And that which Claudia had foreseen came to pass. He had no hobby to amuse him. He hated to be alone with his own thoughts, and yet he was either impatient with other people’s conversation and ideas, or he was bored with the subjects that interested them, and did not interest him. He did not sleep well, and he had taken a dislike to books. Bridge and billiards he had always considered a waste of time, and the entertainments at the small Casino did not amuse him. He took no interest in the small happenings of life, which for other people pleasantly diversify the days with their light and shade. His day was one long fidget to get back into harness.
Still, the bracing air did him good, and his nerves daily got steadier. Sometimes he almost looked his old self.
One day, after they had been there for a week, it happened to be very wet, and golf for Gilbert was out of the question. He and Colin were sitting out on the[312] verandah of the Golf Hotel, smoking and talking, when Claudia came out to them. She seated herself a little distance away, with Le Petit Journal, which she looked at in a desultory holiday sort of way, as they went on talking. Gilbert was evidently replying to some remark of Colin’s.
“It’s what you call ‘tolerance’ that is ruining England. It’s a blessing for her that there are a few ‘intolerant’ people left. You know, Colin, you’ve got mixed up with a lot of cranks, all grinding their own little axes. For instance, I can’t think why you want to mess about with such questions as Child Labour. It won’t make you popular, very few people take an interest in it. Why don’t you leave such questions to faddists? I wonder that a man of your ability plays about with such small issues.”
Claudia saw a fighting gleam in Colin’s eye, but he replied quietly enough.
“We always did disagree on our definition of ‘small,’ you know, Gilbert. A small question does not become a big one because it becomes the popular one of the day.”
Gilbert made a gesture of impatience. “Nonsense, you must accept the world’s verdict on these things, and let me tell you, as a lawyer, that the verdict of the people is pretty sound, in spite of any Ibsen paradoxes you may fling at me. If you like to paddle about in a backwater, no one can prevent you, but don’t pretend it’s the main stream, or rather don’t expect anyone to believe you. I think enough has been talked about Child Labour. Sentimental twaddle! The law has done all that is necessary.”
“Have you ever gone closely into the question, Gilbert?” Colin took his cigarette-case out of his pocket and abstracted another cigarette.
“Yes, as much as I want to. I once had a compensation case, where a lot of sentiment was dragged in by the heels.”
[313]
“Ah! you represented the employer, of course?” He threw the match over the verandah.
“Well? The parents of the child were willing it should work. The sentiment came in when it got injured.”
“Exactly, that’s just what we complain of. Child labour demoralizes the parents. But, leaving the parents out of the question,” his voice grew warmer, in spite of his evident effort to keep cool—“don’t you see that the interest of future generations of workers demands that children, instead of becoming ‘half-timers,’ shall have a chance to develop, to let their bodies grow into something strong and fine, so that—and this should appeal to you—England may hold her own against other younger, more vigorous nations. I say nothing about the joyless lives of the children who are old in mind as well as body before those of our class go to Eton or Harrow, but surely the future of the race interests you? You get more work out of a vigorous, able-bodied man or woman.”
“Oh yes! I’m interested, but I prefer to work for the present generation. I’ll do without a rain-washed, dirty statue that a crank occasionally puts a wreath on and no one else remembers.”
“Gilbert!” exclaimed Claudia, unable to let the taunt pass. “How can you be such an arrant materialist?”
“We live in a materialistic age, my dear,” said her husband coolly. “In a few years’ time ideals will be as dead as door-nails. Idealists are usually weak dreamers, who resent the driving force of others, and who try—ineffectually—to dam the current of their progress. I don’t mean that you are to be classed with these ineffectuals, Colin, but you allow yourself to be carried away by their enthusiasms. Enthusiasm is a good servant, but a bad master. To do anything worth doing, you must have a judicial mind, and put nothing of yourself in the scale.”
“All the great reformers of the world have been enthusiasts,” cried Claudia impetuously. “The dry-as-dust,[314] cold-blooded men and women have never achieved anything. I say, thank God for the enthusiasts of the world, who are not dismayed by columns of statistics!”
Her eyes and Colin’s met, and his thanked her silently, but a little shake of the head told her not to trouble to argue, that it was only beating her head against a brick wall.
“My dear Claudia, you are a woman and belong to the emotional, impressionable sex. But, for Heaven’s sake, don’t you join any of these crank movements,” he went on impatiently—“for if I am going into Parliament, I don’t want to be saddled with my wife’s partisanships. It’s quite enough to fight the cranks in the House, I don’t want any on my own hearthrug.”
She was tempted to make a hot retort, but Colin’s look checked her. After all, it was useless, and she had determined not to quarrel with him.
“I shan’t be able to stick this much longer,” grumbled her husband, getting up and inspecting the leaden skies. “Rotten weather!”
“It’s the first bad day we’ve had, old man,” replied his friend cheerfully.
“And no newspapers yet.... I wasn’t cut out for a life of idleness. I’ll go in and write some letters.”
