THERE was a big-ribbed looking-glass outside the window of the doctor’s consulting-room, that tilted in the warm, reddish sunlight of the September morning, while through the open sash there stole in the aromatic smell of fresh-laid asphalt. There was not much traffic going on, only occasionally the clip-clop of a horse’s hoofs sounded staccato on the wooden pavement of Harley Street, and Edith could hear without effort all that Sir Thomas was saying.

He hardly led up to it, for she had come there that morning simply to know what the result of his examination had been, and he merely asked her a question or two as to her health since the birth of the baby. And then, without preparing her, for he knew that there is no breaking such news, he told her quite quietly, in a word or two.

Edith had been sitting opposite the window, looking at him with her pleasant, direct gaze, as if giving her very courteous attention to a story that did not particularly entertain her, but in which she was bound, for politeness’ sake, to appear interested. But when he finished she smiled at him as if his tale had had some slightly humorous conclusion. She did not feel in the least stunned, nor had she any consciousness of having received a shock. Only for a moment the little trivial circumstances of the hour and the place grew more vivid; she noticed that the clock on the chimney-piece had stopped, odd in the consulting-room of a great doctor; that Sir Thomas had a scar running across the back of his left hand; that one of her own gloves had fallen on to the floor. Then this attention to trivialities subsided again, and she felt perfectly normal, perfectly herself.

“Thank you for telling me so kindly and considerately,” she said. “You see how successful you have been, how little it has upset me? It is then—it is very serious.”

“Yes.”

Again she smiled at him.

“I quite understand,” she said.

Sir Thomas got up and held out his hand to her.

“Ah, my dear lady,” he said, “you are a brave woman. Meet your—your illness with the same bravery day by day. Those are the patients, people like you, who get well, and get well quickly.”

“What are my chances?” she asked briskly.

“They are excellent. Thanks to that little hÆmorrhage you had last week, and thanks to your common sense in consulting me about it without losing time, we have detected the disease in an early stage. All depends now—humanly speaking—on yourself, on your obedience to what we tell you to do, and the scrupulous rigour with which you carry out your treatment.”

That allusion to treatment, to obedience to orders, brought Edith closer, more immediately in contact, as it were, with the news.

“You have no doubt whatever that I have consumption?” she asked quickly.

“I am afraid none. Of course the hÆmorrhage, as I told you before, might have come from the throat, but the examination I have made since I saw you last proves the presence of what you call the little insects.”

“And what am I to do?” she asked.

“Go out to Davos as soon as ever you can. I would have you leave by this afternoon’s train, if it was possible. And there you will live out of doors day and night as far as possible. Until you check the disease it gains on you. As I told you, you have an excellent chance, and you mustn’t imperil it by delay.”

Edith considered this for a moment.

“I will be at Davos in a fortnight from to-day,” she said. “That is reasonable, is it not?”

“Yes, if you will be an outdoor invalid in the interval,” he said.

Edith was silent, wondering at herself for the perfect calmness which she felt. At first she thought that the suddenness of the news might have partly stunned her, but the minutes were passing, and still she had no consciousness of having received a shock. She understood, too, the gravity of the sentence which had been pronounced; it was not that her mind refused to grasp it. Now she almost laughed.

“I feel I ought to apologise for being so unagitated,” she said, “but I don’t feel the least inclined to be agitated. Perhaps I have been fearing this all these last days, and anyhow the fear is removed, now I know. Now about my plans; I will tell you.”

Edith hesitated again. She had known Sir Thomas from her childhood; he had done all that was possible for her late husband; he had brought her child into the world. She determined to ask him several things which concerned her, so it seemed, more intimately than her illness.

“Can you give me a quarter of an hour now?” she asked. “There are several questions I want to put to you. How dazzling this reflected sun is. Ah, I can sit out of the glare there!”

She moved her place so that she sat with her back to the light and covered her eyes with her hands.

“First, then, about my plans,” she said. “I will be at Davos in a fortnight, but I won’t promise to be an invalid in the interval. I mean to go with my husband to Munich for ten days and hear Wagner opera. We had planned it all, you see, and we shall start in two days. From there I will go to Davos.”

