 CHAPTER XXI. The first sign of commotion in the morning was a note from Bacchus, whose turn it was to act as luncheon-host. Our friends at Clermont-Ferrand said he had cried off. They had also asked him to go over and see them. Would I be so kind as to regard this as a DA's non in the rotor of our present gatherings? I dressed and bought some flowers, which I sent up to Lady Oriole with a polite message. The chasseur returned, saying that Milady had gone out about half an hour before. You don't mean that she's left the hotel with her luggage? The boy smiled reassurance. She had only gone for a walk. I breathed freely. He would have been just like her to go off by the first train. I suffered my treatment, drank my glasses of horrible water, and again inquired to the hotel for Lady Oriole. She had not yet returned. Having nothing to do, I took my monitor dupe d'adome, which I had not read, to the café, which commands a view of the park gates and the general going and comings of Roya. Presently from the train terminus I saw advancing the familiar gaunt figure of Lackaday. I was glad, I sketched a new Y, to note that he wore a grey soft felt instead of the awful straw hat. I rose to greet him and invited him to my table. I would join you with pleasure, said he, but I'm thinking of paying my respects to Lady Oriole. When I told him that he would not find her, he sat down. We could keep an eye on the hotel entrance, I remarked. Our lunch with backers is off, said I. Yes, I'm sorry, I rang him up early this morning. Elegy isn't quite herself today. For thunder last night, perhaps. He nodded. Women have nerves. That something had happened was obvious. I remembered last night's half-hearted performance. By the way, said I, backers mentioned in his notes that he was going over to Clermont-Ferrand to see you. Yes, said Lackaday, I left him there. He has marvellous tact and influence when he chooses to exert them. A man thrown away on the trivialities of life. He was born to be a cardinal. I'm so glad you've taken to him. I murmured mild eulogy of backers. We spoke idly of his beautiful voice. Conversation languished. Lackaday's eye has been turned to the entrance of the hotel some fifty yards away up the sloping street. I'm anxious not to miss Lady Oriol, he said at last. It will be my only chance of seeing her. We're off to-morrow. To-morrow. Our engagement ends to-night, we're due at Vichy next week. I had not realised the flight of the pleasant days, but yet I was puzzled. Yesterday there had been no talk of departure. I mentioned my surprise. I have entered the engagement of my own accord, said he. The management has engaged another star term for today, overlapping mine, a breach of contract which gave me the excuse for terminating it. I don't often stand on the vain dignity of the so-called artist, but this time I've been dared to do so. The atmosphere of the circus is scarcely congenial, said I. That's it. I'm too big for my boots, or my head's too big for my hat, and the management are not sorry to save a few days' salary. But during these few days we waited Vichy. He spoke woodenly, his lined face set hard. I shall miss you tremendously, my dear fellow, said I. I shall miss your company even more, said he. We won't at any rate say goodbye to-day, I ventured, for cars to be hard and Vichy from the car point of view is close by. You, my dear Hilton, I should be delighted to see. The emphasis on the pronoun would have rendered his meaning clear to even a more obtuse man than myself. No Lady Orioles flaunting over to Vichy. May I ask when you came to this decision? I inquired. Bakker's note suggested only a postponement of our meeting. Last night, said he, that's one reason why I sent for Bakker's. I see, said I, but I did not tell him what I saw. It looked as though the gun and ferro were simply running away. Soon afterwards, to my great relief, there came Lady Orioles swinging along on the other side of the pavement. The cafe must know forms a corner, to the left, the park, and the tram terminus, to the right, the street leading to the post office, and then dwindling away vaguely up the hill. It was along this street that Lady Orioles came, short-skirted, flushed with exercise, rather dusty and dishevelled. I stood and waved an arresting hand. She hesitated for a second, and then crossed to the road and met us outside the cafe. I offered a seat at our table within. She declined with a gesture. We all stood for a while, and then went diagonally over to the park entrance. I've been such a walk, she did learn, miles and miles, through beautiful countryside and picturesque villages you ought to explore. It's worth it." I know the district of old, said Lackaday. I'm tremendously struck with the beauty of the women of Auverne. They're the pure type of old gall, said Lackaday. She put up a hand to straying hair. I'm falling to pieces. I have put two desires in the world, a cold bath and food. Perhaps I shall see you later." He stood unflinching, like a soldier condemned for crime. I wandered at her indifference. He said, Unfortunately, I can't have that pleasure. My engagements take up the rest of the day, and tomorrow I leave Clermont-Ferron. I shan't have another opportunity of seeing you, the eyes met, and his, calm yet full of pain, dominated. She thrust her hand through my arm. Very well, then, let us get into the shade. We entered the park, found an empty bench beneath the trees, and sat down, oriole between us. She said, Do you mean at Roya, or in the world in general? Perhaps the latter. She laughed clearly. As chance has thrown us together here, it will possibly do the same somewhere else. My sphere isn't yours, said he. If it hadn't been for the accident of Hilton being here, we should not have met now. Captain Hilton has nothing to do with it, she said warmly. I had no notion you were at Clermont-Ferron. I am quite aware of that, Lady Oriole. She flushed vexed at having said a foolish thing. And Captain Hilton had no idea that I was coming. Perfectly, said Lacquerday. Well, she said after a pause. I came over to Roya this morning, said Lacquerday, to call on you and bid you good-bye. Why? She asked in a low voice. It appeared to be ordinary courtesy. Was there anything particular you wanted to say to me? Perhaps to supplement just the little I could tell you yesterday afternoon. Captain Hilton supplemented it after you left. He was very discreet. But there were a few odds and ends that needed straightening out. If you had been frank with me from the beginning there would have been no need of it. As it was, I had to clear everything up. If I had known exactly, I should not have gone to the circus last night. His eyelids fluttered like those of a man who has received a bullet through him, and his mouth set grimly. You might have spared me that, said he. He bent forward. Hilton, why did you let her do it? I might as well have tried to stop the thunder, said I, seeing no reason why this young woman should not bear the blame for her folly. A circus is a comfortless place of entertainment, he said, in the familiar even voice. I wish it had been a proper theatre. What did you do think of the performance? She straightened herself upright, turned and looked at him, then looked away in front of her. A sharp breath or two caused a little concussive heave of her bosom. To my astonishment I saw great tears run down her cheeks onto her hands, tightly clasped on her lap. As soon as she realised it she dashed her hands roughly over her eyes. Lackaday mentioned the tip of his finger on her sleeve. It's a sorry show, isn't it? I'm not very proud of myself. But perhaps you understand now why I left you in ignorance. Yet you told Antony. Why not me? I was about to rise, this being surely a matter for them to battle out between themselves. But I once felt her powerful grip on my arm. Whether she was afraid of herself or of Lackaday I did not know. Anyway, I seemed to represent to her some kind of human dummy which could be used, at need, as a sentimental buffer. I presumed, she continued, I was quite as intimate a friend as Antony. Quite, said he, but Hilton's a man, and you're a woman. That can be no comparison. You are on different planes of sentiment. For instance, Hilton, loyal friend as he is, has not, to my knowledge, done me the honour of shedding tears over Pettipatou. I felt horribly out of place on the bench in this public leafy park between these two