THE STRANGERS 
 WEDDING 
 
 ft 
 
 W.L.GEORGE
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Richard Petrie
 
 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING
 
 BY W. L. GEORGE 
 
 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 THE SECOND BLOOMING 
 
 A BED OF ROSES 
 
 THE CITY OF LIGHT 
 
 UNTIL THE DAT BREAK 
 
 THE MAKING OF AN ENGLISHMAN 
 
 OLGA NAZIMOV 
 
 WOMAN AND TO-MORROW 
 
 DRAMATIC ACTUALITIES 
 
 ANATOLE FRANCE
 
 THE STRANGERS' 
 WEDDING 
 
 THE COMEDY OF A ROMANTIC 
 
 BY 
 
 W. L. GEORGE 
 
 Author of "The Second Blooming," etc. 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY 
 1916
 
 Copyright, 1916, 
 BY W. L. GEORGE. 
 
 Copyright in Great Britain, Ireland and British Colonies and 
 in all countries under the Convention by W. L. George. 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
 Published, January, 1916 
 
 Reprinted, January, 1916 
 
 February, 1916 
 
 grtntrw 
 8. J. PARKHILL ft Co., BOBTOK, U.S.A.
 
 acknowledging that I owe him 
 the original idea on which this novel is based, 
 and hoping that he will overlook the many 
 places where my writing has fallen short of 
 his intention, I feel pleasure in dedicating this 
 book to 
 
 A. W. ROGERS 
 
 905385
 
 PART THE FIRST 
 
 LEAVES OF OAK
 
 A sore-hipped hippopotamus, greatly flustered, 
 
 Was grumbling at his poultice made of custard: 
 
 " Can't you put upon my hip 
 
 Something better than this flip?" 
 
 So they put upon his hip a pot o' mustard. 
 
 (Limericks of the Edwardo-Georgian 
 transition period).
 
 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 CHAPTER THE FIBST 
 
 " OUT OF THE EVERYWHERE . ." 
 
 THROUGH: tlie railings of Green Park he could see, far 
 away in the south, the tower of Westminster Cathedral 
 pointing as a gigantic finger towards Heaven. Or to- 
 wards nothing, thought Huncote. Who could say? 
 The brick spear pleased him, its air of indication and, 
 more ambitious, its Atlas boast of bearing upon a single 
 pillar paradise, while rooted in hell. The day indeed 
 was theological ; not one of those London days when the 
 skies seem to pour mud and the fear of death transmutes 
 itself into a fear that one may never die, nor yet one of 
 those days when all men see, as Blake, a host of angels 
 in a flaming sky. It was a grey and undefined October 
 day of doubt, of trees still clad but shabbily, of soft air 
 still warm, yet hinting that its child might be cold. No 
 blustering wind, but a world undefined, as if arrested, 
 hesitating, upon the brink of an inevitable plunge into 
 some other world. 
 
 For a little while Huncote amused himself with a 
 speculation that was a habit rather than an amusement. 
 He was not interested in the hereafter; at Oxford he 
 had had his religious fit as other men have their drink- 
 ing fit, or womanise or row. He had been particular 
 about vestments and their proper colours, then veered
 
 4 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 towards Luther, and even frequented a chapel with a 
 corrugated iron roof. He had read number 90 of 
 " Tracts for the Times ", and Haeckel on the top. Out 
 of chaos had come no order, but rather a feeling, half- 
 optimistic, half -sceptical, that in the end heavenly mercy 
 or revenge could take the hindmost. He was a sort of 
 insured agnostic. That morning he found it impossible 
 even to admit anything immaterial, to reconcile with 
 roaring Piccadilly behind him that giant finger pointing 
 to the sky. And more proximate objects made him into 
 a clearer materialist. For it was not so cold yet that, 
 upon the meadow alongside the Ritz that is like a 
 badly laid green carpet, the forgotten tramps of London 
 could not lie. There they were, each apart from his 
 fellow, maintaining the last dignity of the poor : keeping 
 himself to himself. Things half-asleep upon the 
 benches, with effaced arms and legs, heads sunken into 
 chests as if the hats were too heavy for tired necks ; and, 
 scattered all about the meadow, as upon a battle-field the 
 slain, others screwed up for warmth and limbless, or 
 fallen upon their backs with upward-pointing knees ; or 
 on their sides with an outthrown arm and straggling 
 fingers clutching at nothing. 
 
 Huncote looked at them for a long time : " The 
 pageant of the people," he told himself, " there's some 
 of it." 
 
 For a moment he hated them, was disgusted as he 
 thought of those bodies, meagre, unfed, unwashed, evil- 
 smelling, temples of beastly little minds, merely lustful 
 and mainly revengeful unless, which was still worse, 
 those minds were just brought down to brute-level. 
 But in a second the mood passed and, as Huncote gazed 
 through the railings which he held with both hands, he 
 was seized with pity and a sort of self-reproach. For 
 what were they doing, these hands, in such a world, in 
 the brand-new reindeer gloves which he had bought 
 across the road ? Those long, slim fingers in the beauti-
 
 "OUT OF THE EVERYWHERE" 5 
 
 ful, soft grey skin, how ineffectual they looked ! He 
 hated them in that moment because he knew that those 
 fingers shrank, as if by instinct, from the idea of touch- 
 ing that evil upon the grass which after all was still 
 man. And he knew that a time must come when he 
 must touch it, and not even with half -guinea gloves but 
 with bare, shrinking hands. " Only like that," he 
 thought, " can I justify myself ; only by practising no- 
 bility can I avoid being ignoble in my own luxurious 
 way." 
 
 He sighed. It would have been much nicer not to 
 have had a conscience, or a sense of duty, or an impulse 
 of pity, or rot of that sort, and just to have been a blood 
 or something simple. Still, there it was! Before he 
 could go any farther into his meditation, a hand had 
 smacked him upon the shoulder. 
 
 " Hallo ! Huncote ! What are you staring at ? 
 Isn't it a bit early to mark down Eve in the Garden of 
 Eden?" 
 
 Huncote turned to look at the speaker, only half un- 
 derstanding him. 
 
 " Hallo ! Piggy ! " he said. " What are you doing 
 here?" 
 
 " I'm going to lunch," said Piggy, otherwise Gorsley, 
 " which strikes me as being more filling to the body than 
 the meditation with which you are evidently satisfying 
 your soul." 
 
 Huncote smiled. " D'you know, Piggy, that's not 
 quite idiotic. I suppose I was satisfying my soul in a 
 sort of way." 
 
 " And has it occurred to you," said Gorsley, " that 
 spiritual exaltation sometimes leads to appetite that 
 monks are good trenchermen and that the highest 
 flights of the spirit are limited by the weakness of the 
 flesh ? " He grinned comically at his own incipient 
 paunch. " Though I may not look it, O Cardinal 
 Quixote, I too have been the home of Seven Devils, and
 
 r 6 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 have been visited of all of them. The worst of them, 
 I confess, by which I mean the most pleasing, is the 
 demon of greediness. In short, I am wasting valuable 
 minutes which I intended to pass at the club over the 
 way where I now crave your presence." 
 
 " Thanks awfully," said Huncote, " since you have 
 dragged me back to the world. You really are a swine, 
 Pi ggy> yu know." 
 
 " What else would you expect from a man with so 
 elegant a nickname ? " asked Gorsley comfortably. 
 " Funny thing," he went on as they crossed the road, 
 still talking busily as they dodged among the motor- 
 buses, "I don't mind being called i Piggy/ Always 
 was called something of the sort. I was ' Fatty ' in the 
 nursery, and ' Tubby ' at Marlborough, and at Gabs it 
 was ' Piggy.' Can't get away from lard somehow ! 
 Still, I'm nearing the end, I think." 
 
 " How's that ? " asked Huncote, as they took off their 
 overcoats in the club lobby. 
 
 " Well," said Gorsley, " I should say that in a few 
 years no more spermacetian suggestions will be made 
 about me; the climate of India with luck will see to 
 that. In five years, Huncote, you won't know me; I 
 shall be as thin as a lath, as they say in the halfpenny 
 papers, and yellow as a guinea, in the eloquent phrase 
 of Thackeray, and long as a day without bread, to quote 
 our gay neighbours across the Channel. I shall be a 
 complete Indian civilian, with one little body and one 
 large liver. It'll be a change, anyhow." 
 
 The first part of lunch was entirely occupied by 
 Gorsley's anticipations and not very evident fears of the 
 examination for the Indian Civil he would have to stand 
 in another fourteen months. He was a rather noisy, 
 bounding young man, extremely sure of himself and 
 prepared to play football with the world ; at Oxford he 
 had sat on most committees and had enlivened them 
 with drifting eloquence. He was fond of beer and
 
 "OUT OF THE EVERYWHERE" 7 
 
 champagne, of caviare, boiled mutton, pretty townees, 
 and of the girls who came up to Oxford for Eights: 
 he could circulate the cups at tea parties, and correctly 
 address the daughter of a duke who had married a com- 
 moner later raised to the peerage and who ultimately 
 ended as a dowager. Also he was amazingly like a pig, 
 with eyes that appeared only from time to time as the 
 ray from a lighthouse ; his chubby mouth and his large 
 nose suggested an amiable potato. Falstaff as cherub ! 
 One did not overlook Gorsley ; though he had just come 
 down from Oxford, even the club waiters respected him. 
 
 Towards the end of lunch Gorsley, who so far had 
 with assumed modesty explained why he had not the 
 ghost of a chance of a really good job, suddenly swerved 
 towards the affairs of his friend. 
 
 "What about you?" he asked suddenly. "What 
 have you got in your eye ? " Then, before Huncote 
 could reply: "D'you know, I used to think you 
 being a brainy sort of chap and all that you might 
 have a chance of a fellowship." 
 
 " Not likely. I floated frightfully in Schools. Be- 
 sides, I don't want to be a don." 
 
 " Well ! " said Gorsley, with large generosity. 
 
 "Yes, I know," said Huncote. "I have talked of 
 becoming a don; .every other freshman talks of that, 
 but it isn't in my line. Oxford's too damp, for one 
 thing; the home of neuritis; how the dons manage to 
 look so dry in an atmosphere like that, I don't know." 
 
 " Celibacy, my dear fellow," boomed Gorsley. 
 " Celibacy, whether married or not." And for a while 
 he dilated, a little to Huncote's discomfort, upon the 
 temperature of the passions of various fellows of Ga- 
 briel. But Gorsley was inquisitive ; he had been to so 
 many tea parties, made so many enquiries, known the 
 outside of so many people and the inside of so few, 
 cared so little about what they felt and wanted so much 
 to know what they did, that Huncote stimulated him to
 
 8 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 enquiry. Gorsley had often wondered about Huncote, 
 as did a good many other people at Oxford. He had 
 always thought that this long, lanky person, with the 
 straight brows and the close-set, deep-grey eyes, was 
 bound to do something queer. But what ? " I don't 
 say you were born to be a don," he replied in injured 
 tones; "there are loads of other things. I say, let's 
 have coffee in the smoking-room." 
 
 The passage into the smoking-room did not deflect 
 Gorsley from his quest. As soon as they sat down he 
 began again. 
 
 "But what are you going to do?" he asked. 
 Thought of anything ? " 
 
 "I s'pose I have," said Huncote guardedly. He 
 threw at the amiable Piggy a look almost hostile. It 
 was characteristic of him that he disliked people laying 
 rough hands upon his life. He was aloof; like men 
 whose interior life is vivid, he tended to protect himself 
 from the outside. He had done all the usual things at 
 Oxford, but almost as if they were part of the curric- 
 ulum. He was rather an old young man, though but 
 twenty-three. He hated being hustled like this. But 
 Gorsley did not notice, and blissfully continued to roll 
 over Huncote's protesting little phrases. 
 
 One's got to settle what one's going to do, you know 
 It doesn't do to stroll about London as if it was the 
 lign. One s got to do something. Didn't realise it 
 myself a year or two ago," he added charitably. 
 ( ^ h ' y ? s 3 did >" said Huncote, rather vicious. 
 
 Only in a sort of way. Of course I knew I had to 
 make a living and all that but that's not the question ; 
 even a man who hasn't got to make a living well, 
 hang it all, it's pretty dull if you don't do anything. I 
 thought you were going to be a parson one time ? " 
 
 I did think about it," said Huncote, " but it didn't 
 last long. It isn't comfortable in the Church when you 
 don t believe in anything."
 
 "OUT OF THE EVERYWHERE" 9 
 
 "It can be done," said Gorsley. "Why, think of 
 all the of all those French ecclesiastics in the seven- 
 teenth and eighteenth century; they didn't swallow it, 
 did they?" 
 
 " No," said Huncote, " I suppose they didn't. But 
 then, in the seventeenth century it was not exactly re- 
 ligion, was it? It was politics rather." 
 
 " Politics," said Gorsley, his eyes more visible this 
 time than they had been the last hour. " What about 
 Parliament? Ever thought of standing for Parlia- 
 ment ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Huncote reluctantly, " I do think of it 
 now and then." 
 
 " Tell you what," said Gorsley, " if you're really 
 thinking of it, you go in with the Tories. The Liberals 
 have got all the young men, and you know the Tory push 
 at the Union well, talk of purulent toads ! They are 
 It. A brainy man like you'll win hands down. Chan- 
 cellor of the Exchequer at forty-five. It's a sure thing." 
 
 Huncote began to laugh. " Piggy," he said, " I'd 
 tell you again you're a swine, only you don't mind. 
 Don't you know I'm a Liberal ? " 
 
 " Oh, that's all right," said Gorsley. " Political 
 opinions are fluid; and some of us don't attach much 
 importance to them, we officials for instance," he added, 
 with a wink. 
 
 Huncote laughed again. It was no use, one could 
 not be angry with Piggy even if he were a nuisance, al- 
 ways digging at you to know what you were doing, and 
 looking at the photographs of your female friends in 
 your rooms, and reading the cards stuck in your mirror. 
 Oh, at it again. 
 
 " A man who can wait," he said, " can still make a 
 career at the Bar. He can mix it in with politics and 
 that's quite a pie." His tone grew pitying. " You 
 might try the Home Civil. Though it'd have been bet- 
 ter to start from Cambridge. Only one can't go to
 
 10 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 Cambridge." He laughed. " You know : Loving the 
 earth, God made heaven; generous, he made Oxford; 
 resentful, he made hell; then he made Cambridge." 
 
 Huncote did not laugh, and Gorsley for a moment 
 gazed at him reflectively, felt rather sorry for him. He 
 was the sort of young man who, because he was always 
 doing something himself, thought that everybody else 
 ought always to be doing something ; in the course of an 
 excellent education he had had to dabble with philoso- 
 phy, and he would have understood what you meant if 
 you told him that nothing was something, only he could 
 not apply that to life. Gorsley's mind was full of words 
 beginning with capitals: Work, Career, Success; and 
 there were two words which his mind printed in capitals 
 drawn from the largest font: GETTING OK He 
 was very irritated by Roger Huncote who seemed so ob- 
 stinately set on not doing this undefined but essential 
 something, who was just religious enough to be annoy- 
 ing, though not religious enough to run for bishop ; he 
 " didn't mind " the Bar, and at the same time had po- 
 litical opinions rigid enough to unfit him for politics. 
 Also he suspected that Roger Huncote was not im- 
 pressed by the Indian Civil. For a moment he grew 
 acid. 
 
 " Lord ! I don't know what's going to become of you. 
 It wasn't for nothing they called you ( Cardinal 
 Quixote.' " 
 
 " I don't know why they called me that," said Hun- 
 cote. " There's something mystic and militant and ro- 
 mantic about it, and when I reflect that I'm an amiable 
 agnostic whose militancy consists in lying in bed and 
 whose impulse towards romance has not manifested it- 
 self even at Buol's, I can't understand it. Give me up, 
 Piggy; it's no good, you'll never make a man of 
 me." 
 
 Gorsley flung him a rather disconsolate glance. 
 
 " I don't know, Huncote, you're a queer fish ! "
 
 "OUT OF THE EVERYWHERE" 11 
 
 II 
 
 IT was not the first time in his life that Roger Huncote 
 had been called a queer fish. There was a queer fishi- 
 ness about him in the nursery where he developed so 
 early a taste for knocking out melodies on a tumbler 
 that Mrs. Huncote specially looked up the early lives of 
 great musicians and related her son with Mozart. Al- 
 ready then she reflected that he was not the ordinary 
 kind of boy. Yet he seemed to grow up very much the 
 ordinary kind of boy. He did all the things that ordi- 
 nary boys do, from hating rice-pudding to breaking 
 windows, but there always seemed to lurk at the back 
 of these purely human impulses a detachment, as if he 
 were thinking of something else. At Winchester he 
 played cricket, looking, while he fielded, as if he were 
 composing an elegy ; yet when he had to try his hand at 
 Greek hexameters, Roger Huncote treated the exercise 
 as if with every line the longing grew in him to return 
 to a well-beloved novelette, " Gorgando the Sanguinary," 
 which, with various more respectable works of Marryat, 
 he kept in his desk. He had a quality of independence 
 less in the things he did, for he seldom took the lead in 
 anything, than in the things he did not. He was not a 
 boy to be swayed by fashions ; while even rigid Elspeth, 
 his elder sister, had to wear smallish hats when hats 
 were small, Huncote wore brown boots to the shade of 
 which his form objected : almost a vocation for Christian 
 martyrdom. It was Huncote who, in his first term, 
 found out that none but freshers gave cabmen two shill- 
 ings for the drive from the station, and ventured to offer 
 them one-and-six. And yet all this did not resolve itself 
 in a distinct personality.
 
 CHAPTER THE SECOND 
 
 HUNCOTE paused for a moment just outside Paddington 
 Station. In that minute the station and Praed Street 
 did not seem ugly to him. Indeed it is a question 
 whether to any man who has lived in Oxford, Padding- 
 ton and Praed Street can ever lose all their romance, 
 for they are the hyphen between the contemplative life 
 and the active; they are the places where are breathed 
 sighs of relief because Oxford is left behind, or of de- 
 light because London is shaken off. They are as the 
 bed in Richepin's poem, where all things begin, where 
 all things end. That morning for Huncote things were 
 again beginning; he had almost fled Oxford when term 
 ended, as if the aftermath of that evening, when Swin- 
 burne's verse flowed like honey through the bull of 
 Bashan's brazen trump, had left in him a sweet and 
 tainted memory. Through Easter term, Oxford had 
 snuggled by him, intolerable, like a sort of Ninon de 
 1'Enclos still desirable at eighty but eighty 1 Those 
 sleepy waters and gardens were growing, not orchids, 
 but Shakespeare flowers. Mustiness mixed with rowdi- 
 ness: it had all felt either too mellow or too crude. 
 He had growing pains, and the most horrible kind of 
 growing pains, for here he was afflicted with them in- 
 side an iron cage. 
 
 And so he had not, as he vaguely felt he ought, loaded 
 his luggage upon a taxi and driven across to Euston 
 where he would dutifully take the train for St. Olaves 
 to stay at his mother's house. As he stood blinking in
 
 ". . . INTO HERE'* 13 
 
 the spun-gold light of the London sun, observing as old 
 friends a tobacconist opposite who, he remembered, 
 always hung his shop with dark blue on boat-race day, 
 and a flower shop next to Praed Street Station, where 
 a girl was rather pretty, he was conscious of unrest: 
 for Huncote owned a conscience, and the world had not 
 yet trained it into docility. But his mother and Flora 
 had come up for Eights, and he had grown so appall- 
 ingly tired of the faded prettiness of the one and the 
 over-bright prettiness of the other, so tired of Mrs. 
 Huncote and of her offensive remarks about boys. It 
 made him shrink when she said " boys ", because the 
 freshmen might hear her. And he was so tired of ex- 
 plaining that a dean was not necessarily an ecclesiastic, 
 of meeting Flora's curiosities as to what a blood or a 
 binge was. Flora had flirted, and her mother had 
 worn a nice smile from the beginning to the end. They 
 were charming in their way, only they were not pas- 
 sionate monks, and Oxford had no use for them ; Hun- 
 cote was not sure that the presence of any woman in 
 Oxford was not sacrilegious. So he drew back from 
 the idea of vacuous days up there ; even the tonic of his 
 elder sister Elspeth's hardness would not make the 
 thing tolerable just then. Later on, in August, it 
 would be all right, when the Oxford paint, so fresh on 
 him now, had dried a little. 
 
 " No," he thought aloud, " I'll stay." 
 
 And as he thought, having conceded so much to 
 Dionysus, he felt relieved, like a murderer who looks 
 upon his victim on the ground and thinks, with a sigh 
 of relief : " Well, anyhow, that's over." 
 
 It had been a short struggle, for indeed, as he quickly 
 stepped through Spring Street, the day was Dionysian. 
 There was languor and exuberance in the streets, al- 
 ready warm with early sun. London was like a very 
 young courtesan who still enjoys her trade, whose tree 
 jewellery is still fresh and roses but in bud. From
 
 14 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 the pavement rose dust that the lazy warm breeze car- 
 ried a very little way up and scented with those ex- 
 quisite London smells of horses, petrol, tanyard and 
 brewery, beautiful, working smells, smells of art, not 
 obvious smells of nature. As he drew nearer to the 
 Park, the motorcars that passed him, perhaps because 
 the air was light, seemed faster, more whizzing than 
 usual, their highly polished fittings more like light- 
 nings. Yet, strangely enough, as if all things that day 
 were exaggerated, just as the motorcars seemed swifter, 
 the brewer's van, with the two big Flemish horses still 
 begauded with the rosettes they had just earned at 
 Carthorse Parade, seemed slower. The driver upon his 
 high seat sat back, the reins lay in his languid large 
 Lands. And it passed with an echoing, crooning 
 rumble. As he went, Huncote was violently conscious 
 of strain and slackness in the early London summer. 
 Two women came towards him, women in tweeds, one 
 of them summed up in a pince-nez ; women with brick- 
 red in their cheeks and sand in their hair, and in their 
 ill-gloved hands and clumsy feet the disgrace of woman- 
 hood. As he passed them he thrilled with hatred, as if 
 he could not bear that anything should be ugly in the 
 midst of pageantry. He was young, he was unjust, for 
 he had not related his anger with that second of joy as 
 he passed a girl who went with quick steps about her 
 business, upon whose red hair, high-piled, the sun laid 
 a sheen that made of it a copper helmet. As he passed 
 he flung her a sidelong look, and never before had he 
 seen such humid blue eyes, and lips red and rolled back. 
 Her beauty hurt him as the ugliness had hurt him. He 
 was so young as to be happy in ignorance, and not to 
 understand just then that both were signs of London's 
 fever which would dwindle and then fall as the golden 
 days turned into grey, then rise again when from the 
 grey came gold, as it was in the beginning and would 
 ever be.
 
 ". . . INTO HERE" 15 
 
 As he went into Kensington Gardens he could not be 
 philosophic ; he could only feel. No past and no future 
 here, but a present almost intolerable because too en- 
 folding. London in its sober, secret riot. It seemed a 
 very long walk across the Gardens to Knightsbridge 
 where are red sentries, and through the prance of Picca- 
 dilly to the restaurant where he had a man to meet. 
 He swore at himself because he had a man to meet, and 
 for a moment saw Oxford as it was, because he, like 
 other undergraduates, always had a man to meet (and 
 seldom a woman), a tea party to go to, a music hall to 
 visit, and so on: Oxford on the loose or rather Oxford 
 on the lead. It was hateful because his eyes were still 
 filled with the memory of the amber and golden beads 
 of the calceolaria, and the spears of the snapdragon 
 laden with garnet bells. He would have liked not to 
 roll in the spangled meadows, but rather to hang for a 
 very long time over the parapet of the Serpentine bridge 
 and to look at the cunning woods that are like a Hamp- 
 shire hanger towards the pale-blue East that smiles and 
 broods above Park Lane. But he had a conscience, and 
 though it had not been so difficult to break with an 
 obligation, a visit to St. Olaves, it was impossible to 
 break with a promise ; he had to meet Ditton at lunch. 
 
 Ditton too had that morning felt the influence of 
 Dionysus, but the god had not made him dreamy. 
 Rather had he poured into his veins an urgency to do 
 something, anything, a mere restlessness, but still it 
 was an energy and much greater than Huncote's in- 
 toxicated languor, an energy which enabled him to force 
 out of his friend another promise: that he would dine 
 with him that night and go to a music hall. Huncote 
 promised because he could think of no way of escape. 
 He made a mental reservation, told himself that he 
 would not go but would send a telegram at the last 
 minute. Yet at the same time he knew that he would 
 go because even if Ditton did talk of Gabs, still here
 
 16 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 they were, and it was London, and soon it would be 
 night. At what altar better sacrifice than at that of 
 the European promenade ? 
 
 II 
 
 Huncote knew without having phrased it that Ditton 
 came to town to paint it red, as Ditton put it. He had 
 liked the fellow ever since he had carefully made him- 
 self up to look like the warden of St. Saviour's, whom 
 he closely resembled, and boldly gone into the big 
 draper's in the Corn and ordered a lady's chemise, to- 
 gether with curling pins and other accessories, to be 
 sent to his rooms before seven o'clock. There was not 
 an undergraduate who did not know the story, but a 
 coalition of all the authorities in Oxford failed to dis- 
 cover the culprit. Ditton said he did not believe the 
 authorities had tried very hard, for he suspected that 
 after a moment of annoyance the warden began to enjoy 
 the vague reputation of dreadful doggishness which he 
 acquired in the whole town. There was in Ditton's eye 
 a sort of permanent wink and so, while he waited in 
 the lobby of the Trocadero, Huncote felt that he might 
 dispel listlessness. But as almost at once the swing- 
 doors opened, he drew back and became a little stiff. 
 Ditton had not played fair with him. Really he should 
 not have done it without asking him, for here he was 
 with Moss and Wray, two of the worst, two of the very 
 worst, who belonged to a set at Gabs that he never had 
 anything to do with. Huncote came forward and 
 shook hands rather coldly. But it was no use being 
 cold; evidently Wray and Moss, who thought him in- 
 tolerably superior, were willing to make allowances for 
 him. Also, as they went down the stairs, .Huncote 
 watched the movement of Wray's blazing red head and 
 decided that he was already drunk. 
 
 He was annoyed. It was all very well Ditton mak-
 
 ". . . INTO HERE" 17 
 
 ing up a party, but everybody knew that Wray was 
 always a bit drunk. As they shed their coats he 
 watched angrily the behaviour of the man who was 
 bound to disgrace them in the course of the evening. 
 The object of his anger smiled at him with perfect satis- 
 faction, for Lord Alastair Fitzmaurice Wray was 
 seldom in the mood to dislike anybody much; in his 
 present condition he was beyond all hatreds. And it 
 was hard to dislike him, for he was extraordinarily 
 handsome, an inch or so over six feet in height, and one 
 could not quarrel with the beaming stupidity which 
 radiated from his innocent blue eyes, from the mouth 
 which had at the age of four caused him to be painted 
 as a cupid. 
 
 " Glad to see you," he remarked vaguely to Huncote. 
 Then, as they passed in : " Feller like you gives tone 
 to a party, that's what I say." He grew more intent: 
 " What I say is a feller like you gives tone to a party ; 
 see what I mean ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, I see what you mean," said Huncote un- 
 easily, trying to humour him. 
 
 Ditton was ordering the dinner in collaboration with 
 Moss, who was a judge of wines, so Lord Alastair per- 
 sisted. 
 
 " What you want in a party is tone," he said, "1 
 1 liter tone. A man like you gives tone to a party, 
 see what I mean ? " 
 
 " Yes, I see what you mean," said Huncote, rather 
 frigid. 
 
 " Awfully clever of you," remarked Lord Alastair, 
 " lots of people don't know what I mean when I'm 
 blind. At least I'm not blind, quite all right, ain't I, 
 Mossy ? " 
 
 The little dark Jew flung him a humorous glance of 
 contempt. 
 
 " You're drunk as a lord," he said, " and most suit- 
 able. No ? Button, don't have Eudesheimer to start on.
 
 18 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 Let me look at the list. Soda water for Alastair and 
 nothing else." 
 
 The young man had not heard his sentence to sobri- 
 ety, for he was convulsed with merriment over Moss's 
 joke. 
 
 " Drunk as a lord ! Ever heard anything so 
 funny ? " He violently smacked Huncote's thigh. 
 " Ever heard anything so funny ? " Then, with sud- 
 den seriousness, leaning over and seizing Moss by the 
 sleeve, he remarked : " Mossy, you're damn clever ! " 
 
 Moss looked at him with that affectionate, half-con- 
 temptuous air. This big, handsome fool of an English 
 aristocrat was the only creature that Moss had ever 
 loved. To him Wray was like a very large puppy who 
 could understand a certain amount of what one meant, 
 who played fine, rough games with one, like tugging at 
 a piece of rope, games suited to his strength and in- 
 telligence. Half the men who knew Moss summed him 
 up as a dirty little black beast with the foulest mouth 
 and mind in Oxford ; he was generally on the make and 
 opened a banking account when at school; they re- 
 spected him because of his knowledge of the world, that 
 is to say of the rotten end of it, but they hated him for 
 the same reason. And they made no allowances for 
 that side of him so strong, as it is in many of his peo- 
 ple, his passion for the beautiful. They knew that in 
 his rooms was a large collection of Benvenuto Cellini 
 gold-work and of Renaissance enamels. Some of the 
 men who happened to be musical forgave him a good 
 deal because now and then they slunk into his rooms in 
 the evening, where he took no notice of them and 
 played Bach fugues on the piano with amazing dex- 
 terity. Nobody understood that it was Wray's beauty, 
 his immense, fine-moulded limbs, and that sharp-- 
 angled, thick crop of red hair that filled the aesthetic 
 Jew's soul with endless delights. 
 
 The dinner had progressed beyond the soup before
 
 ". . . INTO HERE" 19 
 
 the conversation became at all active, for they were 
 young, all of them, and therefore hungry at half-past 
 seven. But when it began, inevitably enough it was of 
 Oxford, as if the undergraduates carried away with 
 them an environment which they must get rid of before 
 they plunged into London. 
 
 Moss criticised the " bumper " he had attended. It 
 had not been, he thought, well done ; the wines had been 
 ill-selected and ill-ordered by a host who came from a 
 class that had neither the traditions of country gentle- 
 men nor the instincts of wine-merchants. " And you'd 
 never believe it," he added, looking about him for sym- 
 pathy, " they had roast fowl actually roast fowl ! " 
 He giggled. " I thought that sort of people worshipped 
 saddle of mutton." 
 
 Huncote and Ditton laughed, feeling it their duty, 
 for they were not quite sure that there was anything 
 wrong with saddle of mutton, so usual in their own 
 homes. Moss's eyes twinkled: he was clever enough 
 to know the cause of their forced laughter, and he had 
 a keen ironic pleasure in feeling superior to the people 
 who lived beyond that invisible pale where his own folk 
 were prisoned. And so there was a little cleavage of 
 silence until Ditton began to tell them the story of the 
 latest rag. As usual Areley had been the victim. 
 
 " That chap, Areley," said Ditton, " he's asking for 
 it. What the freshers will do without him when he 
 goes down, Lord only knows." 
 
 " Who's Areley ? " asked Huncote. 
 
 " Oh," said Ditton, " he's the he digs in St. Olds ; 
 of course you might know him but, being at the House, 
 a man gets lost in that great barn of a place. Don't 
 you remember ? He's the man we put the placard on." 
 
 A splutter of merriment went up from the other two, 
 and suddenly Huncote laughed too as he remembered 
 Areley, the tall, absent-minded, goggle-eyed person who 
 had gone the whole length of the High with a large
 
 placard pinned on his gown, marked : " Strike but 
 hear!" 
 
 " I think it's rather a shame," said Huncote, at last. 
 
 " Not a bit of it," said Moss, " we've all got our 
 function in the world ; Areley's the comic relief. Isn't 
 that true, Ditton ? " 
 
 " Eather." 
 
 " But I haven't told you what we did to him the 
 other day. He was having one of his highly superior 
 little parties, just a select few, you know, the best peo- 
 ple all that; third year men only. They had met 
 together for a quiet dinner in a private room at the 
 Mitre. Georgian silver, caviare; lemonade, or cham- 
 pagne to suit one's principles. The whole thing to be 
 followed by a really high-toned debate on ' The Young 
 Novelists of England and What They Will Do For 
 Our Country.' " 
 
 "Well, what's the rag?" asked Huncote. 
 
 " This chap, Areley," Ditton explained, " he does the 
 thing properly, you know. Somebody found out 
 through his landlady's daughter where he kept his in- 
 vitation cardsk You mayn't believe it, but he's got 
 engraved cards which he sends out for his extra spe- 
 cials : ' Mr. Cuthbert St. John Areley requests the 
 pleasure of Mr. Blank's company at Dinner on the 
 All that sort of thing. Well, whether the girl was 
 bribed or whether he left the locker open, I can't tell 
 you, but when Areley turned up at the Mitre at ten to 
 seven to see that everything was all right, the waiter 
 said to him : ' Six gentlemen have arrived, sir.' ' 
 
 Moss threw himself back and gurgled delightedly. 
 " Oh, I see," he cried, rather tactlessly anticipating 
 Ditton's point. 
 
 Wray flung him a look of admiration; never had he 
 met anything so fly as Moss. 
 
 " So," Ditton pursued, " dear old Areley went up 
 feeling very flustered and all that, because he had not
 
 ". . . INTO HERE" 21 
 
 been there to receive his guests, and wondered whether 
 his watch was slow. But when he got in " Dit- 
 ton paused impressively " he found Melton in his 
 flannels, and Cotton, the labour man, with a deerstalker 
 on his head and a bull-dog pipe in his mouth. And 
 there was Rayne, who's on the edge of the Church ; he 
 was looking at Cotton, who's an atheist, as if he were a 
 centipede." 
 
 "Anybody else?" asked Huncote. "Though that 
 sounds promising." 
 
 " There were three more," said Ditton, with immense 
 seriousness. " There was Tid who'd been, well, let us 
 say got ready by a few of us, for he was so blind that 
 he'd slipped off his chair and was holding it affection- 
 ately by the leg, while Warcop, the chap who came up 
 from the Polytechnic but happened to have lived mostly 
 in India, was trying his best not to be sick as he looked 
 at Rajah Abdur Singh who that night wore all, all, all 
 his jewellery." 
 
 There was a roar of laughter. 
 
 " And what did poor old Areley do ? " asked Huncote. 
 
 " Well, what could he do ? " said Ditton. " Those 
 six had had invitation cards saying it was quite in- 
 formal and no answer was expected. And they'd only 
 had them two hours before the affair, so that they 
 couldn't let on, and they'd been told to come at a quar- 
 ter to seven, and there was poor old Areley, dancing 
 round like a dog who's drunk ripolin in the scullery 
 thinking it was milk, wondering what to do with the 
 high-toned push coming on in another five minutes ! I 
 don't know how he shot 'em out, but he did. Said 
 something about the dinner being off and bolted down 
 the stairs, told the waiter to put back the dinner and 
 show the real lot into another room." 
 
 " And did that settle it ? " asked Moss. " Doubtful, 
 if I know some of the men you mentioned." 
 
 " It didn't quite," replied Ditton. " Five of them
 
 22 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 went within half an hour or so, and the damage wasn't 
 eo serious except that something got burnt. But there 
 wasn't another room, and they couldn't move Tid; he 
 was so blind that not even the waiters could move him, 
 because he hung on to that chair, murmuring something 
 about drowning and that nobody should take his life 
 belt ; so they had to put him away under the sofa where, 
 I'm told, the noises he made in the course of the even- 
 ing seriously interfered with the debate as to whether 
 Galsworthy and Bennett were written out." 
 
 Perhaps it was the ability with which Moss had se- 
 lected the wines, but as the dinner went on Huncote 
 found himself less awkward. He was talking more 
 easily now to everybody in general rather than to his 
 neighbour, and he began to rejoice in the behaviour of 
 Wray who, eluding the vigilance of Moss, poured out 
 over half a tumbler of sherry which he drank neat, re- 
 marking to Ditton that this was jolly good old Madeira. 
 But a little later Wray grew a little difficult to manage, 
 for he began a long anecdote about a very fat recruit 
 whom his father had had in his regiment. The story 
 was rather vague but, apparently, the recruit's trousers 
 had not been properly fitted, with the result that in his 
 excitement he simultaneously burst every button on 
 Southampton wharf. 
 
 " Shut up ! Alastair," said Moss, as he turned to Dit- 
 ton and asked him whether he had taken his tip to back 
 Mangold Pheasant for the City and Suburban. 
 
 And Huncote tried to help by asking Wray the same 
 question. But the young man had reached the dogged 
 stage of drink and from time to time burst out with his 
 story. 
 
 "I shouldn't hedge if I were you," said Moss. 
 " Either Carlsbad wins, or it's anybody's race. You 
 might as well back the field, for all you know about 
 anything else's form." 
 
 " And so they locked him up in the waiting room
 
 ". . . INTO HERE" 23 
 
 while they sent up to the depot for another pair, and 
 when they came back with one the ship had sailed " 
 
 " I got the tip from Lulu Malavine," said Moss, 
 " and she got it straight from Lane, the trainer, him- 
 self." He sniggered. " You bet Lane told her the 
 truth. There are hours and there are moments when 
 Lulu will make him tell her anything." 
 
 " And on board it was the same thing ; the new pair 
 was the same size, you see, and they didn't happen to 
 carry a tailor. So the governor says they put him in a 
 kilt, and he hadn't been half an hour in Cape Town 
 before he got arrested for bringing the Queen's uniform 
 into" 
 
 Wray had now fastened upon Ditton in particular; 
 so Moss and Huncote were thrown together, and from 
 the charms of Lulu, on which Moss dilated with an ex- 
 pertness that Huncote thought quite disgusting, some- 
 how passed to music. 
 
 " I'm not running him down exactly," said Moss, 
 " but Chopin always makes me think of a middle-aged 
 Victorian lady who was pretty once upon a time and 
 remembers it, and waves a little handkerchief, scented 
 with lavender, upon which, at proper musical intervals, 
 she drops a little tear. But if you agree with me, I'm 
 surprised you won't take up Bach." 
 
 " Maths," said Huncote, rather superciliously. 
 
 " Well, what more do you want ? " said Moss, very 
 serious. " Aren't maths beautiful ? Is there anything 
 more beautiful than a sphere ? Think of the differences 
 between geometrical figures, of the square, so deter- 
 mined, lumpy, John Bullish; and what about the 
 trapeze, that slithery Machiavelli of geometry." 
 His dark eyes glittered with the delight that anything 
 purely intellectual always gave him. " Think of their 
 movements, too," he said, " of the cycloid that goes on 
 and on for ever, always travelling back and always 
 travelling on." He blew. " Why, to think of the
 
 24 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 thing's exciting! The cycloid is just like a fugue, al- 
 ways rising and falling, always seeming about to re- 
 solve itself and never doing it quite, but always carry- 
 ing you, note by note, nearer to some wonderful 
 satisfaction. See what I mean ? " 
 
 " Yes, I think I do," said Huncote. His ears auto- 
 matically registered Ditton's " steady-on, old chap " as 
 Wray bellowed forth the possible end of his possibly 
 endless story; the recruit had now been put into the 
 trousers of a Boer farmer because they were the largest 
 in South Africa! But Huncote was puzzled by the 
 queer little Jew, the aptness of this comparison of his 
 and the much more singular fact that together with a 
 sharp intellect a swooning a3stheticism could be found 
 in the mean and mercenary son of a Hampstead stock- 
 broker. Odd, too, he remembered that in Moss's rooms, 
 in addition to his rare enamels, there were two pictures 
 of puppies. Well ! Huncote had been there once and 
 now, as he stared at Moss who looked at him with a 
 disgusting smug smile, pleased to think that he taught 
 the superior Christian something, he could see those 
 two pictures : a puppy flying furiously at its own reflec- 
 tion in a mirror, entitled : " If you see a good thing, go 
 for it." And the other, the same puppy, galloping 
 with a wasp on its tail, called : " If you are on a good 
 thing, stick to it ! " 
 
 Huncote felt that there were in Moss things that he 
 would never understand, and he wondered for a mo- 
 ment whether indeed this was not a case of East being 
 East. He felt more charitably inclined to Moss, and 
 as he sipped his port he thought he would get hold of 
 him in the coming week and see whether there really 
 was a race difference. He could not, he thought, dis- 
 cuss just then a problem which Moss doubtless thought 
 delicate. 
 
 Hardly had they passed into the street than Huncote 
 experienced a new sensation or rather an increase in
 
 ". . . INTO HERE" 25 
 
 the pleasant light sensation he had felt towards the end 
 of dinner. It had been very slight at the Trocadero 
 and here, in Coventry Street, a cool little wind blew from 
 the east; it felt quite sharp in comparison with that 
 languid air full of scents of women, food, and flowers. 
 There was nothing wrong, but Huncote knew that he 
 was walking; he could see perfectly straight, but he 
 realised that he was seeing ; somehow the whole of those 
 functions of the body which usually are unconscious 
 had suddenly become a little insistent. He heard him- 
 self laughing once and thought the sound silly. It was 
 an epitome of Huncote's past life that he should won- 
 der what was the matter with him. He felt inclined 
 to tell Moss, who was explaining in a high and assured 
 voice where he would find sentimentality in Wagner, 
 that he thought lobster was indigestible. He pulled 
 himself up because he was not quite sure that he had 
 eaten lobster; it might have been crayfish. Anyhow, 
 both of them were very bad foods for June. At tnat 
 moment Ditton, who had been walking behind affection- 
 ately linked with Wray, drew abreast of them; as he 
 so did, he seemed to impel Huncote to the abominably 
 familiar step of taking his other arm. 
 
 " Steady on, old chap," he murmured ; " it's a bit 
 early for you to get rosy." 
 
 " Kosy ? " cried Huncote, rather angry. " What the 
 devil" 
 
 He stopped. Two women near a lamp-post opposite 
 Appenrodt's stared, then obviously laughed at him. 
 He grew very silent: had he had too much to drink? 
 Absurd ! He had had a glass of sherry and two glasses 
 of Rudesheimer, or was it three ? A glass of port too, 
 he remembered that ; and a liqueur with coffee. 
 
 " Damn the liqueur ! That might have done it." 
 
 He swore several times to himself, then blinked vig- 
 orously as if to get rid of two invisible feathers that 
 seemed to have stuck in his eyelashes. Then, rather
 
 26 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 dimly, he heard Wray, to whom Ditton had evidently 
 confided his disgrace. 
 
 " Is he ? Well, that's two of us out of four. Not 
 half bad for a quarter to ten." 
 
 Huncote felt disgusted as Ditton sniggered and told 
 Wray he would have to put him to bed if he did not 
 know nine o'clock when he heard it strike at St. Mar- 
 tin's church. 
 
 But at that moment, when there was passing through 
 Huncote's mind the impulse to say aloud and very defi- 
 nitely " that he would not be a party to a disgusting 
 d d debauch," they entered the blaze of the Euro- 
 pean's lamps, and the energy went out of Huncote. 
 He was like a moth against an electric bulb, dazzled, 
 half-distraught, and yet delighted, like a captured 
 woman that is afraid and charmed. Everything looked 
 unreal in that minute, the marble steps which he seri- 
 ously counted, the two commissionaires, titanic against 
 the pillars, the brilliant lobby dim in comparison with 
 the arc lamps that above his head seemed to strike at 
 him. The European was a monster snake fastening 
 upon its quarry with immense blazing eyes until of its 
 own free will it entered the big jaws and was swallowed. 
 Even the crowd round him seemed fantastic, the 
 poorly clad girls and flashy men, here and there a gaudy 
 creature whose hair in the dry light was as a flame, the 
 poor crowd below the half-crown line, with open mouths 
 watching the Olympians as they alighted from their 
 cars on the edge of the red carpet, the Olympian men 
 with the red and brown faces and the moulded heads of 
 hair; their women, just big, scented rustles, so bold 
 from head to waist and so furled and shrinking about 
 the silk-clad ankles. . . . 
 
 Then here they were inside, all four in a row. Moss 
 was at the end by Ditton ; Wray came next, and Hun- 
 cote, on the outside, found himself preoccupied by a 
 fluffy person so pink that it was difficult to know where
 
 ". . . INTO HERE" 27 
 
 she began and her blouse stopped, a little person who 
 languished and sprawled and every now and then licked 
 her lips with a nicking little pink tongue as if she were 
 thinking of chocolate or kisses. Huncote pulled himself 
 together, for the change from the rather sharp air of 
 Leicester Square into the atmosphere of the European, 
 which was rather like that of the restaurant, had done 
 him good; his eyes were all right again now, and he 
 could see quite clearly on the right and left of the stage, 
 the enormous figure, 4, in the electric light. He heaved 
 a sigh and laughed. " That's better," he thought, " it's 
 four right enough ; I might have made it fourteen." 
 
 He watched the turn with interest. The Four Tar- 
 tinis, two men and two women, were doing rather won- 
 derful acrobatic things : tossing each other into the air 
 and, it seemed, remaining there suspended for an ap- 
 preciable time. Huncote at once grew excited as if the 
 drink had loosened something in him, and self-restraint 
 had passed away. One of the men was tossing the other 
 one into the air and catching him as he fell as if he were 
 a ball, every time in an odder attitude. Huncote found 
 himself quite tense, for it seemed as if inevitably he 
 must miss ; then he drew his breath sharply, for with a 
 great effort the younger man had been thrown high into 
 the air, and with incredible swiftness one of the girls 
 had passed to the juggler a great cup, into which with- 
 out a fraction of space to spare he received the falling 
 man. Huncote found himself slightly blinking, ab- 
 surdly wondering the while how it was that for the first 
 time in his life he could enjoy an acrobat. The little 
 pink girl, who all the while had been talking to her own 
 male friend, threw him a sidelong glance and giggled ; 
 leaving her hands between those of her escort, she calmly 
 laid her shoulder against Huncote's. He looked at her 
 sideways and then, as if something impersonal urged 
 him on, contentedly thrust his own shoulder a little 
 more forward. He felt faintly drowsy; he watched
 
 28 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 idly upon the stage four pretty American girls who 
 sang some idiotic chorus about doing something or other 
 at a pinch, which resulted in something else being a 
 cinch. He felt happy and took no notice of Wray, who 
 now talked continuously in a contented undertone. 
 The air was heavy with tobacco, and there were scents 
 all about him; his mind seemed at rest, and his body 
 was stimulated. He was conscious of many scents, 
 not only tobacco, but sweeter scents and rank ones of 
 sweat, of burning oils, of hot paint; he could feel the 
 velvet of the seat in front on his sprawling knees, the 
 soft warmth of the girl's shoulder against his, the irri- 
 tating tickle-tickle about his forehead when a feather 
 from her hat touched him. 
 
 He lay back. He felt sultanian in this large cush- 
 ioned seat, with his dancers performing over there for 
 him to the sound of his own band. He grew interested, 
 he particularised, he forgot the absurd chorus and, one 
 by one, began to criticise his dancers : the tall girl upon 
 the left, with the fine, well-set head and the tragic dark 
 eyes made so deep by her blued eyelids, and the other 
 tall one with the wicked red hair, and the third who 
 didn't matter, and the little sprite in the middle who 
 danced so quickly that every one of her pretty curves 
 seemed as she moved to twinkle in the light. . . . 
 
 A comedian sang: 
 
 . " Adam and Eve went out one day 
 To look at the shops down Eden way, 
 And when a tailor's shop they reached 
 Said Eve, 'It's time that you were breeched.' 
 Turn, turn, tee didlee um 
 Didlee din and didlee um. 
 Turn, turn, tee didlee um, 
 Said Adam, ' I'm a Scotchman.' " 
 
 In his laziness he was conscious of Wray, who now 
 held him by the elbow and from time to time gently 
 shook him to make sure he had his attention. With
 
 ". . . INTO HERE" 29 
 
 some difficulty he pulled himself out of his drugged 
 state and managed to listen; then he nearly laughed 
 aloud : Wray seemed to have entered the third stage of 
 drunkenness. From irrelevancy he had passed to 
 women; now he was growing theological. 
 
 " I don't pretend to know much about these things, 
 but what I say's this: if there wasn't anything after 
 we're dead, well, what's to prevent one from being as 
 big a rotter as one likes ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, quite so," said Huncote lazily. He had 
 settled the ethical question long ago. But Wray had 
 not, and he went on at the ethics mixed up with the 
 rules of good form which serve his kind as a faith and 
 assert themselves after a bad evening at bridge, a crevice 
 in the heart, or a heavy cold. 
 
 " Awful cheek of me," went on Lord Alastair, " talk- 
 ing to you like this ; I'm a plain man. The governor 
 always called me the village idiot; still there's some- 
 thing about babes and sucking somethings, ain't there? 
 I've forgotten the rest. Better ask Mossy; he knows 
 everything, Mossy does." 
 
 Then to Huncote's delight, Wray leant across Ditton 
 and bellowed : " Mossy ! I say, Mossy ! What's that 
 in the Bible about babes and sucking somethings you 
 know, something that gives my sort a chance." 
 
 Half a dozen people in the row in front turned, and 
 Huncote found himself feebly giggling in answer to 
 that long array of smiles. Somewhere, somebody said : 
 " Disgraceful ! " Huncote found himself still giggling 
 as if he could not stop, and affectionately pushing his 
 shoulder still farther on to meet the advances of the 
 little pink girl who still made conscientious efforts to 
 occupy both her neighbours together. 
 
 Ditton managed to suppress Wray, presumably by 
 giving him a satisfactory message from Moss, for at in- 
 tervals, as other turns flickered on the stage, comedi- 
 ennes in bodices cut as low as possible and skirts as high
 
 30 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 as possible, burnt cork and red-nose men, and people 
 who played tunes on tumblers, Huncote could hear him 
 murmur : 
 
 " That's right. Mossy got it all right. Blowed if 
 I know how he finds these things out." And from time 
 to time he tugged at Huncote's sleeve. " He's a bloody 
 marvel, don't you think ? Eh ? " And, although Hun- 
 cote did not reply, " I quite agree with you." 
 
 Huncote was memorising from the programme the 
 names of proprietor, managing director, assistant ditto, 
 and manager., The words JEYES' FLUID grew enormous 
 in his brain. 
 
 Then the interval, some music and a shuffle all over 
 the theatre, stumblings over feet and protests against 
 the squashing of hats. Huncote found himself thread- 
 ing his way out, Moss leading the way. Now that he 
 moved he felt queer again; mechanically he registered 
 that Moss was telling Ditton what he thought of Ganne, 
 the strains of whom were, he declared, driving him into 
 the promenade. 
 
 " I'd rather be as blind as Alastair," he said^ " than 
 listen to that flatulent muck any longer." 
 
 The promenade ! This was the first time he had ever 
 been in the European promenade. A few times before 
 he had, with his mother and friends of her choosing, 
 gone to the Alhambra or to theatres, but instinctively, 
 as if something in him rebelled and were afraid, he had 
 never before been entangled in those undergraduate 
 parties that came to London to get gloriously drunk, to 
 look at women with a dare-devil air and a shy, shrink- 
 ing heart And here he was pushed into it, right into 
 the middle of it under the leadership of a man who 
 seemed to have worn this excitement thin. Huncote 
 stared about him as he were from Oxfordshire and not 
 from Oxford. The crowded promenade filled him with 
 amazement, this heterogeneous crowd of middle-aged 
 men in hard hats and short coats, with pugnacious short
 
 ". . . INTO HERE" 31 
 
 noses and a North-country air, the Londoners, some of 
 whom actually wore the ties that one saw in the show 
 cases. He identified a purple poplin, price half a 
 crown and too small to tie, and absurdly thought him- 
 self very clever. Foreigners too, many of them negroid 
 Portuguese or South American, German clerks, unable 
 to move their necks inside their collars, and gabbling 
 little Frenchmen who looked at the women with an air 
 half-insolent, half-lascivious. But it was the women 
 who affected him most. Their slow, circulating stream 
 round the promenade, from the farthest right to the 
 farthest left and then back again. They passed by him, 
 nearly all furtively smiling, with a professional ma- 
 noeuvre of the eye. For a moment the flow stopped, and 
 one of them, quite dark, with her hair dressed so low 
 over her forehead that it almost touched her eyebrows, 
 was wedged against him. She did not speak, but 
 moulded herself against his shoulder and arm as if she 
 were fluid and obedient. Her lips parted as she smiled 
 a little. Slowly she raised her left eyelid, expanded 
 the dark eye, rolling it inwards and then a little up; 
 then the eyelid gradually fell, and the mouth grew de- 
 mure. Huncote felt all shaken, but rather with fear 
 than desire. Instinctively the woman knew it. She 
 looked boldly into his eyes and then with a pout and 
 the insolent air of one who cannot waste time, a shoulder 
 movement that was half a shrug, she passed on leaving 
 him wounded, as if somebody had called him : " You 
 little boy ! " The words of a song, " Painting the Par- 
 lour", passed through his darkness: 
 
 " Mother stuck to the ceil-in<7, 
 Father stuck to the floor. 
 You never saw such a happy home 
 In all your life before." 
 
 It had not lasted more than two or three seconds, but 
 he felt so dulled that without any apparent struggle 
 with his reason he agreed to Ditton's suggestion and
 
 32 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 followed his friends into the bar. Indeed he found 
 himself quite combative as he forced his way to the edge 
 of the counter and with difficulty drew the attention of 
 the flashy, tow-headed, and peach-skinned barmaid who, 
 with such wonderful speed and an indolence almost 
 graceful, tugged at various levers and poured from 
 flying bottles. He drank his whisky and soda right 
 off; more boldly he looked at the women on the seats 
 around the saloon, many of them alone, some with one 
 man, some laughing high in the midst of a group. He 
 stared so aggressively at a young woman in scarlet that 
 she got up, came to him, and said : " Hallo, saucy, 
 aren't you going to stand me a drink ? " 
 
 For the first time in his life Huncote found himself 
 replying, " ~Rather f " without feeling at all sickened by 
 his own poor archness. Things grew more confused. 
 He drank off another whisky and soda with the girl in 
 scarlet; he was conscious of some disagreement with 
 Moss who had said something about " toms " which he 
 did not understand. Then with clearing eyes he found 
 that the girl in scarlet had linked arms with a neigh- 
 bour, obviously a soldier in mufti, and that most of the 
 other women were looking at him and ogling him as if 
 they had marked him out as their special quarry. He 
 was critical and bold now; he saw that the large crea- 
 ture heaving in her white frock like an enormous Dutch 
 doll who had run up-stairs too fast must be over the 
 twenty-three or twenty-four years she seemed to adver- 
 tise. All of them, he could appraise at their true value : 
 the slim dark snake in gold and amber, and the donah 
 with the big white ruffle and the feather hat, and that 
 dangerous little mincing fraud with the poke-bonnet 
 and the innocent pink roses along the hem of her white 
 frock. . . . 
 
 It seemed so very much later ; first he was struggling 
 out of the European with his friends, aware of one thing 
 only, a fierce and continuous blowing of cab whistles
 
 ". . . INTO HERE" 33 
 
 and something large that solemnly said : " Pass along 
 there ! Pass along, gentlemen, please," something that 
 shoved and got in the way. 
 
 Then he was in a taxi, along with Wray, his other 
 companions lost in the crowd. With Wray's arm 
 round his neck, Wray rather tearful now and, strangest 
 of all, two girls he did not know, whom he had not 
 even seen inside the European; one of them screamed 
 with laughter at something unknown, and the other, just 
 a dark, veiled languor, sat silent in the corner. 
 
 And then it all went on as if he were tumbling down 
 a soft slope. He giggled as he thought of old-fashioned 
 games, of rolling down Primrose Hill ; it must have felt 
 a little like that. And lights and " s'more " food some- 
 where, and " s'more " to drink. Everything seemed to 
 go so fast somehow and other things to happen so unex- 
 pectedly. For what was he doing now ? All alone this 
 time in another cab, driving to he did not know where 
 with a fair-haired somebody who seemed to think every- 
 thing so funny. 
 
 The somebody said one thing he remembered: 
 " Shut your face, dear ; I see your Christmas dinner." 
 
 It was several days later before he could remember 
 some of the rest, and then it was not much: brilliant 
 streets giving place to quieter ones, broad roads where 
 they were still selling vegetables, with trams passing in 
 the middle, roaring and coming out of the night like 
 fireflies. And a tall, dirty dark house somewhere in 
 Clerkenwell; a long wait upon the step; then a black 
 passage where you felt your way and found the walls 
 sticky, and staggered up the stairs clutching at the banis- 
 ters, slippery with dirt. And then a sort of growing 
 uneasy gap of time, an inability to realise what hap- 
 pened, whether pleasing or abominable. He did not 
 know. It was as if he had been thrown out of a dream 
 into life about four o'clock in the morning to find him- 
 self standing in the middle of Theobald's Road, with
 
 34 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 his waistcoat pockets turned inside out, his watch gone, 
 a palate like a nutmeg grater, and a head into the left 
 side of which some engineer was steadily boring a 
 tunnel. 
 
 For a minute or two he did not know where to go. 
 He did not know London well. If only he could find 
 Paddington or Euston! He knit his brows in the 
 effort to make up his mind, and it hurt his head, as if 
 even his mind ached. The night was cold, and above a 
 very deep-blue heaven, studded with golden stars, looked 
 down upon him with an air of detachment ; there were 
 no trams and no stalls now, and the shops were shut- 
 tered; there was nobody about except a sleepy bundle 
 of rags and dirt on the steps of a bank. Huncote looked 
 vaguely at the thing, male or female, who could say? 
 Sex seemed to have fled with youth and beauty from the 
 dim thing that crouched against the stone, losing less 
 warmth to that cold stone than it would have lost to the 
 cold wind. He gazed half-fascinated at the feet lost 
 in enormous boots with soles gaping away from the 
 uppers; one foot was revealed by a strip of dirty pink 
 flesh. He thought of asking the thing his way. Then 
 he shuddered ; he could not draw nearer to It somehow. 
 He was afraid of It, as one is afraid of a body that has 
 died horribly and that gapes with disease or blood, as 
 one is afraid unreasonably of a harmless ghost. But 
 then the thing was dead in a way, except that it still 
 crawled about. ISTo, he could not ask It the way to 
 the Eitz, for argument's sake. He laughed ; It seemed 
 humorous somehow. But abruptly his laughter 
 stopped ; he felt ashamed as if the creature could know 
 that he was taunting it with wealth. So very softly 
 he tiptoed a little nearer, conscious all the time of that 
 nibbling ravage in his head, found a forgotten shilling 
 among coppers in his trousers pocket, and very care- 
 fully dropped the com near the folded arm,
 
 ". . . INTO HERE" 35 
 
 And then silently he crept away, afraid to wake It 
 lest It might be too hateful, or perhaps because he felt, 
 before the thing that life had left stranded high above 
 watermark, that silent respect which one feels before 
 the dead. It had followed him as he walked towards 
 the north, because he did not know where to walk to; 
 he felt It behind him, silent at first like a shadow, and 
 then more insistent. He looked around, and there was 
 nothing. He hurried on and could hear behind him 
 the clap-clap of the loose soles. It was abominable, this 
 flight from the hound of heaven. He passed through 
 big, silent squares with red doors and green doors, all 
 of them nicely painted, twinkling in the gas lamps with 
 every knocker and bell-pull nicely polished, smugly in- 
 sinuating that one could not live there under two pounds 
 a week (or more). It was all so silent except for the 
 invisible soles and their clap-clap which, as he walked 
 faster, turned into a rapid shuffle. His nerves were in 
 pieces, and he had to reason with himself to prevent 
 himself from running. 
 
 Then he was in the Euston Road and across it, hap- 
 pier, easier now, for a few taxis passed, coming out of 
 the station, and there was more light; a couple of po- 
 licemen who looked eternal and immovable, as all po- 
 licemen after a while come to look, stood together by 
 the side of a gas lamp, a comforting lump of law and 
 order. Huncote went towards them full of the im- 
 mense sense of relief of the well-to-do who always go 
 towards the police instead of turning away from them. 
 They would know. But as he drew near, he hesitated. 
 He listened; there was nothing behind him now, as if 
 It feared light and policemen, as if It could not follow 
 him into those places where was food and strength. 
 And at once Huncote realised that he missed It now, 
 that it made him feel base to have deserted It, to have 
 walked so fast that It could not catch him up. A lame 
 dog had tried to get over a stile: he had not helped it.
 
 36 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 What was the use of a shilling ? Indeed he might have 
 struck it if it tried to struggle over. So he passed by 
 the two policemen without speaking to them. They 
 looked inquisitorially at this tall young man with the 
 wry tie and the wild air. The look lasted not a second, 
 for the experts knew what was the matter with him and 
 did not want the worthless credit of interfering with 
 a man who . . . 
 
 One policeman put it to the other : " Booze ! 
 What's o'clock?" 
 
 But as he passed them and for a moment encountered 
 the cold gaze that seems to pierce all coverings, Hun- 
 cote had shrunk away; he had wondered what they 
 thought, whether they would speak to him, whether 
 somehow he had not done something wrong, just as if 
 the thing which had accompanied him and its shuffle- 
 shuffle had entered into him and filled him with its 
 fears. It was horrible, this sense of unity, and then 
 for a moment it was delightful. That night, caught in 
 the web of an instinct he did not understand, which 
 had never touched him before, he had in a drunken 
 dream attempted in the arms of woman to achieve union 
 with his fellows. He had failed, and here he was with 
 a hot mouth and tight eyes. Then quite suddenly, 
 without word or touch, his fellows had come to him out 
 of that verminous heap of dirt, clasped him. Oh, pre- 
 posterous prodigy! As Huncote walked on through 
 little streets, darker and darker, passed public houses 
 where glimmered but one light at the back, there was 
 something radiant in his soul that he could not express 
 yet. His head hurt less now, for the night air soothed 
 it, and he saw details better. Dawn was breaking and 
 very faintly; here and there he could hear life being 
 born again with a few sighs. Indeed it was dawn, and 
 over the flat top of a coal-yard he saw it coming; the 
 deep blue of the sky had already greyed, and now into 
 the grey climbed a mauveness that with every moment
 
 ". . . INTO HERE" 37 
 
 enriched itself with rose. Everything was silent still, 
 so silent that as a great blush tinged the eastern sky he 
 started when a cock crowed. He listened for the cock 
 to crow again, but for a long time it did not. Only a 
 man passed in the uniform of the Great Northern. 
 Huncote, in his receptive state of mind, guessed that he 
 was going to work at King's Cross. Bells struck at the 
 neighbouring church : a quarter to five. At once Hun- 
 cote felt a pang of remorse, and many things streamed 
 up before him. He thought of the rich and of himself 
 on other mornings at a quarter to five, sleeping with 
 their cheeks upon a feather pillow while this railway- 
 man, dragged from his bed in the night, went out to 
 carry the rich to their pleasure. It was abominable, 
 this contrast. 
 
 The railwayman stopped at the corner to light his 
 pipe, and then he went on, occasionally taking the pipe 
 from his mouth to whistle the British Grenadiers. If 
 Huncote had heard him it would have interfered with 
 the dream. 
 
 And the pageant of early morning London unrolled. 
 A belated cart rumbled past him towards Covent Gar- 
 den, heaped high with carrots that glowed in the dawn, 
 mystic vegetables of an Andersen fairy tale. Milk 
 carts began to rattle by, bounding upon the stones, the 
 most vital of all carts. But at the corner of a street, 
 the name of which he read casually, Fordingley Road, 
 was a coffee stall with its lights still defying the coming 
 day, and Huncote, realising that he was thirsty, went 
 up to the stall and asked for a cup of coffee. Never 
 before had he been to a coffee stall, and it looked queer, 
 like the kitchen of a caravan in a novel, with its swing- 
 ing oil lamp and polished reflector, its white crockery, 
 the piles of bread and butter that looked tempting in 
 front of the urn. Huncote, as he began to drink the 
 coffee, which was burning hot, threw a sidelong glance 
 at the cheerful Silenus who kept the stall; he looked
 
 38 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 large, because over his vast paunch spread a white 
 apron, and cheerful, with bulging cheeks touched by 
 rosacia, and forward juttings made up of his mouth, 
 his chin, his second chin, and probably his third chin. 
 The man watched Huncote narrowly, for he was not 
 one of those West End stall-keepers who are well ac- 
 customed to customers in evening dress. 
 
 " Cold night for this time of the year." 
 
 " Yes, isn't it ? " said Huncote., Then, feeling it 
 necessary to say something more: " Don't you find it 
 trying?" 
 
 " Oh, I dunno," said the stall-keeper, " you got to 
 take the good with the bad. Life, you know, it's just 
 one damn thing after another, eh, Mike ? " He turned 
 towards the other customer, a labourer on his way to 
 work who evidently found it more convenient to have 
 his breakfast at the stall than at the doss. 
 
 Mike had the bulkiest shoulders and the smallest legs 
 that Huncote had ever seen. He was blue-jawed and 
 hoarse, with a flashy red-and-green choker of which he 
 evidently was proud, for he had spread both ends over 
 his shirt. 
 
 " Aye," he said. He threw an inquisitive glance at 
 Huncote. Somehow a gentleman made him feel half- 
 awkward, half -hostile. Then, very curiously : " Off 
 to see yer Aunt Maria ? " 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said Huncote; " what did you 
 ask?" 
 
 " Oh, nothin', on'y wondered." 
 
 Well, of course, they would wonder, but Huncote 
 wished he knew what the man had asked him. Without 
 understanding him quite, he was still craving for com- 
 munity. The stall-keeper helped him a little by return- 
 ing to the consideration of life. 
 
 " Yes," he said, half to himself, " life's a funny 
 thing. You never ask for it, and you have it shoved on 
 to you, and you take a sort o' fancy to it,"
 
 ". . . INTO HERE" 39 
 
 "Gawd knows why," remarked Mike. 
 
 " I don't know why," said the stall-keeper aggres- 
 sively, "an' if Gawd can't tell yer I can't ; but there it 
 is, and just about the time when you've got kind o' 
 fond of it, well, it goes." 
 
 " Cheer up," remarked Mike, " you won't be missed." 
 
 " Dartmoor'll be sorry when you're took," said the 
 stall-keeper casually, succumbing to a forty-year-old 
 habit of giving tit for tat. " But, as I was saying, 
 life's a funny thing; it comes and it goes, like the 
 rheumatics. It's ten o'clock and I gets the stall out; 
 and then it's one o'clock and the flashy sort drops in 
 with their fancy men after they've 'ad a bit of a go-in in 
 the Tottenham Court Road." He turned towards Hun- 
 cote. " We get a regular West End crowd in these 
 parts," he said, rather proudly. " And then it sort o' 
 scatters. There's a man from the market now and 
 then, and Euston o' course. Then later on perhaps a 
 dog or two, and that sort there, that's on its uppers." 
 Huncote followed the direction of his glance and for 
 the first time became conscious of another figure, a man 
 leaning against a lamp-post, curiously angular, with 
 sharp knobs where his knees were and a suggestion of 
 elbow and collar bone under his thin coat. Nothing 
 aggressive or philosophic about him, he seemed to stand 
 near the coffee stall because in a way light was warmth. 
 A little coalition formed between Mike and the stall- 
 keeper. 
 
 " Of course it wouldn't do to give him a cup o' corfee 
 for the arskin' . . ." 
 
 "Don't want to do the Salvation Army out of a 
 job." 
 
 " Still, if a gent wants to stand treat . . ." 
 
 Huncote understood, and his heart grew soft: these 
 two men, neither of whom could well afford to feed a 
 poor devil, were trying to help him somehow. Huncote 
 went to the man against the lamp-post ; he felt shy but
 
 40 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 yet not quite so shy as when he dropped the shilling 
 beside that folded arm. 
 
 " Hungry ? " he said. The man did not reply. He 
 was still leaning against the lamp-post, looking at him 
 with vacuous eyes. Huncote made an effort, took him 
 by the arm. " Have a cup of coffee with me," he said. 
 The man did not move, and as Huncote looked he found 
 that he had coiled an arm round the lamp-post. He 
 shrank away, for the thing was limp. He was dead. 
 
 "Wish I'd known," said the stall-keeper, a little 
 later. " Been standin' there two or three hours ; they 
 very often does, you know; they get something in the 
 end. Mike, I say, Mike." 
 
 But Mike was already ten paces away. He turned 
 as he went and called over his shoulder : 
 
 " I ain't seen nothing, you don't get me for no bloody 
 coroner's job." 
 
 " Can't leave the stall," said its owner ; " you might 
 tell a policeman when you see one." And he sighed 
 comfortably. " Sparrows can't fall without His 'avin' 
 a hand in it, as they says in church." 
 
 As he walked away in the growing light, Huncote 
 realised that this was life. Here were the people, 
 speaking a language he hardly understood, using gram- 
 mar that was repulsive to him, eating food that sickened 
 him and probably not enough of that, anxious lest they 
 should be late for work and" lose it. Dirty, unshaven, 
 untaught, sleepless. And he donnish and modish ! He 
 was conscious of a violent artificiality in the life he led, 
 an artificiality which, if it locked the poor out, locked 
 him in. As the people grew about him in the early 
 morning, the men with their tool-bags, the girls hurry- 
 ing towards the trams with little pinched faces, the 
 newspaper boys, distributing the folded sheets before 
 they went to school, Huncote realised that here indeed 
 was something that called him, something that needed 
 him; the activities that had rebelled against the other
 
 ". . . INTO HERE" 41 
 
 artifices, the fellowship and the spree at the European, 
 were to wed him unto the people, to bring him close to 
 them, to make their lives lighter, to fill his own. It 
 was delicious ; it was like a personal revelation.
 
 CHAPTEE THE THIKD 
 
 THE PEACE OF ST. OLAVES 
 
 " I WONDER," said Huncote aloud, " why I didn't tell 
 Gorsley." 
 
 He was alone in a railway carriage, on his way to 
 St. Olaves. He had left Euston regretfully, for he had 
 not been so long in London as not to love her as she 
 lay in her shroud of grey mist, as a sleeping beauty 
 behind thickets. He sighed as he left behind him in 
 Euston yard the struggle of the taxis, the urgent life, 
 the fact that in this town one counted in millions. 
 And so, as the slow train puffed and hesitated over the 
 little viaduct that spans the reservoir whence are dis- 
 covered the two Welsh Harps, he saw no beauty in the 
 plain that rises and falls softly as a girl's breast. It 
 was cold, and autumn hung with blue streamers of mist 
 hedges rarely necked with crisp red berries. Roger 
 Huncote lay back, his beautiful hands negligent in his 
 lap, the little frown between his eyebrows more sharply 
 brought out by perplexity. He looked worried that 
 morning, but whether because he was surprised by his 
 own instinct or because he did not know whether he 
 was going to enjoy St. Olaves he could not tell. Simul- 
 taneously, it seemed, he was thinking of his rooms in 
 Clare Street and of the Settlement he had left behind. 
 Those rooms, at first so unfamiliar, and that Settlement, 
 large, white, and monastic, in the corridors of 
 which he lost himself, had already grown intimate after 
 a week ; they were homes. It was curious, he thought, 
 that he had not been able to tell Gorsley that Bar and
 
 THE PEACE OF ST. OLAVES 43 
 
 Church, and even Indian Civil were not for him, but 
 that he had joined the St. Panwich Lay Settlement with 
 the intention of " bringing a gleam of sunshine into 
 the life of the poor." He shrank as he thought of the 
 phrase which had been used in Churton's office, when he 
 in a way enlisted, by a lady he did not know, who later, 
 he remembered, talked at great length and with extreme 
 violence about the iniquity of the White Slave Traffic. 
 
 There was something wrong about the phrase. Hun- 
 cote's culture, which was mainly Latin and Greek, re- 
 belled against it. But then he told himself not to be 
 priggish. Not to be priggish seemed indeed just now 
 his chief occupation, for he realised, little by little, that 
 if he had not told Gorsley it was because this offering-up 
 of self would have seemed priggish ; also Gorsley would 
 have wanted to know why and how and when (let alone 
 if and though), and that would have meant telling him 
 how three months before he had got drunk and and a 
 lot more ; been a blood, in fact. And Huncote realised 
 that it would have made him still more priggish in his 
 own eyes to pose as a reformed blood, a sort of St. Paul 
 or Ignatius of Loyola. Indeed, it was not only with 
 Gorsley that he had felt this ; he had felt it with other 
 people whom he had told. He tried to pass it off lightly 
 as " getting an idea of the condition of the people ", or 
 used other glib phrases which led people to believe he 
 intended to stand for Parliament. He did not quite 
 deny this, so that his romantic intentions were accepted 
 as odd but fairly respectable. 
 
 Still, as the telegraph wires ran up and down by his 
 window and he drew nearer to St. Olaves, he felt the 
 halo getting heavier on his head. He laughed; the 
 higher one got up in sainthood the larger the halo grew ; 
 there must be a moment when it gave one a headache, 
 and sin took the place of phenacetin. They would look 
 at him, he knew, as if he were a curate without the dig- 
 nity of office, something like a dancing dervish trained
 
 44 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 to a certain extent by a public school. And the worst 
 of it was that so far he had done nothing much at the 
 Settlement; he had .learnt the geography of St. Pan- 
 wich, which had been a rather disgusting affair, as it 
 seemed continually to lead him into little streets from 
 which the refuse was swept only by heavy rains, into 
 roaring ways full of trams, and, worse still perhaps, 
 into bare silent places where on the one side were genteel 
 homes of sooty brick and stucco, with Nottingham lace 
 curtains, " Apartment " cards, green china flowerpots 
 (or pink), in the ground-floor front window, and on the 
 other side a blank wall extending, it seemed, for miles, 
 along a railway-goods yard or an India-rubber works, 
 unless the smell was bad malt. Those were the worst 
 streets, so long and bleak, so populous between eight and 
 nine and six and seven, when clerks and shorthand 
 ladies issued forth or returned, deserted at other times, 
 and maintaining so well the private contempt that pre- 
 vents Number 10 from being contaminated by Number 
 11. Much better he liked Crapp's Lane that straggled 
 away behind the Settlement, full of barrows, aggressive, 
 kindly costers, tired women with resigned string bags, 
 and pink, shouting butchers. He had addressed envel- 
 opes for a meeting: the first dozen had been quite ex- 
 citing. He had checked accounts and, on being told to 
 do so, more or less forged a voucher for expenses. 
 Since then he went about rather uneasy in case one day 
 the auditor should find it out. Still, he had his halo. 
 Sticky things, haloes ! 
 
 Elspeth was waiting for him at the station. This 
 was exactly what he did not want; if it had been his 
 mother or fluffy Flora there would have been tittle-tattle 
 about the neighbours, or they would have talked about 
 the weather or something. But here was Elspeth, dark, 
 brown-eyed, thin-lipped, rather flat-chested, as usual in 
 well-fitting tweeds, with her air of knowing what she 
 wanted in life and doing it too, confound her! Hun-
 
 THE PEACE OF ST. OLAVES 45 
 
 cote disliked Elspeth as a woman and liked her as a 
 companion, a horrid combination when one is feeling 
 nervous. 
 
 "Hallo!" said Elspeth. 
 
 " Hallo ! " said Huncote. He struggled with his bag. 
 
 " Let me give you a hand," said Elspeth. 
 
 " Oh, don't trouble." 
 
 But as he tried to get the bag, which was rather too 
 long, through the carriage doorway, Elspeth's hard, 
 capable hand shot out, seized one of the handles, and 
 with one haul brought the bag thudding on to the plat- 
 form. Huncote followed without a word of thanks. 
 He hated Elspeth in her moods of hearty efficiency, but 
 she, quite unconscious, had already called a porter by a 
 loud " Hi ! " and in a few seconds was bustling brother, 
 porter, and bag towards the wicket. 
 
 When they got into the High Street Huncote had to 
 answer a few questions. Yes, he was feeling pretty fit. 
 Yes, he had had a good journey. For Elspeth, in vir- 
 tue of living at St. Olaves ten months or so a year, had 
 the country habits of such interests. As they went on 
 he had to say how long he was staying and what train 
 he thought he would catch on the way back, also to 
 notice the new wing at the fire station to which Elspeth 
 added a threat that he should visit it on Monday before 
 he left. He grew quite sulky. 
 
 Hang the girl with her little interests. And then he 
 pulled himself up. No, he mustn't be priggish, he 
 mustn't be swollen out with his metropolitan quality, 
 his experience of the lower classes. He was about to 
 frame an intelligent question destined to lead Elspeth 
 to talk of the things that interested them both, the 
 latest essays, for instance, when again he was paralysed 
 by the idea that if he did that he would feel still more 
 patronising. Fortunately Mrs. Huncote's house lay 
 but ten minutes from the station and, fortunately too, 
 he arrived so late as to have but a few minutes over
 
 46 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 before he dressed for dinner. And so he just had time 
 to kiss his mother and Flora, who were quite shrill and 
 excited and trickling comments on his new suit and the 
 extortionate behaviour of the porter, before he went to 
 his bedroom. It struck him that he had not kissed 
 Elspeth: somehow one didn't. With a little sigh of 
 exasperation he undid his bag and began to dress. 
 There was about all this something that annoyed him 
 and made him think of a cloud of midges dancing in 
 the summer above a road. 
 
 II 
 
 The Huncotes were a family without a history in the 
 sense that theirs was so very much the history of any 
 other family. There was not even a black sheep in the 
 colonies ; the nearest approach was Roger in the Settle- 
 ment. Colonel Huncote had hidden away his wife and 
 family in the house at St. Olaves in the way common 
 to soldiers who have entrusted their destinies to the 
 Colonial Office. From time to time Mrs. Huncote had 
 disappeared, leaving the house in charge of her elder 
 sister, now dead, to join her husband for a few months 
 in East Africa or Singapore. But by the time Roger 
 was ten his father was dead, killed under Kitchener at 
 Omdurman, and Mrs. Huncote had settled into pretty 
 widowhood. Of the three children Elspeth alone re- 
 membered the wanderer at all well, the queer beads and 
 the silver-studded shawls he brought from foreign parts. 
 Flora had but one memory of him, a box of Turkish 
 delight which she vowed he must have bought at Pera, 
 which was not likely. For Roger his father was a sort 
 of legend whose tellings had not always coincided with 
 the holidays of his first year at the preparatory, some- 
 thing that had dropped assegais about the house and 
 then vanished, leaving his mother the pretty centre of 
 a private world. It was fortunate from his son's point
 
 THE PEACE OF ST. OLAVES 47 
 
 of view that Colonel Huncote had not lived, for they 
 were so much alike that they would probably have dis- 
 liked each other intensely; he would have disliked his 
 father as he disliked Elspeth and not forgiven him, be- 
 cause to a man what is annoying in a woman is hateful 
 in another man. Colonel Huncote had all the hard, 
 generous absurdity of his son, principles, sense of 
 duty, and so forth. He had made up his mind to serve 
 the Empire just as Eoger made up his mind to serve 
 the people ; he had thought woman inferior and lovable, 
 and so he had left his son about seven hundred a year, 
 with the reversion after his mother's death of a further 
 nine hundred, while Elspeth and Flora were given two 
 hundred and fifty a year each when their mother died ; 
 until then nothing. All through their life their free- 
 dom was to be measured out by trustees ; he had thought 
 that women should rule the household, and that was 
 why Mrs. Huncote dominated her daughter's incomes, 
 but subject to man, so she too had trustees. And he 
 emphasised his belief in man by letting Eoger, of whom 
 he was proud because the child had achieved the feat of 
 being his only son, to have seven hundred a year to play 
 with when he was twenty-one. 
 
 All this in a way had repeated itself in Eoger, though 
 never having had to think of money he never thought 
 of it now. While dependence had made Elspeth hard 
 and Flora sly, independence had made Eoger ignorant. 
 He had been a rich undergraduate, but he had not been 
 an extravagant one. For, like his father, he was not 
 very liable to impulses. Ideas came to him slowly, and 
 when they came they set every day harder and harder, 
 like cement. Intuitions came to him too, but only by 
 degrees, and that was why he made few friends, for by 
 the time he had become quite sure that he wanted to 
 know them they had generally got a little tired of want- 
 ing to know him. 
 
 Always he felt a little his isolation; he was capable
 
 48 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 of everything that those close-set, deep-set eyes prom- 
 ised: every generosity, every heroism, every folly, and 
 every cruelty, when once the impelling idea had prop- 
 erly got into his head. But an impulse had made him 
 follow when Swinburne piped : though he could not be 
 influenced he could be carried away, because he disliked 
 to refuse to do anything that somebody else wanted him 
 to do. He had got drunk because he might have hurt 
 Ditton's feelings if he refused to drink ; and it was quite 
 possible, though he would never know it, that some ob- 
 scure sense of chivalry had prevented him from leaving 
 in the lurch that fair-haired creature, whose face he 
 certainly could not remember, and refusing to drive 
 with her to Theobald's Road. So he rather disliked his 
 own impulses; they were things that interfered with 
 his calm affections, with the reasonable allowances he 
 liked to make for people's unreasonableness. He was 
 troubled with youth, or rather he had the mind of a 
 man in the body of a boy. There lay his secret weak- 
 ness, the idealism that made him the prey of his own 
 ideal. Romantic, he wanted to believe what he believed 
 just because he believed it, and it was cricket to go on 
 believing it. When in a romantic mood his reason 
 could be snubbed, and he could hope, pursuing the 
 shadow, to turn it into a prey. 
 
 Ill 
 
 " Well," said Mrs. Huncote, with the cheerful, smil- 
 ing emphasis that generally accompanies that word, 
 " and how d'you like the Settlement ? " 
 
 " I can't say yet, Mother," said Huncote. " After a 
 week you'd hardly expect me to." 
 
 " Still," said Elspeth, " you must have formed some 
 idea of whether it's any good." 
 
 " Oh, of course, it's some good," said her brother ; 
 " anybody could see that, but I can't make up my mind
 
 THE PEACE OF ST. OLAVES 49 
 
 like that." He stopped. He felt dishonest; he was 
 really enthusiastic about the Settlement, but it seemed 
 youthful to show it. Moreover Elspeth was again being 
 truculent. 
 
 " So," said Flora, throwing him from her large grey 
 eyes one of her archest looks, " so, Eoger, we shan't see 
 you with your collar back to front, shall we ? " Hun- 
 cote looked irritated, and Flora went on chipping him, 
 much to his annoyance, for they were at dinner and the 
 parlourmaid was listening. " I've always wanted to 
 have a brother in the Church," said Flora sweetly. 
 " Somebody who looked starved and pale and interest- 
 ing, you know, Eoger. Somebody rather saintly; they 
 look so nice at tea. But, oh, I do wish they wouldn't 
 wear collars like that; why can't they wear something 
 really nice let us say an amethyst toby frill ? " 
 
 Mrs. Huncote laughed. " Hush, Flora ! That 
 sounds very ritualistic. What would the Dean say if 
 he heard you ? " 
 
 Even Elspeth entered into the chipping. " Anyhow, 
 saints never shave and seldom wash, Eoger ; think of the 
 trouble it'll save you ! " 
 
 Her brother flung her a savage look ; somehow, though 
 he prized her intelligence, he stood less from her than 
 from his lighter mother and sister. " Don't be silly," 
 he snapped, " you know quite well there's nothing 
 churchy about the Settlement. We're just a little crowd 
 who have come together to see if we can teach the " 
 He became fiercely oppressed by the maid who held on 
 his left a dish of finger chips. " Well, you know what 
 I mean, people who aren't as well off as we are." 
 
 He helped himself to potatoes revengefully, because 
 the maid had a rather coarse red hand, and he was 
 acutely conscious of the social difference between it and 
 the rosy finger-tips that played with Flora's napkin 
 ring. There was a little silence on this serious procla- 
 mation. Elspeth gave a faint sniff, and Flora hesi-
 
 50 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 tated as if she had been caught teasing an elephant with 
 a peacock's feather. Then Mrs. Huncote, who already 
 repented of the teasing she had been a party to, said, 
 quite mildly: 
 
 "Well, well, leave him alone, girls; after all, we 
 must all do something in life." 
 
 This diplomatic speech was to Roger more galling 
 than even the teasing, for his mother meant that he 
 had " taken up " social work as he might have " taken 
 up" journalism or golf. But he blessed her for the 
 diversion and strove to increase the gap by introducing 
 a new subject. The parlourmaid having left the room, 
 he plunged. 
 
 " How's Trunch ? I haven't seen him yet." 
 
 Mrs. Huncote looked rather demurely towards the 
 table-cloth. Flora began to giggle and was sternly ad- 
 monished by Elspeth not to be a little fool, upon which 
 Roger followed up his advantage. " So, Mother, I see 
 from the way you take this question that the terror of 
 St. Olaves has been at it again." 
 
 "Roger!" 
 
 " It's no use looking shocked. Why don't you dis- 
 miss him if you feel like that about him ? " 
 
 " You know quite well I can't send him away," said 
 Mrs. Huncote, " even if " 
 
 " Every nice girl loves a coachman," Flora sang 
 softly. 
 
 Even Elspeth laughed. 
 
 " And who's the lady ? Or rather who was the lady 
 yesterday for there's no knowing who it is to- 
 day?" ' 
 
 " I'm sure I don't know," said Mrs. Huncote, very 
 staid. " Trunch doesn't come to me with his stories." 
 
 " No, Mother darling," said Flora, " but he goes to 
 Betty, the only woman in the world he can treat as a 
 confidant because she happens to be sixty-two, and she 
 comes to you, and so you do know, and you may as well
 
 THE PEACE OF ST. OLAVES 51 
 
 tell Roger, because what you won't tell him Betty tells 
 well, I won't say who, and she tells me." 
 
 Mrs. Huncote tried to look severe, grew resigned, 
 then humorously pathetic. " What am I to do with 
 these children, Roger ? They do grow up so." 
 
 At that moment Roger, who had as a way out plunged 
 into their coachman's amorous adventures, suddenly 
 felt that the topic should not be discussed before Flora, 
 even if she did know all about it. " A girl's a girl, 
 after all," he thought. " She may know, but she 
 shouldn't seem to." 
 
 When dessert was on the table Mrs. Huncote summed 
 up the situation : " No, I couldn't dismiss Trunch 
 really; he's been with me thirteen years, and he was 
 with your father ten years before that. One must 
 make allowances, Roger." 
 
 Huncote felt a warm little rush of affection as he 
 looked at his pretty mother, still young somehow, though 
 fifty-one, in her funny semi-arty, semi-messy clothes, 
 with her fair and grey, untidy but pretty hair, and her 
 general likeness to a hollyhock after a shower. Besides, 
 his own expedient for getting rid of an inconvenient 
 topic was used against him. His mother began to dis- 
 cuss The Golden Bowl and grew rather eloquent as to 
 the merits of Mr. Henry James. He was her favourite 
 author, and she loved him best in his later moods. She 
 forgave him Roderick Hudson and the other intelligible 
 portions of his works, because one had to make allow- 
 ances for youth, and even Mr. Henry James must have 
 been young sometime. For a while Roger and his 
 mother discussed Henry James with a little assistance 
 from Elspeth who frankly hated him, while Flora said 
 nothing and played " He loves me, he loves me not " 
 with the salted almonds. At last she could bear it no 
 more and, using a gap in the conversation, thrust in the 
 dull subject of the dull autumn. 
 
 " No more tennis," she sighed, " and uninteresting
 
 52 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 tea parties in drawing-rooms instead of in gardens, and 
 no dances for another month or two! I wish I could 
 shoot." She was rallied for a while, reminded that she 
 could not throw a cricket ball. She looked very pretty 
 and mutinous, but the conversation tailed off until at 
 last the three women left Roger alone for five minutes 
 with the port decanter, so that it should not be said that 
 the isolation of the male after dinner had not been paid 
 its traditional tribute. For a few moments Huncote 
 thought of this conversation. 
 
 Heavens ! How awkward it was. They had nibbled 
 at the Settlement and chaffed about it ; they had nibbled 
 at that nonsense about their coachman who, at the age 
 of forty-eight, had more love affairs in a month than 
 Huncote had had in his whole life; and even the dis- 
 cussion on Henry James had tailed off on side issues, 
 on silly little jokes about sentences of twenty-three 
 lines. It was as if everything between him and his 
 people were railed-off, as if something stood between 
 them and prevented them from being simple with each 
 other; could they really believe that in a sort of way 
 he had gone into the Church ? That would make a dif- 
 ference, of course ; they would be mortals talking to one 
 dedicated to the other world. " Ridiculous ! " he 
 summed up, finished the port, and went into the draw- 
 ing-room. 
 
 He remained uneasy. Mrs." Huncote sat at the secre- 
 taire, "just finishing off a letter", as she put it (she 
 was always finishing off a letter), while Elspeth talked 
 of the doings of people in St. Olaves, most of whom he 
 did not know, and Flora flourished on the piano the 
 turkey trot and the bunny hug which had just come to 
 town. It was only a little later, when at ten o'clock 
 Mrs. Huncote said she must have a little walk in the 
 garden before going to bed, that some ease and sincerity 
 came to her son. 
 
 The garden was large and old-fashioned; it was cut
 
 THE PEACE OF ST. OLAVES 53 
 
 off from the house by a shrubbery. Before this was a 
 bed where Mrs. Huncote planted Shakespeare flowers. 
 Beyond were the tennis lawn and the pergola which 
 ended in that secret and delightful kitchen garden, 
 where Eoger as a small boy had so often raided the 
 currant bushes. For a minute or two mother and son, 
 arm in arm, walked along the paths talking desultorily 
 without listening much to what they were saying. The 
 night was neither warm nor cold, and a brilliant moon 
 made the gravel silvery and the shrubs thick black. 
 There was no noise at all except now and then, and it 
 seemed- far away in the house, a few notes of a two-step 
 scattered from Flora's piano. 
 
 " Eoger," said Mrs. Huncote suddenly, " are you 
 quite sure that you've chosen the right thing ? " 
 
 " I think so, Mother." 
 
 " If you really think that it's all right ; you know I 
 wouldn't go against anything you wanted ; you do know 
 that, Eoger ? " she said, a little anxiously. 
 
 "Dear little Mother," said Huncote, and squeezed 
 her arm. 
 
 " Qnly," Mrs. Huncote went on, " I want you to be 
 sure. You will be sure by and by, and I want you to 
 promise me something." 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 " I want you to promise me not to go on if at any 
 time you feel you don't want to. I mean, if you find 
 you've made a mistake, that your heart isn't in the 
 work. Eoger dear, you won't do anything silly like 
 that, will you ? If you find you've made a mistake, you 
 won't be proud and go on when you ought to give it 
 up?" 
 
 " That's all right, Mother," said Eoger, rather 
 gruffly. 
 
 He thought her sweet and delicate. She disapproved 
 of what he was doing and very sweetly hinted that 
 though she disapproved he might be right ; she was his
 
 54 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 mother, and whether he did right or wrong she was 
 going to try to prevent him from making himself un- 
 happy. 
 
 " Yes," he said, more assured now, " I do feel I've 
 done the right thing. I don't fancy anything else, 
 either. I don't want to be a soldier, and I shouldn't 
 do any good at the Bar, I don't talk well enough. Be- 
 sides oh, Mother, if you could see the things I've 
 been seeing not only this week but before, the horrible 
 poverty and the dirt, all sorts of things which make you 
 want to go out and stop them." 
 
 " Yes, I know," said Mrs. Huncote, a little shaken 
 by his earnestness, " I know, Roger. Of course one 
 does what one can with charity and all that, and I know 
 it isn't much. Sometimes I feel we ought to let the 
 poor alone a little. There are lots of horrid things in 
 the world which we have to let alone." 
 
 " Trunch," said Roger, suddenly mocking. 
 
 " Don't be silly, Roger ; I can't send him away. It's 
 not only that I'm sentimental because he's been with 
 the family so long, but in these days one gets so 
 mixed up about sex-problems with the things one hears 
 and reads." 
 
 Roger smiled in the darkness and pressed her arm 
 again. She was charming with her muddled impulses 
 and her incoherence. He loved the way in which she 
 doubtfully dispensed charity while reading socialist 
 pamphlets which told her that charity created the evil 
 which she relieved. And this Trunch, this absurd, 
 perpetual Trunch case, which ended now and then by 
 her soothing an infuriated mother, or remonstrating 
 with Trunch and being worsted by his plea that the 
 girl " come after him ! " She was uncertain as a leaf 
 upon the wind and, as a leaf, graceful.
 
 THE PEACE OF ST. OLAVES 55 
 
 " Coming for a walk ? " said Elspeth, at about a 
 quarter to eleven on Sunday morning. 
 
 Huncote hesitated for a moment before replying. 
 As a rule he had gone to church with his mother and 
 both his sisters, that is before he went up to Oxford. 
 And there he had done the usual sort of things, attended 
 chapel because it saved him explanations and had to be 
 done. But three years at Gabs brought a new quality 
 into his churchgoing, broke the continuity of the affair. 
 He saw Mrs. Huncote watching him over the Observer, 
 and Flora and Elspeth too ; they were all watching him : 
 Mrs. Huncote half-humorously, Flora frankly mis- 
 chievously, Elspeth rigid and rather truculent. And 
 an inner Huncote watched him too with a compli- 
 cated air. " You don't mind going to church," said 
 the inner Huncote, "only if you do they'll think 
 you're churchy because you're in the Settlement; and 
 so you'd better not go because, though church isn't 
 really churchy, in you it would seem churchy." So 
 he said, with an affectation of ease which he did not 
 feel: 
 
 " Eight oh ! -When do we start ? " 
 
 " In a minute," said Elspeth. " Let me finish a 
 note, will you ? " 
 
 Huncote did not even light a cigarette, for he knew 
 Elspeth's notes ; they generally amounted to : " Dear 
 - . Sorry I can't come. Yrs." A reaction, no 
 doubt, against her mother's habits of abundant corre- 
 spondence with everybody she had ever met. As Els- 
 peth wrote Mrs. Huncote looked at her, stimulated by 
 this person in the act of writing, and vaguely wondered 
 whether she would have time before leaving for church 
 to start that letter to Mabel. She knew she would not, 
 but she liked to play with the idea. 
 
 " Flora," she said, " I wish you'd find me the post-
 
 56 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 office guide; I want to be quite sure when the mail 
 leaves for Honolulu." 
 
 Flora gave her the book with a little smile. She 
 knew quite well that her mother knew the date of the 
 mail, had known it for weeks. But still, she treated 
 the post-office guide, her mother's bible, with half re- 
 spect. 
 
 In another few minutes, both in brown tweeds, both 
 carrying sticks, brother and sister stepped out of St. 
 Olaves at the smart heel and toe trot that Elspeth called 
 walking. It was rather cold, and the fresh air stung a 
 little red into Elspeth's pale cheeks. As soon as they 
 had turned off the High Street, by the Red Lion, and 
 passed through the dairy and the grounds of the home 
 farm (now a laundry), they were in the country. For 
 some time they did not speak; there was something de- 
 licious in the fresh, hard morning and the wet scent of 
 dead leaves that seemed so old. It was not winter yet 
 and the year sick to death, but rather the protest of 
 summer holding up to St. Martin suppliant hands. 
 And the wind, buoyant as a rosy sailor, urged them on. 
 As they went down the path, deep-rutted by the carts, 
 they could see the valley of the Char grow, opening like 
 a pale green leafy cup and slowly rising in the south 
 towards its guard of scattered pine trees, between which 
 glowed the blue pearl of the sky. An exhilaration was 
 in Huncote, as if he had escaped something. And the 
 wonder of it was that Elspeth felt it too. 
 