“Ah, I protest against that!” said Sir Thomas. “It means fatigue, excitement, bad air, the three things you must avoid. I will speak to Mr. Grainger myself.”

“No, indeed, you must not,” said she. “It must be I who tell him. Now, I don’t mean to tell him until after we have seen the opera together. Oh, Sir Thomas, I can’t. I simply can’t start my invalid life without one more treat, as the children say, without one more week of Indian summer. After that, I promise to tell him, and I promise to be the most willing and obedient of patients. It does mean such a lot to me! I can’t tell you how much. I shall fret and worry over not having gone there with him if I don’t go. But I intend to. So please tell me how to minimise any harm it may do me.”

There was no doubt she was in earnest over this; that week at Munich with Hugh, even now within half an hour of the news she had heard, seemed to her to matter more than anything else. A far less acute man than Sir Thomas could have seen that.

“Of course, if you intend to fret over not having gone—” he began.

“I don’t intend to; I shan’t be able to avoid it, and, indeed, I will be so good afterwards and so determined to get well. But just a little more happiness first!”

Yes; the thought of missing Munich clearly touched her more intimately than the knowledge that this deadly disease had built nests in her. It was the child’s cry for “five minutes more” before bedtime, five minutes of romance, of play. Munich and its music, much as she loved it, was, in itself, nothing to her; what she could not bear to miss was this extra week of holiday, this one more week of Hugh’s unsuspecting, joyful companionship. However well he bore this news when he knew, he would still be bearing it. Until she was well again, if she was going to get well, his sky would always be overcast; he would be anxious, solicitous, with fear always in the back of his mind, however well he hid it, and she felt she must be partner for just a little while more of his riotous boyish happiness, which was so “Hugh” to her. Some part of this, no doubt, Sir Thomas guessed; he knew at any rate that she had set her mind on another week of life. He knew, too, from his previous knowledge of her, that she was one of those whose body is in fine obedience to their will, and whose will is set on health and the joy of living.

“But will you be sensible during that week at Munich?” he asked. “Will you rest when you are tired, and stop at home and not go to the opera if you feel it is too much for you?”

Edith took her hands away from her eyes with a superb wide gesture. Her need was imperative; she did not care what price was paid for it.

“No, I won’t promise to be in the least sensible during that week,” she said. “I might just as well not go to Munich at all, as be sensible. I mean to have a splendid time just for one week more, to watch Hugh’s complete happiness just for that week, and know that it is mine. And if I die a month sooner in consequence, I will say ‘Thank God for Munich,’ with my latest breath. After that week I will tell Hugh everything; I will be very good, very obedient, and, oh, how cheerful! But I will have this week as we planned it.”

At heart Sir Thomas exulted in the obstinacy of his patient. He loved those who loved the joys of living, and made light of their infirmities even at the risk of increasing them. But he felt professionally bound to apply the brake here.

“But, my dear lady, how can you have a splendid time—which with all my heart I desire for you—if you are feeling very tired and languid? You can’t—your body must react on your mind. Also you will risk having another hÆmorrhage; you will risk, for the sake of a week, doing yourself a damage that it may take six months to repair.”

Edith leaned forward in her chair, brilliant, radiant, her brave soul shining like a beacon in her tired eyes.

“You know all about me,” she said; “I have suffered a good deal of mental pain in my life, and I think that that has taught me to despise physical discomfort. Anyhow, I do. I don’t care how tired I get for just this week, and I defy all the little insects in the world to make me enjoy myself less. So that is settled. And now I have one or two more questions, and then, if you please, we will call my sister in, and tell her.”

She leaned back again, and again covered her eyes with her hands. She was getting into more intimate lands now, and was silent a moment.

“Will this age me much?” she asked, “I mean, if I get well, shall I be an old woman? I am, as you know, much older than my husband, and if this will further increase the difference in our ages it might be better——”

Sir Thomas cut this short with some decision.

