The Lonely Unicorn: A Novel

PART IV

ONE WAY OR ANOTHER

CHAPTER XVII

THREE YEARS

The next three years of Roland's life were an amplification of those three days, and nothing would be gained by a detailed description of them. The narrative would be cut across frequently by visits to Europe, dropped threads would have to be gathered up, relationships reopened. The action was delayed, interrupted and, at times, held up altogether. The trips abroad were always altering Roland's perspective, and the sense of distance made him reconsider his attitude. Four months after the events described in the last chapter he had reached a state of acute reaction against his home, his parents and, in a way, against April, because of her connection with that world from which he was endeavouring to escape. Very little was needed to drive him into declared revolt, but at that moment he was sent abroad and, once abroad, everything became different. He began to accuse himself of selfishness and ingratitude. His parents had denied themselves comfort and pleasure to send him to an expensive school; they had given him everything. Like the pelican, they had gone hungry so that he should be full. Since he could remember, the life of that family had centred round him. Every question had been considered on the bearing it would have on his career. Was this the manner of repayment? And it was the same with April. He forgot her mother and her home; he remembered only her beauty and her love for him, her fixed, unwavering love, and the dreams that they had shared. He always returned home in a temper of sentimentality, full of good resolutions, promising himself that he would be gentle and sympathetic to his parents, that he would never swerve from his love for April. The first days were invariably soft and sweet: but in a short time the old conflict reasserted itself; the bright world of Hogstead stood in dazzling contrast to the unromantic Hammerton. He became irritated, as before, by the trifling inconveniences of a house that lacked a parlourmaid; unpunctual, unappetising meals; and, more especially, by the endless friction imposed on him by the company of men and women who had been harassed all their lives by the fret and worry of small houses and small incomes. Trivial, ignoble troubles, that was the misfortune of everyone fated to live in Hammerton. And April was a part of it. He was very fond of her; indeed, he still thought he was in love with her, but love for Roland was dependent on many other things, was bound up with his other enthusiasms and reactions. He enjoyed her company and her caresses. In her presence he was capable of genuine tenderness; but it was so easy. April responded so simply to any kindness shown to her. There was no uncertainty about her. He missed the swift anger of the chase.

More and more frequently he found himself receiving and accepting invitations to spend the week-end at Hogstead; and always when he announced his intention of going there he was aware of silent criticism on the part of his parents. He felt guilty and ashamed of himself for feeling guilty. It became a genuine struggle for him to pronounce the words at breakfast. It was like confessing a secret, and he hated it. Had he not a right to choose his friends? Then would come a reaction of acute self-accusation and he would improvise a treat, a theatre or a picnic. His emotions would fling it like a sop to his conscience: "There, does that content you? Now may I go and live my own life?" Afterwards, of course, he was again bitterly ashamed of himself.

But always on the ebb-flow of his contrition came fear—the instinct of self-preservation, to save, at all costs, his individuality from the fate that threatened it. Whenever things seemed likely to reach a head, a European trip would intervene, and the whole business would have to begin again. An action that would ordinarily have completed its rhythm within three or four months was lengthened into three years; in the end inevitably the curve of the parabola was reached. The time was drawing near when Roland would have to make his decision one way or another.

He was by now earning a salary of four hundred pounds a year, and marriage—marriage as his parents understood it—was well within his means. Up till now, whenever any suggestion about the date of his marriage had been advanced, he referred to the uncertain nature of his work.

"I never know where I'm going to be from one week to another. Marriage is out of the question for a chap with a job like that."

Their engagement was still unannounced. He had retained that loophole, though at the time it was not so that he had regarded it.

Ralph had asked him once whether he was engaged. And the question had put him on his guard. He didn't like engagements. Love was a secret between two people. Why make it public? He must strike before the enemy struck. In other words, he must come to an agreement with April before her mother opened negotiations. That evening he had brought up the subject.

He was sitting in the window-seat, while she was on a stool beside him, her head resting against his knees and his hand stroking slowly her neck and hair and cheek.

"You know, darling," he said, "I've been thinking about our engagement."

"Yes, dear."

"Well, are you awfully keen on an engagement?"

"But how do you mean? We shall have to be engaged some time, shan't we?"

"Oh, of course, yes. But there's no need for a long engagement, is there? What I mean is that we could easily get engaged now if we wanted to. But it would be a long business, and oh, I don't know! Once we're engaged our affairs cease to be our own. People will be asking us 'When's the happy day?' and all that sort of thing. Our love won't be our own any longer."

"It's just as you like, dear."

It was so nice to sit there against his knee, with his fingers against her face. Why should they worry about things? It would be nice to be engaged, of course, and to have a pretty ring, but it didn't matter. "It's just as you like," she had said, and they had left it at that over two years ago and there had been no reason to rediscuss it. But he knew that now the whole matter would have to be brought up. It had been decided that he was to remain in London for a couple of years in charge of the Continental branch; he would have to go abroad occasionally, but there would be no more long trips. He was in a position to marry if he wanted to. His family would expect him to, those of his friends who had heard of the "understanding" would expect him to, Mrs Curtis would expect him to, and he owed it to April that he should marry her. For years now he had kept her waiting. There was not the slightest doubt as to what was his duty.

Nothing, however, could alter the fact that there was nothing in the world that he wanted less than this marriage. It would mean an end to all those pleasant week-ends at Hogstead. It was one thing to invite a young bachelor who was no trouble to look after and who was amusing company; it was quite another thing to entertain a married couple. He would no longer be able to throw into his business that undivided energy of his. He would not be free; he would have to play for safety. As his friendship with the Marstons began to wane, he would become increasingly every year an employee and not an associate. He would belong to the ruled class. And it would be the end, too, of his pleasant little dinner-parties with Gerald. He would have to be very careful with his money. They would be fairly comfortable in a small house for the first year or so, but from the birth of their first child their life would become complicated with endless financial worries and would begin to resemble that of his own father and mother, till, finally, he would lose interest in himself and begin to live in his children. What a world! The failure of the parent became forgotten in the high promise of the child, and that child grew up only to meet and be broken by the conspiracy of the world's wisdom and, in its turn, to focus its thwarted ambitions on its children, and then its children's children. That was the eternal cycle of disillusion; whatever happened he must break that wheel.

But the battle appeared hopeless. The forces were so strong that were marshalled against him. What chance did he stand against that mingled appeal of sentiment and habit? All that spring he felt himself standing upon a rapidly crumbling wall. Whenever he went down to Hogstead he kept saying to himself: "Yes, I'm safe now, secure within time and space. But it's coming. Nothing can stop it. Night follows day, winter summer; one can't fight against the future, one can't anticipate it. One has to wait; it chooses its own time and its own place." At the office he was fretful and absent-minded.

"What's the matter with you?" Gerald asked him once.

"Nothing."

"Oh, but there must be, you've been awfully queer the last week or so."

Roland did not answer, and there was an awkward silence.

"I say, old man, I don't quite like asking you, but you're not in debt or anything, are you? Because if you are, I mean——"

"Oh, no, really. I'm not even 'overdrawn.'"

In Gerald's experience of the world there were two ills to which mankind was heir—money and woman. The subdivisions of these ills were many, but he recognised no other main source. If Roland was not in debt, then there was a woman somewhere, and later in the day he brought the matter up again.

"I say, old son, you've not been making an ass of yourself with some woman, have you? No one's got hold of you, have they?"

"Lord, no!" laughed Roland. "I only wish they had!"

But Gerald raised a warning finger.

"Touch wood, my son. Don't insult Providence. You can take my word for it that sooner or later some woman will get hold of you and then it's the devil, the very devil. Did I ever tell you about the girl at Broadstairs?" And there ensued the description of a seaside amour, followed by some shrewd generalities on the ways of a man with—but to conclude the quotation would be hardly pertinent. At any rate, Gerald told his story and pointed his moral.

"You may take my word for it, adultery is a whacking risk. It's awfully jolly while it lasts, and you think yourself no end of a dog when you offer the husband a cigar, but sooner or later the wife clings round the bed-post and says: 'Darling, I have deceived you!' And then you're in it, up to the ruddy neck!"

Roland laughed, as he always did, at Gerald's stories, but it hurt him to think that his friend should have noticed a change in him. If he was altered already by a few weeks of Hammerton, what would he be like in five years' time after the responsibilities of marriage had had their way with him? And marriage was not for five years, but for fifty.

He never spoke to Gerald of April now. There had been a time in the early days of their friendship when he had confided in him, under an oath of secrecy, that he hoped to marry her as soon as his position permitted. And Gerald had agreed with him that it was a fine thing to marry young, "and it's the right thing for you," he added; "some fellows are meant for marriage and others aren't. I think you're one of the ones that are." A cryptic statement that Roland had, at the time, called in question, but Gerald only laughed. "I may be wrong," he had said, "one never knows, but I don't think I am." Often afterwards he had asked Roland about April and whether they were still in love with each other as much as ever, and Roland, his vanity flattered by the inquiry, had assured him of their constancy. But of late, when Gerald had made some light reference to "the fair April," Roland had changed the conversation, or, if a question were asked, had answered it obliquely, or managed to evade it, so that Gerald had realised that the subject was no longer agreeable to him, and, being blessed with an absence of curiosity, had dropped it from his repertoire of pleasantries. But he did not connect April with his friend's despondency.

CHAPTER XVIII

THREE DAYS

The summer was nearly over, however, before the crisis came. It was on a Friday evening in the beginning of September, and Roland was sitting with his mother, as was usual with them, for a short talk after his father had gone to bed. He could tell that something was worrying her. Her conversation had been disjointed and many of her remarks irrelevant. And suddenly his instinct warned him that she was going to speak to him about April. He went suddenly still. If someone had thrown a stone at him at that moment he would have been unable to move out of the way of it. He could recollect distinctly, to the end of his life, everything that had passed through his mind during that minute of terrifying silence that lay between his realisation of what was coming and the first sound of that opening sentence.

"Roland, dear, I hope you won't mind my mentioning it, but your father and I have been talking together about you and April."

He could remember everything: the shout of a newsboy in the street—"Murder in Tufnell Park!" the slight rustle of the curtain against the window-sill; the click of his mother's knitting-needles. And, till that moment, he had never noticed that the pattern of the carpet was irregular, that on the left side there were seven roses and five poppies and on the right six roses and six poppies. They had had that carpet for twenty years and he had never noticed it before. His eyes were riveted on this curious deformity, while through the window came the shriek of the newsboy—"Murder in Tufnell Park!" Then his mother's voice broke the tension. The moment had come; he gathered his strength to him. As he had walked five years earlier, with unflinching head, up the hill to Carus Evans, so now he answered his mother with an even voice:

"Yes, mother?"

"Well, dear, we've been thinking that you really ought to be settling something definite about yourself and April."

"But we didn't want to be engaged, mother."

"I wasn't thinking of that, dear. I know about that. It's a modern idea, I suppose, though I think myself that it would have been better some time ago, but it's not an engagement so much we're thinking of as of your marriage."

It was more sudden than Roland had expected.

"Oh, but—oh, surely Mrs Curtis would never agree. She'd say we were much too young."

"Well, that's what we thought, but I went round and saw her the other day, and she quite agreed with us that it was really no good waiting any longer. You are making a lot of money, and it's quite likely that Mr Marston will raise your salary when he hears you're going to be married; and after all, why should you wait? As I said to your father: 'They've known each other for a long time, and if they don't know their minds now they never will.'"

Roland did not know what to say. He was unarmed by a sympathy and kindness against which he could not fight.

"It's awfully decent of you." Those were the only words that occurred to him, and he knew, even as he uttered them, that they were not only completely inadequate, but pitifully inexpressive of his state of mind.

"We only want to do what will make you happy, and it is happier to marry young, really it is!"

He made a last struggle.

"But, mother, don't you think that for April's sake—she's so young. Isn't it rather hard on her to be loaded with responsibilities so early?"

"It's nice of you to think that, Roland. It shows you really care for her; but I think that in the end, when she's an old woman like I am, she'll be glad she married young."

And then, because Roland looked still doubtful, she offered him the benefit of what wisdom the narrow experiences of her life had brought her. She had never unlocked her heart before; it hurt her to do it now and her eyes welled with tears. But she felt that, at this great crisis of his life, she must be prepared to lay before her son everything that might help him in it. It might be of assistance to him to know how these things touched a woman, and so she told him how she too had once thought it cruel that responsibilities should have been laid on her so soon.

"I was only nineteen when I married your father, and things were very difficult at first. It was a small house, we had no servant, and I had to get up early in the morning and light the fires and get the breakfast things ready, and all the morning I had to scrub and brush and wash up. I had no friends. And then, after tea, I used to lie down for an hour and rest, I was so tired, and I wanted to look fresh and pretty for your father when he came home. And there were times when I thought it was unfair; that I should have been allowed to be free and happy and unworried like other girls of my age. I used to see some of my school friends very occasionally and they used to tell me of their balls and parties, and I was so envious. And then very often your father was irritable and bad-tempered when he came back, and he found fault with my cooking, and I used to go away and cry all by myself and wonder why I was doing it, working so hard and for nothing. And then I began to think he didn't love me any more; there was another girl: she was fresher; she didn't have to do any housework. There was nothing in it; it never came to anything. Your father was always faithful; he's always been very good to me, but I could see from the way his face lighted up when she came into the room that he was attracted by her, and I can't tell you how it hurt me. I used to think that he preferred that other girl, that he thought her prettier than I was. It wasn't easy those first three years. When you've been married three years you're almost certain to regret it and think you could have done better with someone else, but after ten years you'll know very well that you couldn't, because, Roland, love doesn't last; not what you mean by love; but something takes its place, and that something is more important. When two people have been through as much together as your father and I have, there's—I don't know how to put it—but, you can't do without each other. And it makes a big difference the being married early. That's why I should like you and April to marry as soon as ever you can. You'd never regret it."