He got up and left them on the verandah, and Claudia gave up the pretense of reading.
“Colin,” she exclaimed vehemently, “how came you and he to be friends when you are so different? His views are too awful.”
“There are a lot of people who think as he does,” returned Colin thoughtfully. “But it was sweet of you to take up the cudgels on my behalf. Those things are not easy to do in front of—a Gilbert.”
She flushed a little. “I just had to say it. I was so entirely with you. I always am. And yet, he is my husband.”
[315]
“You don’t think me weak and ineffectual?” He looked out over the rain-bleared golf-course, at the dark row of pines in the distance. “You used to lay so much stress on strength, on achievement. You quite frightened me.”
“Don’t!” she said quickly. “Sometimes one may mistake hardness for strength. Don’t”—pitifully—“don’t rub it in, Colin.” Her eyes suddenly filled with tears.
“Oh, my dear!”—the caress seemed to slip out involuntarily—“I didn’t mean to do that.... And though I wanted you to say I wasn’t, I am weak—pitifully weak.... I want a woman’s good opinion, a woman’s approval. I want someone to believe in me, to urge me on ... that’s weak, isn’t it?”
“Only according to Gilbert’s creed,” she said softly. “You and I have a different one.”
He got up and paced the verandah.
“It would be happier for you if you could adopt his creed—and you’re very young. You want happiness?”
“Badly.”
“I wish—I could see you happy. The Bible says, ‘the prayer of the righteous man availeth much,’ but I can’t pray.”
“I don’t believe you are any happier—although you seem so cheerful—than I am.”
“No.”
The rain softly murmured around them. They were the only occupants of the verandah.
“We’re not very lucky, are we?...” She turned abruptly to him, her hands gripping the edge of the verandah, her eyes bright with a curious wildness. “Colin, I’m sometimes so frightened of the future. I’m twenty-four now. Shall I always go on being unhappy and dissatisfied until I become a nasty, bitter, lonely old woman, jealous of every happy couple I meet, envious of everyone else’s happiness? It’s a horrid picture, isn’t it?”
[316]
He did not say a word, but he watched her profile as she looked out at the rain.
“Gilbert will grow more and more like his father, and he will become the right honorable member for Langton. He may rise to be Attorney-General. Perhaps he’ll get a seat in the Cabinet. I shall open Primrose League bazaars and be chilly to the wives of Labour members when I meet them. I shall go to innumerable long, stupid dinners and try and remember to be gracious to the right persons. I shall become the possessor of some wonderful china and perhaps flit about with a duster in a silk bag. And my heart—well”—with a sudden gust of passion that left her face deathly white—“I hope it will be atrophied by that time.”
They had neither of them noticed the approach of a motor, so that they were both startled to hear an English shout from the bottom of the steps.
“Hallo! Isn’t the water cold?”
It was Pat, neat and workmanlike in her blue serge, a small hat rammed down over her yellow hair. She grinned up at their surprise.
“Pat! We didn’t expect you until to-morrow.”
“I know, but I suddenly got fed up with London. I hope I haven’t put the town band out by coming so soon, but I just had to come.”
She came striding up the steps and gave Claudia a hug.
“Bless you, my children. Paton, I shall be in tremendous form to-morrow. I feel it coming on. Directly I got on the boat I wanted to drive off from the head of the gangway, only it would be sure to have been a lost ball.... I lost five last week. I think they were winged angels masquerading as golf-balls. How’s Gilbert? Billie sends his forlorn love. He’s as mournful as a Chinese idol. Do you know where I’m supposed to hang myself up?”
Claudia, who had arranged for her room on the morrow,[317] went ahead into the hotel, Colin and Pat following after. She could not help hearing a hasty whisper of, “Paton, I’ve got lots of things to tell you. Just had to see you. Everything is going to be all right, and I’m so happy.”
So her suspicions were correct. Colin and Pat were in love with one another. Pat “just had to see him.” What was that but love? Only love can drive with such impatience.
“I hope it’s a pretty long bed,” she could hear Pat chattering. “I went to stay at an hotel once, and we took it in turns to rest, my top half and my lower half. I’d like to sleep all at once, if possible.”
Colin laughed. He was always on very cheery terms with Patricia, and she with him. It was she, Claudia remembered, who had once so highly extolled Paton as a possible husband. At that time she had not appeared to have any penchant for him. But sometimes the knowledge of her love comes suddenly to a young girl. Perhaps it had come suddenly to Pat. And she would make him a very nice wife. She was loyal to the core, and she would believe in him. She would fight for him, if necessary, through thick and thin, the bigger the fight the more she would like it. She would never quite understand one side of him, perhaps, but maybe her steady cheeriness was what he needed. How often she had heard it said that like should not seek like in marriage. She remembered someone had said, “In love they who resemble, separate.” Pat was lucky, and if she felt a little twinge of jealousy—well, it was the first symptoms of the soured old woman period she had been envisaging. She would presently look on all young couples in the same way.
