 10. Lizzie Rand Lizzie Rand was just forty-six years of age when old Mrs. Routon Mackenzie died, leaving her all her money. Months later she had not thoroughly realized what had happened to her. Until that day of Mrs. Mackenzie's death she had never had any money. She had spent her life, her energies, her pluck, and her humor in the service of one human being after another, and generally in the service of women. It seemed to her to be really funny that the one who had during her life begrudged her most, should in the end be the one who had given her everything. But no one had ever understood old Mrs. Mackenzie, and as likely as not she had left her money to Lizzie Rand just to spite her numerous relations. Lizzie had expected nothing. She never did expect anything, which was as well perhaps because no one ever gave her anything. She was not a person to whom one naturally gave things. She had her pride, a reserve, and assertion of her own private liberty that kept people away and for bad intimacy. That had not always been so, in the long ago days when she had been Adela Bimster's secretary, she had given herself. She had loved a man who had not loved her, and out of the shock of that she had won a friendship with another woman, which was still perhaps the most precious thing that she had. But that same shock had been enough for her. She guarded, with an almost bitter ferocity, the purity and liberty of her soul. All the women whose secretaries she had afterwards been had felt this in her, and most of them had resented it. Old Mrs. Mackenzie had resented it to more than any of them. She was a selfish, painted, over-decorated old creature, a widow with no children, and only nephews and nieces, to sigh after her wealth. One of Lizzie's chief duties had been to keep these nephews and nieces from the door, and this she had done with a certain grim austerity, finding that none of them cared for the aunt and all for the money. The outraged relations decided, of course, at once that she was a plotting despicable creature. It is doing her less than justice to say that the idea that the money would be left to her never for a single instant entered her mind. Mrs. Mackenzie taunted her once for expecting it. Of course you're waiting, she said, like all of them, to pick the bones of the corpse. Lizzie Rand laughed. Now, is that like me, she asked, and more important, is it like you? Mrs. Mackenzie sniggered her tinkling, wheezy snigger. There was a certain honesty between them. They had certain things in common. I don't like you, she said. I don't see how anyone could. You're too self-sufficient, but you certainly have a sense of humor. There had been a time once when many people liked Lizzie, and she reflected now with a little shudder that perhaps only one person in the world, Rachel Seddon, the woman friend before mentioned, liked and understood her. Why had she shut herself off? Why presented so stiff, so immaculate, so cold a personality to the world? She was not stiff, not cold, not immaculate. It was perhaps simply that she felt that it was in that way only that she could get her work done, and to do her work thoroughly seemed to her now to be the job best worthwhile in life. During the war she had almost broken from her secretarieship and gone forth to do red crosswork or anything that would help. A kind of timidity that had grown upon her with the years, a sense of her age and of her loneliness held her back. Twenty years ago she would have gone with the first. Now she stayed with Mrs. McKenzie. Mrs. McKenzie died on the day of the armistice, November 11, 1918. Her illness had not been severe. Lizzie had had, at the most, only a week's nursing. It had been obvious from the first that nothing could save the old lady. Mrs. McKenzie had not looked as though she were especially anxious that anything should save her. She had lain there in scornful silence, asking for nothing, complaining of nothing, despising everything. Lizzie admitted that the old woman died game. There had followed then that hard bewildering period that Lizzie knew by now so well where she must pull herself so reluctantly, so heavily towards the business of finding a new engagement. She did not, of course, expect Mrs. McKenzie to leave her a single penny. She stayed for a week or two with her friend, a Rachel Seddon. But Rachel, a widow with an only son, was so tumultuously glad at the return of her boy, safe and whole, from the war, that it was difficult for her just then to take any other human being into her heart. She loved Lizzie and would do anything in the world for her. She was indeed forever urging her to give up these sterile companionships and secretary ships and come and make her home with her. But Lizzie this time felt her isolation as she had never done before. I'm getting old, she thought, and I'm drifting off. Soon I shall be utterly alone. The thought sent little shivering ghosts climbing about her body. She saw in the gay, happy, careless, kindly eyes of young Tom Seddon how old she was to the new generation. He called her Aunt Liz, took her to the theatre, and was an angel. Nevertheless, an angel happily, almost boastfully, secure in another warmer planet than hers. Then came the shock. Mrs. McKenzie had left her everything, the equivalent of about eight thousand pounds a year. At first her sense was one of an urgent need of rest. She sank back amongst the cushions and pillows of Rachel's house, and refused to think. Refused to think at all. She considered for a moment the infuriated faces of the McKenzie relations. Then they too passed from her consciousness. When she faced the world again, she faced it with the old common sense that had always been her most prominent characteristic. She had eight thousand a year. Well, she would do the very best with it that she could. Rachel, who had appeared to be more deeply excited than she over the event, had various suggestions to offer. But Lizzie had her own ideas. She could not remember the time when she had not planned what she would do when somebody left her money. She took one of the most charming flats in Hortons, bought beautiful things for it, etchings by D. T. Cameron, one Nevenson and a John Drawing, some Japanese prints. She had books and soft carpets and flowers and a piano, and had the prettiest spare room for a friend. Then she stopped and looked about her. There were certain charities in which she had been always deeply interested, especially one for poor gentle women. There was a home too for illegitimate babies. She remembered, with a happy irony, the occasion when she had tried to persuade Mrs. McKinsey to give something to these charities and had failed. Well, Mrs. McKinsey was giving now, all right? Lizzie hoped that she knew it. There accumulated around her all the business that clusters about an independent woman with means. She was on committees. Many people who would not have looked twice at her before liked her now and asked her to their houses. Again, she stopped and looked about her. Still, there was something that she needed. What was it? Companionship? More than that, affection. A center to her life. Someone who needed her. Someone to whom she was of more importance than anyone else in the world. Even a dog. She was 46. Without being plain, she was too slight, too hard-drawn, too masculine, above all too old to be attractive to men. An old maid of 46. She faced the truth. She gave a little dinner parties and felt more lonely than ever. Even it seemed there was nobody who wanted to make her a confidant. People wanted her money, but herself not at all. She was not good conversationally. She said sharp sarcastic things that frightened people. People did not want the truth. They wanted things to be wrapped up first, as her mother and sister had wanted them years ago. She was a failure socially, in spite of her money. She could not be genial, and yet her heart ate for love. At this moment Mr. Edmund Lapsley appeared. Lizzie met him at a party given by Mrs. Philip Mark in Bryanston Square. Mrs. Mark was an old friend of Rachel's, a kindly and clever woman, with an ambitious husband who would never get very far. Her parties were always formed by a strange mixture dictated first by her kind heart and second by her desire to have people in her house who might possibly help her husband. Edmund Lapsley originated in the former of these impulses. He was not much to look at, long, lanky with a high bony head, a prominent Roman nose, and large cracking fingers. He was shabbily dressed, awkward in his manner, and apprehensive. It was his eyes that first attracted Lizzie's attention. They were beautiful large brown eyes, with the expression of a lost and lonely dog seated deep in their pupils. He sat with Lizzie in a corner of the crowded drawing room to arrange his long legs so that they should not be in the way, cracked his long fingers together, and endeavored to be interested in the people whom Lizzie pointed out to him. That's Henry Trenchard. Lizzie said that while looking boy with the untidy hair, he's very clever, going to be our great novelist. That's his sister Millie, Mrs. Mark's sister too. Isn't she pretty? She's the