The tears began to trickle slowly down her cheeks; she tried to go on, but failed.

Roland did not know what to do or say. He had never loved his mother so much as he did then, but he could not express that love for her with words. He knelt forward and put his arms round her and drew her damp cheek to his.

"Mother," he whispered. "Mother, darling!"

For a long time they remained thus in a silent embrace. Then she drew back, straightened herself, and began to dab at her eyes with a handkerchief.

"It'll be all right, mother," he said.

She did not answer, but smiled a soft, glad smile, and taking his hand pressed it gently between hers.

"As long as you're happy, Roland," she said.

And so the crisis had come and had been settled. In those few minutes the direction of fifty years had been chosen finally. It was hard, but what would you? Life went that way. At any rate he would have those first few scented months; that at least was his. For a year he and April would be indescribably happy in the new-found intimacy of marriage, and afterwards—but of what could one be certain? For all he knew life might choose to readjust itself. One could not have anything both ways; indeed, one paid for everything. The Athenian parent had been far-seeing when he knelt before the altar in prayer that the compensating evil for his son's success might be light. One should do what lay to hand. As he curled himself in his bed he thought of April, and his heart beat quickly at the knowledge that her grace and tenderness would soon be his.

He shut away all thought of the dark years that must follow the passing of that first enchantment and fixed his mind on the sure pleasures that awaited him. How wonderful, after all, marriage could be. To return home at the end of the day and find your wife waiting for you. You would be tired and she would take you in her arms and run cool fingers through your hair, and you would talk together for a while, and she would tell you what she had done during the day, and you would tell her of whom you had met and of the business you had transacted, and you would bring your successes and lay them at her feet and you would say: "I made so much money to-day." And your words would lock that money away in her little hand—"All yours," they would seem to say. Then you would go upstairs and change for dinner, and when you came down you would find her standing before the fire, one long, bare arm lying along the mantelpiece, and you would come to her and very slowly pass your hand along it, and, bending your head, you would kiss the smooth skin of her neck. And could anything be more delightful than the quiet dinner together? Then would come the slow contentment of that hour or so before bedtime, while the warmth of the fire subsided slowly and you sat talking in low tones. And, afterwards, when you were alone in the warm darkness to love each other. Marriage must be a very fine adventure.

The next day brought with it its own problems, and on this Saturday morning in early autumn the white mist that lay over the roofs of Hammerton was a sufficient object of speculation. Did it veil the blue sky that adds so much to the charm of cricket, or a grey, sodden expanse of windy, low-flying clouds. It was the last Saturday of the cricket season. Roland was, naturally, bound for Hogstead, and there is no day in the whole year on which the cricketer watches the sky with more anxiety. In May he is impatient for his first innings, but as he walks up and down the pavilion in his spiked boots and hears the rain patter on the corrugated iron roof he can comfort himself with the knowledge that sooner or later the sun will shine, if not this week, then the next, and that in a long season he is bound to have many opportunities of employing that late cut he has been practising so assiduously at the nets. In the middle of the season he is a hardened warrior; he takes the bad with the good; he has outgrown his first eagerness; he has become, in fact, a philosopher. Last week he made seventy-two against the Stoics and was missed in the slips before he had scored. Such fortune is bound to be followed by a few disappointments. But at the end of the season a wet day is a dire misfortune. As he sits in the pavilion and watches the rain sweep across the pitch he remembers that only that morning he observed the erection of goal posts on the village green, that the winter is long and slow to pass, that for eight months he will not hold a bat in his hands, that this, his last forlorn opportunity of making a century, is even now fast slipping from him.

The depression of such a day is an abiding memory through the grey months of January and December, and, though Roland had had a fairly successful season, he was naturally anxious to end it well. He was prepared to distrust that mist. He had seen many mists break into heavy sunshine. He had also seen many mists dissolve into heavy rain. He knew no peace of mind till the sky began to lighten just before the train reached Hogstead, and he did not feel secure till he had changed into flannels and was walking down to the field on Gerald's arm, their shadows flung hard and black upon the grass in front of them.

It was a delightful morning; the grass was fresh with the dew which a slight breeze was drying; there was hardly a worn spot on the green surface, against which the white creases and yellow stumps stood in vivid contrast. An occasional cloud cut the sunlight, sending its shadow in long ripples of smoke across the field.

"And to think," said Gerald, "that this is our last game this season."

But for Roland this certainty marred the enjoyment of the blue sky and the bright sunshine. "This is the last time," he repeated to himself. For eight months the green field, so gay now with the white figures moving in the sunlight, would be desolate. Leaves would be blown on to it from the trees; rain would fall on them. The windows of the pavilion would be barred, the white screens stacked in the shelter of a wall.

After his innings he sat beside Muriel in the deck-chair on the shaded, northern terrace. But he felt too sad to talk to her and she complained of his silence.

"I don't think much of you as a companion," she said. "I've timed you. You haven't said a word for ten minutes."

He laughed, apologised and endeavoured to revert to the simple badinage that had amused them when Muriel was a little girl in short frocks, with her hair blowing about her neck, but it was not particularly successful, and it was a relief when Gerald placed his chair on the other side of Muriel and commenced a running commentary on the game. Roland wanted to be alone with his thoughts. Occasionally a stray phrase or sentence of their conversation percolated through his reverie.

"What a glorious afternoon it's going to be," he heard Muriel say. "It seems quite absurd that this should be your last game. One can't believe that the summer's over. On a day like this it looks as though it would last for ever!"

The words beat themselves into his brain. It was over and it was absurd to dream. The autumn sunshine that had lured her into disbelief of the approach of winter had made him forget that this day at Hogstead was his last. By next year he would be married; the delightful interlude would be finished. He would have passed from the life of Hogstead, at any rate in his present position. If he returned it would be different. The continuity would have been broken.

Out of the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of Muriel's profile; how pretty she was; quite a woman now; and he turned his chair a little so that he could observe her without moving his head. Yes, she was really pretty in her delicate porcelain fashion; she was not beautiful. But, then, beauty was too austere. Charm was preferable. And she had that charm that depends almost entirely on its setting, on a dress that is in keeping with small dainty features. The least little thing wrong and she would have been quite ordinary.

What would happen to her? She would marry, of course; she would find no lack of suitors. Already, perhaps, there was one whom she had begun slightly to favour. What would he be like? To what sort of a man would she be attracted? Whoever he was he would be a lucky fellow; and Roland paused to wonder whether, if things had been different, if he had been free when he had met her first, she could have come to care for him. She had always liked him. He remembered many little occasions on which she had said things that he might have construed into a meaning favourable to himself. There had been that evening on the stairs when they had felt suddenly frightened of each other, and since then, more than once, he had fancied that they had stumbled in their anxiety to make impersonal conversation.

How happy they would have been together. They would have lived together at Hogstead all their lives, a part of the Marston family. Hammerton would have ceased to exist for him. They would have built themselves a cottage on the edge of the estate; their children would have passed their infancy among green fields, within sound of cricket balls.

At the far end of the field, on the southern terrace, Beatrice was sitting alone, watching Rosemary play a few yards away from her. She must have been there during the greater part of the morning, but Roland had not noticed her till she waved a hand to attract his attention. He rose at once and walked across to her. He felt that a talk with her would do him good.

They had seen a good deal of each other intermittently during the past three years, and each talk with her had been for Roland a step farther into the heart of a mystery. Gradually they had come to talk in shorthand, to read each other's thoughts without need of the accepted medium of words, so that when in reply to a complimentary remark about the fascination of her hat she made a quiet shrug of her shoulders, he knew that it was prompted by the wound of her wasted beauty. And on that late summer morning, with its solemn warning of decay, Roland felt brave enough to put to her the question that he had long wished to ask.

"Why did you marry him?" he said.

His question necessitated no break in the rhythm of her reverie. She answered him without pausing.

"I didn't know my own mind," she said. "I was very young. I wasn't in love with anyone else. My mother was keen on it. I gave way."

Beatrice spoke the truth. Her mother had honestly believed the match to be to her daughter's advantage. Her own life had been made difficult through lack of money. She had always been worried by it, and she had naturally come to regard money as more important than the brief fluttering of emotion that had been the prelude to the long, bitter struggle. It had seemed to her a wonderful thing that her daughter should marry this rich man. Herself had only been unhappy because she had been poor; her daughter would be always rich.

"How did you meet him?" Roland asked.

"I was his secretary. Romantic, isn't it? The poor girl marries the rich employer. Quite like the story books." And her hands fluttered at her sides.

Roland sought for some word of sympathy, but he was too appalled by the cruel waste of this young woman's beauty, of her enormous potentialities flung away on an ageing, withered man, who could not appreciate them. Her next sentence held for him the force of a prophetic utterance.

"When you marry, Roland," she said, "choose your own wife. Don't let your parents dictate to you. It's your affair."

As their eyes met it seemed to him that they were victims of the same conspiracy.

"One can't believe that the summer is over on a day like this. It looks as though it would last for ever!" The words ran like a refrain among his thoughts all the afternoon. He had a long outing. Hogstead had imported for the final match talent that was considerable but was not local. The doctor had persuaded a friend to bring his son, a member of the Rugby XI. It was discovered that an old blue was spending his honeymoon in a farmhouse a few miles away and a deputation had been dispatched to him; while, at the last moment, the greengrocer had arranged a compromise on a "to account rendered" bill with a professional at the county ground. Hogstead was far too strong for Mr Marston's side and all the afternoon Roland chased terrific off drives towards the terraces. The more tired he became the deeper grew his depression. The sun sank slowly towards the long, low-lying bank of cloud that stretched behind the roofs of the village; the day was waning, his last day. Came that hour of luminous calm, that last hour of sunlight when the shadows lengthen and a chilling air drives old players to the pavilion for their sweaters. Above the trees Roland could see the roof of the house; the trees swayed before its windows; the sunlight had caught and had turned the brass weathercock to gold. Never again, under the same conditions, would he see Hogstead as he in the past had so often seen it, standing above the trees, resplendent in the last glitter of sunset. It was only five years ago that he had come here for the first time, and yet into those five years had been crowded a greater measure of happiness than he could hope to find in the fifty years that were left him.

At the end of the day Mr Marston's eleven had half-an-hour's batting, during which Roland made one or two big hits. But it was an anticlimax, and his innings brought him little satisfaction. It was over now. He walked back to the pavilion, and with dismal efficiency collected his boots and bat and pads and packed them into his bag. What would he be like when he came to do that next? What would have happened to him between then and now? He came out of the pavilion to find Muriel standing on the step, waiting, presumably, for her brother. The need for sympathy, for feminine sympathy, overwhelmed him, and he asked her whether she would come for a walk with him—only a short stroll, just for a minute or two. She looked at him in surprise.

"But it's so late, Roland," she said; "we'll have to go and change for dinner in a minute."

"I know, I know, but just for a minute—do."

He was not ready yet for the general talk and laughter of the drawing-room; he wanted a few minutes of preparation.

"Do come," he said.

She nodded, and they turned and walked together towards the end of the cricket ground. She did not know why he should want her to come with him at such an unusual time, but she could see that he was unhappy, that he needed sympathy, and so, after a second's hesitation, she passed, for the first time in her life, her arm through his. He looked at her quickly, a look of surprise and gratitude, and pressed her arm with his. He said nothing, now that she was with him. He did not feel any need of words; it was her presence he wanted, and all that her presence meant to him. But she, being ignorant of what was in his mind, was embarrassed by his silence.

"That was a jolly knock of yours," she said at last.

"Oh! not bad, but in a second innings!"

"Rather like that one of yours five years ago."

"What! Do you remember that?"

"Of course; it was a great occasion."

"For me."

"And for us."

The past and the emotions of the past returned to him with a startling vividness. He could recall every moment of that day.

"I was so anxious to come off," he said. "You know I was to have gone into a bank and Gerald brought me down in the hope that your pater would take to me. I was frightfully nervous."

"So was I."

"But you'd never seen me."

"No, but Gerald had talked to me about you, and I thought it such rotten luck that a fellow like you should have to go into a bank. There'd been a row, hadn't there?"

They had reached the hedge that marked the boundary for the Marston estate; there was a gate in it, and they walked towards it. They stood for a moment, her arm still in his, looking at the quiet village that lay before them. Then Roland dropped her arm and leant against the gate.

"Yes, there'd been a row," he said, "and everything was going wrong, and I saw myself for the rest of my life a clerk adding up figures in a bank."

He paused, realising the analogy between that day and this. Then, as now, destiny had seemed to be closing in on him, robbing him of freedom and the chance to make of his life anything but a grey subservience. He had evaded destiny then, but it had caught him now. And he leant on the gate, hardly seeing the labourers trudging up the village street, talking in the porch of the public-house; their women returning home with their purchases for Sunday's dinner.

Again Muriel was oppressed by his silence.

"I remember Gerald telling us about it," she said, "and I was excited to see what you'd be like."

"And what did you think of me when you saw me?"

"Oh, I was a little girl then"; she laughed nervously, for his eyes were fixed on her face and she felt that she was blushing.

"Yes, but what did you think?" he repeated; "tell me."

Her fingers plucked nervously at her skirt; she felt frightened, and it was absurd to be frightened with Roland, one of her oldest friends.

"Oh, it's silly! I was only a little girl then. What does it matter what I thought? As a matter of fact," and she flung out the end of her confession carelessly, as though it meant nothing, "as a matter of fact, I thought you were the most wonderful boy I'd ever seen." And she tried to laugh a natural, offhand laugh that would make an end of this absurd situation, but the laugh caught in her throat, and she went suddenly still, her eyes fixed on Roland's. They looked at each other and read fear in the other's eyes, but in Roland's eyes fear was mingled with a desperate entreaty, a need, an overmastering need, of her. His tongue seemed too big for his mouth, and when at last he spoke, his voice was dry.

