approve of anything I am or do !" she said, with bitter chagrin. "I don't know what your love's worth." Velancourt held her shoulders, and looked straight into her eyes ; and they were angry, hurt eyes which would have made even a stronger man swear false oaths. "Aren't you unfair!" he cried. "When I love you so. I can't believe it's my Cissie that's talking! And it's not true. It's not a bit true. You know it isn't. But I do wish you wouldn't be so expectant of a grievance. It's so un- necessary. I never meant to hurt. And I'm so happy, Cissie!" The dark angry eyes grew lighter, and grew pathetic, and grew childlike. Cissie's whole face underwent the changes from sullen resentment to tranquillity. Her quick breath quivered : she pressed her face against his cheek. "I'm a little beast !" she whispered. "I can't believe you love me as much as I love you ! That's what makes me . . . makes me so beastly! Oh, Adrian, I'm so tired and cross !" CHAPTER XVI THE PROMENADE CONCERT I IT was a quarter-to-eight; and the Queen's Hall was already well filled. In the upper circle a few vacant seats could be seen ; many places in the grand circle awaited the ticket-holders ; and the promenade itself was half crowded. The fountain splashed ; the big centre lights were but partially exerted ; over the platform the red shades looked warm and inviting. The effigies round the walls, as well as the mural decorations, were as horrible as ever. A packed little throng was stowed away in the seats behind the orchestra. The harpists were busy tuning their instru- ments. Cissie and Velancourt, Susan and Joseph Amber- ley, stood, with their peers, upon the floor of the hall. Around them people of all classes and sorts talked and laughed and smoked. There were musical amateurs, who proposed tracking the pianist through her concerto, and rustling the pages of their ostentatious scores, thus adding to the pleasure of those around. There were insipid girls ready to talk and laugh through the music ; and clerks with quick sophisticated eyes ready to level scrutiny upon such insipid girls. There were bearded men, suburban girls with a passionate desire for cheap music, and young couples who had chosen haphazard between the Queen's Hall and St. George's Hall, where Messrs. Maskelyne and Devant mys- tify all comers. Very few exquisites from the nearer West- ern suburbs were there: the Promenade Concerts are too 155 156 ON THE STAIRCASE democratic, too annually recurrent, too free from ama- teurishness to attract the dwellers in the polite districts. They are not a fashion: they are a custom. Not a con- vention, but an opportunity. In a very short time the lights went plopping up ; and the few straggling musicians were suddenly reinforced by a double — nay, a quadruple stream of men, bearing their in- struments. Soon such a din arose from the violins and 'cellos as to make Cissie give a little squeal and stop her ears. "It's awful !" she cried coquettishly to Amberley. Susan frowned, at which her brother laughed. Susan was fearful in case Cissie might be a talker; but then she might have remembered that Cissie would not dare to say anything during the music that evening. She was too excited. The crowd in the promenade had increased. They were hemmed in now, and Cissie and Susan had to stand on tip- toe to see anything at the front of the platform, where the decorative plants spread their broad arms. There were small bursts of applause as the best-known members of the orchestra appeared ; and a tremendous noise when the con- ductor came from the left-hand side of the platform and made a slow, bowing progress to his stand. "Who's he.?" demanded Cissie. "Hush !" said Susan, firm, fierce, and almost ready to be excited. They heard the sweet-voiced clock of St. George's Church chime eight. "Oo, prompt, isn't he!" Cissie said. The conductor looked across his shoulder at the audi- ence, and Amberley thought he could not fail to receive a bad impression of them as they stood there. Then the roar- ing of talk dropped to a murmur, and the murmur to one or two neighbourly expostulations (much resented) ; and then Velancourt felt as though this was the supreme experience of his life. Very firmly, the orchestra began Beethoven's Egmont overture. He listened, as did the lover in the poem, ON THE STAIRCASE 157 "with heart fit to break." It was wonderful to hear the great volume of musical noise swell and move and change, to hear the tiniest delicious fragments that seemed to play among the majestic major themes, to hear the body of sound, and these sweet airs, all forming an indisputable part of one grand whole. It moved him inexpressibly, so that he forgot his surroundings and his troubles and his hap- piness, in the poignancy of his sensations. Then, when the audience was loosed, it was Amberley's turn to point out how the conductor whipped round to bow in profound gravity — to bow before, and to right and left, and then, as it were, to the minor divisions of the compass — all a part of that tremendous grave paraphernalia of show with which the concert world is filled. He warned Velan- court to watch for that moment when, after a popular item, the orchestra itself must be thrown to the lions; and Sir Henry Wood must even more elaborately and charmingly accept no more than the merest fragment of the audience's gratitude for his own devoted labours. Velancourt listened, not quite relishing Amberley's pleasure in these things — not quite aware of the faculty of enjoying things, and laugh- ing at them with enjoyment and without arricre pensee, that Amberley so strikingly manifested. "But do you like the music?" he asked. "Profoundly. H'sh: they're beginning again." Velancourt never forgot that next experience — the sec- ond item on the programme. It spoke to him alone. Susan thought it charming; Cissie fidgeted; Amberley enjoyed it but thought it sentimental ; but to Velancourt it came like some wonderful revelation. It was the Dream Pantomime from Hansel and Gretel. II Although, later in the evening, they heard Liszt's First Pianoforte Concerto, which was so hard and brilliant that everybody craned idiotically to see the pianist's fingers, and 158 ON THE STAIRCASE so insistent that it reminded Amberley of something me- chanical, and although they had also the ballet music from Schubert's Rosamimde, and a Wagner overture, and other performances, both vocal and instrumental, that gave great satisfaction to the audience, nothing the orchestra played meant so much to Velancourt as the Dream Pantomime. To him, it was the expression, in music, of his own sweetest moods of solitary, formless dreaming. Vague it might be to others : to him it was the one exquisite flawless thing of the evening, flowing and singing with a dim, pearl-like beauty impossible to convey otherwise than through these magical violins. It was pure sensation, not sublime, nor intellectual, but as though it held beauty itself enmeshed and unresisting. He realised the difference between Amberley and himself by reference to that one thing. Amberley was intellectual : he was not. Amberley was not scholastic, nor academic; but he was none the less intellectual. His very pleasures must receive the approval of his intellect, before he could enjoy them. But Velancourt felt that his own case was otherwise. All that part of him which was quick was not intellectual : the dead part, the part that was sullen and frustrate, was indeed the pitiful hunger of a mind un- trained and only partially alive to its own needs. "If young hearts were not so clever, Oh, they would be young for ever: Think no more ; 'tis only thinking Lays lads underground" he remembered these words from "The Shropshire Lad"; and turned to Amberley with a sudden kindling of pity in his eye. He knew now why Amberley had confessed to fastidiousness. His own fastidiousness was physical, emo- tional ; Amberley's was intellectual. He struggled through his intuitions to the light of such perception. It made clear the wondering comparisons he had for these last few days been instituting between Amberley and himself. That was why he did not hear the orchestra playing "L'Apres Midi ON THE STAIRCASE 159 d'un Faune." He only knew that they played something subdued, with little bizarre motions in it that carried no impression to his mind. Not his to imagine a solitary figure sporting in the glade : his only to receive unconsciously, his mind busy with incongruous thoughts. He felt that he had escaped from a danger. Association with Amberley might make him an intellectual, inferior to Amberley, because less whole-hearted. By himself, he was free. Slowly his eyes fell from Amberley's face to the face of his wife, standing and jerking her head about, looking at the audi- ence, not listening to the music. Ill It was the interval ; and people were moving about. The Amberleys, who generally left at the interval, waited now because they thought Cissie would like the ballads which, with their inevitable encores, filled nearly the whole of the short second part. Many of those in the audience went out — either to go home or to stroll in the passages — and those who remained were able for the first time to "prom- enade." "You getting tired ?" Amberley asked. Susan was hold- ing his arm as a sort of prop, and Cissie had taken Velan- court's arm, so that she could lean against him and em- phasise to Susan the fact that Velancourt was her natural protector. Cissie, in fact, was inclined to do what Susan did, in case Susan thought she wasn't as good as she was. "Fine, thanks," Cissie said. Amberley delivered up to Susan some chocolates he had bought for her ; and Susan was in the act of sharing them with Cissie when she saw, wandering about among the other people, two figures she recognised. Should she draw attention to them, as the Velancourts were there? "Oh, there's Barbara, and . . . and ... her brother," said Susan's voice, while Susan herself was thinking about 160 ON THE STAIRCASE it. Susan often wondered why her voice did things like that. But it did, often. It made her feel, sometimes, that her voice was much younger than herself. It seemed so impulsive, whereas really she was much more reserved ; and sometimes the things her voice said were positively silly, as she recognised as soon as that busybody had spoken them. So here, her voice had been precipitate ; and there was nothing for it but to follow the weak, over-riding leader — like some greedy lady hidden from her hostess by a fern, who has to leave her fruit half eaten. But then the hostess would surely not be in fault? Or would she? Susan didn't know : very likely Joseph could answer that : he had an answer for everything. She was very sneering about him as she greeted Barbara and Ernest. Barbara came near Amberley with a curious sensation. She had not seen him since the evening at Highgate; and her feelings had been particularly busy whenever she thought of him. She almost dreaded the meeting which had come so obviously this evening. "How d'you do?" she said, and hastened on: "We're staying for the 'Coppelia' music at the beginning of the second half. It's awfully jolly music — both the waltz and the mazurka. . . ." Velancourt looked at Barbara. He had often seen her before, on the stairs at Great James Street; but he had never spoken to her. He thought he had never seen any- body so beautiful. Somehow she was so erect, and her face was so full of expression, of dignity, that he could not help admiring her. He noticed Ernest talking to Susan, and smiled at their enthusiasm; and then came back to Barbara . . . and to Cissie. "Adrian," Cissie whispered, tugging at his arm to bring back his wandering attention. "Couldn't we go over by the fountain ? I'm so warm." "In just a minute, dear," he said. "Why not now?" "Not while we're with Miss Gretton." ON THE STAIRCASE 161 "I don't see why." He wished passionately that Cissie did not seem so curi- ously insignificant beside Barbara and that she should not at this moment show that side of her nature — the peevish side — that he was beginning to dread. It shamed him to be conscious of the fact. He tried to put it out of his mind, but she kept on pulling his arm, until at last he suggested that they should all move nearer the fountain. So he and Cissie led the way, and the others followed at a slower speed. Barbara, left alone with Amberley, could not resist glancing at him, and thereupon steeled her heart. She had never known any young man so apparently impervious to all sense of her dignity. "I've been hoping to bring Susan to see you," he said. "But my people are so busy, that I've actually been taking work home, to finish there. And the Velancourts came the other evening." "They're not married," said Barbara, quickly. "Yes." She would not say anything more to him about that : she didn't know him well enough. But she did know him well enough, and she knew it, for all her jugglings. She knew him better than she would allow herself to believe. No- body now knew as well as Barbara knew that she felt weak before Amberley — weak and resentful of his power to make her feel weak. "You met Ernest in Hadley Woods," she observed. "Also young Harry." "Oh. He's so terribly talkative," she said, disdainfully. "He and I are rather good friends," Amberley warned her. Barbara laughed. "You have a great deal in common," she said. "Why, what can that be?" He seemed to have over- looked her rudeness, to have ignored it. "I'm afraid it was too casual a thing to say," Barbara explained, baulking him. "Did you like the pianist this evening? I thought she was very good, in a hard way." 162 ON THE STAIRCASE "If you care for that First Concerto — yes. But I don't." Amberley frowned at the recollection. "There are plenty of others I like much better. I like that one of Tschaikow- sky's — I forget what it's called. But most of them, except Beethoven's, get tiresome." "You're quite as oracular as Harry," Barbara admonished him. They had by this time overtaken the Velancourts. "Who's Harry?" asked Cissie. "My little brother," "A great friend of mine." "I should think he's nice," Cissie said. "Well, you must meet him," invited Barbara. "I think you were coming one Thursday, Mr. Velancourt? That was before you were married." Not a word now of opposition such as she had raised when the coming was first proposed. So entirely kind was her manner that Amberley glanced at her almost inquir- ingly. He glanced away again at once, however; and missed her retaliatory look, which was as implacable as ever. He thought it all rather amusing; but of course wherever amusingness is very quiet, hardly perceptible, and at all subtle, it very quickly becomes boring. He wasn't sure even how long it would remain amusing to himself. The orchestra was reassembling on the platform; and people were crowding nearer the front of the hall. IV That night, as they went home, Velancourt's head was full of sounds and sweet airs. He could recall no one musical phrase; but all that he had heard seemed present to him, as though it were being played at a distance. There was no melody, only harmony and counterpoint as many- hued as Wagner's own. He could remember a sort of vision of the hall — of innumerable faces, and dark coats, ON THE STAIRCASE 163 and white collars ; and he could see the orchestra grouped in an indistinct haze ; and Sir Henry Wood — not conduct- ing, but standing with his head bent and his right arm by his side. And Velancourt could recall all the emotions that he had received, here again, not in succession, but then not confused either: he recalled them as though they formed part of some symphony, which was never incoherent, but always the expression of that underworld of feeling which was the priceless treasure of his life. Especially clear, standing heightened by a sense of their marvel, were his feelings at the playing of the Dream Pantomime from Hansel and G ret el. . . . Oh, it had been an evening beyond others ! "Adrian, I'm so tired," said Cissie. "Did you enjoy yourself? We'll soon be home now." "Not much," she said. "The lady who sang was nice." "Yes, dear." He could remember Miss Gretton saying: "The zvomans awful, of course !" And there, Miss Gretton was another memory. He could not forget her face. It rose so distinctly before him that the sense of reality made him tingle with excitement. He tried to describe it to himself, and the face melted under his enumerative efforts. When he desisted it formed again before him, disquietingly, to be pored upon in memory, but not to be analysed. Somehow he wanted very strongly to be able to know why it was such a wonderful face. He smiled quite gaily in the interest of his pursuit. Well, he should see her again soon. She had invited them to go as soon as they were able. They would go very soon indeed. It was another wonderful thing to which they could look forward. Cissie drooped against him in the tram, fast asleep. CHAPTER XVII A NEW PHASE THE autumn grew deeper, and the evenings were swal- lowed up in the nights which followed now so close upon them. Quite early every afternoon lights began to appear in all the windows, and Amberley and Velancourt now left their offices long after darkness had set in. They never met Barbara Gretton now, for she was also subject to that strange law which makes all office labour greater in the dark months, and she arrived home almost invariably after the two young men had left. She typed the manu- scripts of authors who wrote in crabbed hands of incon- ceivable untidiness; she deciphered their evil script, and despised them, and at home said never a word of her in- conveniences, but showed quite clearly in what estimation she held authors. She would have to turn from the social conditions of Paraguay to a feeble comedy which never could be produced; and from transcribing old Latin from old books, and the senile annotations of a dotardly profes- sor, to the vacuities of a young novelist busily engaged in sweating out witty conversations that set her teeth on edge. She did not dare to make a mistake : her employers charged fifteen pence a thousand words, with the guarantee that the work should be done by erudite gentlewomen. So obviously there was no room for mistakes, whatever the weather, whatever Barbara's feelings, however early the electric lights should begin to swiggle in the draught between the 164 ON THE STAIRCASE 165 window and the door. Barbara, on the whole, was happy. The worst handwriting was at last to be read, and some of the ingenuity needed recoiled upon her in the shape of complacency. The feeblest manuscript underwent trans- formation in type, and seemed as though Barbara's contempt had straightened its back. And she felt so heroically and specially Barbara Gretton at the end of the day that the consciousness was worth all her toil. She forgot Amber- ley : she remembered only how splendid it was to be Bar- bara Gretton. Nobody but Amberley had ever seemed to question that splendour ; and at the end of each day Am- berley sank very far into the background under her disdain- ful disregard. Amused at her, indeed ! Helpless ! A stronger will ! She swept the phrases aside. It was only when she was really tired, in those moods of low mental vitality which are well known to professors of psychology, that the phrases crowded upon her. That was because they had been so cumulative, and so unexpected. They had been, in a way, so unerring, expressed with so much simple conviction, by people whom she regarded as her inferiors in spiritual pride, as well as in perception, that they could never be wholly forgotten. Singly, they could have been repelled ; jointly, especially as two of them belonged to the same hideous evening, when, somehow, she had been less confident than usual, they had combined to disturb her memory. Well, she really couldn't be bothered with wondering what Amberley actually thought of her. And yet, sometimes she would have given much to know. He seemed sure of himself, just as she was sure of herself. Was there a weakness in him that she had not discovered? Conceit was there, of course; and an accompanying ef- frontery. He was in that respect similar to some famous men whose vanity was a household word. But he was not famous. He was a beggarly solicitor's clerk — not even an articled clerk! If only his expression had not been so quietly sure, she would have scorned him ; but he seemed so unreachable that he drew her unwilling attention. Her 166 ON THE STAIRCASE mother liked him, her father admired him; Ernest seemed always to be going to see him. Why? Then there was young Harry, whose opinion did not matter, except that it was more vocal than that of the others. Susan idolised her brother. Why, again? Barbara never could get any satis- faction from such musings. It was certain in her mind that Amberley was a per- sonality: a girl like Amy Betters hated him; and it seemed impossible to be merely unmoved. She herself felt quite a strong dislike to him — a dislike that slid amazingly off into respect and an extraordinary interest in any speech of his which she happened not to hear. It was as though they were rivals. What for? She felt a rival's disdain and dread, a rival's need to be fully aware of his movements, a rival's jealousy. It was absurd — it was perfectly absurd. He was just an ordinary conceited young man. But if that was so, why all the feeling that he provoked? Her father admired him. Fancy anybody admiring such a man! If it had been just Ernest who admired him, that would have been simple, because everybody could imagine that Ernest was led by Amberley's greater assertiveness, or by the de- sire to please Susan. But then her mother was a stout defender, and her father was quite downright. He said : "I'm surprised at you, Babs, for being so splenetic !" What could she say in return? She had simply shrugged her shoulders, and turned the conversation by drawing atten- tion to mud on Harry's collar. That was a mean enough thing to do; but Harry had revealed her whole intention, and headed her back to Amberley. It was amazing that she could not escape from him ! Everywhere his praises resounded : Amy Betters, herself a conceited trivial crea- ture, was alone his detractor. Fancy being ranged with Amy Betters ! It made her uncomfortable. Amy Betters, with her shapeless clothes and that absurd knob of hair gathered at the nape of her neck, so meagre as to provoke Harry's ridicule. It was not pleasant to Barbara to have such an ally. Why couldn't she forget the man altogether ? ON THE STAIRCASE 167 That would be the best plan, if she could only follow it. But she could not ignore him, could not forget him: he was the cause of the only shock her pride had sustained for many years. It was not Amberley, but all that Amber- ley had occasioned, all that he stood for in her recent life, that envenomed her and made the thought of him the spectre to haunt her moments of relaxed energy. She hated him ! Horrible voices always corrected her : "You're afraid of him . . . afraid . . . Afraid!" She who had never been afraid of anything! Who faced the elderly lady who employed her ! Who never allowed Miss Devizes to rebuke her without instant retaliation ! It was madden- ing; it was as though he alone threatened her peace of mind. II Barbara could not see Amberley without a strong feel- ing; yet it was not mere aversion, but was joined to some strange fascination, such as the victim of a rattlesnake is supposed to feel. He made her quite stupidly young. She could not forget he was there. Even on this Thursday evening, when Adrian Velancourt and his wife were at the Grettons' for the first time, and when there were perhaps a dozen other people in the room, Barbara could not wholly forget that Amberley was present. Once, indeed, like any self-conscious girl in the Tube, she had looked quickly at him, only to wonder whether it was possible that his eyes had been as quickly averted. She tried to surprise him in the act of staring in an ill-bred way. Never could she succeed ! It made her uncomfortable again, with the thought that she had imagined that he took any interest in her. She found herself weakly wishing to show him that she was not as weak as he supposed. She found herself wish- ing that he should accept her at a true valuation instead of at that mysterious valuation of his own. She wanted to impress him. How weak she felt herself! How much 1 68 ON THE STAIRCASE like a common girl who wanted to impress everybody ! How much like Cissie Velancourt ! It was out ; and her first morbid thought was that he perhaps could have understood that she was making such a comparison, and that he was scorning her for such unworthy vanity. She looked stead- ily at Amberley, forcing herself to do it; and he presently smiled across at her in entire tranquillity, talking all the time to Adrian Velancourt, who sat constrainedly by his side. It was that look that drew her attention to Velancourt. It seemed that they were friends, and, with great unwilling- ness, she recognised that Amberley's friendship counted more with her than did Ernest's persistently agitated curi- osity about Velancourt. Ernest himself was there, half listening to the other two ; and she could tell that he was somehow not the equal of either. Ernest "hung," with an interest in everything, but in an undistinguished way, giv- ing no suggestion that all he absorbed flowed naturally into a great understanding. Amberley somehow did give the air of understanding. She felt that, if only her pride for one moment had encountered such an impulse, she might have explained her own irritation to Amberley and received his dispassionate consideration of such a state of affairs. That was the underlying thought that provoked her: it was the idea that he was both conceited and modest. She knew he was conceited ; but she most unwillingly was forced to admit that in repose he was inoffensive, that her anger with him was due to something in herself. Amberley was not — had never, since that one accidental "Barbara," attempted to be — familiar with her. If he had been, she would have been able to snub him ; but he was quite respectful, and in no way either pestered or withdrew from her. She felt that she was growing, through vanity, too interested in Mr. Amberley ; but she had, nevertheless, no power to dismiss the interest, troublesome though its continuance had become. Well, if Ernest faded before Amberley, so he did before Adrian Velancourt. Velancourt's pallor and his clear dark ON THE STAIRCASE 169 eyes gave her the same sense of quality as a picture by Ver- meer or Terborch. There was indeed quality in him, and, in the purely human aspect (opposed to that aesthetic judgment that distinguishes values without the colouring of any moral inference), he looked as though he might be one of those rare people whose power to suffer is not circumscribed by their own egotism. She felt, though of course she did not so clearly excogitate the feeling, that he could suffer pas- sionately. Even Amberley became, beside his friend, a little arid, for just that reason. Barbara could not imagine Amberley suffering intensely. In a flash of resentment she imagined that Amberley's conceit would make him almost impossible to hurt. And as she felt, rather than thought, that, she saw Ernest take Amberley's place ; and the hated one came across the room to her. She met his glance quite without embarrass- ment. "I thought you were talking to The Profession," he said. Barbara looked puzzled for a moment. "Oh," she answered. "Mr. Gremble's been talking to mother. They discuss plays together." "What a waste of time," he went on, conversationally. "I thought there were no plays fit to discuss." "Aren't there?" Her voice betrayed a sort of impudent desire to suggest indifference to his opinion, as well as a considered opposition to it. "There's the drama of life. . . . Still, that's a thing Mr. Gremble never gets near." "For that matter," Barbara said, deliberately, "nor does mother." Amberley sat down beside her, and looked at her hands as they lay in her lap. "I'm not going to commend your mother," he told Bar- bara. "She doesn't need it. But when I know half as much as your mother knows I shall feel as wise as Solomon." "I'm afraid your ambition's unworthily modest." "It's quite sincere," he told her. Barbara drew her 170 ON THE STAIRCASE breath. She felt quite extraordinarily conscious of him, of the fact that he was beside her. She could see the obscure gleam of his teeth as he smiled ; and she could almost have imagined an expression of liking in his eyes. Perhaps the wretched man, for some reason known only to himself, wanted this evening to curry favour? "It's delightful to hear one's relatives praised. But it's a little embarrassing, all the same," she said. "You see, I even run that risk in order to be true to my- self. Besides, I think very little of Mr. Gremble's critical gifts." "Pooh ! Mother remembers Robertson's plays with mar- vel. She dislikes Wilde and Shaw. She says they 'don't understand,' " cried Barbara, carried away by the desire to show that she was an up-to-date critic. "Her idea seems to be — when it's reduced to intelligible . . . jargon — that Shaw's humanitarianism's too logical, and that Wilde never had the least sympathy with human beings all his life, and in all his works." "Perhaps that's true," suggested Amberley, with guile. "About Robertson's understanding. He understood the human heart — the spectator's human heart, that likes to bask in its own warmth. I'm speaking, of course, from a purely aesthetic standpoint." "Perhaps you never saw a Robertson play?" "I've seen Trelawny of the Wells. Will that do in- stead?" "They're terribly sentimental and boring. They're form- less, and vapid, and horribly conventional. They're not real ; they're not witty, nor artistic." Barbara was intent only upon holding her own position. She was unaffectedly watching him to see the effect of her vehement words. Her expression was alert and eager, so that her face seemed to glow with a fine conviction. She was so full of health that she never looked heavy or life- less ; but when she was excited Barbara's colour came, and ON THE STAIRCASE 171 her eyes sparkled, and Amberley could only marvel at the wonder of her. "I'm not sure that Wilde and Shaw can bear all those tests," he said. "In fact, I don't quite gather from that what you want in a play. You can't go to School, and not be moved. Can you?" Barbara looked away, significantly. She had seen Robertson's plays in childhood, when it was only right that one should see them as one should read the Victorian novelists ; and her present attitude was strongly reinforced by a chagrined knowledge that she had cried over Robertson's plays with an abandoned enjoyment. "You can see an inferior Wilde play and be bored," Amberley went on, persuasively. "Wilde's dating already, in fact. As for Shaw " "Yes, well, as for Shaw?" queried the champion, entirely trapped by his poor sophistries. "I know that very con- ventional people overestimate Shaw's importance as a play- wright ; but he's a wit, and his plays are genuine entertain- ments. You know quite well that you're talking insin- cerely." She raked him with a scornful eye. "I should have expected you to show more sense of the theatre than a preference for Robertson. It's such tawdry sentimental- ism." She was almost vicious in denunciation. "I'm sure you've never bothered your head about my attitude," Amberley insinuated, artfully. She tapped her foot in annoyance. "It wouldn't be worth while. As for the drama itself, we'd better not discuss it. The drama's quite self-conscious enough as it is." Barbara realised that she had been unwisely animated and intimate, considering the contempt in which it was notorious that she held Amberley. "Of course, you're quite right," she said equably. But her eyes flashed steel. "We can hardly mend matters ; par- ticularly as you're so old-fashioned. I do agree that it's self-conscious, but then " "So are we all," he suggested. "I was afraid you were." i 7 2 ON THE STAIRCASE Amberley laughed gleefully, and to her chagrin Barbara found his laugh irresistibly infectious. They did not say any more for a moment, but both involuntarily looked at Amy Betters, who was talking to a rather dirty-looking young artist, and trying to outshout Mr. Gremble. Mr. Gremble was reciting "The Raven" to an audience of two, and he was not averse from letting the company hear of him. Cissie sat in a corner, with Susan and Mrs. Gretton, while Mr. Gretton was standing near, smoking, and looking down on the group as though Mrs. Gretton were almost the most remarkable person in the room. Miss Betters, in a green gown with white sleeves (as it seemed to Amber- ley's eye, but not to Barbara's), was flashing a smile at the dirty-looking artist, and talking in her high hard voice. Amberley thought the voice very far from being what used to be called "an agreeable rattle." "Where does your brother find all these wonderful peo- ple?" he asked in a friendly way. Barbara demurred at his tone of raillery. "I thought he 'found' you," she suggested. "But then I 'found' Susan for you," Amberley reminded her. "You think that wipes out the stain? Perhaps you're right." "I think you like Susan?" "Oh, very much." "Myself rather less?" There was quite a challenge in his voice, which made Barbara frown. She restrained an impulse to be extremely rude; and was only a very little unkind in her deserved retort. "I'm sure you'd rather have us like Susan," she said, drily. "Susan so easily wins friends. I only make critics, it seems." "You have mother," she reminded him. "I thought you admired her so much." ON THE STAIRCASE 173 "I value her good opinion. 