“It will do nothing of the kind,” he said. “If you do as you are told, the very cure itself, which heals your disease, will rest you in other ways. When you are well again, you will be better in general health and younger than you are now. At least, I have often seen that happen. Only you must fight the little insects to the death. And you have a good chance of doing so.”

Again the hands came away from her eyes, and the shadow of the fear that had been there before was past away.

“Thank you, my dear friend,” she said. “Now, is Davos a dreadful place? Can a man be there much without being bored to death? And what is the shortest time in which you think I could get well?”

“I have known cures of cases far worse than yours being complete in a year, as far as the actual presence of disease goes. But that means a year of complete invalid life, passed at Davos, or perhaps at some higher place just for the summer months, without ever coming down into lower air.”

“You mean I mustn’t come to England for a year?” asked Edith.

“Not if you want to give yourself the best chance. Davos is delightful in the winter for any man who cares about outdoor sports, but I should say very dull when the ice goes.”

“And what is the risk of infection to others? Would it be better, I mean, for my husband, when he is at Davos to live in a hotel. I suppose I shall take a house, shall I not?”

“The risk would be unappreciable.”

“Or for my sister, or her children, or my baby?”

“There would be no risk if you are sensible about it. You would not, of course, well, kiss anybody. And there are other precautions as well, which of course you will observe.”

Edith nodded at him.

“Yes, I will be very sensible,” she said. “And now please call Peggy in, and I will tell her.”

“I will just examine your heart first,” he said. “It will not take more than a minute or two. I remember there was a little weakness.”

He was satisfied, however, with this.

“No, that is sound enough,” he said. “It is a little weak in its action, but there is nothing wrong. But, my dear lady, you have to concentrate all your forces to fight this new enemy. You must, you absolutely must avoid fatigue and worry.”

But she cut him short.

“Ah then, I must certainly go to Munich,” she said. “It will save me no end of worry. Now let us have Peggy in; I want to tell her at once.”

Peggy was but next door, and the summoning of her in took no longer than the opening of it. At present all she knew was that Edith wanted to get a clean bill of health before starting for Munich. She had confessed to fatigue, but had breathed to her sister no suspicion of her fear, and their coming up to town together was a plan that had been formed several weeks before. And though the length of time that she had been kept in the waiting-room, while Edith saw Sir Thomas alone, had a little disquieted her, yet the serenity of Edith’s face when she was admitted to his consulting-room, immensely reassured her. Then Sir Thomas closed the door behind her, and she sat down opposite her sister. Edith spoke:

“Dear Peggy,” she said, “I suppose I ought to break it to you, but it’s so ridiculous to break things. I’ve got consumption. Isn’t it dreadful?”

Peggy looked at her blankly, and then this most unorthodox patient leaned back in her chair and burst into shouts of laughter. She simply could not help it, the blankness of Peggy’s face was so excruciatingly funny. Then the infection of the laughter caught her sister also, and they just sat and laughed. Once Peggy tried to compose her face, and said, “Oh, Edith!” in a trembling voice, but that set Edith off again till the tears streamed.

“Oh, I’m better!” she said at length. “But how funny it was. I should never be good at breaking things to people, should I, Sir Thomas? O Peggy, what a pity Hugh wasn’t here, too! He loves laughing. Yes, and we’re going to Munich just as we planned, and after that I go to Davos for a whole year. Then, if I am good, perhaps I shall be quite well again, and younger and better than I am now. That will be an advantage.”

“Oh, my darling,” said Peggy. “I am so—so—there are no words.”

“No, it was much better to laugh. Fancy there being a humorous side to consumption. What a good thing! And since Sir Thomas has allowed me to go to Munich, I shall not tell Hughie till afterward. And from there I go straight to Davos, and behave too beautifully. That is a fair statement of our interview, is it not, Sir Thomas? Now, Peggy, we must go home to lunch. I am so hungry.”

But the doctor could not quite let this pass.

“I’ve been doing my utmost to persuade Mrs. Grainger not to go to Munich,” he said. “Will she listen to you?”

“Not for a single instant,” said Edith.

“My dear lady, be serious for a moment.”