"And what do you think of me now?"

She could say nothing. She stood still, held by the grey eyes that never wavered.

"What do you think of me now?" he repeated.

She made a movement to break the tension, a swift gesture with her hand that was intended for a dismissal, but he was standing so close that her hand brushed against him; she gave a little gasp as his hand closed over it and held it.

"You won't tell me," he said. "But shall I tell you what I thought of you then? Shall I tell you? I thought you were the prettiest girl I had ever seen, and I thought how beautiful you would be when you grew up."

"Oh, don't be so silly, Roland," and she laughed a short, nervous laugh, and tried to draw her hand from his, but he held it firmly, and drew her a little nearer to him, so that he could take her other hand in his. They stood close together, then she raised her face slowly to his and the puzzled, wistful, trusting expression released the flood of sentiment that had been surging within him all the afternoon. His misery was no longer master of itself, and her beauty drew to it the mingled tenderness, hesitation, disappointment of his vexed spirit. She was for him in that moment the composite vision of all he prized most highly in life, of romance, mystery, adventure.

His hands closed upon hers tightly, desperately, as though he would rivet himself to the one thing of which he could be certain, and his confused intense emotion poured forth in a stream of eager avowal:

"But I never thought, Muriel, that you would be anything like what you are; you are wonderful, Muriel; I've been realising it slowly every day. I've said to myself that we were only friends, just friends, but I've known it was more than friendship. I've told myself not to be silly, that you could never care for me—well, I've never realised, not properly, not till this afternoon, Muriel."

She was no longer frightened; his words had soothed her, caressed her, wooed her; and when he paused, the expression of her eyes was fearless.

"Yes, Roland," she said.

"Muriel, Muriel, I love you; I want you to marry me. Will you?"

She blushed prettily. "But, Roland, you know; if father and mother say yes, of course."

In the sudden release of feeling he was uncertain what exactly was expected of a person whose proposal had been accepted. They were on the brink of another embarrassed silence, but Muriel saved them.

"Roland," she said, "you're hurting my fingers awfully!"

With a laugh he dropped her hands, and that laugh restored them to their former intimacy.

"Oh, Roland," she said, "what fun we shall have when we are married."

He asked whether she thought her parents would be pleased, and she was certain that they would.

"They like you so much." Then she insisted on his telling when and how he had first discovered that he was in love with her. "Come along; let's sit on the gate and you shall tell me all about it. Now, when was the first time, the very first time, that you thought you were in love with me?"

"Oh, but I don't know."

"Yes, you do; you must, of course you must, or you'd be nothing of a lover. Come on, or I shall take back my promise."

"Well, then, that evening on the stairs."

Muriel pouted.

"Oh, then!"

"Do you remember it?" he said.

"Of course I do. You frightened me."

"I know, and that's why I thought that one day you might marry me."

"Oh, but how silly!" she protested. "I wasn't a bit in love with you then. In fact, I was very annoyed with you."

"And, besides, I think I've always been in love with you."

"Oh, no, you haven't."

"Don't be too sure. And you?"

She smiled prettily.

"I've often thought what a nice husband you would make."

And then she had taken his hand in her lap and played with it.

"And where shall we live when we are married?" he had asked her, and she had said she did not care.

"Anywhere, as long as there are lots of people to amuse me."

She sat there on the gate, her light hair blowing under the wide brim of her hat, laughing down at him, her face bright with happiness. She was so small, so graceful. Light as heatherdown, she would run a gay motif through the solemn movement of his career.

"You are like a fairy," he said, "like a mischievous little elf. I think I shall call you that—Elfkin."

"Oh, what a pretty name, Roland—Elfkin! How sweet of you!"

They talked so eagerly together of the brilliant future that awaited them that they quite forgot the lateness of the hour, till they heard across the evening the dull boom of the dinner gong. They both gasped and looked at each other as confederates in guilt.

"Heavens!" she said, "what a start. We've got to run!"

It was the nearest approach to a dramatic entrance that Roland ever achieved. Muriel kept level with him during the race across the cricket ground, but she began to fall behind as they reached the long terrace between the rhododendrons.

"Take hold of my hand," said Roland, and he dragged her over the remaining thirty yards. They rushed through the big French windows of the drawing-room at the very moment that the party had assembled there before going down to dinner. They had quite forgotten that there would be an audience. They stopped, and Muriel gave out a horrified gasp of "Oh!"

They certainly were a ridiculous couple as they stood there hand in hand, hot, dishevelled, out of breath, beside that well-groomed company of men and women in evening dress. Mrs Marston hurried forward with the slightly deprecating manner of the hostess whose plans have been disturbed,

"My dear children——" But Muriel had by this time recovered her breath and courage. She raised a peremptory hand.

"One minute. We've got something to tell you all."

"But surely, dear, after dinner," Mrs Marston began.

"No, mother, dear, now," and, with a twinkle in her eye and a sly glance at her embarrassed lover, Muriel made her alarming announcement:

"Roland and I, mother, we're going to be married."

Roland had seen in a French novel a startling incident of domestic revelation recorded by two words: consternation gÉnÉrale, and those two words suited the terrible hush that followed Muriel's confession. It was not a hush of anger, or disapproval, but of utter and complete astonishment. For a few minutes no one said anything. The young men of the party either adjusted their collar studs and gazed towards the ceiling, or flicked a speck of dust from their trousers and gazed upon the floor. The young women gazed upon each other. Mrs Marston thought nervously of the condition of the retarded dinner, and Mr Marston tried, without success, to prove adequate to the situation. Only Muriel enjoyed it; she loved a rag, and her eyes passed from one figure to another; not one of them dared look at her.

"Well," she said at last, "we did think you'd want to congratulate us." To Mr Marston some criticism of himself appeared to be implied in this remark. He pulled down his waistcoat, coughed, and went through the preliminaries usual to him when preparing to address the board. And, in a sense, this was a board meeting, a family board meeting.

"My dear Muriel," he began, but he had advanced no further than these three words when the dinner gong sounded for the second time. It was a signal for Mrs Marston to bustle forward.

"Yes, yes, but the dinner'll be getting quite cold if we don't go in at once. Don't trouble to change, Mr Whately, please don't; but, Muriel, you must go up and do your hair, and if you have time change your frock."

"Weren't they lovely?" said Muriel, as she and Roland ran upstairs to wash. "I could have died with laughter."

"You made me feel a pretty complete fool," said Roland.

"Well, you made me feel very silly about three-quarters of an hour ago. I deserved a revenge." And she scampered upstairs ahead of him.

Roland washed quickly and waited for her at the foot of the stairs. He was much too shy to go in alone.

"And they say that women are cowards," said Muriel, when he confessed it to her. "Come along."

The quarter of an hour that had elapsed since the sensational disclosure had given the company time to recover its balance, and when Muriel and Roland entered the room, they found that two empty seats were waiting for them side by side.

"Here they are," said Mr Marston, "and I hope that they're thoroughly ashamed of themselves." He felt himself again after a glass of sherry, and it was an occasion of which a father should make the most. It could only come once and he was prepared to enjoy it to the full. "To think of it, my dear, the difference between this generation and ours. Why, before I got engaged to your mother, Muriel, why, even before I began to court her, I went and asked her father's permission. I can remember now how frightened I felt. We respected our parents in those days. We always asked their opinions first. But to-day—why, in you burst, late for dinner, and announce with calm effrontery that you're going to be married. Why, at this rate, there won't be any engagements at all in a short time; young people will just walk in at the front door and say: 'We're married.'"

"Then we are engaged, father, aren't we?" said Muriel.

"I didn't say so."

"Oh, but you did; didn't he, Roland?"

Roland was, however, too confused to hold any opinion on the subject.

"Well, if you didn't actually say so you implied it. At any rate we shall take it that you did."

"And that, I suppose, settles it?"

"Of course."

Mr Marston made a theatrical gesture of despair.

"These children!" he said.

It was a jolly evening. Roland and Muriel were the centre of congratulations; their healths were drunk; he was called on for a speech, and he fulfilled his duty amid loud applause. Everyone was so pleased, so eager to share their happiness. Beatrice turned to him a smile of surprised congratulation. Only Gerald held back from the general enthusiasm. Once across the table his eyes met Roland's, and there was implied in their glance a question. He was the only one of the party who had heard of April, and never, in all their confidences, had there passed between them one word that might have hinted at a growing love between his sister and his friend; it was this that surprised him. Surely Roland would have told him something about it. Roland was not the sort of fellow who kept things to himself. He always wanted to share his pleasures. Gerald would have indeed expected him to come to him for advice, to say: "Old son, what chance do you think I stand in that direction?"—to entrust him with the delicate mission of sounding Muriel's inclinations. He was surprised and a little hurt.

As they were going towards the drawing-room after dinner he laid his hand on Roland's arm, holding him back for a minute. And as he stood in the doorway waiting for his friend, Roland felt for the first time a twinge of apprehension as to the outcome of this undertaking. But he could see that Gerald was nervous, and this nervousness lent him confidence.

"It's no business of mine, old son," Gerald began, "I'm awfully glad about you and Muriel and all that, but," he paused irresolute; he disliked these theatrical situations and did not know how to meet them. "I mean," he began slowly, then added quietly, anxiously: "It's all right, isn't it, old son?"

"Of course," said Roland. "It's the most wonderful——"

"I know, I know," Gerald interrupted, "but wasn't there, didn't you tell me about——"

"Oh, that's finished a long time ago. Don't worry about that."

"You see," Gerald went on, "I should hate to think——Oh, well, I'm awfully glad about it, and I think you're both fearfully lucky."

Two hours later Roland and Muriel stood on the landing saying good-night to one another. She was leaning towards him, across the banisters, as she had leant that evening three years earlier, but this time he held her hand in his.

"I can't tell you how happy I am," he was saying; "I shall dream of you all night long."

"And so shall I of you."

"We're going to be wonderfully happy, aren't we?"

"Wonderfully."

And in each other's eyes they saw the eager, boundless confidence of youth. They were going to make a great thing of their life together. Roland cast a swift glance over the banisters to see if anyone was in the hall, then stood on tiptoe, raising himself till his face was on the level with Muriel's.

"Muriel," he said.

"Yes."

"I want to whisper something in your ear."

"What is it?"

"Lean over, close to me, and I will tell you."

She bent her head, her cheek brushing against his hair. "Well?" she said.

He placed his mouth close to her ear.

"Muriel, you haven't kissed me yet."

She drew back and smiled.

"Was that all?" she said.

"Isn't it enough?"

She made no answer.

"Aren't you going to?" he said.

"I don't know."

"Please, please do."

"Some day I will."

"But why not now?"

"Someone would see us."

"Oh, no, they wouldn't. And even if they did what would it matter? Muriel! please, please, Muriel!"

He raised himself again on tiptoe; and leaning forward, she rested her hands upon his shoulders. Then she slowly bent her head to his, and their lips met in such a kiss as children exchange for forfeits in the nursery. As she drew back Roland slipped back again on to his heels, but he still held her hand and her fingers closed round his, pressing them, if not with passion, at least with fondness.

"You're rather an old dear, Roland," she said. And there was a note in her voice that made him say quickly and half audibly:

"And you're a darling."

She drew her hand from his gently. "And what was that pretty name you called me?"

"Elfkin."

"Let me be always Elfkin."

Both of them that night were wooed to sleep by the delight of their new-found happiness.

CHAPTER XIX

THE LONELY UNICORN

The lovers went for a walk together on Sunday morning through the woods that lay beyond the village, and they sat on a pile of broken sticks that a charcoal burner had collected for a fire, and they held hands and talked of the future. Her pleasure in this new relationship was a continual fascination to Roland. She regarded love, courtship and marriage as a delightful game.

"What fun it's going to be," she said; "we shall announce our engagement and then everyone will write and congratulate us, and we shall have to answer them, and I shall have to pretend to be so serious and say: 'I am much looking forward to introducing you to my fiancÉ. I hope you will like each other.'"

"And what sort of a ring am I to get you?"

"The ring! Oh, I had forgotten that. One has to have one, doesn't one? Let's see now. What should I like?" And she paused, her finger raised to her lower lip. She remained for a moment in perplexed consideration, then suddenly shook her head.

"Oh, I don't care, just what you like. Let it be a surprise. But there's one thing, Roland, dear—promise me."

"Yes."

"You will promise, won't you?"

"Of course."

"Well, then, promise me you won't put any writing inside it, because I shall want to show it to my friends and I should feel so silly if they saw it."

After lunch Mr Marston asked him to come into the study for a talk.

"I'm not going to play the heavy father," he said; "in fact, you know yourself how thoroughly pleased we are, both of us, about it all. We couldn't have wished a better husband for Muriel. But there is such a thing as finance, and you've got, I gather, no money apart from what you earn from us."

"No, sir."

"And your salary now is——?"

"Four hundred a year, sir."

"And how far do you think that will go? You could start a home with it, of course, but do you think you could make Muriel happy with it? She's a dainty little lady, and when she's free from home authority she will want to be going out to dances and theatres. How far do you think four hundred will take her?"

"Not very far, sir."

"Then what do you propose to do? Long engagements are a bad thing."

"Yes, sir."

"Well, then, what do you think of doing?"

Roland, who had expected Mr Marston to make his daughter a generous dress allowance, was uncertain how to answer this question. Indeed, he made no attempt.

"I suppose," said Mr Marston, "that what you were really thinking was that I should make you some allowance."

Roland blushed, and began to stammer that, as a matter of fact, that was exactly what—but he never finished the sentence, for Mr Marston interrupted him.

"Because, if that's what you were thinking, young man, I can disillusion you at once. I don't believe in allowances; they put a young couple under an obligation to their parents. And that's bad. A young couple should be independent. No!" he said, "I'm not going to make Muriel any allowance, but," and here he paused theatrically, so as to make the most of his point, "I am going to give you a good opportunity of making yourself independent. I am going to offer to both you and Gerald junior partnerships in the business."