'But a man's reach should exceed his grasp.' " ''Wasn't that what you complained of? Surely you're just quarrelling with truth, Mr. Amberley? There's always the consolation that the grapes are sour." "That I'll never believe," he said, with decision. "I didn't think you were such an idealist," objected Bar- bara. "I thought you prided yourself on being a realist, and seeing everything at its lowest valuation." "Oh," said Amberley, promptly. "Are you so very much interested?" "Not a bit," she protested, this time very rude indeed. When the words were out she was ashamed of herself ; but she could not now apologise or withdraw. He went on in a different tone. "I hope you'll speak to Velancourt this evening. He's too shy to talk without encouragement; but I think you'd like him and find him interesting. Only you'll have to over- come his shyness." "Oh. . . . Are you, like Ernest, a secret sentimentalist over your fellow-creatures?" Amberley smiled again at the attack. "No," he said. "Not that, either. And I don't know what Ernest may be, because he's never discussed it with me. I was speaking for your own good." "How very rude you are!" Quite brazenly she brought the accusation. "I'm not as rude to you as you are to me. I never try to be rude to you." Barbara was aghast. "Whatever do you mean?" she asked, with a quick con- sciousness that she was required positively to battle with this monster for her own liberty of conscience, as well as for her liberty of speech. "You're sometimes very rude to me, without any cause." Barbara frowned, and frowned again, trying to quell a glance that she knew to be both urgent and piercing — such i 7 4 ON THE STAIRCASE a glance as she had never received from him. Amberley's voice was as quiet as ever ; his manner unchanged. "I really don't know what you mean," she said, with a touch of sternness that made him tremble. "You do know ; and I think your own candour ought to make you admit it. You surely don't speak to anybody as you speak to me ; and if you do, you're doing your own sweetness of nature an injustice." At his tone Barbara was confused — not angry, because he was quite clearly serious. She was almost triumphant at finding him weak. But her voice, when she spoke, was less steady than she had hoped it would be. "I can't suppose it matters to you," she said, very low. "You always condescend to me." "Then is that it?" Indescribable relief sounded in his voice. He smiled as mockingly as ever. "Of course, it was never true." Her first horror had faded, for it was thus that Amber- ley gave her the unmistakable admission of his vital weak- ness. She had wondered if there was a weakness ; and behold it lay exposed to her cruel eye. Some fear was in him after all. He was not invulnerable. Even in her first perception of it she doubted; and looked swiftly at him. She saw his smile, and in that glance she lost her tremendous opportunity of condescending for once to a defeated foe. For in that glance she showed that she was interested and even eager for victory. He was back again in safety ; and again she had been the one to give ground, so that she became incensed. "You've always condescended to me," she said. "But it leaves me indifferent." She was afraid of seeing his smile deepen, even as she spoke. "Not wholly indifferent," he urged. "But you really do me an injustice. I think, of course, that you're an extraor- dinary impostor; but I've never for one moment under- valued you, or thought you anything less than wonderful." ON THE STAIRCASE 175 He was earnestly speaking with a slow candour which he hoped she would respect : he was not trying to insult her. "I don't think anything I may have said excuses that," Barbara said. She tried desperately not to show how deeply she was hurt. "You're really rather impertinent, Mr. Amberley." Even while she was speaking she realised that the little pathos in his voice had found an unmistakable echo in hers. It was as though he had sought to under- mine and riddle her implacable dislike, and as though she had unwillingly shown him that he had the power to move her. A slow red faintly coloured her cheeks at the recog- nition. Ill Although they talked no more, and although Barbara later in the evening had some conversation with both Vel- ancourt and his wife, she could not now forget that Amber- ley and she were open — was it enemies? If hostility to him counted, the feeling was certainly one of enmity; but she was too excited to think of it clearly. She knew only that the Amberleys stayed rather late, and that the Velancourts went early, owing to Cissie's overpowering sleepiness. She did not feel angry this evening at Amy Betters: Amy had become simply a characteristic nonentity, bubbling though she was with assertion about Morris Dancing and Futurism, Stravinsky, and Mahler, and Marinetti, and Claudel. Bar- bara ignored all the other visitors. They did not exist. Only this dreadful talk with Amberley hummed in her ears, more intimate, more candid, more disconcertingly outspoken than any previous talk. It was horribly clear to her that in some respect her behaviour had been revealed as con- temptible. She was full of anger with him ; but as full (it seemed, if that were not so palpably absurd a thing to imagine) of hatred for herself and her own weakness. To that choice collection of phrases, which rose nightmare-like between Amberley and herself, there was added one other : 176 ON THE STAIRCASE "I think, of course, that you're an extraordinary impostor!" Was it possible to go further in rudeness? Yes, but she herself had been bitterly rude . . . bitterly rude. Oh, but she had not been so shamefully, so indescribably cruel, as to say a thing like that. She felt cold at the thought of her own voice trembling and saying: "I can't suppose it mat- ters to you. . . . You always condescend to me." What must he think ? The tone and the words rang in her head like the piteous crying of a child, like the voice of pathetic shame. With clouded eyes she stood looking at Amberley saying good-bye to her mother and father. He still held her mother's hand. Her father was smiling, and had taken his pipe out of his mouth to say something. Susan was smiling up at Mr. Gretton, and Ernest was standing, almost with an air of proprietorship, by Susan's side. They seemed such a happy group — such an inept group of aimless vacuous nonentities — that Barbara clenched her trembling hands. Never had she felt so wretched, so much as though she had been abashed and insulted in public, as though her self-respect, her vanity, her pride, had all been wounded mortally. The pain grew greater each minute : she felt her lips pressed very close together, as she had always pressed them as a little girl when she had been going to cry. She could not imagine how she would be able to restrain her shamed angry tears until she should be alone in the room. Amberley turned, and came across to her, with his hand outstretched. "Good-bye, Miss Gretton. . . ." He tried to force her to show some feeling; but she held her head erect and met his eyes squarely. If there was any expression in her face other than a frozen calm it was contempt. He bent his head, and turned away; and Susan came to kiss a cold cheek and to feel cold lips upon her own face. They were out of the room, with Ernest and Mr. Gretton following them down the echoing stairs to the front door. Barbara and her mother were alone — Barbara white and frigid as ON THE STAIRCASE 177 a waxen lily. And Mrs. Gretton came to Barbara's chair, and put her arms round her child's neck. "Dearie," she said, in her little gentle voice, that some- times seemed fit only for the foolish trifling thoughts which were not worth telling. Barbara began to cry, pressing her face against her mother's breast, like a little girl. CHAPTER XVIII A PIECE OF CISSIE'S MIND CISSIE and Elsie and the baby were drawn up in the magenta chairs with their gaudy square decorations of green and yellow. The baby had a small indiarubber teat in its mouth — or in "her" mouth, as Elsie would have insisted upon your saying ; and its eyes were half closed in an inferior ecstasy. A thick woollen shawl was pinned be- fore with a safety-pin that had a great diamond-shaped piece of blue glass in it. The baby's head was covered with a soft dark down ; and it lay in Cissie's arms with its wax- like toes gathered into two small posies. Cissie could not sometimes help crushing the baby in her arms, and, under Elsie's half-complacent, half-jealous scrutiny, kissing the dark down with secret ferociousness. Cissie was speaking. "And so," she said, "I said to him: Well, Adrian, I said; it's all very well for you to say that, boy. . . . See, he doesn't want to get them. He says if we just had a bed and a table and a couple of chairs we should be as right as anything. Won't see it. I said — you know, I said you and Bert had gone to them, and would have paid it off in another eighteen months. He's got some idea that it's wrong, and that they come down on you — says they only wait till you can't pay an instalment, and then come and take everything away — after you've paid all that money." "Oo, he is silly. . . ." Elsie put in, and clucked her tongue. "You must have a home. . . ." 178 ON THE STAIRCASE 179 "He was angry when I said that about you and Bert. He gets white, you know. Stared at me, and said : Good gracious, don't you see that's just a reason for not doing it ! I said — I was rather sharp with him, because I wasn't going to have that always coming up — I said : What's the matter with Bert and Elsie ? You know ; he fidgeted, and opened his mouth. ... I was wild, too. I said : Aren't they good enough for you? Told him about Bert going to them and having a row with the manager. Adrian'd rather be cheated. He hates a fuss — thinks he's proud; but it's not pride, but only he's timid. If I speak sharply to him, he looks pious and gets sulky. Well, I'm not going to have it. If he wants to get away from old mother Robbis's rooms, and take this flat, we've got to have some furniture, like it or not. And there's no reason why we shouldn't do it that way. You did it. You didn't miss the instalments. He's getting quite as much as Bert was when you married ; and yet he says he doesn't want to 'incur the liability.' I told him : Well, boy, if you're content with bare walls, I'm not. Why, I'd rather stay where we are, cos the place is fur- nished. Only you want a home : it's nice to feel you're shut off. Mrs. Robbis drinks. Sometimes she goes feeling down the banisters till my heart's in my mouth . . ." "He's peculiar," Elsie said. "He's not like " "No, I know he's not like Bert . . ." There was a pause: Cissie thought him so much better than Bert, and Elsie's precautionary admiration for Bert was very quickly aroused, simply because it was founded upon a species of blind and dreadful jealousy. She sat drooping over Cissie, with her brow puckered. "Took me out to a grand party the other night — no sing- ing or dancing or anything. Everybody just talked. It was stupid. That little Susan Amberley was there. I don't like her much — she's always laughing. She's silly. Her brother's nice." Cissie rocked the baby, and smoothed away a ruck of clothing at its throat. "Precious little pet," she murmured. 180 ON THE STAIRCASE "What's he like?" Elsie was only vaguely interested; but she made a point of having these things settled. "Oh, I don't know. He's dark, and — you know, dark and tall. Rather good-looking. I don't altogether like him. He's sneery . . . not sneery, but makes people laugh and you don't know why. He's nice to me — says I'm pretty. Ah me !" "So you are!" "So you say. . . . Adrian never says it. Never goes to see mother. He is funny : I can't make him out sometimes. He comes home and acts as if I wasn't there. Sits in a chair, and stares. I say to him: What's the matter, boy? Give me the fair old jumps, you do. He says: Nothing; and then he wakes up." "Is he ... is he, you know, quite . . ." Elsie was very diffident . . . "quite right?" "It's only his way." Cissie felt rather older than Elsie. "I just let him alone as a rule. Give him a book and he'll be quiet for hours. I tried some of them. Not for me ! Why, I'd rather read Bert's papers." "Oo, they are awful, Cis. There's one " Elsie could not bring herself to describe it, and she couldn't find the paper, so Cissie had to go jokeless. "Never mind. I don't know why you read them," she said. "I don't ; but I saw that one. . . . You can't help looking at them." "I wonder why. I'd like to know why you do all sorts of things." "What things?" "Well — get married, for one." "Well, you can't go on staying at home, girl. Nobody wants you there." "Oh, it's better than that." Cissie sighed. Elsie had got her Bert; and she knew his ways. But Cissie felt that Adrian was a larger problem. "You like Adrian, don't you? And he's fond of you?" ON THE STAIRCASE 181 "Yes, of course, he's fond of me. What a girl you are— always thinking he . . . Oo, goodness, I wouldn't dream of going back to mother! Not likely!" "You are a funny girl ! Not married a month, and you're talking like that." "Well, wouldn't you have? Only you hadn't got any- body to say it to — except mother." "Never !" Elsie could say it with a clear conscience : she had forgotten. Of course, the excitement had died away gradually. "Wait till you have a baby !" Cissie squeezed Elsie's baby tightly. She understood the truth of that. "No; but what I mean is . . . Adrian's so ... oh, I don't know !" Cissie could not explain to Elsie. She couldn't bring her- self even to admit her real feelings; she was unpractised in the expression of her emotions ; and in addition to that, although she might talk overmuch and "give away" a great deal to Elsie, she could never dream of expressing the naked truth of her mind. To nobody could she do that. II "Well, this won't do !" said Cissie. "I must go home and get my boy's tea." "Oo, you spoil him!" Elsie cried. "When I go to mother's I leave Bert something cold." "You may do noiv," said Cissie, practically. "I bet you didn't a year ago." "No; but he was always wanting me at home then." "Isn't he now?" Elsie shook her head. "Course, he likes me to be here. But he says to me, T don't like you to be always at it'." "I know. I don't know what Adrian would do if I wasn't at home. He'd never think of looking in the cup- board for himself." 182 ON. THE STAIRCASE "Wouldn't he? Different to Bert. When Bert's finished he often looks in the cupboard. I sometimes put a cake in there for him to find. He likes that. He slaps me — not hard, you know. He says: 'Tryin' to hide it, were you !' He is a boy for cake !" "D'you make it yourself?" "Oo, no. I haven't got time." Cissie, with 1 a curled lip, remembered the pale speckled bought cake she had sometimes seen. "I'm going to make Adrian a pudding to-night," she said, with a superior air, born of contempt for the cake. Elsie inclined her head with wide-open eyes of stimulated interest and surprise. "Shouldn't have thought he'd a liked that sort of thing," she said. "Cakes and puddings. I should have thought he wanted wafers and cream cheese, and an egg in his tea. Looks so delicate, as if he wanted building up. Not like Bert!" Cissie sighed again at the inevitable comparison. She had often to bully Adrian by asking if he'd liked his food; and he only said "It was very nice" under compulsion. He really didn't seem to notice what he ate. "Oh, he's awfully fond of it," she lied. "Says I'm a splendid cook. Well, I ought to be, cooking so long at home. Mother misses me, I expect. And father, too." "Course, mother always says that now she can do things as she wants them done." "Oh, she is a beast !" "Cissie!" Elsie was very shocked at such an undaugh- terly sentiment. "I think she ought to have pins-and-needles in her tongue every time she says a thing like that. I do, really." "Tk tk tk. There! Oo, and I've never put on Bert's meat for his supper!" "I thought you never bothered about Bert!" jeered Cis- sie, with a keen light in her eye. "And there's that fire going out. . . . Oh, did she ! She ON THE STAIRCASE 183 wants her mummy!" The baby had begun to cough and splutter over a misdirected breath; so Elsie took her and went walking up and down the room, while Cissie put some coal on the fire and went to fetch her coat and hat. The two sisters kissed with lukewarm affection, and parted. Cissie went out of the house with her head erect, thinking with a new contempt of the Bert Tebbers' menage. Adrian and she were ever so much better than that! Ill Nevertheless Cissie walked soberly home, and when she had made her pudding and when it was in the pot on the fire, she sat down feeling a little tearful. It was all very well to say that she and Adrian were better, but she was really not quite happy about him. She was resentful at her own failures, resentful at his ; and she could not quite understand the reason of his occasional fits of depression. Only a sort of pride sustained her at times, a determination to win through her difficulties. But, even in her resentments, she could not fail to realise that, if the Promenade Concert and the party were fair samples, her tastes in entertainment and Adrian's were very different. And she resented most of all his endeavours after patience with her shortcomings. It made her savage that he should have to be patient. Why couldn't he be more like other men ? Why should he always suppose the fault to be hers ? Sometimes she knew she said something that hurt him ; but he never told her what it was ! If he had told her, she omitted to think, she would have been equally angry: that was an outside thought, which did not enter into the case. When she was savage, she shook with anger. She'd got him : he was hers : she must keep him. Yet hardly a day was without its misunderstanding — some of them trivial, but all adding a little to the bitterness of her occasional mood of reflectiveness. 1 84 ON THE STAIRCASE Supposing — only supposing, Adrian should really get to know that . . . She could not face such a definite thought of the failure of love. Supposing it should happen that — well, that Adrian should, for example, be right about the difficulty of getting a better situation. Supposing they should move to the Hampstead flat, as he wanted to, and that they should get fifty pounds' worth of furniture on the hire-purchase system as she wanted to : and supposing he were to be out of a situation. She could not say, as a more sentimental girl would have said, that they would still have their love. Cissie knew too much about poverty to say that. She really dreaded it : she knew that poverty — abject poverty — breaks such love as hers as nothing else in the world does. It breaks such love because it breaks self-respect. She dreaded poverty. She must not let Adrian drift into anything that threatened such a result. Unfaithfulness, a man's unfaithfulness, would never break up such a home as quickly as honest degraded hopeless pov- erty would do. Poverty, with no money, and no means of getting money, would send Adrian to the wall. She knew it. There was still that thought that she shirked. Suppos- ing Adrian drifted away from her, and found she didn't like the things he liked, and that he hated the things she prized. Supposing he grew to think of her as always at home, an unwelcome and unwelcoming wife; and began to think of some one of these other swell girls that he had met since their marriage — Susan Amberley, for instance, or . . . that beast of a girl at the Concert and the party, with her fine lady's airs of dignity, and her contempt for people who were every bit as good as herself . . . What would happen then? Cissie bent lower, and swallowed quickly, and put her handkerchief to her burning eyes. It was as though she had opened the forbidden door into her treasured and guarded bitterness. Supposing Adrian should ever find out the frightful se- cret — that he didn't love her, and never had loved her? CHAPTER XIX POISON I THE Velancourts took the unfurnished flat at Hamp- stead. They also bought fifty pounds' worth of new furniture on the hire-purchase system, and it came and stood with uncomfortable sparseness in their new rooms, shining with varnish, and looking as brittle as glass. They had one wooden arm-chair and one upholstered one that wrinkled and flattened after being used for the first week. They had a shiny wooden bedstead, and six shiny wooden chairs, and a plain table, and a combined dressing-table and washstand, and some pictures, and a mirror, and a steel fender which it delighted Cissie's heart to keep burnished as bright as silver. And in the new flat, with its sitting- room, and bedroom, and kitchen-scullery, they were as snug as it was possible to be. The books, as Adrian pointed out, were furnishing in themselves : they stood — about fifty of them — like a regiment of recruits, tall and short, bright and dull, red and brown and blue and green, rich in prom- ise ; but to Adrian alone. Also, Velancourt began to write after situations which he saw announced as vacant in newspaper advertisements. One evening he began to write an essay on Keats, under Cissie's partly-deprecating, partly-wondering contemplation. She saw him with paper and pen and ink and book, and saw words appear on the paper; and when she could see that he was not copying anything, but making it up out of 185 186 ON THE STAIRCASE his own head, she felt awestruck and nervous. If he was going to be like this, she thought, and make up things, he would begin to despise her. Of course, it would be rub- bish ; but . . . She began to dislike his paper and his books. They were things behind which he was entrench- ing himself. Books were still, as they had been, the enemy. She would have liked to burn them all — nasty old things ! What was the good of books, of poetry? If it was some- thing he was learning, it would have been more tolerable. If he had been learning carpentry, which was useful, or even some such useless hobby as fretwork, she would have recognised it as at least an attempt in the right direction. It would at any rate have been manual labour. But to make up a lot of soulful rubbish about a lot more soulful rubbish — what was the need of it? She would hear him. whispering to himself, in a sort of trance : " 'Thou still unravished bride of quietness, Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, Sylvan historian, who canst thus express . . .' " as though he were drinking wine, or seeing angels, or smok- ing opium. . . . When the essay came back from the magazines to which it was sent, Cissie could not repress a feeling of triumph. She had known how it would be. You had to be very clever to have things printed, and Adrian wasn't clever. She knew he wasn't clever. Nobody you knew was ever really clever : you said people were clever, but only with condescension. You didn't really believe it. When she had looked at Adrian's essay she had been just a little afraid that he was clever, and jealous of the essay written in such a beautiful handwriting. "It's nicely written," she had said. "But you haven't read it," Adrian had said. "Oh, I meant the writing" she had told him. She had known it was only wasting time — and stamps. She had done her utmost to discourage him from writing again, or sending the essay out. She couldn't understand why it was that her attitude ON THE STAIRCASE 187 — which was all for his good — should make him angry. He might have known that it was no use for him to think he could write like one of his blessed old books. "Aren't there enough books in the world already, boy?" she asked him. Adrian, in silent distress, took the essay to Amberley; with his fierce heart like lead. He so strongly agreed with her sentiment, and yet his pride was so much involved in this matter. He did not think to tell her that books were babies, which might have startled awake some sympathies in her mind. Amberley gave him good, but unacceptable advice. He took down A. C. Bradley's Oxford Lectures on Poetry, and showed Velancourt that the essay on Keats in that book made his own look silly. He showed him that it was not enough to be excited by the sensuous beauty of Keats's poetry, and that to write even intelligent criticism of any- thing, it was necessary to have at least some rough code of first principles. He lent him Lessing's Laocoon, and Keats's letters, emphasising the fact that, by Poe's theory, Keats was analytical as only the truly imaginative could be. "He was a critic," Amberley said. "But he had poetic invention. People confuse poetic invention with imagina- tion. Imagination is simply the faculty of intense sym- pathy: it's not creative, but interpretative. It's just this lack of first principles that makes newspaper critics so vacil- lating. They'll tell you some conventional muck's full of imagination because the man dashes from the Queen of Sheba to fireflies, and then into the story of Queen Lollipop and the Dustman's Beard ... all that tripe. You've only to be unreal enough to be called imaginative. But that's fancy, ingenuity, inventiveness, lunacy — not their blessed imagination. When somebody imagines something so con- vincingly that they believe it, they call him a photographer. Ungrateful dogs !" He thus restored Velancourt's equanimity by taking his mind off himself. Velancourt went home by the road along 188 ON THE STAIRCASE the top of Hampstead Heath, with the treasureable books under his arm, and his head among the bright stars. And as Cissie had gone to bed, lonely and miserable, he sat up and began to read Keats's letters, than which, of course, there is no more delightful occupation. When his f sver for Keats grew into an enthusiasm for Keats associations, and when he went often to see the relics at West Hampstead, and wandered about among the places that Keats had known, Cissie began to hate Keats, and to fear the influence of Joseph Amberley. She thought roughly about them, and sometimes knocked books on to the floor, in a sort of fluster of exasperation. And after that she would begin to cry to herself, saying, "I won't stand it !" until she grew calmer, and dried her cheeks and lashes with a ball of handkerchief held in unruly trembling hands. Then she called herself a fool for her pains. She was very lonely, with very little work to do, and no friends. Adrian's friends somehow were not her friends. They were quite pleasant to her, as she felt when she was with them; but afterwards she was conscious of some difference, as though they shrank ever so little at her attempts to show that she was their equal. "I'm just as good as they are," she told herself queru- lously. "Every bit!" II Velancourt tried to grasp his own shortcomings ; but that only plunged him deeper in misery, as though he might have committed the sin against the Holy Ghost. He began to have dreadful moments of poignant pity for Cissie, to wish to abase himself before her. He could not find in his books more than passing delight : he read them under her eye, and became almost furtive in producing them. And Cissie, dreading a long silent evening, wanting only the as- surance of his love for her— blindly and angrily feeling that he wantonly withheld it, although the knowledge that ON THE STAIRCASE 189 she was wrong was as salt to the wounds of resentment — looked askance, and sometimes uttered strangled reproaches that still further froze his unwilling reserve. He put away his Keats essay, more than ever conscious that he was not fit to write ; and he answered more advertisements, and was discouraged afresh by the absence of replies from the ad- vertisers. He went to Amberley for solace, but could not open his heart, because loyalty to Cissie was his most con- stant and repressive thought; and so Amberley's long and humorous harangues were effective only while the two were together, and were swallowed on his return journey by the mere sense of contrast between the happy home he had left and the home of misunderstanding to which his steps were directed. And Cissie was not one to suffer in silence, but she could not say what she felt, and was only success- ful in appearing disagreeable, however bitterly she might reproach herself immediately after provoking some such useless and trivial disunion of mood. It was extraordinary that Adrian never doubted his love for Cissie, and that she never lost his admiration. He might sometimes feel for her an emotion that approached hatred ; but he never ceased to revere her. She was his wife, inevitable, full of power to awaken in him strange dreads, and angers, and dreadful sensations of repulsion ; but her mood was always impor- tant to him, and he desired her happiness above all things, above all thought of his own happiness. He was puzzled, troubled, gloomy, thoughtful, even vehement; but she dom- inated his outlook. He took her for granted as the greatest thing in his daily life. He did not dare to tell her his thoughts about love : she somehow belonged to a quite dif- ferent range of sensations. She would lie passive in his arms during long periods of timeless silence, like a baby at the breast, consumed in utter sensation, thoughtless and without emotion. And Velancourt's mind would remain at some insoluble difficulty, and his brow would pucker, and his eyelids droop while he sat thus enchained in oblivion. They were not dreams he then dreamed; only a complete 190 ON THE STAIRCASE paralysis of stillness had crept upon him, and even his senses were lulled into a sort of droning lethargy, so that he swayed very gently, as trees seemed sometimes to sway before him on bright windless days when his eyes had fixed in a tranced reverie and the low murmur of the empty coun- tryside was in his ears like fairy music, wistful and tone- less. There was no semblance of joy in his days, no hint of that innocent sparkle of nonsense that he found at the Am- berleys'. He awoke from such trances as he might have awakened from too-heavy sleep, with a sense of stale drowsiness, a feeling of shivering regret for old days of crystal dreaming, when his delight in the world was that of one who was beyond the world, in a dim realm of secret and incommunicable beauty. Ill Once or twice Velancourt saw Barbara in the street. He experienced a thrill of rare and quite exquisite pleasure, because she so eminently pleased his eye. Whenever he had seen her the after recollection was strangely vivid, a something distinct. She was like one of Amberley's facts, but more pleasant. She had, to Velancourt, all the objec- tive reality of a fact, without a fact's unwelcome air of in- trusion. It was as though she had been the central point of one of Mr. Ruskin's famous examples of chiaroscuro. As Velancourt walked along, he was aware of her as some- thing decisive. He began in a wayward manner to think of her, to try to account for this unfailing sensation, and to create more successfully than at first he had been able to do a credible mental picture of her. He knew that she dressed very simply : in contrast with Cissie she seemed extraordinarily perfect, dressed, as it were, with entire suitability. Often his thoughts went away into other things while that business was under survey, but it re- mained an insoluble problem in his mind. There was just ON THE STAIRCASE 191 "something" about her. His thoughts of her were child- like, and innocent ; she was still very distant from him, but unexpectedly real. That was how he came to make a curious blunder, and a disquieting discovery. It happened that one evening Cis- sie was mending a blouse, the buttonholes of which did not seem any longer to answer the purpose for which they were designed. It was a warm blouse, of a dark greyish green ; but in it was a very unsatisfying pattern of light grey, that climbed every two or three inches by a laboured route from the waist to the neck. The pattern was very plain (as one says of unbecomingly but expensively dressed members of noble families, whose portraits shower from the pages of illustrated papers) ; but it was very blurred, so that the eye was both affronted and puzzled by it. The curls and mountings were as irrational as the flitting shapes that strained eyes see after a prolonged bright glare; but they were always there, so that they had the morbid fascination of jiggling raindrops upon the window of a railway car- riage. Velancourt tracked them up and down in an increas- ing stupor. He longed to tear his eyes away, and to forget them ; but he always found himself sliding back into a pro- longed and unwilling regard. His observation grew at length so remarkable that Cissie, having first glanced down herself for some explanation of it, made feeble protest. "What you staring at?" she demanded. "Look at me like that!" She shivered. Although she wanted him to look at her, she could see that his expression was the one she feared, an absorbed emptiness that made her fear for his sanity. "I beg pardon," he said. "I feel such an extraordinary dislike for that thing." Cissie's face fell. It was a great shock to her. "What's the matter with it ?" she cried, sharply, knowing somehow that it was the wrong tone. "Don't you see : it's nothing. It doesn't mean anything. i 9 2 ON THE STAIRCASE It's not really there at all — it hasn't got any outline, or any form. It makes me shudder; it's as sickly as putty." "Adrian!" A dreadful fear of his sanity shook her. "Lost your wits, you have. Oh, do move, and don't look at it. . . . Gives me the shivers when you talk like that." "I'm quite sane. Don't you hate it yourself?" "I like it. It's nice. Like putty, indeed !" She was con- scious of watering eyes and a sense of hopeless chagrin. She had chosen the blouse as very pretty; it was a sort of flannelette, and very warm and comfortable; and if Adrian didn't like her clothes — what zvas she to do? Velancourt turned his eyes away, and she went on sewing the button- holes, and thinking over his speech. A tear wandered out of one eye, and ran down her nose, splashing suddenly on the blouse. It broke her nerve, so that she suddenly put the work on the table, and her arms on it, and her head in her arms. "Cissie !" Velancourt cried, becoming aware of this so quiet action through the sense of unhappy silence that fell upon the room, like a hush of dread. He left his chair, and came to her side, holding her, but not so passionately as to make her resistance unavailing. He waited ; and she was exasperated afresh by his inability to override her mood of grizzling misery. "Everything I do's wrong," she persisted, and her voice was still muffled by the offending blouse. "Everything!" She pushed him away, and stood up, looking across the room with her head averted. "Oh what shall I do ! What shall I do !" Velancourt for once lost his temper passionately. "Whatever you do," he said fiercely; "don't be his- trionic !" "Everything I do's wrong!" she wailed. "I can't do anything right." They did not look at each other; they stood as though they could never again bear to look at each other — as though there could never be enemies more bitter. There ON THE STAIRCASE 193 was a moment's perceptible silence, until upon a sudden impulse of reaction Velancourt's anger faded to remorse and pity. He looked down at the floor with an air of puz- zled shame, as a sleep-walker might have looked. "Cissie, dear. . . . I'm sorry. I don't know why you're angry. I try to like what you like — really I do. It just happens that — perhaps it's my love, or that I'm stupid — but I was worried by that thing. . . . You know how you're worried by a fly's buzzing, or a feeling of deafness. Won't you forgive me?" "No." She was relenting, slowly and with a gradually softening mood. "You were beastly." "You know I like simple colours. It's only a taste, I know. I see Miss Gretton sometimes, and she always seems to wear some plain brown or ." Cissie made a sound that was almost a scream. She turned upon him with her cheeks a deep horrible red, and her eyes glittering. "Miss Gretton !" she gasped, in a smothered voice. "You dare talk ... Of course I'm not as good as she is. I'm only . . ." She was almost incoherent with a terrible fury. "I'm only your wife. You don't seem to think she has her clothes tailor-made. You don't think of that. I'm only your wife. I can stay at home here, drudging .... yes, drudging for you ; while you see Miss Gretton in her tailor- made dresses ! As if I didn't know ! I've seen how you looked at her ! Miss Gretton, indeed !" Velancourt came nearer. He was white, but he was not at all angry, only ashamed. "I expect I was an idiot to mention anybody else," he said. "But you oughtn't to be so ridiculous, Cissie. I know you're brave, and it makes me feel horrible to think of your having to mend up old things when I ought to be able to get you new ones. Dear . . ." Cissie's breath was still short and painful, and her cheeks were as flushed; but she was no longer mad with anger. As he came nearer she turned and held out her hands, and 194 ON THE STAIRCASE cried with her face against his. The jealous fury was gone in a moment ; and she was afraid, like a child that has for one instant defied its mother. A little petting, and she drew away from him. In a moment she took up the blouse — Velancourt almost expected her to throw it on the fire, or hide it — and began mechanically to go on with the button- holes. He could hear her soft sobbing breath still catch- ing, and her face looked pinched and miserable. She looked so helpless, so pretty in spite of tears, that his heart went out to her in humblest compassion. He put an arm round her shoulders. "And one day I'll be able to get you all the fine clothes you want," he said. "When ?" she asked, in a dry voice. Velancourt flushed a little, and sat down again. "It wouldn't take much," he said, soberly; and fell to musing. Thereafter, they avoided meeting each other's eyes, and at the end of the evening Cissie's good-night kiss was lin- gering and contrite. "I'm a toad," she whispered. "A little devil, I am. . . . I'm so sick of myself." "My sweet," said Velancourt, holding her. But she said a thing that had stayed in his mind. She had said "I've seen how you looked at her." How horrible that she should be able even to think of that. She had been bitter with anger ; but even so the idea was as ugly as sus- picion. It was so inexpressibly untrue. It was so unbe- lievable. Both Cissie and Velancourt remembered those words, and strove to forget them, to wish them unsaid. Neither ever forgot them: they were bitten deep. But they were untrue, until then. CHAPTER XX THE AMBERLEYS RECEIVE AMBERLEY and his sister Susan were drawn up be- fore the fire. Their mother was in her room, away from the sound of their voices, reading a book by Mrs. Henry Wood, who was her favourite author. Susan was looking into the fire, but she was leaning pleasantly back in her chair, with a faint smile of happiness upon her face. She had done her hair in a new way, rather tightly, with a little curled plait on the top of her head, which revealed the very charming carriage of her head, and made her look even younger than usual. Susan was very fair and very slight, and she had a small sedate way of emphasising her prettiness that made Amberley as much aware of it as he would have been if she had not been his sister. Amberley lay in another chair, very gently sending tiny puffs of smoke from the bowl of his pipe. In contrast with Susan he looked almost swarthy, and a tremendous length — about seven feet. But when Susan's eyes were not fixed sol- emnly upon the red fire, they turned to him with a soft warmth of affection that she never tried to disguise. The room, darkly papered, and sometimes shining with the dull gleam of pewter or with the light's reflection upon a bowl of autumn flowers, was restful in a shadowy stillness of undisturbed peace. Neither Susan nor Joseph had spoken for a long time; they both appreciated the quietness and the restful room, because Mrs. Amberley was not there to 195 196 ON THE STAIRCASE breathe rather heavily, and even to whisper words from the book she was reading, as she sometimes permitted herself to do if the room were silent. When she whispered, Susan thought of her as a Sybil; when she breathed aloud Am- berley thought of her as rather an amiable old nuisance. So they were glad that Mrs. Henry Wood should be their personal benefactor. Susan had once thought that Mrs. Henry Wood might be rather a good novelist, owing to the resemblance between her name and that of Susan's favour- ite conductor; until Joseph, to whom in her questioning perplexity she appealed, was able to explain that Mrs. Henry Wood was a deceased writer who was a great com- fort to Mrs. Amberley. After that, Susan had no further interest in Mrs. Wood, and classed her with the authors of The Lamplighter and The Wide Wide World, with which books Mrs. Amberley 's earlier years had been solaced. Both of them knew quite well that Susan ought to have gone to a Suffrage Meeting in the neighbourhood ; but she was grown rather indifferent to the political wrongs of her sex, and, besides, had disagreed with a lady who had ven- tured to say that Amberley