 " Better than church," she said, with quick intui- 
 tion. 
 
 He laughed, flung her a glad look : here was Elspeth, 
 the companion, again with her shoving irony so like a 
 young man, but more perceptive, so little like a young 
 man. 
 
 " Eather," he said, and drew in a large breath. 
 
 There was a pause and Elspeth said : 
 
 " That was all rot, wasn't it ? I mean what we were
 
 THE PEACE OF ST. OLAVES 57 
 
 talking about last night. You're not going to take or- 
 ders, are you ? " 
 
 "Of course I'm not," said Huncote, but this time 
 without acidity. " If I were going to take orders I'd 
 have started long ago. You've got it quite wrong about 
 the Settlement, all of you." 
 
 " We were only chipping you," said Elspeth. 
 
 " I know, but under the chipping there was igno- 
 rance. There's nothing churchy about the Settlement ; 
 you can call us social reformers if you want to say 
 anything offensive but, so far as I gather, what we're 
 really up to is to try and civilise the people of Eng- 
 land." 
 
 Elspeth laughed. " You talk as if we were Hotten- 
 tots!" 
 
 Huncote paused for a moment to point with his stick 
 towards the Char that wound, regular as a heraldic grey 
 serpent, about the green meadows; then said: 
 
 " We are Hottentots in a way, only in a way ; we've 
 only got half the noble savagery and it isn't the noble 
 half. I haven't been long in St. Panwich, but if you 
 could only see what I've seen already . . ." 
 
 " We've got our own wife-beaters here," Elspeth in- 
 terrupted. 
 
 " I don't mean wife-beating, or drunkenness, or 
 thieving, or anything material," said Huncote reflec- 
 tively. " I hardly know whether I can explain, Els- 
 peth ; it's an attitude, a sort of continual grab at food, 
 and no wonder, for there doesn't seem to be enough of it 
 to go round. But, what's much worse, there's a grab 
 at more money than can buy food. It looks as if the 
 only thing they could think about was more money for 
 clothes, for trips to Margate, for picture palaces. A 
 sort of heavy lack of understanding that the more you 
 have of anything, things of that sort I mean, the heavier 
 they lie on your stomach. It's materialism, that's what 
 it is."
 
 58 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 " Everything's material," said Elspeth. 
 
 " I know what you mean. In a way you're right. 
 The emotion you get out of a steak-and-kidney pie is an 
 emotion just like the one you get out of a Quentin 
 Matsys. But there's a difference of grade. If you like 
 to stay in the material field there's the difference be- 
 tween the silk purse and the sow's ear. Down there, 
 in St. Panwich, it's sow's ears all the time. We want 
 to wake them up to the silk purse." 
 
 Elspeth laughed. 
 
 "I see what you mean. Besides, I know, I've seen 
 your little prospectuses: dances and pretty words and 
 good pictures, and the Hundred Best Books." 
 
 " Hang it all ! " said Huncote, a little exasperated, 
 " isn't it better than foul words and the hundred worst 
 murder trials ? " 
 
 Elspeth shut her mouth rather tight, and for a min- 
 ute or two they stepped smartly across the meadows and 
 the bridge, known as Crumble Bridge because the 
 boundary line of a parish ran through the middle of it, 
 and one parish would not repair its half. 
 
 " I don't disagree with you," she said, " which 
 doesn't mean that I agree. At the bottom I disagree 
 very hard ; I'm no democrat. The people want ruling, 
 kindly but firmly, like horses. I'll refuse no horse a 
 feed of oats, but I'll refuse him an over-feed." 
 
 " It's an under-feed you give them in St. Panwich," 
 said Huncote, in a voice which surprised him, so bitter 
 was it and so low-pitched. " Still, it's their business 
 with their unions and all that to put that sort of thing 
 right. What we've got to do -in the Settlement is to try 
 and make them decent, keep clean, use decent English, 
 learn something that they don't get out of the papers, 
 so that when they do come to the well-spread board they 
 may not behave like pigs at a trough." 
 
 Elspeth did not reply; she was fond of Roger, and 
 though she thought him ridiculously idealistic she was
 
 THE PEACE OF ST. OLAVES 59 
 
 not minded to interfere with him. She too, she re- 
 flected, had been like that. (She was quite wrong; she 
 never had. ) He would learn. When he had learnt he 
 would do nothing without the advice of the C.O.S., 
 and then everything would be all right. For a long 
 time they did not speak, not indeed for a good quarter 
 of an hour as, having gained the crest of the hill, they 
 began to circle the valley. When at length Huncote 
 spoke again it was not of the Settlement. 
 
 " I say, I don't think we'd better go down towards the 
 lodge ; we shall never be in by one if we do." 
 
 " Must get my six miles," replied Elspeth. " I feel 
 like chewed string if I don't," 
 
 Huncote did not protest ; he merely followed a little 
 faster. He had long known Elspeth's energy, her care 
 of her ruddy health for which walks alone were respon- 
 sible, as she hated what she called the silly concentration 
 of throwing balls about. Only later, as they turned 
 towards home, did her silence begin to oppress him, and 
 a mischievous impulse flashed to his mind. He thought 
 of Trunch, and it occurred to him that Elspeth too had 
 a skeleton. 
 
 " How's 'Erb ? " he asked skilfully. 
 
 Elspeth's jaws came together rather sharply. 
 
 " Gone," she said. 
 
 Huncote looked at her sideways, much amused by the 
 dark red flush which had sprung into her cheeks. 
 
 " He hasn't gone to St. Panwich, I suppose ? " he 
 asked. " If he has I'll have to rescue him, don't you 
 think?" 
 
 " Don't be silly," Elspeth snarled, " I may have made 
 a mistake; still very likely he had more to do with it 
 than you think." 
 
 She looked so angry that Huncote caressingly took 
 her by the arm. 
 
 " Don't be ratty," he said, but still he could not help 
 teasing her. " Let me see," he said, " let's review the
 
 60 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 facts. The young man known as 'Erb, aged 19, com- 
 mitted adultery, that's the word, Elspeth, isn't it, 
 in St. Olaves with I've forgotten her name, who was 
 a pearl of innocence, wasn't she ? " 
 
 " Oh, don't talk nonsense ! " 
 
 " And you solemnly warned him, didn't you, that 
 he'd have to marry her, and he refused ? And you told 
 his employer to make him, and he ran away to London, 
 let's hope to St. Panwich." Elspeth became statuesque 
 in rigidity. " And I've just heard that this unfortu- 
 nate victim was not only married, but more than mar- 
 ried, and frequently married. Oh, Elspeth, is this 
 true ? " 
 
 His sister seemed about to make a vicious reply, then 
 realised that he was only teasing her. 
 
 " I've half forgotten it," she said, " but still how 
 could I know? It's generally the man's fault, isn't 
 it?" 
 
 Huncote did not reply ; he was still young enough to 
 believe it was generally the man's fault, and that upset 
 his argument. 
 
 " Well," he said, " I hardly know." 
 
 But already Elspeth was on him, hitting him again 
 and again like a skilled boxer who has seen his adver- 
 sary falter and rains blows on him so as to finish him. 
 
 " Of course it is the man's fault. What do I care 
 who she was or what she was ? As if that made any 
 difference! As if he wasn't responsible for his own 
 share of insult, whether he was the first or the last. 
 They brought up that girl in ignorance, and they 
 brought him up in knowledge. D'you call that fair ? 
 D'you call that an even match? And if it's an even 
 match, who suffers, I'll ask you? 'Erb goes away to 
 brag of what he has done, and she stays behind to weep 
 for it. Why, even if she has done wrong she pays the 
 price, and he gets the credit; somebody ought to serve 
 'Erb out, so as to make the balance fair."
 
 THE PEACE OF ST. OLAVES 61 
 
 This was what he liked in Elspeth : her virulence, her 
 pugnacious energy, her hot championship of unworthy 
 causes. She made him feel so reasonable, as if his in- 
 tellect were like his hair, nicely parted in the middle. 
 So more temperately he tried to discuss the 'Erb case, 
 but they had not done with it when at last they entered 
 the High Street from the other end. Elspeth had been 
 too public-spirited, and she had been laughed at because 
 it is so difficult to be public-spirited and ladylike. She 
 was still very angry in the High Street, and it was quite 
 a relief to come across Flora who had lagged behind 
 her mother after church, ostensibly to buy stamps at the 
 tobacconist's. Flora looked charming in a rather too 
 vivid blue coat and skirt, with her fair hair pushed out 
 with the pads of that year under a large black hat. She 
 chattered to Huncote, having at once read in Elspeth's 
 eye a fury not unfamiliar; the rector was getting 
 stouter, it seemed, and, happy thought, his sermons 
 shortened with his breath. Also Lady Alperton had a 
 visitor staying with her, who looked like a soldier and, 
 would you believe it, Elspeth ? the Belhus girls 
 have come back all dressed alike. They always were 
 two or three years behind the fashion, but I didn't think 
 it was ten ! And would Roger mind going into the to- 
 bacconist's with her because people mightn't know it 
 was only stamps. 
 
 But all through the agreeable pretty chatter of the 
 agreeable pretty voice Elspeth remained fiercely close 
 as if offended, and Huncote was glad when that after- 
 noon Flora, on the quite absurd plea of showing him a 
 new autotype, took him to her bedroom. He let her 
 chatter for a long time as she fluttered about, small and 
 light, rather lazy, as one watches a butterfly over a 
 flower bed. Flora's bedroom always amused him be- 
 cause it was always so entirely Flora. In a sense she 
 was too pretty for the setting which she could conceive ; 
 something much more Greenaway would have suited her
 
 62 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 fairness, those arched eyebrows over the half-naughty, 
 half-childish grey eyes, the gay mouth, and the nose, 
 small, impertinent, that invited together tolerance and 
 censure. Eoger always made her a little conscious of 
 personal disorder, and so while she talked she tried to 
 collect the many letters which lay about her writing 
 pad. He smiled as he watched her, for he knew that 
 among them were many tiny little compromising mig 
 sives. Indeed he had to chaff her. 
 
 " Is that one from Cuthbert ? " he asked. " Or is 
 his name Gerald ? Sorry, but I get lost among your 
 romances, Flora, so don't be offended if it happens to 
 be Anthony." 
 
 She pretended to pout angrily, but she was delighted. 
 
 " Don't be ridiculous, Eoger, you talk as if I'd a 
 harem ! " 
 
 " Haven't you ? Now let me see, let's go back into 
 ancient historjr." 
 
 " Eoger ! " cried Flora, half dismayed, " don't do 
 that, it would " 
 
 " It would take too long." 
 
 "You rude man! You seem to forget I'm only 
 twenty." 
 
 "And experienced. There were four letters for 
 you, Flora, this morning, and only one of them in a 
 feminine hand." 
 
 " All bills," said Flora wearily. 
 
 " Not even one from Sawbones Junior ? " asked 
 Huncote. 
 
 Flora flushed. She had gone too far in her tiny in- 
 trigues. It was all very well exchanging countless 
 letters with most of Eoger's friends, and being more or 
 less engaged to half her dancing partners, but Sawbones 
 Junior, in other words the doctor's son, not favoured at 
 the house, was a grievance. She did not care for the 
 doctor's son well, he was rather nice but she might 
 if they went on worrying her about him, and that would
 
 THE PEACE OF ST. OLAVES 63 
 
 be quite dreadful, she felt, for it would stop all the fun. 
 So she said, very stately: 
 
 " I haven't seen him for a long time. One never 
 does see anybody here, Koger," she added woefully. 
 " There's simply nothing to do." 
 
 " Isn't there ? " asked Huncote. " Why, whenever 
 I'm down you never seem to have a minute, what with 
 tennis, croquet, and acrostic teas ! " 
 
 "Pooh!" said Flora disdainfully. "That's only 
 passing the time away ; that's not what I call having a 
 good time. I had thought " She stopped and 
 looked melancholic. 
 
 " What had you thought ? " asked Huncote, curious to 
 know what desire lurked in that little brain. 
 
 " Oh, all sorts of things about you, Koger, you see. 
 I didn't think you'd you'd " 
 
 " Go to the bad like this." 
 
 " I don't think you've gone to the bad or anything 
 silly like that, only the other men I know I thought 
 you'd do something, Roger, and then well, you'd 
 have been about town, all that sort of thing." 
 
 " Oh," said Roger, " I understand, you mean I ought 
 to have had a flat in St. James's, something smart 
 though virtuous, where you could have come to stay now 
 and then ? And we could have gone to the theatre 
 every night, with a different man on the other side of 
 you, and to supper at Romano's." 
 
 Flora did not smile ; she had a sense of humour, but 
 her own affairs were too important to be laughed at. 
 
 " Yes," she said raptly ; " wouldn't it have been 
 lovely?" 
 
 Huncote had to laugh at the pretty seriousness. 
 
 " Never mind," he said, " you must come up now 
 and then all the same and stay with me in Clare Street." 
 
 Flora looked at him dubiously. 
 
 " Of course I will. But tell me, are they dreadfully 
 good at the Settlement ? "
 
 64: THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 " I can't tell you yet," said Huncote, " but I'll en- 
 quire for the bad egg, and when you come up you and 
 the bad egg and I, and somebody to keep me out of the 
 way, shall visit the gilded haunts of vice in London." 
 
 " Don't be absurd ! " Still she smiled and looked 
 pleased as if the word " London " cheered her up. 
 Flora hated St. Olaves and apart from her minor amor- 
 ous correspondence lived only for those six weeks in 
 the season which she, with her mother and Elspeth, 
 passed every year at Black's Hotel. She did what she 
 could: she collected china pigs, scores of them, on her 
 mantelpiece; she filed all her theatre programmes, 
 which she read on rainy days, in a large untidy drawer 
 with many photographs, broken fans, and the ribbons 
 from her underclothes which she seldom threw away 
 because somehow she liked a mess. 
 
 Just before he left the room Huncote went up to his 
 sister, took in his hand the pointed chin, and looked at 
 her for a moment, humorously, compassionately, and a 
 little disdainfully. She looked at him with a pucker- 
 ing smile on her lips and a rather arch look in her eyes 
 as if she had to flirt even with her brother. And when 
 he kissed her quickly on her plump round cheek she 
 laughed and murmured: 
 
 " You really will let me come and stay, won't you ? " 
 
 Huncote was thinking of all of them the next day as 
 he went back to town. They blended together into a 
 sort of patchwork quilt of family emotions: his 
 mother's untidy, half-humorous charm, Elspeth's nar- 
 rowness, and Flora's fluffy preoccupations; all these 
 things seemed to correspond so ill with the life he was 
 leading and wanted to lead. He was like a kitten that 
 has escaped for a few days from its basket into the
 
 THE PEACE OF ST. OLAVES 65 
 
 world and judges its mother. Most marked was this 
 attitude when he was in the Settlement itself. He re- 
 turned there, it seemed, as directly as a pigeon, as if 
 indeed it were home ; he just took time to drop his bag 
 in his frowsy rooms, for, of course, the landlady had 
 kept the windows shut during the week-end; then he 
 was in the St. Panwich High Street with jolly trams 
 roaring on their way to Penton Town. Near a corner 
 of the asphalted playground he could hear the Clare 
 Street schoolchildren, and he liked the clatter of their 
 little hobnailed boots. The Settlement opened before 
 him, with its big white staircase so clean, and the long 
 white-painted corridors that seemed monastic, with of- 
 fices that might have been cells, lecture rooms where 
 the chapter should have sat, for this was the St. Pan- 
 wich Lay Settlement, with emphasis on the " Lay ", an 
 agnostic cloister.. There was nothing ecclesiastic about 
 its constitution, and indeed it rebelled so vigorously 
 against the theistic idea that the clergy were only tol- 
 erated and then had to be balanced, when admitted, by 
 clergy of other denominations: a sort of clerical chem- 
 istry, the Roman Catholic and the Presbyterian figur- 
 ing like soda and sulphuric acid to neutralize each 
 other. It was assumed that the result of the operation 
 would be, if not beneficial, at least innocuous. 
 
 If Huncote had been fit to understand anything, 
 which he was not yet (and if he had understood every- 
 thing he would probably have done nothing, having 
 learnt all that life has to teach), he would have seen 
 that the Settlement, like most organisations, expressed 
 itself in its secretary. He might have wondered 
 whether the organisation moulded the man or the man 
 the organisation, or whether secretaries were nominated 
 in heaven. Certainly Churton, with whom he talked, 
 represented the Settlement as if he had been conceived 
 not in sin but in dedication. He was several years 
 older than Huncote; he was a third-year man at
 
 66 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 Gabriel when Huncote was a freshman, and in those 
 days was a tall young man with the blackest hair and 
 dark brown eyes, rather close-set and, like Huncote's, 
 fanatical ; but there was a quality of failure already in 
 the long uneven sharpness of his enquiring nose. 
 There was narrowness too in the sallow cheeks from 
 which grew a very strong black beard that he shaved so 
 close as to make them look green. In those days he 
 intended to take orders, and why he never took orders, 
 why he failed even to get a pass, why he was not 
 pushed further on the clerical path, nobody knew. 
 Possibly he had rebelled, for he had money, though 
 very little ; he had a hundred a year of his own, in fact 
 he had been born with an electro-plated spoon in his 
 mouth. Or very likely the Settlement had appealed to 
 him because it satisfied some inner need for association 
 with something organised. Churton respected organi- 
 sation and had automatically become the servant of an 
 organisation. It was open to question whether he 
 would not have served equally well the Free Trade 
 Union or the Tariff Reform League ; one could imagine 
 him faithful to any grouping, and indeed in any atti- 
 tude save alone and palely loitering. 
 
 When Huncote came in Churton was at the tele- 
 phone, the end of his long nose resting on the receiver. 
 Huncote listened respectfully, looking at little things 
 in the important office: files, account-books, scales, and 
 punches, and the largest stone bottle of ink he had ever 
 seen. Churton had given him a friendly nod, but he 
 looked worried. 
 
 " I haven't made it clear," he telephoned worriedly. 
 " Please let me explain again ; it's my fault." There 
 was a pause during which the person at the other end 
 prevented him from explaining. " ISTo, no," cried 
 Churton, rather desperately, " it's against the constitu- 
 tion of the Settlement ; we can't allow any intrusion 
 Qh! I didn't mean to put it like that, only I do want
 
 THE PEACE OF ST. OLAVES 67 
 
 to make it clear our propaganda is not religious. 
 Oh." A pause. " Then really I'm very sorry." 
 Pause. "Certainly not" (rather acid this), "you've 
 no right to say such a thing." There was another 
 pause, and then the receiver came down rather sharply. 
 
 " Oh, dear ! Oh, dear ! " said Churton, " this sort 
 of thing happens every other day." 
 
 " What is it ? " asked Huncote sympathetically. 
 
 " It's a, nonconformist minister at the other end, and 
 he wants to lecture to us on the cathedrals of Northern 
 Spain, provided we allow him to use that as a text for 
 an onslaught on Romanism, or was it Popery he called 
 it?" 
 
 Huncote laughed at the woebegone dark face. 
 
 " It sounded as if you were saying no." 
 
 " I should rather think I was ! What would our 
 Irishmen say if I let the Christian pride of Highbury 
 loose on them ? You know, Huncote, sometimes I wish 
 I'd gone into something definite, something with a 
 really religious label. You know where you are, for 
 everybody else is damned; but in our position, being 
 kindly laymen, the only thing that seems to happen is 
 that it's we who are damned because we have no special 
 brand of salvation." 
 
 Huncote looked thoughtful for a moment. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " I see what you mean. You mean 
 that every minister thinks this place must have a re- 
 ligion of some kind. They can't conceive undenomina- 
 tional good will, can they ? " 
 
 " No," said Churton bitterly, " I've been here twelve 
 months, and if I stay here five years it's Christian good 
 will I'll begin to doubt." 
 
 Then the telephone rang again, and Churton was in- 
 volved in a long argument with the printer who had 
 set up a begging appeal from the wrong font. When 
 Churton had done he returned to Huncote with a more 
 busy and preoccupied air, as if commercial grace had
 
 68 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 expelled the theological. They had to talk of the con- 
 cert at which Huncote was to play that night. Before 
 Churton could find the programme the boy came in to 
 say that the architect was waiting with the scheme for 
 the new east-side gullies. The architect was told to 
 wait a moment. And when Churton found the pro- 
 gramme and the name of the accompanist, so that Hun- 
 cote might arrange with her what pieces he would play, 
 there was another telephone call. Huncote's business 
 was done, but he stayed some minutes in the office, every 
 minute more admiring, for Churton seemed to have well 
 in hand the reins of his organisation. People rang 
 him up to ask at what time things happened, and he 
 knew ; he signed a number of cheques which the cashier 
 laid before him, at the same time briskly discussing 
 with the cook what substitute they should have that 
 night for shrimp paste, as that had been vetoed by the 
 Kitchen Committee on the ground of expense. He was 
 marvellous, and every moment Huncote grew more 
 humble. 
 
 Humility was still upon him a little later when 
 lunching at Prince's with a man who had come down at 
 the same time as he did, and the man's sister and 
 mother. Huncote ought to have noticed the mat-white- 
 ness of the girl and the purple shadows that made her 
 eyes seem deep, so long were the curling eyelashes, but 
 he was too excited by the vigour and capacity of the 
 Settlement to which he had given himself. He knew 
 he was being a bore, and yet he had to talk about it, 
 about their programme, their building, and their hopes. 
 They laughed at him, thought him very young and 
 earnest ; they liked him, they were vaguely amused and 
 yet vaguely bored. But he hardly noticed, and even a 
 little later, when he stood in Piccadilly Circus and saw 
 crawling towards him the patchy colour of the motor- 
 buses, like an undulating harlequin's robe, he was still 
 in the thrall of this big living thing, the Settlement
 
 THE PEACE OF ST. OLAVES 69 
 
 which, his humour gone, he half-believed would re- 
 generate the world. 
 
 That night the concert strengthened his enthusiasm; 
 though it was very like any other concert it was the one 
 he would always remember just because it was his first. 
 He had a large mixed audience in the big lecture room ; 
 many women, a fair number of men, a rather rowdy, 
 boot-scraping audience, an audience that grew more 
 cheerful a's time went on and clapped each piece with 
 perfect impartiality and some violence. It was with a 
 beating heart that Huncote played his two pieces, care- 
 fully selected with the inevitable Churton's concur- 
 rence : " Thais " in the first part and, in the second, a 
 berceuse. He was not nervous, for he had played be- 
 fore to amateur audiences, but he cared most for what 
 he saw when he was not playing, when he was less con- 
 sciously linked with these people. One thing he knew : 
 he liked them, liked them quite violently, all of them ; 
 he liked the old women in their bonnets, the men who 
 sprawled against the back wall as much as the men who 
 sat at attention in the front row (where they had been 
 put by force). And most of all he liked the absence of 
 any clerical influence ; there was no address and no col- 
 lection; there were no texts upon the wall, unless a 
 quotation from Ruskin and another from William Mor- 
 ris served as such. At the end the chairman's speech 
 and the votes of thanks just avoided the danger. The 
 seconder of the vote of thanks was a clergyman who 
 did make one slightly unfortunate allusion in his ex- 
 pressions of gratitude, for he extended them a little be- 
 yond the performers, but apparently the audience did 
 not mind. 
 
 It was indeed a fine jolly audience, Huncote found, 
 when he came to know it a little better after the concert, 
 and tea and coffee were served in the refectory behind. 
 He was determined to be easy, he was determined to 
 help ; he resolutely talked to two of the men, for he was
 
 70 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 afraid of the girls who sat in clumps, far from the men, 
 and nudged each other and looked at him and tittered. 
 The men embarrassed him a little less, but they carried 
 with them the smells of their trades, smells of metal 
 and leather mixed with sweat; one man he liked, but 
 the other, whom Huncote innocently thought he had 
 picked but who had in reality picked him, was Joe 
 Beesby. Joe Beesby was very short, extremely fat, 
 and upon his round, bald head had erected a cap which 
 would have fitted a little boy of six; he maintained an 
 intense gravity due to small eyes which never moved 
 from the victim they fascinated, which was a pity, as 
 Beesby had a grievance. It was a complicated griev- 
 ance. His eldest son had been arrested on a charge of 
 which he was acquitted after two months' preventive de- 
 tention. During that time his tools were kept at the 
 police station. On the day he came out young Beesby, 
 forgetting all about his tools, celebrated the occasion by 
 getting so drunk that he was sentenced to fourteen days 
 or a fine of two pounds. Then he remembered his 
 tools. 
 
 " So wot did 'e do, sir ? 'E said to the beak, ' Wot 
 abaht me tools ? ' 'e said. ' You gi' me back me tools, 
 and I giv yer yer two pouns.' An' wot d'yer think the 
 beak said ? ' You giv me me two pouns first.' When 
 'Q come out o' quod the tools was rusted, done for." 
 Beesby's eyes grew as keen as drills. He argued his 
 son's case, then the beak's case. He became pathetic. 
 " I arsk yer, sir, d'yer call it fair ? " 
 
 Huncote got very involved in this conversation, for 
 he could not discover whether the tools had been ac- 
 cepted as security by the relentless beak. Moreover, 
 Beesby had not the slightest intention of telling the 
 story except in the way he chose, and it went on inter- 
 minably ; it went on as to what the beak had said, and 
 what that dirty tyke, the sergeant, had said, and what 
 young Beesby had said (and him not accountable after
 
 THE PEACE OF ST. OLAVES 71 
 
 going on the booze). Huncote found himself growing 
 quite hot as the Beesby drama slowly extended, quali- 
 fied, parenthetic, reminiscent, discursive, into a full ac- 
 count of the accident to Beesby's uncle John when he 
 tried to get a bath up the stairs. Huncote was not yet 
 used to talking to the class that he wanted to raise. 
 Still he had to talk to Beesby; everybody at the Settle- 
 ment had to listen to the Beesby story once (and, if 
 one was not careful, more often). And so the evening 
 wore on ; he talked to many other people, to young men 
 who were aggressively friendly and who nearly dug him 
 in the waistcoat to show him that this was democracy 
 and they were all pals, also to young men who called 
 him " sir " and grew very hot about the ears when he 
 looked at them, because they could not realise that this 
 was democracy and they were all pals. There were 
 women too who flitted about him trying to smooth the 
 helper's path, some little hard-knit persons with mouths 
 like purse fasteners, and a rather tall, gracious dark 
 girl, called Miss Underwood, he thought, whom he liked 
 to see with several fat girls from the pickle factory 
 around her, looking rather lost and vaguely ironic. 
 
 He was not very conscious of anybody individually, 
 but rather of talk that began in a buzz and rose to a 
 rumble, ending in a roar and mixed continually with 
 the rattle of teacups and the clink of spoons, a rather 
 confused impression of everything being too hot and 
 dusty, but still wonderfully pleasing. When at last 
 he regained Clare Street and his bed, a bed which would 
 have interested St. Lawrence, he was glowing all over 
 with some inner satisfaction; he had been close to the 
 poor and almost had found them fair.
 
 CHAPTER THE FOURTH 
 
 THE WINGS OF UTOPIA 
 
 Two months had elapsed. It was January. By turn- 
 ing his head a little Huncote could see through the win- 
 dow the light fall of snow which had suddenly ethereal- 
 ised the grim little houses in the side street. Here was 
 silence absolute, as if indeed this were the Arctic, and 
 in the St. Panwich High Street the rising and falling 
 rumble of the trams. For a time he watched the lost 
 snowflakes falling and thought, with a half smile, of 
 Blake, of the mystic swans in the far blue shaking their 
 fleecy wings. He was not unhappy in the melancholic 
 day, for was he not here, all alone, in a bright office? 
 A Helper? Established? Was he not performing a 
 function ? Would there not be a hitch in the social ma- 
 chine for a second perhaps, but still a second, if he were 
 to disappear? He bit his pen, pushing aside the ex- 
 ceedingly greasy testimonials which lay before him, as 
 if the silent snow made him reflective. There had been 
 changes in these two months ; he had, it seemed, under- 
 stood the Settlement quite well, its desire, by song, 
 dance, lecture, to civilise the people, to humanise them 
 a little by offering them some pleasure other than drink 
 and lust. Also he had given it all his time, and so he 
 had risen in the lay-order until now he was a sort of 
 extension of the organised Churton, able to draw out an 
 appeal, to select music, and even to cope with the un- 
 pleasant Mrs. Bubwith in the High Street where chairs 
 were now and then hired. The great machine of paper, 
 tea (or coffee), and good intentions moved readily
 
 THE WINGS OF UTOPIA 73 
 
 enough under his hand. He even knew the way along 
 the corridors, could, when he wanted, find the lecture sec- 
 retary, the lantern-slide room, the envelope-addressing 
 hall, the various activities that flitted about the social 
 surface like water-spiders on a pool. Yes, he was doing 
 something, brightening the world; this was life, this 
 was the life. He bent down once more to the testimo- 
 nials; he rang a bell and a little lay-acolyte, whom in 
 his mind he called " face of a thousand pimples ", 
 showed in one of his visitors. 
 
 It was Old Gartly, some time a master plumber, now 
 Old Gartly, a jobbing plumber. Huncote had not yet 
 learnt to speak first, so Old Gartly was on him protest- 
 ing that he was entirely sober, had always been sober. 
 
 " Only," he said, " one can't get no more work." 
 
 Huncote looked at him, rather embarrassed: the old 
 man was sixty or so, and the worst of it was that he had 
 been a master in a small way: the ranks of industry 
 reject those who once were commissioned. 
 
 " Yes," he said, rather doubtfully, " it would be 
 rather difficult to get you into a shop." 
 
 " It ain't as if I 'adn't always been sober," Old 
 Gartly obstinately went on. " Most o' the chaps what 
 goes wrong does it all along the drink. Now, sir, I've 
 always kep' mesel' respectable, I've always kep' mesel' 
 sober . . ." 
 
 He unwound endlessly the record of his sobriety. 
 Huncote suddenly stared at him. Somehow he sus- 
 pected the man's sobriety: he did not yet know the re- 
 spectable type of artisan to which Old Gartly belonged, 
 who has kept himself sober, abominably and painfully 
 sober in the face of his desire, and who flies the flag of 
 martyrdom. Old Gartly had been quite, quite sober, 
 and he was so powerfully conscious of it that Huncote 
 thought he was drunk. " But," he thought, " I mustn't 
 let that influence me. I'm not here to judge but to 
 help."
 
 74 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 So, unjust and well-meaning, he cut through the old 
 man's protestations, noted what jobbing he could do, 
 originated the brilliant idea of printing circulars for 
 him which he could distribute himself all round his 
 own district and then sent him away. He rang the bell 
 for the acolyte, smiling half -sorrowfully at Old Gartly 
 who had put his head in again to ask whether he had 
 put " teetotaler " on the circulars. 
 
 The morning passed on, varied and yet much the same, 
 for all cases, though different in detail, were of the same 
 type. He promised a seamstress to redeem her sewing- 
 machine, and as she had been ill, appointed her to look 
 after his linen which, after two months with the local 
 laundry and the Clare Street landlady, was making 
 urgent charity of some kind. He promised an enter- 
 prising youth to find out how he could become president 
 of the Institute of Mining Engineers and secured him 
 for the night classes on electricity. Churton ran in 
 for a moment, alert and paper-laden, dragging a portly 
 woman who apparently wanted employment in the in- 
 tervals of having babies, who happened often. But 
 Huncote was not very successful here, because mater- 
 nity had become an obsession in this case; her state- 
 ment developed by degrees into a dirge on the fate of 
 women who generally have twins and might, if fate 
 were unkind, prove yet more prolific. It was queer 
 and interesting, this employment business; every case 
 seemed to show him something more of the complica- 
 tions of a social system into which he had been thrown 
 without ever having been told why it had been created 
 or how. He was meeting -mainly the unemployable, 
 those who were not strong enough and those who were 
 too old, and it occurred to him now and then to wonder 
 why society would neither kill these people nor feed 
 them. Use them it could not except at its own terms, 
 which meant such terms as would by under-cutting 
 slowly reduce the employable to the unemployable level.
 
 THE WINGS OF UTOPIA 75 
 
 It was depressing in a way, this procession of the for- 
 gotten, so anxious all of them to maintain life not for 
 their own pleasure, but as a sort of offertory to the in- 
 stinct of self-preservation. 
 
 It was a heavy morning: he had seen many peo- 
 ple, heard many rambling conversations out of which 
 uncles, aunts, and stomachic disturbances could not 
 be kept. His machine had rumbled on, creaking; he 
 had done something, and he glowed, for it did not yet 
 strike him that he would have to do the same something 
 again to-morrow, and yet again. He stretched him- 
 self, he felt pleased; he thought he would lunch at 
 his club. 
 
 Such a quick change, this run in the tube from St. 
 Panwich to Piccadilly. Somehow of late he had not 
 liked Piccadilly; it made him remorseful, and he was 
 not quite sure that it would not be a good thing if one 
 could blow up Piccadilly: he had not yet thought of 
 blowing up St. Panwich. But now he liked going to 
 his club, for during the last week he had watched over 
 Toy, one of his good works. Toy was a waiter who 
 one day appeared at the Settlement with a rambling 
 tale of stewardships on steamboats and of gallantry in 
 the South African War. He was proud of a suit of 
 evening clothes pea-green at the seams. He was won- 
 derfully voluble, and most of his references had been 
 lost in the wreck of a steamer which was sometimes the 
 Orontes and sometimes the Omara. Huncote was half- 
 amused, half -sceptical. He did not quite know what to 
 do with a waiter whose accent was neither German nor 
 Italian., He half thought of handing him over to Miss 
 Miskin who had nothing to do just then. Miss Miskin 
 was not favourable. 
 
 " You're the employment agent," she said acidly. 
 " You don't want me to set him to needlework, do 
 you?" 
 
 Huncote mumbled something about work at private
 
 T6 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 dinners, for Miss Miskin was a rich old maid, frequent- 
 ing the bulky dinners of city friends. 
 
 " Pooh ! " said Miss Miskin, and added various 
 sounds that were neither civil nor kind; looking more 
 than usual like a hysterical wet lizard she left him the 
 care of Toy. And Toy, who has large cheeks and thin 
 legs, red hair, a watery eye, and something of the bed- 
 side manner of a fashionable doctor broadened by the 
 barrack-room, began siege operations on Huncote's 
 room. He appeared every morning regularly, always 
 carrying his evening clothes in a brown-paper parcel, 
 inclined to expose the scandalous way in which other 
 soldiers had behaved in Kaffir kraals ; every moment he 
 threatened to show Huncote the excellent evening 
 clothes. In the end Huncote found him a place in the 
 kitchen of his club. So he liked to go down now and 
 then and ask the steward how the good work was pro- 
 gressing. 
 
 He did. But Toy was to count no more in the 
 kitchen of the august club ; he was always sober in the 
 morning but not so, the club found, at night ; in an un- 
 fortunate fit of exultation he had poured half a pound 
 of sugar instead of salt into the soup. 
 
 II 
 
 Huncote was almost blind to the implications of this 
 work, blind to the endlessness of it. Indeed now and 
 then he was inflamed by the idea of linking material 
 advantage with mental progress. These men and 
 women who came in, asking him to help them, were not 
 lost. They found, he thought, a sort of home in the 
 Settlement; they took with their job such culture as it 
 could give them of nights. Now and then he had a 
 vision of St. Panwich Lay Settlement as a beneficent 
 mother hanging over the people, a comforter promising 
 them better things than even it gave them. But he was
 
 THE WINGS OF UTOPIA 77 
 
 discovering other factors, exterior movements that com- 
 peted witl\ the Settlement as if they grudged it the re- 
 lief of misery because it did not relieve in what the 
 other movements considered the right way. There 
 seemed especially to be continual friction between the 
 Settlement and the clerical organisations of St. Pan- 
 wich. Once upon a time there had been a war between 
 the local vicars and the intruding agnostics; that was 
 over, but now and then a sort of guerilla warfare sprang 
 up; there were allusions in the parish magazine to the 
 superiority of faith over works; a few powerful 
 churches had also a way of selecting rather late for 
 their entertainments the same nights as those of the 
 Settlement and then seducing a part of the Settlement 
 audiences by getting their entertainments deeply inter- 
 twined with the coal and blanket clubs. There was 
 also Lady Govan's Education League with which rela- 
 tions were exceedingly complicated, because Mr. Platt, 
 of the Temple Club, was a member of the Settlement 
 Committee, and made it his aim in life to become Lib- 
 eral member for St. Panwich in succession to the 
 Unionist, Sir Henry Govan. And Lady Govan was 
 quite formidable: it was not that she did everything 
 that was necessary; she did everything that was neces- 
 sary and hundreds of things which were not : these ad- 
 vertised her league most destructively by compare with 
 the milder activities of the Settlement. 
 
 Huncote was still too young and inexperienced to be 
 tempted into these deeper politics, but hints had fallen 
 in conversation from Platt, from Churton himself. 
 Indeed the only man who never laid stress upon these 
 mysteries of altruistic competition was the Reverend 
 William Ford. Huncote might never have come across 
 Ford had it not been for these complicated competi- 
 tions. But towards the end of June a free advertisement 
 was given Ford by Pastor Walkley, known as the great 
 exhorter, who had come over from Australia to wrestle
 
 78 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 for St. Panwick's soul. Huncote accidentally drifted 
 into the chapel where the pastor was received as he 
 went on some Settlement business close by. He spent 
 about a quarter of an hour in the crowded long hall 
 which was packed, gangways and all, by a dark crowd 
 quietly moved to intensity; one could hear it breathe, 
 and it seemed' to rise a little towards the orator's 
 periods. Pastor Walkley was a tall, large man, the 
 typical " elder ", with tufts of white hair brushed 
 straight away from his head over his ears, a large un- 
 trimmed beard, and a shaven upper lip that seemed im- 
 mensely long under the wide pugnacious nose. The 
 pastor had the largest blue eyes, that looked rather as 
 if they had been boiled, and he talked endlessly of the 
 thunders of the Bible, stains and dishonours, and hells 
 and defilements; he boomed on drink and eternal tor- 
 ture . . . 
 
 But what struck Huncote was that he had picked out 
 for special attack the Eeverend William Ford, who 
 with his boxing class, it seemed, was the pillar of bru- 
 tality in the district, who spat upon the steps of the 
 Temple of the Lord. Then Huncote realised that he 
 had not visited every section of the Settlement. He 
 had heard of William Ford, the Fighting Parson, or 
 Fighting Bill, but he had never seen him at work. 
 
 And a great voice boomed from the pulpit denunci- 
 ations of mortal sin, threatenings of everlasting agony, 
 begging his audience, ere it was too late, to come " intoe 
 the boosum of A-Bra-Ham." It followed him, he 
 thought, right into the street. It seemed to drive him 
 out into the night of beer and blood that is London. 
 There was no fear in Roger Huncote, and because there 
 was no fear Pastor Walkley could not save him, could 
 not draw him shrinking and reluctant " intoe the 
 Boosum of A-Bra-Ham." 
 
 Far from it. As if the pastor by denouncing it had 
 advertised sin he drove Huncote straight .on to the Set-
 
 THE WINGS OF UTOPIA ?9 
 
 tlement, where fortunately the Fighting Parson was 
 having his night. 
 
 He was, a blot on the Settlement in a way; the egg 
 of a religious cuckoo in an agnostic nest. But then, 
 through wanting to, or perhaps because it had opened 
 its doors to him, Fighting Bill had punched and 
 smacked his way in as if conscious that in this lay fold 
 were young souls whom it was his mission to bring to 
 God by sloshes in the jaw. Besides it had been almost 
 impossible to do without him, for he had become too 
 popular in St. Panwich. He was about twenty-six, 
 fair, curly-headed, blue-eyed ; with his pink cheeks and 
 white skin he looked like a jolly Irish boy. Married 
 at twenty-two he was then additional curate to the rec- 
 tor of St. Panwich, had four children, a small wife, and 
 a colossal appetite. For about two months St. Panwich 
 did not notice him ; it had vaguely observed that where 
 the parson went there was less groaning and intoning 
 than usual, but a good deal of boisterous laughter. It 
 might not have mattered much: St. Panwich was too 
 busy keeping alive to bother about foreign princes and 
 parsons, and other lunatics, only one night, outside a 
 public house, two men in railwaymen's uniforms, who 
 had had just enough and were preparing to go in to have 
 a little more, glared at him. One of them remarked: 
 " Hullo, sky-pilot ! At the earhole again ? " 
 
 The Reverend William Ford knew the slums and 
 their language; he at once took in the idiotic insinu- 
 ation that he would report them to the company unless 
 they stood him a drink or otherwise bribed him. Some- 
 thing inside him grew bulky; still, he tried to remem- 
 ber that he was a man of God. 
 
 " Don't be silly," he said. " You don't think I'd 
 give a man away ! " 
 
 The words were too mild; his tormentor nudged his 
 companion. " See him turn the other cheek, matey ? 
 Shall I spit in his eye or will you ? "
 
 80 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 The thing inside the Reverend William grew unbear- 
 ably large. Instead of walking away lest he should be 
 defiled he came a little nearer. Then a dreadful thing 
 happened, for almost simultaneously the second man 
 attempted to spit into the Reverend William's eye while 
 a most untended and unclerical red fist struck him 
 straight in the mouth. This was the beginning of 
 Fighting Bill's first row. It was a gorgeous and won- 
 derful row, for the railwayman was game and for three 
 or four minutes fought well, getting in a nasty one over 
 Ford's left eyebrow that cut it right open. But cru- 
 sading blood was up. Ford danced about from right 
 to left foot, sparring, looking like a wild crow. He 
 rushed into his opponent's guard, broke it down, com- 
 pletely bunged up one of his eyes, and on recovering 
 clinched in characteristic style, finishing him off at last 
 with a most scientific uppercut. He fought in a sort 
 of mist, conscious of a growing crowd around him that 
 filled the little side street, and of muffled roars of: 
 " Go it, little 'un! " and " Kill him, Parson! " Nor 
 did he recover when they picked up his adversary, for 
 the first of his opponents was still in his mind, and he 
 was the only thing he could see, the thing he unerringly 
 picked out of the crowd and went for like a mad bull. 
 There were protests; two men tried to hold him. 
 " That'll do, Parson, you've done enough." 
 Then a horrible thing happened. Fighting Bill 
 whirled them away, roaring: " Go to hell ! " and leapt 
 on the one they were trying to protect. This proved a 
 still easier job than the other, for it seemed that the 
 powers of the devil, suddenly invoked, joined the 
 gentler ones in the body of Fighting Bill. He had the 
 other man down at the first blow, which by fortune 
 rather than by skill landed on the point. And with 
 true Christian charity the Reverend William helped his 
 opponent up so as to be able to knock him down 
 again. . . .
 
 THE WINGS OF UTOPIA 81 
 
 Fighting Bill walked off famous. The police arrived 
 upon the scene thirty seconds after he left the side 
 street with his handkerchief to his eyebrow, and the 
 crowd refused to give him away. Somebody told the 
 police that the unfortunate men had been set upon by 
 four roughs, which, judging from their condition, was 
 quite possible. The story did get about a little later, 
 and the rector noticed that his additional curate had 
 fallen down-stairs and hurt his forehead. The police 
 did nothing, but henceforth had a smile and a salute 
 for the new Knight Templar. 
 
 The trouble was that the one who had once been Mr. 
 Ford and swiftly became the Reverend Bill, and within 
 his club merely " Bill ", was now a celebrity. He had 
 to live up to his celebrity, and as nobody believed he 
 was in earnest about anything unless he hit them 
 well, he did hit them. He found the taste growing on 
 him; he hung about the worst parts of St. Panwich 
 (they were mostly worst), looking for adventure near 
 the public houses. He found it often and made a point 
 of celebrating his victory by compelling his victims to 
 attend the services he took. There, in his sermons, he 
 made painful and public allusions to their features and 
 their temperaments. He cured a wife-beater after 
 three applications of his particular medicine. For one 
 moment the breath of scandal nearly touched him after 
 his defeat of Posky Joe, the American bully. 
 
 No sooner had Ford driven Posky out of the dis- 
 trict than the girl on whose earnings he lived developed 
 for Fighting Bill an entirely hopeless passion; he 
 handed her over to Mrs. Ford who reformed her 
 morals. Unable to attain Fighting Bill the girl at- 
 tained goodness: she was seen a little later with 
 her hair drawn up from her forehead and an 
 unpowdered nose. But at last ecclesiastic power 
 interfered. Fighting Bill, who was already a suspect 
 because he was a high-churchman, a socialist, and
 
 82 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 a lover of beer, was called upon to become mild and 
 broad. 
 
 " Street fights ! " said the rector. " Disgraceful ! " 
 Finally he threatened to report him to the bishop. 
 And the Reverend Bill, who had learnt to love his ene- 
 mies while he knocked them into the gutter, first apolo- 
 gised and then evolved the theory that salvation could 
 be earned by apostolic blows and knocks. So to use up 
 his energy he started the boxing class. As his idea was 
 in a way the same as that of the Settlement, and as the 
 Settlement boys advertised Fighting Bill in every corri- 
 dor by emulating his evangelical practices, he was se- 
 duced into the lay fold by the offer of a room and a 
 ring. It appealed to him; the Settlement was in his 
 view no better than hell, but he felt it was his duty to 
 knock Satan out, and he was not sure that in paradise 
 he could hope to get on with anybody except perhaps 
 St. George. Fighting Bill was wrong about the Settle- 
 ment being hell; it was more like Laodicea. Still, 
 Laodicea, devoid of spiritual aims, had worldly ones, 
 and so came about the queer alliance. The Settlement 
 used Fighting Bill's mystic fisticuffs to get in the boys 
 whom it entangled into technical classes, while the 
 curate slyly worked to get them to come to the Com- 
 munion table before breakfast. (He was often suc- 
 cessful in this, as in St. Fanwich many did not have 
 breakfast.) 
 
 Huncote stood for a moment near the door of the big 
 room, made shy by novelty. It was very dark except 
 in the middle. All along the walls were forms, packed 
 with youths, some with cigarettes, a shoving, chat- 
 tering mass. Few smoked, for nobody under eigh- 
 teen was allowed tobacco. Fighting Bill had settled 
 that. " If I see you with a fag in your mouth be- 
 fore you're eighteen," he remarked, in general, " I'll 
 give you a thick ear." Smoking became unfashion- 
 able,
 
 THE WINGS OF UTOPIA 83 
 
 It was the middle of the scene that struck and im- 
 pressed Huncote. Between the white ropes upon the 
 floor that glittered under the hard white light of the 
 big gas lamps stood two youths, stripped to the waist, 
 with clumsy, gloved hands and quick live bodies. They 
 ducked, they feinted, they retreated, and then smack, 
 smack, a good double body blow, 
 
 A voice said : " That's nice." 
 
 The youth who had been hit recovered, dodged, and 
 now he was upon his antagonist, striking, missing, then 
 striking again, driving him into the ropes. 
 
 Huncote grew conscious of the referee, a burly, mid- 
 dle-sized figure in clerical clothes, a figure that ran 
 around the contestants, that thrust itself between them 
 with an angry cry of " Break ! " when they clinched. 
 And for a moment, as the figure did not interfere, Hun- 
 cote saw him and envied him, flushed, smiling sideways 
 with a bulldog pipe stuck in the corner of his mouth: 
 Ford at work! 
 
 Huncote watched for a long time to the end of this 
 contest which was to be followed by the boxing class, 
 when the curate took ten youths together, the rawest 
 beginners those, showing them where to place their feet, 
 walking rapidly up and down the line to correct their 
 guard. And he enjoyed the big voice that shouted to 
 one of the softies : " That's no good. You're not 
 catching flies, are you ? " 
 
 Ford picked a more promising one and stood up to 
 him to be hit. Smack came the boxing-glove between 
 Ford's eyes. " Not a bit of good ! " Smack again, a 
 little louder. " Didn't feel it ! " And so on until the 
 exasperated youth drew from his thin arm enough 
 strength to make the parson reel. 
 
 Huncote was oppressed too by the continuous sound 
 from the end of the room that came from the punching 
 ball on which Ford's favourite heavyweight was prac- 
 tising. When at last it was over, about an hour and a
 
 84 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 half later, the curate closed the proceedings with a short 
 speech : 
 
 " Boys, you know where to find me again if you want 
 to see me before next Wednesday." (Wink. This was 
 forbidden at the Settlement.) "You know where we 
 can have a straight talk, you and me." (Shouts of 
 " Yes, sir!'/) " Well, that's all right. Good-by, and 
 don't practise what you've learnt on your mother ! " 
 (Roars of merriment.) 
 
 Then Ford shouted : " Who's for a drink ? " 
 
 He collected the three who were over twenty-one, for 
 beer was forbidden by him under that age, the penalty 
 being the same as for smoking when under eighteen. 
 As the party broke up he saw Huncote whom he knew 
 by sight. 
 
 " Join us ? " he said cheerfully. 
 
 Huncote hesitated. He was vaguely afraid of fol- 
 lowing Fighting Bill and his young friends into the 
 public house. The Reverend William felt it. " No ? " 
 he said. " Well, see you another night ; we can have a 
 chat." And he passed on with his disciples, a crowd 
 of smaller boys eligible only for gym following respect- 
 fully a few yards behind, escorting the giant to the 
 place where he would refresh himself. As they passed 
 and Huncote waited, he heard the beginning of an argu- 
 ment as to whether Bill was as good as Gunner Moir. 
 After the room had emptied he went out into the corri- 
 dor that seemed so cold without anything living in it. 
 Those half dozen words with Fighting Bill had shaken 
 him a little; the parson seemed so alive and zestful as 
 he knocked loafers into heaven. Huncote felt apart, 
 as if he belonged to some inhuman system. Ford and 
 his friends seemed to have taken warmth with them. 
 He sighed; but what was one to do? And suddenly 
 there came upon him the feeling that after all Ford 
 was being used for the purposes of the Settlement, was 
 contributing to its power, bringing through apparent
 
 THE WINGS OF UTOPIA 85 
 
 brutality all these boys nearer to culture and to edu- 
 cation. It was not his business to follow them into 
 public houses; his rather to sow the field which Ford 
 ploughed. Still, it had been dusty in there; he felt 
 thirsty. 
 
 " I'd better go and have a drink at the Progress 
 Arms," he thought. 
 
 Ill 
 
 It was just round the corner to the Progress Arms, as 
 it always is to public houses, except that the Progress 
 Arms was not exactly a public house. It was a large 
 white room with a monastic air ; a hint of cheerfulness 
 in its disordered benches; an accumulating hint of 
 aesthetic developments about the Kingsley and John 
 Morley texts upon the wall. This den of Janus showed 
 the face of improvement by the side of the face of the 
 drinking hell. (The alliance between the sheep and 
 the goat ; and could they cross ?) On the improvement 
 side were four newspapers, the Daily Express, the Daily 
 News, the Daily Chronicle, and the Daily Citizen. 
 This congress of political oppositions had created in the 
 bosom of the Committee a fine sense of open-mindedness, 
 because each member objected to at least two out of the 
 four papers. On the improvement side also, on a shelf, 
 were some Really Good Books, the titles of which Hun- 
 cote could not see ; but he was haunted the whole even- 
 ing by one of them, which lay on the floor, The Pleas- 
 ures of Life by Sir John Lubbock. It looked as if it 
 had been flung there with great violence by one of the 
 revellers. 
 
 On the drinking hell side were the bar, two gas-jets, 
 and a barmaid. The bar and gas-jets were quite nor- 
 mal, but the barmaid was such as to deliver man from 
 evil. Lastly, there was the gambling den: marble- 
 topped tables, draughts, chess, and dominoes. When
 
 86 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 Huncote came in the dominoes were engaging two rather 
 depressed-looking revellers, while another, whose cocoa 
 seemed to have gone to his head, was addressing confi- 
 dential, but presumably progressive remarks to the re- 
 sistible barmaid. There was a little stir when Huncote 
 came in, even among the dominoes. The man at the 
 bar straightened himself and respectfully wished him: 
 " Good evening." The barmaid grew very conscious of 
 being looked at, which she wasn't. 
 
 " A cup of cocoa, please," said Huncote, and in the 
 silence that followed felt impelled to add to the roomful : 
 " Go on, don't mind me." For he acutely felt that they 
 were minding him. But little by little things seemed 
 to grow easier; two youths came in and in a very far 
 corner began behind a chess-board to play some peculiar 
 game of their own with a metallic tinkle about it. 
 Huncote suspected it must be shove halfpenny, strictly 
 forbidden. But what was one to do? He engaged in 
 conversation the man at the bar and the barmaid. 
 
 " Rather a fine night," he said. 
 
 " Yes, sir," said the man. " Let's hope it'll keep 
 on." 
 
 " A little rain'll do the country good," said the bar- 
 maid refinedly. 
 
 The man at the bar opened his mouth to say : " Shut 
 yer mug, the country don't want no rain in January," 
 but just in time altered it to : " We can't always 'ave 
 what we want in this world." 
 
 " Ah, no," sighed the barmaid. " Isn't that true, 
 sir? Still we mustn't grumble, must we, sir? Every 
 cloud has a silver lining." 
 
 " That depends, that depends," said the man discon- 
 tentedly. 
 
 His nose was so long and so thin and so sharp that 
 Huncote felt sorry for him. Whatever happened one 
 would never be contented with a nose like that. 
 
 " That depends," said the man, looking at him.
 
 87 
 
 " For instance, there's my eldest boy, I can't manage 
 him. Manage that boy ? Well, yer might as well try 
 and manage a bl , a blessed wild horse. Now I put 
 it to yer, sir, as man to man I put it to yer, sir . . ." 
 
 As man to man he put it to him that Fred broke win- 
 dows, and played truant, and stole pennies from the 
 till, " regular bad boy." He put it to Huncote as man 
 to man, and then he put it to him again. And again. 
 
 " Well," said Huncote, " what's to be done ? What 
 have you done ? I s'pose you've tried thrashing ? " 
 
 The man looked shamefaced and his nose chastened. 
 
 " On principle, sir, I wouldn't do it, but what's a 
 man to do ? I've given him many a leatherin' but it's 
 no bl , no use, sir. I've got to get him into a reforma- 
 tory. Ah, if I could do that . . ." 
 
 " How sad," murmured the barmaid gently. 
 
 The man began to paint the reformatory of his 
 dreams, where Fred would be washed, and taught, and 
 got out of the way of the beak, where at least, if Fred 
 did not cease troubling, his father would be at rest. 
 
 " And the beak won't send 'im there," he said ag- 
 grievedly. " I don't know what Vs waiting for. Mur- 
 der, I expect." 
 
 Joe Beesby came in. " The beak ! " he grumbled. 
 " Cup o' corf ee, Miss, please. The beak ! Good even- 
 ing, sir, I was tellin' you about 'im the other night." 
 
 " Yes, you were," said Huncote desperately, remem- 
 bering the story of the tools. So he turned towards the 
 long thin nose. 
 
 , " We ought to get him into an industrial school," he 
 said. 
 
 Joe Beesby woke up. He felt somebody was going 
 to get something. This would never do. 
 
 " Sir," he said sorrowfully, fascinating Huncote with 
 his grave small eye, " I've got a crippled daughter, I've 
 been trying to get 'er in a 'ome. It's been my ambition 
 for years." He paused and reverently took from his
 
 88 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 bald head the little boy's cap. Then he wiped his head 
 with his sleeve. The long nose grew anxious. 
 
 " D'yer think yer cud get 'im into an industrial 
 school, sir ? " 
 
 Joe Beesby said. " If you was to speak to Mr. 
 Churton, sir, about my daughter . . ." 
 
 " Now I put it to yer as . . ." said the long thin 
 nose. 
 
 Two more men came in and settled opposite Huncote, 
 so that he was blockaded between Beesby and the thin 
 nose. They endlessly explained their troubles, begged 
 for the remedies which apparently he held in his hands. 
 It was like a scene on the stage, with the gas sputtering 
 above his head, and the barmaid looking at him raptly, 
 thinking he did talk beautiful. 
 
 It was a long time, he thought, before he escaped, 
 before he got out of the Progress Arms, leaving behind 
 him the parents who talked of getting their children 
 into the reformatory and the cripples' home as awed as 
 if they were going to get them into Parliament. He 
 was uneasy. It was not that people troubled him, not 
 Beesby nor the anonymous nose. But there was creep- 
 ing upon him a suspicion as to the quality of his own 
 work. And so he did not go home straight, but found 
 himself walking down past Bubwith's, cutting across 
 Somerton towards Euston. It was very dark in Somer- 
 ton, except at corners where they sold drink. As he 
 went he thought : " After the flood Deucalion, to make 
 new men, flung behind him his grandmother's bones. 
 What is it I fling that slaves should arise behind me ? " 
 
 In the grip of this reaction he stopped at a flaming 
 public house, at the corner of the alley that leads into 
 Paradise Square. It was twelve o'clock and, spurred 
 on by the clock that is always a little fast, the men in 
 the public bar were shouldering one another. One 
 could hardly hear oneself order a drink, such a deep 
 buzz of talk did there come from the private bar and the
 
 THE WINGS OF UTOPIA 89 
 
 ladies'. For a moment the barmaid hovered over Hun- 
 cote, turkey-cock body and torch ahead. She winked at 
 him as she gave him his whisky and soda, thought him 
 green, for this drink seemed aristocratic in the public 
 bar. For a moment she rested on her elbow and stared 
 at him. Then as he raised his glass remarked: 
 " Chin-chin." 
 
 He laughed, feeling together shy and comfortable. 
 
 Two men who were close up against him nudged each 
 other and laughed at him, with him.. They were not 
 quite drunk. " She didn't 'arf give 'im the glad eye," 
 murmured one of them, nodding towards Huncote as he 
 spoke. " No wonner he thinks hisself a Piccadilly 
 torf." He was not offensive. He laughed as he spoke, 
 and somehow Huncote found himself joined to him by 
 his merriment. 
 
 In a few moments he was talking to them. One was 
 a navvy, the other a taxi driver. It was a strange con- 
 versation for, starting from their daily work, it passed 
 on swiftly to the political views of their class, to ideas. 
 
 " You've got to 'ave unemployment," said the navvy. 
 " 'Ow'd yer manage w'en there's a rush if there weren't 
 no unemployed ? " 
 
 The taxi driver nodded sagely. " You've got it, but 
 it'll all be stopped w'en we get the Eight to Work Bill. 
 Another mouthful of Guinness's, Miss, an' keep yer eye 
 orf youth and beauty." (Nodding towards Huncote.) 
 
 The taxi driver and the navvy fell to discussing the 
 Right to Work Bill, and Huncote, listening, saying 
 " yes " or " no " when appealed to as a sort of judge, 
 found it extraordinary that these men should under- 
 stand so well without, of course, being able to state in 
 political form what they thought, the reactions between 
 the supply and the demand of goods, the reserve of 
 labour, a thing of which he was himself but dimly con- 
 scious. Had he underrated the people? He felt 
 ashamed. The two men began to wrangle, for the taxi
 
 90 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 driver wanted women to be placed on the same footing 
 as men. The navvy objected, presumably because 
 women might cut into the navvy trade. " All right for 
 you to talk," he said ; " women won't drive your bloody 
 taxi." 
 
 Huncote intervened ; asked the taxi driver if he was a 
 socialist. Both men grew violent. They weren't no 
 blasted socialists, either on 'em, they were just plain 
 men who kept their eyes open, that's what they were. 
 
 Then, when their political attitude was defined, ex- 
 treme anarchism which thought itself conservative, Hun- 
 cote was given a drink. 
 
 He was thinking a little more clearly as he walked 
 home through the brilliant winter-whiteness of the 
 waning night. He did not want to go home to his dirty 
 little rooms in Clare Street, the sitting room where the 
 landlady would have let out the fire long ago, the bed- 
 room where, if the window was open, which he hoped, 
 the washstand would probably be covered with a thin 
 film of smuts. Through Paradise Row and Crapp's 
 Lane, Crapp's Lane that winds, by day violent of voice 
 and of nights so little and so still, towards the north he 
 went, with nothing to accompany him save his thoughts. 
 And nothing to distract him. The world seemed so far 
 away when asleep, and so little remained of the world 
 of day ; the smell of rotting vegetables fallen from the 
 costers' stalls; the padding of a cat's paws as it leapt 
 from a window onto the pavement; the distant lowing 
 of a cow in that insanitary shed that Miss Miskin so 
 often denounced. Only details in a life that every day 
 grew wider. He thought of" all these organisations 
 eddying round him, of the brotherhoods and the 
 P.S.A.'s ; of the clerk, the coster, the small tradesman, 
 the silk-hatted coronations of men who were rising in 
 the world, and even a little uneasily of Fighting Bill 
 and what he represented. If the Progress Arms meant 
 too little and that public house where he had just drunk
 
 91 
 
 meant nothing, perhaps Fighting Bill meant too much. 
 So like a dog running fast after a stone, and so fast 
 as to overrun it. Even Fighting Bill seemed artificial 
 in this icy blue light that fell from the moon and made 
 blacker shadows upon black stones, as if the earth were 
 dead and another Selene. He laughed. A new Selene. 
 And Fighting Bill's Sunday meetings where gentlemen 
 probably doffed their collars and wore chokers to en- 
 courage men who either never wore collars or never 
 changed them. It seemed so funny and so unreal, this 
 business he was at with the others. He turned back, 
 and as he so did he sighed. For a little while he stopped 
 in front of Bubwith's Stores, now shuttered. Chairs 
 and tables, horsehair and plush, yes, that was all solid 
 enough. Anyhow, one could sit on it. He sighed.
 
 CHAPTER THE FIFTH 
 
 WAVEEING WINGS 
 
 IT was fortunate for Huncote that his work tended to 
 change, that Churton, as if by intention, often suggested 
 new fields. For otherwise he would have been lonely. 
 There were no Londoners in his family; on both sides 
 they were country people, most of whom shunned the 
 wicked city ; the nearer folk at St. Olaves came up only 
 six weeks in the year because once upon a time they 
 had come up six weeks in the year. And, as at Ox- 
 ford, he made few new friends. He saw Gorsley in the 
 intervals of the fat youth's bounds up the ladder of suc- 
 cess. (This was taking the form of a year's cramming 
 for the Indian Civil.) Churton gave him little: some 
 conversation about the Settlement which Churton 
 seemed to look upon as a relief from the work; his so- 
 ciety on aimless walks before dinner in which he con- 
 fided nothing of his thoughts and everything of his ob- 
 servations. Ditton he met casually with the hateful 
 sense of being ashamed: Ditton was a witness. Hun- 
 cote felt very red-eared after the few minutes' talk they 
 had outside a tube station; as Ditton looked at him 
 Huncote felt heavy upon him the oppression of the man 
 who knew that he had been drunk and incontinent. 
 He was wrong ; Ditton knew nothing of the end except 
 that he had vanished with Wray, and Lord Alastair was 
 far too drunk to remember what had happened. So 
 Huncote as good as ran away and seldom thought of his 
 companions on that evil, beneficent, revealing night, 
 except sometimes of Moss, with whom he would like
 
 WAVERING WINGS 93 
 
 to have pursued that conversation about Bach. But he 
 dared not go to Copthall Buildings; Moss was part of 
 the past that made him, and past. Huncote was like a 
 kitten that knows not its mother after six months. 
 
 He had abandoned the employment bureau now and 
 was engaged on an attempt, initiated by Platt, to Raise 
 the Artistic Status of the People. Platt, who belonged 
 to the Temple Club (and was bald and a Liberal), had 
 determined to harness to the chariot of his political 
 career the principles of the Kyrle Society. One had 
 to give the people the habit of pictures, " for every pic- 
 ture tells a story," Platt suggested. And so, if one 
 began by hanging the people's rooms with reproductions 
 of "The Golden Staircase", or of "Dante's First 
 Meeting with Beatrice ", one might, little by little, by 
 inducing them to accept other pictures of the same na- 
 ture, bring them to hang pictures, artistic of course, 
 most artistic, but reading a truer party lesson. Pic- 
 tures of Mr. Gladstone, for instance. 
 
 Also he was dutifully visiting the Progress Arms once 
 a week, and now and then he played at concerts. His 
 past troubled him a little, those people he had befriended 
 and, notably, the woman who had the frequent twins. 
 For affection had developed in her, and so she would 
 come in now and then, when he still controlled the Em- 
 ployment Bureau, and detect in his face symptoms of 
 disease. 
 
 " You're lookin' a bit pale, Mister 'Uncote. I been 
 like that. It's wisteria, the doctor says it is; I know, 
 I've 'ad it." 
 
 Huncote reassured her as to his hysteria. But if he 
 was not pale he was sallow, and when noticed was told : 
 
 "That's jaundice, sir; I know, I've 'ad it." 
 
 Huncote's protegee would have been appreciated by 
 the curator of the College of Surgeons' Museum. 
 
 There was a Purity for Boys movement too. But 
 that was to lead him farther.
 
 94 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 There were disconnections in his life. Things oc- 
 curred ; then there were blanks. During the blanks he 
 smoked a lot. During one of them Flora came up to 
 town, visited his rooms in Clare Street and explored, 
 with pretty liftings of skirt and charming pouts, the 
 innumerable places his landlady had never dusted. He 
 liked being with Flora. Elspeth, for this desultory 
 mood, would have been too precise, too hard; she was 
 never desultory ; she lived like a ledger and carried for- 
 ward at the end of every day. So, as it was not mati- 
 nee day, Huncote induced Flora to walk with him from 
 St. Panwich to St. John's Wood, as she declared that 
 she would rather stay with a friend of hers than in his 
 undusted rooms, even though that friend had married 
 a vicar. The walk was like his life, desultory. It 
 began at the St. Panwich High Street, where Flora's 
 prettiness attracted attention; the greengrocer's boy in- 
 terrupted an argument with 'one of his peers to beg Hun- 
 cote to leave the girl alone. Flora tittered, while Hun- 
 cote walked very stiff and hot by her side, and the two 
 boys behind them produced poor imitations of feminine 
 giggles and squeals of : " Don'tj Algy, you're squeez- 
 ing." They straggled along through Regent's Park 
 that was fresh with spring, the new grass purple-span- 
 gled with crocuses. Flora, after shyly alluding to her 
 new conquests, chattered of the graces of Lewis Waller, 
 and the desirability of coloured socks for men, then be- 
 
 came serious. 
 a 
 
 Oh, Roger," she groaned, " how I hate St. Olaves ! " 
 
 He looked at her humorously. 
 
 "You'd hate London if you lived in it," he said, 
 "you only want a change. You ought to live in a 
 cinema." 
 
 " I'd love to live in a cinema. Not in the St. 
 Olaves one ; it's too violent. You know, Roger, cinemas 
 always are more violent in cathedral towns. They take 
 people's mind off it."
 
 WAVERING WINGS 95 
 
 They progressed towards St. John's Wood, Flora still 
 bemoaning her fate. 
 
 " It's mother," she said. " There she is with her 
 half-socialism, with her half-suffrage, sticking in the 
 mud and me with her. And she calls herself progres- 
 sive!" 
 
 " She is for St. Olaves. Flora, dear, don't you 
 see that if she came to town she'd no longer be pro- 
 gressive, no longer have prospects ? " 
 
 " Well, what if she hadn't ? Prospects are for youth, 
 retrospects for age." 
 
 Huncote looked at her amazed. 
 
 " Flora ! This is the most modern kind of epigram : 
 it means nothing, it's entirely idiotic, and it sounds 
 profound. Flora ! I believe you've fallen in love with 
 a member of the St. Olaves Fabian nursery." 
 
 She laughed, she blushed. (She did both prettily.) 
 And her brother's guess was right enough, for the re- 
 mark had been made by a young architect, the philo- 
 sophical anarchist who was restoring the gargoyles of 
 the Abbey, singing as he so did most obscene Italian 
 songs. (A minor canon, who understood Italian, 
 caught him at it once but was nonplussed when told 
 that profanity formed an essential part of the medi- 
 aeval spirit of worship.) But it was not Flora's policy 
 to announce her scalps ; mystery made them more : had 
 she fallen in love with a hydra she would not have 
 hinted at a hundred heads. 
 
 Instead she went on mourning ; in St. Olaves she was 
 marooned. 
 
 " Look at that," she cried, in Marlborough Road, 
 pointing to the grounds of the Fly-Fishing School, 
 where the trees, like tall black-clad schoolgirls, crowned 
 with stray green leaves, curtseyed to the light spring 
 wind. " Look at that ; it's like St. Olaves, only it's 
 London. Roger, we ought to have a house here. D'you 
 think mother would ? " She grew excited, seized him
 
 96 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 by the arm as she looked at the beautiful wild plot of 
 meadow and trees where sometimes nightingales sing, 
 yet of the builder spared. " Roger, d'you think it 
 would be very dear to buy that land and to build 
 a house? Oh, Roger, you build a house. You're 
 rich!" 
 
 " I'm not" 
 
 " Oh, yes, you are. Oh, Roger, do build a house, and 
 I'll be your housekeeper, and I shan't interfere with 
 you when you've got somebody really nice coming to see 
 you. I'll always be out." 
 
 He laughed., " That's what you call being a house- 
 keeper ! " 
 
 But Flora was really interested, and as they went 
 along towards the Abbey Road where she left him at 
 her friend's gate, she was still excitedly talking of the 
 St. Olaves house which her mother ought to build on 
 the plot where the Hampstead stockbrokers learnt to 
 cast flies into the currant bushes. 
 
 II 
 
 It was only just then that dimly, as if he saw them 
 through ground glass, Huncote, after three months of 
 service at the Settlement, realised its internal organs. 
 Not clearly, of course; it was something like a radio 
 photograph he saw, a moving shadow that might be 
 a beating heart or merely a stodgy lump of something 
 dead, called Principles. More dimly he began to see 
 persons behind the movement. Once upon a time the 
 movement had a soul of its own, had been a beneficent 
 spirit incorporeal. 
 
 Now, rather suddenly, he found men behind the 
 movement, and it made the movement a little coarse. 
 It was a shock, just like finding out that the London 
 and South Western, in whose first-class carriages one 
 had ridden as often as possible with a third-class ticket,
 
 WAVERING WINGS 97 
 
 materialised in the form of a shareholder, a nice old 
 lady who gave one tea in a Rockingham teacup and sent 
 half sovereigns to missions. 
 
 But because Huncote was what he was, that is indi- 
 rect, he was quite unable to understand the picture sys- 
 tem by observing it, just as he was unable to under- 
 stand the purity system by observing it: his was the 
 way of the crayfish, and he could conclude as to the 
 pictures only by observing purity. The purity was 
 really very interesting. It had newly been introduced 
 into St. Panwich when the Settlement in its layness 
 realised that the Alliance of Honour and the Reverend 
 F. B. Meyer had brought off a corner in local purity 
 movements.. And the Settlement (being lay) thought 
 it rather a pity that the people, in the course of being 
 made pure, should also have to be saved. 
 
 " You see," said Churton, whom Huncote suspected 
 of having created the whole idea and of hiding it with 
 the ostentatious modesty so rife in public-school boys, 
 " we felt we couldn't leave it out. Not exactly nice, of 
 course. Only when they've got this sort of thing all 
 over the place . . ." 
 
 He held out to Huncote a little pamphlet, entitled 
 " THE TEMPLE OF MY BODY. To Young Men. The 
 Road to Purity (48th edition, 157th thousand)." 
 
 Huncote looked at " the sort of thing " with rather 
 uncertain emotions. He read the confession of a man 
 who said he had a very prurient imagination, then vague 
 allusions to the maelstrom of passion and the bliss of 
 wedlock. He read also a pathetic little story, entitled 
 " Excelsior ", beginning with the body of a well-dressed 
 young woman found hanging in a doss-house. It 
 was quite an exciting little book, with pictures of the 
 Titanic going down, and of British soldiers defending 
 in a probable Transvaal something that looked like a 
 tram but probably was not. It was quite the sort of 
 thing that boys might read, only it was not convenient
 
 98 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 for lay purposes owing to the religious allusions at the 
 end. It was rather a revelation to Huncote. He had 
 never realised before until he saw the literature, " The 
 Knight of the White Cross ", " Royal Womanhood in 
 every Rank", and many such like, that there were 
 classes which the community flooded with pamphlets 
 and more efficiently watched than it had ever watched 
 him at his public school or university. He had been 
 pi-jawed. They were being morally organised. It was 
 funny, and it was awkward too ; it made him quite un- 
 comfortable at Fighting Bill's boxing class to which he 
 returned. How could he know, as he watched these nice 
 boys sparring, that they had not recently been vacci- 
 nated with puritine ? Where were the mental scabs ? 
 he wondered. And while Fighting Bill murmured: 
 " That's nice," and then roared : " Clinch, you silly 
 kid ! " Huncote found himself haunted by the Reverend 
 Stopford Brooke's admonitory verse: 
 
 " Three girls began that summer night, 
 A life of endless shame, 
 And went through drink, disease and death, 
 As swift as racing flame." 
 
 Still, it did not make everybody uncomfortable, and 
 one of those whom it best pleased was clearly George 
 Green. What George Green was doing in the Settle- 
 ment, in fact on the Committee, was rather mysterious. 
 He was about forty-five and had the white podgy face 
 of the unaired and the unexercised. His large nose, 
 heavy at the tip and turned up, conveyed unlimited 
 pugnacity. Huncote hated him, largely because black 
 hairs stuck out of his nostrils; he was bald too, and a 
 paunch was developing. He hated the insinuating con- 
 fidence of the man, half-shamed, half-boastful, when 
 George Green conveyed that he was sober and uxorious, 
 having made up his mind to get on and discovered that 
 drink cost money and women didn't. In those early
 
 WAVERING WINGS 99 
 
 days Huncote was still able to believe that something 
 noble and disinterested struggled in George Green's 
 alleged soul. Only it was jolly hard to find that some- 
 thing. What could one expect of a man with such a 
 voice ? a voice like a squashed tomato ? If Huncote had 
 known he would have been less surprised and more in- 
 dignant; he would have known that Green had picked 
 up in the course of his business as a builder some mort- 
 gages on houses pulled down to build the Settlement. 
 He had realised that the Settlement might grow and 
 had shown himself so interested, so easy in his terms 
 that on the creation of the Committee, competition not 
 yet being keen, he had obtained a seat. The Settlement 
 had been extended from time to time. Churton was 
 sometimes puzzled by an architectural problem; then 
 the builder would say : " Leave it to me and my man, 
 Mr. Churton; me and 'im'll do it for you at corst 
 price." 
 
 Huncote had not realised this; he had but glimpsed 
 it just as he was now glimpsing the sensuous connec- 
 tions between the builder and the purity movement. 
 He awoke to it only when George Green came to his 
 office to complain about a secular short story in pamphlet 
 form; with this the Settlement tried to warn youth 
 against perils which the Settlement was too modest to 
 name. It was the usual kind of warning : rather sug- 
 gestive, entirely uneducational. 
 
 " Now I arsk yer, Mr. 'Uncote, what's the good o' 
 this ? 'Go's goin' to read this ? That wot yer call gin- 
 ger?" 
 
 Huncote read the opening, which had been composed, 
 he seemed to remember, by Mrs. Kamsey, entitled 
 " Beauty's Shrine " : 
 
 "Upon a beautiful April morning a young Englishman, 
 tall and fair as a Greek God, stood by the side of a brook. 
 By his side a young maiden of sweet seventeen sat at his 
 feet with her eyes glued to the summons that he should join
 
 100 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 his regiment. They did not speak but listened to the noise, 
 far away, of a train * in the valley. She looked up to him, 
 her eyes swimming in tears, and said : ' Oh, Archie, must 
 you go ? ' 
 
 "It is my duty,' said the young soldier, for he was a son 
 of the bulldog breed. . . ." 
 
 In due course the story became pathetic; the young 
 soldier was tempted more often than even most young 
 soldiers are tempted and more horribly, for it was al- 
 most impossible to find out from the story how or by 
 what he was tempted. He had enteric (it was so diffi- 
 cult to miss enteric about 1902), so probably his nurse 
 was at fault. But he surmounted all these anonymous 
 temptations by the strength of his ethical purposes, and 
 he came back a long time later, grizzled and sunburnt, 
 with a scar upon his forehead to find the maiden wait- 
 ing for him at the Ch railway station. 
 
 " No," said Huncote, at length, " I suppose it isn't 
 exactly what you'd call catchy." He reflected that it 
 was a pity they had put Mrs. Ramsey on this work. 
 Her specialty was not literature but the white slave 
 traffic. 
 
 " Now look 'ere," said George Green, " you take my 
 tip, Mr. 'Uncote, we don' want none of this 'ere lardydar 
 psalm-smitin' wi'out the psalms. Wot you want is 
 somethin' as they'll think 'ot." 
 
 Huncote looked at him rather puzzled. 
 
 " Oh, surely, Mr. Green, you'd be creating the evil 
 you want to root out ? " 
 
 The builder made a large gesture with a short arm. 
 
 " You don' take me. Wot we've got to do is to git 
 them inter the Settlement. Don't matter 'ow yer do it ; 
 git 'em in, Settlement does the rest. It's like the Fabian 
 Society." His tone became knowing. "Besides, 'oo 
 cares ? We ain't so partic'lar, you an' me." He 
 nudged Huncote with a violent elbow. " We ain't 
 
 i Originally " church bells." Deleted by the Committee.
 
 101 
 
 above a week-end at Brighton, are we ? Eh, wot ? " 
 (Eh, what? was popular in those days.) 
 
 Huncote looked at him more amused than disgusted. 
 He was faintly beginning to grasp the nature of George 
 Green's interest in this purity movement. Why, the 
 man actually liked purity because it made impurity 
 more impure. It was as wonderful as it was disgust- 
 ing. 
 
 The builder went on: 
 
 " Tell yer wot, these pictures of swells round the 
 fountain in Piccadilly, that's too rekerky, as the French 
 say. If yer want 'em to read the stuff put on somethin' 
 'ot, picture of Venus of Milo, or somethin'." 
 
 " 'Ot ? " thought Huncote. " 'Ot ! " 
 
 The builder grew purposeful: purity excited him. 
 He hinted at an early marriage, not regretted, for, of 
 course, " the missis was the best woman in the world, 
 but still, one does want a bit of a change, and the spirit 
 is willing but the flesh is weak, as Shakespeare says." 
 
 Still Huncote listened to him, glad to listen; the 
 builder was willing to talk and revealed himself so com- 
 pletely, every side of himself, his love of home and his 
 respect of it, his real and deep love of his wife and chil- 
 dren, all these things stowed away in a water-tight com- 
 partment; outside that compartment the gay world of 
 larks and smut where moved women figures, prostitutes 
 or female employees, born for his pleasure. Huncote 
 did not like to comment on his private life; anything 
 but generalities made him shy. Indeed he grew so shy 
 that he deflected the conversation as he did not know 
 how to get rid of Green. From home he tried to lead 
 him to building. But Green had a good deal to say 
 about home ; he loved it as he loved his wealth because 
 he had earned both at the price of much suffering, much 
 labour, by dint of an obstinate fighting courage, of a 
 tireless enterprise in finding out who had land, who 
 money, and who wanted to build.
 
 102 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 " Bort a planner the other day for the nursery," he 
 confided. " O' course, we already 'ad one in the 
 drawring-room. Still, 'ad to 'ave another for the 
 smalls." He reflected upon his greatness; then, as if 
 soliloquising: "So the wife plays the drawring-room 
 one, and Arabella plays the nursery one with all the 
 windows open. That fetches the neighbours, I can tell 
 yer." He grew intense : " I'd put down another forty 
 quid, I would, just to shew 'em." 
 
 Huncote could not help laughing, but Green looked at 
 him stupidly. Then, deciding that Huncote had 
 laughed out of courtesy, went on : " You ain't thinkin' 
 of buildin', Mr. 'Uncote, are yer ? " 
 
 " Oh, no," said Huncote. " What would I want with 
 a house, Mr. Green ? Even though my sister has fallen 
 in love with a piece of land in Marlborough Road where 
 she wants me to build a house for her and me, which is 
 of course absurd." 
 
 There was a perceptible pause. George Green's .eyes 
 became fixed, and a curve came into his shoulders as he 
 were a beast about to spring. " Oh, that ain't a bad 
 ideer. That neighbourhood's comin' on. Tell yer 
 wot," he added, with a burst of frankness, " runnin' up 
 rows and rows of places that ain't worth twenty poun's 
 a year, that ain't enough for me. Let me 'ave a go at 
 something tony, Now, Mr. 'Uncote, you let me run 
 you up a little 'ouse in the Marlborough Road. Do it 
 for yer in first class style. Wot d'yer say to 'Lisbethan ? 
 with the plaster painted up nice to look like beams, an' 
 a gable or two ; they don' corst much more really. And 
 I allus say there's nothin' like- a porch to give a 'ouse 
 tone, with some art noovo glass. Abart ten rooms. Do 
 it for yer for fifteen 'undred quid." He nudged him. 
 "What say?" 
 
 Huncote edged away; this was horrible. Here in- 
 deed was George Green working with the energy that 
 had made him. One word and up came the idea, the
 
 WAVERING WINGS 103 
 
 whole house, its riot of bastard styles, its accommoda- 
 tion, its cost, and behind it, driving it, the fierce will of 
 George Green, conqueror. 
 
 Huncote found excuses. He had not made up his 
 mind ; he had no money. George Green said no more. 
 He went away; he could wait and try again. He had 
 often waited and tried again in his forty-five years, and 
 he was ready to go on. So that was it : George Green, 
 sensualist, behind the purity which whipped his impure 
 desires; George Green, builder, behind the Committee 
 which gave out plumbing orders, used cement, bricks, 
 gravel. It was like a watch-dog, this horrible lucidity. 
 And Platt was visible too, Platt of " The Golden Stair- 
 case ", Platt of " Dante's First Sight of Beatrice ", pre- 
 paring the way to a safe seat. The men behind the 
 movement, men fallible. For a shattering moment 
 Huncote saw the movement as fallible as they. 
 
 Ill 
 
 And yet he did not refuse to join the Committee 
 when, rather suddenly, at the end of April he was 
 nominated. Suddenly? It seemed suddenly and yet 
 it was not, for Green, working as usual on lines ob- 
 scured, came to him two days after this conversation. 
 
 " You orter be on the Committee, Mr. 'Uncote. The 
 first time as I set eyes on yer, I says to Mr. Churton, 
 I says, ' That's the gent. We want more like 'im.' ' 
 His little dark eyes grew smaller and more brilliant. 
 " There's a vacancy, there allus is a vacancy." He 
 rolled over Huncote's protests. " Leave it all ter me. 
 Oh, no, there won't be no opposition, I'll put it across 
 'em if there is." 
 
 And somehow within a few weeks Huncote found 
 himself paralysed into accepting this nomination. He 
 was entangled too in a conversation which hideously 
 connected with the previous one about the house he
 
 ought to build in the fly-fishing school. " Go on, Mr. 
 'Uncote," said the voice of the siren, " I'm not trying 
 to rush yer ; 'ave a little 'ouse if yer want it ; pay wot 
 yer like and 'ave wot yer like, that's wot I allus says." 
 
 Huncote was nudged and helplessly found himself 
 saying he'd think it over, just as helplessly as he had 
 accepted the nomination. He could not stand up to 
 this man. Purity, building, and committee wangling, 
 it was all too much for him. George Green talked a lot 
 about wangling; Huncote did not quite know what it 
 was, but anyhow he was wangled on to the Committee 
 within a fortnight, and every day he grew more afraid 
 that he would also be wangled into the house in Marl- 
 borough Road. 
 
 He entered the Committee-room with a distinct sense 
 of promotion. It was a wilfully official room ; the walls 
 were decorated solely with photos of lay football teams, 
 quotations from Sesame and Lilies; the chairs had been 
 selected hard enough to expedite business. It was not 
 too stunning, however, for by now Huncote knew most 
 of the members : Churton, ex-officio, Platt of the Temple 
 Club, Miss Miskin, who that day still looked like a wet 
 lizard but was not hysterical. There was Mrs. Ram- 
 sey too, and a woman whom Huncote did not know. 
 She was the wife of a Progressive County Councillor 
 and watched Charlie's interests inside the Settlement 
 while Charlie himself kept out and did the chapels. 
 (St. Panwich had done the usual thing: after electing 
 Sir Henry Govan as its Conservative M.P. it had felt 
 sorry and returned the anonymous Charlie as Progres- 
 sive for the L.C.C.) She never said anything, she just 
 watched. 
 
 Churton read at trained speed the minutes of the last 
 meeting. They were signed by Platt, the day's chair- 
 man. There were no checks, no jocularities, even 
 though this was a Monday; probably the chairs were 
 too hard. Churton reported the yield of an appeal for
 
 WAVERING WINGS 105 
 
 funds. This was for the purchase of more autotypes, 
 as the Settlement endowment was enough only to keep 
 up the fabric and pay the secretary. Indeed there 
 seemed to be trouble which Huncote did not understand 
 between the Committee and the Trustees. So far as 
 he could gather the Trustees refused to invest a thou- 
 sand pounds' worth of drawn bonds in some remuner- 
 ative stock proposed by the Committee. 
 
 " Perfectly scandalous," said Mrs. Ramsey. " We've 
 no power at all and think of the work we have to do." 
 There was a pause of approval. Miss Miskin fiercely 
 added that the Trustees were doing all they could to kill 
 their work and that this reduction of their income by 
 fifteen pounds was evidence of it. At last Platt inter- 
 vened, his intention being to get on good terms with 
 both Trustees and Committee, and promised to draft a 
 letter to the Trustees, suggesting a compromise. 
 
 A vote for repairing the leaky roof of the east wing 
 was passed. " Only a slate or two," said George Green, 
 " leave it to my man and me ; me an' 'im'll do it at 
 corst price." 
 
 Churton reported on the arrangements for the dance 
 in another fortnight, which caused further acidity. 
 
 " If you ask me," said Mrs. Ramsey, " there's more 
 harm than good done by these dances. We live among 
 a loose population which it is our business to raise, not 
 to degrade." 
 
 " Surely there's nothing degrading about a dance, 
 Mrs. Ramsey," said Platt suavely. 
 
 " I don't say there is, and I'm not going to talk reli- 
 gion though you all know my views. I've come into 
 this Lay Settlement setting aside my deepest feelings." 
 Murmur of approval from Miss Miskin. " And we all 
 know that the ramifications of the white slave traf- 
 fic . . ." 
 
 For several minutes Mrs. Ramsey exposed the soul- 
 market which might or might not be established within
 
 106 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 a Settlement dance, until at last, and in the nick of 
 time, she was interrupted by Miss Miskin. Said the 
 lizard : 
 
 " And they get very hot, and when they're hot they 
 have too much to drink. This Settlement does not take 
 enough notice of the drink problem ..." 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Miss Miskin," said Platt, " but 
 we supply lemonade." 
 
 " They go to the public house during the intervals," 
 snarled Miss Miskin. 
 
 "And greater evils follow," her ally, Mrs. Eamsey, 
 went on. 
 
 It was all Churton and Platt could do, with a little 
 help from Huncote, to explain that even if the dance 
 ended in all the men being drunk and all the girls being 
 kidnapped to Buenos Ayres, the posters were out, and 
 it would have to happen. The Committee slowly re- 
 solved into grumbling consideration of the decay of the 
 area railings. The anonymous Mrs. Charlie remained 
 all through eloquently watchful. She was like a me- 
 chanical tiger in the attitude of springing, but with the 
 spring broken. Huncote did not pay much attention 
 to the next proceedings, for this sensation of seeing 
 things through ground glass was on him still. Mrs. 
 Eamsey and Miss Miskin were showing him their fierce 
 hatred of the pleasure which they helped to organise; 
 the spinster, rather soured, seemed to have come in to 
 make other lives sour, though she did not know it. 
 Doubtless she meant well. " Those are the worst," he 
 thought, with sudden cynicism. And Mrs. Ramsey, 
 fuming against immorality, was filling his mind with 
 thoughts of immorality. They seemed so queer, these 
 fierce busybodies, and brought out in such sharp relief 
 by suave Platt, so determined to be universally popular. 
 Platt smiled on Huncote a smile that said : " Let me 
 see, you've got a lodger's vote in Clare Street, haven't 
 you ? " Huncote hated him.
 
 WAVERING WINGS 107 
 
 Later Fighting Bill, who was not a member of the 
 Committee but had been co-opted by a sub-committee, 
 was admitted to decide whether women should be ad- 
 mitted to the Progress Arms. The report, which was 
 signed by him, the anonymous Mrs. Charlie, and Miss 
 Miskin, left the Committee much embarrassed, for the 
 Fighting Parson's attitude had been : " Let them all 
 come into the Progress Arms, and let's have beer in- 
 stead of cocoa," while Miss Miskin's view was that the 
 Progress Arms should be treated as was Gomorrah. 
 As for the anonymous Mrs. Charlie, she had taken a 
 line so skilfully intermediate that it was indistinguish- 
 able. And the debate, which clearly had raged in the 
 meetings of the sub-committee, began again. 
 
 " One thing leads to another," said Miss Miskin ob- 
 stinately. " If you let women in you let in the wrong 
 kind of cheerfulness." 
 
 Mrs. Eamsey protested. 
 
 " Oh, you know what I mean, Mrs. Ramsey," the 
 lizard snapped. " All I say is that if you mix the 
 sexes in a place like that the demand arises for some- 
 thing stronger than cocoa." 
 
 " D'you suggest it's the women who demand beer ? " 
 asked Fighting Bill. 
 
 " No, Mr. Ford, I've already replied in sub-commit- 
 tee to that preposterous question. At any rate I do not 
 want the women in." 
 
 " Well, I do," said Fighting Bill. Then with irri- 
 tating affectation : " Bless 'em ! " 
 
 The debate was complicated by the intervention of 
 Mrs. Ramsey who saw dangers other than drink in the 
 frequentation of the Progress Arms by women. The 
 position seemed to be that the men seemed disinclined 
 to go without their sweethearts and wives, and that the 
 Progress Arms might as well be shut up for all the 
 patronage it secured. 
 
 " Let it be shut up," screamed Miss Miskin.
 
 "Beer instead of cocoa/' growled the Fighting Par- 
 son. 
 
 It was like rival war cries. Huncote interfered, 
 pleaded for a little Liberalism, pointed out that if the 
 Progress Arms did not admit women the King's Arms 
 did. He was sat upon by both the women, while the 
 parson laughed and Platt attempted to soothe every- 
 body. Then George Green was drawn in. " I'm not 
 one for the drink," he said, fixing Miss Miskin with 
 an imploring eye, " been a teetotaler all my life, but 
 wot I says is this, if a woman's going to make a beast 
 of 'erself she don' want to go to the Progress Arms 
 ter do it, not she ! " 
 
 Platt came in with a diplomatic suggestion that it 
 should be tried for a month. For the first time that 
 afternoon the anonymous Mrs. Charlie seemed moved 
 to enthusiasm. George Green seemed disappointed. 
 Miss Miskin could not very well refuse, any more than 
 he could, and so very soon it was decided to try for a 
 month the admission of women to the Progress Arms. 
 Very soon afterwards, in the midst of heaviness, when 
 Ford had left the Committee after telling Huncote in 
 an undertone that if Canterbury had never abandoned 
 Rome this scene would not have occurred, the proceed- 
 ings closed on one of the frequent wrangles between 
 George Green and the rest of the Committee because 
 he ended by lighting his pipe. An acrid discussion 
 showed that this was looked upon as disrespectful to 
 the ladies. 
 
 Later in the day Huncote was still thinking of these 
 people, together and separately. Separately of Platt, 
 giving his labour so that a constituency might learn to 
 know him, of Churton, paid and prostrate before the 
 sublime, if not very clear vision of his masters, of Miss 
 Miskin, anxious that nobody should drink, of Mrs. 
 Ramsey that nobody should stray. He thought of 
 George Green too, who in a flashing sentence had told
 
 WAVERING WINGS 109 
 
 him, without knowing it, why he supported the admis- 
 sion of women to the Progress Arms : " They'll come 
 right enough, you'll see. The Arms won't be big 
 enough : in a month we'll 'ave to extend them, throw out 
 a wing at the back. What ? " 
 
 It was dreadful, it was all so small, so inefficient ; it 
 would have been better, thought Huncote, to fall among 
 highwaymen than among peculators. 
 
 IV 
 
 Like a child that has been hurt Huncote went to St. 
 Olaves, not telling himself that his mother would com- 
 fort him, but instinctively. Within a few minutes he 
 knew that his mother could never do much more for 
 him than be untidy and pleasing. So he did not say 
 what he had wanted to say, or discuss with her whether, 
 as she had once so acutely suggested, he should persist 
 in the error of staying in the Settlement when he no 
 longer believed in it. Instead he called on the Dean 
 and tried, which was not easy, to be respectful to the 
 church and loyal to the laity. And everybody talked to 
 him about the Settlement as they talk of the army to a 
 soldier. So he who had come to throw off the organisa- 
 tion found himself recruiting for it. The big dance 
 was coming off, and women helpers could not be too 
 many. Elspeth refused. 
 
 " No, thanks ! I know the sort of thing, a collection 
 of all the undesirables in the district and no enquiries 
 made." 
 
 " We don't have the tickets countersigned by the 
 C.O.S., if that's what you mean," said Huncote acridly. 
 Brother and sister then sulked for three meals. 
 
 Flora was different. "Oh, I'd love to come; it's 
 sweet of you, Roger." She put a pointed little hand 
 upon his elbow and ogled him. " I love dancing," she 
 said.
 
 110 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 Her brother patted the little hand. "You know, I 
 don't promise you a life guard." 
 
 She laughed. " Roger, dear, even a railway guard 
 would be a blessing in a place like this." 
 
 This was not exactly social zeal, Roger thought, but 
 still . . . 
 
 The dance was on a Saturday night in the big lecture 
 room. The forms stood against the walls, and every- 
 thing had been violently washed; a new text had been 
 added to the William Morris and the Ruskin, reading: 
 " The Peace that passeth all Understanding be upon 
 this House ", etc. The artist had forgotten the " n " 
 in " understanding ", which was very fortunate, for 
 two out of three of the helpers, as Huncote entered the 
 dressing-room, asked him whether " the peace that 
 passed all udderstanding ", etc. He grew rather tired 
 of that joke in the course of the evening. 
 
 When he went into the hall the couples were already 
 dancing stiffly to the strains of the Settlement band. It 
 was a good band except that there was a piccolo in it. 
 
 " You see," said Miss Underwood, " we had to let 
 the piccolo in. It would have been so hard on the poor 
 fellow if we hadn't." 
 
 It was not yet warm in the hall, for only twenty 
 couples were dancing, and of those over a dozen were 
 boys and girls of the people, partnered with enormous 
 self-consciousness by serious young men from the uni- 
 versities and imported West-enders who were raking 
 their brains to find something more suitable to talk of 
 than the Riviera and winter sports. But all along the 
 sides of the hall was a staid mob that overflowed into lob- 
 bies and corridors. These were quite young girls from 
 the laundry, step-girls at twopence a morning, pale girls 
 who worked at home at box and buttonhole making, and 
 a rowdier, fresh-faced kind, abundantly shawled, that 
 sold flowers. At a little respectful distance were the 
 men, young artisans and shopboys, and overgrown tele-
 
 WAVERING WINGS 111 
 
 graph boys, proud of their uniform and disinclined to 
 consort with anything less than a boy scout. Little by 
 little the talk increased though still exclusively mono- 
 sexual: there was no blending of the sexes yet, except 
 that sweethearts kept together with a mixture of satis- 
 faction and rigid conventionality. 
 