loveliest of the family. That Stout clergyman is a Trenchard cousin. They all hang together in the most wonderful way, you know. His wife ran away and never came back again. I don't think I wonder. He looks heavy. And so on. Lizzie wondered to herself why she bothered. It was not her habit to gossip, and Mr. Lapsley was obviously a not-at-all interested. I beg your pardon. She said, You don't want to know who these people are. No, he said in a strange, sudden, desperate whisper. I don't. I lost my wife only three months ago. I'm trying to go out into the world again. I can't. It doesn't do any good. He gripped his knee with one of his large, bony hands. I'm so sorry, Lizzie said. I didn't know how tiresome of me to have gone on chattering like that. You should have stopped me. He seemed himself to be surprised at the confession that he had made. He stared at her in a bewildered fashion, like an owl suddenly flashed into light. He stared, saying nothing. Suddenly, in the same hurried, husky whisper, he went on. Do you mind my talking to you? I want to talk to somebody. I'd like to tell you about her. Please, said Lizzie, looking into his eyes. They were tender and beautiful, so unlike his ugly body and full of unhappiness. He talked. The words tumbled out in an urgent, tremulous confusion. They had been married. It appeared ten years. Ten wonderful, happy years. How she can have cared for me. That's what I never understood. Miss, Miss Rand, said Lizzie. I beg your pardon. Difficult to catch when you are introduced. Never understood. I was years older than she. I'm fifty now. Forty when I married her. And she was only twenty. Thirty when she—when she died. In childbirth it was. The child, a boy, was born dead. Everyone prophesied disaster. They all told her not to marry me. She was so pretty and so young and so brilliant. She sang, Miss Rand, just like a lark. She did indeed. She was trained in Paris. I oughtn't to have proposed to her, I suppose. That's what I tell myself now, but I was carried off my feet, completely off my feet. I couldn't help myself at all. I loved her from the first moment that I saw her. You know how these things are, Miss Rand. And in any case, I don't know. Ten perfect years. That's a good deal for anyone to have, isn't it? And she was as happy as I was. It may seem strange to you looking at me, but it was really so. She thought I was so much cleverer than I was, and better too. It used to make me very nervous sometimes, lest she should find me out, you know, and leave me. I always expected that to happen, but she was so charitable to everyone, never could see the bad side of people, and they were always better with her than with anyone else. We'd always hoped for a child, and then, as the years went on, we gave it up. Edmund, she said to me, we must make it up to one another. And then she told me it was going to be all right. You wouldn't have believed two ordinary people could be so happy as we were when we knew about it. We made many plans, of course. I was a little apprehensive that I'd be rather old to bring up a child, but she was so young that made it all right. So wonderfully young. And then she died. It was incredible, of course. I didn't believe it. I don't believe it now. She's not dead. That's absurd. You'd feel the same if you'd seen her, Miss Rand, so full of life, and then suddenly nothing at all. It's impossible. Nature isn't like that. Things gradually die, don't they, and change into something else. Not suddenly. He broke off. He was clutching his knees and staring in front of him. I don't know why I talked to you like this, Miss Rand. I hope you'll forgive me. I shouldn't have bothered you. I'm pleased that you have, Mr. Lapsley. She got up. She felt that he would be glad now to escape. I have a flat in Horton's chambers in Duke Street, Number 42, Dukecom, just telephone. He looked up at her, not rising from his seat, and then he got up. I will, he said. Thank you. He was still staring at her, and she knew that he had something further to say. She could see it struggling in his eyes, but she did not want him to confess anymore. He would be the kind of man to regret afterwards what he had done. She would not burden his conscience, and yet she had the knowledge that it was something very serious that he wanted to tell her, something that had been, in reality, at the back of all his earlier confession. She refused the appeal in his eyes, said good night, took his hand for a moment, and turned away. Afterwards, she was talking to Catherine Mark. I see you were kind to poor Mr. Lapsley, Catherine said. How sad about his wife, Lizzie answered. Yes, and she really was young and beautiful. No one understood why she married him, but I've never seen anything more successful. I didn't think he'd come tonight, but I'm fond of him. Philip doesn't care for him much, but he reminds me of a cousin of ours, John Trenchard, who was killed in Russia in the second year of the war. But John was unhappier than Mr. Lapsley. He never had his perfect years. Yes, that's something, Lizzie acknowledged. It was strange to her afterwards that Edmund Lapsley should persist so vividly in her mind. She saw him with absolute clarity, almost as though he were with her in her flat. She thought of him a good deal. He needed someone to comfort him, and she needed someone to comfort. She hoped he would come and see her. He did come, one afternoon, quite unexpectedly and without telephoning first. Fortunately she was there alone and wanting someone to talk to. At first he was shy and self-conscious. They talked stiffly about London, and the weather, and the approaching peace, and whether there would ever be a league of nations, and how high prices were, and how impossible it was to get servants, and when you got them they went. Lizzie broke ruthlessly in upon this. It isn't the least little good, Mr. Lapsley, she said. Our talking like this, it's mere waste of time. We both know plenty of people to whom we can chatter this nonsense. Either we are friends, or we are not. If we are friends, we must go a little further. Are we friends? He seemed to be at a loss. He blinked at her. Yes, he said. Well then, she looked at him and smiled. I don't want to force your confidence, but there was something that you were anxious to tell me about the other night, some way in which I could help you. I stopped you then, but I don't want to stop you now. I'll be honored indeed if there's anything I can do. He gulp, stammered, then out it came. At the first hand of his trouble it was all that Lizzie could do to repress an impatient gesture. His trouble was spiritualism, of all the tiresome things, of all the things about which she had no patience at all, of all the idiotic money wasting in facilities. He poured it all out. He had read books. At last a friend had taken him, a Dr. Orloff, a very wonderful medium, a very trustworthy man, a man about whom there could be no question. On the first occasion the results had been poor. On the second occasion his Margaret had spoken to him, actually spoken to him. Oh, but there could be no doubt her very voice, his own voice shook as he spoke of it. Since then he had been, he was forced to admit, a number of times, almost every day, every day, every afternoon. He talked to Margaret every day now for half an hour or more. He was sure it was all right, he was doing nobody any harm, they two together, it could not be wrong, but he stopped. Lizzie gave him no help, she sat there looking in front of her. She despised him. She was conscious of a deep and bitter disappointment. She did not know how he could betray his weakness, his softness, his gullibility. She had thought him. She looked up suddenly, knowing that his voice had stopped. He was gazing at her in despair, his eyes wide with an unhappiness that struck deep to his heart. You despise me, he said. Yes, she answered I do. But she was aware at the same time that she could have gone across to him and put her hand on his head and comforted him. That's all false, you know it is, you're only deluding yourself because you want to persuade yourself. It's weak of you, your wife can't come to you that way. Don't take it from me. His voice was an agonized cry. It's all I have. It's true. It must be true. They were suddenly in contact. She felt a warm sense of protection and pity, a longing to comfort and help so strong that she instinctively put her hand to her heart as though she would restrain it. Oh, I didn't mean, she cried, that I'd take anything away from you. No, no, never that. If you thought that I meant that, you're wrong. Keep anything you've got. Perhaps I'm mistaken. The mediums I've known have been charlatans. That's prejudiced me. Then I don't think I want my friends to come back to me in quite that way. If it's true, it seems to be forcing them against their will, as it were. Oh, I know a great many people now are finding it all true and good. I don't know anything about it. I shouldn't have said what I did. And then you see I've never lost anyone whom I loved very much. Never, Mr. Apsley asked, staring at her with wide open eyes. No, never, I think. He got up and came across to