was no better than he should be. Susan's crammed knowledge of male vices was so very in- nocent, and her loyalty to Joseph (and indeed her knowl- edge of his complete decorum) was so great, that she had disagreed vehemently with Joseph's detractor. It was one thing to learn that men were ridden with vile diseases ; it was quite another to be brought up against any personal contact with things so unbelievable. Joseph had told her that the White Slave Traffic fuss was without foundation ; and had shown her a masterly article by Mrs. Billington- Greig (who was one of the few prominent Suffrage work- ers to receive his respect), which amply supported his sug- gestion. Therefore, Susan had rather cooled off, and while she was strongly convinced in theory she had not quite the energy to continue actively practising the belief she held. She sank supine upon the foundations of home. Home was good. That was why she was not at the local Suf- ON THE STAIRCASE 197 frage meeting: the Suffrage lady had been too eager, and had trodden upon her own foot. There was perhaps just one other small reason for Susan's backsliding, which was that she was no longer so personally discontented as she had been. She looked round upon mankind with a vague pleased benignity that made Amberley squirm with secret affectionate laughter. Amberley felt it was almost objec- tionable that he should so easily be able to understand her sensations better than she understood them herself. "It wasn't to-night Ernest Gretton said he would come, was it?" he asked. Susan was intent upon the fire. "Was it?" she asked, doubtfully. "I almost think it was to-morrow." He grunted, and went on with his pipe, with his eyes half closed, basking, as it were, in his own cool apprecia- tion of the spectacle of life. He very greatly enjoyed the spectacle of life, which had an engrossing interest and in- finite variety. He disliked excitement very much; and he seemed to see before him only a series of things to be done and to be seen, to be felt and to be admired — nothing, ap- parently, in the active sense, to be suffered. "When I was there on Sunday," Susan went on, after a long pause, "Ernest said we might go to see that new play at the Royalty; Barbara said she'd go. Ernest said did I think you wanted to see it." "And what did Barbara say to that?" asked Amberley, suavely. "She said she wouldn't be able to go this week or next, and that she'd thought of going with a girl they know, called Toddles, or Wodgett, or something." "She's a determined minx." "Isn't she! But what did you mean, Joe?" Susan's eye was upon him. "It doesn't seem to follow on about the theatre. She really seemed to have made some arrange- ment. I don't see any reason why she should invent a rea- 198 ON THE STAIRCASE son of that sort. It isn't as though you were a bore, or a stick, or anything else that's tiresome." "Well, of course, you're prejudiced in my favour," Am- berley said. "But we won't talk any more about that, be- cause I've just actively remembered that you ought to have gone to a Suffrage meeting to-night." "But, Joe, why shouldn't Barbara like you? She never comes up, and never speaks about you." "Perhaps it's a long journey and she hasn't anything to say," teased Amberley. "But let us discuss the Suffrage together, Susie. That will improve our minds." "No. Well, I've just begun to think. Barbara." "It's an ugly name, isn't it? We settled Barbara long ago, didn't we ? Don't you remember the first time you ever went to the Grettons' I explained the difference between Mrs. Gretton and Barbara?" "Well, that was such rubbish . . ." she said, doubtfully. "But what can you expect from modern women ? Women nowadays are so sure of their own merit that you can't help supposing the merit itself has fallen into desuetude. Why, it's historically notorious that the expository age only arises when a creative age has just died. Just think to yourself what evidence that is! Women everywhere ex- plaining women — and contradicting each other, as women will." "And men !" cried Susan, strenuously, completely di- verted from her too-persistent inquiries. "Oh, but Joe, how evident it was that you were working off that about the creative age!" She said it with gravest reproach, but with her mouth smiling. "I've got more . . . quite ready." "I don't doubt it. You're like the member for Bun- combe who talked for hours and hours. It's all bunkum as you know quite well." "Shall I put my views in a sentence ?" "No !" she cried aloud. "You'd be like the man who de- scribed the locusts taking the grains of wheat." ON THE STAIRCASE 199 "Really," protested Amberley; "your allusiveness defeats its own object. I had a faint idea that the member for Buncombe excused the few stragglers from listening be- cause he was only 'talking for Buncombe,' but I don't grasp the other one about the locusts." "Surely you've heard of the king who wanted a long story, and the stories always ended too soon ; and at last a man told about locusts, and said 'And then another locust came and took another grain ; and then another. . . .' It's as old as the fables." "But my sentence wouldn't be like that." "Well?" "The Feminist Movement, being an assertion of claims and an allegation of wrongs, lacks humility, and is there- fore spiritually damnable. That's my sentence. You can't be happy unless you're humble before God, or Beauty, or Nature. These women are egoists; their martyrdoms are egoisms ; their plaudits vanities. God help them." "It's wonderful how you can go through life " "Filled with eternal wisdom " "With your eyes shut. Gracious, there's a knock !" "Now," said Amberley. "Is this Gretton or Velancourt?" He watched Susan's cheeks. "Gretton, for a pound !" He often betted with himself, because by doing that you were always sure to win money. But he was wrong. He listened with growing bewilder- ment to the voices in the passage. He could hear Susan and another. Presently they both appeared. The visitor was Barbara Gretton! II "Isn't that extraordinary !" laughed Susan. Barbara was flushed and radiant, and shook hands in the most friendly way, as though they had never quarrelled. Amberley was even a little mystified, though he thought she looked splen- 200 ON THE STAIRCASE did in a great overcoat, which she slipped off at Susan's entreaty. "Susan had just been waking up," he explained. "I was waking her up with a few facts." "You know what his 'facts' are, Barbara." "Rather awful, I should think," Barbara said, with easy disdain. "He's as contrary and argumentative as the Red Queen." "Or my brother Harry." "We certainly are equally candid," Amberley interposed, thinking it was now time to speak in his own defence. "Does that mean 'crude'?" asked Susan, impertinently. "Joe's a master of euphemism." "I must admit they're very loyal to each other," said Barbara. "Harry becomes positively eloquent." "Harry never speaks to me : he always seems too shy. Am I so alarming? I mean, to a boy." Susan became rather demure in asking such a question; but she received no answer. "Harry is a philosopher," Amberley said. "He has pierced the weaknesses of Modern Women." "Ah! Now that Barbara's here, perhaps you'll be less ready to condemn the modern woman." "Oh, please, no !" cried Barbara. "I want to talk quietly. I'm shattered by a devastating row at the office. My Miss Devizes became quite spiteful this evening. I really had to quell her ; and it took all my energy." She was speaking nervously, with a nervous exaggera- tion, in spite of her apparent ease. Amberley was delighted to see her sitting there, and bending forward to talk to Susan. She was in a very plain brown tweed costume, with a small orange bow at the neck ; and her oval face, showing in the fireglow, looked flushed and eager. Instinctively Amberley drew his head a little back, so that he could ad- mire her the better — not furtively, because he was never furtive, but with a reserve that was as natural as Susan's ingenuous outspokenness. He was grateful to Barbara for ON THE STAIRCASE 201 being so frank and cordial, and he thought her more won- derful than ever: it was delight to him to see her sitting in his old chair, so naturally; and as though she had been a neighbour. "Isn't it fortunate that mother's gone to bed !" said Susan. "She's not ill, I hope?" "She hasn't really gone to bed — as a matter of fact," Am- berley explained, to Susan's groan. "She is in her room, secreted, with a novel in which the mortality is higher than in most novels. In fact, Mrs. Halliburton s Troubles. Our mother finds relief from her own in those of other people. She is one of those who desire to be taken away from the sordid realities of life when they read novels. So she reads something ten times as horrible." "And fifty times as silly," added Susan. "Well, I'm not sure you wouldn't find my mother doing exactly the same thing," Barbara said, with a sudden glance at Amberley, and a defiance in her whole attitude. "You'd be surprised to hear that Thomas Hardy was your mother's favourite novelist?" he asked. Barbara laughed a little at the idea. She remembered with an odd feeling how she had discussed the Drama with Amberley. "Yes : I suppose I should," she admitted. "Your mother, having read all Hardy's novels, tells me that several are very silly books. She singles out A Pair of Blue Eyes, Two on a Tozver, and The Hand of Ethelberta as silly ones. She, on the other hand, regards The Wood- landers, The Return of the Native, and Under the Green- zvood Tree as the finest novels in the English language." He was very firm in this speech, because he saw disbe- lief, still in Barbara's eyes at the beginning, gradually give way to a semblance of awe. "Really? She never told me. . . . One doesn't see her reading them." "Nietzsche your mother regards as sound except on democracy and woman," said Amberley. "Schopenhauer she regards as an admirable writer for those not likely to 202 ON THE STAIRCASE be influenced by him. Her favourite artist is Sir John Mil- lais " "Good for mother!" Barbara cried, laughing. "She's real in pictures, anyway." "Wagner she can't stand." "Bravo !" said Susan. "Oh, she's splendid, isn't she !" "I regret to say that she prefers Mendelssohn " There were groans. "But even there she shows discern- ment. She condemns his more pretentious works. She has the good taste to like Dickens ; but she says Thackeray is like an artificial gauze sea in a pantomime, with lots of sugar. . . ." "I must say that mother's become very epigrammatic — or something — very suddenly," Barbara said. "But how ever have you been able to get at the information?" "He does," Susan said. "It's frightful; but he always does." "I'm afraid I asked," explained Amberley. "I only men- tion these things — not that I think Miss Gretton is inter- ested ; but because what I'm always trying to make Susan see is that the pre-modern woman's finest qualities are tre- mendously developed, without any ostentation. If a mod- ern girl has tracked the words of Nietzsche from one cover to the other she boasts of it, even if she doesn't understand them. She hasn't any judgment as a stand-by. That's why all her knowledge is out of date before ever she's grasped it." "Don't you see, you silly, that the change is in the wom- an's attitude to men ?" demanded Susan. "Barbara, I know he's got these awful things up his sleeve." "I'll just say this one thing," Amberley said ; "and I will then cease from troubling you with my sagacities. The old attitude of women to men was one of amused, understand- ing tolerance. That still obtains delightfully among old- fashioned people — such as your mother, Miss Gretton. But the modern woman is so vain that she's afraid she'll be ON THE STAIRCASE 203 overlooked. Women have always been vain ; but now they're half-educated, and that makes them vociferous." He leaned back laughing at Barbara. There came an- other knock at the door of the flat. "Who on earth can it be?" "Ernest. Might it be?" Susan asked Barbara. "Shouldn't think . . ." "Hullo, Velancourt!" said Amberley at the front door. Come along in." Ill Velancourt's heart seemed to stop beating when he saw Barbara Gretton. The sight of her was so unexpected, and she looked so perfect as she sat in Joseph Amberley's chair, shading her face from the fire with one hand, that he stopped involuntarily upon the threshold. Amberley, com- ing into the room close behind him, heard Velancourt's breath caught, and caught sideways the sudden dilation of his eyes. He gave no sign ; because he was accustomed to conceal his feelings. But his own eyes became hard, and his mouth closed sharply. Susan stood up, and came for- ward in her impetuous way. "It's simply splendid that mother's got Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles!" she cried. "I'll never say another bad word against Mrs. Henry Wood. She's a genius !" Velancourt, in a blur, saw her, and shook hands, and moved to greet Barbara ; while Amberley sat down near the door. "I don't expect Velancourt ever heard of the book," he said, in an odd voice. "It must be wonderful. It's a sedative. It's one of those splendid engrossing books — that people don't write nowa- days." "Yes, I wonder why that is?" cried Barbara, rather con- fused by Velancourt's confusion. "Joe knows, I expect," Susan said, impudently. 204 ON THE STAIRCASE "I meant, the real reason !" Barbara was malicious. "Surely," said Velancourt, speaking faintly from a great distance, "it's because there are no good books." ''Joe's very conservative about women ; but progressive about everything else !" Amberley sat like a stone. "That comes of having an opinion on everything," said Barbara. Amberley smiled at last, and moved in his chair, as though he had just begun to hear what they were saying. "The reason the books don't amuse is that there's less variety of invention and more sincere understanding," he said. "They're less obvious than they used to be. And the reason I am conservative in the other respect is that the Feminist movement is restricted to dissatisfied women with too little to occupy their minds. Happy, useful women with plenty to do — some nine-tenths of the feminine population — don't think that sex is greater than progress and human- ity." "He doesn't know anything about us," Susan said, laugh- ing. She couldn't understand why Joe had become so dull. "He's just talking words ; and he really knows it. I shouldn't like you to judge his worth by his opinions. He's a good soul." "He talks too much," objected Barbara. "I've brought back Keats's Letters," Velancourt said to Amberley, meeting his eyes with an appealing glance. Am- berley looked cruelly at him, and would not suggest that they should go out of the room together. "I can't stay," Velancourt went on. "I only . . . only came to bring them." "But you'll stay a little while — to supper?" Susan cried. "I must go back now. It's rather a long way. I've left Cissie alone." "Is she quite well?" Velancourt's face was white. He put out his hand abruptly, and said good-bye to Susan; then he went to ON THE STAIRCASE 205 Barbara, but he did not look at her. The touch of her hand, warm and strong, was like a shock to him. Some- how there was suspense in the air until the front door was closed, and Amberley came back into the room, to where the girls were still sitting quietly. "Joe ... It was beastly not to make him stay." Amberley looked quite old. Barbara felt a curious pity for him. She moved the chair back a little so that he might sit between Susan and herself, in front of the fire. "He wanted to go," Amberley said. "It was no good pressing him to-night." He spoke so dully that Susan's attention was arrested. She pounced upon him. "What's the matter ? You look like a man who's seen a ghost." Amberley, sitting down again near the door, stretched his legs comfortably before him. "I was thinking about Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles," he said. "And about the spacious days of the Victorian novel. I was also thinking of the Feminist question. You know, of course, that Susan's given up the pretence of being a Suffragist?" He spoke across the room to Barbara. He was remembering the expression in Velancourt's eyes ; and wondering what was going to happen. CHAPTER XXI A WALK AT NIGHT VELANCOURT walked to the end of the Amberleys' road very quickly ; and then he was able to get on to Highgate Hill, up which, in spite of the late hour, he could see the dome of St. Joseph's Retreat standing out black against a sky that was still a frosty blue. It was a clear night, and stars and moon were brilliant. He walked in a dazed state, recognising the familiar things around him, but thinking nothing about them, because he could think only of his own stupidity. He imagined Barbara and Susan and Amberley still sitting in the room he had left, mysti- fied and hilarious over his exit. He could not go back, yet that impulse came to him, among others, for the purpose of restoring a state of peace which he seemed wilfully to have destroyed by so unreasoning a flight. He was puzzled to know why Cissie's words about Bar- bara should have had the power to make him self-conscious when Barbara was there before his eyes ; he was puzzled to account for the strangling sensation of which he was still aware. His first thought was a bitter one, the intolerant wish that Cissie knew how to hold her tongue. She did not know; she almost seemed to say the unnecessary thing with a wrong-headed sense of triumph — as though she had approached the edge of a whirlpool too near, and been sucked down by the turmoil of the waters. A desire to say something was the lure that dragged her into all their dis- 206 ON THE STAIRCASE 207 agreements, and all those indiscreet assertivenesses that so hurt him. It was her vanity that estranged them. If she had been wiser, his delight in service would have filled his life with happiness. Yet he could not suppose that he did not love her : he could not suppose that his love, at this time, was a combination of excitement and habit : to admit that might have been possible to Amberley, but to Velan- court it would have been a blasphemy. He could only see as far as Cissie's culpability, which he tried all the time to minimise : irritation with her, for raising in him such emo- tional discomfort, was for the moment his furthest thought. Then he tried to put everything out of his mind, to say resolutely: I will not think of these things. That availed him nothing; the mind is as inquisitive and as insistently- returning as a puppy warded off unwholesome food. Vel- ancourt could not help coming back again and again to his own chagrin, always with the impression that Cissie's inju- dicious speech had made the whole difficulty. He admired Barbara Gretton so much that he could not bear to think of her as contaminated by a chance remark, thrown at him in a fit of almost hysterical feeling; yet at the unexpected sight of her the sudden turmoil of sensation had been an agony and a shame to him. He clenched and unclenched his fists as he walked — up Highgate Hill and down Hampstead Lane, which would take him across the top of the Heath. What would she think of him? What would the Amber- leys think? A distrust of Amberley shook him. Was Amberley the man to be considerate? Was he not rather the man to make amusement out of any failure, any discomfiture or in- explicable mood ? He would never be able to understand a thing that would not bear putting into words. Amberley would be helpless, innocuous, if it were not for words. Amberley thought things; he didn't feel them. That was Amberley's trouble. Amberley, no doubt, was even now making him ridiculous to Barbara Gretton — perhaps imi- tating him — riddling him with the sharp shot of sly misin- 2 o8 ON THE STAIRCASE terpretation. Oh, Amberley was disloyal to the core; he could not resist the impulse to reduce everything to a com- mon pulp of abject absurdity. Amberley had no reverence. He couldn't really understand. His cleverness gave him a superficial air of understanding; he could ape sincerity and sympathy, but in spite of his perceptions he couldn't feel them. Amberley was one of these arid people who bring their brains to bear upon a thing and make it insignificant, who spoil emotion by fingering it and weighing it and criti- cising it into insignificance. Oh God! Velancourt burst out, in a fever. To think that he had laid himself open to the sneers of a man like Amberley ! He had confided in him — to what extent really had he confided ? Not, certainly, as to Cissie : no word of Cissie had passed him, not even that disloyal hinting which some people indulged, which saved their mouths from spe- cific complaint, but made them none the less dishonoured men seeking pity for their own inept weakness. But he had told Amberley some of his feelings — how unwise he had been ! Amberley never forgot anything that might serve as a touch of verisimilitude for his lampoons, making them corrosively effective, making his victims the more con- temptible by mere burlesqued echoing of their actual thoughts. Amberley rose before him as a monster, a hateful be- trayer. He was making fun of him, making Barbara laugh at him, at first unwillingly, and then, by sheer perversion, making her laugh and join in the ridicule — which is a weakness no human being can resist. To laugh, for fear of being the next victim! But had he so betrayed himself? A little awkwardness of manner, perhaps, there had been; but no definite be- trayal could have been made. He had said . . . what had he said? He couldn't remember what he had said: the memory was only one of stumbling eager haste to get away. Perhaps they had thought him only hurried? But he had been so confused : they couldn't have helped noticing. It ON THE STAIRCASE 209 was only natural that they should notice; and Amberley would take full advantage of that. Amberley always saw more than there really was to see. He impregnated every- thing with his own petty spite. He made laughter where no laughter might be imagined. He was disloyal : he sac- rificed everything to his own desire to be thought witty. What malice lurked in Amberley's mind, unsweetened by any true feeling ! Velancourt, mounting the hill to the Spaniards Inn, stopped breathlessly short. The sky glowed above the hill rise, and the buildings to right and left had a pale marvel in the darkness. The trees beyond, for all the lateness of the year, retained some leaves, and stood gauntly above the roadway. He closed his eyes, as though to draw in the spirit of the wondrous sight. Wasn't he being disloyal him- self — to Amberley? Amberley had always been kind to him. Amberley had somewhere that mysterious longing for the true understanding of human endeavour that makes even hard men sometimes human themselves. Surely he had only imagined all these horrors ? He was too far gone in them to recover. Miserably, with unsteady breathing, he walked along the high causeway above the Heath, and saw the little humped bushes in the hollows, and heard scattered words from the promenaders. He was spent; but if his passion of resentment against Amberley's nature was exhausted, the bitter conviction to which his vehement thoughts had been as fuel was still seated in his heart, not to be expelled. II He neared the White Stone Pond at the top of the Heath, beside the road he was travelling: and there were dogs barking there. The moon shone up again from the shallow water. Velancourt stopped involuntarily. The dogs made him think of the sea: "The moon's white on the sea, and the sea's white on the sand"; 210 ON THE STAIRCASE and to the north, as in a haze, a far prospect stretched mys- terious and lonely. All below him were uncountable bushes and trees, and solitary lamps upon the West Heath Road, below the declivity over which he looked. Houses there were, and slow-moving couples, and still figures upon the straggling seats ; and the moon like silver above them all, throwing squat black shadows, and overcasting the earth with the cold spell of her pallor, until the world seemed one exquisite silence, like a dream of eternal snows. Velancourt was breathing short and sobbingly, his breath hanging like a pure cloud before him in the cold air; and a hand seemed laid upon his heart, chilling him with a sense that despair was ever within call, waiting, like death, to carry him to oblivion. Beside him the dark fascinating wa- ter, with that unflinching moon reflected upon its barely- rippled surface ; and away, ever so far away, men and girls walking, remote from him, as strange and unknown as his deepest dreams. With no further look he turned away, afraid of the night, afraid of his strange hatred for his friend, puzzled by the inscrutable sensations of his own heart. His eyes might search the night ; but it was as dark as his own destiny, as secret and mysterious. In an almost panic fear he strode into Hampstead, shouldering those who passed, lurching against them with a blind rancour. What was it? What made him feel, now, that he had never a friend, that he was to be for ever solitary? Cissie was there — his own wondrous rapture with the earth's beauty was his, immacu- late — his friend was as constant — his life could never fail of the satisfaction he most prized. What was it that made him so inevitably an outcast? Velancourt passed down the crowded street, thronged with people. It reminded him afresh of the sea, as though, in a moment, he should plunge into sight of the grey water, fleeced with foam, and with the moon shining white upon the sea and the sand. He hurried on, excitedly longing for the corner which should infallibly reveal to him the sway- ON THE STAIRCASE 211 ing waters of his imagining. He felt as though he was fainting, as though he must keep on at this tremendous pace until he was free of the tumult and upon the pinnacle from which alone the revivifying prospect could be gained. His heart was beating, his eyes staring into the immeas- urable distance. Then, as the vision faded, he groaned. It was but the mirage. He was here, in the crowded street. Behind him were the figures he had left — Amberley doubled and dis- torted with obscene laughter . . . Barbara laughing, laugh- ing with the knowledge of his weak absurdity. Before him was Cissie, voluble, petulant, clinging in reproach. He was chained. He was fast in the dull hopeless mediocrity of his stifled desires. He was not dead, nor alive ; but without pain, without ambition. Despair was creeping upon him, numbing his heart, dogging his steps and forcing him upon the inevitable path of servile inglorious failure. What had he to gain from life? What was it that life held, which made men toil desperately to keep their places in the restless throng of human particles? Love — was it love? And Cissie was his figure of love, shrewd, practical, all-claiming. What was it that men wanted, that was ab- sent from his own nature ? Love — friendship — peace ? Did men toil only to distract their minds from present miseries ? Was it only through pain that men found the true Nepenthe for which so unhappily he was seeking? He shuddered as he walked, and a sort of pride rose within him because he could not be content with the compromise that such men as Amberley found endurable. He could not be content. A bitter thought came to him — was he. after all, for this re- solve as noble as he sometimes felt? Was not Amberley even there again in the right? Wasn't he made useless by his own . . . Amberley had said, fastidiousness ? He him- self had made it emotional fastidiousness. Was that all it was? In his heightened mood Velancourt could not face the doubts of his own mind. He had felt too passionately to find such problems a cure for his distress. 212 ON THE STAIRCASE Now that he was home he felt only sad and dispirited, and his exhaustion made his limbs tremble and his heart beat faster. It was to be the old round after all, with only one new doubt to harass him. He had almost, in his ex- cited imaginings, forgotten what the new doubt was. Barbara Gretton. . . . Barbara Gretton. . . . Faintly the name echoed in his heart, mysteriously, inexplicably. CHAPTER XXII BARBARA SPECULATES WHEN Amberley took Barbara to the tramcar, he was wise enough to keep to himself any thoughts of their late disagreement ; but he could not resist the tempta- tion to beg her to come again. "Susan would be so grateful," he said. "Yes. . . . She asked me to come," Barbara returned, without committing herself. "My mother also would be very glad." "I'm sure she would. That only leaves you to complain, doesn't it!" "Which I shouldn't think of doing." Barbara somehow did not care to say any more upon this or any germane subject; she contented herself with asking about Velancourt. "D'you think he's happy?" But Amberley had taken alarm ; for many reasons he could not tell her his true opinion. One reason was, that it was no business of his, or of Barbara's. "Are you happy?" he demanded, as a retort. "Certainly. So are you : so is Susan. I shouldn't have asked you such a question if I'd been in doubt about most people." Barbara, as Harry would have been the first to remark, "came the elder sister" over Amberley, and experi- enced in performing this feat a subtle satisfaction not eas- ily to be described. 213 214 ON THE STAIRCASE "Well, happiness is purely temperamental and circum- stantial; and you know what a prejudice has grown up lately against circumstantial evidence." "And you'd say that Mr. Velancourt was temperamen- tally unhappy?" "I'd say he has many varieties of emotional experience." Barbara, biting her lip at a reply so apt and so embar- rassing in its discrimination, was moved to make another inquiry. "You do like him?" "Very much. But he doesn't know where he's going. He's come to cross-roads in a fog, as you might say. He's very very inexperienced, and just a very little inclined to yearn. But he's not sentimental : he's only got bees in his bonent. Of course, I try to talk to him; but even with the aid of my lucidity he can't really grapple with things." "Yes. Are you always as complacent as you sound?" "Invariably." "I can't believe you." "That's because you're a woman. They can never trust candour. But Velancourt is very handicapped ; and he's hampered by an extraordinary self-distrust." "I could imagine you would hardly appreciate that." "Well, isn't it injudicious? You wouldn't say it was a virtue." "D'you mean that Mr. Velancourt is handicapped by — her?" "I've no means of knowing." "That means, you'll hint as much, without daring to say." Barbara spoke quite coolly, and he understood that she spoke sanely, and without malice, although what she said was unwelcome to him. Amberley explained. "It truly means that when I said 'handicapped' I was not thinking of Mrs. Velancourt's character; and that when you challenged me I realised that you were too eager to read criticism into anything I say." Barbara was silent. They had been standing near the ON THE STAIRCASE 215 place where the tramcars start; and they seemed likely to stand there, if they disagreed, until their disagreement came to a head. "Sometimes I think you so objectionable that I wonder to find myself talking to you," she said at last, in a bewil- dered tone. Amberley did not attempt to reply. He saw that her tram had come to the starting-place, and he took her hand. "You mustn't talk like that," he said soberly, as he put her into the tram. "You hurt me !" "I wish I could !" thought Barbara, but in quite a friendly way. She watched him as he stood on the pavement. He did not turn until the tram was far down the road, and Barbara saw him standing there until he was lost to sight. She repeated to herself, with rather a guilty sense of cruelty: "I wish I could . . . somehow!" Of course that was the whole point, as she readily saw. Life had been resolving itself for her into a trial of strength with each newcomer; and Amberley was the only person upon whom she could not wreak her power. He was the only man or woman known to her who was both stronger and cleverer than herself. Now her old bewildered in- quisitive dislike of him was losing itself in a kind of ad- miration that carried with it a warning of self-contempt. She said to herself: It's the old "Here's something stronger than ourselves: let's worship it!" and that's a barbarism. But she was manifestly trying to disentangle Amberley's too-obtrusive faults from her own dislikes and jealousies; and Amberley might have appreciated that if it had been possible to be quite as instantly detached about himself as he was about other affairs. Barbara sat in the tramcar and watched the street go mooning by, and she thought quickly of the Amberleys and particularly of Mrs. Amberley reading about somebody else's troubles, as a counter-irritant to her own. It pres- ently made her laugh behind her muff to think of Mrs. Henry Wood as a phagocyte! Especially she thought 2i6 ON THE STAIRCASE about Velancourt. He was rather interesting, she thought; and it would have been far jollier if he had stayed a little while. She thought it must be rather awful to live with Mrs. Velancourt. Barbara was even not above saying : "I know the type." Of course, she didn't know the type ; any more than do the other people who say "I know the type." All the same, she formed a definite notion of Cissie Velan- court, which differed materially from Cissie's personal no- tion, but which was quite as shrewd as, and a little more thorough than, Cissie's estimates of other people. Barbara was sorry for Velancourt. II Barbara was so sorry for Velancourt that she continued to think about him, and about Amberley's evasions. For it was quite clear to her now that they had been evasions. She thought back, and exonerated him from the charge of hinting more than he dared express. She even had some difficulty in checking a small feeling of respect for his treat- ment of her questions. But they were his own fault : she could not treat him as a stranger, and yet it seemed that she could not treat him as a friend. He occupied an anomalous position in her regard. Now she saw that in the circumstances he could not have said what he felt : he, like a gentleman, was averse from gossip. She, as a clear- headed girl, did not gossip ; but all the same she liked im- mediately to settle the doubts that arose in her mind. It would have been quite "all-right," she thought, for Amber- ley to have been candid; but then, no doubt, she would have found it desirable to disagree and to snub him. Bar- bara smiled very comfortably to herself. She perceived that Amberley feared her. His rudenesses were the last resort of a man who was full of fear. The thought was very far from unpleasant. Probably Mr. Velancourt, having been led, or entrapped ON THE STAIRCASE 217 by some scruple of honour (Barbara was as cruel to other members of her sex as they were cruel to one another), into marrying Cissie, was not oppressed with a sense of the dire calamity. Probably, too, Mr. Amberley knew all about it from him, and would not betray the confidence. She wondered if men told each other such things. That was where they were such a puzzle. Did they, so to speak, kiss and tell ? The old masculine legend was that they did not ; but Barbara knew, as the modern girl is sure she also knows, that masculine legends were like Mr. Balfour. They Must Go ! Now, if Mr. Velancourt was unhappy, that was a pity. She felt, in fact, a strange warmth of sympathy for him. He became a painful figure, an honourable man in distress. Barbara was quick to see the picturesque quali- ties of such a position. She did not quite see how easily she was sailing with the wind, and regarding Cissie as a mere property, a lay-figure. For the moment she saw Cissie as a malign force, but not as a personality to be reckoned with. Her own interest was not yet very poignant in Velancourt. She was engaged in a fascinating kind of speculation. As the tram rumbled nearer home Barbara remembered Velancourt's look of confusion. Poor boy : he had not ex- pected to see her. Perhaps she had driven him away. She laughed a little; and then became grave again. It was too serious. He was miserable — starving for kindness. Very quickly her mind leapt from that fact to Amberley's powers of sympathy. What were they? Would he clumsily han- dle Velancourt's delicate nature with a sort of masculine left-handedness? No. She nodded wisely. "He's horrible," she said to herself. "Oh, quite per- fectly horrible ; and he annoys me almost more than I can realise in a jolting tram ; but he's rather got a sort of beastly power of not misunderstanding in a degraded way." That was as far as she would go in praise of Amberley. If he wasn't able to trust her with his opinion, he obviously was rather beneath notice. Even if he had really been rather torn. He had been torn : he'd admitted he was hurt. 2 i8 ON THE STAIRCASE . . . But then that was because she had actually commit- ted herself to crying out the puzzle that beset her. "Mr. Joseph !" Poor Mr. Velancourt, with a legal friend ! Some- body with finer sympathy would be better for him. Yes, but why bother about the estimable young man? One couldn't be continually helping lame dogs over stiles : they'd all turn round with a sort of rabies. Still he was a nice young man, she thought indulgently. She would be nice to him. Wasn't that supposed to be rather dangerous ? "Tahn All !" said the conductor. In a pleasant preoccupation, Barbara nearly went past her stopping-place; but, just in time, she started up and jumped off the tram. She had been thinking — oh yes, of course. She had been thinking that she herself was more delicate than Amberley, and possessed of finer sympathy. It wasn't as though she couldn't take care of herself. She was Barbara Gretton. When she thought that, Barbara wilted under the remem- brance of Amberley's exposure of the Barbara Gretton of romance. Oh, he maddened her ! Barbara walked up Theobald's Road, and looked up at the strange moon. She had become self-conscious at the thought of Amberley's accusation and their disagreement. Only her mother knew of her tears; and her mother had told her to go to the Amberley s' to-night, and to enjoy her- self, killing any resentment she might be inclined to feel. Her mother had spoken to her in an astoundingly wise man- ner, about herself and about Amberley. . . . Her mind swung round again to Velancourt as she reached the house in Great James Street. "Yes, well what about the girl!" she demanded, aloud. "What's she doing? Doesn't she see what's going on?" Somehow, for all her "knowledge of the type," Barbara could form no mental picture of Cissie's state. She could not think of Cissie yet as anything more than a property. ON THE STAIRCASE 219 III Up the stairs toiled Barbara, with the sense of delight at reaching home which never failed her. The flimsy door leading to the top flight of stairs and to their flat was shut ; and she had to knock. Young Harry came galumping down the stairs, and peered out at her. "Hullo, old Barb!" he said. "Been to see the Great Man ?" Barbara passed up the stairs. There was Mrs. Gretton before the fire, reading a book. Instinctively, as she entered the room, Barbara went across to her mother. She looked down at the book. It was Be- yond Good and Evil! "Good gracious, mother!" said Barbara. "Where did you get that?" Mrs. Gretton looked up in her daughter's face, and caught her hand with a little squeeze. "All right, dear?" "Splendid, thanks." Barbara's colour deepened, but her honest eyes were quite frank. "That's right. Mr. Amberley lent me the book. He's very provoking." "You too, mother? Why, I thought you were such friends !" Mrs. Gretton laughed very quietly, a tiny laugh that was hardly audible. "Oh, we're great friends," she admitted. "But he treats me as if I was a girl ; and lends me books." Barbara looked away sharply. "Why shouldn't he lend you books?" she cried. "If it pleases you both." "Well, my dear; I'm an old woman, and he tries to pre- tend that I'm not." Again Mrs. Gretton laughed to herself. "And some of the books he lends me puzzle my poor old head past thinking." 