 The band banged and ripped from waltz to mazurka 
 and on to a quadrille. Churton came in a little anxious, 
 though cadaverous and beaming. At once he was or- 
 ganising, and Huncote, suffering a pang of self-con- 
 sciousness, was thrust into the arms of something fat 
 and pink, with a row of sham pearls round its neck, 
 that giggled and blushed while he blushed and stam- 
 mered. Its surname he did not know, but only its 
 name, Hilda. They danced. The girl danced well, 
 and for a moment all was well, but Huncote knew he 
 would have to say something and, struggle as he might, 
 he could think only of the word Hilda. At last, with 
 a great effort, he brought out : " Very hot, isn't 
 it?" 
 
 She tossed fair curls. "Oh, I don't think so, not 
 for this time of year." 
 
 Huncote paused. Should he talk about the time of 
 year ? He felt impelled to ask her what her work was 
 and remembered just in time that they were all ladies 
 and gentlemen that night. Still, he had to lead some- 
 thing. He was skilful. 
 
 " That depends," he said, " whether you go out a lot 
 during the day." 
 
 " I don't much ; I'm in business, you see." 
 
 This was not very informative ; he read her shopgirl, 
 while she was factory. So they ploughed on, Hilda 
 laughing and giggling at nothing, while he talked rather 
 priggishly about the dancing classes which the Settle- 
 ment had been running of late months. 
 
 " Oh, I don't need them," said the girl, rather acid, 
 and Huncote realised that this had been taken as a re-
 
 112 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 flection on her dancing. He was glad when it was over. 
 Fortunately they did not have to sit out. 
 
 He did not at once begin to dance again, for there 
 had been a slight increase in the number of couples. 
 He saw Churton, dark and long as a day without 
 caresses, in the embrace of a young woman still longer, 
 it seemed, because she was thinner ; he saw Miss Under- 
 wood, very languid and negligent, guiding without ap- 
 parent effort the uncertain steps of Fred Beesby, the 
 young man who had " sorced the beak." 
 
 Quite insensibly, as if obeying a class custom, he 
 found himself clustering with the men of whom there 
 were still a good many groups segregated opposite a lot 
 of girls who conversed in shrill undertones and held 
 each other's hands and waists. He edged nearer and 
 nearer to the men, hardly knowing how to begin to talk 
 to them. Platt did; Platt always talked to the men, 
 for women's suffrage had not yet come in. He envied 
 Platt, he envied the beam upon his legal face, even the 
 reassuring benevolence of his forehead. He heard a 
 scrap of a sentence. 
 
 " Easter soon. We'll have to be thinking of 
 cricket ; that's a good manly sport." 
 
 George Green, dancing with a red-haired girl over 
 whom he hung, rather close-pressed, threw him as he 
 passed an oily wink. 
 
 Several of the young men glanced at Huncote, then 
 ostentatiously turned away. They were jolly and 
 chaffing as no girls were there to make them self-con- 
 scious ; he heard an argument as to whether one of them 
 preferred ginger beer. There seemed to be a lot of 
 guffawing over this ; then somebody in a very tight blue 
 suit and a very high collar, obviously a clerk, said: 
 " All right, 'Erb, I don't want to cast any nasturtiums 
 on you ! " 
 
 Huncote pondered over this for some time. Then a 
 young man, who had been watching the others with an
 
 WAVERING WINGS 113 
 
 air so sardonic that it could not be natural, addressed 
 him. 
 
 " You're Mr. Huncote," said the young man. Then, 
 definitely : " My name's Caldwell, Albert Caldwell. 
 They call me Bert mostly." 
 
 " Oh, good evening," said Huncote, uncertain, half- 
 putting out his hand. The young man did not take it. 
 He was of the middle size, fairly sturdy, looked about 
 twenty-eight, and was the ordinary kind of blue-eyed, 
 fair-haired young artisan. 
 
 " Why aren't you dancing ? " asked Huncote. 
 
 " I might ask you that," said Caldwell, " only you're 
 an official." 
 
 Huncote laughed. " Oh, don't call me anything so 
 big; I'm only helping." 
 
 The young man grew hostile. " Helping ! If only 
 people wouldn't help us ! It's helping keeps the people 
 down. You can't help 'em up, Mr. Huncote; you can 
 only tread on their faces when they're down." 
 
 Huncote looked at him rather surprised. This was 
 not party conversation. 
 
 " Surely," he said, " we don't tread on the people's 
 faces." 
 
 " No," said Caldwell ferociously, as if the presence 
 of the " swell " galled him, " I only wish you would. 
 What you do to the people's faces is to stroke them, and 
 so there they lie in the gutter." He raised an arm and 
 began to shout. 
 
 " Steady, old Keir Hardie," cried one of his friends. 
 But Bert took no notice, and within a few seconds the 
 full socialist case was being stated to Huncote. Com- 
 bined with the surrounding conversation it made a 
 strange mixture. 
 
 " Charity's the thing that makes the people bear what 
 they ought to learn not to bear. This idea of stopping 
 the class war, this Settlement idea, what is it ? " 
 
 Chorus of ironic parties : " Yes, what is it ? "
 
 Bert turned upon the group with ferocity. " You 
 don't want to know, that's why you ask." He returned 
 to Huncote and poured upon him a description of the 
 depravity and degradation and other words in " d " 
 from which he excluded " damnation " (because he did 
 not believe in God) to which the people were subjected. 
 
 And yet Huncote could not fix himself; he was still 
 hypnotised by the ironic parties, by the arrival of an- 
 other to whom somebody said : " Good evening, my 
 lord duke!" 
 
 Somehow the incipient wrangle was stifled. It was 
 Miss Underwood who did it. She came up to ranting 
 Bert and with a smile told those who were laughing at 
 him that she was quite on their side but also on his. 
 " Mr. Caldwell," she said, " I've been looking for you 
 everywhere. Do you know, you were just going to cut 
 my dance ? " The eloquence oozed out of the orator. 
 He blushed violently. " Up go the socialist colours," 
 said a whitey-green boy, but Bert was too overcome 
 to reply; Theresa held him because he had nearly 
 broken his word. For him an awful risk! She was 
 doing more ; she was chasing the girls from their groups 
 and, two by two, leading them to the men, pairing them 
 off. Huncote liked to see her move; she moved so 
 easily, like a lily hardly swaying in the wind. 
 
 " And you, Mr. Huncote, come along with me and 
 Mr. Caldwell; there's somebody I want you to dance 
 with very particularly." 
 
 Huncote did not want to dance, remembering his 
 other partner, but what was he to do, with those half- 
 pathetic, half -humorous brown eyes fixed upon him? 
 He could not withstand the laughter that was in the 
 curves of the rather loose mouth. Soon he stood before 
 a dark young girl, Miss Groby. For a moment, as 
 Theresa danced away in the arms of Bert Caldwell, he 
 was uncertain. Then, and quite suddenly it seemed, 
 everything grew easy. It was as if a change had come
 
 WAVERING WINGS 115 
 
 over the room; many more couples were dancing now, 
 and there was some rowdiness in the air; people talked 
 louder, and Huncote's heart leapt with it as if he had 
 been snatched up with many other young things and 
 with them become aware of youth. 
 
 He realised that he had been staring at the girl while 
 he thought of something else. He said : " I beg your 
 pardon." 
 
 " Granted," she replied. 
 
 He looked at her more closely. 
 
 His perceptions were more acute now; he saw that 
 she too must have been thinking of something else, for 
 her eyes rested away from him. Indeed they followed 
 Bert Caldwell as he went away with Miss Underwood. 
 Sweethearts, no doubt ; so much the better. It led natu- 
 rally to conversation. They began to dance. Miss 
 Groby did not dance well, and at first they did not speak 
 while he learnt her step. Then he said : 
 
 " I've just been talking to Mr. Caldwell ; I think you 
 know him ? " 
 
 "Yes," said Miss Groby, "he does go on, doesn't 
 he?" 
 
 Huncote laughed at her seriousness. 
 
 " Eyes of youth," he said, rather priggishly ; " see 
 the dream behind the shadow." 
 
 Miss Groby looked up at him with intense serious- 
 ness, evidently interested, evidently not understanding 
 at all. As they looked at each other she interested him. 
 Over her broad, low forehead, its whiteness enriched by 
 a touch of yellow, a mass of thick black hair, done in 
 many curls, clustered close. As they danced there fell 
 upon it from the lights a sheen, sometimes brown, some- 
 times violet. The eyes that looked up at him were large 
 and very dark brown, like port when no light shines 
 through it. They looked at him steadfast, rather far 
 apart, under heavy arched brows that made her appear 
 trustful. She could be shy, but just then she was not
 
 116 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 shy, for she was interested by the sound of words that 
 meant nothing, but caressed her. And suddenly, con- 
 scious of her stare, she blushed. It was the faintest 
 blush, so dark was she, as the last peering of the sunset 
 through the wing of dusk. He too blushed and felt 
 absurdly young, he who at twenty-three was so old. 
 They danced on, and quickly he asked her whether she 
 liked dancing, as if to relieve the tension of the first 
 moment. 
 
 " I love it," she said enthusiastically. Then, as she 
 trod on him : " Sorry. You see, I don't get much of 
 a chance." 
 
 He asked her whether she never went to dances other 
 than those of the Settlement. It seemed that she did 
 sometimes with with friends to whom she later al- 
 luded with a blush as " them." Indeed all through 
 that dance Huncote was a little puzzled because Miss 
 Groby never said " he " ; she said " they." It made 
 him wonder, though he should not have cared, whether 
 she meant Bert Caldwell. 
 
 And so, as they danced, Miss Groby prattled on, 
 sometimes simple, sometimes stilted. She was half- 
 natural when she told him that she did not go out to 
 work but washed fine lace and blouses at home; then, 
 when Huncote was about to talk of the washerwoman's 
 trade, Miss Groby grew refined. 
 
 " I get a good deal of time to myself ; that's nice, 
 don't you think ? " 
 
 He was conscious just then of her hand in his, which 
 he could feel muscular through the cotton glove. He 
 said: 
 
 "And what d'you do with yourself then? D'you 
 read or . . . ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, I'm a great reader." 
 
 Huncote hesitated to ask what she read, but already 
 enthusiastic, alive to herself, Miss Groby abandoned 
 books in general, and concentrating upon a story un-
 
 WAVERING WINGS 117 
 
 known to Huncote, in which there was a guardsman and 
 a bad foreign princess, began to tell him the plot. 
 
 He was not so relieved as the other time when his 
 dance was done; it had been very much the same, for 
 his new partner wore sham pearls just like the first, and 
 it had been the same kind of conversation. He sup- 
 posed he was getting used to the atmosphere. Indeed 
 he was, for he grew bolder; it grew warmer, introduc- 
 tions were offered him, and he accepted them; he even 
 danced once more with the little fat rose. In a break 
 he had a word with George Green. Green had to relin- 
 quish his partner, a small, pale girl, with big green eyes 
 and a very red mouth that drooped like the lip of a 
 lily. The builder had, it seemed to Huncote, been 
 holding the girl too close. When her new partner came, 
 Green, who sat by her side, had his shoulder upon hers 
 and leant, whispering very close to the little ear, half- 
 buried in pale straight hair. 
 
 Green winked at him. " I watched you dancing, 
 Mr. 'Uncote. Yer don't give the girls 'arf a chance." 
 He nudged him. " Yer take a leaf out of my book." 
 He figured his attitude, clearly showing that his hand 
 would grasp his partner above the elbow : " The gay 
 fantastic, eh ? " He hugged the air violently. 
 " That's the way, Mr. 'Uncote. Give 'em a little bit 
 o' the Boston from Paree ; they like it, bless 'em." 
 
 Huncote turned away disgusted. He could not fix 
 the disgustingness, but somehow it was there. When 
 one is fat one ought not to be white, or if one is, one 
 should not dance. Green was repulsive just then ; with 
 sweat upon his face he was like a bladder of lard in 
 hot weather. 
 
 It was nearly twelve o'clock; the character of the 
 dance had changed. No stiffness now and no intro- 
 ducing, but partner-snatching and guffaws, a haze in 
 the air, making the lights mysterious, eyes deeper, 
 cheeks brighter, hair more brilliant and unruly. He
 
 danced with two more girls, and a third led him into a 
 lancer set which, as the hour advanced, turned from the 
 drawing-room kind into the most violent kitchen type. 
 Again he danced with Miss Grohy. 
 
 He did not remember the next day what he had said ; 
 nothing of any importance. But it was nice to dance 
 with her again. She smiled at him as he came up to 
 her; he had seen her mouth, so agreeable, he thought, 
 with its fullness and its many curves, the lips parted 
 and upturned, showing dark against the pale honey of 
 her skin. 
 
 His reserve was gone, and somehow all was well. He 
 joked with Churton; Platt looked funny and grand- 
 fatherly; he even challenged Miss Miskin to a dance 
 which was austerely and fortunately refused him. Yes, 
 there was something in the Settlement after all if of 
 so much youth it could make so much gaiety. In the 
 refectory a little later, as he drank a glass of lemonade 
 with his partner, he saw Miss Underwood watching him 
 with a faint, half -ironic smile. He smiled back at her 
 rather more broadly than he meant, as if he could so 
 smile at all the world. She was charming, he thought. 
 Again he had to think of a lily or rather of a reed, 
 tall, slim, a little disdainful. She came closer, and 
 her left eyebrow rose. " Enjoying yourself ? " she 
 asked. 
 
 " Rather," he said, suddenly boyish. 
 
 " That's right," said Miss Underwood comfortably. 
 The deep brown eyes seemed veiled as if by the shadow 
 of long downcast lashes, and Huncote for a second felt a 
 little too young. 
 
 Much later, as he went to sleep, confused thought 
 passed through his brain. First Miss Underwood, just 
 gracious; all those people he had seen that night, so 
 young, a little gross in their merriment but so merry 
 in their grossness. He thought of the young men so 
 brisk, of Miss Groby and, of the tender mouth turned
 
 WAVERING WINGS 119 
 
 back upon the pale honey of her skin, but much more of 
 the Settlement, a good fairy, author of the night's de- 
 lights. Insensibly from enthusiasm he passed into 
 dream.
 
 CHAPTER THE SIXTH 
 
 ANDEOMEDA' 
 
 THE lecturer droned on amiably. He had analysed 
 Sartor Resartus; he had been mildly humorous about 
 the pronunciation of Teuf elsdrockh ; he had jarred 
 Huncote's nerves by smiling at a group of women and 
 saying that in mixed company he dared not pursue be- 
 yond trousers the preoccupations of Carlyle, and they 
 had laughed, servilely laughed. Smokily, gloomily, 
 fell the light, for the globes were dirty. Feet shifted, 
 and because it had rained, a scent of moist clothes and 
 ill-washed bodies rose up. Huncote, on one of the cross 
 seats near the platform, looked at the audience, many 
 women, most of them of the class that improves its 
 mind, artisans rather eager, the sort of artisan that 
 knows its Spencer, its Darwin, and its John Lubbock. 
 Huncote watched with half-amusement a young man 
 who was slowly being garrotted by a cygnian collar ; he 
 was making notes. He was making notes nervously, it 
 seemed indiscriminately, as a magpie collects spoons. 
 The lecturer said: 
 
 " And if we look upon it broadly enough it is certain 
 that genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains." 
 
 The strangulated youth made a note. 
 
 The lecturer wandered off into the life of Frederick 
 the Great; he linked up the Prussian king with the 
 heroes which should perhaps be worshipped ; he dared to 
 elaborate that " silence was deep as eternity." He ex- 
 plained that " speech was shallow as time."
 
 ANDROMEDA 121 
 
 Still the feet shifted and the clothes steamed; the 
 young man shifted within the magic circle that marked 
 him from a Fenchurch Street gehenna. And then a 
 little later the lecturer alluded to Carlyle as the sage of 
 Chelsea. 
 
 Huncote observed the secretary of the Mutual Im- 
 provement Society. He was just a smile for ever and 
 ever. He had created the lecture society of which was 
 to be born a world. Smokily, gloomily, fell the light 
 and with it the misty illuminations of the surly old 
 Scotch beast and his puny apoplexies. Long before the 
 lecture was over Huncote hated the man and this ac- 
 complice audience who were indeed making fingent and 
 fictile the ruggedness he had once loved. He did not 
 follow very closely what was being said, catching a frag- 
 ment now and then, a gentle regret that the sage " had 
 taken such liberties with the King's English." He 
 thought of himself within this system, these people 
 being loaded with commonplaces by the commonplace, 
 absorbing scraps of secondhand thought, making an 
 idea out of a bit of Carlyle without having as a cor- 
 rective say a bit of Montaigne. Scraps, always scraps ; 
 here they were, all of them in St. Panwich, trying of 
 humanity to make royalties and actually placing upon 
 the shoulders of men royal robes while leaving them ill- 
 shod. He thought of the work he had been doing these 
 last weeks, of the loan exhibition, of the reproduction of 
 the Venus de Milo before which two young men, think- 
 ing themselves unobserved, had nudged each other. 
 One of them had said : " Very 'ot ! " Exactly what 
 George Green had said! It was all wrong; at least 
 nothing was right, and he found himself quoting a 
 scrap of John Davidson: 
 
 "Now I fear the light; 
 I shrink from every sight; 
 I see there's nothing right; 
 I hope to die to-night."
 
 122 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 All solemn, all turned to stone. The condition of the 
 people : petrified or putrefied ? Which was best ? A 
 revolt seized him, for here was the quality of difference 
 between the lecture and the dance; there youth and 
 gaiety, coarse perhaps but yet precious because rare as 
 spikenard ; here the locusts eating years. A hot feeling 
 of enthusiastic memory came over him as he thought 
 of the dance ; it was like feeling by contrast, now that 
 he hated these people in their smugness, learning, and 
 thinking that by learning they would know; when he 
 remembered the dance, where they did not think, but 
 felt, he glowed, he loved them. 
 
 A little of his emotion came out soon after as he 
 talked to Churton. The lecturer was being thanked, 
 and the young man, who by this looked like a sardine 
 collared in a fishing-net, had made a note (in memory 
 of Lubbock) that the true university is a collection of 
 books. 
 
 " How did you like it ? " asked Churton, very serious. 
 
 Huncote laughed. " Fudge," he said. 
 
 Churton looked shocked, raised his eyebrows. 
 " Well, well," he said, " a good eighteenth century 
 word, a slight anachronism. c Rubbish ' would have 
 appealed to the sage of . . ." 
 
 " I beg you, Churton, do not call him the sage of 
 Chelsea. The sixty people who came here to-night and 
 who have done you no harm will scatter that name 
 through the generations." 
 
 " I don't see what you have against it," said Chur- 
 ton, " but you don't seem pleased." 
 
 " Pleased ? " said Huncote .bitterly. " Good heav- 
 ens, Churton, you don't think we're doing any good at 
 this game, giving these people scraps and tags, giving 
 them an idea without its corrective, letting them mix 
 Goethe with l The Rosary.* Oh, I can hardly explain, 
 but don't you see what I'm driving at ? I mean what's 
 the good of giving these people a sight of literature
 
 ANDROMEDA 123 
 
 with blinkers on? Give them the whole thing or give 
 them nothing. These scraps only make them smug." 
 He laughed : "I can hear half of them quoting a tag 
 next week when the boiler goes wrong." 
 
 " We're not a university," said Churton loftily, " and 
 the lecturer is not an encyclopaedia." 
 
 " I'd want to be one," said Huncote. 
 
 Churton threw him an eloquent look, a look so elo- 
 quent that it was a whisper and a pat, a " hush " and 
 " there, there " look. 
 
 " Self-sufficient young man," he said, " the greatest 
 of faults is to be conscious of none, as," he wickedly 
 added, " the sage of . . ." 
 
 Huncote grew vicious. 
 
 " Anyhow, Carlyle cribbed that from Pliny." 
 
 It was an acid moment, and there were other acid 
 moments to come, moments of weariness, moments when 
 Huncote, whose serenity was gone, lost his temper with 
 the representative ministers of various sects and told 
 one of them that one could not see Christ for their 
 crosses; there was a more bitter moment still to come 
 when the last scale of illusion fell from George 
 Green. 
 
 In those days there was a penny weekly, called The 
 Jolly Roger, which made it its business to unearth the 
 decently buried corpses of scandals and shamelessly ex- 
 pose them to the public eye. A justice of the peace 
 could not say that poachers should be shot, or a servant 
 girl have an illegitimate baby, or a welsher change his 
 address, without the Jolly Roger arming for an expedi- 
 tion. Having lost two libel actions instituted by bish- 
 ops it turned its attention to the Settlements; its com- 
 missioners joined the workers of Toynbee Hall and of 
 the Passmore-Edwards Settlement. In vain : the Jolly 
 Roger had to wash its hands of them for no fault could 
 be found there. But after glancing at the Leysian Mis- 
 sion they discovered something in the St. Panwich Lay
 
 124: THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 Settlement. The something came out in a long article 
 which made the placard for the week: 
 
 Isn't George 
 
 GEEEN? 
 (I don't think) 
 
 The gist of the article was in one of its paragraphs : 
 
 ... so you see, the Board of Guardians wanted that bit 
 of land. Had to have it in fact. So the Hon. Fitzallan 
 said to the other guardians : " Haw ! Haw ! We've got to 
 have that land, eh what ? How can we get it ? " And 
 would you believe it that one of the other guardians said: 
 " Leave it to me and me man, me and 'im'll do it." They 
 did. This guardian went along to his brother-in-law George 
 (alleged) Green, and George (incorruptible sea) Green, said : 
 " It doesn't belong to me, I've no interest in it." But why 
 or how did it happen that a sub-contractor, nameless still, 
 had suddenly run up buildings on behalf of a contractor who, 
 of course, was not employed by George (verdi) Green, but 
 was employed by a contractor who worked on his wife's land. 
 Singular and strange is the association between the faithful 
 board of guardians, the brother-in-law guardian, contractor, 
 sub-contractor, the wife, and at the end, most innocent, 
 George (pseudo-verdant) Green. 
 
 The article was clear enough, though wrong in de- 
 tails. George Green owned the land in his wife's name, 
 and as it was wanted by the hoard had caused jerry- 
 buildings to be run up by a sub-contractor so as to sweat 
 an increased price out of a gullible Board of Guardians 
 with the help of his brother-in-law. A few days later 
 Huncote, out of whose way the builder seemed to have 
 kept, spoke to a few members of the Committee. The 
 results were disappointing.
 
 ANDROMEDA 125 
 
 " My dear fellow," said Platt, " it's all very well, 
 but you can't prevent Mrs. Green from owning land and 
 from having buildings run up." 
 
 " Oh, don't talk rot," said Huncote rudely ; " you 
 know quite well it's Green's land." 
 
 " I know nothing of the kind," said Platt, " and no 
 more does anybody." He grew fatherly : " Take my 
 word for it and let these things alone, my dear fellow; 
 they only make unpleasantness." 
 
 It passed through Huncote's mind that George Green 
 was a prominent member of Platt's election committee ; 
 that rumour called Green a relentless enemy of Lady 
 Govan ever since she had refused him the contract for 
 building the Education League branch at Hertford. 
 Platt was no good, a mere vote-monger. He tried Miss 
 Miskin but found her quite indifferent, as was also Mrs. 
 Ramsey. He caught them both together at the girls' 
 sewing-class. " I don't see what the trouble is about," 
 said Miss Miskin, fixing him with her reptile eye, " I've 
 got some land of my own." 
 
 " I can't be bothered about it," said Mrs. Eamsey. 
 " I've got too much to look after." She flung a circular 
 look at the sewing-class which at that moment was re- 
 spectfully folding up its work and casting from under 
 its youthful brows shy glances at Huncote. " Any- 
 how, Mr. Huncote," she said, " I don't very much care 
 for men to come into the class." Huncote flushed as if 
 indeed he were the white slaver Mrs. Eamsey evidently 
 saw in him. 
 
 It was no good; they did not care. Even George 
 Green did not care. He did not speak of the scandal 
 much ; indeed only once was he direct and then he said : 
 
 " Tell yer wot, Mr. 'Uncote, it don't 'urt me. Fact 
 is, it's a bit of an ad. for the firm. Only wants a bit o' 
 moral courage, that's all it wants." 
 
 Huncote could have laughed, but he was sickened. 
 Listlessly he went on with the work which had seized
 
 him and out of which it was so difficult to get, with 
 societies that trained boys and girls on leaving school, 
 with milk clubs under royal patronage. He even at- 
 tended a drawing-room meeting where there was a K. C. 
 and an ex-Lady Mayoress, to discuss : " Where Will 
 You Spend Eternity ? " Truly a burning question. 
 
 He found himself walking very fast up Crapp's 
 Lane, not noticing that day the barrows where the 
 oranges glowed like dead suns. " I must go," he 
 thought, " I must go." He could not understand the 
 quality of those people, the limits of their activities, the 
 directions of their enthusiasm. He could not under- 
 stand that they could mean well, that indeed they 
 thought themselves crusaders against drink, immorality, 
 and ignorance, that they had come into power because 
 they had executive energy, while finer folk had only 
 ideals and uncertain impulses, that Platt thought not 
 only to satisfy himself but also to benefit the world by 
 becoming Platt, M. P. At the end of Crapp's Lane he 
 met Ford, exchanging with a coster genial blasphemy 
 and religious enlightenment. 
 
 " You look pretty groggy," said Ford. 
 
 Huncote could not keep down his misery ; he told him 
 everything, not very clearly. But the Fighting Parson 
 understood. " Oh, I know," he said, " I know all 
 that. One gets sick, one thinks it's no good and then 
 well, you have a pipe and an imperial pint, and go to a 
 music hall, and you begin to see there's something in 
 the Sermon on the Mount after all." 
 
 Huncote looked enviously at the big, blue-eyed par- 
 son, so like a large boy. Happy Ford, for whom in any 
 public house flowed the fountain hippocrene. But 
 Fighting Bill, unconscious of being analysed, was seri- 
 ous. 
 
 " Don't go," he said, " don't make Luther's mistake. 
 He shouldn't have turned down the Church of Kome 
 like that, he should have stuck it out and done his best
 
 ANDROMEDA 127 
 
 to introduce the latest improvements. You've got your 
 devil, and it's no good asking the Almighty to cast him 
 out ; he didn't give him to you meaning to cast him out, 
 he gave you your devil to be a trial to you, and for you 
 to lay into him." The Fighting Parson dealt at the air 
 a blow that would have pulverised any materialised 
 demon. " See what I mean ? Don't throw it over, 
 stick to your Settlement and save its soul." 
 
 II 
 
 " And didn't that do you any good ? " asked Theresa. 
 
 He shook his head. For a moment he looked at the 
 tall girl who leant negligently against the wall, one arm 
 akimbo, and thought that, so slim and so pale in her 
 green Liberty gown, she was like a convolvulus. But 
 he was too preoccupied with his own mind to think 
 long of her just then. 
 
 " No," he said, " it's no good to me. Ford's devil's 
 medieval, he has horns and a cynical face like a Drury 
 Lane ambassador. One can't believe in the devil when 
 one doesn't believe in God, and, if it comes to that, I'm 
 not sure I'm so keen on casting out the Son of the 
 Morning. They called him Pan once upon a time." 
 
 Theresa opened her mouth to say : " And what do 
 you know about Pan ? " but, thinking it too personal, 
 she said : " So you must draw your hope from 
 ethics ? " 
 
 Huncote nodded. " Yes, that's about it, and it 
 rather looks as if Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the school 
 regulations of the borough council were rather dry 
 oranges." His ironic smile suddenly gave place to an 
 air of misery. " It's no good," he said suddenly. 
 " No good, Miss Underwood, really ; we're not doing 
 anything ; I must give it up. I don't know what I can 
 do instead."
 
 128 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 Theresa's face grew serious. She suddenly forgot 
 that she was twenty-six and very, very old by the side 
 of this enthusiastic boy. She put out a hand he did not 
 see, then quickly drew it back, glad that he had not seen 
 it and yet, not knowing why, sorry he had not. " Don't 
 say that," she murmured, " can't you understand that 
 if people like you go out of these movements you leave 
 them in the hands of the people you detest ? That 
 makes things worse, doesn't it ? " 
 
 " And what if they do get worse ? " cried the young 
 man. " What if the Settlement and its charges do go 
 to Ford's mediaeval hell? What will it matter to 
 Sirius ? " He gave a sharp laugh. " Can't you see 
 yourself what rubbish all this is, what I'm doing and 
 what you're doing, what we're all doing, like water- 
 spiders rushing about on a brook. Here we are, trying 
 to teach women to look after their children in the inter- 
 vals of charring, and how to feed their babies while 
 they're doing a legal nine-hours' day in a factory. 
 We're trying to make the men sober by letting them 
 live with three children in one room and no place to go 
 but the pub. And when we get them sober we give 
 them Euskin. Euskin ! " he repeated savagely. " To 
 people who can't read a full column in a paper because 
 it's too long, because the papers have fed them with 
 paragraphs, given them the habit of mental nips! 
 Mental nips on an empty stomach ! No wonder society 
 is sick. And it's not only that. Look at the children 
 the council's feeding; why, we haven't the decency to 
 stand them the breakfast unless they stand the educa- 
 tion ; you mustn't pauperise their parents. It wouldn't 
 do to leave twopence in the working man's pocket, would 
 it?" 
 
 " Aren't you exaggerating ? " asked Theresa. " And 
 haven't you got it a little wrong ? " She was pitying, 
 moved by his anger. " Isn't it better that they 
 shouldn't have that twopence than go and get drunk at
 
 ANDROMEDA 129 
 
 the pub and," amusement crept into her voice, " become 
 unfit for Euskin ? " 
 
 But Huncote was not to be turned. " It's absurd," 
 he cried, " it's all absurd. It's not much we do for 
 children, but what we do we stop at fourteen. Then we 
 let the girls be slaveys in lodging houses and the boys 
 be trained in the intricate art of carrying parcels. Of 
 course it doesn't work ; then we rescue them. We send 
 the boys to the colonies, who of course don't thank us, 
 just to get rid of them, to hide it all up nicely. And 
 the fallen girls, it's not many of those we get hold of 
 with our temptations, the washtub and floor-scrubbing, 
 hiding it again. Society is like a dirty armchair with 
 a loose cover: we keep the chair dirty for ever and 
 wash that loose cover so that all may look respectable 
 and nice. We tell the people to have lots of children 
 for the Empire's sake and then relieve the pressure by 
 encouraging infantile mortality." 
 
 " Surely . . ." 
 
 " Yes, yes, we do encourage infantile mortality, with 
 our low wages and our overcrowding and our labour for 
 mothers. But we're not going to talk about that, we're 
 going to talk about providing work. Work! There's 
 nothing but work in the world ; it's less work we want, 
 not more ; we want time to think. And then you come 
 and talk to me of ennobling the people and raising 
 their ideals and all that sort of thing, the sort of thing 
 I talk of, that all our class talks of with its long gab- 
 bling tongue in its cheek. Yes, we give them lectures 
 on George Borrow, and pictures. Pictures! Look at 
 this ! " He took up from the office table a little list and 
 read it. " Here's the list from the picture dealer : 
 
 LADY OF SHALOTT 5 doz. 
 
 BEATA BEATRIX Va doz. 
 
 Beatitude is no catch in St. Panwich, you see. 
 
 RETURN OF PERSEPHONE 7 doz.
 
 130 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 I tell you it's stifling. Pictures, lectures, gymnastics, 
 music . . ." 
 
 Theresa came a little nearer, laid upon the desk very 
 long, rather thin hands, and bent towards him without 
 any amusement in her soft eyes. " They wouldn't be 
 any better, would they, without those things? Aren't 
 we bringing into their lives just that something which 
 will make them aware that those lives can become finer ? 
 Aren't we showing them what we might get to ? Giv- 
 ing them a taste for it so that they may be fit when they 
 get it? It's many miles to Babylon, but you can get 
 there, you know." 
 
 Huncote shook his head so miserably that for a mo- 
 ment Theresa felt like an old woman watching a little 
 fevered child that tosses all night in stinging blankets; 
 she felt helpless. 
 
 " No," he said, " those aren't the things. It's too 
 early for art. It's wages now, food, privacy, soap, 
 security; that's what they want. Leisure especially, 
 more leisure." 
 
 " Give the people a vision," Theresa murmured. 
 
 As if to himself, Huncote said : " Yes, a vision of 
 bread and butter." 
 
 Ill 
 
 As dead love leaves behind it a memory sometimes 
 strong enough to link those who love no more, so does 
 enthusiasm, burnt out, still yield some warmth. In 
 heavy disgust Huncote set out for the May excursion of 
 the rambling club. This was the particular care of a 
 chubby secretary, who was a Radical, believed in Sick- 
 ens, in Chesterton, and read Jefferies in the under- 
 ground. Its mixed membership had geological and 
 botanical aspirations. But it also contained many 
 members who merely wanted something agreeable to do 
 on Saturday afternoons. Heavily then, as if perform-
 
 ANDROMEDA 131 
 
 ing a task, Huncote joined the noisy party at Maryle- 
 bone. There were various spinsters who in another 
 walk of life would have been Miss Miskins ; there were 
 a few elderly clerks, rather gallant, who practised the 
 mazurka in their bedrooms. Some of these had note- 
 books, and there was a five-shilling kodak in the party. 
 A curate had got in, nobody quite knew how or to 
 whom he belonged. Huncote grew aware of him as an 
 anxious figure on the platform just before the train 
 started, a mass of distressed urgencies who went about 
 asking for his cousin and finally climbed into a smoker 
 and tried to get out when it was too late. 
 
 Huncote had travelled rather miserably with Chur- 
 ton, the chubby secretary, and seven members who 
 tried to be cheerful though in the presence of the great. 
 But little by little, as London passed away into villa- 
 land where in fluffy meadows stood red and white 
 houses, dotted about like toys, and then very quickly 
 into the soft, rolling plain of Buckinghamshire, a weight 
 fell from his shoulders. The sun, which in London 
 had been fair, was here a conqueror. He felt a new 
 elation as he stepped out with his party along the road 
 which rises swift from the railway to disappear into the 
 mystery of hanging blue sky and bending bough. Al- 
 ready the party was breaking up. The spinsters, at 
 least those who were not partnered by contemporary 
 gallants, formed little groups for quick, excited talk. 
 The sweethearts too were finding isolation, while the 
 youngest girls, recruited from the teashop or the pickle 
 factory, were already growing rowdy with the van boys 
 and the more experienced ones who sold the Star and 
 the Evening News. Indeed, as they entered Chalfont 
 St. Giles, the younger botanists were getting out of 
 hand. It amused Huncote, but then anything would 
 have amused him just then, when again he felt free, 
 just because the sun shone and he was as a dog blinking 
 in it. The party collected at Milton's Cottage which
 
 132 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 they stormed in defiance of its custodian, and here the 
 curate took the opportunity to ask Huncote what had 
 become of his cousin, Miss Brandon. The secretary 
 was found; no Miss Brandon was known. The curate 
 remained obstinate. 
 
 " She said I was to meet her on the platform," he 
 repeated endlessly. He looked distressfully at the of- 
 ficials ; he was the sort of curate of whom Fighting Bill 
 did not approve; he looked as if he had been dry- 
 cleaned. The secretary's intelligence was stirred; he 
 made swift enquiries. 
 
 " But," cried the curate, " you're the Society for the 
 Revival of Mysticism, aren't you ? " 
 
 He was undeceived. Much later only was it dis- 
 covered that he had come to the wrong platform and 
 been unjustly recruited. All that afternoon he re- 
 mained with the party, reproachfully conversing, like 
 a remorseful shadow. 
 
 Until then it had been an ordinary ramble. Hun- 
 cote had at last shaken off his weariness, his feeling that 
 it would be impossible to get the right people to do 
 what was wanted. He had talked to a few members he 
 did not know; he had nodded to Miss Groby who, he 
 thought, looked dreadful that day in a long green coat, 
 a large hat swarming with congregated roses above 
 equally swarming black curls. And as they climbed 
 over the stiles with many shy squealings and gallant 
 guffaws, he had had quite a long conversation with 
 Hilda who remembered her dance partner better than 
 he did her. They had gone side by side through the 
 fields while Hilda told him a long, long story about a 
 girl who had borrowed her best hat. 
 
 " You see what I mean, it wasn't that she borrowed 
 my hat that mattered, it was what she said." 
 
 " What did she say ? " asked Huncote, rather distrait. 
 
 "But I've just been tellin' you," said Hilda, ag- 
 grieved.
 
 ANDROMEDA 133 
 
 " It's so complicated/' said Huncote. 
 
 " Don't see it is," said Hilda tartly. " That Milly, 
 don't you understand I lent her the hat to go and see 
 her people at Chigwell, and her sister says to her, 
 ' That's a dandy hat you've got, Milly,' and Milly says, 
 t Yes, it ain't bad, I got it for one-and-eleven.' She'd 
 got a nerve ! seeing I paid eight-and-six, saved it up too 
 at threepence a week." 
 
 " I don't see how . . ." murmured Huncote. 
 
 Hilda was by now shrilly exasperated, especially as 
 she had slipped on a furrow and hurt her ankle. 
 
 " No, of course, a man wouldn't." She was for a mo- 
 ment forgetting the stupendous difference in their rank. 
 " Only Milly's sister, she meets me out with a gentle- 
 man friend the other day and she says : ( Hallo, you've 
 borrowed Milly's hat ! ' * No, I haven't/ I says. She 
 says, ' Yes, you have,' she says. t No/ I says, l she bor- 
 rowed it from me.' l Ah/ she says, ' now I see, that's 
 the one that corst one-and-eleven, ain't it? Looks it 
 too, don't it ? ' And would you believe it, my gentle- 
 man friend began to laugh, like you," she added sav- 
 agely, for Huncote too laughed. At last it dawned 
 upon him what a girl might feel when an eight-and- 
 sixpenny hat was publicly advertised as worth one-and- 
 eleven. 
 
 It was some time before they caught up the rest of 
 the party ; still Hilda went on raging about the price of 
 hats, and a pale blue mist, like the heart of a shell, set- 
 tled unseen of her upon the shadowy crests of the rising 
 meadows. 
 
 In the wood where for a moment the party had col- 
 lected to decide upon a direction, the scattering began 
 again. They were to circle the wood and then go cross- 
 ways, so as to be back at Chalfont St. Giles where a 
 great tea would at five o'clock be spread at the " Pheas- 
 ant." At first Huncote was associated with two young 
 men. All three cut switches from an elder tree and
 
 134 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 went talking of bicycles while the third young man 
 whistled : " Sail Away." It was mysterious in the 
 wood, still alight with young spring leaf and speared 
 everywhere with thin golden shafts of sunlight. 
 Couples could be glimpsed through the trees; now and 
 then Huncote through frail bushes saw the white dress 
 of a girl. She passed swift as a nymph in an ausonian 
 glade. Then suddenly they came upon three girls, two 
 of them known to Huncote only by sight, and Miss 
 Groby, with whom he exchanged a shy smile. It all 
 seemed very easy; without intention Huncote found 
 that one of the young men had gone ahead with one of 
 the girls, presumably to talk of bicycles. Some way 
 behind him he heard upon the crackling wood of the 
 past autumn the footsteps of the other couple, and he 
 was alone with Miss Groby, strangely enough worrying 
 but little as to what he should say. It was she spoke 
 first: 
 
 " It's nice here," she said. 
 
 " Yes, isn't it ? " said Huncote. He took off his hat 
 and fanned himself with it. He looked at her. Yes, 
 she was pretty, he thought, with that look in her eyes, 
 half-thoughtful, half-humble, and that mouth so red, 
 turned back upon the pale honey of her skin. " Why 
 don't you take off your gloves ? " he asked. Miss Groby 
 blushed. Something personal had arisen between them. 
 She stopped. She fidgeted a little. " Go on," said 
 Huncote, " take them off; one doesn't wear gloves in the 
 country." 
 
 She looked at him a little distrustfully, as if she felt 
 reproved, and very slowly began to pull off her gloves. 
 He smiled at her, so ignorant and callous, not under- 
 standing that she did not want. a man of his class to see 
 the hands of hers. 
 
 As they stood, she so slowly pulling off her gloves, 
 the other couple passed thenu The girl was making a 
 daisy chain and as she went threw them .an accomplice
 
 ANDROMEDA 135 
 
 glance. Her young man peeled his stick, softly 
 whistling another tune. 
 
 At last Miss Groby's gloves were off, and because it 
 had been so complex Huncote looked at her hands. 
 They were not ugly ; they were muscular and somewhat 
 thickened, particularly at the joints and the finger tips. 
 And they showed coquetry, for Miss Groby ought to 
 have taken six-and-three-quarter gloves, while the marks 
 round her wrists and on the back of the hands showed 
 that she had forced them into six-and-a-half. They 
 were broad hands, tending to taper; the finger nails, 
 very neglected, were of filbert shape. Huncote looked 
 at them because the little dispute had awakened him to 
 their existence ; he liked the pallor of the wrist and the 
 strong over-lay of red and brown on the hands. Miss 
 Groby laughed; she was self-conscious, and that made 
 her silent. So it was Huncote who spoke first, rathe* 
 patronising. 
 
 " D'you often come on these expeditions ? " 
 
 " I came last year," said Miss Groby, " that was my 
 first year. You see, mother didn't like me running 
 about the country; she said I was too young, I was 
 only eighteen then." 
 
 " Ah, yes," said Huncote, who felt absurdly fatherly 
 as she was so young and he felt so old. " Of course, if 
 your mother ..." 
 
 "Mother knows best," said Miss Groby quickly, as 
 if afraid Huncote was going to criticise her. " Mother 
 always says, l Life's a funny thing, and you never 
 know what'll happen next.' That's true, don't you 
 think?" 
 
 The man agreed. " Yes," he said, " it's true, even if 
 it's not very epigrammatic." 
 
 Miss Groby looked at him with large admiring eyes. 
 She thought him splendid, so tall and long-limbed and 
 aristocratic with that high wide forehead, and the 
 swept-back fair hair. But an obscure ragging instinct,
 
 half -youthful, half -cockney, made her say : " Good 
 word, epidramatic ! " 
 
 Suddenly they both laughed. As if laughter,, like a 
 magic carpet, had snatched them up, they were in an- 
 other world, the Palace of Ease. She had made a fool 
 of him, so they could be children together. She prat- 
 tled on still about her mother, for the subject seemed 
 to fire her, about her mother of whom a picture slowly 
 grew up, always working, it seemed, and always think- 
 ing of the children's boots and father's dinner, or tuck- 
 ing one up in bed when one was little. Miss Groby 
 grew quite sentimental as Mrs. Groby developed into 
 the angel of memory, unfailingly laying on the first 
 Sunday of every July some flowers upon the grave of 
 Uncle Tom. Huncote thought it rather wonderful ; he 
 had still to learn what the mother means among the 
 poor, where the father is so often drunk and always 
 odorous, heavy, threatening; he thought Mrs. Groby 
 was just Mrs. Groby, instead of understanding that she 
 represented all the mothers of all the young girls such 
 as the one to whom he spoke. 
 
 He asked questions. 
 
 " What do I do ? Oh, all sorts of things. Mother 
 takes in washing, you know; fine washing, of course," 
 she added with a touch of pride, " all done by hand ; so 
 I help her with the laces, and the the " She grew 
 shy. " Well, anyhow, I've plenty to do. And of 
 course I've to help mother a bit with Muriel and Perce, 
 that's my brother and sister, you know," she prattled 
 on. She had little to say of Muriel, who would soon 
 leave school, but Perce was evoked as a boy already 
 agreeably rakish. " He's a corf drop," said Miss 
 Groby. 
 
 They went on slowly through the wood and, little by 
 little, Huncote was led into the Grobys' home. He 
 heard of the father, a stonemason, and heard little more 
 save that he was big and had a red face ; and Perce came
 
 ANDROMEDA 137 
 
 up more clearly as the rake when he found out that 
 Perce recently had a bad night at shove halfpenny, 
 while Muriel, it seemed, was quite the lady. He had a 
 vision of the small home, three rooms, in Paradise Row, 
 of very early morning and the father leaving in the 
 greyness, of the children fed and hurried to school. 
 He imagined Mrs. Grohy upon her knees, swishing the 
 floor with a wet rag in hands which, he was sure, were 
 large and red and kindly. He imagined Miss Groby 
 too, washing the fine laces, and then, more dimly, her 
 pleasures. He questioned her; she answered him 
 easily enough. There could be no shyness here as they 
 slowly walked around the wood, keeping strictly to the 
 little path of beaten earth by the side of which grew 
 many cuckoo flowers and, here and there, in aloofness, a 
 few bluebells. The day was warm, with some fresh- 
 ness ; a cool wind, like the breath of a rejuvenated earth, 
 played softly on their faces. The girl by his side, who 
 talked so freely to him of her concerns, did not jar upon 
 him, for she was not pretending, not trying. She was 
 telling him the plot of a cinema play to which she 
 had been with " a gentleman friend." Curiously he 
 thought of Bert. 
 
 " Oh, him ? " she said, and suddenly grew shy. 
 " Mr. Caldwell, that is ; you know, he was at the dance." 
 
 " Yes," said Huncote. He remembered the fierce 
 young socialist and instinctively knew that between him 
 and the girl there was a link. He had to ascertain. 
 " You're going to marry him, aren't you ? " Miss 
 Groby's face passed from pale olive to a crimson dusk. 
 Huncote knew he had been clumsy, so he said : " Sorry, 
 I oughtn't to have asked." 
 
 " Oh, it doesn't matter," said Miss Groby, rather 
 stately, " but we're not thinking of that, Bert and me. 
 I've known him such a long time; we're such old 
 friends, you see." 
 
 Huncote understood; he had lived long enough in
 
 138 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 St. Panwich to have heard of these confused relation- 
 ships. It did not concern him, but it stayed in his 
 mind as typical. He forgot Miss Groby; he saw only 
 the people, the people who seemed to be always working 
 except when they made merry; the people were like 
 youth, crude perhaps, coarse very often, sometimes self- 
 ish because they were so young, because man unspoiled 
 by civilisation has no ethical ideas. He thought: 
 " No, no complications, no ideas about religion, just 
 acceptance; no ideas about art and politics, no damned 
 ideas of any kind. Yet we must give them ideas, I sup- 
 pose." 
 
 Miss Groby walked by his side, silent now. She had 
 picked some bluebells and was trying to bind them 
 together with a stalk of grass. She seemed so childish, 
 like her own people. Huncote flung her a sidelong 
 glance : " Yes, a child with no ideas, no theories, no 
 complications. Ideals? Perhaps. Or must not we, 
 whom fortune has favoured, give them ideals ? " But 
 suddenly he felt ashamed. " Who was it who should 
 give them ideals ? The Platts and the Miss Miskins of 
 this world ? Or even he ? " He was pharisee enough 
 to think " even " such as he, a man of blind rebellions 
 and feeble habits. He spoke aloud : " Oh, rot ! It's 
 not ideals we're giving them, it's conventions. They've 
 got conventions of their own, and all we're doing is to 
 give them the conventions of another class ! " 
 
 " Beg pardon ? " said Miss Groby. 
 
 He stared, suddenly aware of her. " Oh," he said, 
 " I was only talking to myself ; excuse me." 
 
 Miss Groby was on the point of asking him whether 
 he was often taken that way but, as if something of his 
 emotion had passed into her, she remained silent. 
 Swiftly, as the plant rises from the little seed in the 
 fakir's pot, a bond more human, less intellectual formed 
 between them, because he had thought of her as capable 
 of an ideal, because she had caught him in a queer per-
 
 ANDROMEDA 139 
 
 sonal habit. Without purpose they stopped. They 
 were not self-conscious now, though they did not under- 
 stand each other at all, but they were willing to do 
 without understanding. 
 
 The sun was lower then, and they stood in a clearing 
 in the thin wood, at the edge of a deep dell thickly 
 grown with ivy and brambles, all edged with the decay- 
 ing trunks of big trees. It was a fantastic place this, 
 the heavy moist hollow, and all round it, like guards, 
 the decapitated trunks of trees that were dark and 
 sturdy like stunted giants. The light fell aslant 
 through the leaves, making upon their cheeks patterns 
 like the points of spears. And where the sun touched 
 the girl's cheek it was rich and golden as a pomegranate. 
 She looked at him silent and disturbed, and he saw no 
 more the ugly green cloth coat, the dreadful slum Sun- 
 day hat with the many pink roses. Standing like this, 
 her strong hands clasped together, looking up beyond 
 him to the sky that was pale as running water, she 
 seemed wondering and forlorn. But standing before 
 her, looking at her so much more intently than she 
 looked at the sky, he seemed to see her for the first time, 
 with her broad shoulders and her slender hips, to see 
 her shape that was as a young athlete's, the long arms 
 that relieved her breadth, the darkness and the dusky 
 intimacy of her. She stood undisturbed as, feature by 
 feature, he began to know her, the heavy black hair with 
 brown shadows in its waves, the high trustful eyebrows 
 over the languid darkness of the brown eyes. Her nose 
 was straight, small with sensitive if not very well- 
 moulded nostrils. But then he looked at the mouth 
 over the little pointed chin that broadened suddenly to 
 right and left, the mouth full of curves, with parted, 
 upturned lips and an air of appeal. She was appeal- 
 ing to him now as her class had once done, for an en- 
 lightening, a rescue which perhaps he might achieve. 
 The misunderstanding had gone, for as they stood so in
 
 140 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 the light which every moment grew deeper in colour, 
 they were conscious less of each other than of the atmos- 
 phere they made. He was Perseus, and she the weep- 
 ing Andromeda. 
 
 Quite suddenly the tension was relieved. Miss 
 Groby seemed to listen. Until then they had heard 
 other voices in the wood. Now there were none. She 
 grew self-conscious and, because self-conscious, afraid. 
 
 " We'd better be getting on," she said. 
 
 Huncote too awoke. " Yes, I s'pose we ought ; we'd 
 better go back, but don't let's go back the same way; 
 let's cut across to the right and then beat back." 
 
 " I don't mind," said Miss Groby, as if willing to be 
 commanded. 
 
 They turned into the wood that was a little thicker 
 beyond the sleepy hollow, under oaks which had been 
 spared. They were natural and young again, and they 
 laughed when Huncote raised sweeping branches so that 
 she might pass and sheltered her with his body from a 
 bush of blackthorn. They did not feel it incongruous, 
 either of them, that he, the delicate one, the gentleman, 
 should interpose that over-tended body between the 
 blackthorn and her capable sturdiness. For a long time 
 they went like this until they turned again towards the 
 right along yet another path that seemed to lead towards 
 Chalfont St. Giles. They followed it for a long time 
 along its windings, through hollows where the leaves of 
 the dead autumn smelt sweet and old. But Miss Groby 
 cried out when suddenly it brought them back to the 
 hollow that slept deeper as the coming twilight fell 
 dim. 
 
 " Oh ! " she cried, " why we've got right back ! " 
 
 Indeed they had come back to the place where for a 
 moment weeping Andromeda had stood beseeching in 
 the sun. But that moment did not recur to Miss Groby. 
 
 " Oh," she cried, " we'll be so late. We must go 
 back the other way. Oh, what shall we do ? "
 
 ANDROMEDA 141 
 
 " It'll be all right," said Huncote, " it can't be much 
 more than half an hour from here." 
 
 " Oh, I'm sure it's more," said Miss Groby, " we must 
 hurry." And she walked ahead along the path very 
 quickly, Huncote apologising too profusely, for he was 
 embarrassed. As they went, unable to talk because 
 Miss Groby was too preoccupied, she thought revenge- 
 ful thoughts. She knew what they would say when 
 they got back. " It would be different," she grumbled, 
 " if we'd found the others." 
 
 Huncote half understood. He guessed that the peo- 
 ple would say they had lost themselves on purpose, but 
 he did not know the thoughts in Miss Groby's brain; 
 he did not realise her suspicion of him, of his class, of 
 his motives. If she had spoken aloud he would have 
 heard : 
 
 " It's all very well, but he's a swell. Shouldn't won- 
 der if there isn't a last train, and it's all a put-up job." 
 All the ease had gone and the passing glory faded. 
 Here was no longer Andromeda, shining-clad, but the 
 puritanical, fearful, rigid young girl of the superior 
 slums. Night was coming; she drew close about her- 
 self the ugly green cloth coat, and as if in a magic 
 mantle the vision disappeared. 
 
 When at last they rejoined the party nothing was 
 said. He was conscious of some sniggering and of 
 couples nudging each other, of Churton with raised eye- 
 brows. But Huncote was still so entire an idealist that 
 he did not understand when Hilda, fatly blowing herself 
 out like a young and pretty turkey cock, turned away 
 from him with pink chin uplifted. In the train he was 
 at first aglow with the memory, while the others dis- 
 cussed the success of the ramble from the Committee's 
 point of view. He had been happy, but did not know 
 why. Because he had been near earth, he thought; it 
 was too early for him to think that it was because he had 
 been near the earth maiden. Then he grew conscious
 
 142 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 that somebody questioned him; it was the curate. He 
 remembered. 
 
 " I hope you managed to have a decent afternoon 
 after all," he said. 
 
 " Well," replied the curate dubiously, " it was not 
 quite what I expected. We had a very pleasant tea at 
 the ' Pheasant ', very pleasant indeed, but I don't know 
 what my cousin will say." 
 
 " Let me see," said Huncote, " she belongs to the 
 Society for the Revival of Mysticism, doesn't she ? " 
 
 " Yes," said the curate, full of his sin of omission. 
 " I don't know what she'll say. You see, the society's 
 been influenced by the Irish revival, and we were to go 
 to Rickmansworth woods to try and find fairies." 
 
 Half an hour later, at Marylebone, it was he who 
 stopped the bus for Miss Groby and a girl friend. As 
 they drove off his heart was delighted. Miss Groby 
 had the inside corner seat; it was dark, and the lamp 
 just above her head brought out her dusky beauty. As 
 the bus moved she smiled, and he saw a quality he had 
 not known before in the softness of her sidelong look.
 
 PART THE SECOND 
 
 LEAVES OF YGGDRASIL
 
 To morowe ye shal on hunting fare, 
 
 And ryde, my doughter, in a chare: 
 
 It shal be covered with velvet reede, 
 
 And clothes of fyne golde al about your hed. 
 
 With damske white and asure blewe, 
 
 Wei dyapred with lyllyes newe. 
 
 (The Squyer of Low Degre.)
 
 CHAPTER THE FIRST 
 
 THERESA 
 
 THE summer breathed fragrant through the pipes of 
 June. The people that once had been grey with dust 
 and weariness went light as to the dance. In London 
 June had come without youth, had come as June does 
 in cities, mature as a beloved courtesan and yet beauti- 
 ful. It was London June and the fullness of summer, 
 the spring forgot; June riotous, June flower-grown, 
 June ignorant of meadows flecked with white and mad- 
 der daisies, sumptuous London June, fashionable even 
 in the slums, opulent June crowned with crimson pop- 
 pies, June smart with a golden carnation in her but- 
 tonhole or, more audacious, the vivid velvety quills of 
 a dahlia. And the June people every year born, that 
 every year die as again the fog falls, were there; the 
 men lighter clad, a few of them already healthily brown- 
 ing; the women flushed like those white poppies that 
 blush when the sun kisses them. A true heat already in 
 the air and the warm scents of summer, of earth, of 
 leather, of man, of all things from which the sun draws 
 their essence. From human creatures it drew it too, 
 and Huncote felt it as all men. He was lighter, he was 
 gayer, and he believed in the things which at bottom he 
 knew were untrue ; so he was happy. Because he was 
 happy he made others happy; because he loved them 
 better they learnt to love him. They had begun to 
 know him at last in St. Panwich, or perhaps it was the 
 summer that served him as a naturalisation certificate. 
 St. Panwich seemed to have decided to overlook what
 
 146 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 it did not like, his slight stiffness, his hesitations, and 
 those unaccountable silences during which St. Panwich 
 knew that Huncote was getting at it. St. Panwich for- 
 gave as it prepared to lumber into the dance to the pipes 
 of June. One evening at the Progress Arms, where 
 the women had been admitted for good after a final con- 
 flict with Miss Miskin and Mrs. Eamsey, he found quite 
 a little crowd. He wondered at it, not realising that a 
 few of the slightly civilised (that is to say, Settle- 
 mented) men had learnt to prefer non-alcoholics in the 
 summer. It was a curious evening, for the barmaid, 
 still respectable, was heard to remark to a man who 
 leant over the bar and whispered to her : " ISTo fear ! " 
 Huncote was curious to know what the man had whis- 
 pered; he never found out. But still it remained evi- 
 dent that a new wind blew over the placid waters, for 
 in the winter she certainly would have said : "I 
 wouldn't dream of such a thing ! " 
 
 But still he was not after all to be gay and easy. He 
 was paying the penalty of success. The ramble had 
 been so much appreciated, the tea in the Elizabethan 
 garden of the " Pheasant " so satisfying, that Huncote 
 was acclaimed as the procurator of popular pleasures. 
 It had really been a triumph, for it had impressed even 
 the accidental curate; a few days later he gave up 
 fairies and shyly sidled into the rambling club. Now 
 the summer social, the Great Summer Social, was 
 placed upon Huncote's shoulders, whether as the im- 
 perial purple or as a shirt of Nessus he could not tell. 
 He did not mind ; he liked the bustle in the air ; it made 
 him collect helpers, and doing this gave him his first 
 opportunity of seeing Miss Groby again. She came 
 one evening, just for an hour, to address envelopes while 
 Huncote walked about the room, very busily doing 
 nothing and trying to remember all the things he would 
 have to do. She had changed; Miss Groby was just 
 one of the seven or eight girls who came one evening to
 
 THERESA U7 
 
 address envelopes to the members. She looked up at 
 him, smiled without self -consciousness ; and he was 
 awkward, as if forgetting for a moment what she was. 
 For she did not come up in high relief in the exuber- 
 ance of summer as she had done in spring, smiling on 
 its way to the grave. Besides he was oppressed by all 
 sorts of questions, by motorbus arrangements with a 
 company that seemed disinclined to carry his party, by 
 an endless haggle with the inn at Colin Deep. On the 
 eve of the social there was a mustard and cress famine, 
 or his supply had been sent to Birmingham by mistake, 
 or something. 
 
 " Well," said Theresa, after hearing him dictate a 
 febrile telegram about the mustard and cress, " tell me 
 the worst. Must it be parsley ? " 
 
 He looked at her rather miserably. " I wish you 
 wouldn't laugh at me," he said, " I'm fed up with this 
 thing." He grew resentful. " You're always laugh- 
 ing at me." 
 
 Theresa looked at him as if to say : " Very good for 
 you too," but she felt sorry for him and thought he 
 looked pale, not strong. Because she was older it af- 
 fected her. " I've got to laugh at you," she said, at 
 last. " One's got to now and then if one doesn't want 
 to cry." 
 
 " There's nothing to cry about in me," said Huncote. 
 " At least I hope not." 
 
 They laughed together a little nervously. Then his 
 weariness seized him again. 
 
 " Oh," he said, " I'm so tired." 
 
 Theresa grew maternal. 
 
 " Look here," she said, " you've done enough. I've 
 been here all the afternoon, and I think you've tele- 
 phoned about fifteen times, including the wrong num- 
 bers ; and every time I heard you speak it's been about 
 more chairs, or else shrimps, or something equally 
 poetic. You've done, haven't you ? "
 
 148 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 " Yes, but . . ." 
 
 " Yes, but you're only fussing now. You're going 
 on and on, doing little things over and over again and 
 making yourself hysterical. You're like the people 
 who've been seasick; when they've been as sick as they 
 ought to be they try to begin it all over again. Not a 
 romantic comparison, is it? Well, you've been quite 
 romantic enough to-day in the interests of the people 
 and of fuss in general. What you're going to do now 
 is to come out with me and have some air. Walk all 
 the way back to my flat and talk about anything but 
 shrimp-paste." 
 
 " All right," said Huncote, " and don't blame me to- 
 morrow if they send Carter Paterson's vans instead of 
 omnibuses with an ostentatious ' Private ' marked on 
 them." 
 
 They walked all the way from the Settlement, 
 through the little lanes of Penton Town where they 
 were silent and rather grave. He disturbed Theresa, 
 this aimless young man; she hardly knew what to say 
 to him. So she stopped in front of a barrow and 
 bought a pound of cherries. 
 
 " We'll eat them as we go," she said. Huncote took 
 one with a delirious sense of unconventionality and ate 
 it in the street. " Here," said Theresa, holding out a 
 handful to a small girl who was just very large black 
 eyes with a child round them. The child took the fruit 
 without thanks. Perhaps she had never been given 
 cherries before and could not believe they were meant 
 for her. 
 
 " Poor kid ! " said Theresa, as they walked on, " she 
 looked quite frightened." 
 
 But at that moment they heard behind them a cry. 
 Huncote turned just in time to catch a decayed cherry 
 full in the face. " Good luck to you ! " yelled the little 
 girl. " Ain't got no rice." 
 
 They laughed as they went on, but the laughter was
 
 THERESA 149 
 
 self-conscious and awkward. It was a shame, Huncote 
 thought, that whenever he walked with a woman he 
 should be intimately associated with her in the popular 
 mind. It was a long walk, through Penton Town and 
 then along Marylebone Road, to St. Mary's Mansions 
 where Miss Underwood lived. Much later in the even- 
 ing, Huncote wondered what they had talked about ; he 
 could not remember very well. That talk had a quality 
 different from other conversations; there had been no 
 discussion of social ideas or even of artistic ideas. 
 They had told each other a little about themselves, as if 
 they soliloquised rather than conversed. He learnt that 
 Theresa lived alone, having lost her parents; he gath- 
 ered she had a small income. Only one question did he 
 put, and the answer he remembered. " I say," he 
 asked, rather abruptly, " d'you find that the Settlement 
 and all that fills your life enough ? " 
 
 She did not answer for a while; then she said: 
 "-Well, you see, one must do something. Oh, I mean 
 more than that ; I'm not going to pretend that the peo- 
 ple are nice." She smiled. " One notices them in the 
 summer. I don't know that I think one can do so much 
 for them after all, but I think one can do a lot for one's 
 own soul by loving them." 
 
 In reply he had, being still enthralled by his newly 
 recovered faith in the splendour of the people, been 
 vaguely enthusiastic; but he did not like himself. He 
 felt materialistic and shrill by the side of this seren- 
 ity. When they reached St. Mary's Mansions Theresa 
 said: 
 
 " Come in for a moment, won't you ? " 
 
 " Oh I " he hesitated. 
 
 " Yes, of course you must come up," she said decid- 
 edly. " You look fagged out ; come up and have a 
 whisky and soda." He followed. 
 
 The flat into which he was shown by an elderly maid 
 surprised him. He had never thought of the probable
 
 150 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 surroundings of Miss Underwood, but if he had been 
 asked he would have expected something more arty, 
 something with a pre-Raphaelite touch. He was dis- 
 appointed and yet not. The flat, at the very top of the 
 mansions, looked rather severe but comfortable. In the 
 drawing-room where now he sat were flowered chintzes, 
 not at all advanced but very white and pink. Upon 
 the pale yellow walls were a few black-and-white 
 sketches, an oil not at all extreme. There were a few 
 books upon the chairs, a great many more in a bookcase. 
 He read the titles of a few of them later: Religio 
 Medici, The Golden Treasury, also a few novels by 
 Mrs. Humphry Ward. It was incoherent, careless, or 
 catholic, he did not know which. They did not speak 
 at first as he sat, drinking the whisky and soda. He 
 did not want to, for really he was tired, and Theresa 
 seemed to know it as she silently watched him, fanning 
 herself with a copy of the Studio. She looked at him 
 as if thinking: " There, my little boy, now you'll be 
 all right." After a while she said: " You're not in a 
 hurry, are you ? D'you like music ? " 
 
 He nodded. Unasked she went to the piano and soon 
 there came from it clear tunes, skipping tunes that 
 sounded as if they were being played far away. In a 
 break he went up to the music cabinet and there he 
 found many people of whom he had only heard, Lulli, 
 Eameau, Couperin Le Grand. She played on, not de- 
 manding his attention, now a fugue. 
 
 He said : " I like that music ; it's like time, without 
 a beginning or an end." 
 
 " Shade of Bach ! " she mocked. " How pleased you 
 must be if in this minute, as Maeterlinck thinks, you 
 live again." 
 
 " I wish you wouldn't laugh at me," he said. 
 
 She was perverse. " I will laugh at you," she cried. 
 " Listen ! listen ! " and she went off into shrill peals. 
 " There, now you're offended. Well, you'd better go
 
 THERESA 151 
 
 if you're offended. Go on, make a noise like a hoop 
 and roll away, as the Americans say." 
 
 Huncote went towards the door, espousing her mood, 
 but before he reached it, " Not that door," cried Miss 
 Underwood. " That leads into an empty room." 
 
 " An empty room ? A ghost closet ? You fire me. 
 I won't go until I've investigated it." 
 
 " Investigate," said Miss Underwood. " You won't 
 find anything except a trunk or two, and many things 
 which Elizabeth will not throw away. You see, this 
 flat has five rooms, and I can't live in five rooms be- 
 cause there's only one me; so I've only furnished two 
 and let Elizabeth do what she likes in the others. 
 There are two rooms quite empty, but you've no idea 
 how nice it is to have hardly any rooms and hardly any 
 furniture, and hardly anything except yourself." 
 
 Huncote looked thoughtful, but suddenly, as if 
 she felt the link had grown too personal, she broke 
 off. 
 
 " You don't want to hear about my household ; let 
 me play you something else." 
 
 She went back to the piano and joltily she played 
 yet another of those tripping little tunes. " Les 
 Tresorieres Surannees," she said, as she played, " in 
 other words, the superannuated treasuresses." 
 
 He did not like her feeble humour; yet she pleased 
 him. He was so tired of being serious, and Theresa 
 made everything seem passing, artificial, and yet charm- 
 ing, to make a world like a picture by Watteau, a dance 
 of velvet and satins among shepherds and sheep. As 
 she played she thought of him and of herself. She 
 thought of the sweetness of her own independence and 
 yet its emptiness. She thought of him and grew rather 
 superior; she felt so much older, a full three years, 
 while he seemed so enthusiastic and so young. That 
 was delightful and absurd. As she played she glanced 
 sideways at him; she thought it a shame that such a
 
 152 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 nice child should be worried by practical things and its 
 own fancies. 
 
 As he went down the stairs he felt rested, yet not at 
 rest. She was still playing and all the way down there 
 accompanied him the more and more distant trippings 
 of " Les Tresorieres Surannees." 
 
 II 
 
 The summer social moved with the splendid ease of 
 those great machines which, considered while at rest, 
 look as if they could not possibly move. To Huncote it 
 seemed an immense success, for he had expected it to be 
 a failure. At half-past one on the third Saturday in 
 July, eight motorbusses, in a side street near King's 
 Cross, received the four hundred roysterers. In defi- 
 ance of County Council regulations they stacked them- 
 selves inside and out, the elders hustled, not minding 
 and wiping their heads with great satisfaction; the 
 young couples seated upon the floor, crushed up very 
 close ; odd gaps, such as spaces between adult feet, were 
 filled in with children. It was difficult to make out 
 what was happening, for at the entrance to every bus 
 the official in charge was having continuous rows with 
 the people who had forgotten the tickets for which they 
 had paid fourpence a month. Huncote had to intervene 
 in one of the rows which Platt was conducting, for the 
 prospective candidate had seen to it that the outside of 
 his bus was filled with men and presumably voters ; an 
 old woman, with a small boy, a string-bag, three bottles 
 and a dog, was determined to force her way in. 
 
 " Oh, surely," said Platt, suavely, " you'd much 
 rather go with the other ladies ? " 
 
 " I paid for my seat," said the old woman. Then 
 she snapped the fasteners of her mouth and shoved 
 Platt with her shoulder. 
 
 " Get on with it, mother," grumbled a man behind
 
 THERESA 153 
 
 who also wanted to enter the bus. She turned on him. 
 " I paid for my seat," and once more shoved the inter- 
 vening Platt. Platt was in agony ; the man was a voter, 
 and suffrage had not yet come in. Then the man shoved 
 the old woman, and the old woman shoved Platt. And 
 Platt fell on a man inside who shoved him back upon 
 the old woman, who called him a coward. As Huncote 
 arrived the old woman burst into tears ; the dog tried to 
 hang itself with its lead ; the small boy dropped one of 
 the bottles and set up a piercing howl . . . 
 
 Somehow the busses got off, their tops flowering with 
 little girls in pink, and blue, and white, and little boys 
 with persistent mouth-organs, and men with pipes who 
 would sit on the front seats and tell those at the back 
 what they thought of them when the ash blew back and 
 they complained. In single file the eight busses rum- 
 bled past King's Cross towards the Euston Road, the 
 mouth-organs every moment shriller to the tune of 
 " Everybody's Doing It." At Euston the busses stopped 
 to let pass a volunteer regiment, route marching to 
 Finchley. The military influence, potent as always, 
 affected the little girls so that Huncote could hear them 
 above his head executing brisk and presumably warlike 
 dances upon the roof. 
 
 The busses pounded on through Edgware Road. 
 Above, as inner London fell away, the sky passed from 
 pallor to a heavier blue. The passers-by stopped to 
 smile while the revellers waved. Huncote was hot but 
 content. It was going after all, as if the splendid care- 
 less merriment of the people were carrying him. He 
 was alone with them too, for there was with him only 
 the group captain, Miss Cashell. He tried to talk to 
 her, but she smiled brightly and could not reply, for on 
 the other side a woman with two babies was raucously 
 entertaining her with a story of which, now and then, 
 through the rumblings of the bus, Huncote caught a re- 
 current phrase : " 'E wouldn't 'ave died if it 'adn't
 
 been for the bloater." He did not enquire further, he 
 was too hot, rather tired, rather pleased to think that all 
 was going well. And all was going well. Now they 
 were in the open country before Edgware and, looking 
 out, he could see the little girls standing up in the bus 
 just behind, and above the noise of the bus he could 
 hear their song : " Everybody's doing it, doing it, 
 doing it, Everybody's doing it now." 
 
 There was a break. His bus stopped, and then all 
 the other busses ; officially leaping out he found a fierce 
 altercation taking place on bus Number Two between 
 the chauffeur and the father of a small boy, because the 
 small boy, by climbing over the rail and lying on his 
 stomach on the hood, while two other small boys held 
 his feet, persisted in tickling the chauffeur's nose with 
 a twist of paper tied to a string. The altercation was 
 being conducted amid uproarious merriment. 
 
 Still, all seemed to settle down; the little boy, after 
 having been vindicated by his father, was vigorously 
 smacked. And the social began to take its social form 
 of splitting up into couples, while large and elderly 
 groups formed in circles on the grass round the bottles 
 which had been brought lest the inn should prove stingy. 
 Cockshies had been installed, and Huncote found him- 
 self inciting the little boys to test their skill, while 
 Theresa was busy with a number of unattached women 
 and their babies, trying to lead them away from the 
 grounds of the " Woolpack " towards the toy brook 
 along which hid forget-me-nots. She smiled at him as 
 she passed but could not speak, for she was listening to 
 the woman with the two babies who had travelled in 
 Huncote's bus. He caught the phrase : " Got a chill 
 on her lungs and died on the Toosday." 
 
 He had nothing to do ; he missed having something to 
 do because he had done so much. The party had set- 
 tled into its own merriment : groups of men were en- 
 gaged with pipes and arguments as to where they would
 
 THERESA 155 
 
 get the best beer, or the time it took by tram from 
 Crapp's Lane to Westminster Bridge, while the women 
 were being confidential, presumably obstetric, and the 
 couples dived for forget-me-nots with many squeaks when 
 ankles showed, and terrors of Hero lest Leander should 
 drown. 
 
 Still he felt he had to do something, so he mixed with 
 the people ; he dodged Beesby, for he saw in his face that 
 an obscure resentment against something was forming 
 in his brain, and he knew that Beesby's resentments 
 were lengthy. He looked at a party of girls who had no 
 " young gentlemen " and were trying to look select and 
 superior to show they could have had them if they 
 wanted. Vaguely he wondered whether Miss Groby 
 was among them. She was not. He gave them a little 
 smile and went on. The grounds of the " Woolpack " 
 were broad and beautiful, for the innkeeper had not 
 enough money to make a garden, and so he had enclosed 
 broad meadows of ragged, strong grass all flecked with 
 wild flowers. And there were even big trees between 
 which the brushwood grew reckless and rebelled against 
 the arbours into which it had been twisted. He was 
 shy near these arbours where already couples were flirt- 
 ing in their way, he not looking at the girl and kicking 
 holes in the turf, she shrill or gabbling, giving him a 
 playful nudge from time to time. The couples im- 
 pressed him. But somehow as he went on to the end 
 of the grounds where there was quite a large group 
 arguing as to whether a certain elm was a beech, he 
 found himself looking for somebody. He wanted to 
 talk to somebody, and they were all so busy ; there were 
 so many he did not know. It would be nice, he thought, 
 if he could find Miss Groby. Unconsciously he began 
 to look for her ; he went beyond the groups, he went to 
 the cockshies, to the bowling-green where he found 
 Hilda teaching a young man. He passed on hurriedly, 
 answering with a smile the quite distinct smile of Hilda.
 
 156 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 He even went into the " Woolpack ", telling himself 
 that he must have a look at the refreshments: Miss 
 Groby was not there. It troubled him somehow, and 
 he did not know what to do. He did not like to ask 
 Mrs. Ramsey who had just come out with a long list in 
 her hand. Mrs. Ramsey would think well, he knew 
 the sort of thing Mrs. Ramsey generally thought. So 
 he turned back into the social, telling himself that she 
 must be somewhere and not asking himself why he 
 wanted to find her. But at the bowling-green Hilda 
 suddenly abandoned the education of the young man 
 and with elaborate carelessness strolled away just in 
 front of Huncote : the nymph eluding the satyr, but not 
 running very fast. 
 
 Then she turned and, smiling, waited for him as if 
 it were all arranged. He hesitated ; of course he must 
 talk to her. " Isn't it pretty ? " he said. " Don't you 
 like the country ? " 
 
 " Oo I do," said Hilda fervently. Then with mean- 
 ing : " Is that all there is of it, the garden I mean ? " 
 
 " All what ? " asked Huncote, not understanding. 
 
 She pointed to the arbours. " Can't one go further 
 than that ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes," said Huncote, still unsuspicious. 
 " Haven't you been ? " 
 
 " Eo," said Hilda, " I don't know the way out." 
 
 Still obliging he showed her. They hesitated at the 
 gate, for Hilda wondered whether it was quite ladylike 
 to lead ; then she created a rapturous smile and said : 
 
 "Ain't it lovely?" 
 
 There was no gainsaying that, for before them the 
 meadow heaved and fell in the haze of heat as if it 
 breathed. The lips of the dogroses opened as in a smile. 
 
 " We might have a look round," said Hilda vaguely. 
 
 The plump pink cheeks developed dimples, and the 
 blue eyes a roguish air. Hilda had watched the way 
 in which Huncote and Miss Groby had got lost and,
 
 THERESA 157 
 
 well, it was so easy to get lost. He did not understand, 
 he was not thinking of her just then, for where the 
 meadow ended and where, beyond the palings, another 
 began, was a deep cleft as if a ditch had fallen in. In 
 the sun its sides were brilliant white and vivid rust. 
 It was not the sleepy hollow, but still it made him think 
 of that other hollow, silent and brooding under the 
 heavy mournfulness of the hanging trees, where not so 
 long ago and for a second, through an ugly green cloth 
 coat, he had seen the shining flanks of chained An- 
 dromeda. Then he dragged himself out of his dream. 
 
 " What? " he said. " Oh, I'd love to, but I've got 
 to go back." 
 
 A burlesque preoccupation seized him and he smiled. 
 " ISTow I come to think of it, I've forgotten to enquire 
 about the mustard and cress." He left her suddenly to 
 return to the grounds, oppressed by his desire though 
 half unconscious of it. But he did not find Miss Groby. 
 To satisfy his conscience he enquired about the mustard 
 and cress; he even inspected the sandwiches; he was 
 not thinking of them, but wondering only where she 
 was. Through the open windows on the dusty air came 
 the song of the social again : " Everybody's doing it, 
 doing it, doing it, Everybody's doing it now." 
 
 It was much later in the afternoon. He had had tea 
 with Theresa, a young man speechless before her mag- 
 nificence, her special protegee, still with her two babies, 
 and some old people suffering greatly from the heat in 
 their black clothes. The conversation had limits, rested 
 mainly on the diseases which had afflicted regrettably 
 numerous relations. He went away at last; he wanted 
 to be alone. He skirted the arbours, all tenanted now; 
 he passed the elm (or beech) ; here was a place that 
 no one had been to that day, it seemed : a broken gate, 
 a sloping path and a ditch, dry and sweet-scented, that 
 bent back behind the line of the lovers' arbours. With 
 a sigh of content he climbed down into the ditch, lit his
 
 158 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 pipe and for a moment thought of nothing. Then above 
 from one of the arbours came a voice he knew, Hilda's. 
 He heard another voice, a girl's. Hilda was being remi- 
 niscent, it seemed; he was not ashamed to eavesdrop; 
 instinctively he felt that Hilda's secrets would not be 
 much. 
 
 " ' Young feller,' I says, ' what d'yer take me for ? ' 
 He says something about the most charming lady of all, 
 or charming lady, I forgit. ' 'Op it,' I says." 
 
 " And did he ? " asked the other voice. 
 
 There was a giggle. " Well, yer know, 'e wasn't 
 bad." Another giggle. " Dark, yer know, and French. 
 'E 'ad a funny name, 'e 'ad ; Cadress, 'e said, or some- 
 thing." 
 
 In reply to a question : " Well, p'raps it wasn't 'is 
 real name, I d'no. Asked me to call 'im Loosian." 
 
 Huncote smiled. He was still too innocent to under- 
 stand, but Hilda was shamelessly, indeed rather vain- 
 gloriously retailing an adventure of the street. " Asked 
 me to meet 'im, but 'e couldn't 'ardly manage evenings. 
 Sounds marriedified, I said." Then yet another phrase 
 reached him : " Those Frenchies, they are mustard ! " 
 An interval and then shockedly : " No fear, wot d'yer 
 take me for ? " 
 
 He told himself that he ought to move away. He 
 was repelled, for Hilda's voice, carefully managed when 
 she spoke to him, was shrill, and her grammar beyond 
 leashing. But it seemed so trifling, and he was com- 
 fortable with his back against the dry scented grass and 
 the smoke from his pipe rising in gentle spirals, opaline 
 against the rich blue sky. But suddenly he was startled 
 by hearing his own name. Then Hilda : " That 
 dummy ? I don't think ! Besides, 'e's mashed on Sue." 
 He listened. Could not even think of running away, 
 besides . . . But his uncertainty was at once dispelled, 
 for evidently the other girl had asked a question. 
 "Don't know Sue?" said Hilda. "Sue Groby, the
 
 THERESA 159 
 
 one with a face like a bit o' cheddar. She's not 'ere 
 terday, got a pain in 'er stumuk or something." An- 
 other pause during which a curious excitement that 
 made his heart beat invaded the young man's body. He 
 heard the beginning of another phrase : " They said 
 they got lorst in the wood. Lorst? I don't think! 
 Tell yer wot . . ." The rest was whispers and giggles, 
 but he had recovered self-control. With infinite cau- 
 tion he stood up, crept out of the ditch. His instinct 
 was to return to the party and hide in it, but Hilda 
 might see him go past, and it would be dreadful if she 
 knew that he knew, though, of course, it was all non- 
 sense. So he turned, intending to skirt the outer 
 meadow and to re-enter the " Woolpack " by the main 
 gate. But, as he passed, he stopped for a moment to 
 look at the hollow in which now the rays of the sloping 
 sun made patches of brass. From here he could not 
 hear the party any more and nothing indeed, except far 
 away the slow tinkle of a bell at some cow's neck. In 
 the silence and the solitude of it memory drew a veil 
 over his eyes, and for a second he saw again the sleepy 
 hollow, with the cropped stems of the giant trees and 
 the air of eternal dream and sorrow, himself somehow 
 raised in an amazed delight. 
 
 But in the grounds where now games were being 
 played, leapfrog by little boys who by surreptitious 
 pinches had forced the little girls into service, and wild 
 blindman's buff by elders who were not very old, his 
 mood changed. This was abominable, he thought; it 
 was ridiculous that he should be associated with a girl 
 like Sue. His thoughts paused for a moment. He 
 liked that name, its suggestion of faithfulness and 
 earth, but he was too angry, too disturbed to dally. He 
 realised that Hilda must have talked to others or would 
 do so ; doubtless he was the laughing-stock of the picnic. 
 Doubtless too they thought he was mooning about look- 
 ing for her. She was not there, he reflected ; she might
 
 160 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 be ill, and he thrust back a feeling of disquiet and 
 anxiety. He did that easily, for he was disliking Sue ; 
 he blamed her for what had happened. So great grew 
 his turmoil that when at last later, the social done, he 
 found himself on the top front seat of one of the busses, 
 side by side with Theresa, he was silent. She looked 
 at him inquisitively; she knew that something had 
 ruffled him and was sorry. Suddenly she bent a little 
 closer towards him : when he looked at her, a little to his 
 surprise, the soft, dark eyes were not mocking but ten- 
 der. 
 
 " Tell me," she murmured, " perhaps it's not as bad 
 as you think." 
 
 He had no instinct of reserve just then, and in a few 
 words told her. But his phrases were broken, as if he 
 were ashamed and angry, till at last Theresa had to 
 laugh at him a little. 
 
 " Don't" take it to heart," she said. " In the work 
 you do that sort of thing's always being said ; it's noth- 
 ing." He looked so unconvinced and wretched that she 
 grew airily cynical. " It'll give you more power," she 
 said. " All Sue's rivals will work for you like the very 
 devil to try and cut her out." 
 
 He did not answer; Theresa shocked him in those 
 moods, for he was young and still earnest. 
 
 Ill 
 
 When Theresa stepped off near the canal, a few min- 
 utes' walk from her flat, she did not go home by the 
 quickest way. She walked slowly down the western 
 bank, turned along Warwick Avenue, then, still slowly, 
 back again until she reached the respectable mediocrity 
 of Howley Place. She was thinking, and the soft mouth 
 drooped a little in every curve. \ r ery slowly she 
 climbed the stairs to her home. She was unhappy. It 
 was an awful shame, she felt, that he should be troubled
 
 THERESA 161 
 
 like this. Meditatively, in her bedroom, as she took 
 off her hat and made up a fragrant wash with which to 
 remove the dust of the afternoon, she told herself that 
 this sort of thing might drive him out of his work, and 
 what a pity for the Settlement. She paused in her 
 preparations, wondering whether she could help him, 
 shield his over-great sensitiveness with a wisdom more 
 worldly. She smiled and spoke aloud : " How silly 
 of me ! I'm thinking of him as if I were his mother." 
 She reflected that after all she was about three years 
 older, twenty-six, nearly twenty-seven, and actually so 
 much older. Then another mood took her ; quickly she 
 went up to the dressing-table and tilted the broad mir- 
 ror. She remained for a moment resting upon her 
 spread hands, gazing into the mirror that threw back 
 the long slimness of her arms and the whiteness of a 
 neck perhaps too slender. She was knowing herself for 
 the first time, it seemed, looking as if at a stranger, at 
 her thick, straight dark hair, her eyes so melancholic 
 and too large, at the mouth with curves that even then 
 were merry. She remained so for a long time, examin- 
 ing as a critic the pallor of her skin, the shape of her 
 rather long cheeks. Her thoughts wandered. " I don't 
 think he ought to have told me," she reflected. And 
 again returned to the picture in the looking-glass. At 
 last, for the first time in her life, Theresa Underwood 
 looked into her own eyes, smiled at her own lips, and 
 found charm in the creature that faced her. 
 
 " Of course," she said aloud to the graceful thing in 
 the looking-glass, " of course it's all nonsense what that 
 girl said." The creature in the looking-glass laughed 
 as if it agreed, and as it laughed its long white throat 
 swelled and was beautiful indeed as the stem of a lily 
 embraced of the wind.
 
 CHAPTER THE SECOND 
 
 THE DAY DREAM 
 
 Miss GROBY was making faces in the mirror as she put 
 her hair straight. This proved her femininity. It was 
 cracked, which disturbed Mrs. Groby. " That'll bring 
 bad luck," she said. But as it was Miss Groby's mirror 
 and she must choose between another and some gloves 
 she wanted badly, the portent of evil remained on the 
 wall. Miss Groby adjusted the many black curls upon 
 her forehead; she pulled down into her belt the cotton 
 blouse and was for a moment discontented with her 
 petticoats which made bunches upon her hips. She 
 thought of the advertisements of silk knickers and 
 sighed; then she pulled herself up: somehow these ad- 
 vertisements looked fast, and Miss Groby was proper. 
 Also she liked what she could see of her figure; she 
 turned, trying to see more of it ; she did not know that 
 her eyes were not trained so as to realise all its young 
 beauty. Still she backed away, raising her skirt a little 
 to the right and left as if to curtsey. She grew aware 
 of her mother in the doorway. " Somebody's sprucing 
 herself up," said Mrs. Groby comfortably. She smiled. 
 She was an agreeable faded woman of about fifty, with 
 fairish hair drawn away rather tight from her forehead ; 
 she stood in her familiar attitude, hands clasped upon 
 her apron. Miss Groby flung her a smile. Mrs. Groby 
 continued amiably to chaff her. " Looks as if Mr. 
 Eight had come along," she remarked over Miss Groby's 
 head. " Wait till Bert comes ; I'll tell on yer ! " 
 
 Miss Groby laughed; she was not afraid of her
 
 THE DAY DREAM 163 
 
 mother. Indeed she changed her boots for another pair 
 the heels of which were less worn. Mrs. Groby watched 
 her affectionately. " Arsk yer old mother ter the wed- 
 ding," she went on, " it's a wedding sure enough ; fine 
 feathers make fine birds." 
 
 " Don't be silly, mother," said Miss Groby. She ad- 
 justed her hat carefully on the very back of her head, 
 kissed her mother on the cheek and went out. When 
 she had gone Mrs. Groby inspected the room, which was 
 in disorder, as if Sue had dressed hurriedly. The 
 boots, notably, looked disreputable as if Sue had flung 
 them down like a challenge. Mrs. Groby collected the 
 boots, put everything straight, and looked at the room 
 with satisfaction. There was a large bed for Sue and 
 Muriel, a wash-handstand with a short leg remedied by 
 a tile. These, with a chest of drawers that one had to 
 fight before one could get its drawers open, and some 
 chairs that had (very long ago) dwelt in marble halls, 
 were the necessaries. The luxuries comprised : over the 
 mantelpiece a coloured Christmas supplement of the 
 Illustrated London News in which a policeman with 
 mutton-chop whiskers stopped the traffic for " His Maj- 
 esty, the Baby." On the right, a picture of Miss Gertie 
 Millar; on the left, the mourning card of Great-aunt 
 Elizabeth. Upon the mantelpiece was a scattered col- 
 lection of Sue's treasures, a Goss mug from Hastings, 
 a picture postcard in which a young couple that looked 
 like wax-works floated, together with a chair, in a cloud 
 of flowers. On the wall beside the bed was an immense 
 sampler with the letters " F.C." in the corner: a pres- 
 ent from Mrs. Groby's mother. Sue had enlivened its 
 antiquity by nailing under it another picture postcard 
 whose poetry touched her: 
 
 "When hand in hand we two go roaming 
 Through memories of long ago, 
 And of life we have reached the gloaming, 
 You'll be so glad you didn't say : ' No.' "
 
 164 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 " Well, well," said Mrs. Groby aloud, " girls will be 
 girlg!" 
 
 II 
 
 It was not far from Paradise Eow to the Settlement, 
 but Sue walked quickly as she always did when alone. 
 She was self-conscious alone. She did not even stop 
 to look into the picture postcard shops, for she would 
 not like to be caught by a friend looking at a vulgar 
 exhibition. Two girls together . . . that was differ- 
 ent; one could nudge the other and always pretend it 
 was the other who stopped. Besides, she was in a 
 hurry, and she delayed only for one moment to buy a 
 pennyworth of chocolates which she munched all the 
 way to the Settlement. At the corner of the High 
 Street she was tempted to stop because a horse had 
 fallen across the tram lines. A fallen horse always 
 gave her beautiful thrills, half of pity and half of de- 
 sire that somebody should be kicked: sensationalism. 
 But that day she was purposeful without knowing it, 
 urged on unawares. One of the young fellows from 
 Bubwith's, who had come out ostensibly to inspect the 
 windows, wished her good evening. She raised her chin 
 and walked on without looking back. Not to-night, she 
 thought. It would not have been much if it had been 
 to-night: Sue had had her flirtations, many of them, 
 flirtations of the " no-fear " and " don't-make-so-free " 
 kind, begun at fourteen on monkey parade at the north- 
 ern end of High Street, but they never developed into 
 much more than a walk in Finsbury Park. 
 
 And so, broad shouldered, decision in her sturdy 
 limbs, clear eyes placid and purposeful, she knocked 
 at the door of Huncote's office. 
 
 He was sitting there, doing nothing. He was tired. 
 The events at the social had disturbed him and, in spite 
 of Theresa's sympathy, he found it difficult to go on
 
 THE DAY DREAM 165 
 
 with his work. He had thought of giving it up, had 
 not done so because there was nothing else to do. He 
 had decided to avoid Miss Groby so as to keep down the 
 scandal; then, in a moment of enthusiasm, he had de- 
 cided to face it out. Also he had met with the minor 
 troubles of office: all that afternoon one of the dilly- 
 dallytantes had been with him, explaining to him that 
 he did not understand the elemental nature of the peo- 
 ple. It was one of the young novelists, one of the young 
 novelists who marry respectably but write an annual 
 novel to induce other people to abandon the civil service, 
 sell potatoes on a barrow, and make illegal love to 
 duchesses and cooks. A very tiring young man. So, 
 wearily, he said : " Come in." 
 
 Sue came in boldly, throwing out her figure, as if 
 saying : " Don't you give me none of your cheek," but 
 at once found herself bashful. The man was quite as 
 bashful. The emotions of the past week crystallised: 
 his discomfort because their names were coupled, the 
 dislike he had conceived of her, the memory of the 
 silent hollow. And she who had been so angry because 
 on the day of the social an awful cold caused her to miss 
 what she thought was the social, what she would not own 
 was possible adventure, felt coy. She stood before him, 
 knotting and unknotting her fingers. But the tension 
 was short. Huncote smiled and said : " Good even- 
 ing." And she : " I hope you don't mind me coming 
 like this?" 
 
 " Oh, no, of course not," said Huncote. Then he 
 wondered why she came. 
 
 " It's like this," said Sue hurriedly. " There's an 
 old lady down our street who wants a picture. She 
 came in the other night to see mother, and she did look 
 at that one you gave me. You know, all those girls on 
 the staircase." 
 
 " Is that the one she wants ? " asked Huncote. 
 
 " Well, she didn't ask for one exactly ; she just looked
 
 166 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 and looked, couldn't take her eyes off it, and so I 
 thought " She stopped. 
 
 " Oh," said Huncote. He was touched. Miss Groby 
 then had not waited for the old woman to ask ; she had 
 read the hunger in the old woman's eyes. But Sue was 
 talking again now, hurried, as if conscious that she had 
 advertised a sweetness in herself, which made her shy. 
 It seemed that Mrs. Back was an invalid, that she was 
 expecting her soldier son home. No doubt the soldier 
 son liked pictures too. So Huncote went out and in a 
 minute or two came back with an autotype, framed in 
 Australian oak. 
 
 " Sorry," he said, " we haven't any more of the girls 
 on the staircase. Give her this one instead." He 
 handed her " Love and Life." " But I expect she'll 
 like it even better just because it's different from 
 yours." 
 
 She took the picture, glanced at it, said nothing, and 
 slipped it under her arm. Then for a moment she re- 
 mained twisting her fingers and shifting her feet. She 
 liked being with Huncote, though he embarrassed her, 
 so she did not want to go; also she wanted to go but 
 didn't know how to. 
 
 " Oh, well, I must be going," she said, at length. 
 
 But half an hour later a giggling, exceedingly embar- 
 rassed, rather blushing Sue returned. She laid the pic- 
 ture on Huncote's desk with its face down and remained 
 silent, her hands upon his desk, most uncomfortable and 
 yet conscious that she was wearing new gloves. 
 
 " Well ? " said Huncote, " what is it ? " He took up 
 the picture and looked at it. " Didn't Mrs. Back like 
 it ? " He looked at Sue. There was no mistake now 
 about the colour that had come into the olive cheeks. 
 
 " You see," she said, " those girls on the staircase, 
 they'd well clothes, you know." 
 
 For a moment he did not understand, then he laughed. 
 It appeared that the old lady was very, very shocked.
 
 THE DAY DREAM 167 
 
 Miss Groby looked at him as if he were a monster. 
 How could one laugh ? She too thought that wasn't a 
 quite nice picture, though she didn't like to say so. 
 
 At last Huncote said: 
 
 "-Well, we must give her something else. What 
 d'you think she'd like ? " She wanted to rush out of 
 the room; he made her so self-conscious by asking her 
 opinion ; then she mumbled : 
 
 " Mrs. Back said she wanted a sweet picture, you 
 know, like * The Peacemaker ', with the two girls, and 
 the young man going away at the back." The dark 
 eyes grew serious. " Ain't it lovely ? " she murmured. 
 
 Huncote did not know what to say; he had not the 
 heart to tell her that it was not the mission of the Set- 
 tlement to spread the gospel of Mr. Marcus Stone. Still 
 she looked so serious. Suddenly she leant over 
 towards him with excitement in her eyes. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Huncote, do give it to her ; she's got it into 
 her head, she has, and she says she wants to show it to 
 her Jim. It's a nice picture, don't you think ? " 
 
 Still Huncote temporised. 
 
 " It's a picture with a pretty idea." He hated him- 
 self for lying, but what was he to do ? Then he tried 
 to soothe his conscience. " You see, Miss Groby," he 
 said, " I hardly know how to put it, but there are 
 two sorts of pictures, the pictures that give you an emo- 
 tion, a feeling, you see what I mean, and the other kind 
 which don't matter as pictures but suggest " He 
 stopped, trying to be lucid. " Pictures which suggest 
 things that happen outside the picture, like a story." 
 
 " Every picture tells a story," said Miss Groby 
 dreamily. 
 
 Huncote paused. How could he answer this ? 
 
 " Yes," he said at last, " but don't you see it's not the 
 story of the picture you want but the story of what you 
 feel when you look at it, the drama of your own soul. 
 That's why those pictures of three generations in a gar-
 
 168 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 den, for instance, or lovers saying good-by at a stile, 
 aren't good pictures ; they take you away from yourself 
 into the lives of the people they show you; they try to 
 make you emotional about the people instead of making 
 you emotional about yourself. That's being sentimen- 
 tal; it's forced, it's artificial, don't you see what I 
 mean ? " 
 
 Miss Groby looked at him unsmiling, and he thought 
 he saw some response in the soft eyes, an anxiety in 
 the thick mouth, parted and curling sweetly back as 
 the lip of a crimson flower. She had wrinkled her 
 heavy black brows in an effort to understand him, and 
 she looked into his eyes as if she did not see him, but 
 sought something behind them. She sighed; she did 
 not understand, but she thought it all very wonderful. 
 Still a preoccupation was strong upon her; the frown 
 vanished, and she said inconsequently : 
 
 " Mrs. Back will be so disappointed if she doesn't 
 get it ; you might give it her." 
 