warring lovers. But it was most humanly interesting. Lackaday seemed to be reinvested with the dignity of the man as I had first met him a year ago. Antony, I could not help feeling that her repeated change of her term of reference to me, from the formal Captain Hilton to my Christian name, sprang from an instinctive desire to put herself on more intimate terms with Lackaday. Antony, she said in her defiant way, would have cried if he could. Lackaday's features relaxed into his childlike smile. Ah, said he, the little more on how much it is, the little less on how far away. She was silent. Although the situation was painful, I could not help feeling the ironical satisfaction that she was getting the worst of the encounter. I was glad, because I thought she had treated him cruelly. The unprecedented tears, however, were signs of grace. The devil in her suggested a riposte. I hope Madame Patou is quite well. Lackaday's smile faded into the mask. Last night's thunderstorm upset her a little, but otherwise, yes, she is quite well. He rose. Lady Oriole cried. You're not going already. His ear caught a new tone, for he smiled again. I must get back to Clermont-Ferrand. Goodbye, Hilton. Goodbye, old chap, said I. We'll meet soon. Oriole rose and turned on me and ignoring back. As I did not seem to exist any longer, I faded, shadow-like, away to the park gate, where I hung about until Oriole should join me. As to what happened between them then, I must rely on her own report, which, as you shall learn, she gave me later. I stood for a while after I had gone, then he held out his hand. Goodbye, Lady Oriole, said he. No, she said, little things which we really ought to say to each other. You do believe I wish I had never come? I could quite understand, said he, stiffly. It hurts, she said. Why should it matter so much? He asked. I don't know, but it does. He drew himself up and his face grew stern. I don't cease to be an honourable man because of my profession, or to be worthy of respect because I am loyal to sacred obligations. You put me in the wrong, she said, and I deserve it, but it all hurts. It hurts dreadfully. Can't you see the awful pity of it? You have all meant to be condemned to a fife like this, and you suffer too. It all hurts. I said he, it was a life to which I was bred. She felt hopeless. It's my own fault for coming, she said. I should have left things as they were when we parted in April. There was beauty. You made it quite clear that our parting was final. You couldn't have acted otherwise. Forgive me for all I've said. I pride myself on being a practical woman, but for that reason perhaps I'm unused to grappling with the emotional situations. If I've been unkind it's because I've been stabbing myself and forgetting I'm stabbing you at the same time. He walked a pace or two further with her. For the first time he seemed to recognise what he, Andrew Lackaday, had meant to her. I'm sorry, he said gravely. I never dreamed that it was a matter of such concern to you. If I had I shouldn't have left you in any doubt. To me you were the everything that man can conceive in woman. I wanted to remain in your memory as the man the war had made me. Vanity or pride, I don't know. We all have our feelings. I worshipped you as the Princess Lois Lane. I never told you that I am a man who has learned to keep himself under control, perhaps under too much control. I shouldn't tell you now if you don't suppose I'm a fool, she interrupted. I knew. And the verities toots knew, and even my little cousin Evadney knew. They still strolled along the path under the trees. He said after a while, I'm afraid I've made things very difficult for you. She was pierced with remorse. Oh, how like you! Any other man would have put it the other way round and accused me of making things difficult for him. And he would have been right. For I did not come here to get news of you from Anthony Hilton. He was so discreet that I thought he could tell me something. And I came and found you and have made things difficult for you. He said in his sober way, perhaps it is for the best that we have met and had this talk. We ought to have had it months ago. But he turned his face wistfully on her. We couldn't, because I didn't know. Anyhow it's all over. Yes, she sighed. It's all over. We're up against the stone wall of practical life. Quite so upset he. I am Pettipatou the Mount-Bank, my partner is Madame Patou, whom I've known since I was a boy of twenty, to whom I am bound by indissoluble ties of mutual fidelity, loyalty, and gratitude. And you are the Lady Aureole Dane. We live, as I said before, in different spheres. That's quite true, she said. We've had our queer romance. It won't hurt us. It will sweeten our lives. But as you say, it's over. It has to be over. There's no way out, said he. It's doubly locked. Goodbye. He bent and kissed her hand. To the casual French valetudinarian sitting and strolling in the park, it was nothing but a social formality. But to Aureole the touch of his lips meant the final parting of their lives, the consecrated burial of their love. She lingered for a few moments, watching his long, straight back disappear round the corner of the path, and then turned and joined me by the park gate. On our way to the hotel the only thing she said was, I don't seem to have much chance, do I, Tony? It was after lunch, while we sat, as the day before, at the end of the series, that she told me what had taken place between Lackaday and herself, while I had been hanging about the gate. I must confess to pressing her confidence. Since I was lugged, even as a sort of raisonneur, into her little drama, I may be pardoned for some curiosity as to development. I did not seem, however, to get much further. They parted for ever, last April, in a not unpoetic atmosphere. They parted for ever now, in circumstances devoid of poetry. The only bit of dramatic progress was the mutual avowal apparently dragged out of them. It was almost an anti-tlimax, and then dead stop. I put these points before her. She agreed, dismally. Bitterly reproached herself for giving way in Paris to womanish folly, also for deliberately bringing about the morning's explanation. You were cruel. She is utterly unlike you, I said judiciously. That horrible green, white and red thing haunted me all night, and that fat woman bursting out of her clothes. I felt shriveled up. If only I had left things as they were. She harped always on that note. I thought I could walk myself out of my morbid frame of mind. Oh, yes, you're quite right. Morbid, unlike me. I walked miles and miles. I made up my mind to return to Paris by the night train. I should never see him again. The whole thing was dead. Killed, washed out. I got back some sense when I ran into the two of you. It seemed so ghastly to go on talking in that cold, dry way. I longed to goad him into some sort of expression of himself to find the man again. That's why I told him about going to the circus last night. She went on in this train. Presently, she said. I could shed tears of blood over him. Don't think I'm filled merely with selfish disgust. As I told him, the pity of it, all that he must have suffered. For he has suffered, hasn't he? He has gone through hell, said I. She was silent for a few moments. Then she said, what's the good of going round and round in a circle? You either understand, or you don't. By way of consolation, I mendaciously assured her that I understood. I don't think I understand now. I doubt whether she understood herself. Her emotions were literally going round and round in a circle. Her hideous merry-go-round with fixed staring features to be past and repast in the eternal gyration. Horror of Petit-Petu, her love for Lacquereday, Madame Petu, hatred of Lacquereday, scorching self-contempt for seeking him out. Petit-Petu and Madame Petu, Lacquereday-crucified, in a pity for Lacquereday, general Lacquereday, old dreams, the lost illusion, the tomb of love, horror of Petit-Petu. And so, d'arquapo, endlessly round and round. At least this figure gave me the only clue to her frame of mind. If she went on gyrating in this way indefinitely, she must go mad. No human consciousness could stand it. For sanity she must stop at some point. The only irrational halting-place was at the tomb. If I knew my Oriole, she would drop a flower and a tear on it, and then would start on a beeline for central tartary, or whatever expanse of the