220 ON THE STAIRCASE "But he boasts of your reading." Mrs. Gretton put aside her book. Young Harry had re- tired, and they were alone. "Barbara, dear: I think Ernest wants to marry little Susan Amberley." "Mother !" "I'm only hoping she'll be willing. It would mean every- thing to him." "Has he said anything?" "Not to me. I don't know if he's spoken to her." "No." Barbara knew that Susan could not have con- cealed it. Irresistibly, in a moment, an impulse prompted her to exclaim : "I wonder if Joe knows !" "I think there's very little that Joe doesn't know," Mrs. Gretton said. Barbara caught the Christian name, and realised that she herself had used it. She moved away, impatient at her own embarrassment. "I don't like things of this sort happening!" she said, pet- ulantly. "Why can't people go on being friends, and not wanting this silly sort of thing? . . ." Mrs. Gretton looked at her daughter with love in her eyes. "Don't, mother !" cried Barbara. "It is silly, and disturb- ing. Why, Susan's a child." The suggestion chilled her. Poor little Susan ! She was to go through all the distress that Barbara supposed a pro- posal to entail. Barbara did not dream of doubting her mother's accuracy. She began to think about unhappy mar- riages, and about the woman "paying" ; and she was irri- tated at her mother's old-fashioned delight at the thought of a wedding. Then a horror came to her! Susan — sup- posing it did ever come to that — would be her sister-in-law ; and Joseph would be . . . She rolled her eyes in burlesque horror. "Oh, lor !" she ejaculated. ON THE STAIRCASE 221 The idea was too much for her. She had to sit down, and stare blankly at her mother. "Well, Barbara," said Mrs. Gretton, nettled. "You can't have everything as you want it. I'm afraid you've a little got into the way of expecting it. But the world has to go on, whatever the modern celibate woman thinks of it." "Mother, you've been learning all that from Mr. Amber- ley!" cried Barbara, incensed. Mrs. Gretton laughed a third time, very quietly indeed. "Mr. Amberley says he learns it all from me," she said. Barbara would not talk any more about that. She had always known the man was a bore. Now she knew that he always would continue to be a bore. She must dismiss him from her mind. And of course the first subject to which her dragooned thoughts turned was that of Velancourt and his wife. Velancourt seemed, in comparison with Amber- ley, an almost fascinating person to think about. She would tell her mother about him, and enlist her sympathy. . . . No. On second thoughts, she would keep him to herself. She was sorry for him. A soft gleam of pity came into Barbara's eyes. She stood, with her head bowed, thinking of Velancourt. CHAPTER XXIII HEART TO HEART I THE next day Velancourt met Barbara on the stairs. He stood back in the dark shadow of the landing to let her pass ; but Barbara stopped. "How d'you do, Mr. Velancourt? When are you coming to see us again?" she began, briskly. His eyes leapt. "It's . . . it's very good of you to have us," he said. She was in the brown overcoat ; and her brown hat had an orange decoration in it which exactly matched the bow at her throat. He could not take his eyes off the bow at her white throat : he dared not lift them to her face. "I'm afraid that's not an answer," Barbara said, in a very distinct voice. "No: I'm afraid it isn't," he agreed. "I wonder if you'd tell me when we may come?" She suggested a day, and it was fixed upon; and then she went up the stairs to her home, thinking: "He does look wretched, and his face is exactly like ivory. He's as shy as a lamb." But she remembered his great big solemn wonderful eyes. Velancourt, as he proceeded down the stairs, was asking himself : "Did Amberley not make me absurd ; or does she ignore all that?" It was a problem not to be settled. Very soon its mere 222 ON THE STAIRCASE 223 implications led him into a bitter mood of self-detraction, pleasant enough for the pain it caused, but not very useful either. He walked up Theobald's Road, and for the first time consciously saw the dirt, the untidiness, the disgusting slovenly squalor of the neighbourhood. It appalled him. He had never seen it before : he had been too busy with the stars and the clouds. It made an impression upon him deeper than he could have supposed possible. "This !" he cried to himself. Was Barbara's attitude really a better one ? Amberley knew all these things. Were they, after all, more real than the things he himself knew? Impossible! If they were real, they were passionately to be denied. They might be real, and yet have no reality. His white face, deadly earnest, glowed with scorn and dis- tress. This was the place — and she lived in the midst of it. She ? Miss Gretton. How kind she had been, and cordial. He was glad of it, as a partial refutation of his last even- ing's waking nightmare. It made his horror of meeting Amberley less acute ; and he had been feeling hitherto that he would have to hurry past Amberley without speaking, so nervously obsessed had he become by the idea that he had made himself ridiculous. Later, on her way back to the office after lunch, Barbara again saw Velancourt. This time it was in Hand Court, a narrow passage with the wall of an hotel on one side and a row of curious broken-down print and second-hand shops on the other. Velancourt, when she caught sight of him, was poring over a tray of dirty old books, as though they were bright jewels which he, a miser, was caressing. It struck her, even then, that he looked blind, and she smiled at the thought of a blind connoisseur. It made her think of Isaac in his old age. Just as she was abreast of him Velancourt was turning away from the shop, and, still half-standing with his back to her, he took off his hat fumblingly. "How awkward he is !" she thought. Then, drily : "I know that's a sign of 224 ON THE STAIRCASE genius, because Havelock Ellis says so." Aloud, she said, noticing a book under his arm : "Have you just bought that?" Velancourt showed it to her : the book was a translation of Fenelon's Existence of God. "Good gracious!" cried Barbara. "Is this what you read, then?" "I . . . got it . . ." Velancourt explained, painfully. "He seems to express my own feelings. I felt I must read it. It was only twopence." "Quite enough, too : dirty old book." She took the book, and frowned ridiculously upon it. "Oh . . . d'you think so?" His face flushed, and his voice showed grievous disappointment. "Old books are often like that. It suits some books. It's not really very dirty." Each sentence ended interrogatively, as though in his own mind he was saying: "Don't you think?" She handled it with a rather gingerly air, amused at his tone and his silent eagerness. "I'm sure this one's very well suited," she smiled, relent- ing but ambiguous. "Thank you. I must hurry." With that she replaced the book in his hand and passed on. Both of them were dissatisfied with the encounter; and both remembered it with disappointment, because each thought the other had misunderstood, albeit with some justification. Barbara recollected his look of sorrow at her strictures, and was afraid she had been brutal: Velancourt remembered every word that had passed, and once or twice during the afternoon looked upon the dusty cover with veneration because Barbara had touched it. To him, that became an association. He even forgot to read anything from the book's pages, in his thought of an association so purely secular. He did not take the book home, but left it upon his desk at the office, and sometimes fixed his eyes upon it with a particular attention. ON THE STAIRCASE 225 II During the afternoon Amberley ran upstairs to the offices of Robinson, Seares, & Turnpike ; and popped his sleek head into the outer room. Seeing Velancourt alone, he advanced, and made signs of greeting. "All alone ?" he asked. Velancourt nodded, shrinking into himself from an instinct of shame. "I say," went on Am- berley; "I'm awfully sorry you couldn't stop last night. Why didn't you ?" Velancourt looked as though he was inclined for some obscure reason to be resentful. "I really couldn't spare the time to stay," he said, awk- wardly enough. "I had to get back home." Amberley knew he was not telling the truth. He sat on the edge of Velancourt's desk. "Don't fib !" he adjured him. "You know there was no hurry for the books. Did Miss Gretton scare you?" He was watching with keen eyes for a repetition of Velancourt's confusion. "I had to get home," Velancourt said, stubbornly. "Well, come soon again. If you come next Monday I expect I shall be all alone." He was struggling with an unknown feeling, which bade him say to Velancourt : "Go to the Devil !" and the reaction from that made him almost insincerely persuasive. "No : we're coming to see the Grettons," Velancourt told him, with eyes averted. "Cissie and I." "Good !" Amberley slipped off the table. "I'm glad they cotton on to you." "Miss Gretton asked me." Velancourt looked defiant, a strained expression upon his mouth. "Splendid." Amberley tried not to be ostentatiously in- sincere in his unwilling congratulations. "That's cham- pion." They did not seem to have any more to say ; so Amberley 226 ON THE STAIRCASE wandered to the door. Velancourt looked after him with a vague stirring of irritation. The nervous irritability that made his temper fly was held in check only by passionate desire to accept Amberley 's friendliness as frankly as it was offered. "You see I'm getting quite social," he said, bitterly. "You ought to be glad of that." "Best thing you can do," said Amberley, shortly. He found the man truly insufferable. "You said you'd come over to see us some time. Cissie would very much like it." "Really? If she'd like it " He wasn't thinking of that at all : his eyes were narrowed with quite another pre- occupation. There was hostility in his carriage. "She asks me continually why you don't come," said Velancourt in a dry voice. "Next week. . . ." Amberley disappeared, shutting the door conscientiously after him. "It's all very well, my dear," he said, when he was on the stairs. "But I suppose I've got some sort of ridiculous duty to myself, haven't I ? The world's not made for you to sterilise!" He recognised how ungenerous he had become in his first flutter of jealousy. He did not try to deceive himself. He thought of Velancourt's bitter, irritated voice, and he shook his head. He wasn't going to let any man on earth spoil his happiness, if he could help it. Velancourt was a child, but a child with a hard shell ; and children, particularly chil- dren with shells, had a habit of being ungrateful and self- centred. Clearly Velancourt understood himself less well than he thought he did; and perhaps he was as clearly a mere insufferable blunderer? "Come, come!" thought Amberley. "It's my blooming liver, or something. First I see spots, and then I get the hump. And all because of an addle-pated Wandering Jew I'm trying to save from Highgate Ponds. What a muddle I'm in — it's the fate of every busybody!" ON THE STAIRCASE 227 III Velancourt went home that evening with a feeling of some trepidation. Cissie had not been very well for the last day or two, and when she was ill Cissie was affected with the annoyance of wounded animals, as well as her own mistrust of his affections. Even so, there were still many moments when they seemed almost in splendid unison — moments when Cissie, rising to her best self (Velancourt sometimes supposed it was her real self, and, if we are most real when we are happiest and most generous, perhaps he was not so very far wrong) , would forget all those fears which rose clamorously doubting in her heart. If she for- bore to speak, and listened only, or was silent, then Velan- court would suppose their moods and aims and spiritual existence one and indivisible; it was when she spoke that she estranged him. This evening Cissie was better, but in a subdued state, as one who needed to be gently handled. She had devotedly cooked Velancourt's meal, but it had "caught" while her back was turned ; and although she had instantly plunged the pot into cold water she was afraid the meat would taste, and be uneatable. She sat by the fire, and watched him with nervous expectation. If she had told him, she knew he would have found it so full of the burnt flavour that he could not have done more than taste it. So she said nothing, and waited with unconscious pathos, with her evening's happiness in the balance. Velancourt, still think- ing of Barbara, ate his meal without comment. Cissie watched him, and hid a smile, and chuckled to herself. . . . Her wisdom in keeping her own counsel had been justified. "Like it?" she demanded. She could not help a lec- turing note coming into her voice. It was a sort of indul- gence, but the hardness of her voice made it more irritating than she knew. "Very nice," he answered, mechanically. He left the 228 ON THE STAIRCASE table, and came to the fire, and Cissie, stretching up from her chair, could just touch and hold his hand. He sat obediently upon the arm of the chair, and she leaned against him, as happy as possible. Presently, as her thoughts made their circuit, she became practical. "Anything in the paper to-day ?" "I didn't see anything. The one I wrote after yesterday was in again." "Hm. Funny they didn't write, isn't it?" "Perhaps they're waiting till they get all the replies." "Nobody ever seems to write. . . . It's funny. . . . Never mind. I'm so happy this evening." They were silent in the fireglow for a moment or two. Then : "You happy ?" she asked. He did not answer : he hated that question be- cause it was so steadfastly reiterated. "Boy?" she per- sisted, looking up at him, her lips pouting. "Yes, yes," he assented. She could see his heavy frown, and his look across the room. "You might say so . . . when I ask you," she went on, very slightly peevish. "You don't like me not to answer you" Velancourt was, in thought, back in Great James Street. He was remembering Amberley's visit. Cissie stiffened a little, and withdrew her hand from his. She did not see why he should expect greater exactitude of attention from her than he was prepared to give on his own account. To her, preoccupation and inattention were very much the same: to Velancourt, as it will be gathered, they were at the extremes of bad behaviour. Presently the words pene- trated to his mind. "What was it you were . . . Oh, Cissie . . . I'm sorry I didn't . . ." "Why, you're half asleep !" she said, suddenly struck by his pallor and his abstraction. "You look tired out." "I'm awfully tired." He turned to her with a rather weary smile. But she was full of concern. ON THE STAIRCASE 229 "Here — you sit here while I clear away." She rose from the only comfortable chair. "No . . . you're an invalid. I'll clear away." In the struggle, which was only an excuse on her part for a small embrace, she was victorious, and Velancourt sat in the chair. She was back again in five minutes, and knelt before the fire, poking it into a little blaze. In helping her- self up by his knee it occurred to her to stay where she was ; and Velancourt could see the little darting flames shine upon her face and hair and bright eyes. He bent forward and kissed her, with a funny crying feeling in his throat; and Cissie laughed, holding his face against hers. "Couldn't help it!" she said. "Could you?" He did not answer her. It was so much better to sit thus, as though they were in their home, happy, blessed with trust and quiet contentment. If there were not so many other things in life ! He often remembered Amberley's sagacities about conflicting desires and how they cancelled each other out, leaving — discontent. "Don't let's talk," he said, pleadingly. "Don't you like me to talk?" Cissie felt a pang at his words. She never could realise it: the bridling of her tongue was so painful when her speeches were provoked by her happiness at being with him. "Hush." She thought to herself : "Why shouldn't I ?" But she kept still. They sat before the fire until Cissie grew too hot, and moved back. "Why doesn't your friend come to see us ?" She always spoke thus of Amberley. "He's coming next week. And oh, Cissie . . ." Velan- court hesitated a moment. "We're invited to go ... to the . . . to the Grettons' next Monday." "Oh." She did not say she was glad : she could not have said it. He tried to carry off the silence with an appropri- ate remark. "That'll be all right for you, won't it?" 230 ON THE STAIRCASE Cissie knew quite well that he knew the evenings were all alike to her. "I don't know," she said, slowly and awkwardly. "They don't want me." "Of course they do. Cissie !" She could not read his tone. They were apart now. If she had been in his arms she would not have been unhappy ; but he was looking away from her, and she could see the dispirited droop of his mouth. "You want to go. You don't see it's dull for me," she said, in a choked voice. His head hung heavily, and she knew that the frown had reappeared ; yet she continued to speak. "You never think how they treat me as if I was . . ." Her voice was drowned in self -sympathy. "You don't care if I'm tired to death, so long as you get flattered enough by them! You never think of me." Velancourt rose, and stood there with his hands in his pockets. For once in his life he did the right thing. He came over to Cissie and took her trembling hands in his own, and kissed her on the lips, as boldly as if he had been a man of the world. "Cissie, dear !" he said, quietly. "Aren't you a little silly girl!" Cissie began to cry. "Oh, you're . . . splendid to me!" she said, gaspingly. "I'm a pig, and you're " "And then Amberley's coming, too," he urged, disin- genuously. Cissie's tears were quickly dried. They came easily, but they as easily went. "Quite a whirl of gaiety!" she said, with her eyes shin- ing. "It is, for me !" Velancourt straightened himself again, and sat down in the chair. Cissie thought to herself that she would not wear for the Gretton visit that blouse he disliked — not that she saw anything the matter with it. Other times, he had to put up with it ; but for that evening she'd wear . . . Her ON THE STAIRCASE 231 mind wandered away in speculation as to what she could do with her white silk blouse, to make it fit to be worn at such a party. She was perfectly busy with such a pleasant thrill of busy-ness. Later, she slipped over to the fireplace and ruffled Velan- court's hair. "I wish we were always like this," she whispered, in his arms. "Sometimes . . . you know ... I get so cross, and don't mean it. . . . And you look frowny, and that makes me wild." She gave a great sigh. "I suppose it's just love makes us do it . . . Adrian ! Say you think so, too. . . ." "I suppose it is," Velancourt almost groaned. He did not dare to let his mind escape from the actual moment. Once away, it would be plunged into all sorts of memories, and thoughts, and miseries, that were useless and exhaust- ing, and that made Cissie watchfully unhappy, as well as himself. He did not dare even to think back over that day . . . when Barbara Gretton had twice spoken to him, and gone her splendid courageous way, brimming with the per- sonality he so painfully admired. Barbara . . . Cissie . . . He held Cissie closer, until she trembled ; but he could not have borne to look at her. CHAPTER XXIV TWO CARDINAL FACTS I AMBERLEY wondered hastily whether the jealous feel- ings in his heart were there on account of Barbara or of Velancourt — whether they were aroused by the ap- parent theft of Velancourt or by some vague fear for Bar- bara. He could not tell ; but he was much less calm than usual. In a way, his hands were tied, for he felt that he could not dare everything, even possibly Susie's happiness, by proposing at once to Barbara. That was his first im- pulse. Engaged to Barbara, he consolidated his position : refused by her, he lost Barbara and Velancourt. If it came to the point, of course, he would let Velancourt go. He did not know, however, how dangerous Velancourt was to his peace of mind. Velancourt was tied by Cissie ; and for that very reason became more difficult to judge, since his nature was highly strung and his inexperience so unusual as to make his actions under stress quite beyond foresight. Bar- bara was so much herself that he could not hope for any chance of moving her. Yet he must not interfere with Susie. He had to consider her happiness. He needed no emphasis of his love for Barbara. He was quite sure of it, and he knew that marriage to a woman he admired would entirely change and illumine his life. Her selfishness was that of youth, not of nature; and he placed all his trust in the fact that she was Mrs. Gretton's daughter. But she was perverse ; she might at any time 232 ON THE STAIRCASE 233 surprise him, discomfit him. That did not matter, so long as she became his wife. Well, he would see. He would call upon the Velancourts, according to promise; and he would, for the moment, refuse to allow his emotions to obtrude themselves upon his daily affairs. They had no place there: he left excitement to others. So, on the Tuesday evening following the Velancourts' visit to the Grettons, he set out for Hampstead. He saw a lot of silly girls and young men engaged in the sport known as "picking-up," and received many wolfish glances from desperate maidens ; and reached the Velancourts' flat with a sense of relief. He had to light a match to read the number of the door; and he presently found that the bell did not ring, so that he had to rattle the letter-box. He seemed to rattle the letter-box for a long time before Cissie appeared at the door. "Who is it?" she said. "Oh, it's you. Stranger!" As he stepped inside, she said, "Adrian's just gone out for a little while." So Amberley took the flattened arm-chair; and looked round at the pathetically futile pictures, and at the shiny chairs. Cissie sat on the little wooden chair at the other side of the hearthrug. "How long do you think he'll be?" he asked, thinking that perhaps she would prefer him to go away again. But he was clearly mistaken, for Cissie began to be highly con- versational. "Not long. It's a long time since I saw you, isn't it? Course, I know, I can't expect you to come all this way^ to see me. . . . Still . . . How's your sister? She married yet? Not engaged? Wonder what the men are thinking about?" "I heard you'd been not very well. . . ." "Oh, I'm better, thanks. I had a cold, and it was neu- ralgia — same's I used to have before I was married. I used to have it awful. Adrian knows. No, it's not my teeth ; but mother says I always was delicate since I was a 234 ON THE STAIRCASE baby. Adrian's been rather poorly himself these last few days. I expect it's all the damp fog. . . . Always get it at this time, don't we ?" "I thought he was looking rather seedy." "He's not very strong." She leaned forward and shook her head persuasively. "He says he's all right; but I tell him, he'll have to take care. / believe he's rheumaticky — not much, you know ; but quite enough if he will take these long walks at night. Don't you think so ?" "I should have thought long walks in the damp weather were rather bad. Does he often take them?" Amberley was suddenly interested. "He's awful to do it," she said. "Says he can't sleep. I went out with him once or twice ; but he rushes you along at such a pace. I said to him: No, boy. You go alone. So he does." "Weren't you at the Grettons' last night?" Amberley asked. Cissie's face changed. Before, she had sat forward in her chair, her rather pale eyes wide open in a sort of hostess-like ingenuousness, talking faster than she could think. Now her eyes darkened, and she sat erect. Her mouth was rather thrust out. Amberley was almost sur- prised at the intensity of feeling she showed. "Yes. Oo I do hate that girl there, with her tailor-made dresses. She's proud. Seems to think nobody in the room's good enough for her." "Do you mean she doesn't talk to you ?" "No : she's too busy talking to Adrian! Sat talking to him — left me to the old lady." "Mrs. Gretton's very nice, don't you think?" Amberley had endured pain; but he was not going to allow Cissie to suggest anything against Mrs. Gretton. , "She's old," said Cissie. "Apart from that, though?" Amberley appealed to her sense of justice. "She's kind ... oh, she's kind," said Cissie. "But that ON THE STAIRCASE 235 young one!" She flounced herself about in her chair, in ludicrous caricatures of Barbara's attitudes, in all her cari- catures, however, retaining the one common feature which had proved so annoying — superciliously closed eyes, nose wrinkled up, and mouth drawn into a crescent of con- temptuous repugnance. Certain movements of the hands, indicating lackadaisical disdain, were unrecognisable, and he supposed that these belonged to Cissie's conception of the type. He wondered how the imitation, and the fact that it was given for his benefit, would appeal to Barbara. "Oh, she is!" Cissie jerked her head up in distaste. "I'm very fond of her, d'you know," Amberley said ; "and I'm sorry you're not. That pride's really only skin-deep. She wouldn't do anyone a bad turn for anything." "So you think !" retorted Cissie. "She's a ... oh, she's a nasty cat !" Without warning, Cissie's excited feelings had carried her voice into a grizzle ; and to Amberley's discomfort she put her handkerchief to her eyes, and began to dab them. "Oh, come !" said he. "That's not the way !" "Oh the way he looks at her . . . Oh, he is a ... I hate that girl. I hate her!" choked Cissie. "And as if I was dirt under her feet !" Amberley was quite pale at the disclosure. It shook him. He didn't now question the origin of his jealousy. II Presently Cissie went on: "I expect you think it's strange, me talking to you," she said. "But you're his friend, aren't you? I was wonder- ing if he ... if he ever said anything . . . about me." She had dried her eyes, and was looking at him, a little colour in her cheeks. "You know him well, don't you?" "You know him better than I do," Amberley said. "I know he's very sincere." 236 ON THE STAIRCASE "But has he ever talked about me?" she pressed. "You know . . ." "Certainly not," he warned her. "It's none of my busi- ness." But she was started, breathlessly inquisitive and unre- strained. "Did he tell you he didn't want to get the furniture?" "He's told me nothing. Why should he (or you) tell me anything. It's no affair of mine. When he comes to see me we talk about all sorts of things — not about our homes, but our opinions — I don't quite know how to put it — what we think about various things. He comes to me, and says : 'Shakespeare's a rogue,' and I tell him that money's a curse. D'you see?" "And is that what you talk about?" "Yes, that's it." "What's the good of it?" "Well, it eases our minds. What do you talk about?" Cissie sighed — a soft, real sigh ; not a loud one meant to be heard. "I don't know," she said, listlessly. "Nothing, mostly." "You see, he likes being with you," Amberley said, awk- wardly, but with a kind intention. "That's enough by itself. But he has a lot of notions that perhaps wouldn't interest everybody " "They would !" she said, suddenly. "Why not ask him to tell you about them?" "I have. Why shouldn't I be able to understand them ?" "I suppose you understand other things." "Do you think I'm a fool?" she asked. "No," Amberley said. "Well, why does he think it?" Cissie was biting the cor- ner of her handkerchief furtively. "I can talk to you better than I can talk to him. I can tell you things. I can't tell him." "Perhaps you don't try?" Amberley prayed for Velan- ON THE STAIRCASE 237 court's return, so that he might be saved from this in- quisition. "I do. He just looks stupid. And he reads me poitry I can't understand; and then he goes out because he can't sleep. Oh, he is cruel, sometimes." "It seems to me that he's rather unsettled just now. He'll settle down : often, you know, he sits with me, not saying anything. Some people are naturally quiet." "And I told him long before you did, that he'd have to leave Robinson's. Never took any notice of me. He did of you." Amberley was learning nothing now : but his own imag- ined picture of their life was being confirmed. What could he say, or do ? There were the facts ; and her little dreary voice went on, rather husky. She was obviously being quite sincere. He liked her better than he had done be- fore ; he saw her side of the question more clearly. "I do all I can," she went on. "I'm soppy sometimes, and I get wild, and ... I don't know what ever I shall do with him. You think I'm half silly, don't you? 'Specially talking to you like I'm doing." "It seems to me," Amberley said, quite unconstrainedly, "that supposing you're fond of one another you'll find some way out of the difficulty. Just at present, I expect, you're going through the hard part. You didn't know each other very well before you were married ; and now the excite- ment's gone off a bit you're in a sort of trough. But once you're out of that — I mean, if you want him, you'll find a way to keep him. You know he loves you." "Do I?" she said. "S'pose I don't?" She looked at him, as though plumbing his honesty. "He's so touchy. That's why I can't say it to him. I know sometimes I'm wrong, and I get potty . . . say catty things. See ? He gets white. I know what that means. It makes me wild. I go on, and say more — worse. I can't stop. You know what I mean. He gets superior, like that girl ; and looks as though I was 238 ON THE STAIRCASE a saveloy, or something else that he doesn't like. I get furious. If he was like you " "He's miles better tljan I am," Amberley said. "You'll find that out." "He can't understand like you can." "No. But that's because he's busy with thoughts you and I don't have. You know he's a bit annoying; and I know it. But if you try to be patient you'll find you get to know him, and he'll find that you've done it. And he'll be grateful " Amberley broke off. He was aware of a slight air of Sunday School inspection in his own tones, and it made him redden to his hair. "Go on," Cissie said, breathlessly. "That's the whole business. What you've got to under- stand is that he's not like other men. He's better, in a way. You think he's worse." "No I don't." "Well, he provokes you." How could Amberley combat, especially in face of her clouding eye, the philistine attitude to men of temperament? "You've got to be patient, and help him." "But I want helping myself." Amberley broke down, and laughed at that. Cissie drew up, offended by his laugh. "My dear child," Amberley said. "Whoever helps others helps herself most of all. If you do what Adrian wants, he'll do what you want. Why, if he says to you something that seems selfish, you get selfish ; but if he's amiable, you'd do anything for him !" "I would," she agreed. "Well, don't you see?" Cissie looked hopeful. "I wish he was like you," she said. "I do, really." Then the door opened, and Velancourt came into the room. ON THE STAIRCASE 239 III "Amberley !" he said. His eyes swept them suspiciously. "Been talking about you !" Cissie said. Velancourt looked with an angry hauteur at Amberley. "Is it impossible for you to leave me alone ?" he said. "Don't be a fool, Velancourt. I arrived a little while ago, and was waiting for you. What better topic could we have?" Amberley spoke cheerfully; but in his heart was a bitter thought, to see Velancourt standing there in chill dignity, and to know that Velancourt was at the moment merely a source of trouble to all who knew him. "What have you been doing?" Velancourt's next speech would decide their future footing. Amberley felt he was per- sonally quite indifferent about their friendship. What had he ever gained from it? "I'm sorry, Amberley," Velancourt said. "I beg your pardon. I'm not very grand this evening." "It's so cold and damp," Cissie said, her colour coming and going. "Would you like some supper, Mr. Amberley? Only got some bread and cheese." When they were alone, Velancourt came nearer Amber- ley. Amberley saw his hollow eyes, and felt bitter im- patience. For once he found Velancourt really self-centred, unconscious of any other horizons but his own. But if he was hostile, Velancourt, being conscious of a discourtesy, was unusually humble. "Amberley," he said. "You know I told you that Rob- insons were very slack. . . . Old Mr. Seares came up to town to-day, and said he'd made arrangements to give up the whole thing. The business is being taken over by some firm in Bedford Row — what business there is. That means that at the end of the year I shall be out of a situation, unless I get something else." "You'll get something else, of course." 