Roland gave a start; he could scarcely believe what he had heard.

"But, sir——" he began.

"Yes, a partnership in our business, and I can't say how pleased I shall be to have you there, and how proud I am to have a son-in-law who will want to work and not be content to attend an occasional board meeting and draw large fees for doing so. I know a business man when I meet one. We are jolly lucky to have got you, and as for you and Muriel, well, honestly, I don't know which of you is luckier!"

They were the same words that Gerald had used, and he was convinced of their truth five minutes later when he sat in the drawing-room pouring out this exciting news to Muriel, when he saw her eyes light with enthusiasm, and heard her say on a note of genuine comradeship and admiration: "Roland, I always knew it. You're a wonderful boy!"

This state of rapture lasted till he said good-night to Gerald on Monday evening in the doorway of the office. Then, and then only, did he realise to what a series of complications he had delivered himself. He had fallen into the habit of regarding his life at Hogstead and his life at Hammerton as two separate entities; what happened to him in one life did not affect him in the other. Hogstead had been his dream country. During the week-end he had retreated within his dream, flung up bulwarks, garrisoned himself securely. He had not realised that, when he returned to Hammerton, he would have to deliver an account of himself. So far, what had happened in that dream country had only mattered to himself. His engagement to Muriel, however, involved the fortunes of persons other than himself, and this fact was presented to him acutely as he sat on the top of a bus and drew nearer, minute by minute, to No. 105 Hammerton Villas.

In the course of seventy-two hours he had completely altered the direction of his life. He had left home on Saturday morning with every intention of proposing definitely to April at the first opportunity and of marrying her as soon as the necessary arrangements could be made. Yet here he was on Monday evening returning home the fiancÉ of Muriel Marston and a junior partner in her father's firm. He could not imagine in what spirit the news would be received. His parents knew little enough of Gerald and his father; they were hardly aware of Muriel's existence. Years earlier he may have said, perhaps, in reply to some casual query: "Oh, yes, he's got a sister, much younger than himself, a jolly kid!" But of late, nothing. He did not see either how he was to introduce the subject. He would be asked hardly any questions about his holiday; he had always been uncommunicative.

"Have you had a nice time, my dear?"

That's what his mother would say, in the same indifferent tone that she would say "Good morning, how do you do?" to a casual acquaintance. She would then proceed to tell him about the visitors they had received on Sunday.

His father would arrive, lay down his evening paper on the table and begin to change his boots.

"So you're back all right, Roland?" That would be his only reference to his son's holidays before he plunged into a commentary on the state of the bus service, the country and the restaurant where he had lunched.

"Coming for a walk, Roland?" That would be his next indication that he was conscious of his son's presence, and on the receipt of an affirmation he would trudge upstairs, to reappear ten minutes later in a light grey suit.

"Ready, my son?" And they would walk along the High Street till they reached the corner of Upper College Road. There Mr Whately would pause. "Well, Roland, shall we go in and see April?" And in reality the question would be an assertion. They would have to go into the Curtises'; it would be terrible. He would feel like Judas Iscariot at the Last Supper. He would be received by Mrs Curtis as a future son-in-law. April would smile on him as her betrothed. Whatever he did or said he could not, in her eyes, be anything but perfidious, disloyal, treacherous. He would be unable to make clear to her the inevitable nature of what had happened.

The red roofs and stucco fronts of Donnington had by now receded into the distance; the bus was already clattering down the main street of Lower Hammerton. The lights in the shop windows had just been kindled and lent a touch of wistful poetry to the spectacle of the crowded pavements, black with the dark coats of men returning from their offices, with here and there a splash of gaiety from the dress of some harassed woman hurrying to complete her shopping before her husband's return.

"In three more minutes we shall be at the Town Hall," Roland told himself. "In two minutes from then I shall have reached the corner of Hammerton Villas; 105 is the third house down on the left-hand side. In six minutes, at the outside, I shall be there!"

And it turned out exactly as he had predicted. He found his mother in the drawing-room, turning the handle of the sewing-machine. She smiled as he opened the door and, as he bent his head to kiss her, expressed the hope that he had enjoyed himself. Three minutes later his father arrived.

"A most interesting murder case to-day, my dear; there's a full account of it in The Globe. It appears that the fellow was engaged to one girl, but was really in love with the mother of the girl he murdered, and he murdered the girl because she seemed to suspect—no, that's not it. It was the girl he was engaged to who suspected; but at any rate you'll find it all in The Globe—a most interesting case." And he opened the paper at the centre page and handed it to his wife. As he did so his arm brushed against Roland, and the forcible reminder of his son's existence inspired him to express the hope that the cricket at Hogstead had reached the high expectations that had been entertained regarding it. This duty accomplished, he proceeded to describe in detail the lunch he had selected at the Spanish cafÉ.

"There was a choice of three things: you could either have hors d'oeuvre or a soup, and then there was either omelette or fish or spaghetti, with veal or chicken or mutton to follow, and, of course, cheese to finish up with. Well, I didn't think the spaghetti at that place was very good, so I was left with a choice of either an omelette or fish."

While he was stating and explaining his choice Mr Whately had found time to divest his feet of his boots.

"Well, and what about a walk, Roland?"

"I suppose so, father."

"Right you are. I'll just run up and change."

Ten minutes later, before Roland had had time to unravel the complicated psychology of the Norfolk murder case, Mr Whately was standing in the doorway in his grey tweed suit and straw hat. "A bit late for a straw, perhaps, but it's lovely weather, almost like spring. One can't believe that summer's over." The repetition of the phrase jarred Roland's conscience. Would it not be better to get it off his chest now, once and for all, before he was taken to see April, before that final act of hypocrisy was forced on him?

"Father," he said, "there's something——"

But Mr Whately did not like to be kept waiting.

"Come along, Roland, time enough for that when we are out of doors. It'll be dark soon."

And by the time they had reached the foot of the long flight of steps the moment of desperate courage had been followed by a desperate fear. Time enough when he got back to tell them. He made no effort even to discourage his father when, at the corner of Upper College Road, they paused and the old assertive question was asked. Roland nodded his head in meek submission. What was to be gained at this point by discussion? There would be enough turmoil later on.

But he regretted his weakness five minutes later when he sat in the wicker chair by the window-seat. He looked round the room at the unaltered furniture, the unaltered pictures, the unaltered bookshelves, and Mrs Curtis eternal in that setting, her voice droning on as it had droned for him through so many years. There was no change anywhere. Mrs Curtis was sitting beside the fireplace, her knitting on her lap, the bones of her body projecting as awkwardly as ever. His father sat opposite her, his hat held forward before his knees, his head nodding in satisfied agreement, his voice interrupting occasionally the movement of his head with a "Yes, Mrs Curtis," "Certainly, Mrs Curtis." And he and April sat as of old, near and silent, in the window-seat.

As he looked at April, the profile of her face silhouetted against the window, an acute wave of sentiment passed over him, reminding him of the many things they had shared together. The first twenty years of his life belonged to her. It was to her that he had turned in his moment of success; her faith in him had inspired his achievements. She had been proud of him. He remembered how she had flushed with pleasure when he had told her what the school captain had said to him at the end of the season, and when he had been invited to the cricket match at Hogstead it was of her that he had asked soft encouragement, and it was at her feet that he had laid, a few days later, his triumph. How strange that was, that she should have been the first to hear of Hogstead. The wave of tenderness swept away every little difference of environment and personality that had accumulated round their love during the past three years. What a fine thing, after all, they had meant to make of their life together. What a confession of failure was this parting. And when Mr Whately rose to go, and Mrs Curtis followed him to the door, no doubt with the intention of leaving the lovers alone together, Roland put out his arms to April and folded her into them, and for the last time laid his lips on hers in a kiss that expressed for him an infinite kindness for her, and pity, pity for her, for himself, and for the tangle life had made of their ambitions. As he drew back his head from hers she whispered the word "Darling!" on a note of authentic passion, but he could not say anything. His hands closed on her shoulders for a moment, then slackened. He could not bear to look at her. He turned quickly and ran to his father. Was it, he asked himself, the kiss of Iscariot? He did not know. He had buried a part of himself; he had said good-bye to the first twenty years of his life.

He walked home in silence beside his father. He was in no mood for the strain of the exacting situation, the astonishment, the implied reproach that lay in front of him. But he was resigned to it. It had to come; there was no loophole.

He made his announcement quite quietly during a pause in the talk just after dinner. And it was received, as he had anticipated, in a stupefied silence.

"What!" said Mr Whately at last. "Engaged to Muriel Marston!"

"Yes, Muriel Marston, the daughter of my employer, and I'm to become a junior partner in the firm."

"But——" Mr Whately paused. He was not equal to the pressure of the situation. He was not perplexed by the ethics of Roland's action; his critical faculties had only appreciated the first fact, that a plan had been altered, and he was always thrown off his balance by the alteration of any plan. He was accustomed to thinking along grooves; he distrusted sidings. He got no further than the initial "But." His wife, however, had recovered from the shock and was by now able to face the matter squarely. When she spoke her voice was even.

"Now, please, Roland, we want to know all about this. When did you propose to Miss Marston?"

"During the week-end—on Saturday evening."

"And her parents agree to it?"

"Yes, yes," said Roland, a little impatiently. "Didn't I tell you that I've been offered a junior partnership in his business."

"Of course; I forgot. I'm sorry. This is rather difficult for us. Now, you say——"

But at this point her husband, whose thoughts had by now travelled a certain distance along the new groove, interrupted her.

"But how can you talk about being engaged to this Muriel Marston when you've been engaged for nearly three years to April?"

Roland's retort came quickly.

"I've never been engaged to April."

"You know you have! Why!..."

But Mrs Whately had held up her hand.

"Hush, dear," she said. "Roland's quite right. He's never been officially engaged to April."

Roland shivered at the venom that was revealed by the stressing of the word "officially."

"And how long," she went on, "have you been in love with Miss Marston?"

"Oh, I don't know, mother; I can't tell. Please let me alone." And there was genuine misery behind the words. "One doesn't know about a thing like this."

But Mrs Whately would not spare him. She shook her head impatiently.

"Don't be absurd, Roland; you're behaving like a child. Of course one knows these things. You've known Miss Marston for four or five years now. You couldn't suddenly find yourself in love with her."

"I suppose not, mother, but——"

"There's no 'but.' You must have been thinking of her for a long time. On Friday night—Saturday morning, I mean—you must have gone down there with the full intention of proposing to her; didn't you?"

Roland did not answer her. He rose from his seat and walked across to the window.

"It's no good," he said, and his back was turned to them. "It's no good. I can't make you understand. You won't believe what I say. I seem an awful beast to you, I know, but—oh, well, things went that way."

And he stood there, looking out of the window through the chink of the blind towards the long, grey stretch of roofs, the bend of the road, the pools of lamplight, till suddenly, like a caress, he felt his mother's hand upon his shoulder.

"Roland," she said, and for the first time there was sympathy in her voice, "Roland, please tell me this. You're not, are you, marrying this girl for her money?"

He turned and looked her full in the eyes.

"No, mother," he said, "I love Muriel Marston. I love her and I want to marry her." As he spoke he saw the kind light vanish from her eyes, her hand fell from his shoulder and the voice that answered him was metallic.

"Very well, then, if that's so, there's no more to be said. As you've arranged all this yourself, you'll let us know when the marriage will take place."

She turned away. He took a step towards her.

"Mother, please——"

But she only shrugged her shoulders, and when her husband asked what was going to be done about April, she said that she supposed that it was no affair of theirs, and that no doubt Roland would make his own arrangements. She picked up the paper and began to read it. Roland wondered what was going to happen next; the silence oppressed him. He listened to the slow ticking of the clock till he could bear it no longer.

"Oh, please, one of you, won't you say something?"

They both turned their heads in surprise as though they would survey a curiosity, a tortoise that had been granted miraculously the gift of speech.

"But, my dear Roland, what is there to be said?"

"I don't know, I——"

"Your mother's quite right," said Mr Whately. "You're your own master; you've arranged to marry the girl you want. What is there to be said?"

And their heads were again turned from him. He stood looking at them, pondering the wisdom of an appeal to their emotions. He half opened his mouth, took a step forward, but paused; what purpose would it serve? One could not appeal to stone; they were hard, unreceptive, hostile; they would turn cold eyes upon his outburst. He would look ridiculous. It would do no good.

"Oh, very well," he said, and walked out of the room.

As he sat on his bed that night he remembered how, five years ago, he had returned to his study after that tempestuous interview with the Chief and had reflected on the impossibility of one mortal making clear his meaning to another. Life went in a circle: here was the same situation in a different setting. Everything was repetition. Had not the Eastern critic laid it down that in the whole range of literature there could be discovered only seven different stories? He remembered the Chief telling him that; it had stuck in his mind: music had evolved from seven notes, painting from three colours, literature from twenty-four letters, the chronicle of mankind from seven stories. Variety, new clothes, new accents, but at heart the same story, the same song.

One problem, however, that he had not previously considered, had become clear for him during that discussion. How was April to be told? He had imagined that he had only to tell his parents for the matter to be settled. They would do the rest. He had never thought that the responsibility of breaking the news to April would rest with him. And he could not do it; it was no good pretending that he could. He could no more tell April himself than he could murder a man in cold blood. He knew also that if he once saw her he would be unable to carry through the part. She would open the door for him and as soon as they were alone in the hall she would throw her arms about his neck and kiss him, and how should he then find words to tell her? His old love for her would return to him; there would be further complications. Perhaps he might write a letter to her, but he had only to take up pen and paper to realise that this was impossible. He could not express himself in writing; the sentences that stared at him from the paper were cold and stilted; they would wound her cruelly. He was accustomed in times of perplexity to turn for advice to Gerald. But this was hardly an occasion when that was possible. Gerald was, after all, Muriel's brother. There were limits.

