 Book 3 Chapter 7 of The Old Wife's Tale by Arnold Bennett Book 3. Sophia, Chapter 7. Success. 1. Sophia lay awake one night in the room lately quitted by Calier. That silent negation of individuality had come and gone, and left scarcely any record of himself, either in his room or in the memories of those who surrounded his existence in the house. Sophia had decided to descend from the sixth floor, partly because the temptation of a large room, after months in a cubicle, was rather strong, but more because of late she had been obliged to barricade the door of the cubicle with the chest of drawers, owing to the propensities of a new tenant of the sixth floor. It was useless to complain to the concierge. The sole effective argument was the chest of drawers, and even that was frailer than Sophia could have wished. Hence, finally, her retreat. She heard the front door of the flat open. Then it was shut with nervous violence. The resonance of its closing would certainly have wakened less accomplished sleepers than Monsieur Neeps and his friend, whose snores continued with undisturbed regularity. After a pause of shuffling, a match was struck, and feet crept across the corridor with the most exaggerated precautions against noise. Though followed the unintentional bang of another door, it was decidedly the entry of a man without the slightest natural aptitude for furtive eruptions. The clock in Monsieur Neeps's room, which the grocer had persuaded to exact timekeeping, chimed three with its delicate ting. For several days past, Shirac had been mysteriously engaged very late at the bureau of the debuts. No one knew the nature of his employment. He said nothing except to inform Sophia that he would continue to come home about three o'clock until further notice. She had insisted on leaving in his room the materials and apparatus for a light meal. Naturally he had protested with the irrational obstinacy of a physically weak man, who sticks to it that he can defy the laws of nature, but he had protested in vain. His general conduct, since Christmas Day, had frightened Sophia, in spite of her tendency to stifle facile alarms at their birth. He had eaten scarcely anything at all, and he went about with the face of a man dying of a broken heart. The change in him was indeed tragic, and instead of improving he grew worse. Have I done this? Sophia asked herself. It is impossible that I should have done this. It is absurd and ridiculous that he should behave so. Her thoughts were employed alternately in sympathising with him and in despising him, in blaming herself and in blaming him. When they spoke, awkwardly, as though one or both of them had committed a shameful crime which could not even be mentioned. The atmosphere of the flat was tainted by the horror, and Sophia could not offer him a bowl of soup without wondering how he would look at her, or avoid looking, and without carefully arranging in advance her own gestures and speech. The existence was a nightmare of self-consciousness. At last they have unmasked their batteries. He had exclaimed with painful gaiety two days after Christmas when the besiegers had recommenced their cannon-aid. He tried to imitate the strange general joy of the city, which had been roused from apathy by the recurrence of a familiar noise. But the effort was a deplorable failure, and Sophia condemned not merely the failure of Chirac's imitation, but the thing imitated. Childish, she thought, yet despised the feebleness of Chirac's behaviour as she might. She was deeply impressed, genuinely astonished by the gravity and persistence of the symptoms. He must have been getting himself into a state about me for a long time, she thought. Surely he could not have gone mad like this all in a day or two. But I never noticed anything. No, honestly I never noticed anything. And just as her behaviour in the restaurant had shaken Chirac's confidence in his knowledge of the other sex, so now the singular behaviour of Chirac shook hers. She was taken aback. She was frightened, though she pretended not to be frightened. She had lived over and over again the scene in the restaurant. She asked herself over and over again if really she had not beforehand expected him to make love to her in the restaurant. She could not decide exactly when she had begun to expect a declaration, but probably a long time before the meal was finished. She had foreseen it, and might have stopped it, but she had not chosen to stop it. Curiosity concerning not merely him, but also herself, had tempted her tacitly to encourage him. She asked herself over and over again why she had repulsed him. It struck her as curious that she had repulsed him. Was it because she was a married woman? Was it because she had moral scruples? Was it at bottom because she did not care for him? Was it because she could not care for anybody? Was it because his fervid manner of love-making offended her English flam? And did she feel pleased or displeased by his forbearance in not renewing the assault? She could not answer. She did not know. But all the time she knew that she wanted love. Only she conceived a different kind of love, placid, regular, somewhat stern, somewhat above the plain of whims, moods, caresses, and all mere fleshly contacts. Not that she considered she despised these things, as she did. What she wanted was a love that was too proud, too independent, to exhibit frankly either its joy or its pain. She hated the display of sentiment, and even in the most intimate abandonments she would have made reserves, and would have expected reserves, trusting to a lover's powers of divination and to her own. The foundation of her character was a haughty moral independence, and this quality was what she most admired in others. Surex's inability to draw from his own pride strength to sustain himself against the blow of her refusal gradually killed in her the sexual desire which he had aroused, and which during a few days flickered up under the stimulus of fancy and of regret. Sophia saw with increasing clearness that her unreasoning instinct had been right in saying him nay, and when in spite of this regret still visited her, she would comfort herself in thinking, I cannot be bothered with all that sort of thing, it is not worthwhile. What does it lead to? Is not life complicated enough without that? No, no, I will stay as I am, at any rate I know what I am in for as things are. And she would reflect upon her hopeful financial situation and the approaching prospect of a constantly sufficient income, and a little thrill of impatience against the interminable and gigantic foolishness of the siege would take her. But her self-consciousness in presence of Surex did not abate. As she lay in bed she awaited the custom sounds which should have connoted Surex's definite retirement for the night. Her ear, however, caught no sound whatever from his room. Then she imagined that there was a smell of burning in the flat. She sat up and sniffed anxiously, of a sudden wide awake and apprehensive. And then she was sure that the smell of burning was not in her imagination. The bedroom was in perfect darkness. Feverishly she searched with her right hand for the matches on the night-table, and knocked candlestick and matches to the floor. She seized her dressing-gown which was spread over the bed, and put it on, aiming for the door. Her feet were bare. She discovered the door. In the passage she could discern nothing at first, and then she made out a thin line of light which indicated the bottom of Surex's door. The smell of burning was strong and unmistakable. She went towards the faint light, fumbled for the door-handle with her palm, and opened. It did not occur to her to call out and ask what was the matter. The house was not on fire, but it might have been. She had left on the table at the foot of Surex's bed a small cooking-lamp and a saucepan of bouillon. All that Surex had to do was to ignite the lamp and put the saucepan on it. He had ignited the lamp, having previously raised the double wicks, and had then dropped into the chair by the table just as he was, and sunk forward, and gone to sleep with his head lying sideways on the table. He had not put the saucepan on the lamp. He had not lowered the wicks, and the flames, capped with thick black smoke, were waving slowly to and fro within a few inches of his loose hair. His hat had rolled along the floor. He was wearing his great overcoat and one woolen glove. The other glove had lodged on his slanting knee. A candle was also burning. So fire hastened forward, as it were surreptitiously, and with a forward-reaching movement turned down the wicks of the lamp. Black specks were falling on the table. Happily the saucepan was covered, or the bouillon would have