2 4 o ON THE STAIRCASE "I simply must! I can't . . . It's worrying me — I mean, because of Cissie." "Nonsense," said Amberley. "Nothing to worry about. Simply set yourself to get another job. There are bound to be plenty." "I've been trying — answering advertisements. Some- thing prevents me from getting any answers. Perhaps I write too pedantically?" "Or too modestly. Have you told Mrs. Velancourt?" Velancourt shook his head. "I daren't, to-night," he said. And Amberley could not advise him to. Thereafter they had supper, at which Amberley talked cheerful nonsense, and Cissie laughed aloud — a long, rather racketing laugh that drew Velancourt's brows together and made him shiver. And when Amberley went, Cissie begged him to come again ; and at his final departure she turned to Velancourt, and made a sage remark. "Oh, he is a nice fellow," she said. "He understands." Velancourt looked dully at her, without comprehension. There were two things between them now. There was the fact that Mr. Seares had definitely advised him to look out for another situation — and he could hear plainly the voice of broken glass in which Mr. Seares had spoken. "Get out of this sort of thing," he had said. "You're not suited to it." Velancourt could not tell Amberley that. It was one thing for him to say it as a personal conviction ; it was quite another to have it said by Mr. Seares, for that last carried with it what was practically a suggestion of failure. To what business was he suited ? Oh, if he only had Am- berley's confidence! No— not that either. He wanted to be himself. He would win ! The other thing was his love for Barbara Gretton. That he had recognised in a sudden white flame. CHAPTER XXV AMBERLEY IS DEFEATED THE next night was the one set apart by the Grettons and the Amberleys for their theatre party. Barbara had kindly dismissed her feeling in favour of Miss Widge, and had agreed to go with Susan and Ernest — and of course with Joseph. So when Amberley had finished his day's work, and when he had assumed a suitable cleanliness, he walked steadily upstairs, knowing all the time that he was trembling with an unwonted excitement. Arrived in the Grettons' home, he found Susan and Barbara already wait- ing, along with Harry, who cheered at his entrance ; while Ernest and his father arrived immediately afterwards. They all sat round the table, Harry and Amberley elbow to elbow, Barbara on her mother's right hand, Mr. Gretton as usual at the end of the table, and Susan and Ernest, both very happy, on the remaining side. It was a merry dinner, although nobody could remember the jokes that had caused the laughter, because, if the truth must be told, the jokes were the product of the laughter, and not its cause. All the young people, except Harry, were excited ; and Harry, but for the fact that he liked Amberley so much, would have thought them all "rather fools," as he was in the habit of thinking most people. Afterwards, the quartette started out for the theatre, and they waited in the pit queue, and munched chocolates. Then they entered the theatre and saw a strange play in 241 242 ON THE STAIRCASE which an adulterous wife was forgiven by her husband in time to permit of the curtain falling at eleven o'clock upon a scene of perfect happiness. Whereat they departed, a little bored, but otherwise very much as they had arrived — certainly with no great profit to themselves as a result of so humanising an experience. Susan and Ernest marched off boldly in front of the others, and Barbara and Amberley had necessarily to fol- low. Both lingered, Barbara because she thought she guessed Ernest's intention, Amberley for another and more personal reason. They walked sedately along Shaftesbury Avenue; and once Amberley pulled Barbara back from a dangerous taxicab which was purring and nosing out of a side street. He released her arm instantly ; but the contact with her made him more nervous than he had been. Bar- bara, finding him silent, plunged valorously into her spe- cialty, dramatic criticism. She took the play they had seen, and used it as a peg upon which to hang her strenuous arguments. "I'm sure such plays as that belong to an old type," she said. "A bad type. Even you would agree to that, wouldn't you?" "A bad old type," Amberley admitted. "Only for the stage. There were girls sniffing and crying all round us. I expect the men were just as bad. It's frightfully unhealthy. It gets the theatre a bad name. People go, and go ; and they lose their sense of reality. It's like getting used to margarine, or some patent kind of but- ter made of kerosene : you'd lose your sense of real butter. And so, when somebody really comes along with a first-hand play, with real people in it, and real understanding, and a real knowledge of life — people don't go." "I've never seen such a play," Amberley said. "You've nev " Barbara really couldn't remember one that she had herself seen. How horrible he was. There must have been several ; but he had driven them out of her mind. There was — well, she'd been very bored by ON THE STAIRCASE 243 that. She didn't think that some plays that critics said were real were like anything on earth. "I wish you wouldn't say things like that," she said. "They're so disconcerting." "Have you ever seen us in a play? Many people have seen their relatives in a play by Robertson called David Garrick." "Never !" she cried, bumping against him in her excite- ment. "They're caricatures." "But how real," Amberley persisted. "D'you really mean to say you think people are like that? You must have very distorted vision." "I see people as they are," he said, laconically. "It seems to be very horrible." "Not when you're used to it. I see their good points as well." "How awfully boring it must be to sum them up — like a judge." "It's rather a satisfaction," he said. "It makes one more content." "Oh, content !" Barbara cried, stopping at a corner, and looking this way and that. "The others have vanished. I should think you were always more than content." "I'm hardly ever that." He walked quietly beside her, in spite of a threatening vehicle. "But it doesn't do much good to quarrel with one's own nature. There it is, and one has to make the best of it." "You can improve it by constant endeavour," she re- buked. "And become a prig for your pains. Of course you can do that. It's not much good to you in the more important moments of your life." "You mean it slips away? But what d'you call impor- tant moments of your life?" Amberley felt he could hardly speak. "When you're trying to make a proposal of marriage," he suggested. Barbara reproached him with a look. 244 ON THE STAIRCASE "Don't be silly," she said. "Look here," Amberley began. "Do you still dislike me as you used to?" Barbara almost stopped, so curious did the remark seem. She looked on ahead, and the others were still out of sight. Her heart began to beat faster. "I don't think you ought to put such leading questions." "Barbara: can't you see I'm struggling to ask you to marry me?" He sounded indignant. "I've been fighting all the evening to do it. No, don't hurry on. Please." Barbara wavered. Their pace slackened at once. He did not touch her, but went on talking in a rather desperate voice. "I ought to do it properly ; but I'm so afraid of the con- sequences." "Oh, I do wish you hadn't," she found herself saying. "I do wish you hadn't." "Well, but my dear! it's the only way to find out," he urged. "I've been in a fearful funk ever since I made up my mind." "It's so absurd," she gasped. "Oh, no, don't let's talk about it !" Amberley laughed excitedly. "I know it's rotten to spoil your evening," he said, like a boy. "It's very important, though. I mean it: it's been my constant thought for months." "Well, that's not true." "It's absolute truth." They had come to the end of Hart Street, and he saw with sinking heart how near they were to the Grettons' house. Barbara turned to him piteously. "But I don't like you !" she said, in a half-angry voice. "Oh, it's horrible!" Amberley kept doggedly beside her. "That's not true," he said. "There's no need to say that, because I don't believe it. You may dislike me. Perhaps you do. But I think you do rather like me — now." ON THE STAIRCASE 245 "I was beginning to." "Won't you go on?" "How can I ? It's so impossible." "You know what those young people are thinking of ?" She turned upon him at that, quite furiously. "Are you just having a game?" she asked. "Oh, I can't think it. No, I'm sure you're not. But it's — really I'm sorry — it's so out of the question." "It's not," he said, stubbornly. "Are you trying to pun- ish me because we've argued before now ? There's nothing — Good God ! there's nothing impossible about it. Any- way, from my point of view. I love you. I have loved you for months. I think you're the only girl in the world. Of course, I see that you may not love me (I admit that I'm wondering how anybody could love me) ; but it's not so grotesque as that, after all. I'm honest, I'm strong, I've got brains ; and I love you. You know three of those things : this is the fourth." "I don't know that any man ever bullied a girl into ac- cepting him," Barbara said, coldly, in a trembling voice. "I'm not bullying; as you very well know. But I am fighting for — well," his self-consciousness pulled him up. "I was going to say, for my life. And that's true enough. It is a man's life. That's why I'm being so imperti- nent " "Oh, you do realise that," she said. He caught sight of her exhausted face, and was filled with compunction. "I'm awfully sorry!" he exclaimed. "I'm making you wretched." Barbara caught his hand, and held it. "It's exciting," she admitted. "Look here — I can't do it. I know I like you. Joe, really I do. I've fought against it ; but it's true that I think you're stronger and better than I am. But I'm sure I don't love you." She gave a little nervous laugh, and struggled her fingers free from his. 246 ON THE STAIRCASE "You know, our relations have always been peculiar. . . . Do take no ; and be friends." "Oh, you're splendid !" he said. "I knew you would be !" "Will you?" "No," Amberley said. "If you say no, I won't bother you, and I won't presume ; but sooner or later it's got to be yes, or nothing. Don't let it interfere with the innocents in front of us." "You like that ?" she asked. He shrugged. "It's inevitable. Ernest's just the man for her; and she's a dear." "Oh, Joe!" she said. "Hush," Amberley said, with a twisted smile on his face. "You're too compassionate." II When they reached Great James Street they found that the two others were nowhere to be seen. They looked up street and down street; beyond the brilliant tramcars, and down through the grim shadows of the tall houses in the opposite direction. "They must have gone up," Barbara said. "What shall I do?" It made her heart ache to observe his thought for her. "You'd better come up too." She opened the front door with her key. The hall was in absolute darkness. Above, from the top of the house, they could hear, very faintly, happy laughter. They stopped instinctively; and Barbara gave a tremulous sigh. "You hear?" she whispered. "Very well." Amberley prepared to follow her. "Joe, dear. I'm so sorry and ashamed." He made a sharp sound of protest, a sort of weary, deprecating "Oh !" They could barely see each other in the darkness; but Barbara bent towards him and put her hands on his shoul- ON THE STAIRCASE 247 ders. Still he would not put his arms round her; but raised his hands to her elbows, looking straight into her eyes as though in spite of the darkness he was trying to pene- trate their unfathomable depths. "When you say yes," he whispered. "That'll be never." She dropped her hands to her sides again. "Come along," she said, and moved towards the stairs. Amberley stumbled after her in the darkness, up past Velancourt's office on the first floor, up and up until they reached the warm lights of the Grettons' flat. CHAPTER XXVI AFTERWARDS THERE was an exasperating five minutes before the Amberleys were allowed to leave, in order that they might still be in time to get home before midnight; and Amberley in a dazed way listened to the laughter of Susan and Ernest, for the first time hating merriment as much as a too highly-strung sick person hates it. When they actually left the flat, Barbara came with genuine honesty and shook hands warmly with him, as though by doing that she might assure him of her new feeling. She would not let him re- lease her hand until she had spoken. "You're to come soon," she said. "You must." More she could not say, because the others were there. But she could not help looking after Amberley as they went tramping down to the front door. If he had turned, she must have followed, to repeat still more urgently the re- quest she had made. And now that he was gone beyond reach of all the explanations and impulses which rose to her heart, Barbara was quite helpless. She was not tri- umphant: it never occurred to her to be that. She was absorbed in him. And the Amberleys walked to the Holborn Town Hall, Susan dancing along beside Joseph in greatest glee, holding his arm and hugging it in the lightest of high spirits. They went on the top of the tram, where there was nobody be- sides themselves ; and Amberley lighted his pipe, and Susan 248 ON THE STAIRCASE 249 tucked her arm under his. Thus they sat in expressive silence. He could see her smiling uncontrollably. At an- other time he would have been amused and protective ; but now he was sore with defeat and miserable with a sense of complete disaster. He could not at first rouse himself, for although his heart was still beating fast his brain was sunk in a lethargy of remembrance. It had all been so swift ; so, in a way, casual; and he had failed. There was failure before him and behind him. He had never failed before. Failure had never seemed to him impossible ; he had always been quite clear about that ; but its far-reaching effects had somehow made it imperative that he should in this case succeed. Now everything was lost : if he had not so ab- jectly failed, Barbara could not have been so overwhelm- ingly kind. Even in her kindness there was a deeper sting. Kindness was the surest sign of his hopeless plight. If the scene in the dark hall could have been repeated, Amberley, in his present distraught mood, felt that he would have given the world to kiss her. Then he was thankful that it could not be repeated. The temptation, once triumphant, would so have grown by means of gnawing thought that the pain would have been the greater. To his rescue came the sense of her splendid trust. It made his heart swell to know that she was all he had imagined her to be. Silently he breathed to himself his proud understanding of her quality. The barrier between them was gone. There was at least no barrier now to their understanding. Oh, but what a wife ! Susan, with an unusual shyness, slipped her hand down to his, and pressed his arm against her. "Joe, dear," she whispered. The bright colour was in her cheeks. He bent nearer for her confidence. "Did you know? I'm so jolly tremendously happy." "Why, what can you mean?" he asked her, resolutely unconscious of her appeal. "Did you know?" 250 ON THE STAIRCASE He had not the heart to disappoint her, or to cheapen her exultant happiness. "You'll never guess !" she breathed. "Don't say you've . . . broken a window !" he said, lamely. Susan peered over her shoulder at the empty seats around; and said, thrillingly: "Ernest's asked me . . . Oh, Joe, you do know ! Ernest wants me to ... I can't realise it !" Amberley pinched her fingers. "Well, well !" he said, in great surprise. "Of course you % referred him to mother." "Why should I ? It's me he wants to marry ! Say you're glad, Joe !" "Wasn't it three years I gave you?" he teased. "But I expect you deserve it all. It'll make you into a real woman. Don't you think so? Of course I'm glad. ... A little lonely, perhaps." He was only pretending. "Oh !" she cried, flushing. "Not for years, of course." "Shall I give you three months?" She shook his hand, for punishment. Susan began to talk, full of extraordinary vivacity, of sudden plans, of transparent traps to catch praises of Ernest and appreciation of her own rapture. She talked on and on, breathlessly, like a lark new risen, thrilling out the beauty of the day. And Amberley listened with a sober face, and an aching heart, catching sometimes a glimpse of her own happy sweetness; and once or twice laughing aloud at her naivete. Later, when they were at home, having supper by the warm fire, she cried out: "Hasn't it been a splendid evening !" "What!" cried Amberley. "You surely didn't like that rotten play!" "It was a disgusting play," said Susan, emphatically. "But all the rest !" "I can see why the English Drama is moribund," Am- ON THE STAIRCASE 251 berley said. "It's no more than a pretext. For the first time I begin to appreciate Mr. Gordon Craig's Ueber- Marionettes !" II That night he did not sleep at all, but tossed from side to side, over and over, in every position. He sat up and strained his eyes at the darkness, and put the pillow right against the back of the bed, and seemed to think himself sick and tasteless. His mouth felt dry, and his head ached ; every nerve in his body seemed to be consumed with irri- tation, so that he could not for a single moment keep still. And he uttered no sound. What was the good of groan- ing? For the moment he was beaten. Even his thoughts of Barbara seemed to drift into a weary repetition. It was a thousand times worse than the torments of the damned, unless monotony is one of those torments. He tried to force himself to think of other things, saying his thoughts clearly in his mind, to call up a sense of his next day's work. ... It was useless. Under every explicit thought went on the dull wondering dismay of unhappiness. He had no self-pity : his mind was too clear for that. He seemed to feel that he had never deserved to win that bat- tle. For it was a battle ; and he knew that Barbara was his superior. She had been just splendid. She had been frank and equal — that was the wonder of it ! She had been as sincere as himself, and more generous than he had had any right to expect. His one stark inescapable thought was an understanding of her generosity. Yes, but that was what gave an air of finality to the disaster. He would not yet reach back to his own old confidence. The victory and all the glory were hers. She hadn't been mean : she had been Surely she had risen to herself just on the instant? Surely he might suppose that he had helped to call out her latent marvellousness? Amberley 252 ON THE STAIRCASE was humbled before Barbara, and even triumphant at his supreme knowledge of her. Velancourt — Good God ! The man would never understand that much. He hadn't got the imagination ! Velancourt saw everything with his blind emotions. He was an insensitive when it came to actual shades of spiritual quality. He'd seen Barbara as some- thing terrific ; but only in terms of his own maudlin mother- wit. He'd think of her in hyperbole ; but understand her — never ! He never got near enough to anything ! He wasn't humble enough to see the exquisite gradations of beauty in a woman like Barbara. Hotly, Amberley pushed the bed- clothes away, lest they should combine with his excitement to stifle him. Velancourt hadn't got the humility that wise people called sense of humour ! He was a stumbling egoist, with a pictorial starry world good enough to dream in, but never good enough for life ! Bring Velancourt before Bar- bara, and he'd see — as any fool could see — her beauty and her strength ; but he could not see her quality. He'd know it was there : he'd guess it must be there. But he'd never be able to understand it. Why, the fool couldn't even understand his own wife ! Thereafter, Amberley's fever died slowly away, and with it his arrogance. He could not criticise Velancourt. Fools would do that; and he couldn't be one of those to belittle his friend. Velancourt was his friend. But nobody ex- pected a man placed as he was to be fair to anybody alive : nobody expected him to be even modest about himself. Then there was Susie. Amberley shrugged, and turned his face to the pillow. There it was, for all to see. There was the simple happiness of a delightful pair . . . and Barbara still stood before him as the real woman, the one vitally real woman of his life. To compare even Susie with her was as if one should compare a freshet to a cascade — the one gracefully charming, the other an irresistible bril- liant torrent of living water. As the room became greyer, and the objects in it dis- cernible, Amberley tried to bury his burning head beneath ON THE STAIRCASE 253 the bedclothes and to make himself fall asleep by mere ex- ercise of determination. But he was still lying awake, with his hot eyes staring at the vagueness of the grey ceiling, when he heard Susie's bedroom door open. It was time to get up, time for the first long day to begin and to drag wearily to its evening. A deep, involuntary sigh broke from him. CHAPTER XXVII ON THE STAIRCASE AS, with a feeling of dread, Amberley entered Great James Street that morning, he met Velancourt. The encounter was a shock to him ; still more shocking was the expression of weary despondency upon Velancourt's face. The sense that they were both so woebegone made Amberley laugh rather ruefully ; but however ludicrous it might seem to him he knew that there was a more serious side to the matter. His natural robustness made him shirk any senti- mental feeling — by which is meant the glow of enthusiasm in which men and women contemplate their own lovingness, generosity, misfortunes, and other qualities — but that was no reason why he should suppose Velancourt insincere. He detained Velancourt in the passage. "Are you still worrying about upstairs?" he asked — he meant Robinsons. Velancourt started and looked at him in something like horror. "A bit," he said, sighing with relief. "Don't. Try not to. You've got till the end of the year. If you like I'll speak to some friends of mine. Would you mind my doing that ? But look here, old chap ; you'll knock yourself up. You don't want to do that." "I don't know," Velancourt said, in a shaky voice. "Wouldn't it almost be better?" Amberley shook his head almost disgustedly. 254 ON THE STAIRCASE 255 "Well, I suppose Mrs. Velancourt counts for something?" he said. "Cissie ?" Perhaps it was a new idea to Velancourt. He turned away, and went up the stairs to his office on the first floor. Amberley, seeing him go, shrugged and went to reprove Hackett for spilling ink on the hearthrug. II Velancourt sat and thought. He thought deliberately : "I'm very weak. I'm sacrific- ing myself, and Cissie too. Oh, I must buck up. It's no good getting into this bitter doleful state. Oh, of course it's easy for Amberley to talk. He doesn't understand. But it's time I did something. What can I do ?" He had first to get a new situation. Then he had to for- get Barbara. It was strange that he hadn't realised that before. He had to forget her, because there was Cissie. He couldn't realise Cissie and Barbara — it was an indignity to couple their names. No it wasn't. It was horrible; but the indignity lay at his door. He should never have acted so that their names could be coupled. But what terrible rubbish that was — as though one plotted out one's life, and then managed it. Oh, it was unbearable! He sat long, with his head on his hands, thinking. It seemed as though everything he had ever done had turned out wrongly. With every desire to do what was right, he had failed. He had failed at the office — so much had been revealed explicitly to him. And Cissie had taken it badly — more badly even that he had expected. She had been thrown into a horrible panic. The recollection of her face and her tone of angry fear revolted him. It was as though all that bad part of her rose and became strident. Surely that was wrong in a wife? Amberley thought him blame- worthy : it was clear that he had blamed him. Cissie had probably lost all reserve and told him all her trouble — but 256 ON THE STAIRCASE what zvere her troubles? And what on earth was the good of telling them to Amberley? Amberley thought he had treated Cissie badly. Had he? And he'd meant to treat her so well. He'd meant to make her happy : he had thought they were both to be so happy. . . . Why was it that they were not? When he thought of that failure his heart seemed to beat in his throat. He must have been in some way brutal. He'd neglected her, hadn't tried to understand her. . . . Oh, but he had ! He knew what was wrong. In a frenzy he began to pace about the room. There was the dreadful knowledge of their unsympathy in his mind. She didn't understand love. She thought it was a mean possessiveness, a jealous partnership in secret conspiracy. It was, to her, based on a horrible mutual contempt — the drawing away of cloaks from one's own unworthiness, and a joint endeavour to keep other people from guessing it. Velancourt tasted the dregs of his perceptions then. He saw Cissie distorted, a gro- tesque compound of every worst impulse that she had. He piled one upon the other, to make an image of loathly shape. Her secretiveness, her assumption that he was at heart much less clean than he pretended, her vain search for some com- mon confession of mean feeling, seemed to him vile and odious. She became a malign figure in his frenzy. He could not see her as a struggling human being like himself : suspicion and rancour dominated his evil rage. If she had helped ... if she had said to herself: "He is my husband, worthy or unworthy." But no ! Her thought was only fear for herself. Self, self, self ! Now, in his distress, she was his worst enemy, his persistent detractor, savage, unrestrained, full of contempt for him . . . bitter with disappointment. What should he do ; what could he do, if she continued as she had begun? He was trying, he had been trying, to get another situation. He would re- double his efforts ; but with unselfish love to encourage him how much greater his hope ! The knowledge that she had betrayed him to Amberley ON THE STAIRCASE 257 was bitter ; but the knowledge that she had no faith in him was more bitter still. She didn't believe in him. He almost thought she imagined him capable of lying to her. Velan- court knew he was not a liar. She had cross-examined him as though he had been a thief. He could not forgive her that. It was so ungenerous, so absolutely false to any knowledge he had of himself. He knew some of the faults which must be too evident : he knew them as well as she could know them — they were selfishness, unpractical use- lessness, difficulty of temper — but nobody had ever for a moment questioned his honour. It had been left to his wife to do that! How could love descend to such meanness? It was impossible. She could never have loved him. She must hate him. He was blind in his anger to her suspicious- ness. Had he no friend? Amberley, clearly, was alienated. His sensitiveness rebelled vehemently against the cordial afTection that Amberley had shown when they met. He thought Amberley's consideration was contempt. He could not bear contempt. It made him feel so strongly that he feared he would go mad. Was he not mad now? Had anything really happened ? Was it not all a horrible imag- ining? Velancourt smiled as he had never done before, with a malicious bitterness. He had no real doubt of his complete sanity, or if he had he knew quite well that his arrival home would reassure him. It was no dream, but a reality. He would find Cissie there. A shudder shook his whole body at the thought of her. Ill Supposing he were dead? Oh, that was unthinkable. There was to be no help for him from outside. He must stand alone. He had always been alone. Why, then, should he now look for some assistance, at a time when even friends were known to avert their heads? He must 258 ON THE STAIRCASE get cooler, and think what was to be done. He had no money : he owed nearly fifty pounds for furniture : Cissie was dependent on him. In a month he would be out of employment — in mid-winter. And he did not dare to think of Barbara Gretton. He tried even to think quietly of her; but the stirring of passionate emotion which her image called up made his head reel, until he thought he really was mad. "Wait a minute . . . wait a minute," he muttered to him- self. "I must be quite clear in my mind. Cissie hates me ; Amberley despises me; Barbara . . . doesn't care that!" He snapped his fingers. "If Cissie loved me better than herself" — he spoke with a sort of furious calmness — "I could get through. It only means confidence. . . . Why is it I'm so dependent on others ? Oh, I'm no good. There's nothing to do. Nothing on earth to do ! I've been mad, and I am mad. And I've got to get through this. I can get through it — or I could, if only Cissie could be kept quiet. There's nowhere she could go. She'll always be at home, until I shall dread going home and telling her that I've got nothing. Unless I get something !" Well, that was a saving thought. Amberley had said that he would speak to some friends. . . . Amberley was a trump! He'd never thanked him. He'd run down and thank him now. No — not yet. At lunch-time he would go down. . . . His moods alternated, his thoughts were repeated, and the time passed. What little work he had to do lay before him still. Distantly the Holborn Town Hall clock chimed an hour. He listened for the strokes. There was only one stroke. It was one o'clock. Amberley would be gone to lunch. He must finish his work. Feverishly he looked at his papers, without being able to understand what they were about ; and then he took his hat, and went out, locking the door behind him. Then his heart gave a bound, for Barbara Gretton was coming up the stairs towards him. ON THE STAIRCASE 259 IV How beautiful she looked ! It was Velancourt's first thought. He thought she had never been so beautiful. She seemed graver than usual, and even more kind. But how beautiful. Even when she had reached his side, and stood almost as tall as himself, Velancourt was still in a marvel at her beauty. Barbara smiled at him, and would have passed on, but for his sudden exclamation. "You . . . haven't seen . . . Amberley!" he said, dash- ing at last at the first thinkable formula of words. Now that she was on the landing he could hardly see her face, for she was in shadow. "No," said Barbara. "Does he want to see me?" Velan- court felt unforgivably stupid. "I meant," he stammered, "I meant ... I wanted to see him myself. He offered . . . offered to help me. You know I shall be leaving at the end of the year." "Leaving? I didn't know." Barbara turned again. "I'm very sorry indeed." "You're really sorry? Really?" he asked, eagerly. She laughed a little. "That was what I said. I meant it. But perhaps you won't be far away?" He stared at her, uncomprehending. Then : "I may be dead," he said, in a sudden voice. She could not understand Velancourt saying such a thing, and waited, her foot withdrawn from the next stair. It seemed so meaningless. "I hope not," she ventured at last. "That seems a very silly idea." "I'm afraid I'm simply stupid," Velancourt began, hur- riedly. "I oughtn't to have said that. But I didn't expect to meet you. I'm afraid I'm . . . Please forgive me." 2 6o ON THE STAIRCASE Barbara smiled at him, and began to ascend to the next flight. "Miss Gretton . . . Please forgive me." "All right," she said, stopping and speaking over her shoulder. "But it was very silly. Wherever you are, I hope you'll still come and see us. I suppose you'll be in this neighbourhood?" "I don't know. You don't understand. It's not that I've got something else to do. The firm's being wound up." He looked desperately at her. "Really? I'm very sorry. I didn't realise that. I think it's for you to forgive me. But of course you'll have no difficulty . . ." She had come down a stair, and their faces were almost on a level. "Was it in that that Mr. Amberley was going to help you?" He knew that the expression in her eyes changed: she stood now where the light fell upon her face. She had deep grey eyes, as wonderful as the sea. He worshipped her. A new courage was born in him. "He thought he could." The words would hardly come. "He's a good friend," Barbara said, in a warm voice. "I hope he'll be able to help. Though in any case . . ." "You've made me feel tremendous," Velancourt said, im- pulsively. "As though you'd blessed me." His face shone in the dim light of the stairs ; his lips were parted, and his head thrown back in fresh courage. "Now I'm afraid you're being very silly indeed," Bar- bara admonished. "You go to Mr. Amberley. He's of practical use. I can only wish you well. Good-bye." She was going up the stairs again when Amberley came racing up from below. He pulled up on seeing Barbara, and took his hat off without speaking. Barbara didn't stop, but she did not avoid him, and when she was out of sight of him, she felt trembling and unhappy. It was just noth- ing at all, a sort of unspoken greeting between them ; but it had moved her to a sense of his unflinching pluck. "Look here, come to lunch with me," Amberley said to ON THE STAIRCASE 261 Velancourt, in a cool stiff voice. It fell with quite an odd sound, reminding both of them that they had waited to hear the closing click of the upper door. They looked at each other with a common coldness of scrutiny, until Amberley took Velancourt's arm; whereupon they descended the stairs together, and went out into the busy streets. CHAPTER XXVIII THE ANALYST STILL with his arm linked in Velancourt's, Amberley led the way to the Tarratonga Tea Shop where he gen- erally had his meals. For the purpose of a quiet chat he took his friend to the smoking-room, and found a cush- ioned seat in a corner. Because he was a friend of hers, Dolly, the rather angular but amiable waitress, served them with great rapidity; and they ate side by side — like cats out of the same dish, as Amberley thought. Then Amberley began with an assumed casualness to discover exactly how far Velancourt was aware of his own business, and how far his knowledge needed revision. "Have you got any plans at all?" he asked. "I mean, after leaving Robinsons'." Velancourt shook his head. He had not spoken all the way from Great James Street, and was sitting with a look of strained rebelliousness upon his face, as though he could hardly breathe. Amberley went on eating, rather stolidly, so that at last Velancourt felt bound to speak. "You said something . . ." he hesitatingly began. "Well, would you care for that? I don't know if it would come to anything. I have a friend, an old friend who used to live in London, who went to Bath to live. He says Bath's waking up ; and he once asked me if there was any chance of my leaving London, and going there. He's a solicitor. Now, you come from that part — Bath's very 262 ON THE STAIRCASE 263 near your native place, isn't it ? I thought that if you could get there at an improving screw you'd live cheaper, be in more congenial surroundings, and get on better. You're not tied to London?" Velancourt felt breathless. For a moment his gratitude was intense. "Oh, if you could!" he cried. "D'you think your wife would mind?" Velancourt looked steadfastly at his plate. He had for- gotten Cissie. Amberley, seeing his expression, felt sorry for him ; but he quickly turned away again, in case Velan- court should think him disposed to pry. "It's rather . . . hard to say," Adrian managed at length to stammer. He looked sharply up, with an agonised desire to tell Amberley at least something of his state. "It isn't as though " He checked himself, and was again silent from a forced pride. "She hasn't many friends now — she couldn't be worse off there. Amberley, how do people get to make friends — I mean, young married women ?" "I tell you what. I might write to my friend. Would you like that?" "Awfully." "Right. Well, I don't know how friends are made — by young women. With men it's generally a sort of slow slid- ing intimacy, and there comes a time when one man (the stronger, or the more fearful) has to decide whether it's going any further. It's strange, that. Personally, I don't regard any man as my friend unless he's my superior in something at least." Velancourt was astonished at such a tone from Amber- ley. He had thought him so self-content. "I shouldn't have expected that !" he said, with a quick, interested glance. "From you. You surely . . ." He stopped, and coloured. "Certainly," Amberley assured him. "I think you my superior." 