The next day brought Roland no nearer to a solution of his immediate problem. Indeed he had not thought of one till, on his way home, he boarded the wrong bus, and on handing threepence and saying "Hammerton Town Hall" was informed that the bus he was on would take him only as far as Donnington before turning off to Richmond. The word "Richmond" gave him his idea. Richmond, that was it, of course that was it! Why had he not thought of it before? He would go round to Ralph at once and send him on an embassy to April. So pleased was he with this inspiration that he was actually shaking hands with Ralph before he realised that the battle was not won yet, and that he had before him a very awkward interview.

"Ralph," he said, "I want a word with you alone. I don't want to be disturbed."

"Shall we go out for a walk then?"

"Right."

Ralph went into the hall, fidgeting his fingers in the umbrella stand in search of his walking stick, did not find it, and paused there indeterminate.

"Now, where did I put that stick?"

"Oh, don't bother, please don't bother; we're only going for a stroll."

"Yes, I know, but if I don't find it now—let me see, perhaps it's in the kitchen." And for the next three minutes everyone seemed to be shouting all over the house: "Mother, have you seen my walking stick?" "Emma, have you seen Mr Ralph's walking stick?" And by the time that the stick was eventually discovered, in the cupboard in Ralph's bedroom, Roland's patience and composure had been shattered.

"Such a fuss about a thing like that," he protested.

"All right, all right; I didn't keep you long. Now, what's it all about?" And there was firmness in his voice which caused Roland a twinge of uneasiness. Ralph had developed since he had gone to Oxford. He was no longer the humble servant of Roland's caprice.

"It's not very easy," said Roland; "I want you to do something for me. I'm going to ask you to do me a great favour. It's about April."

"Why, of course," said Ralph, "I know what it is; you're going to be married at once, and you want me to be your best man—but I shall be delighted."

"Oh, no, no, no," said Roland, "it's not that at all."

Ralph was surprised. "No?"

"No, it's—oh, well, look here. You know how things are; there's been a sort of understanding between us for a long time—three or four years—hasn't there? Well, one alters; one doesn't feel at twenty-three as one does when one's seventeen; we're altering all the time, and perhaps I have altered quicker than most people. I've been abroad a lot." He paused. "You understand, don't you?" he asked.

Ralph nodded, understanding perfectly. Though he did not quite see where he himself came in, he understood that Roland was tired of April. But he was not going to spare him. There should be no short-cuts, no shorthand conversation. Roland would have to tell him the whole story.

"Well?" he said.

Their eyes met, and for the first time in their relationship Roland knew that he was in the weaker position and that Ralph was determined to enjoy his triumph.

"All right," said Roland, "I'll go on, though you know what I've got to tell you. I don't know whose fault it is. I suppose it's mine really, but things have happened this way. I'm not in love with April any more."

Again he paused and again Ralph repeated that one word, "Well?"

"I don't love her any more, and I've fallen in love with someone else and we want to get married."

"Who is it?"

"Muriel Marston."

"The sister of that fellow you play cricket with?"

"Yes, that's it." He paused, hoping that now Ralph would help him out, but Ralph gave him no assistance, and Roland was forced to plunge again into his confession. "Well, you see, April knows nothing about it. I've been a bit of a beast, I suppose. As far as she is concerned the understanding still holds good. She's still in love with me, at least she thinks she is. It's—well, you see how it is."

"Yes, I quite see that. You've been playing that old game of yours, of running two girls in two different places, only this time it's gone less fortunately and you find you've got to marry one of them, and April's the one that's got to go?"

"If you put it that way——"

"Well, how else can I put it?"

"Oh, have it as you like."

"And what part exactly do you expect me to play in this comedy?"

"I want you to break the news to April."

There was a long silence. They walked on, Ralph gazing straight in front of him, and Roland glancing sideways at him from time to time to see how the idea had struck him. But he could learn nothing from the set expression of his companion's face. It was his turn now to employ an interrogatory "Well?" But Ralph did not appear to have heard him. They walked on in silence, till Roland felt some further explanation was demanded of him.

"It's like this, you see——"

But Ralph cut him short. "I understand quite well; you're afraid to tell her. You're ashamed of yourself and you expect me to do your dirty work!"

"It's not that——"

"Oh, yes, it is. I know you'll find excuses for yourself, but that's what it amounts to. And I don't see why I should do it."

"I am asking it of you as a favour."

"That's like you. Since you've met these new friends of yours you've dropped your old friends one by one. I've watched you, and now April, she's the last to go. You haven't been to see me for three or four months and now you've only come because you want me to do something for you."

The justice of the remark made Roland wince. He had seen hardly anything of Ralph during the last three years.

"But, Ralph," he pleaded, "how can I go and tell her myself?"

"If one's done a rotten thing one owns up to it. It's the least one can do."

"But, it isn't——"

"What isn't it? Not a rotten thing to make a girl believe for four years that you're going to marry her and then chuck her! If that isn't a rotten thing I don't know what is!"

Roland was wise enough not to attempt to justify himself. He would only enrage Ralph still further and that was not his game.

"All right," he said. "Granted all that, granted I've done a rotten thing, it's happened; it can't be altered now; something's got to be done. Put yourself in my place. What would you do if you were me?"

"I shouldn't have got myself in such a place"; his voice was stern and official and condemnatory. In spite of the stress of the situation Roland was hard put to it not to kick him for a prig.

"But I have, you see, and——"

"Even so," Ralph interrupted, "I can't see why you shouldn't go and tell April yourself."

"Because April herself would rather be told by anyone than me."

It was his last appeal and he saw that it had succeeded. Ralph repeated the words over to himself.

"April would rather be told——Oh, but rot! She'd much rather have it out straight."

"Oh, no, she wouldn't; you don't know April as well as I do. She hates scenes; she could discuss it impersonally with you. With me—can't you see how it would hurt her; she wouldn't know how to take it, whether to plead, or just accept it—can't you see?"

He had won, and he knew it, through the appeal to April's feelings. Ralph would do what he wanted, because he would think that he was performing a service for April.

"I expect you're right," he said; "you know her better than I do, but I'm doing it for her, not for you, mind."

"Yes, yes, I understand."

"If it wasn't for her I wouldn't do it. A man should do his own dirty work. And you know what I think of it."

"Oh, yes, I know." He would make no defence. Ralph might be allowed in payment the poor privilege of revenge.

"And you'll tell me what she says?"

"You shall have a full account of the execution."

They walked a little farther in silence. They had nothing more to say to each other, and at the corner of a road they parted. It was finished.

Roland walked home, well satisfied at the successful outcome of a delicate situation—the same Roland who had congratulated himself five years earlier on the diplomacy of the Brewster episode.

CHAPTER XX

THERE'S ROSEMARY ...

Ralph went round to see April on the next morning, shortly after eleven o'clock. She had just been out for a long walk by herself and, on her return, had taken up a novel with which to while away the two hours remaining to lunch-time. She had left school eighteen months earlier, and time often hung heavily on her. She did little things about the house: she tidied her own room, mended her own clothes, did some occasional cooking, but she had many hours of idleness. She wished sometimes that she had trained for some definite work. Women were no longer regarded as household ornaments. Many careers were open to her. But it had not seemed worth while during the last year at school to specialise in any one subject. What was the good of taking up a career that she would have to abandon so soon? The first year in any profession was uninteresting, and by the time she had reached a position where she would be entrusted with responsibilities her marriage day would be approaching. And so, instead of looking for any settled work, she had decided to stay at home and help her mother as much as possible. It was lonely at times, especially when Roland was away; she was, in consequence, much given to daydreams. Her book, on this September morning, had slipped on to her lap, and her thoughts had refused to concentrate on the printed page, and fixed themselves on the time when she and Roland would be married. He had not been to see her at all the day before. But the memory of his last kiss was very actual to her. He had loved her then. She had had her bad moments, when she had wondered whether, after all, he really cared for her, but she was reassured by such a memory. And soon they would be married. She would make him happy. She would be a good wife.

A knock on the front door roused her from her reverie, and, turning her head, she saw Ralph Richmond standing in the doorway. She rose quickly, her hand stretched out in friendly welcome.

"How nice of you to come, Ralph; you're quite a stranger. Come and sit down." And as soon as he was seated she began to talk with fresh enthusiasm about their friends and acquaintances. "I saw Mrs Evans yesterday and she told me that Edward had failed again for his exam. She was awfully disappointed, though she oughtn't really to have expected anything else. Arthur's form master told him once that he couldn't imagine any examination being invented that Edward would be able to pass."

Ralph sat in silence, watching her, wondering what expression those bright features would assume when she had heard what he had to tell her. He dreaded the moment, not for his sake, but for hers. He hardly thought of himself. He loved her and he would have to give her pain. In the end he stumbled awkwardly across her conversation.

"April, I have got some bad news for you."

"Oh, Ralph, what is it? Nothing about your people, is it?"

"No, it's nothing to do with me. It's about Roland."

Although she made no movement, and though the expression of her face did not appear to alter, it seemed to him that, at the mention of Roland's name, her vitality was stilled suddenly.

"Yes?" she said, and waited for his reply.

"He's not hurt, or anything. You needn't be frightened. But he wanted you to know that he has become engaged to Muriel Marston."

She said nothing for a moment, then in a dazed voice:

"Oh, no, you must be mistaken, it can't be true, it can't possibly!"

"But it is, April, really. I'm awfully sorry, but it is."

She rose from her chair, swayed, steadied herself with her left hand, took a half pace to the window and stood still.

"But what am I to do?" she said. She could not bear to contemplate her life without Roland in it. What would her life become? What else had it been, indeed, for the last four years but Roland the whole time? Whenever she had bought a new frock or a new hat she had wondered how Roland would like her in it. When she had heard an amusing story her first thought had been, "Roland will be amused by that." When she had opened the paper in the morning she had turned always to the sports' page first. "Roland will be reading these very words at this very moment." Roland was the measure of her happiness. It was a good day or a bad day in accordance with Roland's humour. She would mark in the calendar the days in red and green and yellow—yellow for the unhappy days, when Roland had not seen her, or when he had been unsympathetic; the green days were ordinary days, when she had seen him, but had not been alone with him; her red days were the happy days, when there had been a letter from him in the morning, or when they had been alone together and he had been nice and kissed her and made love prettily to her. Her whole life was Roland. Whenever she was depressed she would comfort herself with the knowledge that, in a year or so she would be married and with Roland for always. She could not picture to herself what her life would become now without him. She raised her hand to her head, in dazed perplexity.

"What am I to do?" she repeated. "What am I to do?" Then she pulled herself together. There were several questions that she would wish to have answered. She returned to her seat. "Now tell me, when did this happen, Ralph?"

"He told me last night."

"I don't mean that; when did he propose to Miss Marston?"

"During the week-end—on Saturday evening, I think."

"Saturday evening!" she repeated it—"Saturday evening!" Then he had been engaged to this other girl on Monday night when he had kissed her. He had loved her then, he had meant that kiss; she was certain of it. And to April, as earlier to Mrs Whately, this treachery seemed capable of explanation only by a marriage for money. It was unworthy of Roland. She could hardly imagine him doing it. But he might be in debt. People did funny things when they were in debt.

"Is she pretty, this Miss Marston?"

That was her next question, and Ralph replied that he thought she was.

"But you've never seen her?"

"No."

"Roland told you she was pretty. Did he say anything else about her?"

"No, hardly anything."

There was another pause. Then:

"I can't think," she said, "why he didn't come and tell me this himself."

She said nothing more. Ralph saw no reason why he should remain any longer. He rose awkwardly to his feet. As he looked down at her, beaten and dejected, his love for her flamed up in him fiercely, and, with a sudden tenderness, he began to speak to her.

"April," he said, "it's been awful for me having to tell you this. I've hated hurting you—really I have. I know you don't care for me, but if you would look on me as a friend, a real friend; if there's anything I can do for you just now.... I can't explain myself, but if you want anything I'll do it. You'll come to me, won't you?"

She smiled at him, a tired, pathetic smile.

"All right, Ralph, I'll remember."

But the moment he had left the room all thought of him passed from her, and she was confronted with the grey, interminable prospect of a future without Roland. She could not believe that he was lost to her irretrievably. He would return to her. He must love her still. It was only two days since he had kissed her. He was marrying this girl for her money; that was why he had been ashamed to tell her of it himself. He would not have been ashamed if he had really loved this Muriel. Well, if it was money she would win him back. She was not afraid of poverty if Roland was with her; she would fight against it. She would earn money in little ways; she would do without a servant. His debts would be soon paid off. She would tell him this and he would return to her.

That evening she walked towards the Town Hall at the hour when he would be returning from the office. She had often gone to meet him without her mother's knowledge, and they had walked together down the High Street in the winter darkness, his arm through hers. Bus after bus came up, emptied, and he was not there. She watched the people climbing down the stairs. She had decided that as soon as she saw Roland she would walk quietly down the street, as though she had not come purposely to meet him. She would thus take him off his guard. But, somehow, she missed the bus that he was on; perhaps a passing van had obscured her sight of it. And she did not realise that he was there till she saw him suddenly on the other side of the pavement. Their eyes met, Roland smiled, raised his hat and seemed about to come across to her; then he seemed to remember something, for he hurried quickly on and was lost almost at once in the dense, black-coated crowd of men returning from their office. The smile, the raising of the hat, had been an involuntary action. He had not remembered till he had taken that step forward, that he had now no part in her life. He felt she would not want to speak to him now. And this action naturally confirmed April in her belief that Roland was marrying Muriel for her money.

"It is me that he loves really," she told herself, and she felt that if she were a clever woman she would be able to win him back to her.