her, standing near to her, looking down upon her. She saw that she had aroused his interest, that she had suddenly switched his attention upon herself. She had aroused him in the only way that he could be aroused by stirring his pity for her. She knew exactly how suddenly he saw her as a lonely, unhappy, deserted old maid. She did not mind that the attention of any single human being should be centered upon her, for herself, was a very wonderful, touching thing. Silence fell between them. The pretty room, gray and silver in the half-light, gathered intimately around them. When at last he went away, it seemed that the last ten minutes had added years to their knowledge of one another. A strange time for Lizzie followed. Edmund Lapsie had rushed into her life with a precipitate urgency that showed how empty before it had been. But there was more than their mere contact in the affair. She was fighting a battle. All her energies were in it. She was ruthless, savage, tooth and nail. He should be snatched from this spiritualism. It was a silent battle. He never spoke to her again of it. He did not say whether he went or not, and she did not ask him. But soon they were meeting almost every day, and she felt with a strange, almost savage pleasure that her influence over him grew with every meeting. She discovered many things about his character. He was weak, undecided, almost subservient. A man whom she would have despised, perhaps, had it not been for the real sweetness that lay at the roots of him. She very quickly understood how this girl, Margaret, although so young and so ignorant of the world, must have dominated him. Any woman could, she thought almost angrily to herself, and yet there was a kind of pride behind her anger. She would not confess to herself that what she was really fighting was the memory of the dead girl. Or if she confessed at all, it was to console herself with the thought that it was right for him now to cheer up a little. Cheer up, he did. It was curious to watch the rapidity with which he responded to Lizzie's energy and humor and vitality. At last she challenged him. Well, what about Dr. Orloff? She asked. He looked at her with a sudden startled glance. Then almost under his breath he said, I don't go any more. I thought you didn't want me to. So suddenly a confession of her power took her breath away. She asked her next question. But, Margaret, she said. He answered that as though he were arguing some long debated question with himself. I don't know. He replied slowly, you were right. That wasn't the proper way to bring her back, even though it were genuine. I must tell you, Miss Rand, he said suddenly, flinging up his head and looking across at her, you've shown me so many things since we first met. I was getting into a very bad way, indulging myself in my grief. Margaret wouldn't have liked that either, but it wasn't until I knew you that I saw what I was doing. Thank you. Oh, you mustn't, she shook her head. You mustn't take me for gospel like that, Mr. Lapsley. You make me frightened for my responsibility. We are friends and we must help one another, but we must keep our independence. He shook his head, smiling. There's always been somebody who's taken my independence away, he said. And I like it. After he had gone, she had the tussle of her life. She ate dinner alone, then sat far into the night fighting. Why should she fight at all? Here was the charge given straight into her hand, the gift for which she had longed and longed, the very man for her, the man whom she could care for as she would her child, care for and protect and guide and govern, govern, like a torch flaring between dark walls that word lit her soul for her, govern. That was what she wanted, all her life she had wanted it. She wanted to feel her power, to dominate, to command, and all for his good. She loved him, she loved his sweetness and his goodness and his simplicity. She could make him happy and contented and at ease for the rest of his days. He should never have another anxiety, never another responsibility. Why fight then? Wasn't it obviously the best thing in the world, both for him and for her? She needed him, he, her. She abandoned herself then to happy tender thoughts of their life together. What would it be? What they could do with old Mrs. McGinsey's money? She sat there trying to lose herself in that golden future. She could not quite lose herself. Threading it was again and again the warning that something was not right with it, that she was pursuing some course that she should not. The clock struck half past eleven. She gave a little shiver. The room was cold. She knew then, with that little shiver, of what she had been thinking. Margaret lapsly. Why should she be thinking of her? She was dead. She could not complain. And if she were still consciously with them, surely she would rather that he should be cared for and loved and guarded than pursue a lonely life full of regrets and melancholy. What kind of a girl had she been? Had she loved him as he had loved her? How young she had died! How young and fresh and happy! Lizzie shivered again. Ah! She was old, fifty, and old, old in thoughts and hopes and dreams. Pervaded by a damp mist of unhappiness, she went to bed and lay there, looking into the dark. With the morning her scruples had vanished. She saw Margaret lapsly no more. She was her own sane matter of fact mistress. A delightful fortnet followed. All her life afterwards, Lizzie looked back to those fourteen days as the happiest of her time. They were together now every afternoon. Very often in the evening, too, they went to the theatre or music. He was her faithful dog. He agreed with all her suggestions, eagerly, implicitly. Mentally, he was not stupid. He knew many things that she did not, and he was not so submissive that he would not argue. He argued hotly, growing excited, calling out protests in a high treble, then suddenly laughing like a child. For those days, she abandoned herself utterly. She allowed herself to be surrounded, to be embed in, by the companionship, the care, the affection. Oh, it was wonderful for her. Only those who had known her years and years of loneliness could appreciate what it was to her now to have this. She warmed her hands at the fire of it and let the flames fan their heat upon her cheeks. Once she said to him, Isn't it strange that we should have made friends so quickly? It isn't generally my way. I'm a shy character, you know? So am I, he answered her. I never would have talked to you, as I have, if you hadn't helped me. You have helped me wonderfully, marvelously. I only wish that Margaret could have known you. You would have helped her, too. He talked to her now continually of Margaret, but very happily, with great contentment. Margaret would have loved you, he liked to say. Lizzie was not so sure. Then suddenly came the afternoon, for days past, now inevitable, when he asked her to marry him. They were sitting together in the Horton Flat. It was a day of intense heat. All the windows were wide open, the blinds down, and into the dim gray shadowy air there struck shafts and lines of heat, bringing with them a smell of dust and pavements. The roses in a large yellow bowl on the center table flung their thick scent across the dusky, moat-threaded light. The hot town lay below them like a still sea, basking at the foot of their rock. I want you to marry me, Lizzie, he said. It may seem very soon after Margaret's death, but it's what she would have wished I know. Please, please don't refuse me. I don't know how I have the impertinence to ask, but I must. I can't help myself. At his words the happiness that had filled her heart during the last fortnight suddenly left her as water ebbs out of a pool. She felt guilty, wicked, ashamed. She had never before been so aware of his helplessness and also of some strange, reproaching voice that blamed her. Why should she be blamed? She looked at him and longed to take his head in her hands and kiss him and keep him beside her and never let him go again. At last she told him that she would give him her answer the next day. When at last he left her she was miserable, waited with a sense of some horrible crime. And yet, why? What was there against such a marriage? She was pursued that evening, that night. Next day she would not see him, but sent down word that she was unwell and would he come tomorrow. All that day, keeping alone in her flat, feeling the waves of heat beat about her, tired, exhausted, driven, the whole of her life stole past her. Why should I not marry him? Why must I not marry him? The consciousness that she was fighting somebody or something grew with her through the day. Towards evening, when the heat faded and dust swallowed the colors and patterns of her room, she seemed to hear a voice. You are not the wife for him. He will have no freedom. He will lose his character. He will become a shadow. And her answer was almost spoken to the still and empty room. But he will be happy. I will give him everything. Why may I not think of myself at last after all these years? I've waited and waited and worked and worked. And the answer came back. You're old. You're old. You're