been ruined. Surex made a heart-rending spectacle, and so fire was aware of the deep and painful emotion in seeing him thus. He must have been utterly exhausted and broken by loss of sleep. He was a man incapable of regular hours, incapable of treating his body with decency. Though going to bed at three o'clock, he had continued to rise at his usual hour. He looked like one dead, but more sad, more wistful. Out in the street a fog reigned, and his thin, draggled beard was dueled with the moisture of it. His attitude had the unconsidered and violent prostration of an overspent dog. The beaten animal in him was expressed in every detail of that posture. It showed, even in his white, drawn eyelids, and in the falling of a finger. All his face was very sad. It appealed for mercy, as the undefended face of sleep always appeals. It was so helpless, so exposed, so simple. It recalled Sophia to a sense of the inner mysteries of life, reminding her somehow that humanity walked ever on a thin crust over terrific abysses. She did not physically shudder, but her soul shuddered. She mechanically placed the saucepan on the lamp, and the noise awakened Chirac. He groaned. At first he did not perceive her. When he saw that someone was looking down at him, he did not immediately realize who this someone was. He rubbed his eyes with his fists, exactly like a baby, and sat up, and the chair cracked. "'What, then?' he demanded. "'Oh, madame, I ask for pardon. What? You have nearly destroyed the house!' she said. "'I smelt fire, and I came in. I was just in time. There is no danger now, but please be careful.' She made as if to move towards the door. "'But what did I do?' he asked, his eyelids wavering.' She explained. He rose from his chair unsteadyly. She told him to sit down again, and he obeyed, as though in a dream. "'I can go now,' she said. "'Wait one moment,' he murmured. "'I ask pardon. I should not know how to thank you. You are truly too good. Will you wait one moment?' His tone was one of supplication. He gazed at her, a little dazzle by the light and by her. The lamp and the candle illumined the lower part of her face theatrically, and showed the texture of her blue flannel-penoir. The pattern of a part of the lace collar was silhouetted in shadow on her cheek. Her face was flushed, and her hair hung down unconfined. Evidently he could not recover from his excusable astonishment at the apparition of such a figure in his room. "'What is it now?' she said. The faint quizzical emphasis which she put on the now, indicated the essential of her thought. The sight of him touched her, and filled her with a womanly sympathy. But that sympathy was only the envelope of her disdain of him. She could not admire weakness. She could but pity it, with a pity in which scorn was mingled. Her instinct was to treat him as a child. He had failed in human dignity. And it seemed to her, as if she had not previously been quite certain whether she could not love him. But that now she was quite certain. She was close to him. She saw the wounds of a soul that could not hide its wounds, and she resented the sight. She was hard. She would not make allowances. And she reveled in her hardness. Contempt. A good natured, kindly, forgiving contempt. That was the kernel of the sympathy which exterially warmed her. Contempt for the lack of self-control which had resulted in this swift degeneration of a man into a tortured victim. Contempt for the lack of perspective which magnified a mere mushroom passion till it filled the whole field of life. Contempt for this feminine slavery to sentiment. She felt that she might have been able to give herself to Shirak as one gives a toy to an infant. But of loving him? No. She was conscious of an immeasurable superiority to him, for she was conscious of the freedom of a strong mind. I wanted to tell you, said he, I am going away. Where? She asked. Out of Paris. Out of Paris? How? By balloon. My journal. It is an affair of great importance. You understand, I offered myself. What would you? It is dangerous, she observed, waiting to see if he would put on the silly air of one who does not understand fear. Oh! the poor fellow muttered with the fatuous intonation and the snapping of the fingers. That is all the same to me. Yes, it is dangerous. Yes, it is dangerous, he repeated. But what would you, for me? She wished that she had not mentioned danger. It hurt her to watch him incurring her ironic disdain. It will be the night after to-morrow, he said, in the courtyard with a guard you know. I want you to come and see me go. I particularly want you to come and see me go. I have asked Carlier to escort you. He might have been saying, I am offering myself to martyrdom and you must assist at the spectacle. She despised him yet more. Oh! be tranquil, he said. I shall not worry you. Never shall I speak to you again of my love. I know you. I know it would be useless, but I hope you will come and wish me bon voyage. Of course, if you really wish it, she replied with cheerful coolness. He seized her hand and kissed it. Once it had pleased her when he kissed her hand, but now she did not like it. It seemed hysterical and foolish to her. She felt her feet to be stone cold on the floor. I'll leave you now, she said. Please eat your soup. She escaped, hoping he would not espy her feet. Two The courtyard of the Nord railway station was lighted by oil lamps taken from locomotives. Their silvered reflectors threw dazzling rays from all sides on the under portion of the immense yellow mass of the balloon. The upper portion was swaying to and fro with gigantic ungainliness in the strong breeze. It was only a small balloon, as balloons are measured, but it seemed monstrous as it wavered over the human forms that were agitating themselves beneath it. The cordage was silhouetted against the yellow tappeters as high up as the widest diameter of the balloon, but above that all was vague, and even spectators standing at a distance could not clearly separate the summit of the great sphere from the darkly moving sky. The car, held by ropes fastened to stakes, rose now and then a few inches uneasily from the ground. The somber and severe architecture of the station buildings enclosed the balloon on every hand. It had only one way of escape. Over the roofs of that architecture, which shut out the sounds of the city, came the irregular booming of the bombardment. Shells were falling in the southern quarters of Paris, doing perhaps not a great deal of damage, but still plunging occasionally into the midst of some domestic interior and making a sad mess of it. The Parisians were convinced that the shells were aimed maliciously at hospitals and museums, and when a child happened to be blown to pieces their unspoken comments upon the Prussian savagery were bitter. Their faces said, those barbarians cannot even spare our children. They amused themselves by creating a market in shells, paying more for a live shell than a dead one, and modifying the tariff according to the supply. And as the cattle market was empty and the vegetable market was empty, and beasts no longer pastured on the grass of the parks, and the twenty-five million rats of the Metropolis were too numerous to furnish interest to spectators, and the boos was practically deserted, the traffic in shells sustained the starving mercantile instinct during a very dull period. But the effect on the nerves was deleterious. The nerves of everybody were like nothing but a raw wound. Violent anger would spring up magically out of laughter and blows out of caresses. This indirect consequence for the bombardment was particularly noticeable in the group of men under the balloon. Each behaved as if he were controlling his temper in the most difficult circumstances. Constantly they all gazed upwards into the sky, though nothing could possibly be distinguished there, save the blurred edge of a flying cloud. But the booming came from that sky, the shells that were dropping on Montrouge came out of that sky, and the balloon was going up into it. The balloon was ascending into its mysteries to brave its dangers, to sweep over the encircling ring of fire and savages. Sophia stood apart with Carlier. Carlier had indicated a particular spot under the shelter of the colonnade, where he said it was imperative that they should post themselves. Having guided Sophia to this spot, and impressed upon her that they were not to move, he seemed to consider that the activity of his role was finished and spoke no word. With the very high silk hat which he always wore, and a thin old-fashioned overcoat whose collar was turned up, he made rather a grotesque figure. Fortunately the night was not very cold, or he might have passively frozen to death on the edge of