"But I am not a clever woman," she said. "I was not made for intrigues and diplomacy." She remembered how, four years earlier, she had learnt from a similar experience that she was not destined for a life of action. "All my life," she had told herself, "I shall have to wait, and Romance may come to me, or it may pass me by. But I shall be unable to go in search of it." And it seemed to her that this fate had already been accomplished. Roland still loved her; that she could not doubt. But she had no means by which she might recall him to her. "If I had," she said, "I should be a different woman, and, as likely as not, he would not love me."

On her return home she went straight upstairs to her bedroom and, without waiting to take off her hat, opened the little drawer in her desk in which were stored the letters and the gifts that she had at various times received from Roland. There was the copper ring there that he had slipped on to her finger at the party, the tawdry copper ring that she had kept so bright; there was the score card of a cricket match, the blue and yellow rosette he had worn at the school sports when he had been a steward, a photograph of him in Eton collars. She held them in her hand and her first instinct was to throw them into the fireplace. But she thought better of it. After all he loved her still. Why should she not keep them? Instead, she sat down in the chair and laid the little collection in her lap and, opening the letters, she began to read them through, one by one; by the time she had finished the room had darkened. She would have to put on another dress for the evening and do her hair. Already she could hear her father's voice in the hall, but she felt lazy, incapable of action; her hands dropped into her lap, and her fingers closed round the letters and cards and snapshots. Her thoughts travelled into the past and were lost in vague, wistful recollection. Her mother's voice sounding in the passage woke her from a reverie. It was quite dark; she must light the gas, and she would have to hurry with her dressing. It was getting late. She rose to her feet, walked over to the bureau and put the letters back into the little drawer. Her fingers remained on the handle after she had closed it. And again she asked herself the question to which she could find no answer: "What is going to happen to me now?"

CHAPTER XXI

THE SHEDDING OF THE CHRYSALIS

The official position of fiancÉ was a new and fascinating experience, in the excitement of which Roland speedily forgot the unpleasantness that its announcement had caused in Hammerton. It was really great fun. Important relatives were asked to meet him, and he was introduced to them by Mr Marston as "my future son-in-law." Muriel insisted on taking him for walks through the village for the pleasure of being able to say to her friends: "This is my fiancÉ." And when he complained that he was being treated like a prize dog, she asked him what else he thought he was. Muriel had always been a delightful companion and the engagement added to their relationship a charming intimacy. It was jolly to sit with her and hold her hand; and she was not exacting. She did not expect him to be making love to her the whole time. Indeed, he did not make love to her very often. They kissed each other when they were alone, but then kisses were part of the game that they were playing. April had at first been too shy to pronounce the actual word "kiss." She had evaded it, and later, when she had come to use it, it had been for a long while accompanied by a blush. There was no such reserve between Muriel and Roland. Kisses were favours that she would accord to him if he were good. "No," she would say to him sometimes, "I don't think I'm going to let you kiss me this afternoon. You haven't been at all the faithful and dutiful lover. You didn't pay me any attention at lunch; you were talking to father about some silly cricket match and I had to ask you twice to pass me the salt. I oughtn't to have to ask you once. You ought to know what I want. No! I shan't let you kiss me."

And then he would entreat her clemency: he would hold her hand and kneel on the wet grass, an act of devotion to which he would call her notice, and beseech her to be generous, and after a while she would weaken and say—yes, if he was very good he might be allowed one kiss. No more! But when his arms were round her he was not satisfied with one, he would take two, three, four, and she would wriggle in his arms and kick his shins and tell him that he had taken a mean advantage of her; and when he had released her she would vow that as a punishment she would not kiss him again—no, never, not once again, and then would add: "No, not for a whole week!" And he would catch her again in his arms and say: "Make it a minute and I'll agree," and with a laugh she had accepted his amendment.

There were no solemn protestations, no passion, no moments of languid tenderness. They were branches in neighbouring boughs that played merrily in the wind, caring more, perhaps, for the wind than for each other.

They talked exhaustively of the future—of the house they were going to build, the garden they would lay out. "We'll have fowls," he said, "because you'll look so pretty feeding them."

"And we'll have a lawn," she repeated, "because you'll look so hot when you've finished mowing it."

They would discuss endlessly the problem of house decoration. She was very anxious to have bright designs, "with lots of red and blue in it." And he had told her that she could do what she liked with the drawing-room as long as she allowed him a free hand with his own study.

"Which means that you'll have a nasty, plain brown paper, and you'll cover it with ugly photographs of cricket elevens, and it'll be full of horrid arm-chairs and stale tobacco."

One day he took her up to Hammerton to see his parents and his friends. They intrigued her by the difference from the type to which she was accustomed.

"It's awfully interesting," she said. "They are so different from the sort of people that we see—all jammed together in these funny little houses—all furnished just the same."

"Yes, and all doing the same things," said Roland—"going to the office at the same time, coming back at the same time, and if it hadn't been for Gerald that would have been my life. That's what I should have been. I should have done exactly the same things every day of my life except for one fortnight in the year. And it would have been worse for me than for most of them, because I've been at a decent school, because I'd seen that life needn't be like that. These people don't believe it can be different." He spoke with a savage sincerity that surprised Muriel. She had never known him so violent.

"Roland! Roland!" she expostulated. "I've never heard you so fierce about anything before. Your proposal to me was the tamest thing in the world compared with that."

"I'm sorry."

"I should hope so. I believe you hate Hammerton more than you love me."

So the autumn passed, quickly and happily. And by Christmas time they had begun to speak of an April wedding. There was no reason for delay. Roland was now making over seven hundred pounds a year, and the Marstons were too certain of their son-in-law to demand a long engagement. Yet it was on the very evening when the date was fixed that Roland and Muriel had their first brief quarrel. Roland had been tired by the long discussion, and Muriel's keen vitality had exasperated him. She was talking so eagerly of her trousseau, her bridesmaids, the locality of her honeymoon. She seemed to him to be sharing their love, his and hers, with all those other people who had no part in it. He was envious, feeling that their love was no longer theirs. He was still angry when they stood together on the landing to say good-night to each other.

"I don't believe you care for me at all," he said, "that you regard our marriage as anything more than a pantomime, a glorified garden-party!"

A look of hurt amazement crossed her face.

"But, Roland!"

"Oh, you know what I mean, Muriel, you—well, all these others!" He paused, unable to express himself, then caught her quickly, roughly into his arms, and kissed her hungrily. "I don't care," he said, "you'll be mine soon, mine!"

She pushed away from him, her face flushed and frightened.

"Oh, don't, Roland, don't!"

He was instantly apologetic.

"I'm sorry, Elfkin. I'm a beast. Forgive me, but oh, Elfkin, you really are anxious about the marriage for my sake?"

"Of course, silly!"

"I mean you're glad that we're going to be married soon?"

She was surprised and at the same time amused by the look of entreaty in his eyes.

"Don't look so tragic about it, of course I'm glad."

"But...." He got no further, for she had taken his hands and was playing with them, slapping them against his sides.

"Don't be such a silly, Roland, darling; you ought to know how pleased I am. I'm looking forward to it frightfully; and I know you'll be an awful dear to me."

She brought his hands together in one last triumphant smack, and leaning forward imprinted a light kiss upon his forehead. He tried to draw her again into his arms, but she broke from him.

"Oh, no, no, no," she said, and ran lightly up the stairs. She turned at the corner of the landing to blow a kiss to him. "Good-night, darling," and she was gone.

It was not repeated. Doubt, remorse, hesitation were alike forgotten in the excitement of preparation. He had arranged to take over the lease of a small house on the edge of the Marston estate, and the furnishing of it was a new and delightful game. The present tenants did not relinquish possession till the end of February, and during the intervening weeks Muriel and Roland would prowl round the house like animals waiting for their prey. They were finely contemptuous of the existing arrangements. Fancy using that big room as a drawing-room; it faced south-east, and though it would be warm enough during the morning, it would be freezily cold in the afternoon. Of course they would make that the dining-room; it would be glorious for breakfast. And that big room above it should be their bedroom; they would wake with the sunlight streaming through the window.

"You'll see the apple-tree while you brush your hair," he told her. And they both agreed that they would cut down the large walnut-tree in the garden. It was pretty, but it shut out the view of Hogstead. "It'll be much better to be able to look out from the drawing-room window and see the funny old people going up and down the village street." And Roland reminded her how they had looked down on them that day when they had leant against the gate: "Do you remember?" And she had laughed and told him that he was a stupid old sentimentalist, but she had kissed him all the same. And then the great day had come when the tenants began to move; they stood all the afternoon watching the workmen stagger into the garden, bowed with the weight of heavy furniture.

"I can't think how all that stuff ever got in there," Muriel said, and began to wonder whether they themselves would ever have enough. "We've nothing like as much as that."

And Roland had to assure her that they could always buy more, and that anyway the house had been over-furnished.

"You couldn't move for chairs and chesterfields and bureaux."

It was two days before the last van rolled away and Muriel and Roland were able to walk up the garden path "into our own house." But it was a bitter disappointment. The rooms looked mean and small and shabby now that they were unfurnished. The bare boards of the floors and staircases were dirty and covered with the straw of packing cases, the plaster of the wall showing white where the book-shelves had been unfixed. And the paper that had been shielded by pictures from the sunshine struck a vivid contrast to its faded environment. Muriel was on the verge of tears.

"Oh, Roland, what's happened to our pretty house?" she cried. And it took all his skill to persuade her that rooms always did look small till they were furnished, and that carpets and pictures covered many things.

"But our pictures won't fit exactly in those places," Muriel wailed, "and all our small pictures will have haloes."

"Then we'll get new papers," Roland said.

There were moments when it seemed that things could not be possibly finished in time. On the last week of March there was not a carpet on the floor, not a curtain over a window, not a picture on the walls.

"I know what it'll be," said Muriel in despair, "we shall have to go and leave it half-finished, and while we're away mother'll arrange it according to her own ideas, and her ideas are not mine. It'll take us all the rest of our lives getting things out of the places where she has put them. It's going to be awful, Roland, I know it is. We oughtn't to have arranged our marriage till we'd arranged our house."

Muriel was a little difficult during those days, but Roland was very patient and very affectionate.

"You only wait," he said; "it looks pretty awful now, but one good day's shopping'll make a jolly big difference."

And it did. In one week they bought all the carpets, the curtains, the chairs and tables, and Gerald was dispatched with a list that Mrs Marston had drawn up of the uninteresting things—saucepans, frying-pans, crockery—and with a blank cheque. "We can't be bothered with those things," said Roland.

It was a hectic week. They had decided to spend three hundred pounds on furnishing, and every evening, for Roland was staying with the Marstons, the two of them sat down to adjust their accounts, and to Muriel, who had never experienced a moment's anxiety about money, this checking of a balance-sheet was a delightful game. It was such fun pretending to be poor, adding up figures, comparing price-lists, as though each penny mattered. She would sit, her pencil on her lips, her account-book on one side, her price-list on the other, and would look up at Roland with an imploring, helpless glance, and: "Roland, dear, there's such a beautiful wardrobe here; it's fifty pounds, but it'll hold all my things; do you think we can afford it?"

And Roland would assume dire deliberation: "Well," he would say, after an impressive pause, "I think we can, only we'll have to be very careful over the servant's bedroom if we get it." And Muriel would throw her arms round his neck and assure him that he was a darling, and turn again to the price-list.

And all the while the wedding presents were arriving by every post. That, too, was great fun, or rather it had been at the start.

The first parcels were opened with unbounded enthusiasm.

"Oh, Roland, Mrs Boffin has sent us a silver inkstand; isn't it sweet of her?"

"Muriel, come and look at these candlesticks; they are beauties."

And letters of eager thanks were written. After a week or so the game began to lose its fascination. The gifts resembled each other; they began to forget who had given what, and as they wrote the letters of acknowledgment they would shout to each other in despair:

"Oh, Roland, do tell me what Mr Fitzherbert sent us!"

"I can't remember. I'm trying to think who I've got to thank for that butter-dish."

"The butter-dish!—that was Mr Robinson—but Mr Fitzherbert?"

"But the butter-dish wasn't Mr Robinson; he was the clock!"

"Then it was Mrs Evans; and, Roland, do, do think what Mr Fitzherbert gave us."

And so it went on, till at last they began to show a decided preference for cheques.

And there was the honeymoon: that had to be arranged. Muriel would rather like to have gone abroad.

"I've been only twice. We'll see all the foreigners, and sit in cafÉs, and go to theatres and see if we can understand them."

But Roland was not very anxious to go abroad. He went there too often in the way of business. He might meet people who at other times were charming, but were not on a honeymoon the most comfortable company. There would be the fatigue of long journeys, and besides, he wanted Muriel to himself.

"I don't want to go and see foreigners, I want to see you."

"Well, you'll have seen a good deal of me before you've finished."

"But, Muriel," and the firm note in his voice forced her to capitulate.

"All right, all right, have it as you like."

And so, after much discussion, it was decided that they should get a cyclist map of England, find a Sussex village that was at least three miles from any railway station, and then write to the postmaster and ask whether anyone there would be ready to let them rooms for a month.

"Three miles from anywhere! Heavens! but I shall be bored; still it's as you wish. Go and get your map, Gerald."

And with the map spread on the table they selected, after an hour's argument, to see if anything was doing at Bamfield.

"It should be a good place," said Roland. "It's just under the Downs."

In all this fret and fluster Mr Marston took the most intense interest. It reminded him of his own marriage and, finding his youth again in theirs, he spoke often of his honeymoon.

"Do you remember, dear, when we went out for a picnic in the woods and it came on to rain and we went to that little cottage under the hill?" And again: "Do you remember that view we got of the sea from the top of Eversleigh?" Little incidents of his courtship that he had forgotten a long time were recalled to him, so that he came to feel a genuine tenderness for the wife whom he had neglected for business, for cricket, and his children; from a distance of thirty years the perfume of those scented months had returned to him.