old. She was old. She felt that night 80, 100. She went to bed at last, closed her eyes, and slept. She woke suddenly. The room swam in moonlight. She had forgotten to draw her blinds. The high blue expanse of heaven, a flashing with fiery stars, broke the gray spaces of her room with splendor. She lay in bed, watching the stars. She was suddenly aware that a figure stood there between her bed and the thin, shadowy pain. She gazed at it with no fear, but rather as though she hadn't known it before. It was the figure of a young girl in a white dress. Her hair was black, her face very, very young, her eyes deep and innocent, full of light. Her hands were lovely, thin and pale, shell-colored against the starry sky. The women looked at one another. A little unspoken dialogue fell between them. You are Margaret. Yes, you have come to tell me to leave him alone. Yes? Why? Oh, don't you see? He won't be happy. He won't grow. His soul won't grow with you. You are not the woman for him. Someone else, perhaps, later. But oh, let me have him a little longer just now. I love him so. Don't take him from me. Lizzie smiled. You beautiful dear! How young you are! How lovely! Leave him to me. Leave him to me. The moon fell into fleecy clouds. The room was filled with shadow. With the morning nothing had been dimmed. Lizzie was happy with a strange sense of companionship and comfort. When Edmund came she saw at once that he was greatly troubled. Well, he asked her. You've seen Margaret. She cried last night. He nodded his head. It may have been a dream. You don't want to marry me. Oh, yes. Don't think I would go back. She put her hands on his shoulders. It's all right, Edmund. I'm not going to marry you. I'm too old. We're friends for always, but nothing more. Margaret was right. Margaret, he stared at her. But you didn't know her. I know her now, she answered. Then, laughing, I've got two friends instead of one husband. Who knows that I'm not the richer? As she spoke, she seemed to feel on her cheek the soft, gentle kiss of a young girl. End of Story 10. Story 11 of The Thirteen Travelers by Hugh Walpole This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Story 11. Nobody. The only one of them all who perceived anything like the truth was young Clarabelle. Clarabelle, how she hated the absurd name, had a splendid opportunity for observing everything in life, simply because she was so universally neglected. The matchums and the dorsets and the duddens, all the relations, in fact, simply considered her of no importance at all. She did not mind this, she took it entirely for granted, as she did her plainness, her slowness of speech, her shyness and company, her tendency to heat spots, her bad figure, and all the other things with which an undoubtedly all-wise God had seen fit to endow her. It was only that having all these things, Clarabelle was additionally an unfortunate name. But then most of them called her Carrie and the boys Fetch and Carrie often enough. She was taken with the others to parties and teas in order, as she very well knew, that critical friends and neighbors should not say that the dorsets always neglected that plain child of theirs for thing. She sat in a corner and was neglected, but that she did not mind in the least. She liked it. It gave her, all the more, the opportunity of watching people, the game that she liked to best of all the world. She played it, without any sense at all, that she had unusual powers. It was much later than this that she was to realize her gifts. It was this sitting in a corner in the Horton Flat that enabled her to perceive what it was that had happened to her cousin Tom. Of course she knew from the public standpoint well enough what had happened to him, simply that he had been wounded three times, once in Gallipoli and twice in France, that he had received the DSO and been made a major. But it was something other than that that she met. She knew that all the brothers and the sisters, the cousins, the uncles and the aunts, proclaimed gleefully that there was nothing to matter with him at all. It's quite wonderful, they all said, to see the way that dear Tom has come back from the war just as he went into it, his same jolly generous self, everyone's friend, not at all conceited, how wonderful that is when he's done so well and has all that money. That was, Clarabel knew, the thing that everyone said. Tom had always been her own favorite. He had not considered her the least little bit more than he had considered anyone else. He always was kind, but he gave her a smile and a nod and a pat, and she was grateful. Then he had always seemed to her a miraculous creature. His whole history in the war had only increased that adoration. She loved to look at him, and certainly he must in anyone's eyes have been handsome with his light shining hair, his fine open brow, his slim straight body, his breeding and distinction and nobility. To all of this was suddenly added wealth, his uncle, the head of the biggest biscuit factory in England, dying and leaving him everything. His mother and he had already been sufficiently provided for at his father's death, but he was now through Uncle Bob's love for him an immensely rich man. This had fallen to him in the last year of the war when he was recovering from his third wound. After the armistice, freed from the hospital, he had taken a delightful flat in Hortons. His mother preferred the country and was cozy with dogs, a parrot, a butler, and bees in Wiltshire. And it was here that he gave his delightful parties. It was here that Clarabel, watching him from her corner, made her great discovery about him. Her discovery, quite simply, was that he did not exist, that he was dead, that there was nobody there. She did not know what it was that caused her just to be aware of her ghostly surprise. She had in the beginning been taken in as they all had been. He had seemed on his first return from the hospital to be the same old Tom whom they had always known. For some weeks he had used a crutch, and his cheeks were pale, his eyes were sunk like bright jewels into dark pouches of shadow. He had said very little about his experiences in France. That was natural. None of the men who had returned from there wished to speak of it. He had thrown himself with apparent eagerness into the dancing, the theaters, the house parties, the shooting, the flirting, all the hectic eager life that seemed to be pushed by everyone's hand into the dark ominous silence that the announcement of the armistice had created. Then, how they had all crowded about him, Clarabel, seated in her dark little corner, had summoned them one by one. Mrs. Freddie Matchum, with her high bright color and wonderful hair, her two daughters, Clarabel's cousins, Lucy and Amy, so pretty and so stupid, the voluminous dorsets with all their bimster connections, Hattie Dorsett, Dolly Pym Dorsett, Rose and Emily. Then the men, young Harwood Dorsett, who was no good at anything, but danced so well. Henry Matchum, capable and intelligent, would he only work. Pelham Dutton, ambitious and grasping. Then her own family, her elder sisters, Morgrant, what a name, who married Rex Bimster, and they hadn't a penny, and Lucille, unmarried, pretty and silly, and Dora, serious and plain and a miser. Oh, Clarabel knew them all. She wondered, as she sat there, how she could not know them all, as she did. And after that, how they could be so unaware that she did know them. She did not feel herself preternaturally sharp, only that they were unobservant, or simply perhaps, that they had better things to observe. The thing, of course, that they were all just then observing, was Tom and his money. The two things were synonymous, and if they couldn't have the money without Tom, they must have him with it. Not that they minded having Tom, he was exactly what they felt a man should be, beautiful to look at, easy and happy and casual, a splendid sportsman, completely free of that tiresome analysis stuff that some of the would be clever ones thought so essential. They liked Tom and approved of him, and oh, how they wanted his money. There was not one of them not in need of it. Clarabel could see all their dazzling, shining eyes fixed upon those great piles of gold, their beautiful fingers cropped out towards it. Clarabel did not herself want money. What she wanted, more than she allowed herself to think, was companionship and friendship and affection. And that, she was inclined to think, she was fated never to obtain. The day when she first noticed the thing that was the matter with Tom, was one wet, stormy afternoon in March. They were all gathered together in Tom's lovely sitting room in Hortons. Tom, without being exactly clever about beautiful things, had a fine sense of the way that he wished to be served, and the result of this was that his flat was neat and ordered, everything always in perfect array. His man, Sheraton, was an ideal man. He had been Tom's servant before the war, and now, released from his duties, was back again. There was no reason why he should ever now depart from them. He, having, as he once told Clarabel, a contemptuous opinion of women. Under Sheraton's