world's surface offered a satisfactory feel for her energies. She swallowed the stone-cold, half-remaining coffee in her cup, and rose and stretched herself, arms and back and bust, like a magnificent animal, the dark green silken-knitted jumper that she wore, revealing all her great and careless curves, and drew a long breath and smiled at me. I've not slept for two nights, and I've walked twelve miles this morning. I'll turn in till dinner." She yawned. "'Poor old Tony,' she laughed. "'You can have it as a Christian hour this evening.' "'The one bright gleam in a hopeless day,' said I. She laughed again, blew me a kiss, and went her way to the necessary repose. I remained on the terrace a while longer in order to finish a long corona-corona forbidden by my doctors. But I reflected that as the Sherman makes up on the swings what he loses on the roundabouts, so I made up on the filthy water what I lost on the cigars. How I provided myself with excellent corona-coronas in Roya, under the Paris price, I presume, of ten francs apiece, wild reporters will never drag out of me. I am used, therefore, over the last smokable half-inch, and at last, discarding it reluctantly, I sought well-earned slumber in my room. But I could not sleep. All this in Broglio kept me awake. Also the infernal band began to play. I had not thought, indeed, I'd had no time to think of the note from Bacchus which I'd received the first thing in the morning, and of Lacquerede's confirmation of the summons to the ailing Elodie. Elie then said he had nerves—the thunder, of course. But thought I, with elderly sagacity, was it all thunder? As far as I could gather from Lacquerede's confessions, he'd never given Elie the cause for jealousy from the time they'd become L'Épétit Patoux. Her route of the suggestive Ernestine proved her belief in his insensibility to woman's attractions during the war. She had never heard of Lady Oriole. Lady Oriole, therefore, must have bounded like a tiger into the plastic compound of her life. Reason enough for a creed in earth. Even I, who had nothing to do with it, found my equilibrium disturbed. Lady Oriole and I dined together. She declared herself rested and in her right and prosaic mind. I have no desire to lose your company, said I, so I hope there's no more talk of an unbooked strapotin on the midnight train. No need, she replied. He's leaving Clermont-Ferreau to-morrow. I'll keep it to my original programme and enjoy fresh air until a while summons me back to Paris. That's to say, if you could do with me. If you keep on looking as alluring as you are on this evening, said I, perhaps I may be able to do without you. I wonder why I have never been able to fall in love with a man of your type, Tony. She remarked in her frank, detached way. You, by which I mean hundreds of men like you, much younger, of course. You are of my world. You understand the half-said thing. Your conduct during the war has been irreproachable. You've got a heart beneath the cynical exterior. You've got brains. You're as clean as a new pin. You're an agreeable companion. You can turn a compliment in a way that even a savage like me can appreciate, and yet—and yet, I interrupted. When you're presented with a whole paper row-on-row of new pins, you're left cold because choice is impossible. I smiled, sadly, and sipped my wine. Now I know what I am, one of a row of nice, clean, English-made pins. It's you that are being rude to yourself, not I, she laughed. But you are of a type typical, and in your heart you're very proud of it. You wouldn't be different from what you are for anything in the world. I would give a good deal, said I, to be different from what I am, but from the ideal of myself, no. She was quite right. Although I may not have sound convictions—thank heaven, I've sacred prejudices—they kept me more or less straight in my unimaginative British fashion during a respectable lifetime. So far am I from being a Pharisee, that I exclaim, Thank God I am as other decent fellows are. We circled pleasantly round the point until she returned to her original proposition, her wonder that she'd never been able to fall in love with a man of my type. It's very simple, said I. You distrust us. You know that if you suddenly said to one of us, Let us go to Greenland and wear bear-skins and eat blubber, or Let us fit up the drawing-room with incubators for Easter-end babies doomed otherwise to die, he would vehemently object. And there would be rouse at the married life of cat and dog. She said, Am I really as bad as that, Tony? You are, said I. She shook her head. No, she replied after a pause. In the depths of myself I'm as conventional as you are. That's why I said I was puzzled to know why I'd never fallen in love with any of you. I have my deep reasons, my dear Tony, for saying it. I'm bound to be my type and my order. God knows I've seen enough and know enough to be free. But I'm not. Last night showed me that I'm not. And that's final, my dear, said I. She helped herself to salad with an air of brafiura. She helped herself, to my surprise, to a prodigious amount of salad. As final as death, she replied, there had been built about the place a grand concierge du soir in the Casino de Roya, the celebrated tenor Monsieur Odécio Bacchus. The casino, having been burned down in 1918, the concerts took place under the bandstand in the plaque. After dinner we found places, among the multitude, of the Casino Café Terris overlooking the bandstand, and listened to Bacchus sing. I explained Bacchus, more or less, to Oriole. Although she could not accept Lacoday as Petit Patoux, she seemed to accept Bacchus without question as a professional singer. The concert over he joined us at our little Japan-arned table, and acknowledged her well-merited compliments. I tell you, he sang like a minor canon in an angelic choir. With the well-bred air of a minor canon in an angelic choir. With easy grace he dismissed himself, and talked knowledgeably and informatively of the antiquities and the beauties of Auvergne. To most English folk it was an undiscovered country. We must steal a car, and visit Orquival. Haven't I heard of it? France's gem of Romanesque churches. And the chateau ages old, with its chamele, the tiring maize-like walks of trees kept clipped in scrupler's formality by an old gardener during the war. The chamele designed by no less a genius than Lenotra, who planned the wonders of Versailles, and the exquisite miniature of the Garden of Nîmes. Tomorrow must we go. This white-haired, luminous-eyed ascetic he drank but an orange-ade through post-war straws, and kept us spellbound with his talk. I glanced at Oriole, and read compliant in her eye. Would you accompany us, ignorant people and actor Ciceroen? With all the pleasure in life, said Becker's, of what time shall we start? Would ten be too early? Lady Oriole and I are old campaigners. I call for you at ten. It is agreed. We made the compact. I lifted my glass. He sputtered response through the post-war straws resting in the remains of his orange-ade. He rose to go, pleading much correspondence before going to bed. We rose, too. He accompanied us to the at-entrance to our hotel. At the left he said, Can you give me a minute? As many as you like, said I, for it was still early. We sped Lady Oriole upwards to her repose, and walked out through the hall into the soft August moonlight. May I tread, said he, on the most delicate of grounds? It all depends, said I, on how delicately you do it. He made a courteous movement of his hand, and smiled. I'll do my best. I take it that you're very fully admitted into Andrew Lacade's confidence? To a great extent, I admitted. And forgive me if I am impertinent. You have also that of the lady whom you have just left. May my dear Bacchus, I begin. It is indeed a matter of some importance, he interposed quickly. It concerns Madame Patu, Elodie. Rightly or wrongly she received a certain impression from your charming luncheon party of yesterday. Andrew, as you are aware, is not the man with whom a woman can easily make a scene. There was no scene, a hint. With that rat-trap air of fanatity with which I am, for my many feelings, much more familiar than yourself, he said, We will cancel our engagement at Gaudi Vichy. This morning, as I wrote, I was called to Tlemont-Ferrand. Madame Patu, you understand, has the temperament of the South. Its generosity is apt to step across the boundaries of exaggeration. In