that feverish group. Sophia soon ignored him. She watched the balloon. An aristocratic old man leaned against the car, watching hand. At intervals he scowled or stamped his foot. An old sailor, tranquilly smoking a pipe, walked round and round the balloon, staring at it. Once he climbed up into the rigging, and once he jumped into the car and angrily threw out a bag which someone had placed in it, but for the most part he was calm. Other persons of authority hurried about, talking and gesticulating, and a number of workmen waited idly for orders. Where is Shirak? Suddenly cried the old man with the watch. Several voices deferentially answered, and a man ran away into the gloom on an errand. Then Shirak appeared, nervous, self-conscious, restless. He was enveloped in a fur coat that Sophia had never seen before, and he carried, dangling in his hand, a cage containing six pigeons whose whiteness stirred uneasily within it. The sailor took the cage from him, and all the persons of authority gathered round to inspect the wonderful birds, upon which apparently momentous affairs depended. When the group separated, the sailor was to be seen bending over the edge of the car to deposit the cage safely. He then got into the car, still smoking his pipe, and perched himself negligently on the wicker work. The man with the watch was conversing with Shirak. Shirak nodded his head frequently in acquiescence, and seemed to be saying all the time, Yes, sir. Perfectly, sir, I understand, sir. Yes, sir. Suddenly Shirak turned to the car and put a question to the sailor, who shook his head, whereupon Shirak gave a gesture of submissive despair to the man with the watch, and in an instant the whole throng was in a ferment. The victuals cried the man with the watch. The victual's name of God must one be indeed an idiot to forget the victual's name of God, of God! Sophia smiled at the agitation, and at the inefficient management, which had never thought of food, for it appeared that the food had not merely been forgotten, it was a question which had not even been considered. She could not help despising all that crowd of self-important and fussy males, to whom the idea had not occurred that even balloonists must eat. And she wondered whether everything was done like that. After a delay that seemed very long, the problem of victuals was solved, chiefly, as far as Sophia could judge, by means of cakes of chocolate and bottles of wine. It is enough! It is enough! Shirak shouted passionately several times to a knot of men who began to argue with him. Then he gazed round furtively, and with an inflation of the chest and a patting of his fur coat, he came directly towards Sophia. Evidently, Sophia's position had been prearranged between him and Kalye. They could forget food, but they could think of Sophia's position. All eyes followed him. Those eyes could not in the gloom distinguish Sophia's beauty, but they could see that she was young, and slim, and elegant, and of foreign carriage. That was enough! The very air seemed to vibrate with the intense curiosity of those eyes. And immediately Shirak grew into the hero of some brilliant and romantic adventure. Immediately he was envied and admired by every man of authority present. What was she? Who was she? Was it a serious passion, or simply a caprice? Had she flung herself at him? It was undeniable that lovely creatures did sometimes fling themselves at lucky mediocrities. Was she a married woman, an artist, a girl? Such queer is thumped beneath overcoats, while the correctness of a ceremonial demeanor was strictly observed. Shirak uncovered and kissed her hand. The wind disarranged his hair. She saw that his face was very pale and anxious, beneath the swagger of a sincere desire to be brave. Well, it is the moment, he said. Did you forget all the food, she asked? He shrugged his shoulders. What will you? One cannot think of everything. I hope you will have a safe voyage, she said. She had already taken leave of him once in the house, and heard all about the balloon and the sailor aeronauts and the preparations, and now she had nothing to say, nothing whatever. He shrugged his shoulders again. I hope so, he murmured, but in a tone to convey that he had no such hope. The wind isn't too strong, she suggested. He shrugged his shoulders again. What would you? Is it in the direction you want? Yes, nearly, he admitted unwillingly, then rousing himself. Well, madame, you have been extremely amiable to come. I held to it very much that you should come. It is because of you I quit Paris. She resented the speech by a frown. Ah, he implored in the whisper, do not do that. Smile on me. After all, it is not my fault. Remember, this may be the last time I see you. The last time I regard your eyes. She smiled. She was convinced of the genuineness of the emotion which expressed itself in all this flamboyant behaviour, and she had to make excuses to herself on behalf of Chirac. She smiled, to give him pleasure. The hard common sense in her might sneer, but induvidably she was the centre of a romantic episode. The balloon, darkly swinging there. The men waiting. The secrecy of the mission. And Chirac bareheaded in the wind that was to whisk him away, telling her in fatalistic accents that her image had devastated his life, while envious aspirants watched their colloquy. Yes, it was romantic, and she was beautiful. Her beauty was an act of reality that went about the world playing tricks in spite of herself. The thoughts that passed through her mind were the large, splendid thoughts of romance, and it was Chirac who had aroused them. A real drama existed then, triumphing over the accidental absurdities and pettinesses of the situation. Her final words to Chirac were tender and encouraging. He hurried back to the balloon, resuming his cap. He was received with the respect due to one who comes fresh from conquest. He was sacred. Sophia rejoined Carlier who had withdrawn, and began to talk to him with a self-conscious gullibility. She spoke without reason, and scarcely noticed what she was saying. Already Chirac was snatched out of her life, as other beings, so many of them, had been snatched. She thought of their first meetings, and of the sympathy which had always united them. He had lost his simplicity now in the self-created crisis of his fate, and had sunk in her esteem. And she was determined to like him all the more because he had sunk in her esteem. She wondered whether he really had undertaken this adventure from sentimental disappointment. She wondered whether, if she had not forgotten to wind her watch one night, they would still have been living quietly under the same roof in the rubrede. The sailor climbed definitely into the car. He had covered himself with a large cloak. Chirac had got one leg over the side of the car, and eight men were standing by the ropes. When a horse's hooves clattered through the guarded entrance to the courtyard, amid an uproar of sudden excitement, the shiny chest of the horse was flecked with the classic foam. A telegram from the Governor of Paris. As the orderly, checking his mount, approached the group, even the old man with the watch raised his hat. The orderly responded, bent down to make an inquiry, which Chirac answered, and then, with another exchange of salutes, the official telegram was handed over to Chirac, and the horse backed away from the crowd. He was quite thrilling. Carlier was thrilled. He is never too prompt, the Governor. It is a quality, said Carlier with irony. Chirac entered the car, and then the old man with the watch drew a black bag from the shadow behind him and entrusted it to Chirac, who accepted it with a profound deference and hid it. The sailor began to issue commands. The men at the ropes were bending down now. Suddenly the balloon rose about a foot and trembled. The sailor continued to shout. All the persons of authority gazed motionless at the balloon. The moment of suspense was eternal. Let go all! cried the sailor, standing up and clinging to the cordage. Chirac was seated in the car. A mass of dark fur with a small patch of white in it. The men at the ropes were a knot of struggling confused figures. One side of the car tilted up, and the sailor was nearly pitched out. Three men at the other side had failed to free the ropes. Let go corpses! the sailor yelled at them. The balloon jumped, as if it were drawn by some terrific impulse from the skies. Adieu! called Chirac, pulling his cap off and waving it. Adieu! Bon voyage! Bon voyage! the little crowd cheered. And then, vive la France! throats tightened, including sapphires. But the top of the balloon had lent over, destroying its pear shape, and the whole mass swerved violently towards the wall of the station. The car