Edith rose.

“Oh, don’t make me laugh again,” she said. “Good-bye, Sir Thomas, you are the kindest man in the world. Please come and see me to-morrow, and tell me whom I shall be under, and all about it. I must have a house there. I hate hotels. Perhaps we had better go to a hotel first, until we can get something to suit us. And you and the children, Peggy, are coming out to stay with me, but I mustn’t kiss you. Sir Thomas, since I am to be idle by your orders, you will probably receive some time next year a small book with the compliments of the author, called ‘Our Life in High Altitudes.’”

They got into the brougham that was waiting and drove off. Then in spite of orders Peggy turned to her sister and kissed her.

“You blessed darling,” she said. “But, oh, Edith, don’t be so splendid about it, or you will break my heart.”

Edith still had that radiant look with which she had heard her sentence.

“Splendid?” she said. “I’m not splendid. I am behaving exactly as I feel inclined. Is it odd, do you think? I don’t. Besides, what would be the use of curling up and snivelling? I’m not made like that.”

“No, you dear,” said Peggy, half-sobbing, “that’s just it. That’s just the splendidness that makes me cry.”

Edith took her sister’s hand.

“Ah, don’t Peggy!” she said. “Don’t let us give way for a single second if we can help. Don’t let us ever think about giving way, or else that will become natural. I won’t. I won’t! I will not!” she said with great emphasis.

There was silence a moment, then Edith spoke again.

“Now I shall sit out on my balcony all afternoon,” she said, “and hold this all in front of me, till I am quite certain that I fully realise it. And then, Peggy, this evening I will talk it over with you just once, and from then until—until the time that I am well again, we will never allude to it any more.”

“Yes, dear,” said she.

Then Edith’s face broadened into a great smile again.

“And, oh, what a beautiful laugh we had,” she said. “I can truly say in the future, if I am very much amused about something, ‘I haven’t laughed so much since they told me I had consumption.’”

“Don’t, don’t!” said Peggy.

Peggy, even in September, was full of business. There was a factory to be visited, a school of work to be inspected, and a “home” where surprise-descents were distinctly good for the matron, who was not wholly satisfactory, and it was not till after six that she got back to Rye House. But busy though she had been, it had required all her force and determination to get through her errands, for her mind kept flying back like a released spring to Edith, whom she had left sitting out in the warm autumn sunshine, facing what she had been told, adjusting, as she would have to do, her mind and her whole self to new conditions. When Peggy got back, they were to have their talk, just the one talk.

The hours had passed quickly for Edith, and if anyone had watched her, not knowing what occupied her mind so intensely, he would have said that here was a woman with a true gift of lotus-eating, so quietly she sat, so content to do nothing whatever. Once or twice only in those hours did anything of a disquieting nature seem to cross her mind, and even then a couple of sharp-drawn breaths, or a sudden look as of pain or fright in her eyes, soon past, was all the surface sign of it. And at the end, when she heard Peggy’s motor draw up at the door, it was with the same patient and smiling content, which for the most of the afternoon had lain like sunlight on her face, that she went downstairs.

The two had tea together in Peggy’s sitting-room, and then Edith took her favourite chair and spoke. Again there was no transition possible from the topics of the day which had occupied them at tea, and she began without preamble.

“Yes, dear, I have thought it all out,” she said, “and I know at this moment just how I feel about it, and what I hope I shall continue to feel. Peggy, it is so simple; big things always are, I think. Isn’t that a blessing? Now I shall begin at the beginning, not like Hugh’s stories, which begin in the middle, and go on till I get to the end, and then I shall stop. I don’t want you to say anything at all. It’s my innings.”

“Peggy, I don’t want to die, and I don’t intend to die if I can help. I want and mean to get well, and I shall do all I can to get well. But when one is told that one has consumption, one has to realise that it may mean that one is not going to get well. So about dying. You must take care of Hugh, won’t you? And you must make him marry again. I tell you that because—oh, my dear, the flesh is so strong—though I mean to tell him that myself if I find I am getting worse instead of better, I can’t be certain that I shall be able to. All that is at all decent in me will urge me to tell him, but there is a lot in me that isn’t, and I find, and shall find, it difficult to think of him as another woman’s husband. And perhaps my tongue will quite refuse to ask him to promise that he will marry again. So I ask you to tell him in case I don’t.