my capacity of friend of the family I had a long interview with her. You have doubtless seen many such on the stage. I must say that Andrew, to whom the whole affair appeared exceedingly distasteful, had announced his intention of obeying the rules of common good manners and leaving his farewell card on Lady Oriole. Towards the end of our talk it ended the head of Madame Patu that she would do the same. I pointed out the anomaly of the interval between the two visits. But the head of a Marseillaise is an obstinate one. She dressed to put on her best hat. There is much that is symbolical in a woman's best hat, as doubtless a man of the world like yourself has observed, and took the tram with me to Royale. We alighted at the further entrance to the park, and came plump upon a leaf-taking between Lacade and Lady Oriole. You know there is a turn, some masking shrubs. We couldn't help seeing them through them. She was for rushing forward. I restrained her. A second afterwards Andrew ran into us. For me, at any rate, it was a most unhappy situation. If he had fallen into a rage like ninety-nine men out of a hundred and accused us of spying, I should have known how to reply. But that's where you can never get hold of Andrew Lacade. He scorned such things. He said in his ram-rob fashion, It's good of you to come to meet me, Ennedy. I was kept longer than I anticipated. He stopped the Clermont-Ferrand tram, nodded to me, and with his hand upon Ennedy's elbow helped her in. May I ask why you tell me all this? I asked. Certainly, said he, and his dark eyes littered in the moonlight, I give the information what it may be worth to you as a friend, perhaps as adviser of both parties. You are assuming, Mr. Backers, I answered rather stiffly, that Madam Patou's unfortunate impressions are in some way justified. It was a most unpleasant conversation. I very much resented to discuss you, Lady Oriole, with Torratio Backers. Not at all, said he. But fate has thrown you and me into an analogous position. We are both elderly men. Me as between Lacade and Madame Patou. You as between Lady Oriole and Lacade. But damn it all, man! I cried angrily. What have I just been saying? How dare you assume there's anything between them save the ordinary friendship of a distinguished soldier and an English lady? If you can only assure me that there is nothing but that ordinary friendship, you will take a weight off my mind and relieve me of a great responsibility. I can absolutely assure you, I cried hotly, that by no remote possibility can there be anything else between Lady Oriole Dane and Petit Patou. He thrust out both his hands and fervently grasped the one I instinctively put forward. Thank you, thank you, my dear Hilton. That's exactly what I wanted to know. Au revoir! I think we said ten o'clock. He marched away bristly, with his white-haired gleaming between his little black-felt hat cocked at an angle and the collar of his flapping old-fashioned opera-cloak. He looked like some weird bird of the night. I entered the hotel feeling the hot and cold of the man who has said a damnable thing. Through the action of what kinky cell of the brain I had called the dear gallant fellow Petit Patou instead of Lacade, I was unable to conjecture. I hated myself. I could have kicked myself. I wallowed in the unreason of a man vainly seeking to justify himself. The last thing in the world I wanted to do was to see Horatio Bacchus again. I went to bed loathing the idea of our appointment. CHAPTER XXII Lady Aureole, myself and the car, met punctually at the hotel door at ten o'clock. There was also a chasseur with Lady Aureole's dust-coat and binoculars, and a concierge with advice. We waited for Bacchus. Aureole suddenly befinking herself of plain chocolate to the consumption of which she was addicted on the grounds of its hunger-satisfying qualities, although I guaranteed her a hearty midday meal on the occasion of the present adventure. We went down the street to the Marquis de Sevigny shop and bought some. This took time, because she lingered over several varieties devastating to the appetite. I paid, gladly. If we all had the same ideas as to the employment of a happy day, it would be a dull world. We went back to the car. Still no Bacchus. We waited again. I railed at the artistic temperament. Pure, sheer bone idleness, said I. But what can he be doing? asked Aureole. I, who had received through lackaday many lights on Bacchus' character, was at no loss to reply. Doing? Why snoring? He'll awake at midday, stroll round here, and expect to find us spiling on the pavement. We give him five more minutes. At the end of the five minutes I sent the concierge off for a guidebook. Much more accurate I declared than Bacchus was likely to be, and at half-past ten by my watch we started. Although I railed at the sloth of Bacchus, I rejoiced in his absence. My overnight impression had not been dissipated by slumber. I'm not sorry, said I as we drove along. Your friend is rather too much of a professed conversationalist. You also have a comfortable seat which possibly you would have had to give up to your guest, said Aureole. How you know me, my dear, said I, and we rolled along very happily. I think it was one of the pleasantest days I have ever passed in the course of a carefully spent life. Aureole was at her best. She had thrown off the harried woman of affairs. She put on a nice little tombstone over the grave of her romance, thus apparently reducing to beautiful simplicity her previous complicated frame of mind. For ought I could have guessed, not a cloud had ever dimmed at the Diana serenity of her soul. If I said that she laid herself out to be the most charming of companions, I should be accusing her of self-consciousness. Rather, let me declare her to have been so instinctively. Dear part, I stood for something tangible in her life. She could not remember the time when I had not been her firm friend. Between my first offering of chocolates and my last, over a quarter of a century had elapsed. As far as a young woman could know a middle-aged man, she knew me outside in. If she came to me for my sympathy, she knew that she had the right. If she tweeted me on my foibles, she knew that I granted her the privilege with affectionate indulgence. Now perhaps you may wonder why I, not yet decrepit, did not glide ever so imperceptibly in love with Lady Oriole, who is no longer a dubious brinkled butt of a girl, and therefore beyond the pale of my sentimental inclinations. Well, just as she had avowed that she could not fall in love with a man of my type, so it was impossible for me to fall in love with a woman of hers. Perhaps some dark-eyed devil may yet lure me to destruction, or some mild, fair-haired, comfortable widow may entice me to domesticity. But of the joy and delight of my attitude towards Oriole was its placid and benignant avuncularity. We were the best and frankest friends in the world. And the day was an august, hazy dream of a day. We wound along the mountain roads, first under overhanging greenery, and then almost suddenly remote in blue ether. We hung on precipices, overlooking the rock-field valleys of old volcanic desolation. Maslaltic cliffs rose up from their bed of yellow cornfields, bare and stark, yet in the noontide shimmer, hesitating in their eternal defiance of God and man. We sent it to vast table-lands of infinite scrub and yellow broom, and the stern peaks of the Predidome Mountains, a while ago seen like jands, appeared like rolling hillocks. But here and there a little white streak showed that the snow still lingered and would linger on until the frosts of autumn bound it in chains to wait the universal winding-sheet of winter. Climate varied with the varying altitude of the route. Here on a last patch of mountain ground were a man or two and a woman or two and old children reaping and binding. There, after a few minutes' ascent on another sleeping patch, a solitary peasant plowed with his team of oxen. There, on the declivotous way-sides, tower-haired, blue-eyed children guarded herds of goats, as their forebears are done in the days of versing Guttericks, the Gaul. Nowhere, save in the dimly seen remoteness of the valleys, where vestiges of red-roofed villages emerged through the fertile summer-green, was their sign of habitation. Whence came they, these patient humans, resting their life from these lonely spots of volcanic wildernesses? Now and