swinging under it like a toy, and an anchor under the car, was a cry of alarm. Then the great ball leapt again, and swept over the high glass roof, escaping by inches, the spouting. The cheers expired instantly. The balloon was gone. It was spirited away as if by some furious and mighty power that had grown impatient in waiting for it. There remained a few seconds on the collective retina of the spectators a vision of the inclined car swinging near the roof, like the tail of a kite. And then nothing. Blankness. Blackness. Already the balloon was lost to sight in the vast stormy ocean of the night, a plaything of the winds. The spectators became once more aware of the dull booming of the cannonade. The balloon was already perhaps flying unseen amid the rack over those guns. Sophia involuntarily caught her breath. A chill of loneliness, of purposeless, numbed her being. Nobody ever saw Chirac or the old sailor again. The sea must have swallowed them. Of the sixty-five balloons that left Paris during the siege, two were not heard of. This was the first of the two. Chirac had, at any rate, not magnified the peril, though his intention was undoubtedly to magnify it. This was the end of Sophia's romantic adventures in France. Soon afterwards the Germans entered Paris by mutual agreement and made a point of seeing the Louvre and departed amid the silence of a city. For Sophia the conclusion of the siege meant chiefly that prices went down. Long before supplies from outside could reach Paris, the shop windows were suddenly full of goods which had arrived from the shopkeepers alone knew where. Sophia, with the stock in her cellar, could have held out for several weeks more, and it annoyed her that she had not sold more of her good things while good things were worth gold. The signing of a treaty at Versailles reduced the value of Sophia's two remaining hands from about five pounds apiece to the usual price of hands. However, at the end of January she found herself in possession of a capital of about eight thousand francs, all the furniture of the flat and a reputation. She had earned it all. Nothing could destroy the structure of her beauty, but she looked worn and appreciably older. She wondered often when Chirac would return. She might have written to Carlier or to the paper, but she did not. It was Nieps who discovered in a newspaper that Chirac's balloon had miscarried. At the moment the news did not affect her at all, but after several days she began to feel her loss in a dull sort of way, and she felt it more and more, though never acutely. She was perfectly convinced that Chirac could never have attracted her powerfully. She continued to dream at rare intervals of the kind of passion that would have satisfied her, glowing, but banked down like a fire in some fine chamber of a rich but careful household. She was speculating upon what her future would be, and whether by inertia she was doomed to stay for ever in the Rue Bréderre when the Commune caught her. She was more vexed and frightened by the Commune, vexed that a city so in need of repose and industry should indulge in such antics. For many people the Commune was a worse experience than the Siege, but not for Sophia. She was a woman and a foreigner. Nieps was infinitely more disturbed than Sophia. He went in fear of his life. Sophia would go out to markets and take her chances. It is true that during one period the whole population of the house went to live in the cellars, and orders to the butcher and other tradesmen were given over the party wall into the adjoining courtyard, which communicated with an alley. A strange existence and possibly perilous. But the women who passed through it, and had also passed through the Siege, were not very much intimidated by it, unless they happened to have husbands or lovers who were active politicians. Sophia did not cease during the greater part of the year 1871 to make a living and to save money. She watched every soot, and she developed a tendency to demand from her tenants all that they could pay. She excused this to herself by ostentatiously declaring every detail of her prices in advance. It came to the same thing in the end, with this advantage that the bills did not lead to unpleasantness. Her difficulties commenced when Paris, at last, definitely resumed its normal aspect and life. When all the women and children came back to those city-termini which they had left in such huddled hysterical throngs, when flats were reopened that had been long shut, and men who for a whole year had had the disadvantages and the advantages of being without wife and family, anchored themselves once more to the hearth. Then it was that Sophia failed to keep all her rooms let. She could have let them easily and constantly and at high rents, but not to men without encumbrances. Nearly every day she refused attractive tenants in pretty hats or agreeable gentlemen who only wanted a room on condition that they might offer hospitality to a dashing petticoat. It was useless to proclaim aloud that her house was serious. The ambition of the majority of these joyous persons was to live in a serious house because each was sure that at bottom he or she was a serious person and quite different from the rest of the joyous world. The character of Sophia's flat, instead of repelling the wrong kind of aspirant, infallibly drew just that kind. Hope was inextinguishable in these bosoms. They heard that there would be no chance for them at Sophia's, but they tried nevertheless. And occasionally Sophia would make a mistake, and grave unpleasantness would occur before the mistake could be rectified. And the fact was that the street was too much for her. Few people would credit that there was a serious boarding-house in the Roubreda. The police themselves would not credit it, and Sophia's beauty was against her. At that time the Roubreda was perhaps the most notorious street in the centre of Paris, at the height of its reputation as a warren of individual improprieties, most busily creating that prejudice against itself, which, over thirty years later, forced the authorities to change its name in obedience to the wish of its tradesmen. When Sophia went out at about eleven o'clock in the morning, with her reticule to buy, the street was littered with women who had gone out with reticules to buy. But whereas Sophia was fully dressed and wore headgear, the others were in dressing-gown on slippers, or opera-cloak and slippers, having slid directly out of unspeakable beds, and omitted to brush their hair out of their puffy eyes. In the little shops of the Roubreda, the Roubreda not redound a laurette, and the Roubredaimathia, you were very close indeed to the primitive instincts of human nature. It was wonderful, it was amusing, it was excitingly picturesque, and the universality of the manners rendered moral indignation absurd. But the neighbourhood was certainly not one in which a woman of Sophia's race, training, and character could comfortably earn a living, or even exist. She could not fight against the entire street. She, and not the street, was out of place and in the wrong. Little wonder that the neighbours lifted their shoulders when they spoke of her. What beautiful woman but a mad English woman would have the idea of establishing herself in the Roubreda, with the intention of living like a nun and compelling others to do the same. By dint of continual ingenuity, Sophia continued to win somewhat more than her expenses, but she was slowly driven to admit to herself that the situation could not last. Then one day she saw in Gallignani's messenger an advertisement of an English poncia for sale in the Roubrede Lorde Byron in the Champs-Élysées quarter. It belonged to some people named Frenchham, and had enjoyed a certain popularity before the war. The proprietor and his wife, however, had not sufficiently allowed for the vicissitudes of politics in Paris. Instead of saving money during their popularity, they had put it on the back and on the fingers of Mrs. Frenchham. The siege and the commune had almost ruined them. With capital they might have restored themselves to their former pride, but their capital was exhausted. Sophia answered the advertisement. She impressed the Frenchams, who were delighted with the prospect of dealing in business with an honest English face. Like many English people abroad, they were most strangely obsessed by the notion that they had quitted an island of honest men to live among thieves and robbers. They always implied that dishonesty was unknown in Britain. They offered, if she would take over the lease, to sell all their furniture and their renown for ten thousand francs. She declined, the price seeming absurd to her. When they asked her to name a price, she said