care, that long, low-ceilinged room, lined with bookcases, Tom loved fine bindings, with its gleaming polished floor, some old family portraits, and rich curtains of a gleaming dark purple. To Clarabel, this place was heaven. It would not, of course, have been so heavenly, had Tom not been so perfect a figure moving against the old gold frames. The curtains, the leaping fire, looking so exactly, Clarabel thought, the younger image of old Theophilus Dutton, stiff and grand, up there on the wall, in his white stock and velvet coat, Tom's great-grandfather. On this particular day, Clarabel's sister, Morgrant Bimster, and Lucille, Mrs. Matchum, Addy Dorsett, and some men were present. Tom was sitting over the rim of a big leather chair near the fire. His head tossed back, laughing at one of Lucille's silly jokes. Mrs. Matchum was at the table, pouring out, and Sheraton, rather stout, but otherwise a fine example of the admirable Crichton, handed around the food. They were laughing, as they always did, at nothing at all. Lucille's shrill, barking laugh above the rest. From the babble, Clarabel caught phrases like, dear old Tom, but he didn't, he hadn't got the intelligence. Tom, you're a pet. Oh, but of course not. What stuff? Why, Harriet herself? Through it all, Sheraton moved with his head back, his indulgent indifference, his supremely brushed hair. It was just then, Clarabel caught the flash from Mrs. Matchum's beautiful eyes. Everyone had their tea, there was nothing left for her to do. She sat there, her lovely hands crossed on the table in front of her, her eyes lost apparently in dim abstraction. Clarabel saw that they were not lost at all, but were bent obliquely with a concentrated and almost passionate interest upon Tom. Mrs. Matchum wanted something, and she was determined this afternoon to ask for it. What was it? Money? Her debts were notorious. Jules, she was insatiable there. Freddie Matchum couldn't give her things. Old Lord Ferris wanted to, but wasn't allowed to. Clarabel knew all this, young though she was. They remained then, as always, Tom. Thrilled by this discovery of Mrs. Matchum's eyes, Clarabel pursued her discoveries further, and the next thing that she saw was that Lucille also was intent upon some prize. Her silly bright little eyes were tightened for some very definite purpose. They fastened upon Tom like little scissors. Clarabel knew that Lucille had developed recently a passion for bridge and being stupid. Yes, Lucille wanted money. Clarabel allowed herself a little shudder of disgust. She was only seventeen and wore spectacles and was plain, but at that moment she felt herself to be infinitely superior to the whole lot of them. She had her own private, comfortable arrogance. It was then, while she was despising them, that she made her discovery about Tom. She looked across at him, wondering whether he had noticed any of the things that had struck her. She, at the same time sighed, seeing that she had made, as she always did, a nasty, sloppy mess in her saucer, and knowing that Margrant, the watchdog of the family, would be certain to notice and scold her for it. She looked across at Tom and discovered suddenly that he wasn't there. The shell of him was there, the dark clothes, the black tie with the pearl pin, the white shirt, the faintly colored, clear cut mask, with the shining hair, the white throat, the heavy eyelashes, the shell, the mask, nothing else. She could never remember afterwards exactly what it was that made her certain that nobody was there. Lucille was talking to him, eagerly, repeating, as she always did, her words over and over again. He was, apparently, looking up at her, a smile on his lips. Margrant, so smart with the teasing blue feather in her hat, was looking across at them intent upon what Lucille was saying. He was, apparently, looking at Lucille, and yet his eyes were dead, sightless, like the eyes of a statue. In his hand he apparently held a cigarette, and yet his hand was of marble, no life ran through the veins. Clarabel even fancied, so deeply excited had she become, that you could see the glitter of the fire through his dark body, as he sat carefully balanced on the edge of the chair. There was nobody there, and then, as she began to reflect, there never had been anybody since the armistice. Tom had never returned from France. Only a framework with clothes on upon it. A doll, an automaton, did Tom's work and fulfilled his place. Tom's soul had remained in France. He did not really hear what Lucille was saying. He did not care what any of them were doing, and that, of course, accounted for the wonderful way that, during these past weeks, he had acquiesced in every one of their proposals. They had, many of them, commented on Tom's extraordinary good nature now that he had returned. You really could do anything with him that you pleased, Clarabel had her demorgrant triumphantly exclaim. Well, so you can, with a corpse. As she stared at him and realized the dramatic import of her discovery, she was suddenly filled with pity. Poor Tom! How terrible that time in France must have been to have killed him like that, and nobody had known. They had thought that he had taken it so easily, he had laughed and gested with the others, had always returned to France gaily. How terrified he must have been before he died. As she watched him, he got up from the chair and stood before the fire, his legs spread out. The others had gathered in a corner of the room, busyed around Hattie, who was trying some new jazz tunes on the piano. Mrs. Matchum got up from her table and went over to Tom and began eagerly to talk to him. Her hands were clasped behind her beautiful back, and Clarabel could see how the fingers twisted and untwisted again and again over the urgency of her request. Clarabel saw Tom's face. The mask was the lovelier now, because she knew that there was no life behind it. She saw the lips smile, the eyes shine, the head bend. It was to her as though someone were turning an electric button behind there in the middle of his back. He nodded. Mrs. Matchum laughed. Oh, you darling! Clarabel heard her cry. If you only knew what you've done for me! The party was over. They all began to go. Clarabel was right. There was nobody there. When everybody had gone that evening and the body of Tom was alone, it surveyed the beautiful room. Tom's body, which may for the moment be conveniently but falsely called Tom, looked about and felt a wave of miserable, impudent uselessness. Tom summoned Sheridan. Clear all these things away, he said. Yes, sir. I'm going out. Yes, sir. Dinner jacket tonight, sir? No, I'm not dressing. He went to the door, then turned around. Sheridan? Yes, sir. What's the matter with me? I beg your pardon, sir. What's the matter with me? You know what I mean as well as I do. Ever since I came back, I can't take an interest in anything, not in anything, nor in anybody. Today, for instance, I didn't hear a word that they were saying, not one of them. And they made enough noise too. I don't care for anything. I don't want anything. I don't like anything. I don't hate anything. It's as though I were asleep, and yet I'm not asleep either. What's the matter with me, Sheridan? Sheridan's eyes, that had been so insistently veiled by decent society, as expressionless as a pair of marbles, were suddenly human. Sheridan's voice, which had been something like the shadow of a real voice, was suddenly full of feeling. Why, sir, of course I've noticed, being with you before the war and all, and being fond of you, if you'll forgive my saying so, so that I always hoped that I'd come back to you. Why, if you ask me, sir, it's just the bloody war. That's all it is. I felt something of the same kind myself. I'm getting over it a bit. It'll pass, sir. The war leaves you kind of dead. People don't seem real anymore. If you could get fond of some young lady, Mr. Dunn, I'm sure. Thanks, Sheridan. I daresay you're right. He went out. It was a horrible night. The March wind was tearing down Duke Street, hurling itself at the windows, plucking with its fingers at the doors, screaming and laughing down the chimneys. The decorous decencies of that stage, Bachelors St. James's world, seemed to be nothing to its mood of willful bad temper. Through the clamour of banging doors and creaking windows, the bells of St. James's Church could be heard, striking seven o'clock. The rain was intermittent and fell in sudden little gusts, like the subsiding agonies of a weeping child. Every once and again, a thin, wet wisp of a moon showed dimly gray through heavy piles of driving cloud. Tom found Bond Street almost deserted of foot passengers. Buttoning his high blue collar up around his neck, he set himself to face the storm. The drive of the rain against his cheeks gave him some sort of dim satisfaction after the close warm comfort of his flat. Somewhere, far, far away in him, a voice was questioning him as to why he had given Mrs. Machum that money. The voice reminded him of what indeed he very well knew, that it was exactly like throwing water down a well, that it would do Millie Machum no good, that it was wasted money. Well, he didn't care. The voice was too far away and altogether had too little concern with him to disturb him very deeply. Nothing disturbed him, damn it. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. When he was almost upon Grodner Street, a sudden gust of wind drove at him so furiously that almost without knowing what he was doing, instinctively he stepped back to take shelter beneath a wooden boarding. Here a street lamp gave a pale yellow color to the dark shadows and from its cover the street shot like a gleaming track of steel into the clustered lights of Oxford Street. Tom was aware that two people had taken shelter in the same refuge. He peered at their dim figures. He saw at once that they were old, an old man and an old woman. He did not know what it was that persuaded him to stare at them as though they could be of any importance to him. Nothing could be of any importance to him and he was attracted perhaps rather by a kind of sniveling, sniffling noise that one of them made. The old lady, she had a terrible cold. She sneezed violently and the old man uttered a scornful cha-cha like an angry battered bird. Then he peered up at Tom and said in a complaining, whining voice, what a night! Yes it is, said Tom, you'd better get home. His eyes growing accustomed to the gloom, he saw the pair distinctly. The old man was wearing a high hat, battered and set rakeishly on the side of his head. The collar of a threadbare overcoat was turned up high over his skinny neck. He wore shabby black gloves. The old lady, sheltering behind the old man, was less easily discerned. She was a humped and disconcerted chateau with a feather in her hat and a sharp nose. You'd better be getting home, Tom repeated, wondering to himself that he stayed. The old man peered up at him. You're out for no good, I reckon. He mumbled, waiting like this on a night like this. There was a note in his voice of scornful patronage. I'm not out for anything particular, said Tom, simply taking a walk. The old lady sneezed again. You'd really better be going home. Your wife's got a terrible cold. She's not my wife, said the old man. She's my sister, if you want to know. I don't want to know especially, said Tom. Well, good night. I see the rain stopped. He stepped out into Bond Street and then, on looking back, he could never define precisely the impulse that drove him. He hurried back to them. You'd better let me get you a cab or something, he said. You really ought to go home. The old man snarled at him. You let us alone, he said. We haven't done you any harm. The impulse persisted. I'm going to get you a cab, he said, whether you like it or not. None of your bloody philanthropy, said the old man. I know you, Maria and me, all right. It was Maria then who took the next step in the affair. Tom, although he was afterwards to have a very considerable knowledge of that old lady, could never definitely determine as to whether the step that she took was honest or no. What she did was to collapse into the sodden pavement in a black and grimy heap. The feather stood out from the collapse with a jaunty, ironical gesture. Here, Mary, said the old man, very much as though he were addressing a recalcitrant horse, you'll out. No sound came from the heap. Tom bent down. He touched her soiled velvet coat, lifted an arm, felt the weight sink beneath him. Well, he said almost defiantly to the old man, what are you going to do now? Oh, she's always doing it, he answered, and at the most aggravating moments. Then, with something that looked suspiciously like a kick, he repeated, you got up, Maria. Look here, you can't do that, Tom cried. What an old devil you are. We've got to get her out of this. A voice addressed them from the street. Anything the matter? It said. Tom turned and found that the driver of a taxi had to pull up his machine and was peering into the shadow. Yes, there's been an accident, Tom said. This lady's fainted. We'd better get her home. Where's she going to? Said the driver suspiciously. What business is that of yours? cried the old man furiously. You just leave us alone. No, you couldn't do that, Tom answered. There'll be a policeman here in a moment and he'll have you home whether you want it or not. You never can lift her yourself and you can't leave her there. You'd better help me get her into the cab. The old man began to gargle strangely in his throat. A policeman, he seemed to say, if I'd had my way. Well, for once you haven't, said Tom shortly. Here, driver, help me lift her in. Where's she going? he repeated. If you don't help me once, I'll see that a policeman is here. I've got your number. You'll hear from me in the morning. The man got off his box cursing. He hesitated a moment, then came across. Together he and Tom lifted the inert mass, pushed it through the door of the cab, and settled it in the seat. Make my cab dirty and all, growled the driver. Well, said Tom to the old man, are you going to see your sister home? If not, I shall take her to the nearest hospital. For a moment the old man remained perched up against the wall. His top had flaunting defiance to the whole world. Suddenly, as though he had been pushed, he came across to the driver. 11 D. Porker's building's Victoria, he said. B. asked the driver. D. a damned fool, the old man almost shouted. Thought you said B. remarked the driver very amiably. The old man got in. He was on one side of the motionless Maria, Tom, on the other. That was a remarkable and even romantic ride. The roads were slippery and the driver, it appeared, a little drunk. The cab rocked like a drunken boat and the watery moon now triumphed over the clouds. The gleaming pavement, the houses, a gaunt in the uncertain moonlight, and thin as though they had been cut from black paper, seemed to be inebriated too. Maria shared in the general irresponsibility, lurching from side to side, and revealing, now that her hat was on Tom's lap, an ancient peaked face with as many lines on it as an Indian's and gray, untidy hair. She seemed a lifeless thing enough, and yet Tom had a strange notion that one eye was open, and not only watching, but winking as well. It would have been the natural thing to have opened her dress and given her air, to have poured whiskey or brandy down her throat, to have tickled her with feathers. Tom did none of these things. Afterwards he imagined that his inaction was due to the fact that he knew all the time that she had not really fainted. Not a word was exchanged during the journey. They drove down Victoria Street, turned off on the right of Westminster Cathedral, and drew up in a narrow, dirty street. A high block had porkers' buildings printed in large ugly letters on the fan light near the door. You'd better help me lift her in, Tom said to the driver. The old man's not good for anything. The driver grunted, but helped Maria into the street. The fresh night air seemed to refresh her. She sighed and then sneezed. Maybe she can walk herself, said the driver. The door opened of itself and Tom was in a dark, dingy hall with a faint gas jet like a ghostly eye to guide him. The old man started up the stairs. Can you walk a bit? Tom asked the old lady. She nodded. Tom paid the driver and the door closed behind him. It was a hard fight to conquer the stairs, and Maria clung like a heavy bag round her deliverer's neck. But on the third floor the old man unlocked a door, walked in before them, and lighted a candle. He then sat himself down, with his back to them, pulled a grimy piece of newspaper out of his pocket, and was apparently at once absorbed in reading. The room was a wretched enough place. One of the windows was stuffed with brown paper. A ragged strip of carpet covered only a section of the cracked and dirty boards. There was a grimy bed. The fireplace was filled with rubbish. Tom helped Maria onto the bed and looked about him. Then, in a sudden fit of irritation, he went up to the old man and shook him by the shoulder. Look here, he said, this won't do. You've got to do something for her. She may die in the night or anything. I'll fetch a doctor if that's what you want or get something from the chemist. Oh, go to hell, said the old man without turning. An impulse of rage seized Tom and he caught the old man by the collar, swung him out of the chair, and shook him until he was breathless and coughing, and then said, now, be civil. The old man collapsed on the bed near his sister, struggled for breath, and then screamed, you damned aristocrat. I'll have you up before the courts for this and fading a man's peaceable home. Then Maria unexpectedly interfered. She sat up, smoothing her hair with her old trembling fingers. I'm sure, she said, in a menacing apologetic voice, that we ought to be grateful to the gentleman Andrew, and I'm sure I don't know where we'd have been. It's your wicked temper, you're always losing. I've told you of it again and again. I'm much better now, thank you, sir, and I'm sure I'm properly grateful. Tom looked around him, then back at the two old people. What a filthy place, he said. Haven't you got anybody to look after you? The daughter ran away with a musical man, said Maria. The husband died at DT three years back, and