“So your sister has arrived,” she heard Mr. Littleton say, as she stood musing in the hall. “She hasn’t brought good weather with her.”
[318]
“No,” returned Claudia mechanically, “but Pat doesn’t mind the weather.”
“Well, I guess that befits an Amazon. She’s a splendid specimen of English womanhood.”
Her sister nodded. Yes, she was; no wonder Colin admired her.
“A little too splendid for my taste,” smiled Littleton. “Who was it laid down the law that a woman should be just as high as the shoulder of the man she loves?” He looked at the dark, glossy head just on the level of his own shoulder, but she did not notice it. She was trying to adjust her ideas: “I reckon he was a cosy man, who ever he was.”
He wondered what had caused that curiously blank look on her face, a sort of half stunned surprise.
Just then Pat and Colin came laughing into the hall, she having, with her characteristic quickness, found and donned a tweed rain-proof coat.
“Claud, we’re going for a tramp. Come with us? It’s no good minding the wet. You look as if you’ve been in all day.”
Her sister pulled herself together and replied lightly, “I’m sure, from your tone, it’s an unbecoming look, but I refuse to let the rain wash it off. I hate walking in the rain.”
“It’s nearly left off,” said Paton, glancing out of the door, “the clouds are breaking.”
“I tell you I don’t want to go.... Run away, young people!”
Littleton noticed the edge to her tone, noticed it because he loved her and, by now, had grown sensitive to its many inflections. Because he loved her, he tried to understand her, to respond to her moods, to fall in with her humours. He adored her quick changes, sometimes half a dozen in the space of ten minutes; the melodies in her voice, sometimes tender, sometimes firm, occasionally[319] gay and still girlish. He was willing to do anything to make her happy, and he had seen very clearly the rift in the lute, the rift that had been inevitable. Could he hope to win her love? She had given him nothing that could be considered encouragement, although she was always friendly and ready to talk to him. She no longer loved her husband, and it was not possible that such a woman could exist for long without some man in her life. Why not——
Then he saw the expression on her face. She had forgotten he was standing there. She was absorbed in her thoughts, but her eyes were fixed on the couple going down the path. Pat was talking eagerly, and she had just slipped her hand confidentially within Colin’s arm to emphasize some point.
Love gives even the most stupid of men extraordinary powers of intuition where the woman he loves is concerned. In a flash he knew that his own suit was hopeless and the reason.
His fair skin had grown very grey as he spoke to her, and the light in his eyes was suddenly quenched.
“Mrs. Currey, this is my last day here, you know. Too bad it’s wet, isn’t it? We might have gone over the links once again together.”
The words effectually roused her. “Your last day here? I thought you were going to stay on a few more days? Oh, I’m sorry! But we shall meet when I come back to town, n’est-ce pas?”
“I’m afraid not,” he said regretfully. “I—I shall probably be sailing for New York next week. The firm has been calling for me for some time. ‘Home, sweet Home,’ you know, and the American eagle!”
“Why, that’s too bad.” Her tone was unaffectedly regretful and sincere. Perhaps, later on, he would feel it a slight consolation that he had won through to her friendship, but at present it was caustic on the wound.[320] “I shall miss you. I suppose it’s ‘the game’ once more? We women are hopelessly out of it!”
He shook his head. “There is only ‘the game’ left to me, and now—it doesn’t interest me very much. Life has a queer way of giving you backhanders occasionally, hasn’t it? Mrs. Currey, you’ve taught me there are finer things, more worth striving for, than mere commercial gain. Oh, it will fill up the time quite nicely, and I shall still get some thrills out of doing the other fellow.” They had wandered out on the verandah again. “See here, I don’t know how a woman takes these things. I don’t know whether she likes a man to tell her he loves her, or would rather he went away with his tongue held between his teeth. But I feel I should like to tell you that I love you.... I would have done anything to win and keep your love, if there had been any hope for me.... At one time I had a crazy dream you might, perhaps, trust yourself to me and make another start with me on the other side. I know you’re brave enough to make a fight for your happiness, and not begrudge paying a price for it. You’re not the kind of woman to be frightened by a few law-court bogys.... No, you need not look so sorry. It’s my own fault. I walked clean into it. I guess I gave the best years of my life to the rottenest game out. Well, that game’s all that is left me. I’ve got to go on playing, whether I want to or not.”
“But I am sorry.... I like you so much. I almost wish—— But I think something has happened to my heart.... I can’t feel it. I feel sort of numbed. I don’t even seem to believe in love any longer. I wish I could fall in love. I think it would put some life in me. I used to laugh at a woman who said when she wasn’t in love she was only half alive. But there’s something in it. Degrading admission, isn’t it?”
He looked at her with a curious expression—half wonderment, half tenderness.
[321]
“Then you don’t know!” he exclaimed.
“Know what?” The figures of Colin and Pat were rapidly becoming miniatures in the distance.
“Never mind. Only when you do know—remember how we stood here—and that I knew.”