that she preferred not to do so. Upon entreaty she said four thousand francs. They then allowed her to see that they considered her to have been quite right in hesitating to name a price so ridiculous, and their confidence in the honest English face seemed to have been shocked. Sophia left. When she got back to the roue-breda, she was relieved that the matter had come to nothing. She did not precisely foresee what her future was to be, but at any rate she knew she shrank from the responsibility of the pension Frenchham. The next morning she received a letter offering to accept six thousand. She wrote and declined. She was indifferent, and she would not budge from four thousand. The Frenchhams gave way. They were pained, but they gave way. The glitter of four thousand francs in cash and freedom was too tempting. Thus Sophia became the proprietor of the pension Frenchham in the cold and correct roue Lord Byron. She made room in it for nearly all her other furniture, so that instead of being under furnished, as pensions usually are, it was over furnished. She was extremely timid at first, for the rent alone was four thousand francs a year, and the prices of the quarter were alarmingly different from those of the roue-breda. She lost a lot of sleep. For some nights, after she had been installed in the roue Lord Byron about a fortnight, she scarcely slept at all, and she ate no more than she slept. She cut down expenditure to the very lowest, and frequently walked over to the roue-breda to do her marketing. With the aid of a char-woman at six sous-an-heure, she accomplished everything, and though clients were few, the feat was in the nature of a miracle. For Sophia had to cook. The articles which George Augustus Sala wrote under the title Paris herself again, ought to have been paid for in gold by the hotel and pension-keepers of Paris, they awakened English curiosity and the desire to witness a scene of terrible events. Their effect was immediately noticeable. In less than a year after her adventurous purchase, Sophia had acquired confidence, and she was employing two servants, working them very hard at low wages. She had also acquired the landlady's manner. She was known as Mrs. Frenchham. Across the balconies of two windows, the Frenchhams had left a gilded sign, Parcien Frenchham, and Sophia had not removed it. She often explained that her name was not Frenchham, but in vain. Every visitor inevitably and persistently addressed her according to the sign. It was past the general comprehension that the proprietors of the Parcien Frenchham might bear another name of Frenchham, but later there came into being a class of persons, habituaries of the Parcien Frenchham, who knew the real name of the proprietors, and were proud of knowing it, and by this knowledge they were distinguished from the herd. What struck Sophia was the astounding similarity of her guests. They all asked the same questions, made the same exclamations, went out on the same excursions, returned with the same judgments, and exhibited the same unimpaired assurance that foreigners were really very peculiar people. They never seemed to advance in knowledge. There was a constant stream of explorers from England, who had to be set on their way to the Louvre, or to the Bon Marché. Sophia's sole interest was in her profits. The excellence of her house was firmly established. She kept it up, and she kept the modest prices up. Often she had to refuse guests. She naturally did so with a certain distant condescension. Her manner to guests increased in stiff formality, and she was excessively firm with undesirables. She grew to be seriously convinced that no ponceau as good as hers existed in the world, or ever had existed, or ever could exist. Hers was the acme of niceness and respectability. Her preference for the respectable rose to a passion, and there were no faults in her establishment. Even the once-despised showy furniture of Madame Foucault had mysteriously changed into the best conceivable furniture, and its cracks were hallowed. She never heard a word of Gerald nor of her family. In the thousands of people who stayed under her perfect roof, no one, not one, mentioned Bursley, nor disclosed the knowledge of anybody that Sophia had known. Several men had the wit to propose marriage to her with more or less skillfulness, but none of them was skillful enough to perturb her heart. She had forgotten the face of love. She was a landlady. She was THE landlady, efficient, stylish, diplomatic, and tremendously experienced. There was no trickery, no baseness of Parisian life that she was not acquainted with and armed against. She could not be startled, and she could not be swindled. Years passed, until there was a vista of years behind her. Sometimes she would think, in an unoccupied moment, how strange it is that I should be here doing what I am doing. But the regular ordinariness of her existence would instantly seize her again. At the end of 1878, the exhibition year, her pensioner consisted of two floors instead of one, and she had turned the two hundred pounds stolen from Gerald into over two thousand. End of Book 3 Chapter 7 Book 4 Chapter 1 Part 1 of The Old Wife's Tale by Arnold Bennett This is a Librebox recording. All Librebox recordings are in the public domain. For further information, or to volunteer, please go to Librebox.org Reading by Andy Minter The Old Wife's Tale by Arnold Bennett Book 4 What Life Is Chapter 1 Part 1 Frenchms 1 Matthew Peele Swinnerton sat in the long dining-room of the Pont-sion Frenchm, Rue Lord Baron Paris, and he looked out of place there. It was an apartment about thirty feet in length and of the width of two windows, which sufficiently lighted one half of a very long table with round ends. The gloom of the other extremity was illumined by a large mirror in a tarnished guilt frame, which filled a good portion of the wall opposite the windows. Near the mirror was a high folding screen of four leaves, and behind this screen could be heard the sound of a door continually shutting and opening. In the long wall to the left of the windows were two doors, one dark and important, a door of state, through which a procession of hungry and a procession of sated, solemn, self-conscious persons passed twice daily, and the other, a smaller door, glazed, its glass painted with wreaths of roses, not an original door of the house, but a late breach in the wall that seemed to lead to the dangerous and to the naughty. The wallpaper and the window drapery were rich and forbidding, dark in hue, mysterious of pattern. Over the state door was a pair of antlers, and at intervals so high up as to defy inspection, engravings and oil paintings made oblong patches on the walls. They were hung from immense nails with porcelain heads, and they appeared to depict the warm majestic aspect of man and nature. One engraving, over the mantelpiece and nearer earth than the rest, unmistakably showed Louis Philippe and his family in attitudes of virtue. Beneath this royal group, a vast gilt clock, flanked by pendants of the same period, gave the right time, a quarter past seven. And down the room, filling it, ran the great white table, bordered with bowed heads and the backs of chairs. There were over thirty people at the table, and the peculiarly restrained noisiness of their knives and forks on the plates proved that they were a discreet and a correct people. Their clothes, blouses, bodices, and jackets did not flatter the lust of the eye. Only two or three were in evening dress. They spoke little, and generally in a timorous tone as though silence had been enjoined. Somebody would half whisper a remark, and then his neighbour, absently fingering her bread and lifting gaze from her plate into vacancy, would conscientiously weigh the remark and half whisper in reply, I dare say. But a few spoke loudly and volubly, and were regarded by the rest, who envied them, as underbred. Food was quite properly the chief preoccupation. The diners ate as those eat who are paying a fixed price per day for as much as they can consume, while observing the rules of the game. Without moving their heads, they glanced out of the corners of their eyes, watching the manoeuvres of the three starched maids who served. They had no conception of food, save as portions laid out in rows on large silver dishes, and when a maid bent over them deferentially, balancing the dish, they summed up the offering in an instant, and in an instant decided how much they could decently take, and to what extent they could practice the theoretic liberty of choice. And if the food, for any reason, did not tempt them, or if it egregiously failed to coincide with their aspirations, they considered themselves aggrieved. For, according to the