Gerald was alone unmoved. He was annoyed one morning when he found the floor of the billiard-room covered with packing cases, but he retained his hardly won composure. He accepted the duties of best man without enthusiasm. "At any rate it will soon be over," he had said, and had proceeded to give Roland two new white wood bats.

"They won't last long, but you can't help making a few runs with them." And his friend was left to draw from that present what inference he might think fit.

They were hectic days, but at last everything was finished. The house was papered and furnished, rooms had been booked at Bamfield, and in the last week in April Roland returned to Hammerton. He had had scarcely a moment's rest during the last two months. Life had moved at an incredible pace, and only with an enormous struggle had he managed to keep pace with it. He had had no time to think what he was doing. Each morning had presented him with some fresh difficulty, each night had left some piece of work unfinished. And, now that it was over, he felt exhausted. The store of energy that had sustained his vitality at so high a pressure was spent.

The sudden marriage was naturally a disappointment to his parents. Their opinion had not been asked; the arrangements had been made at Hogstead. Roland had just told them that such and such a thing had been decided, and they were hurt. They had known, of course, all along that as soon as their son was married they would lose him, but they had expected to retain his confidence up till then; and, being sentimental, they had often spoken together of the wife that he would choose. They had looked forward to his days of courtship, hoping to have a share in that fresh happiness. But the pleasure had been given to others; they had had no part in it.

In consequence Roland did not find them very responsive. They listened attentively to all he told them, but they asked no questions, and the conversation was not made easy. Roland was piqued by their behaviour; he had intended to arrange a picnic for the three of them on the last day, but now decided that he would not. After all, why should he: it would be no pleasure for any of them, not if they were going to sit glum and silent. Two days before his marriage he went for a walk in the evening with his father, and as Gerald would be coming on the next day to stay the night with them this was the last walk they would have together. But in nothing that they said to each other was implied any appreciation of the fact. When Mr Whately returned from the office he handed the evening paper to his wife, commented on the political situation in Russia and on the economical situation of France, and was, on the whole, of the opinion that Spanish cooking was superior to Italian, "Not quite so much variety," he said, "but there's a flavour about it that one gets nowhere else." He then proceeded to remove his boots: "And what about a walk, Roland?"

Ronald nodded, and Mr Whately went upstairs to change his suit. They walked as usual down the High Street, they turned up the corner of College Road, they crossed by the Public Library into Green Crescent, and completed their circuit by walking down into the High Street through Woolston Avenue. They talked of Fernhurst, of the coming cricket season, of the marriage ceremony, of the arrangements that had been made for meeting the guests at the church, of the train that Roland and Muriel would catch afterwards. But there passed between them not one sentence, question, intonation of the voice that could be called intimate, that could be said to express not remorse, but any attitude at all towards the severing of a long relationship. As they walked up the steps of 105 Hammerton Villas they were discussing the effectiveness of the new pull stroke that in face of prejudice so many great batsmen were practising.

"I think I shall go down to the nets at the Oval to-morrow, father, and see what I can make of it."

It was a bleak morning and the Oval presented a dismal appearance; a few men were pottering about with ladders and paint brushes; a cutting machine was clanking on the grass; the long stone terraces were cold and forbidding; the clock in the pavilion had stopped; far over at the Vauxhall end a couple of bored professionals were bowling to an enthusiastic amateur who had no idea of the game, but demanded instruction after every stroke. Roland stood behind the net and watched for a while an exhibition of cross-bat play that was calculated to make him for ever an advocate of the left shoulder, the left elbow and the left foot. He had a few minutes' chat with one of the groundsmen.

"Yes, sir, it do look pretty dismal, but you wait. April's a funny month; why, to-morrow we shall probably have brilliant sunshine, and there'll be twenty or thirty people down here, and when you go away you'll be thinking about getting out that bat of yours and putting a drop of oil on it." Roland expressed a hope that this prophecy would prove correct.

April was a funny month: it was cold to-day, but within a week the sun would be shining on green grass and new white flannels. Only another week! The fixing of this date, however, reminded Roland that in a week's time he would be in a small village under the Downs, three miles from the nearest station, and this reminder was somewhat of a shock to him. He would miss the first four weeks of the season. By the time he came back everyone else would have found their form; it was rather a nuisance. Still, a honeymoon! Ah, well, one could not have it both ways.

Gerald was not arriving till the afternoon, and the morning passed slowly for Roland. He walked from Kennington over Westminster Bridge and along the Embankment to Charing Cross; he strolled down the Strand, looking into the shop windows and wondering whether he was hungry enough to have his lunch. He decided he was not and continued his walk, but boredom made him reconsider the decision, and he found himself unable to pass a small Italian restaurant at the beginning of Fleet Street; and as he had a long time, with nothing to do in it, he ordered a heavy lunch. When the waiter presented him with his bill he had become fretfully irritable—the usual penalty of overeating.

What on earth should he do with himself for two hours? How slowly the time was passing. It was impossible to realise that in twenty-four hours' time he would be standing beside Muriel before the altar, that in two days' time they would be man and wife. What would it be like? Pondering the question, he walked along to Trafalgar Square, and still pondering it he mounted a bus and travelled on it as far as a sevenpenny ticket would take him. Then he got on to a bus that was going in the opposite direction, and by the time he was back again at Trafalgar Square, Gerald's train from Hogstead was nearly due.

It was not a particularly exciting evening and the atmosphere was distinctly edgy. Mr Whately was bothered about his clothes, and whether he should wear a white or a dark tie; and Mrs Whately was fussing over little things. "Did old Mrs Whately know that she had to change at Waterloo? Had anyone written to tell her? And who was going to meet her at the other end?" It was a relief to Roland when they had gone to bed and he and Gerald were left alone.

"It's a funny thing," Gerald said; "five years ago we didn't know each other; you were nothing to me, nor I to you, and then we meet in Brewster's study, and again at the Oval and, before we know where we are you're a junior partner in the business and engaged to my sister. To think what a difference you've made to all of us!"

"And the funniest thing of all," said Roland, "is to think that if I hadn't caught the three-thirty from Waterloo instead of the four-eighteen, none of this would have happened. I shouldn't have met that blighter Howard, nor gone out with those girls; and, even so, none of it would have happened if I had taken my footer boots down to be mended, as I ought to have done, on a Sunday afternoon instead of loafing in my study. One can't tell what's going to be a blessing till one's done with it. If I hadn't had that row I should never have met you and I should never have met Muriel." And he paused, wondering what would have happened to him if he had caught the four-eighteen and taken his boots down to be mended. He would have stayed on another year at school; he would have been captain of the house; he would have gone up to the 'Varsity. He would have had a good time, no doubt, but where would he be now? Probably an assistant master at a second-rate public school, an ill-paid post that had been given to him because he was good at games. Probably also he would be engaged to April, and he would be making desperate calculations with account-books to discover whether it was possible to marry on one hundred and fifty pounds a year.

"That now," he said, "was the luckiest thing for me that ever happened."

And they sat for a while in silence pondering the strange contradictions of life, pondering also the instability of human schemes. One might plan out the future, pigeon-hole it, have everything arranged as by a machine, and then what happened? Someone caught a train at three-thirty instead of at four-eighteen, or was too lazy to take his football boots down to be mended on a wet afternoon, and the plans that had been built up so elaborately through so many years were capsized, and one had to begin again.

"And it's so funny," Roland said, "to think of the fuss they made at Fernhurst about a thing like that—just taking a girl out for a walk, and you'd think I'd broken the whole ten commandments, and all the talk about my corrupting the pure soul of Brewster."

Gerald broke into a great laugh.

"The pure soul of Brewster!" he said. "My lord! if you'd known what he was like after he'd been in the house a term. He'd have taken a blooming lot of corrupting then. Gawd, but he was a lad!" And Gerald supplied some intriguing anecdotes of Brewster's early life. "He was a lad!" And Brewster's name started a train of associations, and Roland asked Gerald whether he had heard of Baker.

"Baker? Baker?" Gerald repeated. "No. I can't say I ever remember hearing anything about him. He must have been after my time."

Roland got up, walked across to his bureau, and taking a bunch of keys from his hip pocket unlocked a small top drawer. He took the drawer out and, bringing it across, laid it on the table. It was full of photographs, letters, ribbons, dance programmes, and he began to fumble among them: "I think we shall find something about Master Baker here," he said. "Ah, yes, here we are!" And he handed across to Gerald a large house photograph. "There he is, bottom row, fourth from the right."

Gerald scrutinised the photograph, holding it to the light.

"Lord, yes," he said, "that tells its own story; what's happened to him now?"

"He was head of the house two years ago; he's gone up to Selwyn. I believe he's going into the Church."

Gerald smiled. "When we all meet at an old boys' dinner in twenty years' time we shall get one or two shocks. Think of Brewster bald, and Maconochie stout, and Evans the father of a family!"

"My lord!"

And they began to rummage in the drawer, till the table was littered with letters and photographs.

The photographs led them from one reminiscence to another; and in that little series of isolated recollections they lived again through all that had remained vivid to them of their school-days.

"Heavens!" said Gerald, "who's that? You don't mean to say that's Harrison! Why, I remember him when he first came, a ridiculous kid; we used to call him 'Little Belly.' About the first week he was there he showed his gym. belt to someone and said: 'Isn't it small? Haven't I a little belly?'"

"And here's Hardy," said Roland. "Do you remember that innings of his in the final house match, and how we lined up on each side of the pavilion and cheered him when he came out?"

"And do you remember that try of his in the three cock?—two men and the back to beat and only a couple of yards to spare between them and the touch-line. I don't know how he kept his foot inside."

And as the store of Fernhurst photographs became exhausted they found among the notes and hotel bills delightful memories of much that they had in common.

"The CafÉ du Nord, Ghent! My son," said Gerald, "do you remember that top-hole Burgundy? Yes, here it is—two bottles of Volnay, fifty-three francs."

"Wasn't that the night when that ripping little German girl smiled at us across the room?"

"And when I said that another bottle of Volnay was better than any woman in the world."

A torn hotel bill at Cologne recalled a disappointing evening in the company of two German girls whom they had met at a dance and taken out to supper—an evening that had ended, to the surprise of both of them, in a platonic pressure of the hands.

"Do you remember how we stood under the cathedral and watched them pass out of sight behind the turning of the Hohe Strasse, and then you turned to me and said: 'There's no understanding women'?"

And then there was the evening when they had gone to the opera in Bonn and had had supper afterwards in a little restaurant, from the window of which they could see the Rhine flowing beneath them in the moonlight, and its beauty and the tender sentimental melodies of Verdi had produced in both of them a mood of rare appreciation; they had sat in silence and made no attempt to express in talk the sense of wonderment. Much was recalled to them by these pieces of crumpled paper, and when Roland put away the drawer it seemed to Gerald that he was locking away a whole period of his life. And when they said good-night to each other on the stairs Gerald could not help wondering whether, in the evening that had just passed, their friendship had not reached the limit of its tether. Roland was beginning a new life in which he would have no part. As he heard his friend's door shut behind him he could not help feeling that never again would they reach that same point of intimacy.

CHAPTER XXII

AN END AND A BEGINNING

No doubt the groundsman at the Oval rubbed his hands together with satisfaction when he looked out of his bedroom window on the following morning. It was not particularly warm; indeed he must have shivered as he stood with his shaving brush in his hand, looking at the sky instead of at his mirror. But the sky was blue and the sun was shining, and he would, no doubt, be warm enough after he had sent down a couple of overs at the nets. The thoughts of Roland as he surveyed the bright spring morning were not dissimilar. He saw in it a happy augury. Summer was beginning.

They were a silent party at breakfast; each was preoccupied with his own affairs. They had decided to leave Charing Cross at twelve-thirty-five by a train that reached Hogstead at half-past one; the service was fixed for two o'clock. They would not need to leave the house till a quarter to twelve. They had therefore three hours to put in.

"Now, I suggest," said Gerald, "that you should come down with me to the barber's and have a shave."

"But I've shaved already."

"I daresay you have, but on a day like this one can't shave too often."

And Roland, in spite of his protests, was led down to the shop. Once there, Gerald refused to be satisfied with a mere shave.

"This is a big occasion," he said. And he insisted that Roland should be shampooed, that he should have his hair singed, that his face should be oiled and massaged and his finger-nails polished.

"Now you look something like a bridegroom." And in defiance of Roland's blushes he explained to the girl at the counter that his friend had intended to be married unshaven.

"What would you think," he said, "if your fiancÉ turned up at the altar with his hair unbrushed and chin all over bristles?"

The girl was incapable of any repartee other than a giggle and the suggestion that he should get along with himself. Gerald then announced his intention of buying a pair of gloves, and when he reached the shop he pretended that he was the bridegroom and Roland the best man. He took the shopmen into his confidence and told them that the bride was very particular—"a very finicking young person indeed"—and he must have exactly the shade of yellow that would match her orange blossom. He produced from his waistcoat pocket a piece of flame-coloured silk. "It's got to go with this," he said.

In the same manner he proceeded to acquire a tie, a pair of spats, a silk handkerchief. As he told his father afterwards, he did splendidly, and kept Roland from worrying till it was time for them to dress.

But the journey to the station was, even Gerald confessed, pretty terrible. It was only five minutes' walk and it had never occurred to them to hire a cab. They wished they had, however, as they stepped down the long white steps into the street that divided the even from the odd numbered houses of Hammerton Villas. Everyone they passed turned to stare at them. They were so obviously a wedding party. "Which is it?" they overheard a navvy ask his mate. "Should be the one with the biggest flower in his button-hole."

"Garn, he's much too young!"