 " All right," said Huncote, " I haven't got one, but 
 I'll take her one to-morrow." 
 
 " She must have it to-morrow," said Sue urgently, 
 " because her Jim's coming back to-morrow night. You 
 won't forget, will you ? " 
 
 He laughed; her anxiety was as sweet as it was 
 childish. 
 
 " I'll get two while I'm about it, and you can have 
 one too." 
 
 Sue's eyes seemed to grow larger and more lucent. 
 
 " Oh ! " she said, with a little gasp, " it is kind of 
 you, Mr. Huncote; but you won't forget Mrs. Back, 
 will you ? " 
 
 III 
 
 Bert Caldwell walked impatiently up and down the 
 mews. There was a frown on his nice fair face and 
 an angry note in the Soldiers' Chorus which he was
 
 THE DAY DREAM 169 
 
 whistling. Bert's taste in tunes expressed him: no 
 music-hall catches for him ; not even his whistling could 
 be illiterate, and so to-night it was the Soldiers' Chorus 
 as on others it was the Entry of the Pilgrims into the 
 Warburg, or Divinite du Styx. He shifted, for he al- 
 ways shifted ; he was restless and that night impatient 
 because Sue was late. She was to meet him in the 
 mews which ran out of John Street almost opposite his 
 workshop because, the day done, when the dusk fell the 
 mews were so narrow and so dark that he could kiss her 
 unobserved. At last he took from his pocket some notes 
 of remarks he wished to make at the Social Democratic 
 Federation meeting. He wanted to swear, but this, he 
 felt, would show lack of self-control. He was almost 
 . absorbed in his notes when Sue came into the mews with 
 the air of somebody who is taking an aimless walk. 
 
 " Hallo ! " she said airily. 
 
 " So there you are," Bert grumbled. " Late again." 
 
 " Couldn't help it, Bert, detained by pressing busi- 
 ness." 
 
 " Oh, you were, were you ? " said Bert, sarcastic, 
 though she laid her hand upon his arm. She looked at 
 him for a moment and wished he were not so serious. 
 She did not exactly know what she wanted, but if Bert 
 had been a little more like the young fellows from Bub- 
 with's and said something about having heard of press- 
 ing business taking place in the office on the boss's knee 
 it would have been all right. Still, her mission was to 
 please, and at once she pleased. She said nothing, but 
 merely looked at him, parting a little more those curling 
 red lips, looking together reproachful, desirous, and 
 careless. The look availed; without a word he flung 
 both arms round her and, drawing her close, kissed the 
 parted mouth, bending her back as if he hated her, 
 wanted to break her. They remained so clasped for 
 some moments until at last Sue freed herself. 
 
 " My word ! " she said. " What d'you think you're
 
 1VO THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 up to ? " She laughed the soft low laugh of woman 
 hurt and glad. Bert did not reply, but still held her, if 
 more loosely. At that moment his idealism was fas- 
 tened on Sue who embodied the grace and beauty which 
 would be given to the world when socialism came about 
 and he was dead. She was the scrap of dream given 
 him, an instalment of Paradise. He looked at her very 
 seriously, and if only she had understood better she 
 would have known how she held him, how if told to he 
 would have starved for her and died for her without 
 saying anything about it, or even expecting much. It 
 was enough that she should let him love her. 
 
 The moment passed, the tension ceased. With linked 
 arms they passed into John Street, but in Crapp's Lane 
 turned to the right so that they might pass the town 
 hall and lengthen the distance to Paradise Eow. For 
 Bert was a respectable young man and no lodger ; after 
 his walk with Sue he would go back to his room, have a 
 wash, read his notes over his tea, and then go on to the 
 branch meeting, conscious that no man could meet his 
 arguments and no woman equal the grace of his beloved. 
 They were light just then, and they stopped for a long 
 time outside a picture palace to look at the posters. A 
 great three-reel drama was billed for that week: " Mel- 
 ville of the Swell Mob." Bert criticised the chief pic- 
 ture which represented a raid by American policemen 
 on a gambling house where the men wore evening clothes 
 with double collars, and the ladies high-low-cut 
 frocks. 
 
 " Oo," said Sue, " I'd like to see that, Bert." 
 
 " Can't take you to-night," said Bert, " got to go to 
 the meeting." 
 
 " Well, let's go to-morrow night." 
 
 " Don't think I can. I'm likely to be on the job at 
 the fire station. Besides, it may be no good ; you can't 
 tell from a picture." 
 
 Sue did not reply; her first feeling had been one of
 
 THE DAY DREAM 171 
 
 annoyance because her lover did not give her all his 
 time; but his criticism of the picture awoke another 
 echo. What was it she had been told about a picture 
 not telling a story? She was not quite sure, but still 
 she felt it ought not to tell a story, it ought to do some- 
 thing else, she did not know what. But anyhow not 
 what Bert said. For a long time she stood gazing at the 
 raid on the gambling house, seeking for the drama in 
 her own soul. 
 
 " Coom on," said Bert, shoving her with his shoulder 
 and affecting a north country accent. 
 
 It annoyed her vaguely, for she was still thinking in 
 her way of the meaning of art. 
 
 " Oo yer pushin' ? " she asked tartly. 
 
 " You," said Bert, with resolute wit. 
 
 " Well, don't make so free." 
 
 " Who's making free ? " 
 
 "You are." 
 
 " No, I'm not." 
 
 "Yes, you are." 
 
 The conversation straggled away into contradictions 
 which were repeated seven or eight times by each party. 
 But this was only the froth of courtship, and amicably 
 enough she accompanied him into the tobacconist's. He 
 bought twenty Hadji Mahomets, and she irritated him 
 by asking him for a woodbine. Bert Caldwell earned 
 thirty-five shillings a week; so he bought Hadji Ma- 
 homets at two shillings and twopence a hundred. It 
 was rather raspy, this conversation, disjointed. Sue 
 tried to tell her lover about the fine old row with one 
 of the great ladies at Highbury over a torn lace hand- 
 kerchief, but he interrupted her; lace handkerchiefs al- 
 ways made him angry. 
 
 " Lace handkerchiefs ! " he snarled ; " that's the sort 
 of thing that goes on while the people starve. Lace 
 handkerchiefs while the working man hasn't got a shirt ! 
 But it won't go on, I tell you, won't go on long. You
 
 172 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 wait till we've captured the State machine. We'll make 
 an end of your fine ladies at Highbury." 
 
 " But how will mother make a living," asked Sue, " if 
 there aren't no more lace handkerchiefs ? " 
 
 Bert seized her by the wrist as if to shake her. 
 
 " How many times have I told you not to say that ? " 
 he shouted. " Don't you understand yet about produc- 
 tive and non-productive employment ? I've told you a 
 thousand times. Instead of making jewellery and 
 scent, and all that sort of muck, people will be making 
 steam ploughs." 
 
 " Ma couldn't make steam ploughs," said Sue obsti- 
 nately. 
 
 Caldwell lost his temper. Still holding her by the 
 wrist he addressed her at the corner of Crapp's Lane, 
 not at all deterred by two costers with a barrowful of 
 bananas, who encouraged him by ironic cheers. 
 
 " Social revolution," Caldwell shouted, " the wages 
 of ability the House of Lords, blackguards, scoun- 
 drels, corruptionists " 
 
 Sue was very angry: making a fool of her in the 
 street! She shook herself free, nursing her bruised 
 wrist. And she thought : "Of course it's his work, 
 he can't help it, but I do wish he hadn't got black nails 
 like that. Why can't he have nails like like ? " 
 
 IV, 
 
 With " The Peacemaker " wrapped in brown paper, 
 under his arm, Roger Huncote turned into Clare Street. 
 It was the next day and he had not forgotten. But just 
 as he entered Paradise Square where innumerable chil- 
 dren were circling, screaming like gulls, about the little 
 pond so full of dirt that no fish could live in it, it sud- 
 denly struck him that he had forgotten Mrs. Back's 
 address; or perhaps Sue had not told him. Anyhow,
 
 THE DAY DREAM 173 
 
 there he was, not knowing where to go and heavily re- 
 sponsible to Mrs. Back for the treat she was to give her 
 soldier son. He stopped, irresolute. Then he won- 
 dered why he was in Paradise Square at all ; evidently 
 she must live close by, but where ? He remembered that 
 Mrs. Back was one of Mrs. Groby's neighbours as she 
 had come in in the evening ; he knew enough of St. Pan- 
 wich to realise that calls of this sort were paid only 
 within the limits of a street, perhaps of a house. He 
 knew where Mrs. Groby lived, in a tenement house, but 
 he had not the fortitude to knock at every door, asking 
 for Mrs. Back. He had done that once in another case : 
 the door was opened by a young lady in an advanced 
 state of rouge and peroxide, and in a non-advanced state 
 of toilet, who said : " Hallo, darling, how did you find 
 me out ? " He had better go to Mrs. Groby, he thought, 
 and ask her. 
 
 Mrs. Groby lived in what was more than a house ; it 
 was four houses knocked into one and divided up into 
 endless tenements ; it was five o'clock, and the building 
 hummed with sounds: crockery being set out for the 
 children's tea, perhaps, or washed; screams, expostula- 
 tions, spankings. And there was a smell too, the smell 
 of poverty: old clothes, food, pungent washing. He 
 remembered it was on the third floor, for he had so ad- 
 dressed " The Golden Staircase " ; as he went up he 
 smiled at his own embarrassment; he had never seen 
 Mrs. Groby, but no doubt she was an amiable person; 
 only Sue might be there too, and in his role of Lord 
 Bountiful he would feel awkward. As he passed the 
 second floor he heard from above a cheerful, middle- 
 aged voice, mixed with the swish-swish of what was 
 probably a wet rag drawn along the floor. The voice 
 sang : 
 
 " Liza's tootsies, Liza's feet, 
 You can bet they'll take the cake, 
 Will Liza's plates of meat."
 
 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 Mrs. Groby, as she washed the floor, was cheering her- 
 self with the long-dead song of some cave of harmony. 
 Huncote knocked. Mrs. Groby was alone and rather 
 confused at being " caught like this ", as she put it. 
 While he explained she tried to dry her hands on the 
 wet rag; she was all apology because everything was at 
 sixes and sevens. Unfortunately she could not help 
 him; she seemed to think very hard while Huncote in- 
 spected the room, a kitchen in the corner of which 
 was a small bed. He was used to these living-room 
 kitchens now, and he did not observe very closely the 
 saucepans crowded on the table by the side of a gaping 
 paper-packet of hot chips, for he heard stirrings and 
 voices in the next room: Sue perhaps, and he embar- 
 rassed and restless. At last Mrs. Groby said : 
 
 " Well, sir, I can't tell yer ; Mrs. Back's a friend of 
 Sue's, she is ; I can't tell yer." 
 
 Huncote asked whether Miss Groby was in. 
 
 " No, sir," said Mrs. Groby, " she's at the washhouse 
 round the corner. There's a Highbury lady rather in 
 a hurry for her netted d'oyleys, as she calls 'em." Mrs. 
 Groby looked self-conscious and proud. " You wouldn't 
 think 'ow clever that girl is with lace, sir. It ain't work 
 they can do at them steam laundries." 
 
 " No, I suppose not," said Huncote. His difficulty 
 stood, for his conscience was tender, and he could not 
 bear to think that Mrs. Back should not have a picture 
 to show her son. He told Mrs. Groby, who at once grew 
 sympathetic. 
 
 The door opened, and two children came in. They 
 were quite undistinguished, brown-haired, blue-eyed 
 children, aged about fourteen. They remained at the 
 door, side by side, staring at Huncote, the boy rather 
 truculent, the girl shy and flirtatious. 
 
 " Get along with you," said Mrs. Groby amiably. 
 " Twins," she explained to Huncote. 
 
 " Oh, yes," said the young man, embarrassed. He
 
 THE DAY DREAM 175 
 
 was told about the twins and how Perce was through the 
 sixth standard at the Clare Street Council school. 
 While Muriel 
 
 "Muriel's quite the lady," said Mrs. Groby archly. 
 And she once more bewailed the fact that she had not 
 Mrs. Back's address. It was Muriel solved the diffi- 
 culty. Apparently not so shy after all she stepped for- 
 ward, looking at Huncote like a peasant that worships 
 a blessed medal and yet feels he is the owner of it. 
 
 " If I may make a suggestion," she said, in a very 
 elocuted tone, " Mr. Huncote could ask my sister if he 
 would go round to the washhouse." 
 
 Huncote laughed at the precise mincing child. He 
 was later to understand that Muriel was too refined and 
 democratic to run a message ; he was to see connections 
 between her and others of her class, to understand why 
 Mrs. Groby spoke so badly, her elder daughter rather 
 uncertainly, her youngest quite well, too well; to un- 
 derstand the steady rise in the people. But just then 
 he was grateful for the hint. Pursued by Mrs. Groby's 
 apologies, he went down the stairs. They had all been 
 so flustered and artificial. How awkward ! He paused 
 to remember where the washhouse was and, as he 
 thought, above him he heard the resumption in song of 
 Mrs. Groby's ordinary life : 
 
 "Liza's tootsies, Liza's feet, 
 You can bet they'll take the cake, 
 Will Liza's plates of meat." 
 
 The distance was so little, as the washhouse was next 
 door to the schools, that he had no time to collect em- 
 barrassment. Nor was he stopped by the old woman 
 who sat in a sort of glass case, knitting; her function 
 was to collect the twopences. She threw him a quick 
 look, decided he must be somebody connected with the 
 Council and at once, all but for the swift movement of 
 her hands, grew as the programme seller at Madame
 
 176 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 Tussaud's. For a moment he paused at the entrance. 
 This was a queer, new atmosphere, rather dark. Little 
 by little he saw some twenty bays, in two rows of ten, 
 each one facing a window of frosted glass. He had a 
 sensation of wideness, stone floors ; an acrid smell that 
 was pleasant and penetrating, struck him; there was 
 heat and steam too. Half -hesitating, he went along the 
 central alley of ribbed wood under which ran a soft 
 trickle of warm water. There was hardly anybody in 
 the washhouse, for this was Friday afternoon, the laun- 
 dress's holiday. There were women in only four of 
 the bays, and as he paused he saw broad backs, immense 
 hips ; one woman who was vigorous was banging a white 
 lump, making squelches of soap with her other hand 
 and vigorous scrapings with her feet. That laundress 
 was all deafening movement. They were so busy that 
 they did not hear him go past, or the vigorous laundress 
 covered the sound of his footsteps. He passed bay after 
 bay, shy, as if intruding upon some feminine rite; one 
 of the women had taken her blouse off, and he felt 
 guilty. In the last bay but one, next to which a tap 
 was giving off a little steam, he came upon Sue. And 
 it was like discovery, so alone did she seem between the 
 high partitions, isolated by the thin cloud of steam be- 
 yond which was the world and the steady bang of the 
 wet linen. He hesitated, then entered the bay. 
 
 As he went in Sue turned, and an expression such 
 as he had never seen upon a woman's face came over 
 her features. Surprise and excitement, and a little 
 fear. She stood before him, arms rather apart, staring. 
 Huncote heard himself speak hurriedly, not very co- 
 herently, explaining his difficulty about the old woman. 
 There was a silence ; then : " Oh," said Sue, rather 
 jerkily, " she lives at number 5, Robert Street, third 
 floor." She too was distrait. " Back's the name," she 
 added. Then she grew silent and he too, as if neither 
 quite knew what the other said and knew that the other
 
 THE DAY DREAM 177 
 
 did not know. It was a long silence which, as it grew 
 heavier, grew more meaningful. She was half -shy, but 
 he did not know what she had said, for he was looking 
 at a woman, not listening to a fellow creature's speech. 
 Here was no longer the young girl in the absurd green 
 cloth coat, with the hat upon the back of her head and 
 the many roses. Here nothing artificial, nothing pre- 
 pared to please or impress him, but the appeal of youth, 
 half -passionate, half-tender. She had tucked up to her 
 knees her skirts and petticoats and tied them with cord ; 
 the sleeves of her blue blouse rolled up almost to her 
 shoulders showed long, firm arms, softly moulded, ivory- 
 pale as a tea-rose, and shadowed with soft dark down. 
 For a moment he looked only at the shadows, creamy- 
 dark with a touch of green, that lay in the hollows of 
 the arms. Obscurely, he was conscious of her, rather 
 saw her as part of the scene, of that dull being behind 
 him and the whisper of escaping steam. Then he saw 
 her better, more mysterious and yet evident. Her 
 blouse was open at the neck ; the clear olive of her skin 
 was flushed with heat. He saw every detail of her: 
 the broad, mannish shoulders, the body tapering towards 
 the hips, and the hurried rise and fall of the full breasts, 
 young, pointing to the right and left as those of fleeing 
 Diana. There was more pathos than seduction in the 
 young body, because so unspoilt. 
 
 He spoke again and knew his words were uncertain, 
 and she replied smiling, a little as if she thought of 
 something else. She held in her hands some lacy stuff 
 which while she spoke she wrung, and went on wringing 
 as if her hands, those strong little dark hands, had im- 
 pulses of their own, foreign to herself. The gesture 
 fascinated him until he looked into her face and saw 
 with a vision renewed the parted, curling lips and the 
 eyes that were so soft as they rested upon him through 
 the hot, moist air; the curls that were so thick, rather 
 damp and darkened by moisture, tumbled upon her
 
 178 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 brow and brilliant here and there with redness where 
 touched them the setting sun as it fell suavely through 
 the frosted glass. 
 
 Life was intolerably beautiful then and flimmering, 
 as if she had occurred in a world not made for such 
 things; as if she had escaped from those falsities with 
 which she so well knew how to make herself absurd. 
 He did not know it, but for the first time he was seeing 
 her as she was and at her noblest, simple, at work, 
 without artifice. He was seeing all that was exquisite 
 in her, her humility, because stripped of gewgaws of 
 which she thought too much ; her shyness, because for a 
 moment alone with him ; her anxiety to please him, not 
 that he might admire, for in her innocence she thought 
 herself below admiration, but just to please him. He 
 did not know all this, but he could feel it. So they 
 did not say anything, either of them, but as they so 
 stood, drew back into themselves, thrilled and yet afraid 
 of that third creature which sometimes rises between 
 woman and man to bind them, that imponderable, in- 
 visible, incorporeal spirit that is made of two, and yet 
 of one and of both, and of another, of illusion passing 
 and yet real ; that is so fugitive that none can seize it, 
 so powerful that it may forever bind ; so crafty that one 
 thus enmeshed may not escape until he die, so weak 
 that a word or a look can slay it, so sweet that never 
 can sated tongue recoil therefrom, so fierce that all 
 shrink away as they draw closer. . . . 
 
 They were silent and helpless as he turned away, and 
 they were glad, though afraid, as they felt the change 
 that had come. Both of them, .still unloving and un- 
 loved, who had lived all their lives ignorant of their 
 desire, were afraid. They were like saints who have 
 prayed to be taken into the bosom of the Lord through 
 the blessedness of death, and yet shrink away and cry 
 out when they hear from afar the steady beating of the 
 black angel's wing.
 
 CHAPTEE THE THIRD 
 
 THE DREAM IN THE NIGHT 
 
 HUNCOTE rose early. He felt slack, heavy, and he had 
 a slight, insistent headache which he attributed to hav- 
 ing drunk and smoked too much the night before. 
 Without intention, as if he were running away, he had 
 rung up Ditton and asked him to go to the theatre. It 
 had seemed necessary that Ditton should take him to 
 the theatre; Huncote had been very urgent about it, 
 had swept away Ditton's objection that he was booked 
 by a friend, Captain Verney, and in the end accompa- 
 nied Ditton and Verney to " The Glad Eye." A dread- 
 ful evening, with Ditton being funny and the soldier 
 demonstrating at the play how a man can guffaw like 
 a coster and yet maintain absolute good form. Hun- 
 cote hated the play; the contrast between the memory 
 of Sue, the soft modesty of her eyes, and the brisk light- 
 ness of luxurious amours sickened him. In another 
 mood it would have filled him with contempt to see a 
 man take up flying so as to find time to deceive his 
 wife with a milliner; and he would have sneered when 
 various people in flying kit hid themselves in various 
 parts of the house so as to shield their puny beastliness. 
 He was vigorous that night, so he hated it all. He was 
 tender, not yet the piping Daphnis, but already he saw 
 Chloe, for washing clothes was not above Chloe's dig- 
 nity. And he was angry because afterwards he had to 
 have supper at Romano's and, being weak, was dragged 
 for a while into the Eleur de Lis night-club where
 
 180 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 through smoke he had to look upon an abominable 
 crowd, fat Jewish men with diamonds on their little 
 fingers and pretty girls with eyes like enamel. Next 
 to him was a party he hated, especially an American 
 girl who never said anything, but replied to a man who 
 looked like a red-nose comedian with " yeps " and 
 " nups " which fell like the bits of metal from an auto- 
 matic stamping machine; there was a man whom they 
 called " The Honourable John ", drunker than Hun- 
 cote had ever seen anybody, and some fluffies more and 
 more attentive to him as he grew more incapable. 
 
 Why had he done it ? Because his feelings were con- 
 fused, because he wanted to do something, anything, to 
 have activity if he could not have purpose, to dull him- 
 self, to flee from the picture that was becoming an 
 obsession, which he feared lest it should become an 
 obsession, which perhaps he feared more lest it should 
 become a reality, his life, and which at the very back of 
 his mind he was thrillingly beginning to convert into 
 a reality. That was the night before, when Sue was 
 still so near, and her grace and sweetness all about him. 
 In the early morning it was different; there was no 
 night now to englamour her; she was only a little girl 
 of the people, shy, not virginally, but shy because she 
 had no habit of the world. He felt that he had been 
 absurd, though he had done nothing, said nothing. He 
 had been absurd in emotion if not in action, and to a 
 conscience such as his that was as great an ignominy. 
 He grew hot and angry. As he leapt out of bed he said 
 aloud : 
 
 "Mashed! That's what they call it. Completely, 
 vulgarly mashed." 
 
 He swore with disgust. He could not sit in his 
 rooms; everything angered him, his landlady's orna- 
 ments, notably the black marble clock in the shape of a 
 tomb watched by a shepherdess of bronze, in long skirts 
 and high bodice, date circa 1850 ; the bath in which he
 
 THE DREAM IN THE NIGHT 181 
 
 intimately knew they washed the collie though the land- 
 lady denied it. And the breakfast was not ready: he 
 was twenty minutes early himself and flung himself into 
 an unreasonable rage about it. The landlady took this 
 with as much equanimity as if it were she who had been 
 twenty minutes late. She did not care either way. 
 When Huncote realised this there was another burst of 
 anger. 
 
 He could not go straight to the Settlement ; he had to 
 work off on himself his hatred of the world. So he 
 walked very fast southwards, past King's Cross. He 
 reached Park Crescent and the august solitudes of Port- 
 land Place which, at that early hour, was an endless 
 prospect of bent middle-aged female backs. Step- 
 scrubbing, the travail of luxury. As he passed he saw 
 the women's arms, large red arms, some mottled, some 
 dreadfully long and thin, with crimson elbows and start- 
 ing wrists. They all went with the same rhythm, right 
 to left, left to right, as if they had been swaying and 
 scrubbing since time began, and would so go on to the 
 end of time, with that swish-swish of wet rag. 
 
 A new feeling formed in him: he remembered the 
 swish-swish ; Mrs. Groby, comfortable and smiling, came 
 up before his eyes. He smiled suddenly, he remem- 
 bered her song, and as he went, swinging a cane, he 
 murmured to himself: 
 
 " Liza's tootsies, Liza's feet . . ." 
 
 One of the scrubbers, who was wringing out her rag, 
 said: 
 
 " What's the joke ? " 
 
 He smiled at her. His mood had changed. He 
 grew aware of the sun that fell pale and brilliant as 
 sauterne. In Regent Street an excitement was upon 
 him and grew with the crowd. It was not within him- 
 self, but part of the world, and the crowd was a charac- 
 ter. He loved it because it was the young crowd of 
 early morning. The hanging thought behind his brain
 
 182 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 rose : " Mashed ! Completely and vulgarly mashed ! " 
 But he was not angry, for slowly there crept over him a 
 feeling he had never known before : " I'm a dog ! " 
 Young Huncote, aged twenty-four and yesterday so old, 
 was for the first time in his life young. He tried to 
 tell himself it was a vulgar flirtation, and he did not 
 mind it being vulgar ; he liked it ; it was exciting, ad- 
 venturous, just because it was new, just because he had 
 never, like his friends, the Dittons, the Lord Alastairs, 
 painted the town red. He wanted so to paint it at half- 
 past nine. Nothing told his innocence that he was good 
 for little more than pink. So in his ignorance he was 
 happy: the workgirls streamed past him, alone and 
 hurrying, or in couples, chattering as they went, or in 
 noisy groups that struggled over a picture-paper and 
 dawdled before the windows of Peter Robinson. One 
 of the groups impeded him, and he did not try to force 
 his way through ; this fluttering femininity, so audacious 
 and so shy, yet so educated by London, stirred and 
 amused him. Surprisingly he was talking to four of 
 them while a fifth, an anxious little person with glasses, 
 tried to draw them away lest they should be late. A 
 big handsome girl, with hair like a fox's fur, picked him 
 as her especial quarry. She casually remarked that her 
 name was " Molly ", and did he like cinemas ? But 
 they were all in a hurry, and he found that only for a 
 moment had he been a " fellow." Regent Street grew 
 clearer of shop girls ; those who were late began to run 
 past him and were being replaced by a new contingent, 
 the women from the suburbs, about to gaze for hours 
 and buy for minutes, until much later the rich would 
 come to glance disdainfully for a second and pass on 
 untempted. 
 
 " I'm a dog ! " he repeated to himself. Then he said 
 it again, and it struck him that he did so only because 
 unconvinced. He thought of those girls with whom he 
 had exchanged a few words, of big Molly. How sharp
 
 THE DREAM IN THE NIGHT 183 
 
 they had been, all of them, and how unafraid of him ! 
 How soon too, he thought, the one who talked most had 
 thought of something she could get out of him. 
 
 He turned back through the mercantile Great Port- 
 land Street, and as he retraced his steps his mood 
 changed. Doggishness was not working. He was be- 
 ginning to compare, and the more he thought of Molly 
 and her fellows, the more insistently was he haunted by 
 a darker, a sweeter shade who did not wink, or ogle, 
 or invite. He remembered her speech. Sue had never 
 said: "No fear" or "Not arf ", as they did in St. 
 Panwich ; at least not to him. It moved him to think 
 that perhaps she was different from the others, still more 
 that perhaps she was so only for him. The nearer he 
 came to St. Panwich, the more did he recede from his 
 old attitude: it was old already after half an hour, so 
 swift are the wings of Eros. No, his was no common 
 little episode. Fearfully he realised that perhaps it 
 was not an episode. A new horror seized him as he 
 saw himself grow more and more deeply involved, un- 
 able to rescue himself from her, more dangerous still, 
 from his own impulse. In his despair he threw him- 
 self into his work, hating it because it was not adequate, 
 did not so strain his mind as to leave no room for her. 
 All that day, in a rage of work, he did nearly everything 
 that he had planned to do in the week ; he made copies 
 of quite unnecessary lists; seeking dullness of mind he 
 would have copied out the post-office directory. But the 
 only result was to make him irritable* Churton came 
 in. 
 
 " Hallo ! " he said amiably. " You look pretty hard 
 at it." He took up the draft of a lecture : The Settle- 
 ment and Its Aims. " Oh, I was going to do that 
 Didn't you know ? " 
 
 " Yes, I did," said Huncote defiantly. 
 
 Nothing would have happened if his tone had been 
 different, but Churton was nettled.
 
 184 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 " If you knew I was going to do it, why did you do 
 it?" 
 
 Before he could think Huncote lost his temper. 
 
 " Damnation ! " he shouted. " D'you think that no- 
 body here can do anything but you ? " 
 
 A flush rose on Churton's yellow-greenish cheeks. 
 
 " Don't talk to me like that. After all . . ." 
 
 " Yes, after all," Huncote snarled, " say it : you're 
 boss here and I'm not ; is that what you mean ? " 
 
 " You know I mean nothing of the kind," said Chur- 
 ton, who had regained self-control, " only I wish . . ." 
 
 The conversation turned into an interminable wrangle 
 about minding one's own business and ended in Hun- 
 cote seizing his hat and leaving the Settlement. A few 
 minutes later, in the street, he tried to remember what 
 the quarrel was about. By the time he reached his 
 rooms he felt abject, and it relieved him only a little 
 to write Churton a long apology. But, the apology 
 written, he could think only of his own condition : what 
 a day this had been ! And how he had behaved ! Low 
 adventure in Regent Street with not even the excuse of 
 success, silly officiousness ending in his conducting him- 
 self like a petulant child ! What was coming over him ? 
 He sat with his head in his hands in the horsehair arm- 
 chair, gazing at the black marble tomb. " What's the 
 matter with me ? " he thought. He did not know ; he 
 tried to think and found he could not. It was very hot ; 
 the room smelt dusty, of old curtains, mangy carpets; 
 from outside came sleepy air with a rank flavour when 
 it blew from the tannery or the brewery, he was not 
 sure which. 
 
 His excitement turned to weariness, and yet he knew 
 he could not sleep, at least not there, in this place that 
 felt like a hutch. He must go out, but he knew that 
 the London streets with their hard pavements glowing 
 in the sunset, the asphalt, soft under his feet, would not 
 help him. He could not be with so many of his fellows,
 
 THE DREAM IN THE NIGHT 185 
 
 for they would seem too gay, too confident, and it would 
 be bitter to see them purposeful while he was in tur- 
 moil. For a moment he thought of St. Olaves: if his 
 mother had been there alone to smile and talk inconse- 
 quently of socialism and the new curate it would have 
 been all right, but he shrank when he thought of Els- 
 peth, whose diamond-cut mind would put his own to 
 shame, and Flora, Flora so charming and yet so abom- 
 inably like those flumes of the morning. No, he must 
 be alone. He grew sure of it. The thought of action 
 invigorated him, he jumped up and, without any plan, 
 running out into the street, happened upon a cab sent 
 to him by fate: nothing but fate would send a cab to 
 St. Panwich. It was an old, old hansom with melan- 
 cholic springs and a horse which during the Boer War 
 had gone for a soldier; it was stuffy, and the contents 
 of the cushion were at last achieving their ambition of 
 years, beginning to burst out. But still it was the car 
 of freedom, and when the man lifted the flap Huncote 
 said : " Paddington " as he might have said " Heaven ! " 
 to the mystic driver of the chariot of Elijah. 
 
 He had said " Paddington " because for so many 
 years, when in London and returning to Oxford, he had 
 said " Paddington." It seemed quite natural to say 
 " Oxford " at the booking-office, quite natural to catch 
 the 7.30 which he had so often caught before. But he 
 was not asking Oxford to take him to her dry, even- 
 beating heart and talk to him of hexameters; he was 
 asking of her her Isian peace and the darkness that 
 should fall about her spires. 
 
 Without intent he shrank from his desire ; he stopped 
 but a moment at the chemist's opposite the station to 
 buy a tooth-brush, this material necessity having oc- 
 curred to him. And then he walked away very quickly, 
 afraid that some don of Gabriel might meet him and 
 force him into reminiscences of degrees, of rags, and 
 tea parties, and binges, Oxford tittle-tattle. He turned
 
 186 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 behind the station, crossed the Cherwell like a hiding 
 malefactor, and turned along the high road. He 
 vaguely felt that he must escape from his mind by 
 wearying his body; the ten-mile walk to Shilling-ford 
 would help him. But he did not get so far; as behind 
 him the thickness of the old town turned into villas and, 
 these scattering, into fields, he came to the silence he 
 was seeking; his pace slackened. He went through 
 Sandford where there were no lights, went on along the 
 road where followed him the scent of sweetbriar. He 
 stopped and turned up a path that ran dark across a 
 meadow, until very near him he could hear the soft 
 lapping of the Thames. He did not want to see the 
 river just then, but to listen to the mild swell of its 
 low summer waters. Its voice made the depth, while 
 the sharp, monotonous cry of the grasshoppers and the 
 faint swish of the grass in the night winds made the 
 lightness. A crescent of pale-green moon hung in a 
 sky almost as pale, where on the leisurely wind floated 
 lazily eternal clouds. He heard only the sounds of 
 nature and, far from man, the passions of man fell from 
 him as an over-heavy coat from weary shoulders. He 
 was not thinking of Sue precisely, or of anything pre- 
 cisely; every pore of his skin answered the cool night 
 in which yet there was warmth ; he was like an animal 
 that has been fed and desires no more. An impulse 
 stirred him, and he went farther across the meadow 
 until the path disappeared, and about his feet there 
 clung, like hands, the lush grass near the river side. 
 For a long time he watched the slow, black passing of the 
 waters; he thought of them as "symbolic of eternity and 
 did not smile at his own platitude. For this was not a 
 time to cavil at platitudes when the moon melted her 
 pearl in the opal cup of the night. 
 
 Then, from far away, came floating towards him the 
 voice of a woman faintly singing. It was lazy and 
 melancholic. He heard the sound of sculls, and the
 
 THE DREAM IN THE NIGHT 187 
 
 singing grew louder. In the darkness he saw the blot 
 of a greater darkness upon the water and, watching, his 
 mind so empty that anything could occupy it, he saw it 
 materialise, become a skiff which a man was pulling. 
 By the light of a Chinese lantern in the bows he could 
 see a girl, sitting among cushions, scarlet cushions that 
 in the yellow light of the lantern were as the flesh of 
 an apricot. They could not see him, for they were 
 blinded by their own light, and for a moment Huncote 
 looked upon them, young, loving, alone on earth because 
 they thought themselves alone. Mechanically he ob- 
 served the rhythm of the man's strokes, the far-thrown 
 look in the girl's eyes as she stared over her lover's head 
 into the night that seemed so black over the lantern. 
 Her voice was thin but tender as she sang : 
 
 "Will the ro-ses bloom in Heaven, 
 Are there an-y gardens there? 
 An-y vi-o-lets and clover, 
 Way up with the an-gels fair? 
 
 " Will the branches fill with blossoms, 
 And in win-ter fill with snow? 
 Will the ro-ses bloom in Heaven? 
 Tell me, Mamma, ere I go." 
 
 He did not trouble to understand or to criticise, to 
 tell himself that these were townees, that the girl was 
 not pretty, that the song was sentimental wash, for as 
 they passed him on their dream-boat, their little world 
 adrift and so full, an intolerable ache formed in his 
 heart; it grew as, the boat drawing away, the singing 
 seemed fainter. They were leaving him, they and their 
 love-filled world, to his loneliness, his undefined de- 
 sire. 
 
 She was still singing, but he could not catch the words 
 so well ; every stroke made them fainter, and at last he 
 guessed rather than heard the chorus that came from 
 afar, like an old sweet thought :
 
 188 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 " Will the ro-ses bloom in Heaven, 
 Are there an-y gardens there? 
 An-y vi-o-lets and . . ." 
 
 He could hear no more, the voice had faded away; he 
 stood in the silence upon the bank, the night colder 
 about him and he so lonely. 
 
 Much later in the night at Shillingford, where he had 
 gone into the first inn he saw, he woke up. He woke up 
 in possession of all his faculties, as if he had been 
 startled. It was as if somebody had called to him, and 
 he strained his ears to see if he drew back from his 
 own fantasy. He was afraid a little and yet eager as 
 a virgin pursued. He sat up. It was cold in his room 
 with the night half spent; the window with its white 
 blind was opaline and shadowy as a window's ghost. A 
 treacherous light fell upon the blind as if dawn were 
 near; he heard sounds, cattle lowing far away; a cock 
 crowed, and he shrank as he thought of the day, of the 
 problem that light must bring. " It is easy enough," 
 he thought, " when it is all unreal." The cock crowed 
 again, and Huncote feared the day. For some moments 
 he remained like this, sitting up in the tumbled bed, 
 his hands clenched upon the bed-clothes, waiting for the 
 sun ; but his eyes straining to the window saw no greater 
 light. Indeed it faded, and the cock crowed no more: 
 false dawn and its chilliness was on him. Suddenly he 
 flung himself down into the bed, drawing the bed-clothes 
 over his head, hoping in the warm darkness to find 
 sleep. But it was thought he found, abominable, clear, 
 logical thought. He struggled, but it was no use ; in the 
 hot darkness of the bed the picture of Sue formed before 
 his eyes, fearful and lovely. An obscure instinct in 
 him suggested he should pray to be delivered from 
 temptation, but he was too proud to pray. He thought : 
 " No, I have never worshipped God when all was well ; 
 I'll not appeal to Him now." He would fight the temp- 
 tation alone and bear the blame if he failed.
 
 THE DREAM IN THE NIGHT 189 
 
 A question formed : " The blame ? Why the 
 blame ? " Sue's dark head grew so actual to him that 
 he was afraid. But more than afraid, he was delighted ; 
 the dark eyes seemed full of wonder, and the red, curl- 
 ing lips parted in the smile of appeal, rather than in- 
 citement. She was irresistible and charming. 
 
 Suddenly he remembered Mrs. Back. He had been 
 so stirred that he forgot her and her soldier son. The 
 picture lay at his rooms in Clare Street. Such was the 
 power of Sin. He was shocked. Then he thought: 
 "After aU, why not? What is class? Artificial!" 
 His logic pulled him up. " No, not artificial, but the 
 class that is at the top may not be the upper class ; all 
 those who are at the bottom may not be of the lower 
 class." A powerful catch-phrase seized him : " The 
 nobility of labour." And at once Sue's personal charm 
 turned into a sociological charm; she was no longer 
 the one who should be his beloved, but the one who em- 
 bodied all that was fine in her type. Coarse perhaps, 
 coarse certainly, uneducated, common, but not vul- 
 gar, not cruel, not insensitive like so many of her class 
 and of his own. For a long time he thought of his 
 own class. He saw it as mercenary often, snobbish gen- 
 erally, idle always. He buried his face in the pillow 
 and soon was flattering his vanity, telling himself that 
 he would do a fine thing, a chivalrous thing, and then 
 he bribed his desire with the matchlessness of Sue. He 
 recreated her in his mind, he understood that to love is 
 to set out on exploration. 
 
 The picture of Sue still smiled, glad and resigned, as 
 if saying: " Do with me what you will." He seized 
 the offering; he had a vision of a Sue with all her 
 " h's ", of a Sue who knew the difference between 
 " what " and " whom." He smiled as he thought of Sue 
 with only eight roses in her hat, then two or three, then 
 perhaps, who could tell, just a black aigrette. 
 Literature. ... He thought of Sue giving up the penny
 
 190 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 novelette and, via Dickens, proceeding to George Mere- 
 dith. It was Sue, and all Sue, only Sue now, and the 
 fine type forgot ; he thought of her, silent and dark, in 
 an evening frock he contrived for her, cream with 
 touches of orange to enhance her dusky beauty: he was 
 discovering woman in his lover. The night was pass- 
 ing and the dawn on the wing; still he thought of her 
 and what he could make of her. God-like he conde- 
 scended, thought to recreate her in his own image. 
 Only at last, as Aurora laid upon the window a smiling 
 cheek, he called himself a prig and was ashamed. 
 
 " No" he said, " it mustn't be like that, it must be 
 she and I, not I and I in female form ; it must be just 
 she as she was yesterday, bearing youth like a torch." 
 
 He remembered her as she stood before him, her long 
 pale arms, her acquiescent eyes. A humorous idea 
 struck him. " Well, we'll have to have a washhouse 
 too, and she can rehearse the old part." He laughed, 
 and as he so did the dream-head laughed too ; it was as if 
 the curling lips said : " Laugh, master, if you like ; I 
 don't understand why, but if you laugh I am content."
 
 THE WONDEBPOOLS 
 
 " LOST your tongue, have you ? " asked Sue. 
 
 Bert did not reply. Sue felt displeased with herself. 
 She knew she was handling him in the wrong way, but 
 she could not help it, possibly because some subtle an- 
 tagonism to Bert had by anticipation crept into her. 
 She managed not to add : " You dummy ! " They 
 sat on the tram which this Saturday afternoon was tak- 
 ing them towards Highgate. It was warm, and the 
 scented world was pleasant. Sue did not feel angry 
 really, only huffy ; after all she had not done anything. 
 She grew remorseful. As they passed over the High- 
 gate Koad bridge, she said : " Feels rather rocky, 
 doesn't it ? " Still Bert said nothing, and Sue felt very 
 offended ; she was trying hard to please him, and conver- 
 sation about bridges, which led to railways and other 
 machinery, always pleased him. But as that day it did 
 not, Sue switched from propitiation to proper pride and, 
 when they got off near Highgate Fields, was very much 
 the lady. For a time they walked side by side on the 
 hard, caked turf. Bert said, almost condescendingly: 
 " Pretty hot, isn't it ? We need some rain." 
 
 " Wouldn't do any harm," said Sue, eagerly clutching 
 at the loverlike speech. 
 
 " It'd keep the flies down anyhow," Bert grumbled 
 as he flicked a tormentor from his nose. And for the 
 moment that was all. 
 
 They went on side by side, or rather not quite side
 
 192 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 by side but Bert a little in front, not much, five or six 
 inches perhaps, in virtue of their class instinct which, 
 better than that of Mayfair, remembers the Indian 
 brave and his squaw. Silently still they went up Par- 
 liament Hill ; it was a long climb and a hot one. When 
 they got to the top Bert mopped his head, and Sue won- 
 dered what he would say, for she knew her quasi-fiance, 
 knew him for talkative and had always found that a 
 long silence was with him as inevitably the prelude to a 
 row as the lull is that to a storm. And yet her waiting 
 was not all anxious ; she found herself strangely absent- 
 minded that day, and she looked out over Highgate 
 Ponds, now corrugated by a slight breeze and glistening 
 dully like molten lead, at the little groups that were 
 families, at the couples pretending that the tree hid 
 them, at the field below, near the band stand, where a 
 great many teams of assorted ages played cricket. She 
 did not think precisely, but something at the back of her 
 mind, unmingled with the grass and the sun, made her 
 happy and unafraid. Yet she was annoyed and rather 
 insulted: the complex product of Saturday afternoon 
 and of parallel passions. Suddenly Bert spoke and it 
 was jarring. 
 
 " Been getting yourself talked about, haven't you ? " 
 
 " I don't know what you mean," said Sue. 
 
 " What I say," Bert replied profoundly. 
 
 " Wish you'd say it a bit plainer." 
 
 " Been getting yourself talked about, haven't you ? " 
 said Bert, more cheerfully now, for he knew he was 
 being irritating, and that soothed him. 
 
 She made a movement which would have been a shrug 
 of the shoulders if she had been French, and a toss of 
 the head if she had been born in 1820. It did not re- 
 lieve her much, and she had to be content with assum- 
 ing an air of mingled aloofness and martyrdom. She 
 knew the power of that air and indeed in a few seconds 
 Bert, having glanced at her sideways, went on :
 
 THE WONDERPOOLS 193 
 
 " Well, what have you got to say for yourself ? " 
 
 " You didn't ask a question, Bert," said Sue politely. 
 
 Bert felt very aggressive. " All right, I'll ask you a 
 question : Is it true that swell, Huncote, is after you ? 
 It's all over the place." 
 
 " Somebody's been tellin' you the tale, Bert," said 
 Sue. But her heart seemed to have grown in that mo- 
 ment rather too large for her chest. 
 
 " I'm not asking you whether somebody's been tellin' 
 me the tale," Bert snarled. " I'm askin' you a plain 
 question. They say he came in to see you the other day. 
 That true?" 
 
 Sue was frightened: what were they saying? Per- 
 haps they were saying that he had been there when her 
 mother was not in, and she had the highest regard for 
 her reputation. She hurried to explain. 
 
 " It was only about the picture for Mrs. Back. He 
 never had come round before. It was only . . ." 
 
 Her humility made Bert as angry as had her defi- 
 ance. He wanted a quarrel, and he was not going to 
 be done out of it. 
 
 " That's a fine story to tell me," he went on bitterly. 
 " 'Spose he was looking for Mrs. Back in the wash- 
 house, was he?" She said nothing; she had not felt 
 all that Huncote felt that afternoon. But still it was 
 an agitating memory. " Think nobody saw you ? " 
 said Bert. 
 
 "Well, they didn't see anything, did they?" Sue 
 replied. 
 
 " Oh, oh," said Bert, with an air half of mischief, 
 half of reproach, " so there was something to see, was 
 there ? You've given the game away." 
 
 " There's no game to give away." 
 
 " Yes, there is ; you said it." 
 
 " No, there isn't." 
 
 "Call me a liar?" 
 
 " Anything to oblige."
 
 194 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 " Thanks, I don't want no favours." 
 
 This method of conversation which practice in Lon- 
 don streets had brought to perfection might have ruled 
 for a long time, but Sue relapsed into sulky silence 
 while Bert began again. 
 
 " I'm surprised at you," he said, " making yourself 
 cheap like that, and with a swell. A swell ! " he re- 
 peated, with increasing bitterness. " I'm not going to 
 talk about myself or where I come in, you know what I 
 mean . . ." He stopped, afraid from judicial to grow 
 emotional, and to relieve the tension quickly fastened 
 on class hatred. " A swell ! A University snob ! 
 'Spose he's turned your head for you. What d'you 
 think you're up to ? Going to be a blooming duchess ? " 
 He grew angrier. " A man who's never done a stroke 
 of work for his living, one of those who prey upon the 
 people." His wrong grew sociological. " It's to keep 
 his sort that chaps like me got to work day and night, 
 and having them come it over us as a reward. They 
 make me sick." 
 
 " You're jealous," said Sue. She had thought that 
 out; she knew, perfidious one, that jealous men hate to 
 be thought jealous. 
 
 " Jealous ! " Bert repeated scornfully. " Tell me 
 what I've got to be jealous about. I'm a workingman, 
 I am, not a Piccadilly Johnny. You just watch him a 
 bit, and you'll find your masher hanging about the 
 Gaiety stage door, looking for another softy like you. 
 Those people, they live on us like like hyenas on 
 dead bodies." He paused, feeling that the simile did 
 not express what he meant. " What do we want peo- 
 ple like him bossing us for ? We know what we've got 
 to do. That sort is just an accident ; it's got hold of a 
 little bit of money, and it sits on it because my sort's 
 fool enough to let it keep it, and then it blackmails us 
 to let us have it back. Us!" he shouted, waving an 
 angry fist towards Highgate Ponds. "Who made the
 
 THE WONDERPOOLS 105 
 
 money ! " With immense feeling, he added : " It 
 makes me sick." 
 
 His anger moved Sue, and she tried to he conciliatory. 
 
 " Oh, Bert," she said, " it's always heen like that. 
 There have always been masters, haven't there ? " 
 
 " Yes, hut there won't be long." 
 
 " You shouldn't talk like that, Bert," Sue protested. 
 " What does it matter if some of us have to serve ? " 
 She struggled with a memory of biblical phrases. 
 " Serving in heaven," she said, " I forget the rest." 
 
 Bert laughed a short, dry laugh. 
 
 " We'll see about serving when we get the bit of 
 heaven. Haven't seen any messing about down our 
 way. P'rhaps I wouldn't mind serving in what you 
 call heaven, but I'm not going to have the angels treat 
 me like a footman. Heaven ! Wish you'd give heaven 
 a rest. Heaven's only a parson's dodge." 
 
 " Bert," said Sue meaningly, " you know I don't like 
 it when you talk like that." 
 
 But Bert had lost his head and his prudence; he 
 faced Sue and, unmoved by the rose which warmth had 
 brought into her cheek's pale dusk, he addressed her 
 like a public meeting. 
 
 " Won't people ever understand the mechanism of 
 production? Won't they ever see that this accumula- 
 tion of capital in a few hands has given the power of 
 blackmail to those who are the least fit ? You tell us," 
 he went on, addressing Sue who had told him nothing, 
 " that we're setting class against class. Well, it's time 
 that the lower class, as you like to call it, should be set 
 against the upper class which for so many thousands of 
 years has been sitting on its head. They talk of class 
 hatred and class war; why, we've had class hatred and 
 class war since the world began ; only it was those at the 
 top that were hating those at the bottom and making 
 war on 'em. Times are changing, and time will change 
 more; the world is being born again," he shouted.
 
 196 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 " They talk of social reform," he went on bitterly. 
 " Social deform, I call it ; making society worse by giv- 
 ing the poor a sleeping draught. Take my word for 
 it," he added earnestly, gripping Sue by the wrist, " the 
 class war will put all that right. The class war, 
 d'you realise what the class war means ? Well, I'll tell 
 you." 
 
 " Ouch, you're hurting," said Sue, and wriggled her 
 wrist free. 
 
 He did not notice. He went on talking and little 
 by little slid from the general into the particular: 
 didn't she understand that the game that snob was 
 playing with her was part of the tyranny of class ? 
 That all his swanky talk he owed to the education he 
 had stolen from the people? 
 
 She said nothing ; she was angry, and she was bored ; 
 he went on arguing and arguing, never realising that 
 here they were alone on Parliament Hill, bathed in the 
 sunshine and in the scent of the warm turf, that all he 
 had to do was for a moment to forget his general ideas, 
 to put both arms round her shoulders and kiss her once 
 or twice, against her will perhaps, until she was en- 
 trapped and captured, willingly resurrendered. 
 
 But Bert was straight and innocent, and this served 
 him as straightness and innocence do serve a man. He 
 went on attacking Huncote. 
 
 " Now, then," he said, " out with it, is it me or is 
 it him?" 
 
 Sue evaded the question. 
 
 " Haven't got to choose, have I ? " 
 
 " Yes, you have, can't have us both." 
 
 " Don't want neither of you." 
 
 " What d'you come out with me for if you don't 
 want me ? " 
 
 " I did want to come out with you," said Sue, sud- 
 denly anxious to placate him. 
 
 " Oh, thought you didn't want me ; call that logic ? "
 
 THE WONDERPOOLS 197 
 
 Sue looked at him rather puzzled; never before had 
 she thought of logic, and even then his remark did not 
 impress her much. So Bert shifted and attacked 
 Huncote again. 
 
 " Don't congratulate you on your new fancy," he 
 went on. " Narrow-chested, watery-eyed, knock- 
 kneed sort of chap." 
 
 " He's not knock-kneed," said Sue, for the first time 
 referring to Huncote directly. 
 
 " Yes, he is, and he looks like a parson ; parsons al- 
 ways were in your line, Sue." 
 
 The girl stamped. 
 
 "How dare you talk like that; he hasn't done you 
 any harm." 
 
 " Perhaps he hasn't," said Bert, after a pause. 
 " Doesn't look as if I'd got much to lose. You can 
 have him ; stick to your pinky-gills ; take him along to 
 Madame Tussaud's to the other dummies." 
 
 " I'd rather talk to a dummy than talk to you, if 
 you go on like that," said Sue. " Might as well chuck 
 it now, Bert. Looks as if we weren't getting on very 
 well to-day." She made as if to go. " So long ! " 
 
 Bert detained her; suddenly he grew more intent. 
 
 " Tell you what," he said, " if I catch him monkey- 
 ing round you I'll knock his head off." 
 
 " Oh, you will, will you ? " said Sue defiantly. 
 
 " Yes, and knock yours off too." 
 
 For the first time in his life Bert clenched and 
 raised his fist a little. Then he felt ashamed and let 
 it fall. Had he but known it, in that minute she 
 would have been his if he had not let his fist fall, but 
 given her a sore lip and then kissed away her tears. 
 He did nothing, and she, insulted by the threat, yet 
 despising him because he did not carry it out, drew 
 back, was defiant, airy. 
 
 " Ta-ta, be good," she said, and turned. Long after 
 her light figure had disappeared beyond the Ponds he
 
 198 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 watched her. At first he was all anger, but an in- 
 tolerable sense of loss seized him. She was gone, and 
 perhaps with her the golden future, the two rooms in 
 the Dwellings, Sunday, the clean collar, Sue listening 
 to his political speeches with his sons, Carl Marx Cald- 
 well, Holyoake Caldwell, and their little sister, Marie 
 Bashkirtsev Caldwell. Everything was sliding; Sue 
 gone, the world was chaos. He thought : " It's enough 
 to make one an anarchist." Miserably he resolved to 
 read up some Kropotkin. 
 
 She went down the slope with her head up. She 
 knew that she was holding it up, so she held it a little 
 higher. She looked proud and fine, with her full 
 mouth compressed and mutinous, her heavy eyebrows 
 that tried to meet in a frown. At the bottom she 
 paused, for here was the railway and somehow, per- 
 haps because it was so hot, so fine and Saturday, she 
 did not want to go home. She turned back and slowly 
 walked towards Hampstead, escorted by thoughts 
 which troubled her because she understood them so ill. 
 This was not wonderful, for those thoughts made a 
 strange company. She formulated one of them. 
 " Given me the chuck," she murmured. " More or 
 less." 
 
 She squared her broad shoulders and thought: 
 " Who cares ? " But at once Sue knew that she did 
 care. She had lost Bert; well, more or less. One 
 never did appreciate people until they were gone. 
 " Not lost but gone before," she thought, with bewilder- 
 ing irrelevancy and immense satisfaction. Then re- 
 turned to her preoccupation. Yes, she had sort of lost 
 Bert, but once more, as she thought, " Who cares ? " 
 the image of Bert became more insistent ; one could 
 overlook a human being but not the ghost of a glamor-
 
 THE WONDERPOOLS 199 
 
 ous past. She remembered things, little things, the 
 day when, between an exposition of the errors of the 
 anarchist, Kropotkin, and an eruptive allusion to the 
 record speed of steam boats, he had confessed his love 
 for her. 
 
 " Funny," thought Sue, " I remember where he said 
 that; behind the gasometer, it was, up Crapp's Lane." 
 She sighed. It had not been a bit like the picture 
 postcards with lovers at a stile. Still, it had been 
 good. She sighed again and looked sentimentally at 
 the ring which was not exactly an engagement ring and 
 which, therefore, she wore on her second finger. Gar- 
 net and opal: they always say that opals are unlucky. 
 She sighed ; fate was cruel. 
 
 Her meditations were interrupted, for she became 
 aware of a presence. She had passed a young man 
 who looked at her. That did not matter; they often 
 did. She heard his footfall behind her, and still she 
 thought; he must have passed her, for she had been 
 conscious of a peering into her face. The young man 
 walked more slowly now, and she rather liked the look 
 of him, his straw hat with the red and purple ribbon, 
 and his brilliant orange boots. But the young man 
 walked more slowly so that Sue might catch him up. 
 Bruised heart or not, Sue had her principles; just as 
 he was about to speak to her and raised his hand to the 
 impressive hat, she turned at right angles and away, 
 leaving him conscious that this was no go. 
 
 He might have pursued her; he would hardly have 
 been noticed. She had other preoccupations that after- 
 noon. The emotional moment was past, and she 
 slowly scrambled up the slopes of the Vale of Health 
 towards the Spaniards Eoad that held an endless pro- 
 cession of boys and girls, and motorcars that hooted 
 towards the north ; her sentimentality was giving way 
 to anger. " The chuck ! Actually had the sauce to 
 give her the chuck ! " It seemed incredible. (He had
 
 200 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 not given her the " chuck ", but Sue chose to be injured 
 and to think so.) As she walked on moodily she real- 
 ised that it was not Bert's place to give her the chuck; 
 if she chose to do so that was quite another thing. 
 And what was the row about after all? She stopped 
 for a moment to look into the pale sky that hangs over 
 West Heath, so deep that one is sure the sea lies behind 
 those hollows, and mutely asked the sky what she had 
 done. " Mr. Huncote," she thought, " well, what 
 about him ? " Then more aggressively : " Well, 
 what about him ? " She had done nothing, it was not 
 her fault. Her indignation melted into interest. Bert 
 had no business to speak about him like that. Wasn't 
 stuck on him, of course, still . . . She ceased to think 
 of Bert and Huncote; began to think of Huncote. 
 Rather dreamily she evoked the young man: she liked 
 the picture, the tallness, the slenderness, the serious 
 eyes, the air of hesitation and delicacy. It was all 
 different from, from well, from other men. For 
 some time Sue struggled to find a word; the word was 
 " breeding ", but she could not find it and so, as a sub- 
 stitute, little by little she formed a companion picture, 
 that of the hero of a novelette, called Sir Lucius. Sir 
 Lucius proved an indirect way of getting at Huncote. 
 She remembered Sir Lucius and how he took his 
 cousin's guilt when the latter stole the will which 
 should have made Sir Lucius heir to the estate. She 
 wasted a tear on the heroine, kept by force in a moated 
 grange for seven years, who came out, fortunately more 
 beautiful than ever, to marry Sir Lucius. Her eyes 
 grew misty: Sir Lucius, wet and starving on Dart- 
 moor . . . 
 
 Yes, he was like Sir Lucius, daring-like. Pity his 
 name was not Sir Lucius. She wondered for some 
 time what his name was as she only knew him as " R." 
 Richard, of course, or Robert. For a moment she 
 dwelt on a vague vision of somebody whom she could
 
 THE WONDERPOOLS 201 
 
 call "Bob" or "Dick." Then she scolded herself 
 without being quite clear about it, and summed up the 
 impossibility of the whole thing: "He's a toff!" 
 
 A little later, as she tried to assuage her woe with 
 threepenn'orth of picture palace in Heath Street, she 
 was still reflecting on the queer complex who was now 
 becoming more or less " Sir E," But a bitterness ran 
 through the vision. " He's a toff," she thought again. 
 She sighed and meditatively sucked a peppermint. 
 
 Ill 
 
 It was late in the evening. Mr. Groby was still at 
 the St. Panwich Arms, waiting for the Sabbath. Sue 
 puzzled her mother that evening, for on Saturday 
 nights it was her habit to go out either with Bert or 
 with Ada Nuttall. She stayed at home, " quiet as a 
 mouse," Mrs. Groby thought. There was a lengthy 
 search among the novelettes of which several scores 
 littered corners in Sue's bedroom. Then Mrs. Groby 
 went to sleep in the armchair in her favourite attitude, 
 hands crossed on her belt. When she woke up, blink- 
 ing, she saw only the profile of her daughter, nearly 
 black as she bent under the gas. 
 
 "Wot yer readin' ? " asked Mrs. Groby dreamily. 
 
 Sue did not reply. 
 
 " Why aren't yer go out ternight ? " 
 
 " Don't always want to be out," said Sue, rather 
 acidly. 
 
 Mrs. Groby got up and, as she passed, looked enquir- 
 ingly at the novelette; the title Sir Lucius and His 
 Love, told her nothing. " Well, well," she said com- 
 fortably, " I used ter be like you, Sue. I used to be a 
 great reader, I did." Sue shut up the novelette. 
 Then, as if with intention, Mrs. Groby said : " Seen 
 Mr. 'Uncote agin ? " 
 
 No," said Sue.
 
 202 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 "Oh," said Mrs. Groby. Then again: "Oh!" 
 
 " Oh, what ? " asked Sue, suddenly savage. 
 
 " Didn't say nothing, merely thought." 
 
 Sue stood up. She was feeling very angry, and 
 especially because she did not know why. 
 
 " Thort yer'd 'ave seen 'im agin," said Mrs. Groby 
 thoughtfully, and then more cautious, " Yer go ter the 
 Settlement so much. One runs across people. It's a 
 small world." She sighed: that sort of phrase always 
 relieved Mrs. Groby. 
 
 Mrs. Groby went on talking about Roger Huncote. 
 She described him in detail, pronounced him " a 
 'an'some feller ", and grew reminiscent of an ostler at 
 the " Chequers ", down in Sussex, " before you was 
 thort of, my girl." She tried to encourage her mother 
 to tell her the idyll but, as if impelled by an instinct, 
 Mrs. Groby continually returned to Huncote. She 
 wondered how much he got paid at the Settlement. 
 Sue had to keep herself down so as not to cry out that 
 it was voluntary service. Mrs. Groby began to specu- 
 late as to how he got religion, which left Sue dumb, for 
 religion was not discussed in her world. Then Mrs. 
 Groby began again : " Shouldn't mind 'avin' another 
 look at 'im. Now, Sue, when yer see 'im agin 
 Well, I never ! " Mrs. Groby stopped, both hands 
 well away from her hips, for Sue jumped up, seized 
 the candle and, with as much dignity as speed allowed, 
 went into the inner room. Almost immediately Mrs. 
 Groby heard the sound of boots being thrown on the 
 floor with unnecessary violence. Mrs. Groby felt in- 
 dignant: leaving her like that and making all that 
 noise. She opened the door a little and whispered: 
 " Stop that row ; I'm s'prised at yer." 
 
 Sue did not reply. Quickly undressing she got into 
 bed where Muriel was fast asleep. 
 
 Muriel had had a good Saturday. Her hair plaited, 
 she had washed with care, washing being a new taste.
 
 THE WONDERPOOLS 203 
 
 On leaving the tenement she sat down on the stairs to 
 slip on a more than second-hand pair of grey spats 
 which she had secretly bought for fourpence. Outside, 
 her particular Eomeo, aged fifteen, was serenading the 
 house to the tune of " We All Go the Same Way 
 Home." Eomeo had drawn his wages that day, eight 
 bob, and paid nothing at home because his mother was 
 a widow and he a terror. So they had been to a pic- 
 ture palace ; a great many oranges, at four a penny, had 
 been eaten in the High Street and on monkey parade 
 much peel had been flung at rival couples. She rushed 
 out after tea too, and Eomeo, whom apparently noth- 
 ing could repress, took her into the gallery of the St. 
 Panwich Empire. It had been lovely, she thought, 
 and Eomeo, with thirty others, had whistled violently 
 and challenged the commissionaires to come and chuck 
 'em all out. And he tried to kiss her on the way back. 
 " Behave yourself," thought Muriel, proud and yet a 
 little stirred. She was awake, conscious of digestive 
 disturbance, oranges probably. She moved, tried to 
 find a comfortable position, and as she so did came up 
 against her sister's firm body. She was preparing to 
 shove Sue who really took up too much space in bed, 
 then noticed a quiver in the shoulder against which she 
 lay. Muriel became more wakeful; she listened. 
 She heard a regular wheezing that thrilled and fright- 
 ened her. A sharp little vowel sound, regularly re- 
 peated, it came, and Muriel was frightened, for the 
 big, warm shoulder against her trembled. " Sue," she 
 whispered. Her sister did not reply. Half-hesitating 
 Muriel took her by the arm, tried to turn her towards 
 her. For a moment Sue resisted, then gave way. 
 "What is it, Sue?" Muriel whispered. " What are 
 you crying for ? " Sue did not reply but, embracing 
 the whole of her sister's narrow little shoulders within 
 one long arm, she kissed her. Muriel clung to the 
 elder girl, not at all mincing now, but afraid and very
 
 204 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 fond, and somehow very sorry. " What are you cry- 
 ing for ? " she asked again, and again, but Sue would 
 not reply until at last the little girl got up and lit the 
 candle. But she drew back, surprised, for though 
 Sue's face was wet with tears, she smiled. It was like 
 an April sun-ray through a shower and yet more 
 strange: such a smile as Muriel had never seen before 
 on Sue's face. 
 
 They went to sleep, both of them, much later. Sue 
 was very happy. She knew she could not marry him, 
 such a swell. And though not at all ignorant she was 
 far too innocent to think of anything else. Shyly in 
 the dark, as her eyelids sank down, she whispered to 
 herself what she would not have told any one, even if 
 tortured : " I'm gone on him ! " She basked for a 
 little while in the thought, then added : " And very 
 nice too ! " 
 
 She was annoyed in the morning. She had em- 
 braced somebody in a dream, but whether it was Sir 
 Lucius or whether it was R. she did not know, and it had 
 been a confused dream ; it seemed to have been mainly 
 about eggs. What had eggs , to do with it ? This 
 troubled her so much that she went out specially to 
 the sweet-shop in Northbourne Eoad and bought " The 
 Key to Dreams " for a penny. It was not very clear : 
 scarlet fever perhaps, or a letter from Australia. She 
 disregarded the omen for already she was happy 
 enough to think that she could master Fate. 
 
 IV 
 
 In those times Huncote wished lie were more of a 
 worldling. He lived, he felt, too much in the Settle- 
 ment and for it. Analysing the last eight or nine 
 months, it seemed that he had given it nearly all his 
 time during the day ; in the evening he had often been 
 wanted for a concert, a meeting; when not wanted he
 
 THE WONDERPOOLS 205 
 
 had loafed away his time with Churton, or at Ford's 
 boxing class, or even in the Progress Arms. The chief 
 breaks had been a few week-ends at St. Olaves, and 
 for a while in June Flora had been exacting, had com- 
 pelled his attendance at theatres; he had been asked 
 out to dinner a little too, but all that was the surface. 
 He had given the Settlement the whole of his neophyte 
 ardour. And now he was not thinking of the Settle- 
 ment, but of an incident in Settlement work. He tried 
 to be reasonable, to minimise the incident while there 
 was time. Very seriously, on a hot night, he sat in 
 Finsbury Park under a chestnut tree, still heavy with 
 pink castles. He was formulating his intentions. He 
 formulated them for a very long time, head down, mak- 
 ing a pendulum of his walking stick, looking so far 
 away that two girls who went by felt sorry for him and 
 talked loud to indicate ready sympathy. But he had 
 quite enough bother with girls as it was, and the up- 
 shot of his vague reflections was that he was not going 
 to do anything rash. Oh, no, not going to make him- 
 self ridiculous with a silly intrigue. He was going 
 to be very distant and see what happened. He was 
 going to investigate and see what she was really like. 
 Hang it all ! he had seen life, he was not going to be 
 carried away by a pretty face. Then in the moon- 
 light upon the light earth at his feet, with the point 
 of his walking-stick, as if a power held his hand, he 
 tried to sketch a woman's profile. 
 
 Sue felt the confidential impulse. If she had been 
 a Koman Catholic she would have rushed into the con- 
 fessional with a tiny little sin and come out comfort- 
 able with a great big absolution. Only she was a mem- 
 ber of the Church of England, so seldom went to 
 church, and was not likely ever to think of the Al-
 
 206 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 mighty unless she was in great trouble, or wanted some- 
 thing very badly. Her true God, though she did not 
 know his name, was St. Anthony and, though she never 
 thought of him, she trusted him and would have asked 
 him to restore anything she had lost, whether purse or 
 reputation. It did not occur to her to commune with 
 him in this emergency, for it was too delightful; hers 
 was the English God, for the days of pain, not for those 
 of joy. For the days of joy she naturally turned to 
 the world, dazzlingly embodied in her friend, Ada 
 Nuttall. For Ada was the world, and Sue secretly 
 half -hoped that she was the flesh and the devil too, for 
 she was a manicurist. There was something meretri- 
 cious and rather fast about manicuring, Sue felt. 
 Holding men's hands and all that. Ada Nuttall was 
 a plump, fair young person of twenty-three, whose fig- 
 ure waged a continual and sometimes almost successful 
 contest with her stays. They were not very good stays, 
 and if Sue had not been so innocent this would have 
 reassured her as to Ada's virtue. She was always hope- 
 ful about Ada's virtue, thought she did not mean half 
 she said; and still Sue hoped that she did mean that 
 half, because this made of Ada a dashing, mysterious, 
 dangerous creature who fired her younger friend's 
 more childish imagination, made her a frightful rip. 
 
 She saw her from the refuge at Piccadilly Circus 
 Tube Station where they had appointed to meet. Ada 
 was looking very smart in that linen coat and skirt, 
 Sue thought. And that sweet little hat, right over the 
 eyes. They were nice blue eyes in the fresh face ; the 
 rather puggy nose and little pink mouth looked im- 
 pertinent, 
 
 "Hello!" said Ada. 
 
 " Hello ! " said Sue. Ada was a hello girl and ad- 
 miring Sue copied. 
 
 They walked up Regent Street, Ada chattering 
 steadily of the day's events in the manicure parlour,
 
 THE WONDERPOOLS 207 
 
 which was just off Eegent Street. Sue tried to listen 
 for a while and to say the right thing, such as " An' 
 what did he say to that ? " or " Well, I never," but the 
 shop windows fascinated her. Ada, who was blase, 
 swept her past Swan and Edgar's. 
 
 " And you wouldn't believe it, as soon as he got in, 
 he took me on his knee and started cuddling me." 
 
 "What did you do?" asked Sue. "Smack his 
 face?" 
 
 Ada giggled. " Wouldn't be much of a success if I 
 did that. Sat on my dignity." 
 
 " And on his knee ? " asked Sue, suddenly brilliant. 
 
 Ada laughed. " Well, not long, what d'yer take me 
 for?" 
 
 Sue managed to anchor the worldling outside the 
 Samaritaine, and for a moment all was well; they de- 
 cided that these models were not their style. The con- 
 versation passed from gallantry to dress. 
 
 " I always say," Ada repeated, " whatever you do, 
 wear something that's becoming. Never mind the 
 fashions." 
 
 "Yes," said Sue, much impressed, "that's true. 
 Only how's one to know ? " 
 
 The learned Ada unveiled mysteries : how, if one 
 was stout and wore vertical stripes, one looked slim; 
 how a small waist should be emphasised (for she be- 
 lieved in waists) by a white belt; how to judge a col- 
 our by laying it against your cheek; how to reduce 
 large features by broadening hat brims. It was very 
 wonderful, Sue thought. All the way up Kegent 
 Street Sue gave the cues. She forced Ada to stand 
 awhile and stare at the beautiful lady in wax who tip- 
 toes on one foot to show how one can wear orange silk 
 stays and lingerie like the tip of a wave, and yet be- 
 have like an acrobat. 
 
 Ada went on to bewail her difficulty in fitting her- 
 self with blouses,
 
 208 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 " I'm an out-size," she moaned. She drew herself 
 up. " Still, it's not everybody dislikes that." She 
 murmured confidences. 
 
 Sue blushed. " No, not really ! " she said in a 
 thrilled tone. 
 
 Ada nodded, her blue eyes sparkling. " And not 
 circle, neither; stalls, that's the sort of fellow he 
 is." 
 
 As soon as they crossed Oxford Street and turned to 
 quieter regions the frightful rippishness of Ada began 
 to degenerate. The fellow who had offered Ada stalls 
 led to reminiscences of other fellows, and naturally to 
 Bert. Ada was interested in Bert, for under her doggy 
 exterior was a fraudulently simple person. She liked 
 to talk like a familiar of every night-club, or let us 
 say of their vestibules, but Sue knew very well that 
 behind the pseudo-rake was a girl most of whose earn- 
 ings went to support her father, a more or less paral- 
 ysed gasfitter, and a gloomy grey mother who " let " 
 when she could. 
 
 " Those fellows," Ada summed up, " they're all 
 right for a lark, but they aren't safe." For a moment 
 both thought of the less seductive but more reliable 
 men of their class, and Ada said : " You take it from 
 me; gentlemen don't do any good to girls like you an' 
 me." She grew sensible. " They take us out and 
 give us a good time, but they don't marry us, not they ! 
 Not that I'd marry one if he wanted me to," she went 
 on reflectively. " They're always getting divorces, 
 that sort." 
 
 There was a silence during which the two girls re- 
 flected upon high life as stated by the picture papers. 
 It was terrible and attractive, the sinful, gilded exist- 
 ence. But Ada's words had opened a vein in Sue's 
 mind ; at last she spoke : 
 
 " Do you know Mr. Huncote ? " 
 
 Ada thought for a little ; she had been to a Settlement
 
 THE WONDERPOOLS 209 
 
 dance or two. " Can't say I do," she said, at last ; 
 " what's he like ? Where did you pick him up ? " 
 
 " I didn't pick him up," said Sue indignantly. 
 " You saw him at the dance the other day ; very tall he 
 is, and he's got grey eyes and fair hair, oh, such thick 
 fair hair." 
 
 " Sue ! " said Ada meaningly. 
 
 But Sue did not notice the inflection. " You should 
 see his hands," she went on sentimentally. " They're 
 like like well, like what a baby's would be if they 
 were big." 
 
 " 'Hem," said Ada, " been holding 'em ? " Sue went 
 crimson. " I see," said Ada. " I remember the fellow 
 now, seems to me ; you danced a lot with him that night, 
 didn't you ? Well, I wish you luck. Don't you forget 
 what I told you about gentlemen. Don't make yourself 
 cheap." 
 
 " I'm not going to," said Sue indignantly ; " besides, 
 there's nothing in it." 
 
 " Oh, no," said Ada, " of course not. Anybody could 
 look at you and see there's nothing in it. Since there's 
 nothing in it tell me all about it." 
 
 Sue grew sulky and offended; she had to have her 
 arm squeezed, to be told not to swank, before at last 
 she confided what had happened since the dance. She 
 told it all very hurriedly. 
 
 " Came round to the washhouse, did he ? " said Ada. 
 She grew judicial. "Still, he might have wanted the 
 address." 
 
 Sue defended Huncote, inferentially attacked. She 
 felt guilty, for even Ada could not be told all ; a senti- 
 ment, half-modest, half -sacred, prevented her from tell- 
 ing how she had been lost and found on the banks of 
 the sleepy hollow, by the cropped gigantic trees. It 
 was enough that she should establish a link of some kind 
 between her and Huncote. 
 
 " If Bert hadn't gone on so," she said,
 
 210 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 That seemed to excuse and stimulate her. Little by 
 little Ada accepted the interesting situation, and Sue 
 began to develop her attitude: she was going to be re- 
 served, in fact haughty, like Sir Lucius's young lady. 
 She made Ada define " haughty ", and their definitions 
 agreed, which was comforting. 
 
 " See what I mean ? " she said, " I'm not going to let 
 on. She didn't let on." (" She " was Sir Lucius's 
 young lady.) 
 
 " What'll you do ? " asked Ada. 
 
 " Oo, I dunno. Say he'll want to do something for 
 me and I'll say, ' Pray don't trouble.' Or what was it 
 She said ? " Sue thought for a moment. " Yes, what 
 she always says is, ( I am totally indifferent thereto.' ' 
 
 " Thereto, that's a good word," said Ada. 
 
 Sue grew half -sentimental, half -stately. " Wish I'd 
 a train," she said, " just to practise sweeping in and 
 out, you know, in and out of rooms. She was always 
 doing that." 
 
 There was a pause. Ada grew serious. 
 
 " You're quite sure it's all right ? " she said. " I 
 know something about that game." 
 
 " Oh, there's no harm in it," said Sue. " It's not as 
 if I was gone on him." 
 
 "Hope you aren't," said Ada, "but I don't know; 
 what about Bert ? " 
 
 " Oh, well," said Sue, shyly and yet proudly, for she 
 was, it seemed, in the position most desired of women : 
 to have to choose between two men, " it might be a bit 
 awkward, of course, but ..." She stopped to think 
 that she was really very fond of Bert, but reminding 
 herself of her own dignity, went on : " I'm not going 
 to take any more sorce from Bert, and the sooner he 
 knows it the better. Of course . . ." Sue outlined 
 another dream where an exceedingly crestfallen Bert 
 would be magnanimously taken back and married. 
 Meanwhile there would be a very exhilarating flirtation
 
 211 
 
 with the swell. She was not vulgar, but she was nine- 
 teen, and it was all such fun. 
 
 The conversation, as they passed Euston, slowly ebbed 
 away from the centre of. their interests. The rippish- 
 ness of Ada was entirely gone, and now they were once 
 more young St. Panwich girls. Near King's Cross 
 they cheeked the policeman ; they felt frightfully happy 
 with the day gone, and they nearly let two young clerks 
 talk to them because two girls may talk to two men 
 while one girl may not talk to one man. And quite 
 near Paradise Row they indulged in a long gaze at a 
 picture postcard shop and nearly became acrimonious, 
 because Ada preferred Lily Elsie to Gertie Millar. 
 
 They parted just in time to get home for tea. 
 
 " Been with Ada, 'ave yer ? " asked Mrs. Groby sus- 
 piciously, then said no more. She was disturbed, for 
 she had met Bert a few minutes before as she ran out 
 to buy a pennyworth of tea, it being Friday. Bert had 
 been very sulky, almost rude, and gave her a message 
 she did not understand, presumably because he was with 
 another man and could not speak out : " You tell Sue 
 I'll knock both their heads off ! " Mrs. Groby decided 
 not to deliver the mysterious message, but she did not 
 like it. 
 
 VI 
 
 They came together with the guilelessness of young 
 people who have for hours been watching each other's 
 movements and then meet, as they like to put it, unex- 
 pectedly: assisted coincidence. It happened in one of 
 the corridors of the Settlement a little after six. Hun- 
 cote was coming out of his office, and for unaccountable 
 reasons hanging about his own doorway, while Sue 
 paced the corridor with a slow regularity revealing that 
 she had walked up and down it several times in the last 
 few minutes. They were very much upon their guard, 
 so much so that the two who met were stage figures, not
 
 212 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 a woman and a man. Huncote had one hand in his 
 pocket and pretended to whistle, while Sue held her 
 head in the air and pretended not to know that she was 
 wearing her best Sunday sham pearls. She was just 
 about to say: "Fancy meeting you!" when just in 
 time she remembered the haughty attitude of Sir 
 Lucius's young lady and said in a shrill falsetto: 
 " Gracious ! How you startled me, Mr. Huncote ! " 
 But at once she knew that she was blushing vivid. And 
 Roger Huncote blushed too, for he had seen, as the 
 haughty head of Sir Lucius's young lady revealed the 
 drooping crimson brow of Susan Groby, something that 
 he had never seen before in any woman's eyes, yet some- 
 thing which he recognised as if he had been waiting for 
 it. It was the love-look, humid and brilliant, shy and 
 gay, a look that made him think that on a windless 
 night the tide was rising on a sandy beach, the moon 
 shining for a moment through the thin pale waters of a 
 flat wave. And then it was gone as a fitful gleam 
 passing. 
 
 They laughed, and the laughter was uncertain, for it 
 was false ; it was the laughter of uneasiness, hiding the 
 desire to exult. " My God ! " thought Huncote. 
 " How beautiful you are ! " And she, less articulate 
 even to herself, felt that she was happy as if the air 
 had grown warm and sweet-scented. 
 
 " Come to do some work ? " asked Huncote at last, 
 attempting cheerfulness, surprised because his throat 
 was dry. 
 
 " Yes," said Sue, " that is, No, only just looked in 
 for a minute." She struggled to find a motive, then 
 said vaguely : " Left something here the other night ; 
 came round to fetch it." 
 
 " Yes," said Huncote, assuming vast interest, " have 
 you found it ? " 
 
 " No," said Sue, still struggling, " I'll have to have 
 another look round."
 
 THE WONDERPOOLS 213 
 
 Then both together felt that by not mentioning the 
 object of the search they were entangling themselves in 
 the loss of something so personal that the situation was 
 becoming awkward. They were still blushing, looking 
 at each other furtively; they were like two people 
 wrecked as small children from separate ships at oppo- 
 site ends of a desert island who come upon each other 
 in their maturity, man and woman, afraid, delighted, 
 curious, each casting interested but covert glances upon 
 a strange, attractive animal. 
 
 " I'll have to be going," said Sue. 
 
 " Are you in a hurry ? " said Huncote. He did not 
 want to know that, only he felt he must prolong this 
 minute. He had come to the moment which Faust so 
 desired, could say to the fleeting minute : " Tarry yet 
 a while, thou art so beautiful." 
 
 " I must be getting home," said Sue vaguely, but 
 still she did not go. She stood in front of him, her 
 brown fingers entwining nervously. Then Huncote, 
 because he was the shyer of the two, plunged. 
 
 " Oh, well," he said jauntily, " I'm going too." 
 
 Miracle ! Together they went along the corridor and 
 out of the building, Huncote leading and she submissive. 
 They made no plans. There was no understanding, but 
 as they came out of the Settlement they did not turn 
 to the left and across towards Paradise Square; slowly 
 and silently they turned to the right by the High Street. 
 At a corner Huncote said : 
 
 " One can't hear oneself talk here." 
 
 " No," said Sue, though she knew very well that 
 neither had said a word, " it's the trams." 
 
 They turned up a side street and through other little 
 streets, straight northwards, as if they had agreed 
 that they did not want to be seen together in the High 
 Street. After a few moments Huncote grew self-con- 
 scious; assuming she did not know where he lived, he 
 said:
 
 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 " I hope you don't mind my taking you out of your 
 way ? " 
 
 " Oh, don't mensh," said Sue. 
 
 They went on silently through the little streets where 
 hundreds of children played hopscotch, and here and 
 there some large woman with red arms talked to an- 
 other of her kind, or exchanged chaff with a canvasser 
 who was trying to sell her a photograph enlargement. 
 
 They went across Northbourne Road, Sue a little 
 frightened because Bert followed this way homewards 
 from the workshop. Perhaps because frightened she 
 was thrilled. And Huncote grew troubled ; he did not 
 know where he was going to or leading her, but only 
 knew that so long as he chose to lead her she would 
 follow, and that he was glad to lead. He was tired of 
 struggling with his desire. He felt that he wanted 
 something better than to walk with her through the 
 slums; he wanted water and a tree, something to raise 
 the spirit of the sleepy hollow. And as fortune favours 
 lovers they came suddenly upon St. Panwich church- 
 yard. 
 
 " Shall we go in ? " asked Huncote, observing the 
 board : " Open 7 A.M. to 7 P.M." Then, as if he feared 
 opposition : " It'll be quieter in there." 
 
 Sue did not reply, but she followed, and for a long 
 time very slowly they walked among the tombs. She 
 was interested, and soon she was hurrying from one 
 stone to another, marking the age at which others had 
 died. They found the tomb of an old lady, aged ninety- 
 two. " She didn't have nothing to complain of," said 
 Sue. They found others, but merely seventies and 
 seventy-fours. " The old lady has it," said Sue, noting 
 the record. 
 
 Huncote was amused: she was so young that death 
 seemed remote and meant nothing to her; it was like 
 Australia to one who has never left his village. They 
 came upon a tomb with a tall white column upon which
 
 THE WONDERPOOLS 215 
 
 was simply written : " Susannah Brown, aged 19." 
 They did not say anything, but remained quite close to 
 each other, their shoulders almost touching. " Seems 
 a pity like," Sue murmured. " Just my age," she 
 sighed. Then, being her mother's daughter, she added : 
 " Such is life ! " She did not offend the man's finer 
 taste for, with her dark eyes downcast and a droop in 
 her full red mouth, she was a picture of sweet melan- 
 choly, of young life weeping over young life gone to 
 dust. 
 
 " Susannah," he said, " that's your name too, I 
 think." 
 
 " No," said Sue, " my name's Susan." She threw 
 him a sidelong glance to see if this displeased him. 
 " Wish it wasn't," she added. 
 
 " What ? " cried Huncote. " You don't like it ? But 
 it's a jolly name, a real country name." 
 
 " Yes," said Sue grudgingly, " it was all along of 
 grandma. She came from Sussex, and she would have 
 it. Mother ought to've known better," she added pee- 
 vishly. " Only she was afraid the savings would be 
 left away from us; not that we got them after all, for 
 grandma was took with religion and left them to the 
 blacks in Africa." 
 
 Huncote laughed at the little tragedy. " You may 
 laugh," said Sue, rather resentful, " but if it hadn't 
 been for that I'd been called Vera. Now that's a name. 
 Muriel's all right; she was born after grandma died." 
 She grew resigned. " Still, what's in a name ? " 
 
 Huncote said nothing and for a moment wondered 
 whether he would have liked it better if instead of 
 " what's in a name ? " she had said, as he remembered 
 a schoolmistress once said to him, rather arch and con- 
 scious of originality : " A rose by any other name would 
 smell as sweet." 
 
 Little by little, as they walked around and around 
 the cemetery, conscious now of themselves and but little
 
 216 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 of watchful, patient death, Huncote talked more freely. 
 
 " I thought you mightn't like to come here," he said. 
 " You might have thought it depressing ; you oughtn't 
 to, you know. Death, you see, is so necessary to life; 
 it takes away those things and those people who have 
 played their part, and it makes room for the new. 
 Death is no enemy, it has no sting; it is nothing more 
 than Heaven's gardener who roots out the old plants 
 and makes room for to-morrow's flowers; don't you 
 think so ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Sue. 
 
 " It was a beautiful idea," Huncote went on, " to 
 build the cemeteries round the churches, churches where 
 one was christened and married. Then indeed you had 
 a Holy Trinity of birth, love, and death, the three eter- 
 nal things which make one another complete and which 
 without one another cannot exist." 
 
 They stopped for a moment before a fresh grave, that 
 of a child; the rough edges of the clay gleamed red 
 and were banked high with a nest of white roses and 
 lilies. Somehow this changed Huncote' s mood, for the 
 roses were thick and dewy, still violently alive as if, 
 consolers of the dead, they rioted in life's festival. 
 With swifter beating pulses he led her out of the ceme- 
 tery. They went again silently into the streets and 
 silently too for a while stood upon the canal bridge, 
 looking out towards the many railway lines at Chalk 
 Farm, which glittered red in the setting sun. Just be- 
 yond a smokestack was crowned with a great black 
 cloud of smoke like a djinn escaping from a bottle. 
 Black the smoke, bloody the sky, and sharp-cut, as if 
 painted in purple ink, the roofs close-clustered in the 
 sinking sun. 
 
 " Isn't it wonderful ? " he said. 
 
 " Isn't it ? " said Sue. 
 
 She did not mean what he meant; she was thinking 
 how very tall that smokestack was and how wonderful
 
 THE WONDERPOOLS 217 
 
 that anything should be so big. But he thought that 
 she saw what he did; he discerned a sense of beauty 
 where there was only a sense of magnitude. It fevered 
 him, this idea that she was so much, and could become 
 so much more, even such as himself. He began to talk 
 again, half to himself, of beauty now and of the cor- ' 
 ners where it lurked, of the strange fact that it was 
 nowhere and everywhere save where you chose to place 
 it; that beauty was in yourself, in your eyes, and that 
 maybe, if you were so made, all things might become 
 beautiful. 
 
 She listened patiently, not understanding, yet de- 
 lighted; she listened to his voice rather than to his 
 words, and she looked at his hands, gentleman's 
 hands. But at last she had to speak, and now she was 
 no longer Sir Lucius's young lady. Impetuously she 
 said: 
 
 " Oo, you are clever ! " 
 
 He laughed, he was flattered; he hated himself for 
 being flattered, and yet went on being flattered. 
 
 " Nonsense," he said, with affected modesty. 
 
 " Oh, yes, you are," said Sue, urgent champion. 
 " You could do anything, you could. Why, there's a 
 lady that does Answers to Correspondents in ' Home 
 Chat' well " 
 
 He shrank ; it was a little awkward to have conveyed 
 to him that he might, well, perhaps might be the equal 
 of such a one. Still he was pleased : for the first time 
 she had praised him directly, linked herself with him by 
 personal opinion. Bond of thread or bond of silk, what 
 did it matter after all just then, if only bond there was ? 
 
 At the end he said, surprised to find his voice uncer- 
 tain : " I say, we might we might come out again 
 if we happen " 
 
 " I might run across you," said Sue airily.
 
 218 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 VII 
 
 Huncote found it very difficult to talk to his mother 
 that week-end. Flora got into his way by begging him 
 gently to persuade Mrs. Huncote not to go to Harrogate 
 but to take her to Dieppe or some other naughty place. 
 And Elspeth was a nuisance too because she had just 
 joined the Antis and was conducting a vigorous cam- 
 paign of conversion against her mother; as Mrs. Hun- 
 cote took in The Common Cause (but not The Suffra- 
 gette), and had vaguely approved of militancy until the 
 previous week when the house of some friends of hers 
 was burnt down, she was much troubled. 
 
 But at last on Sunday night, when they were alone 
 in the garden, he managed to talk. They at last dis- 
 posed of suffrage and of another complicated doubt of 
 Mrs. Huncote's, namely, whether she should sympa- 
 thise with the farmers whose henroosts were being 
 raided by foxes, or with the local hunt to which after 
 all her husband had belonged. Huncote was also told 
 every detail of Trunch's final misfortune, which was to 
 be sued for affiliation. 
 
 " I say," he remarked, quite casually, " there's rather 
 a funny thing happening to a friend of mine ; you don't 
 know him, I s'pose ; his name's Corry," he impro- 
 vised. " He was at Gabriel with me ; plenty of money 
 and all that, and I hear he wants to to marry well, 
 a girl of the people." 
 
 " What sort of girl ? " asked Mrs. Huncote. 
 
 " Oh, she's lovely," he said hurriedly, " she's very, 
 very pretty, and she's an awfully sweet girl." He 
 paused, he felt awkward, he was giving himself away. 
 
 " What does she do ? " said Mrs. Huncote obstinately. 
 
 " She oh, she's in a factory. But she's awfully re- 
 fined and all that. At least Corry says so," he added. 
 
 Mrs. Huncote said nothing for a while. She stared 
 at the flower-bed where in the brilliant summer night
 
 THE WONDERPOOLS 219 
 
 the fat yellow begonias spread like hands. She played 
 with the fluffy cockade of a hollyhock and said : 
 
 " Poor boy ! Can't anybody stop it ? " 
 
 " I don't think so," said Huncote, glad that it was 
 night and that she could not see his face too well. 
 Then he plunged. " But, after all, why should one 
 stop it ? " 
 
 " My dear Roger ! " said Mrs. Huncote, half -scan- 
 dalised. " How can you talk like that ? I really 
 thought you were grown up. You tell me Mr. Corry 
 is one of us, and you actually think but it's ridicu- 
 lous!" She grew testy. "They'll jar upon each 
 other, and they'll bore each other. And of course her 
 people are impossible. What are her people ? " 
 
 " I don't know," said the wily Roger ; " the usual 
 sort, I expect." 
 
 " Exactly. The usual, decent, respectable sort ; per- 
 haps the mother's been a servant, and I s'pose the father 
 gets drunk now and then. It's social suicide to begin 
 with; probably the girl can't talk properly, and when 
 it comes to entertaining why, it's absurd ! You wait 
 until Mr. Corry sees the clothes she wears." 
 
 Huncote murmured something about love. 
 
 " Yes, I know," said Mrs. Huncote, more softly. 
 " That's very wonderful, and I'm not at all surprised ; 
 when one's in love one doesn't care about class or about 
 anything except love; only, you see, there's not only 
 love in the world ; one has to think of all sorts of other 
 things." 
 
 " I thought you were a socialist, Mother," said her 
 son, suddenly aggressive. 
 
 " That's saying too much, Roger. I'm quite in sym- 
 pathy, you know that. And one day I'm sure that 
 everybody will be educated, and that everybody can mix 
 together, but just now it can't be done. I hope I'm nice 
 to the servants, but I don't want you to marry one of 
 them."
 
 220 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 He laughed, but nervously: to be himself involved 
 even as an instance was frightening. No, he would get 
 no help here, he thought. He was wrong ; he was being 
 given the most powerful help that can be given youth : 
 opposition. 
 
 VIII 
 
 It was in a picture palace rather late one afternoon, 
 when Sue was free because the great lady of Highbury's 
 blouse was so extra special that Mrs. Groby had to wash 
 it herself, that Huncote remembered Theresa. He had 
 not seen much of her in the last few weeks. The heat 
 affected her, and she had not been much to the Settle- 
 ment. They had had tea at the A.B.C. opposite Bub- 
 with's, and he had nearly seen her home through 
 Regent's Park. He remembered very little of the con- 
 versation, indeed next to nothing except that he had 
 felt inclined to tell her what was happening to him. 
 But his mother's reply had discouraged him from asking 
 advice, for he was not yet cynical enough to own that 
 when one asks somebody else for advice one does not 
 want advice, one wants an audience. On the other 
 hand, a precocious instinct of the world told him that 
 man may not talk of his budding love for a woman to 
 another young woman. That was instinct, not reason, 
 for Theresa was hardly to him woman; she was some- 
 thing charming ; she was surrounding, like the sky. So 
 he did not remember what they had talked about, and 
 he was too young to know why: it was because he had 
 talked only of himself. 
 
 He thought of it vaguely in the picture palace with 
 Sue so near by his side, so near that he could feel against 
 his sleeve the warmth of her arm through her thin 
 blouse. With Theresa he had thought of himself only ; 
 with Sue he was thinking of Sue. They were happy, 
 those two, she like a child taken for a treat to the mon- 
 key house at the Zoo, and he rather elderly, like the
 
 221 
 
 people who say that there is nothing they like so well as 
 taking children to the Zoo. She had forgotten all about 
 him, and she bent forward, excited, to watch a cowboy 
 drama, the central figure of a pretty girl with flowing 
 hair, who could ride, and drive, and shoot better than 
 any Red Indian. He watched her for one moment im- 
 personal, her head craned forward on the strong neck, 
 her eyes gleaming with wonder, her mouth a little open 
 and dewy, moving as if she whispered to herself. Xow 
 and then, when something exciting happened, she said : 
 " Oo ! " as the crowd does when the fireworks go up. 
 And sometimes, as if to make him a partner in her 
 pleasure, she looked sideways at him and smiled. He 
 loved her smile, the half pout of her mouth and the 
 wrinkles that formed round her eyes, eyes black-am- 
 bushed behind long lashes. 
 
 Sue would have liked to go with him to a music hall, 
 for she loved music halls, but they were rather dear. 
 She was not mercenary, only she felt that here she was 
 in the society of wealth. Why not? She remembered 
 the men who afforded Ada Nuttall stalls, and visions of 
 red velvet tip-up seats were in her mind. Only she was 
 not sure that music halls were refined and, though now 
 and then they lingered before the posters of the Cam- 
 den, she dared not say anything. It never struck Hun- 
 cote that such a thing could tempt her: for him the 
 music hall would for ever be associated with that year- 
 old night when he got drunk and fell. He did not un- 
 derstand her delight in the crude, the strong, the ele- 
 mentary; he overrated her capacity for romance, and 
 though he overrated it he wanted to exaggerate it. He 
 felt, though he did not know, that romance was the only 
 way, that romance, seeker and watcher in lonely places, 
 could alone bring them together, because the reality was 
 so impossible that only in the unreal could they dwell. 
 So, led by this instinct, he took her to Monsieur Beau- 
 caire which a minor company was reviving one night at
 
 the Holloway. In another mood he would have noticed 
 the strange crowd, the fat men with fat wives in the 
 stalls (Sue had attained to tip-up seats) which might 
 have made one think that nobody lived in Holloway 
 except publicans ; the cheerful garishness of the scenery 
 would have attracted him. But he was not now at the 
 theatre with men, with nighty Flora, or impersonal 
 Theresa; his entertainment was much more subtle: he 
 was witnessing the drama of Sue entering into the 
 drama. She was excited, he could see her knuckles grow 
 white as she clenched her hands on the edge of the seat ; 
 he loved her indignation when Monsieur Beaucaire, so 
 high-born (so like Sir Lucius, had he but known it), 
 was treated as a barber. She was the ideal audience; 
 sometimes she seemed about to weep, then frankly she 
 would laugh ; when she wanted to laugh she nudged him 
 because she wanted him to share her pleasure. A few 
 people noticed them and sighed sentimentally, thinking 
 what a charming young couple they made. But, as the 
 play grew all dramatic and Monsieur Beaucaire's love 
 developed, Sue became rapt. She laughed a little hys- 
 terically when for the first time Monsieur Beaucaire 
 touched the high-born maiden's hand. She was of 
 the play, in the play, because these simple emotions, 
 love, hatred, contempt, were things she could under- 
 stand, could feel. She did not speak much during 
 the intervals, and Huncote, charmed by her nearness, 
 did not try to draw her out. It was only much 
 later, when they left the theatre, as they went down 
 Holloway Road, that he asked her why she was so 
 silent. 
 