264 ON THE STAIRCASE "I? How can that be?" Velancourt asked. But he was pleased and proud. "You must justify yourself," retorted Amberley. "By bucking up." "I am. ... I feel different. M-Miss Gretton was so kind." He faltered over the name, and Amberley's teeth clenched. "And now, you," Velancourt concluded, in a stammering boyishness. "Right. I'll write to Bath. My friend's name is Ros- kins, and he's a tremendously good chap. If he can do any- thing I know he will. Nonsense — grateful be skittled. You'd be better out of London." Velancourt gave a great start. He realised abruptly what that meant. If he were all those miles away he would be entirely cut off from Barbara. Wasn't that what he wanted ? But why did Amberley think he'd be better away ? A quick fear came to him. Had he betrayed himself? Could he have done that? Oh, he must — Amberley must have seen that evening. Amberley hadn't ridiculed him; but he'd seen, he'd put the worst construction, the truest (as he now saw), upon the sudden flight from Highgate. But an anger rose in him that Amberley could be so officious. What business could it be of Amberley's? It was his own busi- ness. This thing of all others was his own, and none should interfere. Amberley was not to play guide to his emotions ! "Oh," he said, in a quivering voice. "I'm not sure that I want to leave London. I don't want . . ." His voice failed, his cheeks were flushed. Inarticulate, he looked at Amberley, to meet the cool hazel eyes fixed upon him with such understanding that he could not continue at all. "You want a new situation, and a comfortable one. A country solicitor is always glad to have a clerk with Lon- don experience," Amberley's persuasive voice went on. "You see you've got a better chance of getting a good coun- try job than its equivalent in London. You'd have more time there, and on the whole a less exacting experience. And in the country you'd have all the natural beauties you ON THE STAIRCASE 265 so wish to have. Bath is a beautiful place, with associa- tions — personally, I think Bath a shabby place, but it has great beauties — and its surroundings are wonderful. The Avon Valley " Velancourt interrupted him with a savage despair. His face had paled, so deeply was he moved. "Yes . . . but why do you so much want to get me away from London?" he demanded. II They sat right in the corner of the large smoking-room. Elsewhere the domino-players amused themselves and reg- istered points in pencil on the marble-topped tables. One portentous pale man with an unhealthy face and straggling beard played chess with a youth, whom he was contriving to beat, as he did every day. Others there were who had propped papers or books against the cruet or the sugar- basin, and were reading as they ate. But they were all far away, removed from Amberley and Velancourt by a long stretch of unoccupied tables. Amberley seemed to be abstractedly watching the bearded chess-player. Velancourt, turning impatiently towards him, was so close that he could see the fine dark hair upon Am- berley's cheeks, a soft down not reached by the razor. He could see the firm line of the mouth, and Amberley's rather deep-set eyes. And the few white hairs just above Amber- ley's ear. But being so close, he was able actually to recognise the air of strength in Amberley's head. It seemed larger than he had thought : Amberley himself seemed big- ger. But his face was almost grey, too. Somehow Velan- court, at a white heat of tension though he was, saw Amber- ley for the first time. He turned his eyes away, and moved in his seat. Every nerve seemed to be on edge ; and his long thin hands were twisting together until they hurt him. 266 ON THE STAIRCASE The silence itself, broken afar by the sharp noise of click- ing dominoes and plates, and the girls calling orders to those behind a counter, was intolerable. Again he opened his mouth, and closed it — he couldn't speak until his question was answered. "Is there any reason I might have, except a desire to help you?" Amberley asked slowly. Velancourt drew a quick breath, and swayed in his seat. Ill For quite a minute Velancourt could not speak at all. He had put down his knife and fork. "What did you mean just then?" he asked, in a faint voice. It was no good pretending that he had not read a warning in Amberley's voice. It was no good pretending anything to Amberley, after this. "Look here, old chap," Amberley said, suddenly. "I'm not playing a game ; but trying to help you. I want to help you ; but if I can do that best by not helping you, then I'm content. I don't want to be officious ; and I'm not going to say anything more. I'll write to my Bath friend and tell you what he says. Or there's a friend of mine in a firm of educational publishers in London who might do something. But don't let me seem to be trying to do anything for you. Whatever is done, you'll do yourself." Velancourt listened eagerly, nodding once or twice, and then thinking. "I know what you mean," he said at last. "I want to show that I understand." "There's no need," Amberley put in, swiftly. "I'm sure of that." "Is it something Cissie's said to you?" Velancourt was forced out into the open. Amberley's lids were lowered. He had not thought out any plan ; and he was in something of a fix. ON THE STAIRCASE 267 "I thought perhaps some of her difficulties could be solved," he said. "There was that, certainly." "Amberley, I wish you'd be frank. I'm nearly mad. You know how irritable I am. I feel as though I can't bear anything much longer." Velancourt spoke in a strained, urgent, impulsive voice that showed how deeply he was ex- cited ; and Amberley looked round at him for the first time. "Of course, there are a thousand things we neither of us can say; but I think I trust you at this moment. I mean, I believe you're my friend. I'm in an awful difficulty." He stopped. At each breathless sentence he had wished to unspeak what he had said; but some other, more powerful, feeling strove him on to what he felt was indiscretion upon indiscretion. "Mrs. Velancourt . . ." Amberley hesitated. What was his friendship worth without candour? If he expurgated his thoughts, that gave the lie to his assertion that he thought Velancourt his superior. He resumed : "She had some idea that you might have talked to me about things you don't mention to her. You understand that she's rather bewildered about you. I explained that we didn't talk about our affairs ; but about our less personal relations. I think she feels she hasn't got your confidence. You really must forgive me, old chap — Mrs. Velancourt hasn't much sym- pathy with abstract things. She's interested only in the concrete. And the concrete, to her, is yourself, and your feeling for her. They're very important. To an outsider, it's just possible to have . . . some . . . some feeling, as you might say, for both sides of a . . . Velancourt, you won't be . . . well, of a dilemma. Your wife has, accord- ing . . . No, not that. She really prizes you above every- thing — your comfort, your well-being. But she's not on intellectual terms with you. She seems really to feel . . ." Amberley broke off. It was impossible. He could not say the true things without being in some way abominable. Velancourt sat perfectly still, listening with an almost frantic earnestness. 268 ON THE STAIRCASE "You do see that I can't say . . ." Amberley resumed. "Now, you are very greatly moved by things outside Airs. Velancourt's experience. But you're intolerant. You've made up your mind that you can't go back from your own position. You'll find you've got to. I don't care what woman you married, you'd find a compromise inevitable. No man on earth when he marries escapes a compromise. I think no woman, either. It's very well for you and me to talk, and to discuss things, and to feel that we under- stand one another. As soon as we're excited we see how much bound up in all our feelings are the memories of old lesions. You begin to feel how little I understand you; I to feel how you misjudge me. Yet we're both men, we're both honest, and scrupulous." Velancourt nodded. Colour was again faintly tinging his cheeks. "You can see how the case is in marriage. There are a thousand more difficulties in every day — moods and feel- ings. Real lovers admit them, and get over them ; but many of them can't get on terms, as it were. There are two languages. I suspect that women think they make all the silent reservations; and that men do it more successfully. That may be my bias. But unless you have a real persis- tent endeavour on both sides misunderstandings arise You see how authoritative I am !" He checked himself for a moment, with a strained smile on his drawn face. "I believe that education, or position, or whatever it is, doesn't in the least matter, as long as there's honesty on both sides. But it takes a clever woman to be honest; and then it's rather a bore to her. She can generally get what she wants more easily by other means. So she uses them. Just as the modern suffragist really wants to sterilise men arti- ficially, and clamours about economic conditions, and house- holding, and so on. It's not that she wants power to help govern the state : it's that she wants power to exert repres- sion upon men. She's not interested in an abstract idea of justice; she's interested in imposing artificial chastity upon ON THE STAIRCASE 269 men because she personally is rather sexless. Nine-tenths of the suffragists don't know it. They're whirled into the movement by all sorts of impulses ; but the leaders are out to sterilise the race. That's why they're angry, and ob- scene. . . . I'm afraid I've wandered off the point. Well, I'm sorry for that. I think you're frightened of yielding your position ; and I don't think ... I don't think any wife on earth would satisfy you, or be satisfied with you. Simply because you're inexperienced. You're fastidious. If you had more sympathy with — for example, Mrs. Velancourt — you'd be happier. You're not happy ; you're trying to find happiness. Nobody ever gets happy that way. If you try to get hold of Mrs. Velancourt's point of view . . . That'll make her happy. She'll try to get hold of your point of view. And as soon as there's a Master or Miss Velancourt you'll notice great changes. Mrs. Velancourt is a born mother : it'll make her a new and wonderful creature . . ." Amberley saw Velancourt flush a deep red. "How little you understand !" said Velancourt. "I mean, about me. If you only knew!" "I do know," explained Amberley. "I haven't got to that yet." IV "You want to live quietly and serenely somewhere; and yet you can't do that because you haven't got any money. Also, you haven't got any contentment. You're excited. You're always excited. Excitement is life to you. It used to be nervous stimulation of your sense of beauty ; now you seem to have crowding on you many things you're afraid of. You're afraid of money, for one thing. Losing a job means losing your income. You're frightened that you'll starve. You're frightened you'll have no home and no fur- niture. How absurd ! You've got one friend — you've got me. If you're ever so little afraid, your wife will be afraid. If you haven't got confidence in yourself, how can you ex- 270 ON THE STAIRCASE pect her to have confidence in you? You can't expect it. She'd be superhuman ; she'd be " Velancourt thought to himself : "He doesn't know. Bar- bara would so believe in me that she'd make me believe in myself." Aloud, he said : "You're arguing to fit the case — being optimistic." "Suppose I am? You've got to believe in your power to walk in and get a job anywhere to-morrow. You've got to recognise that you, as a human being, are of more sig- nificance than any man can realise. It's only vanity that makes people timid. If you once get it fixed in your mind that you're a man, you'll find people tumbling over them- selves to proclaim it." "How easy it is to theorise," Velancourt interrupted. "You don't allow anything at all for temperament. You think " "Don't be arrogant. It's a vice. You're thinking to yourself that you can't effect a mutual understanding with Mrs. Velancourt; you're thinking that you're already out of a job, which is not the case; you're prepared for any disaster; you're thinking of bailiffs and starvation before they're in the neighbourhood " "Yes, but " "And you're half-frantic, and half-swollen with pride be- cause," — Amberley's voice suddenly grew husky and un- steady — "because you've achieved the crowning indiscre- tion of an excitable young man. There's no excuse for that. It's simply due to a wandering damnable self-in- dulgence." Velancourt paled. Then he started to his feet, sweeping his plate aside with a convulsive movement. "Oh, this is too much!" he said, passionately. "I can't let you " "Sit down ; and don't be a fool. I warn you that you're simply " "Please!" Velancourt walked, erect and trembling, to the waitress, and then went out of the Tarratonga. He left ON THE STAIRCASE 271 Amberley sitting with his eyes closed and his face haggard. Amberley's heart seemed to be beating in his throat. He had never been so unhappy, so cruelly angry. For a moment he felt as though he could have killed Velancourt. CHAPTER XXIX REACTION AMBERLEY was on his way back to the office, when he met Barbara, who was walking in the opposite direction, back to Arundel Street. The manner of their en- counter was curiously natural, for both stopped as if it were a matter of course that they should do so. Neither was confused. "Have you quarrelled with Mr. Velancourt?" Barbara asked. "I've just seen him. He didn't notice me: he was in too great a hurry, and very excited." "I'm ashamed," Amberley said. "I lost my temper." "Tell me . . . walk a little way with me." "I'll do that. But I can't tell you." "I thought," began Barbara. "I seemed to think you trusted me." "Entirely," he said, walking beside her. "But it's Velan- court's quarrel." "Oh." They did not discuss that any further ; but went through the narrow court where Barbara had seen Velan- court buying the book. "Did you ever read Fenelon's Ex- istence of God?" "Can't say that I ever did. Why?" "I met Mr. Velancourt buying it here the other day." Amberley gave an uncontrollable nervous laugh. "Splendid !" he said. "I can imagine it." Then : "Has Ernest made the great announcement ?" 272 ON THE STAIRCASE 273 "At breakfast . . . very casually. Has Susan, then? Of course, she must have." "She couldn't wait until breakfast." "And your mother's pleased?" "I heard last night: Susan was agitatedly waiting for mother to get up when I left home." "They're children — both of them." Barbara felt for the first time since their meeting shy and constrained. She al- most hurried. "It's very jolly to see them so happy. I think they zvill be, don't you ?" Amberley agreed. They were in Lincoln's Inn Fields, and kept straight along, for Barbara always went through the gardens beside the Law Courts in the middle of the day. They could see people sitting round the bandstand in the "Fields," some of them munching out of paper bags, some of them reading, a number of very shabby people sit- ting still, half asleep. "I suppose Ernest will come to Highgate to-night?" Am- berley said, idly. "Expect so." "I must buy mother a copy of The Shadow of Ash- lydyat" he added, as an afterthought. "She'll be delighted. D 'you know we sometimes feel tremendously grateful to Mrs. Henry Wood for being such a prolific writer. What's the phrase? 'A tale that keeps old ladies in the chimney corner' ?" Barbara laughed, recognising the perversion of a motto used by a popular series. Somehow all their talk was some- thing quite apart from their feelings. It was not dishonest ; but it was a sort of safe road for both to tread. It was like a perfectly recognisable convention, that deceived neither and yet was gratefully utilised by both. II They had come out into Carey Street, and saw the gar- dens before them in a blaze of autumnal sunshine. The 274 ON THE STAIRCASE grass was quite green, with here and there a hint of brown ; and the flower beds were at this time unimpressive. Many people trod the broad path. Ahead they could see St. Clem- ent Danes, flashing back the pale sunlight that played upon it ; and on either side of the church were many-hued vehicles, passing at great speed. They were right above the road. A little to the right of St. Clement Danes was Arundel Street, down which Barbara knew she would pres- ently catch a glimpse of the dark Thames waters. She could not help feeling a new quietude stealing upon her at the contemplation of these familiar things with Amberley at her side. He was not coming any further, and their parting must be brief ; yet she did not want him to go without knowing that, while she could never think of mar- rying him, she liked to be with him, liked to feel that their eyes saw the same things, and their thoughts were started by the same objects passing so rapidly before them. As Amberley raised his hat she could not help blurting out her kindness. "I'm glad you came with me," she said. "Thank you," was all Amberley answered ; but she saw his face brighten. Then she hurried away, for she saw the golden hands of the clock within sight nearly at a quarter- past two. Before she reached the Strand the clock at the Law Courts struck the quarter. She could not run, in case he was still looking after her ; but she felt as though it was strangely pleasant to know that an honest man loved her. Just as Amberley was very happily moved by the thought that Barbara should have allowed him to walk by her side for that short distance. On his return journey Amberley hardly saw the streets and the people: he was seeing the brown-coated figure walking through the gardens, and he was seeing Velan- court's sudden departure from the Tarratonga. His anger was over, dismissed from his mind. His jealousy was gone. He was only sorry now to have hurt Velancourt. The role of the candid friend did not suit him; he always ON THE STAIRCASE 275 forgot that what was quite permissible in self-communion assumed an unnatural harshness when spoken, lacking as it was all those essential shades of mental association which made it at home in his own mind. One might be as wise as Solomon, and as kind as Mrs. Gretton; but one's wisdom should be restricted to general propositions. Particular facts, emphasized with candour, were sharp instruments. "Yes, I'm awfully sorry to have hurt him," Amberley said. "But I've given him something to think about. The man's blind!" Nevertheless, he made up his mind to apologise to Velan- court. He did not excuse himself on the ground of his own strained nerves. He knew that he "ought not to have done it." That was punishment enough. Ill True to his last inclination, Amberley went rather courageously up to the first floor, and knocked at the outer door of Robinsons' office. There was no response. He knocked again. Then he tried the handle. The door was locked. "Strange!" he said to himself. "Not back?" He could see that there was no key in the keyhole from the other side. The office must be empty. He was going down the stairs as an old man was com- ing up. The old man was well-dressed, and his face was easily recognisable as that of a solicitor. It was old Seares, as Amberley saw. "Nobody in?" Seares asked, taking out his watch. "I suppose Velancourt's not back from lunch yet." "Preposterous." "It seems strange, certainly," Amberley said, with great suavity. He was not going to quarrel again to-day. "Who are you?" asked old Seares. "Joseph Amberley. I'm downstairs. Vokes's." 276 ON THE STAIRCASE "Ugh." They parted ; and Amberley could not fail to notice the ugly expression in Seares's face. What had happened to Velancourt ? He hoped nothing had happened to him. And why the dickens wasn't Velancourt back, three-quarters of an hour after they had parted? He went down the stairs and into his own office ; and listened for Velancourt's step. He heard old Seares open the door above with a key from his own jingling bunch. Then there was silence; and he did not hear Velancourt come in. CHAPTER XXX CISSIE AT the first announcement of Adrian's dismissal Cissie had lost her head. Shrilly, driven to wild despera- tion by Velancourt's acceptance of the inevitable, she had railed at him in her urgent terror of consequences. It was Cissie who had fired Velancourt's fear that on losing his sit- uation he also lost the game. She had watched his fruitless replies to advertisements, had waited for the postman's knock that never came, except as an announcement of some cramped postcard from Elsie. She had watched thus for nearly three months ; and perhaps twenty applications had been smothered without acknowledgment. What hope could she have that some one future application would be more successful? He would go on writing, and nothing would come of it ; and where would they be? She had, in a panic, insisted that he must get something else. Otherwise they would be penniless. Once a man was definitely out of a situ- ation the hope of another one dwindled. She remembered that her father had once been out of a situation for four months ; and they had been kept alive only by two lodgers and the savings which her thrifty mother had put by. Her mother had by hard words driven her father out of the house each morning to look for work ; she had mastered him in that time, rising to venomous savagery as he, returning tired out each evening, reported a succession of failures. And her father, a carpenter, was 277 278 ON THE STAIRCASE a man who could really work: if you gave Adrian a nail he could not knock it in. She knew she would still find him marking a place on the wall for a nail to strike, and lost in some useless dream that took his mind off the work. Apart from her dread, because they could have no lodg- ers, and because they had now no savings, but only the debt of the furniture, she knew of no tactics better than her mother's destructive bullying. It had been as though her mother had been all the time crouched for some fiercer strangling hold to kill her father's manhood: so Cissie crouched, instinctively. Adrian's first business was to keep her : if he could not, then she must be forever on to him, using all her spleen to remind him of his responsibility, to rob him of his independence. That was all Cissie knew. She had seen it done: she had no conception of other tactics. Man was the bread- winner. So long as he earned the bread, he was to be flat- tered into a sense of power. Once he failed, he must be brought to heel by dread of a querulous wife. If he had no money, and could get none, he must be driven. It was as though the mainspring of a watch had snapped and had whirringly signalled its breakdown. So, hysterically, had Cissie taken the news, impulsively following an instinct which she obeyed without thought. That which was the abandonment of every fine feeling had led her into vitu- peration. It lasted on, after her energy had exhausted it- self, in the form of a sullenness more evil than Velancourt's apathy. When he had left for the office she had sat down with a heavy look of disagreeableness on her pretty swollen face, and she had continued to think of the disaster, and angrily of Velancourt, and pityingly of herself, with a sort of underlying complacency. She did not know what she had said ; but she had worn herself out with excited shrill- ness ; and he had been passive under it. That was how it had been at home when she had been a little girl. She re- membered how quiet her father had been and how, when her mother had been out of the room, he had sat in his ON THE STAIRCASE 279 creaking chair, and sighed. At first, she knew, he had tried to protest; but her mother had kept on in a higher voice. She had felt the same fear. Adrian must get something. He must. When one said "must" in that way, one implied desperation, one implied "can't." II After an hour's brooding, during which she raked up a good many of her more emphatic phrases and indulged her- self with more than one mot d'escalier, Cissie began to clear away the breakfast, still quivering as the result of the nervous strain she had undergone. She felt that she was almost helpless with Adrian — as though she had to push him, to make him do anything. If only he'd been differ- ent ! It was a good job he had a wife who could look after him — helpless, he was. But she had just said that she also was helpless. That remained to be seen. Her face had that hard obstinate look that Amberley had once surprised ; you would have thought it impossible that Cissie could ever again smile or look alluring. At that moment she was quite given over to selfishness and a contemptuous resolve to bring Adrian to his senses. But then, as she wished Adrian different, she remembered that she had said the same thing to Joseph Amberley; and her more gentle feelings began to provide their own leaven- ing power. She had tried to stretch up to the feeling that she supposed Amberley would have. He would think that she had not tried the right way to make Adrian do his best. Oh, yes, she had : her angry feelings said. It took a great while to make her genuinely doubtful of her own wisdom. It was like questioning a tradition which had been in the family from its first arising; and the Jenkins tradition had come especially out of the mists of that peculiar antiquity which lies behind every suburban family. It was like a 280 ON THE STAIRCASE calling in question of the rights of women. The idea at first was too ridiculous to be combated. Gradually Cissie began to remember how she disliked her own mother, how her mother had forced her to hate things by insisting that she should do them. She remem- bered many instances of her mother's too-foreible methods. She hated that old house in Camden Town, and her mother's sordid little iron hand, the gentle glove to which had been long mislaid. The perception grew very slowly in her mind that she had been excited; she began to feel ashamed of herself, and to make long explanatory justifica- tion to herself, as though she were on her defence before a judge. She was defending herself to Amberley, as well as to Velancourt. She was used to defending herself; she could always find an excuse for herself. She had always been forced to be rather untruthful, because only by dex- terous use of partial falsehoods had she been able, as a child, to escape beatings. Equally, she had had to invent reasons for running out of doors, when she really wanted to meet "some boy" at the corner of the street, and stand talking to him, and swinging to watch whether anybody was coming who might tell her mother. So Cissie was adept at rather voluble explanation, and palliation. She had no diffi- culty in this case. She'd been upset. ... It was so sud- den. . . . Didn't mean it all. . . . He ought not to have frightened her. ... If he'd been different, she'd have been . . . And so on. It was very easily arranged. Only a remembrance of Amberley's friendly face made her wonder whether Adrian would be consoling himself in the same way. He was so serious that perhaps he would think she'd just been horrid. He'd think she'd been selfish, talking about herself. She wasn't selfish. She was very unselfish : she had told him so. Yes, but he was so funny, that perhaps he'd act in a way that other men didn't. She'd read and heard of men who went off with other . . . Adrian wasn't like that! She sat down and thought what she could give him for ON THE STAIRCASE 281 his dinner when he came home that night. Unfortunately it was Thursday, and she had not very much money left. She would give him a chance; she would let him have a nice meal, and she would talk to him in a ladylike way, showing that she could behave differently from the way she had followed in the morning. She was frightened that he might . . . get not to like her. She meant, afraid that he might realise a distaste for her. If he did that, she was lost indeed. Nothing could make up to her for that. She mustn't lose him, or make him lose heart. Her first appeal was to be to his stomach : after that, according to a uni- versal tradition, she ought to be able to do anything with him. Adrian's dinner was ready punctually; and Cissie had changed her dress. She was rather nervous, as she showed by a heightened colour and a considerable fidgeting. She watched the clock, and sat with her ears pricked. The room seemed unearthly quiet, with only the clock tick-ticking away on the mantelpiece. The fire was a lovely dull red ; and she sat with her back to the lamp-lighted table, and her feet on a little hassock made of a material similar in colour to the strident carpet. The fender shone and glittered with the greatest vivacity; a kettle sat inside the fender, ready to be put on to boil for the tea they shared after Adrian had finished his meal. Seven o'clock! He was late! But it was a fine night. She did wish he wouldn't keep her hanging about like this ! They might have gone out — it would have been nice to go for a walk to-night. She'd have liked to go, with all the people walking and walking, and their feet making crisp noises on the gravel. She hoped he wasn't going to be long. His meal would have to be taken off, else it would be too much cooked. He wouldn't like it hotted-up for him. . . . Oh, he was a terror ! She laughed a little to herself, wait- ing there, and thinking about him. She thought of the morning scene, and began to be very ashamed indeed of some of the things she had said — 282 ON THE STAIRCASE wicked things, she thought them. The memory of them made her eyes fill with tears. She could not now so read- ily excuse herself as she had done earlier. The mere de- voted trouble which had been taken in preparing his meal, a trouble that was as flattery to her conscientiousness as a cook, had perceptibly softened all her feelings. She had cooked the meat for him: she had laid the table for him: for Adrian alone she had done these things. It was impos- sible that she should be unaffected. But she was nervous ; because if he came in cold and stupid, as he sometimes did, and did not speak to her, she remembered how lonely she had been all day, and clattered the knives, or pushed the plate over to him, in such manner as to give warning of her displeasure. It would take the least little thing to set her off, she knew : she was still ex- cited and frightened of the future; but she would try hard not to show it, because Mr. Amberley had said that to her. He understood. Half-past seven! Good gracious! what had come to the boy ! It was later than he had ever been. She would have to take his dinner off. She did so, and went to the window, peering out into the darkness in the vain thought that she might be able to see him. She could see little figures in the street; but she could not distinguish one from the other. She came restlessly back to her chair, and threw herself back in it, and looked above the mantelpiece at a picture which represented two young people walking ecstatically under one umbrella. Her eyes fell from time to time to the clock. The big hand moved steadily: she watched its al- most imperceptible progress with fascinated eyes. Ten to eight. Oh, she wished he'd come ! She would have given anything to hear his step and the key in the lock. The room-door was ajar, so that she could not fail to hear the least sound of his approach. Her face slowly hardened as the time went on. What could be keeping him? His dinner would be spoilt. The fire was getting low. He'd got no business to be late like ON THE STAIRCASE 283 this. If he'd been going to be late he would have told her. It was so curious. Oh, well, if he was going to punish her, she didn't care that! She moved nervously in the chair. He could be a pig when he liked ! Oh, he was cruel ! But she'd show him that he couldn't play that sort of game with her. She wouldn't stand it. Just because v she'd been cross with him ! . . . What was that? At last! Steps on the stairs — two, three, four. Her heart seemed to stop. Her nerves were tense, waiting for the key, and catching the approaching steps. Then her heart sank. They had gone past. Up- stairs. Cissie looked again at the clock. Twenty to nine. She lost her nerve, and began to cry. . . . The hours went on, from nine to ten, and on to midnight. Still Velancourt did not come, still Cissie sat in front of the fire, waiting, while the fire died, and she seemed to have no tears left, but could only crouch, waiting and listening in the increasing silence, with dread in her heart and with dry eyes watching the inexorable hands go steadily on, minute by minute, hour by hour. CHAPTER XXXI FLIGHT VELANCOURT plunged away from Amberley and from the Tarratonga. No thought of going back to the office occurred to him. His one idea was to get away — far away from the dreadful pursuing words of Amber- ley, that burned into his brain, searing it as the hot irons of the Inquisition must have seared their victims. Frag- ments of the indictment occurred to him, blinding him with their fiery significance. They pieced themselves together, adhering despite his frantically exerted will to forget them. Terribly they sang in his head, scathing words that seemed to convict him of the very extremes of self-deception. He could not escape them. Little heeding passers or the inter- ruptions in his walk of bewildering cross-streams of cease- less traffic, he plunged blindly on, unconscious of his direc- tion, flying only from the remembrance of words so full of malign understanding. Horror was dominant in his mind. Horror to have the heads of his failure so unerringly made apparent to him. He could not yet protest ; he could not yet be convinced that Amberley 's summary was false to the truth he held so precious within his heart. For the moment it was unanswerable: he only knew that he recoiled from it and rebelled against its quiet sureness. Oh, but Amberley had been a cad to lose his temper and cry out that last deliberate attack upon his vanity ! It was the lowest pitch of cruelty. 284 ON THE STAIRCASE 285 Vehemently he struggled on, desperate in his endeavour to shake off the inexorable remembrance of what had passed. He walked fast, so obviously shaken with agitation that those whom he met turned and watched him as he sped on, shaking their heads. He walked through streets, and past tall houses, as though unaware of their existence, as though he was far away from any familiar surroundings ; and yet they must strangely have been present as an ugly insidious atmosphere for his hideously-painful thoughts. Without knowing it he passed near his old home, where Cissie had lived ; he passed through Hampstead, near where Cissie was thinking dubiously of him ; on and on through Childs Hill to Cricklewood and Edgware, and Elstree, and beyond. The evening fell, the night came, the stars peeped out one by one, until the whole sky was brilliant, a daz- zling range of unflecked darkness, from which the stars looked clustering down, each one a witness to his headlong terror of the new knowledge that beset him. Suddenly, exhausted beyond any effort that his uncon- scious will might exert, Velancourt stumbled and fell at the side of a dark lane, mysterious with tall hedges that stood back against the dim starlight and made more intense the grey shadow of the lane. II He did not immediately lose consciousness ; but lay there with the feeling of rest rich in his mind, as though the fall had snapped that horrible sequence of recollection which had spurred him thus far. The warm damp earth was be- neath him, pungent smelling and indescribably full of health-giving fragrance. He pressed his face downwards, sighing with relief, almost crying at the wondrous cessation of his torment. He prayed that this might be the end, and that he might never awaken to all the soiling bewilderments of life. So to die, very quietly, with the stars above, and 286 ON THE STAIRCASE the dark friendly earth below, and with his beating heart stilled in the night peace he had so sweetly found . . . that was his slow exquisite desire. It gently swayed, as the wind swayed ever so slightly the stiff branches above him ; all the world swayed, like the onset and recession of quiet waves upon soft shores. Very gradually, with hope dawn- ing in his heart, Velancourt fainted. He lay there in the shadow, and everything around him was still except for the low murmur that is everywhere and always audible when alien noises have ceased. Sometimes there came a little muffled chirping from an awakened bird, sometimes a breeze rattled the tough branches of the bushes : otherwise there was no sound. He seemed to drift from his swoon into a long dreamless sleep; and the night passed while he still lay sleeping beneath the hedge. With the dawn there came a faint soft rain that passed before the sun rose. It saturated the ground beside him, and wetted his coat and his hair. It pattered upon his out- stretched hands. Then the sky flushed, and the fresh search- ing breeze of early morning caught straying leaves and made them run whispering along the lane. One leaf, dry still because it had been sheltered from the rain, flickered by and lay upon Velancourt's hand, lying there long after other leaves had been driven further by successive puffs of wind. Still he slept, and the leaf turned over, so that it fell upon the ground. Then, as the day grew grey, and when it was so nearly light that objects became easily distinguishable, Velancourt's eyes opened. He was puzzled at his situation. He could not recall anything of what had happened. But he felt stiff and depressed, thrown back by his waking into a sense of disaster, even though he could not yet remember the occasion for his late distress. He closed his eyes again, and yawned, and stretched himself, rolling upon his side. The earth upon which he had lain was all pressed down, and his clothes were dusty and muddy. His boots were caked with thin dry mud from the previous night's walk- ing ; the toes only were still moist with the earth into which ON THE STAIRCASE 287 they had sunk by imperceptible pressure. He looked at his hands, the palms of which were browned with earth; and with one hand felt his wetted hair. A little way from him his hat lay, lining upwards, soaked by the early morning shower, forlornly muddy and dilapidated. It was long before he realised what had happened to him ; and by that time he had staggered to his feet, and was standing yawning, with his arms raised and his hands be- fore his eyes. Then he remembered, by degrees, all the horrors of the day before, and leant against the trunk of a big tree whose arms in summer shaded the lane. Groaning, he knew that he had still to face his sorrows : the easy way of death was not yet his. Cissie — Barbara — Amberley. Al- ways Amberley ! He swayed forward sharply in an access of despair. Cissie — Barbara — Amberley. Nothing was solved. The sweet enveloping darkness had but cloaked his misery; misery itself was discovered afresh in the cold morning light. The cherished forgetfulness had been only a respite. Everything was still as it had been; the future was as hard and as inescapable. What was he to do ? Ill Velancourt took two or three steps away from the friendly tree. His head was aching, and he felt both faint and weary. He could not think what was to be done. When he tried to think he instinctively raised his hand to his head, as though he might in some degree help to make his thoughts more clear. It seemed to make the blood thud in his head, and he reeled as with a vertigo. Then he picked up the bruised hat from where it had fallen when he stumbled, and dully began to dust from it the earth and leaf-fragments which adhered: only the brim was muddy, and the lining was very wet. Much of the dried mud on his clothes could also be dusted off, although what was still moist was conspicuous enough to betray his place of lodg- 288 ON THE STAIRCASE ing for the night. He looked down at the mud ruefully, not because he had realised that it might provoke inquiries or suspicion, but because it offended his fastidious sense of fitness. To be soiled hurt him. That was while his thoughts were still dulled by his throbbing head. If he could only think what to do! If only he could have felt clear. It was not that he was afraid