drew himself alone now. We got the old age pension and managed very nicely, thank you. Well, I'm coming back tomorrow, said Tom fiercely, turning on the old man. Do you hear that? If you do, said Andrew, I'll have the police after you. Oh, no, you won't, said Maria, that's only his little way. I'm sure we'll be pleased to see you. Tom put some money on the bed and left. Out in the street he paused. What was the matter with him? He stood in the street, looking up at the Westminster Cathedral Tower, and the thin sheeting of sky now clear. A pale, boundless sea in which two or three little stars were remotely sailing. What was the matter with him? He felt a strange stirring and trembling about him. He had some of the pain and hurt that a man feels when he is first revived from some drowning adventure. But it was a pain and hurt of the soul, not of the body. His heart beat expectantly, as though around the corner of the lonely street a wonderful stranger might suddenly be expected to appear. He even strained his eyes against the shadows, piercing them and finding only more shadows behind them. He even felt tired and exhausted as though he had, but now, passed through a great emotional experience. And all these sensations were clear and precious to him. He treasured them, standing there, breathing deeply, as though he were in new air of some high altitude. The boom of Big Ben came suddenly across the silence like a summoning voice across waste, deserted country, and he went home. When he awoke next morning he was aware that something had happened to him, and he did not know what it was. He laid there, definitely beating back an impulse to spring out of bed, hurry through his bath, dress, and have breakfast, and then what? He had not felt such an impulse since his return from France, and it could not be that he felt it now simply because he had, last night, met two dirty bed draggled old people and helped them home. He laughed, Sheridan, hanging his shirt on the back of a chair, turned. Well, you're feeling better this morning, sir? He said. Yes, I am, said Tom, and I'm damned if I know why. Nevertheless, although he did not know why, before the morning was out, he found himself once more behind Victoria Street and climbing the stairs of Porcarus buildings. He had strange experiences that morning. To many they would have been disappointing. The old man was silent, not a word would he say. His attitude was one of haughty, autocratic superiority. Maria disgusted Tom. She was polite, gringing even, and as poisonous as a snake. She slated her wands quite modestly. Had it not been for her age you would have thought her a typical image of the downtrodden subjected to poor. Her eyes glittered. Well, you are a nasty old creature, Tom turned from her, and shook Andrew by the shoulder. Well, said Andrew, there's nothing now I can do, as Tom, except to get out, said Andrew. Another old woman came in, then a young man. A fine specimen this last, a local prize fighter it appeared. Chest like a wall, thick, stumpy thighs, face of a beetroot color, nose twisted, ears like saucers. The old woman, Maria's friend, was valuable. She explained a great deal to Tom. She was used, it seemed, to speaking in public. They could afford, she explained, to be indifferent to the quality now, because a time was very shortly coming when they would have everything, and the quality nothing. It had happened far away in Russia, and it was about to happen here. A good thing, too. At last the poor people could appear as they really were. Hold their heads up, only a month or two. You're a bullshivist, said Tom. Long words did not distress the old lady. A fine time's coming, she said. Maria did not refuse the food and the finery and the money. You think, said Tom, as a final word to her old lady friend, that I'm doing this because I'm charitable, because I love you, or some nonsense of that kind. Not at all. I'm doing it because I'm interested, and I haven't been interested in anything for months. He arranged, with the pugilist, to be present at his next encounter, somewhere in Blackfriars, next Monday night. It's against the Bermonsey Chick, battling Bill, explained huskily. I've got one on him. Your money's safe enough. Tom gave Maria a parting smile. I don't like you, he said, and I can see that you positively hate me. But we're getting along very nicely. It is at this point that Clarabel, again, takes up the narrative. It was, of course, not many days before, in Tom's own world, what's happened to Tom was on everyone's lips. Clarabel was interested, as anyone, and she had, of course, her own theories. These theories changed from day to day, but the fact, patent to the world and beyond argument, was that Tom was nobody no longer. Life had come back to him. He was eagerly, passionately, out upon some secret quest. It amused Clarabel to watch her friends and relations, as they set forth, determine to lay bare Tom's mystery. Mrs. Matchum, who had her own very definite reasons for not allowing Tom to escape, declared that, of course, it was a woman, but this did not elucidate the puzzle. Had it been some married woman, Tom would not have been so perfectly open about his disappearances. He never denied, for a moment, that he disappeared. He rather liked them to know that he did. It was plainly nothing of which he was ashamed. He had been seen at no restaurants with anyone, no chorus girl, no girl at all. In fact, Dolly Pym Dorsett, who was a little sharper than the others, simply because she was more determinately predatory, declared that Tom was learning a trade. He will turn up suddenly one day, she said, as a chauffeur, or an engineer, or a boot-black. He's trying to find something to fill up his day. He's found it. Lucille cried with her shrill waff. Whatever it is, it keeps him going. He's never in. Sheraton, declares, he doesn't know where he goes. It's disgusting. Old Lord Ferris, who took an indulgent interest in all the deaden developments, because of his paternal regard for Mrs. Matchum, declared that it was one of these new religions. They're simply all over the place, a feller catches them as he would the measles. Well, I know a chap. But no, Tom didn't look as though he had found a new religion. He had made no new resolutions, dropped no profanities, lost in no way his sense of humor. No, it didn't look like a religion. Clarabel's convictions about it were not very positive. She was simply so glad that he had become somebody again, and she had perhaps a malicious pleasure in the disappointment of the set. It amused her to see the golden purse slipping out of their eager fingers, and they so determined to stay it. The pursuit continued for weeks. Everyone was drawn into it, even old Lord John Bimster, who was beset with debts and gout, stirred up his sister Adela to see whether she couldn't discover something. It was Henry Matchum who finally achieved the revelation. He came bursting in upon them all. The secret was out. Tom had turned to pie. He was working down in the East Inn to save souls. The news was greeted with incredulity. Tom, soul-saving? Impossible. Tom, the scenic, the irreligious, the despiser of dogma, the arbiter of indifference? Incredible. But Matchum knew there could be no doubt. A man he knew in Brooks's had a brother, a parson in an East Inn settlement. The parson knew Tom Well, said he was always down there in the men's clubs and about the streets. They looked at one another in dismay. Clarabel laughed to see them. What was to be done? Tom must be saved, of course. But how? No plan could be evoked. Well, the first thing we must do, said Mrs. Matchum, is to get a plain statement from himself about it. They sent Clarabel as their ambassador, realizing suddenly that she had some sense and that Tom liked her. She told him, with a twinkle in her eye, what they wanted. They're all very much upset by what you're doing, Tom. They don't want to lose you, you see. They're fond of you, and they don't think it can be good for you, being all the time with Bolsheviks and dirty foreigners. You'll only be taken in by them, they think, and robbed, and that they can't bear. Especially, they think that now, after the war, everyone ought to stand together, shoulder to shoulder. You know, class by class. That's the way Henry Matchum puts it. Of course, they admire you very much, what you're doing. They think you're very noble, but all this slumming seems to them, what did Dolly call it? Oh, yes, vie, je, the sort of thing young men did in the 90s, centuries ago. Oxford House and all that. It seems rather stupid to them to go back to it now, especially when the war shone the danger of Bolshevism. Tom laughed. Why, Carrie, he said. How well you know them. She laughed, too. Anyway, she said, I know you better than they do. Tom agreed that it would be a very good thing for them all to meet. They've got what's happened just a trifle wrong, he said. It's only fair to clear things up. They all appeared on the appointed day. Mrs. Matchum, as president, in a lovely rose-colored towel for which she was just a little too old. Hattie, Dolly, Harwood, Dorsett, Henry Matchum, Pelham Dunn, Morgant, and