 " I don't know," she said. 
 
 They were passing a belated barrow where under a 
 naphtha flare the fruits gleamed like honey. She stared 
 at the bananas, then looked at him and blushed. 
 
 " What are you thinking of ? " he asked. 
 
 She hesitated. " Oh, nothing in particular."
 
 THE WONDERPOOLS 223 
 
 " Do tell me," said Huncote, suddenly convinced by 
 her resistance that she hid something precious. 
 
 She blushed a deeper red. " I was only thinking." 
 
 "About what? The play?" 
 
 " Yes that is, I was thinking that Monsieur Beau- 
 caire was Well, when he said to Captain Badger " 
 She grew excited : " You know what I mean, the part 
 where Captain Badger says to him, ' Thank God ! I'm 
 not a Frenchman ! ' and he says, 1 1 send him my thanks 
 with yours, sir.' Well . . ." 
 
 " Well, what did you think ? " 
 
 " Oh, it's silly. But he looked so proud then, like 
 like you." She turned her head away quickly. 
 
 " Sue," Huncote whispered after a moment. 
 
 She did not look at him but went on by his side. The 
 road was dark, and they were far from the theatre 
 crowd. She did not resist or respond when he slid his 
 arm into hers and, groping at her wrist, found her hand 
 and held it. They did not speak, but so walked on, 
 conscious only of the embrace of their hands, the close 
 clinging of their warm palms. They were entirely 
 happy just then, with love born between them, and pas- 
 sion yet slumbering; they were given the lull of peace 
 that comes before the love-storm, never to come again 
 unless the lovers can successfully navigate through trou- 
 bled waters. They had nearly reached Paradise Square 
 before they spoke again, and did not want to release 
 each other. Just then Huncote grew self-conscious. 
 
 " Sue," he murmured, " you don't mind my holding 
 your hand ? " 
 
 The girl did not reply. She seemed to hesitate. 
 Then suddenly she wound her fingers around his and 
 pressed them hard as if she wanted to hurt him. She 
 looked at him quickly and in a voice rather hoarse, said : 
 "Goodnight!" 
 
 She walked away quickly, as if running away. He 
 despised himself a little later because he had not fol-
 
 224 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 lowed her ; but as she said " Good-night " he had seen 
 the wonder-pools of her eyes, gleaming like wood-brown 
 water under willows . . . 
 
 Huncote was not thinking any more. The time for 
 that had gone, the time for action come, and yet he took 
 no action. Action was now being taken by both of 
 them, or rather by the impenetrable, fugitive thing 
 which was each of them, and both of them, and separate 
 from both of them, their child and their leader. 
 
 One Saturday afternoon he tried to take her to a 
 matinee at Tree's, but the house was full, and doubt- 
 less all other theatres would be full too : it was so fine, 
 he thought it was a pity to be shut up. So he per- 
 suaded her into a taxi where she sat, feeling very grand 
 and afraid, with the hood down and all London, she 
 knew, looking at her, a sparkle in her eye, just like one 
 of the children in Paradise Row when it has been given 
 a very large sugarstick. They were stiff and self-con- 
 scious, both of them, on that triumphant drive, Sue's 
 first drive in a taxi, an epic drive at eightpence a mile. 
 But very soon in Battersea Park where that day there 
 were many people playing, little boys at cricket, older 
 boys at love, they were very close together, so close 
 that they could have afforded silence and belonged to 
 each other at the first touch. For the first time they 
 spoke of love. They spoke shyly, impersonally: Hun- 
 cote of what a man had said to him, Sue of the mar- 
 riage of a friend ; they were afraid of it, but could not 
 avoid it. They veiled love with anecdote and report, as 
 other classes veil it with sociology and eugenics. But 
 in spite of her reticence Sue's attitude appeared simple. 
 
 In answer to a contradiction she said : 
 
 " Oh ! I'd never want anybody else, not if I was 
 fond of him." 
 
 Huncote thrilled as she said, " fond of him." It was 
 so much dearer because rarer than if she had said, " If 
 I loved him." It was more delicate too. They talked
 
 THE WONDERPOOLS 225 
 
 of jealousy, and Sue, for a moment relapsing, asked him 
 if he'd be true to eyes of blue when looking . . . They 
 laughed, but the laughter was uneasy, and Sue inno- 
 cently let him see that for her the world ended as it did 
 in the novels of 1885 : wedding bells and happiness ever 
 after. 
 
 By imperceptible transitions they passed to the de- 
 grees of love. This because Sue had thought of Bert 
 and told herself that after all they could still be friends. 
 She tried to explain to Huncote without mentioning 
 Bert the extraordinary theory that men and women can 
 be friends, come together unattracted, remain with each 
 other unsatisfied. 
 
 " Oh, yes," he said, " I see what you mean. Going 
 about together and having the same tastes." 
 
 " Yes," said Sue, " it would be so nice to be friends." 
 
 They were almost alone in the plantation where the 
 little path winds in and out between the palisade of 
 crisscross wood. The sun fell heavy through the tall 
 shrubs, and somewhere a bird sang. They looked at 
 each other seriously, vaguely thinking of friendship and 
 perhaps at the last moment hoping that friendship might 
 protect them against love, for love is so dangerous that 
 it is frightening. But it was no use, they knew it very 
 well; they could not have put it into words, either of 
 them, but the third being, their child and leader, was 
 whispering to them that they were fools, that no longer 
 did the man think of educating and raising the people, 
 that the woman did not want a flirtation tempered by 
 haughtiness. They were just two young people who 
 had fallen in love. He put both hands upon her shoul- 
 ders and felt them tremble through the thin stuff. She 
 drew away from him and as she so did came closer. He 
 was afraid, for the feel of those firm shoulders in his 
 hands shook him, repelled as it drew him: this was too 
 sharp a delight. But still, so shaken, they did not move 
 away from each other. Indeed they drew closer, and
 
 226 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 yet closer until she was all gathered in his arms, crum- 
 pled small as if hiding, delighted and afraid, pressing 
 against him with all her weight as if she begged him to 
 hold her so tight that even if she wanted to she could 
 not run away. 
 
 " Sue," he murmured, " I love you, you've known 
 that . . ." 
 
 She did not reply, but he thought her cheek pressed 
 heavier against his breast. He bent down, raising her 
 face a little so that he could look into the eyes veiled by 
 the pale lids. " Tell me," he said again, " do you love 
 me ? Will you marry me ? " 
 
 She did not reply for a long time, but there lay smil- 
 ing; she was sleepy in his grasp, and he was stirred 
 by the faint scent of her hair. As she so lay her smile 
 was that of a child that dreams a happy dream. Then 
 she opened her eyes and for the first time he saw them 
 as they were, with their different colours, the opales- 
 cence of their whites and the incredulous joy in them, 
 a little light in each eye, like a beacon. 
 
 " Oh," she said, " but . . ." 
 
 "But what?" 
 
 " But you and I we're different." 
 
 He bent lower. " What does it matter if I love you 
 and you love me ? " 
 
 She did not reply, and for a moment over both of 
 them hung a filmy certainty that it did matter. It 
 passed away at once; they were Adam and Eve in the 
 Garden, instructed, and the Serpent slunk away. 
 
 " Oh," she murmured. And moved by instinct rather 
 than intention she raised her face a little towards his. 
 They were all alone then, as with mingled lips and eyes 
 drowning eyes they blotted out the world.
 
 CHAPTER THE FIFTH 
 
 THE TWILIGHT OF ST. OLAVES 
 
 " I S'POSE you'll be taking a holiday soon," said Chur- 
 ton. 
 
 Huncote looked up from the Settlement accounts 
 which he was running through with the vouchers prior 
 to the auditor's visit. He had not been, he found, fix- 
 ing his mind very well upon the figures; he had been 
 thinking of something else, and so he felt it quite natu- 
 ral to reply: 
 
 " Yes, I should say so. I might combine a holiday 
 with a honeymoon." 
 
 " What ? " cried Churton. " You're not ..." 
 
 "Yes, I am," said Huncote defiantly, prepared to 
 find opposition before it arose. 
 
 " Oh, well," said Churton, " my dear fellow I 
 congratulate you I'd no idea ! " He paused. 
 
 Huncote was looking at him rather watchfully as if 
 he had observed in his voice what indeed was there, 
 envy, faint disgust. For Churton had assumed with 
 his clerical training the attitude which the full-fledged 
 priest often escapes. He hated matrimony or, at best, 
 he afforded it a sort of Pauline toleration. 
 
 " You see," he went on, " I never knew there was 
 anybody. Might I ask, do I know her ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes," said Huncote airily. " Miss Susan 
 Groby." 
 
 " Miss Susan Groby ! " said Churton reflectively. 
 " Yes, I seem to know that name . . ." He wrinkled 
 his brows.
 
 228 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 " Yef, you do know the name," said Huncote. 
 " She's one of the girls who comes to the Settlement, 
 and her mother's a washerwoman." 
 
 There was a very long silence during which the two 
 men watched each other, Churton too surprised to do 
 anything but keep his mouth wide open, and Huncote 
 anxious to attack him upon the slightest provocation. 
 
 " Well, my dear fellow," said Churton, " I I I 
 congratulate I hardly know what to say. I you 
 
 you've known her some time ? " He was trying to 
 gain a few seconds to think. 
 
 " Yes, some months," said Huncote. " You remem- 
 ber her, don't you ? She's very dark, and I think her 
 rather pretty ; don't you ? " 
 
 He felt mischievous. Churton said nothing for a 
 moment; he remembered the girl much better than he 
 chose to say; he too thought her pretty, and for a space 
 she had occupied a little those over-sexed celibate 
 thoughts of his. Yes, she was pretty and all that, but 
 really . . . Then he made a brave effort, the sort of 
 effort he would have made if he had been a curate ; he 
 became benevolent. 
 
 " My dear fellow, I'm very glad, very glad indeed." 
 He leant across his desk and heartily shook Huncote's 
 hesitating hand. " Of course it is rather unconven- 
 tional. I hope you'll be very happy There may be 
 
 little difficulties, but then ' He made a broad 
 gesture. " When two people care for each other in 
 spite of all differences . . ." 
 
 " That'll do ; thanks awfully, old chap." 
 Huncote felt he was doing fairly well for a trial run, 
 but he could not let Churton go on. He returned to the 
 accounts. Once or twice, when he half-looked up, he 
 could see Churton watching him with an extraordinary 
 expression: he was looking at him as one looks at the 
 man who steps out of the crowd when a taxi runs into 
 a bus and offers his card to the policeman; there was
 
 TWILIGHT OF ST. OLAVES 229 
 
 admiration in the look, disapproval, incredulity. Still, 
 it had gone off all right, and when Huncote returned to 
 the Settlement in the evening it was clear that the Com- 
 mittee, who received the information in the afternoon, 
 had passed nem con an amazed resolution to take it 
 smiling. 
 
 Miss Miskin inclined to be slightly tearful and acrid 
 as she clasped his hands in her saurian fingers. Platt 
 was large and bold and beaming, and smacked him on 
 the shoulder several times, after which he asked him not 
 to be too rash, and generally conveyed a mixed impres- 
 sion of concern for the preservation of the upper classes 
 tempered by regard for the claims of democracy. And 
 Mrs. Ramsey said she was glad to hear he was going to 
 marry her, her voice carrying an indefinable hint that 
 she was surprised, presumably, because it had not oc- 
 curred to Huncote to use a method more habitual and 
 ending in Buenos Ayres. It all went very well, and 
 the few frequenters of the Settlement who found out 
 merely gaped at him. Huncote did not have to talk to 
 them about his marriage, but it was quite clear that 
 they looked upon him as a man removed, whether for 
 hanging or for coronation it was impossible to tell. 
 Indeed all would have gone admirably if later in the 
 evening George Green had not appeared in the lobby 
 flushed with information. 
 
 " Good evening, Mr. 'Uncote, congratulate you ! I 
 hear you're going to settle down ? " 
 
 "Yes," said Huncote. 
 
 " Nothing like it, my boy, nothing like it ! I know 
 the lady, very nice lady too." A flush rose into the 
 pudgy white cheeks. " Remember her quite well ; I'd a 
 dance with her the other time, you remember. No 
 'arm in it. Some girls, I don't say." He prodded 
 Huncote with his elbow. " Eh, wot ? But not Miss 
 Groby." Huncote suddenly felt very hot about the 
 eyes; he did not reply and George Green went on:
 
 230 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 " You take it from me, she's a nice girl, she is. I know 
 something about girls, living in St. Panwich all me life. 
 Some of them well, red pepper ain't in it. I could 
 tell you a thing or two." Churton came in and, much 
 to his horror, Green proceeded to tell Huncote a thing 
 or two, the usual sort of thing : 
 
 " Used to take 'em down to Brighton for the week- 
 end," said the builder. Then sentimentally he added : 
 " Happy days ! " But his attention again concentrated 
 on Huncote, who was moving from right to left, trying 
 to get past him to the door. " D'you know, Mr. 'Un- 
 cote," he said, " if you'll excuse me saying so, I didn't 
 think you were that sort. I never saw you making 
 goo-goo eyes. I thought you were one of the serious 
 lot, like our friend there." He jerked his thumb 
 towards Churton. " And for all I know, there you've 
 been every night under her window gargling a little love- 
 song." He nudged him. " Sly dog ! " He laughed, 
 and Huncote was filled with a rage which prevented 
 him from speaking. Then Green said : " Well, wish 
 you luck ! Shouldn't mind if it was me instead of you ; 
 she's a nice little bit of crackling ! " 
 
 As the door opened to frame the kindly amplitudes of 
 Platt, Huncote drew back and struck Green full upon 
 the jaw. The fat man seemed to hang helplessly in 
 the air for a second and then came crashing down to 
 the floor. 
 
 " Huncote ! " cried Churton. " Good heavens ! " 
 
 Platt hurried into the room to pick up one of his chief 
 supporters. Green was half stunned. 
 
 " Never heard of such a thing in my life," Platt 
 cried, while Churton stood in front of Huncote as if 
 afraid that he might hit the builder while he was down. 
 
 " Look here," he said hurriedly, " get out of it quick ; 
 we'll make it all right. It mustn't get about." 
 
 Huncote did not reply; his body was thrilling with 
 the reaction from his fury. But his knuckles hurt a
 
 TWILIGHT OF ST. OLAVES 231 
 
 little, and it had been delicious to feel the teeth outlined 
 under the cheek as he hit it. Churton took him by the 
 arm. 
 
 " Look here, do get out, he's coming to ; we'll make 
 it all right." 
 
 " If he wants any more . . ." said Huncote quietly. 
 
 " Oh, don't be a silly ass." 
 
 Platt raised his head : " Yes, do go away, Hun- 
 cote." 
 
 Green sat up ; he looked stupid, with one side of his 
 collar burst away from the stud and a big purple mark 
 on his jaw. Huncote laughed, half -hysterically. 
 
 " Oh, all right," he said, " I s'pose I'll have to apolo- 
 gise ; see you all to-morrow." 
 
 He went out. 
 
 There were no consequences. The next morning he 
 publicly apologised to Green, explaining that he had 
 been over-wrought. Green understood, he quite under- 
 stood. 
 
 " Let bygones be bygones," he said. " Now you'll be 
 wantin' a house in town, Mr. 'Uncote. That bit of land 
 the fly-fishing school, that ain't sold yet, eh ? " He 
 nudged him. 
 
 Just as Huncote was about to leave the Settlement to 
 go to St. Olaves he ran into Mr. Ford. Fighting Bill 
 almost embraced him. 
 
 " Good boy ! Good boy ! " he repeated endlessly. 
 " Wish I'd seen it, didn't think you had the guts. Let 
 me feel your deltoid." He thrust his hand into Roger's 
 waistcoat and pawed his shoulder and breast. " Not 
 bad ! You come along to me one evening, and I'll make 
 a man of you. Nothing like it in married life, my boy ! 
 You ask my missus what I do to her on Saturday 
 nights." 
 
 They laughed together. Huncote liked Fighting 
 Bill ; he was a man. A few hours later he was at St. 
 Olaves.
 
 232 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 II 
 
 His impulse as he entered the house was to cry out: 
 " I'm going to marry a washerwoman's daughter ! " 
 But reserve struggled with exultation and defiance; in 
 the evening he wasted a chance of speaking to his mother 
 alone and solemnly joined in family auction at two- 
 pence-ha'penny a hundred. When the game ended 
 after two rubbers, and Elspeth and Flora went to bed, 
 he hung about a little, opening books and looking at 
 pictures that he had known all his life, sitting down, 
 crossing and uncrossing his legs, and yawning without 
 showing any intention of going to bed. Enough in fact 
 to convince Mrs. Huncote that he had something on his 
 mind. She taxed him with it, and he vehemently de- 
 nied it. As she was accustomed to the sort of man who 
 cannot explain she gave him a drink and sent him to 
 bed, hoping it was not hay fever. Roger passed a mixed 
 night in which he planned scenes of fierce contest and 
 magnificent speeches, beginning : " Mother and sis- 
 ters," and containing a great deal about the equality of 
 mankind. Had he but known it, he was inconceivably, 
 like Bert Caldwell. At other times, when he woke up, 
 which happened frequently, he prepared tactful open- 
 ings, cunning little leading-ups from the condition of 
 the cathedral to questions as to whether the Dean ever 
 officiated at weddings, and then it would be simple. He 
 had a very bad appetite at breakfast. 
 
 Then Huncote, having been tactful all night, dis- 
 played the ignorance of the innocent and pure. He 
 tackled his mother . . . He did not realise that one 
 does not talk to everybody at the same time; he should 
 have known that the time for a man is halfway through 
 the after-dinner cigar ; that the time for a young girl is 
 half an hour after lunch, when she is feeling well and 
 wondering what she will do next, and generally inter- 
 ested and vivid; but that the time for a matron is not
 
 TWILIGHT OF ST. OLAVES 233 
 
 after lunch, when she wants to lie down, nor before 
 lunch when dishing-up is on her mind, nor just before 
 tea when she is sleepy and sulky, nor just after break- 
 fast when she is thinking over what that morning she 
 must order and buy; he should have known that there 
 are only two hours for the matron, apart from the over- 
 public tea-time: a little while after this soothing tea, 
 and before she has begun to bother about dressing, or 
 the quiet restfulness of after dinner, particularly if she 
 smokes. No, quite suddenly, when Mrs. Huncote was 
 thinking that she must tell Betty to take the drawing- 
 room curtains down, ask Trunch whether the mare was 
 better, and make a list including the plumber, Mudie's 
 and, above all, the stationer in view of a new time-table, 
 he said: 
 
 " Mother ! What would you say if I told you I was 
 going to get married ? " 
 
 Mrs. Huncote stared. He was blushing; but for his 
 clothes anybody could have seen he was blushing all 
 over, but he felt much better: out at last! 
 
 " Married ? Eoger ? " said Mrs. Huncote uneasily. 
 " Oh of course, I know you'll get married some day, 
 still I didn't expect I I didn't know there was any- 
 body Who is it ? " 
 
 Huncote hesitated, and his blush grew hotter. 
 
 " Well, Mother, I'm afraid you haven't met her ; she 
 lives in London." 
 
 " Yes," said Mrs. Huncote encouraging, " but why 
 didn't you tell me before ? " 
 
 " It was rather sudden," he murmured desperately. 
 
 " Oh ! " Then her preoccupation with plumber and 
 stationer intruded on her; she grew a little sharp. 
 " But do tell me all about it, Roger ; one might think 
 you thought I didn't care. What's her name ? Where 
 did you meet her ? " 
 
 " Mother," said Huncote, with a great effort, " it's so 
 difficult."
 
 234 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 Mrs. Huncote guessed. " Roger ! " she whispered. 
 " You don't mean to say . . ." Horrible visions of 
 tow-headed barmaids rushed through her mind. Young 
 men did that sort of thing at Oxford. A suspicion 
 crossed her mind. " You aren't married already, 
 Roger ? " 
 
 He looked offended. 
 
 " As if I could do such a thing without asking you." 
 
 Mrs. Huncote grew more and more suspicious. 
 
 "Are you quite sure you're asking me? It sounds 
 rather as if you were telling me." 
 
 " But what am I to do ? " cried Huncote, jumping up 
 and walking agitatedly round the table. " Oh, you 
 must let me speak plainly she's not one of us, you 
 see. She's quite young and I know you'll think her 
 pretty and I know you'll like her, only don't make up 
 your mind in advance, don't be against it before you 
 know." 
 
 " I'm not against it," said Mrs. Huncote, " but you're 
 putting me against it. What are you hiding? Who 
 is she ? " Mrs. Huncote was definitely frightened 
 now. 
 
 " She works." 
 
 " Well, lots of girls do. What does she do ? " 
 
 " She helps her mother." 
 
 " Oh ! What does her mother do ? " 
 
 Huncote performed on himself what amounted to a 
 surgical operation. 
 
 " She washes fine laces and all that," he added 
 hurriedly. 
 
 Mrs. Huncote remained blankly silent. 
 
 " Oh, it's no use pretending ; I've only seen her 
 mother once; they're quite well, you know the sort 
 of people, hard-working, nice, respectable people. Of 
 course, I don't expect you to like the idea; only you 
 should see Sue." 
 
 " Sue ? " asked Mrs. Huncote.
 
 TWILIGHT OF ST. OLAVES 235 
 
 "Yes, her name's Sue; Susan Groby. She used to 
 come to the Settlement. She's frightfully pretty." 
 
 " Of course," said Mrs. Huncote. 
 
 " Oh, Mother, don't say of course like that ! It's 
 something else ; she's so sweet and gentle, and innocent, 
 and . . . Oh, well, I can't help it, I've just got to 
 marry her." 
 
 " Got to marry her ? " asked Mrs. Huncote. " What 
 d'you mean, Roger? It's no use being shy now. Do 
 you mean to say that you've placed her in such a posi- 
 tion that you've got to marry her ? " 
 
 He did not understand for a moment ; then he flushed 
 with indignation. 
 
 " Mother ! How can you ! Oh, if you knew her you 
 wouldn't say a thing like that." 
 
 " Sorry. Only you put it in that way. So it 
 amounts to this : you're going to marry the daughter of 
 a washerwoman, and you're asking me to say ' Yes.' 
 The point is would it be any use my saying ' No ' ? " 
 She asked this because on her previous question she had 
 seen his eyebrows knit together in that familiar, obsti- 
 nate frown. Now he did not reply, and her heart grew 
 small and shrunken, for the son who does not disabuse 
 his mother when for a moment she doubts her power 
 over him has become a man. Bitterly she quoted to 
 herself two lines of Yeats. Half -aloud she murmured : 
 
 "I kiss you, I kiss you, my pigeon, my own, 
 How I shall miss you when you have grown." 
 
 " What am I to say ? I can't say ' Yes ' just like 
 that. You know what I said the other day when you 
 talked to me about Mr. Corry. Oh, Roger! Oh! 
 There was no Mr. Corry ! It was you, wasn't it ? Oh, 
 it wasn't fair." 
 
 He looked at her miserably: no, of course it wasn't 
 fair, it wasn't straight. But what was he to do? He 
 shifted.
 
 236 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 " Yes, you said something about class then, didn't 
 you?" 
 
 " I didn't know it was you." 
 
 " JSTo, but you'd have said the same thing, wouldn't 
 you?" 
 
 " Yes, more or less. You know I'm not mad on 
 class, don't you ? But still . . ." 
 
 " But still you think it won't work ? " 
 
 " How can I tell ? " asked Mrs. Huncote. 
 
 Mrs. Huncote went out to shop and during the whole 
 of that day the situation developed. Elspeth was told : 
 she was perfectly clear that this was preposterous. She 
 shocked her mother very much by wishing Roger had 
 sowed more wild oats. As for Flora, she behaved still 
 worse, for she declared that it was just like Pygmalion, 
 and wondered within Mrs. Huncote's hearing whether 
 Sue said " Not likely " or more extensively garnished 
 the remark. 
 
 There was another small scene at dinner: the situ- 
 ation was so grave that Mrs. Huncote postponed her 
 journey to Harrogate, and left herself in the position 
 almost inconceivable to her class of not going away in 
 August. The battle lasted three days and was, if not 
 won, at least saved from defeat not by the justice of 
 Huncote's cause, but by the savage opposition of Els- 
 peth, which created a reaction in Mrs. Huncote's breast. 
 Mrs. Huncote was destroyed by her own ally. It was 
 saved too by some new reflections in Flora's brain: 
 Roger would doubtless have a nice house instead of those 
 dreadful rooms in St. Panwicti; if he did not marry 
 Sue he might not marry anybody for years, while if he 
 did . . . Well, she could go and stay with them, with 
 a chaperone who did not chaperone ! That would make 
 the way easy for somebody quite new, called Peter. 
 Also it would be no end of a rag. 
 
 " Bring her to see me," said Mrs. Huncote warily, 
 #s she kissed Roger good-by.
 
 TWILIGHT OF ST. OLAVES 23T 
 
 III 
 
 " Well, I never ! " said Mrs. Groby. 
 
 " Same 'ere," said Mr. Groby. 
 
 " Now yer sorry yer didn't let 'er try for that there 
 scholarship at 'Arrods." 
 
 " I never 'ad no edication," said Mr. Groby. " It 
 never done me no 'arm." 
 
 " Ah ! But think o' the good it might 'ave done yer," 
 said Mrs. Groby, begging the question. 
 
 Mr. Groby thought for a while. 
 
 " Any'ow," he said, " it'll keep yer out o' the work- 
 'ouse." 
 
 Outside, in Paradise Row, Muriel passed with the 
 faithful Romeo who was playing " Who Were You With 
 Last Night ? " upon a mouth-organ. 
 
 IV 
 
 It had been rather awkward, for Mrs. Groby beamed 
 and almost bobbed as if she were still a Sussex child, 
 and called him Sir, and looked very hot, and had been 
 ashamed to wipe her face. And Mr. Groby, who had 
 come specially early on this Saturday afternoon instead 
 of passing the rest of the day at his club, found it very 
 difficult to talk to Huncote. They had stared at each 
 other mostly, the fastidious young man trying hard to 
 be easy with one who would soon expect him to call him 
 Father ; Mrs. Groby always called him Father, but this 
 did not seem to make things easier, indeed more diffi- 
 cult. As for Mr. Groby, a big red-faced person of 
 forty-five, rather bald except where his grey hair was 
 dyed black, after offering Huncote a woodbine he found 
 himself with his mouth open. Then to show that they 
 were quite at ease, he became effusively familiar, told 
 him he was one of the right sort, and asked him which
 
 238 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 way he voted. An indication of Huncote's views, 
 Young Liberal Socialism brand, eased things a little as 
 it enabled Mr. Groby to wax sanguinary about that gin- 
 ger-ale lot. Politics, Huncote thought, simplified mat- 
 ters, for however different men might be they would, he 
 supposed, always discover invigorating hatreds. Then 
 he looked at the dirty saucepans on the table and for a 
 second wondered whether he could go on with this. But 
 Sue was there, and she was so happy, so embarrassed, so 
 afraid, so anxious all should go well, and so proud of 
 him. 
 
 She left him for a moment to put on her hat, and he 
 stayed alone with Mr. and Mrs. Groby and Muriel. 
 Muriel was being condescending and worldly : Did he 
 not think the hobble skirt unbecoming? (while keep- 
 ing open an anxious ear for the strains outside of " Who 
 Were You With Last Night? "). Huncote felt like a 
 cat on a wardrobe in a room with several dogs, wonder- 
 ing what will happen when it comes down. But as Sue 
 came in her eyes sought his and not those of anybody 
 else. They were soft, half -ashamed, and they held that 
 humid glow which he felt was there only for him. He 
 knew that his smile answered her, paid tribute to her 
 loveliness, her innocence, to the dream of an unborn 
 day. They went silent in the street, and he thought 
 her beautiful. Her clothes were appalling. She was 
 wearing her best summer dress : light pink, touched up 
 with light green ; there were bows on her shoulders, and 
 frills round her wrists, irrelevant knobs and strips of 
 lace about her hips, bars of insertion on her breast; 
 every pure line of body and limb she spoiled and broke. 
 And her gloves, dark brown kid, must have been drawn 
 on with a buttonhook. Only the Providence of Lovers, 
 that is also the Providence of Fools, saved Huncote 
 from observing that skirt and petticoat were too long 
 behind and too short in front, that there were dreadful 
 bunchings of stuff, knots of laces all over the ill-fitting
 
 TWILIGHT OF ST. OLAVES 239 
 
 stays that made a horizontal line at the back under the 
 young shoulders. For he loved her and looked only 
 into her eyes, content to read there the shy message of 
 their welcome. He was the victim of a tragedy: to be 
 blind when loving for the first time, a preparation to 
 having sight and loving no more. 
 
 They sat in a perfect circle in Mrs. Huncote's draw- 
 ing-room, Sue so anxious that she found herself staring 
 in turn at Mrs. Huncote, at Elspeth, at Flora ; whenever 
 she caught herself at it she turned away quickly, nerv- 
 ously crossing and recrossing her feet, looking with 
 amazement and disquiet at the Sevres clock, the assegais 
 upon the wall, the many books lying about which she 
 had never seen before outside a bookseller's window. 
 It was not going too badly. They talked about the heat 
 at first, and how trying it was. Mrs. Huncote drew 
 from Sue that it was nice being in the country after 
 St. Panwich. This led to the merits of St. Olaves, and 
 Mrs. Huncote became topographic. Elspeth said not a 
 word. She maintained a protesting and inspectorial 
 air. Flora, after trying very hard not to laugh, let 
 herself go and laughed at everything. She was easier. 
 
 " Oh, you'll like it here," she said, " when you see a 
 little of the country. There's the Char, you must 
 have seen it from the train." 
 
 " Yes, Sue," said Huncote, " that's the river ; I 
 showed it you, you know." He tried to be easy. " I'll 
 have to teach you to fish." 
 
 Mrs. Huncote raised her eyebrows, but Flora gal- 
 lantly helped. 
 
 "Oh, Mother, I know what you're going to say; 
 you're going to say fishing's cruel." 
 
 " Not with nets," said Mrs. Huncote. 
 
 Mrs. Huncote was chipped as to her humanitarianism 
 tempered by a liking for trout. During the chipping 
 Sue remained uneasy, playing with her fingers. It was 
 all very wonderful, she thought, this talk about trout,
 
 240 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 though she did not understand what Roger was saying 
 about a cast, and what could have happened to the back 
 of Flora's neck when Roger was trying for an eddy, or 
 a neddy, or something. Then she felt she must say 
 something. " Nice little fish. There's a fishmonger 
 in the High Street has a whole lot of them in a tank, all 
 alive. They fry, don't they ? " 
 
 " I'm not quite sure," said Mrs. Huncote, " but I 
 should say they would fry." 
 
 There was a pause and Elspeth said, with a snarl : 
 
 " We'd better ask cook." 
 
 Huncote hated Elspeth just then; Flora who, with 
 all her mischievousness, had some tact, suggested they 
 should go into the garden. They did not go at once, 
 for the journey still had to be discussed, and Flora had 
 to argue with her brother about through trains. But at 
 last they reached the garden, all except Elspeth, who had 
 something to do in the town. That made things easier ; 
 persuaded by Huncote, Sue took off her hat. He felt 
 that it would be better if she took off that hat, for it had 
 sage-green ribbons which clashed with the lettuce green 
 of her frock. He was right, for as soon as he had done 
 so Mrs. Huncote laid upon her a long observant gaze. 
 
 Yes, she was pretty ; she was more than pretty. They 
 made a charming picture, Mrs. Huncote thought, those 
 two, Flora with her delicate skin of white and rose, her 
 laughing grey eyes, and Sue, sombre and brooding under 
 her heavy black locks. It was extraordinary. Could 
 it be made just possible ? Huncote was talking to her 
 but she did not listen; she was thinking of a parlour- 
 maid she once had who, after a few years, developed a 
 strange artistic taste in the arrangement of flowers, who 
 kept her hands so nicely too, no one knew how. She 
 sighed. 
 
 " Why do you sigh, Mother ? " asked Huncote. 
 
 She looked at him, smiling a little; the others were 
 out of earshot.
 
 TWILIGHT OF ST. OLAVES 241 
 
 " How can you ask ? This it's not exactly what I 
 wanted, is it ? " 
 
 " Don't you like her ? " he asked urgently. 
 
 " I can hardly . . . It's too early to say . . . She's 
 very pretty." 
 
 " Yes," said Huncote. 
 
 And together for a moment they looked at Flora and 
 Sue. Flora was talking and laughing, and Sue stood 
 listening with a little smile while she played with the 
 hectic bells of a great fuchsia bush. She did not know 
 what she was doing, and with her hand outstretched, 
 crushing a little between her brown fingers the passion- 
 ate bloom, she looked small and desolate, as if appeal- 
 ing. A heavy shadow fell from a tree upon her face, 
 made her all dark and secret, loaded with mystery the 
 pathos of her eyes. 
 
 As if by agreement Mrs. Huncote took her apart. 
 They went together along the path to the wall upon 
 which, exquisitely spread, were the young peaches begin- 
 ning to blush. At first Mrs. Huncote talked alone: 
 Did Sue like her work? What sort of life had she? 
 Had she any brothers and sisters ? To which Sue an- 
 swered " Yes " and " No." It was not so bad now, she 
 thought: in the drawing-room she had wanted to say, 
 " Yes, mum," but it was not so here. She looked more 
 confidently at this nice old lady: pretty Mrs. Huncote 
 seemed very old to a young girl accustomed to seeing 
 women old at thirty. It helped her that Mrs. Hun- 
 cote should be old, and, little by little, she confided in 
 her. 
 
 " Have you known my son long ? " asked Mrs. Hun- 
 cote. 
 
 " ~No, not exactly long," said Sue, blushing. " On 
 and off for eight or nine months, but it was only lately 
 that he . . ." She grew dumb. 
 
 " Yes," said Mrs. Huncote encouragingly, " that you 
 grew fond of each other."
 
 242 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 Sue made a great effort and dug her toe into the 
 gravel, but could only get out a stifled " Yes." 
 
 Then Mrs. Huncote said : 
 
 " He seems very fond of you." 
 
 After a while Sue, who seemed to have been thinking, 
 said: 
 
 " Who'd have thought it?" 
 
 And strangely enough Mrs. Huncote was not offended, 
 for Sue seemed so sincere, so overcome. That helped 
 her and Mrs. Huncote said : 
 
 " It's no use saying things like that Sue ; it just 
 happens, doesn't it ? " 
 
 For a moment Sue did not reply. It was not only 
 that Mrs. Huncote had called her by her name, but the 
 sudden softening of the tone moved her. She felt 
 warmed, accepted, and, without any artfulness, she in- 
 creased her advantage. With clasped hands she turned 
 to the mother and murmured thickly: 
 
 " Oh, Mrs. Huncote, it's like a dream. I never 
 thought of anybody like him. He's like well, I don't 
 know, only it always makes me feel not good enough. 
 I used to think a lot of myself, you know, but that's all 
 over." Mrs. Huncote smiled. " You needn't smile, 
 it's quite true. He's he looks like one of those men 
 in armour in the pictures. And when he talks it makes 
 me think of . . ." 
 
 "Of what?" 
 
 " Oh, silly things. Birds." 
 
 " Foolish child ! " said Mrs. Huncote. 
 
 But she was moved, and it almost hurt her. She had 
 a fleeting memory of the dead colonel, of the first time 
 they danced at the hunt ball, thirty years before. He 
 had said something so idiotic and delightful, made her 
 go out with him into the grounds of the Assembly Room 
 at Dorchester. She remembered : '" Come into the 
 garden and be the nightingale." She pulled herself up. 
 JSTow ! No sentiment ! But she looked at Sue, who was
 
 TWILIGHT OF ST. OLAVES 243 
 
 staring at the peaches with her mouth fallen open, a lit- 
 tle wistful, as if she asked for kindness as well as for 
 love. 
 
 " Foolish child ! " she said again. " I envy you," 
 and slipped her hand along the girl's arm. 
 
 Life's calculated artistry piled bathos on pathos. 
 There was tea and difficulty with the thin bread-and- 
 butter, and there was Flora, anxious to put Sue at her 
 ease by professing a delight in pink roses for hats. A 
 little strain came again, for Huncote did not know what 
 his mother had said, and he was thinking of the Grobys. 
 
 He was still thinking of the Grobys when they got 
 into the train, he and his silent girl. Six o'clock: per- 
 haps Mr. Groby was tight. Again he wondered whether 
 he could go on : but they had a carriage to themselves, 
 and as soon as the train started Sue flung herself into 
 his arms. " We're alone," she whispered. 
 
 Then he understood. As he held her close-folded he 
 knew that he was alone in a hostile world with the only 
 creature who really loved him, that is, who loved him 
 without understanding him. It was wonderful to be 
 taken like that ; she sheltered him from the world : for a 
 moment she made the world, she was all his. He had a 
 vision of her as one who had long been in the making 
 for him; she was an angel, still and dark, looking at 
 him from under her brows and smiling. As he felt her 
 in his arms, quiescent, every fibre of her body told him : 
 " I am yours, and you are mine, and I love you. I was 
 parted from you by the unknown past, and yet I was 
 always with you. Come to me, and you shall have all 
 of me that you want, body, understanding, simplicity ; 
 you shall be my counsel and my child, my protector and 
 my charge; you shall be my leader and my playmate, 
 and suffer with me, and laugh with me, and weep with 
 me, for you are all mine, my heart." 
 
 They parted in Paradise Row. He had kissed her 
 much, and yet he wanted again to do so : the custom of
 
 244 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 the place allowed it, so securely she raised her lips to 
 his. He felt degraded and delighted as, for the first 
 time in his life, he kissed a woman in the street. 
 She smiled darkly. " Ta-ta, be good," she said. 
 
 He was excited and he feared the hurrying on of 
 gladness and of doom. He wanted her : yes, he knew 
 that; he wanted her not only as a woman because she 
 was beautiful, but he wanted her presence, the conscious- 
 ness of her. He liked to see her move, to hear her voice, 
 the low voice that was so clear when she laughed. He 
 talked to her a great deal and asked her questions just 
 to hear that voice. Besides, they had much to talk of. 
 There was quite a long argument as to the date of the 
 marriage which was fixed for the first week in October. 
 When he asked her to " name the day ", she said : 
 
 " Oh, Roger ! Isn't it a bit early ? Why, we've only 
 just got engaged." 
 
 " Well," he said, " you're going to marry me, aren't 
 you ? " 
 
 "Yes, but . . ." 
 
 He realised ; he remembered the long engagements in 
 her class. 
 
 " All right," he said, " we can put it off a little ; what 
 about this day five years ? " 
 
 " Five years 's rather long," said Sue, quite serious. 
 
 He laughed. " But don't you understand, Sue, that 
 I'm not going to wait for you for five years ! " 
 
 " Don't think it worth it, is that it ? " asked Sue. 
 
 " Don't be silly. I'm not going to wait for you five 
 years or five months." 
 
 " Well, it ought to be a year, don't you think ? Quite 
 a year ? " 
 
 He grew impatient. " But, Sue, you don't under- 
 stand ; people only wait because they can't afford to get
 
 TWILIGHT OF ST. OLAVES 245 
 
 married. They'd like to get married at once. At least, 
 I expect so." 
 
 Sue did not understand ; all she knew was that every 
 one of her married friends had waited anything be- 
 tween one year and five years, except one who waited 
 ten, and there you are. But Roger too did not under- 
 stand ; he did not know that girls such as Sue fear mar- 
 riage because marriage does not emancipate as it does 
 in the bourgeoisie; because marriage means that the 
 self-supporting girl abandons the freedom of her work 
 and possibly a good wage for uncertain dependence upon 
 a man, a man who may become like other men, rather 
 drunken and sometimes brutal. 
 
 The deadlock was ended by violence: Roger threat- 
 ened to buy a special license and to marry her that week. 
 Terrified and delighted, she had to give in when she 
 heard that a special license cost thirty pounds; that 
 would be too dreadful, so they would be married early 
 in October. 
 
 YI 
 
 She said : " Won't you give me a little photo of 
 yourself ? " 
 
 " Of course I will." 
 
 " Quite a little one ? Big as a shilling ? " 
 
 " But why only as big as a shilling ? " 
 
 " To put in a locket to wear round my neck." She 
 blushed. 
 
 He laughed. No, she should have a big one. He 
 didn't want her to wear his photo like that. He did not 
 want her to look like well, like what she was. But 
 it was early and he was charmed. 
 
 VII 
 
 There was a house to find, there were clothes to buy, 
 there was clergyman and choir to think of. Decisions
 
 246 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 must be taken as to where the reception should be held, 
 and the honeymoon must be thought of. But Huncote 
 thought of other things too, of trifles in her behaviour 
 and clothing which annoyed him a very little, even in 
 those moments when he loved her. He began to think 
 of it the day he broke her necklace. 
 
 It was evening as he saw her home. They were in 
 sportive mood, and she said he had kissed her enough. 
 He struggled with her, she breathless and hiding her 
 face with her hands. As he tore her hands away, mas- 
 terful and tender, he caught a finger in the necklace; 
 the thread broke, and the sham pearls fell all over the 
 pavement where in their excitement they did not notice 
 them until they had trampled half of them into pow- 
 der. 
 
 " Oh, my pearls ! " Sue cried. Then she looked as 
 if about to weep. 
 
 " Never mind, sweetheart, I'll give you another 
 necklace to-morrow." 
 
 " Will you really ? " She smiled, forgetting the 
 past and thinking only of to-morrow, for she loved him. 
 
 But when it came to buying the necklace, he hesi- 
 tated. He had the prejudice of his education against 
 sham jewellery of any kind and so many girls at the 
 Settlement wore sham pearls. No, he could not buy 
 those. He thought of something more overwhelming, 
 real pearls. Only he was not sure that Sue would like 
 them as well as the sham, for they would be small. Ac- 
 cidentally he discovered the shop in Oxford Street 
 where they sell queer, cheap jewellery from Italy or the 
 East. He was proud when he brought Sue her neck- 
 lace ; it was very pretty, made of gilt wood on an Italian 
 model, of carved, wooden spheres, separated by blue 
 stones decorated with gold designs. He clasped it 
 round her neck, and thought she looked barbaric. But 
 she fingered the pendant and seemed disconsolate. 
 
 " Don't you like it ? " he asked.
 
 TWILIGHT OF ST. OLAVES 247 
 
 " Well," she said, " it's quaint." She pouted a little. 
 " Thought you said you'd get me some pearls." 
 
 " Oh ! " he cried. " Don't you see it's beautiful ? 
 that it isn't like everybody's ? I assure you it's a beau- 
 tiful thing." 
 
 " It is quaint," she said ungraciously. 
 
 He knew there was something a little wrong; orna- 
 ments, clothes, he didn't quite know what ; he knew too 
 little of women to say. He wished some woman, some- 
 body like Flora, a woman who knew, would help her. 
 But he shrank from contact between his sister and his 
 bride. Suddenly he thought of Theresa. 
 
 It was a queer interview. Theresa, of course, knew, 
 and she let him go on to the end, but he found it diffi- 
 cult. 
 
 " You see what I mean," he said, at length. " You 
 know how sweet she is; I know you like her. Only, 
 having been brought up like that, it's so difficult." 
 
 " Yes," she said, " I understand. Of course I'll 
 help you." And almost added : " You child ! " 
 " Tell her to come and see me, or rather I'll take her 
 out myself; it'll be all right." She smiled: "She 
 shall be a regular fashion plate ! Will that satisfy you ? 
 She shall have coats and skirts like everybody, and she 
 shall not wear any but handsewn blouses; she'll be so 
 like everybody that you won't be able to tell her ! Will 
 that satisfy you ? She shan't only be good enough for 
 you, but she shall look it ! " 
 
 There had been in the words " good enough for you " 
 an intonation rather peculiar. For a moment Roger 
 felt awkward, but he was in no mood for introspection ; 
 so he told himself he was only thinking what a good 
 friend Theresa was. As he went he thanked her again. 
 He felt impulsive. 
 
 "You're the best of friends." Then, before she 
 could elude him, he kissed her softly on the cheek. 
 
 Theresa was alone. Evening was coming. She
 
 248 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 went to the window and looked out over the low houses 
 opposite, over the canal, so dull, like lead, save where 
 the setting sun touched it. It was not so warm now, 
 and soon it would be dusk. She thought of the night, 
 the night that would be cold after the heat of the day. 
 She did not know just then exactly what she felt. She 
 could not tell herself that she was losing the man she 
 wanted; all she knew, as the sun dipped below the 
 house, was the fading of its glory heralded an enclosing 
 night. A greyness fell over the sky and over something 
 within her that felt sick with weakness. 
 
 VIII 
 
 " I say ! " said Sue. " I've been showing that neck- 
 lace of yours to a girl. She was gone on it" 
 
 " Oh ? " 
 
 " And I've sort of taken to it too." She fingered the 
 pendant. " It's lovely, ain't it ? They can't do that 
 sort of work in England." 
 
 His emotion was both suave and deep. So she had 
 learnt ! She could understand the beautiful, could see 
 quickly ! One only had to show it to her, and she for- 
 got all vulgar things. He held her close. Oh! 
 How wonderful she could be ! The vision of a Sue 
 renewed and made peerless which he had seen after the 
 night by the river formed again. It intoxicated him. 
 It did not occur to him that she had followed where an- 
 other girl led. 
 
 IX 
 
 They were grouped in the drawing-room, about thirty 
 people. A quiet little party, for Mrs. Huncote had 
 done what she could. There had been wrangles because 
 Flora wanted silver-edged invitations; more wrangles 
 because Huncote objected to wedding presents. In 
 fact, for a while, he conducted a single-handed battle
 
 TWILIGHT OF ST. OLAVES 249 
 
 against his own family and the Grobys too, because he 
 wanted quietly to go round to the registrar's with Sue 
 and two witnesses at half a crown a head. Mrs. Hun- 
 cote might have given way thankfully, only Mrs. Groby, 
 remembering her aunt who had left all that money to the 
 blacks in Africa, was determined to get value for the 
 lost inheritance out of the Church. And Sue did not 
 help much. When Huncote came to her and offered to 
 elope to the registrar's she looked at him half-fright- 
 ened. , . 
 
 " Oh ! " she said. " I shouldn't feel properly mar- 
 ried!" 
 
 He pressed her. She grew mutinous and for a mo- 
 ment quite ugly with a dark obstinate face. 
 
 " All my friends been to the church," she said curtly. 
 
 He grew angry, she wept. Then they kissed, and he 
 felt a brute. Later he changed his mind and there 
 were more quarrels ; there was even a quarrel at Para- 
 dise Row in presence of the amalgamated Grobys. 
 Muriel came out strong. 
 
 " A church," she declared, " is so much more lady- 
 like." 
 
 Perce went round to Huncote on the sly and offered 
 to kidnap Sue for him for a tanner. But Huncote 
 thought of Mrs. Ramsey and the white slave traffic, and 
 refused. 
 
 All might have been well and the wedding have taken 
 place at All Souls St. Panwich, but Huncote, exasper- 
 ated by this battering on all sides, continually entangled 
 in theological arguments with Mrs. Groby who wanted 
 to serve the Church out, with Mrs. Huncote who did not 
 believe in it, but knew that everybody who was any- 
 body got married in church (unless they were intellec- 
 tual and went in for free love), was brought to such a 
 pitch of exasperation by discovering a letter from the 
 C. O. S. to Elspeth who as a sort of last hope had been 
 enquiring whether there was anything against the
 
 250 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 Grobys, that he suddenly declared he would have a rag- 
 ing and tearing wedding, and at St. Olaves. The sil- 
 ver-edged invitation cards were printed; they would 
 have been sent if Elspeth had not quietly got hold of 
 the bundle, destroyed most of them, and told him only 
 too late. Huncote wrote to the Dean, asking him to 
 officiate in person, but was fortunately foiled by a previ- 
 ous engagement of the prelate. 
 
 He was furious and resolute and, outwitting his fam- 
 ily, on the morning of the wedding he disembarked a 
 blue Hungarian band and six dozen of champagne. 
 He was very unhappy in those days and yet delighted. 
 He was almost forgetting Sue and the gaining of his de- 
 sire, for he saw very little of her now, with Theresa 
 rushing her around the town to dressmakers, and mil- 
 liners, and bootmakers, in a triumphant and reforming 
 progress which left behind it the shattered remains of 
 machine-made blouses and three-and-elevenpenny stays. 
 Sue became a phantom . . . Sue was manicured . . . 
 
 So Huncote flung himself upon that wedding with the 
 determination that might have inspired him had he 
 sworn to drown a greedy cat in cream. He happened 
 to read The Blue Lagoon in those days and thought 
 they did these things better in Polynesia. But still 
 among this welter of contending wills, of reluctances, of 
 clamorous prejudices, of social assumptions, of abom- 
 inable pryings into the most exquisite things, the sol- 
 emn institution of marriage rumbled on, caring very 
 little in its eternal course what lay under its jugger- 
 naut wheels. Sue might weep, but banns were called. 
 
 There was quite a little crowd that soft October day, 
 with the hollyhocks blowsy and dusty, and the chrys- 
 anthemums beginning to mourn the dead summer. 
 The two parties had clotted rather; there was a proud 
 young group made up of Flora, Peter, in a highly 
 brushed condition, Cuthbert and Sawbones Junior to 
 represent her glamorous past. There was a minor
 
 TWILIGHT OF ST. OLAVES 251 
 
 canon and his wife who looked at everybody as if they 
 saw them through lorgnettes; the doctor lurked behind 
 a big black moustache out of which he now and then 
 burst like a sharpshooter, inadequately restrained by 
 a precise little wife who might have been made of 
 chilled steel painted pink, so clean were her lines. 
 There were locals too, some of the locals whose invita- 
 tions Elspeth had not been able to stop. And some 
 relatives: Mrs. Huncote's mother, old Mrs. Farnell, 
 with exquisite white curls and a trembling bonnet on 
 the back of her head. Old Mrs. Farnell was to be very 
 helpful by and by, for her bonnet and its angle served 
 as a link between her and Mrs. Groby who, unfortu- 
 nately, had added to her own bonnet velvet ribbon of 
 that peculiar pale crimson which recalls raspberry fool. 
 There were more Farnells too, Rear Admiral Farnell, 
 Mrs. Huncote's brother, with his wife, he inclined to 
 be jovial and she to consider the crowd with the toler- 
 ance that fills a naval wife in non-service circles. On 
 the Huncote side was only Miss Huncote, the maiden 
 aunt, accompanied by her transformation. Later she 
 had a conversation with Mr. Groby, which mystified 
 her very much because he continually alluded to the 
 yard. She first thought he was an ostler and, when 
 seeking information, was told by the doctor that he 
 meant the boneyard, which was not enlightening. And 
 there was Perce who wondered when the eating would 
 start. Whenever he asked Muriel that question he was 
 heavily snubbed and told that eating was not gentle- 
 manly. But Perce, whose breakfast had been forgotten 
 in the morning hurry, was possessed, and the results 
 threatened to be serious. Grabbing was in Perce's 
 mind. There was Grandpa Challow, brought from 
 Sussex by the Grobys. He was a delightful old man, 
 nearly eighty. Mrs. Huncote fell in love with him 
 when he said : 
 
 " I'm unaccountable glad to meet you, Mrs. Hun-
 
 252 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 cote; he's a nice boy. He's the nicest boy I seen for 
 a long time." 
 
 " I'm glad you like him," she said. 
 
 " I do, surely." 
 
 Outside in the garden, unrestrained, the band was 
 violently banding. Huncote, for a moment undis- 
 turbed, sat at the window staring out. He had escaped 
 the Farnell country cousins in their country clothes, 
 and with a sort of savage delight noted that they wore 
 bows upon their shoulders: his wife knew better than 
 that by now, so he scored off the Wiltshire end of the 
 family. There was a buzz of talk behind him and 
 some laughter. He felt depressed. He was glad be- 
 hind his depression, for it was nearly over, and he had 
 had a glimpse of Sue just long enough for her to smile. 
 But it had all been so complicated and hard, and he felt 
 tired. In front of him, between two faded hollyhock 
 stems, a great autumn spider sat in its web; it was 
 beautiful and sinister, with a yellow cross upon its 
 back, motionless as if from the moist dead leaves there 
 came already a breath of murderous winter. 
 
 He alighted from the carriage, helped out Mrs. Groby 
 and his mother. Mrs. Groby fell. It seemed very 
 long, the wait near the altar, with Sue missing. He 
 wondered why the bridegroom mattered so little in a 
 wedding, and why everybody was anxious about the 
 bride. The crowd seemed very small in the church, 
 and the bride's side would have been empty had not 
 some of the Huncotes filled it up. Mrs. Groby would 
 have asked a few friends if the wedding had happened 
 in St. Panwich, but she had not the courage to bring 
 them to St. Olaves. She did not mind. She had been 
 torn between gentility and auld lang syne; gentility 
 won. There was a little hush, some craning forward 
 of heads, a noise as everybody turned from the altar to 
 watch the coming of the bride with her father who was 
 to give her away. Huncote grew conscious of some-
 
 TWILIGHT OF ST. OLAVES 253 
 
 thing in white, large and floriferous, which followed 
 Sue, Ada Nuttall, of course, and of Churton at his side 
 begging him to be steady . . . 
 
 Who was this stranger girl he was to wed? She 
 seemed so different in the gown of white chiffon. It 
 made her look so dark ; her eyes were downcast and she 
 seemed stern; her mouth was set and its lovely curves 
 gone ; even her hair looked strange ; he wondered where 
 the beautiful curls had gone. He did not know that 
 Theresa's battle had not been entirely won and that, in 
 spite of orders, Sue had supplemented the natural curl 
 by putting her hair in papers the night before: this 
 made a curious combination with the wave the hair- 
 dresser had given it that morning . . . 
 
 And now they were side by side, kneeling. For a 
 moment Huncote felt religious. Then he noticed the 
 vicar's boots ! His elbow touched Sue's, and he pressed 
 it as if to reassure her, really to reassure himself, for 
 he did not know what awful thoughts had stolen the 
 curves from her mouth, that she was hot all over as 
 she waited for the moment when Bert Caldwell would, 
 as in the story " True Till Death ", step out from be- 
 hind a pillar and say : " I forbid the banns ! This 
 woman who stands here is my affianced wife ! " 
 
 But nothing happened. As she said " I will " she 
 thought of Bert without a qualm, for she loved this man, 
 this strange shining creature by her side. Only she 
 wondered whether Bert would go to Australia. Then 
 again she said : " I will." And as Huncote placed 
 the ring upon her finger she squeezed his hand hard as 
 if begging him to hold it so that none might hurt 
 her . . . 
 
 It was very different after, as they stood side by side 
 in the drawing-room being congratulated. For Sue 
 saw everything with relief rather than triumph, and so 
 she was beautiful. The chiffon fell softly from her 
 shoulders, ample over the arms to where the long white
 
 254 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 gloves left bare the smooth skin. The white silk of 
 the loose-laced corselet, the straight, soft folds of flimsy 
 white that fell from her hips to her white-shod feet, hid 
 little of the graciousness of her lines, half -virginal, half- 
 mature. Theresa must have done something to her hair 
 after the church, Mrs. Huncote thought, for it looked 
 looser, and thick and dark against the pallor of the 
 orange-blossom. The groups formed again. The 
 locals solidified around the minor canon and his wife, 
 while Mrs. Farnell, conscious of the power of the fif- 
 teen-inch naval guns and of the traditions of Drake, 
 formed a rival crowd mainly of relations who were 
 tending to clot. The country cousins, together with 
 Mrs. Farnell, Miss Huncote, and Elspeth, were begin- 
 ning with ostentatious aloofness to exchange the family 
 confidences and evil reports which are suitable when 
 relations come together : the naval wife sat on the quar- 
 ter-deck of the good ship Farnell-Huncote. Perce 
 ate at last as quickly as his high collar would let him, 
 and Muriel fascinatedly walked around and around the 
 doctor's wife, trying to find out how she got into her ap- 
 parently seamless garment. Huncote, determined to 
 do his duty, monopolised Mr. Groby. Mr. Groby and 
 his family had begun numbly, staring, saying " Yes, 
 Sir " and " Yes, Mum," though they tried to keep it 
 down. The fashion, the munificence paralysed them. 
 Now Huncote regretted having ordered so much cham- 
 pagne, for Mr. Groby was becoming louder and louder 
 on the subject of the Old Mogul. " Never been to the 
 Old Mogul ? Why ! Where was you born ? The 
 times I used to 'ave there with old Joe Bates! They 
 don't know wat a music 'all is nowadays." He went 
 on : " They used to call it the Bloodpot, they did, and 
 no wonder. Why, I remember . . ." 
 
 Huncote tried to prevent him from remembering too 
 loud. But the other Grobys were creating a small 
 scene. The two children and their mother stood fasci-
 
 TWILIGHT OF ST. OLAVES 255 
 
 nated before a tableload of wedding presents; Mrs. 
 Groby patted an awful black marble clock, presented 
 by the country cousins. " My ! " sbe said, " that's wot 
 I call a clock." She stopped Mrs. Farnell. " It's the 
 dead spit of the one as my aunt Elizabeth used ter 'ave. 
 Wot d'yer think that corst ? " 
 
 " I'm sure I don't know," said Mrs. Farnell, trying 
 to escape. 
 
 '' Well, it's got yer name on it," said Mrs. Groby. 
 
 " I beg your pardon. That's my sister-in-law's 
 name." 
 
 "Why! Didn't yer talk it over?" asked Mrs. 
 Groby, laughing. " Now where's yer present ? Don't 
 be shy." 
 
 Mrs. Huncote came to the rescue in time to prevent 
 Perce decorating the silver salver with an " H " 
 scratched with the carvers. 
 
 " Won't you come into the garden ? " she asked Mrs. 
 Groby. " It's lovely." 
 
 " Everything in the garden's lovely," cried Perce. 
 
 The country cousins came closer; Elspeth hovered. 
 Mrs. Groby was heard to vow that if anybody'd given 
 her that biscuit box she'd pop it. 
 
 " Hush ! " said Mrs. Huncote. " That's from Lady 
 Belhus." 
 
 " 'Oo cares ? " asked Mrs. Groby, democratic and 
 slightly drunk. 
 
 " Come with me, Mrs. Groby," said Elspeth. But 
 Mrs. Groby turned on her. " 'Go's arskin' yer for yer 
 opinion, Elspeth ? " 
 
 There was a thrill of horror, for suddenly the Grobys 
 grew " family like " and the guests were greeted as 
 Flora, Lucy, anything. Mrs. Farnell and the doctor 
 intervened, for Muriel had burst into tears as gentility 
 expired, while Perce had to be operated on for swal- 
 lowed fishbone. At last Mrs. Groby accepted tea. It 
 was very hot, so she poured it into her saucer from
 
 256 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 which she lapped in the intervals of huge bitings out of 
 a lump of cake. 
 
 " That ain't good tea . . ." (lap) " I always say, 
 take yer tea strong and labour in the vineyard of the 
 Lord . . ." (lap, squish) . . . 
 
 Perce joined his father, who was consuming foie 
 gras sandwiches, three at a time. 
 
 " That stuff ain't arf bad," he told the Cuthbert- 
 Sawbones Junior group. " 'Ave a bit, sonny," offer- 
 ing the plate to the highly brushed Peter. " Don't 
 choke yerself, Perce. Yer enjoying yer little self, ain't 
 yer?" 
 
 " Not arf." 
 
 " I believe yer." He pointed a thumb at the wed- 
 ding cake. " Just as good as mother makes it, eh ! " 
 
 Mrs. Huncote watched Mrs. Farnell's face and be- 
 gan uncontrollably to laugh. She felt like weeping 
 too. But she was the leader, so she must follow her 
 guests' desires. She broke up the Groby clot, and soon 
 Huncote, who had missed the scene, heard his mother 
 talking to Mrs. Groby. The conversation had begun 
 with an interesting cancer case, and was proceeding on- 
 wards to the condition of a neighbour whose nervous 
 " cistern " was completely wrecked. Told in a whisper 
 to get Mr. Groby away, he managed to land him on the 
 doctor, with a hint that he needed looking after ; the 
 doctor dosed him with more champagne. But he could 
 not find Sue; she had gone away, it seemed, to put on 
 her going-away dress, and so for a moment he talked to 
 Grandpa Challow. 
 
 " I never been in London for a long time," said the 
 old man. " No, not since the Jubilee. It's a long 
 time since 'eighty-seven ! I was so tall then surely." , 
 
 " Did you see anything ? " asked Huncote. 
 
 The old man was not listening, he was lost in memo- 
 ries : " There was the Queen, looking valiant in her 
 carriage, and the Royal Sussex guarding her all the
 
 TWILIGHT OF ST. OLAVES 257 
 
 way. I was just about glad to see her, such a praaper 
 lady. But the bees all died that year," he sighed, and 
 accepted a glass of champagne. 
 
 As they drove off Huncote glimpsed the massed 
 classes in the portico. Another stranger was by his 
 side, now in a pale grey travelling gown, a charming 
 stranger who smiled and somehow was his. He took 
 her hand. They were both of them relieved, very shy, 
 rather frightened. He looked into the dark eyes that 
 appealed only to him ; he stooped to kiss the smiling lips 
 and said : 
 
 " You are beautiful ! " 
 
 " You story ! " she replied. 
 
 He laughed; she charmed him; she alone was real. 
 He drew down the glove to kiss the strong arm; she put 
 her other hand upon his neck and shyly stroked his 
 hair. In their own way they were both of them en- 
 trusting their lives to an unknown, but perhaps benevo- 
 lent Providence . .
 
 PART THE THIRD 
 
 LEAVES OF WILLOW
 
 A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse : 
 A spring shut up, a fountaine sealed. 
 
 (The Song of Solomon.)
 
 CHAPTEE THE EIRST 
 
 THE PYRENEES AND PEMBROKE SQUARE 
 
 ROGER HTJNCOTE shifted upon his pillow, stretched him- 
 self, still half -asleep. He tried to untie his eyelids and 
 then, feeling he was still very tired, nestled closer against 
 Sue, as if in five days he had acquired the habits of mar- 
 riage. But through the dimness which with every 
 moment grew less, he was conscious of the life surround- 
 ing him and of the last five days, so hurried, so packed 
 with emotion and sensation, hectic and exhausting, hectic 
 and exquisite. As consciousness came to him he liked 
 to remember in half-wakef ulness ; it was like a play for 
 him alone performed. From St. Olaves they had gone 
 to Dover and there they stayed the night ; the next day 
 on to Paris, where again they had broken the journey. 
 Paris had been hateful. The city was wearing her 
 ugly face of wet days, when water decrepitates upon the 
 zinc roofs and floods the stone gutters, when the women 
 in their smart half -mourning scurry like cats, and every- 
 thing is brilliant with water, not dull and muddy as in 
 London but somehow so much wetter. Paris had been 
 dreadful; she looked like a scarecrow in a dressing- 
 jacket of crepe de chine. He remembered how wonder- 
 ful Sue thought it, how bravely she had set out from the 
 hotel right into the rain, until he stopped her and made 
 her get into a taxi. She had not thought of a cab; it 
 shocked him a little, that, and charmed him. And there 
 had been an interesting moment, when he took her to the 
 Bon Marche to buy a hat. How was he to know where
 
 262 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 to buy women's hats? He remembered her shrinking 
 from the saleswoman. 
 
 Lazily still, he thought of their journey to Biarritz, 
 so long and yet so delightful because every hour grew 
 warmer and lighter, until suddenly they saw the sun 
 drown as a torch in the blue sea beyond the basin of 
 Arcachon. 
 
 He looked at her. She was fragile and childish like 
 this, with her hair in two thick black plaits. One lay 
 across her cheek and neck, and he had to tell himself that 
 if she opened her eyes they would be astonished and 
 eager, so as not to think of her in her tragic darkness as 
 a Salammbo in the embrace of her python. She lay 
 upon her side, her face turned towards him, her dark 
 mouth a little open, roscid lips pressed into the pillow, 
 eyelashes at rest upon her cheek. He came closer, 
 drawn by the strong lines of the neck, of the broad 
 shoulders still beautiful under the shapeless swaddle of 
 the blankets. She was delicious and she fired him, but 
 yet she was strange where she was, and he pitied her. 
 Sue in Biarritz ! He laughed : what an exile ! He sat, 
 still looking at her, and very gently under the bedclothes 
 found her hand. In her sleep she closed her fingers 
 upon his. Sue in Biarritz! He remembered the ex- 
 cited discussion when he asked her where she wanted to 
 spend the honeymoon and she answered : 
 
 " Just as you like ; I'd thought of Eamsgate. 
 Though," and her eyes sparkled, half -wistful, " though 
 Ada says they'll go to Cromer "when she gets married." 
 
 Mischievously he replied : " Oh, I was thinking of 
 Japan. What d'you think, Sue ? " 
 
 " Don't make game of me," said Sue, rather hurt. 
 
 The relentless mechanism of wealth had captured 
 Sue, and Cromer was not for her. She was nearly taken 
 to Japan, just for fun, and would have been perhaps if 
 Huncote had been a good sailor. So she was taken to 
 Biarritz because it would be warm. Now there was no
 
 THE PYRENEES 263 
 
 end to the cytherean worlds to which Sue might be 
 translated, first class all the way! It was terrible; 
 probably she was dreaming of it, and it was a trouble- 
 some dream, for she moaned a little, and her hand 
 struggled in that of her husband. Still he thought of 
 those scenes, of her amazement mixed with fear when 
 she heard they were to have a month off. " Little Ish- 
 maelite ! " he thought. " You're not alone now." And 
 bent down to kiss her very softly upon the cheek. She 
 was waking and, feeling him close, slowly wound about 
 his neck a sleepy arm. He could not think, he found, 
 when he held her so. He could only feel, and some of 
 his emotion was aesthetic as he saw her eyelids struggle, 
 and waited a little anxiously for that first look of morn- 
 ing that is surprised, shrinking, yet full of anticipation, 
 when beauty which in the night has died is born again 
 in a new world. He was thrilled, for the blind was up, 
 and the room full of light. How lovely she would look 
 in the pale lucence of the Biscayan air ! 
 
 She woke. She smiled. Contentedly she settled 
 closer in his arms. " So happy ! " she murmured. As 
 he pressed her to him, thrilled by the sweet-scented soft- 
 ness of her, she gave him her lips like a tired child that 
 seeks comfort ; soon, and then it was he who was the 
 child, she grasped him closer with drugged intensity, 
 all instinctive, together greedy and generous. Much 
 later, when she let him come into the room whence she 
 had expelled him while she dressed, while she put on her 
 blouse, he watched the slow rise and fall of her breast, 
 wondered whether from that soft bosom he could strike 
 the fountain hippocrene. 
 
 n 
 
 It was all new and delightful, that first fortnight, for 
 they went hand in hand, twin explorers, Sue to the
 
 264 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 discovery of foreign parts, Roger to that of Sue's heart, 
 a land more alien than he knew. They were not active 
 at first, and it seemed enough in the intervals of meals 
 (those semicolons of all holidays) to walk along the cliffs 
 and watch the sea breathe, stopping sometimes to caress 
 each other when a tree or a wall offered shelter. Often, 
 quite unashamed, they lay together silent in the rough 
 grass, burning their faces with sunshine and kisses. 
 Instinctively Huncote knew that here Sue was at her 
 best, where there 'was nothing that connected with the 
 life she had known, but just sea, earth, and air, strange 
 to the slum child and regenerating. He did not put it 
 to himself like that, but he felt it every time they went 
 down to the beach where Sue was shocked by the Paris 
 bathing dresses, where she would laugh at a policeman or 
 a chair-ticketeer, or allude to the casino porter as " old 
 funny hat." Whenever she did that sort of thing she 
 threw him a look of apology, as if she had broken a rule 
 and was afraid. For Sue in those days was very much 
 on her guard and, now and then, when rarely she was 
 alone, she used to work out Rules of Conduct. " I must 
 be careful. Mustn't say t didn't orter ' again. I re- 
 member as Miss Theresa told me . . ." 
 
 " As " worried her, for Miss Theresa had also told her 
 something about " as." She little knew how blessed she 
 was in the possession of correct " h's ", for when people 
 mismanaged their " h's " she did not notice : her ear was 
 not trained to the difference. She had learnt by faith 
 even to powder her nose, which she thought very fast. 
 But Theresa said : " Your nose needs powder. Pow- 
 der it. Only vain women think they're pretty enough 
 to go about with it shiny." Then she thought : " Got 
 to be refined now and use a napkin." A moment of 
 anxiety when she' thought that some people called them 
 " serveets " ; she thought too of Sir Lucius's young lady 
 now that she was married to Sir R., and therefore was 
 Lady R. It was wonderful, but a little daunting, rather
 
 THE PYRENEES 265 
 
 like being a queen at the age of six and going through the 
 coronation ceremony with an extra heavy crown. 
 
 But she was not unhappy ; she had no time to be un- 
 happy, for impressions rushed upon her, railway stations 
 that did not look like railway stations as one knew them, 
 and advertisements of unknown commodities: Quin- 
 quina Dubonnet . . . Galeries Lafayette . . . Choco- 
 lat Menier. She was rather fond of the latter, for she 
 half -understood it; that was chocolate, anyhow, and as 
 for Menier she concluded that was cream. Here, in 
 Biarritz, everything was queer ; the people drinking in 
 the streets under awnings, and among them real ladies ; 
 the bank officials, dressed like officers on parade; the 
 funny little donkeys carrying what looked like ten times 
 their weight. Everything was funny except, perhaps, 
 the slow oxen that came, bound in couples under the 
 yoke, with a lovely rhythm in their swaying heads and 
 dewlaps of velvet. The draught-oxen stirred in her 
 something inexpressible; she stopped her husband once 
 to look at a couple that passed. They were very large, 
 the colour of curds and whey, and their broad bellies, a 
 little rough, shone like mercerised cotton. Huncote 
 understood vaguely that she liked them. 
 
 " Aren't they beautiful ? " he said. 
 
 " Oo, yes," said Sue, and felt a lump in her chest 
 because she could not explain more than that. 
 
 They left the town sometimes to go to St. Jean de Luz, 
 that is like peach blossom upon a white wall, to San 
 Sebastian, villas and boulevards clustering with a French 
 air under the crag where is the bull ring, Africa's 
 outpost, pink brick and yellow sand like a stain of blood 
 and gold. It frightened her, all this colour, for never 
 before had she seen much but the grey and black of 
 London streets, and leaves that have strewn ashes over 
 their bodies in prevision of their own death. But it was 
 anxious too ; it was truly the wedding journey with its 
 literary accompaniments of riot ; it was revelation, revo-
 
 lution, a piece of new life suddenly forced into the old. 
 Sue felt that never had life been so vivid, and she 
 wondered innocently whether it would always be so, 
 without work, without need to bother about money, with- 
 out rain, without wrangles, and with love. 
 
 For she loved him, the knight who had come to her 
 drawn by swans; she loved both him and his silver 
 armour, and there was no fear she should lose him by 
 asking his name : simpler than Elsa, she would have been 
 too shy, and it was enough that he should walk with her 
 in that silver armour. 
 
 Her husband's mood varied little ; satisfied, at last, in 
 his desire, able to live without thinking about it, he was 
 content to be with her, to watch her move, to hear her 
 laugh, and to let himself believe that as it was so would 
 it ever be. He was just sensuous in those days, feeling 
 and hearing, smelling, seeing, an animal with the intel- 
 lectual faculties of man added to heighten the animal's 
 enjoyment. But still, sometimes a little of his own self 
 came up, and he saw. One morning Sue was not very 
 well ; she looked pale, seemed restless. At first he hesi- 
 tated to enquire, out of discretion; then she confessed 
 that she had slept ill, that she had indigestion. It gave 
 him an awful shock; somehow one ought not to have 
 indigestion on the honeymoon; it was not romantic. 
 In Sue's case indigestion made her nose rather red. She 
 did not get up early that morning, and he went out alone. 
 He walked rather miserably along the coast, nearly all 
 the way to the race course ; it -was a calamity that Sue 
 should have indigestion; as this was the honeymoon he 
 thought indigestion serious. Indigestion occupied all 
 his thoughts, and he wondered why this healthy young 
 woman should suffer from it. Then he remembered, 
 and it gave him a shock : he had vaguely noticed Sue's 
 behaviour at meals; her idea of hors-d'oeuvre was four 
 sardines, several pieces of sausage, plenty of bread and 
 butter, some cucumber, and all the olives. She always
 
 THE PYRENEES 267 
 
 had potatoes with the fish, and plenty of each vegetable 
 after the entree. When it came to ice-cream, well, she 
 might have been an American, and there never was much 
 left in the fruit dish, even if it had contained half a 
 dozen oranges and a pound of grapes. He grew quite 
 hot as he thought of it. " She's greedy," he thought 
 gloomily. Then still more gloomily : " She'll get fat 
 and coarse." He had a horrible vision of his graceful 
 love growing, well just like those white-faced French 
 and Spanish women around him, with pendulous cheeks 
 and downy ears and mouths. He hated her as in his 
 mind he destroyed her beauty. But almost at once that 
 other intellectual self, which ten days had swathed in 
 sensuous veils, remarked to him : 
 
 " Wait, you don't understand ! Don't you know why 
 she eats so much? Don't you know that all her life 
 perhaps she has never had quite enough to eat ? " 
 
 It was pathetic, but it was terrible too; it was like 
 discovering an unclean past. 
 
 Ill 
 
 And yet he loved her. They went out one evening, 
 past St. Andrew's Church, and on up the cliff. As they 
 went they talked desultorily, Sue of a girl she knew who 
 had been given a fox terrier as a birthday present. Did 
 she like dogs? Terriers? Yes, rather. She didn't 
 hold with lap dogs. They discussed the temperaments 
 of Scotch and Irish terriers. 
 
 " Awful fighters," said Sue. 
 
 The talk wandered on to the butcher's fierce bull ter- 
 rier in Northbourne Koad. Still they climbed the cliff. 
 At the top they had discarded dogs and had got to cats. 
 
 " Don't like cats," said Sue, " nasty deceitful things ! 
 You never know what they're up to." 
 
 Little by little, the conversation dwindled in the night 
 of fire and black opal that was about them, proper frame
 
 268 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 for their passion. He had laid an arm about her shoul- 
 ders that felt warm under the thin wrap, and she said 
 nothing, just stood by his side, looking out over the 
 murmuring sea. The moon lay low upon the horizon, 
 like a pan of flame. Huncote thought of the eye of 
 Cyclops set in a blue brow. A thin film of gauzy cloud 
 swathed a half of the moon, like a yashmak. 
 
 Huncote said : 
 
 " Isn't she beautiful like that ? Look how she 
 blushes. Is that because I have kissed you, and it makes 
 her shy ? Perhaps her man's gone out of town." 
 
 She laughed and nestled closer. " Don't you think 
 she's beautiful ? " he persevered, determined to tear 
 from her some appreciation, " like that, like a big round 
 flame ? " 
 
 " When she's red like that," Sue murmured, " it 
 means rain." 
 
 He felt offended and repelled ; he almost drew his arm 
 away, but as she spoke she had come closer to him as if 
 telling him : 
 
 " I can't tell you how beautiful she is because I can't 
 talk, that is because I can't think ; but I can feel." 
 
 He saw something of that in the eyes that seemed so 
 large and dark in the white face, faintly lit. 
 
 " Kiss me," she said. 
 
 It was the first time she had said that, and as he bent 
 down to caress her, all afire with the discovery of his 
 love, there was no room for intellectual difference. He 
 held her : it was just she and he. He kissed her and it 
 was they. 
 
 IV 
 
 It was a blue, mysterious night, pale and fugitive, 
 hung with little golden stars, the southern night made 
 for white courts and the romantic rides of Don Quixote, 
 a night like blue silk flecked with gems. And yet, as if
 
 THE PYRENEES 269 
 
 the world hated darkness, a faint light promised day 
 and the thunderous sun ; the night already seemed melt- 
 ing in the dawn, like a nymph surprised, leaving behind 
 her a trail of rose and mauve, sweet heralds of a fiercer 
 air. In the smoking-room two men talked. 
 
 " Queer couple," said one voice. It was a clear, well- 
 bred voice, that of the highly brushed man, with the 
 cropped moustache, soldier probably, who at dinner sat 
 two tables away from the Huncotes with the woman who 
 looked like a duster and was, therefore, probably an 
 Anglo-Indian. " Of course, it's quite obvious," the 
 voice went on. " Usual sort of thing, you know." 
 
 " Oh," said the other voice, " I hardly think it can 
 be what you say they're so quiet." 
 
 " What's his name ? Huneker ? " 
 
 " Something like that. Huneker or Hinker, I 
 think." 
 
 " Well, one can't be sure," said the well-brushed man, 
 " but you only have to look at them. He's all right, 
 but she oh, you know the sort. Mind you, they're 
 very decent girls," he added hurriedly. " May be her 
 first bust for all we know. I remember a pal of mine 
 ran a little girl like that for quite a year. I forget 
 where he picked her up, in one of the big shops, I 
 think." 
 
 " She's wearing a wedding ring." 
 
 " Oh, wedding rings ! " said the highly brushed man. 
 " Surely that's nothing. The jeweller doesn't ask you 
 for your marriage lines, does he ? " 
 
 They laughed together. The man who looked like a 
 company director said : " Somebody'll cut him out." 
 
 In a nudging tone the highly brushed man replied : 
 
 " Not yet, in a year or two. They all go that way." 
 
 Officially they were Mr. and Mrs. Huncote. Many of 
 the guests agreed with the speakers; others trusted the 
 wedding ring; scepticism prevailed most among the 
 women, especially among those who thought Huncote too
 
 270 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 good for Sue. Being discussed, they also became cele- 
 brated. Huncote was already morbidly self-conscious, 
 so he soon understood from the turnings of heads when 
 people talked on the terrace, from covert looks flung 
 at them over newspapers, and from eyes which until he 
 came in were fixed upon golf clubs, that they were being 
 watched. Either they were disapproved of, or they 
 were curiosities. Don Quixote may love the peasant 
 Dulcinea, but Oxford may not mate with the washhouse. 
 Three days later, a large schoolboy, clad in a blazer so 
 violent that he evidently belonged to a school founded by 
 Cedric the Saxon, whispered to his sister as he passed : 
 " That's 'im ! " In the afternoon the Huncotes moved 
 to St. Jean de Luz. 
 
 They were happier at St. Jean de Luz, and Sue lived 
 in her dream; Huncote recovered, for they did not go 
 to the Continental but to a smaller hotel, where they 
 were the only English guests, and much admired of the 
 Trench and Spaniards. Sue bloomed as if marriage 
 had brought to her a fuller life. Watched, she ate less 
 and, besides, already her appetite was waning as she 
 paid in satiation the price of wealth. She looked 
 charming, for Theresa had done her work well ; she wore 
 white linen skirts with lingerie blouses, white patent 
 leather belt with red enamel buckles that went well with 
 her dark hair. In the evening she was like a moth in 
 flimsy, half-evening frocks of crepe de chine or chiffon. 
 They were very wonderful to her, those frocks, and 
 when she was alone she liked to lay them out on the bed 
 and stroke them: before doing that she always washed 
 her hands, for she could not yet realise that in her new 
 station her hands would generally be clean. The frocks 
 worried her a little, even though they were not very 
 low-cut, for she was modest, and before she married had 
 never exposed anything of her person above the elbow ; 
 in those modest evening clothes which Theresa had tact- 
 fully chosen, so free from audacity, Sue felt dreadfully
 
 THE PYRENEES 271 
 
 naked. But she liked it too ; it felt fast, exciting ; there 
 was something night-clubbish about it, it was just like 
 Ada Nuttall. Sometimes she wished that Miss Theresa, 
 she meant Theresa, had let her have an extra quarter 
 size in shoes. There was only one blot, her best lace 
 blouse. When Theresa bought the trousseau she found 
 that Sue had only three chemises, six handkerchiefs, and 
 two pairs of combinations. Sue explained that one did 
 not need to have many things when one could always 
 wash them; she was rather horror-stricken, brought 
 nearer to the idea of bankruptcy, when she had to thread 
 ribbons through several dozens of garments, and to learn 
 the use of petticoat bodices of lace and lawn. When all 
 her older clothes were shed and she sat isolated from her 
 world by those mysterious things which she had seen on 
 no one except on the acrobatic wax figure in Regent 
 Street, she felt born anew, rather august ; she understood 
 " the holy calm of feeling perfectly dressed." But, 
 Theresa's eyes relaxing for a moment, Mrs. Groby 
 quietly slipped into the trunk Sue's Sunday lace blouse : 
 " It'll come in 'andy in the evenin' when them swells 
 dress, as they say," she remarked to her daughter. 
 "An* it's a shame to waste it. Besides, w'en it gets 
 wore out, yer can wear it when there's nobody about but 
 yer 'usband." 
 
 She said nothing ; dimly she wanted to wear her nice 
 things when her husband was about; her matrimonial 
 education was not yet begun ; but it was a lovely blouse, 
 a rich blouse, the sort of blouse one wanted to wear with 
 a velvet skirt. She wore it at St. Jean de Luz quite 
 suddenly, with a skirt of white drill. She also wore one 
 or two pendants: the blouse deserved them. Nothing 
 happened. Huncote did not realise that there was some- 
 thing wrong with the blouse, for he was pure, and the 
 wages of virtue is blindness. But he was disturbed ; he 
 disliked something in Sue's get-up. And she was dis- 
 appointed that he did not comment upon the blouse.
 
 2T2 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 He ought to have ; there were quite two and a half yards 
 of insertion let into it ; she knew for she had measured 
 them. She reflected that dress was not understood of 
 men, which was the beginning of matrimonial education, 
 that is to say of matrimonial error. 
 
 They were happy in those days, letting life pass 
 smoothly, much together, talking a great deal, frequently 
 interrupting by caresses commonplace conversations. 
 But these were not commonplace; they were thrilling 
 because intimate. Huncote heard about the aristocracy 
 of Sue's family, the aunt who was a cook in North 
 Audley Street at forty pounds a year and unfortunately 
 kept herself to herself ; about the distant cousin who was 
 a music teacher and earned three pounds a week, " and 
 you may not believe it but she plays after dinner at the 
 big hotels and has her name in the Sunday paper." 
 Also he laid bare the deeper roots of the indigestion : the 
 budget of the Groby family. Stonemasonry was a good 
 trade, but out of Mr. Groby's thirty-eight shillings a 
 week, ten shillings went in rent ; there were eight shil- 
 lings for Mr. Groby's fares, beer, tobacco, newspapers, 
 hospitality, trade-union and clubs. The Insurance Act 
 being mentioned he defended it but was completely 
 routed by the expert. 
 
 " What d'you want an act for ? " asked Sue. " We 
 only pay more than we used to to the Hearts of Oak. 
 And you've got to go on with the Burial Club, let alone 
 the unemployed insurance." 
 
 He tried to clear up the muddle by working out the 
 total per week, but Sue knew so infinitely more about 
 the cost of funerals and the actual price charged by the 
 slum doctor for his advice and a bottle of red, about the 
 cost of getting to the hospitals and the time you had to 
 wait there, that he had to give in. He had to take her 
 . facts as she gave them to him, from the source, and to 
 try and understand how the five of them lived on the 
 remaining twenty shillings a week,
 
 THE PYRENEES 273 
 
 " Potatoes," said Sue, with an air of general lucidity. 
 It was heart-breaking and yet wonderful. It was 
 good to be Cophetua and raise up such an exquisite 
 beggar maid. He loved her all the more for having 
 been poor, for now he stood between her and poverty; 
 he was helping, he was protecting, and so he could 
 love. 
 
 One by one, the autumn days of the South that are 
 such as summer languidly passed away. It seemed diffi- 
 cult to remember the old urgencies of London, the smells 
 of smoke and malt from the brewery behind the High 
 Street, and the trams that thundered past. Here all 
 was order and beauty, luxury, calm, and delight. 
 
 On the night before they left for Paris, among his 
 letters was one for Sue in Flora's handwriting, but 
 there were also two picture postcards from Perce. He 
 read them, for they fascinated him: 
 
 " Had an exciting time this evening. You bet we 
 dined well, eh, what? I'm writing this because Ma's 
 tight, though she doesn't know it. Good night, old 
 peach blossom! Perce." 
 
 This postcard embodied the broader humours of the 
 evening. Divided into two pictures, it showed the 
 bachelor, his feet on the overmantel, smoking a big cigar 
 with the band on, in the midst of many bottles, mostly 
 empty, while he read a paper, bearing the words : " All 
 the Winners." The other half represented the married 
 man, in a frayed dressing-gown, managing by some 
 miracle to carry triplets and a feeding bottle while in 
 the background a large and angry wife hovered with a 
 poker. 
 
 He turned the thing over in his hand, then looked at 
 the other. This one was sentimental, represented a 
 couple bowered in roses, she with her hair just out of 
 curlers, and he very pink-cheeked, like a young German 
 barber aware that he was being photographed. It bore 
 this little poem :
 
 274 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 HOPE 
 
 At the stile I stand a' dreaming 
 Of the day we joined our hands, 
 And a future I am weaving 
 For you and me in distant lands. 
 
 He stood staring at them for a long time, feeling all 
 dull and unable to think of what he should do. There 
 was nothing to do, he thought, except to wait. When 
 Sue saw the cards she laughed. She seemed quite un- 
 conscious of offence. She even showed him the picture 
 of London comedy, inviting him to laugh too, especially 
 at the triplets. It was curious : modest to the point of 
 prudery in all that concerned the relations of the sexes, 
 she seemed quite careless of results which popular taste 
 had taught her to regard as humorous. But, finding 
 him cold, she suddenly grew embarrassed and tried to 
 stuff the cards away into an absent apron pocket. Find- 
 ing no pocket, she grew scared and stood crumpling the 
 cards in excited little hands. Then, shamefacedly, with 
 visions of Sir Lucius's young lady passing through her 
 unhappy mind, she murmured : "I s'pose they've been 
 having a bit of a sing-song." 
 
 It was just after lunch. She had been married two 
 months. She felt more comfortable just now, for at 
 last Ehoda had gone down-stairs, had ceased to keep an 
 eye on her while she ate, an uncomfortable expert eye 
 considering one still had to think out which knife when 
 it came to fish. Not that Rhoda had ever adopted a 
 judicial attitude : she was too well-trained for that. If 
 Ehoda had been told to serve up lunch in a- trough her 
 blue eyes would have remained unemotional, and she 
 would either have said, " Yes, mum," or given notice on
 
 THE PYRENEES 275 
 
 the spot; in neither case would an opinion have been 
 mirrored in the blue crystal of those eyes. 
 
 Sue was alone and looked with a content in which was 
 still a little awe, at her dining room. Huncote at Ox- 
 ford had never belonged to the aesthetic push, the push 
 that plays Vincent d'Indy and wears chocolate coloured 
 cloaks ; so his ideas of furnishing were not those of the 
 Russian ballet ; he was in the old furniture stage, seven 
 years late. Sue sat at a gate-leg table, a little awkward, 
 for she had not yet found out whether one should put 
 both knees outside, or both knees inside, or one inside 
 and one outside the double leg. As in those days, by 
 Theresa's orders, she wore a tight, almost hobble skirt, 
 she vividly realised some of the bars of the gilded cage. 
 
 She looked round, and again she was a little awed by 
 the tablecloth with its glistening, flying birds, the rather 
 colourless but evidently refined imitation Lowestoft 
 crockery, the pale green vase full of amber chrysanthe- 
 mums. She looked angrily at the chrysanthemums: 
 why, when she did them herself, did the cluster look 
 pot-bellied like a publican, while Ehoda alone had the 
 art of giving their long stalks languor and grace ? It 
 all looked very queer, the panelled walls and the cold 
 white of the distemper, the Jacobean dresser with its 
 willow-pattern plates, and the toby jugs on the top, 
 which Sue thought quaint. One by one, she again sur- 
 veyed every article of furniture, ladder-back chairs, 
 hanging electric lamp in beaten black iron, rather se- 
 vere, queer curtains with sprawling birds, and red and 
 blue carpet much too good to tread on. She walked 
 about the room rather aimlessly ; she had nothing to do 
 and wished she was like Ada Nuttall, a rip, and could 
 smoke cigarettes. But cigarettes made her rather ill, 
 especially after coffee : she longed for a cup of tea. 
 
 But still it was very wonderful and new. She went 
 out into the hall, the little green and white hall with 
 prints of ugly theologians which she knew must be good
 
 276 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 because obviously the frames cost such a lot. How 
 beautiful the short, firm Axminster pile felt. Of course 
 it would never do to have a dog; vaguely she wished 
 there was a dog, something to make a noise. For there 
 was no noise down-stairs where Ehoda and Ethel were 
 refinedly having their dinner. On the drawing-room 
 landing she paused, made as if to go in, then changed her 
 mind. Instead she went up to the next floor, where was 
 her bedroom and that of her husband. Chaste and regu- 
 lar was her bedroom with its Chippendale suite, its big 
 white cupboard set in the corner, the tall mirror let into 
 the wall, and the many switches leading to lights in 
 apparently unnecessary places. There were very few 
 pictures, just some colour prints, and over the mantel- 
 piece a row of prints of little girls, called " London 
 Cries " ; Sue thought they looked rather silly kids. 
 Indeed in the whole room, where she now stood rather 
 worshipping, there was nothing personal in half curtain, 
 lace toilet cover or silver brush. It was wonderful; it 
 felt like the day she had been to the Loan Exhibition of 
 pictures at the St. Panwich town hall; it made her 
 respectful. She was living among the sort of things 
 which normally one saw only in the shop windows. She 
 was still a little dazed, though she had slept in this room 
 for a month ; it had complexities she did not quite under- 
 stand, a mischievous double switch especially, which 
 always seemed to turn on the light near the bed when she 
 wanted it over the dressing table. Only one thing 
 seemed real : between the windows a large steel engrav- 
 ing of " Wedded." Eoger did not at all like " Wed- 
 ded " ; but Sue had bought it out of a money present he 
 insisted upon giving her at the end of the engagement, 
 and what could he do? What could he do, especially 
 when she flung herself back into his arms in the attitude 
 of the Eoman's bride and said : " It's just like you and 
 me!" 
 
 For a long time Sue remained staring at the picture :
 
 THE PYRENEES 277 
 
 yes, that was art. (She had been hearing a little about 
 art lately.) It was more than art, it was different from 
 everything else in the room: all these things, Sue ad- 
 mired, but she had never thought of possessing them ; the 
 picture, yes, that had been a dream, but attainable, and 
 she had attained it while the other things represented a 
 foreign life. Still, she had nothing to do x She remem- 
 bered Flora had said something about lying down after 
 dinner lunch, she meant. But then Sue had always 
 had something to do at that time, and she could not get 
 used to lying down. She went into Roger's room, next 
 to hers, rather nervously. It frightened her, this place 
 so definitely masculine, for it had never entered her 
 mind that a married couple might have two rooms, or 
 even two beds. The arrangement had never been dis- 
 cussed, for Huncote had no principles in those things; 
 after taking the house he found it so awkwardly planned 
 that the front room was not much larger than the back 
 one. Two beds would have crowded it, and so Flora, 
 half to help and half to shock, induced her brother to 
 have his own room. " It's queer ! " thought Sue. It 
 was a little bleak to her as well as queer, and even worse. 
 She had assumed that marriage was a peculiar and con- 
 tinuous intimacy : two rooms inevitably made that inti- 
 macy spasmodic and purposeful. For Sue was modest ; 
 she was one of those who think that nothing matters if it 
 seems unintentional. She loved him, she had a silent, 
 brooding sensuousness, she had led him to the land of 
 new delights without herself knowing the way. But still 
 she could not bear that the truth should be true. Sepa- 
 ration, except in moments, forced her to realise the defi- 
 niteness of desire. That separation made of her room 
 the temple of Aphrodite. She hated that, it seemed 
 immodest. It frightened her, it tied her tongue, and 
 her husband did not understand. When every evening 
 he came before going to bed, even when he merely sat 
 down upon her bed, took her hand and talked of quite
 
 278 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 insignificant things, she felt herself grow quite small 
 and contracted because, though he was her husband, he 
 was within her privacy, and it shocked her that even he 
 should intrude upon this privacy. 
 
 Sue did not want to have any privacy at all: it was 
 not normal that privacy should outlive marriage. And 
 sometimes she would throw her arms about him, drag 
 him down to her and kiss him, hiding her eyes against 
 him. He thought she loved him then and was glad ; he 
 did not understand that she wanted to hide her eyes so 
 that she might not see her attitude as equivocal. 
 
 Slowly she went down-stairs. Somehow it was all too 
 much. She had not had time to dream during the short 
 engagement. In the days of Bert she sometimes thought 
 they would take two rooms in the Dwellings or some- 
 where else. After the coming of Huncote, her mother 
 gave her thoughts precision. Mrs. Groby talked with 
 breezy carelessness of Sue having a house of her own. 
 That had been terrifying and then, little by little, the 
 house formulated itself: a villa in Lamoro Avenue, 
 Highgate, one of the nice little houses with a yellow 
 gravel front garden, and a green dot of grass in the 
 middle. She showed the little house to Huncote, who 
 laughed and said it would be too small. Mrs. Groby 
 helped her then, and very slowly another dream formed, 
 also in Highgate, a big double-fronted house, with a 
 drive and something vague and impressive called 
 grounds. The Groby family found it very difficult to 
 get beyond Highgate, because in those fields Sue some- 
 times took short walks with Bert when he came out of 
 the workshop. And they had the instinct of their class 
 to live as close as possible to each other. 
 
 But that did not avail. Even Ada Nuttall's sugges- 
 tion, who wanted for Sue a smart cottage in the country, 
 Finchley way, with a garage for the car (generous ges- 
 ture) , a cottage which might be called Kosikot, was not 
 accepted of Flora. What Flora really wanted was a
 
 THE PYRENEES 279 
 
 flat, but Huncote's tendency was to shut himself off with 
 his love, also to have his own house, hearth, castle. And 
 so it became Pembroke Square, because Flora was quite 
 determined that as she had not stayed in Clare Street 
 she was this time going to stay somewhere. Sue ac- 
 cepted : she accepted everything but considered the rent 
 which, so far as she could work out, was almost Mr. 
 Groby's wages for a year, a lot for a house so poky and 
 tumble-down. 
 
 Just outside the drawing-room she stopped again. 
 She looked in at the pretty room, with its white and blue 
 paper, its rather staring chintzes, the mahogany furni- 
 ture and the prints. There was a fire shining brightly. 
 She hesitated. Upon the little vernis martin table lay 
 Punch and The Morning Post. Still she hesitated, 
 hardly knowing why, and then decided that she could not 
 go in. She was not, she felt dimly, yet able to sit in the 
 drawing-room after dinner, lunch, she meant. 
 