then, on a lower hump of mountain, appeared the ruined tower of a stronghold, fierce and dominating, long ago. There the Lord had all the rights of the senior, as far as his eye could reach. He had men at arms in plenty, and could ride down to the valley, and could provision himself with what corner meet he chose, and could return and hold high revel. But when the winter came, how cold he must have been, for all the wood with its stifling smoke that he burned in his crude stone wall. And Madam the Countess, his wife, and her train of high-born young women, imagine the cracking chill-blanes on the hands of the whole fair community. Does the guy-book say that, asked Oriol, on my development of this pleasant thesis, is a guy-book human? It doesn't unweave rainbows. As a sister-un, you're impossible. I regret her ratio backers. Still, in spite of my prosaic vision, we progressed on an enjoyable pilgrimage. I'm not giving you an itinerary. I merely mention features of a day's well which memory has recaptured. We lunched in that little oasis of expensive civilisation, Monde d'Or. Incidentally, we visited Orquival, with its Romanesque church and chateau, the objective of our expedition, and found it much as backers' glowing eloquence had described. From elderly ladies at stalls under the lee of the church, we bought picture-postcards. We wandered through the deeply shaded walks of the chamele, as trimly kept as the maze of Hampton Court and three times the height. We did all sorts of other things. We stopped at wild mountain gorges alive with the rustle of water and a glow with wildflowers. We went off the foot through one-streeted, tumble-dime villages, and passed the time of day with the kindly inhabitants. And the august's sun shone all the time. We reached Roy out about six o'clock and went straight up to our rooms. On my table some letters awaited me, but instead of finding among them the apology from backers which I had expected, I came across a telephone memorandum asking me to ring up M. Patu at the hotel modern Vichy as soon as I returned. After glancing through my correspondence I descended to the bureau and there found Oriole in talk with the corsiage. She broke off and waved a telegram at me. The end of my lotus-eating the arrangements were put through, and I am no longer hung up. So she made a little grimace. It's the midnight train to Paris. Surely tomorrow will do, I protested. Tomorrow never does, she retorted. As he will, said I, knowing argument was hopeless. Meanwhile the corsiage was allowing dusterly into the telephone. I looked up stuck to headquarters, she said, moving away into the lounge. It's the first time I've ever mixed up business and other things. Anyhow, she smiled, I've had an adorable day. I remember it in Arras. Arras? Round about, she waved vaguely, I'll know my exact address to-morrow. Please let me have it. What's the good unless you promise to write to me? I swear, said I. A bud on my lady, called the corsiage, received her in hand. The guard de Témophoron says there is no place second-ly or coupé-li free in the train tonight, but there is one place de milieu premier not yet taken. Reserve it then, and tell them you'll send a chasseur at once with the money. She turned to me. My luck's in. Luck, I cried, to get a middle seat and a crowded carriage for an all-night journey with the windows shut. She laughed. Why is it, my dear Tony, you always seem to pretend there has never been anything like a wall. She went upstairs to cleanse herself and pack. I remained master of the telephone. In the course of time I got on to the hotel modern, Vichy. Eventually I recognized Lackaday's voice. The preliminaries of fence over, he said, I wonder whether it would be trespassing too far on your friendship to ask you to pay your promised visit to Vichy to-morrow. The formality of his English, which one forgot when talking to him face to face, was oddly accentuated by the impersonal tones of the telephone. I'll motor over with pleasure, said I. The prospect pleased me, and was only sixty kilometres. I was wondering what the juicer should do with myself all alone. You're sure it wouldn't be inconvenient? You have no other engagement? I informed him that my early morning treatment over, I was free as air. Besides, said I, I should get a loose end, Lady Aureole was taking the midnight train to Paris. Oh! said he. There was a pause. Hello! said I. His voice responded. In that case I'll come to Clermont-Ferrand by the first train and see you. Nonsense! said I. But he would have it his own way. Evidently the absence of Lady Aureole made all the difference. I yielded. What's the trouble? I asked. I'll tell you when I see you, said he. I don't know the trains, but I'll come by the first. Your courseiers will look it up for you. Thanks very much. Goodbye. But my dear fellow! I began. But I spoke into nothingness. He had rung off. Aureole and I spent a comfortable evening together. There was no question of lackaday. For her part she raised none. For mine? Why should I disturb her superbly regained balance with idle chatter about our Moray's meeting? We talked of the past glories of the day, of an almost forgotten day of disastrous picnic in the mountains of North Wales when her twelve-year-old sense of humour detected the artificial politeness with which I to sort to cloak my sodden misery, of all sorts of present far-off things, of the war, of what may be called the war continuation work in the devastated districts in which she was at present engaged. I reminded her of our fortuitous meetings when she trudged by my side through the welter of rain and liquid mud, smoking the fag end of my last pipe of tobacco. One lived in those days, she said, with a full bosomed sigh. By the dispensation of immersive providence said I one hung on to a strand of existence. It was fine, she declared. It was for the appropriate adjective, said I, consult any humble member of the British Army. We had a whole long evening's talk, which did not end until I left her in the train at Tlemorferron. On our midnight way there, though, she said, Now I know you love me, Tony. Why now? I asked. How many people are there in the world whom you would see off by midnight train three or four miles from your comfortable bed? Not many, I admitted. That's why I want you to feel I'm grateful. She sought my hand and patted it. I've been a dreadful worry to you. I've been through a hard time. This was her first and only reference during the day to the romance. I had to cut something out of my living self, and I couldn't help groaning a bit. But the operation's over, and I'll never worry you again. At the station I packed her into the dark and already suffocating compartment. She announced her intentions to sleep all night like a dog. She went off in the best of spirits to the work in front of her, which, after all, was a more reasonable cure than tossing about the outer hebrides in a five-ton yacht. I drove home to bed, and slept to the sleep of the perfect altruist. I was reading the monitor du poit d'homme on the hotel terrace next morning when Lacoday was announced. He looked grimmer and more care-worn than ever, and did not even smile as he greeted me. He only said gravely that he was good of me to let him come over. I offered him refreshment, which he declined. You may be wondering, said he, why I have asked for this interview, but, after all, I have told you about myself. It did not seem right to leave you in ignorance of certain things. Besides, you've so often given me your kind sympathy that, as a lonely man, I've ventured to trespass on it once more. My dear Lacoday, you know that I value your friendship, said I, not wishing to be outdone in courteous phrase, that my services are in time at your disposal. I had better tell you in a few words what has happened, said he. He told me. Elodie had gone, disappeared, vanished into space, like the pearl necklaces which Petit Patou used to throw at her across the stage. But how? When? I asked him bewilderment, for Lacoday and Elodie, as Petit Patou seemed as indissolubable as William and Mary, or Pomeray and Grano. He had gone to her room at ten o'clock the previous morning, her breakfast-hour, and found it wide open and empty, save for the fun de chambre of making great clatter of sweeping. He stood open most on the threshold. To be abroad at such an hour was not in Elodie's habits. That train did not start till the afternoon. His