of things : he was not a coward : what chafed him was the extraordinary sense of being somehow a prisoner, of being in a strange land with an alien language. He was . . . Amberley had said, only too truly, he knew, that he w~s inexperienced. He was over-sensitive. Those words did not mean anything to him. He could not think in general terms ; he could only plod round and round in a dreary circle of unanswerable doubts and questions. He began to walk slowly in the direction from which he had come, wondering where he was, and how it could be that he had come there without being familiar with the place. He could not recognise his surroundings ; they seemed to be very much like any other northern district near London. He could not remember ever having marked the particular glimpses that he every now and then caught from the road he walked. Presently, after he had turned into the main road, he saw Elstree ahead, but he did not know Elstree, and could not, from the name, form any idea of his present distance from London. Wearily he dragged on into the village, and went into a small shop that seemed to be open. Here he was able to wash and to brush his clothes, and to have some breakfast. Then again came the insistent question : what was he to do ? His whole nature shrank from going back. He had come away from all the evils. To go back to them was impossi- ble. But he knew he would have to go back. "You see, there's Cissie !" he said aloud, in a stupid voice. How unreal his love for Cissie became at this distance ! He shuddered at the thought of going back to her. The echoed sound of her voice made him shiver, and his thoughts of ON THE STAIRCASE 289 her were far more soberly terrible than they had ever been. It was not merely that he believed his love for Cissie to be so quickly dead. He knew in a flash of horror that he disliked her: he almost hated her. And Cissie must have sat up waiting for him until late the night before. She must now be in anxrety about him. He could not have felt such dislike if he had not in some strange way wronged her. He would have to go back. His lip curled in bitter contempt at the knowledge that she would think he had run away from her, like some defaulting husbands she must have read about in newspapers. She would think, perhaps, that he had lost his memory. She would think he had left her for some selfish reason. Yes, but he must go back: Cissie would be frightened about him. IV Wearily he wandered on, through Elstree, and down and up and down steep hills until he saw far below a brilliant tramcar swaying along a straight road. He was coming into Edgware. He met the tram and passed it, and reached the village. A clock which he saw pointed to half-past eleven. It made him think of the office: he had not fin- ished his work yesterday. It was still lying on his desk, unheeded. He closed his eyes for an instant, and trudged on. The tramcars were running both down and up the long straight uninteresting road. He was crushed with a sense of its squalid dulness. Long after he had first noticed it he passed those large sheets of dark water "down at the Welsh 'Arp which is 'Endon way," though he did not know that this was Hendon. He came to Cricklewood by two o'clock. If he had considered, he would have known that he was within half an hour's walk of home; but his instinct drove him on. He did not know where he was going; he only pushed blindly on, through Cricklewood, down Shoot- up Hill, and under the Railway Bridges. He was now, al- 290 ON THE STAIRCASE though the name of the road varied, in the main Edgware Road. By five o'clock he had emerged at the Marble Arch, and it was quite dark. The traffic bewildered him, booming and rattling and rushing with an astonishingly regulated wildness in every direction. An uncontrollable faintness seized him, and he leant up against a wall. In all the hur- rying people there was none who stopped : only if he had fallen would they have clustered to his side, like flies upon a corpse. In a moment he was better; but he was warned that he had eaten nothing since breakfast, and went into a teashop. But that only reminded him of Amberley at the Tarratonga, and he found he could not eat what he had ordered. When Velancourt had drunk the strong cup of tea for which he had asked he went out once again into the roaring street. He was much steadier now, and walked along Ox- ford Street as one of the multitude with his head lowered and his feet mechanically following a straight course. It was six o'clock now ; Amberley would have left the office. Barbara would be home. He reached Oxford Circus ; and passed on to Tottenham Court Road, and New Oxford Street, and Hart Street. A few minutes more brought him to Theobald's Road. He knew now what he wanted to do. He would be there anon. Faint, but with one dominant idea, he reached Great James Street. All the front windows of the building in which Robinsons' office was were black: the house looked de- serted. Not even at the top windows were there any lights, though he strained his tired eyes upwards, trying to im- agine them. For a time he stood opposite; but his strength began to go, and he presently moved across to the front door. His key admitted him. He stepped inside, into the light of the pale flicker of gas above the door. On the chained mat he stopped again. Mrs. Berry, the housekeeper, was cleaning the ground-floor back room. He walked quietly to the stairs. ON THE STAIRCASE 291 "It's only Mr. Velancourt," he called out to the house- keeper, and she came and looked at him round the door. He went up the stairs to the first floor, and unlocked the door. Then he fumbled for matches. The gas flared up, whistling and pointing four strange sharp fingers askance, like a starfish. Velancourt staggered to the table, and sat down in his chair, vaguely, with a dull frown of helpless stupidity on his brow. He could not remember why he had come here. He could remember nothing. Barbara was above: he could not hope to see her. He had come for The papers were gone. His desk had been cleared. Stu- pidly he looked at it, standing absolutely bare. Mrs. Berry had perhaps taken them? Mr. Seares . . . Velancourt stared before him. The papers themselves were nothing; but if Mr. Seares had been to the office in his absence . . . His head sank lower. CHAPTER XXXII AMBERLEY TAKES CHARGE SUSAN and Joseph Amberley sat at breakfast; and Susan, with a satisfaction that was almost gloating, was praising the works of a celebrated novelist, one of whose products had been extraordinarily efficacious in keep- ing Mrs. Amberley engrossed on the previous evening. She described the occasion to Amberley, who had been out at the home of a friend. "My chief fear," she admitted, "is the thought that they must one day come to an end. However many these are, they can't possibly last for ever!" It was a depressing thought to them both. "Perhaps she'll read them over again?" Amberley sug- gested. "Not with the same zest. She'll peck at them; but she won't devour them!" "True." Then he was inspired. "I shall insidiously and villainously introduce her to the works of sundry other writers," he said. "Comparable writers. Not the real thing; but novels by persons of superior literary power, such as Trollope ; and some of a kind nearly approaching our friend (God bless her!), written by accomplished women of our own day." "Surely!" cried Susan. "Surely there's nobody!" "I'll never tell you !" said Amberley, in a mysterious way. "But I'll promise to provide the dope until you're married. No longer!" 292 ON THE STAIRCASE 293 "Poor mother!" murmured Susan, struck with a mystic pity. "It's a shame to make fun of her. . . . Oh, but Joe, it was rather wonderful last night. And look : he brought this !" She held up her left hand ; and Amberley swooned right away. Afterwards, during his journey to the office, he smiled again at Susan's so manifest happiness, which had in these two days made her almost grandmotherly in her assiduous attention to his every lightest whim. Never had she been so exceedingly careful. If he found a hair in his saucer she was as disturbed as she might have been if the hair had been a cockroach. His meals were punctual, his room al- most blazing with cleanliness and comfort. It was true that Amberley felt himself the recipient of a reflected glory ; but he knew that was not everything. He knew that Susan had found an object in life. So he accepted everything with gratitude, and was amusedly glad, as a brother should be in such circumstances. The breakfast proceeded, when his sufficient recovery had been ascertained. "We thought of going to Hadley Woods to-morrow," Susan said, airily. "Really." Amberley acknowledged the information in his politest manner; but it gave him a little pang. He was afraid that he would be rather lonely, after all. It was like a continuous underlining of his own disappointment. "And we thought ... if you'd come . . ." went on Susan, in a rather pink voice, bending over her teacup and pretending to look and see if there was any sugar in it. . . . "Certainly not !" said Joseph, in the utmost indignation. "If you'd come, perhaps Barbara might." "Failing which, I suppose you would like me to come and make a merry third?" he said with great bitterness. "Rather not, my dear!" "No, Joe. ... If Barbara will come, will you? It's 294 ON THE STAIRCASE not that we so terribly want to be alone. I felt ... I felt . . ." she faltered. "You felt very unselfishly, child; but I won't come. Thanks all the same." Amberley felt that he was perhaps, escaping rather cleverly from a direct reply to her question. "Supposing Barbara does come?" "You won't ask her." "Ernest's probably asking her at this very instant." "She'll refuse." "Why should she? She's not an idiot!" "Give me some more tea, and make your plans for Er- nest. Personally, I think of going to a football-match, to see fifty thousand sportsmen watching a game between twenty-three other sportsmen." Susan's eyes held a very peculiar expression as she looked steadily at him. It was an expression that combined sisterly anxiety with shrewdness, and innocence with the chagrin of a baulked schemer. Amberley quailed before that youthful glance, as he might have quailed before young Harry. "You're afraid," said Susan, briefly; and held out her jewelled hand for his cup. II Afterwards he rather plumed himself upon dexterous finesse. With these young people, who saw things with such devastating clearness, the devices employed by such rejected lovers as himself became as the devices of the idi- otic ostrich. He might bury his head ; but he could hardly still their inquisitive minds. Susan was roused, a very huntress, and the flight from her was going to be as excit- ing as it was stern. Every twist and feint would be made under her sharpened observation, and would be referred to her darting intuitions. How long could he, for Barbara's sake as well as his own, keep to himself the fact of his de- structive secret? Perhaps Barbara herself, with a bleeding scalp at her belt, would tell Susan? He imagined a con- ON THE STAIRCASE 295 sulfation between the two of them. He imagined Susan, in- genuously championing, "I wish . . . Joe . . ." And Bar- bara : "Hasn't he told you? Oh, that night at the theatre." He imagined their mingled sighs of satisfied regret. Possi- bly Susan would be resentful that he, her marvellous brother, should be rejected? Saving loyalty to Barbara checked him: she was not a gadabout, not one of those scandalous creatures who flaunted unuttered love before their fellow-girls from ineradicable vanity ! Barbara would be staunch. He could not have loved an indiscretionist ! It was essential to his conception of Barbara that her quiet code of fastidious scrupulousness in such matters should be as sound as his own. Amberley rode in the tramcar with uneasy comfort. He was miserable; but he did not prize his misery and pore upon it, as many people do. He did not try to throttle it, which would have made his misery as recurrent as loneli- ness. He starved it by inattention. He read his paper, and tried to look upon the passing flood of life as he had always done, as something that would continue without his pres- ence, but as something which was co-ordinated in his im- agination into a rich fallow field of mental experience. There was plenty to be thankful for in the world. There was each to-morrow. There was action. It was only the weak spirits who found life dull. Amberley, in his time of stress, was in danger of developing into one of his own pet abominations, an esprit fort. It was as well for his peace of mind that he did not realise this. Ill He arrived very punctually at the office, and thereby dis- turbed Hackett, who was a few minutes late. Hackett rushed in, and convulsively altered the calendar, in such agi- tation that he forgot to remove his cuffs. On finding Am- berley preoccupied, however, the youth proceeded to adjust 296 ON THE STAIRCASE his dress in the customary manner, making — as it were — false keels to his cuffs before he began work. It was a spirit of cleanliness that greatly perplexed Amberley, be- cause in spite of Hackett's endeavours the linen cuffs looked intolerably dirty. It hardly seemed worth while to protect them, he thought. . . . Perhaps Hackett wore paper to conceal the cuffs? That was another problem for him, to go with his doubt as to whether Hackett brushed his hair before washing. The office became absorbed, except for Hackett's cough, which sounded forced and came with irritating persistency. Amberley, who had before now referred to a Hacketting cough, looked up sometimes with a baleful air. Then he searched in his desk for a Formamint bottle, kept for such occasions, and mutely threw it to Hackett. There was a longer silence than usual. The bright fire threw out its glowing heat, banked up as it was with small coal. It revealed the hideous threadbare state of the hearthrug, and the stricken poverty of the stained and patternless linoleum. It revealed also certain shortcomings as a cleaner on the part of Mrs. Berry, the housekeeper. Amberley had just noticed that one piece of coal had be- gun to croon a long sad romance of "old unhappy far-off things" in — presumably — Ireland, where such things are in- digenous, when the door of the office opened, and a fright- ened face appeared. "Mr. Amberley !" He sprang up. Cissie Velancourt stood in the room, her face desperately pale, her hair untidy, her whole manner betokening the wildest misery. "What's the . . ." Before he could speak, she was over by his desk, agitatedly questioning. "Have you seen him? . . ." "No. Anything wrong?" "Oh dear, oh dear. He hasn't been home." "Have you tried upstairs?" ON THE STAIRCASE 297 "I've rattled and rattled. . . ." She clung to his arm, thankful for a familiar face. "Wait a bit." He led her upstairs again. The door, as she had indicated, was locked. He knelt down at the key- hole. There was no key in it; but he could see nothing through the keyhole but the bare wall opposite. "Velancourt !" he called. There was no answer. There was only absolute silence. He turned to Cissie again. "I saw him at lunch yesterday/' he said. "Not since. He hadn't come back in the afternoon. I saw Mr. Seares. He's not there. What's that bit of paper?" He stooped. A piece of paper, that had been pinned to the door, lay on the ground. Upon it, in a crabbed hand, was written, "All communications to Tederill & Tombs, 15 Bedford Row." He showed the paper to Cissie. His quick mind went back to the quarrel. What had become of Velancourt? "Come downstairs again," he said. "We'll go there." They went to Tederill & Tombs ; but from them could ob- tain no help. Even Amberley's presence availing them nothing. They offered to forward a letter to Seares. They could give no further information. "If he goes home, can he get in?" Cissie told him, yes. "You'd better go home. If he turns up, I'll wire." Cissie listened to him helplessly : she was so distraught that she could hardly understand what Amberley was say- ing. "I can't go home ... I can't go home," she moaned. "It's so awful !" Amberley could not leave his work longer. He put her into a taxicab and gave the driver five shillings. Then he gave Cissie some more money, as she said she had none. "Listen," he said, urgently. "If he turns up, I'll wire. If he turns up at home, wire me. If he's not here by the time I leave I'll come straight to you. If he's not home then we'll see what's best to be done. He's sure to turn up. Don't be afraid. It's bound to be all right. We'll find him." 298 ON THE STAIRCASE After she had gone, he ran upstairs to the Grettons', and saw Mrs. Gretton, who replied to his very cautiously- worded inquiry by a blank ignorance. His mind searched round for possible means of finding Velancourt. Quite clearly he took upon himself the responsibility for his friend's flight ; but that helped him not at all. It was neces- sary to find Velancourt: reasons for his absence could be discovered later. If Velancourt had gone away, he was re- sponsible; if some accident had occurred news was sure, sooner or later, to be available. He suddenly had a thought, and telegraphed to Susan, asking her to go to Cissie, at the Velancourts' address, and to keep her company until he came. He did not know how soon Susan would be able to go ; but he knew she would start as soon as she could, and he knew that her candid cheerfulness would be a great com- fort. At first he hesitated about sending the telegram ; until he remembered how absolutely certain it was that Susan would blame him for not doing it. When that had been sent off, he could, at the moment, do no more than keep his own and Hackett's ears pricked for any step upon the stairs. At lunch-time he went upstairs again, and several times during the afternoon; but always without result. At last, in the evening, he hurried to Hampstead. There he found Cissie and Susan; Cissie, though still wretched, as different as possible from the hysterical girl of the morning; Susan graver than usual, but ready to do anything he needed without flinching. She watched him with an expression that seemed as unlike her general sunny jollity, but which seemed to hold even more understanding affection than usual. Velancourt evidently had not re- turned. They both came to the door at his rattle of the let- ter-box, and Cissie gave one dreadful little sob of distress before she recovered her self-possession. Amberley sat down and pondered. "She's tired out," Susan whispered; "though she's been lying down." ON THE STAIRCASE 299 Amberley thought: Velancourt had been to lunch with him ; had not returned to the office. He couldn't have much money. He surely couldn't have . . . He would not yet consider that possibility. Supposing Velancourt still alive, he would . . . For some time he could not frame any con- vincing course. Then, with a cry, he thought: "Barbara!" Velancourt would go back to her. If not to-night, then some other day or some other night. She would be a magnet to draw him from the ends of London ! It was so surpris- ingly simple a solution that he almost laughed aloud. His next step must certainly be another visit to Great James Street! In a few minutes he started on his return journey, impa- tiently waiting and waiting until he should be at his desti- nation. Then a hurried walk at the other end. . . . There was a light in the first-floor window! Mrs. Berry? She might be cleaning the office at this time in the evening. His heart fell. Two at a time he sprang up the stairs, and pushed open Robinson's unlocked door. Velancourt, with a ghastly smile upon an otherwise expressionless face, was sitting at the desk, a pen in his hand, dipping vaguely for the ink, which he never reached. The sight of him, com- pletely vacuous, made Amberley feel desperately sick; it was so horrible. IV A telegram : "All right. Knocked up. No need alarm" was sent to Cissie by the agency of Mr. Berry; because Amberley did not want unduly to alarm the Grettons. Then he persuaded the reluctant and hardly-conscious Velancourt to descend the stairs and get into a cab. There, with his arm all the time round Velancourt, he sat in the dim light, his heart throbbing, and the bitter knowledge deepening that he had, as he had suspected, been responsible for this ex- traordinary collapse. It was not, he knew, that he had actually created the impulse for flight: he could not have 300 ON THE STAIRCASE done more than bring it to a head : but that was a thought grievous enough in itself. He would not defend his speech by saying that Velancourt had begged for it ; that was quite beside the point. To be brutal, even upon provocation, or by precise request, was no part of his work. His business, in so far as he had any business at all in the galley, was to save Velancourt from the consequences of his own weak- ness. But he had no real place within the web of Velan- court's life. It was true that their lives touched ; even that, in reference to Barbara, they came directly into conflict. It was true that he still thought that every word he had spoken was an understatement of what he considered dangerous weakness. But he was full of self-reproach for his failure to take notice of Velancourt's nearness to complete pros- tration. He had been for once unquestionably inhuman. He was thankful when they reached Hampstead. Velancourt gave a wondering look around him at the room; and shuddered, half turning in Amberley's arm. He made no sound at all of protest. Cissie, in a state of help- lessness, clasped her hands ; and Susan, after one involun- tary cry of "Oh, poor . . ." took Velancourt's arm and helped to lead him to a chair. Amberley thereupon took Cissie's hand, and spoke to her. "I'll go and get a doctor. You get him to bed. I don't think it's very very serious ; but he seems worn out. He hasn't said anything all the time. Can you get him to bed, or shall I help?" Cissie could do it while he went for the doctor. Thereafter, in due time, reassured, and promising to come again on the morrow, the Amberleys left the Velan- courts. But they had made Cissie eat, and the doctor had so encouraged her with words of timely confidence, that she was reconciled to her loneliness and had regained some of the courage that Amberley had supposed her to possess. Susan did not refuse the kiss that Cissie begged so mutely; and Amberley was thankful to get away because Cissie fol- lowed him with such a look of unspeakable gratitude that ON THE STAIRCASE 301 she drove deeper into his heart the feeling of shame which festered there. "What d'you suppose was the cause of it ?" Susan asked him, as they walked home. Amberley looked away from her. What was he to say? It was so impossible, without a long explanation, to reveal to her the series of events that had so easily led to this happening. If he cried out, dramatically, that he was to blame, she would impulsively exonerate him. He did not wish to suffer the additional pain of her affectionate disbe- lief in his culpability. It was enough that he should have received such acknowledgment from Cissie. Besides, who could tell what was really the cause of such a thing? Even though he made no attempt to shirk his own part in it, he knew that no man lost his head through such an accusation. He could not suppose Velancourt so unnerved as he had been without some contributory degrees of extreme suffer- ing. There must have been much more pain than he had known : or perhaps he really was callous, as he so often had been called? "My dear," he said to Susan. "I'm not sure that I know. I expect it's the coincidence of several horrible things. But it was simply splendid of you to keep your head. If you'd seen her this morning, when she came to the office " "Joe, dear. ... If you'd heard her talking about Bar- bara," Susan interrupted. "Good gracious!" He had not realised that she would tell that. He might have known! What was the good of his discretion, if Susan was primed with more facts than he had personally gleaned? "She was quite reckless," Susan continued. "It made me think suddenly." They were past the Spaniards Inn now, in a dip of the road ; and it was very beautiful to see a single lamp shining 302 ON THE STAIRCASE at them and spraying a little ring of light round the foot of the lamp-post. Amberley pulled himself together: his thoughts had strayed away from his immediate dilemma, back into the trouble that lay behind. "Is it true?" asked Susan, after waiting for him to ask what she had heard. "What?" Amberley was conscious of an unaccustomed confusion in his thoughts. "About Barbara . . . that he . . ." "My dear : you can't expect me to tell you things of that sort." He would have checked her. "I didn't expect her to. She hates Barbara. She thought he might have gone away " "Nonsense !" Amberley said, brusquely. "Nothing of the sort." "Of course not. But Joe. . . . She said all sorts of things. She said you knew . . . that she'd told you; and that . . . Oh, some long story of how she'd rowed him, and then remembered your advice, and planned to make it up. She said that it was the rowing that drove him away. She said you'd given her such good advice. That was like you ! Then she gradually got better." "Yes, yes," Amberley said, in a testy way. He was genuinely bored. He was unprepared for Susan's next dis- quieting speech, which bowled him over. "Joe. . . . She said she'd rather see you dead than mar- ried to Barbara. She said you told her " Amberley gripped Susan's arm. "You're hurting horribly!" he said, in a husky voice. "There's a good girl !" Susan took his arm and clung tightly to it all the rest of the journey. She had thought so. CHAPTER XXXIII CLARIFICATION I AFTER what seemed a weary time of travail to them all Velancourt grew better — and they found him a stranger. It was not that he did not speak to them, for he was most ready to talk; but he had changed. In his long sleep he seemed to have achieved some peculiar clearness of mind which made him lie or sit peacefully in great com- fort, and in such tranquillity that he hardly seemed to Cissie to be the curious creature of the previous month. That Velancourt was able to enjoy this immunity from worry was largely due to Amberley, who had supplied all the necessary money, and had impressed upon Cissie the need for unusual simplicity of conduct. Velancourt no longer thought of the office — the letter of instant dismissal written by Mr. Seares after the discovery that Velancourt had deserted his post had not been shown to him, and Am- berley had corresponded with Seares to some effect — and there did not arise through Cissie any querulous fears of the future. She, awed and grateful before Amberley, to the verge of painfully dumb obedience, was anxious only to do what he considered right in this emergency. She sat through the long days with an amazing patience, subsisting for relaxation upon a number of suitable books obligingly loaned by Mrs. Amberley; and between Cissie and Susan there had been developed a curious friendship. Every turbulent feeling of Cissie's was in abeyance. She 303 3 04 ON THE STAIRCASE had lost that thought of Susan as one always laughing ; and she had found her a good friend. She had felt so entirely without help until the Amberleys came that she would not easily forget their kindness. Whatever her future feelings might be, Cissie now, during the convalescence, passively accepted their aid in a spirit of relief. And Adrian was kind to her, so kind that she sometimes felt the tears in her eyes with a sort of humble shame that made her as tender with him as she had been to Elsie's baby. . . . It was as though — just for a little while — Adrian and Cissie were living in that affluent state of peaceful suffi- ciency, of which she had always thought as a part of the elusive "some day" of idle dreams. Her gratitude to Am- berley was not wholly based upon material things : those, however, were what she most certainly appreciated. She naturally thought less of Susan than she did of Amberley: that was because Susan's help had been of a more strictly personal and intangible order. Also, Amberley was male, and efficient. But Cissie wanted Adrian : her love, craving though it might fundamentally be, was still Adrian's : her service was uncomplainingly his. Each day she watched him grow stronger, and remained timidly at his side, for he had become a new wonder to her; he had become, as it were, her eldest child. She did not understand that; but she knew that in tenderness to him she had somehow al- tered. She thought he had become fragile — delicate, she said. They had both altered. They had both, so to sepak, established relations with their own "selves," which they had found a rather fascinating and clarifying experience. Cissie was afraid to think too much about anything, in case the reality should be unbearable ; but she began to imitate Susan, doing her hair in the same way, and with ingenuous cunning copying Susan's pretty gestures and manners. She noticed how Susan behaved to Amberley ; and although her own efforts in the same direction were rather inclined to flounder, she lost the habit she had had of pursing her lips and faintly jerking her head from side to side in assertion ON THE STAIRCASE 305 of equality. Amberley felt for her the pity that he felt for animals — which was quite half shame at not being able im- mediately to communicate with them. One does not pity what one wholly understands. He rather dreaded going to Hampstead ; but he went, none the less, and never failed to carry into the flat whatever natural cheerfulness he re- tained in these dull days. And Velancourt lay in bed, or sat in a chair by the fire, talking with Amberley about the things that interested him — God, and Plato, and Buddha, and Sir Thomas Browne, and such-like subjects — with such unusual collocations, that Amberley knew he was a little queer in the head, and said as much to Susan. . . . II When Amberley was not there, and when Cissie had nothing to say — for there was no news, and she never had anything but news to talk about — Velancourt used to have long fits of silence that were never fits of moroseness. Never before had he such opportunity for reflection ; never had his own mood been so propitious. He was able to think steadily, not impulsively with a thousand chopping cross currents forever menacing his peace, but with a pierc- ing clarity so rare as to be delicious. He was occupied upon one problem only — his own life. And he thought of his life as one might do who stood curiously outside it. Like that medieval poet whose whole mental history was pictured by a much greater modern poet, Velancourt saw — ". . . his old life's every shift and change, Effort with counter effort; nor the range Of each looked wrong except wherein it checked Some other . . . . The real way seemed made up of all the ways — Mood after mood of the one mind in him." "Looked wrong" — yes, that was it. For there was much that looked wrong when he came really, in this new pas- 3 o6 ON THE STAIRCASE sionless way, to take stock of his own actions and those counter-actions which had made him chafe in the past. Like Sordello, he now was able in curious calm to take this retrospect; but, unlike Sordello, Velancourt could bring only wistfulness to the contemplation of his life. That he was moved was certain ; but he never mentioned to anybody what thoughts he had through the long silent spaces, and they none of them guessed until afterwards. He saw his birthplace always in a sunshine of happy memory, when the greyness of Bradford-on-Avon was made splendid by the sunshine and the green surrounding heights, and when, on the old-fashioned quays by the gentle river, the grass rose between the stones and made the quays look for all the world like those of some deserted Dutch or Flemish town. So Velancourt saw it, with steeply-ascending streets, and terraces far up the hill, where he never went, but looked up and saw diminished figures surveying from above the capricious beauty of the winding streets and irregular houses. And later he could remember Salisbury, less cheer- fully because there had been anxious times there; but still he thought he must have been happy enough in those days, because they were sunk in his mind to such a low-toned sweetness of recollection. Only London was shocking and horrible, saved from entire hideousness by his reading and his hunger for the haunting, ever-promised, ever-evasive se- cret of the world's beauty. He saw his old way of life in a mist — with the strange unreality of old griefs. He no longer shuddered at Cissie as he had done when he thought that he must return home to take up the burden of unbear- able exactions. He felt sorry for her. He saw her blun- dering as the fruit of a pitiful heritage, and no longer re- sented it as a fault personal to herself. He knew that if he had been wiser and stronger and more courageous — if he had that ... he shrugged as he sought for the word . . . that verve, or tact, or what Amberley would call humour, which he so painfully was aware that he lacked, there might ON THE STAIRCASE 307 still have been a better understanding between them than there had been. These thoughts he had, not in a spirit of egotism, but in a clear vision, not to be denied by any consideration of his own past and discarded desires. He knew that Cissie had seemed beautiful; he still thought that she had beauty, but spoilt and disfigured by insistent superficial blemishes as to make incongruous the label that the word "beauty" carries to most minds. He knew that her vanity, her ignorance, her tears and reproaches, were all accidents — so he could think them now, when he was removed from contact with them, when they appeared to him almost as abstract de- fects. Below these straining efforts at the articulate expres- sion of more primitive and more lovable aspirations there was a real Cissie, a mystery. He did not forgive her : he did not think of the idea of forgiveness. He translated Cissie, so to speak, into an al- legory ; which is a pastime not denied to those who are in the valley of light. He saw her with a cool sympathy that strove to regard her as consisting of attributes. He did not think of their mean quarrels, of his or her sensitiveness : he was trying to realise a normal Cissie beneath the manifes- tations of her tortured and perverse superficial nature. He was still the old Velancourt, to the extent of contemning facts ; but he was new in the sense that he for the first time brought to bear upon his wife that spirit of gentle wistful- ness which had earlier made exquisite his search for the unknown. Ill Of Amberley he thought in a new way, a way that was all gratitude for mistaken labours. He saw Amberley as a true friend driven by impatience into the use of active meas- ures which had been defeated by Velancourt's own failure to understand the spirit by which they were moved. He did not think Amberley's logic had failed him ; he thought 308 ON THE STAIRCASE that Amberley used logic too persistently as a means of governing human actions. He conceived Amberley as re- garding life as "A chequer-board of nights and days," and in his new wisdom Velancourt saw that a poor plan for — at any rate — himself. It had made him rebellious. Am- berley, he continued to feel sure, was great on facts ; but poor on "temperament." Velancourt, who had not been su- percilious about Cissie, reached what was very nearly a consciously-humane superciliousness when he thought of Amberley. He was not yet able, and never would be able, to understand Amberley as well as Amberley understood him. By Amberley's definition he lacked imagination : ex- cepting in his contemplation of his own nature he was ethi- cal and objective in his judgments of other people. So, he found Amberly a true friend, but one who could never understand Adrian Velancourt. Barbara. Gretton was not the cause of great heart-search- ing. Velancourt adored her, but he no longer desired her. He desired nothing now but peace. He thought of her as supremely, touchingly beautiful; but he did not define her beauty. It lay in her presence. It was not to be thought; but to be felt, in a soft glow of comprehension. She was Barbara. To Velancourt, that sufficed. He reflected that to Amberley, who so unceasingly questioned with close scrutiny the human beings by whom he was surrounded, such soft comprehension would be insufficient. Amberley could not carry a picture in his heart: he wanted to study the composition. Velancourt faintly sneered at Amber- ley's technical attitude towards human beings. To Bar- bara he paid simple homage. Whatever her future he knew that she would always at heart be beautiful. ON THE STAIRCASE 309 IV Thus, and by these passages, came Velancourt to the pic- ture of himself. He did not here shrink in disgust, as he had done, as at a being grosser and more cowardly than any he could imagine from among his fellows. He was to make peace with himself, to try and know the things wherein he had all his life failed to achieve the happiness for which so earnestly he had longed. He could remember how, as a little boy, he had loved the night, how he had worshipped it. He could remember standing at night in the little garden behind his father's house, among the dark silent rose-bushes, looking up, with a sinking heart of rap- ture, at the star-studded sky and the clear white moon. The garden seemed still