“That is the most important thing if I die. And, oh, Peggy, if I am to die, pray that it may come quick, and pray that I shall not be afraid. I hope I shall not, but one can’t tell. And pray that my darling will be with me when it comes, that his face will be the last I see here. Just as I know—oh, how I know it—that when he joins me, mine will be the first that he sees on the other side.

“Then this afternoon I wondered also how matters could be arranged, what about Dennis? And as I couldn’t possibly know, it was no use thinking about that.”

“Peggy, next to Hugh and baby, you are the person I am most sorry to leave. Don’t miss me too much although I should be frantic if I thought you wouldn’t. And remember that if I die, I now, in my sober senses, bless and praise God for the exquisite happiness I have had. I should have loved to have had other children, to have seen them grow up; I can’t help being sorry, if that is not to be. That is why I don’t want to die. But, oh, what a splendid time I have had. I thank God for it. Remember that.”

Edith had been speaking again with her hands over her eyes just as she had spoken to the doctor this morning, but here she took them away, and grasped one of her sister’s hands in both hers.

“And one thing more about dying, and I have done,” she said. “You mustn’t let it hurt you to hear me talk of it, Peggy. It is just this. You know how you dissuaded me from marrying Hugh, saying the years which made me old would leave him young. Well, perhaps you were right, and perhaps this is the solution of it. If so, I am quite content. I would infinitely rather die than have that wintry tragedy. I just want to assure you of that, and that is all about dying.”

Edith sat silent a moment, and Peggy could not speak, for it was all she could do not to break into open weeping. Had Edith been less gallant, less courageous of soul, she could have consoled and strengthened her. But she stood in no need of that; and the tears that stood in Peggy’s eyes were more of love and admiration than of pity.

Then Edith rose.

“Now all that is gone,” she said. “We put it all behind us; it is not to be. I am going to live, and, oh, my dear, do you know what that old angel, Sir Thomas, told me? He said that if I got well as I intend to do—I should be younger and better than I am now. There is the other solution. I would dearly like to renew my youth a little, to have the health and vigour of the past year over again for a few years more. That is worth living for. Some day I shall write a list of things worth living for. There are heaps of them. Sunshine and snow, and Hugh, and music and you, and ‘Gambits’ and baby. Those are only the first few that occur to me, but there are about twenty million others and I am going to live for them all. They are ‘Things in General,’ in fact, which we spoke of the other day, and are all delightful. As you said, one has to make them part of you. And I am going to do exactly what I am told, and leave nothing undone that can help to make me well, and do nothing that can stand in the way of that. Ah, I forgot Munich! But please don’t argue about Munich. I intend to go there. Also, Peggy, I am going to tell Hugh a lie about it. I shall tell him that Sir Thomas said it couldn’t possibly hurt me, in fact, that he recommended me to go. Otherwise, you see, Hugh will think it very wrong of me not to have told him first, so that he might refuse to go. I daresay it is wrong, and it is also selfish, because I am doing it simply for my pleasure. But I don’t care. I will start being good next Tuesday week, and not before. Oh, and one more arrangement! I wish you would take care of baby and his nurse until we get settled at Davos.”

“Why, of course!” said Peggy.

“That is dear of you. And you must come out with the children and be with us a great deal, both for Hugh’s sake and mine. Oh, Peggy, Hugh mustn’t get bored, and I don’t see how to help it. He mustn’t stop with me out there after the ice goes. I can’t cut into his life like that. Ah! well—one needn’t think about that yet. And, my dear, if ever you see me faltering and being cowardly or despondent or ungrateful, try not to notice it. It won’t be me: it will be these nasty little insects. I shall be doing my best! I promise you that. And that is all, I think.”

Again she held out her hands for Peggy, but that would not do for Peggy.