eye quickly caught the uninhabited bareness of the apartment, not a garment straggled about the room. The toilet-table, usually strewn with a myriad promiscuously ill-assorted articles, stared nakedly. There were no boxes. The cage of lovebirds, Elodie's inseparable companions, had gone. Madame? He questioned the fun de chambre. But madame has departed. Did not monsieur know? Monsieur obviously did not know. The girl gave him the information of which he was possessed. Madame had gone in an automobile at six o'clock. She had rung the bell. The fun de chambre had answered it. The staff were up early on account of the seven o'clock train for Paris. Then madame has gone to Paris! cried Lacoday. But the girl demurred at the proposition. One does not hire an automobile from a garage of a tier de luxe quoi to go to the railway station when the hotel omnibus would take one there for a franc or two. As she was saying, madame rang her bell and gave orders for her luggage to be taken down. It was not much, said Lacoday. They travelled lights, their professional paraphernalia having to be considered. Well, the luggage was taken down to the automobile that was waiting at the door, and madame had driven off. That is all she knew. Lacoday strode over to the bureau and assailed the manager. Why had he not been informed of the departure of madame? It apparently never entered the manager's polite head that Monsieur Patou was ignorant of madame Patou's movements. Monsieur had given notice that they were leaving. Artists like Monsieur and madame Patou were bound to make special arrangements for their tours, particularly nowadays when railway travelling was difficult. So madame's departure had occasioned no surprise. Who took her luggage down? he demanded. The dingy, waist-coated alpaca-sleeved porter, wearing the ribbon of the metal meditaire on his breast, came forward. At six o'clock, while he was sweeping the hall, the automobile drew up outside. He said, whom are you going to fetch? The Queen of Spain? And the chauffeur told him to mind his own business. At that moment the bell rang. He went up to the Etage indicated. He found the chambre, bettened him to the room, and he took the luggage, and madame took the bird-cage, and he put madame, and the luggage, and the bird-cage into the auto, and madame gave him two francs, and the car drove off. Wither, the porter knew not. Although he put it to me very delicately, as he had always conveyed his criticism of L.A.D., the fact that struck a clear and astounding note through his general bewilderment, was the unprecedented, reckless extravagance of the economical L.A.D.E. There was the omnibus. There was the train. Why the car? The fantastic rate of one franc fifty per kilometer, to say nothing of the one franc fifty per kilometer for the empty car's return journey. And madame is all alone in the automobile, said the porter, by way of reassurance. But oh, monsieur! he added, fading away under L.A.D.'s glare. I cut the indignity of it all as short as I could, said L.A.D.E. I went up to my room to size things up. It was a knock-down blow to me in many ways, as you can understand. And then came the fond de chambre with a letter addressed to me. It had fallen between the looking-glass and the wall. He drew a letter from his pocket and handed it to me. You'd better read it. I fitted my glasses on my nose and read. In the sprawling, strong, illiterate hand I saw and felt L.A.D. But I must translate inadequately, for the grammar and phrasing were L.A.D.S.C. As you no longer love me, if ever you have loved me, which I doubt, we have made and rolled a menage ever since we joined ourselves together. And as our life in common is giving you unhappiness, which it does me also, for since you have returned from England as a general, you have not been the same. And, indeed, I've never understood how a general—and then followed a couple of lines vehemently erased—and as I do not wish to be a burden to you, but desire that you should feel yourself free to lead whatever life you like, I've taken the decision to leave you for ever, or tout jamais. It is the best means to regain happiness. For the things that are still of the S.A.C. fondrement, do with them what you will. I shall write to Ernestine to send me my clothes and all the little birds I love so much. Your noble heart will not grudge them to me, Montpétier-André. Praying God for your happiness, I am always your devoted, Elodie. I handed him back the letter without a word. What could one say? The first thing I did, he said, putting the letter back in his pocket, was to bring up Bacchus to see whether he could throw any light on the matter. Bacchus? Why, he cut his engagement with us yesterday. The damned scoundrel, said like a day, was running away with Elodie. CHAPTER XXIII He banged his hand on the little aunt table in front of us and started to his feet exploding at last with his suppressed fury. The infernal villain! I gasped for a few seconds. Then I accomplished my life's effort in self-control. My whole being clamoured for an explosion equally violent of compressed mirth. I ached to lie back in my chair and shriek with laughter. The denouement of the little drama was so amazingly unexpected, so unexpectedly ludicrous. A glimmer of responsive humour in his eyes would have sent me off. But there he stood with his grimmest battlefield face denouncing his betrayer. Even a smile on my part would have been insulting. Worked up, he told me the whole of the astonishing business as far as he knew it. They had eloped at dawn like any pair of young lovers. Of that there was no doubt. The car had picked up Bacchus at his hotel in Roya, lackaday had the landlord's word for it, and had carried the pair away, heaven knew wither. The proprietor of the Roya garage deposed that Mr. Bacchus had halved the car for the day, mentioning no objective. The Rhonaways had the whole of France before them. Pursuit was hopeless. As lackaday had planned to go to Vichy, he went to Vichy. There seemed nothing else to do. But why eloped at dawn, I cried. Why all the fellows are necessary in duplicity. Why in the name of Machiavelli did he seize upon my ten o'clock invitation with such enthusiasm? Why his private conversation with me? Why throw dust into my sleepy eyes? What did he gain by it? Lackaday shrugged his shoulders. That part of the matter scarcely interested him. He was concerned mainly with the sting of the viper Bacchus, whom he had nourished in his bosom. But my dear fellow, said I at last, after a tiring march up and down the hot terrace, you don't seem to realise that Bacchus has solved all your difficulties, ambulando, by walking off or motoring off with your great responsibility. You mean, said he, coming to a halt, that this has removed the reason for my remaining on the stage? It seems so, said I. He frowned. I wish it could have happened differently. No man can bear to be tricked and fooled and made a mock-off. But it does give you your freedom, said I. He thrust his hands into his trouser-pockets. I suppose it does, he admitted savagely, but there's a price for everything. Even freedom can be purchased too highly. He strode on. I had to accompany him, prosperingly. It was a very hot day. We talked and talked, came back to the startling event. We had to believe it, because it was incredible, a tertulient, cheerily remarked of ecclesiastical dogma. But, short of the archbishopate of Occantumry eloping with the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbour, nothing could seem less possible. If Bacchus had nurtured Nefarious Desaheines, good heavens! He could have executed them years before. Well, perhaps not. When one has a penny in one's pocket, even the most cynical pauses ere he proposes romantic flight with a lady equally penniless. But, since April, Bacchus had been battening on the good archdeacon his brother's substantial allowance. Why had he tarried? His diabolical cunning lay him wait for a weak moment. Growl, lackaday. All through this discussion I came up against a paradox of human nature. Although it was obvious that the unprincipled Bacchus had rendered my good friend the service of ridding him of the responsibility of a woman whom he had ceased to love, if ever he had loved her at all, a woman who for all her loyal devotion through loveless years had stood implacably between him and the realisation of his dreams. Yet he rampaged against his benefactor, as though