 Quickly she dressed; she could not find the pair of 
 shoes she wanted, and this annoyed her; Rhoda must 
 have taken them away. Then, as it did not occur to 
 her to ring the bell, she put on another pair. She 
 looked charming in a blue coat and skirt, the coat rather 
 short, and lapels of flowered silk that looked very small 
 and insignificant, she thought. That skirt was tight, 
 but then she had asked Ada Nuttall, who laughed at her. 
 She drew on her white gloves carefully and wished they 
 were not so long, for she did not quite know what to do 
 with the part that went up to the elbow. She wore a 
 rather large hat that threw darkness into the shadows 
 under her eyes. As she stood, her neck swathed in her 
 husband's present, a stole, only stone marten, but yet 
 incredibly rich, two strips of white leather indicating 
 the hands in the muff, she looked mature, and there was 
 a little smile of pleasure upon her lips. She was going 
 out to look at the shops, wonder what she would like to 
 buy, and whether she would have the courage to buy it
 
 280 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 after all. She did not quite like herself in these browns 
 and blues ; the black hat, with its Chinese trimming of 
 blue and gold, disappointed her; she would have liked 
 a touch of real colour, but Flora and Theresa were so 
 interfering. Very carefully she went down-stairs and 
 silently out ; Rhoda had not seen her go. 
 
 She breathed more freely in the crisp air. The traffic 
 of the gay December day, sunny somehow and brisk, 
 pleased and cheered her. She liked everything, the 
 motorbusses, the hurry of the people. And yet at the 
 same time she felt that what she left behind somehow she 
 took with her too. She felt established and house- 
 conscious; she could not get away from the preoccupa- 
 tion of the established that was hers and yet ran itself 
 without her. She was responsible and not in charge; 
 or in charge and not responsible. 
 
 She sighed, and then she found that instead of turning 
 to the right she had turned to the left. She did not 
 know the district well, and only the dowdiness of the 
 shops told her she was making for Hammersmith instead 
 of for Kensington. Already she was beginning to detect 
 differences in shops. But it was all very wonderful, and 
 for a full hour she went on to the Broadway, on to King 
 Street, to gaze at bananas, and chairs, and handkerchiefs 
 at three-three. It felt more real here than further east ; 
 she knew that much. She saw people like the St. Pan- 
 wich people ; she had heard voices like theirs before. It 
 was not so different here. She had not done any or- 
 dinary shopping for so long ; she had been only to dress- 
 makers, and milliners, and decorators, where everybody 
 spoke so nicely, just like ladies and gentlemen. On an 
 impulse she went into a little stationer's and bought a 
 familiar penny packet of stationery which she did not 
 want. The woman called her " Ma'm ", and somehow 
 that was not what she wanted. She wondered why 
 oppression was suddenly come upon her. Why should it 
 with the friendly trams roaring past ? With the crowd
 
 THE PYRENEES 281 
 
 swirling on and off the pavement, just like the High 
 Street, and even the butcher shouting farther on? 
 Perhaps it was that already, at half-past three, the De- 
 cember sun was waning, and a grey rawness falling. 
 Sue did not know. She did not want to go anywhere, 
 or to go home, or to stay ; she felt plucked out, as if she 
 were having a bath in the middle of the Albert Hall with 
 a full house staring at her. She walked along slowly, 
 hardly noticing that she was being jostled. 
 
 She went a long way into the west, noticing less now 
 the things about her and thinking rather dimly of ideas 
 rather than of facts. She was not used to that, and it 
 was difficult. She thought of herself the night before 
 at the theatre, of the commissionaires, of the programme 
 girls who spoke so nicely, and looked so nice, just like 
 the ladies in the dress circle. " Of course," thought 
 Sue, " they aren't real ladies ; they wouldn't be working 
 if they were." It had been difficult, for she did not 
 quite know how to treat them when they spoke to her to 
 show her her seat or something. She did not really feel 
 superior, for some of them were quite as good as Ada 
 Nuttall. Still, and she was gloomy over the idea of 
 separation rather than proud, she supposed it was differ- 
 ent for her, Mrs. Roger Huncote. One was a lady when 
 one had seven hundred a year. It did sound a lot. But 
 the idea of wealth did not cheer her ; it was too much : 
 " Seven hundred a year," she thought, " what's that a 
 week, I wonder ? " She could not do it. She had as 
 much difficulty in conceiving seven hundred a year as 
 one of another class would have had in conceiving a 
 million a year; five pounds a week would have seemed 
 much more opulent to her. " Besides," she thought, 
 " it's all so funny." That was how she put it to herself, 
 but what she meant was that all this wealth seemed ficti- 
 tious, that one did not seem to see money, only bits of 
 paper like cheques and account books with big figures 
 marked on them, and only a little cash now and then.
 
 282 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 It was not like the princely Fridays when Mr. Groby 
 stacked thirty-eight shillings in silver in a tall pile upon 
 the table, sometimes more, if he had worked over-time. 
 That was real, while her present wealth felt like fairy 
 gold and might, if you looked at it in the morning, turn 
 out to be only leaves. 
 
 Sue was at the meeting place of two classes, different 
 as sea and river, restless in alliance like the waters that 
 break upon the bar. In a play of unguessed strange- 
 nesses she had stumbled while in a state of somnam- 
 bulism into a new world : she awoke and was lost. She 
 had burnt all her old gods and did not yet know how to 
 worship at the new shrine ; in the new world she found a 
 strange people that ate differently, spoke and dressed 
 differently, who spent incomprehensible sums, it seemed, 
 for nothing, who had endless clothes for occasions that 
 she could not understand, mysterious games, golf, hunt- 
 ing ; liveries for the seaside, for the country ; people who 
 found pleasure at places where nothing much seemed to 
 happen, like Eanelagh and Prince's Skating Club, who 
 seemed quite satisfied to take tea and look at one another 
 and smile; they were strange people indeed, with their 
 voices placed rather high in their heads, and their won- 
 derful way of switching off when it looked as if they 
 were going to say something they really meant. Sue 
 was the product of a cruder, a bloodier civilisation with 
 its emotions more on the surface, and now she was 
 leaping into the conflict of class instead of following the 
 gentle gradient from Paradise Row to Highbury, to 
 Hampstead, to South Kensington, to Knightsbridge, and 
 then to Mayfair. Sue was, in the admirable phrase of 
 Michael O'Connor, taking the plunge at a gulp. 
 
 She stopped ; she was a little tired and did not quite 
 know where she was, for she had lost the trams round 
 the corner. This was near Ravenscourt Park ; she felt 
 alone and cold and wondered where she could get some 
 tea. And thought of something else as if nothing
 
 THE PYRENEES 283 
 
 quieted her. Then she found she was staring at the 
 poster of the local music hall. 
 
 BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT 
 
 AND AT ENORMOUS COST THE MANAGEMENT 
 
 HAVE THE PLEASURE AND THE OPPORTUNITY 
 
 OF PRESENTING 
 
 THE MAN OF MYSTEKY 
 DE BEKE 
 
 WITH NEW, COSTLY AND GORGEOUS SCENERY IN A GREATLY 
 ENLARGED AND ELABORATE ENTERTAINMENT. A PERFORMANCE 
 FULL OF EXCITEMENT, WONDER, AND EDUCATIONAL INTEREST. 
 
 Sue felt that she would like to go. Educational in- 
 terest especially struck her ; she did so want to improve 
 her mind. But gloom settled upon her, for she told her- 
 self that in her new station this was no longer right: 
 music halls were not refined. Yet for some time she 
 stayed, staring at the poster, rather like a little slum 
 child in front of a sweet-shop when it has not got a 
 penny. 
 
 At last she turned to go home and wondered where to 
 find a tram. As she stood on the kerb, rather aimlessly, 
 a crawling taxi came towards her, dawdling a little more 
 when the driver saw this well-dressed young woman. 
 He looked at her enquiringly, but she did not respond ; 
 she was still wondering where to find the trams, and it 
 did not occur to her to take a taxi. 
 
 VI 
 
 Mrs. Huncote and Flora came to tea. In a way this 
 was tea experimental, for Sue was alone. During the 
 first month very few people had called upon the young 
 couple; when they unexpectedly did so Mrs. Huncote, 
 Junior, was prudently not at home ; on other occasions 
 Roger was there, and Flora had flitted in in the after- 
 noon ; the real At Home which, to satisfy the Huncotian
 
 284 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 tradition ought to be given, had not yet taken place. 
 Nothing had been said, but Huncote unconsciously, and 
 his relatives deliberately, rather cut off the young bride 
 from the social fold, hoping that by and by it would be 
 all right. This afternoon Sue was not making a social 
 debut, but having a sort of trial run. It began very 
 well, for the weather was bad and, therefore, topical; 
 also Sue had for the first time seen Sir Herbert Tree 
 and felt so sorry for Caliban " stuck upon a bit of rock 
 all alone " that her old allegiance to Mr. Lewis Waller 
 needed rediscussing. Mrs. Huncote did not talk much 
 but watched her daughter-in-law; she liked her that 
 afternoon ; she admired her taffeta frock, with a hint of 
 panniers. She rather wished that her stockings were 
 not so vividly blue, but still, on the whole. . . . And 
 Mrs. Huncote thought : " It's clever, somehow ; the 
 girl must have some taste after all." She wondered how 
 far Miss Underwood was responsible. But Flora had 
 other concerns. 
 
 " You know, Sue, hair's getting much flatter ; you 
 ought to keep yours down a bit." 
 
 " D'you think I ought ? " said Sue seriously. 
 
 " Well, yes, pads are quite out, you know." 
 
 " I never wore a pad in my life," said Sue. 
 
 " No, I know," said Flora, " it's only your hair that's 
 so thick. Wish mine was ; I'm going to cut it off short 
 and have a fringe." 
 
 " Flora ! " cried Mrs. Huncote. " How can you talk 
 such nonsense ? " 
 
 " I am. Everybody's doing it in Paris." 
 
 " Well, they're not doing it in St. Olaves." 
 
 " They will," said Flora, " when I do." 
 
 Mrs. Huncote laughed. " Yes, I can see the Belhus 
 girls cutting their hair short like French artists' mod- 
 els!" 
 
 Sue was interested. " Do they really ? " she said. 
 " I shouldn't like to cut my hair short."
 
 THE PYRENEES 285 
 
 "Oh, do," said Flora mischievously, "it'll look so 
 rapid." 
 
 " Eapid ? " asked Sue blankly. 
 
 " Fast," said Flora. 
 
 " Don't listen to her," said Mrs. Huncote, " she 
 doesn't mean it." 
 
 She need have had no fear, for Sue blushed. " Fast ! 
 How could Flora be so horrid ! " The very idea made 
 her unable to think of anything ; she was glad when the 
 tea came, though she had to struggle with it a good deal, 
 to remember to use the sugar tongs and not to forget to 
 let people choose between milk and cream. And that 
 dreadful Ehoda brought up some sliced lemon just be- 
 cause she had once been in the household of Princess 
 Saragamovsky. All through tea this .sliced lemon 
 haunted Sue : what did one do with sliced lemon ? ( She 
 ate some of it when they were all gone, and liked it.) 
 
 The talk went around theatres and dress, easy enough 
 then ; Mrs. Huncote helped a lot, for she was going to the 
 Riviera for a while with Elspeth. Flora was not en- 
 vious, as this would enable her to stay in London. 
 
 " You must ask Roger to bring you over before we 
 leave," said Mrs. Huncote kindly; "you'll like it, it's 
 so pretty, all pink and blue." 
 
 " I know," said Sue, and thought of the Pyrenees. 
 " It's lovely. I used to look at the pictures, you know, 
 the big pictures outside Charing Cross, and won- 
 der what it was like." 
 
 " Charing Cross ? " said Mrs. Huncote, puzzled. 
 
 " The railway advertisements, Mother," said Flora. 
 
 " Yes," said Mrs. Huncote. " And was it as fine as 
 the railway advertisements, Sue ? " 
 
 " Oo, yes," said Sue, " it . . ." Then she hesitated. 
 It all looked lovely on the railway advertisements and 
 yet somehow ... So she said : " I d'no," and went 
 on struggling with the difference between the bit of blue 
 sea when one was not quite comfortable as to one's
 
 286 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 behaviour, and the easier joy of a railway advertisement 
 which one could look at with Ada Nuttall, while one 
 nudged the other if young men stared, and sucked 
 peppermints. 
 
 They talked of pictures at the galleries too, and Sue 
 did what she could. Mrs. Huncote had a lot to say of 
 Lady Montacute. This reduced Sue to partial stupor; 
 the idea that she might one day meet Lady Montacute 
 was too terrifying. Did one kneel ? Or was that only 
 for the Queen ? 
 
 At last they went away. 
 
 Mrs. Huncote said : " D'you know, she isn't bad. 
 She may shape into something, if we don't hurry her. 
 At any rate she knows how to keep her mouth shut, and 
 when she opens it her teeth are rather pretty." 
 
 " I think she's a peach," said Flora, feeling very dar- 
 ing and American. 
 
 " I wish you wouldn't use slang," said Mrs. Huncote. 
 
 Sue felt much better. After all, it had gone off quite 
 well ; it was only her relations, but still they were very 
 new relations, and she felt that she had done well ; she 
 was much relieved. Only she was rather hungry, for 
 she was not used to a light lunch and this elementary tea. 
 She had never eaten much meat, but she was accustomed 
 to a filling, indigestible meal, mainly made up of pota- 
 toes and bread, about one o'clock. As Ehoda's idea of a 
 lunch was something like an anchovy, a one-egg omelette, 
 and a cutlet as large as a half-crown, Sue wanted a real 
 tea, not a tea made up of bread and butter that you had 
 to double before you could hold it. She thought of had- 
 docks, and sighed. 
 
 " Well," asked Koger, in the evening, " how did it 
 gooff?" 
 
 " Oh, it was all right," she said. 
 
 " Any news ? " 
 
 She looked at him blankly. What news could there 
 be? He asked what Flora had said; she tried to tell
 
 THE PYRENEES 287 
 
 him, but he was not very interested in her hair troubles, 
 and when once more she returned to the Tree v. Waller 
 controversy he was not interested either; he seemed to 
 have heard enough of it. He seemed, especially, to 
 want to know how Sue liked his mother and sister, for 
 he knew how necessary it was that she should like them. 
 
 "Oo, I do like 'em," said Sue. "They always 
 seem to know well, they always do right, don't 
 they?" 
 
 He laughed. "I don't know, but I think I know 
 what you mean. Of course anybody' d like Flora." 
 
 " I did at once," said Sue, " though I'm not one for 
 taking fancies." 
 
 " Sue," he asked after a while, thoughtfully shaking 
 the ash from a cigarette, " what about your old friends ? 
 The girls you used to know ? Why don't you ask them 
 along ? " He did not know why he said this ; he wished 
 nothing better than to be rid of all her old friends, in- 
 cluding her family if that were possible. 
 
 " Well," said Sue, " I didn't know whether you'd like 
 it" 
 
 " Don't be silly," he said, taking her hand and strok- 
 ing it. " Do try and understand you're quite free. I 
 s'pose you don't understand that, do you ? " 
 
 " Don't see what you mean," said Sue. 
 
 " I mean, you can do what you like. Be a little care- 
 ful." He felt acutely uncomfortable. " There's been 
 a change, of course. But still anybody you used to like, 
 ask them to see the house. I don't want to keep you 
 away from everybody, your girl friends or even the men 
 you used to know." 
 
 " Roger ! " said Sue, rather shocked, " I couldn't know 
 any men, not now." 
 
 He was relieved. He laughed and drew her a little 
 closer. " You baby," he said, " I've not bought you ! ' 
 
 He kissed her cheek, and she did not seem to notice ; 
 she was thinking.
 
 288 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 " You know," she said, " it feels awfully funny. If 
 I'd married somebody else, a man like " She thought 
 of Bert and altered it to " like those I used to know, I 
 couldn't go about with anybody else." 
 
 " No," said Huncote, " I know ; married and done 
 for; you undertake to give each other for life all the 
 society you need, and if any society comes along you 
 happen to want, you've jolly well got to do without it. 
 That's it, Sue, isn't it ? " 
 
 " I shouldn't have put it like that," said Sue grudg- 
 ingly. " It's all right when you aren't married ; then 
 you can be friends." 
 
 Once more they discussed the curious, nominally sex- 
 less and deeply sensual associations between young men 
 and women, extending over years, always on the edge of 
 mutual conquest, seldom triumphant, often dead before 
 realisation, always robbed of mystery and delight when 
 long-baulked attraction comes to a tardy blooming. Sue 
 did not understand ; she was so ready to assume that love 
 has nothing to do with the body, so ready that she never 
 thought about it; and yet she found so little to give it 
 save the body. She made her husband curious in those 
 moods, and he questioned her. 
 
 " Oh, well," she said, " it's easy enough to go wrong, 
 especially down St. Panwich way." She grew coy and 
 half-proud. " I remember, I was only fifteen then ; a 
 fellow came up to me in the High Street, and he said : 
 ' Come along with me to-night ; we'll go to the Heath 
 and have some fun.' ' 
 
 Huncote interrupted. " What did you say ? " 
 
 " I said, < No fair.' " 
 
 He laughed ; it amused him to find her so virginally 
 fierce, capable through her innocence of protecting her- 
 self where a more wily one would have fallen. He tried 
 to learn more of this world where adventure sounded so 
 much more sudden and more violent than in his own, 
 but she had grown self-conscious. These topics gone
 
 THE PYRENEES 289 
 
 they found nothing else to say ; he smoked and she sat 
 there, gently kicking the little vernis martin table. 
 They both grew aware that they had nothing to say, 
 and that was awkward. But their marriage was young, 
 and so he kissed her ; so held, though so different, they 
 felt that they were of the same essence. 
 
 Much later in the evening, before they went to bed, 
 some of the thoughts that occupied her were spoken at 
 last. Sue was bothered because she had no money and 
 very reluctantly asked for some : 
 
 " But I don't understand," said Roger, " you've got 
 your cheque book." 
 
 "Yes," said Sue. 
 
 " Well, draw a cheque ! " 
 
 She looked at him with sad, dark eyes ; she had often 
 looked at that cheque book with the blank figure, 
 
 ...., .,. ., that might mean anything; but what 
 
 she ought to do she did not know. He understood 
 suddenly. 
 
 " Sue, you've never written a cheque, have you ? " 
 
 " No," said Sue helplessly. 
 
 " I'll show you." 
 
 They spoilt two cheques, making out one to the gas 
 company for a hundred millions. 
 
 " And would they really give me a hundred millions," 
 asked Sue, " for that ? " 
 
 He kissed her again; he loved her for being stupid. 
 Little by little Sue grew bolder, she made a cheque out 
 to him ; she felt very proud because it contained pounds, 
 shillings, and pence. It was an exciting exercise, it was 
 like making money ; the blank cheque looked impressive, 
 but the cheque filled in was a sort of thunderclap ; just 
 before she signed she felt the sort of hush come over her 
 which forms in a music hall when the man on the 
 trapeze is going to do his great trick and the orchestra 
 stops. Huncote, not having anything else to say, asked 
 her what she wanted the money for ; she told him diffi-
 
 290 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 dently that she wanted to send something to an old 
 friend of her mother's, a charwoman who well, she'd 
 been in trouble, but she had such a hard life. It took 
 a little time to explain that " in trouble " was the 
 tender way of the poor of saying " in prison." 
 
 He tried to understand how Sue's rigid morality could 
 allow her to help the woman. He failed. He could 
 not grasp the anarchism of the poor, united only against 
 the law, conscious that they too may one day suffer at its 
 hands, pitiful before they are censorious. 
 
 " She didn't oughter do things like that," said Sue, 
 " but she does, and there you are." 
 
 The quietist morality amused him. "And any- 
 how," Sue added, " she does have such a hard life." 
 
 As he held her then he was all moved and melted by 
 the sweetness of her, her easy acceptance of things as 
 they were, her easy charity, her easy belief in what 
 was told her, her entire lack of ideas, qualifications, 
 theories, her realisation of duty as a tradition, her ig- 
 norance of restraints other than a vague conscience and 
 the police. He felt too civilised, and it was horrible 
 already to feel different, to begin to wonder whether 
 they would ever cease to be different, they two. It 
 frightened him, so he held her closer, kissed her more 
 violently, half because he loved her, and half because he 
 sought to persuade himself that by holding her closely he 
 might make himself hers. It was passionate and hor- 
 rible to embrace a doubt. 
 
 Sue went to the bank next day, bent upon a bagful of 
 gold, but when she got there the young man was very 
 superior, and clearly knew what she really was. Her 
 courage failed her. She wanted to leave the bank, but 
 she was much too afraid; that would have been like 
 going into a shop and buying nothing. So with very 
 hot ears she passed through the grating an exceedingly 
 ill-written cheque, made out to Mrs. Roger Huncote, for 
 five shillings. She was for many months to have plenty
 
 THE PYRENEES 291 
 
 of trouble with cheques. By and by, as her cheques 
 grew larger with her experience, eyebrows were no 
 longer raised at her, but one day she drew a cheque for 
 ten pounds, and when the young man, now grown polite, 
 said : " How will you have it ? " she said : " I'll have 
 it now." The staff of the bank behaved disgracefully to 
 her that day. 
 
 VII 
 
 He loved her, stumbling on like this through the 
 mysteries of another class. He loved her hesitations, 
 always due to the fear of offending, her anxiety not only 
 to behave like a real lady, but still to be what she really 
 was, Sue Groby, much more than Susan Huncote, 
 always tender, always ready to help, and never conscious 
 that she was doing so. Her family were established, for 
 though Mr. Groby continued in the stone-masonry, a 
 pound a week came to the Grobys; Perce now went to 
 the City, and Muriel was passing on to a Young Ladies' 
 Academy. She had begun the piano and, faithless one, 
 found nothing but vulgarity in the mouth-organ of Romeo. 
 
 Huncote learnt how much already Sue mattered to 
 him when, for three days, he had to go to Manchester 
 to decide whether some small cottages his mother owned 
 near Guide Bridge should be pulled down and rebuilt. 
 She wrote to him every day long letters in a childish 
 round handwriting, unpunctuated letters with indis- 
 criminate " darlings " scattered in them, and " tons of 
 kisses " at the end, and crosses which he understood ; 
 they thrilled him nearly as much as her caresses. Only 
 one thing puzzled him : an inscription on the outside of 
 the envelope every morning : S. W. A.K. 
 
 When he came back he asked her : 
 
 " Sue, why d'you put S.W.A.K outside my letters ? 
 What does it mean ? " 
 
 She laughed and blushed. " It means, sealed with a 
 kiss, you silly ! "
 
 CHAPTER THE SECOND 
 
 HESITATION 
 
 ROGER HTTNCOTE was not happy. He was not un- 
 happy. He was tasting the ordinary stuff of life. 
 And, half -consciously, he felt it should not be so, as if 
 three months after marriage fate were not affording 
 him the poetic justice of illusion unmixed. He had still 
 to grow up and learn the art of life : to know how to do 
 without happiness. Against all probability his adven- 
 ture was not yet a failure ; the charm of simplicity, of 
 devotion, of childish sensuality still clung about Sue ; he 
 was still given that which is most delicious to the male, 
 admiration and adoration, until he learns that a more 
 delicious thing is to find the one to whom he can give this 
 admiration and adoration. But already a faint psycho- 
 logical difference existed between their attitudes, for 
 Roger was happiest when away from Sue and he could 
 think of her, while Sue was happiest when he was pres- 
 ent, when he could with a smile unite with her in a sort 
 of eucharist. For she to him was the dream, and he to 
 her was the fact, so, together or apart, always one of 
 them missed what he or she desired. He was not dis- 
 satisfied, but he began more clearly to perceive she was 
 not cultured in his sense ; she had a refinement of emo- 
 tion beyond his, whose refinement was intellectual, but 
 he was conscious that she had not the habit of an atmos- 
 phere of refinement. She would not leave old slippers 
 in the middle of the drawing-room because it was un- 
 tidy, while he would not leave them there because it 
 was ugly. The little things, so many, of which life is
 
 HESITATION 293 
 
 made, seemed continually to bring up this difference. 
 Slightly she bruised him and slightly he chilled her. 
 They loved each other and yet were bruised and chilled ; 
 they made allowances which were almost criticisms. 
 
 One day she came to fetch him at the Settlement. 
 They intended to shop a little and then, after a hasty 
 dinner, to go on to one of the promenade concerts. He 
 was happy with her as they went along Oxford Street, 
 for the cold wind had stung rose into her dark cheeks ; 
 other men looked at her, and Huncote felt proud to be 
 with a woman at whom other men looked. And Sue, 
 keeping very close to him, felt that other girls envied 
 her. They knew each other to be desirable then, be- 
 cause others seemed to think so ; they were dogs in each 
 other's manger, possessive, therefore lovers. It was 
 amusing to shop, to differ, and so easily to give way, 
 just to resist enough to have the pleasure of surrender- 
 ing. They bought a new bottle for his dressing-case; 
 they went into Selfridge's to buy a veil, and Sue did 
 not feel too shy of the young ladies who seemed to re- 
 spect her. It was lucky she could not read thought and 
 realise the envy of the young lady at the veils who won- 
 dered whether the nice young fellow had picked her up 
 inside or outside the shop. Sue was treated to a 
 pound of chocolates at the Maison Tigre, and as they 
 crossed the road she remembered just in time, for anx- 
 iously she had opened the box and was preparing to put 
 a chocolate in her mouth. They stopped nearly oppo- 
 site, at the picture shop, and Sue looked very respect- 
 fully, at the autotypes, " The Laughing Cavalier ", 
 " The Majordomo." She stared for a long time at 
 " Mona Lisa ", then said : 
 
 " Don't she look wicked ? " 
 
 This offended him a little, and he took her round the 
 corner, but there, before " The Bath of Psyche ", Sue 
 grew rigid. 
 
 " I know I oughtn't to like that," said Huncote.
 
 294 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 " It's too well painted, it leaves nothing to the imagina- 
 tion; but still, Leighton in paint is a bit what Walter 
 Scott was in writing. That reminds me, have you read 
 any Walter Scott ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Well, you might like one or two ; The Heart of 
 Midlothian, for instance, unless " He remembered 
 Sue's prudery and understood her attitude before " The 
 Bath of Psyche." " Sue," he said, " what's the mat- 
 ter?" 
 
 " Oh, nothing," she said, but looked very embar- 
 rassed. 
 
 He felt tempted to laugh at her. 
 
 " You think the lady hasn't got enough on, don't 
 you?" 
 
 She was silent for a moment, then burst out : 
 
 " I think it's horrid, horrid ! How can people show 
 those things in the street. They ought to be locked 
 up, all of them." He laughed and she grew angrier. 
 " It's wrong, makes one think of all sorts of nasty 
 things." 
 
 He was on the point of asking her what there was 
 nasty in them when something else offended him. He 
 remembered George Green who had called the Venus of 
 Milo " Very 'ot ! " It chilled him to think that Sue 
 should feel like that, and for the first time, unconscious 
 educator, he wondered whether, even if she so desired, 
 a nymph of Arcadia could become a syrinx. 
 
 It was difficult to talk to her in the evening for still, 
 owing to the discouragement of visitors, a sort of isola- 
 tion was about them. Sue would have had no objection 
 to keeping themselves to themselves ; no doubt that was 
 her attitude towards life;- she had never thought of 
 entertaining anybody except relatives, and that not 
 often; church, perhaps, on Sunday evening, and a 
 music hall on Saturday night and for the rest of it, 
 well, one could always make blouses, while, she sup-
 
 HESITATION 295 
 
 posed, a man would smoke a pipe, or sleep. Only this 
 involved some real work from early morning up to 
 about seven, and neither of them had that. Their life 
 was to be one mainly of pleasure, and they did not know 
 how to take that together. So in the evenings it had 
 turned out a little as Sue expected, for Roger read and 
 smoked, while she, deprived of the chance of making 
 blouses, amended most unsuccessfully those which The- 
 resa had ordered for her in Wigmore Street. She was 
 more familiar with him now, and he with her. That 
 humanised him, and she loved him better when, having 
 confessed to him the history of the novelette, .she was 
 allowed to call him " Sir R," ; childish lover, she liked 
 to be called " Susie " and even " Suekins." But fa- 
 miliarity which bred ease tended also to breed free and 
 ease, which was not quite so successful. In those days 
 there was a case in the Law Courts which had amused 
 her rather much. She had learnt by heart some of 
 the lover's verses, and one night she recited them to 
 him: 
 
 " He sent a letter to his love, 
 
 But in his mind he fumbled, 
 
 He put that letter in the care of another hand, 
 
 Then stumbled 
 
 Bow, wow, wow, wumbled." 
 
 She recited them with great gusto, especially the last 
 line which she rendered as: 
 
 "Bow, Wow, WOW, wumbled." 
 
 " Don't you like it ? " she asked. " Don't you think 
 it's funny ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes," he said, rather rigid. " It's very 
 funny." 
 
 She did not understand ; she laughed unrestrainedly. 
 Indeed she insisted upon telling him all about the case, 
 and in the next days became reminiscent of it. As he 
 went out after breakfast, when he kissed her, she held
 
 296 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 him suddenly tight and said: "Let's play lemonade, 
 I'll be the lemon, and you be the squeezer." 
 
 It hurt him horribly; he was a serious young man 
 who did not understand the comic side of love. It was 
 soiling, all this, and he did not know what to do, did 
 not understand that at a word, if only he chose it well, 
 the mask of comedy would fall, and under it he would 
 find the serious mouth and the veiled eyes of the love 
 he sought. 
 
 She was very lonely when he was out, for she rapidly 
 grew tired of going around the house, examining her 
 new possessions. She knew the furniture now, and 
 even wonderful little details like the glass shelves in 
 the bathroom were ceasing to thrill her. Also Sue 
 could telephone painlessly. The telephone training 
 had been rather fierce. Within a few days of their 
 arrival in the house it had rung suddenly as they came 
 in. As he had used his latchkey Rhoda was not there, 
 and, in a spirit of mischief, Huncote rushed Sue to the 
 instrument, seized the receiver, put it in her hand, 
 against her ear, and then said : " Go on, talk ! " For 
 a few moments he stood and laughed helplessly at the 
 cruel spectacle of Sue hanging on to the instrument 
 with both hands, speechless, her mouth wide open, her 
 eyes bulging. " Go on, talk ! " he said. " Who is it ? " 
 
 " I don't know," Sue whispered miserably. " Oh, I 
 can't hear what they're saying. Who is it? Oh, 
 I wish they'd go away." 
 
 " Take care," cried Eoger, " they hear you." This 
 made Sue stamp with rage, and yet she could not let 
 go. At last she flung him a furious look, dropped the 
 receiver with a bang, and ran up-stairs. 
 
 The machine terrified her. She was not accustomed 
 to the pitch of the voice, indeed she did not quite know 
 what to do with the receiver when the operation was 
 over, and she got into the most awful messes with the 
 exchange because when told to call up a number she
 
 HESITATION 297 
 
 mumbled it and, when pressed to be clearer, gave her 
 own. They had to practise, and Sue learnt just in 
 time. For after a few experiments her husband rung 
 her up, pretending to be the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 which idea almost reduced her to hysterics. She learnt 
 just before it began to bore him. 
 
 She learnt to shop a little, too, to consult with Ethel 
 in the morning as to what the menu should be, to be 
 repressed when she hinted that Welsh rabbit or pickled 
 pork was rather nice. " I thought to myself we wanted 
 a change," she said timidly, but Ethel was polite and 
 immovable. 
 
 She was lonely because she hesitated to avail herself 
 of the leave which her husband had given her to see her 
 old friends. She would have liked to see them apart 
 from him, but as they all worked during the day it was 
 impossible to have them alone. She lunched once or 
 twice with Ada ISTuttall, and that was helpful, for the 
 desire to entertain her friend taught her to affront the 
 Criterion. It had been a slight adventure, that order 
 at the Criterion, wondering all the time during lunch 
 whether the five pounds that she had in her purse would 
 be enough, " for you never knew, with all those French 
 things on the bill." The Criterion surprised her be- 
 cause it seemed so cheap, and it was successful, this 
 party, for it made Ada together rippish, careful, and 
 rather respectful: to be entertained like this by a fel- 
 low, it was all right, but coming from another woman 
 it implied more than money, it implied class. 
 
 Ada Nuttall came up one evening after dinner with 
 another one of the girls, Miss Thorpe. They were both 
 very anxious to be easy and to " pal-up " with Roger, 
 only it was a little difficult to " pal-up " with him ; it 
 might have been managed in the Park, but not in Pem- 
 broke Square, in presence of a Jacobean dresser and an 
 obvious rent of a hundred a year. Things were not 
 made much easier by Sue having begun the conversa-
 
 298 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 tion to Ada by saying, " Well, you are a stranger ! " 
 Roger dimly felt this was not hostessish. The begin- 
 nings of the evening were very tongue-tied and consisted 
 in the two girls being shown various things by Sue. 
 They seemed much embarrassed ; carpet, curtain, orna- 
 ment, nothing escaped ; everything was " lovely " or, 
 to vary, " so nice." In despair, Roger, being one angle 
 of a square, the other three angles of which were the 
 three young women, compelled them all to drink port ; 
 he had a wild idea that if he could make them drunk 
 it might be easier, and he was struggling not to lapse 
 into Settlement manners. He succeeded all too well, 
 for Miss Thorpe became much more rippish than Ada 
 and told a long story about the goings-on at the mani- 
 cure parlour. Sue was rather taken with this new rip 
 and asked when she could see her again. 
 
 " Let me see," said Miss Thorpe, " what-th the date- 
 th?" 
 
 Ada and Sue laughed abundantly, and Miss Thorpe 
 encouraged, when a little later Huncote asked her, 
 apropos of travel, whether she liked Brighton, replied: 
 
 " I should shay sho." 
 
 He was sorry somehow when the effects of the port 
 subsided. He left them to themselves, but even then 
 conversation stumbled. Miss ISTuttall and Miss Thorpe, 
 try as they might to carry it off with the air of girls 
 who were used to manicuring the aristocracy, could not 
 pretend that they were used to this sort of thing. 
 
 Later in the evening Miss Thorpe called Sue " Mrs. 
 Huncote " ; she was not of the class that would have 
 called her "M'am", but somehow this was quite as bad. 
 Dimly Sue felt friendless, as if she had lost the old and 
 not gained the new. 
 
 II 
 
 At Pembroke Square, when they came in, Mrs. Hun- 
 cote introduced a kitten. Three months later it had
 
 HESITATION 299 
 
 developed into a young but athletic cat. One day the 
 cat, growing venturesome, brought down most of the 
 glass on the upper shelf of the pantry, together with 
 various pots of jam. This puzzled Rhoda, not the jam 
 but the glass, for evidently it was for the lady of the 
 house to look after the glass. She told Sue : 
 
 " Princess Saragamovsky was very particular about 
 her glass, M'am." Then for a moment Rhoda felt 
 tempted to be human and to tell her mistress where to 
 go ; but Rhoda was too well-trained a servant ; her hu- 
 manity flickered and went out. 
 
 " All right," said Sue airily, " I'll order some to-day, 
 and while I'm about it I'll get some jam. Mr. Hun- 
 cote says he's tired of raspberry and currant ; too many 
 pips in it" 
 
 The athletic cat had, it seemed, broken so many of 
 the tumblers, actually nine out of twelve, that Sue did 
 not trouble to take one as a specimen. She thought she 
 would just buy what she fancied. 
 
 Two days later Roger held up in his hand a tumbler, 
 a large, heavy glass. 
 
 " Hallo ! " he said. " These aren't our usual tum- 
 blers, are they ? " 
 
 " No," said Sue, unconscious of offence, " the cat 
 broke most of those, so I had to get some new ones." 
 
 Huncote was not a man to whom the delicacies of 
 glass or linen meant much unless they were absent, and 
 there was something decidedly wrong in this massive 
 glass, thick, greyish, machine moulded, with a dreadful 
 squidgy twirl at the bottom where the glass had come 
 off the mould. 
 
 " They were only three-pence-ha'penny," said Sue. 
 "It's wonderful how cheap they make these things 
 nowadays." 
 
 He did not say anything, but when next morning he 
 precipitately put down a spoonful of strawberry jam 
 that seemed at the same time to be sticky, musty, and
 
 300 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 carefully kept together with pink glue, he lost his 
 temper. 
 
 He was unjust; he did not understand whence came 
 the impulse to pay three-pence-ha'penny for tumblers, 
 or to buy jam at fourpence a pound, cheap jam, jam 
 which was advertised everywhere, jam made in vats, 
 out of turnips, glucose, and stalks. He did not under- 
 stand that she could not spend because she had never 
 spent, that if she were to be natural she must still buy 
 what the poor bought. When a little later he under- 
 stood, in his folly he wished she had flung herself 
 vampire-like upon the luxuries of her new class. He 
 would not have liked it either if she had, but this was 
 a love relation and not made to be satisfied. He could 
 not gauge the depth of Sue's fear, of her hesitation 
 before silver coins, nor the humility still more cruel 
 that made her pass shops in Piccadilly and tell her- 
 self, if she thought at all, that their wares were not for 
 the likes of her. 
 
 Ill 
 
 " You know," said Huncote, " it was awfully decent 
 of you to help Sue." 
 
 " Not at all," said Theresa, with something false in 
 her voice. " I rather liked it ; she's sweet. There's 
 something so fresh and ingenuous about her ; and some- 
 thing humble which hurts one sometimes, as if she 
 didn't know how sweet she was." 
 
 " Yes," said Huncote, and paused. It was embar- 
 rassing, this praise. If he had been a man of the world 
 he would have suspected Theresa of wanting to slay a 
 rival by sickening the rival's lover from love into grati- 
 tude. But had Huncote been a man of the world he 
 would have been wrong, for Theresa was sincere, and 
 nothing is so deceptive as that. For a long time he 
 said nothing but just smoked on, lighting another ciga-
 
 HESITATION 301 
 
 rette from the stump of the one he had just finished. 
 He disturbed Theresa; he was becoming a chain 
 smoker; that was new, and the new always disquieted 
 her. Still, she hesitated to grow personal. 
 
 " I haven't been very well," she said. " I must go 
 away soon." 
 
 His face suddenly expressed concern. 
 
 ' Not well ? " he said. That was his voice speaking, 
 but behind the voice something inside his heart whis- 
 pered : " Going away ! " 
 
 And Theresa, so remote were they both just then, 
 thrilled at his voice as if she heard only the unspoken 
 whisper. 
 
 " Not for very long," she said reassuringly, " just for 
 two or three weeks into the country. I always feel 
 washed out in the spring." 
 
 He looked at her more closely: indeed she did look 
 pale, and there was a faint purple zone around her eyes 
 that made them deeper and more humid. 
 
 " Are you going to friends ? " he asked. 
 
 " No, I shall go somewhere alone ; I might take Eliza- 
 beth to bully me and tuck me up." 
 
 " Because I was thinking we might be going away 
 for a while, I don't know where." 
 
 He did not, for he had only just thought of it and 
 was not aware that he had just thought of it. 
 
 She understood but did not respond. She had borne 
 it all very well so far, though she had begun to feel 
 that she cared for him more as she grew more certain 
 of having lost him. No, she could not bear that. She 
 thought of Sue, and for a moment hated her ; then she 
 despised herself for hating the guiltless, also for desir- 
 ing one who did not desire her. She told herself that 
 she must not go on with this conversation, that it was 
 too much for her, would make her say more than she 
 meant, might make her say all she meant, which would 
 be far too much. She felt her hands clench ; she looked
 
 302 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 at them, saw the knuckles redden, and thought: 
 " That makes my hands ugly ; well, they ought to be 
 ugly to him; so much the better." And, as she so 
 thought, found herself woman, desirous of attracting, 
 and unclenched her hands, let them fall, white and long- 
 fingered like sprays of fern. She thought : " I must 
 not speak to him," and murmured : " But you won't 
 miss me ! " Before he could reply she rescued herself 
 and added : " Sue's all right now." 
 
 He had not understood ; he was too young to have a 
 quick ear for the whispers of love ; as yet, he could hear 
 love only when it bellowed, and he thought of Sue with 
 a faint feeling of disloyalty. 
 
 " Sue ? Yes, oh, yes. Oh, it's quite all right." 
 
 He was lying, and they both knew it. They stared 
 into each other's eyes, sorrowful and as if determined 
 to hide their mutual lie. 
 
 " Only," he went on, " it's it's difficult. I can't 
 explain I expected it to be difficult It's all so 
 new to her little things." 
 
 Theresa felt her heart grow narrow; she did not 
 know, but she had a vision of little things, intonations, 
 errors of tact, little things so big, and he would not tell 
 her; she knew he would not tell her, he would be too 
 loyal. She wished he would tell her if only to have 
 his confidence, and yet she knew she would hate him 
 if he told her, for giving Sue away. He went on : 
 
 " I don't know what I mean, Theresa, but it's so 
 complicated, taking somebody out of one life and push- 
 ing her into another. It's not just changing over from 
 cotton gloves into kid. One wants to change the hand 
 as well as the glove." 
 
 " Roger ! You don't want to change the hand ! " 
 
 " No, of course not, that's a figure of speech. Only 
 it all seems so difficult because . . . Well, you see, 
 there I am in the Settlement, and then I come back 
 I thought women had their own friends and when I
 
 HESITATION 303 
 
 came home there' d be somebody there. You see 
 what I mean ? " 
 
 Theresa laughed. " Sultan ! You want to come 
 home and find the dancing girls waiting for you." 
 
 " It's not that ; I hardly know what I mean." 
 
 " I do," said Theresa, " you want the ordinary house- 
 hold, with ' At Home ' cards stuck into your looking- 
 glass, and a little dinner waiting for you, with the menu 
 written in French. After dinner, when you and the 
 other men have had enough port and, if tradition does 
 not lie, improper stories, you want to come into the 
 drawing-room and find four nice women, excellently 
 gowned, with whom you'll discuss the play, the weather, 
 the country, whom you'll tell what they ought to think 
 about politics, whom you'll put right on any subject 
 except dress; before dress you'll assume a humorous 
 attitude, half-disdainful, half-worshipping. At five 
 minutes to eleven the first couple will say : ' We really 
 must go ; thank you so much.' . . ." 
 
 " Don't ! " cried Huncote. 
 
 But Theresa was merciless. 
 
 " You're like all men, you expect marriage to be the 
 great solution, to be wafted by the registrar's wand into 
 a world where everything, games, society, household, 
 art, sick-nursing, travel bureau, will be available for 
 you when you press a button. Or, better still, where 
 everything works so smoothly that you only have to tell 
 your wife to press the button. It's not a woman a man 
 ought to marry, it's William Whiteley's." 
 
 He did not reply for a moment ; he did not seem to 
 mind the onslaught, and said : " I'm not thinking of 
 all that. The main thing's love." 
 
 "Well," said Theresa, in a voice suddenly hard, 
 " haven't you isn't . . ." 
 
 " Oh, yes," he said, and his voice was impatient. 
 " Only, somehow one's always alone. It's so diffi- 
 cult for her, being used to what she is. She had one
 
 304: THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 or two of her friends the other night she liked that 
 but . . ." 
 
 "But you didn't?" 
 
 He grew aggressive. 
 
 " I asked them to come myself." 
 
 She saw that she had been tactless, and swerved. 
 " But your own," she said. 
 
 " We've had an at home ; you know, for you came ; 
 that was all right. Only one gets so lost among a lot 
 of people. It's something else not what they call 
 society, but a feeling oh, how shall I put it? 
 that one knows a few people who like one, and who 
 don't criticise one, only . . ." He did not like to 
 finish the sentence and to say, " only they do criticise 
 my wife." 
 
 She understood. 
 
 " Aren't you a little impatient ? " she said. She felt 
 so much older than he. She remembered that at home : 
 yes, Sue had behaved all right there. She had been 
 like an excited child with shining eyes, and looked 
 charming. She had not said much and only at the very 
 end had she warmed up and talked. Perhaps she had 
 talked too much, for Theresa remembered that she had 
 heard her say to a young soldier who was paying her 
 a compliment : " Why this thusness ? " She smiled 
 to herself, for that phrase had evidently been learnt in 
 the Ada RTuttall school. But her smile faded, for Hun- 
 cote had thrown away that eternal cigarette and rested 
 his head upon one hand, half-hiding his face. She 
 leant forward. 
 
 " Roger ! " she said. " Do be a little patient ; do try 
 to understand. Yes, I know it isn't easy for you, and 
 you knew it wouldn't be; but I know you can do it. 
 You've only got to care for her enough, and she'll be- 
 come just what you like, and everything will become 
 just what you like. Try! Help her a little. If she 
 can't make for you the society you need, well, you must
 
 HESITATION 305 
 
 make it; you must entertain a little. Don't throw 
 yourselves like that upon each other; don't always be 
 looking only at each other until you see nothing except 
 what's wrong." 
 
 He looked at her sideways, still unhappy. 
 
 "D'you think I could?'" he said. " D'you think 
 I'd know how ? Oh, I feel a beast for talking like this." 
 
 Theresa put her hand upon his arm. 
 
 " Don't be afraid," she said, " it's only fear makes 
 you weak, and only weakness makes you unhappy. Be 
 a little more ready to face the world and let it say what 
 it likes. It isn't so very far to eternity ; why not learn 
 how to cast roses under your feet as you walk upon a 
 road that need not after all be so dusty ? " 
 
 He did not reply for a long time, and then her opti- 
 mism, her certainty of him, filled him with a new 
 strength. He turned, he gripped her hand; he liked 
 to feel it long and rather hard, and he looked into the 
 dark eyes that seemed so tender. 
 
 " You're the best of friends," he said huskily. 
 
 She pressed his hand, and there was a bitterness in 
 her as if she felt that she had parted him still more 
 from her by her kindness and his need. Never before 
 had she loved, but often she had been near love, and 
 she guessed what there was in it of hardness, almost of 
 cruelty, of desire to conquer; she knew that the path 
 to love is not the path of roses of which she spoke, but 
 a path of roses and thorns. And so it hurt her abomi- 
 nably that between her and Koger Huncote it should all 
 be so easy and so sweet. 
 
 He felt different when alone. He had laughed be- 
 fore he went, but now in the street, where night had 
 fallen as a screen of black velvet swathed in mists that 
 gleamed as a peacock's feathers, he was again confined, 
 and around the world looked awkwardly. 
 
 There was quite a group upon his doorstep; outside 
 stood a van and in the front garden a crate from which
 
 306 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 straw had scattered. A little way back in the hall 
 stood Sue, rather flushed, her arms akimbo as if she 
 were holding the pass against the carter and his mate 
 who filled the doorway with a menacing air. Just be- 
 hind Sue he could see the helpless black-and-white hov- 
 ering of Rhoda, evidently trying to reconcile diplomatic 
 intervention with the traditions of unobtrusive parlour- 
 maiding. He heard angry voices. 
 
 " I didn't arsk yer for nothin' . . ." 
 
 " You can 'ave yer money back if yer like . . ." 
 
 Then to his horror Sue's voice : " Shut yer noise ! " 
 
 He shouldered his way past the two men and nearly 
 laughed, for Rhoda, as if she had never heard such 
 words before, leant limply against the wall. But he 
 was anxious too and angry. 
 
 "What's this?" he asked. "What does all this 
 mean?" 
 
 There was a babble of explanation. 
 
 " They say it isn't enough, and yet I gave them . . ." 
 
 " We didn't arsk the lady fer nothin', sir ; only when 
 we brings in a chest as weighs a 'undredweight . . ." 
 
 " Took us 'arf an hour to unpack, sir." 
 
 " But . . ." said Huncote. 
 
 Sue seized him by the arm. 
 
 " Roger ! I only had twopence ! " 
 
 The carter began again : " We didn't arsk the lady 
 fer nothin', sir." 
 
 The facts began to sort themselves out. A large oak 
 chest they had bought a few days before had arrived. 
 The men had unpacked it, taken it up to the first floor 
 and moved the furniture about to make room for it. 
 Then Sue had given them twopence to share. But 
 while he pieced this together the row continued, and 
 Rhoda intervened. 
 
 " Please, M'am," she whispered, " if I give them a 
 shilling it'll be all right." 
 
 Sue grew scarlet at this public insult.
 
 HESITATION 30Y 
 
 " Who told you to interfere ? I don't want any of 
 your lip." 
 
 " Sue ! " x cried Koger, horrified. Then, turning to 
 the men, he gave them two shillings. The door closed, 
 and with magical skill Khoda disappeared. 
 
 "Sue! How could you ?" 
 
 She was still flushed and still kept her hands upon 
 her hips. 
 
 " How could I what ? Don't see what I've done." 
 
 He was impatient. 
 
 " Sue, you must know twopence wasn't enough." 
 
 " They ought to be jolly glad to get twopence ; might 
 have given them nothin' if I liked." 
 
 " It would have been better if you had." 
 
 " Twopence is twopence," said Sue, and it hurt him 
 to feel that to her twopence was still horribly twopence. 
 
 " Look here," he said, " you've got to understand ; 
 you've got to tip properly or not at all." 
 
 Sue's mouth grew tight, and she looked at him, hos- 
 tile, from under her brows. " Got to understand ? " 
 she said. 
 
 Yes." 
 
 "I s'pose you think I don't understand anything; 
 not good enough for you." 
 
 " Sue, dear." He took her arm, but she shook him 
 off angrily. At that he lost his temper. " For heav- 
 en's sake, don't stand like that with your hands on your 
 hips ; you look like a wash . . ." 
 
 Sue's hands fell ; she stood away from him, suddenly 
 livid. " Oh," she said, " like a washerwoman. Is 
 that what you were going to say ? " He was frightened 
 by the intensity of the low voice. " Like a washer- 
 woman ! " she repeated. 
 
 She turned and ran up the stairs, and it was cruel, 
 it was tearing to hear her cry as she went. 
 
 It was a terrible evening, and Sue got her first lesson 
 in the manners and customs of the stoical upper ten by
 
 308 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 being curtly told to dress and come down to dinner as 
 usual. They ate very little and said nothing at all; 
 they sat, he determined and feeling as if frozen stiff; 
 she rather withdrawn in her chair, sullen, determined 
 not to look at him, making bread-pills and staring be- 
 fore her : it maddened him to see her make bread-pills. 
 They ended their dinner without a word, under 
 Ehoda's icy chairmanship. 
 
 They tried to talk a little in the evening, of what 
 could be done for Perce who, it seemed, did not like 
 the new office. But that was a failure; it was not an 
 abundant topic. Roger read out a few scraps from the 
 evening paper; he nearly asked her whether she would 
 like to go to " The Sunshine Girl " but stopped just in 
 time, determined not to make advances. Towards the 
 end of the evening he wanted to make advances ; he felt 
 that however right he might have been at bottom, he had 
 lost control, he had been unkind. It hurt him dread- 
 fully to see his dark girl who could be so tender, like 
 this, silent, with downcast eyes and a heavy mouth, 
 abominably civil as if determined to show him she could 
 be as civil as he. They were at the acutest point of con- 
 flict when nothing is said, when nothing is conceded, 
 when there is no promise that after anger will come 
 peace, when between two people there is just a black 
 blanket of difference. 
 
 At half-past nine, with merely a " good night ", she 
 went to bed. He hesitated as he opened the door. 
 Never before had she gone to bed without kissing him. 
 He felt he ought to kiss her, also that he wanted to and 
 yet that he ought not to want to, still more perhaps 
 that if he were really fine he ought to kiss her in spite 
 of what she was. But the emotion was too complex, 
 and before it came to a solution the door closed behind 
 the stately sailing past of her sturdy figure, with the 
 high-held head that suggested insult and injury. He 
 went out for a very long walk right round the Gardens
 
 HESITATION 309 
 
 and Hyde Park ; he wanted to tire himself out, and he 
 wanted to think, to try and look into the future a little. 
 He did not succeed; facts only came to him and of 
 facts only could he think again and again of Sue 
 telling Rhoda that she wanted none of her lip. But 
 towards the end, as he came down Holland Walk that 
 was dark and full of the peace of a country lane, a 
 walk where there were benches snugly hidden and 
 friendly darknesses from which came the soft murmur- 
 ings of lovers, the hardness of him melted. He had 
 been hasty, he had been unjust. He was full of pity 
 for himself, full of pity for her, full of fear for their 
 joint lives, hardly hopeful that he could make of them, 
 even by patience, even by skill, what Theresa had 
 promised. Still, as he put the latchkey into the lock, 
 he thought : " There it is, we must try." 
 
 The house was dark and he went softly up to his 
 bedroom. Outside Sue's he paused for a moment; he 
 could hear nothing. He sighed ; it was his habit every 
 night to go to her, to hold her to him for a while, per- 
 haps without speaking, feeling closer to her in the dark- 
 ness and in the silence when they were just man and 
 woman, when no class, no custom, nothing intervened 
 to spoil the tendernes of their clasp. But not to-night ; 
 he felt he could not to-night. To do such a thing after 
 such events would have spoiled all the other beautiful 
 moments by making the exquisite communion into a 
 daily convention. 
 
 So he went into his bedroom and slowly undressed. 
 But in his pyjamas again he thought: " I've been un- 
 just. Perhaps she's awake, thinking just that. No, 
 she would not think I'd been unjust; she'd think I'd 
 been hard on her." It hurt him to think that. 
 " After all, one of us must make advances ; why should 
 it be she ? If I'm any use it ought to be I." 
 
 He slipped on his dressing-gown, very softly opened 
 the door. His plan was typical of him: if she wag
 
 asleep he intended to sit by her bedside, holding her 
 hand until the early morning; when she awoke she 
 would see him and understand. He was still Cardinal 
 Quixote, finding romance in this idea of a lover re- 
 morsefully watching by the bedside of his beloved. 
 But when he opened the door, he found that she was 
 not asleep; he could see her head outlined against the 
 pillow, a great mass of hair. It wrung his heart, for 
 she was lying on her face, clasping the pillow, and the 
 room was all filled with a dreadful little choked whim- 
 pering that came to him muffled by the pillow. He 
 ran to the bed, seized her roughly in his arms, and 
 turned her to him. She would not come at first; she 
 clung to the pillow in which still were stifled her sobs, 
 but at last she seemed to grow weak, and he turned her 
 to him, holding her close. As the pillow fell her sobs 
 became loud. She was wailing like a baby, with her 
 mouth all distorted ; she shook against his breast. 
 
 " My darling," he murmured into her hair. He 
 tried to say : " I've been a brute ", but he could not ; 
 even in that minute he was not sure that he had been 
 unjust. Little by little her sobs grew less, became 
 slight, ended. She held him close with both hands, 
 content and at rest, or perhaps exhausted. He bent to 
 kiss her wet face; she opened her eyes and drew back. 
 
 " Oh," she murmured, " I ain't good enough for you, 
 I know I ain't." 
 
 The humility and the sweetness of her under the 
 untrammelled grief melted him. He did not at all 
 understand how exasperated and unhappy she had been, 
 how exiled, how lost among people who were not hers, 
 with strange manners and hostile customs; he knew 
 only that she was sorry, that both had been hasty, cruel, 
 childish. 
 
 " My darling ! " he said again, and kissed her with 
 the dull certainty of the male who believes that with 
 a kiss he can heal any woman's ills.
 
 HESITATION 311 
 
 IV 
 
 Mrs. Groby was flustered and rather hot. Her 
 daughter and her son-in-law could not cope with her 
 indignation. Even her bonnet was excited. 
 
 " !N^ever heerd of such a thing. Set me down there 
 in the middle of the road and said : ' You follow yer 
 nose, there's plenty of it,' an' off 'e goes ! " She 
 fanned herself violently with The Daily Mirror and 
 blew. 
 
 " But, Mother, you ought to know your way by now," 
 said Sue. 
 
 Mrs. Groby bridled as she had been taught to do by 
 her mother in old Sussex days. 
 
 " Well, I don't need you to teach me, Miss. And 
 that's not the worst of it. I put it to you, Roger. I 
 got inter th' Archway bus as usual, and I says to 'im: 
 ' Yer put me down at Pembroke Square, young man ! ' 
 just as I'd been told. I thort there was somethin' 
 wrong, I did; I went wand'rin' round and round all 
 sorts o' places called Pembridge something." Huncote 
 laughed. " You may laugh ; 'adn't been 'ere more'n 
 once, and then " her tone grew serious " only w'en 
 you brort me in a taxicab." 
 
 " What did you do ? " asked Huncote, amused. 
 
 " I got inter the nex' bus. Dunno w'ere they 
 git their conductors from; 'ave 'em made to order, I 
 should think. W'en I told 'im, d'yer know wot 
 'e said ? " She flushed. " Do yer know wot 
 'e said ? 'E said : * You should give up the drink, 
 Mother!'" 
 
 The Huncotes laughed. 
 
 " Well, have a drink of tea," said Eoger, " and don't 
 think any more about it." 
 
 Mrs. Groby drank her tea, accompanying her praises 
 by subdued murmurs and sharp inclinations of the 
 head to which the bonnet electrically responded. In
 
 312 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 her mind she was still telling-off that young man, but 
 the tea took the flow out of her ideas. 
 
 She was alone with Sue for a little while as she had 
 to be shewn the house over again. The first time she 
 had been overwhelmed; this time she was a little cen- 
 sorious. The window boxes on the drawing-room bal- 
 cony in which the bulbs had begun to flower particularly 
 irritated her. 
 
 " Only makes dirt," she murmured, " w'en the wind 
 blows in." 
 
 She disliked also the famous glass shelves in the 
 bathroom. " Wot'll 'appen if yer go in in the dark an' 
 bang yer 'ead ? " 
 
 Sue had too slender a grasp of her own establishment 
 to explain that she had servants to clear up the dust 
 from the window boxes, and that one did not bang one's 
 head when there was electric light. Moreover, she 
 stood in considerable awe of her mother, who now went 
 round the house, still grumbling at the chintzes that 
 were too light and would soil, at the lace curtains which 
 could not save one from being overlooked. She was in 
 one of the moods that often affect women of her kind 
 when for an hour at a time children are taken along 
 the street to the accompaniment of much scolding 
 and arm-dragging. The separate bedrooms especially 
 irritated her. She discerned in the arrangement 
 something peculiarly cold-hearted. " Might as well 
 each 'ave yer own 'ouse while yer about it," she 
 remarked. 
 
 Sue timidly pointed out that in her bedroom there 
 was very little space for two. " Space ? " Mrs. Groby 
 snarled. A vision of early days when Groby was only 
 a labourer and she gave birth to three children in the 
 single room which was also a kitchen deprived her of 
 all expression. Besides, Sue, whom this still embar- 
 rassed, was not an eloquent advocate. " Treat yer 
 well ? " asked Mrs. Groby, and suddenly before the girl
 
 HESITATION 313 
 
 could reply: "Yer look bad, a bit pulled about the 
 eyes. Still, that's nothing, that's the spring. 'Ow 
 d'yer like it ? " 
 
 Sue hesitated ; she was not used to expressing strong 
 emotions. " Oh, it's all right," she said vaguely. 
 
 Mrs. Groby laughed. " Well, if that's all yer've got 
 ter say fer yerself ! Is 'e fond of yer ? " 
 
 Sue blushed. " Don't be silly, Mother ; he wouldn't 
 have married me if he weren't." 
 
 Mrs. Groby nodded a great many times as if she 
 could have said things of great significance and then 
 decided not to say them. " Expect it's all right," she 
 said, " can't see yer've got anythin' to grumble about 
 except that I shouldn't like to 'ave them servants about, 
 myself, spyin' on yer and always wantin' to be gaddin' 
 about." Mrs. Groby deeply distrusted strangers under 
 one's roof. 
 
 " One gets used to it, Mother," said Sue, very staid 
 and suddenly conscious of importance. " I wouldn't 
 like to have to do the housework here myself." 
 
 " You've got no call to now. Yer a lady now and 
 don't yer forgit it." She grew thoughtful. " I never 
 should 'ave thort ter see a daughter of mine livin' like 
 this. I used ter think but there, I won't talk about 
 it." 
 
 They grew silent, both of them, for Sue understood 
 that her mother's memory had fled to Bert. Mrs. 
 Groby had always thought a lot of Bert, who was earn- 
 ing good wages and could give his wife two rooms ; she 
 had been a little anxious about that, for she " did not 
 believe in children beginning where their parents left 
 off." This restored intimacy; it was as if the past 
 linked mother and daughter, which the present could 
 not do. Sue showed her mother some of her clothes 
 and now was not rebuked. They did not look as if 
 they would wear very well, Mrs. Groby thought. 
 " But still that's wot the people wear who are photo-
 
 314 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 graphed in the paper." She did not like the filmy silk 
 stockings much. 
 
 " Like wot they wear on the stage," she said. 
 " 'Ardly decent, I calls it. But there, yer know best 
 now yer a lady." 
 
 Sue did not care to show her her latest and lowest 
 cut evening frock. There was trouble enough over a 
 lacy nightgown. " Yer can do wot yer like, but it's 
 the sort o' thing that'd be worn by a painted Jezebel, 
 wot the dogs all ate up, except 'er 'ands an' feet, as the 
 Bible says." 
 
 Sue was glad she had not seen the evening frock, for 
 it was not only low cut, but also so designed in the 
 skirt as to expose a good deal of silk stocking. 
 
 They stayed up-stairs rather a long time. When 
 they came down they were at peace and more intimate, 
 so much so that their intimacy endured in Roger's pres- 
 ence. News was given: Grandpa Challow was fail- 
 ing. It had been a bad year for the bees again, and 
 this seemed to prey upon him. 
 
 " 'Ad a bad attack of religion, 'e 'ad ; went round 
 the village singin' a song about layin' up treasure in 
 a place w'ere the moth doth not rust or somethin'." 
 (Mrs. Groby's scriptural knowledge was patchy, and 
 her quotations generally suggested that anything out 
 of the Bible was much the same as anything else and 
 meant nothing.) 
 
 Huncote remembered the gentle old man with the 
 sweet Sussex drawl ; he would not hear of his going to 
 the workhouse. 
 
 " Give me his address," he said ; " he must be looked 
 after." 
 
 Mrs. Groby and Sue looked at him with wide admir- 
 ing eyes as if he were Merlin, able with a word to 
 create wealth and ease. To look after Grandpa Chal- 
 low, together with all he was doing! Mrs. Groby felt 
 the need to render up accounts.
 
 HESITATION 315 
 
 "Perce's gettin' on all right," she said, "thanks to 
 you, Roger." (Slight effort over Christian name.) 
 " An' no wonder," she added proudly, " Vs a sharp 
 boy; Vs keepin' the stamp-book now in the office, and 
 every now an' then he says ter me, 'Mother,' 'e says, 
 'yer can't tell wot temptations we 'as with all them 
 stamps lyin' about,' but Lor', I can trust 'im." 
 
 " How's Muriel ? " asked Roger. 
 
 " Learnin' the violin," said Mrs. Groby proudly. 
 " Dunno as I quite like it either ; she 'as to practise in 
 the evenin', an' wot with that an' wot with the cats it 
 drives me old man to the Red Lion, it does." She grew 
 grave. " Still, that's edication ! " 
 
 Other family news was given: it appeared that the 
 aristocratic relative, the cook in North Audley Street, 
 had taken to noticing the Grobys now. " But," said 
 Mrs. Groby, " that won't wash." 
 
 There was a moment of general shrinking; the three 
 felt that this kind of metaphor had better be left alone. 
 
 " After giving us the go-by all these years," Mrs. 
 Groby went on, " she's not comin' along velvet-pawin' 
 me. She says ter me, ' I only want to be good friends, 
 I've been so busy.' ' Oh,' I says to 'er, I says, ' d'yer 
 think I've forgotten wot yer said to my Aunt Loo w'en 
 I married Charlie ? ' That closed 'er up. It's not wot 
 people says as matters ; it's the things they does ! 'An'- 
 some is as 'an'some does! Yer won't go wrong if yer 
 sticks ter that." 
 
 The cousin who taught music for three pounds a 
 week had, it seemed, also reappeared. They wanted 
 nothing material but only the glamour of association 
 with the promoted Grobys. But Mrs. Groby was 
 keeping herself to herself in the strictest way. 
 
 " Makes me won'er sometimes 'ow some people 'ave 
 the face. Wouldn't catch me doin' things like that, 
 making up to people wot wasn't good enough once upon 
 a time." For a moment they all thought of the strange-
 
 316 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 ness of life and the variety of men and women, and 
 Mrs. Groby said : " Well, well, it takes all sorts to 
 make a world." Rhoda came in, whispered to Hun- 
 cote. He seemed disturbed. " Oh, very well," he 
 said, " you did quite right." 
 
 He did not tell Sue when Mrs. Groby had gone, after 
 two hours and apologising because she had to go now, 
 and must go, and really couldn't stay, that Lady Monta- 
 cute had called and Rhoda had taken the responsibility 
 of " not at home." Huncote administered half a 
 crown, but at bottom he hated Rhoda ; she understood, 
 and it was well she understood, but how dared she 
 understand? To understand was to criticise. He 
 realised suddenly that Theresa was right, that things 
 could not go on like this; that they could not remain 
 isolated or, alternatively, be hunted by one class while 
 eluding another. One day the classes would clash, dis- 
 like each other, and in their anger turn upon the young 
 people, leaving them lonely. For a moment he won- 
 dered whether he would not be happier with Sue alone 
 in the country or in the South Sea Islands. He 
 smiled, for Sue had read The Blue Lagoon and thought 
 it lovely. But no, it was too late ; they were civilised, 
 they were people of the town, and like people of the 
 town they must live. They must plunge into the 
 " giddy social vortex ", they must " entertain ", they 
 must " see life " ; they must affront the complexities of 
 class, the gorgeousness of society, they must ask six 
 people to dinner.
 
 CHAPTER THE THIED 
 
 THE LAJfD OF DOUBT 
 
 SUE sat at the gate-leg table, more than usually em- 
 barrassed by the disposal of her feet because she was 
 generally embarrassed. Before her lay a great quan- 
 tity of paper and envelopes, and pens so constructed 
 that the ink persisted in running up them. She was 
 writing. She leapt to her feet, crumpled up the letter 
 into a ball and flung it to the ground. " That's three," 
 she murmured. She felt inclined to weep, rubbed one 
 eyelid and inked it. "Oh!" she thought. "What 
 shall I do? What shall I do?" And wondered: 
 " Perhaps it wouldn't have mattered. There was only 
 one blot on that one." For a moment she surveyed the 
 dining-room with an air of dismay as if she were locked 
 up, like a little girl who has been naughty and is writ- 
 ing out an impost. But there lay the paper and the 
 paraphernalia, and Chambers's Dictionary wide open; 
 there was nothing to do but to go on. 
 
 So rather wearily she sat down again and once more 
 began : 
 
 " Dear Mrs. Forncett, 
 
 " My husband asks me to say that though I have not 
 yet had the pleasure . . ." 
 
 She consulted the letter which Roger had given her 
 to copy. Obviously the pleasure of meeting you. 
 Roger wrote rather badly, she thought. How did one
 
 318 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 spell ' meeting ' ? She thought for a moment. " One 
 spelled ' meat ' m-e-a-t. Still, it didn't look like an 
 ' a ' quite." She looked it up in the dictionary and 
 then for a moment wondered why " meat " should be 
 spelt, m-e-a-t and " to meet," m-e-e-t Seemed silly 
 like. Still there it was in print and there you were. 
 So she wrote : 
 
 ". . . of meeting you. He thinks you will not mind 
 my waiving formality . . ." 
 
 She did not pause to consider once more what Roger 
 meant by waving formality about; she had given that 
 up. She finished the letter to Mrs. Forncett. There 
 was no blot. She held it away from her rather proudly, 
 this curious combination of good stiff paper and round 
 handwriting with a steady if insidious slope to the 
 left. She wondered why Roger could not have written 
 the letters himself, he did those things so easily, 
 and she thought how wonderfully clever he was. But 
 he had said that the hostess must do that and, of course, 
 he knew best. So she began again : she asked Mr. Chur- 
 ton ; she asked Mr. and Mrs. Lucien Cadoresse, a little 
 more easily because she had met Mrs. Cadoresse. She 
 had been tempted to keep Theresa until the last because 
 that would be easy and perhaps Theresa would not mind 
 a blot, but a sort of Puritanism made her choose the 
 harder way. And so you will imagine her as for a time 
 the curtain falls, a small sturdy figure lost in a room 
 too tidy, fettered in a gown too tight, the tip of its tongue 
 protruding, swaying a little as it writes : 
 
 " Dear Mrs. Cadoresse, 
 
 " My husband and I will be very pleased . . ." 
 
 with an air of determination in which there is some 
 awe and a little pain . . .
 
 THE LAND OF DOUBT 319 
 
 II 
 
 Never so well as that evening had Sue seen Sir 
 Lucius, Sir R. His new evening clothes had so mani- 
 festly been made for him. He had come in to see her 
 while she dressed and looked too wonderful to kiss. 
 That tie and waistcoat so white, why one dared not even 
 blow on them. Nor had he stayed, for Rhoda was 
 watchful and reliable. He went down into the dining 
 room that looked so official, with the table entirely ob- 
 structed with everything that one wants for dinner and 
 so many things that one does not. It looked so solemn 
 like that, empty, with the chairs waiting and the napery 
 shining under the light, the big bowl of violets and the 
 crowding pepper and mustard pots. It looked so com- 
 plex, the dumb waiter with its filled decanters and, it 
 seemed, the endless stores of knives and forks, the con- 
 cealed bottles and jugs and jars. 
 
 Yes, it looked all right ; Ethel was no fool. He had 
 had hot consultations with Ethel and Mrs. Beeton. Be- 
 tween them and Mrs. Beeton they had bought enough 
 cream for a regiment. They had dealt with the quanti- 
 ties of Mrs. Beeton in her famous gallon and hundred- 
 weight style. They had wavered over salmon trout, 
 quarrelled over larks and quails. Of course, as this 
 happened in Pembroke Square, Kensington, saddle of 
 mutton slunk in. And the imported waitress had de- 
 parted the day before to bury a relative, while the 
 substitute seemed dangerous: the door to the basement 
 was open, and he could hear her breaking below. Yes, 
 it looked all right, but there were a few little things he 
 missed, not that he had ever noticed them before : salted 
 almonds and crystallised violets. He felt their absence 
 as one might feel the absence of one's tie: it does not 
 keep one warm but it is there. Yes, he had forgotten 
 crystallised violets. It was too late now. Still, it 
 would not matter; Forncett was always thinking of
 
 320 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 something else and Mrs. Forncett talked too much to 
 have time to eat. 
 
 But it was a nuisance about Cadoresse, though; he 
 was such a priceless nut. It might be all right, for 
 Cadoresse had advised him about port, having decided 
 when he naturalised to become a connoisseur of port. 
 He sighed and vaguely thought : " I wish it was a 
 quarter past eleven ! " But as it was then only a quar- 
 ter to eight he went up to inspect the drawing-room. It 
 looked very much like the ordinary kind of drawing- 
 room, chintzy, all that. It lacked something, though, 
 he thought ; he did not fancy the flowers much. There 
 were narcissi and jonquils, and a big bowl full of hya- 
 cinths. It struck him vaguely that he would have liked 
 more, that somehow all this lacked fullness. Yes, there 
 were not enough flowers. Confound it ! Why hadn't 
 he done them himself ? Why hadn't Ethel known bet- 
 ter? For a moment he remained blaming Ethel and 
 Sue, unable to understand the class of Ethel and Sue, 
 their inability to buy things which did not last, that 
 merely pass, making grace. He remained for a long 
 time warming himself and thinking vaguely that it was 
 rather complicated all this : very necessary of course and 
 amusing. Still, still . . . 
 
 Then his sense became active, for through the house 
 echoed the piercing whirr of the bell : first guest. 
 
 Ill 
 
 It was only eighteen steps from the hall to the dining 
 room, but it was a very long time. Eoger had leisure 
 to think of the funny little battle he had had with Sue 
 over this dinner, a struggle where she gave way and yet 
 resisted all the time, like a child that has a pain inside 
 and believes the medicine will do it good, yet turns away 
 from it because it is nasty. It was all so new to her, so 
 different, this sort of thing. Her tradition laid down
 
 THE LAND OF DOUBT 321 
 
 that one did not entertain strangers. Now and then 
 one had relatives in and perhaps one intimate, prefer- 
 ably engaged to a member of the family ; this happened 
 strictly at Christmas or when there was a wedding or a 
 funeral in the family; a birthday provided a reason 
 only if it were the birthday of a grandfather or a grand- 
 mother, something official. The few visitors she had 
 been allowed to meet frightened her because she sus- 
 pected them : what did they want, rushing into the house 
 like that ? And the loose way in which they asked her 
 to go and see them, people she did not know, shocked 
 her. Of course it was all right, it was fast, rakish, 
 Ada Nuttallish, only it took some getting used to. He 
 did not understand, and she could not explain, so they 
 confronted each other full of narrow determinations and 
 dull obstinacies, erecting barriers where they wanted to 
 build level crossings, unable to see each other's point of 
 view because they were not conscious of their own. 
 They were young, not deliciously but deplorably. They 
 were even too young to be ready to give each other a 
 chance to grow up. 
 
 But the door opened and Sue came in, a little breath- 
 less ; he just had a glimpse of her in the audacious gown 
 that Mrs. Groby had not been allowed to see. She 
 wore the draped evening frock of the day, made mainly 
 of cream ninon, with a charmeuse silk underskirt, cream 
 also, thinly striped with orange ; the hips were draped in 
 orange chiffon which ran up under the corselet and re- 
 peated itself in touches under the short sleeves that 
 hardly veiled the sturdy arms. Sue was horribly con- 
 scious of her body that night, for never before, even in 
 summer time, had she glimpsed her own upper arm when 
 clad. And she shrank a little, contracting her chest, 
 because the orange and gold band, which the Russian 
 ballet had inspired, lay so perilously low across her 
 breast. The artistic feeling of that year, so curiously 
 compounded of Victorian sedateness and Tartar fantasy,
 
 322 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 was in her little black shoes and cream stockings with 
 which clashed buckles of orange Russian enamel. It 
 was Theresa's work, and as Sue came in smiling, a little 
 flushed, her face like a very dark rose under her heavy 
 hair, she was charming, for she was southern and yet 
 had no boldness. Yes, Theresa had done her work well 
 except . . . He felt a discomfort he could not analyse, 
 something wrong. But the door at once opened before 
 Mr. and Mrs. Forncett. Introductions. A painful 
 moment, for Sue said : " Pleased to meet you ! " But 
 Mrs. Forncett was either a woman of the world or had 
 not heard, for she began to talk while Sue replied. 
 Roger found himself having with Forncett his usual 
 conversation, which was nothing much as Forncett never 
 spoke unless greatly provoked. But it did not matter ; 
 as Roger searched his brain for something to say about 
 painting, which was supposed to be Forncett's subject, 
 he could hear Mrs. Forncett raising an agreeably social 
 disturbance : 
 
 " What a pretty room ! I love chintzes, don't you ? 
 They make a room so bright, don't you think so ? I'm 
 so glad those black cretonnes with green leaves didn't 
 catch on. Of course it's all right in a large room. You 
 face west, don't you ? So, of course, you get the after- 
 noon sun ; so nice at tea, don't you think ? " 
 
 Sue said " Yes ", but it did not matter, for Mrs. 
 Forncett added rather unexpectedly : "I wonder when 
 we shall get rid of this dreadful Government ? " 
 
 Forncett had at last managed to get out a question: 
 Whether Roger didn't find the spring very trying. 
 Roger said " Very ", and a little later, as Forncett went 
 on with the subject, replied to the same question: 
 " Not at all." His state of mind was rather compli- 
 cated, for he was thinking at the same time of what to 
 say to Forncett whose acquaintance he had slid into 
 when the painter was at work for fun on scenery to be 
 used in a Settlement performance, and of what was
 
 323 
 
 wrong with Sue. She had turned away from him and 
 sat on the sofa, completely blockaded by Mrs. Forncett 
 whose agitated mouth was delivering upon her hostess a 
 perfect bombardment. He saw her neck and for a sec- 
 ond thought it beautiful. Then he had a curious sensa- 
 tion for which he could not find a word. Or was it 
 the wrong word something like " bedizenment " ? 
 Then Theresa came in, which complicated the situation. 
 He was frankly happy to see her and was conscious of a 
 difference between her and the two women. There was 
 something elusive about the long, supple figure. Very 
 thin, very long-armed, very white in a black silk gown 
 without a waist, touched in unexpected places with little 
 rosettes of red and silver. It was strange, that gown 
 with the rosettes at the breast and those two others 
 placed at the knees. She looked of this world and of 
 another, like a saint with a sense of humour. Sue had 
 not risen when Theresa came in, and that irritated him. 
 So he went to her, rather effusive, feeling awkward after- 
 wards, as if he had held just a second too long the slim, 
 rather hard hand. And Sue seemed to have noticed 
 too : for the first time there was in her voice something 
 cold, faintly hostile, and yet Theresa smiled her own 
 smile, frank and just a little tortured. The Cadoresses 
 were announced. They too were new acquaintances, for 
 Lucien Cadoresse, once a Frenchman and now violently 
 naturalised, had for a while haunted St. Panwich, in- 
 tending to become its Liberal member of Parliament or 
 its Conservative one, whichever was the more difficult. 
 He had created such uneasiness in the bosom of Platt by 
 threatening to run Labour and split the Radical vote 
 that Huncote had fallen rather in love with him. He 
 was thirty-two, a ship-owner, rather rich and bound to 
 be richer; the combination of his acquired English 
 weightiness with his irresistible French mischievousness 
 amused Huncote. Those two came in as if announced 
 by muted trumpets, for Cadoresse could not travel with-
 
 324 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 out trumpets; but twelve years of England had taught 
 him to have them ,muted. He came in, very dark, very 
 moulded in very new clothes, his trousers pulled rather 
 high so as to expose his passionate black-and-white socks. 
 He did not bow, he said " Good-evening " like an autom- 
 aton. His moustache, once luxuriant, had suffered the 
 military crop of the English officer. And little Mrs. 
 Cadoresse, four years a matron, yet still a bride, so 
 white, so wondering-blue-eyed, so flaxen-crowned, fol- 
 lowed him, smiling and hesitant, as if always she had 
 followed. 
 
 The room was full of chatter now, for Mrs. Cadoresse, 
 sweet and shy, had instinctively taken up Forncett be- 
 cause he looked so Spanishly dark, so lonely and un- 
 happy, as if he wanted somebody to talk to him. Eoger 
 was reminded of a picture that Sue admired: a dark 
 young Italian bending in a garden over a fair girl; 
 it was called, " First Words of Love." Theresa was 
 smiling at Mrs. Forncett in what Mrs. Forncett probably 
 thought was a cordial way. Eoger knew that she was 
 very much amused. And Cadoresse, emphasising his 
 air of English languor, stood behind the sofa talking to 
 Sue, looking at her so steadily with eyes at once fiery 
 and cold that she felt awkward. Sue looked at him 
 sideways now and then ; she vaguely felt that he under- 
 stood her. Indeed he asked : " Ever go to the pictures, 
 Mrs. Huncote? ISTo? Oh, I'm dead nuts on them." 
 She could hardly make it out, the slanginess, the head 
 voice of the gentleman, and the taste which was so 
 subtly her own. She did not realise that this women's 
 man had at once gauged her, assumed her tastes to please 
 her, nor did she see the contrast as, Theresa speaking to 
 him, he remarked : " Cubism ? Merely a normal reac- 
 tion from Futurism, from the exaggerated worship of 
 movement . . ." 
 
 But Eoger was still uneasy. It was the three women 
 helped him to understand at last. While Churton, who
 
 THE LAND OF DOUBT 325 
 
 had just come in with a face that should have compelled 
 him to turn his collar front to back, asked him what he 
 had been doing and made him realise that during the 
 last six months he had had very little to do with the 
 Settlement, his thoughts took form. They ran on a 
 double line. He realised a sort of backsliding in his 
 activities. He had neglected the Settlement, had done 
 other things : walked about, read novels, gone more often 
 to the club, even played bridge in the afternoon. But 
 much more, while Churton tried to approve of conduct 
 that he blamed, Roger looked at the three women and 
 then at Sue. They seemed so severe by the side of his 
 bird of paradise, Mrs. Forncett with her two or three 
 rings and a single diamond as pendant, Theresa wearing 
 but one jewel, a heavy gold ring with a green scarab, and 
 little Mrs. Cadoresse, so virginal with only her wedding 
 ring and a half -hoop, and round her slender neck a single 
 row of small pearls. He had not felt it long before the 
 others felt it too, and somehow fate was unkind to Sue, 
 for Churton called to Forncett across the room to settle 
 some difference between him and Huncote as to the de- 
 sign of the new frescoes in the lecture hall. For a mo- 
 ment Sue was alone with the three women, conscious a 
 very little of Lucien Cadoresse who talked carelessly, his 
 eyes fixed on her shoulders, conscious very much more of 
 a staring sort of difference between her and them. It 
 was not clothes. Her strong dark hands clasped on her 
 lap showed her that she wore three diamond rings on one, 
 an emerald ring upon the other, that on both her wrists 
 were bracelets, all her bracelets. She felt a heat rise 
 up her body, her neck, there to bring out yet more 
 her emerald necklace, her pendant of ruby and 
 pearl . . . 
 
 Both together Sue and Roger, they saw, or rather, 
 they felt. For a fraction of a second they two were 
 divorced from those six guests and communicated 
 through a sort of ether a mixture of hatred and dismay.
 
 326 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 And yet Sue did not understand the subtle message. 
 She knew that she was different and she thought : 
 
 " I wonder why they stare like that. I s'pose they 
 haven't got as much jewellery as me . . ." For a sec- 
 ond she was vulgar and thought: "Well, I'm a lady 
 now." But something else, deep in her, that was tender 
 and sweet, said : " Poor things ! What a shame they 
 shouldn't have jewellery too. I wish I'd known, I 
 wouldn't have put it on ; it's so hard on them to let them 
 see it. If only I'd known ..." 
 
 Rhoda was on the stairs, preparing to announce that 
 dinner was served. She paused, for her mistress rushed 
 out of the drawing-room, and as she passed mumbled: 
 " Forgotten my handkerchief. Hold on ! " 
 
 They filed down the stairs, two by two. It was only 
 as they collected around the table, looking for their seats, 
 that Roger noticed a difference in Sue. All the rings 
 had gone except the wedding-ring ; even the engagement 
 ring had been shed. There was no pendant now and 
 only one bracelet. He did not know that Sue up-stairs 
 had stripped herself of every trinket, then put on a few 
 of them again, rather at random, wept a few tears and 
 powdered herself over the traces of the weeping so hur- 
 riedly that her eyelashes were all white. He had time 
 for anger, but not for thought: dinner had begun, and 
 he had his part to play. 
 
 He realised after a while that he had not been very 
 successful in the geographical distribution of his guests, 
 for he had placed the two most talkative women to his 
 own right and left while giving Sue the most difficult 
 man, Churton, in the hope that St. Panwich would yield 
 them something in common. He felt all the pangs of 
 the host, for he wanted to talk to Theresa upon his left, 
 while Mrs. Forncett, who sat on his right, was deter- 
 mined to talk to him. Mrs. Cadoresse, who seemed 
 much too young to be married, was doubtless having a 
 dreadful struggle with Forncett, as usual too tired to
 
 THE LAND OF DOUBT 327 
 
 talk. He felt easier about Cadoresse, for, after all, the 
 fellow was a sort of Frenchman and would not notice too 
 great a strangeness in Sue's conversation. But he did 
 not have much time to think, for the dinner, skilfully 
 marshalled by Ehoda and the waitress, was progressing 
 with the swiftness which an ostentatious tradition has 
 taught to the domesticity of England. Never before 
 had he been conscious of the machinery of a dinner- 
 party, which is so like a military action. He could feel 
 the dishing-up below, at the base ; then the dishes came 
 up the stairs along the lines of communication, har- 
 moniously deployed upon the dumb waiter to come into 
 action one by one at their regular time, flanked at the 
 exact moment by the proper wine. It relieved him to 
 feel it all going smoothly, to know himself in the hands 
 of skilled people who condescended to pretend that he 
 was their master. But he could not dwell long upon 
 this, for Mrs. Forncett, a little, dark, active woman, 
 was determined to talk about golf. She played at Bich- 
 mond and, being as well practised in dinner conversa- 
 tion as in the use of golf clubs, she at once dug him out 
 of concealment, compelled him to discuss the inconveni- 
 ence of clay links. He agreed, and they bewailed the 
 rarity of sand links near London. 
 
 " I'm thinking of joining Sandy Lodge," said Mrs. 
 Forncett. " Why don't you become a member too 3 
 You'll be able to protect me then. They treat women 
 so badly in golf clubs." 
 
 He agreed, and for a long time they analysed the limi- 
 tations of play imposed on women until, little by little, 
 the conversation threatened to veer to feminism. But 
 nothing helped him. He was the host and too watchful ; 
 his eyes roved to see that all had what they wanted ; to 
 see whether they were enjoying themselves or at least 
 looking as if they were. He could hear every conversa- 
 tion, Theresa who had gallantly broken through Forn- 
 cett's crust of silence and after leading him to the new
 
 328 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 developments in painting, which was easy as that year 
 there was a new development every week, had passed to 
 music and was discussing Scriabin. He heard her. 
 
 " Of course I went to Prometheus. I even went 
 twice, as the programme told me to." 
 
 Forncett murmured something about ravings. 
 
 "I don't quite think that," said Theresa. "Only 
 there's a sort of over-sensitiveness which you can't ren- 
 der in music, and Scriabin's trying to . . ." 
 
 He could hear Mrs. Cadoresse and Churton too. 
 They had got on to Settlement work and, judging from 
 the comparative animation of Churton's face, he was 
 trying to persuade her to help : 
 
 " I'm afraid I couldn't," said Mrs. Cadoresse. 
 " You see, Lucien, my husband I mean I don't think 
 he likes social work much." Churton looked indignant. 
 " I used to do some slumming," said Mrs. Cadoresse, 
 " when I was a girl. We all did." 
 
 She looked reflective as if still a young English girl 
 who did everything that was done and ceased to do it 
 when it ceased to be done. 
 
 All this time he was conscious of Sue, of her jewels. 
 It was obsessing. Now and then, as the dinner went on, 
 he lost this peculiar sensitiveness and talked whole- 
 heartedly to Mrs. Forncett. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " I don't want to give up golf ; I 
 really am fond of it for I used to play at Oxford, and 
 you know how a fellow gets ragged if he cares for any- 
 thing but the boats, footer or cricket." 
 
 " That's very interesting," said Mrs. Forncett. 
 "Why?" 
 
 To his annoyance he had to explain why, but he 
 wanted to talk to Theresa who for a moment had 
 turned away from Forncett; he wanted to say something 
 simple and laughing, something sincere, silly, like a 
 playful touch of a hand, just to feel near somebody in 
 this formal isolation. But he lost his chance, and time
 
 THE LAND OF DOUBT 329 
 
 went on; he caught snatches of conversation, a debate 
 across the table as to whether the tango was immoral and 
 whether certain American states were right to prohibit 
 the turkey trot and the bunny hug. He wanted to watch 
 Sue, to hear what she was saying, but that was impos- 
 sible for she spoke too low, and Cadoresse had turned 
 towards her, shutting her off a little while he talked. 
 Eoger was troubled : what could she be saying ? Cador- 
 esse, he knew, was a man who went about a good deal ; 
 he was French, but he had been a long time in England ; 
 his wife was the daughter of Lawton, the Under-Secre- 
 tary, so, of course, he met everybody. It was horrible 
 to think that he might be making comparisons between 
 Sue and those other women. 
 
 The little smile upon Sue's lips and the nervous play 
 of her hands on the knives and forks might indeed have 
 deceived him ; perhaps he would not have been deceived 
 if he could have heard Cadoresse talking to her. He 
 might have understood had he remembered Hilda's con- 
 versation at the summer social, and " Cadress the 
 Frenchy " who had picked her up while conducting po- 
 litical investigations in St. Panwich. 
 
 Sue was uncomfortable at first, and Cadoresse wick- 
 edly increased that discomfort by asking her whether she 
 knew that the Parisian women were bleaching their hair 
 white and wearing yellow fox furs. And wasn't it 
 awfully jolly, and ripping, and other emphatically Eng- 
 lish questions. She just managed to say that she did 
 not fancy herself white before her time, only to be told 
 that it would be a pity to exchange the starless night of 
 her hair for the pallor of dawn. She looked up at him 
 shyly and said: "Why, that's like poetry." He 
 laughed. He told her she looked like a French girl, 
 being so dark, and talked to her about France and 
 Paris. 
 
 " Of course you've been on the Boulevards ? " he said, 
 " and isn't the opera lovely ? "
 
 330 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 Her eyes shone ; she had been in Paris on her honey- 
 moon, and this was meeting a friend. She did not know 
 that Cadoresse smiled at her quietly, and how careful he 
 was, naming just the one or two streets and the one or 
 two places which an English tourist would remember. 
 They talked of Paris for a long time and in a moment 
 Sue felt that she knew it well, that she was a travelled, 
 important young woman, for still Cadoresse led her 
 only to places and things that she knew. He gave her 
 no chance to feel ignorant or humble. She looked up 
 gratefully at the women's man. 
 
 She felt quite familiar with him, he seemed to under- 
 stand her. She was not at all afraid of him for he 
 seemed so well, one might almost cheek him. She 
 drank another glass of hock to which she was ill-accus- 
 tomed and, a little later, when bending closer to her, he 
 said : " Your frock's lovely ; you look like a pale 
 flame," she laughed and replied with a twinkle that was 
 almost a wink : " Why this thusness ? " She felt quite 
 Ada Nuttallish as she said that. And Cadoresse did not 
 seem to mind; he understood her so well, it seemed. 
 He was so ready to join her upon her own ground. She 
 did not realise how well he knew her, her class, her 
 tastes, her hopes, her ambitions, her awkwardnesses, and 
 the way to win her a little. She said, quite childishly : 
 " Mr. Huncote says we're to have a little car." He 
 noted the painful " Mr. Huncote ", but replied, quite 
 seriously : " And very nice too." She threw him a 
 quick look, not understanding why she liked him, feel- 
 ing only that somehow there was here an echo of a life 
 long dead and somewhat regretted. He was still flatter- 
 ing her and she was not afraid. It did not occur to 
 her to be afraid of him; why should she? He was 
 married, wasn't he ? So, of course, he could not mean 
 anything. Besides, when a man came after one, well, 
 one knew it. She was not quite sure whether she liked 
 men when they came after one, they were so violent and
 
 THE LAND OF DOUBT 331 
 
 determined. This Frenchman seemed quiet and de- 
 tached, so of course he could not be dangerous. 
 
 Kow and then she looked at Roger, who seemed to be 
 enjoying himself with the little dark woman; she did 
 not half like the idea of having strange women in the 
 house like this when you knew nothing about them. 
 She rather hated Mrs. Forncett, and Theresa too. Mrs. 
 Cadoresse, she thought, looked at Roger too much, and 
 smiled too much. Sue was jealous, she was full of the 
 primitive possessiveness of her class that finds it so 
 difficult to understand social relations and their genial 
 falsity. What was hers was hers ; what she wanted she 
 would take ; if these women looked as if they wanted to 
 take it must be that they did want to take. She was all 
 instinct, she was too true. 
 
 And so the dinner wound on to its end, with Cadoresse 
 lazily playing the fish he did not want, and Roger con- 
 scious, through Mrs. Forncett's eternal conversation, 
 of a grave discussion at the other end, between Churton 
 and Mrs. Cadoresse, as to the fate of the Scott Expedi- 
 tion and the value of polar exploration. 
 
 IV 
 
 Sue was alone with the women. She was afraid. It 
 had not been so bad down-stairs, with that Frenchman 
 making up to her, and the other men to see what she 
 vaguely felt was fair play. And there had been Roger 
 too, though he looked rather coldly at her ; but then, he 
 always looked cold. As she went up-stairs with the 
 women, in the middle because she did not know whether 
 she ought to go first or last, she thought of him so hand- 
 some, so secure. Though she feared him that night and 
 knew that in his heart he was angry with her about the 
 jewellery, she thought him wonderful. For Roger was 
 still enjoying the rarest fruit of matrimonial victory:
 
 332 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 he was still to his wife Madoc ap Gwynedd, the perfect 
 prince. 
 
 But it was different with the women alone, and she no 
 longer a woman with men who could tolerate and excuse 
 just because she was a woman and pretty ; she was only 
 a human creature with other human creatures who made 
 no allowances, indeed who were ready to handicap her. 
 She felt all this which she did not know, competition 
 among women, fear of age, readiness to slay a rival. 
 And yet she was fortunate, for Mrs. Forncett was too 
 pronounced a golfer to be a woman quite, while Theresa 
 was too handsome, Edith Cadoresse too tender, to wish 
 her ill. Only they were women, and they had to fight 
 the sex battle. 
 
 She struggled over the coffee cups ; they were still too 
 small for the bits of sugar. She sat upon the sofa, 
 where she had been told to sit, with the three women 
 around her, waiting for her to do the hostess-like thing. 
 For a dreadful moment she felt herself sitting there with 
 her mouth open, nothing whatever in her head, and 
 Theresa watching her with that horrid humorous air of 
 hers; she rather hated Theresa, she thought. It was 
 Mrs. Forncett saved the situation, not because she was 
 much more sensitive than a buffalo, but because she 
 wanted to talk. She engaged Theresa with great vigour 
 on massage, Swedish exercises, Miiller exercises, and 
 many other exercises destined to make a figure where 
 there wasn't one. So Sue was thrown on Mrs. Cador- 
 esse. She thought her rather sweet, with her pale corn 
 hair and her eyes like Channel mist. They began to 
 talk of the spring. Mrs. Cadoresse said : 
 
 " It makes one feel so young, don't you think ? With 
 everything green and crisp and hard, and the sun set- 
 ting later." 
 
 " Yes," said Sue thoughtfully, " the days are drawing 
 out." 
 
 Mrs. Cadoresse took no notice, and for a while they
 
 THE LAND OF DOUBT 333 
 
 talked of spring in London. Sue thought she was get- 
 ting on very well now, but Mrs. Cadoresse wandered on 
 to the country and to the seaside, to Brighton, to Italy, 
 to all sorts of complicated, expensive places against 
 which a brief honeymoon in Biarritz did not long avail. 
 Sue felt strained as if she were playing a part without 
 being word-perfect. She was so afraid of putting her 
 foot in it that she hardly dared to walk. 
 
 The conversation strayed to clothes and the spring 
 fashions. Here at last was a hyphen, for Mrs. Forncett, 
 having caught Mrs. Cadoresse's remark that the new 
 hats, with the gauze crown exposing the hair, only suited 
 fair women, vigorously fell foul of her, while Theresa, 
 who did not view clothes quite in the same way, also 
 joined in. It went on for a long time, the argument 
 being that black hair under blue gauze was quite as 
 attractive as fair hair under black gauze. She dared 
 make no comments, for the only thing she could think of 
 was seeing these hats from the tops of buses, and that 
 could not be a refined contribution to the debate. So 
 she listened, rather admiring, while they discussed the 
 steady rise of the slit in the skirt, for this was becoming 
 more emphatic as draping replaced the hobble of the 
 year before. Once only did Sue become evident when 
 she enunciated a prejudice against shoes with fancy 
 edges. But Mrs. Forncett was not interested: the ex- 
 citement of dinner was working in her, and she was pass- 
 ing from clothes, as clothing, to clothes as lure : 
 
 " Yes, I'm quite sure the V's going to be deeper this 
 season. I'm very glad, there's nothing like a deep-cut 
 blouse to keep you cool." She laughed. " And if our 
 blouses get V-er and V-er downwards, and our skirts get 
 V-er and V-er upwards, what'll happen, I really don't 
 know. Still, thank heaven for silk stockings. All sins 
 grow excusable if you make the temptation strong 
 enough." 
 