to hold the mysterious fragrance of the flowers which in the daytime raised their heavy heads in loyal courage to the sun. The grass gleamed pale under the moon ; and the trees moved hushingly to the lightest breeze, a precious undersong to the beating of his almost fainting heart. Never since those days had he been so severely con- scious of "the one Spirit's plastic stress . . . Bursting in its beauty and its might From trees and beasts and men into the Heaven's light." Even as he recalled his old sensations his heart softened again, as though he stood in the little old garden on such a night, with a fine wind blowing and his soul clear and unperturbed. There were other visions that came to him — of Cissie in the dark room, with the fluttering light upon her breast and hair, and her face strangely delicate in the flying shadows ; of Barbara coming up the stairs at Great James Street on the day of his stricken flight, and of many half-forgotten pictures of light and twilight gathered on his walks and holidays. Again he heard the soft kiss exchanged upon 3 io ON THE STAIRCASE Hampstead Heath . . . and remembered his passionate longing for the love that he had afterwards supposed Cissie to have given. These little things seemed to him now so precious, so unquestionably the significant moments of his life, that they stood out, charged with an emotion almost beyond his present mood, as though in things more tangi- ble there had been a lesser reality, or a baser satisfaction. These sweeter memories were things to dream of; and he had never cared to do anything but dream. Then there was the sea, which he had never forgotten. That was the strongest of all his most vivid thoughts of past days. If he closed his eyes he could realise with ex- traordinary convincingness the picture of the sea, grey and chill, with little frosting white crests of foam merging pres- ently into a perfect mist of whiteness until it was lost in the encroaching night. Velancourt turned his head to one side at the thought of the sea, so powerfully did it call to him and shake his resolution. And Cissie thought he had fallen asleep, and sat even more quietly than she had been sitting, in case the sudden creaking of her chair should awaken him. Velancourt thought tremblingly of these wonderful mo- ments of emotion, and the consciousness grew in his mind that they blotted out from his memory all those moments of stark unhappiness that he had endured, when he had seemed to be face to face with impenetrable difficulty, and when he had felt that the God in whom he so passionately believed had indeed turned from him and left him lonely and for- gotten. He forgot the evil hours of grief. ... He had shown in them, he knew, a sensibility too great to be borne : now he was wiser, for he had found peace within his grasp. He had no longer any need to stab himself, as he had done, with recollected unhappiness. That was put aside. He did not pretend that his life had been happy; he thought it had been unhappy, and quite explicably so. He knew that something in his nature had always prevented him from responding instantly to such kindness as he had ON THE STAIRCASE 311 met. He had seemed brusque, from confusion, or shyness, or sometimes perhaps from an egotistic pride; and after- wards, when his feeling had been strong for some sign of gratitude, the apparent hauteur of his timid approach had hardened and stiffened his would-be friends into strangers for whose favour he could not sue. Only Amberley had persisted, with an absence of self-consciousness that had made him the one friend of Yelancourt's whole life. Yet Amberley had been the one to overstep the sensitive limits of Yelancourt's confidence. . . . Amberley, after being asked to speak, had spoken with extraordinary clearness and kindness, only to burst into that one vehement sentence of accusation which had driven them apart. Velancourt wondered why Amberley, who otherwise had observed an unexampled equanimity, should in this instance have grown so brutally angry. . . . He had pondered upon that for the first hesitant days of his returning consciousness. Then, in one moment of penetration, he had understood. There was only one good emotion stronger than friendship. . . . It seemed to come flashing upon him, explaining many things. It made him like Amberley better ; and it made him want to say out clearly to Amberley that the thought of Amberley's love for Barbara gave him now no slightest pain, but only a delight that he could never express save in his heart. So the days of Velancourt's convalescence waxed, and his strength increased. He had quite clearly planned what he was going to do. He was going for the first time to do what he ought long since to have done. He was going, simply and gently, to seek his own peace. In finding that, he opened the way for peace to all. He did not regard himself as being in this case selfish : to take up the material burden with such faint hope of ever doing more than struggle along with an 312 ON THE STAIRCASE ineffectual compromise was the only alternative. No doubt many men did so struggle, picking up crumbs of arid satis- faction out of a shamefaced dread of seeming to their sur- rounding critics selfish. He disregarded that alternative. He had begun wrongly, as men do begin: as they strove, so he had striven to make the best of common unhappiness, to wander along unsteadily upon the melancholy path of duty to others, until decrepitude or disease claimed their bodies and brought their souls to a dead tranquillity. Not such was his plan. No longer should his search for beauty be blinded and thwarted by the distresses of ordinary life. "The one remains, the many change and pass: Heaven's light forever shines, Earth's shadows fly; Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, Stains the white radiance of Eternity, Until Death tramples it to fragments. — Die, If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek! Follow where all is fled ! — Rome's azure sky, Flowers, ruins, statues, music, words, are weak The glory they transfuse with fitting truth to speak. That Light whose smile kindles the Universe, That Beauty in which all things work and move, That Benediction which the eclipsing Curse Of birth can quench not, that sustaining love Which through the web of being blindly wove By man and beast and earth and air and sea, Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of The fire for which all thirst; now beams on me, Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality." He had no fear, and no questioning. A quiet resolve had come to him as he lay in the stupor of insensibility ; and death seemed to him the one inevitable step to eternal peace. He would shake himself free for ever of the chains that held him, sad and inarticulate, to the unwilling servitude which spoiled the lives of men. And freedom was at hand. Why should he not go forward, with hands outstretched, to meet it? ON THE STAIRCASE 313 VI When Velancourt was at last able to go out of doors he went on the first day for one or two short walks, and in the evening of the second day Amberley came, and they all sat by the fire, talking. Velancourt was for the most part silent ; but Amberley told stories of Hackett to Cissie, and Cissie sat giggling at them until they had had supper and Amberley was ready to go home. When Amberley rose, Velancourt rose also. "I shall come part of the way with you," he said. "Oh no, Adrian. . . ." Cissie's heart sank. Their es- trangement seemed upon the brink of renewal if he could so early leave her. "It's a splendid black night," Amberley said. "And it's very warm. There's a fresh mild wind. I really don't think it could possibly hurt him. But not far." "I mean to go," Velancourt said, in an odd, cold voice. Cissie shivered a little at her disappointment. He was still so precious to her that she could not make a further protest. She saw him standing very straight and thin, but very determinedly, in such a way that she knew he was set upon going out. "You'll catch cold . . ." she said, in a weak tone. "Don't wait for me," he told her. "Go to bed, and try to sleep." She thought he was talking vaguely, as if he had hardly heard what she had been saying. But as he went she clung to him, and felt lips that were piercingly cold upon her own. "Don't let him go too far," she whispered to Amberley. "It's so silly of him to want to go !" "I'd rather he didn't come, of course. Do him far more good to stay in quietly with you by the fire. Velancourt, why not stay at home ? You've been out . . ." "I should stifle. It's a beautiful night," Velancourt said, quietly. "Good-bye, Cissie. Go to bed, and don't wait up 3H ON THE STAIRCASE for me. You look awfully tired." He kissed her again. Amberley thought: How absurd it is to see them both be- having extravagantly. But he was uneasy, because he thought that Velancourt wanted to talk to him alone about money-matters; and he did not want to have to go into them. As they left the house, he said to Velancourt : "There really seems a fair chance of the Bath job coming off. I had a letter from my friend yesterday, saying that there might be a good prospect at the beginning of the year." "Yes?" Velancourt said. "What Bath job is that?" They were separated for a moment ; and Amberley, sup- posing that his friend had forgotten the old suggestion, made some sort of murmuring promise to tell him about it on another occasion. "You're feeling pretty fit now, aren't you ?" he asked. "I mean, now you can get about, you'll be coming over to Highgate. It's really rather amusing to see young Susan's airs of aged womanhood. You heard about her voluntary offer to retain the word 'obey' in the marriage service? She's a terrible backslider, of course." "I'm quite well," Velancourt said coolly. He did not make any attempt to speak of Susan. "I always think that's such a jolly view over to Hendon and on . . ." Amberley said, pointing north-west. Velan- court seemed to be in a dream, so that he hardly heard the words. "Yes. Amberley, you've been very kind to both Cissie and me." "Rubbish. I know you think I'm inhuman." "Oh," said Velancourt. "No, I think you're particularly human. You've been very humanly kind to Cissie. I'm afraid I've never been that." Amberley frowned with distaste. "Now you can begin," he said, brusquely. He could not understand Velancourt's gravity, except as a prelude to ON THE STAIRCASE 315 some offer of repayment. "Listen, that's midnight striking. You be human and go back. It's the best thing you can do." They halted by the White Stone Pond, and shook hands. Velancourt looked steadily back in response to Amberley's dubious scrutiny. "Good-bye," he said. "You're a brick ; and I'm as grate- ful as anybody could be. If only you'll go on . . ." His voice suddenly broke, and he turned away. "Good night, old chap . . ." Amberley waved his hand and went along the now deserted road that led to Highgate. "What a queer card he is !" he thought. "Now, my hearty, a good step out !" His steps echoed dully upon the asphalt pavement. When he looked up at the sky it was impene- trably dark, for heavy clouds hung above, and the lights along the road broke through the darkness with sudden lit- tle gleams of welcome. It seemed to him almost uncannily quiet; and he thought with satisfaction of the home and bed that lay half an hour before him. VII Velancourt turned again before he had gone very far, and watched Amberley's tall figure growing smaller in the distance. His eyes were full of tears. His resolution fal- tered as the old hunger for human kinship returned to his heart. Amberley was his friend, unselfishly sinking his own interests in those of others. Amberley could be kind to Cissie, and could earn her gratitude. He could perform acts of unceasing charity without ever showing that he was conscious of his own quality as a man. . . . But Amberley was a man of this world. Velancourt went slowly down a steep path on to the Heath ; and followed the path until it brought him through a little dell on to higher ground. Everywhere the black Heath went away in a secret night-vastness, unbounded by 316 ON THE STAIRCASE the limits which day revealed. The trees whispered a very little, and the warm wind gently touched his face and hands as he walked into the unknown darkness, treading the path that lay so dimly before him. He passed some empty sheep-pens which he had sometimes seen in daylight, and he knew that Hampstead was behind him, behind him for ever. In the darkness he thought of Cissie waiting at home; but he would not be turned by that knowledge from the course he had so determinedly planned long days ago when he lay in bed. It was beautiful to him to hear the tall trees rust- ling so peacefully, and to have the sense of heavy clouds high above, moving with a slow progression before the tur- bulent winds of the upper air. Presently he saw water before him, stretching black and unrippled as though it might have been a sheet of glass. Only when he was quite close could he hear the tiniest plashing that it made against its boundaries. His feet moved noiselessly across the grass ; his heart seemed frozen. He stood looking at the wster, and with his dry tongue trying to moisten lips that trembled. Everything was very quiet: he could hear nothing but the little lapping of the water, as though it were whispering. Long he stood there by the still water, with bowed head, his breath coming gasp- ingly, and his hands clenched. Then he stepped softly for- ward. I CHAPTER XXXIV DREADFUL NEWS N the first hour of light Velancourt's body was seen by a man who passed. So shallow was the water that it could not long conceal him; but life was gone. It was not long before the discoverer communicated his news, and in another hour both Cissie and Amberley were summoned. Afterwards Amberley took Cissie, almost fainting, to High- gate, and left her with Susan. It was the only thing he could do. Later, he advised Mrs. Jenkins; but Cissie re- fused to go to her mother. Amberley himself was as deeply moved as he had ever been — shocked beyond expression at Velancourt's action, to him inexplicable ; and shocked and puzzled all the more because he had been with his friend so recently. Cissie could not explain : she could only sit sob- bing, and crying through her sobs that Adrian had been cruel, and that she had been all against his going out. But there was the fact. His eyes had been closed ; but his face, still beautiful, was rigid and of a bluish pallor. There was no letter, no word of any kind. Reason, explanation, — there was none given. Amberley could not understand. He tried to remember something in their talk which might have given a hint of Velancourt's design. There had been no word : his manner had perhaps been constrained, but it was easy to imagine that in view of the later knowledge. "I can't understand!" Amberley said to himself over 3*7 318 ON THE STAIRCASE and over again. "If he'd said the least thing that could explain it I'm sure I should remember it." He thought of their parting. There at least, in Velancourt's broken fare- well, was the suggestion that he had made up his mind. But he had not seemed like a coward. Why should he have despaired so suddenly? What good did he think he was doing? "He said 'Good-bye,' " wailed Cissie, several times. "He said 'Good-bye' to me." Amberley remembered that also : to himself as well the word had been used; but 'good-bye' is now so frequently employed as a casual expression of farewell that he had thought nothing of it. He could only rack his brains un- happily. II When at last he reached the office that morning he was very late indeed, and had his morning's hard work to make up. Employers are not interested in the private affairs of their clerks, except as occasions for complaints. Even then, although he strove to concentrate his mind upon what was before him, Amberley could not work. He constantly left off, to rest his head on his hands. He could not get out of his mind the sight of that livid face, nor out of his ears the dreadful sobbing of Cissie. Those two things pressed upon him, and made his thoughts an agony. He was struck with a sort of despair at the feeling of being entirely un- able to realise or to understand what had happened — an anger at Velancourt for a wanton sacrifice of another life, and an anger at himself for being so numbed by a sensa- tion of horror. It seemed to Amberley unbelievable that Velancourt should so deliberately have taken his own life, at a mo- ment when there really had offered a prospect of change for the better in his affairs. Unless he had been mad. Un- ON THE STAIRCASE 319 less love for Barbara had really overwhelmed him. Am- berley sat dully at his work, wondering what he had to do next. He knew, with rebellious understanding of the fact, that nothing was to be gained by thoughts : they only made him feel the more stupid. It was not until the end of the day that he saw Barbara. She came in at the front door as he was leaving; and the encounter was such a relief to him that, as he met her, he miserably blurted out the news, unmindful of the shock it might inflict. "Velancourt . . . Have you heard ?" he said, blundering into it. He stood heavily before her, not meeting her eyes ; so that she saw how grey and exhausted he looked, and pitied him for it. "What has he done?" Barbara demanded, with a curious expression upon her face. "He's dead." Barbara said nothing; but drew her breath quickly. It had been that! Amberley went wearily on as though he were grumbling: "It's so bewildering; because I was with him up to the last minute. He gave absolutely no sign. He was rational, and good-tempered. . . . Noth- ing at all to suggest . . ." "D'you mean that he " "Yes." Amberley would not let her say the words. He only stood looking at her. "How dreadful that is! He's dead? Oh, but it's im- possible !" "I've seen him. I can't believe it, even now. Even that doesn't make me realise it. He was with me last thing. . . . He's left no word at all. No word to anybody." Barbara seemed almost to sway towards him, so that he caught her hands. "That's not so," she whispered. "I never knew — never guessed what it meant. But he wrote to me . . . I had a letter this morning. He said nothing ... I wasn't to show the letter . . ." "You had a letter!" 320 ON THE STAIRCASE "You must come upstairs with me," Barbara said. "Come now. You must see the letter." Ill The letter, written in pencil upon a sheet of that ruled paper which Velancourt had used for his essay on Keats, ran: "Dear Miss Gretton, — I would rather you did not men- tion to anybody at all the fact that I have written to you ; but the truth is that I have resolved upon a very great step, of which I expect you are sure to hear in a little while. I would write to Amberley ; but I am afraid that as he is so very energetic it might bring about a frustration of my plan. I cannot do what I propose, however, without trying to put down some sort of apologia ; and I want to tell you how very much all your kindness has meant to me. But for you and Amberley I think I should have been dragged down into the Hell of a draggled hopeless existence. As it is, I am rising from the mire. I have loved you ever since we met : all the way home from the concert I had the memory of you distinctly in my heart, in a way that it puzzled me to explain. It was not for a long time that I found out that I loved you, and I should not dare to tell you this now but for the fact that you will never see me again. The love of you has never been a grief to me, and it has never been a base love; but it has been the turning-point of my whole life. I am, in fact, going upon a long journey, in the expec- tation of leaving my troubles behind me; but my precious thought, that no one, not even you, can rob me of, is that I have known what it is to love as few men are able to love and to know they love. "All the time that I have been ill my mind has been working with surprising clearness, and I have seen for the first time how many and how horrible my mistakes have been all along. But I am finished with them now, or if I ON THE STAIRCASE 321 am not I shall never be. My mind is quite clear, and I am certain that I have found the right way. I should like you to tell Amberley this, one time. He is very generous, and I am sure will always be so to me, because he has been my only friend, and he has loved me as a friend should in spite of myself ; but he will very likely not understand me in this as in some other things. I want you to tell him that nothing he has said to me at any time is at all influencing me in my present course. I have sincerely judged for myself. Am- berley is often swayed by personal considerations (not his own) in a way that is foreign to me; and I am acting now in pursuance of a clearly thought-out plan — on an idea of life which is as strictly logical as any theory of his. It is, of course, very impertinent of me to ask you to give mes- sages in this way. I should not do this if I did not hope that your friendship for Amberley is as great as his for you. Will you tell him that my greatest hope at this time is for his happiness and for yours. For myself, I know that my love, if I had expressed it otherwise than I have done in this letter, could only have affronted you, though I hope that you will not think that I have been grossly insulting now ; and I am afraid that you will think to yourself how strangely I am writing. You will think, perhaps, that I am mad. But I am not mad. I am sure for the first time. I wonder if you will understand ? With very sincerest wishes for your happiness, I am your sincere friend, "Adrian Velancourt." Amberley handed the letter back to Barbara. "Good God! He must have been mad!" he said, sav- agely. "It's the letter of an insane person." He was very excited. "Velancourt was never such a fool as the letter makes him out. It's an absurdly vague, vain letter. . . . You see how vague it is !" "But Joe, he's dead," Barbara reminded him. Amberley stopped. "Don't tell anybody about the letter," he said. "He 322 ON THE STAIRCASE doesn't mention Cissie. That's what's so bitterly cruel. It's she who suffers, poor kid. You'd think from that letter that he had a right to kill himself. No sane man with a wife ever thought that. If he was sane, he was entirely an egoist. I hope he was mad." "I wonder," Barbara said. "He says you sometimes didn't understand him." Amberley looked at her. "You'd justify him?" he asked. "I'm afraid I'm excited, and can't see it." "I don't know," Barbara said, gently. "It's horrible. I think it's ugly and stupid. But I think that perhaps we don't understand. That perhaps it might have been uglier and more stupid. His wife's young enough to get over it. Do realise that he'd got an idea !" "You defend him !" stammered Amberley. "I can't under- stand !" "But you will understand, Joe," Barbara said. She almost added : "I couldn't love you so much if you weren't able to understand !" The mere repression of that impulsive speech made her flush. It made her realise how tremendously she believed in him. It made her realise that to Amberley Vel- ancourt seemed to have taken the way of least resistance. That made her wonder afresh, after he had gone. CHAPTER XXXV BONNE BOUCHE I CHRISTMAS had come and gone ; and on the first Sat- urday of the new year a party of four sat round a very small tea-table in an inn some fifteen miles out of London. The inn was at South Mimms, a little distance north of Barnet; and the tea-table accommodated Susan, Barbara, Ernest, and Joseph Amberley. They were eating with relish bread and butter and strawberry jam, and a home-made cake, and home-made scones. They were drink- ing a great deal of tea. Outside the inn everything was dark; but a fire and bright lights made the little room as cheerful as home. Above, hanging in festoons from the ceiling to the chandelier, were streams of coloured paper, which had been allowed to stay up after the Christmas fes- tivities were over. Red and yellow and blue and green paper was mingled and twisted in raw gay combination. And the four young people were as gay as the paper. They all talked at once, in a sort of genuine high spirits. They endured each other's badinage with ostentatious patience, and strove energetically to respond with better retorts. Thus it was that the time went by, and the chiming of an old grandfather clock was the first hint they received of the late hour. It was seven o'clock, and they had still three or four miles to walk, to Barnet Station, before they could catch their train home. "My goodness me !" cried Susan. "Listen !" 323 324 ON THE STAIRCASE The clock, as though to express its own surprise, struck pell-mell, an appalling muster of seven notes in a single instant, faster than any clock ever struck before. It struck so fast that the notes were as one. They began, and they ended, in a clangour, terrifying to all who heard. "What a strange clock," Ernest asserted. "I never heard the like." "It's a startler !" said Amberley. "It must be a rare shock at midnight — like church bells all pulled at once. Come, Susie!" They pushed back their chairs. "Ugh ! Look out of the window. It looks like black frost !" Susan said. "Isn't it a contrast !" They looked out of the window, crowding, and then back into the room. It dismayed them all ; but they dissembled. "A brisk walk !" cried Barbara. "And we shall think it's better than all !" "Isn't she cheerful !" Susan put on her coat with Ernest's help. "Philosophy is the art of making both ends meet !" Ernest told her. "Then what philosophers we must be !" Amberley walked about the room, squaring his shoulders ; but he was ready as soon as the others. Susan, shivering, stepped into the road with her collar turned up, and a little blue woollen cap on her fair hair. Barbara, who was dressed in a coat and skirt of grey-brown tweed, followed more quietly. She did not shiver, but was prepared to walk fast through the chill air. Little lights from cottages showed through drawn blinds, hinting at comfort within. It was very dark, and the stars were out. "Now !" cried Amberley, and they stepped out as though it might have been on a day's march. ON THE STAIRCASE 325 II Very soon the two couples fell apart, and Barbara and Amberley out-distanced the others by more determined marching. They looked back, and waited, but Susan had taken Ernest's arm, and was talking very busily to him, so they went on alone. The hedges rose high on both sides of the road, and there were no other passengers, for the eve- ning was bleak and untempting to all but the sturdy. "I must say that I wouldn't stir out if I were at home," Amberley said. Barbara considered for a moment. "I expect you would," she answered him. "Something would make you." "D'you find that?" he asked, interestedly. "It's very strange; but certainly true. Some instinct seems to beat the lazy one. Men are always doing things they think they don't want to. You wonder why they can't rest quietly ; and they're always going into danger." "Not now," Barbara objected. "Men are very decayed. They don't want to go into danger." "Certainly. Danger is alluring." "I suppose it is so. It's a temptation. It's rather fine to think of risking one's life for some purpose." "Look at Velancourt." "Oh, I don't think he'd got anything to hold him back." "He must have had. Dread of annihilation, at any rate. It's cowardice that keeps many men alive. Why, good gracious me, suicide's a crime only in England. Every- where else it's recognised as a fact, as a definite logical thing." "Joe, you do see that he was logical?" Barbara said, im- pulsively. There was quite a distinct pause before Amberley an- swered. They continued to walk steadily in the direction of Barnet. 326 ON THE STAIRCASE "Not very reasonable," he said at last, slowly. "I sup- pose he thought — put an end to it. I can see that he thought ... It must have been a considered plan, and must have needed nerve. But as a way out I don't care for it, because he didn't exhaust the other possibilities. He was premature. Many things could have been done, better things." "What about Mrs. Velancourt?" asked Barbara. "Oh, you're prejudiced. We had an awful fortnight with her, of course — until she went back to her mother. But the poor thing was hysterical, blaming herself, blaming him. . . ." "You couldn't call that logical !" "Do you want to? This is the point: Velancourt was miserable. We know why. I also know that I was inhu- man to him, and that makes me feel bitter, because he de- ceived me into thinking he'd got over it." "He particularly said " "I know. He probably thought Cissie would be able to marry again, more suitably. If he thought of her at all. Of course, she'll do that. He'd found out that she was killing him — that's a way of speaking, of course — and he was frenzied by it. While he was at a cold heat he was obsessed by the idea of suicide. That's how it seems to me. There's no glory in it." "I know you wouldn't do it. You'd find a better way. But I think he chose the best and only way. That was his way, and in so far as it solved his particular difficulties it's logically the best way." "Barbara, you're a rotten logician !" said Amberley. "I'm not going to give in to you when I know I'm right," Barbara persisted. "I do see this one thing very clearly, Joe. I see that you're thinking of him as if he had your nature. He hadn't. He'd got another kind of nature alto- gether. You couldn't kill yourself — you've got too much . . . well, I suppose it's a sense of the ridiculous. I couldn't, because I'm too self-important. But he did, because death ON THE STAIRCASE 327 was a necessity to him. He wanted to get behind life alto- gether. Now, don't say I'm stupid." "I don't want you to give in to me. I love you too much — beg pardon ! And you're not at all stupid. Perhaps I am. I say that there were other ways for him, as he was." "I don't think so," said Barbara. "And I know I'm right !" They could not laugh, because Velancourt's death, only a month old, had made too great an impression upon them; but the deadlock brought them nearer to one another. "You're going to tell me that a purely ethical problem — whether a man should, or should not, take his own life — must be argued upon the merits of each case?" Amberley asked. "I don't care tuppence for the general question. I'm only sure about this one case." "How terrible it is to be so stubborn !" he protested. "Of course, I could go on arguing with you all the way home. But that'll only prevent your joining in a foursome another Saturday." Barbara did not say anything, and a long silence fell. They walked in the middle of the road, keeping a fair pace, two strong figures of nearly the same height. Amberley was very little taller than Barbara, and very little stronger. They both walked very erect, and they both looked straight at anything they wanted to see. At last, after the pause had become uncomfortable, Barbara said : "Aren't you rather obstinate yourself, Joe?" Ill Amberley smiled in the safe darkness at her studiously pacific tone. But the next moment he felt dreary again. It was all very well to play as though nothing had hap- pened : a great deal had happened. They knew each other 328 ON THE STAIRCASE very well, they understood each other, they admired each other. Why was the sequence imperfect? "I'm very determined," he said. "I said, obstinate," suggested Barbara, drily. "Well, we both know we're right, anyway," he explained. "At least, I don't know that I'm right. I'm too philosophic for that." "Oh, horrible, Joe !" cried Barbara. "You're very obsti- nate indeed." She came nearer, and their eyes met. They could not possibly see expressions in such darkness, but the fact of the exchanged glance was of importance, as both recog- nised. In that instant Barbara heard her mother say : "Only because you recognise a stronger will than your own." Her face became hot at the memory. It was not memory : it was as though the speech had actually been made. "But I'm rather honest," he ventured. "Wouldn't you say so?" "I'm certainly not going to discuss your nature," she said, decidedly. "But bear up, little man : we'll talk about . . ." Her voice faltered. "We'll talk about . . . about mine, if you like." "Nothing better." He became instantly intent, ears and eyes alert for what was to follow. "Well," Barbara began, in a dry unsteady voice, "I'm a beast of a girl, really. I'm very vain, and selfish " "Wouldn't it be better if we eliminated those more obvious things?" Amberley asked. He was so desperately anxious to cut away the preliminaries to what might be the happiness of his life, that he forgot to be courteous. Barbara walked on fast, in silence, with her head in the air. He had to hurry after her, rather frightened, but tremendously elated, with great pride and hope in his heart. He reached her side, and caught her arm in a passionate grip. "Were you going to say you'd changed your mind?" he said, breathlessly. ON THE STAIRCASE 329 "I think I dislike you almost more than ever,'" she said, in a quivering voice. "Oh, my dear ... I didn't think you could be serious — not so banale!" He reproached her. "You know quite well that I love you ; and you know that no self-depreciation is ever really honest. Why do you begin such a business when you ought to be most scrupulous? Barbara !" She listened to what he said ; and dismissed her tears of vexation. "Because," she said, honestly. "I see I was stupid. I suppose there was a base instinct at work. And I thought I was going to be honest. I wanted ... I want to say to you, Joe, that if you want me still " Amberley stopped before her and caught her hands so fiercely that he hurt her. "I can't believe it!" he exclaimed. Barbara was trembling, and beginning to laugh from nervousness. "I've changed my mind," she said, heroically. "I want to marry you." They both laughed as in the darkness he kissed her awk- wardly. "God bless South Mimms!" Amberley cried. Barbara, in his arms, echoed the benediction. When he released her at last, they stood, rather absurdly, hand in hand. "I meant to say it to-day, Joe," Barbara said. "I planned it. . . . As if I'd been a horrible vampire girl!" She pinched his hand a very little, determined upon dire hon- esty. Amberley shook his head. "Very irregular," he said. "You ought to have waited till I asked you again." His impudence took Barbara's breath away. She turned upon him in powerful reproach. "Yes, but good gracious ! you'd never have dared to ask again !" Amberley kissed her a second time. 330 ON THE STAIRCASE IV They fell into step again; but they walked more slowly than before. "I wanted to say . . ." Barbara was very stumbling. "You know how ashamed " "Stop !" he cried. "That's done with." "You're a bully, Joe !" "You were going to apologise for having hurt me before. I don't want to be reminded of it. I'm quite content." "But I am sorry." Barbara was forced into the position of being defiantly apologetic. "I have one thing to say to you, Barbara Gretton," Am- berley said ; but he took her arm, and she could see that he was smiling with a rather nonsensical air. "And that is, that I'm not a fool. I knew you were sorry — do you think I don't value you ? Why, my dear, I love you." "But if you think that love prevents misunderstandings, Joe ; and angers, and torments — what an innocent child you are !" Barbara spoke in a low, agitated voice. She felt terribly exhausted in spite of her happiness. They had reached the main road to Barnet; and they stood near the corner of the road by which they had come, waiting to be overtaken by Susan and Ernest. "I don't say love does anything. I'm talking about you and me." "I shall be horribly angry all the time." By the light of the street lamp, Amberley for the first time since they had left the inn could see Barbara's face. Her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes shining. Her lips were compressed as he remembered them to have been on the evening of their quarrel. His first impulse, checked only by the publicity of their position, was to take her in his arms. She was almost crying; and it was horrible not to be able to comfort her. It was horrible also to see her so moved, more moved than he had guessed from her unsteady voice. ON THE STAIRCASE 331 But he was himself moved and excited, which made him talkative. "You can be as angry as you like," he said. "So long as you're honest. That's what's the crux. Humbug's the horror !" He laughed a little. Then, as though to persuade her, he said : "It is, really !" Barbara looked at him. She could not speak; she could only nod. "We won't have any humbug, will we?" Amberley whis- pered. "We shall probably have an awful lot of nonsense !" Bar- bara cried, and turned away, so that her face should be in the shadow. "Well, you won't mind that, will you, dear? It seems as though it rather sweetens life." Amberley looked wistfully at her averted face. Then he plunged. "Barbara. I'll admit you may be right about Velancourt in theory. Per- haps I don't understand his point of view. But I quite realise your right to another opinion. It's not that I want to over-ride you. It's simply that the whole thing's un- thinkable to me. He may have done a courageous thing, after all. But you know I shall never be able to forgive him. She's going to have a baby." THE END. 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