he had struck a fatal blow at the roots of his honour and his happiness. But after all, man, can't you see, he cried in protest at my worldly and sophisticated arguments, that I have lost one of the most precious things in the world, my implicit faith in a fellow man. I gave Bacchus a brother's trust he has betrayed it. Where am I? His thousands faults have been familiar to me for years. I discounted them for the good in him. I thought I had grasped it. He clenched his delicate hand in a passionate gesture. But now, he opened it, nothing. I'm at sea. How can I know that you whom I have trusted more than any other man with my hard secrets? The corsage with the dusty chauffeur in tow providentially cut short this embarrassing apostrophe. The Monsieur le Capitaine Hilton asked the chauffeur, c'est moi. He handed me a letter. I glanced at the writing on the envelope. From Bacchus, I said, tell me to the chauffeur, how did you come by it? Monsieur charged me to deliver it into the hands of Monsieur le Capitaine. I have this moment returned to Toroya. Ah, said I. You drove the automobile? Where is Monsieur Bacchus? That, said he, I have pledged my honour not to divulge. I fished in my pocket for some greasy rags of paper money which I pressed into his honourable hand. He bowed and departed. I tore open the envelope. You'll excuse me? Oh, of course! said Lakers-Curtley. He did a cigarette and stalked to the end of the terrace. The letter bore neither date nor address. I read, My dear Hilton, you have heard of Touchstone. You have heard of Audrey. Shakespeare has doubtless convinced you of the inevitability of their meeting. I have always prided myself of a certain Touchstone element in my nature. There is much that is Audrey-esque in the lady whose disappearance from Clermont-Ferrand may be causing perturbation. As my Shakespearean pre-incarnation scorned dishonourable designs, so do even I. The marriage of Verve, L.O.D. Mariscou and Horatio Bacchus will take place at the earliest opportunity allowed by French law. If that delays too long, we shall fly to England where an Archbishop's special license will induce a family Archdeacon to marry us straight away. My flippancy, my dear Hilton, is but a motley coat. If there is one being in this world whom I love and honour, it is Andrew Lackaday. From the first day I met him, I, a cynical, disillusioned, wasteful, he, a raw, yet uncompromising lad, I felt that here somehow was a sheet-anchor in my life. He has fed me when I have been angry, he has lashed me when I have been craven-hearted, he has raised me when I have fallen. There can be only three beings in the cosmos who know how I have been saved times out of number from the nethermost abyss. I and Andrew Lackaday and God. I passed my hands over my eyes when I read this remarkable outburst of devoted affection on the part of the seducer and betrayer for the man he had wronged. I thought of the old couplet about the dissembling of love and the kicking downstairs. I read on, however, and found the mystery explained. The time has come for me to pay him in part my infinite debt of gratitude. You may have been surprised when I rung your hand warmly before parting. Your words removed every hesitating scruple. Had you said there is nothing between a certain lady and Andrew Lackaday, I should have been, to some extent, non-plus. I should have doubted my judgment. I should have pressed you further. If you had convinced me that the whole basis of my projected action was illusory, I should have found means to cancel the arrangements. But remember what you said. There can't by any possibility be anything between Lady Oriel Dane and Petit Patoux. Damn the fellow! I muttered. Now he's calmly shifting the responsibility on to me. And I swore a deep oath that nevermore would I interfere in anybody else's affairs, not even if Bolshevist butchers were playing with him before my very eyes. There, my dear Hilton, the letter went on, you gave away the key of the situation. My judgment had been unerring. As Petit Patoux our friend stood beyond the pale. As General Lackaday he stepped into all the privileges of the enclosure. Bound by such ties to Madame Patoux, as an honorable and upright gentleman like our friend could not dream of severing, he was likewise bound to his vain and heartbreaking existence as Petit Patoux. A free man he could cast off his mountain-back trappings and go forth into the world, once more as General Lackaday, the social equal of the gracious lady whom he loved and whose feelings towards him, as eyes far less careless and ours could see at a glance, were not those of placid indifference. The solution of the problem dawned on me like an inspiration. Why not sacrifice my not-overvalued celibacy on the altar of friendship? For years Ella D. and I have been en l'hubien et tout honneur, the most intimate of comrades. I don't say that for all the gold of the Indies I would not marry a woman out of my brother's arch-deaconry if she asked me. I probably should. But I should most certainly such be my unregenerate nature run away with the gold and leave the lady. For respectability to have attraction you must be bred in it. You must regard the dog-collar and chain as the great and God-given blessing of your life. The old fable of the dog and the wolf. But I've lived my life till past fifty, as the disreputable wolf, and so please God will I remain till I die. But after all, being human I'm quite a kind sort of wolf. Thanks to my brother no longer will hunger drive the wolf abroad. You remember Vian's lines. Necessité fait genre misprendre et femme sortir le lieu des bois. I should live in platherique ease my elderly valpine life. But the elderly wolf needs a mate for his old age, who is at one with him in his entirely unsyntful habits of disrepute. Where in the universe then could I find a fitter mate than Eredy? Which brings me back, although I am aware of glaring psychological flaws, to my touchstone and auditory prelude. Writing as I am doing in a devil of a hurry, I don't pretend to meridithian analysis. Eredy's refusal to marry Andrew Lackaday has something to do with a woman's illusions. She is going to marry me because there's no possibility of any kind of illusion whatsoever. My good brother, whom I grieve to say is in the very worst of health, informs me that he has made a will in my favour. Heaven knows I am contented enough as I am, but the fact remains which no doubt will ease our dear friend's mind that Eredy's future is assured. In the meanwhile we will devote ourselves to the cultivation of that peculiarly disreptable sloth which is conducive to longevity. According to the gastronomic idiom, on my part, with the study of French heraldry, which in the present world upheaval is the most futile pursuit conceivable by a diogenic philosopher. I can't write this to Lackaday, who no doubt is saying all the dreadful things that he learned with our armies in Flanders. He would not understand. He would not understand the magic of romance, the secrecy, the thrill of the dawn elopement, the romance of the coup d'etat by which alone I was able to induce Elodie to cooperate in the part payment of my infinite debt of gratitude. I therefore write to you, confident that, as an urbane citizen of the world, you will be able to convey to the man I love most on earth the real essence of this, the apologia of Elodie and myself. What more can a man do than lay down his bachelor life for a friend? You're sincerely a ratio backers. P.S., if you had convinced me that I was staring hypnotically at a mare's nest, I should have had much pleasure in joining you on your excursion. I hope you went and enjoyed it and found Auquival exceeding my poor dothorambic. I had to read over this preposterous epistle again before I fully grasped its significance. On the first reading it seemed incredible that the man could be sincere in his professions. On the second his perfect good faith manifested itself in every line. Had I read it a third time I no doubt should have regarded him as an heroic figure, with a halo already beginning to shimmer about his head. I walked up to Lackaday at the end of the terrace and handed him the letter. It was the simplest thing to do. He also read it twice, the first time with Scowling Brow, the second with a milder expression of incredulity. He looked down on me. I don't stand when a handy chair invites me to sit. This is the most amazing thing I've