“Ah! you mustn’t kiss me,” cried Edith. “I promised not to kiss anybody.”

But Peggy clung to her.

“Thank God for people like you!” she said.

Hugh was to arrive (and did so) next day, for he and his wife were starting from town the morning after for Munich, and he arrived rather in the manner of a loquacious whirlwind in the middle of lunch. He greeted neither Peggy nor Edith, but waved a telegraphic form at them.

“I’ve got to say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ at once!” he cried. “It was handed to me at the station at Mannington, but I couldn’t reply before I saw you, Edith, as Munich is your treat. Burgmann is ill, and they ask if I will sing ‘Tristan’ on Monday week in his place. Yes, at Munich, of course, I said so. Heavens! Do you grasp the inwardness of this sacred fact? An Englishman asked to sing ‘Tristan’ in Germany, to the high ge-born Tedeschi! Lord, what fun! I shall go mad, as Mr. Tree said. But how frightfully chic it would be to say ‘No.’ Yes, chicken, please.”

He sat down and turned to Edith.

“It’s our last evening there,” he said, “and it’s the last performance of the cycle. Which shall we do? Shall we sing, or shall we see? I want you to settle.”

Edith took the prepaid form which Hugh had been waving about with the other.

“I don’t settle,” she said; “it settles itself. Of course you sing. Please have this sent at once, will you, Peggy?”

“Oh! but that’s rather sudden,” said Hugh. “You don’t consider me. I shall have no more fun now until it’s over. No cigarettes, no anything but scales. It may be awfully nice for you—I say, that sounds so gloriously conceited, but I won’t alter it—but it will absolutely spoil Munich for me.”

“Oh! Hughie, it crowns it for both of us,” said she.

“I travelled up with Mrs. Owen,” said Hugh, eating very rapidly, “and I think she’s going to the dogs, and if so, it’s your influence Edith. She smoked a cigarette in the train. I don’t think your influence is a very good one. You domineer, too: you domineer most frightfully. That sending of the telegram was mere brute force.”

“But you told me to settle. I did so. Why, Hugh, it is the most gorgeous thing that ever happened. It’s the best birthday present I ever received.”

Hugh dropped his knife and fork with a crash, and jumped up.

“Why, I remembered this morning,” he said, “and that silly telegram drove it out of my head again. Edith, my darling, many, many happy returns——”

He bent over her to kiss her, and, forgetful for the moment, she raised her face to his. Then, and it was like a stab to her, she remembered. Hugh’s face was close to hers, his lips all but touched her.

“Ah! no,” she cried quickly; “you mustn’t kiss me. I’ve—I’ve got a cold, and if I gave it you, you might not be able to sing. Thank you, dear, a thousand times, for your good wishes.”

Hugh looked at her for a moment in mild astonishment.

“As if I cared,” he said.

“Ah, but I do,” said Edith. “You catch cold so easily, too.”

Hugh went back to his seat.

“I don’t like your having colds,” he said, “independently of the fact that I mayn’t kiss you on your birthday. You had one in August; now you’ve got another. I’ve a good mind—” And then he stopped.

“Hugh, it’s very rude to begin sentences and not finish them,” said Peggy.

“Yes, isn’t it? By the way, all my music is down at Mannington. I must go and get a copy of ‘Tristan’ this afternoon, as I shall have to begin learning it up again at once. What are my ladies going to do?”

Peggy, it appeared, was at leisure, and offered to drive him where he wanted in the motor; Edith had “things,” so she comprehensively expressed it, and was at nobody’s disposal till tea. This, as a matter of fact, suited Hugh’s “good mind” very well, and soon after lunch he set out with Peggy. But no sooner were they alone than he announced a strangely disconcerting manoeuvre.

“Yes, let’s go and get ‘Tristan’ first,” he said, “and then I want you to drop me at Sir Thomas Ransom’s. Edith’s got no business to have colds. I shall get him to come and see her. I’ve several times thought she wasn’t very well, but she always said she was. Do you think she’s well, Peggy?”