game, they might not command. They had the right to seize all that was presented under their noses, like gentile tigers, and they had the right to refuse. That was all. The dinner was thus a series of emotional crises for the diners, who knew only that full dishes and clean plates came endlessly from the banging door behind the screen, and that ravaged dishes and dirty plates vanished endlessly through the same door. They were all eating similar foods simultaneously. They began together, and they finished together. The flies that haunted the paper bunches which hung from the chandeliers to the level of the flower vases were more free. The sole event that checkered the exact regularity at the repast was the occasional arrival of a wine-bottle for one of the guests. The receiver of the wine-bottle signed a small paper in exchange for it, and wrote largely a number on the label of the bottle, then staring at the number and fearing that after all it might be misread by a stupid maid or an unscrupulous compere. He would rewrite the number on another part of the label, even more largely. Matthew Peele Swinnerton obviously did not belong to this world. He was a young man of 25 or so, not handsome, but elegant. Though he was not in evening dress, though he was, as a fact, in a very light grey suit, entirely improper to a dinner, he was elegant. The suit was admirably cut, and nearly new, but he wore it as though he had never worn anything else. Also, his demeanour, reserved, yet free from self-consciousness, his method of handling a knife and fork, the niceties of his manner in transferring food from the silver dishes to his plate, the tone in which he ordered half a bottle of wine—all these details infallibly indicated to the company that Matthew Peele Swinnerton was their superior. Some folks hoped that he was the son of a lord, or even a lord. He happened to be fixed at the end of the table, with his back to the window, and there was a vacant chair on either side of him. This situation favoured the hope of his high rank. In truth, he was the son, the grandson, and several times the nephew of earthenware manufacturers. He noticed that the large compote, as it was called, in his trade, which marked the centre of the table, was the production of his firm. This surprised him, for Peele Swinnerton and Co., known and revered throughout the five towns as Peele's, did not cater for cheap markets. A late guest startled the room, a fat, flabby, middle-aged man, whose nose would have aroused the provisional hostility of those who have convinced themselves that Jews are not as other men. His nose did not definitely brand him as a usurer and a murderer of Christ, but it was suspicious. His clothes hung loose, and might have been anybody's clothes. He advanced with brisk assurance to the table, bowed somewhat too effusively to several people, and sat down next to Peele Swinnerton. One of the maids at once brought him a plate of soup, and he said, Thank you, Marie. Smiling at her, he was evidently a obituary of the house. His spectacle eyes beamed the superiority which comes of knowing girls by their names. He was seriously handicapped in the race for sustenance, being two-and-a-half courses behind, but he drew level with speed. And then, having accomplished this, he sighed, and pointedly engaged Peele Swinnerton with his sociable glance. Ah, he breathed out, Newson's when you come in late, sir. Peele Swinnerton gave a reluctant affirmative. Doesn't only upset you, it upsets the house. Servants don't like it. No, murmured Peele Swinnerton, I suppose not. However, it's not often I'm late, said the man. Can't help it sometimes. Business, worse to these French business people, is they have no notion of time. Appointments? God bless myself. Do you come here often? Asked Peele Swinnerton. He detested the fellow quite inexcusably. Perhaps because his serviette was tucked under his chin, but he saw that the fellow was one of your determined talkers, who always win in the end. Moreover, as being clearly not an ordinary tourist in Paris, the fellow mildly excited his curiosity. I live here, said the other. Very convenient for a bachelor, you know. Have done for years. My office is just close by. You may know my name. Louis Marden. Peele Swinnerton hesitated. The hesitation convicted him of not knowing his Paris well. Our agent, said Louis Marden, quickly. Oh, yes, said Peele Swinnerton, vaguely recalling a vision of the name among the advertisements on newspaper kiosks. I expect, Mr. Marden went on, my name's as well-known as anybody's in Paris. I suppose so, assented Peele Swinnerton. The conversation fell for a few moments. Staying here long, Mr. Marden demanded, having added up Peele Swinnerton as a man of style and of means, and being puzzled by his presence at that table. I don't know, said Peele Swinnerton. This was a lie, justified in the utterer's opinion, as a repulse to Mr. Marden's vulgar inquisitiveness. Such inquisitiveness has might have been expected from a fellow who tucked his serviette under his chin. Peele Swinnerton knew exactly how long he would stay. He would stay until the day after the morrow. He had only about fifty francs in his pocket. He had been making a fool of himself in another quarter of Paris, and he had descended to the Pension Frencham as a place where he could be absolutely sure of spending not more than twelve francs a day. His reputation was high, and it was convenient for the Galleraire Museum, where he was making some drawings which he had come to Paris expressly to make, and without which he could not reputably return to England. He was capable of foolishness, but he was also capable of wisdom, and scarcely any pressure of need was who induced him to write home for money, to replace the money spent on making himself into a fool. Mr. Marden was conscious of a check, but being of an accommodating disposition, he at once tried another direction. Good food here, eh? he suggested. Very, said Peele Swinnerton, with sincerity, I was quite, at that moment, a tall straight woman, of uncertain age, pushed open the principal door, and stood for an instant in the doorway. Peele Swinnerton had just time to notice that she was handsome and pale, and that her hair was black, and that she was gone again, followed by a clipped poodle that accompanied her. She had signed with a brief gesture to one of the servants, who at once set about lighting the gas-jets over the table. Who is that? asked Peele Swinnerton, without reflecting that it was now he who was making advances to the fellow whose napkin covered all his shirt-front. That's a missy, that is, said Mr. Marden, in a lower and semi-confidential voice. Oh, Mrs. Frencham! Yes, but her real name is Scales, said Mr. Marden proudly. Widow, I suppose? Yes. And she runs the whole show? She runs in tar contraption, said Mr. Marden solemnly, and don't you make any mistake? He was getting familiar. Peele Swinnerton beat him off once more, glancing with careful, uninterested nodulence at the gas-burners, which exploded one after another with a little blop under the application of the maid's taper. The white table gleamed more whiter than ever under the flaring gas. People at the end of the room away from the window instinctively smiled, as though the sun had begun to shine. The aspect of the dinner was changed, ameliorated, and with the reiterated statement that the evenings were drawing in, though it was only July, conversation became almost general. In two minutes Mr. Marden was genially talking across the whole length of the table. The meal finished in a state that resembled conviviality. Matthew Peele Swinnerton might not go out into the crepuscular delights of Paris, unless he remained within the shelter of the parisian. He could not hope to complete successfully his reconversion from folly to wisdom. So he bravely passed through the small rose-embroidered door into a small glass-covered courtyard, furnished with palms, wicker arm-chairs, and two small tables, and he lighted a pipe and pulled out of his pockets a copy of The Referee. That retreat was called The Lounge. It was the only part of the poncion where smoking was not either a positive crime or a transgression against good form. He felt lonely. He said to himself grimly in one breath that pleasure was all rot, and in the next he suddenly demanded of the universe how it was that pleasure could not go on forever and why he was not Mr. Barney Bonato. Two old men entered the retreat and burnt cigarettes with many precautions. Then Mr. Lewis Marden appeared and sat down boldly next to Matthew like a privilege friend. After all, Mr. Marden was better than nobody whatever, and Matthew decided to suffer him, especially as he began without preliminary