ever heard of. I nodded. He walked a few yards away and attacked the letter for the third time. Then he gave it back to me with a smile. I don't believe he's such an infernal scoundrel after all. Ah! said I. He leaned over the balustrade and plunged into deep reflection. If it's genuine it's an unheard of piece of quixotism. I'm sure it's genuine. By gum, said he. He gazed at the vine-clad hill in the silence of wandering admiration. At last I tapped him on the shoulder. Let us lunch, said I. We strolled to the upper terrace. It is wonderful, he remarked on the way that the how much sheer goodness there is in humanity. Pure selfishness on my part, I hate lunching alone, said I. He turned on me a pained look. I wasn't referring to you. Then, meeting something quizzical in my eye, he grinned his broad ear-to-ear grin of a child of six. We lunched. We smoked and talked. At every moment a line seemed to fade from his care-worn face. At any rate, everything was not for the worst in the worst possible of worlds. I think he felt his sense of freedom steal over him in his gradual glow. At last I had him laughing and mimicking in his inimitable way, a thing which he had not done for my benefit since the first night of our acquaintance, the elderly and outraged Moyniens whom he proposed to visit in Paris for the purpose of cancelling his contracts. As for Vichy, Vichy could go hang. There were ravening multitudes of demobilised variety artists besieging every stage at all in France. He was letting down nobody, neither the management nor the public. Moyniens would find means of consolation. My dear Hilton, said he, none of my faith in backers is not only restored but infinitely strengthened, and my mind is at rest concerning Elodie. I feel as though ten years were lifted from my life. I am no longer Petit Patu. The blessed relief of it. Perhaps, he added after a pause, the discipline has been good for my soul. In what way? Well, you see, he replied thoughtfully. In my profession I always was a second-rater. I was aware of it, but I was content because I did my best. In the army my vanity leads me to believe I was a first-rater. Then I had to go back not only to second-rate, but to third-rate, having lost a lot in five years. It was humiliating. But all the same I have no doubted to have been the best thing in the world for me. The old hats will still fit. If I had a quarter of your vicious modesty, said I, I would see that I turned it into a dazzling virtue. What are your plans? You remember my telling you of a man I met in Marseille called Arbuthnot? Yes, said I, the fellow who shies at coconuts in the Solomon Islands. He grinned, and with singular aptness he replied, I'll cable him this afternoon and see whether I can still have three shies for a penny. We discussed the proposal. Presently he rose. He must go to Vichy, where he had to wind up certain affairs of Le Petit Patu. Tomorrow he must start for Paris, and await Arbuthnot's reply. And possibly you'll see Lady Oriole, I hesitated, this being the first time her name was mentioned. His brow glided, and he shook his head sadly. I think not, said he. And as I was about to protest, he checked me with a gesture. That's all done with. My dear, distinguished idiot, said I. It could never be, he declared with a narrow finality. You'll break back at his heart. Sorry, said he. You'll break mine. Sorry, I still— Oh, no, my dear friend, he said gently. Don't let us talk about that any more. After he had gone, I experienced a severe attack of anti-climax, and feeling lonely, I wrote to Lady Oriole. In the coarse phraseology of the day, I spread myself out over that letter. It was a piece of high-class descriptive writing. I gave her a beautiful account of the elopement, and, as an interesting human document, I enclosed a copy of backer's letter. As I had to wait a day or two for her promised address, her letter conveying it gave me no particular news of herself. I did not receive her answer until I reached London. It was characteristic. My dear Tony, thanks for your interesting letter. I've adopted a mongrel Irish terrier, the most fascinating skimful of sin the world has ever produced. I'll show him to you some day. Yours, Oriole. I wrote back in a fury, something about never wanting to see her or her infernal dog as long as I lived. I was angry and depressed. I don't know why. It was none of my business. But I felt that I had been scandorously treated by this young woman. I felt that I had subscribed to their futile romance an enormous fund of interest and sympathy. This chilly end of it left me with a sense of bleak disappointment. I was not rendered merrier, a short while afterwards, by an airy letter from Horatio Backers enclosing a flourishing announcement in French of his marriage with the verve L.D. Madiscoe Né Fegasso. Behold me, said the fellow, cooing with content in the plenitude of perfect cannubiality. I did not desire to behold him at all. His cooing left me cold. I bore on my shoulders the burden of the tragic comedy of Oriole and Lacadé. If she had never seen him as petty by two, all might have been well, in spite of L.D., who had been somewhat destructive of romantic glamour. But the visit to the circus, I concluded, finished the business. Beneath the painted monster in green silk tights, the dignified soldier whom she loved was eclipsed forever. And then a thousand commonplace social realities arose and stood stonely in her path. And Lacadé? Well, I suppose he was faced with the same unscalable stone wall of convention. Lacadé's letters were brief, and such as they were, full of our bath-not. He was sailing as soon as he could find a berth. I gave the pair up, and went to an elder brother's place in Invernessia for rest, and shooting, and rain, and family criticism, and such like communities. Among my fellow-guests, I found young Charles Verity Stewart and Evadney, nominally under governess Tutelage. The child kept me sane during a dreadful month. Have he been sick of the sound of guns going off during the war? I found, to my dismay, scant pleasure in explosions followed by the death of little birds. And then, I suppose I am growing old, the sport in which I once was rejoiced involves such hours of wet and weary walking that I renounced it without too many sighs. But I had nothing to do. My pre-war, dilettantic excursions into the literary world had long since come to an end. I was obsessed by the story of Lacadé, and so, out of sheer tedium vitae, and at the risk of a family quarrel, I shut myself up with the famous manuscript and my own reminiscences, and began to reduce things to such coherence as you know I have had the opportunity of judging. It was a breakfast, one morning in November, that the butler had in me a telegram. I opened the orange envelope. The missive, reply paid, ran, Would you swear that there are real-life cannibals in the Solomon Islands? If not, it would be the final disillusion of my life. Oriole. I passed the paper to my neighbour, if Adney, healthily deep in porridge. She glanced at it, glass of milk in one hand, poised to spoon in the other. With the diabolical intuition of eternal woman and the ironical imperturbability of the modern maiden, she raised her candid eyes to mind, and declared, She's quite mad, but I told you all about it years ago. This lofty calmness I could not share. I suddenly found myself unable to stand another minute of Scotland. Righteous indignation sped me to London. I found the pair together in Adney Oriole's drawing-room. Without formal greeting I apostrophised them. You two have behaved disgracefully. Here have I been utterly miserable about you, and all the time you've left me in the dark. Where we were ourselves, my dear Hilton, I assure you, said Lackaday. I shed light as soon as I could, said Oriole. We bumped into each other last Monday evening in Bond Street, and found it was us. I told her I was going to the Solomon Islands. And I thought I wanted to go there too. From which I gather, said I, that you're going to get married. Lady Oriole smiled and shook her head. Oh, dear, no! I was really angry. Then what on earth made you drag me all the way from the north of Scotland? To congratulate us, my dear friend, said Lackaday. We were married this morning. I think you're a pair of fools, said I, later, not yet quite modified. Why, for getting married, said Oriole. No, said I, for putting it off to a fortuitous bump in Bond Street.