This was awkward, but after an extremely rapid consideration, Peggy concluded that she had a prior engagement of secrecy to Edith, which entailed what is elegantly called “diplomacy,” in dealing with Hugh.

“No, since you ask me, I don’t,” she began.

“Then, why didn’t you tell me?”

After all diplomatic truth would serve her purpose. And she proceeded to use extremely misleading accuracy.

“Because Edith knows it herself,” she said; “and as a matter of fact, went to see Sir Thomas yesterday, so there is no need for you to go. In any case, Hugh, you can’t spring a doctor on a grown-up person, as if she was a child. But I know she saw Sir Thomas yesterday. In fact”—Peggy paused a moment, wondering how far astray truth-telling would lead her—“in fact, I went with her.”

“And what did he say?” asked Hugh, with inconvenient abruptness.

Peggy looked firmly out of the window.

“Oh! what doctors always say; avoid over-excitement and curried prawns, and hot rooms and fatigue.”

“Then, did he know she was going to Munich?”

“Yes; oh, yes—I am certain of that! He—he encouraged her to go.”

Peggy was beginning to feel slightly feverish with the strain of this, and there was a heartache in every word. But she had promised secrecy, and secrecy implied that she would do her best that Hugh should suspect nothing. But it was rather hard work, for Hugh showed no sign of being tired of questioning her. Diplomatic truth, too, having served its turn, was discarded, and diplomatic inexactitude had become necessary.

“She needed encouragement, then,” said Hugh. “She felt not quite up to it.”

“Not at all. She wanted to go very much, and he encouraged her, as I said.”

The motor stopped at this moment by the music shop where Hugh was to buy “Tristan,” and he got out.

“I shan’t be a minute,” he said. “Will you wait for me and drive me to Harley Street?”

For a moment after Hugh had left her Peggy seriously considered the propriety of telling the worse lie, breaking the previous engagement. She knew quite well that what she and Sir Thomas had been unable to do Hugh could do with the utmost ease. In a moment Edith would consent to go to Davos at once if Hugh wished it, but Hugh, in order to wish it, had to know what Peggy knew and was bound not to tell him. Yet her mind hesitated between the two courses, and for the first minute of waiting she had no idea whether she would break faith to Edith or really lie—properly lie to Hugh. She had seen that he was already more than half way toward suspicion. Either she had to quiet that by really magnificent lying, or by lying, quite as magnificent, break faith with her sister, and tell him all. Then, too, he was determined to see Sir Thomas. Perhaps Sir Thomas might not see his way to lying, if Hugh asked, as he probably would, more of these direct questions. And if Sir Thomas was to tell him, it was clearly much better that she should do so first. If anybody was to tell the truth, she had much better be the first to tell it.

And then the determining factor came into her mind, and that was the freedom and individuality of all persons. When vital matters, matters of life and death and love, came on to the stage, the ordering of the stage, the ordering of the crowd, the lights, the whole arrangement, must be made to fit the chief actor. Edith on this half-tragic, half-triumphant stage that was set for her had chosen the manner of the enactment. Peggy was but a figure in the crowd; Edith ordered her to stand thus, and to do thus, and to say thus. It was Edith’s show. She had ordered Hugh also into his place, that place where her heart was. And her lover, her beloved, had to obey no less than Peggy. This week of Munich was ordained. Edith knew the risks she ran, and she chose to run them, and, after all, it was her business. It might be expensive, but it was fine. It was young, too—gloriously, unwisely young—so young that it made Peggy feel dreadfully old. There was no calculation about it, no counting of cost. Edith was willing to risk anything to have the week she wanted, the week of the boisterous, unsuspecting Hugh. Oh! that passionate enjoyment of the pleasure of somebody else! The seven veils of the sanctuary lift there. It was the abandonment of love; and whether the tragedy to be paid for was long weeks of lingering illness, or any other supreme torture, the price was cheap. Peggy divined that; Edith knew it. And mentally Peggy abased herself when the light of that vision shone upon her, as it did while she waited in Berners Street for Hugh.