 Mrs. Cadoresse looked slightly shocked, but Theresa
 
 334 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 laughed, and Sue, who did not understand, decided to 
 laugh too. Mrs. Forncett, thus applauded, developed 
 her theme. 
 
 " We've got on in clothes," she said. " Our grand- 
 mothers used to see how much they could put on; we 
 experiment to find out how much we can do without." 
 She grew reflective. " It's nice to think you no longer 
 need to wear any underclothes." 
 
 This time Sue knew that her mouth was really wide 
 open. Theresa smiled. 
 
 " Yes," she said, " I quite agree with you ; it's so 
 much easier to drape the human figure from the nude 
 than from the clad." 
 
 The disappearance of the petticoat was discussed, but 
 Sue was much more shocked by Theresa than by Mrs. 
 Forncett ; it seemed such a horrid way to put it, to talk 
 of dressing from the nude. She was much less offended 
 by Mrs. Forncett's suggestiveness. Indeed she quite 
 liked Mrs. Forncett's story about the girl who was angry 
 at the dance because her partner brought her lemonade. 
 She was easy, anyhow; one could talk with her. She 
 was not like Mrs. Cadoresse who always seemed to be 
 sizing you up like a possible parlourmaid. And The- 
 resa too embarrassed her because she saw something 
 funny in everything. But now she had to talk to The- 
 resa, for Mrs. Forncett was trying to convert Mrs. 
 Cadoresse to sartorial depravity. Theresa said: 
 
 "Well . . . Happy?" 
 
 Then Sue knew that she was really fond of her. If 
 Theresa had said, " How are things ? " or " How are 
 you getting on ? " she would have felt patronised and 
 angry. But this was different ; it was Theresa's gentle- 
 ness under Theresa's lightness. 
 
 " Oh," she said, " one has one's ups and downs, but 
 still I'm all right." 
 
 " I'm glad," said Theresa. 
 
 She knew the truth that lay under the awkwardness.
 
 THE LAND OF DOUBT 335 
 
 Sue found herself easy again and suddenly realised how 
 straining it had been all that evening to hear talk and to 
 talk about foreign places that she had not been to, plays 
 she did not understand, frocks she did not wear, a life 
 that was not hers. She wanted to open to some one who 
 really understood her, not like Cadoresse, as a woman, 
 but, like Theresa, as a human being. She whispered : 
 
 " It's a little difficult sometimes. I don't know why. 
 I never seem to do anything quite right." 
 
 " How quite ? " asked Theresa. 
 
 " Well, I always have to be told." 
 
 Theresa laughed. " But you couldn't know without 
 being told, could you ? " 
 
 Sue looked gloomy. " I dunno, but I feel I ought 
 to." 
 
 Something hurt Theresa inside, for that was the truest 
 thing Sue had ever said; she was groping for the in- 
 stincts of a well-bred woman which alone could help her 
 in unexpected difficulties, and she did not possess them. 
 She had to go about life in an armour of rules, and it 
 was heavy. Theresa took the brown hand and pressed 
 it. She said nothing, but Sue felt tears very near her 
 eyes. " How silly ! " she thought. " There's nothing 
 to cry for, is there ? " But still she blinked vigorously. 
 
 Mrs. Forncett was now talking of cosmetics. It 
 seemed Madame Mendelssohn alone had the secret of lip 
 salve; Chariot et Caillon were hopeless. It sounded 
 very Ada ISTuttallish. 
 
 The evening dragged when the men came in. Roger 
 looked so hostile, so different He was Roger, not one's 
 husband. One was anxious when he was about; one 
 might not be doing right for one didn't want to hurt 
 him, and one did so want to be a lady. 
 
 Mrs. Cadoresse sang extraordinary songs: it was no 
 good trying to catch the tune. Sue read the title of one 
 of them: " Ich grolle nicht," whatever that might 
 mean. And Theresa played ; it was easier to catch that
 
 336 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 music, though some of her songs too were in foreign lan- 
 guages. She caught two French words : " charmante 
 Gdbrielle " and, realising that these meant " charming 
 Gabrielle ", felt a little better. There was not much 
 talking in the intervals, merely appreciative murmurs 
 and musical discussions about people called Chikeawsky 
 and Mosert. One didn't know what it all was about. 
 At last Mrs. Cadoresse, on Roger's request, played some- 
 thing by a man called Barsch which had no beginning 
 and no end, and was all middle, and always seemed to 
 begin again when it looked like going to stop . . . 
 
 They all went rather suddenly about ten minutes past 
 eleven, at the end of the musical orgy. In Sue's ears 
 rang a familiar tune, for she too loved music in her way. 
 It filled her ears, her brain, and all of her as gleefully 
 she sang it to herself, the old familiar tune : 
 
 " Liza's tootsies, Liza's feet, 
 You can bet they'll take the cake 
 Will Liza's plates of meat." 
 
 She was relieved when they left : the deepest delight 
 of a hostess is to get rid of her guests. She said : 
 
 " Well, it didn't go off half badly." 
 
 Roger stared at her moodily and for some moments 
 did not reply. Suddenly, as if something burst within : 
 
 " What the devil d'you mean by coming down to din- 
 ner looking like Spink's show case ? " 
 
 " Spink ? said Sue blankly. 
 
 " What d'you mean by covering yourself all over with 
 buckles and rings and things ? Don't you know better 
 by now ? " He was trembling. He loathed himself al- 
 ready and yet could not stop. 
 
 " You didn't . . ." 
 
 " No, I didn't tell you ; of course I can't tell you
 
 THE LAND OF DOUBT 33T 
 
 everything. Didn't you see how those other women were 
 got up ? They knew better than to put on six rings and 
 five bracelets." 
 
 " Three bracelets," said Sue miserably, " I've only 
 got three." 
 
 Roger clenched both fists. 
 
 " I s'pose you'd have worn ten if you'd had ten ? 
 Really, this is intolerable." 
 
 For a long time she watched him walk up and down 
 the drawing-room, raving at her, vowing she was un- 
 teachable, that she didn't listen, that she didn't care. 
 That they might as well go and bury themselves in the 
 country if she was going to make herself ridiculous every 
 minute. He was very handsome, she thought, when he 
 was angry, and she was so humble that she could not be 
 angry too: he knew best. But still, she felt unfairly 
 treated, and she could not say so because she lacked 
 words, and there he was, shouting at her, not giving her 
 a chance. For a moment she was tempted to resist 
 him. 
 
 "What's the good of having dimuns if you can't 
 wear 'em ? " 
 
 But he only raged more furiously. It seemed that 
 diamonds were only to be worn sparingly, judiciously. 
 That there were occasions for no jewellery, and occasions 
 for a little jewellery, and probably occasions for a little 
 more. Sue felt that life was very complicated, and how 
 was one to know? She couldn't explain. When she 
 tried, it was like explaining the plot of three plays mixed 
 with one cinema film. And still the sense of unfairness 
 was upon her. She had not worn all those things at 
 dinner, she had taken them off. She said : 
 
 " But, Roger, I went up-stairs and I took off . . ." 
 
 " Yes, that makes it still worse. If you had made a 
 fool of yourself the only thing to do was to stick it out, 
 instead of drawing everybody's attention to yourself." 
 
 " There's no pleasing you," said Sue.
 
 338 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 The misery in her voice and the neighbourhood of 
 tears sobered her husband. He said : 
 
 " Why did you run up-stairs and take them off ? " 
 For a second he was hopeful. " Did it strike you that 
 you'd done the wrong thing ? " 
 
 She did not understand his hopefulness, so she did 
 not tell the lie which would have made peace ; she told 
 the truth, so much less useful between husband and 
 wife. 
 
 " Well, I thought," she said, " you'd been very kind 
 to me, giving me all those things. They hadn't got 
 any" 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 "Well, I thought it didn't look nice of me well, 
 you see . . ." The sentence tailed off. 
 
 He did not understand at all. " Not nice ? No, of 
 course not, but what d'you mean ? " 
 
 " What I say," said Sue, suddenly taking refuge in 
 dignity as she found clarity impossible. 
 
 " Don't say that ! " shouted Roger. " For heaven's 
 sake don't let's have any more of those ready-made 
 phrases. Say what you mean." 
 
 " I have," said Sue. 
 
 He rushed to the door, shouting : "I can't stand any 
 more of this." But he turned, came back, suddenly 
 ashamed, as if he had struck a child. He took within 
 his her hands which were rigid and retracted, as if they 
 hated his contact. 
 
 " Sue," he murmured, " my darling, do try to under- 
 stand. I don't want you to think me cruel to you, only 
 I do want you to see that you mustn't show off like that, 
 show off your jewellery to other women. It's not nice." 
 
 Then Sue began to weep. " I didn't want to show off 
 It's just what I didn't want to." For a few moments 
 she could not speak, so thickly did she weep. At last 
 in gasps, while he held her close, she managed to mur- 
 mur : " That's why I went up they didn't have no
 
 THE LAND OF DOUBT 339 
 
 bracelets they I didn't want them to it might 
 hurt their feelings." 
 
 He was silent and moved ; he understood at last how 
 the little tragedy arose; he understood much too late, 
 as men will, that Sue's flight and sudden discard of 
 jewels were due just to that delicate feeling which he 
 desired in another form. It was cruel : wishing to please 
 him by decking herself out she had offended him ; wish- 
 ing to spare other women, poorer or less beloved, she 
 had become ridiculous in their eyes ; by being so delicate 
 as not to tell him frankly what had moved her so to act, 
 she had angered him. He was very unhappy, and yet 
 faintly he hated her because she had made him unjust 
 in his own eyes. He was exasperated, he was afraid of 
 the future, and yet at the same time he was charmed and 
 moved. So, unable to say anything that could help 
 much, he held her close and kissed her until she was 
 comforted. He could not reason ; he wanted to comfort 
 her because thus only could he comfort himself. And 
 he had but one thought in his pity: eyes that I have 
 kissed shall not weep. 
 
 VI 
 
 " Yer look like two pen'orth o' Gawd 'elp me," said 
 Mrs. Groby. 
 
 " Everything seems all right," said Sue sulkily. 
 
 " All is not gold that glitters," replied Mrs. Groby. 
 
 Sue said nothing, for evidently that sort of remark 
 was final, so Mrs. Groby went on, by which is not meant 
 that she went on talking but that she " went on." It 
 appeared that Sue had black rings under her eyes and 
 looked starved, that she had nothing to say for herself. 
 Mrs. Groby, having got to the end of these complaints, 
 uttered them over again. She then became gynecologi- 
 cal. 
 
 " Oh, no," said Sue, " it's not that."
 
 Mrs. Groby looked at her suspiciously. "Quite 
 sure? You been married eight months; there ort 
 t' be somethin' on the way." She became facetious. 
 " That'll put you right, and 'im too w'en Vs got to 
 walk up an' down the passage all night with the twins 
 'owlin'." 
 
 Sue did not reply and with apparent irrelevancy said : 
 
 " I say, Ma, I wish you'd tell Perce not to send me 
 picture postcards." 
 
 Mrs. Groby looked a little surprised, as she did not 
 connect this remark with her prophecy of Roger and the 
 howling twins. 
 
 " Postcards ? " she said, rather aggressively. " 'Ow ? 
 'Go's been sendin' you postcards ? " 
 
 Perce." 
 
 "Well, why shouldn't 'e?" 
 
 " Not that sort." 
 
 Mrs. Groby's eye lit up. " Yer don't mean ter say 
 Vs been sendin' you pictures of . . ." (A vision of the 
 Scarlet Woman arose in her mind) ..." bally girls ? " 
 
 She laughed ; it was so like Ma to think of ballet girls 
 in that eighteen-seventy way of hers, as if she did not 
 know that nowadays the chorus was all the go. 
 
 " No," she said, " that's not it, only he sent me that 
 one of the men near the pub, the lilies of the valley. 
 You know, the one signed, l Cynic ', or l Cynical ' or 
 something." 
 
 "Yes?" said Mrs. Groby. 
 
 " Well, it's not nice. Eoger didn't like it." 
 
 "Oh, 'e didn't, didn't 'e?" said Mrs. Groby. 
 " There's many a thing a 'usband doesn't like, Sue, but 
 Vs got to lump it. 'E's your brother." 
 
 Sue grew obstinate. 
 
 " Him being my brother doesn't give him leave to 
 make She hesitated between " dissensions " and 
 " distortions " " well, trouble between me and Eoger." 
 
 " Wot's 'e been sayin' ? " asked Mrs. Groby. She was
 
 THE LAND OF DOUBT 341 
 
 angry ; she was not going to have her son-in-law " come 
 it " over her son, even if he was right. " A joke's a 
 joke. If 'e sends you somethin' naughty, you tell me, 
 an' I'll skin 'im alive even if 'e is fifteen. But I don' 
 see wot yer makin' such a song and dance about." 
 
 " Eoger doesn't like it," said Sue. 
 
 " Well, Vll 'ave to." 
 
 " No, he shan't lump it. I'm s'prised at you, Ma, 
 after all he's done for you." 
 
 Mrs. Groby drew herself up. Her voice blended sor- 
 row with dignity. " I thort it'd come t' that," she said. 
 " Now, she's throwin' 'is money inter me teeth. I 
 didn't arsk 'im for 'is money, y'ort t' know. We're' 
 'ard-workin' people ; I didn't arsk 'im for a bloomin' tea 
 set." 
 
 " Oh, never mind the tea set, Ma ; you know I didn't 
 mean that. Only when you think he's got Perce that 
 job and that Muriel won't have to do any work like I 
 did, and that there she is like a lady at the academy 
 Well, you might do what I ask." 
 
 Mrs. Groby changed her line. 
 
 " 'As 'e been givin' yer the what for ? When I see a 
 girl 'umble like, that's wot I always thinks." She 
 looked at her daughter more closely. " You been 'avin' 
 a bit of a dust up at 'ome ; that true ? " 
 
 " One has one's ups and downs," said Sue ungra- 
 ciously. 
 
 " Mostly downs," said Mrs. Groby. " I know, I 
 been married twenty-two years." She grew reflective. 
 " Seems longer. But wot's the trouble ? 'E don't lift 
 'is elbow?" 
 
 " Ma ! How can you ? " said Sue, disgusted. 
 
 " They all does more or less," said Mrs. Groby, who 
 knew the world. " Unless they runs after other women. 
 One or t'other, you've got the opshon, sometimes it's 
 both. And then you're lucky w'en you don't get a clip 
 on the ear."
 
 342 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 She felt it impossible to explain that hers was not 
 primitive marriage as practised in St. Panwich. She 
 need not have troubled, for Mrs. Groby was not attack- 
 ing man very bitterly. " That's the way men are, but 
 yer can't do without 'em." She grew sentimental. " I 
 always says there's somethin' about a man makes a 
 difference like in the 'ouse. So you must put up with 
 it, as they says in the marriage service. You give 'im a 
 good old talkin' to now and then w'en you get 'im in bed 
 and 'e wants to go to sleep; that's the time. A man 
 ain't 'ardly dangerous w'en 'e ain't got 'is trousers on ; 
 'e can't get away." 
 
 Sue laughed. " I'll remember, Ma." 
 
 The conversation grew more harmonious. Sue felt 
 comfortable in the kitchen; she did not mind being 
 scolded, for was not this her own mother who had 
 brought her up by scolding and arm-dragging for the 
 first five years of her life and by scolding for the next 
 fourteen ? What was home without a good old talking- 
 to ? She even tried to explain what had happened be- 
 tween her and Roger. She found that difficult as she 
 was not used to explaining. As for Mrs. Groby, she 
 understood not at all. 
 
 " I don't see wot yer mean. Wot's 'e give you 
 di'mon's for if 'e don't want yer to wear 'em ? Not as 
 I think you ought t'ave 'em," she added. " Di'mons 
 always makes me think of them painted 'ussies. You 
 know, the flashy sort in the Euston Road." She grew 
 thoughtful. " But that ain't anythin' to wot they are 
 in the Tottenham Court Eoad ; they're the 'igh-steppers, 
 they are." Sue blushed. " Don't see wot yer blushin' 
 for ; you're a married woman, ain't you ? " 
 
 " Still, Ma, I wish you wouldn't talk about them ; it's 
 not nice." 
 
 " My ! " said Mrs. Groby. " We're quite the lady, 
 ain't we ? Still, talkin' about wot we was talkin' about, 
 I don't see wot you mean. Ladies wears di'mons, don't
 
 THE LAND OF DOUBT 343 
 
 they? Tho' 'ow yer tell them from 'ussies, I don't 
 know." 
 
 " You hardly can," Sue whispered. 
 
 All her puritanism came to the top, and for some min- 
 utes in low voices mother and daughter discussed Mrs. 
 Forncett's terrible conversation about low blouses and 
 the proper use of lip salve. Mrs. Groby was shocked 
 and delighted : that sort of thing made you realise that 
 the pictures you saw in The Daily Mirror were true. 
 At last she offered Sue a cup of tea. 
 
 While Mrs. Groby got the tea Sue enjoyed a senti- 
 mental journey. Things had not altered much in Para- 
 dise Row, for Huncote had thought it best to let his 
 new family alone and to remain behind them, a sort of 
 St. Anthony of Padua, to be called up if wanted. Be- 
 yond the job for Perce he had given an annual allowance 
 for Muriel's education. Mrs. Groby had received a ten- 
 pound note to buy some new furniture. But, of course, 
 she did not buy it. Huncote had had a vision of the 
 rising poor, rising through the medium of a new bedroom 
 carpet and a spring mattress. Only he did not like to 
 interfere, and the ten pounds were not used for these 
 purposes: there had been a great feast, enriched by a 
 middle cut of salmon and unlimited grocer's port. And 
 Mrs. Groby had bought an imitation Crown Derby tea 
 set from Bubwith's show case which had haunted her 
 for twenty years. An impulse of prudence caused her 
 to buy twenty-five sevenpenny insurance stamps for the 
 probable time when Mr. Groby would be out of a job, 
 but the rest had gone in Mrs. Groby's equivalent of wine 
 and women. 
 
 So Sue's sentimental journey could indeed be per- 
 formed. There was the kitchen range with the broken 
 brick at the back; it had always been broken and so 
 remained because Mr. Groby, being a stonemason, was 
 not doing any work in his off-time. It was better so; 
 the broken brick was home. There was Perce's bed,
 
 344 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 with a caster off, and the worn place on the boards. 
 She went into the room she had so long shared with 
 Muriel. 
 
 It moved her. Under the short leg of the washstand 
 was still the tile. " His Majesty the Baby " hung 
 over the mantelpiece, but Muriel had removed Miss 
 Gertie Millar and put up Mr. Gerald du Maurier in- 
 stead. That was a pity. Sue sighed: how things 
 changed! Still, such was life. She was glad to gaze 
 once more upon Great-aunt Elizabeth's mourning card. 
 But Muriel's taste, now untrammelled, had injured a 
 little the old atmosphere; Muriel had been learning 
 things at the academy: here was a coloured print of 
 Vera Fokina, engaged in what Muriel called the Rus- 
 sian bally. Evolution ! Fortunately, near the picture, 
 there was a large packet of chocolate and peppermints. 
 Sue helped herself to peppermints as she walked round 
 the room. The fragrance of peppermints brought up 
 the good old times, nearly nine months old; so old. 
 She determined to go into Fuller's as she went home 
 to buy some peppermints for private debauches. The 
 past was strong upon her : just for fun she struggled with 
 the chest of drawers, and it thrilled her to feel that the 
 drawers would not open, just as used to happen in the 
 old dead days of misty grace . . . 
 
 " Oh, Ma ! " said Sue. " How could you ? " 
 The whole of the Crown Derby tea set stood upon the 
 table which shone because Mrs. Groby had polished it 
 with a wet rag. It looked wonderful, blue and gold, and 
 Mrs. Groby had already poured out a cup of tea, black 
 as ink. There was a loaf upon a blue-and-gold platter 
 and a fainting lump of margarine in its dish. Mrs. 
 Groby sat behind her table and her tea set, hands crossed 
 upon her belt. She was beaming. She ought to have 
 had a cap and a large tabby cat. She looked like a 
 picture in the Eoyal Academy, entitled " The Cottage " 
 or " Home Sweet Home."
 
 THE LAND OF DOUBT 345 
 
 Sue did not see anything jarring in this stateliness, 
 but she was disappointed. 
 
 " I wish you hadn't, Ma," she murmured. " You see, 
 I wanted to have it like we used to, out of the old brown 
 teapot." 
 
 " It's got a broken spout," said Mrs. Groby. 
 
 " That's just it," said Sue, " broken spout and all, 
 like it used to be." 
 
 " But the teacups don't match ! " cried Mrs. Groby, in 
 despair, for her effect had failed. 
 
 " Never mind," said Sue, " they didn't use to match. 
 I used to have a pink one, you remember? And the 
 white-and-gold ones, they aren't all gone, are they ? " 
 
 " No," said Mrs. Groby, " they ain't. But I don' see 
 wot you want 'em for." 
 
 " Just as it used to be," Sue murmured again. " You 
 might, Ma, just for once." 
 
 She was sentimental, but she was all soft and melting 
 inside, as if the old simple past laughed and wept 
 together in her ears, the old beautiful past when well, 
 you knew what you were up to. 
 
 " There's no pleasin' you," said Mrs. Groby, " now 
 you've become a lady." 
 
 But, still grumbling and protesting, she brewed Sue a 
 special cup of tea in the brown teapot with a broken 
 spout. She clearly looked upon this as a fine lady's 
 fancy. If Mrs. Groby had been a historian she would 
 have thought of Madame de Pompadour tucking up her 
 sleeves and making butter in the garden of Trianon. 
 
 Sue stayed, for she wanted to see Perce and Muriel. 
 
 She would probably miss Perce, who seldom came 
 home from the City before half-past six. But in a few 
 minutes Muriel arrived from the academy. She looked 
 very pretty in her lengthened skirts, rather high boots 
 of glace kid, and composition gloves, the very nearest 
 thing to leather. Her hair was almost up too, for the 
 brown pigtail had turned into a drooping bun. She laid
 
 346 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 upon the table her school satchel and a little bag, myste- 
 riously swollen all over except in one corner where was 
 the obvious powder puff lump. Also The Days of Bruce 
 by Grace Aguilar, from the academy library. Then she 
 held out a gloved hand to her sister, said : " How d'you 
 do ? " and kissed her upon the cheek with a sacramental 
 air. Yes, she was all right, she was quite happy; the 
 girls were very nice; she got on very well with them, 
 thank you, especially with Miss Bubwith. It seemed 
 that Muriel had been able to help Miss Bubwith on a 
 knotty point in French literature, something in The 
 Miserdbles, by Victor Hugo. The conversation was for 
 a while maintained scholastic, and Sue was given 
 glimpses of the once empyrean circles of St. Panwich, 
 of Caroline Bubwith who had tickets for the Zoo on 
 Sundays, of Gwenwynwyn Davies: they said that Da- 
 vies, in the High Street, made still more in the drapery 
 than even Mr. Bubwith. And the history mistress was 
 related to an earl. It was all rather daunting and so 
 stirring that Sue was tempted into vulgarity and casu- 
 ally let out that Lady Montacute had called on her. 
 Muriel ate her tea with a fastidious curling of the 
 nostrils because cold fish was well, was well, anyhow, 
 wasn't late dinner. Mrs. Groby said nothing but lis- 
 tened to her daughters, rivals and partners in grandeur. 
 There was a little hush in Paradise Row. It was in- 
 human even when Muriel confessed that the drill in- 
 structress was rather nice, with her long strong arms and 
 her tanned face. She stopped. Muriel could not let 
 herself go and acknowledge that she had a violent rave 
 for the drill instructress, that it was lovely to give her 
 violets and perhaps still lovelier to be told not to be a 
 little fool, in that nice young man voice of hers. No, en- 
 thusiasm was not ladylike, Muriel thought ; a few more 
 years of progress, and she would think " it wasn't 
 done." 
 
 There was a ring at the electric bell. Muriel did not
 
 THE LAND OF DOUBT 347 
 
 move but went on with the cold fish as if she expected a 
 maid to answer. Mrs. Groby made as if to get up, but 
 Sue, without thinking, ceded to an old habit, ran to the 
 door and opened it. She recoiled, her knees suddenly 
 all bendy, for there in the bad light stood Bert Caldwell, 
 his bowler upon the back of his head and his hands 
 nervously playing with a galvanometer. They looked 
 at each other, these two, for an apparently long time, 
 hours, time enough to review all their past, to analyse 
 their present, glimpse their future. A whole torrent of 
 memory rose in both, stifling their words, walks round 
 the houses in Highbury, others on Hampstead Heath, 
 tram rides, hot scones, a garnet brooch making the word 
 " Susannah ", kisses in a quiet mews and vaguely a 
 vision of two rooms once dreamt of, of Sunday, a clean 
 collar, a political meeting, while Carl Marx Caldwell, 
 Holyoake Caldwell, and their little sister, Marie Bash- 
 kirtsev Caldwell . . . 
 
 It lasted just one second, all that. Then Sue said: 
 "Oo Bert!" 
 
 " Hallo ! " he said, with false airiness. 
 
 " Fancy meeting you," said Sue. 
 
 The electrician took no notice of her. 
 
 " 'Evening, Mother," he said. " Dining with the 
 countess, Muriel ? " 
 
 Then there was an awkward little silence, during 
 which Sue wondered why Bert was there. She did not 
 know that he had taken to Mrs. Groby and that he liked 
 to come in for a few minutes after work. She under- 
 stood that a little later, but what she never understood 
 until much time had passed was that Bert went to see 
 Mrs. Groby to talk to her about socialism, and be told 
 that he would know better when he grew up, just because 
 he liked to sit in the kitchen and remember how he used 
 to go there sometimes and sit with Sue by the window, 
 sometimes kiss her just there, on the right side of the 
 range, when Mrs. Groby went into the next room. (One
 
 348 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 could not see the right side from the doorway.) He 
 hated himself for it, but he had to go ; it was his one 
 streak of sentimentality and it went right through him ; 
 it was his secret vice. 
 
 Mrs. Groby felt embarrassed ; this was a dreadful sit- 
 uation. It was just the sort of thing which happened 
 at the Holloway when they had a really good melodrama 
 on. But she did not know the rest of her part. Bert 
 made violent efforts to carry things off, but he did not 
 quite know what he was saying. 
 
 " Been workin' late ? " Mrs. Groby asked in despair, 
 knowing this to be idiotic. 
 
 " No," said Bert. " Things are a bit slack just now, 
 now we've done rewiring the town hall. There's a silly 
 job for you ! What they want to change the voltage for 
 I don't know, and pull the whole place about ; wasting 
 the ratepayers' money, that's what it is." 
 
 " Ah ! " said Mrs. Groby, " they don't care wot they 
 does." She grew skilful. " Is it true they 'ave cham- 
 pagne lunches ? " 
 
 Bert came near to gritting his teeth. 
 
 " Looks like it from the accounts, especially at the 
 board of guardians. Being a charity place, they begin 
 at home." 
 
 " Miss Denny's father's a guardian," said Muriel re- 
 proachfully. 
 
 Bert laughed. " Well, you can ask her if it's true 
 now that you're in society, Muriel." 
 
 " I wouldn't dream of doing such a thing," said Mur- 
 iel. " We don't talk about things like that, Bert." 
 
 Sue felt like a ghost watching mortals. She ought to 
 say something, she must say something, she wouldn't be 
 so obvious then. She faltered : 
 
 " Girls have got plenty of things of their own to talk 
 about, Bert." 
 
 The young man's face did not move. He said to Mrs. 
 Groby :
 
 THE LAND OF DOUBT 349 
 
 " How's that bell I put up for you ? " 
 
 " Oh, it works beautiful," said Mrs. Groby. " Tho', 
 you know, Bert, I forgits to ring, being used to the 
 knocker." 
 
 ' You'll have to learn, Mother," said Muriel. 
 
 " Of course she'll have to learn," said Bert. " How 
 d'you expect to get any progress if you don't apply mod- 
 ern science in the home ? " 
 
 There was a little gap during which Mrs. Groby felt 
 humble. She had let Bert put in that electric bell ; it 
 had seemed to suit her greatness, and it had pleased him 
 so to do it. It had taken such a long time to set up the 
 batteries in Muriel's room which had once been 
 Sue's. 
 
 Again Sue offered the most intelligent remark she 
 could think up about electricity while Bert, without an- 
 swering, filled the tolerated pipe of the old friend and 
 lit it. So, after a while, when other topics had been dis- 
 cussed, the temperament of one of Bert's pals, a rather 
 nice murder just then in the papers, human topics that 
 interested her, in which she would have liked to share, 
 she stood up suddenly and said that she must go. She 
 felt outcast, she felt alone. And not alone as one upon 
 a peak who sees below little humanity, but like Ishmael, 
 abandoned in the desert. She kissed her mother and 
 Muriel, then bravely, for the second time meeting Bert's 
 eyes, she shook hands with him. It was dreadful, for 
 their hands were bare, and to feel again the hardness 
 of the workman's fingertips after the soft pointed fingers 
 of men of another breed made her worse than melan- 
 cholic ; in an incomprehensible way it filled her with ex- 
 citement and an old desire renewed and made vivid. 
 He was so real somehow. 
 
 " Good-by," she said unsteadily. 
 
 And he too was stirred, for it was so long since he had 
 held that firm little brown hand which looked different 
 now with its pretty nails and its gold bracelet. So just
 
 350 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 because he was stirred and unhappy to the verge of tears 
 he was airy ; he was even slangy. He replied : 
 
 " Cheer oh ! Good evening ! " 
 
 After Sue had gone Muriel went into her bedroom to 
 put her hair straight, for she had to go to the Morris 
 Dancing Class which Mrs. Davies had organised at " The 
 Cedars." Mrs. Groby remained with the young man 
 who sat staring at the range, pulling very fast at his 
 pipe. She wanted to say something, but it would not 
 come. She put her hand upon his shoulder, hesitating, 
 feeling she would like to kiss him and tell him not to 
 take on so. But she felt shy. So she just patted his 
 shoulder once or twice and murmured with a healing air : 
 " Every cloud 'as a silver linin'." 
 
 VII 
 
 All through dinner Sue was rather silent. She sat 
 there, playing with the edge of the epergne, at times 
 pulling a petal from the thick bunch of violas which Mrs. 
 Huncote had sent from Cannes. Roger was amiable 
 that night ; he tried to talk to her of the car they would 
 buy a little later, of the violas, and didn't she think that 
 the elusive violet had a more English grace ? He tried 
 her upon subjects more her own, the stateliness of Rhoda 
 and the latest breakage of the increasingly athletic cat. 
 But she did not respond. She sat there preoccupied, 
 asking herself why there should persist in her a feeling 
 of discomfort and regret. She was not hankering after 
 Bert, of course not. But still, she felt she ought not to 
 feel like this and was remorseful. It was not her fault ; 
 but still it didn't ought to have happened. Later in the 
 evening she told Roger. 
 
 " Well," he said, " what about it ? " 
 
 She wriggled. " Oh, I don't know only it feels so 
 queer after after having known him so long." 
 
 " I understand," said Roger, " but that's all over."
 
 THE LAND OF DOUBT 351 
 
 " Yes, it's all over," said Sue, " only, you see, we be- 
 ing married, I can't help feeling that I oughtn't to." 
 
 " Oughtn't to what ? There's no harm in your meet- 
 ing him again." 
 
 This hurt her; it was not in accord with the proper 
 jealousy of a married man. 
 
 " Well, if you don't mind," she said, " I don't. Only 
 you can call me a silly if you like, but when one's 
 married one's married." She struggled with an emo- 
 tion. " That's the difference between being married 
 and not. It's it's not having anything left for any- 
 body else, don't you think ? " 
 
 '' Yes, I understand," said Roger, rather moved. 
 
 " And so, going back like that to well, there never 
 was anything in it but still, you know, he he was 
 gone on me. So it seemed to me I oughtn't to even 
 shake hands because ..." Then her eyes grew soft. 
 " Well, there's only you now." 
 
 He got up and went around the table, put his arms 
 round her shoulders and drew her close. He under- 
 stood the straight, clean feeling which struggled to come 
 forth from her like a clear spring through clay. As he 
 kissed her she too flung her arms round him. But there 
 was a difference in her caress ; he was stirred with the 
 most delicate emotion because he had conquered an 
 entire faithfulness, because he was grateful, because for 
 such delight he could in that minute overcome so many 
 things that stung, forget so many fears. But she held 
 him gripped more nervously, pressing her face against 
 his until it hurt, as if she were less offering love than beg- 
 ging him to hold her closer, to protect her against the en- 
 folding past, to weld for her a chain so close that never 
 could she run out when beyond the past went piping. 
 
 Later in the evening, when they were ordinary again, 
 she told him that she had asked Mrs. Groby to tea on 
 Sunday. 
 
 " I hope you don't mind," she said.
 
 352 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 " Mind ? " he replied. " Why should I mind ? " 
 
 She sat with downcast head. 
 
 " I ought to have asked you first." 
 
 " You haven't got to ask me," he said gently. " Do 
 try and understand that you're quite free; you can do 
 just what you like. Haven't you got that yet ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Sue, hut she meant " No." 
 
 Later, before he went to bed, he thought again of the 
 little incident. It had been hard on her to meet Bert 
 like that, so suddenly, though it did not matter so much 
 as she thought: Roger Huncote was enough of a male 
 egoist not to realise that Bert could matter now that he, 
 Roger Huncote, had come. She had taken it too hard. 
 Still, he must help her, even if she was too delicate, too 
 sensitive. He must build her a present to blot out the 
 past. He remembered that Mrs. Groby would come on 
 Sunday. He did not think he could tackle Mrs. Groby 
 alone with Sue. Whom could he ask? He could not 
 ask anybody ordinary. And yet he must ask somebody. 
 Well, he would ask Theresa ; she wouldn't mind. After 
 all, who cared ? Before going to bed he went down to 
 lock up. He had to turn out the lights in the drawing- 
 room, for Sue had left them all on as she went to bed. 
 She often did that, and it irritated him. He did not 
 know why it irritated him ; he only came near the edge 
 of understanding that this waste of electric light meant 
 exactly the same thing as the purchase of bad jam and 
 cheap tumblers, that Sue was instinctively economical 
 when she bought things that the poor bought, but that 
 she was wasteful in things such as light, because those 
 were things of the rich and had never meant anything 
 to her. It was not clear, but somehow it was tragic. 
 
 VIII 
 
 Theresa kept Roger's letter until the last. She was 
 an epicure in those things; she always looked first at
 
 THE LAND OF DOUBT 353 
 
 the circulars, the bills, and the letters in familiar hand- 
 writings, keeping for the last the adventure of the un- 
 known hand. She hardly realised why Roger's letter 
 should dominate even adventure. But after she had 
 read it twice she lay back and for a while stayed think- 
 ing. It was so pitiful, so easy to understand. Roger 
 was almost telling her, or how otherwise could she 
 understand that phrase : " I've got to ask somebody 
 and somehow it's so difficult." He was almost telling 
 her that he dared ask nobody but her. These people 
 made loneliness round him. It was awful. And he 
 knew, and the letter sounded almost as if he did not 
 care, as if he had said to himself : " Good heavens ! 
 Let's settle down, and all that sort of thing, and be 
 happy, and not think of it. It doesn't matter to 
 Sirius." Tears filled her eyes as she thought of him 
 like this, alone and beginning not to care, like Robinson 
 Crusoe before Man Friday came. But Theresa was a 
 woman as well as a friend, and she could not help 
 thinking how happy Crusoe would be if only he knew 
 there was a Man Friday in the world. He did not. 
 There he was on his islands among the goats with no- 
 body to talk to him. 
 
 " I could talk to him," she thought, and her eyes 
 grew dim with the sweetness of that impossible conver- 
 sation. She put the letter down, her unhappiness 
 growing swiftly as the plant from the seed in the fakir's 
 little plot. The blooms of pity were two, one for him, 
 one for herself. His she saw as a big bloom of a mauve 
 so pale that it was almost grey. Could this go on? 
 Could he so remain divorced from his own people? 
 Could he indefinitely dwell in St. Panwich tents because 
 those of Kedar were closed to him ? She thought of the 
 dreadful things that might happen to him, a growing 
 isolation, a shrinking from his own people, worse still, 
 an enthusiastic adoption of another breed and its man- 
 ners : unpressed trousers, pipes in the street, drink per-
 
 354 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 haps; she shivered. She thought of a theosophical 
 friend of hers who said : " It's a long way up the ray." 
 Yes, and such a short way down. Then she thought of 
 the ascending ray like a butter slide and laughed, for 
 even when she was very unhappy Theresa could laugh at 
 burlesque. But it did not last long : before her eyes was 
 the other bloom of pity, mauve also ; but she could not 
 help being an egoist. Hers was not mauve turning to 
 grey, like Roger's; hers was mauve turning to black. 
 She knew just then how much he meant to her, how dear 
 were to her his idealism, his unreasonable hopefulness, 
 his youth. And for the terrible moment that comes to 
 women now and then she wondered whether she loved 
 his youth because hers was fleeting. But no, it was not 
 youth she loved in him ; it was just him she loved, and 
 for the first time she told herself so quite simply. It 
 was hopeless, it was a thing without a future, and yet it 
 thrilled her; she held it to her just then as a mother 
 holds a dying child ; it must die, but still she can feel 
 upon her breast its little weak hands. Something secret 
 whispered to her : " Who knows ? Perhaps it will not 
 die?" 
 
 But the whisper was very feeble, drowned by the 
 cry of pain which came out of that letter; she could 
 hardly hear the whisper now. She could hear only that 
 cry, blending with the sobs of youth within her : " Oh, 
 I'm dying while you wait. Help me as you want to 
 help him, or it's going to be too late." 
 
 Elizabeth came in. She found her mistress lying 
 upon her face, hugging the pillow, her shoulders going 
 up and down rhythmically, without a sound. Elizabeth 
 was old and short-sighted, so she said : " Your bath's 
 getting cold," and did not at once understand why The- 
 resa did not reply. Only a little later did she notice the 
 rhythmic rise and fall of the slim shoulders and the 
 struggle of the hands upon the pillow, determined that 
 nobody should see the tears,
 
 THE LAND OF DOUBT 355 
 
 IX 
 
 They were waiting in the drawing-room for Mrs. 
 Groby. She came. But not alone, for she had 
 brought her husband, Perce, Muriel, and a friend, a 
 hoarse and perspiring female with a large bust and a 
 small baby. The more the merrier. 
 
 Mrs. Groby felt quite comfortable, for by now she 
 was quite used to Pembroke Square. As for Muriel, 
 she understood that one had to be much richer to live 
 at " The Cedars ", in Highbury, than here, and so she 
 was prepared to make allowances. As for Perce, the 
 responsibility of the stamp-book had greatly increased 
 his coolness, together with the familiarity bred in the 
 City of acquaintance with large cheques; he told them 
 about that very soon. Perce had everything, his own 
 way, as Sue was paralysed by the situation. If it had 
 not been for Theresa, Roger would have felt it neces- 
 sary to seize his father-in-law and Perce, take them 
 down-stairs and make them drink while Sue managed 
 the two women. But Theresa seemed strangely un- 
 dismayed. She asked the baby's name, she poked it 
 in the side and made it gurgle, while its mother per- 
 spired with delight. Simultaneously she engaged Mrs. 
 Groby, leaving Sue free to ask Perce the questions he 
 wanted to be asked. 
 
 Huncote felt better; he had to entertain only Mr. 
 Groby, and this was quite easy: if the public houses 
 had on Sundays closed at four instead of three, it might 
 have perhaps been less easy but, as it happened, Mr. 
 Groby was just about friendly, though there was some- 
 thing rather penetrating about his breath. Naturally 
 they drifted into politics ; Mr. Groby was a strong Con- 
 servative, but most of his political opinions had been 
 melted down into a protest: ninepence for fourpence. 
 Roger was not greatly in love with the Insurance Act, 
 but he found himself defending it with a vigour that
 
 356 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 would have made Mr. Masterman envious. Strong in 
 his slum experience he pulverised Mr. Groby' s points as 
 to the cheapness of doctors, though he had failed so to 
 deal with Sue. But then Mr. Groby was a man and 
 tried to argue logically, which served him ill. Also 
 he had to struggle with a tendency to call Roger, Sir, 
 and that got in his way. They managed very amiably, 
 those two. He could hear Perce talking to Sue : 
 
 " They ain't 'arf rich. My word, you should see 
 the cheques. There was one for a hundred and two 
 pounds the other day." 
 
 " My ! " said Sue admiringly. 
 
 "An' wot's more, I 'ad to take it to the bank." 
 Perce swelled. " They got to trust a man, you know. 
 One's got to check off with the cashier too, and wouldn't 
 one catch it if one made a mistake! But that's all 
 right," he added consolingly. " I felt a bit shaky about 
 it in the beginning," he conceded, " but one soon gets 
 used to business. Not like some fellers. There's the 
 junior clerk, as they call 'im, 'e can't add up for little 
 apples . . ." 
 
 Huncote and his father-in-law had slowly diverged 
 from insurance into unemployment, thence into metal 
 and railway work, and were now discussing the record 
 runs of railways. Mr. Groby was very learned as to 
 the performances of the Great Northern and the Great 
 Western which he insisted on making picturesque by 
 continual references to the Exeter Mail and the Flying 
 Scotchman. 
 
 " Fifty-seven mile in the hour ! Tell yer wot, it 
 opens yer eyes t' think o' that, an' a 'undred an' two 
 miles without a stop. They can't do that in Germany, 
 can they ? " 
 
 He was corrected as to a non-stop run by Roger, 
 whom this topic left languid. But Mr. Groby was not 
 languid; he was evidently prepared to pass hours dis- 
 cussing railway runs, weights of engines, heights of
 
 THE LAND OF DOUBT 357 
 
 bridges. Indeed the whole of that afternoon was punc- 
 tuated, whenever Roger talked to anybody else, by 
 rumbling references to the length of tunnels and the 
 depth of cuttings. An interval a little later was filled 
 in with fire brigades. 
 
 He kept away from the women, but they tended to 
 cluster and to talk loudly. The conversation was not 
 obstetric, in deference, presumably, to Theresa's vir- 
 ginal state, but the hoarse mother had details to con- 
 fide, mainly medical. Roger could hear her from time 
 to time: 
 
 ". . . so I stopped the gravy beef as Mrs. Bubwith 
 give me as the doctor said it didn't oughter 'ave meat. 
 I just give 'im a drop o' milk with a pinch of citrate 
 of soda." 
 
 " And did that stop it ? " asked Theresa. 
 
 " No," said the hoarse woman. " I didn't find out 
 that Ethel, that's my eldest, give 'im a bit o' kipper at 
 tea." Resentful. " I didn't 'arf walk into 'er." 
 
 Mrs. Groby contributed reminiscences of the feeding 
 of children; Sue was excluded as unpractical. The 
 last Roger heard of this particular conversation was a 
 difference of opinion as to binders, whatever those were. 
 Now Mr. Groby entangled him into a story less lucid 
 than the statistics of railways. It was a story, well, 
 something like this: 
 
 " Wot I was tellin' yer was 'ow 'e lost 'is job ; 'e was 
 my mate, 'e was. It was all along the foreman, yer see. 
 Red 'aired, 'e was, an' me ole mother used t' say, 
 ' Charlie,' she used t' say, ' never you trust a red 'aired 
 man . . .'" 
 
 ". . . gettin' thinner and thinner," said the hoarse 
 woman gloomily, as she turned the baby over on her 
 lap and pulled up its drawers as high as they would go. 
 " Doctor says 'e's always s'prised to find 'im alive." 
 
 Mrs. Groby grew comforting. 
 
 " Wile there's life, there's 'ope."
 
 358 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 " So the foreman says to 'im : ' You marked the 
 sheet at ten forty/ 'e says. l That's a lie/ my mate 
 says. 1 1 ort t' mark it ten twenty by right/ 'e says ; 
 1 1 let the firm off twenty minutes cos it's my birthday.' 
 The foreman, 'e didn't say nothin', and then my mate, 
 'e trusted 'im, 'e did. An' as I was tellin' you, my old 
 mother, she used ter say, ' Charlie/ she used to say, 
 1 never you trust ' . . ." 
 
 The story grew and became more and more confused. 
 Theresa and Mrs. Groby had now come to a sharp dif- 
 ference of opinion because Theresa thought the baby 
 too young to have gravy beef at all, doctor or no doctor. 
 The difference grew acute, Mrs. Groby feeling that as 
 Sue had been given bacon at the age of eight months 
 and there she was, " look at the girl, it ain't done 'er 
 no 'arm," there could be nothing against gravy beef. 
 The hoarse woman was delighted with the wrangle and 
 fanned its flame. She remarked : " Go on, I'll 'old 
 yer 'ats." 
 
 And so the afternoon wore on, peaceable and quarrel- 
 some, somewhat discursive. Tea came and was drunk. 
 Then the Grobys declared that they must go and did 
 not go. They did not know how to do it and for half 
 an hour explained how sorry they were that they could 
 not stay. Muriel had taken very little interest in the 
 conversation; she had looked at the pictures, examined 
 the books with a critical air. Theresa worked splen- 
 didly. As they did not go she tried to amuse them 
 while they stayed. The new photographs of Roger 
 were handed round and freely criticised. There was 
 coldness between Sue and Perce from that time on, for 
 he was heard to remark, not quite sotto voce, that 
 they must have been selling off when Roger got his 
 face. Mrs. Groby grew conscious of a certain tension 
 in the air and waxed enthusiastic over the photo- 
 graph. 
 
 " You mustn't mind wot we says, Eoger. A photo's
 
 THE LAND OF DOUBT 359 
 
 made to be shown and, as the sayin' goes, you should let 
 others judge you." 
 
 It was nearly seven o'clock. Mrs. Groby said: 
 " 'Ow time flies ! " 
 
 They could not blend, those two. Body and spirit 
 were of different essences; he was as foreign to her as 
 she was to him. They were in the lists of love, like 
 champions of two classes. He began to realise it. Sue 
 was of a class that is interested in the price of things 
 and in material things, in what it can see rather than 
 in what it can dream, in the scenery and the actor rather 
 than in the play, in the building rather than in its grace, 
 in big things like cathedrals, town halls, because they 
 are big and particularly if they are new unless, of 
 course, they are extremely old, which is as good. He 
 began to understand their elementary ideas of beauty, 
 their crude idealism; as he suspected this he began to 
 despise them. And yet, and yet, a feeling still clung 
 to him that though crude this idealism was much more 
 vigorous than his own made by culture fastidious and a 
 little pale. 
 
 Only there it was, there they were, ready to allow 
 for each other, unable to do so. One morning, as a 
 surprise, Sue appeared in a frock of her own ordering. 
 Nine o'clock and she stood in a mixture of silk and 
 velvet, with a bow where there was not a bit of lace, 
 and a ruffle where there was no tuck. A frock of defi- 
 ance, unsupervised by Theresa, by the dangerous The- 
 resa who liked Koger too well, by the supercilious 
 Theresa who knew too much. This was Sue's own 
 frock, her own idea, her own desire to rebel against the 
 other woman and by herself to delight her own man. 
 It was mainly green because that was Sue's idea of 
 what a dark beauty ought to wear. That night as
 
 360 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 Koger lay awake he thought of Sue. He had not dis- 
 cussed dress with her; he seldom discussed anything 
 with her now, not having anything to say, and he had 
 begun to understand that she too felt she had nothing 
 to say to him. They married, thinking that between 
 them were tastes and thoughts when there were only 
 caresses. 
 
 "What shall we do?" he said. Then he thought: 
 "We can't go on like this. It's my fault, I thought 
 she'd tumble to things. I have not educated her enough. 
 I must go on." 

 
 CHAPTEE THE FOURTH 
 
 SCENT OP DEAD JONQUILS 
 
 ROGEB HUNCOTE walked up and down in the Settle- 
 ment attic. He liked to go there now and then to think, 
 for he was one of those whom the streets disturb and 
 yet who cannot think well in a park or in the country. 
 People, birds, the blowing wind, everything disturbed 
 him. He needed walls to cabin his thought. He liked 
 the false atmosphere of the attic, the contrast its heap 
 of stage props made with the free view of London 
 through the dirty window. And there was room to 
 walk up and down. He had been there a long time, 
 thinking of a little incident that afternoon. He had 
 been out with Sue after lunch; they had had tea in 
 the Gardens, and when they arrived at Pembroke 
 Square he found that he had forgotten his latch-key. 
 
 " Got your key ? " he said to Sue. 
 
 But as he spoke Sue raised the knocker and gave it a 
 sharp rat-rat. He was vaguely discomforted, but he 
 was thinking of something else, and only a moment 
 later, as the knock was not answered, did he say: 
 " King the bell." 
 
 Ehoda came to the door; she seemed a little 
 startled and apologetic : " Beg pardon, Ma'am I 
 thought . . ." 
 
 Ehoda became an eloquent mass of suppressions. 
 And quite suddenly Koger's mind was illumined by 
 her implication. Of course Rhoda had thought it was 
 the postman, or a parcel, or something. A hot little
 
 362 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 rage seized him, and he found himself too lucid. After 
 all these months Sue was not yet using her key or the 
 bell. He knew her, for he knew her people too well; 
 he knew those tenements in St. Panwich where there 
 are no keys and no bells because the house cannot be 
 left, because a child or the mother is always at home, 
 because staying at home is accounted a sort of virtue. 
 It sickened him. 
 
 Now in the attic it struck him that what was worse 
 than that it should sicken him was that nine months 
 ago it would have made him smile. Falling leaves! 
 He was reminded of a tree in the autumn that sheds 
 upon the wind dry golden corpses that once were green. 
 It shocked him. 
 
 " This won't do," he thought. " I really must try." 
 
 He looked about him interestedly, at the cases which 
 he knew contained spare pamphlets and books, at half 
 a Eoman portico and a clump of cloth palm trees held 
 up by broomsticks. " I must try," he thought, and in- 
 stinctively went to the window to look out over the city. 
 There she lay, London, this early July day, gilt and 
 warm, with her thousand roofs, so close, so strong that 
 they seemed eternal, with her many spires raising up 
 towards the pale heaven her ever-renascent hope. He 
 loved her as she clustered between her hills. He loved 
 her silver girdle, the Thames, which he could just see 
 beyond the slope of the Strand. He could feel the spirit 
 of the city that every day lifts those whom it elects 
 from Whitechapel to Park Lane, that spirit, truest of 
 democrats, that rates not a man by his achievement but 
 yet his son by his father's achievement. He laughed: 
 the spirit of London town, was it not after all, when 
 you thought of the sleepy, obstinate spirit of the coun- 
 try, was it not the spirit of social promotion ? 
 
 He sat down upon a case. 
 
 " Well, what shall I do ? " And, of course, at once 
 he thought of pictures. Of literature a little later,
 
 SCENT OF DEAD JONQUILS 363 
 
 and even then music had come before. For Roger 
 Huncote, with all his intelligence and his delicacy, was 
 of his period, of a time when men thought that artistic 
 culture was the root of refinement. He had been to 
 Oxford, which was just a little more than having been 
 to the Polytechnic. His parents gave him a first-class 
 education and he never got over it. He thought of Sue 
 understanding the arts as he did, of Sue so developed 
 as to tell at sight a Rembrandt from a Maude Goodman. 
 She would be more like him then, he told himself in 
 innocent priggishness, and he could love her again. He 
 wanted her to be like him : that was a trace of the divine 
 egotism in virtue of which God made man in His own 
 image. 
 
 He thought of the dress too, that morning's dress, 
 green silk and green velvet. He must not suffer again 
 like that. He felt quite sorry for himself for having to 
 stand that. But what should he do? Could he help 
 her to dress? Theresa? Well, of course, there was 
 Theresa, but something new in him shrank; he did 
 not want to drag Theresa into it any more. He did 
 not tell himself that, for he was like most men, unable 
 to take a decision without deceiving himself first, with- 
 out assuming a righteous motive. " No," he thought 
 proudly, " I must do it myself." At once he thought of 
 blue coats and skirts. It was a great relief to think of 
 that, and he had a vision of Sue always trim in blue 
 coats and skirts with with well, what did they 
 call that white thing women wore under the coat, a 
 thing with a low neck ? And patent leather boots, of 
 course. It sounded a little hot for summer, and he 
 vaguely remembered having seen Theresa in something 
 made of linen, something claret-coloured, but it looked 
 rather crumpled, and he vaguely hated her that day. 
 " Still," he thought grudgingly, " she must have linen 
 for the summer." And now he had a vision of Sue, 
 looking very fresh, all in white drill, with white shoes,
 
 364: THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 and no bangles. It did not strike him to wonder 
 whether that stuff would crumple. He was a man. 
 He saw his wife as a fashion plate. 
 
 Also she must speak differently. True, she had im- 
 proved a good deal, but a governess, just for an hour 
 in the mornings. Sue was no longer referring to " them 
 things ", but every now and then, when the cockney 
 crept out and she said " haouse " or " naow ", he 
 suffered. He would take her to the National Gallery. 
 Well, perhaps not at once. They might go to the Tate 
 first. She would like the Tate, and it would lead her 
 upwards. He thought it could hardly lead her any 
 way but upwards if he remembered the Tate. And a 
 concert or two, not too classical. She must read a bit 
 too. Now he thought of it, she never seemed to read 
 anything; she only looked at the pictures in the paper. 
 They ought to read together, it would do him good as 
 well as her. Verse, for instance; they might begin 
 with Tennyson and then by degrees get on to poetry. 
 He felt quite inflamed and nearly fell in love again 
 with the ascending Sue . . . 
 
 It proved quite easy, that governess business. Sue 
 merely said : " I know I don't talk properly." He 
 tried to cloak it by telling her that the governess would 
 read with her. But Sue was. still humble, she wanted 
 to learn. And it was rather fun getting the governess 
 from a place in Margaret Street where apparently they 
 would supply him with a governess, or a chief eunuch, 
 or any other domestic. It made him feel very grown 
 up, as if he had been long married and were providing 
 for his nursery. After all he had a child in the nursery, 
 he thought, and for a moment felt fond, then doubtful, 
 and his fondness vanished. Miss Ponkey, when she 
 came, which she now did every morning for an hour 
 after Ethel had told Sue what to order, clearly con- 
 sidered that she was accessory to hushing up a court 
 scandal, a mesalliance in high life. She got on very
 
 SCENT OF DEAD JONQUILS 365 
 
 well with Sue, for her attitude to high life, as repre- 
 sented by The Morning Post, one day late, which her 
 mother, the vicaress, sent her every day from Hertford- 
 shire, corresponded exactly with that of Sue as repre- 
 sented by the novelettes. Eoger had never seen her 
 reading those; he thought he knew all her secrets, but 
 there were scores of novelettes in an old hat box, and 
 one of them, Sir Lucius and His Love, had been wept 
 upon once or twice. Or perhaps the stains were but- 
 ter. Eoger felt better when Miss Ponkey took over 
 the responsibility for Sue's rise in life. She was so 
 comforting. 
 
 " You see," said Roger airily, " she's met very few 
 people . . . living in the colonies . . ." 
 
 " I quite understand," said Miss Ponkey. 
 
 " She's been isolated," he went on. " And one does 
 pick things up from the servants." 
 
 " I quite understand," said Miss Ponkey. 
 
 To the very end of their intercourse Eoger never ob- 
 tained from Miss Ponkey more than that she quite 
 understood. He violently hoped that she did not. 
 
 But still there was to be chaos in his mind that night, 
 for Miss Ponkey had not yet been sought and found. 
 It was a mythical Miss Ponkey filled his mind. Now 
 he had to go down, for at seven o'clock, that hour so 
 cunningly calculated for meetings as to prevent one 
 from having dinner, he must sit on the platform while 
 a Labour Member discoursed upon nature study and 
 the democracy. 
 
 It seemed strange, for he had been very little at the 
 Settlement of late months. Churton was still there; 
 so was Platt, a little worn because the dissolution had 
 not yet happened. Mrs. Eamsey had shifted some of 
 her interest in the white slave traffic on to the enquiries 
 as to 606 which had just made the Medical Congress 
 into a society function; Miss Miskin was no longer 
 Miss Miskin, for she had married a poet of nineteen
 
 who often came to the Settlement and recited to St. 
 Panwich sonnets about golden galleons and pomegran- 
 ates. 
 
 The Labour Member was not very interesting. He 
 was one of the now defunct Liblabs, anxious to be a 
 gentleman among labour men and a workingman in the 
 House of Commons. He quoted abundantly of course 
 Thoreau, Richard Jefferies, Gilbert White. There was 
 an excursus upon gardening. But gardening fatally led 
 him into sociological byways, for as St. Panwich shifted 
 its feet and coughed, the Liblab found himself drawn 
 to the allotments on waste lands in London destined for 
 the deserving poor and perhaps for the others. The 
 land question hovered, then settled; it burgeoned into 
 housing, into drink. The country side was abashed. 
 By swifter and swifter transitions the Liblab fastened 
 upon class contrasts, the essence of class. 
 
 " I'm not one of those socialists," he went on, with 
 a determined air of trying to get a laugh. " I don't 
 want to do away with classes. I only want to make 
 them fluid." He grew benignant. " Man is not evil, 
 it's society makes him so. One only has to know one 
 another to see one another's good points. I always tell 
 the wife that, when she complains of the neighbours. 
 But classes want a bit of mixing. They only want do- 
 ing away with the water-tight doors between their 
 respective spheres. When I'm Prime Minister there 
 shall be scholarships to allow all nice working-girls to 
 marry Piccadilly Johnnies (Laughter). They aren't 
 so bad, the Piccadilly Johnnies, and if they had nice 
 sensible girls . . ." 
 
 He suddenly perceived Huncote who sat six feet off 
 with a burning blush upon his face. He paused. The 
 Liblab had been at the Settlement before, and he re- 
 membered something. He went on talking about mix- 
 ing the classes and, being a practised Member of 
 Parliament, did not have to think of what he was
 
 SCENT OF DEAD JONQUILS 36Y 
 
 saying. Suddenly he remembered the story. Of 
 course that was the man; Huncote, yes, that was he. 
 His heart swelled; what an oratorical chance! Sud- 
 denly the M.P. seemed to grow larger. With a cor- 
 onating sweep of the arm he pointed to Huncote and 
 shouted : 
 
 " And what better evidence d'you want than the case 
 which is in your midst ? " 
 
 Huncote shrank; he felt he was the case and yet 
 could not run away. He was paralysed. 
 
 " Here you have among you a young man, nurtured 
 in one of our most ancient universities. A young man, 
 respected and honoured of all who know him in St. 
 Panwich . . ." There was a little cheering and clap- 
 ping from the front ranks who understood the connec- 
 tion between this and Huncote. 
 
 " This young man did not seek a bride in Mayfair. 
 !N~o, Mr. Huncote, if I may name him " (abundant ap- 
 plause), "grew aware of the necessity for the reunion 
 of the classes. This young man towards whom I point " 
 (and he did point) " wedded a daughter of the people." 
 Huncote leaped up and tumbled rather than jumped 
 from the platform. But as he went, head down, eyes 
 half-shut, the outstretched arm of the M.P. still fol- 
 lowed him, holding out a wreath of laurel, speeding his 
 flight with these words : " Mr. Huncote is one of the 
 men of whom we want more." 
 
 That evening, much later, when he had drunk more 
 than usual- to try and forget, he had a hateful little row 
 with Sue. She had been to the gas company to com- 
 plain about the gas-ring in his bedroom on which he 
 heated milk when he came home very late. He went 
 into her bedroom to tell her it still did not work and to 
 ask whether she had gone around to the company. 
 
 " I did go," said Sue reluctantly. " But I forgot the 
 address, and so when I nearly got there I couldn't find 
 the place. It was too late to go back,"
 
 368 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 "Couldn't find the address?" said Roger. "But 
 why didn't you look into the telephone book ? " 
 
 " I didn't want to telephone," said Sue. 
 
 " I don't mean that," he said acidly. " I mean why 
 didn't you look in the telephone book and go to the 
 address it gave ? " 
 
 She looked at him, still blank. " But if I'd gone 
 home to look into the telephone book I might as well 
 have got the address off their bill ? " 
 
 He felt a rage rise in him. 
 
 " Didn't it strike you to go into a shop or a call-office 
 and look at the book ? " 
 
 " Well," said Sue, defensive, " how was I to know 
 they were on the telephone?" 
 
 He did not reply. It would have been impossibly 
 snobbish to tell her that in her new world everybody she 
 could possibly want, whether public or private, would 
 be on the telephone. He did not think he could explain 
 that. As he went to sleep he thought again of this mix- 
 ing of the classes. Oil and water, the Liblab had called 
 them. Yes, you could mix them by shaking them up 
 together, hard, and nobody knew what the oil and water 
 felt about that. But how quickly they separated when 
 you no longer shook them. 
 
 II 
 
 Yes, he had relied too much upon environment. He 
 had not been precise enough, and rather bitterly he 
 wondered whether he would feel as he did if Miss 
 Ponkey and all that she implied had come nine months 
 ago. But he knew he must look forward, not back- 
 wards. That though it might seem too late it might 
 not be too late. At the same time he knew that his store 
 of patience was small. He thought of the dress, of the 
 difficulty with the knocker, of the difficulty with the gas 
 company ; he dug up from his memory these cruel trifles,
 
 SCENT OF DEAD JONQUILS 369 
 
 tumblers, jam, the wearing of jewellery, little things 
 that strike so much deeper than the worship of a differ- 
 ent god. He was beginning to wonder whether he could 
 stick it, whether indeed he could remain one of the men 
 of whom we want more. 
 
 He could, it seemed. One afternoon, a little later, 
 pursuing the plan made in the attic, they went to the 
 Tate Gallery. It was a soft, filmy day, and the Thames 
 outside criticised the Turners. Sue went by his side 
 respectfully, a little awed because they had made her 
 leave her parasol, a ceremonial thing to do. For some 
 time they wandered in the Gallery, while Huncote for- 
 got that he was educating his wife. He had not been 
 to the Tate for five or six years, and it was queer to 
 recognise so many pictures from picture postcards, 
 Christmas annuals, or " The Hundred Best Pictures 
 For A Workingman." He recognised " The Doctor " 
 and " Derby Day." Why ! It was like going to one 
 of Shakespeare's plays and discovering that it was made 
 up entirely of quotations. He grew dubious too, for 
 his taste was maturer than it had been five years be- 
 fore, and he began to wonder whether an afternoon at 
 the Tate was educational or degrading. Still, you must 
 crawl before you run, all that sort of thing. 
 
 They stopped before a picture of three little children 
 dancing. They looked like boiled veal. 
 
 " They're having a good time," said Sue. 
 
 He did not reply, and she felt she had said the wrong 
 thing. She wished she had asked Miss Ponkey what to 
 say when you looked at a picture. She felt that " oo " 
 or " very nice " was inadequate. So she said nothing 
 when she was dragged from Turner to Turner and told 
 that a vision of Venice might be seen on Millbank by an 
 artist's eye. Indeed Roger went on for a long time, 
 trying to place Turner, which he found difficult; he 
 could not help being pleased by the flaming opals of the 
 man's work, and yet he suspected the brilliant mists
 
 370 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 that Turner saw at the Nore of being a trick, a clever 
 discovery, a sort of American stunt. When he had 
 done with his criticism and tried to make Sue remember 
 the " Nocturne of Battersea Bridge " and make her say 
 that Whistler was rather like Turner, she remarked: 
 
 " Why are they so shiny ? " 
 
 This did not exasperate him as much as it ought to 
 have, for he was able to explain the changes that had 
 come about in glazing since the sixteenth century, to 
 talk of painting upon the white as opposed to direct 
 laying on. And so they wandered on, she very respect- 
 ful, a little bored but expecting only to be bored because 
 this in a way was lessons. He tried to detain her before 
 a nude, but she turned away with a scarlet face. Well, 
 it was a very nude nude, Leighton's. It embarrassed 
 Sue horribly. It was all very well for Roger to call it 
 the bath of Sikey, but it looked like a lady taking off 
 her chemise, and she did not think it nice. He teased 
 her about it until she turned. 
 
 "You wouldn't like me photographed in my bath, 
 would you ? " 
 
 He found that difficult to answer and was driven into 
 saying he would be quite willing to hang a nude picture 
 of her in the drawing-room if it was beautiful, which he 
 did not mean at all. Then he grew angry with her 
 because she had made him say something he did not 
 mean. And he felt priggish and superior. 
 
 They went on from picture to picture, Sue remarking 
 at intervals that one might think they were walking out 
 of the frame. She developed enthusiasm for the por- 
 trait of a hot ham, one of those steaming hams whose 
 influence, together with that of cabbage, can never be 
 restricted to the kitchen. He tried to drag her away, 
 but she was enthralled. 
 
 " My ! " she said, " it makes you feel quite hungry." 
 
 For a moment he was hopeful : after all that was not 
 quite pictorial emotion, but he was furnishing her mind,
 
 SCENT OF DEAD JONQUILS 371 
 
 he must not forget that. So he made her repeat a few 
 names : " The Doctor ", by Luke Fildes, " Derby 
 Day ", by Frith. He even tried to lodge the names of 
 Adrian Stokes and of Robert Brough in her mind. She 
 was obedient. From time to time as the afternoon went 
 on he caught a murmur behind him; " ' The Doctor ' 
 by Frith, < Derby Day ' by Robert Brough . . ." 
 
 These good intentions were maddening. He could 
 not keep her away from details. In a large scene it 
 seemed impossible to make her see more than one char- 
 acter in a corner, who was pouring out wine as like as 
 life. " The Death of Chatterton " was obviously to her 
 a bit of cinema. 
 
 " My ! he's poisoned himself," she remarked, in a 
 whisper. He was saddened less by Sue perhaps than 
 by this environing atmosphere of mediocrity, of obvious- 
 ness, a whole crowd of painters who, it seemed, most 
 of their lives had crawled upon the earth like worms, 
 never having the decency to get underground. True, 
 there was the Stokes " Autumn Evening ", fading light 
 and dying brilliance, night wedded with the day that 
 tarried on the striated white slopes. Yes, just a few, 
 but how dreadful to feel it was almost accident. He 
 grew bitter and thought: Sometimes the good Chan- 
 trey nods. 
 
 They were tired, they felt dusty. The air had that 
 sharp, resounding feel which it always has in picture 
 galleries. They dragged their feet as if they felt that 
 picture galleries have the hardest floors in the world. 
 They had nearly gone round when they got to " King 
 Cophetua And The Beggarmaid." Without knowing 
 why, they stood there for a long time, touched perhaps 
 by the romance of it, the girl with her frightened eyes 
 incredulous, and the warrior king abased, humble and 
 transfigured with his doffed crown. He told her the 
 story, quoting the lines from Romeo and Juliet: 
 " Young Adam Cupid, he that shot so trim, When King
 
 372 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 Cophetua loved the beggar maid." He told her the 
 story, and just at the very end, while she stood listen- 
 ing to his words that grew romantic, while she sought 
 to improve her mind, he suddenly saw an application. 
 " I'm Cophetua," he thought. For a moment the 
 knowledge was intoxicating. He felt uplifted by the 
 doffing of his crown. For a fleeting second he under- 
 stood the pride that lies in Christian humility. 
 " And what happened next ? " asked Sue. 
 " Well," said Roger, " they got married." 
 " Oh, yes," said Sue. " Wonder how they got on ? " 
 It hurt him, that question, though Sue did not apply 
 the situation to herself. It was a bitterly amusing idea 
 anyhow. All these matches of romance, how did they 
 work ? Did Pygmalion ever quarrel with Galatea when 
 he got a bill : 
 
 Dr. Pygmalion Esq. : 
 
 1 chiton , 200 drachma. 
 
 1 himation (Mitylene model) . . . 400 drachma. 
 
 He thought of Romeo and Juliet too. Had they 
 lived and married he could foresee that with tempers 
 such as theirs there were endless possibilities. Notably 
 the Capulets and the Montagues would have been the 
 most troublesome relations-in-law you could imagine. 
 
 They went out. For a moment in the hall they 
 paused where in a basin the live goldfish go around and 
 around, processional, patient and eternal. 
 
 " Those fish have a dull life," said Sue. 
 
 He did not reply. He was thinking that anyhow 
 they were alive. He saw the sun shine through their 
 undulating fins. It thrilled him after so much dead 
 paint. 
 
 He wondered a little later how much he had drawn 
 from this visit, from others which he forced upon her 
 to the National Gallery, to Dulwich. He even took 
 her to the Soane Museum and tried to make her like
 
 SCENT OF DEAD JONQUILS 373 
 
 the Hogarths, which she thought very coarse. There 
 was music too, a few concerts of the lighter kind which 
 admitted " Carmen " and even " Pomp and Circum- 
 stance." She liked these, for she could catch the tune 
 and soon maddened him by humming " Habanera " 
 all over the house. But resolutely he administered 
 " 1812 ", and, by means of a violinist, Ernst's " Airs 
 Busses." She went on gloomily, resignedly. One's 
 got to know these things when one's a lady, not dropping 
 one's h's, talking about Shakespeare, having one's boots 
 made for one, and there you were. She quoted to her- 
 self from the posters : " It's so simple." And yet 
 she was unhappy sometimes, for she felt that she had 
 said the wrong thing. She never managed to say what 
 she felt. She was always saying what she thought she 
 ought, and she always thought wrong. When she felt 
 at all she always felt right, but that she could not tell. 
 One afternoon, when they were having tea at the Carl- 
 ton, she was moved almost to tears by an arrangement 
 from " La Boheme." She wondered why Koger got so 
 angry and said that Puccini's music embodied the pas- 
 sions of a literary hairdresser. Still, she supposed one 
 did get blown up now and then when one was being edu- 
 cated. 
 
 Ill 
 
 " But still," said Roger, " I don't understand why 
 you didn't have him arrested." 
 
 Sue looked mutinous and went on making bread pills. 
 
 " There wasn't much in the bag," she said. 
 
 " That's not what I'm asking you ; you tell me this 
 man snatched your bag outside Barker's, and you did 
 nothing ? " 
 
 " He ran away," said Sue. 
 
 " But you said he didn't run very fast, owing to the 
 crowd."
 
 374 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 No reply. Roger was interested as well as irritated. 
 He persisted. 
 
 " There was a policeman near, you say ? " 
 
 " Oh, well, perhaps the poor man needed the money," 
 said Sue. 
 
 " Very likely ; still, I won't lecture you about the 
 right to steal. Was that why you let him off ? " 
 
 She made an effort to tell a lie and with her usual 
 incapacity failed. 
 
 " Makes a lot of trouble," she said shortly. 
 
 " Trouble ? What trouble ? " 
 
 " You've got to go to the police court and, there's no 
 knowing, you might get into the papers. They photo- 
 graph you, they do." 
 
 Eoger felt dense. 
 
 " But whatever does that matter ? You've done 
 nothing wrong ! " 
 
 " Makes a lot of trouble," Sue replied, with an air 
 of elucidation. Then, feeling this inadequate, she said : 
 ft My mother . . ." She paused, and Roger had a sec- 
 ond of satisfaction : Miss Ponkey had expelled " Ma " 
 and substituted " My mother." 
 
 " Well 3 " 
 
 " My mother always says, whatever you do, whatever 
 happens, don't get into the papers." 
 
 Huncote thought this over for some time. It was 
 very curious. 
 
 He understood in a vague way. He had heard 
 something like this before in St. Panwich. Yes, 
 they did think it was disgraceful to get into the 
 newspapers. Why ? he wondered. Was it that they 
 were never quite sure who was witness and who was 
 prisoner ? Or just that they had a sort of animal fear 
 of being watched by the powerful lest the powerful 
 should do them some harm ? Rabbits run to earth. A 
 humorous idea struck him. 
 
 " Oh ! " he said. " I see. But lots of people don't
 
 SCENT OF DEAD JONQUILS 375 
 
 mind getting into the papers. Look at the breach of 
 promise cases." 
 
 "That's different," said Sue. "One has one's 
 rights." 
 
 " But surely you've as much right to your bag as to a 
 promised husband ? More, in fact. A bag's more per- 
 manent." 
 
 " It's different," said Sue. " When a girl's been 
 made a fool of, don't you think she wants everybody 
 down her way to know she's had her rights ? " 
 
 He laughed. " Oh ! A sort of warning to the 
 next ? " 
 
 " How can you ? " said Sue. She looked rather of- 
 fended: one might make jokes about marriage but not 
 about proper pride. 
 
 He stuck to his point. 
 
 " And I s'pose that the published damages also serve 
 as an advertisement for Number 2 ? " 
 
 " I think you're horrid," said Sue. But she smiled. 
 
 It was only later, as he thought again, that this 
 strange inconsistency struck him. One might not go 
 into court to prosecute a thief but one might prosecute 
 a lover. Was that because in the first case one had had 
 something taken from one and in the second had gra- 
 ciously given it ? Or some other obscure motive ? Or 
 was it more simple, that damages could vanquish the 
 reluctance of the rabbits to come out and be seen ? 
 Probably. Probably too the whole thing rested on a 
 deep distrust of print, print that represents the demand 
 note for rates, the summons, all sorts of uncomfortable 
 things. He did not like it: this was not reserve, it 
 was the fear of the savage. For a moment he won- 
 dered whether, paradox or not, there was not more 
 refinement in the actresses who allowed themselves to be 
 photographed to advertise a dentifrice. 
 
 He thought of this reserve later that evening, though 
 they had set it aside to read poetry. He had hesitated
 
 376 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 a good deal ; lie did not know how to begin. He believed 
 that in the people's heart slumbered a great desire for 
 melody, and it would be a pity to read the wrong things. 
 Cadoresse had spoken to him about that at the Settle- 
 ment, when he hung about electioneering. He remem- 
 bered that the Frenchman had said that one could al- 
 ways work on women with a bit of poetry if other 
 methods failed. Cadoresse had even quoted some 
 poetry which, he said, he found most efficacious, but it 
 was not the, sort of poetry Huncote liked. He vaguely 
 remembered that it was rather voluptuous, and he did 
 not possess that gilt French voice. So he thought he 
 had better please himself. 
 
 You will figure them in the drawing-room on a hot 
 July night. Sue is sitting upon the sofa, very dark 
 against the gay chintzes. She cannot be seen very well, 
 for there is little light save. from the moon that makes 
 a broad, pale bar across the carpet. At only one point 
 is the light bright, by a shaded lamp. In its little 
 golden sun hangs Roger's head, very black against the 
 light, its profile determined and fine, eyes bent upon the 
 book, half conscious of the sturdy figure that dutifully 
 listens as it plays with its fingers. He reads Blake : 
 
 "... On the shadows of the moon, 
 
 Climbing thro' Night's highest noon : 
 In Time's ocean falling, drown'd: 
 In aged ignorance profound, 
 Holy and cold, I clipp'd the wings 
 Of all sublunary things, 
 And in the depths of my dungeons 
 Closed the father and the sons. . . ." 
 
 She listened dutifully to that poem. Words hurtled 
 in her head, " mandrake " and a funnier one still, 
 " herfamodite." While she wondered who or what was 
 in the depths of dungeons she was still oppressed by the 
 beginning of the poem. She could not see that a cater- 
 pillar on a leaf could remind anybody of a mother's
 
 SCENT OF DEAD JONQUILS 377 
 
 grief. It lasted such a long time ; Koger went on read- 
 ing, intoxicating himself with the vision of horror and 
 holies, with the dream stuff of the phrases. He was all 
 thrilled and hot, for in Blake he could always glimpse 
 heaven and hell combatant, as Blake may have glimpsed 
 them through a glass darkly, as Verlaine, through a 
 green mist of absinthe, as Francis Thompson, with a 
 brain excited and entrails twisting in starvation. He 
 read for a long time ; he quite forgot her. Rising and 
 falling with the rhythm he dragged his pupil through 
 tales of harlots who once were virgins, to the gate of 
 pearl and gold, through the pageant of azure-winged 
 angels, ecstatic suns, stars blinded with their own radi- 
 ance. Accidentally he read her the poem " To .the 
 Jews ", and as he read came closer to earth. It was 
 amusing, this song of London boroughs. He stopped a 
 little before the end. " D'you like it ? " he asked sud- 
 denly. 
 
 Sue did not reply. She remembered two extraor- 
 dinary lines : 
 
 ". . . What are those golden builders doing 
 
 Near mournful ever-weeping Paddington. . . ." 
 
 This sounded familiar but queer. She had a dim idea 
 that they might be extending Paddington Station, but 
 fortunately dared not say so; indeed she had no need 
 to comment, for her husband remarked : 
 
 " H'm, perhaps that's hardly what I ought to read to 
 you, though, of course, you feel the rhythm, the music, 
 don't you ? " 
 
 " Oo, yes," said Sue, " only I don't understand al- 
 ways." 
 
 " No," he said, " many of us don't. You might as 
 well ask to understand the mystery of life and death. 
 It's just an emotion. But I oughtn't to have read you 
 that, I think. Now what ought I to read you ? " He 
 picked up the Oxford Book of Verse, opened it at ran-
 
 378 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 dom. "Poe, yes, Poe. Oh, bother! They haven't 
 put ' The Eaven ' in, still ..." He read her " Anna- 
 bel Lee." Sue felt much comforted; she liked the 
 jingle. She was a little barbaric ; she would have liked 
 Indian music on the tomtoms. He read on : 
 
 ". . . For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams 
 
 Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; 
 And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes 
 
 Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; 
 And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side 
 Of my darling my darling my life and my bride, 
 
 In the sepulchre there by the sea, 
 
 In her tomb by the sounding sea." 
 
 He looked up ; there were tears in her eyes. She said : 
 " Read it again, not all, just that last bit." 
 Thrilled by the love cry he shrank a little as she said 
 " the last bit ", but still he read, and when he looked up, 
 " in her tomb by the sounding sea " still echoing in his 
 ears, he saw that her eyes were wet. His heart grew 
 big and heavy with hope. He was excited, he wanted 
 to read more poetry, he wanted to please her more, to 
 do more than bring tears to her eyes. And so he grew 
 cunning, he searched the book. A few pages further 
 was Tennyson. He knew she would like Tennyson. 
 Had she not at once picked up : " 'Tis better to have 
 loved and lost than never to have loved at all ? " He 
 opened the selected Tennyson. at random, as he did not 
 find what he wanted in the Oxford Book. He chanced 
 upon the poem " To The Queen." He read on for a 
 while, but it felt so dull. He stopped at the lines : 
 
 ". . . And statesmen at her council met 
 
 Who knew the seasons, when to take 
 Occasion by the hand, and make 
 The bounds of freedom wider yet. . . ." 
 
 He suddenly felt that this was not enough ; he must 
 force her to be articulate.
 
 SCENT OF DEAD JONQUILS 379 
 
 " Sue," he said, " what does all that make you think 
 of?" 
 
 She seemed startled. If he was going to question 
 her, well. " Oo," she said, " I don't know. Solemn." 
 
 " That's not bad," said Roger encouragingly. " This 
 is not the first hit of Tennyson I've read you." (And 
 he did not notice that he had said " a bit of Tennyson " 
 while he shrank when she said " a bit of Poe.") 
 " That's not bad ; what does it make you think of ? " 
 
 Sue tried very hard, then said : " I hardly know. 
 Funny sort of big place." 
 
 " Big place ? What sort of place ? " 
 
 " I d'know ; well, something like the town hall at St. 
 Panwich, with the red plush and the chandeliers." 
 
 He stared at her. " Sue," he said, " what's hap- 
 pened to you ? You've criticised England between 1850 
 and the Jubilee of 1887." 
 
 She did not reply. He did not press his advantage. 
 He wondered whether this was a fluke. Well, he would 
 see, and he read on. He read her " The Lady of Sha- 
 lott " after explaining briefly who were Lancelot and 
 Galahad. She seemed unmoved, and " Mariana " 
 merely caused her to ask why in poetry people were 
 always wishing they were dead. He knew there was a 
 certain amount of reason in that complaint, and when 
 he tried to explain he discovered how difficult it might 
 be to explain anything. She had already been trouble- 
 some when he read " To Anthea " and tried to guess at 
 what Herrick meant by : 
 
 ". . . Bid me to live, and I will live 
 Thy Protestant to be. . . ." 
 
 She was liking Tennyson though so much that she in- 
 sisted upon trying to learn by heart : 
 
 " Come into the garden, Maud, 
 For the black bat, Night, has flown, 
 Come into the garden, Maud,
 
 380 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 I am here at the gate alone; 
 
 And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad, 
 
 And the musk of the roses blown. . . ." 
 
 As the evening waned, he grew more venturesome. 
 He dipped into Swinburne, into Whitman. But he felt 
 she did not like them, especially Whitman. Swoons in 
 poppy beds and women with giant breasts well, it 
 was not quite proper. 
 
 " Sue," he asked, at last, " is this the first time you've 
 ever read any poetry or had any read to you ? " 
 
 " You seem to think I don't know anything," she 
 said, rather touchily. " A lady came along years ago, 
 and she gave me something by I don't quite remem- 
 ber the name, I think it's Eliza Wilcox. I always did 
 like poetry, especially the funny kind." 
 
 " Funny ? " asked Roger. He reflected that humor- 
 ous verse was not so common. 
 
 " Yes," she said, " there was a very funny one I heard 
 once at a social. I learnt it by heart." 
 
 " D'you remember it ? " asked Eoger, curious. 
 
 " Not much of it," said Sue. " It was called ' The 
 Wreck of the Raspberry Jam." Here's a bit I re- 
 member : 
 
 " One chap was discoursing on Darwin, and said : 
 ' The professor was right through and through. 
 We did, spring from monkeys.' Another one said: 
 ' I believe it when I look at you.' " 
 
 She stopped. " There's some more, but I've forgotten 
 it." 
 
 " Oh," said Roger, " it doesn't matter." 
 She looked at him quickly : " You don't like it ? " 
 " Well," he began, attempting indulgence, " it's 
 hardly " His attempt failed. " After what we've 
 been reading to-night Oh, Sue, it's dreadful, dread- 
 ful. Oh, Sue, don't you understand? This sort of 
 stuff Oh, I don't want to be superior. Only that
 
 SCENT OF DEAD JONQUILS 381 
 
 tit for tat, that sort of cheap answer. It's vulgar, it's 
 cockney. Oh, Sue, this is dreadful, dreadful ! " 
 
 " I don't see anything dreadful in it." 
 
 Roger made a despairing sound. Sue was hurt, so 
 his dejection angered her. She hated him just then as 
 one hates a dog upon whose paw one has trodden. She 
 was vicious : 
 
 " Tell you what, it's a good deal more decent than 
 the broad-breasted what you call it you were reading 
 about." 
 
 " Whitman," said Eoger gloomily. 
 
 " If you ask me, I call it horrid," said Sue. 
 
 " I didn't ask you," he snarled. 
 
 At once he felt abased. A cockney answer from him ! 
 This was contagious. It was not enough that she should 
 have sold him short-weight happiness; now she was 
 going to degrade him in his own eyes. For a moment 
 he thought of her as a vampire flourishing as he with- 
 ered. That gave him a thrill of martyrdom. But he 
 was too young to be a martyr ; he was still a lover, he 
 wanted to take, not give. And here was Sue picking 
 up his phrase. 
 
 " Only thought you'd like to know." 
 
 And he actually replied : 
 
 " Thank you for nothing." 
 
 And she automatically said : " Don't thank me." 
 
 And he thought : " It's a longish way from St. 
 Panwich to Pembroke Square, but it seems shorter the 
 other way about." 
 
 He leapt to his feet ; he felt the need for activity. He 
 switched on the light. For a moment they remained 
 standing before each other, silent and inimical. It was 
 not that they had differed about poetry; it was worse. 
 It was that they found themselves entirely parted by 
 their tastes. And one could not average, one could not 
 compromise between Herrick and " The Wreck of the 
 Raspberry Jam." It seemed horribly serious to him
 
 382 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 who thought that literature must march with love ; seri- 
 ous to her who in a difference of opinion perceived 
 assumption of superiority. He was superior ; she liked 
 to think that, but he must not make her feel it. She 
 wanted to be the eternal female, following her man and 
 pretending that she led him. 
 
 " Good night," she said suddenly. 
 
 He heard her run up-stairs. It was less than a 
 minute before eleven, and he watched the long hand of 
 the clock travel ; it went so slowly. Now that Sue had 
 gone the place looked so queer, so unlike a battlefield, 
 with its bright chintzes, its pastoral prints upon the 
 blue and white paper. The faded peace of the trans- 
 ported eighteenth century was about him. But in him 
 no peace. No anger now, but an immense dejection. 
 He felt with John Davidson : " I see there's nothing 
 right ; I hope to die to-night." (As is customary among 
 poets. Vide Sue.) Hopeless. They could never un- 
 derstand each other. There they were. For ever. It 
 was no use getting angry about it. Better try and 
 make the best of it. He smiled vaguely: didn't Mrs. 
 Groby say that every cloud had a silver lining? He 
 laughed. There wasn't much silver lining to be seen 
 to-night. Then weariness fell heavier upon him. 
 Slowly he filled his pipe and lit it, but he had smoked 
 too much, and it did not quiet him. He thought: 
 " I'll go to bed. After all one can always sleep 
 and escape the sleep of life where too many dreams 
 come." 
 
 As the door closed behind him he heard the clock 
 strike eleven. How swift his thoughts had been! 
 Everything was swift about him now: he undressed; 
 he did not even brush his hair or wash ; he wanted only 
 to sleep. Almost at once he was in blackness. He was 
 uneasy, he stirred. It was oppressive, the hot July 
 night and the calling silence beyond. As he shifted he 
 remembered the horrible lines of Irene McLeod :
 
 SCENT OF DEAD JONQUILS 383 
 
 " Here I lie on a feather bed, 
 With a feather pillow beneath my head, 
 From my feet up to my chin 
 I feel my body sinking in; 
 And though I writhe and turn about 
 I cannot lift my spirit out. . . ." 
 
 First upon his right side and then upon his left, when 
 his cheek had crumpled the pillow. Then no longer 
 upon his left, for he had smoked too much and his 
 heart would beat. He was all nerves now, and the 
 blackness seemed less; he felt feverish. A star stared 
 at him ; he drew the sheet over his head to blot it out, 
 but still his heart beat, and the sheet made a rustling 
 against his ear. He felt hot, oppressed. What was 
 Sue doing? he wondered. He heard no sound in the 
 other room. He wondered whether she were awake. 
 He remembered that other time when he had found 
 her crying. Perhaps she was crying now. Well, he 
 couldn't help it He couldn't do anything for her, 
 any more than she could for him. They'd have to settle 
 down together and make the best of things, that was all. 
 Live a little more separately. But as he lay so, the 
 sheet harsh against his feverish cheek, this idea of 
 independence chilled him. He was like one of the freed 
 slaves after the War of Secession, wondering what to do 
 with his freedom. And a little pity ran through him 
 too, that she should so be left. 
 
 He started. He thought he had heard a faint knock. 
 He listened. All his sinews tightened : it did not come 
 again. He was almost sure she had knocked at his 
 door, and through his anxiety ran an awful conscious- 
 ness that he wished she would knock again. He lis- 
 tened, but still there was no sound save through the open 
 window the soughing of the night wind in the trees. 
 With sharpened senses he heard many sounds now, 
 horses moving in the mews, distant train rumblings at 
 Addison Road, and subtler sounds, the cracking of wood,
 
 384 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 the movements in the fabric of the house that go on in- 
 terminably as it decays. Through all that he listened 
 for the sound of a knock. 
 
 It did not come. He was conscious in himself of a 
 struggle, a complex struggle, an insurgent hope that all 
 might be well, fear lest again something cruel and vulgar 
 might come and, above all, anxiety to end the present 
 anxiety. It was as if some incorporeal thing tugged 
 at him. He leapt out of bed. He was curiously de- 
 tached, for he noticed the cold floor against his feet. 
 He pulled the door open. There, framed in the door- 
 way, like a ghost in her nightgown, stood Sue. In the 
 moonlight her feet upon the dark carpet were as those 
 of a corpse. She stood, not looking at him, with little 
 dark hands clasped against her breast, abandoned, 
 suppliant. She did not say anything as he seized 
 her, drew her in. ISTor did he know what he wanted 
 to say. Perhaps nothing; perhaps he was merely 
 trying to reconquer by emotion what his intellect re- 
 jected. 
 
 She was all pliant in his arms, and she too said noth- 
 ing. She knew only that she had been very unhappy 
 for a long time and that in his arms everything seemed 
 all right. She was passive ; she did not even clasp him 
 to her, but just yielded herself in his arms. She felt 
 touched with guilt as if once she had refused herself to 
 him. She wanted into his hands to remit herself, into 
 his hands . . . 
 
 And now, still silent and close-clasped they lay in 
 each other's arms ; unquestioning, unexplaining, they so 
 lay, breast to breast with mingled breaths, yet they 
 clasped between them a shadow that watched them. 
 They could see it as they clasped and kissed, the inde- 
 cent shadow of despair, daunting and grinning and cold. 
 They hated it, seeing it so well and for its despite they 
 clasped closer, strove more to dominate and to enjoy. 
 Warm against each other, animate with desire, they
 
 SCENT OF DEAD JONQUILS 385 
 
 fought the shadow. Koger found himself drawing the 
 sheet over their heads as if to blot out the thing that 
 would not go. She knew too, for suddenly her passivity 
 deserted her ; she flung hot arms about his neck. Yes, 
 they had their minute, the minute when with fled 
 thoughts they knew only what they could touch, the 
 actual. They were each other's then and violently con- 
 scious that each one was the other's, conquest and con- 
 queror in one. He knew her as he had never known her 
 before, the touch, the warmth of her, the lines of her 
 body, the texture and the scent of her hair, the consented 
 wedding of their very essence. Conquest rather than 
 sacrifice, and determination by mutual conquest to 
 efface the hanging thing that watched. So he ground 
 her in his arms, perhaps that she might no longer her- 
 self be but become him, become a " them ", faultless in 
 each other's eyes because made of both. Later, even 
 such thoughts as those grew too transcendental. They 
 knew only that they were man and woman, desirous and 
 young. They were violent, they were anxious. But in 
 their extremity, when at the crest of their delight, when 
 speech ceded to murmurs, a doom hung over their 
 achieved embrace. It was the love-making of two peo- 
 ple who did not love each other any more . . . 
 
 Much later in the night he sat up. The dawn was 
 breaking, swiftly driving her rosy chariot behind her 
 orange steeds. Sue lay asleep, the dark cheek indented 
 upon the pillow, the hair curling like fern fronds, the 
 long lashes making blue shadows upon the olive cheek. 
 She smiled as she slept with the dew of morning upon 
 her red open lips, as if in the night had come with sat- 
 isfaction reassurance. But he sat looking at her, his 
 hands clasping his knees. There she lay in her love- 
 liness, who not long before had indeed loved him, whom 
 not long before he had loved. But a few short hours 
 and in each other they had forgotten the world, thought 
 to expel it. Kow the world was waking, and the rosy
 
 386 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 chariot of dawn already blenched in the rising sun. 
 Day was coming, and with day the truth. It could not 
 always be cloaking night ; with the sun must come that 
 shadow which for a moment they had blotted out.
 
 PART THE FOURTH 
 
 LEAVES OF HOLLY
 
 Plus me plaist le sejour qu'ont basty mes ayeux, 
 Que des palais Remains le front audacieux : 
 Plus que le mafbre dur me plaist 1'ardoise fine, 
 
 Plus mon Loyre Gaulois, que le Tybre Latin, 
 Plus mon petit Lyre, que le mont Palatin, 
 Et plus que 1'air marin la doulceur Angevine. 
 
 (Joachim du Bellay.)
 
 CHAPTER THE FIRST 
 
 EAMSGATE SANDS 
 
 Sun sat upon the beach in a striped twopenny chair. 
 Her rather awkward fingers struggled with a piece of 
 drawn-thread work while Mrs. Cawder by her side en- 
 couraged her. She leaned over. " Now be careful, 
 count, twelve threads." Sue obediently counted and 
 prepared to cut. " Wait," said Mrs. Cawder anx- 
 iously, " don't cut yet." They counted again. 
 " There ! you'd thirteen. You must be very careful ; 
 if you cut the wrong one the thing's spoiled." 
 
 " Yes, Mrs. Cawder," said Sue obediently, then 
 blushed, for she knew she ought not to have said " Mrs. 
 Cawder." 
 
 It seemed so rude, the way these people had of talk- 
 ing, their grunts, and " whats " and blunt " Yeses " 
 and " Noes." Still, that was society. They went on 
 with their work, both of them, Mrs. Cawder merely 
 knitting a muffler, for her eyes, she said, were too weak 
 for drawn-thread work. She was extraordinarily old. 
 She was one of those old ladies with beautiful white 
 hair and a complexion like brown ivory, the kind that 
 has perfect hands and wears slightly starched, very 
 delicate laces. Chloe, a grandmother ! 
 
 The work was difficult, but Sue liked to think she was 
 doing it instead of knitting stockings ; it felt so refined. 
 She put it down for a moment, thinking how refined she 
 was getting. 
 
 Sue was rather pleased with herself that morning on 
 Broadstairs beach. She knew that Miss Ponkey had
 
 390 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 done her good ; also she liked Miss Ponkey and her way 
 of saying, " I quite understand." One ended by be- 
 lieving that, and it was comfortable. In a way she felt 
 quite the lady ; her white suede shoes, they too were 
 quite the lady. In ten months she had become con- 
 scious of the difference between her mother and her old 
 friends on the one hand and her new friends on the 
 other. She felt she could say the right thing, well, 
 not always but now and then. She had ventured into 
 art criticism after seeing Mr. Percy Bigland's picture, 
 " Life." She thought it a wonderful picture : A 
 youth standing near an abyss by the side of a beautiful 
 girl. He was about to plunge into the unknown but 
 was held back by a vision, the Christ in a dazzling 
 gleam. The maiden by his side, a glowing emblem of 
 the whirling pleasures of the world, tried in vain to 
 shut out the vision by shading his eyes with her hand. 
 The light still streamed through. She found that Mrs. 
 Forncett also liked that picture very much. That had 
 led to Mrs. Forncett's trying to teach her to play golf, 
 which was not exactly the lesson of the picture and its 
 emblems of an enticing world. Sue had gone further ; 
 she had given a tea party on her own and carried it off 
 pretty well : she was not very well up in the pleasures 
 of the town, but she made .great play with the Tate 
 Gallery which everybody else guiltily felt they had not 
 visited for years; that gave Sue superiority. And 
 when she said that Puccini's music was the passion of 
 a literary hairdresser her success was enormous. 
 Other things too : she could take a taxi now, not without 
 consciousness but without fear; and she could tip the 
 man twopence instead of sixpence, which she had done 
 as soon as she realised that she ought to tip at all. All 
 this had not made her happy; she thought it had, but 
 as she grew familiar with surrounding comfort what 
 it had done was to make her feel swollen and important, 
 which is almost the same thing. She even realised that
 
 RAMSGATE SANDS 391 
 
 The Toiler and The Bystander were more in her new 
 line than the halfpenny picture papers. The Bystander 
 lay on the sand just then with The Sphere. Yes, these 
 papers too were quite the lady. Mrs. Cawder had 
 Country Life; Sue felt that it must be very good be- 
 cause it was so thick. Apparently there were still 
 altitudes to climb, but she was getting on. It was a 
 little bleak though, up there. 
 