skirmishing to talk about life in Paris, an irresistible subject. Mr. Marden said in a worldly tone that the existence of a bachelor in Paris might easily be made agreeable, but that, of course, for himself, well, he preferred as a general rule the poncion-frenchum sort of thing, and it was excellent for his business. Still he could not, he knew. He compared the advantages of what he called knocking about in Paris with the equivalent in London. His information about London was out of date, and Peele Swinnerton was able to set him right on important details. But his information about Paris was infinitely precious and interesting to the younger man, who saw that he had hitherto lived under strange misconceptions. Have a whisky! asked Mr. Marden suddenly. Very good, here! he added. Thanks! drawled Peele Swinnerton. The temptation to listen to Mr. Marden, as long as Mr. Marden would talk, was not to be overcome, and presently, when the old men had departed, they were frankly telling each other stories in the dimness of the retreat. Then, when the supply of stories came to an end, Mr. Marden smacked his lips over the last drop of whisky, and ejaculated, Yes! as if giving a general confirmation to all that had been said. Do have one with me, said Matthew politely, it was the least he could do. The second supply of whiskies was brought into the lounge by Mr. Marden's Marie. He smiled on her, familiarly, and remarked that he supposed she would soon be going to bed after a hard day's work. She gave him ooo and a flounce in reply, and swished out. Carries herself well, don't she? observed Mr. Marden, as though Marie had been an exhibit at an agricultural show. Ten years ago she was very fresh and pretty, but of course it takes it out on a place like this. But still, said Peele Swinerton, they must like it, or they wouldn't stay. That is, unless things are very different here from what they are in England. The conversation seemed to have stimulated him to examine the woman question in all its bearings, with philosophic curiosity. Oh, they like it! Mr. Marden assured him, as one who knew. Besides, Mrs. Scales treats them very well. I know that. She told me. She's very particular. He looked around to see if Walls had ears. By Jove, you've got to be, but she treats them well. You'll scarcely believe the wages they get and pickings. Now, Hotel Moscow. Know the Hotel Moscow? Happily, Peele Swinerton did. He had been advised to avoid it, because it catered exclusively for English visitors. But in the Ponson Frenchm, he had accepted something even more exclusively British than the Hotel Moscow. Mr. Marden was quite relieved at his affirmative. The Hotel Moscow is a limited company now, said he, English. Really? Yeah, I floated it. It was my idea. Great success. That's how I know all about the Hotel Moscow. He looked at the Walls again. I wanted to do the same here, he murmured. And Peele Swinerton had to show that he appreciated the confidence. But she never would agree. I've tried her always. Now go. It's a thousand pitties. Paying thing, eh? This place, I should say it was. Now, I ought to be able to judge. I reckon Mrs. Scales is one of the shrewdest women you'd meet in a day's march. She's made a lot of money here. Lot of money. And there's no reason why a place like this shouldn't be five times as big as it is. Ten times. The scope's unlimited, my dear sir. All that's wanted is capital. Naturally, she has capital of her own. She could get more, but then, as she says, she doesn't want the place any bigger. She says it's now just as big as she can handle. That isn't so. She's a woman who can handle anything. A born manager. Even if it was so, all she'd have to do would be to retire. Only leave us the place and the name. It's a name that counts. And she's made the name of Frenchman worth something. I can tell you. Did she get the place from her husband? Asked Peele Swinnerton. Her own name of Scales intrigued him. Mr. Marden shook his head, bolted on her own, after husband's time, for a song. A song? I know, because I knew the original Frenchman's. You must have been in Paris a long time, said Peele Swinnerton. Mr. Marden could never resist an opportunity to talk about himself. His was a wonderful history, and Peele Swinnerton, while scorning the man for his faturity, was impressed. And when that was finished? Yes, said Mr. Marden after a pause, reaffirming everything in general by a single monosyllable. Shortly afterwards he rose, saying that his habits were regular. Good night, she said, with a mechanical smile. Good night, said Peele Swinnerton, trying to force the tone of fellowship and not succeeding. Their intimacy, which had sprung up like a mushroom, suddenly fell into dust. Peele Swinnerton's unspoken comment to Mr. Marden's back was, ass. Still, the sum of Peele Swinnerton's knowledge had indubitably been increased during the evening. And the hour was yet early. Half past ten, the folly marignet, with its beautiful architecture and its crowds of white toilettes and its frothing of champagne and of beer, and its musicians in tight red coats was just beginning to be alive, and at a distance of scarcery a stone's throw. Peele Swinnerton pictured the terraced glittering hall, which had been the prime origin of his exceeding foolishness. And he pictured all the other resorts, great and small, garlanded with white lanterns in the Champs-Élysées, and the sombre aisles of the Champs-Élysées, where mysterious pale figures walked troublingly under the shades of trees, while snatches of wild song or absurd brassy music floated up from the resorts and the restaurants. He wanted to go out and spend those fifty francs that remained in his pocket. After all, why not telegraph to England for more money? Oh, damn it! he said savagely, and stretched his arms and got up. The lounge was very small, gloomy and dreary. One brilliant incandescent light burned in the hall, crudely illuminating the wicker photoe, a corded trunk with a blue and red label on it, a Fitzroy barometer, a map of Paris, a coloured poster of the company Transatlantique, and the mahogany retreat of the hall portrait. In that retreat was not only the hall portrait, an aged woman with a white cap over her wrinkled pink face, but the mistress of the establishment. They were murmuring together softly. They seemed to be well disposed to one another. The portrait was respectful, but the mistress was respectful also. The hall, with its one light, tranquilly burning, was bathed in an honest calm, the calm of a day's work accomplished, of gradual relaxation from tension, of growing expectation of repose. In its simplicity it affected Peele Swinnerton as a meds and tonic for nerves might have affected him. In that hall, though exterior nocturnal life was but just stirring into activity, it seemed that the middle of the night had come, and that these two women alone watched in a mansion full of sleepers. And all the recitals which Peele Swinnerton and Mr. Marden had exchanged sank to the level of pitiably foolish gossip. Peele Swinnerton felt that his duty to the house was to retire to bed. He felt too that he could not leave the house without saying that he was going out, and that he lacked the courage deliberately to tell these two women that he was going out at that time of night. He dropped into one of the chairs and made a second attempt to peruse the referee. Useless. Either his mind was outside in the Champs Elyse or his gaze would want her surreptitiously to the figure of Mrs. Scales. He could not well distinguish her face because it was in the shadow of the mahogany. Then the portraits came forth from her box, and slightly bent, sped actively across the hall, smiling pleasantly at the guest as she passed him, and disappeared up the stairs. The mistress was alone in the retreat. Peele Swinnerton jumped up brusquely, dropping the paper with a rustle and approached her. Excuse me, he said deferentially, have any letters come for me tonight? He knew that the arrival of letters for him was impossible, since nobody knew his address. The what-name? The question was coldly polite, and the questioner looked him full in the face. Undoubtedly she was a handsome woman. Her hair was graying at the temples, and the skin was withered and crossed with lines. But she was handsome. She was one of those women of whom to their last on earth, the stranger will say, when she was young, she must have been worth looking at. With a little transient regret that beautiful young women cannot remain forever young. Her voice was firm and even, sweet in tone, yet morally harsh from incessant traffic, with all varieties of human nature. Her eyes were the impartial eyes of one who is always judging, and evidently she was a proud, even a