Roland hated it, and the half-hour in the train was even worse. As soon as they reached Charing Cross he made a dash for the platform, leaving Gerald to collect the tickets. But his embarrassment was yet to be made complete, for as he stood on the footboard of the carriage he heard a deep booming voice behind him.

"Hullo, bridegroom!" And he turned to face the bulky figure of a maiden aunt and the snigger of a porter. He did not feel safe till he had heard the scream of the driver's whistle, felt the carriage vibrate beneath him and after two jolts pull slowly out of the station.

He talked little on the journey, but sat in a corner of the carriage watching through the window the houses slip past him, till the train reached meadowland and open country. He knew every acre of that hour's journey. He had made it so often with such eager haste. How much, he wondered, would not have happened to him before the time came for him to make it again? He tried to marshal the reflections that should be appropriate to such an occasion, but he could not. Life moved too fast for thought. A fierce rhythm was completing its circle. He sat watching the landmarks fall one by one behind him, appreciating confusedly the nature of the experience to which he was being hurried.

It was the same at the church. He did not feel in the least nervous. He told a couple of good stories to Gerald in the chancel; he settled the account with the verger; he walked down the aisle and began to speak to his friends as they took their places.

"So good of you to come; hope you had a pleasant journey. See you afterwards."

Gerald was amazed: "You're wonderful! Why, you're as calm as if you were at a tea-party!"

Roland smiled, but said nothing. He attributed no credit to himself. How else should he behave? A swiftly spinning top would, at a first glance, appear to be poised unconsciously upon its point. It did not begin to wobble till its pace was lost. And was not he himself a swiftly spinning top.

He did not even feel nervous when a commotion in the porch warned him of the arrival of his bride; he stood firmly, did not fidget, fixed his eyes upon the door till he saw, framed there picture-wise, Muriel, in white and orange, upon her father's arm. He then turned and faced the altar. The organ boomed out its heavy, ponderous notes, but he hardly heard them. His ears were strained for the silken sound that drew nearer to him every moment. He kept his eyes fixed upon the altar, and it was the faint perfume of her hair that told him first that she was beside him.

During the early part of the service he comported himself with a mechanical efficiency. His performance was dignified and correct. When he found a difficulty in putting the ring on to her finger he did not become flustered, but left her to put it on herself. The ceremony had for him a certain emotional significance. Once, as they stood close together, the back of his hand brushed against hers and the cool contact of her fingers reminded him of the serious oath that he was taking and of how he was bringing to it a definite, if vaguely formulated, ideal of tenderness and loyalty. He meant to make of their marriage a reality other than the miserable, dissatisfied compromise that, for the vast majority of men and women, succeeded the first brief enchantment. His lips framed no prayer; it had been for a long while his belief that the moulding of a man's fortunes lay within his own powers. But that desire for happiness was none the less a prayer. It went as quickly as it had come, and he was once again the lay figure whose contortions all these good people had been called together to observe. He remained a lay figure during the rest of the afternoon.

He walked down the aisle proudly with Muriel on his arm; in the carriage he took her hand in his, and when they were out of sight of the church he lifted her veil and imprinted a gentle kiss upon her cheek. He stood beside her in the drawing-room and received each guest with a swift, fluttering smile and a shake of the hand. The majority of them he did not know, or had seen only occasionally. They were the friends and relatives of Muriel. There were only a few in whom Roland was able to take any personal interest. Ralph was there, and April. He had not spoken to April since the evening when he had kissed her, and he momentarily lost his composure when he saw, over the shoulder of an old lady whose hand he was politely shaking, the brown hair and delicate features to which he had been unfaithful. In what manner should he receive her? But he need not have worried. She settled that for him. She walked forward and took his hand in simple comradeship and smiled at him. She looked very pretty in a grey coat and skirt and wide-brimmed claret-coloured hat. He recalled the day when she had worn that hat for the first time and her anxiety that she should be pretty with it. "You do like it, don't you, darling?" But someone else was already waiting with outstretched hand. "You looked so sweet, Muriel, darling," an aged female was saying. "Your husband's a lucky man!" And by the time that was over, the cake was waiting to be cut and champagne bottles had to be opened, and Roland was passing from one group of persons to another, saying the same things, making the same gestures: "Yes, we're spending our honeymoon in England ... Bamfield, a little village under the Downs ... Sussex's so quiet ... such a mistake to try and do too much on a honeymoon."

He had barely time to exchange a couple of remarks with Beatrice. She came towards him, her hand stretched out in simple comradeship.

"Good luck, Roland," she said. "You are going to be awfully happy. I know you are."

"And when we come back you must come and see us; won't you, Beatrice?"

"Of course I shall."

"Often," he urged.

"As often as you ask me."

Before he had time to reply an obscure relative had begun to assure him of his wonderful fortune and of his eternal felicity.

He caught glimpses of Muriel's white dress passing through the ranks of admiration, and then he found himself being led by the arm to the table where the champagne was being opened and a cricket friend of his, a married man, was adjuring him to take as much as possible. "You don't know what you're in for, old man." And then Gerald was telling him that it was time he went upstairs to change, that Muriel had gone already.

"You're really wonderful, old man," Gerald said, when they were alone. "I can't think how you did it. It's cured me of ever wanting to get married."

There were several telegrams lying on his dressing-table; he opened them and tossed them half read upon the floor. "Thank God I haven't got to answer those," he said. And while he changed into a grey tweed suit Gerald continued to perform what he considered to be the functions of a best man. He chattered about the service, the champagne, the wedding-cake, the behaviour of the guests. "And, I say, old son, who was that mighty topping girl in grey, with the large wine-coloured hat?"

"That? Oh, that was April—April Curtis."

"What! the girl that——"

"Yes, that's the one."

Gerald was momentarily overwhelmed. "Well, I must say I'm surprised," he began. Then paused, realising that as Roland had just married his sister it was hardly possible for him to draw any comparison between her and April. He contented himself with a highly coloured compliment:

"A jolly pretty girl," he said, "and she'll be a beautiful woman."

At that moment there was a tap at the door and Mrs Marston's voice was heard inquiring whether Roland had nearly finished.

"Hurry up, old man," said Gerald, "Muriel's ready." And two minutes later he was running, with Muriel on his arm, through a shower of rose leaves and confetti. They both sank back into the cushions, panting, laughing, exhausted. And as the gates of the drive swung behind them they said, almost simultaneously: "Thank heaven, that's over!"

But a moment later Muriel was qualifying her relief with the assertion that it had been "great fun."

"All those serious-faced people came up and wished me good luck. If I'd encouraged them they'd have started taking me into corners and preaching sermons at me."

But Roland did not find it easy to respond to her gaiety. Now that it was all over he felt tired, physically and emotionally. When they reached the station he bought a large collection of papers and magazines, so that their two hours' journey might be passed quietly. But this was not at all in accordance with Muriel's ideas.

"Don't be so dull, Roland!" she complained. "I want to be amused."

He did his best; they talked of all their guests and of how each one of them had behaved.

"Wasn't old Miss Peter ridiculous, dressing up so young?" said Muriel; and Roland asked whether she didn't think that Guy Armstrong had been paying rather marked attention to Miss Latimer.

"Why, he's been doing that for months," said Muriel. "We've all been wondering when he's going to propose. I don't mind betting that at this very moment she's doing her best to make him. She's probably suggested that he should take her home, and she's insisted on going the longest way."

But Roland's conversational energy was soon exhausted, and after a long and slightly embarrassed silence Muriel tossed back her head impatiently and picked up a magazine.

"You are not very interesting, are you?" she said.

Roland considered it wiser to make no response. He settled himself back into his seat, rested his head against his hand, and allowed his thoughts to travel back over the incidents of the afternoon.

It had been a great success; there could be no doubt of that. Everything had gone off splendidly. But he was unaccountably oppressed by a vague sense of apprehension, of impending trouble. He endeavoured to fix his thoughts on reassuring subjects. He recalled his momentary talk with Beatrice, and remembered that that afternoon he had addressed her for the first time by her Christian name. She had shown no displeasure at his use of it, and as she smiled at him he fancied he had read in the soft wavering lustre of her eyes the promise of a surer friendship, of deeper intimacy. He had seen so little of her during the last few months. It would be exciting to meet her on his return, at full liberty, on an assured status, in his own house.

His reverie travelled thence to Gerald's easy good humour, his unflagging energy, his bubbling commentary on the idiosyncrasies of his father's friends, his surprised admiration of April; and the thought of April brought back in a sudden wave the former mood of doubt and apprehension. How little, after all, he and Muriel knew of one another; they were strangers beneath the mask of their light-hearted friendship. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. Her magazine had fallen forward on to her lap. Her eyes were fixed dreamily on the opposite wall of the carriage. Her thoughts were, no doubt, loitering pleasantly in a coloured dream among the agreeable episodes of the afternoon—her dress, her bridesmaids, her bouquets, the nice things everyone had said to her. As he looked at her, so calm, so self-possessed, Roland was momentarily appalled by the difficulty of establishing on a new basis their old relationship.

They had been comrades before they had been lovers. In their courtship passion had been so occasional a visitant.

They were both in a subdued state of mind when they stepped up into the dogcart that had been sent to meet them at the station.

"Tired, Elfkin?" he whispered.

"A little," she said.

The air was cold and she snuggled close to him for warmth; he took her hand in his and held it, pressing it tenderly.

They had a three-mile drive through the quiet English countryside.

And it was quite dark when the dogcart eventually drew up before a small cottage and a kindly, plump woman came out to meet them.

"Ah, there you be!" she said. "I was just expecting you. The supper's all laid out, and I've only got to put the eggs on to boil, and there's some hot water in the bedroom."

Roland thanked her, took down the two suitcases, and followed her up the narrow creaking stairs.

"There," she said, opening a door. "There you are. And if you want anything you ring that bell on the table. I'll just run down and get on with the supper."

Roland and Muriel were left alone in a small room, the greater part of which was occupied by a large double bed, over which had been hung, with a singular lack of humour, a Scriptural admonition: "Love one another." The ceiling was low, the window was overhung with ivy. In midsummer it would be a stuffy room. They looked at each other; they were alone for the first time, and they did not know what to do. There was an awkward silence.

"I suppose you'll want to tidy up," said Roland.

"Well, of course," she answered a little petulantly.

"All right, then; I'll go downstairs. Come and tell me when you're ready."

She was standing between him and the door, and as he passed her he made an ill-judged attempt to take her in his arms. She was tired and she was dusty, and she did not want to be kissed just then. She shook herself away from him. And this mistake increased Roland's despondency, accentuated his nervousness, his vague distaste for this summoning of emotion to order, at a fixed date and at a fixed hour.

Supper was not a cheerful meal; at first they attempted to be jovial, but their enthusiasm was forced, and long silences began to drift into their conversation. They grew increasingly embarrassed and tried to prolong the meal as long as possible. Muriel was not fond of coffee and rarely took it, but when Roland asked her if she would like some she welcomed the suggestion: "Oh, yes, do."

Mrs Humphries, however, had no coffee, but when she read the disappointment of the young bride's face she said she would see if she could not borrow some from her neighbour. And while she ran over the village street Muriel and Roland sat opposite each other in silence; her hands were folded in her lap, and she stared straight in front of her; he played with the spoon of the salt cellar, making little pyramids of salt round the edge.

At last the coffee arrived; its warmth momentarily cheered them and they tried to talk, to make fun of their friends, to scheme things for their future. But the brooding sense of embarrassment returned. Roland, in the intervals of occasional remarks, continued to erect his pyramids of salt.

"Oh, don't, don't, don't," said Muriel impatiently; "you get on my nerves with your fidgeting."

Roland apologised, dropped the spoon, and without occupation for his hands felt more uncomfortable than before. They continued a spasmodic conversation till Mrs Humphries came in to tell them that she would be going to bed directly.

"We get up early here," she said. And would they please to remember to blow out the lamp and not to turn down the wick, as her last lodger had done. She wished them a good-night, and said she would bring them a cup of tea when she called them in the morning. They heard her bolt the front door and fasten the shutter across the kitchen window, then tread heavily up the creaking stairs. For a little while they listened to her movements in the room. Then came the heavy creak of a bedstead.

They were alone in the silent house.

"Well, I suppose we must be going up," he said.

"I suppose so."

"Will you go up first and I'll come when you're ready?"

"All right."

He made no attempt to touch her as she passed him. She paused in the doorway. A mocking smile, a last desperate rally fluttered over her lips.

"Don't forget to turn the lamp out, Roland. My last lodger...."

But she never completed the sentence; and their eyes met in such a look as two shipwrecked mariners must exchange when they realise that they can hold out no longer, and that the next wave will dash their numb fingers from the friendly spar.

Transcriber's Notes:

Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible. Both book-shelves and bookshelves, country-side and countryside, fire-place and fireplace, off-hand and offhand where used in this book. This was retained.

The following is a list of changes made to the original. The first line is the original line, the second the corrected one.

Page 20:
we go for a stroll along the Slopes.
we go for a stroll along the Slopes."
Page 33:
friends of ours, the Sandersons. Mr Sanderson thinks
friends of ours, the Saundersons. Mr Saunderson thinks
Page 34:
that nothing he said or did
That nothing he said or did
Page 79:
Here it is.
"Here it is.
Page 122:
that it must never happen again"?
that it must never happen again?"
Page 134:
Why should you worry about that?
"Why should you worry about that?
Page 145:
exchanged for the slim evening newsheet.
exchanged for the slim evening newssheet.
Page 169:
what was it all about?
what was it all about?"
Page 182:
his thoughts wondered from the ledger
his thoughts wandered from the ledger
Page 206:
his sentimentality held a minor to his guilt.
his sentimentality held a mirror to his guilt.
Page 293:
had intended to be married unshaven."
had intended to be married unshaven.
Page 301:
you get on my nerves with your fidgeting.
"you get on my nerves with your fidgeting."

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