 Never before had Roger been to a place such as 
 Broadstairs. Most of his holidays, as a boy, had been 
 spent at St. Olaves, digging for rabbits and fishing for 
 dace in the Char. Later he had gone on walking tours 
 with other Gabriel men in Switzerland and Belgium. 
 His inclination now lay towards the more arty 
 places, Pulborough and Winchelsea, or Cornwall (where 
 the modern novel comes from). But somehow he did 
 not want to hide with Sue in a deserted country. An 
 obscure instinct in him told him not to stress the con- 
 trast between their habits until that contrast was less. 
 Of course he did not tell himself that, for it was the 
 truth. He told himself that Settlement work would 
 require him from time to time in London. Also The- 
 resa had settled at Grove Ferry, giving as reasons that 
 she had never heard of anybody going there, which 
 meant that it would be restful ; also she liked the sugges- 
 tion of the grove and the ferry. Roger reflected that 
 Broadstairs was not far from Grove Ferry, so he could 
 well, one wanted and, damn it all, why shouldn't 
 he be near Theresa ? 
 
 They were not uncomfortable at the hotel; it was 
 rather a quiet little hotel, and the guests were not as 
 repulsive as they might have been. It was mainly a 
 military and golfy sort of society, with a hint of ad- 
 venture and irregularity, as represented by Miss 
 Grange. A rather rosy young novelist with a short 
 moustache, who had drifted through the hotel, com- 
 mented upon the openings of Miss Grange's blouses and
 
 392 THE STRANGERS* WEDDING 
 
 christened them " world without end ", adding that if 
 he were in Trouville instead of Broadstairs he would 
 try to say Amen. There was Captain Saltaire too, who 
 expressed powerful emotions Ly means of monosyllables ; 
 It was a way they had in the Buffs. Sue was not 
 unhappy in this society ; it was well-bred, so its members 
 gazed at each other with an air of contempt and hatred. 
 They did not thrust themselves upon each other. She 
 exchanged a few words with some of the women while 
 they washed. It had not been a success, for she puzzled 
 them; they were suspicious, and they looked at her as 
 if through a lorgnette. She got on best with Miss 
 Grange, because Miss Grange was so pretty and seemed 
 so lonely, and had a fat old uncle staying with her who 
 never would leave her. Sue felt sorry for her, for 
 people were not at all nice to poor Miss Grange and 
 her uncle, except Captain Saltaire. No, she reflected, 
 they were all rather cats except dear old Mrs. Cawder 
 with whom she sat. She was often with her, for Mr. 
 Cawder was a great golfer and passed, it seemed, all 
 his time from dawn to sunset on the links. He took 
 Roger with him too. She did not like that but supposed 
 it was good for him. And so she sat in silent com- 
 panionship with the old lady, painfully counting 
 threads, afraid lest she should cut the wrong one, now 
 and then snatching a glance at the few swimmers who 
 from time to time came out of the hotel in bath robes. 
 It was not thronged, but it was amiable, refinedly ami- 
 able, screamless. The little boys made sand castles 
 silently and efficiently, just as they would build bridges 
 by and by in India. And the little girls sat with their 
 nurses, reading L. T. Meade and Grace Aguilar. It 
 was pleasant, it was morning, and soft brightness fell 
 from the air. 
 
 Miss Grange and her uncle came out of the hotel. 
 He did look large in that bath gown, and why did 
 he cord it so low as to make himself look larger ? And
 
 RAMSGATE SANDS 393 
 
 she so pretty, like a little girl who somehow was big. 
 Miss Grange threw off her bath robe at the edge of the 
 water, and Sue felt a pang of envy. Oh, the pretty 
 bathing dress ! Pink silk ! It was a little discomfort- 
 ing to Sue for, well, pink one didn't look very much 
 dressed. But Miss Grange wore pink silk stockings 
 and bathing shoes with tango lacings. Sue remem- 
 bered that when bathing the day before she had actually 
 gone in without stockings. In the water were two other 
 women also in stockings. Her heart grew heavy: 
 yes, she had done it again. She wondered, however, 
 whether even if everybody did wear stockings when they 
 bathed she should do so too ; she now had enough social 
 usage to know that a thing was not necessarily right 
 when everybody did it. Dared she ask? She looked 
 at Mrs. Cawder sideways ; the old lady smiled. 
 
 " Well, my dear," she said, " what is it ? " 
 
 Sue felt she wanted to kiss her. 
 
 " I was thinking, Mrs. . . ." She caught herself up 
 in time. " I don' wear stockings when I bathe ; they 
 feel so sticky when you're wet." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " D'you think I ought to wear stockings ? " 
 
 Mrs. Cawder looked at her affectionately. 
 
 " My dear, it's just as you like." The old lady won- 
 dered for a moment how it was that Sue should ask her 
 this. There was something funny about the girl. 
 Sweet, of course ; much more than pretty. But what 
 was it? Was it Tooting or what? She had not the 
 heart to leave her perplexed. " If you want my honest 
 opinion," she said, " I prefer stockings. But I'm quite 
 Victorian, my dear; I'm almost Georgian. I just tell 
 you because you ask me." 
 
 " Thank you so much," said Sue emotionally. She 
 wished Mrs. Cawder would adopt her and tell her things 
 in that nice insinuating way. But still, the fact re- 
 mained that she had bathed without stockings. They
 
 394 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 wore stockings on Olympus, and there she went stock- 
 ingless. And heaven only knew what else wrong she 
 had done or was doing. She remembered her mother's 
 frequent remark and almost made it aloud : " It's a 
 weary world." 
 
 Captain Saltaire, who had been watching Miss 
 Grange as she carefully entered the water and stopped 
 as it reached her knees to turn and smile at the numer- 
 ous men who were pretending not to see her, grew 
 conscious of the bulky uncle ; he seemed rather specially 
 to disapprove of him. Languid he came towards them. 
 
 " Mornin'," he said, as if he were thinking of some- 
 thing else. 
 
 Mrs. Cawder asked him how he had done in the tennis 
 tournament the day before. 
 
 " Went down in the first round. Don't mind. Too 
 hot for tennis." 
 
 Mrs. Cawder smiled. 
 
 " You are slack, you young men, nowadays. Why 
 don't you start a cup and ball competition \ " 
 
 " Not half bad idea. I could do with a cup if there 
 was somethin' in it." 
 
 The soldier's distrait eyes rested upon Sue. She was 
 a damned fine girl, he thought, and married too. Well, 
 that wasn't against her; they were easier when they 
 were married. Must say something to her. He looked 
 at Mrs. Cawder eloquently, and the old lady, sensitive 
 to his interest, introduced them. He bent down to look 
 at the drawn-thread work and at the strong brown 
 hands. 
 
 " Can't make out how you do it," he murmured ; 
 " used to know a chap who went in for tapestry. He 
 was a sapper," he added hurriedly. " They're all a 
 bit cracked, you know. Still, wish I was up to it ; gives 
 a fellow something to think about." 
 
 Sue looked up at him ; she was blushing a little. She 
 felt impelled to offer to teach him. She nearly did,
 
 RAMSGATE SANDS 395 
 
 for Mrs. Cawder was there; alone she would not have 
 dared. She said : 
 
 " You just draw as many threads as you want and 
 then you work the pattern with a needle and cotton." 
 
 " Yes," said Captain Saltaire, meaning " No ", un- 
 stirred save by the dark flush on her cheeks. " Fright- 
 fully interestin'. What's it for ? Antimacassar ? " 
 
 " I don't know," said Sue. " Mrs. Cawder says we 
 can send it to the rector's sale of work when it's done, 
 but I don't think it'll fetch much." She grew thought- 
 ful. " I wonder how much those things are worth ? 
 One might make quite a good living at it." She looked 
 at Mrs. Cawder enviously. " If one worked as fast as 
 you, why, one might make quite a pound a week at it." 
 
 " Keep you in cigarettes," said Saltaire, smiling. 
 
 Sue did not hear ; she went on talking rather more to 
 herself than to her companions, wondering whether 
 drawn-thread sold better than crochet, comparing the 
 price of lace in Eegent Street and in Westbourne Grove. 
 Captain Saltaire looked bored. Also Miss Grange 
 came out of the water and began to dry in the sun the 
 perfect silk stockings with the tango lacings. He 
 strolled away after a while, and there was a very long 
 silence, nearly a quarter of an hour. Sue felt she had 
 done something, said something. She was not really 
 getting on, she felt. She had got on with certain peo- 
 ple, but she was not getting on with all of them. At last 
 she had to ask Mrs. Cawder. 
 
 " I don't quite see what you mean, my dear," said the 
 old lady. " Of course he was not offended." 
 
 " I thought . . ." 
 
 " Well, you couldn't expect him to be interested in 
 what those things cost, could you ? " 
 
 " No." Sue detected a coldness. " Mrs. Cawder," 
 she whispered, and remembered that people did not dis- 
 cuss these things and wondered why, " tell me, p'raps I 
 oughtn't to have talked about what those things cost ? "
 
 396 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 The old lady looked at her for a while unsmiling: 
 what should she say to this charming child who seemed 
 so uneducated and made such an incomprehensible com- 
 bination with that nice husband of hers ? . Of course, 
 she did rather impossible things, but could she tell her ? 
 She ought to, but ... So she gathered up her knit- 
 ting and said : " My dear, one of these days, when you 
 feel inclined, tell me a little about yourself. Not now, 
 I'm going now, only if you feel inclined. Life's 
 rather difficult; we must make of it what we can. 
 That's more difficult even than drawn-thread work." 
 
 When Sue was alone she felt that she could cry. Ex- 
 posed somehow, doing wrong, young and not being told, 
 and Roger away all day playing golf, so he didn't care ; 
 nobody else told her, nobody else cared. A boy with a 
 tray of sweets passed; she bought some chocolates and 
 covertly ate them, not at all sure that she might do that 
 on the beach, though she had an idea that eating on the 
 beach was not the same thing as eating in the street. 
 Still, the chocolates were full of cream, and soon she 
 felt a little better. 
 
 II 
 
 " IVe asked Theresa to lunch," said Roger, " she's 
 coming to-morrow." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Sue. " Is she coming down from Lon- 
 don?" 
 
 " No," said Roger, " she's at Grove Ferry." 
 
 " Where's Grove Ferry ? " 
 
 " Quite near here, about half an hour in the train." 
 
 " Oh! " said Sue thoughtfully. " Half an hour in 
 the train. How long has she been there ? " 
 
 " I don't know, some time." 
 
 " Has she been there ever since we came ? " 
 
 " I think so. Yes, she has." 
 
 Sue thought for a little while.
 
 RAMSGATE SANDS 397 
 
 " Funny she didn't tell me. I saw her just before we 
 left. Told you, didn't she ? " 
 
 Roger stared: " Told me? Of course she told me 
 but what : what the devil d'you mean by this ? " 
 He hated himself; this was the second time he had 
 sworn at a woman, and the Huncotes did not do that. 
 At least that was their tradition: they did swear at 
 them, and occasionally they beat them, as they occasion- 
 ally drank too much port. But family pride had erased 
 these facts from the family records. 
 
 Sue nearly replied : " What I say," but this had 
 caused trouble before, and she was not angry yet; she 
 was only piqued. " I didn't mean anything, Eoger, 
 only it seems funny she should tell you and not me." 
 
 " Now look here, if you're jealous, if we're going to 
 have a scene, let's have it at once." 
 
 " It's you who are making a scene," said Sue. 
 
 " I'm not making a scene," Roger shouted. He won- 
 dered what was coming over him ; in these days he could 
 not control his temper. " Only when I find you ques- 
 tioning me and hinting at heaven knows what, just be- 
 cause Theresa's a friend of mine, and I like to go and 
 see her and talk to her now and then . . ." 
 
 " Oh ? " Sue interrupted. Then very slowly : " So 
 you've been to see her, Roger, on the q.t. ? " 
 
 She wished she had not said that, Ada Nuttall's 
 fault. Her husband looked at her with a hard face. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " I've been to see her, and what if I 
 have?" 
 
 " You might have told me." 
 
 " Why ? " 
 
 " It doesn't look nice for a married man to go run- 
 ning after a single lady." 
 
 " Don't say ' single lady.' I've already told you." 
 
 " Well, after a girl then." 
 
 " I'm not running after her." 
 
 " Then why didn't you tell me ? "
 
 398 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 " Oh ! " Koger burst out, " how do I know ? Don't 
 you understand that one sometimes wants to have a little 
 private life with one's personal friends ? Things one 
 doesn't talk about to everybody ? " 
 
 " When a man's married . . ." Sue began. 
 
 He interrupted and swore again: yes, that was it. 
 Sue would never understand. Marriage: rabbits in a 
 hutch, all that. And beastly suspicious if one tried to 
 escape for five minutes. He told her that, and Sue, who 
 until then had been calm, grew angry. For long min- 
 utes, face to face with clenched hands, they showered 
 upon each other short, angry little taunts. He was 
 running after Theresa. Yes, he was. 
 
 " You don't seem to understand . . ." 
 
 " Well, I know that much." 
 
 "You think people can't know each other without 
 there being something wrong in it." 
 
 " A fat lot you know about what I think." 
 
 " But why don't you tell me instead of sulking ? " 
 
 "Call me sulky? Me?" 
 
 They hated each other, they hated themselves. She 
 felt unjust because she trusted him and yet could not 
 cease abusing him. And he hated himself because his 
 conduct was guiltless and he felt, as he hated this 
 woman and remembered the other, a growth of guilty 
 desire. According to their moral standards both were 
 pure, and so they hated each other and themselves, be- 
 cause their quarrel was driving them towards what they 
 thought impure. They had no knowledge of the world, 
 no cynicism; they were paying the penalty of having 
 been chaste in thought and deed ; they were suffering be- 
 cause they thought too highly of a faithfulness which 
 each was driving the other to abandon.
 
 RAMSGATE SANDS 399 
 
 III 
 
 Roger Huncote thought of a phrase of Pierre Veber : 
 " Tout s' arrange." It did, in a way, arrange itself. 
 Xo doubt the harem favourite in the sack arranges 
 herself more or less with the cat and the snake in the 
 Bosphorus when all three begin to drown. 
 
 Sue was very unhappy. She was viewing her hus- 
 band more impersonally than she had ever viewed any 
 human being. This man with whom she had thought 
 to achieve perfect unity was a stranger. If she had 
 known the world she would have called him a prig; 
 as it was, she only reflected that he did not talk to her 
 as to other people. He was dull and, not knowing that 
 she irritated him, she thought him bad tempered. He 
 was not correcting her much now ; that pleased her, for 
 it made life more comfortable, and it did not strike her 
 that he cared less. But they were civilised people; he 
 very much so, she more or less ; they preserved the outer 
 graces of conversation, and at meals new arrivals 
 thought they looked a charming young 1 couple. They 
 even mixed more intimately. One evening, while 
 Roger was dressing, Sue came into his bedroom and 
 wandered about, looking at the water colours upon the 
 wall and at his studs. She observed him brushing his 
 teeth. That made her talk. 
 
 " You oughtn't to use so much tooth powder, Roger," 
 she said. " They say it rubs the enamel off. Not that 
 you don't want it now and then, smoking such a lot as 
 you do. There's a special sort for smokers, isn't there ? 
 Smoker's tooth powder, they call it. I'm glad I don't 
 smoke, makes one's teeth go so yellow, don't you think ? 
 Still one has to use some tooth powder sometimes. 
 Those mouth washes they advertise in the papers, they 
 don't do as well, do they? I don't believe that Zena 
 Dare only uses what the advertisements say she does. 
 She's got such a pretty smile, don't you think ? "
 
 400 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 She paused as lie did not reply and then went on 
 nervously as if she could not stop: 
 
 " There's paste too, stuff you, rub the brush on. I 
 always think it's too soapy, don't you? Frothing up 
 in your mouth like anything. Of course that's best if 
 you've got a hard brush, makes it softer. I don't like 
 a hard brush, do you ? Hurts one if one isn't careful. 
 I always think you've got to stand it in the glass for the 
 water to soften it a bit. Only one mustn't forget to 
 dry it, must one ? They say it gets musty if you don't, 
 and all the bristles fall out ..." 
 
 He did not reply. He went on brushing his hair; 
 perhaps he was not listening. She was talking more 
 than she used now that she was surer of herself. And 
 what a topic ! But, as if she did not notice, she went 
 on from tooth brushes in general to tooth brushes with 
 close bristles, and distant bristles, to long bristles and 
 short bristles, and then back again to mouth washes, to 
 a spirited comparison between Odol and Sozodont. He 
 had finished brushing his hair now and was putting on 
 his collar. 
 
 The early violence of his desire for her had gone. 
 Their young passion had turned into a convention. On 
 the night when Sue recited " The Wreck of the Rasp- 
 berry Jam " it had turned into a mere protest. He had 
 never been her companion, he was not even her mate. 
 He seemed always to be thinking of something and never 
 about her. She realised that and thought : " I'm all 
 alone." The world seemed so large to her who had been 
 born in a little corner of it. The world had seemed so 
 gorgeous and so impersonal from afar, a sort of Albert 
 Hall where, of course, you would not go alone but al- 
 ways with somebody you loved very much in the next 
 seat. Now the seat was empty and she sat alone in the 
 Albert Hall of life. She felt cold and frightened; she 
 exaggerated her own importance. She thought that 
 everybody stared at the vacant seat next to her and
 
 RAMSGATE SANDS 401 
 
 wondered why nobody sat in it. She was very lonely. 
 She used to go up-stairs and down-stairs, pretending to 
 fetch something, just to have something to do, to walk 
 up and down the front all alone, envying the couples. 
 She too had been in. Arcadia long ago, and she did not 
 know why she had been turned out. Or had she really 
 been in Arcadia ? " It's like a dream," she thought. 
 
 It had indeed been a dream come to her in the sleep 
 of life. And now, dreamless, she slept. She went for 
 little walks. She went to the railway station to see the 
 trains come in. It was funny on the bridge, for she re- 
 membered the little boys who used to hang over a 
 bridge like that in St. Panwich and try to spit upon the 
 engine driver as the trains went by. She liked the 
 station. Everybody seemed so excited at meeting 
 everybody or sorry to see them go. For Sue was a true 
 woman and understood only the emotions : pain of part- 
 ing, joy of meeting, love fulfilled, envy of clothes, fear 
 of pain, all those things she understood, and some of 
 them were in the railway station, that gate at which so 
 many delights enter and so many die. 
 
 She had not after all told Mrs. Cawder about herself. 
 She had thought of telling her a romantic story, of how 
 she was the daughter of " an ancient house of high lin- 
 eage " who had been kidnapped in infancy by gipsies. 
 Then one day she was recognised owing to a coronated 
 handkerchief when she was singing ... in the snow, 
 of course, in the snow. Or, on the other hand, she could 
 be a Mystery, something foreign and rather royal, who 
 was just pretending to be, what did they call it? yes, 
 incorknito, just for a quiet life. Or she might tell her 
 the truth, washtub and all. But when it came to it she 
 could not. Sue tried to talk to Miss Grange too, but 
 was horrified because Miss Grange responded and told 
 her three stories, one of which she could not even under- 
 stand. The other two made her shudder, especially as 
 the sweet little mouth of the sweet little girl, who hap-
 
 402 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 pened to be big, expressed at the end views on men which 
 she decorated with every adjective Sue had heard in the 
 mouths of the draymen in St. Panwich High Street. 
 It was horrible ; like a lily growing in a cesspool. And 
 to make it worse Miss Grange's uncle arrived and, when 
 Miss Grange was not looking, took Sue by the arm and 
 winked at her. It made her sick, for his eyelid was so 
 fat that when he winked it looked like a pink sausage 
 moving. , 
 
 She found herself getting friendly with Lizzie, the 
 chambermaid. She took to going up to her bedroom 
 after breakfast and talking to Lizzie while she did the 
 room. Lizzie was small and very fair and thought Sue 
 lovely. She told her, and Sue liked that. Also she 
 hinted she'd seen a deal of trouble and had a young man, 
 'Enry, a stoker in the P. & O., whose photograph she 
 showed Sue on the third morning. Lizzie liked Sue, 
 and she got into trouble now and then for wasting time, 
 for she liked to talk to Sue, vaguely feeling that she 
 need not call her M'am too often, and discussing whether 
 she'd be well-advised to buy that second-hand coal scuttle 
 they had in a shop at Margate. Lizzie was getting the 
 little home together while the mysterious 'Enry stoked 
 on the China seas. It was very grateful to Sue, this 
 plunge into something she could understand: Lizzie in 
 heaven by and by, in one room near Tilbury Docks, 
 managing nicely on fifteen bob a week, counting what 
 she earned, and 'Enry coming back very much in love 
 every few months. But suddenly she realised it would 
 not do. She was sliding back. This intimacy was 
 pulling her down. She was a lady now, and she could 
 not do the nice things people did who weren't ladies. 
 So, the next morning, Lizzie fussed and waited in vain 
 in the bedroom, for Sue did not come up. She had re- 
 proached herself for this backsliding; her poor little 
 edifice of importance and self-satisfaction was collaps- 
 ing like a bit of sugar in a cup of tea.
 
 RAMSGATE SANDS 403 
 
 IV 
 
 That morning was Bank Holiday. Sue stood out- 
 side the hotel a little excited because it was Bank Holi- 
 day. There was Bank Holiday in the air. It awoke 
 old feelings, raised old Bank Holidays that had come 
 like saturnalia, then gone to glamour. There was agi- 
 tation even in Broadstairs and down the sunny little 
 street that curls away towards the front ; she thought she 
 could hear upon the refined beach music less refined. A 
 couple passed by, from London obviously ; the lady was 
 carrying the gentleman's stick. They were laughing; 
 they were passing her by, and she felt envious and left. 
 They were nearing the corner. She heard him say: 
 " Have a banana ? " And then they were round the cor- 
 ner, and she was left upon the steps of the hotel in a 
 pique frock, with a champagne-coloured sweater, refined 
 and alone. 
 
 A few yards away a motorbus, marked Ramsgate, was 
 rumbling eagerly, as if it wanted to be off. It was not 
 very full yet, for Broadstairs probably intended to be 
 orgiastic in its own discreet way. The conductor was 
 anxious to fill up, and Sue upon the steps all alone 
 inspired him : " Come on ! Come on, lidy ! All for 
 Ramsgit! Come on, lidy! Run you down t' the 
 briny in arf an hour." 
 
 Sue smiled ; the conductor smiled back : " Come on, 
 lidy, yer don't want t' miss Bank 'Oliday. Ah! I 
 can see yer want t'go, lidy. That's right! 'Ave a 
 little bit o' wot yer fancy; I think it does yer 
 good." 
 
 Sue was aware of tumultuous emotions. She had 
 Bank Holidayed before now, generally at Southend. 
 He was a thrilling conductor, and half the busload was 
 laughing at him and at her, not unkindly. Bank Hol- 
 iday! Pierrots! Cocoanuts! The slumbrous past! 
 Why not? Roger was playing golf, and even if he
 
 404 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 wasn't, she thought, he wouldn't miss her. She did not 
 pause, she leapt into the bus and, as if spider-like the 
 bus had waited only for her, it quivered with excite- 
 ment and with a roaring rasp bore her off, thrilled and 
 terrified, as Proserpina in the embrace of Pluto. They 
 were not quite bank-holidayish in the bus ; some came 
 from Margate and implied that they came from Clifton- 
 ville; a few were from Broadstairs. Nobody ate any- 
 thing, and she heard a large red woman say that she 
 wanted to see what Bank Holiday was like. That was 
 why she was going to Ramsgate. But in any case she 
 would not much have noticed her companions then. 
 She was an escaped school-girl out of bounds, and the 
 flat fields of Thanet, accursed tram-soiled isle, fields of 
 mangy grass and dirty earth, seemed an Eden. 
 
 She was in Eamsgate. She was afraid. There was 
 heat and dust, and music in the air. For a moment she 
 stopped where the bus had put her down, looking at the 
 old Victorian houses with their narrow verandahs of 
 wrought iron, at " Chatsworth ", at " Greville Tow- 
 ers" (otherwise known as Number 42), all of them 
 board-residences or apartments, all more or less To Let, 
 each one with its drawing-room, each one with its aspi- 
 distra in a pot, one aspidistra in a green pot with a 
 pink sash, one aspidistra in a yellow pot with a blue 
 sash . . . 
 
 She was afraid, afraid of the mob. The mob came 
 marching down continuously from the railway station, 
 meeting other mobs from the station near the sands, the 
 mobs from the tramways, the mobs from the busses and 
 the charabancs, the little mobs that trickled from the 
 apartments houses. She was shouldered, she was jos- 
 tled and, oh delirium, she was winked at. But already 
 she was afraid of being seen, all alone like that. It felt 
 frightfully lonely in the Bank Holiday crowd, that hec- 
 tic London crowd, its men with the earthy faces, its
 
 RAMSGATE SANDS 405 
 
 tired girls, its rouged girls, its rowdy boys with wood- 
 bines stuck to their under-lip, its fat black Jewish flap- 
 pers from Mile End. She was afraid and also she was 
 hungry. Oh, why had she been so quick ? Why hadn't 
 she even brought sandwiches which she could eat in a 
 quiet place ? She laughed at herself. " A quiet place 
 in Eamsgate ! " She thought : " Can't stand here all 
 day," and it struck her that to eat would help her to 
 hide. She went into an Italian restaurant under the 
 arches, a steaming little place where the perspiration of 
 waiters, the persistent smell of steak and onions, and the 
 aroma of gold flake assailed her, reminiscent and, 
 therefore, delicious. She sat down at a little table with 
 two stranger girls; she did not know how happy she 
 was: here was neither caviare nor white paint. She 
 would like to have talked to the girls who, looking at 
 her suspiciously as if they thought she was not quite one 
 of them, carried on a continual and exciting conversa- 
 tion about somebody they called " they." She caught 
 snatches of it now and then. 
 
 " They wouldn't let me go, and what could I do ? 
 And there I was, and the last train gorn, so I said to 
 'em, it's all very well, I said, I'll be locked out, I 
 said . . ." 
 
 Sue struggled with a very tough leg of cold fowl and 
 listened hard. But there was too much noise. The 
 three waiters filled the room with shrill, musical Italian, 
 corks popped, forks clattered on plates, and a family 
 party next to her alternately smacked and soothed its 
 children. And a young couple distracted her. He was 
 doing her proud with a bottle of ginger ale done up in 
 tin foil " just like champagne wine." But they ate and 
 drank only at intervals. The two sat unashamedly 
 hand in hand, shoulder against shoulder. Sue thought 
 of a snatch : " Joshua, Joshua ! Sweeter than straw- 
 berries and cream, you are." She sighed, for it hurt 
 her a little, and she ate quickly as if she wanted to get
 
 406 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 away, out in the open where she could be more person- 
 ally alone. The girls were still whispering. 
 
 " Oo, rather. 'E's a gentleman." 
 
 "No!" 
 
 " Tell you 'e is. 'E's a medical student, 'e is. Den- 
 tal." 
 
 She went out again, fed and unsatisfied. She felt 
 just a little stuck up, for this was the first time she had 
 lunched alone at a restaurant : Bank Holiday. She had 
 lunched late, and those who had not left the boarding 
 houses clustered in their front gardens. There were 
 large groups of young men with faces inflamed by the 
 sun, all grades from pink to purple, bearing all kinds of 
 blisters from mere fray to vaccination patch: they had 
 not long been by the sea. The Jewish boarding houses 
 with the mysterious lettering drew her perhaps more 
 than any, for there the families, dark, fat, extensively 
 dressed, reposed in each other's abundant bosoms, some- 
 what sleepy after food, conscious of its cost, grand- 
 mother, grandfather, hoyden, and little child, uncle and 
 every aunt they had ever had . . . 
 
 It was half-past two ; Ramsgate was at the full of its 
 holiday. She went out upon the front where a military 
 band was playing musical comedy successes to thousands 
 and thousands of chairs, each one tenanted, some of 
 them tenanted by two, and round them the vast mobs 
 that looked black and white as the light dresses of the 
 girls mixed with the men's dark city suits. White 
 straw hats with 'varsity ribbons, regimental colours 
 combined with silk hats. She could hardly move. At 
 every step she butted into young men that begged par- 
 don, or into girls who sniffed at her sweater. She felt 
 conscious of her champagne sweater among all those 
 others, mostly sky blue or pink. A heat and a dust rose 
 about her towards the sky that was as a blue pearl. 
 Everywhere round her was laughing and canoodling 
 ancj. spopning. Yes, indeed, for fhere was a swirl in.
 
 RAMSGATE SANDS 407 
 
 the crowd and towards her, clearing all before them 
 came six boys, with six fags in their six mouths, who as 
 they smoked swaggered and sang: 
 
 "If the man in the moon 
 
 Were a coon, 
 Would you spoon 
 With the man in the moon ? . . ." 
 
 She could not help laughing; they were all laughing 
 as the boys passed. Voices blended into a solid hum. 
 The band streaked it; "Tara! Tara! Tantara!" 
 screamed its trumpets. And the voice of an ice- 
 cream vender : " Hoy ! Hoy ! Hokey-pokey ! Penny a 
 lump ! " All were gay, even the Jewish flappers who, 
 dressed up, went in pairs telling each other about their 
 rich relations in Hampstead. It was all so violent and 
 alive that somehow she no longer felt alone. She looked 
 at her neighbours, smiled at them and they at her. 
 But at once she grew afraid of being seen. No, she 
 must not stay here. She thought of the sands. 
 
 There they lay, just under the front, the illimitable 
 yellow sands, so vast, so flat, that the thousands of 
 striped chairs dotted everywhere made but small marks. 
 There lay the sands, and there was no sea, for the end- 
 less line of bathing machines obscured it, the bathing 
 machines, each one with its little knot of two or three 
 waiting their turn, and its smart rowdy keeping an 
 open eye for scanty costumes. Only on one or two 
 places, in gaps between the machines, could she see the 
 sea. It was full, full. There was no water near the 
 edge but only a bobbing mass of red and blue bathing 
 dresses, masses of children that screamed and plunged 
 among the adults who never got wet above their waists. 
 From the sands towards her rose the vast clamour of 
 the crowd which all the time she could see reinforced by 
 the steady black and white streams that still came 
 down from the railway station. Far stretched the
 
 408 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 sands. Farther on she could see where tennis courts 
 had been marked out for the people to play pat-ball, or 
 where games of cricket had hurriedly been organised. 
 Strokes were being clapped, cheered. She heard hur- 
 rahs, bravos, mouth-organs. Much farther black specks 
 danced where inexperienced riders suffered proud pangs 
 on hired horses. It thrilled her, it made her want to 
 plunge into this life so large . . . And here was an- 
 other band, a denser one that bellowed : " Boom ! 
 BOOM ! PATaboom . . . squeak ! " challenging the 
 other's " Tara ! Tara ! TantaKA ! " 
 
 But down upon the sands she at last felt alone. The 
 sun beat heavy upon her head. She went down to the 
 edge of the water where the grown-ups were paddling; 
 she envied those people with tucked-up skirts and for a 
 second wanted to pull off her shoes and stockings. But 
 still, she was afraid : to be seen was bad enough, but to 
 be seen paddling . . . She felt different, and this in- 
 creased her loneliness. So for a long time she went 
 along the sands where everybody was picknicking, where 
 perspiring fathers with immense efforts opened bottles 
 of beer, where everywhere was a crying child that had 
 got lost, except where a mother, already tired, dragged 
 on and shook something that screamed and wept in the 
 characterictic way a child has of showing its pleas- 
 ure on Bank Holiday. She stood in front of the 
 Punch and Judy Show. " PittywittyEEK ! Kerh-O ! 
 Whatawhata ! KeeminuteeWEEK ! " Punch screamed. 
 She felt so lonely in the midst of the old life . . . 
 
 Suddenly she grew conscious of Alf. She did not 
 yet know his name was Alf, but Alf it was. Alf was 
 rather like a rat, with small eyes and an enquiring 
 nose. But he had a nice smile and a moustache that 
 made one think together of the military and the hair- 
 dresser's shop. She had noticed Alf once or twice 
 during the last five minutes, sometimes in front of her, 
 sometimes by her side. It embarrassed her horribly as
 
 409 
 
 soon as she realised that Alf was keeping upon her that 
 sharp eye. !Nbt that he displeased her; she liked the 
 moustache, and it did not occur to her to think that this 
 might be only because she was married to a clean- 
 shaven man. Still, she was rather afraid. She walked 
 on hurriedly a few steps round to the right, behind the 
 Punch and Judy show. To her horror and delight, as 
 she rounded the crowd Alf came face to face with her. 
 
 " Hallo ! " he said " All on your lonesome ? " 
 
 She did not reply. Her heart beat heavily, her body 
 was in tumult. A year before she would have known 
 how to snub him ; during the past year she should have 
 learnt how to ignore him. But she had lost the art of 
 cockney snubbing without gaining the art of aloofness ; 
 she had been something and had become nothing. Alf 
 came a little closer. 
 
 " If you aren't meeting anybody I ain't Is 'e waitin* 
 for yer round the corner I " 
 
 " jSTo," said Sue rather miserably. Of course nobody 
 was waiting for her round the corner. Then she real- 
 ized too late that she had spoken ; she was caught. Alf 
 knew it. He took for granted that they were to pass 
 the afternoon together. He told her it was very hot, 
 then remarked generally : " Hot place, Ramsgate." 
 She agreed and found that she had walked on two steps 
 with him. It was dreadful and delicious; it was like 
 drowning. Alf jabbered on: he was a plasterer, it 
 seemed, and his name well, she could call him Alf, 
 she could. It thrilled her, the old voice, and she 
 laughed when he pointed at an old man with a bulbous 
 nose and asked her whether that was not one of God's 
 left-overs. She was still shy, then told herself: 
 " After all, why not ? " An anxiety seized her. She 
 had worn gloves in the motorbus and automatically put 
 them on again after lunch. That was all right, but she 
 would have to take them off. So, very slowly, as she 
 walked by Alfs side, listening as he criticised the band,
 
 410 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 she worked off her left glove and then by degrees her 
 wedding ring. It was sacramental and terrible, this 
 taking off of the wedding ring, and as she put it into the 
 pocket of her sweater and looked at her bare hand, it 
 seemed as if she had thrown her old life behind her. 
 
 " I'm in the buildin' line," said Alf. " I'm having a 
 week's holiday on my own. Thought I'd come here ; it's 
 rather cheerful, ain't it ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Sue. " I've never been here before." 
 
 " Oh," he said, without interest. 
 
 Alf did not want to know much about her. Indeed 
 he talked busily as if he did not want her to question 
 him too much, being rather conscious that if his wife 
 had not been ill she would have accompanied him that 
 day. He must divert her from questions, he felt. 
 " Let's have a bathe," he said, and as he spoke let an 
 admiring gaze rest rather heavily upon the broad- 
 breasted young woman yet so girlish in her white pique 
 frock. 
 
 " Oh, no," said Sue, " I couldn't." Her eyelashes 
 were cast down, and she looked quite shy. 
 
 " G'on," he said. " It'll do you good once in a way." 
 
 She looked up at him merrily. 
 
 " Oh, I often have a bath," she said. 
 
 " Who'd have thought it ! " he replied, with suitable 
 raillery. They both laughed together. " P'raps you're 
 right," said Alf. " Might give you a shock. There 
 was a man at Blackpool once . . . ever heard the story 
 of the man who lost his waistcoat ? " 
 
 " No," said Sue. 
 
 " Well, there was a Yorkshireman who went down to 
 Blackpool with his wife, just for the day like you and 
 me, and after they'd bathed and dressed and gorn, ( I've 
 lost my waistcoat/ he said. Well, they looked for it 
 high and low and they couldn't find it. And they 
 looked everywhere at the doss and they couldn't find it. 
 Lost, it was."
 
 RAMSGATE SANDS 411 
 
 " Well," said Sue. 
 
 " Well, that ain't the end of the story. In time he 
 forgot all about it, he did, but the year after they came 
 to Blackpool again just for the day, and he hadn't been 
 in the bathing-machine more'n a minute when his wife 
 heard 'im shouting : ' Maria ! Maria ! I've found 
 my waistcoat ! ' ' Where was it ? ' asked Maria. ' You 
 wouldn't believe it,' 'e said ; ' it was under me 
 shirt!'" 
 
 After a moment required for the full taking in of the 
 story, Sue laughed. Not since the days of Ada jSTuttall 
 had she been told a story of this kind, or told it with the 
 animal relish that made it worth while. She laughed 
 so much that she found herself natural with Alf. She 
 did not think it abnormal to be strolling along the sands 
 with him, arm in arm. 
 
 " What's your name ? " said Alf. 
 
 She did not hesitate. " Vera." 
 
 " My ! " he said. " That's rather swell." 
 
 For a fleeting second she thought that that was the 
 name she ought to have had if grandma had not imposed 
 upon her family. 
 
 " Yes," she said. " I rather like it." 
 
 " Vera," repeated Alf, with relish, " that's what I 
 call a name. You're one of the girls." 
 
 "Yes," said Sue automatically, "one of the gir- 
 hirls," and felt frightfully Nuttallish. She wished that 
 Ada could see her now ; she too could be bold and bad. 
 She wasn't Nuttallish ? Well, you wait. 
 
 It grew hotter and hotter. From time to time Alf 
 swore as he brushed away the flies. He drew her to a 
 lemonade stand where they formed part of a long file, 
 waiting to be served with something yellow and faintly 
 citric. In the distance the big band descended to rag- 
 time. " Come on and hear ! Come on and HEAE ! 
 Alexander's Eag Time BAND ! " She drank ; it was 
 cold. She felt happy. She loved everything. She
 
 412 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 had to stop by a fat baby who was perseveringly trying 
 to thrust the head of a doll into a bottle. It laughed at 
 her from every pink crease, and she bent down to poke 
 the fat cheeks. She was no longer her new self, she felt 
 she was again just Sue Groby as she remarked to the 
 baby : " Oh ! you ole artful." It smiled, and Sue 
 went on tickling the pink neck. " Oh, you old artful," 
 she said. 
 
 Alf 's hand was more insistent upon her arm ; she did 
 not mind for, after all, wasn't everybody doing it round 
 her now? Too hot too, and the sky was blue. 
 
 " What's your line ? " asked Alf. ' 
 
 " Oh, I'm in business," she said. He understood and 
 did not press. " Staying long ? " he asked. 
 
 " No," said Sue, " I'm only up for the day." 
 
 " Where's 'e gone to ? " 
 
 "He? There's no he." 
 
 " Get along. One's only got to look at you to know 
 there's a he." 
 
 " Your brain's dusty," said Sue. (Nuttall !) 
 
 Alf laughed. They approached some niggers now 
 who with bones and banjo had collected an immense 
 crowd. They forced their way through the edges of it. 
 They could just see them, the black smiling faces, glis- 
 tening with perspiration and grease paint. There was 
 an odd melancholy in their lilting song : 
 
 " To the cookshop he went dashing, 
 And who should bring the hash in 
 But the girl that he'd been mashing 
 By the sad sea waves." 
 
 " D'you think they're really blacks ? " said Sue. 
 
 " G'on," said Alf, with immense disgust. " You 
 ain't got more sense than a baby; of course they ain't 
 real blacks. You've only got to look round their mouths 
 an' you can see the line where it don't match." 
 
 " I see," said Sue humbly and somehow pleased to be
 
 RAMSGATE SANDS 413 
 
 corrected. He felt her pleasure and bought her a stick 
 of chocolate. 
 
 And so for a long time these two, arm in arm and 
 now with linked hands, wandered about among the 
 children and the hurdy-gurdies, stopping to cheer iron- 
 ically where men had stripped off all they dared and 
 threw at the cocoanut shies. They went, loquacious, 
 young and gay among those other people that ate and 
 made love. Alf said : " Have some more chocolate. 
 Or perhaps not, it'll make you sick." 
 
 " It's a rumour," said Sue, not quite sure that this 
 was appropriate but quite sure that it was Nuttallish.' 
 The afternoon was slowly waning ; they went back upon 
 the front. Beyond, in a field, was a miniature menag- 
 erie, with the mild-looking wild cat, and the Siberian 
 wolf, hot and panting, so like a dog that it made one 
 suspicious. They both jeered at the zebra. 
 
 " Give me the Zoo," said Alf. " This is a fair do. 
 Tell you wot, when we get back to London, I'll take you 
 to the Zoo, I will." 
 
 " Thanks," said Sue, " I'm not going back for a 
 while." She switched off from this dangerous conversa- 
 tion to the menagerie. "You know, Alf, that zebra 
 wasn't bad." 
 
 He sniffed. " No ; still nothing to rip oilcloth over." 
 
 Then he tried to persuade her to be photographed. 
 " Come on," he said, " just you an' me, 'and in 'and." 
 
 " Oh, I couldn't," said Sue. 
 
 "You've got to, just as a souvenir, unless you're 
 afraid my face'll smash the camera." 
 
 He was obstinate, and she felt that she could not; 
 this was too much. Besides, it was growing late, it was 
 nearly five. Already the boarding houses were receiv- 
 ing back the crowds making for high tea. 
 
 " I must go," she said. 
 
 Alf looked at her surprised. " Go ? " he said. 
 thought you were staying here."
 
 414 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 " Well, near here," said Sue. " But it's getting late." 
 
 "What's your hurry?" He led her to the field 
 where was the roundabout, where couples in a state of 
 extreme superficial amorousness rode upon wooden 
 horses, wooden geese, or yet stranger mounts. But she 
 was anxious, she was afraid. These four hours on the 
 loose, who knew how she would have to pay for them ? 
 
 " I must go," she said again. 
 
 "Well, I'll go along with you for a bit," said Alf. 
 " This way to the station." 
 
 She did not want to go to the station, but she trusted 
 somewhere to see a bus for Broadstairs, so she followed 
 him along the side of the field. Just before they reached 
 the gate and before she could stop him, he threw an arm 
 about her shoulders, drew her close ; she struggled, turn- 
 ing away her face. As she fought she heard ironical 
 cheers, male imitations of feminine giggles, and dimly 
 a hymn rise from a religious meeting: 
 
 " There is a fountain filled with BLOOD, 
 Drawn from Emanuel's veins. . . ." 
 
 " Lemme go," she murmured. But he held her fast 
 and, close-pressed, tried to reach her mouth. She did 
 not hate him; she did not even know that she would 
 mind if he kissed her, only she was afraid. She heard 
 the religious band bray. They struggled. She grew 
 defiant : (t Now then ! " and drove her elbow into him. 
 Still the band, groaning and bloodthirsty, still he pressed 
 on, and she felt weak : " Oh, do behave . . ." she 
 wailed. He laughed and finished the quotation : " Get 
 a shave, Charlie, do give over." He kissed her upon the 
 neck, and at this contact her purity rebelled. Hot and 
 ruffled, she thrust him back against the gate. " Good 
 afternoon," she said, head held very high. " You're a 
 gentleman ! " He looked at her angrily. " You're a 
 lady, and now we're both liars ! " 
 
 She went back in a charabanc. Under her fear she
 
 RAMSGATE SANDS 415 
 
 was still excited and happy, and yet half-crying because 
 she did not know exactly what had happened to her and 
 how strong was the hold of the old life. Then a terror 
 seized her. Roger might be back. He'd want to know 
 what she'd been doing all day. She felt guilty about 
 Alf ; after all she had led him on. And it felt dis- 
 loyal to her new class too. She had done wrong; she 
 would be punished. Supposing somebody had seen her 
 and told ? Whatever should she do ? She did not get 
 to the hotel until half -past six; Roger was dressing; 
 putting on his tie. " Now for it," she thought, and 
 then more shrinking; whatever should she say? But 
 Roger did not look at her ; he looked only at her reflec- 
 tion in the looking-glass. Then he said : 
 
 " Hallo, Sue, been out for a walk ? " 
 
 " Yes," she replied, not knowing whether to add any- 
 thing. After a moment Roger said: 
 
 " I came in from golf about five." Then, half de- 
 termined to leave her free, half indifferent : " Hang it ! 
 I've spoilt this tie." And that was all. 
 
 That night she could not sleep and lay crying for a 
 long time. It would have been much better, she dimly 
 felt, if he had questioned her and then sworn at her, and 
 beaten her when he found out. But he did not. He 
 had hardly noticed. He did not care any more. She 
 lay awake while the more discreet Bank Holiday of 
 Broadstairs died away. Some of the Ramsgate Bank 
 Holiday had followed her, for in the night she could 
 hear other niggers singing : 
 
 " To the cookshop he went dashing, 
 And who should bring the hash in 
 But the girl that he'd been mashing 
 By the sad sea waves ! " 
 
 She lay with her face upon the pillow that grew hot and 
 moist with tears, and then for the first time asked herself 
 whether she cared any more.
 
 CHAPTER THE SECOND 
 
 BEVERSION 
 
 As the train took him towards Grove Ferry, Eoger felt 
 guilty. For he had set out immediately after break- 
 fast, giving Sue the quick husbandy kiss of the occasion. 
 And, though he had not said he was going to golf, he 
 had taken his bag, allowed the sticks to be very obvious. 
 Now the golf clubs lay in the cloakroom at Broadstairs. 
 He felt himself sink deeper into deception. Twice he 
 had been to Grove Ferry on the sly ; now he was going 
 to Grove Ferry while pretending to go somewhere else. 
 That was worse. " It's her fault," he reflected, " it's 
 her damn jealousy." And he hated her because she 
 seemed to be driving him towards deception. He 
 brooded over that for a while. Then, by natural associ- 
 ation of ideas, he remembered his scene with Sue. Yes, 
 Theresa too had been a little deceitful ; she had told him 
 she was going to Grove Ferry, and she had not told Sue. 
 He wondered why. But he did not wonder long, for 
 he was too interested in himself. Besides he could not 
 have understood how much Theresa had hesitated, how 
 guilty she had felt. He could never have understood 
 that she intended nothing, that she just wanted to drift 
 and take her chance with life, and that she obscurely 
 wanted to live in a garden inclosed, giving the key only 
 to him. He would have been shocked, had he under- 
 stood, for to him Theresa was pure to the point of saint- 
 liness ; so it would have been delicious and yet dreadful 
 to discover that Theresa was' only a woman, capable of 
 deceiving because she lo 1 .id. The concealment of her
 
 REVERSION 417 
 
 abode for the first time exposed Theresa as a woman : 
 so for the first time he did not understand her. Roger 
 was a little like Sue: she was uncivilised and he was 
 young. " You were married and well, there you are, 
 there you were." He was the sort of man who can be- 
 lieve in the sanctity of the marriage bond after hearing 
 the decree nisi pronounced against him. 
 
 As the train rumbled on through the fields of Thanet 
 that look like an imperfectly reclaimed sewage farm, he 
 still thought of himself and Sue, of the fortnight that 
 had elapsed since Bank Holiday when she had been out 
 all day doing heaven knew what. Not that he cared. 
 He understood their relation better now ; it seemed made 
 up of small indifferences to each other's opinion and 
 occupations; they were not even quarrelling now. To 
 think of it wearied him ; it was so unstimulating, and he 
 knew that Sue's commonness, of which he was now 
 aware, exasperated him into a priggish and patronising 
 frigidity. 
 
 Perhaps he was a prig, or perhaps she made him a 
 prig. If it was her fault : what a grievance ! And as 
 he felt a grievance he concluded it must be her fault. 
 
 It was very good in Theresa's garden, an old long 
 garden bounded on three sides by the cottage and two 
 white walls. At the bottom of the garden ran the little 
 Stour, half-hidden behind hedges and bulrushes in 
 flower. They sat in the shadow of the cottage and after 
 a few conventional phrases found themselves silent. 
 He thought it was the garden interested him, and it 
 might have, for it was beautiful. Right and left of the 
 central lawn ran the flower beds. At regular intervals, 
 spread upon the wall, were apple trees and apricot trees 
 trained as fans. In front stood the stooping hollyhocks, 
 the foxgloves, loaded with rosy honeycombs, the lupins, 
 rigid and tender as church ornaments. And at their 
 august feet grew smaller plants, mauve asters with 
 golden hearts, shy godetias rooted among the clusters of
 
 418 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 shyer aubrietia. At the very end, where the bed disap- 
 peared into the river, bloomed pale symbolic lilies. He 
 liked the end of the garden, for the lawn stopped a 
 dozen feet from the water's edge and anything grew 
 there that chose: rock roses, aggressive purple knap- 
 weed and pink rest harrow, striving to hide under its 
 own leaves . . . 
 
 Theresa suited her old garden. It felt very lonely, 
 for they could hear nothing save Elizabeth singing inside 
 the house, and sometimes a wet sound as a water rat 
 plunged into the Stour. She was all in white, lay slim 
 in the deck chair. She was languid, and for a time he 
 watched the long swaying hand that played with the 
 books upon the ground. He read the title of one of 
 them, Aucassin et Nicolette. He did not know it, but 
 the very sound of the words charmed him. And he 
 liked to see upon her lap another book, The Grettir Saga. 
 She was smoking a cigarette, a new habit, and for a 
 long time he saw only an aesthetic diagram : slim white 
 fingers, rosy finger nails, curving blue smoke. He 
 wanted very much to tell her well, what did he want 
 to tell her? He did not know. It felt so odd here 
 among the scents of flower and grass, where there were 
 no sounds save the water, the distant call of a bird and 
 the busy grumble of bumblebee. He gave it up after a 
 while. They just said a few things about Sue's health, 
 about golf, which Theresa really ought to play. They 
 even talked about whether it were easy to get up and 
 down to town. They talked commonplaces as if they 
 feared intimacies, or as if all the intimacies had already 
 been voiced. They were gayer at lunch, when the woes 
 of Elizabeth entertained them. Elizabeth was a cock- 
 ney and could not understand why it was almost impos- 
 sible to get fish near the sea, while the local fruit was 
 not a patch on what you could buy in the Edgware Road. 
 They laughed with and at her, and Eoger drank too 
 much hock, while a flush of animation rose into The-
 
 REVERSION 419 
 
 resa's pale cheeks. It was not until after, when they 
 sat under the wall, the sun having shifted, when coffee 
 had been made and drunk, that they felt themselves 
 come closer to each other. It was two o'clock, and the 
 heat fell not too oppressive but pressed languid hands 
 upon their eyelids, made them soft and content. Sud- 
 denly Eoger said : 
 
 " I'm very happy here." 
 
 Theresa said : " So am I." Then she thought : 
 " How wonderful it could be if you could stay ! " She 
 had a vision of herself and Eoger in this garden, of 
 course with the flowers always blooming, always to- 
 gether, always easy, practising the art of life, which is 
 to die as delightfully as possible. And it could never 
 be. She sighed and, reacting, wanted to tease him. 
 
 " Wake up ! " she said. " One doesn't go to sleep be- 
 fore a lady. I'm s'prised at yer." She laughed, mean- 
 ing him to be amused at her cockneyism. 
 
 He shrank away. " Don't," he said. 
 
 For a second she stared at him, then she understood. 
 She bent forward. 
 
 " Oh, Eoger, I'm so sorry I forgot. Please for- 
 give me, I ..." 
 
 " It's all right," said Eoger roughly, " I'm used to 
 it." 
 
 She did not know what to say. She knew Sue had 
 improved. Yes, but of course it was impossible. She 
 felt unhappier than ever before. She could feel the 
 whole ache of him passing into her body and hurting 
 her. It was agony. To lose him, well, if she must 
 but to lose him and to see him unhappy it was hor- 
 rible. She had to knit her hands together, so violent 
 was her impulse to throw her arms round his neck, draw 
 him close, bury his eyes in her breast where he could 
 see nothing and hear nothing, feel nothing, be conscious 
 of nothing save the shelter of arms open to none save 
 him. She was lucid; she discussed it with herself.
 
 420 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 " It could only make things worse," she thought. So 
 she bent forward again. " Koger," she said. " Is it 
 as bad as all that ? " 
 
 He nodded. He seemed afraid to speak, like a boy 
 of twelve having his first caning, who wants to cry and 
 is keeping it down. 
 
 " I'm sorry," she said, and felt inadequate. But she 
 was irritated too, for she was being baulked of the ma- 
 ternal function that belongs to every woman who loves : 
 she wanted to comfort him, and he was not letting her 
 do so. Hesitating, she took his hand. " Tell me," she 
 murmured. " Tell me anything you like." 
 
 He looked at her, and as he gripped her hand close 
 she saw a look in his grey eyes that made her think of an 
 animal that has long been hunted. 
 
 " What is there to tell ? " he said. " You know all 
 about it. I thought I could teach her. I can't." 
 
 Theresa made an effort. 
 
 " Try," she said. " Are you not impatient ? Are 
 you sure you've tried enough tried in the right 
 way ? " 
 
 " Ten months," he replied. Then almost to himself : 
 " It seems a very long time. You see, she doesn't un- 
 derstand. One could teach her if she understood, only 
 she doesn't. It's it's like a doll that says pa-pa when 
 you press the spring, and if you don't press the spring, 
 well well, it can't say pa-pa ; that's all." He grew 
 remorseful. " I oughtn't to talk to you like this. It's 
 sort of disloyal, only what am I to do ? " 
 
 Theresa did not reply. How could she tell him what 
 he ought to do ? " Go on," seemed brutal and silly, but 
 what else could she say ? 
 
 " You see," Roger went on, " oh, never mind it's being 
 disloyal, I must talk. Don't looked shocked, Theresa, 
 that's what I've come to. I don't care whether I'm 
 disloyal or not. And there's the stiff lip, and all that 
 sort of rot. Well, I can't keep a stiff lip any more. I
 
 REVERSION 421 
 
 can't teach her. She does things in public, I 
 hate telling you, things like wearing the wrong 
 clothes ..." 
 
 "Dear," said Theresa. "Isn't that a very little 
 thing when one loves ? " 
 
 He ignored the last part of the sentence. 
 
 " No, it isn't a very little thing to feel uncomfortable 
 and ashamed because one's wife is different somehow 
 from the women one knows. There it is all the time, 
 this difference, reminding one. And it's not only that, 
 it's not only being ignorant and not knowing the right 
 things, one can put that right; but it's liking the 
 wrong things that's so dreadful, the wrong people." 
 
 " Oh, you mean the relatives ? " 
 
 " No," said Roger, with sudden fury. " D'you know 
 who she picks out to try and chum up with ? A kept 
 girl at the hotel who's staying there with a fat old 
 beast." 
 
 "Roger!" said Theresa. "Don't be absurd. Of 
 course Sue doesn't know." 
 
 He turned upon her his miserable eyes. 
 
 " But don't you understand, Theresa ? That's just 
 it, that's what's killing me. If she knew it wouldn't 
 matter. One could tell her not to. It's the fact that 
 she doesn't know the difference, and I can't teach her 
 that, I can't, I can't." 
 
 Theresa did not speak for a long time. Yes, she had 
 never seen it like that. And Roger went on pouring out 
 his pain. He told her the ridiculous little things of the 
 past year, the quarrel with the carter before the serv- 
 ants, the row about the thick tumblers. 
 
 " Oh, don't think me a hyper-super," he said, " only 
 these little things, they go on all the time. The jewel- 
 lery at our little dinner-party, you remember." The- 
 resa nodded. "Well, all that sort of thing; it seems 
 so small, but it goes on and on : little bits of shame, little 
 bits of irritation, little bits of despair falling upon our
 
 422 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 marriage like the drops of water that wear away a 
 stone." 
 
 Then Theresa made an effort ; she was not prim and 
 there was nothing that she could not say or hear, but she 
 felt a little shy of this point, for it concerned the inti- 
 mate life of the man she loved and of another 
 woman. 
 
 " Aren't you forgetting," she said, " the biggest thing 
 of all in marriage when you're young ? The attrac- 
 tion between a young man and a young woman, well, 
 you know what I mean." 
 
 He drew away a little; he wished Theresa had not 
 said that. She seemed removed from all that sort of 
 thing, in her snows. He might talk to her about Sue's 
 making up to a kept woman, but that did not imply 
 that she might talk to him of those things. 
 
 " That ! " he said. " Oh ! You don't understand, 
 Theresa. We're beasts, we men, in a way, and even 
 if everything else has gone, even if one despises the 
 woman, well, that may be all right. But not me. I 
 don't say one tries. It's a sort of bridge; just for 
 a moment one thinks one loves each other as one did. 
 But it makes me feel hateful and no, I can't talk to 
 you about these things. But that's no good. Don't 
 imagine that two bodies can make a link where two 
 spirits have snapped their chain." 
 
 The afternoon waned on; she felt powerless. They 
 changed the conversation and talked commonplaces. 
 Then they returned again to the relations between 
 Roger and Sue, and they said exactly the same things 
 over again. And still the afternoon waned, and the 
 shadow of the western wall lengthened upon the lawn. 
 At last Roger got up. 
 
 " I must go," he said. " I didn't look up my train. 
 I must go." 
 
 " Oh, don't go quite yet," said Theresa. 
 
 He looked long and unhappily into the dark eyes, at
 
 REVERSION 423 
 
 the mouth where now was no mockery. Dimly he 
 knew how very much he needed this woman. He had 
 not yet come to wanting her. He knew only that here 
 he was happy and at rest, and that she filled him with a 
 sense of eternal happiness. He was not thinking of 
 Sue; he had no idea of guilt. Those rigid principles 
 of his did not reproach him, for he was not yet com- 
 mitting adultery in his soul. 
 
 " Good-by," he said again. Theresa looked at him 
 without speaking. He bent down. " I don't want to 
 go," he muttered, and put both hands upon her shoul- 
 ders. " I don't want to go," he said again, with the 
 slim shoulders shaking a little under his hands, " but I 
 must." And then he was upon his knees by her side, 
 for the first time holding her close in his arms, and no 
 longer kissing her upon the cheek as he had once kissed 
 his good comrade, but kissing her upon the lips and 
 holding her hard-pressed, kissing her filled with despair, 
 as if he thought upon her mouth to find a recipe for 
 healing rather than a fountain of delight. She did 
 not resist, she did not move. She was too weak to feel 
 disloyal. She lay in his arms unresponding, unrebell- 
 ing, as if fate had thrown her dice for her. 
 
 II 
 
 Eoger and Sue felt far apart, and so they grew 
 farther apart. They hardly noticed: a little farther, 
 a little nearer, what was that? Roger, it seemed, 
 played golf every day either with Mr. Cawder or un- 
 known friends. Sue found the making of friends less 
 easy. Beyond Mrs. Cawder, whom she still puzzled, 
 nobody took her up except Miss Grange. She was 
 attracted by Miss Grange because she was so pretty and 
 seemed so innocent even when she told dreadful stories. 
 She hinted to Mrs. Cawder that Miss Grange told dread- 
 ful stories, and the old lady in her charity said :
 
 424 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 " Probably she doesn't understand them herself ; she's 
 too young, she only repeats what she's been told, poor 
 little thing." 
 
 Mrs. Cawder meant to be charitable, and all she did 
 was to encourage Sue further into compromising her- 
 self with the only woman who could compromise her. 
 By degrees Miss Grange became confidential; she al- 
 most told Sue the truth, and Sue accepted it because 
 she was still her St. Panwich self: one was a bad lot 
 and that was a pity, but this was a hard world. Sue 
 was not as some women in her new class who in private 
 do not profess to have any morals and maintain them 
 only for public exhibition ; she had the most rigid mor- 
 als in private, and so in public she could afford to relax. 
 Also this was a hard world; she knew that. She had 
 had to live on bread and dripping sometimes. They 
 didn't know, the others. But still Miss Grange did 
 not help her much socially, for her language was to- 
 gether coarse and smart. One morning, when she had 
 ordered gin and bitters and the waiter brought her gin 
 and orange instead of gin and peach, she loudly called 
 him, "You blighter!" and asked Sue: "Wasn't it 
 bloodsome ? Wasn't it pink ? " It seemed to Sue 
 much worse than the real words she was used to in St. 
 Panwich High Street. Miss Grange's oaths were to- 
 gether gross and sophisticated. 
 
 So she drifted again closer to Lizzie, who unveiled to 
 her a life so extraordinarily like her own, dreams of 
 the stoker, desires for sixpences to buy peppermints and 
 seats at the picture palace. And a greater depth too, 
 for Lizzie had been in trouble four years before, and she 
 wept abundantly every year on the fifth of April, which 
 was the date of the baby's birth and death. It was very 
 wrong, Sue thought, but still life was hard, and people 
 did these things. She had been educated, and she had 
 survived. But still her education bade her not to throw 
 herself too easily into the arms of the class below or of
 
 REVERSION 425 
 
 the class upon the edge. It would not do, she thought, 
 and she was still loyal enough to Roger to think it was 
 not fair to him. That was the end of love: she was 
 doing what he wanted no longer because it pleased him, 
 but because it was only fair. 
 
 One night, when Roger had disappeared to play 
 bridge somewhere, she could no longer sit in the lounge 
 reading The Illustrated London News or obscure jokes 
 in Punch until it was time to go to bed. The end of 
 August had come, and the equinoctial gales were pre- 
 paring. She could hear a high wind flinging what 
 sounded like solid water against the glass roof of the 
 winter garden. It tempted her. It was violent out- 
 side, not like this lounge full of discreet conversation 
 and the smoke of good tobacco. She ran up to her 
 room, not knowing what she wanted, not knowing that 
 it was just a sensation of freedom she wanted. She did 
 not even change her shoes but just threw over her eve- 
 ning frock her tweed travelling coat. 
 
 Head down to the driving wind and rain that in an 
 instant soaked her hair, flung little streams down her 
 neck into her breast, she wandered through the town. 
 It was ill-lit. She went for a long time along the front, 
 for a very long time to the outskirts of Margate, think- 
 ing of nothing, feeling only a relief in fighting the 
 heavy north wind. One could touch that wind. That 
 wind was not like the impalpable difficulties amid which 
 she floundered. Sometimes she stopped to thrust back 
 the soaked wisps of hair that stuck to her face. She 
 was tired. She stood in a little street for a very long 
 time, staring at a mysterious inscription outside a 
 
 church : 
 
 ADDOLDY 
 
 Y WESLEY AID CYMEEIG 
 TKEFN Y MODDION 
 
 She did not even wonder what it was. Vaguely she 
 thought it must be something to do with smart society,
 
 426 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 so no wonder she did not understand it. She went 
 back to Broadstairs very fast, for the wind blew at her 
 back now, carrying her on. It was a violent night, and 
 yet the sea had no waves. It rose and fell in the vast 
 curves of a heavy ground swell. It was like the breath- 
 ing of some large beast turning uneasily in stertorous 
 sleep. She felt alone, and she stopped a while to listen 
 to the sea that breathed mouth to mouth with the sweep- 
 ing wind. 
 
 Ill 
 
 They returned to town, Eoger full of determinations. 
 His marriage was not a marriage : still, there were lots 
 of unions like that. He must make the best of his life, 
 make it up of other things. He went back to the Set- 
 tlement as that was the obvious thing to do, and for 
 a few days his work interested him; to see Platt, and 
 Ford, and Churton again after two months was agree- 
 able; they were renewed. He grew quite enthusiastic 
 over the redecoration of the lecture room and had long 
 interviews with Forncett. But still he was conscious 
 of a peculiar atmosphere around him ; he was still nota- 
 ble. He enjoyed an incomprehensible popularity 
 among the patrons of the Settlement. Then he forgot ; 
 he was getting used to it. But one afternoon he left 
 the Settlement just in time to meet the small boys as 
 they came out of Clare Street schools. For a moment 
 he stood watching a little group that eyed him smiling. 
 They were nice kids, he thought, and it might be worth 
 while making life brighter for them. He gave them a 
 paternal nod and walked on. 
 
 He did not want to pass Paradise Eow, so he turned 
 up the High Street. It was rather crowded and yet, 
 after a moment, when he had crossed the street, he 
 found that he was followed. Five little boys, a silent 
 and smiling group, walked about six yards behind him. 
 He stared at them, and they returned the stare with ap-
 
 REVERSION 427 
 
 parently vivid interest. Uncertain what to do, he 
 walked on, and still they followed him into the High 
 Street. They were singing something, but he could 
 not hear it on account of the trams. A minute or two 
 later he turned : really this was too irritating. " Go 
 away ! " he cried. The five little boys smiled at him 
 with deep relish. 
 
 He could not brawl with five little boys in the St 
 Panwich High Street, could he ? So he walked on still 
 faster, trying as he went to catch the burden of their 
 song. On reaching Northbourne Road he turned sud- 
 denly to the right, hoping to discourage them. But it 
 was no use; still they followed him as there were no 
 trams here ; at last, as he passed the town hall with his 
 procession behind him, he heard their song: 
 
 " That's the man 
 That is 'im. 
 Everybody says 
 We want more like 'IM." 
 
 For a moment as he walked on he was puzzled. These 
 beastly little boys were just annoying him. He thought 
 he had better go round by the gas works and then get 
 into Crapp's Lane. He could run for a tram; they 
 wouldn't follow him on a tram. And still the song went 
 on with no further variation : 
 
 " That's the man 
 That is 'im. 
 Everybody says 
 We want more like 'IM." 
 
 Suddenly he remembered: of course, the Labour 
 member's phrase ! The man like whom we want more ! 
 He walked so fast that he nearly ran ; his cheeks were 
 burning. He rushed along Crapp's Lane, dodged in 
 and out between barrows, wildly apologising to an old 
 woman whom he caused to drop her string bag. And
 
 428 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 as at last, ashamed and despairing, the five little boys 
 running hard upon his heels, he at last managed to get 
 on to the Euston tram, the two last lines followed 
 him: 
 
 ". . . Everybody says 
 
 We want more like 5 IM." 
 
 It was purely instinctive. At Euston he took a taxi 
 and went straight to St. Mary's Mansions with only 
 two thoughts in his mind : St. Panwich was impossible, 
 and would Theresa be at home ? She was not. Eliza- 
 beth was sympathetic. She liked the one whom she 
 had once looked upon as Miss Theresa's young man, 
 though she much resented his not having married her. 
 She made him tea, as he decided to wait for Theresa. 
 She even stood and talked to him, tortured him with 
 questions. Notably she wanted to be informed whether 
 the new Maida Vale Station of the Bakerloo would get 
 her to Bourne and Hollingsworth quicker than the 
 Number 8 bus. He said " Yes " and " No " where 
 required and sat there moodily smoking cigarette after 
 cigarette. Would Theresa never come? He wanted 
 her, he wanted her very badly ; he was like a wounded 
 man who thinks only of the time when the nurse will 
 come and change his dressing. 
 
 When at last Theresa came she seemed to know at 
 once. It was as if they were linked by a secret inti- 
 macy. He told her in a few words and then looked 
 at her rather angrily, for Theresa threw herself back 
 in the armchair and uncontrollably laughed. " Oh," 
 she gasped, " this is the man, this is 'Im . . ." She 
 pointed at him. " Oh, Eoger, Koger, it's too funny." 
 
 " You always seem to see something funny in every- 
 thing," said Huncote savagely. 
 
 " Well, there is," said Theresa. " Everybody says 
 . . . Oh, dear! oh, dear! and you don't know how 
 funny you look, Roger."
 
 REVERSION 429 
 
 He jumped up. " Oh, well, if you feel like that 
 about it, I may as well go." 
 
 But she too leapt to her feet and took his arm. 
 
 " Dear," she said, " I'm so sorry, I didn't want to 
 hurt your feelings, but do let your sense of humour 
 have a chance." He did not reply. " But never mind 
 the funny part of it," she said, " I know it's hard on 
 you." Half-unconsciously she pressed the arm she held 
 against her breast. He felt consoled by her nearness. 
 
 " I can't go on with the Settlement," he said, more 
 calmly. 
 
 Theresa hesitated. " Well, perhaps you can't, not 
 you, you know. Somebody with a thicker skin per- 
 haps." She glanced at him from under her lashes and 
 thought how she loved him for his absurd delicacy, for 
 the fastidious quixotism which had led him into such 
 misery, but might yet lead him to delights more subtle 
 than could be given any other man. " But what else 
 can you do? You must do something." 
 
 " Yes," said Roger, " I s'pose I must. I'd better do 
 some real work, I think." 
 
 Theresa looked interested : few things are so thrilling 
 as the life work of the man one loves. 
 
 " I'm a bit old for the Civil Service," he said, " and 
 besides it isn't very exciting, is it? Or I might read 
 for the Bar." 
 
 Theresa shook her head : " Oh, no, not the law. If 
 you want to do any good there you've got to be like a 
 two-edged sword, one edge to shear the plaintiff with 
 and the other to shear the defendant." 
 
 He smiled and that made her heart leap, for it was 
 she had made him smile. 
 
 "I s'pose I'll have to take to literature," he said, 
 " that's what everybody does when he isn't any good 
 for anything else." He smiled bitterly. " After all, 
 I'm qualified to write a novel ; I can tell the story of 
 my three years at Oxford."
 
 430 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 She did not respond : literature yes, that was fas- 
 cinating, but what if he failed ? It would be so horri- 
 ble to see him fail. The man she loved could not be 
 allowed to fail. 
 
 " Must you do anything ? " she said. " You're 
 young, you've money of your own, you'll have more; 
 can't you live agreeably, just like that, doing what you 
 like and not doing anything in particular, until one 
 day you get an impulse? It might be anything, it 
 might be literature, as you say, or politics, or travel. 
 You're very young, you see." 
 
 It hurt her just then to feel three years older, per- 
 haps too old. He shook his head. 
 
 " Oh, no," he said. " If I'd anybody to help me, 
 somebody like you But, oh, no, my life's wrong." 
 
 She came closer, and half-consciously he tried to put 
 his arms about her shoulders. She drew back. 
 
 " No, Eoger," she whispered, " please don't. I 
 haven't said anything about it, but I haven't forgotten. 
 It was wrong, what we did at Grove Ferry." He did 
 not move his arm. " Please let me go, Eoger ; you 
 shouldn't have kissed me. I shouldn't have let you 
 rather ; it was my fault." 
 
 His arm dropped. " Oh, all right," he said. The 
 flat weakness in his voice hurt her abominably. " I'm 
 no good," he went on. "What's the use of talking 
 about work to me ? I was spoilt by having money just 
 as others are spoilt by not having any. Leave me alone. 
 Others have suffered, and others have known how to 
 live; so can I." 
 
 He looked away, and she felt in torture that he might 
 be looking away because his eyes were full of tears, and 
 he, manlike, would not let her see. 
 
 It was she then, not knowing whether in love or in 
 pity, seized him by the shoulders and drew his head 
 down, and she who kissed him again and again, who 
 drew him close, who hid his face within her arms. She
 
 REVERSION 431 
 
 was not thinking now, but only feeling that this was 
 her man, that he was unhappy, and that she must not 
 let it be. 
 
 IV 
 
 Opulent September had gone and October too, in her 
 robe of red and gold leaf, like a woman no longer young 
 who is still beautiful, yet not for long and knows it, and 
 smiles a little sadly in her rich garment. Then passed 
 November that is like a long weeping maiden in a 
 fulgent robe of modest mist. And December was wan- 
 ing, active and fierce, brightly cold, somehow gay as if 
 the year were dancing its dance of death. It would be 
 Christmas soon. 
 
 Sue was almost used to being unhappy. In the last 
 three months life had become again desperately like 
 what it was before they went away. People had come 
 to them and had returned their hospitality. She had 
 met Theresa once or twice, but evidently Theresa did 
 not like coming to Pembroke Square ; she was innocent 
 but she felt guilty. To console Roger in his unhappi- 
 ness was a little like taking him away from the wife 
 whose business it was to console him. Theresa knew 
 that Sue could not console him, but still it felt dis- 
 loyal. ISTor did Sue make things easy for her. Since 
 she discovered that her husband had gone to Grove Ferry 
 secretly she had hated the interloper ; she had suspected 
 other meetings, many meetings, and much more than 
 there was in them. It was a demonstration of her new 
 state that there were no scenes of jealousy ; Sue was too 
 numb to be angry now. Generally she felt : " Let her 
 have him if she wants him; I don't." There were 
 moments of rebellion when she told herself : " He's 
 mine." But that was just pride and passed away when 
 Roger sat in front of her in the evening, reading The 
 English Review or the bound volume of Rhythm, incom- 
 prehensible things. They had had only one scene, in
 
 432 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 October, when Sue hinted that Roger might take her 
 away for a fortnight to Biarritz, just like the other time, 
 to celebrate the first anniversary of their wedding. He 
 was moved for a second, then he said : 
 
 " Oh, I see. You want to make an annual pilgrimage 
 of it?" 
 
 " Yes, we might go every year. It'd be nice, wouldn't 
 it?" 
 
 " Let's go a little later, October's so nice here ; you'll 
 be glad to get down south in January or February." 
 
 Sue hesitated. " Oh, it wouldn't be the same thing. 
 We ought to go the very same day." 
 
 He was irritated. " Oh, don't be so sentimental. 
 What's the same day got to do with it ? " 
 
 " I see the day doesn't mean much to you," said Sue 
 stonily. 
 
 " Doesn't . . . Oh, but what is a date ? Just be- 
 cause we happened to be married in October you want to 
 consecrate October. One might think you'd got married 
 for the sake of a honeymoon and a white silk dress, 
 and flowers, and all that sort of rot." 
 
 " I don't think it rot," said Sue, " but anyhow that's 
 not a very nice word, Roger." 
 
 When she said that he understood why the villain at 
 Drury Lane occasionally grinds his teeth. So this was 
 education. 
 
 " Don't be silly," he said. " And above all don't be 
 sentimental ; I'm not that sort of man." 
 
 She looked at him with brilliant eyes. 
 
 " No, you aren't that sort of man, I know. Wish I'd 
 known it. Wish I'd known more about men. That's 
 what comes of keeping straight." 
 
 He looked at her, more unhappy than angry. So this 
 was what he was doing for her, making her cynical ! It 
 softened him too, but as if she felt the softness she 
 grew angrier. 
 
 " I didn't expect much of men. Ma my mother
 
 REVERSION 433 
 
 told me. Still one wants a real man. He may lift his 
 elbow a bit and all that, but anyhoVs he's a man, the 
 other sort. Not a dummy in a glass case all over la- 
 bels." 
 
 " Are you talking about me ? " said Koger. 
 
 " I'm talking about nobody." She turned away ; she 
 looked dark and sulky with a forward pout of the lips. 
 
 He said : " It's quite clear you don't care for me any 
 more." 
 
 " Well, do you ? " asked Sue, evading his question. 
 
 " Of course I do." 
 
 " Looks like it." 
 
 " Sue," he said, " you're making me unhappy." 
 
 She nearly melted, she nearly jumped up to throw her 
 arms round his neck, but she had her proper pride, so 
 she did not move. That bond which should have been 
 so beautiful was broken. He was unhappy, and she sat 
 cold as Anaxarete. 
 
 On a December afternoon, as she climbed the stairs to 
 Mrs. Groby's tenement, she remembered that quarrel. 
 She had not said anything about it at the time, being 
 too proud. Mrs. Groby did not at first show curiosity ; 
 she had complaints to make about Mr. Groby. 
 
 " Spends too much time at the club. Tell yer wot, it 
 didn't do us much good, 'avin' that money for Muriel. 
 Yer father stopped some of it every week. It all goes 
 t' the same place, an' Vs gettin' 'ard to manage when 
 'e's twopence. Corsts money too," she added reflec- 
 tively. " The other day I arsked 'im ter put a bit by 
 for a rainy day. Waste not, want not, I said. And 'e 
 said 'e'd put it across me, 'e did." 
 
 Sue showed dutiful interest in her father's behaviour, 
 in Muriel who, it appeared, had designs on the Junior 
 Cambridge Local, with Matric in the dizzy distance. 
 Perce, it seemed, was getting on ; the most junior clerk 
 having gone, he had been promoted and now showed a 
 red half-circle under his chin as his collars had risen
 
 434 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 with his salary. But Sue was unresponsive, and at last 
 Mrs. Groby noticed it. 
 
 " Wot's the matter with you sittin' there like 
 Mrs. Groby's cockney failed her and the ancient Sussex 
 strain came out " like a painted lady." 
 
 "I don't know." 
 
 " 'Ad a rumpus with yer ole man ? " Sue did not 
 reply. " I can see yer 'ave. Well, well, one 'as one's 
 ups an' downs. Shure it ain't your fault ? " 
 
 " You always think it's my fault, Mother." 
 
 " Didn't say it was." 
 
 " Yes, you did ; you never stick up for me as you do 
 for Perce." 
 
 " Perce's only a kid," said Mrs. Groby defensively. 
 
 She felt guilty and would not have liked to be told 
 that a mother will defend her son better than her daugh- 
 ter. She wanted to know what had happened, but she 
 found it difficult to get it out of Sue. Her daughter 
 could only hint vaguely at a continual coldness, at an 
 estrangement. 
 
 " We don't see each other much," she said. 
 
 Mrs. Groby thought for a while. 
 
 " Well, this is a nice 'ow-d'yer-do. Married people 
 didn't be'ave like that in my time, an' yer can't even say 
 wot's wrong." 
 
 " Everything," said Sue. 
 
 " That's the same as nothing," said Mrs. Groby. 
 " Yer discontented, yer spoilt, that's wot yer are. Yer 
 ain't got 'nuff to do. If yer 'ad a little 'un in th' nur- 
 sery an' another on th' way, yer wouldn't talk. Tell yer 
 wot, I don't know 'ow yer manages it in th' upper ten. 
 Them fine ladies, they don't seem t'ave children like us." 
 
 " P'raps they don't want to," said Sue. 
 
 Mrs. Groby meditated this remark. She had heard 
 about that sort of thing, but did not think she ought to 
 discuss the topic with Sue. Sue was married, but was 
 still her little girl, so she cruelly remarked;
 
 REVERSION 435 
 
 "P'raps. It's a queer world, but one lives an' 
 learns." Again she became personal. " But all that's 
 got nothin' t' do with it Yer ort t'ave one, an' I'll tell 
 yer for why. It would give yer somethin' t' do instead 
 o' wanderin' about, lookin' like a ghost. Yer married, 
 so wot yer want is a couple o' kiddies t' take yer mind 
 orf it." 
 
 Sue thought over this: yes, one did want something 
 to take one's mind off marriage. But she said nothing, 
 and Mrs. Groby went on : " Besides, it's always been 
 like that. Yer got to 'ave children. It's in the Bible. 
 I'll find it for yer." 
 
 Mrs. Groby brought down the Bible which had been 
 given her when she was a little girl by Great-aunt Eliza- 
 beth, and made a lengthy search. She had a vague idea 
 that it might be in Leviticus. But it was not. Nor 
 was it in the Song of Solomon. At last she left the 
 Bible open and went to the marriage service in the 
 prayer book. She was not sure, but she felt there ought 
 to be something about children in that. While her 
 mother struggled with the difficult language, Sue idly 
 turned over the leaves of the Bible. She hardly knew 
 what she read; she thought merely that she was un- 
 happy. She turned over the flyleaf where her mother 
 had written a few days after her wedding a curious little 
 statement : 
 
 "Edith is my name, 
 Groby is my surname, 
 St. Panwich is my dwelling-placa 
 And Christ is my salvation. 
 
 When I am dead and in my grave 
 And all my bones are rotten, 
 If you will glance inside this book 
 Then I am not forgotten." 
 
 Sue read it over twice. For the first time in her life 
 that sort of idea meant something to her. Yes, she too
 
 436 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 would be dead one day. It was not only other people 
 died; it was even people like her, people with warm 
 blood running through them. She did not shrink. 
 What did it matter ? she thought. What would it mat- 
 ter in a hundred years? This idiotic idea comforted 
 her a little. 
 
 Mrs. Groby had at last found what she wanted in the 
 marriage service and triumphantly read it. Sue did 
 not reply; she did not want a child, and thought it 
 fortunate there should not be one. She did not know 
 why, but she vaguely felt that it would tie her up for 
 good, and it would be terrible to think that a life such as 
 hers could be anything but temporary. She could not 
 bear that life any more. Even from afar it was impos- 
 sible. She could not bear to go back at once to the 
 stifling place. 
 
 So for a long time she wandered in St. Panwich, 
 chilled by the coming darkness. She did not mind, she 
 did not cling to the High Street where the well-lit win- 
 dows of Bubwith and of Davis combined with the trams 
 to produce a sort of gaiety. Unconsciously she began a 
 sentimental journey. She turned through Paradise 
 Square into Clare Street, passing the schools where she 
 had been educated. She remembered how Ada Nuttall 
 had got into trouble for not knowing what counties sur- 
 rounded London. She smiled as she repeated : " Sur- 
 rey, Kent, Sussex, Middlesex . . ." 
 
 She passed a sweet-shop where every now and then she 
 had bought halfpennyworths of toffee when she had 
 that rare halfpenny. She thought of those children, 
 now men and women, lost in London as was she. She 
 remembered a few names : Alberta, and " Pudding ", 
 and Jackie Brown. They had not been unhappy. On 
 Saturday afternoons they had gone for picnics with some 
 bread, perhaps a little jam, and a bottle of water to 
 Highgate Fields. As she walked she remembered 
 earlier picnics still, when she and the others were too
 
 REVERSION 437 
 
 small to walk so far, and they had settled for the after- 
 noon in the waste land between the gas works and the 
 power station. They had not been unhappy there ; the 
 boys played cricket with a wicket made of coats, and 
 Jackie Brown cut his knee upon a sardine tin; they 
 bound it up with handkerchiefs, and he walked up and 
 down the High Street, saying he was a cajerlty in the 
 Bore War. 
 
 She avoided the Settlement and wandered up Crapp's 
 Lane. Without thinking she turned to the left into the 
 square between Crapp's Lane and Northbourne Road. 
 It was an open square, and she went in. There was 
 nobody there ; it was grey, and dark, and lifeless. The 
 hollybush and the evergreens shone black with soot. 
 But the square thrilled her, for round the base of the 
 biggest tree was a bench. She had sat there once or 
 twice with Bert. Ah! There it was, just the same. 
 The bench was furrowed with age and rain and stank 
 with rottenness, but that did not matter. She remained 
 standing before it, kid-gloved hands clasped over the 
 gold top of her umbrella. She remembered that they 
 had scratched their initials upon the bench with a pin, 
 and wondered whether they were still there. It was not 
 yet so dark that one could not see, and for some time she 
 searched. There were plenty of initials on that bench, 
 and arrows, and hearts. But it had rained a great deal 
 since then, and S.G. and B.C. were not scratched very 
 deep. She remembered that Bert had not his knife that 
 day, so they had used a pin. Pins did not scratch very 
 deep; perhaps other people had cut their initials over 
 theirs, blotted them out. Anyhow, the initials were 
 gone like everything else. She sat for a long time on the 
 mouldy bench, conscious of the growing coldness of the 
 world and of evening time. She was twenty, she was 
 old. Everything that had been was washed out or 
 rubbed away. Even Bert well, she only had herself 
 to blame. Slowly she melted to the memory of him, and
 
 438 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 she remembered many little things : Saturday afternoons 
 at Hampton Court when he sculled and looked so nice 
 with his hair ruffled, though he did not believe it and 
 begged her not to spoil his parting. And the day when 
 he told her that he loved her, behind the gasometer. 
 And a garnet and opal ring which she shyly left at home 
 when she married. 
 
 It all seemed so wonderful and tender, so real in the 
 familiar streets, the very streets in which she and Bert 
 used to do their courting. She did not know what made 
 her do it, but she found herself walking along North- 
 bourne Road back to Crapp's Lane, past the gas works 
 and then quickly along John Street towards the mews, as 
 if she were again keeping a tryst. It was darker now, 
 close on to six o'clock ; Bert would come out in a minute 
 or two. She stood in the silent mews. It hurt her to 
 find them silent : in that short year motorcars had come, 
 and the cab horses had gone. Her mind was filled with 
 a romantic idea : there she was at the old place, almost 
 waiting for him. Supposing he too were to come into 
 the mews for old sake's sake ? They would meet. It 
 would be as if Providence, then she blamed herself, 
 told herself not to be silly, and yet remained waiting. 
 For you never knew. The men came out, first one by 
 one, then in groups and a whole crowd. Posted at the 
 corner of the mews, she watched, and she did not know 
 why she watched. Then her heart grew large and her 
 limbs a little numb. Here he came with another man. 
 They did not see her but walked away towards Crapp's 
 Lane, and without knowing why, she followed. She 
 knew he was going home. She knew his mate would 
 leave him at the corner. She thought herself absurd 
 and accepted the absurdity. She thought : " Suppos- 
 ing he turned round, what should I say ? " So much 
 did this shake her that she suddenly stopped, let him get 
 out of sight. 
 
 At once she felt alone, and yet she could not go home.
 
 REVERSION 439 
 
 She thought she would go back to her mother's for sup- 
 per after telegraphing to Roger. Yes, she could not so 
 suddenly leave the real old life for the new one. 
 
 There were a good many people at the post-office in the 
 High Street, and she had to wait for some time at the 
 telegraph counter. This irritated her : to send that tele- 
 gram would make her vaguely feel quit for a while of 
 the new life. At last it was done. As she stuck on the 
 stamps she grew conscious of a familiar voice : " Penny 
 stamp, Miss." 
 
 Nothing had been said; they were out in the street, 
 and for a long time they walked side by side, he a little 
 in front and she following, as it had been. As if by 
 agreement, they turned off at Crapp's Lane: they did 
 not want to pass the Settlement. At last they spoke. 
 
 " Pretty cold," said Bert. 
 
 " Yes," said Sue humbly. 
 
 " I should say we'll have some snow." 
 
 " Seen mother lately ? " said Sue, changing the sub- 
 ject. 
 
 He did not reply, and they said nothing until they 
 passed John Street. Sue was thrilled because he had 
 not turned off where he should to go home. She did not 
 know whether she wanted him to turn off or not. She 
 did not know what she wanted. She just followed him, 
 and he let her without knowing that he wanted to. It 
 was simply that they had both of them been plucked by 
 chance out of the new life, planted into the old and that 
 already, quite simply, the roots were setting. So their 
 little talk was irrelevant. She said: 
 
 " One's not always happy." 
 
 He stared at her, and for a moment the charm was 
 broken as he said : 
 
 " Don't see what you've got to complain about ; you're 
 married, and all that." 
 
 " Oh, married," said Sue bitterly. " It depends who 
 you're married to."
 
 440 THE STRANGERS' WEDDING 
 
 " Well, you know, I never thought much of marriage. 
 It's only a social contract. It's a dodge invented by the 
 priests to get hold of all the silly fools. That's all it is. 
 So, of course, the capitalist state got hold of it, capital- 
 ists always were in with the priests. Still, I don't say 
 it's handy in a way." 
 
 She did not protest. Bert had always shocked her 
 by not respecting marriage, by looking upon it as merely 
 a social convenience. It was nice somehow to hear him 
 talk as he used to even though it did sound silly. For 
 one moment she thought of marriage, and wondered 
 whether she were doing wrong to be with him like that. 
 She sighed, for she could not find the answer. She 
 blamed herself, and yet her morality was still un- 
 changed, still instinctive, still tolerant of the irregular, 
 for life was very hard, and there you were. 
 
 " I see you don't agree with me," said Bert. 
 " Wooden-headed as ever." She did not reply. " You 
 don't want to talk to me, do you ? " 
 
 Still no reply. He stopped. 
 
 " Look here, I don't know what we're doing. May as 
 well say good night." 
 
 She put out her hand as if to touch him and remem- 
 bered just in time that these public touchings belonged 
 to a class she had left. 
 
 " Don't talk like that, Bert," she said. " You know 
 quite well." 
 
 " Oh, do I ? " said Bert. " That's just what I don't 
 know. There you are, living in your fine house, with 
 servants and motorcars. You're not what you used to 
 be. I don't mind." He corrected himself. " I mean 
 I shouldn't mind so much if it made you happy. But I 
 don't think." 
 
 They walked silently by each other's side again. St. 
 Panwich was left behind, and they were nearing High- 
 bury. He was racked, for he felt her unhappiness. He 
 wanted to say something to comfort her, yet knew that
 
 REVERSION 441 
 
 if he spoke he would be harsh. And she wanted so 
 much to answer that she was unhappy. They went for 
 a very long time along the dark streets, looking away 
 from each other. There were tears in her eyes now, 
 though forming gradually. First there was a tingling, 
 then a sense of matted eyelashes, of a film over her eye- 
 balls, and then suddenly she could not see at all. Her 
 eyes were filled with water, and something in her throat 
 that she could not control rose and fell. She stopped 
 just as they were passing over Hertford bridge, clutched 
 the parapet, her other hand upon her breast. 
 
 " Well," said Bert, " what's up now ? What have you 
 got to complain about after all, with your servants and 
 your fine clothes ? " He grew bitter as the envy in him 
 mixed with his desire. In this minute he hated her 
 because he loved her, and somehow she had removed her- 
 self from him. " With your fine clothes," he snarled. 
 " No wonder you don't want to talk to the likes of me 
 now you've become a bloody lady." 
 
 Sue gave a little gasp, and her hand, groping through 
 the darkness that lay over her eyes, found his arm, 
 convulsively gripped it. 
 
 " Bert," she said gently, " don't say that ; it isn't 
 true. I'm not a lady, you know that, really I'm not. 
 Oh, Bert, Bert, I ain't." 
 
 And as if the sudden relapse into her original tongue 
 had loosed in her something that had been suffering, 
 beating its wings against golden bars, and she found 
 herself in Bert's arms, not crying bitterly now, but like 
 a child, not even wondering if her hair were growing 
 untidy, or her nose red. She just clung to him, shak- 
 ing all over, as if the whole of her were melting into 
 tears. 
 
 " Cheer up, you silly kid," said Bert, moved and 
 angry because his voice was husky. " Making such a 
 show of yourself, I'm surprised at you. Chuck it, I 
 say."
 
 He could not bear to see her cry but would not tell her 
 so. And then, as if love told him exactly what to do, he 
 drew her closer into his arms and gave her upon the lips 
 a good heavy kiss which was that of a brother more than 
 of a lover. 
 
 Roger stood in the hall. He had not come home to 
 dinner, and it was ten o'clock. He had read the tele- 
 gram, and now he read over and over again a note from 
 Sue which had just come by a messenger : 
 
 "I'm going away to Bert. I'm not coming back. 
 Never." 
 
 So it was over. Queer! He was neither shocked 
 nor unhappy, only dull. Yes, it was all over. He 
 should have expected it. What should he do? One 
 thought only formed in his brain : Theresa. He would 
 go to Theresa. His mind took a more practical turn. 
 How hateful it all was. He would have to divorce Sue. 
 Well, it was only fair. He must set her free ; he had 
 spoilt enough of her life. He felt moved as he half- 
 understood how much she must have suffered before 
 doing this, breaking all her own rules of faithfulness. 
 He pitied her so much that he almost loved her again. 
 But that was over. And there formed in him a sense of 
 lightness. Poor Sue, she was free. And he? Well, 
 he was going to Theresa. 
 
 As he put on his coat he saw that something else lay 
 upon the hall table. He picked it up. It was a picture 
 postcard from Perce: the bachelor in lodgings, holding 
 up to his landlady a dead rat which he has just fished out 
 of the soup tureen. Underneath were the words : "I 
 said vegetable soup, not Irish stew." 
 
 THE ENT
 
 By the Author of "The Stranger's Wedding" 
 
 THE SECOND BLOOMING 
 
 By W. L. GEORGE 
 
 12 mo. 438 pages. $1.35 net 
 
 A strong and thoughtful story. New York World. 
 
 A story of amazing power and insight. Washington Evening 
 Star. 
 
 Mr. George is one of the Englishmen to be reckoned with. 
 One now says Wells, Galsworthy, Bennett and W. L. George. 
 
 New York Globe. 
 
 This writer has entered with more courage and intensity into 
 the inner sanctuaries of life than Mr. Howells and Mr. Bennett 
 have cared to do. Chicago Tribune. 
 
 Mr. George follows a vein of literary brilliancy that is all his 
 own, and his study of feminine maturity will find ampla vindica- 
 tion the round world over. Philadelphia North American. 
 
 It is a book which is bound to appeal to women, for it is so 
 extraordinarily true to life ; so many women have passed and are 
 passing through remarkably similar experiences. London 
 Evening Standard. 
 
 It is perhaps the biggest piece of fiction that the present season 
 has known. The present reviewer may frankly say, without exag- 
 geration, that he has not had a treat of similar order since the still 
 memorable day when he first made the acquaintance of Mr. 
 Galsworthy's "Man of Property." Frederic T. Cooper in the 
 Bookman (N. F.). 
 
 LITTLE, BROWN & CO., PUBLISHERS 
 
 34 BEACON STREET, BOSTOH
 
 The Racial Characteristics of French and English. 
 
 THE MAKING OF AN 
 ENGLISHMAN 
 
 By W. L. GEORGE 
 
 12 mo. Cloth. $1.35ne*. 
 
 Not since Thackeray, indeed, has any English novelist done a 
 more impressive study of the typical Englishman. It is not 
 only a good story; it is a notable study of national character. 
 Baltimore Sun. 
 
 Not merely a splendid opportunity for contrast between the 
 temperamental differences of French and English, but a narrative 
 of earnest merit. We are met by a full world of English char- 
 acters. New York Post. 
 
 First and last, interesting. It is crowded with impressions, 
 glimpses, and opinions. There are many characters and they 
 are all living. . . . Reading his book is a real adventure, by 
 no means to be missed. New York Times. 
 
 A vigorous novel based upon the process constructive and 
 destructive whereby a typical French youth, mercurial, pas- 
 sionate, spectacular, is transformed into a staid and stolid 
 English householder and husband. Chicago Herald. 
 
 Mr. George, one of the most promising of the younger English 
 writers, has shown the process of naturalization from a more 
 striking viewpoint, in this story of the changing of a Frenchman 
 into an English citizen. With this purpose and his nervous, 
 irritable nature trouble is sure to ensue, and he has adventures in 
 plenty. Boston Transcript. 
 
 LITTLE, BROWN & CO., PUBLISHERS 
 84 BEACON STREET, BOSTON
 
 "Once read, will not quickly be forgotten." Providence Journal. 
 
 UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 
 
 By W. L. GEORGE 
 12 mo. Cloth. $1.35 net. 
 
 Mr. George's study of the evolution of this Israel Kalisch is a 
 remarkable work in realistic fiction. New York World. 
 
 A novel of more than usual value. . . . It is a life-drama, 
 such as is going on continually in London and New York. 
 Hearst's Magazine. 
 
 The story contains a very pretty love element . . . Such an 
 objective picture as is here presented will do more than sermons 
 to reveal the futility of the sacrifice which anarchy sometimes 
 makes of noble minds. New York Post. 
 
 Mr. George unquestionably has the gift of description, not 
 only of places but of men. Kalisch, egotistic, self-confident, 
 fearless, making his way from Gallicia through Hungary to starve 
 and fight in New York, is an impressive conception. The 
 Bookman. 
 
 Israel, Warsch, Leimeritz, the various women who successively 
 love Israel, they are so true, so vital that we can almost see and 
 hear them speak and breathe. Yes, this is a great novel, even 
 though it alternately fires and freezes the very marrow of the 
 soul. Chicago Herald. 
 
 LITTLE, BROWN & CO., PUBLISHERS 
 34 BEACON STREET, BOSTON