haughty, creature with her careful, controlled politeness. Evidently she considered herself superior to no matter what guest. Her eyes announced that she had lived and learned, that she knew more about life than any one whom she was likely to meet, and that having preeminently succeeded in life, she had tremendous confidence in herself. The proof of her success was the unique Frenchms. A consciousness of the uniqueness of Frenchms was also in those eyes. Theoretically Matthew Peele Swinnerton's mental attitude towards lodging-housekeepers was condescending, but here it was not condescending. It had the real respectfulness of a man who for the moment at any rate is impressed beyond his calculations. His glance fell, as he said, a Peele Swinnerton. Then he looked up again. He said the words awkwardly and rather fearfully, as if aware that he was playing with fire. If this Mrs. Scales was the long-vanished aunt of his friend Cyril Povey, she must know those two names locally so famous. Did she start? Did she show a sign of being perturbed? At first he thought he detected a symptom of emotion, but in an instant he was sure that he had detected nothing of the sort, and that it was silly to suppose that he was treading on the edge of a romance. Then she turned towards the letter-rack at her side, and he saw her face in profile. It bore a sudden and astonishing likeness to the profile of Cyril Povey. A resemblance unmistakable and finally decisive, the nose and the curve of the upper lip were absolutely Cyrils. Matthew Peele Swinnerton felt very queer. He felt like a criminal in peril of being caught in the act, and he could not understand why he should feel so. The landlady looked in the Peele Pigeon Hole and in the S. Pigeon Hole. No, she said quietly, I see nothing for you. Taken with a swift rash audacity, he said, have you had anyone named Povey here recently? Povey? Yes, Cyril Povey, of Bursley, in the five towns. He was very impressionable, very sensitive was Matthew Peele Swinnerton. His voice trembled as he spoke, but hers also trembled in reply, not that I remember, no, were you expecting him to be her? Well, it wasn't at all sure, he muttered. Thank you, good night. Good night, she said, apparently, with the simple perfuncturiness of the landlady who says good night to dozens of strangers every evening. He hurried away upstairs and met the portraits coming down. Well, well, he thought, of all the queer things. And he kept nodding his head. At last he had encountered something really strange in the spectacle of existence. It had fallen to him to discover the legendary woman who had fled from Bursley before he was born, and of whom nobody knew anything. What news for Cyril? What a staggering episode! He had scarcely any sleep that night. He wondered whether he would be able to meet Mrs. Scales without self-consciousness on the morrow. However, he was spared the curious ordeal of meeting her. She did not appear at all on the following day, nor did he see her before he left. He could not find a pretext for asking why she was invisible. 2. The handsome of Matthew Peel Swinnerton drew up in front of No. 26 Victoria Grove, Chelsea. His kitbag was on the roof of the cab. The cabman had a red flower in his buttonhole. Matthew leapt out of the vehicle, holding his straw hat on his head with one hand. On reaching the pavement, he checked himself suddenly and became carelessly calm. Another straw-hatted and grey-clad figure was standing at the side gate of No. 26, in the act of lighting a cigarette. Hello, Matt! exclaimed a second figure, languidly and in a veiled voice, due to the fact that he was still holding the match to the cigarette and puffing. What's the meaning for all this fluster? You're just the man I want to see. He threw away the match with a wave of the arm and took Matthew's hand for a moment, blowing a double shaft of smoke through his nose. I want to see you too, said Matthew, and I've only got a minute. I'm on my way to Euston. I must catch the No. 12.5. He looked at his friend and could positively see no feature of it that was not a feature of Mrs. Scales' face. Also, the elderly woman held her body and exacted the same way as the young man. It was entirely disconcerting. Have a cigarette, answered Cyril Povey, imperturbably. He was two years younger than Matthew, from whom he had acquired most of his vast and intricate knowledge of life and art, with certain leading notions of deportment, whose pupil indeed he was in all of the things that matter to young men. But he had already surpassed his professor. He could pretend to be old, much more successfully than Matthew could. The cabman approvingly watched the ignition of the second cigarette, and then the cabman pulled out a cigar, and showed his large white teeth as he bit the end of it. The appearance and manner of his fare, the quality of the kit bag, and the opening gestures of the interview between the two young dukes had put the cabman in an optimistic mood. He had no apprehensions of miserly and ungentlemanly conduct by his fare upon the arrival at Euston. He knew the language of the tilt of a straw hat, and it was a magnificent day in London. The group of the two elegances, dominated by the perfection of the cabman, made a striking tableau of triumphant masculinity, content with itself, and needing nothing. Matthew lightly took Cyril's arm, and drew him further down the street, past the gate leading to the studio, hidden behind a house, which Cyril rented. Look here, my boy! He began. I've found your aunt. Well, that's very nice of you. Said Cyril solemnly. That's a friendly act. May I ask what aunt? Mrs. Scales, said Matthew. You know. Not the— Cyril's face changed. Yes, precisely, said Matthew, feeling that he was not being cheated of the legitimate joy caused by making a sensation. Assuredly, he had made a sensation in Victoria Grove. When he had related the whole story, Cyril said, Then she doesn't know, you know. I don't think so. No, I'm sure she doesn't. She may guess. But how can you be certain you haven't made a mistake? It may be that— Look here, my boy! Matthew interrupted him. I've not made any mistake. But you've no proof. Proof be damned! Said Matthew, Nettled. I tell you, it's her. Oh, all right, all right. What puzzles me most is what the devil you were doing in a place like that. According to your description of it, it must be a— I went there because I was broke, said Matthew. Razzle? Matthew nodded. Pretty stiff that, commented Cyril, when Matthew had narrated the prologue to Trenchums. Well, she absolutely swore she never took less than two hundred francs. And she looked it, too. And she was worth it. I had the time of my life with that woman. I can tell you one thing. No more English for me. They simply aren't in it. How old was she? Matthew reflected judicially. I should say she was thirty. The gaze of admiration and envy was upon him. He had the legitimate joy of making a second sensation. I'll let you know more about that when I come back, he added. I can open your eyes, my child. Cyril smiled sheepishly. I can't you stay now, he asked. I'm going to take the cast of that veral girl's arm this afternoon, and I know I can't do it alone, and Robson's no good. You're just the man I want. Can't, said Matthew. Well, come into the studio a minute anyhow. Have a time. I shall miss my train. I don't care if you miss forty trains who must come in. You've got to see that fountain. Cyril insisted crossly. Matthew yielded. When they emerged into the street again, after six minutes of Cyril's savage interest in his own work, Matthew remembered Mrs. Scales. Of course you will write to your mother, he said. Yes, said Cyril, I'll write, but if you happen to see her you might tell her. I will, said Matthew. Shall you go over to Paris? What, to see auntie? He smiled. I don't know, depends. If the Mater will fork out my exes, it's an idea, he said likely, and then without any change of tone, naturally, if you're going to idle about here all morning, you aren't likely to catch the twelve-five. Matthew got into the cab, while the driver, the stump of a cigar between his exposed teeth, lent forward, and lifted the reins away from the tilted straw hat. Bye-bye, lend me some silver, Matthew demanded. It's a good thing that I've got my return ticket. I've run it as fine as I ever did in my life. Cyril produced eight shillings in silver. Secure in the possession of these riches, Matthew called to the driver. Houston, like hell! Yes, sir, said the driver, calmly. Not coming my way, I suppose. Matthew shouted as an afterthought, just when the cab began to move. No, barbers, Cyril shouted in answer, and waved his hand. The horse rattled into Fulham Road. End of book four, chapter one, part one.