Lucille, Dora, and, of course, Claribel. The event had the appearance of one of the dear old parties. The flat was just as beautiful, the tea as sumptuous, Sheraton as perfect. They hung around the same chairs, the same table, in all their finery and beauty and expense. They were as sure of conquest as they had ever been. Tom sat on the red leather top of the fire-guard and faced them. Mrs. Matchum led the attack. Now, dear old Tom, she said, in that cooing and persuasive voice of hers, so well known and so well like, You know that we all love you. Yes, I know you do, said Tom, grinning. We do. All of us. You've just been a hero, and we're all proud to death of you. It's only our pride and our love for you that allows us to interfere. We don't want to interfere, but we do want to know what's happening. Henry has heard that you're working down in the East End doing splendidly, and it's just like your dear old noble self. But is it wise? Are you taking advice? Won't those people down there do you and so to speak? I know that this is a time, of course, when we've all got to study social conditions. No thinking man or woman can possibly look round a Nazi that there is a great deal, a whole lot. Well, anyway, you know what I mean, Tom, but is it right without consulting any of us to go down to all those queer people? They can't like you really, you know? It's only for what they can get out of you and all that. After all, your own people are your own people, aren't they, Tom, dear? I don't know. Tom looked up at her smiling, but I don't think that's exactly the point. They may be or they may not. Look here. You've got one or two wrong ideas about this. I want you to have the truth, and then we won't have to bother one another anymore. You talk about my working and being noble and so on. That's the most awful, Tommy Rot. I'll tell you exactly what happened. I came back from France. At least no, I didn't come back, but my body came back. If you know what I mean, I stayed over there. At least I suppose that is what happened. I didn't know myself what it was. I just know that I didn't exist. You all used to come to tea here and be awfully nice and so on, but I didn't hear a word any of you said. I hope that doesn't sound rude, but I'm trying to tell exactly what occurred. I didn't know what was the matter with me. I wasn't anybody at all. I was nobody. I didn't exist. And I asked Sheridan, and he didn't know either. And then one night, Tom paused, the dramatic moment had come. He knew the kind of thing that they were expecting, and when he thought of the reality, he laughed. One night, well, you won't believe me, I suppose. If I tell you I was very unhappy, no, unhappy is too strong. I was just nothing at all. You'd all been here to tea, and I went out for a walk down Bond Street to clear my head. It was raining, and I found two old things taking shelter under a wooden standing. The old lady fainted while I was talking to them, and I saw them home. And, well, that's all. That's all, cried Millie Matchum. Do you mean Tom, that you fell in love with the old woman? Her laugh was shrill and anxious. He laughed back, fell in love. That's just like you, Millie. You think that love must be in it every time. There isn't any love in this, and there isn't any devotion, or religion, or high-mindedness, or trying to improve them, or any of the things you imagine. On the contrary, they hate me, and I don't think that I'm very fond of them, except that I suppose one has a sort of affection for anybody who's brought one back to life again when one didn't want to die. Henry Matchum broke in. Tom, look here. Upon my word, I don't believe that one of us has the least idea what you're talking about. Tom looked around at them all, and in spite of himself, he was surprised at the change in their faces. The surprise was a shock. They were no longer regarding him with a gaze of tender, almost proprietary interest. The eyes that stared at his were almost hostile at any rate, suspicious, alarmed, alarmed about what? Possibly his sanity. Possibly the misgiving that in a moment he was going to do or say something that would shock them all. He realized, as he looked at them, that he had come quite unexpectedly upon the crisis of his life. They could understand it were he philanthropic, religious, sentimental. They were prepared for those things. They had read novels. They knew that such moods did occur. What they were not prepared for, what they most certainly would not stand, was exactly the explanation that he was about to give them, that would insult them, assault the very temple of their most sacred assurances. As he looked, he knew that if he now spoke the truth, he would forever cut himself off from them. They would regard his case as hopeless. It would be in the future poor Tom. He hated that, and for what was he giving them up? For the world that distrusted him, disbelieved in him, and would kill him, if it could. The Rubicon was before him. He looked at it swirling waters. Then, without any further hesitation, he crossed it. He was never to return again. I'm sorry to disappoint you all. He said there's no sentimental motive behind my action. No desire to make any people better. Nothing fine at all. It simply is, as I've said already, that those two people brought me back to life again. I don't know what, except that I was suddenly interested in them. I didn't like them, and they hated me. Now I've become interested in their friends and relations. I don't want to improve them. They wouldn't let me if I did. I came back from France, nobody at all. What happened there had simply killed all my interest in life. And I'm awfully sorry to say it, but none of you brought my interest back. I think the center of interest changed. It's as though there were some animal under the floor, and the part of the room that he's under is the part that you look at because he's restless and acquivers. Well, he shifted his position. That's all. You aren't on the interesting part of the floor anymore. I do hate to be rude and personal, but you have driven me to it. All of you are getting back to exactly what you were before the war. There's almost no change at all, and you're none of you. Interesting. I'm just as bad, but I want to go where the interesting human beings are, and there are more in the dirty streets than the clean ones. In books like Marcella, years ago, people went out of their own class because they wanted to do good. I don't want to do good to anyone, but I do want to keep alive now that I've come back to life again. And that's all there is to it, he ended lamely. He had done as he had expected. He had offended them all mortally. He was arrogant, proud, a supercilious, and a little mad. And they saw, finally, that they had lost him. No more money for any of them. Well, said Henry Machum at last, if you want to know, Tom, I think that's about the rottenest explanation I've ever heard. Of course, you're covering something up, but I'm sure we don't want to penetrate your secret if you don't like us to. There isn't any secret. Tom was beginning to be angry. I tell you, for the hundredth time, I'm not going to start soup kitchens, or found mission rooms, or anything like that. But I don't want any more of these silly tea parties, or perpetual reviews, or any of us. Dolly, her cheeks flushed with angry color, broke in. All Tom's been trying to explain to us is that he thinks we're a dull wad, and the Bolsheviks in the slums are more lively. No, Tom broke in. Dolly, that isn't fair. I don't want to pick and choose according to class anymore. I don't want to be anything ever again with a name to it, like a patriot, or a Democrat, or a Bolshevik, or an anti-Bolshevik, or a capitalist. I'm going by individuals wherever they are. I, oh, forgive me, he broke off. I'm preaching. I didn't mean to. It's a thing I hate. But it's so strange. You, none of you know how strange it is, being dead, so that you felt nothing, and minded nothing, and thought nothing, and then suddenly waking. But they had had enough. Tommy was trying to teach them. Teach them. And Tommy? They must be going. Sadly, angrily, indignantly, they melted away. Tom was very sorry. There was nothing to be done. Only Clarabel, taking his hand for a moment, whispered, It's all right. They'll all come back later. They'll be wanting things. They were gone. All of them. He was alone in his room. He drew back the curtains, and looked down over the gray misty stream of Duke Street, scattered with the marigolds of the evening lights. He threw open a window, and the roar of London came up to him, like the rattle, rattle, rattle of the weaver's shuttle. He laughed. He was happier than he had ever been before. The whole world seemed to be at his feet, and he no longer wished to judge it, to improve it, to dictate to it, to dogmatize it, to expect great things of it, to be disappointed in it. He would never do any of those things again. He addressed it, I did passionately wish you to be improved, he said, but I didn't love you. Now I know you will never be improved, but I love you dearly, all of you, not a bit of you. Life simply isn't long enough for all I'm going to see.