He did not keep her waiting long, and Peggy at once began to weave the web of the deceit that was forced on her. Few people had had less practice in that difficult art than she, and as she conducted this piece of diplomacy, she felt that she really must have a great natural gift that way. At the same time she remembered having been diplomatic to Hugh over the question of their going to Mannington in the summer, and her diplomacy had been blessed with singular success. Now she had two objects in view, one that Hugh should not go to Sir Thomas, the other that the vague uneasiness that was certainly rising, mist-like, from his mind should be dispelled. Edith should have the sunny week that her soul desired, and for that an unanxious, unsuspecting Hugh was necessary. She should have him, if Peggy could procure him.

“Such a wise idea of yours to go and see Sir Thomas!” she said, with extraordinary craft, “because he will certainly laugh at you, and that perhaps will set your mind at ease. And it’s most important that it should be at rest. Really it matters more than anything else.”

“Why? How is that?” asked Hugh.

“Oh! dear me, how stupid men are! Can’t you see that Edith is looking forward to Munich with the keenest, most vivid anticipations? Well, at the risk of making you more conceited than you are already, I will tell you why. It’s because she is going to be alone with you and your enjoyment. There is nothing in the world she loves as much as seeing you have a good time. And it will spoil it all for her if you are uneasy and causelessly anxious. That’s why I urge you to see Sir Thomas.”

This had a very distinct effect on Hugh.

“My seeing Sir Thomas is nothing,” he said. “But I felt as if you were keeping something back. Can’t you tell me what he said?”

“I can’t go into medical details,” said Peggy; “but I can tell you this, that when Edith called me in after she had consulted him and told me what he had said we both simply sat and roared with laughter. And I rather think he joined.”

Hugh gave a great sigh of relief, and Peggy ejaculated “God forgive me!” below her breath.

“Oh, why didn’t you tell me that?” he said.

“Because I thought it so much better that you should see Sir Thomas,” said Peggy quite glibly.

Hugh turned on her.

“You have the making of a diplomatist,” he said. “What’s the use of my seeing Sir Thomas now you have told me that? And Edith really looks forward to Munich, and it will spoil it if I’m not in tearing spirits? Lord! I won’t spoil it. Where shall we go instead?”

“The Zoo,” said Peggy without hesitation.

Hugh called the changed direction out of the window to the chauffeur, and sat silent awhile.

“After all, it was absurd of me to think there could be anything wrong,” he said, “or of course she would have told me.”

Peggy sighed, an elaborate, effective sigh.

“I was wondering when that would occur to you,” she observed.

Hugh let this pass.

“So I’ve just got to—to shout and sing?” he asked.

“Yes, if you want Edith to have a good time. I can tell you, too, that I have never seen her look forward with such pleasure to anything as this Munich trip. It’s taken her fancy.”

“I’m her man, then,” said Hugh.

Peggy thought it incumbent on her to tell Edith what had occurred, feeling that she might view this deliberate deception in a different light to the mere concealment which was all that she had contemplated. But Edith poured scorn on her scruples.

“Peggy, you are a true friend!” she said, “and how easily you seem to have—well, told the truth. It’s quite Bismarckian. Have you been practising lately?”

Peggy was slowly pulling off her gloves.

“No, I don’t think I have,” she said. “Oh! I was diplomatic with Hugh once in the summer, I remember, and I rather enjoyed it. But, oh! Edith, it gave me the heartache this afternoon. And what will Hugh think of me when he knows?”

“He will think that you have been a true friend to me,” said her sister. “He will love you for it when—when he understands. Ah! but we are on forbidden ground again.”

Edith paused.

“I remember once talking to you about Hugh’s first appearance in town,” she said. “I told you then that if he failed, which was impossible, I should not be sorry, because I would have to comfort him again, and make him happy. Well, that is closer to me now. When I tell him what Sir Thomas told me yesterday he will want that comfort. But now he will really want it, for I am more to him than his art.”

Edith gently smoothed the sofa cushion beside her.

“I am—I really am!” she said.

. . . . . . . .

The dressing-gong sounded sonorously and its echoes died into silence.

“You will see,” said Edith.